Blaz Kos

practical examples

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  • Endgame and final outcome

    Every activity or action you do in life leads to some sort of a final outcome. There are two ways of looking at this. The first approach is doing as you feel in a certain moment and letting the final outcome be a surprise. It’s a very spontaneous strategy, but one thing is for sure: you’ll probably end up in a totally different situation than you imagined.

    Most people go for this strategy. It’s much easier to go with the flow. It’s much easier to surrender yourself to your inherited behavioral patterns, environmental forces and outside stimulations. The problem is that a spontaneous strategy rarely leads to what you really want in life. If it were that easy, everyone would be happy and successful. The sad truth is that only dead fish go with the flow. Life wants you to struggle and fight for yourself.

    That leads us to the second strategy. The second strategy is having the final outcome in mind, the endgame you really want. After you have the final outcome in mind, you work on your personal development, you don’t react to environmental forces but are instead proactive and so on. You take initiative and control of your life. You become aware of your personal power and never let it go.

    Here, friction comes into play. The more your endgame and final outcome are different from your current situation and your path in the past, the more effort it will take to turn the ship the other way. You know the saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. A different desired outcome simply requires a different type of thinking and action. Thus if you want to attract different situations and final outcome in your life, you first have to change yourself.

    Of course this path isn’t easy, but it’s definitely worth it. This is how you develop your character, this is how you level up your game. You go for something that’s different from what was given or meant for you. You decide for a different, better direction. That means friction. That means struggling and fighting. But that also means reaping all the internal (character development) and external (goals you have) rewards.

    Always start with an endgame in mind

    Okay, so there are two possible strategies. One is that you let life kick you wherever it wants. It may be an easygoing strategy, but sooner or later, life will kick you somewhere you don’t want. The second strategy is to start with the endgame in mind and then work on yourself and actions that will lead you to the final outcome you want. The second strategy demands much greater efforts, but then the rewards are great as well.

    The second strategy will definitely bring you a better life in the long-term, but the question is why most people decide for the easier path. The real reason for that is that most people don’t even know what they really want in life. People have a really big problem answering the simple question of what they really want out of life. There isn’t much besides wanting a big stack of money. And if you ask them “What for?” the answer is: “You know, to not struggle and to enjoy more”. That’s definitely not a winning character.

    Thus the first step is always knowing what you want out of life. That’s why you start planning your life with a life vision. Your life vision is the list of everything you want to experience in this life. At the end, you’ll be very happy if you realize about half of the things on the list. Life is much shorter than we think. After having your vision and prioritizing things you want to experience, you also need to have an endgame in mind.

    The final game or endgame for every single thing you choose from your life vision list is your very detailed description of what you really want from life. Because the more exactly and clearly you know what you want, the easier it is to get it, the easier it is to build an adequate strategy. Let’s look at an example.

    Let’s say that your vision list contains being super fit at least once in your life, maybe especially when you’re young. In that case, this part of your life vision should be a really high priority, since you’re never going to be any younger than you are today.

    But what does being fit really mean to you? Here, having the final outcome or endgame in mind is important. Does it mean having a muscular body or running a marathon? Does it mean being able to climb the highest mountains or being really good at basketball?

    The idea is to have a really clear outcome in your mind. Try to visualize (imagine) your final outcome. You can also help yourself with making personas. Try to see yourself having a muscular body or finishing a marathon. Ask yourself which image sparks the most intense positive feelings in your body. Which image is the one that motivates you the most? That is your endgame. You need to have a really clear picture of what you want out of life. The more details you have about your final outcome, the better.

    Connect your every single activity with a final outcome

    You’ve probably heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is portrayed as a pyramid with the largest, most fundamental levels of needs at the bottom and the need for self-actualization at the top. The pyramid has six different types of needs. The most basic ones are physiological needs like air, water and sex. Then we have safety needs like personal and financial security. The next ones are needs of love and belonging to family, friends and spouse. Then self-esteem needs come into play, giving a sense of contribution and value. The final ones are self-actualization needs.

    Connect the dots
    To what outcome are your actions leading you?

    The lower you are on the pyramid, the clearer it is why you’re doing things. You need to breathe air with the final outcome to survive. Same goes for your shelter. But the higher you go on that pyramid, the less clear the outcome is defined. The higher you go on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the more it is up to you to define the final outcome you really want and then fight for it. The higher you are on the pyramid, the more life is a blank canvas and your job is to create as beautiful a picture as possible.

