I kept thinking about that article, and I want to share it with you. Here come my thoughts on this article.

The article says in a nutshell that with about 10,000 hours of practice, one can get to the top in their chosen discipline. That’s it. 10,000 hours of practice, and you get to genius level.

Sure, the article claims, both talent and luck are important too, but the most important criteria is just working hard.

Why is this so important? Simply put, it gives me a reason to continue to struggle for a better me. A lust for self-development, a dare for a better me, a hard work to become the professional that I need to be. All it takes is a lot of effort. That’s it.

What’s 10,000 hours? If one works about 8 hours a day, it would take an average worker about five years to get to 10,000 working hours.

But if you only count the time worked in a day, not travelling, not doing training, not doing networking, that period of time might increase.

On the other hand, if one works extra hours, in the evenings and week-ends, that period of time might also be a bit shorter.

But the bottom line is just great: there’s hope for getting there. One can get to genius level.

One can be a master in his domain with just about 10,000 of hours worked.

The news made me feel so good. How about you?

Contents of this blog post:
1. History of events
2. Implications into my life
3. What to do next?

Who was Nicolae STEINHARDT? See a page on Wikipedia for him, read some texts and see some photos on OrhodoxPhotos.com, if you speak Romanian there is also a blog on his texts.

1. History of events
The spring of 1999: I am in the yard of a high-school in Constanta, waiting for a regional contest for a subject in the curricula (if you were good at a specific subject, you could compete with fellow pupils from the County – “Olympiad” it was called). This was a few years I discovered Gala GALACTION, an Orthodox Christian writer I mostly admired for what it seemed to me was the closest resemblance to the Christian values. This implied a lot of fanatical/bigot values. I won’t get into too much details, but to me, at that time, Orthodoxy was merely a set of rules – living by those rules would make things right for me. If those rules meant breaking conventional wisdom – well, this is fine also. Gala GALACTION was the ultimate model in Orthodox life for me, nothing else ever existed.

So, I’m that yard, in a morning. I was talking with a girl I barely new, also from Navodari. She recommends me a Jew writer converted to Orthodoxy in the prison. He went through a lot of pain in the prison, the girl said, while he kept a lot of memories within himself. Later he wrote a journal, based on those memories. The person was Nicolae STEINHARDT, while his book was “Happiness Diary”. From this description I left with a poor impression. (Pain and torture in prison? Me to read a book on that?) But I had a very profound respect for her, so I decided to read the book.

It took me a while (more than a month, I think) to finish the projects I was involved (that meant mostly finishing to read some books), going to the high-school’s library, not finding the book, going again, nothing yet, going again. Finally the book was there, it was a bit old, pages were falling.

And I began reading. To my surprise, I really liked the writer’s style. Easy enough to understand most words, hard enough for me not to get any references (he often has mentions to I’ve-never-ever-heard-of-this-book-or-writer; and he has a lot of mentions like this), but most of all very intelligent book. Soon I was not reading the book, I was devouring it.

