Management is basically a branch of science that many of us don't want to understand. It is dry, boring and basically has mostly nothing to do with our lives but strangely, it does, except most of us don't know about it.
Here's a glimpse of what it is about.
IT IS often said loyalty is not a right, it must be earned. That about
sums up the gist of The Loyalty Link. At first, it seems that this topic
is not exactly the right recipe to work up an appetite over the coffee
table.
But author McCarthy has lent a very human element to an aspect that
divides the ranks of employees and bosses rather quickly in many
organisations. And it often happens that workers readily pin the depth of
loyalty to the size of their pay packet and the `after-work' services
rendered by the company they work for.
McCarthy proclaims at the outset that his book is founded on three
premises: Exceeding customers' expectations, employees walking the extra
mile and bosses' treatment of employees. All three premises lead back to
the same destination - the loyalty link.
The loyalty link as defined in so many words by the writer is the
connection between the firm and its customers and the firm and its
workers. Between these two categories lies an ocean of management areas
that serve to enhance a company's profitability, its employees'
productivity and its clients' loyalty. What would have been another
subject that produces the `sleeping pill effect' to most employees or
readers has been explained rather lucidly with many illustrative case
studies.
For example, McCarthy relates the story of a family which suffers the
tragic circumstance of having their home burnt to the ground. They lose
everything. As they look grimly at the charred remains of their home, a
pizza van draws up. The driver approaches the family with two large boxes
of pizza. A family member says: `There must be some mistake. We didn't
order any pizzas. We don't even have a phone.'
`There's no mistake,' says the pizza guy, and adds that he has seen what
happened and `my boss and I thought that, by now, you probably need
something to eat. Please accept it with our compliments.'
The story serves to illustrate that an employee who knows how to
sympathise with strangers very frequently rewards his company with his
discretionary actions. No prize for guessing which pizza firm has become
that afflicted family's pizza firm.
A sin committed by some business giants involves taking their customers
for granted. In the mid-80s when IBM had an almost stranglehold on the
personal computer market, customers had only one option. In the ensuing
years, small players like Compaq and Dell sneaked into the market and
began to make a difference. In time, the two small companies produced
products that performed better and at cheaper prices.
Before long, Big Blue's customers started to switch camps. McCarthy's
point: Never take your customers for granted. The price you pay may be
more than you can afford. IBM learnt it the hard way.
This book is a motherlode of ideas that all companies which hold their
balance sheets very close to their hearts cannot afford to ignore. It
spotlights the crucial zone of employee satisfaction. Satisfied workers
means satisfied customers. Companies that suffer from an acute lack of
employee loyalty have actually contracted what is termed as a loyalty
deficit cycle. In other words, the more a firm veers away from
profitability, the more rules are instituted. More regulations usually
lead to lower satisfaction on the employee's level. This eventually
translates into inefficiency and lower productivity.
McCarthy states early in the book, `When technology rules, then wages
tend to drop. Companies caught up in the notion that machines are more
cost-effective than people do not spend a lot of time or thought on the
employee selection process.'
The writing on the company wall is when machines are given higher
priority than humans - workers become dehumanised. When that effect sets
in, the company is on the inevitable road of decline. It's just a matter
of time.
Throughout the entire book, the thought of the day is `look after your
own people'. That means the workers who work for that entity called the
organisation. Very often, organisations proudly proclaim that their people
count the most. The bottomline in management parlance is `walk the talk'.
It simply means it is not enough to just to talk, one must be seen doing
it.
The Loyalty Link would have been an exasperatingly dull book if there
were few real life studies to savour. McCarthy has several truckloads of
case studies for the readers to marvel at.
One story that deserves a hearing is the true tale of an entrepreneur
who lost his textile factory in a 1995 fire. Instead of closing shop and
sending all his workers home for good, Aaron Feuerstein, aged 70, told his
workers in the small town of Lawrence with a population of 2,000 that he
intended to build a new factory right away, give his men Christmas bonuses
and guaranteed his employees medical care of at least three months.
There was no talk of gloom and doom from Feuerstein's lips. He described
his employees as `my greatest assets', saying, `And we've been good to
each other in ways that are not always expressed, except in times of
sorrow. When all is chaos, that is the time to be a mensch.' (Mensch means
a decent and responsible person, someone who does the right thing, even
though it may not be in his or her own best interests.)
Feuerstein's action was picked up by some thoughtful journalists and
although it wasn't his intention, he became a legend in his own time.
Clinton personally invited him to attend his 1996 State of the Union
address. That elderly gentleman was a hero in his country and his
employees have absolutely no doubt about it.
In these trying economic times in Southeast Asia, Dennis McCarthy's The
Loyalty Link should have a balming effect on less courageous souls. We
need to be reminded of how some great companies have sailed through
similar circumstances and gallantly survived to tell their corporate tales
of endurance, survival and success.
Tips and approaches abound in this book. Companies which have lost their
way in the financial maelstrom need a compass to find their way back. This
book could very well be that compass which some of them desperately need.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
The Empire God Built - by Alec Foege
Pat Robertson is not your ordinary Joe. In America he is as famous as the Statue of Liberty, though in a much different way. Robertson's words tend to find their way to people's spiritual side. This is a story of a man who was born to preach.
PAT Robertson is one name that's relatively unknown on our shores. In
America however, he is almost a celebrity, like Ted Turner. Reason:
Robertson is the No. 3 cable TV operator in the whole of the United
States. He is right behind CNN (Cable News Network) and HBO (Home Box
Office).
Alec Foege has done a fair bit of investigative journalism to shed light
on Robertson's empire. He has also taken much liberty with the right of
freedom of expression, and casts aspersions on his subject's character as
well.
Robertson, entrepreneur extraordinaire, is the chief executive officer
of International Family Entertainment, a group which recorded sales of
US$300 million in 1995. But he is much better known as the televangelist
host of "The 700 Club", a popular TV channel which promotes fundamental
Christian philosophy.
Robertson's media empire stretches across Africa, the United Kingdom and
Asia. Some of his books, which have impressed a sizeable number of people,
are The New Millennium, The New World Order and The Secret Kingdom.
Basically, his business is religion and his `boss' is God. But as Foege
puts it, the book is not about God nor religion. It is about Pat
Robertson, the man who talks about God to the millions in America who tune
in daily to his counselling words, or simply to watch a host of wholesome
shows broadcast over The Family Channel.
Foege's dislike for Robertson is thinly veiled. Perhaps his suspicions
about the man are justified, for the many reasons he provides between the
covers. Chief among them is probably Robertson's refusal to grant him any
personal interview for this book. Foege admits that he is "a very
difficult man to track despite the oceans of available information".
He adds: "Pat Robertson's empire resists summation ... Robertson wears
his point of view like Madonna wears her undergarments - on top of
everything else like a suit of armour." On that score, Foege possesses an
ability to drive home his point as if it was the last nail in the coffin.
The author came across like a man on a very personal mission - telling
audiences across America that they need to know a few relatively unknown
facts about this son of a distinguished US Senator, who is also the
descendant of two American presidents.
We are informed that Jim Bakker was once a close associate of
Robertson's. Bakker was a much-celebrated TV evangelist who fell from
grace in 1987 when he publicly admitted to having had an affair with
Jessica Hahn, a church secretary.
Foege spices up the book with colourful details of the Bakker-Robertson
business relation and how it came to a sorry end. But readers are left to
draw their own conclusions on Robertson's status. To be fair, Foege is
also quick to add that with his "news, information, guidance,
entertainment, three times a day, five days a week, this guy's a genius".
Robertson, in comparison to "crude backwater preachers like Jimmy
Swaggert, Oral Roberts and Jerry Fahwell", is clearly different. He stands
alone, proclaims Foege.
His humble beginning in TV broadcasting kicked off with a US$3 bank
deposit in 1961. With a little help from his father, he launched his
Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) and his first Christian show was "The
700 Club", the name of which was forged by the fires of financial
desperation in 1963.
It seems that during the initial years, Robertson was very much against
commercials. To obtain funds, he came up with an ingenious "faith
partners" plan whereby CBN viewers can pledge money to his TV station.
The estimate was that the station needed US$7,000 to break even every
month. So he went on the air to appeal for donations from 700 viewers.
Within a week, Robertson had obtained half the targeted amount. Inspired
by this business manoeuvre, he continued his religious quest and the name
"700 Club" stuck.
It is a parody of sorts that Foege has chosen The Empire God Built as
the title of his book because at the end of the final chapter, what comes
to mind is not so much God but Robertson's hardsell to God-fearing
Americans who have the divine very much in mind.
Within these pages, Foege has surreptitiously inserted interviews with
CBN staff and others who hold Robertson in low regard. Whether or not that
was done in all fairness to the man who also started the American Centre
for Law and Justice is a matter of journalistic debate that will draw no
easy conclusion. But one thing is certain - the writer stresses
emphatically that there's more to Robertson than meets the eye.
If you intend to get this book to find out more about Robertson's
religious work, cast your eyes elsewhere. There is nothing religious here.
The facts and figures abundantly and strategically strewn across the pages
bear witness to the enormous amount of legwork and homework done by Foege,
on his second book. (His first was Confusion is Next: The Sonic Youth.)
The reader is drawn to Foege's line of argument that the man who founded
the Regent University and heads one of the United States' most powerful
lobbies called the Christian Coalition has masterfully planned his
corporate ascent from the Sixties to the Nineties with some deft moves in
the three powerful zones of television, technology and big business.
On the last page, Foege asks some pertinent questions: "Would they (the
viewers) think any differently if they knew that Pat Robertson regarded
the mainstream's gradual acceptance of homosexuals, whom he said the New
Testament had sentenced to death, as an indication that our society was in
its final stages of decay? That this man who counsels against a conspiracy
toward one-world government has himself spent his life sowing the seeds
for a self-styled evangelical global takeover?"
It would seem the author's conclusion is a trifle drastic because in all
honesty, I could arrive at none of my own. Looking from a safe distance,
away from the fallout of the American TV hype and the technological
finesse that machine-washes and blow-dries a very personal channel between
man and his Maker, any reader born of Adam can only say this of the book,
the writer, and Robertson, "... and they too will come to pass".
Winning the Rat Race by Kevin Leman
People like to compare life on the fast track as a "rat race". OK, since it's a rat race, what are you going to do about it? Dr Kevin Leman thinks he has some of the answers. Perhaps he is right. Read and find out.
EVERYBODY aspires to be a successful entrepreneur from the word `go'. If
only things were that easy. But help is around - look to the proliferation
of how-to-do-it manuals; `How I Did It' by the millionaires and the
countless volumes by genuine as well as bogus management gurus that has
reached an epidemic level in recent years.
In his book Winning The Rat Race, Dr Kevin Leman has come up with a
psychological formula for achieving victory in business. It is his opinion
that in order to conquer a client, we need to know his `birth order'.
Birth order by definition simply means whether the customer concerned is
the first born, middle or last born in his family. Leman has worked out a
simple method of gauging an individual's status in his family.
Leman is author of the bestseller entitled The Birth Order Book. It is
his rule of the thumb that once you, the budding entrepreneur, have
accurately classified your client in his birth order, you can actually
move in harmony with his thoughts and thereby achieve a close rapport.
This relationship or acute understanding of a person's character will
enable you to score nine out of 10 times the bull's eye. It is suspected
that Leman may have studied Sun Tzu's Art of War in detail too.
Leman's psychological strategy of winning in business is built upon the
foundation of a profound understanding of the mannerisms and
characteristics of first borns, middle children and last borns (or what
Leman calls `the baby of the family'). A typical first born is one who is
usually well-groomed, time conscious and a bit of an irritating
perfectionist. The middle child comes across as a good listener, takes
pride in being loyal to friends and is usually a team player. The last
born or the `baby' is normally easy-going, fun-loving, not inclined to be
meticulous and a tad untidy in his ways.
There are of course many more giveaway signs with regard to the birth
order formula but revealing them here would be spoiling the fun of
personally digesting the book. At first glance, the theory put forth by
Leman seems rather simplistic but on closer examination, it stands up
courageously to a fierce onslaught of a clinical study.
T Boone Pickens, one of America's richest tycoons, testifies on behalf
of Leman's earlier book. Pickens says, `You know, this makes sense. Big
business and industry would be smart to pay attention to everyone's birth
order, I would think, especially when assigning certain jobs within an
organisation.'
From a book of this nature, one often fears that the advice forthcoming
will be akin to text from a medical book. Fortunately, Leman's keen
insight into human nature has compelled him to make this book quite
humorous in many chapters. There are 12 chapters in all and a set of
`Leman's Laws' numbering one to 30. The first law says, `There has to be
more to making money than making money'. And Leman's Law No 30 states,
`God first, spouse second, children third and business fourth'. You may
want to debate on Law No 30 but it is important to give Leman a fair
hearing first.
Winning The Rat Race is filled to the brim with true life stories of
people who have made it to the pinnacle without sacrificing their families
in the process of reaching the top. The win-win approach adopted by the
author is actually a study of the most vital aspect of any business -
human nature. Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, Harvey Mackay and Stephen
Covey are some of the notables that come to mind in applying the strategy
of human psychology in business.
Leman is not much different from the above mentioned experts except that
he has narrowed his strategy to a very specialised area - birth order. The
author, being the last born himself, personifies the typical baby of the
family because he loves a good laugh and wants to have a good time while
he is on the way to getting the goodies.
If there is ever a three-word sentence to describe Leman's book, it
would be `easy-to-read'. There are no big, obscure management words to
frighten the novice. There are no Nasa space centre-type charts to boggle
your mind. Actually, it comes as a bit of a disappointment not to stumble
upon any organisational, graphical charts that are part and parcel of many
such tomes.
In teaching others not to be a rat while climbing the ladder of
entrepreneurial success, Leman stands tall as a great story teller of
corporate proportions. The stories he pulls out of his bag are heart-
warming, inspiring and very down-to-earth.
My favourite story in the book is the tale about a little bird who felt
quite tired after years of flying north for summers and south for winters.
One day, this little bird decided to stay put for winter. But as the cold
winds began to chill his feathers, he started to have second thoughts. He
took flight. Shortly afterwards, the severe cold took a toll on the
fragile frame and he sought refuge in a farmer's barn. There he came
across a cow that took one sniff at him and walked away but not before
dropping a residue that engulfed him.
The almost frozen bird, which had earlier thought it was going to die in
the cold, began to feel warm in his new `surrounding'. He decided he
wasn't going to die after all. Life is good, he thought. In the midst of
entertaining such thoughts, a big cat came along drawn by the little
bird's happy chirping. The feline dug into the cow's flop, uncovered the
feathered creature and lunch was served.
The moral of this story is; first, everybody who dumps on you isn't
necessarily your enemy, second, anybody who alleviates your burden isn't
necessarily your friend and third, when somebody dumps on you, keep your
mouth shut. You may live longer!
On that note, you may want to read this book. Even if you finally decide
you have not learnt anything significant, it is guaranteed that you will
have a good laugh at some of the stories told.
EVERYBODY aspires to be a successful entrepreneur from the word `go'. If
only things were that easy. But help is around - look to the proliferation
of how-to-do-it manuals; `How I Did It' by the millionaires and the
countless volumes by genuine as well as bogus management gurus that has
reached an epidemic level in recent years.
