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  • Mind the process phases

    Before getting to any event you want in life, you must first invest into the process. The process is what leads you to a certain event you want in life (getting rich, getting in shape, getting a dream job etc.) and it has specific phases. Most people are simply too impatient and disrespectful of the whole process (and the phases even more so) to ever come to the final event, the outcome they really desire.

    Because it’s not easy. A process means you have to get educated, have a strategy, it takes smart and hard work, you have to fail, you have to overcome setbacks and obstacles, you have to put in effort each day, but you only see results after years of hard work.

    It’s really not easy at all, but it also makes sense. Life owes you nothing, and if you really want something, you have to fight for it. If it were easy, everyone would do it. Life rewards those who master its game, and mastering the game of life means respecting the process.

    Not only do you have to respect the process, you also have to consider its different phases. You have to go step-by-step and patiently focus on different things in different phases. You cannot skip or jump over some of the phases.

    The point of every process phase is to be more focused on the right thing. The point is to not overwhelm yourself. The point of the phases is to not bite off more than you can chew. By considering the phases, you first set strong foundations and then build your thing step by step, strong and still. As I’ve already mentioned, it’s not smart to skip the phases of the process, but sometimes you definitely have to go back one or even more phases. Sometimes you have to take a step back to take two steps forward. It’s how the process work.

    There are five phases in the process:

    • Empathy or the search mode (in lean start-up, this is called customer discovery)
    • Stickiness or finding your fit (in lean start-up, this is called retention)
    • Virality or becoming an evangelist (in lean start-up, this is called referral)
    • Revenue or reaping the first rewards and making a plan (in lean start-up, this is called a business model)
    • Scale or the execution mode (in lean start-up, this is called explosive growth)

    Now let’s look at every phase of the process in more detail and with an example.

    Empathy or the search mode

    The first phase is the empathy phase or, as we know it in the Agile and Lean life, the search mode. The most important thing in this phase is to have an open mind as well as to be very gentle and tolerant towards yourself and others. Your most important skill in this phase is empathy.

    You’re starting something new, you don’t know the territory, you only have assumptions. The last thing you need are S.M.A.R.T. goals pushing you to do something, even though you don’t know if it’s right for you. What you need is to be excited over experiencing new things in life, you have to feel the adrenaline and energy because you’re trying something new; and you have to start experimenting and testing.

    You also have to be very tolerant toward yourself. You need to be aware that you’re going to fail. Some experiments are not going to work. But if you do it right, then you aren’t failing. You’re learning. It’s called validated learning. You try many different things, until you find the right one.

    In this phase, it’s also very important to get educated. You need to read as many books as possible. You have to talk to as many people who already did what you want to do. With analytical thinking, you have to decide what you’ll try and how you’ll measure it. Then as an adventurer, you start discovering new things in life.

    After performing an experiment, you have to make a data-based decision about what you will:

    • Stop doing
    • Start doing
    • Continue doing

    An experiment can usually take from 7 to 30 days and strongly depends on what you’re testing. But that should be enough time to get feedback from yourself (body, emotions, mind) and from your environment (if there’s any outside interaction in the experiment).

    Let’s look at an example.

    You want to get in shape. The bottom line of getting in shape is quite simple. You need to exercise and change your eating habits (what you eat, how much you eat). The most popular way of going on a diet is to read a book or an article about a “miracle diet”, doing it for a month or so, going for a run a couple of times and that’s it. At the end, you’re disappointed that the revolutionary diet doesn’t work.

    You certainly don’t want to force yourself into exercising and you definitely don’t want to go on a short-term miracle diet. You want to do a sport you’ll love, a sport you can’t wait to do, and instead of going on a diet, you want to introduce a new long-term eating lifestyle that won’t cause any cravings.

    So instead of finding a “miracle diet”, you do your research – about your body type, different proven diets that work in the long-term etc. You visit a few specialists (allergy tests etc.), read a few interviews, you start researching what could work for you. If necessary, you also consult a doctor or a nutritionist if you have any medical conditions. Then you start introducing new foods into your life, crossing out others, and measuring how you feel. On the other hand, you make a list of sports you want to try and a list of sports you assume you’ll enjoy the most. Going for a run is the easiest and most convenient way; but maybe you’ll enjoy biking or swimming or hiking more. You need to find a sport you really enjoy.

    While doing your research, you’ll also discover that there are some general things you should stop doing, continue doing and start doing. For example, if you want your diet to succeed, you must definitely limit the amount of junk food and refined carbohydrates (sugar) you eat. On the other hand, you should start eating more vegetables and some fruit. In the middle, there is room for testing and experimenting – you have to see whether the high protein, the high fat (healthy fats) or maybe the vegetarian diet is best for you.

    Your output in this phase should be research, like reading 10 of the best books from the field, talking to at least 10 people and making a list of different things you’re going to try. In the search mode, you should also find your why. It should be a very strong why. In fact, you should start by asking yourself why!

    For example, in our case, the “whys” could be to:

    • Have more energy
    • Look better in a mirror (if that is the strongest why, you should buy yourself a big mirror :) )
    • Get more attention from the opposite sex
    • Live longer

    Stickiness or finding your fit

    The second phase is stickiness. You find something you like. You see the first results and you get early wins. You’re getting the first positive feedback from your body, emotions, mind or even external environment. You’ve found something you want to stick to. It’s called a fit. Nice.

    Now your focus should be on making a system that will help you stick to your new habits. Because as you know, motivation lasts only while you’re on your way to the fridge. You have to systematically think and try to reinforce your positive behaviour, build an adequate positive environment and a bulletproof system.

    You have to take the time to think how you’re going to stick to your new thing. Your enthusiasm will help you, but it’s usually not enough. You need internal and external aids – new habit reinforcers.

    Here is a good visualisation of habit formation that you can help yourself with:

    Habit 3R
    Source: The Power of Habit, James Clear

    Here are some ideas for what you can do to increase the probability of stickiness:

    • Connecting your new habits with old habits (doing something right after you wake up or before you go to sleep; these are the so-called morning and evening habits)
    • Exchanging your old habits for new ones (every time you want to eat a cookie, you eat a carrot or every time someone turns on the TV, you go read a book)
    • Introducing reminders and visual aids into your life (sticky notes, screensavers, goal board etc.)
    • Leveraging technology (applications, gadgets etc.)
    • Joining a new community (coaches, groups, friends with the same values etc.)
    • Getting rid of some things/people and introducing new things/people into your life
    • Rewarding yourself for positive behaviour and getting punished (not like in 50 Shades of Grey) for bad behaviour (for example giving your spouse $20 every time you lose your temper)
    • Surrounding yourself with research materials (books, bookmarks, magazines etc.)

    Now let’s get back to our example. You found foods that make your body happy. You educated yourself on which foods are the worst for you. You found a sport you like. Now you have to build a system that’ll help you stick to new habits. You simply stop buying foods with empty calories. You put fruit and vegetables in visible places in your home. You always have a bottle of water with you. You set a hot athlete as your wallpaper background. You put a picture of a hot athlete on your fridge. You get a personal coach who will help you get through the stickiness phase of the first two months. You spend at least 30 minutes a day reading about healthy living. You join and participate in online and offline groups, and so on.

    The biggest mistake you can make in this phase is sticking to something that doesn’t work for you. I was on a fruitarian diet for one year and I did a lot of damage to my body. So again: you have to be careful, you have to be smart and you have to listen to your body; except when you crave empty calories. The Agile and Lean Life is about having a smart strategy with constant and fast feedback you take into account.

    The second biggest mistake you can make in this phase is giving up. Improvement and change aren’t a linear line, they’re full of ups and downs. Sometimes you’ll slip up, sometimes your discipline muscle will just stop working. Nothing unusual. In a situation like that, you have to give yourself a break for a few days and then start over. Every day is a new beginning, you can always start over.

