You've Got to Find What You Love

Nothing better to start a new year than to hear a wonderful inspirational speech.

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

Highly recommended!... Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish!

The Halo Effect

I was very fortunate to come across this book - so far the best business book I have ever read!

This post contains an excerpt of the review I posted in Amazon.

"We as humans deal poorly with uncertainty. We like explainations (the simpler and the shorter the better), we like (and create) heroes (the superman, superstar CEO) and we like to believe that the world is fair, and that the worthy and the good will succeed and prevail at the end. We also love stories - the drama, the suspense and the happy ending. Above all... our society, our schools, our religions and our media lead us often to forget how to think, specially by ourselves."

Again, do not accept passively what you are told, what you hear and what you read. Always apply your critical thinking and jugdment.

Above all, make up your own mind and think for yourself.

Precious Time

The best things in life are free. Time is the most precious resource which is given to every one and which needs to be carefully managed. Money can buy a lot of things, but it can't buy an extra second.

The concept of time is so pervasive, and yet, it's so hard to define it without resorting to a circular reference. Time is mostly understood by the changes which occur over a given 'time period' (here's the circular reference).

When we choose to spend time doing something - like reading a book, going for a stroll or even doing nothing (what a waste!) - we are implicitly foregoing all the other possible alternatives to spend the same time - and there's no return. You can't turn back the clock. What a tough choice! That makes time so most precious!

Time is also one of the most precious gift one can give to anybody. Our time, our full attention and our dedication is priceless!

It seems to me, that most people live their lives like they would live forever. Fear and pride often lead us to do nothing, to say nothing... and therefore we miss many opportunities... that are gone forever and that we later regret. How different it would be if we would learn that we have only a small amount of time to live.

In terms of scale, when compared to the age of the universe - currently estimated around 14 billion years - a human life is less than a fraction of a second...

Personally, I feel that time moves faster as I got older. When I was young, days were endless and countless... and I could hardly wait to become eighteen. But nowadays, time move so fast... days quickly turn into weeks, months and years...

Well... spend your time well, and above all, make each moment count!

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.” - Albert Einstein

Success And Failure, In A New Light

I recently read the book 'The Innovation Paradox : The Success of Failure, the Failure of Success' by Richard Farson and Ralph Keyes. It has some interesting key points.

We as humans tend to polarize things. Everything needs to be either black or white. We tend to see success as very good thing and failure as a very bad thing.

The fact is, that success and failure are very close to each other, like two sides of the same coin. In fact, people (or companies) who succeed in the short term may fail in the mid-long term and vice-versa. Failure is not a failure if everything was done and prepared right, and most important of all, if we are able to learn something from it. A failure must then be seen, as a stepping stone in the way to success.

The only true failure, is in failing to try. Courage is to act not by lack of fear, but in spite of fear. The most exhilirating and exciting moments that we as humans can experience, is in the pursuit of something which we perceive as challenging, difficult, unattainable... even impossible. The sweetness is in the hunt, not in the achievement itself. Once the goal is achieved, we are immediately filled with a void, and we immediately look for another more ambitious goal...

That's one of the greatest mysteries and beauty of the Human kind - an eternal discomfort, an eternal hunger, an eternal search for higher goals and dreams.

We are far more likely to regret the things we didn't do than the things we did, specially because we will never know the outcome of the things we didn't do.

So don't be afraid to fail, don't be afraid to get out of your comfort zone. Try and fail, and learn, and try again,,, fail some more and try yet again... that is, my friend, the secret to a successful fulfilling life.

Tinnitus - Protect Your Ears

If you were like me, you would never have heard of 'Tinnitus' before. Tinnitus is a condition also known as 'ringing in the ears' since people suffering from it - including myself - hear a constant buzz in the ear 24 hours a day. It's not painful but it is extremely annoying, and it affects your ability to sleep and to concentrate.

The cause and mechanism of Tinnitus is still not fully understood, but it's believed that it involves both the physical ear and the brain in a complex circuit which creates a phantom sensation, in this case, a non-existing sound.

Over 50 million in the USA and over 6 million people in the UK suffer from this condition.

The best way for you to avoid this condition is to avoid or to wear ear plugs everytime you are exposed to loud sounds, specially for long periods of time.

Take care, and enjoy the silence (I still can't - but I hope to enjoy it one day).

Changing Jobs

Today is my last day at my current job. Next week I'm starting a new one.