In his book Winning The Rat Race, Dr Kevin Leman has come up with a
psychological formula for achieving victory in business. It is his opinion
that in order to conquer a client, we need to know his `birth order'.
Birth order by definition simply means whether the customer concerned is
the first born, middle or last born in his family. Leman has worked out a
simple method of gauging an individual's status in his family.
Leman is author of the bestseller entitled The Birth Order Book. It is
his rule of the thumb that once you, the budding entrepreneur, have
accurately classified your client in his birth order, you can actually
move in harmony with his thoughts and thereby achieve a close rapport.
This relationship or acute understanding of a person's character will
enable you to score nine out of 10 times the bull's eye. It is suspected
that Leman may have studied Sun Tzu's Art of War in detail too.
Leman's psychological strategy of winning in business is built upon the
foundation of a profound understanding of the mannerisms and
characteristics of first borns, middle children and last borns (or what
Leman calls `the baby of the family'). A typical first born is one who is
usually well-groomed, time conscious and a bit of an irritating
perfectionist. The middle child comes across as a good listener, takes
pride in being loyal to friends and is usually a team player. The last
born or the `baby' is normally easy-going, fun-loving, not inclined to be
meticulous and a tad untidy in his ways.
There are of course many more giveaway signs with regard to the birth
order formula but revealing them here would be spoiling the fun of
personally digesting the book. At first glance, the theory put forth by
Leman seems rather simplistic but on closer examination, it stands up
courageously to a fierce onslaught of a clinical study.
T Boone Pickens, one of America's richest tycoons, testifies on behalf
of Leman's earlier book. Pickens says, `You know, this makes sense. Big
business and industry would be smart to pay attention to everyone's birth
order, I would think, especially when assigning certain jobs within an
organisation.'
From a book of this nature, one often fears that the advice forthcoming
will be akin to text from a medical book. Fortunately, Leman's keen
insight into human nature has compelled him to make this book quite
humorous in many chapters. There are 12 chapters in all and a set of
`Leman's Laws' numbering one to 30. The first law says, `There has to be
more to making money than making money'. And Leman's Law No 30 states,
`God first, spouse second, children third and business fourth'. You may
want to debate on Law No 30 but it is important to give Leman a fair
hearing first.
Winning The Rat Race is filled to the brim with true life stories of
people who have made it to the pinnacle without sacrificing their families
in the process of reaching the top. The win-win approach adopted by the
author is actually a study of the most vital aspect of any business -
human nature. Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, Harvey Mackay and Stephen
Covey are some of the notables that come to mind in applying the strategy
of human psychology in business.
Leman is not much different from the above mentioned experts except that
he has narrowed his strategy to a very specialised area - birth order. The
author, being the last born himself, personifies the typical baby of the
family because he loves a good laugh and wants to have a good time while
he is on the way to getting the goodies.
If there is ever a three-word sentence to describe Leman's book, it
would be `easy-to-read'. There are no big, obscure management words to
frighten the novice. There are no Nasa space centre-type charts to boggle
your mind. Actually, it comes as a bit of a disappointment not to stumble
upon any organisational, graphical charts that are part and parcel of many
such tomes.
In teaching others not to be a rat while climbing the ladder of
entrepreneurial success, Leman stands tall as a great story teller of
corporate proportions. The stories he pulls out of his bag are heart-
warming, inspiring and very down-to-earth.
My favourite story in the book is the tale about a little bird who felt
quite tired after years of flying north for summers and south for winters.
One day, this little bird decided to stay put for winter. But as the cold
winds began to chill his feathers, he started to have second thoughts. He
took flight. Shortly afterwards, the severe cold took a toll on the
fragile frame and he sought refuge in a farmer's barn. There he came
across a cow that took one sniff at him and walked away but not before
dropping a residue that engulfed him.
The almost frozen bird, which had earlier thought it was going to die in
the cold, began to feel warm in his new `surrounding'. He decided he
wasn't going to die after all. Life is good, he thought. In the midst of
entertaining such thoughts, a big cat came along drawn by the little
bird's happy chirping. The feline dug into the cow's flop, uncovered the
feathered creature and lunch was served.
The moral of this story is; first, everybody who dumps on you isn't
necessarily your enemy, second, anybody who alleviates your burden isn't
necessarily your friend and third, when somebody dumps on you, keep your
mouth shut. You may live longer!
On that note, you may want to read this book. Even if you finally decide
you have not learnt anything significant, it is guaranteed that you will
have a good laugh at some of the stories told.
Book by Vicki Bennett (forgotten the title)
Anybody can tell a story, either badly or well. Vicki serves up a hot meal of life's challenges and then offers the antidoes that will assuage the ill-effects of these "problemos" that do crop up in everybody's life.
THIS book is full of cliches, familiar sayings, tired phrases and borrowed
formulas. The initial urge is to fling it out the window. Fortunately, in
its courageous attempt to tell an old story in a new way, it succeeds to
an amazing degree.
When the last page has been thumbed, it is worth noting that the lessons
within may prove invaluable for some of us who have forgotten all those
wise sayings which came from our parents, grandparents, or even our
neighbours.One example is: Judge others and you judge yourself.
To spice up her presentation of ideas, Vicki Bennett ingeniously
conducts a running commentary on an imaginary person named Elizabeth, who
is shown moving through the passages of life. Her story serves as a
platform for projecting real-life examples of problems and challenges that
most of us face when we move from womb to tomb.
Bennett is a management consultant, trainer and speaker who, besides
managing her own company, also finds time to train young Australians to
become skilful entrepreneurs.
From the crucible of her own experiences, she produces chapters on
setting goals and following that dream. Examples of real people who have
pursued their life-long passions and are eventually rewarded for their
perseverance and persistence are cited.
The true tale of octogenarian Lorraine, who decided to surf the
Cyberworld instead of retiring gracefully to an old folks' home, serves to
remind us that so long as there is a spark of life left, there is always
something worth living for.
This book is also about forgiveness. It tells us to open our hearts to
others. It shouts from the table-top that we can "win by tenderness and
conquer by forgiveness".
No doubt a timely reminder for those who have been told that
sentimentality and sympathy have no place in a dog-eat-dog world,
especially with the young and restless in the rat race.
Hand-in-hand with forgiveness comes the often unused key to a wonderful
life - the natural inclination to perform random acts of kindness. The
capacity to feel good when you perform a selfless act is inherent in all
God's creatures.
Thus the seeds of happiness, success and fulfilment are mostly sown in
the forgotten field of human emotions.
Bennett hits the proverbial nail on the head when she says that
"sometimes you have to ask simple questions to get the right answers". In
fact, a person may have to risk looking like a fool to become smart.
But this book, which carries all the keys to personal enhancement, has
some minor faults. A quotation relating to a butterfly dream sequence is
attributed to Lao Tzu. That is clearly incorrect. The quote came from
Zhuangzi, the Chinese philosopher who wrote The Realm of Nothing.
Another flaw is its graphic presentation. The logos are weak and
amateurish. Bits of clip art come across as having seen better days.
Thankfully, these are insignificant glitches which d not eclipse the fine
ideas that come off the pages.
`New passions', `Be outrageous', `Energy level', `Break down the
barriers', `Past the point of pain' - these are some of the buzz-phrases
which string the keys that will jump-start the engine in the reader's
mind.
They are not new, definitely not original, but they all serve a purpose.
If this `keys and car' book has a message, it is this: we all need to be
reminded. It is invigorating to be mentally jolted now and then.
Surely none of us has outgrown all these age-old axioms. Surely all the
material wealth that some of us have acquired has not clouded our judgment
concerning the better things in life.
In a way, this little book should be welcomed in every home where there
are children. Parents should advise their young ones to peruse the pages.
Sometimes, it is prudent for a child to be wise beyond his years. It
should help cushion some of the blows which he will inevitably suffer in
life.
Bennett has concocted some original recipes with those everyday spices
from the kitchen of her mind to delight both young and old. There will be
a significant number of readers out there who will relish the food for
thought neatly packaged within the covers.
In conclusion, she tells us: "This book can be read in one sitting or
can be flicked open and read in small portions. It can be used as a text
to increase productivity within your organisation, or can be used as an
effective communications manual for a partnership or marriage.
"It can be used as a reference for effective relationships for teenagers
and adults alike. When the words resonate within your heart and mind, then
you will know how to apply the knowledge."
THIS book is full of cliches, familiar sayings, tired phrases and borrowed
formulas. The initial urge is to fling it out the window. Fortunately, in
its courageous attempt to tell an old story in a new way, it succeeds to
an amazing degree.
When the last page has been thumbed, it is worth noting that the lessons
within may prove invaluable for some of us who have forgotten all those
wise sayings which came from our parents, grandparents, or even our
neighbours.One example is: Judge others and you judge yourself.
To spice up her presentation of ideas, Vicki Bennett ingeniously
conducts a running commentary on an imaginary person named Elizabeth, who
is shown moving through the passages of life. Her story serves as a
platform for projecting real-life examples of problems and challenges that
most of us face when we move from womb to tomb.
Bennett is a management consultant, trainer and speaker who, besides
managing her own company, also finds time to train young Australians to
become skilful entrepreneurs.
From the crucible of her own experiences, she produces chapters on
setting goals and following that dream. Examples of real people who have
pursued their life-long passions and are eventually rewarded for their
perseverance and persistence are cited.
The true tale of octogenarian Lorraine, who decided to surf the
Cyberworld instead of retiring gracefully to an old folks' home, serves to
remind us that so long as there is a spark of life left, there is always
something worth living for.
This book is also about forgiveness. It tells us to open our hearts to
others. It shouts from the table-top that we can "win by tenderness and
conquer by forgiveness".
No doubt a timely reminder for those who have been told that
sentimentality and sympathy have no place in a dog-eat-dog world,
especially with the young and restless in the rat race.
Hand-in-hand with forgiveness comes the often unused key to a wonderful
life - the natural inclination to perform random acts of kindness. The
capacity to feel good when you perform a selfless act is inherent in all
God's creatures.
Thus the seeds of happiness, success and fulfilment are mostly sown in
the forgotten field of human emotions.
Bennett hits the proverbial nail on the head when she says that
"sometimes you have to ask simple questions to get the right answers". In
fact, a person may have to risk looking like a fool to become smart.
But this book, which carries all the keys to personal enhancement, has
some minor faults. A quotation relating to a butterfly dream sequence is
attributed to Lao Tzu. That is clearly incorrect. The quote came from
Zhuangzi, the Chinese philosopher who wrote The Realm of Nothing.
Another flaw is its graphic presentation. The logos are weak and
amateurish. Bits of clip art come across as having seen better days.
Thankfully, these are insignificant glitches which d not eclipse the fine
ideas that come off the pages.
`New passions', `Be outrageous', `Energy level', `Break down the
barriers', `Past the point of pain' - these are some of the buzz-phrases
which string the keys that will jump-start the engine in the reader's
mind.
They are not new, definitely not original, but they all serve a purpose.
If this `keys and car' book has a message, it is this: we all need to be
reminded. It is invigorating to be mentally jolted now and then.
Surely none of us has outgrown all these age-old axioms. Surely all the
material wealth that some of us have acquired has not clouded our judgment
concerning the better things in life.
In a way, this little book should be welcomed in every home where there
are children. Parents should advise their young ones to peruse the pages.
Sometimes, it is prudent for a child to be wise beyond his years. It
should help cushion some of the blows which he will inevitably suffer in
life.
Bennett has concocted some original recipes with those everyday spices
from the kitchen of her mind to delight both young and old. There will be
a significant number of readers out there who will relish the food for
thought neatly packaged within the covers.
In conclusion, she tells us: "This book can be read in one sitting or
can be flicked open and read in small portions. It can be used as a text
to increase productivity within your organisation, or can be used as an
effective communications manual for a partnership or marriage.
"It can be used as a reference for effective relationships for teenagers
and adults alike. When the words resonate within your heart and mind, then
you will know how to apply the knowledge."
CHINA LIVE by Mike Chinoy
Mike Chinoy of CNN was the correspondent in Beijing for many years. His China experiences have given him some memorable experiences on a personal as well as professional basis. Mike shares with us here all the exciting adventures he has had while he was in China leading up the Tianemen incident.
WHEN you are as absorbed in and fascinated with a particular country as
Mike Chinoy was (and probably still is), you will have to satisfy that
obsession by being there. Chinoy of CNN did just that.
His love affair with China began in 1973, when he made his first trip
there. But it wasn't until 1987 that he was tasked with setting up CNN's
bureau in Beijing, which he eventually left in 1995 after suffering bouts
of disillusionment with political systems and leaders. Also, by that time,
he felt he had had enough.
So, all in all, he didn't spend 20 years in China despite the sub-title
of his book. Before his stint in Beijing, which lasted eight years, he was
based in London for four and a half years, covering everything from coups
to revolutions and wars in various parts of the world.
As a broadcast journalist, Chinoy was often thrust into different,
occasionally dangerous, situations, and he has great stories to show for
it. But it was in China that he earned his journalistic badge of honour
for being the man who brought the reality of the Tiananmen massacre to the
living rooms of millions across the world, and indirectly helped stamp the
mark of CNN via satellite communication.
Chinoy admits at the outset that "in this book, I have not tried to
write a definitive history of CNN or an indepth study of post-Mao China.
Rather, I have sought to convey what it was like, professionally,
intellectually and, equally important, personally to witness events I
covered around the world."
Chinoy's story begins one hot August day in Hong Kong, when he stepped
off a boat en route to China. At that time, he was just another young
American stumbling into the 1970s after the heady '60s, holding
precariously to the belief that China as a Communist nation had some of
the answers that the US could be looking for.
His fascination with things Chinese led him to pursue a course in
Mandarin. He mastered elementary Chinese and graduated to serviceable
Mandarin, which he found immensely useful in his work in Beijing.
Honesty is part of Chinoy's character armoury. Unlike other Western
journalists who have worked in the Far East, he does not hide the fact
that he roamed and enjoyed the shady and seedier side of the Asian region.
He talks openly of sleazy joints in Manila and naked go-go dancers.
There are hilarious tales coming out of these excursions. Like the time
when he and his colleagues were enjoying a live striptease act by two
attractive young women. A technician accidentally hit the wrong switch and
the event was broadcast `live' across America via CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN.
In typically candid fashion, Chinoy tells briefly of some failed
relationships he had in the East and the circumstances which did not
permit them to germinate to full flower.
However, he is quick to add: "For my part, I discovered that the
inevitable sexual temptations of life on the road, to which many
colleagues regularly succumbed, held little appeal for me." That was after
he had met his life partner, Lynne.
Chinoy's career is as exciting as it is life-threatening. He has rubbed
shoulders with the likes of Deng Xiaoping and the Dalai Lama. He covered
both the assassinations of Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv, and the
Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia in 1989.
He took some photographs with the Mujahidin fighters in Afghanistan in
1981 and broke the news to the world when the US Embassy was blown to
pieces in Beirut in 1983. And he witnessed the People Power Revolution in
the Philippines in 1986.
He has interviewed Kim Il Sung, Billy Graham and IRA terrorists, to name
a few. He also encountered Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, whom he strongly
suspected of wearing make-up and perfume.
