The wisdom of Abbé Faria

This is by far one of the best chapters of The Count of Monter-Cristo. Read Chapter 17. The Abbe’s Chamber. or, the French version, La chambre de l’abbé.

Here’s a quote from the chapter:

“What are you thinking of?” asked the abbe smilingly, imputing the deep abstraction in which his visitor was plunged to the excess of his awe and wonder.

“I was reflecting, in the first place,” replied Dantes, “upon the enormous degree of intelligence and ability you must have employed to reach the high perfection to which you have attained. What would you not have accomplished if you had been free?”

“Possibly nothing at all; Continue reading →

A coaching session with Abbé Faria – English version

This passage is too good, so here is the English version of Abbé Faria coaching Edmond Dantès.

“Come,” said the abbe, closing his hiding-place, and pushing the bed back to its original situation, “let me hear your story.”

Dantes obeyed, and commenced what he called his history, but which consisted only of the account of a voyage to India, and two or three voyages to the Levant until he arrived at the recital of his last cruise, with the death of Captain Leclere, and the receipt of a packet to be delivered by himself to the grand marshal; his interview with that personage, and his receiving, in place of the packet brought, a letter addressed to a Monsieur Noirtier—his arrival at Marseilles, and interview with his father—his affection for Mercedes, and their nuptual feast—his arrest and subsequent examination, his temporary detention at the Palais de Justice, and his final imprisonment in the Chateau d’If. From this point everything was a blank to Dantes—he knew nothing more, not even the length of time he had been imprisoned. His recital finished, the abbe reflected long and earnestly. Continue reading →

A coaching session with Abbé Faria

Here’s a passage from the Count of Monte Cristo – in French. I came across it and thought to be an eloquent example of a coaching session. Abbé Faria reads between the lines of the story of Edmond Dantès and succeeds to unravel the truth of his imprisonment.

—Voyons, dit l’abbé en refermant sa cachette et en repoussant son lit à sa place, racontez-moi donc votre histoire.»

Dantès alors raconta ce qu’il appelait son histoire, et qui se bornait à un voyage dans l’Inde et à deux où trois voyages dans le Levant; enfin, il en arriva à sa dernière traversée, à la mort du capitaine Leclère au paquet remis par lui pour le grand maréchal, à l’entrevue du grand maréchal, à la lettre remise par lui et adressée à un M. Noirtier; enfin à son arrivée à Marseille, à son entrevue avec son père, à ses amours avec Mercédès, au repas de ses fiançailles, à son arrestation, à son interrogatoire, à sa prison provisoire au palais de justice, enfin à sa prison définitive au château d’If. Arrivé là, Dantès ne savait plus rien, pas même le temps qu’il y était resté prisonnier.

Le récit achevé, l’abbé réfléchit profondément. Continue reading →

Short advice for online trainers

As I’m currently involved in organizing online training sessions, I see some trainers overwhelmed by having important company figures as session participants. Sessions end sooner because the participant wants, some join the session or leave whenever they feel like doing so and hardly one or two completes the feedback form at the end of the training. Two minutes is simply too much to give back to the person that spent 3-5 hours to enhance your skills.

Here’s a piece of advice: It’s worth remembering it is the trainer that owns the session and its outcomes. Even though the virtual classroom might benefit from the attendance of some high-profile participants, it is the trainer that should provide leadership during the session. From the beginning, when everyone shares agreement on common rules, to the closing of the session.

What other good advice came out of your experience?

On having ‘no buts meetings’

A few weeks ago, irritated a bit by the extensive usage of the word but in our office conversations, I proposed to the team I work in to run ‘no buts meetings’. While not every but is as obnoxious as using the conjunction in phrase structures like “you did a great job in the project, but…”, to keep things simple the proposal was to skip all buts. Same for synonyms like however, still, though.

As the meeting unfolded, we realized that it was a challenging task to keep the conversation clean and the sentences to the point. We often seek to smoothen our tone in business conversations and it sometimes backfires in the form of confusion, unclarity and exaggerated politeness.

While some suggest using words that have the same meaning, my proposal is to shorten sentences and use a full stop or a comma instead of ‘but’.

“I feel you did a great job on the project, but there were things missing…” becomes “I feel you did a great job on the project. There were also some things missing…“

In this way the praising part of the statement does not get polluted with the slightly negative tone of the reproach sentence. Pausing a bit after the full stop allows the receiving end to take in the compliment and feel proud of their results.

So, here’s a challenge, should you accept it: run as many ‘no buts meetings’ as possible. And one final tip, make it stress-free! If the word does slip in, it’s ok! It will be better as you keep practicing.

Riff Channel and new SEO changes

As I had been working for the past month on Riff Channel, I’ve learned so many details about SEO. We changed several times the meta tags and even considered giving up some keywords since their practicality is doubtable.

Reading the topics on the web surely helps, as well as reading the Google dos and don’ts.

Another useful hint is to check your more successful competitors. Not just the layout of the site, also what hides under the hood. Actually, compare some SEO of top ranking sites, check meta tags in the home page and single pages.

Will post some resources in a while.