Winning - Jack Welch

This book came into my hands by chance. I was with a friend talking when I absentmindedly blurted how much I love reading and how I usually read three books a week. Of course, he must have thought I was exaggerating and didn't believe me at all. Not that I care...most people don't believe me as well. After fooling around with me on my reading habits he turned around and handed me a book. It was this book. "Here, I am going to lend you this book to read. I tried reading it twice but never got past half of it, so now you can read it and then tell me all about it." and he then kidded again "It must be great to lend books to you because you will return them in less than a week, no?"

I went back home, book in hand and very anxious to read it (which is the way I usually feel when I receive a new book to read). On the front cover of the book was the following phrase by Warren Buffet: "No other management book will ever be needed." Just by reading that I knew the book had to be good. Not only good - it had to be great! Since I usually read 5-7 books at once I took around ten days to finish this book since there were some other ones that I needed to finish before. But once I started readding it I was just flipped out on its pages and every few pages I read I was compelled to stop for a few minutes, take a breather and think about what I had just read. It was just too much information - too much good and important information - for me not to do so. And that is when I started jotting down my favorite quotes, snippets of the book which I considered helpful and relevant and by that I ended up with a brief summary of the whole book

And so this time instead of just writting my thoughts on the book I decided I would write down the notes I took while reading it. It's a contagious book - one that makes you want to win and still show those around how to win as well. 

Okay, so here goes my brief summary of what most spoke to me in this book:

1. Competition is fun! Enjoy it! 

2. Mission and Values 

How do you plan on winning at this business? Answer that question, and you have your mission. 

Values are the behaviors you plan to exhibit in achieving your mission.  

In order to make your mission and values actually impact your organization, you've got to reward those who practice them and punish those who don't. 

"Integrity is just a ticket to the game. If you don't have it in your bones, you shouldn't be allowed on the field."

3. Candor 

In order to get ahead, you need great ideas - lots of great ideas. To get the best ideas, turn your business into an idea machine. Nurture a constant flow of ideas from every level of your organization - not just your top managers. The only way to foster such idea-sharing is to develop a culture of candor, where people aren't afraid to speak their minds. Reward them for their candor, even if it makes themselves and others - yes, you - look bad. 

4. Differentiation  

In professional sports, athletes who perform best are rewarded lavishly. Those who don't play well are paid the minimum salary and eventually fired. Businesses should operate the same way.  It may seem cruel and Darwinian, but in the long run, people are happier doing what they're good at. If they're not excelling, you're ultimately doing them a favor by moving them out of an environment where they know they're a drag on the organization. They'd be happier some place else. 

5. Voice and Dignity

The problem: management gets ideas from only a few vocal people. The vast majority are either scared to speak up or feel they have no right to speak up because they haven't been asked. A "Work-Out" is a way to get these untapped ideas flowing. 

Groups of thirty to a hundred gather, led by an outside facilitator. The boss shows up at the beginning, explaining what they will be doing and promising that he/she will give "an on-the-spot yes or no to 75 % of the recommendations" and to "resolve the remaining 25 percent within thirty days." Then, the boss disappears in order to not stifle discussion, leaving the meeting in the hands in the facilitator. The boss returns at the end of the meeting to hear the recommendations and make decisions. 

"For twenty-five years, you paid for my hands when you could have had my brain as well - for nothing." (A middle-aged appliance worker at a Work-Out) 

6. Leadership 

WHAT LEADERS  DO 

1. Leaders relentlessly upgrade their team, using every encounter as an opportunity to evaluate, coach, and build self-confidence. 

2. Leaders make sure people not only see the vision, they live and breathe it. 

3. Leaders get into everyone’s skin, exuding positive energy and optimism. 

4. Leaders establish trust with candor, transparency, and credit. 

5. Leaders have the courage to make unpopular decisions and gut calls. 

6. Leaders probe and push with a curiosity that borders on skepticism, making sure their questions are answered with action. 

7. Leaders inspire risk taking and learning by setting the example. 

8. Leaders celebrate. 

"Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. 

When you become a leader, success is all about growing others."

"You are not a leader to win a popularity contest—you are a 

leader to lead. Don’t run for office. You’re already elected."

7. Hiring 

Jack Welch starts with off with these three screens:

Screen #1: Do they have integrity? Do they tell the truth and keep their word?

