A. Day 1

Some pictures:

Monica BRÂNDUŞESCU – event moderator
(HotNews.ro, Blog, LinkedIn, Twitter – protected)

George IVAŞCU – About the fear of being yourself
(Metropolis theater, Port.ro, Cinemagia)
- What’s the risk of technology? Solitude / alienation;
- I’m a failed physicist; My failure went into being an actor;
- life is like an electrocardiogram – it has lots of pulses, and, in the end, they’re the ones that matter most;
- a theory Alfred ADLER: man is born free;
- all our lives we find out about our limits – “You are not allowed to …”, “You shouldn’t …”, “You mustn’t …”;
- (a definition from a student of his) monologue is not what you say, but what you can’t hold within you anymore;
- Our focus should be on:
a. What? Why? – the subject, rather than on:
b. How? – the method for getting to the subject;
- strength comes from being you, rather than wearing masks;
- we are the fruits of our own thoughts;
- there few major events in your life;
- What is art? To enrich the beauty in yourself;
- love is not chemistry, it is alchemy, it transforms you; sure, there is some chemistry too, but you should focus on the alchemy;
- acting with power is a different thing than acting with force;
- E = m*c² in real life is translated into: m = our bodies; 1^st c = our heart; 2^nd c = our mind;
- (citation) actors are sculptors in snow;
- for one year he has seen classes from other teachers, only after this he taught;
- there are two ways to reference to the world:
a. Egocentric – everything is done from you;
b. Institution – you are an NGO into a capitalist world;
- all our lives we are children; we need stories; Pro TV won audiences because it told stories;
- I can’t give advices, I can only tell you that I do this or I don’t do this;
- Not having enough money? That’s good!
- today we try to build capitalism with communist tools;
- we have forgotten the meaning of words; we communicate with expressions;
- equilibrium is the key to harmony;
- any kind of excess leads to problems;
- I watch these on TV:
a. News;
b. Discovery channel, History Channel; I think their ratings are increasing;
- a current trend in Romania is soap opera – Why? Because it tells you a story (no comment on the quality of this);
- an actor has the ability of being a permanent child;
- there is no such thing as “You must do …”;
- invitation to Metropolis Theater;
- there are no ugly or beautiful persons; it’s all on how you imagine things; our imagination is very active;
- try to make fun of bad things to overcome obstacles;
- a role has, at its roots, a meaning of vocation / aim – these are more important;
- a character is a mask / a form;
- a person dies when no one speaks about him;
- Romanians still tend to buy, rather than invest;
- (quote) Follow your dream!

Irina WAGNER – The story of the passion for art transformed into a success brand: Wagner – beautiful arts and fairytales
(Wagner Arte, LinkedIn, Facebook)
- it’s great to be very good into your own field;
- although there is a general image we have about our client, the people that usually buy from our store are very different;
- there is little competition in our field;
- branding helped our business a lot;

Radu TUDORACHE- Investment into spirituality
(Montero, Money Express interview)
- I went to a College of Mathematics;
- “Each day we must be able to conquer the ideal” (Arsenie PAPACIOC);
- spirituality is something practical;
- personal development is done through other people;
- it’s impossible to change the population as a whole;
- there are four levels into someone’s life (like a pyramid):
a. Spiritual;
b. Rational;
c. Psychological;
d. Physical;
- on the physical level, there are:
a. fasting;
b. some form of prayers;
c. positions during the church services;
d. pilgrimages;
- Way of St. James is the pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain;
- on the psychological level:
a. Having a confessor:
i. as a partner in life;
ii. Giving psychological advices;
iii. Knowing the personal / family history;
b. integrating into community;
- there are some very good monasteries in the North of Oltenia: Frăsinei, Bistriţa, Dintr-un Lemn, Iezer, Pătrunsa;
- on a rational level:
a. reading the Church Fathers implies using the mind;
b. recommended reading: Mistagogia by Saint Maxim the Confessor;
c. Gregory the Dialogist has some very good writings: The Rule for Pastors;
- on the spiritual level:
a. Regular praying;
b. Praying whenever necessary;
c. The Seven Sacraments, around which life is centered;
d. Communion with the saints;

Monica TATOIU – Consistency – the enemy of failure
(Oriflame, CV , video interview on Capital)
- I always feel the need to provide examples to what I’m saying;
- when you make a choice, you also assume the responsibilities that derive from it, not only the rights;
- extra authority and rules are not a solution for a better society;
- you have to determine your competitive advantage;
- How can one do personal development?
a. Readings;
b. Being informed also about the fields that you don’t value as much;
- in life you don’t necessarily do the things that you like;
- life is hard;
- you can develop competency by working, not by studying things at school;
- the job for which you prepare in school is not really the job that you’ll end up doing;
- NGOs are launching pads for wise guys; NGOs do great in the US, not that good in Romania;
- you should first focus on your own development, only after this you should care about the persons around you;
- Five life principles:
a. Knowledge doesn’t mean information; the Internet is the biggest weapon through which the new generation is being brainwashed; knowledge is a state, while information is sequential;
b. You should be consistent in winning competencies;
c. You should have convergence – focus on one direction only;
d. Family is important; marriage is a bilateral partnership with rights and obligation and force majeure; The role of the family? To transmit to the new generations the values of the society that generated that family;
e. Belief in a spirit;
- next year, starting with January, the economy will be awful;
- Why should you work in a multinational company?
a. Very clear rules;
b. It is a very large organization;
c. There is a procedures’ manual;
d. There are financial reporting systems;
e. Flowcharts? Yes!
- if you join a certain system, you will learn very good procedures;
- there are bits & pieces you can only appreciate in a multinational company;
- in December 2009 the expenses for Christmas, the bad weather of the winter of 2009-2010 and the end of elections will cause large layoffs in the State system; Why? IMF (International Monetary Fund);
- recommended reading: “Ada or Ardor: a family chronicle” by Vladimir NABOKOV;
- recommended reading: “Clair de femme” by Romain GARY;

