When people take professions according to their personal inclinations, they perform work effortlessly, efficiently and joyously

Translating Ideas into Reality

by Ashu Khanna | Jun 6, 2013

When people take professions according to their personal inclinations, they perform work effortlessly, efficiently and joyously

“Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one who has better abilities and ideas but the courage to bet on one’s ideas, take a calculated risk and to act.” Andre Malraux

There is often a gap between intention and action. This incongruence arises due to our thoughts that creep in while taking action. Our interpretations, perceptions, beliefs, fears and attachments impact the quality of action. Our thoughts are so deeply embedded that we keep tumbling from one action to another, completely unaware of the intensity and significance of their influence on our life.   Read more of this post

Harvard’s Kaplan Says to Succeed Know What You Want

Harvard’s Kaplan Says to Succeed Know What You Want

By Zinta Lundborg – May 30, 2013

“You’ve got to take ownership of your own life,” says Robert Steven Kaplan. He’s written “What You’re Really Meant to Do: A Road Map for Reaching Your Unique Potential” to show people how to find satisfaction in their careers and their lives. It’s not a touchy-feely self-help tome, but a step-by-step guide to finding your true path written by a former investment banker: Kaplan moved to the Harvard Business School in 2005 from the Goldman Sachs Group (GS), where he was vice-chairman. We spoke at Bloomberg world headquarters in New York.

Lundborg: We’re living in tough times in terms of the job market, so perhaps people don’t have the luxury to do what they’re really meant to do?

Kaplan: All this is relative to your options. If you’ve got no option but to wash dishes, my advice is wash dishes. I still want you to think about your strengths and weaknesses. I want you to take a little time on the weekend or whatever to step back. Don’t let crisis management become a way of life. Read more of this post

The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance

The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance [Hardcover]

Steven Kotler (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 4, 2014

In this groundbreaking book, New York Times–bestselling author Steven Kotler decodes the mystery of ultimate human performance. Drawing on over a decade of research and first-hand reporting with dozens of top action and adventure sports athletes like big wave legend Laird Hamilton, big mountain snowboarder Jeremy Jones, and skateboarding pioneer Danny Way, Kotler explores the frontier science of “flow,” an optimal state of consciousness in which we perform and feel our best.

Building a bridge between the extreme and the mainstream, The Rise of Superman explains how these athletes are using flow to do the impossible and how we can use this information to radically accelerate performance in our own lives.

At its core, this is a book about profound possibility; about what is actually possible for our species; about where—if anywhere—our limits lie. Read more of this post

Famed speculator and hedge fund manager Victor Niederhoffer after he lost everything in the 1997 Asian Crisis [video]

Victor Niederhoffer after he lost everything in the 1997 Asian Crisis

June 3, 2013 by Mick Weinstein

The following remarkable video was edited from a longer Japanese documentary. Famed speculator and hedge fund manager Victor Niederhoffer is interviewed in his emptied-out mansion after he lost everything (“a staggering amount”) in the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Don’t miss the George Soros cameo with a bikini-clad woman. As Joshua Wallis notes, the video is “a reminder of the perils of leverage and the consequences of unpredictability.” Niederhoffer managed to dust himself off after this and achieve something of his former glory with his Matador Fund, which did very well until Niederhoffer blew up again in 2007. For more on Niederhoffer, see John Cassidy’s excellent 2007 New Yorker profile.

