Sunday, May 23, 2010

Overcoming obstacles.


There are many ways to introduce this kind of topic.. I'm going for a leap of faith and choose the worst one: I'm not the best person to talk about this subject, because I still have a lot to learn and a long way to master it. This was also the main reason I postponed introducing the theme in a previous post. At that time I realized that some more time was needed to digest all the things recently learned.

But still.., we're here to share experiences, and even though this one is not yet complete, it is worth to be mentioned. So, let's get started:

"Every wall is a door" (Ralph Waldo Emerson).
As already iterated previously, any problem should be seen as an opportunity. With this positive mindset, we can overcome even the most difficult situations, and also turn them into profitable outcomes.
But what happens when we either have no idea what so ever, or many solutions to choose from. Well, now it's time to explain the initially desired connection between creativity and obstacles: when overcoming the latter, creativity plays an important role. Just trying to do things the "right way", may not always be the right thing to do.
Also, experimenting or initiating a failure can actually help us gain more knowledge, than applying the same old solution over and over again.
Initiating failure by intentionally making a mistake, can open new perspectives. For example, I know a few people that enjoy DIY projects and always come up with new solutions to old problems. More than that, they don't apply the exact same solution twice, but continuously try to improve on the last one, or even create new solutions.
Of course, not everything turns perfect every time, but things evolve at a fast pacing in this manner.
Now, that's a successful collaboration between creativeness and boldness in assuming risks. So, taking some risks is a actually one of the solutions when faced with an obstacle.

Another concept that I discovered to be useful is to ask yourself: "how much is this particular thing going to matter in 10 years?" or "who would care in 10 years about this moment?".
These questions come in handy especially when panicking over some petty little things that no one is going to remember in a few months, much less in a few years.
We have this tendency to exaggerate over the least important things in life and we forget about the things that really matter.

Membership has it's privileges.
Doing things alone is not always a good idea. We are limited by our own capabilities as individuals and it's a well known fact that together we can achieve a lot more.
Being a member of a larger community grants us access to sharing of ideas, acquiring knowledge from more experienced members, and seeing things from different perspectives.

Since we were introduced to the Bucharest's business incubator (Bucharest Hub), things that took us 6 months to understand, started to become more clear in a matter of weeks. It was not the amount of information that counted, but it's quality.
We used to think that the internet can provide for anything. The problem is that the internet is too big, with a lot of fragmented information (from which, a lot is ideal or too general to be easily applied in particular cases). Is a lot more useful to talk directly to experienced people and ask for their qualified opinion.

And I'll end this post as abruptly as it was started: "to be continued" :)

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