Like many of us, Bob Miglani felt overwhelmed and anxious. He worried constantly about his job, his finances, and his family’s future. Life seemed so uncertain and unpredictable, but the more he tried to control it, the more stress he felt. It was a chance invitation to India, the land of his birth, that finally freed him. India, Miglani writes, is “the capital of chaos”: over a billion people living on one-third the space of the United States, a bewildering mix of different languages, religions, customs, cultures, and castes. And yet somehow things get done and people are generally happy. India made Miglani realize that you simply have to accept “the unpredictable, uncertain, imperfect, and complicated nature of life.” Instead of fighting it, Miglani learned to use his energy on what he could control—his own actions, words, and thoughts. However, thinking too much is just another way of trying to control the chaos. Instead of endlessly pondering possibilities, Miglani found it was better to take action, even imperfectly—to move forward, make mistakes, trust his intuition, find his purpose. Throughout the book, Miglani tells funny and moving stories of his trips to India, the people he met there, and what each encounter taught him. What happens when you find yourself in an Indian village with no money and a plane to catch? How can an educated urban woman choose the man she is going to marry based on one or two meetings? What keeps a rural Indian health worker motivated despite the enormous need and such limited ability to help? What does trying to catch an insanely overcrowded Indian bus teach you about perfection? Embracing the chaos, Miglani writes, “is a wonderfully freeing experience that opens us up to new, fresh possibilities. It leads us down paths we never would have walked on, introducing us to new people, new opportunities, and some of the best experiences in our life. It brings out strengths we never knew existed inside of us.”
About the Author
Bob Miglani is senior director at a Fortune 50 company in New York City, where he has been embracing the chaos for twenty years. He came to the United States from India in 1979 and grew up running his family’s Dairy Queen business, the subject of his first book, Treat Your Customers.
