Blaz Kos

life strategies

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  • T-shaped skills in every area of your life

    While the concept of T-shaped skills is not so new, it is now more important than ever. The world is becoming more and more complex and T-shaped skills are a razor that can cut through all the complexity.

    Your T-shaped skillset must constantly become broader (- general knowledge) and narrower (| specialized knowledge) as the world becomes more complex, nevertheless having T-shapes skills is one of the biggest competitive advantage you can have in the creative society when contributing value for the markets or when achieving your goals.

    Let’s see why. Well, to really understand the whole story, we have to go from dashes (-) and I’s to T’s, PI’s and even hashtags (#).

    Dash-shaped skills and low value added

    Dash (-) shaped skills simply means having some general knowledge about everything. You are a generalist, no real specialist at anything. This kind of people are usually called jacks-of-all-trades and considered as masters of none. If you are a generalist, your T doesn’t have any support to lean on and with that, several problems occur.

    The first problem is that it’s hard to gain respect from people, especially other specialists, if you don’t excel at something. The second problem is that the world is becoming so complex and saturated with information that as a result, being a generalist means pretty much nothing.

    Your general knowledge must be in a specific context to have any power at all. That context usually comes from having a connected specialized skill.

    Having dash-shaped skills usually also means providing low value added. With all the knowledge accessible to you with one click, it’s easy to become a generalist at anything. If you are a generalist, the value added you provide is only a little bit higher than providing manual work that anyone can do.

    Let’s look at some facts and practical examples:

    • People will respect you when you are really good at something. Furthermore, the halo effect will happen and they will think that you are even better in other areas of life. It’s hard to achieve that if you don’t have your own forte, but just general knowledge about something.
    • If you want to provide value to a team, you do have to be a generalist capable of working efficiently in a team, but people will recognize your value if you contribute a specific kind of skill.

    If you are an extremely good copywriter and additionally have general knowledge about internet marketing, then the combination of both is really powerful. But if you only have some general knowledge about the internet, then marketing is not nearly as valuable. General knowledge is context and foundation.

    Usually when you go to a generalist doctor, you can know more about a specific problem you have than he does, just by searching for information and cases on the internet.

    Twenty years ago, there may have been room in this world for generalists, from doctors, lawyers to managers, marketers and others. But the value of generalists was made obsolete by the internet, search engines and the curiosity of people who don’t want to be only specialists but want to know and master more from their industry.

    And there’s enough people like that. High competition, low value added.

    I-shaped skills

    The basic fact is that if you want to get paid well for your work, you have to be good at something that is high in demand, but has a rare supply. In other words: you need I-shaped skills: you need to be good at something that not many people on the market are good at.

    The good news is that there are more and more disciplines you can be good at. While internet marketing was a specialization 10 years ago, now you can be a specialist for paid advertising, search engine optimization, social media marketing and so on. It’s not much different in other industries.

    The bad news is that it’s becoming harder and harder to be a specialist. We annually produce more information and knowledge than we have in the whole history of humankind. Thus becoming a specialist means very hard work and constant improvement.

    Another big problem is also that faculties are producing more generalists than specialists, so becoming a specialist is a task you have to undertake on your own.

    But there is an even more important secret to having I-shaped skills. Creative capitalism or the knowledge economy respects talented people more than anything else. Not only talented people, but those talented people who work hard to develop and capitalize their talent.

    The higher the demand, the rarer a skill and the better you master the skill, the more value you provide to the market. Markets are prepared to reward you completely disproportionately to the average for that kind of skill, to your advantage, of course.

    Four groups of I-shaped skills

    There are four groups of I-shaped skills that are highly respected on the market in general.

    The first group are business skills, like management, marketing, finance, sales, e-commerce etc. But you really have to be extremely good at it. Some disciplines, like marketing, are so broad that you need to find your niche inside the industry.

    The second group are engineering skills, from IT to biotech and all other promising industries. Scientists are extremely valuable in the knowledge economy. This group also includes specialists like doctors, lawyers, investors, etc. who are really good at their jobs and specialize for things high in demand.

    The third group are creative people – people who know how to be different and better, people who have awesome ideas and know how to bring them to life; entrepreneurs for example.

    The fourth group is show business and all successful musicians, sportsmen, artists, actors, entertainers and so on can be included in this group.

    In all four groups, you have the top 1 – 4 % who are paid extremely well (a.k.a. rich people), 16 – 20% of people who are above average (a.k.a. upper middle class) and others who earn average respect and salaries from other people and markets.

    There is no doubt that you want to become extremely good at something. At something that is rare, hard to learn; at something that is currently high in demand and will be high in demand in the future. But there is even more value added that you can put on your I-shaped skills. You want to see the forest, not only the trees.

    T shaped internet marketer
    Example of T-shaped internet marketer.

    T-shaped skills with E power

    People who are extremely good at something and become aware of how valuable they are usually become hard to work with. You know, everyone from assholes and divas to people who want to have special benefits all the time.

    Working with people like that is hard and if you aren’t a true star or Jennifer Lopez, your value added can start fading, since teams are becoming more important than individuals.

    When it comes to complex problems in the business world that are more difficult to solve, interdisciplinary teams provide the most value. And there is no I in TEAM. Thus you need to develop a broad set of skills that are a dash over your I.

    A combination of those two, being a specialist for one thing and a generalist for a few others, especially people skills, gives a really powerful combination.

    For example, the idea of agile teams in software development is to be cross-functional and self-organizing, meaning all members need to have some specific competences, but all members also need general competences that allow them to deliver everything by themselves and work together efficiently. In agile teams, there is no room for general project managers.

    I is something you are talented at. I is something you are passionate about. I is something you love to focus on and work hard for. I is something for which you have good ideas easily. I is something at which you want to constantly improve and push the limits. I is something at which you constantly persist and keep creating new products to serve people.

    A dash over the I is your curiosity. A dash over the I is context knowledge that empowers your I. A dash over the I is leverage, since you need to work with other people, understand paradigms, the rules of life and industry, and future trends. A dash over the I is your foundation that allows you to dive as deep as possible.

    General skills that are good to have no matter what you are doing as a specialist:

    • A broad knowledge about something (law, economy, software development, linguistics…)
    • A broader context for your specialized skill set (SEO expert – e.g. internet marketing)
    • A basic knowledge of how humans and the society work (biology, psychology, sociology…)
    • Understanding the industry you work in, its trends and paradigms
    • Basic knowledge of how the business world works

    Soft skills you have to be good at, unless you are an ultra-geek or a genius:

    • Teamwork
    • Communication skills and networking, with good enough English skills
    • Time management
    • Information technology
    • Tolerance and open-mindedness

    Soft skills that provide additional value (you can even become a specialist):

    • Leadership and organization
    • Negotiations
    • Presentations and giving lectures
    • Creativity and innovation
    • The basics of marketing and sales

    There is another competence I have to emphasize, no matter how good of an I, T or dash you are. That is execution (E). Ideas have almost zero value. We all have ideas. There are too many ideas everywhere. Execution is much more important than ideas.

    It doesn’t matter that you’ve read a hundred books about swimming if you haven’t done a single stroke in the water. It doesn’t matter that you have a very rare knowledge and a thousand ideas if at the same time you’re a lazy procrastinator, unable to deliver. I and T without E are almost useless.

    Different areas of life and T-shaped skills powered by E

    Until now, we’ve more or less talked only about business and skill combinations that can get you paid the most on the market. But you can use the same concept in all other areas of life.

    Having strong foundations and diving deep into something that interests you is a winning combination in all areas of life. With strong discipline and execution, of course. Let’s look at a few examples.

    Practical examples

    If you want to be healthy, doing only one sport you love isn’t enough. You also need to know the basics of a good diet, you need to work on your core muscles, flexibility, condition etc. All that is a strong foundation that enables you to be really good at a specific sport. The T-shaped skills approach.

    If you want to have good relationships, you need to find people with common interests and the same values. But you also need to be good at communication, know how to manage difficult situations, have ideas for what to do together and so on. Good people skills are a foundation for good relationships. But in order for relationships to work in the long term, you also need more profound connections, based on common values and interests.

    It’s the same with money. You need to have a broad knowledge of how financial markets work, about different investing options etc. But if you really want to make a good return, you have to become extremely good at one type of investments. You have to be better than 90 % of other investors in the same asset class.

