Category Archives: Life

Life, Personal Development

Lying: Values and Burdened Souls

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Humans lie… It is a fact.

Sometimes we lie just to make sure somebody feels comfortable. We call these lies white lies. For instance, if one of your relatives got cancer and you learned the result without him knowing, you may not want him to know the results.

But humans lie most of the time to get a short-sighted result such as to earn money, to manipulate, etc.

For whatever reason, lying is a very destructive action. Not only for the people involved, but also for the whole society.

When you lie, you are actually destroying a lot of human values. When you destroy common human values, you are actually harming your own soul very badly.

What happens when you harm your soul?

When your soul is harmed badly, you are a walking dead in the 21st century. Since you know what kind of a personality you are since you cannot lie to yourself, you feel irritated by yourself.

And then these kinds of people try to forget the harm of their soul so they may do some silly teenager type of stuff!

Your soul is permanent, whereas anything that you do to forget is temporary.

It should be great to carry such as a burdened soul! Also, no profit or short-term gain can justify your action of lying.

Today, even every big organisation has a set of values.

These values are set, because every organisation is like a human. They are also creatures that are alive and values are needed for everyone!

Since they are alive, they have their own soul.

Even why my wife is asking why I’m writing all this.

I am writing because I see a lot of burdened souls and they do not have any justification to become so burdened!

Finally, a person can be quite competent in his job/skills, but if he does not have the right attitude, I would always give the chance to the incompetent person since he can improve, but he will come with a pure soul!

Some nice quote from different authors on the subject:

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

“I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me.”
― S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

“People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked…The man who lies to the world, is the world’s slave from then on…There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
― Abraham Lincoln

All the best.

Sukru Haskan
Twitter: @sukru_haskan

 

Life, Personal Development

Book Review: A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to Enlightenment

 

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I was travelling for a wedding to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem a couple of weeks ago and my mentor and a good friend, Avi Liran, was so kind to arrange some meetings for me while I was there.

Lenny Ravich was my first meeting and, to be honest, I failed to do some research on him before I met him.

Lenny Ravich is a US–born, 70-something young person who is energetic and funny. Apparently, he wrote a book that Avi liked so much that he contacted him and that’s how their relationship started.

Lenny gifted his book to me during our meeting and that’s how I read his marvellous book.

The name of the book is Something funny happened on the way to Enlightenment. His book sold tremendously well in Israel and worldwide.

There are some points that I don’t agree with, such as in order to be funny he thinks a person has to have had a screwed up childhood, but mainly the book is a great eye opener.

It talks about happiness.

Lenny refuses to make himself feel bad by taking serious things more seriously. It takes courage to laugh, especially at yourself, and even more skill to get others to laugh with you at themselves.

Lenny summarized life as a formula, E + R = O. 

E is the event, R is our Response and O is the outcome. 

Events occur and our responses design the outcomes. The event may not be avoidable, but the response is our own production so it can altered and therefore the outcome as well.

I will continue by sharing some of my favourite quotations from the book.

“One way to deal with some of the pain from the past, anger, fears and misfortunes of the past is to find the humour in things and then to laugh at them.”

I accept, it is not easy. But it does not mean it is not possible. We should let our bad feelings go to be healthy and to move forward. Having this kind of mindset is also an important part of success.

“No matter how we look at it, life is one huge, on-going improvisation. None of us gets an orientation manual when we’re born, telling us how to handle every situation that might cross our path throughout our lifetime. Nor can our parents prepare us for every conceivable occurrence.” 

I experience this with teenagers. They expect to find a mentor or their parents to lead their life. Everybody’s life is different and their interests and talents are also different.

Of course, one should utilise other people’s experiences, but you have to create your own manual for your very own life. And that manual will be and should be different than everyone else’s!

Because you are unique!

“Feeling vindictive and unforgiving is a huge waste of time. I have found that love, optimism, and laughter are the most potent tools available to mankind.” 

I happened to fall into this trap.

I came across a sociopath in my life, and I wasted some time. Actually, not only time, but I also felt sorry for him and at some point I felt very unforgiving to him. Now, I understand it is waste of time.

Now, I just laugh off my experiences with him!

“Who is rich? The one who is happy with what he has.”

Definitely!

The desire to attain more material things makes everyone unhappy!

