Amazon Kindle Edition - free gift for XMAS!

Dear friends,

With the generous "complicity" of the publisher Coresi Publishing House (thank you!), my latest book, "Crisis - the New Black. A code to live by", will be FREELY available for downloading in electronic format, on Christmas Day:

http://amzn.to/2BRhPK5

I hope this beautiful season finds you in good health and with peaceful spirit, wherever the holidays have taken your bodily presence in this world... and please make good use of your gift, accompanied by a warm imaginary smile from me - disperse it without fear to all your friends and family members, to people who would appreciate a radiography of our present past, challenging reality and future ways ahead...

Don't forget to go back to Amazon after reading, to leave a note and a rating - if we collect enough positive reviews, there are chances to get more surprises for you in the future!

Merry Christmas and Big Hugs,
Georgina

ps: don't worry about the format - you can read Kindle books on smartphone, tablet, or computer, no special device required, you just need to download the free application available at the same link.

WAYS 10 – THE INHERITANCE

Motto: 

We are a continuum. Just as we reach back to our ancestors for our fundamental values, so we, as guardians of that legacy, must reach ahead to our children and their children. And we do so with a sense of sacredness in that reaching.

Paul Tsongas

As it has been a while since I have shared with you any thoughts on this topic, it may prove useful to remind you why today’s post bears the number ‘10’. It is not only the number of perfection from my childhood memories (best school grade, best gymnastics note), but it is also the 10^th writing from the ‘Ways’ series. It is the last from a collection of personal views about potential ways out of the contemporary mess which the humankind has created for itself over the last decades. The thoughts sharing started actually with the ‘Roots’ series, consistent with my professional habit of diagnosing the causes and status-quo of any mess before recommending alternative ways out of it…

So … here I find myself today, striving to bring a nice final touch to a collection of uninvited advice to humanity, to be either appreciated or disregarded (time will tell!...). And the ‘inheritance’ topic carved its way, first into my head and then gradually into my heart this week, just like all the other topics did over the past four years.

Why would the inheritance aspect be so important for our future? I would love to take you beyond the beautiful message lying in the motto, as today’s choice of topic is somehow larger that the noble ‘legacy’ idea.

And, as you are reading this on my good friend Peter’s EGO-OUT blog, I will start today’s inheritance story, by describing to you the exact opposite, respectively what EGO-OUT means: the quantity of information, knowledge and wisdom lost by the death of an individual. It encompasses basically that spiritual part, which people either omit to (or purely cannot) pass on to other people before their death.

Inheritance has many components. The most tangible and obvious to the naked eye, and also the most exposed to fierce fights amongst surviving relatives are … the material things - such as real estate, jewelry, cars, books, trousseaux, kitchen ware and so on. The most resilient and (still!) difficult to manipulate are the genetic ones – such as physical appearance, intelligence, skills, health risks and similar. The most sensitive to the environment are the spiritual ones – such as education and moral standards, traditions and beliefs, scientific and cultural wealth etc.. Last but not least, another interesting category, both sensitive to the environment and volatile from a public perception point of view, is the social component of the inheritance – reputation, credibility, fame… This last component is usually formed within a specific niche of activity, within a specific social circle and it has very much to do with family bonds. This part of the inheritance can be wasted easily with hasty or reckless behavior…

Except the genetic component, inheritance is not necessarily connected to a certain blood line or official family bonds. There are relationships in our lives that bring us close to other people that may bestow on us material, spiritual or social welfare, some following certain interest, and some out of pure generosity or kindness of their hearts. On the spiritual side especially, some do it intentionally, others just by being themselves. Some inheritance we accept, some we reject, consciously or not… Inheritance is also not necessarily good – we may inherit expensive properties which we cannot afford to keep and cannot manage to sell … we can get stuck with weak genetics or pick up silly behavior and lousy habits …

There is also the other side of the story, the ‘taking back’ story. It cannot be applied to all the inheritance components, as some are not within the control of ‘the giver’ after being given… Materially or socially disinheriting the unfit or disobedient heir may bring some immediate effects in line with the deciding party’s interests, but genetic and spiritual inheritance is certainly not reversible. I would dare to speculate that when the genetic and spiritual inheritance is strong and of good nature, the material effects of the disinheritance may be reversed in no time, while the motivational effects of challenged pride make the ambitious heir more prone to succeed in the long run.

Why should inheritance be considered as one of the most important ways ahead?

The globalization has transformed most developing or under-developed countries into consumer markets, pushing the families beyond their real purchasing power, by encouraging excessive debt and waste, and by gradually turning this into a socially gratified behavior. Sometimes such vicious circle ends up with a negative inheritance situation, when the assumed debt stretches over to the next generation... by accepting the material inheritance, one must take on responsibility for the related debt also.

Therefore, it has become essential to understand the importance of sustainable wealth accumulation in such economies. The prosperity of a nation is largely dependent on the strength of its middle class. Such middle class grows stronger by accumulating material wealth across several generations, gradually passing it on as inheritance to the next line of legitimate heirs. A healthy mix of family expenditure with long-term savings is one of the most important engines for progress on a macro economical level. To increase awareness about the importance of building material inheritance for the children is an important way of influencing the savings and investment behavior of families.

Moving on to the next components of the inheritance, the spiritual and social parts of one’s inheritance are highly sensitive to both the material side (as education, culture and exposure to global environment are rather expensive treats), as well as social environment (starting with family, school, works, other social circles). 

Without a constant focus on what we expose ourselves and our children to, we will gradually lose control over what we shall leave as inheritance to those who follow… And our world is being tested nowadays, on an unprecedented level, at least for this century. We are witnessing a material, cultural and social clash of civilizations, with one major stake: our INHERITANCE!

And, same as with all important things in life, it is hard to define the right balance. Pride is the most resilient genetic inheritance of all mankind and it rules a lot on the other inheritance matters. We have a fundamental need to be proud of our children and the legacy we leave behind. We cannot postpone the focus on individual, family and social inheritance, we must wisely listen to and harmonize an entire chorus of mostly contradicting voices (pride and prejudice, material interests and needs, survival and tolerance boundaries, generosity and humanitarian spirit), while not forgetting to re-visit the lessons of history!

If we believe to be our ancestors’ most honorable and ambitious dreams turned into reality, we have a duty to prevent our children to turn into our worst nightmares!

Georgina Popescu

WAYS 9 – THE DANCER

Motto:

Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances.

Dance is the hidden language of the soul.

Maya Angelou, respectively Martha Graham

(Two independent quotes, invited to dance together by my hand today…)

Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Martha Graham, Maya Plisetskaya, Rudolf Nureev, John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Ecaterina Gordeeva, Serghey Grinkov, Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Shakira, Carmen Amaya, Joaquin Cortes, Michael Flattley... the list can go on … beautiful artists, bringing joy in our hearts and smiles on our faces, teaching us to dream about flying on a perfect music, only barely touching the dance floors.

