A Crash Course In The Long-Lost Art Of Adaptation

One of the biggest lies of my life was this one: if you do your job constantly, if you listen to your folks obediently, nothing bad will happen to you. All you have to do in order to live a happy life is to play by the rules and everyone around you will do the same. If you listen to life, life will listen to you and will reward you back big time.

Well, guess what, it didn’t actually happen like this. I mean, I did my best to be obedient, to follow the rules, to do my job and not to harm anyone else, and yet, out of the blue, I got kicked straight in my ass. And not only once.

I’m sure you’ve been there too. And not only once. You did your job too, minding your own business, fulfilling your roles as a friend, employee or husband and then, kaboom, life hits you right in the groin, not only filling your entire being with unbearable pain, but also leaving you breathless, confused and defeated. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about business, about relationships or friendships or you name it. Sometimes you just get hit. At some point, if you’re a business man, competition will play dirty. Or employees will let you down. In your personal life, the persons you trust (or care for) the most will lie to you or dump you. In your casual circle, a friend will suddenly betray you. It will happen.

For a long time, I thought I didn’t do the right thing… you know, righteously enough. I thought I didn’t follow all the rules, or that I somehow misunderstood something. I thought it was my fault. This is what they teach you, anyways. If what you do doesn’t solve the problem, just use a bigger hammer. So I strived even harder. But surprise. Nothing changed.

As life unfolded, the tiny little crack I was just glimpsed at, became larger and larger. It looked like no matter what I did, the gap between what I expected and what I actually got grew bigger and bigger. It became obvious there wasn’t a direct link, or any causality whatsoever, between my obedience to the rules and the bad things that were happening to me.

To make a long story short, it took me a ginormous amount of time to realize that life really is random. That you can’t control it. That you can’t influence events. They will always happen somewhere outside you.

Oh, my god, stop it right here! Blasphemy!

How can someone who writes about goals, living a better life and improving your skills can come up with such an enormity? You can’t do anything about events? You just have to sit there and endure whatever comes in your face?

Well, not so fast, Jose, not so fast.

I didn’t say anything about what YOU have to do. I said something about events. About things that are happening to you. Those things, believe it or not, you aren’t able to control.

You can’t control the stock market. But you can see how she moves and take advantage of some opportunities.

You can’t control the weather (not unless you can detonate a huge atomic bomb, or generate a volcano eruption, that is). But you can assess the changes, evaluate them and then act on them. Put on lighter clothes if it’s getting warmer or take an umbrella if it’s going to rain.

You can’t control the behavior of your clients, if you run a business, not to mention competition. But you can observe the competition moves, read your customer feedbacks and then do whatever you have to do advance.

Are you with me now?

Truth is we have a very limited sphere of direct influence in this world. If you really look at it, it’s just a tiny bubble around us. You can control your body, your clothes, your moves. You can control your balance and your visual sensors as you walk outside of a building, for instance, but you can’t control a potential brick that may fall right into your head from the top of that building. You can observe it, of course, and avoid it. But the brick will be outside of your control zone.

The Randomness Of Life

We get a lot of “bricks form the top of the building” in our lives. We can spot some of them and timely avoid the impact. But some of them are invisible and we just get hit.

In the beginning, I was shocked by this discovery. The randomness of life seemed frightening. I thought I was helpless. I suddenly went to the other side and started to believe that no matter what I do, a brick will always fall down from the sky and ruin it. Of course it didn’t. So it took me a while to understand the meaning of the term “randomness” and also to adjust my position towards it.

And that’s how I started to study the “long lost art of adaptation”. Of course I don’t know if there is such an art, I just made it up. It made you click on the title, didn’t it?

Anyway, back to our story: art or science, adaptation is not only key to survival (as any serious biologist will confirm it for you) but it’s also important if you want to make the best of what you get. It’s at least a key skill and, as such, I firmly believe that it can be taught.

Without further ado, here’s a (crash) course on how to enhance your adaptability skills:

1. If Something Feels Like (Or Really Is) Wrong, Accept It First

Don’t fight evidence. If you get hit by a crisis, please admit that you are hit by a crisis and this is exactly what is happening to you. Don’t treat like an injustice. Don’t even think in terms of luck or bad luck. From a tiny point of view, at the exact moment of that event, it may feel like an injustice, but on a larger scale, it’s just another event in your life. So, instead of whining, crying and complaining about how bad life is treating you, just accept it. It’s another part of your life. It may be painful now, but it’s still your life.

2. Always Assess

After accepting it, start looking around and see what can really happen. Evaluate the harm done (or potential). Try to predict. Try to see what might go wrong. Or good. I can’t really remember any event in my life which was entirely good. Or bad. A wedding can be a good event, but if there’s a divorce 5 years later, well, I don’t know… Losing all your money may seem like a terrible thing to happen, but if you look at how this forced you to change your way of life, it may be something to ponder there…

3. Unfold Plausible Scenarios

After assessing, try to understand what you can do in the newly unfolded circumstances. But don’t limit yourself to just one thing. Don’t try to find the perfect solution. Make a few scenarios. Even better, try to develop a way of thinking in scenarios, whether you’re in a crisis or not. It will make miracles for your morale, believe me. Just try to project as many variables as you can. Don’t let anything out. Don’t believe in “this will never happen to me”. Everything you can imagine, can actually become an event.

4. Act, Don’t React

Accepting the catastrophe, assessing the damage, creating a few plausible scenarios, well, it’s not enough. You gotta act. Acceptance in itself will do nothing. Assessing in itself will do nothing as well. Those possible scenarios, as detailed and complete as they may be, won’t mean nothing. It’s action that changes things. So, just go ahead and make your best pick out of those scenarios. Just play your hand.

5. Rinse And Repeat

Once you acted, you’re already in a new context. Enjoy it. Be there, watch the surroundings and be ready for anything. It may be that the scenario wasn’t as good as you thought it may be. Ok, back to square number one. Try plan B. Or it may be that the plan really worked and now you’re out of the dangerous zone. Just be there and be alert. Enjoy what you have and live the best life you can live.

For it may fall apart again in a split of a second.

Best Empowering Tools

Yeap, I know. This is a very generic title. But, if you clicked through it, you’re gonna be in for a treat.

Every once in a while, I get to be involved in specific online events. Sometimes it’s about collective projects, sometimes it’s about some interesting memes and sometimes it’s about specific sales events. This post is about one of these sales events. How are these are working? In short, you put together some top-notch experts in a specific niche, and then try to convince them to lower the price of their products, for a very short amount of time, and to create what I call  a “window sale”. In other words, a very appealing value, concentrated in a short time span.

The Package

The sale event I’m part of it now it’s called “Best Empowering Tools” (obviously) and what makes it stand out is the very high level of the participants (i.e. the people who are putting together their best works in this huge package). The sale is hosted by Barrie Davenport, from the LiveBoldAndBloom fame and Stephanie Wetzel from TradingPounds.com. I was kinda late to the party, so you won’t see my face in their nice web wall there (like you don’t get to see my face enough on this very blog or Twitter/Facebook, doh ). But you will see my products, down there, on the 25th spot.

I’m contributing not one, not two, not three, but exactly four products to this event, namely: Natural Productivity, Brilliantly Better, 100 Ways To Live A Better Life and 100 Ways To Screw Up Your Life. Just click on the links if you’re interested to know more about them.

But enough about me. Let’s talk a bit about the rest of the gang.

With some of the contributors in Best Empowering Tools I’m a close (online) friend. That includes Steven Aitchison (who was kind enough to include me in his top 50 self-improvement blogs of 2011), DirkdeBruin (aka Diggy, from UpgradeReality.com) or Jonathan Wells. Also, I’m happy to see Marelisa Fabrega in there (she was also kind enough to give away for FREE one of her ebook to the readers of my blog, just go to the downloads page and scroll down) as well as Jonathan Mead, from Illuminated Mind, Anastasiya Goers, Evelin Lym (with whom I kick-started my first massive guest posting experiment, two years ago). I won’t go on with all the 25, but I won’t stop before mentioning other very common names in the self-improvement / productivity area, like PicktheBrain.com, Henrik Edberg from PositivityBlog.com or Charlie Gilkey, from ProductiveFlourishing.com. They’re all giving away some of their best products in this window sale.

