7 Things I Learned From My 5 Year Old Girl

A few weeks ago it was Bianca’s 5th birthday. As always, each year I write a post about what I learned from her during the last year. If you want to read the previous posts, here they are, in order for one, two, three and four year anniversaries.

1. Diplomacy Is Easy

Last year Bianca’s mother and I parted ways. For me it was an incredibly relieving and lightening event and I’m increasingly happy with this new context of my life. But for Bianca there were a few difficult situations. Although I do my best to keep a normal communication flow with her mother, glitches are occurring every now and then. I can’t control those glitches (being only one part of the discussion). The only thing I can do is to manage them. But at some point I realized something absolutely incredible: Bianca was actually helping me around. In a “childish” and selfless way, of course. Every time I had one of those glitches, she was doing her best to smooth things out. Again, I don’t think it was a conscious plan. I think she is just learning how to handle both me and her mother in this new context. And she’s doing this with a fantastic sense of diplomacy. I literally learned from her when and how to talk and when and why to shut up in a variety of situations. And I’m still learning this.

2. If You Don’t Know, Ask Around

Last year was the year of “why?” questions. I already told you that she is a diplomate. But that only means she is picking the right time to ask his gazillion questions she had to ask, not that she is not asking at all. I had to answer, as usual, the weirdest questions you can imagine, but that only made me realize how powerful this option is. When you don’t know something, just go around and ask. Don’t guess. Don’t imagine. Say out loud what you don’t know or what you don’t understand, or what you think is wrong. Chances are that your questions will be answered sooner than you think.

3. Being Happy Doesn’t Need A Reason

Bianca is happy about everything. Of course, there are contexts which are not pleasant for her, as for anybody else. For instance, every time we split after the time we spend together, she is sad. But after she finished with this separation sadness, she’s happy again. She expressed what she had to express (and I never try to refrain her from doing that) and then she returns to her natural state. Which is being happy just about everything. Too often we forget that. Too often we prefer to cling on our own sadness, or anger or frustration long after the cause of whatever bad feelings we had disappeared. And in this process we create tons and tons of reasons for hating our life. And we forget that we don’t need reasons for being happy. Happiness is an unreasonable state of our being. It’s also the fundamental state of our being.

4. Adaptation Is Evolution

In the separation process Bianca had to deal with a lot of changes. She moved away from her house, she changed school and she had to cope with a lot of new persons from her mother new or old circle of friends. But she coped with this incredibly well. Sometimes I think she has some magic powers that she summons every time she needs to overcome something in front of her. But then I realize we all have these powers, we all have this incredible ability to adjust and adapt, we just have to find it and let it manifest. After I identified this ability in Bianca I soon realized that I had this too. And so the processes of reverting back to parts of my old life I lost in the last 5 years or reinventing parts of my new life started to unfold much faster than before. I hardly remember how I lived just a few months ago. And when I do, I hardly recognize the reasons for living the way I used to.

5. Thirst For Learning

During last year she started to learn how to write and read. And she’s doing it like all the time. This isn’t like she has some time for doing her homework and then going back to “play”. She is learning every single second and her curiosity never stops. Somehow, she finds a way to enjoy and mentally devour every single piece of new information that enters her horizon. She learns lyrics from radio tunes. She plays small dialogues. She tells stories about her friends at school. Every single second she learns. And whenever I’m with her I refill my curiosity too. As adults, we lost this. We think we know everything. We weakened our curiosity muscle and let boredom conquer everything we have inside.

6. Test Newcomers

Bianca is never engaging into direct interactions. The first few seconds are for testing. Yes, this is against social norms. When somebody is saying “hello” to you, the norm is stating that you should instantly reply with a “hello” too. Well, Bianca doesn’t really give a damn about this norm. And I’m so happy that she doesn’t. She only engages in new interactions (if she engages at all) after at least 20-30 seconds of attentive research. This initial period of testing is so important for any new encounter we have. We give in to social games and we move forward based on dry convention and not on our own feelings about the other person. Sometimes I think my life would have been completely different if only I would take the time to test all the newcomers in my life, just as Bianca does.

7. The Will To Win

Lately, we started to play games together more and more. She really wants to win. As I am more of a “just playing the game is good enough” type of guy, her attitude is a very good reminder to pursue the winning game. Yes, the journey is the destination, but winning every once in a while, focusing on the victory, well, that’s something that pushes us forward. And Bianca really a has a lot of this. Every time after I finish a game in which she won, I carefully study her joy. And, little by little, I start to incorporate this desire to win too. Yes, being in the game is what counts.

But boy, that victory feels so good, isn’t it?

7 Personal Development Lessons – Kung Fu Panda Style

Personal development can be really fun, if you want to. I mean, it’s ok to write ambitious goals, to develop self-discipline and to embark on 30 days challenges. But all this can become really boring at some point. Being better doesn’t have to be all serious, grave and solemn. Life is also made of fun, relaxation and leisure. So, why don’t we try to mix some personal development with a little bit of cheerfulness?

Or, to borrow the words of a very close friend of mine: we can never have too much awesomeness in our lives. Yes, you got it right, this friend is no other than Kung Fu Panda (I know his name is in fact Po, but I will remember him for as long as I live as Kung Fu Panda).

Ladies and gents, fasten your seatbelt because we’re going to learn 7 personal development lessons from the master of all masters: Kung Fu Panda:

1. If You Can Dream About It, You’ll Eventually Get It

The lesson: no matter how unreal, huge or totally out of this Universe your dreams are, if you really trust them they’ll become reality at some point. Dreams do come true.

