mission45

Using. Not Misusing Your People Management Skills.

January 8, 2019
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I have a confession to make: My boss can read me in a second.

Ones who know me in person might say that’s not too hard – I’m like an open book. I say whatever is on my mind. Often, when no one wants to hear it.

But I also have hidden pages. And my boss can read them as well. And we don’t even work in the same country.

But the point of this post is not to give compliments to my boss, although she deserves it, but to point out one extremely important characteristic of exceptional leaders: when they read their team members well, they use it for the wellbeing of everyone else (and the business), instead of misusing it by taking advantage or making them feel bad.

Although we all work for companies, goals and money, we also work with or for people.

Personally, I work mostly for people during the last few years of my career. And I say that loud and clear to everyone around me.

That’s why I find it even more important that my superior understands why I’m exposing some vulnerable sides of me.

In most cases, people aren’t even close to feeling safe enough to expose their weaknesses. Because, many bosses will misuse that. Maybe not because they are evil people, but because they don’t feel secure enough and they see their team members as threats or sometimes because they don’t have the capacity – emotional intelligence – to act differently. It’s much easier to attack and to push someone towards the edge (they call it stretching in HR nowadays), then to really understand one’s behaviour, motivation and work with it to get the best possible results.

One may argue that term “use” is also very negative. And that I should not put it in a people management and leadership context.

But lets be fair: in a corporate environment people are being used to achieve one’s own goals.

Multinationals nowadays wrap that in a nicer package of purpose, mission and vision, but at the end, a corporate puzzle has the ultimate goal of achieving results and bringing money to shareholders and bonuses to managers. And that’s fine. Even the non-business environments like charities or NGOs work on the basis of cruel principles of modern capitalism. And we sign the contract saying that our knowledge and skills will be used for achieving the company goal.

So the difference is within the style of the people around you, that is – whether you feel used or misused while you are achieving your goals.

As people manager and leader, especially of highly intelligent and capable employees, I would say that you have two major tasks:
1. To listen to your people carefully and dedicate your time to listening – which many of us are not doing
2. To act upon what you heard from them by addressing their problems and influencing their motivation in a positive way
If you are not good at performing those two tasks, you have to practice. If you can’t achieve improvement by practicing – then leadership is not for you. It will become the source of frustration for you and for people that you are managing. But, if you are very good at doing it, then a new challenge is there. Not to overuse it or leave an impression among employees that the reason you listen and understand them is because you want to show them how powerful you are instead of wanting to help them individually. I believe this can be a frequent challenge among young leaders or talented first time people managers.

The power of well-managed teams who don’t feel misused is incredible. I was lucky to witness that couple of times. It’s worth to invest time and energy to create such teams.

Cheers! Let’s have a glass of mulled wine together. It’s that time of the year and makes you warm and safe.
It’s Not You – It’s me

January 7, 2019

When we don’t feel comfortable in a working environment we usually blame the environment.

And in many cases, we have reasons to do so.

So many people are going through very difficult situations: from unequal treatment or a minor misbehaviour of superiors or colleagues, to tough cases of mobbing and harassment.

Sometimes it’s not about one individual event or situation, but about leadership culture and environment that has been growing in a certain company for years or decades.

During the times when I thought that my task is to change the world (or at least the part of the world where I live) my impulse was to fight against behaviors and culture that I do not support.

For example, I was very much annoyed by people who were not investing themselves into the work they did. The type of people who are doing their jobs only to a level of being OK. Average. Just below 100%.

I was also frustrated by people who had low capabilities, but they compensated this with high ambition and they managed to succeed mostly due to the absence of home education. Because, being rude and ambitious is the winning combination in the corporate world. If your parents did a good job rising you, you have at least 20% of disadvantage in reaching the top of the corporate mountain.

I always had a need, almost compulsion, to bring everything to the surface and to give it a proper name. You know those situations, when you’re doing something ridiculous fully aware that what you’re doing is total bullshit. But for some reason (usually the order from higher levels) we all participate. And everyone is pretending it is really important. I was ready to work, but I always insisted to call what we were doing the right name. Being fully aware that this would not change anything. Maybe it would just bring the same level of discomfort to other people who are not of the same character as I am. Simply, there are people who prefer to pretend. The truth makes them nervous.