Screen #2: Are they intelligent? Do they have enough curiosity to lead other smart people?

Screen #3: Are they mature? Are they able to handle stress and setbacks, respect other's emotions, be confident without being arrogant and have a sense of humor?

If the person passes on those first three screens he goes on to what he calls the four E's:

Positive Energy - thrives on action, relishes change, makes friends easily, loves work and life.

Can Energize Others - Has a deep knowledge of his own business and has strong persuassion skills.

Has Edge - Has the ability to make tough decisions, even when some information is lacking.

Can Execute - Can take the decision and make it happen, overcoming all obstacles  to complete the task.

Passion - Is excited about his work, learns, grows and helps others around him win.

To top it off here are the four additional traits he seeks when hiring a senior level leader:

Authenticity - bold and decisive, yet real and likeable - not phony, not playing a part. 

Having vision - a visionary who can see the future and anticipate what most don't expect. 

A knack for surrounding themselves with people smarter than themselves. 

"Heavy-Duty Resilience" - someone who's been knocked down and beat up badly, but bounced back to run even harder.

He then mentions an instance when somone asked him what should be the one question to ask the person that you are hiring. At the time when he was asked he didn't have the answer but after a lot of thought he answers: 

"The number one question to probe in an interview is why the candidate left his previous job, and the one before that... this tells you more about them than almost any other piece of data." 

8. People Management

1. Give HR (Human Resources) power and primacy.

2. Rigorously evaluate with a proven system.

3. Motivate and retain with money, recognition and training.

4. Confront difficult people issues, from trouble-makers to big-headed stars, with candor and action. 

5. Spend half of your time evaluating and coaching the middle 70 percent - those who are neither disrupting nor shining. 

6. Have as flat an organizational chart as possible. Everyone should be crystal clear on who they report to and what their responsibilities are. 

9. Parting Ways

The two controlling principles:

1 - No surprises. Employees should be informed enough about the nature of their business that they understand who might be laid off in an economic downturn or change in the industry. If they aren't performing well, they should be well aware of this through regular formal and informal reviews. If they can't improve, they should know they will have to move on.

2 - Minimize the humiliation. Encourage him that there's a better job out there for him, better matched to his temperament and skills. Help him move toward that next job. 

10. Change 

 In this era of change, you change or die. Here's how to make change more palatable. 

1. Attach every change initiative to a clear purpose or goal. Change for change’s sake is stupid and enervating.

2. Hire and promote only true believers and get-on-with-it types.

3.  Ferret out and remove the resisters, even if their performance is satisfactory. 

4. Seize opportunities, even if they're brought about by someone's misfortune. It takes a strong stomach to ignore the nay sayers; but it can lead to great profits. 

11. Crisis Management 

Five assumptions to keep in mind when a crisis happens:

• It's worse than you first imagined.
• Everyone will eventually find out everything. 
• The media will portray you in the worst possible light.
• As a result, processes and people must change. 
• You will survive, smarter and stronger.

"There is a sliver of silver lining to crisis management in that you rarely have to live through the same disaster twice."  

12. Strategy 

"In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement it like hell." 

"If you want to win, when it comes to strategy, ponder less and do more." 

First, come up with a "Big Aha" - a way to gain a sustainable competitive advantage.It's an idea, an insight on how to win. It could be developing a new product, or making an old product unique.

Second, put together the team that can make it happen. 

Third, relentlessly seek out the best ways to achieve your "Big Aha," leaving no stone unturned. Look both inside and outside of your company. Be boundaryless, have an obsession with finding a better way - or a better idea - whether its source is a colleague, another business, or another company across the street or on the other side of the globe. Adopt, adapt and continually improve upon them. Exhibit an unyielding emphasis on continual improvement. 

14. Budgeting

Traditionally, companies either budget with a negotiated settlement or a phony smile.  

In the negotiated settlement, a business or division comes to the senior management complaining about barriers to growth and say they'll be doing well to beat 6 percent growth next year.  The management thinks more optimistically and argues that they can deliver 12 percent. They wrangle for awhile and finally settle on a goal of 9%.  All act disappointed with their compromises at the meeting but go home giving high fives that they got what they wanted: management can get enough growth from the division to look decent and the division heads feel they can easily meet or surpass their goals and get their bonuses. 

