Constant proving myself

MAs President of AIESEC in Estonia (www.aiesec.ee), I have to prove myself, my abilities, my skills, my intelligence. Constantly. Every day.

Having around 70 members behind me, all of whom expect me to have answers to whatever questions they have; having very smart people in my team who are constantly challenging me as a team leader with their feedback, with their questions, with their comments, with their attitude; having external people for whom I am the face of the organisation and who may be sceptical about AIESEC at first…

It all puts quite a high pressure on a person. You just cannot afford yourself being weak, not knowing answers, being late, not fulfilling your promises.

At the same time, as a trainer in European Youth (euroopa.noored.ee) I have to prove myself as a person who is able to create learning room for whatever people I have in front of me – from 16 to 26 years old, from hyperactive to the ones who do not say anything, from positive optimists to big sceptics. All of these people are expecting professional training to be delivered. It is not AIESEC, where you can always say that you are still learning…

But I am used to prove myself. In fact, I have had to do it for a long time already.

Let’s take the high-school time. I had rather late physical development and started to grow just when I turned 16-17. So, I was the smallest and the skinniest boy in the class who had troubles with his health and was the weakest in the sports. I hated myself for it.

I went for athletics training. I did sports four times a week for three years. Once I became the first one who crossed the finish line in 1500 meter run in my class. It was THE achievement for me.

As I was small and skinny, the girls didn’t take me too seriously. I was just a funny nice guy for them. I was suffering because of that as any teenager in this age.

I went for classical dances trainings. I danced for 1 year and finally I could dance better than other boys in our high school.

I was a good pupil who got good marks. I had an image of good boy. I hated it. I started to be some kind of hooligan. When I was 16-17, I tried everything possible which is not for mentioning in this blog. Some guys from my former gang are in the prison for a long time at the moment…

But let’s look further – university time. As a guy whose home language is mainly Russian and who graduated Russian-speaking high-school, it was not that easy to study in university in Estonian and to be accepted in community, where general opinion about Russians is not always too positive.

I had to prove myself again. I studied Estonian grammar in addition in the evenings to be able to express myself better. Later on I worked in Estonian newspaper and news agency.

When I was 18, I could not speak English, as I didn’t study it in the high-school. But majority of the materials in my faculty were in English. I took additional courses and studied it in English.

I am able to keep my blog in English now :)

There are many more examples like that. I am sure everyone has had such moments.

But what unites all these moments for me is that I could prove that I CAN do it to the others and to myself.

I hope that I will be able to prove myself as a leader this time as well.

It is not easy though – constant trying, failing, succeeding, trying again…

But one thing is sure – applying for and getting position of AIESEC Estonia President’s has been one of the (THE?) most right choices in my life so far…

There's so much beauty in the worlds...

"Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in."
American Beauty

That's one of my favourite quote from one of my favourite movies ever.

Indeed, there is so much beauty around us. And people enjoy beauty. We want to look nice, we spend a lot of money and time on that. We would like to have good-looking partner, nice car, we enjoy watching beautiful people playing in movies etc.

It's strange, but despite all of that I very often feel that in most of the cases people just don't see and don't appreciate beauty around them. Do we often pay attention to the green colours of the trees around us, to the beauty of some shadow, to the beauty of sounds around us? It sound awkward, but isn't food on our plates sometimes just too beautiful to be eaten?

Take Eurovision Song Contest for example. Vast majority of my friends thinks that Eurovision is 1) commercial event which has nothing to do with culture; 2) contest of low-quality pop songs; 3) contest where politics and not real performance is involved.

I actually pretty much agree with them. And still I consider myself fan of Eurovision. Why? Isn't it great to see many beautiful people from whole Europe coming together not to discuss new policies of energy market, coming together not to compete in making proposals for new laws, but for singing. And there is always 3-4 songs out of all of them which I really like. Which are beautiful.

What I want to say, is that there is actually beauty everywhere, not just in places, where it is supposed to be. But how to see it everywhere, without taking drugs, for example?

I think, seeing beauty can be trained. That's what I do, actually. In the moments I feel bad, unrest or even stressed, I stop for a moment and make myself think - "OK, it is hard, but what is beautiful about it - about people I am dealing with, about this day/night, about life as such.

