She, her husband Ted, and I met 2 years ago first time at a mutual friend’s home and we have been in touch since then.
Feel free to connect with her on social media she also offers a coaching program which you can find on her website.
Danielle Sunberg is a wellness entrepreneur, transformational coach, author, international keynote speaker, and mother. A former Big Law attorney, Danielle worked as a corporate litigator at an award-winning law firm in Washington D.C. After successfully defending her client against a $6 billion judgment, Danielle was diagnosed with depression. She left the firm to travel the world to discover what truly inspired her, training with some of the most preeminent mentors in conscious living and studying as a Reiki Master. In 2019, Danielle founded a cannabis wellness brand dedicated to connecting people to their innate wellness that was acquired in December 2021. As a coach to elite entrepreneurs and leaders, Danielle guides people who have achieved success yet yearn for something more out of life. Her new book, Atlas of Being: From Briefcase to Backpack, One Former Lawyer’s Exploration of the Human Way, is a #1 New Release.
“As a young lawyer, I sat at the defendant’s table in the federal courthouse day after day, listening to witness examinations and flipping through binders of depositions to confirm matching testimony. I was nothing if not vigilant. Our client was a movie investor facing a six billion dollar claim in a class action lawsuit over the movie’s advertisement, and I was going to make sure I lived up to every penny he paid his legal team not to lose his hard-earned fortune.
My life had unfolded along an expected professional path. I pored over my laptop fifteen hours a day, squeezed into pencil skirts, and crammed my feet into high heels. I would have welcomed the pain from pointe shoes, but I begrudged it from my stilettos. I had chosen to be an attorney; it provided financial stability, commanded respect, offered prestige . . . and was utterly devoid of satisfaction.
I’m so thrilled to share the book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Time with you. This book has been recommended on my podcast many times — but I never felt inclined to read it. The summer of 2022 brought some earth-shaking events in my life and I felt called to get a copy of this book.
This book has helped me to embrace fears, acceptance of life as is, learning to sit with the discomfort. I’ve read this book dozens of times almost every week. Depending on what’s going on with me —I pick up a paragraph, sit with it, and feel the sadness, disappointment, anger, or whatever is flowing through me.
I share a small excerpt from this book.
“Relaxing with loneliness is a worthy occupation. As the Japanese poet Ryokan says, “if you want to find the meaning, stop chasing after so many things”
“To stay with that shakiness – to start with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge – that is the path of true awakening”.
“This very moment is the perfect teacher”
“When we find ourselves in a mess, we don’t have to feel guilty about it. Instead, we could reflect on the fact that how we relate to his mess will be sowing the seeds of how we relate to whatever happens next”
I’ve had the honor of connecting Feisal Alibhai over the video for about 3 hours and I am thrilled to learn about his life and story. How we connected – that’s a separate story! Life always flows in synchronicity and I am grateful to connect with him. This post illustrates books he recommends to his mentees and others. I’ve already read some of them and now plan to revisit them in the near future.
Feisal Alibhai: As a 35-year-old 3rd generation family business entrepreneur with over 10,000 employees in 15 countries, Feisal received a wake-up call one day with the news that he had stage three cancer. He felt his life was over, but when he was unable to visualize saying goodbye to his two toddler sons, he chose to do whatever it took to transform cancer.
To maximize his odds of survival, he turned to functional medicine, integrative doctors, and beyond, building a team of world experts to support him. Seven years later, with his cancer in remission and feeling he had moved through the worst, he received what felt like the harshest blow of all, his wife proceeded with a divorce.
Looking back, he recognized all the warning signs he had missed and spent the next seven years helping his family and friends to prioritize what matters most. In 2013, Feisal founded Qineticare, the world’s first family health office. Qineticare’s mission is to empower individuals and families through an integrative wellbeing journey of self-discovery to transform their way of being to live a meaningful life.
I had the real honor of interviewing Sergey Young on my podcast recently. The interview is coming out very soon. Sergey recommended some great books in our conversation on happiness, peace of mind, improving quality of sleep, and in other areas. I love to know about new books that happy and successful read to learn, grow, and help others.