THE BLOW-UP ARTIST

Can Victor Niederhoffer survive another market crisis?

by John CassidyOCTOBER 15, 2007

Niederhoffer’s approach is eclectic. His funds, a friend says, appeal “to people like him: self-made people who have a maverick streak.” Read more of this post

Smithfield: How Sausage Was Made; Joseph W. Luter III transformed his family’s firm into a global giant

Updated June 5, 2013, 8:14 p.m. ET

Smithfield: How Sausage Was Made

‘Seeds Were Planted’ 7 Years Ago, Luter Says, When He Suggested Joint Venture to Shuanghui Chair

By DAVID KESMODEL

Joseph W. Luter III transformed his family’s firm into a global giant

It was a brief meeting of the two most powerful people in pork. The encounter between Joseph W. Luter III, chairman of Smithfield Foods Inc.,SFD +0.33% the world’s largest pork processor, and Wan Long, chairman of Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd., known as “China’s No. 1 Butcher,” lasted only 90 minutes about seven years ago. Hosting Mr. Wan in his Manhattan apartment, Mr. Luter floated the idea of a joint venture, saying “we ought to do something together.” And that laid the foundation, Mr. Luter said in an interview this week, for a very different tie-up: last week’s $4.7 billion deal for Shuanghui to buy Smithfield in the biggest Chinese takeover of a U.S. company. “Seeds were planted,” the 73-year-old Mr. Luter said, “and sometimes it takes a while for seeds to germinate.” Read more of this post

Moneysupermarket.com founder Simon Nixon lands £200m windfall; Businessman bored by accountancy cashes in after strong demand for shares in price comparison site

Moneysupermarket.com founder Simon Nixon lands £200m windfall

Businessman bored by accountancy cashes in after strong demand for shares in price comparison site

Rupert Neate

The Guardian, Wednesday 5 June 2013 23.45 BST

Simon Nixon, who founded the price comparison website Moneysupermarket.com. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt /Rex Features

Simon Nixon, the businessman who founded the price comparison siteMoneysupermarket.com after dropping out of studying accountancy at university because it was “boring”, has landed a £200m windfall.

Nixon – who had already banked a £100m fortune when the website joined the stock market in 2007 – has sold 100m shares, raising another £200m in cash.

Ferrari-loving Nixon, 45, will also collect about £20m from a dividend payout on his remaining 29% stake in the company. Nixon, who is understood to be relocating to Jersey for tax reasons, founded the website after quitting an accountancy course at Nottingham University because, according to an interview at the time of the flotation, “I hated it. It was boring.” Read more of this post

The Way to Produce a Person; You would be more likely to cultivate a deep soul if you put yourself in the middle of the things that engaged you most seriously

June 3, 2013

The Way to Produce a Person

By DAVID BROOKS

Dylan Matthews had a fascinating piece about a young man named Jason Trigg in The Washington Post on Sunday. Trigg is a 25-year-old computer science graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has hit upon what he thinks is the way he can do maximum good for the world. He goes to work each day at a high-frequency trading hedge fund. But, instead of spending his ample salary, he lives the life of a graduate student and gives a large chunk of his money away. Read more of this post

Amazing scenery of China’s Huangshan Mountain, UNESCO cultural and natural heritage

Amazing scenery of Huangshan Mountain

（China.org.cn）  14:32, June 03, 2013

Huangshan Mountain, listed as a UNESCO cultural and natural heritage and World Geopark, boasts of spectacular landscapes thick with vegetation and lofty peaks. The 154-square-kilometer sight-seeing area possesses four unique scenes: peculiarly shaped granite rocks, waterfalls, pine trees and views of the clouds from above. The Flying over Rock, the Stone Monkey Gazing over the Sea of Clouds, the Brush pen-liked Rock and many other renowned scenic spots attract streams of visitors to the marvelous mountain every day. (China.org.cn)

How to attract long-term investors: An interview with M&G’s Aled Smith

How to attract long-term investors: An interview with M&G’s Aled Smith

The award-winning fund manager discusses what he looks for in a company when he’s making investment decisions.