It is actually one of my several business ideas. To make trainings for people who want to be more successful, happier in their lives. It has become new direction in trainings in USA recently - "Positive psychology".

What do I want from the year 2006/2007?

In AIESEC, as in university, the year starts in June-July. And ends in May-June.

So, my new year is starting. It is reasonable to have some thoughts about it.

I had time for that during AIESEC Estonia' executive boards transition week (MC transition), where old team delivered their knowledge to me and my team.

So, what do I expect from the year 2006/2007?

• Very intensive life, full of different new experiences EVERY day
• A lot of international co-operation and communication
• Very intsensive team experience in AIESEC which will challenge my leadership skills
• Consistent and intensive personal development through activities I do
• Several personal, team and national successes both in AIESEC and outside
• Most important - a lot of small happy moments, a lot of laugh and smiles for me and people who surround me

What are my personal goals for the upcoming year?

• Be successful leader of organization by fulfilling all professional goals I have put for myself
• Be successful trainer in European Youth by making many young people think more about what and why they do something in their lives
• Have time for non-work and non-studies related reading
• Have enough quality time for my family and my friends (both in Estonia and abroad)
• Decide about my academic route and continue it by doing meaningful things
• Constantly do sports
• Significantly change way of thinking of as many people as I can resulting in "Thank you, Deniss"
• Despite anything, always have peace in my mind and enjoy the life
• Elaborate better ways to bring out and use positive energy of people
• Have clear picture and goals for the next upcoming year

Will see, whether I will achieve these goals :) At least I will try hard.

Besides, there are some few other interesting things I would like to bring out here. It will be interesting to read them after, let's say 1, 2, 3 years and compare. During my reflection process I came up with following:

10 things which make me feel good

• Achievement of the goal
• Smile of another person thanks to me
• Bicycle ride / jogging in the nature / swimming
• Good tasy food :)
• Positive feedback from a person whose opinion I care about
• Feeling that I learnt something new and discovered new side of life
• Hiking / being in the nature / going to the mountains
• Waking up with a dear person
• A-ha!- or wow!-effect, when I am reading good book or watching good movie
• Sight or knowledge of people doing something good and beautiful

Somehow I believe that majority of these things are universal for evryone. But sometimes it is good to remind yourself about them.

And now, of course - 10 things which annoy me

• Narrow-mindedness
• Throwing garbage in the open spaces / nature
• Bitching about other people behind their backs
• Expressions of nationalism / chauvinism
• Cruelty of people
• Stressed and process-oriented people
• Situations when people don't count with the others
• Overly drunk women
• Stupid TV shows, movies and articles in magazines, moreover - their popularity
• People who let the others down by lying

Funny that all things which annoy me, are related to the people. Humankind is evil? No, but there is a lot of stupidity inside it which results in evil...

Anger on nationalism

I just have to write it.

Someone told: "Don't think too much. Then life will seem easier". Indeed, sometimes you just start to think over something and realize how much s**t is there and then you regret that you started to touch this s**t in your thoughts, becuase it stinks...

I watch TV extremely rarely. It usually happens in few cases: 1) I watch the news; 2) I watch interesting documentary; 3) I watch movie I wanted to see for some time already; 4) I am so tired that my brain does not want to bother itself with something more demanding than switching the channels.

Few days ago mixture of 2) and 4) happened. I was watching one historic documentary about the tensions between Hinduists and Muslims in India. There were for example such facts brought our that during the separation of India and Pakistan from British empire in late-1940s over 1 million (!) people have been slaughtered in inter-ethic tensions. Ghandi was killed, because he believed that richness of India lies in its multiculturality, not superiority of Hinduism.

In 2002 (4 years ago that means!) thousands of extremist Hinduists destroyed the mosque built in 17th century, because they claimed that this is holy place for Hinduists. In turn, Muslims made an explosion in the train full of Hinduists and killed few hundreds people. In turn, Hinduists slaughtered few thousands Muslims in their houses... Whose turn next?

