A. Jim BAGNOLA‘s training

What have I jotted down, as a good student?

- All the behavior your receive from kids, employees, peers is the behavior that we model, tolerate, reinforce;
- I liked this example:

(from the CEO to the employees, either criticism or empowerment flows; the CEO thus decides what the final customer will hear from the employees);
- The most important rule in Customer Service: the customer would not get treated any better than the employee has been treated (so you should treat your employee the same way you would want them to treat the customers);
- We are all managers of energy – we either

• energize OR
• de-energize others;

- Manager’s or leader’s job: turning talent into performance;
- You can’t coach talent, but you can coach both skills and knowledge;
- Some meetings should be held standing up (they would last less time);
- A lie detector detects both thoughts and emotions;
- Telling is not teaching; asking is teaching;
- Simplicity is really profound;
- You are responsible to pupils, not for pupils when you’re a teacher;
- You are able to control your own emotions;
- We treat employees equally by treating them differently;
- People fire themselves, you do not fire them;
- It’s great to practice meditation;
- The biggest causes of death:

1. heart disease;
2. cancer;

- Factors of stress:

1. Job dissatisfaction;
2. Lack of happiness;

- Factors for cancer:

1. Smoking;
2. Bad diet;

- Friday has the least number of deaths (“You think I’m gonna die before the week-end?”);
- Avoid using “But” or it’s equivalent – “However” -, instead use “and”; “but” negates all that it has been said before it;
- We all have different knowledge, each has its power;
- Some of the most powerful words out there – “I don’t know” (it’s so hard saying this);
- If you have 90 people in your company, you should use their intelligence and skills;
- If you listen to others, the others are listening to you;
- When you become perfect, you die (there’s nothing else to do anymore);
- While I’m perfect, my behavior can be improved;
- If you are a coach, you must be able to tell others how they can improve;
- Two principles on feed-back:

1. You should be honest on the improving side;
2. A person is a different thing from it’s behavior;

- YouTube fun: Jim BAGNOLA showed us this video during the training;
- You should treat the people in your company like they’re volunteers;
- A thing to think about: how to engage your employee’s minds?
- Soft skills are actually hard;
- Without consequences, coaching doesn’t work;
- Whenever holding a conversation, people are usually either firing or reloading (they say something or they prepare to say the next thing, rather than being active in the current conversation and paying attention to what the other party says); how to change this? It’s better to listen and reflect;
- For self-disclosure you should use personal examples (“I also tend to …”);
- Men would rather be right than happy;
- Regarding feed-back within a company – it’s better to give performance appraisals more often (let’s say, once a month) rather than rarely (yearly? No way!);

Some things Jim BAGNOLA says:

- “Does that make sense to everybody?” (if you don’t say a loud No to this, you’d have to agree);
- “Yes, it’s not true, it just looks like it’s true” (very cool way of disagreeing);
- “Let’s give him a hand” (encouraging);
- “It’s not about me, it’s about my behavior” (separating the person from the idea);

What I liked about Jim BAGNOLA?

- He adapts (at a certain situation, he almost started a question in which the persons present at the training should speak in small groups; well, a participant said loudly his personal example; at this point, he could either continue with working in small groups or ask other participants to give examples, adapting to the situation; he did the latter);
- He has an exercise which is his trademark (an exercise with hands, you can see it here);

And a question:

- “If I’d knew the answer, what would it be?” (coaching question to get an answer in an seemingly impossible situation);
- “How to become a professional human being” (now that’s a question!);

B. Florin TALPEȘ’s speech

What I’ve written at his speech?

- Book to read: “Employeescu” by Adina LUCA;
- Movie to see: “Glissando” (1985) by Mircea DANIELIUC;
- Reverse mentoring is a hot concept;
- When you ask a person what

• he wants – you get vague answers;
• he doesn’t want – you get precise answers;

- It’s a lot of “noise” in the background until you can find a model;
- Study to read: “Families Across Cultures. A 30-Nation Psychological Study”, Edited by James GEORGAS;
- In Romania the middle management is made predominantly by women;
- The new generation has this principles:

• Honesty;
• Need for a match between their personal values and the values of the organization;
• Listening to the other party;

- Generation X is not socially involved; when, after time passes, you have a good financial situation, you have the time for social involvement, togive back to the society;
- The harsh realities (mistakes, failures) can change a person;
- The modern learning is not made from the books anymore;
- The digital divide is mostly between rural and urban, rather than between different age groups;
- In Romania we are still learning about greed; it’s not a finished process; we don’t yet have a bad opinion about greed;

C. Multimedia

Photos from the event (see in full-screen):

Two videos I’ve made at the event:

Thanks goes to Jim BAGNOLA for a wonderful experience, Florin TALPEȘ for a good speech and to LEADERS Romania for a great event!

What did I like?
1. The order of the presentations in the schedule was pretty much followed;
2. Unlike other events, Ramada Park was quite new in the world of event organizing in Bucharest (at least to me);
3. Speakers were fine;
4. Lots of drinks every day – at the conference table, in the lobby, at lunch;
5. At lunch, whenever a plate with food was empty, it was replaced; Good to know;
6. The cookies were good (so I’ve been told);
7. Lots of waiters to serve;
8. The food was fine;
9. There was a good idea with an event introduction and ending with the same team: Petra MULLER-DEMARY and Kirsten DIEROLF; Like in real coaching, the conference had a promise and a question (What do you expect from today from yourself?) and a final check-up (Did it really happen?);
10. The banners were unobtrusive;
11. The projectors and the flip-chart went fine; It may sound dull, but seeing a projector that does a good job and seeing a flip-chart that it’s just there is a plus;
12. There were pens and block notes on most chairs and tables, whether they were at the conference or at the seminars;
13. I got a lot of insights;
14. The organizers were friendly;
15. I got to know a lot of new people;
16. There was room for questions;
17. The breaks were long enough;
18. The event was well promoted;
19. I liked the structure of the conferences;
20. International speakers? Lovely! Lots of them? Great!

What would I do better? Tips for the organizers:
1. Rather than start the event at 10 AM and end it at 6 PM, and all day to be in a deep hurry, I’d much rather start it at 8 or 8:30 AM and end it at 6:30 PM; There’s no need for a hurry if you wish to hear great stuff;
2. Whenever I had to pick between taking part in just one of four simultaneous events, I had this problem – I didn’t know the trainers;
3. I think it would be best if a seminar was really a workshop (interactive, with demos, with role playing, with teams), rather than seminars; I’ve seen some seminars which had PowerPoint presentations, and I personally see a seminar in a different way; I’d much rather take part into an event that has workshops rather than presentations.

