Three hours alone

In this paperless society I am still quite old style.

Looking at my desk I am always feeling guilty for the amount of trees that have been chopped to make the incredible amount of paper that I am using.
But I strongly believe that this is the Paper 2.0 society.
We have to use pencil and paper to clean our mind and write down our ideas. And we have to use paper to print books, especially good ones.
I know, I know... you may say I am so old since today tablets and E-books are there to avoid this but I cannot resist. In a book shop I need to see the book, to feel it, to open some pages and to buy it.
And again this happened this week when, waiting for a colleague of mine in a shopping center, I had the bad idea to enter into a shop.
I came out with four books that now I need to read.
The first one I bought is from Pietro Trabucchi. This is the second book from this psychologist, athlete, professor, writer (and I am sure I forgot something) that is following mostly sports linked to physical resistance: Marathons, Ultra-marathons, Cross country ski.

He is studying the effect of the resilience, of the capability of resist to stress in people that are apparently not gifted with extraordinary physical features but that can do extraordinary things.
I already briefly spoke about him in my Persevere blog.

The type of people we are talking about are Bruno Brunod or Kilian Burgada.

Resilience is the word and to explain it well I think that we must look at its roots.
It comes from the Latin "resalio". This word meant to try and go back into the boat after you have been thrown into the see. This effort to overtake the panic, the stress and go back into the boat is what we should try and improve. Because the good thing is that we can improve that and human beings were born with this capability.

BUT, what made me really thinking, was a brief interview to Bruno Brunod that was quoted in this book (Resisto dunque sono, in Italian unfortunately) that I would like to translate. Clearly I will not be able to pass some of the "italian small details" but also the original version was quite straight forward and simple.

"My mother grew me and other 4 children alone. Since my mother had cattle, we lived above Chatillon in the Zerbion mountain. In our home we had plastic on the windows since glass was too expensive. Until I was 8 (he was born in 1962) I lived without electricity. I was going to school, but I liked staying alone.... I was with the cattle when I read an old newspaper talking about Coppi and Bartali. I was shocked. I decided I had to be a champion as well so I went to the village and bought a bicycle. They screwed me though because they gave me something old and heavy. I realized this afterwards: I started immediately training alone. My basic training was to have a bag with bricks on my back and go up from Chatillon until the end of the road. Then waking to the top part where the cows were... Now many people would like to take the merits of my performances. I think that it comes from my life. Hard but happy. I read that Socrates once said "Let your children always be a little cold and a little hungry if you want them happy". Yes, Socrates said that but I do agree".

To sum up... no resilience can be trained if life is too easy and the sport environment can also help doing that beside giving clear help on the physical side.

It is for this reason and to make my life more difficult (just kidding!) that I am preparing the Cortina Dobbiaco Run.

30 kilometers in a breathtaking environment into MY mountains.

I will be needing a lot of resilience and training. But there is a quite complicated part of this kind of run that people often forget or do not take into account.
I think that the most difficult part in these long distances is to listen to your body and to the signs it will give you. You need to learn staying three hours alone, listening inside yourself. Listening to all the signs and giving yourself the right message to your body.

Let's see...

In the meantime, I wish you all a happy Easter.
Ciao

Quick baby quick

The latest macroeconomic data about Italy are a real disaster.

Unemployment is at its highest level since 1977, the GDP is expected to grow less than 1% and that will make Italy the slowest county in the EU28.
Looking at these numbers there is definitely no reason whatsoever to believe we will finally get out of this mud.
But... in reality Italy has got a quite strong and robust base and infrastructure. There is a number of medium small companies that are scattered throughout Italy and that are the beating heart of the country.
The potential is there. It's a quite powerful engine that must be properly managed and driven.
Yes. It must be managed.
We need a skilled driver to be able to put these companies in the right conditions to operate.
Indeed, Italy is currently exporting 3,1% of the TOTAL WORLD EXPORT value. It's among the top 10 exporting countries in the world and 3rd in Europe. It's simply a very good engine that must be well lubricated.
Infact, out of the 210.000 Italian companies that have exported in 2013 (yes, two hundred and ten thousands!!!), 85% exported less than 750kEuro.
Only 4,5% of them exported, on the other hand, more than 5 Mil. Euro. Less than 9.500 companies.

