Entries from April 2009 ↓

The next country I am reading on is the country of Fujimori.

Peru is an epic fantasyland. Imagine forgotten temples entangled in jungle vines, cobwebbed imperial tombs baking in the desert sun and ancient bejeweled treasures beyond reckoning. Wild rivers that rage around, pumas that prowl in the night and hallucinogenic shaman rituals that are centuries old. After all, this is the South American country that chewed up and spat out empire after empire – even Inca warriors and Spanish conquistadors didn’t stand a lasting chance. No one could completely conquer this jaw-dropping terrain, from the Cordillera Blanca with dozens of peaks exceeding 5000m, down to the vast coastal deserts and the hot, steamy rainforests of the Amazon basin.

Wanna take it easy? Follow the Gringo Trail that connects the country’s highlights, winding up to the mountaintop Inca citadel of Machu Picchu . Or step off the beaten path and groove to Afro-Peruvian beats during Carnaval, float in a slow boat down the Amazon and chase that perfect wave along a paradisiacal Pacific coastline.

Almost like a continent in miniature, Peru will astound you with its diversity, from its countless indigenous peoples, languages and traditions to its rainbow variety of wildlife. Whether it’s your first trip to South America or your fiftieth, Peru is the perfect launchpad. Travel however and wherever the spirit moves you – a luxury lodge in the Amazon, cheap ceviche (raw seafood marinated in lime juice) at a beachfront café or a panoramic train ride through the Andes – because it’s all surprisingly affordable.

How much would it be able to see in 3 days?

Barrio Chino

Barrio Chino is the China town in Lima, also called Barrio Chino de Lima.

Peru has the largest Chinese community in South America.

I am in great preparation of this South American trip I am undertaking. Visiting places is a way of improving our knowledge. Whilst yesterday I mentioned ‘seeing is believing’, I could add today, that ‘seeing is knowing’ too. Countries that I shall visit for the first time are: Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Mexico. I am amazed at the size of the country but more impressive is its latitude span. Having such geographical latitude the variety of the bio diversity is immense.

My visit to Chile is too brief to really know the country but at least I am hopeful to have a good glimpse. A country with a coastal line of over 4000 kilometres from the South Pole towards Peru in the latitude 20 bordered by the high altitude Andes which is only 175 kilometres from the Pacific Ocean coast line surely yields an exceptional diversity. It is as if in a same country you would have the climatic and condition of the whole world.

I am so thrilled to dig into my reading…. No wonder Chile is able to produce excellent wine.

Jn 20,19-31.
Ce même soir, le premier jour de la semaine, les disciples avaient
verrouillé les portes du lieu où ils étaient, car ils avaient peur des
Juifs. Jésus vint, et il était là au milieu d’eux. Il leur dit : « La paix
soit avec vous ! »
Après cette parole, il leur montra ses mains et son côté. Les disciples
furent remplis de joie en voyant le Seigneur.
Jésus leur dit de nouveau : « La paix soit avec vous ! De même que le Père
m’a envoyé, moi aussi, je vous envoie. »
Ayant ainsi parlé, il répandit sur eux son souffle et il leur dit : «
Recevez l’Esprit Saint.
Tout homme à qui vous remettrez ses péchés, ils lui seront remis ; tout
homme à qui vous maintiendrez ses péchés, ils lui seront maintenus. »
Or, l’un des Douze, Thomas (dont le nom signifie : Jumeau) n’était pas avec
eux quand Jésus était venu.
Les autres disciples lui disaient : « Nous avons vu le Seigneur ! » Mais il
leur déclara : « Si je ne vois pas dans ses mains la marque des clous, si
je ne mets pas mon doigt à l’endroit des clous, si je ne mets pas la main
dans son côté, non, je ne croirai pas ! »
Huit jours plus tard, les disciples se trouvaient de nouveau dans la
maison, et Thomas était avec eux. Jésus vient, alors que les portes étaient
verrouillées, et il était là au milieu d’eux. Il dit : « La paix soit avec
vous ! »
Puis il dit à Thomas : « Avance ton doigt ici, et vois mes mains ; avance
ta main, et mets-la dans mon côté : cesse d’être incrédule, sois croyant. »

