And Christmas is over, so??

All the show and fun and gifts and kisses and hugs… all compressed in one day (more or less).

Now, I suggest you check on your gifts. Check also on your feelings, because that is what probably will last a while. Maybe a long while...

Our Christmas ritual, even though it has become more of a commercial success day, it is much more than that. In ways nobody can explain, it touches our heart and soul very deeply.

Personally, I was never so much into Christmas. That was until I moved to another country and realized I would be all by myself in that day.

I am not sure what I felt… Was it fear? Was I feeling abandoned? Loneliness? I decided to act so I’ve cooked a nice lunch and invited a bunch of people I know more or less and… I felt so good!! It was a unique feeling of belonging to a place I did not belong.

Many years later, I still remember that day although nowadays I am always with people I love around me. I had the taste of the spirit of Christmas, of that invisible feeling floating around us when that time comes.

But then, why to wait? Why to wait until a certain date comes? Just do it right now, with me and many other people around you.

A very merry ETERNAL Christmas!

Values in reality

Values move the world…

Even though we don’t see them clearly, they are there, before any action or behavior. Values are present in any rescue, birthday, death and war, even when their presence is because they are so absent we can see it is missing.

Most of the time, we focus our attention into whatever we see and touch. If it is bad, we try to fix it; if it is good, we try to multiply it. We don’t think much about what is behind, what generated that action or what is there that will make that behavior to repeat again.

As our world moves fast, too fast to be fixed or to replicate it, it is time we stop doing and start reflecting, understanding what is beneath every action. This would save lots of energy, money and time, even though that time to stop seems to be useless. It is not because when reflection happens, values emerge in mind and it is easy to realize them.

So, if you want to change an action, check those values; probably, a few good ones are missing and they are important to be there. If the action is really good, by knowing which values were present, they can be replicate.

Values are not something you can shop around, but they are inside you and me. When you start to reflect on them, you are awakening them. It is a similar process of liking someone or hating a person; you think of that and the emotions emerge, making you speak something or punching a guy.

The biggest and secret challenge we all have is to understand the values process and use it to change our life and the world. Although it is not the only thing that makes changes to take place, its importance is invaluable.

So, why not starting right now? Take this time to reflect upon something not so good happening to you, understand the values missing there and reflect on them.

As you and I reflect, values emerge in our minds and naturally we start to act on them. The more we reflect, more natural that will be until one day, we act in the way we always wanted to do.

What happened to living in a city?

By listening to Downtown from the voice of Petula Clark, you just wondered what kind of downtown she is referring… Maybe that clarify the point, when years later, when a TV series was about to end, a group of friends summarize that by commenting on the desire of one of them, to live in a place where “kids could ride their bikes in the street”: So you want to buy a house in the 50's?

The truth is that cities are less and less livable. Or you could say they are OK to live, but the quality of your life won’t be that great. You probably have to commute much more and stay less and less in your own place.

But one day they were a symbol of status and good life, and a high quality of life. Safety, prosperity and welfare were a synonym of living in a city; the bigger, the better.

What happened?

First, there are the visible facts of cars and more cars, of pollution in many places, the increasing population taking people to feel more insecure. After all, paradoxically the normal consequence of granting good quality to others is that gradually the numbers increase and quality decreases.

But there is something more: the disconnection of people with earth and the natural vocation of human beings as rural people. It happened slowly along the centuries, starting from our fascination for the cities – which were, in the beginning, rural outposts for selling and exchanging – attracting us to live there and to adapt our lives and customs to that. And losing some of it…

Probably if you live in a city you will think it is impossible to come back to those old values and way of life when you trusted completely in your neighbor and simplicity was a rule. Probably it is very difficult to go back there and if for some reason you are able to rebuild your city, probably it will attract so many people those values will get lost eventually again.

There is however something you can do, and it is related to your own values. Maybe you can’t avoid one-hour traffic but you can have a smile in your face and do something useful for yourself during that time. Perhaps you cannot prevent the noise and pollution, but you can make your mind silent and clean.

I tell you, it works. You start to love your time in the city, or wherever you are living. You start to love who you are, no matter your situation. You can see the quality of your life increases too. Externally, we can do little, but internally, we can do it all.

And the end is near...

If you go to a river that ends in a waterfall, the sensation is that closer to the cascade, the river speed up as if it wants to go as fast as possible to the end of its journey.

I guess that is how you are probably feeling right now. Yes, 2015 is ending and its speed has increased, with more things to do than available time.

And yet it is such an important time for humans. In our civilization we have created many customs and the end of the year is one that happens in most cultures. It is a time to end whatever has taken place during the year: accounts, projects, bad habits, wrong assumptions, animosity…

Because we live in a big cycle, with everything around us and inside us repeating itself from time to time, when the end comes, you know there is a beginning close. So, this is also a time to plan new things, to renew reality around you and to reignite the wonderful flame of hope in our hearts.

We have the will and the intuition and the feeling and the reasoning that 2016 will be an incredible year. Even though January 1^st will be probably quite similar to today…

It is that end-beginning phase we are going through that makes things seem so fast. A suggestion: don’t hurry and keep your pace and your reality in check. Enjoy the rush around you as if it is a big game and smile a lot.

A last suggestion is to start today ending things you want to finish with the end of the year. Start today to plan that marvelous 2016. Do that and I am sure 2016 will be more than just hope.

                                                                                                                                                                         

The power of reflection

Reflecting is a powerful tool. Before taking over his first term, President Obama talked about in relation to leadership and I guess from time to time all of us start to think on things we have to think about… Clear?

However, the power does not come by thinking or speaking. Reflection is something much more complex and at the same time, very simple to do: you let your thoughts go deep and deep into the roots and branches of any situation.

Still, that concept is not enough. After all, people who are used to brood onto something do that all the time and yet, they don’t look so powerful.

For instance, let’s say your company is starting to cut jobs and yours is in risk. A normal person would probably think something like this:

Oh no, they are going to fire me! What can I do, I don’t have any qualifications!! They can’t do that, can they?

Now consider an optimistic person:

Nah… they are not going to fire anyone. It is just another rumor. How can they fire us, who else are going to do the job? In fact, I think I am about to get promoted…

A reflection process would start like this:

They are firing people… let me understand the owners’ point of view. Of course, they have to save their investment and by cutting some people out, they will save money. However, if they save money like that, the remaining people will get more tired and productivity in the middle term will decrease, causing customers to go for another place.

The three samples are based on real thinking process. The main difference between reflection and other ways is that the person goes into a Detached Observer stage.

It is like playing chess: your strategy only works because you are out of the chessboard. Maybe if you were part of the game, you wouldn’t sacrifice that horse… Reflection means detaching from reality, without ignoring it, and then let your own thoughts go for its solution or conclusion.

Maybe your lifestyle does not allow you to stop and reflect, but at least once a week you just should do exactly that: just reflect about life, understand its process and find the best way to deal with it.

Do you have patience?

In a very fast-paced world, some virtues are not so cool and patience is one of them for it is connected to slow-moving men and women, weak individuals or very old people.

