Author: José Luis

Personal Writing #4 Conviction

“I would rather to die from my own sword that from someone’s else.” Gary Vaynerchuk in “Twelve and a half.”

Conviction represents those feelings and beliefs that keeps you motivated and makes you enjoy the process to achieve your goals no matter what; but in the last years most of the people have lost conviction in the last years, just think about it, a lot of people prefers to have a good salary than doing what they love to do, lets create a story to make it clear, Andy since high school wanted to become an artist, he enjoyed painting and demonstrated it with his unique and well-made works. But as the time passed Andy’s conviction was decreasing because of the bad comments and beliefs of him from the people around him that just wanted to see him give up. The years passed and Andy lost total conviction as he decided to dedicate himself to something else that he disliked but that guaranteed him a stable future asking himself every day “What would have happened if…? So the story showed us what happens without conviction and believe it or not those stories represents the lives of many people. Also the question “What would have happened if?” sounds like the saddest question in the whole world; because it shows that you chose or committed something of what you regrets. Like I said, conviction frees you from the “swords” of others leaving all your belifies, feelings and motivations alone and it eliminates the question “What would have happened if?” Conviction only leaves you with your own sword making you respondible and independent of your own actions; and if you fail you will carry all the responsibility making you free and improving yourself by creating new beliefs, feelings and motivations and also improving your conviction.

IRJE #3 Accountability.

Lately I have been reading the book of “Twelve and a half” from Gary Vaynerchuk. This book is about the important values in business success and also in life. I got a little quote that goes like this.

“I prefer to die by my own sword than from someone else’s.”

This quote is from the chapter called “Accountability” which it explains that is very to fail because of your own desicions, beliefs and actions than from someone else’s, like you have to be independent and take moves by yoursefl and if you fail it would be only your responsability.

 

Personal Response to All Quiet on the Western Front.

The book All Quiet on the Western Front left me a great lesson which I will talk about later but for now I will talk about the book in summary. The book is a narration by Paul Bäumer, a young 20-year-old German, who, together with his friends, joins the army to fight in the First World War. At first, for everyone the war was something exciting, it was something they could feel proud of since they were defending their country, but very few managed to see the consequences and the negative social impact that the world would suffer due to the war. As the war progresses Paul and his friends live the cold reality of war, seeing a friend die and having to continue fighting for life or death against other human beings was what Paul and his friends had to experience in war. Sadly, Paul and his friends, except one, end up dying, leaving us to understand how cold and cruel war is. The lesson that the book left me is how pride can blind a human being so much, leading him to do negative actions from which the people around us can be affected and, apart from that, those same actions can lead us to repentance. Pride can be used positively as motivation, although there must always be a limit and control.

PW #3 Twelve and a half

This days I’ve been reading a book called “Twelve and a half” by Gary Vaynerchuk. The book is about how to create the twelve most important ingredients for business success. The ingredients are, gratitude, self-awareness, accountability, optimism, empathy, kindness, tenacity, curiosity, patience, conviction, humility and ambition. Okey I know that now that I just told you the ingredients you may think that it’s easy to achieve the ingredients, but what this book has showed me is that is harder than that because you also have to use them in your daily routine so you can be successful in business but you can also be successful in life.

IRJE #2 Leadership, Alex Ferguson

Months ago I read a book about leadership from Alex Ferguson’s point of view. The book it’s mostly about how Alex Ferguson managed Manchester United soccer team with his leadership. The book has a lot of important quotes for me about leadership, like for example.

Nobody can be a leader if these people feel that they do not have guaranteed permanence in their position. (p.189).

This quote is told in soccer terms, but if you think about it is true because I don’t think that anyone could be a leader if they have a lot of pressure all the time, like since the beginning to the end of the time that they would last as leaders. Also because nowadays a lot of people is afraid of being a leader because of the pressure that a leader carries. Like I know that a leader will always have pressure but what the quote is telling us is that no one can be a leader with so much pressure, like no human being will bear it.

 

PW2 Day of the Dead, mexican tradition

The mexican tradition, “Day of the Dead”.

