Sunday, November 23, 2014

Conor Neill

009a5dbI was lying on the ground of my room looking to the ceiling in one of my blue evenings. I'd been confused and depressed for several weeks. I didn't know what to do in both personal and career life. A graduate from university, master of computer science, who finished his four years of study successfully. I was totally alone in a world that expects much more than a university degree. Looking back to the four years some of my weaknesses had truly bothered me and the people around me. Poor presentations, poor writing and speaking, fear of rejection/failure and playing the role of a victim were among those weaknesses. In that evening I decided to get help from others. I started searching on Youtube for a tutorial on how to speak effectively.

I clicked the play button of a video. I was still lying on the ground looking to the ceiling and my laptop was behind my head. The speaker was talking about the effective ways you can apply to start your speech. Within the first few seconds of the video I realized that I like the way the speaker presents his ideas. His tone of voice and inflections were amazing to me.

I turned around slowly, lay on my stomach and stared at the monitor. With full interest I watched also his other videos and read his personal blog. One day I came across his TED talk. Here I declare that the talk changed my life profoundly. I've watched the talk for many times so far and whenever I watch it I feel it's still new and fresh to me.

In his speech he focuses on three qualities of successful people. People who live their life and have control over themselves. People who constantly learn and develop their skills. Nothing can stop their energy, interest and curiosity.

One of the qualities is intelligence. By intelligence it is meant that you make smart decisions for the upcoming issues of your life. He proposes a fascinating tool to empower your intelligence. The tool is writing diary.

Every day you write down the events you take part, people who you meet, happiness/sadness/depression/excitement/success/failure/rejections you experience. You document your life. I've been writing diary since January 14, 2014 nonstop every single day. His influential talk encouraged me to do that. I'd always had a dream to write for newspapers and magazines. I realized my dream by writing diary and also setting up this personal blog. Here's my opinion: writing is magic.

This is the first post of the Impact section of my blog. In this section I write about people who have influenced on my life. People who always stay curious and are generous to share their thoughts and experiences with others.

Conor Neill is the person who presented the influential TED talk. This post is dedicated to him.

Monday, November 17, 2014

What do you expect of a good education?

The best gift that a good education gives to a graduate is an organized mind to make smart decisions. Everything else, including science, engineering and art, is secondary.

Saying NO on the Internet is hard

It's very hard to say NO. Especially, when you work on the Internet. Many famous websites feature recommended items. Tempting recommended videos on Youtube call you loudly to click on them. It may happen that before you click the video you'd planned to watch, you passionately watch five videos from recommended videos and subscribed channels. On the Internet, the border between entertainment and profession is extremely narrow. A tutorial of a math class at Harvard may be next to a music video of Rihanna. The big challenge is to manage the number of YES we say to the feeds that are generated nonstop through Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Sometimes, we need a page like the homepage of Google. Very simple, no smell of YES.