The reason I’m not mentioning the rest, is not that they are not at least as good as the ones I’ve talked about so far, but because, as they teach you in all the good sales courses: you don’t have to make them drink, you have to make them thirsty.

So, my goal is not to make you click on one of the links to Best Empowering Tools (although I won’t be upset at all if you do) but to reach down into yourself and try to answer to one question: “What am I going to change this year?”. If you find the answer, that will be enough for me. And if you find the answer, just keep in mind that you have now an opportunity to get the best support you can imagine for pursuing these goals, in the form of a huge collection of ebooks, courses, DVDs and videos. There’s one catch, though (it’s always a catch, I know): the sale will last only three days. It starts today, January the 16th and it will close on January the 19th.

Now, the last thing you should worry about (and that’s the reason I’m putting it like at the very end of the post) it’s the price. The combined value of these products is well over $1000. But you get it for a measly $97. Yeap, feel free to re-read that. It’s $97 for $1000. You do the math.

The catch? It will only last for 3 days. So, go ahead and check out this package.

Thank me later.

Are You Staring At Me?

As a digital nomad I get to work in public places a lot, especially coffee shops. Every once in a while I run into some mild problems, but, usually, nothing really serious. Until the other day. Sit down, relax, and make sure you don’t read this in a coffee shop too

The Premises

So, here I am, on a nice Monday morning, unpacking my laptop over a nice small table at my favorite Starbucks, arranging my cup of tea and plugging in the cable. Around, a few people at their own tables, most of them with their own laptops, tapping silently. Soft music, nice light, a perfect atmosphere for working.

I’m at the first floor (this Starbucks has two floors, and the top one is less crowded) and, at this exact moment, a young fellow, with a hoodie on, jumps over the stairs, looks at the toilet door (which was closed) and then turns at me. He smiles and waves, almost greeting me. A microsecond of browsing through my (I admit, quite large) database of persons that I know and a definitive result: I don’t know this guy. I politely look over him, while he came forward and take a sit on a bench just in front of me. 2-3 meters maximum. He must wait for the toilet, I presume.

Confusions happens, I tell to myself, then I start working. After a few minutes, a gentle sensation over my forehead interrupts me. I get this sometimes, when people are looking at me. I take my eyes out from the computer and, surprise, the young fellow is still there, staring at me. The toilet door was open, so he must’ve already been there, I think. I browse through my internal database again, only to get the same result: I definitely don’t know this guy. And yet there he is, smiling and looking at me. The hoodie is off, it’s getting warm.

I get back to my computer and continue to work. But not for long. My forehead sensation was still there. I take my eyes off from the laptop and this time I make eye contact. The same second he slips his look over me, avoiding eye contact. Hmm… I gently look around, take a tea sip and there it is again, with the corner of my eye I see him staring at me again. I try eye contact again and then he avoids it again.

Around, business as usual. Nobody seemed to perceive nothing strange. They either thought this guy is with me (somehow), or his behavior looked quite normal.

At this point, I started to identify the whole situation with some sort of a problem. I can’t really work when somebody is staring at me. So, I started to evaluate the possible reasons for this. After a few seconds, I identified 3 possible causes.

1. He’s probably gay. And really, really lonely.

Not much to do about this, I’m straight so I may just tell him that.

2. I’m on candid camera.

I’m turning around looking for places where they could hide a camera. Trying to figure out which of the people at the tables were accomplices. After a few minutes of gazing, I had to admit I wasn’t on candid camera. Nobody looked like a candid camera crew (I worked for a while in television, so I kinda sense this stuff). Also, on candid camera, at some point they come at you and tell: “Hey, man, you’re on candid camera!”. This guy didn’t. He just continued to look at me.

2. He must be on ecstasy.

As far as I could tell, his eyes were ok, didn’t notice any shaking or other strange movements, so he didn’t seem like he was on drugs. I’m not too experienced at this, though, so I didn’t rule it out completely.

As I was still trying to find out the number 4 reason, all of a sudden he gets out, turns on his heels and down he goes, over the stairs. He just left. I confess I had a huge relief breathe and gently came back to my work. Incidentally, it was one of those days when I had a full plate, so to speak, so there was a lot to be done.

After a few minutes, the foreground sensation again. Ok, somebody is looking at me again, I’m saying to myself. Who could it be? In front of me, the bench was empty. Another short relief breathe and then I turn to the right. And there he was again, the hoodie fellow, with a cup of tea and a sandwich, on the bench next to me. Not more than one meter between us now.

I felt a bit of an emptiness in my stomach and then instinctively looked to my screen, not understanding one thing of what I was looking at, but desperately trying to understand what was going on.

The Interaction

It must have been more than a half an hour since I was at that Starbucks, so I decided to tackle this somehow. I suddenly turn to the right, and this time he can’t avoid eye contact anymore.

“Can I help you?” I ask upfront. Trying not to be angry, just polite.

“Oh, no, not at all.” he shivers, looking surprised that I actually opened up a conversation with him. Like he didn’t expected this to happen. The he continues to stare at me.

“Are you sure?” I ask again, this time a little bit angry.

“Oh, yes! I’m absolutely sure.” he answers, somehow realizing that he must’ve been on some sort of a faux pax. And then he looks the other way. I stay turned for around 10 seconds and I make sure he won’t stare at me anymore. And, apparently, it worked.

I get back to my work, but only with half of my focus now. I still sense this guy, no more than one meter away from me, watching his cup of tea, eating his sandwich and staring randomly around. Every once in a while at me, too, but this time he looked a bit more controlled.

At this point, one of my partners in WPSumo came in (we had to finish something together) and, being already cautious, I invite him to sit down on my bench, between me and that guy. Of course, my partner has no idea about what’s going on and I decide not to tell.

We start working, but, after ten minutes or so, I suddenly see my partner’s eyes growing bigger and bigger behind his glasses. He elbows me pointing to that bench: “Have you seen this guy? He’s sleeping”. I lean forward and there he is, the hoodie guy, on his left side, one hand under his head, knees almost to the chest, in the embryo position. He didn’t look completely asleep, but hey, he was still lying down on a Starbucks bench.

The next second he rolls over his back, face up and then his hands are starting a strange dance in the air. Very, very slowly, he was picking objects and then rearranging them in other places. Invisible objects, of course. Think Tom Cruise in Minority Report, only sitting on his back. The other people on the room started to notice this. Some of theme were smiling, some of theme were pointing their fingers to the head: “he must be screwed up there”. But that didn’t seem to stop that slow, almost hypnotic dance.

At this point, a waitress came in, starting to clean up tables. As I know her (I do spend a lot of time there, so we kinda have small conversations every once in a while), I ask her upfront:

“What’s up with this guy?”

“Oh, I guess nothing”, she replies. After that, she leans forward to see the slow Minority Report dance and adds, just a bit worried: “Well, I hope nothing. It’s just… how he is. Does he bothers you?”

I decided to answer “no” to this question. We went on with our work, finished what we had to do like in 20 minutes and split. I could’ve stay longer, but, somehow, the staring guy, as inoffensive as he was, made me not to.

The Hoodie Guy And The Goals

As I was heading home, I tried to understand what was that bothered me so much about this encounter. After all, like the waitress pointed out, he was harmless. He was just staring at me. A simple presence, just a look, a harmless surveillance.

And the moment I found the word “surveillance”, it hit me: it was the pressure of the expectations. I didn’t know exactly what this guy was asking from me. But, somehow, I was afraid I couldn’t deliver. As simple as it was, that was the exact thing that made me feel so uncomfortable. If I wouldn’t feel that I had to do something in a certain way, I wouldn’t be bothered at all. I might’ve even look back at him for hours too. Or stare at the walls.

Almost frightened, as I was walking back home, I realized how many times I did this, not outside, with other people, but inside, in my own mind. How many times I created an observer, a person who was expecting me to act in a certain way, only to get completely stuck when he was staring at me too much.

How many times I created bold goals, literally creating dozens of hoodie guys, bringing them into my own room, and making them stare at me, until I was delivering. And celebrating big time after that.

There is a certain weight in establishing bold goals. There is a certain (unnecessary) pressure in creating bigger and bigger standards. The bigger the standard, the longer the gaze of the hoodie guy. At some point, you kinda get fed out with all that staring and just walk away.

Sometimes, we just need a balanced interaction between our goals and our resources. Too many hoodie guys in the room will make you feel uncomfortable. The pressure will be too big. And, at some point, you’ll give up.

