Entries from May 2007 ↓

 

 

 

Apres ma lecture de ce dimanche,  trotte dans ma tête: un amour inconditionnel donne une fidélité qui demeure inébranlable.

Peut-être bien que les nouvelles récentes des situations familiales difficiles ont aiguillé ma réflexion et mes préoccupations de ces derniers jours. Donner un amour inconditionnel à l’image de notre Seigneur Jésus est bien sûr un exploit divin, un idéal que nous sommes  tous appelés à suivre. Humains que nous sommes, par définition  truffés de faiblesse et d’égoïsme, nous ne pourrions vivre, voire atteindre l’amour inconditionnel qui donne cette fidélité inébranlable que par la grâce de Dieu. Notre prière est ainsi de demander  toujours et continuellement grâce auprès de Lui pour nous faire don de cet amour. L’object  de ma supplication de ce jour a la messe.

Je prends  ici, la liberté de reformuler Albert-Marie Besnard : Pour vivre à contre-courant des divisions et des séparations, seule la mise de fond d’un amour gratuit et inconditionnel peut travailler.

Dans l’Evangile il nous a déjà averti : «Je vous ai dit toutes ces choses maintenant, avant qu’elles n’arrivent ; ainsi, lorsqu’elles arriveront, vous croirez. »

 Sans vouloir prendre à défaut le contexte des lectures, je les lis à ma manière dans l’instant du moment : «Celui qui ne m’aime (gratuit et inconditionnel) pas ne restera pas fidèle » 

« Tout le monde devrait écrire » est le titre d’un livre de Georges Picard.

J’ai trouvé que le commentaire de Pascale Arguedas sur le livre de Georges Picard a fait écho à ma pensée. Ecrire mon blog m’a permis de cristalliser mes idées. L’écriture, chaque fois, me demande de mettre en une forme réfléchie et congruente ma pensée. Dans mon exercice de publication, je suis tenu à une rigueur et je suis obligé de choisir dans les nuances et la pondération. La relecture du mon texte me met et me remet dans les souliers du lecteur éventuel de mon blog. Ce qui m’exige un esprit critique à l’égard de mon texte. Un travail de contrôle de l’exactitude de mes propos, et le choix du style utilisé m’ont aidé à construire peu à peu et perfectionner mon écriture.

Voila un des bienfaits de blogger.

Je livre à votre réflexion les propos suivants de Georges Picard :

« […] l’écriture acharnée qui force à réfléchir reste l’une des armes les plus solides contre la sauvagerie et l’impuissance. Chacun avec ses moyens peut facilement s’en emparer. » Écrire devrait donc être une vocation désintéressée…

« Pour être au clair avec soi-même, pour savoir de quoi sa propre pensée est réellement capable, l’épreuve de l’écriture paraît cruciale. Peut-être publie-t-on trop, mais il n’est pas sûr que l’on écrive suffisamment. Tout le monde devrait écrire pour soi dans la concentration et la solitude »

« Aujourd’hui, la littérature est entrée en résistance contre un ennemi qui n’a pas de visage, qui n’a que l’identité vague et grise de l’indifférence. Cela ne doit pas décourager la passion d’écriture, au contraire. C’est justement parce qu’il n’y a rien à attendre du médiatique et du social en général, qu’écrire ressemble de mieux en mieux à une vocation désintéressée. »

I met her in the mid 90’s in Bath UK when she was the administrator of the NLP course I followed. We became friends and she even visited Mauritius later on my invitation. She helped me in doing some awareness sessions on NLP with colleagues at work as well with social friends. She ran for the Rotary club of Port Louis an NLP training session for social workers of organizations specialized in alleviating drug addiction. I am pretty sure a number of my old friends who are now reading my blog will recall Penny’s visit to Mauritius.

Retired from a very successful career in teaching, Penny today, still works as an examiner to some University examination boards, acts as a personal coach and still conducts seminars on requests.

My memory of Penny was awakened when I read the blog of Avinash yesterday on learning to learn. Penny’ web site immediately rang a bell in my mind.

Her latest newsletter, of particular interest in goal achieving, read as follows:

Knowing is not enough; we must apply!
Goethe


Without a doubt ‘knowing’ something is very different from being told it is true and that you should therefore believe it. I had one of those ‘knowing’ experiences this morning.

Every day I climb the very steep lane behind my house to give my heart some exercise. It is hard going even though I have been doing it for a number of months. As I look up the hill snaking away in the distance above my head I am daunted.

