Ricardo

Ideas Like Napalm

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Ricardo in Uncategorized

Some ideas stick.

Some ideas burn.

The most lethal ideas stick and burn at the same time. They are ideas like napalm in your mind.

When trapped in the mind, they become the ideas that consume. These are the ideas that become obsession. They destroy. Life becomes a smoldering pile of ash with the glowing ember of the idea at the center, threatening to erupt into a conflagration all over again.

The only answer is to unleash the idea. There is a subtle line, almost imperceptible, at the border between obsession and commitment. The only thing that distinguishes those who lie in the blackened ruins and those who survive and thrive in the heart of the fire is the courage to set the idea free, to loose it upon the world.

The idea will destroy when left bottled up. If the passion is strong enough to ignite, then the idea deserves to be free. It deserves to spread. It deserves to stick and burn anyone willing to come close enough to it. Let them catch the fire of your idea and spread it again. Farther and farther from the center. Let the fire burn.

If you are committed, your ideas will stick.

If you are committed, you ideas will burn.

Your most lethal ideas stick and burn at the some time, and they can only do so when you are there, fully present, prepared to set the world on fire.

Your best ideas are like napalm in your mind.

Seeking Comfort

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Ricardo in Uncategorized

I am seeking comfort.

What I do, how I do it, why I do it…all meaningless. My job is meaningless. My hobbies are meaningless. My relationships are meaningless. None of it matters unless I am comfortable with who I am. That doesn’t mean that I have to fully understand who I am. No, that’s a goal, and a lofty one at that. It’s a goal, but it’s not necessarily one that I think can be achieved. I expect to wake up every day and discover something new about myself. I hope that happens for the next hundred years (or however many I have left). I am not seeking comfort in that regard.

Instead, I am seeking comfort with the path I have chosen to travel. Things will change and decisions will be made, but I want to feel good about the way I navigate through life. I think that’s the real goal.

I hope that you can achieve comfort, too. Not in the sense that you become complacent or shy away from taking risks in life. I hope that you achieve the comfort that comes with being confident in your ability to make the right decisions that align with your core beliefs. That’s the kind of comfort I am looking for: the confidence that my core beliefs drive my behaviors.

I am seeking comfort.

You, the Strong Link

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Ricardo in Uncategorized

Organizational trust is a function of the relationships between the individuals that comprise it. The stronger the individual bonds, the greater the likelihood that trust will flourish. That’s just common sense. What we tend to overlook is that the number of bonds is just as important as the strength of each individual bond. This is where the network you build becomes important. The more connections you make and broker, the stronger the foundation for trust within the organization becomes.

Reach out and nourish the connections in your network. It might take some extra work, but the relationships you create will serve not only the organization but you, as well. That’s a rant for another day, though. Today, focus on making new connections to widen your circle of influence. Be the person who can bring others together, the strong link that holds the chain together. The future of your organization may very well depend on it.

Hoy Te Extraño

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Ricardo in Uncategorized

A former coworker of mine found out that he is going to be a grandfather. He posted a jubilant note to broadcast the news to friends. In his post, he commented that he doesn’t care what sex the baby is nor what she calls him. He’s just so damn happy to be a grandparent!

That got my wondering what my brother wants his new little grandchild to call him.

That got me thinking about my own future grandchildren and whether or not they will call me “abuelo” or “abue” or “papa”…

Then I thought about my own roots, my own sense of “from whence I came”. I got sad because I do not feel like I can take my children to see the place where I grew up. I can’t show them the houses I lived in. I can’t show them the school that I went to. I can’t take them to places I hung out or the spots I took my dates. I can’t share that with them.

My wife can do all that. They walk in her footsteps all the time. We lived in her hometown before coming over here. So, they understand their mother’s past in a different way.

And that’s when I found the words: I am afraid of you, Mexico. Seems silly, doesn’t? Maybe. But I do not feel safe returning to see you right now. I do not feel safe sharing you with the people I love the most. You are out of my reach, and it is so unfortunate. It used to make me sad. It used to depress me. Now…now I just see it as so unfortunate.

I know that I am just one person. You won’t miss me. But I will miss you. I love you. Did you know that?

Who knows what tomorrow will bring. For today…pues hoy te extraño.

Interlude’s End

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Ricardo in Uncategorized

It is amazing how many of the keys to success in life are common sense but not common practice.

For my part, what I know and what I do are still a struggle to keep aligned, and that’s mainly because of how painfully shy I am and how insecure I can be about what people think about me, the person. That remains the roughest part of my life right now: figuring out how to “fit in” in a place that has become so familiar yet remains so foreign.

