Monthly Archives: February 2013

The Privilege of a Fish

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The privilege to write about anything. Absolutely anything. It is a privilege of a fish.

You wake up in the morning. You go down the stairs and once on the street you realize that you are a fish. There is nothing weird about it. You feel the movement of the water around your body and its pressure. And your body moves very slowly, following the water. And the street noises and the voices are not there any more. Your ears hear some inner sounds and light taps of the water against your face. You do not move forward fast, you mostly move down. A little bit in diagonal. Your body is still prone to gravity that your mind has not entirely forgotten. You assume that everybody had became a fish and you expect to see other fishes soon. But you do not. You are alone. You do not try to talk, instead you use all your strength to sustain the pressure of the water on your body. There is no pain, just the heaviness of each molecule that surrounds you. This heaviness in glued to your skin now.

You intend to breath, but your lungs do not need air. You waste the intent. You release the weight that your body still holds. Then you reach the bottom. You have no feet to walk or push yourself up towards the surface. You are a fish, but you keep forgetting it. Your mind still wonders why did you ever tried to reach the bottom and looks for the reasons, but your body is already taking you up. You need to find this space in the water where the pressure is equal from all the sides. Then you can surrender. Water becomes part of you and you obey it. You can close your eyes and rest. As a fish you do not have any dreams. You just feel that every part of your body is part of the water too. You are part of it all and you move with it. Slowly, precisely; Sliding among the noises of the dreams.

Barcelona, February 8th 2013

The No End Game

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Get into a game that has no end. If there is an end you will be interested in the final result no matter what. If there is no end, you will be interested in the process. Do not aim to win, aim to stay in the game as long as you can. Aim to learn while you are on the playing field. Aim to play among the best players.

You do the first step. There is nobody around. Nobody invited you to play. Nobody invited you to come. But there is also nobody who can tell you that you should go away. There is nobody to tell you that you can’t play. Thus, you can stay on the field and advance. You are the one to authorize yourself.  And surprisingly it works! It also feels lonely. It does. You look around to catch a glimpse of somebody you know, to spot a smile you recognize. To smile back at a friendly face. And you realize that you are completely alone. There are only followers. And you have to act like you have been here hundred of times before, and convince others that you know what you are doing and where you are going. And they will follow you. That simple. Well, you know the game a little bit in fact. You know you are here to play, not to win. Thus, you do not compete. This does not mean you can relax, slow down and prattle. People who follow you rarely become your friends. You can never turn to them and ask casually “What do you think, should we do this next move or not?”. They expect you to know it all, and this is why they are following you. The moment you show a sign of doubt you lose your way.

You have to be convinced of what you are doing. And you have to sound convincing. You have to be honest and integer too. You have to play clean, to trust and to inspire trust in the people around you. You can’t be false even a bit. If the game gets dirty, if it feels like you are becoming a salesman, you should be able to stand up tall and walk away saying out loud “This is not how I want to play.” And know that there is no return and be done with it. And you are supposed not to regret your actions. And there is not one face on the field who will let you be vulnerable.

It is an exciting game. It is the game you will embrace. It has the value of the patience and the persistence. It holds the passion and the commitment. It is worth the effort. It is worth it all to keep walking across the never ending field, to keep playing the no end game. It is damn lonely too. Have you ever walked on the sand dunes in the dimness of the night? You walk alone, you hear a light noise, you imagine right away that somebody else is walking close by. You can almost see his face. You smile back. You look around. No one. You look around only to realize that the wind and the sand had made the noise that made your heart jump and faint. And then you feel hundred times more lonely than ever before.

You just have to continue walking. Alone. That’s the game. And when the pain of loneliness becomes silence, you will enjoy its verse. And the break of the day will find you walking.

Barcelona, February 5th 2013

What’s Wrong with the Women Business Events

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cocktails on the business events

Lately I have attended quite a few startup, business and entrepreneurial events in the Barcelona area. And I am learning to avoid the ones that have the word “women” in their headline. I am not saying it proudly. Really, I do not.

However, all the events that carry the word “women” in their title, for example “Women in Business” or “Women and Entrepreneurship”, tend to be mostly about women and not about business and entrepreneurship. During a two-hour presentation you do not hear anything informative, interesting or challenging. There are no references to business growth, to metrics used, no hints how to raise capital or manage human resources. You do not get an insight into the industry they are working in or in how they reach out to their customers. All you get to hear is how those women overcame the guilty feeling of leaving their kids at home or how they had to prove themselves in front of their family and friends for starting a business. It looks more like a celebration of the fact that they are not staying at home with their kids and actually doing something, independently on how good or relevant their work is. I tried to imagine a man CEO doing a presentation like that. And I could not. Really, can you see any man on the stage starting a business presentation talking about his childhood years and then going on how he got married and how his married life was affected by the fact that he also run a business. And how he felt about it.

Until this changes. Until this changes drastically, women will not be in businesses on the same level as men are. I would like to go to presentations where women and men talk about their yardstick as the founders, about how they created their company culture, what metric they focus on the most. I would like to see numbers. Yes, numbers, not dry and boring numbers, as women sometimes call them, but exciting numbers; Because while business is not just about numbers, but without them it would never survive and grow. I want to see numbers that would let me understand the growth of the company in a certain timespan and how different product introductions or marketing tactics affected this growth. Through those numbers and the founder’s vision I would like to be able to picture the future of that industry. This would make an amazing presentation!

At last, I would be grateful if on business meetings and related events people would stop asking me how I manage to take care of our two small kids and run a business. If I would be a man, you would never ask me this question, right? My husband never faces this one. Neither should I. I’d rather talk about business. And I promise it will be exciting, challenging and relevant.

Barcelona, February 2nd 2013