Author: John Wood
Publisher: Harper Business
This book starts from the vacation of John Wood in Himalayas and takes us high as it progresses. It is a good read to know about the struggle of a marketing executive of Microsoft in chasing his dream to set up room to read in the under resourced schools across Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, India, and so on.
When going to a library itself is not an exciting activity, setting-up libraries in various schools need more grit and determination. This book shows what a man can do when he follows his passion.
To start or work with a non-profit one needs to find a cause that he/she feels for and John identified the cause with ease. To build world renowned non profit one needs optimism, hard work, smart decisions, and fundraising ability and in this book John explains how he ran his non-profit, did fundraising effectively, hired a team, and his bold decisions like starting a chapter in Srilanka.
It’s not easy that we all could start a non profit and run successfully, but I think this book points out that we follow our passion with a mission, we will be happy and will make a difference and be inspiration to many.
Here are a few quotes I liked from the book:
Dalai Lama wrote that when we gave something away, we actually got something back in return: happiness. If we were to use our money simply to buy ourselves things, there would be no end.
There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming – Soren Kierkegaard
If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he is a good man. – Dostoyevsky
My identity was defined by my career. Now, I planned a radical shift.
Invest in people. Tell me first about your people, because if you have not gotten that right, then there is no hope for your organization.
One of the often overlooked but most important skills that any young charity must have is the ability to sell its vision, its business model, and its programs to potential donors.
Tenacity would be a theme of my career at Microsoft and later at Room to Read.
I think it demeans the world’s poor to use pity when soliciting donations.
If a cause is worth devoting your time to, then you owe it to yourself – and those you will serve – to think in a big way.
If you find a good person, you should hire them, and they will more than pay for themselves.
Intense focus on results was the first part of Microsoft’s culture that I wanted to emulate within Room to Read.
I set my e-mail signature file to list our results.
A third aspect of Microsoft that I wanted to emulate was based on an example Bill and Steve set every day: being data-driven
Another lesson I learned from Microsoft, and that I wanted to implant firmly in Room to Read was Loyalty.
If you love what you do and are surrounded by good friends and family, then forty or fifty or sixty is just a round number, not a cause for panic.
There were trade-offs which I was painfully aware. I could still not afford a home in San Francisco, I was celebrating my milestone 40th birthday alone, every month I did the math and sweated out whether we’d make the payroll. Yes, there were trade-offs, but there always will be in life.
I feel lucky to know who I am, what I want to focus on, and the yardsticks by which I will measure myself.
ஒரு துளி 
Comments