Chinoy's narration of world-shaking events reads like short bursts, very
much like gunfire from an AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifle in Beirut's
war-torn streets.
It would be grossly unfair to compare his work with other newsmen who
have written accounts of similar experiences, simply because Chinoy's
accounts are from a man who have seen the action, filmed it and broadcast
it. It is a first-person account of a hardcore reporter who flirted with
projectiles whistling past his head while performing his duty on the
field.
If the reader is expecting a detailed report on how CNN spread its
tentacles in Asia, banish the thought. There are only a few passing
references to the `Chicken Noodle News', a tag CNN carried when Chinoy
joined the organisation in 1983.
Chinoy does not ponder too deeply about issues. Rightly so. Most of the
time he wasn't there to do an in-depth feature. His job was to tell the
story as the events tell them, and leave the rest to his audience.
China Live is an interesting mirror with many facets, and Chinoy is
without doubt a dedicated China-watcher. Currently CNN's bureau chief in
Hong Kong, he has yet to get China out of his system. Having been there
and seen it at close quarters, he sums it up thus: "From a nation of
certainties, China now seemed to me a country of paradoxes, which could
not be reduced either to the ideological simplicities of my youth or the
journalistic simplicities that so often characterised foreign reporting
from Beijing. There are so many questions."
China Live is a commendable effors at telling it like it is.
The Ultimate Cliff by
Cliff Richard was Britain's answer to America's Elvis Presley but that was almost 50 years ago. Elvis has long "left the building" but Cliff, an old boy now, is still around and believe or not, still singing. His hardcore fans are legendary. I am one of those "old" fans. Cliff is actually quite a nice guy. The fact that he looks about 20 years younger than his 64 years is due, in a large part, to clean living and a heavy dose of spirituality.
BY all accounts, Cliff Richard seems an absolutely wonderful guy. He has
hardly any faults although he admits to the bad habit of sucking teeth.
All his old friends have remained best friends. For example, Hank Marvin
and Bruce Welch, shadows from his old days, are still as thick as thieves
with him, although their paths seldom cross these days.
Cliff has been bestowed so many musical awards that they would probably
occupy a fairly large study. The list of his fan clubs is extensive. His
contributions to and performances for charity are almost legendary. He
received a knighthood in 1995.
And yet, for all his fame and fortune, Cliff's feet are still firmly
planted on solid ground. He professes to be a God-fearing Christian, and
is proud of his religious convictions, showing it with a multitude of
recordings of gospel, Christmas and inspirational pieces from the 60s to
the present.
In his own words: "Christianity gave me a sense of perspective. I
realised that music wasn't the most important thing in my life. What
matters is my relationship with God and my belief that, even though I
don't deserve it, I will enter Heaven. Now, much as I want to live, I am
not scared of death."
One can't help but like Cliff Richard after reading and hearing so many
nice things written and said about him. He's very much into clean-living
although he has been suspected of leading an alternative lifestyle because
of his bachelor ways. He plays tennis competitively, loves his mom,
cherishes his friends and takes great delight in singing. Quite a normal
bloke, actually.
The Ultimate Cliff, to put it mildly, is a one-volume encyclopaedia
about the boy, the man, the occasional evangelist, and ultimately the
singer whom many people love.
The book provides an amazing array of trivia, ranging from the names of
actors, managers and tour personnel who have worked with Cliff to his
favourite Bible stories. There is a music discography which lists all his
recorded productions, from singles (78 rpm or 45 rpm) to CDs, cassettes
and extended play albums.
Only a die-hard, ultra-hardcore Cliff Richard fan can truly appreciate
the facts and figures about their favourite singer who thrived in the 50s,
60s, 70s, 80s, and is still filling the stadiums in the 90s. Bruce Welch,
in the foreword, sums up his assessment of The Ultimate Cliff quite
succinctly: "Here in this book, you can follow in amazing detail what
Cliff has been doing these 38 years: the records, films, television shows,
stage shows, tours, books and the people who helped him along the way. A
real trainspotter's delight."
Authors Peter Lewry and Nigel Goodall have painted a very pretty picture
of Cliff to the point where there's really nothing scandalous one can dig
out of the closet about this chap born Harry Rodger Webb. He's certainly
not a journalist's delight. There's no record whatsoever of him having
slugged a member of the paparazzi!
In fact, Cliff has made fashionable, once again, that which had gone out
of fashion among the celebrities - being nice, being good and being
religious.
Since his knighthood on October 25, 1995, Sir Cliff has gone on to other
things, like playing in the musical Heathcliff. But Cliff, being Cliff, is
humble about the award from the Queen."Who'd have thought it! A
knighthood. I suppose from now on I'll be known as Sir Cliff - but you can
call me Cliff!"
And so we shall.
BY all accounts, Cliff Richard seems an absolutely wonderful guy. He has
hardly any faults although he admits to the bad habit of sucking teeth.
All his old friends have remained best friends. For example, Hank Marvin
and Bruce Welch, shadows from his old days, are still as thick as thieves
with him, although their paths seldom cross these days.
Cliff has been bestowed so many musical awards that they would probably
occupy a fairly large study. The list of his fan clubs is extensive. His
contributions to and performances for charity are almost legendary. He
received a knighthood in 1995.
And yet, for all his fame and fortune, Cliff's feet are still firmly
planted on solid ground. He professes to be a God-fearing Christian, and
is proud of his religious convictions, showing it with a multitude of
recordings of gospel, Christmas and inspirational pieces from the 60s to
the present.
In his own words: "Christianity gave me a sense of perspective. I
realised that music wasn't the most important thing in my life. What
matters is my relationship with God and my belief that, even though I
don't deserve it, I will enter Heaven. Now, much as I want to live, I am
not scared of death."
One can't help but like Cliff Richard after reading and hearing so many
nice things written and said about him. He's very much into clean-living
although he has been suspected of leading an alternative lifestyle because
of his bachelor ways. He plays tennis competitively, loves his mom,
cherishes his friends and takes great delight in singing. Quite a normal
bloke, actually.
The Ultimate Cliff, to put it mildly, is a one-volume encyclopaedia
about the boy, the man, the occasional evangelist, and ultimately the
singer whom many people love.
The book provides an amazing array of trivia, ranging from the names of
actors, managers and tour personnel who have worked with Cliff to his
favourite Bible stories. There is a music discography which lists all his
recorded productions, from singles (78 rpm or 45 rpm) to CDs, cassettes
and extended play albums.
Only a die-hard, ultra-hardcore Cliff Richard fan can truly appreciate
the facts and figures about their favourite singer who thrived in the 50s,
60s, 70s, 80s, and is still filling the stadiums in the 90s. Bruce Welch,
in the foreword, sums up his assessment of The Ultimate Cliff quite
succinctly: "Here in this book, you can follow in amazing detail what
Cliff has been doing these 38 years: the records, films, television shows,
stage shows, tours, books and the people who helped him along the way. A
real trainspotter's delight."
Authors Peter Lewry and Nigel Goodall have painted a very pretty picture
of Cliff to the point where there's really nothing scandalous one can dig
out of the closet about this chap born Harry Rodger Webb. He's certainly
not a journalist's delight. There's no record whatsoever of him having
slugged a member of the paparazzi!
In fact, Cliff has made fashionable, once again, that which had gone out
of fashion among the celebrities - being nice, being good and being
religious.
Since his knighthood on October 25, 1995, Sir Cliff has gone on to other
things, like playing in the musical Heathcliff. But Cliff, being Cliff, is
humble about the award from the Queen."Who'd have thought it! A
knighthood. I suppose from now on I'll be known as Sir Cliff - but you can
call me Cliff!"
And so we shall.
Archieving Excellence Through Customer Service
Customer is king - this is the statement that resonates in all the successful corporations that values their customers. So in keeping with the spirit of that phrase, John Tschohl has looked at all the finer details of what constitutes the ultimate customer service.
JOHN TSCHOHL the name, at first glance, does not attract any attention. In
fact, Tschohl, pronunciation aside, does not even ring a bell. Unlike
management celebrities like Peter Drucker, Tom Peters, Zig Ziglar or
Kenichi Ohmae, Tschohl is only to be reckoned with in the specialised
field of customer service.
Time Magazine has featured Tschohl in one of its cover stories and has
touted him as `one of America's leading customer service gurus'.
The first principle in this book, as propounded relentlessly, is
excellent customer service. The second principle is never to forget the
first. On that premise, the foundation of all the secrets, techniques and
strategies of winning over customers and keeping their loyalty is laid.
Befitting its success as a management tome, Achieving Excellence Through
Customer Service is now in its revised second edition. It is a well
organised handbook with 12 chapters on all aspects of customer service
that have been mentioned in one form or other in the past. Some of the
precepts within may have been forgotten by companies that are too busy
trying to stem the flow of red ink in their balance sheets.
Tschohl has designed his book, to use a cliche, like going up the ladder
of success. Each idea is a step leading to the next rung. The first
chapter commands attention: `The Secret Weapon - Making Money With
Customer Service.' The second follows with `In the Beginning was ... The
Plan'.
Compared with other publications on salesmanship and other related
titles, Tschohl's ideas are easy to follow. Written in simple English for
the man-in-the-street or customer-in-the-coffeeshop, the ethos of the book
emerges from its source, the introduction, then ventures into the main
stream of the subject and finally emerges into an ocean of the grand
scheme of things.
True to form, Tschohl being a black belt holder in his chosen field of
customer service, keeps the reader captivated by his seemingly endless
flow of corporate examples of how the right moves are made by some of the
biggest names in the business.
For example, McDonald's and Pizza Hut have adopted and applied some
creative techniques in winning over customers. Both corporations have
offered tuition assistance in low employment areas. Scholarships given by
Burger King and IBM have created a national support centre for disabled
people in Atlanta.
Not surprisingly, Malaysia Airlines also received favourable mention in
this book. MAS has been voted as the number one in the world for its first
class service. It is testimony that achieving excellence in any given
field is always a smart investment.
Most of the techniques are sheer commonsense. They are not new or
imported from Mars. The author has cleverly woven all these little patches
of ideas into a very pretty quilt that covers all the important areas in
this often flogged profession.
Few would have realised that in the pursuit of quality service,
management commitment must be seen to be believed, especially by its own
staff.
In this respect, the Hyatt Hotels Corporation started `Hyatt in Touch
Day' way back in 1989. On this day, all employees, from the president to
the mail room clerk, perform jobs they normally would not do. Hyatt
chairman Tom Pritzker spent an entire day at one of his hotels as a
bellman and front desk clerk.
The notion as explained by Tschohl is that when the top management shows
it is not afraid to do menial work, the high level of commitment filters
down to the lowest level in the organisation, thereby creating a single
vision shared by the entire staff.
The author also advises that praise and recognition is a vital
motivational carrot in any organisation. He warns that in some firms, `the
only time employees get attention is when they make a mistake. No one
comments on their good work.'
Tschohl stresses that praise puts workers in a mental condition to want
to perform a service right. Some examples:
Federal Express's Golden Falcon Award is the highest honour given to
non-management staff for `service above and beyond their customary line of
duty'.
Delta Air Lines gives a golden lapel pin to employees who go to great
lengths in providing service to passengers.
Marriot Corporation heaps bouquets of compliments on bellhops and
reservation staff when they rise to the occasion or above the norm.
Take a cue from General Norman Schwartzkopf, the commander of the UN
forces in the Gulf War, says Tschohl. Schwartzkopf calls his soldiers
`heroes.' The general has not forgotten that the soldiers are the ones who
fight and die in the frontline.
This management manual is not necessarily targeted at organisations or
people who are customer-oriented, it should also be read by others in
unrelated industries. The techniques are sound, informative and
educational. The concepts can be applied anywhere to great beneficial
effect in departments, offices and boardrooms.
In this fast-paced world of international, regional and bilateral trade
relations, emerging companies need to hit it right the first time every
time in order to stay ahead of the pack. Tschohl's book is akin to a
lighthouse focusing its beam on a safe passage for ships floundering at
sea. In this instance, companies caught in the turbulence of coporate
storms.
The bottom line behind every corporate success story is human relations.
Genuine, sincere, positive communication encourages and generates
harmonious employer-employee relationships, says Tschohl. And when this
has been achieved, a healthy balance sheet will be its natural conclusion.
Achieving Excellence Through Customer Service should be read by people
who have come to realise that their services are far less than perfect and
want to improve. Tips and strategies abound.
The options are more than sufficient for most corporate executives who
have to deal with grumpy customers and uninspired subordinates.
The essential point to remember is after reading the book, one must
apply the principles. Suffice to say, it is often heard that `it is not
enough to know (many of us already do), we must also apply.'
JOHN TSCHOHL the name, at first glance, does not attract any attention. In
fact, Tschohl, pronunciation aside, does not even ring a bell. Unlike
management celebrities like Peter Drucker, Tom Peters, Zig Ziglar or
Kenichi Ohmae, Tschohl is only to be reckoned with in the specialised
field of customer service.
Time Magazine has featured Tschohl in one of its cover stories and has
touted him as `one of America's leading customer service gurus'.
The first principle in this book, as propounded relentlessly, is
excellent customer service. The second principle is never to forget the
first. On that premise, the foundation of all the secrets, techniques and
strategies of winning over customers and keeping their loyalty is laid.
Befitting its success as a management tome, Achieving Excellence Through
Customer Service is now in its revised second edition. It is a well
organised handbook with 12 chapters on all aspects of customer service
that have been mentioned in one form or other in the past. Some of the
precepts within may have been forgotten by companies that are too busy
trying to stem the flow of red ink in their balance sheets.
Tschohl has designed his book, to use a cliche, like going up the ladder
of success. Each idea is a step leading to the next rung. The first
chapter commands attention: `The Secret Weapon - Making Money With
Customer Service.' The second follows with `In the Beginning was ... The
Plan'.
Compared with other publications on salesmanship and other related
titles, Tschohl's ideas are easy to follow. Written in simple English for
the man-in-the-street or customer-in-the-coffeeshop, the ethos of the book
emerges from its source, the introduction, then ventures into the main
stream of the subject and finally emerges into an ocean of the grand
scheme of things.
True to form, Tschohl being a black belt holder in his chosen field of
customer service, keeps the reader captivated by his seemingly endless
flow of corporate examples of how the right moves are made by some of the
biggest names in the business.
For example, McDonald's and Pizza Hut have adopted and applied some
creative techniques in winning over customers. Both corporations have
offered tuition assistance in low employment areas. Scholarships given by
Burger King and IBM have created a national support centre for disabled
people in Atlanta.
Not surprisingly, Malaysia Airlines also received favourable mention in
this book. MAS has been voted as the number one in the world for its first
class service. It is testimony that achieving excellence in any given
field is always a smart investment.
Most of the techniques are sheer commonsense. They are not new or
imported from Mars. The author has cleverly woven all these little patches
of ideas into a very pretty quilt that covers all the important areas in
this often flogged profession.
Few would have realised that in the pursuit of quality service,
management commitment must be seen to be believed, especially by its own
staff.
In this respect, the Hyatt Hotels Corporation started `Hyatt in Touch
Day' way back in 1989. On this day, all employees, from the president to
the mail room clerk, perform jobs they normally would not do. Hyatt
chairman Tom Pritzker spent an entire day at one of his hotels as a
bellman and front desk clerk.