After this documentary has ended, I started to watch news on BBC. A bomb explotion in Baghdad. 60-70 Shi'a Muslims killed next to their mosque. Extremist Sunni Muslims were accused. Experts are afraid of Iraq stepping deeper and deeper into the ground of civil war.
When I was working in Berlin, I visited remains of Berlin wall. It is full of graffity of different painters from beginning of 1990s. One painting was especially memorable - people are destroying the wall brick-by-brick and there is a big slogan: "There won't be any walls anymore!".

Another news after Baghdad - report on building the beton wall which would physically separate Israelis and Palestinians. Jews don't want to let Muslims to explode bombs against them.

Very memorable has been visit to Bosnia few months ago - I got to know a lot about how Bosnian Serbs (Orthodox), Croats (Catholic) and Bosniaks (Muslims) slaughtered each other and destroyed their own country.

F**k nationalism! F**k the ones who use religion AGAINST someone else!
Having been brought up in multicultural environment - mixed origin of Russian and Setu (small nationality similar to Estonians), two languages to be used etc - I learned a lot about nationalism in my own country.

One Estonian Russian guy told me couple of years ago - "Estonians are just a small angry nation which cannot even be compared with great culture of Russians". F**k your chauvinism!

There are plenty of Estonians that I know who say something like - "I know few cool Russians, I had realations with Russian girl, I have good Russian neighbour. But all in all, I don't like this nation".

"I eat apples time-to-time. I like to eat oranges when I am ill. But all in all I don't like fruits." Similar? That's what I am saying - f**k narrow-mindedness!

Go to hell with your comments like "I am patriot of my country. I am proud of my nation." Have you ever tried to live and work in other country like local people do without judging them and comparing them to your environment? Have you ever called someone "friend" who does not share your native language? Have you ever loved someone who has not seen the same cartoons as you in the childhood? If not, f**k your damn patriotism and please don't tell me that you have right to call yourself like that!

Sometimes I just have to agree with John Lennon who dreamt: "Imagine there's no countries. And no religion too."

Anyway, I will continue to believe that love and mercy don't have borders. And I will continue to live according to these principles - to have business with, to be friend with, to love people notwithstanding the fact whether they are Jews, Arabs, Hinduists, white, black, pink, gays, small brothers of Mother Teresa or grandchildren of Jossif Stalin.

What to do if you suddenly have plenty of free time?

I found another job for me. The one I really like and enjoy. I am working for European Youth (Euroopa Noored) which is European Union initiative to support young people in their desire to discover another cultures of Europe, to initiate and participate in youth-driven projects, to start and lead themselves international co-operation. I am working as a trainer/facilitator there.

Why do I enjoy the work? There are nice colleagues, international field of work, network with other active young people throughout Estonia and elsewehre, work with youth, organizing events and moderating them - all these keywords are important for me. But more than anything else - very simple - I believe in this mission. Developing European youth through supporting their own proactivity and through providing means for that.

A lot of similarities with AIESEC. In fact, I would have never applied for this job and I would have never been accepted there (there was quite tough competition, as I was told), if I would not have experience in AIESEC. And if to speak about the mission of European Youth - it reminds me once more WHY do I actually work for AIESEC.

Anyway, this work is part-time. My main responsibilties in AIESEC have not started yet (although I have quite many duties already). I don't study. I don't have one dear person to spend time with. That means that I have plenty of free time. OK, plenty in my case shouldn't mean plenty for the others. I am just used to be busy as much as possible :)

But it has its bright sides. It really does. Finally, I re-started my humble sport activities. But even better- finally, I have had time to read books. My first book about leadership, fiction about international relations and politics, fiction about Second World War, Henocide and half of the century after that in Ukraine, book about Estonia society development in post-Communist time. Hard topics, right? :) I just decided that if I don't have so much time to read books in general, I will spend this time very carefully and try to get as much value as I can.

In the second half of April I will go for about 1,5-2 weeks to the country I really like - Lithuania. I will participate in organizing of one big international AIESEC conference (ITC). Its project manager is friend of mine, and I could not leave misused the chance to work with him again on such event.

