Finding The Magic in You by Shivam | Book Reviews

Recently we came across a few books which fall in how-to, motivational and inspirational zone. Some of them are:

• How to Publish a Book in the East That You Can Sell in the West by Kim Staflund | Book Reviews
• Stuck in the Middle?: Let’s break the middle class dilemma! by Praveen Tiwari | Book Reviews
• Clarity is the only Spirituality by Susunaga Weeraperuma
• Stepping Stones: Taking Towards the Goal by Lubhna Dongre
• Infin-Eight by Prajeet Budhale | Book Reviews
• Make the Best of Your Life: Letters to Bahujan Youth by Prabhu Guptara
• The radically changing nature of Work, Workers & Workplaces by Parthajeet Sarma

And yes, you can of course read our articles about various Commencement Speeches, where we found some of the interesting life lessons to learn.

Let us take a look at the book cover.

As you can see the cover page background gives you an impression of a modern art. And, the book title looks decent. Actually, the background color of the title is dull red and it gives an impression of having a different layer or different page on the cover page. So, the design team seems to have worked moderately in designing an interesting cover. It is not very eye catcher and attractive, but at the same time, it makes its presence felt. I can consider it as “above average” cover design.

The book is written in the first person. The book starts in an interesting way. Actually, the author takes you to some of his childhood days. For everyone, the childhood days are possibly one of the most memorable parts of their lives. They decide the course of life to a certain extent. The author mentions that a flying aircraft was looking like a magic to him during those days! And, many of us might have felt it that way. The author then mentions that he thought how anything heavier than the air can fly in the air! Well, this seems to be stretched statement. Because when you think flying is a magical thing, you cannot be so sure about the weight of the object and so, it was a statement by a famous scientist who ruled away the possibility of having flying aircraft. However, rather than sticking to the words, let us focus on the message he wanted to convey. Actually, through an illustration of an aircraft, he represents the points where the “magic” happens.

Then he goes into details and now, most of you are aware with the concept of lift and thrust (at least a little) which makes a plane able to fly; you can understand the things easily.

Writing a self-help book is rather a little more challenging work. Of course, each and every genre has its own challenges. While writing a self-help/inspirational/motivational book, one needs to convey a lot of wisdom message, but in an interesting manner. It is quite easy to make such books informative but boring. The author needs to be extra careful to write it in a way that it can keep the reader’s interest intact. And, Shivam does the job convincingly.

While I cannot give away all the lessons from the book, let me share some of the pieces of writing which I really liked:

Once you develop the habit of thinking, everything else will start making sense. You would know what to do with your life, and you would know to live your life with contentment while growing at the same time.

While the above-mentioned piece of writing looks like an obvious advice about we need to do in our lives, it actually is no. We have experienced many situations when we acted before thinking. Sometimes its mere reaction to someone’s actions, sometimes we are not in the best state of the mind when we did what we did. We need to calm down and take enough time to think before we act, and yes, we cannot take it forever, because life itself is limited.

while thinking is really important overthinking is dangerous.

The problem with overthinking is that we often tend to assume the worst while the reality is often not as harsh.

The most important thing, the growing kids and especially the youth need to remember is, it is necessary to accept the defeat! Yes, the life and world are not fair always. And, even if it is, sometimes, someone might have done much better than you.

You could be the most beautiful flower on this planet, and there would be a person allergic to flowers.

Life is not a race where winning is the sole goal of all the participants. And, there may be any of the reason but the other person has all the right to reject you or your proposal. The things may not go ahead in the way you thought, or planned, but so what? Life is all about living fully.

The following lines reminded me of the Harry Potter book (and the film too) where Prof. Dumbledore tells Harry about the happiness when he (Harry) developed a habit to sit for a long in front of the mirror, to see his parent, whom he never met!

The happiest person is the one who consistently chooses to see the reality as it is, and works on improving it to reach their goal.

No one in the world is complete. While we excel in some of the stuff, we might be bad at the others. But, even in order to improve, one needs to analyze him/herself objectively.

You need to accept yourself and be kind to yourself.

Acceptance is the key, if you are unable to accept yourself, then how can you expect others to?

The following lines about creativity are philosophical yet realistic:

… being creative is not about doing a set of things and automatically reaching there. It’s about letting yourself free.

Life is all about the choices we make. Sometimes it is better to let the things go. Remember Lord Krishna himself flew from Northen India and came to Dwarika at the west coast of India, for the greater good of the citizens of the kingdom. And he is praised for that, and even called “RanChhod”.

A smart man knows when to start, the smarter man knows when to quit.

When you are well within your comfort zone, you cannot expand your boundaries. The author conveys this very important life lessons through simple words:

You would see the change when you stop fearing discomfort and start taking steps to bring the much-needed transformation in your life.

I like the way the author put stress on constant learning. I like his sentence about education.

Education is a long term commitment to yourself.

You can summarize the book in these two lines:

Don’t try to find your happiness in any idealized perpetual state. It’s not there. It’s in the present moment. Live it and you will find genuine happiness.

The unique generals (exercises) given in the book are to work on. The book is not just for reading, and certainly not for the light reading or time pass. All the things mentioned in the book makes sense only when they are implemented. So if you are looking for something for entertainment purpose only, the book is not for you.

While the author started almost all the chapters with some real-life incidents; it could have been much better reading experience if he had tried including more real-life examples, especially the famous ones. Readers usually can relate to those things quite easily.

The book has some printing errors also:

How would I answer thepo[ question…
on page: 9

Summary:

If you are looking for a book with a substance and are willing to implement it, this book is a good choice. Not for light or timepass reading. It requires reader’s attention and involvement.

Around 7 out of 10 for interested readers.

Quick Purchase Links:

• Buy Book From Amazon India – Paperback Edition
• Buy Book From Amazon US – Paperback Edition
• Buy Book From Amazon India – Kindle EBook
• Buy Book From Amazon US – Kindle EBook

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