    Thus everything you do, every activity, action, connection or investment is connected to your final outcome. If it’s not on your vision list, if it doesn’t lead to the final outcome you desire, stop doing it. I know it’s hard and somehow scary to take control of your life, but it’s the only way to really live life to the full. Don’t do things just because you’re used to doing them or because the society expects you to do them or because you’re scared of trying something new. Do things that lead you to the outcome you want.

    • Are you having a fight with your friend or business partner? What is your most probable final outcome? Is that something you want?
    • Have you read a lot about a specific topic? What is your final outcome?
    • Do you watch TV a lot? What is your final outcome?
    • You don’t spend much time with your kids? What will be your final outcome?

    Ask yourself about the final outcome you want, especially when starting any new activity. Even if you don’t have a final outcome in mind, ask yourself where will your actions lead you. Don’t start something just because it sounds good or your friend asked you to. Think about the possible outcomes, think about the outcome you want the most. If there is no outcome you really want, save your energy for something that’s more important to you.

    An exception is the beginning

    The more you have control over your life, the easier and quicker you can decide if something is for you or not. The more you are mastering your life, the easier it is to connect activities with final outcomes. But beginnings are quite hard, especially the first step.

    Thus when starting to take control of your life, there’s nothing wrong if you try and experiment and decide for some activities that don’t yet lead to a clear outcome. What’s important in the beginning is that you kick yourself out of the comfort zone and just start doing something. It’s why you first need to be in the search mode and not put any pressure on yourself. With time, what you want becomes clearer and clearer, and you can so easily switch from the search to the execution mode.

    Staying flexible

    As I’ve mentioned, changing your life route is not a linear process. It takes a lot of trying, experimenting and failing. It’s not like: “okay, I’m going to change the course of my life”, then you struggle a little bit, and a miracle happens. Especially in the beginning, you have to stay open-minded, be prepared to fail and learn. Choosing yourself means that things never get easier, only you get better.

    But even after going from the search to the execution mode, you still have to stay flexible. There come times when you need to go back into the search mode. Life always throws you off the tracks from time to time, you do things based on wrong assumptions, you fall and things don’t go according to plans and so on.

    Your final outcome may be delayed, or may even have to change, but that’s a part of life. Because it’s not only about the final outcome, but also about the journey. That’s why you need the Agile and Lean Life approach. You have to stay flexible, you have to adjust your path to the final outcome or maybe even adjust the final outcome itself based on the feedback you’re getting from life.

  • Innovate your way out

    A very important fact of problem solving is that we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them, as Albert Einstein’s famous quote goes. In life, you will definitely face many problems and sometimes even severe setbacks. From time to time, life will seem totally unfair, hard and burdensome. Sometimes you may even feel like there is no solution to your problems. But in fact, there is always a step you can take towards a better life.

    Many situations in life demand from you to be creative and find an innovative solution. Proactively looking for new ways is the opposite of feeling sorry for yourself and giving up. Everyone can be creative and innovation is the essence of progress, including in your own life, especially if you find yourself in tough situations or want massive success. Thus when facing problems, think hard on how you could innovate your way out.

    Let’s look at an example now.

    A few years ago I started going to the gym. I never did any sports before in my life and thus I didn’t have really strong muscular foundations. After a few visits to the gym, I got pretty enthusiastic and started to increase the weight I lifted very fast. Legal supplements like creatine gave me extra power and enabled me to lift even more. But because I had no strong foundations, I of course hurt myself. I damaged my shoulder blades, elbow and wrist of my right arm – joints and ulnar nerve.

    After the injury, it was obvious that going to the gym and working hard on my muscles was not an option anymore. I felt really depressed. Truly depressed. For the first time in my life, I got enthusiastic about a sport, I could see my progress well, but now such a setback. I never thought that I’d feel depressed about not doing sports.

    In the beginning, I was stubborn, of course. “No pain, no gain”, as I’ve read in many articles and magazines. Thus I went to the gym a few times just right after my arm felt a little bit better. With this kind of thinking, I damaged my arm even more. I tried to solve the problem with the same kind of thinking that created it. “If I train harder, it will stop hurting,” I said to myself. How stupid.

