Friday Reflections

The welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all...

At Friday Reflections, we're thankful for all of our wonderful readers and the stories, comments and feedback you regularly share with us.  You make Friday Reflections what it is, and we appreciate it. Happy Thanksgiving to You and Your Family.

Point to Ponder: It's Not What You Gather, But What You Scatter That Tells What Kind Of Life You Have Lived.

Story Line: The welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all...

There was a farmer who grew excellent quality wheat and every season he won the award for the best grown in his county. One year a reporter from the local newspaper interviewed the farmer and learned that each Spring the man shared his seed with his neighbors so that they too could plant it in their fields...

 

“How can you afford to share your best wheat seed with your neighbors when they are entering their crops in the competition with yours?" the reporter asked....

 

“Why that's very simple,” the farmer explained... "The wind picks up pollen from the developing wheat and carries it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior wheat, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of all the wheat, including mine. If I am to grow good wheat, I must help my neighbors grow good wheat"...

The reporter realized how the farmer's explanation also applied to peoples' lives in the most fundamental way... Those who want to live meaningfully and well must help enrich the lives of others, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all...

 

The Original Sources for the quote in point to ponder and storyline unknown.

 

 

At Friday Reflections, we're thankful for all of our wonderful readers and the stories, comments and feedback you regularly share with us.  You make Friday Reflections what it is, and we appreciate it. Happy Thanksgiving to You and Your Family.

Point to Ponder: It's Not What You Gather, But What You Scatter That Tells What Kind Of Life You Have Lived.

Story Line: The welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all...

There was a farmer who grew excellent quality wheat and every season he won the award for the best grown in his county. One year a reporter from the local newspaper interviewed the farmer and learned that each Spring the man shared his seed with his neighbors so that they too could plant it in their fields...

 

“How can you afford to share your best wheat seed with your neighbors when they are entering their crops in the competition with yours?" the reporter asked....

 

“Why that's very simple,” the farmer explained... "The wind picks up pollen from the developing wheat and carries it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior wheat, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of all the wheat, including mine. If I am to grow good wheat, I must help my neighbors grow good wheat"...

The reporter realized how the farmer's explanation also applied to peoples' lives in the most fundamental way... Those who want to live meaningfully and well must help enrich the lives of others, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all...

 

The Original Sources for the quote in point to ponder and storyline unknown.

 

The Best Kind of Bosses.

 

Happy Boss’s Day.

POINT TO PONDER: “The best kind of people (Bosses, Mentors, and Friends) are those who come into your life, and make you see the sun where you once saw clouds. People who believe in you so much that you start to believe in you too. They are once in a lifetime type of people."

Story Line: A few years ago a former work colleague from China visited our place with her teenage son who had just completed the summer program at Stanford. As we were shooting the breeze in the backyard, Harry- the young man asked if I could share some lessons learnt from my time in Industry.

I have been incredibly fortunate to have met many kind, caring and helpful people in my career (Work Colleagues, Bosses and their Bosses, Supplier and Customer Representatives). Every encounter resulted in either a new friendship and/or some good learning experience.  I have shared many of these experiences in Friday Reflections over last 15 years. Today, on The Boss’s day, I would like to share the ones I told Harry (which were appropriate for his age and his immediate future) that I learnt from my Bosses and Mentors.

For every lesson below, I shared stories behind them with Harry. The Young Man seemed happy and, as the reward, recommended an Indian movie Dangal (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5074352/) that was popular in China.

Here are the key lessons from the stories I shared with Harry.

1. Ask one more question Try one more time. I was admitted for four years Bachelor in EE degree program at USC. A year and half later, I had graduated with Masters’ degree in EE and got a job in emerging industry in tough economic times. Ask One More Question
2. Being able to work with people was most important part of my success. Its’ people who make things happen not machines or algorithms.
3. Most important business relations are personal ones.
4. When you go to do one thing, come back with three. Complete the task you went for, develop new friendships and observe and learn from surroundings.
5. We get paid for solving real problems of our stakeholders (customers, investors and employees), not just reporting them or delivering  tools.
6. Learn from the mistakes/experiences of others. You will have plenty of time to make your own. Find a Mentor.
7. A desk is a dangerous place to view the world.
8. The best part of learning is doing.
9. Never have an attitude: "It’s not my job, they don’t pay me for it." Capitalize on every opportunity to earn good will, learn new things and develop new contacts.
10. Treat your job as your own business. Someone has put trust in you for the job. Be frugal, efficient in resource utilization, treat every individual with respect, be solution driven and don’t let go an opportunity (evaluate and if you cannot, refer someone else who can- will demonstrate your commitment to help and establish goodwill).

