Impressions after 5TC… July 4, 2011
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Most of you already know I am writing on this blog very seldom. I am writing when I can’t share my experiences with my close friends because I am blocked and the only way for me to make a step forward and get over it, is to write here. Today is a blurry day for me…I guess is just now that I realized “it ended” (the conference).
I arrived there last Sunday for the pre-meeting and thanks to Adi who is so calm I became calm too. I was confident the entire team will do a great job (they were hand-picked 
).
Then in the first day I was anxious to start and a bit worried about the GTKEO because I was thinking that the people might not arrive in time but most of them did, so starting the agenda at 10.00 am is not a bad idea (though finishing on Friday as early as possible might be something we should consider…)
The World Caffe worked like a charm and I was pleasantly surprised to see that people were so interested in talking about the topics we chose. I am glad we could afford the luxury to choose these topics thanks to the people we had present. A bitter taste did appear, because I was thinking that next time these people will not be present and I have to figure out a new recipe to make the spell work.
Then the Skills block was phenomenal (I think). It worked so well – it was just what people needed and I think the idea of Oana with “newbies track” is gorgeous and we will implement it – I hope we will have in autumn participants with different levels of experience and preparation and thus have the need to have a newbies track, otherwise the current concept works just fine. And again the bitter taste told me I will have to figure out a way to find/(re)bring the right, beautiful people to “cook it all” next time. The big question in my mind was “Why can’t I just keep them all in?” Of course I know the answer…we don’t have the needed money because the rest for a great (job) mixture, exists. How would it be to have some or all these people involved full-time (me included) working in youth education projects – GROW mainly but not only. How much would it cost? I will calculate…maybe starting from autumn or spring we will find a solution.
Moving on to the briefings’ day I have to say that I was not perfectly satisfied with this day. Maybe being at the 3-4th review of trainers’ manuals I became too picky, or maybe not. Anyways, my main feeling was that we still need to work a lot on the manuals and I hope I will not be doing this alone but have some ex/current GROW trainers to join me in doing these reviews. I was also a bit upset about how the corporate sessions went, mainly because I could see in the trainers’ style that they were not considering the participants as being adults, they were treating them a bit like kids. Well…they are not kids, they are in their twenties and even though I act like a kid sometimes (and don’t we all do that?), I am an adult (at least supposedly and everyone expects it from me). So long story made short, a great quality standard would be to involve in this 5TC only trainers who have some experience/knowledge/openness to understand how/what working with youth means. A youth trainer is not a corporate trainer. A corporate trainer can become a youth trainer but there are some special ingredients that need to be added to this soup and some people are just not aware of the complete recipe.
The simulations day was according to my expectations (I wish it was better). For the next edition I will create a best-case practice manual for how to run and coordinate the whole process – it will make things happen faster and easier 
– i will have to put this on paper asap not to forget anything
The last day was torture for me. I didn’t want to say it but the fact that I was in charge of the “impressions” session made it so much more difficult because there were many people I worked with going in front and talking about their experiences and I knew I will never see some of them again/for a long time. So after the session I went away to write some diplomas and to run some interviews (which were again tormenting me because they were about participants’ impressions). I was sad I didn’t find time to make a picture with my group and say good-bye but I might have started crying and I can’t accept crying – it just unbalances my inner peace much too much and if now I am suffering only for 1-2 days, if I was to say good-bye I would have been offbalance for a week. So on one hand is better that I didn’t say good-bye to all at once, but to just a few important ones, one by one. I hope in the future I will get better at “good-byes” though for the moment and for the last few years I have been preferring to think that if you don’t say good-bye you increase the chances of seeing each-other again – it proved true a couple of times but there are still 2 best friends of mine (Martita and Monica) whom I haven’t seen in a while and I miss so much and they seem so far…Dubai and Genova…it might be just in my head and I hope to see them this year and “break the spell”
I want to thank all of you for a wonderful time. I wish it didn’t end so soon. I am glad I had the chance to see so many cultures together functioning quite well and I was very impressed by Jojo – my dear Jojo, “o plecaciune pentru tine” (I am not sure how to say it in English) – I sincerely hope to see you again, you powerful, fragile girl! You rule!
Thank you Kasia also! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I think I know what you are going through but I was kind of blocked and couldn’t speak directly to you, though I hope I will soon.
The others, you know yourselves and how much I appreciate you and your work. I will not write it here again because I need to close this post and with it, my offbalanced mood – a new week has started and we need to rock again – I need to run for the GROW opening in Pitesti to support the team from here…actually I should have left 10 minutes ago already.