In phony smile budgeting, the division heads come to the senior management with grand plans, asking for the money to pull off the dreams they feel they can make happen. Management asks some questions and shakes hands smiling, but later gives the word that they can only afford to give them one half what they ask for. Demoralized, the division leaders divvy up the money a little here and a little there, rather than put it where it could be used for the biggest gains. 

Instead, ask yourself:

"How can we beat last year's performance?"

"What is our competition doing, and how can we beat them?"

Look at obstacles and opportunities in the real world. Allocating resources becomes more of an operating plan than a budget. You might need to reallocate resources mid-way through the year because of new opportunities or new competition. One division might be rewarded for growing at only 6% but beating the competition in a difficult environment, whereas another division grew by 15%, but may not get rewarded as much since they didn't take full advantage of a growth opportunity. This encourages divisions to set stretch goals rather than be limited to meeting budgeted goals. 

15. Organic Growth

 GUIDELINE ONE:  Spend plenty up front, and put the best, hungriest, and most passionate people in leadership roles.

GUIDELINE TWO:  Make   an exaggerated commotion about the potential and importance of the new venture.

GUIDELINE THREE:  Err on  the  side of  freedom;  get off the new venture’s back. 

16. Mergers and Acquisitions

This part didn't really apply to me so I didn't jot down much. Basically Welch warns readers of seven pitfalls to avoid.  

17. Six Sigma

In this chapter Welch goes on and on about the quality improvement program Six Sigma which GE adopted in 1995. 

16. The Right Job

"Every time I ask successful people about their first few jobs, the immediate reaction is almost always laughter." 

"Find the right job and you'll never really work again."

First, get a job and learn something about yourself. What do you like or dislike about it? What are you good at and bad at?

Second, get another job that's more in line with the strengths and desires you discovered in your last job.

Third, repeat the process until you find yourself in a job you love. 

Even then, don't expect to find an absolutely perfect job in an imperfect world. 

Here are some signals to look for when you're exploring a potential job:

Signal #1: You like the people there - they're your type.

Signal #2: You'll get the opportunity to learn and grow. 

Signal #3: You'll get credentials that will help you move forward.

Signal #4: It's your own decision - not something someone's pushing you into. 

Signal #5: The work itself is fun, meaningful and rewarding. 

"Nothing will get you a new job faster than terrific performance in your old one."

17. Getting Promoted.

Do more than you're asked. Perform beyond all expectations. If you can, expand your job in such a way that your boss and colleagues all look better. 

Manage those below you in such a way that when they're asked about you, they'll say that you are fair, you care and you were willing to show tough love. 

Help the leadership to champion new initiatives. 

Find the right mentors. 

Learn from the business media. Devour every business magazine and newspaper you can get your hands on. 

Be positive and fun, not a negative bore. 

Don't buck the company values. 

18. Hard Spots

Thankfully, I don't have a boss!!! But when reading this chapter I couldn't help but remember my life as a missionary in which I literally lived with my "boss". I felt like screaming out loud "Why didn't I read this book before?!!! 

Well, actually I never had that hard of a time getting along with the bosses I've had. Somehow I was always able to get around having good communication and performing well enough to more than please them. It must have been because I wouldn't do the job to please them or kiss ass, but more because I always liked getting my job well done. But here are some tips that I would certainly put into practice if I still had a boss: 

Ask yourself why he's being a jerk with you. Is he a jerk to everyone, or just to me?Most workers overrate their job performance and how well-liked they are among colleagues.  Look honestly and objectively at your own attitudes and performance for clues. 

Meet privately with your boss to ask him frankly what is wrong. If something surfaces, commit yourself to a plan for improvement. 

If the boss will be around for the long run, ask yourself, "Is it worth it?" If not, seek another job. If you stay, you forfeit the right to complain. You're there by choice. You're there becuase you very well want to.

19. Work-Life Balance

This chapter really spoke out to me. It's one of the biggest hurddle and problems I face in my life. Trying to separate my work life from my personal life. One of the reasons is because since I am a private English teacher I end up getting real close to my students and sometimes I just can't help but mix them both together. Not cool. Other than that I am also a workaholic. Plain and straight - it's something I just can't help. I like my job and I like working - so much to the point that it many times affects my personal life since I don't separate time for leisure, enough sleep, relaxation and so on. 

Here are a few tips which I thought were great though!

