Energy saving technique (For well-being)

Whenever you feel exhausted or that your mood makes you want to curl up in ball and disappear from a day or two, remind yourself about a ‘simple’ technique that can help you get your energy back.

Its an ancient golden rule, often forgotten in the friction of our daily lives. Practice it strictly for a period of three days:

Don’t criticise

Don’t condemn

Don’t complain  

Past the initial period, you can begin again.  You can also let some days go by before you start another round. Moan a little in between, but only if really necessary.

Less options better choices

Nowadays, almost anything can be tailored to meet our most narrowest and personal specifications.

As technology advances, it becomes more feasible to load products with a large number of features and different customisation possibilities, each of which individually might be perceived as useful.

Which one of the 240 colour palette options would you like it?
You cannot only do this and that, and that other thing, but also this as well.

This is all fantastic. We’ve moved really far way from Henry’s Ford: you can have it any colour you want, as long as it is black.

But, as inspiring as it can be, it can be equally overwhelming.

Autonomy and freedom of choice are critical to our well being. It feels really good to have options and to be ‘in control’. However, having uncountable options to choose from might sometimes involve a big component of decision fatigue which can also lead to frustration and unhappiness.

If you look at what is already cooking, a perfect storm of technologies (think of 3D printing, crowdsourcing, open source and design) and innovation is combining to create what is being the next huge revolutionary wave.

I wonder if there will be a point in which the pendulum will swing back, and having products and services with less options to choose from will become the new cool thing.

About movies and life challenges

All along the history of civilisation, people have faced challenges; either emotional, financial, physical, migrational, social, or mental, just to name a few.

Although each different age or epoch has its particularities, there seems to be a constant in all of them: when challenges come to us, we tend to complain.

“This is not how it should be”
“Why is this happening to me?”
“Life should be much more easier and fair”

As any form of art that help us answer the big questions in life, movies are no exception. They are a true reflection of our lives. Movies generally have characters, a setting, a plot, and then, it always comes the moment when something goes wrong. The unexpected happened. The conflict has been introduced, tension has been built, and a resolution is expected. Otherwise, who would be so crazy to go to the cinema?

Can you imagine watching two hours of a movie about a plane carrying a rugby team from Uruguay, flying across the Andes mountains, landing on Santiago de Chile, just to play a match with their rugby adversaries on destination? Living happily ever after after the match is played?  Nobody would have EVER considered to pay a ticket watch the great success that Alive was, because of the challenges in it, which where based on a true story.

Challenges are actually the part we most enjoy about movies. Watching how the characters actually deal with such confrontations. How they react and what they do, determines in the end, if we find it a good movie, or a horrible one. Its about the transformation process and the learning.

Luckily, we are not living in a movie. Although sometimes it might feel we are the protagonists of a 19th century drama, an action thriller, or why not a bold western, in the end, it is how we confront these challenges what determines how our mood will be by the time the credits pop up.

The good thing is that everything, unlike movies, doesn’t always depend on what happens in the next sixty seconds. Life is actually far much better than it is in the movies. And it takes longer than 120 minutes.

Teach/Preach/Pleach (On true teachers)

A true teacher does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of the word, does not have anything to give or add to you, such as new information, beliefs, a refreshed set of values or alternative rules of conduct.

A true teacher certainly does not have anything to preach neither, does not have anything to hide or to stand up to, specially if he doesn’t do it himself, while voicing it out to others. He is also a human being.

The only function of such a teacher is to help you remove the old branches which separates you from the truth of who you already are, and what you already know in the depth of your being. The teacher’s work is to help you pleach, to uncover and reveal to you that dimension of the inner depth that was always there, until you interwove it yourself, with a little help for the teacher.

Wants vs Needs

When you have your basic needs met, it’s not rare for wants to surprisingly become needs.

It is essentially one of the things that keeps us moving. (And what also pays off the salary of every marketer around the globe)

Selling needs is easy, but selling wants, its a whole different ball game.