But after a number of years and with some time distance from the events that were bothering me, I clearly see: it’s not about them – it’s about me.

It’s not that those other people were wrong or that the company culture was wrong – I was.

And while, when it comes to personal and romantic relationships, this sentence is usually used as an excuse said by the people who are not willing or capable to invest themselves into a certain romantic relationship, I would like to argue that in a business environment it can be a huge time and energy saver.

Because work is an important part of your life, but it’s not your emotional partner!

Relationship between two people is (in most cases) a relationship of two equal individuals.

Relationship between an individual and a corporation is not.

So, why bother? Just change it.

And why don’t we change?

Well, I believe the no. 1 reason is vanity. We don’t want to admit that we are not capable to change something into the direction that we believe is the right one.

No.2 – we see people similar to us working well in that kind of environment. This is tricky. Those people might share many of our values, so we start thinking: if he/she can manage, I should be able to deal with this as well. I’m not a sissy. This is very dangerous, because although we can share a lot of values and attitudes with some colleagues, we are also very different individuals with different triggers and touch points.

No.3 – every change is tough. I had many posts about this topic. ( for example – Letting Go: Killing Your Vertical Ambition). Usually, we need a strong push to start the change. That’s why sometimes people are hoping to get fired in order to move and avoid quitting.

I would like to underline once again the importance of good recruitment. If you are selecting people make sure that they fit to culture as well. Not just to job requirements (my favorite and most stupid one from job ads is: goal oriented). But, also if you are a candidate, don’t ask only about the salary and the benefits. Of course, there are many things you are not able to see before you start working somewhere. But, if you ask a couple of good questions during the interview, you can learn a lot. In the end, if you make a mistake – which must happen to everyone during their career – don’t wait too long to say: It’s not you – it’s me. And leave!

Cheers!
Do You Know How to Protect Your Talent?

February 15, 2018
A while ago I was listening in on a conversation between two prima donnas – world class opera singers – now in their late 80’s. I was immediately amazed by how vital they look for their age and also how fast and powerful their brains are. Comparing to some other, “ordinary” people at that age, they were so sharp and interesting to listen to.

One of them said at one point: I was probably not the best opera singer in the world, but I was the best one in protecting my voice and that’s why I managed to remain on stage for so many decades.

Then she gave an example. When she was still a fairly young singer she got an offer from one of the biggest opera houses in the world to sing one very demanding title role – Medea in the opera by Luigi Cherubini. It was an offer from a man who created Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi, among other amazing artists. But, she said that she didn’t feel ready to sing that role. She thought that she could damage and widen her central register and ruin her higher registers for the future.

How amazingly delicate is a singer’s voice. I didn’t even understand what exactly she was talking about, but I could understand the point. And then immediately some questions started running through my head, since I was at the same time preparing my speech for the HR conference where I was about to talk about leadership and managing managers. I was of course questioning myself – if I gave enough during the times I was going to talk about during the conference? Was it the right time for me to be a leader and a manager of managers? Did I face a challenge that I was not mature enough or good enough for?

But, the most important question was – what are we doing in order to protect ourselves and to keep our talents and our skills in good shape?

Are we wasting and spending our capital so easily, pushed by modern demands to give more, to give everything now like there’s no tomorrow?

Isn’t it more important to enjoy what you are doing and you like doing for a long time, instead of achieving fast success and burn everything you have in a couple of years? It’s just like a world class sport which I consider equally cruel to gladiator games.

This fantastic conversation of two amazing ladies and amazing artists made me create several important resolutions:
1. I will stop giving more then I’m asked to give and more than is necessary when it comes to things that are not of key relevance for me. I will continue streaming toward the highest achievements, but I won’t accept any more stupid concepts like “there is always room for improvement”. Sometimes improvement is not necessary. We are tricked to believe it is.
2. If I find something that I enjoy doing I should do it as long as possible. If I have a talent of some kind I should protect it, nurture it and develop it in a way that I can enjoy it as long as I want.
3. I should create my peaceful base: it doesn’t have to be a real space – it can be aplace and time in my head (or activity), that I will use to recover and to protect my talent.
We all have some skills and some talents. It’s not only about arts. It can be a talent of working with people, doing some crafts, cooking or organizing things… OK, maybe not all of us. But quite a number of people.

