Who listens to you?

The more you work on yourself, the much more you should work on your connections with the people around you. The latter work is harder because humans grow at different pace.

Be the first and the last

This could be an approach to show your interest to get a room from the landlord when several applicants in addition to you are in a meeting with her:

Be the first person who arrives at the meeting. Be the last person who leaves the meeting.

By doing this, you have the opportunity to talk to her alone in two situations. Does this approach remove the images of applicants from her mind and paste only your image there?

Conor Neill

I 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.

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.

trust > diamond

regarding to value.

Ambiguity in this world?

People don't know what you have in your mind. You should write your thought down. Don't expect your people are smart enough and patient enough to listen to your abstract, ambiguous talk and text. Speak simple and concrete. Otherwise, people will leave you and go for less complex.

Passion and persistence both together matter

To achieve what you want you need BOTH passion and persistence. Missing one of those will move the success far away from you. Passion is prerequisite. Persistence is terminator. Passion is about fighting your personal challenges, persistence is about fighting interpersonal challenges.

Your own way

Asking question and getting help from others are truly signs of strength and courage, while causing people to approve the way you live is a sign of low confidence.

Opportunity

is created, it is not given.

Take risk for a small change

If you want to be more hopeful than yesterday, go for a small change in your solutions. Get help from excellent resources and your intelligence to make a small effective change.

West vs East

Here in the West you should be very independent. Nobody makes decision for you. You're the only person who makes decision for you. That's the difference between the West and the East. Personally, I like the way in the West. I wish I had lived much more independently at home. I wish I had failed a lot.

Working faster and faster

It seems technology moves much faster than human's pace. This is technology that says how humans should live. We should be ready to take giant steps very often. Among new discoveries the Internet and especially Google push us from the back to work fast. We should work fast and give a result faster than before. Decades ago, if a company registered five new patents a year, now it should register 2000 for this year and 3500 for next year.

I would like to know how people's attitude to work looks 50 years from now.

Looking backward and forward

How much does it cost being obsessed with looking backward? The price is high for sure. How can you make the price lower? The answer could be by looking forward. The price of looking forward is again high, because you'll be at risk very often. However, I believe looking forward brings new opportunities. It makes you take action and have dream. You'll be hopeful. You'll be proud of your past. You'll apply the experience of your past. You'll inspire people. People will trust your words, because you've experienced your story. They'll listen to your story because it's genuine and tangible. Focus on the front and sometimes, very quickly, look at the rear mirror.

How to beat fear?

By the sense of responsibility. In a dangerous situation you should think you're not alone. You have your family, friends and colleagues behind you. You've been selected by them to fight in the battle.

I don't know, but ...

A good friend advised me to say "I don't know" to the questions that I don't have a clear answer for. And more importantly I should immediately connect the question to my current knowledge and shoot a new question back to my partner in the conversation. Making no question may indicate my lack of interest to the partner's topic.

Example
Question: Do you know anything about vegetable X?
Bad answer: No, I don't know.
Good answer: No, I don't know. Isn't it green like vegetable Y?
…

Documents matter

Yesterday, I learned that even though you lose a soccer game, you can make your people happy by your brilliant performance. The game is recorded and maintained. In the future, you can surprise the next generations by playing the game's video.

Is it the same with business? Will failing and losing the market make your share holders and customers happy? Will any document and report represent your efforts, sweat and tears so that the people stay loyal to you and keep up their support?

Iran lost the game to Argentina, 0 - 1, but their performance surprised the world. Well done boys!

Iran vs Nigeria on June 16

Football day. The first game was Germany vs Portugal. I watched the 1st half in my room. The game was so exciting that I decided to watch the 2nd half downstairs in the seminar room where the game was being shown on a big screen. Germany dominated the game and didn't allow Portugal to play well. Germany is always good at the first games but gets in trouble later through reaching the final game. I hope the team will keep up his effort and get the Cup this time. They deserve it. They play professionally. Germany defeated Portugal 4-0 in the end.

Now let's talk about the second game which started one hour later. I.R. Iran vs Nigeria. The Iranian players were all handsome with pretty haircuts. At the same time I was checking my Twitter to see the recent tweets sent by Negar Mortazavi, a journalist, who was at the stadium. She was sending awesome pictures from the Iranian fans.