Thomas lui dit alors : « Mon Seigneur et mon Dieu ! »
Jésus lui dit : « Parce que tu m’as vu, tu crois. Heureux ceux qui croient
sans avoir vu. »
Il y a encore beaucoup d’autres signes que Jésus a faits en présence des
disciples et qui ne sont pas mis par écrit dans ce livre.
Mais ceux-là y ont été mis afin que vous croyiez que Jésus est le Messie,
le Fils de Dieu, et afin que, par votre foi, vous ayez la vie en son nom.

==================================================================

Bien que l’Evangile du jour me porte à réfléchir sur histoire d’incrédule St. Thomas: la leçon de voir pour croire et la grâce bienheureuse de croire sans voir. Que ce don de la foi nous envahisse. Ma pensée reste en ce moment  sur un texte du Cardinal Newman que j’ai lu la veille. Une Église qui se construit pas dans un éclat ou un feu de paille mais dans la lente transformation de chaque être.  Ainsi chacun de nous est demandé de vivre sa transformation durable a petit feu.

Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890), prêtre, fondateur de communauté religieuse, théologien
PPS 1, 22 « Witnesses of the Resurrection »

Témoins de la résurrection

On aurait pu s’attendre à ce que notre Seigneur, une fois ressuscité,
se montre au plus grand nombre de gens possible, et surtout à ceux qui
l’avaient crucifié. Tout au contraire, nous voyons par l’histoire qu’il se
manifeste seulement à quelques témoins choisis, et spécialement à ses
disciples immédiats. C’est ce que saint Pierre reconnaît lui-même quand il
déclare : « Dieu l’a ressuscité le troisième jour. Il lui a donné de se
montrer, non pas à tout le peuple, mais seulement à quelques témoins que
Dieu avait choisis d’avance, à nous qui avons mangé et bu avec lui après sa
résurrection » (Ac 10,40-41).

A première vue, cela nous semble étrange. Nous sommes disposés, en
effet, à nous faire de la résurrection une idée bien différente, à nous la
représenter comme une manifestation éclatante et visible de la gloire du
Christ… En nous la figurant ainsi comme un triomphe public, nous sommes
conduits à imaginer la confusion et la terreur qui auraient saisi ses
bourreaux si Jésus s’était présenté vivant devant eux. Mais, remarquons-le,
un tel raisonnement revient à concevoir le Royaume du Christ comme un
royaume de ce monde, ce qui n’est pas juste. Ce serait nous représenter le
Christ comme étant déjà venu à ce moment-là juger le monde, ce qui
n’arrivera qu’au dernier jour…

Pourquoi se montrer seulement « à quelques témoins choisis d’avance »
? Parce que c’était le moyen le plus efficace de propager la foi dans le
monde entier… Quel aurait été le fruit d’une manifestation publique qui
s’impose à tous ? Ce nouveau miracle aurait laissé la foule telle qu’il
l’avait trouvée, sans changement efficace. Déjà ses anciens miracles
n’avaient pas convaincu tout le monde…; qu’auraient-ils pu dire et sentir
de plus qu’auparavant, même « si quelqu’un ressuscite d’entre les morts  »
? (Lc 16,31)… Le Christ se montre pour susciter des témoins de la
résurrection, des ministres de sa parole, les fondateurs de son Eglise.
Comment la foule, avec sa nature changeante, aurait-elle pu le devenir ?

The nomad world is growing day in day out. With the advent of mobile telephone, the potential of mobility of storing data in relatively large quantity on various mobile equipments, and the accessibility of wireless internet, a new nomad way of living is in construction.

With my black berry, I have access to the data available on the web whilst on line. More importantly I can down load data may it be text, books, music or video images store and watch them in my time and wherever I may be.

My greatest pleasure this week was to learn that comics which may be construed as a mixture of text and images can now be downloaded on an iphone. A special software developed for this purpose is now available. My greatest satisfaction was to know that the software is developed by the start up company owned by my son Olivier.