The concept of paradox, the new ideas, were all great. I would then understand the world through these variables. But what really struck me at that time was:
A. The brand new emphasis put on emotions; A true Orthodox should always be smiling; (tell that to Galaction, who’s love for a military-style life was obvious, and who on most pictures I saw back then seemed so frowned) And while politeness rules should be a minimum in life (my life wasn’t ruled by those at the beginning), the Christian life is much more than that – you should be much better than polite: love, care, help etc.; (this was also new to my style) The Pharisees were all about dogma and rules, but Christ, according to Nicolae STEINHARDT, was more than that – he dared to change conventional wisdom; All-in-all, it was very likely that I should put things in order a lot on the emotional part and leave some rules apart;
B. There is a only a small reference in the “Happiness Diary” regarding Gala GALACTION:
English: “Also be blessed father Gala Galaction for finding – even as a balance pan with two or three faces, as it was – for some of his books, titles with an wonderful echo: Bells of the Neamt Monastery, Near the Water of Vodislava, The Chief Cornerstone, The Small Church in Razoare” (titles translated with the help of Wikipedia) – translated by me from:
Romanian: “Blagoslovit fie si parintele Gala Galaction ca a gasit – asa taler cu doua sau trei fete cum a fost – pentru unele din cartile sale titluri cu minunat ecou: Clopotele manastirii Neamtu, Langa apa Vodislavei, Piatra din capul unghiului, Bisericuta din razoare.”;
Now this can be understood easy or hard; (to me it’s so hard that even today I can’t really tell what it means) But due to the logical construction of the phrase one can easy see that it has negative implications; (“Although Gala GALACTION is …, God should still bless him”) This got me into an all-or-nothing thinking: either Nicolae STEINHARDT is right on this point, and life is really nothing on dogma, and is mostly on love, or Nicolae STEINHARDT is all wrong and Gala GALACTION is the right model for me; I worked on solving this very troubling mystery for me and within a few weeks Nicolae STEINHARDT was the new person leading my life, while Gala GALACTION would get very far from me; So far that even today one of the basic criteria on which I analyze a Christian is on this level – “Are you putting religion so high that you get to be dogmatic?”; I’m sorry to say this, but besides Nicolae STEINHARDT (who I only knew in writing) and, in some part, Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI, no other person in this life is a relevant criteria in Orthodoxy; Putting the dogmatic filter upfront helps me clear things quite fast.

I reread The “Happiness Diary” in the summer of 2003. I reread it about two years after, in 2005. I was happy to see that I understand, as time went by, more and more of the references in the book. I was sad (for my part) to see that the percentage of what I knew compared to his knowledge is ridiculously small.

I also read two times (last time in the spring of 2007) “Through Giving You Shall Receive”, and that’s a very good book also.

I read once “Monologul polifonic” and “In the Manner of… Youths”, but they impressed me little.

2. Implications into my life
A. If you would have asked me in that spring of 1999, prior to the discovery of Nicolae STEINHARDT, when did my real Christian life begun, I would probably answer: in 1997; If you’d ask me now, I’d say that 1997-1999 were discovery years (the concept does not really apply to Orthodoxy; you can’t really discover God in two years; but this is how I see those years), while the period from that spring of 1999 and until today (11 years after) was mostly a time of what I perceive as Orthodoxy in my life;
B. How did things go after 1999 until today? I started loosening, more or less, most of the rules I made for myself; Right now I am tightening them a little (after more than 10 years!), but it’s still nowhere near what typical wisdom says on being a Christian; (things I do as a Christian are really atypical, from my perspective) See an analysis of the movie I love best – Le Notti di Cabiria – The best movie I’ve seen. The one movie I recommend seeing to anyone I know over 15 years of age. Go see it now! – and see for yourself if that’s an Orthodox perspective or not;
C. There are things that are easy to understand in Orthodoxy (“You shall not steal”), and there are things which are not simple; (ecumenical approach on religions) Whenever in doubt, my first thoughts go to Nicolae STEINHARDT;
D. I can say that I own only a few books: Nicolae STEINHARDT’s “Happiness Diary”, “Through Giving You Shall Receive”, “Nobleman articles” (I haven’t yet read this one), a few books by Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI (to be completed with the whole collection, or at least the books I can understand), and a book on Psychology – “Essentials of Understanding Psychology” (by Robert S. Feldman); I have a few books more, but my plan is not to keep them after I finish reading them; So, I really own quite a few books, and three of them are by Nicolae STEINHARDT; (I plan for a few more with or on him)
E. I once saw a show on Realitatea TV with Stelian TANASE and Mircea DINESCU; Mircea DINESCU suggested that Nicolae STEINHARDT should be sanctified; Stelian TANASE (who knew Nicolae STEINHARDT in person) replied “I agree”; A lot of thinking from my part on that small dialogue.

3. What to do next?
The “Happiness Diary” by Nicolae STEINHARDT is more than a book on religion. It’s a book on the condition of the human spirit. You may find it useful even if you understand it via a non-orthodox perspective. Thus, I recommend you to read two books by Nicolae STEINHARDT: the “Happiness Diary” and “Through Giving You Shall Receive”.

