Entries Tagged 'People' ↓

I took much pleasure in reading my preferred columnist of the New York Times:

A Biblical Seven Years

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Beijing

After attending the spectacular closing ceremony at the Beijing Olympics and feeling the vibrations from hundreds of Chinese drummers pulsating in my own chest, I was tempted to conclude two things: “Holy mackerel, the energy coming out of this country is unrivaled.” And, two: “We are so cooked. Start teaching your kids Mandarin.”

However, I’ve learned over the years not to over-interpret any two-week event. Olympics don’t change history. They are mere snapshots — a country posing in its Sunday bests for all the world too see. But, as snapshots go, the one China presented through the Olympics was enormously powerful — and it’s one that Americans need to reflect upon this election season.

China did not build the magnificent $43 billion infrastructure for these games, or put on the unparalleled opening and closing ceremonies, simply by the dumb luck of discovering oil. No, it was the culmination of seven years of national investment, planning, concentrated state power, national mobilization and hard work.

Seven years … Seven years … Oh, that’s right. China was awarded these Olympic Games on July 13, 2001 — just two months before 9/11.

As I sat in my seat at the Bird’s Nest, watching thousands of Chinese dancers, drummers, singers and acrobats on stilts perform their magic at the closing ceremony, I couldn’t help but reflect on how China and America have spent the last seven years: China has been preparing for the Olympics; we’ve been preparing for Al Qaeda. They’ve been building better stadiums, subways, airports, roads and parks. And we’ve been building better metal detectors, armored Humvees and pilotless drones.

The difference is starting to show. Just compare arriving at La Guardia’s dumpy terminal in New York City and driving through the crumbling infrastructure into Manhattan with arriving at Shanghai’s sleek airport and taking the 220-mile-per-hour magnetic levitation train, which uses electromagnetic propulsion instead of steel wheels and tracks, to get to town in a blink.

Then ask yourself: Who is living in the third world country?

Yes, if you drive an hour out of Beijing, you meet the vast dirt-poor third world of China. But here’s what’s new: The rich parts of China, the modern parts of Beijing or Shanghai or Dalian, are now more state of the art than rich America. The buildings are architecturally more interesting, the wireless networks more sophisticated, the roads and trains more efficient and nicer. And, I repeat, they did not get all this by discovering oil. They got it by digging inside themselves.

I realize the differences: We were attacked on 9/11; they were not. We have real enemies; theirs are small and mostly domestic. We had to respond to 9/11 at least by eliminating the Al Qaeda base in Afghanistan and investing in tighter homeland security. They could avoid foreign entanglements. Trying to build democracy in Iraq, though, which I supported, was a war of choice and is unlikely to ever produce anything equal to its huge price tag.

But the first rule of holes is that when you’re in one, stop digging. When you see how much modern infrastructure has been built in China since 2001, under the banner of the Olympics, and you see how much infrastructure has been postponed in America since 2001, under the banner of the war on terrorism, it’s clear that the next seven years need to be devoted to nation-building in America.

We need to finish our business in Iraq and Afghanistan as quickly as possible, which is why it is a travesty that the Iraqi Parliament has gone on vacation while 130,000 U.S. troops are standing guard. We can no longer afford to postpone our nation-building while Iraqis squabble over whether to do theirs.

A lot of people are now advising Barack Obama to get dirty with John McCain. Sure, fight fire with fire. That’s necessary, but it is not sufficient.

Obama got this far because many voters projected onto him that he could be the leader of an American renewal. They know we need nation-building at home now — not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in Georgia, but in America. Obama cannot lose that theme.

He cannot let Republicans make this election about who is tough enough to stand up to Russia or bin Laden. It has to be about who is strong enough, focused enough, creative enough and unifying enough to get Americans to rebuild America. The next president can have all the foreign affairs experience in the world, but it will be useless, utterly useless, if we, as a country, are weak.

Obama is more right than he knows when he proclaims that this is “our” moment, this is “our” time. But it is our time to get back to work on the only home we have, our time for nation-building in America. I never want to tell my girls — and I’m sure Obama feels the same about his — that they have to go to China to see the future.

I can only agree fully to Thomas Friedman’s Editorial on all three counts:

1. The energy coming out from China is unrivaled.

2. For seven years China has been preparing for the Olympics, they put in their efforts and might to build their nation whilst America has been for the last seven years postponing the build up of the nation. The Americans were too busy sorting out terrorism.

3. Let Obama bring the wind of change. Let him proclaim the moment and time of nation building in America.

The world’s attention is now turned to the Democratic Convention happenings in Denver. The nomination and later on the 4^th November, the election of the president of the US will impact on our life whether you like it or not. The dominant influence of the largest economic country definitely affects all of us. For this very reason, I took the trouble to document myself and to listen to the speeches delivered at the democratic convention. I must admit that I have already made my choice when I listened to Barack Obama’s address in Berlin earlier. Yes I am a partisan of the Obama’s.

And now, I am eagerly reading the speech of Michelle OBAMA, where she puts in her contribution as the next first lady to be. Let us hope that the 4 day’s convention will bring the democrats nearer to take over the presidency for the next term. The official nomination of Joe Biden as vice president reinforces the case for the Democratic Party and the final success of OBAMA. It is reported that Joe Biden, the experienced senator of Delaware brings to OBAMA the supposedly short comings in Obama’s experience and competence in foreign politics affairs whilst it rallies the votes of the low and medium class white blue collar workers.

The big question still to be answered is: how would the Hispanic voters react to OBAMA’s nomination? How would the Hispanics accept a black President?

All in all, President OBAMA at the head of the richest country of the world will make history. It will once again confirm that the US is the land of opportunities for all those who are willing to work hard enough. Judging from Bill Clinton’s past policies, it would appear that the Democrats at the helm of the US would be more favorable to Mauritius.

