Wednesday 28 May 2008

Don't confuse kindness for weakness

I was always taught that it is better to be interested than interesting. When meeting new people, ask questions; don't talk non-stop.

I have been very privileged in my short working life to have met some powerful and intelligent people. Many of them are very humble, and, also, good listeners. I often wondered about that. How come they are keen to listen to me? I should be doing all the listening. Turns out that are wise men! I am glad I am becoming wiser (I think) as I get older.

The thing about being interested and about being a good listener (which I am not) is that it is easy to confuse a person like this with someone who is soft. But this is not the case. Don't ever confuse kindness for weakness.

The other thing I have learnt is that one can be tough minded, but not hard hearted. Yes, make small decisions with your head and big decisions with your heart.

Everything we do is about people. We don't invest in things, in business plans, in software, in technology. We invest in people. This is very different to gambling. If you know the people you back then it is investing; you invest in people, not in web sites. But, if you don't know the people then it is gambling. Yes yes, I know, I am summarizing a lot into this short VLOG here, but you get the message.

I just had some insights I wanted to share.

Lastly, I was watching that movie American Gangster this weekend. There was a line in there that went "Quitting while you are ahead is not the same as quitting". This really got me thinking. Let's end of here. You can work the rest out.

Posted by Ronnie Apteker

1 comments:

Ufi Limited said...

THANKS A LOT FOR THAT ARTICLE, I THOUGHT I WAS WEAK, I THOUGHT I WAS DOING SOMETHING WRONG, AND I STARTED TO CHANGE JUST BECAUSE I THOUGHT BEING A GOOD LISTENER WASN´T ENOUGHT FOR THE PEOPLE, BECAUSE I DONT GET INTO A CHICKEN FIGHT TO SAY WHAT I MEAN WHEN THIS PEOPLE DONT LET OTHER EXPRESS THEM SELD ON A DINNER, OR JUST A MEETING... NOW I NOW IM NOT ALONE, WE ONLY NEED GOOD LISTENERS, THATS ANOTHER ART. WE SHOULD GIVE CLASESS FOR THE POOR PEOPLE WHO CONFUSE KINDNESS AND EDUCATION WITH WEAKNESS. IT WAS A PLEASURE TO READ YOU, AND SORRY FOR THE FEW MISTAKES YOU SURE FOUND, BUT IM A VENEZUELA GIRL, AND MAYBE MY INGLES GOT A LITTLE OBSOLETE