    The output of this phase should be a new reward system for yourself and visual changes in your environment. While the aim in the phase before the goal was to find the best fit for you, the goal of this phase is to reinforce your new desired behaviour and stick to it. No goals yet, just thinking about what you should do to reinforce your new habit.

    Virality or becoming an evangelist

    Now you know your endgame. You’ve found the perfect fit after testing and experimenting with several things in the search mode. You have inner and outer elements that help you stick to your new habits, like a new personal reward system, habit triggers, regular reminders, and so on. Okay, but that’s still not enough to really get to the result you want.

    The third phase is called virality or becoming an evangelist. That simply means shifting your identity. You have to fall in love with what you do. You have to see yourself as a new person. An athlete. An investor. The perfect husband. An entrepreneur. Father of the year. A good man. Whatever.

    There are two main signs that indicate that your identity shift is happening. The first one is that you aren’t shy and reserved about your new habit or identity. For example, if someone asks you if you exercise, you don’t say “I try to, from time to time”, but you proudly answer that yes, you are an athlete.

    The second sign is that you start encouraging other people to do the same. You become an evangelist of something.

    In our example, that simply means that you proudly tell all the people in your life that you have a new diet that makes you feel great, that you regularly do sports, that you can see the first results and that it feels great. You’re like a talking billboard for the new thing in your life.

    The output of this phase is an identity shift. There’s no way of going back anymore, unless something goes really wrong. You’ve reached the tipping point. Bravo.

    Identity shift
    Source: The Power of Habit, James Clear

     

    Revenue or reaping real rewards

    After a very long and demanding process, you start reaping real rewards. The hard work paid off. You found your fit, you have a new system and habits in place, and you’ve shifted your identity. The world sees you differently now and you see yourself differently as well.

    You’re not at your endgame yet, but now you can set S.M.A.R.T. goals. You have enough knowledge, you have enough feedback, you have a new identity and you know the territory well enough to set measurable goals with a time frame. You have a good picture of how long it’ll take to achieve your endgame.

    In our case, you’re becoming more and more satisfied with yourself. You see your body fat melting off. Your fitness performance is getting better and better. Your “whys” are getting fulfilled – you have a better self-image, you get more attention on the streets from the opposite sex, you have more energy, the sex is better and so on. Now you can clearly see how long and how much it will take to get a six-pack and to achieve your maximum performance. You start feeling good about yourself. You prepare a system for measuring your progress by writing down how many repetitions you can do or you start using different apps that measure different aspects of your performance.

    One dangerous thing that can happen in this phase is scaling too fast. You can become too impatient and go into the execution mode too fast. You have to be sure that your foundations are strong, you have to curb your greed and follow the plan to improve step by step. If you try to scale too soon, you can hurt yourself, experience a setback and you’ll have to go back into the search mode to find a way around your new weaknesses.

    Let me give you an example. You see the first real results of your diet and exercise. But now you want the results faster. You start to overdo everything. You go to extremes with your diet and you push your body too hard. Sooner or later, your body will force you to slow down. You will fall ill, you will injure yourself etc. That’s why you need to make a solid diet and exercising plan in this phase, even with an expert if necessary. You have to push yourself, but you also have to know where the limit is.

    In this phase, the output is a solid and smart plan for how you’ll improve step by step and increase your yield on the investment you’ve made. You should stick to your plan and not overdo things or speed up too fast. If your discipline weakens, you shouldn’t try to catch up, but rather return to your plan the next day.

    Scaling or the execution mode

    We are at the last stop of the process, namely scaling and execution. You want to achieve your peak potential. Your best shape possible, your optimal portfolio. You want to become as unique and valuable person as possible in a relationship, outstanding in your occupation and so on.

    You’ve found your fit, you’ve built a system to stick to new habits, you’ve made an identity shift and you’ve written down a plan. Now you have to stick to the plan with regular intervals, and still listen to your mind, body, emotions and environment. You never stop listening to feedback.

    Sooner or later, you will change (get older for example), your environment will change and you may have to go back into the search mode. Next time, the process will be much easier, because you already have strong foundations, you already have knowledge, and you don’t have to go to the very beginning. But you should always stay agile and lean.

    In our example, the final step is sticking to the execution plan. You have a new diet that works for you and you exercise regularly on a weekly basis. You have goals for improving your performance and you stick to the plan. On your Kanban board, you move your sticky notes from “to do” and “in process” to “done” every week. But you also regularly test and try new things, new superfoods, new exercises and so on. You constantly do linear improvements, but you also search for rapid ones. The process of improvement never ends and neither does the execution mode. The new diet and exercise are now a part of who you are and what you do in life, consistently and in regular intervals. It’s the new you after very long, hard work.

    You need to have realistic expectations about how long the process takes. It’s usually at least a few years. But you have enough time. If you really want it badly enough, you will find a way, if not, you will find an excuse. The key is to really want it badly enough. That’s why you need a strong why.

    So start with the why.

  • Apathy before finding your fit

    Finding your best personal fit in different areas of life is probably the most important thing to do if you want to prosper and be happy. When you find something that you know is right for you, you get motivated, you’re willing to accept all challenges, your outlook becomes positive, and so on. You know you’ve put the ladder against the right wall and you’re ready to start climbing.

    I’ve seen people working in companies where they fit in and where they don’t. The difference in their level of happiness, productivity, motivation etc. is like day and night. I’ve seen people struggle with a sport just because it was supposed to help them lose weight the fastest, and people who were doing sports they are talented for and really like. The first ones gave up very soon, the second ones made real lifestyle changes. I’ve seen people who settled for the first partner they dated as well as people who made up their minds about what kind of a partner they want and then started searching until they found someone close to that. The probability of long-term happiness is much higher for the latter. That’s why finding your personal fit is so important.

    Same goes for all other areas of your life. The prerequisite for being successful in life, no matter in which area, is finding your own fit. Values (what you find important) are those that determine whether you fit with something or not. When you find the right fit, passion awakens in you. You find yourself in something. You know that you can be successful in this. You see potential. It makes you happy.

    Few people are so lucky in life that they just find the right fit by chance, without going through a long and hard process. Even rarer are people who understand that they’re persisting at something that isn’t their fit, and that’s one of the main reasons why they’re miserable and unhappy. Unfortunately, the fake feeling of security and clinging to certainty usually prevail over going on an adventure to find a better fit. People lock themselves in a safe to feel safe. But who was ever happy and successful while locked in a safe?

    Process versus event

    The fact that people usually prefer to stay miserable in a company, a relationship etc. than to find a better fit for themselves shows that the process of finding a new better fit is not that easy. It takes a lot of courage, a really good strategy, knowing yourself, being prepared to learn from failure and much more. It forces you to stand up again and again after life knocks you down.

    Finding the perfect fit is the first important milestone towards a final event, an outcome you want. But a process always comes before every event that you want to achieve in life. Just remember the saying that the only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. Most events that people achieve (getting rich, marrying the right person, working for an awesome company…) are usually the result of a carefully orchestrated process. It’s easier to see an event as luck for other people, but in most cases it’s not.

    Getting rich is an event. Working hard on developing your business idea, finding the product/market fit, building a dream team, raising funds and then solidly executing for years is a process that leads to that final event; if you do it smartly enough.

    The process is painful and takes time. Most people aren’t willing to invest into the process, because it just takes too much will, stamina and hard work. But if you settle for the average, if you take what life hands you on a platter, you usually get an average life; and average is not good. Average isn’t even close to good and even less close to great.

    Process versus fit

    As we’ve figured out, the process of coming to an event, the final outcome you desire, isn’t that easy. If you want to get rich, there’s so much to learn, you have to be really good with money, you won’t get rich only by having a job (except for rare occupations), and so on. If you want to get really fit, you have to invest an enormous amount of your time and energy into diet and exercise. Before every great outcome, there is a long and vigorous process.

