Welcome to the Deploy Yourself Newsletter. Every two weeks I share about what impactful leadership looks like. I am sending this a couple of days earlier just before the holidays start. I also share the most insightful lessons and stories I encountered in the last two weeks. You can also read this issue online.
Hey,
When we are driving at night towards a destination, we turn the car’s headlights on, and we can only see a few meters ahead clearly. Anything beyond what is illuminated by the car’s headlights is completely dark. And there is no guarantees that the road will take us to our destination. The road might be closed ahead, or there might be a diversion, or there might be some other unpredictable obstacle.
Yet in this uncertainty, we continue driving and eventually reach our destination. Even if we experience obstacles along the way, we don’t just stop and sit on the road. We find an alternate way and continue our journey towards our destination.
Yet when it comes to our life, why do we always seek complete control? We live in a world where insurance and pension policies, investments, education, business, almost everything is done with an objective to achieve something in the future. While planning for the future has its benefits, I believe we often take it too far and miss the only time we really have, which is “now”, or this very moment.
Who gave you the guarantee that you will not die tomorrow, next week, or next month? What made you believe that you are going to die at 70 or 80, and not at 20 or 30 or 40. If you don’t believe it, read and watch the news. People are dying every day at all ages. The average age might be 70 or 80, but ask yourself – Do you really want to live your life based on a statistic?
Instead, turn your headlights on and LIVE NOW. Enjoy whichever phase of life you are in. Be ok with uncertainty of life. See as far ahead as your headlights allow you to see. And have faith that if you find obstacles on the way, you will find another way. Don’t wait for tomorrow if you want to fall in love, travel to your dream destination, or eat that favourite ice-cream of yours. Do it NOW
Life, by its very nature, is messy and unpredictable. You are not entitled to get anything out of it. Embrace the uncertainty of life and experience real FREEDOM. Go out and play. Learn a new language. Take a new job, or live in different cities/countries and soak in different cultures. Write, paint, or do anything else that makes you experience life rather than draining the life out of you.
Don’t try to be nice or do what is expected. Don’t live for the gallery. Be authentic. For a change, LIVE for YOURSELF. Let yourself be misunderstood, hated, judged, or whatever, but live by your convictions.
It is better to be assassinated by another human being than to be assassinated by death.
Reply to this email right now if it sparked something in you?
Articles and Stories Which Have Fascinated Me
One
5 Unconscious Ways We Limit Our Own Freedom
Are you living your life with your hand-brakes on without realizing it? Are you struggling to get the power in your life which you know you can? Do you wonder why your life looks so constrained and limited in this age of freedom and abundance?
If you allow your unconscious mind to limit your choices in life, you will endlessly worry without finding out if you are on the right path or not. Being scared or feeling anxious about our deep desires is normal (from both the psychological and neuroscience point of view), but the real opportunity and power lie beyond them.
And the amount of unconscious resistance you face from within can give you a measure of the real potential you have kept locked inside and which is waiting to be unleashed.
From 5 Unconscious Ways We Limit Our Own Freedom – An Article From My Desk
Two
My Favorite Reads of 2020
I have not kept count, but I must have read around 100 books in 2020. This is by far the most I have ready in any year. Here are some of my favorites (in no particular order).
- Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
- Mastery by George Leonard
- Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin
- The Promise of a Pencil by Adam Braun
- Lincoln by David Herbert Donald
- Becoming By Michelle Obama
- The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes & Barry Posner
- 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson
- Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
- Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
- Influence by Robert Cialdini
- Language and the Pursuit of Leadership Excellence by Chalmers Brothers and Vinay Kumar
- Bhagavad Gita – translation by MK Gandhi
- Conscious Business by Fred Kofman
- Conscious Capitalism by John Mackey and Raj Sisodia
- The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt By Edmund Morris
- Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To by David Sinclair
- A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage
- Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes
- Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu / Stephen Mitchell
That’s it for now. If you have any questions, just hit reply. All the best,
Sumit
(Twitter) @SumitGupta
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