“Poor is the person who believes totally in his mission.” 

Titles, zeros in the bank accounts, and power are easy tools that can poison us and inflate our egos.

It is not hard to become a “bastard”, but by being a bastard you are doing the greatest harm to yourself since you are making yourself very unhappy. As my friend Avi says, “Delight people and operate on a delight system, not on a jerk system.”

Even though it was such a short meeting (it was only 45 minutes), it was nice to meet you, Lenny Ravich!

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All the best,

Sukru Haskan
Twitter: @sukru_haskan

Life, Personal Development

Book Review: Focus by Daniel Goleman

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I have to admit that I didn’t start reading this book on purpose. It just happened to be in our house, since my wife has read it. I know that Daniel Goleman has another great book called Emotional Intelligence, but I haven’t had a chance to read that book, either.

So, coincidence created the opportunity to read Focus, since I have some time during my gardening leave. (Yes, I am on gardening leave since I am changing my employer. I will continue to be based in Singapore.)

Daniel Goleman starts the book by defining the anatomy of attention and he states boldly that it is important for a child to interact with people to develop the social and emotional circuitry of a child’s brain.

Deep thinking demands sustaining a focused mind, and there are many distractions going on around us every second. For instance, the writer gives the example of Carl Gauss, an eighteenth and nineteenth century mathematician, who worked on proving a theorem for four years with no solution. Then, one day, the answer came to him “as a sudden flash of light.”

The writer discusses self-awareness as a very important feature that leads to success, since you are aware of your weaknesses and you can build a team according to these facts. In addition, overloading the attention shrinks mental control, and we start forgetting the names of people or other valuable information.

Marketers know how to mobilize our brains so that we make some unconscious choices when buying a product. For example, I got a phone call from my favourite football club, Besiktas, yesterday and the voice on the other end of the phone played with my feelings about Besiktas so skilfully that I happened to buy USD 500 worth of Besiktas merchandise just in ten minutes!

The writer discusses that people who are extremely adept at mental tasks that demand cognitive control and active working memory can struggle with creative insights, a point with which I absolutely agree.

He argues that accounts of discoveries tell of them happening during a walk or a bath, on a long ride or vacation. Darwin and Gandhi used to walk a lot to think, and I have been using the same method for more than 20 years now, which has worked for me quite nicely.

Walking clears your mind and focuses you in the present. It is a kind of a meditation.

I would like to share some of my favourite quotes from the book, with my own comments.

“Don’t let the voice of others’ opinions drown out your inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

Some people can be manipulative and they can be jealous of you. You should always follow your own ideas, even if they turn out to be wrong. Once you make your own mistakes, you can learn from them.

“Self-awareness seems to diminish with promotions up the organisation’s ladder.”

When you are moving up the career ladder, the number of genuine people becomes fewer and fewer, so it is hard to obtain healthy feedback.

“The brain is the last organ of the body to mature anatomically, continuing to grow and shape itself into our twenties.”

“The better their self-control in childhood, the better the Dunedin kids were doing in their thirties. They had sounder health, were more successful financially, and were law-abiding citizens.”

“Those at the top never stop learning; if at any point they start coasting and stop such smart practice, too much of their game becomes bottom up and their skills plateau.”

Never stop learning! If you believe your job is not demanding enough, I always think you should change it. When the learning stops, it is like the music stops and time starts going very slowly. You will always be in that kind of situation from time to time, and it is important to recognise it and to be able to make the change.

“Higher vagal tone, which can result from mindfulness and other meditations, leads to greater flexibility in many ways. People are better able to manage both their attention and their emotions. In the social realm, they can more easily create positive relationships and have effective interactions.”

“Global economic data shows that once a country reaches a modest level of income—there is zero connection between happiness and wealth.”

Absolutely. After a certain amount of income, the rest is for our greed and to feed the soul’s sin.

“Exploration means we disengage from a current focus to search for new possibilities, and allows flexibility, discovery, and innovation. Exploitation takes sustained focus on what you’re already doing, so you can refine efficiencies and improve performance.”

“Being in survival mode narrows our focus.”

“Ambitious revenue targets or growth goals are not a gauge of an organisation’s health—and if they are achieved at a cost to other basics, the long term downsides, like losing star employees, can outweigh short term successes as those costs lead to later failures.”

