Nicotine addiction

28th August 2006, just one year ago, I quit smoking. I wrote a post last December about Allen Carr and his famous and successful method to quit smoking (Easyway). My dear reader, if you’re a smoker thinking in quitting… DON’T TRY IT, JUST DO IT!
Giving up cigarettes is full of topics about its difficulty, methods to use, friends stories, and so on… It’s true than nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs but in only 2 weeks you can overcome 98% of the physical addiction. Problem is the psychological side. What I can say from my personal experience is that stop smoking is easy only if you are 100% sure that you want to quit. Only if you visualize yourself as a non-smoking person for the rest of your live. If you are crystalline clear about it you will success whatever method or moment in time you choose.
Remember… if I could…and many people could.. Sure you will…
Thanks and smile,
dk.

Allen Carr EasyWay to Stop Smoking

Jorge Bucay

Jorge Bucay was some other very interesting read I did during last holidays. With a very straight-forward writing stile and many humor tips this Argentinean created a four books “fourth logy” where he expressed his thoughts about self-management, love, death and happiness (“Camino a la autodependencia”, “El camino de las lágrimas”, “El camino del encuentro” and “El camino a la felicidad”). It’s suppose you have to read the four books in that order: first self-management, be able to be selfish, independent and learn to love yourself, second about love, we need from others to fill complete as humans beings, third about overcoming the lost of a loving person, and fourth about achieving happiness. He maintains you have to find your way in those three roads (self-management, love and death) before exploring the fourth road and finding your way to accomplish happiness. He explains happiness as the feeling of a person who knows that found his way and mission in live and is aware that is currently on that “road”. Happiness is not only short moments of great joy or pleasure. Happiness is reckoning your true soul, finding your truly YOU and being able to answer the WTHDYLF question (What The Hell do You Live For?)
I know guys… quite deep but I think some in a while it’s good for the spirit…
Thanks and smile,

dk

North of Spain

Yes, you’re right… The motorbike trip went on… Tarifa, Málaga, Jaén and once in Madrid, after 3 days “chilling out”, we headed North of Spain. First stop León! Nice city, beautiful Cathedral, friendly people, cheap&excellent food&wine, we enjoyed a lot! Next day, we continued our trip towards Asturias and Cantabria always taking national roads if possible. We had unexpected cold weather though when we were crossing Leon Mountains. We found extraordinary green landscapes, amazing mountains, beautiful villages and fabulous food. It was the dreamed motorbike trip: Oviedo, Cangas de Onis, “Picos de Europa”, Covadonga, Rivadesella, Llanes, San Vicente de la Barquera, Comillas and finally Santander.
If you have the chance don’t hesitate… go there!

Thanks and smile,

dk

Tanger

… and we headed even Southern! Short trip to Tanger (Morocco), from Tarifa Port you can get there by Ferry in only 40 minutes. That was like going to another “world”, you realize how things can change being only 14 kms far from home. When you are far from tourists places it seems as you traveled back in time one century! It’s a pity the Poverty you still find over there mixed with the luxury at Occidental Hotels that it’s only reserved for tourists and a minority of local high-class people. Amazing was as well the amount of policeman you could find at Tanger streets, in the main avenues almost one policeman 20 metres far from the next. The shopping zone was quite interesting, hundreds of probably too much decorated little shops, with a characteristic leather smell and with thousands of articles to sell with no prize on them of course… You must discuss and agree it!
In the ferry back to Tarifa, once we were at the Port and the ship door already opened, it was funny to heard how an English women traveling with her family expressed an … “Uff! My goodness! At least… Civilization!”
Thanks and smile,

dk.

Wind Land

So after the MBA graduation at Madrid… We headed SOUTH! The motorbike trip just started. First stop at Jaen in the “Red Duck” (fantastic beer and seafood), then siesta and trip to Malaga (Fuengirola). Following day we were already traveling to Tarifa area (“the wind land”). I could catch up with my almost forgotten windsurfing skills and enjoyed a lot. It’s a very demanding sport and quite tough but from my point of view, the adrenaline, the speed and being in contact and overcome a mix of Nature elements (the Sea, waves, strong winds and sand) make practicing this sport a wonderful experience!
Thanks and smile,

dk.

14 Key Failure Factors for a business start-up

Apart from enjoying my holidays riding my motorbike, windsurfing, sight-seeing and so on I had time to do something useful... I read too! Fernando Trias de Bes, MBA profesor at Esade and writer of books as “The good luck” or “Lateral Marketing”, surprised everyone with his new book: “The black book for the entrepreneur” (El libro negro del emprendedor) were he explains his theory about the main factors for failure when starting a new company. This is based in his own experience, his work at the MBA school (ESADE) and many “chats” with different experienced entrepreneurs. He got to compile 14 key reasons to fail. Those factors are the folowing:

About the person:
1 entrepreneur with a reason but without motivation
2 not to have an entrepreneur mentality
3 not to have a strong character to fight when is needed

About the business partners:
4 count with them when in reality you don’t need partners at all
5 choose partners without an election criteria
6 share the same percent of capital when everyone is not giving the same value
7 lack of communication and understanding between partners

About the business idea:
8 to think that success only depends on that "great idea"
9 start within fields you don’t like or lack knowledge
10 start within non attractive fields (saturated, little growth)

About the impact in your family live:
11 make the business dependant on your family economy and material needs
12 not knowing the impact that starting a business will have in the quality of your personal live (time for your family, hobbies, …)

About management of the new company:
13 create business models in which you don’t get benefits quickly and neither in the long term
14 to be an entrepreneur (want to create something all the time) instead of a business man (like to manage growth) and not know the right moment to retire

Well, What do you think? Do you agree? Be aware than in his URL you can leave your own opinion www.triasdebes.net
Thanks and smile,

dk

MBA Graduation

I’m back! One month without writing… Sorry guys but I needed a break after all that stress ... It’s been a wonderful time we had during our summer holidays and I thought I could write some blog entries about it. So, let’s start from the beginning with the MBA graduation ceremony on the 20th of July, quite a nice place (Palacio Municipal de Congresos) and atmosphere, all my family were there and they enjoyed a lot the “show”. We were all very happy as this was the end to a big effort and all of us were treated from that moment and will be in future as “IE MBA ex-alumni”. I think we all thought about the money the MBA cost us, the time, the effort, the stress, the learnings, the friendship, … “It was worth it!”
Thanks and smile,
dk.