Tips:

1. Compartmentalize your life. When you're home, be 100% at home. When you're at work, be 100% at work. 

2. Once you've set your life priorities, get comfortable saying "no" to things that would take away from those priorities. 

3. Don't leave yourself out of your priorities. 

Okay, and so that is it! There are still a few ending chapters which I personally thought weren't relevant so I won't include anything about them over here.

Last words of advice: Read it. Ponder over it. Put it in practice. Take it by me, it will change your professional life.  

The Scorpion's Sweet Venom

I am re-reading the book "The Scorpion's Sweet Venom" written by Bruna Surfistinha - Brazil's most famous call girl ever! In the book, Bruna recounts how she became a call girl. She talks about her parents, childhood, her unbridled sex life, drug abuse, how she started off her blog, how she got famous and basically pretty much her whole life story. 
The first time I read her book I paid attention on all the juicy details of her many wild sex stories which she experienced as a prostitute. This time though for some reason the relationship she had with her estrangled middle-class family caught my attention more than the sex stories in itself. I once read somewhere that everyone needs at least one person in their life that will always be there for us. That we know will love us, look out for us, worry over us and accept us no matter what we may have done. I have come to the conclusion that Raquel Pacheco decided to become Bruna Surfistinha because of the lack of having someone that would love her no matter what and who would forgive her despite her failures and mistakes. The most touching part for me is when she decides to leave home to become a prostitute and she is walking out the door knowing that it will be the last time that she will see her mother. She leans on the door and says "bye mom". Her mom doesn't turn around, doesn't give her a hug, doesn't even say a word. And yet I am pretty sure her mother didn't have the slightest idea of what her daughter was going to do. That made me think how a small word not said, a hug not given, a smile not passed on can make such a difference in our life. Sometimes that little move might make a world of a difference. Let's not let the same happen to us. 


I watched the movie as well and really enjoyed it. But it pissed me off quite bit that a lot of scenes never happened (like in true life she had two sisters and never a brother) and it doesn't portray the same thing as in her book. But the movie is still worth watching even if just for the fun of it!

Book Review: 
In 2003, a young Brazilian prostitute scandalized her country by launching a blog detailing her many sexual exploits. The blogger, who used the professional name Bruna Surfistinha ("Bruna the Surfer Girl"), ended up appearing on TV and in magazines. The fervor with which Brazilians followed her rise to infamy revealed a repressed, conservative core beneath that country's veneer of sexual permissiveness.

The melodramatically titled The Scorpion's Sweet Venom is the book that grew out of Bruna's blog. Her story is all-too-familiar: A troubled middle-class youth awakens to her sexuality, rebels against the stifling nature of her home life, is beaten by her father after she's caught stealing from her mother, breaks with her family to make her living on the streets and in the brothels of the big city. What distinguishes this memoir is Bruna's playful love of sex and sexuality -- for her, visiting a sex club is as exciting as going to the Super Bowl for an NFL fan. She's surprisingly insightful about her chosen line of work. Perhaps most titillating: Bruna actually has orgasms with clients!

But this is also a cautionary tale. Bruna nearly dies of a drug overdose. One of her clients brutally rapes her. Because she's in constant competition with other prostitutes, their offers of support are dubious, at best. Even while she's enjoying her many sexual encounters, Bruna makes it clear that her life is suffused with pain. She talks about how she sometimes goes in the middle of the night to stare at her family's home, wishing she could reconnect with them. "To this day," she admits, "I sometimes feel sick when I see a hand stroking my body."

Bruna doesn't delve deeper into her psychic pain, which is too bad. We get the sense that what she's showing us is just the tip of the iceberg. Still, there's enough sass and honesty here to make The Scorpion's Sweet Venom a compelling -- as well as fast and easy -- read. 

The Little Prince

I had heard a lot about this book from quite a few students and finally got the chance to read it. Honestly, it wasn't all that I expected it to be and wonder why so many people brag, rant and rave about it as much as they do. That made me question myself if I was the one who had missed out on the "moral" or "hidden meaning" somewhere in the book. In the end I guess I could say this book "grew on me". I thought a bit about the different things the book expounds on and the different planets the Little Prince visits and what stayed with me at the end of my little mind review is how we must each find "our star". In each planet that the Little Prince went to, each person he spoke to saw the stars as something different - the stars had a different meaning and significance to each person. To one it was something of great value; to another, something to worry about, and so on so forth. What each one of us needs to do is find our star - and who knows, our flower as well. 