    The process of getting to your desired event (final outcome) has two phases (and more sub-phases but more about that in another post):

    • The first phase is before you find your fit (search mode)
    • The second phase is after you find your fit (execution mode)

    The search mode is the hardest. After finding your fit, things get a little easier. You still have a long way to go, but you feel a little bit safer. Managing execution and growth isn’t easy, but things get much less painful emotionally and psychologically. It’s simply because you know that you’re fighting for the right thing. You’re motivated to fight. You see the first results and every early win motivates you to do more.

    It’s much easier to go through all the daily challenges and tasks if you love the company you work for or own. It’s much easier to fight for a relationship if you know that you really fit well together with the person. It’s much easier to keep on working on your weight loss schedule, if you see changes on your body and feel much better, while doing sports and eating things you love at the same time.

    The process before you find your fit is the really painful part of it. We can call it the apathy before finding your fit. You try new things, they don’t work. You think you’ve found something good, and in the next step, you realize you haven’t. This starting phase really is best described with the quote that success is going from failure to failure without giving up.

    The process before you find your fit really sucks. It sucks even more because at the beginning, you’re a newbie and your character and skills aren’t that good. You’re a beginner and you have to face the toughest challenges. For example, you’ve just gathered the courage to start dating, but your dating skills suck, so you get rejected again and again. But it’s the necessary part. It’s the life test of whether you really want something and whether you’re prepared to fight for it. It’s the part of the process where you learn and develop the most.

    Before you find your fit, a part of the process enables you to learn a lot about yourself and the world; if you do it systematically and scientifically. “At least I’ve learned something new” can often be an excuse for failure, but validated learning is pure gold. If you get to know yourself better, if you better understand what you really want in life, the limitations the world has for you etc., they will all enable you to perform better in the long term. First, you have to understand.

    Time perspective

    The worse that your starting position is, the more time it’ll take to find your fit. The worse your starting position is, the longer the apathy will probably last. Just to clarify, the worse position simply means that you don’t yet know yourself and what you really want, but even more so a lack of resources (inner and outer), an absence of leverages (market trends, social capital etc.) and being in an environment that doesn’t support your goals (going against the flow).

    Nevertheless, let’s look at some averages that most people need to get through the process and achieve the final event in different areas of life:

    • In the start-up world, it usually takes one to three years to find the product/market fit (search mode) and then around five to seven years to build a stable company (execution mode). In total, up to ten years.
    • In business life, it usually takes changing three to five companies (search mode) to find the right one and then around three to six years (execution mode) to achieve the career plateau. When reaching the plateau, it’s time to do some changes, of course. Before even really starting out in business, it usually takes trying three to five different positions to find one thing you’re really good at.
    • In personal life, it usually takes dating seven to ten people to find one to really commit to. After a few months of dating, you know each other well enough to know how well you fit together (the search mode ends). If you decide to stay together, decades of different execution phases wait for you (decorating home, having kids, raising kids, retiring…). You may find out that you don’t fit together anymore, especially between different execution phases, and you’ll have to go back into the search mode. Not fitting together simply means that there is no more real love or that you don’t function well together in everyday life.
    • It usually takes testing three to four different diets to figure out what works best for your body. For every diet, you need between three and six months to see how you feel and how your body is responding. It usually takes trying from five to seven different sports to find the one that fits you best. In the execution phase, you need the discipline to stick to the optimal diet and the best-fitted sport. You can see the first results in around four to six months (losing weight, feeling better etc.), but to become really fit, for example fit enough to be on a magazine cover, it takes around two to five years of exercising five times per week and counting calories daily. It’s not easy.
    • On average, we need around one to two years to learn how the monetary system works and to really understand different saving and investment opportunities, assuming we read about it for a few hours per week. We have to be prepared to lose around $10,000 on different products before figuring out our investment strategy and investment opportunities that best fit our character.
    • It takes around two to three years to develop a new skill. If you want to learn how to program, how to lead people, speak a new language or any other skill, it will take you a few years of focus to develop an average level. But if you really want to master something and be amongst the best in the world, it’ll take you around 10,000 hours (eight to ten years).

    As you can see, it usually takes years of searching and then years of execution to achieve the desired outcome. It’s not easy, but once you do it, you open a whole new possibility for living a really quality life and achieving your maximum potential.

    Surviving apathy

    Surviving apathy is no easy job, especially if your starting point sucks. There aren’t many people who can do it and don’t give up too fast. That’s why we have so few people who can pose for a magazine cover, so few people who own successful businesses, so few rich people and so few people who are happily married. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

    Some people are lucky and born in families with many resources (inner, outer), some people are lucky and find their fit very naturally, for example by winning the lottery, but for most of us, life wants us to fight. The fair part of today’s world is that if you want it badly enough, you have the chance to fight and really achieve it. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. That’s also how you develop your character, that’s how you grow, that’s how you really deserve what you have.

    Since it’s not that easy to do it, you have to be smart about it. You need an environment that’ll help you achieve your goals and keep you disciplined. So let’s look at some techniques to help you survive the apathy before finding your fit, without giving up.

    Don’t be naïve

    First of all, you shouldn’t be naïve. You have to be aware that it’ll probably take a few years of searching and a few years of execution to achieve your big final outcome. There are no shortcuts. Don’t be soft and naïve. Manage your expectations. Master the rules of life.

    Long-term view

    You have to see all the rewards that will come in the long term. You have to see all the inner resources you’ll acquire (skills, psychological capital etc.) as well as the outer resources (renown, wealth…), and you will deserve both based on your own work. It’s what’s worth living for. The harder road will become easy.

    Validated learning

    In the search mode, you have to reflect and write down what you’ve learned about yourself and your environment. You have to see your progress when systematically and scientifically learning about yourself and the world. You haven’t failed, you’ve just found one way that doesn’t work for you.

    Supporting environment

    Have visual aids for your desired outcome (pictures, wallpapers…). Have people around you who understand and support you. Build your personal mastermind group. Cut off all people who drag you down. Talk with other people who are going through the same process and support each other. Read biographies.

    See it as an adventure

    You do only live once. You want to experience as many things as possible. You don’t want to do anything really stupid, but you also don’t want to live a boring life. By searching for new things, you should feel a little bit like an explorer on an adventure. And never forget: with time, the harder road becomes easy and the easier road becomes hard.

  • The best preventive cure for your mistakes

    There is a saying in the start-up world that the “product-market fit” cures many sins of management. What this means exactly is that when you’re starting a new business (and even later), you do make many mistakes.

    Setting the wrong prices, hiring the wrong people, mismanagement etc. But if you have a product that customers crave, if they’re prepared to pay a solid price for it (and your profit margin is high enough), then you can survive making more mistakes.

    On the other hand, if you don’t have a “product-market fit” or you are starting business with low margins and a small volume, even the smallest mistakes can throw you out of business.

    Thus you want to have as much traction as possible, with a very high margin and a strong competitive advantage. That isn’t easily achieved, but it is a must if you want to succeed in the business world.

    Promising startups usually acquire lots of capital (and attract a lot of smart people) to reach the “product-market fit”. Capital and/or knowledge are their buffer, their lifeblood, their stockpile on the way from an idea to the “product-market fit”.

    The more money and knowledge that a start-up has, the faster it can move, since more tests and experiments can be done in a shorter time in the search mode. Interestingly, without proper knowledge, too much money can stifle innovation, creativity, the scientific approach and focus on the right things.

    Basically, capital and knowledge (and other resources) help you find the product-market fit and then you get yourself into a position to create even more resources.

    The best preventive cure for your mistakes

    Perfect fit is the best preventive cure for your mistakes

    It’s no different in your personal life. The better the personal fit and the position you have, the more mistakes you can afford to make.

