Starting 2020 well with Seneca top teaching from”On the Shortness of Life”

I decided to publish a few of my favourite Seneca’s quote from his book “On the Shortness of Life” to start this new year.

It is always important to remind ourselves of those things that are truly important in life. It also helps us to prioritise our daily life, our decisions every day and aim for what will add real value to us and others. So, here they are…

“Can anything be more idiotic than certain people who boast of their foresight? They keep themselves officiously preoccupied in order to improve their lives; they spend their lives in organizing their lives. They direct their purposes with an eye to a distant future. But putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future.”

“The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”

“You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire”

“But excess in any sphere is reprehensible.”

“As far as I am concerned, I know that I have lost not wealth but distractions. The body’s needs are few: it wants to be free from cold, to banish hunger and thirst with nourishment; if we long for anything more we are exerting ourselves to serve our vices, not our needs.”

“Life is long, if you know how to use it.”

“All life is a servitude.”

In summary, there are Five Things to Consider as we start the new year:

1 – What should my focus be every day this year?

2- What should I eliminate from my life?

3 – Stop procrastinating, show up and get on with it!

4 – Work hard and smart in the present, seize the moment, and the future will look after itself.

5 – Define what is ENOUGH and live by it, one can find meaning and happiness there.

Have you all a very peaceful, blessed and successful 2020!

5 Steps to Becoming a Change Agent Marketer

*adapted from Seth Godin’s This is Marketing

“Marketing is the generous act of helping others to become who they seek to become. It involves creating honest stories—stories that resonate and spread.”

Seth Godin, This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See

Check out this TED Talk

14708461348_fac7e2d560_b I’ve recently watched this TED Talk where Chris Anderson (TED Curator) interviews Educator and entrepreneur Sebastian Thrun on “The new generation of computers is programming itself”

Sebastian believes that AI has the potential to free humanity of repetitive work and unleash our creativity. In this inspiring and informative conversation with Chris Anderson, Sebastian describes the progress of deep learning in the past few years debunking some of the fears encroaching society and why we shouldn’t fear runaway AI.

According to him, “Only one per cent of interesting things have been invented yet,” Thrun says. “I believe all of us are insanely creative … [AI] will empower us to turn creativity into action.”

It is indeed a truly inspiring talk yet one would have to question whether AI and machine learning will be open democratically to all? Who controls AI? Would every human on the planet truly benefit from it? Looking back in history one would argue that no technological advancement has favoured every human being but rather it has been used to create even more inequalities. Why should AI and machine learning be different?

Should we be concerned? Will AI really empowers us? Can it make us all more creativity helping us to improve human enterprise and local communities? What is your take on that? What and comment!