#TheLifesWayReviews - Money Smart by Vilochanee Naidoo #MoneySmart @Vilochanee #BookReview

Hi Friends,

Money Smart - How to Be Finance-Savvy and Live a Wealthy Life is written by Vilochanee Naidoo who brings all her knowledge gained in her 21 years of experience in Finance and Procurement with various Blue Chip companies. Money Smart is a very thin book of just about 102 pages containing 12 chapters on various topics from Income, Budgeting, Buying a car, Buying a property, Financial Wellness, Savings and Investments, Shopping Principles, and Managing Contracts and Obligations amongst various other topics. 

It's quite an easy financial book to go through as compared to the others which take you on the route by various American authors where they mostly mention the IRS and other forms but this book specifically focusses on South African millennials and students who have just started their career. I received this book at the start of the month and yesterday night I completed the same from the first page to last page in around 2 hours as I thoroughly enjoyed reading the same. 

The book doesn't delve deeper into the nitty and gritty of the topics but gives you lessons learned kind of practicality to keep your expenses within certain percentages which are actually followed by financial consultants and advisors throughout the world. If you follow her advice, I am definitely sure that you can enjoy your life with whatever income means you have while creating multiple sources of income on the go. The starting chapter is a little bit longer as it explains the need for this book for the South African economy and could have been cut shorter but once the main topic comes the book flows from one topic to another quickly. The book seems to be a compilation of various financial articles, speeches, and blog posts written by the author and made into a book format but none the less, you are getting the same in a hard copy format without any efforts so go for it. 

The book tries to change your money quotient to work on your goals, feed the same to the Universe, and then build an ecosystem as explained in The Secret by Rhonda Byrne using the law of attraction. I have been using the same principle since the first time I saw the Secret video in 2008. But am I financially independent? No, but Am I financially savvy? Yes and this book validated my learnings over the years that if I continue working on my goals, then I can definitely achieve financial freedom one day in the near future. As she says mentioning Investopedia that by the age of 40 - 3 times your annual salary in savings, at age 50 - 5 times and at age 60 - 6 times shall be in your bank accounts. I think I have achieved the first portion as I will complete 40 years on 22nd July this year and now need to work Money Smart towards the next phase of life from 40-50 years of age. Thanks

Money Smart can be bought hardcopy from as little as R350 or eBook for R199 or via kindle at R66. More information about the book can be found at www.money-smartbook.com

Connect with Vilochanee Naidoo on Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vilochanee
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vilochanee/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/vilochanee
LinkedIn: Vilochanee Naidoo

Sawubona!

Contact Aashish Rai Jain at thelifesway@gmail.com or editor@thelifesway.com to send your products, launch event invites, and services to be consumed. #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra #7YearsofTheLifesWay. Follow me on www.instagram.com/thelifesway for all travel-related photo posts. Namaste!

Book Review - The Jeera Packer by Prashant Yadav @FingerprintP #theJeeraPacker

Hi Guys, 

The Jeera Packer is written by Prashant Yadav who graduated from IIT Kharagpur, IIM Ahmedabad and Stockholm School of Management. The topic he chose to write his fiction book, "The Jeera Packer" was Uttar Pradesh politics and reminiscence of the hit man (shooter) who now is running a groceries shop with his wife.

The story unfolds as he meets his old trainee and associate who is now a State minister in the government with all the flashy red light cars while his boss of that time is now the Chief Minister of the state. In a turn of events he came to know about a truth for which he now wants to take revenge from the Chief Minister of the state. He is helped by an old associate from his past and best friend,  Adbul who now repairs Bullets motorcycles. The story is not new and you will get the feel from the start that the hero of the novel will definitely try to assassinate the Chief Minister. 

How he will and how to cover that up with his day to day life as a grocery shop owner where he packs Jeera in the basement is what the whole novel is all about. He could have been packing anything else too but Jeera if you see it, is a necessary part of all our curries, chaat, snacks and daal. This novel is a good read if you love a lot of characters and then tying them all together with the things you love. Motorcycle, guns, gang war, extra marital affairs, sex, media, TV channels, politics and entertainment is all there in the novel. I could predict the story from the start but in the end there are some twists which leaves you amazed and with those characters whom you wouldn't have wanted to be with. 