Reflection: On this auspicious day, I like to share the story about another great boss: Joe Zelayeta, a great human being I was fortunate to have as my Boss in the first company. 

His management philosophy was learned from sports, which he dearly loved and played through college. He not only taught me valuable lessons about work but also more valuable things about life. He came to Immigration with me for my Green Card call and when the Immigration officer asked me to leave the country (due to company’s HR error) he contacted the state department through our corporate office to find solution. He also took care of my entire trip logistics and expenses to bring me back. Later that year when I went to Philippines to get married, he and his boss (John East) made sure that my air ticket was covered, salary was on, and when I checked out of the hotel, the bill was covered. 

Years later, when I had called him and recounted my memories, and thanked him, this is what he said: "Good employees are hard to find. So I did everything possible to….. 

He is long retired but if he ever called me and asked me to work for him again you can guess what my answer is going to be: please read the full story in the link below....

https://fridayreflections.typepad.com/weblog/2017/10/good-employees.html

Bill and Melinda Gates - Let your life be your message

Point to Ponder: “You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.”

Story Line: What prompted this late reflection are two things. 1.A Facebook post by an old colleague about one article* that covers Bill Gate's contributions to humanity and criticizing the people who are spreading heinous rumors about him. 2. Some mails/messages and phone calls by people inquiring why they did not see Friday Reflection this week. Since our visit to Bill and Melinda Gates Discovery Center in Seattle (must visit) last year, I have been wanting to write about it and this opportunity came up. Eventhough images taken by camera are not of the highest quality, the readers will be able to see the immense contributions of these kind souls to humanity.

Reflection: Images from visit to Bill and Melinda Gates Discovery Center on July 23, 2019.

Talking about the responsibilty and opportunity they have and visit to Africa in Fall of 1993.

Formation of Gates Foundationin 1994: The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others

A Family Affair and Commitment

Saved hundreds of thousands of lives with many healthcare intiatives

Dropped infant mortality rates throughout entire developing world by funding vaccine programs and vaccinating 40,000,000 children for polio.*

Spent 30 years of his life and $50 billion of his own money to support humanitarian causes.*

 

Funded free educational and innovation programs*

 

 

After all these, pledged to donate 90% of remaining wealth to charity. *

Arguably doing more to better life on earth for humanity than any other human being to ever lived*

Let your life be your message - Mahatma Gandhi

 

*article refrenced is by Scott Brynan of Scientific Meme Correction Team on FB. Title: Imagine being Bill Gates right now. It highlights immense contributions of Bill Gates to humanity which are in *captions over some of the abve exhibits and then tells the people who are spreading false rumors about Bill: " You then hop on the internet only to find a million scientifc illerate ....imbeciles that are using very computer Bill Gates pretty much invented in the first place to call you a child murdering arch villian antichrist because they watched a youtube video made by some other yoke!with the comprehension of a ....potato.  

"Dumb Fred" Episode 1: Original Fred Story as the starter.*

Point to Ponder: Never ridicule anyone because they are different and/or do not fit “The System”. There are many pathways to real success in life.

During past fifteen years of Reflections, occasionally some readers have asked: Don’t you have any negative experiences from personal life and learnings from which you can share? Seems almost all of the stories so far have positive spin on them.

Ok, as we are approaching 15^th anniversary on internet (August 5, 2005), for the two reflections starting next week, I will share a few such experiences that have been in backlog for several years. Though negative looking at times, fortunately the end results have turned out well. But before those stories, for this week, let me share one starter for the warmup.

Story Line: “Dumb Fred”

In 1988, my wife and I attended a seminar in San Jose. The speaker was entertaining and told us many stories to deliver key messages, one of those I have never forgotten.

In one school there was a kid named Fred who was not well versed with “current trends in social affairs” and not good in the regular school curriculum as well. He would say things that are not standard discussion subjects, bring stories from reading various magazines that others had not heard of and they would ridicule him for “making up stories”, and ask questions in classes that teachers didn’t expect and got annoyed. He had become laughing stock of the teachers and students. He was very poor in most subjects and getting passing marks seemed to be his biggest accomplishment. Bottom Line: Fred was not well versed in normal baseline expectations. They called him “Dumb Fred”.