    We can even apply the same concept to spirituality. Before you believe in something 100 %, be it a religion or any other spiritual idea, you want to understand why having such a belief is important. You want to understand different religions, spiritual concepts etc. It’s the foundation for finding something that will really empower you to the full. It’s the foundation that will give your life a greater meaning.

    Same goes for all other areas of life. You want to do things that you know are fun for you and you are good at, but that shouldn’t stop you from constantly trying new and new things. As mentioned your T-shaped skillset must constantly become broader (- general knowledge) and narrower (| specialized knowledge) in all areas of life.

    PI-shaped skillset can take you even a step further

    Becoming a really well-shaped and strong T in life is basically a lifelong process. It’s not easy and it demands constant improvements, hard work and finding a balance between acquiring general and specific knowledge. You have to keep expanding and narrowing your T-shaped skills.

    But more and more people are aware of the T-shaped skills advantage, so there is another level where you can take your skills even a step further and provide much more value added. If you are a true achievement-oriented freak.

    The concept is the so-called PI-shaped skillset. The idea is that you are a generalist on one side, but a specialist at two or even more things on the other.

    A magical power comes from transferring ideas and knowledge from one specialist area to the other and vice versa or from combining two fields into one product. For example, you are fitness specialist and a programmer, and so you make a fitness app.

    As mentioned before, becoming extremely good at more than one thing in life is pretty damn hard. Therefore people who are capable of PI shaped skills are usually people who have developed certain competences at a young age.

    For example, playing a specific sport or a musical instrument, practicing a certain type of art or hobby, the latter combined with a completely different field of study, can give magical results and PI-shaped skills by default.

    It’s good to be aware of the competences you’ve developed over your lifetime and whether there are any good ways to combine them.

    All others of us, who hadn’t developed certain specialized skills in our youth, have to make a decision whether being a T is good enough or we want to sacrifice more time and other areas of life to become PIs.

    It’s a question everyone has to answer for themselves. Nevertheless, make sure and work hard to be more than only a dash or an I. You know you have a greater potential and it’s your duty to work hard to bring that potential to life.

    Homework

    To sum things up together with pointing out action items:

    • Find something that you’re passionate about and is/will be high in demand, focus yourself, dive deep and constantly improve. Sooner, you start to go deeper, be better. Don’t feel bad that you won’t be able to master many things, the world has just become too complex.
    • When you are an expert, never lose your general curiosity. Constantly read about your industry and other subjects. Try new things. Understand how the business world and financial markets work. Understand how we humans work. Understand trends and paradigms. Combine different areas. Have fun.
    • Take your game to a whole new level by systematically combining your different specialties. Win.

    Reaching the ultimate level – Hastag

    You want even more than pi? Well, there is one more level, the ultimate competence level. Become a hashtag #-skilled person.

    • (Dash one) A generalist in a few industries.
    • (Dash two) Develop soft skills.
    • (I one) Be a specialist at one thing.
    • (I two). Be a specialist at a completely different thing.
    • Combine all four. Win big.

  • Your life strategy

    The key to a more successful life is having a superior strategy for living it. Hoping that everything turns out okay is not a strategy.

    Your life strategy is especially shaped by your beliefs, values, personal management system, and thus by your decisions about spending your time, energy, money, skills and other resources. After setting your life vision, you should think carefully over your life strategy and the direction it’s taking you in. This blog post will help you with that.

    For extraordinary results, you need an extraordinary approach. For extraordinary life, you need an extraordinary strategy.

    Even if you don’t have a specific strategy, you do have at least some sort of a strategy. It’s usually a combination of what you’ve learned through primary and secondary socialization, especially from your parents, grandparents, other people who raised you and the schooling system, and later in your life of what is expected from you by social norms in your country, dominating religion etc.

    If not any of that, your default strategy is usually what happens to you by chance. For example you end up in an industry where you’ve landed your first job after having sent CVs to numerous companies in different industries.

    Having no strategy as a child is a fact, but later on it’s your personal decision. As a child, you can’t take any decisions for yourself. All you can do is observe, learn and try to function in completely dependent relationships. The healthier the environment that you’re raised in, the better off you usually are regarding your life strategy and the better your starting point is when taking complete control over your life.

    But even if you were raised in a perfect environment, no one is completely the same as their parents and nor they should be. There’s also the additional fact that times change (your environment), thus sooner or later you have to shape your own life strategy if you want to be happy and successful. Modeling as a life strategy works only to a certain extent.

    Your personal power is the key in consciously shaping your life strategy

    The more personal power you develop over the years (mastering yourself), the greater the influence you have on how your life will turn out. Somewhere in adolescence, you start to take over the power in different areas of life and soon it’s totally up to you how you will live it.

    At the end of the day, you only have two choices – either you follow your own goals or the goals of other people; either you are the pilot of your life or other people are, from your past and your present.

    The most important thing you have to be aware of is that you always have a choice. If you don’t like something, there is always a move you can make towards a better life. You don’t betray anyone if you change your beliefs or your values over time.

    There’s nothing wrong with choosing to look at the world through different lenses, lenses that suit you better. It’s your life and you should live it completely true to yourself. You have to be yourself since everyone else is taken; you have to be yourself if you want to be happy.

    But just being yourself isn’t enough, not even close. You also have to be smart. You want to be happy and successful as well. You want to be different and better. You want to shape a life strategy that will take you to your goals and enable you to experience as much of your life vision as possible.

    “I am who I am” should not be an excuse for not playing the game of life smartly, dedicatedly and masterfully. You don’t get a second chance so it’s really important that you regularly think through how you will play the game of life.

    Saying that you always have a choice may sound easy, but it’s not. Every change means that you want to achieve a state that’s different from the default; and changing things takes courage, effort, investments etc. The greater the change you want to make in life, the more effort it will take.

    The worse your starting position is and the more ambitious goals you have, the more effort it will take to change the course of your life. Your strategy will have to be more superior, you will have to play smarter and work harder.

    The world is designed to reward those who master its rules.

    The elements of your life strategy

    Of course you constantly change your life strategy over the course of your life, especially when you experience new things and epiphanies. Thus you should regularly update your life strategy by having your end goals and your life vision in mind.

    Nevertheless your life strategy mainly consists of the following decisions you have to make sooner or later:

    • Your mindset and your personality
    • Taking care of your physical body and physical appearance
    • Formal education
    • Informal education and developing competences and skills
    • Information intake and communicating strategy
    • Your past and relationships with your primary family
    • Intimate relationships and your secondary family
    • Your sex life
    • Relationship with your kids
    • Money and investment strategy
    • Career strategy
    • Your social strategy
    • Hobbies and having fun strategy
    • Travel and transportation strategy
    • Home and your surroundings strategy
    • Strategy toward animals and nature
    • Art and culture
    • Using technology and your digital trail strategy
    • Your nation, country and political system
    • Spirituality, religion and asking for help
    • Taking care of your emotional body
    • Dealing with enemies, bad and evil in the world
    • Your legacy and social engagement strategy
    • When do you want to give up?

    Now let’s break down one by one.

    Your mindset and your personality

    The first and most important part of your life strategy is you. You have to make a choice of how much you will bother with yourself and your goals and how much you will just go with the flow. It’s your choice whether you will live your life with the growth mindset or the fixed mindset and that’s probably the key decision you have to make in your life.

    I am of course biased towards the growth mindset, but there are definitely many people who live a good life with a fixed mindset as well. The question is what works best for you.

    After choosing the growth or fixed mindset, you have to decide how much and when you will compete, and when and where you will cooperate. Cooperating is usually a part of the prestige mindset and competing a part of the dominating mindset. We all have and live both mindsets, the only question is when do we chose one over the other. It’s an important part of your life strategy. For example in sports, you may brutally compete, while at your job you help all your coworkers.

    The next decision you’ll have to make is where your mind focus will be, in your past, present or future, and what kind of an outlook you will have to each time frame. For your past, you can focus on negative or positive events. For your present, you can be more hedonistic or more fatalistic. And for your future, you can be goal oriented or surrender yourself to a greater power and posthumous life.

    Let’s continue with your personal level of ethics and morality. It doesn’t matter whether your actions lean on the prestige or the dominating mindset, you always have to choose where to draw a morality and ethics line. You may, for example, brutally compete but never take illegal performance enhancing drugs. On the other hand, you may help people in your class to study, but cheat on your test nonetheless.

    We have laws that forbid harmful behavior, especially on the physical and material level, meaning they provide security to your body and personal property. But there are still many gray areas and harmful things that are allowed, especially on the emotional level, and different ways of unethically gaining new material things.

