Lawrence McDonald - Should Banks Break-Up

Google Wave presentation

Advance Review: Awaken Your Genius Awaken Your Genius

Thank you Ricardo Andorinho

We had coffee this morning, but Ricardo probably won't remember. He was in Portugal; me? I was in the USA. So, how did the coffee thing happen?

Like most mornings, I took a book with me on my coffee run. Today, it was hot off the press: Awaken Your Genius, by Ricardo Andorinho. Expected release date: November 30, 2009. Just in time for Christmas gift giving. In fact, the web site will be up in the next few days to accept advance orders.

So, how did I get my hands on a copy?

It is called an "Advance Review Copy" —it's where the publisher prints an early version of the book to elicit brief reviews that can be used to promote the book upon release. As the publisher, I made sure that I received the second copy of the book as it came off the press. Ricardo, the first.

I gotta tell you, it is better than I remember!

Ricardo poured his soul into the pages that make up this book. But don't take my word for it, consider this early review:

"This is not your grandfather's Business Leadership Guide! Ricardo challenged my thinking; even caused me to wonder if I should give even more thought to some of the decisions that cross my desk on a daily basis."
—Robert S. Wood, Proprietor, www.OldWestAntiques.biz


Need to take your life to the next level?

Drop me a line and request the link to the advance order desk.



Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey
www.throughput.us/contactSKI/

P.S. Seriously Ricardo, thanks for allowing me to help give birth to your first book. It is an honor. Plus, a special shout out to Sara Williams for her keen sense of editing. I ask that she use a light touch, to insure the book retained just a hint of the broken English that makes my conversations with Ricardo so enjoyable. Mission accomplished.

Creative Learning

Dear all,

It was a 2 day exciting event held in Lisbon about creative learning.

A great orgnization, rulled by the way human kind is able of integrating knowledge throught different kind of supports and driven by circumstances.

Informal learning is getting advantage in a digital era.

Antonio Nunez opened a great number of conferences and speaches.

George Siemens described the concept of Connectivism and showed us the importance of Network

The conference did cover a wide number of tools and aspects that might accelerate how we learn. Several projects using Moodle and Second Life were presented during the event.

It's our choice! We need to identify the tools that serve out best interest. We cannot run from what is happening around us! What I think we might agree is that our old school is loosing efficiency for each second consumed in our life time.

Best regards,
Ricardo Andorinho

Conference Call - Social Entrepreneurs

Dear Strategists,

We are organizing a conference call with brilliant people, for posting on our blog. If you are interested in attending, here you have the agenda:

Starts:	Sunday October 11, 2009, 04:00PM
Ends:	Sunday October 11, 2009, 05:00PM

Conference Dial-In: 1-218-862-7200
Conference Code: 802305
Time Zone: GMT Login: 10 minutes before to organize the call.
Agenda
- web 2.0
- Linkedin
- Global Entrepreneur Movement

Have a great month.
Look forward to hear your voice on the call.
MBUintelligence

In Search of.....?

I have always found August to be kind of an interesting month. I am naturally restless so I struggle with it. I like the fact that it is summer, but the fact business seems to slow to a crawl drives me crazy sometimes. I have too much time to spend questioning myself and my purpose.

I read an interesting book this weekend, The Geography of Bliss, by Eric Weiner. The author, who is a self professed "grump" charted his journey through a number of countries ranging from Bhutan to Moldova and the U.S. in search of what defines and creates happiness for people. It is a pretty interesting book that demonstrates that the correlation between standard of living, weather, and other factors is not nearly as absolute as we would think. It would seem that Maslow had it right.

The importance of relationships between people was a constant recurring theme. People and cultures with a strong relationship network are generally happier. When the author posed the question of whether or not there was a higher "state" of evolution than happiness to an Indian guru, the guru responded that love and relationships are indeed higher.

The other thing that was profound was the relationship between doing something you perceive as having a purpose you can personally align with had on happiness or contentment. I know it is critically important to me, is was interesting to have it "validated". It was also interesting that being able to share that purpose with others by talking about it or literally sharing the activity is very important as well. It would seem happiness is rarely solitary.

It was also interesting that happiness needs polarity. Happiness without sadness or emotional "pain" becomes vanilla or complacency. People who pursue things vigorously enjoy the benefits of both "poles" more than those who navigate only smooth waters.