Delia BURNHAM – Authenticity and honesty – the secret to professional fulfillment
(CVO Recruitment, LinkedIn)
- I run CVO Recruitment Romania;
- we do specialized recruitment services;
- Why am I in Romania? I wanted to experience another culture;
- the CV (Curriculum Vitae) is not the only thing that matters;
- When you write a CV, you should take into account:
a. Relevancy to the job;
b. Write it correctly;
c. Think of it this way: “What does my CV says about me?”;
- Two types of CVs:
a. General CV;
b. A CV custom made for a job;
- the work experience itself is more important than volunteering;
- Romanian hasn’t yet seen the worst part of the crisis;
- How can you find out things about a company prior to getting hired in there:
a. Ask the recruiting company;
b. Talk to present day employers within the company;
c. Search the Net;
d. Ask some friends (with caution, due to the fact that they’ll emphasis only certain aspects);
e. Read / search the press (but filter the information well);
f. (my suggestion) DespreFirme.com;
- at the interview, top questions should include clarification on the job itself;
- a thing that matters a lot is what you want for yourself;
- unforgivable errors: orthography errors in official documents (not only CVs);
- What’s the process of hiring someone?
a. Long list of candidates;
b. CV filtering;
c. Phone interviews;
d. Face-to-face interviews;
e. Short list for clients;
f. Company interviews (from one to five);
- interviews are crucial to the selection process;
- ideally, employers wouldn’t need to pose trick questions, they are to be avoided;
- you should study things for your own pleasure, but you should pick with great care the value of the things you learn;
- about Master Degrees, think about it this way:
a. Do they bring real value?
b. Is it only a diploma?
- if you wish to get a job to McKinsey Europe, you’d better have an MBA;
- still, there are jobs with flexible approaches;
- what you mostly need in a CV: good job performance;
- rather than doing an MBA, you should consider reading books; still, if you find an MBA with good value – you should take classes at that MBA;
- more important than the knowledge is what you can prove you can do;
- the approach theory – work experience is different now in Romania, but in time this will change;
- recruiting managers may not have the time to see hundred of applications; Reason for this:
a. It’s a crisis, little time for recruiting;
b. A lot of employees randomly apply to a lot of jobs; (and there is a correlation between a. and b.)
- It’s very appropriate to have a direct approach:
a. You should contact the companies;
b. Contact employers on social networks;
c. Directly contact the recruiters – HR (human resources) managers;
d. For a small company, you could even contact the general manager;
- some major multinational companies may have rigid procedures into recruiting;
- there are also companies that don’t appreciate the direct approach;
- Regarding asking for a salary at the interview:
a. Try to be as informed as possible about the salary range for your position;
b. If there is a new field and you don’t know the salaries, you should tell the truth: “I don’t know how much to ask”;
- There are differences between:
a. Large multinational companies (they generally have salary ranges);
b. Small companies (very flexible, but you will have problems asking for salaries much higher than those of the rest of the team);
- if, at an interview, you have a physical problem (you feel sick), you should state that and maybe ask for a second interview;
- it’s important to have a relaxed attitude at an interview;
- it’s great to know yourself – what you like about life, what you do with passion, what you’re good at;
- You’re a company, a freelancer, an artist? That’s fine! Just be authentic; (very difficult to do)
- 75% of the time at work you should be happy;

Daniela FUGARU-KAMMRATH – Be your dream!
(121.ro, Radio Lynx, Green Report interview, LinkedIn)
- what motivates you in life?
- a lot of the questions that seem to have no answer, in reality they do have an answer, we’re just afraid to express it;
- These are permanent questions:
a. Who are you really?
b. What do you want to do?
- A SWOT analysis for a personal brand:
a. Helps you see yourself in the mirror;
b. Makes you see the details of yourself, to know yourself better;
- it’s important to analyze yourself, to know what you wish for;
- it’s hard being authentic – ask your best friend for feed-back (he knows he won’t jeopardize your friendship by telling the truth);
- Cinderella had a personal coach;
- we are more scared of speaking in public than we are of death;
- a brand (iPod) is more than a product (generic mp3 player);
- if you build a certain image, you attract certain persons to you;
- any construction, with time, becomes a brand;
- the people around you see you as a brand;
- it’s very important to choose what you know consolidates you as a brand;
- when you make a choice (not decision, choice has a motive) stop making that choice again and again – this is madness;
- a choice defines you as a person;
- it’s important to know you tried;
- recommended reading: “Blue Ocean strategy” by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne;
- you can defy the system when:
a. You know who you are;
b. You trust yourself;
- money stops you from making choices and makes you pick a certain road in life;
- money is one mean by which you can get where you want to get;

B. Day 2

Some pictures:

Florin GLINŢA and Anda MARIAN – Career decision: emotional choice or fulfilling your own potential
(Talentgate.ro, blog, LinkedIn, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ziarul Financiar)
- great place to find a career profile – Talentgate.ro;
- career is strongly related to motivation;

Alexandru CIOCHIA – Is your dream effective?
(Radio Lynx, LinkedIn, blog, Facebook)
- people help you, you can receive a lot of support;

Andrei POPESCU – We and the community!
(HotNews.ro)
- when you want to do something with your life, you are not alone;

Doina RUŞTI – The right decision
(website, Wikipedia, Librarie.net, Ziarul Financiar)
- most people come to conferences to speak, not only to listen;
- when you make a decision, there are a lot of factors (communication, diversity, things to be done) that influence that decision; Therefore, the society around you makes that decision;
- recommended reading: “Les chemins de la persuasion: le mode d’influence des media et de la publicite sur les comportements” – Jean-Noel KAPFERER;
- right now you have the option to place yourself right on the line between two fields, you can postpone the final decision for later on;
- good school: College of Anthropology;
- good school: College of Language (a mix between Mathematics and Letters);
- There are specializations that allow you to:
a. Get rid of society’s prejudices;
b. Take into account these prejudices;
- you should take a decision based on your talent; Any human being has this talent;
- in our genetic pool there are things that someone is gifted to do;
- there are things which you do well, even if you don’t like them that much;
- Based on your talent:
a. Decisions are being built;
b. Your future life is being built;
- if you are successful in one field, and you switch to any other field, you can apply the learned skills from the first field;
- great people in one field only do the thing at which they are professionals;
- What’s important to find out? The small thing, very pragmatic, abilities you can use in your future job; example: being an expert at chopping vegetables, both with speed ant patience; this mix can be easily be transferred into writing books; after finding those small things, you can apply those abilities in other fields;
- When do you take a good decision? When you have a problem;
- in theater you can make all the possible experiments; I recommend this education of emotions, if you have communication difficulties;
- if you look for a solution to a problem, it doesn’t even matter if you succeed right from the start; experimenting in great!
- try to experiment first of all;
- don’t wait for someone to notice you, you should take action;
- any decision you take, it’s a good one;
- a decision implies diversity;
- decisions require a major talent and they are contexts that mean you can take into account prejudices;
- Decisions take into account:
a. Knowing yourself;
b. Knowing the future;
- the most important decision is related to the future job;
- decisions are related to a plan; (make one)
- being persistent is the most dreadful enemy of someone who picks his path in life;
- persistence kills the beautiful essence of life;
- by being persistent, nothing of what you do until the end gives you satisfaction;
- you don’t have to be persistent if you’re not good enough;
- symbols are connected to the education (you can’t be connected to a symbolic area to which you have never been connected to);
- all of the symbols come from education;
- there is a basic character in you, no matter how much you try to model yourself; there are native predispositions;
- when you take a decision, each time you know you’ve either taken a good or a bad decision;
- Constantin BRÂNCUŞI said (of his master) that he was a tree in the shadow of which no grass would grow;
- you shouldn’t remain in one activity in which you are even 10% unhappy;
- the only decision/thing that matters in life – having no master; (entrepreneur)
- you should get jobs in as many workplaces as possible;
- learn as much as you can;
- the way in which a job system works within a company – same for all companies;
- you should do a lot of things, in order to learn what you can do very well;