The plot: The very beginning of the movie pictures a mighty hero, saving the world from villains with outstanding kung-fu skills. There is no match for his art, and no worthy opponent. The shady world is breaking into a million pieces, under his skillful and magical hits. Alas, the morning reveals that the mighty hero  is just a huge Panda bear dreaming to become a Kung-Fu master. The rest of the story is in fact his journey towards fulfilling this great dream.

How many times you had the courage to dream something really big? A house in Toscana, maybe? An apartment in the middle of New York? Cruising the world with your own yacht?  Dating the most beautiful woman in the world? Come on, bring it on! Name your biggest dream! Don’t be shy, you can never have a dream too big. Just look at that Panda and how his dream is totally out of sync with his current reality.

And yet, by the end of the story, he fulfills it with magnificence. Not only he become a perfect warrior, but he also saves his village from Tai Lung, the darkest of the darkest kungu-fu warriors of all times. A lot of stuff happens between the dream and its fulfillment, that’s true, but that’s not the point here. The point is that your reality will always match your dreams. So you’d better dream something amazing.

2. Role Models Are Just Milestones

The lesson: role models are just milestones in our lives, their real purpose is to set us up for something bigger than we think and deliver. After that, a role model should disappear.

The plot: Kung-Fu Panda is a big admirer of the Furious Five, a pack of legendary warriors. Once he’s accepted under the training of Shi-Fu, and he’s allowed to practice with them, all he wants is to be accepted in their circle. Of course, the only thing he receive is rejection: they are way above him. But as time flies and Kung Fu Panda learn to look into his own soul and accept his own greatness, he totally overcome all his former heroes.

I’m sure you have a role model. Somebody who is inspiring and motivating. Somebody you look up to and thrive to become like him/her. That’s ok as long as you stop at the inspiration and motivation level. Going over this will be against the normal rules of evolution. You can’t become somebody else because you’re… you. Imitating somebody else to the bones will never make you better, on the contrary, will weaken your strength and ruin your authenticity.

A role model is just a catalyst, nothing more. Once you discover your own inner power, you will be amazed by how much you can do. And, most of all, you’ll be amazed by how small your ex-model will look from your new position. One of the biggest, yet subtlest, personal development roadblock is the “role model fixation”, a situation in which all you do is try to fit in the shoes of your guru. As sad as it may feel, at some point you’ll have to “kill” this image of success in order to make room for your own.

3. Your Biggest Fault Can Be Your Biggest Asset

The lesson: we’re too often trapped into “the proper way of doing things” forgetting that our uniqueness is the most precious gift we’re carrying. What we think it’s our biggest liability, is in fact our bigger asset.

The plot: despite the fact that he’s supposed to become the Dragon Warrior, the training of Kung-Fu Panda leads nowhere. Po is totally dumb and clumsy, not being able to perform not even the simplest exercise, to master Shi-Fu and Furious Five’s exasperation. But when master Shi-Fu discovers that Po is highly motivated by food (whenever he feels down, he usually fill himself with dumplings just to alleviate the pain) everything changes. By using a mental connection between food and exercises, Po is finally becoming a martial art master

What’s your biggest fear? What’s the thing that you want to avoid the most? What are you terrified by? Whatever this is, there lies the key to your transformation. Although Po was emotionally blocked by his looks (an obese bear obsessed with food) the moment he realizes that this liability is in fact the thing that motivates him the most, his life changes for good. And for the best.

Each and every one of your liabilities are in fact disguised opportunities. Facing them upward and accepting as part of your core being will eventually convert them to assets. It takes a lot of power and maybe some painful confrontation to get to accept them, but the reward will be unmeasurable. Whenever you feel down, defeated or just unfit, remember that the Dragon Warrior was just an obese, bulimic panda before he realized his true greatness.

4. Sometimes Things Just Go Wrong

The lesson: accept it and deal with it. Life is not always fair. In fact, life is never fair, we just happen to have the same opinion every now and then, that’s all. We can’t control anything, all we do is to adjust and adapt.

The plot: Tai Lung, the negative character with super kung-fu knowledge and mastery, escapes the high security prison using only a small feather.Despite the guardians, the gates, the chains, against all odds, he really manages to get out and to start pursuing his revenge. Apparently, the role of Po, our Panda, was to stop Tai Lung when he become the Dragon Warrior. Which, eventually, happens, but not without some very upsetting ups and downs. Especially downs.

We’re not living in a fairy tale. We’re living in a highly unpredictable environment, filled with unexpected challenges and sudden turnarounds. The real point is not to avoid them but to manage them. Because, in fact, we can’t avoid them. Not only because we have limited control, but because it’s in our nature to be exposed to challenges and pressure in order to grow an evolve.

Living a life of total security is a paradox. The mere act of being born is a very dangerous one: separating two living creatures and pushing the youngest into a hostile environment is a highly traumatic event. And yet, we forget that and expect things to “go right”. Just because every now and then things are going right, we can’t expect this to happen on a regular basis. Sometimes, life only needs a small feather to turn the whole universe against us.

5.  Have Hope, You’ll Eventually Get In

The lesson: even if you’re in the worst possible circumstances, something unexpected may happen, which will literally make you jump over the obstacles. No matter how difficult life seems now, it can always turn the other way around in one second.

The plot: the show of the Furious Five, in which master Oogway (the turtle) wants to select the Dragon Warrior, is held on a very high mountain. Our Kung Fu Panda had a little bit of trouble getting in. He got there the last one and despite his desperate efforts, he just couldn’t get in. Until some unexpected coincidence actually make him fly over the walls and fall from the sky just in the middle of his future destiny.