I've stayed with this company for more than 12 years. I've seen it grow from a small rented office to the largest exporter of my country. I've lived through its complete rise and fall.

I'm filled with mixed feelings, but I look back over the past 12 years with gratitude and appreciation for the rich professional and personal experience. I also look with hope and confidence in the future. It's very important to always strive to be a better man and a better worker. And to the colleagues and friends I leave behind, I wish them all the best.

I close this post with the quote: "Every end is a new beginning".

Global Management Challenge

I'm a member of the team that will represent Portugal next week, 22-23 of April 2009, in the International Final of the Global Management Challenge competition.

The Global Management Challenge is the world's largest strategy and management competition which includes 30 countries. It was actually started in Portugal back in 1980 and it's continuously spreading around the world.

The competition itself consists of 8 virtual companies, one company per team, competing against each other for the highest share value at the end of five rounds. There are many decisions to be made: how much to produce of each product, how much to spend in research & development and advertising, the configuration of the distribution network, how many workers to hire with which salary and so forth.

The simulator itself is quite complex, and the fact that the development of the economical environment is not known, and that you are competing against other 7 teams makes it even more complex.

For more information on the competition, please follow the links below:

• Global Management Challenge - Portuguese Site
• Global Management Challenge - International Site
  

I'm looking forward to meet and compete with the other 29 countries, and I'll do my best to properly represent Portugal. Wish me luck!

Quick update: Russia won the International final! Portugal (my team) finished in 8th among 30 countries.

Economics 101

I read somewhere that "economy is the science of fulfilling infinite desires with finite resources". I couldn't agree more.

Human beings are unsatisfied by nature and will always want more, better, faster, smaller, bigger, you name it. The pursuit of that ideal of a better future is what moves us forward.

Along the way, we have to make some hard choices, since we have limited means, such as time, money, energy and so on. Time is by far the most scarce resource of all. We can never buy more, and every spent minute is gone for good. Regarding money, we can choose to spend right after we have it for the sake of the instant gratification, or save and defer the spending for some time in the future (delayed gratification).

Most of us dream and fantasize of unrealistic hopes. They tend to be impossible in nature, because most of the excitement and pleasure comes with the wanting, not with the fulfillment. If all of our desires would come true quickly, they would suddenly become meaningless. And at the very same time that one desire is satisfied, another one, even bigger pops up.

On this note, I'd like to post here an excerpt from the movie 'The Life Of David Gale':

"What is it that you fantasize about? World Peace? Do you fantasize about international fame? Do you fantasize about winning a Pulitzer prize? Or a Nobel Peace Prize? An MTV music award? Do you fantasize about meeting some genius hunk extensively bad but secretly simmering with noble passion and willing to sleep on the wet spot?
Fantasies have to be unrealistic, because the moment, the second, that you get what you seek, you don't, you can't want it anymore. In order to continue to exist; desire must have its objects perpetually absent. It's not the "it" that you want, it's the fantasy of "it". So desire supports crazy fantasies.
This is what Pascal means when he says that we are only truly happy when daydreaming about future happiness. Or why we say the hunt is sweeter than the kill or be careful what you wish for, not because you'll get it, but because you're doomed not to want it once you do. So the lesson of Lacan is "Living by your wants will never make you happy". What it means to be fully human is to strive to live by ideas and ideals and not to measure your life by what you've attained in terms of your desires, but those small moments of integrity and passion, rationality, even self sacrifice. Because in the end, the only way that we can measure the significance of our own lives is by valuing the lives of others."

DNA And Synthetic Life

All life on Earth - be it a bacteria, a microbe, a virus, a plant, a tree or an animal encodes its generic information as DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid). DNA is a sequence of four types of nucleotides (A, C, G & T) which make up genes which in turn make up chromosomes.

A human being possesses 23 pair of chromosomes, that is a 22 pair of chromosome plus a X-Y pair for males or a X-X pair for females.

Man share 98.8% of their DNA with the chimpanzee. Any two human beings share 99,9% of their DNA. Think about it - only 0,1% of your DNA separates you from every other human being out there.

Recently, Man has been able to decode DNA sequences from various species (including human) and it has been able to recombine and assemble entire new DNA sequences from scratch. It has even come to the point where it's possible to create new simple synthetic organisms. It's quite impressive! Watch Craig Venter on TED speaking about creating synthetic life. It's really amazing!

