About the Author

My life experience is part of this book—the learnings I offer come from my life. I present my background as a professor and my academic background. PhD in Business from IESE (University of Navarra), studied philosophy at Oxford, and studied Psychology at Harvard.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
About the author, I am Spanish, born in 1956.

(00:05):
I spent the first twenty years of my life in the Canary Islands.
I live for a year in Venezuela than in the United States.
And finally moved to Barcelona to pursue a master's degree in business administration
at IESE, University of Navarra.
Soon after graduating, I started work at an investment bank.
Subsequently, I spent a year working for the autonomous government of the Canary Islands,

(00:30):
and seven years as the financial director of a multinational in the tourism sector.
I eventually quit my job as an executive to pursue a PhD in economics and business administration at IESE.
In 1999, I was offered a position at a new business school in Shanghai, China.
And since 2000, I worked as a professor of leadership at the China-Europe International Business School, www.ceibs.edu.

(00:59):
I eventually retired as a professor in 2022.
In 2011 and 2012, I was a research fellow at Harvard University's John Kennedy School of Public Administration.
Two of my children were born in Boston.
During that time, I studied psychology at Harvard.
I want to mention Dr. Elizabeth Beig-Fraetz, M.D., a professor at Harvard Medical School.

(01:24):
She specializes in lifestyle medicine and is known for her work promoting physical activity and healthy nutrition
to combat and prevent chronic diseases.
As a leader in the field of wellness and disease prevention, she has authored several books and articles on the subject.
I had her as my professor at Harvard, where her course on lifestyle medicine made a real impact on me.

(01:48):
In addition, she was my thesis advisor.
I went on to work with her at Harvard Spalding Rehabilitation Center with a group of stroke survivors.
My job was to study the impact of Dr. Fraetz therapy on their recovery process.
These survivors had their lives disrupted by the stroke.
Their challenge was to create a new life after the stroke, a new purpose.

(02:12):
I learned a lot from Elizabeth, and I want to thank her for being an excellent teacher and human being.
She does what she preaches.
I also completed accreditation in a positive psychology program led by Tal Ben Sahar,
and an accreditation program in mindfulness for stress reduction led by John Kabat-Zinn.

(02:33):
My other activities are related to meditation and Buddhism.
I attended a month-long meditation retreat at the Insight Meditation Society located in Bari, Massachusetts.
I also did a period of meditation at Tufu Jima Zen Monastery in Kyoto, Japan.
I recently completed my philosophy studies at the University of Oxford.

(02:55):
Lately, taking advantage of the free time that being retired gives me, I travel to different countries worldwide.
I have published several travel books about my experiences in those countries.
Retirement can be a very satisfying stage of a person's life, obviously.
If health is good, and there is a certain economic stability,
my goal throughout my life has been to take advantage of the opportunities I find along the way and be prepared for them.

(03:23):
I know that one day my end will come, as it does for everyone,
but until then I want to make the most of all the good things in life.
The most important thing for me is that when I get to my end,
I want to be able to look back and say,
I did the best I could, I can't complain.
I want to share with you in this book my experience and the knowledge I have gained during my life journey.

(03:45):
I hope with all my heart that my personal experience and journey will help you live a full life.
This book grew out of a course that I taught for more than five years at my university, CEIBS.
Initially, it consisted of a few reflection sessions that I offered as part of another course.
Over time, this content grew into a two-day standalone course.

(04:09):
The students in these courses have been between the ages of 30 and 50.
Some were close to retirement.
The years spent teaching the course have allowed me to adapt the content based on their feedback.
For this reason, this book is practical and avoids any technicalities.