_____________
Bottom line: these were some of the best days I’ve spent at conferences, and clearly it was well spent time. Thank you, Business Edu.

I’ve told you about Coaching ’09. What is more important, I’ve also told you about Training ’08, which is the event that took place last year, organized by the same Business Edu. You can read in there why the previous event was a success. You’ll find the best presentation on this page.

But why might the current event be better?
1. Organizers asked for feed-back at previous events; You can only assume that applying the gathered feed-back will make current events even better;
2. The speakers include:
Andy SZEKELY – AS Training & Coaching
Cristia MAKSUTOVICI – AxA Consulting
Marius OPRIS – Ascendis
Mihai CURELEA – AchieveGlobal
Romeo CREŢU – HRD
Stelian MARIAN – HCS
I’ve seen live all these speakers and I can tell that, from what I’ve seen, these are some of the best speakers one can see live. They’re highly recommended by me;
3. The schedule of the event is divided into three parts, for both days:
a. A main conference;
b. Workshops;
c. Secondary conferences (Sales in the first day, and Human Resources for the second);
You can actually go see one of three events; You can pick the main conferences, or the secondary one, or a workshop; Plenty of choices! I like this a lot.

_________
Bottom line: This looks like a great event to take part to, and I recommend you to register as soon as possible.

What you might like?

a. The speakers
I’ve already written some things about Petra MULLER-DEMARY.

I’ve previously seen Sir John WHITMORE, Mihai POPA-RADU and Decebal-Leonard MARIN at various events.

My personal favorite from the list is Peter SCHUTZ, I can barely wait to see him.

b. The event organization itself
You can see three other messages written by regarding Business Edu events:
1. Why should you take part to the Business Edu Expo event these days?
2. What did I learn at Business-Edu Expo 2009, 2009.06.17-19?
3. What I insights I had at Training 08? (7-9 October 2008, Marriott Hotel)

You can look at those messages and draw conclusions for yourself. But, for my part, Business Edu does a great job at organizing events and you’ll miss a great opportunity if you don’t go to the event.

What’s next? You can choose to register for the event, or just find out more things on the Coaching ’09 web site.

What I learned at the event?
a. Coaching, as a word, has an interesting origin; I ooked it up  and found out that coach as in basketball coach, began as a Hungarian cart;
b. Unlike training, coaching gives you a solution on how to do one thing;
c. Coaching is great when there’s a difference between:
i. What I wish and speak out loud; (commitment)
ii. What I actually do;
d. Try formulating things in a positive way;
e. Book to read: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t;
f. Movie to see: Home (with English Subtitles).

Pictures I took at the event:

____
Bottom line: the training was very useful, I learned great things and, most of all, I did this while enjoying things; Great training, highly recommended.

18th of June:
A. How do we approach learning in 2009? Mihai CURELEA – Achieve Global
Some photos I made:

What ideas I took home?
- It is very good to do management of performance, which is a different thing to evaluating performance;
- There are three steps to approach learning:
a. Integrate HR process;
b. Cost control;
c. Rethink the learning programs;
- The management of performance implies:
a. A standard of performance;
b. People must understand very well the process;
c. Follow the performance – it can fluctuate;
- The cost / advantages analysis implies:
a. Aligning to the business objectives;
b. Analyzing and monitoring the costs;
(both of the above are done to determine the value of each initiative)
- There are three types of companies:
a. Those that make things happen;
b. Those that wait for things to just happen;
c. Those that ask why did the things just happened;
- Learning is a pragmatic process;

B. Games – Facilitators of imagination, introspection and communication; OH cards of association – Iulia SARA – Active Labs
Lots of fun, and involvement of the audience, I felt good participating;
Some pictures, only with the speaker, even if the audience was involved, I respect their right for privacy:

If you want to see the presentation of OH cards of association, you can see it in here: OH cards of association.

C. Change management and projects – Simona BONGHEZ – Roland Gareis Consulting
I took some pictures in there also:


19th of June:
A. Magnetique Marketing – Bruce BENNETT, Rom Biz Conect
Images at the event, if you want to see the speaker:

Thoughts that rushed on me:
- We want to go from a pest to a welcomed guest;
- You can’t push anyone into sales;
- It doesn’t matter what business you’re in;
- MBA acronm comes, for some, from “Massive Bank Account”;
- You need to have a:
a. USP – Unique Selling Proposition (why should I do business with you);
b. VSP – Value Selling Proposition (what added value you can bring me, as a customer);
c. Risk Reversal – you can give a money back guarantee;
d. Direct offer & call to action – Offer a bonus; Buy now, get something free;
e. Offer proof – what others say about you is much more persuasive than you say about yourself;
- You need the right tools:
a. Geographic;
b. Geo-demographic;
c. (if B2B) Geo-industry demographic;
d. Affinity;
e. Clientele;
f. Psychographic;
- Every media can be powerful;
- You need to create marketing systems that are:
a. Repeatable;
b. Predictable;
c. Controllable;
- Budget your market;

B. Interpreting the story of “The brave little taylor” – Good salespersons make 7 sales from one hit – Eugen DRAGOMIR – Codecs
This is Eugen DRAGOMIR:

What did I hear from what he said?
- Quality comes from standardization;
- Performance comes from continuous improvement of the standards;
- Standards are applied to each level of an organization;
- The organization gives to the seller some standards (input data);
- The seller gives to the organization information regarding the activity (feed-back data);
- The organization should measure if all the required information has been provided to the personnel, if they know it and apply it; It should also apply the feed-back from the personnel;
- The personnel should offer valuable feed-back, should be capable to offer a continuous improvement of the process;
- Delegation can also go from lower levels to upper levels: “Boss, I have a problem with this – What can I do? / Can you help me? / Why is that?”; That’s bad delegation;
- For a traditional type of store the process of selling is the one thing that makes the difference among different store; It’s the actual experience of buying, from the interaction with the seller to the placement of goods;
- Steps for a better brand positioning:
a. Communicate at a location level (trade marketing);
b. Receive the client;
c. Recognize the profile of the client (Is he just a passerby? Does he intend to buy something?);
d. Identify the needs;
e. Present the appropriate products;
f. Close the sales;
g. Paying the goods;
h. A request to come back again;
- It’s a bad idea to just measure the results, it’s much more appropriate to measure in different steps – what is the client’s specific need;
- Standards are made to be followed by orders and changed by feed-back;