Getting your basics needs covered is really hard. (Half of the population is currently struggling trying to fulfil theirs.)

The real challenge is always, discernment between the two.

• Do you have good health and your breath keeps on coming in and out of your nose?
• Do you have access to clean and hot water?
• Do you have a roof to keep you warm and safe during the night?
• Do you have food to enjoy and silence your stomach?
• Do you have love and people that care for you?

If you do have all these needs covered, then you might want to celebrate, instead of focusing on the things you dont have.

You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need, baby.

—

Hat tip to The Rolling Stones

Easier done than discussed

If you have a job to do, you got to do it well.

And this means you need to stop over thinking, over discussing, over reflecting, over negotiating or over building consensus around whatever it is you need to do. You just need to go and do it.

There will always be room for a twist. A different angle. The chance to make it better.

Lovely dictators care a lot about words, about appearances, about making sure everyone feels they are being heard. The inconvenience with words, is that they rapidly loose their meaning. Say something often enough and people will roll their eyeballs backwards the next time they hear it.

It turns out a lot easier to be in the other group of people: the initiators. The ones that sign up for the team that isn’t asked to think or discuss about things. Those who aren’t asked to build up the next project plan or attend the´important´strategic meetings.

Its incredible more challenging to be in the crew of the guys that take action.

Use your best discernment. Work really fast. Generate traction by igniting others with enthusiasm. Avoid meetings. Have conversations, with different people, in the right order, at the right time. Never forget about the impact you want to cause. Do work that really matters. Create understanding about what needs to be done. Remind everyone about the whys.

By the time the other group of folks reach a verdict, you’ll have created so much change, that they wont understand what blew their hats off.

Chapeaux.

Your life’s EQ

Back in the 80s/early 90s, my father used to have a Panasonic stereo component that looked like this one.

As a kid, I always liked to play with the five sliders on the front. These allowed you to equalise the frequency from the sound coming out of the speakers, making you feel like a DJ at an early stage in life.

It only took one slide in the wrong place  to distort the whole sound. Only with time, I learnt where each of them should be place, depending of the music type.

It occurs to me that life relates in some way to those stereo component balancing equalisers. It takes some time to get all the sliders in the right place, and even when you manage to do so, it takes one change of song or rhythm to make you feel the need to readjust.

But what does it mean to have a balanced life? To me, it means to handle and dance with the various elements in your life. It means to realise just in time that your heart, body or mind are being pulled too hard in any particular direction. It means that more often than not, you feel calm, grounded, clear-headed, and motivated. You feel happy.

If all that is dear to us, and everyone we love are of the nature of change, how is it possible to maintain a forever balanced and happy life? My guess is that its almost impossible, but we can learn to adjust each slider according the circumstances. Things around us – including ourselves – will change either we want it or not. That is simply nature.

Your life’s EQ

If you happen to hear some distortion in your life’s music, you might want to have a look at your equaliser, as maybe its time to move a couple of sliders.

Here some of the ones I consider worth revisiting. The order of importance will vary to each person and having all the sliders 100% would only mean distortion. Its all about the balance.

• Health: Helping your body and mind to stay fit.
• Social: Being with your loved ones, family, friends, and partner.
• Finance: Focusing on getting more that you spend. Consuming, saving and investing.
• Spiritual: Learning about your devotion, meditating etc.
• Adventure: Doing things that you specifically enjoy, like travelling or hobbies.
• Growing:  Pursuing your calling, learning or following your profession.

Non of them are isolated from each other. They all make, with their own weight, the person you are.

By focusing on integrating all these aspects of your life in a balanced way, you can actually create more fulfilment in each given area, as a whole, than you could by simply focusing on one area alone.

My life’s concert

Richard Branson has recently written a blog where he shares a playlist of 65 songs he considers to be the soundtrack of his life.

