Moment of signal by Sreedhar Bevara | Book Review

Wealth and success are almost universal desires. All of us, no matter where we start from, would like to give our family a good quality of life, and although money isn’t everything in life, it can go a long way towards creating a healthy home and comfortable lifestyle, not to mention open doors to opportunities of advancement. Hence, it is worthwhile to understand our own potential and maximize it in our professional lives in order to achieve the goals we aim for.

There are a lot of books out there that I call moral boosters – they talk about hard-working people who beat odds through their perseverance and positive attitude. A fair segment of these books talk about the corporate world and how to navigate this modern jungle such that you can carve a space for yourself. These books can be very informative and educational. Recently, we got a chance to read Sreedhar Bevara‘s book Moment of Signal, and here are my thoughts on it on behalf of Team Thinkerviews.

We are grateful to Fingerprint Publishing for providing a copy of this book for our unbiased review.

Book Cover:

In the world filled with millions of books, the coverpage needs to be attractive enough to turn a browser into a buyer.

Designed by a professional, the cover page is impressive, and does an effective job of converting the tagline of the book – How being alert to signals can change your life and make you a better leader – into an image showing a multitude of closed hands with one person clearly going for the front and central leadership. With its clean and bright background with a destination at centre, it creates in inviting space for the browsers. And if you are from the world of management, there are some impressive names right on the front to show you the book’s appeal to the leaders.

This book is very neatly composed and takes us through various aspects of management and leadership through ten chapters.

Starting with an explanation of the concept of MoS (Moment of Signal) in the first chapter, the book goes through Motive & Efforts, Approach, Decision making, Communication, Actions and finally talks at length about people and leadership through last four chapters.

Each chapter is divided into sub-topics right at the beginning, to give you a clear idea of what is the content of the chapter and how it is organized. For example, Chapter 1 is divided into:

1.1 How is MoS relevant?
1.2 Leaders & MoS – Impact of Environment
1.3 Unlock to Conquer
1.4 Pilot Seat & Anticipation
1.5 TAPE Theory
1.6 The Passion key

Furthermore, each sub-topic may be divided into small segments with a clear heading, depending upon its vastness and complexity, thus allowing the reader to peruse small portions if they prefer.

As you can see, the book also includes acronyms and theories created by the author – take the TAPE theory above – it stands for Talent, Approach, Potential, and Environment. Thus, all throughout the book, the author brings together the characteristics of a person with his/her environment to explain how we can be more alert towards signals and convert opportunities into success.

The book also contains relevant anecdotes and personal experience stories of the author, which add a real-life dimension to the theories contained here. The author’s admiration for great leaders comes through as he talks about various aspects of leadership at length to conclude with how being alert to MoS can increase the chances of favourable outcomes in life.

It is not very easy to make a work of non-fiction palatable, or light or entertaining. As it is heavy on content, it needs to retain certain logic and gravitas.

In my opinion, Mr. Sreedhar Bevara has done a very good job of balancing, such that reading this book doesn’t become work at any point. By dividing the content into logical and orderly sections and inserting episodes and references from personal life, the author gives us a context to place all the learning into perspective. Although the title sounds almost spiritual, the author makes the connection to the real life very well:

The most primary objective of MoS sense is not guaranteeing a successful outcome. It is more to do with reducing the possibility of any negative outcome.

Our lives are not a single moment, but an accumulation of everything we have experienced so far. We comment very often on how people change, and this change is usually not a work of one moment. But as we grow, meet new people, build relationships, gain experiences, all of these factors play a role in changing us on an almost continual basis. However, when you look back, some moments will stand out as “the moment” when a big change started. That is probably the closest to MoS, and if you develop a sense for recognising such a moment when it is about to happen, rather than looking back, you could shape your life as per your dreams, rather than just going with the flow. As the book says:

Today is neither an accident nor a mere occurrence. It is a combination of both the past and present which seeds the future. It is here ‘NOW’. Living in the moment means being conscious, being aware, and embracing the present with all your senses.
— — — — — —
Staying alert or paying attention to Moments of Signal is an approach that can help unravel the challenges and difficulties of tomorrow before they come to pass.

So, just by being aware, can you stop the change, or alter the outcome? – Not necessarily. Everything in life takes a bit of hard work, mental preparedness, readiness to embrace challenges, and achieve excellence in whatever you do:

Hard work is a combination of the right approach, planning, management of available resources, execution, and repetition, as the situation demands.
— — — — — —
Excellence is a habit.

And very importantly:

Your mindset isn’t an instant choice but a culmination of several experiences over a period of time.

So if you have invested in continuously journeying towards the betterment of yourself, surely success will come your way. But more importantly, when life throws challenges at you, you’ll not be frightened, because:

Struggle and pain are nature’s way of teaching us profound life lesions

You’ll have the necessary awareness and tools to withstand the difficulties with courage, knowledge and grace:

The MoS approach helps you to stay practical in adversity, with a wide view on both limitations and strengths.
— — — — — —
True grace is measured in adversity.

Why grace? We all occasionally tend to blame the external factors when things seem to go out of control in our life, but if we take a moment to reflect:

Results are neither a coincidence nor a surprise. It is just combination of – Choices and Actions.

Just like we have learned from Shree Krishna that all our actions are bound to have consequences, and if we thought a little ahead about the possible consequences, maybe some of our actions will be different and lead to different outcomes. There are many such gems in this book which show you how you can make a world of difference in your life.

A significant portion of the book is devoted to leadership and various aspects of it, both positive and negative. In a nutshell, the art of leadership is built on the following pillars:

People before personal agendas
Putting yourself in other’s shoes when advising them
Greatness lies in being humble to junior people.

The author talks at length about what it takes to become a great leader (Approach, Flair, Efforts, and Confidence), or how the leadership is transient and even great leaders become irrelevant with time. Saying that, it is still something to be aspired for and by being a great leader, you could make a huge difference in so many people’s lives.

All throughout the book, I was impressed by the positive message and humbleness of the author as he shares his learning experiences. Coming from a very poor background, Sreedhar Bevara himself has created a successful career for himself, and I am sure that every reader will find something that appeals to them in this book. After all,

Knowing oneself is key to growth.

And if we focus, train and adapt, we can direct our careers and lives to just where we want to go.

Summary:

A recommended read for all lovers of management principles and life lessons.

Quick Purchase Links:

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

Over To You:

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