Blaz Kos

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  • A success guide for all introverts

    Many people who don’t know me (Blaz Kos) that well or who only know my work from the media and speaking on a stage think that I’m a natural born extrovert – outgoing, optimistic, talkative, adventurous and always in action. The reality is much different, with me being an extreme introvert. Over the years, I’ve acquired some traits that extroverts possess and somehow developed my social skills, but deep down I can’t survive without regularly having time away from the world.

    Being an introvert isn’t always easy, especially in a (western) society where extroverted people are more appreciated or, to be more accurate, are in a much better position since their personality enables them to achieve their goals by leveraging many different social connections and being more assertive among people and organizational hierarchies. I’ve seen many introverts who could achieve much more if they’d develop a few social skills or invest in a competence or two usually assigned to extroverts as a natural strength.

    On the other hand, there are also several strengths arising from being an introvert that even introverts themselves are often not aware of, consequently not exploiting them. It’s time to put an end to that. As an introvert who’d never let introversion stop me in any way, I decided to share a few secrets for being a successful introvert in a society where extroverts usually shine much more easily.

    In this article you’ll learn:

    • Why you’re an introvert
    • Introverts’ strengths and how to exploit them
    • Introverts’ weaknesses and how to abolish them
    • A few other tricks to being a successful introvert, like having a switch for becoming an extrovert for a short period of time, and focusing more on prestige than dominance

    Introverted versus extroverted people

    In order to manage, you must first understand. Therefore let’s first look at some basics and the key differences between introverted people and extroverts.

    Introverted and extroverted personality types were introduced by the psychologist Carl G. Jung in 1920. He used the terms to describe two very different characters, where the preference of one is having a more stimulating environment and the preference of the other is having fewer impulses (stimuli) from their surroundings – be it people or any other kind of stimuli (noises, tastes etc.).

    As an introvert, you maybe face similar challenges because of sensitivity to any stimuli:

    • I need complete peace, quiet and dark to fall asleep as an introvert. If someone is snoring next to me I can just go crazy.
    • I don’t like roller coasters or other kind of adrenalin-inducing stuff much, because there’s just too much happening at the same time to analyze.
    • I like simple meals without many different foods and tastes.
    • A mosquito in a room or anything similar will annoy me to the extreme.
    • I feel a little bit lost in big crowds.

    Nobody is a complete introvert or extrovert, but most people can relate more to one type or the other. Some people have characteristics of both and they’re called ambivalent. Being an introverted or an extroverted person also became part of the very popular Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

    MyersBriggsTypes

    If you don’t know whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, you can figure it out very quickly, you only need to observe yourself a little bit (or you can take a test, for example, but I prefer self-reflection). If you recharge your energy batteries, especially emotional and mental ones, by social interaction, you are probably an extrovert, and if you recover your energy while alone or in quiet surroundings, you’re probably an introverted type of person.

    In other words, if you feel energized and refreshed after attending a party, while in a big group of people or by being very socially active (“absorbing the good vibes), you’re probably an extrovert, and if you feel recharged after being alone or in a very limited company with deep conversation, you’re probably an introvert.

    Introversion means preferring the inner world, thinking about ideas and wanting to understand, while extraversion means preferring the outer world, including people, things and a desire for action.

    An introverted person wants to understand, and an extroverted person wants to act. We can look for the cause for that on the biological level. Researchers found that introverts are highly sensitive to dopamine – the neurotransmitter that helps control pleasure and reward centers – and that the part of the brain called amygdala becomes very active with interaction (introverts have an extremely sensitive amygdala), thus introverts can feel overwhelmed very quickly.

    On the other hand, extroverts have relatively low sensitivity to dopamine and therefore require large amount of outer stimulation. The reason for that is that stimuli travel a longer path through the brains of introverts. Understanding that can help you to realize that intrversion is not simply a personality trait, but a nervous system setting.

    brains of introverts

    Knowing that, let’s look at some of the most frequent nervous system settings of introverts. They:

    • Focus on one’s inner psychic activity.
    • Can’t socialize for large amounts of time. They have it, but it’s not long.
    • Enjoy solitude, reading, researching, reflecting
    • Need peace and quiet for good concentration.
    • Work best when they’re alone.
    • Prefer deep one-on-one conversations and don’t know how to do small talk.
    • Are usually surrounded with close friends and family, and don’t like big groups of people.
    • May seem quiet and aloof, sometimes have trouble communicating.
    • Like to work on complex problems, paying attention to detail.
    • Are easily distracted by the environment’s stimuli (need to make sure there are no distractions).
    • Introverts are supposed to be more cat people, while extroverts dog people, but who knows.

    As it will be explained later in the article, the facts stated above don’t mean that introverts can’t be social, good lecturers or performers, but definitely in a different way than extroverts. Usually the difference is that they need to recharge in solitude after being exposed to active happenings in their surroundings.

    Based on Jonathan Cheek’s research, there are supposed to be four different types of introverts, each type having a slightly different flavor:

    • Social: Preference to socialize with small groups instead of large ones.
    • Thinking: Very introspective, thoughtful and self-reflective, without aversion to social events.
    • Anxious: Not very confident in social skills, often thinking about what could go wrong.
    • Reserved: Operating at a slower pace, thinking before acting, taking time to start with action.

    The important thing is that one personality type is not cooler than the other type – be it extrovert, introvert or any of their subtypes. You can find very successful and happy people on both sides, although some research suggests that extroverts are happier in general. It doesn’t matter if you’re an introvert or an extrovert, the key is to understand yourself better and build your life on your strengths.

    There are many successful introverts, including:

    • Michel Jordan
    • J.K. Rowling
    • Bill Gates
    • Abraham Lincoln
    • Christina Aguilera
    • Albert Einstein
    • Warren Buffet
    • Clint Eastwood
    • Harrison Ford
    • Barack Obama
    • Marrisa Mayer
    • Hillary Clinton
    • Mark Zukerberg
    • Elon Musk
    • Mahatma Gandhi
    • Larry Page
    • Angelina Jolie
    • Steven Spielberg
    • Marilyn Monroe
    • Jay Z
    • Al Gore
    • Leonardo DiCaprio
    • Emma Watston
    • even Lady Gaga

    Nevertheless, when being an introvert or an extrovert hinders you, you have to go out of your comfort zone and push yourself to become better. It’s the same for both types. Much like introverts sometimes have problems with speaking up or socializing when really needed, extroverts often have problems with things like thinking before acting, focusing, not losing time on too much socializing etc.

    The good news is that when you push yourself to overcome weaknesses of one type or the other at key moments in your life that need characteristics of the opposite side, you may slowly become the ambient type, possessing both introvert and extrovert personality traits; then you can experience the benefits of both types and make your experience and understanding of life much richer and deeper, probably also loving and getting along with more people.

    Introverted versus shy and insecure people

    There’s nothing wrong with being an introvert. The important thing is to be aware of it and build your life around the strengths of the introverted personality type. But in order to do that, you must be an emotionally stable introvert. If you are emotionally unstable, or an emotional midget as I like to joke, being an introvert can become an emotional jail. You hinder yourself from being assertive and action oriented. You become a prisoner of your own thoughts and emotions.

    If you’re an emotionally unstable introvert, you sooner or later experience big mood swings, anxiety, pessimism and a lack of proactivity and assertiveness, especially in tougher times. You basically block yourself and become the biggest enemy of your progress in life. Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, inner strength, inner sense of security and big capacity for love are mandatory for being happy in life.

    Stable and unstable

    Source: Image from Sami Peterson from sdsurvivalguide.com

    One way for turning emotional lability around is cognitive psychology. With emotional accounting, you can identify cognitive distortions or negative thoughts that influence your dark perception of life and yourself, and correct them. Besides that, there are many other tools for building emotional stability, for example psychotherapy, meditation, transactional analysis, trauma release exercises and many other methods. You have to search and try different options and find the right tool, the right fit that can help you the most with managing your emotions.

    In addition to that, as an introvert make sure you don’t do the following for your own happiness:

    • Don’t isolate yourself, but have a few deep relationships. Try to build deep relationships with a few family members, your spouse and some friends.
    • From time to time, add new relationships to your life, and try and do new things that will kick you out of your comfort zone.
    • Take care of your health with regular exercise and a healthy diet. You should regularly go into nature. Meditation and yoga can also help you a lot in keeping a healthy mind in a healthy body.
    • You should definitely do meaningful work and take credit for it. You need to see your contribution to the world and how you add value.
    • Make sure that you constantly improve yourself, but are not too critical of yourself.
    • Don’t feel sorry for yourself because you are not extrovert, rather build your success on your strengths and strong foundations

    It’s also very important that you distinguish between being an introvert, and being shy or not having the courage to face your fears. There’s a big difference between being an introvert and being afraid of public speaking, meeting people and speaking up when necessary. Social anxiety is not introversion, it’s a fear you must face and overcome.