Lia PERJOVSCHI – Free talk around the vocational theme subject
(News in Gândul, 9AM, ICR)
- How do you choose two colors? Generally speaking:
a. The first option is a cultural one;
b. The second option is a personal one;
- it’s good to have two career plans – A and B; optimal would mean having them from A to Z;
- when you accumulate information, you have multiple options;
- art is a great option, if you wish to avoid having rules;
- nothing is easy in life;
- what comes easy in life has a price – you are losing yourself;
- if nothing is easy, you should at least do something you like, it will make it appear easier;
- people don’t have bad intentions, but they can be very little interested in you;
- it is important to be a fighter until the end; equally important is to change yourself constantly;
- you should have an overview of the world you live in;
- It is important:
a. Where do you live;
b. What happens;
c. To know yourself;
- learning never stops;
- each person is important;
- children live in an environment without masks, relaxed, like a pleasant game;
- In order to have a fresh mind, you need:
a. A lot of thinking;
b. Action; (and some equilibrium between the two)
- if you are calm and equilibrated, everything seems to make some sounds around you;
- a mistake in the educational system – we learn rules that are not valid;
- you can do art in lots of ways:
a. Painting / sculpting / etc. – yourself;
b. Buying and selling art;
c. Making theories (writing about art);
d. Organizing events (expositions for example);
- at a very big art exposition, a cook brought a creation – he was an artist;
- I don’t believe in:
a. Bloody revolutions;
b. Provocation of the masses; (even if it is for a good cause, it involves manipulation, and I hate this; I only appreciate the people that think);
- I want to do something? I do some searching! (and from this a career might evolve) From searching, research ma result; From this you can write a book;
- while I was a teenager, I wanted to change the world;
- if something doesn’t work, you should leave it aside;
- our mind has formed some basic patterns while we were teenagers;
- if you are curious enough, you will find answers;
- Monica BRÂNDUŞESCU: if you do your job with a clear conscience, if you give 100%, you will find allies;
- we are forced, for ourselves, to give what we can from ourselves;
- we never lose the information we learn from life;
- (quote) “In the next life I would like to be a rock, so that I will be calmer”;
- we know little not only about the Universe, but also about the small stuff;

Alexandru CIUCU – The influence of family tradition in choosing the career
(Website, Wall Street interview, Facebook)
- There have always been these two things in my life:
a. Costumes;
b. APACA (in Romanian Atelierele Publice Autonome de Confecţii ale Armatei; English – Public autonom ateliers for confections of the army);
- If you work with your relatives, you know:
a. They are very unlikely to steal from you;
b. Even if they do steal from you, you are not sorry about this;
- a downside of mixing family with business – when you come from a club at 2 AM, and the next day you are not fresh at work at 8 AM, some problems might appear;
- in any business you do, you should check if:
a. People understand what needs to be done;
b. Things work great by themselves;
- in taxis as a business, in Romania, beating is often a motivation (you will get beaten if you do some bad things);
- in one business of mine I had this problem: I couldn’t control all the taxis;
- in 1997 there was no Romanian brand regarding costumes;
- in the business world it’s great to have a brand name;
- those who buy a product and assimilate a brand gather experiences (positive, hopefully);
- Samric is one of our business with good and not-so-expensive clothing;
- as a personal observation, generally speaking the things for which you work a lot and have a good quality are cheaper;
- Why are we a good brand?
a. It’s a niche brand;
b. We are one of the few who do clothing by order;
c. Good PR (Public Relations);
- business lesson: you do best what you know to do well;
- a brand must always have the same quality; it’s a very bad business if you do things sometimes excellent, and sometimes poorly
- when your clothing is presented at a fashion presentation, you must come either with something extraordinary, or with something innovative (colors, matching accessories);
- custom made classical costumes have the great advantage of details;
- I’m very interested into people liking what I do;
- I prefer people to see me as a friend, not necessarily see me on a pedestal;

Sandra ECOBESCU – How to chose a vocation with your soul and how to do your job as good as possible with your mind?
(yes, finally a long title!) (Evenimentul Zilei and RRI interviews)
- For the major choice in life and career, you should pick with your soul, not:
a. Think too much on it;
b. Follow the family’s tradition;
c. Be guided by the financial aspects of the decision;
d. Go with career patterns;
- Why is the Faculty of Letters beautiful?
a. There are interesting and smart people as students and teachers;
b. A lot of opportunities arise;
- in Greece, half the time there were strikes;
- Why do people working in multinational companies spend money? Because they don’t have time for themselves and they wish to compensate somehow;
- if you do work for a few years into a corporation, you learn how the world functions;
- in big companies you learn mechanisms that you can apply in your own company;
- we have not been thought to discover talents (parents & schools don’t help either);
- one of the biggest qualities a man can have – common sense and politeness;
- joy is a real thing; Happiness? Not that sure it exits;
- Monica BRÂNDUŞESCU: passion is contagious;
- if you are under a lot of stress, you need new things;
- No stress? You need little things;

