Pat yourself on the shoulder - more often!

You should stop for a moment and look back on what you have ACHIEVED. And you should definitely pat yourself on the shoulder - more often! As what you have achieved is great and worth celebrating..

This just happened to me. I realized how much I can achieve without even noticing it. As I have never ever acknowledged anything I’ve achieved, I was always like “ok this is not a big thing” bla bla. But a few weeks ago I just abruptly realized that wow I achieved what I haven’t even been aware of that I dreamed about it  - I hadn’t even set it up as a goal because I could never believe that it could become true...

Let me tell you how I started to see that I am capable of acknowledging myself😊 Well, everything started this April…

There is an annual tech conference in Budapest, called Craft Conference. It’s one of the biggest tech conferences in Europe. I got tickets both for the conference and also for the workshop part. So, I  could attend a whole day workshop and I chose an “Advanced Strategic Domain Driven Design” one. I was a bit concerned that it will be too technical for me. As you should know about me that I am a product owner.. But it was very tempting reading its description. So, I applied. No one else within my company chose this workshop actually. Only I was interested for some reasons.

On the workshop day, I arrived too early at the venue and a guy was registering right at the reception desk that time. I just heard his name, and it just rang a bell that he might be the facilitator of the workshop. I immediately introduced myself to him, and we had a short conversation whilst heading towards the dedicated conference room. So this is where and how I first met Nick Tune 😊

The workshop was great, way above my expectations, and it came out I was the only non-programmer. The developers were expecting more technical stuff but as we learned there: finding organization alignment and Domain Driven Design does not start with coding but starts with understanding our business’s problems! 😊 So I was very happy with what I've learned on this workshop from the greatest Domain Driven Design (DDD) ambassador. 

During the conference days – at another venue the day after the workshop – I attended Nick’s talk too and – as expected – it was AWESOME.

When I was heading back from the conference venue – which by the way was in a historical rail museum – by train, I had a conversation with a colleague of mine who also was leaving the conference the same time. So we went together. The train’s final station is right at the office where we are working. When we got off the train we still had our professional conversation. However, in the meanwhile I had a feeling – regardless of anything we were talking about – that it would be so great to come to work by train and arrive at exactly where the office is (like that time) and I love to travel by train anyway. I mentioned this to my colleague, but then we continued the discussions we started on the train.

Chapter 2

I had so many thoughts after the workshop I attended. Even thought it was awesome, and I enjoyed and loved it, I still had a few comments and ideas, how to improve it. I just looked up Nick’s email and put my feedbacks into an email together and sent it to him. He replied within a few days, he really liked my feedbacks, and I think the fact that I fed back my comments, thoughts. He asked 

what about doing a workshop together sometimes?

I was so happy even when just reading the question itself and I was like “ok, sure” – but to be honest I never thought it will turn into reality some days. But it did... 😊 

After a few very enjoyable email chain between us, 1 month later Nick emailed me and mentioned there will be a Domain Driven Design (DDD) conference in Berlin this Autumn and what if we do the Advanced Strategic DDD workshop together? Well, that time I became a bit more hesitating and nervous, I had never facilitated any workshops outside the company 😊 But after a few weeks of hesitation; I said OK. 😊 Then came a few months full of excitement but also nerves. But I can say at the end of October we ran a successful workshop together.  After that workshop, I felt a bit (I would emphasize, only a “bit”) proud of myself but not in the extent how I should’ve felt I think.

During this few month period of time (after living 35 years in the capital city of Hungary: Budapest) I was more and more willing to live somewhere outside the city where it is quieter (and obviously, as mentioned above: from where I could go to work by train 😊 ). We started to look around in the surroundings and pretty quickly found a house that we possibly could buy. That was quick, however the processes – administration, loan, contracts, etc. – took quite a long while. But, now I can proudly say, that I am sitting in our own living room in our own house in a small township near Budapest, drinking tea, looking at the Christmas candles' lights and thinking through how I achieved this. And yes, WOW. With capital letters. And also thinking about October’s DDD conference and so looking back the whole year. And a WOW. Again. A bit bigger than I gave myself right after the workshop. At that time I jumped into the next thing – house, work, … – and haven’t realized what just happened.

Now, you hold on: I go to work by train which takes me to the place where I got off on that particular day in April.
Right at the office.

(this is where I walk every morning towards the train station)