    Having a chance to make more mistakes also means opening more opportunities for you and finding new ways no one has found before (meaning being more efficient). Let’s see what I have in mind, starting with your health.

    Practical examples

    If you’ve been an athlete from a young age onwards, you’ve developed a strong, solid and muscular body. When you’re older, you can afford more laziness and a poorer diet (not that I recommend it) than people who have never done sports in their life. Muscles have their own memory and you can quickly get back into shape after a few years of pause.

    It’s the same if you are really good and talented at a certain sport. You still have to train hard, but you can afford many more mistakes, for example training less, trying new techniques and so on. Someone that is not as talented will never catch up, if you really have naturally good skills.

    Talent, meaning doing something that’s your personal fit, in combination with hard and smart work and the right kind of environment lead to miracles – the outliers.

    If you find your fit in personal relationships, you can afford more mistakes. It takes time to compromise and catch the rhythm with a new person, but if there is the right fit, meaning both partners really want the relationship to work, then tolerance towards mistakes is much bigger.

    If there is no real fit, every small mistake can endanger the relationship. There are always lines you aren’t allowed to cross, like physical violence, cheating, but you get the point.

    Money is the most obvious one in this context. The more assets you have, the more you can experiment, learn and try new investments. The better personal investment strategy you find, the more money you will make.

    If you find your revenue fits and investments fit, you can really become rich. Finding your fits simply means you’re passionate and interested in something, so putting in hard work is no problem.

    It’s the same with your career. The better you are at your occupation, the more you can achieve. The higher on the social ladder you are, the more mistakes you can afford. Well, the right kind of mistakes, not all of them.

    But again, you get the point: the better you are at something and the better position you have, the freer you are to try new things, experiment or just make normal human mistakes.

    The worse your position is and the more you’re doing things that aren’t right for you, the sooner you will make a mistake that could be fatal and cause a collapse in one of your life areas.

    In summary when you find your fit in life:

    • You have an unfair advantage because you do or have something that you are naturally good at or is meant to be. Rarely put people the effort in to find their true fit, that is also why they are so unhappy.
    • Since you are naturally good at something, you can afford more mistakes and errors, but not only that you can also experiment more which can lead to even greater success.
    • There is still a limit how many and how big mistakes you can make before you get yourself out of the game, but your error buffer is bigger. The two most common mistakes are not giving your best or not innovating enough when you are in an unfair position.

    Find your fit and shine

    Thus if you want to feel freer in life, if you want to be in a position to try more on your journey, experience new things and be able to afford more mistakes, find your personal fits.

    You should introduce the search mode into your life and before executing anything, find the one thing that really suits you best.

    Find the right person to build an intimate relationship with. Find a person for whom all the struggle is really worth it; and it will be worth it. Find a career that really suits you best, one that you are passionate about and where you can really deliver value added.

    Work hard to be in a good position and then take bigger and bigger risks that will take you even a step further. But take risks you can still afford (usually risks with small downside and big upside), not risks that could potentially take you out of business.

    It’s called a positive/negative spiral. The more you achieve, the more risks you can afford, the more risks you can afford, the more you can achieve and so on. And vice versa: failure leads to failure. And if you don’t have outer resources at the beginning (money, real-estate, statues etc.), you can start with investing inner resources (knowledge, skills, creativity etc.).

    Resources -> Product-market fit -> More resources

    To accelerate the whole process, you want to find your personal fits, where your progress will be the fastest and you can afford to take some risks immediately, no matter your starting position, because of your natural talent (inner asset).

    Know what you want, find your personal fits and then execute and find yourself in a positive spiral.

  • Fears & traps when trying new things in life – the challenges of the search mode

    I call the systematic testing and experimenting with new things in life in order to find better ways to perform and achieve higher quality of life the search mode.

    Introducing the search mode into your life is a totally new concept. Rare are the people to whom the search mode (constantly experimenting with new things) comes naturally and for whom it is easy to do it.

    The reason for that is because you have to go regularly out of your comfort zone, experiment with new things that bring uncertainty and accept little failure you can learn from along the way.

    Trying new things in life is hard for most people.

    The “free spirit” explorers who always want something new are probably the closest to the character needed in the search mode. Nevertheless this type of people usually lack the abilities to switch from the search to the execution mode.

    Well, the good news is that being in the search mode (trying new things in life) is nothing but a skill and everybody can learn it.

    First, a few words about the search mode

    One of the best ways to learn about yourself and the world is the so-called “search mode”. The better you know yourself and your environment, the better you can execute, and consequently achieve your true goals much faster.

    The search mode is a phase and a process that helps you to get to know yourself and your environment better, as well as build up an adequate life strategy based on tested facts, instead of only assumptions.

    The main idea is that before committing yourself to anything you have to first do enough searching, experimenting and trying, to make sure you are committing to the right thing – your fit.

    In the search phase, you just try many different things, experiment, observe, reflect and learn about yourself and the world. In the search mode, you make and test different assumptions (beliefs, convictions, facts etc.) you have.

    Search mode is about going out of the comfort zone and experimenting with completely new things with the goal to improve your life.

    After you find your fit, you enter the execution mode. In the execution mode, you execute and optimize what you preserve from the search mode.

    And now all the traps you must avoid when trying new things in life.

    All the fears and traps when trying new things in life

    There are five major fears and traps when trying new things in life:

    1. Analysis paralysis
    2. No presence of validated learning (learning as an excuse)
    3. Dealing with uncertainty
    4. Sticking to NEW things that don’t work
    5. Unrealistic expectations and other irrational fears

    Analysis paralysis

    1. Analysis paralysis – if you never do anything, all that analyzing time was wasted

    The most obvious challenge of the search mode is the analysis paralysis. There are two types of analysis paralysis scenarios.

    The first scenario is quite well-known everywhere in life. You read about it, you talk about it, you think about it, but you never start doing it.

    Well, if you never do anything, all that time was wasted. It shouldn’t take you more than a few days to do research and then set and conduct the first experiments. After that you can continue researching and thus improving your further experiments.

    A ton of theory can’t compare to a single gram of solid real-life experience.. You can read all about swimming but until you set foot in water, your knowledge is very limited. The solution is very simple.

    After everything you read while doing the research, you should write down the bottom lines and make a few hypotheses out of it. These are the hypotheses that you are going to test and see whether they work for you personally.

    The second analysis paralysis trap is not switching from the search mode to the execution mode. There are many reasons for why that can be in case, but whatever it is, make sure you move to the execution phase when you find your fit.

    The secret is to move really fast in the search mode in order to find your perfect fit and get to the execution mode as quickly as possible. In today’s turbulent and complex world, extreme speed is the main ingredient of success.

    That is why you need focus, that is why you need to learn and progress systematically and quickly, that is why you need a superior strategy. You have to find out what works for you as soon as possible.

    The solution is simple. Your goal should be to get to the execution phase as quickly as possible. It usually takes a few months to get there. The goal of the search mode is to find your perfect fit and then do a perfect execution. You don’t want to stay a “startup” forever.

    Executing perfectly means setting execution intervals, doing sprints, measuring your progress really closely and meeting your goals as quickly as possible.

    Even in the execution mode you are still conducting experiments and trying new things to some extent, but what’s more important is that you do regular sprints and measure your progress in a more traditional way (KPIs). After the search mode you know what you want, so in the execution mode you make sure you get it.

    • The search mode = Find what you really want, what’s really your fit
    • The execution mode = Make sure you get what you want
    Validated learning
    Validated learning cycle

    2. No validated learning – don’t use learning as an excuse

    Besides analysis paralysis there is another big trap you can fall into in the search mode. The goal of the search mode is to learn about yourself and the world around you, to find your perfect fit and then build a superior life strategy, and after that to move into the execution mode as quickly as possible.

