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A long time ago, my father gave me a book. Since this was a unique event in our relationship, I obviously read it. The book was In search of Excellence. All is in the title…
The book has probably influenced a generation of American engineers and managers in the 80s. It deals with the quest for excellence in life as the ultimate goal. I particularly liked a story about the excellence achieved by the doorman of a known hotel that remembers the names and faces of all his customers. When the author visited this hotel 10 years later, the doorman still remembered his name…
For a long time I looked for a book having the right to sit near my In search of Excellence. And in order to give one to my father.
I think I have found it (thanks to my friend Arnaud).
The book is Getting things done, the art of stress-free productivity. Again, everything is in the title. This book offers a method and numerous tips to eliminate what clutters our minds, increases our stress, reduces our productivity and leads to failures. The book is clear, the method difficult, and the potential immense.
More than anything else, this book, though having a less noble title than the one of my father’s book, it has the same quality and pretentiousness: trying to improve our self makes us better in all that we do: With yourself, your family, your friends, At work, at home, on vacation, in what we know already and in what we will discover in the future.
President Nicolas Sarkozy wants every French child to be responsible for the memory of a Jewish child killed during the Holocaust. I am jewish and I don’t think this is the right way to do that.
I think the Holocaust was a unique and exceptional event that only a strong educational experience will humans understand a tiny part of its horror. No history course can achieve that goal, in my opinion.
I think the right solution was 1) build a real modern Holocaust museum in France, like YadVashem in Israel 2) Make all high school students go visit the museum once 3) Like in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, put a badge on each visitor’s jacket with the name of a Jew exterminated during the Holocaust. The visitor loses its name and takes the one of the dead during the two-three hours visit.
But I think the most disturbing thing is the feeling that Sarkozy seeks to bring religion into politics. One day we will here a replica of George Bush saying something like “God bless France”. That day, it will be time to go to politics and fill the gap.
My eldest daughter lost her first milk tooth. She’s almost 6 years old. Obviously, the mouse took the tooth…
Where does this story of the little mouse come from? And, what about the tradition of replacing the tooth with money?
Actually, the mouse is part of many countries folklore. The exchange tooth-Money ritual is probably Anglo-Saxon (The Fairy Tale of The Teeth of Lee Rogow, 1949). But the mouse origin is in France, in the 17th century under Louis XIV. Madame d’Aulnoy wrote the fairy-tale of the Good Little Mouse. This story is different from the story that we tell our children today. In that story the fairy turns into a mouse to help the gentle queen to defend herself against the evil king.
To punish the king, the little mouse hides under his pillow. At night, she devours the ears, nose and everything inside his mouth ! The story of the mouse as it is known now goes back to the early 20th century. In 1927, Esther Watkins Arnold published The Tooth Fairy, a character sketch in three acts for children. Then, in 1949, Lee Rogow published The Tooth Fairy, the first real story for children on the small mouse. This story was very popular in the 50’s. Since then, parents have adopted this little mouse that has become part of family life.
Jerome Kerviel is responsible for losing 5 billions euros (7 billions dollars) !
I do not understand the lynching being perpetrated against this man. I don’t have sympathy for the guy because I do not know him, but (once again) the medias fried him without a trial.
I hope that the presumption of innocence still exists in courts. But when it comes to society, “real life, real people” it is just the opposite. The blood of this investment bank professional is now served by the medias on breakfast, diner, through snacks at 10am, 4pm and midnight. Obviously, with his full name, place of residence, Curriculum Vitae, salary and photos. The people are thirsty; the SOCIETE GENERALE bank is clean as snow, everyone (almost) is happy.
I don’t know how this will end. But I’m rather sure he will go to prison whether he is guilty or not.
16H52. I have 8 minutes before going to the nursery and get my daughter. Is this possible to make a post before that ?
The post must be intuitive and not logical. It reminds me of a book I recently crossed. Blink, the power of thinking without thinking. It’s about intuition as a very quick way of thinking rather than a feeling or a sixth sense.
Recently, with the desire to live better, I see lots of beautiful things around me. I re-established contact with an old friend and we speak to one another as if our last meeting dates back to yesterday (hello Alain), I discovered an extraordinary art form of light painting (video below) that I will try this weekend with my kids at home, I visited a site devoted to the extraordinary colour of Blue Klein, and I advanced in the drafting of an important document for my research. Not to mention that a person I do not even know offered me a great book on collective intelligence (thanks Olivier), and a friend came to see me this week without warning (Hi Stephane), just to say hello, which I greatly appreciate in a world that is becoming too square for my taste.
Top. 12 minutes. Published. 50% too late. For the computer engineer in me, this is is reasonable
I believe that the decision to live better represents 50% of the way to go towards the goal. The remaining 49% are in the attitude (and 1% in details).
The dictionary defines the word attitude as “A position of the body or manner of carrying oneself ….”.
After a sincere decision to live better, we naturally perceive a lot of things our environment in that can make our lives better. We are in the process of adopting a new attitude. But it must be empowered, like a good habit we commit ourselves to, every day again.
Remember that a small emerged part of our attitude.
You can do everything, but not all at once. You can do everything, if it’s important enough for you to do. You can do everything, but you may not be the best in everything. You can do everything, but there will be limitations. You can do everything, but you’ll need help.
Last thing; add the value of letters of the word ATTITUDE (1 +20 +20 +9 +20 +21 +4 +5). Try it!
I am interested in Evan Williams’ approach to create new products differently (he is the founder of Blogger and Twitter).
Briefly: We are used to innovate this way: “What feature can we add to it a better product ?”. Why not try that way: “What features can we remove to make it new ?”
I like this approach because I believe in the genius of simplicity.
Evan gives an example of a company which succeeded rather well using this approach. Created in 1998 it was inspired by Yahoo portal, took away all functionalities related to the portal and kept the search box. The company name is google…
But the following is a little trickier : he suggests a meeting website, in which to answer a proposal for a meeting, the site shows you no more than a photograph of the person and two buttons: Yes & No.
