Speak the Language (Hablar el idioma; Artículo en Inglés)

By Chip Lutz

It was January, and (of course) I had come down with my usual winter sinus infection.  And this one was not your “run of the mill” infection.  It was the kind that made me thirsty all of the time—so much, in fact, that my throat would get so dry that I felt that I could barely speak.  Also, as luck would have it, this wonderful condition struck me the day before I was to leave on a trip to Costa Rica.  Prior to my trip, I tried everything to shake it….water, orange juice, Airborne and several “home cooked” remedies I found via Google, and nothing worked. 

With no change in my condition on the day of my trip, I headed down to O’Hare Airport to start the journey.  The dryness in the back of my throat and the pounding in my forehead didn’t detour me from keeping a smile on my face as I shimmied through security and onto my plane.  The trip was long and I was miserable.  No matter how much water I drank, my throat was still on fire.

During our exchange through Guatemala (where we had to de-plane and re-board while men with machine guns stood close by),  I felt a little out of place trying to figure out what they were saying, relying solely on what Spanish I had picked up listening to Ricky Martin songs, but persevered.  When I got back on the plane, I fell dead asleep until we landed in San Jose.  Having been asleep and with no fluids, I could barely utter a word, my throat was so dry when I awoke…I had to get something to drink!  I rushed off the airplane and started looking for the closest place to get a beverage and then, in the distance, I saw the Golden Arches!  Hooray!!  I rushed up, got in line and started gleaning the menu for something recognizable.  After what seemed like hours, it was my turn.  I looked at the server behind the counter and said, “Orange drink, please.”

“Qué?” he responded.

I replied louder, “Orange Drink, Please!”

Looking me directly back he said, “Qué!?”

Exasperated, I mustered the loudest voice I could and yelled, “ORANGE DRINK!”

Just then, a fellow passenger from my flight tapped me on the shoulder and said, “You can yell as loud as you want, sir, he won’t understand you if you’re not speaking the language.”  Try this, ” Soda de Naranja, por favor!”

The server immediately understood, got me my drink, and I was able to douse the flame in the back of my throat.   As I was walking away, I starting thinking about what my fellow passenger had said.  “He won’t understand if you’re not speaking the language.” 

How true that had been in so many aspects of my life.  Many times as a leader I had spoken louder and louder but my team hadn’t understood what I was saying because I hadn’t been speaking their language.

Has the same been true for you?  How many times have you tried to get your order understood but, because you weren’t speaking the language, you couldn’t get through?  If you want to go native, speak the language, and be understood, here are three things that you need to do.

Get a Tutor

Navigating the trails of a foreign land can be difficult if you don’t have a guide.  The same is true for learning the language of the people around you.  Find someone that is fluent in both languages to help you convert what you want to say to how you need to say it.  You won’t be disappointed in having a translator (so you don’t get one thing when something else is desperately needed).

Immerse Yourself in the Culture

Learning the language of your team can’t be done if you’re living in a different country (also known as your office or cubicle).  Get out and about and learn what is important to them, what they do, and how they do it.

Practice

Practice makes perfect.  In your journey, will you make some mistakes?  Sure you will; however, the effort you make in trying to speak the native language will be admired and respected by the people around you.  You might even find that they’ll help you translate themselves and forgive a mis-step due to your effort in appreciating who they are as people.

As leaders, it’s our responsibility to make the steps necessary to not only be understood but to first make the steps to understand our team.   Speaking their language helps us do just that.    I hope you try these three strategies for going native.  I think you’ll find that you’ll no longer have to speak loudly, you’ll just have to speak up.

Tomado de Ziglar.com

Sigue adelante por tu Éxito!!

@EdwarGuisao

Asesor en Emprendimiento e Inteligencia Emocional

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Articulo en Inglés: The Wellness Revolution

Five years ago, in the first edition of The Wellness Revolution, economist Paul Zane Pilzer outlined an emerging $200 billion industry he called “wellness.” Today, that industry has grown to $500 billion, and it’s just getting started, offering even greater entrepreneurial opportunities.

