“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Growing up in Argentina with loving parents and finding the love of my life were the strongest things that shaped the person I am today. Early on when I started this fantastic experience I promised myself that I would gather some of the lessons learned here at Harvard, so that they will serve as a guide for the future. I'd like to live my life with these thoughts in mind, so that when I look my daughter Catalina in the eye, the choices I've made in my life do the talking about what priorities my wife Cecilia and I stand for. That's why I'd like to always remind myself of these takeaways from my HBS journey:
- To do the impossible, we have to see the invisible.
- We should enjoy the small things in life, because maybe one day we may discover that those were the big things.
- Happiness is not how high we are, but in what direction we are going.
- Never let our fears become the boundaries of our dreams.
- We shouldn't let the urgent take the time of the important.
- Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.
- We don't see things the way they are, but the way we are.
- The price we pay for money is paid in freedom.
- Positive lessons are not always taught in positive ways.
- If we find a good solution and become attached to it, the solution may become our next problem.
- Success is not doing things 100% better, but doing 100 things 1% better.
- We miss 100% of the shots we never take.
- Love is not to look at each other, but to both look in the same direction.
- Confidence never comes from having all the answers, but from being open to all the questions.
- Successful people seldom do extraordinary things, they do ordinary things extraordinary well.
- God does not give us what we want; He gives us what we need.
— Matias Ruiz