“People’s grades and the prestige of schools they went to had little or nothing to do with their actual effectiveness.”

 I hope you enjoy Focus at some point after reading this short review.

All the best from Turkey.

Sukru Haskan
Twitter: @sukru_haskan

Life, Personal Development

Inspire, Trust, and Do Business!

Interaction plays an important part in our lives. We interact with friends, colleagues, strangers and family members. Each interaction creates good and bad feelings in us and, most importantly, each interaction has social or business impact on us.

Since it is important to interact, how can we make each interaction efficient in our social and business lives?

We human beings are strange and unique creatures and we like to interact with people that we like. We always try to find common points with the people with whom we interact. Finding a common point is a good ice breaker when you meet a stranger.

Through my life experience, I have found that I like to interact with people that I get inspired by. A person that pushes me to think differently and helps to enhance my vision always manages to gain priority in my life. Interestingly, when I look back and think, I chose my friends and my best colleagues through this inspiration channel.

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How can you inspire a person?

You may use your status in the community, such as the CEO of XXX, or your financial strength, such as being one of the thousand richest in the world, but this is not really influential in the long term. Given that status in the community and financial strength can be lost in a day, they are not really a permanent inspirational asset in a human being.

Is it a coincidence that many rich people are left alone when they suddenly become poor? Or that a retired Prime Minister or a high level business executive starts living an ordinary life?

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I believe that a permanently inspirational character exists when you have a vision and continual viable ideas that you can share with people. I don’t mean that you have to be a scientist or an innovator; most importantly you have to have a strong ability to make good observations of people, understand developments in economics and politics or other types of social sciences, and implement these new ideas into people’s lives while taking into consideration the history and other aspects of your counterparty.

Easily said. But once you have all these skills, you are a candidate for a good leader, a mentor and a friend for everyone. I believe that acquiring these skills requires a tremendous amount of energy and motivation and a desire to update yourself constantly. A lot of people want to achieve this, but since it is long journey, many of us turn back while we are still quite close to the start.

When you inspire people, it is much easier to build trust. You don’t really have to work on building trust, since a person inspired by you will be much open to listening more to you and will be more willing to spend time with you.

And once the trust is built, it is very easy to do business with those people.

Instead of inspiring and building trust, if you want to jump to a conclusion (in business), it is very likely that you will fail. Even if you don’t, it will not be a very long term relationship.

A good leader or mentor should be able to inspire their subordinates with their vision and way of living—otherwise that leader is just an ordinary leader, and most likely he will be left alone once he gives up his status in the community. And a good friend should be able to show you new ways of looking at things while having a good time.

A lot of people are advising that you split your social and business circles, which I strongly oppose. Conversely, combine your social and business circles!

It will definitely create more synergy, as one plus one sometimes does not equal two. In addition, doing business within your social circle is a good test to see how much your friends are inspired by you.

All the best from Singapore.

Sukru Haskan
Twitter:@sukru_haskan

Economics, Life, Technology

Autonomous Cars: Are you ready?

I love technology and I hate driving. The inclusion of both love and hate presents a conflict, but the two can help each other in numerous ways.

Many news stories have recently emerged regarding autonomous cars, which makes me very excited. Having lived in Istanbul, London, and briefly in Zurich and Singapore, I know that the traffic can be annoying; in Istanbul, the commute can be trying.

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According to CNN, commuters spend 125 hours per year stuck in traffic, which is not an acceptable way to live one’s life. Since, when driving, we are in front of a steering wheel, we cannot be effective during those hours: this is a perfect way of explaining the term “waste of time”.

At present, technology is evolving, will continue to ease our lives, and, most importantly, enable us to be more effective.

Autonomous cars are breaking into the market in a big way. In other words, driverless and fully robotic cars will soon be widely used.

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Silicon Valley has become recently one of the top destinations for car companies. An increasing number of conventional car companies are teaming up with technology companies to explore this market. If they do not make this transition, conventional car companies are at risk of having their market captured by companies like Google.

Google has been testing the driverless car technology for some time now, and Ford has just tested its own autonomous car in snow!

