Blaz Kos

kaizen & growth mindset

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  • Why you should read every day

    I never liked reading when I was young. I always liked computers. But in my early twenties, I decided to get fond of reading. My strategy was simple. Read every day. I followed the strategy through and today I love to read.

    I have three simple rules. (1) The first one is to not go to sleep if I haven’t read at least one page of a book. It’s something you can realistically commit to. (2) The second rule is to read at least 50 books per year. And the (3) third one is that when I wait in lines or anywhere else, or when I’m in an idle state somehow, I read.

    I can honestly say that reading is probably the number one thing that changed my life to the better forever. If there are only two things I have to recommend to anyone in this world, they would be exercise and reading.

    I know it’s hard to find the time to read books. But with good time management techniques, it can be done. You just have to see all the benefits and be motivated enough.

    My intention with this blog post is to encourage you to read more. But in addition to that, you will also learn:

    • The number one reason why you should read every day
    • Other benefits of regular reading
    • How to become fond of reading
    • My personal experience of how reading changed my life
    • Reading metrics you should follow

    If nothing else, read the paragraph below:

    You have one of the most capable computers in your head available for use, a product of billions of years of evolution. Next to that, you have most of the knowledge ever created by humankind available only with a single click on the mouse. Why would you use your brain and the internet for browsing funny pictures of cats?

    Why you should read every day

    The most important reason for reading every day

    The most important reason to read (non-fiction) every day is regular maintenance and updates for your brain.

    Imagine your body is a piece of hardware and your brain is the organ that runs the software to operate your body and how you experience life – from making everyday decisions to how you feel about certain situations.

    Even if the brain is a remarkably powerful organ, the software it runs among neurons is quite buggy. Extremely buggy, actually.

    Brain bugs come from many different sources, like suppressed traumatic experiences, cognitive distortions, limiting beliefs, lack of awareness, false knowledge transmitted from others (the Earth is flat?), and so on.

    Now here’s the awesome news. By reading, listening to lectures, talking to people, observing different situations, reflecting and other similar situations, you can update your software to be less buggy.

    Updating your brains (learning) = Download + Process + Apply

    You have the ability to make your software more powerful, more capable, more accurate and with fewer bugs. In other words, you become more intelligent when you regularly update and maintain your software.

    Among all the ways of “downloading” knowledge to update the “software” that your brain runs, reading is one of the best and the most popular ones.

    Reading opens new perspectives and angles to you, it enables you to familiarize yourself with how other people see the world, it enables you to acquire skills, improve your communication abilities and much more. You can understand the world and yourself much better.

    That’s why most of the extremely successful people, no matter the industry, read; and they read a lot. Well, a few industries like the entertainment industry may be sometimes an exception. But you get the point.

    Reading = One of the best ways to download knowledge

    Now only (1) downloading knowledge makes no sense, if you don’t (2) process it and then (3) run it or apply it. It’s like downloading a program on your computer and not installing it, much less using it. That’s why you also need to process knowledge and put it to use.

    Processing knowledge means reflecting on new information, connecting it to what you already know, analyzing what you’ll start doing and stop doing based on the new information, talking to other people and engaging in discussions, sleeping it over, and so on.

    Applying knowledge means putting it to use. Starting to interact differently with your environment. Becoming a better version of yourself, in action. Practically, that means that you put to use a new skill you’ve acquired, stop procrastinating, undertake a new adventure, make better decisions, manage relationships better, and so on.

    Downloading, processing, applying. That’s also why we know passive and active methods of learning. Passive methods of learning are the ones where you just “download” knowledge. As mentioned, reading is one of the most popular ones. Here they are:

    • Listening to lectures
    • Reading
    • Listening to audio recordings and watching video materials
    • Demonstration

    Active methods are the ones where you don’t only download knowledge, but also process and apply it. Active methods of learning are:

    • Group discussions (process)
    • Real life experience (process, apply) – Validated learning – Practical knowledge
    • Teaching after real life experience (process, apply)

    Applying theoretical knowledge means gaining experience. With experience and gathering feedback comes even more practical knowledge. Experience is simply the best way to remember new knowledge. But a theory is what gives you the coordinates of where to start.

    Reading is a great start. I’m trying to convince you to read more here. But reading is not enough. Thinking about it is not enough. Only reflecting is also not enough. You have to change your behavior in the end. Download, process, apply. But reading is where you most often start.

    You have learned something new when you do things differently.

    Regular reading doesn’t only mean fresh updates for your brain; it also means regular brain maintenance. Research has shown that reading improves your memory and greatly decreases the chance for cognitive diseases like Alzheimer’s.

    It also helps slow down your cognitive decline with age. Reading is the workout for your brain. You have to take care of your body and your mind.

    And here’s some more good news. The more you learn, the more synaptic pinpoints you have for the new knowledge to be at your disposal faster and more permanently. When you read, you’re making your hardware and software more and more capable. The benefits accumulate.

    Reading is the workout for your brain.

    Other benefits of regular reading

    Now you know the main benefit of reading. Updated software. Reading changed the quality of my life forever. More about my personal experience later. Besides updated software, there are many other benefits of reading. I found more than 15 of them.

    Some of them apply to non-fiction, others to fiction books, but most of them to both. I encourage you to read both. Now let’s go to the benefits. And here is the first one:

    Seeing into the minds of other people

    Many times, I ask myself how it would be to experience life as another person. Everybody has their own life story and individual experience and subjective interpretation of the World.

    There are unlimited combinations of gender, cultural history, sets of beliefs, religious and political backgrounds, age, and so on. Everyone has their own individual experience and life story, and you being limited only to your own is a big deprivation.

    A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one. R.R. Martin

    By reading books, you can kind of see into the minds of other people and better understand a small fragment of what was/is their experience of the world – including the people who already passed away and thankfully decided to share their piece of the world through the written word.

    Here are only a few things you can experience with reading:

    • How other people perceive the world (alive and dead)
    • Other cultural backgrounds and places without even traveling
    • Human history and ideas about the future

    Isn’t that simply awesome? By reading, you have the ability to enter the minds of other people. Don’t waste that ability.

    Developing empathy

    By understanding different ways of how life can be experienced, grasping different angles of looking at different situations and having more knowledge, you develop empathy.

    Being empathic is one of the most important social skills. Reading is the thing that helps you enhance your empathy.

    Especially by reading non-fiction books, you can enter more mental states, understand people better and thus cultivate more complex and deeper relationships. You can see more relationship dimensions and be a better friend. What an awesome benefit of reading.

    Reading everywhere

    Stimulating your imagination, creativity and ideas

    When you watch a movie or a TV series, you have visual material in front of you. But when you read, especially fiction books, you have to imagine things. Imagination is unlimited.

    You can imagine a situation or a thing you read in many different ways and with dozens of different mental pictures. You can play it over and over again in your mind by adding things and taking them away. It’s a big stimulation for your brain’s neurons.

    By reading books, you’re making your own mental movie; or even many different versions of them.

    Better imagination leads to more creativity and ideas. If I need more ideas regarding any subject in life, the first thing I do is to read as much as possible on the topic. When I read a critical amount of ideas, views and knowledge, new ideas start to pop up.

    So, if you feel stuck with ideas at any time, start reading and reading a lot, and ideas will come naturally.

    Better analytical skills

    It’s not only your imagination and creative abilities that are stimulated by reading. Your analytical skills can also be improved. Every (non-fiction) book has a body of knowledge that’s structured in a specific way.

    If, before reading a book, you analyze how the book is structured and why that is so, why the author decided to structure knowledge in such a way, it helps stimulate your analytical skills a lot; especially after you do that with hundreds of books. You learn how to structure things quickly and logically.

    An even better method is to make a mindmap of the most important ideas after reading a book; or join online forums and discuss the book with others and defend a certain view on what the author meant with specific ideas, and so on. You know, you get out what you put in.

    Curiosity

    I also mustn’t forget curiosity. Curiosity is one of the most important values of intelligent people.

    The more you read, the more you see what you don’t yet know, the kind of cool updates you can install to your brains and how unlimited your imagination is, the more you will want to read, the more you will want to know.

    Stay hungry, stay foolish. Read.

    Inspiration and mentorship

    Books, especially biographies, can be a great deal of inspiration. Struggles, stamina, motivation, creativity and powerful life visions of other people can be a great source of inspiration for you to achieve your peak performance.

    Biographies and advice books can also be a way of being mentored by successful people without even meeting them in real life.

    Fictional characters also deserve a place at this point. They can be as motivational as biographies of real people. They can influence your style, the words you use, your hobbies and the things you like.

    Their actions can be a great inspiration for you to act and realize your potentials. You know, especially if there is a bit of a nerd in you, think of all the action characters.

    Developing communication skills and expanding your vocabulary

    Outstanding communication skills are one of the most important skills in life. Being a good communicator helps you build strong relationships, assert yourself, express your thoughts and develop your verbal abilities.

    Reading books exposes you to a much greater vocabulary than watching TV or talking with other people. Knowing more words means that you can better express yourself and better describe different situations in life.

    Smart is the new sexy, right?

    Better writing skills

    An important part of communication skills are writing skills. You don’t have to be a blogger or a professional writer to pay attention to your writing skills.

    Everyone writes today – emails, social media, slides for public presentations, etc. We are in the knowledge society, where it’s difficult to escape from writing.

    By reading a lot, your writing will improve – from being better with words, expressing yourself more clearly, to making fewer grammar mistakes, and so on. And if you ever want to be a professional writer, reading a lot is even more important.

    You become a more interesting person

    By having a better imagination, outstanding communication skills, knowing how to express yourself and understanding different topics, you become a really interesting person. You can always find a topic to talk about and you always have something smart to say.

    You don’t want to only appear intelligent; you really want to be intelligent, and you can achieve that by reading a lot.

    And when you become an enthusiastic reader, you will also develop better listening skills because you can better understand the other person (remember empathy) and you become aware that you don’t have to learn only from books.

    You can also learn from other people. There is always an opportunity to learn something new, as long as you keep your mind open.

    Knowing more, being more educated or even being a walking lexicon will also help you with self-confidence. Make knowledge your type of an expensive car.

    You can never be overdressed, overpaid and overeducated.

    It’s a way to connect with other people

    The easiest way to connect with other people is through common interests. A book is a great common interest for starting a new friendship.

    You have hundreds of pages to discuss. All you have to do is to be proactive enough and reach out to people.

    Online forums, online book clubs, real life book clubs, there are numerous ways of connecting with new people all over the world, exchanging views and making new friendships.

    Make sure you reach out to people after reading every book. Take a step further. That’s what will make you successful in life.

    Well, and if you feel lonely and need some company, book characters are always good to hang out with.

    You’re never alone when you’re reading a book. – Susan Wiggs

    Make handouts when you read

    Concentration abilities and focus

    Reading, much like running or listening to music, can be a form of meditation. Even more, by reading regularly, you develop better abilities to focus and concentrate.

    With all the distractions nowadays, people have really big problems with focusing and concentrating. Don’t be one of them.

    The higher your power to concentrate, the better the position you’re in. You can more easily complete demanding tasks, you can work and create in the flow state for hours, and more easily set priorities in life.

    Self-discipline and consistency

    If you commit to reading every day, we can add developing self-discipline and consistency next to concentration abilities and focus.

    If you read at least one page a day, self-discipline and consistency will help you do the same in other areas of life as well, from sports to meditation, and so on.