Some of us discover it and some don’t. Some of us develop it, but the majority doesn’t. Only a few make a living out of it and take it to the highest levels. That’s normal, because if everyone were exceptional, we would all be average. But, even if we are just reaching our own, personal sky highs, we should strive toward enjoying it as long as possible.

I guess there are a lot of smart quotes on this topic. But I don’t care about listening to them. I always prefer to listen to a good story from a good storyteller. And learn from it. Like in this case of small talks about opera with big life lessons.

Enjoy some great opera music.

Cheers for music and cheers for long lasting talents.
Let Your Perfect Career Find You

February 8, 2018

Is that actually possible? In a real world. Made of steel. Made of stone.

I would have said no – until recently.

Most of my career I was very proud that I’m the master of my own career. I was in most cases the one who made a change and, almost every time, I had a new job before I left the previous one. I was also very proud that I got promoted without pushing for it too hard. Working hard and doing a fair share of self-promotion was always more than enough. Although I can accept that some people might disagree with the last one.

But recently I started thinking that there are two ways to achieve your perfect career: to buy it or to let it find you.

How you can buy your career? And I’m not talking about paying to be hired in a public sector. A frequent situation in the eastern bloc.

Well, you should pay for schools that will give you access to best possible jobs. There is a threshold of knowledge that you need. In business environment, it is not set too high (I’m not talking about experts and specialists in IT or biotechnology for example). You can achieve this threshold by attending many universities, courses, schools… Not every single one, but many of them do offer this path. But, then you have to land a good job. If you have graduated from one of the best rated schools – special doors of big sexy companies will be open for you while others will spam their CV’s without too much success. If you are coming from a school of lower rating you will have to start from lower levels and prove yourself much harder. This is not some big revelation. Quite simple and obvious. And logical in today’s world.

But what if you don’t have enough money… And most of us are not as privileged to study in best schools in the world. Actually, I think I was studying in one of the best schools in the world but I studied arts not business. And I’m from Serbia.

The other option is to expose yourself to many different business experiences and to let your perfect career finds you. This might also be expensive if you look at it from a point of view where you are missing on some earnings while you are experimenting. But if at the end you match good money with something that is a perfect job for you – you are the king of the world!

In the paid career version, it’s dangerous if you figure out that your investment was put into something that you absolutely hate. And you can’t do anything else because you were completely focused at making the most of your big investment.

My first perfect career found me when I was 16. I wrote my first theater play and a year later I started studying drama and script writing. Then I left it after graduating, for more than 15 years.

My second perfect career is fighting its way to find me. After working in the ad agency, media, sales, corporate affairs… I started writing this blog about career and personal development. And spontaneously people that I know, but also people that I don’t know started asking me for career advice.

A couple of closer friends call me to ask for very specific advice about issues they have in their working environment or choices they have to make when it comes to new jobs or development of their current careers. People that I don’t know well contact me via LinkedIn to express their opinion and ask about my opinion on certain challenges they have.

Is my first perfect career leading me toward my second perfect career? Well, that one we will see in time, but I enjoy giving advice to people – if I feel competent and if I feel that I can help. Sometimes they just need some support or confirmation for their own thoughts. I feel privileged that they pick me as their advisor. That means that they trust me and they trust my expertise. But I also feel privileged that I will have a chance to let my perfect career find me.

Give yourself a chance as well! It requires sacrificing time money and formal career progress but it might bring fantastic end results. Try different things, make a break in your current career and do something totally different. If you got fired – consider that as an opportunity to become something else. I’m aware that this is not easy and that’s why I will give you some tips in my post When to Leave and How to Live.

I will keep you posted about my developments. Movie for tonight is Flashdance (1983). Cheers!
When to Leave and How to Live

November 20, 2017
Leaving is one of the hardest things for many people. Whether it’s your home, your country, your partner or your job – it’s never easy. Even when you have all the relevant reasons and things are crystal clear saying the final goodbye might be an issue.

I’m writing about this now because it has been a year since I said goodbye to my previous job. Somehow, it’s becoming quite clear that beginning of the summer is my timing for goodbyes.

But my last goodbye was much more then leaving a job and a career. It was a goodbye to many things I thought are very important to me. Many things I considered a backbone of my professional and personal life.

