Nope - not going to excuse my passion :)

Nope - Not gonna do it!... I make a public statement! I will not excuse my passion!

And neither should you! When you have a passion for something it is inevitable you will be misunderstood. People might hear you get excited about something - and out of nothing they confront you head on.

picture from 123rf.com

"When I hear you talk like this - it sounds to me you have an hidden agenda!"
"I'm not sure - but you seem so convinced - I feel trapped"
"You know you always come back to that - that's not reality"

Let me encourage you - great passion needs great resistance. When you realize resistance comes when you stand for something - you actually will be motivated by the resistance. You can take whatever is being said into consideration - weight it against what you are passionate about, and realize check if you really ARE passionate about what you thought you were. If you are - your passion just grew a little stronger!

Don't excuse your passion. Nurture it!

Finally, redeem your commute time!

Picture taken from 123rf.com

I think most of us commute. Some long ways on smooth roads, others in subways crossing town, yet others short distances in huge traffic jams. Or few like me; on a bike - in my case 20 minutes both ways.
What do you do in this valuable time? To be honest, I always used to just listen to the radio. It's so easy. That button is right there, and there is always some kind of radio station for the mood I'm in. Or the mood I want to be in! But yet it always dictates what I'm listening too. In between the great songs or great interviews there is tons of 'junk' from the radio station itself, or worst yet, commercials! You are not in charge...

These days you can redeem your traffic time much better. Imagine redeeming your commute time to grow academically. Imagine redeeming your commute time to become an expert in an area you really enjoy. Imagine redeeming your commute time learning a new skill, a new language or... a new profession! Seriously, with the  constant development of the web - we have choices!

Here are three amazing tools available for EVERY ONE that wants to redeem his/her commute time! And with all of them; you can start today!

1. Subscribe to some good podcasts
One of my current favorites is to listen to Pod-casts. I personally don't use Apple's I-tunes for this, but I simply subscribe to pod-casts  using Google Reader. In this reader I've made one folder called 'Listen' and gives me direct inside into all the new episodes of the programs I like to listen too. Without commercials! Or without me having to wait until a certain time to listen! I even have one stream of the national News Broadcasting Service, allowing me to always choice the lasts radio episode of the news. And all this is for free! If you pay for Internet on your phone, just make sure you download the episode when you're still in a place that has wireless Internet. And if your Internet usage is part of your phone plan (like mine is) you do whatever you want to do!

2. Listen to an audio-book
I just started doing this - and I absolutely LOVE it! I always get so jealous when I hear people that read one or two books a month! (People that read more than that  I can't even acknowledge!) I think: where do you find the time to do all this?! But recently I discovered a thing that has been around for a LONGGG time: Audiobooks! To be honest, I thought it was always a bit...dull. Listening to somebody reading a book to you. And I found it expensive too. But after receiving constant offers from Audible I just wanted to give it a try! At this point I've listened to 5 audio books cover to cover within 2 months, and I love it!
Tip: you can put the reading speed faster! Of course you need to be able to 'process' all you hear - but I find that 1,25x the speed works great for me!

3. Other great tools!
There are many other great ways of taking charge of what you listen to, and how you redeem your commute time. For example, I've put a whole French MP3 course on my phone! Truth is, I'm still no good at it, so I thought I shouldn't really make it 'point number 3' on the list...
Yet an other great way to redeem my commute time is listening to YouVison. It's an amazing library of bibles, many of which have audio Bibles available as well! They are all free - but you can't download them ahead of time - so you do need Internet connection for the audio versions. Of course this does not have your interest if you're not a Christian, but hey - I thought I share it here anyway! Sure there must be other faith-related books available - I just don't know about them!

What am I missing? What do you do to redeem you commute time?!

How a 'Win-Win' situation can easily turn into a 'win-win-win' situation!

I am a firm believer of the Win-Win model. The basic thought behind this mind-set is: make sure that whomever you work, live or play with benefits from your 'what-ever-the-heck' you are doing (or am i over-simplifying things now?!)

'this picture is royalty free from www.123rf.com 

The root of the thought is, that if both people seek to understand the other persons perspective in any given situation, and both people have the intend to make the situation successful for both (or all) people involved, things can only turn out 'win-win'. The bible, a book full of practical advise (and lots of things that puzzle the mind too...) describes this basic thought as follows: Do unto others what you want do to you!

If you can't seem to understand the beauty of this principle, it's better if you stop reading this post.
But if you can believe that if we ALL had this simple mindset, the idea that in every situation there should be a win-win, I'd like to show you the simple ways of turning a Win-Win into a Win-win-win!

I actually think that in social-profit businesses we are all about the win-win-win. Anybody can seek for ways to accomplish this. Maybe not in EVERY situation, but I'm convinced in MANY!

