Lego - Growth x Just Cause

"What’s Lego’s ultimate goal? Is it growth for growth’s sake? As a privately held company, Lego has no need to demonstrate anything to markets or shareholders. According to Knudstorp, he only has to worry about “the shareholder”—Christiansen’s heirs—who have two official objectives: that Lego continues to create innovative play experiences and reach more children every year. “They are not pushing us very hard on the financial target,” he insists. “What they like about, say, Lego Friends is that we’re engaging more children. They see growth as one testimony of whether we’re sufficiently innovative.”

Jørgen Vig Knudstorp - Lego CEO (2015) - Fast Company 01/08/15 - How Lego Became The Apple of Toys.

Parenting - The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek

This is one of the most beautiful things that I've ever read.

" To parent with an infinite mindset, in contrast, means helping our kids discover their talents, pointing them to find their passions and encouraging they take that path. It means teaching our children the value of service, teaching them how to make friends and play well with others. It means teaching our kids that their education will continue for long after they graduate school. It will last their entire lives... and there may not be any curriculum or grades to guide them. It means teaching our kids how to live a life with an infinite mindset themselves. There is no single, greater contribution in The Infinite Game than to raise children who will continue to grow and serve others long after we are gone "

Simon Sinek - The Infinite Game.

# thoughts

Whether you like it or not is gonna be a trauma. So, why should you waste your time thinking about this? Why should you waste your time trying to avoid the unavoidable - the inevitable?

Letter to all CEOs - The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek

I believe that all CEOs around the world should read Simon Sinek's new book The Infinite Game. In particular, this excerpt that I will transcript here.

"The Truth Shouldn't Hurt

Human beings are hardwired to protect ourselves. We avoid danger and seek out places in which we feel safe. The best place to be is among others around whom we feel safe and who we know will help protect us. The most anxiety-inducing place to be is alone - where we feel we have to protect ourselves from the people on our own team. Real or perceived, when there is danger, we act from a place of fear rather than confidence. So just imagine how people act when they work in constant fear of missing out on a promotion, fear of getting in trouble, fear of being mocked, fear of not fitting in, fear of their boss thinking they are an idiot, fear of finding themselves on a short list for the next round of layoffs.

Fear is such a powerful motivator that it can force us to act in ways that are completely counter to our own or our organization's best interests. Fear can push us to choose the best finite option at the risk of doing infinite damage. And in the face of fear, we hide the truth. Which is pretty bad in any circumstance, but when an organization is doing badly, it's even worse."

# thoughts

Daddy!!!

It's been five minutes since you arrived and you're already yelling at me.

Hermoso y Aterrador

Resistance

" There is a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't, and the secret is this:

   It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write.

   What keeps us from sitting down is RESISTANCE "

Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

# thoughts

He is tiny and he is alone.
She is sad, grieving her mother's dead.
Her husband needs to take care of her.
Out of the picture, his grandmother is praying.
Don't forget the baby, please!
Don't forget the baby, please!
Hurry! Somebody!
I need somebody.
Please don't forget me. It's dark and I am afraid.
I know now. I understand now, but for many years I didn't.
It's hard to know the upside-down world.
Okay, I know now what happened! But what should I do from now on?
It's like a hurricane.
I am still there.

# thoughts

You double-check your alarm clock before going to bed because you don't want to wake up late the next morning. Nothing can be wrong. You must arrive at work at 9 am and you feel the fear running into your veins.

Meanwhile, your face touches the pillow and your mind revises every single movement that you have to make the next day. It's like a rehearsal, all "ifs" must be taking into consideration, every possibility, every answer to every question, the unthinkable becomes reasonable, you start to forecast every single minute of your day looking for any possible mistake.

Before and after going to bed, your level of cortisol is at the highest level possible. The problem is that high level of cortisol can lead you to dozens of health problems such as mood disorders, anxiety disorders, psychological stress, illness, trauma, fear, and mostly PAIN.

The odds are that you will wake up next morning feeling pain in every single inch of your body.

The Willpower Instinct

• What is something that you would like to do more of, or stop putting off (delaying) because you know that doing it will improve the quality of your life?

(I WILL)
- keep a healthy diet (without sugar, fat, soda, chocolates, candy, snacks) and I am considering it without meat, at least for a period of time, like a month, for example.

• What is the "stickiest" habit in your life? What would you like to give up or do less of because it's undermining your health, happiness, or success?

(I WON'T)
- complain. Be grateful.
- have "answers" for everything. Be the last to speak.

• What is the most important long-term goal you'd like to focus your energy on? What immediate "want" is most likely to distract you or tempt you away from this goal?

(I WANT)
- to find a place to work where I can feel safe and return home fulfilled at the end of the day.  I want to wake up inspired!
- I have no idea! I have been trying for a long time to find what I want.

WOD - Put off

Cambridge Dictionary

# thoughts

Should a captain leave a soldier behind after making all efforts to rescue him? Should the captain agonize over him or should the captain leave him and save the other soldiers in the platoon?

04/26 - I found my WHY

Who am I?
 
