Two things that Mike said to me...

Today I got an email from a very good friend who I met several years ago at Heathrow Airport in London, with whom I got the opportunity to talk just two and a half hours, his name Michael Reid.
As usual, I was waiting for my flight and this Rock Star type guy sat next to me, he was wearing jeans and long hair, obviously looked like he had not showered in a while, he politely said good afternoon to all of sitting around and just me answered back, because I was taught to do so.
After a few minutes Mike and I started talking, because I've always thought that musicians, singers and artists in general are extraordinary people and unfortunately I was not blessed with any of these qualities.
Mike told me he was on tour with his band, but I cannot remember the name, and they were on my flight to Frankfurt, so we talked a lot, he gave me a slice of the cake that his wife had baked for him for the tour, very nice cake to tell you the truth.
After a while of talking, laughing, looking at photos and eating cake we had to board and we were in separate seats, that was the last time I saw him.
Far from the first impression, turned out that Mike had a PhD in Experimental Psychology of his beloved University of Oxford, among other accreditations, but one day he decided to pursue his dream / vocation of being a musician, being in a band and doing international tours.
From all this, I remember two things Mike said, first: "Life is too short to waste it suffering and doing something that doesn´t makes you happy", I thought to myself... Obviously this guy is dead serious about this.

 

Second thing he said was: "Be a good Human Being and an Extraordinary Father because people will only remember you by your actions and for your children, never for the money you had or the positions you held during your career"

Mike is currently playing with his band and is starting again to teach at Oxford, both Psychology and Music.

Regards,

Armando.

"Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great" John D. Rockefeller.

Every day while navigating the virtual universe I usually read a zillion phrases, articles, comments, posts, etc.
I cannot deny that almost all of them seem to me extraordinary, inspiring, soulful, but in some cases dangerous and even terrifying ... and now I will explain why!
Never, and I can´t stress enough, NEVER! We should make decisions guided by our emotions, in any level of our lives.
I think it is very easy to give advice to people, but in this regard I have a very strict yet simple rule... listening, analyzing and understanding how far or not my decisions will affect these people who give advice, and assign relevance and credibility in the same level.



Don´t take me wrong, at least in my case I have always been given outstanding advice and mentorship from equally extraordinary and trustworthy people, but still so I´m always careful.
Informed, deeply analyzed and with the least possible emotionality, is the right way to go when decision making is required.
Remember that we will only know if a decision is good or not, by the results we get from them, so it goes without saying how important it is to do your homework before ...
Phrases like "Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great…" give you the false impression that it's okay to risk everything you've got to get something supposedly better, when the truth is that every move we make involves a significant level of uncertainty, at the very least 50%, so outcomes are hard to predict.
Beautiful/Awesome phrases look great on walls and presentations, but the real world admits no mistakes and the price for those mistakes is usually very high.
Regards,
Armando.