This morning, as I was surfing through the internet, a couple of sad news caught my attention: the death of Ben. E. King (the singer of ‘Stand by me”) and of the Russian ballet dancer Maya Plisetskaya. Many other bad news were decorating the screen with their ugly headings, mostly reminding me that what we started to call ‘crisis’ for some years now is just the current state of affairs, no matter where we live in this world.

Positive news however got also some attention, as a new baby-princess was born in the British Royal family yesterday. If you can ignore the collateral damage done by journalists, this certainly brings a smile in my heart, the same heart that also sheds a tear for Ben and Maya’s departure.

I smiled some more, as I remembered that the day before yesterday I met a baby-girl named Maia, who was born this April. Who knows? Perhaps she will become a famous ballet dancer. Or at least she will learn how to gracefully hold her head and ballet her way through school and further on, as far as she may dream!

I have no idea why, but the song that came to my heart today was ‘Time of my Life’.

It happens to me quite often to sing a song in the back of my head throughout the day. Usually it is something I hear in the morning, either at home while I get ready for going out or on the way to work. Sometimes it is not something I hear, but a tune which I reminisce from the past and I carry with me for the whole day, or just until a more appropriate music replaces it, according to whatever happens during that day… It gives me a certain mindset and also a certain rhythm for the things I have to do.

Shortly after midday, I lit up a candle and then started to walk through the beautiful streets of Vienna. Today I decided to wonder to some new places, where I never walked before. I looked at the quiet buildings, their harmonious architecture and majestic lines. I tried to imagine them full of life, as I suppose they should be on any given (but preferably sunny!) working day.

Suddenly I realized that … I was dancing! Not obviously, not physically, not like Gene Kelly in the rain, but … I was singing ‘Time of my Life’ and my soul was dancing to it, while my body was walking down the streets of Vienna. And my steps were somehow harmonized with it, as my walking just felt ‘in-sync’ with the tune. Because this is one of the songs that always make me get up and dance, no matter how tired, disappointed or hurt I am …

While dancing with the buildings, the trees and the clouds, I wondered how long it has been since I have written something. In 2013 I thought I was quite close to finalize my ‘ways’ series, while now I am not even sure whether it should have an end anyway. I could be just gradually adding to it in the years to come, as work in progress throughout my daily life.

(A short note for those who do not know or cannot remember what I am talking about: I started to write some thoughts about the world crisis, back in 2011. It started as a collection of thoughts about financial and sovereign mess, which extended to human rights and tolerance, then somehow evolved into a so-called ‘roots’ series. They are basically personal views for the dilemma ‘what went wrong’? The ‘ways’ series came later, in an attempt to find answers to the other, somehow circular dilemma - ‘and now what?!...’)

Today a ballet dancer, a singer and a royal princess made me pause and listen to my heart. And there I found one of the simplest and the most beautiful of all the ways to approach life and take on problems head on.

I therefore would like to invite you to take your bodily presence in this world … for a dance - today, tomorrow and for the rest of your life! No matter if the dance of your choice is ballet or tango, if you are on thin ice or on soft carpet, if you need to invoke rain or fertility, if it’s time to mourn or to party, if you plan to start a game or launch an attack… No matter if the song of your heart today is ‘Stand by Me’ or ‘Beat It’, ‘Kalinka’ or ‘Zorba’, ‘I’m a believer’ or ‘Hit the road, Jack!’…

Some may argue that dancing is a form of art and that they are not ‘gifted’ for such an endeavor. Of course, we are not all Fred or Ginger, same as not every singer is Maria Callas, every scientist Einstein or Edison, every basketball player Michael Jordan or every gymnast Nadia. I am not talking of THAT kind of dancing. I am talking about another kind of dancing, which transcends everything – art and religion, as well as any line of work. A form of human expression which I suspect to be older than the speech, one which resides in every living soul, no matter how easy or difficult it is expressed outside. Every act of creation has its own dance.

Every one of us has a rhythm inside, and so we dance to it every day. Our dancing part may be our heads, our hearts, our stomachs, our feet or our fingers … our music may be something we hear, something we feel, something we dream, something we fear … our dance may express harmony or disruption, peace or torment, despair or hope. Dancing may come out as elegant or erotic, majestic or common, provocative or inviting, intimidating or encouraging.

We are investing significant part of our waking hours to communication with many living creatures in our limited universe. In particular, I find humans quite difficult to convince that reason does not exist in the absence of feeling (and that feelings are easily hurt or misread), theory and practice can coexist in parallel worlds just like the Sun and the Moon, law does not always mean justice and education does not always mean character. In my daily life, I need to do a lot of dancing with many people that dance on very different music. Sometimes it is hard to follow the tune but, same as everything in life, practice brings one closer to perfection. And for those who have seen me dance, they know what I am talking about …

Last year I have discovered that I start each day with a smile. Today I noticed that a tune is also somehow involved in the universal conspiracy of my daily life. I do wonder what the next year will bring new to my understanding of life.

Until then, I leave you with a feminine smile … As I started with a motto compiled from two great ladies, I shall end with a very important thing you should learn about dancing:

Dancing is wonderful training for girls; it's the first way you learn to guess what a man is going to do before he does it.

Christopher Morley (Kitty Foyle character)

Good night!

Georgina Popescu

WAYS 8 – THE DREAMER

Motto: Pay attention to your dreams - God's angels often speak directly to our hearts when we are asleep (Quoted in The Angels' Little Instruction Book by Eileen Elias Freeman, 1994)

One year has passed since the previous posting under the ‘ways’ series, as I shared with you ‘The Give and Taker’, exactly on December 31, 2013.

It is now January 2, 2015, midst of the yearly season for balancing past achievement with future plans, old learning with fresh expectation, and memories with dreams. During such period, I find myself thinking about time and its effects on people perception of live. I like to watch this short, interesting and funny video whenever I wish to re-visit life from a new time-perspective: The Secret Powers of Time.

Most people believe in living the moment to the fullest, as it is actually the only timeline in which we experience reality. The past is usually distorted by perception and the future rather unpredictable. Thus we hear a lot of advice about how to best ‘seize the day’, ‘let go of the past’ and ‘embrace the future’.

I found myself thinking today about the good old Master Time from a different perspective. It suddenly occurred to me that it is the most reliable lifetime partner that we have. It is always around, not going anywhere until we take our last breath on this Earth. It clearly has split personalities (past, present and future), shifting moods (boring or exciting, predictable or fascinating, good or bad), destiny-harmonizing skills (right or wrong), and variable driving speeds (flying by or juuuust staaaalling…).