The notion as explained by Tschohl is that when the top management shows
it is not afraid to do menial work, the high level of commitment filters
down to the lowest level in the organisation, thereby creating a single
vision shared by the entire staff.
The author also advises that praise and recognition is a vital
motivational carrot in any organisation. He warns that in some firms, `the
only time employees get attention is when they make a mistake. No one
comments on their good work.'
Tschohl stresses that praise puts workers in a mental condition to want
to perform a service right. Some examples:
Federal Express's Golden Falcon Award is the highest honour given to
non-management staff for `service above and beyond their customary line of
duty'.
Delta Air Lines gives a golden lapel pin to employees who go to great
lengths in providing service to passengers.
Marriot Corporation heaps bouquets of compliments on bellhops and
reservation staff when they rise to the occasion or above the norm.
Take a cue from General Norman Schwartzkopf, the commander of the UN
forces in the Gulf War, says Tschohl. Schwartzkopf calls his soldiers
`heroes.' The general has not forgotten that the soldiers are the ones who
fight and die in the frontline.
This management manual is not necessarily targeted at organisations or
people who are customer-oriented, it should also be read by others in
unrelated industries. The techniques are sound, informative and
educational. The concepts can be applied anywhere to great beneficial
effect in departments, offices and boardrooms.
In this fast-paced world of international, regional and bilateral trade
relations, emerging companies need to hit it right the first time every
time in order to stay ahead of the pack. Tschohl's book is akin to a
lighthouse focusing its beam on a safe passage for ships floundering at
sea. In this instance, companies caught in the turbulence of coporate
storms.
The bottom line behind every corporate success story is human relations.
Genuine, sincere, positive communication encourages and generates
harmonious employer-employee relationships, says Tschohl. And when this
has been achieved, a healthy balance sheet will be its natural conclusion.
Achieving Excellence Through Customer Service should be read by people
who have come to realise that their services are far less than perfect and
want to improve. Tips and strategies abound.
The options are more than sufficient for most corporate executives who
have to deal with grumpy customers and uninspired subordinates.
The essential point to remember is after reading the book, one must
apply the principles. Suffice to say, it is often heard that `it is not
enough to know (many of us already do), we must also apply.'
3rd Serving of the Chicken Soup for the Soul
Our soul needs spiritual nourishment just like most of our internal organs.
This is another Chicken Soup that comes with a different flavour. Savour it.
BE warned. This book will not make you smarter, wittier or more
knowledgeable. What it may dois bring some sunshine into your life, warm
your heart and even give your soul a little squeeze.
Depending on your disposition, that kind of end-result may frighten you.
According to sales figures, there are about five million reasons why
Chicken Soup for the Soul has become a runaway success and into its third
serving.
The 101 granules of short stories have been added to the "soup" here to
spice it up for mental digestion.
This third serving has eight chapters covering love, parenting,
learning, dying, perspective, attitude, obstacles and eclectic wisdom.
The stories are all true human experiences, vignettes that tell of
kindness, compassion and love.
The warmth from some of the stories is powerful enough to melt the
coldest heart.
Some tales may bring tears to your eyes, plant that silly grin onto a
crabby face.
But don't be afraid - there is little danger in taking an overdose of
sentimentality.
According to a local distributor, the Chicken Soup series is one of the
best selling titles in recent years.
Its quiet success has sparked the emergence of other related titles like
Chicken Soup for the Soul Cookbook, Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul
and Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work.
A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul has a whole tableful of dishy
tidbits that do nothing but good for your heart.
Among the 101 stories, this one deserves special mention:
A few years ago at the Seattle Special Olympics, nine contestants, all
physically or mentally disabled, assembled at the starting line for the
100-yard dash.
At the gun they all started out, not exactly in a dash, but with the
relish to run the race to the finish and win.
All, that is, except one boy who stumbled on the asphalt, tumbled over a
couple of times and began to cry.
The other eight heard the boy cry. They slowed down and paused. Then
they all turned around and went back.
Every one of them.
One girl with Downs Syndrome bent down, kissed him and said: "This will
make it better."
Then all nine linked arms and walked together to the finish line.
Everyone in the stadium stood and the cheering went on for 10 minutes.
This is one volume that all members of the family can read and
understand, including school-going children.
It does not tax your intellect to any exhausting degree. Like a cute
little puppy, it licks your feet and rubs its fur against your ankles.
Before long, you would want to have it around all the time.
The book grows on you. The selfless acts of kindness and love compiled
in this volume counteract the cynicism, scepticism and pessimism that may
have seeped into many of us all these years.
It may be prudent to keep a place in your heart and soul for it.
And since Christmas is around the corner, you might want to spread a
little cheer by making a gift of it for friends and loved ones.
This is another Chicken Soup that comes with a different flavour. Savour it.
BE warned. This book will not make you smarter, wittier or more
knowledgeable. What it may dois bring some sunshine into your life, warm
your heart and even give your soul a little squeeze.
Depending on your disposition, that kind of end-result may frighten you.
According to sales figures, there are about five million reasons why
Chicken Soup for the Soul has become a runaway success and into its third
serving.
The 101 granules of short stories have been added to the "soup" here to
spice it up for mental digestion.
This third serving has eight chapters covering love, parenting,
learning, dying, perspective, attitude, obstacles and eclectic wisdom.
The stories are all true human experiences, vignettes that tell of
kindness, compassion and love.
The warmth from some of the stories is powerful enough to melt the
coldest heart.
Some tales may bring tears to your eyes, plant that silly grin onto a
crabby face.
But don't be afraid - there is little danger in taking an overdose of
sentimentality.
According to a local distributor, the Chicken Soup series is one of the
best selling titles in recent years.
Its quiet success has sparked the emergence of other related titles like
Chicken Soup for the Soul Cookbook, Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul
and Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work.
A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul has a whole tableful of dishy
tidbits that do nothing but good for your heart.
Among the 101 stories, this one deserves special mention:
A few years ago at the Seattle Special Olympics, nine contestants, all
physically or mentally disabled, assembled at the starting line for the
100-yard dash.
At the gun they all started out, not exactly in a dash, but with the
relish to run the race to the finish and win.
All, that is, except one boy who stumbled on the asphalt, tumbled over a
couple of times and began to cry.
The other eight heard the boy cry. They slowed down and paused. Then
they all turned around and went back.
Every one of them.
One girl with Downs Syndrome bent down, kissed him and said: "This will
make it better."
Then all nine linked arms and walked together to the finish line.
Everyone in the stadium stood and the cheering went on for 10 minutes.
This is one volume that all members of the family can read and
understand, including school-going children.
It does not tax your intellect to any exhausting degree. Like a cute
little puppy, it licks your feet and rubs its fur against your ankles.
Before long, you would want to have it around all the time.
The book grows on you. The selfless acts of kindness and love compiled
in this volume counteract the cynicism, scepticism and pessimism that may
have seeped into many of us all these years.
It may be prudent to keep a place in your heart and soul for it.
And since Christmas is around the corner, you might want to spread a
little cheer by making a gift of it for friends and loved ones.
CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL AT WORK
Chicken Soup books really need no introduction. However, there's nothing wrong in putting the spotlight on this title as well. Professionals and workers around the world should find it a moral uplifting experience.
THERE are at least six Chicken Soup titles in the bookstores at present.
The question is: Why would one read another such book?
The answer, this time, is a question itself: Why would one want to eat
good food? Well, to promote healthy living, and for personal satisfaction.
Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work is much the same as its first, second
and third previous servings. Yet it's different. Different in the sense
that there is a moral to every story. Every one of them is good, and the
extraordinary thing is that the stories are experiences of ordinary people
from all walks of life.
Those familiar with the Chicken Soup books are not likely, at the end of
each reading, to stand up and laud the writers for their intelligent
plotting, or the intricate manner in which the tales are spun. You are
more apt to say, "Wow, what great opportunities I have to make living more
worthwhile for others."
This book is a stupendous pick-me-up. It won't make you want to rush off
and join a holy order, but it may inspire you to perform random acts of
kindness or even make you decide to change your career.
Consider the story entitled `How Much is Enough?'
The rich industrialist from the North was horrified to find the southern
fisherman lying lazily beside his boat, smoking a pipe.
"Why aren't you out fishing?" said the industrialist.
"Because I have caught enough fish for the day," said the fisherman.
"Why don't you catch some more?"
"What would I do with them?"
"You could earn more money," was the industrialist's reply. "With that
you could have a motor fixed to your boat and go into deeper waters and
catch more fish. Then you would make enough to buy nylon nets. These would
bring you more fish and more money. Soon you would have enough money to
own two boats ... maybe even a fleet of boats. Then you would be a rich
man like me."
"What would I do then?" asked the fisherman.
"Then you could really enjoy life."
"What do you think I am doing right now?"
This book is highly recommended for people who have become rather jaded
in their outlook on life, due possibly to bad influences or unpleasant
experiences.
It is also for those who suffer hardships of their own making, or at the
hands of the wicked. Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work has most of the
answers. Even if they may not be the exact solutions, the guideposts to
peace of mind are all there.
The book tells us: Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. That's where the
fruit is.
Aspiring writers should not miss the personal account by Alex Haley, the
Roots author who won the Pulitzer Prize as well as nine Emmys for the TV
series.
Haley tells how he left the Coast Guard after 20 years, to try his luck
at writing; he spent another 17 experiencing rejections. But he persisted,
and the happy ending is gloriously inspiring.
Since Christmas is close at hand and it is the season for giving and
sharing, this book comes with a five-star rating as a festive gift.
THERE are at least six Chicken Soup titles in the bookstores at present.
The question is: Why would one read another such book?
The answer, this time, is a question itself: Why would one want to eat
good food? Well, to promote healthy living, and for personal satisfaction.
Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work is much the same as its first, second
and third previous servings. Yet it's different. Different in the sense
that there is a moral to every story. Every one of them is good, and the
extraordinary thing is that the stories are experiences of ordinary people
from all walks of life.
Those familiar with the Chicken Soup books are not likely, at the end of
each reading, to stand up and laud the writers for their intelligent
plotting, or the intricate manner in which the tales are spun. You are
more apt to say, "Wow, what great opportunities I have to make living more
worthwhile for others."
This book is a stupendous pick-me-up. It won't make you want to rush off
and join a holy order, but it may inspire you to perform random acts of
kindness or even make you decide to change your career.
Consider the story entitled `How Much is Enough?'
The rich industrialist from the North was horrified to find the southern
fisherman lying lazily beside his boat, smoking a pipe.
"Why aren't you out fishing?" said the industrialist.
"Because I have caught enough fish for the day," said the fisherman.
"Why don't you catch some more?"
"What would I do with them?"
"You could earn more money," was the industrialist's reply. "With that
you could have a motor fixed to your boat and go into deeper waters and
catch more fish. Then you would make enough to buy nylon nets. These would
bring you more fish and more money. Soon you would have enough money to
own two boats ... maybe even a fleet of boats. Then you would be a rich
man like me."
"What would I do then?" asked the fisherman.
"Then you could really enjoy life."
"What do you think I am doing right now?"
This book is highly recommended for people who have become rather jaded
in their outlook on life, due possibly to bad influences or unpleasant
experiences.
It is also for those who suffer hardships of their own making, or at the
hands of the wicked. Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work has most of the
answers. Even if they may not be the exact solutions, the guideposts to
peace of mind are all there.
The book tells us: Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. That's where the
fruit is.
Aspiring writers should not miss the personal account by Alex Haley, the
Roots author who won the Pulitzer Prize as well as nine Emmys for the TV
series.
Haley tells how he left the Coast Guard after 20 years, to try his luck
at writing; he spent another 17 experiencing rejections. But he persisted,
and the happy ending is gloriously inspiring.
Since Christmas is close at hand and it is the season for giving and
sharing, this book comes with a five-star rating as a festive gift.
CHARACTER ABOVE ALL edited by Robert Wilson
AMERICAN Presidents are interesting people so it's only natural that much is written about them. This book gives an insight into the character of 10 presidents. To be the head honcho of any country is always a good read. This keeps some of your evenings occupied.
AS America rolls along like its mighty Mississippi River in its 220th year
of independence, its 42nd President (Bill Clinton) wrestles with the
endemic socio-economic and political issues which beset his predecessors.
In the preface of Character Above All, editor Robert Wilson remarks that
the "book was conceived as an act of defiance". It was deliberately
written "against the consultants and campaign managers who feel we'd
rather read a good bumper sticker than a good book".
Wilson feels that as American citizens, the people should shoulder the
responsibilities of citizenship. Being deeply informed about the character
of those Americans who ultimately claimed the biggest trophy in the arena
of political ambitions is a duty. Thus, this book.
Character Above All will probably find better favour with an American
readership than the English-speaking peoples in the other continents.
It covers 10 presidents, beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933) and
ends 40 years later with George Bush. It is the work of 10 journalists,
historians and biographers who have studied the lives and character of
these men, and consequently are in a clear position to have something
definite to say about their subjects.
Although the book deals with historic figures, it does not read like a
treatise. It is insightful in parts, filled with memorable quotes in some,
and humorous in others.
A study of the contrasting styles of the various writers of distinction
draws one to conclude that each is almost equal in excellence to the
other.
The book is a rather refreshing read. One is seldom bored by its
passages. A paragraph on John F. Kennedy quotes the late President as
saying to the then British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan during one
encounter: "I don't know about you, Harold, but if I don't have a woman
every three days, I get these terrible headaches. How about you?"
Unfortunately for JFK, MacMillan noted that remarkable statement in his
diary. However, sadly for the rest of the world, history has no record of
the Englishman's reply.
In picking the best three essays among the 10, the chapters on
Roosevelt, Kennedy and Reagan are the most readable. My biased choices are
no reflection of their writers' skills; rather it is the manner in which
the Presidents' lives unravelled.
Roosevelt's life story is rendered with great pathos by Doris Kearns
Goodwin, a Pulitzer winner who has written several books on American
presidents.
The man who graduated from Harvard and Columbia Law rose to fame in one
of America's most tumultuous times. Roosevelt's feats of pulling the
people out of the pits of the Great Depression in 1933 and rousing the
nation to her feet from his wheelchair during the Second World War have
embedded him firmly in America's Hall of Fame.
It seems that the bout with polio which Roosevelt lost at the age of 39
only served to strengthen his character. His wife Eleanor commented on his
disability: "I think probably the thing that took most courage in his life
was his mastery and his meeting of polio. I never heard him complain."
When one has to peruse the professional writers' views on the lives of
State leaders, one unconsciously `feels' for the essence of the story and
searches for its heart.
In this respect, Peggy Noonan stands head and shoulders above her peers
as she waxes most eloquently about her former boss, Ronald Reagan. Noonan
was Reagan's special assistant and, later, George Bush's chief
speechwriter.
Close though she was to Reagan, Noonan is not blind to his faults. She
says: "So he was very kind, very brave, had many flaws, and stuck to his
guns. And his legacy is this: He unleashed the greatest peacetime economic
expansion in all of US history. And within a year of his leaving the White
House, the Berlin Wall fell ... and Soviet Communism collapsed.
