Bianca Dămoc, Author at Bianca Dămoc on slow marketing, productivity and humaning sucessfully • Page 6 of 7

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2 minutes of reading

the first time I’ve ever had to write a CV was for school, as homework.
it’s not all that surprising, seeing how I have a bachelor’s degree in human resources.

what is surprising, however…

is that, my first time writing a CV, has conveniently also been, my last.

why? well, at the risk of inserting too many backfitting explanations, it still reads as nice story, so here goes…

CV is an acronym for curriculum vitae.
curriculum = course/schedule
vitae = life

I’ve been completely financially independent since the old age of 20,
have had quite a few ~~jobs~~ clients since,
and have never once been asked to summarize my life’s course,
not in a linear-progression-of-job-titles-per-anum kind of way.

and thank god for that, I don’t think my kindergarten teacher would want to provide a reference.

work is less about the different forms of work and is more about the skills you develop playing this infinite game.

if you’re lucky to live in a country that gives you the freedom of choice and information, then you hopefully know that no one in history has ever had more options to choose a new career and access to learn the necessary skills, than we have today.

there is nothing inherently wrong with the idea of having your life’s course laid out, for an employer to measure your fit within the company,

what is wrong, is the mass obsession it produces for aesthetic job titles, as opposed to rewarding, or, dare I say, enjoyable ones.

I understand the need for a system that allows for easy vetting, but we must not substitute rigor for logic,

there are innumerable inimitable personal and professional experiences that cannot be reflected in a LinkedIn profile.

we have the technology to do it,
it’s simply a matter of erasing the hard lines the industrial revolution has drawn around work,

now we know better, so we must do better.

as for myself…

I am moved like a puppet pulled by the strings of my own curiosities,

the collection of rabbit holes I have fallen into trying to figure out “how this fucking thing works” now accounts for my continuously evergrowing and everchanging skillset,

I’ve completed enough levels to now know what game I want to play, indefinitely.
(at least for now)

today is day 199 of the year, there are 166 days remaining of 2022.

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pepeni de dăbuleni

2 minutes of reading

the bigger it gets,
the bigger the team,
the lengthier the list of software,
the more money,
the more responsibilities,
the more forceful the pressure to make (more) money,
the more we lose track of the obvious.

Obvious Adams by Robert Updegraff is a pillar book in marketing, we should all revisit with every trip to the bathroom.

if you haven’t yet read it, the premise of the book is “keep it simple, stupid”

writing must be simple,
product must be simple,
offer must be simple.

simple ≠ easy.

I found my most favorite example of this rule in a very unlikely place…

a farmer’s market in romania.

much like every other country, romania has different areas known to produce the best X product.

portugal has porto wine.
colombia has coffee.
dăbuleni has watermelons.

as a result, seemingly every single watermelon sold in romania comes from dăbuleni.

which makes me think that the sellers are either
A. lying or
B. lying.

I can tell you from personal experience that there’s nothing funnier than seeing a sea of watermelons at the farmer’s market with well designed “dăbuleni” signs on them.

as if screaming “I’m special, just like everyone else”

(the above is a great metaphor for what happens with most products in the market at the moment)

if all watermelons come from dăbuleni then no watermelons come from dăbuleni.

so what does this watermelon grower do?

something genius.

he takes a copy of his ID, that clearly states his city of residence, dăbuleni, and amplifies it 100 times over to create a massive banner.

he had the biggest queue in the whole market, here’s the legend in action.

keep it simple, stupid.

today is day 196 of the year, there are 169 days remaining of 2022.

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cliches

1 minute of reading

I had my first panic attack rolling over a dirty floor in a Lisbon gas station,

I had gone from actively planning my summer vacation to impending death, in a matter of seconds.

I distinctively remember rocking back and forth waiting for the ambulance to arrive,
when I finally open my eyes to let the world in,
and that’s when I see him…

a faceless man looking back at me, chomping on a sandwich, watching the scene unfold with merry detachment.

this man’s evening had studently become more interesting than what the sunrise had promised. I became his entertainment.

lives continue to be lived, no matter what…

ironically,
this coolness gave me permission to let go and let live.

even more ironically,
what seemed like the finish line, had become a starting line for a life I could have never planned for,
(not matter how good my goal system is)

and while no one is allowed to die more than once, I know that a part of me ceased to exist that day,
destined to remain only in the fog of memory of those that knew me then.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

today is day 192 of the year, there are 174 days remaining of 2022.

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direction vs destination

1 minute of reading

most people spend more time planning their vacation than they do planning their lives.

can’t really blame them,
a vacation guaranteed to happen in the near future is infinitely more interesting to plan for, than a volatile and incontrollable life,
(the pandemic taught us that much)

I can’t really say that I was planning to retire at the young age of 35 once I’ve sold the lemonade stand cartel that I had built BUT, even as a child, I have always had a very strong sense of what I wanted,

I didn’t know how, I didn’t even know why, I knew what.

turns out, that’s the worse possible way to plan your life, at least for me it was.

for a very long time inertia had got the better of me and I got stuck collecting nothing more than blind momentum, that I had proudly labeled “achievements.”

luckily, it only took two panic attacks and nine months of weekly visits to the couch for me to stop and ask myself…
“what the fuck is this for?”

the answer to that question has allowed me to write myself reminders (not marching orders,)
and obtain more clarity and drive than I’ve ever had in my life.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

today is day 191 of the year, there are 175 days remaining of 2022.

