Category Archives: Leadership

Cutthroat Diversity

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Thrones SYGU‘d in a significant fashion this year picking up Emmy awards for Outstanding Drama Series, as well as Outstanding Directing, Outstanding Writing, Outstanding Casting, Outstanding Supporting Actor, and Outstanding Special Visual Effects among others.

Season 6 premieres two weeks from tonight and will essentially feature brand new content that George R.R. Martin has not yet written.  So now all the snobby GoT book nerds will have to wait an entire week to find out what happens just like the rest of us plebs.

***HBONOW is now available exclusively online for a 30 day free trial available here.***

*** SPOILERS AHEAD ***

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Corporeal Clash

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Critically acclaimed new Wall Street drama Billions aired its penultimate episode tonight on Showtime and Paul Giamatti is all but locked for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.

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From the guys who brought you Rounders, Billions is a fictional depiction of some of the subversive tactics Wall-Street powerhouse players utilize to get an edge on the competition: and the legal repercussions.

metacritic : 69%

rottentomatoes : 72%

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

***Showtime is now available exclusively online for a thirty day free trial on Hulu.  Check it out here.***

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Character

“Character is what you know you are,

not what others think you have.”

She knew what to do.

“Determination and perseverance move the world; thinking that others will do it for you is a sure way to fail.”

She did not fail, in the long run, despite all the obstacles.  Just ask her numerous, successful, students.

Continue reading Character

Going Home

He said to them in effect:

“That’s Fine.  You made your point.  The thing is I can go home, you have to live with each other when I leave.”

Yes, they had been living in that same land for nigh 400 years:  Fighting.

How was it working for them?

Not        very        well.

Both sides could protest the appointment of George as mediator, walk out with big fan fare.  Heck, they could strut like battling Peacocks for another 400 years  — pride a’ struting.  Not listening and talking over each other.  Power parading and violent protesting.  George would just go home, where he belongs, back to America —  just as my namesake ancestor had done about 300 years ago.

What goes up must come down
Spinnin’ wheel, got to go round
Talkin’ ’bout your troubles, it’s a cryin’ sin
Ride a painted pony, let the spinnin’ wheel spin

You got no money, you got no home
Spinnin’ wheel, all alone
Talkin’ ’bout your troubles and you, you never learn
Ride a painted pony, let the spinnin’ wheel turn
— Blood, Sweat, and Tears

Or — enough with the violence and the peacocking.  The world is moving out, if their people can’t get down to business — the business of living, get with the business of dying.

If it’s peace you find in dying, when dying time is here,
— Laura Nyro

They had publically walked out on him. But George called them afterwards: he was still here, he would provide mediation between the two sides…

Continue reading Going Home

I am a Dreamer

“I am a dreamer and having a dream is sometimes challenging,
but I never look at a situation as too difficult.”
— Sister Rosemary

“She is an extremely affable and compassionate personality who will go out of her way to help no matter what. She radiates with energy and iron determination.”

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Northern Uganda had suffered from civil unrest since the early 1980s. Hundreds of people were killed in the rebellion against the Ugandan government, and an estimated 400-thousand people were left homeless. Uganda’s military battled the two main rebel groups, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).  Thousands of children fell victim to the war, abducted by both the LRA and the ADF to serve as fighters, porters, and in the case of girls, fighters and sex slaves.

“We can still walk in hope.” -Sister Rosemary

Observing her as a child, her family always knew she would be a leader of children when she became a adult.

We do what we do, what we do best. [For good or evil] Continue reading I am a Dreamer

Supreme Idiot

When he talked, people listened, including Warren Buffett.  For he was very wise and successful in business and life.

And he was a mentor and beloved by many of his employees, especially Roberto and Muhtar.

He was all about his family, his employees, his community, and his alma mater.

And he was regarded as the Protector of the BRAND.

However, he made a mistake…  So, they wrote letters to “THE SUPREME IDIOT”

He listened to his customers, even the one who addressed him as the Supreme Idiot.

The Wise learn from their mistake(s)…

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Mary’s Little Lambs

Suffer little children

No, Mary’s little lambs were not children.

Mary’s “little lambs” were medical researchers that she herded together: adults who were driven to find a cure for cancer, even as the children were suffering and dying: by the thousands.  It was a dilemma: how to cure childhood leukemia, where the medical doctors could do nothing — they didn’t understand what cancer was.  Experimenting on children with a cocktail of toxic chemicals was heart rendering, such that the original doctor who opened the door to that reasearch method, couldn’t do it.

I cannot make one child suffer and die, to save two others.
— Sidney Farber

Robert Moses said about Mary: that she had it all—intelligence, vision, generosity, charm, kindness.

Neen Hunt added this: “she also had courage, passion, and indefatigable energy, and the heart and will to apply her gifts and talents to reduce suffering from disease for people all over the world.”

“The strength of our nation depends on the health of our people. We must once again place the priority on research. It’s good for trade, good for jobs, and vital for all Americans. Medical research is our hope for our children and for the building of a healthy America.”

Mary was strategic…  For that vision was for the future…

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Maybe Crazy, but not Stupid

Ma Yun applied to study at Harvard 10 times and was rejected each time.

Yun had to deal with rejection many times in his life: born during Mao’s Cultural Revolution when schools and businesses were being destroyed, such that formal education and trade was at a low in China during Yun‘s youth.

He failed the entry exams for colleges in China several times and was also rejected for many jobs in China, including one at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Despite this, at an early age, Yun had developed a desire to learn English, so he rode his bike for 45 minutes each morning in order to go to a nearby hotel and converse with foreigners. He would guide them around the city for free in order to practice and improve his English. Later in his youth, although he failed the entrance exam twice, he attended Hangzhou Teacher’s Institute and graduated in 1988 with a bachelor’s degree in English.

Yun — his English name, Jack — Jack Ma started an e-commerce company in his apartment in 1999….

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On Being an Individual of.

“It’s always consciousness — of

I can see and hear him very distinctly now in my consciousness, even though he is gone.

My father had said it to me, on quite of few times, and it’s full impact has finally come home

Because of another person, who I was barely conscious of … most of my life.  And I never met the man.

But James and Sharon know him.    There is the two degrees of physical separation.

But the abstract connections are deeper.

It is called the Gestalt.

For my father and Nathaniel Branden had at least two things in common…

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Innovating Innovation

He wasn’t talented enough, he thought.

To join Disney Animation Studios as an animator.

So he became a scientist

A Computer Scientist.

He has had a hand in innovating with a team, in a whole new way.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Now he is the President of Disney Animation Studios… and Pixar Animation Studios … and Disney Toons Studios.

Computer Science, Ed Catmull, and Innovation has come a long way baby…

And you haven’t seen nothing yet.

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