Cătălin MITULESCU – creativity and involvement in cinema production
(Wikipedia, Mediafax interview, CV, IMDb)
- I had a lot of jobs until now;
- it’s important to have various experiences, to try new things, but you also need the relaxation to be able to give up;
- you can have the adventure to try all sort of new things;
- What is a film-maker? It is a person who likes:
a. To tell a story;
b. To see the reaction of the people around him to his stories;
c. Listening stories is also fine;
- What is a producer? Someone who:
a. Listens to a story / reads a story / sees someone telling a story / reads a book / sees a story on the street and …
b. Wants to share the story with others;
- there are many roles in a filming team, you can do a lot of things;
- What is being superficial? To think about this;
- I dislike culture of a certain level, seeing things from above;
- no one from the new wave of directors would have existed without the Cannes Festival, even if it can be a bit superficial;
- I had great satisfactions from:
a. Going from script writer to director;
b. Events as a director;
- in the fashion industry you can enter a sort of prison as a model;
- maneaua is a phenomenon strictly related to creating things (and then selling them);
- sometimes manele singers are authentic;
- listening to a few songs doesn’t transform you into a listener of that kind of music; (doesn’t give you a label)
- my job can get you closer to the things that interest you;
- I like knowing, seeing challenges and problems;
- filming is often mixed with life – you don’t really know the exact boundaries;
- I don’t have a TV and don’t like TVs;
- the first movies you make (no matter if you make them as a director or as a producer), stick to your head;
- in the past it was very easy to meet with someone and see a movie; nowadays, problems arise – “I don’t like that movie, let’s not watch it”;
- I liked best producing the Ryna (2005) movie;
- Romanian audience is very demanding:
a. They feel when you are not natural;
b. They feel when you are exaggerating things;
- in the end, a movie is a show;
- you have to like movies in order to make them;
- with time, people tend to think in patterns, a sort of sclerosis, a lot of clichés;
- there are some people who wish for lesser pessimistic movies about Romania;
- There are two things when doing a movie:
a. What I say? (the story is important)
b. How I say it? (the method of saying this) – nowadays, this approach is more important;
- you can have many stories, but you have to have the ability to transmit them;
- It can happen to you:
a. Have no inspiration at all (blank mind);
b. Have contradictory ideas (think of the two opposite scenarios; which one to choose?);
- in order to create something, you have to help your mind with a concrete thing around you;
- there were some film makers in Romania who had problems with the sound and image in some Romanian movies;

Mihai IORDACHE – Life as a journey
(Punctulzero, Pathzero, Facebook)
- in some Asian countries, you can talk from man to man, or from man to a family; talking from one man to one woman is tricky;
- generally speaking, there are cases in which a woman can’t talk with a man who is not a 1^st degree relative;
- we should have no hobbies, in everything that we do we should have the same passion as a hobby;
- There should be a congruency, as a whole, between:
a. Myself, as a human being;
b. Thoughts;
c. Words;
d. Actions;
(going from c. to d. is mostly shaped by education; The rest? More complicated)

C. Thoughts

What have other written about the event?
See messages by: Mihail MUŞAT, Cătălina MURARIU, AEGEE Bucureşti, Florin GLINŢA.

What speakers I liked best?
1. George IVAŞCU – great use of case studies, examples; and, my oh my, so entertaining;
2. Doina RUŞTI – the way in which she played with ideas, the way in which she thought about the world – oh, so great;
3. Alexandru CIUCU – I like him; he’s funny;
(honorable mention): Mihai IORDACHE – for perfect use of you-re-not-here-only-to-listen-you-re-here-to-get-involved techniques;
If you look at the list above, you see that George IVAŞCU did a lot of theater, Doina RUŞTI and Mihai IORDACHE only for some time, while Alexandru CIUCU once dreamed about being an actor; oh, that’s too much for me to bear, I must see what’s so cool about being an actor; Theatrical (amateur) companies of Romania, here I come!

What I took home?
(besides a nice diploma and a hard-anchored into reality symbolic gift)
i. George IVAŞCU said this
“the focus should be on:
a. What? Why? – the subject, rather than on:
b. How? – the method for getting to the subject;”
What I understood from this – focus also on How?, not only on What?; I think the “how?” idea is not as developed on me; yes, you’re right, he said exactly the opposite;
ii. Monica TATOIU said: “in life you don’t necessarily do the things that you like”, and this translates into “avoid eating sweets”;
iii. Doina RUŞTI said: “in theater you can make all the possible experiments; I recommend this education of emotions, if you have communication difficulties;”
I intend to follow her advice;

Some final thoughts on the conference
1. Some speakers were wonderful, some speakers were great; No speaker was bad;
2. I learned a lot both from the content (the ideas that were flying in the air) and from the atmosphere (the way in which things were said);
3. Networking? I had the pleasure of meeting very nice, interesting and kind people;
4. Speakers went home with a small gift; I’ve only seen such a behavior at a HR Club conference;
5. The usual stuff (promoting the conference, catering, schedule keeping, having a good location, asking for feedback afterward, providing a follow-up, creating an online community with the participants) went also fine.

____________
Bottom line: one of the best two-days conference I’ve ever seen.

I decided to have a look today at some major job-searching web sites in Romania: BestJobs and eJobs. I looked for [MBA] keyword on all three. Here are the results:

and:

BestJobs had a total of 4,959 jobs, out of which 8 asked for an MBA; ratio MBA / total jobs: 0.16%
eJobs: 3,596 jobs in total – 5 of which asked for an MBA; ratio: 0.12%
__________
Total: 8,555 jobs in total – 13 jobs asking for MBA; Total ratio: 0.15% jobs requiring an MBA.

So, as of today, only about one or two jobs seen out of 1,000 on BestJobs and ejobs require MBAs.

Also, please note that “require” is a relative term: you have a plus by having an MBA, but I don’t remember seeing any job posting putting the “Mandatory” requirement. It would be nice to have it, not mandatory.

What should I learn from this?
a. Either jobs that require an MBA are not posted on BestJobs or eJobs;
b. Either Romanian jobs don’t really require MBAs.

But I still want to get one.

One year ago I was writing:

In March 2008 I talk to quite a few persons in PR and I confront them about these two premises: “PR is all about peace” (it’s mostly true, in their opinion), “PR is on saying true things, but mostly positive” (I think they would say true, but no clear answer was given). And one person gives me reasons for the “say only positive things”: you don’t say positive things, you are just so much impersonating with the company, that the true things are mostly positive (OK, and probably you control a few others). Anyhow, it was an argument that if I have the urge to say mostly negative things about a company, then (again) there is a problem between the values of the company and mine: it’s not normal to work for a company for which you see mostly bad things. Then I think: what company and institutions I would recommend as great? Google, GMP (Romanian advertising & PR company; I mostly like them for their works, this generally does not extend to their clients, except, say, Itsy Bitsy radio) are fine, but most of the people from Obor marketplace (in Bucharest, Romania) are great. These are the companies or institutions I would present nicely in perfect accordance to my values. Not a very long list to work for in PR. Again, a problem on personal values: I can’t fit with any organization’s values. Creating financial reports for a company you don’t value 100% may be fine, but being the voice of that company with the external world can lead to problems.