This lesson is a mirror of the last one: life can go unexpectedly well the same way it can go unexpectedly wrong. The circumstances can change in a second. Whenever you think you hit the bottom, something incredible may happe and you’re suddenly projected right in the middle of your dream life. Provided you don’t quit, of course.

From a personal development perspective the lesson can be read as: be prepared, even if your current environment won’t give you much. Now. But you never know what the next second will bring into your life. Embrace possibilities. Summon the potential of the next second. Just be prepared for something magic to happen.

6. The Magic Power Lies Within

The lesson: your power is in yourself, not in outside circumstances. Don’t you ever give your power away to circumstances like luck, magic gizmos or other people. Everything you need to know and have is already inside you.

The plot: all Kung-Fu fighters, Tai Lung included, are searching for some powerful Dragon Scroll, which will allegedly give infinite power to its owner. In the end, Po finds it but, surprise, the Dragon Scroll is empty, there’s nothing in it. At the same time, Kung Fu Panda learns from his father that the secret of his famous family soup was… nothing. In fact, he realize, the Scroll it’s not empty, it’s a mirror of yourself. All the power lies within.

Too often we give our power away to circumstances: we imagine that we will be more powerful if we would have access to some external tools. We think we’d be happier with more money. We think we could solve all our problems with some magic touch or a lucky strike. And, while waiting for these external circumstances to manifest, we ignore the only real source of power: ourselves.

The pursuit of the perfect tool for drastically improve your lfie will always end with the same result: at the end of the race, there’s only you. The Magic Scroll is empty. And it always was. Because all the real power is within you, not outside. You are the master of your own circumstances. You don’t really need something to prove your power. All you need is to trust that you have power, and you”ll manifest.

7. You Can’t Have Enough Awesomeness

The lesson: there isn’t any, really. That’s just a fact

The plot: In Kung Fu Panda’s dream, there is this line which already became folklore: “You can’t have enough awesomeness”.

And you know what? What he dreamed about was right: you can’t really have enough awesomeness in your life.

Dream your biggest dream and have faith it will come true. If Kung Fu Panda did it, you’ll do it too.

Isn’t this awesome?

Rant Tolerance

I’m going to yell at you. Like right now. And I mean it.

What the hell are you doing here, reading a blog post? Don’t you have things to do? Like a life, for instance? This is what you learned in school? This how you want to build a career? Your future? Wasting time all day reading blogs?

How did you feel about it? Did you tried to respond? To prove me wrong? Did you instinctively tried to find an excuse for reading my blog? Your reaction to those kind of situations will shape what I call your rant tolerance. I don’t think you’ve heard before about rant tolerance, but believe me, it’s something you have. And something that you really should learn how to control.

But first of all, let’s all be clear about what I understand by rant in the context of this article. A rant is a flow of aggressive communication directed to you with or without a visible reason. A violent critique. And rant tolerance would be your capacity to creatively face this vigorous flow.

Rant Phases

Every time you’re yelled at without a clear reason, every time you’re accused of something you did or not,  you enter a specific sequence. Some people will skip some steps while others will do all of them, but in my experience, this is the most common approach. Unless what you do for a living is negotiation, I think you’re pretty much in this average.

Rant Phase One

I didn’t do anything to that guy, what the hell he wants from me?

You start by thinking the rant must have some kind of reason or motivation. First thing is to assume the other guy is right, so you start thinking what exactly you did in order to create such a reaction. Nothing, of course. But you still stay in this realm and try to understand what generated the rant.

This stage is the most consuming. Usually, because we have this mindset of being capable to hurt other people without intent. Maybe we did this unintentionally. Maybe we just made a mistake. Let’s make things even. Of course, you can’t make things even, because you didn’t do anything in the first place. Or at least, this is what you think.

Rant Phase Two

Ok, I don’t understand what he want from me, but I will respond in kind, just to keep a balance.

This second phase is the most common approach to rants and many people start directly in this stage, without passing the first one. You yelled at me? Now I will yell at you.  I will really show you what yelling means, if we’re going to do this.

This approach is rooted in a very common belief that a rant is something you must get even at. If somebody talked bad about you, without even trying to understand what he’s talking about, you will teach him a lesson. Being yelled at is an insult and it must be punished.

Rant Phase Three

Well, since I already spent so much energy in it, better see what exactly I can lean from this situation.

The third stage involves an assessment. After you showed the other guy who’s the boss, you start analyzing. What was all about? Who is the guy who yelled at you? Was he right? And if yes, why? What is to be learned from this? You finally start to assess the whole situation.

This stage is the one in which you accept that rant is a choice. Of course, if you followed all the steps until this level, it’s a bit too late to realize that, since you already had your fight. This stage is usually the one you say to yourself: “next time I won’t go into this anymore. I’ll be just cool”.

Now, the best phase to enter a rant is without doubt the third one. Even without trying to understand what you did to start it. Because there’s a good chance you didn’t do much. Sometimes people are accusing you just to borrow your visibility. Sometimes they just feel secure if they’re able to pick on a fight with big guys, regardless of who’s right.

My Personal Story

Being quite a visible blogger, and before that, being one of the most active online entrepreneurs in Romania, I had my share of rants. Most of the time, they didn’t have any reason whatsoever. Just the fact that I was visible was enough for other people to pick up a fight, to show off the fact that they were having conversations with me. Of course, I was not the only one in this position, every successful and active entrepreneur had the same treatment. Borrowing visibility seemed to be the main reason for those rants.