In fact, patience is connected to the reality of the world. If it is not for patience, your parents would not have expected you to be born – after all, NINE MONTHS!! So many things you can do during that time!!!!

For example, food and maturity come from a season and it is hard to be sped them up. When humans mix science with nature, results are not pleasant to everyone and there is a big wave in the world trying to revert that we did to our own food; same thing applies to maturity, which has its process and it is different to each person.

My observation is that patience is not the problem. The real challenge is how to discern between having patience and being slow. It is not that simple… Let’s take the example of a career.

On one hand, patience will help you to develop it in a pace that won’t stress you out but it will guarantee a good result at the end of the road. You will be focused on learning more than having immediate success as you know achievements will come along the way.

However you cannot just wait for things to happen. You will be pushed, threatened, taunted and even blackmailed by your bosses, co-workers, spouses and relatives to go for it! After all, your youth won’t last forever and maybe is already fading away…

Patience is good, it helps with health and it helps you to reach those goals you want to get, but it is not enough. No virtue or value is enough, they all need a partner. In the case of patience, its partner is perseverance that will help you to not accommodate to the situation but break reality and start your own change process.

OK, if you leave patience aside, you will be hurt as you will succumb to others’ and yours own desires, instead of waiting for the right season when fruit will be ripe. But if you don’t engage patience with perseverance you will live a very dull and boring life, and it is quite possible many of the things you are expecting won’t happen. After all, it is not only sowing seeds, you have to water and take care of whatever you have sown too.

Just perseverance without patience… Well, your life will be a big adventure, but you will probably miss some opportunities to just relax and flow with the flow.

At the end of this wonderful journey we all live, the most important thing will be the sense of balance. Life is all about balance… So, go and start it right now. Patiently…

The power you get by taking breaks

As our world evolves into a global village, with everything linked to everything, productivity is pushing us hard.

It is strange; as the world grows, more people would engage into tasks that would improve productivity. However, this is not happening and companies are decreasing their staff - especially the more creative - by their own will or just because these people are being widespread along the globe.

The negative effect is that those who remain have to produce more to keep the pace the department was having before. After all, less people should not mean less production...

Add to that the fast pace a person lives in the society with so many movies, parties, plays, Facebook posts, etc. Add to that an increasing health and spiritual consciousness, and add to that the importance to family and you will have a very stressing picture of people rushing around, virtually or physically, trying to fulfill all their duties...

In United States, many companies are encouraging their employees to take vacations. In many companies around the world, bosses are insisting with people to take a break now and then. An editor for a very important magazine decided to go to another country for the week-end - by himself, no spouse and no family...

There are several researches on the topic, but the most important point here is that those breaks we take allow us to breath and calm our body. It is a moment to enjoy someone else's company and especially not talking about whatever we were doing just before.

It will definitely increase productivity as we will come with refreshing ideas and new decisions.

Do you want to be more productive? Take a break from whatever you are doing and check the results.

A day for doing one task at a time

Just observe yourself, for instance, while you talk to a friend, your spouse or your child.

• How long could you sustain a thread of conversation for, without interruption or diverting to another point? Don't exclude even the smallest break...
• While talking, did anyone got a cell phone and start to do something there?
• Did anyone started to look at a television, their computer or a tablet? Slightly?
• Maybe outside?

I am sure you see the patterns there... They have been forming for many decades now as our attention has been decreasing in alarming ways.

Without noticing, we are becoming six-second-attention people and its effects on our society can be huge. The reason is that our society is based on relationships; relationships are based on conversations, and conversations are based on dedication and focus.

If you want to help this pattern shifts, I have a suggestion that may help you: have a day without any interruption.

A trick for that is doing a task at a time. I was inspired by a true story: during the Vietnam war, a young man to be recruited was sharing with his Buddhist master about all the dreams he had. While sharing, he was eating mandarin orange; his master noticed that before finishing eating one segment, he had already put another one in the mouth. So, the master told him to finish eating a segment, then go on putting another one... The young man did it, but not only with the mandarin. He also did it with his own dreams: speaking about one, sensing it and only then talking about another one.

There is still a debate if we can do more than one task at a time. Although some say yes and even share ways of doing it, others say that our brains - the most spectacular computer in the universe - can only deal with one thought... Well, until they  decide it, just experience a day where you start something, enjoy it and finish it.

Try it. Do something from beginning to the end, and only that thing (OK, maybe you can hear some baroque music while working...). It will probably be a slow day, so chose it carefully (don't upset your boss!). While doing it, check your thoughts and enjoy the experience of starting, developing it, enjoying it and finishing it... Try your best to have one thought, one emotion and one situation at a time.

A skill you will develop by doing it is concentration. It will be natural after a few hours and with that concentration, you will start to be able to focus when others are talking with you. You will be interested in their stories and lives and just get merged into it.

Slowly, you will help to recover the very basic of our society.

By doing. All. One thing. At a time.

Beyond chaos

Have you ever felt you were in chaos and then you were able to leave it?

Chaos is, according to my own thinking, a stage of change. In fact, it is a very important stage as it precedes the final result, which I simply call Transformation.

Let's take sand from a beach... That is a simple change - the sand goes from the beach to a workshop. Then, put fire on it, creating a crisis between all the molecules there. When it reaches the point of chaos, someone will take it and shape it, and you will have a glass, the transformed sand.

When you go through chaos that is good, theoretically. It means you overcame both stages, the simple change (I call it transition) and crisis, and you are about to embrace the final transformation of your life.

Imagine however that our sand is alive. Imagine it struggling when you transport it to a workshop. Imagine it suffering and keeping the fight against the fire that will melt it, until the point where it can become a glass... It is quite possible the sand, or part of it, can escape the workshop and one day, goes back to the soft beaches.

As humans, we are alive. We only go through change if we really want or our surroundings are pushing us and we can't prevent it. And, when it is time for a crisis our struggle will be amazing, we will look for a leader to lead us out of it, or we ourselves will become a leader and help others to leave it. If it does not work, then chaos will come, and again we will struggle and fight for our lives. During a change process, we will make our maximum effort to go back to our comfortable beach...

However, if we act as it is supposed for us, as humans, to act and try our best to leave chaos, aren't we missing something? Aren't we missing the beautiful chance to be a different person or a person with a different awareness?

Chaos is ugly. It hurts. It is not easy, but we can always do something to live through it: we can learn, we can be our own leader and set new goals; we can survive and use that survival as an example to others.

Instead of trying to go back to our comfortable spot on Earth, a new awareness comes from chaos and it is as precious as a pearl...

So, before your next or first experience with chaos, learn a bit more about who you are and your potentials. Work more on your self-leadership and understand the change you are going through, visualize the final outcome of this process and embrace it in your heart.

No? Yes? Maybe?

Decision is quite complicated nowadays as options are unlimited.