    If you have something smart to say but are afraid, that’s not you being an introvert, that’s pure fear. If you’d like to meet someone, professionally or personally, and are afraid to say hi and break the ice, it’s not introversion, but only fear stopping you from living your life to the full. If you’re afraid to take credit for your contribution, to work in teams, to speak on stage etc., those are all only fears hindering your potential. That’s called social anxiety not introversion.

    Extroverts may be naturally better at these things, but being introverted isn’t a good enough excuse for castrating yourself and putting yourself in an emotional prison. Face your fears, don’t waste your life. Fear is a waste and you should remove all waste from your life. If you want to really live a rich life, full of unforgettable experiences, you have to be brave, courageous and bold. You have to face your fears. Your fears are a compass that shows you where you still need to grow and evolve; and that has nothing to do with being an introvert.

    In addition to living a bold and courageous life as an introvert, make sure that you build your life strategy on the strengths of introversion, and that you know how to manage and overcome the weaknesses.

    Strengths of introverted people

    Being an introvert means that you have many strengths you should take advantage of. Let’s look at some of the most frequent strengths of introverts and how to make sure that these strengths work in your favor.

    Thinking before speaking and acting

    Many extroverts think as they speak. Doing that can lead them to saying things they don’t mean or are maybe even not that important in a certain situation. You can never take back words, and thus thinking hard before speaking can be a great advantage – a great advantage for introverted people. Nevertheless, there’s a very thin line between being completely quiet all the time (weird) and speaking up rarely but at the right moment and saying something meaningful.

    If you’re always quiet and never speak up, people will just think that you’re a weirdo, a coward or simply too afraid of life. In that case, you let fear lead your introversion in a negative direction. Letting fear dictate your life is definitely not a good thing, not for your self-esteem, not for your goals and not for your social advancement.

    That’s why you need to have courage and develop a positive side of being an introvert, meaning thinking hard before speaking, but still starting to move your lips when necessary. To be more precise, here’s what you should do as an introvert:

    • Make sure that you speak up when you have something important to say. Don’t let your fear win. The only way you can defeat fear is to do it. When you have something to say and you’re afraid, push yourself. It only takes a second of courage to start speaking and then things will be much easier. Just do it.
    • Before you speak up, take advantage of your ability to observe other people, the environment you’re in and the energy flow in the room. It will help you address the audience with the right words as well as help you to adjust your body language and account for the emotional status of every individual in the room to form the best possible overall statement and point.
    • Since you don’t speak too frequently, people will pay more attention to what you say when you do speak up. That means that your words will have more value if you say something smart.
    • Because you’re an introvert, you probably have the ability to study things better and faster, so when you do say something make sure that it’s an eye-opener and makes more sense than what everyone else said before you, based on putting more effort in understanding the topic and the situation, being more prepared and connecting everything that other people said.
    • If you don’t speak impulsively, people will trust you more and thus you’ll have access to more privileged information. That gives you a good head start. But make sure you don’t abuse the trust, because you can only do that once.

    Written communication

    Introverts are usually much better at written rather than oral communication. If you’re that kind of an introvert, take advantage of it. Maybe some people are great in personal communication and delivering a presentation, but they can only deliver their message to a limited number of people (one-on-one meetings, speaking on a stage etc.). On the other hand, if you deliver your message by using different media (paper and digital), it can reach a much bigger audience.

    In the digital age, you have numerous options for how you can take advantage of the ability to communicate great in writing as an introvert. You can write articles on platforms like Medium, do guest blogging, start your own blog, post slides on Slideshare or answer questions on Quora. Today, you can build your own brand as an introvert by producing lots of quality content on different media platforms.

    As an introvert, you can easily be good in self-advertising, only in a different kind of way; there’s no need for you to greet big crowds of people, all you have to do is open a word processor or an online publishing platform and start writing. If you have good writing skills and don’t want to take advantage of that, you’re not an introvert, but probably only lazy.

    Listening to people and understanding your environment

    As the famous saying goes, God or whoever gave us one mouth and two ears. It’s much easier for introverted people to follow that advice. Being a good listener is a very important skill and as an introvert, you can develop an outstanding ability to pay attention to what people are saying.

    That brings you a big advantage in every relationship:

    • You understand people better and can read their body language more accurately.
    • People will appreciate you much more because you really listen to them.
    • You learn more and quicker if the other person is talking about important things.
    • A better understanding of relationships, moods and different perspectives puts you in a superior position to other people from a certain perspective.
    • You’ll be able to build deeper and stronger relationships with more dimensions.

    One more important thing when you communicate with people in person: if you’re an introvert, you’re much more sensible to any stimuli from the environment. Therefore make sure that you turn off your phone and all other possible distractions from the environment when you’re talking to someone, and make sure that you’re really concentrated and paying full attention to what the other person is saying.

    If you aren’t present in the moment and are exposed to too many distractions, you’ll come out as a lousy, not a good listener. As an introvert, you have only two options: focusing on one thing and being really present or paying attention to several things and not really paying attention to any of them. The latter is only a big waste of time, so make sure you avoid it at all costs.

    Much like you can dedicate yourself more to a single relationship as an introvert, so you can analyze the environment better. Every individual is just a wheel in a much bigger system. Understanding the whole system better can help you make better decisions and build a more adequate life strategy. As an introvert, make sure that introspection and your inner world work to your own benefit, not only to dreaming and thinking how cool it would be if you were a superhero. Use your introversion to build a superior life strategy based on a better understanding of how life works.

    Creativity and having ideas

    Because introverts listen more, read more and take more time for introspection, they can usually also get good ideas when being alone. Don’t get me wrong, of course extroverts can also have good ideas, but they usually develop them while interacting with other people. As an introvert, you can also start the creative process while alone.

    This simply means that you have to make the most out of your alone time. After reading, thinking about life or reflecting on your inner world, take time to think of ideas. Take a writing pad and write down all the possible ideas, good or bad.

    Every day, try to write down at least 20 to 50 ideas to keep your creative muscle strong. As an introvert, it’s even more important that you write down all the ideas you have, because you can forget them more easily­, since you usually brainstorm ideas without interacting with other people who could help you remember or write down the ideas instead of you.

    As you probably know, only having good ideas means almost nothing. As an introvert, you probably also have an incredible capacity to analyze, prioritize ideas and connect them to an environment, thinking through what it would take to realize them.

    That’s very important, because all people have ideas and so ideas are a dime a dozen. Making a plan for realizing an idea is much better, but what’s even more important is communicating ideas with others and, last but not least, executing them. Don’t only have an idea, use your alone time to make a plan and then execute your ideas.

    As an introvert, make sure that you put your ideas to work. Here are some ideas for how to benefit from having creative ideas as an introvert:

    • Send selected ideas to your boss or supervisor (by e-mail if it’s easier for you).
    • Share your good ideas with friends, family, business partners, acquaintances and other people who can benefit.
    • Share your ideas on online forums, answer questions on Q&A sites, make presentations and publish them, write articles.
    • Make a plan for how you could bring a selected idea to life by yourself and with help of others.
    • Execute your ideas.
    • Whatever you do, make sure you do something with all the brilliant ideas you get, otherwise they are nothing but a waste.

    Concentrating well and processing large amounts of information

    Creativity isn’t the only thing that spark in introverts when they’re alone. As an introvert, you probably also have a great ability to concentrate well, and process large amounts of information. That means that you can prepare better than others, you can be better informed and make creative connections that others don’t see. In the post-information age, that is a big advantage.

    Being able to concentrate well also brings the ability to pay attention to detail. In a “fast-food” world overloaded by information, having an eye for detail is very important, because success or failure usually depend on details. Seeing details that others don’t see gives you an opportunity to really have an impact when you say something or you can mitigate risks much better.

    As an introvert, make sure that you put yourself in a position where you:

    • Develop extensive domain knowledge around your interests and your profession. Make sure that people know you as an expert.
    • Especially work on big and complex tasks, where your concentration power blossoms.
    • Look for important details that others can’t see.
    • Create a superior system of gathering, processing and connecting information.
    • Become really good with technology and leverage it for your success.