C. What is coaching with Gerard o’DONOVAN – Noble Manhattan
This is Gerard o’DONOVAN:

And here is a clip I made with him: What is coaching with Gerard o’DONOVAN – Noble Manhattan;
- We all live somewhere and do something;
- There are four foundations to coaching:
a. 90% of the coaching can be done via phone;
- You can have clients all over the world;
- A human being will reveal more things on the phone (more openness, more clarity);
- On the down side, there is no body language on the phone;
b. A coach is non judgmental;
- it doesn’t matter if you tend to be judgmental, every one of us is like that;
- you, as a coach, you have to learn how to be non-judgmental;
- the more you practice being non-judgmental, the more you become non-judgmental;
c. Coaches are non-directorial – avoid saying “must”, “have to”, “should”;
- You cannot be a directorial coach;
d. Coaches have no answer;
- “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” – Albert Einstein;
- In coaching we create our own reality;
- “If it’s to be, it’s up to me”;
- Things about the human spirit:
a. We are human beings – you have an inner light that shines and that is out of this world;
b. We are spiritual beings;
c. We have access to any resource that we ever dream of in order to set or achieve every goal that we set for ourselves;
- Coaching is a collaborating partnership;
- Coaches see the clients as their potential;
- Coaching = “releasing human potential”;
- There is nothing wrong if we need attention, appreciation, affection; We all need love;
- You can learn anything;
- Coaches are living examples for other people;
- They are M.A.D. = “Make A Difference”;
- Coaches empower people;

D. Solution Focus Coaching – recognize the difference – Petra MUELLER-DEMARY, MDI Training
These are some pictures at the workshop:

and this is a video: Solution Focus Coaching – recognize the difference – Petra MUELLER-DEMARY.
- What’s the difference that makes the difference?

You can download the entire presentation in here.
A camp to take part to, organized by Petra MUELLER-DEMARY: The Journey of Life.

E. “Mens sana in corpore sano”: the classical way to self improvement – Bruno MEDICINA
Photos I made that Friday:

And two videos I made:
a. Mens sana in corpore sano – the classical way to self improvement – Bruno MEDICINA – clip 1;
b. Mens sana in corpore sano – the classical way to self improvement – Bruno MEDICINA – clip 2;
- Whatever our mission is, we need one thing: energy (food, sports, breathing);
- 90% of the globe’s populating is addicted to music;
- We are surrounded by energy vampires;
- We can be, ourselves, poisonous persons – persons with toxic thoughts;
- I can create at any time my emotional reality;
- The concept of energy is very personal;
- We have too much: information, money, cars, women;
- Practical test: try to run as fast as you can and see for how long can you hold that speed; Bruno MEDICINA’s estimate: 5 seconds;
- We need energy to do anything;
- What’s moral and good tends to lift the energy level, while the things that are sins tend to lower it;
- What stops you to say positive things about others?
- The key to receiving energy is to offer energy;
- Help the ones that surround you to understand that they can do more;
- Discovering who you are is a lifetime project;
- Stop from time to time to ask yourself what you want;
- If you want to understand objectives and goals, you should pick a simpler path: the path of energy, success, achievements – they should all be aligned; That’s the better solution: see if you align all the goals in your life;
- We are aligned by a force bigger than ourselves; This is the key to leadership;
- The previous rulers thought they represented a superior force;
- The Universe has a superior key to be understood by;
- Try to remove the poison that surrounds you;
- You have to have courage to forces yourself out of your comfort zone;
- The one thing that is appropriate to drink is water;
- To raise the energy level, you should offer energy to other persons;
- Connect yourself to a superior source;

F. On addictions with Valentin PESCARU
Valentin PESCARU in some photos:

and in a Clip on addictions.
- You should have more confidence in yourself;
- You should have more control on your actions.

All-in-all, I had a great time at the event, really enjoyed things in there.

I’ll mention below the workshops I took part to each day and what insights did I have at each and every one of them.

Day 1 – October 7:

Master in leadership (Rares MANOLESCU – Human Invest)

Be a player: pro-active, agile, and persuasive! (Vasile PAUN – Intell Competitiv)
- avoid playing the game of life in order to avoid losing it; play it to win it!

How do we implement an efficient leadership program: from analysis to solutions (Diana ROSETKA – Achieve Global, Anamaria FORNADE – Orange)

The motivating leader (Marius BALASOIU – For People)
- learning is like fire; to exist, it needs:
a. A spark (training itself);
b. Oxygen (organizational environment);
c. fuel (the boss);
If one of the above isn’t there, the fire does not exist;
- do you know how to drive at a drivers’ license examination? You won’t know things after a training either;
- Physics law: a participant to a training pushed by a HR manager is fighting back against the training with an equal force;
- three types of participants at trainings (Romanian acronym T.V.R.: T – tocilar / nerd; V – visator / dreamer; R – recalcitrant / recalcitrant):
a. The nerd – the say things; very active;
b. The dreamer – they get lost in their minds; they are the biggest challenge to a trainer;
c. The recalcitrant – they are angry; they have been pushed too much to participate to the training; they want the trainer’s blood;
- you shouldn’t train people; you shouldn’t make people laugh; you should make people go: Aha! (they should discover things at trainings);

Case study: Training and Coaching in Performance Management (Raluca MOHANU – Wrigley Romania, Mihai POPA-RADU – Seeds4success)
- the role of the performance management? to stimulate and help employees in attaining their own objectives and those of the organization while smiling;

Expanding Innovation & Creativity (Sid JACOBSON, South Central Institute of Neuro Linguistic Programming, SUA)
- stories give creativity (to the speaker and to the audience);
- at 12 years old, people are very creative;
- small children filter very few of the things they say;
- there is little to none of an information transfer without a transfer of the state of minds;
- Walt DISNEY made his employees go into these three specific states:
a. Creative; Encouraged ideas; Everything was Ok to say; Great ideas in here;
b. Critical; Nothing is good; People had issues for saying such things; Everything is bad; A lot of cutting of ideas;
c. Realistic; Combining a. and b., people should select the top ideas from a., that weren’t that badly criticized on b.; And they would act on those ideas;
Those are also the three steps into creativity;
- Albert EINSTEIN: “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”

Day 2- October 8:

HRM Strategic Fit (Decebal Leonard MARIN – Corporate Dynamics)

New innovative ways for learning (Catrinel POSTEMA – Interact)
- there are four ways to learn things:
a. Instruction / Training;
b. E-learning;
c. Blended learning (a mix of a. and b.);
d. Coaching;