    You have to decide for yourself what’s right and what’s wrong after the law stops working.

    Another important decision is whether you will be more flexible or stubborn in your life. Will you push things to go your way no matter what or will you adapt to different circumstances? It’s a totally different life if you choose one or the other.

    There are several other things you have to decide about yourself, like how organized you will be, whether you will be more unique or follow trends, the level of your privacy, how you will deal with obstacles and so on.

    Take care of your body

    Taking care of your physical body and physical appearance

    Your body is like your digital avatar, a vessel carrying your soul so you can experience the material world. An important part of your life strategy is how well you will take care of your vessel/avatar (or body, if you want).

    The formula is very simple. The more you take care of your body, the better you look, the more energy you have, the longer you will probably live and so on. Taking care of your body is probably one of the best investments in your life strategy. And we all know that.

    Why don’t we all do it then? Because it’s not easy. Our body is a very complex mechanism and our mind even more so. Not taking care of your body gives you immediate gratification and consequences are seen only over the years.

    Eating that hamburger in front of the TV relaxes you immediately, but you only gain weight over time. Regularly taking care of your body has the opposite mental effect and take real effort. You have to invest and work hard and make sacrifices now at this moment, only to get results somewhere in the future.

    Therefore it’s not easy to take care of your body. Anyway, you do have to make a decision of how well and how regularly you will maintain your body. What will be your healthy living strategy? That includes everything from your diet, exercise and hygiene to choosing your personal style and appearance. To be even more specific, as part of your life strategy regarding your body, you have to at least make decisions about:

    • Your sleep schedule (how much you sleep, when do you go to sleep)
    • Your hygiene level
    • Your personal style
    • Your posture and body language
    • Your exercising strategy
    • Your relationship with food (diet)
    • Dealing with daily anxiety
    • Taking breaks and holidays (rest)
    • How often and regularly will you go to a doctor
    • Taking medicine and vaccination
    • Smoking / drinking / drugs
    • Detoxing yourself (fasting, technology detox)

    One more thing to mention here is your personal clothing style. Clothes are an important part of communicating who you are. Again it’s your choice how much you will emphasize your uniqueness. It’s on you to decide whether fashion and style will be a part of your life or not.

    Formal education

    At first, your formal education is strongly determined by your parents and the place where you live. The material status of your family also has a great influence on the quality of the formal schooling that you can get (private schools etc.). But sometime after high school, the level of formal education you will receive is, in most cases, completely up to you. Probably an even more important decision is which field you will choose.

    The more traditional that the career you want is, the more important is a high level of education. If you want to be a doctor, lawyer, scientist etc. formal education is very important. On the other side of the coin, many contemporary jobs don’t even demand high levels of formal education if you are good at a specific skill, like digital design or programming.

    Decisions about formal education are tough and many factors are involved. You should consider them all and then make the best decision that’s available to you. When making decisions about the level of your formal education, you should consider at least the following:

    • Market trends for different jobs
    • Importance of formal education in your chosen career
    • The field of study and subjects you will take and why
    • The college you will choose and in which state/country
    • Grades you will aim at
    • Scholarships, taking debt and total financial costs of schooling
    • Opportunity-cost of schooling (you could work, earn money and gain experience…)
    • Your payoff for investing into a higher level of formal education
    • How you will spend your free time outside the formal education process (partying, working, traveling, doing pro bono work…)

    You know that the costs of good formal education are getting higher and higher, while on the other hand, formal education is not a guarantee for getting a job anymore. You can find many different opinions and views on importance of formal education, especially if you should get yourself in debt to get a good formal education or not, but at the end of the day, it’s totally up to you.

    It depends on your life situation, your goals, the career you aim at, your strategy etc. You should systematically analyze it, think different scenarios over and then make a sound decision.

    Informal education and developing competences and skills

    We all know now that formal education is not enough to develop your competences and skills and thus achieve your maximum potential. You have to achieve your peak performance on your own. An important part of your life strategy is how much you will invest in acquiring knowledge and developing skills in addition to formal education.

    This one’s not about reading books and having meaningful conversations and so on, but about developing hard core knowledge and skills that can help you provide value to the market. It’s about knowledge, skills and talents you can sell on the market. It’s about certified or systematic courses you take that take a longer time to develop.

    • To what extent you will develop your competence level
    • Talents you have and will exploit
    • Knowledge you’ll acquire
    • Skills you’ll develop (programming, accounting, cooking…)
    • Soft skills you’ll develop (teamwork, leadership, sales, organization, EQ, SQ…)
    • Levels of creativity you will employ
    • Languages you’ll learn etc.

    Information intake

    Information intake and communicating strategy

    Besides formal and informal education, you constantly intake information and communicate. As the saying goes: you should watch what goes in and comes out of your mouth.

    In addition to that, there is another important fact and that is garbage in, garbage out. Therefore your information intake strategy is a very important part of your life. Things that you focus on grow, so you must be very careful on which information you will focus.

    The second thing is that as much as you have your personal fashion style, so you have your personal communication style. You should be aware of it and decide where you should make improvements and how to develop it to the full.

    Communication is a very important part of life and the better you are at communicating, the more you can achieve and the better you can resolve conflicts. Thus you should carefully consider how much you will invest in your own effective communication style.

    There is one more important thing you have to consider when it comes to your communication style. You may be shy and it probably has to do something with your past. Nevertheless when you are an adult and aware of it, shyness becomes your choice and can burden your life progress. Deal with it if necessary.

    • Level of listening to others
    • Books you read and how much you read
    • Personal infostructure: Media you consume – what and how much (TV, news, blogs, movies…)
    • Your communication style
    • The level to which you will develop your communication skills
    • Level of shyness / openness and how it goes together you being introvert or extrovert
    • Complimenting and criticizing others
    • Swearing and gossiping – yes or no and how much

    Your past and relationships with your primary family

    As mentioned before, you have to deal with your past to some extent and dealing with your primary family (meaning your mother, father, brother and sisters and even your grandparents) is also a part of this. If you had a loving home and you have the same values as your parents, then this may not be a big deal. It’s good if family really feels like family, the safest and the most loving environment.

    But that’s often not the case. In some cases the worst things that can happen to people are their parents. Families can be dysfunctional, love can be replaced with abuse and the values you have can be a complete opposite to those of your parents and siblings, from politics and religion to discipline and all other areas of life.

    In those cases, it’s very difficult to make a decision of how much and in what kind of a relationship you will be with your parents. Still, you have to decide.

    Another important part of your life strategy is how much you will lean on your long-time past, family history and bloodline. Well, if you are of royal blood, that’s definitely an important part of your life.

    If your ancestors came from another, completely different country or even continent, it can also be an important part of your life. Many people decide to explore their history and roots and look for strong history traits to lean on. How important your family history is to you is your choice.

    Every one of us has also experienced more or less shocking events in the past that can become a burden in our lives. Mistakes your parents made, accidents that happen, unfortunate events etc. We all have such shocking events in life and have to deal with them somehow. How we will deal with the negative situations of our past is a part of our life strategy.

    • How much you will keep in touch with your parents
    • How close you will be to your parents
    • How much you will keep in touch with your siblings / grandparents / relatives
    • How close you will be to your siblings / grandparents / relatives
    • The level of leaning on your family history, ancestors and bloodline
    • Dealing with unfortunate events from your childhood and youth
    • Which family patterns you will strengthen and which demolish
    • Making a decision about when you will move out of your primary home

    Intimate relationships and your secondary family

    The spouse you will choose to spend the rest of your life with will have the biggest influence on your life. You are very much shaped by people who surround you and your intimate partner is number one in this regard.

    There are also many things you have to decide before and after committing to one person. Before that you have to decide how serious you will be about relationships, to what extent does finding the right partner lie in your hands and to what extent is this the domain of a “higher power” and so on. What qualities will you look for in your partner, how much emphasis will you give to physical looks, what are the deal breakers, how long will you stay in dysfunctional relationships and so on.

    The clearer the picture that you have about what you want, the easier it will be to make decisions. But of course if you believe that a greater power must take care of your love life, you will be much less proactive. Tough decisions never end.

    Even after getting into a relationship, you again have certain behavioral patterns and decisions you have to make and be aware of. How you see traditional gender roles, how much you will invest into a partnership, what you want to get out of it, is marriage important to you and so on.