It’s way better to negotiate your goals every once in a while. Like in telling the hoodie guy to just give you a break. And then secretly watch him arrange invisible objects with his hands while you get on with other stuff.

Now, quit staring at this blog post. It’s embarrassing

An Tan Tiri Mogo Dan

Or, to be more precise, “An Tan Tiri Mogo Dan, Cara Cara Si, Princi Pa Ta Morin Go. Tan Go!”

In case you didn”t live in the Romania of the seventies, chances to know the meaning of those words are close to zero. Ok, it’s a “countdown”. You don”t know what a “countdown” is? It”s a sequence of apparently bogus words, spoken in a certain rhythm, almost like a song, each word being assigned to a certain person. Or, to be even more precise, to a certain kid, because this countdown is actually one of my strongest childhood memories.

Let me explain how this countdown thing worked: suppose we were 7 kids, and we wanted to play “hide and seek”. We had of course to pick one of us to be the actual searcher. For that, we gathered in a circle and one of us started the “countdown”: “an” -> the first one in the circle was tagged, “tan” -> the second one was tagged, “tiri” -> the third one was tagged, and so on, until we reached the final “go”. The kid that was tagged with that final “go” was out of the circle, sparred from the tedious job of being the searcher. Now there were only six kids left. So, we started to countdown over the circle again, until only one kid was left. That was the searcher. As simple as that.

Above All Doubt

We used “countdowns” in many ways. Whenever we had to pick someone for something, and all of our rational selection processes were ineffective, we resorted to the “countdown”. It was our universal selection process. We used it when we had to pick soccer teams for our afternoon soccer games in the school yard. We used it when we had to pick the teams for the ping-pong matches on the concrete table in front of the block. We even used it in school, to pick the one that had to be on duty for the week.

I don’t know who invented that specific countdown and I’m pretty sure the words were completely random and meaningless. Maybe they had to be meaningless, otherwise the magical power of the “countdown” was weakened. I think it was more like an incantation, a borderline magical stuff.

Once we finished a “countdown”, its results were above all doubt. Nobody could contest them. It was final. In a subtle and unexplainable way, the “countdown” was the glue that was keeping us together. Eventually, all our conflicts were solved with a countdown. And nobody would ever contest it.

The Collapsing World

But, as we grew up, we noticed that some of the kids were somehow luckier than others. They seemed to be surrounded by this magical chance: never picked to be on duty at school, always in the best soccer team, never the searcher at “hide and seek”. Hmm…

It didn’t take long to find out that, if you were doing a fast mental calculus, you could actually “predict” which kid will be the last one tagged. So, the “luckier” kids were just doing these mental calculations and they were starting the countdown each time from the “appropriate” kid. Like that, they knew how to manipulate the countdown, so they were the first ones out, if the task was tedious, or the first ones in, if the soccer team was the best one. Think of counting cards in a casino, but much simpler than that.

When I first realized that, I was shocked. My entire world collapsed. What once was above any doubt, now was questionable, to say the least. My small and simple universe was literally shaken apart.

The Modern Countdown

But I survived. It wasn’t the first nor the last perfect image of my childhood universe that was trashed away. Time passed by and I soon had more interesting adventures to pursue than the soccer in the school yard, the ping-pong at the concrete table or even the all mighty “hide and seek”. Among these new adventures: girls, getting into college and finding my first job.

But, in some remote corner of my unconscious mind, the mantra of the “countdown” was still very powerful. I think I was well into my thirties when I realized that. Only now the mechanism was a little bit changed.

Now, I realized that every time I was in a situation which was unsolvable by rational processes, I was always resorting to my own personal mantra. For instance, when I was having heavy problems in my own business, like clients not paying, stretching the business beyond my means or employees leaving for better salaries, I was always resorting to some sort of personal mantra. Sometimes it was “everything will be allright, I just know it”. Sometimes it was “you gotta hit the bottom if you want to bounce higher”. And sometimes it was “I’ll go through this, no matter what”.

I was repeating those mantras to myself, the same way we were doing countdowns as kids. I was just expecting it to work, because it had to. Like the countdown, my unconscious mind invested that mantra with universal powers. It was above all doubt.

But I wasn’t a kid anymore. And the realities surrounding me were now far more complexes than a soccer game in the afternoon or a short shot of “hide and seek”. Mantras, as much as I wanted them to work, were useless. They had this power to keep me going for a while, just like the countdowns did until I realized they can be manipulated, but in the end I had to surrender. Just like my childhood universe collapsed when I realized that other kids were playing us because they knew more or they were faster at calculus, each of my mantras were trashed away but the existing realities.

In the end, I was able to overcome pretty much every adverse situation (except the ones which are still unfolding as we speak, which is, of course, another story). But I did this outside the mantras. I did this by facing the facts, accepting the outcome and weighing my odds, in a cold and calculated way. I manipulated the countdown in my favor, starting it again and again, until I found the favorable positions.

There is no magic mantra. There is no lucky shot at your command. There is nothing except your own strength and honesty. There isn’t even this post. Don’t believe it. Don’t make a mantra or countdown out of it.

Because I wrote it only to manipulate you. I counted all the words in such a way that it puts me in a better position. I’m out now .

Taming Monkeys Aftermath

It’s the first day of 2012 and I think it’s time to review my taming monkeys experiment. It all started a year ago, when I decided to ditch my new year resolutions. Instead, I replaced them with twelve monthly challenges, in which I wanted to tame an inner monkey. Very shortly, an inner monkey is an unfulfilled promise I made to myself, or a thing I really wanted to do but never really had the time to make it happen. If you want to know more about my definition of an inner monkey, go ahead and read this post. If you want to know more about the entire taming monkey process, go ahead and read the introductory post.

The Twelfth Monkey

This was the December monkey. If you followed my blog or social media presence, you may have noticed that I was extremely quiet during the month of December. I hardly wrote 3 blog posts and had very few social media interactions. It was almost like October, when the monkey was “talk less and do more”. But it was also different from October.

In other words, I didn’t pick up a monkey for December. Or, if you like it this way, the December monkey was to have no monkey at all. So, not much to write about it. Other than living a regular life and doing my stuff each and every day, there’s nothing more to tell. Sometimes, writing about stuff can make it obsolete, up to the point you’re not into it anymore. Keeping a log, a personal journal, even a public blog, can definitely help you achieve more and stay on course. I know I was a very strong advocate of this and I still am. But for every up there’s a down. For every peak there’s a valley and for every explosion there must be an implosion.

Writing too much, like I did on this blog for the last three years, may be alienating. It’s like projecting your desired life into writing, instead or living it. Blogging, like every other part of our existence, needs balance. It needs a sense of reality and equilibrium. I know many of you are visiting this blog almost daily, looking for inspiration. Creating inspiring texts is easy for me. I can do it the same way they build cars, ten per day. But at the same time, I need my own life, with its own boundaries and personal challenges. With its secrets and concealed spots. I don’t know if this is a universal fact, but for me, having a personal space proved to be extremely important. So, sharing too much, about too much, for too much time, it’s not a good thing. At least for me. And when it comes to inspiration, I’d rather create it on the spot, if there’s a real, internal need for it. From my part, that is. Not forced from external circumstances.

The Taming Monkey Experiment Results

I think the hardest part in evaluating an experiment, any type of experiment, is in the metrics. What exactly are you measuring? What are the “in” values and what are the “out” values? Since this was by definition a very foggy experiment, in which the actual elasticity was more important than its precision, I think I’m just gonna give a bird eye view of what happened. In other words, there won’t be a recap of all the experiments and an exact evaluation of each of them. You can just go ahead and read all of them, if you’re interested in a more exact evaluation.

It Worked

First of all, the experiment was a success. The mere fact that I gave up the quantitative part of my life (do “more” stuff) had a huge effect. I stopped blaming myself every time something didn’t go as expected. I stopped beating myself up every time I wasn’t up to something. And that is something I did constantly, at least for the last 20 years of my life. By replacing my goals with a pack of monkeys, I shifted from a one-two-three evaluation of my life, to a more playful and guilt free approach. I may not have accomplished more, but I lived more.