You can support Polirom‘s Publishing house initiative for publishing the entire series of works by Nicolae STEINHARDT by buying right from them.

First of all, you can find out more on Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI on Wikipedia.

So, what’s this blog post about?
1. How have I known Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI?
2. What does Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI mean to my life?
3. What’s in for you?

1. How have I known him?
I think it was the first year of study (2001-2002) at the faculty in Bucharest when I saw an announcement of a lecture by Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI in a seminar room of the University of Bucharest. I have never heard of him before, but it sounded interesting. I invited a friend a fellow room mate at the hostel to come with me, and he accepted. We both went to a room that soon became crammed with people (it was not a very large room; there were also people standing, due to the lack of room).

I remember just a few things from that meeting:
A. I noticed both I and my friend needed to know much more words in Romanian (today I understand what he says, but back then either he used more neologisms, or we knew too little);
B. At some point one woman in the back asked that Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI speaks louder, she couldn’t hear very well; Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI ignored her; The woman insisted; No reply; Yet she said the same thing; Nothing happened; And again she said the same thing, still no reply; I think that this was the reply by Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI to an aggression – refuse to accept that it exists; On the other hand, the woman may have been right, it was truly hard to hear something from the back of the room;
C. From time to time Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI used mathematical demonstrations and references to those; he even had mentions of Physics laws and equations; I graduated an Informatics high-school, was good at Physics in high-school and did some Mathematics at the University; I understood little to none of the things he spoke about in there; I wonder what some people with a formation in Literature understood; The basic idea behind this is simple: if people don’t have the required preparation to understand what you are saying (they should know Mathematics and Physics laws to be able to properly understand a demonstration based on these), then perhaps it’s better that you don’t bother on this, and still say what you wish to say, even if close to no one understands you; While this may be great in writing a philosophical book (he won’t want that a person that doesn’t understand neologisms to read his books), in Mathematics (if you don’t understand the basic signs behind an equation, leave that Mathematics book away), in real-life things get trickier; He might as well speak in Arabic, but why was he there? To speak to Literature-oriented persons about things in Science? A bit wrong;
D. At some point he referred to his hat, saying he must buy things, so he needs to buy products;
E. Back then, he made no joke, and to me the atmosphere seemed pretty stressful.

Here comes the second year of study (2002-2003). An international organization for students – AIESEC – kindly invites students to go to ACT Theater (in a room bellow ground). The subject of the conference was similar to this: Should we emigrate or have a patriotic behavior? I went in there with another of my friends and we had a lot of fun. The meeting was about emigration – should youngsters leave the country or not? Also invited were Adrian CIOROIANU and Neagu DJUVARA, while Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI was a moderator. What do I remember from this meeting?
A. You might think that if there were only two speakers, Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI would have said his own opinion on the subject; He avoided that, to my surprise, I couldn’t clearly understand what was his opinion on the subject; But I do remember the fact that at the end of the discussion Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI summarized the talks and said something similar to this: “Most people in Romania chose not to leave the country. You should pick the path of the majority, and chose a similar path”;
B. (related to A.) When summarizing things, I was shocked by the memory abilities of Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI; He summarized what each person said, he had all the observations said in that day in his mind; Nothing jotted down, and, as far as I observed, nothing was forgotten; All in the right order; I was stunned;
C. At some point one young person from the audience tried to impose its point of view; He was aggressive and reluctant to order; All that Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI was putting his right hand in a “Stop” position and ignore what the other person was saying; (and also sometimes intervening and not letting him speak)
D. Yet another person started arguing with one of the speakers in front; They used bad words, totally inappropriate; What happened next? The speaker made some sarcastic remarks on that bad-behaving person; At each remark Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI was laughing loudly, obviously supportive to the speaker; It was the first time I saw Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI laughing;
E. Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI said back then about a memory of his: he was in a bus, going to a workplace of his (Physics-related); He was talking the bus right from the starting point, and he was sitting; While reading a book by Lucian BLAGA – “The Mioritic Space”, he compared the things he was reading with the surrounding people in the bus and found a deep difference;
F. One of the speakers was confronted – Why does he write in history manuals (addressed to young pupils) only some things on the history past, hiding the complete facts; (for being disturbing) While the answer of the speaker was: “You can’t predict how the forming mind of a child can react to hearing hard truths”, Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI also addressed this question and said a thing similar to: “While philosophy books can be easily read by most people due to a similar language (philosophers communicate using common words), Mathematics books are largely inaccessible to the persons that can’t interpret mathematical conventions”; He went on to say that this is a similar relation to the history books; I think this also meant it was a good thing that common people can’t read Mathematics books;
G. The writer I analyze in this blog post considered that there are two kind of people in this worlds: some which consider that the fact that they were born within the borders of a country comes as a mere statistical probability (you have no connection to the land you were born on), while there are others for which the past matters a lot and live with an eye into the past.

