The 30 Secret Rules of Social Media

Every now and then I try to relax and look at see things from a different perspective. A few months ago, I imagined a world formed by social networks, each network being a country (if you think a little, the total population of those social networks could easily be higher than the population of an entire continent, so it’s not that strange anyway). But no country is a real country until it has a set of secret rules. Here are the 30 secret rules of social media (take them with a little bit of salt and pay attention to the last one, especially ).

Twitter

1. You are what you retweet.

2. Don’t DM without permission. It’s like trying to sell elephants in a porcelain store. Your goal may be achieved, but the price may be higher than you think.

3. If you tweet more than 8-9 times per day, your followers will be worried. It’s like getting out in front of your house and saying: “man what a nice weather today” 8-9 times a day. Your neighbors will be worried.

4. Don’t trust a follower with a nice woman picture as an avatar but with a nickname containing more than 4 digits. The photo is most likely a fake and you’re dealing with a nice looking spammer.

5. If you stop tweeting for 7 days in a row you should get yourself another account, your current one will be officially marked as obsolete.

6. If you see the fail whale, do continue to tweet on post-its. Don’t lose your momentum. Stick them on the walls of your office.

7. If you appear in more lists than the total number of your followers, that could be a pretty solid confirmation that you have a multiple personality disorder.

8. You know you had too much Twitter when you’re looking for the “follow” link on the business card you just received.

9. Automating your tweets is like sending clones to the social events you don’t like. Sooner or later, they will catch you.

StumbleUpon

10. Laws are changing every day in this country. Your friends are not your friends but your subscribers, which in turn may or may not be you visitors.

11. Stumbling is actually highly valued in this country. But do not fake it. Try to genuinely stumble otherwise you can be accused of inappropriate behavior in public.

12. StumbleUpon is the Hollywood of social media: it can make you famous in a single day, but you can also be forgotten in a week.

13. According to a number of experts, the SU toolbar could be the most widely used mouse click exercise on Earth. Emptying your SU bar from 100 shares in 10 seconds is considered pretty common sense. If you don’t know what a toolbar is, or what a share means in SU, then, by all means, don’t try to find out. Just stay happy.

Reddit

14. If they talk bad about you, don’t talk bad back. It’s not polite. Being talked bad in Reddit is a sign of high appreciation. Sometimes is a sign of pure rejection too.

15. Ask a question at least once per month. Don’t pick a specific topic, be as random as you can but do ask a question ever once in a while. Asking questions in Reddit is like drinking beer in Germany.

16. Starting your own subReddit is the equivalent of graduation. Everybody does it, sooner or later.

17. In Reddit, you actually accumulate karma, you don’t burn it. You’ve been warned.

Digg

18. If your link got buried, be happy. It’s the first sign you’re becoming important.

19. In Digg, who you are as a person is not even remotely as valuable as who you know. I also saw that in business. A lot.

20. Reaching the front page of Digg is equivalent in some cultures with winning the lottery. The probability, I mean.

21. If you get comments on your submissions, but no diggs, you’re doing something extremely wrong. Nobody will tell you exactly what, get used to it.

22. There’s no real difference between friends and fans: both can bury you alive.

Facebook

23. If you want to say something nice to some of your friends, think twice, there might be an app for that.

24. There will always be some causes to join at some point in your life, so don’t rush on the first one.

25. Farmville is a very crowded city in Facebook. Rumors has it that some people who entered Farmville never got back from it.

26. If someone likes your link that doesn’t mean you have to automatically invite him/her on a date.

27. You will receive crazy, totally useless, nice looking small gifts. Get used to it. It’s not spam. It’s gifts.

28. It’s compulsory to have your own fan page. If you don’t, people will assume you want to become somebody else’s fan and act accordingly.

29. Never respond to a message that says: “You have just been accepted in Mafia Wars”. Real mobsters don’t do that. They send someone over.

The Final Rule

30. If you’ve read everything on this list and agreed with at least 50% of what’s in it, you badly need a life. A real life.

The Trip To Las Vegas

As you may already know, I recently attended to Steve Pavlina’s Conscious Growth Workshop in Las Vegas. The workshop in itself was a fantastic event and if you want to know more on this, you should check out the series about it. Because in today’s post I’m not going to talk about the workshop. Instead, I’ll give you a little bit of what Las Vegas flavor I experienced.

Flying To Las Vegas

Going from Bucharest to Vegas involves a little bit of effort. As in any long distance flights, I had to chose one of the biggest Europeans airports with a decent selection of US flights. This time happened to be Rome. Been in Vienna a couple of times, and also found out that for Asia, Helsinki is a very convenient link point. The major advantage in choosing Rome this time was the connection time, about 1 hour. It proved to be quite risky, as we will see.

I was at the Otopeni airport (that would be in Bucharest) at 7 AM, knowing that the flight had to take off at 8:30. To my surprise, just when we were ready to board, a young lady announced that the flight has been delayed, due to atmospheric conditions around Rome. I approached her with my ticket and asked if I would catch my connection flight to New York under these new conditions. One hour between the flights, out of which 45 minutes were eaten by the delay, that would have give us only 15 minutes to run in Fiumiccino. I still run pretty good, but I didn’t think I will make it. That was exactly the impression of the young lady who gently confirmed me that I will miss my New York connection. With no idea about how and when I was going to land in Vegas under the new circumstances, I did what every decent man would do: I tweeted about my flight delay.

I don’t know if this triggered a subtle change in the complicated mechanism of flights management, but exactly when I sent my tweet, the lady announced that the delay has been canceled. Honestly, that was a little bit of a semantic twist for me, so I asked her again what the heck that meant.. “It means we’re in a hurry to take off as scheduled, mister, we’ll be there on time”. Huh, that was close.