I invite you to visit his website and encourage you to avail yourself of the software. I understand that it only works on exclusively on iphone or ipod to start off with because of the quality of the resolution and that Apple has screened his application.

They currently have the first version of their application, Comicstrips, on the iTunes App Store. It is a great way to help other artists/creators get out there.

They currently sell their application at $1.99 on the iTunes app store.

The product allows people to

1. read “featured” comics for free, some of which are “bundled”, i.e. get downloaded automatically to their iPhones.

2. upload comics on their website to be synchronized with their iPhone.

This event then is the start of  getcomicstrips. I pray that his venture will grow in becoming a world standard for reading comics in the nomad world. I yet have to verify that it is a world first for comics reading on a phone by a Mauritian born software designer.

I would have to wait for the blackberry version to read my old  favorite comics…KIWI, RODEO, BLEK le roc, PIM PAM POUM, PIPO…

Seven pyramids have been identified on the African island of Mauritius. Remarkably, in construction, they are identical to the ones found on the island of Tenerife, an island on the opposite side of the continent. It underlines the likelihood that one civilisation sailed to various islands off the coast of Africa and constructed these structures.

I have known and seen these pyramids for years. I discounted them for a very orderly way of stacking the field stones to make space for planting sugar cane. We have now a story which enriches our Mauritian culture and gives some jazz to our tourist guides to embellish their presentation.

How far is the story true and historically verified? Does it matter?

Thanks to my school pal Paul now based in Canada who is a true Mauritian at heart who informed me of the story.

You are invited to read the Antoine Gigal ‘s account.

Antoine Gigal is a French writer and researcher, and the Egyptian correspondent for the French ‘L’Egypte’ magazine.
Gigal’s early years were spent in Africa and South America, where her father worked as journalist and diplomat. This has taken her all over the world exploring diverse cultures and civilizations. She studied at Sorbonne Paris III University and the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO), where she graduated in Chinese and Japanese languages and civilizations.

I just love this article written by CATHY L. GREENBERG & JOHANNA DILLON. This is very much what I have been trumpeting through my work career and still is by signing my email ‘be happy’.

Last thursday,after some 8 years, I revisited Rogers House, the place I have toiled for decades. I had the joy of meeting  some old colleages and be reminded of the days where we were a happy group and enjoying benefits for us and the owners.

How eventful, when today my heart is filled with joy as I celebrate the day when our Lord Jesus has risen from his tomb, signifying the victory of life over death for all mankind. As an Easter gift I would like to share this with you.

Any company can profit from a natural resource it already has—happiness. The secret is to engage your best talent through whole-brain function to overcome fear with appreciation. It’s teachable and transferable. Use happiness to improve performance—and deliver profit-providing useable insights.

Whole-Brain Function

Think of something that makes you smile—for example, praise from a trusted mentor. Now, think of something that makes you frown—for example, your mentor goes away from your life tomorrow. She is your favorite co-worker, the one who believes in you and pushes you to be your best, but she’s dying and leaving work today. Hold a visual of your time together and the threat of her leaving forever, both at the same time. Can you balance joy and fear in your mind?

If you say yes, I won’t believe you. It’s impossible to feel fear and appreciation simultaneously. You can’t feel hope or appreciation while experiencing sorrow, guilt, or anger. You can’t experience positive and negative emotions simultaneously. Whole-brain function is required to make decisions, but first you must engage your emotional state before taking action. Unfortunately, you will only use that portion of your brain that is available; in many cases, that state is fear, anxiety, or grief. In the best of all worlds, it’s appreciation—an attitude of gratitude.

As a behavioral scientist, executive coach, and business consultant, I want everyone to know that being a happy company is the single greatest transformation a company can take to retain talent, improve its competitive position and top-line revenue.

