Stolen "Quotes" from the Endeavor Entrepreneur Summit in San Francisco (#eSummitSF)

Courtesy of the wonderful Twitter hashtag #eSummitSF,  here are some great quotes of the first day of the Endeavor Global Entrepreneur Summit in San Francisco!!! Not being able to attend is one of the things that I don`t like of leaving Endeavor in one month :( But if this Summit is like the past two, what an awesome learning experience for all the attendees!


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Ps. The affirmations shared below do not always reflect my personal opinion nor are suggested ways of acting or thinking. They`re just interesting pieces to reflect about!

"Talented people can from strange places." - Guibert Englebienne, cofounder Globant #eSummitSF

The dynamic of VC industry has changed in the last two years. Build trust with people has become key for entrepreneurs. #esummitsf

Dan Senor: winning entrepreneurs in high risk markets are the ones who go global from day one. #esummitsf

The entrepreneur summit is the perfect therapy for people called crazy" @lindarottenberg #esummitsf

Use someone else money to start up companies. When you get good at it use your own. Nothing bad in that. Scott McNealy at the #esummitsf

If everyone thinks you're doing the right thing - then everyone would be doing it. Have a controversial strategy. #esummitSF Scott McNealy


Scott Mc Nealy, Sun: "Forget about privacy! Most of the startups here in the Valley r about invading your privacy" #eSummitSF

"Be controversial. But the thing about being controversial, is you better be correct!" - @scottmcNealy #eSummitSF

Invitation for all VCs thinking about going global, please think about settling in & building ecosystem #eSummitSF - not all money is green


Top 15 IT firms in the US have $250 billion in excess cash. That is almost 1% of the worlds GDP. Hope they use it wisely! #esummitsf

”Four trends in technology: cloud computing, mobile, social platforms, massive adoption of IT products”. Marc Benioff #esummitsf

Marc Benioff (salesforce) at the #esummitsf: NOT concerned about web ownership by a few. Dominant players constantly shift.

My personal opinion: while facebook is eating the web, twitter is saving it. #esummitsf

"Innovation is a baton being tossed between intemporal entrepreneurial paradigms." - @beinoff #eSummitSF

USA,Uk,France,Germany,Canada Aus&Benelux make95% of enterprise software.Benioff mentions not location rather than where you sell!#eSummitSF

Marc Benioff says Salesforce could not get VCs interested in early days, despite performance and connections #esummitsf

Benioff: building one successful company is more exciting than serial entrepreneurship. Must stay focused. #esummitsf

”If you are an entrepreneur you have to overcommunicate” M Benioff, CEO Salesforce #esummitsf

Most things he learned in b-school are not applicable today. On the job learnings are key. Marc Benioff #eSummitSF



'Start ups by definition are the exceptions to the rule, if they are successful' Matt Cohler #esummitsf

The give back rule: Donate 1% of your profits, 1% of your equity and 1% of your time. M Benito, CEO Salesforce. #esummitsf

Education for kids is a good market opportunity #esummitsf (I love this one in particular)

"A decisão mais estratégica que um empreendedor toma na sua trajetória é a escolha da mulher com quem terá seus filhos" McNearly #esummitsf

Raise $ when you can, not when you need, do due diligence on investors, make ur startup connected to community w global mindset #eSummitSF

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Today I found out what "looping effects" are and through it that "In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king"

Coming from an extremely conservative country like Colombia, but also having had the blessing to interact with a wide array of people from different backgrounds (not only while living abroad, but inside Colombia itself), DIVERSITY has always been an striking topic to me. 

..."In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king"...

- and this is how I feel about my capacity to embrace diversity. 

I am absolutely sure that my understanding of it is surely way above the average of my closest circle of influence (of course my elders, my husband, some of my friends) - and I remind you, coming from a highly conservative, narrow minded society this is nothing to be proud of. Yet in terms what it takes to understand that those "labels" (woman, man, entrepreneur, employee, poor, rich,  gay, straight, smart, gorgeous, Latin, African, young, old ...) literally do no exist and that they are a mere creation and reinforcement of our human nature, totally implies a deeper level of consciousness that at time I (we) do not have. 