Once in Rome, after a 2 and half hours flight, I finally found my New York connection, after dumbly looking at some billboards for about 10 minutes. It was a flight for New York, that was clear, only it was 15 minutes earlier than I knew. I went to the boarding gate and asked the lady at the desk if this was the flight for New York. “Yes, this is the flight, but it’s closed. Everybody boarded.”  I must be looking either extremely happy, either extremely sad, because the lady said to me again: “Can I see your ticket, though?”. I handed her my ticket, preparing to ask when is the next flight after all, just to see her face suddenly starting to shine. “No, this is not your flight, sir”. I was partially relieved. “Is this not the flight for New York?” “Oh, but yes, this is going to New York”. “And still not my flight?”, I asked. “Yes, sir, we have many flights to New York, and this is not yours. Yours is boarding at the next gate”. Ashamed and silent, I started to walk backwards until I reached the new gate. When prompted to show my passport, I realized I didn’t have it. It was at the other gate. Luckily, I run still pretty fast, as I told you, so I was able to jump on the desk, took the passport, and then get back to the good gate in lest than 7.4 seconds.

Finally, I was on my plane to New York. The good flight to New York, that is.

I will quickly go over the flight itself and also over JFK airport in New York. Suffice to know I was on another plan to Las Vegas pretty fast. And there, my first shock waited silently, under the strange name of Gogo Inflight Internet. Yes, that’s right, in my plane from New York to Vegas I had my first internet connection while flying. And I must tell you it was faster than what I have back  home. Tweeting live from 10.000 meters above Boulder, Colorado, while going with 900 km/h at -51 degress Celsius is surely one of the highest points of the trip to Las Vegas.

Accommodation In Las Vegas

The workshop was held at Harrah’s hotel so I thought it would be a good idea to book my room in the same hotel. To some degreee, it was a good idea. I was really close to the workshop hall and pretty close to the Strip. Actually, I don’t think I could have been closer to the Strip then I was by staying at Harrah’s. The downside was the room itself. They couldn’t give me a 1 king bed room, so I ended up with 1 bed for me and another one for my laptop. The CPU fan got a good rest, that I can assure you.

The quality of the room was around 3 stars in Romania which is not much. Everything was clean and proper but not too much space around. Later on I realized that almost all hotel rooms in Vegas are pretty much the same (except splurge or glamour villas in the upper class hotels like Bellagio). The reason is that you are not suposed to spend too much time in the room. You don’t get to Vegas to spend time in the hotel room. You get to Vegas to spend time in the casinos. Is that clear?

One thing that should be noted about accommodation in Vegas is the air conditioning. I mean, what they call air conditioning. From where I come, air conditioning means making the air better. In Vegas, air conditioning literally means being hunted with cold air cannons in every spot they can catch you: in the room, in the hotel lobby, in the casinos. They don’t condition the air, they’re freezing it and they’re throwing it back to you in a strange attempt of modern torture. Many of the workshop attendants sadly exposed red eyes every morning, with uncontrollable tears coming up constantly, all because of this air conditioning bad joke.

Vegas Strip In The Morning

Las Vegas never sleeps. I got that from the first seconds of my walk around the Strip. Because of the time difference (9 hours behind home) I was pretty jetlagged when I arrived, so the best thing I could do at 3 AM in the morning was to go for a walk on the Strip. At that time the hotel casino (which basically took 90% of the first floor surface) was working as usual, the little Starbucks coffee shop near the elevators was open and everything seemed to function full speed. It was 3 AM in the morning. There were some security guys watching the slot machines and around 5-6 persons in total gambling. A part from the slot machines there were a few poker tables running and even some craps and roulette tables gambling full speed.

I slowly left the casino behind and started to explore. Vegas is in the desert and despite the efforts for a better weather experience the desert clime can be felt. The nights can get pretty cold and the days can get really hot. Put in this equation the wind (hardly stopped by the big hotels) and you get a pretty good idea. Everything was filled with light and the first word that came into my mind was opulence.

Eiffel Tour on the Strip

Morning reflections on Planet Hollywood

Paris. On the Strip.

In the morning, the Strip is desert and a little bit of what’s uncovered during the day gets out. The cleaning guys, the late gamblers, the service cars. Only around 4 AM you can really see who makes the city going round and round (like in who takes care of the stuff, not who’s pouring the money which makes the city go round and round).

If you stay up until 5 AM you can actually meet some of the early runners of the city. Surprisingly enough for a tourist, Vegas is a city with regular people. Some of them love to run in the morning on the Strip, for instance.

Another big difference – at least from my European background – which can be spotted really good in the morning is the size of the cars. American cars are still too big for their purpose. And that goes from limos up to the trucks. There’s a deep feeling of overextending the size of everything, which many of the Americans doesn’t get. Being raised in that environment makes it difficult for them to pick this up, but for any European getting there for the first time this is obvious. I wonder how a native Japanese sees this.

Vegas Strip In The Evening

I had a few chances to see the Strip in the evening too. Vegas is not only the world capital of gambling, but is also exposing a lot of scene entertainment. You can go to standup comedy shows, to big, shiny performances, to strip (as in strip tease) shows or to mind challenging and sometimes disturbing shows, like the Blue Man show. Yeap, you guessed, I was at that show . To be honest, I really liked it, but don’t go if you’re looking for a harmonious and entertaining performance. They have this habit of picking up people from the audience, putting them on scene and getting them through really annoying situations.