    The goal of the search mode is to lean the ladder against the right wall, while getting to know which material the ladder is built of, how long it is, what the traps of climbing it are, how the top looks like etc.

    To learn about all that, you have to fail a lot. Success is nothing but going from failure to failure until you succeed without losing motivation. But the key point is that you learn something every time you fail – it’s called validated learning. And you should take that as progress.

    There are two possible outcomes to failing in the search mode.

    Learning as an excuse

    Well, I tried a new thing, it didn’t work out, but I have learned something. That sounds nice, but it clearly shows that you haven’t learned anything. It clearly shows that learning is just an excuse for you to feel better while failing. But that is the real failure.

    An example of validated learning

    My hypothesis was that introducing a no-interruptions day once a week to my calendar would dramatically increase my productivity (you can even set the measures for how much). I did my first no-interruptions day and my hypothesis was rejected. After a self-reflection, I had learned the following:

    • I don’t have enough concentration to work the whole day
    • It’s really hard to get rid of all interruptions, especially on the computer
    • I need a task that motivates me enough to work several hours straight

    Based on what I’ve learned, I will conduct a new experiment. (1) I will try a half-day (4 hours) no-interruptions day to test and train my focusing abilities. (2) I will try three different big tasks for the next three no-interruption days – one document analysis, writing one article and one brainstorming session. I will see what will engage me the most.

    (3) I will test two locations – my balcony and my local cafe, with my laptop that has no games installed and is without an internet connection.

    The idea is to find your perfect location and your perfect setting so you can have one no-interruption day per week at some point. Imagine what such a day could do to your productivity once you find the right setting.

    That’s 50 completely productive days per year. It may be the difference between you being average or really successful. Of course it’s worth it to test several different settings to find the best one and to train your focus while conducting experiments.

    If you have learned something new, you haven’t failed in the search mode. That should be your motivation and perspective for overcoming failure.

    If you haven’t learned anything new, you have failed big time and wasted resources on top of that. To learn something new, you have to keep setting and testing hypotheses all the time. That is called “validated learning”. Here are the steps how to do it:

    • Do research first if needed
    • Write down the first set of hypotheses
    • Conduct experiments
    • Validate or reject hypotheses
    • Reflect
    • Write down a new set of hypotheses
    • Make your execution plan

    Facing uncertainty

    3. Dealing with uncertainty – to live an extraordinary life, you must do extraordinary things

    It’s quite easy to understand why we love certainty and are scared to death of uncertainty. We like certainty because it makes us feel safe and secure. Even though change is the only real constant in life (besides taxes), we hate it.

    This hate towards change has been written into our genes as a mechanism for survival in a dangerous world. Not that long ago, you could very easily have gotten killed and to be frank, you still can in some parts of the world.

    An unknown and unstable environment brings threats to us and to our lives. That is why we don’t like uncertainty and why it’s so hard for us to try new things.

    The really big problem is that testing is not your natural state, because of the lack of security, because of the unknown. Trying something new can be scary from time to time. But you know, you need guts in order to live an amazing life. Nothing worthwhile in life comes easily.

    Here are some tricks for how to deal with uncertainty:

    The gain has to be bigger than the pain

    Write down all the rewards that experimenting and finding a new lifestyle will bring to you. All the rewards. All of them. The rewards must be so big that they strongly outweigh your pain and the trouble of trying out new things.

    If you don’t see the final reward clearly, you won’t be motivated enough to try anything new. You must have a strong why that is more powerful that uncertainty.

    Build your safety nets and take calculated risks

    A big plus of today’s world is that you can experiment without risking your life or lives of others, at least in most cases, and where such a danger exists, you should avoid it.

    You should carefully define the downsides, build some safety nets and not do anything stupid. Testing, experimenting and trying new things should not sound like a risk at all.

    If you do too big steps at a time, you go from the learning zone into the panic zone. The panic zone doesn’t bring anything good at all, as it means that you have lost control.

    Entering the panic zone means awakening negative feelings and you will consequently develop hate towards trying new things. Therefore you should always take small steps and master one step at a time. But move quickly while doing that.

    Just make the first step

    Making the first step is the biggest pain in the ass. But you have to do it as soon as possible. The second step is much easier and the third one is even easier, if you do it the right way. But you always need the motivation to kick yourself in the ass and take the first step.

    There is a trick to doing it. Timebox your first step. Open your calendar. Schedule an hour or two for the first step and when the time comes, just do it. Don’t think, don’t overanalyze, no matter how you feel, just do it. After the first few minutes you will start feeling proud of yourself.

    Make it fun, consider it play

    See yourself as an explorer and adventurist. See the whole search mode as a tool to not waste your life and live it to the full. Surround yourself with people who support you and want to try new things in life with you.

    Have fun while doing it, even if you fail. Learn from your failures. Then there are no failures at all, just validated learning. Laugh. Smile. Have fun. Never settle into a routine.
    Einstein - Quote about insanity

    4. Don’t waste your life by sticking to things that don’t work

    Our psychological tendencies dictate that we finish what we begin. For example, it’s quite difficult for the human mind to stop watching a movie in the middle, even if the movie sucks.

    I know that it’s kind of ironic. Initially it’s so hard to try and do new things, especially the ones that aren’t the most pleasant, and then we want to stick to something even if it doesn’t work.

    That is a big trap that you can fall into in the search mode. For example, when I was searching for my perfect diet I also tried the raw food diet. Well, I even tried different types of raw food diets, from the fruitarian one to the fatty and green one.

    It was extremely hard to start and stick to that kind of an extreme diet, but once I started, I regarded it as a magical solution for all my health problems.

    It was more than obvious that the raw food diet didn’t work for me, but I had stuck to it for too long ­­- for more than a year to be exact. And before that, I was a vegan for two years and a vegetarian for five.

    It was only after a severe burnout, fatigue, dry skin, cavity, sugar intolerance, vitamin deficiency and other health issues that I came to the conclusion that this diet really doesn’t work for me.

    It’s very strange, but by going to that kind of an extreme diet, your beliefs about health and diet also become quite extreme. In the raw food community, all negative effects of the diet are connected to the fact that the body is cleansing.

    Their standpoint is that you just have to do it a little while longer and all negative effects will go away. It’s the price you pay for not being on the raw food diet straight after breast feeding.

    Since I’m very persistent and disciplined, that was quite a big downside in this situation. I waited for the body to cleanse, but that was not really the case. The diet didn’t work for me and I was starting to damage my own health.

    Back then I didn’t see changing the diet as an experiment, but rather as an ultimate solution that I had to stick to no matter what. That was pretty stupid, but it can easily happen to everybody.

    Thus you have to make sure that you set the boundaries and limitations to your experiments very specifically. Here are some other ideas how to make sure that you don’t become stubborn about the wrong thing and keep your final goal in mind while staying flexible when experimenting:

    Do regular reflections and always question everything

    Do regular reflections after experiments and after sprints. Every reflection event should be an opportunity to question everything you are doing. Do you see the progress in your life, how is the environment reacting, how does it influence your short-term and long-term goals, is that something for you or not etc.

    Define the hypothesis and the experiment very exactly

    The more explicitly that you define what you want to test, the limits and the duration of the experiment, and the expected results, the more you will learn and the quality of the experiment will be that much higher.

    When defining the hypothesis and the experiment you can also incorporate enough safety nets that stop you when you are going to an extreme that isn’t giving the right results.

    Make sure that you aren’t causing any damage to yourself or to your environment

    Whatever experiment you are doing, make sure that you’re not doing anything really dangerous. Make sure that you aren’t causing any damage to yourself, to other people or to the environment. Consult with a specialist, do enough research and take small steps. Don’t be stupid.

