sábado, 27 de diciembre de 2014

2wTree Notebooks, start something that matters.


2wTree notebooks in a stationer´s shop in Bugis, Singapore.

“I heard in the world, there’s a bird without legs. It can only fly and fly. When it’s tired it sleeps in the wind. It lands on earth only once in its life. That is when it dies”.
“Days of Being Wild” by Wong Kar Wai.
 
 
    “We all are legless birds” concluded Narunya Kes after finishing our sabbatical period, an enjoyable time off of our life in the middle of 2014 that both of us decided to enjoy together avoiding any kind of interruptions due to companies or work issues. 
   
   We never planned to be very ambitious in targets but a recipe for a quiet life around our lovely families for a few months was not the answer for the initial expectations of our time off. We used to read and listen to personal work experiences of well known designers and entrepreneurs as Anton Corbijn or Yayoi Kusama or Steve Jobs, who never were satisfied with the status quo. They wanted to change the things and make things happens. The world has never been changed by unambitious people. We learnt from them that ambitious people have high expectations of themselves and others. They reach for the stars. Although for us the stars are too far to go now but living in Singapore, Machu Picchu (Perú) is likely the furthest iconic place for visiting closed to our antipodes.
  
2wTree notebook, from our series of Perú limited edition. 
"Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star" by W. Clement Stone.  
   The core skill for our travelling was very simple: listen actively. We can only understand other people if we listen to them. The simple act of listening builds rapport at the same time as building our knowledge of the people we want to influence. Our work experience proves that the great dividing line between stress and pressure is control: people under pressure who still have control over their fate can perform exceptionally well. People under pressure who have no control over events quickly discover stress and burnout. 
 
   As a general rule, we value what we earn more than what is free. Along our trip we shared chocolates, champagne and stories. The first two have monetary value, the last one has personal values. We learnt that telling stories is a sort of generosity which builds influence and power. The most precious moments in our journey tended to be things like time and recognition shared. We believe that when you give people your time, you are investing your most precious and limited resource in them: people respond to that vote of confidence. When you give them recognition, that is also a vote of confidence in them. Once you have made the investment, you can expect to ask for a return on that investment: most people will give willingly. You have set up the process of give to take. We tried to materialize this process by using generosity. We created our souvenirs from our own visions during the trip. We designed notebooks from our pictures and statements of the visited places and we offered them to our friends. Enthusiastic and proactive friends capable to develop an entrepreneurial mind taking the risk of going out of the comfort area and find the magic of having their own adventures in this wonderful world. Friends who are legless birds working in places far from home like us. We rediscovered our happiness by design and we knew about happiness by generosity.
 
   Generosity is the art of taking by giving. Generosity is a habit. Fortunately, it is a habit that can be acquired. It is not just profitable to give, it is also enjoyable. Being generous with the personal time appears to be suicidal when there are so many day to day pressures to meet. But by creating a network of alliances, mutual obligations and debts which can be called in, the influences invests heavily in the future. It is an investment which saves time and raises performance in the longer time. And the meaner issues becomes, the easier it is for a selfless and generous person to stand out and become influential.

   For many people, the greatest barrier to success is in their heads. It's time to continue imagining our future beyond the fears and repressions. Time to flight to different places than the original one, to engage with them and simply write our history. It is time for legless birds.

Written by Miguel Vélez & Narunya Kes.
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   Be a part of "Legless birds Movement" and get your 2wTree Notebook Limited Edition contacting us by email 2wtree.design@gmail.com and just start to write your own story.