Recently I read this article that shows through sharing the findings of a series of researches that there is something called "LOOPING EFFECTS", nothing else that all those categories that we use to believe, accept and put ourselves in, and what it`s scariest, categories that because we believe we belong to them, define our behavior. Here is also a sense of the in a nutshell:

"You won't find a legitimation of our self-categories in neurobiology. If biology is the measure of all things, then many of the categories we use to group ourselves into kinds of person — man, woman, gay, straight, black, white, professor, cheerleader — are, in fact, unreal. You don't find them in nature as it is apart from our attitudes and beliefs about that nature. At the same time, what could be more real than the way we experience ourselves as being?"

Next time you believe that you perform very good in diversity management, because you "accept" someone "different", please consider yourself a complete mediocre. Are you conscious enough to see that there are NO differences?

Also, have you realized how many things you have or have not done just because you are from the country you are, from the profession you are, from the gender you are, from the skin color you are? I did a quick refection for myself and results where scary. My motivation and highest challenge/goal at this point though is how to be a mother capable enough to transmit to her kids such a vision. 

BIG PSs.

Ps.  Today 26th of July national marches for gay rights (sadly, not yet for gay "pride"). Being consequent with what I just wrote, I wish homosexual activism would turn to pass a message of awareness to "LOOPING EFFECTS" rather than an "ACCEPT ME" speech. 

(for Colombians, aren´t these "city" posters just too cool? specially from such highly conservative cities as Manizales, Pasto and Barranquilla)

Ps2. I love Benetton ads, even if being again consequent with what I just wrote does ass do not exist at all, since they rather stress even more the categories.

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Why Peter Thiel Is Wrong To Pay Students to Drop Out (and Babson College’s alumni entrepreneurs)

Waking up this morning, I found this very, very interesting piece, shared by BABSON (did I already tell how exited I am to start my MBA there in 60 days!!!!?), written by  professor Peter Cohan. It called a lot my attention, since couple of days ago I actually wrote some thoughts on the Thiel Experiment on this blog - rather "supporting" what he did. And still believe it`s worth seeing this. Yet, I want to invite you to check the article by Prof. Cohan and see the other side of the coin, leveraging on a  comprehensive study of Babson College’s alumni entrepreneurs ran by another BABSON Professor, Bill Bygrave.

Go to the original article at Forbes

Why Peter Thiel Is Wrong To Pay Students to Drop Out

Jun. 15 2011 - 7:19 am | 140 views | 0 recommendations | 1 comment

Image via CrunchBase

Stanford Law School grad, Peter Thiel, wants to pay college students to drop out. If typical venture capital odds apply, about 22 of the 24 people who took his $100,000 inducement to drop out and spend two years working in a start-up will fail to build a successful company. For their sake, let’s hope the schools will let them back in.

And based on research from the country’s top-ranked school of entrepreneurship, the world will be better off if those whippersnappers stay in school and get 10 years of experience before launching their start-ups.

Peter Thiel has a mixed investment record but has come out ahead. Thiel made $55 million as a co-founder of online payment service PayPal when he sold his 3.7% stake in the company to eBay (EBAY) shortly after graduating from Stanford Law School. He then became the first major investor, putting $500,000 into Facebook.

But his Clarium Capital has stumbled. It had close to $8 billion in assets at its mid-2008 peak. By September 2010, roughly 90% of those assets were gone. Business Insider reported that by then, the fund’s assets under management were down to around $850 million – “and about half of that is Thiel’s.”

Nevertheless, Thiel’s still got enough left to make him comfortable with his oft-reported bargain with college youth. In 2011, Thiel paid 24 teenagers and 20-year-olds $100,000 each “to quit school and embark on their technology-based entrepreneurial ventures with the potential to change the world.” The presence of this prize must terrify the parents who have saved up to give their children the security of a college education.

Despite the media’s love of stories about the success of Harvard college dropouts Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, the compelling nature of their stories contributes to the delusion that more average people can suddenly gain the entrepreneurial ability of those two outliers.

Bill Bygrave has spent a career researching entrepreneurship as a professor at Babson College (where I teach). U.S. News & World Reportranked Babson the country’s leading undergraduate school for entrepreneurship for the last 14 years. In a June 13 interview with Bygrave, I learned about his research into the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs.

