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How many times should you try?


How many times should you try?

How many times should you try?

Our greatest test comes when we are weary and think we should give up


Our greatest test comes when we are weary and think we should give up

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Former HP Boss Faced ‘Tough Choices’


Former HP Boss Faced ‘Tough Choices

Carly Fiorina tells audience to be hands-on: If you don’t understand people, you cannot influence them.

For five and a half years, Carly Fiorina led Hewlett-Packard through major internal changes, the worst technology slump in decades, and the most controversial merger in high-tech history. Yet just as things were about to turn around, she was abruptly fired, making front-page news around the world.

Fiorina has been the subject of endless debate and speculation. But she has never spoken publicly about crucial details of her time at HP, about the mysterious circumstances of her firing, or about many other aspects of her landmark career. Until now.

In this extraordinarily candid memoir, she reveals the private person behind the public persona. She shares her triumphs and failures, her deepest fears and most painful confrontations. She shows us what it was like to be an ambitious young woman at stodgy old AT&T and then a fast- track executive during the spin-off of Lucent Technologies. Above all, she describes how she drove the transformation of legendary but deeply troubled HP, in the face of fierce opposition.

One of Fiorina’s big themes is that in the end business isn’t just about numbers; it’s about people. This book goes beyond the caricature of the “powerful woman executive” to show who she really is and what the rest of us “male or female, in business or not” can learn from the tough choices she made along the way.

 

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong – H.L. Mencken


 

Some Core Principles for Building a Legacy


To build a sustainable and positive family or business legacy, it is very important that the following key principles be incorporated into your dynastic planning  process:

1) The entire family must be involved in planning and NOT just the wealth-holder or business owner. The goal for a successful multi-generational family/business legacy is to plan “with” your family and not “at” your family.

2) The agenda for each family or family business meeting must be open to include the needs and concerns of all family members who are affected by the financial, estate, business, or legacy plan.

3) Part of the common mission for each family and business plan should be the indisputable realization that family members are the real assets and NOT the money or business.

4) Communication expectations for everyone must be setup upfront. For example,

  • Everyone has wisdom;
  • We need everyone’s wisdom for the wisest results;
  • All will hear and be heard;
  • There are no wrong answers;
  • The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

5) The best legacy solution is one that considers the needs of future generations. A legacy plan should focus on the perspective of family wealth and the family business for at least the next seven generations.

6) A Family Constitution should be created to help with the Governance of the Legacy plan. The goal here is not to dictate the future to family members but to establish guidelines for dealing with conflicts, new opportunities, in-laws, extended family member dreams, and the future complexity involved with the growth of family members into the third generation onward.

7) Structures, and committees, must be put in place for dealing with, and implementing, the financial, estate, business, and legacy plans.
Remember that a wealthy family or a profitable business cannot create a strong family but a united family with a common mission can build wealth and a sustainable and profitable family business.

 

Breakthrough with Tony Robbins – Episode 5 – United We Stand


The Lawsons

It was supposed to be your dream come true. You’ve just won Nashville Star, the American Idol of Country Music, and you’re off to record an album and tour with the band. But everything dissolves as your dream rips your marriage and family apart leaving your life in crisis. Can a person turn their crisis into their greatest strength?

What is a Breakthrough?

A breakthrough is a moment in time when the impossible becomes possible. When something happens that shapes you, that moves you. Maybe you meet someone that inspires you. Maybe it’s a tool or a strategy that you learn. Maybe you finally get so fed up you won’t settle for the life that you have any more. It’s when something inside of you clicks and everything changes. You take massive action and you transform your life.

 

Eric Berlow: Simplifying complexity


Ecologist Eric Berlow doesn’t feel overwhelmed when faced with complex systems. He knows that more information can lead to a better, simpler solution. Illustrating the tips and tricks for breaking down big issues, he distills an overwhelming infographic on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan to a few elementary points.

TED Fellow Eric Berlow studies ecology and networks, exposing the interconnectedness of our ecosystems with climate change, government, corporations and more.

Why you should listen to him:

Eric Berlow is an ecologist and network scientist who specializes in not specializing. He helped found, and directs, the University of California’s first environmental research center in Yosemite National Park. After radio-collaring wolves in Alaska and tending bar in Paris, he got his Ph.D. in marine ecology studying the interconnectedness of species in nature. As a research scientist with the USGS he focuses on building better links between science and management of protected mountain ecosystems.

Eric is helping apply network approaches to sustainable ecotourism development in the Arctic, and is co-owner of a green café in Oakland, California. He is currently spearheading ‘ecomimetic’ approaches to corporate sustainability by visualizing and modeling energy consumption through complex, interconnected supply chains.

 

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