Catalin Costea

The past is easy to explain. After every event explanations are easy to find, causes are easy to fight off, elements that should have suggested that outcome become obvious and false prophets arise.

Think about the economical crisis and all the people who now claim they had predicted it. If you ask them when the next one will be, most certainly they won’t be able to tell you. They are even going to argue that the next one won’t be so obvious like this one was.

This only creates a false illusion of the capacity to predict the future in which many people become trapped. They become so confident in their ability to see what is going to happen that most times they forget to take into consideration basic statistics and obvious faults in their logic.

The more people consider themselves experts in a field and able to predict what is going to happen, the more likely they are to be wrong when making a prediction. Life is random and luck plays an important role in our day to day life so the best option is to take into consideration statistical probabilities and work from there.

Instead of trying to predict the future try to model it, shape it as you want it to be. Creating the future as you want it to be is the best way of predicting it.

Everything is a sale. The problem is that most people think that if they have to sell something they have to act like it. They offer the standard speech, the pitch learned from the sales trainer, or just come upfront and start talking about their product. They are there just to sell something and that’s all they focus on.

Now, if you look at companies like Apple, Starbucks, Radisson and at how they treat their customers you will see that their focus is not on the product they sell. Indeed, they do offer a lot of attention to the products, the quality of what they offer, and how to increase their sales, but you will never see that as their main focus. They are there to offer you an experience, to increase the quality of your life, to create a memorable experience.

There are two main differences that this approach creates. The first is related to their customers and to the fact that the latter get to feel more than just a customer. They get more than a product with every purchase they make and most times they come back just for that extra something. It’s one of the best ways to create loyalty to your brand and happy customers.

On the other hand, for non-customers, the interaction being focused away from the product and on the person creates curiosity and comfort. No one likes people who invade their space with a sales tactics. Furthermore, when a company representative is more interested in your needs, interests, your person, the bond is created. You don’t need to come with a sales speech since the customer will offer you the story they need to hear.

A sale is never a sale; interaction, connection and caring are far above any pitch for a product and far more efficient.

Most people have a problem when someone else is rewarded, becomes successful or wins a game because of luck. Any other rational explanation like better skilled, more experienced, a better tactic, even being better looking will do, but luck isn’t acceptable. It does not make sense and it irritates people.

Luck is a big, constant part of life. In almost every game, every business, in every job luck will influence the results. Even if most people believe that mostly skills, experience, knowledge and hard work will make the difference, the truth is that luck will also play a big part in most cases.

When the differences are small, the one who gets a better day, the one who thinks of a solution a second faster, the one who decides to take a risk even if nothing suggests he would win – this is not about skills or knowledge, it’s about luck.

Here is where most people feel frustrated because others had that luck and they didn’t. They consider the other person not worthy of the success because luck influenced everything.

Actually, the other person has the merit of doing everything prior and after that moment of luck. In order for luck to strike you’ve got to do something, to get out of bed in the morning, to get moving, to start working, to create something, to put in the hard work, to take risks. People forget about all of these and see only that lucky moment.

Luck might make the difference but it won’t do much without all the work that lead to it.

If you ever thought you deserve better than that, you have to know you didn’t. You get exactly what you deserve even if you have the impression you might have deserved more. Think of this like any imperfect market without a balance between offer and demand, and where rewards and outcomes vary even for similar actions and products.

Some people believe they should be treated better, they should have a better salary or a better job, a better house, a better car, better friends or lovers. What they don’t consider is that all of these are consequences of their actions and if they are unhappy with the current state and results it’s up to them to change things.

Life is not a place where everything is balanced and fair, where people get exactly the same rewards for doing identical things. Life is random, luck has a lot more influence that people are willing to accept and any detail, no matter how small, can make a huge difference.

The good side of this is that it can also work in your favour. You could hit the jackpot with something you never expected while something you would normally believe will be a success will do really bad. All you have to do is never give up, try over and over again and always try to learn from previous experiences.

Deserving and actually getting are not the same thing.

It has to be you. Even if it might sound ridiculous, it’s one of the most important things. A lot of people do things they don’t like, hate their jobs, stay in dysfunctional relationships, don’t like the way they look.

It’s hard to make someone else like you when you don’t like yourself. If you are not satisfied with your work, if you don’t find it emotionally rewarding, then other won’t either.

Anything you do, you must be proud of it, it has to make you happy and you have to be enthusiastic about showing it to others. This is how fans act and that’s how your relationship with your art should be.

In order to become your number one fan you have to start doing the things you love.

The power of storytelling lies in two things; the story being told and how you tell it. They are both essential to a good story, but no matter how good you are at storytelling if the story you choose does not resonate with the other person, it’s a losing battle.