The Jeera Packer has a lot of punch in the characters as all of them have their own small world and selfish reasons to reach the top position in the state or may be in the country. In between the author has thrown in regular day to day issues within our society and cities we live in from eve-teasing to building maintenance charges, the caste system and inter-caste love marriages. Reading this novel you will feel connected to some tales you must have heard or read in the newspaper which keeps you occupied and involved in the story. I am sure that you won't put down this book until you reach the end. Chapter after chapter the mystery deepens and you build that connection with the characters and love the same too.

In the end the takeaway from the book is about building the "Taj Mahal of my life" which can be anything one can be passionate about. For me it's The Life's Way blog and spending time on working and creating content for the same. This book is definitely a worthy read and enjoy the book on a bus/train ride or place where no one disturbs you as it will bring in a lot of nostalgic and memorable moments from your lives too with which you will feel connected to the author immediately.

The Jeera Packer is published by FiNGERPRINT! and retails at Rs. 295 and available at Amazon for Rs. 199/-. Check out more books from the publishers at twitter.com/FingerprintP, www.fingerprintpublishing.com and facebook.com/fingerprintpublishing

Follow Prashant Yadav on twitter at https://twitter.com/pr_ashantyadav and check out his website - BodhiSutra.com. Congratulation on a great book Prashant and looking forward to the next one soon!!!

Cheers!!!

Contact me at thelifesway@gmail.com to blog, share and influence about your products & services on all my Social Media channels #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra !

Book Review - GOD IS A GAMER - Ravi Subramanian #blogadda

Hi Guys,

Ravi Subramanian is no new name in the books which are thrilling and set against the backdrop of the financial services industry. He wrote his first novel "If God was a banker" in 2008 and there has been a many novels published for all his readers like "Devil in Pinstripes", "The Incredible Banker", "The Bankster", "Bankrupt" and latest addition to these is the new book GOD is a GAMER published by Penguin Books. 

 God is a Gamer is the mixture of reality and fiction. The way author has used Bitcoins and other concepts of Gaming industry and Facebook marketing is amazingly great. The logic to all these connections is like reading a non-fiction or a newspaper editorial or rather a business books. I really could not differentiate the story amongst all the facts and logic presented in this novel. Really loved getting all the knowledge about Bitcoins and it was amazingly great to read as I got some bitcoins from my brother a week before to learn more about them. I did my research of bitcoins that week so this novel really kept me glued to my seats till the time I read it completely. 

The story is about three friends who are big in the corporate world and how their lives are changed as someone tries to hack into their lives. One of the characters lost son comes into the picture and tries to win everything over. Whatever bad happened to their companies, he tries to overcome using his knowledge and experience in the gaming industry. A call center as well as a gaming company's day to day business is affected when someone loots the bank's accounts in US at the same time. Further investigation reveals a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of characters from US Senate, Police and FBI.

God is a gamer is a roller coaster ride through the reality of bitcoins, various surprises and twists at every turn, numerous characters, suspicion, mystery, love, hate and greed. The book will keep you entertained for long and you will want to keep reading it till the end of the same. 

I was able to find out as to who is the main culprit due to my Sherlock Holmes thinking pattern and good mind but I really didn't liked the end of the novel. It was closed randomly and could have been better. Last few chapters were boring as compared to the initial rush of adrenalin that you get. But I think it happens will all the fiction novels as they unravel the mystery and try to solve it for the readers to understand. 

But overall God is a Gamer is a nice read and will keep you on your edges. Is Revenge a Crime? is the answer that you will get if you read the whole book. I really admire the writing of Ravi Subramanian and will go through all his other novels in this new year. The world of Kindle has really made it easy to read any book on your smartphone or tablet or actual kindle devices as soon as it's launched. 

