Reputation - An individual cornerstone for all in society

Why reputation feeds happiness and enables success

We all have being shocked of late by the extremist sound bytes coming from Donald Trump in the US Presidential Election campaign where apparently dirty politics, insanely imbalanced thinking and a neo conservative thrust for power has affected reputations both positively and negatively on all sides.

Donald Trump somehow managed to build a business empire in spite of some colossal errors in judgement and even more spectacular business failures that he has on his resume. He did so for many reasons including the fact that he managed his reputation astutely keeping an eye on how the world viewed him along with reconciling this intelligence to his goals and objectives. All was apparently well enough until his aspirations for higher office seemed to have sent him off the deep end in reputation management by thinking his extremist rhetoric would not have consequences. As the Presidential Office becomes apparently out of reach to Mr Trump, what are the lessons we all should learn from his performance in the management of our own reputations:

• Understand Your Interacting Environment - It’s not good enough to assume your ideas are going to be openly accepted with open arms. If you have a good point (in the eyes of your audience), make it! If you have a bad point, understand how it will affect your reputation because regardless of who you are, you will be judged!
• Embrace who you are - True power in society by definition always lies within the group. By understanding the dynamic of your group interactions, you can understand who you are to ‘your world’. Its their impression of you, not your impression of yourself that matters in reputation management. If you are it, own it and understand the shrewdest of networkers and reputation managers know they can only ascend in the social order so far thanks to inherent ability and/or their situational dynamics.
• Own your ego - Don’t let your ego own you! As you can’t force someone to like you, you should not try. Ego leads to arrogance and thus blinds one to the possibilities of influencing someone to freely chose to like you, trust you and/or even vote for you. An individual’s world should not to be blindsided in the present by lies, misinformation and incessant badgering in some cases. This will be found out and when uncovered, your reputation will be appropriately punished for your ego driven misdeeds.

 As the US presidential race heats up, the outrageous behaviour by Donald Trump should serve as a reminder to us all on the dangers of not embracing your own reputation as a critical aspect of who you are.

Now for my confession. For years, I ignored proper networking, reputation management and personal branding on the grounds that I was honest, trustworthy and technically competent. Apparently, the world saw me a little differently as I had forgone the opportunity to develop my brand and sell myself to the world for who I am, not what some guy with half an opinion and an agenda wants me to be! With my kernel error uncovered in recent years, I have worked hard at personal branding, updating my skills and networking as hard and as fast as I can. The experience has transformed me from a technically competent process manager to a technically competent Technologist who believes in people, process and technology.  Reputation management is now part of who I am thanks to my embracing of it, owning it and using it to be a better version of myself! In refactoring my life into a community based iteration, I face new challenges that starts with where I belong and continues to a happier tomorrow.

Sources/Credits:

Pics;

www.abtopimages.com

http://www.gratisography.com/

Credits;

US Supreme Court Decision - Why We Need to Protect our World

Fixing Environmental Disasters don’t Come Cheap…

Its an obvious statement, ‘look after our environment and our environment will look after us’. This piece of common sense is present in nearly all cultures over thousands of years yet the relative few still seem to be hell bent on breaking our environment in a state of madness that needs to be addressed.

I am of course referring to the intervention of the US Supreme court just last week that issued a decision on President Obama’s effort to empower the EPA in America and bring carbon emissions under control through enforcement. Politics is just plain crazy in America these days and I try to not listen to the barrage of extremely polarized rhetoric on all sides. It seems to stem from powerful forces in America with divergent options that not only are worlds apart, the extremes defy logic and common sense in most cases. Seriously, does anyone care about the “normal” American anymore? GIven the questionable decision of the US Supreme court last week, I guess the latest victim of runaway polarisation of US politics is the environment for our children’s children.

Needless to say, the battle of forces behind closed doors continues but to drive so forcefully against good practice is baffling to say the least. The children of the extreme right in America share the same land with the children of those who are on the left, the centre and of no political persuasion at all. By upping the game of sustainable practice, aren’t all the children of today not going to benefit? The plan is a long play after all so maybe revisiting it in this light will help… ??

