Thibaut Courouble

Choose Responsibly

2010-10-27T20:00:00-04:00

Certainly one of our greatest powers is our ability to determine ourselves and decide of our attitude at any given moment. Though this freedom finds its limits in the conditions in which we live in, we are always free to take a stand and even in the direst situations, to decide what to make of our existence.

How we use this freedom defines who we are and, as with every great power, there must also come great responsibility.

Freedom is only part of the story and half the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. Viktor E. Frankl

Freedom allows for both good and evil. While our society tries to enforce that nobody falls to the dark side, it remains our responsibility to choose between the many different shades of good.

Furthermore, this new age of science and technology has expanded our choice and revealed to us the full scope of our freedom. While our ancestors could rely on traditions, such as religions, to tell them what they ought to do, we now stand fully aware of the infinite different ways in which we could live our lives.

Why is it that human beings, surely the most intelligent life form on earth, do not strive to achieve their maximum potential? The reason is simple: we have been given the freedom of choice. Jim Rohn

In facing a choice, multiplying the options doesn’t always lead to a better outcome, for it then requires that we make up our mind and be strong enough to act. In particular, the former requires a certain level of knowledge that grows exponentially with the number of options.

In the case of life, some options are attractive at first sight but disappointing in reality, while others take great courage to choose but offer immense rewards in the end. Most important, some are unknown to us until we acquire the knowledge that will reveal them to us.

That’s why I find acquiring knowledge to be one of the most important pastimes, because it broadens my view and understanding of the world, thus increasing my opportunities and improving my judgment.

We all have a remarkable potential and we must decide what to make of it. While some might be satisfied with less than others, many strive for more. Whatever we decide, we should not forget that everything is possible, so long as we believe, and put in the mental effort to become what we ought to be.

It is our responsibility to choose what’s best for us, our loved ones, and the world.

The Power of Imagination

2010-09-19T20:00:00-04:00

Imagination is one of our most precious faculties. In addition to “providing meaning to experience, understanding to knowledge, and playing a key role in the learning process” (Wikipedia), imagination gives us the faculty to see the world and ourselves beyond the present moment. Combined with the freedom of choice it makes us the master of our fate.

Imagination has been the seedling of all human progress but it’s also the motive power of our individual lives. The more we use it, combined with a burning desire for its actualization and a definite purpose, the greater our achievements will be.

With experience and intelligence, imagination becomes creativity (the ability to create new valuable things), which can then be transformed into all kinds of riches. It’s not an easy step, but we’re all capable of achieving it — unless we surrender to the manual.

Our obsession with creating maps and manuals for how to live our lives goes against the human nature, for there is no limit to what we can achieve and become. Maps, in this sense, are counter-productive because they set boundaries where none existed before. They help avoid the mental effort of finding a path but offer no surprise as to what the destination will be.

In the face of an infinite sea of choices, it’s natural to put blinders on, to ask for a map, to beg for instructions, or failing that, to do exactly what you did last time, even if it didn’t work. Seth Godin

Life offers an infinite sea of choices. In this frightening journey, imagination is our own personal navigation tool. It’s always with us but we must deliberately and repeatedly choose to use it.

Today’s world of factories has created countless manuals and mapped a vast number of paths which are followed by many. Our education system reinforces this by making us believe that the only way for us to succeed is to follow those paths and rules. They offer a quick and easy fix to a broader problem that’s the meaning of one’s life, but don’t come free of charge.

While following a map can offer a temporary remedy to some of our fears, it can only take us where someone else wishes for us to go, usually for his or her personal benefit. Moreover, if we aren’t prepared to work without a map and be wrong, we can’t let free of our creativity and achieve our full potential.

In contrast, following our imagination won’t give us the comfort of knowing what to do and where to go at any given moment, but its rewards are invaluable compared to the wages that we can expect by working at the office. Beyond success, it’ll bring us happiness and fulfillment, for we will be in charge of our own future.

Man’s only limitation, within reason, lies in his development and use of his imagination. Napoleon Hill

Within the laws of physics, the power of our imagination is simply limitless.

