Resources

Here are some books taught me about life and human nature, and showed me how to be better and live more joyfully. In short, they changed my life to a great degree, and could very well change yours too!

 

 The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman

After a particularly tough relationship that didn’t work out, I learnt that people show and feel love in different ways. We tend to show love in the way we feel it, regardless of what love language the other person speaks. This is a problem because we can show a lot of love in our own way, and the other person doesn’t feel loved at all!

For example, I needed lots of hugs and felt neglected whenever he didn’t choose to glue himself to me :)  He, on the other hand, valued quality time and got upset when I would talk about ‘issues’ when we were on holiday which was a special time to him. I didn’t read this book in time to save that relationship, but it did help a lot with improving my family life by learning the love language of my family members.

You too can learn your own love language as well as those of the people you love. If there was just one book I would recommend to everyone to improve their personal and work relationships, this would be it.

 

Personality Plus by Florence Littauer

We all know that opposites attract, and nowhere is this more true than opposite personalities. Shy people admire those who are the life of the party. Easy going people look to driven ones for leadership. Yet these very differences start to grate and annoy after a while.

Being a bossy choleric myself, I enjoyed the company of the phlegmatics who were more relaxed and laid back. Eventually though I started to feel that they were just lazy and not willing to work hard. Little did I realise that their ability to sit back and watch the world go by, to observe others and make peace when necessary, was a trait I lacked and sorely needed to learn.

If you have ever wished in frustration “Why can’t ______ be more like me!” or found yourself wondering if an initially wonderful relationship or friendship was ‘wrong’ after all, this book will help you to understand exactly how we are different and why this is a good thing after all.

 

Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki

While money itself doesn’t bring happiness, getting financial worries  out of the way certainly helps us to focus on the things that truly matter.

Learning to manage my own cashflow was a turnaround point in my life. Until then, I had to watch every dollar I spent. Once this was no longer a concern, I could buy only the best for the people I loved and spend my time doing what I really wanted instead of slogging to pay the bills.

Mastering your cashflow won’t make you wealthy, and it certainly won’t happen overnight. What it will do is free you to make decisions based on your real values, and not by the number on the price tag.

Reading the book is a good start but I found that I really learnt how to read and control my finances by playing the Cashflow board game (below). After learning the game, you can do up your own personal spreadsheet like I did, and literally watch your financial situation start to improve as you update and control the numbers on that spreadsheet.