In the summer of 2004, there was a conference organized by “Cuvantul” magazine, at the Central University Library of Bucharest. Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI’s role in here was to give arguments for and against another speech. I liked his speech more than the original speech. I also remembered seeing that Ioan T. MORAR also came to see the speech, and this made me feel good about things.

I then saw him at a conference again at the University of Bucharest. This time the room was much larger. The room was again crammed with people. I met Mihail NEAMTU in there, and Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI saluted him right into his speech. What struck me:
A. His ability to pick on (but in a kind way, joking about it) a large corporation he belonged to;
B. He also made fun (his style was obviously different by now) to a specific page in a magazine he was managing and writing in;
C. Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI had a fantastic way of making your mind go into structured worlds; He made us imagine things on different levels; (imagine Romania, Europe, world, go back) Very nice;
D. He had interesting observations on how different languages of the world (English, German and French were his examples) create different worlds for their writers; He argued (as far as I remember) that a book written in English is based on ideas and logical thoughts, in German you can easily go structured and rather rigid, while French language is perfectly suited for sarcasm; He even made us imagine how specific writers would write in a different language;
E. He excused himself for being late. (Although he left his office more than one hour earlier, the traffic jam was a big problem; This was the only time I saw him being late) He even promised to write his thoughts on traffic jams (which I would later read in an interview).

It was my birthday on 3rd of May 2007 when there was yet another conference by Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI, this time at one room at the Faculty of Philosophy. I went from work earlier and by the middle of the day I listened to another speech. I was impressed by these things:
A. At one point one person in the room said that she was recording things; Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI made a joke similar to this: “Oh, I must be then careful to what I’m saying, this is for the posterity”;
B. At some point, Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI made an observation: we are not ready to have a proper communication; (I forgot the actual example, but this was the main idea) One person in the room said she thinks practicing debate would be a good solution to this problem; (it was my idea also) To my surprise, she was contradicted by the writer; This solution, Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI said, doesn’t take into account the ability to say the right things; Sure, it may give you the means, but you still lack the basic ability to create a proper idea – you know how to say things, not what to say; Whoops, I was wrong also;
C. This meeting was soon after the last meeting at the University of Bucharest, and, to my surprise, at one point Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI touched my shoulder; (I was in the very first row and I think he recognized from last time) What can I say about this? I was touched;
D. He mentioned something about a soon-to-come-to-life web site; (which really happened; although not that soon)
E. He once had a doubt about a word and another one about a thing he has read; He promptly asked for help via a teacher at the Faculty that he knew, and to the audience; It felt good to see him trusting other persons;
F. I also remember him saying good things on some politicians in the early 1900s; He suggested we compare them with current politicians.

