Without continual growth and progress, success have no meaning

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning. Benjamin Franklin

All we experience a period of  conformity when we achieve new skills or when we just finish improving our ways.

That, is according to many one of the main problems we face everyday.

Growth is not only to be better than what we were yesterday or last year, but also a constant state of the mind.
That can be added to our development of in our lives or in our companies.

Once we believe we are fine and achieved our main goals, we must set another goal and when we achieve it, to set another one again and again. Otherwise our success becomes something of the past.

We need to be in the arena whenever we do business or whenever we are dealing with our societies. That's how we are encouraged to keep going and to develop an ambitious attitude while we are performing in our businesses or while we perform our professions.

Just as public functionaries perform and are in the mind of their communities, so it is true that if we want people to keep us in mind or if we can interact in the society in a very active way we also need to show this growth publicly.

The other important component in this equation is to show the progress of our growth.
Progress is how we can show to others how our effort has paid to advance in every ways of our professional life.

Do not underestimate the power of public opinion when thinking about the way you show your results of growth and progress.
This could be the difference between set yourself as an authority in what your business professes 

Ivan Caballero

Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it

Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it. Winston Churchill

Every single man or woman who has succeeded have a great repertoire of stories where they had face problems or long roads with thorns.

Those problems shaped the winners character again and again.

It's true we must go against envy and hate.

It's true we must keep going on and on no matter what.

In order to grow as a company or a regular person, we are encouraged  to challenge and overcome situations where we face doubt and fear.

Fear seems to be that test for us to choose either to crumble or to use it as a ladder and rise high and higher than our previous place.

No matter how many times we have to try we must and we should stay firm until we overcome those challenges.

One important point is keeping our faith in ourselves.
You can feel that fear but is you choice to allow that fear to affect us.

There would not be success if you didn't have challenges and the more we overcome them, the more we grow and the higher we rise.

If you are facing envy or difficulties trying to make your ideas to prevail and you think your ideas must be tried but still no one seems to care, then this is for you.

Take a moment to catch your breath, think twice just in case you need to make a slight or big change, take the  best decision and go for it.

Remember eagles fly high and to fly higher they must take advantage of the opposing wind to raise where no others or where no conformist can go.

Ivan Caballero 

Is Failure an option?

In order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time. Anthony j. D'Angelo

Failure is the less expected event in our lives and yet we keep failing one time after another to at least plan what to do when it happens.

Are you kidding me? Me? Fail?
That the first idea we face and not happy with  that we keep going and going until all of a sudden we under estimate some facts and our idea or dream starts going down until we fail completely. And as always there is more than one person telling us the famous most annoying phrase we want to hear: "I told you"

Planning should be a standard process and it is not. Soooo, there is no escape huh?
Are we condemned to fail and avoid those facts that will make us fail.

In the beginning of our lives we tend to know everything, let's say when we are teenagers and young adults, we are told by our parents to go to college, and there we learn so much that we ask ourselves when or how are we going to use those concepts and why? why so much to learn?
We remember our uncle, aunt, that has a simpler life and still made big.

No way, we rebel again against us and just by honor we keep our career until we finish.
Right after we finish we realize that we know too little to compete!!!

We start something and when we thought everything was going well.....we fail.

Failure should be considered every time we plan to do something.
Also there must be a plan if we fail.

No reason to fear, just put it as a possibility and not an option.
We must pan to succeed and not to miss our goal.

But still we need to plan what if...?
That what if, can save our whole company when we start seeing the signs of failure.
We could anticipate right after the first alarm or the second.

Honestly that is the main goal to go to College or the University.
To learn not only the good but to be able to anticipate the bad in order to avoid failure as much as possible.

Keep learning my friend, ........
 
Ivan Caballero     

    

Be who you are...

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” Dr. Seuss

While with my friends I noticed different behaviors that confused me.

I was in a public place and all of a sudden there was a local TV person who was in the same place where we were.

Once my friends noticed this famous person, they started to act randomly different.

At some point they wanted to be noticed by this famous local TV person.

To make a story short, my friends engaged in a greeting plus more “comments” until they were all near this TV person.

My friends joked about things they see when this person speak in front of the camera and I couldn't help to see my friends trying to look more cool than what they were and also looking more eloquent.

How many times do we try others to see us more cool or portraying different actions so others believe we are better or nicer persons than what we are.