Master Time is largely unpredictable, however in a manner that (have you noticed?...) is strangely harmonized with our own unpredictability. While I mostly agree to the general idea of living each day as it comes, (reasonably) letting go of the past and not worrying (too much) about the future, it happens that every year, on and around New Year, a little miracle affects the Master Time. The ‘now’ personality disappears for a little while. For some days around New Year, it is dominated by its past and future components. It is a time for smiles of acceptance and hope and for big dreams about the future.

There is however one other little miracle that combines the various personalities of Master Time into a strange and miraculous blend between past, present and future. It does not come to us only once a year and it is called the DREAM!

Have you ever noticed how our dreams tend to be timeless? How people from the past are sitting next to people from the present (even if they never actually met!) or how the future seems to be already happening as we dream? Sometimes we wake up with a slight confusion whether what we were dreaming actually happened, and it takes a while to re-adjust. Other times the dreams have no face, no color and no time, they are just a bundle of feelings and sensations. If we pay attention to those dreams, we may wake up knowing exactly what and who was the dream about, even if it had no such content.

There are many proverbs and old sayings that try to explain dreams and what they are all about. Starting with things that were forgotten and should have not been, answers to questions that we did not dare (or did not know how) to ask during the day, warnings coming from the future or cries for help from our past or present. What is obvious to everyone is that dreams have a strong hold on our daily live, no matter whether they are nice dreams or nightmares. They each have their own distinctive contribution to our life. While the nice dreams come as a reward or recognition for our peace of mind, kindness and happiness, the nightmares come as warning signs and make us attentive to whatever is wrong in our lives, address our fears, and make us change our mindsets and even our lives for the better, in the pursuit of happiness. Dreams seem to be the best yet unexplained soul monitoring tool given to us by the Universe, a fine reward scheme complementing our day-to-day life.

The Internet crossed my search for a motto with a Talmud reading: ‘A dream which is not interpreted is like a letter which is not read.’ 

There is some truth in this, as many dreams have day-life translations. On the other hand, I do not trust universal dream-reading rules (even thou some may have empirical experience behind…), but am more inclined to believe that each dream is tailor-made for a dialogue with ourselves and with those intimately connected to us beyond reason. As we are both the creator and the beneficiary of our dreams, we are obviously the main piece of the puzzle in interpreting it. As such, we should probably go beyond simple viewing towards focusing on the feelings we experience, trying to ‘read’ between the lines whatever our subconscious mind is telling us.

Well, I should get ready for closing this New Year dream exploring adventure, however it cannot be complete without mentioning the so-called ‘day-dreams’. I am referring to those great hopes for the future that we have with our eyes wide open and our minds very much awake. We cannot call them plans, as there is a big difference, which has to do with the feasibility of the day-dream. In other words, what we wish to achieve but we are not quite sure if or how or when we will, we call ‘dream’. What is obviously within our reach, we call ‘plan’. The big challenge ahead, for strengthening our capacity to build a better future for ourselves is to rely more on our ability to dream, to properly read our dreams so we can translate them more often and faster into plans. And to further make those plans come true, in a manner that would feed better and more beautiful dreams for a happier and healthier future!

I wish for you in 2015 to become skillful and beautiful DREAMERS, no matter if you dream while asleep, half asleep or fully awake. And enjoy the experience of making them come true, as a way out of any personal of global crisis which you may experience in your long, healthy and beautiful life!

Hugs and Happy New Year!

Georgina Popescu

WAYS 7 – The GiveAndTaker

Motto: The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you.

John E. Southard

Today is the last day of 2013. Austrians call this day Silvester, which always makes me think of the cat chasing Tweety in a Looney Tunes cartoon, even thou the spelling is different (Sylvester). All in all, it makes me smile and, together with the nice atmosphere which invades Vienna in this period, contributes much to giving me an optimistic disposition before New Year Party.

For celebrating the night between the years, there are some pre-requisites which cannot be cheated: a little trip down the memory lane (what did the ‘old’ year bring, compared to what I wished for last year), a little peek into the future (what would I kindly ask from the ‘new’ year), food and drinks in the stomach and on the table, some money in my pocket, funny outfits (especially on and around the head…), lots of noise and lots of hugging, kissing and hoping.

I spent the morning enjoying a late breakfast in a wonderful place (Beaulieu in Ferstel Passage), focusing on the memory part. Then I strolled a little through the town, went home for a hot bubble bath (thus coming back to enjoying the present). Then I decided to take a glimpse into the future, before I get out and loose myself into the present again - by eating, drinking and fire-working into the New Year. So I started writing ...

I cannot say I have completely stopped making wish lists and plans for the next year. I have however learned that lists are mostly useful for putting things into perspective when you look back on them … and smile while remembering the ‘old you’ who created that content... Time has a way of sorting through what is important and lasting versus short day-dreaming, and revealing what is good for one versus what is just meant to become lesson-learning...

Those being said, I should focus now on the message I wish to share with you today...

While sitting and enjoying my hot chocolate cup this morning, I looked around at the crowd which was strolling up and down the Ferstel passage. Some people were working this morning, such as the waiters and the singers. There was a small piano and a violin exquisitely playing music of various backgrounds – from classical to Elvis ballads. Those people were giving us food, drinks and music, in exchange for a few euro and applause. We were giving them our money and admiration in exchange for nurturing and beautiful future memories. Everyone was giving and taking, in a nice set-up and with a smile on his or her face.

Why is this so important? … Quite simple answer … It is one of the easiest ways out from the contemporary self-induced and self-perceived ‘Crisis Ages’. As pointed out in a previous posting (Ways 6 – The Teacher), our future has the face of our children. If we raise takers, we shall provide tyrants and feed abuse, intolerance and inequity in our world. If we raise givers, we shall provide martyrs and feed more abuse, intolerance and inequity… If we raise give-and-takers, we shall provide leaders and people striving on generosity and freedom of choice, thus feeding love, tolerance and prosperity in our world.

For all religions, races and cultural backgrounds, the past has proven over and over again that the only way out of any crisis created by inequity was for people to come together when they have hit the bottom of despair and start to give to and take from each other in an equitable manner. I am not referring here only to tangible goods, but also to housing and hospitality, moral support, love and trust and the list can go on.

Life is a multioption, multichoice and multipeople game, which should find its own balance once people learn to accept that happiness comes from within. The give-and-take mood has more to do with feeling, perception and expectation than with any material thing one may see around. Material things could be used to achieve internal aspirations but not the other way around. Material things could be used to achieve higher spirituality but not the other way around. People should regard taking as a way to improve their giving capacity but not the other way around. By taking love, trust or knowledge from others, you will enrich yourself; by further sharing this love and trust and knowledge, you will enrich the world around you.

I will share with you now my short list of wishes for 2014. May this Year bring health, wealth, respect and happiness to all the genuine give-and-takers of the world! And may this Year bring health, wealth, respect and happiness also for all the others, so that they may learn to accept and value what they are offered, so that they may start giving things that matter in exchange. And ... may 'wealth' go way behind the material component of its meaning!