OBAMA from New York times

Born to a free-spirited white mother and a black Kenyan absentee father, Mr. Obama spent his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia. As part of a younger generation of black leaders, he represents the success — but not the historic struggle — of the civil rights movement. And his upstart campaign for the Democratic nomination, using a mantra of hope and change combined with tech-savvy, unconventional organization, helped him surpass one of America’s most prominent political establishments, the Clintons, to become the first African-American to lead a major party ticket.More »

Between earning degrees at Columbia and Harvard, Mr. Obama spent two years as a community organizer on Chicago‘s impoverished South Side. Left frustrated by the experience, he decided to pursue change as an insider and won a seat in the Illinois state senate. Mr. Obama has written of his “spooky good fortune” in politics, but his career includes one glaring political miscalculation — an ill-fated bid to unseat Bobby L. Rush, a former activist and a hero to black voters, in Congress.

Some accused Mr. Obama of impatience when he chose to seek the Democratic nomination just two years into his first U.S. Senate term. He faced a difficult decision after his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, when his proclamation that “We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don‘t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States” propelled him to party stardom. Armed with his charisma and his public stance against the Iraq war before the 2003 invasion, Mr. Obama chose to run despite his comparatively little experience on the national stage.

Mr. Obama, known for his emphasis on the big picture and a tendency to delegate, has been called “post-racial” and “post-partisan.” “I am like a Rorschach test,” he said in an interview with The New York Times this past summer. “Even if people find me disappointing ultimately, they might gain something.” Mr. Obama has carefully eschewed identifying too closely with his party, despite a fairly liberal voting record. His campaign‘s innovative internet organization both dovetailed with his call for a new kind of politics and helped him raise record amounts of money from small and large donors alike. He is a regular on the basketball court and at the gym, and his comparative youth and lofty oratory inspired comparisons to John F. Kennedy.

Despite his focus on unity, his victory over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton caused lingering resentments among her supporters. Critics call him an empty vessel, a charge fueled by his decisions to decline public financing and support an expansion of government surveillance powers after the election, both shifts from earlier positions.

Mr. Obama lives with his wife, Michelle, and two daughters in the Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park.

Many years ago, I followed very interesting seminars on strategies in enterprises. Most  had a common thread: learning from the great strategists of the military. In the most recent one, General Fievet retired military teacher from the French army, taught  the bunch of business executives of APM, about the learning to be extracted from Napoleon, Sun Tzu, Moltke and the many military strategists. These lessons in strategy may be used in business and all spheres of life. They are also relevant in sports . I was watching these  previous days the different strategies used by the various country teams to win the Olympics. I could very easily imagine the strategies deployed by the teams to win three medals for the Jamaica by the ladies team in one go.

Listen to Jack Welch. As CEO of General Electric (GE) Welch had one of the most spectacular records in history. Great strategy, right? Nope. At the end of his long run at the helm of GE, Welch would say, “Great people, not great strategies are what made it all work.“

Without great people, it’s very, very hard to do great things. That doesn’t mean that you need the brightest folks, or the ones with the most credentials. It does mean that you need folks who care about what needs to be done and who take responsibility for their part of the job.

Once you’ve got those folks in the boat, develop a good strategy. A good strategy is realistic and flexible.

Realism is vital when you develop a strategy. You have to know the current situation, along with your strengths and weaknesses. You have to know the marketplace and your competitors. Then you have to select performance targets that you can hit, then mobilize your organization to get the job done. Being realistic about your situation and prospects increases the odds that you’ll develop plans that work.

Great strategists work through simple plans. It’s simply impossible to plan for all possible contingencies so you have to allow for folks to make critical decisions on the spot.

Helmuth von Moltke became Chief of the Prussian General Staff in 1858. He served there thirty years during a period of great political and technological change. Many writers see Moltke as the paragon and proponent of centralized, strategic planning. Moltke certainly was among the first to prepare plans for an entire nation to use in different political situations. But he also changed the Prussian military system to make it more flexible.

Moltke replaced the rigid Prussian system of “operation orders” with a system of “general directives.” The directives gave a commander his objective in broad terms, but allowed him considerable freedom to choose how to accomplish it. He expected German officers to seize the opportunities that came their way, even if the original plan did not anticipate them.

That flexibility disappeared under a later Chief of Staff, Alfred von Schlieffen. Schlieffen, like many top ranking folks, believed that if a little planning was good, then much more planning must be better. He constructed a detailed mobilization plan that included 11,000 train movements on a precise timetable. The planners could calculate precisely how much a given delay would cost the army in terms of land given up at the front.

It was a masterful plan, a true intellectual achievement. It was also far too fragile for reality. When it was finally put to use political and military forces worked to destroy original assumptions and disrupt the precise plan.

Adaptive strategy seems to be essence of the strategist. Reading the changes on the ground and getting the coordinated collective actions to change and take the appropriate measures in time at the right location is the winning strategy.

Donald Laurie writes about adaptive strategies in a changing environment:

Leaders today face adaptive challenges. Changes in societies, markets, customers, competition, and technology around the globe are forcing them to clarify their values, develop new strategies, and learn new ways of operating. Often the toughest task for leaders is mobilizing people to do adaptive work.

Adaptive work is required when our deeply held beliefs are challenged, when the values that made us successful become less relevant, and when legitimate yet competing perspectives emerge. We see adaptive challenges every day at every level—when companies restructure or reengineer, develop or implement strategy, or merge businesses. We see adaptive challenges when marketing has difficulty working with operations, when cross-functional teams don’t work well, or when senior executives complain that they can’t execute effectively. Adaptive problems are often systemic problems with no ready answers.

Mobilizing an organization to adapt its behaviors to thrive in new business environment is critical. Without such change, any company today would falter. Getting people to do adaptive work is the mark of leadership. Yet for most senior executives, providing leadership is difficult. Why? We see two reasons. First, to make change happen, executives have to break a long-standing behavior pattern of their own: providing leadership in the form of solutions. Many executives reach their positions of authority by virtue of their competence in taking responsibility and solving problems. But when a company faces an adaptive challenge, the focus of responsibility for problem solving resides not in the executive suite but in the collective intelligence of employees at all levels, who need to use one another as resources, often across boundaries, and learn their way to those solutions.