Thanks to Blogadda for their continuous activities to keep us interested in the world of reading via their Book Reviews Program. It's a great pleasure to read new novels before it's launched into the world using bloggers programs. Check more Penguin books at penguinbooksindia.com & follow them on twitter and facebook. 

Cheers!!!

This review is a part of the biggest <a href="http://blog.blogadda.com/2011/05/04/indian-bloggers-book-reviews" target="_blank"> Book Review Program </a> for <a href="http://www.blogadda.com" target="_blank">Indian Bloggers.</a> Participate now to get free books!

Contact me for your product's review /sponsored posts on twitter @araijain or @thelifesway or email - thelifesway@gmail.com  Checkout my Instagram (araijain) page or www.photoyatra.blogspot.in  Like The Life's Way Page on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/TheLifesWay

Book Review - Private India by Ashwin Sanghi & James Patterson

Hi Guys,

PRIVATE INDIA is the latest book written by James Patterson along with Ashwin Sanghi. Ashwin Sanghi has written Chanakya's Chant, The Rosabel Line and The Krishna Key all of which I have read and loved. 

James Patterson has written a series of Private Novels and recent being a murder mystery set in Mumbai, India in this new one called as Private India. I am looking forward to read more of his books so as to understand his techniques and research of writing and how different is this from our own Ashwin Sanghi.

I got the book review opportunity from blogadda and immediately bought the kindle edition and started reading the same because I am out of country and we need to review the same in seven days. I always loved the way Ashwin Sanghi introduces the story and journey to the end of the novel. It’s always detailed, well written and researched.

Private India is a murder mystery novel based in Mumbai. The serial killer starts killing women on the occasion of Navratri festival which is a 9 day long rituals to pray to nine avatars of Lord Durga. The main character Santosh Wagh runs the Private India organization which helps the police solves a lot of cases on terrorism and prevents attacks by taking matters in their hands. Provided with the latest technologies and labs they help Police and other law enforcement units prevent attacks in India.

The novel slowly unveils it's mystery and you won't keep it until you have read the whole. Ashwin Sanghi has been able to keep me on the edge with this one too. I recently watched the whole 8 seasons of DEXTER TV series so I was connecting the novel to the TV series season 6 where the same kind of representation is shown by the serial killer. If you have seen the series, this will be exactly the same but in an Indian religious avatar. I was not so much in love with this novel because it didn’t offered anything new to me and I could solve the mystery in my own mind way too earlier.

The book will really be liked by those who love reading mystery novels and this one is OK. It can easily be converted into a motion picture soon. It flowed in my mind as a movie only with so much of detail around everything. This is really a masterpiece from Ashwin Sanghi and a lot of research has been put by the writer into the crime world and ideas to do the crime & leaving small clues behind. The clues left behind are really well thought of and the connection to them explains the readers of what and how they are connected to the avatars of Maa Durga.

The characters in the novel are slowly revealed and as what happens in murder mysteries, we think of everyone as a suspect. This novel arouses that kind of emotions in your mind and heart and instantly connects with it's readers to solve the crime themselves. I don't want to reveal the thing as it would be injustice to all the readers and lovers of the book. But this book is definitely worth your time and money if you are fan of some thriller & murder mysteries. It’s totally different from Ashwin’s earlier novels and is not rushed through and the end will leave you satisfied with the story.

Cheers!!!

This review is a part of the biggest <a href="http://blog.blogadda.com/2011/05/04/indian-bloggers-book-reviews" target="_blank"> Book Review Program </a> for <a href="http://www.blogadda.com" target="_blank">Indian Bloggers.</a> Participate now to get free books!

Contact me for your product's review on twitter @araijain or @thelifesway or email - thelifesway@gmail.com

A Memoir - This Month Last Year - June 2013

Hi Guys,  

It was the time when Indiblogger contests were in full bloom and I wrote several posts for WeChat contest.

1. WeChat with Comedy characters who are everywhere – This is one of the post I really like to read again and again. I think this to be one of my best ever as I try to think in the way as the several characters of the post will. Check it out! Wrote another one on Indian Independence and won the Rs. 1000 GV for the same.