The Strip in the evening is the peak of Las Vegas. Tourists, gamblers, hookers, workshop attendants (that would include me) they all wander around, being surrounded by powerful lights, strange attractions (a gondola ride at The Venetian, perhaps?) and looking for the next manifestation of what they call fun. Most of the time, they’ll get it. Sometimes, they don’t. I saw a few times people getting up from poker tables crying. But I don’t think this is having something to do with Vegas as a destination, but mostly with human nature.

Treasure Island

Gondolas on the Strip

The Venetian

The Strip. By Night.

Vegas Casinos

By far the number one attraction of Vegas, casinos left me with the impression of one of the most efficient, smooth-running and evolved money making machines ever invented. If you looked at the casinos halls in a certain way, you could almost see money coming in, as a blue, thin, almost invisible fog, floating around form the street, getting out of gambler’s pockets, entering the slot machines, the poker and roulette chips, struggling to enter in the cashiers desks and then flowing away in the unseen Vegas undergrounds. Well, maybe I was the only one seeing this and maybe I was a little bit jetlagged. But I like that image anyway.

Luxor. Sphynx and Pyramids.

New York, New York. Only in Vegas.

Classy. A synonym for Bellagio.

Vegas Feeling

I really see Vegas as a city of every possibility. It has this potential of making things happening faster than any other city I’ve been it so far. If there is a possibility to go completely broke, Vegas will amplify it. If there is a possibility to get rich, Vegas will amplify that too. Behind the mindless fun and inhibition killing attitudes there’s a deeper energy working there. Maybe it wasn’t by chance that a workshop involving deep, sometimes disruptive changes was held there. Vegas is a good point to change your life, if you’re up to that.

Flying Away From Vegas

One of the highest points of the Las Vegas trip was the take off from McCarran airport. The taking off lane was one hundred meters away from one of the Strip ends and my flight for Los Angeles was scheduled sometimes after the dark. Meaning the Strip was all lightened up. Once we reached 500 meters, the plane made a large circle, keeping wings at around 45 degrees and making me feel I could almost touch the tops of Bellagio, Caesar’s Palace or Mirage. That was an incredible image. Of course, i couldn’t make a picture of it. Sometimes, the best moments are inside you .

Apparently, my unconscious desire to stay a little bit more in United States was pretty strong, because I had a little bit of an incident in Los Angeles. As I told you, I got from Vegas to LA, and from LA I had to fly to Auckland, New Zealand. Everything went pretty fine until we boarded on the plane for Auckland. The LAX airport is pretty welcoming and if I wasn’t so sleepy I’m sure I would have enjoying it even more. To make a long story short, once I got boarded and settled I fell asleep almost instantly. Waking up in Auckland seemed like a pretty good plan.

Surprisingly enough, I didn’t wake up in Auckland. I wake up in the same plane, listening to the standard “no panic” voice of the pilot, who said something about a bird. And about dumping fuel. And about getting back to Los Angeles. What the heck?

After the first few minutes of surprise and confusion I finally got it. Apparently, the plane hit a bird, the bird damaged the external temperature sensors and because of that we couldn’t make it to Auckland. We were going back to Los Angeles after nearly 2 hours of flying. We landed without any incidents, the airline company (Quantas, in this case) arranged a hotel for us, and a new plane was scheduled to take us to Auckland at noon the very next day.

But I just couldn’t leave the “plane – bird“ interaction without taking a picture of it.

Boeing 747-400 + a very unlucky bird

I now know that the reasons behind getting back to Los Angeles must have been different from what the pilot told us. I think it’s pretty difficult to fly a Boeing 747-400 with such a big hole in it. Not to mention that all the sensors of Boeings are in the wings, not in the front. Anyway, everybody is happy when everything has a happy end.

The Vegas Aftermath

It was a really fantastic experience. I will surely go back there. Not only because of the workshop experience, but also because of the city. Many friends told me that Vegas is not the standard american experience. In fact, is pretty far form it. There are certainly high and low spots in my internal Vegas representation, but after I drew a line and did the big math, the result was crystal clear: I’ll go back there again. Maybe after a few visits I will consume every hotel, casino, experience or show and finally get bored.

Or maybe not.

How To Get From A To B In 5 Random Steps

When I was a teenager I spent a lot of time by myself. I don’t think I was the only one, by the way, being socially impaired is common stuff among teenagers these days. And I’m sure it was like this for centuries.

During those lonely moments my mind started to invented games. Maybe to avoid boredom, maybe to prove myself that spending time alone was a good thing (which wasn’t, of course). Thing is that out of this rather strange period of my life emerged one of the most challenging, useful and fun self improvement techniques I ever experienced.

It’s called “how to get from A to B in 5 random steps” and it works like this: you pick two words, which are the start point and the endpoint. Those words can represent things, concepts, actions, whatever your want. Then you force your mind to find 5 ways to get from A (the start point) to B (the endpoint). Those 5 steps must have something in common but they aren’t forced to follow any logical blueprint. You are the one who creates the connection between the steps. Doesn’t matter if it’s something very personal, as long as it does retain a semantic link along the way. And you must go through only 5 steps, not 4, not 6. A chain of 5 semantic links between 2 concepts.

Sounds a little bit more complicated than it is. So, I’m going to give you 3 short examples (and yes, that means I still do this):

From Cheese to Car

1. Step one starts from realizing that cheese come from milk. Number one word is “milk”.
2. Step two acknowledges that milk comes largely form cows (it can also comes from sheep, but I chose cows). Number two word is “cow”.
3. Cows are eating grass, of course. Number three word: “grass”.
4. One of the most simple pleasures in life is to walk barefoot on the grass. Number four word: “barefoot”.
5. One of the most funny images I recall from being a child is Fred and Barney, barefoot, driving their Stone Age cars. Which leads us to the final word: “car”.

cheese -> milk -> cow -> grass -> barefoot -> car.

