I feel I am very fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience multiple cultures. Experiences help sculpt personalities and personalities define your choices… your choices make YOU! People and organizations all have value systems based on their experiences and cultures. I challenge you to find one that is NOT positive or self reinforcing! Yet we have all the crime, hatred, prejudice and bias.
Years ago I had a vice and one day I decided I would rid myself of this vice. I made a firm commitment to myself and decided I would share with my friends and my mentor. My mentor and I share similar origins and background; I have counted on him for an objective opinion over the years and often a socio-religious perspective. During my chat I told him about my plans, his reaction was, “I was weak and was the sharing was my drive for self affirmation!” that struck me as a tad bit odd. I enquired why he thought so. His response amazed me and to date continues to provide me strength in the decisions I make and all my execution plans. He said my brain has helped me synthesize the facts and realize that the vice would hurt me in the long run but my heart needed help in believing I could pull it off. The heart did not feel strong enough to be able to execute and hence I felt the need to say it out loud to my friends and repeat it over and over… my heart needed to start believing in being able to accomplish what I had set out to do. I cherish that advice to date!
Each time I read values of organizations around the world the everything from Enron to WorldCom, for profit to nonprofits, governmental organizations and nongovernmental organizations, it echoes of weakness. That lacuna in the hearts of these organizations, we can’t maintain these standards, but we continue to try, may be someday we may embody them?