In a recent paper, Human assets and entrepreneurial performance:  A study of companies started by business school graduates, Bygrave and his colleagues reported the results of a comprehensive study of Babson College’s alumni entrepreneurs. A key finding was that the best performing new ventures were started by alumni with about 10 years of professional experience after graduation. Bygrave believes that this finding puts the lie to what he calls the “whippersnapper theory” — that in entrepreneurship youth trumps experience. 

Not surprisingly Bygrave counts himself among those entrepreneurship educators and researchers who view as misguided schemes like Thiel’s to encourage teenagers to become entrepreneurs. 

Bygrave in his paper noted that Vivek Wadhwa, director of research at Duke University’s Center for of Entrepreneurship, harshly criticized Thiel’s program for sending what he sees as the message that anyone can be Mark Zuckerberg. 

According to Wadhwa’s interview with Daily Mail, “Silicon Valley lives in its own bubble. It sees the world through its own prism. It’s got a distorted view. All the people who are making a fuss are highly educated. They’re rich themselves. They’ve achieved success because of their education. There’s no way in hell we would have heard about Peter Thiel if he hadn’t graduated from Stanford.”

I asked Bygrave what students get by staying in school. At Babson, students get what he calls “the mechanics” — meaning techniques for evaluating opportunities and putting together a business plan. And while Bygrave is not suggesting that one causes the other, he points out that start-ups with business plans raised more money than those that did not.

Peter Thiel is free to spend his money the way he wants and those teenagers are free to accept the offer to drop out of school. But Bygrave’s research shows that the occasional entrepreneurial success of college dropouts is the exception that proves the rule — stay in college and get 10 years of experience — preferably in a fast growing organization — before launching a start-up.

Three Little Pigs | Global Entrepreneurship Week

The Global Entrepreneurship Week is coming!

Use it as a season to remember the DO`s & DON`ts of Entrepreneurship!

The pigs couldn`t tell it better ... so hillarious!

You can`t be what you can`t see - thoughts about the Thiel Experiment and more ...

I bet you have heard about the "Thiel Experiment", it`s been all over the news in the past months,   particularly memorable for headlines such as "Thiel Pays Students To Drop Out Of School!" or "Thiel Pays Offers $100000 to Drop-Outs!".

In m opinion, the story is way more powerful and way less sensationalist than what the press showcases. 

Peter Thiel, co-founder of Pay Pal (also known as as "the mentor of the PayPal mafia of entrepreneurs"), has set up a FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM, through which young entrepreneurs "will pursue innovative scientific and technical projects, learn entrepreneurship, and begin to build the technology companies of tomorrow. During their two-year tenure, each Fellow will receive $100,000 from the Thiel Foundation as well as mentorship from the Foundation’s network of tech entrepreneurs and innovators" ... and yes, to committ full time to the previous, they have to leave school.

I am a passionate for education, and specially for that one, which is not conventional. And I totally praise what Thiel is doing for the simple reason that YOU CAN`T BE WHAT YOU CAN`T SEE. You have to see stuff like this happening, as also you have to get inspiredby the stories of all the bunch of sucessful dropouts (not only Gates or Zuckerberg, but the many other close to you that I you know you know!!) to understand that there is not a "formula" to become an entrepreneur and specially not to be sucessful. 

I want to steal a statement from a recent article I read from Max Kalehoff, which  in my opinion totally embodies what really matters in life ... this matters, and not only to pursue a traditional education:

"Like many parents, I wish for my kids to be curious and passionate about the world around them. I wish for them to find purpose and embrace it, and to tackle important problems with creativity and drive. I also wish for them to enjoy what they’re doing along the way, and feel pride and fulfillment in the end — that what they’d done really mattered, and made the world a slightly better place. It doesn’t matter to me so much which path they pursue, but I hope it has these elements."

These past "elements" - as Kalehoff calls it - neither neglect  nor invite to eschew formal education, BUT,  you might agree with me,  they also do not make formal education essential. I believe Thiel is just trying to offer to this exceptional group of fellows a platform free of "distractive prejudices" where just purpose and relevant skill trainning matter. Can`t wait to see what happens with this group ...  (sad that there are only two girls!). We need to get more used to serendipity  and this is for sure something that formal education certainly disencourages. 