    Your attitude towards cheating and missteps is also an important part of intimate relationships. It’s not easy to spend decades with the same person and you have to decide if it’s worth it and what kind of mistakes you’re willing to tolerate.

    Together with your partner you will have to decide what kind of a family you want to create. You have to decide how organized, loving, safe, caring etc. your family will be. You have to choose what kind of a home you will create, how you will decorate it, which rituals you will celebrate, who will do which chores and so on. If you didn’t have a choice with how your primary home looked, now you have it.

    • Is love in your hands or in the hands of a greater power?
    • Your dating strategy
    • Qualities you look for in your partner (personality traits, common hobbies…)
    • Is a partnership fixed or can it grow?
    • The extent of traditional gender roles and gender equality at home
    • Home chores
    • The importance of a formal marriage
    • Breaking-up attitude in partnership and ending marriage if necessary
    • Morality in partnership
    • Your personal life and privacy in relationships (will you share everything to your partner…)
    • The financial aspect of a household
    • Sex life

    Intimate relationships

    Your sex life

    Right after your intimate relationships, it makes sense to mention your sex life as well. I know sex is a very primary force and we act on instinct, but we can still control a big part of our sex life with the decisions we make.

    If we listen only to our instinct, we are on autopilot that’s maybe not even leading us to our true goals. As mentioned, even if we don’t have a strategy, we have some sort of a strategy. In this case having no strategy means yielding to our urges. But to have the best sex of your life, you have to do much more than that.

    Regarding your sex life, you will have to make the following decisions:

    • Satisfaction with your own body and your attitude towards nudity
    • Openness about your sexual orientation
    • Approximate number of sex partners you want to have
    • How regularly you want to have sex in your life
    • How well you have to know a person to have sex with them
    • How much effort you will put into pleasing your partner and how much you want to receive
    • How much is sex a part of love and how much it can be only fun
    • Kinks you have and want to make happen
    • All the things you want to experience and try in your sex life
    • Tools and techniques you will use to spice up your sex life (toys, poses…)
    • Dealing with negative emotions regarding your sex life (guilt, shame…)
    • Your attitude towards pornography
    • Your attitude towards prostitution

    Relationship with your kids

    The relationship you have with your kids is probably the most sensitive and responsible part of your life strategy. You create a new life and you have the power to break or make an innocent person. Nobody lives an easy life, but you can make a decision of how much love and support you will offer to your kids and how you will make their life more beautiful and fulfilling; or not.

    Thus an important part of your life strategy is choosing why you will have kids, how many of them you will have and how you will raise them. Some people have kids for the economic benefit (poorer countries), some to fill their emotional gaps, others to create a loving family and pass on what they’ve learned in life and prepare kids for their own challenges. There are many reasons why to have kids and you will have to find your own. Both having kids and not having them can be the most selfish thing you do in life, depending on your why’s and how’s.

    • The number of kids you want to have in life
    • Reasons to have kids in life
    • How will you raise your kids (and how you will not raise them)
    • The amount of time you spent with your kids
    • Financial and other support you will offer to your kids
    • How well will you prepare your kids for life challenges
    • What will you do if for some reason you can’t have kids (adoption etc.)
    • Helping and empowering misfortune children

    Money and investment strategy

    I probably don’t have to emphasize that being able to acquire and keep assets is one of key skills in life and everybody has to deal with it, whether you want to or not. Some people love it, others hate it. It’s pretty much the same with money as it is with diet and health. Instant gratification messes up our rationality and plans.

    The wealth of your primary family and the money blueprint you’ve inherited have an important influence on how you will shape your strategy for dealing with money. But at the end of the day, it’s once again a question of mastering yourself and making choices.

    First you have to decide how you will make your income by providing value. You can either be employed, self-employed, a business owner or an investor.

    You have to decide how much money you will spend and how much money you will invest in order to gain passive and portfolio income. To do that, you need a savings and investment strategy. You have to deal with debt, curb your buying decisions and much more. If you are born poor, it’s not your fault, but if you die poor, it probably is your fault. If you decide for the latter, be aware that you’ve chosen it yourself.

    • How will you make money (employed, self-employed, business owner, investor)
    • Types of earnings (active income, passive income, portfolio income)
    • Will your income come from wealth creation or welath extortion or both
    • The balance between monetary and social value created
    • Insurance strategy
    • Saving strategy
    • Investment strategy
    • Debt strategy
    • Donating
    • Buying / Renting home
    • Luxuries you will afford
    • How long you will keep things (living minimalist life or not)
    • Inheritance strategy (receiving from your parents and giving to your kids)
    • Joint assets with your partner (to what extent)
    • Attitude towards government and taxes (optimizing taxes etc.)

    Career strategy

    Your money and earning potential are very much connected to your career, achievements and social status. First of all, your career strategy depends on your ambitions. The more ambitious you are, the more sound and superior a strategy you need in terms of career and in all other areas of life.

    You have to decide whether you will be a leader or a follower. You have to decide about the industries you want to contribute to and work in, the type of organizations you want to function in, whether you want to start your own business, whether you’d like to have business partners and so on.

    Your career also strongly depends on your execution and political skills. The bigger the organization you work for and the closer to the government you are, the more political skills you need. And you can either use political skills to do good or to manipulate for personal gain only. Again, it’s a part of your strategy and choice. Your advancement in career is also very much connected to your personal marketing and sales strategy.

    • Level of your ambitions
    • Leader or follower
    • Industries you want to work in
    • Type of organizations you want to work for (size, type, profit/non-profit…)
    • Starting your own business – yes or no
    • Business partner strategy
    • Relationships with authorities
    • Political skills
    • Execution skills
    • Personal marketing strategy – how aggressive you will be with personal marketing

    Your social strategy

    We are social animals. We cannot survive without other people. Relationships fulfill us and make us happy. Nevertheless some people are introverts, others are extroverts. Some people prefer business relationships, others personal. Some people like to do sports with friends, others like to only have fun.

    You need to know what social relationships mean to you, how much you are prepared to invest into relationships and what do you want to get out of them.

    It’s also no secret that you can benefit from having good social skills and developing strong social connections. It’s called acquiring social capital and it’s a part of your social strategy. The people you want to get to know, how you will make sure that people hear about you, who will you spend time with, who are you going to call when you’re in trouble and need something, all these are important questions you should find an answer to for yourself.

    • Introvert / Extrovert
    • Business / Personal Relationships
    • When and why to socialize
    • People you will spend most of your time with (who, their character, deal breakers…)
    • How often you will change your friends and social circles
    • Social intelligence and social skills
    • Social capital and networking strategy
    • Your social life online
    • Who will you call in times of trouble
    • Who can help you in different areas of life
    • How much you will invest into helping your friends

    Hobbies and having fun strategy

    According to my beliefs, we are here on this planet to (1) create, (2) learn and (3) have fun. Therefore hobbies, relaxation and having fun are also a part of your life strategy. Decisions on this area of life should be easy since we all love to have fun, but they are not always.

    You have to make important decision, how much time will you spend on your hobbies and having fun and how much on developing your career and being responsible adult dealing with all important obligations.

    The line between how much you should invest into your future and how much fun you want to have is conflicting, especially in your youth. In my opinion it should be “and” not “or” and while doing that, keeping the balance. But again, you have to find the right answer for yourself.

    • What relaxes you and how often you will relax
    • How much free time will you have in life? (work – life balance)
    • How do you spend your free time?
    • Hobbies you are going to try and do in life
    • Alcohol, drugs and other substances use / abuse
    • Games and gambling affinity
    • How much you smile

    Travel

    Travel and transportation strategy

    First of all, you need all kinds of transport in your life, moving from home to work and vice versa, traveling to different destinations and so on. You have to decide whether you will own a car or not, how safe your driving style will be, how much you will spend on your car, whether you will have one or two cars in your household and so on.

    Car is usually the second biggest expense besides your home. If you decide not to own a car, you need to have a transportation strategy, especially how to use public transport and how much money to spend on it.

    The desire to travel around the world is also a part of human nature. You have to decide where you want to travel, which countries you want to see and why. Whether it’s because of the culture, the nature or everything. Maybe you have a limited budget but if the desire is strong enough, you will find a way. In my youth, I never had a budget to travel personally, so I combined travelling for business with pleasure.