    Getting to know yourself better

    The first rule of a happy life is to know yourself really well. The best way to get to know yourself is the so-called search mode. You try to experience as many things as possible and see what fits you and what doesn’t.

    But reading can also be a way to learn a great deal about yourself. If you reflect on experiences of other people in books, you can analyze which ideas you like and which ones you dislike.

    You can also get many new ideas for what to try in life. Remember, there’s a lot of things for which you don’t even know that you don’t know.

    That’s where reading can open you up to completely new perspectives and horizons. We can even say that reading can influence you to such a degree that it helps shape your personality.

    You’re doing a great thing for your kids

    If you love to read, there’s a much greater chance that your kids will love to read. That means that your kids will develop better communication skills, they will be more intelligent, will have a great head start in life, and so on.

    Discussing a book can also be a great way to connect with your child intellectually. Remember, you have to be connected to your kid physically, emotionally, intellectually, materially and socially.

    It’s relaxing

    Reading is a great inexpensive relaxation – assuming you aren’t forced to read and aren’t reading any heavy texts (legal papers, etc.).

    When you lose yourself in a book, you can simply forget all the daily worries and enter the creative world of imagination, creation and progress.

    Reading just before sleep can also help you to enter the sleep state faster and to sleep better. Reading before bedtime is absolutely much better than watching TV. every time someone in your family turns on the TV, go on and start reading a book.

    Every time someone turns on the TV, go on and start reading a book.

    A way to practice technology detox

    With all the screens you’re exposed to, from computers to smartphones and TVs, you have to take regular technology detox breaks.

    One of the best ways to do a technology detox is to go to a mountain cottage for an extended week with a bunch of books.

    You can also do mini technology detoxes through the day. As mentioned, instead of watching TV, wasting time on useless websites or numerous apps, simply take a book and read.

    More money

    By being more educated, a better communicator and having better analytical and creative skills, you gain the ability to earn more money. Don’t you want to earn more money? Well if you do, then read more.

    It’s (almost) free

    If you compare how much it takes to write a book to how much a book costs, the price of the book is ridiculously low.

    Next to that, if you don’t want to spend money on books, you have libraries. So reading costs you nothing, except your time investment; and by reading, you’re investing into yourself, which is the best possible investment.

    The best things in life are for free. Reading is one of them. Just try it.

    Books

    You can do it almost anywhere

    You can read almost anywhere and at anytime, like having sex. When you wake up. While you eat. When you wait in a queue. During boring meetings. To relax after you come home from work. Before sleep.

    If you can’t sleep. On a plane or a train. There are numerous possibilities. Actually, I was wrong, there are many more opportunities for reading than for having sex.

    How to become fond of reading

    As mentioned before, when I was young, I disliked reading even though I was a good pupil. Like I hated exercising. And olives. But now I love exercising.

    And I love reading even more. I also eat olives. There’s no romantic story or secret behind how I made the switch.

    If you consistently do a thing, you develop a habit. It may be hard at the beginning but with time, your taste, values and preferences change.

    You can start to love things that bring a better quality of life in the long term. The easiest way to develop a new habit is to develop morning or evening routines. And routines slowly turn to habits, where you need no effort to do an activity.

    Read a few pages when you wake up or when you go to sleep (reading is part of my morning kick-off routine). Start with a topic that interests you the most.

    And go straight to the best knowledge. Don’t read things for mental masturbation and entertainment (“10 potatoes that look like Brad Pitt” and “15 different ways to fart”). That doesn’t count. Read quality books. Quality fiction and non-fiction.

    Build yourself a supportive environment. Put some books on your shelf and the night table. Use an app to measure how much you read. Join Goodreads. Find a reading buddy. Set a reminder that it’s time to read. Timebox reading time in your calendar.

    And the most important fact: you must have a powerful why. You must know what you want to get out of reading.

    Does it relax you, stimulates your imagination, do you want to grow and improve in life, be more successful, smarter or whatever. Even if I didn’t like reading, my why was so powerful that I had no problem sticking to my set routine and meeting my daily goals.

    How reading changed my life – a personal experience why you should read a lot

    My why that motivated me to read was pretty simple. I needed new software to download. First of all, I was raised in a socialist country, where being successful, rich or outstanding was forbidden.

    I was also raised in a broken family with many toxic beliefs and brain bugs.

    I needed new software that would lead to better decisions regarding health, wealth, relationships, happiness, productivity and other areas of life.

    The only way back then to get new software was by reading books (back then, the Internet was not like it is today). So, I went to the library and started reading my first book.

    The first book I ever read for my personal growth was Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins. I still remember that day.

    I started to read a lot. I made notes in notebooks. I had dozens of notebooks with extracts, summaries and quotes from the books. I bought more than 1,000 books.

    I donated all of them a few years back since I now only have eBooks as part of my asset-light living strategy.

    I upgraded my software a lot since I read my first book. Today I have a completely different view on life than I had 15 years ago.

    With that old software, I’d be stuck in a job I hate with an average income and abusive relationships, never taking care of my body or finding happiness.

    Even if I upgraded my software a lot, I’m still at around 30 % of where I want to be. I still have many bugs that cause negative thinking and troubling emotions.

    I still have many intellectual skills to develop, like programming, improving my English and sometimes, when I read something incredibly smart from other people, I just ask myself what else I don’t even know I have to learn.

    So join me on a trip to become the best version of yourself. The best version of you should constantly have new upgraded software for your brain.

    One way to achieve that is also with reading, and again, I mean reading a lot – every day. And applying knowledge, of course. Just make sure that you don’t lie to yourself about how much you read. Measure it and then manage it properly.

    Reading on kindle
    My all-time favorite device.

    Reading metrics you should follow

    Interestingly, when I talk to people, I’ve noticed that most have a problem admitting that they don’t read at all or read very little.

    I guess you come up as more intelligent if you lie to yourself and others that you read a lot. It’s one of the brain bugs.

    Make sure you don’t have this brain bug. You don’t want to only appear intelligent and fake intelligence; you want to actually be intelligent and smart.

    Thus it may make sense to follow some basic metrics for how much you read in a specific period, and you should also set some limits (minimums) to make sure you do meet your daily, weekly and monthly goals.

    You don’t want to only appear intelligent and fake intelligence; you want to actually be intelligent and smart.

    Here are a few reading metrics you can follow:

    1. How many books (and other texts) do you read per month (aim for 2 – 4)
    2. How much you read per day (aim for 20 – 40 pages per day, but read at least 1 page no matter what)
    3. How fast you can read (you can take a test online)
    4. How long you can read without losing concentration (aim for 1h+ and you can also test your maximum abilities, for example try to read a book in one day)
    5. Reading comprehension and vocabulary

    And a few additional metrics:

    1. How many books you discuss with other people (kids, spouse, friends, business partners,)
    2. How many mindmaps did you make based on the books you read
    3. The number of new things you learned and applied in real life (you can do that when you have self-reflection time and decide what you’ll start doing, stop doing and continue doing)
    4. How much new knowledge you shared with others (social media, in your own book, lecturing,)
    5. How many new people you meet and how many new friendships you made where a book was the icebreaker.

    I hope I convinced you why you should read every day.

  • The morning kick-off routine

    The second you wake up in the morning is by far the best moment in your day to develop the most important life habits. The reason for that is pretty simple. Every new habit you want to develop in life needs a strong reminder for what you need to do and a big reward for doing it. The reminder is a trigger you need that sets off the new desired behavior.

    The biggest issue with the habit loop (reminder – routine – reward) is that the reminder has to be strong, loud and clear so you hear it. If there are too many distractions in the environment or if you’re too tired, chances are that you’ll ignore the reminder and wave goodbye to the new habit.

    There are two moments every day in your life that work great as triggers for new habits. It’s when you wake up and before you go to sleep. Before 9 am and after 9 pm, everything is quiet and peaceful. No distractions, no rush, and an opportunity for your reminders to be heard.

    Throughout the day, you’re usually extremely busy, running from one activity to a meeting to another task and so on. Your phone keeps ringing; your inbox is filling up and you face many unexpected events. There is no room for reminders and new habits. But mornings and evenings are different. They are perfect for developing a new habit.

    The second issue with the habit loop (reminder – routine – reward) is that you need to have enough discipline muscle strength left to perform a new routine. When something becomes a habit, you do it subconsciously, you don’t need to put in a lot of conscious effort.

    But when you’re developing a new habit, you need to force yourself a little bit to perform the new routine. That takes a lot of effort, especially in the beginning, before routines turn into real habits.

    Daily challenges and decisions slowly eat away your capacity for discipline and cognitive abilities. It’s quite hard to follow any new serious enforced routine during the day when you’re stressed out and burdened with many things and choices. It’s no different after a hard working day. It’s hard to find any motivation and energy to perform new demanding behaviors.

    Obviously, if your muscle discipline is still fresh and strong in the morning, you want to develop morning habits that take more effort and discipline. On the other hand, your evening routine should be more about relaxation, reflection and calming down.

    Morning kick-off routine

    My morning kick-off routine

    Now that I’m in monk mode and without a schedule, I can experiment more with my morning kick-off routine. After a month of experimenting, I’ve found a routine that currently works well for me and empowers me to stay sharp and focused through the day.

    I do seven things as part of my morning kick-off routine, and it takes me from 1.5 to 2 hours to complete it. I aim for 1.5 hours, so as to not waste too much time on starting my day right. Here they are:

    1. Morning reflection and planning meeting with myself
      • Happiness index
      • Self-analysis and dream analysis
      • One thing I am grateful for
      • One thing I want in life
      • Things I will create today (the three most important tasks)
      • True North
    2. Meditation
    3. Visualization
    4. Morning stretching
    5. Reading something positive
    6. Power breakfast
    7. Cold shower

    The most important thing for performing my morning routine is to go to bed early and wake up fresh after getting enough sleep. On rare occasions when I go to sleep late, for whatever reason, I simply don’t have enough motivation to perform the morning routine the next day.

    It’s no problem if it happens from time to time, but if it happens too often, you quickly fall out of your routine. So I always go to bed early and wake up early.

    I know I need 8 hours of sleep and I always make sure I meet that. By going to bed early, I can’t remember the last time I needed an alarm clock to wake up. And when I wake up, before I do anything else, I brush my teeth and drink a big glass of water to rehydrate my body. Then my morning kick-off routine starts.

    Morning reflection and meeting with myself

    Morning reflection is the most important thing to do in the morning and it helps me a lot, especially to better understand myself, my feelings and needs, my motivations, the people around me and the environment in general. The first thing I do is take a deep breath, listen myself for a moment and note on my happiness index how happy I am on a scale from 1 to 10.

    It’s a great way to begin self-analysis and go through situations that are currently happening in your life, things that bother you, things you like and enjoy, your motivations, behaviors, intentions, feelings and other internal processes.

    If I remember my dreams, I include them in my self-analysis, especially focusing on how I felt during the dreaming phase and how that’s connected to current life events. This gives me really good insights, especially into my negative feelings and a small glimpse of my subconscious processes. With time, you have access to more and more of your subconscious material.

    In the next step, I write down one thing I’m grateful for. It helps me to keep perspective on how blessed I am in life. It’s easy to forget what you have in life. It takes a minute to write it down and it’s not hard to come up with things you are grateful for. You just write down the first thing that pops up in your mind. At the end of each month, I plan to gather and organize everything in one list (also published online), which will be my updated ultimate gratefulness list.