I would be a big liar if I would claim that I was fully aware of that this time last year, but I had quite a number of signs surrounding me. Today, my awareness is much higher but I still struggle with execution in some segments. That’s why I’m still writing this blog.

When to leave is, of course, the key question. But in order to answer it you must first give yourself an answer to the second one from the title of this post. Usually we want to leave because we need some change. We want something different. Sometimes all we need is a slightly different environment, better career prospective or a different industry. But, sometimes we need a complete make-over of our career and life.

I always enjoy reading those stories about people who quit their jobs and decide to go around the world and then they started blogging and they earned millions. Or they got an idea for an app and they again earned millions. I believe some of those stories are true. But it won’t happen to the majority of us. Some of us have families to support, old parents or pets they can’t leave behind. But it’s not essential that you go for a trip around the world. What’s much more important is to picture and put in a frame exactly how you want to live.

My picture was clear: to work and live under my own professional and ethical standards with people that I can respect and that I want to support with my knowledge, hard work and creativity. If I can’t find it, then to work alone until I find it.

In case that you just want to change the job, the path is pretty well known. Put yourself on a labor market in many different ways: friends, colleagues, old bosses who liked you, recruitment agencies, job ads, LinkedIn at least 3 hours per day… And after I while something will pop up…

But in case you want to change your life and your job at the same time you need a bit more preparation:
- Open up yourself toward communities that you don’t belong to – start communicating with people outside of your regular everyday environment. Do this for at least 6 months.
- Make some savings – just to feel less under pressure while you are in the process of transition. It’s individual, of course, how much you will need. But being safe for a year sounds reasonable.
- Read a lot. Reading provides amazing inspiration and it can move you into directions that you would never imagine. A book per week is a must.
- Do couple of crazy things – just to see that you are capable of it. It doesn’t have to be anything huge. But something that takes you out of your comfort zone.
- Find someone to support you during this transition. You will need both: a shoulder to cry on and a companion to get drunk with while celebrating.
- Get yourself a mentor! Having a mentor during any transition process is one of the most precious things you might have.
Even if you do all this it doesn’t mean that transition success is guaranteed. It depends on how your framed ideal life looks like and how much time you need to reach it. Some people have less and some people have more complicated frames. And pictures inside those frames. But, don’t be discouraged if it goes through some phases and takes some extra time. Repeat the formula. Do something even more crazy and meet some more interesting people… And if you’re wondering when the right time to leave is, it is going to become very clear for you pretty soon. You will figure it out in a nice way or in a bit of a dramatic way, but you will also know how you want to live. And that’s a victory!

Cheers to everyone who figured out when to leave. And cheers to everyone who figured out how they want to live. I salute them!
Married to the Job ?

November 13, 2017

When I was starting my career as a young creative director I had a much more experienced collegue in the agency. His sons were my age. I was very fast and furious at the time. I was in that ‘ I know what I want and I want it now’ – mode… So, at that time I was also applying for Canadian residence. I had an idea to immigrate to Canada.

This colleague of mine actually came back from Canada a few years before.

And he told me a very wise thing: two most important things in your life are who you are going to marry (have kids with) and whether you are going to leave your country of birth and live somewhere else.

At the time I thought it’s just a tired old man’s story. How could something be more important than career choices? More important than selecting your profession? Moving to Canada? What is the big deal? I already have Serbia under my feet. How hard can it be to conquer Canada?

Fifteen years later, the words of my more experienced colleague could not resonate more.

I have more friends living abroad then in Serbia. And I have more single than married/partnered friends. I don’t believe that being partnered and having kids is a pre-condition for a happy life. Also, living in a good, settled, organized country is not a guaranty for happiness. But I’m not telling you anything new… There are happy and unhappy people everywhere, single, partnered, Mormons…

The thing is that in my generation those two most important decisions used to be made under a huge pressure of having a career. In some parts of the world due to the fact that it was the only way to survive, and in some parts of the world due to the fact that society and media pressure was so big. To put career in front of anything else. So instead on focusing on the person one is supposed to marry, many people were married to their jobs. Instead of trying to understand if one can be happy thousands of miles from home, better career options were the deal makers to move, to immigrate…

“Just one more promotion and then I can start thinking about kids… I can’t afford a break now… Yes, and one more, just this last one… Ooops! I’m 46…”

“Just another year, and I will have enough money to go back home… It’s such a long winter… But, it will be better in June, when spring comes… I miss spring so much…”

“Hotel number 378, country number 57, golden status in 5 loyalty programs, 3 wives, ex-wives, a couple of kids, somewhere…”

“I love it here in Canada. We had nothing in Serbia, nothing… Now we have a house, we have our vacations on Caribbean islands. Every year, a different one. Kids are dancing Serbian folklore. They don’t speak Serbian among themselves… But who cares…”

“Twenty years of high school graduation. Already divorced? Oh good, shared custody. You can see your kids every other weekend? Nice car by the way… Company car.”