One last message from me – Oamenii sfintesc locul, nu Dumnezeu! – Sorry but I truly believe this above all.
PS: I don’t need to read the evaluation forms to know we did a wonderful job. I am not arrogant as some who don’t know me might think …I just happen to know it.
What’s up with 2011? Or the key to happiness. March 15, 2011
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I haven’t been posting here for a very long time. I thought of leaving it as it is forever. Then today, being an unusual day I have decided to tell about it and…about my plans for this year…just felt like sharing.
So today I woke up at 13.00 and worked a bit, went to sleep at 17.00 because i refused to drink a coffee instead and I slept one hour, then from 18.00 I worked until 21.00 and then went to sleep and woke up at 22.00 and have been chillaxing since then. Weirdest day…
I have had full weekends and some full weeks, too – full of work, full of fun…this year started at a very high speed and it’s been said to continue like that. I am loving it and I am glad I know my body and will feel when I need to stop in advance so I won’t break…something I see happening around quite often 
This is it for me…this is the year when “i make it or break it” – what does this mean? Well…I have been dreaming unintentionally, every other fortnight, for 3 years (since I came back to Romania) that I am in a foreign country, having the lifestyle I wish for. D. feels the same, so we decided that in 2011 we either get to live as we want in Romania or we leave. I am glad to say that though it’s just March, we have been progressing towards the lifestyle we want.
The funny thing is that we don’t need “stuff” to get to the lifestyle we want but we need people and feelings – we want to feel relaxed as the Italians are feeling, we want the sun they have, we want to see less randomness around us and in people’s minds, similar to Swiss thinking style, we want to mix work and fun as much as possible so that the “criticism and crisis-sadness, typical Romanian complaining-chatter” doesn’t get to us.
We realized that if we want to make things work with us and around us we need a reinforcement for our beliefs for the better and this can be easily done if we go for a trip outside the country for a few weeks. Unfortunately sometimes a few weeks is too much when you have things to do so we need to find “alternative ways of energy” – something to keep us running and that helps us stay healthy – like not get the “complaining-crisis-sadness-criticism-attitude” which gets us to think that nothing can be done and then we are back down.
And…I rediscovered some old ways of recharging my batteries (like chatting with really old friends whom I haven’t seen in a long time and dancing on some trance) and I found new alternative ways of getting energy: planning new projects, being in front of a bunch of people telling stories, delivering trainings, and…I tend to believe another one for me is driving – but first I have to learn some more mechanics, pass the darn exam, and get the license – and then I will be driving a lot
I love it that I am charging my batteries more often from the trainings and talks I have with people and in the same time I am contributing to their personal development. In the same time there have been many 16 hours days of work…and…I love that, too.
Then again like in every spring, I needed a reassurance and I got it: from time to time I am wondering how much am I worth it on the market, being afraid that perhaps my company is not the best option for me – well…on the market I worth so so so much less than in my company and here I definitely love what I do and I love it that I have time for volunteering as well. And from what I have heard this is valid for my price on the Western Europe market, too.
So work hard, play hard! Don’t forget the money you make is not worth the work unless you spend it on something that makes you happy…ideally something for you…ideally not “a thing”, but a memorable experience!
The more memorable experiences you create for yourself and for the others, the happier you will be – that’s the key to happiness.
Writing books and Re-designing services December 10, 2010
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Lately I have decided that lifestyle entrepreneurship is not enough for me ) I want even more freedom. Currently I am working 40 hours per month on an average and make just enough to cover all needs. I love what I am doing but what if I worked only 10 hours per month? So I figured I would write the book I have been thinking about for the last two years and sell it on the internet. It’s amazing how the idea came up and how it transformed and transformed in time. Today is definitely nothing like the sketch from 2008…
The “selling books online” idea has been tested by many and it seems it works (at least considering the number of books I wrote as a ghost writer for others – they paid me so…i guess it paid). Then I tested it myself with my father’s book – a present for his birthday – we translated and designed his book and sell it only. The book is quite hardcore and the readers’ niche is very slim but it still sells about 2-3 per month. If the niche would be 100 times the size of his niche and the book would approach a subject that can be understood and liked by anyone between 14 and 38 then the sales should be bigger.
Then I used the Business Model Canvas to make sure that my plan is realistic and as original as possible. I recommend “Business Model Generation” to anyone who is thinking of designing or re-designing his services or business model. I would say that this is advisable every 2-3 years, depending on the industry you are in, maybe even more often. I found it very useful many times already.