Happy 2014!

Georgina Popescu

WAYS 6 – THE TEACHER

Motto: In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.

Albert Einstein (attributed)

Twenty-one years ago, on a nice October day, I stepped into the big festivity room of the Academy of Economic Science, where the official opening of the university year was held. I was a fresh(wo)man. After the usual opening words from the Academy officials, Professor Doctor Anghel Rugina was introduced to the audience, as a prominent American Economist of Romanian origin. He was 79-years-young back then (he died in 2008, at the age of 95).

It was the first time I have heard about this guy, however after I listened to his very short speech, I knew I would remember him for the rest of my life. He told us to value every moment of the university years ahead and to pay attention to all our teachers, no matter how we judge them – good or bad, strong or weak. He said we should always have in mind that there is much to learn also from the bad teachers; from them, we learn how we should NOT be in our future life. And sometimes such learning may prove more valuable than the positive one.

Later on, I discovered during a Six Sigma training that one of the most powerful methods of brainstorming is practicing the negative thinking. It is very useful especially when you hit a dead end in terms of solutions. You challenge the participants to think of anything which can make the situation worse than it is. Negative creativity is far more imaginative than positive one. And then, you identify those actions which, by reversing the idea, have potential to become constructive solutions.

My dear friend Peter (the ‘owner’ of this English blog who is generous enough to host my postings here), is another fervent supporter of the constructive power of the word ‘NO’.  He has developed a sensational set of rules for problem solving. Most of those rules I apply in my day to day life. Peter had found supporters of his ideas worldwide and thus they helped him translate those rules in many languages. You can look for a version in your own language here.

I come back to the learning process now. That October day in 1992 marked one of the most important lessons for me, even thou Prof. Dr. Rugina was never on my university curriculum. Another memorable day was when I realized that the ‘Golden Rule’ which was instilled to me as a child would be better applied in its ‘Platinum’ version. More exactly, not only you should not do to others what you would not like them do to you, but you should basically do to others what they would like to be done to them (something like first observe, then empathize and only in the end actually deliver).

I would stop here with examples of my past learning, as it would be totally unfair to mention some great teachers from my life and omit others. Therefore I will mention none. It suffices to say that I consider myself extremely lucky, as I have had the opportunity to learn from everyone and everything that surrounds me. I have been learning from family and school, work place and nature, friends and foes, dreams and reality alike.

Why do I consider ‘the teacher’ as one of the ways we have to focus on, so that we can get ahead? I believe no extensive arguments are needed. It is obvious for most of the people that the current worldwide situation (which I am not sure we should even call ‘crisis’ any more) is deeply rooted in the moral hazard that has gradually swamped most of the inhabitants of this world.

I do not believe that we will solve our moral dilemmas by splitting the world into 99% vs. 1% - the poor and pure vs. the rich and rotten. No one is free from moral hazard. Almost any man or woman in this world is exposed daily to temptation, corruption and sin. The difference between the 99% and the 1% is the type of temptation they face – more or less expensive. Mankind is full of sinners and saints, liars and truth-holders, with a rather reasonable distribution on all regions, religions, professions and income levels.

There is of course one significant difference, which is that the 1% decides on taxes and laws, respectively distribution of wealth and punishment. And they do so, basically as they please. But in this respect we should wake up and see reality for what it is. It was always like this. There were always kings and servants, nobles and peasants, generals and troopers, priests and sinners. There was always a reasonable middle class, providing services to whoever could afford them, and there were always taxes and duties.

What got really complicated in the past decades was the increasing interdependence between democratic systems (which need electors to legitimate their rulers) and financial systems. In theory, each democratic system is based on separation of powers. In practice, they are all interconnected and fueled by one circulatory system, which is the financial system – the blood that irrigates all the state organs in the contemporary society. And also in practice, there is no humanly operated system which is immune to moral hazard. Everyone started to bend moral rules in order to get what they targeted – some wanted power, other wanted profit, most of them wanted both.

I believe everybody has heard of the little Golden Fish (you know… the one who can make dreams come true!) or of Aladdin’s lamp. In the past decades, the financial system assumed this fairy-tale role for whoever wanted to make a wish come true. Car, house, political or legal power, and so on. Some had smaller and other had bigger dreams. As you know, some things cannot be bought… for everything else there is xxxx (will not mention the credit card provider, but you get the point).

Therefore, we have nice theoretical separation of powers and nice theoretically functional macroeconomics and nice theoretically working financial systems. Practically, informal systems were born from the interaction of the initially planned theoretical ones. And they started to grow and lead a life of their own, just like tumors in an apparently healthy body. Doctors only noticed when it was too late. It is metastatic already.

It is hard to tell which system has sinned more and who is to blame for what. All the ‘systems’ which should be theoretically functional are practically as good as their human operators. Just as it happens with machines and company – their lives depend on the quality of the people behind them.

And thus I finally get to the point of this Way edition: why do we need to redefine our Teachers? 

Because we cannot kill our systems. It would be like a mass suicide, as they are actually our working places, our source of income, our future education and health service systems. We need to re-adapt them to a practically functional reality, in a way which is acceptable to our moral standards.

Communities cry out nowadays that their educational systems are failing. Unfortunately, they seem to refer purely to the organized school, college and university education; however I would like to go one step further. I would also blame it on what Peter likes to call it the new religion – Moneyteism. 

And specifically on one of its Gods - the Career God. It is killing most of our teachers. Families are dying because of lack of focus on personal time (while home education is crucial for a successful school impact). A large number of managers do not follow a teaching path because of the perceived competition. They are afraid to lose power and thus they keep information and prevent knowledge sharing. They are afraid that their own people may learn too fast and shine too much when (alas!), they should know that people reflect their light upon their teachers. By suffocating talent within a team, managers are basically getting in the way of their own future development. Good managers should spot talents and encourage them to learn as much as possible, regard them not as threats but as opportunities. The talent pool can either provide successor ship (and thus set their manager free, to further expand their own career) or can become peers in other important areas of the organization and create an ideal network for their former teachers and colleagues. A manager, who treats the people as potential future stars, is on the way to own personal growth.

Is then the Career God a bad God for us? I believe not. I believe that if we start seeing It as a Teacher we can improve our life as a whole – both professional and personal side. And the same goes for other Moneyteistic Gods. If we learn good things from them and not let them rule us, we can live a fulfilling life.

I will end my post today with a common sense question: WHO should be the Teacher of tomorrow?

The short answer is: me, you, us together. And we should be also pupils at the same time, all our lives. Because we have to walk before we can run, we have to learn before we can teach, and we have to be proud to have lived before we can die in peace.