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my second brain

1 minute of reading

if you had to guess,
how much information do you concisely take in every day?
how about every week?
every month?

the books you read,
the articles you glance over,
the podcasts you half listen to,
the courses you watch and take notes on,

or even that comment someone posted on reddit, that made you stop in your tracks a second too long.

where does all of this information go?
what do you do with it?

does it help you lead a more fulfilling and productive life? or does it weigh you down?

do you put it to use?
does it inspire you enough to take action?

there’s an explosion of online content, how do you filter, curate and analyze it?

the sheer volume of information we now need just do our jobs, or to manage our households is not enough for one brain to handle,
so I’m building a second one.

visit Tiago Forte’s website to learn more about building a second brain.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

today is day 190 of the year, there are 176 days remaining of 2022.

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run as if someone just called you a jogger

1 minute of reading

there’s something so pure about running that I’ve not been able to replicate with any other limbs based activity,
(and I’ve tried many)

the buoyant, almost drunken sense of movement,

the meditative repetition that comes with placing one foot in front of the other, and then the other foot in front of the first,

pushing yourself (a little maniacally) as far as you can go to then see what happens when you get there,

waking up the next morning to do it all over again.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

today is day 189 of the year, there are 177 days remaining of 2022.

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failure, a love letter

2 minutes of reading

if you’ve been writing marketing copy for more than 5 minutes you’ve probably heard of Blair Warren’s “One Sentence Persuasion…”

People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions, and help them throw rocks at their enemies.

I used to break it apart into a checklist and revisit my copy to ensure I’ve touched all of those points, at least once…

still do, sometimes.

but regardless of the niche I would write for and how familiar I was with the topic, “justifying their failures” came completely naturally to me,
the keys on my computer would press themselves faster than I could read,

I have an unfair advantage, you see…

I’m in a strong, monogamous, relationship with failure,
her and I go waaay back,

come what may,
through thick or thin,
better or worse (especially worse,)
we stick by each other,

I feared her for the longest time,
didn’t want to commit, felt like she was weighing me down,
so we were on and off for while…

it was futile of course,
the second I understood what a great talent for teaching she had, I went running back to her.

we’ve never been apart since.

I love failure.

she forces me to ask all the right questions and give name to the nameless so it can be thought.

I failed at every single thing I’ve ever done, you have too.

the guaranteed way to success is to be willing to fail long enough until you succeed.

so instead of postponing the inevitable, ask yourself…

where are you most afraid to fail?
maybe you should start there.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

today is day 188 of the year, there are 178 days remaining of 2022.

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the madonna

1 minute of reading

she was the first woman in her village to go to university,

during a time when meat was a luxury reserved for the few, she studied biochemistry and obtained a high position working at a meat factory,
we were never hungry.

after being forced to quit her job, she bought a sewing machine and taught herself how to use it,
first socks, then shirts, then coats,
a few years later, my parents had built one of the biggest clothing factories in town.

after 20+ years of working in the clothing business, she reinvents herself (again,) closes down the factory, and goes back to university to study pedagogy,

my mom has now been a biochemistry teacher for 5 years.

she is a badass goddess of a woman that worked and fought and prayed for all of her accomplishments.

the times are tough, but women are tougher.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

today is day 187 of the year, there are 179 days remaining of 2022.

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to write or not to write

1 minute of reading

I’ve loved words for as long as I could read.

their ability to convey smells, and sounds, and taste;
to make you laugh and cry and keep you hostage within the world they’ve created,
a world that did not exist until you’ve opened the cover…

the warmth that comes with feeling my eyes making contact with the words on the page and have meaning rise up and echo in my head…

stopping at times because I needed to savor them for a second longer: somber, wistful, corporal…

as a child, I remember frequently retreating in my head, arranging and re-arranging the same sentence, over and over again, for hours, looking for the perfect formula that, of course, did not exist

it’s really no surprise that it’s taken me 25 years to unearth this desire to write…

publicly accountable this time, as a grand gesture of courage and stupidity (same difference?)

at the risk of tumbling head first into embarrassment, I’m now attempting to do in words what I had previously only done in thoughts…

the greatest gift of all.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

today is day 186 of the year, there are 180 days remaining of 2022.

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happy birthday, uncle sam

1 minute of reading

a date fraught with significance…

the birth of american independence,
the celebration of freedom, togetherness and justice;

I like the sound of these words, even if they are false.

as an european watching the news unfold in painful silence (not unlike a student in a depressing lecture,) I’ve always felt that it’s impolite to have opinions about things that I haven’t dedicated enough time to get educated on, or am directly influenced by.

I do, however, find it fascinating that I can more readily provide the date for american independence than its romanian counterpart (1st of december)

tribalism is human nature,

and there’s something to be said about a country that has managed to develop an impenetrable sense of we-ness, not because, but in spite of its cultural differences.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

today is day 185 of the year, there are 181 days remaining of 2022.

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