Second, adaptive change is distressing for people going through it. They need to take on new roles, new relationships, new values, new behaviors, and new approaches to work. Many employees are ambivalent about the efforts and sacrifices required of them. They often look to the senior executive to take problems off their shoulders. But those expectations have to be unlearned. Rather than fulfilling the expectation that they will provide answers, leaders have to ask tough questions. Rather than protecting people from outside threats, leaders should allow them to feel the pinch of reality to stimulate them to adapt. Instead of orienting people to their current roles, leaders must disorient them so that new relationships can develop. Instead of quelling conflict, leaders have to draw the issues out. Instead of maintaining norms, leaders have to challenge “the way we do business” and help others distinguish immutable values from historical practices that must go.

Six Guiding Principles

Drawing on our experience with managers from around the world, we offer six principles for leading adaptive work:

1. Get on the balcony. Business leaders have to view patterns as if they were on a balcony. It does them no good to be swept up in the field of action. Leaders have to identify struggles over values and power, patterns of work avoidance, and the many other reactions to change.

2. Identify the adaptive challenge. When businesses cannot learn quickly to adapt to new challenges, they are likely to face their own form of extinction. Leaders need to understand themselves, their people, and the potential sources of conflict.

3. Regulate distress. Adaptive work generates distress. Before putting people to work on challenges for which there are no ready solutions, a leader must realize that people can learn only so much so fast, and maintain a productive level of tension and motivate people without disabling them.

Although leadership demands a deep understanding of the pain of change—the fears and sacrifices associated with major readjustment—it also requires the ability to hold steady and maintain the tension.

A leader has to have the emotional capacity to tolerate uncertainty, frustration and pain. He has to raise tough questions without getting too anxious himself. Employees, colleagues, and customers will carefully observe verbal and nonverbal cues to a leader’s ability to hold steady and tackle tasks ahead.

4. Maintain disciplined attention. Different people with the same organization bring different experiences, assumptions, values, beliefs and habits to their work. This diversity is valuable because innovation and learning are the products of differences. No one learns anything without being open to contrasting points of view.

As Jan Carlzon, CEO of Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), told us, “The work of the leader is to get conflict out into the open and use it as a source of creativity.”

Because work avoidance is rampant in organizations, a leader has to counteract distractions that prevent people from dealing with adaptive issues. People need leadership to help them maintain their focus on tough questions. Disciplined attention is the currency of leadership.

5. Give work back to the people. Everyone has special access to information that comes from his or her particular vantage point. Everyone may see different needs and opportunities. People who sense early changes in the marketplace are often at the periphery, but the organization will thrive if it can bring that information to bear on tactical and strategic decisions. When people do not act on their special knowledge, businesses fail to adapt.

All too often, people expect senior management to meet market challenges for which they themselves are responsible. Indeed, the greater and the more persistent distresses that accompany adaptive work, the worse such dependence becomes. People tend to become passive, and senior managers who pride themselves on being problem solvers take decisive action. That behavior restores equilibrium in the short term, but ultimately leads to complacency and habits of work avoidance that shield people from responsibility, pain and the need to change.

6. Protect voices of leadership. Giving a voice to all people is the foundation of a firm that is willing to experiment and learn. But, in fact, whistle-blowers, creative deviants, and other such original voices routinely get smashed and silenced.

People speaking beyond their authority usually feel self-conscious and sometimes have to generate “too much” passion to get themselves geared up for speaking out. Of course, that often makes it harder for them to communicate effectively. They pick the wrong time and place, and often bypass proper channels of communication and lines of authority. But, buried inside a poorly packaged interjection may lie an important lesson. To toss it out is to lose valuable information and discourage a potential leader.

Leadership as Learning

Many efforts to transform organizations through mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, reengineering, and strategy falter because managers fail to grasp the requirements of adaptive work. They treat adaptive challenges like technical problems that can be solved by tough-minded senior executives.

The prevailing notion that leadership consists of having a vision and aligning people with that vision is bankrupt because it continues to treat adaptive situations as if they were technical: The authority figure is supposed to divine where the company is going, and people are supposed to follow. Leadership is reduced to a combination of grand knowing and salesmanship.

Such a perspective reveals a basic misconception about the way businesses succeed in addressing adaptive challenges. Adaptive situations are hard to define and resolve precisely because they demand the work and responsibility of all members. They are not amenable to solutions provided by leaders; adaptive solutions require members to take responsibility for the problems that face them.

Leadership has to take place every day. It cannot be the responsibility of the few, a rare event, or a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

True Michael Phelps is a great athlete, he has established a world record in gaining 8 gold medals at the same event. For me perhaps more than being an outstanding sportsman, he shows us the determination to target a goal and diligently and relentlessly work towards it. You will all recall than before the events he had declared his goal publicly and he made it. Bravo!

On good morning America yesterday:

Question to Phelps:
“What do you think separates the people who are merely gifted from those like you who in this instance, won?”

Phelps’ answer:
“For me when I watch other sports, when I watch Tiger Woods, when I watch [tennis player] Roger Federer, when I watch [tennis player] Rafael Nadal, the best athletes can compete under any circumstances. No matter what it is, no matter what the pressure, you can always overcome whatever is put in your way.”

Notice that he didn’t say “Superior conditioning”, or “I worked harder than everyone else”. In fact, here’s what Bob Bowman, Michael’s coach said on a completely different interview:

“It’s Michael’s ability to handle anything that comes up and turn it into something good.”

Bill Bartman wrote:
I bring up these quotes now because they’re just as applicable for a small business owner in Idaho as for an Olympic swimmer in Beijing. They’re universal truths of the hyper-successful in sports, business–and in life.

I almost forgot about my Good Morning America taping session as I sat there thinking about what Michael Phelps said. It resonated with my own experience of being a paralyzed 17-year old alcoholic. The same person who defied the medical establishment and not only later walked, but straightened his life out to the tune of becoming a self-made billionaire.

The difference between where you are right this moment, and achieving your wildest dreams may only be a matter of a handful of key shifts in your thinking. I know it’s true with me. I didn’t become literally 1,000 times more successful than millionaires by working 1,000 times as hard. I worked differently.

‘The difference that makes the difference’ is the nlp phrase that comes to my mind.

His physique notwithstanding, endurance may be Michael’s single greatest asset. He’s able to hold his stroke under pressure and when fatigue begins to creep in. From a mind over matter standpoint, Michael is also off the charts. His ability to relax, focus and block out the pain all at once is unique in his sport. He never seems nervous before a race, yet his intensity on the starting block is unmatched.