I accept any feedback I receive during a training program! But I only agree to some! (Romeo CRETU – HRD)

Emotional intelligence in human resources management (Sabina IRIMIE – Caro Trainer)

Smart Emotions^® personal development trough emotional intelligence (Daniel BICHIS – Competent Consulting)

Day 3 – October 9:

How much do leadership abilities matter in the process of performance management? (Viorel PANAITE – Human Invest)

Business NLP – beyond persuasion and manipulation (Daniel BICHIS – Competent Consulting)
- the potential within ourselves manifests in what we are, do and have;
- the emotions should be an integral part of our cognition, not subordinated to them;
- anatomically, the brain has three parts: rational, emotional, and instinctual;
- there are four basic emotions: fury, fear, sadness, happiness;
- we are built do have negative states to stay out of, rather than have positive states to which to be attracted;

Solution-focused leadership (Petra MUELLER-DEMARY – MDI)
- focus on different things: small steps, desired outcome, solution, resources; but not at all time;

Effective training using classical psychodrama techniques? How? (Irina STEFANESCU – Flux Training)
- life instructions:
a. Have fun;
b. Do not hurt people;
c. Do not humiliate people;
d. Strive to learn;
- any experience is beneficial to learning;
- rules for role-playing:
a. Specific context;
b. Clear and well understood objectives;
c. Clear and well understood instructions;
d. Specific, relevant, realistic, immediate feed-back;

Workshop (Bruno MEDICINA)

_________
Bottom line: I’ve learned quite a few things at the training event.

This blog post’s contents:
1. What’s the basis for comparison?
2. How have I met Ana-Maria CORLAN?
3. What impressed me?
4. How to contact Ana-Maria CORLAN?
5. Conclusions

1. What’s the basis for comparison?
Besides teachers, I think the number of persons I’ve seen talking for more than 40 minutes with an audience that included me are professionals speakers. Speaking in public has many meanings, from conference speakers, seminar trainers, moderators, but all-in-all I can say I’ve seen quite a lot of speakers.

2. How have I met Ana-Maria CORLAN?
In the winter of 2008 (20th of February to 26th of February 2008) I took part to a winter school about Programmes and Project Management in Predeal, Brasov, in a lovely location on some mountain (or hill). It was organized by National Agency for Supporting Youth Initiatives – ANSIT Romania.

How I got to Predeal? Me and a person I’ve known only via Internet arrived by car in the first day in the evening from Bucharest. After I met my apartment colleagues, we go to dinner. I decide I should sit at a crowded table, with no familiar face (very easy to meet conditions in the first evening). There were 5 persons, not a single boy. After I present myself, another person takes initiative and presents herself, and everybody says a few things. I thought everyone was from the same group of persons, and I only replied to conversations, didn’t initiate any (but I was not very silent, either).

After dinner, an official presentation of the program takes place. One trainer presents his program joyful, full of life, funny. He then invites the other trainer to speak – surprise! It turns out Ana-Maria CORLAN was at the table I was sitting. She gives a less-than-enthusiastic presentation. We are then told by the organizers that we’ll be separated into two groups, randomly. My preference was for the first trainer – I could communicate, laugh and he could motivate me. The second trainer spoke very little both at the table and at the presentation and she wasn’t that funny for my taste.

The next morning I see the lists (we were separated into two groups). “Huh? I’m into this group? No way! I wish to switch!” Switching was not possible, we were told the day before. I go to the training with low morale. I was the last one to enter the room. The chairs were ordered in a U-shape, and there was one empty chair right in the middle of the imaginary U. Someone suggests me to take the chair. I give a “Huh?” look, take a chair from the back of the room and place it right near one end of the U letter, the closest to the flipchart (and where the action takes place).

I knew no one in the room, nobody was talking one to another, after a failed initiation of a conversation with the only person sitting next to me, I get a newspaper and start reading. The training didn’t start yet. The trainer comes and suggests I should put my paper away. “Huh?”, I think, “But there’s really nothing else to do. I can’t just sit here and look at the ceiling. What a waste of time!” Anyhow, I put my newspaper away.

There’s an introduction to the course, we write our names on a name tag, and things start moving. At the end of the first day I was thinking something like “I can’t believe what just happened! This can’t be a training! Wow, and to think I would have switched the trainers. No way!”

What happened next? Imagine courses of roughly 6 hours per day (with minor and major breaks), each day. It was quite intensive.

There were two groups, each with about 20 people, each with its trainer. As said, I was lucky enough to be in Ana-Maria CORLAN’s group.

The training methods involved a theory part (rather short), a work-in-groups part (much longer) and from time to time some fun activities (also known as “energizers“).

The group I was in was kept for the whole week, which meant we could establish good bonds and by the end of the training I had a lot of fun in that group.

3. What impressed me?
At the very beginning of the training there was a definition: What does “Project management” involve? The very first words of the trainer were not “The project is…” Instead, they were “What is a project, from your perspective?” It takes quite a bit of courage to put even the definition of the project, the very first words you start the training with, in the hands of others.

And people were telling things on Project Management, some closer to the definition, some further away. Words pop up, people came with ideas. And the trainer was writing them all on a flip chart. At the end of this there were a lot of words written down.

I was expecting to challenge a few ideas (“wouldn’t you think that it’s better?”, “hmmm, why do you think that?”, “are you sure that’s true?”), to politely refuse others (“yes, this is a worthwhile idea, but I prefer not writing it down”, “yes, that’s true, but it’s better we keep to the core of the definition”), to avoid repetition (“this was said before, even if with different words”) or to come up with hints (“what would you say project management involves on the financial aspects?”) or some brand new ideas by themselves (“would you think that the GANTT chart is involved in the project management?”). Nothing like this ever happened. The trainer carefully listened to each idea, wrote it down. No idea was even challenged, not to say refused, a lot of ideas involved repetition (and they were all written), no hints were given by the trainer (not to mention brand new ideas).

So, at the end of the task, we had a page of flipchart filled with words, some closer to the truth while others further away. Clearly some of the ideas were less important, and we had to know which one was good and which one was bad. Who was the one person in the room who knew most about project management theory, much more than anybody else? You’re right: the trainer herself (Ana-Maria CORLAN). Now she had to have the list reduced to a little more than the current list. And what does she do? Instead of cutting the words on the current page of flipchart (which might offend someone’s feelings), and instead of picking up the right words herself (a thing for which she had the most expertise), she challenges the class: what would you pick to be the right definition of a project?