    Path to success

    I needed to innovate my way out of the situation. I wanted to stay active and improve my fitness level. On the other hand, going to the gym wasn’t an option anymore. Thus I had entered the search mode, looking for sports I could do without hurting my arm. Along the way, it also became more than obvious that I’d have to strengthen my core muscles and improve flexibility if I wanted to do any sports seriously again in my life.

    I’ve tried many different sports and found a few that I can do without my arm hurting that much. Hiking (without hiking sticks), swimming, a few exercises like squats, etc. In addition to that, I’ve also found out that yoga, stretching and doing core exercises (planking, resistance band training etc.) really helps me a lot. Massages are a bonus on top of that. My progress is slower, of course, but the foundations will be much stronger in the long term for sure.

    Sometimes you have to take one step back in order to take two steps further. Sometimes your foundations are not strong enough for the masterpiece you want to build. Sometimes you push yourself too hard in the wrong kind of way and experience a severe setback. Just pushing forward with something that doesn’t work makes no sense. The definition of insanity is repeating the same behaviors and expecting a different outcome, if we go back to Einstein’s quotes. You have to stop and think. In that kind of a situation, you have to innovate your way out.

    path_to_success3

    There is always a step that can take you closer to your goal. It may not be a linear step, but life is never a linear path. It’s full of ups and downs, rights and lefts, sprints and stops. Life is supposed to be a daring adventure taking you to different places you’ve never even imagined; nice ones and difficult ones. That is how you grow.

    You will face challenges in all areas of life. When you face a challenge, don’t rush and don’t panic. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Start thinking. Start looking for new ways of getting out of the hole. Start being creative. Start innovating. Regardless of the area of life you’re facing challenges in.

    You can fire off your creative potential by asking yourself the right questions. Instead of feeling sorry for yourself, find a quiet place, take a piece of paper and a pen, and start thinking. Start analysing, start reflecting, think about new ways for improving and taking a step further in life. Start asking yourself difficult questions and look for unconventional solutions.

    Ask yourself questions like:

    • What are 20 things I can do and haven’t thought about yet to improve my situation?
    • What will happen if I go into the opposite direction?
    • Which are the best books that deal with my kind of situation and propose solutions? (read them)
    • Which negative behavioural patterns led me to where I am now?
    • How can I start doing things differently?
    • Which effort will bring the best results the fastest?
    • Who can help me – a friend, formal institution etc.?
    • What are the resources I can engage to get out of the situation faster?
    • What is optimal thinking in this kind of situations?
    • What would [x] do? Where [x] can be Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michel Jordan or whoever your role model is.
    • Why should I fight?

    Innovating your way out is not about getting rid of hardship and burden. It’s not about finding an easy way out (maybe only sometimes). It’s not about a miraculous solution that will easily solve your problems and take your life into a totally different direction. It’s about finding hope that it can be done. It’s about finding a path that encourages you and gives you strength and willpower to move forward. Innovating your way out is about striking an early win that motivates you to stand up and start walking.

    There’s one more catch when it comes to innovating your way out. Every innovation usually brings a decrease in short-term productivity and an increase in long term-productivity. Thus innovating your way out is the harder step in the beginning. It takes additional courage and effort to do it. But with time, the hard road becomes easy and the easy road becomes hard.

    Innovating your way out doesn’t mean doing anything stupid. It doesn’t mean finding a way to put out all of your aggression and dissatisfaction. It means finding a smarter way to get out of your situation. It means leveling up your skills, your thinking, and your beliefs. It means looking at the problem from a different angle and building a superior strategy with an adequate solution based on that angle.

    Have you found yourself having money problems? Tackle your money beliefs, educate yourself about money and investing, find a way to save one dollar a day, look for ways to earn some extra bucks, come up with a crazy business idea, become really good at something etc. Innovate your way out of money problems. It’s not easy, but it can be done.

    Are you facing a setback in your career? Innovate you way out. Change the industry, start blogging, take a new course, level up your skills with massive online open courses, write 1000 e-mails to people for new opportunities, do something that’s totally different from your previous behavioural patterns.

    Do you feel trapped in negative thinking and negative emotions? Don’t stay locked in an emotional cage. Innovate your way out. Read all the available books about psychoanalysis and cognitive distortions. Go see a therapist. Start meditating. Innovate your way out.