What changed from that time?
1. I am working as a Search Engine Optimization specialist (see my blog about SEO) for Webvertise;
2. I am working indirectly for Google (the one company I best view in this world);
3. I am working for other companies also (Webvertise clients and freelancing clients);
4. Some things I do at work involve not following my own values.

So what changed in my perception?
1. I realized working for the best company you can imagine is great (and Google is really great);
2. Not working with the ideal companies is fine;
3. I can work for a company even if this doesn’t follow 100% my values; Sure it would be great if it did, but working in a less-than-perfect environment is fine also;
4. I still love my job.

_________________
Bottom line: You can still live a decent life, even if not working for the perfect company. I’d love to work directly for Google and do everything 100% perfect, but a lower percentage of value-to-results ratio is good enough. And that’s actually an improvement. Still, switching to SEO from PR seems to have been a good career decision.

What are the topics in this blog post about?
1. Assertiveness;
2. Balance;
3. Career;
4. Consciousness;
5. Continuing education;
6. Continuing professional development;
7. Courage;
8. Fulfillment;
9. Goal setting;
10. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs;
11. Mastering habits;
12. Momentum;
13. Motivation;
14. No pain, no gain;
15. Problem solving;
16. Procrastination;
17. Time management;
18. Waking up early;
19. Wealth (Money).

Here goes my blog post on each of these subjects:

• Assertiveness – In the “Fight Club” movie (see Fight Club movie page on IMDb) some characters have a task of staring up a fight with someone. In their words, starting a fight was difficult, because people would go to a lot of trouble rather than go fighting. So up to a point, it’s easy being assertive. But in Romania being assertive is more than that. It’s considered a bit aggressive just to express an objective point of view. Thus, being assertive is aggressive in itself. So people, with this confusion in mind, are thinking they’re aggressive when expressing opinions. And if this is the case, they are actually becoming aggressive, passing by the assertive solution. What is the solution, after all? I found that it’s best to be assertive no matter what. Never go to the aggressive state, but other than that – be assertive (even if it is perceived as agressive). You should express what you think in an assertive and non-aggressive manner;
• Balance – Oh, the magic word, the never-given solution. What is balance in life? How does one find it? Just to be 9 hours at work probably means that job gets most of your life. Just having a part-time job means that life has more importance than your career. What’s the middle path and how can one pick it in such a way that the balance is maintained (so that the middle path doesn’t become an extreme solution by itself)? These are all questions for which I fail to have an answer. My solution is a bit extreme: only put emphasis on health. Below this, do everything on being happy. Below or equal to this, put everything on getting things done. So, as long as I’m healthy, I can have fun with my friends or by myself or have a productive work. This is balance to me: health first, results or fun afterwards. I’m sure that this is not the middle way. But it is my balance and I’m so happy with it;
• Career – I guess the most important thing about a career is related with your goals in life. If you wish to gather a large sum of money (by tremendous efforts) until you’re, let’s say, 40, and afterwards you wish to retire, then you might consider an alternative. How about gathering that a less-than-large sum of money until you’re 60, but all of those years when you’re gathering money you have all the fun of your life? How does this sound – going to work and feeling you’re alive? Loving what you do? And also how does it feel it doesn’t take to be 40 to be able to have a relaxed way of doing things? This is my approach to career and I love it. Also, when reaching 40 and retiring, are you sure you’ll feel fine not doing a thing at all, for all day long?
• Consciousness – I’ve found in my personal experience that sleeping well (not too much, not too few, about 8 hours) is great for being conscious. I’ve also found that after a few days of bad sleeping and one day of good night’s sleep, after that final day you’re even less alert than in the days of not sleeping well. I also found that with age consciousness, for me at least, increases;
• Continuing education – In 2005 I graduated my Faculty. Did I stop there? No, I went on to do my Masters’ Degree. I graduated in the spring of 2008 (I’ve given my graduation paper its full importance). Will I stop here? I don’t think so. I plan to do yet another Masters’ Degree, in Informatics. Will I stop after that? Probably not. I intend to take classes even after I graduate this. After faculty, every class I took was payed. Why do I do that? I consider wisdom the greatest wealth a person can have. I also fail to see what better alternatives I have for studying. What can I do anything better than study?
• Continuing professional development – Each morning from Monday to Friday I take the subway to work. In the evening I take the subway from work. Sometimes I sit down, sometimes I stand up. Sometimes the subway is close to being empty, some other times it’s very crowded. No matter what, I always read in the subway – mostly newspapers and sometimes magazines and books. I can actually read in every mass transportation vehicle – train, bus, van. Why do I do this? I’m doing my best to recover some of the so-called wasted time of travelling and I actually do something in that time;
• Courage – I don’t think that courage is not having any fear at all. Rather than that, it’s overcoming the fears and doing things you wouldn’t normally do. Going against the current – now that takes guts!
• Fulfillment – I fill fulfilled by doing the things I want. I love my job, my personal life, my health. I love helping others. I love human interaction. I consider being happy as one of the most important things in life. Carpe diem! is not a Christian quote, since it makes you not think on what is after your body dies, but it does put some emphasis on giving 100% of what you can give;
• Goal setting – Some see their lives many years ahead. I admit only being able to see it for the next six months in some details and only for about two years in vague details. Thus, my goals mostly refer to a few days ahead, and rarely do they pass a future month. I think I should write them down, but I fail to do this at this moment. My goals also change a lot, influenced by the things I read;
• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – I’ve seen a presentation by Sir John Whitmore in Coaching ’08 conference. He said that the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for most individuals has changed in recent past – more and more people have higher needs now than in the present. Today it’s not a matter of surviving for most people, it’s merely a question of satisfying greater and greater needs. I can’t say if he’s right or wrong – my needs have always been high and I don’t remember periods of time of not having something to eat;
• Mastering habits – I greatly use reminders and To do lists for mastering habits. Those help me a lot in setting some patterns which I later try to follow again and again. Google Calendar has a SMS notification service that works also in Romania. I use it alot;
• Momentum – I think that the biggest problem for losing momentum while surfing online is email. If you have an email notification service (so you instantly find out when you have new email) the problem is even worse. I try to read my emails more and more rarely and only read the very important ones when they arrive. Sometimes I fail to do that;
• Motivation – Life is all about motivation. Life is more than a third work (and yet another third sleep). Third of your time is free time and most likely you are motivated to spend it just fine. But how about the motivation for work? It is more than one third of your life, are you motivated into what you do? I am and I hope this can be seen. This is the key in life – be motivated to have a wonderful life all the time, not only when you’re with friends and family;
• No pain, no gain – I’ve heard it again and again in different wordings: in order to succeed you have to be uncomfortable with a state of discomfort. It’s the only solution for life. I will not present you what I’m dissatisfied with. I will only state that to a lot of people my life has a remarkable similarity to failure – I don’t eat tasty foods, I don’t do a job that is a hugely financially rewarding, I do actions for free that would make people go “Why would you do that?”, I put my body into physical efforts that at least for the short term are not easy to bear. And yet I’m ultimately happy, enjoying every second of life, and to me the stuff I eat, the job I have, the free actions I do, the sports I do – they’re all great;
• Problem solving – A trainer called Jim BAGNOLA used to say “We’re professional problem solvers”. I couldn’t agree more with him. This is life: to solve problems in such a way that you learn from this experience and you become better at this. I’ve had so many problems (not more than others, of course), that this has to be true: I truly am a professional problem solver;
• Procrastination – Putting a task for doing later is not procrastination. It’s just that you set a specific time for the task, time which is not this very instant. But postponing a task once you’ve set it – now that’s procrastination. You have to do the task when you said you’d do it. Sure, you can have exceptions, but once exceptions become part of your routine, that’s called procrastination. Procastrination does have a good part: it helps me be ultimately motivated to do a lot of things at once and get results. Perhaps having a lot of time is the sure path to being late;
• Time management – To me the best time management method is cutting things you do. You can choose to do only some things, and put very little emphasis on other things. Also, focus on the 20% that bring you 80% of the results (by Vilfredo Pareto principle – you can read the Wikipedia article on the Pareto principle for this matter);
• Waking up early – From what I’ve read, a not-so-bad schedule for sleeping is 22 to 6. It’s also good to sleep at about the same hour each evening. It’s nice to weak up without an alarm clock. When you’ve done all that, you may have a good waking schedule;
• Wealth (Money) – Is money important? Definitely. Are money more important than how you feel in the present time and how healthy you are? Definitely not! So, putting a good priority on the present day and not on the future, while maintaining or improving your health status is a good solution to successfully manage the money-life balance.

