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Wisdom for Teams #43

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No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.

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MAHATMA GANDHI (1869 -1948), Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India’s independence from British rule.

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Wisdom for Teams #42


Photo by Julian Wasser//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

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Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.

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MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. (1929-1968), American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesman and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968.

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What We Pay With Money…

Photo by Josh Olalde on Unsplash

I enter Terminal 1 of Barcelona Airport and walk toward the departure screens. My flight is not on it. Shit. I check my ticket. Wrong terminal. I pull out my phone and call Juan, my buddy taxi driver. “Juan, I’m in the wrong terminal”. “Hold on. I’m coming”.

We speed into Terminal 2. I rush to security control. Laptop. Liquids. Backpack. Carry-on suitcase. I’m in. I still have time. Shortly later we’re in the air. I made it. I relax.

It’s cold and I reach up to get my sweater from my carry-on. My carry-on! Where’s is my carry-on? Oh shit. Where did I leave it? At security control. Fuck!!

I thought of what was in the suitcase: 2 pairs of new pants, 2 pairs of my comfy shoes, my favourite white shirt, my leather jacket, my Bose speaker… Just as I was about to freakout, Jonatan’s words popped into my mind.

Jonathan is a young barista I met a few years back at a hotel where I delivered a workshop. On the second day of the workshop, I notice Jonatan was not wearing his glasses. Curious, I ask if he had forgotten them at home. He explains he lost them. “That sucks”, I say. As he finishes pouring my tap beer and hands it to me he says:

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What we pay with money is inexpensive.

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In the airplane, I ended up thinking:

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What if instead I had lost my desire to live or the love of my friends?

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Then came immense gratitude. I ordered a drink and smiled.

Thank you, Jonatan, for the wisdom!

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Wisdom for Teams #40

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I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.

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WALTER WHITMAN (1819 – 1892), American poet, essayist and journalist; among the most influential poets in the American canon, and often called the father of free verse.

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Wisdom for Teams #39

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Everything about me is a contradiction, and so is everything about everybody else. We are made out of oppositions; we live between two poles. There’s a philistine and an aesthete in all of us, and a murderer and a saint. You don’t reconcile the poles. You just recognize them.

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ORSON WELLES (1915 – 1985) director, actor, screenwriter, and producer; remembered for his innovative work in radio, theatre and film, and considered to be among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time.

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Wisdom for Teams #38

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Whether we stay or whether we go – to be courageous is to stay close to the way we are made.

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DAVID WHYTE (Born 1955), Anglo-Irish poet; His writing explores the timeless relationship of human beings to their world, to creation, to others, and to the end of life itself.

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The Ritual Was the Key

He was a farmer, and cows were his thing. He would wake up before the sun, silently. A cup of coffee and a biscuit for breakfast. And he’d set out to the fields. But before he left, he would sit at the doorstep and do the ritual, and the ritual was the key. 

His name was Jose Rodrigues and he was my grandfather on my dad’s side. He was born in 1906 on the Island of Saint Michael in the Azores archipelago, nine Portuguese Islands in the middle of the Atlantic. He was born in tough times and fortune did not always smile upon him. 

On his first day of school, the teacher punished him and whipped him with a ruler. On his second day of school, he made a hole on the wooden floor. The teacher tripped and fell. And there was never a third day of school.   

He never learnt to read or write. At age nine, a load of wood fell off a horse and broke his right leg. He limped the rest of his 80 years. His wife, Evangelina, died of tuberculosis, leaving him with a house stuffed with seven kids. He remarried. Shortly after giving birth, she also passed away. He was accused of homicide and spent a month in jail, then they figured out they had the wrong guy. I could go on. But I think you get it when I say fortune did not always smile upon him. 

But Jose was not a bitter man. He was a fulfilled man who lived an exciting and meaningful life. He fathered fifteen children. When fortune did smile upon him, he created enough wealth to live a comfortable life, and travel the world, which was unprecedented in those days on the Islands, especially for a farmer. 

But mostly, he was a pioneer, a serial pioneer. For instance, he was the first on the Islands to milk cows twice a day. He didn’t get the idea from a TV show. And like this one, he had many revolutionary ideas. His ritual was the key. 

Here goes the ritual. Everyday before he set out to work he would sit at the doorstep of his garage, light a cigarette and ask himself: “How will I achieve more with less effort today?” As he smoked, he thought. Ideas came. Success followed.