    Regardless of the life area, there is always something you can do. Be creative. Innovate. Find a new and better way to do things. Win.

  • Different speeds in life

    A very useful concept in life to understand is that you don’t have to do everything with the same speed. Sometimes going fast means being the least productive at all. Knowing how to slow down enables you to enjoy life more, build a better life strategy and, in the long run, allows you to be even more productive. The concept of using different speeds in life is important in personal as well as business life.

    Different speeds in your personal life

    There are things in life that you should do extremely slowly and there are things you should do extremely fast. The measurement for that is pretty simple. The more enjoyable an activity or a person is, the more your senses are engaged, the slower your pace should be. In situations like that, we’re unproductive if we rush, because we’re simply missing life. Stopping in the moment, engaging all the senses and enjoying life to the full is the most productive thing we can do sometimes.

    You can throw a tasty meal into yourself, just to make sure you’ve eaten something, or you can slow down, be grateful for the food, taste every bite and enjoy your meal to the full. You can just spend some time with your kid/spouse because it’s expected of you, or you can slow down and really pay full attention to a person with your body, mind, emotions and soul. You can just climb the mountain to conquer it or you can stop at the top and really enjoy the view.

    There are also things in life that you should do extremely fast. There are things in life you should automate. There are things in life you shouldn’t give any attention to at all. You should still do everything professionally and as it should be done, but you should make sure that it takes a minimal amount of your time, money and effort. Things like cleaning, bureaucracy, worrying, procrastinating etc.

    We also shouldn’t forget about things that you should sometimes do fast and sometimes slowly, depending on the situation. For example, having sex or doing sports. Doing it at different paces brings a whole different life experience. Maybe you should introduce a day into your life when you perform things that you usually do fast slowly and vice versa, just to be creative and to experience life in a new way.

    It’s not easy to slow down, especially if you were just doing something with maximum speed. Usually, you have to first consciously decide that you’ll slow down. It helps if you have, for example, a thing that you do as a signal to your body and mind to slow down, like taking five deep breaths. The second thing you usually have to do is unplug yourself from all communication devices and distractions. And thirdly, you have to trust yourself that everything will be okay, even if you slow down. You are not missing anything if you slow down when necessary – you start missing things if you don’t.

    Different speeds in your professional life

    Using different speeds is also very important in the business world. First of all, the concept of time management doesn’t only deal with managing your time, but also your energy. Thus it’s very important to adjust your speed to the energy level you have on a specific day.

    Sometimes you have a day when you’re extremely productive, other days it simply doesn’t work. Forcing yourself to work at your maximum speed when your energy levels are low only means hurting and doing damage to yourself. In the long run, your productivity decreases if you push yourself too hard. You have to sharpen the saw from time to time.

    It’s definitely true that it’s almost impossible to be successful and respected if you aren’t hard-working, fast, productive and you don’t deliver results. Execution skills, efficiency and speed are an important part of success in today’s fast moving and constantly changing world. But it’s also true that it’s not the hardest-working people who are at the top. A lot of research has shown that success doesn’t come only from being competent and hard-working.

    You also need to work smart. If you want superior results in life, you need a superior strategy. But to build a superior strategy, you need to slow down, you need to take time, you need to think, you need to self-reflect on your actions. In situations like this, slowing down means going the fastest possible. What good is it if you are rushing in the wrong direction?

    An important part of a superior strategy and success are also innovation and creativity. If you want to be successful, you have to be different and better. Creativity rarely happens when you’re rushing or you’re tense and in an anxious state. Creativity happens when you’re in the flow. Again, slowing down when you need to be creative may be the best move that brings you to the optimal speed.

    Going slow in the search mode

    When you’re in the search mode, you should definitely slow down. The search mode is about trying new things and reflecting on whether something works for you or not. To reflect well on something, you need to be in touch with yourself, you need to listen to your inner voice and to your emotions. You have to understand what a true part of you is and what inherited or social bullshit is. To do that, you have to go as slowly as possible. In the search mode, you play and you usually play relaxed and slow.