Did some of this leave a mark on you? You can also leave a mark on my blog by commenting below! Thanks for visiting this blog post.

Contents
1. 1991-1997 period
2. 1997-2001 time frame
3. 2001-2005 period
4. 2005-2008 period
5. Conclusions

1. 1991-1997 period. I’ve had my first computing unit (they called it Home Computer, but looking backwards it didn’t seem as too much of a computer) in 1991, when I was only 9 years old. I’ve manually typewritten lots and lots of “games” (very very rudimentary) on the HC91 (you had to type a program in order to make it work; so instead of running Microsoft Word, you had to program it each time you wanted to run it; for a lot of time I couldn’t save a game or program I’ve just written, and when I was finally able to, saving on cassette recorder was slow). 6 years later (1997, I was 15) I was writing my first advanced game, based on a game seen on a real-life PC. I didn’t got to end writing the game. The same year when my family sells the HC and I’m one of the first on my street to own a PC (it had 4 MB of RAM and a hard drive of about 100 MB). The switch from Basic programming, even if it was to Windows 3.11 and Norton Commander, seemed a huge step. I was like WOW. The next year, 1998, I upgrade my PC and switch to Windows 95 (again, I was stunned to see what it was capable of). What’s a characteristic of this period is the fact that I’ve spent a lot of time in front of a computing unit and I was very fond of it. Even now, when I think of Windows, I still use a lot of skills learned in Windows 95. I still know MS-Dos command lines very well.

2. 1997-2001 time frame. My first career decision comes in the middle of 1997. I had a personal model in life in a Romanian writer (my first life model, and the only one I’ve given up to; I won’t mention it here, because it’s a negative reference). Anyhow, when he was about my age he went to a social sciences high-school, and it seemed obvious for me: if I want to follow its steps exactly, I’d had to take a social sciences high school myself. Bizarre or not, I didn’t care about what I wanted to do, I just wanted to do the right thing in life. My parents strongly opposed a social high-school in a large city nearby, and I decided it’s best to follow their advice and go to an Informatics class in my small town (the Informatics class in almost all classes gathered most of the best pupils; they were the elite classes; this does not imply that the high school itself was an elite too). Did I love the Informatics class? Oh, yes: beautiful times. I learned a lot of things on programming, I was programming myself at home, writing small programs (like the size of this blog post), and loved what one could do with software. By 2001 software and computers were my most important hobby. In the first three years of the high school my career path was simple: I’ll do programming. Looking back on the first career decision (picking a high-school), it was better to follow what I liked best (and this was also what my parents noticed), and don’t just imitate the decisions of a writer at the end of the XIX century (anyhow, I doubt that there was an Informatics class in 1890).