We can then say that only these companies have a proper export department, a department that has got the skills, the knowledge and the target to develop the market in all the aspects:

1) find customers
2) develop relationships
3) communicate the strategy
3) keep the customers

In reality though, although this picture clearly shows a weak point of our country, it gives also a big hope. In reality we can say that 85% of the company that export HAVE BEEN CHOSEN by their customers.
They have been found and given an opportunity thanks to their skills.
They have been invited into an existing market or created a new one although their set up was not apparently there.

The Prosecco development in Europe is a clear example since in few year it became a well known wine everywhere.

But we are talking about all the different markets, not only our "historical ones" like clothes or food.
They have been chosen because of their Technology, Flexibility, Design, Differentiation, Culture and Price.
In a word because they are Italian.
The customer has chosen them and they have skipped the first step, to find customers.
Now they just have to keep the customers and find new ones.
That's the most difficult thing and what must be written on every agenda of a sales meeting:

And today is the right moment.
Such companies have a flexibility and a speed that very few others can have.

Today is the "Economy of NOW". We are seeing more often that we are moving away from the "Big fish eats small fish" concept and entering a "Quick fish eats slow fish" as Beau Toskich (link is only in Italian, sorry) has correctly said.
These companies can be faster than the market because their structure, most of the times a family business, are normally perfect to react and have a quick execution of their plans.
We need to remember that once you realize that the market is faster than your company you're definitely in trouble.

Yesterday your idea was great
Today is ok
Tomorrow... do you have something different?
And what was innovation yesterday is today commodity.

How to increase the numbers of exporting companies? How to be able to move from being the chosen to being the main actor?
In my humble opinion they need an export department. A strategy and a vision to take control and sit behind the steering wheel.
This will be one of the investments that nobody will regret of.


This blog was created also to try and give some visibility to these 200.000 italian companies. 

A little support for this giant task.

Have a nice week

"Always pass on what you have learned." 5 good tips from Master Yoda

These days are quite hectic and full of things to do.

In this big flow of information, targets, flights and small things and with so little hours to sleep and rest I must admit I have thought about my Blog very little this week.

In reality when I woke up this morning, feeling a little bit like Sting waking up again in his clothes (sorry for this parallel that might seem a little presumption but look at this please...)

I had no idea on what to talk about this morning.

Then, a new friend of mine, saved my day. We were talking about the types of protections that men are creating to protect themselves.

Anger, Hate, Fear and Suffering.

That's quite close to what one of the characters that I loved most, used to say. Master Yoda.

I have then to pick 5 of his best quotes, the 5 that I think can give good pieces of advice to everybody.

Ah, I could not find who was the screenwriter for Yoda's part. It should be Lawrence Kasdan but I am not sure. What I am sure about is that he has created a gem on the cinema world.

1) Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

This is one of the basis of the psychology. We create an artificial shield to protect ourselves from what we fear and make us suffer. We need to understand what we are fearing and build a positive shield not to destroy but to positively channel the anger and not let the things go to the wrong direction.

In a word... Be a Jedi

2) (Luke) I can't believe it. (Yoda) That's why you fail

This idea was also taken by Guy Kawasaki on the video I posted on last week (see my Marketing in the facebook era Post)

To take step forwards you must "Believe to see" not "See to believe". Only if you fully trust on your ideas you'll reach the goal you've in mind.

3) If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are... a different game you should play

This, together with the next one, is the basic of what you need to get out of your comfort zone. It is impossible to go out of what you do, always, and make no mistake. People learn from mistakes. 

No mistake, nothing to learn. You're still in your backyard.

4) You must unlearn what you have learned

Again, that's the basic of moving to the next level. It's like if you're doing a sport since when you were a child. Nobody taught you how to do it. This happened to me with tennis. I am not a good player but I took some lessons with a master that changed some aspects of my game. I was getting worse instead of improving. Then after having practiced I became being better, and better and better.

To move on the next level you need to be prepared to do that, even if this mean to change what you've done since you were born.

5) TRY NOT. Do or do not. There is no try

This is by far my favorite. Don't be stopped by your fear of not being able to make it. The fear is just a screen that is between yourself and what you want to do.

Delete the "I'll do my best approach" and replace it with "I will do this".

That's all for today. I wish you a great Jedi week.

Ah, sorry... also the title was a quote from Yoda. Actually I found 6 good quotes and I did not want to skip one. I used that as a title but it is as important as the others.

Ciao