Win-win-win happens in a moment when two 'parties' decide to do business together, both pause for a moment and think: Who else could benefit from our win-win situation? Let me give you an example from a company I worked for. At a certain time this company wanted to boost it's name recognition in a certain geographical area. There was little money to do so, and advertising even in local newspapers seemed an expensive alternative. Yet, there was a local festival that was looking for new sponsors. This local festival had several ways of finding free publicity, one of which was the local newspaper! Instead of paying the newspaper money, why not investing it in sponsoring the local festival! A clear WIN-WIN! The festival had enough ways of getting publicity, but needed sponsors. The company needed publicity, and now had a way to DOUBLE the investment! We were both mentioned with logo's all over the event AND we made it to the local newspaper. But that was not all! We thought it would benefit our company and the organizers of the festival greatly if we could present our product during the festival!
Giving out stuff for free is not often the best way to get noticed. The product we offered as a company could bring added value to the experiment of the people visiting the festival - and here we found our 3rd WIN! Instead of giving our product away for free - we offered a local NGO to sell our stuff for a very attractive price to the visitors of the festival, and let the NGO keep the profit! A successful 3rd win!

When looking for a win-win-win, keep these 3 things in mind:

1: Could a 3rd party benefit from the win-win I just reached with a partner?

2. Would adding the 3rd party possibly increase the win-win I already reached with my partner?
this is important, because if it doesn't, it's no longer a win-win-win anymore!

3. How could I maximize the win-win-win situation we just created by telling others about it?
The joined network of 3 parties is MUCH bigger than 1+1. It's even bigger than 1+1+1.
A tripple win draws often attention too it by nature. Use it for your benefit!

Don't just think win-win. Think win-win-win!

Are there other benefits I'm not even mentioning? Or am I missing a DOWN-side of win-win-win? I would love to hear it!

How to make sure your files, photos and video are safe

It hurts me to even admit this... but I should have NEVER had to pay for crashing a SECOND harddisk - with NO BACK-UP! Last time Ferdinand got to safe my life ... but this time I was out of luck...
Of course, all the advise you get after you something totally stupid is all well-meant... but never the less... TO LATE!

So - here are three ways you can make sure you'll never have to pay 1500 euro to get your files in a SAFE place - - - far from stupid little mistakes!

3 Tips on keeping your super important files safe from a crash!

1: Mirror your hard disk every week manually
You can find some good programs on this blog
I've always wanted to do this... but just never find the PATIENTS to do it on an ongoing basis. But maybe it will work for you!

2. Put your most important files in Dropbox
I have used Dropbox for almost two years now, and it works AMAZING!
Only problem is - even after having ALL your friends join Dropbox, you still only get 16gb of space. More than enough for most files you have - but I am reaching total Full-house on this one.

3. Clone your hard drive in the Cloud
This service has my preference... simply because it happens when you're not even paying attention to it.
You select the disks you want to have synced with a cloud, and the rest goes by itself.
I am using Livedrive after my friend Nathan introduced me to it. It just made sense reading what they do for you. And it was affortable. Starting at $7 per month - my plan is the Livedrive-pro-suite version for $19(ish) per month, because now I can sync all our computers together! We'll see how it works for the long-term. At least they have a good 'money-back' policy.

Extra advantages to cloning in the cloud:

• Access to your files from ANYWHERE! As long as you have internet access... and a device that's has LiveDrive installed or access too the web.
• Back-ups of the HISTORY of your files. Not sure if you saved the right version of the document? Just go back in time! Up to 30 changes to the document!
• Your files seem to be safe until eternity! 

What are other ways of protecting your data for that fatal crash (that crash that would cost you too much)?

Wording explained: Poignant

Poignant
To make an intense - lasting impression

Are we living with an intension to make a long-lasting impression? There are certainly days I go to bed and feel wasted - not feeling like I've made my mark on my world...But it's a choice!

The truth is, being poignant is a choice! A mindset even. What do you want to offer the world? Just a passing by? Or is there more you can do? Can you be...poignant?
And please - when you are  make sure you are a PLEASANT one.
Because I can also call out some intense -lasting impressions that were horrible.

One for One model - my personal few

As more companies like www.toms.com and www.oneforone.nl  start becoming successful, it's amazing to see how WILLING people are to help others -by buying certain products!
The concept is simple: Buy one for you - and you also give the same or simular product to somebody in an development country. Love this concept - and love the impact it has on the people involved!

I remember trying this concept myself in a similar way. By selling CD's in Brooklyn, NY.
The idea was simple. At that time I was starting www.1moreChild.org, together with Bosco Mukiibi. A simple charity - raising money for school fees for orphaned children in Uganda.
At the time I was member of this CD club that did crazy offers. Buy one get 3 free (not 3 for a child in Uganda by the way! 3 free for me!)
I would ask friends and co-workers if they were interested to buy CD's "for a very low price", promissing that HALF the money would go support the orphaned children in Uganda!
Every semester I was able to sell enough CD's to support about 16 children. It worked!

Buy One - Get one Free for an other is a great proposition for any business wanting to make a Social Profit!

