Author: Andrea Grassi

Today I was at tedx arezzo and there was a wonderful speech about how Bolzano citizens thought that there was a chinese invasion, even if it wasn’t true.

Perception is a thing, reality is a whole different game.

Today I realize one big thing: It’s a whole different game between experiencing something and thinking we can understand it.

I’ve started a small business last year with a really small amount of money.
Now I’ve got problems, issues, and so on, that brought me some additional stress.
It’s no big deal, but still it’s something to work on.

Well, what I realized is that many of the business struggles were different.
Now, I get the tension my bosses have towards me, I understand the urgency they have when something is not done.
I say this from the perspective of a loyal, very passionate worker, not a slacking worker.
I always did my best, tried my best, but ultimately shielded my life from the business consequences.

Every time I closed the office door, I knew that it was over (I love working, but I also love doing other stuff).
When you run a business everything stays in your mind so my new goal is to reach the same “zen-mind” that I have on my daily job in my personal business.

The first thing that’s helping me towards this goal is being a bit stoic.
Imaging the worst consequences is a great start to understand how unrealistic they are and it helped me getting over the stress.

But this is not enough. I still have to work on processes and on lowering my overall complications.
Everything can and should be slimmer, faster, more agile. And that’s what I’m aiming to.

I have a brother who doesn’t talk so well, but he tries his best to do it.
In real life this is not much of a problem because he usually replace his missing words with body language and he’s quite effective when he do so.

I gave him a telegram account linked to his cellphone and now he’s trying to establish a contact with me through those messages.
It’s marvelous.
I didn’t realize how much joy this action would bring into my life, but it’s amazing.

He tries to talk with me every day and I don’t know if it’s because he tries hard or if I’m starting to understand him, but it seems to me that he’s getting better at talking.
Word by word he improves every day.

Today I also got to think about the family and how we grow up.
As usual, during our teenage years we tend to hate the family reunions mostly because we don’t get the reason why we are there.
We could be with our friends after all.

When you grow, you slowly start understanding why this is so important and why we should help them.
Today I know why this is important and at the same time I respect how a teenager doesn’t want to stay with the older ones.
It’s growing up, and we all have to do that.

I do think that we should be free.
Free to choose without issues.

I like when I can move on and off from systems with just a click, because it doesn’t lock me in, I feel I can do more.
Therefore I spontaneously apply this same rule to my work life.
I try to be not required, and in fact I believe that’s one of the best thing to be free.

Now, becoming “not required”, doesn’t mean you are not necessary to your job, it means someone can cover your job if it’s required. It means that if you’re on holiday you’ll get less calls, it means people can find a way to fix crashes even when you’re not online.

As with everything this comes at a price, the price for you to know that you can be replaceable even though not entirely and not in the same way (they might not get another “not required”).

On the other hand feeling required is pleasing because it makes you feel important. We all have the need to have a goal, a purpose, but being important is not worth it for me, even though you might fear to lose the job.
I think we can do way better if we focus on value, on helping, and on not being required but instead “swappable”.

For example basecamp switch teams every now and then so that everyone can work on any project.
This is a recipe for success.

Today I was thinking about accepting failure for once.
But even thinking about it and then writing it made me realize that no, we shouldn’t surrender.