Adriana Craciun

Nicholas Sogard

Nicholas S�gard , the author of Architect of My Own Rise reveals some secrets about himself and his book: I'll take you through a long and contradictory series of thoughts. Some might make sense, others not, some might please you, some might irritate the shit out of you, but I for one, would never read a book on how a 25-year old guy sees the world, what are his internal endeavors, and, most importantly, how he deals with them. Now, a little background about myself, and, then, we'll get down to business. So, I'm 26, and I'm fucked up. I come from a small city in Romania (yes, Dracula's country, and yes, I'm from Transylvania), and I moved to a bigger city − Cluj-Napoca (you might know it as little Silicon Valley, the area where Electric Castle − it actually takes place near Cluj-Napoca − or Untold festivals take place). Ever since I was just a toddler, I had a "gift" of tearing things apart, breaking stuff, and never really putting them back together. But the one thing I was good at, and probably I'm still good at it, is that I love seeing people smile, I love bringing them a smile on their faces. It brings me pleasure to make as many people as I can, for a moment, forget about their problems, and have a good time in my company. Another thing I was fascinated about, and still am, are probabilities. Small confession, I'm not really good at math, or retaining formulas and stuff, but my brain goes wild with probabilities. Whenever I go on dates, for example, and we run out of stuff to talk about... (yes, shit happens), I go on, and consider probabilities... about what's the likely job of random people, based on how they're dressed, what they most probably talk about, and how likely is a boy or a girl in love with the significant other, based on their nonverbal signs. That's why I'm a statistics graduate, with a bachelor and master's degree. I'll go more in deep with this subject in later chapters, so stay tuned. You probably already heard about mathematicians, that some of them actually see equations everywhere, that for them the world is an open set of numbers that add up to a formula. Well, I'm not far away from that thought, I mean I don't literally see lambdas and stuff like that, however what I do see, are patterns. While others chase for answers, my goal is to identify meaningful patterns, that can be applied, in order to reach the pick of the mountain. Yes, it's true that, sometimes, I find myself on a wild goose chase, while trying to fit a pattern to its fullest; yet, I did find some sequences that are common. In the future, I can apply these keys to my day-to-day activities. The side effect is, that I also find situations, that fall into nothing I've ever seen before, so that my level of enthusiasm may rise exponentially. One of my biggest flaws, is that I often tend to think too much, in the sense that mostly I analyze 100 times an action, before finally draw a conclusion. While this is helpful, in many cases, from time to time, I just hope I would just float in, let the waves take me to whatever result, because in the end, no matter how many scenarios I build within, life is the most unpredictable event out there. I did some experiments with just going with the flow, however, the impossibility to obtain some results, comes in just like a bug that itches the back end of my brain. All these being said, that was a short introduction about me, and I'll go on now, to start talking about different subjects. Enjoy! Nicholas S�gard

Nicholas Sogard

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