Words for Life and Personal Growth

What is your relation with your money? Money is a necessary thing, and to have and to win money is not a sin (rhyme intended ). On the other hand, to live for money is not only a sin but a stupidity. We, as integral human beings, are of much more value than any material concept. This is something I insist a lot in my business seminars: look for money, but never lend your heart to money. In other words, win money, but don’t let money to win you.

Who are the Winners?

Winners are fortunate people, indeed. But except for rare cases, most of their fortune stems from hard work, and more importantly, from a sound and clear mindset. Winners have no time (nor wish) to be moaning about the “harshness of life.” Winners don’t complain about such things, because they understand that life, like a river, exhibits turbulent episodes in some parts, but caress and nourish the surrounding nature, all the way.

Positive Attitude in The Winners’ Mind

Nevertheless, all these years I’ve known a lot of people who are frequently bitching about their lack of money or general misfortune, but what they are indeed lacking is a positive attitude toward their money. Now, what does this “positive attitude” notion mean? Let’s start by answering a few questions:

• What really are the kind of thoughts that flood our minds when we think of our money?
• Which are the words we utter when speaking about our money and related things (such as mortgage, bank, expenses, etc.)?
• In the past, how much success have we attained by spending and investing our money?

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When I have to hire someone for any position in my company, I always pay close attention to the below discussed 7 attributes, because I always strive to hire people with leadership traits (even when the job is not a key managerial position.) I always want the best people, no matter the size, complexity or responsibility of the job. I know that, as time goes by, groups of workers with leadership traits perform and coordinate a lot better than simple people. And the today new assistant may hopefully become a very important director in a few years.

Furthermore, I prefer the democratic (also referred to as participative) leadership style: in this case, the leader offers guidance to the group, but also participates in the group, and promotes feedback from other members. Note that this style is not inconsistent with the view of everyone in a group acting as a leader! The democratic style is also suitable for the modern dynamic environments because it allows dealing with fast-changing circumstances. Other styles, such as authoritarian or delegative leaderships, are very harmful and obsolete.

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Current stressed lifestyles and rushed, unhealthy diets are important promoters of high cholesterol levels in the body. We should always remember that the first step toward recovering our health and treating any medical problem should be an evaluation by a qualified specialist (I do recommend consulting a good cardiologist for treatment of cholesterol problems.)

This week I had my annual cardiological checkup. These tips expand on the recommendations of my cardiologist, and they could prove useful for keeping low cholesterol levels and, in general, a healthy lifestyle. Basically, we should start out by adopting better nutritional habits, including the following:

Eat more fiber and fruits, vegetables and whole cereals (maize, rice, wheat, sorghum, etc) because they promote lowering of bad LDL cholesterol levels, without affecting good HDL cholesterol. Prefer vegetables to fruits, though, because the latter usually contain higher concentrations of sugar. On its side, whole grains may be nutritionally superior to refined grains, and richer in fiber, some proteins, antioxidants, minerals and vitamins. By the way, did you know that “cereal” derives from “Ceres”, the name of the pre-Roman goddess of harvest and agriculture?

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We humans are innate learners, as learning is the cornerstone for survival. We must remember, abstract and apply knowledge in diverse (and often harsh) environments in order to develop into and behave as truly intelligent beings. In short, the adaptability and resilience we exhibit stems from learning. Now, a key issue to learning is the driving force behind it, i.e., the motivation or stimuli to learn. We can learn because of fear (we want to learn how to protect ourselves from danger.) We can learn just out of curiosity (our natural inquisitive behavior.) We can learn because we want to reach some social status (approval of others is a potent stimuli to learn.) We can learn simply because we love to learn new things everyday. There are plenty of reasons to learn and yours may easily be a mixture of these. Health and money are important things in life, but learning is the base for using them wisely If we are to succeed in life, we must hone our learning skills.

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This weekend I attended a talk by a friend of mine, a 15 years local expert in what she calls energetic organization of homes and business environments (you know who you are ). I must admit, though, that I’m not too convinced of the modern hype of the word energetic, unless it refers to people’s internal, mental energy. I think that people, not things, are the true source of energy. A sane mind and healthy body should always be our prime priorities. Nevertheless, according to the crowd of people who attended her conference, this seems a very popular topic nowadays. And surprisingly, a few themes resulted to be interesting for me.