Needles to say that I followed exactly the phases described above, time and again, until I finally got tired. I first started to wonder how exactly I hurt that guy, and then got into a fight and then settled and tried to learn something from it. And then started over again.At some point I discovered that I have something called rant tolerance.

This rant tolerance is the measure of your reaction when you’re attacked (with or without reason). If somebody calls you an idiot, for instance, and you respond in kind the very next second, your rant tolerance would be really low. You wouldn’t stand being yelled at.

But if somebody calls you an idiot and not only you don’t respond in kind, but you enter directly in the stage 3, trying to see what you have to learn from it, your rant tolerance is pretty high. You’re quite in control of it.

Took me a lot of time to isolate those stages, to define the processes and to start practicing my third phase. Because the moment I realized the third phase is the most useful and profitable, I made a promise to myself never to enter a rant in the first or the second stage. Only the third one.

That basically means: if somebody attacks me, the first thing I do is to evaluate my learning odds. Not even the validity of the rant, which means the guy may or may not be right, that’s not important, only my learning opportunity. If there’s something to learn from it, I stop and start a conversation. Not a rant. If the conversation is not sustainable, it means I have nothing to learn and just move on. If I can have a normal conversation, then we share our points of view and at the end of it, I move on.

I simply don’t have words to express the relief I was experiencing when I started to aim for the third stage. It was absolutely unbelievable. I still have my share of rants every now and then, but the way I’m treating them is totally changing the game. In fact, if I think for a while, lately I noticed an increase in rants, which should mean my blog is becoming quite popular. And that’s something I’m happy about.

Where Are Your Rants?

Another interesting thing I noticed in regard with rant tolerance is that most of my fights were taking place in a specific area of my life: the business part of it. My rant tolerance in that area was really low. I had to work to make it better. Usually, the place where you have the lowest rant tolerance is the place where you can experience most of your growth. Low rant tolerance is a clear indicator you didn’t realize what you have to learn from what’s happening to you.

An interesting exercise would be to share in the comments what is the area of your life where you experience most of your rants and how do you respond to them. I understand it might be a sensitive area, but last time I checked, they invented nicknames. If you think you’ll feel awkward just use a nickname but do let me know where in your life do you experience the lowest rant tolerance.

How do you work with it? Are you a first stage, a second stage or a third stage performer? Oh, and in case you wonder, the rant at the beginning of the post was joke, I’m actually happy you read my blog. I’m not into rants anymore.

How To Escape The Internet Jungle In 5 Small Steps

This is my first post by request. One of my readers, “an occasional blogger and a coach”, who runs the EffectivenessCoach blog, send me an email the other day. Besides the usual “hi, I saw we have similar interests and I’m also a blogger” the message had also a question:

“How can you structure your learning process on the Internet? I end up buried under tons of websites, blogs, webinars and you name it. Do you have any thoughts on this? Maybe a blog post about it?”

Well, the magic words were spoken: “a blog post about this”. Without further ado, let’s see how can we structure our learning process on the Internet:

Personal History

I am on the Internet for more than 14 years. Since the very beginning. I won’t tell you my Internet history here, as it has little to do with our main topic. But I will tell you a little story about my first Internet full-contact.

10 years ago I started my own web company. Part of it was of course, internet access. Maybe it sounds pre-historical, but believe me, that was a time when dial-up was mainstream. Having cable internet was still a dream. So, I had the chance to get an office in the same building with an Internet Service Provider. A simple ethernet link from them and voila: I had 10 mbs internet access. Wow! And I mean, WOW!

To make a long story short, the following 3 weeks are a black hole in my mind. I hardly remember anything from that time other than dumbly looking at hundreds and hundreds of websites. Without recollecting any of them, of course. At some point, I realized I started to lose weight, to stare at people without a specific reason and that also my sleep was completely screwed.

That was the moment I started to structure my own Internet learning strategy.

1. Isolate From It For A While

Internet is highly addictive. If you really want to take advantage of it, you must first isolate from it for a while. Find out what you really need first. Go online only when you have a clear image about what you want to incorporate. During the first 3 weeks of full-contact Internet I was looking at anything: graphics, forums, cars, tech, directory. Everything. After the first 3 weeks, I decided it’s time to focus on only several areas: learning the basics of server maintenance and PHP. For the next 6 months I didn’t do anything on the Internet except that.

Over the years I found this approach extremely effective. When I decided to start blogging I took a little bit of a break from my regular browsing habits. I just isolated for a few weeks and then I started to browse only blogs. And from blogs, only personal development blogs. And from personal development blogs, only the ones that I liked. Taking some distance from the source will surely help you decide how do you really want to use the source.

2. Restrain Your Insertion Points

How’s the home page of your browser looking? How are your bookmarks organized? How many feeds do you have in your feed reader? I ask because those are your insertion points on the Internet. You are entering the information highway through those roads. And if you have too many access roads you’ll be tempted to use them regardless of their value. Hence, losing precious time just browsing around.

I recommend having under 5 insertion points. One of them would be your feed reader, of course, and it’s your job to constantly peruse it and get rid of old or uninteresting content. The next ones are based on what I call “functional web”. For instance, I do a lot of research. And for research I use only Google. Usually the front page does the trick if I ask the good question. For interaction and human advice I use Twitter. And for growing relationships I use Facebook. As you may see, I still have one spot open.

