I am finally publishing my book, Heptagram! I am ready for this book to come into the world. It is time. I cannot wait to share it with you!
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One of the greatest lessons of this situation is that 2020 was a master class on stoicism’s concept of focusing on what we can control.
Where there is growth, bottlenecks will crop up. What is essential is to identify the problem and to keep trying to find ways to address it so that the company can move forward and keep growing.
The start of the year is a unique chance – an opportunity to let go of what we have not accomplished in prior years.
Why not take 2021 to the next level? 2020 caught us off guard, but we can prepare for 2021 and make it our own.
I could not let the end of this year pass without writing about a significant transition this new year will represent for so many people. 2020 has been a Pandora’s box in many ways. Personally, in Honduras, we had to deal with the pandemic as well as two hurricanes just ten days apart. We had not had such extreme weather in 22 years, and then we got two storms in two weeks. I think that many of us will be happy to start a new page in 2021, but before we do that, let us take a little bit of time to appreciate what we learned from both the good and the bad in 2020.
In The Great Mental Models Vol. 1 (public library), Shane Parrish and Rhiannon Beaubien give us an introduction to mental models and their applicability to our work and our lives. Mental models are fundamental principles from different disciplines, such as engineering, biology, and physics, which can all work together, interlaced to help us think. The concept has become widely known in part through Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman at Berkshire Hathaway. He uses what he describes as a “latticework of mental models” to improve his thinking and decision-making.
In his book, The Executive’s Compass: Business and the Good Society (public library), James O’Toole describes the use of a compass with the ideas of liberty (North) and equality (South) on the vertical axis and efficiency (East) and community (West) on the horizontal axis. These poles, notably the liberty-equality continuum, represent tradeoffs we must make as we search for the ideal society. I read about the tension between the idea of full liberty and full equality, but I had never
We tend to associate creativity with artists and writers and their inspiring sculptures, vibrant paintings, and beautiful poetry. Because of the focus that exists on these brilliant creators, we seldom appreciate the impact that creativity can have on our professional careers. However, creativity is one of our most useful skills, no matter what work we do, whether it is accounting, marketing, or simply managing a department.
Creativity is what permits us to forge our path and our view. Without it, we remain a part of the organizational machine and the existing structure. With creativity, we can alter our environment, make it better, and grow.
When a company becomes established, processes are a must. They guarantee consistency and quality, and with time, we rely on them, freeing up space, so we do not have to remember every necessary step of a transaction. As a result, we have more room to think strategically.
Processes capture the state of a company at one point in time, but companies and people are constantly evolving, and processes must do so as well. If processes are not designed to be resilient, they will be too rigid and become either a burden or eventually collapse, losing all the hard work of documentation and implementation.
I just finished editing the bulk of my book, and what is left now are only a few final edits and formatting work. I don’t know how I am going to publish it yet (if anybody has any tips, I will be glad to hear them!), but for now, I feel liberated. Writing that book took everything I had.
I always wanted to write a book and I finally decided to write one in 2019. Initially, when I started in January of that year, I set out to write 60,000 words. I borrowed some material from my blog because I have developed many of my ideas there. I also wanted to find academic papers and books to support the views I had and to add many other new ideas.
One of the greatest lessons of this situation is that 2020 was a master class on stoicism’s concept of focusing on what we can control.
Where there is growth, bottlenecks will crop up. What is essential is to identify the problem and to keep trying to find ways to address it so that the company can move forward and keep growing.
The start of the year is a unique chance – an opportunity to let go of what we have not accomplished in prior years.
Why not take 2021 to the next level? 2020 caught us off guard, but we can prepare for 2021 and make it our own.
I could not let the end of this year pass without writing about a significant transition this new year will represent for so many people. 2020 has been a Pandora’s box in many ways. Personally, in Honduras, we had to deal with the pandemic as well as two hurricanes just ten days apart. We had not had such extreme weather in 22 years, and then we got two storms in two weeks. I think that many of us will be happy to start a new page in 2021, but before we do that, let us take a little bit of time to appreciate what we learned from both the good and the bad in 2020.
In The Great Mental Models Vol. 1 (public library), Shane Parrish and Rhiannon Beaubien give us an introduction to mental models and their applicability to our work and our lives. Mental models are fundamental principles from different disciplines, such as engineering, biology, and physics, which can all work together, interlaced to help us think. The concept has become widely known in part through Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman at Berkshire Hathaway. He uses what he describes as a “latticework of mental models” to improve his thinking and decision-making.
In his book, The Executive’s Compass: Business and the Good Society (public library), James O’Toole describes the use of a compass with the ideas of liberty (North) and equality (South) on the vertical axis and efficiency (East) and community (West) on the horizontal axis. These poles, notably the liberty-equality continuum, represent tradeoffs we must make as we search for the ideal society. I read about the tension between the idea of full liberty and full equality, but I had never
We tend to associate creativity with artists and writers and their inspiring sculptures, vibrant paintings, and beautiful poetry. Because of the focus that exists on these brilliant creators, we seldom appreciate the impact that creativity can have on our professional careers. However, creativity is one of our most useful skills, no matter what work we do, whether it is accounting, marketing, or simply managing a department.
Creativity is what permits us to forge our path and our view. Without it, we remain a part of the organizational machine and the existing structure. With creativity, we can alter our environment, make it better, and grow.
When a company becomes established, processes are a must. They guarantee consistency and quality, and with time, we rely on them, freeing up space, so we do not have to remember every necessary step of a transaction. As a result, we have more room to think strategically.
Processes capture the state of a company at one point in time, but companies and people are constantly evolving, and processes must do so as well. If processes are not designed to be resilient, they will be too rigid and become either a burden or eventually collapse, losing all the hard work of documentation and implementation.
I just finished editing the bulk of my book, and what is left now are only a few final edits and formatting work. I don’t know how I am going to publish it yet (if anybody has any tips, I will be glad to hear them!), but for now, I feel liberated. Writing that book took everything I had.
I always wanted to write a book and I finally decided to write one in 2019. Initially, when I started in January of that year, I set out to write 60,000 words. I borrowed some material from my blog because I have developed many of my ideas there. I also wanted to find academic papers and books to support the views I had and to add many other new ideas.
Pamela Ayuso is an author and the co-founder and CEO of Celaque. She is a real estate entrepreneur and developer who has executive leadership experience in two of the most successful real estate developers in Honduras — managing operations at Alianza and leading Celaque. Celaque develops office and residential buildings and manages a broad portfolio of properties. Pamela’s focus is on growing Celaque into a model for the 21st-century company.
In addition to her role as CEO at Celaque, Pamela is a writer that offers practical business and personal development insights for other entrepreneurs and business leaders on her blog and LinkedIn. She published her first children’s book in 2019, Alicia and Bunnie Paint a Mural.
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