A Ring Beneath My Feet

When I was 15 years old in high school, my parents, in desperation, promised me a gold ring if I passed the 11^th grade with a first class. That was just the incentive I needed because I did get that first class. And the gold ring became my prized possession for about 9 years. One day, when we were on the beach in Mumbai, having a good time with some friends, while playing around in the water, I felt the ring slip off my finger. I desperately tried to catch the ring but it fell to the bottom. I saw it through a foot of water and stomped my foot at the spot where it had fallen. I could actually feel the ring underfoot. I could also feel the wave pulling strongly at it. To my horror, I could feel the sand underneath give way. When the wave had gone, I plunged my hand into the sand, desperately searching for the ring, but there was no sign of it. The next wave then came in and I knew that it was a lost cause.

Thinking Out Of The Box

On my recent trip back from the US to India, we transited through Hong Kong. I decided to spend a day with a friend of mine and he came to pick us up at the airport. He is a wonderful person and we walked to his car as he was going to take us back to his house. I realized that we were walking towards this beautiful sleek Tesla Model S. I was intrigued not having seen one before at close quarters. It was such a sleek model. As we walked towards it, all of a sudden, the handles lit up and extended out. Prior to that, they were totally flush with the car. When we got in, they retracted again. As we began to drive into the city, there wasn't a sound in the car. I started asking him questions about the model and he said that it gave about 270 miles range on a full charge. It had a 17" high-definition touch screen right there in the front with a built-in web browser, Wi-Fi and Internet connection and even more. He said, "Would you like to see where all the Tesla cars in the world are?" He pulled up a screen and there they were; all the Teslas. You could just go to a particular city and see where every Tesla car was. And beyond that, to see where the charging stations were. Just a wonderful experience! We went into a mall later and were able to charge the car.

As I walked away from this experience, I thought about Elon Musk and the way in which he has revolutionized thinking, 'out of the box' thinking, in a short span of time. Look at him – University of Pennsylvania, Wharton's School of Business, then went to Stanford to do his PhD and lasted all of 2 days. He left there to pursue the dreams that he had. He has built an empire. Today, his net worth is $17.4 billion, at the age of 46. An enormous fortune, incredible wealth – just the ideas that have come from him have been mind-blowing.

Let Your Mindset Grow

It's so good to be back after a fairly long break and I thank you for giving me that leeway to take a vacation and get recharged. My daughter Krista, who just graduated with a business degree, has been after me for the past year or so, to read a book called 'Mindset: The New Psychology of Success' written by Carol Dweck, a professor at Stanford University. I bought the book but had been putting off reading it, but finally used this vacation to read it. It is such a powerful book; I would strongly recommend it to every one of you.

In this book, she talks about two mindsets that we can have – the 'fixed' mindset or the 'growth' mindset. The fixed mindset is one that we have, which defines us permanently. We think – "This is it; we cannot change." The growth mindset, on the other hand, is a mindset that says that we can always develop; that we can continue to learn from the things that happen to us. As I went through this book, I thought that this is so important for us. Sometimes we determine failure and success through the grids or the mindsets that we have. She quotes a New York Times article that says, "Failure has been transformed from an action 'I failed' to an identity 'I am a failure'. This is especially true of a fixed mindset. Instead of looking at an action that has happened as 'I failed – it's a one-off thing; it happened', we tend to let it mold our identity saying, 'I am a failure' which is detrimental to progress.

Note The Feedback

I want to start by asking you a very simple question: How do you handle feedback, whether good or bad? Let's start with good feedback. Somebody comes and tells you: "I really like what you said," or "I really liked that presentation that you made." How do you actually respond to them? Do you respond by excusing yourself and saying, "Thank you? I was just lucky." Or minimizing it by saying, "I had a lot of help." Or just a very blunt abrupt "Thank you."

Feedback is difficult. When we get it we're not sure how to respond. Typically we think it's the negative feedback that we can't respond to. But it's the positive ones as well that we almost self-effacingly cannot respond to.

Behavior Trumps Emotion

When you look at work places nowadays, there's a change that has come in the last decade where more attention is being paid to soft skills than some of the harder skills that we used to look at in terms of academic training and specific training that has gone into somebody's title. Nowadays there's a different perception of what it takes to make things work in the work place.

I remember almost a decade back, a good friend of mine bemoaning the fact that a lot of business schools were not spending enough time on a key aspect of what he felt was important in the work place – to be able to behave relationally. He was talking about the fact that not too much was emphasized in training individuals to work together as a team, to check how each personality worked with another personality.