3. Pick The Right Tools

Harvesting information is one of the most difficult tasks ever. Much more difficult than harvesting crops. This is why you’re going to need some tools. And your tools will be influenced by the type of information you’re harvesting. If you’re after design or art, you’re going to have a good image storing application. If you’re into writing, then some sort of database will have to be at hand. I use only 2 tools to organize my work, and those are Evernote and MacJournal.

Regardless of what type of information you’re harvesting, I think that, as a rule of thumb, any tool you’ll use needs to have at least those features:

• some sort of tagging or category grouping
• integrated search
• export capabilities in other formats
• online / backup capabilities

4. Transform It

After you have this setup in place, start to transform all this information into something useful. It could be a research project, a new career, a new business, whatever. Just make sure you use all the info and you’re not letting it slip away. A learning process must end with something comparable. Keeping a log of your learning activities will definitely help, but most of the time just assessing yourself at certain time intervals will do it too.

From my experience, feeling lost in the jungle of the Internet is often just an expression of a slow progress. Kind of like frustration. The information wave we’re trying to ride is so big that our efforts are looking insignificant. Having a clear way to assess progress will dramatically decrease frustration. Sometimes, just feeling good about what you’ve find on the Internet will alleviate your feelings of being lost in this jungle.

5. Create An Internet Free Day

Remember, your muscle grows not when you lift weights, but when you rest. Staying in contact with your learning source too much won’t make you smarter. On the contrary. You need time to incorporate that new information. You need distance to start making comparisons. You need some space to start making experiments. Staying away from the Internet is equally important if you’re really trying to learn something out of it.

Depending on your schedule and regular work, this Internet free day  may be a weekly day, or monthly day. What counts is that during that day you’re totally offline. A subtle effect is that you’re letting those outer energies work by themselves. I often find traffic spikes on my blog after taking an internet day off. It seems like if you’re staying too long there you start getting in the way of something. So, take a day off every once in a while.

***

That’s it. It’s only 5 steps but I’m sure it can be refined. Use it a starting point and create your own. And of course, add your suggestions in the comments.

I have to admit it was really fun to write a blog post on request. So, if you feel I may know the answer to a question that bothers you, feel also free to use the contact page and let me know about it. It might even get a public answer, like this one.

How And Why We Get Bored

Boredom. The final frontier. These are the ramblings of a blogger trying to boldly explain what no man ever avoided: why and how we got bored.

What Is Boredom?

Have you ever thought what boredom is? How we end up being bored? How we can strangely reproduce this state so often although we consider it something very uncomfortable? Maybe you tried, but ended up bored in the process…

Boredom is a state of anxiety and low self-respect. We’re educated to get satisfaction from a very limited set of activities. Watching movies, eating, reading, programming (I know my blog is read by some fine geeks too, this one’s for you, guys ), talking with friends, daydreaming. We’re in a state of comfort and balance every time we’re doing something we like. But the moment we’re not doing it anymore, something very subtle, yet extremely powerful happens.

Because we’re not doing what we like anymore, we start not to like who does it too. Meaning us. If we can’t get satisfaction from what we’re doing, in a twisted, yet understandable attempt to stop that activity, we’re trying to hate the person who does it. Which, again, it’s us. It’s like saying: “hey, stop, I’m not enjoying this anymore, I know I have to do it (or I wanted to do it, or it’s good for me or for others around me) but I don’t want to do it anymore”. And from this subtle tension between what we “have” to do and what we “love” to do, boredom rise.

Anxiety And Low Self-Esteem

People who get bored easily are usually anxious people. They’re also having quite a low level of self-esteem. If you’re constantly challenging yourself by trying to stop what you’re doing, because you don’t “like” it, you end up considering yourself an inappropriate person. If you’re considering yourself an inappropriate person, you’ll end up doing things you don’t really want, just to feel a little more “appropriated”. And this is the beginning of your low self-esteem territory.

The bad news is that situation is contagious. It will spread over other areas of your life pretty soon. If you’re constantly getting bored doing stuff you should really do, this will reach to other areas of your life pretty soon. Boredom likes wide spaces, it has an inner sense of expansion. Once allowed in a certain section of your life it will do whatever it can to conquer the rest of you as fast as it can.

What To Do Against Boredom

The simplest way to challenge boredom is to like everything you do, unconditionally. I met some people who were in this state. They were able to extract meaning from and fully rejoice every little thing they were doing, being it spontaneous, self-imposed or just randomly crossed. They were able to dive in and experience everything with equal enthusiasm and energy. Of course, they were all kids.

I haven’t met a balanced child who got bored. Yet. All the boredom capable kids I met where in fact unbalanced kids, children taught they were valuable and loved only if they were doing only a limited set of activities, generally, to please their parents. But normal, non-alienated kids never get bored.

If you can be like a child, free and fearless, I bet you didn’t even reach so far in this article: boredom is something so strange to you that it didn’t raise an ounce of an interest. But if you’re like the rest of humanity, victim of a hedonistic and coercive education, you do get bored. You do get satisfaction only from a limited set of activities and if you’re not doing one of them you’re getting anxious. You have a deep, constant feeling of not being worth anything. The rest of the blog post is for you.

Acceptance

One way to alleviate the effects of boredom, if not ditching them totally, is to accept your current tasks and situations if they are not changeable. For instance, your domestic chores is something that I consider not being changeable. Chances that somebody else will do your domestic chores like laundry and dishes are pretty low, for many of us, so better accept it. Make it part of your life. It’s ok to do the dishes and take care of your clothes. If you’re not going to do this something ugly will happen, You’ll get swamped in a mountain of dirty dishes, wearing filthy clothes. Which will have quite an effect on your social life, if you ask me. Not to mention your self-esteem.