I am amazed with the number of gambling addiction cases I know of and the damages that such behaviours can bring to the lives of people. In the recent past I was very closely involved with a case which was about to turn to a dramatic situation. The guy later told me that he was so depressed that he spent the night on his own on the cliff of Gris Gris thinking of committing a suicide.

I was very pleased today, to have spoken to the person mentioned above and to learn that he has quited gambling, done his term of community service as ordered by the courts and is now slowing rebuilding his career and life.

I have heard of yet another case this last fortnight, perhaps not as devastating as the one mentioned but still as painful for the family of the addict. This affliction seems to be very frequent in the Chinese community, I have to admit that I have a cousin who has been an over gambling experience. The son of yet anotherdistant cousin had to be expatriated to another country to save him from bad habits. How does one prevent addiction to occur? How does detect the addiction n early enough? I went through the internet to look for possible answers.

Understanding gambling addiction and problem gambling

Gambling addiction, also known as compulsive gambling, is a type of impulse-control disorder. Compulsive gamblers can’t control the impulse to gamble, even when they know their gambling is hurting themselves or their loved ones. Gambling is all they can think about and all they want to do, no matter the consequences. Compulsive gamblers keep gambling whether they’re up or down, broke or flush, happy or depressed. Even when they know the odds are against them, even when they can’t afford to lose, people with a gambling addiction can’t “stay off the bet.”

Gamblers can have a problem, however, without being totally out of control. Long before an addiction has fully developed, gambling can have a negative impact. Problem gambling is any gambling behavior that disrupts your life. If you’re preoccupied with gambling, spending more and more time and money on it, chasing losses, or gambling despite serious consequences, you have a gambling problem.

There are two types of compulsive or problem gamblers. While their behaviors are similar, they gamble for very different reasons:

• Action gamblers are addicted to the thrill of risk-taking. Gambling itself is their “drug.” They usually gamble with others, since part of the rush is beating the house or other gamblers. Action gamblers usually prefer games of skill, such as card games, craps, and sports betting. They may also play the stock market.
• Escape gamblers gamble to escape emotional pain, worries, and loneliness. Rather than gambling to feel a rush, they gamble to feel numb. Escape gamblers prefer more isolated activities such as slot machines, bingo, and online poker. They also prefer games that don’t require much thought, so they can “zone out.”

Signs and symptoms of problem gambling

Gambling addiction is sometimes referred to as the “hidden illness” because there are no obvious physical signs or symptoms like there are in drug or alcohol addiction. Problem gamblers typically deny or minimize the problem. They also go to great lengths to hide their gambling. For example, problem gamblers often withdraw from their loved ones, sneak around, and lie about where they’ve been and what they’ve been up to.

Do I have a gambling problem?

You may have a gambling problem if you:

• Neglect work or family to gamble
• Gamble in secret
• Lie about how much you gamble
• Feel compelled to keep upping your bets
• Feel remorse after gambling
• Gamble until you’ve spent your last dollar
• Gamble with money you need to pay bills
• Steal, borrow, or sell things to get money for gambling
• Dream of the “big win” and what it will buy
• Gamble to escape worries
• Gamble in order to solve financial problems or win back losses
• Celebrate by gambling

While the warning signs of problem gambling can be subtle­, there are some red flags that should put you on alert:

• Secrecy over money and finances
• New desire to control household finances
• Overdue or unpaid bills
• Unexplained loans or cash advances
• Lack of money, despite the same income and expenses
• Unusual increase in credit card activity
• Asking friends and family for money
• Missing jewelry, cash, or valuables
• Dwindling savings or assets
• Missing bank or credit card statements
• Calls or letters from bill collectors
• Unexplained cash, especially when there are unpaid bills

The “four phases” of problem gambling and gambling addiction

People with gambling problems typically go through four phases, progressing from recreational gambling to problem gambling and finally to gambling addiction. Each phase can last from months to years.

• Winning phase – The winning phase often starts with a big win, leading to excitement and a positive view of gambling. Problem gamblers believe they have a special talent for gambling and that the winning will continue. They begin spending greater amounts of time and money on gambling.
• Losing phase – Problem gamblers become more and more preoccupied with gambling. They start to gamble alone, borrow money, skip work, lie to family and friends, and default on debts. They also begin to “chase” their losses: gambling in order to win back money that was lost.
• Desperation phase – Problem gamblers lose all control over their gambling. They feel ashamed and guilty after gambling, but they can’t stop. They may cheat or steal to finance their addiction. The consequences of compulsive gambling catch up with them: they may lose their jobs, get divorced, or get arrested.
• Hopeless phase – In the hopeless phase, problem gamblers hit “rock bottom.” They don’t believe that anyone cares or that help is possible. They don’t even care if they live or die. They may abuse drugs and alcohol to numb the pain. Many problem gamblers also consider or attempt suicide.

Treatment for problem gambling

Attitudes that get in the way of treatment for problem gambling:

• “I know I should quit, but I love gambling.”
• “Lack of money is the real problem, not my gambling.”
• “I can learn how to manage my gambling without stopping entirely.”
• “I’m only in treatment to appease my family or employer.”
• “I can’t imagine life without gambling.”
• “Quitting gambling is impossible.”

In order to overcome a gambling addiction, you must first admit that you have a problem. For many problem gamblers, this is the hardest part. But recovery won’t happen if you’re minimizing the addiction, making excuses, or blaming others.

Once you’re ready to own up to your gambling problem, the work of recovery can begin. Start by seeking professional help from an addiction specialist. This is also the time to come clean to your loved ones and ask for their support. Overcoming a gambling addiction or problem is never easy. But recovery is possible if you stick with treatment and seek support.