Let’s start with five HAPIE principles:

• H – Heartfelt, humble, inclusive, inspirational, innovative leadership
• A – Adaptive, enthusiastic, emotionally intelligent employees
• P – Profit for all who contribute to return on people (ROP), in addition to ROI
• I – Invigorated stakeholders, vendors, and clients who market the company
• E – Engaged, constructive, community partners who share their success

From these five traits emerge a set of behaviors that create a positive, transformational climate of inspiration and happiness. When applied together, they pave the way for a culture of appreciation or a Happy Company Climate.

Happy Organizations

Few leaders understand the importance of engaging energy like “happiness”. In a hard-nosed, numbers-based business, they misinterpret happiness to be a time-waster that doesn’t support bottom-line results. Cynics imagine everyone singing “Kumbaya.”

Here’s the truth.

• Corporate happiness is a deep commitment felt when people engage their sense of purpose while contributing to a fulfilling corporate mission.
• Happy companies see reality through a positive mindset, even in adversity.
• It perceives the market as a place of abundance with many opportunities.
• Great leaders choose optimism over pessimism because a positive culture inspires creative, pragmatic approaches and draws out the best in people.
• Honesty pervades a happy company, infusing it with personal respect, appreciation, and trust and contributing to business success.
• Every stakeholder and community respects and appreciates happy companies because of their constructive force that enhances the quality of life.

Happy companies create optimal conditions that enable the ultimate engagement of our mission at work. They are best prepared to succeed long term. Everyone wants to work in a profitable, happy company.

The Truth Really Hurts

Why do few companies apply these principles and achieve “happiness = profit”? They focus on reacting to problems and fear, which blocks their ability to engage happiness factors.

Most companies are only vaguely aware of their fear-based state because they spend more time trying to focus their energy on solving problems rather than building on the success of their strengths. Management does not know how unhappiness severely hurts performance. Why? Because they lack skills to perceive, measure or change behaviors known as happiness factors to bolster success, or how unhappiness causes failure. Leaders of unhappy companies know they are struggling and get stuck. Despite their best efforts, they can’t match their competitors. Employees work harder, even though they try to work smarter—”the faster I work, the behinder I get!” Unhappy companies only sustain positive energy for short bursts (during a crisis) but fear poisons productivity with politics.

The best leaders know you can’t run a successful, dynamic business based on fear. Fear prevents people from contributing their best and hurts profits through increased absenteeism, turnover, and redundancy.

In many organizations, fear is a dominant management technique.

• We fear missing a deadline, losing a sale, or receiving unfair treatment (even if we make the numbers).
• We induce fear based on unknowns in business; we fear many things—our competitors, their high-quality or low-price alternative, missing profit projections, even successful growth that may be too much to handle.
• We have financing fears: of interest rates, bond rates, exchange rates or a downturn in the capital markets.
• We have conflicting fears: management fears spiraling wages, healthcare, and possible strikes; labor fears abusive management and low raises.
• We even fear weather that might disrupt our production, our delivery, or our customers’ buying patterns.
• And some fears haunt us all: terrorism and the cost of war.

Fear has many immeasurable costs—talent, wellness, and energy. Yet, fear is everywhere. It so saturates our spirit and cultures that we accept it as “normal.” But does fear motivate us to perform better? No. Fear is a limited motivator because it triggers a state of activated stress which results in a limited set of responses: freeze, flight, or fight. These old-brain behaviors limit whole-brain function. Often the reaction is fear-based hostility, a primal, reactive reflex. Fear is great for split-second survival, but it thwarts long-term prosperity because it “short-circuits” higher thought, shutting down the part of the brain that enables us to see possibility. Fear drains both the individual and the franchise of energy and imagination. Instead of motivating us, fear depresses our spirit of innovation and can even kill us physically through stress-related illnesses like high blood pressure, heart disease, alcoholism and diabetes.

What’s the good news? We can beat our wiring, even though fear and imagination still operate in different parts of our brain. Fear-based management behaviors mimic our caveman ancestors; biologically the behaviors are identical. Our primal emotions are the same, since fear trumps reason.

Try this exercise. When we see a lion about to pounce is our fear-based reaction healthy? Are we dreaming of a peaceful coexistence with nature? Think again. Those in the past who pondered such crises often died.