"Not too bad for Jack Reagan's son, Pat Brown's hapless opponent, Jerry
Ford's losing adversary, and the intellectuals' affable dunce."
Obviously, one of Hollywood's most unforgettable actors possessed some
very endearing qualities to elicit such high praise from Noonan, a battle-
hardened political trooper who herself has clocked countless kilometres
along the corridors that border the Oval Office.
Three Presidents before Reagan came into power, there was Lyndon
Johnson. He was relentless in the pursuit of his own ambitions, brash in
personality, and totally unfamiliar with modesty, as one episode shows.
German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, while visiting LBJ at his ranch, said:
"I understand you were born in a log cabin." "No, no," Johnson replied.
"You have me confused with Abe Lincoln, I was born in a manger."
It's revealing incidents like this that make this book fun to read when
the title itself, at the outset, forebodes that it may be a dry-as-dust
piece of work.
Readers who may eventually go out and purchase a copy will be glad to
learn that there are numerous interesting, hitherto unknown, accounts from
the lives of these past Presidents that add much spice to the book. The
authors show how the thin thread of nurture that links childhood to
adulthood often, later in life, determine a leader's policies on global
issues. So it can be said with some small degree of accuracy that the hand
that rocks the cradle influences the world.
One thing is clear as one scans the last pages of the volume: although
all the 10 statesmen had mighty powers, fallibility was also very much
part of their mettle. And it is to the everlasting credit of some of these
men (and to the benefit of the nation they led) that the strength of their
character prevented some mistakes from turning into global catastrophes.
Read this book if it is your inclination to learn in greater depth the
background of great statesmen or natural born leaders. It is a study of,
not so much the White House or America, but essentially the unique
individual characteristics of 10 men who overcame the odds, who chose
their paths whether by design or by accident, to attain the highest office
in America.
SIGHTINGS
GHOSTS, eveybody loves to hear stories about them but nobody wants to actually have an encounter with them. There are friendly spirits and heart-stopping vile apparitions. So depending on how lucky you are on a particular dark and cold night, this book is a safe exercise in knowing more about happenings on the dark side.
"WHAT a spooky book!" was my reaction as I pored over the first of its
three sections, aptly named `Hauntings'.
Sightings is a spectacularly successful TV series in America. Until
recently, it was shown in Malaysia over Metrovision. Then it vanished from
the schedule as mysteriously as it had appeared.
For those who dabble in the inexplicable, this book is a mother lode of
actual eerie happenings that baffle the logical mind and probably will
elicit a few knowing nods from your grandmother back in the kampung or
remote hometown.
Take, for example, the haunted castle of Berry-Pomeroy near Totnes,
England. For three centuries, this 15th Century castle has festered in the
bowels of its evil past. Stories of incest and murder abound. Visitors who
accidentally stumbled onto this castle fled its boundaries terrified,
vowing never to return. It seems that the very walls of the castle reek
with an overwhelming sense of wickedness. The violent misdeeds that took
place centuries ago had left a residue of evil that refuses to leave the
cursed premises.
The chapter on Pomeroy castle is certainly one of the most frightening I
have ever encountered.
In the other chapters are recounted happenings, sightings, unnatural
phenomena that have stood the tests and trials carried out by
investigators of the paranormal. Even the list of equipment used in the
process is impressive - Goss meter, Geiger counter, negative ion detector,
night vision lenses, and devices used to measure atmospheric changes in a
room.
We have stories on UFOs and even abduction by aliens. Victims of alien
experimentations have revealed under hypnosis that they were probed by
sophisticated tools which sought scrapings from various parts of the
anatomy. Communication seemed to be effected by a highly developed form of
telepathy that transcends the barrier of language difficulties. Abductees
have disclosed how they were compelled to feel strong human emotions
generated through alien technology.
Halfway through the UFO section, I could not help feeling that perhaps
the popular X-Files series hijacked many of the stories from Sightings and
made them its own.
There have been so many cases of UFO sightings down the centuries that
only a fool would deny the mystery that surrounds a credible number of
testimonies that defy human logic and scientific explanations. This book
certainly does not have the capacity to cover them all or even attempt to
clarify them. What it does have are pictures, documented evidence of the
many strange incidents that have taken place over our skies.
If the happenings actually took place, it is quite understandable why
governments of all nations have denied they did. It is a monumental task
to explain things literally out of this world to people who are barely
coping with problems of day-to-day living.
Most authorities, as this book reveals, fight shy of dealing with
matters beyond their reach. A Russian top gun pilot Maxim Chyrdakov was
forced to eject from his plane after he trailed a UFO which retaliated by
rendering all the equipment on board his plane inoperable. When Chyrdakov
filed a written report of his close encounter to his superiors, they
promptly interrogated him and instituted criminal charges against him.
This probably goes a long way to explain why pilots, fighter or
commercial, keep their outer limits experiences very much to themselves.
A little brat of a thought did make an attempt to make me sceptical, but
then I had to consider this fact: Thousands of years ago, somewhere in the
region near present-day Mexico, several Aztec tribes accurately predicted
the July 11, 1991 total eclipse of the sun. The forecast was duly
documented and the evidence recovered in the 20th Century, much to the
astonishment of our already very clever scientists.
That brings to mind the query: how in heaven's name could a bunch of
sun-worshippers pinpoint with uncanny accuracy a celestial event that
would occur several millenia in the future with their jungle technology?
Perhaps they had a little help from some friends down the Milky Way?
Sightings is not all about ghosts, poltergeists, werewolves and psychic
hunters. At the tail-end of the section on `The Unexplained' is a touching
tale of a mother's love.
A woman born 21 years after the death of another woman begins to have
visions of children not known to her. The memories that embraced her
growing years since the age of three plague her unceasingly. Finally, in a
desperate attempt to seek answers to the bewildering emotions, she
journeys from her home in Northamptonshire, England, to Dublin, Ireland.
There she finds the answer. The pieces begin to fall into place. As the
other person in a past life, she had suffered an untimely death leaving
behind eight children. The ninth died at birth.
Gradually she is reunited with her `children'. If you like to believe
this tale, as many of us would with little reluctance, it lends strength
to the suggestion that love, especially a mother's love, does not cease at
the grave. Strong love conquers death, transcends time and can return from
the hereafter, to soothe loved ones.
This is a book that aims to shake your old beliefs. Certainly, it
entertains. It intrigues to the nth degree. The dose of unadulterated
reality or the unreal it dishes out may alter your concept of this life
and the next and the next.
"WHAT a spooky book!" was my reaction as I pored over the first of its
three sections, aptly named `Hauntings'.
Sightings is a spectacularly successful TV series in America. Until
recently, it was shown in Malaysia over Metrovision. Then it vanished from
the schedule as mysteriously as it had appeared.
For those who dabble in the inexplicable, this book is a mother lode of
actual eerie happenings that baffle the logical mind and probably will
elicit a few knowing nods from your grandmother back in the kampung or
remote hometown.
Take, for example, the haunted castle of Berry-Pomeroy near Totnes,
England. For three centuries, this 15th Century castle has festered in the
bowels of its evil past. Stories of incest and murder abound. Visitors who
accidentally stumbled onto this castle fled its boundaries terrified,
vowing never to return. It seems that the very walls of the castle reek
with an overwhelming sense of wickedness. The violent misdeeds that took
place centuries ago had left a residue of evil that refuses to leave the
cursed premises.
The chapter on Pomeroy castle is certainly one of the most frightening I
have ever encountered.
In the other chapters are recounted happenings, sightings, unnatural
phenomena that have stood the tests and trials carried out by
investigators of the paranormal. Even the list of equipment used in the
process is impressive - Goss meter, Geiger counter, negative ion detector,
night vision lenses, and devices used to measure atmospheric changes in a
room.
We have stories on UFOs and even abduction by aliens. Victims of alien
experimentations have revealed under hypnosis that they were probed by
sophisticated tools which sought scrapings from various parts of the
anatomy. Communication seemed to be effected by a highly developed form of
telepathy that transcends the barrier of language difficulties. Abductees
have disclosed how they were compelled to feel strong human emotions
generated through alien technology.
Halfway through the UFO section, I could not help feeling that perhaps
the popular X-Files series hijacked many of the stories from Sightings and
made them its own.
There have been so many cases of UFO sightings down the centuries that
only a fool would deny the mystery that surrounds a credible number of
testimonies that defy human logic and scientific explanations. This book
certainly does not have the capacity to cover them all or even attempt to
clarify them. What it does have are pictures, documented evidence of the
many strange incidents that have taken place over our skies.
If the happenings actually took place, it is quite understandable why
governments of all nations have denied they did. It is a monumental task
to explain things literally out of this world to people who are barely
coping with problems of day-to-day living.
Most authorities, as this book reveals, fight shy of dealing with
matters beyond their reach. A Russian top gun pilot Maxim Chyrdakov was
forced to eject from his plane after he trailed a UFO which retaliated by
rendering all the equipment on board his plane inoperable. When Chyrdakov
filed a written report of his close encounter to his superiors, they
promptly interrogated him and instituted criminal charges against him.
This probably goes a long way to explain why pilots, fighter or
commercial, keep their outer limits experiences very much to themselves.
A little brat of a thought did make an attempt to make me sceptical, but
then I had to consider this fact: Thousands of years ago, somewhere in the
region near present-day Mexico, several Aztec tribes accurately predicted
the July 11, 1991 total eclipse of the sun. The forecast was duly
documented and the evidence recovered in the 20th Century, much to the
astonishment of our already very clever scientists.
That brings to mind the query: how in heaven's name could a bunch of
sun-worshippers pinpoint with uncanny accuracy a celestial event that
would occur several millenia in the future with their jungle technology?
Perhaps they had a little help from some friends down the Milky Way?
Sightings is not all about ghosts, poltergeists, werewolves and psychic
hunters. At the tail-end of the section on `The Unexplained' is a touching
tale of a mother's love.
A woman born 21 years after the death of another woman begins to have
visions of children not known to her. The memories that embraced her
growing years since the age of three plague her unceasingly. Finally, in a
desperate attempt to seek answers to the bewildering emotions, she
journeys from her home in Northamptonshire, England, to Dublin, Ireland.
There she finds the answer. The pieces begin to fall into place. As the
other person in a past life, she had suffered an untimely death leaving
behind eight children. The ninth died at birth.
Gradually she is reunited with her `children'. If you like to believe
this tale, as many of us would with little reluctance, it lends strength
to the suggestion that love, especially a mother's love, does not cease at
the grave. Strong love conquers death, transcends time and can return from
the hereafter, to soothe loved ones.
This is a book that aims to shake your old beliefs. Certainly, it
entertains. It intrigues to the nth degree. The dose of unadulterated
reality or the unreal it dishes out may alter your concept of this life
and the next and the next.
Thinking Out of the Box by Mike Vance
YOUR mind is yours to exploit, maximise and utilise. If only life were that simple. "Please use your brain" - a phrase used more often in anger and verbal recklessness than in mindful retrospection. These days, a guy can use everything his mind can gets its tentacles on. This could be your genie in the bottle.
THINKING is easy. It's thinking thoughts that benefit your organisation
and yourself, in that order, that's a little complicated.
Now straight from the heart of Disneyland comes Mike Vance, former dean
of Disney University, with a few fresh thoughts. With able co-author Diane
Deacon, president of the Creative Thinking Association, he gives us
Thinking Out of the Box, ad guide through a labyrinth of paths and by-ways
where creative ideas germinate.
Don't let terms like dymaxion map, charrette, ideation techniques and
psychosclerosis scare you. These are explained as the pages turn.
For the masses of bankrupt-of-good-ideas people, hope is now at hand.
Many of the conditions for creative thinking have been around all the time
except we are too lazy to notice them. They are, basically, a sense of
adventure, fun and laughter, living and loving, and experiences of joy and
sorrow. In other words, you have to feel the physical sensations acutely
before your mind can be awakened to its maximum creative potential.
When you are ready, the tools for opening the box of ideas are laid out.
First, there is category note-taking. Second, thinking in five senses and,
third, working in colour.
Note-taking simply means just that. Taking down notes and then veering
away from linear thinking as opposed to the more natural thinking. Natural
as in hopping from subject to subject and mentally jumping around it. Even
day-dreaming about it.
Experience of the five senses is the second important tool. It is like
walking into Disney World for the first time. Soaking in all the sounds
and sights of that magical place. All your five senses are finely-tuned to
register every iota of stimuli for life-long remembrances.
The third tool is the use of colours in your imagination. In vivid
colours, let your mind soar as far as your imagination can take you. Thus
begins the longest journey on the creative route.
Thinking Out of the Box has some quotable quotes. Among them is one from
Walt Disney, who forms the foundation of this book: "Socialising is a key
element of the creative process; eating and drinking are part of the
formula."
Another comes from Thomas Edison, one of mankind's most notable creative
geniuses: "The greatest invention in the world is the mind of a child."
From Buckminster Fuller: "I didn't invent the geodesic dome. I
discovered it through observing geodesic structures in spores under a
microscope. This is why every child needs a microscope to make their own
discoveries."
This book needs to be read very quickly at first. Then one should
backtrack to those relevant chapters that open a few cobweb-covered
windows of the mind to let in fresh ideas.
You probably would not want to recommend this to your mother-in-law,
though. She might have some original ideas - about you - of her own.
Not to be left out is the nine-point formula for success. Very quickly,
it is I3+P3+C3 combined with the V and M. The three Is are Informed,
Involved and Inspired. P3 points to People, Place and Product. C3 means
Caring, Co-operation and Creation. At the most fundamental level, the
points are self-explanatory. However, the authors are kind enough to
explain them quite fully.
V&M, the unleaded fuel that powers the engine of the mind, means Vision
and Mission. If you even have the foggiest notion of our own Vision 2020,
you should catch a glimpse of what it is all about.
As Vance and Deacon proudly conclude, the nine-point formula, if applied
in the right portions, guarantees that the creative juices will form a
critical mass.
If the reader still harbours any doubts after trekking through more than
200 pages of instructions and related anecdotes, please be reminded that
the dream team at Disney Corporation have been experiencing such a
fantastic run of luck with their products that they and their methods
should be taken quite seriously.
So next time you see Bugs Bunny yapping "What's up, doc?", put on your
thinking cap.
THINKING is easy. It's thinking thoughts that benefit your organisation
and yourself, in that order, that's a little complicated.
Now straight from the heart of Disneyland comes Mike Vance, former dean
of Disney University, with a few fresh thoughts. With able co-author Diane
Deacon, president of the Creative Thinking Association, he gives us
Thinking Out of the Box, ad guide through a labyrinth of paths and by-ways
where creative ideas germinate.
Don't let terms like dymaxion map, charrette, ideation techniques and
psychosclerosis scare you. These are explained as the pages turn.
For the masses of bankrupt-of-good-ideas people, hope is now at hand.
Many of the conditions for creative thinking have been around all the time
except we are too lazy to notice them. They are, basically, a sense of
adventure, fun and laughter, living and loving, and experiences of joy and
sorrow. In other words, you have to feel the physical sensations acutely
before your mind can be awakened to its maximum creative potential.
When you are ready, the tools for opening the box of ideas are laid out.
First, there is category note-taking. Second, thinking in five senses and,
third, working in colour.