Put some daydreaming time in your calendar November 15, 2010
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I started today in an unusual way – I went to a clinic to make some blood analysis – and it went on in an unusual beat. I went for a walk in the sun…the 17 degrees sun of November
By the way the nurse was the nicest I have ever met – she made my day
Then I went home and I was planning to have breakfast and start working but…i just “had to” schedule some daydreaming time. I got home with a song in my head and couldn’t get rid of it. I checked my calendar and yes, there they were 8 hours of work planned and i thought what if…i would just make a big hole in the schedule and put there a daydreaming “session” cause i just felt like eating toast with butter, drink some mango tea and listen to Robin Hood’s soundtrack songs while being creative .
I haven’t been daydreaming since I was around 16 or so – around 12 years ago – when I used to do this just because i was in love or with the purpose of writing. So it’s been a while. I just thought that once in 12 years it could be useful especially since I was doing this with a purpose – how to create an amazing conference I will be managing. So I did my peaceful daydreaming and then I got curious – my analytic part just had to know – if anyone else uses it, how and what else is out there written about it.
Not surprising at all, there is quite some info on the net about this creative, aware process. What is surprising though is that out of 10 links 6 or 7 claim it could be harmful…really? and what could happen with you? become a futurologist or a visionary? And out of these 6-7 links some are opinions of the church…the church? again the church?
Well enough with the politics. What I wanted to say is that satisfying my taste buds with a nice breakfast, my ears with nice music and thinking creative and positively about how this important event will happen, helped me a lot and I recommend it.
Feel like traveling… June 28, 2010
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A spirit like mine can resist without traveling just about this much. We have been in Bulgaria for the 1st of May and I really liked Balcic and the way the people treated us around there. They are much nicer than the Romanians working in the hotel industry. It was odd to see that the hotel personnel answered in Romanian when you asked a question in English. Where else in the world people will answer in Romanian besides Romania?!
Anyways it seems like 1st of May is so far and I feel like traveling again. The issue is that there are too many things to be done around here and most of the time until the big day is planned. The big day is our wedding day on the 6th of August.
Maybe we will escape to Austria for a weekend…
Nicknames May 17, 2010
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This post is about nicknames and how annoying I find them sometimes.
Today I got a link to a blog from a friend. I liked the blog a lot and I found the blogger to be a very interesting individual. He is an erudite I would love to learn a thing or two from, but he is nowhere to be found. It’s just his nickname and his blog. And while I was reading the “About” page which was talking about the “nickname” and not saying much about the guy himself I remembered my acting teacher from high school. I admired him a lot – a complex person, dressing in simple clothes, always smoking elegantly (this made him look a bit mysterious) and asking questions I have never thought about. One of the questions that got stuck in my mind forever was: “Aren’t you proud of your name?”. He asked me this question at my first acting course, when I didn’t even know if I was in, because they were selecting very few people and I badly wanted to be among the selected ones, but I had no clue what they expected from me. The first thing they asked us was to present ourselves. To pronounce our names as in “My name is…” and then to sing our names. It seemed dumb to many of us, like…they already knew our names from the moment our parents subscribed us there…Anyways, one by one we told our names. Since to me at that moment it seemed unimportant and I was a very shy compared to nowadays, I told them my name as if I would have sad a bad joke and I knew it was a bad joke: in a low voice, without any pride, almost inaudible. Aaaand yes, I saw my teacher’s face saddening. And then he explained it all to us: you might like or dislike the name your parents gave you but you should learn to cherish it. After all, it’s the it that defines the who. It’s not a tag as many call it, is so much more. Is the “how they call you” when they think about your actions, when they love you, when they hate you, it’s even how you call yourself when you look in the mirror or try to encourage yourself to become a go getter! It’s part of you and when someone asks you what’s your name you should pronounce it loud and clear, and if the context allows it, you should also add a look straight in the eye of the questioner and a firm handshake. Of course if all this represents you and defines who you are. If not, you can stay little and hide behind a nickname, even if you are grand. You can make the nickname the gatekeeper to the real you, so that the curiosity and love of others will not reach your heart…if that’s who you want to be. But if you believe that most of the people on this globe are good people and don’t mean you harm, like I do, then you don’t need a gatekeeper to your heart.
Winter is almost here… October 19, 2009
Posted by armina in thoughts.Tags: plans, trips, weather
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The summer was busy and autumn even more. In different ways though, first one traveling, the second working. Iin the middle of the economic crisis you would think there should be more free time for a small entrepreneur.
After one month in Italy and one in Belgium, some trips to Germany and France, we got homesick and came back to Romania. It was interesting to leave Brussels in autumn (end of August) and arrive home in the middle of the summer…it felt like 2009 had two summers. Now it changed, it has been raining for about a week…a bit too British for my corner of the town.
