An Evening With Sarah Beg At Liberty Books

I am not much outgoing by nature and enjoy my solace at home. A week ago I received invitation from Liberty Books to attend presentation about the book "The Secret", written by Rhonda Byrne and presented by Sarah Beg. It proved to be too tempting for me and I registered for the event.

Setting aside my lazy activities, I drove to Liberty Books BBQ Tonight branch on Sunday 7th of November and sat amongst the audience gathered to listen to Sarah's charismatic presentation that not just highlighted many of the important elements explained in the book but also linked them with Franklin Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People", with personal experiences and religious teachings of Islam.

A little introduction to Sarah Beg might be in order. She is "Manager Capability Development Franklin Covey Pakistan" and is certified trainer for "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". It was my first experience of attending her presentation session that proved to be great one.

The greatest contribution in knowledge was undoubtedly from Sarah but the audience participated immensely to make the event interactive, interesting, informative and engaging. Everyone had something to share and touched upon all-too-familiar topics in new light, casting the whole situation in an entirely different dimension.

The event highlighted concepts which we all should aware ourselves and adopt in daily life:

1) The greatest secret to success in life is "Love"

2) Love the things around you and think positively because what goes around, comes around. The more you are positive, the more positivity will follow you.

3) Even when we're all positive, why still our lives are not wonderful? Because we give up, be pessimist, harbor doubt or don't work at all to achieve positive results.

4) Always keep your destination in mind and work hard to find it. The more positive you are, the greater will be your will and the greater will be your efforts to attain your goal.

5) "Circle of Influence" defines what control you have in any given situation. "Circle of Concern" defines what is out of your control. If there is bomb blast or you are stuck in traffic jam, it's in your "Circle of Concern" and that's where we spend most of our time.

6) Spend more time in your "Circle of Influence". If there is bomb blast, focus not on fear of it but to the well being of victims and try to help out where possible. If you're stuck in traffic jam, instead of getting angry or cursing just put on music and relax because you can't do anything about jammed traffic.

7) Life is not 'happening' to you, life is responding to you. The more gloomy you are, the more gloomy your life will be. The more happy-go-lucky you are, the brighter will be your life.

8) Positive events have positive effects on us and negative events have negative effects. Learn to shut-off your auto-pilot of feelings and remain positive in occurrence of both events.

9) Use positive words, they bring forth positive attitude and put positive impact on both speaker and listener.

10) Have a positive view of life when you wake up everyday. The positive outlook brightens your day and driving, office, shopping and any other routine will be fun rather than torture.

11) Happiness is contagious, try to contaminate yourself with it as much and as many times as possible.

12) Having a bad boss is your bad luck. Instead of blaming your destiny, simply change your attitude and maybe you end up changing the attitude of your boss towards you because happiness, after all, is contagious.

13) Learn to IMAGINE because every inventor had imagined and visioned their success. Pakistan was imagined and visioned by Allama Iqbal and it was made real by Jinnah.

14) Imagination defines your sense of purpose. Have a purpose in life, it proves you are alive and do not simply exist like an empty sack.

15) Law of Attraction states "Like Attract Like", so be positive and positive will be attracted to you. Be purposeful and imaginative, your goal will be attracted to you.

16) Have the intend and passion to attain your goal, this is your driving force towards success.

17) Get rid of negative believes. If you believe on bad luck when a black cat cuts your path, it will come true. Don't give life to bad luck by believing in it.

18) Make your own destiny and don't curse others for whatever happens bad to you and around you.

19) Logic gets you from point A to point B, imagination can take you anywhere you want.

20) Your Love is your shield. Love is not without passion and it protects you from negative feelings, negative attitude, negative behavior, effects of negative comments, hostility and pressure. Once upon a time it was blasphemy to believe that Earth was round. Just imagine the Church's hostility and fanaticism when Galileo claimed Earth was round and how he endured all the hatred, criticism and negativity through his love for science and truth.

Many notable people were also present at the event, including Mr. Asif Noorani, the author of "Mehdi Hasan: The Man & His Music". I managed to get a signed copy directly from him and felt good at finally having the opportunity to learn more about our living legend of music. The presence of known literary people shows how we still value life, strive for betterment and care to spread love and respect. The event was free of charge for the attendees and the hospitality of Liberty Book's staff was exemplary.

These literary events are lifeline of our society which is full of misery, hurt, sadness, death, fear and broken promises. The more we collectively work towards better future, the more we will learn to live positively and affect the events in positive manner. Life does have the habit of challenging us to test our attitude and belief and rewards us accordingly. Let us join hands and promise to be positive, for ours and future generations sake. We are not a country of terrorists and neither we will ever be. We produced scientists, philosophers, artists, humanitarians and heroes before and we will continue to do so.

Pakistan Zindabad !!