Book Review: Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

2010-09-12T20:00:00-04:00

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? is an excellent book by Seth Godin that explains how and why you should become a linchpin — someone not easily replaced.

In the marketplace, the easier people are to replace the less they need to be paid and the easier they are to lay off. The industrial revolution has created a world of factories and factory workers which goes against the creative and independent nature of human beings.

On the other hand, artists are now rewarded far more than they used to be. The new age of technology makes it possible for everyone to be both remarkable and remarked.

Artists are people who give more than they receive, drive change, and make things happen. They prevent organizations from falling into pieces because they do their best — more than what they’re paid for. They’re the ones who keep the marketplace running.

There is an artist in every one of us but in this factory world we’re being taught to follow the crowd instead of striving for our own, unique path. For millenniums men have been in charge of their own lives. Nowadays we’re being brainwashed into thinking that the only way for us to succeed is to fit in the system and do what others think we should be doing.

I especially agree with Seth when he blames our education system for this brainwashing. Schools are on the front line of our education and yet they teach us to comply with a set of rules and live only within these limits. They stigmatize mistakes thus preventing the expression of creativity, an essential skill of artists.

The essential thing measured by school is whether or not you are good at school.

But creativity, imagination, and the freedom of choice are all part of the human condition. They’re always available for us to use and can’t be coerced into retreat.

Most of the resistance sits in our own mind. Fear is the greatest barrier against becoming an artist: fear of failure, fear of working without a map, fear of criticism… They can all be overcome by finding purpose in our lives.

The linchpin feels the fear, acknowledges it, then proceeds.

As Seth puts it, “every day is a new chance to choose.” Becoming a linchpin is certainly the best choice you could make.

Why is it that human beings, surely the most intelligent life form on earth, do not strive to achieve their maximum potential? The reason is simple: we have been given the freedom of choice. Jim Rohn

Business Execution

2010-07-30T20:00:00-04:00

The idea that business ideas are worthless unless executed and execution is worth millions has always been at the heart of my business philosophy, but it’s only recently that I gripped the full meaning of the verb to execute.

For years I’ve believed that to execute is like to build. I focused too much on the details and lost sight of the essential, that good execution is about having good judgment — making the right decisions.

To build something requires mainly technical skills. The better our skills are, the better our creations will be. However in the business world, if our creations aren’t something people are willing to pay for, they’re worthless.

While technical skills can be acquired rather easily and in a relatively short period of time, the skill of great judgment takes time and experience to acquire, which makes it much more valuable. It is, by and large, the difference between an employee and his manager.

Doing the right things is more important than doing things right.

This quote (attributed to various sources) says it all: it’s not enough to do it right, you have to do what’s right.

Book Review: Think and Grow Rich

2010-05-13T20:00:00-04:00

Think and Grow Rich is a book written by Napoleon Hill first published in 1937. The book offers a comprehensive “formula” for personal achievement which could mark a turning point in anyone’s life.

Hill spent more than two decades interviewing and synthesizing the experience and insights of over five hundred people who achieved great wealth during their lifetimes.

Energetic, the book is an easy read filled with practical advice. Although some passages may feel outdated from a scientific point of view (the world has since made tremendous progress in the field of cognitive science), the text is remarkably relevant for our time — a time of unprecedented opportunity.

Success comes to those who are success conscious.

While some worry about origin, education, or amount of capital, Hill’s central idea is that the source of wealth is non-material. Successful men and women were not born this way, they thought and grew rich.

Both poverty and riches are the offspring of thought.

He describes 13 principles that make for the perfect personal philosophy. In my opinion, mastering the first two, Desire and Faith, is both essential and enough, because they will make us do whatever it takes to achieve anything we want.

Success is neither magical or mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals. Jim Rohn

Think and Grow Rich is a list of fundamentals that will change the way you think and, as an extra, make you rich.

Desire

2010-03-18T20:00:00-04:00

I’ve been playing Tennis since I was six years old. My coach and parents often said to me: “the one who desires the victory the most will win”. This has been one of the most fundamental lessons I’ve ever been taught.

Desire is fundamental.

If we don’t desire to live, we die.
If we don’t desire to win, we lose.
If we don’t desire to succeed, we fail.
If we don’t desire anything, we get nothing.