Probably the most interesting place he visited to me was Iceland. It is dark and cold there a lot, it is a relatively small geographical area, but has a very high "happiness" index. I particularly liked the Icelandic perspective that experimenting with multiple careers and interests is encouraged, not based on your "talent", but rather your passion. Since I seem prone to reinventing myself perhaps that is why it resonates with me. Sounds like the Icelanders where embracing and celebrating "whole people" long before I began pursuing it.

So in the dog days of August I leave you with these reflections-

• Relationships really are important
• Doing what you love may bring you more happiness than doing what you excel at
• Sharing your passions and interests seems to multiply rather than diminish them
• Happiness without pain or sadness is like love without passion, a little bland

What do you think...?

Mark Herbert

Where did I put my keys?

And I search and search and finally find them.

It's every time the same. We need to use our keys to unlock certain things in our life's. And when we need it we can't find them. Or not few times we aren't able to identify those keys that allows us go through our needs and goals.

There are great human beings on this planet. But the opposite is also true.
There are great professionals on this planet. But the opposite is also true.
There is a small number of great sources of information available and a huge number of bad ones. The answer is easy to understand: Money.

How can we deal with this in a beneficial way?

Every individual possess his own keys to succeed in life. What has worked for someone may not work with another. That's the human nature. The good news is that everyone can learn everything they really want to. Depends on him/her.

I don't really like the word success because it is too difficult to measure and depends on subjective judgements. I prefer to talk about a different approach that is responsible for you to experience some success. Are you happy? Doing what you do. Is your effort recognized by you, your boss and your family? Are you really happy? If not, at least professionally, change.

Success will be always the consequence of doing something right. I don't really know to describe success using a different group of words.

It's much more important to look inside for something that you would love to do as a professional than trying to find what others did to excel. This approach may not work with you, regardless the importance it has for helping us in drawing a better way of doing it.

Until today my keys are these:

-Realize that YOU can’t know about everything in this life. It is just impossible-

1. Realize that half of the planet knows more than YOU around your core skills.

2. Learn how to improve your skills by focusing on the strengths of the people you meet during your life, personally and professionally. And practice every day.

3. Learn how to be flexible. If YOU are not able to change, YOU can’t launch any new projects. YOU will learn how to change, if YOU practice receptiveness. Receptiveness is the need YOU should have to understand the point of view of others. And practice every day.

4. Learn how to integrate others strengths into your way of seeing the exact same problems. Integrate rational and logical thinking processes and ignore superficial issues. And practice every day.

5. Apply what YOU learned in the previous points and measure the results (good or bad). Practice every day, focusing on the good and don’t forget to excel in the bad. And practice every day.

6. Help others and involve them in your decisions. YOU will get more knowledge. This will give YOU real oriented knowledge to implement in real life. Forget the theories. Life is a practical field. Practice every day with someone.

7. Study and Teach. It will make a life that can be really interesting. Your body will die one day but YOU may remain in the mind of millions.

This is a personal perspective and it is a small part of the book I am writing.
My best regards,
Ricardo Andorinho

Strategic Planning Success Story

Years ago i was asked to step into a Biotech firm that had just been taken over by new management via a hostile takeover. The place was a wreck. It had been started via a small IPO, and the management team squandered the money on overblown facilities & unproductive staff. My first task was to stabilize cashflow, which I did by collecting past-due receivables and renegotiating just about everything. I then focused on the larger picture of redeveloping the company into a winner (note: they had never made a profit up th this point). I dumped the fancy facilities, reduced the staff to a small key group, outsourced production at reduced cost, and developed a marketing strategy that got the company into profitable status. Meanwhile, I courted a venture capital group who injected cash and took the company private. Ultimately, the company was consolidated with another firm which had national distribution channels. They went from being a near-bankrupt small-cap loser to a vibrant mid-cap winner. I'm proud of that and the many other contributions I've made over my career. There were many lessons to be learned from that experience, but the key lesson was to "get off my butt and do something". The biggest mistake of all is inaction; a lesson the old management learned when they sat on their butts while the company crumbled around them. The second-most-important lesson was to have a plan. Planning forces one to exerise the discipline of developing & thinking through their strategy, and provides a "bible" for running the business. Without a plan, most people are just throwing money away. I've got a great story about an Aerospace company that I'll tell another day.

Regards,
Al Walsh, CEO
Walsh Enterprises, Business & Financial Advisors
http://www.awalsh.us

Go to http://www.walshal.wordpress.com where you can access:
* Articles on Business, Economy, and Career
* Presentations I've written on various business topics
* Information Resources on varied business topics

what makes you a success - how to start?