June 2013 | byMarc Goedhart and Tim Koller

Executives overburdened by the demands of their companies’ short-term investors may yearn for a more supportive crowd that might be less skittish about volatility. Such investors would base their decisions on a deeper understanding of a company’s strategy, performance, and potential to create long-term value—and would not pressure a company for short-term gains at the expense of greater long-term growth.¹ Attracting such investors can prove something of a challenge. Certainly, executives are often highly coached when they talk about their strategy and objectives, and have extensive information about potential investors and their style and approach to investing. Too often, though, those messaging cues come from sell-side analysts, who may have a shorter-term agenda. So says Aled Smith, who manages the Global Leaders Fund and the American Fund at M&G Investments, based in London.² Smith recently joined Marc Goedhart and Tim Koller in McKinsey’s London office for this wide-ranging interview on what he looks for in potential investments for his portfolios. Read more of this post

Parents pray for students at Confucian temple before Gaokao, China’s SAT

Parents pray for students at Confucian temple before Gaokao

（People’s Daily Online）  13:19, June 05, 2013

Every year before Gaokao, loads of students accompanied by their parents come and pray at Confucian temple.

Chinese Officials stamps on man’s head and another reeked of alcohol while carrying out a campaign against street vendors and traders

Officials suspended for stamping on man’s head

2013-06-04 23:31:56 GMT2013-06-05 07:31:56(Beijing Time)  Shanghai Daily

Police in Yan’an City are investigating reports that an urban management official trampled on the head of a bicycle dealer and another reeked of alcohol while carrying out a campaign against illegal street vendors and traders. Officials at the scene and their supervisors, eight in total, have been suspended, according to the Yan’an urban management bureau. Last Friday, seven people got off a minivan which had “urban management law enforcement” painted on it, and carried away several bicycles lined up in front of a store in the city in northwestern Shaanxi Province. That led to a brawl during which the owner of the bicycle shop, a person surnamed Liu, was stamped on the head by an official, witnesses said. Video posted online showed a man in yellow, said to be Liu, and several uniformed men locked in a war of words as Liu held back the bicycles. The quarrel escalated into a free-for-all. Two officials kicked and beat Liu who fell to the ground. One official can be seen jumping on his head and shoulder. At the end of the clip Liu walks away, bleeding profusely. A police car can also be seen passing by in the video without stopping. The local district police refused to give any details as a probe was underway. The bicycle store owner was twice warned by law enforcement officials not to put the bicycles outside the store. Officials again found the bicycles parked outside last Friday, said Duan Yuting, deputy head of the local urban management supervising detachment. Officials seized the bicycles, said Duan. He had no comment over the “stamping” issue.

Panera Bread chief Ron Shaich on staying recharged and why the company opened pay-what-you-can cafes

June 4, 2013, 8:02 p.m. ET

A New Test for Panera’s Pay-What-You-Can

By ANNIE GASPARRO

Panera Bread Co. chief Ron Shaich on staying recharged and why the company opened pay-what-you-can cafes.

The fast-casual dining segment is getting crowded. While chains like Panera BreadCo. PNRA -0.64% and Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. CMG -0.12% continue to log rapid expansion, even fast-food operators like Wendy’s are going upscale, adding items like flatbread sandwiches and remodeling their interiors.

Bakery-cafe chain Panera Bread, based in a St. Louis suburb, rang up a 28% increase in profit for fiscal 2012, outpacing the sector as a whole, but the company’s customer-traffic growth slowed in the first quarter. Read more of this post

Truly global vocabulary needs ‘untranslatable’ Chinese terms; Most people believe that the secret to promote Chinese culture is to have as many foreigners as possible studying the Chinese language. There is a better way.

Truly global vocabulary needs ‘untranslatable’ Chinese terms

Created: 2013-6-3 0:34:04

Author:Thorsten Pattberg

MOST people believe that the secret to promote Chinese culture is to have as many foreigners as possible studying the Chinese language. There is a better way.
The difference between promoting and inhibiting one’s culture often lies in “translation.” All writers should be aware of the unwritten law of “cultural property rights”: WHEN to translate, WHAT translation does, and WHERE to avoid it.
The English language is often hailed as the “international language,” but it is not the global language. In fact, the global language will have to adopt tens of thousands of non-European concepts from China, India, and Japan. The list goes on.
As I write this, great efforts are made by Chinese scholars to promote East Asian terms into the global lexicon – Chinese words like tianxia, shengren and junzi, and even the mythical long.  The reason is simple: Scientists so far may have indexed the animal and plant kingdoms, and the material world. But the taxonomization of culture has only just begun. Read more of this post