We are the teachers of our families (husbands and wives, kids, parents, other relatives), of our work places (colleagues and bosses), of our friends and our enemies equally. We are good teachers and bad teachers in one and the same body, because we cannot be saints all the time - we are merely humans. We should not be afraid of this but embrace our nature, while remembering all the time that WE ARE THE TEACHERS. 

The people around us will learn both from the good stuff and the bad, how they should and how they should not be - every day! Sometimes they will get it wrong, misunderstand our ways and misjudge our actions. But we should never give up being ourselves, with the permanent knowledge that we are the masters of our life and the teachers of our fellow people. And as such, we need to live our life so we can smile when we see ourselves in the mirror – every day.

All the best,

Georgina Popescu

WAYS 5 – THE WAY HOME

Motto: All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.

James Thurber

More than ten years ago I have read ‘The Alchemist’ by Paolo Coelho. I remember the hero’s excitement about taking life into his own hands, in search for something important. The peace and comfort he got when finally finding it, together of course with the message that it was actually in the very place he left in search of adventure – his original home.

There is one question which comes back to my mind from time to time: could the hero have recognized the happiness in his own home, unless he left it behind for a while, and embarked in his travel around the world? I would suspect that probably he could have not. He needed to search for answers and calm down his restlessness before he could find his peace.

More recently, I have read one of the many wise thoughts of Robert Brault: "Sometimes we don't find the thing that will make us happy because we can't give up the thing that was supposed to."

I liked it so much that I shared it with some close friends. One of the receivers raised several questions in response to me: why do we think people should be happy at all? Isn’t the need for happiness somehow over-stated?

It was not the first time when I was confronted with somehow similar rhetorical questions (as the people asking usually do not actually expect me to answer ...). I have come in contact with such dilemas three times over the past year, coming from separate cultures and triggered by different contexts.

One person was purely wondering if we deserve to be happy in general. He seemed to feel that because of our imperfections, flaws, bad thoughts or purely lack of focus in the pursuit of happiness, we should be realistic and not expect that someone just gives themselves away to us (you know… to have and to hold… with or without proper documentation these days).

The other was more inclined to say that some people are just unable to be happy, no matter how hard others strive to make them happy. They are ‘programmed’ in such a manner that they are permanently unsatisfied with the world around them, or suspicious about people's intentions or at least this is how their life evolves in the world they live in.

Finally, a more complex but rather similar question popped up in connection to one of the youngest and dearest members of my family. The question was whether a kid should learn from a very young age how to act, with intent to correct his unhappiness. Whether he should strive to change things, make them different, so that he becomes happy with the results (or at least “happier”, by comparison)?

As all life’s great dilemmas, also this one should be answered under consideration of reasonable balance: yes, I believe people should strive to change whatever makes them unhappy, they should address the pain and the hardship with the aim to improve the situation. However at the same time they should be careful how far they go in the pursuit of their own well-being, take care not to hurt others, recognize responsibility and not give up on certain things to soon, just because they may be unhappy for a while. They should learn how to set ambitious yet achievable goals, learn to differentiate as early as possible between things they can and things they cannot change, when to act and when to accept.

Recently I have also learned (from here) that human abilities for issuing moral judgment regarding other people’s actions and feelings are based into a certain area of our brains, which is gradually forming while we are young, from childhood throughout as far as our teenage period. Therefore children’s ability to correlate happiness with moral criteria about how their actions affect others does not have to do only with education. It is also correlated with the physical development of their brain, which needs to reach a certain maturity before being able to issue sound moral judgments.

This being said, I wish parents good luck and a lot of patience while guiding their kids through nice moral dilemmas! Those steps are really important if they want them to grow being ready for a fulfilling and happy life.

And so… tonight I started to wonder again how come that some people grow up with so different expectation and even perception about happiness. We know now that childhood sets the frame for our physical and emotional readiness for life, for happiness and empathy, for integrity and success. We also know that during our adult life, experience is the one that keeps on shaping our behaviour. I believe it is safe to say that character is formed in our childhood and wisdom is gained throughout the entire life. Intelligence?... it has partially to do with genetic endowment, partially with access to education and partially with personality (as curiosity and intelligence are somehow similar to the egg-hen dilema...).

You may intelligently wonder by now what does this have to do with the idea of 'home'. Well... kind-of everything!

There is a common saying that home is where your heart is. I can add to that a large number of hints about what ‘home’ should ideally represent. One hint that you are home is when you feel that the place makes you happy and serene, comfortable and safe. In that place you can share your sorrows and find courage to confront your inner demons. You can re-charge your batteries and mend your wounds. You can dream happy dreams and start building your way towards achieving those dreams. You can have nightmares and wake up knowing they will go away. Home is where you can create special rules and games for shared living, happily mixing the right proportion of freedom and dependency which define that small (or big) circle called family.

There are many individuals in our world today that are living mostly driven by adrenaline rush – no matter from where they draw this energy (career focus, dependencies of different sorts, moneyteism, power fights, intrigues and gossiping, fierce competition, episodic love and so on). Wasting time, money, energy and innocence may seem painless and easy when you are young, as it still seems that all those are inexhaustible. They are not. And every individual needs to find his way home while still young enough to dream. Then start building the comfort associated with that chosen home, in order to prepare for the next phase of life – the one where the resources become obviously limited.

I sometimes wonder why I am so childishly determined to be happy. Even more, why I am so inclined to see myself as being already happy. Just because… a myriad of things happen around me and I am grateful to witness their happening (no matter if they are little or big things). Finally, I wonder why I am so determined to try anything in my power to make other people happy around me (or at least convince them that being happy may be good for them in the long run…).

One thing I have learned from the last three years of my live. Geography has gradually less to say about where home is, in our contemporary word. We have become more dynamic and the idea of home basically is given by other less material elements that keep a family together.

Once we find our way home, we can also accept that we can be comfortably happy, for as long as we are. And then some…

Have a nice Home!

Georgina Popescu

WAYS IV – THE MANAGER

Motto: Never point a finger where you never lent a hand.  Robert Brault

Today I decided to share with you some thoughts about what I believe should be the main focus areas of a good manager. To put the things into perspective, I would have to say that by ‘manager’ I do not necessarily refer to a boss and a professional life. Management is a part of everyone’s life just as much as air, food, sleep. We are all managers in our private life, when we relate to our families or circle of friends. The manager is basically a person which manages something or someone. You hear often ‘he/she manages well under the circumstances’ – referring to either state of mind or behavior or results.

What I will try today to put in writing may be seen as an oversimplification of management function. I love simple things and I believe all our life should be governed by simplicity. We are the ones who overcomplicate matters. And sometimes bringing them back to their initial simplicity is the shortest way to seeing their beauty again.

Why I have chosen to do this under the ‘ways’ series and not the ‘roots’ one? Simply because I have decided to focus more on the positive part – how it should be. Of course ‘the manager’ can be always re-written as a ‘root’ piece, by simply pointing out the negative side of things, the fact that current crisis is deeply rooted in management errors or pure mismanagement – on different levels.

