Gotta to love music, besided R&B and HipHop…

I have heard this song growing up and while the group is from France, the stlye is Zouk, widely listened to in my country Dominica.  Makes you wanna dace no?

Knowing Oneself, Leadership and The Matrix…

I am currently reading through a book called ‘Heroic Leadership’ and some interesting thoughts have emerged from my reading. I will just share a few today.

How do you define a leader? Someone who inspires, someone who has vision and direction, someone who influences others? Maybe a combination of all of these.

No matter what your definition of a leader is, one thing is for sure, a leader must lead himself/herself before they can lead others. Interesting, which means in a sense, we are all leaders. Leadership emerges from character which comes from withing a person, which prompts a question; can leaders be born or developed, like a persons character can be?. Maybe a bit of both…

As a leader, one must understand ones strengths and weaknesses, or else one will fail. I remember one of the quotes from the movie , ” MATRIX” , Know Thyself!” Very important! The awareness of oneself and ones environment makes for a successful leader. Neo had to understand and believe in himself in order to be successful in his purpose as the ONE. “One cannot see pass the choices/decisions one does not understand”, another quote from the movie. To understand ones choices, you need understand oneself. Character is formed by choices made.

Questions we should ask ourselves, why do I think this way, why do I have this particular habit?

Understanding self, while many may imply this is a New Age concept, there are many things we can learn from this universal truth. Knowing yourself, helps you against your weaknesses, consolidates your strengths, and makes you a more focused individual.

How can one be a doctor without studying medicine, or an engineer without doing applied sciences, or a lawyer without studying law, so as well how can one be oneself, without knowing oneself. We neglect this very important truth. Food for thought.

Now the question, how does one know oneself. Well everything in life has a creator, cars, boats, mobile phones, so to You, man, homo sapiens ( humans)! So to properly understand oneself, don’t you think you should be talking to the Divine One who created us all, after all, The Divine One, God, did create you!

“I am back” ….imagine me saying it with a terminator accent…

Please check new post below. I am finally back blogging again and oh do I have lots to share ..stayed tuned for the adventure continues.

Crazy Love…not what Beyonce sings about…!

Okay so I have not blogged for a while..forgive me, we all need forgiveness everynow and then, and I do more than most… ! LOL

I am presently reading a book called “Crazy Love” recommended to me by a very special friend. As a tribute to her, my first post back is dedicated to her fav book of ALL time.  The book has been extremely edifying and eye-opening and enjoyably easy to read. It was written by a guy called Francis Chan, I would recommend it to any one.

You can check out the webiste,  http://www.crazylovebook.com/

Thanks English….

The world, politics, the White House and the American WAY/Election….

Why is it that the world is so interested in this presidential election? If it was up to the citizens of the world Barack Obama would be president already.

I think partially because whatever happens in Washington, and the wider US for that matter, affects us all in the wider world.  I am not an American, neither am I Anti-American, like so many have become recently (Blame Bush W), but I think I have a stake in who becomes president, almost at much as an American citizen, and I think, that is the sentiment of many in the world.

Everything from Economic, to Foreign to military policies of the US, affects us here, outside the US, even the US media and culture, CNN, Foxnews, BET, MTV, the networks and various magazines influence us. Now whether the US influence in the world, is dying or not, is another story, but many countries have tried, maybe unsuccessfully, to counter or balance the influence of US in the world, maybe to ther demise.

Let us look at the war in Iraq and its effects, or lets us go back further to 911, new and inaundating security measures at airports, fear, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, increase in oil prices. Then you have the financial crisis now in the US, which affects every major economy in the world. WOW! Hence the reason Bush W. is pushing for a $700 billion bailout of american financial companies. The world’s trust in the US economy is waning considerably right now.

The US has strategic influence and it affects everyone in world directly or indirectly. So you see this is why the world is so interested in who sits in the White House, because whatever they do for good or bad affects the rest of us, Tremendously.

Your thoughts.

I would ask that leaders in the US remember, with great power comes, great responsibility, use it wisely and to the candidate that wins, learn from your predecessor and please do not make the same mistakes.

Quote of the week…

I have posted this one before, but thought I should share it again…

“…Don’t take yourself to seriously, but don’t take yourself to lightly either…”

Lambert L. Danglar

The Presidential Battle of our Lifetime…..WreslemaniaXXXX and Heroic Leadership…

I have stayed away from blogging about the presidential elections, as I have wanted to observe carefully before stating my opinions. Firstly, let me say I like ALL candidates in this election…No really I do…!

I like John McCain’s war torn-tortured past and rise to senator story and I like Palin’s beauty-queen to mayor to governor to Republican VP nominee story. I like Biden’s story of challenges of loosing a wife and combating health challenges to be Senator and I also like Barack Obama’s story of the Internation skinny kid who grew up with multi-racial parents and multi-cultural rise from state senator, to Marvelous key-note speech at 2004 Democratic Conference, to become a US Senator for Illinois story.

They ALL have compelling stories and characters. This election is a classic battle of youth versus experience, Liberal versus conservative and change versus status quo. I am loving every bit of this battle right now. Although earlier it seemed McCain was complaining about media coverage, or lack thereof, with the Palin announcement, he has gotten quite a bit, or should I say, she has gotten quite a bit.

Well the US faces many challenges right now, from a broken economy to the war in Iraq; from Globilazation to Inflation; from Health care to Oil prices.

I am reading a book at the moment called,

Heroic Leadership by Chris Lowney, and just learning bits of what goes into the making and molding of a great leader.

Here are a couple excerpts on leadership from the book:

• Establishing direction: A leader establishes vision and strategies for producing the changes needed to achieve that vision.
• Aligning people: communicating direction in words and deeds to all those whose cooperation may be needed, so as to influence the creation of teams, and coalitions that understand the vision and strategies, and that accept their validity.
• Motivating and inspiring: energizing people to overcome major political, bureaucratic, and resource barriers to change, by satisfying basic but often unfulfilled human needs.
• [and largely as a result of the first three roles:] producing change, often to a dramatic degree

I am watching the elections closely, while monitoring each candidate according to the book’s principles. So I will keep you posted on what I observe, but also feel free to share what you observe as well….comments, questions and quips {once civil} are always welcomed.

Women have got the power it seems…..

So with the recent Obama/Clinton Democratic battle, as well as Tzipi Livni taking over as Prime Minister of Israel, and as Sarah Palin becomes the McCain VP nominee, I have been very interested in females in leadership roles in the world. So I have done some research and found a website that has a list of ALL females in political positions.

Check it out: Women in Political Power in the world.

Love is in the Air…..How do I stay Emotionally Pure? Eh?!

Emotional Purity...

So a number of my friends/acquaintances are either falling in love or getting married. Last year alone I was a part of at least 5 weddings. Man! So there is a buz in the air here in Barbados, so come check it out.

A friend of mine, who is single, recommended this book for me to read. I was reluctant to read it thinking it was one of these emotionally-sappy-pick me up kinda books, but while I did not agree with everything the author wrote, there was much food for thought.

The book is called “Emotional Purity. An Affair of the Heart by Heather Arnel Paulsen. The book is mostly geared towards females but there are sections which speak to the male perspective. I found it a easy read with lots of food for thought. A book I would recommend to my sister and some female friends and maybe some male buddies of mine.

So much focus is placed on Physical Purity, well from the author’s perspective what about giving you heart away and emotional purity….Hmmmmmm?! Never thought about that.

Check it out.

Recommend Site…

I have been listening to this Messianic Jew called Art Katz, who I find very interesting and enlightening. It is interesting to hear theology from his perspective. Check out his website.

Shalom…