The last year of high school comes and my father makes this affirmation: you’re good on PCs and you’re good with English (the latter was not necessarily true), but in order to be a manager, it’s best that you know some Economics and do an Economics faculty. The reasoning is rather faulty: in order to be a manager it’s best that you do an MBA, no matter what a faculty you do. And doing an Economics faculty is not-that-much of a good preparation for the tasks of a manager. But at that time Economics was a wonder field to me, and little did I know about it. So I enter the final year of the high school with a dilemma: should I follow my passion and do IT, or should I do what I thought was right and do Economics? Due to the way the school-leaving examination was made and the way University exams were made, preparing for both IT and Economics was natural. Thus, I could and actually did postpone the decision with no damage. Another decision was in which county to study. I trusted the opinions of two Informatics teachers in my high-school when they said “The capital of Romania is best: largest city, best opportunities, not-as-bad education”. So I favored Bucharest due to their advice. Two weeks before the exams on the Universities, after my school-leaving examination was done, I am faced with this observation (which was in my head long before this): PC monitors affect eyesight due to intense concentration and due to the fact that at that time most monitors were CRT (see Health concerns on CRT on Wikipedia web site). I put health before everything and say: I won’t do IT due to the fact that I already have some eye problems and working all day on the PC would damage my eyesight. Economics was a better alternative and after 4 years of Informatics forgetting it all and going from scratch didn’t look bad. I never actually thought: what I like, what I’m best at, what I should do. The logic was: in order to make money, you should better be a manager (actually careers can go into being a specialist with no human management tasks also). In order to be a manager, one should know IT (and I was good at it, at least for the requirements of a managerial position), English (pretty OK), and Economics (now I think one manager should know Economics almost just as much as it should know other fields in the company directly involved with his activity, like marketing, human resources, law). More than this, Economics is not as necessary for a manager as a MBA, which can be taken after any faculty. Finally, since my only obvious lack of knowledge was in the field of Economics, I thought I should do an Economics faculty (this was actually an OK motive). Looking at a list of faculties in the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest (just at the list, nothing on curriculum), I liked International Business and Economics most: not only I will study Economics, but also English. Unfortunately, foreign languages in the Academy of Economic Studies were studied from a business perspective, so I could only improve my business vocabulary, not the general language level. Also, I missed the fact that International Economics means that you won’t generally study the economy of country, or the management of a company, or do accounting, or trade. Instead, most of the courses have been on International Economy (so between institutions in different countries or between different countries). It’s that simple, but at that time it didn’t seem so obvious. So picking the faculty was faulty even for study Economics. Four years later, I could say that from the faculties in the Academy of Economic Studies it was the best option for me, so two wrongs (learn English & learn economics – both bad) can make it a right. After I picked a field, I applied only for International Business and Economics faculties in three regions of Romania and I was lucky enough to be admitted to all. I could pick a faculty where I was already given a scholarship (in Constanta, a city nearby my small town residence), or I could go to Bucharest, where the competition would be fierce (no scholarship in there). Iasi had no scholarship for me, also no real competition, but it was just at the other side of world. I followed my previous Informatics’ teachers advice and went for Bucharest.

3. 2001-2005 period. Four years in the Faculty fly fast when you’re in an NGO (after 5 failed admission interviews to other NGOs), go to every imaginable event for a lot of time (conferences, seminars, fairs, theatrical plays), and basically you leave the hostel in the morning and get home each day after 21 (this was not the typical daily routine of a unemployed student). All the four years I was hungry to learn: read on psychology, talk whenever possible, improve communication skills, all-in-all understand the world. Now we’re in 2005. In the forth year of the Faculty, one month before the graduation exam, I get a job at a consultancy company (with a clear picture in my head that even if I don’t like numbers, at least I’ll know what it’s like). After the graduation exam, I stay with them for two more months and I convince myself that whatever my preparation in Economics was, I will avoid numbers and especially accounting or finance.

During the last months of the Faculty I have to take a decision: which should my career path be? A small parenthesis. After reading things on psychology, I liked what I’ve read on ADHD. According to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder page on NINDS web site, these are some simptoms of ADHD that felt really close to my behaviour:
1. “Impulsive children seem unable to curb their immediate reactions or think before they act. They will often blurt out inappropriate comments, display their emotions without restraint, and act without regard for the later consequences of their conduct.” [ You will really not believe the things I can say out loud ]
2. “Children who are inattentive have a hard time keeping their minds on any one thing and may get bored with a task after only a few minutes. If they are doing something they really enjoy, they have no trouble paying attention. But focusing deliberate, conscious attention to organizing and completing a task or learning something new is difficult.” [ Felling asleep at theatrical plays, unable to remember anything from most faculty class where I was just present, unable to follow up with someone's speech, unable to read a book, any book - these were all common to me ]
3. “Homework is particularly hard for these children. They will forget to write down an assignment, or leave it at school. They will forget to bring a book home, or bring the wrong one. The homework, if finally finished, is full of errors and erasures. Homework is often accompanied by frustration for both parent and child.” [ This has accompanied me all of my life, I have even seen all of these errors in a winter school in February 2008; but most of them were drastically reduced; I mean, having an email address just to help me be aware that I forget things - deneuitat - clearly helped me avoid this problem ]

What I liked most on ADHD was reading something like this:
“There is no “cure” for ADHD. Children with the disorder seldom outgrow it; however, some may find adaptive ways to accommodate the ADHD as they mature.” (from the NINDS Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder Information Page). Adaptive behavior. Things can change with behavior. So beautiful put. (I didn’t like the solution of going into medication at all)

Please note that I may have been wrong with my analysis on whether I have ADHD or not. I could also have the “Medical students’ disease” (see the Wikipedia entry on Medical students’ disease). So everything could just be in my imagination. I found out about ADHD sometime in 2002/2003. Back then it was the WOW factor. “It must be true! Everything fits so nicely.” When I look now at the symptoms, most of them don’t fit the description. I can now read a book, I can follow almost anybody’s speech if I really want to, I don’t move all the time when sitting down, and all-in-all I have much lower resemblance to the patterns in there. But the ADHD helped me a lot in identifying some weak points in my behavior and working on them.

So, what would a perfect job and career be then for me (a thought-to-be ADHD)? Something that I wouldn’t get bored doing, something that would really get me involved (due to ADHD symptoms). I looked at all the skills I’ve had, and I reasoned like this: I love doing IT, I have some knowledge on Economics-related field, and I’m very low on human skills. I took the non-boring, totally paradoxical, and WOW-factor solution of going into a job on human skills: communication and public relations. Exactly what my weakest point was. More than this, I’ve chosen a career path that would definitely provoke me: I thought back then that I could learn how to control what I say and be a good diplomat. Alternatively put, doing public relations was my way of doing an almost impossible thing like climbing mountains: my poorest skills were in communication (although I have already tried working on that), and my life philosophy was nothing on saying good things in the good way (and I tought I could change this: I will still say bad things, but in a good way; back then I thought that PR was on the way you say something, not on what you say; and I would later found out that method of saying something very nicely was mostly advertising).

4. 2005-2008 period. So, for the next two and a half years I did a Masters’ in Communication and Public Relations, I had two jobs in Customer Service (three months each), and one in both Internet Marketing and Public Relations (for one year). Time flew slower when having to work repetitive tasks, but two and a half years passed. In February 2008 I graduate my Masters’. Now it’s time for a new evaluation.