The last time I saw him was at the National Theatre in Bucharest. He held a conference: About the missed chances in history. What did I like?
1. He made jokes on the microphone synchronization; I felt much more comfortable hearing him at this conference;
2. He showed me he could hold a huge speech about a tough (to me at least) subject with no aiding materials; All in his mind; This really showed me I should read more things;
3. At a the beginning of the presentation Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI explained why he picked “Private researcher in the history of ideas” as a current occupation; (it once helped him to go into a French – I think – library)
4. It felt good that I understood the vast majority of words in the speech. (perhaps his style was different, not necessarily my skills improved)

I’ve also seen him speaking at some book fairs. (at one time at a small stand regarding Physics, with some small pupils, I think it was some sort of a Physics club)

From the ever-growing list of works by Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI, I have only read: “The Sky seen through the Lens” (three times) and “Politics” (one time). I also tried to read “The Recent Man” for three times, but never made it for more than 10 pages. (too complicated for my abilities to understand things) The reason for which I have read so few books written by him is simple: I can’t understand what he is saying. The last try to go for “The Recent Man” was a success (I could read 10 pages quite easily), but for many years I couldn’t understand a thing he wrote. So I stopped at books written early in his career, with lesser neologisms. I will read them all sometime. (there are some books which require preparation, like reading other books prior to his books)

But I have read all his articles on “Evenimentul Zilei” newspaper (he has a weekly article), some articles (but I plan to read them all) in a magazine by him (“Idei in dialog” magazine), and most interviews that are available on the Internet.

I have also seen quite a few of his shows on TVR Cultural – “Idei in libertate” and “Inapoi la argument”, live or on a PC.

2. What does Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI mean to my life?
To me, it is a landmark. I try to see the world as close as I can through his eyes. I really enjoy reading his articles, hearing him talk (live, on a CD or on a TV show), and it’s always a pleasure to understand what he means by one thing or another.

To what degree do I follow the things which he says? I think I do it so much that most of my economical views and modern-life issues are understood via what I think is his perception. For example, staying in Romania is a definite answer for me due to the opinions of Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI on the subject.

I try to follow Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI’s opinions on Orthodoxy (he’s a self-declared Orthodox Christian), economy (he likes Libertarian measures), and life (I think he appreciates, among other things, politeness; but it’s much more than that).

3. What’s in for you?
I suggest finding some books and articles on him, in whatever language you find suitable. If you can hear him speaking, you might want to fight the impediment of hard-to-understand words and do your best to hear him speaking. You can find a list of his books in Romanian on his Wikipedia page. He also has a few shows he made in the past years on TVR web site. You can see some videos with him, some of which are controversial, on YouTube. But, in the end, I do recommend you to read things about him, see him, listening him (he even has audio books), or watching him live.

Here’s the official announcment of this job title (I just formatted the text):

“We at Lionbridge www.lionbridge.com are continuing to work to improve the quality and recognition of languages by expanding our collection of data (emails, reports (articles, thesis, and college reports), letters and blogs) to help develop language tools e.g. spell checker and increase the word count for your language. To do this, we are collecting data from many people world-wide.

To check if you qualify please answer the following questions:

• Do you write and save your sent emails in your native language?
• Do you write or maintain a personal blog?
• Are you in college in college and write / save your draft reports?
• Are you a journalist and save your draft articles?
• Are you interested in earning additional money on work already completed?

If you have answered yes to any of the above questions, then congratulations! You have passed the first step of qualification. Please contact datacol.bal@lionbridge.com  and we will help you to find out more details and provide you with out FAQ. All replies must be returned in English please.”

So, if you qualify, you know what to do. Let me give you a few hints on Lionbridge:
1. From my experience, they are a serious employer, they will pay you for you results, no question asked; they are assertive, and will provide you with technical help;
2. I don’t think they’d compromise their image, so your data is pretty much secure;
3. You should choose carefully if you wish to enter the program for email data; the emails must have been written by you, they can’t be text that are found easily on the Internet;
4. You should especially adhere to this program if you have a large quantity of emails written personally by you; the payment is proportional with the amount of emails you have;
5. (if you’re a Romanian reading this) Romanian-language specific characters (ăîâşţ) are not a must, but they are preferred.

Having read all these, I wish you best of luck if you decide to apply for this program.

What’s this blog post about?
1. What’s the basis for comparison?
2. Who is Nigel RISNER?
3. History of events (how I’ve known him)
4. Why do I consider Nigel RISNER to be great?
5. What I’d focus on more if I were Nigel?
6. Get Nigel to motivate you!