A little from the book - taken from Wikipedia plus a nice clip of The Little Prince:

The narrator's point of view is interwoven in the first nine chapters and changes from third-person to first person. In the first chapter, we meet the narrator who, as a young boy, uses his imagination to draw pictures. But, when he shows them to the adults, they spurn them, and he quickly decides to abandon his drawing and grow up. As such, he decides to become a pilot, which eventually leads to his crash in the Sahara desert and his meeting with the Prince.

The prince asks the narrator to draw a sheep. Not knowing how to draw a sheep, the narrator shows the prince a picture that he had previously drawn: a boawith an elephant in its stomach (a drawing which previous viewers mistook for a hat). To the narrator's surprise, the prince recognizes the drawing for what it is. After a few failed attempts at drawing a sheep, the narrator draws a box, which he explains has the sheep inside. The prince, who can see the sheep inside the box just as well as he can see the elephant in the boa, says "That's perfect".

The home asteroid or "planet" of the little prince is introduced. His asteroid (planet) is the size of a house and named B-612, which has three volcanoes (two active, and one dormant) and a rose among various other objects. The naming of the asteroid is a conceptual illustration that adults will only believe a scientist who is dressed or acts as they do. According to the book, the asteroid was sighted by a Turkish astronomer in 1909 who had then made a formal demonstration of asteroid B-612 to the International Astronomical Congress. However, due to his clothing, he was ridiculed. After a Turkish dictator forced him and his people to dress like Europeans, he went again to present asteroid B-612 to the International Astronomical Congress. This time, he was believed and was credited with the discovery.

The prince spends his days caring for his "planet", pulling out the baobab trees that are constantly trying to take root there. The trees will make his little planet turn to dust if they are not removed. Throughout the book he is taught to be patient and to do hard work to keep his "planet" in order. The prince falls in love with a rose that takes root in his planet, who appears to not return his love due to her vain nature. He leaves to see what the rest of the universe is like, and visits six other asteroids (numbered from 325 to 330) each of which is inhabited by an adult who is foolish in his own way:

• The King who can apparently "control" the stars but only by ordering them to do what they would do anyway. He then relates this to his human subjects; it is the citizens' duty to obey, but only if the king's demands are reasonable. He orders the prince to leave as his ambassador.
• The Conceited Man who wants to be admired by everyone, but lives alone on his planet. He cannot hear anything that is not a compliment.
• The Drunkard/Tippler who drinks to forget that he is ashamed of drinking.

The Businessman, chapter 13

• The Businessman who is constantly busy counting the stars he thinks he owns. He wishes to use them to buy more stars. The prince then goes on to define property. The prince owns the flower and volcanoes on his planet because he cares for them and they care for him, but because one cannot maintain the stars or be of use to them, he argues, therefore the Businessman cannot own them. In later parts of the book, the prince recalls the Businessman with a particularly vehement disgust.
• The Lamplighter who lives on an asteroid which rotates once a minute. Long ago, he was charged with the task of lighting the lamp at night and extinguishing it in the morning. At that point, the asteroid revolved at a reasonable rate, and he had time to rest. As time went on, the rotation sped up. Refusing to turn his back on his work, he lights and extinguishes the lamp once a minute, getting no rest. The prince sympathizes with the Lamplighter, the only adult he has met who cares about something other than himself.
• The Geographer who spends all of his time making maps, but never leaves his desk to examine anywhere (even his own planet), considering that the job of an explorer. The Geographer is in any case very doubting of any explorer's character and would most likely disregard the report. He does not trust things he has not seen with his own eyes, yet will not leave his desk. Out of professional interest, the geographer asks the prince to describe his asteroid. The prince describes the volcanoes and the rose. "We don't record flowers", says the geographer, "because they are only ephemeral". The prince is shocked and hurt to learn that his flower will someday be gone. The geographer then recommends that he visit the Earth.

[edit]The visit to Earth

Chapter 16 begins: "So then the seventh planet was the Earth". On the Earth, he starts out in the desert and meets a snake that claims to have the power to return him to his home planet (A clever way to say that he can kill people, thus "Sending anyone he wishes back to the land from whence he came.") The prince meets a desert-flower, who, having seen a caravan pass by, tells him that there are only a handful of men on Earth and that they have no roots, which lets the wind blow them around making life hard on them.