It’s unbelievable how with all the crisis in the newspapers, there is no crisis in the online industry and I am sure it will be like this until January which is a bit silent and then in mid Feb it will start all over again…which makes me think about taking a small break again before the December work peak. The projects’ number will increase in December, when everyone wants to finish before Christmas and of course they will outsource almost everything to have all stuff finished before New Year’s:)
We have already planned some big breaks: the New Year’s party (hopefully for not more people than the last one) and our wedding party (I won’t brag about it, but I had to mention it). I still have to think about a short non-active break someplace nice for this winter and see what discounts I could get for an early booking for a July tour to Scandinavia…though sometimes “last minutes” are cheaper and cooler than early bookings – this July, Swissair had last minute return plane tickets from Zurich to Tokyo at around 300 euro. How cool is that? But I decided I want to see some parts of Romania first, then Scandinavia before Asia. Unfortunately there is no serious and complete website about what’s there to see in Romania. I had a talk with a friend who has traveled a lot in Romania and surprisingly it seems that the ones who know the beautiful places around here, don’t want others to know about them…maybe I will make the website after discovering the parts I haven’t seen yet…
My third day in Brussels…the second time. August 6, 2009
Posted by armina in thoughts.Tags: Brussels, freedom, grass, parks
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We have seen most of the city last year by walking around…the first city we have seen walking was Genova in 2006. We did that because we wanted to spend the possible least on transportation. Then it became a pleasure and a habbit. We have seen Paris on foot (18km in the first day), Barcelona, Brussels, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Zurich…we love ending up in a deserted neighbourhood or some forgot place that usually is not discovered by tourists so we take the untaken roads and don’t listen to the gps.
2 evenings ago when we arrived we went for a beer. Last year we went to the ’2004 beers menu bar’ and tried various ones, this time we went to a small typical bar and drank typical beer (we tried the triples which were over 6% alcohol). I got a bit dizy since I am not used to alcohol anymore, like when I was a student.
Yesterday we started walking:) We didn’t want to see what we have already seen and we felt attracted towards the parks so this is what we did. We walked for just about 2 hours and staied in a park for 3 hours more. I love the feeling of staying on grass. In Romania you can sit on the grass so I have always loved the Western Europe parks for this freedom. In Zurich people were wearing swimming suits in the summer in the main park near the Zuri Lake and if it got too hot they just jumped in the water. In Frankfurt it seemed parks were the only perfect places to study and people made barbeques. I miss the botanical garden from Frankfurt…
The best symbol for freedom, from my point of view, is the sea. Not the one you see from a sandy pieceful 1km beach, where people go to be lazy, but the one you see from the rocky shores of the Mediteranean…where the waves don’t joke and the sea shows its entire joy of life, where you need to take a mountain bike or your tracking shoes to see it. That’s freedom. However, when I lived in a city with no sea, I needed to figure out another symbol for freedom and rest my eyes watching it for hours…and this is the green from the big parks, both the grass and the trees.
Sipping a coffee in Genoa… July 29, 2009
Posted by armina in dareberry, thoughts.Tags: freedom, gelato, Genoa, holidays, relaxation, Romania, the sea
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It’s been a long time since I wrote last time. I have been going through a period where many thoughts were diving through my mind. After a lot of hard work this spring, we decided to take a 1-2 months break. We bought a one way ticket to Milan and from there we went to Genoa – a place where we have lived before and we fell in love with. We have been here for 16 days now and we love it. It’s no wonder people here live up to 100 years old. We have already done the Cinque Terre track 4 or 5 times and seen the French Riviera about 4 times, together with Santa Margherita Ligure and Portofino…
I just can’t get enough of the typical icecream…the best I have ever tasted. I would fly to here once a year just for the gelato from Boccadasse. It is faithfull love – i don’t really eat other icecreams even though I am in love with it – because nothing compares with it. Sometimes I cheat and buy a Hagen Daz where it is available…as a surogate cause nothing compares with the Boccadasse icecream from Latteria Antica.
I love watching people on fitness bikes on a terasse on the rocks in front of the sea. The trainer plays this wonderful music that makes you paddle some more and gain speed and you are biking and biking and watching the sea…that’s sports!
For me, there is nothing more beautiful than a rocky edge you look over and see the sea…and possibly there will be people sunbathing on the rocks, just like seals do….Mountains and the Sea! Both in the same 50sq meters!
Amazingly enough the business goes just fine with me and Daniel in a holiday. I don’t know whether we are great managers or it’s just some luck, but it works. We can actually be in a holiday for half a month and the “machine” keeps running just as well.
