Until Today

“Until Today” By Iyanla Vanzant

Book: “Until Today: Daily Devotional for Spiritual Growth and Peace of Mind” by Iyanla Vanzant

Book Review by Mary Mikawoz

This book will take you a year to read; at least, it should. It is daily devotional book dated each day for an entire year. I read the book at a number of sittings because I did not know if I could wait a year to read all the amazing insights that Iyanla has to offer.

Iyanla’s insights are so incredible and in depth. Her wisdom is of sage advice. I enjoyed reading her book and think it would be very good to focus on one aspect each day. Each month has a different focus. From January to December, the devotee is supposed to focus on different elements such as the following: life, love, awareness, acknowledgment, acceptance, forgiveness, understanding, faith, trust, worth, service and peace.

It is difficult to discuss everything Iyanla goes over so I will keep my comments to a minimum by quoting a couple of days in the book. On July 30, the beginning of the day starts with “I will gain more understanding when I realize…there is a place called home where I am always welcome.” There are four paragraphs that follow expounding further on this concept. It ends off the page with a focal point. In this case, it reads, “Today I am devoted to finding my way back home!”

Other example pages have poems or quotes or sayings in it. One of my favourites is found on December 29 where the following is given.

“You are here:

To gain character as you lose ego

To gain integrity as you lose dishonesty

To gain strength as you lose fear

To gain compassion as you lose disappointment

To gain discipline as you lose willfulness

To gain equality as you lose separation

To gain appreciation as you lose resentment

To gain enthusiasm as you lose hostility

To gain tenderness as you lose rigidity

To gain boldness as you lose bitterness

To gain generosity as you lose selfishness

To gain optimism as you lose inadequacy

To gain excitement as you lose embarrassment

To gain gratitude as you lose greed

To gain love as you lose ignorance.”

The book in my estimation is fantastic. Iyanla puts down in writing many of her inner peaceful secrets and understandings of God. This a a great spiritual book that could be read first thing in the morning each and every day for years to come with new insights being found all the time. I highly recommend this book.

Tags: devotional, book, 365 days, year, life, love, awareness, acknowledgment, acceptance, forgiveness, understanding, faith, trust, worth, service, peace, character, ego, integrity, honesty, strength, fear, compassion, disappointment, discipline, willfulness, equality, separation, appreciation, resentment, tenderness, rigidity boldness, bitterness, generosity, selfishness, optimism, inadequacy, excitement, embarrassment, gratitude, greed, love, ignorance.

Advertisement

Meg Whitman, CEO of HP Addresses IT Professionals at Discover 2012

In a conference room filled predominantly by males in the Information Technology industry, a woman stands before the thousands of listening ears and looking eyes. This woman, Meg Whitman, has had a past of working for some of the best companies such as Proctor and Gamble, Walt Disney and Ebay. In some cases, the companies were already well established and well known but in the case of Ebay, she took the company from a smaller company making millions to now billions of dollars annually in revenue.

Meg Whitman as CEO of HP, has only been with the company for eight months, but already she has a vision of where to take the company. She told us of how HP makes a difference and this goes along with the Discover 2012 Conference’s slogan, “Make it matter.” She outlined how HP has helped the UK Ministry of Defence. Information Technology experts actually volunteer for this “mission” and put on bullet-proof vests to be in field operations with the soldiers such as they have done in Afghanistan. The purpose is to help the UK Ministry develop strategies on how better technology can serve the military. This HP difference makes them different as a corporate company and citizen.

Ms. Whitman spoke of the tectonic plates of the IT industry moving. With this in mind, she reminded the IT people that the industry needs to become more open and ubiquitous. From the cloud, to social media, to data storage, to security, to speed, to agility and to costs, these are all factors and considerations for this company.

Meg Whitman challenges the CIO to deal with the changing landscape. The market place and the current models are changing. To orchestrate the information flow and open the architectural systems, the CIO has to strategize and Meg Whitman points how HP can be the one to do this. She spoke of a four pronged attack of 1) Solutions 2) Service 3) Software and 4) Infrastructure. Meg Whitman gives another example where they helped the Bank of India over a 5 year period to return a 200% increase.

The CEO spoke of how IT is more than the sum of the parts but an aggregate of its resources. With the cloud, security and information optimization, HP can help companies capture the future. HP will help the company to pick a delivery model to help them deal with their changing needs. Meg Whitman finishes off with speaking of that in times of crisis, such as the flooding in Christchurch, the earthquake in Japan and other disasters, HP was there to help and continue to “make it matter.”