“I love my country. But I can’t live here anymore. Not because the living is bad. But because so many people around me are living badly. I’m terrified all the time that I can end up like of them.”

“The World is a global village now… This is the 6^th country where I’m living. But I never change my expat support group.”

I decided who I’ll have kids with before I got married. Before I got married to my job, I mean.

I never lived in Canada. We got our residence cards. But we never moved there. Because I was already married to the job.

With all ups and downs I don’t regret the first one. With all ups and downs I regret the second one. Not because I want to live in Canada. Actually, I don’t. But because I have made that decision by taking too much into account what my job is. Not who I am.

Your career will come and go. And it’s always in transition. We must learn how to live with it and how to focus our attention to more important things. The most important things. Who we will have our kids with and where we are going to live.

Movie recommendation for this week is Far and Away (1992). Directed by Ron Howard. Movie that’s a bit cheesy, but I love it. And it’s about who to marry and where to live.
When Worlds Collide

November 7, 2017

Entering new unknown worlds and exploring them was always interesting for me. I was curious and willing to challenge myself. This drive took me to some amazing places but also to some ridiculous situations and bizarre environments.

For a long time, I have thought that this is my strong suit. I thought that I was becoming a better person, stronger professional, more tolerant and ready to accept diversity in a working environment but also in my personal life.

But unfortunately, sometimes in life we all oversee those thin lines where something that might be good to a certain extent starts damaging you at some point. I guess it’s comparable with wine, tasty food or being vegan.

My own world is a strange one. I admit. Some people like it or see it as interesting but very few of them fit in. I’m not forcing anyone to come in but very often I’m forcing myself to come out and to accept all the differences in the worlds around me.

The trouble with this approach might be that you are not aware that those encounters can damage you as well. Both body and mind are amazing in adjusting themselves to survive. But to survive a certain situation that is not going to last for too long. I will repeat as many times as necessary in years to come – everything is about timing! Judging well when it’s the best timing to leave – someone or something – is one of the most important skills everyone should develop.

When you enter a party or a new fitness program – pretty quickly you figure out if that’s the place for you. I have forced myself to stay on many parties that I didn’t like from the very beginning (especially weddings), just to present socially acceptable behavior. Today I think that’s totally wrong. The only rules I have kept are the ones about not leaving the movie or theater play before the end – even if it’s a total crap. That’s because of the respect I have for my colleagues, artists, who invested their best efforts to make something for the audience. And that’s a maximum of 2 hours. OK, in case of Lars von Trier it might be even 4 painful hours, but I can survive even that. But that’s my little thing. Nothing that I advise to others.

When you enter new working environment you immediately get a feeling of how your world will react when it collides with the new world. Is it a smooth encounter with pleasant vibes or dangerous collision?

I have entered many different worlds during my career. And during that time I have learned to read small signals and to figure out pretty fast if it’s going to be a glide or collide. And if it’s going to collide than you have two options: try to be stronger and to change the world you are entering and adjust it according to your needs or to try to adjust yourself. A couple of times, I was very good in adjusting myself. Sometimes even so good that I started being delusional and forgetting which world I’m coming from.

I know that this is going to sound quite snobbish, but I don’t care. People with less education and less exposure to a variety of life experiences have, of course, less troubles to fit in to the worlds they enter. I have seen that many times.

I was sometimes quite proud about what I do. I was even more proud about people that I worked with. But I was also ashamed so many times of people I worked with. Simply put, their world was millions of miles away from mine, so far away, in fact, that I could only stand there with the question on my lips: What the hell am I doing here? Because, if you ask ‘what the hell is he/she doing here’, you become, , in the eyes of the environment, intolerant and short-sighted. I always loved those guys who didn’t care about that at all. I was never one of them.