Fears And Liabilities

Second, I finally faced some of my deepest fears and liabilities. You know, when you surround yourself with “stuff” you did, you tend to forgot that you have an imperfect nature. You even start to think that you’re ok, just because you did all that stuff. Which, of course, is nothing but stuff. You still have your unfinished businesses from childhood, your apprehensions, your taboos. So, when I finally gave up the “look how much I accomplished this year” approach, which was like some sort of pressure on top of my hidden fears, keeping them deep inside, they finally exploded.

So, I had to face the fact that sometimes relationships are going to disappear, to melt away. And that moment, the second they’re gone, is the best moment for you and you should just accept and move on. Don’t cling to the past. It’s gone. It’s like a rock going down in the ocean. If you keep clinging yourself to that precious rock, you’ll always be with it but you’ll eventually die. This year was about my last long term personal relationship, which ended up with a divorce, but also the relationship with my son, which entered a “no man’s land”. Both were meant to go like this. But I kinda desperately cling on to what I thought it was something worth to preserve, only to find myself choking on my own memories. A good thing to mention though, was the fact that I kept all my promises involved in these relationships. Which were completely useless for the other part and only meaningful for me, but I still kept it. Good for my morale, anyway.

Another liability was my attachment to my public image. Without even noticing, I was convinced that there must be a link between what I do and my public image. Which is completely wrong, of course. What I do is something that I can control myself, whereas what others are thinking or writing about me, is something that I have no control over it. So, the link is inexistent. For the last 5-6 years I’ve had a fair share of violent attacks on the blogosphere and, lately, even from my own son. My public image was seriously hit. Well, it may safely stay hit, if you’re asking me now. I finally understood that there’s nothing of value in keeping a balanced public image. After all, people are free to say whatever they want about whoever they want. If somebody thinks I’m an idiot, he’s right. If somebody thinks I’m a genius, he’s also right. Do I agree with both? Nope. I agree only with what I think about myself, and I leave the public image to those who have enough time to build me one. As good or as bad they want it to be.

There were many other fears and inner liabilities that were revealed during this year, but I’ll just stick to those two above for the time being.

Slashing Away Chimeras

Third, I realized that some things I started but never finished, well, they never worth finish. One of the monkeys was about finishing a fiction book. Never finished it, of course. I applied all my internal discipline (and, oh, I know I can be freakin’ disciplined when I want to) but nothing really happened. Another internal chimera. Just because we are linking this unfinished thing to a positive context in our mind, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good thing to do. Finishing a fiction ebook was something that was very positive inside my head. But it was also just an image, a positive context in which I was projecting myself. The moment I actually started to write it, I realized it was shallow, thin and ego-driven. So, I stopped the whole process.

Back To Curiosity

Another subtle effect of this experiment was that it allowed me to resort to curiosity again. I said it many times and I will say it again, I don’t consider myself a very skilled individual in any area, although I do know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff, but I do consider myself almost pathologically curious. I’m attracted to many apparently unrelated areas, and, in the process, I learn and achieve a lot.

By stepping away from the traditional fixed goal structure, and replacing it with a “monkey taming” approach, I allowed myself to just be curious again. If I really look back to last year, it was probably one of the best years in terms of new stuff that I tried. I went paragliding in New Zealand, I entered a new business partnership in a wordpress related area, I visited Hong Kong, I met dozens of new people, I self-published myself, got translated and published in Korean, and a lot, a lot more.

I think curiosity is closely linked to our desire to live. Without curiosity, we barely survive.

What About 2012?

I don’t have any measurable goals for 2012 right now. I don’t even want to tame monkeys anymore. But I’ll keep my curiosity awake and just stay put. If there’s something worth pursuing, I’ll just do it.

Taming Monkey Number 11 – The Results

It’s the last day of November and I decided to write a short report about my eleventh monkey. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go read the introductory post. In short, at the beginning of 2011, I decided to ditch my yearly resolutions and replace them with 12 monthly challenges, in which I will “tame an inner monkey”. In other words, try to solve some unfinished business or to cope with some unfulfilled promise I made to myself or to others. If you want to know more about my concept of inner monkey, go read this post.

Relationships. Can’t Live With Them, Can’t Shoot Them

This is precisely how I felt about relationships for a long time. It may feel really counterintuitive, given the fact that not only I run a quite popular blog, but I’m also a very visible person, both business-wise, and social-wise. Like I used to say in my early twenties, “the legend is bigger than me”. At that time I started to notice that there was always somebody who seemed to know me from somewhere. I was moderately popular as a radio anchor, knew a lot of people myself, been very visible (and I still am) as business man, and so on.

Knowing a lot of people is one thing, but having and managing healthy relationships is another one. The last one being always very difficult to me. Why? To make a long story short: I like to be alone. I know it took me thirty something years to realize that, but I made peace with it. I’m a lonely beast and I very much enjoy it this way. I find it tedious to relate to people for longer periods of time. While at the same time, to some extent, I do realize that it’s important for me to maintain relationships for longer periods of time. It’s still fuzzy, as I just can’t put my finger on it, can’t say why that is, I just feel that, for some obscure reason, having and keeping longer relationships may be beneficial. Somehow. A bit of this is explained in the last paragraph of this post, but hold on, don’t jump on it yet.

In short, here’s what I accomplished and what I learned while taming my eleventh monkey.

Relationships On The Move

On one side, I am really happy to have myself involved in a new circle of friendships. Many of these new friendships are in the same social circle as I am: either separated or divorced, and with kids. It was kind of a big step for me to reach out to this kind of people. One of the challenges was to find common pastimes. As a man, on the rare occasions I was going out, it was either running, going to the movies, some business event or the regular Saturday night drinks with the guys. So, I had to search, find and implement a few new pastimes.

One of them is the Saturday pancakes, as I like to call it. The neat thing about keep doing pancakes is that, in time, you become really good at making pancakes. So, I started a series of weekend pancake parties, which of course involved kids and their parents. Huge success. Another pastime was to go to the kids theater. That is on Sundays. Kids are going to see a different play each and every Sunday, while parents are catching their breath with a hot cup of tea or coffee. Of course, there are variations, sometime we go to a specific event or to a kids movie, or whatever.

On another side, I was getting rid of a different type of relationships, which I used to call “empty nutshells”. These are relationships with no core. It may have been that at the time of inception they were necessary, but now the core is consumed. So, I was slowly letting slide into the past a few empty nutshells. It is important to say that I let them slowly. It wasn’t something forced or imposed.

And yet another thing I’ve been massively doing during November: attending to business events. I’ve been called to at least 3, I guess, and at one of them I even wore a suit. I’m serious. I wore a suit and it’s been in the papers and all . At these events I did my best to mingle, interact and start new contacts. I remember I spent like 15 minutes waiting to talk to Doug Richard, which is something really unusual for me. Again, all this mingle and interacting was done without forcing anything. It was actually fun.

The last, and perhaps most important thing I did during November was to start a new business partnership. It’s about the newly revamped WPSumo, in which I am, for the first time, partner with an angel investor. It is by far the most drastic change I did in my business approaches, and one that is still undergoing a lot of changes. But it’s also something that I felt compelled to. Technically, the business partnership started in October, but I counted it for November.

A Surprising Side Effect

Well, I don’t know if it was because I announced this monkey on the blog, or because the Law Of Attraction really works, but something very interesting happened during this month. People started to call me. Like sending me emails, messages on Facebook or Google. Out of nothing, they wrote to me proposing to meet, to start projects, to get counseling (one of them was breaking up with her boyfriend and needed some astrological advice). It was a huge surprise. People are actually reaching out and trying to get in contact with me. I honestly didn’t expect that. But again, it’s fun.

What I Learned From This Monkey

We’re cells. We’re interconnected in a bigger picture. Like we’re really interconnected, it’s not just a word or an empty concept. We function differently when we’re in autonomous mode versus when we’re in interconnection mode. There is a bigger and different flow of energy going on when we’re in interconnection mode. I’m not talking about the quality of it, because energy may be either creative or destructive, I’m just witnessing the fact that human interaction is creating much more energy. Which is bigger than the algebraicl sum of 1 + 1. When in bad relationships, this energy is destructive, of course.

On the other side, it’s not at all impossible to live an isolated life. I’m a living proof of that, by the way.

But an isolated life will eventually lead to some form of energy depletion. Like a cell which is claiming independence from the main body. It may get it at some point, no doubt about it. But it may get it in a very brutal way, like a nail which is being cut. You got your independence, but you’re also expendable.

If you’re not providing to the body somehow, you eventually become unnecessary.