Now I am shocked: I had to write down on my notebook a small list of words chosen by my colleagues from a larger list of words coming yet again from my colleagues. And I had to learn this definition for a end-of-winter-school examination. At that very moment I didn’t quite realized what happened. But by the end of the day I knew this was one of the most unexpected things I’ve seen in a training until that date. It was huge. After day one I was all eyes-and-ears to everything that happened in the training room. It was just unbelievable.

You may think that this was a one-time event. No way! There were more and more examples of coming up with ideas. I think that a lot of the training was question-based. I came to the winter school eager to accumulate, and I was challenged to give. Now that’s what I call change of perspective.

Hadn’t I known better, I would have doubt her judgment abilities – “you can’t empower others so much. This can’t be. There’s something wrong with your abilities”. But no, it was her option to do it like this. Quite contrary, she was a good trainer also. This is breathtaking.

What determined such thinking from me? The thing that impressed me mostly was empowering. According to Dictionary.com website, citing Princeton University’s WordNet, “empower” means to “give or delegate power or authority to”. Days passed and many things happened, but the most important thing that impressed me was empowering.

Another thing that struck me was the emphasis put on working in teams. This was, by far, the longest type of learning I’ve done at the winter school. We worked on teams a lot. And, for myself at least, I had a lot of fun doing this. What can I learn out of this? Even if I was mostly impressed with the abilities of Ana-Maria CORLAN as a trainer, she still allowed the participants to better express themselves in teams, rather than present them with information. So, she put emphasis on teams, even if she could have done a great presentation, or good interaction with the participants. Now how can’t that be great?

Some people put little emphasis on feed-back. Others more. Ana-Maria CORLAN made it like this: in the first day she asked for a feed-back via a fill-in form. In the last day she asked for feed-back in a form. In the last day she also asked for feed-back in a live manner, with real discussions. I think feed-back is important. How did she treat the feed-back? I’ve noticed a change in the way she reacted to the persons who were late after the first day. Also after the first day she said that some persons asked for energizers. We had plenty of energizers from that day on, and the second day started with two energizers.

At the end of the training, in the last day of training, prior to the examination session, we had the option of switching sides. Yet again I could pick things. My alternatives were this: a cool trainer, funny, very sociable and a trainer which encouraged personal thinking and initiative to the maximum. My general pattern of thinking when choosing this is simple: “if I don’t know you, if there’s something new about you, if I can learn something new from you, I’m your man.” This means I prefer diversity, and I would rather see a new trainer than the same training or trainer again and again. There is just one exception to this: the trainer has to be very good, or to impress me in such a manner that the option of diversity simply fails. In this case the choice was very simple. After knowing her, Ana-Maria CORLAN was the obvious choice for me. It’s nice to mention that I have looked on the presentation written on a large paper for both trainings and the written presentation for Ana-Maria CORLAN was much better this time.

In the last day I found out with great surprise that the class I was part of didn’t behave according to the trainer’s expectations. My reaction was something like “Huh? What did you mean? It was perfect. It was great”. Well, it wasn’t that great after all. It seemed that some things which I appreciated a lot – empowering others, letting them express, encouraging communication -, were misunderstood. Some persons, including me, expressed too freely. It seems the training participants exaggerated the very large options they had. I hope nothing changed with the trainer’s behavior after that.

Regarding empowering actions: she asked for help whenever needed (help with materials, arranging the room). During games, she asked for help from some participants.

4. How to contact Ana-Maria CORLAN?
You may find another training with her. Leaving a comment for her on this blog post might also help.

5. Conclusions

_______________
Bottom line: I took part to other summer and winter schools, to other trainings, conferences, seminars and workshops. I’ve made friends at the winter school in Predeal and I have some great memories in there. But the empowering abilities as a trainer of Ana-Maria CORLAN impressed me most for any public speaker I’ve seen.

Related posts to this blog story are:
a. English message: How to make a career decision? IT – Economics – PR – IT back again (personal case study);
b. English blog post: Status on self-improvement: March 2008. What you can learn from this;
c. Romanian text: Cea mai penibila intamplare din viata mea si ce am invatat din asta.

Have I left a mark on you? Do you have an opinion you wish to share with the world? Please post a comment below.

This blog post’s content:
1. How many Romanian trainers did I see? (with whom do I compare?)
2. History of events (when have I seen Bruno MEDICINA?)
3. What do I like most about him? (What makes Bruno MEDICINA a great trainer?)
4. How to see Bruno MEDICINA for yourself?
5. What decision to take?

Note: you may wonder why in this blog post I say little to nothing on what Bruno MEDICINA actually says. The reason is very simple: the thing I like most about this speaker is not the way in which he speaks or the things that he says. It has mostly to do with what I feel when he speaks. And this is largely unwritable. I will describe some general feelings on Bruno MEDICINA, but I can’t give you too many examples.

First of all, who is Bruno Medicina? You may wish to see his profile on Business Edu web site or his own web site.

1. How many Romanian trainers did I see? (with whom do I compare?)
In the autumn of 2001 I joined the Faculty of International Business and Economics (the Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest). I would stay in there for four years. After college, I’ve worked full-time, and then for almost an year I’ve been a freelancer. Now I work for another full-time job.

Most of those four college years, and the year working as a freelancer, I’ve taken part to a large number of activities involving public speaking (other than formal education). Even when working full-time I went to a lot of public speaking events. I have even created a mailing list dedicated to such events, where I informed my readers about conferences. I’ve been a member of some NGOs specialized in event organization, 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 currently the largest one. Most of the speakers I’ve seen were Romanians, but some International speakers also. I can say I compare Bruno MEDICINA with quite a few other trainers or speakers.

2. History of events (when have I seen Bruno MEDICINA?)
The very first time I’ve seen Bruno MEDICINA was actually at a fair, rather than a conference event. I was living in a hostel of the Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest, somewhere near RomExpo exhibition centre (the area is know in Romanian as “Agronomie” – Agronomy – due to the closeness to the main office and University campus of University of Agronomical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Bucharest). I think it was in a winter or spring, perhaps in 2001-2002 or 2002-2003. Anyhow, sometimes between autumn of 2001 and spring of 2003.

