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SIX LENSES VIGNETTES OF SUCCESS, CAREER AND RELATIONSHIPS
Almost with a touch of philosophy, yet firmly grounded in the reality of business and national affairs, the author argues thatthere is no reality, only perceptions of reality. Perceptions influence our thoughts and actions and these, in turn, are influenced by thelenses through which we see the world. There are six such purpose, authenticity, courage, trust, luck and fulfilment. R. Gopalakrishnan uses, as examples, the lives ofordinary people' to illustrate his view. By rotating the len
214 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1991
22 people are currently reading
74 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 22, 2016
This review was first published at The Era I Lived In.
The book has a bright and bold cover that makes the title shine against a black background. Quite symbolically, the book highlights the six lenses with which we view life, making it standout from the noise.
The lenses in question are the human perspective.
Right at onset, the book talks about what inspired the author to write this book, followed by what this book is all about. As has been explained in the blurb on the book, this book isn’t aiming at providing pat answers, tips or tricks on any magical transformations or on ways to achieve success in career or relationships.
The book with its rich vocabulary, ingenious narration, commendable research and impeccable editing shares life stories of people whom the author chooses to call PLU (people like us). Besides being motivating and thought-provoking, these stories made me stop every now and then, co-relate my own life or that of the people in my life taking the liberty to view them with the suggested six lenses.
I was amazed to learn how a changed perspective made understanding actions, be it ours or that of others so much easier. I wish to congratulate the author in a highly successful attempt of inspiring the readers to view their success, life goals and accomplishments in a new light. It has been quite a joy to understand that there is no hard and fast reality, no etched-in-stone definition of success. It all depends on the lens we use to gauge any of these.
The six lenses that shape our perception of the challenges encountered in work are: purpose, authenticity, courage, trust, luck and fulfillment.
Purpose – the deep-seated belief about life’s aim.
Authenticity – aims at discovering who you are, at the core.
Courage – A mindset about overcoming obstacles and inequity such as boldness, resisting unfair power, taking risks, and facing up to your vulnerabilities.
Trust- It encompasses virtues such as reliability, never letting anyone down, keeping secrets, loyalty and faith.
Luck – Take a closer look at the the hidden beliefs on which individuals may or may not believe. It revolves around fate, unearned luck, providence, and coincidence.
Fulfillment – It is an insightful look at what brings satisfaction and contentment. It is about being happy, radiating positive energy and enjoying what exists rather than cry about what might have been missed.
The biography of Nihal Kaviratne left a huge impact on my psyche. I re-read it twice to soak in his struggles to live a life of fulfillment.How he followed his heart and principles makes for an inspiring biography.
Though the book primarily focuses on all aspects as leadership challenges, but the examples cited hold relevance to everyone reading this book. The anecdotes in every chapter cite examples from all walks of life, from religion to invention, mythology to sports and technology to history.
My biggest take-away from this book has been that the idea of reality does not exist and that all man sees is through his perception of the world around him. Realization of how we can alter the outcomes by changing our perspectives. This ideology has opened up doors of endless possibilities both in view of my life and my life-goals.
The beauty of the book lies in it being a non-fiction collection of larger-than-life lives of people who conquered their shortcomings guided by their perspectives, life-experiences to lead an exemplary life.
The book is unputdownable, but I highly recommend frequent breaks to contemplate over all that we’ve read. Allowing enough time and thought for the inspiring tales to seep in our mind and cast a positive impact.
In the start a repetition of the narrative over the chapter to recapitulate facts and findings bothered me a bit, but as I read on, this was lost in the gripping narrative.I could feel a strong connect with all the individual chapters on the six Lenses, but the one written on trust couldn’t impress me just as much.
I highly recommend this book to everyone who’d love to learn to get an insight of how our perspectives drive our lives and how we can alter our life course (to some extent) by changing our lenses from time to time.
The book has a bright and bold cover that makes the title shine against a black background. Quite symbolically, the book highlights the six lenses with which we view life, making it standout from the noise.
The lenses in question are the human perspective.
Right at onset, the book talks about what inspired the author to write this book, followed by what this book is all about. As has been explained in the blurb on the book, this book isn’t aiming at providing pat answers, tips or tricks on any magical transformations or on ways to achieve success in career or relationships.
The book with its rich vocabulary, ingenious narration, commendable research and impeccable editing shares life stories of people whom the author chooses to call PLU (people like us). Besides being motivating and thought-provoking, these stories made me stop every now and then, co-relate my own life or that of the people in my life taking the liberty to view them with the suggested six lenses.
I was amazed to learn how a changed perspective made understanding actions, be it ours or that of others so much easier. I wish to congratulate the author in a highly successful attempt of inspiring the readers to view their success, life goals and accomplishments in a new light. It has been quite a joy to understand that there is no hard and fast reality, no etched-in-stone definition of success. It all depends on the lens we use to gauge any of these.
The six lenses that shape our perception of the challenges encountered in work are: purpose, authenticity, courage, trust, luck and fulfillment.
Purpose – the deep-seated belief about life’s aim.
Authenticity – aims at discovering who you are, at the core.
Courage – A mindset about overcoming obstacles and inequity such as boldness, resisting unfair power, taking risks, and facing up to your vulnerabilities.
Trust- It encompasses virtues such as reliability, never letting anyone down, keeping secrets, loyalty and faith.