Sometimes we look more shy and afraid to say things that are not right or in the other case, to say things that can make a positive difference in people around us; but we simply don't show what we really are.

I also found that the more we care about certain people around us the less they care about us.

We despise those ones that really matter about us.

Life is like that.

There is still time to get noticed or compliment those who really matter or those who mind about us.

We can let other know how we care about them. How? With a phone call, or a letter, or an email or last but not least, with a text message.

It's important to notice those good examples we had in our life, those examples that came from people that maybe didn't give us possessions or money, but they gave us good examples.

And who knows, if because of them we are people productive to our society or good examples in our community.

Ivan Caballero

Are you Competitive enough?

“If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.” Jack Welch

Some people miss understand the practical application of being competitive.
In order for you to be a competitive person you must have a motivation in life or a motivation at work. 

When resisting is not worth it

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like. Lao Tzu

Human nature is in every human being the main cause of their actions whether they are good or bad

You find yourself arguing for everything, complaining also for minimum details in your life.

Are you ready for more changes?

Changes are spontaneous some times and others are a succession of events that will make you change completely from one year to the other.

Changes are hard to face some times like the absence of a family member due to divorce, death or simple physical absence because of work.

People have been facing the same problems since the creation of the world.

It seems that the more you resist a sudden change in your life makes you feel worse and the more you try, the more it hurts.

Let's face it. You can not change human nature as if you had a magical wand and make life easier.

You have to accept people as they are and deal with their positive side.

Imagine you are in a small boat stranded in the middle of the sea. You have no veils, no anchor, and no way to source it towards any place.

You need to allow the flow takes you somewhere.

Now let's imagine you have veils and a way to source your small boat in a direction and the same flow comes under you, that flow is very strong. If you resist to it, your boat might be destroyed all of a sudden.

The smartest advice would be: allow the flow to take you and when possible orient your veils in a a way that takes you out of that flow.

There are things that will never change even though you want it so.

Just let go.

It will be healthier for you. There is no need to fight back, nor resist if it has no case to do that.

Things will get better eventually.

Sooner or later everything will come to the place it has to be. Maybe you'll see it, maybe not.

Give the benefits of the hope in those events and keep going.

Move on.

Do not that event stop you and delay you.

No case to resist and change what's wrong?

Move on,

Live, because no one else will live for you. Only you.

Keep moving forward.

Ivan Caballero

Are you diligent enough?

Diligence is the mother of good fortune. Benjamin Disraeli

Ever wonder why there are people who succeed and other aren't?

You think I'm going to start telling about things you should do, but you are wrong.

Is there any good luck in life? We see people who get everything just almost whenever they want it.

You might say they are lucky.

Along the years I have seen a perfect formula that was also published for may people, some authors mention this formula between the lines but there is no such a thing in the end.

They mention opportunity plus preparation can lead us to good fortune or good luck.

Truth is, that, what it might be good fortune for some also can be bad fortune for others.

When you have defined your goal in life, there is a lot of care for getting there in the less time possible to achieve it.

Many fail on the road, and it is not because they aren't prepared for success, they are ready, they have studies, skills, connections in every level of society.

Some others have the opportunity almost anchored to their lives and still are not successful persons. Or not in the level they would like to be.

The reason could be in their level of diligence to face challenges in life.

They take it too easy or they think those opportunities will be there forever or that they will live enough to take advantage of them.

The more diligence you express when starting your day the more results you can get at the end of the day.

To have diligence you need also discipline and being constant.

I'll give you an exercise to practice:

Every morning when you wake up, set a time for the regular tasks you perform before going to work.

Let's say you need x amount of minutes to get from A to B, then reduce that time and start speeding up your actions.

While at work set a countdown for the things you need to work with and and set a few minutes of reward right after finishing every accomplished task.

This method is called the Pomodoro Method. You can modify it or use it as prescribed normally.

I know you have to fight against yourself but it is well worth it.

Increase your level of diligence to perform your everyday tasks and others will thank you for it.

Ivan Caballero

Is failure an option to consider?

In order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time. Anthony j. D'Angelo

Failure is the less expected event in our lives and yet we keep failing one time after another.

When you plan; do you fail to plan or do you plan to fail? 

If i plan i must be aware of the good and the bad as well.