    • Car decisions (number of cars in household, how much to spend on car etc.)
    • Is car a status symbol for you or not
    • Your driving style
    • Use of public transportation
    • Countries you want to travel to
    • How much to travel, travel budget, with whom to travel
    • Why you want to travel
    • How you will finance your travels
    • Business / personal travels

    Home and your surroundings strategy

    One of the biggest costs in your life will be buying/renting and arranging your home. Thus it’s not only a tough decision to make, but also a very expensive one. Nevertheless you have to choose where you want to live sooner or later in your life, from which country and which city to choosing between a house and a flat or maybe even a boat if you prefer living on the sea.

    After choosing your home, you also have to decide how you will decorate it. It’s part of a creative process, where you of course want to make your surroundings to your liking. You should feel as good as possible in your home.

    You also have some influence on how your office will look. Thus you have to make a decision of how will you decorate it and maybe even install some elements to support you at your goals, like a Kanban board or something.

    • Where do you want to live (county, state, countryside, city…)?
    • House / Flat and size of your home
    • City / Countryside
    • Your home and its interior design
    • Your office design
    • Tidiness and cleanliness of your surroundings (order, creative chaos,…)

    Strategy toward animals and nature

    We are a part of nature, the planet Earth is basically a symbolical mother of us all. And we share this world with animals. Therefore you have to decide on your standpoint towards nature and animals.

    There are some very tough decisions to make and there are no easy answers, especially when it comes to global warming, waste and other damage we do to our planet. To balance that, you have to make more pleasant decisions in life as well, like whether you want to own pets, how nature relaxes you the most and so on.

    • Owning pets
    • Eating animals and animal products – yes or no
    • Keeping animals in captivity (circus, zoo etc.)
    • Supporting animals in shelters and issues regarding animals close to extinction
    • Dealing with dangerous or annoying animals (beasts, insects…)
    • Global warming and other related issues
    • Using or overusing natural resources (electricity, water…)
    • Personal waste management and level of tidiness
    • Relaxing in nature (where, how, do you prefer mountains, forests…)

    Art and culture

    Culture and art have a great influence on our lives, even if it’s not that obvious anymore, especially due to all the instant pop culture. Nevertheless, art and culture fulfill our lives, make us more human, creative, understanding and civilized.

    If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint (or do any other kind of art). E. Hopper

    Art is a way of reaching our hearts and expressing ourselves in both ways, be it as creators of art or consumers. Still we have to make a decision about the extent to which we will let culture and art influence our lives.

    • Subcultures you decide to belong to
    • Cultural rituals you decide to follow
    • Values you take from your culture (religious, national…)
    • Using symbols in your personal and professional life
    • Music you listen to
    • Expressing yourself in artistic ways (drawing, painting, sculpting, dancing…)
    • Traditions you will strengthen and traditions you will demolish
    • Your personal style

    Technology

    Using technology and your digital trail strategy

    In the last century, technology has become an important part of our lives and it will have an even bigger influence in the future. Technology is a tool like fire: you can cook a meal with it or you can burn yourself.

    In much the same way some people see technology as the biggest enemy of humanity and others see it as the biggest savior. The fact is that technology is here and you will have to decide how big of an affinity you will have for it and how you will benefit from using it.

    The second fact is that the more you use technology, the more of a digital trail you leave. It seems like you are living two lives, the real one and the digital one. Most people can be googled and “facebooked”. Digital life will stay online even after you die. Therefore you’ll have to decide what kind of a digital trail you’ll leave behind you.

    • Your attitude towards technology
    • Technology skills you will develop and invest into
    • Applications you will use in your everyday life
    • How often you will unplug yourself from the online world (digital detox)
    • Your digital life strategy and management
    • Your attitude towards artificial intelligence
    • Convergence of human tissue and technology
    • Using robots to do work

    Your nation, country and political system

    Virtual lines drawn on the map were an important part of life for the past three millennia. Now the world is becoming more and more flat and connected. You will have to decide how loyal you want to be to your country and which political system you see as the best option.

    You have to decide how much of government intervention you think is adequate, whether you are pro military or against it, what your opinion about taxes is and how much you will optimize your government contributions (your taxes).

    • Belonging to your country
    • Political issues (capitalism, socialism…)
    • Racial issues
    • Military issues
    • Taxes and government intervention
    • Economic inequality
    • Conspiracy theories

    Spirituality, religion and asking for help

    Religion is maybe even one of taboo topics, especially because you could feel guilty if you have different religious beliefs than your parents or the majority of people in your country/area do.

    But again, at the end of the day, it’s about your life and you will have to decide if you believe in god and how strict you will be at following your god’s word and religious rules.

    You can be a good person and atheist and you can be very religious and do harm to others for personal gain (think Italian mafia). What you believe is actually a part of your reality and your right. In my view the only important thing is that you aren’t doing any harm to other people and breaking any laws, no matter what your religious beliefs are.

    While people more or less do respect religious beliefs, it’s a little bit different with spirituality. Maybe yoga and meditation have quite a good reputation, but you have many practices that are considered strange and fake. At the end of the day, it’s again up to you what you believe and if it helps you to live a better life, why not.

    You have to decide about your attitude towards spiritual things, from astrology and bioenergy to fortune telling and even ghosts. As mentioned before, if you believe in it, it’s probably a part of your reality and you have a complete right to it.

    Here is one more important thing I have to mention and you have to decide on. An important part of your strategy is whether you will ask for help, who you will ask for help and when and how comfortable do you feel that other people do work instead of you.

    Never forget that if you don’t create value, someone else has to create it for you; how acceptable is that to you? How much do you think you have to care for yourself and how much you think your parents, government or even God should help you? Are you prepared to go begging if necessary? How difficult does your situation have to be in order for you to ask other people for help and is your honour in conflict with asking for help?

    • Believing in god
    • Your religious beliefs (belonging to a religion, changing family religion…)
    • Are we alone in the universe?
    • Believing in supernatural forces
    • Engaging in spiritual activities (meditation, fortunetelling, astrology, ghost calling…)
    • When will you ask other people for help?
    • How much will you depend on others and how much will you rely on yourself?
    • How do you feel about other people doing work instead of you or to serve you?

    Taking care of your emotional body

    There is a special reason why I’ve dedicated an entire headline to an emotional body. It’s because emotions color our lives. Emotions drive and fuel our passions. Emotions take us to life’s highs and lows. Emotions are the main reason why we can inspire and lead other people. Still we usually understand our physical body and our mind much better than our emotional body, especially men.

    A part of your life strategy is how good your connection with emotions will be and whether you’ll use emotions as positive guidelines in life or you will see them as a burden. How much you will show your emotions and how well you will engage the emotions of other people is a part of your life strategy.

    • Being connected to your emotions
    • Expressing your emotions
    • Emotional intelligence
    • Confronting with your fears (being courageous or living a life in an emotional cage)

    Evil

    Dealing with enemies, bad and evil in the world

    Evil is the saddest but very realistic part of our world. There is evil in all of us, but since times are becoming more and more transparent and survivable, we also tend to curb the evil in us. Nevertheless, there are still horror stories that are happening daily, terrible things like war, rape, abuse, murder, terrorism and so on.

    It’s a part of life we cannot deny, no matter how much we want to. Maybe (I hope not) you’ll even have to deal with some of these horror stories at some point in your life. And it’s not only about you. Will you, for example, stand up for people who are going through hell at this very moment?

    There are also lighter negative aspects of this world you have to face more often. People you love will die, you may have an accident or face other types of burden and sorrow. Besides that, everyone has enemies, you have people in your life who are prepared to argue with you and if not that, negotiate with you or sue you.

    A part of your life strategy is how you will protect yourself and how much you will fight, run or let things go. Which battles do you plan to choose? It’s not easy but it’s also worth to consider how you will deal with tougher situations that can or will happen in your life (loss, failures…). Think about how you will handle them.

    • Dealing with your inner evil
    • Dealing with personal tragedies
    • Dealing with evil in the world
    • Strategy for owning arms
    • Negative attitudes and opinions from others
    • Your negotiation strategy
    • Your arguing level strategy (how far will you go, how much will you quarrel etc.)
    • Your personal legal protection

    Your legacy and giving back strategy

    We’ve talked about asking for help, but you should also consider giving help. You have to decide how altruistic you will be and how much of your resources you will invest into making the world a better place to live for all of us.

    You have to decide what causes you will fight for and how you want to influence the world in a positive way. A part of your life strategy is to choose whether you will donate money or not and whether you will spend your free time volunteering or not.

    Politics is also a part of your social engagement and legacy. Maybe going into politics is actually even the best way, besides donating money, to influence the quality of life on this planet in the future.