But if fear wins every time it is activated, then in today’s world, where wild animals wear suits, live at desks with access to unlimited information, commute on planes, and join boards and committees, how can we overcome our biology?

Happy people and healthy companies think before they react and apply enabling coaching techniques to explore and engage the best in everyone. They learn to recognize fear and apply HAPIE principles of positive psychology. Primal emotions, while required for survival, short-circuit the higher emotions needed for performance as a competitive weapon in the war for talent. Emotions and thought are closely entwined. While fear can drive us down, optimism can elevate us because it reshapes behavior and enables us to bond, find strength in numbers, feel appreciation, achieve creativity, and create a sum greater than our parts.

Happy companies succeed because people engage using positive, reinforcing emotions that maximize their diverse strengths. Their people constructively work together, find meaning and satisfaction in their work, and deliver high-quality service and products that positively contribute to their franchise and society. Profits follow naturally. Now, you can see now how Happiness = Profit!

I must admit that the book of Stephen Covey the 8^th Habit did not impact on me as much as the former the 7^th habit. For quite some time I have been wondering the reasons for this lower impact of the 8^th Habit on me, though I was a great fan of Stephen Covey, a keen disciple of his teaching and a certified trainer of the Covey Leadership centre.

First, the 8^th Habit lacks the novelty effect on me. Way back in 1992, when I first read the 1^st book, I was really impressed. I recalled that all through the 10 hours flight from Hong Kong to Mauritius, my eyes were glued to the book. I highlighted the parts of the book that was directly touching my life then and saw in the book possible avenues to better my life. The examples given in the text were so near the reality that I was then living and provided at the time the necessary thoughts that I needed. The benefits I could derived from the reading was so proximate and realisable. My enthusiasm was aroused at its peak to bring me to action. Secondly the direct and tangible benefit of reading the book is not so obvious.

The above reflection now has taught me a great learning which I am applying today.

The interest that one has in any particular subject is proportional to the use one can make out of it. If you want to get the attention of someone of a subject, present to the person the benefits he will be able to derive from it. WIFM stands for What’s in for me. Should I need to convince someone of something: talk of his needs?

Now I am reviewing the 8^th Habit with a new perspective: in my present situation, WIFM in reading the book.

Here is a commentary of Ken Shelton which covers beautifully and succinctly Covey’s book.

Leaders often sense a painful, Grand Canyon gap between potential greatness and actual contribution. It’s one thing to be aware of problems and challenges at work and another thing to develop the personal power and moral authority to break out of those problems and become a force in solving them.

So asserts Stephen R. Covey, author of The 8th Habit. And his solution: “One word expresses the pathway to greatness—voice. Voice lies at the nexus of talent (your natural gifs and strengths), passion (those things that naturally energize, excite, motivate and inspire you), need (including what the world needs enough to pay for) and conscience (that still, small voice within that assures you of what is right and prompts you to take action).

“When you engage in work that taps your talent and fuels your passion—work that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscience to meet—you discover your voice.”

Take Four Steps

According to Covey, those leaders on this path to greatness find their voice and inspire others to find theirs. He notes that they often find their voice when they face challenges and take four steps:

1. Tap into your talent. “Tapping into your talents starts with understanding where you excel,” suggests Covey. “It involves recognizing your strengths and positioning yourself to leverage them. To tap into your talent, consider the question: What am I good at doing?”

2. Fuel your passion. “When you take part in activities that fill you with positive emotion, you are fueling your passion,” notes Covey. “Pursuits that spark your passion bring excitement, enthusiasm, joy, and fun. To fuel your passion, ask yourself: What do I love doing?”

3. Become burdened with a need. “When a problem in society lodges itself in your heart and won’t let go, you become burdened with a need,” he says. “Perhaps, the need is an injustice you wish to remedy. Maybe it’s a disease you would love to cure. Whatever the case, a burden gnaws at your conscience. To take stock of your biggest burden, wrestle with the question: What need must I serve?”

4. Take action to meet the need. Once a need has arrested your attention, you can find your voice by taking action, he continues. “A need compels you to do something besides criticize from the sidelines. To meet the need, think about this question: How can I align my talent with my passion in order to meet the need that burdens me?”