This post is just about that — highlighting Sergey’s selected book recommendations. You might be wondering — who’s Sergey?
Sergey Young is a longevity investor and visionary with a mission to extend the healthy lifespans of one billion people. To do that, Sergey founded Longevity Vision Fund to accelerate life extension technological breakthroughs and to make longevity affordable and accessible to all.
Sergey is on the Board of Directors of the American Federation of Aging Research (AFAR) and the Development Sponsor of AGE REVERSAL XPRIZE global competition designed to cure aging. Sergey is also a Top-100 Longevity Leader, who is transforming the world, one workplace at a time, with Longevity@Work – the first non-profit corporate longevity program of its kind.
Sergey Young has been featured as a top longevity expert and contributor on CNN, Fox News, and Forbes. As the author of books such as ‘The Science and Technology of Growing Young’. Sergey is passionate about sharing news from the exciting world of longevity
I crafted a list of 10 life’s philosophical questions that I wanted to answer for myself. I thought—what would it look like if I ask the same set of questions to the best in the world from the different domain—so that I can learn from them—what they do, how they think on the same questions, and much more!
This post highlights my conversation with Monique Russell on such questions.
Monique Russell is an executive coach, leadership guru, communication expert, and the founder of Clear Communication Solutions. She comes from a long line of educators in her family. Keeping in line with her desire to be on the big stage, she earned a Bachelor of Science in Broadcast Journalism. She went back for two Masters of Science, one in Public Relations and the other in Advertising.
She’s an excellent communication consultant and coach, that’s why she’s ready to guide you with her gifts so you too can be a confident and clear communicator. This is how Clear Communication Solutions was born.
Organizations like CDC, Google, Salesforce, Verizon, Equifax, OSHA, FEMA, Chambers of Commerce, business owners, and faith-based organizations trust her to help them foster courage, creativity, and leadership. You can too.
Nishant Garg:What books—or even movies and documentaries—would you recommend to someone who want to live a meaningful life? What books have you gifted the most, and why?
Monique Russell: The Success Principles by Jack Canfield is a book I highly recommend to anyone who wants to live a meaningful life. I have gifted this book many times, and I remember when I first started reading it years ago — my mother and I actually read it together. I’d read out loud each chapter and when a concept was so deep we would simply start talking about it right away. It was so invigorating for both of us because as we read we were able to discuss the principles together. This book helps you to realize how much in control of your decisions and life you are. You are left feeling inspired and empowered to take responsibility for your life. Since then, my mother has become a certified Jack Canfield trainer and teaches the principles often.
Nishant Garg:What does your first 60 to 90 minutes in the morning look like? What are your specific rituals on a regular basis?
Monique Russell: The morning is most important for me to prime my mind. Before I get out of bed I begin a practice of gratitude, thinking and saying all the things I am grateful for out loud. I start with my bed, my pillow, the good night’s sleep I had, my family, my health, and so on. Then, I execute my affirmations playlist that consists of 3 to 4 regular different sets of affirmations I listen to regularly. Sometimes I will repeat them or I will listen to it silently with my eyes closed. Then, I get up, make my bed, and take a shower. I drink 8 oz of water and take a multi-vitamin. Then, I make myself the first cup of tea. It used to be coffee, but I successfully transitioned to tea four years ago. I take my tea with me to my desk and pray. Then, I get out my journal and begin to free write. Once I am done with those steps, I am ready to start my work day. I look at the list of tasks from the night before if I wrote them out, and begin working whether I am coaching, training, being interviewed, or developing strategies for my clients.
People often ask me how I can be so positive so early in the morning and this is why. By the time I meet with the first person in the day, I am literally on cloud 9. This morning routine is so important to me because if I jump into my day without prepping and priming my mind, I find that my frustration level heightens more easily.
Nishant Garg:You have interacted with many successful people over the years — what have you found are the most beneficial exercises that people really feel have changed their lives for the better?
