Philosophy

This page contains my principles when acting in life. I hope you’ll enjoy the ride.

What you’ll find in here:
1. My life philosophy principles;
2. Faults of this thinking – a clear life example.

My life philosophy principles
These are my life’s philosophy principles:
1. You should better act wrongly, rather than do nothing; You should act after some thinking, but acting is better than no action at all (by Andrei Cornea); 2. Twenty percent of your actions determine 80% of the results. Focus on those 20% (by Vilfredo Pareto principle – see Wikipedia article on the Pareto principle); (explained: ignore errors when possible, don’t bother by margins, don’t put too much effort into something not worth it)
3. (personal rule) Life is based on results and the only way to get results is by acting; Thus, you should act to get results;
4. (personal rule) The best way to solve a personal issue is by creating a conflict, even if this creates discomfort (to you too);
5. The best way to deal with a conflict in a debate is by following debate rules (see How to debate effectively and rationally);
6. (personal rule) Within debate rules, anything is possible to say;
7. (personal rule) Winning is not important; on the other hand, not making a single mistake that could prevent you from winning is crucial (this includes not being motivated); so it’s Ok not to win as long as you gave your best and didn’t make mistakes;
8. (personal rule) In case of losing, interpret this as a costly yet effective way to learn; (if you do something bad that cost you money, then it’s sort of a payed training for that particular mistake) (a rather positive way of looking at things)
9. (personal rule) In case of losing, find out everything that led to the mistake and work on it;
10. (personal rule) In case of winning, find out everything that led you to win and use it again and again;
11. (personal rule) Beauty, process, harmony – are all irrelevant to major winnings; (although beauty, or process itself, like work, or harmony can be a winning itself, it generally doesn’t yield optimal results following them as restrains) (life analysis should be on results, not harmony, for me)
12. I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody; (Bill Cosby)
13. All economy principles for life can be summed up in a single rule: Opportunity Cost (see the Opportunity Cost page on Wikipedia); (life is about choices mostly – you that or the other one; economy is is all about making the right choices)
14. Notice the fact that truth hurts. Just notice it. “Truth well told” is the basis of McCann advertising group. Not mine. In the movie “A few Good Men” these sentences are said (in a very loud voice): “You want answers?” “I think I’m entitled” “You want answers?” “I want the truth!” “You can’t handle the truth!” (YouTube clip on this). I’d say truth is the way, and when said people do swallow air (see below); Sometimes just shutting up is also fine;
15. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. (George Bernard Shaw)
16. (personal rule) All actions can be understood by the degree of addiction; One can’t do anything without having first an addiction; I should analyze the addiction in order to understand the process;
17. (personal rule) Ignore awkwardness no matter what; Just act.

Now you can ask me where is the philosophy, since all above are just signs of acting, not of thinking back. Well, that’s it!

Faults of this thinking – a clear life example
I think a good way of not making this page purely philosophical is speaking about a real life example.

In the winter of 2008 I go to a Open Days presentation “in a big multinational company” (like one cute commercial says through the voice of a child). In the recent past time to the event I became increasingly aware of the fact that my affirmations and way of acting shake people (and some don’t like that). At a specific time the presentation focused on questions about the company, ways of working etc. etc. All the questions were positive-inducing-answers questions or purely informational. I also put a informational question. At a time I get bored.

The most famous question for me to put in such a case: “Why do people leave your company?” I have heard the question been given in a presentation of a don’t-know-what manager who said it’s great to put just to show that you have very serious intentions in remaining in the company. It’s also a funny question, I might add. I’ve been putting the question again and again and again for numerous employers. My logic is simple: first is a very good question to find out the bad things right from the beginning, and then if you get an aversion for this question on a interview, you will most likely find other so called bad moments on me also (I put questions like these all the time, when speaking freely). So it’s both useful for information-acquiring and for setting the pace of the interview.

Returning to the story, these were the reactions of the HR manager: swallowed air, started in a very bit aggressive tone: “I will be sincere with you”, then gave only one reason for leaving the company. The answer given was one of the shortest to all of the questions from that day, even if the question required a broad answer. Analysis: the body movement (swallowing, a bit aggressive tone) indicated a state of discomfort. Discomfort was also present due to the small answer (she avoided). And the start “I will be sincere” indicates that either she was either not sincere at all, or she questioned the fact that the question can be answered sincerely. To sum it up, it was an unpleasant question, the answer was avoided, and may have been answered by lying (or thought it should be).

My goals (getting the info on why do people leave the company and being clear about my way of being) were only partially solved. I found out little information.

It was quite funny to think that the HR manager felt uncomfortable by a simple question. How to answer it? First of all, enjoy the question: it’s cool, lovely, beautiful. It’s just a question. You should feel fine answering this. If you don’t feel fine, you may decline to answer. The question also starts with an assumption: people do leave your company (and assumptions are a hard to deal fact). You can confront this assumption, refusing to answer it in the induced state: “Why do you say people our company? People do not leave our company, they … [give alternatives] …” Not attacking the assumption makes your head go into bad places: you actually imagine the reasons for people leaving the company, as a HR manager you remember the inherent fights, to answer it you have to put yourself into the employers’ shoes. It’s a tricky part, but not going into my assumption is a good way to handle it. The poorest answered received by me was an attack on me by a HR manager at a large HR company in Romania: “Why are you interested in this?” (a bit aggressively). The best answer was given by a consultant, who calmly confronted the assumption, then fully answered my question, by providing detailed and real examples. He ended the answer with “Did I answer your question?”. Now that takes guts!

Anyhow, it’s a good question, only informative, who can provoke bad reactions on HR managers. Should you say it? I don’t know. I do say it (funny, get to the truth, unconventional, put cards on the table), but my actions are not universally correct.

I’m not sure why are you on the philosophy page, since this is a “Get a result now!” blog, but since you’re here you might want to leave a purely provocative comment below.