I am Harry Potter

Literature has given us many heroes whose deeds are not as heroic as themselves. You can remember Ishmael from Moby-Dick or even Joshua from the Bible - they were loved because they were different from others.

They dared to be different and in their own way, they became leaders, kind of heroes. Not as someone who frees a country or who saves lives, but more like people who overcame deep inner challenges.

Nowadays, when everyone tries to be similar to the next, Harry Potter emerged as a different paradigm. And he conquered the world, there is no doubt about that. His magic was to "touch a nerve" and make the character, who was refused by his own people, become a heroe.

At some point of J.K.Rowling's books, Harry mentions that he never intended to do something to be a heroe, it just happened like that. The reason is simple: when you are different, you tend to be a heroe everytime.

The world is still not ready for different people and it tries constantly to make others to be like the main stream. Harry Potter showed a kind of path for those of us who are different, who are leaders, to-be or de facto.

The first thing was to give himself a chance, when the opportunity emerged. As soon as he knew he was a wizard, even though that could be the most absurd thing in the world, he accepted the opportunity, with all the risks envolved.

Second, balance emotions and reason - this is a constant in the life of this modern hero. Balance is a key for success and failures come due to its lack. Listen to the heart, but also to the head.

Third, life is a big and interesting school! Whoever has read those books started to wonder why was that schools cannot be that fun. In fact, our own lives happen in a huge school and each step is incredible, it is a powerful lesson.

Fourth, magic is ALWAYS the solution. For those of us who are leaders, different from the rest, rules are not so strict, especially concerning to how to get success. We rely a lot on pure "magic" - not the wand-kind of magic, but the one that emerges from talent and energy.

Fifth, last and you can complement if you want, no matter what, you have to stick to your vision, objectives and aim. That is a big challenge, but leaders cannot afford to wander from their destination, even though sacrifices are high!

And let's not forget that Harry Potter, because of all of that, received constant help until the end.

Take care.

One hour

I have already written about it before, but I cannot help thinking back on the powerful experience I had last year when I have met a person in terminal stage - a few months later she has gone. The most powerful was watching her mood and energy, her desire to continue to be what she has always been, and I will never forget a phrase that more or less said:

"Marcelo, all I do is negotiate with God a few days more."

So today, my birthday, which celebrates the time when I first saw the world in this life, I want to be the beginning of the deepest stage of my existence here.

If my whole life would correspond to just one hour, how much do I have to live yet? Half an hour? A quarter of an hour?

What happened, happened, and it will not return no matter how great it was. But there is what lies ahead, and this is far more important than what I have lived until today - those years I am about to start living.

By thinking like that, I noticed something quite disappointing: most of the time I lived, and possibly the time I will live, was spent in "physiological activities." As a human being, I spent most of my three quarters of an hour or so, eating, sleeping, bathing, etc.. and so on.

But now, as I write, while my body (human) is involved in the physical act of typing these words, my mind flies high. Even a part of my body, my eyes, look out and send other messages to the mind. That is, the hour we have on the planet is not only human. There is also the BEING.

As a BEING, I think I spent more time reflecting on my life. What once was considered bad and negative by many who saw me, today I feel that's what helped me to become who I am today. My reflections, thoughts, imagination, ideas, values, creativity, love, peace, and all that you cannot see, touch, hear or feel physically, are part of three quarters of an hour, and will be part of the minutes that I am starting to live today.

And this I can control. I can choose between being angry and loving, between being discouraged and excited about a new challenge, between being happy or feel sad.

I know that the physical part of whatever will happen is variable. I know many things will happen to me. But I also know that the brightness of my existence depends on that inner dimension of the Being who is me.

And the same goes for you: you can choose to do whatever you want with the time you have remaining, the fifteen minutes or half an hour which is yet to come. Reflect, think, be very light and enjoy everything that comes your way.

So the wonderful hour we would spent on this planet would be worth of it. For you. For me. For all.

Branding, ¿to be o not to be?

When I took the decision to leave a successful career at the moment in IT and brave myself in a world I used to call in a generic way as "consulting", I had many ideas and dreams.

One thing I used to think was that I could do whatever I wanted and what I was offering were not "products" or "tools", but a serious work to help people to change and to become better human beings. In my mind, by taking the decision of career change, it was clear for me that if someone is a better human being, he/she will be a better boss, employee, mother or father.

Years passed by and life made me change many of my ideas and dreams. For finantial reasons, I started to work in a different way, and I have learnt to use words like "tools" too. After all, a few organisations in the world invest in making people "better human beings".