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When nobody is watching ...

Since some time I am subscribed to Seth`s Godin blog. I like it pretty much since he normally sends very concise (aprox. 5 minute reading) and powerful messages. Godin is author of ten books that have been bestsellers around the world, influencing the way people think about marketing, change and work.

One of his last post was called "Self directed effort is the best kind" 

I encourage you to read it, as said, it is very fast to do it and I ensure you that after reading it, my present blog post will make much more sense.

From the moment I saw the post titel in my inbox, it totally called my attention. And the content totally matched my expectation.

How many things do we really do, just because they genuinely matter to us, because they mean something to us and not because we have (on purpose or not) a "police man" making us doing them? I did the excercise very quicky for myself and the balance was pretty good: there were a bunch of things that I do because I care and technically enjoy doing them, while there are others where the "police men" work, and pretty well. 

I do not think that it is necessarily bad to count on such police men. It`s not ideal ... but it`s not really an issue as long as the quantity of the stuff you do self-directed exceeds the quantity of the stuff you need an extra stimulus to do. Anyways, I am not an expert in the topic and so far, what all I`ve done is just referring to Godin`s post. 

So ...this is a blog about entrepreneurship and therefore, I could not help inferring couple of things for the entrepreneurial world. And the strongest example that came to my mind was Endeavor, the organization I currently work for. 

First thing that came to my mind is that Endeavor (in the context of Seth`s post) is an army of police men that force Entrepreneurs to excel even more than what they already doing. I am aware that the word "force" is very strong, but after having worked as Entrepreneur Services Manager for more than 4 years at Endeavor Colombia, witnessing directly how Entrepreneurs receive and use our services, I feel confident when I say that the difference that we (Endeavor) make does not only have to do with the knowledge that we pass to them, the real difference relies in the capacity that we have to act as "accountability" agents for Entrepreneurs, that are always there to remind them of the commitments that they do to themselves. During the past 4 years such commitments have been things such as "doing a business plan to move to the next level", "stepping out of operative work and hiring a manager", "putting together a board of directors" or simple tasks as "analyzing their Financial Statements to look for possible red flags". I am 100 % sure that 90 % of our Entrepreneurs know how and want to do all of the previous, but for some reason, they are not used to put self-directed effort into that. It`s not only a matter of knowledge, it`s a matter of lack of self-directed drive. And what is behind this self-directed drive (not only for Entrepreneurs, but in general) remains a question mark for me. 

Recently I debated with some team mates about the role of Endeavor in the execution of projects with the Entrepreneurs. The discussion automatically came down to the role of the ESM  - Entrepreneur Services Manager -  (also called Key Account Manager in our jargon) and how involved  the ESM should  get into the day-to-day activities of the entrepreneur in order to catalyze the execution of the tasks associated to the Endeavor projects. In the end, our model works only if the Entrepreneurs execute timely the advices that are given by our group of Mentors.  Some people are more of the opinion that the "Self directed effort" of the Entrepreneurs shall be the one to drive the process and set the pace and other people (like me) even if not disagreeing with the past statement, are more of the opinion that we are actually there to provide any needed oversight that helps them to go beyond what "Self directed effort" allows, even if this implies an important investment of time and energy ... which in the end is the same time and energy that the personal trainer puts to make you burn 700 calories instead of 500, as Seth´s analogy suggests.


What do you do when no one is looking, what do you make when it's not an immediate part of your job... how many push ups do you do, just because you can?

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Casual thoughts about interacting wih the untouchable (and other Web 2.0 short reflections)

Disclaimer: I am neither a social networks expert, nor even an empirical “knower” of the topic. I am just a user, that sees things from a user perspective, probably in a very naïve way.

So … I`ve been using Twitter since maybe around a year. Pretty late for the standards, I know. I started way earlier with Facebook and especially with blogging, since 2003 actually (and yes, I know blogging is not a network and not comparable to Facebook and/or Twitter, no worries, yet it`s for many part of the Web 2.0 trend).