How to help people to make better decisions? These are some tips so that you can make your decisions with less or no doubts:

1. Get in touch with both: your logical side and your soft side, which can be intuition, creativity or spirituality.
2. Practice with your logical side doing brain exercises. At least, solve some SUDOKU...
3. Practice your soft side according to the type. If it is intuition, go for a walk and let your feet follow your thoughts; if it is creativity, go into creative problems and solutions, and if it is spirituality, pray or meditate.
4. Decisions are not unidimensional, so it is important to use both sides to make a decision. Let your head and heart talk on the matter.
5. After making a decision in your mind, implement it. Don't procrastinate.
6. After implementing, check the results and how you feel.
7. Do a self-coaching: congratulate yourself for the success and understand any mistake or anything that could be done better.
8. Again, get in touch with both sides...

Change by reflecting on your own thoughts

With the art of reflection, a Greek man was able to calculate the size of Earth to an impressive approximation, before Christ, without travelling and with no special gadgets. Equally, another Greek deduced that there was a very small particle, the atom. In other words: reflect and the impossible becomes possible.

Just think what could happen to your life if you too reflect on your reality, finding hidden solutions For instance, before putting a thought into action you reflect on it and then, act based on it... What would happen?

Thoughts are not made for action. They happen in a very different environment - our minds - where reality is quite subjective. When you are hungry, your mind fantasizes with things that possibly you can't eat as you don't have the time to cook it, the money to buy it or you are in a diet.

Before action, thoughts go through an inner process: first, without you knowing it, you check your thoughts according to your present awareness (I am in a diet!!) and make a decision on the basis of that. It is that decision, a processed series of thoughts that goes into action.

However, if you have a life-changing decision as a change of career or a divorce, that process is not enough. Awareness is an ambiguous thing - maybe you are aware of the wrong things...

The best and worst example is racism. During an occasion where a person meets another person with a different skin color, the racist would be fully aware of his or her skin color, something he does not often think about (I guess you just did, right?). The inner process is not enough to provide a reality check on the thought or perception of superiority of one race over another. We need an extra tool so that we re-assess thoughts and make different decisions.

A very deep reflection with a powerful set of questions may help a person to do exactly that.

• Why don't I feel comfortable around this person?
• What is it I value more from one person? How do I see that in this particular individual?
• Where is this belief coming from? How worthwhile is to keep it?
• What would be another way to approach this person?

After that, decision will be made with more confidence and clarity. If a change is required, the person will start to move on that direction, and without knowing it, you have changed your own world!!

Time management in unmanageable times

When I was just starting to work on IT, trying to understand computers and users, my job was pretty boring... So, I got distracted with some booklets I found scattered around. They came from a Time Management course my boss took and two things stroke me: first, the interesting ideas and, second, how my boss just ignored them...

Time management is a wonderful tool and an incredible theory, but its use in the practical life, a VERY BUSY practical life, is not so easy for it demands discipline and focus.

Besides, some of the champions in Time Management consider their success based on their ability in managing their time and not in its results. Life, especially corporate and business life, is not happy with a manager, a coach or a CEO who is able to manage his or her time very well... Others would want to see an outcome for that.

Results are quite hard to be experienced and one of the reasons is the unmanageable times you are living. We are living a very particular period of our history, a time that Peter Drücker, a consultants' prophet, has foreseen: a time we are not sure what is going on and we are less sure what will happen in the future.

We can go and make changes in our way of managing times (as I am doing this year), but still we cannot catch up with reality as it was probably more possible twenty years ago.

What to do then? Just flow and let it be? Or maybe creating even another tool to help you managing your time? I would like to explore that…

Let's talk about consciousness. Since I have seen those booklets, I have started my own way of managing time, which helped me to create a basis for courses and seminars I give. My main focus, however is not the method as it is, but the awareness of time the person has to develop.

As humans, we have created a very complex way of considering time. Although we can understand easily concepts as VERY SOON or LATE, we are ruled by a psychological sense of time rather than a real one. For instance, if you enjoy a two-days holiday somewhere, a place where you are happy and everything works fine, you will feel the time is very SHORT, even though it is the same time as when you had to work and finish your company accounts, which probably looked as very LONG.

The trick in Time Management is to reconcile your own perception of time with others' perception and the real clock-time. That means you need to do three things:

• Strength your own leadership. The only way to do something as mentioned before and survive in the process is when you are a leader. Although there are many concepts of leadership, three things are important in relation to Time Management, and you can cultivate them: your self-control, your own sense of being an example and a clear picture of your vision of the present and future for both, yourself and the organization you are leading.
• Value your own values. Rushing around or procrastinating do not only affect your health and others' patience, it may also affect your values. For a check-up on your values and, in relation to Time Management, check these three values to see if they are being put into action or just serving as a decoration for your speeches: patience will help you when others are not committed enough, perseverance will help you to educate others and try again, and introspection (or calmness)will help you to check your own commitment and make the needed changes.
• Use real methods. Ah, that is a must!! You can take as many courses of Time Management (want my cell phone number?) or attend to a thousand seminars, and yet, all of it may be is inapplicable to your reality. Ask three questions and make the necessary improvements: is what I am doing aligned with my needs? Are we, other people around me and i, really experiencing benefit by using these methods? Is there any way i can manage time better?

Well... time is up!! Get up and start to apply your own consciousness into your time.

In the morning, what do you think?

Some people say your first meal will define the strength for the day. Could you say the same about the first thoughts we have?

The day is full of opportunities and threats, of hopes and expectations, beautiful roses and huge thorns. Are you going out there dressed as casual as possible, or like a warrior waiting for the next battle?

Your first thoughts will direct your energy towards the day. With some techniques, you can even change a threat into an opportunity. If you meditate before coming out your place, you can experience the energy you need to fulfill your hopes and enjoy the challenge presented by expectations. Those thoughts can prepare you to admire the roses and understand the thorns around.

If you are interested in improving that part of your life, I have a few tips that can be useful and I have good wishes for you that your life will be always a source of contentment.
1. Sleep well. Very well.
2. But, before sleeping, read, watch or listen to something positive. So, if you just saw your favorite episode with pieces of bodies everywhere, then it is important to disconnect and connect to a positive reality, something that encourages you.
3. When you just wake, sit and have a few thoughts in silence, prayer, meditation, contemplation or reflection.
4. After that, enjoy the next hour or so doing positive and constructive things. Read something spiritual, a bit of yoga or joggling can be very good options.
5. During the day, connect whatever is going on with those first moments of your life.

Focus... action!

In a fast-paced society as the one we are living, people seldom gives time for reflection. We normally just react and that makes us tired... so we look for means of relaxing and we don't have enough energy to think, reflect and act, which means we just start reacting again.

This has created a big trend where tourism and entertainment can be considered one of the biggest industries. An example: let's say you are going for shopping - compare the time shopping with the time you spend watching a movie.

It is a strange society, right? We have displaced food as our first value and we have embraced industrial elements, things we could easily live without; now we are going even beyond, preferring what is not even real...

Well, solution does not lie in new policies, a change in the laws or even new inventions. The real solution is to prevent that big tiredness for life that takes place and makes us confusing love we see in a movie with the real love we can feel only in reality.