But the good news is that, as humans, we may still choose the way in which we provide back. We’re not so specialized, like a liver cell or heart tissue cell, doing only one thing. We can change our ways as we see fit.

The secret is to find that specific place where your skills, approaches and all the other unspoken gifts you have to give to the world are needed.

And then start giving.

The Inner Bubble

Have you ever heard of the Internet Bubble? It was a very interesting phenomenon in the early 2000s. Basically, what generated this so called “bubble” was the fact that the value of internet startups was highly over rated, without any realistic support. Based mainly on subjective factors, in just a few years, those startups were valued incredibly high, compared with other type of businesses, in other fields.

Then, at a specific crisis point, the reality cracked in, violently. In a matter of weeks, the value of internet startups stock decreased dramatically and people witnessed, helplessly, how their investments were vanished. The “bubble” was broken and the air went out with a vengeance. Thousands of companies which were riding the “Internet wave” went bankrupt. There were only a handful of survivors from that era: Amazon, eBay and a few others. The rest are forgotten now, though only twelve years ago they were evaluated at billions of dollars.

The “internet bubble” is a very interesting phenomenon, because, believe it or not, it happens not only at a social scale, in politics or stock exchange, but also individually, in each of us. We all have our “bubbles” from time to time. We’re all over evaluating our expectations, our lifestyle, our partners, creating “bubbles” which are carrying us high, only to break at the first reality check.

To be honest, I had my share of “inner bubbles” myself. I was living in a pinky, happy-go-lucky balloon many times, and I did this in many areas, but mainly on business and relationships. Many times, in business or personal relationships, I did bold steps based on assumptions, hopes and inner projections, rather then facts and verifiable bits and pieces of reality. I’m not saying we do not have to have hopes, but that we always need some sort of reality check, a background switch that will allow us to stay on a safer course.

It goes without saying that each and any of these bubbles are in fact learning opportunities (as I strongly believe that we can never fail, we just learn) but I can really skip some learning form time to time and just live, enjoy life as it is, without hidden meanings, lessons and all that stuff. It’s true we have to learn and each challenge is a learning opportunity, but I think I came to a point where I would very much like to put the learning process on hold, and just apply what I learned so far. That’s why I decided to write a piece on how to avoid an “inner bubble”.

First of all, how these “inner bubbles” are forming? What are the factors that are creating them, how can you recognize an “inner bubble” and when they’ll explode?

The Bubble Creation Factors

As I said, the “internet bubble” was very much following a standard process, the same that creates an “inner bubble”. There were a few factors involved, which I call “pumping factors” that were all aligned and ready to blow. Here are the most important ones.

Novelty

Of all “pumping factors”, novelty is the most powerful. Just as the interned exploded in a world where information was almost static, so does novelty in our personal lives: igniting a lot of energies. Like when we enter a new business, for instance, or when we meet someone new. The contrast between that business or that person, and our current environment is so strong, that we’re almost unconsciously attracted towards them, just a like a fly is attracted to the light.

Suppose you’re working full time and then an opportunity for a promotion came in. All what you did before is fading in front of this new perspective. It’s all new and exciting and almost adrenaline-driven. You wake up in the morning fresh and eager to go to work, whereas just weeks ago you were bored and apathetic.

It goes the same for partners. Suppose you’re in an “old” relationship, three years or more (in our modern world, 3 years for a relationship is a lot). Then you meet someone new. Someone who is everything but what you have now. It’s not necessarily better, or more beautiful than your current partner, but it’s just different. And it’s that difference that it’s attracting toward her or him, starting to blow some air in your “inner bubble”.

The Promise Of A New Territory

But novelty in itself is not enough. If it’s only novelty, sooner or later it will fade, because, if you stay long enough near something “new”, it will obviously become “old”. It must be something more. And that is a “promise of a new territory”.

That promise is a very powerful tool. It projects your current reality into something that doesn’t yet exist, while still keeping you on the current ground. If it’s a new promotion that it creates your “inner bubble”, then the promise of a new territory is a new lifestyle. New friends, new toys, a new house or a new car. That is something that you don’t have yet, but, if you’d persist long enough in your new position, you “may” get it.

Just as investors were lured by the promise of a “digital” and “web-based” world in the “Internet bubble”. The promise of a “new era”.

In a personal relationship this is even more obvious. It’s the old “we’re together in this one” promise. And, in the beginning, this may hold true. But, as the events unfold and your bubble is starting to get bigger and bigger a slight divergence will start to create between you. The initial promise will disappear from reality, because your partner may have other plans, but it will continue to hold true in your “inner bubble”.

The Followers Support

That’s the third factor and sometimes may kick in, sometimes may not. By “followers support” I mean increased blowing power from some of your closest ones. If you’re the only one blowing your bubble, it may go just as big as you can make it. In order to be really big, you need outside support.

If your bubble is a new promotion, the followers support may come from your new colleagues or employees. For various reasons, they will start to blow in your bubble too. They may attract you to their new lifestyle, or they may start telling you stuff that’s too good to be true, especially about yourself. But because you’re in a bubble, you start to believe it, to take it in, adding it to the blowing power of your own.

If your bubble is a personal personal relationship, your friends may start to chip in. Some of them may like your new partner for their own reasons, while some of them may just want to see you “happy and relaxed”. So, without too much checking of the facts, they start to be happy for your new status. Before you know it, they’ll start to blow your bubble as strongly as you do.

The Crisis Point

But sooner or later, the bubble will come to a crisis point. That’s what I call the “zero moment”. The moment of truth. The moment of the bubble explosion. In terms of “internet bubble” that was the moment when the stock value started to sharply decline. So fast and so powerful that nothing and nobody could stop it. All that hot air that was pumped in thousands of dreams started to get out, with a big noise.

But what causes this? What’s the trigger of the explosion? And why some are bubbles and some or not? Remember I told you that some of the highly valued companies at that time did survive, like Amazon or eBay. What was the difference between those survivors and the losers?

Well, I think the moment of truth is when the pressure from the inside is too much for the reality to sustain. When your expectations from the inside are so high, that reality can’t obey them anymore. It’s like a pinch you take when you’re dreaming. Just to check in if you’re still dreaming. Alas, you’re not. This is the real thing. And the pinch is so hurtful that you can hardly stand it.

For instance, if your bubble is a professional promotion, you start to claim your benefits. Bigger wage, more holiday, bigger office. But at the meeting with your manager you get confronted with the numbers. And it looks like you didn’t do as well as you thought. The numbers are lower than your expectations. And so, the cold shower is all over you.

In a relationship, more often than not you’re confronted with some tough situation. Either financial, or some other type of test. And, although you thought you’re both prepared to go through, it appears that only one is willing to go through, and that’s you. Alone. Wow, the shock and the horrible confrontation with reality.

As a matter of fact, reality was always the same. You were not fit for that promotion or you were not supposed to be in that relationship from the beginning. But you kept blowing hot air into your balloon, hoping it will get off and take you to the “next level”.

But, if the confrontation takes you down, what it would really take for the balloon to actually take you higher? In other words, how can you distinguish when you’re in a “bubble” and when you’re not.

The answer to this is: a closer relationship with reality. A closer position to the facts. A little bit less dreaming and a little more pragmatism. In other words, less pressure from the inside and more checking of the outside. That’s exactly what the survivors from the “internet bubble” did.

They did have the same positive and “dreamish” outlook on business, but at the same time they were always checking the facts. They had real customers. They were taking money from them too, not only from the VC’s. In other words, they weren’t taking just hot air, they had real engines that could support their ascension. They had their stuff in good order.

The After Math

Going through an inner bubble is very though. It strains the hell of you. It’s a growing crisis, but it’s very treacherous, because it doesn’t use pain, it uses pleasure. It lures you into an illusion paradise, where you are a completely different person from who you really are. It gives you everything you think you need, just like the young entrepreneurs from the early 2000s were getting money from the VCa, almost without any effort. It gives you a sense of comfort and security. But, the moment you expect it the least, it also confront you with the reality. A very, very tough confrontation. If your inner stuff is in order, you’ll survive, just like Amazon or eBay. As a matter of fact, you’ll emerge even more powerful after this test. But if you inner stuff is not in order, if you keep lying to yourself, if you cling on to that fake paradise, you’ll get hit. You’re gonna experience a personal bankruptcy, on all levels: financial, emotional, social.

Are you ready for this?