In fact, you’ll discover that many of your boring tasks are the foundation for a proper functioning in this world. Many things you’ll consider source of apathy or lassitude are in fact fundamental for a proper insertion in your day to day life.They are repetitive and this what makes them boring, not the end result.

But there’s a little catch here, which will help you trick the boredom: it will manifest only if you take “repetitive” for granted. If you do that exactly the same each time. You don’t have to take it for granted. Change the way you do your dishes or laundry every time. Ditch the repetitive element out of it. Make it fun. Play roles. Do it at different times of the day. Try to describe the task you’re doing in an exotic foreign language. It’s not the end result which bores you, it’s yourself. Get yourself a kick in your virtual butt and accept what you have to do.

Stop Being Judgemental

If you’re eager to have the first and and final word in a discussion, I bet you’re pretty easily bored. Stop that. This constant need of being right will lead you to the swamp of self-acceptance. If you don’t accept that you can be wrong sometimes, you’ll have to be right all the time just in order to accept yourself. You’ll start searching for situations or contexts in which you are always right and avoid situations or contexts in which you know you can’t be right. You’re alienating yourself in the most common sense of this word: you’re becoming an alien. You’re drastically limiting your choices. Sooner or later you’re going to become your worst censor. And that will make you bored to death.

Learn Something New

One of the most common situations in which you’re getting bored is if you think you know everything. There’s nothing new in this world for you. You already know everything. Well, maybe. But, most likely, maybe not. You think you know everything only because you refuse learning.You found some comfortable refuge in your life, hiding behind a status, a position, your child or your partner, and don’t really want to get out of there.

Well, sooner or later you’ll be forced to learn something new, so you’d better be proactive on that. You can’t hide forever behind somebody else. Statuses are volatile and positions are moving constantly. You can’t be there forever. Actually, the source of your boredom is this very refuge. Go away and learn something new. It will challenge your mind and ruin your comfort zone. And I consider both so empowering.

***

Boredom is an expression of our sense of emptiness and limitation. We think we’re functioning properly only if we do certain types of activities which is inherently wrong.

We’re designed to do anything and to enjoy everything.

7 Things I Learned From My 3 Year Old Girl

Today is Bianca’s 3rd anniversary. She is the most precious gift life gave me so far. I am just happy to be around her and she is making me so happy just by being around.

Since she came into our lives, everything changed. Each year, I find myself learning more from her than from my books, my personal development workshops, my any other source of information . When she was one, I learned that “Once you’re down, there are literally a gazillion ways to get up again.” which, along with other 6 things made from my first round of 7 things I learned from my one year girl. When she was two, I learned that “The world is what you say it is” which, along with other 6 things made from my second round of 7 things I learned from my two year old girl.

This is what I learned from my 3 year old daughter last year:

1. Do things on your own

During the last year she had an irrepressible need of doing things on her own. She wants to be there when I assemble furniture, when I plant trees in the garden, when I clean the house, when I cook, when I write, when I check my emails on my iPhone. And she wants to do everything I do, on her own. Maybe some of her experiences are difficult and she’s having a hard time trying to do complicated stuff but she’s enjoying every second of it. Life is better when is experienced first hand.

2. Love is the same, regardless of the loved persons

Her mom, my beloved wife Diana, is having a special relationship with her. They’re playing together, they’re laughing together, they’re watching cartoons together. With me, she is trying to play games or to help me with harder tasks. With her grand parents, she’s inventing on the spot some new moves or activities. With her English kindergarten friends – although she’s not speaking yet very good English – she’s playing like nothing is wrong. Love is the same and is coming from the inside, it’s not a function of the person you love.

3. Making friends is the easiest thing in the world

I’m amazed by her capacity to relate with unknown persons. When we eat out, every waiter is trying to talk with her and she is so responsive, like she knows the guy from the day she was born. She doesn’t reject anybody, unless the person is really annoying and/or boring. Kids don’t have social constraints when it comes to relationships, they’re just interacting naturally with everybody around. No need to exchange cards, phone numbers or to ask for a favor. Bianca is making friends like this is the easiest thing in the world. And I learned from her that this is the easiest thing in the world.

4. Don’t fake it

When she wants something, she really wants something. If she doesn’t get it, she cries. Instantly and with big tears. And you know what: she doesn’t fake it. When she is happy she can laugh for  half an hour continuously. And she doesn’t fake it either. When she’s upset, she’s really upset. When she’s joyful, she’s really joyful. I don’t think I ever saw her faking something, even when she’s trying to pretend she’s upset, she’s so authentic about her pretending. There’s no need to fake sadness or joy, things are so much better when you give yourself permission to be authentic.

5. Learning is better

Last year she had an uninterrupted flow of lessons: she started to talk, she started going to the kindergarten, she started to be more and more autonomous. She’s embracing totally every new experience and she is silently learning. Even when she is not sharing things with us or when she’s not learning directly from us we know that she’s listening, she’s watching and she’s integrating every experience into her life. At some moment we’re just amazed by an unexpected phrase she said, or with a certain sequence of activities she performs on her own, without any help from us. Learning is better.

6. Endless playing

I am amazed about her capacity to play. In every place, in every situation, in every physical state. She plays when she’s tired, she plays when she’s happy, she plays when she’s outside the house, when she’s alone, when she’s with us, she plays everywhere. If I would look through her eyes I’m sure I would see the world as a huge playground, a place created and maintained for our infinite appetite to play. And I love to look at the world through her eyes.

