Guayaquil

Valparaiso/Viña del Mar

Valparaiso

Viña del Mar is the third largest city in Chile. It's known as "The Garden City" for its beautiful gardens. It's Chile's turistic capital, and with lots of beaches and great landscapes to look at, it's quite the perfect city. Its closeness to Santiago makes it a quiet suburb, but surrounded by the Pacific Ocean.

Viña is also next to Valparaiso. In fact you don't know where one ends and the other begins. They share the same bay, but there are two completely different cities, in character and in extension.
Valparaiso is Chile's biggest port, and its economy is based on shipping and ship industries.

The day after the first Seminar

Roughly a 75 mile drive outside of Chile's capital of Santiago, is
Viña del Mar is the third largest city in Chile. It's known as "The Garden City" for its beautiful gardens. It's Chile's turistic capital, and with lots of beaches and great landscapes to look at, it's quite the perfect city. Its closeness to Santiago makes it a quiet suburb, but surrounded by the Pacific Ocean. It's a big city, with town-like people.Viña is also next to Valparaiso. In fact, a lot of people don't know where one ends and the other begins. They share the same bay, but there are two completely different cities, in character and in extension.Valparaiso is Chile's biggest port, and its economy is based on shipping and ship industries. This is most definately Chile's most poetic and misterious city. Its many hills, houses hanging off the cliffs, small and steep streets, and the unusual elevators makes it a photographer's and a traveller's paradise. The city sits perched on the cliffs and hills on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. The city was once an important port for ships sailing between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans via the Straits of Magellan and Cape Horn. Today, it remains an important seaport in Chile and a bustling cultural center of over 800,000 people in the Greater Valparaiso metropolitan area (includes of Viña del Mar, Concón, Quilpué and Villa Alemana). Known as "The Jewel of the Pacific", Valpo is home to beautiful beaches, numerous universities, and important Chilean historical sites and landmarks.
Wandering the winding roads and steep staircases, the unique and colorful buildings and an incredible site.

2009 South American Tour

The fist thing you notice from the airplane when you approach Santiago is the Andes Mountains sticking up like a jagged edge all along the spine of this this country, creating one of the most beautiful backdrops of a city I've seen.

But Santiago was not my only destination, Im on my way to theworld heritage site of the Historic Quarter of the Seaport Village of Valparaiso.


Santiago’s cafes are full of subdued people wearing black, blue and brown. They sit in pairs, whisper intensely to each other and sometimes, but not often, laugh quietly. The clothes are fashionable. The streets are clean. Traffic orderly. The pollution here is not bad at all. Hundreds of cozy restaurants sell all kinds of food. The art galleries are great here, I found awesome exhibit of statues and masks in the Museo de Bellas Artes.

Opposite the condo where Im staying is a steep rocky hill wrapped in twisting paths and topped with old towers and archways. The park is amazingly cool and has many secret places. Huge sharp mountains are a constant backdrop no matter where you are in Santiago. The park is full of art students drawing plants, paths and buildings. Perhaps they go to art school near by. Last night we went on a little train trip that takes you up a big hill at one end of Santiago, then came back down on a chairlift. Amazing view and we were lucky enough to be there for sunset. Santiago is very beautiful, if you look at it from the right angle.

Your inner circle

Your inner circle

the few people closest to you in your life, can have a great influence over your development as a leader and even your overall success. I believe the potential of the person is impacted by his or her supporting cast, and this is why the inner circle is such a key element in the development of a leader. Inner circles are 360 degrees, meaning each person has a responsibility to whoever is in their inner circle.

You Attract What You Are

You choose who the members of your inner circle are. The saying goes "you attract what you are." If you want to see and evaluate who you are or what you stand for, look at the people around you and the decisions you make. Do the people around you have the same morals and values as you do? Do the members of your inner circle make you better, and, in return, you make them better? These are the types of difficult questions you must ask yourself if you want to maximize your potential by having a strong supporting cast.

If you want to change yourself, you may want to start by looking at the people in your inner circle. Change is good. Change means you're growing. Most people are afraid of change because it's uncertain and makes people uncomfortable. It's difficult to change your inner circle, but if you find it necessary to change your inner circle to grow and develop as a person and leader, it's a sacrifice you will have to be willing to make.

Components of the Ideal Inner Circle

I recently got to thinking about what the ideal inner circle would be like. The following are the components of the ideal inner circle:

1. Supportive

The ideal inner circle should be supportive. It doesn't matter who your inner circle is made up of, what's important is that the people in your circle support you and your goals. Your inner circle should encourage you and push you to reach new heights. In addition, your circle should be willing to help you when you're in need. The idea of an inner circle being made up of selfless individuals is an intriguing one. Imagine a circle made up of each member thinking of the others' interests and willing to do anything because that's how strong the relationship is. At the same time, your inner circle should be objective, meaning they should provide honest feedback, even if it's not what you want to hear. Having people in your inner circle that can give you another perspective and tell you the truth is a valuable asset to have. If your current inner circle doesn't support you, encourage you, help you, and provide honest feedback, maybe you should reconsider your circle.