The little prince climbs the highest mountain he has ever seen. From the top of the mountain, he hopes he will see the whole planet and find people, but he sees only a desolate, craggy landscape. When the prince calls out, his echo answers him, and he mistakes it for the voices of humans. He thinks Earth is unnecessarily sharp and hard, and he finds it odd that the people of Earth only repeat what he says to them.

Eventually, the prince comes upon a whole row of rosebushes, and is downcast because he thought that his rose was the only one in the whole universe. He begins to feel that he is not a great prince at all, as his planet contains only three tiny volcanoes and a flower he now thinks of as common. He lies down in the grass and weeps.

Chapter 21: is the author's statement about human love in that the prince then meets and tames a fox, who explains to the prince that his rose is unique and special, because she is the one whom he loves. He also explains that in a way he has tamed the flower, as she has tamed him, and that this is why he now feels responsible for her.

Chapter 22–23: The prince then meets a railway switchman and a merchant who provide further comments on the ridiculousness and absurdity of much of the human condition. The switchman tells the prince how passengers constantly rush from one place to another aboard trains, never satisfied with where they are and not knowing what they are after, only the children amongst them bothering to look out of the windows. The merchant tells the prince about his product, a pill which eliminates thirst and is therefore very popular, saving people fifty-three minutes a week; the prince replies that he would use the time to walk and find fresh water.

Chapter 24: the narrator's point of view changes again from third person to first person. The narrator is dying of thirst, but then he and the prince find a well. After some thought, the prince bids an emotional farewell to the narrator, explaining to him that while it will look as though he has died, he has not, but rather that his body is too heavy to take with him to his planet. He tells the narrator that it was wrong of the narrator to come and watch, as it will make him sad. The prince allows the snake to bite him and the next morning, when the narrator looks for the prince, he finds the boy's body has disappeared. The story ends with a portrait of the landscape where the meeting of the prince and the narrator took place and where the snake took the prince's life. The narrator makes a plea that anyone encountering a strange child in that area who refuses to answer questions should contact the narrator immediately.

The little prince is represented as having been on Earth for one year, and the narrator ends the story six years after he is rescued from the desert.

[edit]In The Little Prince, Saint-Exupéry talks about being stranded in the desert beside a crashed aircraft. This account clearly draws on his own experience in the Sahara, an ordeal he described in detail in his book Wind, Sand and Stars.

On December 30, 1935 at 14:45, after 18 hours and 36 minutes in the air, Saint-Exupéry, along with his navigator André Prévot, crashed in the Libyan Sahara desert. They were attempting to break the record for the Paris-to-Saigon flight and win a prize of 150,000 francs. Their plane was a Caudron C-600 Simoun n° 7042 (serial F-ANRY). The crash site is thought to have been located in the Wadi Natrun. Both survived the crash, only to face rapid dehydration. Their maps were primitive and ambiguous. Lost in the desert with a few grapes, a single orange, and some wine, the pair had only one day's worth of liquid. After the first day, they had nothing. They both began to see mirages, which were quickly followed by more vivid hallucinations. Between the second and the third day, they were so dehydrated that they stopped sweating altogether. Finally, on the fourth day, a Bedouin on a camel discovered them and administered a native rehydration treatment that saved Saint-Exupéry and Prévot's lives.

In the desert, Saint-Exupéry had met a fennec (desert sand fox), which most likely inspired him to create the fox character in the book. In a letter written to his sister Didi from Cape Juby in 1918, he tells her about raising a fennec that he adored.

Saint-Exupéry may have drawn inspiration for the little prince's appearance from himself as a youth. Friends and family would call him "le Roi-Soleil" ("Sun King"), due to his golden curly hair.

The little prince's reassurance to the Pilot that his dying body is only an empty shell resembles the last words of Antoine's younger brother François: "Don't worry. I'm all right. I can't help it. It's my body" (Airman's Odyssey).

The literary device of presenting philosophical and social commentaries in the form of the impressions gained by a fictional extra-terrestrial visitor to Earth had already been used by the philosopher and satirist Voltaire in his story "Micromégas" (1752) – a classic work of French literature with which Saint-Exupéry was likely to be familiar.