Focus. It will help people to get less tired and more effective in whatever they do. If you just get tired, in the normal way, that can be solved by a change of environment or a good sound sleep, then it is easier to start thinking and reflecting, before going into reaction. As a consequence, your actions' quality will be better and even if you fall on the reaction pattern again, it will be in relation to a very good quality action.

Focus on what you really want and need. Focus on your reality, your mission and vision of life and you will feel it as a wonderful experience, as an entertainment in itself.

It is not only your productivity that will increase enormously, your joy will also increase and you will enjoy life in a way you probably thought it was only possible watching some good episode on television.

Focus. Reflect. Act. Relax. And focus again...

The power of writing

Most products coming from science fiction portrayed of a world where people wouldn't write. If you remember most of Star Trek movies or Star Wars don't show people writing…

Then, what happened? Today as never before, writing is so important. Many young people don't talk anymore; they just type, chat or blog.

Reality is: writing has power. One thing is to transform the energy of your thoughts into words, which requires power in itself. To change an abstract energy into an energy that you can hear and it can be measured, an energy that can be recorded and reviewed many times, it is a wonder.

But we, humans, were not happy with only speaking. Many civilizations started to record those ideas, they started to WRITE. It is quite possible that if we have means to record our voices from the beginning of time, writing wouldn't be that important, and that would be a pity.

When I write, I have to organize my thoughts in a different way. While in speech you have the help of body language and the one of your voice, this is not present in writing. Writers give a carte blanche for the reader to interpret the printed thoughts, ideas, feelings and emotions.

The power in it lays on the content and how it is expressed. Right ideas, at the right time in the right way can change the world...

Do you want to sharpen that power?

• Reflect before writing. You don't need to write the whole piece in your mind, just think of it in a deeper way.
• Before writing something long, create a short summary or a few thoughts on that. A few bullet-pointed phrases or words help.
• After writing, read it. Take your time with that... reading twice for important papers is good.
• When you see an error or you want to change the ideas, reflect again, and do it. Look for synonyms; remember people from different countries and languages will interpret your article.
• Read it a last time. Remember: those words will travel the world...

The power of goals

Walking our journey as professional people, family members or just individuals can look tiresome. We feel that many times in our lives, just weary and it seems very difficult to keep on going.

Goals function is to motivate us to keep on moving by using 3 factors:

• Hope. It is the first layer of any goal. No matter how cold the aim is or how much you have calculated it, hope drives you to think things can be better and you can do it. After all, real goals propose a different reality than you live; hope helps you to imagine it, feel it inside you and make your whole being working towards it.
• Reality. I would put here LOGIC, however I think that word is not the same at the time of setting goals. You have to be real, not negatively real, but real enough to set goals you can fulfill. As a friend of mine has said, go into battles that are small enough to be won but big enough to matter.
• Insight. I would put here INTUITION, but again, I don't think this word is the one that helps you when you set goals. At the time of setting goals, you have to be careful as they should be something beyond the reality, balancing with the logical perception. The best way is to go inside yourself and take from there that energy you need to guess, to imagine and visualize a future you will be creating brick by brick.

So, start your journey towards the future with lots of hope. Trust the reality you live and what you hear from within.

Are you resistant to innovation?

We have been living for decades now in a world of constant innovation. Not only that, but in the last few years, innovation speed has increased.

Just a small example: if you have a smartphone chances are there is always something being upgraded or updated. And, whilst we are talking about this, what about the big revolution in communication? With messengers dominating the social network landscape, what will happen in the long term with telephone companies? After all, I can communicate with all my friends for free, using a messenger of some kind, but if I try to send text messages, I am often charged.

For many people, there are only two options: either you embrace the innovations coming or you refuse them. However, it is not that simple.

Embracing has its positive points. When you are able to assimilate any innovation, which helps your character, your mental power and even your intelligence enhances. On the other hand, as it is impossible to assimilate all innovation, you will have to learn how to prioritize and to have a critical sense, learning what is efficient for you; that are not a small task!

Refusing seems easier, but at a long term creates a gap between you and others. You become outdated and things stop working well. But, on the other hand, people who normally don't embrace all innovation that comes - prioritizing or not - shows more peace of mind. It is a kind of softness you often find in the country field.

In fact, the main difference comes from you purposely choosing an innovation, and follows it up, or not. My point of view is that if you decide on not choosing something everyone else is doing, with a firm conviction, which is not resistance. That is self-knowledge...

Resistance, in the negative sense of the word, means ignorance and fear. It means you are resisting because something will be taken from you if you accept that big change.

When you chose not embracing something, you are showing your values, and that is important. A small proof you are not only being (negative) resistant is that you stimulate others to embrace that same thing you are not, because you are aware for them, that is important.

So, next time you don't feel like changing your equipment, computer, phone, career, food product, soap or even an idea, just check and see if you are being resistant, or it is your choice.

Independent? That's so out of fashion...

A great part of our civilization journey has been a big struggle towards independence. As humans, we have had a bad habit of enslaving and conquering others, imposing our religions, languages and customs into other people, who would then, one day, be independent again.

Something changed with the 20th Century. Somehow, the conquest became more subtle, not that obvious... And the struggle for independence turned to be a move to leave a "conqueror" and just fall into another's hands.

Just analyze, with clinical detached eyes: there is no independence possible nowadays. At least in one way or another, we are all dependent on something or someone. You are a dependent person, just like me.

Maybe you think you are an independent professional doing your work and earning your own money, but you are highly dependent on how the economy works and that puts you into a very vulnerable position. Or you have chosen to leave your parent's house and now you feel all independent... just to realize you follow their paths, you repeat their own way of being and so, your dependency did not finish, as you would expect.

The reality of our world, so much connected, is that you cannot really expect to be independent. What to do then?

First of all, let's think why people - you and me, among others - want to be independent. Without getting into philosophy, there are two basic reasons for that:

• Independence comes as one of the main results of freedom, and freedom is something the human spirit understands and wills to experience.
• After a long time being dependent on others, due to our process of growing up, there is the desire to express feelings, emotions and thoughts that we couldn't while being under other people.

If real and total independence is not possible, this would explain the sensation many people have of persecution or lack of freedom without a real basis. It also explains the lack of self-confidence in the general population. So, what to do?

There is a different stage for the human spirit and personality, besides dependency and independency. We can call it interdependence or autonomy and it happens in the level of the mind and sensations, more than in the physical.

Awareness is important. Viktor Frankl has shown that even in the worse of situations, your mind can be free and independent of what is happening around. His book, Man's Search for Meaning give us the clue for that: Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms-to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

That means if I am a free man or woman, but in my mind I am still depending on what other people think, I have less freedom and independence than a person who looks like he is submitted to another individual, but his mind is free and his thinking is clear.

Do you want to experience freedom and independence?

• Check your own mind and line of thoughts.
• Check how much you are able to think of situations by being aware of your own self, making decisions based on what you are, rather than the position you occupy in the present society.