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The CEO of Tesla, a revolutionary car company, believes that fully autonomous cars will be hitting the market shortly. In fact, Tesla is preparing for an immense test drive: from one coast to the other in the US. “If you’re in New York and the car’s in Los Angeles, you can summon your car to you from your phone and tell the car to find you, and it’ll automatically charge itself along the journey,” Tesla’s CEO said on a conference call prior to the Detroit Auto show this week.

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Not only will the technology enable us to be effective in terms of our time, it will help us to be safer. Specialists believe that autonomous vehicles will be significantly safer than human-driven vehicles. Toyota is another car company that is exploring the options in this market.

It is scary, but whatever industry you are in may be swallowed by a tech company in the next decade. Thus, perhaps it is better to collaborate with them rather than trying to compete with them.

Consider an example: banks. Conventional retail banks are at risk of being swallowed by fin-tech companies if they lag behind the curve in the coming years.

Fiat Chrysler’s CEO, Sergio Marchionne, stated that carmakers risk losing proprietary control. He said, “Having initially manufactured all their own components, carmarkers currently retain primary control of making only vehicles power trains – their engines and transmissions. If we start losing any of that … we will not be able to hang on to any proprietary knowledge and control of that business.”

On the other side of the coin are drivers, whose responsibility will be overturned shortly. It will be difficult to reallocate workers in low-skill positions in the next decade. Governments should prepare training programmes for these people to ensure that they continue to have a place in the economy. Otherwise, while these improvements are positive, they may create conflicts.

The world is becoming a very competitive place, and survival for the weak is becoming difficult.

The Detroit Motor Show began this week, and it will be interesting to watch: not because I am interested in cars, but because I am interested in the current evolving technologies.

All the best from Singapore.

Sukru Haskan
Twitter: @sukru_haskan

Economics, Life, Personal Development

The Psychology of Excessive Luxury Brands Purchase

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Why do people buy an excessive number of luxury brands and spend so much money on these items? Not only rich people, but amazingly poor people save money to buy a branded handbag or a pair of boats.

For instance, I happen to know a lady who earns $1,500 per month and bought a bag for $5,000. Why?

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Since I believe one of the biggest social problems this century is improper distribution of goods and services, I have observed the buying patterns of different nationalities for many years.

Many of us want to feel ourselves special. No matter whether you are rich, poor, young or old, you want to be treated as someone special. It is a basic psychological state of human beings. In addition, many people want to prove to the outside world that they are different and important.

This pattern of behaviour mainly occurs when an individual is not really fully satisfied with their friends, their work, their own intellectual capacity or even how they spend their life. On top of that, if that individual feels that they are lagging behind their peers, many could choose to reduce the gap by showing off through luxury brands, luxury holidays or material stuff such as cars.

Actually, much of our surroundings is just a sense of feeling, and everything is psychological.

Of course, there are reasons behind this pattern of behaviour.

  • If a person suddenly gets rich and if they come from an underprivileged background, they may tend to exaggerate to get attention. All of a sudden, something (money) has become the only thing to get attention. Before, there was nothing to differentiate them, and they think now they have everything (money!) to get attention.
  • When they are not sure how long their wealth will hold out and they want to make the most of it by showing off. This happens mainly in emerging market economies, where governments choose some people to get rich. In other words, these people have not really achieved anything: they are simply chosen, and sadly they are unaware of it.
  • Everybody tries to establish a social status in their community. Whether you are rich or poor, you want to be respected. Here is my explanation as to why a poor person who should not buy that $5000 bag buys that bag—because they think they will be treated like rich people. They actually think that they are closing the gap between themselves and others! Actually, they are opening the gap even further by becoming poorer.
  • Last but not least, another reason is these people do not have anything better to do for themselves—and, more importantly, for their communities. Since intellectual capacity/ability is built over years, it takes time. As human beings, we take the easy route to earn respect.

I find distinct similarities between people who try to feel good and gain status through excessive buying of luxury goods and people who get married to very beautiful ladies with no education and proper life, or to fat ugly gentlemen with a lot of money.

In the end, the relationship is very artificial and does not survive in the long term.

Moreover, an institution such as marriage should create happiness, but in the end, this type of relationship only creates miserable and unhappy lives.

I personally adore those people who are respected in their communities for their knowledge and their own unique characteristics rather than for what they own. A family friend in London taught me several years ago that my wealth should not be my car and what I wear, but it should be my own intellectual capacity.