2. Book Review - From the Rat Race to Financial Freedom by Manoj Arora – This is one of the best financial books ever written for Indian scenario. I got the book from the writer and immediately fell in love with the contents of the book. Mr. Arora is launching a new book Happiness Unlimited in August at Pragati Maidan, Delhi.

3. HP PRINT ART - A Project Managed by PIRATES – An Indiblogger meet for the family where my wife and daughter too came to enjoy the HP Print Art. We won the first runner up project for our Pirates theme. It was a nice family day and picnic along with other bloggers families. My daughter is a big fan of Rob - M.A.D ART on Pogo TV and this was a stepping stone for making her dream true to meet Rob.

4. Book Review – Dongri to Dubai – S. Hussain Zaidi – One of the interesting read about the man whose name is famous world over. This book gives what happened in his life and how he rose to the cult status he has today.

5. My 100th Post - Celebrating with BOSE MIE2i Mobile Headset – Wrote my 100^th post onwww.thelifesway.com and celebrated them with the latest BOSE headsets  which I always wanted to have and listen to. These are one of the best earphones and gives surround sound effects. I am still using them and falls in love with them every time I listen a song using them.

Blogging took charge of my life during those months and I was excited to participate in all the contests. Also, twitter contests were running in full bloom and won several contests there too. Some other posts - 

Product Review - Sennheiser CX-310 Earphones

The Power and Magic of The Secret

Western Digital - My Passport Essential SE 1TB Portable Harddisk

Cheers!!!

Contact me for Product Reviews on twitter @araijain or @thelifesway or email - thelifesway@gmail.com

From the Rat Race to Financial Freedom - Manoj Arora

Hi Guys,

A common man's journey in his life is always towards saving money and investing in whatever options he is aware of, but then sometimes we end up with nothing in our hands. Here's a book by Mr. Manoj Arora securing a way for a common man to build up his wealth with the Right Attitude and Planning Well! This book is about dreams and coming out of the rut of earning money at a young age - like i will be financially free by the age of 41, and once an individual is financially free, he can chase his passion, or true dream in life!

Published by Jaico Books, this book is priced at Rs. 299/- only.

More infomation about the book can be found out at - https://www.facebook.com/RatRaceToFinancialFreedom 

& the blog at - http://ratrace2freedom.blogspot.in/ 

I will be reviewing the book once I am done with Inferno by Dan Brown. Till that time my financial freedom has to wait...

Thanks a lot!

Contact me for your product's review on twitter @araijain or @thelifesway or email - thelifesway@gmail.com

Tantra by Adi - Book Review

Hi Guys,

This is my second book review for Blogadda and this time it was a difficult read for me as I was busy with a lot of household works. Also, I was not a Vampire on a hunting mission. Coming directly on the book, this one is published by Apeejay Stya Publishing, New Delhi and MRP at Rs. 195/- only. The cover of the book is really beautiful and shows a girl with two blood stained knives with in a full moon night and someone overlooking what she is doing through clouds. Overall the covers really helps you pick this one weekend read. This one will really suits you if you are so much into mystical vampire world. This book is a great channel between reality, spirituality and twilight zones. The central character Anu Aggarwal comes to Delhi from New york with previous memories that keep haunting her until she finds the purpose greater than her own loss of beloved lover. 

The story unravels itself chapter by chapter with new characters introductions. She is faced with different challenges to understand the culture we live in Delhi. She also understoods the night culture followed by the Vampire world. Mysteries are unfolded slowly and at the right pace. A strong emotional connections is felt between the characters mainly Anu and her aunt in Delhi, Anu and Gaurav, Anu and Mr Sharma etc. Anu falls in love with Gaurav and overcomes the lost Brian from New York. How brian dies and what happened to him remains a mystery till the end of the novel.

Senaka seems to be a great villain and really keeps everyone on their feets throughout his introductions and afterwards. He is the constant source of mystery and drama for this novel. Anu learns dekhan dekhi culture so closely followed by Indian Society and the preparation associated with the same also. She does learn a lot from that event which takes more than 2 chapters and covers the same vividly. 