Enough introduction, let’s get started. You will not find here any history of management trends or any definition of management styles, as this is really not the purpose of this exercise. Personally I believe that most of the things written and spoken about pluses and minuses of management styles have their fair share of truth and deceit. I will just share with you my personal view of various areas of daily business (or daily life) which a manager needs to address for success. And I will do so without separating personal from professional, as I believe in two basic ideas. First is that both the road and the destination are important. Second that there is no business ethics, but just ethics (there is even a book about this, by John C. Maxwell).

I will start with the results, because most part of management was (and still is) focused on this. It is natural, as the basic idea of ‘managing’ relates to a purpose, a destination. You can of course wonder around and do beautiful things out of luck and without any direction, but that is definitely not management. So, first thing we need to have when we start managing something is a purpose, an idea of what we aim to accomplish. Usually the definition of expected result is called target or objective. During the management journey, it may change and this is one of the most important (and beautiful) aspects of successful management – the dynamism of the objective. Because in normal environment, every manager deals with more than one objective and there is always a relationship between various results. Sometimes the relationship is clear and can be anticipated, other times it is hidden and therefore unforeseeable. A good manager recognizes if and when some of his/her objectives need adjustment and stops before following an unrealistic objective that can even damage the bigger picture which is pursued.

I will use a simple example: going by plane from A to B. Simplest way to optimize this route is to fly on a straight line - fast and efficient. However if you add the restrictions regarding no-fly zones for example, you may find that the plane needs to take some alternative routes which do not seem rational for someone who is not aware of such restrictions. Furthermore, unless you fly a charter, you may find out it is impossible to fly with just one plane and need to change 2 or 3 to get at the destination. Ultimately, once you are in the air, the pilot may need to go around a storm in order to be able to deliver you safely, at point B. You may remember the ‘Cast Away’ movie with Tom Hanks – the parcel gets delivered in the end; whether that is an acceptable result or not, depends of course on the way you look at it.

So it is obvious that the result may vary in terms of quality and therefore one of the biggest challenges of management is to describe as reasonably as possible what is expected. But I will put this aspect on hold for a while, as this comes a little later in my story.

Going back a little, the result is something the manager targets to achieve. Therefore it has to do with the future. Does it also have to do with the actual act of management? Yes and no. Yes, as it is the crucial element shaping the day-to-day actions. No, as it is about the future and we all know that if we want to make God laugh we should show Him our plans.

Then what is actually the manager expected to do? This is simple: to manage his/her way towards the result. How? Let’s take the points of intervention, one by one.

First a manager must efficiently manage available resources. What does ‘available’ mean? Simply what he/she already has, plus what he/she can get in order to accomplish the objective. How limited are those resources? Well, this usually depends on the type or resource but also on the creativity, resourcefulness and personality of the manager. A golden rule about managing resources is that there is a right place, time and purpose for everyone and everything. Sometimes exceptional situations can be managed with exceptional approach toward resources, however in the long run you must clearly understand the structure, strengths and weaknesses of your resources if you really plan to make them more efficient.

In an over-simplified manner, I can imagine grouping resources in material ones (from money, buildings and equipment, car fleet, to paper and coffee...), information and intellectual property, time and human factor (here I include the composition of the staff but also the network linked to it - in case of work; respectively the family, circle of friends etc. - in case of personal life).

The crucial resource proves to be always the human, the only one who can actually make sense of all the rest and is decisive regarding the quality of the result. For example, the same amount of information processed with the same material resources over same period of time but by different people, will translate into different levels of knowledge and will generate different interpretation and correlation paths, thus delivering various results.

Second aspect on which a manager needs to focus is management of situations. Throughout our daily life, things tend to happen around us. Few situations are really neutral on the participants, most of them represent either opportunities or threats for the future chain of events and the humans involved in them. Those effects are commonly referred as consequences. What is also interesting is the fact that every person notices different things from a similar event (that is if he/she notices anything at all). Therefore, a good manager needs to be as attentive as possible to the situations around and at the same time as assertive as possible, interpreting and correlating potential consequences which may arise (either threats or opportunities). A crucial part of the result delivery is translating the situations; playing them to one another, then adjust them to available resources. In this process, a good manager should be always ready to adjust expectations if this proves to favor an overall improvement in results.

And thus, we reach the third crucial focus pillar: management of expectations. A good manager must transmit with clarity, both downwards and upwards, the expectations regarding the result. The message must be tailored to the recipient and must represent a fair correlation with the other pillars. What does this mean? As managers usually depend on others for delivery, they must have a fair understanding of the tasks they cascade down (in terms of both resources and situations), so they can assume realistic result parameters. For example, when you know that one of your staff members has a sick kid at home, you should not expect him/her to stay until 10 pm to finalize an urgent report if this report can be delivered by another staff member or can wait for another day. If you however insist on doing so, you should be ready to ‘compensate’ for the exceptional management of the situation and also understand that by repeating this exercise you will damage the human resource attached to it, in terms of enthusiasm and commitment.

Fourth and somehow already introduced by above three focus pillars comes the management of intervention tools - actually the personal touch given by the personality of the manager. Here we could spend days talking about management styles, but this is out of the scope of today’s exercise. I will just stop on some ideas I have in mind and invite you to expand on your own with whatever fits your managerial profile: enthusiasm, knowledge sharing, prioritization, motivation, recognition, delegation and empowerment (always together!), fairness and ethics, understanding efficiency (always check both quantity and quality of results!).

There are still many things to be said in terms of management however as this is not intended as a lesson, I will move towards closing now.

I believe that human and time factors are amongst the most important for a manager. The rest are easier to attract and also manage, once you get it right with those two. Everything is then indirectly connected to the third pillar described above – the management of expectations.

At the end of the day, a good manager is the one who enjoys the way to the results and thus masters the resources with enthusiasm and fairness. If management is perceived as a struggle, it can sometimes bring results – but only on a short term and is definitely not sustainable. Of course life will put us in front of such situations every now and then, also as a test of our management abilities. We should be able to face such challenges as they come, and temporarily be ready to apply different tools than our usual ‘kit’. But we should also be strong enough to come back to the more sustainable way of managing situations, to that natural way which fits best our personality and life style and allows us to look to ourselves in the mirror with a smile before we go to bed.

Fairness and appreciation for the people, completed by deep understanding of resources and situations, for the benefit of the result – all that sustains a manager’s success in the long run. I firmly believe this is the way we need to approach management if we wish to overcome challenges - be it in our daily personal life or at work.

And remember: There is often less danger in the things we fear than in the things we desire (John Churton Collins). Be careful how you set expectations and do not allow them to corrupt your ways as a manager.

Wishing you a great day!