    I also write down one thing I want in life every day. From gadgets, countries to travel, things to experience, etc. This is a different kind of exercise, and it helps me to stay in touch with my needs and wants. The important purpose of your life is to fulfill your needs. If you don’t do that, you become a bitter person sooner or later.

    You may be neglecting your needs because your environment (parents) didn’t pay much attention to what you really wanted in life. I mean what you wanted, not what was “best” for you. If you aren’t paying attention to your needs at all, you’re on the other extreme of greed. Both extremes cause depression, bitterness, anger and other negative feelings.

    The next thing I do as part of my morning meeting is to analyze what I’ve done the day before and write down the three most important tasks I have to do on a particular day. I also ask myself if there are any obstacles preventing me from achieving my daily working goals and how to remove them. I end my morning analysis by asking myself if I’m following my true north or, in other words, following my real life vision and life mission.

    It takes me from 15 to 20 minutes to finish this part of my morning routine.

    Meditation

    I definitely need to develop better control over my mind. Meditation is the right exercise for that. So, I’m practicing morning meditation, right after my morning reflection. I use the Headspace app for that. The app is really good and recommended by many sources. Meditating for 10 minutes as part of the first 10-day session was a piece of cake and I really liked it.

    Now I’m at 15-minute sessions and am struggling quite a bit. Interestingly enough, after 10 minutes it’s hard for me to keep my mind focused and relaxed for another 5 minutes. On bad days, I even become angry and frustrated for not being able to complete the exercise like I want to. So I take it slowly and take a break if I feel overwhelmed.

    The plan is to keep meditating, first mastering the 15-minute sessions and then going up to 20 minutes. We’ll see where meditation practice takes me afterward. I learned to keep my goals lean and agile and not to plan too far.

    Visualization

    After meditation, I take not more than 3 minutes for visualization I currently have a few important goals in my life and visualization is the most appropriate tool for mental rehearsal of how I’ll get there as well as for adjusting my inner vibrations to my new goals.

    It helps me stay focused during the day and not lose track of where I want to go in life. My visualization is especially connected to changing my identity and how I see myself and what I deserve in life.

    Reading something positive

    As the last step of the kick-off routine dedicated to my mind, I read something positive or eye-opening. I’m addicted to reading and there is no perfect morning without a few minutes of reading and thinking about new ideas.

    But I don’t take more than a few minutes for reading something positive (evenings are reserved for that) because there are three more things to do as part of my kick-off routine, dedicated to connecting myself with my body.

    Strangely, I’m much more connected to and familiar with my mind (even if it behaves like a spoiled child) than I am with my body. But I intend to change that in the next months or even years. Who knows how long it will take to establish a better connection to my body.

    Morning stretch

    I don’t exercise in the morning because it’s my brain’s prime time. After my kick-off routine, I go straight to working and creating new awesome things. There may be rare exceptions if my energy levels are too low and I need to recharge or if I need to put my body instead of my mind in motion for any reason.

    For example, after an argument, I need a walk because I’m too stressed to think. In the summer, when temperatures skyrocket after early morning, that may also change.

    Well, exercising in the morning is currently simply not optimal for me. But as I mentioned, I keep everything in my life open, agile and lean. At the moment, I exercise in the afternoons (a few times per week) when my mind is already tired.

    Nevertheless, what I do in the morning are some very basic stretching exercises for improving my posture. Stretching also helps me become more aware of my body and reminds me that I have to take good care of it.

    Power breakfast

    At this point, I’m usually pretty hungry already. I always make sure to have enough time to make myself a real power breakfast. Far from the standard breakfast, like a piece of bread with jelly. For me, it’s the most important meal of the day. I need a quality breakfast and I need to eat lunch before 2 pm. Everything else can be flexible.

    My diet includes carb cycling. When I eat carbs, I eat the majority of them in the morning or after training. So the kind of breakfast I make myself depends on whether I have a carb or a non-carb day. If I’m on a non-carb day, I make sure to get enough healthy fats. If I have a carb day, I eat a healthy breakfast with complex carbs.

    The protein level stays the same every morning or, to be more exact, with every meal. I also take core supplements with my breakfast and drink green tea.

    Interestingly enough, I started watching Lynda.com educational movies when I eat breakfast. I know that maybe I should pay more attention to food, but I like knowledge much more than food.

    It takes me around 30 minutes to prepare myself breakfast and eat it in peace; and I also get around 15 – 20 minutes of learning out of it.

    Cold shower

    I’m experimenting a little bit with a cold shower as the last step of my kick-off routine. There are a lot of resources and research claiming that a cold morning shower has great positive benefits for your health and your mood.

    It makes you more alert, alive and it boosts your immune system. I’m not there yet, I can’t take a cold shower every morning because it’s still too stressful for my body, but I will get there slowly, I guess.

    I will let you know if cold morning showers work for me in the long-term as part of my daily routine. Afterward, I end my morning kick-off routine and it’s time to work and create good things. Like writing this article.

    To sum things up, here is my morning kick-off routine that I currently enjoy and have set for myself after a lot of experimenting in the past month:

    Activity Time Level
    Morning reflection 20 min Mind / Emotions
    Meditation 15 min Mind / Emotions
    Visualization 2.5 min Mind / Emotions
    Reading something positive 2.5 min Mind / Emotions
    Morning stretch 10 min Body
    Power breakfast 30 min Body
    Cold morning shower 10 min Body
    Total time 90 min

    Reminders for morning routine

    Reminders

    I don’t need a lot of reminders to trigger my routine. I wake up and I know what I have to do. I go to the bathroom, brush my teeth and drink a big glass of water, and when I come to the living room I see my notebook on the table and start with morning reflection.

    I have a checklist of what I have to do, in order to not forget anything, and I keep my transaction costs as low as possible, so nothings burden my discipline muscle too much.

    For example, I don’t search from scratch for where to read something positive, but I already have a queue of short texts I have to read. My exercise equipment is always at hand; I make sure I have no junk food at home etc.

    To be honest, I don’t always perform my morning routine. I figured out that I have to break out of every routine I follow from time to time in order to really stick to it in the long term.

    Thus on some days, usually a weekend day, I do completely different things or nothing at all. In the same way, for example, I do follow a strict diet, but from time to time you’ll see me stuffing my face at McDonalds.

    It somehow helps me not to feel caught in something and afterwards I can again more easily follow my routine. It definitely works for me. And I know I have enough discipline to not get into any bad habits. I would say that I do it approximately on 90 % of my days, which is enough for me and enough to see constant little improvements in my life.

    In much the same way, I’m currently experimenting with my shut-down routine, which is yet far from perfect. At the moment, I only make sure I go to sleep early and that I read before I fall asleep. I have a rule that I simply mustn’t go to sleep without reading at least one page of a book.

    I usually read a lot more, of course, but reading at least one page per day is an achievable and reasonable goal every single night, to keep my reading habits sharp.

    I will share more with you once I find the shut-down routine that works for me perfectly. In the meantime, here’s some homework for you.

    Homework

    Go to sleep one hour earlier (instead of watching TV, socializing, etc.) and wake up one hour earlier. Now for one month, try to do four different things from the list below every morning. Try one new thing a week.

    Observe yourself and find how different morning habits positively influence your day and your general happiness levels.

    See what works for you, develop a habit out of things that work and ditch the things that bring you no value.

    Make your mornings a special ritual dedicated only to yourself to celebrate another day of being alive, and see it as an expression of commitment that you will take good care of your mind, body, emotions and the most important relationships in your life throughout the day.

    Here’s a list of 50+ things you can try as part of your morning kick-off routine:

    1. Analyze your dreams
    2. Brainstorm 100 ideas
    3. Research business ideas
    4. Clean your computer
    5. Clean your house
    6. Do brain exercises
    7. Do yoga
    8. Get to know new technology
    9. Have sex
    10. Imagine how the world will look like in 100 years
    11. Improve your English
    12. Invent a new machine
    13. Learn a new language
    14. Learn new words
    15. Listen to an audio book
    16. Listen to classical music
    17. Make yourself a power breakfast
    18. Make yourself a veggie smoothie
    19. Meditate
    20. Morning reflection and planning meeting with myself
    21. Organize your desk
    22. Paint, draw or do any other kind of art
    23. Perform self-massage
    24. Philosophy about life
    25. Picture your ideal day
    26. Play chess
    27. Practice belly breathing
    28. Practice to love yourself
    29. Practice your hobby
    30. Pray
    31. Read a book
    32. Read inspirational quotes
    33. Read something positive
    34. Recite affirmations
    35. Review your life vision
    36. Strategize
    37. Stretch
    38. Take a cold shower
    39. Take an online course
    40. Take a walk
    41. Have a deep talk with your spouse or a friend
    42. Think of life experiments you can do
    43. Throw away stuff you don’t need
    44. Try five different teas (without sugar)
    45. Visualize
    46. Watch the sunrise
    47. Watch TED Videos
    48. Write a love poem
    49. Write a message to all the people you love
    50. Write a story
    51. Write down all the things you are grateful for
    52. Write down all your past accomplishments

  • Formula for success cracked

    Do you want to be really successful in life? I mean really, really successful? I can share with you the formula for massive success. But please don’t tell it to anyone else. Just kidding. In fact, the formula for success is extremely easy and simple. It’s nothing people didn’t already know centuries ago. And you know it too, on a very intuitive level.

    Here it is:

    Success = Explosion + Control

    What? I know it’s not what you expected, so let’s dive straight into the practical examples that will show us what this formula really means.

    • Do you want to be rich? The formula for getting rich is (active, passive or portfolio) income explosion and keeping your cost and bad investments under control.
    • Do you want to a have six-pack? The formula is very simple. Exercise explosion and appetite control – quantity and quality of the food you eat.
    • Do you want to be lucky in love? The formula is, again, very simple. Sexual market value explosion (SMV) and committing to your best fit – investing your best into a relationship every day and expecting the same from your partner. SMV explosion and commitment control.
    • Do you want to be educated and resourceful? Take care of a learning explosion (reading, observing, experimenting etc.), control the quality of what you consume (learn from the best, forget the rest) and immediately implement the acquired knowledge. Quality learning explosion and implementation control.
    • Do you want to have a successful career and be respected by the society? Fight for something you care about (a mission with an emotional explosion), and persist through CRAP – Criticism, Rejections, Assholes, Pressure. So the formula for career success is purpose explosion and persistence through CRAP. Purpose explosion and persistence control in short.
    • Do you want to be a successful entrepreneur? The formula to be a successful entrepreneur is customer explosion (innovation, marketing) and outstanding management in all other business functions (finance, human resources, operations etc.). Customer explosion and management control.

    As you can see, the formula for massive success is very simple to understand. But not to follow.

    One part of the equation (the control one) is extreme self-discipline. Self-discipline based on commitment, focus, persistence, hard work, immediate implementation, pushing yourself, and constantly making the right small decisions, day by day. It’s also about having enough inner assets to manage the perks of success. Every expense, every meal, every minute you have in a day, you have to make the right decision that will lead you towards your goals, not away from them. Especially once you become successful.

    The second part of the equation (the explosion one) is based on getting a few key big decisions right in life – which markets to choose, selecting a supporting environment to operate in, finding your perfect fit, innovating, creating, delivering and capturing high enough value for the markets, using the leverage of smart work, and being surrounded with the right people.