7. Always like the first time

Last year she started to look at short cartoon movies. In fact, with her astounding learning capacity, she started to learn almost all Disney movies we have. But despite the fact she knows the movies by heart (and she can even sing some small passages from Mamma Mia) she constantly ask as to play the same movie again and again. The joy she’s expressing each time is fantastic. It seems like each time she looks at a movie is like the first time. And, in fact, she is. And I learned how to do the same: I can look at the same thing a thousand time and still find something new in it.

I just can’t wait to see what I will learn this year.

Learning To Ignore

One of the most important things I learned in the last few years was the fact that my focus is actually creating what I call my reality. I know, it’s a pretty straightforward way to start a blog post about how to learn to ignore, but I do this on purpose.

Focus is the actual builder of your reality. Is the fluid that makes it move, change and look alive. Without your focus, things aren’t there. They might be (and this is something you can be aware of) but they aren’t there for you, for your reality. Focus creates everything around you and this is a subtle yet incredibly important shift form your standard reality approaches.

I’m sure most of you think that reality is something “outside” you. Reality is already there and it will continue to be after you. It’s independent from you.

Relax, I’m not going to dig into something philosophical right now. I plan to this anyway in a future post about focus. What I’m going to do right now is to show you how this standard approach of the “outside” reality can – and will be – used as an excuse.

I Can’t Avoid It

If you think reality is already there and you can’t do a thing to influence it, next step is to think that everything in your life is the result of a pre-programmed set of events.  There is already a plan and you can’t do anything but to follow that plan. Of course, you will start to act like you have no power. You will put every responsibility of your life on the so called “destiny” or “faith”.

This is the easiest way to delude yourself and embrace a miserable journey for the rest of your life. Many people already think like this. This mindset is so present that you start to think it must be “real”. But you know, just because a 1000 people are saying that I can’t climb a mountain, this doesn’t necessarily stops me for climbing that mountain.

What I’m saying is that you can change your reality. Not only you can change what you are experiencing right now, but you can also create whatever you want. And even if you think you never did that, you already did it before. I’m sure you have memories of something really nice that happened in your life as a direct result of your actions.

Maybe it was the courage to approach your actual wife when you were a student? Maybe it was the decision to switch your career? Maybe it was a kind gesture towards a total stranger that filled your heart with gratitude and joy? Those were situation in which you modified your reality in order to obey your wishes… You made it happen. And everybody has these memories.

Now start thinking what was happening during that specific action. What happened to you during that sudden release of energy which created a shift in your reality? Where was your focus? You were thinking at something else when you proposed your wife? I really doubt that. You were thinking to finish that boring report when you quit your job? Hell, no, otherwise you would still be in that dark office doing a dull job.

Instead, you focused totally on what you wanted. You left apart everything that you didn’t wanted to happen to you, and focused only on what you wanted to happen. You wanted your future wife to say yes and you wanted that job to disappear from your life. Your focus was so clear, that  your reality didn’t had any other choices than to follow it. You were so focused that anything else in the universe disappearead. You were there. Totally there. (more…)

The Fake Saint

I talked the other day with an old friend. We talked on messenger because he didn’t find the time to see each other in the real world. His job assignments become too time consuming and his schedule quite hectic. I know how it is. Been there, done that, had to manage my own company for 10 years… But he wasn’t like this before. When I used to have too many tasks and a rather hectic schedule he enjoyed quite a bohemian period. Time took a turn and now the situation is somehow reversed. But I remember with a lot of deep joy those times, 4-5 years ago when we spent nights and weeks on a rather hippie timeline.

During that period he had a lot of talking. About our goal in this life, about astrology and about healthy food. I must admit that I owe him some of my current passions like astrology, or some of my health habits like raw food and the road I’m walking right now was first pointed during those times. But now things have changed for him and he started to feel a little embarrassed with what I write on this blog. To make a long story short, he thinks I’m cheating. In his own words: “I’m posing as a fake saint”.

I thought a lot in the last few days about that. I really did. Also, during the last few days I had some turmoil into my personal life. I won’t go into details but there is a wind of change in some other areas of my life. Something must be destroyed to let other stuff growing. Don’t know what exactly started to go down and when it will completely disappear, but I know for sure it’s happening right now. Things have come to a point when friends are asking me: why don’t you apply what you write on your blog in your life too? And I thought about that question also… (more…)

Entrepreneurship As A Personal Development Tool

10 years ago I started my own business. I didn’t exactly know what I was going to do, it was something mainly related to the online thingie that was starting to rise at that time. Nothing clear in terms of business plans, financing, strategy or management but with a tremendous drive to succeed. I guess the main reason behind starting my own business was my unconscious drive to publicly show that I was good at something. For those of you into astrology this might also be related to my North Node in the 2nd house in Aquarius, but let’s not get too technical… Some of my initial motivations had faded during years, some had grown stronger and during this 10 years slice of my life some new motivations appeared. The official ending of my first business was several months ago, when I succesfuly sold it to one of the most important players in the Romanian online publishing. Quite a success, wherever you may look at it from.

That was the end of the business though, not of my entrepreneurship. Ater selling, I turned all of my energies towards this blog which I am building almost from scratch, but with different motivations and metrics. In this post I’ll share some of my thoughts regarding entrepreneurship, business and personal development.