One time in an open competition conducted by the state (not school curriculum), Fred came first in the entire state bringing glory to the school. However the principal and the teacher, who were expecting one of their favorite star student to come first couldn’t believe that, and instead of congratulating taunted, “Fred, Are you sure you didn’t cheat? Hard to believe.”

Many years later, there was a high school reunion. The people wearing fancy suites, dresses and holding wine glasses were chatting with one another about what they had achieved in terms of career, financial status, fancy cars, where they lived etc thus catching up on the lost time.

Suddenly a big very fancy limousine pulled up which drew everyone’s attention. The chauffeur got out and opened the door. A man in very modest clothes came out. First they couldn’t recognize the guy but after a few minutes one of them exclaimed “Hey, That’s Dumb Fred.”

They were wondering how Fred could have been in a chauffeur driven limousine, so a few of them started very diplomatic gentle probing.To their surprise they found out that Fred not only owned the fancy hotel that they were in but he also owned many businesses around the country. He also had charitable organizations to help people in different walks of life.

From their score cards, it was hard to believe that Fred had attained that kind of status and results. Now that they perceived Fred’s status much higher than theirs, one of them mustered up enough courage to ask (of course very gently and politely): “Fred how did you do all these?”

“Well”, Fred started “I couldn’t make it to college because as you all know, I had bad grades and couldn’t write a good essay either. So I took a job selling food in the market. I liked talking to customers and treated them well. One day one customer asked me to join his new restaurant business." The way the rest of the story went was that Fred treated every level of employee, suppliers and customers very well and the business grew lips and bounds. It diversified into many other areas.

But what Fred said at the end was most revealing. When asked about the return on investments, Fred said,“The Businesses brought me good return of 20%/Year and thus the money tripled every three years, and with God’s grace: Here I am.”

When the classmates heard that final sentence they all looked at each other: “He is still the same ‘Dumb Fred’. How did he make it?”

Reflections: More investigation into Fred's life revealed that: He was still very poor at math and he didn’t have a clue about the compounding interest formula. But he seemed to understand the power of compounding his business by focusing on high quality products and helping people grow. Fred had a common sense to understand the real needs of society and used his gut instincts to make decisions rather than going through elaborate financial analysis. He showed keen interest in people from other cultures and beliefs, learned from diversity, and treated everyone with respect regardless of their social status. He still lived in his old neighborhood and had not learnt driving a car because he had none when he was poor and no time when his businesses took off. People who interacted with Fred loved and respected him and they went extra miles to compensate in the areas Fred was not well versed.

Most of us have had our own “Dumb Fred” moments. When they are used as learning and growing experiences, they result in positive outcomes.

Be Simple, Be humble, Be curious. No Malice, No Bitterness. Utilize every encounter in life as the learning and growing experience.

*with minor modifications/touch ups.

If You Can Think Of It If You Can Dream Of It You Can Achieve It

A Family Project: From Swimming Pool to Koi Pond. And a wonderful ten years journey since. 

June 24, 2010 - 2020.

Happy Father's Day Wishes and Love to You from Your Friday Reflections Family.

Point to Ponder: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Story Line: The video above covers the journey of a family project we started in the spring of 2010. The first part was to remove the high maintenance, low use swimming pool that was occupying majority of our backyard. The second part was to create a Koi Pond with the help of an expert. And the third part was where we enriched the surroundings with varieties of fish, trees, flower plants and other items. What you see in the video is the evolution of surroundings through the years; majestic colors of the landscape through four seasons, reflections of sunlight during different parts of the day, many varieties of plants, flowers, fruit trees and diversity of wildlife (Birds, Bees, Butterflies, Animals and of course Lizards and Garden Snakes. Not to forget manyfriends from various countries have blessed this pond with their presence. People may find hard to believe that this 'not so secret garden' is very low maintenance compared to what it was before the change.

Reflection: Next Wednesday, June 24th is the tenth anniversary of this creation. It has been a wonderful journey full of fun and a lot of learnings about gardening and wildlife. Every member of family was involved; our son and his mother very intensely, me providing the management guidance (lol) and vision for the size of the pond, our son in law and daughter providing vegetable plants and share their deep experience. Some friends also provided flowers and vegetable plants. Many new lessons learnt; here are the top three.