    You need to reach both parts of the equation. Only discipline and self-control aren’t enough. Only hard work is never enough. You also have to be in the right place at the right time with the right people and with the right idea. You have to work smart. And vice versa. Being in the right place at the right time is not enough. You also need to put in all the sweat and long hours. You have to make sure that nobody outworks you. Because the competition is stiff.

    Here’s another interpretation of the formula. Success is the opposite of how people mess up their lives. You mess up your life with a few big wrong decisions (who to marry, where to work etc.) or with everyday small bad decisions (what you eat, how you spend money etc.) or a combination of both.

    So if you want to be successful in life, you have to get a few key decisions right, and then follow them up with everyday hard work. It’s that simple. The problem, of course, is that success is a long and demanding process you have to follow, it’s full of apathy and battles with yourself. And you also need a lot of luck to get to a real explosion. Atomic explosion. But that’s also why you’re here on this planet. To show us all the best possible versions of yourself. And fortune favours the brave.

    Formula for success
    Formula for success = Explosion + Control

    Why is it then so hard to really succeed?

    As we learned, the formula for success is fairly simple: success equals “explosion” plus “control”. Self-control or discipline is the part of the equation where you work hard, invest consistent effort, follow the process, put in all the sweat and long hours. Explosion, on the other hand, means being in the right place at the right time, with the right people and the right idea.

    Anyway there’s not much to tell about self-discipline that hasn’t already been written. If you want to be rich, you have to watch your expenses and bad investments, if you want to be fit, you have to be careful about what and how much you eat, and so on. Consistently, day by day. If you can’t stay disciplined at anything, seeds of greatness are probably just not in you. Staying disciplined is hard, but that’s still the easier part of the equation.

    If you can’t stay disciplined at anything, seeds of greatness are probably just not in you.

    Success explosion is the hardest and trickiest part of our equation. Success explosions are the reason why it’s so damn hard to succeed. Success explosion is the part that we usually don’t understand well enough, and that’s also why so few people really massively succeed, so let’s focus more on that.

    Different potentials of explosions

    So you want to become extremely successful in life, an outlier of humankind. You regularly invest in yourself, you sacrifice a lot, you resist instant gratification, you work hard and you hustle. You invest in the process day by day. You can read that you have to be patient with success on every single personal development blog, and you know that very well and you are patient. But your gut is whispering that only patience and severe discipline won’t be enough; far from it. Unfortunately, your gut is right. Here’s why.

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    The society measures success by the outer resources that were more or less self-made. Money, fame, sexual market value based on fitness, status, power (note: this article is not about what success really is, but how to achieve what the society defines as success). If you imagine yourself as extremely successful, you probably imagine yourself as having 1000 times (or whatever the number is) more of outer resources. 1000 times more money, 1000 times more power, 1000 times more fame, 1000 times more mating options.

    Okay, first things first. In order to acquire outer resources, you need to develop enough and the right combination of inner resources or competences – mindset, knowledge, experiences, skills, etc. You need inner resources to produce value, and the more value you produce, the more external resources you can acquire. If you know how to code, you can produce a lot more value than if you only know how to photocopy.

    Inner Assets Outer Assets
    Knowledge Wealth
    Skills Sexual Market Value
    Experiences Power
    Creativity Fame
    Health People
    Values Technology
    Self-Discipline Land
    Intelligence Transportation
    Attitude Goods
    Passion Electricity
    Strategy etc. Political capital etc.
    Potential for small explosions Potential for big explosions
    Control

    With more inner resources, you can create more outer resources

    That’s easy to understand. The more value you can provide, the more valued you are. More inner resources usually mean ability to create more outer resources. It’s also easy to understand the advantages of inner resources over outer resources. Inner resources can’t be spent like outer resources can be. You can spend money, but you can’t spend your intelligence. Inner resources present bigger security, since nobody can take them away from you, neither thieves nor markets. Inner resources are impossible to transfer from one person to another. They’re a part of you as an individual. They can be given to you (intelligence, talents, genetics etc.) or acquired (knowledge, fitness, cunningness etc.).

    But here’s the big catch. Inner resources have one big disadvantage. Inner resources can be acquired only in a linear way. You can’t really acquire inner resources with exponential speed. By acquiring inner resources at slow speed, you’re also very limited in acquiring outer resources. It takes years to acquire enough inner resources and the right combination of them to really massively succeed.

    There are, of course, different speeds of personal development and different speeds of acquiring inner resources (linear change, rapid change or leveling up your game), but they’re still more or less linear. There’s a very limited number of hours in a day for you to read, exercise, brainstorm, work etc. These explosions don’t have potential to be atomic explosions. It’s true that all hard work accumulates in time and that’s why you need patience. You need to follow this part of the equation to achieve massive success, but it’s not enough.

    Working out for a few years will give you nice body. Reading the right material day by day will keep your mind sharp. Life experiences will lead you to do things better. If you’re patient enough, you can have all that. But that’s it.

    Only with discipline and by acquiring inner resources, you won’t be ultra-successful. Because your body can’t be 1000 times better than it is now, you can’t hold 1000 times more information in your consciousness than you’re holding now, and so on. Again, don’t get me wrong, you’ll be much better off with everyday hard work and patience. Even more, you need a critical amount of inner resources to get to the success explosion, but it’s not enough for massive success.

    Let’s say that. Your inner assets (resources) are very limited and hard to increase. You increase them with everyday discipline and self-control. Because it’s hard to increase inner assets, you can only improve yourself in a linear way – with everyday hard work, patience and without too big expectations.

    Consequently, your outer resources will also grow in a very limited way. You need enough inner resources to start acquiring greater quantities of outer resources at all, but that’s far from enough to massively succeed.

    Success graph

    If you want to grow exponentially, you need leverage, you need to transcend the speed limitations at which you can acquire inner resources. But what can grow exponentially? Ironically, outer resources are the ones that have the biggest potential to grow exponentially.

    Inner resources can be acquired only in a linear way. Ironically, outer resources are the ones that have the biggest potential to grow exponentially.

    So if you want to be really successful in life and achieve massive success, you have to employ outer resources as your leverage.

     
    Small explosion potential and enablers of big explosions:

    • Learning
    • Exercising
    • Other inner resources

    There are only a few core outer resources that can grow exponentially:

    • Leveraged assets (or money)
    • Massive Transformative Purpose (or ideas)
    • Attention and engagement (or fame)
    • Connections (or people)

    And two accelerators of exponential growth:

    • Technology
    • Right place at the right time and inherited inner assets (beauty, talents etc.)

    Money

    The most obvious outer resource that can grow exponentially is money. Money can work for you 24/7 and there are almost no limits to how fast your wealth can grow. You can’t run 1000 times faster in 5 years, but you can have 1000 times more money with good investments in 5 years; even in one year if you are an outstanding investor.

    Ideas

    Ideas have the potential for exponential growth if you poison enough people with them. From social to business ideas, they can bring you money, fame and status. But only ideas are not enough. You need something called Massive Transformative Purpose or, in other words, your idea must positively impact millions of people if you want exponential growth.

    Attention and engagement

    Fame can grow exponentially once you reach the tipping point, if you know how to attract the attention of mass media and how to engage other people. With social media, everyone has access to massive attention and engagement of other people.

    Connections

    Your work can grow exponentially if you attract the right ultra-talented people into your life as part of your team and, of course, if you manage to build influential connections. You can attract the right kind of people with ideas (they identify with the cause), money (you buy their skills) or attention (they follow your leadership).

    But your connections can only grow exponentially if you also empower new leaders within your network. All other non-crucial work can be done by renting staff on demand.

    And here are the two accelerators of exponential growth:

    Technology

    Technology brings all previous outer resources together. Today, technology is the best way to spread ideas, gain attention and engagement, build connections and make money. More and more new massively successful people (world billionaires) are from the technology field and even if they aren’t directly from the industry, leveraging technology is usually an important part of their success.

    Right place at the right time

    You know the story of a poor young girl who’s sitting sad in a bar when a modeling agent notices her beauty and makes her famous rich. Or that of a misfortunate person winning a reality show and his life changing forever. Extreme beauty, artistic talent and other inherited inner resources or being in the right place at the right time can lead to exponential success growth.

    It can happen if you’re chasing the right opportunities or if someone notices your talent. But that’s more luck than a carefully orchestrated success process or a formula you want to follow. You may buy a lottery ticket every once in a while, but it shouldn’t be your main strategy for succeeding in life.

    Bonus: Love

    This one is a slightly crazy one and it’s not even an outer resource, but I bet you can love yourself and life 1000 times more than you love yourself and life today. Awesome feelings and life experiences are definitely 1000 times better than the average ones. You can exponentially grow your love towards yourself and life, I guess.

    It may be worth it to mention that outer resources also have limitations, and so exponential growth slows and even stops at some point. Even if you become superhuman, you can only influence 7+ billion people, accumulating wealth starts getting harder and harder when you are a billionaire, and so on. But when you reach that point, I’m sure you already consider yourself successful enough.

    It’s obvious why it’s so hard to succeed

    Well, here’s your answer. First of all, acquiring inner assets is already damn hard. You need to consistently invest in yourself, be extremely self-disciplined and have yourself under control. Remember patience, daily struggle, stamina, resilience, not giving up too quickly, following the process day by day. Usually having enough and the right combination of inner assets only enables you to get to the second part of the equation – big explosion. And you also need enough inner resources after the explosion, so that you don’t go crazy and mess things up.

    But acquiring and managing outer assets is even harder. Getting to atomic explosion is close to impossible. Your control is much more limited. So many variables are out of your influence. You have to be extremely adaptable, fast, creative, different and better. And talented and lucky.

    You need to better understand markets, media, people, money management, and you need to know how to create things that people want. Not what you want. What people, markets want. First, you give to the society and then the society gives to you. Achieving that is extremely hard.

    And the competition is crazy. You’re the only one who wants to take care of yourself and invest into your future, besides your mother :). On the other hand, there are 7 billion people who have ideas and want to make money and get attention and outperform you. 7 billion. Now compete with that.

    Asset Type of asset Growth potential
    Health Inner asset, small explosion Linear growth
    Knowledge Inner asset, small explosion Linear growth
    Skills Inner asset, small explosion Linear growth
    Experiences Inner asset, small explosion Linear growth
    Intelligence Accelerator
    Beauty Accelerator
    You need enough and the right combination of inner assets in order to produce outer assets.
    Money Outer asset, atomic explosion Exponential growth
    Ideas Outer asset, atomic explosion Exponential growth
    Attention and engagement Outer asset, atomic explosion Exponential growth
    Connections Outer asset, atomic explosion Exponential growth
    Technology Accelerator
    “Lottery tickets” Accelerator
    Focusing only on inner assets isn’t enough. You also need to be good with outer assets.

    Formula for success: Lessons learned

    You definitely have to invest into the process and hard and smart work every day in order to acquire as many inner assets as possible. With more inner assets and the right combination of them you’ll also be able to acquire more outer assets. In addition to that, you must be sure to put your inherited inner assets to the right use. For example, you can waste your intelligence or use it as an accelerator for learning.

    But here’s the catch. To be massively successful as soon as possible, you have to focus your efforts on outer assets that can grow exponentially as well. The better you can manage and leverage outer assets, the more successful you can be.