I came to the fair with two thoughts: to see the fair itself as quick as possible and to attend to at least one workshop. By the time I finished seeing the fair, the Bruno MEDICINA workshop already begun. It was in a room with multiple entries, there weren’t that many people present (it’s natural for this to happened at an under-promoted fair), and I sat in there. I didn’t understand everything Bruno MEDICINA was saying (he was speaking in Romanian, but with an Italian accent), and this lead me into not paying attention. Writing down wouldn’t help either – I was writing down words, but wasn’t paying all that much attention. I left disappointed. Time passed and I forgot his name, but the attitude remained with me. Back then I was only focusing on what can I learn from a speaker, not on the things that happen within me.

In the second (or third maybe?) year of faculty, I found out about a fire walking experience, first time in Bucharest, for free. Just the thought of it provoked me badly. “Me on fire? Wow, now that’s something!” But I managed to cut down on enthusiasm and self-convince that it isn’t all that great (not that I was, by any chance, afraid). I thought “What a waste of time”. I didn’t know back then who Bruno MEDICINA was, even if I’ve seen him before, so I didn’t associate the two events.

I think I’ve seen him after that at some other conferences, one-time-only events (my memory doesn’t help me all that much). While working as a freelancer (2007-2008), I had a lot more time to go to conferences. I went to see him a lot of times in the middle of the day at a tea-shop in the Bucharest center. I was enjoying this a lot, mostly due to the sense of emergency (Some announcements went like this: “Come to see Bruno MEDICINA today, in two hours time, at a Tea-shop”; Quite funny to be always vigilant). I’ve seen him quite a few times like this. The event was filmed and broadcasted on the Internet.

In the autumn of 2007 I went for the very first time at a firewalking. Lots of preparation prior to the event, excitement and fear, enjoyment and stress, all in one. Great day, great memories.

I’ve also seen him a few times in the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Studies, at events organized by ASPSE students’ organization.

I’ve seen him two times at Palace Hall, in the spring of 2008 and 2009 (I have made a video at the last event in here: Bruno Medicina on the things that really matter).

And in the autumn of 2008 I went for the second time at a firewalking event (and this time I had quite a physical experience). You can see me in this YouTube clip: Bruno Medicina – Firewalking at Studentiada (I’m the second one to pass, after Bruno; I’m the white-collar guy).

3. What do I like most about him? (What makes Bruno MEDICINA a great trainer?)
I told you that the very first time I’ve seen him, sometime in 2001-2003, I had a bad impression after meeting him. The two faults I saw were:
A. He said blunt things;
B. I had problems understanding what he said (he didn’t do a lot of question and involvement of the room).

If I were to look at the current behavior, I would say that the biggest two problems are:
A. He says blunt things;
B. He doesn’t involve the audience by communicating directly (even though now I can follow what he says much better).

So, where’s the evolution? Why since 2007 until this day I constantly went to see him again and again? Why is it that I went through fire (literally) two times at events where he lead the action? Why is it that I consider him such a good trainer that he is on my blog? The answer is simple: it’s not the things that he says, it’s the things he provokes in my mind via the things that he says. I evolved during those years, and now I interpret his actions differently.

He has a way of putting my mind to work, that I leave most of the presentations thinking “What was that!?” He says simple things, some things that are really boring. But the way those things make me feel is out-of-ordinary. I’m touched, I have insights, I get new perspectives, I find new paths of thinking, I develop my creativity. He’s that good.

I’m pretty sure that if Bruno MEDICINA would pick a subject he knows nothing about and he would speak about this subject for the first time in his life, I would have some things to learn. Because it’s not the things that he says, it’s not the way in which he says it (he mostly puts rhetorical questions, not involving the audience), but it’s all on how he makes my thoughts wander.

I could go see Bruno MEDICINA for countless times, speaking on no-matter-what. I’ve heard him speaking on firewalking for a quite a few hours, and one year after I repeated the experience. My feelings on that? I want to go again this year. I’ve heard some of his ideas for three to four times. And yet I go again and again to hear him talking.

Unfortunately, it’s not him the one that talks. It’s me. The things that he says wake up thoughts in me. And that’s plain wonderful. Yet I can’t really describe this in detail.

Sure, he has other qualities that make him a great trainer: he’s sincere (to the point that you may wonder if he wouldn’t be losing money if he says some things like that), he’s funny (and laughs at his own jokes, which is cool – I know when to laugh), he’s supportive (I’ve always felt support from him), he does CSR, although he wouldn’t call it like that (how many free events have I seen from him?), he does engage the audience when he wants to (at the firewalking sessions he’s a totally different person than when he speaks in public at a conference), he’s good with technical part (better than a lot of other trainers at least).

There are other persons from which I got more insights on a given period of time. There were people who made my mind wander in a better way. But for a training / public speaking / workshop / conference / seminar of 30 minutes to 5 hours to constantly give me fresh ideas, to constantly provoke me, to fully break barriers in my mind, I’d definitely pick Bruno MEDICINA. Because it’s not on what he says. It’s on what you think about what he says. This is all about coaching.

4. How to see Bruno MEDICINA for yourself?
Bruno MEDICINA is an international man of business, but you can mostly see him in Romania. You can sure provoke him for another country, see what happens. He has a web site, an Yahoo Group, a Facebook profile, a Facebook group, a Facebook page (these three are different one to another), a LinkedIn profile and he works on all of them thoroughly. You can find him on YouTube, you can search for him on Google and see a great article on him on Business Edu. But I do suggest you see him in person to have a clear glimpse on what he can do.

5. What decision to take?
Bottom line: I read articles by Bruno MEDICINA from time to time (I actually read them all). I see him on videos. They’re not that bad, but they’re not that good. But being in the same room with him, letting him play with your mind, is one of the best experiences one can have. Bruno MEDICINA is all about real experience, is all about the things he puts in me. And that’s why I deeply admire him for: for making me think in a really creative way.

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.

Contents
1. Attention
2. Self-awareness
3. Memory
4. Spatial perception
5. Negotiation skills
6. Conclusions

1. Attention. For the whole period of the Predeal winter school we had training, we created some papers via teamwork, we did some physical and unless you didn’t speak Romanian you couldn’t keep your mouth shut for too long. I’ve also read from a book on my way home. Except for communication, these were all activities that I’ve had troubles keeping up with in the past.

The great news: in the winter camp I could understand what the trainer was saying (also due to the fact that I was allowed to come up with my own comments), I gave good feed-back on the team’s activities (really no problem focusing on the task, but I could add that this was not a very challenging task for my attention), and naturally I could focus on what other people were saying while speaking (maybe because they didn’t use hard-to-understand words).