    When we talk about politics, it all starts with voting and continues with supporting different political parties or even joining them or running for different functions. In this case, it’s not so much about career advancement as it is about sincere interest to do good and leave the generations to come a better place to live.

    The third thing you have to consider is your life legacy. One legacy that you’ll leave behind is your digital footprint, but is that enough? Do you want to make any bigger contributions to art, science, sports or any other area or life?

    Do you want to change the course of your family or maybe fight passionately for a specific cause that will make the world a better place? There are many problems in this world you can fight against, from poverty, famine, child abuse to deadly diseases etc.

    Do you want to be an example of a successful person in business? What do you want to be remembered for the most? Answering this question is also a very important part of your life strategy.

    • Your contribution to art, science, sports, business and other areas
    • Social and service organizations
    • Donating money and time to charity
    • Involvement in politics (voting, running)
    • Attitude toward world problems
    • Things you want to leave behind and how you want to be remembered the most
    • Thing you will create and fight for

    When do you want to give up?

    The final thing you have to decide on in the course of your life is when you want to give up. Some people never want to stop working, others dream about retiring from day one at the job. Again, it’s about you, your values and your decisions.

    In addition to that, the older you are, the more health issues and risks you have to face. At the end you have to decide how long you will try to prolong your life and what your attitude towards death will be.

    How afraid are you and what are your beliefs concerning what happens after death? Is it all over, do you reincarnate, do you go to heaven or hell or something else? Maybe it’s part of your religion, maybe what you feel happens after death is completely your personal decision, but you have to believe something, there is no other way.

    Your attitude towards death and the afterlife is a very important belief and a part of your life strategy, since it can influence all other decisions you make in different areas of life. Nevertheless it’s quite obvious that all religious belief systems as well as non-religious systems try to influence you to be as good of a person as possible, despite the fact that life is neither easy nor fair.

    • Retiring from work
    • Trying to prolong your life
    • Your attitude toward death
    • Beliefs about afterlife
    • How good a person you will be in life

    We’ve looked at 24 different elements of your life strategy. I am sure there are still some minor things I’ve forgotten about. Still, if you analyze your beliefs and build a strong and superior life strategy for all the mentioned areas of life, I’m sure you’ll be very well off.

    Knowing who you are and clearly knowing what you want out of life is an integral part and the first step towards a superior life strategy.

    But it’s not an easy task. If it were easy, everyone would live a happy and successful life. Knowing who you are and clearly knowing what you want out of life is an integral part and the first step towards a superior life strategy.

    The main purpose of this 24-areas framework is to help you shape your own superior life strategy that will lead you towards experiencing as much as possible in your written life vision.

    Homework
    Template

    Do the exercise

    Below you can find a spreadsheet with all the bullet point from this article. It will help you systematically analyze your beliefs, your life strategy, show you where you are missing information and which areas you are strong in. You should write down your thoughts, goals and intentions at the end of every row.

    [sociallocker]

    AgileLeanLife – Life Strategy Template (xls)

    [/sociallocker]

    In the second step ask yourself the following for every single thing that you have written down: why?

    • Why do I believe that?
    • Why do I want to live my life like that?
    • Where does that come from?
    • Is that truly me?
    • Do I know enough about it or should I read more before I make my final decision?
    • Does it lead me towards my goals?
    • Am I doing something good for myself, the people I love and humanity in general as well as for nature and maybe even other living beings?
    • How would my life look like with a different kind of belief and strategy?
    • Where could I make improvements?

    Happy thinking and analyzing.

  • A personal SWOT analysis

    One of the tools you can use when analyzing and getting to know yourself is a so-called SWOT analysis. The SWOT analysis is a structured planning method that had been used in management for decades before agile and lean entrepreneurship was even invented.

    This is to say, I just want to emphasize that this blog is not only about applying agile and lean methods to personal lives, but also about applying all other business methods that prove to be valuable. It’s not like traditional tools are always outdated and the new ones are magical solutions. You just have to know which tools to use when.

    When analyzing and getting to know yourself, the SWOT analysis can help you a lot. In business, the SWOT analysis is used to evaluate strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats involved in a project or a business venture.

    It can be applied to the level of a selected product, place, industry, entire organization or many other dimensions. As mentioned before, it can also be applied to a personal level, and it’s especially frequently used as a career-planning and decision-making tool.

    • Strengths and weaknesses are considered as internal factors on which you have a direct influence and which you can change (or influence) by investing your time and energy.
    • On the other hand, opportunities and threats are considered as external factors you have less influence on or maybe even none. Nevertheless, it’s also very important to consider external factors when preparing your strategy.

    It’s very obvious that strengths and opportunities are favorable factors, and weaknesses and threats are unfavorable factors in terms of achieving your objectives.

    Internal and external factors

    When analyzing strengths and weaknesses, you are analyzing internal personal factors such as personal traits, competences, financial situation, knowledge, skills, personal network and so on. It’s the area that you have influence on, and you should act as proactively as possible, not reactively.

    You should be aware of your strengths and act out of power. You should also be aware of your weaknesses and have an action plan concerning what do to about them.

    Strengths

    Strengths are internal factors that positively influence your ability to achieve your objectives. It’s the area of your life where you are strong, where you are better than the competition and where your forte lies. It’s important to further develop your key strengths and make sure that they stay your strengths in the long term.

    It’s easy to forget to constantly keep developing your strengths, but that’s one of the biggest mistakes you can make. If you aren’t progressing in life, you are going backwards and your strengths are no exception here.

    While you are relying on your strengths and aren’t developing them further, there are many people out there who are working hard to enhance their strengths and who outwork you.

    Some questions that can help you identify your personal strengths:

    • What are your talents and which things are you naturally good at?
    • Which knowledge and skills have you developed over the years and are really good at?
    • What are your positive personality traits?
    • What are you much better at than other people?
    • Where do other people see your strengths and what are the qualities that people admire you for?
    • What resources do you have at your disposal?
    • Which subjects did you excel in during formal education?
    • What contributed the most to your past victories?

    Weaknesses

    Weaknesses, on the other hand, represent all the areas where you are lagging behind, where you have shortcomings and gaps in skills. Some of your weaknesses are easily seen while others are not.

    You have to know that your enemies or competition will probably exploit your most obvious weaknesses.

    Nevertheless, you should compile weaknesses into three categories:

    1. Critical weaknesses that you have to get rid of or convert into strengths. These are the weaknesses that prevent you from achieving your objectives or will maybe cause that kind of a situation in the future.
    2. Weaknesses that you have to at least neutralize if you want to achieve your goals and objectives.
    3. Weaknesses that are not a real problem and you should not bother with or those weaknesses that are part of your personal uniqueness and it is to your advantage to have to work around them (more about that later).

    Some questions that can help you identify your personal weaknesses:

    • Where could you improve? (You can do and look at your Kaizen list of potential improvements)
    • Where are you not talented enough?
    • Where in life have you struggled the most?
    • Which things are you avoiding and are afraid of?
    • Where do other people see possible space for improvement?
    • Which resources are you lacking?
    • Can you do anything better?
    • Do you do anything badly?

    Let’s now move on to external factors, threats and opportunities. When analyzing threats and opportunities, you are analyzing external factors such as market trends, labor market trends, macroeconomic stability and changes in your country, technological and legislation changes, promotion options, changes in the company you work for, people who have influence over your life etc.

    You’re analyzing all the environmental factors in your life that affect you. It’s the area on which you have less influence and you should be as flexible as possible.

    SWOT Analysis

    Opportunities

    Opportunities are external factors that have a positive influence on you achieving your goals. It’s all about the environment’s paradigms and flows that help you achieve your objectives and accelerate your execution process. Opportunities are where you can go with the flow of the environment based on your strengths.

    Understanding trends and opportunities is a big leverage you have to count into your life strategy. Markets and trends always win and you should never go against the market.

    Going together with the market, preferably with one that’s in the phase of high growth, is the biggest opportunity in the environment there is. It’s essential to identify such opportunities for your success.

    Questions to identify opportunities:

    • Which are the biggest changes that are occurring in your current environment?
    • Which opportunities are you not exploiting at the moment?
    • Where do you see the biggest favorable circumstances for achieving your objectives?
    • Do you know people who can help you achieve your objectives?
    • What kind of moments do you hope for? Are they actually happening?

    Threats

    Last but not least, threats are external factors that have a negative influence and can prevent you from achieving your goals. It’s about analyzing external factors on which you don’t have much influence and which can prevent you from going forward.

