"Words Are Cheap and Deeds Are Dear"

What is a success? To me, it is happiness and accomplishment of completing a job, whatever it is. It can be simply cooking a nice recipe, baking a cake, creating a nice painting to writing a research paper or thesis. Happiness comes from accomplishing something which we really love to do and sometimes things we are really passionate about.

I am not an ardent reader of self-help books or non-fictions. However, I must acknowledge my husband who has a huge collection and who is passionate about reading. Anirban constantly motivates me on whatever little reading I do and have done so far. One day while discussing "what success is and how to become successful in life" he gave me a book to read. It is written by Jeffrey J Fox and the book is titled as "How to Become A CEO".

Well, the book does not really talk about how to become the CEO of an organization rather it is about the "do's and don'ts" of our everyday life. Realizing and following these we all can improvise upon our personal and professional goals, our lifestyle and work style which will lead us to finally write our own success stories. Business does not literally means something to do with a corporate job or big enterprise here, but to me we can extrapolate it to any work that we love to do. If we think in these lines then we all can feel the pride of accomplishment of being successful. Each chapter ends with a take home point and I really enjoyed not only reading the book but to note down some nice and relevant "one-liners" which I am happy to share in this post.

Here it goes:

1. The more money you are paid, the more contribution will be expected of you.
2. A chance to perform is an invitation to success.
3. The more you make, the better you are doing.
4. The better your physical condition, the greater your capacity for productive, unrelenting work.
5. Do not mix business with pleasure.
6. Business is like a machine every part needs to work.
7. Make one good ally in your company every month.
8. Give more time to your family.
9. Plus forty-five minutes early and fifteen minutes late is an hour a day. That’s two hundred fifty hours a year or 31 days. You can get ahead quickly working one extra month a year.
10. Have a specific work objective for each business trip.
11. Always ask people for their business card; inevitably they will ask for yours.
12. WACADAD: Words Are Cheap And Deeds Are Dear·         
13. Creativity without implementation is irresponsibility.
14. Ideas are nothing without execution.
15. Always plan your vacation far in advance.
16. People who get the job done are the ones who get the top jobs.
17. Demonstrate your ability to grow.
18. Dress for business, you do business.
19. People are an asset, a contributing return on investment.
20. You must train yourself to always be on “high receive”.
21. Good listeners are considered great conversationalists. Listening is equated with wisdom and intelligence.
22. People who know they cannot possibly know everything but are willing to work very hard to find data succeed.
23. Success in projects in anticlimactic. Homework preordains it.
24. School yourself not to panic. Tell yourself to “stay calm”. If you have ten seconds to make a decision think for nine.·         Good communication is hard work.
25. Think for three hours, write for one.
26. Be a credit-maker. Give proper credit and you will become known as a credit-maker.
27. Courtesy is a good business. Always say “please” and “thank you”.
28. Don’t gossip, just work.
29. Look sharp and be sharp. Be up. And smile.
30. Tight budgets promote creativity, ingenuity, and inventiveness.
31. No guts, no glory.
32. Do not let “perfect” be the enemy of “better”.
33. It is the excellence of execution that will determine success or failure.
34. The concept does not have to be perfect, but the execution of it does.
35. A record of mistakes is often the memorabilia of a very successful person.
36. Today is very important. It is whatever you want it to be.
37. You must create a yearly, monthly, weekly and daily “to do” list.
38. Goals beget goals.
39. Selling is key to the enterprise.
40. Work the trenches, and the trenches will work for you.
41. Persistence, tenacity, attitude. The “Heller-sellers” have it.
42. To teach is to learn and to lead. 
43. Good preparation and practice will produce a good presentation.
44. Work harder on the things necessary to make your idea work.

Jeffrey J Fox

I believe that readers will be able to connect with most of these points who has read the book already and also the ones who hasn't yet. I highly recommend this one as a wonderful read to all of you :)