A Turkish foundation, Darussafaka, is currently running an excellent advertisement on Turkish TV channels. The title is “You can still survive without it”. A lady goes to a shop and likes a bag; a businessman goes to another shop and likes a pen; but they both say “I can still survive without it”. Then the ad continues that you can survive without many things, but not without the proper education of our children.

I want to make it clear that this article is not about criticizing any type of behaviour or a certain type of person. It is solely written according to my own personal observations. It is purely an attempt to produce an amateur socio-economic article.

In addition, I too occasionally enjoy buying some branded clothes and shoes—hopefully, though, not excessively.

I hope this article leads you to contemplate whether you overspend on luxury brands and perhaps encourages you to channel some of that spending into education or the other basic needs of the many.

All the best from Singapore.

Sukru Haskan
Twitter: @sukru_haskan

Life, Singapore

A Birth Story, Henry Alp Haskan

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What a week for my family and me!

My first kid, Henry Alp, arrived this week on 14 December at 17:08. We were quite worried since the baby was over 4 kg and he wasn’t engaged so there was no way to deliver him naturally and we were heading to the hospital like we going on a regular family holiday with the luggage and passports.

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I would call the period from arriving at the hospital to the surgery starting the most stressful time of the whole process.

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You just wait in your room like you are waiting for some kind of funeral (even though it is a birth!) and when the time arrives, you feel like it may be a good idea to delay the birth! Maybe the baby would engage soon! 🙂

And then, while my wife was in the operating theatre, the waiting exercise was not completed for me. I had been given a chair and a corner to wait and I had been told that they would call me.

At this point, I remember my primary school period where the teachers are the real masters and you have to obey whatever they say! I was really desperate!

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The minutes passed very slowly and I was called into the operating theatre. I am not a good person to be in an operating theatre since I feel like I might faint whenever I see somebody else’s blood but I was there!

I stayed in the surgery room for 15 minutes, but I can tell you that it felt like an hour. I tried my best not to look anywhere except my wife’s face. Even when Henry Alp born, the doctor was showing us the kid and I was hesitant about looking at him since I was not sure if I would see anything wrong!

Our paediatrician checked if the baby was healthy and then I carefully followed a bunch of nurses with my kid.

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I was out with the kid, but my wife was inside and the stress had not really gone anywhere! After an hour, she arrived and I was so relieved that I went straight to a nice bar next to the hospital to have some pints of beer to relax.

The first night was really sleepless! I really enjoyed it as my favourite football team, Besiktas, was playing against a rival club, Galatasaray. Defeating Galatasaray was a good coincidence since we haven’t been able to defeat them since 2011.

The second day was good fun since the stress replaces itself with joy. Being a dad is like being on a big learning S curve since I learned how to change my baby’s nappy and wip him clean.

Getting his birth certificate was another memorable experience on that day!

A glass of beer was still needed, but this time to celebrate that night.

On the third day I learned how to bathe him and that was an experience as well. Henry Alp managed to pee on myself. (Congratulations, my boy!)

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And, finally, we were discharged from the hospital day 4.

I have huge respect for women, and I respect all the mothers even more. It is not easy what a mother goes through and they all need to be congratulated for this.

I would like to thank all the North Bridge Road Raffles Hospital staff who helped us during this journey. Taking this opportunity, I especially would like to thank Dr. Lee I Wuen.

We have been seeing her for last 9 months and she has been fantastic from the start.

Finally, I should say this has been another great Singapore experience. From A to Z, everything was very well planned and executed. I am not sure if it would be the case in many other countries.

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

All the best from Singapore.

Sukru Haskan
Twitter: @sukru_haskan

Economics, Life, Personal Development, Singapore

Social Mobility

 

If you are born in the Western world rather than Africa today, it is likely that you will not suffer famine in your lifetime. If you are born in England, your life expectancy will be higher than someone born in Mali. If you are born into a family where both your parents have university degrees, it is very likely that you will have access to higher education as well.

Small differences in life such as your place of birth, nationality, your name and your family make huge differences to how your life is lived.

It is very clear that not everybody is born with the same kind of opportunities and prospects. It is the balance of nature—and it is not very fair.