Dream On, Strategically

The other day, I was sitting in my office and made myself a cup of coffee. It's a daily ritual for me, one that I really enjoy—fresh coffee percolating through the machine, the aroma filling the office. I had an appointment in a couple of hours, so I was dressed for that. I very gingerly picked up my cup of coffee and sat down. As I leaned forward to take my first sip, I held the cup away from me so that nothing would spill on my white shirt. The next day while sitting at home enjoying a cup of coffee, I realized that I hadn't gone to any of the extra pains that I had taken the previous day in drinking my coffee. I just sat there in my home clothes, not really concerned whether or not I spilled anything on myself—I just enjoyed the coffee!

As I reflected on these two scenarios, I realized that intent was at the very center—to be very careful on the one hand, and not being bothered by it on the other hand. Without intent to be careful or to do something, we are very much like people without a rudder. We just let the wind take us where we want; it really doesn't matter. Yet, life is not lived that way. Life is lived with intentionality—taking the oars in our hand and steering our course, not letting ourselves be carried around by the vagaries of wind or weather.

I'm Rejected, I Think

Yesterday I was sitting at home, listening to my wife, Sheila, who is a clinical psychologist working on her doctoral dissertation. She was talking about various things and mentioned 'Rejection Sensitivity'. I immediately started to pay a little more attention and thought that it had a lot of relevance for corporate interactions as well.

How do we act when we sense we are rejected – rejected by a group of people, rejected at the office? It may or may not be true. It could be that we are just hypersensitive to the people around us. And that's what rejection sensitivity is – to be overly sensitive to rejection. The whole idea is that it's something that is not really happening, but it's a perception that we have because of various ways in which we have been exposed to things during our childhood, our upbringing and so on. It has to do with nurture more than anything else. Rejection sensitivity could play a part in the way we interact with people in our office spaces as well.

Entitled? I Hope Not

Some lines from Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" caught my attention:

                  If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;

                  If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;

                  If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

                  And treat those two imposters just the same;

And then he goes on:

                  If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

                  Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,

He ends by saying:

                  Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

                  And – which is more- you'll be a Man, my son!

Or a woman of substance, I'd like to add, to make it inclusive. I like the thrust of these words because it tells us we should be able to go through life with a sense of harmony and equilibrium and a clear knowledge that "Triumph and Disaster" are just two imposters, and we need to be able to treat them both as such. In other words, as we go through life and experience the highs and lows, to know they are part of life and not to give ourselves an undue sense of achievement or pride in the triumphs. Because disasters and lows too, are part of life. The ability to walk with that kind of attitude through life is what will make us men and women of substance.

Dealing Decisively With Crisis

Julius Maggi must be a happy man albeit that he has been dead for many years. He was the founder of Maggi noodles, the first person to bring out this protein-rich legume meal way back in 1872 which merged with Nestlé in 1947 and Maggi became their flagship product. But it took a major beating about 6 months back in May, when they were banned across different states in India for allegedly high lead levels along with MSG.  But Maggi is back on the shelves except in some of the states that had banned it, and according to reports has been doing very well—in fact sold out in Kolkata. That's good news for all Maggi lovers.

I remember talking about it at that time and posing the question: Did they handle it right? It seemed like everybody who used Maggi noodles was willing the company to come out and handle the situation, to get on the offensive. The consumers seemed to be on the side of Maggi, and yet, they didn't do anything. It seemed like they were just underplaying the whole issue, hoping that it would go away. In fact, Paul Bulcke, who was the global CEO, came out and met the press only about 3 weeks later, and even then, it didn't seem like they were getting on the offensive at all. It seemed like they were hoping to ride out the storm and then make a comeback. There was absolutely no visibility of Maggi stepping up and saying, "We've got this under control. We are doing everything we can and you will not be disappointed." That didn't happen.

We Messed Up. I'm Sorry

Some days ago, a few of us were talking about new cars in the market, when the conversation veered towards Volkswagen and how they had been caught intentionally adding software that was designed to prevent them getting caught from emission standards that were over the normal. It was surprising that this was the first time where an auto company had been caught for something that they had done very intentionally. The Environmental Protection Agency caught up with them. Sources say that they could be fined up to $18 billion for what they did. Volkswagen stocks have plummeted 20% in just that one day.