    Working alone and building a strong intimate network

    Let’s look at the next two very important strengths that can help introverts flourish in life. The first one is working alone. Working alone can be a big advantage if you’re an organized person. As an introverted person is very important to distinguish between important and urgent tasks and make sure that there are no distractions when you’re working. By doing that, you can become incomparably more productive than other people.

    Nevertheless, as an introvert you can be easily distracted by any outside stimuli or your inner volition, also in times when you’re trying to work alone. Mobile phones, random thoughts, a ray of light, nearly everything can potentially throw you out of the working flow. That’s why as an introvert, you have to implement a productivity system into your life and make sure that when you’re working alone, you’re really working. If you manage to do that, you can really become extremely productive and achieve great success.

    The second strength is having a strong intimate network. Extroverted people usually have many friends but more shallow relationships with fewer dimensions. Strong, deep and trustful relationships are those that bring the best experiences and solid foundations in life. They can hurt more, but they give you stronger foundations for taking risks elsewhere in life.

    As an introvert:

    • Make sure you know the difference between important and urgent tasks.
    • Build a system that will remove all the distractions from your life, enabling you to really focus.
    • Make sure that your inner impulses don’t distract you from being productive. Write down ideas, introduce a “to-do later list” into your life when you get an impulse, learn how to refocus yourself quickly and learn how to manage your daydreaming.
    • As an introvert, you have a great capacity for building deep and strong relationships with family, friends and your spouse. Make sure that you do that and it’ll also give you the courage to act more extroverted in other areas of life.

    Organizing things and leadership

    It may not seem like it at first glance, but many introverted people can become better leaders than extroverted people, it just takes a lot more effort. Not only are introverted people usually better organized on average but, as mentioned before, they also have a greater capacity for strategizing, understanding and reading people, listening to stakeholders and assessing happenings in the environment.

    Nevertheless, it takes a lot for an introvert to develop as a leader. The desire to lead must be greater than the need to stay behind the curtains or behind the book. It’s definitely not necessary for an introvert to become extroverted in order to lead people, but it’s necessary for you to gather courage, push yourself and take the initiative to become a leader.

    If you want to become a leader as an introvert:

    • You don’t have to talk a lot but you have to speak up when necessary. You don’t have to know all people, but you need to have deep and strong relationships with a few key people who can help you achieve your goals.
    • You don’t have to be loud and in the center of attention all the time, but you have to take initiative when an opportunity pops up.
    • You don’t have to be at every social gathering, but you have to shine at the key ones and push yourself through them.
    • You don’t have to socialize a lot, but when you do, you mustn’t mumble, frown, cross your arms or look angry and uninterested. When you do socialize, you must show your best.
    • You don’t have to be an outstanding speaker, but you have to be a good communicator, using solid one-on-one communication, the written word etc.
    • You may not like changes, but that should be a motivator for preparing for inevitable change that much better and mitigate the risks more professionally.
    • It’s good that you think before you talk and act, but you must act. As an introverted leader, you can work smarter instead of harder; but the key thing is to act.
    • There’s no problem in taking time for yourself to recharge after executing your leadership activities. But make sure that people know you aren’t hiding or retreating.

    Building your name on prestige not dominance

    There are two approaches to achieving social status in life: the first one is prestige, meaning sharing expertise and knowing how to gain respect, and the second one is dominance, which encompasses using force and fear over others. Research has shown that building on dominance is a short-term strategy, because new rivals try to outtake your position all the time, while building your social position on prestige can have a long-term impact.

    For extroverts, it’s much easier to undertake the dominance strategy. The dominance strategy is usually based on putting yourself in the center, showing off your muscles and superiority over others. It’s definitely not an introvert thing. Luckily, there’s an alternative for introverts and it may work even better than dominance, it just takes more time to shine.

    The alternative for introverts is building social position and personal brand on prestige. That includes genuinely taking care for others, sharing information and expertise, connecting people, sharing positive values etc. It’s a path every courageous introvert can take in order to leave their mark on this world.

    introvert_alone_time

    Weaknesses of introverted people

    While being an introvert has many advantages that we mentioned and that you have to put to work for your success, there are also weaknesses of introverts that you need to minimize, abolish or turn into strengths. Thus let’s look at the most frequent disadvantages of introverted people and how to deal with them in a proactive manner.

    Making connection with new people and small talk

    The two big disadvantages of introverts are the desire to make connections with new people, and that often also includes proactively breaking the ice with small talk as the second weakness. For introverts, having a few close friends is enough and making new connections frequently doesn’t seem to make sense. That’s a very wrong approach to life.

    Almost every single person can enrich your life, as a friend, business partner, customer, lover or whatever. If you feel attracted to someone (not necessary in a sexual way) or if any common interest exists, already having a few deep relationships with other people is not a good enough excuse for not making new connections.

    There are three tricks that can help you make new connections.

    The first one is understanding that you’re already connected to every single soul on this planet. You were born from the same dust (creation by God, Big Bang or whatever you want) and thus you share the same struggles, a similar body structure, emotional experiences, desires, obstacles, and joys of life. We all share Mother Nature and we’re all small parts of a much larger system. A system where you’re already connected to everybody.

    You don’t see the connection? Very simply: if you litter the Earth, everybody is exposed to the damage. If you make a few people happy and they make a few people happy, you can make a whole nation happy, and several happy nations can mean a happier planet.

    Making a connection with a new person doesn’t require a lot of effort if you look at it from this perspective. Everything is already in place, a connection already exists, all you have to do is turn on an already built connection. Almost zero effort. All you have to do is say hi, and everything else will start following by itself. No need for fear, no need for an enormous amount of effort.

    Don’t try to break the ice, assume there is no ice. All you need is a second of courage to say hi.

    The second trick is dealing with small talk. The thing is that you don’t need to become good at small talk. You can simply skip the small talk and go straight to what’s really important to you. You’ll definitely leave a better first impression, you can start building a real bond much more quickly and if there are really no mutual interests, you can say goodbye fast and greet the next person.

    I always start the conversation with a question like “Tell me the most interesting thing about you” or I research the person I want to meet and then immediately ask them a few hard questions about their work, perspective of the world or whatever. It always works and there’s no need for small talk at all. But you really have to be interested in someone, and keep your mind open.

    The last trick is to create and do awesome things. If you do things that are just so freaking awesome that people simply know you by reputation and outstanding work, others will want to network with you. You can show how awesome you are with your work.

    In that case, you don’t have to put pressure on yourself to meet other people or to engage in conversation. If you do awesome stuff, other people will do all the hard work [for introverts] instead of you. Most artists are introverts and everyone would kill for a few minutes of conversation with the most famous ones.

    Summary of guidelines for making new connections as an introvert:

    • You don’t have to break the ice, because there is no ice. A connection with everyone already exists, all you have to do is tap into the connection that’s already in place.
    • There’s no need to break the ice, go straight to deep and meaningful questions, but make sure you aren’t offensive, but curious and loving.
    • Build and do awesome things, and others will do all the hard work that’s usually painful for introverts. The same goes for the opposite sex, if you’re looking for a relationship (for men).
    • Don’t stay in your comfort zone at all costs. When you do need to recharge, take time for yourself, but don’t avoid all the potential interaction all the time. You have to see the opportunity to experience new things and meet new people, all of whom hold potential for new strong and deep relationships. Let your curiosity be stronger than your desire to avoid interaction.

    Self-advertising, speaking up, selling and giving presentations

    The next big disadvantage of introverts can be that they really suck at self-advertising, especially when there’s a need for great oral skills – convincing someone of something. But, much like there’s a difference between being an introvert and being shy, so there’s a difference between being an introvert and not wanting to communicate with people about the value you can create.

    If people don’t know and tell people what you can deliver, no one will care. You don’t have to be in the center of attention all the time, but you have to understand the basic formula in business: to capture value (getting paid) you have to know how to create value (innovating) as well as deliver value (marketing). If you avoid one part of the equation, there’s a big probability that you’ll hinder yourself from capturing maximal value (maximizing your potential earnings).

