Catalin Costea

The placebo effect is known to have cured people from diseases that have no cure, to have made pain and other symptoms disappear and even to overcome depressions. Actually almost 50% from people suffering from depressions show improvements when having placebo pills.

The placebo effect is basically a lie. But a really efficient one. A lie that gives results because the person lied to does not know it’s a lie.

Might the placebo effect work the same way when it comes to accomplishing other things as well? What if each day you told yourself that you can make it, that your work is great, that your project will succeed, that your book will become a bestseller? Could this work?

Lie to yourself long enough and you might turn it into reality.

I am certain that you have heard how great ideas emerge. It can be the apple falling on Newton’s head, August Kekule ring structure which came to him in his dream or the eureka moment which Archimedes had while jumping in the bath tub.

People love to believe epiphany moments really happen. It makes life a lot easier for them because this means you can’t do anything about it. It’s all about the luck of having a divine moment of inspiration. You sure love to believe that this is how things are because it offers you the perfect excuse.

The truth is that there is no such moment of revelation. It’s all about the knowledge you have, the information you own, all the things you have tried and failed at, all the mistakes you have learned from. What really matters is what you have done until now because all ideas come from our ability to make new connections based on the information we already have.

So go out there, try, fail, learn and keep building your moment of inspiration.

Leadership is the new best thing. Big companies are always searching for leaders, political parties are constantly trying to create them, each industry needs new leaders in order to evolve and most of you would like to be one.

What makes leaders so highly appreciated and sought after is their ability to make things move. They offer a direction, a sense of purpose, a common goal which brings people together and makes them move towards achieving it.

Then what’s the big secret behind becoming a leader? The truth is that there is no secret. To become a leader you need one thing and one thing only. A follower. Once you got your first follower you become a leader.

Now that you know how leaders are made, go become one or go create one. Do any of the two but just don’t stay idle.

Work, no matter how hard, boring or challenging, would be just work if it wasn’t for deadlines. When deadlines come into play, work changes and becomes a commitment. A commitment to deliver your part, an idea, a product.

Delivering scares you. You have no problem doing the work. Work does not scare you because as long as you don’t have to deliver something, to produce something, you are safe. Delivering, on the other hand, means that your work will be available to others. That is why many people push deadlines and refuse to deliver.

Overcome fear. Work without delivering means nothing. Give yourself deadlines. Make a commitment to deliver even if the result is not exactly as you would want it to be. Do whatever it takes to have the best product before the deadline but when the date comes deliver no matter what.

Make a commitment to deliver something, make it now and deliver.

Take more risks so I can fail more… Fail more so I can learn more… Learn more so I know how to do things better

Burn all the maps… Start a journey and get lost… Find my way… Draw new, better maps to burn

Start something new… Push something through the dip… Finish something

Start doing more things… Have less free time…  Force myself to do things faster… Force myself to do things better… Become more productive

Make new friends… See new friends become old friends… Keep in touch with old friends

Walk… Run… Sprint

Learn something new… Master something… Teach something new

Stop for a second… Smile… Carry on with what I was doing

No half-truths, no lies. Let the experiment begin.

We all want more time to do certain things. Some might want more time to read, others to work, to be with friends, to play with their kids, to watch TV and so on.

There is no such thing as more time. We all got 60 seconds a minute, 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day. In this time we are faced with a series of choices and decisions that make up our day. Days turn into months, months into years, years into lives.

Each decision is what creates your life. We have a limited amount of time and we can only do so much in that time. For every thing we choose we give up a million other possibilities that might have turned our day into something else.

Time is the same for everyone. What we do in that time is what makes the difference. So choose wisely and enjoy.

The purpose of maps is to get you from one place to another by using the fastest, shortest or safest route. At first we only used them to travel from a place to another, but as we became addicted to them we started creating maps for our education, for our jobs (we call them careers or job paths), our relationships and friendships, we have even created maps to guide our entire lives.

While most people use maps because they see them as the easy and comfortable way to obtain what they want without taking any risks or assume responsibility, some choose not to use them, overcome their fears and start making their own decisions and their own maps.

While both ways have advantages and disadvantages, just remember that no one who was following a map ever discovered a new place.

Everything is a sale. When you go to the supermaket to buy what you need, when you go at work and sell your time and knowledge for money or benefits, the time spent with your friends, your relationships, love and even when you do a random good deed you do it for the rewarding feeling you get.

There is no such thing as doing something whitout getting or at least expecting something on return. No one does random disinterested deeds.

If everything is a sale then all your actions are part of that sale. The way you dress, how you speak, your attitude, every single thing you do is your marketing strategy for a sale.

Whatever you do just make sure you don’t sell yourself cheap.

At one of my first interviews I have been told “we hire people based on their skills and we fire them because of their attitude”. This stuck with me for years before I really could have a clear opinion on the matter.

The truth is that many companies do this and it’s understandable if you only consider some short term advantages. It’s more comfortable and cheaper to hire someone who already has the skills needed to perform the tasks that the position requires at that moment. While I don’t deny the importance skills have, a person possessing the right skills but with the wrong attitude will not have the desired results. It might even turn out to perform worst than a less skilled person but with the right attitude.

Most positions require constant improvement, learning new things, acquiring different skills and a lot of teamwork. I believe there’s no need for me to underline how important attitude is when we view this from a long term perspective.

No matter how technical good a person is, attitude will make the difference either on the short or long term. So it’s better to hire people based on their attitude and work from there.

Many argue that one way to succeed in life is to fake it ’till you make it. If someone asks if you can do something say you can even if you don’t know you can, promise things even if you don’t know you can deliver them and even lie about what you have done or can do.  This can always work but how long do you have to fake it until you finally make it? Also after you made it once don’t you still have to fake it until you make it again and again?

The other way is to focus on authenticity, which is one of the most important factors of leadership. Always promise something you are certain you can deliver, never overrate yourself and be totally honest. This might sound like an easy option but the truth is that not all authentic people make it. They don’t make it because they lack other skills or attributes they would need to make it, because they made poor choices or even because they did the right thing but at the wrong time.

Either way success is not a guarantee but it’s way easier to be authentic in the modern society where everyone has a camera so you are always under the loop, where each client can post his experience with you online and it can be viewed by a hundred, a thousand or a million possible clients and where one false move can destroy a reputation.