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Simply put, your mind needs some exercise in order to stay young and healthy. The basis for brain’s life is processing of new data and stimuli. Our minds should be regularly exposed to updated information and new experiences, in order to reach higher levels of creativity, openness, speed, and adaptation. Looking for new ways of thinking is an excellent exercise for being smarter and more sociable. Nevertheless, in the following I detail a neat list of simple exercises for improving our minds’ state:

1. Solve some puzzles and crosswords: A puzzle is a problem or enigma that challenges ingenuity. Basically, you piece together objects in a logical way in order to come up with the desired shape, picture or solution (obviously, a crossword is a type of puzzle.) Puzzles are often viewed as a form of simple entertainment, but they are powerful allies for increasing brain activity.

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The initial answer against fear and panic would be stress. Typically, this reaction causes anxiety, wake up panic and lost of self-confidence. Fear and panic have their roots in circumstances and settings which we feel are no longer under our control. When we are dealing with a lot of variables simultaneously, the mind tends to flood with negative thoughts regarding our fears about not being able to handle the situation willingly. All humans have instincts, and we all share most of them in different stages. Stress, therefore, is a state of the body and mind reacting to a perceived danger. Ideally, such alert state would wake up reflexes for coping with danger and problems. However, when the alert becomes too big (for internal or external reasons), it has an opposite, paralyzing and unhealthy effect. Now, why did that happen? Think of your mind as a computer disk. You store all your information there, but some processes have allowed it to receive garbage information. You have to remove such garbage from your disk, and restore it to its original state. For the time being, the following tips may prove useful:
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In the following, I’ll briefly expand on the key points for achieving success when you have to work in groups. As a result of the complex and dynamic nature of human interactions, you may find working in groups a challenging issue. In fact, the coordination and agreement required by groups is a research topic by itself. But the powerful rationale behind groups is the divide-and-conquer approach: a bigger workforce may lead to bigger results (but not always, and in some fields, such as software engineering, it may easily be the opposite.) In this respect, I’ll propose 10 aspects we should strive for when working with other people. You may find this discussion useful for the college, the office or life in general.
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In a recent motivation talk, an attendee asked me for a succinct list of the things we should care for if we wanted to live longer. Well, I frankly have no idea about how to live longer, nor about how to look younger (plastic surgery perhaps?). However, I have 7 recommendations we could pay attention to if we want a healthy life:

1. Variety: In your physical exercises and activities, in your habits, leisures, and meals. Besides, your mind should have a reasonable daily rotation of ideas (please, don’t focus too hard, too long into a single thought.)
2. Regularity: For eating, for sleeping and of course, for working.
3. Eat more, eat less: Have plenty for breakfast, less for lunch, and a very frugal dinner. Eat your antioxidants, mainly fruits and vegetables (including vegetables oils). Some coffee, tea, chocolate and wine is also ok.
4. Self-confidence: If you are hoping that another person makes you happy, you’re asking to be disappointed and framed. Be yourself, and trust your feelings. Love life.
5. Exercise: Your body and mind must be in equilibrium. Remember that you live in a material world, and your body is your direct communication with it. At least take some long walks, in order to fortify your muscles (and your mind).
6. Relax: Switch your mind and body, and forget about work, conflicts and hardships. Look forward for better times.
7. Patience:As time goes by, you will see the things you have worked for… to come true.

But foremost, discover the things that work for you!

A post answering a question from a student (you know who you are!). It’s mostly a compilation of experience about visualization, proposal and creation of your thesis or dissertation. Some students fear (or panic) when the time of thesis arrives. I’ve even met people with the EBT (Everything But the Thesis) syndrome, but that is a very complex problem and I’m no psychologist. Please, keep reading if you are not afraid of the document we refer to as “thesis”, and you are determined to succeed. Effectively, the thesis represents a written expression of your specialized knowledge, with an scope scarcely above that of the toughest work you fulfilled during your studies (sometimes not even that). Nothing out of the ordinary. It is a document in which you express, typically as the last requirement for the degree, your command over a concrete subject. Often, the thesis is a document of regular transcendence.

The problem lies in the huge load of stress students have to endure, stemming from the academic and social environments: you have to deliver a work with superlative quality (and has to distinguish you from your peers), the haste to innovation, the won (or lost) prestige, the opportunities, the castles in the air, the afterward, failure poking its head out of the window, the defense, among other factors. But sometimes, to tell the truth, it’s simply that the student has acquired no significant skill in the career’s subjects (not so unlikely as it may seem), or suffers from a traditional chronic laziness. Nevertheless, for the time being we will focus on the essence of the document. Upcoming posts (perhaps) will touch on those surrounding topics.

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