The communication power: thoughts, attitudes and vibration

One part of our communication not only does not happen in words, it is completely invisible. And yet...

Is it possible you don't feel the "vibe" coming from your boss when you enter the office - much before he starts to speak or stands, so you can see his body language? I am sure you do...

One event comes to my mind. I have received an email which was really not nice for me. I started to respond in an aggressive way. After preparing the email, I was able to reflect and I have changed it into a softer version, keeping the assertiveness in it. However, I was surprised when I received that person's response... She was in reality responding to THE AGRESSIVE EMAIL, not the assertive one, even mentioning something I have deleted and she couldn't imagine... Any guess? Yes, she felt my vibrations.

Well, vibrations do not interfere with the tangible world, at least that is what most people think, but the reality is this is a fundamental and crucial part of your own communication. So, before any speech, writing any email or get into any conversation, try to:

• Reflect on your own thoughts. Check yourself for aggressiveness, hate, jealousy or any negative feeling for that person or those people, and make your best to change it into something positive.
• If you can't change your thoughts... Try to not communicate right now, reflect a little more. If you can't, then honesty is possibly the best policy and you can start your communication on the reasons you are upset.
• After changing your thoughts, check your own attitude. Do you want to help or criticize? Are you concerned about others or just upset with what they have done? Change your attitude if you feel it is negative. Otherwise, look for a better moment for communication...
• Vibrations... They are the result of the former points. Remember they will remember how they felt in your presence or the energy they have received when you sent them an email. Meditate before, even though it is just a minute, and that will help your own vibrations enormously.

Remember that even though this is intangible, people will feel it and that will taint anything you tell them.

The communication power: your smile and features

As a frequent customer for airlines, one thing I notice is how less and less my providers smile. And when they do, it is really not convincing...

I did not research or check statistics. It is more a feeling than anything. At some airlines, their employees are visibly tired and unhappy; others they seem to be upset you are travelling with them so they cannot have a nice time as they have to attend you.

Part of the power of communication comes from your features and a smile, a very genuine and sincere smile, is a fundamental part. Well, you cannot buy smiles nor do a Joker, but you can always learn how to smile more and more...

Smile comes from a deep sense of satisfaction. So, the easiest trick for an easy smile is that: be satisfied. Satisfaction comes from four sources:

• The self. First of all, you need to be happy with yourself, your efforts, your capacity and energy. Satisfaction is not a static thing; it does not mean that you don't improve because you are so satisfied with whatever you are. It means you are happy with your own self and from that happiness, you will pursue your own growth or transformation.
• Others (close). As everyone influences everyone, when others are satisfied with you and you are with them, the exchange of energy is wonderful. You will feel your life is a huge continuous party! The close ones, friends and close relatives, are the main people that influences in your own sense of satisfaction. If someone is not satisfied with you or you are not satisfied with them, it is time for reflection and to make a decision about it.
• Others (far, far away). There are other people you are not that close, or maybe you have been close in the past. Still, our sense of satisfaction relies on the feeling of being satisfied and if your airline pilot is not doing that or your local baker, then it is time to check on what to do about it. A part of the stress experienced in big cities comes from the interaction between people who are basically strangers.
• God or a Supreme Source of energy. Yes, God is present in our smiles too... Our relationship and its level with this Supreme Force will interfere in our personal sense of satisfaction. If you don't believe in God, it is still possible you believe in something; that point you believe, God or something else, means a lot for you and the way you feel satisfied with His or Her role in your life will help you to shape that smile in your face.

By increasing your sense of satisfaction, your smile will be easy and your features will be influenced by that, which will change the way you communicate. A smile express trust and confidence, joy and calm, so when you communicate with others, they will get that feeling from you.

The communication power: your words

In many articles you will find this famous research about how words just mean around 7% of the whole communication. In other words, if you speak 20 minutes to one person, he will assimilate only 1 min and a half approximately.

However, thinking of your own experience, how much a few words were able to change your whole life. Just remember:

• That phrase said by a forgotten teacher that made you chose your present career.
• An expression you heard whilst commuting to your work that made you decide on your spiritual life.
• A word spoken by a good friend that gave you back enthusiasm and energy.
• And, well, the many words you have heard that made you think twice before doing something that you knew it was good - words are that powerful...

So, when we communicate with others, we should check about the words we use - and now that many communicate mostly via written text that is much more important. Take this in account:

• Before writing or speaking anything, go into the depth of yourself and reflect or contemplate on it. Feel your own self and your energy as that is what you are going to give others.
• Look for meaningful words, not necessarily complicated expressions, but something that gives others a sense of understanding.
• During your speech or when you are writing something, check and recheck your words. Try to fit into the ears or eyes of others and think how they will act or react to that.
• Don't "unsay" something; if you do say something wrong, just move on and let your heart teaches you on how to go over it.
• After speaking anything, pack it up! Don't keep those words in your heart or mind; just let them go out of you.

By doing so, you will be experiencing more than communication, you will experience its power changing and shaping reality.

The communication power

Who was your favorite super-hero? I am sure you have had one, maybe two or more. Did you know these images were in fact related to yourself? Yes, you were and you are that super-hero...

At least, that was your expectation when you are a child or teenager. Growing up, it is possible you put that aside - like The Incredibles did - and decided to live a normal life. But I am sure very internally you would love that super-power, isn't it right?

I have talked about many powers in this blog and in others works I have done. As a person who felt very much powerless for a big part of my life, to realize my inner powers was and still is fascinating and, well, empowering.

There is one power I did not talk about and in fact, it just occurred to me short time ago: communication power. I am not thinking about those courses given by very-white-full-of-teeth facilitators, but about the power to express what is going on inside you.

It is powerful if you are able to find the right words to say to a person; that word can make his or her life as bright as the sun. Maybe to communicate by smiling, encouraging others to enjoy your happiness too.

Communication is a vast topic. For now, I just would like you to reflect on how your hands give your feelings away, how your thoughts are perceived by other people who react to them. By changing your way of communicating, you change your environment too.

Perspective can change everything

Check this short video. Isn't perspective amazing? Whatever you think it is, it is not, and however you think something is, it is not.

Check now this other video... This is also a perspective. When a TV show changes a shelter dining area into a five-star restaurant, it is an amazing experience for people who sometimes don't have amazing experiences every day.

Now, check your own life. Yes, make an experiment of changing your own perspective and I am sure your life will change.

What if I think as a person 20 years younger? Or 20 years older?
What if I think as a person of the other gender?
Let me make a case in favor of that person who creates so much trouble for me... Let me see what his reasons are.
What if I could not afford to have not even a computer? What would I be doing right at this moment?
If I were a millionaire, what would I do?
What if I was born in a different country and I was brought up in a different religion? How would I behave, eat, dress, etc.?

It is a powerful change game. Do it, a couple of times every year, and you will master your own change eventually.

Hey, you are on stage!

Many years ago, a famous Brazilian actress stumbled upon a rug during a play. Without losing her style, she looked at her uncle, performed by another famous actor, and said: Uncle, I have told you many times to be careful about this rug!

