What is your sacrifice?

How about losing some weight? yes, but those french fries and beer are tempting. You want to get fit and accomplish the year resolution to run 21k, but the bed at 5:00am is extremely cozy. The idea of finishing that book is still around in your head, but Netflix and Youtube keeps popping out on your laptop. You want to become a manager and lead a team, but playing that video game at night is more fun than studying.

All along our lives we meet crossroads as simple and yet as difficult as the ones I've mentioned above, but there is single truth I've learned along the way and I always remind myself when I cross someone (or myself) complaining: only yourself are responsible, no one else. In this post I want to use my experiences when I started running as an example, because throughout I kept making small but important sacrifices that were essential, and this ability can be extrapolated to your professional or personal goals.

The first thing you have to do is remove excuses from your life and face the fact that no one but you is going to set your mood to do something. If you have a project, an idea, or a life objective you want to execute, visualize it and be honest about it. Write it down in a very simple form, drop the rules for SMART objectives, just answer the question "what do you want to do?", and with complete honesty go for it.

As soon as you know what you want, make it visible so that every single day you can see it and be reminded of your goal. I like using both technology and old-school paper to write down tasks and reminders but because we are talking about life-fulfilling goals, I'm going to suggest to keep your long term goals together in a physical medium (e.g. a board hanging on your wall) and your short term tasks to accomplish the goals in your digital agenda.

In order to advance on your tasks, start by scheduling to-dos and reminders. Break it down in small tasks. For example, to start jogging at 5:00 am, after several (i.e. many) failures of waking up I realized the problem was I didn't go to bed early, so I started setting alarms at 9:00pm reminding me to "shut down the computer", "go to bed and read". Thats it, that is my first sacrifice, go to bed like a hen and stop doing plenty of things at night, keeping my ultimate goal in mind.

There are times where you will not be satisfied with the progress. Nevertheless, don't forget to celebrate small victories.  Feel good about the small progress, because it is you making the change, leading your way. Still with my running example, many times I woke up to zero energy in my body, but still managed to get out of bed and change into my sport clothes, stretch, relax, contemplate dawn, get breakfast ready.  Yes, I failed running, but I consider this a small victory since I'm bringing routine and positive thinking to my mind. The next morning I will do it.

Other examples of sacrifices regarding running are the recreational drinks and food. As soon as you start with endurance, beating your records and overcoming your daily pain in the legs, you realize how bad the beer affects you, how a tough night will chop to pieces your pace the next day, and how fast food will slow down your recovery time. As difficult and unlikely as saying "I'm not going to drink watching the match, or during the party this weekend", it is a decision to face and choose in order to become an achiever.

Finally, make sure you understand time is required for success, and you have every day as a new opportunity to make progress and evolve into your better self. Nevertheless, you have to be conscious about it. Learn what you need, overview yourself to know what to improve, and work on it everyday.

Now I want to ask you: What is your sacrifice? what are you willing to give up for your goals, dreams and objectives? Let me know in the comments section below, maybe we celebrate together while looking back with joy at our previous selves.

Be an Inspiring Boss- Part 1

Usually when people are picking courses for the semester in College they ask around and seek for the

easiest teacher, the one that will make the course simpler, and if the opposite happens, anxiety and panicking may occur. The same analogy can happen also for bosses, except that you don't get the chance to pick. Rumors, reputations and "I-heard-about"s circle the hallways and most of the times, you will be lucky to have the legendary one as your next boss. 

I have been lucky to have memorable bosses throughout my career, and yes, by memorable I mean tough, demanding for high performance and endurance. As most things in life, half of it is attitude, so by keeping a positive take on the situation I have managed to improve both personally and professionally, and for each one of them, I ended up with a friend and a mentor for life.

Things are not eternal so these relationships with these great bosses will end of course, sometimes by moving to another area or sometimes because either of you two will part ways from the company. In this post I want to share you the e-mail I wrote to a former boss a few hours after he called to inform me that day had been his last day at work.

I want to take these words to thank you and let you know how much you have offered and taught me. When I first came to work with you (still university-minded), I expected my time in your area would be quick, temporary, just to get in the company and then switch to where I really wanted to be. However, I ended surpassing my expectations thanks to your vision and creation of possibilities that I didn't know they existed. I discovered a new professional world, a way to enjoy my job, working flat-out on a consistent basis and having a permanent hunger for knowledge and learning.

Skills such as the job intensity, how to defend yourself, execute tasks on a daily basis, think ahead and improve ideas constantly, perform follow-up on a team, how-to and when-to sell an idea to your higher ranks, raise flags before things go down in spiral and persistency on requests, are clearly learned in your area and have a seal of identity. Either I didn't have them and learned working with you, or I had them hidden in me and thanks to your leadership were brought afloat to form me who I am as a professional.

Apart from professional growth, I also owe you personal things such as being consistent with yourself: who you are, what you think, say and do; enjoy and laugh of simple things (which I had lost during my years overseas) with a take-it-easy-the-world-won't-explode attitude and the open environment you created with the team, to mess around with each other, make buddies and camaraderie, present ideas without fear of being rejected, make and discuss existential questions, be curious and ask why of everything, specially on subjects that you hear or read lightly about until you keep asking and asking details to know deeply into the subject, making us realize we actually know nothing about it. 

Nevertheless from all this that I have written, what I appreciate the most is: "everything is possible". Thanks to you I learned that whatever is in your mind you can turn it into reality in spite of difficulties, deadlines, delays, slow process and people, lack of tools etc, in the end, we can do anything we set our mind into. In two years I changed my mindset from "don't give me these user logins because I want to do as little as possible" to "give me as much as you can to learn and improve myself and the process". 

Keep this note as a gratitude, because where I am right now is thanks to you, and no matter where I get to, I will always have with me a piece of your area identity. Hopefully, we'll be able to get a beer once in a while, as buddies and friends that we became.

After reading this letter a couple of years later, and now having a team under my responsibility, I have realized a couple of things:

1) How much can a person influence and exploit the potential of your employees, if done right.

2) A leader always has to be inspirational, so that others follow you and are open to your feedback and teachings.

3) Most of the times, a tough boss will shape you for the rest of your life, so it's up to you to positively take this opportunity and turn him into your mentor and friend. It is possible, hey, I did it.

4) Finally, ask yourself this: How are you inspiring your team? If you leave today, will they have something to write to you?

I named this post as "Part 1" because I will post a more letters for other bosses I've enojoyed to work with, as I keep growing in this journey called life and professional career.