I’m reading “Never Eat Alone” by Keith Ferrazzi. It’s a bit much for me at times because he is so my polar opposite in some regards; he’s the consummate networker, the King of Small Talk, the Great Connector of People…and I am totally not those things! However, in many other regards, his philosophy is very similar to my own. Again, common sense, but I’ll state it this way: people just want to come to work, do a good job, and feel like they belong. Anyone who appears to not fit that very broad description has issues, and even they want those same things.

I try to keep the following things in mind at all times:

1. All life is interconnected, ergo all human beings are interconnected.
2. All human beings experience the same range of emotion. How we experience them and what triggers those experiences may vary, but the range exists in all of us.
3. All psychological mechanisms at work in children are at work in adults. Adults just build all kinds of fancy facades to confuse things. Anything I learn as a parent, I can translate to the workplace. The flipside is also true: anything I learn at work I can translate to parenthood.
4. You can never say “thank you” enough. In fact, you probably don’t. I know I don’t.
5. Finally, the essential guiding principle: Love is the answer. The question doesn’t matter because, in the end, Love is always part of the answer. Patience helps, but I’ll always argue that Love is the key ingredient!

The tricky part is making sure that I’m actually behaving in a way that reflects my beliefs. These are my beliefs; yours are probably different. The thing we have in common, though, is that we are on the same lifelong quest to keep our behaviors and beliefs aligned.

Good luck on your journey!

Hitting the Mark

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Ricardo in Uncategorized

“What’s that supposed to be?”Most artists don’t want to hear that. At least I don’t. When I conjure something up and put pen to paper (digital or otherwise), I sort of hope that what I create will be recognizable. If it isn’t, then I feel like I did a crappy job. That’s how I am.Of course, hitting the mark isn’t always a matter of the other person understanding everything that you did or why you did it so much as it is about them getting the feeling that you wanted them to get.”That’s disgusting. I can’t even look at it without getting sick.”At times, you couldn’t ask for sweeter words of affirmation.

Fear and Trust

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Ricardo in Uncategorized

Fear is probably the number one inhibitor of vulnerability. Fear is hard-wired into our brains. It drives most of the essentials systems that maintain our safety in what can be a very dangerous world. Or was a very dangerous world.

The truth is, our world isn’t really that dangerous. If you are reading this, chances are you’re sitting at your desk at work, and a desk in an office isn’t exactly the breeding ground for the Xenomorphs from the Alien film franchise. No lions runnng around. No tigers hiding in the bushes. If you’re in northern Illinois at the wrong time of year, the geese might qualify, but you can pretty much outrun them. Besides, they don’t have badges.

If your modern world isn’t that dangerous, then why do we succumb to fear? It’s like I said: fear is hard-wired. There are parts of the world where the biological responses of fear still play a part in survival, and those places echo a time long since passed when those dangers ruled our days. Tens of thousands of years of human development on a pre-industrial Earth helped refine and perfect the systems for survival that are at play within our bodies, within our minds. There is a biological basis for human behavior, and it’s still very much relevant today. This is why we succumb to fear.

When you eliminate actual life-and-death threats, what you are left with are imagined threats. I know…the threat of losing one’s job is real. The threat of embarassment is real. They are “real” in the sense that they can actually happen, but what is the danger? Where is the actual, physical harm that can come from them? There is no danger. There is no life-and-death struggle. The fear that drives the modern human is the fear that lives inside.

I am afraid. I am afraid of failing. I am afraid of looking stupid. I am afraid of being rejected. I am afraid of not having friends. I am afraid of unreciprocated, emotional investment. I am afraid that everything I do is a monumental waste of time and will have no beneficial impact on anyone when it all comes down to it. I’m afraid of other things. I have a lot of fears.

I don’t define myself by my fears.

I don’t define myself by what I am not.

If I defined myself by fear and by what I am not, I’d spend the rest of my life making the list.

Instead, I acknowledge my fear and do stuff anyway. I try and fail. I speak up and sound stupid. I approach and am rejected. I make and lose friends. I invest emotional and don’t get anything in return. I attempt to do things that wind up being of no benefit to anyone. I attempt and waste my time. There are other things that I say and do that terrify me, but I do them anyway.

I wake up the next day, and I do it all again.

Do you know what happens? I try and succeed. I speak up and make good points. I approach and am embraced. I make and keep friends. I invest emotional and get so much more than I could have ever imagined in return. I attempt to do things that wind up changing lives. I attempt and spend my time wisely. There are other things that I say and do that terrify me, and in the process I create things that only I can create.

Be afraid, but do stuff anyway. Go beyond the fear, and allow yourself to be vulnerable. Be vulnerable and build trust. I wish there were a simpler way to strengthen the bonds of trust, but there isn’t. It’s done one step at a time and with one individual at a time. Over and over again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

The first step is yours, and it starts inside.

What To Measure…?

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Ricardo in Uncategorized

I have a friend who is very adamant that measurement is, to quote, “everything”. Bold that and italicize it.