    We have invented standards and averages (diet, working day etc.), because they represent the safest thing for most people. It doesn’t give the best results for every individual but it’s safe and good enough for all people. Deviating from the average means that you are looking for something that is better for you as an individual.

    Thus you have to take some risks. But they must be calculated risks (small downside, big upside) done in the right kind of way, not being really dangerous.

    At some point it’s more art than science

    There is a very thin line between giving up just before you start to see some results and sticking to something that doesn’t work. At this point we are talking more about art than science.

    You have to listen to your inner voice, do an enormous amount of self-reflection and know yourself to the point where you recognize when you are being lazy, when you are procrastinating, when you are not investing enough into it and when it really does make sense to stop.

    Don’t experiment to compensate for your negative feelings

    Make sure that you’re doing all experiments and new things with positive emotions of excitement, love, respect for yourself and others. Your negative emotions like anger could lead you to do extreme things just to prove something to yourself and others.

    In that case you can do a lot of damage to yourself and others. It’s extremely important that you are tender to yourself in all kinds of ways. Nothing good comes out of rough accession. Yes, you have to be tough, yes, you have to be fair, but acting out of extreme negative emotions means nothing but hurting yourself.

    Trying new things in life

    5. Don’t have unrealistic expectations and manage your irrational fears properly

    There is one more trap you can fall into in the search mode and it’s by far the most difficult one. People love short-term results.

    But all real results are long-term and they come after years and years of hard work. You usually overestimate what you can achieve in a few months and underestimate what you can achieve in a few years.

    While being in the search mode, you can find out how hard it really is to achieve big goals. It takes years to get yourself in really good shape. Going to the gym a few times is not even remotely close to getting into extraordinary shape.

    People in magazines devote their lives to their bodies. In much the same way, it can also take decades to build up personal wealth. You have to make many hard decisions in order to progress in life. It’s not easy and it never becomes easier, you only get better at it.

    Well there’s good news and there’s bad news for all this. The bad news is that I have zero tricks at this point. You either want it badly enough or not. If you want it badly enough, you will always find a way; if not, you will always find an excuse.

    The hardest thing to do is to motivate an unmotivated person. And a blessing is giving the direction and tools to a motivated person. You will have to decide for yourself if you want it badly enough.

    Here is an ancient story that shows this point really well:

    A young man visited Socrates and asked him for the secret to success. Socrates told the young man to meet him near the river the next morning. They met. Socrates asked the young man to walk with him towards the river. When the water got up to their neck, Socrates took the young man by surprise and ducked him into the water.

    The boy struggled to get out but Socrates was strong and kept him there until the boy started turning blue. Socrates pulled his head out of the water and the first thing the young man did was to gasp and take a deep breath of air.

    Socrates asked, ‘What did you want the most when you were there, under the water?” The boy replied, “Air.” Socrates said, “That is the secret to success. When you want success as badly as you wanted the air, then you will get it.”

    And here come the good news. It really takes brutal efforts to get to the top. It really takes brutal efforts to have a perfect athletic body, to become super rich, to win a Nobel Prize etc. But it doesn’t take that much effort to live a life happy and true to yourself.

    It doesn’t take that much to live healthy, to have enough financial intelligence to properly manage your money, to find your dream career etc. That’s something that anyone can do. And you can do it too. You just have to kick yourself in the ass a little bit harder.

    At the end of the day, you have to decide what you want out of life. Just don’t settle for average and for the society’s expectations for you. You want to live your own life with your own goals. So start experimenting without any irrational fear.

  • The Search Mode

    One of the ways to learn about yourself and the world is the so-called “search mode”. The better you know yourself and your environment, the better you can execute, and consequently achieve your true goals that much faster.

    In order to get to know yourself and your environment, as well as build up an adequate life strategy, you have to first do enough searching, experimenting and trying, since all that leads to understanding and insights. Based on that, you can start executing and making sound decisions.

    As you can see in many action movies, when the super team steps into action, the first order they always get from their command officer is “Gather intel”.

    In the search mode, you make assumptions and test different options. In the execution mode, you constantly perform and optimize what you preserve from the search mode.

    There are two main reasons why you want to introduce the search mode into your life:

    Wrong assumptions are the mother of all fuckups and execution based on wrong assumptions means nothing but failure, sorrow and obstacles. Reality (the objective reality) is significantly different from your assumptions and your own interpretation of reality (the subjective reality). You want to come as close to the objective reality as possible.

    The difference between what you think is valuable to you and what really is valuable to you in your life creates waste. One of your tasks when living an AgileLeanLife is to eliminate all waste by finding out what really brings value for you. You don’t want to live life based on wrong assumptions of what you like or expectations of other people.

    You learn three important things in the search mode:

    You learn about yourself

    You learn about yourself as a person, what you want in life, your true desires, fears, who you are and where your talents lie, your current capabilities and so on.

    You want to get a very clear picture of who you are and what you want.

    You learn about your environment, the world and the society

    We all live our own lives as well as the common destiny of the world and the smaller environments we live in (country, company…).

    In the search mode you experiment in order to learn the basics of how the world works, how people behave (from the aspect of biology to the aspect of psychology), and so on. You learn how to build an environment that supports you and how you can create as much value as possible for other people.

    You learn how to build an environment that supports you and how you can create as much value as possible for other people.

    You learn about the markets

    Markets always win. You don’t want to play against the market. Therefore you want to understand the trends and movements on the market, be it the labor market, the dating market, financial markets etc. Markets are like turbo accelerators on your car. They can help you advance really fast.

    But first you have to learn how to drive a car, which means learning enough about the previous two points.

    The better you understand all three, the greater the potential you unlock in your life. Therefore in an AgileLeanLife, you have to divide all activities of all areas of life into two groups:

    Here are some additional reasons for why you need the search phase before doing any real execution:

    • To do adequate research and form first assumptions about yourself and life
    • To conduct small experiments and figure out what your best personal fits are
    • To not put pressure on yourself to achieve and do something that’s not really you
    • To have fun and try as many things as possible
    • To set a realistic execution strategy that you can follow and really implement

    Once we become adults we assume that the time for searching, exploring and learning is over. But that is a completely wrong approach. You should never stop experimenting and learning about yourself and the world.

    No goals, just learning

    In the search mode, you shouldn’t have any expectations, you shouldn’t make any commitments and you shouldn’t do any hard work. Expectations lead to and before you understand something, your expectations are definitely completely wrong.

    Commitments lead to heavy energy investments, and you shouldn’t be investing before you know what you are truly investing in and whether the investment really fits your character. Hard work should always also be smart work, but you can’t work smartly if you don’t have the right map and coordinates.

    In the search phase, you just try, experiment, observe, reflect and learn about yourself and the world. The most important thing in this phase is to have no fixed ideas and no expectations at all.

    Your job is only to test the assumptions you have written down, correct them, and try different things in order to find out what suits you best This phase is only for learning about yourself and the world. No goals. No measurement of progress. Just learning and playing.

    After you find your fit in the search phase, you start executing. You set a big vision, strong foundations, have laser focus, commit fully, start working hard and achieving your goals. You optimize, improve and measure your progress. But first, you have to find the right thing. You must put the ladder against the right wall before you start climbing.

    It doesn’t make sense to set deadlines for being skinny and fit until you understand your body, metabolism, your favorite sports, what kind of a diet suits you best etc. It doesn’t make sense to make deadlines for being rich if you don’t have enough financial knowledge, don’t know how to increase your earning potential and which financial investments suit you best etc.

    It doesn’t make sense to make plans for getting married after a second date, when you don’t even know the person next to you and how you two function together.

    Before making any real execution plan you should learn, talk with people, try different things, test, experiment and write down your insights. After that you will be able to execute perfectly.

