Less Being Surrounded

Clutter develops a sickness that overtime affects your body through stress.

More in solitude. Part of your stress can be directly linked to always being surrounded by people, work and what is worse sometimes even just surrounded by things. I hope that if you are reading my blog and I am working with you is because is because you have reached a point in your life where you have finally decided to get that one goal reached and are willing to work for it; but stress can hinder the biggest of efforts. I like to say that we are all geniuses, just not all the time, even Einstein who is known for his magnificent genius wasn't a genius all the time and about everything but is widely known that the biggest reason why he was able to do amazing work was because he took walks, often alone. Monks live in solitude in order to find meaning of their human powers, spirituality and life but you don't need to live like a Monk you simply need to start giving more value to the idea of being alone. Spending time alone allows to refocus and brainstorm about how the tasks for the day or the week are going to be accomplished while providing us with what is more important reflection, comparing our efforts with those of others in your life. How can I empower myself while helping others? What is my ultimate goal in life? why haven't I reached my monthly goal? Do I have a current mission? If I work so hard, why am I still living pay check to paycheck? Why am I so scared to break up my unhealthy relationship?

Less television, radio, news, parties, bars, driving, pets, etc.

More yoga, meditation, painting, reading fictional books, coloring, napping, exercising and even eating.

Some benefits from solitude:

• lose weight
• better health
• stress free
• creativity
• problem solving
• reflection, we get to know ourselves
• understand, your way of life and possible changes
• unwind and finding peace
• reflect on accomplishments and lessons
• time to negotiate with ourselves for things we want or want to get rid of 
• learn to appreciate what we have, expose ourselves to minimalism.

-Humberto Valle #unthink
www.unthink.me

Random thought...

Our life is full of meaning but since the moment we are born the definition of us being human beings is diluted with consumerism and by the time we are all 20 we have been exposed through so much greed, hatred, and confusion forcing us to think that we have a purpose in life and that purpose often involves working until the day we die, "saving" money, have a  family and work harder so we can provide more things for them. Unthink is unlearning all of this and re learning the meaning of our own lives. We have the power to refocus our lives and give it more meaning while working less but enjoying life more and in cases even earning more than before. Free your mind with the art of less and become a greater you.


-Humberto Valle #unthink
www.unthink.me

What is Lupus?

Picture source: lawsonblacksfoundation.org/causes/lupus-symptoms

I want to take a moment, and introduce you to a very personal part of my life, a condition my wife has been dealing with for her adult life, Lupus?

I didn't know a thing like lupus existed and neither do most of us, please read and share, this could save your daughter, mother, sister or wife's life someday. 

Lupus is a chronic, autoimmune disease that damages random parts of a person's body, most commonly, women. The organs most commonly affected involve skin, joints, heart, brain, liver, blood, and your eyes. Lupus is most commonly found in women of color (Asian, African American and Hispanic) under 40. The symptoms are horrible and are often much much worse than what cancer patients report sometimes lasting months to even years between flares. Once diagnosed with lupus you must change your life completely to cope with the condition as it never goes away and depending on age, your chances of death can be very high because there is no cure and medical doctors still don't know what causes it or if it can be cure, so the effort is in controlling it. 

Lupus changes your life as it attacks itself and your lifestyle and those around you. But we shouldn't let something as horrible and little known of as lupus get in the way of our dreams. You are reading this because I want to expose the realities of dealing with lupus and how it affects families and what we can do to help ourselves in chasing our dreams or helping others happy a fulfilling life while living with lupus.

Please follow, as I will continue to write and hopefully help everyone who reads.

Also, feel free to share your stories, I would love to have your story on Spotlight :)

about.me/humbertovalle
facinglupus.blogspot.com

Im really exited about this!!! lets take this from the Top!

Humberto Valle on Retaining Employees

We live in the millennial age which technically is an entrepreneurial age  and everyone in our generation wants to work for themselves way more than our parents did, I think is cyclical as our grandparents generation was driven by entrepreneurship, some was probably accidental but none the less. One of my most recent startups revolve around this particular notion of self-promotion.

The truth is that about 65% to 75% of adult age Gen Y will make up the small business owner capita in the country, that leaves about 25% of Gen Y who might want to but will never get to start their own businesses and will be working for someone else. Just because they might work for someone doesn't mean that they are not driven and entrepreneurial individuals and will do whatever they can to get ahead in the workplace without going on the ‘treppy road.