Mating In Captivity

 This book was mind opening to say the least. I have somewhat of a sentimental feeling towards it because of some occurrences which happened while I was reading it. Esther Perel tells you a lot of truths right into your face - and it's somewhat shocking when you read it at first, but with time you start to grasp it all in and you see how much that truth makes sense. The part in which she talks about love vs. desire was like a whack on my face, hah! I knew I had just read something that would make me thing – not more, but yes more deeply.

It also was an insightful read which answered questions I had had for years. Yes, my sexuality flourished each day as I read and understood more and more about so many questions that were often deeply rooted in my head but which I never took the trouble to ask just for the simple reason of knowing that I didn't have any answers to them. 

From sexual fantasies, sexuality, keeping desire alive, body language, passion, monogamy, taboos, erotic intimacy, equality...and on the list goes; the author brings the subject up. The fascinating thing about this book is that it isn't a "how-to" manual or another relationship "self-help" book - far from it! Esther Perel enters into your head and makes you realize the whole psychological side of love, sex and relationships. 

I read it and will re-read it - it's worth the time!!!

And to finish off, a quote from the author herself:

“Love enjoys knowing everything about you; desire needs mystery. Loves likes to shrink the distance that exists between me and you while desire is energized by it. If intimacy grows through repetition and familiarity, eroticism is numbed by repetition. It thrives on the mysterious, the novel, and the unexpected.... An expression of longing, desire requires ongoing elusiveness.... Too often, as couples settle into the comforts of love, they cease to fan the flame of desire. They forget that fire needs air.”

Book Review:

Are you happy enough with your relationship but find the sexual excitement has waned or is waning?

Is it possible to reconcile domestic comfort and security with erotic adventure?

Does the togetherness, equality, and openness in intimacy always make for good sex?

Can you have emotional security and trust, and physical passion long-term?

Can you have hot sex with someone you know well?

Ether Perel takes on these tough questions, grappling with the obstacles and anxieties that arise when our quest for secure love conflicts with our pursuit of passion. She invites us to explore the paradoxical union of domesticity and sexual desire, and explains what it takes to bring lust home. Whether or not you are single or in a relationship, the paradox of modern love is reviewed and set alight by her provocative ideas and suggestions.

Through case studies and lively discussion drawn from her twenty years’ experience as a psychotherapist, Esther Perel puts forward the premise that sexual excitement thrives a lot on what is politically incorrect i.e. power plays, unfair advantages, role reversals, imperious demands, ambiguity in gesture and words, seductive manipulations, and subtle cruelties.  In effect, Perel unwraps cultural attitudes towards erotic sex through the titles she chooses for the eleven chapters that make up the book:

1. From adventure to captivity: Why the quest for security saps erotic vitality
2. More intimacy, less sex: Love seeks closeness, but desire needs distance
3. The pitfalls of modern intimacy: Talk is not the only avenue to closeness
4. Democracy versus hot sex: Desire and egalitarianism don't play by the same rules
5. Can do! The Protestant work ethic takes on the degradation of desire
6. Sex is dirty: save it for someone you love: When puritanism and hedonism collide
7. Erotic blueprints: Tell me how you were loved, and I'll tell you how to make love
8. Parenthood: Why three threatens two
9. Of flesh and fantasy: In the sanctuary of the erotic mind, we find a direct route to pleasure
10. The shadow of the third: Rethinking fidelity
11. Putting the X back into sex: Bringing the erotic home

So, according to Perel, the first step to bringing excitement back into your sex life is to leave political correctness out of your bedroom.

"There is no such thing as safe sex," Perel writes. Sex requires mystery, excitement, uncertainty. Which means not knowing everything about your partner. If you find that threatening, she suggests, you would find it less threatening so if you stopped equating intimacy with sex.

This book is not a how to book of exercises to rekindle passion. Rather, it centers on fantasy, play and surrender to the unknown as the path to sexual excitement. It talks about developing an erotic intelligence that balances serious intimacy and sexual play, and that can actually deepen commitment at the same time.

The Last Lecture

On a rainy day I walked into a little magazine store. As an avid book reader the first thing that caught both my eye and attention was a bottom little shelf with covered with books. I crouched down and must have spent the next half an hour there skimming through that wonderful world of pages, ink and letters. At last I left with three new books in my bag and a large smile on my face. Honestly, I don't even know why I bought Pausch's book. I had never even heard about him and didn't have a clue of who he was. But as soon as I started reading his book I knew that he had something important to say and I would be doing myself a favor to learn with his words.