Treatment options for gambling addiction and problem gambling

• Cognitive-behavioral therapy for problem gambling focuses on changing unhealthy gambling behaviors and thoughts, including rationalizations and false beliefs. It also teaches problem gamblers how to fight gambling urges, deal with uncomfortable emotions rather than escape through gambling, and solve financial, work, and relationship problems caused by the addiction.
• Gamblers Anonymous is a twelve-step recovery program patterned after Alcoholics Anonymous. It is widely viewed as the most effective treatment for compulsive gambling. Gamblers Anonymous provides a supportive, non-judgmental atmosphere where you can share what you’re going through and get feedback and advice from fellow gamblers who understand your problem. To find a Gamblers Anonymous meeting in your area, click here.
• Medication won’t cure a gambling problem, but it may be helpful if depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD, or another mental health problem is fueling the compulsive gambling. Medications used in the treatment of problem gambling include antidepressants and mood stabilizers. Naltrexone, a medication that reduces drug and alcohol cravings, may also reduce gambling cravings in action gamblers. Naltrexone must be carefully monitored because of serious potential side effects.

The Four Steps program: A gambling treatment that can “rewire” your brain

Jeffrey Schwartz has created a variation of a cognitive-behavioral therapy called The Four Steps Program. It has been successful in treating a wide range of conditions, including compulsive gambling. The Four Steps program takes advantage of neuroplasticity, the remarkable ability of our brains to change throughout our lives. The goal of treatment is to “rewire” the addicted brain by thinking about gambling in a new way. You can literally change your brain — developing new neural pathways and restoring brain chemical balance—by practicing the following four steps:

• Step 1: Relabel. Recognize that the urge to gamble is nothing more than a symptom of your gambling addiction, which is a treatable medical condition. It is not a valid feeling that deserves your attention.
• Step 2: Reattribute. Stop blaming yourself and try to understand that the urge to gamble has a physical cause in your brain. You are separate from the disease of addiction, but not a passive bystander. With practice, you can learn to control your unwanted thoughts about gambling.
• Step 3: Refocus. When the urge to gamble strikes, don’t wait for it to go away. Instead, shift your attention to something more positive or constructive. Do something else, even if the compulsion to gamble is still bothering you.
• Step 4: Revalue. Over time, as you practice the first three steps, you’ll gradually learn to revalue your flawed thoughts about gambling. Instead of taking them at face value, you’ll realize that they have no inherent value or power. They’re just “toxic waste” from your brain.

Self-help for problem gambling and gambling addiction

Tackling a gambling problem is possible if you avoid tempting environments, give up control of your finances (at least at first), find exciting or enjoyable activities to replace gambling, and surround yourself with people to whom you’re accountable. It’s also important to keep stress in check, since stress can trigger compulsive gambling or make it worse.

Getting Control of Problem Gambling

One way to stop yourself from problem gambling is to analyze what is needed for gambling to occur, work on removing these elements from your life and replace them with healthier choices. The four elements needed for problem gambling to continue are:

• Decision: Before gambling occurs, the decision to gamble has been made. If you have an urge to gamble: stop what you are doing and call someone, think about the consequences to your actions, tell yourself to stop thinking about gambling, and find something else to do immediately.
• Money: Gambling cannot occur without money. Get rid of your credit cards, let someone else be in charge of your money, have the bank make automatic payments for you, and keep a limited amount of cash on you at all times.
• Time: Gambling cannot occur if you don’t have the time. Schedule enjoyable recreational time for yourself that has nothing to do with gambling, find time for relaxation, and plan outings with your family.
• A Game: Without a game or activity to bet on there is no opportunity to gamble. Don’t put yourself in tempting environments or locations. Tell the gambling establishments you frequent that you have a gambling problem and ask them to restrict you from betting at their casinos and establishments.

Helping a family member with a gambling problem

If your family member has a gambling problem, you can help by encouraging him or her to get treatment and by offering your support. This doesn’t mean bailing the gambler out of trouble or covering up the problem. It’s important to hold problem gamblers responsible for their actions—including the consequences. It’s also important to take care of yourself. You have a right to protect yourself emotionally and financially. Don’t blame yourself for the gambler’s problems. You don’t control your family member’s behavior; the choice to stop gambling is theirs alone.

Tips for family members of problem gamblers:

• Take over the family finances
• Review bank and credit card statements
• Request credit reports from the three main credit bureaus
• Monitor Internet use to see if the person is gambling online
• Be honest about how the gambler’s behavior makes you feel
• Get counseling or join a support group such as Gam-Anon
• Encourage the person to go to Gambler’s Anonymous

You will recall on my previous blog where I revealed my EQ profile. In my strengths part of the profile written by Professor Leonard Young, came out: energy and enthusiasm as well as social skills. In a nut shell, my motivator could well be summarised in a single word: PASSIONATE.

The dictionary defines ‘Passionate’ as: having, compelled by, or ruled by intense emotion or strong feeling. Rightly or wrongly, the buzz words have been for a while : Emotional Intelligence is not it? To be moved by our emotions and to harness the intelligence of our emotions are now being taught.

Unlike the generation of boys of my age, when we were told, in my school days that boys or men should not openly show our emotions: on the contrary I grew up instead expressing mine openly. Hind side,  these open and un-braked expressions of emotions helped me during my days in dramatic art  to secure the top awards.

I would like to share with you now  the ‘ 9 PASSION LIBERATORS’ , so well described by author Omar Khan, and  used by world leaders to produce winning results.

Nine Passion Liberators

Here are nine ways to liberate passion:

1. Intimacy. Ask questions to probe, to understand, to articulate, and to listen. You’ll deepen your insight and rapport with others. Equally, let others in, help them to gain meaningful and helpful insights into your own values, emotions, and work style. Authentic relationships liberate passion, productive energy, purposeful debate, and powerful connection.

2. The right bull’s eye. Pick the right target for your business to deliver profits, grow share, and strengthen brand. Ensure your target delivers some larger goal. Finding the place where corporate passion, potential profits, and a company’s core competencies come together helps produce a shared, strategic vision. With everyone aligned, challenged and recognized consistently in synch with it, passion naturally flows!

3. Radical conversations. Identify three radical conversations that could be game-changing. Get to the root of such issues in a candid, empathic manner by looking at the larger shared aim and committing to it together. Such conversations achieve alignment, commitment, and breakthroughs.

4. Protecting possibility. Face the facts while retaining a sense of possibility. Recognizing limits in a positive fashion enables you to transcend those limits, transform them, or evolve beyond them. By framing challenges in broader, more varied ways, you may convert a seeming barrier into a bridge.