Even though, with all the effort to adapt myself, I saw my own work fading away before my eyes. No illusions here, I know physicially there are also reasons, mainly that I am pretty bad in marketing. Yes, I don't know how to "sell myself", another idea I did not want to use. All my professional projects emerge as something almost magic, divine and it seems God finds me a grown up now, so that I can get things by myself.

However, during the adaptation process, I've noticed that each time I had to work in something that was pushed into me and it didn't please me, ideas which were not mine, I have learnt. Yes, I've learnt many things, even to remove the quotation marks from tools and live with them, fearlessly.

I have learnt I can keep my dream to help people to improve and at the same time, give them practical things for their day-to-day lives.

I have learnt if I want to reach thousands of people, I must change my perspective, without changing the original dream.

It has been a long learning! Probably the longest MBA course and the most expensive one, with many ups and downs and threatens to my self-esteem. But I feel, inside, now I am getting into another course for I am not going to stop to learn. I feel my former course certificate is about to arrive, at any moment.

A friend of mine suggested me to "make my branding", so that I could understand what I can really offer which is unique in the market. I feel that by doing this "branding" process, this helped me a lot to resume my dreams into the reality I live, even to make other dreams to emerge.

So that I take advantage of this space to introduce a bit of what I will do from now on.

Yes, definitely I am in another course... I look forward to count with you in this new stage of my life, and count with me in this new stage of your life.

A big hug, from my heart.

My branding:

I exist  to enable the best from you to make History.

As a person, I deliver

• CREATIVITY
• SPIRITUALITY
• TRUST
• CONFIDENTIALITY
• DEDICATION
• PERSEVERANCE
• CONTINUOUS LEARNING

As a professional, I make use of

• COACHING

• It is fundamental for me to help you to find out the magic you have within yourself, in your team and your organisation.

• CONSULTING

• With a different perspective, I help your organisation to set itself in the globalisation process, increase effectiveness by having more committed individuals and to become a leading edge school for leaders who are able to solve and face modern challenges.

• AUTHOR

• Through text and images, I want to share my experiences and transmit learning, so that these can be used by individuals and organizations during their transformation process.

Words for a New Year

Some people are arguing, saying that time is passing faster, really faster. Whether it is true or not, reality is that 2011 was over and now we are entering 2012. And it did look fast.

2012 will be an interesting year. Many things are programmed everywhere in the world, but also crisis will tend to happen more often in various scenarios and dimensions of life. With that in mind, it is good to start 2012 with some words which can be powerful for your life. These are an extract of a small text I have sent as my Christmas gift to everyone - just to explain a bit of the background, it is a fictional idea of 2012 being the last year of my (ours) life(ves).

• If someone hurts your heart, talk to yourself and talk to God. God is the doctor of the soul, He will heal you and give you even more love.
• Never think negative of others, because the first person who experiences that negativity is yourself.
• If you want to take revenge on someone who causes you harm, the best way is to give him or her love, mercy, understanding and a new chance.
• If sorrow knocks at your door, don’t open it.
• Even though happiness does not knock at your door, open it and invite her to come in.
• There are no excuses to not do something: responsibility and action will help you to grow.
• If at some point a smile vanishes from your face, talk to God, with a friend or remember something pleasant. Don’t stay without a smile, not even for a second.
• If you think of something unpleasant that happened in your life, pretend it is just a movie and clap at the protagonist, which means, yourself.
• When pain comes, don’t stand it. With love and respect for your own body, surrender it to whoever can heal it. But don’t allow the pain reaches inside your being; to avoid that, talk to God and feel His healing love.
• Don’t deceive yourself about your situation, but do not exaggerate in relation to your destiny. Each day is more valuable, when you know you will be leaving someday – it is better to enjoy these days rather than think when they will be over.
• Don’t be afraid to say “I am leaving”. Understand better its meaning, talk to yourself and with others.
• Don’t be afraid of what is waiting for you. You will reap the seeds you’ve sown, so take advantage of your last days to sow even more seeds, not in the fear of what will come.
• Love. Don’t stop loving, never.

A Happy Christmas

Around three decades ago, John Lennon would launch a new song with great success: "Happy Christmas The War is Over" was not only a big success, but it gave the world a more modern way to celebrate this important date.

However, three decades ago, the war is definitely not over. Yes, looking at the world I cannot help but admiring that the effort of so many people have bear some fruit and we have a world without wars between countries, for the longest term since 1900 came.