Directors’ duty is not just to investors: There is too much focus on noise in markets and not enough to operational performance

June 4, 2013 6:10 pm

Directors have a duty beyond just enriching shareholders

By John Kay

There is too much focus on noise in markets and not enough to operational performance

Do companies have a duty to their shareholders to minimise the amount of tax they pay? Even if this involves engaging in complex and artificial schemes that shift profits to jurisdictions in which little or no tax is payable?

Under the 2006 Companies Act, directors of British companies are required to promote the success of the business for the benefit of its members (the shareholders). In doing so, they must have regard to six specific factors: the long-term consequences of their decisions, the interests of employees, relationships with suppliers and customers, the impact of corporate activities on the community and the environment, the company’s reputation for high standards of business conduct and the need for fairness between different members of the company. Read more of this post

Taoist abbot Yuan Zhihong has a complicated attitude toward money: He knows his temple needs funds to make ends meet, but the commercialization of religious venues is affecting their sacred status

Taoist leaders focus on preserving values

Updated: 2013-06-05 02:02

Taoist abbot Yuan Zhihong has a complicated attitude toward money: He knows his temple needs funds to make ends meet, but the commercialization of religious venues is affecting their sacred status.

“At some public memorial ceremonies, people have paid more than 1 million yuan ($163,000) to light the first incense stick,” he said. “The religion has become too secular in many places.” Read more of this post

The Dictatorship of Data: Robert McNamara epitomizes the hyper-rational executive led astray by numbers

The Dictatorship of Data

Robert McNamara epitomizes the hyper-rational executive led astray by numbers.

By Kenneth Cukier and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger on May 31, 2013

Big data is poised to transform society, from how we diagnose illness to how we educate children, even making it possible for a car to drive itself. Information is emerging as a new economic input, a vital resource. Companies, governments, and even individuals will be measuring and optimizing everything possible.

But there is a dark side. Big data erodes privacy. And when it is used to make predictions about what we are likely to do but haven’t yet done, it threatens freedom as well. Yet big data also exacerbates a very old problem: relying on the numbers when they are far more fallible than we think. Nothing underscores the consequences of data analysis gone awry more than the story of Robert McNamara. Read more of this post

Innovate or die: Blockbuster, Betamax and Kodak: three reasons why you should be scared of disruptive technologies

Innovate or die: Blockbuster, Betamax and Kodak: three reasons why you should be scared of disruptive technologies

June 4, 2013, Anneli Knight

There is a significant difference between invention and innovation, and for a business to survive in this fast-moving landscape it is vital to not only understand the difference, but to also put the principles into practice.

US innovator and founder of the Business Innovation Factory Saul Kaplan is author of The Business Model Innovation Factory: How to stay relevant when the world is changing. He is in Australia this week to speak at the Amplify Festival, a gathering of leading innovators from across the globe. Read more of this post

Conquering Global Markets: Secrets from the World’s Most Successful Multinationals

Conquering Global Markets: Secrets from the World’s Most Successful Multinationals [Hardcover]

Nancy A. Hubbard (Author)

Release date: April 9, 2013 | ISBN-10: 0230293557 | ISBN-13: 978-0230293557

Conquering Global Markets offers assessments of the issues, statistics, cases, and best practices of mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and alliances throughout the world. Using information gleaned interviews with CEOs, the book provides insights into making global M&As successful. Read more of this post

Be Like Water: The Philosophy and Origin of Bruce Lee’s Famous Metaphor for Resilience

Be Like Water: The Philosophy and Origin of Bruce Lee’s Famous Metaphor for Resilience

Bruce Lee (right) with his only formal martial art instructor, Yip Man

“In order to control myself I must first accept myself by going with and not against my nature.”