In closing, I always admired the native American Indian culture for its respect of the land and the priority placed in its preservation for generations to follow. An old Native American saying comes to mind “Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” I hope the energy industry along with the US Supreme court takes note for despite the incredible power of certain people in certain positions, we all grow old and die. What we leave behind is our legacy, which is set in the land we claim to own, but to be frank have yet to prove we love! A great place to start is supporting the efforts to protect it by political ally and adversary alike. A successful outcome will benefit all our children!

Sources/Credits:

Pics;

https://stocksnap.io/photo/RFKY6O3X2G

https://stocksnap.io/photo/9OV890ALR3

Credits;

http://archive.adl.org/education/curriculum_connections/na_quotes.html

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/10/supreme-court-ruling-obama-power-plant-emissions-clean-energy-impact

Career V Lifestyle - Walking The Line

How much is enough when giving to your career?

A simple question was asked of me a while back “how much do I have to put into a startup for it to be a success?” Well my first thought was if you do everything right, you can still fail in a start up. The environment controls many critical elements of a successful outcome, which you can only influence at best.

Enthusiasm is a great asset, but if experience has taught me anything, it needs to be tempered to a wider frame of life.  If we don’t succeed in reframing to a wider view of life, we can get trapped in eternal failure by unrealistic ambition, over dedication to work and vulnerability to those who would abuse our commitment to their own ends. A great way to stay framed to a wider view of work is to think of where one is at and what they will get back in return for all their commitment. What will all those late nights of work bring? Money, status, influence, power and/or promotion??? Maybe, but can’t your boss “steal your credit?” Yes he can but the fact is that overfocus on our desire for money, status, influence and power has made us vulnerable to its dark side. We need to be smarter and think about what we WILL get from all those late nights that is ours and ours alone? If happiness is not on the list, then one is not at the races for a decent lifestyle! In such a case, lifestyle then becomes a career of servitude and unhappiness. It does not need to be that way if we assert our true nature in society! We need to find our own way and own our future!

As with startups, careers working for others require goals, a reward and a limit where we call it a day and continue our search for a better working arrangements elsewhere. Here are some points I have found to be helpful over the years when trying to balance career and lifestyle. Bear in mind I learnt more from my mistakes than from my successes.

• Core Values - Write them down, “I value... “ This may sound strange, but in order to think about our core values, we need to detail them and when they are offended, know when to call it a day. If our deep seated values are not defined, then others will invariably push against them allowing us to become derailed from our true selves.
• Passion - Always too easy to think… “ohh, I’d love to be an astronaut but the family need me to be an accountant, so I won’t think about it!” Well spaceman, if being an accountant doesn’t inspire your passion, find something that does and plan your route to it. If you really can’t join NASA, then find another passion to become your next career and plan your way there in detail. As the old saying goes “If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life!”
• Goals - Write down your goals in life, your “bucket list” if you will! If you want to get married and have children, then make sure your path in life leads down that road. However, if you also want to be a 90 hour a week Wall Street executive, then maybe you should reconsider your goals in life; for realism is the ointment on which we heal from bad decisions and see in a better day!
• Balance - Balancing work and personal life is never easy but if you need to take a break from your personal life to make a work dream come true (or vice versa), make sure it’s short term and is defined by a plan to achieve a detailed objective. It invariably requires sacrifice, so be sure the cost is worth it. For example, I have sacrificed much to train up as a Software Developer and at this early stage am starting to see a return for my sacrifice in increasing competency in programming along with an increasing thirst for more knowledge in the software area. Such change is a very tough yet rewarding process. That’s part of ‘my journey’. What’s yours?
• Flexibility - Like all things in life, our intended plans rarely go as planned so be prepared to be flexible based upon your deep seated core values. Maybe a career setback becomes an eye opener as you see a chance to find your way to a career you love, not tolerate “a job” for a paycheque! Being flexible in a grounded manner is a way of life, which demands sacrifice to say on the right path. However, if you travel the right path, opportunity will invariably come knocking and being flexible is key to grasping it in whatever form it takes. Many paths lead to the oasis of happiness!

The above are guiding principles, which I hold dear based on a good upbringing and sometimes harsh experience in life that has knocked me on my ass more times then I care to remember. What I’ve learnt is that truly successful people won’t worry about failure, falling down or what the peanut gallery of doubters think of them. They focus on their journey, how they will achieve and when knocked down by life’s tribulations, they focus on getting up and brushing off the dirt so they can get on with their journey to a bright, brand new day!