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Social mobility is a big challenge for every country today. A book written by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett concludes that more equal societies almost always do better than others. Their study discovers that there is an inverse relationship between income inequality and intergenerational mobility. Countries with less income inequality, such as Denmark, Sweden and Finland, have some of the greatest mobility, whereas countries with high income inequality, such as Chile and Brazil, have some of the lowest social mobility.

So much talent is wasted because they haven’t been given enough opportunity to show what they can achieve.

For example, George Soros would have been one of the wasted talents, but he was lucky enough to receive an education at LSE.

He subsequently tried his luck in securing employment in England, but was offered only simple jobs rather than his dream investment banking job. Because he did not come from a certain family or circle, he could not establish his dream in England, and so flew to the US to accomplish his dreams.

Today he is one of the greatest philanthropists.

Given that we cannot completely eliminate these inequalities, how can we help the underprivileged to move up the ladder?

No matter what, we have to subsidise education. Children who come from poor families have to make it to good schools if they have the right attitude and skills. Without allowing underprivileged kids access to education, it is almost impossible to speak about social mobility.

I think Singapore is a very good example. Everyone can go to a public school and the monthly fee varies from free to six Singapore dollars if you are a Singaporean citizen. More importantly, Singapore is one of the best countries for your child to be educated, according to the latest PISA results.

There is no guarantee that all kids can make it—but the probability of climbing the ladder significantly increases with a good education.

The legendary investor, Jim Rogers, lives in Singapore with his family and he chose for his daughter to study at a public school rather than a private school.

Social mobility is not only something that helps people climb the ladder, but it is also an insurance against rises in crime and is a bodyguard for a peaceful world.

It is not easy to subsidise a good level of education for everyone and it is very costly, but it is not more costly than the cost of rising crime, of unhappy communities and of pessimistic futures.

Finally, no matter how smart you are, if you are financially well off, it is very likely that you will take it easy. Social mobility is also good for innovation, competition and the promotion of growth.

Hamdi Ulukaya, owner of Chobani yoghurts, is a recent good example of social mobility. A Turkish citizen of Kurdish descent, he was lucky enough to study at Ankara University and lucky enough to go to the US for his English studies. He took a major risk in acquiring a large, defunct yoghurt factory in New York.

Ulukaya’s net worth is USD 1.4 billion as of 2014 and he has pledged USD 700 million to refugees of the Syrian civil war.

It is hard to prove, but I believe people whom you help to move up social ladder tend to help other people as well—just like George Soros and Hamdi Ulukaya.

All the best from Singapore.

Sukru Haskan
Twitter: @sukru_haskan

Life, Personal Development

What is success to you?

When you are a fresh graduate from a university, you are young and ambitious.

You definitely want to be successful, but many of new graduates do not have an idea of what their passions are and this fact makes it harder for them to be successful.

In my own and plain explanation, success is an ability to achieve your dreams and it starts with setting your own objectives.

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An article published on Harvard Business Review by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams explains it perfectly with a great example.

“A corporate lawyer may work for a highly respected firm and have a lavish compensation package, but if her career falls short of her dream to become a Supreme Court justice, for instance, or if practicing law seems merely a good way to make a living and doesn’t provide an intellectual buzz, she won’t feel successful.”

Success has different meanings to all of us. Success is a continuous journey which includes failure. Richard St. John from Canada explains success as a process of passion, work, focus, push, ideas, improve, serve and persist.

Many people defines success as a bank account with many zeros. Whilst it may be a conclusion of a success, it is not really a mean and it should not be.

From my own experience, people with an ultimate target to have a bank account with many zeros do fail. In other words, they become unsuccessful as passion is not in place in the first instance.

Remember Richard St. John’s ladder of success?

It does start with passion and money is not involved in any part of the process.

And these are the last words of Steve Jobs…

“I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world.
In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success.

However, aside from work, I have little joy. In the end, wealth is only a fact of life that I am accustomed to.

At this moment, lying on the sick bed and recalling my whole life, I realize that all the recognition and wealth that I took so much pride in, have paled and become meaningless in the face of impending death.

In the darkness, I look at the green lights from the life supporting machines and hear the humming mechanical sounds, I can feel the breath of god of death drawing closer…

Now I know, when we have accumulated sufficient wealth to last our lifetime, we should pursue other matters that are unrelated to wealth…
Should be something that is more important:

Perhaps relationships, perhaps art, perhaps a dream from younger days…
Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me.”

