I was born and raised in a small village in Catalonia in the middle of the country-side, so I had total freedom to spend my afternoon as I pleased, and the most common feeling that I remember was, meeting with my friends and our bicycles and start wondering around to find the adventure for that day, that went from building houses in trees, playing different sports, swimming in the river or breaking-in old houses and a long etc. Seeing it now, it was the most present thing ever, going without expectations to see what live would bring to us.

The habit of doing an exercise called “Wheel of life”.

I do my own version of it, where I list the 8 most importants areas of my life, and I list the most important elements of each area and I grade them based on the feeling of fulfilment or happiness with all of them. That lets me see in which areas I’m not fulfilling what I want, help me recenter to know what’s really important for me and what is not, and once I got all the grades for each area, I design a life plan for the next 3 months that help me go towards a happier life, prioritizing certain habits or activities or myself, and erasing bad habits or things that I was spending time on and they were not important. Doing this exercise every 3 months helps me design a better life and see and monitor my progress.

In an honest and direct way, saying what they think, being as straightforward as they can, while having a good intention in any interaction. And also with a smile and wanting to have fun.

Being a “rebel”. When I see things that people do just because it has been done in a certain way or because that’s what it’s expected, either in a job or in life, I do it my way. I think I become “unemployable” in certain ways, because in companies that are a lot of politics or there are no values or vision, I fight like it’s my own company to change it or improve it, and sometimes people feel I’m overstepping. But I always do it with the best of the intentions. I even quit my own company because I didn’t share the vision with the CEO, and I asked her to step away, and since she didn’t, I did.

About my feelings, my fears, my doubts about myself or how I deal with anything about my life. I think people are too afraid of being vulnerable and we fight a lot to be liked. I have no problem to talk about any topic and explain to you what I really think. I think if we all behave this way, we would become better people, we could learn more and also, by talking about what we really think or feel, we would learn a lot about ourselves. Just try it, you will see that nothing happens.

Any industrial city that has no green spaces and parks, and it’s polluting. I think we should reconsider how we build cities and some of them would need a fresh start.

I’ll try to create a community of people that we helped each other, giving more than we took, making everyone contribute with their best ability and talent, and living in harmony. I could be what politicians should be now, a facilitator to make a community stronger and make it cooperate and efficiently.

I find myself encouraging everyone to give their own best version. Even though I’m not in a position to lead or I’m no expert in whatever we are doing I always find myself pushing everybody to give their best and to see the bright side of any situation. I guess because I like to work in motivated teams and people who bring me energy, so I don’t let the team be negative or passive, so my energy level doesn’t drain.

I try to understand what had been the learnings of that person in past experiences, what “grade” they give themselves in previous jobs and why and understand what frustrated them, and then, understand what is the real motivation to get the job that we are offering, in order to see if what that person want to gain by working with us, is aligned by why we want people to join us.

What scares me the most is how HR professionals are trapped in a completely obsolete way to do things since the very first moment they got involved in this industry. Now that I’m a teacher in some master schools, I see how disconnected and obsolete the HR education they have received is and how unsexy is for a lot of young professionals the Talent Attraction or Hiring activities because how a lot of hiring agencies or companies train them when they do internships for example. Also, what scares me the most, is the limiting believe that HR is less important than other departments in a company. But, we will change it for sure!!!

See HR problems with a Business, Entrepreneur or Marketing mind. Whenever I see a challenge in HR, I change the word employee/candidate to customer, and I try to see what the best companies do to solve those challenges for their customer. Then I take this initiatives or strategies and I apply them to HR.
The secret tip is to try to learn from the very very best in the world (not my country or industry) and to copy and then improve what they do. And always be learning. There are tons of blogs, podcasts, youtube videos of people sharing their knowledge. For me it is a mistake to try to learn all by yourself. Invest some time before you do anything to try to learn from the best and then implement it. You will be starting from a privileged position.

What has been your biggest professional learning this year?

Gianluca Rosania – he has an amazing passion for what he does and to help people succeed. Also, he is super generous in the way he shares all his knowledge and tries to help both recruiters and also people to find their true purpose. And I’d love to know his personal side, because I know he had lived a really intense life, in all ways imaginable, and It would be beautiful to know this personal side of him.

Thank you to Toni Gimeno Solans for taking 20 Questions for The Brainfood Tribune.