(Anonymous source) Apart from the obvious military context, this aphorism separates effort from dignity, and achievement from character. Stripes come from action: the long hours, the discipline, the grind that nobody sees but everybody benefits from.Sweat leaves a visible trace. It is measurable. It is the world of deliverables, tasks, and results. Honour, instead, belongs … Read more
Today I had an enjoyable discussion with a technical partner.We spent quite some time on a single theme: how to earn clients’ trust, how to move beyond standard market rules, how to build a new international venture together.It was a pleasant exchange because we were aligned on the guiding principles and on one essential point: … Read more
(Inspired by Bruce Horovitz,“10 Subtle Signs That You Are Ready to Retire”,Wall Street Journal, 19 November 2025) We always imagine a dramatic moment of revelation, a thunderbolt from above announcing: it is time.In reality, for most of us, no epiphany ever arrives.What we do receive are small messages, discreet yet insistent. Tiny yellow lights blinking … Read more
Money cannot buy happiness… but cannoli can, and you can buy those.
And this is where philosophy meets pastry-making.
Because, while it is true that happiness cannot be found on supermarket shelves, it is equally true that some simple pleasures have surprising power: they lift your mood, lighten your day and melt away accumulated tension.
I went to my long-time barber the other day.
I did not have his phone number, so I asked for it.
As I was saving it on my mobile, I asked for his surname.
“John… and your surname?”
He looked at me with perfect seriousness:
“Barber.”
“No, your actual surname.”
Each man lives to rise or fall before the challenges set in his path. Fate brings trials; it is reason and will that must respond.To rise is not triumph, nor is to fall disgrace.What matters is how we endure the test. And we must take care:“He who fights with monsters must be careful not to … Read more
Today I learnt something simple and hard: when a discussion slips into a clash of identities, reason switches off.
We are no longer talking about ideas; we are defending tribes.
At that point you waste time and, worse, you risk losing the friend.
Why it happens
Bias and identity.
If an idea is glued to the ego, any argument feels like a personal attack.
Flexibility helps us negotiate and grow, but at times it slips into yielding and, with it, the renunciation of what defines us.
Flexibility is a means, not an end: it is useful until it touches the core of principles — truth, safety, dignity, legality. Beyond that line, to bend is not intelligence, it is abdication.
Reputation, built over years and lost in a minute, lives precisely on this boundary.