Unusual sources of inspiration

I read this wonderful book called: “How to talk about books you haven’t read”, by Pierre Bayard (http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/books/bayardp.htm). Right on the first chapter the author exposes an interesting concept that we can apply to our field of work:

“… culture is above all a matter of orientation. Being cultivated is a matter not of having read any book in particular, but being able to find your bearings within books as a system, which requires you to know that they form a system and to be able to locate each element in relation to the others. The interior of the book is less important than its exterior, or if you prefer, the interior of the book is its exterior, since what counts in a book is the books alongside it.

It is, then, hardly important if a cultivated person hasn’t read a given book, for though he has no exact knowledge of its content, he may still know its location, or in other words how it is situated in relation to other books. This distinction between the content of a book and its location is fundamental, for it is this that allows those unintimidated by culture to speak without trouble on any subject.”

If we consider a book like an event, knowing its location in relation to other events (Correlation, trends) and knowing it’s exterior (the context in which the event occurred, patterns) is as important and sometimes more important than the content of the event itself and this knowledge is fundamental to support business decisions.

The purple happiness bracelet

I listened on the radio to an interview with Rev. Will Bowen, who preaches that our thoughts create our world and our words indicate our thoughts. When we eliminate complaining from our lives we will enjoy happier relationships, better health and greater prosperity. So he created the Complaint Free program to help people to set a trap for their own negativity and redirect their minds towards a more positive and rewarding life. For him, sadness is a direct result of our attitude towards life, it's our conscious decision to not be happy. He then created a business out distributing purple bracelets that you can use to control your thoughts, to help you create the habit of being happy. Every time you have a sad thought or a complaint, you have to move the bracelet to another arm and you have to start counting the days again. If you manage to pass 21 days without changing the bracelet, most likely you will have trained yourself to be happy, you will have developed the habit of happiness. I don't now if this habit will make you as happy as he is with the big business that he created around the idea.

Check out his site: http://www.acomplaintfreeworld.org/index.html

They even announce Complaint free cruises on the site...

Non Standard Solutions

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