Before starting to write this Foreword I have to make a statement of interest. I am an admirer of Richard Swallow for many years. So, dear reader, I can not be sufficiently impartial. I do not know if that is what is expected of someone who writes these lines beforehand, but when in doubt, already. I will not be impartial. I have known Richard for several years. The Web was still far, he likes so much, knew him as one of the most brilliant handball players I have ever met. Never had he heard of my name and I was already a fan. But even a fan. I liked the elegance of intelligence, but above all, the energy he put in each game action. It was always a pleasure to see athletes as well. Because I always believed that anyone who is so "full" the play will certainly be in life. I was not wrong. This book is good proof of that. Moreover, to quote a few sentences demonstrate this using his work. Here's the first: "I can only say that this book was an act of love." No wonder that Ricardo make every act of his life, an act of love. He did so as an athlete high-performance, do it now in your professional life. If you read the pages that follow, quickly realize that this book is a collection of strategies that could help us to decipher some of our equations of life because, or not put all the variables under study, or because they do not understand. And this book helps us to think in an orderly manner, "step by step." Later on, the author says "I love you to experience only 50% of the confidence with which I face life's challenges, be they old or new challenges." Who is indifferent to such a statement? Of course, who does not know the author, you can understand this statement as another raid today in what is conventionally called "motivational speeches". I must be honest, always suspicious of these new "evangelists" who, for want of better occupation, earn a living to motivate others by drawing on hidden forces that only they say they have. This is not the case of Ricardo. He speaks because he felt, felt, lived and lives that inner strength amply demonstrated throughout his career.
FOREWORD
by Joseph Smith - Professor of Physiology at the Faculty of Sport - University of Porto