    There are a few things you have to do as an introvert:

    • There are a few moments in life when you have to clearly communicate what you can do and what you can deliver (job interview for example). Prepare yourself really well for those few moments. These are the moments when you have to push yourself over being an introvert. Practice, practice, practice.
    • You can more or less substitute in-person advertising with written self-promotion. Make sure you have an outstanding CV and LinkedIn profile, write articles and blogs, answer forums and Q&A sites, post slides etc.
    • Make sure you get recommendations from people you build deep connections with, people who know what you can really deliver. If you have deep connections, people are prepared to go the extra mile for you. Let other people be your advertising boards.
    • As mentioned before, make sure your work speaks for your competences.
    • You can also choose industries where there’s less need for aggressive self-advertising and sales. Look for industries where introverts are flourishing. You’ll find that industries that work very well for introverts are all kinds of arts, engineering, academia, technology, spirituality and investing.
    • Be a quiet producer and hire other people to do all the advertising and selling for you.

    Teamwork

    Introverts have a great capacity for working alone, but it often seems that they lack the skills to be great team workers. In today’s world, that could be a quite a big problem. An important fact is that the world has become too complex, turbulent and fast-moving for you to succeed alone. You simply need a team of people to achieve great things.

    The good news is that outstanding teamwork has nothing to do with the characteristics that extroverts usually possess. Meetings, socializing, pushing your ideas etc. are not elements of outstanding teamwork. Many times, meetings are a waste of time. A team of experts who acknowledge and respect each other is a better team than a team of people where everybody only wants to push their own ideas.

    Outstanding teams are small, cross-functional, self-managed with all the competences needed to complete the task. They visualize their workflow, which helps introverted people, have short adjusting standup meetings, the team members are honest but respect each other. After short meetings, people go work productively on their own tasks, often in solitude. It’s nothing that extroverts would do more easily than introverts.

    Thus being an introvert has nothing to do with being a lousy team worker. The best performing teams are usually diverse and the same goes for collaboration of introverts and extroverts. In the best teams, both personality types are present. The important thing is that all the team members respect each other and their differences, because in reality, the differences are what makes a team more competent. Only diversity can create something really new and awesome.

    Here are some ideas for making sure you’re a good team worker as an introvert:

    • Make sure you have a place to work in solitude, but when you do participate at a meeting, play a very active role. Prepare yourself and put the advantages of being an introvert to work (thinking before saying, analyzing more, being better prepared etc.). If you’re going to just sit there quietly all the time, people will see you as a weirdo. Don’t let being an introvert be an excuse for not performing.
    • Respect all the extroverts and they’ll respect you too. If they don’t, they’re assholes or bozos, and nobody wants to work with assholes or bozos. In that case, think of changing for a better team.

    Sudden changes

    Because they’re more sensible to any stimuli, introverts are supposed to dislike any sudden changes. Any rapid change in the environment puts introverts under a lot of stress. The problem, of course, is that markets as well as both business and home environments are becoming more and more complex, volatile and unpredictable. In the future, there will be even more sudden changes. It’s a fact nobody can avoid.

    Therefore every introvert must somehow prepare to face rapid changes. The ability of introverts to process large quantities of information helps with this a lot.

    It’s impossible to predict all the changes and mitigate all the risks, but as an introvert, you can definitely prepare for many potential scenarios that can happen (negative and positive ones). If you’re prepared, if you have alternative options, your stress level goes down fast. That is the secret formula that can help introverts face changes. It takes a lot of effort, but protects health and prevents a person from going crazy in an unpredictable environment.

    As an introvert, you should do the following to face rapid changes more easily:

    • For the really important situations in your life, you should list what could go wrong and the optimal ways to proactively deal with a change. Every battle is won before it is fought and in the same way, successfully dealing with a change when it happens strongly depends on how well you’ve prepared yourself beforehand. The more you hate change, the better you have to be prepared.
    • List all the alternative options you have. Always be aware of the alternative paths you can follow. By seeing alternatives, you’ll know that it’s not the end of the world if a change happens. If you don’t see any alternatives, create one. Innovate your way out.
    • Go for inner instead of outer security (70 %). Outer resources are things like status, money, and other things that can be easily taken away from you or lost in a matter of seconds. Inner resources, on the other hand, are your competences, skills, knowledge etc., things that no one can take away from you. With inner resources, you can always create outer resources, even from nothing. If you have an abundance of inner resources, you’ll always feel safe, and rapid changes won’t strike you that much.
    • No matter how resourceful you are, make sure you also build some security nets with outer resources (30 %). Have an emergency fund for any unexpected financial hits (3 – 6 salaries), good health insurance etc. The more bulletproof the system you have for protecting yourself, the less you’ll be stressed out about sudden changes. If you aren’t very adaptable, you need a fortress around yourself that helps you deal with change and gives you time to form a new life strategy and adapt. It’s not easy, but it’s definitely much easier than changing your character and becoming more agile and adaptable.

    An extrovert switch for introverts

    If you’re an ambitious introvert, you’ll find yourself in situations where being an extrovert is sometimes a must. But only for a short period of time. With developed inner resources and competences, you should know when to switch into the extroverted mode, to show that you aren’t lacking any skills to advance in life. After showing that, you can go simply back into introverted mode. It may take a little bit more courage and effort, but it’s worth it. And remember that same goes for extroverted people. Times come when they must show some introverted qualities.

    The switch is not about turning yourself into something you’re not, but to show that you have the skills and the balls to be assertive and achieve goals in life. Saying something smart, selling, teamwork, leadership etc. are all skills that can be learned and always improved, by both introverts and extroverts.

    If you are an extrovert interacting with introverts

    Sensibility to stimuli and all different kind of changes as well as the desire for deep relationships of any real introvert brings much bigger vulnerability in personal relationships. Not only that: introverts are usually better at reading body language, tone and happenings in the room (which means they know better when you’re not honest), they also value a few deep relationships they have to their bones, and that brings a bigger potential for disappointments and pain in life. Therefore let’s look at some advice when interacting with strongly introverted people.

    First of all, spend one-on-one time with an introvert. Show honest interest and invite them to talk privately. In most cases, you’ll be surprised at how quickly an introverted person will open up to you. Remember, introverts prefer deep and meaningful talks, and suck at small talk. Thus skip small talk. When they start talking don’t interrupt them, but listen to them carefully.

    If you’re an extrovert this may be odd to you, but sometimes your introverted friend will just go off the grid. No replies, no online presence, nothing. When that happens, introverts are probably creating something, analyzing or recharging in their inner world. Respect their need for privacy and being alone. Don’t make them feel guilty for taking time away from you. When fully recharged, they’ll get back to you.

    Try to be as kind to introverts as possible. They’re usually very hard and critical of themselves and so they will value every compliment much more than other people, and every critique will make them more insecure. Make sure you give them at least 5 compliments for every reprimand. And the worst thing you can do is to reprimand or embarrass them in public. They’ll never forgive you.

    If you’re their superior, first of all let them have more time to get familiar with the surroundings. Introverts need a little bit more time to relax, and even more time to shine, but they will. First they need to observe a new situation and feel safe. In the same way, it’s good if you don’t demand an instant reply when you ask them something, but instead give them time to think. It also helps if you help them find a coworker with similar interests, it will speed up the adjustment process.

    In the same way, it helps if you begin by giving them a slightly more complex task to start exploring and processing information. And don’t forget to give them a room where they can work in solitude when necessary, and try to eliminate as many distractions as possible. But don’t push them to make lots of friends and don’t try to make them into extroverts. And remember: values and morals are very important to introverts, so talk about them and respect their integrity.

    The same goes for introverted children, if you’re a parent. For introverts, an optimal environment is so much more important for success. It’s mandatory for introverts to have a strong supportive environment to blossom and flourish in. Therefore make sure that your kid or employee or friend has an environment that’s as supportive as possible in order for them to develop their talents.

    The formula for success is treating introverted people with respect, empathy and engaging them with a little bit more complex tasks, while having strong and deep trustworthy relationships with them.

    introvert

    Before we come to the end, we can easily bust a few myths about introverts now:

    • Introverts are definitely not weird and only some are aloof nerds.
    • Being an introvert has nothing to do with being shy or rude.
    • Introverts like to talk, but about deep and important topics, not small talk.
    • Introverts like people and relationships, but they want to have a few deep relationships.
    • Introverts definitely don’t relax by socializing or doing adrenaline things, but they know how to have fun and relax, especially by reading, being in nature etc.
    • Introverts like to go out in public, but they don’t need to socialize for a long time.
    • You can be an introvert and have outstanding social skills.
    • You can be an introvert and a good public speaker.
    • It’s impossible to change an introvert to an extrovert.
    • On the other hand, assuming that extroverts are bad listeners, don’t like alone time or are shallow is totally wrong. They just have a different way of processing information.