It was an improvised and brilliant moment. For us, who are also actors on this world stage as Shakespeare used to say, many times the rug is not where it was supposed to be. But, different than that actress, we often react badly to unexpected challenges.

This awareness can be helpful, that we are all actors and we are on stage, all the time. That will make us take every step with care, love, compassion and energy.

Whether we are with our family or in our workplace, we will be conscious that any thing we say will be recorded by their powerful minds and memories, and that will shape their relationship with us. Any error we do will be seen, heard and felt.

Hummm... Ok, that can take you to a very paranoid stage of mind. It requires some balance by using your private moments in a very worthwhile way. Even when you are just having fun, remind yourself that will help you to make better decisions or it will strengthen the bond within your family. A hero is always a hero, but relaxing, enjoying and being yourself is extremely important.

So, check your lines for today. These are some questions that can help you:

• How prepared am I to face this situation? Which kind of training, coaching or resources do I need for that?
• What will be my attitude when I meet a person? How do I want to express my feelings and needs to them?
• If anything happens outside my schedule, something I am not prepared for, how will I deal with it? If I realize I couldn't deal, what should I do, during and after the situation?
• How do I want to feel at the end of this day? How to reach to that point?

Ready for an Oscar award from life? It is waiting for you...

How to be a coach for yourself and others

After their victories, many athletes thank their coaches for their success. Why is that?

It is clear the athlete has won, not the coach. It is clear the talent, intelligence or capacity belonged to the athlete who won, not the coach. Why to thank him or her?

Everyone has potentials, but many times it is not properly developed. We got stuck into so many things that we just let our potential to be dormant whilst we are doing our own business. The coach's task is to help an individual to live that potential fully and to show that to the world.

For that, the coach would use many different techniques and skills. There will be an intense training and constant corrections, besides lots of celebrations every time that potential shows itself in a practical form. Without a coach, an athlete as good as they are, will be just another athlete, just another person.

Be your own coach and also help others using that attitude.

• You yourself must have some things clear, like the potential of someone, you or another person, and their dreams. As a coach, your success is your coachee's success.
• When there is a challenge, focus on the potential. The reality is there, you don't need to think of it or make others think of it. Just focus on the possibility of overcoming the challenge.
• Create a routine for training. Don't make excuses, don't accept excuses. Help in such a way the training happens naturally.
• When there is a drawback, talk. Dialogue helps things to be clear and the inner barriers to be removed.
• Never lose hope, never get disappointed. No matter what, potentials go back to their original state, that is, they go back to sleep. When things get bad, just go back to training and dialogue.
• A success has to be celebrated. Celebration helps to make the potential part of the individual, a feature or skill that will be easier to use when time comes.

Evolution depends on you

After studying about evolution in school, my first thought was: Why did we stop?

Yes, in terms of science and technology we are evolving. There is no doubt about human greatness when you see the first moons of Pluto or a vaccine for Ebola.

Yes, as a community we are more open to embrace differences. And it seems we run faster and are older than our ancestors.

However, when we see the killing on the name of religion or ethnicity, or we hear on how violence is increasing inside the otherwise safe home, we see a different reality.

In fact, we have lost so many values along the time. Take HONOR for instance and try to find it around. It is extinct, living in our memory of what our grandparents used to say, books and movies.

In fact, we have lost touch with our spiritual side so much and our own humanity. We are destroying our environment - not the governments or big companies, WE - and it seems there is no way to stop it.

My realization is that if we want to really evolve, stopping the killing, violence, recovering values and our natural environment, we have to work on our own evolution. I am not saying here we should drink medicines or change our arms into bionic ones; I am talking from inside.

Different than a natural evolution, human evolution happens on a total different level. It starts inside from a realization and normally from one person or a small group of people. Then it spreads around until it reaches the whole world. We have that already: when someone realized enslave another person is wrong or the other gender has similar rights. But we need more and we need it faster.

Otherwise one day, we will be the case of study, not some birds or tortoises.

Do you know where your heart is?

What really makes you get up every morning? Is it that job you hate? Or the boring school? Boring neighbors then?

As humans we need motivation all the time, so much that the most interesting thing can make you feel empty and thirsty for other experiences if you don't feel like doing it.

But it is not possible to have motivation coming from outside all the time. In fact, most of my life I felt as I was demotivated to do something by other people or situations. So, it is time to find motivation inside...

Yes, within there is something that help you to move on or keep you doing something that others feel is useless. Some people would call that your purpose in life, your mission. Other people will make reference as my guts or they will think it is their intuition. We can also call it your heart, because it is what makes you move around and feel alive.

By identifying where your heart is, that is, your inner motivation source, you will have many advantages in your life starting with enjoying every moment, no matter what is happening or what you are doing. After all, some things will give you pleasure, others attainment, some will give you a lesson and there will be situations when you will have all those at the same time.

How to do that?

• Past. Think about those things, situations or people that made you feel special, appreciated, very loved or honored. Now, reflect on your inner self; remember how did you feel or which thoughts were in your mind that time. It is quite possible they were similar even though situations were different, and if that is the case, you have found your heart!
• Present. If you wouldn't need money, what would be your job? That will give you a very important clue about your inner motivation. Try and use it in practice by being a volunteer and check your motivation behind. After being certain, just apply that in your day-to-day life.
• Future. How do you see yourself in the future? Visualize it. Check your relationships with others and your inner state (blissful? happy?). That shows you what you really want in life and it can act as a powerful motivation source too, working as a ruler against which you compare how you feel when you do what you are doing with your ideal inner mind state.

Remember one thing: when your motivation is inside you, you will enjoy everything that happens in life, no matter what it is. So it is worthwhile to find it out and to live by it.

Embracing roses and thorns

Many years ago, this song was a big hit. It talks about relationships and the reality of life, in contrast with our dreams and ideals.

As human beings we have the incredible ability of dreaming. It is proofed now that other species do the same, but up to this moment, I don't think any dog will follow their dreams... And that is exactly what we do.

It reaches a point when we are not even aware of reality, following images, voices, ideas, thoughts that don't even exist in real form, and it is something ALL OF US have done at some point when looking for a job, starting a new company, getting married or having children. We literally put reality aside and invest our time, energy and money on the intangible for the horror of mothers, fathers, future spouses and, of course, mother-in-laws.

Reality is made however of roses and thorns, good wonderful moments and horrible instants. It is made of inspiration and aspiration, expiration and transpiration. Cut the thorns and you will have a very tame rose, but it won't be natural.

Natural is the acceptance and appreciation. Natural is to prepare yourself for the reality as a whole. Look around you and you will see not only people who can live with their thorns, but for whom they are their personal reason for success. How many heroes do you know who didn't face at least a thorn? How many inspiring people you know who have only dealt with the roses of life?

Just breathe deeply, open your eyes and follow your dreams, while embracing these wonderful thorns and storms and tragedies life has for you!

The power of love

A symbol in the 60's, spiritual, religious and humanitarian people still believe in the intangible power of love. Well, even Harry Potter, finally was able to believe in it (sort of...).