The Wellness Revolution was the “shot heard round the world” for the wellness industry. It defined wellness as an industry—linking tens of thousands of disparate service and product suppliers with a single cause. It showed scientists, fitness providers, businesspeople, food manufacturers, doctors, and others focused on disease prevention and anti-aging that they were part of a worldwide revolution—rather than merely lone iconoclasts inside their chosen professions or industries.

While the first edition was largely focused on large $100 million wellness companies, The New Wellness Revolution includes more guidance and business advice for individual wellness entrepreneurs, health product distributors, physicians, chiropractors, and other wellness professionals. For those in one of the largest segments of the wellness industry, there is a new chapter called “Direct Selling: How to Get Started.” The New Wellness Revolution features new action items in every chapter and covers major new trends, particularly the phenomenon of “sickness industry” food companies such as McDonald’s and Wal-Mart making huge investments in fresh and organic foods.

The New Wellness Revolution shows that even though millions of people have embraced wellness, the need for wellness has actually expanded due to declining health trends, particularly the rising obesity rate in the U.S. and other developed nations. Medical costs now exceed profits for most large employers, and corporations are beginning to recognize that wellness and disease prevention are the only viable solutions to rising healthcare costs that threaten their very existence.

There’s still time to get in on the ground floor and make your fortune in wellness. Find out how, with The New Wellness Revolution!

Read the Entire Preface (free)

Paul Zane Pilzer (The Wellness Revolution Interview)

Tomado de http://www.paulzanepilzer.com

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@EdwarGuisao
Asesor en Emprendimiento e Inteligencia Emocional

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Artículo en Inglés: Courage, Convictions and Commitment

Those are the very words you could use to describe Truett Cathy and the success of his Chick-fil-A restaurant chain. It took Truett 21 years from the time he opened his first Dwarf House Restaurant and perfected his Chick-fil-A sandwich to open his first Chick-fil-A restaurant in a shopping mall.

It was difficult for Truett Cathy to arrange his first shopping mall lease for his Chick-fil-A restaurant. Cathy, a man of strong religious convictions, was determined never to open one of his restaurants on Sunday. Most shopping malls would not make that kind of agreement. Finally, one did and Chick-fil-A was an almost-immediate hit. As of February, 2011, the chain has 1,539 locations in 39 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. In 2010 sales were $3.5 billion.

It took a considerable amount of courage, backed by convictions, to refuse to let his restaurants open on Sunday. Mr. Cathy's faith, however, was such that he never really considered the issue. He was determined to open six days a week and serve the best product he could possibly produce. He resolved to give good service and a genuine business opportunity to the people with whom he worked.

Sticking to his principles has benefitted not only Truett Cathy, but many others as well. He has awarded his college student employees over $26 million in scholarships. WinShape Foundation was founded more than 20 years ago by Jeannette and Truett Cathy. Under the WinShape Foundation umbrella, there are several programs, including WinShape Homes®, which currently operates 11 foster care homes in Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama. The WinShape College Program℠ at Berry College in Rome, Georgia, is a co-op program offering joint four-year scholarship funding to incoming freshmen of up to $32,000. WinShape Camps℠ offer boys and girls summer programs at the college, which will be attended by more than 13,000 campers in 2011.

That's the American way. That's the Truett Cathy way. Think about it and be inspired by Truett Cathy's story. Search your heart for something you can do for those who cannot do for themselves, and I'll SEE YOU AT THE TOP! 

About Zig Ziglar

A talented author and speaker, Zig Ziglar has an appeal that transcends barriers of age, culture, and occupation. Since 1970, he has traveled over five million miles across the world delivering powerful life improvement messages, cultivating the energy of change. Since 1970, an extensive array of Ziglar audio, video, books, and training manuals have been utilized by small businesses, Fortune 500 companies, U.S. Government agencies, churches, school districts, prisons, and non-profit associations, affecting lives in a profound way.  