There seems to be a  belief that we must plan for everything, we brag in front of our friends how good planners are us.

And keeping an eye on our plan we find others that approach to us and show us that what we plan is a failure and it's worth nothing or they predict that our plan will be a chaos and in deed it happens that way.

It's not enough to plan ahead of everything we start. There is much more to be considered.

 

Kill them with success and bury them with a smile

Kill them with success and bury them with a smile. Unknown author.

Did you read it?

SMILE!!!

But you say: you don't smile to someone who has humiliated you or caused a low self-esteem.

The previous recipe has been used for many celebrities who once were abused, beaten, jailed and more.

You one the first example?

Ok, ok.

Here is it,

Nelson Mandela.

He was 27 years in a jail sleeping on the dusty floor of a South African prison.

His self esteem was threatened and constantly challenged.

His spirit was intact and he came out of jail just to make history.

His charm smile made angry his worse detractors but what did Mandela do about it?

He didn't care and he kept that positive way of being until he succeeded and became the first President of 

South Africa who came from the oppressed race.

I'm not saying that it took only a smile from Mandela to become what he is now. What I mean is that he came out of jail with a positive attitude that was reflected in his smile.

Ok,

let's come back to the main topic ok?

A smile can offer break the ice in a cold meeting, or if you do it properly, be a weapon in your arsenal of personal relationships.

Employees should be taught to smile to clients and bosses should be taught to smile to their subalterns more often. It is not that they don't do it already, they just don't do it very often; this means that they forget simple things. Why? You name it, family, finances, etc.

Every person in a city has their own problems and find an hostile environment in almost every place they go.

When they find a nice person everything changes for good. 

Give it a try

You could be missing a good experience if you don't.

Ivan Caballero

Don't wait too long please

Don't wait. The time will never be just right. Napoleon Hill

All your life you treasure whatever that makes your ego feel inflated.

You can treasure, certifications, cars, clothing, shoes, money, or you name it.

I listened about this person who cared about his closet.

He had so many clothing and he used to say: this I'll wear it for a special occasion.

He wouldn't allow anyone to give him their opinion about when to wear x or y clothing. The problem was that we are talking of someone who at that time was 80 years old.

Jacky is a housekeeper who worked for this gentleman. And his father Mr. Jones lived under the same roof.

Suddenly, Mr. Jones had a stroke and in a series of events, Mr. Jones, the 80 years old man, passed away.

His oldest children recalled how he was always like that.

He never thought he would be gone someday he said.

He planned and planned but never took the time to enjoy what he achieved or had.

His grown up children, now adults, still resent that, even when he is not around anymore.

Now,

You plan and never reward yourself when you achieve a small goal?

You should.

Your reward can be a trip with your family on a weekend or a nice dinner with your partner or wife/husband monthly or bi monthly or when a special date comes.

Who is going to assure that you will be there for them? For the people who really cares about you?

Give yourself a chance to enjoy life. Without life you have no work to do, believe me.

Or you think you will live 150 years?

Small achievements and small rewards, that should be our planning along the year.

May be when you really have the time for the others, they won't have the time for you.

Your time might have passed by and everybody will be busy as you were in that stage of life.

Oh you might say. I have so little time.

Then plan, and get a method to optimize your time.

You could need a person who can coach you temporarily and then you'll figure out later.

It's time to open your eyes, see world around you.

Start with your loved ones. Those who really care or those who matter to you.

Do not expect their recognition when you set time for them. Do it for yourself first, to get that relief of your busy life.

They will recognize it later and will pass it to their loved ones when the time comes.

Ivan Caballero

The Power Of Your Thoughts

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.

Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny

Lao Tzu

I spoke with a friend of mine who likes to speak in the radio.

She is very talented and eloquent.

I asked how could she manage to be so assertive and poignant when needed.

She explained me how difficult is in the beginning to be a speaker or in this case a radio interlocutor.

I pondered her expertise and I applauded her character to say the right words at the right time.

How can you have this sea of words ready when you need them? I asked.

She told me that everyday she likes to read good writings, blogs, books, articles, etc. so she can have material in her brain.

She explained me that human mind is very tricky. Why? Because your mind acts like a big reservoir of thoughts and ideas. Everything you see or hear or interact, remain in your mind.

The more you add to your mind, the more you have available when you need to express yourself orally, written or in everyday actions.

