Muhammad Yunus - Banker to the Poor

This brief documentary provides a quick overview of one of the greatest humanitarians of modern times. A Nobel Prize-winning Social Entrepreneur, Muhammad Yunus invented the idea of micro-finance to help combat global poverty.



"Poverty is created by the system"

TACKLING THE SHAME OF POVERTY - PEOPLE GLOBALLY HAVE VERY SIMILAR ASPIRATIONS

Success is the product of each individual attitude, not a result of society collectively working together
PEOPLE GLOBALLY HAVE VERY SIMILAR ASPIRATIONS
We are making the lives of our fellow citizens much worse, contributing to the perpetration of poverty, collective responsibility and understanding is the challenge we face



The work of Professor Robert Walker and his collaborators investigates the day-to-day experiences of low-income families living in societies as diverse as Norway and Uganda, Britain and India, China, South Korea, and Pakistan, and confirms the role of shame in their lives – which has already shaped how policymakers deal with poverty, in a way that tries to retain the dignity of the individual.

TALES OF PASSION BY ISABEL ALLENDE - WHAT KIND OF WORLD DO WE WANT?

Why you should listen

As a novelist and memoirist, Isabel Allende writes of passionate lives, including her own. Born into a Chilean family with political ties, she went into exile in the United States in the 1970s—an event that, she believes, created her as a writer. Her voice blends sweeping narrative with touches of magical realism; her stories are romantic, in the very best sense of the word. Her novels include The House of the Spirits, Eva Luna and The Stories of Eva Luna, and her latest, Maya's Notebook and Ripper. And don't forget her adventure trilogy for young readers— City of the Beasts, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon and Forest of the Pygmies.

As a memoirist, she has written about her vision of her lost Chile, in My Invented Country,and movingly tells the story of her life to her own daughter, in Paula. Her book Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses memorably linked two sections of the bookstore that don't see much crossover: Erotica and Cookbooks. Just as vital is her community work: The Isabel Allende Foundation works with nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay Area and Chile to empower and protect women and girls—understanding that empowering women is the only true route to social and economic justice.

What others say

“Allende can spin a funny, sensual yarn, but she can also use her narrative skills to remind us that parallel to our placid and comfortable existence is another, invisible universe, one where poverty, misery and torture are all too real.” — Patricia Hart, The Nation

I think that the time is ripe to make fundamental changes in our civilization. But for real change, we need feminine energy in the management of the world. We need a critical number of women in positions of power, and we need to nurture the feminine energy in men. I'm talking about men with young minds, of course. Old guys are hopeless; we have to wait for them to die off. (Laughter) Yes, I would love to have Sophia Loren's long legs and legendary breasts. But given a choice, I would rather have the warrior hearts of Wangari Maathai, Somaly Mam, Jenny and Rose Mapendo. I want to make this world good. Not better, but to make it good. Why not? It is possible. Look around in this room -- all this knowledge, energy, talent and technology. Let's get off our fannies, roll up our sleeves and get to work, passionately,in creating an almost perfect world. Thank you.

SHAQ SCHOOL: How to Build and Lead a Kickass Team !!!! Hire people smarter than you !!!

Dwight Eisenhower said, "The greatest of leaders are the ones smart enough to hire people smarter than them."
But when you're on a team you have to do everything collaboratively
One of my favorite books is The One Minute Manager.

Shaquille O'Neal is a retired American professional basketball player who is currently an analyst on the television program Inside the NBA. Standing 7 ft 1 in (2.16 m) tall,Shaq was one of the most dominant centers in the league throughout his 19-year NBA career. O'Neal holds both an MBA and an Ed.D. in Human Resource Development.

Following his career at Louisiana State University, O'Neal was drafted by the Orlando Magic with the first overall pick in the 1992 NBA draft. He quickly became one of the best centers in the league, winning Rookie of the Year in 1992–93 and later leading his team to the 1995 NBA Finals. After four years with the Magic, O'Neal signed as a free agent with the Los Angeles Lakers. They won three consecutive championships in 2000, 2001, and 2002. He was traded to the Miami Heat in 2004; his fourth NBA championship followed in 2006. O'Neal also played for the Phoenix Suns, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Boston Celtics before retiring.