The not-so-great news: although my attention was good at reading the book, it wasn’t that great, considering it was supposed to be a book easy to read, from a field I should be fairly familiar with (psychology). It was a Romanian book (my native tongue), with fairly understandable words. In 2002, when I discovered I had a trouble with the attention span, I tried my best to find ways to work on it. The most obvious trouble was with school: I couldn’t follow any teacher’s class (even if writing, I still didn’t remember a thing from the class, I didn’t even know what the class was about; I could follow seminar activity though), and I couldn’t read any of the school manuals. Back then, I didn’t considered the fact that I was not paying attention to what others were saying to be a big deal. Now I do, and that problem is solved. Anyhow, not being able to read a book was a primary target five to six years ago, and I still have problems on this. They are nevertheless much smaller (I did understand and followed 70 to 80 percent of the book).

Why is attention so important? Besides things like reading a book, a thing of deadly importance is crossing the street. My only accident like this happened when I was about 4 years old, on a zebra – I was not attentive, and a motorcycle threw me to the ground. Nothing bad happened to me, I was just very scared. Also, most of the other almost-to-happen incidents happened while crossing the street on zebras. It just that I don’t pay attention.

How did I learn to focus better? First of all, this is a hard to answer question. There is not a single factor that helped me better focus on things, and it’s not always easy to see a direct correlation activity-focus. So, how did I learn? I will skip the less successful factors, and only present the top one: via sports. Tae-bo, Karate, Korfball, even home exercises (gymnastics with or without dumbbells) – they all helped. My focus also improved, I think, due to healthier lifestyle – better eating, better sleeping.

What’s still to be done? I read a lot of time each day. Unfortunately, rarely do I read a book. I read news articles (via Internet when at my PC or via hard copies when in the subway), blog posts, web pages, and generally a lot of information goes before my eyes. Yet a book is harder to be skimmed, I can’t go from page 30 to page 50 and still understand a thing, and if I lose focus for two minutes, then the whole books becomes hard to understand. So a basic trick on improving my skills on reading books would be not only reading more materials, like I already do, but actually reading books. Skimming is not easy to do in a book, and with time and practice, I think, my skills will improve. Also, continuing on the healthy life style (eat, sleep, do sports) can’t do any wrong.

2. Self-awareness. Now this should have been one of my top skills and my mouth dropped when in the winter camp I found out a thing about me that should have been obvious. It goes like this: following a dispute with a person whose expertise I highly valued, I found out that I have a different than most other persons perception on how human relations should be. I valued conflict and no-peace as a way to improve on things, while most other persons, including the person with whom I had the dispute, valued peace and harmony. I went on my past experiences to test this presumption, and found it to be true. The fact that it took a winter camp in Predeal to find out this simple thing was a hit to me. “How could have I been so unaware of this contrast in the way I and others view human relations?” Other than that, I received a lot of feed-back, and I can’t say my personal observation were low, so I already knew some things being told: I already noticed some things, but it’s still good to see how others perceive you.

How did I learn to be good on self-awareness? Well, simply put, by practicing. I just thought a lot on my skills, my thoughts, my way of acting. It’s not a skill I wish to improve upon, but the fact that in the winter camp I found out a very important thing to me that was not obvious shook for a bit my belief that I’m good with self-awareness.

3. Memory. This is a short one. On the winter camp: I basically can’t remember any name. I share a room with a person for 6 days and still not know its name, I can be in a team and work for hours with somebody, and have no idea what that person’s name is. Generally speaking: I remember well my experiences, I can understand and recall an argumentation, but names, faces, what people wear, who said what, addresses, paths I’ve already been to, buildings – I seem to be much lower than average on remembering these. I don’t think there was ever an improvement on my memory skills (and this thing can hardly be improved), but basically due to increased attention, and a healthier lifestyle my memory is a fraction bit better.

What’s still do be done?
I can still live healthy and my memory functions are helped a bit by this, but that’s just about it. The memory itself can hardly be improved.

But I can uses reminders, have a Calendar, use objects to remind myself (I leave one object on my backpack, so I know that I will take with me) – basically help my life go on in spite of bad memory.

Also reading on memory improvement techniques might help (most of the articles I read are on health) – a recent article caught my eyes. It’s about “Ten Minutes Of Talking Improves Memory And Test Performance” in “Science Daily”.

4. Spatial perception. Each time a close person asks me “How was the winter school?”, I answer “I hit a girl in the face with the fist” and then I explained what happened. Now it’s obvious that a bad thing happened, but why would I start my description of a 7-days school with one of the poorest experiences? First of all, it’s a rather funny story (in a rather awkward way for me), and a story which creates strong emotions. Both are good things. Then it helps me live with the story. If I can tell my best friend the bad thing, and he has a reaction, and that reaction is calmer than mine, it helps me calm myself. And when people think about “hitting in the face” it’s usually the region: mouth-nose-eyes. It was actually in the forehead, so a bit more easy to handle. Coming back, the story about me hitting a girl is quite exemplary for my spacial perception, so I’ll tell it. Me, a boy and two girls were at a improvised contest: “Who can throw a snowball further with the left arm?”. They all throw, the boy was quite good at this. Then I try. To have an imagine of my strength, I can do 50 push-ups, and I weight about 77kg /170 pounds. I’ve done about two years of karate before 2008. Also, my left arm is stronger than right. So I try to do a normal course of the arm (a rounded course in a vertical plan). But in the last moment I decide not to hit in a vertical plan, but do a horizontal throw. So the direction of the fist changes in the last moment, and it lands in the forehead of a girl. How hard can I hit someone? At karate, I didn’t do as advised: “Try to hit your opponent, but the strength of the hit should be much lower on the impact itself”. Instead, I avoided hitting anyone. This went well for one and a half year of karate training – I had experienced opponents, and not hitting them was easy. At some moment a complete novice comes to karate, and I get to train with him. When he was hitting, he had a bad habit of moving his head to the front. The unavoidable thing happened: I hit him in his left eye each time I tried to hit the air. He was surely suffering. I hit him again. And again. I got used with his style and avoided this after a while, but three hits in the eye must have left an unforgettable memory. So I can say I can hit someone pretty hard.

For now on I can say this: I got involved in one team play outdoors, and managed to hit someone in the face (forehead, to be precise). I once went to the mountains, and I got the record of most falls on the ground (snow, ice and slippery boots helped). Indoors, I ran into a flip chart and put it down. I did manage to do one thing right: go to a nearby forest and carry some wood repetitively for almost an hour (but I was cautious enough to stay away from the ax).