Monique Russell: The people I consider to be successful are those that have been able to work in their strength zones, build great relationships, and have time to enjoy life while being in a good financial position. When I assess and speak with some of these persons, I have observed 4 exercises that help them change their lives for the better:
An ability to implement daily discipline no matter how small the task is. They make their practice of discipline almost second nature like breathing.
Actively and intentionally nurture relationships. Nurturing their relationships is considered a critical business task and they treat it as such. This means proactively scheduling time to spend time with, connect and celebrate those that fill their cup, and vice versa.
Consistently engage in exercise or some form of physical activity. This could be walking, running, lifting weights, hiking, dancing, rock climbing etc.
Invest in their mind with therapy and/or coaching. Every one of these individuals had the realization that they were their biggest asset and as such, they invested in maximizing their mental capacity and faculties with facilitated thinking.
In this post, I briefly describe a handful of books that has made so much impact in my life in 2020 and 2021. I consider these books for life to revisit many times.
The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life: I don’t exactly remember how I got introduced to this book. But it’s a gem. I couldn’t connect to this book when I first picked up, I think it was in 2019. You know, sometimes you get to be patient with the book and with yourself. I keep coming back to this book even when I didn’t grasp some stories and ideas — perhaps, I wasn’t ready. Eventually, it turned out to be very useful during the first few months in the podcasting. There are some areas it was very helpful and still is — “How to handle rejections? How to enroll people in your vision? How to live life from a place of contribution? How to take things less personally? How to create possibilities in every situation?”, and much more.
I’ve read this book many a times and flooded with underlines and asterisks(*) as a reminder. I am sure you will learn a lot from this Goldie and Oldie. Be patient with this book.
Excerpt from this book:
“I settled on a game called “I am a contribution”. Unlike success and failure, contribution has no other side. It’s not arrived at by comparison. All at once I found out that the fearful question, “Is it enough”, and the even more fearful question, “Am I loved for who I am, or what I have accomplished?” could both be replaced by the joyful question, “How will be a contribution today?”
“If we were to take a “no” less personally, and ourselves less seriously, we might hear something else. We might hear someone saying,”I don’t see any new possibility here, so I think I’ll stick with my usual way of doing things”
Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes: We all are transitioning from thing to another, one phase in life to another, from singlehood to being committed, from one job to another job, and including many other transitions. This book explains in detail how to navigate different transitions with ease. It actually explains a 3 part framework. I have got many breakthroughs from this book —such as saying yes to go to Sun Valley, Idaho after interviewing this amazing human Denise Shull, yes to hiring a career coach, and yes to join an esteemed mastermind group. How do you “end” things and “start” new things in life? This book explains that there is a “Neutral” zone we get to embrace after something ends and before something new starts. A must read.
Also, I recently gifted this book to a friend and recommended to others on many occasions. If you’re interested in learning more about Decision Making process using emotions and feelings, then Listen to my interview with Denise Shull on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, or on your favorite platform.
Excerpt from this book:
“Think of what would be unlived in your life if it ended today”. You might actually write the obituary – it’s a revealing exercises – but if you don’t want to do that , at least pause for a few moments and jot down notes on a piece of paper.”
Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing: Honestly, It took me a couple of months to entirely read this book. It’s such a simple read and you can literally finish it off in a week. Why it took me that long to complete this book? My goal of reading is to really “study” and “embody” the learnings. I was reading in random bits and pieces. My initial thought was “who’s interested in someone’s story growing up in Hong Kong in an Indian family”. This book really becomes a healing power as you keep going.
I got to know about this book from one of the Wayne Dyer’s audio The Secret & The Law of Attraction. He’s been my #1 spiritual mentor and wrote a foreword in this book. Of course, I got to get this book, right? The truth is that I was window shopping in a book store(my favorite time pass) and suddenly my eyes gazed on this book. The name seemed familiar as I had already listened to The Secret & The Law of Attraction many times in which he mentions about this book and bought this powerful healing manifesto.
There is one specific chapter on “Allowing, letting go and surrendering” (paraphrasing) which I have read dozens of times. I only carried this book with me while spending two weeks in the mountains of Idaho in the August/September 2021, and and reread it over and over to just “let it go” and practice living from a place of surrender.