So this ideas will turn into words when needed, this can be conscious or unconsciously.

Wow, that explains a lot. By example that time when you were a little kid and you said that phrase that caused you to be grounded for at least a week. Huh? You remember, correct?

We are influenced by our thoughts specially when they become words. We might as well influence others.

If good words, we'll be noticed nicely. If bad words, we won't be a person, our friends would like to be around.

These words will contribute in our actions.

Actions that can give us pride or embarrassment.

Whenever we repeat those actions in a timely basis, they would turn into good or bad habits.

If good habits, those will increment our growth intellectually, morally, financially.

But if bad habits, the outcome will be the opposite. A decrease in the aspects mentioned before.

Also those habits will influence in our personality that feeds our character as a persona.

Now we have the two blade sword.

When our character is fed by good habits we sharpen a more positive destiny for ourselves and our loved ones as well.

Ivan Caballero

Doing the Right Things

Success is simple, do what's right, the right way at the right time.

While at our work or our family and community life, there are always circumstances that make us tremble and trouble our good attitude.

We enjoy having fun with friends and we try to have some spare time for the family, specially if we are raising one.

Every day situations put on us a test to everything what we believe or perform.

And talking with a new friend I met in this conference, he explained me how he could overcome all his difficulties and problems until he made it big.

My friend's name is Jorge, he is a TV producer and as everyone who has started a new business without too much knowledge, Jorge as a new immigrant in the United States started by accident.

He just bought a Video Camera and his friend started to ask him to video tape, life's events: baptisms, quinceaneras, birthday parties, etc.

He managed to learn how to edit videos himself and suddenly, Jorge had a part time business that was more profitable during the spring, summer and fall seasons; since people never plan to celebrate in winter.

His clientele grew more and more and he got contracts to create commercials and he got the chance to produce for one of the main Latino TV networks. And with his own words he says: Success is like a recipe: to do the right thing the right way at the right time.

How many time did you fail? -I asked- A lot -he replied- since I didn't have enough instruction it was

harder for me I wish I had had a mentor or somebody who taught me about my job. But I used the lack of a mentor on my advantage.

How ? - I asked him- Well, I was eager to learn every single new thing and since I knew I only had one way to learn and it was error and failure I tried to make the less mistakes a could do.

In the beginning there were a lot of mistakes but once I knew those were mistakes, I corrected them and then I faced new ones but not the same as he grew up he acquire experiences that enriched his professional life.

Now Jorge is well known in the Capital of The United States of America as well as in Washington DC and Maryland. A three state metropolis vibrant and growing.

He is one example or courage and persistence.

As he ended this conversation he just told me he had to go back to work. Some type of new venture that includes Internet TV.

I never stop, he says, and since I had to learn everything from scratch, I like to dedicate my full attention to what I have to do in order to do it the right way at the right time.

Ivan Caballero

Dare to Imagine the good of things

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” Albert Einstein

When asked about the logic of things you might be a real master.
You could explain why you are in the position you are in your current job.
Your effort and expertise put you in such an amazing career and job.......but you are still not realized as a human being, you still want or need more, according to your thoughts.

Lack of imagination can refrain you from seeing beyond your cubicle's wall.

It's not right if you spend in wonderland imagining and staying aways from the reality that exists in your office the whole day. Believe me, that can cause you problems too.

But you still can use your brain to imagine how to improve yourself or your workers.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you have to be that type or maquiavelical maniac thinking abut how to make your workers or clients to stumble in order to prove how good you are; but to allow those neurons to work freely and create a sane environment for your workers or associates to bring new ideas to the company table.

Ask yourself,
If i take that decision, what if....... or what for I'm taking such a decision.
Then once you found yourself what it is, the rest can be less complicated.

Keep in mind that you are the one in your life and now one has taken decisions other than yourself.
It's true that your company might have exercises for you and your co workers to bring creative ideas. It's true that you might have a boss that is the head of everything and he/she does not like smarts other than him/her.

That's the challenge.
To be productive, creative and keep yourself together.
Try to develop a positive tag line; some thing like: "I always do things right" or "I always have good ideas"
Those slogans or tag lines can be repeated by you all the time.

With that exercise you assure to your own self that your positive attitude and your creative gene is always active and you take good care to recharge that concept in you properly.

Ivan Caballero