At first, the number 65 sounded arbitrary to me, but given the fact that he was born in 1950, it got me thinking: what would my list look like if I had to choose only 33 songs to represent the story of my life?

Coming up with such lineup was a great challenge. It involved diving into multiple moments, places and persons of my life, and the need to distil a first long list, and choose only those songs that represented the essence of things.

You can find the full “My life’s concert” playlist here.

Below the breakdown of songs:

1. The Beatles – When I am sixty four (The first musical memory I have since a kid: hearing this song together with my dad, from a mix tape he had on a C90 TDK cassette)
2. Guns and Roses – Live and let die (It was 1992,and the Guns and Roses performed at the River Plate stadium in Buenos Aires. My mind was blown forever and I used a tennis racket as a guitar and a bandana in my head for several weeks after)
3. The Cranberries – Zombie (This was the first CD album I ever bought. This song reminds me to my adolescence and growing up)
4. Cake – Comanche (Trying to emulate my brother, I bought the less known Cake album at the moment and pretended I liked it a lot more than ‘Fashion Nugget’, which was the popular one)
5. No Doubt – Just a girl (At the moment, everybody in my class – and the world – was in love with Gwen Stefani)
6. Los Rodriguez – Milonga del marinero y el capitán (One of the great anthems of Argentina’s national rock scene of the 90’s)
7. Metallica – Whiskey in the Jar (I got to see them live in their 1999 promotional tour and it opened the door to their whole discography and Heavy Metal as a genre)
8. Almafuerte – Se vos (Almafuerte was one of the first heavy metal Argentinian bands I’ve first heard and one of the bands I am most delighted to always listen too)
9. The Beatles – We can work it out (Heard it first in the “One” album in Puerto Rico. It charged my spirit to set my mind to accomplish anything I’d proposed in life)
10. Iron Maiden – The Trooper (Harmonised guitars, powerful drums and bass, and the energy to get through the day with attitude)
11. David Coverdale – Soldier of Fortune (I have worn-out this CD from the amount of times I played it for premature affections)
12. Rata Blanca – La Leyenda del Hada y el Mago (My passion for neoclassical playing style in heavy metal is very well represented by this band, locally in Argentina)
13. Tool – Stinkfist (Heard this song over and over in a car trip from Brasil back to Argentina)
14. Megadeth – There’s a secret place (Powerful riff by Marty Friedman. I always used to play this song before I’d sit down and began to study. It was my mantra to energise myself)
15. Led Zeppelin – Thank you (This song reminds me my beginning with guitar)
16. Rainbow – The man on the silver mountain (The moment I understood what powerful guitars were all about)
17. Deep Purple – Highway star (The perfect combination of playing jam-style hard-rock music with mixed simple guitar riffs and organ sounds)
18. Judas Priest – Diamonds and Rust  (Very fond of this song and its unplugged version even more)
19. Pink Floyd – Wish you were here (We used to play this song a lot with a band of brothers I had)
20. Dire Straits – Sultans of Swing (Mark Knopfler just knows what he is doing, although he hates performing this song by now)
21. Pearl Jam – Eldery woman behind the counter in a small town (My favourite song in one of my favourite albums of all time “Pearl Jam – Live on Two Legs”)
22. Nina Simone – Sinnerman (The piano intro from this song and the energy it provides me is up high in my sense of devotion to music)
23. Ravi Shankar – Genesis (My first partner in meditation and the one who planted a seed for me to play Sitar, which I also did for three years later)
24. Toumani  Diabate – Bi Lamban (One of my favourite songs to use after a Yoga class. I used to play it always for an ‘end of class’ relaxation moment)
25. George Harrison – While my guitar gently weeps (If I had to choose my favourite song in the whole world, it would be this one)
26. Bob Marley – I shot the Sheriff (I cherish this song and love to play it in multiple string instruments. My favourite one from the “Legends” album)
27. The Gladiators – Mix Up (After you learn there’s a world beyond Bob Marley, you might want to end up listening to these guys)
28. El Camarón de la Isla – La Leyenda del Tiempo (My beginnings with loving contemporary Flamenco)
29. Paco de Lucia – Entre dos aguas (My intentions to learn Flamenco guitar started – and ended – with this same song, on the course of four years)
30. Estrella Morente – En lo alto del cerro de Palomares (The voice of this woman can create goosebumps in my skin)
31. Miike Snow – Animal (My introduction to all contemporary Indie bands of our times)
32. Asaf Avidan – One day / Reckoning Song (Wankelmut Remix) (Moving to Europe and getting the influence across the sea)
33. Arcade Fire – Reflektor (70’s bands are almost gone, split or its players dead. Arcade fire was one of the first bands of our times that I’ve seen live and been impressed by the quality of their live performance)