    When analyzing threats, you should think about possible alternatives and how to stay as flexible as possible. Being aware of potential threats even before they actually come to existence is very helpful, since you can react much more rationally when the threat actually occurs.

    When analyzing threats, you also have to identify whether you are potentially going against the markets and what level of a challenge that really brings.

    And some questions to identify threats:

    • Which are the biggest changes that are occurring in your current environment?
    • Which obstacles are you facing at the moment and why?
    • Which is the biggest external danger to your goals?
    • Which factors beyond your control can prevent you from achieving your goals?
    • Which negative market trends are you facing at the moment?
    • What are the biggest risks you are facing?

    Building up a strategy

    Conducting a personal SWOT analysis is a fun way of getting to know yourself and analyzing your situation all in itself. But what counts much more is building a life strategy and a decision-making system based on the conducted SWOT analysis.

    There are two basic ways of building a strategy after doing a SWOT analysis: one is called matching and the other one converting.

    Matching

    Matching simply means connecting internal strengths with opportunities. You look at your strong points and the ways you can take advantage of them based on the opportunities that are given in the environment in which you function.

    This is your main forte and the point where you have to build a strong competitive advantage. Matching your strengths to the opportunities is also where you should be very aggressive and take offensive action.

    On the other hand, matching your weaknesses to threats can show your biggest vulnerabilities. You’re always only strong in a specific context and you have to be aware of that context and which situations cause you to step out of it.

    If you are strong in an unfavorable situation, you can at least fight and regroup and rethink and change your moves. But if you are weak in an unfavorable situation, your personal power becomes very limited and you are left to the mercy of the environment. These are the situations you should definitely avoid in life.

    In situations where your weaknesses are matched to threats, you should act much more defensively. Nevertheless, if you don’t find being defensive is an adequate strategy, there is an alternative strategy available, called “converting”.

    Converting

    Converting simply means transforming weaknesses into strengths and transforming threats into opportunities. It’s easy to write that down, but it’s much harder to do in real life. The key is to understand what converting really means.

    The first approach is to really convert your weakness into a strength. For example, if you aren’t very creative at the moment, you decide you’ll become creative no matter what. Creativity is nothing but a skill and based on the growth mindset, you know you can cultivate it.

    You start going to art classes, you do daily brainstorming sessions etc. You put so much more effort into it, even more so than talented people, that you become really good at it, therefore surely converting a weakness into a strength.

    The second option is that you find a different context for your weakness and you try to see it as a feature. For example, a manager who has a hard time staying focused can be a really successful entrepreneur.

    The best way for converting a weakness into a strength in this kind of way is explained by Marty Neumeier in the book The 46 Rules of Genius:

    A good personal style will mostly come from your limitations, not your strengths. It’s the result of working around your shortcomings, using all the skills you can muster. Since your limitations are unique to you, your style will also be unique.

    And that is how you convert weaknesses into strengths.

    Of course, there is also a third option, in case a weakness cannot be converted. In that case you should try to minimize weaknesses or avoid them. The idea is that you neutralize your weaknesses to the point at which your strengths can be unfettered. .

    After conducting the SWOT analysis, you can define four different strategies, while also keeping converting and matching in mind:

    • Opportunity – Strength strategies: Obvious natural forte where you can use your strengths to exploit opportunities.
    • Threat – Strength strategies: Easy to defend, where you want to exploit your strengths to wipe out threats.
    • Opportunity – Weakness strategies: Potentially attractive options with which you want to overcome your weaknesses to exploit new opportunities.
    • Threat – Weakness strategies: Your personal very high risk where you want to apply a defensive strategy to prevent threats from turning up because of your weaknesses.

    Traps of the SWOT analysis

    As everywhere else, there are also a few traps when it comes to conducting a SWOT analysis. The first trap is quite obvious. There is always a big gap between what you think is true (the subjective reality) and what actually is true (the objective reality).

    And wrong assumptions are the mother of all fuckups, as said many times before. Thus it’s really necessary that you implement agile and lean practices when building your life strategy based on the SWOT analysis.

    You have to realize that some of the elements of your SWOT analysis are nothing but hypotheses that you have to test in order to see whether they are true. The best way is to only use the SWOT analysis to help yourself define detailed hypotheses of your superior life strategy. You have to regularly update the analysis based on feedback from the environment.

    The second trap is seeing weaknesses as a balanced antagonist to strengths. Of course we all have our strengths and weaknesses. But there’s no balancing act or “life fairness”. It’s necessary for you to build on your strengths, convert some weaknesses into strengths, put other weaknesses into a different context and then minimize, avoid or neutralize the rest of them.

    You also have to be aware of the fact that the final goal of your personal SWOT analysis is to help you build a superior life strategy and consequently help you make better decisions, big ones as well as smaller ones, in everyday life. Thus the most important items of your SWOT analysis are those that produce valuable strategies.

    As mentioned before, a SWOT analysis should be an input to your AgileLeanLife superior productivity strategy and, even more importantly, it has to be updated regularly, based on the feedback you get from executing.

    For the conclusion, let’s look at some additional guidelines for conducting a personal SWOT analysis. Be as realistic as possible when writing down your strengths and weaknesses. Also be as specific as possible and avoid abstract definitions and grey areas.

    Try to avoid complexity and don’t overanalyze things. It’s good to keep your SWOT analysis short and simple. Definitely build different strategies and options based on your SWOT analysis.

    See the SWOT analysis as an input to your superior life strategy. It will help you come up with better insights, analyze your current position, brainstorm possible directions, highlight opportunities and flag possible threats.

    Know that you have to test some assumptions and do regular updates. A SWOT analysis should help you get to know yourself, but conducting only a SWOT analysis is not real progress in life. Building a superior strategy and executing it is.

    Homework

    Sit down right away and do your own personal SWOT analysis. Happy analyzing. Here you can also find an example of my own personal swot analysis.

  • 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.

  • Start with a life vision

    The first thing you should do after reading the Agile and Lean life manifesto is set your life vision. All the masterpieces that have been created in the world began with a big vision, and so should your life. As the famous quote goes: the two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

    A strong life vision helps you clarify what you want out of life and helps you focus yourself. If you write down your life vision correctly, it should serve as a roadmap, helping you make your dreams and passions a reality. A life vision is your compass that helps you live life to the full.

    The old way of setting a vision

    Writing down a life vision is not all that new. It’s a very well-known concept in personal development. But unfortunately the way it’s usually done is outdated. The big problem of “the old way” of setting a vision lies in the linear approach. When doing it the “old way”, you should answer questions such as where do you see yourself in five, ten or thirty years. By answering these questions and thinking about the future, you project partly your own goals and wishes and partly the society’s expectations (when to get married, when to retire…).

    For example, when you are in your twenties and setting a life vision, you assume that in ten years, you should have a home, kids, a well-paid job, and so on. Those are the expectations of the society and you add details and specifics according to your desires and personal preferences. For example, you could write down that in ten years, you will live in New York, have a big house, two kids and a managerial position in finance industry.

    The problem here is very obvious. Today no plan survives contact with reality. Not that long ago, life was quite linear, so linear planning of a life vision made sense. Today, the environment is too fast changing, complex and turbulent to make linear life visions. It’s impossible to predict what kind of a job you will have in ten years, what will happen to financial markets and your net worth, whether you will get or stay married, and how many countries you will visit.

    What can happen is that a few years after writing down your linear life vision, you can clearly see that you are not moving towards that life vision and become depressed or disappointed. It is very naïve to expect that you can just write down what you want out of life in a linear way and it will happen/and this will make it happen. Even if you do have a sound strategy and fight for it.

    But there is another way. A way where you don’t regard your life as a linear story that should unfold, but as a list of things you want to experience.

    Life vision

    Your Agile and Lean Life vision

    First things first. You should definitely have your life vision written down on paper. If you don’t have your own life vision, you won’t be motivated enough, you won’t be focused enough and there will be too many directions to move in to make any sound decisions for moving toward your real goals.

    Your life vision is the hope for what your life could be and something you can share with people you deeply care about, want to spend time with and who support you and empower you. The vision is your true north, a final destination to keep in mind.

    Your vision should be huge and exciting and breathtaking. Your vision should be your biggest inspiration in life. It’s what makes you ready for a new adventure every morning.