5. Provoking the future. Determine which past strategies to keep and which ones to transcend by bypassing limiting assumptions and paradigms. Co-create new options with key allies and stakeholders to formulate and realize a future that generates exceptional value.

6. Claiming accountability. Encourage all to take responsibility for building a desired culture. Discerning, real-time appreciation leads people to do more of a good thing.

7. Living vitality. Find ways to stimulate your senses, exercise your body, learn new things, unleash your creativity, solve problems, love and care for people, listen empathically, and concentrate on the most important tasks at optimal times.

8. Maximizing potential. Create contexts for expression of potential. Commit to the process by which you produce results. Know the talent profiles of teammates and develop their talents.

9. Coaching growth. Productive behavioral change begins with “doing” things in a better and more effective way, seeking synergy between “doing” and “being” for passion and performance.

Making It Happen

Make passion happen in four ways:

1. Make passion liberators a way of life. They foster joy, better results, richer relationships, and amplified brand.

2. Create a coaching and leadership culture. Create a dashboard for your team and pick the passion liberators you most need to work on together.

3. Hype it as it happens. To liberate passion, make a change, then hype it!

4. Remember that passion is natural. With the right relationships and targets, you’ll challenge and support each other to behave your way to your vision.

Your strengths are as follows:

 

Colleagues appreciate your energy and enthusiasm. You would qualify as the ultimate royalty who reaches out to his/her subjects because you truly enjoy reaching out to others. If someone were to put you down on canvas, you would sell a million copies like the Mona Lisa due to your popularity. You are an optimistic person, looking at the brighter side of life. You are the centre of attraction in social settings. Most parties would be incomplete without your presence. 

 

Those around you like you a lot. While others make a drudgery out of work, you find joy in it due to your playful attitude. Only when the whole world learns to be like you, will loneliness be a forgotten word. If everyone knew how to make friends the way you do, then there would be lasting peace on this planet. Spontaneity comes easily to you.

 

If all that was needed to raise the dead were some laughter and fun, you would have emptied entire graveyards. If governments talk at tables to avert war, then they had better choose you to come along. Your convincing style would win over anyone’s heart. Life is in your bones making you an enjoyable person to be with. Others around you find that you inspire them. In the most wretched of conditions, you may well be the lone fellow who bears a smile of cheer.

 

You are full of energy and enthusiasm. If words could make money, you would be a millionaire! Indeed, you are rich – in friendships since you delight in communicating with them. Many view metals as their treasure, but you are different – people are your gold. As such, you regard them with utmost interest and affection.

 

You always do things very differently from others. You find seeking new ideas very stimulating. You are a curious person.At any given opportunity, you will grab one that offers you a whole new range of activities to indulge in. You have the tenacity to keep swimming where others are likely to drown. This can be attributed to your versatility and ability to adapt.Dreamer may be what you are to other people, but what makes your dreams special is that they are a manifestation of your powerful imagination.

 

Organisational transformation requires the input of fresh ideas. Your inventiveness is an asset to your organisation. Most people find organisational turmoil very stressful but not you. For you, such conditions are ideal moments to show your resourcefulness.You prefer new approaches to traditional ways of doing things. Thus, you likely to be seen as a reformer. Openness is your name, invention your gain. You have an innate drive to be creative in any environment. While others are scared stiff of confronting trouble, you would rather face them head on. You are flexible in solving problems.

 

You are full of new ideas, which you would like other to know. You may best do this by engaging in artistic endeavours. You probably will never be bored with yourself. This is because you are always working on various new approaches. You are a non-conformist who prefers to look at things from a different perspective.Your knack of conceiving new ideas may give rise to novel operational systems and totally new products.

 

Those around you appreciates your willingness to be helpful. If every neighbour were like you, then your neighbourhood would be full of goodwill – thanks to your emphasis on maintaining harmony. Your energies are channeled to the welfare of the team and its objectives. There would be fewer wars and strife around, if everyone learnt from your love of peace and your belief in its preservation. You have a strong sense of loyalty to those you associate with.

 

You can be a vital source of support for anyone from subordinates to superiors. When colleagues are down with social problems, they can easily count on your support in times of trouble.You are not the type that easily offends people. Moderation in approaching life is important to you. Those placed under your care and supervision values your genuine care and concern for them. Colleagues generally find you approachable, pleasant and unsophisticated.

 

Your acceptance of others and their views will prove beneficial in the long run.

 

You may have these weaknesses:

 

Things would be a lot better if you’d talk less and spend time listening more to others. While your talkativeness is enriching in social contexts, yet remember to give time to others to express themselves too. You view life with much optimism. Just be careful that you are also realistic as well.

 

In the midst of the crowd, maintain your identity as a unique individual with your own thoughts and opinions. Did you know that a group of caterpillars going round and round in circles eventually die out due to starvation? Hence, break the cycle and accept the authority to lead from time to time.

 

Generally, your personality can be summarized as that of ‘Creative Encourager’

 

A summary of your strengths are as follows:

 

You

 Try to think well of others

 Reach out to others

 Are known for coming up with new ideas

 Are supportive of others

 Do not like traditional way of doing things

 Like to be different from others

 Like novelty in approaching situations

 Are creative

 Have a strong imagination

 Are an approachable person

 Are liked by others

 Have warm personality

 Try hard not to hurt people’s feeling

 Share feelings easily

 Are helpful to others

 Easily accept others’ suggestions and ideas

 

A summary of your weaknesses are as follows:

 

You

 Tend to be too trusting and hence may become gullible

 Are easily bored, constantly desiring to do new things

 Tend to be soft with people

 Need acceptance from others

 Are sentimental

 Are inclined to be too inquisitive

 Tend to compromise with others so as to avoid conflicts

 

 

In order to nurture your Emotional Intelligence (EQ), you should develop:

 

 ability to ‘include’ and not ‘alienate’ others when you try to introduce new ideas

 greater appreaciation of the value of rules and regulations

 ability to work in a team with others

 better skills in introducing changes which are seen to break traditions

 more patience with people who cannot understand your new ideas and suggestions

 more self-confidence in yourself

 avoid complacency

 ability to say ‘no’ when necessary

 boldness not to compromise

 clear goals for your life

 ability to work alone at a task

 better punctuality at meetings and appointments

 control over your tendency to be restless

 willingness to listen rather than talk

 better control of your emotions

You tend to express your creativity in the following ways:

 

 Your creative inspiration often comes from talking to wide network of people.