    If you want to be extremely successful:

    1. You must have viral ideas that have the potential to positively impact millions of people.
    2. You must know how to attract the best people and how they can attract even more talented people. You need your own community and crowd that spreads your message.
    3. You need outstanding money skills – earning, managing and investing ones. Money is actually the outer resource that can grow the fastest, with the fewest physical limitations, since it’s only an idea.
    4. You must know how to attract the attention and engagement of mass media and how to sell, in other words.
    5. You must know how to use and leverage technology to your own advantage.
    6. From time to time, it maybe even makes sense to buy a “lottery ticket” and chase completely crazy opportunities (out of reach jobs, auditions, opportunities in foreign countries etc.) and who knows, maybe luck will strike you. This point is just optional and you shouldn’t rely on it.

    Having the first five skills is probably the winning combo. Having a few of them also probably works very well for massive success. But focusing only on the inner assets means limiting yourself to linear growth and small explosions; because inner assets are very limited with physical and biological boundaries.

    Nevertheless, be aware that if you don’t invest at least in inner resources and personal growth, you stagnate in life and sooner and later become a zombie. So it makes sense to invest in your inner resources anyway, even if you aren’t chasing massive success. But if you want to be really massively successful, you have to transcend that.

    You can only extend and transcend the limitation of acquiring inner assets with purpose to create more outer assets with viral ideas, passionate communities, media attention, outstanding money skills and being good with technology.

    The only exception in the picture is love. Probably because love is above everything. Whether you want to be massively successful or not, make sure your love grows exponentially.

    One more important note. What can grow exponentially, can also shrink or fall exponentially. Having too many outer resources or focusing on acquiring them is a double-edged sword. Explosions are fire. You can cook yourself dinner with it or burn yourself badly. So you must know what you’re doing. You must have enough inner resources to properly manage explosions. You probably know that many ultra-successful people become drug addicts, waste all their money etc.

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    Here’s the good news to end with. If you acquire enough inner resources over time, before getting to a massive success explosion, you can most often manage the dangers of leverage and handle success much better. You don’t get kicked out of the center. You don’t start abusing your massive success. That’s why having enough inner resources and an explosion of the outer resources is the winning combo. As we said, success equals explosion (of inner and outer assets) and control. You need both.

    Massive success formula = explosion (of inner and outer assets) + control

    So take care of explosions in your life by being focused on acquiring inner and outer assets and make sure you stay disciplined when they happen. That’s the simple formula for massive success. After that it’s only a matter of time. It may take you a few months, if you’re super lucky, or a few years or even a few decades. Who knows. But it’s definitely worth it. You can do it and you deserve it. Now get to strategizing and hard work. I believe in you.

    Homework

    Take quiz



  • Anti-Kaizen

    You can find a lot of information about Kaizen, the basic Kaizen rules as well as more specialized Kaizen rules for teams on this blog. Now let’s look at the same topic from a slightly different perspective. Let’s talk about the so-called Anti-Kaizen. It’s a toxic mindset and includes all the limited beliefs that prevent any kind of improvement and progress.

    Before we go to Anti-Kaizen, make sure you remember all the Kaizen rules. The best thing you can do is to download and print the rules and stick them to a visible place in your home or your office. When stuck, look at the list, read the rules, and you will refocus your brain on the path towards the solution, and hopefully stop feeling sorry for yourself. It’s the best way to avoid any kind of Anti-Kaizen behaviour.

    You can download the documents here:

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    Now let’s go to the most frequent Anti-Kaizen beliefs.

    Negative beliefs that prevent any improvements

    There are 13 quite frequent beliefs and toxic behaviors that prevent any kind of progress and improvement. You’ll find that kind of behavior in many toxic and unproductive environments, where the status quo is the only constant; and most people in an organization like that are nothing but zombies. Well, even the status quo is only a mirage, because if you aren’t going forwards, you’re going backwards. There is no status quo in the long run.

    Here they are, Anti-Kaizen beliefs and situations:

    1. Lying to yourself
    2. Victim mindset and being stuck in an emotional cage
    3. “There’s no need for improvement” mindset
    4. Lack of time
    5. Firefighting and enjoying adrenalin rushes and dramas
    6. Lack of confidence in self and others and lack of courage
    7. You want to change others, not yourself
    8. Getting in trouble for failing or pointing out the problems
    9. Not following up on ideas
    10. Giving up too quickly
    11. Solving problems with additional administration
    12. Hoping that others will do it for you and waiting for better times
    13. Jumping to solutions too quickly

    Lying to yourself

    If you lie to yourself about where you are, there is no need for improvement. Many times, we like to picture ourselves or even the world as a whole in a much more beautiful scenario than it actually is (or, in some cases, much worse than it is, if the necessary improvement is to relax, for example). But in general, people are very indulgent towards themselves, lying where they really stand, and great critics towards others.

    • You can lie to yourself that you live healthy just because you regularly use olive oil
    • You can easily lie to yourself by only looking rich and not really being rich
    • You can lie to yourself about how productive you are every day, but in reality only work a few hours on the things that matter most
    • You can lie to yourself that your job is pretty okay, but in reality you suffer a lot and so on

    If you want to make any improvements in your life or in any organization, you first have to know where you are. And be extremely honest about it. Today, that’s quite simple with all the data available. Never lie to yourself. Always be honest and seek the truth. Know where you are and where you want to go. Then start improving yourself or an organization step by step. For example, don’t only look rich, actually be rich.

    Don't Lie To Yourself

    Victim mindset and being stuck in an emotional cage

    The victim mindset is one of the most common reasons why people get stuck and never start improving themselves, their life situation and the environment around them. It’s very easy to blame others, from your parents to the government, market trends, life in general, and so on. And many times, you have every right to do so.

    But it doesn’t help anyone. Whining, bitching, complaining and feeling sorry for yourself never bring results, improvements or more happiness, only more sorrow. You only live once and if being stuck in an emotional cage is preventing you from improving and growing, start dealing with your past, your emotions and all the cognitive distortions. It’s the best option you have, no matter how difficult your past was.

    There is always a move you can make in your life towards a better position. After you stop being a victim and take full responsibility for your future, you will easily find a move you can make. Don’t be a victim, take control over your life once and for all, and start improving. If you focus on problems, you’ll only get more problems in life, and if you focus on solutions, positive things will start happening to you.

    “There is no need for improvement” mindset

    You can have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset. If you have a fixed mindset, you assume things are as they are and there’s nothing you can do about it. If you believe that there’s no need or no room for improvement, you won’t improve. Why would you?

    Nevertheless, studies show that a growth mindset is one of the top personality traits of successful people. The most successful people constantly improve, even when they’re on top; because there is no top. In addition to that, the organizations that constantly learn and improve are the ones that are winning in business.

    The conclusion is therefore pretty simple. If you want to be successful in life, you need to grow, you need to evolve and you need to constantly improve. It’s one of the reasons why you’re here on this planet.

    “I/We have always done it like that” is the most evil sentence ever.

    Lack of time

    Many times, people work so hard that they don’t even take the time to look around and analyze if they’re digging the right hole. Until it’s too late. A lack of time should never be an excuse for not brainstorming and implementing improvements. You always have to work smart as well.

    Therefore, the AgileLeanLife Productivity Framework has three levels of planning – the strategic, tactical and operational level. You have to see the woods and you have to see all the trees. You must always take enough time to plan and make improvements in where you go and how you do things on all three levels.

    There is a very simple test that shows your speed of improvement. How many things are you doing differently now than you did six months ago? If the answer is none and you’re only working hard the same way you did half a year ago, because you don’t have the time to improve your working methods, it’s time to change something.

    If necessary, make sure that your first improvement is that you start dealing with improvements at all.

    Firefighting and enjoying adrenalin rushes and dramas

    People who are prone to deadline adrenaline rushes and dramas in relationships rarely take the time to stop and analyze how to improve. The frequent reason for that is the existence of an internal conflict. Improvements take away the drama, unproductive adrenaline rushes and other toxic behaviors. And you simply can’t focus on improvements if you need to feed your emotional monsters.

    An important part of improving yourself is to become happier and more satisfied, productive, relaxed etc. Firefighting and playing a drama queen means going in the opposite direction. The solution is simple. If there is any kind of drama, anxiety and constantly chasing deadlines in your personal or company culture, it’s time to start improving fast.

    Not to be too extreme, everyone finds themselves in such a situation from time to time, but if it’s a part of the culture or how a person operates and it happens more often than not, then that is big Anti-Kaizen behavior.

    Lack of confidence in self and others and lack of courage

    As I mentioned many times, it’s not easy to implement new changes, even if they are positive ones. We are all afraid of change on the biological level. Nevertheless, you simply need the courage to face your fears and start improving. The first step is to have more confidence in self and others.

    Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will. In the same way, doubt kills more improvements than failure ever will. Skepticism, cynicism, excessive sarcasm, drama, negativity, indecisiveness etc., they all kill creativity and potential for improvements. Believe in yourself and believe in people around you. There is nothing to doubt about, to be honest. Your growth and personal improvements (or the improvements of family or company culture) are the best possible investments.

    Improve Or Not To Improve
    To improve or not to improve?

    You want to change others, not yourself

    As cliché as it sounds, change always begins with you. First you have to understand (system, process, environment, relationships, history etc.), then you have to ignite the spark in yourself with a great vision and a powerful mission and only then change and adjust yourself to the right vibration in coherence with the system to start influencing other people and implementing change.

    Implementing change is always a carefully and surgically orchestrated process that starts with changing yourself and adjusting your actions to face the least resistance from environmental forces.

    Why do you have to change yourself first? Well, it’s easy to blame others. It’s easy to see flaws. It’s much harder to come up with good solutions. It’s even harder to analyze the system and pull the right moves to implement a change step by step in a very non-invasive way. Everyone wants to change the environment, shape it more to their liking, but nobody wants to change themselves first. But that’s the only place where the change really begins.

    Before you can start implementing change, you have to find common ground with the environment and then build on it. To find the common ground, you have to first change yourself.

    Getting in trouble for failing or pointing out the problems

    If you judge others when they fail or make a mistake, you’re doing a very Anti-Kaizen thing. But there’s a catch. Usually people never openly criticize failure, of course. They do it with gossip, silence, sarcasm, mockery or some other type of intolerant emotional behavior. That kind of behavior means people get in trouble for failing and making mistakes.

    A whole different thing is if you show curiosity for why something didn’t work, if you’re interested in what has been learnt and in the new ideas for how improvements could be made. Because Kaizen people have to feel emotionally secure and not be afraid to fail and make mistakes. You show people that it’s okay to fail with words and emotions.

    Make sure people don’t get in trouble if they show you the problems or if they fail when trying something new. It means they care and that they have the willpower and probably many good additional ideas for what to try.

    If you get in trouble for failing or showing the problems, explain to your boss what the Kaizen philosophy is and how it can help the organization. Try to find a way for moving the system towards the philosophy of constant improvement. But if it’s not worth your energy, if you don’t care enough, find a different system that will appreciate your ideas and suggestions, and vice-versa, a system where you will really care and have the power to test and implement new ideas.

    Not following up on ideas

    Ideas are a dime a dozen. Testing ideas and executing the best ones is pure gold. For implementing change, you simply have to be a doer, not only a talker. You must have a culture of immediate implementation and execution. Not following up on ideas is one of the most Anti-Kaizen things you can do besides having a victim mindset.

    There are several reasons why there’s usually no follow up on ideas. Either the ideas are too complex or completely unreachable, or there are strong emotional issues that block the implementation. Going back to basic Kaizen rules and having an honest conversation is the best cure for a situation like that.