But, what does that mean? How much money does this power can produce? How many friends can you conquer or customers can be satisfied?

Believe me, love can make all the difference and it affects your life much more than you think about. For a better understanding, I propose several dimensions for this concept, each one clarifying love and its power in a different way. By knowing this, you can take advantage of this huge power.

The first dimension I identify is the individual one as love is what helps in building very strong bridges between people. In this way, you can see its use in a team or a negotiation. Love can be also the healing factor whenever a relationship goes wrong.

But for that dimension to work, you have to comprehend a second dimension, which is the expression of love. I have a friend, Dr. Roger Cole, who wrote a book on the Mission of Love, by the way, an excellent book!! He commented to me at some point when we travelled together in Ecuador where I was helping as a translator, that love really can't be find in this world. What you can find is mercy or compassion, and other qualities, virtues or values that are in themselves expressions of love. So, when a co-worker is having problems and you try to genuinely help or you get into a negotiation process with a win-win mind set, you are using the power of your own love...

A third dimension, very important to understand, is in relation to the attributes of love. Let's be honest, love became a very cheap word and many times is misunderstood with sex or lust. Love as a power works as a trigger for growth, solidarity and relationship, which I've put as total different dimension due to its importance. Yes, it is love that enables nature to live again after a very hard winter. It is also love that makes you extend a hand to a strange and help them. So, whenever your love enables others to grow or enables you to help others that means love is power.

As I try to show here, love is not something too abstract or a little hippie... The power of love is real and it is inside you. Just use it in your life and see its wonderful results.

I was thinking…

One of the things that touched me about 30 years ago was to find out how thoughts are processed and lived.

I am not talking here about a scientific point of view, but from a humanist and spiritual point of view. It was so impressive that a consultant friend of mine during many years used to give that information to his clients.

It should be obvious that by understanding how the thinking process works, we could have innumerable benefits, such as: better decision-making, enhancing the leadership capacity, innovation, etc.

However, we don’t hear about people looking into that so much. Last time I heard a leader talking on the need of thinking (reflecting, contemplating), it was just before Obama was elected for the first time, during a talk with the French president of that time.

Our society as a whole acknowledges actions and results, instead of reflection and contemplation. Children receive marks when they are right, not when they are still thinking… And just try to tell your boss you are thinking of what to do about that project, in which you are delayed!

And that is really a mistake. Perhaps by jumping into action and solving things In a Ramboish style we have got many results, but as Peter Senge said in his first book, The Fifth Discipline: problems of today are yesterday’s solutions. By not giving time to human reflection, we were unable to prevent deterioration or the misuse of ideas.

If you really want to be a leader and provide long-term solutions, just do one thing: THINK!

The general process

Every human being has three main functions, in relation to the thinking process:

·         Archive. We store all experiences we have in our lives. These experiences will help us to make decisions when the same situations or similar ones come in front of us.

·         Mind. It is the “screen” where our thoughts and feelings are projected. It is the area of thoughts and emotions. When we say I am thinking, it means our minds are working on something.

·         Intellect. It decides what our next action. It takes into account whatever the mind has, your present state of awareness and your knowledge.

The internal process is easy to understand:

1.       An input comes from outside, sometimes unknowingly.

2.       This awakes an old experience, stored in the archive.

3.       That experience is taken by the mind; in relation to the present circumstances and consciousness, thoughts and emotions are generated.

4.       Whatever the mind has is given to the intellect, which has to make a decision in terms of a response to the input.

5.       The response is acted out. That turns into another input and is archived along with the experience for future references.

Our archive

It is easy to realize the archive is out of our hands. It stores what we experience and that is it.

But we can conduct our experience in a better way. For instance, we can learn from a bad experience, turning it into a good one and the opposite is also true, as due to a bad day we can make our experience going back home as bad as possible.

The trick is in one point specifically: to manage better our intellect.

The effect of making a conscious effort in terms of which experiences I really want to store is impressive:

A bad project can be the birth of a wonderful business. That is the case of Post-It, a glue that didn’t work.

Bad marks in school can generate a genius. Einstein, anyone?

A divorce can give you your best friend back. Look at your neighbor!

When the experience is polished, next time the same situation emerges, no need of thinking of a response, as it will be stored in the self already.

Controlling your mind

At a time where distraction is omnipresent, controlling the mind can be an advantage in pursuing success in life, and it doesn’t require much.

First of all, it is important to understand that at the extent we can control our mind, we can control our thoughts and their quality. Better thoughts create better words and actions. If we don’t control our mind, it will weaver according to the circumstances, giving happiness and sorrow despite what you desire.

The higher the quality of thoughts we want, more control we need to exercise.

·         Relaxation. It is the basic point in terms of controlling our mind. An easy trick is to create a nice physical environment, with some soft music playing, and thoughts will go towards it.

·         Reflection. The art of thinking purposely. Take a good thought, a book or even a quote and let your mind work on that, analyzing, synthetizing of just experiencing in the laboratory of your mind.

·         Contemplation. It means silence, in its deepest sense. Although it requires discipline, it works as a balsam for the mind, cleaning it of unnecessary and sometimes hurtful thoughts and emotions.

·         Meditation. Making your mind creative is very useful, and that is one of the roles of meditation. It helps to create a flow of positive thoughts and generate an impact in our inner archive.

·         Yoga. It means concentration and focus. Although it requires as much discipline as contemplation, it is extremely useful as it helps to change your inner archive. In a stage of yoga, you have total control on your thoughts, feelings and emotions.

Focusing your intellect

The intellect is probably the most important faculty we have.

First of all, it manages our consciousness, which means it manages our own experience. It is the intellect that really creates our archive and helps us in our future experiences.

But consciousness comes as a fruit of knowledge and experience, and that is the key to focus your intellect and generate better decisions, and so better files in our archive.

·         The knowledge that comes to the intellect is not so much the literal knowledge of letters and numbers, but the deduction and inference that come from it. So, it does not work to know something by heart… It has to touch your heart.

·         Many times we assimilate a knowledge that is incoherent. For instance, your mother can tell you it is bad to tell lies, but she seems satisfied when you lie by telling her friend she is not at home. That creates a form of corruption, and so via reflection, it is very important to clean it up.

·         It is common we have an interesting experience we fully don’t understand. By going after a knowledge that explains that experience in a coherent way, we help our intellect to strengthen or even create another stage of consciousness.

·         Sometimes we have experiences that go against our common knowledge. That may happen with the knowledge we receive from our relatives or religion when we go for work. Reflection and contemplation can help to conciliate experience and knowledge, giving a sense of confidence.

Thoughts of a leader

·         They are based on reflection.

·         A leader’s response is not emotional, but it comes from the depth of their heart.

·         All experiences are good, either because they create pleasure or they teach the leader something different.

·         Every day the leader works on cleaning his or her mind, polishing thoughts and emotions.

·         Whatever the situation is, the leader’s intellect is making the best decisions possible as her or his consciousness is in a very high position.