This is why most sales representatives fail with their clients, why most people giving a speech will lose their audience, why companies fail getting customers, people getting a job or the project they want. They all just approach the other part and start telling them a story, without even knowing what the other person is interested in.

All you have to do is take your time, be patient, ask a lot of questions, be empathic and resonate with the other person. Get the information, find the other person’s needs, learn from his past experiences and then use that to empower your story. Make each story personal, meaningful for the other person on an emotional level. This is how you will get attention, interest and results.

Asking the right questions will lead you exactly to the story the other person will want to hear.

Stop doing it.

Usually, the more you try to do it, the less you will succeed. Trying to impress means that you need to get attention and in order to do that you need to get into people’s faces. Everyone wants their share of attention, the need to feel important, meaningful and involved.

Once you try to capture all the attention, it will make them react and reject you. Struggling to get attention is really hard and most times ends up in people considering you as spam, intrusive and eventually end up ignoring you.

On the other hand, if you focus on your art, put in the effort, offer emotional implication and create curiosity, you won’t need to struggle for attention nor will you need to try to impress people.

Once you create something memorable people will know. Focus on doing something worth being remembered.

Every person and company has to find their advantage, their competitive edge, their talent in order to succeed. In their search to find advantages, most people and companies look at the same things. People usually look at skills, knowledge and experience, while companies look at price, quality and new technologies.

While these advantages are certain to bring the extra value in order to succeed, when most people compete on the same level it always becomes harder to get to the top and keep yourself there. This is the point where creativity and innovation kick in by finding and exploiting other characteristics that can become an advantage.

An excellent example is Starbucks. Even if their main products are coffee based drinks, they don’t serve the best coffee in the world, not even by far. As they state, they are not even in the serving coffee business, but in delivering joy. They are a coffee shop, selling coffee, but their focus – their advantage – is the joy they deliver.

The same is true for employees. Most try to fit the job description, to have the necessary skills that everyone has in order to better fulfill the job requirements, but they lack that something special. When having to choose from a large mass of people with almost the same skills, people will start to look for that element that makes the difference. Most times it’s about the attitude, about having the courage to stand out, to be noticed and to be memorable.

These people are the ones who break the rules, the ones who change everyone’s mood when they enter the room, the ones who will never give up or back down. They are the artists, the ones who find their talent and exploit it to the maximum.

You don’t have to be a painter, a musician, a photographer or an actor to be an artist. Even if most people associate these activities with artists, the fact is that anyone can be an artist. Art means taking an activity to a level beyond what normal people can do, it means to master it, to be creative, to create something out of the ordinary and to be memorable, no matter what you do.

Messi is an artist. Anthony Robbins is also an artist. Even Margaret Thatcher is an artist. These are all people who took what they did at a level that is not accessible to everyone else and changed the game and became memorable. They are the ones who have courage to go beyond what everyone else is doing, they assume responsibility and put in the hard work.

Doing the hard things, facing and overcoming fear creates value. In a world where most people strive to be normal, to fit the norms and just be like everyone else, the ones getting rewarded are artists. They get the best jobs, the best projects, the biggest pay check, fame, attention, notoriety.

Artists are all about passion, focusing on their talent, exploiting their advantages, facing fear and making a change.

The current educational system is broken. It was designed back in the time of factories when its purpose was to educate people to become perfect employees for the system. While the economy is quickly adjusting after the economical crisis and the changes the system has suffered, education is still to keep up.

People rely too much on formal, systematic, mass education systems. Many people consider that mass education is enough to help you get a job and have a decent lifestyle. While this has been true in the past, now it’s not so much the case anymore. Think about the ’50; if you had a university degree, you had access to the best possible jobs. That’s because very few people had a university degree. Now it’s estimated that one third of the  people will have a university degree.

Education does not offer skills. It only creates a base for skills to be developed, increased, refined, but it does not substitute them. Having a degree or having followed a few training courses is only a step in mastering something. I have come across people who claimed that they knew how to do “anything non-technical” purely by graduating from a university.

On the other hand, the opposite is true as well. Experience is not enough. Some people rely only on their experience and on how they have done things until the present moment. As the world evolves and technology influences a lot more profoundly the world we live in, new models, ways of acting and new means become available. Refining your knowledge offers you access to all of these. Continuous learning will help you keep up with the latest technology and practices.

Education is not the same thing as learning. You can learn from doing, from reading a book, from attending a training, from having a conversation with someone, from seeing someone do something. Education offers you a degree, a lot of information that you might not need and if done right, a part of the skills you will need to refine afterwards.

Learning offers you what you need, only faster and without a degree.