Antonio Hernandez

A01020712
Mis. Lilia Estela Bárcena
Planeación de Microempresas para el desarrollo social
Análisis Lectura
The Element

¨The Element¨ is the point on which your birth given talents meet your actual personal
passions. Sometimes you might love doing something but regardless of what you
do, it takes more time that usual for you to get it or understand new additaments;
however, there is always a natural facilitation towards some other subjects what,
whether you like it or not, come easy to you. When people enter or land on that point
denoted as “The Element”, they start embracing a plenty self-achieved perspective
of themselves. People start feeling insured to achieve more and go out to seek
higher positions. The book explains how, and which conditions are necessary for us
to evolve ourselves into this level; as well as those that ruin those possibilities.
Passing though celebrities such as Matt Groening, Arianna Huffington and Paul
McCartney, the author shows us how, despite a common opinion, there are no
barriers to achieve this level and how your passion, actual occupation and age aren’t
an actual barrier for the change. Defining this level as the future for changes in
education, communities and the business world on the years to come.

Explained on the book, the importance of finding on the early stages of your life; your
passion disguised as a job. A work that embodies fun from your personal interests.
The Elements incubates high-achievers and transforms underachievers. A constant
potential for adaptation and renewal shadows the wrong assumption that capacities
diminish with age. When people are in their Element, they connect with something
fundamental to their sense of identity, purpose and well-fair. Being on that level
provides a sense of self-appreciation, of defining who they really are and what
they´re meant to be doing with their lives.
Common sense, as well as the popular are the primordial enemies of both creativity
and innovation. The overthinking of certain topics or the exaggerated analysis cause
ideas to vanish due to uncertainty and doubt.

Backing creativity as well as being part of its solid foundation and key component;
imagination. Only Imagination and logic are the essential and distinguishing
elements that difference human beings apart from very other species on earth.
Imagination underpins every uniquely human achievement. It lets us view the past,
analyze the present, and create your own future. Through imagination we not only
can recall things that we have experienced but visualize things that we have never
seen. Achieving “The Element” doesn’t only require the visualization of your play
works and the present, it is almost entirely based on whether or not you visualize the
“What if” of every situation; point where imagination becomes indispensable.

Finding yourself on the zone essentially means finding your true self. One of the
strongest signs of being in the zone is a sense freedom authenticity and self-
realization. When we are doing something that we love and are naturally good at,
we are much more likely to satisfied with your work. As your personal interests are
involved with your responsibilities or work a natural energy towards your work
emerges, time tends to move more quickly, more fluidly.

Although every individual is different and everyone posses a different combination

of both interests and natural skill talents, you can find people with the same
commitment to the things they feel born to do, interests that match with yours and
enable a belonging spirit between you and your “Tribe”. Tribes help you develop a
social identity that on the run, help you focus and devote yourself more into your
interests.

Although this might sound amazing, personal, cultural and social barriers often
prevent us from reaching this level. What at the end of the day matters is our attitude.
It’s not what happens to us that makes the difference in our lives. It is our attitude
toward what happens.
Lucky people often make their luck because of their attitudes. We all create and
shape the realities of our own lives to an extraordinary extent of our reality. Two
different people with the same cultural orientations can see the same situation in
completely different ways, depending on their preconceptions, personal barriers and,
as mentioned before, lack of imagination.

Of course, placed as what it is, it is not easy to reach “The Element” and many times
a mentor is essential on your path towards it. Experience from others always help
avoid common errors as well as to encourage what was done right. Mentors are very
helpful and able you to achieve “The Element” without a lot of repeated struggle.

Personally, touched and at a certain point identified with a point discussed on the
reading, the “Is it too late?” perspective. One of the most basic reasons of thinking
that it is too late to be who you are truly capable of being is the belief that life always
has to be a certain way. That, how I felt not so long ago, if you want to be successful
and do what you love, you have to start at a young age; you have to be better than
others and before others do. As if we were on a traffic street, we think we have no
option but to keep going forward. If we missed something the first time, we can’t go
back and take another look because it takes all our effort and it is just too late for us.
This perspective is a cultural segregated matter regarding age. Not only defined by
your actual age, but at the age you decide to do something and the self-barrier of
you thinking that, although you are always on time to do a change or do what you
love, we blow ourselves with ideas that we are just too old to do it and that in order
to fulfill that objective, you had to do it before.

Another hard barrier for reaching “The Element” and that nay be the most common
among professionals; the money. The reason why work is seen as tedious, tiring and
exhausting is because we mistake our love for what we do for the love we have
towards the money that job gives us. There is an important difference between
leisure and recreation. We tend to think about work as something that takes our
energy. A recreation requires physical or mental effort that wears us out. Leisure is
what a person does when he loves the work he performs; a activity that actually
recharges us due to the excitement we feel while doing it.
The book touches extremely relevant points that we don’t realize on our professional
life. The differences between what you love and what you are good at; as well as its
balance and the change to achieve true self-realization. Level that has been
barriered by our social environment and current system. Outside barriers that
eventually become personal and expands the gap between us and the possibility of
achieving “The Element”. Barriers that, despite actual age, current occupation,
possibilities and imagination, can affect us all in all sorts of ways; ways, as in my
personal case, we might not even realize and are repeatedly utilized poison on our
lives, limiting us more and more thought our actions or our rejections of new ideas
and possibilities. Ideas that, being carried out, could change our lives completely
and transform into a habit on ourselves due to a notion of achievement, realization
and self-plenty that could grow more and more through time. A great book with great
ideas and a solid perspective of what people face on their lives in order to achieve a
level that arrogates for a transformation on your way of being; to become a more of
yourself.