A Promise and a Challenge

Covey then extends a promise and a challenge.

The promise: “If you will apply these four capacities—talent (discipline), passion (emotion), need (vision), and conscience (spirit-directed action) to any role or responsibility of your life, you can find your voice in that role.”

The challenge: “Take two or three of the primary roles in your life, and in each role, ask yourself these four questions: What need do I sense? Do I possess a true talent that, if disciplined and applied, can meet the need? Does the opportunity to meet the need tap into my passion? Does my conscience inspire me to become involved and take action?”

Covey guarantees that if you answer all four questions in the affirmative, develop a plan of action and then go to work on it, you will begin to find your voice in life—a life of deep meaning, satisfaction, and greatness—and you will begin to inspire others to find their voice.

The choice to expand your influence and increase your contribution is the choice to inspire others to find their voice, he says. You unleash “latent genius, creativity, passion, talent, and motivation. Organizations that reach a critical mass of people and teams ex-pressing their full voice will achieve breakthroughs in productivity, innovation, and leadership. As you find your voice and inspire others to find theirs, you increase your freedom and power to solve your greatest challenge.”

This morning I had for breakfast, thin slices of specially cured ham for the Dordogne region on my toast. I was wonder for my taste buds specially the fat part of the ham which is the main carrier of the flavour. I would sense the explosion of the flavour of the acorns that fed the pig wondering in the wild of the Dordogne fields under the walnut forests. Magnificently cured for some 6 months or wrapped over in a layer of lard and flour to keep the red dark flesh moist and juicy with the right tint of salt.

My first encounter with ‘Jambon cru’ was way back in 1968, when I was visiting Reunion Island in the days of Air India life. As the representative of Air India, I was required to entertain my customers. At the then famous gastronomic restaurant of Hotel Le Labourdonnais in St Denis de la Reunion, on the advice of the chef who was himself from the Basque country, I was initiated to the taste of Bayonne Ham.

Never before had I ever tasted raw cured Ham. In my younger days, ‘jambon bouilli’ was a feast which was reserved for the festive season. My Mum would prepare her version of ham from air cooled salted dried leg of pork imported from Australia. After soaking the ham in water for a couple of days, the leg on the bone was boiled for hours with a concoction of herbs, namely citronella, dark beer. Thereafter the ham was oven baked. The whole ham was studded with clover seeds before being served. The taste of home prepared ham has nothing akin to the ham we get from the supermarket today.

Later I learned to taste Prosciutto di Parma with a slice of melon during my trips to Italy. More recently the pata negra of spain provided me another source of pleasure. Last but not least have you ever tried a shark fin’s meal cooked in Hunan’s ham?

La musique tzigane est confondue avec la musique hongroise. J’étais élevé dans cette musique Tzigane que mon père adorait. Ainsi la Hongrie c’est d’abord et avant tout la musique. Déjà Tsardash retentit dans mon être et vive ce mélodieux son de la musique gitane. Mon père nous faisait écouter des notre berceau de son gramophone ces 78 tours des Valses et musique Gitane d’Hongrie.

Quelle merveille d’atterrir la semaine dernière à Budapest. J’ai passé un moment fort agréable dans des conditions excellentes. Une découverte d’histoires et la visite d’une ville qui a connue son apogée dans elle était la capitale de l’empire Austro-hongrois des années 1870.

J’ai eu droit à une intervention d’un expert dans la matière qui nous a conté les 1500 ans d’histoire de la Hongrie en 50 minutes. Le temps impartie semblait plus tôt à 5 minutes tellement j’étais accroché a ses lèvres. J’étais totalement absorbé par la présentation et maintenant je suis un fan de la Hongrie et les hongrois. Depuis j’ai pris á l’assaut wikipedia pour me documenter encore mieux.

Une histoire de la langue hongroise incompréhensible mais  fascinante!

Magique je qualifierai de ma visite, car c’est en Hongrie qu’est né le grand Houdini.