The Definition Of An Entrepreneur

99% of the definitions of a business will have something to do with generating profit. Or with generating steady income sources. Or with creating a more indulgent lifestyle. The entrepreneur is then defined as the guy who’s going to do all of these. And entrepreneurship would subsequently be the action of starting a business. This type of business. Every decent dictionary will tell you that doing business will ultimately have something to do with profit, somehow. Put in some money and at the other end of the business take out some more.

Every guy who has the idea, the resources and the energy to create such a process stream will then be an entrepreneur. I have nothing against this definition, except the fact that it doesn’t really deal with the failure part of this activity. As an entrepreneur you can succeed, but you can also fail. There is nothing wrong with failure. This doesn’t make you less of an entrepreneur. Not to speak about the fact that it doesn’t make you less of a respectable person, one thing that is most of the times forgotten in the modern society.

An entrepreneur is a person who is pushing his own limits toward a new level of personal evolution. Being an entrepreneur is about committing to your creative drive and starting to make reality obey your wish. Being an entrepreneur is all about courage and trust, hope and discipline, inspiration and endurance. It really doesn’t have to do with a successful business, although most of the times the successful entrepreneur will end up with a successful business, too. But one can also fail in terms of business, but still succeed as an entrepreneur. (more…)

7 Things I Learned From My 2 Year Old Girl

Every year I learn something from my daughter. You know, we think that we’re here to help them learn something, but most of the time is the other way around. Last year I learned my first 7 things form her, and it’s time for me to share what are the other 7 things I learned this year.

There is no such thing as tiredness

Every time she is going to bed is because she wants it, not because she’s tired. It’s like a little concession she’s making to us, the parents, when she sees that we barely can keep our eyes opened. Tiredness is a state of mind. The way she is connected with other sources of energy, and her uninterrupted flow of actions, are just so incredible. I just want to reconnect to those sources sometimes…

No hard feelings

She’s never having any regrets at all. I start to believe that regrets are the invention of the grown up people. It’s something that we invented in order to escape happiness. The gap between her sadness and happiness moments is zero. She’s moving through her emotions with zero efforts and zero regrets. Whenever I manage to do this I’m experiencing an incredible state of joy and happiness…

The world is what you say it is

She doesn’t speak yet in a very understandable way but we managed to learn all her vocabulary and we know that this word means that, and that word means that. It’s funny how you can create your own vocabulary and describe reality in a very personal way. It’s even funnier when other people are starting to understand you and share your own reality. You can really make your own world, if you want it…

The work is my playground

She does things very seriously by playing and she plays very seriously by doing things. She’s doing everything with the same intensity and with the same joy, and doesn’t make any difference between work and play. Again, whenever I can do this myself, and mix my work and pleasure, I feel blessed. It should always be like this: to play for work and work with a playful mindset.

I care for others, therefore I exist

She started to identify obstacles and potential dangers and she is starting to cautiously prevent us. One day she told me out of the blue in the car, while I was driving: “Pay attention!”. It’s like she’s starting to give back what we are saying to her in a mirror, like a channel that is starting to flow back to us. And is not only about obstacles and dangers, the channel is giving also love and compassion…

Don’t hate, ignore

I’m amazed about the way she’s treating other kids. If she likes them, she’s playing with them. If not, she’s simply ignoring them, regardless of what they are doing. She doesn’t know the word “revenge”, nor the concept itself, and even if she’s forced to share the same space with an aggressive kid, she’s just ignoring him. It’s like the other guy doesn’t exists in the same space. So much to learn from this…

Everyone can (and sometimes wants) to be manipulated

The moment she learned to conscioussly cry, she learned how to manipulate us. We’re doing our best not to fall for these phases, but it’s not about that. It’s about the fact that most of the people can (and most of the time want) to be manipulated (please read “influenced” here), and that’s one of the most important things she taught me. Don’t think everything or everyone is set in stone, you can change everything or everyone – including yourself – if you really want…

[tags]parenting, personal development[/tags]

7 Things I Learned From My One Year Old Girl

As some of you may recall, I have a one year old girl. These days I was in the fortunate position of spending more time with her. And, while playing and preparring meals and feeding her, it just hit me: I have learned a tremendous amount of stuff from her, during this last year. So here is a small list:

1. Once you’re down, there are literally a gazillion ways to get up again. It only takes just a few new moves to be learned, or a better and innovative usage of the environment…
2. If you don’t want to do a thing (like eating your vegetables, for instance, or going to sleep) well, there’s nobody in the world who can force you into it. You only do what you really want…
3. If you do want something badly, then, no matter how many obstacles in the way, how many interdictions from the parents, if you truly and honestly want that thing, and if you are reasonably loudly letting the world knowing about that, well, eventually you’ll get it…
4. You do not depend on toys. Most of the time, for adult people, toys are translated by: you cannot have enough plasma tv, shiny laptops or expensive cars. But, in the end, nothing compares with a walk in the afternoon. Toys are nice, but you can do even better without them…
5. You cannot have enough hugs in your life. Regardless of the nature of the hugged object: being it a teddy bear, a plastic puppet, or just your exhausted parents, trying to put you to sleep… At any time in your life, if a hug opportunity is coming, don’t miss it…
6. Talk is not really necessary. Many times, words are just staying in your way. You can have a decent level of communication only by being yourself. Sooner or later they will get to know you and you’ll communicate without words.
7. If you really like something, doing it over and over again will not make you bored. You can play with your daddy’s watch, or with your mom’s bracelet hundreds of times, with the same level of joy like the first time. As long as you really enjoy it…