The profession that brings moral satisfaction is suitable

Introduce yourself in a few words..

My name is Ognyan Bekyarov and I am a communication specialist with over 20 years of experience in the field of advertising and marketing.

How would you describe your career in a few words?

My area of expertise involves establishing a communication link between brands and consumers, and this is a complex and multi-layered process and, like any complex process, it has a complex explanation. If a complex process has a simple explanation, that explanation is always wrong.
But if I have to synthesize what I do, it would be minimizing the risks of distorting information at all stages of:

-    What a brand essentially represents

-    What the brand wants to say

-    What the brand says

-    What the consumer expects to hear

-    What the consumer hears

-    What the consumer understands

Communication between brands and consumers is not much different from communication between any two parties and sometimes between its starting and ending point, information can take quite different forms from the initially expected and final results.

What was the most-important choice that shaped your path?

During my studies, I wanted to graduate in journalism. Soon, however, it became clear to me that being a foreigner in the country where I was studying, my realization as a journalist would be a long and quite difficult process, and also quite uncertain. I realized that I would earn my living with language, but for a while, it was far from clear how. My decision to engage in what I do came about in the following way - every day, going to lectures at the university, I passed by the office of an international advertising agency, every day at the same time and every day, watching how some well-dressed guys went to work with their well-looking cars to that office.

So profound, so wise, and so heroic.

What would you like to know at the beginning of your career, but no one told you?

Communication, unlike any other science, has undergone deep rethinking and restructuring of its very essence and nature in recent years.

I couldn't think of another science that has so completely renounced its methodology and tools instead of building upon them.

I wouldn't want to talk about devaluation or depreciation, but the language is undergoing an unprecedented collapse.

How can a person understand which profession is suitable for them?

A suitable profession is only the profession that brings internal, moral satisfaction. I am far from the thought that every person is born to change the world, but each of us should derive internal satisfaction from what we do - beyond the specifics of the job, financial reward, or team. Of course, these are also factors with significant weight, but if they are the leading criteria for choice and satisfaction remains in the background, then the profession inevitably becomes a burden and obligation.

Which skills do you think will be key in the next 10 years?

The reality we live in is changing extremely rapidly and I would say that not only in the next 10 years, but always adaptability to new conditions has been paramount. My father was a marine engineer and every 4 years he had to attend courses for additional certification. Currently, a period of 4 years is extremely, extremely long, a whole missed eternity, and the circumstances around us constantly force us to upgrade existing skills or quickly acquire new ones to be adequate to the labor market and the reality around us.

A person is structured in such a way that tomorrow always promises more and technological progress, especially that of the 20th century, creates in people an illusory impression that the future is already here, just around the corner, and if we reach out, it is ours. The Italian Futurists proclaimed the car as the greatest achievement of mankind, speed is the new divinity, and everything is already closer, including time. In 1969, for the first time, a person stepped on the Moon and notice how quickly, in less than a year, the entire perception of humanity about the future changes - in popular culture, from film art to music and David Bowie, through product design of cars and furniture to the linguistic code of communication, the future, the beyond, and the unknown are already here. The Moon is ours, the Cosmos is ours, the future is ours and almost already deeply in our pockets. Such illusion, let’s call it “the illusion of expectation,” also exists at the moment with the entry of artificial intelligence into all areas of our lives, especially since the pace of entry is extremely fast and the feeling of the future is increasingly tangible. We have not only an illusion of the future but also a very clear hypothetical idea of what exactly this future is filled with, in counterpoint with the predictable, well-known, and cyclically repeating past, which we no longer desire.

In essence, however, a person remains unchanged - the prehistoric person loved, Odysseus loved, Romeo and Juliet loved, as did my parents, you love or have loved, and in the future, a person will continue to love. Or to rejoice, to cry, to be disappointed, to expect, to sneeze, to sometimes hit their head out of inattentiveness or to tremble with impatience, and nothing human will be alien to them.

Returning to the question of skills in the next 10 years, probably the ability to maintain exactly this balance - to move forward, but not to forget that in essence we as humans remain unchanged.

How to build a network of useful contacts without appearing interested?

For me, this has always been a natural process - creating a social or professional circle has always led to its natural expansion. There is no universal formula for creating a network of contacts, but rather I am an advocate of the natural process in this regard - self-serving and at all costs creating a circle of contacts usually inevitably leads to hollowness and invalidity of those connections.

What is the biggest mistake you have made in your career, and what did you learn from it?

Not trusting something just because it does not show problems at the very beginning - years ago, in official communication with the CEO of a banking group present in most EU countries, I addressed her with “Fear Mrs. …”, instead of “Dear Mrs. …”. The autocorrect did not detect an error, my gaze mechanically passed over the address and reviewed the essence of the email in detail.

Lesson 1 - always check every syllable and every comma as many times as necessary. Check the check of the check.
Lesson 2 - if something is written to fail, no matter what you do, whatever efforts you make, it will fail. Accept it! It sounds fatalistic, but it is more real than we would like.

How to recognize a toxic work environment and when is it time to leave?

The toxic environment is an environment of imbalance and its symptom is easily recognizable - lack. Lack of respect for the other as a person, lack of respect as a professional, lack of listening, lack of acceptance of another's opinion, lack of respect for the time and efforts of the other, turning the environment into an environment of subordination, not of sharing - the signs are many.

But to avoid being unnecessarily verbose - if you prefer to work alone rather than with your colleagues or you have no desire to go to work at all, that is already a clear sign of a toxic environment.

When is it time to leave?

When there is a lack of hearing.

What would you do differently if you could start over?

If it were to be a restart, it would be a 100% restart - there is no reason to partially repeat something already experienced by me, because in partial repetition remains that inner dissatisfaction “What would it be like if…?”, and that is not constructive and leads only to additional disappointment from the unrealized desire.

I would engage in something completely different - e.g., music theory, probably because I am currently intensely engaged in this in my free time.

How to maintain our motivation in moments of stagnation?

There is no universal formula for this - if a person were to try to synthesize something similar, they would be a misleading charlatan, because just as every person is a different individuality, motivation for each is strictly individual. Lennon and McCartney wrote more than 360 songs together and do not have, so-called, “Dry session,” i.e., not finishing within a few hours the composition started, as their motivation is very simple - “Now we are writing for a new car,” “Today we are writing for a pool in the yard,” etc.

I also motivate myself from ordinary and completely mundane things - nothing mind-blowing.

How to achieve balance between professional and personal life?

In my opinion, such a balance cannot exist - always, at every moment, one of the two is dominant, and they are completely different in essence. We try to combine them only because they are present together in the common perception called time, but in practice, they are incompatible and not subject to balance. Balance exists between objects that are equal in essence and purpose - car tires, eyes, finances in “debit-credit,” but not between personal and professional life. Just as I could not balance a table and a lamp, just because they are in the same space, I could not combine professional and personal life, because in that case, I could find a substitute for the joy of my child when I come home, and that would be worthy only of regret.

When is it time to change our career, not just the job?

When the job is unable to give you anything more, and you to it - these processes are usually always mutual.

If you had to give only one piece of advice to people looking for success, what would it be?

Do not seek it - if it is meant to come, it will come by itself after the necessary time and efforts you put in. Everything else is so transient that even you yourself will not view it as success tomorrow.

What is your definition of a “successful career”?

To look at the result of your work and feel satisfaction.