 Collaborates with others to emerge with creative outcomes – this openness is a good and fresh source of input of ideas.

 Expressions may be wacky and fun, much to the displeasure of some.

 Your creative ideas may actually be a synthesis of current opinions but given the gloss of glamorous presentation by you.

 Limited by level of approval and acceptability by others.

 You have the capacity to absorb a vast amount of ideas and opinions with great openness. These would then be analysed according to criteria such as personal freedom, or aesthetic qualities.

 You have no difficulty to originate something contrary to the status quo if you think that the prevalent ideas are outdated and rigid.

 Expressions of creativity may have shocking elements that are anti-establishment or contrary to tradition.

 Your creative expressions are characterized by total freedom in speaking up, no holds barred.

 Your creative ideas may be viewed as weird and unusual.

 

 

 

How you might improve on your creativity:

 

 Learn to be less dependent on social acceptability so that your creativity can flourish.

 More intense thought is needed to refine imaginative outcomes.

 You should ensure that your presentation of your creative ideas, though flamboyant and stylish, will not lack substance, miss the essentials and appear shoddy.

 Be prepared to meet with disappointment and disapproval since not everyone appreciates your new ideas.

 Develop better listening skills and more attention to details so that your creativity is not impeded.

 Beware of personal arrogance and bigotry towards conventional thought and expression.

 Admit that criticism of your ideas and works are inevitable and not necessarily bad.

 Toe the line if your creative expressions border on moral issues and political acceptability.

 Seek an honest unbiased second opinion on works and ideas.

 

You can help your organization by:

 

 Creating a cheerful working environment.

 Inspiring members through your charisma.

 Organizing social events among the workers.

 Mediating and diffusing tension between different levels of management.

 Communicating well with people outside the organization.

 Generating breakthrough ideas and hence, fostering innovation and creativity.

 Offering totally different problem-solving approaches. Thinking outside the box and employing fresh methods in corporate strategy.

 Enriching current opinions, source of novelty, aestheticism, beauty and art.

 Inspiring through thought and action.

 Adding value to existing projects.

 

In leadership and supervisory roles, it is important that you try to the following steps:

 

 Be more objective when dealing with subordinates instead of being emotional.

 Let others have a chance to talk and voice ideas.

 Listen more, talk only when necessary.

 Be more thorough in planning projects.

 Learn to be serious at the appropriate times.

 Translate your creative ideas into something that others can understand.

 Allow others adequate time to grasp your new ideas.

 Follow through on initial ideas before moving to newer ones.

 Learn to accept criticism of your suggestions.

 Be realistic enough and not too dreamy.

 

To enrich your interpersonal relationships with others, try to do the following:

 

 Try talking less and listen to others more and concentrate.

 Give others a chance to speak, don’t interrupt.

 Keep a diary of daily appointments – no one appreciates your forgetfulness.

 Stand your ground and do what is right regardless of others’ opinions of you.

 Realize you can’t please nor get along with everyone.

 Be open to other’s criticisms of your ideas and suggestions.

 Be more realistic when sharing your opinions.

 Give others a chance to announce and implement their plans.

 Introduce your views and opinions patiently and clearly.

 Appreciate and humbly bear with others’ activities and interests.

 

In facing conflicts, you tend to do this:

 

 Joke to alleviate matters.

 Please the other party.

 Overreact.

 Talk much but listen little.

 May become defensive and overly emotional.

 Withdraw to a safe environment.

 Feel that others around you just don’t understand.

 Wonder why others cannot figure  out a simple solution to the problem.

 

How to better manage yourself when facing conflict:

 

 Listen more to understand the cause of the conflict.

 Don’t jump to conclusions; analyse the situation more carefully.

 Restrain yourself from being too emotional.

 Use humour to diffuse tension at the right moment and on the right issue.

 Accept that not all will think or agree with the way you do.

 Use  your creativity to resolve the conflict.

 Communicate your proposed solution for the conflict in a way that

 

others can understand .

 

The following actions may cause stress:

 

 Lack of fun, hope and optimism in life.

 Disapproval from others for unknown reasons.

 Constant supervision.

 Inhibition of expression.

 Personal attacks.

 Fetters, restrictions, restraints and any form of inhibition and restrictions on forms of expression.

 Rejection of views and ideas.

 Being misunderstood.

 

Stress – Why you react the way you do:

 

 Perceive that others do not approve your actions.

 You feel that the other party is hostile towards you.

 The situation is too serious and dry.

 Withdraw into fantasy world.

 Rebellion.

 Disillusioned.

 Discouraged.

 

Stress – How to overcome your unfavourable reactions:

 

 Stay calm and think over the root cause of stress.

 Think of ways to overcome problem.

 Let your mind rule over your feelings.

 Voice your opinions in a less argumentative and provocative way.

 Accept the reality of the present situation.

 Accept some limitations and work within them.

 

 

Your approach/strategy and attitude towards learning:

 

 Subject matter must be good enough to generate interest and provide enjoyment.

 People-related subjects are greatly favoured.

 Learns best in group/team setting.

 Enthusiastic towards new material but may not last too long at it.

 Prefers interactive mode of learning.

 Broad minded and receptive to recent developments and almost any theory.

 Flexible-minded: adaptable towards new subjects.

 Open to new things.

 Innovative: new ideas are fused with existing concepts.

 Creative approaches by investigating, from different perspectives, a particular interest.

 

To be a more effective learner:

 

 Pay more attention to details so as not to miss relevant points.

 Be more organised and orderly – this will save you time and energy later on.

 Note that many times studying can be dry and that’s something you can’t change, but need to accept to make progress.

 Aim to be all-rounded by covering areas not related to people, because in life, the two are hardly separate in most areas.

 Don’t let the absence of a team or group halt your pace – i.e. don’t be over-reliant on others.

 Adoption of new ideas and unsubstantiated theories may run the risk of deception at personal or others’ expense – hence, be cautious.

