Sunday. +16. Breakfast outside. Zhandarmenmarkt is full of tourists. Music is around. Spring in Berlin. “Love is in the air”. It is already 2 months (to be exact 2 months and 11 days) since I am in Berlin. I can hardly believe it. Speed of life (not so long ago I was 15 years old). Every day is full. No routine. The city, the school, the people around. Every day is something new. Every day I discover things about the external world and myself.
I wish I started the diary as Bridget Jones on the very first day I arrived making notes of how I got lost in the school, what my first impression of the building I studied in and of the class was, and how many kilos I lost during the exam session, how many kilos I “found” after the celebration of the end of the session, who this handsome guy was (influence of spring), what kind of biases I had and how I was going to work with it, what weak points I found during group work, how Angela Merkel was dressed on the conference, which books I read and was going to read when the collaboration of Marni and H&M introduced a new collection, etc. I look back and understand that every day of my “new” life was full! I am in love with Berlin. To be frank I never thought that it would be like this. I love Rome, I love London, and I feel comfortable in Thailand and Bali. And suddenly Berlin appeared to be so different, so changing, developing, and growing. So amazing! I feel that now is the absolute right time to get to know this city and to see the processes that happen here.
This week I had a chance to speak with Alexander Landia who gave a master class at the school. He lives here since the 1990-s. But his work is closely connected to Russia. He was the chairman of the board of directors of SUEK (Siberian coal energy company), and now he is the chief independent director there. Also, he leads several companies. His experience is very interesting since he changed the science field in Georgia to entrepreneurship there then to banking in Germany after that to consulting and finally to resource company. This choice of industry is what I have now. And I want everything. So, I was looking forward to meeting with him and asking him questions incl. questions about the system of motivation for project managers, the change of leadership styles in different industries, and the efficiency of the institute of independent directors in Russia. It was very interesting to know that Emotional Intelligence is the factor that SUEK is interested in when hiring people. He mentioned the importance of networking and cash flow for leaders.
Communicating with people of such a high level and such experience can give a lot. Sometimes we think that we do know everything and nobody can give us more or teach us more. But it is not right, we can study and develop ourselves for our whole life. And communication is one of the sources of information and self-development. The thing is to enjoy and live every moment of every day and to develop yourself and get as much as you can from every day. Sometimes unfortunately we forget about it during our routine life.
Breakfast is over. Back to marketing simulation.