41 Things I Did In My 41st Year

I usually do this kind of lists at the end of each year. I did one in 2009 and one in 2010. But, as I decided to change my approach towards these events, with my taming monkey challenge replacing my new year resolutions, I thought it would be wise to go further and move this list to my birthday. Exactly, today I’m marking my first year from my fifth decade. I will save you the usual “blah-blah” about how cool it is (although it is cool, you know) and get to the point.

1. Did My First Paragliding Flight

It was a tandem flight, early this spring in Christchurch, New Zealand. Been there just a couple a days before the earthquake. Learning to fly was perhaps the most important thing I did this year. Looking forward to try it again.

2. Got My First Tattoo

Another transformational experience – although one may argue that it wasn’t such a big deal, and, perhaps, according to one’s values system, one may be right. But for me, it was kinda of a big deal. Even wrote a blog post about getting your first tattoo.

3. Visited Hong Kong

On my way back from one of the trips in New Zealand I decided it was the time to stop a few days in Hong Kong. Didn’t write anything on the blog about it, but it was an amazing experience, especially because of the contrasts. Also, Victoria Park is easily among the top ten destinations in my agenda, anytime.

4. Ditched My Biggest Speaking Gig

In favor of my final divorce meeting, that is. I got called to speak at a Microsoft event, which included all the 250 middle and top managers of the Romanian operations, but as the events unfolded, turned out that my final divorce meeting was exactly at the same time. Went with the divorce, Microsoft may be out there for a while too, but the other opportunity may have not.

5. Got My Biggest Consulting Contract

In December last year. It was supposed to last for 6 months but it ended after 3. Nevertheless, it was a very important step for me, as it marked my re-entrance in the field, after my 2 year non-compete agreement (following my exit in 2008) expired.

6. Ate Raspberries From My Own Garden

A year before I ate strawberries from my own garden, so it was time to upgrade the game a little bit. I used to eat raspberries each time I was visiting my parents, so having them in my own backyard was a bit unusual. Nevertheless, they were equally tasty.

7. Rented My House

I used to be very reluctant to this idea. But the moment I realized I was living somebody else’s dream, the whole process unfolded very easily. I was able to find a tenant basically without searching, although the location of my former house was quite remotely and isolated.

8. Moved Into A Rented Apartment

By far the highlight of the last few months. It was a very important move for me, as it marked the beginning of a new phase. Not much tied up to a certain place, on any level (financial, emotional, you name it). It’s been almost a month since I did this and it’s getting better and better each day.

9. Started To Run

It was part of my taming monkeys routine, but it was an activity which lasted beyond the monthly challenge. Since I moved downtown I find it a little bit difficult to get myself out and run (perhaps because autumn stepped in too and it gets a bit colder in the morning) but I’m committed to continue this.

10. Started To Tame My Inner Monkeys

In other words, replaced my new year resolutions with a series of 12 monthly challenges, in which I intended to tame an inner monkey. This month is the month of relationships and believe me, I had quite a few breakthroughs in this area.

11. Had My First Holiday Outside The Country With My Daughter

We visited Switzerland and stayed at my sister, who lives there. Flying from Romania to Switzerland, changing planes in Germany, and everything in between, well, it was quite and adventure.

12. Made My First Promotion Video

If you visited my blog during the last 2-3 months you may have seen it. If you didn’t, here’s a direct link to YouTube. It has, at the moment of writing, more than 7500 views. Which, to be honest, is a bit mind boggling for me. It was an afternoon work with a friend, using a Cannon DSLR camera and a Mac.

13. Published Brilliantly Better, The Ebook

Well, the above video was made to promote one of my ebooks, namely Brilliantly Better, a collection of some of my most visited articles on this blog. Turned out the promotion video became way more popular than the ebook,

14. Published All My Ebooks On iBookStore And Kindle

It was really a huge undertaking. In the process, I also wrote an article on self-publishing, which turned out to be one of the most popular on the topic. More than 100 comments (at the moment of writing).

15. Got My First Publisher Agreement

As of October 2011, I sold the distribution rights for two of my ebooks to a Korean publisher. It was my first experience of that kind ever, and, regardless of the financial outcome (which may, or may be not huge) I’m incredibly happy I reached this point.

16. Got On Board Of WPSumo

It was one of my business goals for this year, to get on board of at least 3 companies. WPSumo was the first one. In the first half of the year it was a bit of a roller-coaster, mainly because my two partners in this had different ideas and expectations. But it all came to a (happy) end, and now I’m again on top of this project, with a new team.

17. Got On Board Of WeGetThere

It’s a very interesting project, aiming at bringing crowdfunding for travelers. I don’t have any operational role in it, and this is perhaps why I’m feeling a bit estranged, because I only know to take on a business on the operational side. But I’m slowly learning to be just an advisor.

18. Hit A Glass Wall With My Head

Literally. In the middle of a busy street, in Bucharest. I’m pretty positive this was a first for me, and that’s why I felt the need to put it in this list. Not to mention that it gave me quite a bit of material for another blog post.

19. Launched iAdd Lite

iADD it’s my iPhone/iPad app for time and task management. It’s in fact a life management framework, but it’s easier for people to understand what it does if I just say it’s “time and task management”. iADD Lite is the free version of this, with a limitation of 5 items per realm.

20. Flew With A Helicopter For The First Time

It was during the visit to New Zealand, in Rotorua, which, by the way, it’s a very nice place to visit. The experience was amazing, having just a less than a centimeter thick glass between you and the 500 meters below-of-you earth, well, that’s something I would do over, and over and over.

21. Almost Did Sky-diving

In other words, I did the closest thing to it, namely “floating” on very powerful air pump. In Rotorua, still. Also, an amazing experience. I think I’ll do this every day, if I could.

22. Ate A Hangi Dinner

That’s a traditional Maori dinner, cooked under the ground. One of the tastiest meals I ever had. Shifting from cannibalism to animal meat may have forced Maori to get creative with their meals. Joke aside, if you’re in New Zealand, you gotta try this.

23. Rode An Amphibian Boat

It was a “duck”, or one of the boats used by allies in the “D day” in Europe. It was the real thing and we had a tour over the lakes around Rotorua, as well as riding the normal roads in between, as a regular car. The driver was one of the funniest man I met.

24. Ate Grapes From My Own Garden

In line with the raspberries thing, eating grapes from my own garden was also an important highlight of this year. Especially since I didn’t take as much care as I wanted about that backyard vineyward.

25. Went To A Sting Concert

With my son, and that made the whole experience so much better. I’m not much of a concert goer, so that concert, along with the next ones, were very powerful experience for me. Not to mention Sting was exceptional.

26. Went To A Bon Jovi Concert

Again, pretty much because Victor, my son, wanted to go. It was also the first time they were in Romania, and they did their best to do a good job. And they succeeded, a great experience.

27. Went To The Sea With My Son

For the first time that is, for his 14th anniversary. We had a blast and, provided that all the conditions to go again will be in place, I look forward to do this again.

28. Hired People Again

It was part of my consultancy gig, but nevertheless, a strong experience, one that I didn’t have for the previous two years. I still have the skills and intuitions when it comes to assembling people together in teams. I must use this again.

29. Witnessed My First New Zealand Quake

It was a small one, just two days before the real earthquake that shook New Zealand, and Christchurch, specifically, so hard. What’s interesting, though, is that our initial travel schedule was altered, we were supposed to be in Christchurch exactly during the quake. I guess sometimes we just get lucky.

30. Held My First 5 Stars Hotel Teambuilding

Actually, it was a combination of “5 stars” in this: the client, a department of one of the biggest banks in Romania, as well as the hotel in which we were staying, an actual 5 stars facility. Although I traveled the world back and forth, I’m sure I never stayed in 5 stars hotel before.

31. Threw Away My High-School Notebooks

As part of leaving my former house, I decided to get rid of some of my inner baggage. I was very fond of what I wrote there and I carried those notebooks with me for the last 20 years. But letting them go was the right thing to do. You can’t grow if you don’t make room for growth.

32. Took My First Tango  Lesson

I didn’t continue or anything, but the mere fact that I was on a dance floor with a partner trying to learn how to tango was a big thing. It’s not on the top 5 priorities for me at the moment, but definitely something I want to pursue in the future.