Today I was busy marvelling at the flowers in the hedgerows. There are still one or two primroses, and bluebells too; there is a wonderful display of harebells and the vetch is showing; Herb Robert is blooming alongside a proliferation of dandelions (have you ever tried their leaves in salad?) giving a bright yellow glow in the greenery. Added to that the lambs were curious and very noisy as they watched me walking.

I was up the hill without even realising. Instead of puffing and panting and wishing I was at my goal, I was so pre-occupied with the ‘now’ that I barely noticed I was climbing.

I know about focusing on what I am doing in order to reach my goals, but it had never been brought home to me so graphically just how easy it is to achieve what you want to achieve if you enjoy what you are doing.

In the discipline I am in it is called the ‘demon’ state. A state where you are so engrossed in what you are doing that time slips away. When you are in this state you are content.

So, as you choose your long term goals be sure to also create short term goals that are interesting, appealing, motivating, exciting or simply delightful and watch achievement become an absolute pleasure.

Setting quality goals isn’t as easy as you might think. As a coach I can help you to set failsafe goals. That is a big claim, but if you do it right you will achieve your goals. So get in touch or tell your friends how valuable coaching can be.

One of the most important skills required by all managers & entrepreneurs is leadership. I am personally a great believer of brain power!which we do not make use enough! Here are the five lessons from Carly Fiorina.
Carly Fiorina, the controversial CEO of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 until she was fired in 2005, shares five lessons she has learned.

Leaders create something new.
Management is about producing acceptable results within known constraints and conditions. The force for change must be stronger than an organization’s natural inclination to preserve the status quo. This is why even a change agent CEO must have the support of a critical mass of employees. In 1999, HP was no longer among the top 25 innovators in the world. I challenged our engineers and inventors to innovate. By 2004, we were generating 11 patents a day, the highest rate of innovation in HP’s history, and had become the number-three innovator in the world.

Don’t fall in love with your product.
Too much has been made of my background in marketing. Of course, I’d held sales and marketing jobs, but I’ve had experience in virtually every department in a big company. Nevertheless, it is true that as a “nontechnologist,” I thought the point of our technology was to serve customers and, in the process, to deliver revenue and profit. Sometimes, technologists forget the customer. This was happening at HP in the late ’90s, and it was one of the reasons our growth was slowing dramatically.

Competition requires risk-taking.
The risks of change always seem to be more real than the risks of standing still. Leaders have to be willing to make tough choices at the right time, which usually means before they are obvious to everyone else. The Compaq merger was widely criticized when it occurred; many people did not understand the decision immediately. Yet, it was a prudent risk given the changes in the industry and our decision to return to a leadership position within it.

Ethics matter.
Businesses often tolerate behavior that’s on the edge; people justify it as necessary to achieve results and take comfort that it’s not strictly illegal. Yet such actions are corrosive. Some of the most important choices I ever made were firing people who weren’t conducting themselves with integrity.

The 21st century is about brainpower.
It requires different capabilities than the 20th, and American competitiveness is not something we can take for granted. We must realistically assess the state of our educational system and invest in its transformation. At the same time, we must acknowledge that while globalization has caused some real hardship and dislocation for American workers, our security and prosperity are greatly enhanced when a greater number of people around the world have a stake in the success of the global economy. And we must accept that this country has prospered because motivated people have wanted to come here and build a better life.

We all know how much cars, Lorries and in general the present combustion engines used by vehicles pollute the environment whilst contributing to the rapid depletion of world reserves of crude oil.

It would appear that electricity driven engine which is by far more environment friendly will replace the combustion engines. Fuel cell hybrid seems to be the wining technology for the time being. The main drawbacks today are the relatively slow acceleration of the electric motors; the distance the vehicle can run without having to be recharged and most importantly the cost of the electric power system.

Toyota seems to be progressing with the dual gasoline and fuel cell hybrid.For the 7th consecutive years they have been earned top rating environmental awards. More developments will happen sooner than later. The pressure on the environment and the impact on the global warming will surely push to use of cleaner fuel and means much faster now.

How does Fuel Cell Hybrid works? Vectrix a scooter driven by this technology on its website gives some insights in the principle.

The fuel cell hybrid maxi-scooter features a fully-integrated 500-watt Protonex NGenTM fuel cell system that continuously charges the battery pack, which in turn provides power to drive the motor. The fuel cell shuts off automatically when the battery pack is fully charged.

