Friday, December 29, 2006

Thought of the Day - Flow

Achieving your full potential is being able to FLOW in what you do.

Drumming analogy to life and business:

You start playing...you FEEL the rhythm, you´re totally comfortable with that beat...your mind stops telling arms and legs where to hit...they do it naturally...your muscles begin to relax...there´s no effort involved...suddenly you are smiling...FLOWING. You´ve achieved not your best drumming yet, but you are at your full potential of realization.
The same in life and at work. Flow. When you are there, you know. When you are not, you regret.

Here...my favorite drummer.


Got flow?

PS. Driving back home from work listening to Incubus works good as idea generator. Even more so after a co-worker you respect says good things to you.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Change the World

How do YOU plan to change the World?

Seriously...

How do YOU plan to change the World?

I think it starts with ¨how do I plan to change my world?¨, but even before that, just like a friend of mine said the other day:
¨Discovering YOUR truth shall make you FREE.¨

Again, it starts from within. ACCEPTANCE.

And speaking of positive impact....out of curiosity:

How does YOUR COMPANY change the world? Don´t give me the mission statement. What is your Company´s truth?

UPDATE: Or...what is YOUR lie? Asked gapingvoid style. I´m going to make a t-shirt that says:
¨Hugh MacLeod says it better¨ and send it to Hugh. He´ll probably think it´s lame and give it away...or wear it.

Monday, December 25, 2006

Nativity

He IS born. Everyday is Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone. Peace and Love, from within.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Muse...



...come back. I miss you.

;-)

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Command-and-control Management & Oppressive Religion

Command-and-control management and oppressive religion. Two ways of generating fear and distrust. The two recipes for mediocrity.

There´s a common approach in both of them:

Oppresive Religion: Ok, there is a God that is watching your every move and this is WHAT you must and must not do in life, and the terrible things that will happen if you don´t obey.

Rather, tell me ¨you are already saved, the God I talk about wants you to be happy, and this is HOW he suggests you live...by the way, He loves you infinitely and, really, it is in his best interest that you enjoy this life to the fullest. It´s ok if you screw up every once in a while, you´re only human, just don´t do it on purpose.¨

WHAT: kill, steal, fornicate, hate,...
versus
HOW: Attentive, naturally, passionately, thankfully, curiously, openly...



Command-and-control Management: Ok, I am your boss/supervisor, I am responsible for your acts in this company. Here´s the Decalogue of things you must and must not do during the time you are in this building.
Rather, tell your employee HOW to better develop his or her talents at work, and how by achieving their annual goals, they will contribute to the success of the Company.

WHAT: code, corporate style, position, title,...
versus
HOW: pride, passion, creativity, desire to achieve.

Adopting the first approach shows lack of trust in the human being. If you don´t trust the people in your Company, why would you have them there in the first place?

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Who do YOU inspire?

Who do you inspire?

This is a thought I have put on the t-shirts I make. Interestingly enough Kathy Sierra recently blogged about inspiration . And she gave a loooot of good places to read about it (thanks Kathy!).

Let´s not only look for inspiration but also ask ourselves that. We look for inspiration in numerous places, people, events... It would be nice to at least make the effort to spread that inspiration unto others.

So…who do YOU inspire?

Monday, November 27, 2006

gUd LaiF Manifesto

I have been thinking about this for a while. Hopefully it will continue to evolve.

I decided to post it when Hugh Mac Leod asked for Manifestos to change the world in 500 words or less. There is a lot of inspiring stuff you can read here.

So here it goes:

I declare that, in order to change the world, there are a few things we can start with. Around love, lack of fear and peace of mind.

Please, as you read it ask yourself ¨What if everyone, starting with myself, put this into practice?¨ And ask yourself again ¨Is there any reason why we cannot do this?¨:

1. LOVE is the only currency to exchange for our actions. You do something and you are paying with love. Something is done unto you, and it is done with love. Nothing wrong with this. More efficient than money.

2. Fear of failure is Evolution´s bottleneck. Fear represents LACK OF TRUST. In what? In life, yourself and what you can achieve with the two.

3. Kill your EGO. When you do things without the need to feed your own ego, something strange and beautiful happens. We all know it, we´ve all done it. It´s just that we forget it very often.

4. It´s all God´s copyright. Ideas are born in us for the benefit of mankind. Adopt a ¨wikipedia state of mind¨. Knowledge is for sharing.

5. World peace begins in your mind. From a school fight to the forgotten wars in this world. Everything begins with somebody not having peace of mind. Why? How can it be solved? Refer to point #1.

6. Declare yourself UNCOOL by materiali$tic standards. Yes, it´s always about the material aspects. Enough of being cool on the outside. This would save us a lot ¨relationship inefficiencies¨.

7. Who do YOU inspire? Inspiration feeds our desire to change things. We look for inspiration everywhere. When we find it, who do we pass it on to?

This can be summed up in the following: be gud . live laif.


What are your answers to the 2 questions above?

Patience

Patience is Wisdom´s secret weapon.

You have a goal and a strategy to get there.

Then obstacles come in your way and the path becomes elaaaaaaastic (the finish line seems further away) and the desire to quit or postpone says ¨Hello, can I help you?¨

What do you do? Persevere with patience.


Focus + ¨everything happens for a reason¨ mindset + patience = you name it

What would you name it?