We can only move forward if we know where we want to go, otherwise we surrender to luck and circumstances. Lack of desire is one of the major causes of failure, but it’s also one that’s most easily fixed.

I believe that having a burning, insatiable desire for something (or someone) is the most powerful force of all. It can drive anybody to the top of any ladder.

But we must be careful not to mistake wishes for desires. Wishes are empty. We all wish for happiness and yet many of us fail.

Wishes are little more than self-delusion. Jim Rohn

A devastating principle that young students often mistakenly learn from school is that success (our personal achievements) is a function of our intelligence (or how “gifted” we are).

The smartest students usually get the best marks — that’s what we see when we’re schoolboys or schoolgirls. If you’re not smart, you’re meant to stay behind, so you’d better put off your dreams. This can have dramatic consequences because when there is no dreaming, there is no desire.

The “usually” is crucial here because it highlights the fact that this isn’t a rule but merely an observation, and a bad one. The rule is this: the students most willing to learn and work hard always get the best marks. Intelligence might give you a head-start but it doesn’t work by itself. No matter how far behind you start, you can always catch up.

Our only limitations are those we set up in our own minds. Napoleon Hill

Success moves toward those who search for progress but the search isn’t as easy as Google. It’s more like a treasure hunt: hard, on a rocky road strewn with pitfalls and traps, often discouraging to the point where quitting feels like the only option. But even in these difficult moments, if the promise of the future is clear, the hunter won’t quit and the treasure will reveal itsef to him.

A common characteristic of all successful men and women is that they kept on going. How can we do that when everything that’s around us seems to work against us? By having a burning desire for being the one in our dreams, because that will make us do whatever it takes to make our dreams happen.

The moment we start believing in our dreams is the moment they come true.

School

2010-02-27T19:00:00-05:00

As time goes by I realize the importance of self-education and how valuable it is to have the passion to learn.

I didn’t achieve my full potential in school but feel like if I ever do it in life, it would be because of the way I “self-learned”.

I don’t have the credentials that major schools offer, but in those disciplines I’m most passionate about — the ones that matter, I have not only the skills but also the experience.

Students shouldn’t wait to be unemployed or “bad-employed” to start learning the practical skills and acquiring the experience that can get them the job they truly want. Real experience beats any credential.

While a diploma tells our employer what we supposedly can do, a business or professional experience tells him what we’ve done.

We all know that rehearsing something is far different from doing it for real. I believe the marketplace is where this rule is the most strictly applied. The closer we grow to the marketplace, the faster we can find our way in this tough environment.

School (or at least some form of education) is essential, but it’s not enough. It provides the foundation, but that’s only part of the edifice. The rest is ours to build the way we want, with our own hands, by our own personal ideology.

Jim Rohn said, “work harder on yourself that you do on anything else.” I believe this is especially true in school because that’s when we’re most willing to learn — when we have the passion, the dreams, and the energy. For most of us it only gets harder as we get older.

However, we shouldn’t focus only on the technical and practical side of things. The day I started learning about personal development, or how to achieve success, wealth, and happiness, was one of the turning points of my life. There are valuable lessons to learn and fundamentals to master.

If we are to climb the ladder of success, our country may help us take the first step by providing schools that can get us our first job, but we have to take all the other ones.

Book Review: The Richest Man in Babylon

2010-02-20T19:00:00-05:00

I’ve just finished reading The Richest Man in Babylon by George Samuel Clason. It’s a short book with life-changing capabilities.

Written in the 1920s, it’s packed with parables set in ancient Babylon (the wealthiest city of the ancient world) more than 6,000 years ago, yet its lessons and wisdom still apply today. The laws of money are universal and unchanging.

Through the inspiring stories of ancient craftsmen, merchants, and money lenders we learn how to repay debts and achieve financial success with nothing to start with (most of these men and women started as slaves). It explains the fundamentals of money: how to acquire it, keep it, and grow it.

The principles in this book are simple and one might even find them obvious, but to be reminded of them in the way George Clason has presented them is of great value.

It’s said the book is “beloved by million”; I certainly liked it and would recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read it yet.