The hybrid configuration uses the best aspects of battery and fuel cell technologies. The battery pack provides the quick bursts of energy for accelerating or climbing steep hills, while the fuel cell provides a constant trickle charge to help extend range and keep the batteries topped up. The patented throttle activated regenerative braking system (DAaRTâ„¢) further extends the range by directing energy back into the battery during braking.

I am on the watchout for the latest on the subject. I would wish to try out one of the Vectrix scooters sold today for USD 15000.

Apoc. 21,1-5.
Alors j’ai vu un ciel nouveau et une terre nouvelle, car le premier ciel et la première terre avaient disparu, et il n’y avait plus de mer.
Et j’ai vu descendre du ciel, d’auprès de Dieu, la cité sainte, la
Jérusalem nouvelle, toute prête, comme une fiancée parée pour son époux.
Et j’ai entendu la voix puissante qui venait du Trône divin ; elle disait :
« Voici la demeure de Dieu avec les hommes ; il demeurera avec eux, et ils seront son peuple, Dieu lui-même sera avec eux.
Il essuiera toute larme de leurs yeux, et la mort n’existera plus ; et il
n’y aura plus de pleurs, de cris, ni de tristesse ; car la première
création aura disparu. »
Alors celui qui siégeait sur le Trône déclara : « Voici que je fais toutes
choses nouvelles. Écris ces paroles : elles sont dignes de foi et
véridiques. »

Jn 13,31-33.34-35.
Quand Judas fut sorti, Jésus déclara : « Maintenant le Fils de l’homme est glorifié, et Dieu est glorifié en lui.
Si Dieu est glorifié en lui, Dieu en retour lui donnera sa propre gloire ;
et il la lui donnera bientôt.
Mes petits enfants, je suis encore avec vous, mais pour peu de temps, et vous me chercherez. J’ai dit aux Juifs : Là où je m’en vais, vous ne pouvez pas y aller. Je vous le dis maintenant à vous aussi.
Je vous donne un commandement nouveau : c’est de vous aimer les uns les autres. Comme je vous ai aimés, vous aussi aimez-vous les uns les autres.
Ce qui montrera à tous les hommes que vous êtes mes disciples, c’est
l’amour que vous aurez les uns pour les autres. »

Quelques réflexions qui ont retenues mon attention sur les lectures de ce dimanche :

Primo, ‘un ciel nouveau, une terre nouvelle, je fais toutes
choses nouvelles, commandement nouveau’

La résurrection nous a ouvert un monde nouveau, comment ? Qu’a-t-il de différent ? Par sa mort et sa résurrection, Jésus nous a ouvert une avenue qui n’existait pas avant. La nouveauté se trouve là. Le neuf nous réjouit toujours car il nous donne une nouvelle espérance.

Ainsi, nous pouvons rendre gloire à Dieu Père et Jésus Fils en même temps. Langage peut-être pompeux. Rendre Gloire veut dire simplement quoi ? Glorifier une personne dans le monde d’aujourd’hui n est-il pas de lui couvrir de félicitations, de louanges et de belle parole ? Quand il s’agit de glorifier le Seigneur Dieu, ce serait la même chose mais, magnifié à une dimension de l’infiniment grand. « Le Fils de l’homme est glorifié et Dieu est glorifié en lui » est pour moi de voir et louer Dieu Père et Fils dans toute Leur splendeur, magnitude, omniscience, et omnipotence. Etre en Adoration de Dieu.

Cette unité et réciprocité du Père et du Fils en sont la nouveauté.

Secondo, ‘Comme je vous ai aimés, vous aussi aimez-vous les uns les autres. C’est l’amour que vous aurez les uns pour les autres’

Dans son commandement nouveau, je percois que Dieu nous demande d’intégrer dans nos relations avec les autres cette meme unité et réciprocité du Père et du Fils.

Et enfin:
Notre ciel, ne serait–il pas de vivre en union permanente avec notre Dieu ? Notre ciel : ‘Voici la demeure de Dieu avec les hommes ; il demeurera avec eux’

This afternoon, I was discussing with an old friend of mine about doing something meaningful. He has been a successful entrepreneur and has been working very hard and smartly for the last 3 decades. He admits that earning more wealth for himself or his family is no more his prime objective. What motivates him to carry on in life? What kicks him now? He enjoys challenges, learning and making best use of his skills & knowledge accumulated through his life. He is after all an entrepreneur, an economist with a strong sense of finance. Whilst still the chairman of a number of very profitable companies; he has taken a back seat in running the companies. He oversees the companies whilst remaining the strategist of his group. To keep an interest in business, in general, he spends the major part of his day in Mauritius, studying successful entrepreneurs and have a keen eye on the stock exchange in the UK from which he is reaping couple of thousand of Pounds regularly.

