Running in the snow

Today saw our first major snowfall of the season and as we went for our daily run, we rediscovered the joys of running on icy patches and into slush and snow. The principle “two steps forward, one step backward” is quite fitting to these conditions. Even though we shorten our course from 4.4 to 3.6 mile during the winter months, the end result on a snowy day feels more like a good 6 mile, as there’s a lot of “slippage” going on and it becomes necessary to lift the feet much higher in order to clear all the white stuff. Tactically, we also need to be much more attentive. As we run in the morning, many streets and roads have yet to be cleared, making for narrow lanes littered with big chunks of snow and covered with icy tracks. Even though we try to run facing the traffic, we also need to watch our backs as cars and trucks can be all over the place, especially early in the season. Then there are snowplows backing up in driveways that won’t see us and homeowners fighting against their snow-blowers and showering pedestrians unintentionally. This is when running becomes an art in traction, avoidance and fluidity…

Chaotic dreams

When I can remember them, my dreams are generally not scary or sensual; they’re just very hectic and rough. For some odd reasons, most of my them send me back to the days I was working in the corporate world and always involves high-pressure situations (we talked about those yesterday) that take place at trade shows or at important meetings, with company’s investors, management team, sales force or clients. Often these dreams place me in some impossible situations where the old gets mixed with the new, the trivial detail becomes highly relevant, nothing is logical, everyone’s mad at me, and I’ve seemingly lost whatever good judgment I thought I had. When all blows up, the dream finally collapses, I totally wake up; it's now 5:30 am.

The different faces of pressure

Working, thinking or exercising under pressure is almost always a cause of stress. Of course, if stress often causes pain, it can also lead to great joy. Regardless of the end result, it seems that only a minority of people deal well with pressure. For those few who seem to thrive under it, this extreme environment is probably the ideal situation for them to produce at their utmost. With that in mind, the meaning of pressure varies vastly, not just in terms of its sheer intensity, but also in relation to the subject’s personality and ability to absorb it. Since it is voluntary, self-applied pressure stands at the opposite end of the spectrum; finding something difficult, but having ultimate control over it is a lot more acceptable than having no personal say about it. This is another reason why - based on one's vantage point - pressure can run the gamut from sheer agony to pure exaltation…

At long last, here's the “Mondo”

Today, as we were driving and listening to the Democratic presidential candidates’ debate on NPR, the subject of China reluctance to let its currency appreciate came up in the exchange; as she often does, my wife asked one of her disarming questions that never fail to upset my conventional thinking: “Now that’s the world has shrunk and is said to be flat, why don’t we have one single currency?” I sure was surprised and I couldn’t think fast enough on my feet to utter something pretentious or stupid; instead a long silence ensued. Seconds later, I finally recovered and agreed that this might indeed be a good idea.

I thought of the Euro and the first attempt it represented to unit a significant basket of currencies within developed countries. Initially, everyone was predicting its quick demise, and today, tables have been turned as the Euro is seen as a serious alternative to the Dollar. This is how I drew a parallel between the Euro as a continental currency and its worldwide equivalent that I named “Mondo” for discussion’s sake. As a new worldwide, universal currency the “Mondo” would offer huge benefits; among others it would level the playing field and put and end to the parity games played by countries like China or Japan that keep a lid on their currencies to stay ahead with their trade balances. Likewise, a “Mondo” currency would go a long way to further stabilizing the world’s commodity markets. Of course, there would be rules and penalty to make sure that all participating nations are fiscally responsible; for instance, national budget deficits would be severely limited and sanctioned when they occur. This, without a question, would be an extremely complex proposition but its benefits would be enormous in terms of world trade, harmonious globalization and, down the road, in securing world peace. Now, may I tap the smart brains that might read this article? What would it take to make that unique currency work effectively within a united world central bank, without surrendering the sovereignty of each participating Nations?

Exceeding expectations

Always managing an excellent outcome or a great surprise is one of my favorite concepts in our daily life. Too many times, we over promise and end up under delivering, ignoring that well-managed expectations should be a number-one rule in business. A few industries like on-line commerce have been excellent at applying this principle, and have been handsomely rewarded by it. As for the rest of us, we need to resist the attraction of letting other believe that things will be great when we know from the get go that reaching the promised outcome will be tenuous at best. We should accept to take some losses in advance in order to reap benefits later, but we’re fooled by our need to look good immediately and cannot envision that we’ll look like idiots when the good deal promised fails to materialize. We just need to reprogram ourselves

Learning how to write

When I was in school, creative writing was probably my favorite and best subject. Was I a story teller? I’m not quite sure, but I really enjoyed writing. I was never excellent at it, but with the proper training and coaching I believe that I could have improved a lot. More than thirty years ago, when I came to America, I was terrified to write in English, and especially to write business letters and other memoranda. Obviously, over time and after countless trials and errors, my writing skills improved to the point that I began to enjoy the activity and did my very best to crafting the quality of my written pieces. In the meantime, my French took a hiatus as I hardly ever used it, except for a few hand-written letters and notes to my family. About two years ago, as I left my last job and wondered what I would do next, I considered that writing might be a great creative outlet and promised myself that I would plunge into it. I had a long list of ideas that I accumulated over the years and thought that it would be easy to pick one up and turn it into a… book. Boy was I naïve! I forgot that - just like with running, my favorite addiction - one’s need to develop a discipline and a habit for writing. As a result, my good intentions stayed just that for the past one and a half year, until that day of March 2007 when, while skiing, I ruptured my Achilles’ tendon. My temporary disability gave me the opportunity to start a daily blog, which I decided would be bilingual (English and French) to reconcile me with my native tongue that I had ignored for so long. There have been ups and down in the writing and publishing of my blogs, but recently, I’ve been more consistent with it. I now enjoy it much more, think about it at night, look for ideas, and I hope to expand the scope of that activity in the very near future!

Revisiting Che Guevara

A few nights ago, while watching our French TV satellite channel, we saw Danielle Mitterrand, the widow of France’s former president, promoting her new book "Le Livre de ma mémoire" on “On n’est pas couché” one of Laurent Ruquier’s shows. Poor Danielle; she appears to have a big chip on her shoulder and does come across as both a very angry and frustrated radical left-winger. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say that she’s still a die-hard supporter of the Che. She continues to believe that he was fantastic and to this day, believes that he remains the romantic icon of socialist leadership. She probably never read any biography on the man or any account of the Che’s recklessness and atrocities. At best, she probably only saw the “Motorcycle diaries” movie, and still has a poster of the revolutionary hanging in her bedroom…