    Now that you know how to be a successful introvert, make sure you remember that your personality type isn’t a disorder or an excuse! You have to build your life strategy based on your strengths and when life gives you an opportunity, you need to push yourself towards your dream life, be it as an introvert or an extrovert.

  • Multidimensional relationships – how to build the deepest bonds possible

    A very important realization in life is that there’s no absolute good or bad. Everything has a good side and a bad side. Everything has its own advantages and disadvantages. One side may be more dominant (good or bad), but it contains at least a drop of the opposite nevertheless. Even more than that: one side cannot exist without the other. Good cannot exist without bad. Life cannot exist without death. Happiness cannot exist without sadness. These dynamics of life are best represented by the yin and yang symbols, from the very well-known Taoist philosophy.

    Yin anf Yang

    Understanding the duality of life without any absolutes can help you with at least two things. The first one is keeping your mind open. As Scott Fitzgerald said, the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. Money is good and bad. Each of your personal characteristics is a strength and a weakness at the same time. A clock can go clockwise or counterclockwise at the same time, depending on your perspective. You cannot be both at the same time, but if you change perspective, you can change the interpretation. Changing perspective can lead to either manipulation of truth or better understanding, and you should strive for the latter.

    The second thing you can take from this philosophy is understanding the bad sides of three main cognitive distortions. Understanding duality and non-absolutism can help you deal with perfectionism, all-or-nothing thinking and disqualifying the positive. No perfect thing exists in life, never has and never will. If you can only be satisfied with perfect, you’ll never be satisfied. Because of emotional dissatisfaction, you will waste your life. Maybe good enough is already a level that should bring you a feeling of satisfaction.

    You can also better understand that there’s always “all in nothing” and “nothing in everything.” Life flows somewhere in the middle, not in having it all or having nothing. Life is colorful, not black and white. And last but not least, the duality of life helps you understand that there’s always something positive in the negative. Sometimes you can see the brightest stars in the darkest night.

    Being aware of duality and absolutes can help us a lot in understanding the dynamics of life. But there’s a step further we can take, above duality. It’s the concept that brings life from a mere gray mixture of black and white to a colorful rainbow, full of different experiences and levels of connectedness. I call it multidimensional relationships, be it relationships with people, animals, nature, things and even ideas. The concept best applies to personal relationships, but there are many other situations where understanding the concept of several dimensions can help us enrich our lives.

    Stronger together

    Multidimensional relationships

    Relationships are always multidimensional and the more dimensions present, the richer and the more varied they are. You often experience or build relationships only on a few of the easiest and most obvious dimensions. But why stop at a certain point, if life is offering so much more. Only a greater awareness and a bigger investment into relationships can help you build newer and newer dimensions and thus an even stronger bond with someone over time.

    What am I talking about? If you have a one-night stand with someone, the relationship only has only one dimension – physical, and even that in a sort of a limited way. If you have a friend with benefits, there may be two dimensions – physical contact and friendship. If you also share a flat with someone like that, there’s yet another dimension, sharing resources.

    It’s obvious that we usually have the most dimensions with our chosen spouse, but even so, many people experience far from all the dimensions that they could in their closest relationships.

    Here are only some of the dimensions you can experience in an intimate relationship:

    • Tenderness and other soft physical contact
    • Erotic touch and sexual intercourse
    • Tantric and other spiritual kinds of erotic experience
    • Intellectual stimulation and information exchange
    • Emotional experience with a different palette and depth of feelings (negative and positive – see the picture below)
    • Co-development and personal growth based on common hobbies and goals
    • Sharing economic resources
    • Friendship
    • Teamwork and mutual support in life and in career development
    • Running a household or a side business
    • Joint spiritual or religious experience
    • Experiencing the world together – traveling, mountain climbing etc.
    • Having fun together – playing games, cooking etc.
    • Raising a plant, an animal or a child etc.
    • Socializing in larger groups and helping other people together etc.

    With other people, outside your intimate relationships, there may be fewer possible dimensions, but many people still neglect numerous dimensions, consciously and unconsciously, consequently hindering the relationship potential and growth potential of both people involved.

    List of emotions
    Source: Plutchik

    For example, many people focus only on a few dimensions when raising a child. Be it education or play or something else. But there are so many dimensions you can build in a relationship with your kid. A physical dimension, like doing sports, cooking healthy food etc., a strong emotional bond and security, an intellectual connection, passing on all your experience and knowledge, letting the kid have their own opinion and go their own path, and so on. There are so many relationship dimensions you can experience, if you only open your mind and let love be the center of it.

    The good thing about multidimensional relationships is that in most cases, you don’t lose anything if you give more. If a relationship is built on the right foundations (respect/boundaries and love/positive energies), the more you give, the more you receive. For example, if you’re happy and you put someone in a good mood, so they’re also happy, there’s a high probability that you’ll simply stay happy afterwards, assuming the relationship is not of an abusive nature.

    The key thing is that when you’re spending time with someone, you should try to activate as many dimensions as possible. For example, if you’re playing with your kid, don’t let it be only play. It can also be an opportunity to enrich your emotional bond and the child’s inner sense of security, provide intellectual stimulation, and so on. You should try to activate as many dimensions as viable, possible and sensible in a specific relationship.

    If you go mountain climbing with your spouse, there can again be many dimensions you can experience. It’s a physical experience of taking care of your body, it can also be a healthy competition, intellectual bonding, emotional bonding (if there are any thrills on the path), maybe you can even have sex at the top of the mountain. The idea is that you don’t climb a mountain just to kill time with someone, but to engage as many dimensions of a relationship as possible in everything you do.

    In order to do that you have to, of course, turn off your phone, let all your worries go, and completely focus on the present and on a specific person or group. In a relationship, you have to be present with your body, heart, mind and soul. Fully present. Otherwise you’re blocking some of the dimensions and thus killing the relationship potential.

    While doing that, don’t forget that relationships are a two-way street. The more you invest, the more the other person should invest. The more dimensions you try to activate, the more dimensions the other person should try to activate. There are many people out there who will only try to take advantage of your surplus investment. Thus you also need to know how to set boundaries and you need to have as realistic expectations as possible. Some people don’t have the capacity to go really deep, others just won’t. That’s why you need to find your perfect fit and work hard from there.

    Relationship and trust - Multidimensional relationships

    Other multidimensional perceptions

    Not as important as personal relationships, but still a powerful concept, is having a multidimensional perception of other things in life. The more usage you can see in something, the more valuable that thing becomes to you or, even more than that, you understand it better. Let’s look at a few examples.

    For example, money can have many functions alongside the standard four, namely being a medium of exchange, a measurement of value, a standard of deferred payment and a store of value. Based on these standard four functions, you can see it as only something you work for in order to buy goods after earning it. But to understand it better, you can also see money as an idea – a piece of paper with numbers. Money can also be an employee that works for you (investing) – for example to make more money or to realize your ideas. Money can also be a way to contribute to the society (donating). You can also see money as the measurement of your value added to markets. You can see money as energy or an interpreter of your mindset. You can see money as a generator of social clusters, and so on.

    You can see your home as only a place where you come after work or whatever. But there are so many dimensions you can add. You can see it as a meditation temple, an art project, a place where you hang out with your loved ones, a place of security, the biggest financial investment of your life, an opportunity to meet new people in a neighborhood, a joint project with your spouse, and so on. Home can have many different dimensions and can thus hold different meanings to you.

    As for the third example, you can start your own business only to get rich or make extra money. But you can also start a business to bring your ideas to life, to employ people and develop yourself as a boss; you can start a business to have better control over your time, you can see it as a tax shield/shelter or a vehicle for leveraging other people’s money. There can be many dimensions how you see your business and it can serve you with many different purposes.

    The more dimensions you see, the clearer the picture you can have about something, what it means to you and how you can extract value from it. Even more importantly, you usually enjoy it more, it enriches you and makes you into who you really are. That’s why understanding the multidimensional side of life is so important.