What I could learn from the novel is the meditational practices to master something in life is repetition with pure heart. She does learns the lost secret powers of astras so big for her only through repetitions and chanting. We too can become big if we chant whomsoever we feel like praying or loving. It can be money, health, wealth, studies etc. There are connection of threads in this world shown which seems to be strong and real. I really fell in love with the threads. The writer has beautifully packaged a story inside a religious belief system and introduction of chanting to those who doesn’t read these big religious books on meditations etc. He does arouse my interest in the subject and I loved that I don’t need to read anything else than this story of Anu finding her way in this spiritual world with the help of a right mentor. In my case the mentor will be the book Tantra and Adi. I would give 4 stars out of 5 for the novel. This is a kind of spiritual book covered in a vampire world and will not be favourite for everyone. I too struggled hard to complete this one but then I touched some threads which helped me going till the end of the book. Thanks Adi.

This review is a part of the biggest <a href="http://blog.blogadda.com/2011/05/04/indian-bloggers-book-reviews" target="_blank"> Book Review Program </a> for <a href="http://www.blogadda.com" target="_blank">Indian Bloggers.</a> Participate now to get free books!

RIP by Mukul Deva #BookReview #TheLifesWay

Hi Friends, 

The novel starts with the last 2-3 years scenario that has developed in India. The events are still fresh inside the minds of all the people of India. The names of the people involved have been changed in the novel but the fiction and reality never change as I kept comparing the characters with the real-life individuals. The novel is fast-paced and keeps the momentum building up till the last 50-60 pages where it is on full-throttle. I was not able to put it down once I reached Chapter 12.

At the start of the novel, I felt the story is being copied from Rang De Basanti as one of the character's relatives died due to an air force plane crashed due to faulty parts deals by the politicians. So the revenge factor was all set in the story. As the story grow more and more characters were introduced and the main buildup of characters was done sooner in the novel.

The story revolved around four main characters and their hunt to be at the right place at the right time. It's a cop and chase story but in the Indian political background, it really resonates with what the common man feels and wants. The writer has been good to understand the viewpoint of the country and added something extra from his own end. the novel is a great time pass but not in that league where we find the Meluhan thrills and Chanakya chanting the mantras. It is a nice read but I don't think anyone wants the story to be remembered as we have seen many English and Hindi movies on this theme. Overall the novel has all the masala of Bollywood and Hollywood movies built into its central characters and storyline. The aftermaths of the attack also resonate with what the common man wants the future of this country. The writer has given words to the common man's mind and feelings. The triangular love story between the main characters develops. Plane hijacking has also been added to the story for a strong reason to go RIP. The whole personalities of Paramilitary forces are very well defined and makes you want for more action. An angle of extra-marital affairs is also introduced as one of the characters has the right kind of charm and money. The anger and rage he has inside of him is also depicted very well. The ideas to execute some of the politicians are also not new as we have seen the same in the JFK assassination but the style is definitely new. The novel is definitely a mix of all the terror attacks that happened in India just like the movie Pankaj Kapoor's Mausam which also showed many. The overall solution seems to be the best part of the story as when there is fear of death in everyone, very few people will deviate themselves from being right and righteous.

As this is my first book review at blog adda I am kind of houch pouch in terms of running around the story but I don't want to reveal the excitement as I want all readers to personally go through the book. I will be awaiting comments from the more experienced readers and bloggers.

This review is a part of the <a href="http://www.blogadda.com" target="_blank">Indian Bloggers</a> <a href="http://blog.blogadda.com/2011/05/04/indian-bloggers-book-reviews" target="_blank"> Book Reviews Program. </a> Participate now to get free books! http://adda.at/10ne4ks

Cheers!!!

Support me if you like reading this blog post by buying me a cup of tea or coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/TheLifesWay Contact at thelifesway@gmail.com to collaborate and promote your services and products. Subscribe to my YOUTUBE Channel for giveaways, product reviews and mystery unboxings. #TheLifesWay #9YearsofTheLifesWay. Namaste!