One of the entrepreneurs mentioned by him and from whom one could learn from was Philip Green. The 4^th wealthiest man in the UK, he started with very modest means.Not only did Green not go to business school, he didn’t even take A levels. Having left formal education aged 15, he has built Britain’s biggest privately-owned retail group and accumulated enough debt-free assets to put him in that rarest of clubs: those who are not only worth a billion pounds, but created it themselves. I read what I could gather from the net on Philip Green and was stunned by the story of a self made 55 year old billionaire who started his first company with 20000 Pounds loan less than 30 years ago.

” ‘Retailing is bloody hard work. You have to be absolutely committed, passionate and prepared to get into every level of detail. It is all-consuming. We are not dead yet,’ he says.”

It is relatively easy to run a business where you are the owner, the operator, the controller, the marketer in the nutshell: the one man show. You do not need to possess any managerial skill as you only have to manage yourself. Your growth and consequently potential will be limited to what you personally can do.

An entrepreneur at least a successful one, I dare say is someone who, above all have the skill to run a business beyond his personal presence. Thus the entrepreneur has to develop his skill of leading & managing people, resources and understand the environment. You are called a manager only when you have people reporting to you.

I have been recently listening to Bill Bartmann, who is recognized as one of the best entrepreneurs of the US by NASDAQ some years ago. Learning from his mistakes, has been his greatest success. It is worth learning the secrets that took Bill Bartmann from a failure to a success, from bankrupt to a billionaire. You will thus learn real-world entrepreneurship tactics that actually work.

In short, entrepreneurs essentially should address the following:

Investment – Raise the money you need to grow fast
Recruitment – Attract top talent with creative compensation
Management – Get your business to run without you
Exit Strategy – Cash-out wealthier than you thought possible.

In many countries, May Day is also Labor Day. This originates with the United States labor movement in the late 19th Century, and very much inspired by similar actions taken earlier in Canada. On May 1, 1886, unions across the country went on strike, demanding that the standard workday be shortened to eight hours. The organizers of these strikes included socialists, anarchists, and others in organized labor movements. Rioting in Chicago’s Haymarket Square on May 4th including a bomb thrown by an anarchist led to the deaths of a dozen people (including several police officers) and the injury of over 100 more.

The protests were not immediately successful, but they proved effective down the line, as eight-hour work days eventually did become the norm. Labor leaders, socialists, and anarchists around the world took the American strikes and their fallout as a rallying point, choosing May Day as a day for demonstrations, parades, and speeches. It was a major state holiday in the Soviet Union and other communist countries.

Labor Day is still celebrated on May 1 in countries around the world, and it is still often a day for protests and rallies. In recent years, these have often been targeted against globalization.

May 1st, often called May Day, just might have more holidays than any other day of the year. It’s a celebration of spring. It’s a day of political protests. It’s a neopagan festival, a saint’s feast day, and a day for organized labor. In many countries, it is a national holiday.

Pope Leon XIII and later Pie XI who were very concerned about the condition of workers in the emerging Industrial era gave a Christian dimension to the Labour Day by declaring that the day will be under the Patronage of St. Joseph, the carpenter, father of Jesus. The example of St. Joseph throws a new light to the dignity of labour. Model worker to be followed, according to the Christian teachings, St. Joseph’s work was not only his means to offer his labour for his own betterment and that of his family, the perfection of nature around him and for the progress of the community, also a means to be in union and contributing to the mission of Jesus. Hence the effort of labour becomes a prayer.

I asked a few people: what is the public holiday for according to you? One replied it is Labour Day: a day of rest for the workers. Another one said: Labour day: day for political rallies. None of them thought of the Labour Day as a day of celebration and thanks giving for the work that provides us our sense of usefulness and dignity. Even for me who am, so to say “retired” I do need to have this sense of usefulness, a purpose in life?

I would rather see today as a day of celebration organised by the work force to give themselves a sense of pride & dignity and to discuss their contribution to the betterment of our society.

Bonne Fete a tous!