+1 415 842 4822 hi@thrivemonger.com

How not to be a loser

In a recent NOVA episode on Quantum entanglement, one interesting detail caught my attention.

A very particular photograph is mentioned. Taken in Belgium in 1927, at the Solvay Conference on Electrons and Photons. As is customary, a group portrait was taken with the attendees to the conference. Classic layout, the first row sitting on chairs, and then the following ones propped up on a staircase at the front of the venue where the conference was held.

In the picture, there is Piccard, Schroedinger, Heissenberg, DeBroglie, Planck, Lorentz, and even Curie and Einstein. Probably the photograph with the most heavy-weight physicists in history together.

Now imagine that you are a physicist, and imagine being there, you are on that photograph. Pretty cool, Right? I mean, you are part of “the group”, “the clicke”.

But here is the thing: out of this select group of 28 eminences, ONLY 17 were awarded a Nobel Prize.

Now imagine you are not one of those 17. All your friends have Nobels, except you.

Not so cool anymore, Huh?

It is very much ok to strive to be the best in your field, but It is always good to look back with gratitude and recognize your accomplishments.

The best way to not be a loser, is to stop thinking about yourself as one.

Picture from Wikimedia Commons, consider a donation this end of year.

As originally published at The ChannelMeister
on December 13, 2019. Please consider sharing and subscribing HERE.

Re-post: Partner Programs as an extension of the Operating Model – The Daily PPILL #309

Most partner programs look alike, and some of them look like they would've been thrown together from whatever was available. But organizations that don’t place enough care in how they design their partner programs may be wasting a huge opportunity to create and lock-in value. One of the fundamental pillars of the strategy of an organization is...

Partner Programs as an extension of the Operating Model – The Daily PPILL #249

Most partner programs look alike, and some of them look like they would've been thrown together from whatever was available. But organizations that don’t place enough care in how they design their partner programs may be wasting a huge opportunity to create and lock-in value. One of the fundamental pillars of the strategy of an organization is...

Developing winning strategies – The Daily PPILL #229

I have no doubt in my mind, that having a sound strategy that is shared and understood by all  stakeholders, and then execute flawlessly, is the way to lead an organization towards success. Yet so many organizations fail to find that winning strategy, or even if they do, plans are not followed through and the effort gets lost. But the...

The LAER Cycle: The Layer 8 error is now also our problem

In a world where products are increasingly being replaced by services, it is important to understand the role that customer service plays and how it can affect the rate of user attrition. In the XaaS universe, where everything is offered on a monthly payment basis, the only metric that really matters to measure the performance of a company is the...

How I anguished over starting a daily blog

How do you deal with decisions that make you feel uneasy? You know, those that imply a commitment, but that you would really like to give it a "test drive" for a while? Something like -for example- getting a puppy. Nope. No free returns. I have been wanting to write more, and I've been working on it (and mulling about it) for a while. I have...

The Joint Value Proposition as a differentiator

Most of the time, I write for an audience that is very familiar, and -I hope so- convinced of the value that partnerships bring top the table, but in this occasion, I was invited for a "guest post" by my former professor and author, Dr. Art Weinstein. The article, in its original form, can be found on Dr. Weinstein's blog HERE. In today's complex...

The case for building actionable solutions as the cornerstone of your GTM strategy

Long title, but it deserves it. When go to market strategy conversations come up, I inevitably find myself mentioning the importance of first creating actionable solutions that can then be taken to the market. This is especially important in the enterprise market, where the prevailing route to market is through the channel.  But why do I...

Diversity of Diversity

Diversity gets a lot of air time. Gender diversity, national origin and race diversity. Diversity is great. It has been demonstrated that organizations with more diverse workforces are more productive, innovative, and adaptive. As an added benefit, more diverse executive staffs are less likely to get into trouble by overlooking risks and PR...

Aqua Road Bike Life Lesson #4: The Best is yet to come

This is about the fourth life lesson a vintage, and very aqua road bike, taught me. You can read more about that in the first post of this series, The Univega and Life Lessons it has taught me. The subject of that story, is a road bike I found discarded on the curbside years ago. After some TLC, I have been riding this road bike forever since....

Aqua Road Bike Life Lesson #3: Trust your own judgement

This is about the third life lesson a vintage, and very aqua road bike, taught me. You can read more about that in the first post of this series, The Univega and Life Lessons it has taught me. The subject of that story, is a road bike I found discarded on the curbside years ago. After some TLC, I have been riding this road bike forever since. The...

Aqua Road Bike Life Lesson #2: Keep showing up

This is about the second life lesson a vintage, and very aqua road bike, taught me. You can read more about that in the first post of this series, The Univega and Life Lessons it has taught me. If you have been following this thread, you already know that years ago, I found this road bike discarded on the curbside. After some TLC, I have been...

Aqua Road Bike Life Lesson #1: You start things by starting them

This is about one of the life lessons a vintage, and very aqua road bike, taught me. You can read more about that in the first post of this series, The Univega and Life Lessons it has taught me. Years ago, while on a ride with a friend, I found this road bike discarded on the curbside. After some TLC, I have been riding this road bike forever...

The Univega and life lessons it has taught me

This story is not about Univega, but about THE Univega, my Univega, and about the life lessons that it taught me about dealing with rejection, seizing opportunities, perseverance and grit, confidence and trusting your own judgement, and even hope. Years ago, I was on a 15 mile-long road loop, morning bicycle ride with a friend of mine, to get our...

That’s impossible…

There are things you deem impossible, and then there are those things that you don't even think as impossible because they are so out there, that you don't even consider overcoming the obstacles, they are just "impossible". And those are the more problematic ones. Those are the ones that when someone gets a hang of them, they sneak up on you, and...

NO FOOD

Context changes everything. Us, who are in the Telecom business, we know the difference between the Auto Teller Machine (ATM) and the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). Removing or changing context is also a favorite tactic in the political game. My wife is a Biochemist and a Researcher, and the few times I have visited her lab, I have always...

Partner Values

Just the way it works for personal relationships, if you are trying to get an idea on who a person is, you could look at their possessions, their car, their house, etc. You could look at their education, or in which family where they born into. You could also look at their religion, or their political inclination, but if you could get access to a...

The Search for the Ideal Partner

We have all been there. We spend an awful amount of time trying to profile the ideal partner, and we go through the exercise of evaluating all their capabilities. We try to find out the number of sales people that they employ, their technical capabilities, etc. But I would argue that not much of them really matter by themselves, all of these are...

This Headline wants you to stop reading

This is one of the biggest challenges for today's marketer. We are competing in quantity and speed. The amount of information available at any given moment is unmanageable, and seconds later, gets replaced with a fresh set. 140-character "journalism" is perfectly suited for this new dynamic, but it lacks depth. Someone said the Elevator Pitch was...

Ancient technologies

Business travel. We all know what it has turned into, long lines, delayed connections, lousy food, and way too small seats. You may be able to miss some of these, but pretty sure there is going to involve waiting. A lot of it. And during these waiting periods, what do we do? We shop! Here is a beautiful piece I found at Denver’s airport, and that...

Post-Truth, Marketing, and Virtual Reality

We are living in interesting times. “Post-Truth” has been named the 2016 “word of the year” by the Oxford dictionaries. According to their own definition it refers to “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. During this past election, it seemed to work. I...

Sharing dreams

The capability of sharing dreams between two or more human beings has always been -well-, a dream of humanity. Being able to tap into the subconscious and to be part of the same experience for a moment is something we have pursued since the beginning of our time. Imagine ousting from your vocabulary the expression "you had to be there" and...