    There are four options regarding your perception of dimensions:

    • You are aware of an important dimension in a relationship (good, continue building on it)
    • You are not aware of a dimension that already exists (become aware of it)
    • A dimension could exist and you know about it, but it doesn’t (build it)
    • A dimension could exist, but you are not yet aware of it (observe, read, learn)

    Since we started with duality and absolutes, we should also finish on the same note. Nothing is only good and bad, and so there’s also no pure gold in multidimensional relationships. The more dimensions that exist, the more we’re usually invested into a relationship and the more value it has for us; thus it also holds a bigger potential to hurt us once the expiration date comes. As Taoism teaches us: nothing lasts forever. But that shouldn’t stop us from living life with courage and engage with as many dimensions as possible. Nothing lasts forever, but what we’ve experienced stays, and we should be thankful for that.

  • Manipulating your discipline with transaction costs

    Transaction costs (also known as friction costs) are a very important term in economics and finance, representing costs of participating in the market. In economics, transaction costs are divided into three main categories, such as search and information costs, bargaining costs and negotiations, doing all the legal and paperwork, as well as policing and enforcement costs, representing the legal authorities that make sure everyone sticks to the deal. Transaction costs may also include transportation and communication costs. In short, transaction costs are all the opportunity costs in terms of the time, energy and money it takes to make a transaction on a market.

    For example, when participating in the stock market, you have to pay the brokers’ commission, then there are payments to the bank, government fees, and so on. And if you go to buy one item in a different market-store, because the item is a little bit cheaper there, you have to consider transportation costs, that are again transaction costs and have an overall influence on how good deal you get.

    Logically, transaction costs decrease the net result and financial returns. If you trade a lot, you want to make sure that transaction costs are as low as possible. Because of their impact on the net result, transaction costs play an important role when we’re deciding whether to make a deal on the market or not.

    Very similar every activity that you (want to) do has some transaction costs, and they have a strong influence on your self-discipline. The higher the transaction costs, the more effort and discipline it takes to do a desired activity. The lower the transaction costs, the more easily you take action or enforce a new routine. Knowing that gives you the power to manipulate your discipline by influencing transaction costs. Let’s see how.

    Discipline is like a muscle

    Firstly, you have to be aware that willpower, discipline and cognitive abilities are like a muscle. You have a fixed daily dose of discipline/cognitive power and there’s only so much you can do to stay organized, disciplined, make good decisions and follow your desired daily agenda. It’s totally true that you can train your cognitive abilities and self-discipline (and you should) like you can train your muscles, but a maximum always exists. You aren’t a robot and once you reach your maximum, you simply have to give yourself a break; unproductive or old bad habits will start to prevail, no matter what.

    You probably know the feeling when after following a strict diet for a long time, you say to yourself “I’ve had enough of this s*it” and open a bag of chips.

    As I already mentioned, one way to be more disciplined is to train your discipline muscles. When you’re forcing yourself to do something, whether you like doing it or not, you train your self-discipline. You push yourself to stay more focused and better stick to actions that lead to your planed outcome (goals). The more you push yourself, easier it gets to stay disciplined.

    Discipline and muscle training are very welcome, but a maximum still always exists. Even if you regularly train your discipline, you achieve your global maximum sooner or later. You simply can’t be disciplined 24/7. That’s why you also have to consider the second part of the equation. The less discipline and cognitive power every action takes, the more good actions/decisions you can do/make given your current maximum.

    Let’s say you have 80 units of discipline per day. On average, it takes 5 units of discipline (with transaction costs) to make a good decision and enforce a desired new behaviour. You can make 16 disciplined decisions/actions, but after that, you’re out of willpower. If you train your cognitive abilities and discipline power, you can maybe reach 120 units of discipline per day. That means 24 disciplined decisions, and thus you’re making progress much faster. But if your (global) maximum is 120 units, there’s only one more thing you can do to get even more disciplined. You can lower the transaction costs in a way that every decision takes fewer units of discipline. If you manage to decrease them from 5 to 4, you get 6 new disciplined decisions, that is 30 in total. Going from 16 to 30 means being almost twice as disciplined and productive.

    Low transaction costs

    Transaction costs and your discipline

    The easiest way to lower the necessary willpower and other resources for making good decisions and following a new desired behaviour is by decreasing transaction costs (or, in some cases, increasing them for undesired behaviour). By doing this, you have more willpower and cognitive abilities available to be more disciplined and organized in other activities during the day.

    The formula for manipulating transaction costs is very simple.

    • You want to automate wherever possible, and minimize the number of irrelevant decisions to zero, so there are no transaction costs at all.
    • For a desired (new) behaviour, you want to decrease transactional costs to the minimum, really going as low as possible.
    • For an undesired behaviour, you want to increase transactional costs to the maximum, always putting new obstacles in your way.

    Let’s look at some practical examples.

    You want to get in shape. Having a bag of chips at home means it takes you almost zero energy to start eating unhealthy food. All you have to do is take the chips out of the cupboard, open the bag and you can start stuffing your face with junk food. The transaction costs are almost zero. If you always have chips and cookies on the kitchen counter where you can just grab the unhealthy snack, transaction costs are nearly zero. Having cookies in your pocket means that transaction costs really are zero. You’re constantly tempted and undesired behaviour takes zero effort.

    On the other hand, if you don’t have any junk food at home, the transaction costs are much higher. You have to change your clothes, drive to the grocery store or gas station, decide which junk food to get, buy it, come home, and only then can you enjoy your snack. It takes much more effort and energy, thus transaction costs are quite high. The further you have to drive, the higher the cost. At some point transaction costs are so high, you rather eat an apple than make all the effort to get to the junk food.

    Let’s look at another example from a different perspective. If you live close to the gym, if you always have your training gear near you, if you can just step through your door and start running or jump into the pool, the transaction costs to start exercising are low. It takes a minimum of your willpower, time and other resources to start training. But if you have to drive far to get to the gym, if you always have to call your friends to find a gym buddy, if your sports bag is not ready etc., the transaction costs are high and it takes a lot of effort to start the desired behaviour.

    By decreasing or increasing transaction costs, you can manipulate your discipline a lot, especially in the beginning when you’re enforcing new desired behaviour and developing new healthy habits. Make sure that it takes a lot to perform an undesired behaviour and that there are almost zero transaction costs for the new habits you want to develop.

    Here are some additional ideas for how you can manipulate your discipline with transaction costs:

    • When you get your paycheck, automatically transfer a certain amount to your savings account. Automate paying yourself first.
    • Don’t just impulsively buy expensive things with a credit card when you are in the shopping center. Make a system with many check points that you have to cross in order to buy an expensive item. For example, first you have to put the item on a wish list, discuss it with your partner, wait a few weeks, find the best price etc.
    • Make your files, folders and apps that lead to your progress easily accessible with shortcuts, bookmarks etc., and delete all entertainment apps and folders that are constantly distracting you. You can also install a web-nanny that blocks your social networks if you use them too much.
    • Unplug your TV and change your programs so you’ll never ever turn your TV on again.
    • Always have a book with you and put one next to your bed. You can also do the same with banana.
    • When you’re doing focused work, turn off your mobile phone (it takes quite an effort to enter all the pass-codes and PINs) and make it hard as hell to open e-mail or any other distraction apps
    • Use e-mail templates with Yesware and automation apps like IFTTT.
    • You can dress yourself the same every day, like Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs did. That’s how you’ll save cognitive decisions and willpower for other, more important things.

    There are many other ways of manipulating transaction costs. Think of the behaviours and habits you want to get rid of and make it as hard as possible to get started. On the other hand, make it as easy as possible to start and perform the good habits and enforce new behaviour. If you additionally manipulate habit triggers and rewards, you will become a superhero of self-discipline sooner or later.

  • Level up your game

    I’m a big fan and promoter of constantly improving yourself, of striving after personal linear and rapid improvements that lead to a better quality of life, especially because this increases your capacity to create, connect (love) and enjoy life. You should always challenge yourself, push yourself out of your comfort zone, try new things, and progress towards your ideal self, step by step. But that is just one side of the coin.

    Sometimes improving yourself bit by bit isn’t enough. The improvement process could be too slow and your impatience could lead to you completely giving up sooner or later. Sometimes you wish for something really bad or maybe you simply lag behind so much that you simply have to take a different approach. I call it levelling up your game.

    Usually the story goes like this. You set a new goal, something that really inspires you. You take the first step and you see how much it takes to achieve your goal, how long and demanding the process is. You persist for a few more steps and then you give up. You start whining, bitching and complaining about how shitty life is. I’ve seen situations like this many times. Of course this also happened to me several times.