Georgina Popescu

WAYS III – THE PATIENCE

Motto: How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young?  Paul Sweeney

It should be generally accepted as a universal truth the fact that with every day of our lives, we are getting older. We can of course chose any other word instead of ‘older’, there is quite a wide range - smarter, wiser, nicer, richer, fatter. However those would be no longer acceptable as universal truths, because we evolve differently during our timeline, depending on a great number of factors.

I have browsed through the Quote Garden this evening, like every time when I plan to write something, in search of a nice motto. As expected, patience is regarded mostly as a virtue, the aptitude of wise people. Perfectly qualifying as one of the ways out of the so-called crisis (or better say one of the ways to survive in the new world paradigm which we are experiencing lately).

Why choose ‘patience’ as a way ahead? First reason that comes to mind is because I admire it in some people around. Of course not all people who do not (re)act can be qualified as patient, there is a fine line between virtue and weakness, just as in all character features. 

What would then be the definition of patience in my view?

I would describe 'patience' as a certain type of action (or even a certain lack of an obvious action), at a certain moment, sustained over a certain time, triggered by a certain evaluation of a certain situation, correlated with a certain decision regarding the best choice of action, with the ultimate purpose of achieving a certain goal in the wisest possible manner.

Have I lost you already? ...

Have a little patience and try reading it again, perhaps even putting it in a certain context relevant for your own experience (sometime when you really believed you were patient...). I strongly believe that if any of the components in that phrase are missing, then the action cannot be qualified as patience and the person is not really patient. If the time line is wrong or if the evaluation of the situation is not proper or if the choice of action (or lack of it) is mistaken or if the purpose is not achieved, then we actually deal with bad results or at least with missed opportunities.

The most frequent mistakes made by impatient people are either uselessness (unneeded actions which do not harm but also do not help anyone, are just a waste of energy) or even destructiveness (usually actions without reasonably understanding the situation). The difference is most important for the impact on the community around the impatient person, as some actions which seem just useless for some, are destructive for others.

Sometimes the actions of the impatient can be constructive, but this would be mostly triggered by coincidence. A chain of lucky coincidental events can trigger the persistence of the impatient in his / her behavior and even a gradual worsening of the destructive potential. Usually such person is not even ill-intended, as in case of planned destructive behavior we usually deal with patient planners.

On the other hand, patience does not mean just waiting loooong before you answer a question or endlessly gathering data before acting in a certain direction. The patient’s wisdom comes from knowing exactly when is time to act and when is time to wait and see or listen or gather more information. This knowledge is partially inherited, partially educated and partially driven by experience. Therefore the sooner you experience harmful effects of your own impatience, the faster you get better at feeling that right moment or at choosing those right battles. Just like John Dryden said almost 400 years ago: ‘Beware the fury of a patient man’.

And so, the second reason why I have thought about this way ahead was because I have begun to build on my skills in terms of patience and have already learned that the best possible teacher is the negative experience.

And cooking... well, this is a big part of it, and the motto is very much right. And I realize more and more how much I miss the regular patience lessons from my kitchen. The childhood for example was a constant lesson of patience - either queuing for food or waiting for miracles to come out of the oven. I was always amazed about how long can half an hour really be, when you are not allowed to open the oven door, no matter how curious you are whether the cake is really growing. Because once you opened it prematurely, the disaster was guaranteed. And back in my childhood there was no glass window on the oven door… There was also clear for how long you have to mix the eggs with the sugar so that they become puffy enough. 

I also knew how long it takes to get to my grandmother by train and already learned that sleeping and talking makes the time go faster. And I was never really a train sleeper …

Usually there is a direct (but reasonable!) correlation between good things and waiting time.

When I was very young, there was one Romanian movie called “Hurry up slowly!” My mother liked the title so much (the movie was also nice…), that she tried for years to carve those words into my mind. I believe she was never really happy with the results of her efforts, as I was always more the type ‘Oh God, give me Patience! NOOOOW!”

Lately I have seen that it is better to slow down and take more time to understand things before acting based on my emotions. I believe this is especially important when people experience negative feelings, which are usually bad advisers. There is something to be learned from stones, rivers and trees, but also from birds and bees, or from predators and prays. We should learn to be patient without forgetting that we need to act in time, efficiently and in the direction of our purpose.

The way in which a wisely patient person chooses to live his/her life should be highly correlated with one of the roots I approached last year, respectively ‘the tolerance’. Such a person should know just how much he/she can tolerate without action, what action needs to be taken and why, when and for how long, so that the result is consistent with the intended purpose. And this can be best achieved when it comes naturally, part intuitive and part reasoned, in a beautiful combination of self-confidence, maturity and courage. And in order to achieve this, some of us need a lifetime, some less and some even longer than that.

This Christmas I wish to all of you that you may learn the lesson of patience early enough in your life so that you can contribute in teaching it to others.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Georgina Popescu

WAYS 2 – THE LESSONS

Always when judging
Who people are,
Remember to footnote
The words "So far."
~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

Last month I took a 3-day trip to Barcelona. Nice town on the seaside, where the landing happens from… the sea side. Also most of the flying happens above the sea, thing which made me quite nervous, because I do not like flying over deep waters. I know it is silly, as I would presume that crashing over water brings more probability of survival than crashing over mountains, but anyway… my complete lack of swimming know-how just turns my stomach into the home of a hundred ants when I fly over water. While we were coming close to the city, I started to relax and tried to enjoy a bit the view –exquisite otherwise.

I will not get into details about Barcelona and my holidays as I suppose no one is interested in this so I will get to the return flight. This time I was really nervous, that ‘kind-of-I-have-a-bad-feeling-nervousness’. Just in front of me while boarding there was a Russian family with a little daughter. At the entry, the door to the pilot’s cabin was opened and a nice voice from inside invited the little lady to look in without being shy. The father was impressed and thanking the pilot for this and the immediate effect was that … the whole family got invited to look in. I started to wonder if the pilot was some terrorist who was planning to blow the plane up and this was his last good deed before the final gesture…

We settled in, and then the plane started to move. While we were still on the runway, the captain started to talk to us. He welcomed us on board, told us that we are flying to Vienna (good-at least I was on the right plane…) and then informed us that there is a storm ahead and that he will try to go around it. Also good, so perhaps my bad feeling is not connected to the bomb but to a storm… this one is better, I already survived some of those…

Then the same voice invited us all to look to the left immediately after the take off, as we will fly along the coast and have the chance to say good-bye to the nice beaches of Barcelona. I thought to myself ‘ok, nice relaxing exercise’ and prepared to extend my neck as far as socially acceptable without biting into my left neighbor’s right ear. And then the funniest thing happened – the guy actually turned the big plane to the left so suddenly after we rose from the ground, that I thought for a second he will dip the wing into the water and we will actually shake hands with the people on the beach to say an official goodbye. And then another funny thing happened – after we did the grand tour of the beaches, he turned again … to the right! This time really heading home…

Well, now I started to wonder whether next he will tell us his wife dumped him, this is his last flight and he wanted to let us die with a nice memory of Barcelona beaches in our heads. But then quite soon after this, the nice voice started to talk to us again. This time he was mentioning the fact that the travelers can actually see the day – night limit line on one side. Then he told us on which side we can see Nice. By that time I was already more than relaxed, thinking that as long as he is flying that plane nothing wrong can happen, as he obviously loves to do it. I started to feel like in a hop-on / hop-off trip only nicer and wondered if we shouldn't tip the pilot on our way out.

