Interesting thoughts from the talk by Dr Mark Pleszek

Live local, work global.Globalisation allows you to live where you like to live and work where you like to work.  

In the beginning, my salary was zero. I said: if I don't believe in the company and if I don't do something, I have no right to earn. 

For a long time I had a salary - zero. I used to jokingly ask people, "Come to my office, I'll give you twice the salary I have as a manager." Then one day in the accounting department they explained to me that somehow this was not the case, that I couldn't have a zero salary ... 

As long as everyone in the company knows everyone, it's a very different way of doing things and making decisions. We got together in the hallway, said three words and made a decision, and that was it. Now there are meetings and things like that ... 

I am not a good manager. I am a good leader, not a good manager. A leader is a person who can inspire a large group of people. He needs a bit of charisma, he needs to tell a joke... A manager deals one-on-one with his employees and helps them to reach their maximum. So he has the patience to find out where they are good and where they are bad. And not to try to improve them - that's the job of the parents and the school. Where they are good, it is the offererwhere they are not, they are your ass is covered, in other words, or find someone else. I have little patience here. I am the 'hooray, let's do something', I am the one who is flying the flag. 

Money is the lifeblood of a company. 

The seller is a hunter. He either goes and catches the mammoth or he doesn't. If he doesn't, there will be a problem. It is therefore right that he should be rewarded for his success. 

I am an infinitely rich man. I have a fantastically beautiful wife of 40 years and we are still in love, sometimes still behaving like teenagers. I have two very well brought up children, a daughter doing her PhD, a son doing his Master's degree in science. My mother is 90 years old and we still deal with her, she is such a nice lady. I have a small house in the Karst and a dog. What else do I need in life? I don't have a cottage because I would have to deal with it, I don't have a sailboat because I would have to go to the sea and sand those shells down... That's a fortune for me. 

Every culture needs to adapt. Logical. First: You have to show respect for the person you are talking to. So respect him personally. Then you have to respect his culture, his way of doing things and adapt to that.  

This is where parents often make a mistake. Spoiling. I don't want to spoil people. People come to work to do something. There is work to be done', sorry. We are not here to play games. But at the same time, the work that needs to be done can be done with suffering or with joy. 

The biggest mistake I make is to infer from myself what other people are like. 

My colleagues are my friends. 

I am an economist. I do it well. I think I am also doing well for the benefit of Slovenia. Politicians, at least I hope, are doing good politics for the benefit of Slovenia. If we economists and politicians work well, Slovenia will be better off. 

Only the shoes should be judged by the hoarder. I can judge other economists, but I cannot judge politicians. 

I trust in the good of people. I believe that most people work in the belief that they are doing good. 

What I miss and what I would like to see is us saying - let us support the Tadobras to be even better, but let us ask them to drag those who are not so good behind them. 

Why do a startup? Because you have one idea in your head that you can't help but do. 

George Bernard Shaw would tell me irrational man. A rational person looks at his environment, sees it for what it is, and adapts to it in order to live a normal life. The unreasonable person does not like his environment and wants to change it so that something is always different. It follows that all progress comes from the unreasonable man. That is it. That is the kind of people we need. Just not too many, because then they get into quarrels with each other. 

I am more concerned about natural stupidity than artificial intelligence. 

The world offers so many opportunities nowadays that I think it is absolutely unfair that parents force their children to take over companies. 

An entrepreneur is a person who has been doing something for 10, 20 years, has learned the laws of the business, and has realised that there are better ways to do it and that he or she could make a living out of it. 

We have really top people. I'm really lucky that the students who have worked for me from the very beginning have been really top-notch, exceptional people. 

I'm not good with rejections. I don't have thick skin. Especially when it comes to something I believe in. Every rejection in sales still hurts me. 

It's like that in business - if you fail, it's your own fault. If it succeeds, it's a matter of luck. If that's the way you look at the world, then you're also a little more humble. 

A good entrepreneur will grab luck by the ponytail when he sees it, but a bad entrepreneur will not even notice that luck has passed by. 

Some captured highlights from the event THE STORIES OF ACROBATES with Uroš Slako, Dr. Mark Pleško

This encourages entrepreneurship and creativity, and shows entrepreneurship in a positive light.