This afternoon I’ll be leaving to study in Berlin. Before I go, I thought this would be the perfect time to let my friends know how much they have meant to me. This year, each morning, coffee in hand, I began my day posting a daily bloom on the Kierkegaarden, often before sunrise. Next I began reading and sharing the news on various topics that I found interesting on Twitter,Friendfeed & Facebook. Apparently, many others shared my interests and found my posts to be of value and followed them.
Since I posted so frequently, I avoided posting too many personal comments, but that did not stop me from getting to know you. I’ve read yur posts and enjoyed them immensely. I’ve learned so much from you. Many of you responded to me and we got to know each other via DM’s and email. I really appreciate the connection and thought you should know . I hesitate to mention names here for fear of missing someone, but @ YOU and I know who you are. Some of you greeted me with a sun filled hello every morning. Some of us communicated personally by phone & email. Many of you sent tweets of gratitude and encouragement, confirming the value of my efforts by oh so frequent retweets. You have brought me great joy, and it has been a pleasure to ferret through the news and choose from a plethora of headlines to determine what may be of mutual interest and import. We’ve shared so muc together.
While I am away, although I will have internet access, I’m unsure how much time I wil have to continue as it has been my custom. However, I do plan to keep in touch as I can and take up where I left off upon returning. I’ll be taking my camera and Flip Mino with me and intend to blog about my travels.
I hope that you will stay and virtually join me on my European Journey. This represents a lifelong dream for me and has been a long time coming. I’m so excited, I can hardly breathe. I’m looking forward with great anticipation not only to the travel and study experience, but to meeting new friends and reuniting with those I’ve had the privilege of meeting on my last brief visit. I can’t wait to see them! That’s the best part of all.
Meanwhile, don’t let anyone tell you that Social Media is silly or meaningless. I’ve made some wonderful and VERY meaningful business and personal relationships here. It’s whatever you make it. My two cents to newbies… be honest, be open, be yourself, be kind & considerate. There are wonderful people in the world just waiting to get to know you.
Again, many, many thanks. Hang in there with me. Soon I’ll be greeting you from the other side…of the Atlantic, that is!!! Have a lovely summer. I’m sure I’ll be having a blast. Life is good.
Vielleicht man würde nicht im Allgemeinen Tanz betrachten, ein Sport zu sein, weil es nicht ein Spiel ist. Es wird nicht für konkurrierend gehalten. Es gibt im Allgemeinen keinen Sieger am Ende der Leistung. Ich glaube, dass es ein Sport ist. Es erfordert viel Widmung, Konzentration, und ist physikalisch fleißig.Im Ballett gibt es keine Verlierer, Gewinne jedes gute Tänzers.
Mein Lieblingssport ist Ballett und klassischer Tanz. Als ich sehr jung war habe ich Ballett jahrelang studiert. Als ich in Alaska wohnte, studierte ich vom berühmten russischen Ballett. Hier führen Tänzer von einer russischen Ballettschule was sie einen deutschen Tanz nennen.
Ich habe nicht jahrelang getanzt. Das letzte Mal ging ich zu sehen, dass das Ballett in Philadelphia war. Ich habe Kinder von meiner Kirche mitgenommen, um “den Nussknacker” und “Swan Lake” zu sehen. Mein Lieblingstanz ist “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.
Wir sahen auch “Revelations” von die berühmte Alvin Ailey Tanz-Truppe.
Ich habe sehr viel Respekt für das Lebenswerk von Balanchine.
Ich interessiere mich auch für klassische Tänze von den verschiedenen Kulturen, z.B. Spanien, Indien und Japan zu sehen. Man kann über ein Land und seine Kultur viel lernen, indem es ihren Tanz zu sehen. Der Tanz erzählt eine Geschichte, die zur Kultur der Tänzer einzigartig ist. Die Kostüme sind im Allgemeinen sehr schön. Jeder Samstag-Morgen sehe ich indische Filme, die immer eine Tanzszene haben. Ich habe Salsa getanzt, als ich jüng war, aber ich tanze nicht mehr viel. . Ich habe nie indische Tänze gelernt aber ich möchte es gerne lernen. Ich habe gerne der Film “Umrao Jaan” angesehen. In diesem Film führt Ashwarya Rai-Bachan einen schönen Tanz, ” Salaam.”
It’s such a nice feeling to receive a gift from one of your children, especially when there is no special occasion. I don’t know much at all about taking care of orchids, but I’ll cherish this one and do my best. Unfortunately, we don’t have an awful lot of light so I’m a bit concerned. The blooms are beautiful and I’m hoping they will last a while.
by Jim Donald, former CEO of Starbucks and Pathmark
“Good morning, general store managers, assistant store managers, VPs and all 26,000 employees…Jim here…
It’s Wednesday morning and the merchandising message today is–and you are not going to believe it– but I am telling you that it is OK to steal.”