It made me think of the various infringements of companies these days. Jeffrey Liker in an article for Harvard Business Review chronicles the fate of these companies.  First, Toyota, a highly revered and respected company, accused of selling cars with unintended acceleration problems that had led to quite a few serious injuries. Toyota put it down to faulty and mismatched mats that were causing the problem, and didn't take it seriously for a long time hoping the storm would pass.  It didn't, and they ended up with a $1.2 billion settlement order.

Then, General Motors had a faulty ignition switch that led to 124 deaths and 274 injured over a span of 10 years. They too didn't take it very seriously and finally paid up $900 million as an out-of-court settlement with the Department of Justice.

You Can Quit. It's Ok.

I was reading a blog written by a lady who was writing about a jockey called Kent Desormeaux and his horse Big Brown. Big Brown was in a race, Kent Desormeaux, being a well-known jockey had a lot riding on this race – a lot of bets were placed on this horse. Halfway through the race, he felt there was something wrong with his horse. So he pulled up the horse, and finished last. He didn't care about his reputation or the number of people who had money on the horse. He cared more about the well being of his horse.

Writing in her blog, this lady says, "Wouldn't it be great if we all had someone like that, someone who was in tune with us, enough to know when we don't have it in us or are not able to complete what everyone expects of us. Or just know that today is not our day and pull us out." Sometimes we get to a point in our lives where we just long for someone to tell us that it's okay not to be able to finish something; it's okay to change tracks; it's okay to remember that some days, it's not about winning the race. It's about having someone along for the ride who's biggest and whose only concern is you, like Kent was for his horse Big Brown. He didn't want to jeopardize his horse by pushing it, and decided to pull back and come in last.

As we go about life's journey, every now and then, we too almost need the permission to not come in first, to not do something that wins us accolades, to be able to change and not think that we are losers because of it. I sometimes think that in a world where everything is about winning and success, to be able to look at our lives and the things that we do and say, "This is not what I want to do, and I'm just going to get out of it," may be the best option for us in some situations, and yet, what comes against us is the pressure of the many one-liners that we hear in any number of motivational speeches that say: "Winners never quit and quitters never win," and so on. It puts so much pressure on us just to keep going, when in fact, probably the best thing that we could have done in a particular situation was to just call "Time Out!"

A business professor gave some good advice to a person who was starting out. He said, "Know this. Know when to quit. Set a goal, a benchmark, a standard and make sure that everyone involved understands that if you don't hit that mark on time, then it's time to pack up, call it a day and learn from your failure. Otherwise, you run the risk of continually walking down the path to nowhere, and you'll waste time, money and energy that could have been placed somewhere better." Good advice – to know when to quit, to understand when a business plan is not working, and to know when things are not going well for you and the best option is to just stop.

I don't know if you have read a book that came out a few years ago by Seth Godin called 'The Dip'. It was a controversial book because of his very premise which was – sometimes we don't know that it is more profitable and more in line with a person's talents and abilities to quit than to keep going. He said, "It's not just about quitting. It's called 'Strategic Quitting'. It simply means that you can quit the project intelligently and purposefully because you know it's not the right objective for you and your company. As a matter of fact, you're not merely quitting; you're actually moving on to more important, relevant and realistic goals that are more in line with your own abilities and resources."

Many people in the know say that Michael Jordan should have stayed retired, that he made one of the biggest blunders when he donned the jersey for Washington Wizards once again after he had quit from the Chicago Bulls. And sometimes, we can get into that kind of a rut as well. We don't know when it's time to quit. We just want to keep going, and keep going to the point where it is detrimental to our own health and our resources and talents are not being optimized.

I wonder whether I am speaking to any of you on this call. I wonder whether what I am saying resonates with you. Sometimes we can get into this place very subtly. There are so many things happening in our lives that we are not sure that we are really on the path that we ought to be. There are so many balls in the air. It's very difficult to be objective and very often we end up going through the motions – throwing the balls up and trying to catch them. It's a mindless routine. We start the day like that and end up tired and fatigued, not even sure whether we have achieved anything at all in our lives. Maybe it's time to just stop, take a deep breath and say, "I have all these things going on in my life, but are they actually achieving anything? Am I really getting anywhere with what's going on in my life?"

Sheena Iyengar, a management professor at Columbia Business School, did a study. She went into a department store and offered one group of people samples of 6 different jams available for purchase, while she offered another group 24 different jams including the 6 that were offered to the first group. With all that choice, you'd think that the group offered the 24 samples would be more likely to purchase one. But it was the exact opposite. Those in the 6-jam group turned out to be 10 times more likely to purchase a jar of jam. Her premise was this: the more numerous our options, the more difficult it becomes to choose a single one, and we end up choosing none at all.  That's what can happen when we too have many things going on with us. Too many balls in the air – we can get overwhelmed and don't do anything at all. I wonder how things are with you.

