Monthly Archives: February 2018

Life & stuff, PR - Philosophical Rambling

When you turn to hyper-active as pressure comes & thoughts on life

An interesting topic and stuff for thought for me is how different people react to stress and pressure in different ways. Some break down, others outperform themselves again others freeze or just wait for things to pass.

There are different ways on how we approach stressful situations and deadline pressure. I am still unable to reach a conclusion on my side, is it based on life-time experience or just how we tick inside our heads with personality traits taking the lead. Often, I am amazed by older people, who are much calmer and usually say “it will pass” shrugging all the drama of a pressing deadline or a mistake that was made. Noticing that age and experience change the way how I perceive and handle some situations I am positive that it has an impact, but can you really handle all situations differently? I remember the hype and drama when we were graduating from gymnasium, it was all about scores, how you will perform meant which faculty you could apply (and get in) to, etc. In the end… it was not a make it or break it life event for most. Nowadays when I see people dramatizing over unimportant or life-threatening events, I remember how small my world used to be when I was younger, and I struggle to understand how these people must feel that everything is falling apart. But that gets me wondering – how do people who struggle through life feel? Not people who are mortally ill – even though the end game for all of us is passing away no matter what we do, and it looms over us at any point in our lives. But when you get to meet people who were terminally ill but somehow, they managed to survive against all odds, or having survived two pretty spectacular car crashes, you think to yourself – does a mistake at work or a failed relationship really mean I will not be able to live my life as comfortably or peacefully as I would expect? Most probably not, it is another experience that broadens our horizons, takes time to digest, survive, start breathing again, but you move on eventually. Or not, I sometimes meet people who are just stuck in a tiny little circle of events doing the same mistake all over again. Someone once said – being stupid is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.  A thought I agree with completely, with my heart and soul.

But sometimes people just feel stuck, stuck in the life that leads to nothing important. But what really is important? All that hype about being unique, important, born to change the world. Sorry guys, that´s bullshit. If all of us were unique, one of a kind and that special… then mediocrity would not exist and … again we would all be similar, everyone special in his or her own way. When I was younger my drive was for money, since that was the only way I could really value myself with a number, that meant to me how successful I was in life. Then came my 30s, and at one point it just clicked. Money means just a means of not worrying about next month’s bills and how to get food and it got me thinking – what is it all about? Family, life experiences, stories to tell, a clear answer still does not exist in my head, however, I know I want to live and experience for myself. Not for Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, sit silent and enjoy moments. Wake up with a smile on my face and enjoy the sunny days, stay cosy on the rainy and cold ones. Good enough for me.

Still the pressure comes, it always comes and then I tend to push to hyper speed, sort everything out in my head and how and what I´ll do, and pressure keeps me going and reaching new goals. Not always, sometimes I fail, but I learn the lesson (or at least try to), but if I learned anything about pressure in life – most of the things will go away by themselves I you don´t push up the drama too much. Work tasks which are not crucial will fade away, the important ones will keep knocking on your door, worry not. Relationships will happen, some people will stay, some will go, these few special ones will make life glow.

I wonder however, how other people cope, I always admired the really calm ones, how they tend to handle everything with such grace and frowned upon the drama queens, but I guess we all just have our way of handling things. I am really interested in knowing how you manage? Do you feel trapped in the everyday life hoping for something more but never really trying? Or did you try and failed so many times that it just does not make sense anymore? What is keeping you from starting training, eating healthy, quitting the so much hated job, taking that trip to some remote country, packing up and saying fuck you to your partner with whom you know you don´t belong? Why is it so difficult for us to change some things even though we know we should and could do better?

Life & stuff, Living in Munich, Germany

Doing business in Germany and trust issues (which I get)

I knew that being a foreigner, obviously not being a native German speaker and running a company with the HO in Slovenia might be an issue in the DACH market to some of our would-be clients even in today´s international environment.

I was not wrong, personally I experienced mixed or negative responses to my origin, but it did not leave me feeling too negative about it, as I tend to be sceptical of foreigners providing services or products, which is a trait I am not proud of, but I guess it comes with being human and having a certain perception or stereotype of a nation. Since I caught myself behaving in such a way on several occasions, I do not really blame people having the same initial response, and you can never really keep everyone happy, right.

So recently I had an experience where we were offering a solution to a client that really can benefit from it, so business case wise it is not an issue, however, we did the initial introductions (after the product was already presented to them by their IT consultant) via telephone. After the phone call, the CEO of the company said she will investigate our competitors and let us know. We knew there are no competitors that would offer this solution, at least not for that market price and outputs, but still, a month went by. Indirectly we found out that an issue was with my German on the phone call, so this resulted in scepticism. It is not a big deal that would be of strategic importance, however it is a very nice showcase how a client may benefit from our solutions and really save time, effort and operational costs when doing business. My colleague and I decided to meet the CEO in person and proposed a meeting.