From Red to Leg

1. The first thing that comes to my mind is from Karl May’s Winnetou (one of my favorite heroes) and it’s a red skin Indian. Which makes the first word “Indian”.
2. But you can’t really picture an Indian without making room in the picture for a bunch of cowboys. Word number two: “cowboys”.
3. And where the cowboys used to live? Of course in the “wild wild west”, which is step number three.
4. That “wild wild west” was the beautiful background for one of the largest quests in modern history: the quest for gold. Word number four: “gold”.
5. And what can you make with gold: a bracelet for a leg. Which leads us to the final word, “leg”.

red -> Indian -> cowboys -> wild wild west -> gold -> leg

From Squirrels to Diamonds

1. Squirrels are nuts for nuts, right? Word number one: “nuts”.
2. And nuts are usually found in the forest, right? Let then Forrest Gump join in. Step number two: “Forrest Gump”.
3. I will never forget how Forrest lives a wonderful life owning a bunch of apple shares, at the end of the movie. Step number  three: “apple”.
4. And what Apple did in such a way that it completely changed the market game? Iphones, of course. Step number four: “iphones”.
5. An iphone isn’t trendy enough if you don’t put a shiny and completely useless diamond case around it. And that leads us to the final word: “diamonds”.

squirrel -> nuts -> Forrest Gump -> apple -> iphones -> diamonds

I think you now got the idea. Getting from A to Be in 5 random steps is really fun. I used to do this a lot and as I already told you I still do it from time to time.

But doing this for fun was just like the visible part of an iceberg. Deep down, under water, serious things happened, slowly. After a few years I realized that behind this technique was a huge potential. Of course, I had access to this potential all the time, but never at a conscious level. It was hidden in a shiny, useless game. But at some point I realized that the real power of this technique appears the moment you understand that A’s and B’s can be anything you want. Like real things. In your real life.

Replacing The Ends

Now let’s take it serious for a moment. Let’s replace the A’s and B’s with real life situations. Like making A your current situation and B the future, desired situation. Your medium term goal. Let’s say you want to get from broke (A) to rich (B). Or from sad (A) to cheerful (B). Or from single (A) to a happy relationship (B). Ups, that’s a huge shift, isn’t it? Now those random steps are all of a sudden incredible doors to new opportunities, right? Those mental connections are creating new paths. Real paths for real things.

Take a break and think for a while. Try to identify your A’s and B’s. Try to see what you don’t like right now (the A’s) and how would you like it to be in an ideal world (B’s). Put your A’s and B’s on a piece of paper in front of you and try to go from start to end in 5 random steps. Above all, make it fun. Make it like going form squirrel to diamonds, or from red to leg. Don’t let your mind chose a walked path. Let it free, wandering and making surprising choices. That’s the spirit. Now you’re having fun, right?

Seriously Playing

There are at least 4 huge benefits of this apparently innocent and useless game.

1. There Is No Correct Way

There is only your way. Too often solving a problem is becoming impossible because we’re trying to apply correct, or proven techniques. Well, “correct” doesn’t work all the time. If it’s proven, it only means it worked in the past, there is no guarantee it will work again. But out of habits we prefer to froze our mental paths and chose only what was once sure. Playing this game will unfroze those patterns. Will make you understand that there is no “correct” way. There is only one way. Your way.

2. It’s Your Life

Since the base rule of the game is to create a meaningful connection from one point to another, but only from your own life experience, it will strengthen your own universe. Maybe you would have chosen something different at the squirrel and diamonds exercise. I chose Forrest Gump. Because in my universe Forrest Gump has a special place. Or so I think. In your own universe there might be someone or something else. This is why your own life is precious. Nobody else can have it. Enjoy it. Respect it. It’s your life.

3. Train Your Brain For Opportunities

Playing this game will shift your brain behavior in ways you never experienced. I’m not joking. And I’m not exaggerating either. If you constantly fracture your reality in random ways in order to get from A to B, your brain will start to see things it never saw before. Because you’re actually training it for that. You’re forcing your brain to see new stuff and incorporate it in your thinking patterns. The most visible consequence of practicing this game for several months is that you will start to actually spot opportunities around you. Real life opportunities.

4. Prepare For The Unknown

If it’s random, it can’t be predicted, right? It’s unknown. And practicing the unknown in a controlled environment will make you better at facing the unknown in an uncontrolled environment, which basically is what we call real life. If you’ll encounter some strange, unpredictable situations in your projects, well, you’re going to react with a lot of less stress than usual. Hmm, yes, it happens. It’s that randomness, you know? Facing the unknown and reacting to it on the spot is part of life. Actually, is one of the best parts of life.

Can You Do It?

Now, really, can you do it? I think it will be fun. I’m going to poke some of my preferred fellow bloggers and see if they will respond to this and how. So, basically I’m challenging them to write a post with (or about) how to get from A to B in 5 random steps. Might be an example, an exercise, several exercises, whatever. Just for fun. Steven, Mike, Jonathan, Stephen, Kristy, Bunny, Luciano, Steve are you in? Really look forward to see your mental connection from whatever A’s and B’s are crossing your minds right now.

Oh, by the way, if you’re not among the poked bloggers but  you do want to join, don’t be shy. Just write your own A to B in 5 random steps post and link back here, so we all know what you’re up to. And let the randomness begin. And the awesomeness. As one of my dearest virtual friends once said, there’s no charge for awesomeness. And that friend would be Kung Fu Panda, of course.

Trip To Europe: Budapest And Vienna (part one)

The trip to Europe started pretty well, without any problems other than the usual routine of keeping a 3 year old busy in a car, while driving more than 2-3 hours in a row. We entered Hungary around 3 PM and reached Budapest around 6;30 PM. Luckily, Diana searched for some hotels in advance so we had a pretty rough idea of where we have to go. We found the hotel pretty fast (thanks to modern technology, also known as GPS ) and checked in.

