Focus on solutions.

It happens that I meet people who make lots of noise about how bad things are for them. Negative people do that.

I also meet people who quietly and steadily improve things. Positive people do that.

In life, there are always problems. Or challenges.

When you are a positive person, you are willing to transform those challenges or problems into opportunities.

One has to have the commitment and courage and discipline to do so. Focusing on solutions and to work your way, quietly and steadily, towards a brighter future, makes it that life gets better because you choose to do so.

Be one of these people.

Stay true to your path.

Everybody chooses a path he or she wants to take. Some are shorter tracks then we thought, some take a longer time. And, we have an idea in our head how it might be, during the way and in the end, at the destination.

During the way it will always be different, and also the end will be different then we thought. 

One important thing is that one has to understand and pursue one's own path, and not chasing after the dreams of others. Do, what is right for you, no one else walks in your shoes. Keep moving forward, no matter what the surrounding tells you to do.

Live a life you are proud of. Be aware of the track, the path you are walking. Also during the walk, look around, enjoy, see what is happening, see what you are making happening by being there, on that moment, on that path. 

By doing so every day is a new path, and the path to take.

Are you accepting enough risk. 

Life is a risky business. 

Every time we get out of bed in the morning, we take a risk. (but also staying in bed is risk taking). 

Every interaction, every decision, every step you take, you take a risk. 

So if this is the case, that, when you truly live, you are taking risks, whats the big deal? Because, with every risk taking, there is also potential. 

Potential to wake up, step out of bed and meet that great person, have that good lunch with a colleague, finish or initiate that project for yourself or for a client, sit in the subway and read your paper, or listen to music, whatever. 

Be a little risky, and realize the full potential your life has. Today.

Creative minds are rarely tidy. They need help.

An ongoing discussion in every self organized company, and also in our self organized school is, who is cleaning what, when and why he or she.

Basic starting point is that when you put a bunch of creative minds together, it is rarely that stuff will be at its place, clean, organized and tidy.

This has to do with the left and right brain. 

The right side of the brain is best at expressive and creative tasks. Some of the abilities that are associated with the right side of the brain include: recognizing faces, expressing emotions, music, reading emotions, color, images, intuition.

The left-side of the brain is considered to be adept at tasks that involve logic, language and analytical thinking. The left-brain is often described as being better at language, logic, critical thinking, numbers and reasoning.

So, lets try to get a logic language together, being critical, first on ourselves, then on others, to recognize the faces, and the mess around us, express our emotions in a colorful way, and plug in some music to make it happen, all together.

In every organisation there is a mix of left and right brain oriented people who can make this happen. When the real will is there, connect it to power and there is willpower.

Pick your wars.

I used to go outraged on a lot of stuff. This was unfair, that needs to be different, why does he not do this etc. etc.

Until a friend of mine told me to pick my wars. Not go with everything into a fight.

Lately there where three people asking me: " why are you so angry?'. First I thought I fell into the same trap, but it was about the same topic. The same war. 

So unconsciously I choose my war. Also not as a war, but as a very balanced kind of Aikido fight.

What is your war and how are you fighting it? 

Education should not be a dress rehearsal.

I talk a lot with people who work at big companies. The first thing when it comes to how they see university students coming in is that they say: " we have to re-educate them". Why is that?

Suppose you study, for 5 years, marketing, on a regular university. The program is a fixed program, for 5 years, and when entering the program, one already knows what the theme is in the 2nd semester of the third year. Strange if you don't even know how the world will look like, lets say in one year.

And, worse, the most studying and work in project groups, is done with cases. Written for an educational setting, based on cognition only, and most of the time, because they are out of printed books, outdated.

At Knowmads we only work with real life stuff. Real clients, with real problems or challenges present to the students what keeps them busy in real life. Today and tomorrow. And they don't get written reports as a result. But real life stuff, like a website, a brochure, a film, a visual booklet, whatever is needed. 

Once we worked for a client, who first asked Mc. Kinsey to do the job. They came with a report of 300 pages, with on page 300 5 solutions, of which 3 where not implementable. We did the same assignment, came out with a workshop for the management, and presented 3 solutions, of which 1 is implemented, and the 2nd one is in the making. 

Life is not about cases. Working also is not. Education also not. Why not to combine life and work with education, instead of pulling off a dress rehearsal at university?

Every time you spend money, you're casting a vote for the kind of world you want.

I am thinking a lot about this. First: I am not a guy who does everything good. Concerning to living in a environmental sustainable way, buying the right stuff I have a way to go.

And: the other day I had a talk with a friend, and together we came to this:

Every time you are spending one Dollar, or Euro, buying something in a shop you say with that gesture: " Thank you. Thank you for what you did for me up until now. From the start of the value chain till this moment". At the vegetable shop, at the butcher, at the gasoline station, at the restaurant, actually, everywhere you buy something.

But, you also say with spending that Dollar or Euro: " Please, do it again, put the whole chain in motion again". 

And here it becomes interesting. 

First: do we have the notion what needed to be done in the value chain for me to buy the carrots at the vegetable shop, the chicken fillet at the butcher, the gasoline at the gasoline station or the pizza in the restaurant.

Second: as an individual we have an enormous power to say to the right companies: Thank you, do it again. By buying from the good or better producers and shops.

My question: what do you know about the products you buy, and are you voting  with your money at the right shop?