We met, and I believe we left a good impression, that may potentially result in a bit broader scope of our services as initially anticipated, but we will see how the decision on the client side will go. Whichever way it turns out it is a clear indication that business is based on trust, which must be part of the package, no matter if your solution is really the best or the most competitive on the market. And I understand that, I cannot take it personally, even though I would very much rather have it the other way around, without prejudice as a global environment should be. This is part of doing business and if meeting people in person to try and get rid of that issue, I have no problem with that. We are here for the long term and building trust and reputation is something that one cannot achieve overnight.

My expectations for the future lie clear – there will be several more cases where our HO or my origins will lead to a trust issue with clients, surprisingly with larger clients this tends to not really be an issue since they are used to working with foreign companies and foreigners. For smaller companies I do believe they might be more conservative and that doubts will always be there. On my part I take it as a mission to prove ourselves and every such attempt will make us better, able to learn more and improve our communication and presentation for even the most sceptical clients. So, a friendly advice on my part – expect everything and if you are confident about your products or service, keep on persisting, it will show on the results and over the years you will manage to build up a brand and awareness of your company and these doubts will fade away through recommendations, good practices and happy clients.

The only thing that keeps bugging me in my mind is – would it have been different if I was from England, Switzerland, France, Austria? Who knows, I think probably yes, but possibly not. In the end it does not really make a difference to me, I know who I am, who we are and that we deliver quality in an efficient way. Therefore, persisting is the only way for me.

I will end this post with a quote attributed (but disputed) to Winston Churchill: “Success is all about going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”

Life & stuff

Ski trip gone bad

Being born in Slovenia, this brings with it some expectations. One of them for example – that I should know how to ski from age 3… ideally even before that. Skiing is an integral part of Slovene culture and free time activities and also in sports, Slovenian skiers are very good on a global level and tend to occasionally snatch even the highest medals and awards.

Well my family was never big on skiing, so I did not get my first set of skis with the age of 3, I did not reach pro level by the age of 10, my story is a bit different. It all started with a big emotional scar in relation to skiing. I guess it was about 11 years old, when we had a ski-trip in our school (as all elementary schools tend to have in Slovenia). I remember getting a set of skis waxed and sharpened the day before and I did feel a bit unsettled, since I knew I had no idea on how to ski. The ski trips before were a bit of a torment for me in watching out not to kill myself or possibly anybody else. Basically, as far as my skiing ability went, was to crouch on the skis, ride downhill in a straight line and hope for the terrain to flatten that I would stop. Period. That was it, plow was something I could to on a relatively flat surface I guess, and I never felt secure on the skis.

So basically, this ski trip was the day when we drove to Pohorje, north-eastern Slovenia and the teachers divided us in age and experience groups. Somehow, I did not end up in the 11 year/beginner group, but they put me together with the 14year old experienced skiers. Me being me, of course followed and did not complain. So, they said – ok, follow us, and went to another ski slope. To get there my “downhill” capacity was good enough, and then the trauma began to carve into my mind. First – the challenge was to get to the top, there was a surface lift (anchor formed) from which I always fell, mostly because of my paranoia. So, we tried about 10 times and by the time I finally got up, the group formed back and said – ok, now we will go to the next ski slope. Follow us… Sure, I can do that I thought, so I was the last one in line, everybody went, and I once again followed with my downhill skill I kept up well, until the moment, when everybody turned right, and I ended up hitting a tree. After laying in the snow in pain with all my stuff scattered around the tree for 15 minutes, the professor came back since he noticed I was missing. Basically, the day ended in a collar bone injury and me waiting in the medical facility for the ski-trip to end. That was the day I promised to myself I will never ski again.

Well as we all know, never say never. My next ski experience was when I was about 20 something, I was taking part on an international Mensa meeting in Slovenia on a smaller ski-resort called Kobla. I took part since I knew not everyone will ski and I will get to meet a whole bunch of interesting people. How I was wrong… of course even those of us who did not ski, did go to the “ski-cup” competition to cheer the competitors. There I was basically with no ski pants or jacket, being persuaded, that I should try since it´s not that hard. So … a part of me knew – try it, otherwise you will never know. And I tried. I still had no idea how to ski, but by that time you got the half-carving skis, which were much easier to maneuver as the ones I had as a kid. And I managed to ski, take some curves, and do a few rides down. And there it was, I was ready to compete… Of course, I competed, crashed spectacularly when trying to make the door, but still, completely unhurt, I found it still scary but not death-threatening as before from my childhood years, when I was terrified by just the thought of skiing.

