Temper – ElPropósito6 min de lectura

The calm strength that clears a path

Sundays carry a special weight. For many people they mark the threshold between rest and the storm that Monday brings. It’s often a day tinged with anxiety, with the mind already racing through the demands of the week ahead. That’s why I write on Sundays: it turns the run-up to a stressful week into time for reflection and strength. Rudyard Kipling’s poem "If" traces a path for this, especially for those who lead: business owners, team heads, visionaries who carry their own purpose and other people’s too. Kipling describes someone who keeps a cool head when everything is shaking, who trusts himself when doubts surround him. For a leader, the lesson is plain: purpose doesn’t fade on restless Sunday nights or in Monday’s trials.

The poem presents triumph and disaster as impostors, an idea that echoes in leadership. Anyone who runs a company or a team knows that days of victory can deceive as much as days of defeat. A sunny Sunday, with plans aligned and goals met, sometimes hides subtle traps. A gray Sunday, with problems piling up and an uncertain Monday ahead, weighs like a heavy shadow. Kipling points to a purpose that rises above those swings. For a leader, temper is the ability to keep success from going to your head and failure from dragging you down, with your eyes on the mission, on the spark that led them to start a business or take the reins. Monday’s decisions, and the whole week’s, grow out of how Sunday puts that inner focus in order.

To dream without making dreams your master, to think without making thoughts your aim: that is how Kipling describes a balanced life. For someone who leads a team, Sundays aren’t theirs alone. They’re a canvas for imagining the future of the people who depend on that vision. Purpose goes beyond the big strategies sketched in the quiet of the weekend. It also lives in the small decisions Monday brings: how you respond to your team, how you face the unexpected. A leader’s temper shows in that tension between dreaming and doing, between setting the course and adapting to change. On Sunday, Monday’s chaos starts to take shape and becomes clear.

To "fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run" paints a scene any leader will recognize. Sunday, with its mix of calm and urgency, embodies that unforgiving minute: a moment when priorities line up before Monday’s clock starts turning without pause. Whoever runs a company knows the value of every second: a pending call, an email that sets the tone for the week, a gesture that holds the team together. In hard times, when results are scarce or pressures pile up, that minute stretches like an eternity. In good times, it slips by fast, almost unnoticed. Kipling evokes someone who masters time and turns it into a reflection of his vision, whatever Monday may bring.

The poem also portrays someone who risks everything on one turn and, on losing, starts again without complaint. For a leader, this reflects a constant reality: betting on an idea, a project or a team while knowing failure is lurking. Sunday offers a space to weigh those bets and consider the next step. When plans collapse, the temptation of self-pity or blame shows up, yet Kipling praises the one who lets go of the past and rebuilds with what is left. A business owner finds his temper in that ability to get back up and lead the team forward after a stumble. Purpose accepts risk, and Sunday is a good day to remember it.

In times of abundance, when success seems to settle in, the poem warns of the danger of arrogance. Kipling draws someone who walks with kings without losing the common touch, a figure of humility and roots. For a leader, a Sunday of triumph brings its own test: everything works, the team is moving forward, the numbers add up. Purpose means letting those victories lift the people around you. A leader’s temper goes beyond the personal and becomes collective, growing stronger as it brings the team, the partners and the clients into that vision. Sunday grounds that abundance and shapes it into something beyond ego.

Finally, "If" promises that by embodying these virtues, "yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it". He means inner fullness, a life true to its purpose, far beyond anything you can own. For a leader, Sunday is more than the prelude to Monday. It reflects who he is, beyond what he does. In storms or in calm, in failure or in success, temper builds a bridge toward that promised land: a full life, a united team, a company that embodies a vision. Sunday, with its weight and its stillness, reminds us that purpose is the compass for whatever Monday brings.

Warm regards and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

P.S. I dedicate this post to all the people from whom I have learned, above all, their temper and their way of looking at life in any circumstance. A hug with all my appreciation, affection and admiration.

"If" by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings, nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And, which is more, you’ll be a Man, my son!

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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