1. Hire the best man for the job, the second best is too expensive. The person who built our pond was professional, knowledgable, responsive, with high degree of integrity and good people working for him. Till today we haven't had any major issues with the pond. 
2. Let things evolve and don't give up too soon. After getting only 5,7 and 6 cherries from 4th to 6th years, I was thinking of removing the tree. My wife suggested to give some more time. I guess the tree heard us and since then we have had years with continuously increasing crops; this year yielded  2000 cherries. Similarly after the drought years, three old evergreen trees looked pale and terrible. Called tree doctor who recommended doing expensive lab analysis and also removal of two out of three. Our gardner suggested to water them a lot and give some tender loving care. Since then those three are blooming with beautiful white flowers every February and early moring sunshine turns them into majestic gold colors. (in video)
3. Maintaining a balanced eco-system is very important. In nature there is a good reason for the way things are. Removing garden snakes created an imbalace that opened up opportunities for frogs and rats to invade the garden. Only when the park ranger saw us dropping a snake in the woods, he educated us about the benefits of garden snakes and their harmlessness. Since then the rats and frogs have moved away.  Garden Snake

Enjoy the video. Happy Weekend. 

Be the energy you want to attract

Points to Ponder: When our minds prioritize others’ peace and happiness, the one who benefits is not just others, but ourselves too.

Story Line: This short story is an excellent example on mindfulness. - Sent by Sujat Shah from India.

Zhao Zi Hao's made it big in business so he spent money buying a piece of land in the suburbs and built a three-storey villa.

He had an impressive swimming pool in the garden with a hundred-year-old Lychee Tree in the backyard to boot. In fact, he bought the property precisely because of this tree. His wife loved eating lychees.

During renovations, his friends urged him to get guidance from a fengshui master, just to tread on the side of caution.

Zhao Zi Hao's never quite believed in Fengshui yet surprising he took the advice to heart and went out of his way to engage a feng shui master from Hong Kong. The Grand Master was non other than Master Cao who's been in the profession for thirty over years, renowned in the Fengshui circle. They had a meal in the city then Zhao Zi Hao drove the Master to the suburbs.

Along the way, when cars behind them tried to overtake, Zhao Zi Hao would simply give way.

The Master laughingly remarked: "Big Boss Zhao, your driving is really safe." He spoke really fluent mandarin for a Hongkie.

Zhao Zhi Hao laughed at the remark: “Usually people who need to overtake have some urgent matter to attend to, so we shouldn't hold them up.

Arriving at a small town the streets grew narrow and so Zhao Zi Hao slowed down.

A giggling child suddenly darted out from an alley and as the child ran across the street, Zao still didn't speed up. Instead, he kept his gaze on the alley, as if waiting for something. Out of the blue, another child darted out, chasing after the child ahead.

Master Zao was surprised and asked: “How did you know there'd be another child following suit?”

Zhao Zi Hao shrugged: “Well, kids are always chasing after each other so it's impossible for a child to be in such glee without a playmate.”

Master Cao gave him a big thumbs up and laughed out loud: “That's really considerate of you!”

Arriving at the Villa, they got down from the car. Suddenly about seven to eight birds flocked from the backyard. Seeing so, Zhao said to Master Cao: “ If you don't mind please wait here for a little while.”

“What's the matter?" Master Cao was taken aback.

"Oh, there's probably some kids stealing lychees in the backyard. If we walk in now we might give them a fright, let's not risk anyone falling off the old Lychee Tree." Zhao replied humorously.

Master Cao stayed silent for a while before stating matter-of-factly: “This home doesn't need a fengshui evaluation anymore.”

Now it's Zhao's turn to be shocked: “Why's that?”

“Any place graced with your presence naturally becomes the property with the most auspicious fengshui.”

When our minds prioritize others’ peace and happiness, the one who benefits is not just others, but ourselves too.

When a person is considerate of others at all times, then this person has unconsciously accomplished Buddhood.

The Buddha is in fact a person who through benefiting others becomes enlightened.

Have a mindful week ahead.

