In the genre of self-help books, this one is different. ‘365 Exciting Ways to Live’, by management consultant and educationist N.C. Sridharan is unique in that it not only deals with everyday relevance of life skills but also broadly appeals to persons from all strata of life, from schoolchildren to retired professionals.
Launching the book on Wednesday, F. M. Ibrahim Kalifulla, Supreme Court Judge, who contributed the foreword, said the book was full of extremely useful ideas for day-to-day life. Acknowledging that a previous book by Mr. Sridharan helped him immensely in delivering justice, Mr. Justice Kalifulla said the new book would also prove useful to society by helping organise one’s thought process and structuring the tasks to be accomplished from day to day.
G. Balasubramanian, former Director-Academics, CBSE, said the author, a remarkable idealist in the field of education, not only offered useful life skills tips to children, but also brought to bear his vast expertise on issues relating to leadership, inter-personal management and time management, making the publication relevant for people from different walks of life. Dr. Mrs. Y.G. Parthasarathy, founder-director and dean of the Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan Group of Schools, suggested the book be made part of school curriculum. At school and in homes, there was a need to encourage children to think independently and promote their problem-solving skills, she said.
N. Ravi, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu , said the book, which stood at the intersection of law, morality, ethics, efficiency, management, education and plain commonsense, showed ways to cope with stress and strains of modern life in a simple yet profound manner. “This is not a book which mandates you to do anything; it shows you the way along which you can go to achieve wonderful things…to bring discipline into your life, make your life more efficient, manage time and to bring order and purpose into your life,” he said.
T. S. Gopalan, advocate and labour law consultant, said through the book the author was sharing his own success with others over episodes, each of which represented a specific life skill.
K. Manivannan, management consultant former Director (HR&Training), Sundaram Finance, said the book hinted at the author’s keenness to make bigger contributions to society.
Mr. Sridharan said he wished to engage more in educational initiatives that were not confined to children but parents and teachers as well.
Apart from expanding the reach of his monthly magazine ‘Vaname Ellai’ (to over a lakh the next year), he wanted to make available in the public domain knowledge relating to specialised spheres such as multiple intelligence, emotional intelligence and transactional analysis.