O'Neal's individual accolades include the 1999–2000 MVP award, the 1992–93 NBA Rookie of the Year award, 15 All-Star game selections, three All-Star Game MVP awards, three Finals MVP awards, two scoring titles, 14 All-NBA team selections, and three NBA All-Defensive Team selections. He is one of only three players to win NBA MVP, All-Star game MVP and Finals MVP awards in the same year (2000); the other players are Willis Reed in 1970 and Michael Jordan in 1996and 1998. He ranks 6th all-time in points scored, 5th in field goals, 13th in rebounds, 7th in blocks, and 3rd in field goal percentage.

In addition to his basketball career, O'Neal has released four rap albums and appeared in numerous films, plus his own reality shows, Shaq's Big Challenge and Shaq Vs.

O'Neal will be eligible for induction into the Ba

THE FIGHT AGAINST SEX SLAVERY

Why you should listen

Each year, some two million women and children, many younger than 10 years old, are bought and sold around the globe. Impassioned by the silence surrounding the sex-trafficking epidemic, Sunitha Krishnan co-founded Prajwala, or "eternal flame," a group in Hyderabad that rescues women from brothels and educates their childrento prevent second-generation prostitution. Prajwala runs 17 schools throughout Hyderabad for 5,000 children and has rescued more than 2,500 women from prostitution, 1,500 of whom Krishnan personally liberated. At its Asha Niketan center, Prajwala helps young victims prepare for a self-sufficient future.

Krishnan has sparked India's anti-trafficking movement by coordinating government, corporations and NGOs. She forged NGO-corporate partnerships with companies like Amul India, Taj Group of Hotels and Heritage Hospitals to find jobs for rehabilitated women. In collaboration with UN agencies and other NGOs, she established printing and furniture shops that have rehabilitated some 300 survivors. Krishnan works closely with the government to define anti-trafficking policy, and her recommendations for rehabilitating sex victims have been passed into state legislation.

What others say

“The sense that thousands and millions of children and young people are being sexually violated and that there’s this huge silence about it around me angers me.” — Sunitha Krishnan

BOYD VARTY: WHAT I LEARNED FROM NELSON MANDELA

Everyone has felt that connection with nature. Through the Good Work Foundation, Boyd Varty is building a movement around it. The fourth-generation custodian of the Londolozi Game Reserve in South Africa calls it a psychology of restoration. “We would like to be pioneers of the age of restoration,” says Varty. “Restoration of land, people and the human spirit."

By providing environmental, English and computer education to the people who live and work in Londolozi, he’s also creating an economically and socially sustainable model for conservation.

UBUNTU= I am because of you 

THE FOUR KEY QUESTIONS TO TEAM LEADERS

Marcus Buckingham unveils to the Harvard Business Review, the four-key questions to team leaders need to answer quarterly about their team members to drive smart performance management data insights and build stronger teams.



Would you always rehire this person for the company?

Would you always pick this person for your team?

Wouldd you promote this person today?

Does this person have a performance problem that you 
want to address today?

A BOOK THAT HELPS YOU TO IDENTIFY THE UNIQUENESS OF EACH INDIVIDUAL HUMAN, APPLY SUCH UNIQUENESS AT WORK

Bestselling author Marcus Buckingham discusses organizations and the power of human nature, and his new book, StandOut 2.0




Each human´s nature is unique
A BOOK THAT HELPS YOU TO IDENTIFY THE UNIQUENESS OF EACH INDIVIDUAL HUMAN, and how to apply such uniqueness at work
"is a front door to a performance management system" "for making the most out of every human being"

THE POWER OF INTROVERTS

Susan Cain is a former corporate lawyer and negotiations consultant -- and a self-described introvert. At least one-third of the people we know are introverts, notes Cain in her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. Although our culture undervalues them dramatically, introverts have made some of the great contributions to society – from Chopin's nocturnes to the invention of the personal computer to Gandhi’s transformative leadership. Cain argues that we design our schools, workplaces, and religious institutions for extroverts, and that this bias creates a waste of talent, energy, and happiness. Based on intensive research in psychology and neurobiology and on prolific interviews, she also explains why introverts are capable of great love and great achievement, not in spite of their temperaments -- but because of them.