Also amazing is the fact that my Italian has never been better. It seems it improved more from making translations than from actually living here. I have been living here for 1-6 months a year since 2006 and I gained another language skill without even opening a book…I even make money from translations…why go to Harvard? If you have a brilliant mind and want to keep it that way, don’t choose education means and institutions that will make you lose the ability of your artistic and dreamy side of your brain! At least this is how I see things. To evolve, we need to use more of our brain, more of our both sides of our brain…which we thought is not quite identical with becoming a senior business analyst in my case or a senior system engineer in Daniel’s case.
We have no plans for tomorrow and this gives my mind so much freedom and imagination started running loose again. The best thing to do if you want new ideas is to “disconnect” and travel. I have a great business idea. I am sure others have thought about it but well, many have thought about outsourcing, too, but few do it properly. So I am sure that in time, with work and patience I could put this idea into practice and it doesn’t matter how many competitors are there, I know I can do it better and if Daniel helps and Luxi also, we could all have the best “special” travel agency – of course it will be special…what did you think? that we will have “just another travel agency”?…We have always loved the travel industry so this might be the place to actually be since we weren’t quite happy as “multinatinals’ employees with pretty good salaries”.
There was a month when we thought the dream of owning a studio could become reality since prices were going down in Romania. Now they ar up again…and most of our friends say “take a loan and buy the damn studio”…well for us being in dept means loosing our freedom, which is priceless!
From here, on the 4th of August we will fly to Brussels – going from an old town to a more 21st century-like city. We were invited there by our dear friends and we will stay for an undefinite time. We still have the rented flat in Romania but don’t feel like running back there. We are quite disapointed of the guys who run the country and the mentality of the people. Last autumn we were so anxious to go back and thought that so many things would have changed to the better…we were so wrong. The clowns who have the power are the same, just where different make-up depending on the party they left and the party they joined and things aren’t any better. To live there and not be affected by what happens around you, you either need a crazy dosage of optimism and struggle everyday to do things better and motivate others to do so, too (like Musat for example), or you need to be totally senseless…which is hard because we are “souls” people…we went back for our families and friends…to be closer to them and hoped that living there might be better. Instead, to make sure I won’t become a “anger monster”, I had to think of some mind tricks: I almost never watched the news, I visited my parents and went out with my friends as much as possible. I watched only Discovery and Travel & Living became the “most watched” TV channel in the house. Once in a while I asked my mother to tell me the news…she got used to watching them everyday as it it was a soap opera and in the same time to be detached. She also puts some humor in the story so it works for me.
Adina came back to Pitesti last month. After living in the Western Europe for about 4-5 years she thought of coming back and starting a business with her husband. They were sooo optimistic and full of energy. They reminded us of ourselves last autumn and we thought we got to get them back to their senses because this “folie” will only make them invest in things that will eat money and soon they will be just as dissappointed as us. Now they are back in Brussels and think about their “folie” more realistically. Just like us, they were puting their hopes into “living in Romania”…might not be the best idea ever…
Thank God for cheap flights…not that I believe in God…but it’s a good way to express the fact that cheap flights are great and help feed our freedom thirst.
More with the next coffee…maybe…
The difference between a bitch and a “woman entrepreneur” April 11, 2009
Posted by armina in thoughts.Tags: bitch, entrepreneur, woman entrepreneur
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First of all let’s define the notions:
The bitch is a very masculine woman, hiding behind a suit and using her assets more then her brains. All she thinks about is how to make more money off your back. You will say this is “normal” in capitalism. Though there is something about her that makes her a bitch…the assets part and the ice-cold soul. There is nothing wrong about making a career but if you don’t balance it with a healthy “heart warmth” you are seriously endangering your health – for good. She will smile to you and say “thank you sooo much for your support” but she actually means: “thanks for spitting out everything, now you can fuck off”. To her, this means power and is all she probably dreams about.
The woman entrepreneur is a powerful woman but in a smarter and more honest way. She is powerful thanks to her diplomacy, self trust and attitude. She can intimidate men with her eyes and brains, not with her other…assets. And she will never be so vain to say “thank you so much” without actually meaning it. She knows that balance is important and career is not everything. She knows that a unique personality is important so she will not dress and act like a man just to feel more accepted in their world. She is accepted for her uniqueness and earned everyone’s respect for who she is and that makes her special.
Do you see the difference?
It is true that sometimes you have to be a bitch to be a good entrepreneur but what if the bitch takes over? Well…you will die alone…and no, not all of us die alone.