    But when you find your fit and start executing, you must accelerate. Speed is very important for winning, if you use it at the right time. Nevertheless, when it’s time to go fast, you should also constantly have a feedback mechanism that tells you if you’re going into the right direction. When the feedback tells you that you aren’t going in the right direction, you need to slow down and go back to the search mode to do reflection, build a new strategy and adapt. You should be prepared to speed up and slow down as many times as necessary in life.

    Driving through a day with different speeds

    The most important part of everything we’ve talked about is becoming aware that going through a day is like driving, in professional as well as private life. There are moments when you have to drive fast because you are on a highway, there are moments when you have to wait in a traffic jam, there are moments when you have to refill the gas tank and there are moments when you have to stop, just to take in the amazing view or have a chat with an awesome person.

    Don’t do everything in life fast or slowly. Don’t do everything in life with the same speed. Accelerate when necessary, or slow down. It will enable you to be much more productive, happy and successful. Different situations, different activities, different speed. Life is not a marathon or a sprint. Life is a combination of all kinds of running as well as taking a rest. For every activity you do, ask yourself: what is the optimal speed I should be going with?

  • Setting strong foundations

    The higher the skyscraper you want to build, the stronger foundations you need. Without strong foundations, the skyscraper will collapse sooner or later. It’s the same with achieving your goals in life. The more ambitious goals you have, no matter in which area of life, the stronger foundations you’ll have to build.

    The secret to setting strong foundations lies in Bruce Lee’s quote:

    “I fear not the man who has practiced 10000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10000 times.”

    Building strong foundations is a process. It takes patience and time, and you must do all the boring work over and over again. The skyscraper that everyone admires is the final result. Without the process, there is no final result.

    We all want the final result without the process. We all want our skyscraper without putting the effort into building it floor by floor and even more than that: we want it without setting strong foundations. Because it’s hard to set strong foundations. Extremely hard. But without strong foundations, without putting in the effort to build firmly floor by floor, there is no skyscraper to admire. At least not in the long-term.

    The stories in the media may fool you. There are exceptions in the world. Hollywood actors, teenagers selling their start-up for millions, winners of talent shows etc. But Hollywood is also a city of broken dreams. Silicon Valley is also a place of broken business dreams.

    There are thousands of failed start-ups for every one that had been sold, you can see millions of talented people on every talent discovery show but there are only a few who become famous. People love to read and watch overnight stories, because they give hope that it can be done without hard work. But hope is not a strategy, setting strong foundations is. It’s a strategy that brings overnight success, but only after years of hard work.

    Setting strong foundations

    Setting strong foundations in different areas of life

    It’s time to look at some practical examples.

    If you want to have a fit and healthy body, you must build strong foundations first. No pain, no gain could be the worst advice ever, if you don’t have strong foundations. You can seriously hurt yourself. Believe me, I’ve experienced it.

    Practical examples

    Health

    Going to the gym and pushing yourself to the maximum, doing hyper-intensive training, cross-fit or any other extreme form of exercise will break your body sooner or later, if you lack strong foundations. Your skyscraper will collapse and you’ll go many steps backwards.

    Strong foundations regarding your body are strong core, flexibility, good condition, warming up and cooling down, doing enough stretching, preparing your body for effort, increasing the amount of weight you lift bit by bit, good posture etc.

    Yoga and Pilates and planking and swimming and doing some sports in nature, like hiking, can help you build strong foundations. If you’ve been doing sports from a young age, maybe your strong foundations are already there; if not, you’ll have to start with the basics.

    Wealth

    The same goes for money. It doesn’t matter how much you earn, the thing that matters most is how much you save. If you can’t save money when you earn a little, you’ll never save money when you earn a lot. There’s a saying that if you can’t save money, the seeds of becoming wealthy are simply not in you.

    That may be true, but it’s also true that you can always improve, grow and change your behaviour. So if you don’t have it yet, you can seed the seeds in greatness in you with self-improvement.

    Look at the statistics for lottery winners. Most of them go back to being broke in a few years. Because they don’t have strong foundations. They start spending like crazy and have no money management skills. The large amount of money brings them happiness only for a short period of time. After they go broke, they’re usually less happy than before winning the lottery. Strong foundations are the ones that work in the long term.

    To lay down strong foundations regarding money, you have to start small. Pay yourself first. When you get your paycheck, put a small percentage of it to your savings account. Sell stuff you don’t need, start curbing you impulse buying decisions etc. Read about different types of investments.