Coming back to Twitter, I must say that I just love it and as much as one is emotionally attached to Facebook, for what my personal interests are …

• a)     following thought leaders
• b)     getting fast, sweet, short news of topics I care (the amount of relevant info I get over Twitter in let`s say 3 minutes, I would never get it sitting a whole morning watching newspapers) AND
• c)   INTERACTING WITH THE OTHERWISE UNTOUCHABLE in the physical world

… Twitter is simply a hit.

INTERACTING WITH THE OTHERWISE UNTOUCHABLE in the physical world. It`s my favorite. What do I mean with that? Well, even if nowadays lots of companies and celebrities (politicians, artists, governmental institutions, companies, leaders, whatsoever) hire someone to manage its digital presence (which in the case of individuals might seem everything but genuine) INTERACTING WITH THE OTHERWISE UNTOUCHABLE i means being able to address directly people, organizations or simply BRANDS and if lucky being able to get a response from them.

• Two days ago I talked with @CoCaCola … I said over Twitter that a new can presentation seemed very cool to me. In seconds, they replied back. What do I win with this? Nothing probably, but @CoCaCola surely wins certain particular appreciation from my side, and it`s highly likely that next time I`ll order a Coke over a Pepsi.
• What about interacting with your favorite book authors? I do it often. How faster would you be able to tell that his/her book sucked or not and why, and get an answer?
• When a delivery service I order takes more that promised, or when any other of my providers suck (public services, telecom, airline,  health, etc.) I instantly complain over Twitter. In minutes they apologize and if I`m lucky, they even compensate with a treat. That does not happen in the “physical world” or at least not with the same effect: x thousand followers wouldn`t hear (read) my claim. Now, I know the "public complain" might sounds unfair/evil, but it works. I guess -bottomline- it is helping companies to be better, to serve better, in a society like the Colombian where customer service is an inherited weakness.

Web 2.0 is not a technology, it`s an attitude.

As much as I praise it, I also know that if tomorrow a meteor falls over the Twitter, Blogger and Facebook offices and their systems collapse, the world will keep moving, for sure, we have been doing it for centuries. A break  wouldn`t be bad, I guess.

Ps. A propo Twitter here are some cool lists to follow, especially if you are an Entrepreneur, the Endeavor Global Twitter lists:

What it takes to get an MBA [infographic]

++ Click to Enlarge Image ++
Taken from http://holykaw.alltop.com/what-it-takes-to-get-an-mba-infographic?tu3=1

Via: Masters Degree Guide

Ask a Leader 2011 - Felipe Vergara

Felipe Vergara is the CEO of Lumni, one of the Endeavor Colombia companies and also an AShoka Fellow. Felipe was recently awarded as THE SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS OF THE YEAR 2011 - LATIN AMERICA by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.

Through my role at Endeavor Colombia, I had had the pleasure to meet Felipe and his team, mainly in the Colombia office, and Lumni has no doubt been a source of inspiration as a person and as a potential entrepreneur (Felipe is also from my home city, Barranquilla, so that makes the role modelling effect even more special).

Felipe has also been a supporter of my MBA cause :-) ... besides all the cheering when I took the decision and in all my GMAT "calvary", his short lines every now and then were key to keep going. In absence of resources to pay for an admissions consultant as many people do, I`ve leveraged on key entrepreneurs from the Endeavor Colombia network such as Felipe to help me facing different levels of the admimission process. Felipe for instance mocked my BABSON interview and it was fantastic to get his feedback, it was no doubt very useful and I`ll never forget how such a busy person took time on a weekend to sit down with me over Skype to help me on this. Last but not least Felipe has recently acted as one of my recommenders for a OAS Scholarship also to fund the MBA at BABSON, scholarship where I`m already in the last round of 8 finalists (out of more than 140) in Colombia.

Maybe on of the coolest experiences with Lumni has been the one when they opened the door to me to deliver a trainning on "Communications" for a group of students of one of its funds: VENTANAS. The story is very funny, originally Lumni requested me as its Endeavor Key Account Manager to get one of our (very senior) Entrepreneur Mentors to deliver this trainning. For some reasons, the Mentors we approached were not available at this date and I simply volunteered myself to do it with the surprise that they accepted. Here are some pictures of that day.