Note-taking simply means just that. Taking down notes and then veering
away from linear thinking as opposed to the more natural thinking. Natural
as in hopping from subject to subject and mentally jumping around it. Even
day-dreaming about it.
Experience of the five senses is the second important tool. It is like
walking into Disney World for the first time. Soaking in all the sounds
and sights of that magical place. All your five senses are finely-tuned to
register every iota of stimuli for life-long remembrances.
The third tool is the use of colours in your imagination. In vivid
colours, let your mind soar as far as your imagination can take you. Thus
begins the longest journey on the creative route.
Thinking Out of the Box has some quotable quotes. Among them is one from
Walt Disney, who forms the foundation of this book: "Socialising is a key
element of the creative process; eating and drinking are part of the
formula."
Another comes from Thomas Edison, one of mankind's most notable creative
geniuses: "The greatest invention in the world is the mind of a child."
From Buckminster Fuller: "I didn't invent the geodesic dome. I
discovered it through observing geodesic structures in spores under a
microscope. This is why every child needs a microscope to make their own
discoveries."
This book needs to be read very quickly at first. Then one should
backtrack to those relevant chapters that open a few cobweb-covered
windows of the mind to let in fresh ideas.
You probably would not want to recommend this to your mother-in-law,
though. She might have some original ideas - about you - of her own.
Not to be left out is the nine-point formula for success. Very quickly,
it is I3+P3+C3 combined with the V and M. The three Is are Informed,
Involved and Inspired. P3 points to People, Place and Product. C3 means
Caring, Co-operation and Creation. At the most fundamental level, the
points are self-explanatory. However, the authors are kind enough to
explain them quite fully.
V&M, the unleaded fuel that powers the engine of the mind, means Vision
and Mission. If you even have the foggiest notion of our own Vision 2020,
you should catch a glimpse of what it is all about.
As Vance and Deacon proudly conclude, the nine-point formula, if applied
in the right portions, guarantees that the creative juices will form a
critical mass.
If the reader still harbours any doubts after trekking through more than
200 pages of instructions and related anecdotes, please be reminded that
the dream team at Disney Corporation have been experiencing such a
fantastic run of luck with their products that they and their methods
should be taken quite seriously.
So next time you see Bugs Bunny yapping "What's up, doc?", put on your
thinking cap.
THE Way of the IdeaFisher
IF YOU are constantly at sea over fresh and innovative ideas, this could very well be the book you are looking for. Read it with no pre-conceived notions or expectations. You may be in for a big surprise. Read, learn and enjoy.
HERE'S a book that any copywriter should be willing to shave off his right
eyebrow for! It should also capture the attention of marketing executives
and those whose chief aim in life is to impress the boss with those
brilliant out-of-this-world concepts.
Marsh Fisher is the modern-day Merlin who conjures from the depths of
his mind ideas for all situations imaginable. In 1971, he co-founded what
was later to be the world's largest real estate sales organisation,
Century 21 Real Estate Corporation. Six years later he retired to venture
into the "thinking" business. In 1988, Fisher started the Ideafisher
Systems Inc. His computer software firm has since developed a number of
programs which have gain wide prominence.
Fisher's pipeline to that vast reservoir of ideas is the principle of
associational thinking. This involves the basic truth that one thought
leads to other thoughts through a process of activating clusters of
associated information. For example, imagine the neighbourhood scene after
a thunderstorm. The air smells fresher, the birds frolic in the sky and
children come out to play. In other words, nature takes its course. Same
with associational thinking.
Left to natural devices, ideas flow like streams of water down a
mountain, except you must know where to go.
The IdeaFisher revolves around a central character who is only known as
the "Captain". This unassuming person who sometimes doubles up as a
window-washer has a knack of showing up at the most opportune time to
dispense gold-nugget pieces of advice to a cross-section of people who had
seen better days in the Ideas Department.
Unlike most books that deal with the mind business, this manual deftly
holds boredom at bay with its presentation in the form of a story. It
utilises office situations and question-and-answer dialogue to project its
solutions onto the mental screen of an individual.
With the Captain leading the fishing expedition for ideas, landing the
prized catch becomes as easy as turning on the ignition of a car. The
Captain shows his willing pupils that the way to creative ideas is via
Word Baits in the form of Word Clues.
This blueprint of ideas is later developed into a Word Bait Hierarchy
which is divided into Oceans (information), Seas (background information),
Tide Pools (people/animals), Descriptors (illustrative details), and
Things/Places (sources of information).
This process of casting the net for solutions to a problem is likened to
a fishing trip in which all kinds of proper fish baits are used to land
the "big one". It also educates you on the most prudent way to swim out of
troubled waters without getting your head bashed in by the rocks of
frustration.
The Way of the IdeaFisher is to fire your imagination to allow it to
float freely around a problem. In this way, you will consider all possible
angles and develop new perspectives to tackle the problem.
Some of the real-life problem areas are job-hunting, personal
relationships, advertising campaigns, speech writing, strategic planning,
and naming a new product. There are no set answers to the troublesome
situations you may be experiencing. Marsh's method is to show how you can
fish for solutions given the right baits.
HERE'S a book that any copywriter should be willing to shave off his right
eyebrow for! It should also capture the attention of marketing executives
and those whose chief aim in life is to impress the boss with those
brilliant out-of-this-world concepts.
Marsh Fisher is the modern-day Merlin who conjures from the depths of
his mind ideas for all situations imaginable. In 1971, he co-founded what
was later to be the world's largest real estate sales organisation,
Century 21 Real Estate Corporation. Six years later he retired to venture
into the "thinking" business. In 1988, Fisher started the Ideafisher
Systems Inc. His computer software firm has since developed a number of
programs which have gain wide prominence.
Fisher's pipeline to that vast reservoir of ideas is the principle of
associational thinking. This involves the basic truth that one thought
leads to other thoughts through a process of activating clusters of
associated information. For example, imagine the neighbourhood scene after
a thunderstorm. The air smells fresher, the birds frolic in the sky and
children come out to play. In other words, nature takes its course. Same
with associational thinking.
Left to natural devices, ideas flow like streams of water down a
mountain, except you must know where to go.
The IdeaFisher revolves around a central character who is only known as
the "Captain". This unassuming person who sometimes doubles up as a
window-washer has a knack of showing up at the most opportune time to
dispense gold-nugget pieces of advice to a cross-section of people who had
seen better days in the Ideas Department.
Unlike most books that deal with the mind business, this manual deftly
holds boredom at bay with its presentation in the form of a story. It
utilises office situations and question-and-answer dialogue to project its
solutions onto the mental screen of an individual.
With the Captain leading the fishing expedition for ideas, landing the
prized catch becomes as easy as turning on the ignition of a car. The
Captain shows his willing pupils that the way to creative ideas is via
Word Baits in the form of Word Clues.
This blueprint of ideas is later developed into a Word Bait Hierarchy
which is divided into Oceans (information), Seas (background information),
Tide Pools (people/animals), Descriptors (illustrative details), and
Things/Places (sources of information).
This process of casting the net for solutions to a problem is likened to
a fishing trip in which all kinds of proper fish baits are used to land
the "big one". It also educates you on the most prudent way to swim out of
troubled waters without getting your head bashed in by the rocks of
frustration.
The Way of the IdeaFisher is to fire your imagination to allow it to
float freely around a problem. In this way, you will consider all possible
angles and develop new perspectives to tackle the problem.
Some of the real-life problem areas are job-hunting, personal
relationships, advertising campaigns, speech writing, strategic planning,
and naming a new product. There are no set answers to the troublesome
situations you may be experiencing. Marsh's method is to show how you can
fish for solutions given the right baits.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
How to Increase the speed of your Reading
SPEED reading is a fine art of absorbing written information in a fast and efficient way. If you can speed read, you will learn more, know more and finish your assignments faster. It may not mean you are smarter, but you certainly will know more but that too doesn't mean anything unless you know how to analyse all the data you can absorb at blinding speed. Actually, it simply means it can make your life a little easier. And you thought, you just won the lottery!
FOR those who desire to read and digest those numerous volumes stacked in
some corner of their room or kitchen but have not found the inclination,
time or good sense to do so, there is an answer at last.
Yes, it is speed reading. And it has not come to stay. It is actually
just passing. An Indian scholar from Bombay and a research officer from
Mysore have pooled their mental and physical energies to produce this neat
piece of work.
Let's be clear at the outset. It may not solve your reading problem, be
it speed or lack of comprehension. But it does point to several directions
which you may proceed to resolve some of your reading problems, thereby
taking that first important step towards increasing reading speed and
enhancing comprehension.
This book is aimed at the sea of humanity who read little due to lack of
motivation, or none simply because of sheer inertia. As any good doctor
will say: Understand the problem first. That's what this book does.
It outlines the topics logically. For example, the first chapter deals
with understanding the nature of reading. The second deals with the
science of reading and the third touches on developing greater speed in
reading. By the time the reader gets to the 10th and last chapter, it
would become fairly obvious that it has been somewhat of an adventure
trail that these two writers have created.
Of course, the book is pedantic at times but that's the way it's meant
to be. The Ahujas do not simply diagnose and dissect the issue; they also
probe the innards of speed reading. At this point, I must add, the subject
of reading goes back about 100 years, when most of our forebears may have
just completed their Junior Cambridge, if at all.
There are scores of references at the end of each chapter. Interested
parties who wish to pursue the subject further afield can look up the
numerous educational monographs and doctoral dissertations quoted in
abundance.
This book is best read like this: Fast, the first time. Slow, the second
time. And if you still have the stamina, handpick the chapters you like
the third time round.
That's one of the vital points stressed by the writers - stamina. Good
and fast readers have a vast reservoir of stamina. Mix that with a
positive attitude and diligence, and speed reading becomes a piece of
cake. The persistent advice is practice. Like most practitioners who
excel, practice is the key that turbo-charges your eyes and revs up your
mind.
It is a marvellous recipe for many of us who are currently caught in the
endless tide of ever-flowing river of information. The number of magazines
and other reading literature is increasing at a frightening rate.
How to increase your reading speed as this book advocates is just the
"weapon" you need to cut the whole mass of information to the bone. It
explains quite nicely why bad habits like head movements, vocalisation,
finger-pointing have to be eliminated before you can cultivate those good
ones which help you pick up speed.
It's not too late to start to pick up a book like this so you can at
least cultivate one good habit before the year is over. If you have been
too timid in the past to try the first two chapters of that thousand-odd
pages of War and Peace, or that half-a-palm-size width of Les Miserables,
digest this collaborative effort by the Ahujas.
When you believe you are sufficiently equipped with well-trained eyes,
dive headlong into the classics which you have been wanting to read before
you retire or have grandchildren, whichever comes first.
FOR those who desire to read and digest those numerous volumes stacked in
some corner of their room or kitchen but have not found the inclination,
time or good sense to do so, there is an answer at last.
Yes, it is speed reading. And it has not come to stay. It is actually
just passing. An Indian scholar from Bombay and a research officer from
Mysore have pooled their mental and physical energies to produce this neat
piece of work.
Let's be clear at the outset. It may not solve your reading problem, be
it speed or lack of comprehension. But it does point to several directions
which you may proceed to resolve some of your reading problems, thereby
taking that first important step towards increasing reading speed and
enhancing comprehension.
This book is aimed at the sea of humanity who read little due to lack of
motivation, or none simply because of sheer inertia. As any good doctor
will say: Understand the problem first. That's what this book does.
It outlines the topics logically. For example, the first chapter deals
with understanding the nature of reading. The second deals with the
science of reading and the third touches on developing greater speed in
reading. By the time the reader gets to the 10th and last chapter, it
would become fairly obvious that it has been somewhat of an adventure
trail that these two writers have created.
Of course, the book is pedantic at times but that's the way it's meant
to be. The Ahujas do not simply diagnose and dissect the issue; they also
probe the innards of speed reading. At this point, I must add, the subject
of reading goes back about 100 years, when most of our forebears may have
just completed their Junior Cambridge, if at all.
There are scores of references at the end of each chapter. Interested
parties who wish to pursue the subject further afield can look up the
numerous educational monographs and doctoral dissertations quoted in
abundance.
This book is best read like this: Fast, the first time. Slow, the second
time. And if you still have the stamina, handpick the chapters you like
the third time round.
That's one of the vital points stressed by the writers - stamina. Good
and fast readers have a vast reservoir of stamina. Mix that with a
positive attitude and diligence, and speed reading becomes a piece of
cake. The persistent advice is practice. Like most practitioners who
excel, practice is the key that turbo-charges your eyes and revs up your
mind.
It is a marvellous recipe for many of us who are currently caught in the
endless tide of ever-flowing river of information. The number of magazines
and other reading literature is increasing at a frightening rate.
How to increase your reading speed as this book advocates is just the
"weapon" you need to cut the whole mass of information to the bone. It
explains quite nicely why bad habits like head movements, vocalisation,
finger-pointing have to be eliminated before you can cultivate those good
ones which help you pick up speed.
It's not too late to start to pick up a book like this so you can at
least cultivate one good habit before the year is over. If you have been
too timid in the past to try the first two chapters of that thousand-odd
pages of War and Peace, or that half-a-palm-size width of Les Miserables,
digest this collaborative effort by the Ahujas.
When you believe you are sufficiently equipped with well-trained eyes,
dive headlong into the classics which you have been wanting to read before
you retire or have grandchildren, whichever comes first.
BEST ORGANIZING TIPS by Stephanie Winston
IF YOU have a family like mine, you will know that this book should be the family's bible. Not many people are organised in a sensible way but we all hope to be something like that one of these days. Well, here's a handy little book that should put us on the right footing.
THIS is one of those `must-read' books that you probably won't - not
because you hate it, but really, you are just not organised. It boasts 60-
second solutions which can help you "get on with your life".
A quick glance at the Contents reveals that it is organised into four
parts: `Paper Trap', `Get Time On Your Side', `Clutter and Closets', and
`Homestyles and Lifestyles'. A 10-second visual search reveals various
factors which could have been responsible for the fine mess you're in now.
If that's the case, Best Organizing Tips surely is the Holy Grail you
are looking for. The suggestions Stephanie Winston proffers are
surprisingly simple and full of commonsense (which, as you ought to know
from experience, is hardly common at all).
Before you proclaim from the top of your desk that "a well-organised
work area is a sign of a sick mind", give Winston a chance. She teaches
you to get rid of that desk mess, or paperwork gridlock as she very
scientifically puts it. Then she moves on to straightening your
priorities, and offers advice on the best approach to adopt.
On the far end of the spectrum, Winston gets into the parental role of
planning a child-friendly home, including some wonderful ways of helping
kids organise themselves and their toys.
One suggestion: Read the chapters that really nail your problems to the
family wall. Read them slowly and religiously. Memorise them and
internalise the Ways of the Organisation. It's much like involuntarily
remembering that growing-up advice mum has been trying to drum into your
cerebrum for years.
Leave the book in a safe place and, when the need arises, refer to it
diligently and seek the insight you gravely desire.
The opportunity of reading Winston's first best-seller, Getting
Organized, did not present itself but this book draws mental comparisons
with a similar 1982 publication by Reader's Digest entitled Organize
Yourself. Coincidentally, the latter is also divided into four parts, and
in typical Digest style, it's more reader-friendly.