Coming up with such list was really fun and emotionally rewarding.

You can find the full “My life’s concert” playlist here.

Which songs do you think would make up your list?

Guesstimations and Ceteris paribus

A back of an envelope scribble can be sufficient to let you guesstimate almost anything; a budget, a market share sales target, the time it takes to develop software, a project execution, a marketing campaign, the amount of piano tuners you can find in the City of Amsterdam.

Guesstimates usually fall in one of three categories:

1. To big
2. To small
3. Just right (In the middle)

“Too big” or “Too small” lead to obvious actions.

“Just right” requires more thought, and perhaps even actual calculation.

How to sit down and finally guesstimate?

1. Write down your first answer.
2. Establish the lower and upper boundaries.
3. Adjust your final answer as necessary.

It is important to:

1. Dare to be imprecise.
2. Look for consensus with other parties involved in the process
3. Have a Ceteris Paribus attitude

A guesstimation involving different states of affairs is considered ceteris paribus if it is acknowledged that the guesstimation, although usually accurate in expected conditions, can fail by intervening (usually unplanned) factors.

No plan ever results as expected. And the guesstimation wont ever be an exception to this rule. But just because something doesn’t end up being what you planned for, doesn’t mean it’s useless.

Shed light into the black box of things. Eradicate the feeling that you are always walking on ice.

You´ll get better each and every time.
—
Hat tip to Marten S for the inspiration.

Friendship and vulnerability

Memorable friendships are like the Tango. It takes two compromised persons to dance it well.

We are not quite sure how it is that we manage to enjoy dear friends, all along our lives. It seems to happen magically on its own, “effortless”, and trying to come up with a good friendship feels like cheating.

However, there is something at the core of any friendship that seems very important to get really good at: learning to be vulnerable.

Usually, it is the trend to assume that we make friends because of our strengths, our achievements and all of the things we are proud and make us feel safe. We usually think that these are the magnet for people wanting to be with us.

Surely that impresses, but it ain´t what really draw others to connect with us.

We get close to someone the more we -and they as well- find ourselves able to calmly depart from the official version of our persona, and can begin to share the awkward truths that live under the smiling façade. The tormenting thoughts, the unimaginable experiences and the historical anecdotes. Those pieces of archive in the darkness of the basement waiting to come back to the surface at any point.

Bringing these out to the open puts us in great danger. We are naked and at the mercy of the recipient ears of our friends. Others could laugh, judge our attitudes or point their fingers and their fears back at us. Facebook would make a feast out of those. And that is exactly the point of treasuring great tango partners. In the wrong hands, we would be ridiculed in front of the whole Milonga. Humiliated  for a long period of time, and probably unable to dance with someone, ever again.

Friendship is the return on investment in openness and trust which flows from the fact that one has offered something of value to another person. Its not a gift, its not our time, it is not expensive; its the key to our souls and our dignity.

Its paradoxically fascinating that while we spend so much effort in trying to look strong to the world, its actually when we expose the embarrassing, sad, melancholic and anxious parts of our lives, that we can turn strangers into long lasting friends.

—

Hat tip to Fernando P, for 23 years of a long lasting rocky road friendship.