    Giving up too quickly

    Implementing change is no easy task. It not only takes motivation and creativity, but also a lot of patience and a long-term view. Changing the culture of an organization can take years, for example. In reality, implementing change is not very different from going on a diet. You have to work hard and make sacrifices now, for benefits that are far far away; while eating sweets gives you instant gratification and the punishment in excessive fat and bad health seems far away. That’s why it’s so hard to go on a diet.

    The reason why it’s so hard to implement any change is the same. Because you have to put in the effort now for results and benefits you will enjoy sometime in the future. But if you stay in the status quo, you don’t have to put in any effort and the punishment comes sometime in the far-away future.

    With time, the hard road becomes easy and the easy road becomes hard. So you must have a long-term view for every change you plan to implement. Never give up too quickly. Even when you lose motivation, remember that tomorrow is a new day to start over. And don’t overestimate what you can achieve in a few months and don’t underestimate what you can achieve in a few years.

    Solving problems with additional administration

    Many times, when we identify the root problem, additional administration in the process seems like the right solution; but in reality, it rarely is. If you take that kind of an approach, you can soon find yourself drowning in paperwork and everything becomes counterproductive. Never let additional administration be your best solution, you can always find better solutions than additional paperwork.

    Let’s get back to a practical example of the 5 Whys technique and how it can help you focus on the process that was presented in the Kaizen rules for teams. It’s very simple: you describe the problem and start asking yourself “why”.

    • The vehicle will not start. (the problem)
    • Why? The battery is dead. (first why)
    • Why? The alternator is not functioning. (second why)
    • Why? The alternator belt has broken. (third why)
    • Why? – The alternator belt was well beyond its useful service life and not replaced. (fourth why)
    • Why? – The vehicle was not maintained according to the recommended service schedule. (fifth why, the root cause)

    After the last “why” and discovering core problem, one of your first solution may be, let’s add a checklist or some other form of paper to the process. Or an engineer should sign dozens of forms on what s(he) has done, and so on. Many times, our initial ideas include additional bureaucracy, who knows why. But that’s rarely the right solution.

    Hoping that others will do it for you or waiting for better times

    An interesting thing can happen. When markets go up, they can solve many problems so you don’t have to improve at all. Or sometimes you get a rock star in your team who solves many of your problems and, again, you don’t have to improve. Sometimes a few problems die on their own. It can happen, problems can be magically solved without you making any improvements.

    But hoping that others will implement changes and improvements instead of you, or waiting for better times that will take care of everything makes no sense at all. Because sooner or later, new challenges will come and afterwards, you may be in an even worse position. The main idea of improvements is that you become better and more competent and capable. You want to develop abilities to tackle problems better, provide more value, and so on. Inner assets or competence, if you want, are one of the most powerful securities you can have in life.

    It’s also one of the reasons why you’re here on this planet. You don’t want to be deprived of the feeling of satisfaction when you win a battle with yourself and change to a better version of you. The feeling is awesome.

    Jumping to solutions too quickly

    Jumping to conclusions without any real proof is one of the cognitive distortions that happens to people very often. Jumping to solutions too quickly, without any testing, experimenting and measuring, is what often prevents real change to the better. It’s not that hard to come up with a solution or ideas for what to do. But it’s usually quite hard to come up with a solution that works and can be realistically implemented with sustainable effects.

    You need a systematic and scientific approach to implementing improvements. You need to measure your progress. You need to use real data, not just your hunches and intuition. Just coming up quickly with a solution and thinking that you’ve done your job is definitely an Anti-Kaizen approach; after all, you’re breaking rule number one of not lying to yourself.

    You must not wait for the perfect timing or the perfect solution when implementing improvements, but on the other hand, acting without thinking is damaging as well.

    The key takeaway

    The roots of Anti-Kaizen behavior lie in either the wrong mindset or toxic emotional behavior. Therefore, you have to deal with both of them – mindset and emotions. Rationally, you have to see constant improvement as the common sense you simply have to follow in order to achieve your peak performance. That’s usually the easy part of the equation.

    The emotional part is much harder. But there is no other way than to work on more self-confidence, facing your fears with courage and dealing with laziness and procrastination or whatever holds you back from becoming the best version of yourself. Sometimes playing it safe is no different from being locked in a safe. Upgrade your mindset, face your fears and start improving yourself.

    Kaizen rules!

  • The Skyscraper Technique to skyrocket your success

    AgileLeanLife Framework is not only about implementing agile development and lean startup techniques into your personal life to increase productivity and be more successful. It’s also about other good business practices that can take your performance and quality of life to the next level. So let’s look at quite a popular technique from internet marketing that you can also use in different areas of your life. It’s called the Skyscraper technique.

    The Skyscraper technique in content marketing suggests that you find a good piece of content from your competitor or somewhere else (the so-called linkable asset), you make it multiple times better and share it with the right people. It’s in human nature to be attracted to the best, and if you make a better piece of content, people will rush straight to your website.

    It’s in human nature to be attracted to the best. So be the best in what you do.

    Your content must really be multiple times better in order for the technique to work. You must create content so good and useful that people can’t help but share it, link it and recommend it to other people. You have to produce the best piece of content on a specific topic ever. You shouldn’t just copy, paste and improve a content slightly. You should take the content to a completely new level.

    There are many ways how you can do that. You can make the content longer, more up-to-date, you can add videos, templates, checklists, you can design it better, you can make content more thorough or relevant. There are numerous options for taking the content to a completely new level.

    After you prepare and publish your piece of content, you share it with people who already showed interest in the topic on other sites, where the content you decided to improve had been published. There’s a great chance people will be interested in your improved version, will use and share it. Because they already showed interest in the topic before. It’s simple math.

    The main problem with the Skyscraper technique in internet marketing is that it works best if you already have an authority domain and a trusted site. It never gives very good results to newbies and they’re the ones who are often disappointed. Because you first need strong foundations and then a lot of persistence in order for the strategy to work. You can’t just build a skyscraper over night.

    The Skyscraper idea in content marketing is not something new, it’s a very well-known technique ever since business world exists. Many people get their business idea by looking at some product or service and improving it somehow. There are so many ways for how to do it. You can make it bigger or smaller, faster or lighter, cheaper or based on a different business model, and so on.

    If you’d like to start your own business, this may be a great way to start. Find a product or service that already works and brainstorm on how to take it to the next level. With all the competition today, making a product slightly better is rarely enough. You have to make it a gazillion times better. But if you can’t imagine something that doesn’t exist yet at all (usually disruptive technologies), this may be a good way to start.

    The Skyscraper Tehnique

    The Skyscraper technique in your personal life

    You can also use the Skyscraper technique in your personal life very well. The idea is pretty simple. You go straight for the best knowledge in a certain life area you want to improve. Then by experimenting, trying, brainstorming, connecting new patterns, thinking outside the box and forgetting best practices (in the search mode), you make it several times better.

    It’s not as easy as it sounds, of course. You have to set strong foundations first. You have to become extremely passionate about something. You have to brutally focus yourself and push through all the obstacles and C.R.A.P. – criticism, rejections, assholes and pressure. But this is how you make rapid improvements in life and level up your game. It may take years to build a skyscraper and you can do it only with a long-term view in mind.

    This is how legacies are built. You find a drastically better way of doing something, implement it into your own life and share it with others. You make it a new standard on the market.

    Look at the problems you have in life, the goals you want to achieve, the causes you want to fight for. Health, wealth, poverty, love, technology, internet content, you name it. There are so many problems in your personal life and in the world in general that you can solve way better than how they’re currently solved. Analyze and study all current solutions. Commit yourself to making a solution that’s a gazillion times better. Use every single brain cell to come up with the most creative solutions possible.

    Well, you can also use the Skyscraper technique in a less revolutionary way. You can simply build an adjusted or updated solution for your own problems, systems and processes that work better for you personally and share it with other people. Who knows, maybe you’ll get the first follower, the second one, and then a little tribe that will use your own formula for success. It’s a total win-win, you will dramatically improve your life, help other people and maybe even get rich by sharing it.

    Practical examples

    Let’s look at a few practical examples.

    Do you want to lose weight? Study the most popular dieting and exercising techniques, test them, find where the main problems are, find better solutions, implement them into your life and then share them with others (for money or not, as you wish).

    Do you want to be an exceptional investor? Study all other successful investors, different investment strategies, find the things that work for you and meet you targeted ROI, and then teach others with the same or similar investing mindset how to do it. Or just enjoy your yields.

    Do you want to have better relationships? Despite all the books on how to have a good partnership, an average relationship is still more of a relationsh*t. Sit down and agree with your spouse that you will analyze all the current recommendations, test them, invent new ones and make the best guideline for couples on how to effectively communicate. You will have a better relationship, you will have lots of fun and you can actually influence millions of people with your findings.

    Do you want to start your own business? As already mentioned, think of all the products and services you could make a gazillion times better. Go to your garage and start prototyping. Start creating, testing, experimenting, talking to your potential customers and so on.

    Are you pissed off after reading an article or a comment on the internet? Well, write a detailed and argumented analysis that will be eye-opening for people, and present a whole new different perspective on something. Much better than posting hateful comments.

    Whatever you want to achieve, think of the current best practices and how things could be done better. In some cases a little better, in others a gazillion times better. Forget best practices. There’s no such thing as a good practice, only things to innovate and do better. And you have all the needed creative and mental capacity to do it better.

    Whatever you want to achieve, study biographies, different strategies, talk to the smartest and most successful people, and then forget about best practices. Test, experiment, learn and find a gazillion better way to do something. Of course, you have to do it in a smart, scientific and systematic way. It’s not an easy task. But it’s a definitely a way and a mindset that can contribute a lot to your life and to the world.

    Start building your own skyscrapers!

  • Personal Infostructure

    Infostructure is a system and a process of how you consume, manage and share information. In the creative society, a quality infostructure has become as important as a quality infrastructure. What you feed your mind with matters a lot. A quality (good) infostructure will help you become more creative, competent and resourceful. A bad infostructure, on the other hand, is the biggest time waster ever, killing your creative potential, making you into an obedient consumer and a zombie – something that you definitely don’t want to become, but may happen if you don’t put any effort into building an outstanding infostructure for yourself.

    What you will learn

    In this post, you will learn about the following key things:

    • The difference between infrastructure and infostructure
    • Why infostructure is as important as infostructure in the creative economy
    • Why infostructure is like fire when it comes to technological advancement; nothing more than a tool with which you can either cook yourself dinner or burn yourself badly, depending on how you use it
    • How infostructure can lower the quality of your life by killing your creative potential, turning you into a consumer and a zombie
    • How bad infostructure can become the biggest time waster ever and how to avoid that
    • How you can build yourself an outstanding infostructure that will help you be incredibly more resourceful, creative and competent
    • How I built my own outstanding infostructure and how you can do it as well

    Infrastructure vs. Infostructure

    You probably know what infrastructure is and even if you don’t, you definitely use it all the time. Infrastructure are the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities needed for the operation of a society, be it a country, state, city, county or even enterprise. The main parts of an infrastructure are buildings, roads, power supplies, utilities, sanitary systems, and so on.