Reflection: Many people view Feng Shui as about things and good fortune but in reality it is about us and the energy we want to transmit. For Zhao Zi; his believes, thoughts and actions were in harmony and radiated positive energy in the universe. In life one gets what one puts out. 

As Master Cao rightfully said " When our minds prioritize others’ peace and happiness, the one who benefits is not just others, but ourselves too."

Always keep in mind that the strongest factor of your Feng Shui is You. - Stefan Emunds

In current times, we found appropriate to repeat this story from November 8, 2018 reflection. 

You Can Win It in the Late Innings If You Don’t Quit - Robert Forster

 

Points to Ponder: I don’t care what kind of story you tell yourself, if you know what is truth but do not let that motivate you, you get what you deserve. - Robert Forster

Story Line: Every Life Tells a Story and Every Story has some lessons.

Robert Forster made his Hollywood debut in 1967 movie Reflections in a Golden Eye with two of the greatest; Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor. His performance received praise and what followed was The Stalking Moon with Gregory Peck, and then in 1969, another legendary film Medium Cool. First Five years in Hollywood were thunderous success. But soon after his career hit strong head winds and the age of 30 he was struggling to find movie roles.

"If you deliver excellence right now, that gives you the best shot at the best future you've got coming."- Robert Forster

The next 27 years were an intense struggle. He had to support his four children. In addition to occasional movie roles, he took jobs as a dishwasher, a waiter and railroad worker. In an interview for AARP magazine last October he said: Any job can be raised to the level of an art form, I don’t care what it is. I used to hate washing dishes. I got so good at it now I tell hostesses, ‘Listen, I’ll wash stemware for you, I never break them.’ I used to hate changing babies, and then I had four. I taught them self-respect and satisfaction. If you’re looking for the good life, these are huge components. And you can get them every day by offering your best effort to whatever it is you’re doing. It’s simple."

Who knows at which precise moment your fortune can change?  For those 27 years, every morning Robert used to go to a coffee shop right across from where he lived. One day Quentin Tarantino, Director and Screenplay writer of highly acclaimed film Pulp Fiction walked into the restaurant. Quentin was a fan of Robert since he was a kid. They chatted for a while and the next time Quentin walked in, he offered him a role in his upcoming movie Jackie Brown. Robert was thrilled and for the role of Max Cherry, he received Oscar nomination. That reignited his career. Since then Robert has been in 70 movies and 37 TV shows; and 46 major roles since turning 70. “You put in enough years and every once in a while something terrific comes along,” said Foster in AARP interview “You’ve got to keep sluggin’ until that happens.”

 Everything teaches you something. The job of real life is the job of caring for others. Everything you do in life is superfluous compared to that" - Robert Forster

About 25 years ago Robert started a program called 'Interacting' to share the lessons he had learnt from hard times. Initially it was for actors but through the years the scope expanded to people from all walks of life. Until his last days, he continued to encourage, motivate and help people for free by telling the stories from his life. As he used to say” The Truth is Free. It is BS that costs a lot of money.”

Robert gave his best for any role he played. However, one line from him will stay with me forever: First time I ever played a bad guy. I didn’t want to do it. I got stuck in bad guys for 13 years after that.

Forster once said that when his career was at its lowest ebb, he had what he called an "epiphany." "It was the simple one," he said, "when you realize, 'You know what? You're not dead yet, Bob. You can win it in the late innings. You've still got the late innings, but you can't quit. Never quit.'"

Reflection: Robert left this earth last Friday (October 11), the same day his latest ‘El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie’ was released. Robert was a genuinely kind, humble, caring soul. Through his many roles in movies and in life, he helped, mentored and inspired many people. He will always live in the hearts he left behind.

“To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived-This is to have succeeded.”

 

Special Thanks to Brian Landberg for sending Best Story Ever video.

In a gentle way, you can shake the world.

Points to Ponder: Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed. - Mahatma Gandhi

Story Line: Timeless teachings from Gandhi on his 150th Birth Anniversary (October 2)

I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the fault of others.

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

Nobody can hurt me without my permission.

You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.

If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.

My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non Violence is the means of realising Him.

There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”

Reflection: Hate the sin, love (forgive) the sinner.

During Noakhali religious riots in 1946, Gandhi started fasting until death unless the people stopped killing one another. The People from different rioting parties approached Gandhi to promise they would stop and asked him to eat. The real event from that time is shown very well in the movie Gandhi by Sir Richard Attenborough.

