According to Wikipedia, Juan Enriquez is a Latino academic, businessman, author and speaker. He is a Harvard graduate who joined a multi-stage world sailing discovery voyage led by J. Craig Venter, who sequenced the human genome. In other words, he’s a bad-ass genius. Enriquez, who has published several books on Genomics and societal issues, recently delivered a Ted Talk on the difference between countries that succeed and countries that fail, and in his view it all comes down to values and how they treat people. If I tried to paraphrase the speech, I would not do it justice, so here is a link to it. Let’s help it go viral. Please take ten minutes to watch it, it will open your eyes. My thanks to Jerry Ascencio for sharing it with me.
There are two types of people in the world: those who add stress and those who subtract stress. Simon Sinek says...if you must choose between loyalty and productivity, always go with loyalty.
Terms like “great, genius,” and “world-class” are overused, perhaps because they mean something different to everyone. Greatness is subjective. Some might say you must be great just to be employed in the film business or to play professional sports, but I don’t think Will Smith or LeBron James think that way. The concept of being great also requires context. You could be a great high school athlete but only an average college player.
The most valuable skill in today's economy is storytelling. O'Leary wasn't the first to say that. Ten years ago, I remember asking Bill Clinton what made him a great speaker, and he said he was a good speaker because he is a good storyteller. As our economy evolves, the ability to communicate will become even more valuable.