    There’s definitely a big correlation between well-developed infrastructure and efficient productivity. Without sufficient infrastructure, the society is bogged down with higher operating costs, structural production problems and everyday frustrations, consequently suffering from a big competitive disadvantage, especially on the global markets. There’s no doubt that better infrastructure means a better quality of life, higher productivity and efficiency, and generally a better environment for business.

    I’m sure you pay a lot of attention to where you live, how you organize your home and your office, what car you drive, how far away your favorite facilities, like shops, are etc. You definitely want to have electricity, water and other housing supplies all the time.

    With all the loans, mortgages, rents, housing and transportation costs, you probably spend an extensive proportion of your paycheck for the infrastructure you use (your private and public part of the infrastructure). It’s logical that you do, because a better infrastructure brings a better quality of life, it helps you create more value for the markets, and so on. With a bigger paycheck, people often first invest into better infrastructure.

    But we live in the creative economy and post-information age, where is not only infrastructure that’s important. In developed countries, adequate infrastructure is more or less taken care of. So infrastructure isn’t as important as it used to be for competitive advantage and success. You can see that very well in the business world. The best businesses don’t compete with better facilities, plants, equipment and manufacturing machines anymore. The best businesses today compete with creativity, innovation, intellectual property and new business models.

    You’ve probably heard that Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.

    If the competitive advantage of a business can fall on the CEO’s toes, it’s not real competitive advantage in the creative economy.

    In developed countries, you can rent infrastructure when you need it and as much of it as you need it. In some cases, all you need is a laptop and a good connection to the internet, and you can compete on the global markets. Don’t get me wrong. Infrastructure is very important. It’s hard to be creative if your toilet isn’t working, if it takes you hours to get to the office or if you’re freezing in your apartment. But in today’s world, creativity, innovation and information are as important, if not even more important, than outstanding infrastructure if you want to compete, create, deliver and capture (make money) as much value as possible.

    Your Personal Infostructure

    What do I really mean by personal infostructure?

    If in the contemporary creative economy, innovation and information are as important for creating value as infrastructure is, one of your key competitive advantages is a system and a process of how you consume, manage and share information. That’s your personal infostructure.

    Infostructure is a system and a process of how you consume, manage and share information.

    The main idea of a good infostructure is that you acquire as much knowledge as possible as quickly as possible. Knowledge is nevertheless an important part of your competence level. Knowledge means knowing a certain field. It means you have a complete set of information that you imprinted into your consciousness. And you can do things with it – you can create and deliver value. A good infostructure also helps you continuously acquire knowledge. It’s called life-long learning based on an informal education.

    Even more. Good infostructure definitely contributes to your creativity. Creativity is nothing but the ability to perceive the world in new ways, find hidden patterns, make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and generate solutions. With more information and knowledge, you can more easily connect the dots never before connected . The more right information and knowledge you have (depth, complexity, interdisciplinary …), the more creative and “aha” moments you can have in your life. Because you see connections others can’t see. Because they lack the same combination of knowledge.

    Knowledge is power, there’s no doubt about it (actually, applying knowledge is power, but more about that later). Good infostructure means more knowledge, and more knowledge means more power. That’s why you should pay a lot of attention to your personal infostructure if you want to be successful in life. Good infrastructure as part of the outer assets (money, status etc.) is simply not enough anymore. You also need lots of inner assets (competences), and a superior infostructure can help you with that.

    But there’s one big trick regarding infostructure. The society (with market demand) has already built one for you; much like it has also built most of the infrastructure. With one big difference, which is that the purpose of the public infostructure is to program you into an obedient and stupid consumer. That’s why I call it bad infostructure, the one you’re pushed into by default.

    Bad personal infostructure

    As I mentioned, bad infostructure is unfortunately the one that society has already built for you. More than 99 % of people probably use this default infostructure regularly, which consequently heavily contributes towards to living unhappy, average or even zombie lives. If you do what other people do, you get what other people have; and that’s usually an average life. And you don’t want that. So what is the default bad infostructure that society has built for you? Well, there are a few core media used in the default infostructure that are programing you into an obedient consumer. In addition to that, they more or less help you only with mental masturbation and are big time wasters. Here they are:

    Television and radio

    TV is nothing but a “multimedia ad player”, since you more or less only watch ads that are programming you into a good consumer. The content is usually no better than ads. Reality shows, watching other people play sports, watching people who live the life you probably want to live, be it the leading superheroes in a movie, saving the world, or the main actors themselves having fun filming and making millions. You’re obviously on the wrong side of the screen.

    Here’s another trap. Maybe you haven’t turned on the TV for decades and you can tell yourself that you don’t watch it. But on the other hand, you still watch movies and TV shows, just not on the TV. We know video on demand now, we have Netflix, iTunes etc. Or you can even go to the movie theater too often. So you don’t have to sit in front of the TV to watch “TV”.

    It’s pretty much the same with channels like Discovery, History and other “educational” channels or even MTV. They play nothing but semi-reality or reality TV shows. You either watch other people travelling, cooking, exploring or doing other amazing things or, on the other hand, you watch them get humiliated in front of a few judges and thousands of people so you can feel a little bit better about yourself. No thanks.

    Don’t get me wrong. A good movie or an episode of a TV show can be very relaxing from time to time. And we all need some relaxation; we aren’t robots. But spending hours and hours in front of the TV watching commercials is definitely not the life you want to live. Wake up.

    Radio is not much different from TV. You listen to thousands and thousands of commercials and stupid talk shows. You maybe hear a song you like once a day, after listening to hours of useless content. On the main radio stations, you can listen to the same bad news every half hour (it’s like it’s really programing you to be negative), and most interviews and discussions have zero valuable content and are only there to entertain the masses. I don’t remember the last time I heard something useful on the radio. And if you want to listen to music, you have iTunes and other music streaming services.

    News (print, online) and most magazines

    The daily news gives you a sense of connection with the world as well as a sense of urgency and importance. You feel like you’re in the flow of global happenings. In addition to that, we’re all prone to drama in life, from the evolutionary point of view. Drama and negative information raise your adrenalin levels and make you feel more alive. They make you feel like you’re running from a virtual tiger. Something important is happening, you better pay attention. Not. Most news pieces are negative because your mind loves negative information. You don’t want to fill your mind with negative information. It will only bring the negative into your life.

    You can’t live a positive life, with a negative mind. You can’t have positive mind if you constantly consume negative information.

    Additionally, news is history. It already happened. You have zero influence on that. And everybody reads it, so it brings zero competitive advantage into your life. Even if you spend hours and hours catching up on tech news, startup news or whatever, the value added of that kind of information is really low. If you want to co-create the future, you need to empty your mind, make some creative free time, read some heavily useful stuff or level up your skills and focus on your goals. Only your goals, nothing else. No drama.

    The good thing (somehow, I guess) is that you don’t have to worry at all: even if you unsubscribe yourself from all the news, the most “important” (the most negative or shocking) news will definitely reach you sooner or later. Because everybody shares it, 99 % of people are little beacons of negative information.

    On mobile phone

    Social networks

    Social networks have become an important part of our lives. People spend hours and hours on social networks. For most people, it’s extremely hard to escape from being on the most popular social networks. This means at least Facebook and Twitter, but I can probably also add Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram and many others to the list. It won’t get any better in the future. There will be even more websites fighting for your time and attention.

    Now ask yourself honestly, will hours and hours of looking at pictures of what your friends and acquaintances are doing really help you progress in life? Definitely not. And to be realistic, Facebook and other social networks aren’t even close to showing the real lives that people are living. People are only posting beautiful moments, the few peaks they get in their lives. Behind these beautiful moments, every human being must face challenges, disappointments, struggles and other burdens.

    At the end of the day, looking at the good moments of your Facebook friends makes you feel like you’re the only weirdo who doesn’t enjoy life to the full. Not a perception you want to program your mind with. And a big distraction from your own goals.

    Pub debates

    An important source of information for everyone are also their friends. That’s why social networks are so popular. Because people love to “stalk” other people and they’re so interested in what other people are thinking or doing. The same mental masturbation effect often also happens in real life, especially in pubs, coffee shops and similar locations. People love talking about politics, big world problems and negative events, and we can also add gossiping, criticizing, whining and complaining to the list.

    A debate among a group of friends is rarely about brainstorming new ideas, challenging beliefs, pushing each other to the next level, looking for positives in life, and so on. I see that only among really successful people who sit at the same table, without any bozos present. People you spend time with are an extremely important source of your information and therefore also an important source of your motivation and creativity. You can’t live a positive life with a negative mind. In the same way, you can’t live a positive life being surrounded by negative people and participating in stupid pub debates.

    Numerous trashy internet sites

    Like every technology, internet has brought a lot of good, but also a few bad things into our lives. Just to mention a few good ones: internet has enabled us higher productivity, faster access to quality information, new ways of communication, and so on. The bad, on the other hand, is especially the fact that internet also gave everyone very easy access to shitty content and shitty information. With a single click. People are spending hours and hours on the internet browsing stupid internet sites.

    From watching porn, arguing on forums, posting hateful comments and reading tabloids to watching “funny” vines, browsing through thousands of social network statuses, and so on. Well, at the end of the day, most people consume on the internet what they used to consume only with TV, daily news, magazines, gaming consoles and pub debates. Now with the internet, everything is intensified and accelerated.

    You simply don’t want to have that kind of an infostructure in your life. Much like you want your toilet to work in your home, have nice roads without holes and bumps when you drive to your job, like you want lights in your office when it gets dark and a nice working car, why wouldn’t you want to get the same from the infostructure that feeds your mind and consequently also defines your quality of life, happiness level, competence level and potential?

    It doesn’t make any sense to fight for outstanding infrastructure and not pay any attention to your infostructure.

    Outstanding personal infostructure

    Now we know what the bad default infostructure that society has built for you looks like and how it influences your life. Something that 99 % of people use and something that’s very hard to avoid in everyday life. Why? Because people like it (demand) and everybody profits from you using the default bad infostructure. Producers, advertising companies, media houses, even your country and your neighbors (so they don’t have to be envious), everybody profits. Except you.

    Therefore, you have to put an enormous amount of energy, will and self-discipline into changing the default infostructure to a better one and regularly using it. The good news is that people have also built and created the good part of the infostructure, available to you with one click. Unfortunately, the masses just don’t use it as much as they use the mainstream media, so it takes a little bit more effort to surround yourself with the right content. That’s the beauty of today’s world: you have choices and you have the power to decide what you’ll consume. Fast food or quality stuff.

    To be fair, there are temptations every hour of every day, fighting for your time, attention and money, trying to make you to go back to the default bad infostructure. But you have to be strong. You have to make the right choices most of the time (let’s say 95 %). You can never completely run away from a bad infostructure (there’s always a movie or a TV show you really can’t miss). But you can definitely build yourself an outstanding system for consuming and managing information that will help you achieve your goals and become the best version of yourself.

    Here’s how your infrastructure should look like:

    Books and carefully selected blogs and magazines

    By far the best text source of knowledge and information are still books. You should read at least one book per month. Even better if you read one book per week. Some people read one book per day. You can take a speed-reading course and join a “one book per day” club. I should do that. An average person spends hours in front of the TV every day. Imagine if all that time were spent on reading top books.

    I guarantee that if you read a quality book per day, then you will definitely become a lean, mean, creative knowledge machine in a year. And it never takes a year to get obsessed with reading. In a few months of regular reading habits, you’ll automatically start reading a book every time someone in the family turns on the TV, simply because you’ll see and experience all the benefits of reading.

    What about other reading material? Well, the general rule is that you acquire a lot more useful knowledge by reading a quality book than by reading dozens of blog posts. Nevertheless, some blogs are pure gold (like this one :). You should find those rare ones and follow them. The same goes for magazines. You can find magazines of really high quality in some industries and for some topics, while for others not so much.

    Always follow the rule to go for the best (knowledge) and forget the rest.

    Before you buy a book and start reading it, check the reviews and the table of contents. Make sure the book is really something that will help you advance in life. Maybe you can read a summary of the book and then decide. The idea is that by reading a book, you “download” an upgraded software version of a specific topic to your brain. You must get creative ideas and learn new and better ways of doing things in life. And then do them. Apply them. Only reading will probably only bring you better language skills.

    Reading a book

    Audiobooks and carefully selected podcasts

    We all have very busy schedules. Consequently, it’s often hard to find the time to sit down and read in peace. Well, if you really want it, you can make it. Anyhow, audiobooks are also a good way to accelerate your learning. You can listen to audiobooks when you drive, wait in queues or take a walk. You can simply buy and download audiobooks to your smart phone, and listen to them when the opportunity pops up. There are more and more audiobooks available, no matter the topic you want to listen to and get educated about.

    Much like the comparison of books and blogs, the same goes for podcasts compared to audiobooks. There are only a few podcasts that are really good and useful. The reason for that is probably the fact that most podcasts are free. And as we said, because people love to consume useless information (demand), other people (producers) are producing tons of useless content (because as a producer, you have to listen to the markets). Therefore, you have to put in the effort and break through all the bad content in order to find the best one.

    MOOCs and educational videos

    Massive online open courses have become an extremely important source of learning for successful people. The good news is that you can find many quality courses, even from the best universities like Harvard, MIT and the best worldwide experts from many industries and life areas. You can follow the selected material at your own pace, you’re usually connected online with a group of peers who try to acquire the same knowledge as you, and so on. In short, it’s a great way to learn from the best.

    The bad news is that the majority of people who subscribe to MOOCs never really take and finish the course. They only subscribe and participate in a lecture or two at the most. Some research shows that only around 2 % finish the courses they subscribe to. Well, to be honest, it’s not easy to finish an online course. It takes effort, self-discipline, motivation, there’s no teacher to motivate you etc. It’s much easier to turn on the TV and watch a reality show than to listen to an open course. But those 2 % are the ones who do advance in life while other people stagnate. It’s what separates successful people from average ones. You have to decide for yourself. The trick is that the hard road becomes easy with time and the easy road becomes hard.

    Besides MOOCs, you can find many motivating and educational videos online. When you have only 20 minutes to do something useful or when you’re waiting at the doctors, you can plug in your earphones and watch a talk online that will help you with your goals and progress in life. There’s so much useful content online, you just have to put in the effort to find it and avoid all the crap.

    Seminars, lectures and carefully selected conferences

    An important part of your infostructure should also be seminars, lectures and a few carefully selected conferences that you visit as an individual as well as for business purposes (you should only work for a company that’s prepared to invest into your knowledge). Sometimes even advancing in formal education makes sense. The main problem with previously mentioned MOOCs is that you can get bored easily, especially if you’re not an introvert. Being in a group of people with the same goal and with dates and times set in advance in the real, not virtual, life helps a lot with motivation and self-discipline. And you can make new business and personal connections more easily.

    This is why you should make offline seminars and lectures an important part of your infostructure, especially if you encounter problems with self-discipline behind a computer. Conferences can also be useful sometimes, but more or less for motivational purposes, networking and having fun. If you go to too many conferences, you often start wasting your precious time. Here’s why.

    A mastermind group and a mentor

    The most important part of your infostructure should be your mastermind group and your mentor(s). Your mastermind group are all the people you ask for advice and go for important information from your industry, about life, and so on.

    Your mastermind group are your trusted coworkers, hopefully your boss, your ambitious and educated friends as well as the best lawyers, doctors and consultants you can still afford. People that help you grow, progress and advance in life.

    Part of your infostructure system should also be your personal mentor. You should always have a personal mentor. Someone who pushes you, helps you to focus, does introductions to help you expand your professional network and directs you to the right information resources. Instead of gossiping in the pub and complaining about life, brainstorming about your next move in life with the right mentor could change your life forever.

    Group discussions (online and offline)

    Besides all the hateful comments on the internet and useless forum arguments, there’s also a positive side to group discussions. You can find many useful forums and communities online and offline. They should be an important part of your infostructure.

    We love to belong and being part of a community enhances your desire and discipline to learn and acquire new knowledge. Therefore, online forums and offline meet-ups can be a great way to learn and to meet new people with the same interests as you. Again, you have to very carefully select where to join and where to invest your energy. If the quality of information starts to decline, you shouldn’t have any emotional problems finding new better groups.

    Other resources

    There are, of course, many extremely useful internet sites, eBooks and other resources you can find online (and offline) with only a few clicks. If you have high enough standards for what kind of content to consume, you’ll be fine. Just remember that you become what you consume. So go for the best and forget the rest.

    The process of consuming information

    The sources (specific media) where you go get information and how you get it (type of media) is a system you set as part of your infostructure. As already mentioned, even if you don’t build your own system consciously, your environment (family, society etc.) has built a system for you. The other part of the equation is when, how often and for how long you consume information as well as how you manage what you’ve read. It’s called the process, and the purpose of the process is to help you with self-discipline and to stay away from the default bad infostructure.

    Here are the general recommendations for the process (and also system) you should set for yourself for acquiring and managing knowledge:

    • Go for the best (knowledge), forget the rest. Carefully chose what you consume. Help yourself with reviews, summaries etc. before you really bite into anything. Sometimes the best knowledge is a best-seller book, other times a blog post you find after hours of browsing.
    • Especially consume information that you can apply to your life and then apply it. At the end of the day, knowledge is not power. Applying knowledge is. When reading material, you should get new creative ideas or ideas for how to do things differently.
    • If possible, do a mind map or structure the new acquired knowledge in some other way after reading specific material. Connect the new acquired knowledge with what you already know. Write down the best new ideas from the material and try to come up with your own new ideas.
    • If you start reading something and you figure out it has no value for you (nothing new), stop reading it. It sounds funny but for most of people, it’s not an easy thing to do. We have the natural psychological tendency to finish what we start. For example, you rarely leave a theater, even if the movie sucks. Don’t do that. If the material sucks, move on. Don’t move on because a page loads for a second longer than you expected, but because of the bad quality.
    • Don’t read the material you already know. People have a tendency to read the stuff they already know over and over again. Because it’s easier. Don’t do that. The exception is if you’re refreshing your knowledge or revising material.
    • Read materials from very different areas you’re interested in and try to combine the knowledge in new ways. That’s called creativity. Don’t consume material only from one topic or industry. Be a curious human.
    • Try to structure the most important knowledge you have in your own presentations, blog posts, lectures etc. Teaching others is a great way to reinforce and structure the knowledge you possess.
    • Consume more difficult subjects when you’re well rested and lighter material when you’re already tired. You have to push yourself, but don’t push yourself over the limit. An important part of acquiring knowledge is that you enjoy it.

    And a few recommendations regarding the limits of the process:

    • Read something positive and motivational the first thing when you wake up.
    • Don’t go to sleep if you haven’t read at least one page that day.
    • Read for at least one hour per day.
    • Read at least one book per month.
    • Take at least one day per month only to upgrade your competences. Mark a no-interruptions day in your calendar and focus just on learning.
    • Go to one educational seminar or do one MOOC at least once every six months.
    • Go to one motivational conference at least once a year, especially for motivational purposes.
    • A good way to learn is while you earn. Your work should always be slightly more demanding than your skills, so you have to learn while you work. Also make sure to work at a company that’s prepared to invest in your knowledge, if you aren’t your own boss.
    • Limit mental masturbation (consuming useless content, social networking etc.) to 5 hours per week at the most.
    • Sharing is caring. Share and spread good information. People desperately need it.

    Well, reading can also mean watching, listening or participating in a group discussion.

    Sharing information

    An important part of infostructure is also sharing information, not only consuming it. The first rule is that you should produce only quality content. The world is already polluted enough with shitty content. So no hateful comments, no gossiping and talking about reality shows.

    You should become a human beacon of positive and quality information and knowledge.

    The second rule is that sharing is caring. If it’s not exactly a trade secret, you should share quality information with people. There’s this karma rule regarding knowledge. The more knowledge you share, the more knowledge you get. But also don’t have any constraints to charge for your knowledge.

    You should be aware that in the information age, you share information and content all the time, with every move you make behind your computer and, of course, every time you open your mouth. Every e‑mail, every social media update, every blog comment and content recommendation is part of your infostructure. Much like you should be very careful about the content you consume, so you should carefully watch what you share

    At the end of the day, what comes out of your mouth is more or less determined by what goes into your mind.

    Practical example

    My personal infostructure

    Now let’s get on the practical level. Let’s look at my own personal infostructure, the system of how I get information and how I handle it. First of all, I follow the asset-light living philosophy, so I have everything digitalized and own no physical books, magazines, CDs or any other material (except an exercise book for language learning). An important part of my infostructure are also my digital brains.

    I buy books on Amazon. I have a Kindle eReader and a Kindle app on my smartphone, tablet and PC. I try to read at least one book per week. Books are my primary source of acquiring new knowledge. The only magazine I read is the Harvard Business Review.

    Before I buy a book, I read the summary. I use Blinkist for book summaries and, from the bottom of my heart, I can say that it’s a really awesome app. If I like the summary, I buy and read the book. Next to that, I try to read at least one book summary per day. I read books/summaries at every opportunity I have. When I wake up, before I go to sleep, when I wait in lines, when I have a few minutes to waste, I open the Kindle app or Blinkist and I start reading.

    My Infostructure
    My favorite apps

    I use Feedly as a RSS app for the few blogs I’m subscribed to. I used to be subscribed to more than 100 blogs but I felt overloaded. Now I’m subscribed only to a few really good blogs from different niches (startups, internet marketing, personal development, productivity …). To be honest, I often run out of time to read the blog posts and I don’t put pressure on myself to read all the blog posts. I have no problem with having many unread blog posts as long as I read books on a daily basis. I used to be a big fan of reading apps, like Flipboard, etc., but now they’re more or less no different from reading the daily news. So again, I go back to books.

    I use Audible for audiobooks. I listen to audiobooks when I walk, wait in a queue and sometimes when I’m driving (if I’m well rested). I also listen to audiobooks when I’m doing the dishes and other chores. I don’t really listen to podcasts, except to Tai Lopez sometimes (or similar authors).

    MOOCs are an important part of my infostructure. I regularly buy courses on Udemy. I’m subscribed to Lynda, Threehouse and Tutsplus, especially now when I’m leveling up my IT competences. As a source of motivational talks, I watch TED Talks from time to time.

    I don’t watch TV at all. I don’t listen to the radio. I don’t read the daily news. I don’t participate in useless debates. And I don’t visit useless internet sites. I do watch TV shows from time to time, but with an upper limit of 3 hours per week (except when I’m ill and can’t do anything else than stare at either a TV screen or a wall). I’ve turned my social networks into a source of quality content. I do visit 9gag from time to time. That’s my weak point, I guess. When in any kind of dilemma, my philosophy is to go back to quality books. An even more important part of my philosophy is to apply the acquired knowledge and experience it for myself.