Freedom and intimacy

"He doesn't like football nor sports. I am so happy I found him because all my friends' husbands would be on the TV with their remote control the whole weekend," Kirstin enthused about her husband.
All of us hunger for a love that will stay intimate and secure, yet encourage our individual fulfilment. Freedom and intimacy are to a person what sun and water are to a plant.
The question is how to achieve union without losing oneself in the process.
All of us need to be ourselves and to be loved. In childhood, we see-sawed between the fear of losing our parents' love and the determination to have our own way.
The people we want most to love us are those who pressure us most to do what they think is right.

A book I read puts it this way: "A most unusual and rare relationship is the Evolving relationship - where each partner encourages the other to express and understand himself/herself on ever-deepening levels. Loving feelings flourish and with them come support, mutual acceptance, fun and sensuality."

Compete or complete?

"Rivalry can hurt your relationships," Maggie wrote.
Unfortunately, many men feel threatened by their wives' abilities. A number of men are intimidated if their partners get more phone calls than they do.

We did not become a couple to compete with one another, but to complete one another.

Wisdom

"Crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks to an undefined large group of people or community (a crowd)." So says Jeff. There are 4 types of crowdsourcing strategies: crowdfunding, crowdcreation, crowdvoting, crowd wisdom.
The very idea of transforming people demands that we think about and apply a word seldom used in the corporate world today: wisdom.
We need wisdom to distinguish real aspirations from fake hopes, lofty goals and self-delusions. We need wisdom to judge whether the individual or company is capable of the change desired.

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something - Plato

Quality time - the 2 most negative word

"I have been in Dubai for 9 months now and my wife still works in Tampa, Florida," James tells us about how hard it has been for him. I can associate that feeling. I have been away from my loved one for 1.5 weeks now.

The statement "the amount of time you spend with your partner is less important than the quality" is a myth. Studies shows that 90% of couples who considered their relationship "strong and close" also said they spend a great deal of time together.

Deep and lasting relationships take time - lots of time. We can truly form a deep and lasting friendship and become "best friends".

never try to trick customers

"Put the fish on the table," Phil related to us what his Swedish business partner told him. "Because if it's under the table, after some time, it begins to smell."

Building trust is only possible when we are totally up front with our customers.

Never try to trick customers - it can only damage relationships with them and with anyone else who hears about it. And with the exponential growth in social media, you don't want to go there.

Get the attitude right

"I have got feedback for you about two members of your team," Margie began.......

At the back of everything we leaders plan, we will need to drive behaviour. many companies dream, many companies contain people who come up with potent ideas, but very few companies complete and execute. This is because they never get the attitude right.

Beginning to get the attitude right, then, is my 1st purpose.

Financial matters

Old Ebbit Grill, where I had an amazing dinner is situated beside The US Teasury Department.

Money is so easy to understand in theory that many people would do a good job of handling it in life, isn't it? But they don't.

In many families, financial matters become a war zone not only between parents and children but also between parents and parents.

Most efforts by most parents to teach kids about money are doomed from the start. These efforts usually and often end with a lecture on the virtues of fiscal prudence with the opening of a savings account.

Most kids perceive that the purpose of these banking plans is not to promote savings but to prevent consumption.

I think I've done a reasonable job of helping ACE develop reasonably healthy attitudes about money, but we've had our moments, believe me.