Winston's offering is written and designed more for the seriously-
afflicted professional or homemaker. Whatever you are, Best Organizing
Tips has practically all the answers you want, except the smoothest and
most painless way to heaven.
Some of Winston's ideas on how to get rid of long-winded phone pests
border on the hilarious; nevertheless, they are functional. For example,
to stop a chatty caller dead on his tracks, try the tactic employed by a
TV producer who raises his hand to his assistant when he's desperate and
the colleague will shout: "Jim, you've got a call from London on line
one!" That ought to pull the plug off motor-mouths.
Another sound tip concerns the time lapse before you file items away.
For phone messages, a year; general correspondence, two years; legal
documents, indefinitely (nasty bit of business those legalities), and tax
documents - make that six straight years.
The keywords, as advertised on the jacket, are "peace of mind". If you
are not the type to succumb to reading materials which have no bearing on
your life whatsoever, peace of mind should be your only reason to pick up
Best Organizing Tips.
THIS is one of those `must-read' books that you probably won't - not
because you hate it, but really, you are just not organised. It boasts 60-
second solutions which can help you "get on with your life".
A quick glance at the Contents reveals that it is organised into four
parts: `Paper Trap', `Get Time On Your Side', `Clutter and Closets', and
`Homestyles and Lifestyles'. A 10-second visual search reveals various
factors which could have been responsible for the fine mess you're in now.
If that's the case, Best Organizing Tips surely is the Holy Grail you
are looking for. The suggestions Stephanie Winston proffers are
surprisingly simple and full of commonsense (which, as you ought to know
from experience, is hardly common at all).
Before you proclaim from the top of your desk that "a well-organised
work area is a sign of a sick mind", give Winston a chance. She teaches
you to get rid of that desk mess, or paperwork gridlock as she very
scientifically puts it. Then she moves on to straightening your
priorities, and offers advice on the best approach to adopt.
On the far end of the spectrum, Winston gets into the parental role of
planning a child-friendly home, including some wonderful ways of helping
kids organise themselves and their toys.
One suggestion: Read the chapters that really nail your problems to the
family wall. Read them slowly and religiously. Memorise them and
internalise the Ways of the Organisation. It's much like involuntarily
remembering that growing-up advice mum has been trying to drum into your
cerebrum for years.
Leave the book in a safe place and, when the need arises, refer to it
diligently and seek the insight you gravely desire.
The opportunity of reading Winston's first best-seller, Getting
Organized, did not present itself but this book draws mental comparisons
with a similar 1982 publication by Reader's Digest entitled Organize
Yourself. Coincidentally, the latter is also divided into four parts, and
in typical Digest style, it's more reader-friendly.
Winston's offering is written and designed more for the seriously-
afflicted professional or homemaker. Whatever you are, Best Organizing
Tips has practically all the answers you want, except the smoothest and
most painless way to heaven.
Some of Winston's ideas on how to get rid of long-winded phone pests
border on the hilarious; nevertheless, they are functional. For example,
to stop a chatty caller dead on his tracks, try the tactic employed by a
TV producer who raises his hand to his assistant when he's desperate and
the colleague will shout: "Jim, you've got a call from London on line
one!" That ought to pull the plug off motor-mouths.
Another sound tip concerns the time lapse before you file items away.
For phone messages, a year; general correspondence, two years; legal
documents, indefinitely (nasty bit of business those legalities), and tax
documents - make that six straight years.
The keywords, as advertised on the jacket, are "peace of mind". If you
are not the type to succumb to reading materials which have no bearing on
your life whatsoever, peace of mind should be your only reason to pick up
Best Organizing Tips.
CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL
The Chicken Soup series are now legendary. I am unashamedly one of its greatest supporters. I love the Chicken Soup books to bits and I will go on and on until it's time to leave Earth, telling everybody to read at least one book before they die.
MANY women do it now and then. Men seldom. It has something to do with
that ridiculous macho business of tough men don't cry. But if you feel you
must release some pent-up feelings, this book might lead you to it.
In Hollywood, this New York Times No. 1 bestseller is called a "sleeper
hit". Published in 1993 after two years of being cooked in the minds of
its creators, it recently found its way into Malaysian bookstores. Very
quickly, through word of mouth, it has become a small-time favourite among
regular bookshop browsers.
Chicken Soup for the Soul has a total of 101 short stories, all told
very simply, straight from the heart, by people who have had experiences
that changed their lives and those of others around them.
If you are a normal person, it is highly probable that you will not be
able to go past the first section on love without shedding a tear. But
fear not, it will be a good cry. People who subscribe to age-old religious
teachings call it a "soul cleanser".
By the time you slip into the second section on learning to love
yourself, you may well experience a warm, tingling sensation that is the
consequence of having unlocked that caring feeling in you.
In one of its shortest stories entitled `The Gift', the writer relates:
In one seat of a bus, a wispy old man sat holding a bunch of fresh
flowers. Across the aisle was a young girl whose eyes came back again and
again to the man's flowers. The time came for the old man to get off.
Impulsively he thrust the flowers into the girl's lap. "I can see you love
the flowers," he explained, "and I think my wife would like for you to
have them. I'll tell her I gave them to you." The girl accepted the
flowers, then watched the old man get off the bus and walk through the
gate of a small cemetery.
The message that comes through is not something new, but it's powerful.
Other stories focus on the various expressions of love and and ways of
fulfilment, through chronicling the experiences of the destitute, the
downtrodden and the despondent.
You read about how ordinary folk and even underachievers came to perform
deeds that led to extraordinary results, about how Abraham Lincoln rose
above numerous failures to eventually become one of America's greatest
Presidents, about successes achieved by those who conquered severe
physical disabilities and themselves.
Encouraging phrases like "courage is fear that has said its prayer" and
"obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off
your goal" abound in the book, which has spawned a sequel as well as a
Chicken Soup for the Soul Cookbook.
So, if you feel you only have time to read one book this whole year,
this is the one you should read. Your family and friends may thank you for
it.
BRIGHT LEGACY - Koo Chong Kong
THERE are heroes everywhere. The trouble is they seldom stand up and identify themselves. This story is about one of those quiet heroes. Fortunately, somebody took the trouble to tell us all about his life and all the lessons he left behind.
BRIGHT Legacy. Undoubtedly an unusual title for a biography. Quickly, the
book reveals it is actually an English translation of the name Koo Chong
Kong. A name many of my contemporaries have not forgotten. For me,
particularly unforgettable because Koo's assassination took place near my
home in Greentown, Ipoh, and my nextdoor neighbour witnessed the incident.
I still remember my neighbour rushing over excitedly to our house and
almost breathlessly describing the sounds of gunshot and confusion. He was
about four cars behind when the assailants, after killing Koo, dragged out
Koo's driver, dumped him on the road divider and shot him repeatedly.
This book, according to the foreword by Professor Khoo Kay Kim, is a
record and not a study of one of the country's top cops. In fairness to
it, the book must be read in this light; otherwise, the reader may be
dissatisfied.
From the public records of his career, Koo was a born leader, an
uncommon man with extraordinary achievements. What is remarkable even
today is how little is known about his contributions to the country during
the Emergency and the confrontation with Indonesia.
Born in Xun Wu in the province of Jiangxi, China, in 1925, Koo was about
two years old when he was spirited away to Malaya by his uncle to escape
the advent of Communism. Koo's father, a doctor and kung fu exponent, was
shot to death by the Reds. Of six sons and a daughter, Koo was the only
one in his family who managed to flee to Malaya. He grew up in Ipoh, under
the guidance of his uncle, a Christian missionary.
At 16, Koo kept his appointment with fate when Japan invaded Malaya. The
atrocities and killings compelled the adolescent to enter the jungle and
join the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army. His association with the
fighting men drew him into the company of the Communists.
From them and others, he learned the ways of the jungle and the tactics
of the Reds which would serve him well in later years. At 18, Koo was
enlisted in the famous Force 136 as a translator because of his
proficiency in English.
After the war, Koo drifted into several jobs, including one as a
bartender in a certain Yum Yum Cabaret. When the Communists returned to
the jungle, Koo was asked to join them but he refused. Instead, he lent a
hand to a new village resettlement programme in Negri Sembilan.
His decision upset the Communists who knew only too well their former
colleague's abilities. They signed his death warrant. Thereafter, Koo was
constantly on the lookout for assassins. Once, Koo managed to escape a
bomb attempt on his life at a dance hall.
By 1950, after much persuasion from his loved ones and friends, Koo took
up an opportunity to begin life anew and in safety in Sarawak. Two years
later, he joined the Sarawak police.
It was in the jungles of Sarawak that Koo was truly in his element. His
previous fighting skills and jungle survival knowledge came in handy. Very
quickly, he earned the reputation of being a highly respected police
officer.
In 1963, he was offered the top post in the Sarawak Special Branch. For
personal reasons, he declined. However, a year later he was again asked to
take up the position. This time, he did not refuse.
Koo's record of successes against the Communists catapulted him to
prominence and galvanised the Communists' efforts to get rid of him. In
1975, Koo's rendezvous with destiny could no longer be postponed. He was
asked to head the police force in Perak. He accepted even though he knew
the risks to his life were much greater once he was back in the peninsula.
A few months before he was gunned down, Koo took a holiday in Thailand,
where a blind man foretold that there was a mark of death in his family.
On Nov 14, 1975, two assassins dressed in school uniform, on a motorcycle,
rode alongside Koo's car in Ashby Road and shot him and his driver to
death.
This biographical account has gaps that can never be filled - for
security reasons. Like Koo's covert activities in Sarawak, including a
mission to Vietnam in 1967.
The book also refrains from telling in detail what transpired in the
early years of Koo's police career, his involvement in psychological
warfare and counter-intelligence. Those dark corridors are closed to
public scrutiny.
Because many of Koo's significant achievements in the interest of
national security are undisclosed, this biography is incomplete. On this
basis, and only on this basis, the book does not do justice to Koo Chong
Kong.
Put together by his granddaughters, it is more a commemoration of the
20th anniversary of his passing. Done "over two summer holidays", it is,
in its simple and unprofessional way, nothing more than the authors'
expression of appreciation of their grandfather's achievements as one of
Malaysia's most decorated police officers
BRIGHT Legacy. Undoubtedly an unusual title for a biography. Quickly, the
book reveals it is actually an English translation of the name Koo Chong
Kong. A name many of my contemporaries have not forgotten. For me,
particularly unforgettable because Koo's assassination took place near my
home in Greentown, Ipoh, and my nextdoor neighbour witnessed the incident.
I still remember my neighbour rushing over excitedly to our house and
almost breathlessly describing the sounds of gunshot and confusion. He was
about four cars behind when the assailants, after killing Koo, dragged out
Koo's driver, dumped him on the road divider and shot him repeatedly.
This book, according to the foreword by Professor Khoo Kay Kim, is a
record and not a study of one of the country's top cops. In fairness to
it, the book must be read in this light; otherwise, the reader may be
dissatisfied.
From the public records of his career, Koo was a born leader, an
uncommon man with extraordinary achievements. What is remarkable even
today is how little is known about his contributions to the country during
the Emergency and the confrontation with Indonesia.
Born in Xun Wu in the province of Jiangxi, China, in 1925, Koo was about
two years old when he was spirited away to Malaya by his uncle to escape
the advent of Communism. Koo's father, a doctor and kung fu exponent, was
shot to death by the Reds. Of six sons and a daughter, Koo was the only
one in his family who managed to flee to Malaya. He grew up in Ipoh, under
the guidance of his uncle, a Christian missionary.
At 16, Koo kept his appointment with fate when Japan invaded Malaya. The
atrocities and killings compelled the adolescent to enter the jungle and
join the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army. His association with the
fighting men drew him into the company of the Communists.
From them and others, he learned the ways of the jungle and the tactics
of the Reds which would serve him well in later years. At 18, Koo was
enlisted in the famous Force 136 as a translator because of his
proficiency in English.
After the war, Koo drifted into several jobs, including one as a
bartender in a certain Yum Yum Cabaret. When the Communists returned to
the jungle, Koo was asked to join them but he refused. Instead, he lent a
hand to a new village resettlement programme in Negri Sembilan.
His decision upset the Communists who knew only too well their former
colleague's abilities. They signed his death warrant. Thereafter, Koo was
constantly on the lookout for assassins. Once, Koo managed to escape a
bomb attempt on his life at a dance hall.
By 1950, after much persuasion from his loved ones and friends, Koo took
up an opportunity to begin life anew and in safety in Sarawak. Two years
later, he joined the Sarawak police.
It was in the jungles of Sarawak that Koo was truly in his element. His
previous fighting skills and jungle survival knowledge came in handy. Very
quickly, he earned the reputation of being a highly respected police
officer.
In 1963, he was offered the top post in the Sarawak Special Branch. For
personal reasons, he declined. However, a year later he was again asked to
take up the position. This time, he did not refuse.
Koo's record of successes against the Communists catapulted him to
prominence and galvanised the Communists' efforts to get rid of him. In
1975, Koo's rendezvous with destiny could no longer be postponed. He was
asked to head the police force in Perak. He accepted even though he knew
the risks to his life were much greater once he was back in the peninsula.
A few months before he was gunned down, Koo took a holiday in Thailand,
where a blind man foretold that there was a mark of death in his family.
On Nov 14, 1975, two assassins dressed in school uniform, on a motorcycle,
rode alongside Koo's car in Ashby Road and shot him and his driver to
death.
This biographical account has gaps that can never be filled - for
security reasons. Like Koo's covert activities in Sarawak, including a
mission to Vietnam in 1967.
The book also refrains from telling in detail what transpired in the
early years of Koo's police career, his involvement in psychological
warfare and counter-intelligence. Those dark corridors are closed to
public scrutiny.
Because many of Koo's significant achievements in the interest of
national security are undisclosed, this biography is incomplete. On this
basis, and only on this basis, the book does not do justice to Koo Chong
Kong.
Put together by his granddaughters, it is more a commemoration of the
20th anniversary of his passing. Done "over two summer holidays", it is,
in its simple and unprofessional way, nothing more than the authors'
expression of appreciation of their grandfather's achievements as one of
Malaysia's most decorated police officers
Zen and the Way of the Sword by Winston King
AN enormous number of people are fascinated by the Samurai sword and the stories about the sword. A man of letters, if I may, has now penned his deep thoughts about a subject which is close to his heart.
MANY people from different boundaries and cultures have written about Zen.
Much has been expounded and elaborated on this Eastern philosophy and
religion. Zen & The Way of the Sword, adds to the collection of centuries
of written text.
The title is as intriguing as it is interesting. Winston King, Professor
Emeritus of Vanderbilt University, has made a courageous attempt to cut
across centuries of samurai history in the Land of the Rising Sun to
enlighten and delight.
For those who shy away from and shun all that is martial arts, this book
will be as interesting as staring at an austere Japanese Zen garden from
dawn till dusk. For the limited numbers whose lives revolve around the
dojos and who ponder over the forgotten texts of martial arts, King's work
shines like a torch into some of those nooks and crannies of a Zen temple
which would have otherwise eluded most of its visitors.