A GLIMPSE OF LIFE IN THE ROAD, IS THIS CALLED FREEDOM?

Kitra Cahana is a wanderer. The American-born photographer was raised in Canada and Sweden, with a father who worked as a rabbi and took his family along with him everywhere he traveled. Cahana's itinerant childhood is evident in her work, which has taken her to teenage "rainbow parties," Venezuelan spiritual rituals, Ukranian Ultra-Orthodox prayer sites, American boxcars and bus stops and many more places. The 2014 TED Fellow embeds herself in the societies she documents, playing the part of photojouralist as well as enthnographer.

As a little girl, I always imagined I would one day run away. From the age of six on, I kept a packed bag with some clothes and cans of food tucked away in the back of a closet. There was a deep restlessness in me, a primal fear that I would fall prey to a life of routine and boredom. And so, many of my early memories involved intricate daydreams where I would walk across borders, forage for berries, and meet all kinds of strange people living unconventional lives on the road.

0:44Years have passed, but many of the adventures I fantasized about as a child -- traveling and weaving my way between worlds other than my own — have become realities through my work as a documentary photographer. But no other experience has felt as true to my childhood dreams as living amongst and documenting the lives of fellow wanderers across the United States. This is the nomadic dream, a different kind of American dream lived by young hobos, travelers, hitchhikers, vagrants and tramps.

1:20In most of our minds, the vagabond is a creature from the past. The word "hobo" conjures up an oldblack and white image of a weathered old man covered in coal, legs dangling out of a boxcar, but these photographs are in color, and they portray a community swirling across the country, fiercely alive and creatively free, seeing sides of America that no one else gets to see.

1:47Like their predecessors, today's nomads travel the steel and asphalt arteries of the United States. By day, they hop freight trains, stick out their thumbs, and ride the highways with anyone from truckers to soccer moms. By night, they sleep beneath the stars, huddled together with their packs of dogs, cats and pet rats between their bodies.

2:10Some travelers take to the road by choice, renouncing materialism, traditional jobs and university degrees in exchange for a glimmer of adventure. Others come from the underbelly of society, never given a chance to mobilize upwards: foster care dropouts, teenage runaways escaping abuse and unforgiving homes.

2:32Where others see stories of privation and economic failure, travelers view their own existence through the prism of liberation and freedom. They'd rather live off of the excess of what they view as a wasteful consumer society than slave away at an unrealistic chance at the traditional American dream. They take advantage of the fact that in the United States, up to 40 percent of all food ends up in the garbage by scavenging for perfectly good produce in dumpsters and trash cans. They sacrifice material comforts in exchange for the space and the time to explore a creative interior, to dream, to read, to work on music, art and writing.

3:18But there are many aspects to this life that are far from idyllic. No one loses their inner demons by taking to the road. Addiction is real, the elements are real, freight trains maim and kill, and anyone who has lived on the streets can attest to the exhaustive list of laws that criminalize homeless existence. Who here knows that in many cities across the United States it is now illegal to sit on the sidewalk, to wrap oneself in a blanket, to sleep in your own car, to offer food to a stranger? I know about these laws because I've watched as friends and other travelers were hauled off to jail or received citations for committing these so-called crimes.

4:06Many of you might be wondering why anyone would choose a life like this, under the thumb of discriminatory laws, eating out of trash cans, sleeping under bridges, picking up seasonal jobs here and there. The answer to such a question is as varied as the people that take to the road, but travelers often respond with a single word: freedom. Until we live in a society where every human is assured dignity in their labor so that they can work to live well, not only work to survive, there will always be an element of those who seek the open road as a means of escape, of liberation and, of course, of rebellion.

4:49Thank you.

SOME PHILOSOPHY LECTURES TODAY !!! WHAT IS IT TO BE A PERSON TODAY !! PERSONAL IDENTITY

A series of lectures delivered by Peter Millican to first-year philosophy students at the University of Oxford. The lectures comprise the 8-week General Philosophy course and were delivered in late 2009.