Later on he apologized that we will feel a little shaky, kindly asked us to buckle up and at the same time pointed out that to the left there is the big black nasty storm that he told us about, with nice lightning illuminating the clouds from within, a unique spectacle under which (unfortunately not possible to see) there was another nice town (cannot remember which). Interesting was also that I felt no real shaking compared to what I have experienced in some other cases on clear weather …

And so, he kept on showing us amazing things out of the window until we arrived in Vienna, and the flight attendant said her routine ‘thank you, hope you fly Austrian again and goodbye’. Then, immediately after landing, his smiling voice also added simple but warm “thank you, wish you good night and a nice stay in Vienna”. I must say that night I saw a complete different face of Austrian pilots - even thou I should not use the plural. I am not sure I will have a similar flight again soon.

I was not surprised at all (I almost expected) to see the cabin door opened when we left the plane, him standing with a big smile on his face in the door and saying goodbye to each of us. I did not expect him to be so young and tall, suntanned and blue eyed (or maybe not blue but nicely eyed anyway...), but I managed to close my mouth and put my eyes back in their respective eyeballs rather elegantly, probably I also shared a smile in return (even if I could not swear to that...).

I arrived home late at night, with a big smile on my face and with some lessons learned.

There are still people that can do their ‘routine’ job, without forgetting that for others the same sequence of events is nothing short of a miracle. And so someone can make the best of it – not only focus on delivering highest professional standards in their work, but going one step forward and bringing a human dimension, care about the smiles on people’s faces and the drops of happiness in their blood.

The second lesson was that we can fly through life at high speed, not looking left or right and believing that reaching the destination is enough; sure way to miss a lot of spectacular views…

Third - that sometimes we cannot see for ourselves, so there is a need for someone else to guide our eyes to the right picture.

The fourth lesson was that 'detour' one: the shortest way between two points and the nicest way between two points are very different things. Taking the time to see the beauty of a place (or in case of relationships of a person) enriches the life, no matter if the detour is short or long. Sometimes a nice detour may prove to be the actual way. From the detour I also learned a secondary lesson, to always expect the unexpected (why on Earth did I assume that the beaches were in the direction of our way home?...). So, whenever you find yourself somewhere else than intended please regard this as a 'detour' and enjoy - it usually comes in nice packages. Or at least with good lessons.

And finally the fifth lesson was that one hundred ants in the stomach can also predict something nice or cannot predict anything at all. The feeling can be related to the pure fact that I must have probably just swallowed one hundred ants over dinner.

And those were only one afternoon lessons.

I will now take you to another place - a nice quiet restaurant in Bucharest, where I was with a dear friend of mine. She told me that the ‘most beautiful age’ from her point of view was 43. I immediately perceived it as good news, as it is still slightly ahead of me; then the question popped up rather quickly – why 43 and not 40 or 45 or 36? … The answer: because that was exactly the age when she became really comfortable with everything about herself – inside and outside. Well, perhaps the words were not exactly those, but anyway…

And then I started to wonder if I have not already passed the best age, as I realized it had nothing to do with the calendar. The lesson I learned that day was that the sooner you reach the most beautiful age, the longer it may last. It can be a couple of years, a decade or even more. I started to better understand why women tend to omit mentioning their age as they grow older, and it seems to me is because they try to avoid labels and conventional judgment. Then they reach the beautiful age and it does not matter anymore, obviously until… it starts mattering again. Because everything in life is cyclical and so I come to the second lesson at the same table: the link between personal life and career.

She made me open my eyes to the fact that if you live a long life (which I wish to all of my readers) then you will inherently encounter ups and downs. Career path brings you challenges followed sometimes by satisfaction, other times by disappointment; sometimes you just get good money out of it, other times status or just peace; sometimes respect, other times humiliation; sometimes power, other times endurance. The most important part is to take the lesson out of each of those phases and to move on, which may very well mean enjoying some periods of quietness, taking some steps back, recharging your batteries from the other side – the personal one.

Even from the school years, but most strongly in university and after that in our professional life, we learn that in this global economy the most valuable features of a winner are cold head (for thinking clearly), decorated with big eyes and even bigger ears, small mouth and educated nose, two strong feet (for stepping over others) and agile hands (for grabbing opportunities).

On the other hand, most undesirable features for managers are usually connected to everything which is soft, sensitive and oversized, such as the chest (may be fostering a big heart…), and the behind (it is difficult to cover your a.s if it is oversized…). 

There are of course exceptions, like in every rule, and I have been professionally blessed to work with many of them, while I also like to believe I have grown into one of those exceptions, by learning as much as possible from my past bosses and experiences.

Putting a piece of your heart and soul into day to day work, adding passion, strong beliefs and ethical principles usually make the difference between management and leadership. At the same time, such approach may have unexpected outcome bordering to professional self-endangerment, as you gradually create an eye of a storm, in which others may easily push you or you can even get pulled all by yourself. In any case you get exposed to changes in career that have greater amplitude and lower predictability than the average, such as going to sleep in Kansas with a promising career and waking up next day away from Kansas and without your red shoes. Therefore, if you build your whole life around Kansas dreams, all those storms may have a tribute on your health, ability to give and accept love, to forgive and forget, to accept and embrace.

The holidays actually ended with one of the greatest lessons in life. While preparing to go to the airport on Sunday evening, a sweet beautiful dog that was safely playing during the day got somehow out of the comfort of her courtyard and the next thing we knew was we had to find a place to bury her. Very sad, I got on the plane and got back to Vienna. I could not think about holiday ending any more, as it seemed so petty compared to a life stolen from us in one second.

However I did not want to let this week pass without sharing with you this holiday’s lessons. They made me realize this is also one of the ways ahead. I started to count the number of lessons I get in a day. The good news is that it is hard, as they are so many. Usually they come associated with physical sensations and the memory of hits or hugs (imaginary but feeling so real).

So, the way which I want to share with you today is: take the time to learn some lessons every day, apply as much as possible from them starting tomorrow. Recognition for being the pettiest and meanest will always be subject to harsh competition, while for wise and kind people the world is always big enough. Look out the window, upon that part of the human kind which is good and beautiful. Join them and trust that together we can overcome any crisis and then also take care of healing the wounds of those who are now so busy competing against each other…

Georgina Popescu