Who could argue that Steve Jobs was an unsuccessful person? I think he is successful and innovative but does it really matter what i think?

What matters most is what your self perception is…

My own humble explanation of success is to be a purposeful creature during our life span with adding value to many people’s lives.

Moreover, generating innovative ideas and helping to improve living standards of many cannot be more satisfactory than anything else.

All the best from Singapore.

Sukru Haskan
Twitter: @sukru_haskan

Life, Personal Development

Next Five Books to Read

My friends well know that I love to read and discuss what I read. Even though one may read on any subject, I am quite selective.

The reading rule that has stuck with me since I was a kid is that I don’t read any novels or science fiction. All I read is history, finance, economics, biography, self-development, psychology and philosophy.

This week, I would like to share with you the next five books waiting for me to read.

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1-A Short History of England by Simon Jenkins

I started reading this book almost a  month and a half ago and, since I have been busy reading some international affairs and financial papers, I have only read about the first 100 pages.

England is a great country with a long history and this book is a quick introduction to full English history from British tribes to the modern day. I always advocate that if you want to understand a set of people and a country, you have to master their history first.

It is a great book to enlighten you as to why modern England exists in its present form. The book is about 300 pages, and please don’t expect to get detailed information on each era.

Caution: You may get lost due to the speed of change of the kings, queens, barons and conflicts, but it’s worth a try!

2- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Harari

This book has been recommended to me by two precious people. One of them is the Vice Chancellor of Bahcesehir University and my economics professor back in Turkey, Elif Cepni, and that’s why it jumped all the books in the queue to be read after A Short History of England.

It mainly talks about different human species that inhabited earth 100,000 years ago compared to only one today, homo sapiens. The book takes you through human history from A to Z and talks about why we have created kingdoms, countries and the current systems such as using money as a medium of payment. It also refers to how and why we have come to believe in gods.

Since everything has a reason and a history, I hope that this book will enlighten me as to why we are so cruel to each other and to the rest of the species in the world, as well.

3-A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle for the Mastery of the Middle East by James Barr

The Middle East has been the land of politics for centuries and, unfortunately, the Middle East is known by many for its wars and conflicts. Actually, the Middle East has much more to offer such as its grand culture and history, rather than only its wars and natural resources.

Middle East history goes to back to many centuries ago, but this book focuses on the times of British and French rule in the region.

James Barr is an important modern author on the Middle East and I look forward to reading this book.

This book is also a recommendation from an honourable gentleman in my native land. He is currently in his 80s and I respect his intellectual knowledge very much.

4- Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane by Frederick Starr

Central Asia brought wealth, trade and science to the rest of the world, especially between 800 and 1200. Nowadays, this is forgotten, but it is the reality.

The sophistication of its cities and people, along with achievements in different types of field such as medicine, astronomy and mathematics, have established today’s modern world. The people of Persian, Arab and Turkish descent were behind this achievement during the medieval enlightenment.

With the New Silk Road project in China, it is very likely that this notable role will be revitalized, but hard to say if it will again be that influential a region in the world arena.

I believe this book is a good reminder that change is inevitable and you need to keep updated to keep running for the lead.

5-2014: The Election that Changed India by Rajdeep Sardesai

I bought this book in India when I was traveling in Delhi in December 2014. Unfortunately, due to regular queue jumping by different books, it is still standing unread on my shelves.

India is becoming more and more important and 2015 marks the first year that India has surpassed China in terms of growth. There are a lot of expectations from Narendra Modi and his mandate is not easy to deliver in the world largest democracy. I expect to get more insights on India from this book.

Given that it is written by an Indian news anchor, it makes the book more compelling and sincere.

I would like to finish this week’s article with a good website recommendation to keep track of your online bookshelves. If you are still not aware of Goodreads.com, I strongly suggest that you have a look. Nowadays everything is going digital and it is a great platform to establish your reading list and book reviews online.

For bookworms, I also recommend a visit to Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street, London. It is a very different book store from the usual ones and you can get lost for many hours inside.

Having strongly advocated the digitization of everything, I shall admit that I still could not give away my paperback books. I have a Kindle and I have read many books on it, but it has never given me the same feeling as when touching paperback books.

All the best from Singapore.

Sukru Haskan
Twitter: @sukru_haskan