We were so eager to see new things that we decided to go on a boat tour instantly. I’m not a huge fan of tours, on the contrary, but we had to accommodate not only 2 adults but a toddler too. A boat tour seemed like a place where a toddler could stay still, enjoy the scenery and not get bored, all three at the same time. The tour took all in all around one hour and we had the chance to see some interesting stuff. First of all, there were the Budapest bridges (all reconstructed after being blown during the World War 2):

and of course the Parliament building:

Interesting enough, we learned that the Parliament building was simetrically perfect, made from 2 identical structures, corresponding to the 2 Parliament chambers. Today, the Hungarian Parliament has only one chamber though.

I found the boat tour a little bit noisy, not only because of the guide, an old lady who was talking alternatively English and German, but also because of the tourists, who seemed to pay little if no interest to the guide. All in all, it was an interesting activity, and I do learned a little bit about Budapest.

On the way back to the hotel we walked on Vachy Utca, one of the traditional shopping and entertainment streets of Budapest. At the end of it, we saw a group of young dancers performing in the middle of the street. And they were not bad at all:

Budapest – The Day After

Next day we planned to leave Budapest for Vienna. We had breakfast – a very good one, including a large variety of fruits and vegetables – and decided we have time for a bus tour also. We saw some red buses branded “Hop On – Hop Off” and thought it would be a good idea to try them. The checkout was at 12:00 PM and we embarked on that tour at 10:30 AM. The tour was supposed to last 2 hours. Half an hour over the normal checkout time is not such a big deal.

The problem with the bus tour was that we didn’t find place on the top platform on the bus, which was open. Instead, we had to stay for most of the tour on the lower platform, which was a little hotter for our tastes. We do had the chance to see some new stuff, especially on the hilly part of the city, also known as Buda. Some new blending with the old:

and also a view from above of the city, including a good panorama of the Danube, the main river (which goes to the Black Sea in Romania):

The bus tour was not as enjoyable as the boat tour, and I think the pressure of checking out was one of the reasons. Adding heat to it, and it made for a quite irritating experience. We were happy to leave the hotel around 1:30 and search for a place to eat. After we had lunch at a small coffee shop near the hotel, we headed for Vienna.

Entering Vienna

As for the Budapest, Vienna was one of the cities I saw from the speed of my car while driving to attend to various auto shows across Europe, back when I had the biggest car portal in Romania. Never had the chance to stop and actually seeing them. So, having at least 2 days to actually enjoy the city was a great thing.

After we got to the city, we started to look for the hotel. That was the first surprise. We actually had to look for 3 hotels, until we found one suitable. The ones we wanted were either fully booked either not offering apartments or at least rooms with connecting doors.

After searching around 2 hours, we finally set up somewhere near the old city. We were all very hungry so we just left the luggage in the room and started to hunt for a restaurant. Luckily, it seemed we reached a very restaurants rich area, we found one within 30 seconds of walking from our hotel. After having a delicious dinner (and some beer for me) we had a short walk around the hotel. Nice streets and quiet area:

Next day we decided to visit the Vienna Zoo. Famous around the world and one of the oldest in Europe, seemed like a good intersection point for all trip attendants, from 3 to “30 something” year old .

The first impression was fantastic:

That’s just one small part of the beautiful garden which surrounds the Zoo, and the whole Schonnbrunn area.

The Zoo was fantastic, but I won’t post any pictures. While I enjoyed the tour and Bianca’s reactions seeing all those exotic animals, the idea of keeping them locked for our viewing pleasure is not so appealing to me. Even if the animales had a fantastic life environment and even if they seemed quite happy with this arrangement.

So, after 2 hours of walking, back to hotel, eating and the afternoon siesta. The next objective was DonauTurm, one of the tallest buildings in Vienna (if not the tallest). One neat thing about this skytower is the fact that parts of it are spinning. The restaurant and the caffe, to be more precise. They’re spinning at a very low speed, but within an hour you’re making at least 2 complete rounds. This is a picture of an industrial area:

while this is a picture (with the Sun in the front, of course) of a residential area, took from the same window, one hour later:

The food was fantastic, the view was gorgeous, the only problem was that we didn’t plan our way back from there. The tower is somewhere outside Vienna, it was getting dark pretty fast, and we didn’t know how to get back to the hotel. We decided not to get back directly, and have a stop at Prater, the famous entertainment park of Vienna. Either way, we had no idea how to get there. And we felt a little bit lost. Despite the feeling, we did take some time to make a picture of the DonauTurm:

and another one of the beautiful sunset light:

After a little bit of searching and asking some locals, we found our way to a subway (which is called “U” in Vienna) and finally reached to Prater. That is another place from which I won’t post pictures, but this time because I really didn’t have a second to take them . We jumped together in one of the highest (yet, safest) wheels in the park. We shoot for a teddy bear at a shooting booth. We watched other people having fun. We had fun. Yes, Prater was nice. Bianca enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. Diana enjoyed it. We got back to the hotel almost sleeping.

That was the second day of the trip. By the time you will read this we will be on our way to Prague.

The Trip To New Zealand – Waiheke Island

The best part of my trip to Japan was New Zealand. I’m joking of course. After I finished my staying in Tokyo I took the plane for Auckland. I had to stay 2 days in the “City of Sails” for some business related tasks. Part of my relocation process to New Zealand is setting up a company there and this trip was supposed to add the final touches to this project.

