A thousand lives

Suzy Hazelwood - Love vintage books!

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… The man who never reads lives only one.” — George R.R. Martin

While the statement may be exaggerated, there’s some truth in it.

It’s true, in my opinion, that if you read you expand your horizon, you find out about new things, you experience the world in ways others can only … dream. :)

Reading can do wonders for one’s education.

I don’t believe in a one-fits-all scenario. Other ways of art consumption can bring good results.

Also, there’s a difference between consumption and creation.

There’s one thing to read 100 books in a year and another thing to write 300 blog posts a year.

There’s one thing to read a blog and another one to keep a journal.

There’s one thing to read an article and another one to post a tweet.

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Cât merită să plătești pentru o mașină?

Andy - Blue Planet, Copenhagen

Întrebarea „cât ai plăti pentru o mașină?” pornește de la presupunerea că aș plăti pentru o mașină.

Cel puțin în momentul acesta, consider că ar trebui să ne punem mai des întrebarea „Oare mă pot descurca în viață fără mașină, și să ajut, pe cât pot, planeta?”.

E bine să faci și lucruri mai mici pentru planetă, de la reciclare la consum mai mic.

Dar lucrurile majore sunt schimbările în stilul de viață masiv – de la carnea de vită la mașină, la călătorii mai puține.

Sunt lucruri care au impact mai mare sau mai mic. O mașină, din ce știu, e cu impact ecologic mare.

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How to be lucky?

Göran Johansson - Different attitudes

„Being pleasant and having a good attitude is a simple way to become luckier.

Opportunities come through people, and people are more likely to bring opportunities to people they like.

It’s hard to win if your attitude adds friction to every interpersonal experience.” – James Clear (Newsletter)

I used to be grumpier than today, to express things like „I don’t like this”, „I think this could be made better”, „You should focus on”.

While it’s nice for me to set boundaries, some people can get offended pretty easily.

How did I find out of this? By offending them, easily. :)

I now try to be pleasant, although I still am grumpy to some degree. Old habits die hard.

Attitude is key, also. Optimistic, cheerful, eager to work – they all matter.

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The wrong KPIs

The Focal Project - KPI

„The biggest risk to productivity is always the same: working on the wrong thing.” – James Clear (Newsletter)

I love this piece of advice!

Yes, it’s good to be successful, it’s great getting results.

But if you focus on the wrong things, that won’t help much.

The solution? Always try and find the right KPIs, don’t focus only on being successful with them.

I previously wrote about this.

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Being poor

Mike O'Sullivan - Money

abcdef_hijklmnopqrstuvwxyz⁷ (they/them) – @burnonblackhome:
Most ppl think being poor means you’re in a shanty with no TV, no phone, only a jar of pickles in the fridge… Because the reality of what poverty looks like might hit too close to home.

This is so true. Poverty is not making the ends meet, but sometimes this can be closer to you, the reader, than you may want it.

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Ce poți învăța de la un antreprenor?

Heiner Engbrocks - business as usual

Ce poți învăța de la antreprenori?

În principal, abilitatea de a face conexiuni și de a gândi ca un vânzător (oportunități), dar și realismul de a tăia în sânge, ca un contabil.

Project management, people management, finance, technical skills, recruiting.

Dar, principal, abilitatea de a vedea oportunități unde alții nu le văd.

Să poți conecta nevoia de soluție, să poți uni punctele, să fii optimist, să ai încredere, să motivezi și inspiri oamenii, să vii cu ceva nou – asta e un antreprenor, în principal.

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Taximetriști atipici

Ed - Original Aston Martin Z-Car

Anul acesta mi s-a întâmplat să am nevoie să merg cu taxiul.

Nu iau frecvent taxiul, nu m-am uitat pe siglă, mă grăbeam.

Un microbuz de la Năvodari la Constanța a mers foarte încet, trafic intens la mare.

Am intrat în taxi. Când mi-a zis că îmi cere 40 de lei pe o cursă scurtă și n-avea niciun sistem de taxare instalat, am înțeles în ce taxi mă aflam. Dar mă grăbeam și sunasem de 4 ori la taxiuri, niciunul nu îmi găsea taxi, era o grabă.

Retrospectiv, am soluții, dar la fața locului am luat deciziile care mi s-au părut optime.

Soluția, pe viitor? Ia mai des taxiul.

Problema era că sunam, căutam pe Net, și dura foarte mult, am stat vreo 10-15 minute așteptând un taxi.

Până la urmă, am ajuns la unul pirat.

Neplăcut, dar, punct cu punct, consider că am acționat bine.

Era de preferat să ajung mai devreme la întâlnire, decât să risc să ajung prea târziu.

Nu e o amintire plăcută, dar n-am soluție mai bună, punctual.

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Focusing on results only

Cadre filmări

After Tokyo, we should bring the Olympic charade to an end | David Goldblatt | The Guardian:
„Ask the Finns, who abandoned the state-sponsored pursuit of medals and spent the money instead on active transport and accessible facilities. They barely win anything any more, but they have the most active and healthy old people in the world. In Britain we have a sack of gold and an obesity crisis.”

Focusing on results, just for the sake of results, is a wrong way of solving problems.

The best option? Work on the long run.

Don’t find an arbitrary goal, focus on long term.

A book on this subject: Amazon.com: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life eBook : Adams, Scott: Kindle Store.

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Teaching with kindness

Kinder

I read recently a quote in the line of (very approximate quote, and I couldn’t find the original writer of it:

If you have trouble teaching some person something, that’s because you haven’t explained it kind enough.

That’s so true! A lot of times I blame, whenever I have issue explaining something, the technical aspects – I wasn’t good enough, smart enough. But it’s mostly related to kindness, to the happiness of sharing, to the joy of presenting something.

If I say something in a kind voice, if I care, then likely I will get some feedback, people will ask questions, I’ll get a glimpse on why the person didn’t learn that well.

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A quote from Begin Again (2013) I like a lot

Begin Again (2013)

There’s this quote from Begin Again (2013) that I like a lot:

– That’s what I love about music.
– What?
– One of the most banal scenes is suddenly invested with so much meaning, you know? All these banalities, they’re suddenly turned into these… these beautiful, effervescent pearls. From music.
I’ve got to say, as I’ve gotten older, these pearls are just… becoming increasingly more and more rare to me.

Begin Again (2013).

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