    That kind of a sharp ascent (motivational bust) and descent (disappointment) especially happen especially when your skill levels are completely discordant with your big goals and, at the same time, you don’t have the patience to follow the process. Your short moment of impatient arousal leads to facing hard reality and your naivety, then anxiety follows until you finally back off. It’s like trying to run a marathon with sprints when you don’t even know how to walk.

    One way to deal with that kind of a situation is, of course, to lower your goals, to take smaller steps and consider the process phases. You take one big step back to make three steps forward somewhere in the future. But what if you want something really bad, what if you’re really impatient and want to speed up the process?

    It’s time to level up your game

    When you want something really bad, something that’s way out of your league and your skills are way behind, you simply have to level up your game. That’s how you speed up the process. You can basically achieve everything you want in the world (considering physical limits), if you approach it from the right angle, with the right mind-set, strategy, focus, skills and persistence.

    Where you are in life and what you currently face is merely a reflection of who you are and how you think. Your past decisions led you to where you are right now. If you upgrade your thinking and your skills, if you become more creative and educated, if you find a new way to achieve something etc., you’re on the path to something I call “leveling up your game”.

    • You want to acquire more wealth. Don’t complain about how there are no opportunities and how hard it is to earn money. Start reading books about money and investing, hell, read one book a day, join investment clubs, save every dollar, do research on how to earn extra money, become a producer, develop a skill that’s in great demand on the job market and so on. Focus on money and wealth, and commit yourself to levelling up your game regarding money. If you’re way behind from where you want to be, that’s the only way to do it. From knowledge to markets, everything is accessible to you, the only question is whether you will put yourself in a position of a victim or a winner.
    • You want to have a more active sexual life or meet your perfect spouse. Don’t complain about how there are no opportunities and how there are no people that fit you. That’s bullshit. There are 7 billion people on this planet. Many of them can really enrich your life and you can experience awesome things with them. But not if you lock yourself in a room, watch TV, eat popcorn and hope that the perfect person will knock on your door. If you feel that you lack love, sex, friends, perfect spouse or even business partners in your life, you simply have to level up your game. Read all available books on how to approach and meet new people, how to have the best sex of your life, what women/men want in a relationship, how to manage arguments, how to contribute to a relationship, and so on. Become a master of relationships.
    • You want a career advancement. Don’t bitch, whine and complain about how life is unfair and how your co-worker got promoted instead of you. Don’t blame life, God, financial crisis or anyone/anything else. Simply level up your game. Study the industry you work in, write down all your creative ideas, analyse the decision makers in your company, make new alliances, contribute more value, learn new skills and competences, bring in new customers (that always helps), learn more executive or diplomatic skills, manage your time better and so on. Simply level up you game.
    • You want to become better looking or get into better shape. Don’t complain and comfort yourself with a bag of chips. Simply level up your game. See yourself as an athlete, one way or another. Raise your standards. Find a sport you like, donate 100 dollars every time you eat something shitty, if you can’t do sports stretching, do yoga or pilates, work out with resistance bands, go for a swim or whatever. Buy better clothes, work on your posture, groom yourself, put a smile on your face, and so on. Start seeing your body as a temple you have to take care of (internally and externally) and start respecting yourself more. If you want to become better at a sport you like, again, level up your game. Learn new tricks, train harder and learn faster.
    • You started blogging and want to have a successful blog. I do and I’m far from the goal of what I want to achieve with this blog. My skills are simply lagging way behind my goals. I could complain and whine about why I haven’t started blogging in English 10 years ago when the market was still new, why I wasn’t born in an English speaking country, and so on. But that’s simply a waste of time and energy. Complaining never got anyone anywhere. If I want to have a successful blog, I have to simply level up my game. From improving my English, spending more time on distribution, becoming better in search engine optimization, connecting my content to search queries better, writing more catchy headlines, doing guest blog posts and so on. If I don’t level up my game, I have zero chances of making this blog really successful.

    Whatever the goal you want really badly is, and no matter how far behind you are with your skills, simply focus on leveling up your game. I like the quote that you’re never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, who cares, what matters is that you believe in yourself and that you believe you can achieve your goals by levelling up your game – becoming more educated, smarter and hardworking, more creative and innovative, better connected, more resourceful and so on.

    Before and after leveling up your game

    How to level up your game

    You want something really bad. The thing you want is way out of your league. You decided to level up your game. Good. Now let’s look at some general guidelines for how to approach the situation when you decide to level up your game. This is how your master plan should look like:

    There is nothing that can come in between

    The first and most important thing is your mindset. The one and only mindset you must have when leveling up your game is that there is nothing that will come between me and leveling up my game. No distractions, no temptations, no obstacles, nobody and nothing. In order to level up your game, you simply have to commit yourself 100 %. You have to put yourself in a state of complete focus.

    Trust me, there will always be temptations, there will be distractions when you decide to focus. You will get invitations to events, you will be tempted by many different goals that seem a lot easier to achieve, and you will even be tempted to give up. But if you really want something badly enough, you will keep yourself focused and disciplined, showing only determination, iron will, and you will give no mercy to anything that could come between you and your leveling up your game. Of course hurting other people, doing any kind of damage to yourself, to others or to the environment isn’t allowed.

    Get educated

    Acquiring and applying knowledge is power. If you don’t have the most advanced knowledge in the area you want to achieve your goal in, you will stay in the amateur league. The rule is simple: go for the best knowledge there is. There is too much information, too many fakes, copycats and misleading gurus. Simply go for the best knowledge there is. It’s not hard to separate the wheat from the chaff.

    The knowledge you acquire should be eye-opening, it should change how you look at the world, your behaviour patterns, your values and beliefs. The best knowledge should encourage you to apply it as quickly as possible. By acquiring and embracing the best knowledge, you should basically feel how your mind is being upgraded.

    When you decide to level up your game, read about a certain specific topic all the time. Focus your information consumption and forget about everything else. Read when you wake up, read before you go to sleep, when you stand in queues and whenever you have a minute of free time. Take a speed-reading course and read even more and faster. Read one book per day, if necessary. Listen to audio books, take online courses or whatever else works best for you. Get educated like a pro.

    Build an environment that supports your leveling up

    When leveling up your game, you need to redesign your physical environment to the point that it completely supports your mind-set and skills being upgraded. Change the wallpaper on your computer, install new apps on your smartphone, always take a book (or Kindle) with you wherever you go, put posters and reminders in your home and car. Build an optimal environment that will support you in leveling up your game.

    In addition to that, manipulate transaction costs. Transaction costs are about how much energy it takes you to start and stop doing something. For example, if you don’t have any shitty food at home, there’s a much bigger probability that you won’t eat it, because you have to get out of your pyjamas, drive to a grocery store, and all that takes time and energy. The transaction cost is high. On the other hand, if you have a bag of cookies in front of you all day, you will constantly be tempted, and sooner or later your discipline will fail. The transaction cost is basically zero. Make sure that transaction costs support your new desired behavior and leveling up your game.

    Surround yourself with new people

    Besides reading, the fastest way to acquire new knowledge and to stay motivated is to surround yourself with new people, with people who have already done what you want to do or are way ahead on the path towards it. Spending time with people who have more knowledge and more experience will put you on a fast-track to leveling up your game.

    The good news is that most people love to help others, and usually all you have to do is ask. Join clubs and online forums, go to seminars, meet up groups, register for trainings, there are many ways of meeting new people and joining new social groups – online and offline. If you aren’t good at socializing, first level up your game in this regard. It will help you a lot with all your other goals.

    Throw yourself into the water

    Last but not least, you have to throw yourself into the water. Not too deep water, so you don’t drown. But the key is to apply the acquired knowledge into practice as soon as possible. You need to start gathering feedback from your environment immediately, you need to start testing new approaches and experimenting with different mind-sets. That is how you will learn the most and progress the fastest.

    You can read thousands of books about riding a bike but at the end of the day, the point is to actually sit on a bike and enjoy the ride. The actual experience is where you learn the most and what the point of leveling up your game really is – playing the game on the master level. You have to remember that it’s not only about the goal or the endgame you want, but also about enjoying the path towards it.

    Failure is not an option

    We’ve started this blog post by talking about the mindset, and so we should also finish with it. When you really commit to something, when you concentrate all your time, energy, stamina, willpower and other resources on one thing, that thing will grow fast. Magic happens. You will be able to see how fast you improve and how you are playing the game on a totally new level.

