If you love quotations, nuggets of wisdom and beautiful life stories, you should have this book in your library.
The Gem Collection is a small book with just over a hundred pages. But what’s inside is worth a lifetime of lessons and advice. The man behind The Gem Collection is Joseph Bismark who is currently Group Managing Director of the QI Group of Companies. The amazing background of Mr. Bismark (referred to as Japa by those who are fond of him) was not schooled from the start for the corporate life. In fact, he led a very eclectic, simple life as a child in an ashram in the Philippines. He learned yoga while there aside from all the life lessons that would become the basis for this book’s content. Suffice it to say for now, his life is quite colorful.
How he went from that simple lifestyle to head of a group of companies is a story in itself, which I’ve written about in my yoga blog, The Yogini from Manila. You can find Joseph Bismark’s amazing life story by clicking HERE.
Wanting to share his life lessons with all the employees of his company, Bismark thought of sending regular weekly emails to his employees as “Gems of Wisdom”. These stories, filled with important food for thought, slowly molded and motivated people who read his emails and now, the entire QI Group’s corporate culture revolves around these tenets.
The Gem Collection book contains 36 short chapters. The book is such an easy read since it contains very few but succinct words and beautiful illustrations. One can actually breeze through it from cover to cover in one sitting. The greater challenge, I believe, is in internalizing its contents and applying it to real life.
The Gem Collection is available at all National Book Store and Bestsellers outlets.
There is a saying by Maya Angelou: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