From; www.ziglartraining.com

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@EdwarGuisao
Asesor en Emprendimiento e Inteligencia Emocional

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Artículo en Inglés: State of the Union

Tonight, to much pageantry and pomp, President Obama will stand before the nation and deliver his annual State of the Union address. In his address, Mr. Obama is expected to push for new government spending on infrastructure projects, education, and scientific research while calling for deep cuts in other parts of the nation's budget.

I wouldn't be surprised to also hear him talk heavily about the economy—more specifically about how we are in a recovery.

Mr. Obama has had a roll lately. With a new Republican congress in place, he's moved to the center, even showing signs of being a business friendly president. This, coupled with eight straight weeks of gains in the stock markets and encouraging economic reports, has sent his polls soaring to over 50 percent — numbers he hasn't seen since August of 2009.

The thrust of Mr. Obama's speech will be one of "competitiveness." Despite the record $1.3 trillion budget deficit, he will make the case for increased spending to address fears that we are losing ground to China.

Tonight will be an interesting battle to watch in the spending war going on between Republicans and Democrats—a war that will be decided this spring when the Congress must vote on whether to increase the Federal debt ceiling or not, something I wrote about on this blog last week ("The Boiling Point").

Despite the hoopla, there is much about our state of the union that won't be talked about tonight.

Unemployment

Unemployment in the US is officially at 9.1 percent. While a nod to unemployment will be given, I don't think that Mr. Obama will mention that 44.3 percent of the 14.5 million unemployed Americans are now considered long-term unemployed—and that 1.4 million Americans have been unemployed for over 99 weeks, what is called very long-term unemployment. Even more frightening, nearly half of the long-term unemployed are over 45 years of age, at a significant disadvantage to finding new employment, and have depleted their savings.

Unfunded liabilities

I do not think Mr. Obama will mention the significant financial time bombs of Social Security and Medicare. As over 70 million baby boomers get ready to retire, our country will face a significant retirement crisis. The unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare are estimated to be around $50 trillion. The only way to pay for these future costs will be either through printing money or raising taxes—or both.

Inflation

Food, oil, and raw material prices are soaring globally, raising fears of inflation across the world. These fears have prompted the European Central Bank to signal that it plans to raise interest rates—this despite the fact that many countries in the Eurozone are still severely weakened by the European debt crisis. This means that as the US continues to print money, the rest of the world is realizing the need to stomp on the brakes. Life is about to get more expensive, again.

Financial Education

Finally, despite his calls for competitiveness and the need to invest in education, I doubt we'll hear Mr. Obama call for the need for comprehensive financial education. The state of our union is one that will lead to life becoming more expensive. The underlying fundamentals are not good, and they will lead to higher taxes and inflation — wealth-stealing forces that devastate the financially illiterate but can benefit the financially intelligent.

For instance, a financially intelligent person understands that taxes and inflation will grow in the coming years and will begin to invest in areas that hedge against inflation and have significant tax advantages. A financially unintelligent person will try to find a good job that pays well and save money in a bank. The problem with that strategy is that employees pay the most in taxes. The more money they make, the more they pay in taxes. And inflation is higher than the interest rate on savings. So, you actually lose money if you save. As I've said for a long time now, savers are losers.

It's my belief that the countries that prosper in the future will be those that properly educate their people about money and investing. If the US desires to be competitive, it must teach its children how to be financially intelligent and to stop living by the old rules of money.

I doubt this will happen any time soon. So, it's up to you to educate yourself and your family. By doing so, you will ensure that you and your family will prosper no matter the state of the union.

Good economic news or bad, it is always the financially intelligent who do well, because the financially intelligent understand that news is neither good or bad, it is simply information to be acted on—and to profit from.

Tomado de http://www.richdad.com

@EdwarGuisao
Asesor en Emprendimiento e Inteligencia Emocional

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