Striving towards Excellence

-Karthik Gurumurthy

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. – Dr. Seuss

It’s been said that leaders are readers. I agree. It’s one of the single greatest recommendations I can give to all leaders. It’s through the reading of books that your mind is awakened, your understanding is strengthened, and your knowledge is increased. Reading is one of the most productive leadership habits that you will develop. Have you read a good book lately?

I meet people all the time asking me to recommend books which they can read. The answer to them depends on their taste.

Today there is more to read than ever. Traditional and social news sites are filled up with the latest buzz stories repeated ad nauseam. One is pressed to keep up. Amid the endless competition to make headlines and build traffic there is no enduring value.

From time to time, I love to turn back to the classics, the old enduring books that have stood the test of time and retain their lustre. The common perception of old books is that they are antiquated and useless. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We believe, with out technology, that we have reinvented life. But that is not the case. The gadgets that surround us are minor details, the essence of life remains unchanged. It feels the same to be alive today as it did a thousand years ago. We are still lone souls confined to our thoughts, facing the same challenges.

Everything has it particular place. Old books cannot teach you how to effectively use your IPad or teach you coding a programming language. But they will teach how to live. They will teach out what it means to be human. They will give you a firm place to stand against the assault of common change. The wisdom of the greatest human minds passed down through centuries is our most reliable asset.

I am not alone in this opinion. I leave you with this passage from the immortal Albert Einstein.

Somebody who reads only newspapers and at best the books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely nearsighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else. And what a person thinks on his own without being stimulated by the thoughts and experiences of other people is even in the best case rather paltry and monotonous.

There are only a few enlightened people with a lucid mind and style and with good taste with a century. What has been preserved of their work belongs among the most precious possessions of mankind.

Nothing is more needed than to overcome the modernist’s snobbishness.

My favorite ones which I like to read once in few months are as follows:

• Self Reliance by  Ralph Waldo Emerson
• The art of living by Epictetus
• The Prophet by Khaleel Gibran
• Aldous Huxley essays
• Experience  by Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Ethics- Plato
• As a man thinketh by James Allen

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention"

- Sir Francis Bacon