Book Review : Who will cry when you die? by Robin Sharma

This is a lovely little book. Here are the best bits :

(1) Discover your calling. One of the lessons I have learned in my own life is that if you don't act on life, life has a habit of acting on you. The days slip into weeks, the weeks slip into months and the months slip into years. Pretty soon it's all over and all you have left is a heart filled with regret over a life half lived.

(2) Every day, be kind to a stranger. When you pass someone in the street, be the first to say hello.

(3) Practice Tough Love. The tougher you are on yourself, the easier life will be on you.

(4) Keep a journal. A journal is not a diary. A diary is a place where you simply record events, while a journal is a place where you analyse and evaluate them. Learn from what you have done.

(5) Start your day well. The first 30 minutes after you wake up are truly the most valuable moments of your day and have a profound influence on the quality of every minute that follows.

(6) Take a weekly Sabbatical. All you need are a few hours alone, perhaps on a quiet Sunday morning, when you can spend some time doing the things you love to do the most. Ideas include spending time in your favourite bookshop, watching the sunrise, taking a walk along the beach and writing in your journal. Organise your life so that you get to do more of the things you love.

(7) Talk to Yourself. If it is inner peace and calm you seek, the phrase, known as a mantra, might be, "I am so grateful that I am a serene and tranquil person." If it is more confidence you want, your mantra could be, "I am delighted that I am full of confidence and boundless courage." If it is material prosperity you want, your saying might be, "I am so grateful that money and opportunity is flowing into my life."

(8) Schedule Worry Breaks. Too many people are spending the best years of their lives stuck in a state of constant worry. If we are facing a difficulty, it is easy to spend all our waking hours focusing on it. Instead, I recommend that you schedule fixed times to worry, say, thirty minutes every evening. During this worry session, you may wallow in your problems and brood over your difficulties. But after that period ends, you must train yourself to leave your troubles behind and do something more productive, such as going for a walk in natural surroundings or reading an inspirational book or having a heart-to-heart conversation with someone you love. If during other times of the day you feel the need to worry, jot down what you want to worry about in a notebook which you can then bring to your next worry break. This simple but powerful technique will help you gradually reduce the amount of time you spend worrying and eventually serve to eliminate this habit forever.

(9) Model a Child. You can understand and relate to most people better if you look at them - no matter how impressive they may be - as if they are children.

(10) Remember, Genius is 99% Inspiration. You are here to enrich the world and don't forget it.

(11) Care for the Temple. Every hour spent on exercises, adds three hours to your lifespan.

(12) Learn to be Silent. When was the last time you carved out a chunk of time to enjoy the power of solitude to restore, refocus and revitalise your mind, body and spirit? Saying that you don't have enough time to be silent on a regular basis is a lot like saying that you are too busy driving to stop for gas - eventually it will catch up with you.

(13) See your Troubles as Blessings. Given that we learn the most from our most difficult experiences, why do we spend so much of our lives focusing on the negative aspects of those experience rather than seeing them for what they truly are : our greatest teachers. Remember that pain is a teacher and failure is on the highway to success.

(14) Laugh More. The average four-year-old laughs three hundred times a day while the average adult laughs about fifteen times a day. As William James observed, "We don't laugh because we are happy. We are happy because we laugh."

(15) Get Behind People's Eyeballs. In today's fast-paced world, too many people believe that listening involves nothing more than waiting for the other person to stop talking. And to make matters worse, while that person is speaking, we are all too often using that time to formulate our own response, rather than understanding the point being presented to you. Resist the temptation to interrupt. Catch yourself just before you do so and pay more attention to the content of what the other person is saying.

(16) List Your Problems. "It helps me to write down half a dozen things which are worrying me. Two of them, say, disappear; about two, nothing can be done, so it's no use worrying; and perhaps two can be settled." - Winston Churchill.

(17) Practice the Action Habit. Rather than watching TV for three hours after work, get up off the couch and do something with your family. Instead of sleeping in on those cold wintry mornings, exercise your self-discipline and go for a run. The smallest of actions is always better than the boldest of intentions.

(18) Read Tuesdays with Morrie. One of the legacies I will leave my children will be a library of books that have inspired and touched me. This book will stand out front.

(19) Master your Time. I have always found it curious that so many people say they would do anything for a little more time every day and yet they squander the time they already have. We all have the same allotment of twenty-four hours in a day! However, we procrastinate and put the achievement of our dreams on hold while we tend to those daily emergencies that fill up our time.