Gandhi suggests A Way Out of Hell for the man who had killed a young boy from the opposing side.

“Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.” ― Albert Einstein.

 

 

Happy Birthday to “Oracle of Omaha”- Warren Buffett at 89

Points to Ponder: “When you get to my age you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.”

“Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.”

Story Line: Warren Buffett, an extra ordinary human being who has given away most of his $88 billion in wealth to Bill Gates Foundation, turns 89 today. With his profound wisdom, practical experience and the great sense of humor, he has continued to inspire us. Below, Warren's views about political and socio-economic system that he shared in Q&A with University of Maryland MBA students.

How has your understanding of markets contributed towards your political views?

WB: I wouldn’t say knowledge of markets has. My political views were formed by this process.  Just imagine that it is 24 hours before you are born. A genie comes and says to you in the womb, “You look like an extraordinarily responsible, intelligent, potential human being. Going to emerge in 24 hours and it is an enormous responsibility I am going to assign to you – determination of the political, economic and social system into which you are going to emerge. You set the rules, any political system, democracy, parliamentary, anything you wish, can set the economic structure, communistic, capitalistic, set anything in motion and I guarantee you that when you emerge this world will exist for you, your children and grandchildren.

What’s the catch? One catch – just before you emerge you have to go through a huge bucket with 7 billion slips, one for each human. Dip your hand in and that is what you get – you could be born intelligent or not intelligent, born healthy or disabled, born black or white, born in the US or in Bangladesh, etc. You have no idea which slip you will get. Not knowing which slip you are going to get, how would you design the world? Do you want men to push around females? It’s a 50/50 chance you get female.

If you think about the political world, you want a system that gets what people want. You want more and more output because you’ll have more wealth to share around. The US is a great system, turns out $50,000 GDP per capita, 6 times the amount when I was born in just one lifetime. But not knowing what slip you get, you want a system that once it produces output, you don’t want anyone to be left behind. You want to incentivize the top performers, don’t want equality in results, but do want something that those who get the bad tickets still have a decent life. You also don’t want fear in people’s minds – fear of lack of money in old age, fear of cost of health care.  I call this the “Ovarian Lottery”. My sisters didn’t get the same ticket. Expectations for them were that they would marry well, or if they work, would work as a nurse, teacher, etc. If you are designing the world knowing 50/50 male or female, you don’t want this type of world for women – you could get female. Design your world this way; this should be your philosophy.

I look at Forbes 400, look at their figures and see how it’s gone up in the last 30 years. Americans at the bottom are also improving, and that is great, but we don’t want that degree of inequality. Only governments can correct that. Right way to look at it is the standpoint of how you would view the world if you didn’t know who you would be. If you’re not willing to gamble with your slip out of 100 random slips, you are lucky! The top 1% of 7 billion people. Everyone is wired differently. You can’t say you do everything yourself. We all have teachers, and people before us who led us to where we are. We can’t let people fall too far behind. You all definitely got good slips.

You are one of the few male CEO’s who champions women in the workplace. Can you talk about your reasoning and how we can contribute our intelligence to the workplace?

WB:  We wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776 – “All men are created equal” etc. In 1789 we wrote a Constitution – on second thoughts… blacks are only 3/5 of a person. They slipped up. They wrote in such a way that they didn’t have to use gender pronouns. They gave themselves away in presidency, they said “He”. Pretty soon all men are created equal became all males are created equal……….…………..

Everyone had expectations of me as a child, but my sisters who were just as smart, were delegated to something different. Here is this country, think about how far we came from using half our talent. Now we are beginning to unleash the potential of the other half.

Notes of the all Q&A are in the following link:

https://blogs.rhsmith.umd.edu/davidkass/uncategorized/warren-buffetts-meeting-with-university-of-maryland-mbams-students-november-15-2013/

Reflection:  A man’s true wealth hereafter is the good he has done for his fellowmen.  Mahatma Gandhi

For those yearning for more Golden Nuggets of Wisdom from Warren ……see following articles

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/30/warren-buffett-why-you-should-focus-on-your-communication-skills.html

https://fridayreflections.typepad.com/weblog/2014/02/warren-buffetts-magnificent-seven-.html

Leadership and Mental Toughness

Point to Ponder: Mental toughness is also the perfectly disciplined will and the will, gentlemen, is the character in action. 