1. What’s the basis for comparison?
In most of my college years (four in total), and while working as a freelancer (one year) I’ve been involved in a quite a large number of activities which involved public speaking (other than formal education). I have even created a mailing list dedicated to such events, where I informed my readers. I’ve been a member of two NGOs, and basically I have been always interested in hearing someone speaking. You might want to note the fact that the “trainers” category of professionals I recommend is the largest one (three persons I recommend are trainers). So I can compare Nigel RISNER with quite a few other speakers.

2. Who is Nigel RISNER?
First of all, Nigel RISNER is not only a motivational speaker, but also an author and television presenter. You can find out more about him on his web site. I especially likea nice article of Nigel’s that can be downloaded in a PDF about “Nigel’s top 10 tips for primary business champions”. Good to know.

Luckily, I can show you three live performances of Nigel in front of an audience. First, there’s a brief Ecademy Presentation. Then, there’s a larger presentation on a Ecademy Power Network Meeting (December 2006). To see it, you have to go to the members’ area, after you first register on his web site. Finally, you can view Nigel in a TV show on UK’s Channel 4 “Richard & Judy Show” (it was broadcasted in February 2004). You can see by watching his performances if what I say bellow is right or not.

3. History of events (how I’ve known him)
In October 18, 2007, at the Howard Johnson Hotel in Bucharest, HR Club (see HR Club web site) organizes a conference on “Aligned at Top: the Strategic Promise of the Human Resources”. I had the role of an observer and to be of little help to the organizers (“little” being the right word here). The day starts, the presentations keep on coming, then there’s a cool workshop, a third break. It was 6 PM, the conference day begun at 9:30 AM, and some of the persons went home. But at 6 PM it was time for Nigel RISNER’s training: “How to Create IMPACT as an HR Partner”, and those persons may have lost an opportunity.

Anyhow, in general I am not impressed by a training itself. I go to a training, I may like the way the trainer reacts (like with Jim BAGNOLA), I may like the way the trainer involves the audience (such as Ana-Maria CORLAN), but to actually like the things the trainer says – that’s rare (also rare are the first two examples). So it’s quite unusual for me to be impressed by the actual words. Nigel used in his training three things: verbal communication (it was great; I will present it below; it’s the only training I want to present from everything I’ve seen so far), motivating games (I like them all, but I won’t present any – it spoils the surprise; they are also not so motivating to me; finally, you can view some of them on the videos on his web site), and finally funny clips (I consider ads, and some funny clips to be some of the greatest things one can see on TV or sites like YouTube; but generally speaking an ad and a funny clip is not that of a great thing; I can’t say I didn’t like the clips Nigel presented, it’s just that a clip by itself is not very entertaining to me).

So Nigel starts in a very energetic way, noted that it’s a bit late and even offered tips on how to make the session shorter (so he motivated the audience in a rather unusual way – something like “Let’s keep this short, shall we?”; thus he accepted that his training may be boring to some; it takes guts to say that) .

One of the first things he said fascinated me: how long can a person pay attention? You can see this blog post of mine to understand why attention is important to me. He said that children can pay attention for 37 minutes, while adults only for 20 minutes (this should contradict the bad remark that some successful businessmen of, say, 30 have the intelligence of a 5-years-old).

He then redefined feed-back. To Nigel feed-back is not actually feed-back, but much rather a feed-forward. An observation on one’s activity should only bring the person in a better place: forward.

I noted that Nigel RISNER talked with pauses between sentences (so you have time to recap the last sentence). He put a lot of questions, to keep the awareness level high (I think).

One of the most influential affirmations on the workshop to me: you go to a conference, there are some good presenters, some bad presenters. How do you give feed-back? Is it OK to just use the feed-back form that some event organizers provide? No, it’s much better, Nigel said, to give feed-back in person. I generally considered that a speaker’s time, even after the persentation ended, is much more important than mine, so I almost never gave personal feed-back. Hey! If Nigel says it’s like this, I should do it (I think Nigel has one of the most expensive cost-per-hour of the persons I’ve met; if he’s a successful trainer, and if he says that one should give personal feed-back, then yes, I really should do it). And for the next months, at each presentation I went I gave positive feed-back (including reasons) whenever possible (I won’t wait at a long line of persons wanting to talk to you just to say you were great and why). I didn’t gave negative feed-back, because it’s hard to change anything since most of the time it can be resumed in a few words: “You are boring me” (I can give some easier-to-change motives, but still these things are not easy to be said and the results are not always for the best).

