Author: Andrea Grassi

Today we were talking about how to improve some internal communication inside the company and I wonder: How do things change inside big companies?

I wonder what are the steps to a broader adoption of a tool.
I suppose they all start small, unless they want to do a big mistake, but how does this really work?

Are there some evolutionary people that break the rules or is there some kind of “company acceptance” where is the owner itself that let them trying to improve?

One of the quotes that resonated with me deeply was the one that Steve Jobs said.
I’m paraphrasing here but it was something along these line

“The difficult thing is not to say yes to good ideas, the difficult thing is to say no to good ideas and say yes only to the awesome ones”

Another quote on the same line comes from Derek Sivers who says only HELL YEAH or a plain no meaning that if it’s convinced fully and fully charged, then it’s no.

Saying no is hard because there are so many beautiful things in the world, but it’s a necessity to improve our life, to live fully.

When you talk about self-improvement what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?

Success, power, energy, happiness are just few of the words that might pop-up.

What any self-help/improvement book doesn’t tell you is one hidden journey towards those goal.

Everyone in this world has some negative side, some character that its too much.

We all got our issues, right?

To work on that you’ll have to face them directly, you’ll have to fight them, recognize them and work towards improving yourself.

That’s how you do it, that’s the little secret.

Acknowledging your limits and working on them.

Guess what? It’s difficult.

We all ask to be better, but the path to that improved version of ourselves requires us to learn, to fail, to be humble, to go forth, to fail again, and to wake up again with the strong will to face again and again our problems until they are solved.

It’s hard to do it because those shadows in our character are difficult to begin with.

They are hard to accept, and hard to change.

But those shadows are our best bet, they are the path.

Our path.

Years ago when it was someone’s birthday I would congratulate with him/her, nothing else.

Birthdays, afterall, were just a day like the others to me, so it didn’t make any sense to add something to them.

Today I still think that birthdays are normal days, but everything changed.
I remember it all happened when a dear friend of mine wrote me a birthday message.

I didn’t expect it. It was a long message, it was passionate, insightful, full of hopes and wishes.
It was the best birthday message I’ve ever received.

That message got me thinking about how much power you have in your birthday.
It changed it all for me, it changed the way I think about expressing emotions, it changed the way I write messages to people on their birthday.

After that I realized that on the birthday you have the opportunity to positively influence someone.
To give them a boost, without using hypocrites words.
You can do good, real good.

When you say “Happy birthday” you simplify a complex meaning.
What “Happy Birthday” represent is a wishing well.
We all wish the best to others, so when you naturally put that much time writing a message you realize that you write such messages only for the people that count for you.

This makes those messages even more beautiful, and they are vehicle to your emotions, to your wishing well.
In fact, while you say “Happy birthday” you might be noise in the other person’s life, but if you write such powerful message, then you can scratch their surface, you can touch their heart, leave a trace.

It’s not about being selfish, it’s about sharing emotions, sharing wishes.
So now I write less happy birthday, I say less happy birthday, but when I say them I use them my full range of emotions, my full range of words.

I won’t use small phrases, but I write long posts to ensure all the love and friendship doesn’t get lost.

Personally I often talk about expressing love in those messages and the reason behind that is this:
We often don’t show our love to others.
We hide it because we fear it, we fear the consequences.

But to be honest, if we died tomorrow would we regret it?
Yes.
We would regret it.
That’s why I often say “live this day with the people you love and make sure that they will know how you feel about them, hug them, love them, express your range of emotions”.

Because when we die the only trace we’ll live will be made by the memories and the feelings other have for us.
Those feelings will be our trace, our legacy.
They will remember us for what we taught to them in life and love.

Tomorrow is not a good day to love, today is.
Don’t ever let yourself hide your emotions.

Live fully, express your love.

We need order as much as possible because order is like hygiene to our body.

Order cleans us and I don’t refer to political order or control of society. I mean it individually. Being in order, having house in order, allows us to free part of our mind, to be more efficient and dedicated to what we love doing.

When we live in chaos we can’t fully develop our skills because our mind is so changing that it’s quite difficult to focus deeply.

When we order, though, everything seems faster to do.