Chocolate

I hope you understand my last post. Yes, I have worked for a month in a chocolate factory and shop in Lisbon and I'll continue to work there on Saturdays. I'm going to follow its project as I think it has everything to succeed. 

Hot Chocolate

This shop is called As Marias com Chocolate and it has the best Hot Chocolate in Lisbon in the winter months and the best Lemonade in summer. They also make sweets and candies, cakes, biscuits and milkshakes.

This was an idea of two of the best artisan confectioners of chocolate: Carmo Vasconcellos and Pedro Duarte. Both have graduated in Estoril Higher Institute of Hotel Management and Tourism and both have worked on some of the best restaurants in Lisbon like Michelin-star Porto de Santa Maria Restaurant or Bica do Sapato Restaurant. 

1 year ago they started this project from scratch. No help from big companies or industries just chocolate in its purest way, all made in the shop, all artisan chocolate made with Belgian Callebaut chocolate.

The shop is situated in Mercado de Santa Clara. If you are in Lisbon or planning to come this is the place to go.

Delicious!

December

Life is made of experiences. And last month a single afternoon (reported on the last post) changed my life.

Nothing better than the main pics to show what happened.

Here they are:


This Wednesday I will start something completely different: I will begin an internship in Economics in Lisbon that lasts until June 2012.

Have a great 2012! Enjoy life!

What an afternoon

I had a Friday afternoon with a friend and it was really fun

The best way to show it is with pics:

Nuno Barros - One of the most innovative Portuguese Chefs

Chocolate Mousse Cake

Fear of failure

A friend asked me if she should talk more about her successes or her failures in her blog. That's why today I am writing this post.

It is given too much importance to the fear of failure.

In fact, fear of failure serves as an excuse too often. For example, if we work for someone, most of the times, the cost of failure is absorbed by the company and not by us.

In my opinion, people are not afraid to fail. It's blame. Criticism.

We prefer not to be bright because we are afraid of criticism. We hesitate to create innovative movies, launch new initiatives in human resources, design a menu with dishes that give the views, or make bold statements because, deep down, we hate and fear that someone might call us to account.
"This is the biggest stupidity I have ever heard!", "What a waste of money" "Who is responsible for this?"

Sometimes the criticism don't need to be so obvious. The fear of hearing something like "I find it strange that they released until they have done further research" is enough to kill an idea that might even be good.

Or even just listening to someone being criticized for fear to settle.

I admit. When I receive a bad review, it bothers me. It would be good to always hear good things. But it doesn't happen.


But this is not bad at all. Like this people notice what I did or what I said. Some people like it. Others hate it.

A bad review does not spoil my day because I realized what an honor it is to receive a critique, whatever it is. It means I've frustrated the expectations of someone. This means, in reality, I did something that was worth comment.

The lesson is simple: the attitudes, products and ideas that are spoken are the ones that are worth being discussed.

More food please

Why do people eat too much?

Today I bring you some psychological reasons people eat too much.

Food is no longer just food. We mix food with security and love and sometimes we say we eat with our eyes.

People have some trouble to find when it's the best time to stop eating and when their no longer hungry.

I have the same problem. We usually don't rely on my stomach but on all sorts of external cues, from the size of our plate or the habits of others around us (many kids that are obese come from overweight families). If the size of the plate is two times bigger from our usual plate we don't care and eat everything plus the dessert.

In behavioural economics I have been studying many psychologist' papers and many of them have papers about our necessity to eat so much. (I'm not writing the references but if you need I can share them with you) . The main conclusion of these papers: people depend on how much others give them and larger sizes causes them to eat more.

But what drives people to order bigger portions when they know it isn't healthy for them?

Many psychologists have found people are guided by social status. Bigger portions a desire to signal status.

Think of all the cultural norms that associate larger products with increased status, from the screen size of televisions to the size of our houses. And plus it's more prestigious to have one TV for each room even though we don't watch TV at all at home.

Interesting to note that in experiments where people were said they had less power they would eat more than other people with more power but when told they were in a prestigious event they would eat less than those with power.

"The larger point is that we don’t just eat to fill the void in our belly. Instead, we eat excessively to fill all sorts of empty spots, one of which is a chronic lack of status." by Jonah Lehrer

Curiosity: the number of people worldwide who are dangerously overweight has now exceeded the number who are undernourished.

One day on Earth

So many different cultures, lifestyles, countries, people, all filmed in one day gives this video:

Always...

...take your time to Try.

You shouldn't do this way:

But think this way:

“Fear of failure must never be a reason not to try something."