1. First, the graduation itself: I had to create a 60 pages (I did 90) graduation thesis and then present it to a commission. My supervising teacher told me that she insisted to the commission that I should get a maximum grade for the quality of writing (so not the page numbers). Now an interesting aspect: the commission also insisted that my presentation skills were not-as-good as my thesis itself. Then I think: hey, you enter a Masters’ in Communication and at the end you can’t communicate. Sure, you speak nicely about it, you can give reasons in a talk, you like the philosophy of speaking but still: after studying communication two years, exactly your real-life communications skills drag you down. What’s the use of a Masters’ to you?
2. I organize (and that’s a good PR skill) a meeting like this: an event organizer and a head hunter gave me a virtual interview. In the room there are students interested in HR field. Also present is a HR specialist (with experience in multinational companies). I present my CV, I go to the fake interview, everybody gives me feedback on my behavior and way of reacting to the questions. The positive opinions on my performance were: whenever questioned, I presented the situation in such a way that although I spoke a lot, I don’t answer the question directly (it was mentioned as a negative performance, but this is actually a PR skill, or so I think) and also a positive opinion was the fact that I’ve organized the very interview (although this was not mentioned). But most of the other feed-back was negative, and it focused on: soft skills, and technical skills (understanding the way I should organize an event). I didn’t care about the technical skills (it’s easy to learn how to organize an event), but the soft skills worried me (learn how to move your hands according to what I say; I went like: HUH?). Now if this feed-back came back in the summer of 2005, I would have said: OK, I can improve this, I know there are many things to work on. But now we’re in February 2008, and in the meantime I’ve played a lot of theatre, I’ve done sports, and I’ve had a lot of trouble thinking on ways to improve my communication skills and acting on those ways. Surely, these skills can still be improved, but it’s a question mark the fact that in two and a half years of self-improvement for soft skills I basically suck at communication. Coming back to the fake interviewed, I focused on the HR specialist’s opinion, and since he wouldn’t tell me if PR is right for me or not after just a small interview, I asked for things to improve upon, and he gives a reply via email with things that I was already doing (so for years I’ve been doing it right, but the results were still small);
3. A winter school in February 2008 puts me in a team of 5 and we work on projects. With time for me to think and analyze things, I see a conflict between this thinking: “One should focus on the positive things, and although it should say all truth, it should not say everything, but just some good stuff” (basic rule of PR, or so I think), and my life principles, which, adapted to PR, would sound something like: “Don’t focus on your own (or company’s) interests, focus on the customer’s interests. If these interests make you recommend to your clients the product of the competition, then you should do that. If these interests say in public that your company’s core business is not as good or efficient for the client as an alternative business, then you should also say it”. This was much more than learning how to control the way to say things (which I thought in the summer of 2005 was one weak point of mine). PR is saying just some things, in a good way. And mostly focus on what’s cool and nice and OK. I found out in the winter school that this is just not like me. The problem was with personal values, not with the way one makes a thing look better or worse. Getting back to the winter school. After a conflict in the final days of the camp, which didn’t have an obvious cause to me, I decide to ask for feed-back on my behavior from some colleague participants. I received mostly negative feed-back. Some focused on soft skills, some on ethics, but I already knew most of that (the feed-back itself was, nevertheless, valuable). What I found most striking on the winter camp was a personal negative feeling to a general harmony in the social communication. A peaceful, happy, joyful atmosphere is just not for me. This discovery took into account a lot of past examples, not only on the camp itself. What’s PR? It’s exactly on creating a peaceful atmosphere between humans. Most of the time PR is just that: there’s a conflict, make it go peacefully. My way of acting is exactly the opposite: create a conflict to solve a problem. Surely, there are arguments and conflicts in PR, but most of the time you just have to keep a peaceful relation. As said, that’s in conflict with my conviction that conflict leads to improvement. So two discoveries in the winter camp: I do not view public relations’ way of saying mostly positive things in a totally positive way as a good thing for my self-expression and peaceful talks and me don’t mix;
4. In March 2008 I talk to quite a few persons in PR and I confront them them about these two premises: “PR is all about peace” (it’s mostly true, in their opinion), “PR is on saying true things, but mostly positive” (I think they would say true, but no clear answer was given). And one person gives me a reasoning for the “say only positive things”: you don’t say positive things, you are just so much impersonating with the company, that the true things are mostly positive (OK, and probably you control a few others). Anyhow, it was an argument that if I have the urge to say mostly negative things about a company, then (again) there is a problem between the values of the company and mine: it’s not normal to work for a company for which you see mostly bad things. Then I think: what company and institutions I would recommend as great? Google, GMP (Romanian advertising & PR company; I mostly like them for their works, this generally does not extend to their clients, except, say, Itsy Bitsy radio) are fine, but most of the people from Obor marketplace (in Bucharest, Romania) are great. These are the companies or institutions I would present nicely in perfect accordance to my values. Not a very long list to work for in PR. Again, a problem on personal values: I can’t fit with any organization’s values. Creating financial reports for a company you don’t value 100% may be fine, but being the voice of that company with the external world can lead to problems.

So, my third switch comes around February 24, 2008, and I’m back to the one field I love: IT. What happened to the
eye-problem issue? Well, according to a study focusing on things is actually good for some eye conditions. More than this, TFT displays are now common-place. I could have chosen IT back in the 2005, but it was just not challenging enough.

You should expect that after doing an Informatics high-school, worked in an IT company for more than a year, and basically be very good Internet, I would clearly know what I want to do in IT. Unfortunately, since 2001 I’ve constantly blocked any thought of “How would it be if I worked in this field of IT?” I just didn’t let it in: “This is a no-no”. So right now I have to short-circuit all these thoughts and make a decision. But I’m in no hurry. I can identify what I like most (and Internet obviously pops-up), and I can work on that. Right now there’s no urgent reason to make a decisive decision. I also have to think on way to get a more formal education than a high-school in IT. Time for that too. Romain Gary (with pseudonim of Émile Ajar)’s novel “La vie devant soi” was translated into Romanian something like “You have all your life ahead of you”. That’s my feeling in March 2008. Plenty of time for IT.

5. Conclusions:
1. Put your values above everything. My 2001 conflict was due to a change on priorities via health issues. My 2008 conflict was a conflict with PR on values again. I couldn’t do anything when faced with values problems;
2. Doing something you are not good at may be challenging, but it may also be unwise. Almost everything can be improved, but you may find it something just not worth the time and effort;
3. Investing in deciding a career path may be a good target by itself (there are counselors who will advise you on picking a right career);
4. Put a lot of questions to authoritative persons. An authority may be working in HR, may be a specialist in your field, or may just know the situation well (to know whether to study in Bucharest or not, for example);
5. (I don’t follow this) Create a written plan for improvement;
6. Anything you do, love it.

Any comment on my personal case study? Post it below, please.