For centuries, the samurai has been very much a misunderstood warrior
and swordsman to those outside the country of the cherry blossom. King
traces the birth of this philosophy/religion to its source, and that is
Tao (Way of Heaven). There is a samurai maxim which says: "A man who has
attained mastery of an art reveals it in his every action." Another
states: "To know and to act is one and the same."
With those ancient sayings, the gate opens. References like Koan
(statement/saying), Hagakure (18th Century text on samurai code), Bujutsu
(martial skills), Giri (Duty), Bushido (Way of the Warrior), and Kamikaze
(Divine Wind), among others, abound as one plods steadily from page to
page.
King quotes extensively from D.T. Suzuki who "opened" Western eyes to
Zen in his classic text, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, in 1949.
Consider Suzuki's explanation: "Zen finds an inexpressibly deep thought
even in holding up a finger, or in saying `good morning' to a friend. Zen
is mystical. Zen is provocatively evasive. In the eye of Zen, the most
practical is the most abstruse, or vice versa."
It is no easy task to catch a glimpse of that willow tree on a cold
misty morning, but King has clearly managed to spot a couple of willow
leaves.
To understand the samurai is to first learn about Zen. From the annals
of ancient Edo come legendary swordsmen like Yagyu Muneyoshi (founder of
the Sword of No Sword technique), Tesshu Yamaoka (swordsman/Zen disciple),
Sasaki Kojiro (founder of the Ganryu School of Swordsmanship), and
Miyamoto Musashi (samurai-monk, author of A Book of Five Rings). All these
names may sound as foreign as karate to a tribesman living deep in the
Amazon jungle but the path of Zen has been marked significantly by these
swordsmen in the hallowed halls of Japan's history and inspired followers
right up to the present day.
To aid the reader in understanding some intricate sword-fighting
techniques, King has added pages of graphics to illustrate his points. A
map of a Shogun's castle and drawings of fighting scenes serve to capture
the realism of circumstances.
The "soul" of the samurai, which is the katana (long sword), has its
origins unravelled by King's meticulous research. Drawings educate the
novice on the types of blades. In the hands of a master swordsmith, a work
of art and a superior killing weapon can emerge from a different mix of
metals subjected to a specified number of foldings during forging.
Added to this, detailed descriptions of the various heat patterns of the
cutting edge will surely fire the imagination of an interested party.
These steel legacies of ancient Japan are still prized as priceless
treasures today.
Just as the katana is the symbol of Japan and its culture, Zen embodies
the samurai psyche and what is believed to have been passed on to present
generations of samurai descendants. The sword, the martial arts and the
elusive, all-encompassing Zen personify the samurai, King covers all these
aspects and throws in the ronin (masterless samurai), the Shogun and the
wandering swordsmen for good measure.
Armed with this spirit of samurai, Japan sought to impose its political
will across a wide swath of Asian nations in those terror years of the
1940s. It was the slogan inherited from centuries of militaristic regimes
- "never live to be humiliated as a prisoner of war" - that drove
thousands to fight to the death on the sands of Iwo Jima, Okinawa and
Saipan towards the end of World War II. The book explains to some extent
the tragic phenomenon of Japanese citizens leaping to their death together
with their families rather than risk the shame of being captured as
prisoners of war.
It also illustrates splendidly the samurai spirit that raised Japan from
the ashes of defeat to the ranks of an economic superpower 30 years later.
This book's excellence as an academic study and documental contribution
is beyond doubt. However, to fully comprehend the samurai psyche, perhaps
it would be wise to delve into the pages of Yukio Mishima's book Sun and
Steel as well.
Mishima (there's a passing mention of him by King), one of Japan's most
gifted writers, was a fervent follower of Hagakure, the Code of the
Samurai. He lived as he died - a samurai. In November 1970, Mishima
performed seppuku (self-disembowelment) and was promptly beheaded by a
kaishaku (final beheader) as the ancient suicide ritual demands.
Mishima will fill the gaps left by King, who has not been able to
penetrate the Zen domain exclusive to Japanese of the samurai class. Sun
and Steel is Mishima's autobiography and epitaph. In it, he gives an
explicit account of his fascination with pain and death. King reinforces
this point whereby the samurai lives basically for two purposes: to serve
his master at all and any cost, and to always be prepared to die at any
moment with the greatest of dignity as befits the warrior class.
Besides mentioning Mishima in Zen and the Way of the Sword, King also
draws heavily from records about Miyamoto Musashi, the swordsman of
swordsmen. Musashi's reputedly dishevelled and unkempt appearance has
spawned many a popular Japanese samurai movie in recent decades. His
classic, A Book of Five Rings (1645), was credited with giving modern
Japanese entrepreneurs the competitive edge with its ancient strategies
over rival nations. The book will fill another gap in the massive jigsaw
of facets that forms the samurai.
Zen and the Way of the Sword should find avid readers in martial arts
exponents and those whose favourite pastime is walking through the dojo
with the ghost of the samurai. King slashes, cleaves and stabs his way
from the 13th through to the 20th Century in his search for the "holy
grail" of the samurai.
It is a commendable effort. In his quest, he may not have quite attained
kensho (awakening) or satori (realisation) as a Zen master would have, but
for brief moments, he comes pretty close.
MANY people from different boundaries and cultures have written about Zen.
Much has been expounded and elaborated on this Eastern philosophy and
religion. Zen & The Way of the Sword, adds to the collection of centuries
of written text.
The title is as intriguing as it is interesting. Winston King, Professor
Emeritus of Vanderbilt University, has made a courageous attempt to cut
across centuries of samurai history in the Land of the Rising Sun to
enlighten and delight.
For those who shy away from and shun all that is martial arts, this book
will be as interesting as staring at an austere Japanese Zen garden from
dawn till dusk. For the limited numbers whose lives revolve around the
dojos and who ponder over the forgotten texts of martial arts, King's work
shines like a torch into some of those nooks and crannies of a Zen temple
which would have otherwise eluded most of its visitors.
For centuries, the samurai has been very much a misunderstood warrior
and swordsman to those outside the country of the cherry blossom. King
traces the birth of this philosophy/religion to its source, and that is
Tao (Way of Heaven). There is a samurai maxim which says: "A man who has
attained mastery of an art reveals it in his every action." Another
states: "To know and to act is one and the same."
With those ancient sayings, the gate opens. References like Koan
(statement/saying), Hagakure (18th Century text on samurai code), Bujutsu
(martial skills), Giri (Duty), Bushido (Way of the Warrior), and Kamikaze
(Divine Wind), among others, abound as one plods steadily from page to
page.
King quotes extensively from D.T. Suzuki who "opened" Western eyes to
Zen in his classic text, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, in 1949.
Consider Suzuki's explanation: "Zen finds an inexpressibly deep thought
even in holding up a finger, or in saying `good morning' to a friend. Zen
is mystical. Zen is provocatively evasive. In the eye of Zen, the most
practical is the most abstruse, or vice versa."
It is no easy task to catch a glimpse of that willow tree on a cold
misty morning, but King has clearly managed to spot a couple of willow
leaves.
To understand the samurai is to first learn about Zen. From the annals
of ancient Edo come legendary swordsmen like Yagyu Muneyoshi (founder of
the Sword of No Sword technique), Tesshu Yamaoka (swordsman/Zen disciple),
Sasaki Kojiro (founder of the Ganryu School of Swordsmanship), and
Miyamoto Musashi (samurai-monk, author of A Book of Five Rings). All these
names may sound as foreign as karate to a tribesman living deep in the
Amazon jungle but the path of Zen has been marked significantly by these
swordsmen in the hallowed halls of Japan's history and inspired followers
right up to the present day.
To aid the reader in understanding some intricate sword-fighting
techniques, King has added pages of graphics to illustrate his points. A
map of a Shogun's castle and drawings of fighting scenes serve to capture
the realism of circumstances.
The "soul" of the samurai, which is the katana (long sword), has its
origins unravelled by King's meticulous research. Drawings educate the
novice on the types of blades. In the hands of a master swordsmith, a work
of art and a superior killing weapon can emerge from a different mix of
metals subjected to a specified number of foldings during forging.
Added to this, detailed descriptions of the various heat patterns of the
cutting edge will surely fire the imagination of an interested party.
These steel legacies of ancient Japan are still prized as priceless
treasures today.
Just as the katana is the symbol of Japan and its culture, Zen embodies
the samurai psyche and what is believed to have been passed on to present
generations of samurai descendants. The sword, the martial arts and the
elusive, all-encompassing Zen personify the samurai, King covers all these
aspects and throws in the ronin (masterless samurai), the Shogun and the
wandering swordsmen for good measure.
Armed with this spirit of samurai, Japan sought to impose its political
will across a wide swath of Asian nations in those terror years of the
1940s. It was the slogan inherited from centuries of militaristic regimes
- "never live to be humiliated as a prisoner of war" - that drove
thousands to fight to the death on the sands of Iwo Jima, Okinawa and
Saipan towards the end of World War II. The book explains to some extent
the tragic phenomenon of Japanese citizens leaping to their death together
with their families rather than risk the shame of being captured as
prisoners of war.
It also illustrates splendidly the samurai spirit that raised Japan from
the ashes of defeat to the ranks of an economic superpower 30 years later.
This book's excellence as an academic study and documental contribution
is beyond doubt. However, to fully comprehend the samurai psyche, perhaps
it would be wise to delve into the pages of Yukio Mishima's book Sun and
Steel as well.
Mishima (there's a passing mention of him by King), one of Japan's most
gifted writers, was a fervent follower of Hagakure, the Code of the
Samurai. He lived as he died - a samurai. In November 1970, Mishima
performed seppuku (self-disembowelment) and was promptly beheaded by a
kaishaku (final beheader) as the ancient suicide ritual demands.
Mishima will fill the gaps left by King, who has not been able to
penetrate the Zen domain exclusive to Japanese of the samurai class. Sun
and Steel is Mishima's autobiography and epitaph. In it, he gives an
explicit account of his fascination with pain and death. King reinforces
this point whereby the samurai lives basically for two purposes: to serve
his master at all and any cost, and to always be prepared to die at any
moment with the greatest of dignity as befits the warrior class.
Besides mentioning Mishima in Zen and the Way of the Sword, King also
draws heavily from records about Miyamoto Musashi, the swordsman of
swordsmen. Musashi's reputedly dishevelled and unkempt appearance has
spawned many a popular Japanese samurai movie in recent decades. His
classic, A Book of Five Rings (1645), was credited with giving modern
Japanese entrepreneurs the competitive edge with its ancient strategies
over rival nations. The book will fill another gap in the massive jigsaw
of facets that forms the samurai.
Zen and the Way of the Sword should find avid readers in martial arts
exponents and those whose favourite pastime is walking through the dojo
with the ghost of the samurai. King slashes, cleaves and stabs his way
from the 13th through to the 20th Century in his search for the "holy
grail" of the samurai.
It is a commendable effort. In his quest, he may not have quite attained
kensho (awakening) or satori (realisation) as a Zen master would have, but
for brief moments, he comes pretty close.
THE INSTANT MILLIONAIRE by Mark Fisher
A MILLION bucks is a dream common among almost everybody still alive on earth but being rich is a term that is clothed in fabrics of different hues. Here's a story that will not boost your bank account but it will give you more value than money.
WHO doesn't want to be a millionaire? Probably only two types of people -
the saintly and the insane. So The Instant Millionaire should appeal to
most of us who belong to the materialistic majority.
This little book, by normal standards, is full of surprises. At first
glance, it is nondescript. At the end of a two-hour reading, the old
cliche of "never judge a book by its cover" haunts one humbled reader.
Simply, it is a book on how to attain wealth. But it is told like an
enchanting story, beginning with a young man who meets an old gardener in
a rose garden. This appointment with destiny propels the subject, an
assistant to an account executive in a second-rate advertising firm, into
a labyrinth of self-analysis. It also shows him the power of the word.
What separates author Mark Fisher's story from most others which
occasionally come with charts and detailed fill-in-the-blanks exercises is
its simplicity. The lessons are marked by several twists and turns, and
climax in a meeting with Death. Death, dealt with metaphorically, erases
all of subject's self-doubts and clears the way for him to see that
distant but attainable pot of gold.
Fisher's tale reminds me of Og Mandino, author of the Greatest Salesman
in the World series. The lessons, in Mandino's books as in Fisher's, are
deceptively simple, almost like Aesop's fables.
The famous line from the famous physician Emile Coue, "Every day, in
Every Way, I am getting Better and Better", is presented in large print at
the beginning of the book. Passing references are also made to to Edgar
Allan Poe, Emerson, and the divine. For those who may feel a bit uneasy
with regard to the last, skip this book. The road to riches is clearly not
for existentialists. The same goes for religious fanatics. Fisher's
contribution is for those who know it is not sinful to want to be rich,
and to stay that way.
In fact, it is a testament to a universal calling, albeit often ignored,
that the right way to prosperity is through an individual's biggest
contribution to the nation's productivity.
To reveal the secrets in this book here is tantamount to exposing David
Copperfield's secret of making the Statue of Liberty disappear.
Conventional wisdom dictates that this shall not be done.
Read the book for yourself and get a swift introduction to the instant
millionaire. Yes, there is a secret formula. And if you are found worthy,
you too can be the next candidate for prosperity.
WHO doesn't want to be a millionaire? Probably only two types of people -
the saintly and the insane. So The Instant Millionaire should appeal to
most of us who belong to the materialistic majority.
This little book, by normal standards, is full of surprises. At first
glance, it is nondescript. At the end of a two-hour reading, the old
cliche of "never judge a book by its cover" haunts one humbled reader.
Simply, it is a book on how to attain wealth. But it is told like an
enchanting story, beginning with a young man who meets an old gardener in
a rose garden. This appointment with destiny propels the subject, an
assistant to an account executive in a second-rate advertising firm, into
a labyrinth of self-analysis. It also shows him the power of the word.
What separates author Mark Fisher's story from most others which
occasionally come with charts and detailed fill-in-the-blanks exercises is
its simplicity. The lessons are marked by several twists and turns, and
climax in a meeting with Death. Death, dealt with metaphorically, erases
all of subject's self-doubts and clears the way for him to see that
distant but attainable pot of gold.
Fisher's tale reminds me of Og Mandino, author of the Greatest Salesman
in the World series. The lessons, in Mandino's books as in Fisher's, are
deceptively simple, almost like Aesop's fables.
The famous line from the famous physician Emile Coue, "Every day, in
Every Way, I am getting Better and Better", is presented in large print at
the beginning of the book. Passing references are also made to to Edgar
Allan Poe, Emerson, and the divine. For those who may feel a bit uneasy
with regard to the last, skip this book. The road to riches is clearly not
for existentialists. The same goes for religious fanatics. Fisher's
contribution is for those who know it is not sinful to want to be rich,
and to stay that way.
In fact, it is a testament to a universal calling, albeit often ignored,
that the right way to prosperity is through an individual's biggest
contribution to the nation's productivity.
To reveal the secrets in this book here is tantamount to exposing David
Copperfield's secret of making the Statue of Liberty disappear.
Conventional wisdom dictates that this shall not be done.
Read the book for yourself and get a swift introduction to the instant
millionaire. Yes, there is a secret formula. And if you are found worthy,
you too can be the next candidate for prosperity.
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