Well - maybe not every business. I think you need to keep the flowing things in mind:

If you want to run a success full 'One for One program, you need to:

1. Have a great PRODUCT to sell! Duh! You can't just assume that people are going to buy your product, simply because it also supports 'an other person'.

2. Make a 'connection' that makes sense! I admit - my 'CD' example is not even a great 'one for one' example  because I was not giving away 'cd's' in Uganda. But I was able to pretty much keep the 'one for one' model. Every ONE cd allowed ONE child to go to school for about ONE month.
But a much better fit could be:
- buy this pen, and a child in the dessert of Ethiopia will be given a pen as well.
- buy this bike, and a bike will be given to a young entrepreneur in Kenya who can now reach all his customers
- buy this set of POTS AND PANS, and a widowed mother in Russia will receive a set to help feed her hungry children.

3. Go beyond the expectation. I think that some examples are actually weak...
How come you can only give ONE to a person? They money you are making on your product... could it possibly buy TWO people the same item? What if you didn't just have the item given for free - but have the person make a small contribution? Could you then give TWO the item?
That's what we've done with our childrensbook 'the Birthday party'. For every book sold, we're able to give TWO birthday books to children that never had their birthdays celebrated - en especially never have been given THEIR OWN BOOK!

4. Make it very visual and share-able!  I find that many people LOVE to tell./show their friends they did something nice to somebody - especially if they also enjoy the fact you just sold them a GREAT product.  So make sure you really encourage your buyers to 'share' their experience with you! It's worth every time you ask somebody!

 5. Show pictures after the fact has taken place. I love www.charitywater.org - because you can really see where you money has gone. You can follow the process of their projects here.
People want to be able to SEE if they did the right thing when they trusted you. Did you really give the other gift to the person you said you would! I can do much better at this by the way!

So when looking to create a One for One project - keep these 5 things in mind! I know you might be very surprised about the amazing results you can get!

Is there any link between your product and a product you help somebody else with? Could you make it work? How? Tell us!

Priorities, birthdays and a 100 good reasons...

I love work. I love acomplising things. I love creative ideas that take lots of time - and make me have to stay up late. Don't know why - just love the process.(as long as we're really making something - long nights of useless discussions drain me!) So the other day, as we were preparing our Tjeko Fun Fair days in Jinja, I got really excited about the opportunities of celebrating birthdays of thousands of kids that never get to celebrate their birthdays! The whole year we'de been planning these days already - writing and illustrating our first ever Tjeko Book with Guillaume Girault - raising money to organize 9 new fun fairs - and spreading the manifesto of Tjeko to more schools and NGO's in Uganda.

My son. Ok, few days AFTER this story, but I  love the pic.

One of the staff was telling me about the arrangements that were made in Kampala, and it would take us a whole day to get things done - but the sooner the better.
"Well, let's go tomorrow!" I said in excitement, "I know there are other things that need to be done - but to get this birthday book printed is more important. We shouldn't let that wait..."
Everybody was getting excited too - and we made the arrangements and schedule changes that were needed to make our trip to the 'printer' of our 4200 books a reality. We planned to leave Jinja at 6am - to make sure we wouldn't loose any time in traffic.Everybody happy.
As we were closing off the meeting - one of our Tjeko staff prayed a quick prayer over the where-abouts, when it dawned on me...Tomorrow. Tomorrow is... Tomorrow is my sons BIRTHDAY! Oh crab!
In my excitement of the preps of celebrating the birthdays of so many other kids... I had forgotten my sons!

It's in these kind of moments I realize one thing. In time of crisis you always fall back on your core values. It's the core of your being that takes over when you only have few seconds to make up your mind. In the 'blink' of an eye you have to decide: "What am i going to say, ones this quick prayer is over...".
Or in other situations:

• What am I going to ask my child when he comes home...
• What will I tell this casiere about the mistake he made in giving my change
• What do I need to do, now everybody is looking at me for an opinion...

Even though the birthday celebration of my 3-year old son would only take 10 minutes in the morning - I knew I couldn't do it if I had to go to Kampala. But I know I could never do all the things we had just decided upon a minute ago if I would stay to celebrate those 10 minutes once my son would wake up...at 8am...

That day I fell back one my core value: the poor will always be with us - but the childhood of my son is only coming by once...

I had to tell these guys that all our plans had to be switched again. I had to stay home that next morning - no matter what...

And you know the funny thing? Even though I thought for a moment that everybody would be very annoyed?  Nobody was! Once they all understood why plans had to be changed - they respected the reason - and they all helped change the whole schedule again. And they always will. 

Core values that make sense - more often than not are accepted. Just make sure you have the right ones.

Do me a favor. Make sure that you know you fall back on good core values. You are the only author of those values... so make sure you have the right ones...

More on core values? The 7 habits of Highly Effective People made me realize more about them.

Love to hear your experience on your core values!