Arhiva: august 2016

I’ve always read a lot since I was about 5 and I learned how to read. The thing is, building MavenHut took a lot of time and I’ve stopped reading as much as I used to. So I decided recently to read more.

Reading books gives me a lot of ideas. And the worst thing I can do is not do anything with them. So I need to start experimenting those ideas somehow. I don’t know how, yet, so this is an issue. But now I understand my need. I suppose the solution will appear at the right time.

By the way, I am not talking about business books. While they do give me great ideas, some of the best ideas come from fiction. Especially SciFi.

In case you’re wondering, I am writing an article now on the books I’ve read recently. So you might want to come back in several days.

I’m writing a longer article right now for the blog and I kept asking myself why I write in English and not in Romanian, my native language. It would be a lot easier to express ideas, after all, right?

Well, it might be easier, but I think that English forces me to be more efficient when I communicate. If you don’t think it’s efficient, think what it would be like in Romanian :)

The truth is that I don’t have such an extensive vocabulary in English. It forces me to express ideas in simpler words. I need to use less words, as well. It is a pain in the ass (watch that language, mister!), but I feel it’s easier for me to communicate ideas this way.

Of course, there is also the arrogance of believing that a global audience has nothing better to do than reading what I write. But that’s not me, no, no! I am just doing this as an exercise in efficiency.

I’ve been a curious kid. As most children are, I’m sure. The thing is I managed to continue being curious throughout adulthood. And I don’t mean being curious about my job or my personal hobbies and interests. I was always genuinely curious about what other people considered interesting, how they overcame difficulties, how they built their success. I remember reading somewhere that everyone is interesting because they managed to survive this long. I’m not THAT curious to talk to everybody, but still, I think we all have something interesting to say, for the right person.

I think this is what made me start a radio show about IT entrepreneurship 10 years ago for what was the first online radio in Romania, RadioLynx. They took a chance on me and I need to thank them for it.

The radio shows, 6 years of them, about 20-30 per year, opened my eyes to a lot of things. From someone talking to us about internet related laws in Romania to a TV news anchor discovering the fun of writing on his own blog, from lifestyle business to VC-supported startups, from multi-million international companies to local ones, I’ve had a lot of guests on the show. And I learned so much from them and from our audience.

Back to the present, though :)

Right now I am on a much needed longer vacation, so I had a little bit of time to think about things while Cristi and Elvis work hard. Yeah, driving around Europe, as I am doing now, gives you a lot of time for reflection.

I understood that in the last 4-5 years I focused a lot on being curious about what I was doing, mainly building games and growing MavenHut. This meant that I wasn’t that curious about other people’s projects and ideas unless they were directly related to what I was doing. I feel that I am missing a lot because the best ideas I’ve ever had were interdisciplinary, coming from areas I wouldn’t expect. After all, one of the good ideas implemented at MavenHut, the Solitaire tournaments, came from me and Cristi’s playing poker online in Multi Table Tournaments.

I just found out that I miss talking to people that do different things than I do. If you didn’t listen to Tom Ferriss’s podcast, give it a try. He talks to guests from actors like Jamie Foxx to entrepreneurs like Matt Mullenweg or special forces people and the interviews are really insightful. These interviews are, probably, one of the reasons I realized I was missing being curious and asking questions about things I had no ideas, where I felt I could learn a lot.

There’s no conclusion to this article.

Just that, if you get an email from me to meet and you think we have nothing to talk about, you might be right. On the other hand, I have some stories to tell, as well…