With his singular blend of physical prowess and metaphysical wisdom, coupled with his tragic untimely death, legendary Chinese-American martial artist, philosopher, and filmmaker Bruce Lee (1940-1973) is one of those rare cultural icons whose ethos and appeal remain timeless, attracting generation after generation of devotees. Inspired by the core principles of Wing Chun, the ancient Chinese conceptual martial art, which he learned from his only formal martial arts teacher, Yip Man, between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. When he left Hong Kong in 1959, Lee adapted Wing Chun into his own version, Jun Fan Gung Fu – literal translation: Bruce Lee’s Kung Fu – and popularized it in America. In 1971, at the peak of his career, Lee starred in four episodes of the short-lived TV series Longstreet. In one of them, he delivered his most oft-cited metaphor for the philosophy of Gung Fu: But the famed snippet belies the full dimensionality of the metaphor and says nothing about how Lee arrived at it. Luckily, in Bruce Lee: Artist of Life (public library) – a compendium of his never-before-published private letters, notes, and poems, offering unprecedented insight into his philosophy on life and his convictions about martial arts, love, and parenthood – Lee traces the thinking that originated his famous metaphor, which came after a period of frustration with his inability to master “the art of detachment” that Yip Man was trying to impart on him. Lee writes: When my acute self-consciousness grew to what the psychologists refer to as the “double-bind” type, my instructor would again approach me and say, “Loong, preserve yourself by following the natural bends of things and don’t interfere. Remember never to assert yourself against nature; never be in frontal opposition to any problems, but control it by swinging with it. Don’t practice this week: Go home and think about it.”

And so he did, spending the following week at home:

After spending many hours meditating and practicing, I gave up and went sailing alone in a junk. On the sea I thought of all my past training and got mad at myself and punched the water! Right then – at that moment – a thought suddenly struck me; was not this water the very essence of gung fu? Hadn’t this water just now illustrated to me the principle of gung fu? I struck it but it did not suffer hurt. Again I struck it with all of my might – yet it was not wounded! I then tried to grasp a handful of it but this proved impossible. This water, the softest substance in the world, which could be contained in the smallest jar, only seemed weak. In reality, it could penetrate the hardest substance in the world. That was it! I wanted to be like the nature of water. Suddenly a bird flew by and cast its reflection on the water. Right then I was absorbing myself with the lesson of the water, another mystic sense of hidden meaning revealed itself to me; should not the thoughts and emotions I had when in front of an opponent pass like the reflection of the birds flying over the water? This was exactly what Professor Yip meant by being detached – not being without emotion or feeling, but being one in whom feeling was not sticky or blocked. Therefore in order to control myself I must first accept myself by going with and not against my nature.

Quoting from Lao Tzu’s famous teachings, Lee writes:

The natural phenomenon which the gung fu man sees as being the closest resemblance to wu wei [the principle of spontaneous action governed by the mind and not the senses] is water: Nothing is weaker than water, But when it attacks something hard Or resistant, then nothing withstands it, And nothing will alter its way. The above passages from the Tao Te Ching illustrate to us the nature of water: Water is so fine that it is impossible to grasp a handful of it; strike it, yet it does not suffer hurt; stab it, and it is not wounded; sever it, yet it is not divided. It has no shape of its own but molds itself to the receptacle that contains it. When heated to the state of steam it is invisible but has enough power to split the earth itself. When frozen it crystallizes into a mighty rock. First it is turbulent like Niagara Falls, and then calm like a still pond, fearful like a torrent, and refreshing like a spring on a hot summer’s day. So is the principle of wu wei: The rivers and seas are lords of a hundred valleys. This is because their strength is in lowliness; they are kings of them all. So it is that the perfect master wishing to lead them, he follows. Thus, though he is above them, he follows. Thus, though he is above them, men do not feel him to be an injury. And since he will not strive, none strive with him.