 While applying new perspectives of studying, don’t throw away conventional views, the bases of subsequent developments.

 Be prepared to sit through dry spells of boring material if you are to get anywhere eventually.

 In group settings that require interactive exchanges, be careful not to ‘blast away’ any stand that seems conventional lest it discourage healthy dialogue from your study partners.

 Be more aware of implications of adopting new ideas.

 

 

Why were Koung Koung and Popoh YIPTONG reluctant to the marriage of my father Pak Lin to my mother Cecette? To be able to answer the question, it would be necessary to get to the background story to situate the scene and place us in the context of the time and place.

We were just passed the 40’s war, time were tough for all the inhabitants of the island. Employment was scare, even food was rationed. Came the end of the war, in 1945 the troops were demobilized and the normal activities of the country restarted.

Koung Koung YIPTONG was amongst the notable of the Chinese community and had done economically well for himself and his lot. He was a merchant, owning a high street wholesale business. In those days the wholesalers were not only the suppliers of goods of the retailers, they were also the fund provider (almost the banker) of the retailers. He himself started off in 1907 as a countryside retailer attached to a wholesaler until he had enough capital to open shop as a wholesale trader. Having saved enough wealth, he was about to fulfill his mission: a return back to China to resettle with his family.

Koung Koung YIPTONG was owner of several properties which were rented; was a prominent member of the community and was part of the Chinese unofficial leaders’ club: he commanded respect and was in the lime light of the community as an example of success and wisdom to follow. He was often called to arbitrate on litigious issues between members of the community, which in a way was a sort of arbitration court of the community.

To grow his business, on the recommendation of another wealthy merchant Chong Kwan, Koung Koung employed as correspondence clerk the latter’s relative: Ignace AHLIM an ex army sergeant who was recently demobilized. Ignace, though educated, came from a poor family background. Of Chinese Cantonese father and half Chinese mother, Ignace was orphan at age 16 and had to work to look after his mother, brother and sisters. Koung Koung liked the industrious qualities and the honesty of Ignace and later recruited his younger brother Laval to work in the business and her younger sister Cecette to help on a part time basis his growing children in their schooling. The duties of Cecette demanded that she spent long hours at the YIPTONG’s house.

With time and frequent meetings love between Cecette the learning tutor of the family and the eldest son, Pak Lin of the family developed.

How could the model Hakka family allow his eldest son marry a non Hakka?

It was traditional in those days that Chinese parents would select their daughter in law for acceptance by their son. Could the family accept a departure from the tradition?

Besides there were practical aspects to the issue: Popoh did not speak any other language than Hakka, Cecette could not communicate with her; how would her future daughter in law survive when they will be settled back in China and further more Cecette did not have the Chineseness expected from the traditional Hakka family.

Soon as the news of the love affair of the tutor of the house with the eldest son broke, Cecette lost her employ. Pak Lin was  told to severe the relationship. The lovers continued to meet in spite of the restrictions. Koung Koung even threatened to disinherit him if he would dare marry his love one. Pak Lin would not change his mind: he even left his job in the family business to become a taxi driver to the horror of his father.

Seeing that Pak Lin will not change his mind, Koung Koung in his wisdom finally gave in: he accepted the marriage under the condition that the married couple would settle in China soon after. Meanwhile, the 3^rd son Yook started dating another Chinese girl which did not receive the consent of Popoh as the tradition would dictate.

Last week at the Rogers house there was the launching of the biography of Amede Maingard, Behind enemy line with the SAS. He was the visionary who founded the Tourism industry and Air Mauritius.

I had the privilege to have known the man and worked for him. Before I finished school because of the friendship which bonded my Dad and Amede Maingard, I was asked by my Dad to go and visit Amede Maingard in his office at Rogers which in those days was at Sir W. Newton Street. It was the 13^th December 1966; I met him for the first time. He was a man with a smile on his face with an impressive look. Man of only a few words, I was impressed by the way he would look at me. I would sense a lot of sympathy in his glance whilst at the same time I could make out that he was a great strategist with a calculating mind. On that very day, I joined Rogers & company where I spent 38 years of enjoyable service until my retirement.

Amede Maingard commands respect as he would only express his views after having heard all the opinions and done his own thinking. Always calm in his manners, he was a no time waster. He was the authority and would not accept to be contradicted. His war years gave him an aversion to anything German. I recall how he reacted when we spoke of the operation of Lufthansa to Mauritius. He left this world too early and did not see the fruit of his work at Air Mauritius with the operations of B747 SP and the boom of the Tourism industry in the years past the 80’s. He planted the seeds, saw to it that the buds got off the ground but did not live to see the fruit of his determination and vision.

La présence des entreprises chinoises sur la scène mondiale est aujourd’hui incontournable. Et pourtant, nous ne les avons pas vu venir… Comme le chat, elles ont cette aptitude à bouger très vite, à sauter et à retomber sur leurs pattes, quelle que soit la hauteur de la chute. D’où tirent-elles leur force ? Pouvons-nous nous en inspirer ?
À travers des allers-retours continus entre Chine et Occident, entre pensée chinoise et philosophie occidentale, Sophie Faure développe la métaphore féline. Les qualités indispensables à cultiver dans l’environnement actuel, marqué par l’ambiguïté, l’incertitude et la complexité, sont justement celles qui définissent le mieux les entreprises chinoises. Loin des considérations habituelles sur le “péril jaune” ou le “miracle chinois”, ce livre nous invite à nous interroger sur chacune d’elles :

• l’audace,
• la persévérance,
• la fluidité,
• l’intelligence mouvante,
• le lâcher prise,
• la perspicacité,
• le sens de l’équilibre,
• le discernement…

Toute personne désireuse de mieux manager trouvera ici des clés précieuses pour explorer d’autres voies, en changeant de regard et en osant une pensée plus mobile, plus adaptable.

Ainsi après ses premiers livres : Manager à l’école de Confucius, et Enseignements d’un dirigeant asiatique, elle écrit « Mettez du chat dans votre management. »Sophie que j’avais rencontré en décembre 2005, m’a annoncé la sortie de son livre la semaine dernière et j’attends de le lire.