    When you see rapid progress like that, you simply know that failure is not an option anymore. And that motivates you even more to become an even better master of something. It’s so simple to bitch, whine and complain, and to put yourself in the position of a victim. But that’s such a waste. You only have one life and so much to experience. Instead, decide to level up your game. Decide that you’ll play with the people in the best league the world knows; and for that, level up your game. Start now!

  • Biofeedback

    In its broadest sense, biofeedback is an important and popular trend that can help you stay healthy and have a better quality of life. When I talk about biofeedback, I’m talking about using or being connected to electrical devices and sensors that help you to receive information (feedback) about your body (bio). That’s the simple reason why it’s called biofeedback.

    Having information about your current state of the body can help you take action and achieve the health result you want more easily, for example reducing the pain and stress level or enhancing your physical performance. The greater the awareness you have of your physiological functions, the easier you can manipulate them and take the right actions. The actions you can take are most often closely connected to changes in your thoughts, emotions and behaviour. In other words, you apply data about your body processes to your personal development plan.

    Most frequently, biofeedback is connected to measuring brainwaves, heart function, breathing, muscle activity and skin temperature using sensor modalities like EMG, EDG, EEG, PPG, ECG, REG, HEG, and so on. But since biofeedback is such a cool buzzword, I also use it for simpler body measurements with devices you can afford. With more and more smart and wearable devices on the market, you can measure, observe and take note of many different body functions at home without any professionals.

    Basic biofeedback

    With more and more smart devices, sensors in your mobile phone and different applications, you can measure many variables of your body functions. They’re very good for measuring inputs (calories intake for example), your body function status (heart rate or weight, for example) and the outputs you get with changing your behaviour (brainwaves when meditating or body fat percentage when changing your diet, for example).

    What’s not only a fact of life but also true for your health is that wrong assumptions are the mother of all fuckups. You don’t want to take actions that influence your health based on your assumptions, but rather actions based on actual data that is as accurate as possible. You can manage only what you measure. Thus your set of biofeedback devices should act as a kind of sixth sense that allows you to see or hear activity inside your body and take more appropriate action.

    Here are the variables you can simply measure with smart devices and applications that are easily available to you on the market:

    • Aerobic activities – walking, running, hiking etc.
    • Anaerobic activities – reps, load etc. when weightlifting
    • Blood pressure
    • Blood sugar
    • Body Fat Percentage
    • Body Mass Index
    • Brainwaves
    • Calories intake
    • Hearth rate
    • Lean Body Mass
    • Nutrition intake
    • Sex
    • Skin temperature
    • Sleep Analysis
    • Weight

    By taking a relatively cheap test, you can also get feedback on your:

    • Blood analysis
    • Breathing
    • Hormone levels
    • Muscle tension
    • Many others

    Biofeedback watch

    Devices and applications

    There are more and more devices and applications on the market that enable you to monitor different body functions. In the near future, we can expect even more devices, much more capable ones that will measure an even broader set of functions more accurately and in more detail. Of course wearable technologies and medical devices are also a big business opportunity.

    Here are some devices and applications I use for biofeedback fitness:

    Online, you can find many lists and reviews of different devices and applications.

    Challenges of biofeedback

    There are of course some challenges when implementing biofeedback in your life. The first and biggest challenge is time, discipline and thus additional stress. It’s not easy to examine your day-to day life and status of the body’s processes. It’s important to take things step by step, from basic measurements to the more advanced ones. Automating as many things as possible also makes sense.

    The second problem is the financial cost. You have to invest some money into an application, devices etc. They’re not that expensive, but you still have to spend some money. Again, going step by step and making sure you actually use the devices you buy is the best way to go. Otherwise you’re just wasting your resources.

    Actions you can take

    Based on the biofeedback, you can take different actions for your health, mood and energy levels. Most actions are connected to some sort of relaxation or behavioural changes. Thus biofeedback can’t do magic (yet) and cure you of different diseases, but it can definitely help you manage your body and energy levels better. You also get faster feedback if something is going into the wrong direction, for example your body fat percentage.

    Apple Health Dashboard
    Apple Health Dashboard, Source: Huffington Post

    The most popular actions you can take based on biofeedback:

    • Dietary changes
    • Taking supplements
    • Emotional accounting
    • Exercise decrease or increase
    • Meditation
    • Reframing
    • Changing sleep patterns
    • Stretching
    • Visualization
    • Water intake

    Biofeedback can help you the most with your fitness and energy levels, getting in shape, managing anxiety, stress and insomnia, headaches and other similar tensions. The final goal of all the effort is using all the data for personal development and behavioural changes to optimize your daily life, potential, how you feel and how much you can achieve.

    In the future, I’ll show detailed examples of how I use different devices to gather feedback about my body functions.

    Disclaimer: In this blog post, biofeedback is meant in a very broad meaning of the word, measuring basic health stuff with devices you can buy on the market. The blog post doesn’t give any advice for serious health issues. If you are experiencing a serious health issue, you should consult your doctor.

  • Problem-solving mindset

    Let me tell you two stories. The first one is about my water heater. One morning I wanted to make myself a nice tasty herbal tea. There is a button (1) on my water heater that opens the lid (2), where you pour in the water (see picture below). I pressed the button and it was stuck. I couldn’t make the button unstuck and I couldn’t open the lid. I was struggling for like ten minutes until I gave up. I boiled my water using the stove, which is just a little bit more work, but I was still pissed off. My only positive thought was about how water heater is a good invention. But the important part is that I was really annoyed.

    A few minutes after my water started to boil, my girlfriend woke up and came into the kitchen. She saw what I was doing and she knew that the water heater button for opening the lid was stuck. She said to me: “Why don’t you simply pour water through the hole (3) where the water comes out?” I was like, fcuk, such a simple solution to the problem and I hadn’t been able to see it myself, because I was too annoyed with the problem to even start thinking about alternative solutions. It’s no deal but it would safe me some effort and lots of emotional energy.

    Water Heater

    The same day, a friend sent me a link to a Kickstarter campaign named Smartphone Workout Shorts – Better Than Armbands. In the past two years, I have been in the gym many times. Several times, I took my mobile phone with me. I never liked arm bands and I always had the problem of where to put my phone. It slides out of your pocket, there are many exercises with weights that can crack your screen and so on.

    I was always bitching and complaining and thinking to myself about how “uncomfortable” life can be. I wonder how I would have survived a decade or two ago without all the technology we have available now that makes our lives super comfortable (well, toilet paper was invented not early than 1857). But to get back to the point: I never even once shifted my thinking from my pain/problem to possible solutions. The lesson here is not about the product itself, but about the simple solution every one of us could think of, if we had a problem-solving mindset instead of a bitch-whine-and-complain one. Having a problem-solving mindset is how you notice good business ideas.

    Working Out Pants

    From whining to problem-solving

    The next time you encounter a problem that pisses you off and you start to bitch, whine and complain, pause for a moment. Start managing you emotions and opening your mind to creative problem-solving thinking. That is what producers do. Start asking yourself questions like:

    • How could I solve my problem in the most creative and innovative way?
    • What kind of a product or service would solve my problem? Could I build it?
    • How could I innovate my way out of this situation?
    • What are the alternative ways of achieving my goal?
    • What would happen if I do the opposite?
    • What would MacGyver do in this kind of a situation?
    • Etc.

    You can’t be focused on a problem pissing you off and negatively thinking about “how hard” your life is, and be looking for a creative solution at the same time. Bitching, whining and complaining just takes too much of your mental bandwidth. Feeling like a victim in a specific situation has never brought any good solutions and creative ideas. But on the other hand, being inventive, creative, proactive and entrepreneurial usually always leads to some kind of progress. Maybe you don’t only solve a problem for yourself, but also come up with a million-dollar idea. There is always a step you can make, if you just keep your mind open and don’t block it with negative emotions.

    Always remember the famous quote: “Your mind is like a parachute, it only works when it’s open.” Your mind being open especially means that you know how to manage your negative emotions and thoughts that are preventing you from looking for the most creative solutions.

    For example, one of the cognitive distortions is called jumping to conclusions. If your mindset when facing a problem is that nothing will work, no matter what you try, then you definitely won’t find a solution.

    Thus keep you mind open, be creative and when you whine, bitch or complain about a problem, stop for a moment and shift your way of thinking. Ask yourself: what is the optimal way of thinking in the situation and how could I creatively solve the problem; keep your mind open and start brainstorming, testing and experimenting.