The flight from Tokyo to Auckland was on a Air New Zealand cruise and was quite busy. Never had a flight over that part of the Pacific and this one proved to be quite a shaky one. Out of 11 hours of flying I don’t think we had 2 hours without turbulence, if we sum up all the small, 5-7 minutes of smooth going. The good part was the plane had a working entertainment system, and the captain was a rather humorous guy.

I took the opportunity to watch “Bedtime Stories” with Adam Sandler, and two movies with Will Smith, both equally bad. There was “Seven Pounds” – good plot and theme but extended way over my supportability threshold – and “Hanckok”. If it wasn’t for Charlize Theron, I would have switch instantly to “Ikegami” a Japanese movie about an orwellian, highly productive society in which people were programmed to randomly die by the age of 22. I eventually saw “Ikegami” on my flight Auckland – Hong Kong, but that’s another story.

After I landed in Auckland, and passed the security control – for some reason they thought it could be a good idea to search my luggage, because I was staying only 2 days, which was kind of suspect – I finally checked in to my hotel, 3 minutes walk from Auckland Sky Tower. The rest of the day was dedicated to the business part of the trip, and, most of it, to the jetlag, as I surprised myself sleeping without even noticing it.

Waiheke Island

I spent the next day socializing with friends in Auckland. Part of my new world there was described in another post about what you know is what you get. I had a good time seeing them again, connecting, telling stories and catching up. I was also much better from the jetlag which made me an almost bearable person.

The next day I had to check out from the hotel and take the plane on my final destination, Romania, via Hong Kong and Frankfurt. Check out was at 10 AM and my plane was at 11 PM. So I had more than 12 hours to spend in Auckland before I was actually living. And I decided to spend that time on Waiheke Island.

Waiheke Island is located north east from Auckland and is a little bit far away than Rangitoto island, the one you can see from anywhere in Auckland. Waiheke is inhabited – as opposed to Rangitoto, which isn’t – and is also famous for its wines and wine tours. Is also a destination for rock stars like Peter Gabriel and Kylie Minogue who reportedly have bought land or houses there. Haven’t seen a sign with “this is Peter Gabriel house” so I will just take this from granted for now.

The reason I’m sharing this with you is the fact that Waiheke holds one of the most precious spots on Earth for me. I already wrote about that, it’s a small beach called Little Oneroa Beach and it was one of the most enjoyable places during my first trip to New Zealand. Only the thought that I will be able to stay again on that beach made my heart go a little faster. Can’t explain this strange vibration for this place, but that’s it.

So, after I checked out I left my luggage at the hotel to be picked up in the evening and headed for the harbor, down Queen Street. I was there at around 11 AM, just in time to catch a ferry for Waiheke. The city was slowly behind us.

Auckland Harbor leaved behind form the ferry

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Perfect versus Better

We tend to define perfection as the absence of flaws, which is inherently wrong, since flaws are part of the reality. Too often, our perception of perfection as a flawless situation or individual proved to be not only difficult to learn, but plain wrong and deceivable. Striving for perfection causes more harm than good, leading into a land of frustration, weariness and misery.

Defining something by the absence of something else is a mindset of incompletion, a hedonistic and fearful approach. It’s hedonistic because we try to isolate only the “good” things from the whole, and it’s fearful because we do that by fear of the other, “bad” side. Choosing only one side of the coin is useless and ineffective. You can’t have a full coin if you chose only one side of it.

On the other hand, being just better assumes you know your flaws and accept them. You’re just getting better, not perfect. You’re embracing your whole structure. Not seldom, what you considered to be “flaws” are just violent pointers for a path you refuse to see or to take. What you may call “flaw” is in fact just an open window for another reality, usually much better than the current one.

Dry Future versus Rich Present

When you move your focus from your current reality and projecting it into a future, flawless reality in which you are perfect, you are depriving yourself from the only precious tool you have: your present time. When you step out of the living second and project yourself into a dry future you’re not actually living to the full. Whenever you strive for perfection you step out from the current time space continuum and try to insert into another, illusory one.

Whenever you strive for getting better, you’re in the present moment. You have to continuously assess your progress, you have to keep your focus on what you’re doing. If you had goals, you have to constantly check if you reached them. And if you did, you have to evaluate your options and set up the next goals. When you chose to become better, you never get out of your current time space continuum. Your present is real. And is rich.

Destination Oriented versus Traveling Oriented

When you strive for perfection you’re destination oriented: your goal is to attain a certain state, a flawless situation in which you are perfect. When you strive for being better you’re traveling oriented: your goal is not so much the destination, which changes continuously, but the travel itself.

I find much more joy by traveling than by arriving to a certain destination. As long as the current destination is also the departure point for my next trip, I can understand and I enjoy it. But if my final destination is reached, that means it’s the end of the travel. My trip has to stop. Which I simply don’t want to happen. I enjoy the trip much too much.

Focus On Bad vs Focus On Good

Striving for perfection is such a wearing attitude, it really drains you out. In fact, striving for perfection is quite a negativistic approach, if you look carefully. Since we define perfection as the absence of flaws, when we strive for perfection we focus on eliminating our flaws. Hence, we focus on flaws, instead of things we can improve.

Striving to be better is a fulfilling attitude, it fuel your body and mind. Striving for the better is focusing on the positive side. By accepting your flaws as part of your inherent nature, focusing on becoming better forces you to focus on your positive qualities and start enhancing what you already have an can grow.

The Dumbo Paradigm

I guess you all know by now the famous Dumbo cartoon. For those living on planet Mars in the last  50 years, Dumbo is the touching story of a baby elephant which had a big problem: huge ears. So huge that it actually had integration problems in his environment, a circus. His mother had to defend him from picky boys saying bad things about it, the other workers in the circus were also bothered by the little cub which only use seemed to be a very dangerous leap into a bucket filled with water, and nothing more. That little elephant with those incredibly big ears was no good even in a circus. Dumbo was tainted by his flaw: those huge and almost obscene ears.

