The Book ’Be the CEO of Life’ written by Vivek Gupta and Sandeep Amar, provides a refreshing change in the scene, after the multiple fiction authors that Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) seem to be churning.
A highly relevant book in today’s world, the authors look at a common problem faced by everybody in this competitive world – that of keeping up with the Joneses and peer pressures.
What is interesting about the book is that it does not ponder over the problem across several pages, but is rather succinct in its presentation of the typical issues facing the young bread winners. Instead, the book focuses on how one can get over these common problems that we create in our own minds – by developing greater control over one-self. The book aptly suggests that one should be first look at one’s long-term aspirations before deciding on short-term goals that would eventually lead to that final destination. In reality, usually most of us look at short-term material benefits first and then try to force-fit that into our supposed macro picture.
Be it pressure to perform at a young age or pressure to catch up with –the neighbour, the authors correctly suggest (most relevant for the call-center generation) - (1) Make your monthly budget based on your expected permanent income throughout your life. (2) Try to spend 70 per cent of that income on the things you enjoy doing. Go for that world tour or buy the rarest of music CD’s. (3) Save close to 30 per cent of your monthly income. This would suffice your future needs and the entire eventuality.
(4) Don’t spend under peer pressure rather spend your money intelligently on things which give you real utility rather than just one-upmanship in the society.
Written in a simplistic language, the book is a must read especially, for aspiring MBAs who just want to do an MBA because either it’s the ‘in-thing’ to do or because newspapers play up the salaries of MBA and hence, make it a ‘must-do’.
About the writers:
The book is written by Vivek Gupta and Sandeep Amar. Vivek is an IIM Bangalore/Delhi College of Engineering Alumni and Sandeep is from Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Delhi. Both are very successful in their respective full time passions as Vivek is the vice president-Business Operations and Strategy of India’s top education portal Studyplaces.com and Sandeep heads Simplymarry.com, the matrimonial portal from Times Group stable.
The book is published by one of the leading publishers, Asian’s Publications and is available at all leading book stores now.