In Mexico every 1 of November we celebrate the “Day of the Dead”. The “Day of the Dead” it’s a very famous mexican tradition that it comes from a prehispanic origin, in this tradition we celebrate and honor our deceased relatives by placing altars and offerings on their graves or in their homes, depending on the region of the country in which they are located.

On famous thing on this celebration is the bread of the dead, it’s a sweet bread that has become very popular because of it’s flavor and shape.

Jose Tostado IRJE #1 Think Again

I just finished the book “Think Again” wrote by Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at The Wharton School. Before reading it, I didn’t understand why the book was #1 New York Times Bestseller but when I started to read it, I found the reason. The book is about how we can rethink our beliefs in life and also how we can learn from the fails of our lives and take advantage of them. A very important quote for me was this one.

How to acquire wisdom, live, make mistakes, learn from your mistakes, repeat steps 1 to 3 until wisdom is acquired, realize that the wisdom you acquired in step 4 was not really wisdom at all, repeat steps 1 to 5 for the rest of your life. (p.58)

This quote is very important to me because when I first read about it and I reflect it, I realized that it was true like, when you make mistakes you learn about them, maybe it can take time sometimes but you always learn. Like now in these days a lot of people is afraid of making mistakes so they don’t learn anything about themselves and their beliefs. Since I read that quote I’m not afraid of making mistakes because I know that every mistake it’s an opportunity to learn something new.

WWI Literature Jose Totado

How curious is the attitude of the human being when it comes to war, right?

My feelings and thoughts about the movie “They Shall not Grow Old” are very reflectives and a little bit shocking because, for me, it´s curios how at the beginning when the British entered the war against Germany, all british citizens were excited to go into the war and defend their nation, it is curious and interesting how sometimes pride or in this case patriotism can blind human beings from what they are really going to face. Like I said, at the beginning the british citizens were excited, also because they thought it wouldn´t last long and that in a certain part it would be fun.

As the war progresses and the British soldiers see and live the harsh reality and cruelty of a war, their intial attitudes are destroyed and little by little they create cold and unfeeling attitudes. Althought as time went by, many soldiers became accustomed to the fact that at any moment they could die, either from a wound generated in combat or from a surprise attack by the enemy.

At the end when the war finished and the Allies won the British army captured a lot of germans and I kind of empathize with the Tommies of how they treated them and how they tried to communicate with them to have a normal talk.

My conclusion from the movie ‘They Shall not Grow Old’ is that it is shocking how, both in those times and currently, pride or patriotism can affect and decieve the attitude of human beings, leading them to do things that they may regret for their entire life.

PW #1 What is Jalisco?

Hi! I´m Jose Tostado and I´m from an amazing state in Mexico named Jalisco.

What makes Jalisco special? You might ask, well actually a lot of important people and significants things for Mexico and the world came out from Jalisco just like the Tequila, El Chicharito, Guillermo del Toro, Las Tortas Ahogadas and more…

It is located in the western region in Mexico near to the Pacific Ocean, it was founded in June 16, 1823.

What I like most from Jalisco? Well I like a lot of things but I think that what I most like about Jalisco is the food because its good (obviously) but also because the feelings that I sense every time that I eat things like Las Tortas Ahogadas or La Birria. Every time that I eat those things I feel some kind of satisfaction, I really don´t know why but I just feel it.

If one day you visit Jalisco I really recommend you to try the traditional food and be prepared to experience new feelings.

Introducing Jose Tostado, another mexcican

I´m Jose Tostado, I´m from Mexico, I live in Guadalajara, I really like sports like soccer, tennis and football, I´ve been playing soccer and tennis since I were 6 years old and I also like to play football but I prefer to watch on TV. I´ve been attending Brooks Westshore 3 days and I really like the enviroment of the school and the location of it. My biggest interests are things like bussines, law, sports and technology.

I like to read books about bussines, successful people and self development. I like them because I know that it helps me to improve my life and create new skills that can help me in the future like for example, I´ve been reading a book about Stephen R. Covey that talks about the 7 habits of highly effective people and I´ve been really enjoying it because it teachs me step by step how to create good habits.

I don´t really like to be a writer because sometimes I don´t have the creativity or the inspiration to write something new or to create something like a story or things like that, but when I do have the creativity or inspiration to write something I really enjoy it and I always try to do give my best.