But after the little elephant touches the bottom of his sorrow, with a little help from his friends, stumble upon a great discovery. His ears are so big that it can actually… fly! Right, those ears are so big that it can become a flying mammal just by flipping them. His biggest flaw has become the trampoline for his biggest success. The cartoon ends with a happy image of Dumbo flying all over the country above its personal tour train.

There is much to be learned from this story, and I do intend to write another blog post about it, but for now I’ll just say that Dumbo became better not because he tried to eliminate his flaw, but because he accepted it and made the best out of it. Dumbo focused on becoming better not perfect. If Dumbo would have been a perfect elephant, I really doubt that Disney would have made a cartoon about it.

Perfection is boring. Getting better is where all the fun is.

Travel As A Personal Development Tool – The How To

This is the second part of my short series about how to use travel as a personal development tool. I covered the “why’s” and the benefits of this in the first post, so if you came here directly you may want to read that too.

While started to work on this, I realized that travel as a personal development tool can be split into 2 main categories:

• short rides around the city or at maximum 3-400 km away from home, which usually last less than a day
• long trips, more than 3-4000 km, which last at least one week.

There are some differences between the those trips, at least from a personal development approach, so I will split my post accordingly.

Short Joy Rides

Those trips are fantastic perspective changers. I used to do unexpected rides all the time when I was feeling stressed or under pressure. After several months of doing this on purpose, my general approach toward my business completely changed. I switched from a very tense attitude to a more relaxed one and I was able to spot opportunities much easier.

From my experience, you should use this whenever you have feelings of lack of time or pressure. Sounds very counter-productive and somehow like escapism, but is not. Just start a short ride around the city, drive around or walk if you want. You can even take public transportation like urban trains or trams. Just go there, be with the flow and give your mind a break. Do this for at least 3 or 4 hours. Don’t even dare to think that this time could be better used if you “worked”. You’re still working during those rides, you’re only doing it differently.

The trick here is to do this on purpose and for several weeks / months in a row. Yes, you got it right, you must make a habit out of it. Sounds strange to make a habit out of short trips, but believe me, it works. You don’t have to come to the end of the rope and try it as a last resort, just do it while you’re still able to think it clear. Because you still have the capacity to shift your focus from your problems (what is pressuring you) to your solutions (what could free you).

The other key point is to not plan your itinerary, just go in the car and ride the road you see in front of you. Let yourself caught in the road, stop your mind and enjoy what you see. Extract yourself from your current flow of habits, break your unconscious walls and immerse yourself into the unknown. After 3-4 hours, return home. That’s it. As I said, it’s very important to this for at least several weeks in a row.

Short trips without an established goal worked fantastically well for me. Helped me to achieve a better clarity and sensitivity. My work actually improved, both in terms of performance and volume during that period, so I never feel I lost time during those trips.

The best image I can use is something that comes out of the fog. This is how I felt after several weeks in which I follow the habit of short 3-4 hours trips. (more…)

Travel As A Personal Development Tool

Looking at my 2009 goal list I found a few things there related to travel. Precisely, I want to have at least 3 long term vacations this year, and that my friends, is a specific goal, not relaxation. Here comes a post about how you can use traveling as a personal development tool. Apart from having lots of fun, of course.

Personal Traveling History

I did my first travel outside my country after I hit my thirties. Yes, you can laugh now. I know, it’s fun. Ok, you can laugh even more. But that’s the truth and I will not hide it. At that time I was still involved 16 hours a day in my own business and considered travel is just a waste of precious time. Maybe, and only maybe if I could mix travel with business, then I can embark on some small trips outside my country.

And this is how I actually had my first trip to Switzerland: it was a big automotive event in Geneva and since I had the biggest car portal in Romania, I said I could give it a try. I drove 25 hours from Bucharest to Geneva, with only 3 hours of sleep in Hungary. Next year I was in Frankfurt and next year in Paris. Automotive events are quite popular, you know…

And I started to like it. In fact, I started to like it a lot. So much that last year I made one trip longer than any other I had before. In fact much longer than the sum of all my travels to the moment: to New Zealand. One may say that I somehow balanced the score with that one, but in fact, I felt that this was only the beginning. I somehow developed a travel addiction, the same way I developed my GTD addiction over time.

And then I realized that not only entrepreneurship can be a personal development tool. You can also use traveling to enhance yourself consciously. I will outline just a few of the “why’s” in this post, and in the next one I’ll try to share some specific advice about the “how’s”. For now, let’s just start with the reasons. (more…)

2008 – The Outcome

With only one week left until the official end of the year, I don’t think I’ll have much time to wrap up some of the goals I’ve set for 2008. With an early holiday already started on December 20th I don’t have my focus on achievement monitoring also. So, I guess it’s time to write about how 2008 went for me. I’ll share something with you in the very beginning of this post: I’m somehow scared. I just reviewed my goal list for this year, a list written on the last days of 2007, and I’m amazed how much I accomplished.

First and foremost, this was my best financial year ever. I know this sounds a little bit shameless in the context of a global financial crisis, but I honestly don’t care. I just had my best financial year ever, and the fact that there is also a crisis playing around outside has nothing to do with it. Or with me. Or whatever. This year I made the exit for the company I set up 10 years ago and this was a huge leap forward for me. No need to hide this. It’s not only the financial freedom involved, but much more than that. The financial freedom was only a proof for something much bigger. More on that later, let’s take it the old “step by step” style for now.