    You have to do it scientifically

    The search mode is all nice and fun with the right approach (it can be scary but more about that later). There is one big catch, however. You have to do it scientifically and systematically.

    No goals, no pressure, just discovery, but you have to make sure that you are really learning about yourself and the world. Learning can become an easy excuse for failure. And you don’t want to fail.

    If you have learned something new, you haven’t failed in the search mode. If you haven’t learned anything new, you’ve failed big time and wasted resources on top of that. But how do you know whether you’ve learned something new or not?

    Very easily, namely by setting and testing hypotheses. We call that validated learning. Let’s look at an example.

    You want to get in better shape. The formula for getting in shape is pretty easy. You have to eat less, the food has to be of higher quality, and you have to exercise more. No greater secret. But there are many ways for doing that. Based on knowing yourself, you start making some assumptions and then testing them.

    Experiment

    Practical examples

    Example of assumptions about exercising

    H1: I prefer individual sports over team sports. I will try two individual and two team sports. (Validated)

    H2: The individual sports that suit me best are fitness, running and boxing. I will also try crossfit, golf, judo and hiking.

    (Validated – with one exception: I like hiking more than boxing)

    H3: Since I’m in bad shape, it’s enough if I start exercising two times per week. I will try to do it three times for the first time and see how it feels.

    (Rejected – I can work out three times per week without a problem. Will try four times after one month)

    H4: I will make better progress with a personal trainer and I have the money to afford it.

    (Validated – Personal trainers show me how to do exercises right and boost my motivation. After two months, I will see how well I work alone, following a new program prepared by a personal trainer)

    H5: My motivation is better if I have a pairing buddy to work out with.

    (Rejected – Scheduling, talking, drinks after the workout, it’s not really helping me)

    H6: I now have enough knowledge to set serious goals about my fitness progress. I will make a 3-month program and measure how I am doing.

    (Rejected – I need more time to adjust my body to exercising. I will enjoy it without any serious goals. Will try again after three months).

    It’s more or less the same with dieting assumptions (or any other for that matter). You have to see your body’s reaction to cutting down calories, decreasing the consumption of sugar, finding the veggies that you like the most etc. For some people, eating at night is a catastrophe, for others it’s no big deal. After a few months of experimenting, you will find the right diet for you, the right activities and after that you can do some fine-tuning and additional adjustments.

    The main point is to write down what you have learned (especially when doing reflections). That way you won’t feel like you’re running in place but you will see your progress. You will also focus on things that work.

    Finding the right fit will enable you to really change your lifestyle and become healthy in the long term, not just go on a diet and gain back all the weight afterwards, according to the yo-yo effect.

    After searching and trying and finding the right fit, changing your lifestyle is fun and easy. That is what the search phase is all about; getting excited about the changes that you will make in your life and finding the right things that will not lead to a loss of motivation after only a few weeks.

    But you have to do it gradually and scientifically to some extent.

    The Search Mode

    Your life is like a puzzle you have to build

    By knowing what you want, how the world works and what markets need, you can put together all the pieces of life that suit you best, and build the right strategy. You can compose your masterpiece life puzzle, your dream life.

    Your job in the search mode is to find the perfect diet for yourself, the best career to serve the world and provide real value for it, the relationships that empower you the most, the best computer operating system for you (or whatever), the things that you enjoy the most in life, and so on.

    What suits you best may be a waste for someone else. And vice versa. You have to search for what fits you best.

    There are four more goals you have to achieve in the search phase besides validated learning:

    Acquiring the best knowledge possible

    The rule of an AgileLeanLife is to go straight to the best knowledge there is and then adjust it to your life. For every life area, there are only a few key points you have to know and master, and then practice them regularly.

    To go straight to the top, you have to learn and mirror the people at the top. You can easily get lost in crappy content in today’s post-information age.

    Setting strong foundations

    The bigger the skyscraper you want to build, the stronger you need to make the foundations. Implementing the best knowledge into your life requires extraordinarily strong foundations.

    You set a strong foundation by making small linear changes and then accumulating them into rapid big changes or quantum leaps. The key principle of the AgileLeanLife is to really master a few things that are the building blocks of strong foundations.

    You can build your skyscraper floor by floor on that. Strong foundations mean nothing else but mastering yourself and your environemnt.

    You won’t get more fit if you can’t skip dessert and exercise a few times per week. You won’t get rich if you don’t learn to increase your earning potential and spend less than you earn. You won’t find your dream career if you are obsessed with a current secure job.

    Setting strong foundations means mastering yourself and you can do that in the search mode by testing and experimenting and consequently building up your will and stamina (being in the search mode means handling uncertainty).

    Preparing a plan for execution and daily application

    When you find your fit in the search mode, you have to start making a shift into the execution mode. For the execution, you need discipline to perform daily tasks that lead you to your goal. Search mode should help you get insight into how fast you can progress and what realistic expectations are.

    In AgileLeanLife practices, you execute in intervals (sprints) and after every sprint you make a reflection and adjust the plan. Your first execution plan when going from the search into the execution mode will be the worst and you have to be aware of that.

    Thus you need to make constant adjustments to your plan during regularly scheduled reflections. Learn more how to organize yourself with to-do lists.

    Interacting with other people

    In the search phase, you should interact with people who have achieved the same things you want to achieve as well as with people who have views totally different from your own. Talk with them, try to understand them.

    Try to walk a mile in their shoes. Imagine your life and your decisions if you were to live with those kind of values. Broaden your horizons and test things that don’t come naturally to you. That approach will help you manage your own expectations and expectations of others in life.

    The search phase is the phase of constant tests and experiments. The really big problem is that testing is not your natural state, because it lacks security, because it contains the unknown. Trying something new can be scary from time to time.

    But you know you need guts to live an amazing life. Nothing worthwhile in life comes easily. In the search phase, you have to constantly keep trying out something new, fail over and over again, and do things that you haven’t mastered yet. As already said, that is scary.

    But it can also be fun. If you are consciously in the search mode and you carefully define your downsides and upsides, shape an adequate strategy and focus on validated learning rather than on the outcome, then the search phase becomes the fun life experience all in itself.

    A big plus of today’s world is that you can experiment without risking your life or lives of others (in most cases; and where such kind of danger exists, you should avoid it). There is no lion behind the corner that’s going to eat you if you try new ways. You have the tools, knowledge and examples. Thus it’s time for you to start scientifically and systematically testing and learning about yourself and the world.

    Every test should be seen as a life experience, part of your life vision. After performing the test, you should know more about yourself, the world and the society. In some cases even about the markets. If something new works for you, great. If it doesn’t, you should discard it and look for clues on which experiment to do next. That’s called pivot.

    There are two main goals for testing and experimenting in the search phase:

    1. Looking for your best fits so you can start building your dream life
    2. Trying, experimenting and testing more and more new things, so you can not only improve but also experience as much as possible. Testing and experiencing new things is the best way to not live a dull and routine life.

    The sum of all desired experiences is the vision of your life. You should have a list of potential ideas and constantly brainstorm for new ideas and possibilities. You can choose priority experiments for every interval.

    In order to test as many things as possible the concept of Minimum Viable Experience can help.

    Reflection in the search mode

    After every experiment you do in the search phase, you have to make a reflection. That is the most valuable part of the process. Before marking a hypothesis as validated or rejected, you should ask yourself about what you have learned, what you will test next, how you will change your plans, and so on. A search mode without deep and systematic reflection has very little value.

    You learn about yourself by reflecting on your actions. Reflection is an insight into knowing yourself and life better. Never forget that reflection is actually an insight into how to do things in a better way. Therefore if you want to be more successful, effective and efficient, you have to find better ways to do things for you personally, by experimenting and reflecting.

    You should also remember that insights only come to a relaxed and rested mind that’s prepared to think about the experience that had happened.