On that day I did learn another lesion about skiing though – sunscreen. I got completely sunburned to my face and spend the next few days turning from red to violet and slowly back to white. Lesson learned.

A few years passed, with me avoiding any invitation for ski-trips since I really did not understand the fun about skiing and spending a few days of my life on vast ski-slopes. Until a few years ago another Mensa international event was happening on another ski slope in Slovenia, Krvavec. It was again a three-day event and I attended. This time I decided I will finally learned how to ski. On the first day I took an instructor and we stared from basics. After two hours I kind of had an idea about how to turn, how to stop, etc. On the third day I was still skiing scared, but I was skiing. Again, the competition happened and again I crashed. But it did not stop me in accepting invitations for ski trips from that point on.

After that I did a few few-day trips in Kronplatz, Schladming and a few one-day trips to Slovenian ski slopes. The last time was in 2016, when I skied on Krvavec in a fog where I could not see more 2 meters ahead. But I was skiing, didn´t matter that I did not know where I was, I felt good and I enjoyed skiing even before that. Once you get the feeling and understand that you can basically stop anywhere, skiing becomes real fun. Even black ski tracks were doable. So since I moved to Munich there was a lot of talk that we should use the opportunity to visit the ski slopes in Austria, which are usually an hour and a half away if traffic is light and I do plan a visit to Colorado in March where I definitely want to try out the slopes.

Understanding that still I was never really into skiing and after 2 years from my last ski day, I should brush up on my skills again, we decided to visit a local ski slope in the vicinity of Tegernsee, about an hour’s drive from Munich. This time I was sure everything will go well. Oh, how I was wrong…

My skiing was basic, but we hit the slopes immediately as you swim best when you get thrown into water. We did a few rides, so the couple I was with spent some time working on the ski-skills I took a ride by myself. And then it happened, a little girl in ski school somehow ended directly in front of me when I was taking a curve, it all happened so fast that I only remembering to yell out “Watch out” (in German, which surprised me), trying to avoid, but hit her full force. The girl was about 10 years old, and we crashed hard and you can imagine a 110+kg guy hitting a tiny 10-year-old is not cool. I fell as well and when I came to, she was lying on the ground whining, luckily people came around, protected the side and a group of doctors training were 100 meters away, so she immediately got attention. With 4 doctors present I sat down and observed, hoping that she did not break anything. They first checked if the remembered who she is, which day it was, etc. to establish that there is no brain trauma, then the upper part of her leg was hurt. She was very brave and stopped crying quite fast, but still mentioning that her leg hurts. This never happened to me, and I had no idea what to do but to feel bad. They put her in a stretcher and I went down with one of the doctors. She was taking part in a ski-school, with the ski instructor not being present, which surprised me a bit, but still, did not have time to think about any of that. After the ambulance took her to the hospital for x-ray, and after the police arrived to take statements, I started to understand that this may also have legal implications. However, my worries were with the girl if the will be ok, or does she have a broken leg. The speed was not great, but I gave my telephone number to the police officer to give to her parents so that if they wanted they would let me know if she is ok. I did not get any calls, so I really hope that it was just a bruise and that she will be fine and not traumatized by this ski accident as I was when I was a kid. She was one of the bravest girls I ever saw, surrounded by people she did not know, she did not cry and waited patiently.

It also ruined my day, even though the doctors and police assured me that accidents happen all the time and that probably everything should be fine. What I was surprised to learn was that in Bavaria there is a special attorney general just for ski accidents. 99% of the time they do not result in state prosecution, but sometimes if there is suspicion that it was intentional or due to reckless skiing with resulting injuries, then it may go to court.

Since speed was not high, I am convinced that she will be fine and that she will keep skiing. With the way she handled the accident I have no doubt that she will not let fear control her decisions about skiing. As I did not let mine control me. I went skiing again on the same slope the next weekend and it was great, no accidents, a wonderful day spent on the slopes.

The moral of the story? I guess you get it, but in the end for me – even if an experience is bad, it should not mean that you should let something go completely and miss out on the positive side.

Life & stuff, Living in Munich, Germany, PR - Philosophical Rambling

Do you speak Balkan?

So after a really intense few weeks of work (and working or sleeping most of the weekends as well), I finally got a chance to spend the first weekend in February on a more social note. This meaning taking a ski trip to Spitzingsee – Tegernsee to finally brush up on my skiing before I go to the states, which was an experience deserving it´s own blog post, visiting a home party of my coworker, which ended up in myself, my friend and his friend going to a Balkan Party in Munich.