Something that not many people know, is that by that time I was also in the process to open my "already closed" restaurant Sizzlers (we opened from Jan 2010 to Dec 2011), in Bogota. I remember that I hired two guys that I met at this training that were studying culinary with support of Lumni. The two students worked couple of weeks with me to help us gather key information for the business plan of the restaurant. We did not work longer since in the end we came to the conclusion that their time was very limited (actually one of them worked at the Lumni Colombia office as well).

I really hope to keep in touch with Felipe and his incredible model despite my incoming move from Endeavor! And thanks again for everything!

The doors from hell and heaven

The Zen master Hakuin is one of the rare flowerings. A warrior came to him, a samurai, a great soldier, and he asked "Is there any hell, is there any heaven? If there is hell and heaven, where are the gates? Where do I enter from? How can I avoid hell and choose heaven?"

He was a simple warrior. A warrior is always simple; otherwise he cannot be a warrior. A warrior knows only two things, life and death--his life is always at stake, he is always gambling; He is a simple man. He had not come to learn any doctrine. He wanted to know where the gate was so he could avoid hell and enter heaven. And Hakuin replied in a way only a warrior could understand.

What did Hakuin do? He said, "Who are you?"
And the warrior replied, "I am a samurai."

It is a thing of much pride to be a samurai in Japan. It means being a perfect warrior, a man who will not hesitate a single moment to give his life. For him, life and death are just a game. He said, "I am a samurai, I am a leader of samurais. Even the emperor pays respect to me."

Hakuin laughed and said, " You, a samurai? You look like a beggar."

The samurai's pride was hurt, his ego hammered. He forgot what he had come for. He took out his sword and was just about to kill Hakuin. He forgot that he had come to this master to ask where is the gate of heaven, to ask where is the gate of hell.

Hakuin laughed and said, "This is the gate of hell. With this sword, this anger, this ego, here opens the gate." This is what a warrior can understand. Immediately he understood: This is the gate. He put his sword back in its sheath.

And Hakuin said, "Here opens the gate of heaven."

Hell and heaven are within you, both gates are within you. When you are behaving unconsciously there is the gate of hell; when you become alert and conscious, there is the gate of heaven. 

SPANISH VERSION ...

Un guerrero samurai, fue a ver al Maestro Zen Hakuin y le preguntó:

"¿Existe el infierno? ¿Existe el cielo?
¿Dónde están las puertas que llevan a ellos?
¿Por dónde puedo entrar?

Era un guerrero sencillo. Los guerreros siempre son sencillos, sin astucia en sus mentes, sin matemáticas. Sólo conocen dos cosas: La vida y la muerte. Él no había venido a aprender ninguna doctrina; solo quería saber dónde estaban las puertas, para poder evitar el infierno y entrar en el cielo. Hauikin le respondió de una manera que sólo un guerrero podía haber entendido.

¿Quién eres?", le preguntó Hakuin.

"Soy un samurai, le respondió el guerrero, hasta el emperador me respeta".

Hakuin se rió y contestó "¿Un Samurai, tú? Pareces un mendigo".

El orgullo del samurai se sintió herido y olvidó para que había venido. Sacó su espada y ya estaba a punto de matar a Hakuin cuando éste dijo:

"Esta es la puerta del infierno. Esta espada, esta ira, este ego, te abren la puerta".

Esto es lo que un guerrero puede comprender. Inmediatamente el samurai entendió. Puso de nuevo la espada en su cinto, conmovido, se inclinó con humildad y con voz honesta y profunda dijo:

-Maestro, muchas gracias, tus palabras tocaron mi alma. La rabia, el miedo y la arrogancia son mi infierno.

El maestro lo miró fijamente y le dijo:

"Aquí se abren las puertas del cielo."

No son las palabras de los otros las que te envían al cielo o al infierno, es el significado que les das.

Las palabras pueden contener emociones, pero tú decides si las aceptas y cuanta importancia tienen para ti.

Cuando eliges la rabia, la arrogancia o el miedo, estas escogiendo el dolor, el juicio y el aislamiento, tanto para ti como para quienes te rodean.

Nuestros maestros y nuestras lecciones se encuentran con frecuencia en las personas o situaciones más inesperadas.

La persona más difícil o la situación más adversa pueden ser los maestros que te recuerden que en este instante puedes elegir estar en el cielo o en el infierno.

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Babson students and entrepreneurship on the World Stage