Even a minor case may have an effect on later life.
One day, in 96, when I worked at the Latvian Business School, we held a seminar with an American investment management consultant. Now such a seminar is not exotic and thousands of consultants came and taught how to spend money on the American market, but then it was exotic. His name was Jim Nickley, he was tanned, with large teeth and a yellow tie.
He told us, the organizers, that he travels a lot around the world, reads seminars and, according to his observation, the world is very clearly divided into two unequal halves - countries where everything works and countries where everything does not work for important reasons. He says - you’re coming to England or Germany, the air conditioning is working, the hotel has water without gas, there are all adapters to the sockets, the right people will come on time and the light will not turn off. And in South America, for example, problems will surely arise - something will break and there will be no one to fix it, someone will be late, sockets and adapters will not fit, the tablecloths will be of the wrong color, and so on and for all this there will be an explanation why this is so It happened. But this does not change the matter - something does not work.
This was Jim Nickley's first visit to the countries of the former Soviet Union and he did not yet know where to take us. Whether everything works here or doesn’t work.
This is nothing, but his observation influenced me. I tried very hard at that workshop. 14 years have passed, but this flame of answering this challenge still lives in me, that we are from a better part of the world, from a normal country. I think about it when I see a rocket taking off and frown, when the door to the Lada does not close. And in my work I always prove to myself and Jim that where I am - everything will work out clearly. As it should be.
PS
In Soviet times, a poster hung at the factory where my mother worked.
Anyone who wants is looking for an opportunity. Who does not want is looking for a reason.