But the wars have been transferred to within the countries, the cities and homes. I am not talking either about terrorism, but the war in the minds of men and women, which creates conflicts and problems everywhere.

In that case, the war is over is if you want it (as the song says). If I want, the war is over, as my mind is mine and I can control the emerging thoughts and feelings. But, why don't I (you, we) do it?

Probably the main reason is that there is something still lacking in the self. So, "Happy Christmas" starts from filling the self completely. We need few things in life: peace, love, happiness, power and purity, all of them can be obtained, because we already have them inside. Through meditation or some other technique, I must connect with that quality within and just enjoy it.

Then, the war internally will be over. And, one day, Lennon's dream will be fulfilled.

What about male leadership?

There is no doubt that not only women are ascending to power, but men are losing that power. There are many articles and essays on that, especially in United States and the reality is that a new paradigm is being created.

However, I was in a retreat on Leadership. My co-facilitator is an old friend, and one of her topics was female leadership. It was then I had an interesting realization.

First of all, she commented at some point that what is happening now is that women are increasing their status, but it shouldn't be that men lose theirs. It was then, I have started to look at the male leadership issue with different eyes.

Another point came from myself: leadership will be different performed, according to the person, his/her culture, the moment they are living, etc. So, why not to be a male leader?

First, let me clarify: female or male leadership does not have anything to do with gender, as we have seen women who were typically male leaders, and men who were female leaders. But, of course, it is easier for a man to be a male leader than a woman.

Male leadership stands for creation and creativity, zeal, enthusiasm, courage, energy, power, greatness, honor and all the things you have watched in old movies or read in books of such a times. Nowadays, what we see, is a travesty of that leadership where creativity destroyed nature, courage killed other people, power became a tool for self-serving, greatness turned into arrogance and, the worse probably, honor was lost forever.

To recover that kind of leadership will be a hard task, but my realization is that female leadership won't work without is counterpart - and possibly in the past, they were together providing the best from humankind to humankind.

It will require a new version of a man, a softer and firmer version, but I think it is really possible. It will require to see the world in a different perspective where violence does not have a place in a new society.

The inversion of the poles

As we come closer and closer to 2012, all the "end of the world" prophets start to awake from their slumber. One of the prophecies of the end of times is related to the inversion of the (magnetic) poles, which would cause a tremendous catastrophe.

Will that happen or not? It really doesn't matter, because, guess what, it is ALREADY HAPPENING!

Didn't you know? Let me see... I was just checking some news from Brazil, related to foreigners whose residence have been approved. For years, Brazilians have been a migratory people. We have been able to blend with other cultures, learning their language and way of lives in a very easy way. One of the main destinations have been Portugal, for obvious reasons starting from language and the fact that most of us have met Portuguese people, neighbors and shopkeepers, at some point in our lives, so we know a bit of the culture. Well, the poles are inverted... Portuguese is the main nationality in terms of requiring immigration status in Brazil now.

Not only that. While Spain, a traditional destination for Spanish-speaking countries like my home, Colombia, is in very bad shape, Latinamerica in general is getting better and better. So, just wait and see: those who have migrated to Spain are already coming back and in less than one year, Spaniards will start to migrate to our much warmer countries. Just a guess, but probably countries like Argentina, Peru and possibly Colombia will be a nice destination for them.

So, what to do? I think the wise thing for those of the first world is starting to learn a bit from the emergent countries on how to cope with the crisis.

The main challenge is probably the fact we ourselves do not understand exactly how we did it. For instance, everyday there are bad and good news about crisis in USA. So... if they are in crisis, only bad news should come from there, right? NO! During our worst crisis period, some parts of the economy were still growing.

It was remarkable how airports were full during periods of worse crisis in Colombia and Brazil. Perhaps, one sign was that there was few foreigners, mostly were native and flights leaving the country were full, whilst flying coming to the country were almost empty. But, crisis do not mean NOTHING IS HAPPENING. Crisis is there, but the money is also there, only it is in the, let's say, "wrong places".

Another example a friend of mine was giving me is related to the growth of make-up companies. He was saying on how during the worst crisis, Yanbal, one of the big companies in Latinamerica, has grown and he had the opportunity to train them. Asked why was that, he simply answered people were looking for jobs, so they needed to look beautiful.

The last thing is how we were able to overcome desperation. Religion and spirituality had lots of influence in that. During crisis, people not only prayed more, but they were more detached from material things and they were giving importance to the imperishable.

These small lessons will help those countries during these hard times, at least to understand what is going on. It will help those peoples to have a different approach towards life, more spiritual, more humane.