And here’s the problem that we both agree (and have reaffirmed to one another many times over the years) comes up over and over again: what we do measure isn’t what we SHOULD measure. And that’s a huge problem.

Here’s why: humans make decisions based on data, and we like seemingly objective data best of all. “Objective” is an interesting word. It implies a certain degree of trustworthiness, of impartiality towards an outcome based on the best information possible. However, objective data can be junk, too, and when it is, helps you arrive at solutions no better than those based on pure, irrational emotion. In fact, I’ll take my gut over junk data any day of the week, thank you very much.

The key, then, isn’t to identify objective data so much as it is to identify the RIGHT data. This is true in business as much as it is in art or science or any aspect of our personal lives. The solution is best designed with a clear understanding of the problem. “No duh!” right? Then why do we see so much “duh” around us?

It’s far better to spend less time on the charts and graphs and assumptions and more time answering the question, “What to measure? What to measure…?”

Might as Well Give Up

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Ricardo in Uncategorized

Trying so hard gets tiring. At times, I feel as though I might as well give up.

Relax. This isn’t a suicide note.

Rather, it’s an admission that I sometimes get so frustrated and discouraged trying to accomplish something that just doesn’t seem to want to happen that I want to give it up and walk away. I want to quit. Throw in the towel. Cry “Uncle!” Head for the hills. All the cliches and colloquialisms. I’d rather do anything other than attempting to conquer the same hill from a different angle. After all, after so many assaults on the summit from different angles, you sort of make your way all the way around the mountain to the place you started. That’s sort of a sign that you’ve done everything you can.

Actually, it’s an indicator that you probably have all the information that you need. After all, you’ve looked at things from all sides now.

That’s the time to hunker down, recognize the dip, and take the proverbial deep breath. And it’s a good time that if you haven’t figured out what to do on your own, it’s probably a good time to enlist someone else. Or take a break to let it all settle in. Or try a second round but with the benefit of a complete picture of the problem. There are an number of ways to go about the second attempt. Just make sure there is a second attempt.

If you’ve made it this far, why give up? Don’t back down now.

Of course, you could always admit defeat and move on to the next challenge. Just don’t get addicted to surrender and don’t move on unless you’re really moving on to something else and not just…anything else. There’s a huge difference between recognizing that your time and energy are better spent on another goal or obstacle or challenge…whatever…and simply crawling into a hole to wither away into nothing.

Death comes to all of us. It finds us at some point. We have to go eventually. At least make it hard for Death to find you, for Pete’s sake.

So, the next time you’re thinking that you might as well give up, don’t. Call the first round reconnaisance, then get up and give it another go.

B O U L D E R S in the Path

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Ricardo in Uncategorized

Boulder refers to the immovable nature of some priorities.

Ever notice that sometimes the path is smooth, even, and flat, and at other times it’s bumpy, uneven, and on a hellacious incline? Always, there are boulders.

I recall Stephen Covey using the image of our time and energy as a finite vessel and our various priorities as sand, small rocks, and large rocks. Sand represents the many small items that cross our desks that are quick and easy to resolve. Small rocks represent items that are come complex in nature and harder to address. The large rocks represent our highest priorities, but these tend to be more complex, even daunting, in nature.

To illustrate, imagine we start with an empty vessel.

The natural tendency is to focus on the easier items represented by sand. These are quick wins, and they allow for instant gratification. They make us feel good about ourselves, so we do them first. Our vessel is partially filled, but there’s so much room left!

The natural tendency is to then focus on the small rocks. They are, after all, less stressful and easier to complete than those pesky boulders, so we go after them in earnest. If we’re lucky, we get them done before more sand arrives. If more sand arrives, we drop the small rocks, attend to the sand (feels better quicker!), then meander back to the rocks. Eventually, if we are really lucky, we get the rocks taken care of, and our vessel is filled partially with sand, then with small rocks. There’s still plenty of room!

Finally, we get to the large rocks, the boulders. If we’re lucky, one of those fits in the vessel, but the rest don’t stand a chance. That doesn’t make sense! We have plenty of space between the rocks, so why can’t we fit more in? We measured it all, so it shouldn’t be a problem? What gives?

The answer is simple: by filling the vessel with smaller stuff first, then focusing on larger items, we waste the spaces in between the rocks of increasing size. Our time works the same way. If we are constantly working on the little things, we run out of hours in the day to get to the big things. Life has a near-constant supply of little things, of sand. As a matter of fact, the grinding of large stones creates sand!

Covey and others advocate a different approach. Perhaps, by focusing on the larger things first, we give ourselves more time to easily fit all the pieces of the puzzle into the vessel.

Did you notice that there’s actually room left over? There’s a lesson there somewhere.

Focus on the boulders. The rest will fall into place.