I believe Iran's main purpose was to get a draw from this game and he did it successfully. From the minute 1 till the minute 90, Iran was only defending. If you count the number of correct passes that Iranians made, it can hardly reach to 20 in the whole game. Whenever they got the ball, they shot it carelessly to the center. Hopefully, they'll fix their mistakes for the following harder games.

Anyways, the game ended 0-0 draw, one of the most boring games of this World Cup so far. The Iran team members seemed to be happy with the result as the game finished.

Championship

Yesterday, I watched a program that featured an interview with Carlos Queiroz, the current coach of the Iran national soccer team. His talk was very wise and I found him a smart guy. He thinks big. This is what Iranian players should learn. In a part of his speech he talked about Argentina. He said they'd been a champion in the World Cup for two times. This mood of championship makes them think big. It makes them expect another victory, because they've already made many big victories.

At some point of your life you should touch the edge. The edge can be the highest level of science, art and sport. After that, you'll know your value and never go back to the losers community. Instead, you'll think big and go forward stronger than before.

How much should we get help from others?

How much should I be independent? How much should I get help from others? Is it ok, if I don't call the person who helped me once to solve a problem until I find a solution for the problem?
In most of the cases, I get help from someone and then leave the guy until I find a solution for the problem. I may go forward alone or with someone else, but I usually don't make any contact with the guy who helped me first. My reason is that I won't call him until I succeed then I'll share with him my happiness.
One issue may arise here. The guy may get annoyed and sad because I haven't had any contact with him for a long time and he thinks I've already been successful and I've forgotten him.
NO!!!! I'm not such a person who forgets the people who help him. I'm grateful.

Small pieces of decision

Small pieces of decision

Fear of failure prevents us from making our own decision. Step out of your comfort zone and start from small pieces of decision. Make the weight of the risk lighter.

Committing a plan

Committing a plan

is always pleasant. We make a plan to achieve our goals. The more days we commit the plan, the more we feel good about ourselves. In reality, the journey isn't always flat. You may encounter many new obstacles that make you scared; therefore you need to turn the focus from your pleasant plan to a set of new uncertainties. You may become distracted and confused for a few days, but this is your already-made plan that will save you. It will work like a safe haven. You'll come back there and enjoy your pleasant time again.

How big are our dictionaries?

How big are our dictionaries?

Everybody has his own dictionary. It's an empty page at the time of our birth, but it is loaded with many words over time. Unlike commercial dictionaries like Webster, it is republished many times a year. Many words come in and many are removed (sometimes forever).

We like people who are comfortable with using a wide range of words - people who don't kill their life with their one-page dictionary. We admire them, because rather than saying doubtfully "I'm tired. Should I work today?", they firmly say "I'm really tired. I rest today."

How should we advise people?

How should we advise people?

What would you do if you see someone is in trouble? Are you in a group of people who: wouldn't advise at all; would advise but not effectively; would advise in a way that makes the guy think?

These days we can access to a huge amount of resources on the Internet. We read many blogs and watch a lot of videos from the Youtube Ocean to find a solution for our problems. We follow our favorite wise people on Facebook and Twitter, because we believe they have taken a journey very similar to ours and what they say will motivate us to go confidently forward. These opportunities make both potential advisor (friend, partner, colleague) and us reluctant to take part in a face-to-face conversation in order to talk about the problems.

The fact is if we don't trust the someone who wants to guide us, we keep our ears closed and inherently hate the situation in which he/she gives advice nonstop.

Prioritizing Our Needs

Prioritizing Our Needs

The Malaysian Airline disaster is still in the news. The airplane crashed into the Indian Ocean about 2 months ago. The exact place of the crash hasn't been detected by the radars yet. No sign of debris has been found on the ocean surface. Loved ones of the victims feel frustrated and hopeless. Yearly, billions of dollars are paid for researches and devices to explore other planets (we've achieved lots of huge goals though), yet we're not able to explore a certain area of the ocean to find the wreckage. How much do we care about prioritizing our needs? How motivated are we to get help from our outstanding scientists and incredible equipment to solve our planet's problems? How happy will we be when we finally find the wreckage? Will the happiness be as high as our happiness coming from new discoveries about the Mars?

Interesting People

Interesting People

Interesting people tell their history very confidently with passion and details. It doesn't matter to them if their stories convey their painful experiences. I like this quality of these people. Even if their stories may contain their weakness or faults, their current status is beautiful. I may judge them for a second, but then I get absorbed by their kindness, honesty and humility.