So, when worlds collide some damage must happen. Even if you survive the collision, the scars will remain.

Cheers to scars! Maybe you can learn how to love your scars. Or at least how to respect them. I’m still learning.

To help you with that, my movie recommendation for this time is Crash (1996) by David Cronenberg. Warning: NC-17. Warning2: Not for those with cardiac issues.
9 Tips for Peaceful Office Life

October 31, 2017
In every company I’ve worked so far there was a minority of people pushing things forward and a majority – the rest of the crew, expressing their wonder: What the hell do they want?

There is a way to survive corporate environment without significant consequences and live a relatively peaceful live. The lucky ones can even be happy while doing it.

Here is my list of 9 things that you should or should not practice in order to live a peaceful office life. It lacks the obvious ones like “don’t sleep with your boss’s wife” or “don’t use drugs in the office space”…
- Don’t force any change or even ask for a change. Bad coffee machine? Still makes good enough coffee. You will find a better one on your way home in Starbucks where they even write your name on a cup.
- Always get along well with your colleagues from administration and finance. They can be very helpful. But they can also make your life miserable if they want. And they gossip the most.
- Never give any negative feedback to anyone. Even if the company claims that they want to nurture open communication – don’t do it! The more one company insist in open and honest communication when it comes to their internal engagement campaigns, the less open and honest opinions they want to hear.
- Do not solve other people’s problems. Even if they look like they really need some help. Mind your own business.
- Use buzzwords that senior management is using at the moment. But be careful to change them when they become outdated and replace them with new ones. Or when senior management finally changes because using those buzz words was the only thing they did well.
- Fake happiness. Happiness is the most important thing now, so you have to be happy. If you are not happy your superiors might think that they’re doing something wrong and they might fire you.
- Have an opinion but never fight for it too hard. And always be sure that your opinion is presented in two totally opposite directions. So, when someone disagrees with you , you can say: Yes, that’s exactly what I thought, I just put it in the wrong way…
- Learn how to say: Yes, I agree with you… And then say something totally opposite. This has to be practiced to perfection and you have to make it look very natural, otherwise the people around you might get upset.
- If you figure out that you are significantly better than average find a way to hide it. Otherwise you will encounter many problems… The best way to hide it is to put number 5. from this list in action
If you manage to adopt these 9 rules and practice them in your everyday office life you might end up having a very nice, long career in a big corporation and even receive a very good salary. You will be highly valued by your colleagues and during those big office storms you will survive. Will you feel miserable because of this? Well, depends on your character. If not, I suggest you block this blog forever because this is a blog about improvement and transition.

It might also happen that you start talking, acting and fighting much more in the world outside of the office. That can have significant influence on your personal life. Accumulated frustration is dangerous. Sometimes it’s the easiest way to start drinking.

Recommendation for today’s drink is some kind of a strong fruit brandy. Apricot or plum I suggest. Cheers!
Past vs. Future: Benchmarking for Career Choices

October 27, 2017
Where you come from is equally important as where you are going to.

Setting up your short term or career goals is a very thoroughly discussed topic and I’m not going to elaborate it now. You can find some hints about it in my previous posts. Much more in all HR web sources.

I was occupied by the fact that I was very often unsatisfied with things that most people are very happy with. And yes, it might be because I’m snobbish or because (I think) I set extremely high goals for myself, but instead of indulging myself with labeling, I have figured out that this is much more related with previous experiences then personality. Personality plays a role of course, but experience is what sets our benchmarks and creating our idea of happiness and satisfaction.

This is especially important when you are making decisions on your next job or next career move.

I have realized that at my previous job everything was about regretting the past. My benchmark for job satisfaction was set pretty high before I started. I worked with an amazing team in a very cool company and we were (now I can see that and say it loud) pioneering an organization transformation work. It was a funky job in a sexy industry. Not very well paid from today’s prospective but a very cool one. And then I came to the old-fashioned, slow paced industry and powerful system where money was good, benefits were even better, people were very professional and everything looked amazingly organized and well planned. To be fair except old-fashioned and slow paced all other listed attributes are something that I appreciate a lot and something that I highly value on my list of important things about the job.

But the trouble is again in timing. When something enters your life, even if it has certain important things that you value – is that enough? Or do you have new values that are even more important for you?