Take My Advice - I Don't Use It Anyway

"Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't." - Erica Jong

We often look for other people advice. We are sometimes uncertain or uncomfortable with a decision. Several times we take some advice because it makes us feel more confident and at the same time less responsible since after all it was a 'shared decision' (by the way, that's why so many businesses rely on external highly-paid consultants).

Often there is the case of cognitive dissonance, which is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas at the same time in your mind. Most of the cases, a decision is already made on an emotional basis, but the rational side of the brain can not find logical reasons or arguments to sustain that decision. No matter how many people we turn to for advice, no matter how logical all the arguments may be, we will inevitably follow the emotional decision, the heart always wins.

I think that you can (and sometimes you should) ask for opinions from people you trust to be honest and tell you the truth, even if you don't want to hear it, but at all times you have to make up your mind on your own. The final decision is yours and yours alone, and you have to make your own path taking at all times full responsibility for you and for your life.

So my advice to the reader is - don't take advice!

My Personal Chaos Theory

One of the most exciting things in life is that every second you are presented with a multitude of options - big and small, and you have to make a choice. Even doing nothing is a possible course of action. Once the decision is done, and an action is taken, it can not be taken back. It immediately belongs to the past. The past and the future always meet at the present. We can not never know the future, but have the obligation to learn from the past.

For sure, all of us have our personal experiences about things we did, which we wished we did differently... even if only curiosity to know what it would be like if we have chosen a different path. Our jobs, our education, our friends and our loves are often dictated by random events, special circumstances, apparent coincidences or even fate. There is no such thing as destiny... we all create and write our destiny, with every small decision and every small action.

Like the Chaos Theory, our the path of our lives move in twisted turns and are deeply intertwined with the lives of other persons and with the environment. Similarly, like the effects on weather caused by the fluttering of the wings of a butterfly in China, all of our own decisions and actions, no matter how small and insignificant they may seem, in the long term, they will change the World.

Looking at life this way, every moment of every living being becomes truly special.

The Next Twenty Years Are Going To Be Completely Unlike The Last Twenty Years

I just watched the Crash Course by Chris Martenson. It consists of 20 chapters (videos) of about 3h20 duration. It was quite a revelation. It describes a well formulated integrated approach to the three 'E's: Economics, Energy and Environment.

It states that the next twenty years are going to be completely different from the past twenty years, because over the past 100 years, mankind has built social, economical, financial, environmental models that are simply not sustainable, and that need to be changed dramatically or they will collapse.

I wish some of the facts and conclusions would not be true, but the arguments and logic is grounded in the laws of mathematics and physics, and those laws can not be changed.

I don't want to sound alarmist or pessimistic, my advice is that the reader watches the Crash Course and makes up their own mind.

George Orwells's Animal Farm and 1984

I recently read both Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell. They share a lot of common elements, such as the betrayed revolution; the oppression and repression of a totalitarian regime; the exploitation of the majority for the benefit of a small minority; the suppression of free thinking and free will; a continuous state of war and terror; and the fact that the cure turned out to be worse than the poison.

Both of the books are a satire to the communist regimes, specially the old Russian one. 1984 is deeper and more dense, and also an essay on the human nature and human condition.

I personally think that democracy is the 'least evil' form of government. Still, I think it gives too much power to the government and it encourages short-term popular actions in detriment of more useful long term policies. I believe in the motto 'Less Government, Better Government'.

Anyhow, these two books are timeless, powerful masterpieces which I highly recommend.

Tennis: I Love This Game

Tennis - I absolutely love this game. It's a mixture of skill, art, strength and intelligence. It's a pure delight to watch a professional tennis game.

My favorite male player is the swiss Roger Federer and my favorite female player is the serbian Ana Ivanovic.

I'm pushing for Roger Federer to win the 14th Grand Slam and to regain the #1 ATP rank title! I also have a tennis ball signed by Federer (in the photo).

At the moment, the Indian Wells tournment is being played in California. It's worth 1000 ATP points and it finishes on the 22nd of March. Go Roger!

Nothing Comes From Violence

It looks like ever since the beginning of mankind, that we are condemned to violence, specially against the weak. We read about it everyday in the newspapers, we see it everyday in the television.