I wonder whether, as I speak, you get the sense that there are a lot of things that you are doing, and yet you have many questions about whether they are achieving anything at all. I wonder whether it's time to just look at the things you are doing and decide what needs to get out of your life. What do you need to stop and what do you need to focus on?

Peter Bregman, writing in a blog for Harvard Business Review says, "When we get into this kind of position where possibly we're getting overwhelmed, then the key is to be able to manage to get through the situation. Come to a place of sanity." He says that this is what has worked for him. "Break it up into the hours in a day."

1.     Spend a few minutes writing down everything that you need to do on a piece of paper. Resist the urge to use technology for this task ( I would add a smiley face to this J, because sometimes it is better to put pen to paper than fingertips to keyboard, it helps to remember things better)

2.     Spend 15 minutes, no more, knocking out as many of the easiest fastest tasks that you can. Make quick phone calls, send short emails. Don't worry about whether they are important tasks on the list. You are just creating momentum. The goal is to cross out as many items as possible in the shortest time. Use a timer, keep focused.

3.     When your 15 minutes are up, shut down your phone, turn down your computer and choose the most daunting thing on your list, one that instills the most stress or has the highest priority. Then work on it and only it, without hesitation or distraction for about 35 minutes. Then take a break for about 10 minutes and then start the hour-long process again.

Working within a specific and limited time frame is important because the race against time keeps it focused. When our stress is generalized, it's difficult to manage it. But when you give yourself short time frames, it gets very specific and it's easier to handle.

I wonder how many balls you have up in the air today. I wonder how many of those balls just need to drop. I wonder how many you need to focus on today and say, "This is what I need to put my energy into, and the other things I just need to quit strategically." I hope and pray that you will do it, because when you have too many things going on in your life, then you don't have time for the more important things. Sometimes it's just pride that keeps us going – "What would people think or say if I quit?" I have found that sometimes, it's best to give permission to your spouse or to good friends who care about you and say, "Anytime you see me involved in too many things or activities that are going nowhere, tell me because I want to hear it from you."

I want to leave you with some words from our Scriptures, because the greatest support we can get is from the Almighty God. He says, "When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burnt up; the flames will not consume you for I am the Lord, Your God."

May I offer this prayer on your behalf?

Almighty God, give to each one of us on this call, the wisdom and the knowledge to know when to quit some of the things that we are doing, so that we can better optimize the gifts and talents that you have given us and be able to do what we are supposed to do and be who we ought to be. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Ego - A Three-Letter Word

I wonder whether you have seen children play games with a bat or a ball, like cricket or football. Then seen these kids get upset with decisions that haven't gone their way, just pick up their bat or ball, and walk away saying, "I'm done!" leaving everybody else in a bit of a fix. That is a good early symptom of a slowly growing ego. "They would rather opt-out of the game than be flexible enough to find a compromise and continue playing," says Todd Henry, adding that, "ego is something that can kill creativity, kill innovation and can kill collaboration." It doesn't allow for people to work together; it brings in a "victim "complex that doesn't allow teamwork.

I spent some time reading through the book by Walter Isaacson that came out some time back, called "The Innovators." It's a brilliant book, a compendium, actually that chronicles the whole evolution of the computer and the Internet. He takes it right back to 1835 – the time when it was really embryonic. But, in the middle chapters, he talks about the evolution of the transistor and how technology moved from the vacuum tube which some of you may remember to the solid state era. That came about because of a guy called William Shockley. He was born in 1910. He went to MIT and graduated when he was 26 years old and was known for his brilliance. Eventually he teamed up with 2 people, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. They would go on to get the Nobel Prize for their work with the transistor in 1956.

Circumstances - Give In Or Overcome

These days I've been thinking about circumstances – circumstances that come into our lives, surround us and sometimes force us to think differently about the things that we are doing. Often when circumstances, especially those working against what we are doing come along, we tend to second-guess ourselves and wonder whether it is a sign to either quit and do something different, or time to make some changes, or just give up. And we let the circumstances dictate the path of our lives, sometimes giving in too easily when we really ought to be saying: "I'm not going to let them alter the course of my life; I'm going to overcome them."  Does that get your attention?  Is that what's going on in your life?  Then stay with me and let's process those thoughts together.