33. Gave A Presentation About Astrology

It was part of an event called “Ignite” where people talk about their not so popular passions. “Coming true” about my interest in astrology was a big challenge. After the presentation, though, I was literally overwhelmed with requests for astrology readings. I still do some free readings from time to time since then.

34. Held A Workshop On How To Be A Digital Nomad

With a surprisingly numerous audience. I was surprised how little people knew about this lifestyle. Also, this reminded me of how thick the walls we are rising around us are. It’s so difficult to be open about new perspectives.

35. Stepped Away From Facebook

That was a very big decision. As part of my intention to step away from virtual existence in favor of a more grounded life, I decided to step down my game into social media. I had to reopen my account because I’m signed up with Facebook on too many sites, but I’m not active anymore. Maybe I’ll get over it, but right now it seems shallow, empty and ridiculous, compared with the options I have to spend my time in real life.

36. Stepped Out And Got Back On Board Of Venture Connect

Venture Connect is an event aiming at connecting entrepreneurs with investors. Early in spring I decided I don’t have the time nor the resources to deliver, so I stepped out. But, after a discussion with the founder of this event, I decided to get back in, on a more lighter and flexible position. It was

37. Started To Eat Paleo

It’s just a fancy name for eating normal food, without the bells and whistles of raw veganism or vegetarianism. With all due respect, being a raw food or a vegetarian became much more of a social statement (and a cool, cult-like thing) than a commitment to eat healthier. Following Tim Ferris’ The 4 Hour Body, I learned that one can live a perfectly healthy life by allowing meat to be part of their diet.

38. Launched The Forums On DragosRoua.com

It wasn’t very crowded on those forums, and it still isn’t, but I didn’t expect it to be, anyway. I just wanted to give my readers the opportunity to have a board where they can write other stuff than just commenting. I don’t even care if it will take off, it just looks good as it is.

39. Had Fun

It may look like a strange thing to put on such a list, but believe me, it was something that was very rare to me, at least during the year before this one. Too much stuff to manage, to keep from falling down, to take care of. Well, since I actually let it crash and burn, I rediscovered how simple it is to have fun again.

40. Stepped Down Blogging

This was the third year of blogging on this domain, and it was by far the smallest in terms of number of posts. But the traffic grew constantly. As I already said it in some of the latest posts, I will continue to write here, but unbiased by what “I should” do in terms of frequency and topics.

41. Accepted Change

It wasn’t a specific moment for this, but rather a series of incremental “a-ha” moments. During my 41st year I understood not only that my life as I knew it was over, but that a new one, richer beyond imagination, is unfolding. All I had to do was to accept it. And from the moment I moved out, a month ago, things are evolving at the speed of light.

Taming Monkey Number 10: Talk Less, Do More

Every once in a while, when I’m in the middle of a discussion, Bianca, my 5 year old daughter breaks in with a low voice, but very firmly: “dad, you talk too much!” And oh, she is right every time.

I don”t know from where she picked this up. It may be that at some point I said that to her. Or it may be that she simply believes that I do talk too much. And as much as I don’t want to admit it, it’s true. I have this tendency to over-verbalize stuff (I don’t even know if “over-verbalize” is a word, but it looked nice here). I have an obsession for putting things into words and writing them down. On the bright side, this created a blog with 100.000 unique visitors each month. Writing three times a week, for three years, well, that pays back big time.

But on the dark side, this has some surprising side effects. Introducing monkey number 10: “talk less, do more”. If you read my blog for a while, you know that for 2011 I ditched my new year resolutions in favor of a new approach: 12 monthly challenges, in which I will try to “tame an inner monkey”. If you want to know the full scoop, read the introductory post here. And if you want to know more about what an inner monkey is, read this.

The Challenge

When I refer to “talking too much”, the usual suspect is, of course, the blog. This is why I took a huge break in October. I barely wrote 3 articles for the entire month. Which is almost nothing for me. And since I got here, I want to thank to all of you who wrote me to ask if everything is ok. Yes, it is. Better than never actually.

But when I say “talking too much”, I also mean spending too much energy in putting my life into words each and every day, versus actually doing stuff and enjoying it. And that was the biggest challenge for October. There were moments during which I felt a bit lost and adrift. Because I was very much used to anchor myself daily in my own story. Like writing on the blog, engaging in social media, journaling and so on. It was a very secure approach. Gave me stability and a sense of purpose.

But clinging too much on your own story may take you away from other, possibly much more interesting stories. Introversion and self exploration is good, but the world, believe it or not, is also taking place outside. Like in the things you do. Decisions you take and implement. Relationships you start and manage. Waking up each day, doing stuff without writing it down and then going to sleep with that unspeakable sense of fulfilling, only to wake up refreshed and ready to start again next morning. And when you’re immersed in this ocean of events, talking about them may start to feel almost superfluous.

That was the biggest lesson I learned by taming the 10th monkey. I may have talked too much in the past, but I think I found a little bit of balance now. So do expect me to continue to write here, but not at the same pace as before. Or, to be more correct, not in an imposed, artificial pace. If I feel I have to write 3 posts per day, I’ll do it. If I feel I want to write only one post per month, I will write only one post per month.

Life Unfolding

Since the lesson is learned, I think it’s safe to make a short recap of what I actually did during October. And, as you will see, it’s a lot.

Moved out into a new apartment

During the process, I did some of the most empowering stuff I did lately. Namely, I got rid of some of the stuff I wrote as a teenager (among other stuff). When I moved out from the house I still own (rented it to somebody when I decided to move out) I had to get rid of an incredibly high amount of stuff. Literally there were hundreds of useless objects I had to throw away. And, among them, my teenage notebooks. I always thought of what I wrote in those notebooks like something that defined me. And by doing this, I was stuck in that definition of myself. Unable to move out, to change, to explore. Throwing away some of my notebooks (along with other garbage) was a liberating experience. Letting go is tough, but necessary.

Retook my position in WPSumo

I always was very fond of this project. So, when an opportunity to take over the entire WPSumo project from one of the founders emerged, I jumped on it. I’m still putting together the bits and pieces, reframing the strategy and taking care of the usual stuff that a business require, but all in all I’m really happy I’m on board again.

Went to an improv show for the first time

It may seem like a minor event, but for me was important. Also, proved that once you set up your vibration properly, necessary events are created into your life. Seeing this show – which made me laugh incessantly for almost two hours – made me realize that sometimes you just have to go with the flow. Improvise. Expect the unexpected. And, most important, learn to laugh at it, instead of controlling the outcome.

Signed my first independent publishing agreement

Two of my titles will be translated into Korean and sold as ebooks by an independent publisher. This is big. This is something so important for me, that I can barely put it into words. I don’t think it will be huge in terms of revenue – although my publisher said I was a pretty tough negotiator – but it is already very important in terms of personal choices. I do write books and they are needed by people. They are actually published. It’s hard to describe the feeling, believe me.

All in all, I think it was a very dense month.

The 11th Monkey

It will be about relationships. I am committed to strengthen my relationships on all levels: professionals, in the first place, and, most important, personal. I already did a few moves in this area and things are looking pretty good. Also, there are a few supporting events that will make this challenge even more interesting during November.

On 7th, I will be part of a panel at ZileleBiz, a national business event in Romania, where I will speak about digital nomading. On 22nd I’m invited to the biggest Internet event in Romania, NetCamp, and on 23rd I will be again part of VentureConnect, a very special business opportunity, which aims at connecting entrepreneurs with investors.

So, busy times ahead. Like I said: talk less and do more.

The Other One Tasted Better

I spent the last weekend with my 5 year old daughter Bianca, at my new place. Yes, I moved downtown, I’m not a suburb guy anymore. This apartment I rented is very close to a place where I used to have my company office for a few years. It’s very close to a few parks also and that was one of the most important criteria when I moved out. First, because I still want to run, and second, because going to the park is one of my favorite things every time I spent time with my daughter.

On our way to this new (for Bianca) park, we stopped by a little store and bought some water and a small bag of Skittles. It happens that Bianca kinda dig Skittles. Not much of a fan, but hey, it’s not about me here. We explored this new venue, we played, we made new friends and, all in all, we had a blast. At the end of the day, we were both tired but happy, and with no water of Skittles left.

The next day we took a different road. We stopped by a different store and bought the same things. One bottle of water and one bag of Skittles. Same color, even the same lot (why is this important, you will see in a minute). It happened that this second road was a little bit longer than the first one. And not as interesting as the first one. And a little bit boring. We eventually made it to the park, but, while we were still relaxed, we were not even remotely as energetic as we were the other day.