So, again some interesting events... And one more thing - I am still not-married, so all offers could be considered. ;)

At least 1,5 years in Estonia

I have returned from my long journey which took more than 7 months.

What I am doing in Estonia? I applied and eventually got selected as President of AIESEC in Estonia for the period 2006-2007. My term is starting in June.

Why? There are many reasons. But mainly - I want to lead one of the most successful youth organization in Estonia and be part of the global team of one of the most successful youth organizations in the world. I feel that it will give me so much insight about working in the teams, about leadership, about organizational structure, about realizing which people I want to develop my career future with, about communication rules between people, between organizations and between countries. I feel that leading an organization of around 60-70 active young people will give so great platform to develop myself and help to develop the others.

What besides that? Some work, maybe continuing with the studies. I will see. Currently I am building up my life in Estonia again. It is not so easy after 7-8 mponths abroad. But if you really want to, nothing stops you in realizing your dreams.

And after returning home I have realized - "Eestis on ikkagi pagana hea elada!" :) (direct translation from Estonian - "All in all, it is damn good to live in Estonia!")

Still, the time in Berlin and especially in Croatia has been something very very unique for me. Especially all these people there...

Most probably I won't update this blog too often. But once in 2-4 weeks I will write something. Something like milestones in my life - what has happened, what job I have started with, whom did I marry etc

Great news from Holland!!

I am in Holland in one nice hotel somewhere between Amsterdam and Utrecht. I am on the IPM - International Presidents' Meeting of AIESEC. Here are outgoing and incoming presidents of more than 90 AIESEC countries in the world. I am representing Estonia as incoming president of AIESEC in Estonia.

Just some 1 hour ago there were directors of AIESEC International announced - the highest body of AIESEC globally. And one of them is my friend and just a nice person Mairi Jyriska!

She is just second Estonian who made it!

Mairi, you are truly the best! :)

On the first picture she is receving congratulations from Pinar, current President of AIESEC in Tukey (another AI Director along with Mairi who got elected) and newly elected President of AIESEC International Edyson Dos Santos. On the second there is just crowd :)

Split-Zagreb-Budapest-Warsaw-Riga-HOME

Today is my last day in Croatia. 3 days of travelling by trains and buses - and I am back home. In 7 months after not seing my family and my friends in Estonia.

Everyone who has lived abroad for such a long time would probably understand my feelings right now.

Deep sadness, because you are not sure, when you will see all these people again and whether you will experience moments at least a little bit similar to what you have experienced here...

Great happiness, because you will finally see your close people again...

Worries, whether you have said good-bye to everyone you wanted, whether you have finished everything you needed...

Hopes for your new period of life, because one has to re-start his life at home after 7 months being abroad...

My situation is even more complicated, because I haven't lived here as many other foreigners. I have noticed that majority of people who live in another country (also AIESEC interns) have relation to local people and local culture like in a zoo - "Look how nice it is! Let's take a picture!". Or "I don't understand those people at all...". Or "They are so funny, so great!"

I tried to behave differently from the very beginning. I started to learn the language, I read books about history and culture of Croatia. I tried to be with local people as much as possible in different social situations. Unlike German culture, Croatians are more reciprocal to the foreigners and it is easier to integrate into local culture. Maybe the fact that I am 3/4 Russian has helped me also - Croatians are Slavic.

Anyway, now I am not leaving just one nice country with interesting people. I am leaving country which embrased me with all its warmness, uniqueness, sometimes crazyness, but always friendliness.

It is hard to leave. It really is. But my dreams move on. So do I.

Today it is about -20 degrees during the day and about -30 degrees during the night in Estonia. I hope that despite such terrifying coldness (Split has +12 and sun right now!) my home-country will embrace its son back and will make me sure that there is nothing better than home.

I will come back to Split. As a tourist or entrepreneur, with family or alone, for 3 days or for 3 years - I am not sure yet. But I will.

I already thanked everyone whom I wanted in Croatia. But it won't be too much to do it again here - "Moj Bože! To je nemoguće! Hvala vam svima! Nikad nisam mogao zamislit da će bit ovako težko otić... Pa dobro, vidimo se uskoro!"