what the word "love" means, for better or for worse, because my father not only lived up to it, but he exceeded expectations. It was very difficult because character changes and my mother needed to feel active and useful. Big problem in that situation she was in.
We were very lucky that the doctor who was treating my sister, who was asthmatic, saw the recovery process and my mother's effort, as my father was involved in making her home recovery at that time. She only wanted to be able to work because she was in a depression and felt useless. She put us in contact with an entity that was totally unknown to me at that time, even though I was small and didn't understand what we were going for, the o.n.c.e. (For those who are not Spanish the O.N.C.E. means National Organization of the Spanish Blind, it was created by Ramón Serrano Suñer on December 13, 1938).
It's that organization that you all see and are used to buying a number to play and to which no importance is given, because it is always said that it helps, but no one really explains and from the heart, in what way it helps.
I want to explain it to you in the first person. My mother is handicapped, her name is Gloria Pérez Muñoz, and her sales number is 2,547 with a severe handicap. They gave her the opportunity to work, they taught her how to sell, they supported her. She was regularly visited by the inspectors who are the people they call them.
Today we would give them another name as a counselor, advisor or coach. But I was the person who regularly worried about how my mother was doing in her job; if she needed anything or to inform her of any news. This is a team effort they make for their staff.
There are many other things you don't see. When you have a child, the first thing you think about is enrolling him/her in a school, of course this is public. Because here in Spain education is free… but what if your child is blind, what do you do, who helps you, where do you go, who trains them, where will they find a job? We don't ask ourselves all these questions, because thank God we don't expect to find ourselves in that dilemma. But if we need it, they are the support.
That's what the value of buying a coupon means. That's why for me it's not a simple game, it's a moral support, as far as one can.
And as a child I had to start accompanying my mother to the Barcelona headquarters, which is where I live. There they did the paperwork, they also took the numbers that had not been sold, and they asked for a number for the next day that they had asked for. All this had to be done by hand, there wasn't that much technology and the truth is that the team was incredibly friendly. I liked going there.
They began to teach me things; first because I was small, also because they saw me regularly and because in the same building that is no longer there, there was the medical team that attended to the workers. What was called the family doctor.
Now this is no longer in any of the city offices, because a mutual insurance company is in charge of it.
I would like to thank each and every one of these doctors and nurses in each center throughout Spain, because I am sure that the same attention and care with which they attended in Barcelona, they did in the rest. And for that it had to be done really from the heart, because everyone arrived tired, they came with a chronic disease that they knew in advance they could not solve. They had to continue working under the pressure of having to make a few sales and in a hurry, and I was out there seeing all this many times in a bad mood, I never saw them lose their smile. And they were always looking for ways to encourage us.
Much of that vision, plus what I lived at home and what my grandmother explained to me, has made me who I am.
It is important that you are given solutions or asked the right questions so that you look inside yourself, that you want to change. Because not everything will always be favorable, but you can always move forward and you can always achieve everything you set out to do.
Being with them I learned day by day, so I personally have to thank them a thousand times. Because you cannot imagine the obstacles they have had to suffer, overcome and save in order to get where they have gone, and you have never heard them complain. So thanks to all of them, from the first or founder and to the last worker.
And we must all be aware of the great work they do, because one day I hope that it will not be like that, you may need them and they will always lend you a hand. Thank you.
Chapter 2- Foreword: Why have I come to write this method?
What I explain to you will have read in many books. Many of you will have been in some conference or workshop of mine, you will have read a book that I have written and you will not find my new ideas.
The only difference is that the years serve you to mature, take advantage of your time and see what you want to leave behind for others.
I have always liked working in a team and above all that people learn to be independent and to be able to collaborate. If you have someone who is good at something, you can always learn and you will really improve.
If with that person you manage to work as a team without rivalry, not only will you succeed, but you will give better results, more rested, more enjoyable and more creative.
It doesn't mean that you don't evolve. It could be that, when the time comes, one of the team decides to expand his or her path and start over. But it is a law of life, new beginnings every day and taking risks when returning to the beginning of the race; to see if we are capable of creating the same team again in another place.
Life is made up of many normal moments, some quite complicated and some extraordinarily happy. And among all this, we have to make an average, to know how to take advantage of it in benefit learning the lessons; seeing what we did not like in the lesson so that the next time it hurts less.
As a child I was quite an earthquake, since my first years I was an only child, then my sister came along. As you know, I went through my mother's time and went from having no responsibility to growing up quickly, seeing things from a different perspective.
At school I had changes that they did not see, because it is impossible. Nowadays, communication with teachers and the school is more fluid, but at that time it was not the same, everything that happened at home affected my character and my attitude.
That's why in what was important for my classmates, perhaps like playing or sports, for me it wasn't because I needed silence or reading.
Over the years, one of the methods that I love and I am totally in favor because I believe in it, and you can find it, is that of Howard Gardner and the multiple intelligences, who for this reason have been given a Prince of Asturias and Social Sciences award in 2011. His way of seeing the studies I follow them and I firmly believe in them.
I am a person who since childhood has had the ability to study what I like, but what I did not like I totally ignored. Of course, this was frustrating for some of my teachers. Which was logical. Later, with the situation at home, my parents educated me that while you don't have it clear, you have to work and study. I am very grateful to them, because that has made me try much harder and show myself and them that I really did and got what I really wanted.
In my house, as those of you who know me a little or have read something about me before will know, each of my parents think differently. One part believes in energies, intuitions, faith and the esoteric part and the other part was totally skeptical and did not believe anything. I respected it, but all it asked me was to talk about it at home, never outside, to study something that would help me support myself and have a future. After that, if we add to all that I am a little rebellious; my youth has not been easy.
And when I had really accepted that I would only dedicate myself or see everything esoteric, I had already seen him for a long time as he had been explaining