In the last few weeks, I have been amazed at the amount of traffic and emails, spam, sells, contact me's etc I have received and it suddenly struck me that it seems without doubt, everyone wants to be a success.

Do you?

Exactly - who ever answers that question with a ' well I’m not sure, if I want to be successful, provide for myself and family, have loads of great friends and a really good lifestyle...aherm ...let me think about that!!! And I’ll come back to you. It also seems to me that many people who are great at MLM and marketing and selling themselves also have some fantastic programmes to tap into this natural human desire to succeed and basically sell you 'how to' packages on how you can match their number of friends, make millions and sit on a yacht by a fantastic sunset sipping a cocktail while surrounded by loving admirers ....oh and by the way you can stay sat there by getting loads of other people to do the work for you and re-sell their amazing products and lifestyle while you endorse even more of their products...... and then give great testimonials as to why and how you did it and then everyone can copy your success.....BUT, and there is still truth in the adage that nothing is really for free, it's just a pull line to get you hooked, revved up, jealous ...whatever lights your fire and gets you motivated to buy in to them.

Now, I am not in any way decrying some of the really generous, genuine people out there who really do share their knowledge and success in a meaningful way but what I am saying is DO NOT go into anything blindly without really using and answering some basic questions about yourself and what you really want in your life. It used to be that success was measured by what you had (very firmly); even when people deny they are materialistic , it is human nature to want to be in a good place and have a good life - the key is how YOU measure success and what it means to you. You can feel hugely successful in your life because you have always paid the bills, you have a steady comfortable life and a loving long term partner and great kids who love you OR it might be that you are the CEO of a global company with a fantastic retirement plan and a holiday home in a beautiful place and are on your 3rd beautiful wife who is an ex-model!

The point I am making here is that success is also relative and although we can't help ourselves, affected by outside influences and opinions.

To really get back to basics I refer back to my earlier comment of why am I doing this? what do I really want and what am I going to do to get where I want to be....it's not about the what I haven't got, what everyone else has and what I think I should have....it's all about the basic understanding of who you are and what you can do. So without waffling on further - here are some really basic questions to ask yourself before you sign up to every fantastic offering out there and set yourself up for a fall.

1. What would make me really happy? - Security? Risk? Challenge? Teach? sell? Grow? Develop? Money?

2. What do I really know about myself? - Risk taker? Implementer? Planner? Introvert? Extrovert? Decisive? Team player? Solo? Tough? Emotional?

3. What do I want to achieve? In other words what does success look like to YOU!

4. What are the key drivers in my life? Family? Friend? Position? Title? Security? Money? Emotional satisfaction?

5. What do I really love doing or feel really passionate about? Selling? Talking? Gardening? Reading? Family?

6. What skills do I have that I can use? Admin? Language? Facts? Figures? People? Creativity?

7. What skills don't I have and how/where do I get them? - Knowledge base? Who I know and what do they know? Learn new skills? Copy and expert?

This is fairly basic thought provocation, but once you have answered these you will find that you have a lot of information and will ask yourself even more questions and automatically want to search for more answers BUT at least from a base of understanding yourself and your real desires and needs to be truly happy.

I have seen so many people measure their success on 'been rich' having a great title and good position, only for them to realise when they have all that, they really just wanted to be a gardener or a writer etc and now feel trapped by all their hard work and success.

What really makes you a success is to be passionate, because once you have that fire in your belly, nothing will stop you - no matter how many knocks you get and how many failures you learn from and how many people tell you that you're barking MAD, YOU will get through it with passion and belief and as you know yourself better than anyone else...YOU know what you want and where you are going with it and your intuition will grow and YOU will succeed!

So get out there and put some real thought into who you are and what you want, don't be afraid to be you, set yourself some short, medium and long term goals, don't be afraid to ask for help or learn new skills and JUST GO FOR IT!!!

ps - By all means ask me some questions!

Tracy Sheldon

The Chain Theory

My question is: Why do you call it theory?

That's a pure critical thinking task that can be address on every system. If we were able to build efficient tasks and links we would avoid this problem. Identifying the weakest link can bring great results. Building systems prepared for the possibility of failure should incorporate EXCELLENCE into the process.

I am a one of the biggest fans of Eli Goldratt, however the word theory fails in the overall formula.

MBUintelligence