    Never stop searching for new ways

    You never know whether you’ve reached your local maximum in life and where other, even bigger maximums are. That is why you should constantly be in the search mode, even when you had already switched to the execution mode and vice versa. It’s just the emphasis that’s different.

    Local maximum
    Achieving local maximum. But is there a higher hill to climb?

    In the search mode, you make assumptions and test different options. In the execution mode, you constantly perform and optimize what you preserve from the search mode. But even when executing, you should test new things from time to time. And in the search mode, you are already doing execution in a way.

    For the end, another important thing. Because all living beings, including you, don’t like change by nature, you should not implement too many experiments and changes at once. From the macro perspective, the whole search mode must be limited to the point at which you can still measure what’s happening with your life, what works for you and what doesn’t.

    Our willpower is a weak muscle, thus all experiments and changes should be made in a systematic and controllable way. And you should have as much fun as possible on the way.

  • Interested is not committed

    There is a big difference between being interested and being committed. As the motivational author Kenneth Blanchard said: when you are interested in doing something, you do it only when it’s convenient; but when you are committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.

    If you want to achieve your true goals in life and be successful, interested is not even close to being enough. You have to commit and discipline yourself to make progress on a daily basis. Yes, on a daily basis, not weekly or monthly; otherwise you’re are probably just wasting your time and not getting anywhere, if we’re being honest.

    If you want to improve your health, you must put effort in this on a daily basis. Working out a few times per week, stretching, meditating, and eating healthy food. There is always something you can do to benefit your health day by day, even if you get ill or something.

    Same goes for your closest relationships. It’s the same concept as watering plants. You can water a plant every day for months but when you stop, only a few days have to pass by before the plant starts to wither. You cannot be merely interested in having a relationship with someone, you have to be seriously committed.

    Of course you can always find hundreds of reasons and excuses why you didn’t have time for something. And I trust you that the excuse was important. But the reality is that if you really want something, you will find a way, if you don’t, you will find an excuse. Don’t make compromises. Throw yourself in the water, start swimming and continue with the motion every day.

    The key lies in quality not in quantity. Select only a few things you want to be really good at in life. A few relationships. A few really big goals. Make room in your life by suitably managing time. And then commit.

    Interested is not committed Chart

    Interesting is the biggest enemy of lean life

    In the lean start-up principles, when you are developing a new product and present your minimum viable product to a potential customer, interesting is your biggest enemy. You are looking for either extreme enthusiasm over your product or a quick no, even hate if you want. Getting feedback that someone is interested is misleading. It’s the worst type of feedback.

    “Interesting” is the most misleading and the worst type of feedback.

    People have a hard time saying no or not being interested. We feel that someone will be offended if we turn them down. How empathic we can be sometimes. That’s why it’s much easier to say that something is interesting, but deep down knowing that it’s not for you.

    Everyone will say that you have an interesting product if you “torture” them long enough. But when they have to open their wallet, their empathy quickly goes away and we face hard reality. Actions speak much louder than words.

    It’s the same in other areas in life. If you take your girlfriend to dinner and her reply is that food is interesting, it means it sucks. If you get a reply “I don’t like it”, you know where you stand. If you get a reply that it’s fuc*ing awesome, I love it, mmm… you know you have hit the target. “It’s interesting” will make you feel better, but actually you should know that you have to choose a better restaurant next time.

    Ironically, you can do the same to yourself. You many times do things that are only interesting to you, instead of finding and doing things that are pure love and enjoyment and then really commit to them.

    If you try a new sport and it feels interesting, it’s not really interesting. What you are looking for is a feeling of something like, “how cool is that”, “I want to do this every day”, “why haven’t I tried this before” and so on.

    Don’t look for relationships, activities or people you are interested in. Look for pure love and enjoyment. When you find it, when you find your perfect fit in the search mode, it will be no problem for you to commit.

    Interested is not committed Cycle

    The mental shift from being interested to being committed

    The key question is how to switch your attitude from being interested to being passionately committed. Here are some ideas how.

    Make room for the important things in your life

    The first (and obvious) thing you need to do is “make more time” in your life. If you want to do that, you have to let go of some other things you’re currently spending your energy on – people, activities and stuff. That requires saying no to people, saying no to things you are only interested in in your life, maybe throwing away some stuff that consumes too much of your time, and ignoring all distractions.

    Less is many times more. You can be really committed in life only to a few things.

    When you make some free time in your life, you have to make sure that you are emotionally and mentally focused in the dedicated time period. You have to be in the moment in order to be committed. You need a couple of hours where you are undistracted and focused only on that one thing that you are committed to.

    • You are not committed if you text with others while being with your girlfriend/boyfriend
    • You are not committed if you hang out on social networks while working on a project
    • You are not committed if you gossip too much when going to fitness
    • You are not committed to learning if you go to the fridge every five minutes
    • Interested is not committed

    Follow your True North

    There is a simple, but very difficult trick in connection with being focused and present in the moment. As Buddha figured it out thousands of years ago, our mind is closely connected to our body and emotions. What we think is what we become. The best thing for a focused and peaceful mind are positive emotions.

    You feel positive emotions if you are committed to the right things for you as an individual. We say that you are following your “True North” when you are committed to the right things. Then you can progress much faster, because you are much more calm, optimistic and productive.

    Make zero compromises when it comes to following your True North.

    Knowing all that, it is essential for you to choose the right fits in your life, and even more to avoid all unnecessary stress, conflicts, negative emotions, distractions and anything else that will drain your energy and has nothing to do with your True North. Energy is the scarcest essence you need for your personal and professional progress and commitments.

    Just to emphasize how big of a destruction negative emotions can cause, remember that a few minutes of anger require the same amount of energy as a normal calm eight-hour long working day. So make sure you manage your time and emotions very wisely. It’s the only way you will have enough energy and mental focus to commit to things that you truly want in life.

    You only get a limited number of fucks to give over your lifetime, so you must spend them with care. Mark Manson

    Enjoy the things you do

    It helps a lot if you see your commitments as fun, hobby and relaxation. As we said: you have to make a dead-serious goal and commitment, but it should not feel as an obligation or a chore, but more as the most fun part of your day.

    You are definitely on the right path when you wake up every day and can’t wait to start doing all the things that you are committed to. That is how life should be. Waking up energized and excited, looking forward to all the activities and commitments.

    The best mental attitude you can have is: “Nothing will get in the way of me and a few daily hours dedicated to [enter your commitment].” Nothing. Day after day. That is a clear sign that you have successfully made the transition from being interested to being passionately committed. Look for the same thing in other people. Deal and spend time only with people who are committed, not people who are interested.

    Interested is not committed

    A story about how interested is not committed

    There is a quite famous Pig and Chicken fable about being committed not only interested. Here is how it goes:

    A Pig and a Chicken are walking down the road.

    The Chicken says: “Hey Pig, I was thinking we should open a restaurant!”

    Pig replies: “Hm, maybe, what would we call it?”

    The Chicken responds: “How about ‘ham-n-eggs’?”

    The Pig thinks for a moment and says: “No thanks. I’d be committed, but you’d only be involved!”

    That is the difference. Love and commitment are your friends on the road to success. You can move on and learn from quick no’s. You can be super happy if you get a yes. But interesting is your biggest enemy. Interested does not equal committed – that goes for all the people you interact with and so does for yourself.

    If people don’t see you kind of obsessed with your goal, you are definitely not trying hard enough.

    The key takeaways

    Here are the key takeaways from the article and the Pig and Chicken story:

    • Don’t be only interested in things, find a few goals that you are really committed to
    • You know when you are committed to something when you put in the effort on a daily basis
    • Make sure you commit yourself to the right things with searching for your fit
    • To achive that you have to simplify your life and follow your True North
    • “Interesting” is the worst feedback you can get, look for people who are committed as you are