Luck – Take a closer look at the the hidden beliefs on which individuals may or may not believe. It revolves around fate, unearned luck, providence, and coincidence.
Fulfillment – It is an insightful look at what brings satisfaction and contentment. It is about being happy, radiating positive energy and enjoying what exists rather than cry about what might have been missed.
The biography of Nihal Kaviratne left a huge impact on my psyche. I re-read it twice to soak in his struggles to live a life of fulfillment.How he followed his heart and principles makes for an inspiring biography.
Though the book primarily focuses on all aspects as leadership challenges, but the examples cited hold relevance to everyone reading this book. The anecdotes in every chapter cite examples from all walks of life, from religion to invention, mythology to sports and technology to history.
My biggest take-away from this book has been that the idea of reality does not exist and that all man sees is through his perception of the world around him. Realization of how we can alter the outcomes by changing our perspectives. This ideology has opened up doors of endless possibilities both in view of my life and my life-goals.
The beauty of the book lies in it being a non-fiction collection of larger-than-life lives of people who conquered their shortcomings guided by their perspectives, life-experiences to lead an exemplary life.
The book is unputdownable, but I highly recommend frequent breaks to contemplate over all that we’ve read. Allowing enough time and thought for the inspiring tales to seep in our mind and cast a positive impact.
In the start a repetition of the narrative over the chapter to recapitulate facts and findings bothered me a bit, but as I read on, this was lost in the gripping narrative.I could feel a strong connect with all the individual chapters on the six Lenses, but the one written on trust couldn’t impress me just as much.
I highly recommend this book to everyone who’d love to learn to get an insight of how our perspectives drive our lives and how we can alter our life course (to some extent) by changing our lenses from time to time.
April 21, 2020
"There is no universally accepted measure of what success is". This encompasses the basic point which is potrayed in this book.
The author is not a writer thats quite apparent when you start off the book.
The book starts off with the author trying to pull in the readers with narrating stories of a person who he calls as "PLUs"/ People Like Us. The problem however is that you quickly learn that the person he speaks about is not a PLU at all and has had extraordinary opportinties in his life. Yet he continues to drone on about this PLU for about half of the book (Literally, for about 80 pages). This part you'll have to wade through & read. But once the author gets out of his own way and start wrting his thoughts down, then the book opens into something which you can relate to.
He explains how nothing is usually defined and most important things like success are very relative and vague for the most of us. We are made to see life through many viewpoints( which he calls as lenses). The basic underlying idea is that instead of following the worlds definition of life and success, the first step would be to define it on your own terms. Basically he details the whole idea of success and life using six important virtues which are to be custom defined as per oneself.
1. Purpose
2. Authenticity
3. Courage
4. Trust
5. Luck
6. Success
In most of these virtues he also guides us towards books from other authors we can refer, to have a deeper understanding of the one aspect of that virtue. I found the bits about how authenticity itself is relative to be interesting to read. All in all a good read and good subject to read all in all.
The author is not a writer thats quite apparent when you start off the book.
The book starts off with the author trying to pull in the readers with narrating stories of a person who he calls as "PLUs"/ People Like Us. The problem however is that you quickly learn that the person he speaks about is not a PLU at all and has had extraordinary opportinties in his life. Yet he continues to drone on about this PLU for about half of the book (Literally, for about 80 pages). This part you'll have to wade through & read. But once the author gets out of his own way and start wrting his thoughts down, then the book opens into something which you can relate to.
He explains how nothing is usually defined and most important things like success are very relative and vague for the most of us. We are made to see life through many viewpoints( which he calls as lenses). The basic underlying idea is that instead of following the worlds definition of life and success, the first step would be to define it on your own terms. Basically he details the whole idea of success and life using six important virtues which are to be custom defined as per oneself.
1. Purpose
2. Authenticity
3. Courage
4. Trust
5. Luck
6. Success
In most of these virtues he also guides us towards books from other authors we can refer, to have a deeper understanding of the one aspect of that virtue. I found the bits about how authenticity itself is relative to be interesting to read. All in all a good read and good subject to read all in all.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 1, 2016
I am a big fan of R Gopalakrishnan's writing . I find all his management insights very appropriate for the corporate environment in India . This book is like a condensed version of his entire life experience. It definitely is more on the philosophical side than most of his other books which focus on managerial excellence. The crux of this book is that there is no absolute reality. All that we comprehend in life is through different lenses of our perception. He has elucidated each chapter with simple anecdotes. I only felt he went a little offtrack in chapters on "Trust" and "Luck". Overall , a very good read.
February 23, 2016
This book deals with various issues related to success, career and in general life by using the analogy of lenses. By using six lenses how one can see the life in a different light. Using anecdotes, examples of ordinary people. Though at times one feels its philosophical to me its what I see in day to day life may be not thought about it.
Read
July 9, 2016True and honest to the title, R Gopalakrishnan takes you through the key lenses with which we view life. The interesting part of this book is the reference to common people, mythology and corporate life. This is not a guide, but a frame of reference for thinking, amazing read for a weekend..
December 15, 2020
Exemplary book
February 13, 2016
A bit hard to remmeber the framework but the anecdotes were good, well chosen and memorable.
February 25, 2016
Light read. Book is based more on author's understanding of success and not on research work done on success.
June 24, 2016
A good book............
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews