Ever wondered what really works when trying to get ahead?
Want to laugh while reading about it?
Award-winning ebook "Naked Determination" is an unusual and entertaining collection of stories, which has been compared with the series Chicken Soup For The Soul, "only every story has been written by one person".
Like in everybody's life a lot of things go right in author Gisela Hausmann's life, and a lot of things go very wrong. Telling it as it is, laughing about herself, Gisela tells how she maneuvered herself through wild adventures, tough work situations, romantic escapades, and so much more.
"Naked Determination" tells of adventures in the Austrian movie industry, globetrotting in Asia where nobody speaks English, "encountering" two KGB agents, and getting invited into the cockpit of a Boeing 747 by a real sky marshal (in 1982). "Naked Determination" also reveals how, by chance, Gisela found out how to trim hedges in record time, how to use email as a tool to get promoted, and why she had to meet her lover in London, UK.
Reading sample:
RED SHOES AND DON KING'S HAIR
"… does one need a trademark…"
Over the last decade I bought necessities only when on sale. Then I stored them at my house and started using them "as needed". One day, when I was down to only three pairs of shoes which I could wear to the office, I headed to a shoe sale. It was time to do something about that.
In my family I have been the topic of many jokes because I am somewhat peculiar with my shoe purchases. I wear only certain types of shoes and other types never ever. That makes shoe purchases sometimes difficult because my style is not always on sale. On that day however, I luckily spotted a few pairs I liked. Among them was a pair of red shoes, which was not only stunningly beautiful, but also fit me as if they had been produced for me. I hesitated.
"A pair of red shoes! … red?
As a child I had been an avid reader of fairy tales and therefore I knew red shoes came with issues. In Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale the girl with the red shoes would dance herself to death. Her only way to escape is to get her own feet chopped off. Red shoes were about vanity.
I argued with myself.
"Could I buy these shoes if I vowed never to dance in them?"
By nature I am not a vain person. In fact, most of my girlfriends would vouch for that I am their most "under"-dressed friend. I can be reasonably sure that some of them have never seen me wear anything other than jeans and a T-shirt. The better these red shoes would look on my feet. Since all my other clothing was so plain the shoes would become the focal point.
Strutting around, I felt that these shoes were too comfortable to be left on the shelf. If I really thought about it, unlike the girl in the fairy tale, my own desire to buy these shoes was not about the color. If the shoes would have been blue or green, or even brown or black, I too would consider buying them because they fit so well. Plus - the price was convincing! I bought the red shoes and wore them to the office the next day.
As I entered the office I immediately ran into a colleague…