Growing shoes

Awesome idea, which is already working and everyone can help to fundrise here.

Just one small thing missing from my point of view: how can we make from this a social business? The idea is there, the technology too, it has already been commercialized… but it depends on the charity of many people, or from a couple of rich ones, to keep existing. And generally, that is not sustainable.

Using the famous sentence of don’t give a man a fish, show him how to fish, the solution to get a pair of shoes to every children passes from teaching them how to make their own shoes. Maybe technology can be exported to those places in Africa where shoes are needed de most? Maybe then you can employ local people and use local material instead of fancy rubber and treated leather?

Next step is to make it profitable (or at least take it to the break even point) and self-sustainable. Charity can help to set up a business, but if it can not fly alone in a couple of years people will move their interest and their wallets to something else, and it will sadly disappear. You can use for instance recycled materials to cut down costs, or set flexible prices according to the location you sell them: cheaper in the poorer villages, medium in more resourcefull cities and overprized to tourist or first-world stores.

Then the impact in the world will be not only to thousands but millions of children.

How to make stress your friend

Chasing meaningful things is better for yourself than trying to avoid discomfort. That is really the best way of making decisions: go after whatever create meaning in your life and then trust yourself to handle the stress that follows.

Earth Hour 2015

For the second year in a row, I have spent the Earth Hour reflecting on the current world situation and what can we do as individuals to be closer to that future we want to leave for our children.

There is something wrong about the society we are living. All that hate, prejudices, refusal to see that we are abusing from the environment, lack of compassion and sympathy for the ones that are different from us.  I have felt disappointment because it is sometimes like humanity can’t help war, aggressiveness and destruction. I could go into a spiral of pessimism.

But then I have realized that just next to all that shit, there is something great too growing in that same society. There is people who cares, and fights untiringly to make things a little less bitter, a little more sweet. People who faces reality and its problems, being equally aware of the potential and limitations of the individuals and living along with the personal values.

We have the power to make a significant change. Starting by the man/women in the mirror. Then influencing and inspiring the ones next to us, and finally making from that willingness to live in a better world a movement.

How the perception of ourselves limitates us

This summer, while I atended a Leadership course, we had a hot discussion on the course structure, and the willing of the professor to be us, the students, taking the lead and walk our own learning path. We the students were asking a more active role from his side, and he blamed us of not being concious of our potential and being coward to take a step forward. You don’t want to know how outstanding you are. You are extraordinary! he said. The following day he answered our demands with an overwhelming lecture on Based on experience learning… but I was not fully convinced of his theory. Some weeks after it all happened, reflection started to throw some light on the concept, but it has been six months from then when I think I am starting to fully understand what he meant.

You have to look at the innovation and management picture. Among the ingenieers, there are two posible paths to follow. The first one goes deep into one knowledge field: with the technical background you can become a high-value expert. That would be the conventional path to take. The other one is more abstact. It goes in the management and leadership direction, exploiting the inter-disciplinary aptitudes and the ability to critically analyse and take decisions that balance economy, technology and reality. This is the modern profile sometimes demanded in business: it uses technology as a tool that you already know thanks to your studies and bunch of practical experience, and highlights the intelectual and visionary approaches.

There is no good or bad path, but the professor assumed that if we were there because of the leadership topic, we somehow had interest on the second one. They are not absolute either, you can walk some steps into becoming expert on something, then abstract it gaining ‘big picture’ knowledge and strategy, and so on.

What I have experienced this last months is that the biggest obstacle in the leadership path is yourself. Finding a dead end and stop trying insted of going around. Thinking that you are not prepared for a bigger challenge. Not willing to abandon your comfort zone. Not realising that small failures are part of the deal, and what it is expected from you is a final success and not a perfect middle performance.

Therefore I have discovered that if I want to become leader at some point, I have to  be ambitious with my next career steps. I have to believe in my outstanding background and my capacity to evercome to unexpected events and win challenges. And I have to break that ceiling glass that keeps me well protected inside the comfort zone and give a chance to what makes me happy and keeps me motivated at work.

Moving into the reading challenge

Mientras sigo enganchadísima a Juego de Tronos, estoy intentando intercalar entre tomo y tomo un poquito de variedad literaria.

Así es como llegó a mis manos Las tres bodas de Manolita, de Almudena Grandes. Una novela que quería leer desde hacía tiempo pero que no había encontrado el momento.

Todo español debería conocer algo mejor el lado más humano de la guerra civil. Los testimonios que llegan a mi generación sobre la misma son más bien escasos: alguna batallita de nuestros abuelos algo desteñida ya por el paso del tiempo, un par de clases de historia en bachillerato y El Gernica para los que estudiaron arte o visitan el Reina Sofía. Quizás lo más humano son las breves biografías de escritores y artistas que fueron asesinados o tuvieron que buscar el exilio durante la propia guerra civil o los años que siguieron. Demasiado poco, en cualquier caso, para el mayor punto de inflexión en la historia de nuestro país, que define nuestro presente y que aún escuece en las memorias de muchos.

Para los que las narraciones más puramente históricas son algo arduas, nos queda la atractiva alternativa de novelas como esta. Tan fielmente documentada que la piel se pone de gallina cuando la autora da nombres, apellidos, fechas y lugares de las personas que hay detrás de cada personaje. Héroes y antihéroes de carne y hueso que fueron poco más que peones en un juego de poderes que incomprensiblemente duró más de lo que nadie podía imaginarse. Que sobrevivieron gracias a su valor. O a su cobardía. Golpes de suerte, principios y morales (in)quebrantables, perseverancia y sacrificio.

Tachamos por tanto ‘Libro de más de 500 páginas’, ‘Libro de un autor que me encanta y todavía no he leído’. A puntito a estado de caer también ‘Libro que me ha hecho llorar’, pero al final la emoción a flor de piel de algunas partes no han conseguido liberar ninguna lágrima.

Reading challenge for 2015

Challenge accepted! Furthermore, I will try to update some of the results through the blog. Giving myself the benefit of including this last days of the year (which are conviniently very productive in the reading field: A song of ice and fire, R.R.Martin, Eleven minutes, Paulo Coelho and Aranmanoth, Ana María Matute) I can already cross out the first ones.