2. Positive
The ideal inner circle should have a positive culture. As John C. Maxwell says, "Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about themselves, and small people talk about others." The ideal inner circle would consist of individuals whose focus is on the other members or ideas. If each member focuses on the other members, every member is taken care of. A forward-thinking inner circle can push each member higher. A good team always has some friendly competition. Competition makes everyone better. If members push each other to be better, everyone wins. The combination of working together and pushing each other to improve can make each member better. In order for an inner circle to be positive, each member must have a good attitude and have a good influence on the rest of the circle.

3. Complementary
The ideal inner circle should have members that complement each other. An inner circle is like your own personal team, your life team if you will. Just as in any team sport, wouldn't you want the best possible team that will get you to victory? If the members of your inner circle were your teammates, would you be happy with them? A winning team is comprised of players with a wide range of skills that complement one another. A winning team has good chemistry, works well together, has a winning attitude, and brings out the best in each other. Perhaps most importantly, the members of a winning team sacrifice for one another. They have each other's and the team's best interest in mind. Would your inner circle be a winning team?
Invest in your Potential
Your personal development and development as a leader is influence by your inner circle. You can get a good measurement of your potential by assessing those that are closest to you. If you inner circle is limiting you because of a lack of support, faith, assistance, or values, making changes to your inner circle may be appropriate. Remember, if you want to attract good people to you, you must show those qualities in yourself first. Don't let your potential go to waste, keep good people around you and it will pay dividends.

The Journey

A Small Step on a Long Journey

There are few topics that most people find more boring than philosophy. They think of dead people who wrote long books. As a result, very few people know what to say when asked, "What is your philosophy of life?" A philosophy of life does not have to be long and boring, but it does have to be helpful to you or it means nothing.
I sat down one day and asked myself this question and realized I had never really answered it. I decided I would write one, but it had to be less than 75 words long. This is what I wrote:
"My philosophy of life is simple. Death is not the opposite of life, it is the opposite of birth. Life is the period in-between and has no opposite. Life is a gift, completely unearned and undeserved. What I do with this gift is incredibly important, even if I'm not sure why."
I am not recommending this, only providing it as an example. You need to write your own. Keep it under 75 words. "Short and sweet" is good. It has to be something you can memorize and remember easily.
Your philosophy of life, whatever it is, will help you understand who you are. So give it careful thought. Write something that fits you. It is a small step, but a good life is a long journey and every journey is made up of small steps.

So many arsonist so little time

"So many arsonist so little time"

Putting Out Fires

"The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year. " -- John Foster Dulles

What Ive learned this pass month and what I recommend is the following to reduce the amount of problems we're faced with regularly:“The first task here is to identify the time-wasters which follow from lack of system or foresight. The symptom to look for is the recurrent “crisis,” the crisis that comes back year after year. A CRISIS THAT RECURS A SECOND TIME IS A CRISIS THAT MUST NOT OCCUR AGAIN.”Your emotional drainers and non-understanding in the way of the philosophy of Karate are your worst arsonists, you know. They're your crisis people. Setting fires deliberately.But the real key to handling those flare-ups at the dojo is prevention. It takes somebody smart enough to anticipate the problem. Avoid it. Get ahead of it.How much time do you spend trying to put out fires at the dojo?Sorry ... smoke inhalation ... get down on the floor ...We have good days and bad.Ive finally become fireproof here, thank you very much.That's a combustible situation. A fire waiting to happen. Easily prevented.In Karate, I've found that there's such a thing as the overly ego-centric student. You may have to consider letting go of such a student because there's such a high level of anxiety involved, fire after fire, crisis after crisis. You simply may not be able to satisfy anyone like this.Panic this is all panic that sucks up a lot of the energy you could be using to continue your personal path to higher lever thinking.
But elsewhere in society, we tend to think we can "wing it." We love to think no preparation is needed for anything. What happens? -- havoc happens. And guess what: You pay a premium to fix it, too, because things are falling apart at the last minute.For fires at the dojo, those things you're so used to putting out all the time, think firewalls. Stop the spread. Condos and computers have firewalls. Put them into place in your dojo. You might even want to assign one person in your operation the job of contingency planning, thinking ahead: your fire extinguisher.In the process of choosing somebody to be your firefighter, think about what sets your operation up for these incidents. Your leadership structure? Your staffing levels? You may just have to bite the bullet if not, because these shortages throw off sparks, and keep throwing them off.

Quality not Quantity

Further conclusion

"Karate is for everyone, but not everyone is for Karate."

Karate Concepts advocates karate training as a 'way of life'. The new mission is to offer a curriculum of education whose philosophies, practices, and methods, promotes strong minds, healthy bodies, and ethical spirits.Not all Karate schools are alike. True freedom is the ability to choose. Determine your training goals, choose carefully, & enjoy the benefits karate training brings.Self-Defense skills are not always meant for use against others. The discipline that dedicated training brings also defends us against "ourselves." The purpose of repetition is to turn training into reflex. This includes learning to make good choices, and the conviction to say 'no' when offered bad ones.While casual students are accepted, it would be well to note our Karate do is not a fad. Hopefuls seeking 'instant gratification' or those looking to add 'flash for cash' should continue looking elsewhere.