Sources/Credits;

Pics;

www.pain-freelifestyles.com

www.boldbeautifulblissfulu.com

https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1444069265785-78ef227de54f?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&s=3497761ffdc6be3a9ede9247c902c6be

Credits;

Feature photo by Angela Litvin on www.unsplash.com

Land of Illusion - Our World View

When looking at the world through abstract lenses, patterns of life emerge that raise questions about we make sense of it

We all at some point love and hate life, see it in different shades of both extremes and seem to never question what we have come to take for granted. From the air we breathe to the evenly applied angles of petals on a daisy, it is simply life, part of our world, which allows us to achieve what we have set out to achieve within its boundary paths.

With the impressive march of technology and time, my own journey has been revealing more and more patterns in life. I was once ignorant of these patterns but now ponder them with excitement and interest. To explain my developing interest in the patterns of life, I often wondered how some folks do better than others after a paradigm shift in “their world”. Who adapts, who fails, who succeeds, who changes the picture completely once again??? This is man made and sits against a world that is more and more connected to itself.

So, enter nature and one begins to wonder about the patterns of uniformity and synchronicity… why do they happen? Who makes it happen? Is it part of nature’s “DNA” for it to happen? Maybe our world is bigger and wider than we once thought? The patterns and mechanics of nature are often mimicked by man, thus we have microwaves, computers, antibiotics, central heating and so on.. A profitable relationship wouldn’t you agree? What if we push the boundaries of this relationship with the world around us, within us, above us and beyond us?? What could we discover and seek to understand, which could help our children’s children on their journey through life?

Here are some of the things I think are gateway areas to future progress, creating a progressive technological window to tomorrow’s world today:

• Quantum Computing - Eric Ladizinsky, CEO of D-Wave gave a great talk on the current progress of quantum computing at Trinity College Dublin late last year where he was able to confirm production of 1000 qubit quantum processors. An amazing breakthrough indeed. Map the progress of this technology over the next 10 years and one can expect to see parallelisation in computer processing power increase many fold within the start of a paradigm change in computer science. This positive disruption to the technologies that run our world today will open a gateway of possibilities for tomorrow’s world! Exciting times indeed!
• DNA, Big Data and Disease - As society becomes more comfortable with the concept of mass data flows, big data analysis and genetic research, the ability to produce more and more insights leading to cures from diseases ranging from haemochromatosis to cancer will escalate the pace of medical technology innovation. At the heart of this innovation, data science will lend a critical hand in the identification of patterns and probabilities that will aid the unlocking of answers to some of mankind’s deadliest diseases.
• Artificial Intelligence - What if every robot, mainframe and distributed cluster had its own AI controller. Imagine a core that you could converse with, understand emotions, right/wrong and then execute self augmenting programming to capture a better outcome for the process. This is a flash of what could be achieved with such technology. Responsible adoption of course is key and should lead all development projects. These outcomes can create the AI reality of the future which will positively impact society at that point.
• Energy - Fossil fuels will soon come to pass and the experimentation with “alternative energy” is something to be explored by disrupters. The fact is that the iron grip of the energy industry over fuels will soon “run out of gas” as the ability to generate energy from solar protons via panels will become so effective, a new age of energy will arise in the quest to have self generating cells that last a lifetime and harness the power of nature to tend to the needs of man.
• Propulsion - We need to travel to the stars. We won’t go far on a tank of gas, so with a developing understanding of the world around us, we can expect to see that new forms of energy, navigation and propulsion will be unlocked by our intrepid minds that don’t accept that status quo as fixed. The quest for knowledge and understanding is a powerful one in a universe that carries us forward with the arrow of time allowing us via entropy to never stand still.

It’s not enough to merely survive life, we must live it to understand our time here and how we fit into the world around us. If we open our hearts and minds to the possibilities that surround us, we commune with a universe that will help us find our way turning a land of illusion into a land of hope for a better day!

Sources Credits:

Pics:

https://stocksnap.io/

https://stocksnap.io/photo/9866CDBF0B

https://stocksnap.io/photo/P6HXICOTZ5

           

Sources:

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/quantum-computers-could-be-next-great-leap-for-mankind-1.2411733

http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.80.2245

http://ems.tcd.ie/