What did he focus on next? (here comes shock again) Awareness. This is yet another text of mine presenting why awareness is important to me. He noted that while everybody is in the room physically, not everybody is focused on what’s happening.

Again he says something on attention: if you write the texts in the conference (like I was doing), you are likely not to pay attention on the speech itself. This hugely challenged my previous knowledge on this: you retain just a few things while watching television, more things if you read texts, and even more things if you read texts and take notes in the same time. I tried to be aware on the “don’t take notes on conferences, just be involved” affirmation on his seminar and, to my amazement, he was right. Unfortunately, I can’t apply this knowledge to other conferences. My mind easily gets away. I do note just when interested by something, I don’t just note every word I hear.

To make things more enjoyable, he used some funny videos (as funny as a video can be – which is not that funny, to me) .

He made a quick game on awareness (very cool game).

Nigel also presented a way to handle the “I don’t know” answer. He said that if someone tells you so, you can say “If you would know the answer, what it would be?”

Then a new game on why are people afraid of acting.

At one point he says: “I’ve worked in prisons. I know some familiar faces in here.” Also a text similar to this: “After they are 12, people are responsible for their faces” (by Abraham LINCOLN, referring to people smiling). Also: “You’re either in tense, or in past tense”.

Another game was aimed on positive thinking effect on muscles.

From time to time he said “Does this make sense?”

He ended with: “When all is said and done, more is said than done”.

4. Why do I consider Nigel RISNER to be great?
1. When his presentation begun, it took him just a few seconds to get people’s attention; Everything, and I mean everything, on his training had attention-helpers: lots of questions, energetic speaking, provocative affirmations, humor, interaction, audience involvement, call for action, clips; I have yet to participate in a training where my focus was so intense; Everything else being equal, after a workshop you hold on to memories where you were most involved;
2. The subject he picked were of very high interest to me – attention, awareness, human action, positive thinking, even human resources;
3. The training took about 35 minutes. I don’t think I ever changed so many patterns of thinking in such a short time frame;
4. Good humor;
5. (related to 4.) Good logic & intelligence;
6. I left the seminar with the impression that he honestly wanted to help the people around him (due to his actions); It was not all a brand image, he actually applied what he thought was right.

5. What I’d focus on more if I were Nigel?
First of all, I want to present you a small text:
“The shaper is a task-focused leader who abounds in nervous energy, who has a high motivation to achieve and for whom winning is the name of the game. The shaper is committed to achieving ends and will ‘shape’ others into achieving the aims of the team. He or she will challenge, argue or disagree and will display aggression in the pursuit of goal achievement. Two or three shapers in a group, according to Belbin, can lead to conflict, aggravation and in-fighting.” This is from the Belbin Team Inventory page on Wikipedia. I am familiar with the characteristics of the shaper, because it best defines me.

One of Nigel RISNER’s advices (other than people should smile, which he didn’t seem to do) was to be comfortable with a state of discomfort.

I can’t say wether Nigel is a Shaper (according to the Belbin test) or not. I will say that on the single conflict in the workshop (a man didn’t like a personal joke on him), Nigel said: “Do you think I came all the way from UK to argue with you?” (so even in a conflict, he still challenged the situation). I will also say that although it was the best learning experience I’ve had, I’m not sure everybody in the room felt fine with being provoked.

So, if I were Nigel, I’d just be aware on the fact that shaping others leads to discomfort. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, just something to be aware of.

6. Get Nigel to motivate you!
On his contact page on nigelrisner.net web site, you find information like phone, email, contact form, fax and postal address.

You should first check the services page on nigelrisner.net web site, to see what Nigel can do.

What impression did this blog post left on you? Please leave a comment below.