·         Because the leader’s response is the best, his or her archive also is in optimum state, helping to solve critical scenes in life.

The power in a smile

Many of the less tangible acts of a human being have more effect than visible gross actions. That is the case of a smile.

If you want to understand its impact, just imagine for a moment a shop where its salespeople NEVER smile. Compare its sales with another similar shop, but where its salespeople are normally smiling. No need to say the last will have better results in their tasks.

Why? What is in a smile that makes things different?

There would be many points of view to respond to that, but we could just say there are four things we can learn about the power in a smile. Four things we can replicate in our lives, in other areas besides smiling.

1. It is born from within. Smiles don't come from facial exercises. You cannot bully your face to smile! It has to come from inside, from a deep perception of the world around you. It is a decision that changes your perspective.
2. It only works if it is genuine. The former point means that if you don't feel, you won't smile. Or at least your smile won't have the same power. Authenticity is the key.
3. Smiling keeps your balance. Human balance comes from a constant need to recover. Even when we walk, our balance comes after we have one foot only on the floor... When you smile, you send a message to yourself saying "everything is alright". Then, you start to work things out so they do become OK.
4. Winning others' hearts. When you smile, you generate a different energy. You tell others your doors are open for them and you invite them to your life. Smiles are a must if you need to create, sustain or heal a relationship.

So, what are you waiting for? Just smile...

Balance between being serious and having humor

Let's face it; probably the Friends theme song has it clear: always stuck in second gear... OK, not always, but a good amount of our time on this planet passes by trying to solve a problem, recovering from a situation or preparing the self for something that is coming.

Reality makes us crying and laughing at alternative times. But there is a secret behind: even the worse problems exist to make us all better.

This is why it is important to live life fully, without complaints or regrets, just enjoying whatever is coming. After all, everything turns to be good...

How to do it? Here is a trick that can help many people. Just use humor more and more.

It is true many times we have to be serious and solve situations with a sober mind. It is true we have to solve situations without a smile. It is true sometimes we have to be very stern with other people.

But it is also true most of the times we can make a joke. It is true we can smile even in front of tragedies, knowing we are strong enough to tolerate them. It is true we can use humor to deflect sadness; after all, being sad does not help to solve anything.

A balance between both will help us to overcome all obstacles that come on our way.

A better world

Everything we do is related to a better world we want to create. When we build a new building, a house or just take a child to a school, our best hopes is that will create a better world.

Of course, a better world will have economy, social structure and science operating. It is part of human civilization to have a culture, customs and ideas to share among all. That means to create a better world is to create a better economy, a better social structure, a better science, better culture, better customs and better ideas...

The implication is that it is something difficult, even impossible. As an individual I can't see how I am contributing for that, we can never forget the effect we have on each other. In a subtle and obvious way, we influence others through our behavior, reaction, gestures, ideas, thoughts, vibrations, feelings and words. In this way, we help direct others towards a better world, or to remain in this old and worse world (after all, that is the implication of creating a better world...).

I feel personally that all of us could be in heaven right now. If we share what we have, if we help each other... but then I remember the only thing I can do is to create a better me and I start doing all of that.

Yes, a better world won't be created by a coup d'état or some marvelous invention. Many better people working with that aim in mind, they will generate a better world.

So, why not starting right now? From your mind and thoughts, from your vibration and feelings, from a smile and a phone call to someone, from recycling and using resources in a better way... We can start right now. I, you, can start right now.

Let's do it.

Trust that inner voice

There are things nobody can really explains, like that feeling someone is watching you and they are, or somebody needs your help and you are able to guess it. Or that inner voice that starts to talk to you...

Scientists perhaps will tell you it is all part of brain science, or brain game. But, is it? I am sure most people have an inner voice that warns them something is odd, wrong or simply reminds them of their own values when they face a challenge.

In fact, it is part of being human: we were born without many survival instincts, very different from the rest of the species with which we share this beautiful planet. Instead, we were born with a set of values and principles, an inner sense of ethics that enables us to walk around this world without getting lost.

But, different from our brothers and sisters from other species, we can chose to listening to this inner voice. We can chose to follow a specific path or just go the other way.

And that power of election can make wonders... It brings a sense of pride when we hear about the sacrifices someone can make to other people, even when they are unknown and unrelated to them.

But that same power of election has brought us into a very complicated situation with corruption, terrorism and other evils attacking our civilization as never before.

It is time to refine our inner ears and pay more attention to what we are telling ourselves to do. And chose with that wonderful sense we all have, letting our ethics be higher than our desires or limited aims that come on our way.

Maybe that will prevent at least a part of what is happening now. Maybe that will allow the best of us to spread all over the world, enabling a better world to be created.

Always moving forward...

No matter how many or what kind of obstacles, we have to keep moving forward.

Not because someone is pushing us or we are told to do. Not because it is a natural instinct or it is a cultural feature.

We are moving forward because we understand.

Understanding is the basis of growth anywhere you look at. It is more than knowledge as it implies its application too. When we understand, then we move forward with a reason in life.

A human with an aim is unstoppable. A human without an aim... well, good luck for that!

My main concern is however how we are moving forward. In the past, we as civilization used to give emphasis to aspects more related to ethics than to the form, shape and image, as we are probably doing now. That creates an inner pressure that comes from the struggle between the ethos and the pathos, which is under the easy influence of environment.

Success is a good measure for that. It is natural, it comes when time comes and it always comes. But, in the present we want our moving forward to be measured by our own success.

And yes, there is a task's success - that is natural, it is what we aim for. But success as a whole thing, as that for which we are all looking forward to experience does not come from a task, a job or a book. It comes from a whole life, and a whole life is made by small steps, always moving forward.

By wanting success now we are breaking a subtle law of nature and we start to be under the influence of external circumstances. Irony is that by wanting success early, we miss it when it really comes as it finds us tired of so many struggles.

So, let's all move forward, but let's move from inside, from a deep perspective and in a way that is worthwhile.

When making mistakes is a good strategy

When the young Lewis tried to fix an equipment and failed, his spirits went down and he got very sad. However, the Robinsons celebrated his failure in this unforgettable movie on the meaning of success.

In fact, no matter which way you look, all people who are successful have one common point, and probably just one: they all failed at some point in their lives.

Mistakes are good; they work as excellent teachers who help us to understand life in our way towards success. These are some points for you to remember about mistakes, small or big:

• Be open to accept criticism. Keep it in your heart as another person's gift.
• Always "pack-up", ending all the processes with some reflection and improvement points.
• If others are mocking you, just punt in your mind an image of success and keep moving.
• Mistakes only happen once. Second-time mistakes are in fact habits being created; stop, check in you and change that habit.
• Don't be shy at the time of looking for help. Just do it.
• By meditating, you clarify your intellect, that is, your making-decisions capacity, which improves the chances of overcoming errors.
• Remember: the quantity of mistakes is an indicator of how much you want to reach success in some task.
• Remember: the quality of your mistakes indicates how close you are of reaching success in any activity.

I wish you lots of mistakes and failures, in this wonderful path towards success!!!