Gerald D'Cunha

“Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.” Norman Vincent Peale   I was lucky to have found at a young age, among many other authors, these three self-help authors: Napolean Hill, Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale. All three of them were dead by the time I picked their books – sometime in 1979-1980 – on the footpaths of Bombay (It hadn’t become Mumbai yet). The copies I had picked on the footpaths were over-used copies… And, because I was jobless and restlessly dreaming to find my way in this big city – where I wandered as a stranger – the ‘How-to books’ came very handy for me… I needed the inspiration very, very badly – and quickly. Yes, I was lucky to get it when my heart and mind were hungry for it… It's about forty-five years since then… I found my way, thanks the self-help philosophy. But, despite being massively influenced by Napoleon Hill’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’, I haven’t amassed wealth in all these years. I will b...

  “Don’t let the Joneses dictate your life. Their happiness might not be what you need.” Unknown   R ecently, during one of our PD (Personality Development) sessions, I was explaining to the young participants the meaning of the phrase ‘Some Things In Life Don’t Move’. I had decided to keep this as the title for the forthcoming book. The book was about Values in life… How some of our Values guided us just as lighthouses did for ships sailing in the seas… There was a young boy by the name Vihaan. I had taught his mother, uncles and aunts 35 years ago, when I had just started my classes at this place. Their family dealt in furniture, and I   had bought five moulded chairs from them. Suddenly, I looked at 16-year-old Vihaan and said to him, pointing at the chair I was sitting on, “ Beta, do you know how old this chair is?” Vihaan was clueless. I looked at the class and said, “I had bought it from Vihaan’s family store 35 years ago. I had bought five chairs. I st...

  “Lord, we don’t need another mountain, there are mountains and hillsides enough to climb; there are oceans and rivers enough to cross, enough to last till the end of time.” (From the song ‘What the World Needs now’ written by Hal David and composed by Bart Bacharach)     F or several years, during our Public Speaking sessions, I used to ask young kids to speak on the topic – ‘What Success Means to Me?’. This was before the Google surfaced… and, the idea of AI was out of anybody’s imagination. Well, I say this, because, our young kids had to rely upon their own mind to tell what Success really meant to them… Means, what they thought, not what Google or AI thought. Maybe, some of them sought help from their parents or teachers… That’s about it. But, they all did speak on the topic – ‘What Success Means to Me?’. Now, after several years, these kids are grown-up to be ‘successful’ men and women… They are busy with their lives - family, business, profession o...

  “People, who advocate simplicity, have money in the bank.  Money came first, not the simplicity.” Douglas Coupland   A t the outset, let me confess: I do not have money in the bank; but, I still advocate simplicity. A lot of money in the bank, or a little in the bank, or nothing in the bank… I wonder, if these conditions have anything to do with ‘simplicity’… Simplicity in living, always, is subjective. It is a conscious choice we make to live our lives… flashy, less flashy, or simply ordinary. When I grew up, I felt deprived of money. Like any young man, coming from a family like mine, I, too, desired to make money when I grew up. Napolean Hill’s book, ‘Think and Grow Rich’ became my Bible for growing financially. I had acquired the traditional tools to grow rich, and, they were, really, effective… But, then, one thing I clearly noticed along this route: at no point of time – irrespective of the size of my bank balance – I, always, remained ‘poor’ in my m...

  “When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don’t take are snuffed out like candles as if they’d never existed.” Philip Pullman   I was talking to a friend of mine, last afternoon. He is slightly younger than I am. He hailed from a very humble South Indian family and had to go through a lot of hardships to complete his education. Being very focused and determined, he completed his Chartered Accountancy in his first attempt. It was time to make the crucial choice: to accept the best offer for a well-paying job, or to set up his own Chartered Accountancy firm from the scratch… My friend chose the latter. With that choice came the endless struggle to make his way up! My friend and I, both, started our respective careers almost simultaneously; and our journeys, of being self-employed professionals, very much resembled. Idealism, dynamism, simplicity, loyalty, commitment, hard-work, passion – everything seemed similar. The kind of households we both came f...

    “Someone is sitting in the shade today, because, someone planted a tree a long time ago.” Warren Buffet     O ne of the most-visible side-effects of this virus-infected Pandemic is, that more and more people – particularly the young ones – have suddenly become aware of money-matters. What, traditionally, was called ‘Financial Literacy’. A young man or a woman rarely cared much about the future. That age was the age of reckless spending… to live life as if there is no tomorrow. At least, a large section of young people loved to live life this way. King-size! But, now, as the jobs and businesses have been hit hard by the Pandemic and the flow of income has either dried up or dwindled, I get to see lots of young men and women become money-alert. I get to hear from many of them the famous words of Warren Buffet: “If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you’ll work until you die.” Well, let’s mull over those words, once again… I don’t think, War...