Story Line: from the speech of Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi. 

But the most important element in the character make-up of a man who is successful is that of mental toughness, and I might say the most difficult to explain because mental toughness is so many things. For example, it is humility. Simplicity is a form of humility and simplicity is the sign of true greatness. Meekness is a sign of humility, and meekness is a sign of true strength. Mental toughness is spartanism with its qualities of sacrifice and self-denial, also the qualities of dedication and fearlessness and love. Not the love you have for your wife or your wife may have for you. The love I am speaking of is loyalty, which is the greatest of loves. Teamwork, which is a form of love and the love one man, has for another is respecting the dignity of another man. The love I speak of is not detraction. You show me a man who speaks ill of another and I’ll show you a man who is only temporarily successful. Or one who is not charitable. Or one who is not loyal. I’m not advocating that love is the answer to everything, but when I speak about the love which forces everyone to love everyone else. For example, you’ve got to love the white man because he is white or the black man because he is black or the poor man because he is poor, or your enemy because he is your enemy, but rather a love of one human for another human – who just happens to be white or black, rich or poor, enemy or friend, because heart power is your strength, heart-power is the strength of your company, heart-power is the strength of America, and hate-power is the weakness of the world. Mental toughness is also the perfectly disciplined will and the will, gentlemen, is the character in action. The great hope of society has to be character in action and we are never going to create a good society much less a great one until we once more recognize and respect individual excellence. Because if we would create something we must be something, because character is the direct result of doing. Character is the direct result of mental attitude and you cannot copy someone else’s particular character qualifications but must develop your own according to your own particular personality.

Let me say this in closing. When all is said and done – to be successful a man must exert an effective influence upon his brothers and upon his associates and the degree in which he accomplishes this depends upon the personality of the man. The incandescence of which he is capable, The flame of the fire that burns inside him, The magnetism which draws the hearts of other men to him. No man, no matter how great he may be, can long continue to be successful unless he wins the battles because the battle decides all. How you do this, I think it is essential to understand that conquests are won primarily in the hearts of men and once you have won their hearts, they’ll follow you anywhere. Man will respond to this type of leadership in a most remarkable way. Success is based on a spiritual quality; a power to inspire others, sometimes for good, sometimes for evil, sometimes for one’s personal ends, sometimes it can be partially or wholly evil. When it is evil, fortunately, while it may temporarily succeed, it always keeps within itself the seeds of it’s own destruction. The difference between a successful man and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will because the character rather then education is man’s greatest need and man’s greatest safeguard because the character is higher than the intellect. The difference between men is in energy, in the strong will, in a singleness of purpose, and an invincible determination. But the great difference is in sacrifice, in self-denial, in love and loyalty, in fearlessness and in humility, in the pursuit of excellence and in the perfectly disciplined will, because this is not only the difference between men, this is the difference between great and little men.

The entire speech can be found at

http://www.daytonagonisclub.com/vince-lombardi-agonis-speech.html

Reflection: January 1976 was my first exposure to Superbowl championship game. When Pittsburg Steelers were being given the trophy, the announcement said Vince Lombardi trophy. My curiosity led me to the local library to find out who was Vince Lombardi. I discovered that he was not just a coach but a great human being with high ethics and superb moral character. I have admired his leadership and values and learnt a lot from his life. Below is some information about Vince Lombardi. (Source Wikipedia)

Vincent Lombardi is best known as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers during the 1960s, where he led the team to three straight and five total NFL Championships in seven years, in addition to winning the first two Super Bowls at the conclusion of the 1966 and 1967 NFL seasons.

He never had a losing season as a head coach in the NFL, compiling a regular season winning percentage of 72.8% (96–34–6), and 90% (9–1) in the postseason for an overall record of 105 wins, 35 losses, and 6 ties in the NFL. 

Although Lombardi was noted for his gruff demeanor and "iron discipline", he was far ahead of his time in creating a supportive environment for gay players, and he emphatically challenged existing Jim Crow Laws, and provided leadership to break the color barrier in football. He once said that he "... viewed his players as neither black nor white, but Packer green". 

Lombardi is considered by many to be the greatest coach in football history, and he is recognized as one of the greatest coaches and leaders in the history of all American sports. The year after his sudden death from cancer in 1970, he was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the NFL Super Bowl trophy was named in his honor.