As I told you, I am amazed of how much I accomplished, but also I’m somehow scared. I know I should be happy, but I’m still scared. We often function on lower expectancies and when things are coming to us in full flavor, shaped and behaving like we expected them to be, we tend to back up. This is how I feel right now. I feel like “wow, I really did it!”. I’m sure you felt this before, you know how it is. A feeling of satisfaction mixed with a strong vibration of “I just can’t believe this”.

Well, enough with emotions let’s get factual. I won’t give you any exact numbers on my goals. I don’t think the numbers are important, but the commitments are. The list I’ve made for 2008 was made up of 3 sections:

• personal
• professional
• joy

At that time I was still managing Mirabilis Media, the company I’ve created 10 years ago, so my personal and professional path were still pretty mixed.

Personal Goals

The thing that was most important for me on the personal level was my financial income. I don’t think I feel the same way now. But at that time seemed like a priority. I set up a pretty high mark on that. And I did it. Of course, the exit from my company was the key factor in that. Most of my income is now based on that exit.

The second thing was my health, at that time. I’ve set up goals for exercising more (30 minutes per day) and for eating healthier (eating raw food at least two days per week). For the exercise part, I made it for about 1 and a half month from the total of 12 months. For the eating habits, I made it for almost 5 months. But I managed to remain on a raw food eating habit and that is fantastic. Now really, it’s a breakthrough in terms of personal development, no need to hide this.

The third goals was about Bianca’s day care. We managed to have her signed up for the next year, but I think I can safely check this as done, because we did it very well. We both like that specific day care facility and we’re both happy we managed to have her signed up. (more…)

The Trip To Switzerland – First Impressions

As I already mentioned, we planned for a longer holiday in Switzerland for this year. This trip involves also a Christmas holiday in the Alpes, near Gstaad, and some other activities, most of them related to my personal life. One of the most important is getting in touch again with my sister, who’s living here for more than 8 years now.

We got here by plane, on 20th December, flying Swiss. We’re in the full formula, meaning my wife and my daughter. We enjoyed a good and silent flight, shorter than the average period you need to cross Bucharest from one side to the other. That’s around 2 hours, by the way. We landed in Geneva and checked in to a hotel. Haven’t had any difficulties on the logistic side. We didn’t had any schedule made in advance, we adjusted things on the fly. Each afternoon or evening we are at my sister’s place, enjoying family life, and the mornings are set for some spontaneous activities.

Yesterday, for instance, we tried to do some shopping at IKEA. What should be a regular ride to a store in my country proved to be completely different in Switzerland. IKEA Switzerland is outside the city, at around 40 minutes by train, in a small city called Allaman. Getting there was funnier than we thought, we had to switch buses and trains only to got there. But it was fun.

Life Cost In Switzerland

The thing that surprised me the most was the unbelievable high price of the life in this city. I knew that Geneva was one of the most expensive cities in the world. I had a previous trip here in 2005 to the Auto Show which is held at Palexpo, so I already had some insight. But seeing this again in the light of a regular tourist, the city is simply unaffordable. Especially the transportation and the food costs are too high… I know this is one of the most important cities in the world, and setting a price barrier is one way of keeping it safer, but things are simply not justifiable. Whatever.

On the other side of the high price I must reckon that the quality of the products and services delivered is over the average. Way over the average, so I have to admit that there is some justification for the high prices, after all. Especially the food is looking and tasting much better than in other cities and the public transportation is on time and clean. Extremely clean. Taxis are unaffordable, we paid 10 EUROS for a 3 minutes fare. Clothing is ok as long as you don’t shop from the fanciest boutiques downtown. (more…)

7 Things About Me

Well, it seems is that time of the year. And I don’t mean Christmas, but tagging and meme games. This time is Stephen Smith from Productivity In Context, and it’s about 7 things about me. Tracking down the beginning of this meme was a little over my time but I can tell for sure that the previous link before Stephen was Phil Gerbyshak from Slacker Manager…. I don’t usually follow these games, mostly because almost all those memes are just small disguised traffic scams with little or no associated value. But this time seems it’s going to be something fun and genuine. I’m in.

Let’s see the rules of this first:

• Link to the original tagger(s), and list these rules on my blog.
• Share 7 facts about myself in the post – some random, some weird.
• Tag 7 people at the end of my post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

7 Things About Me

1. I am 38 years old, as of November 10th this year.
2. I work for myself for about 10 years now, being what they call an webtrepreneur. This year I’ve made my first successful exit from my web publishing company in Romania.
3. In the last 4 months I’ve been eating only raw food with dramatic positive impact on both my physical health and mental clarity.
4. While doing my military service, 19 years ago, in a city called Timisoara, I was a live witness of the Romanian Revolution, which ultimately led to the first free elections on my country after half of a century. During that exact period I didn’t sleep for 5 nights and 6 days in a row, which is supposed to have devastating effects on the brain. I somehow survived. Or so I think…
5. I’m married with Diana and we have wonderful daughter, Bianca, who is almost 3 years old. I learned a lot from Bianca, in the first and second year of her life.
6. I’m a DIY junkie, I’ve assembled almost all the furniture in our house, and organized our garden literally from the ground up.
7. During high school I’ve played basket-ball as a left wing, although I’m right-handed. Apparently, this was some sort of advantage…

Now I have to pass this on to the following bloggers:

• Steven Aitchison, follow him on Twitter
• Kris Rowlands, follow her on Twitter
• Chris Marsden, follow him on Twitter
• Andrew Mason, follow him on twitter
• Brett Kelly, follow him on twitter
• Patrick Rhone, follow him on twitter
• Pascal Venier, follow him on twitter

Those blogs are quite interesting, by the way, steal a second or two and have a great read on them!