Pазговор с Янко Михайлов за кариерата му и за формата на работата му по „Докадем“

Mr. Mihajlov, after so many years of working abroad, how did you decide to return and to give to the Bulgarians what you have learned, what you have mastered outside the borders of the country? This happened in a consistent, at the same time logical and spontaneous way and process. I actually finished my education in France in 1990 and with a few interruptions, after that I was in Bulgaria. In fact, since 1994 I have been constantly moving to live in Paris, to work, to develop. And since 2010, in my activity, various companies have shown interest in engaging me and I started to return periodically to Bulgaria for a few weeks a month, so that I could work with them. Later, however, the incident occurred during the COVID period. The COVID period locked me in Bulgaria at the moment when the borders were closed and when I saw how the procedure was carried out in Bulgaria and in France, I had a very long-term contract in Bulgaria, which lasted during the COVID isolation with a client and I just stayed here. And it became very spontaneous and natural for me and this allowed me later to get to know the development of Bulgaria in more detail and what happened after these years where I was absent for a long time with some periodic entries. And so I discovered a lot of meaningful and interesting questions, topics, achievements, potentials. Of course, not everything is perfect, but this hides the challenge for the future. You are a wide range of personalities. What are your interests and what are your aspirations and plans for your development in Bulgaria? Thank you for this question. Indeed, in the framework of my activities and in time, I have had various interactions with Bulgaria. If I have to start with myself, I have been working for Programa FARC for 92-94 years. This was my first job, it was in Bulgaria. In fact, a French company hired me to work for them. Under Programa FARC, I was the only Bulgarian in the team of experts. After that, my career continued mainly in France. As I mentioned, in 2010, I gradually started my first interest, apart from meetings with my relatives. My first interest was related to my main activity. I am engaged in building through human behavior, communication, interaction, solutions, efficiency in business at different levels. Mainly in industrial enterprises, larger companies, multinational companies, but also for small entrepreneurs and people who are starting their activities. This is the main part of my career, in which I have spent the most time and the most experience. This was my first interest. After that, I started working with a few companies with whom I have had very good contacts for 14-15 years. This was the main reason and my main commitment coming to Bulgaria. On the other hand, a very interesting surprise appeared to me when I saw to what extent the Francophone community settled here. Very spontaneously, through my Bulgarian friends, I met one of my very close French friends. This is how I found out that there are a lot of French people who have settled in Bulgaria. I participate in the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and I constantly meet new French people here. This is very important for me, because I had the unique fate to grow up in Morocco as a child. You know, many people at one time went to participate in various forms of cooperation between Bulgaria and other countries during socialism. When I grew up there, this made me very close to the Francophone community. And, accordingly, I share the Francophone culture and civilization very deeply within me. I work a lot on the French language. Now it may sound a bit out of place, but in France, as in Bulgaria, I have very spontaneous, easy and close relationships, simply because I share their culture to a very significant extent. And, on the other hand, their presence here makes me very happy. It makes me very happy that in 1992-1993 I had the intuition that Bulgaria would be liked, even though at that time it was still a very confused and unorganized country, but as a mentality, as a culture, Bulgaria is liked by the French, because, no matter how different we look, we have a lot in common. And the Bulgarians and the French are people who, in principle, love humanity, love sharing, love good food, good wine, friendship. And all of this I really discover here. And it makes me very happy that the French like our country so much. And I very rarely meet French people who leave Bulgaria compared to those who come and settle here. So, this is another connection with Bulgaria. Now, at the time, I also had partial and professional interactions at the level of political communication, because at the time I worked and interacted with specialists in communication, in political communication, in crisis communication. Crisis communication was part of my second specialization, in fact. And over the years I have had contacts, interactions, interests with some political formations in Bulgaria. So, this was more or less a secondary topic through which I passed and which created new acquaintances, but also a view on the political development in Bulgaria. Now, I admit that lately I don't have much time left, I don't have the opportunity, and this is not a close, specialized activity that I have devoted myself to. More recently, I discovered a new development, and it was exactly this one that was born in Bulgaria. It is not just an idea, it is a form of professional transformation in which, at certain moments in our lives, we discover the need to move forward in a different way, in a renewed and real way. And for me, this is already 2022, that is, almost two years, I am gradually transforming my activities from purely activities related to private business, mainly with industrial companies, into creating, and this is just the beginning, forms of work on human development, on what is called personal development, and behavior, communication, all these aspects that are contained in personality. I will not go into details, but in order to be successful in our lives, and to be able to build, even recently with friends, we created a group called Life, which is a bit like a boutique for a small group of people, but it is very interesting, in fact, to