It was 5:30 a.m., and I was on the phone, in my kitchen, sending out my daily voicemail. As I paused for effect, I was thinking that the supermarket industry has one of the strictest employee honesty codes in the world. Because of the large number of employees, the vast number of items and the low profit margins, it’s an absolute necessity to have zero tolerance for employee theft. I hadn’t informed my senior team that I would be sending out this message…hmm…better think about how to handle that one…
“You heard correctly…despite what you might think about controlling losses and theft, I am saying to all of our associates, it’s now time to start stealing…stealing market share, that is.“
Call it hokey, but this is how I needed to deliver my message to my 26,000 associates. I wanted to convey that the power of the company comes associate by associate, item by item… and it’s up to them to translate that power into sales. So I finished my broadcast this way:
“That’s my message for today…it’s OK to steal…steal market share, that is. Thanks, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
That’s how I communicated though a crisis almost a decade ago when I was CEO of Pathmark Supermarkets. The economic crisis back then wasn’t as bad as today’s. But Pathmark was barely hanging on, just like a lot of companies now. Once the giant grocery chain in the New York metro area, it was one the longest living LBOs from the 1980s and still strapped with $1.6 billion in loans and junk bonds. Employee morale was at an all-time low. It was no longer a price leader. And our suppliers worried that we wouldn’t be able pay the bills.
I learned a lot at Pathmark—and during my time at Albertsons, Safeway, Wal-Mart (WMT) and Starbucks (SBUX), where I was the CEO until January of last year. Since I have some experience in crisis and now I have some distance, too, let me share just a few ideas with you:
Communicate, communicate, communicate. Especially at a time of crisis, make sure your message reaches all levels, from the very lowest to the uppermost. When Pathmark was in dire straits, I began to send out my daily message to all employees. Make sure too that you give them an opportunity to reply.
Reach deep for answers. Sam Walton once said to me, “Jim, if you ever want to know what is troubling your business, ask your front-line employees. They know, and they will tell you.” It’s true, your people on the front line are your real marketing experts. Take advantage of the fact that they’re closest to your customer everyday.
Beware the success trap. Success breeds risk aversion. And what happens when we become risk averse? We stop innovating. And we lose our best people because they become restless and even bored. Various studies by McKinsey and others lists three things that employees want from a company today: an open and honest work environment, the opportunity to be stretched and valued, and the ability to make decisions. Especially today, when so many companies are frozen by risk aversion, giving your people freedom to fail could be your competitive advantage. Complete Story….
“There is, namely, an infinite chasmic difference between God and man, and therefore it became clear in the situation of contemporaneity that to become a Christian (to be transformed into likeness with God) is, humanly speaking, an even greater torment and misery and pain than the greatest human torment, and in addition a crime in [...] […]
“My discovery was of no importance, and yet it was a strange one, for I discovered that there is no such thing as repetition, and I had convinced myself of this by trying in every possible way to get it repeated.” ——————————————————– ~Source: Repetition: An Essay in Experimental Psychology (1843) Author: Søren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Constantin Const […]
“What is it that makes a person great, admired by creation, well pleasing in the eyes of God? What is it that makes a person strong, stronger than the whole world; what is it that makes him weak, weaker than a child? What is it that makes a person unwavering, more unwavering than a rock; [...] […]
“So they sat in their quiet sorrow: they did not harden themselves against the consolation of the world; they were humble enough to acknowledge that life is a dark saying, and as in their thought they were swift to listen to see if there might be an explanatory word, so were they also slow to [...] […]
“Dependence on God is the only independence, because God has no gravity; only the things of this earth, especially earthly treasure, have that — therefore the person who is completely dependent on him is light.” ——————————————————– ~Source: Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits: “What We Learn from the Lilies in the Field and the Birds of the Air” [...] […]
“Worldly similarity, if it were possible, is not Christian equality. Moreover, to bring about worldly similarity perfectly is an impossibility. Well-intentioned worldliness actually admits this itself. It rejoices when it succeeds in making temporal conditions the same for more and more people, but it acknowledges itself that its struggle is a pious wish, th […]
“My life is absolutely meaningless. When I consider the different periods into which it falls, it seems like the word Schnur in the dictionary, which means in the first place a string, in the second, a daughter-in-law. The only thing lacking is that the word Schnur should mean in the third place a camel, in [...] […]
“Now if the learner is to acquire the Truth, the Teacher must bring it to him; and not only so, but he must also give him the condition necessary for understanding it. For if the learner were in his own person the condition for understanding the Truth, he need only recall it.” ——————————————————– ~Source: Philosophical Fragments (1844) Author: [...] […]
Some of you greeted me with a sun filled hello every morning. Some of us communicated personally by phone & email. Many of you sent tweets of gratitude and encouragement, confirming the value of my efforts by oh so frequent retweets. You have brought me great joy, and it has been a pleasure to ferret through the news and choose from a plethora of headlines to determine what may be of mutual interest and import. We’ve shared so muc together.
