Tony Abou-Assaleh

CNN Money has an excellent articles where they interview 22 people from political leaders, company executives, investors, entrepreneurs, and even a chef, asking them to share the best advice they ever got. Below is a summary of their answers:

• “Keep it Simple” – Tiger Woods
• “Show, don’t tell” – Jim Sinegal
• “Do what you love” – Mort Zuckerman
• “Empower a subordinate” – Lloyd Blankfein
• “Push beyond your comfort zone” – Mohamed El-Erian
• “Ignore conventional wisdom” – David Axelrod
• “Trust your instincts” – Tory Burch
• “Read everything” – Jim Rogers
• “Be effective, not popular” – Scott Boras
• “Use failure to motivate yourself” – Mika Brzezinski
• “Focus on performance, not power” – Colin Powell
• “Take advice from smart people” – Shai Agassi
• “Make an impression” – Sukhinder Singh Cassidy
• “Hire a coach” – Eric Schmidt
• “Set realistic goals” – Meredith Whitney
• “Listen” – Lauren Zalaznick
• “Don’t talk shop” – Julian Robertson
• “Treat it like it’s yours” – Thomas Keller
• “Underpromise and overdeliver” – Robin Li
• “Don’t pursue titles and dollars” – Miles White
• “Self-doubt is normal” – Aaron Patzer
• “Be nice to people” – Niklas Savander

My favourite three from the list are “take advice from smart people”, “Keep it Simple”, and “Show, don’t tell.” Each of these three advices I have come to experience as being true wisdom and highly effective in a diversity of situations.

To read more about these advice, the context, and where they came from, see the original article: Best advice I ever got.

Drinking my medium roast coffee with sugar and cream and eating my uber expensive organic (or not?) blueberry muffin at Just Us Cafe on Barrinton Street. Editing my paper for a big conference, minding my own business, not bothering anyone.

- Tony?

I think I just heard someone calling my name. Maybe I imagined it.

- Are you Tony?

- Yes .. ?

- Hi. I’m Craig. Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you too.

The man goes to put some sugar and cream in his coffee. I’m puzzled. Sure I’m bad with names. Sure I’m bad with faces. Sure I met him somewhere, he remembed me, I didn’t remember him. But, what was that “nice to meet you” business all about?

Continue reading ‘Wrong place, wrong time, right name’

The second heavy snowfall of the week on Friday night, November 21, 2008, as well as the following Saturday resulted in 25 to 35cm of snow on the ground. Some areas were hit harder than others. Add to that the drifting snow effect that resulted from strong winds blowing countless tiny snow flakes from one side of the street to the other, and you end up with differences in snow hight in excess of 10cm between houses on one side of a street an another.

Guess on which side of the street was my house?

Continue reading ‘Snow in Timberlea, Nova Scotia’

During my first real off-campus consulting job, my client asked me a simple questions, “are you enjoying working on this project?” My answer was less simple:

I wouldn’t do for money what I wouldn’t do for free.

Ever before and ever since, this principle has been my guiding principle in all that I do for money. I wouldn’t take on a project if it wasn’t interesting enough that I wouldn’t mind doing it for free. I follow this principle in my consulting work, in my employment, and in my volunteering work. But only in the latest that I actually do it for free.

This principle is about loving what you do and enjoying it beyond the material reward. It is about contributing to the project and wanting it to succeed because it is interesting and valuable, not because there is a pay cheque waiting for you. And it is about selecting projects that provide you with additional benefits and rejecting projects of limited personal and professional value.
Continue reading ‘Don’t Do For Money What You Wouldn’t Do For Free’

Darkness of the day

and brightness of the night

Fairy tales of truth

of the horseless knight

Sleeping before noon

waking by midnight

Dreaming of the life

sleeping in the light

Silence lost in screams

of this peaceful fight

– Tony Abou-Assaleh, May 22, 2008, Halifax, NS.

People often ask me, what does the hand in my avatar mean? Here are 3 interpretations, feel free to send me others:

1. A picture of an alien
2. My hand before the operation
3. It represent the suffering of human kind and our inevitable salvation; or, more elaborately,
4. The 3 turned down finger show how most of the world is dying and the 2 fingers on each side show how separate we are in the wold and they point away form each other showing how we are all on the wrong path/direction. The hand having 6 fingers is about how the world is full of freaks and how pollution and our lives are causing birth defects and DNA problems.

Thanks to Stephen for suggesting some of the interpretations during a philosophical conversation.

The first incarnation of this articled appeared at 451s.com