Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

The 2 success rules

1- Never say everything you know.

Good advices

Maybe these are, but please don't miss this video. I think this is the best video I've ever seen on the Internet.

Goog advices for a lifetime.

Turn your speakers on and enjoy (subtitles in spanish):

Teamwork

Do you know what teamwork is?

Just have a look:

Record with controversy

Last summer, Barry Bonds got the home run’ record: 756!!!
He got the last one against Washington Nationals, playing at home.

Hank Aaron is not number one anymore, Mr. Bonds has taken his place.

He’s the new baseball hero. His crown is beyond doubt. But… what happens with his honesty?

In spite of his new record, I’m afraid steroids have tarnished his whole career, staining his name. Apart from the exception of San Francisco Giants’ supporters, he’s used to hear a murmur of disapproval when playing on the road.

Even no congratulations from the White House… suspicious. Of course, Tony Snow tried to dissociate the absence of congratulations from this reason.

Straight to the point

The following text is a write-up I found last week when trying to find out which is the best management book written ever. Obviously this is not one of the candidates:

"It is strange how so many businesspeople I meet tend to be right-wing, anti-communist and great believers in personal freedom, yet run their businesses like Stalin's Russia. Workers are motivated by a mixture of fear and ambition and any individual opinion taht deviates from the party line is seen as a threat.

I'm a manager. All I ask of my staff is that they're honest, work hard and treat everyone with respect. That's it. For my part I give them a clear idea of what I expect and make sure that they have the tools to do their job and receive recognition of their achievements. What I don't do is mess with their heads.

This book is symptomatic of trend in management culture where it is not enough to ask people to do their jobs well; we now have to re-engineer their souls. The aim of this book is to motivate staff with "fun" activities in staff training sessions, but the reality is intrusive and patronising. One game invites workers to mention a childhood achievement that they were particulary proud of and then get other members of the team to discuss it. Well, I believe in personal freedom and a part of that is not feeling obliged to talk about personal things in a work setting.

Chairman Mao had his "Cultural Revolution" and this smacks of the same attitude. It's not enough for people to do as they're told, they now have to have the right attitude and if they're not willing to be team players, they're out. It's like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".

Buy this book to find out how emotionally dysfunctional people struggle to motivate teams and get it horribly wrong."

For me, the most striking feature of this review is its spontaneity. I mean, lots of people use to participate and discuss about books, but this one gets straight to the point.

Who are you?

It seems easy right?
So are you really able to tell me who you are?

This is an Anger Management dialogue:

- "Who are you?"
- "Well, I am an executive assistant at a major pet products company..."
- "I don't want you to tell us what you do. I want you to tell us who you are."
- "All right... I'm a pretty good guy. I like playing tennis on occasion..."
- "Also, not your hobbies, Dave. Just simple: tell us who you are."

I'm sure you haven't asked yourself this question... have you? You should.

Let's try it out. Are you...

... a man/woman?
... a son/daughter?
... a father/mother?
... a boss?
... optimistic?
... pessimistic?
... realistic?
... religious?
... sporty?
... extrovert?
... happy?

So I do know now what you do and your hobbies as well, but I still don't know who you are. So far I'm affraid you haven't answered enough to cover the question.

Unfinished business to settle

PGA Championship, the last Major of the season, commences today. It lasts until Saturday, and takes place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in Southern Hills Country Club to be precise.

Tiger Woods is obviously the focus of attention, because he’s the current champion, and he also won 1999 and 2000 series.

Is bad luck over him? I mean, he came within an inch of winning Masters and US Open, but he finally lost.

In case of losing again, it will be a blank season… That’s indeed pressure!

The power of Sport

You may be surprised after reading my first post, especially when reading that sport can drive the world…

Are you? If so, please watch the movie “Remember the Titans” and you’ll understand me. Superb! It’s worth it.

Changes only happen when someone dares to defy the status quo. Somehow, Herman Boone and Bill Yoast knew it and they both were able to improve the world by doing what they did the best: sport.

There’re no important changes without pain, that’s the harsh reality of the matter.

Here you have a couple of samples:





And of course don't miss this motivation speech...terrific!:

Business leaders

The most influential business leaders of the past 25 years are, as ranked by USA TODAY:

1) Bill Gates, Microsoft

2) Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman

3) Steve Jobs, Apple

4) Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google founders

5) Herb Kelleher, Southwest Airlines

6) Andy Grove, Intel

7) Jack Welch, General Electric

8) Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway

9) Charles Schwab, investments

10) Michael Milken, junk bonds

11) Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com

12) Rupert Murdoch, News Corp.

13) Frederick Smith, FedEx

14) Phil Knight, Nike

15) Ken Lay, Enron

16) Oprah Winfrey, Harpo

17) Michael Dell, Dell

18) Meg Whitman, eBay

19) Howard Schultz, Starbucks

20) Edward C. “Ned” Johnson 3d, Fidelity Investments

21) Martha Stewart, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia

22) John Bogle, The Vanguard Group

23) Robert Johnson, BET

24) Barry Diller, Expedia, IAC

25) Steve Case, AOL

Making a bit of time

My initial idea with this blog was trying to write & post once per month. However, I think I’ll be able to do it twice at least.

At the moment, I’m going to post only from Monday to Friday.

Have a nice weekend!

Walk the talk

Even if we start of the premise that human being is naturally contradictory, for me the most important thing in life is to be consistent, be at peace with yourself.

Although you don’t notice it, you obviously behave according to your set of values, your deeply rooted beliefs.

What do you appreciate the most in your life?

Quite apart from the fact we usually are not aware of that values, there’s no harm in making sure you act in a consistent way. But… how to do it? I guess the point is taking account of how much time you spend doing one thing or another.

Deep down, you won’t spend any time on anything whether you don’t value it.

Is your family? Your job? May be your favourite sport? Could be spending time alone as well…

Think on it!

A new start

Hello.

From today, I'm writing on this blog about several issues related to Thinking, Feeling and Acting. These three words are the ones that make things happen.

What really rules the world? Tenderness, Love, Sex, Sport, Politics, Power, Money...?

I think there's no a single answer, what about you?