have and build a good life, meaningful, with such a tendency, it is thanks to us. And so, gradually, but very structurally, I started with the development of a program, which I started and which is called Who I Am, which, in fact, structures, in an interiorized way, the thinking of oneself, so to speak. I got very meaningful and interesting results, and it continues at the moment, as this already human-oriented form of activity that I am building, based on my entire experience, I have worked with about 10,000 people already at the time, in different forms and at different levels, and this has given me the opportunity to get to know human behavior from pure experience. I am not a psychologist, I have not studied such sciences, I specialized in the processes of making decisions in crisis situations, which is a very deep way of addressing the human process, namely the decision-making process, which is key in every activity and every development, but only for myself, based on my entire experience, I continue, in a new way, the construction of such programs, and this is, in fact, based on my observations related to the needs that exist. And, as one of my causes, how important it is for me to be able to identify myself, to be able to know, as a person, what we are capable of and where we are heading, what we decide to achieve, on the other hand, another cause of mine is the development of young people. I have an overview of the students before they leave high school, where they have to make important choices. If I have to systematize there, at the time, I was going to be a candidate for the Faculty of Medicine, when I finished high school, but I was a candidate for Veterinary Medicine, where they accepted me, for three hundred days, and I entered a village school, from which I signed up to be a candidate for International Relations, where I failed a little, because I did not speak Russian well. After that, my dream was to finish agronomy, to study film directing in Vitis, but I went to specialize in France, Business Administration, after which I specialized in the decision-making process in crisis situations. In 2001, I discovered that I wanted to deal with people, and I started studying at the Carnegie School in Paris. This gave me a whole new, enriching dimensions in the search for my path, which was gradually being built. There were years in which I created independent activities, independent and starting activities, in fact, thinking that this was a hobby for me, to create and come up with new concepts for products or services, different from my main activities, through which I went. This is just an example of a constant, long-term search, but also an evolution, through which I went, which enriched me a lot, which makes me happy, but I did not know exactly what I wanted to do at the very beginning. This is why I find it very valuable and important, as the instructions themselves show, when a person knows, and as soon as he knows, what he is made for, what he wants to achieve, and what qualities he has in order to do it, and he focuses on this, and starts working on it, he builds up his practice, his habits, in order to learn how to improve, because education does not prevent a person from continuing to learn, the further he can go, and the faster he can build a life that corresponds to his sensitivity, to his essence, and this is the main cause that I am actually undertaking now, with a new project, which is starting now. Your young career, or as it is modernly called, your new project, Ducadem, starts at the beginning of the academic year, both for schools and universities, is it a new beginning, what does it represent, what is the essence of this game, let's say, can the game reveal our destiny, and do you think that a person is so organized, that he can easily receive advice from outside? A very interesting question, I would start at the end, because our attitude towards help, in the form of advice, and in principle in the form of help, is very different in the people themselves, towards themselves as individuals, and towards certain situations. Now, in one way, for example, a person with a high degree will receive advice from someone who can give it to him, on whatever basis, in another way, a student will receive it, it depends on whether the advice will come from a parent, or it will come from somewhere else. For ourselves, we do not give everyone the right to enter our space, allowing us to accept what he can offer us, I remember myself, how many advices I received from my parents, then I grew up as a young man, now I know how to act, and accordingly, after some time I understood, after years of experience, different forms of challenge, overcoming difficulties, falling, getting up, how important these advices were. Now, for myself, based on this purely personal form of experience, but also observation towards people, I built from the very beginning a way of working, which is connected, because I am a consultant, a coach, a teacher, a coach, that is, I can work with people in different dimensions, I built a way of working, which is entirely connected with development, transformation, assimilation through practice. And in fact, in this way, for me, it is the most meaningful way to be able to develop, and to be able to accept things that may be useful to us. Because not always one advice is enough. There is a saying that says, wisdom, I hear, I forget, I see, I remember, I do, I understand. This is a gradual process, there are others, of course, but it is a gradual process of learning the different aspects of life that we need to build. And now, to continue, in relation to this new project, which I really like the expression because I really feel it. It is an exceptional feeling when a person creates something. I think that each of us is a creator, and when he finds his way, he can create according to it. And in this way, to be recognized, respected, to live this way, to earn the necessary means for his life. And this start, in fact, came in a very natural way. I developed it in the last two months, purely structurally, because this is a very significant work. And I found that it is very important to start now, at the beginning of the school year. Because at first, in all cases, it will be entirely oriented