Chapter 10 : On the home stretch

Just got back from work and even though we didn't have that much customers today, it was so exhausting because of the boredom. There could have been even an hour with nothing to do, very frustrating I have to say. But as always, I will give you guys the best possible effort for this blog post too so let's stop this whining and review this past week. Oh and speaking of whining, I have a nice and short video for you to show at the end of this blog post so stay tuned!

I was absent from Monday's lecture because as I mentioned in the previous blog post, we had a cruise to Sweden with our fellow student colleagues from every agency of Laurea. I could write a review about the cruise too but come on, this blog is a school assignment so let's skip that, shall we? After a two-day purgatory (yeah it's Easter, what did you expect?) I managed to get to the second lecture of the week on Thursday and I must say, I have never been that pleased to get to the school as I was after that lecture. Antti Haapsaari. This guy was the real deal. An hour just flew by when he talked to us about his architecture firm Kanttia 2 and how he has had projects even in Egypt with very powerful people as co-workers. I went totally speechless by how compelling and inspiring Antti's lecture was. The best guest speaker easily by far and I will probably remember his tips and thoughts after years from now because the way he presented his thoughts gave me a feeling that this guy knows what he's talking about. And addition to that, he's very enthusiastic about what he does and didn't hesitate to share his experiences with us. And working with some very powerful people in Arab world just supported the image of very successful and inspiring person that I got from him. Simply awesome.

Had to borrow a picture taken by my group member (thanks Miikka) because I want you guys to remember this face, a truly franchise player. And look at that shiny blazer, damn...

One thing that really caught my ear was how Antti talked about the importance of relationships in the field of business. And let's not just focus on customer relationships because there are several important relationships in business that have to be taken under consideration. For example when you're applying for a job, you have only one chance to make a good first impression to your possibly future boss. Do you want to express yourself as a trustworthy guy to whom your future boss could easily hand over some important responsibilities or do you want to give an image about a guy who probably fuc... pardon me, lets your boss down with disloyal acts? Not a hard choice I assume. Of course you have to always be yourself and nothing else but building relationships start from the very bottom and proceeds piece by piece to the unbreakable bond (I should be a writer...). The relationships with customers or co-worker or whatever don't have to be some blood bonds, sharing the deepest secrets among each other but simply a relationship where the other part can have the certain trust in you that you will do your best in a reliable way, no matter what it was. Make your boss believe in you, make your customers believe in you but most importantly, believe in yourself first. You can't form good customer relationships or business associations if you don't have the faith in yourself and your skills.

On Thursday we also got another assignment in which we are trying to come up with some innovative ideas for our student colleagues' team Funking. Funking's idea is to provide an ultimate tool for ultimate fanning. It's like a Snapchat style platform but with a lot more content and elements that create a close connection between fans and their idols. I really hope that we can come up with some good ideas to present for them because I think the idea of Funking is actually very cool and of course I'm hoping that they could be able to launch their idea eventually to the big leagues, so to say. 

As I mentioned earlier, I bumped into a very cool and inspiring video about the key to being more attractive. In other words, the key to get the above-mentioned relationships. I think this video encapsulates well what it takes to be successful in business and in life in general. And believe me, it's not rocket science. With some little adjusting you can make yourself attractive in a way to build some relationships, achieve your goals and live a happy life. I could say that for most people, all they have to do is just loosen it up a bit. "Don't obsess over things you can't control. Focus on what you can do!"

I think there's enough for this week so see you on next Sunday!