What I learned from running.

I have never been an athlete until the end of 2014 when my wife invited me to go the gym. Go to the gym was one of her plans to start 2015 in shape. My first thought was 'what?', but as I am married to her and I have the principle to 'never leave one soldier behind", I said - 'yes, let's do this'. 

I ran 1 kilometer that day. It was like I had run a marathon, (at least, that was what I imagined), but I felt something good inside on me. I kept going to run with her in the days and weeks following. She was my coach. I improved my running from 1k to 2k, and then 3k, and 4k. Today, almost 3 years later, I am training four times a week to run my first half marathon (21k) in November. 

What did I learn from running? To be mentally strong, to never give up, to be disciplined and most important, believe that everything that I target in my life I am capable of accomplishing. Why? This journey from 1k to 21k (November) wasn't always easy. I had moments when I thought - 'Why am I doing this?', 'I think that I can't finish it', 'I will stop it ', 'I can't do this anymore'. All at once, I always found energy out of nowhere to finish the training. 

Today, in any area of my life, when I see myself in a difficult situation, I remember all my practices and suddenly an inner voice starts to say for me - ' You can accomplish whatever you want!'.

I have to say thank you to my wife who always gave me support and was responsible for the beginning of this journey. 

My childhood friend Alexandre and I, after running Half marathon of Florianópolis in 2016. He ran 21k and I ran 10K. Thank you my friend.

 

See you all and success. 

Too many people in their 20s make the same mistake when they take a new job

Natural Intelligence - People

I was wondering whether the companies are focusing much of their efforts in this trending (big data + AI), forgetting the core of management - strategy, organisation and leadership. More than that, are they forgetting the need for humans?

Accordingly with Ridderstrale and Birkinshaw in their new book - Fast/Forward, "Many companies are more comfortable analysing and debating than acting decisively and intuitively". Furthermore, "The default assumption that more and better information is always better actually cramps companies’ ability to move fast." 

Imagine that you have a huge data system (big data) with all the information about your customers and potential new customers. What do they like or dislike, where they live, work, have lunch and dinner, what is their favorite team in the NFL, what sort of car they use to drive and better, they wish to drive. In other words, maybe you would know them more than themselves.

Now, imagine that you have an AI system working all this information and giving you a mountain of options to approach your client. We would assume that the presence of people in this process is dispensable, or even not so important. Also, we would think that this is the path to success. 

I agree that all tools are well received helping the management of companies, but I believe that we would never forget that people will be always running them. Once, one of my professors told me - "Competitive differential is something that only you know how to do. Moreover, it is something unique, singular."  When I think about that, I always get the conclusion that people are the only "material" that is singular in this universe. 

From the moment that everybody is doing the same thing, (big data + AI), it is no longer a differential. On the other hand, if you have someone in your company, unique, singular, he/she is your competitive differential. So, take good care of them.

See you all and success!

Quotes - Peter Lynch - Beating the Street

These are some of Peter Lynch's outcomes about the market's behavior. I thought captivating and I am sharing them with you.

He says that we should memorize and repeat the following quotes at the shower, to save ourselves from making mistakes in the future. I will make short notes for each one, reporting my own experience.

"A good company usually increases its dividend every year" (I've never thought about it. It's something to cover from now on)

"You can lose money in a very short time but it takes a long time to make money" (True, you have to be patient)

"The stock market really isn't a gamble, as long as you pick good companies that you think will do well, and not just because of the stock price" (People who think that stock market is a gamble, in general, put their money in options. I've already done it myself and it wasn't a good experience)

"You can make a lot of money from the stock market, but then again you can lose money, as we proved" (The important is act as an investor - thinking in a long term)

"You have to research the company before you put your money into it" (Don't follow the flock)

"When you invest in the stock market you should always diversify" (True!)

"You should invest in several stocks because out of every five you pick one will be very great, one will be really bad, and three will be OK" (Interesting)

"Never fall in love with a stock; always have an open mind" (I have this problem sometimes. I really fall in love for some stocks - I am being honest.)

"You shouldn't just pick a stock - you should do your homework" (As I said before, don't follow the flock. Someone once told me - make money demands a bunch of effort!)

"Buying stocks in utility companies is good because it gives you a higher dividend, but you'll make money in grown stocks" (Following the advice of the master Warren Buffet)

"Just because a stock goes down doesn't mean it can't go lower" (Never buy stocks because they are under the line, they can go deeper)

"Over the long term, it's better to buy stock in small companies" (This is exactly what I am doing right now. May be small companies would have a better governance)

"You should not buy a stock because it's cheap but because you know a lot about it" (Ouch!! I did a lot of that - but I learned)


Bye and success to you all!