What I've learned about business

I just found out that my answer was chosen as one of the winners in a book giveaway done by online MBA. The book giveaway was basically answering the question, "What I have learned about business". I honestly wanted to win. The price was one out of ten of my favorite books (I got Drive by Daniel H. Pink). The answer explored some of deep feelings towards management and business. What I have learned about business are four things:

1. LOOOVE! what you do: people talk about it, but it's true...if you love what you do, you never have to work for the rest of your life. For people that love their job, they can't think of doing anything different or stop doing it. I've seen this in open-source project. Programmers who work in open-souce projects don't get paid and love to work on it...for FREE! These type of people are motivated to their core. Best of all, they are contagious! They act as a catalyst when they work with a team. When someone asks me about my job, it is like comparing my son's feeling towards Iron Man. Yes, programming and management are my Iron Man :)
2. Never stop learning: always have a thirst for knowledge. I have noticed this with my son (he's eight-years-old) and he absolutely loves anything with the solar system. He picks up any type of book, movie, or anything that has to do with this subject. I also noticed this with former CIO Tom Clark and also with my friend Alsonso E Rhenals. They enjoy what they do and take a great pleasure in learning new things. Also, people who I consider mentors, regularly send me a post, article, or call me regarding on something that they just learned (Tom and Alonso do that all the times); they have the child-like curiosity for learning.
3. Become a great communicator: a clear direction goes a long way. I've seen this with many individuals in business and politics. HBR did an interesting article talking about this specific thing,

   Scrupulously avoid impeding progress by changing goals autocratically, being indecisive, or holding up resources

4. Maintain a humble attitude: we sometimes take for granted that we spend most of your time at work and at times it might be very frustrating. The only way you can get in and out of work and keep your friends is being humble. This is perhaps the hardest thing to do. I have only met one person, my friend Alex Fontanez. I have never met anyone who thinks badly about Alex or anyone that doesn't think Alex is not humble.

So, there you have it, the four things that I have learned about business.