So overall, my spacial perception is very low. How does this affect my life? First of all, I can’t drive. Driving is out of the question. I had no intent of hitting someone, of falling on the ground, or of putting a flip chart down. But, unlike driving, these are mostly things that are relatively unavoidable, and relatively I can live with mistakes on common actions. Living with “I hit someone with the car, and I drove although I knew I had a problem with spacial perception” is not acceptable. Then bumping into people, although vastly reduced from what it was years ago, is still so common that it’s a bit of a problem. And the final thing: if there’s something on the floor there’s a high probability I’ll either step on it, or I’ll trip.

What did I do to solve this? Sports and playing theater. They all helped more or less, but still there’s room to grow. There’s not to much thing to be done other than continue with sports (playing theater as an activity is very close to waste of time if not thoroughly made and not paying attention to time itself).

5. Negotiation skills. I will not end this post with the grumpy conclusions that everything I do is failure. So I’ll change the time frame a bit, and present a different story. On March 9 2008 I go to buy flowers. Context: from 1 to 8 March a lot of flowers are sold in Romania, and the sellers also buy a lot of flowers in this period, some of which don’t get sold. This implies that on March 9 you are most likely to buy some unsold flowers from March 1. I wanted to buy only three flowers, so the reasoning of “I buy a larger quantity, give me a discount” couldn’t be used (this would be an easy-to-do negotiation). So I go to a local market and look on flowers. I ask the price of some flowers that seem not to be old. The answer is like this: 8 RON a flower thus 25 RON a bouquet of three flowers (so instead of cutting the price due the quantity argumentation described above, they actually increase the price with 1 RON, perhaps due to the not-so-valid “we do the packaging” reason). I ask for 7 RON, I get a “No” reply. I went on to other flower sellers, the quality was poorer, while the price tag was about the same. Now here comes an interesting point: I only wanted to buy from the seller with beautiful flowers, no matter what the price tag is. But he doesn’t know this. So I come back to him and look a bit hesitant, almost like leaving. He starts the conversation “Come on mister, should I give you this bouquet?” I say “7 RON”. “No, this can’t be done”. “7.5 RON”. “What’s the difference between 7.5 and 8 RON? Settle for 8 RON?”. (Here comes my solid opinion: If there is no difference then …) “7.5 RON”. I had already left him one time due to the price, his own defense argumentation (that it’s only a small difference) was being used against him, and I was persistent. Tricky situation. He asks a different person, who was doing the bouquets (as if this was the first time in his life he had heard this question) and gets her permission. “OK, should we give you this bouquet?” And he shows me a pre-made bouquet. The trouble with pre-made bouquets is that they usually contain old flowers, since they’re harder to see within the package. So I say “No” and I manually pick three flowers, one close to another, so he can’t comment on the fact that he doesn’t have time to pick flower by flower and he already made me a concession. There were all good flowers, so I lost nothing on choosing them close one to another. He tries to give me two of the flowers I picked, and a different one, which looked a bit older, and I insist on having my exact three flowers. “No fancy packaging, just a small one, right?”, he says (it’s a “Yes”-ending question, fighting is a bit not easy). “Right”, I say. I had three reasons on this. First, a book on politeness written by Aurelia MARINESCU says that flowers should not be packed at all, so a smaller package is fine. My flower bouquet will also look different than a typical bouquet. Also, paying 1 RON for packaging seemed like a bad idea. While the lady packages my flowers, the guy looks at me and says a lovely thing, although in a bit annoyed way: “So you like to negotiate, mate?” I smile and say “Yeah”. I want to pay him. I generally have exact amounts of every conceivable sum of money, but this is done due to the fact that I know how to keep small money in my pocked and give the large banknotes. So I give him 50.5 RON (instead of the requested 22.5 RON), and he should give me 28 RON. He couldn’t not give me 0.5 change with the reasoning “I don’t have that small amount of money on me”, and I anticipated this. He asks for an exact amount (it seems he didn’t have or wish to give me even 28 RON), and I still don’t give him 22.5 RON, but 52.5, and he gives me 30 RON. The lady finishes packaging and I then take my flowers.

What’s my negotiation skills done me? First, a reduction of price from 25 to 22.5, which is a 10% off. This is quite big considering that my argument is none than “I won’t pay you that much, it’s too expensive”, and all the prices in the market were the same. I knew the exact prices for the flowers in all of the market. I bought the most beautiful flowers in the market, picked by me. My flower arrangement looked different due to packaging. And although the seller can forget about me in two weeks time, in case he remembers me, he will know that I negotiate, and will not insist that much. I also have a precedent of a winning negotiation with him, which will be in my advantage. As a funny thing, I also changed a 50 RON bill into 10 RON bills.

How did I learn negotiation? First of all, I got to cope with the stress of negotiating via conflicts where I live. The people I live with right now are tough negotiators, most of the “talk” in the house is done arguing, so I learned how to talk like that and cope with the stress of negotiating the hard way. I also have some theoretical background on the negotiation process from the graduation paper done on negotiation (strategies and techniques) for the faculty final exam. These two refer to: stress within the negotiation process (zero to me), strategies to do while negotiating (I know some basic stuff). But there is another element, very important itself: a good argumentation. This was learned on Internet forums. You see, on an Internet forum most of the communication is done by fighting with the other person’s opinions. This might be good for thinking process, this might be bad for peaceful communication in day-to-day life, but one can’t argue the fact that writing on a PC forum improves one’s argumentation skills. I don’t wish to improve on this skill, it’s pretty good.

6. Conclusions
1. Even hard-to-deal-with processes like memory can be improved some way or another (for memory: sleeping well, eating well, becoming familiarized with a field, paying more attention);
2. Most strategies on fixing something on yourself can and should focus on the bad thing itself (attention, self-awareness, memory, spatial perception, negotiating skills), but on ways to adapt your behavior to it (talk to be attentive, think to have a better self awareness, use reminders for better memory, use maps and ask people for spatial perception, try to understand the other person’s opinions for negotiating skills);
3. It’s best to evaluate your skills from time to time (I constantly note what my sports performance has been after a training, even one in the “comfort of my own home”, like a commercial says);
4. Some skills have small direct implications on other’s people’s life (not memorizing names, poor self-awareness on things one says), and others have huge impact (not being attentive while crossing the street, bad spatial perception while driving); don’t let the huge impact implications ruin your life (find ways to cross the street and be attentive; don’t drive);
5. Knowing your best skills is one thing; Using them each time you can is another; You can and should use your best skills each time you get an opportunity.

Has any of the actions described here made an impact on you? Leave a comment below.