Gerald D'Cunha

  “There is a fellow by the name Rowan who will find Garcia for you, if anybody can.” Elbert Hubbard in his essay -  ‘A Message to Garcia’   D uring my initial days in this big city (Bombay, now Mumbai), I had picked many inspirational books on the city’s footpaths… Napolean Hill’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’ and ‘The Law of Success’, Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, ‘How to Stop Worrying and Start Living’, Norman Vincent Peale’s ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’ and many more had come to me from the footpaths… like at 5 bucks or 10 bucks. But, to tell you the truth (and it was inscribed on the front cover of ‘Think and Grow Rich’), each book was ‘worth a million dollar’ to me… I was hungry, not only in my stomach… I was hungry in my heart, too… As a pleasant bonus, Dale Carnegie had included three famous essays at the end of his book, ‘How to Stop Worrying and Start Living’. ‘As a Man thinketh’ by James Allan, ‘Acres of Diamond’ by Russell Co...

“The gods only go with you if you put yourself in their path. And that takes courage.” ―  Mary Stewart O ur strengths have nothing to do with our talents and skills. Strengths are our personal traits… something inbuilt in our system, as our strong characteristics… something unique and inseparable part of our personality. We may be exceptionally talented or skilled, but we may be found wanting in some simple human qualities like initiative, enthusiasm, patience, empathy, ability to adjust and accommodate, sharing and caring, being loyal, committed, focused, ability to say ‘sorry’, being genuinely humble and grateful… I can add another one dozen such simple human qualities, that make us not only fine humans, but, also, fine leaders. Yes, these are leadership qualities… and, our superiors – Teachers, Headmasters, Principals, and Bosses etc – quietly observe these qualities of ours and they, invariably, pick us up to be class monitors, school captain...