Who Will Cry When You Die\?: Life Lessons From The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari pdfdrive com

27.
Write Thank-You Notes
The things that are easy to do are also the things that are easy not to do. The
more the pace of our lives speeds up, the greater the impact the simple gestures
of life will have on those most deserving of them. And near the very top of my
list of simple gestures that have profound consequences is the lost art of writing
thank-you notes.
Everyone loves getting mail—it’s a fact of human nature. We all have a
deep-seated need to feel important. I truly love receiving letters from people who
have read my books and used the lessons within them to make positive changes
in their lives. Few things excite me as much as receiving a bag full of mail from
men and women who have attended one of my seminars and seen their careers
take off and their personal lives improve. And knowing how much joy I feel
when I receive mail from others, I try my best to respond to every letter that
comes across my desk with a thank-you note of my own.
Even in the case of the people I deal with on a daily basis—executives
calling to book me for a speaking engagement, people who attend my personal
coaching programs, members of the media requesting an interview and
businesspeople calling me with new opportunities—I try to follow up on every
encounter with a sincerely written thank-you note. Sure, it takes time. Sure, there
might be pressing things on my agenda. But few acts have the power to build
and cement relationships like a heartfelt letter of thanks. It shows you care and
that you are considerate and human. So this week, go out and buy a package of
the blank thank-you cards that are now available in bulk at your local office
supply warehouse and start writing. You—and all the people that you deal with
—will be glad you did.

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28.
Always Carry a Book with You
According to U.S. News & World Report, over the course of your lifetime, you
will spend eight months opening junk mail, two years unsuccessfully returning
phone calls and five years standing in line. Given this startling fact, one of the
simplest yet smartest time management strategies you can follow is to never go
anywhere without a book under your arm. While others waiting in line are
complaining, you will be growing and feeding your mind a rich diet of ideas
found in great books.
“So long as you live, keep learning how to live,” noted the Roman
philosopher Seneca. Yet most people never read more than a handful of books
after they complete their formal schooling. In these times of rapid change, ideas
are the commodity of success. All it takes is one idea from the right book to
reshape your character or to transform your relationships or to revolutionize your
life. A good book can change the way you live as the philosopher Henry David
Thoreau observed in Walden, “There are probably words addressed to our
condition exactly, which, if we could really hear and understand, would be more
salutary than the morning or the spring to our lives, and possibly put a new
aspect on the face of things for us. How many a man has dated a new era of his
life from the reading of a book. The book exists for us perchance which will
explain our miracles and reveal new ones.”
How high you will rise in your life will be determined not by how hard you
work but by how well you think. As I say in my leadership speeches, “The
greatest leaders in this new economy will be the greatest thinkers.” And the
person you will be five years from now will come down to two primary
influences: the people you associate with and the books you read. I often joke
with my seminar audiences that I play “Cinderella Tennis”: I try hard but I never
quite make it to the ball. Yet when I play tennis with someone better than I am,
something almost magical happens to my game. I make shots that I have never
made before, gracefully floating through the air with an ease that would make
even the best player blush. Reading good books creates much the same
phenomenon. When you expose your mind to the thoughts of the greatest people
who have walked this planet before you, your game improves, the depth of your
thinking expands and you rise to a whole new level of wisdom.

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Deep reading allows you to connect with the world’s most creative,
intelligent and inspiring people, twenty-four hours a day. Aristotle, Emerson,
Seneca, Gandhi, Thoreau, Dorothea Brande, and many of the wisest women and
men who grace our planet today are just waiting to share their knowledge with
you through their books. Why wouldn’t you seize such an opportunity as often
as you could? If you have not read today, you have not really lived today. And
knowing how to read but failing to do so puts you in exactly the same position as
the person who cannot read but wants to.

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