I was reading an article by Chuck Givens. He talked about a time when he was on his way to conduct a workshop that was almost 200 miles away from his home. He said, "I left in plenty of time, looking forward to the drive, taking the tight mountain curves in my sports car. But unfortunately, on that particular day, my fan belt broke and the car began to overheat." He still decided to press on in the hope that he'd find a gas station where he could get a fan belt. But, within a few minutes, his engine seized and he was faced with another choice: should he call ahead and cancel the workshop or should he try someway to get to his destination.

Ditch That Negativity

I came across a quote by Shannon Alder that set me thinking. "Relationships with negative people are simply tedious encounters with porcupines. You don't have the remote knowledge how to be close to them without quills being shot in your direction." That's a statement that I read and re-read and then thought, "Wow! You really need to be careful if that is how negativity works itself out that people begin to be wary of you. Unconsciously you are poking people or pushing them away from you because of a negative attitude."

It begged the question – Am I negative? Am I a negative person who has quills out and whom people would avoid? As I talk to you, I can maybe ask the question – Are you? Sometimes we can allow our environment to create who we are, to make us into who we are if we are not careful, if we are not really secure in the kind of people we are or we are prone to having other things shape and mold us. Either that, or we've always been a negative person and then, we might be able to know it. But sometimes if it's the environment or maybe the workplace that has shaped you, then it's something that has happened subtly.  It hasn't happened overnight but over a period of time. It could be that you've had people in your team who've been prone to be heavy spenders, who buck the budget every time and you have to rein them in. so, every time they come up with a huge idea, you've had to be the one who had to pull it down and bring it back to a place where you can deal with it. Or maybe you just have people who love to ideate on your team and you felt the need to be ale to be pragmatic, to be able to say "Okay, how can this happen?" rather than let something just get too airy out there.

Attitude Trumps All

On previous talks, I have touched on attitude quite a few times. I remember once talking about how attitude tops performance even in appraisals. I had quoted from an article by Shruti Sabharwal and Devina Sengupta who had said that in Microsoft's Global Technical Support Center in Bangalore, performance rating was not linked to the aptitude, but to behavior and the ability and willingness to learn from the problems that the people were solving. It was linked to willingness to share knowledge and the doggedness and persistence in solving problems were very high on the desirability charts at the company. In fact, Microsoft junked its performance review system doing away with targets for engineers, and instead judged them on behavior and the way they performed the task rather than what they did – looking at the how rather than the what in terms of an appraisal and found that there was a 20% increase in employee satisfaction within that year.

Attitude seems to be very important in the scheme of things. Zig Ziglar once commented, "Your attitude is more important than your aptitude," and I remember rounding off on that. But he's also been credited with saying, "Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude." That's a nice pithy way of saying: How high you go depends on the kind of attitude that you have, not so much the skills and the aptitude that you have, though that is important as well.

Be Bold. Take The Risk

Some of the stories that I enjoy reading are the inspirational ones. I love to read about people who took risks, overcame handicaps to do something worthwhile. I am always in awe of people who have done that, who have risked moving out of their comfort zones to do something notable and worthwhile and worthy, and in the process, touch, inspire and motivate other people to rise beyond the mediocre and the average.

I remember watching Joni Eareckson Tada live a couple of years ago. Some of you may know her name. She's a quadriplegic and has been for over 40-45 years. She was a teenager when she dove into the Chesapeake Bay, not realizing it was the shallow end and broke her neck. She ended up in a wheelchair with no mobility from the neck down. After years of trying everything, she realized that she wasn't going to get better. She then decided to do something with her life. She has been a tremendous spokesperson for quadriplegics all over the world, motivating them, inspiring them not to feel sorry for themselves but to get out and do something.

These kinds of stories fire me up. I love to read these inspiring stories. I was reading about the Infosys start up, Mr. Narayana Murthy and how he actually had his wife Sudha mortgage her jewelry to raise Rs. 10,000 so that he and seven others could have the start up that they needed for Infosys. The rest is history.

Bitterness 101

I was thinking about the month that we are in; we have crossed over into March and 2 months are already history for 2015. But March, by itself, is a very interesting month especially in your workplace. It's a month that has to do with year-endings, assessments, appraisals, increments, and also questions about whether this is the place to stay, anticipating whether it is time to make a move, how is your boss going to take the work that you have done over the year. All of that can create a lot of tension. Also, to look ahead when things don't quite go the way we expect. Then, oftentimes, we get into places where we are resentful, angry – those kinds of emotions come in. I have seen a few people who have gone into this month and have found that they are bitter because things didn't pan out the way that they expected. People, especially colleagues, let them down; people have reported on them and it leaves them with a very bitter taste.

