BrandSoul

Wanna make it great?

There is a kind of people that once you meet them, you inmediately notice they are different. Their enthusiasm and high spirit are contagious. One of those persons is Phil Gerbyshak. Phil has written a book to help you make your life Great. 10 Ways to make it Great is the title and you can buy it here. book.

You can also visit Phil's blog here.

Beauty as inspiring force

I have stated several times that the purpose of BrandSoul is to promote a view of life where beauty is a driving force. Yesterday I found a quote of Gandhi that says:

Real beauty is my aim.

Following this thread, in my Three amigos book, I have developed the theory of the Perfumed Soul, convinced as I am that the pressence of beauty demands the pressence of beautiful words. It is therefore, a poetic approach to leadership.

One could believe beauty is a matter of personal trends. That we can speak of beautiful souls, even of perfumed souls, but that in a more complex model of interaction, be it groupal or social beauty is irrelevant. That is why Gandhi's quote is so important, because he was a person committed to social change.

But not only Gandhi found beauty as the source of inspiration for action. Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Judgement, talked about the difference of beauty and taste. He saw it clearly, when you say you like something, that judgement is personal and has no generalizing purpose. But when one says something is beautiful, although it is a subjective pleasure what you feel, you are claiming for the general acceptance of the beauty of the object.

That is where beauty and Democracy coincide. The ecopolitics of social life demands beauty as inspiring force, the recovery of a sense of joy and the pleasure of exploring forms.

Free

Free = Free from structure

A map of playfulness

One of the ideas we have been deepening in our Three amigos manifesto is that of the recovery of authenticity and friendship. I align these two ideas with playfulness, with a sense of sensual enjoyment. It is a countercultural approach to working systems, remarking the loving side of human experience even inside institutional settings.

As a way of showing what the place of playfulness can be in our lifes I will refer to Caillois' taxonomy of playful experiences. According to him, there are four main orders of playful activity:

1. Agon, or competition.

2. Alea, or chance.

3. Mimicry, or simulation.

4. Ilinx, or vertigo.

The nine fruits of leadership

Trevor Gay has published his last work The nine fruits of leadership. It is a perfect example of Christian wisdom translated into the managerial world. I 've read it and I am sure you will love it. The nine fruits are:

Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control

The nine fruits of leadership starts up a collection of nine books (each on one of the fruits) that Trevor, Rocky Noe and I will write in the following months under our own publishing brand Sweet Friendship Books. This will be our second collection under this brand after our recent Three amigos with one message.

David Boje's narrative analysis

I've been doing some research on the topic of storytelling and David Boje's Narrative methods looks to me as a very useful resource. David is a very active writer and also has his own website Storytelling Organization. Take a look at them.

The book is very intelectually demanding, explaining quite easily the most difficult french postmodern thought: Derrida, Ricoeur, etc. If you like this kind of stuff you will love it.

LeBronze and the five amigos

By now, you know about the US bronze medal at the FIBA World Championships. This was an outstanding opportunity for all players, coaching staff and managers of USA Basketball to recover the lost glory.

But they are back from Japan with a bronze medal on their necks. Someone with a bit of malice has coined this team as LeBronze's team. The US team lost against Greece and now everybody from players to coaches are wondering what the secret of success can be when they under international rules. As a non-american guy I find some reasons to be mere excuses. For instance:

1. FIBA rules are different: Yes, they are, but previous american teams had no problems to play under FIBA rules and win easily.

2. Players need to adjast their styles to the new rules. Yes, but this year they started to prepare the Worlds with time enough to adjust to the rules. Even Lbron told that be it NB or FIBA it is basketball and he likes it.

3. International players are more adapted to FIBA rules. Yes, but a team like Greece had no individual star in their roster. And a star is supposed to act as a star.

4. FIBA championships are not very important for the americans. Ok, as Pau Gasol put it last weekend, if they prefer to lose the games it's their problem.

I think there are two main reasons that explain the failure of the US team and the success of the spanish, the gold medallists.

1. The US team does not play as a team. I posted a similar commentary about the last All Star game. I keep thinking the same way. And I don't like the way they play, it seems rather a Slam Dunk than a basketball game. Clyde Drexler or Dr. J. were outstanding dunkers but they played basketball.

2. The spanish team is a bunch of friends. They are, first of all, amigos. Most of them were Junior World Champions and they know each other since a very young age. It is this special atmosphere that makes a star like Gasol resound as a leader and be a source of energy for his teammates.