I was certain for quite a while that Balkan parties exist in Munich as it has a strong presence of people from former Yugoslav nations, so the question was only – where and when do they actually happen. Luckily on that day someone wrote in the FB group Slovenians in Munich if someone else will go to that concert/party in one of Munich clubs, I immediately checked it out and of course knew exactly that I need to try and end up there if the social evening would result in going out to party. And what an experience it was, I loved every moment of it with a smile.

So what exactly is a balkan party anyway? Basically it´s a lot of music, of course from the Balkan area and if you understand the lyrics it´s quite heart warming if you combine it with some alcohol for the soul. What I love about that is also that so many nations have this common point through which we can connect, no matter where we are. A big part of that is also dancing, something I love to do, but missed in Germany for the most part, as people tend to hang out in bars rather than going to dance clubs and just hitting the dancefloor (but it does happen, of course). Also with balkan you get high intensity, the moment we came to the entrance of the club, we heard a glass break and a woman shouthing that no, it wasn´t her that smashed the glass. Once we entered, I went to the bar to order drinks, did my best in german, but the bartender looked at me and she asked: Sprichst du Balkan? Which basically means – do you speak Balkan? Balkan of course is not a language, but the languages are so similar that any will do to order a drink. Once we established that, I could wave from the biggest crowd and drinks were on the way, thats´s how balkan parties work, with a small tip included of course. At the moment the first drink was served, a fight happened right next to me, it was basically a woman beating the hell out of a guy that was twice her size, not really sure what he did, but it was surely something really out of bounds. I carefully protected the drinks, she broke his tooth, after that security pulled them apart and the party could go on.

It was amazing fun, the whole club knowing the words to the songs and the dancefloor was crowded, I stayed until the end with a big smile on my face. A great experience, reminded me of home, even though that in Slovenia it is not often that you find a club with “balkan” music, there are a few, but the main ones frown upon such music. Well truth be told, we always end up in such clubs in the end.

What is interesting is that every weekend this club attracts well known performers from Serbia, Croatia, so it is on the map and also on my go-to list if I go and party it out again in Munich. Which might not be so soon, as the hangover from the vodka-redbulls on sunday was really, really bad and once again (as every 1-2 years) I swore I will not drink that mix again. Ever. Until next time.

Of course without a photo gallery, any such party would make no sense for women to put on their hottest dresses and make-up, so to get a feeling on how it looked, you can click that link and check our the photos. But photos alone will never give you the experience of the vibe you feel at such a party, so visiting is your best bet, I promise you will not be disappointed if you are just looking to celebrate life.

This club is one of the bigger ones I saw in Munich so far, it has a lounge bar, a dance floor, an upper floor and a smoking area, so something for everyone. You can check out future events and concerts here. Also remember that respect is key, respect the ladies and the guys and everyone will be happy and you will have a great time. Even if you spill drinks on the really biggest and baddest guy in the club, he will understand, but being annoying may get you hurt, especially with the ladies, that´s the balkan way.

PR - Philosophical Rambling

Keeping up a blog is harder than one might think

It has been a long while since I posted anything on my blog, even though I planned I should create at least one post per week. It is not the lack of ideas on what to write about, I have a lot of them and I write them down every time I have an experience I deem fit to share with others.

However, finding the time to actually sit down and write a post and publish it is harder than I anticipated when I started. I still stand firm and know that with taking the time it will become part of my habit, hopefully to keep the people who read it entertained and maintain a regular readership.

To overcome this whining, I decided to share with you a page, or a blog, as we call it today, that left a mark on me. This page was started before “blogging” as we know it became a popular thing, I believe it stared in the late 1990´s by a guy from the USA and has attracted more than quarter billion visitors so far. Not bad for a one-man show. His posts ranged from rants, comical posts about current events or sometimes even philosophical stuff. I enjoy the opportunity to share it with you. There was no rule on how often he posted, but his posts guaranteed that you had fun reading them if you understood the underlying sarcasm of his writings.

With no further ado, I present to you – the best page in the universe, created by Maddox the pirate: http://maddox.xmission.com/. Take the time, browse through it and although you did not follow it from the early beginnings (as I was lucky to have done), I do hope you will enjoy his content. If nothing else to fill the time, when you visit my blog and find that I published no new content, 20 years of history on his page should keep you occupied for a while.

Do not forget to check in every now and then and see if I finally found the time to publish something new. It´s the readership that keeps me creating and prioritising my time.