Think Different

Are you crazy enough to change the world? Well, according to Apple Inc. this is the required mindset that you will have to become a world-changing personality (see advertisement below).

I would like to use this post as an invitation to everybody who has a person in mind which had the guts to pursue the progressive realization of their dreams. If you have someone in mind and want to share her/his story with the community, feel free to send us their story via eMail to passion.heroes@paradygnamics.com.

The Art of Possibility

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure to visit Boston and participate in the 2010 Latin American Entrepreneurship Forum at Babson College. After we finished with our participation at the event, we decided to make a little Ivy League Tour and visit MIT and Harvard University. Our addiction to books led us to enter the Harvard Book Store. After skimming through the different departments, I found a book that I perceived to be an appropriate element of The PassionBusiness Project. It is called “The Art of Possibility” (by Roz and Ben Zander).

The book caught my attention because I was still emotionally charged by my previous experience at Babson College where we had a personal meeting with Mexico´s Ex-President Vicente Fox and his wife (…something I could have never imagined just a few months ago), and by the fact that we were standing right next to the Harvard University Campus in Cambridge (a place that I wanted to explore since a few years now, but thought that it will take a few more years).

Over the past few days I have  spent every free moment to read the book and get new inspiration for the project. Quickly I realized that I need to add another variable to our model that will guide us through the process of turning your passion into a viable business model (see image below).The model can be used to guide us through the process of…

1. We discover our PASSION and feel the energy that it provides us with.
2. Our attitude is positive and we actively explore the world of POSSIBILITIES that surrounds us.
3. We realize that we will make a living if our actions are related to a specific PURPOSE. This will give us sufficient focus and guide the next step.
4. Once we have identified the meaningfulness and purpose of our value proposition, we can design a PROFITABLE business model.

In the following video you can see some outtakes of Benjamin Zander´s conference at DAVOS 2009. Enjoy the passion and shining eyes of Benjamin Zander and looking forward to sharing more thoughts in the next article…

What the world needs now? IRRATIONAL THINKING

Didn´t we all dream big and limitless when we were kids?

In the following TED Talk by Adora Svitak, a 12 year old child prodigy, you will hear a very inspiring invitation to remember our idealistic dreams that we´ve pursued as kids, but stopped pursuing due to knowledge and experiences of failed intents that are now our pre-dominant paradigm that makes us being afraid and non-idealistic any more.

Wouldn´t  it be great if we could back in time and remember what our idealistic, world changing childhood ideas were and we could dig into a little bit of forgotten passion, past experiences and ressourcefull design thinking skills in order to

• pursue these world-changing ideas again,
• make the world a better place,
• reach personal fulfillment,
• and make a living through doing what we love?

Well, I think that is time to dream again and start working on these wicked problems. The potential rewards (personal, societal & financial) are highly rewarding for all those leaders and first followers…

• What were your childhood dreams?
• What were your life experiences that tell you why realizing these dreams will not work?
• How could some systemic and strategic design thinking help you overcome these perceived barriers and turn your ideas into reality?

I think worth spending some time reflecting about these questions… Dream Big!