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Thank who?

So today is Thanksgiving. A good opportunity to think about the people who have contributed to who you are at this moment in your life and let them know you are grateful.

Here´s me:

I thank God for giving me life.
I thank my parents for showing me how to live it. My sister for being such a caring individual and a fighter.
My family and friends for the lessons I´ve learned from them and the good moments.
And the special people who, at this time in my life, are making it the best ever.
You for reading. Who would you thank?

P.S. Just a few thoughts while we consider this....
- Do THINGS rather than PEOPLE come to our mind while thinking about who we are and how do we understand happiness? (i.e. is it based on our possessions rather than our relationships?)
- How long have those people been around us? (i.e. do we build long-term relationships? What are they based on? Trust or submission? Respect or Non-aggression?)
- Do we give back what is given to us? How?

Happy Thanksgiving.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Keep going

Somebody told me this the other day and I think it´s great:

Winston Churchill once said ¨If you´re going through hell, keep going¨.
BRILLIANT.

So much for making a big deal out of bad moments. Keep going!
(I guess I could use this today, when hangover has taken control...)

:p

God´s copyright

Ok, so I came across this thought and I like it.
IT´S ALL GOD´S COPYRIGHT.

Please stop worrying about copyright ownership, patents, lawsuits, etc. It´s not important. Knowledge IS for sharing. It´s all about giving, not taking anymore. I love the way Hugh MacLeod puts it (another Hughnality. By the way, don´t forget to check out the apocalyptic views of the conspiracy theorists that commented on that post...sad). Thanks Hugh. That is one of the reasons why I am optimistic about the future. Technology, web 2.0, etc. are making it easier to give the best of ourselves to others. Copyright ownership? Making money in the process? It´s not important.

PS. I googled this ¨God´s copyright¨ point of view and didn´t find any entry. There must be something out there, right? Can you help me find it?

Oh, and yes...I see another t-shirt coming out of this. :-)


UPDATE: Another great way to say this loud and clear, by Doc Searls (via Matt Mullenweg).

Lessons learned

A co-worker and friend of mine once taught me, and often reminds me about, the importance of the ¨lessons learned meeting¨. She is a very disciplined and competent project manager (PMP certified) and always performs a lessons learned meeting when concluding a project.

Our team has adopted the strategy and, not only after completing a project but weekly, especially when something doesn´t turn out as expected, you can hear somebody in the team say ¨Ok, so what´s the lesson learned?¨.

I believe this is a powerful tool for everyday life. There is a lesson to be learned in EVERYTHING that happens. The most important lessons are the non-obvious ones. Allow yourself to take the time to ask the question and think about it. When you answer it, immediately ask the next one: ¨Does this bring me closer to where I want to be?
Again, it´s all about ALIGNMENT.

I see another t-shirt coming out of this one.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Purpose?

With this ¨start with chapter 2¨ approach on my first post (which I think is a great one, by the way), I haven´t introduced this blog yet.
Why do I blog? What do I blog about?
I think blogging is a great way to enter this ¨global conversation¨ the web is becoming. I write about life in general, and then try to make a contribution. How?

A few years ago I thought:
- Conversations are the best way to share thoughts, feelings, etc.
- We all deserve a good life, but often don´t know how to live it.
- T-shirts are a powerful way to start conversations.

Why not put together the three: life, t-shirts and the desire to live a gud laif? I established my mantra: be gud. live laif. Why written like this? I couldn´t decide wether English or Spanish, so I opted for writing it in English the way it would be read in Spanish (you get the idea...).

And so the idea was born. Every once in a while I make t-shirts with thoughts on them. Thoughts about life in general, generally those that I believe contribute to living a better life. That´s the reason the brand name is gud laif. Some are statements, some are questions that want to trigger additional thoughts. Then those t-shirts become conversations when worn by someone.

By writing these thoughts on a blog and inviting you to join to the conversation, I want to take this a step further. I want to start a small yet global conversation on life...and make t-shirts.

Welcome.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Two simple questions...

Ok, so I was thinking about these to simple questions I asked myself the other day...

- Everyday, I put a lot of effort into...what?
- What is important to me?

When I talk about Project Portfolio Management in Companies I normally mention that ¨it gives you the tools to answer the question: are we doing the right things...the right way?¨

In order to set your Company on its way to having an optimized portfolio of projects, there are two questions you have to answer very clearly:
- What am I doing? What is the set of projects I am investing my time and resources in?
- What are my business objectives?

What you are looking for in your answers is: ALIGNMENT. Simple? Would you bet half the companies out there can say that what they do everyday is ALIGNED with what they SHOULD be doing according to their business objectives?

What I am trying to say is this: how much time do we lose doing things that are NOT important to us? And more importantly....WHY? But that´s another story, worthy of another post.

So, think about it. Share your thoughts. What is important for you? What are you investing your time and skills in? Is what you are doing EVERYDAY aligned with what is important to you?

Do you see a gap? Do you plan to close it?


I see a t-shirt coming out of this...

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Better beginnings

Interesting post from Kathy Sierra on how to start presentations, books, etc. It´s good to reconsider everything and break with the traditional formalisms that exhaust presentations and the public.

I´ve chosen this as my own ¨Start with chapter 2¨ strategy. Welcome.