She started to play and, at some point, she came towards me telling: “We should have buy Skittles from the other store. These ones are not as tasty as the first ones.”. First, I thought the Skittles bag was expired. I checked the expiration date and even the lot. It was the same as yesterday’s. “Are you sure they’re not as tasty as the other ones?” I asked. “Yes, I am, check them out!”.

I took a little pink pill and chewed it carefully. It surely tasted the same to me. The same Skittles taste. “I’m pretty sure they’re the same pills, Bia”. “No, they aren’t” she replied almost angry and she left. We went on and off with this Skittles thing for almost the entire day. Sometimes it was like: “let’s go back to the first store and buy another Skittles”, and sometimes it was like: “you eat them all, I don’t need them, because the other ones tasted better”.

At some point, I managed to direct her attention to something else and we ended the day on the same positive note. But after she went to sleep, I started to think. Yes, I do this from time to time .

It’s Coming From The Inside

The first time, there was a strong positive connotation between the happy road to the park and the taste of the pills. The second time, although the pills were the same, the road to the park was boring. So, in a very subtle way, she changed the taste of the pills to reflect the current reality. Yes, she really did it. We all do this. As a matter of fact, it’s amazing how often we do this.

Our life events are just events. But, based on our previous experiences, we extend our current state of mind towards our environment. If something bores us, everything tends to become boring. If something is not as good as expected, everything borrows a sense of disappointment. But on the outside, things are just things.

It’s on the inside that everything is taking place. The world in itself is tasteless. It’s us who give sense, and smell and taste to our events. We project our definition of happiness, of good and of bad to what’s outside. We make things look prettier when we’re happy and we put a veil of sadness when we’re depressed.

The good news is that we have more power than we think we do. To make the world taste bad or good, well, that’s a pretty big thing.

The bad news is that we’re not always aware of this power. And, as such, we tend to give to the outside events more power than they really have.

For instance, we tend to blame the pills for tasting bad, when, in fact, we just have a small issue with the boring road to the park. Or we think people are ugly when we’re alone (yes, this is from a song). Or we feel bad when we didn’t win the lottery. Or we think everything is going to collapse around us when someone we trust is betraying us.

It’s coming from the inside. Everything it’s really coming from the inside.

The Red Pill And The Blue Pill

As I was thinking to all the stuff I wrote above, a sudden image popped into my head. It was a scene from The Matrix. Morpheus was holding two pills in his right hand and he was asking Neo: “Which one do you choose? The red pill or the blue pill?”

In a sudden revelation I understood that it didn’t really matter. Morpheus was tricking Neo. The color of the pill was never an issue. It was always the internal choice that mattered.

In my mental representation of the movie scene, the camera started to rotate around the still images of the two characters. I was looking at a frozen image of Morpheus with the right hand holding the two pills, Neo looking at them hypnotized and, as the camera approached this statue-like group from behind, I could clearly see Morpheus’s left hand, squeezing, and barely refraining himself from exploding into a giant laugh, a small, red bag of multi-colored Skittles.

Why We Screw Things up

You’re not gonna believe me, but the only reason we screw things up is because we want to. Even more, we screw things up because we’re deeply convinced this is what we have to do.

Breathe in, sit down and relax. You’re going to read something very difficult to accept.

The Early Conditioning

From the moment we’re arriving on this planet, we’re surrounded by restrictions. Some of them are dictated by fundamental rules, like “don’t put your hand in the fire, otherwise it will hurt”, or “don’t jump off that cliff, because you’re going to crash and die”. These are survival rules and by breaking them, our life will end abruptly. But other rules are created by outdated structures that are no longer fulfilling their role in our lives.

For instance, we are taught that we gotta “strive to go ahead” in our lives. That success comes after hard work. In some cases, that’s true. But in other situations, success may come through a so called “lucky shot” (I don’t believe in luck, nor in bad luck). Every once in a while, we just get everything we want. Just like that.

But here’s the funny part: every time we’re into that kind of situation, an inner conflict arises. We know that we have to “strive” to get what we want. Yet, what we want is already in our hands, easy as pie. What to do, what to do? Move on with what we got and forget about the rule? Or step back, look at what we got and decide “it’s not real because it didn’t come through hard work”?

Most of the time, alas, we’re choosing the second option. We’re so wired into our early conditioning patterns that we find it incredibly difficult to adapt to unexpected, pleasant situations. Even when everything is so obvious, when every piece of reality is telling us “just get me, I’m for real”, we’re still backing up, putting the veil of “unreal and treacherous” on it and start to… Exactly, start to strive!

Because that’s we’ve been taught to do in order to achieve success!

Early conditioning is screwing us up constantly. Unconsciously, we’re applying old patterns to current realities, and we filter our life through dirty lenses, ignoring that what was once true, today may be obsolete. And it’s not only about “working hard to be successful” approach, it just happens this is one of the most popular ones.

Here are a few other patterns that we’re still carrying on with us, burdening our decisions with unnecessary fog.

1 We have to do stuff in order to be loved

The premise: we cannot be loved just like that, we have to deserve it.
The result: Love is something that you fight for. It’s something that you conquer. Ultimately, love is something outside of you. You’re born without it and you have to do whatever it takes to get it. A bunch of bullshit, of course.

Somewhere in our early childhood, our parents (or anyone else around us, for what matters) may acted upon us in such a way that we got rewarded after we did something for them. And we learned that if we want to receive love, we have to do stuff. Voila: an early conditioning has been formed.

2 We just have to do our homework and everything will be fine

The premise: do your job and nothing bad will happen to you.
The result: we’re puzzled when we get fired, when we get dumped, when a brick falls off in our heads. Because you know what, these things happens. And they happen regardless of your homework. We’re not in control of the world. We can only control what we think about the world.

Somewhere at the beginning of our life, somebody taught us the protection pattern: if you do this, I will take care of you. It may have been worked for a few years, while we were kids, keeping us safe and cozy, but as grown ups we cannot expect to act like this. We cannot hope that just because we’re doing our job, everything will be fine.

What we really need to do is to keep doing our jobs simply because we like to do our job. And, if something bad happens, just cope with it and move on.

3 Don’t talk to strangers

The premise: everyone else apart me is an enemy, don’t engage in conversations with other people because they may hurt you.
The result: we find it incredibly difficult to relate on a personal level in our lives. We cannot share. We cannot trust. We cannot open our souls without the basic fear that the other one is the “enemy”.

Again, an overprotective approach which completely damaged our inter-relational system. It may have been worked in another context, when we lacked the necessary tools to discern if the other one really is the “enemy” but now, as grown ups, we don’t need this anymore. Yet, from the bottom of our unconscious minds we’re still using this approach almost every time we engage with someone new.

And I can go on like this forever. We all have in our internal system outdated rules that we still apply, by fear of doing an on the spot analysis. And, with that in mind, let’s continue to find out why are we still screwing up things. Even more, why do we find this not only acceptable, but even necessary.

Redemption And Sins – The Hidden Story Of Happiness And Screwing Up

Pretty much every religion on Earth taught us that our normal state is the state of the sinner. That we are here by mistake and we should constantly strive to “find redemption”. To return to some careless state of a sinless life.

But here’s the catch: we cannot exercise our “redemption” techniques, unless we’re sinners. So, every time we feel a little bit redeemed, instead of keeping that feeling for as long as we can, we rush back in the hole again. Because that’s where we belong, and that’s where we should live our lives. In sin and misery. How else could we exercise our redemption techniques, if not by keep being sinners?

That’s exactly why we screw things up too. Because we’re taught we’re unfit, not good enough, unable to cope with this world, weak, helpless and defeated. We’re taught that we need supervision, rules, more powerful people in charge over us. We’re taught that we don’t know what is good for us.

And that’s why we find screwing up not only acceptable, but necessary. By screwing up, we’re enforcing the very system that created us. We’re telling back: yes, I’m weak, helpless and unable to cope with this world. And I need somebody in charge over me.

But, ultimately, we screw things up because nobody taught us how to be happy. They all taught us how to survive. And, if you can read this, they did a wonderful job: you’re alive in this very moment. But that’s where their part is over. That’s where “they” (whoever “they” may be) have to be silenced.

Because your happiness is your part. Nobody can play it for you.