What is it like to be Martin Novák?
Disclaimer: Be advised, this article has 134 occurrences of "I". You have been warned!
What is it like to be me? To study computers? To be an undergraduate student? To be founding a company and becoming a chief executive officer?
To be exploring the world the way I do?
I want to show you the other side of who I am.
I am a student
I have got 93.8 percentile for university entrance exam, meaning I was in top 10 %. I chose Brno for my studies and did not enroll for any other entrance exams to other universities.
I am an undergraduate student at Faculty of informatics at Masaryk University.
The first year during my studies I have managed to get own paid university project and own office.
Now I am a web operating systems research area leader at Laboratory of software architectures and information systems. I sit in an office among PhD students.
I have presented my research behind the borders of Czech Republic with success. I got offered a PhD study abroad.
I have been invited to join in international research project potentially covered directly by European Union.
I have managed to get myself and my work into university newspapers and other related magazines several times.
I have made friends among doctors and docents.
This month I have become a member of iCom project, a paid job where I will actually get to present to people from universities and companies from Czech Republic and Austria.
I am not a good student
I have terrible grades during my studies. My current average grade is 2.71.
I have failed to pass twice a subject “Automata and Grammars” and was forced to interrupt my studies for half a year. Now I have failed the exam again and will have to take it once more this week. If I don’t pass, I will end my studies. The amount of time lost studying fills me with frustration and rage.
I have dysortographia (although I have not been tested for it, but I was tested for dysortographia with positive result). All the times when I was failing one grammar test after another at high school, it probably was not because I would be stupid.
My parents are very displeased with my study results and have already advised me to end my studies.
To be an entrepreneur
I love entrepreneurship and I love becoming a CEO founding my own company. Ever since my teenage age I wanted to be a CEO of an international company and I am working hard toward that dream. I am an entrepreneur since 17 years old, earning $500 USD for my first job back then, which was really cool money for me at that age.
I have managed to finish the first ever year of MIC Accelerator, maybe the first of startup accelerators in Czech Republic.
I managed to get my company incubated in South Moravian Innovation Centre where only one out of twelve companies gets accepted.
I cooperate with Microsoft and engaged several times in meetings with Czech biggest telecommunication providers. Imagine me looking as young as I do in a room telling all those suits about what business we might do together.
I have won Vodafone Idea of the Year, Ekonom Student Entrepreneur award, Czech Microsoft Imagine Cup and managed to get into TOP 18 in world-wide finals in New York City as a team leader.
I have built a large team of amazing people. I am proud that many people on my team have higher IQ then me but still follow me as their leader.
I got head-hunted by Swiss Google (I declined).
Now I have managed to get to the point where we are looking for an investment and we already have offers. And we are talking about an interesting number for a startup without any actual operational history.
My blog is built on a web content management system that I have developed myself and that has thousands of downloads from other people.
My work is killing me
My friends find it strange that I spend so much time actually working. Most people find me strange in general actually.
No matter how much or how hard I work, it frustrates me that I don’t work enough.
I don’t have much free time and I often I have hard time to stay in contact even with pretty girls that I feel interested in.
It’s hard to maintain any kind of relationship outside of my business relations.
My work is often stressful and frustrating, I may feel powerless and I can’t expect the same level of commitment from anyone at the company, not even co-founders.
I have difficult money problems because we did not manage to launch our product on time.
I feel my work is not appreciated by people close to me.
My parents dislike my business activities.
The way I explore the world
I have travelled to several European countries and I have seen the U.S.
I have art education and I enjoy drawing women acts.
I also enjoy painting but unfortunately I am not equipped for it. My blue tiger painting is still in main room of my old art school.
I was doing living history. I own full armor of Roman soldier and I can control my sword very well.
I am able to write stories and poems.
I am learning classical dance. I love dancing. I love that I have learned to lead a woman in dance. I love all the turns and the music and everything.
My English is really good. I am able to write and talk in English fluently including professional English.
I try to care about the way I dress, the way I care for myself and the way I eat.
I am able to have lucid dreams and that seems to be rare.
I work hard on myself, getting better in what I can do.
I don’t drink too much and I have never smoked a single cigarette (although I have smoked other things).
In many ways I have always been a loser and a nerd but I am doing my best to get over it and cross my own shadow to become more then was destined for me.
What that makes me?
Too often I feel alone in this world. I work so hard because I am not willing to give up and I am sure as hell not willing to accept that I can’t do better.
I can’t sleep at nights. I don’t fall asleep unless I have at least a pillow to hug. If I have a dream, it is usually violent. Sometimes I just feel need to scream.
I was not born with natural talent to attract women. I was born with weak damaged body.
I don’t trust people.
I am too sensitive inside.
I have many beautiful girls as my friends and several of them are close but I have no girlfriend and I don’t expect to have one any time soon. I am unviling to lower my expectations.
By observation I have found out that the most terrifying thing for me is being out of control of things.
I am not getting anything for free and nothing I have is for granted.
I tend to be losing everything I care for and I got used that that if I get attached to something, it will be used against me.
Rocky (in the film) says that it isn’t how hard you hit, its’ about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. I had to learn that I will get hit hard and that no matter how much it hurts I will get hit even more for every second that I would take to recover.
There is no leaving things for tomorrow, there may be no tomorrow for me. Yes, I am very impatient and often too intense about things.
Fighting the world makes me so tired that I could sleep a hundred years but sleeping would mean giving up the fight and I can’t do that.
Now?
I have spent the day studying for an exam that I have in three days. I have created an e-learning web page to make the studying easier and more interesting. Tomorrow (more like today) I have a meeting with an important investor in Prague.
Now it's 6 am. I can't sleep.
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