(20) Recruit a Board of Directors. Who would sit on your imaginary board of directors?

(21) Cure Your Monkey Mind. To get the best from life, you must be completely present and mindful in every minute of every hour of every day. Every time your mind wanders from the page while reading, make a checkmark in the righthand margin of the page. This simple act will increase your awareness of how poorly you concentrate.

(21) Get Good at Asking. Over the coming weeks flex your "asking muscles" by asking for a better table at your favourite restaurant, for a free second scoop of ice cream at your local ice cream ship of for a complimentary upgrade on your next flight. As Somerset Maugham said, "It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it."

(22) Develop Your Talents. The sad thing is that most people have lost sight of the human gifts that lie within them and have resigned themselves to spending the best years of their lives watching television in a subdivision.

(23) Go on a News Fast. One of the best ways to wean yourself from the "news addiction" that so many of us suffer from is to go on a seven-day news fast.

(24) Get Serious About Setting Goals. In this age we live in, there are simply far too many things to do at any given time. True! There are too many distractions that compete for our attention. Goals clarify our desires and, in doing so, help us to focus on only those activities that will lead us to what we want. Goals and plans take the worry out of living. Write your goals now!

(25) Walk in the Woods. It is magical.

(26) Get a Coach. Ask the people you admire the most powerful question in the English language, "Would you please help me?"

(27) Take a Mini Vacation. When I take mini-vacations, I picture myself walking through a mountain meadow. I visualise my feet on the dewy grass and savour the splendour of the snow-capped mountains that frame this ideal scene. In the background I head the sound of water from a waterfall and imagine what the flowers that fill this field would smell like.

(28) Become a Volunteer. Volunteering affords you the chance to help others and pay back the debt owed to those who have helped you.

(29) Listen to Music Daily. Music lifts your mood, puts the smile back on your face and adds immeasurably to your quality of life.

(30) Find Three Great Friends. As I grew up, my father often said that the person with three great friends is a rich person indeed.

(31) Learn to Meditate. Mathematician Blaise Pascal wrote, "All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone." Without a disciplined mind, trivial thoughts and worries will nag at you and you will never have the capacity to immerse yourself in more meaningful pursuits.

(32) Increase Your Value. Think thoughts no-one else is thinking.

(33) Be Unorthodox. The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

(34) Carry a Goal Card. I have witnessed high functioning top-performing men and women carrying a little goal card in their wallets that they can review during the quieter moments of the day. The card simply lists their top life goals along with clear deadlines for achieving them. Most of us fill our days with activities that seem important in the moment but that count for little in the overall scheme of things. The person who tries to do everything ultimately accomplishes nothing. I promise you that if you spend your life focusing on only the worthiest pursuits, it is certain to end in complete joy.

(35) Savour the Simple Stuff. "We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside out window today." - Dale Carnegie.

(36) See Your Day as Your Life. As you life your days, so you will live your life. It is easy to get caught up in the trap of thinking that this day does not matter much given all the days that lie ahead of you. But a great life is nothing more than a series of great, well-lived days strung together like a beautiful necklace of pearls. Every day counts and contributes to the quality of the end result.

(37) Don't be so Hard on Yourself. You are a human being and have been designed to make mistakes. As long as you don't keep making the same errors and have the good judgement to let your past serve you, you will be on the right track.

(38) Take a Public Speaking Course. Period.

(39) Stop Thinking Tiny Thoughts. The British statesman Benjamin D'Israeli once said, "Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think." His words are profound.

(40) Walk everywhere and Often. A walk should never have a specific purpose. Rather than having a destination, you should simply immerse yourself in the beauty of the walk itself.

(41) Rewrite Your Life Story. No matter how much time you have squandered in the past, the next hour that comes your way will be perfect, unspoiled and ready for you to make the very best of it.

(42) Plant a Tree. Watching a tree grow from a sapling into a tall oak will keep you connected with the daily passage of time and the cycles of nature. Planting a tree for each child of your family is a wonderful and creative act of love that your kids will remember for many years to come.

(43) Find Your Place of Peace. Everyone needs a sanctuary or a "place of peace" where they can go to be quiet and still. Simply do nothing for 30 minutes and let the renewing power of solitude take hold.

(44) Live Fully so you can Die Happy. The purpose of life is a life of purpose.