I felt the need to talk about this bitterness that can come upon us when things go well, almost preempt it and prepare us for the month ahead and have a positive attitude.

Pride - Your Downfall

I came across a little anecdote in a book that I have been reading by Simon Sinek, called 'Leaders Eat Last'. The author says, "I heard a story about a former Undersecretary of Defense, who gave a speech at a large conference. He took his place on the stage and began talking, sharing his prepared remarks with the audience. Then he paused to take a sip of coffee from the Styrofoam cup that he had brought on stage with him. He took another sip, looked down at the cup and smiled. 'You know,' he said, interrupting his own speech. 'I spoke here last year. I presented at this same conference, on this same stage. But last year, I was still an undersecretary. I flew here in business class and when I landed, there was someone waiting for me at the airport to take me to my hotel. Upon arriving at my hotel,' he continued, 'there was someone else waiting for me. They had already checked me into the hotel, so they handed me my key and escorted me up to my room.'

'The next morning when I came down, again there was someone waiting for me in the lobby to drive me to this same venue in which we are today. I was taken through a back entrance, shown to the green room and handed some coffee in a beautiful ceramic cup. But this year, as I stand here to speak to you, I am no longer the undersecretary. I flew here coach class and when I arrived at the airport yesterday, there was no one there to meet me. I took a taxi to the hotel, and when I got here, I checked myself in and then I went by myself to the room. This morning I came down to the lobby and caught another taxi to come here. I came in the front door and found my way backstage. Once there, I asked one of the techs if there was any coffee and he pointed to a coffee machine on a table against the wall. So I walked over and poured myself a cup of coffee into this here Styrofoam cup,' he said, as he raised the cup to show the audience. 'It occurs to me,' he continued, 'the ceramic cup they gave me last year was never meant for me at all. It was meant for the position I held. I deserve a Styrofoam cup.'

Bouncing Back

This morning I almost got carried away by an article that I was reading in the New Yorker about a man called Rick Rescorla. I was fascinated by his life story and if you get the chance, do read about him. He was the Vice President in charge of security at Morgan Stanley at their offices at the World Trade Center that came down in 9/11. Morgan Stanley had 40 floors at the World Trade Center with about 2,700 employees. When the planes hit, he was responsible for getting them out. He managed to get 2,700 of them out; only 7 people from Morgan Stanley died and Rick Rescorla was one of them. He died trying to go back to see if there were any more stragglers who hadn't yet made it; and he never made it out.

Just reading, not only about what happened on that day, but his life – he was a British soldier, fought in a couple of wars there, then left and came to the United States and got his citizenship. He joined the army, went to Vietnam and was very highly decorated. Most people, especially his colleagues in the units, remember him as a wonderful force of energy that wouldn't ever give up. He would take everything that came his way and still bounced back.

Towards the end, he had prostate cancer. He had to take painful injections in his stomach, yet would still go to work and get drills going because he believed that was what he needed to do. And that's what worked in getting all of the employees out. He would have these drills that would evacuate all these people. In one minute, everybody had to leave their desks and be on their way out. I was so captured by the resilience that was the hallmark of his life. He took everything that life threw at him and bounced back.

Remembering Names

One of the things that I enjoy about Facebook are the posts that come to me, especially the funny jokes that I can sometimes use as anecdotes. I particularly like reading the posts that a school friend of mine by the name of Joachim Pacheco sends very often.  Yesterday he put on his page, a joke that I thought that I could use this morning to put in context what I have to say to you. It goes like this:

A Chinese walked into a room in America late one night and he saw Steven Spielberg. As he was a great fan of his movies, he rushes over to him and asks for his autograph. Instead Spielberg gives him a slap and says, "You Chinese people bombed our Pearl Harbour. Get out of here." The astonished Chinese man replied, "It was not the Chinese who bombed your Pearl Harbour; it was the Japanese." "Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese – you're all the same," replied Spielberg. In return, the Chinese gives Spielberg a slap and says, "You sank the Titanic. My forefathers were on that ship." Shocked, Spielberg replies, "It was the iceberg that sank the ship; not me." The Chinese replied, "Iceberg, Spielberg, Carlsberg – you're all the same."

We may laugh at that one, it may bring a smile to our faces, but it brings up a very important question: What's in a name? Shakespeare penned those lines in his famous tragedy 'Romeo and Juliet' when he wrote, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." But as Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet found, there is something in a name. The name Montague really meant something and it caused quite a bit of upheaval for them.