More than 10 years ago, in October 18, 2007, at the Howard Johnson Hotel in Bucharest, HR Club organized a conference at which I’ve first seen Nigel Risner. His talk was about “How to Create IMPACT as an HR Partner”.

At some point, he asked for volunteers for a task which anyone should have volunteered to (be in front of people, be applauded). He picked the fastest person to raise his hand, and then asked a curious question to a participant – “Why didn’t you raise your hand?”. And the answer came “He was faster than me.”, to which Nigel replied “So, it’s his fault?” (I wrote about this previously on the blog).

There’s one more thing – at the event, people were sitting on chairs. He said something like, “OK, try to get to the highest height. Do your best. Give all you can to do it.” People complied. Then he said, “Now do it more”. And people did it more. Question – The request was clear the first time. Why the need to specify “do it more”? Initially, people, including myself, didn’t do it as often. (I’m not 100% sure it was at this event, but I think so)

I see things like this all around me: 1. People blame others, not taking accountability. 2. When people work, they don’t work as much as they could.

Of course, I also do this.

And I consider this to be life’s coaching solution.

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There are sometimes some contests like these: “join our newsletter for a chance to win X”.

The thing is, you could join just to get a prize, without reading the newsletter itself.

The other thing is, the contest organizers likely are aware of this.

It’s a “you’re fooling me, but I will fool you more, but I know you are aware that we are fooling ourselves”.

“I know that you know”.

Game of “knows”.

We know people don’t read, but still organize the contest.

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I enjoy watching some comedies, but I generally prefer a movie that gives me more emotions than just laughter.

I tend to look at life critically. I do my best to be an optimist, but generally, I think I’m cynical at some points.

There’s a balance, as in everything – you let yourself go, or you put boundaries.

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Problems arise. It’s inevitable, it’s part of life.

Two big options to look at a problem:

• Why did it happen? It got so wrong. Everything is bad. Fix this! Avoid this!
• What can I do in the future to avoid this? What is my part’s problem from the issue?

There’s a general tendency to look at the past. It’s so easy to look at the past and say “I would have done it better.”.

But this is hardly in your control, and you avoid taking lessons from the mistake.

If you keep complaining, “life is hard, you did wrong there, it was your fault, I don’t like life”, you miss a lot of opportunities.

It’s much better too look for things to do from now: “what did I do wrong and I want to fix for the future? What was my fault in the issue, and how can I prevent it from now? What is a lesson from this, and where should the next step be?”

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” ― Yogi Berra

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. – Søren Kierkegaard

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I recently listened to a podcast in which this topic came up: Mircea Cărtărescu A Dat Autografe Timp De Cinci Ore La Madrid! | Libertatea. (perhaps, a different location)

There are places online you can buy books with autographs.

I once read a book by Gala Galaction (“La răspântie de veacuri“) (hope I’m not wrong with the reference) in which one character was supposed to meet a famous person, an author.

The character declined, saying something on the line of – “I want to meet this person when I have something similar to show.

I asked for a few autographs, mostly for books that were meant for other people.

But, generally, I avoid asking for autographs. I value the time of the author too much.

I think the author’s time would be better spent doing other things than signing books.

To keep Mircea Cărtărescu for hours just signing books is not how I view a time well spent.

In my opinion, when a famous person signs an autograph, they let you know “look, we are on the same level, you and I are the same, and, by giving an autograph, I testify for this”.

At the end of the day, there’s just a small, tiny, little problem – you are not at the same level as the author.

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