    To define your life vision, you should answer three simple questions:

    1. Who do you want to become (your personal evolution)? … and make your ideal-self persona.
    2. What do you want to experience in life (and how to enjoy it)? … and make a list of it.
    3. What kind of a legacy do you want to leave (what will you create)? … and write down a strong emotional statement.

    Who do you want to become?

    Your actual self is who you are at the moment. It represents the attributes you currently possess. The ideal self is the person you want to become. The ideal self is what motivates you to change, improve and achieve. When writing down your life vision, you should definitely include who you want to become as a person. It’s about your personal evolution and about how would you like to be remembered.

    We all have strengths we want to keep, assets we want to develop, and weaknesses we want to get rid of. The best tool for creating your ideal self is to make a persona. Here is the Agile and Lean Life guide on making personas.

    When making a persona you should look at the following elements and decide which one you want to keep, which one to strengthen, which one to develop and which one to get rid of.

    • Beliefs
    • Values
    • Behavioral patterns
    • Talents
    • Knowledge
    • Skills

    You develop and change yourself with identity shifts, life experiences, finding new better ways of doing things, epiphanies and many other ways. When thinking about who you want to become, you should also think about the situations in life that can shape you in that kind of way. Even if some of the experiences have to be tough. In fact, we usually develop the most through tough experiences.

    What do you want to experience in life?

    There are three main purposes in life. One is to evolve (grow, improve, learn…), the second is to experience as much as possible, meaning enjoying life, and the third is to create and leave a legacy. This part of setting the life vision is the really exciting and fun part. You should simply sit down and make a list of everything you want to experience in life. There are seven life areas you should start with and brainstorm further on.

    • Body (diet, sports, sex, food, massages…)
    • Relationships, emotions and romance
    • Money and wealth
    • Career, achievements and respect
    • Fun, creativity and travel
    • Spirituality
    • Technology

    The list of what you want to experience should be long and thorough (your bucket list). You can browse the internet, magazines, listen to your inner voice and so on.

    The countries you want to travel. The food you want to taste. The things you want to buy or rent. The things you want to experience with your spouse and other people. The things you want to create. The crazy achievements you want to accomplish, like dancing in the rain. The jobs and occupations you want to try. The sports you want to enjoy. All the types of chocolate you want to taste. The mindsets you want to live by.

    When writing down the things you want to experience, you should think about all those things you know you want to experience, or already like and want to experience more of, and those things that you think you want to experience. Remember that wrong assumptions are the mother of all fuckups, thus you have to know which parts of your life vision are only assumptions. For all the assumptions, you should first do small experiments to get better insights on what you really want.

    Testing and experimenting in life

    Testing and experimenting allow you to test each element of your vision and what you truly desire from life. Testing and experimenting help you discover and clarify your real vision and separate vision from illusion. Testing and experimenting also help you discover, clarify and expand your vision. You should constantly test new things, question everything and be encouraged to be curious and experience life to the full.

    Let me give you an example. Maybe you assume that you would be much more successful having your own business than being employed. You assume that being a business owner is something you want. But you’ve never been a business owner. Before making any big life decisions and opening your own business, it makes sense to carry out a small independent project for one of your hobbies in addition to having a daily job. In doing that, you can test yourself on how well you perform in inspiring people, managing teams, innovating, administrating and selling. If you see that you don’t like all that, maybe having a business is not something for you. While doing it, you can find out that you can work great as a multi-level marketer or whatever.

    Here is another case. I personally assume that I don’t like all the adrenalin stuff, like roller coasters etc. Maybe it’s only fear or maybe I really don’t like it for whatever reason. Nevertheless I don’t want to not do things just because of fear. Instead of going straight to bungee jumping and potentially dying from a heart attack, I can start with a slide for kids and then try experiences with more adrenalin rush. In the process, I may start loving it or maybe I’ll find out that those kinds of things are really not for me.

    Make environment and global flow your friends

    The final question is how to build a life around the vision you have, juggling all the areas of life. I think that the best answer to that question is adapting to changes that happen in the environment and to exploit the opportunities that come into your life. Thus you align your life vision with the flow around you. It’s not always possible, but it’s a big accelerator of experiencing things in life.

    For example: in my career, I want to experience and try many different occupations. I have all of them written down on my life vision list. I can always choose the one that has the most potential in a certain period of time. Sometimes the opportunities come by themselves, sometimes you have to make them with your own effort. But the key point is that you have a list you can choose from. Just the right amount of options that you are not lost, but are at the same time still aware of your personal freedom (options to choose from).

    For bigger experiences that you want out of life, you have to break your vision down into small parts. The small parts are like smaller visions you want to experience.

    And for some experiences, you have external limitations like your age, biological clock etc. For these kinds of experiences, you probably need some timeframes and perspectives on when is the latest that you can experience them, and make sure you shift your priorities if the deadline is fast approaching.

    Last but not least, I probably don’t have to emphasize that each and every part of your life vision should benefit others, not do any harm to them.

    What kind of a legacy do you want to leave?

    Life isn’t easy. But we can make it easier and more comfortable for the generations to come. Like the past generations did it for us (most of the time). Your greatest inspiration in life and a very important part of your life vision should be your plan for making the world a better place. You can do this by either investing your money, your time or both. The best way to do it is with your will to create.

    There are so many things you can do and contribute to help make the world a better place to live. Pick one and make it the strong emotional part of your life vision. You have to be aware of your personal power to positively change the world, and make use of it.

    You can choose difficult problems like: Domestic violence. Drugs. Human trafficking. Poverty. Depression. Bullying. Armed conflicts. Diseases. Climate change. Etc. Or you can tackle smaller, but no less important, problems like: Unhealthy diets. Information overflow. Materialism. And so on.

    The strong positive emotional situations you will experience with other people and the legacy you will leave for the generations to come are the most valuable parts of your life. These are the things you’ll remember with pride and joy on your death bed. There are the things that will make your life count. These are the things that will make your life worth living. Fight for something good. Change the world. Create. Innovate. You have the power to do it.

    The agile, not linear way

    The most important fact you have to be aware of when setting your life vision is that your life vision is not a linear plan or path. It’s a list of who you want to become (personal evolution), what legacy do you want to leave (creating a better place to live) and what you want to experience in life (how will you enjoy it).

    Everything when the right time comes; regardless of the expectations of the society; regardless of your own expectations towards life, how it should be. Expectations lead to disappointments. Experiences lead to a full life. But know that experiences are not only the easy and fun parts of life.

    Your life vision is a list that should constantly throw you out of your comfort zone and routine, and remind you of what else you want to experience in life. The list is your reminder to not waste your life and to live it to the full.

    You should regularly update your list and happily tick things off when the environment enables you to improve yourself, create or experience something new. Well, your environment or your personal will, or both.

    You should put no pressure on yourself about how your life should look in ten or twenty years. You should have a smart list of what you want to experience in life, and fight to experience as many things as possible that are on your list. Again, when the right time comes, since nobody knows when that is. The most important thing is that you are ticking things off the list. Except for the time-sensitive things where you have to make more effort, maybe even against the external forces.

    The vision is as important as the drive to achieve it

    There is one important word I’ve used in the previous paragraph. All this is about a smart list. That is the really important part of it, one not to be missed.

    You don’t win or achieve your goals only because of the life vision, but also because of the superior strategy. Thus, the first step is setting a life vision, but what happens next is even more critical. You also need a superior strategy for achieving your vision.

    How the Agile and Lean Life superior strategy looks like:

    • You sit down once a month and look at your Life Vision list.
      • Who do you want to become?
      • What do you want to experience?
      • What do you want to create and the legacy you want to leave?

    Download a template to help yourself with the exercise. You will also find an example of a life vision below.

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    AgileLeanLife – Vision Template

    Example of my life vision

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    • You make a reflection on what have you experienced, how you have changed and how you are moving towards your ideal self.
    • You should look at all the things you want to experience and, based on the analysis of your environment and your life situation, pick the things that make the most sense to experience in the next time frame.
    • You can simply plan smaller and more pleasurable things in your calendar. These are the fun things you want to experience in life.
    • For bigger experiences, you should devise small steps for how you will achieve them and how you will make adjustments based on the feedback from the environment. This part of your life vision should be broken down into small steps and defined by experiments that show you the way to go further.
    • You should move the experiences for which the time pressure is increasing higher up on your list of priorities. You still have to consider all the settings and how favorable they are to help you positively experience a certain thing.
    • You should keep updating (adding and removing) the list with all the things you want to experience.

    You can find more inspiration on how to do it in the Agile and Lean Life manifesto.