I am someone who has a desire to serve, a strong natural curiosity, an ability to ask probing questions and the determination to face the uncertain, the unknown. I am someone who believes in a better society, where everybody has the right to feel included, educated and live in harmony in one unique global community.

Why do I get out of bed every morning?

To learn, teach and interact as much as I can so that I can enrich my service to society.
 
My mission

Persevere in a relentless pursuit to serve the people around me, while leading them to feel empowered in their lives.

My Values

• Interact with people in meaningful ways – make personal interactions and let people know you care and support them.

• Learn something from everyone – always enjoy the opportunity to learn something from someone. It’s a unique experience.

• Teach something to someone – be a connection. Try to spread as more information as you can to whom wish and need it.

• Include and support anyone – celebrate the differences and give the proper value to all ideas and intelligence around you.

• Practice leadership – go first, take the risk before anyone else does and help them achieve more than they could have imagined.

I am really, really happy because of this.

Independence

3:12 am. I am seated on the couch in the leaving room wondering about life.

Suddenly, something comes to my mind, an insight or some kind of slogan. My subconscious mind is burning now.

INDEPENDENCE SETS YOU FREE

So simple but so complex. 

Some definitions from Cambridge dictionary to Independence:

• the state of wanting or being able to do things FOR YOURSELF an make your own decisions, without help or influence from other people; 

•  the ability to LIVE YOUR LIFE without being helped or influenced by other people;

• FREEDOM from being governed or ruled... 

The complexity of the thing is that when you find your independence, you find your freedom and this process releases you from a lot of things and people that used to rule your life through your dependence on them.

More than ask yourself if you are ready for this freedom is to ask if all those dependent relationships are worthy right now.

Was this dependence relation what was keeping them alive?

Wow! Again, so simple but so complex. Maybe you are going to find answers to questions that shouldn't have been done!

Not anymore

You have been playing an infinite game with a finite game mindset. Then, when you discover your mistake and think about that, the worst happens. You realise that you don't want to play that game anymore. Not anymore. 

Graham Core Principles

* A stock is not just a ticker symbol or an electronic blip; it is an ownership interest in an actual business, with an underlying value that does not depend on its share price.

* The market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism (which makes stocks too expensive) and unjustified pessimism (which makes them too cheap). The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.

* The future value of every investment is a function of its present price. The higher the price you pay, the lower your return will be.

* No matter how careful you are, the one risk no investor can ever eliminate is the risk of being wrong. Only by insisting on what Graham called the "margin of safety" - never overpaying, no matter how exciting an investment seems to be - can you minimize your odds of error.
 
* The secret of your financial success is inside of yourself. If you become a critical thinker who takes no Wall Street "fact" on faith, and you invest with patient confidence, you can take steady advantage of even the worst bear markets. By developing your discipline and courage, you can refuse to let other people's mood swings govern your financial destiny. In the end, how your investments behave is much less important than how you behave.

# thoughts

One of the worst feelings that exist is - feeling guilty. It represents the acknowledgment of the mistake.

You blame everything and everyone when in fact the problem is you

How can you live like this? Always wondering! Flirting with discontentment. Should you really have been thinking about this? I am talking about your job. I am going to say something. You have a good paycheck, some perks, flexible timesheet (but you have to work on Saturdays), you have set your boundaries, you have found professional stability (regardless of the fact that you are always trying to forecast something), you know everybody and they nourish some sort of respect to you, you have full access to managers, directors, and even the presidency. All these details could be enough to make you fulfilled at work. Instead, you don't feel part of the family. You are not on the same page. Why?

The truth lies deep inside you. You have been pretending, building an image of importance to the system but actually, you know that you are not doing anything that people imagine that you were supposed to be doing. It's another dimension, a distortion of reality created by you. Congratulations! You made it. You are the impostor's syndrome personification.

 The truth lies deep inside you.

There is a resistance rooted in your mind like a rat race. That's the cheese, keep running, but not only running, you have to pose that you are not like all other rats. You are a champion! The best part of this history is that the cage's door is opened. Actually, there is not even a physical cage, you can come and go whenever you want. It's a virtual cage imagined by you. However, you insist on staying there, waiting for that easy piece of cheese.

You blame everything and everyone when in fact the problem is you. You are not bold enough to take action. Where does all this laziness come from? Or is it all about fear? I think that I have more questions than answers. Working has always been part of our history as well as how much space this subject is allowed to remain in our minds. Which means that if you don't give much space for working in your mind, you might be working just by the paycheck. It's what really matters. You don't expect much personal fulfillment. The only thing that you want is to be capable of paying your bills and providing a good life quality for your family.

You blame everything and everyone when in fact the problem is you. 

On the other hand, if you expect more than paying bills you must find a way to change your life's narrative. Start writing your goals, defining your expectations, revising your actions (what is working, what is not working, what have never worked). Visualize everything and yep, guess what? Keep working to providing the means to support this changing. My final words are not so encouraging. I don't know whether it will work or not! At least you will find a purpose to wake up every single morning and commuting to work. You will find why you do what you do.

"So line on up, and take your place, and show your face to the morning..." John Mayer

See you all!!