to the students themselves. Because I find that it is suitable to have a certain homogeneity in the groups in which they will participate. Yes, this is a game. I will allow myself to use a foreign term, because it is not used in Bulgaria. I called it a mastermind game. Because the term mastermind is mainly used in business. This is a collective meeting in which we come up with something together that can affect everyone individually. But we help each other and use the common intellect so that everyone can build their own solution and achieve their goal. And because this principle is embedded inside, it is not unique. That's why I called it that. And so, this is a mastermind game. So far. Now, yes, it starts in the framework of the school year, because it is positioned through the learning weeks for the students themselves. It is suitable for students from 10th, 11th and possibly 12th grade. Now, they have more time to prepare for the end of the year, towards the end of the school year. But, I prepared the distribution for myself over 24 weeks. Why is it important that we can give this time? During this time, I know what it is like when we are students. On the one hand, we are busy with school, on the other hand, we want to have time for friends. In this case, my wish has never been to be something productive, but rather a process that we can learn from, to give ourselves a little time, 15-20 minutes a day, not every day, and to learn from this game process. I won't reveal how it happens now, of course, but this process in which we discover the 12 main aspects of life, which are like pillars that help us move forward. These 12 aspects require a certain amount of self-study, which means that, as I said, 24 weeks, for each aspect there are two weeks to be learned, thought through, studied, and to be able to achieve what we are looking for. Every participant is looking for each aspect. Now, yes, there is a game, there is a competitive nature, but for ourselves, the essence is to have fun as we develop. Modern worlds and technologies allow us more and more. But, and this is part of one aspect, I forgot to mention the cause, which is mine, I believe that the most important thing we have is the energy we naturally have, as living beings, and the time we have. Everything we can manage is related to this energy of where we will focus it at a given time. I have spent a lot of time on social networks, a lot of things disperse us in the modern world. A lot of different forms of business, of communication, of products, aim to attract our attention. Accordingly, our time, in my opinion, one of the main things to be able to move forward successfully, but also to be confident in ourselves, is to be able to realize that our time and our powers we have, and the efforts we will make actually develop us for the future. And to build a certain meaning for certain topics. These are the aspects, but they give us the opportunity for a greater understanding and reflection, but also certain habits. Habits also give us the opportunity to do things in an easy way and not to disperse. This does not necessarily mean that we have to be ultra-programmed for success. Everyone has their own rhythm in their development. The point is more to complement, to upgrade, to develop, to discover new aspects, to ask ourselves questions we do not ask ourselves. And this in an interactive form of interaction, in which there are group moments and moments of independent work and moments of interactivity. This is very important for me, because it is a topic I have been working on in the last year. Artificial intelligence can be used freely and in an interesting way. This is an aspect I have invested in the development of the program, because now this is a new topic for us. We may have different views on this new topic, but in the future it will be especially important and valuable for a person to be able to use artificial intelligence in their work. Whatever it may be, there may be very few activities in which there will be no need to use artificial intelligence. For the most part, the people who will manage applications, assistants, forms of optimization through artificial intelligence will be much more valuable and will be able to have easier work, to develop their activities and, in fact, to move forward faster. Therefore, in this process, there is a refinement of what concerns self-awareness and aspects related to personal development and future prospects. Aspects that concern professional development and what we need to learn not only as a profession, but also as an awareness of professional development on a fundamental basis. It's not just about how to do it in a given profession. The question is who we are in a given activity in the future and this determines what we will do now, what choices we will make what skills we will develop and with what confidence we will move forward. Most students don't know exactly what to study. Or they choose something based on different factors, a profession they are interested in at the moment, which they are looking for. I recently had a conversation about how now there is a tendency that programming is an important activity in which it makes sense to invest. There are risks related to the integration of AI in programming. I am not a technical specialist in this area, but I see more and more how AI will be able to replace programming. And the more you do it, the less you will need programmers. If we follow this logic, we can ask the question why should we invest in programming? And so on. This applies to many activities. Accordingly, in this connection between personality, professional realization and perspective, AI comes as a compulsory addition for me. That's why I integrated it in this Mastermind game. Academe is an old word in our language. Luck, goodness, reputation. I personally see success once in the name of the game you create. Will Academe lead to success, to joy, to luck for the participants in it? And in order to argue, can you give examples with individuals or corporations that you advised and found the right path? Academe. Yes, thank you. You actually found an element in the movie. Indeed, my father used to tell me that luck is how you get it. Maybe some of your listeners or readers know that there is a