Our governments spend obscene amounts of taxpayers money pursuing more sophisticated and powerful weapons which do not contribute nothing to the happiness or wealth of the citizens. Ironically, and just as in George Orwell novel '1984', the 'Ministry of War' was called 'Ministry of Peace', so our governments name our 'Attack Ministry" the 'Defense Ministry'. Even more ironically still, the countries with the largest stocks of Weapons of Mass Destruction (the ones which were never found in Iraq) are the ones who try to prevent other countries from acquiring them.

Could it be that mankind is doomed to self annihilation? The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have created a symbolic Doomsday Clock that marks the minutes before midnight, where midnight represents "catastrophic destruction". That clock is mentioned often in the recent movie Watchmen.

I'm against the use of violence with the exceptional case of self-defense. Violence only breeds more violence, and as Mahatma Gandhi said 'An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind'. We are all humans, with all our feelings, thoughts, dreams, hopes, aspirations, flaws and frailties.

A favorite quote of mind is 'Hate has a reason for everything, but love is unreasonable' by Raiuhes Ahaefvthe.

And to finish this post, I leave here the words of wisdom of Monsieur Le Sting:

Fragile, by Sting

If blood will flow when fresh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrows rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetimes argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are
How fragile we are how fragile we are ...

Celebrating The International Women's Day

Women are absolutely fascinating and beautiful in every possible way... so it's only fair that today, the whole world celebrates and honors them.

The greatest mystery to men has always been the question "What women want?". I suspect that not even women know the answer...

And now, let John Lennon do the talking:

Woman, by John Lennon

Woman I can hardly express,
My mixed emotion at my thoughtlessness,
After all I'm forever in your debt,
And woman I will try express,
My inner feelings and thankfullness,
For showing me the meaning of succsess,
oooh well, well,
oooh well, well,

Woman I know you understand
The little child inside the man,
Please remember my life is in your hands,
And woman hold me close to your heart,
However, distant don't keep us apart,
After all it is written in the stars,
oooh well, well,
oooh well, well,

Woman please let me explain,
I never meant to cause you sorrow or pain,
So let me tell you again and again and again,
I love you (yeah, yeah) now and forever,
I love you (yeah, yeah) now and forever,
I love you (yeah, yeah) now and forever,
I love you (yeah, yeah)...

Think For Yourself

Nowadays, a lot of people has forgot to think. They let the media, the government, the teachers, the companies, the lobbyists to do the thinking for them, and to shape the public opinion.

From very young, we are taught to accept as true, the teachings from our fathers, our teachers, our world leaders on every subject, from religion, sex, politics to economy, science and art. We are not encouraged to question or to challenge those teachings. In school, we are rewarded by our capability of memorizing instead of thinking.

It's very easy not to think. But the person who does not think for itself it's not free, it's a prisoner of others. Specially the media, they have the extremely powerful ability to distort, amplify, conceal, and deceive.

Speak your mind - no matter as crazy, as absurd, as provocative as it may be. Don't be afraid of expressing your opinion, even if unpopular or even if against conventional wisdom or established interests.

Inform yourself from various different sources with different perspectives.

Always keep an open mind, and above all, Think For Yourself!

To finish this post with a nice quote which sums it all up:

"The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking" - John Kenneth Galbraith

The Greatest Inventions Of Mankind

In my opinion, the greatest inventions of mankind are, in order:

1. The Spoken Language
2. The Written Language
3. The Press (by Gutemberg)
4. The Internet

All the inventions above are about communication with oneself and with others; and with the preservation of knowledge.

It's communication that has allowed self-expression, thought, art, love to develop as well as the appearance of civilization. As human beings we are deep social beings with the need to interact with each other.

The preservation of knowledge allows us to benefit from all the experience, thoughts, discoveries and inventions that took place before us. To quote Isaac Newton “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Carnival Means Venice

"I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand." - Lord Byron

TED - Ideas Worth Spreading, Free To The World

Have you heard about TED? TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design and it's a series of talks by some of the most intelligent, enthusiastic, successful, creative and passionate people in the planet. You can find among others, Bill Gates speaking of 'How to Change the World', Al Gore on 'Climate Crisis', Bono on 'The Fight Against Extreme Poverty', Richard Branson on 'Entrepreneurship', Jeff Bezos on 'Innovation', Benjamin Zander on 'Music and Passion'. Besides the great, controversial, provocative ideas that will stimulate your mind, you can find in TED a great source of inspiration. As a bonus, you also get free lessons on the art of speaking, presenting and selling your ideas. TED talks are free, and a true gift to mankind. Visit TED at www.ted.com.