Checking and revising what it is that you value from time to time is very important.

If I would have to describe an ideal job for myself at the moment it would be something like this:
- Intellectually engaging – I can’t stand jobs where the % of brain used is low
- Decently paid – not overpaid
- With people that I can have fun with
- Very limited business traveling – not over 10% of the time
I know this now. But, this is actually not new for me. I needed all those things 5 years ago. I was just not aware of it. Or I was aware but I tried to deny it.

So, I ended up with:
- A job that is intellectually engaging only for people with limited capacity, education and experience
- Very well paid – actually overpaid for the real demands of the job
- With some people that I can have fun with – but most of them disappeared pretty soon
- Traveling for business 90% of the time
And of course, my satisfaction level was very low. But the funny thing is that I was not ready to admit that. At least not to the extent that I have made a mistake and that I should correct that mistake. I had couple of attempts to cut the agony, but I always had that wage justification to myself as to why I should not be a sissy and quit.

Some people have this quality to substitute the lack of job satisfaction with different things: hobbies, gym, supporting a football club, clubbing, drinking, drugs… I’m not one of them. I’m not one of them because of my character, partly, but also because of my past career. It’s probably similar to drugs.

Once you feel the high level of career satisfaction on all important levels, it’s very hard to accept less in the future.

Once you do some big and important things (in your respective range) it’s hard to deal with ridiculous bullshit on a daily basis.

Once you work under real leadership it’s impossible to work under miserable and bizarre excuses for leaders.

Unless you find another drug. I didn’t.

Cheers for the amazing past and cheers for even more amazing things that will happen in the future when you become ready to accept what it is you bring with you from the past! Complicated. Just cheers!
Plan B People

October 25, 2017
There are a couple of things that I don’t like about myself. If we skip some more intimate, the one that I can share with you is the fact that I’m a Plan B person.

By this I mean that whatever I do I always have a plan B. Just in case that plan A doesn’t work as I was expecting.

In many situations this was highly appreciated, especially by my employers. Companies love that. To have both plan A and B at least. Some other, obsessed with successes like having C, D and E on top. The fear of being unsuccessful probably became one of the top-rated fears in the last decade or two. Sometimes that’s very personal and it depends on the character of a person, but very often “be successful or go home” was heavily promoted as desired behavior.

I was in couple occasions very proud because I successfully executed my B plans when it comes to my career. But, after a while it started to bother me. Following some of those “successes” I have figured out that I was feeling very unsuccessful. It was pure personal perception, not an objective observation. But at the end of the day personal perception is everything. Nothing is objective.

Of course, the main question was: did I do my best to succeed in plan A? Sometimes I even quit plan A before I’d even started seriously, because plan B was more probable to get me success.

If you start chasing something that is very important for you I think plan B should become history. Especially if you are about to make a significant change in your life and career. Even if you fail with what you are doing, you will figure out what to do next anyway. You will be forced to.

So the focus should be on two more important things:
- How to make your plan A work?
- How to quickly recover from failure – if it happens!
I can’t write anything that will make you much stronger than you were before reading this post, so that you drop your plan B, but I can try to offer some inspiration.

First of all, if your plan A becomes success, the level of satisfaction is going to be so high that you will immediately forget all the pain that you went through all of the scary moments. I guess it’s somewhat similar to giving birth. I never did it, gave birth, I mean, but my wife did it twice and believe me it was not easy for me either.

Plan A is always something with a higher level of interesting details and something more intriguing. So you will have good stories to tell. While you are doing it. And for many years after. Of course, if you like and you know how to tell stories. But even if you don’t know how to tell it, people are going to feel it around you. Those who believe in things call that aura.

Have you ever thought of doing your plan B first? And then, safe and covered, jump into your spectacular plan A? It’s a simple twist that asks for some time, but it might be a good solution for us with higher levels of anxiety.

And yes, I’m writing all this to encourage myself to say goodbyes to all of my B plans. Because, if I continue like this I will always stay on a B list . Remember my post about fabulous Nicole? And for some reason I think that I can become an A lister. Better sooner than later.

Cheers to major, big, amazing plans A! We will make this toast with shots of AlquimiaReserva de Don Adolfo Extra Añejo Tequila. Starts with A and costs $125.

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