mathematical formula for luck that always works. However, we don't always pay attention to it. It's very simple. Academe, and in this case luck, is actually a combination of preparation and situations. The better we are prepared for a given situation, the more luck we can have in it. That is, we can draw conclusions and make the right choices for it. This is very important and, let's say, this is how the luck aspect of the game is laid out. It's related to practice. It's related to building skills that we need. Every person is different. Every person has different talents, different qualities, different sensitivity, different way of living life, of actions, of making decisions, of communication, of dynamics, of self-mobilization, and so on. In fact, the framework that I give to the people I work with from time to time is orientating and structuring in order to build certain qualities, certain skills, and to achieve certain results. This is how it is laid out in Academe. I am trying not to go into too much detail, because one of the aspects of this way of working is the discovery of different stages. Their discovery. And that's why I am a bit discreet about this topic. I hope you will release secrets. Let them be in anticipation. Yes, thank you. Thank you very much. So, for myself, everything that we can achieve is, basically, the guarantee for the achievement of ourselves. Our consistency, our focus. That's why I have always tried to give the best of my experience, of my knowledge, to different clients, corporate, private, individual, so that they can, in fact, what they lack, learn it, train it, structure it, and in this way turn off the obstacles in front of them. It's different for everyone. That's why the framework of the work that I set, as it happens in this game, is instructive, structuring, and building habits, meaning, and knowledge. This is absolutely natural when we are so engaged. And, accordingly, satisfaction from the achievement. Because inside we will have competitive aspects, as I told you. There will be rewards and there will be an interest towards discovering aspects and working approaches, so to speak, in which everyone can express themselves as an independent person, as a talent, as a sensitivity, and as a potential. So, the guarantee for success will be in time. As for myself, I find that this is a wonderful way to give a very serious push for the development of the personality, for everyone, towards himself, towards his potential, towards the direction that is his, which he will choose, which will give him time to think about. That's why this perspective is very important. That's why it's 24 weeks. That's why it's at this moment of life of young people. Subsequently, it's possible to organize it for other participants, but only for myself, this is the moment, for this year, I will be able to move within this framework. Now, I mentioned the program which I am, which, in fact, preceded this game, which I created and launched in 2023, and which is different. It's a program for personal development, which is much more interiorizing. I dare say that from it, first, I reached the people who gave up, because not everyone succeeded. It's difficult. It takes time, it takes a lot of independent work, not everyone is inclined to it, but the people who gave up reached the actual important levels of their own consciousness, which are subsequently shared and continue to be shared when we meet. Even a large part of them are part of this community, of personal life, because they simply made this effort. So, I have this principle, it's impossible to do only what we don't anticipate. And to anticipate means to go somewhere and every day to continue going there. That is, every day to anticipate, not to stop. The only safe way to not achieve something is to stop. And for this, only for yourself, I also found the game, as I did in the previous personality development program, but in a completely different way. In this more in-depth form of work on the personality, there are different approaches. I, for the sake of interesting and different forms of work, offer and structure what I can best. Because from my observations of how people develop, in one way they develop when they speak, in another way when they listen, in a third way when they write, think, in another way when they do, apply, and so on. And, in fact, the essence of the approach offered by this game is exactly the whole, the whole, I would say holistic, in a certain sense. This is, for me, extremely important, meaningful, and very responsible, because everyone who will find an interest to participate in the game, it is really very important, I strongly believe in this, that they come out satisfied with this, and with real achievements. This is always in my work, with all clients, even my first professional activities in which I started working, I always asked employers, and clients, ok, are you satisfied with what I did for you? And for me this is very important, because I always want to have a positive response to this, and to have proof that this is achieved. So, with the participants in the previous program, which continues, and in which there are also many young people, I have five participants who are between 17 and 20 years old. Some have finished, others are still participating, and everyone tells me, here we work on and ask ourselves questions that we do not usually ask ourselves. Yes, I am far from the idea that everyone will like this, but only for myself I find very valuable the basis which I invest in and structure from my current experience. Apart from the previous program, what I invest in is already these over 30 years of professional experience which I have gained, mainly as a consultant, coach, coach, I mentioned with all the people as for example specific results, now I have several websites, you can see, as a testimony from several participants, I have never been a big collector, even when I started making websites, I found that I did not have so many pictures, because I did not think about it. When I work, I give myself to the people with whom I work and what is important for them. And I have not gathered so much feedback about my work, except directly, which is at the moment, I have not gathered so many pictures, but what I have achieved