OppenUp is a social community based audition platform for freelancers and job searchers. OppenUp harnesses our basic need of wanting social acceptance, community engagement and support for our needs. The less psychological factors to our startup is that our generation is self-driven and has grown up with video, social media and picture sharing we have become more savvy in many real world situations including employable skills yet the way we find jobs has not changed in over 20 years.  So why do we keep going to job boards whose only interest is advertising jobs not getting you hired and creating accounts, sometimes paying, and applying for jobs we don’t know what company post them or where they are compared to you and or what  others think about it or even who else has applied? CEO’s and Hiring Managers, why do we stick to the old broken way of hiring?

Be Transparent

This doesn't mean have windows in every office, this means encourage employee ownership. The idea is that when you are transparent with your operations and business needs to grow your employees with become more like evangelist of your business entity and encourage its business and act like owners which reflects through increased productivity and faster growth.

This is especially important to realize when employing the Gen. Y who is not afraid to try things without actually being trained in them first, we are out to change the world and if we can’t at the moment we will try to help our employers and whoever gives us a chance. You as business owner or CEO need to encourage failure and employee ownership, this will have a great impact in your company, your sales and the company culture (will be covered later) let us take charge in projects or team efforts chances are we the opportunity will be taken seriously as is a dog eat dog world and if we are allowed to take the plate we will do our best to keep a momentum going, you will be simultaneously encouraging a company culture of success, self-discipline and pride that will help you retain employees longer.

Be more than flexible.

Be understanding of their needs and circumstances, I can’t tell you how many times as employee I would feel secure of my jobs and even though my boss was flexible with my schedule or personal needs every sense of job security was lost when talking about it. This issue can arise if you are ignorant on a topic, especially when dealing with inter racial employees or just in general. If an employee is affected by a family members health condition, being understanding is far better for the employee than the flexibility of letting them leave the workplace to take care of things at home because of the unknown… why are you so flexible with me? could you not care whether I’m here or not, so does that mean I’m very expandable? Which can then deteriorate the output of the employee as insecurity kicks in or because of it he begins to look for other opportunities and you just lost an otherwise great employee.

Provide Opportunities

This goes back to how this generation is changing expectations in the workplace, employees are more determined and entrepreneurial minded which means that if they are working for you, it is your responsibility to nurture that will and encourage them to grow professionally even if is something that can lead them away from your company, if you’re a smart CEO or owner you can even figure out how to utilize your employee’s learned skills. A close friend of mine owns a cleaning company, he employs a small troop of commercial cleaners who are offered tuition help after a year of employment so that they can learn basic business through community so that then he can teach them how to start their own cleaning companies if they want to or help manage his better, so far the turnout for him and employees has been great. 

Money is money regardless of how you earn it and so employees love the idea of getting their own cleaning companies even if a starting point only, better than waiting a year for a 2% pay increase right? keeps them motivated and you make business partners & friends in the process not ruthless competitors.

Encourage a Bit of Down Time

The average employee will spend the majority of their lifetime earning a paycheck, the least you can do is try to make the environment easy going and more engaging for them. By encouraging down time your employees get to talk to each other and get to know each other more which can lead to more efficient project management, coordination and output at the same time you make it a place of business for them not a place of work which changes the entire moral of an employee because now they get to enjoy their time as they conduct their business (earn their pay). This is domino effect that can take an entire book dedicated to this but this increases loyalty, once you have your employee’s loyalty you can be unstoppable in the market. 

Success by Empowering Others

Voltaire said it best - "I have decided to be happy, becuase it is good for my health." Our family has gone through major obstacles and has taken us great effort in realizing this, but are determined to live a long successful life and help others a long the way. As the Subtitle here says, my name is Humberto Valle (the "H" in my name is silent) and this is a short intro to what led me to focus my efforts in exposing lupus and empower those who are dealing with the disease in one way or another because conditions like this one don't often affect only the person who is diagnosed but affects the entire family. 

I am now only 25 years old, I was raised in a traditional Mexican American household led by a very hardworking single mother. I am now very successful in what I do and now help others achieve their goals. I am a serial entrepreneur at heart, for those who are new to the game, a serial entrepreneur is a person who has the itch to create one successful business after another.

My education is broad as I have a started degree in Illustration and have completed education in engineering and business, but my success did not come from this education! If anything I always suggest to not consider school until after trying to launch a business, my success came from hard work and dedication and focus, but most importantly inspiration from having a reason to succeed. 

My wife, Diana, has been dealing with lupus since she was 13, typical age when most women being to show symptoms, and she is now in her early 20's and a beautiful mother of our 4 year old son. We started off with nothing when we met and have had our ups and downs like everyone else, but our determination in making our lives better in the future have led us to fight hard and hold on to every little success we get along the road and build on them. Her symptoms are often so bad doctors often don't know how to being their work because of the lack of knowledge on this. 


Not all of us can empower others and make a living out of it, but if someone has ideas or goals we can help them reach theirs and in return reach our own by helping them...