The Five Books That Changed My Life in 2017

2017 is the most amazing year of my life so far. There were several ups and downs but I believed that I handled like a grown up woman as I felt like I was more matured than before. The reason I handled those things is none other than reading the good books and learning from those which I am going to write about. Here are the favorite picks from the books that I read in 2017. 

1.      Lean In

This is the first book that I read in 2017. It made me nothing but to take bigger challenge and believe in myself by wearing the high confidence as the daily makeup. I admit that Sheryl’s masterpiece gave me empowerment and huge encouragement. After reading that book, I tried to push myself harder and harder and focus on raising the bars. I reminded myself to stay real, say what I thought and do what I believed. This book changed my perception on women completely. I used to be so ashamed of crying at work when I was under huge pressure and large disappointment. But Sheryl admitted that she cried sometimes at work even she was holding COO position in Facebook. She is one of the most powerful women in the tech industry nowadays and she didn’t advise to hold back our emotion. I think I cried once at work by locking up myself in the meeting room after knowing a very disappointed news. Well, I just accept that this is normal to cry and release the hard emotion for a while. 

Secondly she advised to always say Yes to every new challenge. So, I tried to see every problem as a challenge and never used the words problem at work. Instead of saying “We have problem”, I said “We have a new challenge now”. That is really workable because it made everyone to see the positive outlook including me.

Then I have learned to aim higher and go further and get ready for bigger role. She even pointed out how women should help each other and do something that makes us scare a lot. So, if I was scared to do something inside my heart, I knew that that was the thing that I had to do. So, whatever I had new projects, creative idea, I asked myself if I was scared to do that or not. Once I felt I was scared, I decided to do it. This is one of the reasons that most of the projects that we have done in 2017 were unique and creative. 

I do thank for finding that book on the book store at Yangon airport when I was about to take the trip that would change my life forever.

                                 

2.     After The Darkness

This is written by Sidney Sheldon and it is a fiction. I liked his books “Rage of Angels” and others as his main characters are about strong, independent and badass women who made their way through the hell. “After The Darkness” is about a girl who was betrayed by her own husband, her family and her friends. She was put in jail for the things that she never committed. She called for help but no one seemed to be happy to help her. Her whole life was destroyed by the people she trusted. I liked to read the fact that the weak girl character changed to the strong character and the difficulties that she had conquered were more than my imagination. 

She didn’t know that she was married to fraud. Everyone was jealous of her luxury lifestyle.  She was too innocent, elegant, beautiful and stunning. But her life was changed after she was put into jail right after her husband’s sudden death by leaving the financial fraud on her.  But she broke the prison to make her husband’s name clear cos she loved him a lot and she always believed that her husband was innocent.

Well, life was not about what you thought and what you saw! It always had twist and turns that you would never understand. I never skipped a sheet and read the whole thing within three days. After I finished that book, I found that I was so in love with Grace who is the main character in the book. Once again Sidney Sheldon made me keep dreaming to be the writer as I wanted to write the books for strong female characters one day.

                                             

3.     Onward

This is about Starbucks and I really enjoyed reading Howard Schultz’s eagerness to put Starbucks on its right track after losing its own way.  What he said is “How Starbucks fought for its life without losing its soul”. I learned how Starbucks fell from their own ground by focusing too much on its own growth. 

 

Howard used to work in Starbucks as marketing head but he quit his job after seeing the different direction between his management and him. He founded a new company by his own and after a few years later, he had chance to buy Starbucks back. So, he bought it and make the brand as the international brand that we could see Starkbucks coffee shop almost everywhere but not in Myanmar yet. I can see his passion on Starbucks. I can learn its company culture. Truth to be told, reading this book makes me want to work in Starbucks.

His leadership inspires me in so many ways. This book is about how he came back as CEO again after his retirement to put the company on the right track, how he fought with several things to make the things that he truly believed in. I haven’t finished reading it but every chapter that I read so far made me motivated to realize I am following my passion too. 

What he said is we didn’t have to give upon something that we really love to do. So whenever I had difficulties, barriers, challenges, I asked myself if I wanted to give up on something that I truly loved. Every time the answer came out as NO, I decided not to give up on something that I really love to do. I was almost about to give up on something that I really loved, but “Onward” made me realize to stick to what I am doing now. 

4.     Option B

This book is written by Sheryl Sandberg again and this is about how she conquered her grief after she lost her husband suddenly. Coincidentally, I bought this book right after I had car crush. I was depressed and lost confidence after the accident. I couldn’t stop thinking that I could have died. As I realized that I lost confidence, I decided to travel alone to Ngapali and brought this book to read. It was so good to read chapter by chapter and I realized how to find happiness after losing something. 

As I was mentally broken down in the beginning of 2017, it was so hard for me to get it over. I was wandering around and hoping something miracle to happen. But nothing happened as I wished. This book reminded us we were the one who were responsible for our own happiness. So I tried to find my happiness on my own and it worked.

She admitted that her busy life could make her think less about her loss. I saluted her for being so strong and helping to other people life. Well, truth to be told, my busy life also led me to get on the right track.

5.     Think and Grow Rich

This book is written by Napoleon Hill in 1937 but the book I bought is new edition so there was no difficult sentences to understand. I read this book when I was in my MBA class but at that time, I just borrowed the books from library. But after a few years later, when I saw this book on the book store shelf, I decided to buy it because I knew that I still had to learn something from it. 

What I like the most about this book is it reminded us we could be whoever we wanted to be and we become the one what we believed. That is so true. My favorite piece of words from this book is “The world is filled with an abundance of OPPORTUNITY which the dreamers of the past never knew. A BURNING DESIRE TO BE TO DO is the starting point from which the dreamer must take off.” I love to read this book and it made me more focus on dreaming something different and difficult.

Well, those five books shaped my life in 2017 and I would like to advise anybody to read at least one to learn something that you didn’t learn before. By reading those, I have learned several things about life, failure, success, passion, desire, faith, love and dream. We cannot make several mistakes by our own to learn something and life is too short to do so. What we have to do is learning from other people to make it right as well. The most important thing is not to lose who we are and focus on our dreams to chase. 

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