is based on this and from the participants from previous years a little about finding my own way, where very often we worked on their vision and strategy for achieving, a part of them have been achieved precisely thanks to their perseverance and have achieved what they wanted. When we started working, participants who were, for example, staff, employees in a given enterprise, in a given technical level, their vision was to become managers and they succeeded. There is no coincidence when we start on a path that is clear to us and in which we persist. We manage to achieve it. The question is whether we are able and want to do it. So, this is, for example, I have a few, purely from people and participants, and as a business, for example, where my other challenge has always been to calculate the results that a business achieves from our interaction, the main aspects in which it can be found, I call it finding value in a business, is the way in which decisions are made. Because very often in the decisions there can be more or less a bigger form of creating value in the future. In different ways. As an example, I worked with a big, I won't quote the name, but it is a big global corporation, which is specialized in production, service, development, and not only because it has other activities, but specifically for elevators. Now, there, in the work with people, which is actually the main commitment that I have had, with them, what has always been interesting for me is to find what value there is in their knowledge and view of the business and their specific responsibilities where they are. With a facilitation form of work, which is based on creating issues and structuring, which is something that I use and I own in my work, specifically with companies, but of course I use it with other people, participants at different levels in different programs, the fact is to extract the important. When we extract the important, we can make something valuable out of it. There I discovered, for example, that there are services that they can sell, they don't even need to sell them, because they are obligatory, but they don't sell them, because the people who talk about it are supernatural. When we discovered together, and I won't go into details, how this performance of this task actually, we saw that by breaking it at the national level, because we discovered it in the work with a group of directors of agencies in one region, and after that we broke it in the whole country, this made, I think, benefits for the company additional from the order of 3.5 million euros, for which there was no need to make even commercial efforts. It was just a matter of internal, a little fine-tuning, in which a new value is created. The same is with people, the same is in the work with people. There are small things in which someone blocks and says to himself, I can't do it, or she won't take it, or I won't do it. And when he realizes it and makes this move, you can actually see how easy it is after that. And that's why my work is related to looking for these fine elements that make people in given situations to prepare and to come out with luck. Your experience has already touched the borders of Bulgaria. Is it easier to realize your dreams in your own country or is it the same everywhere? I ask you because many people at a young age should first make a decision. Where should they go? To Bulgaria or abroad? Yes. Here it is important to note that Bulgaria in recent years continues to transform and develop on its own in a way that is in a better direction. I can give an example. Two or three years ago I was sitting in a gathering and a lot of students came from 10th, 11th or 12th grade. And I asked them if they would study abroad or in Bulgaria. At least a dozen boys and girls. And the answer was very interesting. All of them said one thing. We like Bulgaria very much and we want to live in Bulgaria. Some of them said they would like to study abroad but to return to Bulgaria. This did not correspond to what we could see in the 90s. Even later. Now, as everyone's life is different, there is one thing that is certain in all cases. Everywhere we need to make an effort. Everywhere. In Bulgaria, in the Western countries, overseas, in the sea continents. Everywhere we need to make an effort to adapt to the situation that we face. For example, when I return to Bulgaria I need to adapt gradually to the situation and the habits of the people here. The way they organize themselves, the way they interact, the way they take responsibility and make decisions. I need to have a very clear idea of what is necessary because otherwise a person cannot feel good if he struggles against all the obstacles that he faces in a given country. This is one effort. The other effort is related to whether we will continue our education and we want it to be what is most suitable for us and not just education. Or to work. Everything is based on this. I dare to say what further meaning and perspective we have in this. Now there are a lot of people who move abroad to Bulgaria in order to live in more organized countries and to have a secure job. People are looking for jobs in many places and accordingly there are a lot of Bulgarians who still continue to move to Bulgaria. The world allows us to make such choices in a more relaxed way than before. In my opinion Bulgaria has potential opportunities that are very diverse. Maybe it is necessary to make a clearer overview of them and to think about them. Because we can often be influenced by clichés. Education in Bulgaria is a cliché. It is not good. Students do not like to study. I have heard that students do not like to go to school. I am sure it is not so. Because the whole picture is never made of clichés. That is why thinking and focusing and giving perspective and looking beyond the barriers and difficulties because we try to do them for something more than short-term goals is especially important so that we can think if we should live in Bulgaria, invest here and go to another country and continue there. Bulgaria is a wonderful country for development. Every day I see that the changes and the transformations are more and more promising. So I would like to wish academic success in Bulgaria. And academic success in the future. Thank you.