Monday, December 17, 2007

Appendix: Exercises and executive summary

I used the metaphor of a book for my stay in Sri Lanka. Now that we are approaching the end of the book (flying back home Feb 18!) it has become evident that the theoretical content of the book has come to an end: All major things that were supposed to be done here have been done. Now it's time for the exercises and executive summary.

Exercises...

My objective for the stay here was four-fold: "To become mentally, physically and spiritually balanced entrepreneur." Mentally I have grown to understand who I am, how I think, what are my flaws and how to live with them. Mental balance: check! Spiritually, I've come to respect people with different belief systems and realized my one is as good as theirs though mine doesn't involve a god as such. Spiritual balance: check! Physically, now that's still a work in progress.

For the past few months I've played badminton a lot. I love that game. I used to play it before and I'm happy I got back to it. If you're playing singles it's all about power, stamina and over-witting your opponent. Not to mention breaking the mental barriers of being afraid to win people who are supposedly better than you. Playing doubles is a different game altogether: You need chemistry with your pair to move around the field and cover the empty spots while always thinking 2-3 moves ahead. Maybe not as advanced tactics as in chess but still something. Whatever game you play it's still sports, it makes you sweat and it's good for you, right? And it's so much fun!

So, what's news? I've always loved playing games. I've always been very competitive. I always enjoyed winning. Surprisingly, I also started enjoying going to gym. Now that is a biggie for me.

Sounds great, no? Dude is going to the gym regularly and playing badminton. Warning, warning, warning! Maintaining this life style can be another challenge altogether. Going to different environment, with different set of friends, with different price structure, with different climate and with different distances (now we have just 400m for the sports complex!) poses a challenge that I need to be prepared for. Finding excuses for slipping back to the old ways is very easy for me since "discipline" ain't in my dictionary. But at least I'm aware of that fact.

Executive summary...

Summarizing the competence generated here can be a tougher job than getting the experience itself. I'm talking about the entrepreneurship part now! Lately I've done a lot of translations of our Unleash Talent stuff so it could be used in Finland at least as effectively as it has worked here. Now translating is not that easy as it sounds: You're not just taking a word and changing it to another language but you got to take into account how it sounds, how people will understand it and what kind of cultural notions there might be. It is a long, detail-oriented, even monotonous process but every time I'm thinking of "how to communicate this in Finnish" helps me to visualize my near future; a future where I can't depend on anyone else for financial stability anymore; a future full of possibilities; a future packed with failures and a few successes; a future that I'm going to create. Damn excited!

posted by Tomi Astikainen @ Monday, December 17, 2007