The fact that he was a fellow teacher must also have been something that made me "bond" with the book. This first book of his is nothing more than snippets of his "Last Lecture" which he delivered at Carnegie Hall. He was asked what wisdom he would try to impart to the world if he knew it was his last chance. And last chance it surely was, because a month before giving the lecture, Pausch had received a prognosis that the pancreatic cancer with which he had been diagnosed a year earlier was terminal.

Despite knowing he only had a few short months to live he continued upbeat, making the most out of life, enjoying its simple joys to the full and giving, giving, giving. Always making of life a giving experience.

A beautiful chapter of the book - I think one of my favorites - is where he speaks in the meaning of helping others achieve their dreams. Rather than achieving only our own personal dreams, what will give you even more pleasure and satisfaction is helping others achieve their own dreams. Potential is there in every being, but a true leader makes you realize how you can achieve your dreams with your potential. And that's what distinguishes a leader from everyone else.


Many things in my own personal life were put in focus and I took a chance to stop and choose what it is that I want to be the meaning in my life. 
What were my childhood dreams? Did I still want to achieve them? My answer was a loud and clear: YES! I still wanted to travel to India (one of my first childhood dreams - this dream developed after seeing a benefit dance concer for the blind which occured there), I still had the deep desire to write a book on my life (another MAJOR childhood dream), I still imagined myself speaking French fluently, and I still dreamt in building a charity work for children. I wrote all my childhood dreams on paper and then defined clear, concrete goals to start from that moment on. And so, after tapping into my childhood dreams I am now starting to set those dreams in motion!
How about you? Dig deep, re-discover your childood desires and make them come true!!!


Here is a little about Randy Pausch and his book "The Last Lecture":

Each year at a series known as The Last Lecture, a Carnegie Mellon University faculty member is asked to deliver what would hypothetically be a final speech to their students before dying. It is a wonderful tradition in which both speaker and listeners take a moment to reflect upon what matters most in this life. In September 2007, the speaker, 47-year-old computer science professor and father of three, Randy Pausch, didn't have to imagine that he was confronting his imminent demise because, in fact, he was. Pausch had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and, at the time of his Last Lecture, had only been given three to six months to live. Pausch's speech, entitled "Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," was every bit as upbeat and inspirational as the man himself. Rather than focusing on dying, it was a speech about living, about achieving one's dreams and enabling the dreams of others, about truly living each day as though it were your last.

As of this writing, Randy Pausch's Last Lecture has been downloaded by over 10 million viewers. If you haven't watched the Last Lecture, let me recommend it as an excellent investment of one hour of your day today. You'll find various methods of doing so here:www.cmu.edu/uls/journeys/randy-pausch

So far Randy Pausch has beaten the odds, and he continues to inspire his audience. The Last Lecture, published April 2008 by Hyperion, resulted from collaboration with Jeffrey Zaslow, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. With a desire to elaborate on his ideas in print form, but not wanting to take precious time away from his children, Pausch, a self-avowed efficiency nut, spent fifty-three daily bike rides on his cellphone headset conveying his thoughts to Zaslow who helped shape the stories into book form.

The Last Lecture is a slender book that can be read in just a few sittings. It is full of stories and aphorisms, many of which are familiar from its video progenitor. We revisit Randy Pausch's fulfillment of his childhood dreams and the principles he learned along the way. These gems include Pausch's view that "life's brick walls are there to show us how badly we really want something," the notion that "experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted," and a quotation from the Roman philosopher Seneca who said that "luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."

Pausch is a fantastic storyteller, and recalls and distills the essentials of his life's anecdotes more than most of us would be able. The Last Lecture addresses more of his struggles with cancer than it did in video form, but always from the angle of a challenge requiring a creative solution, which is how Randy Pausch seems to have approached his entire life.

This book will be read by millions, but was written solely for Randy Pausch's three young children, Dylan, Logan, and Chloe, for whom Pausch is recording all of the fatherly advice he won't be around to give later on. It is because Pausch's advice is so universal in its wisdom and his voice so clear in its delivery, that we eavesdroppers can also benefit.