    Become financially educated. Challenge your beliefs and money blueprint. There are many things you can and should do. Step-by-step, feeling proud of yourself for having a strategy and sticking to it.

    Career

    Let’s continue. If you want to have a promising career, you need to build strong foundation. Strong foundations are hashtag (#) shaped skills. You need to develop soft skills, like good communication skills, team work, networking skills and all other soft skills that are very important today.

    You also need general knowledge about a specific industry you’ve chosen to create in and add value to. These are your strong foundations. Based on that, you need to become an expert and develop a specific skill for which there is a great demand on the market and a short supply of. If you have two different kinds of expert skills that you can combine, your career potential is probably even better.

    Realtionships

    In order to have good key relationships in your life, you need strong foundations. That means having good communication skills, a great capacity for love, empathy and so on. If you want to receive, you have to know how to give.

    If you want to be empowered by other people, you must empower other people. If you want to be loved, you need to love yourself first.

    Why setting strong foundations is hard

    Setting strong foundations also means tackling all the problems that prevent you from building your beautiful skyscraper that everyone will admire. If you want to lay down strong foundations, you have to dig first. You have to dig deep and while doing it, clean all the shit out (but don’t confuse this metaphor with the saying that you have to stop digging if you are in troubles).

    I’m talking about all cognitive distortions, fears, mental bugs and other inherited and imparted psychological crap we all have to face. Much as you have to build a strong foundation on the physical level to be healthy, so you have to build strong foundations on your mental, emotional and spiritual level to be successful in all other areas of life.

    Setting strong foundations can also be fun, not only boring and straining. For example, you can improve your intellectual capacity by learning how to play an instrument, trying to draw, playing Scrabble, reading books, solving Sudoku or crossword puzzles, maybe you can learn how to program and so on. There are many ways for how you can train to lay down strong foundations; and you may enjoy some of these ways.

    For finding exercises that you enjoy in life and that will help you to lay down strong foundations, you can use the search mode concept. You can try, you can experiment, you can reflect and listen to yourself, to see what suits you best.

    Your skyscraper is never really finished

    It doesn’t matter if you’re setting strong foundations, building your skyscraper floor by floor or fine polishing on the roof, you should know when you are in the search mode and when you are in the execution mode.

    Even after setting the strong foundation, there are always new challenges in life, new setbacks, new obstacles, new ways of doing things etc., that require of you to go back into the search mode and learn. You have to continuously improve yourself. Your work is never really finished until your last breath.

    Homework

    Everything starts with a strong foundation. Use the search mode concept to help you identify all the activities that will help you lay down strong foundations. Execute it and build them to be as strong as possible. Strong like concrete.

    Go back to the search mode and experiment and learn about what would be the best way for you to build the skyscraper as high as possible. Execute it, with agile sprints and by being in the flow. When you face a setback, go back into the search mode and by experimenting, discover new ways of building your skyscraper even higher. That is a superior strategy in life.

    And remember, if you start to feel like your skyscraper is shaking, climb down, look at your foundations and strengthen them if necessary. Don’t let your life collapse because you’re greedy or want too much too soon. Don’t be afraid to progress slowly, be afraid to stop.

    Now start digging and building concrete strong foundations in the area of life you’ve disregarded the most.

  • First go after the low-hanging fruit

    An important fact in life is that with time, the hard road becomes easy and the easy road becomes hard. If you don’t make steps forward in life, you go backwards. If you don’t improve, you regress. By putting in extra effort and stepping out of your comfort zone, you level up your skills and become more competent.

    It’s also true that to achieve your maximum potential in life, you must have a long-term perspective and the will to curb your desires for instant gratification. But to stay motivated, you also need to see the results of your hard work as soon as possible.

    To stay motivated, you need to see the results of your hard work as soon as possible.

    That is why business knows the so-called concept of “low-hanging fruit”. The low-hanging fruit are simply targets and goals that are easily achievable. It’s the concept most often used in sales, meaning that you first try to sell your products to the customers that are the easiest to sell to.

    It’s obvious that there’s not a lot of low-hanging fruit. Sooner or later, it runs out and you must start putting in more and more effort to meet your goals. Thus a completely wrong approach is to go only after the low-hanging fruit. Nevertheless, going after the low-hanging fruit first and then intensifying the effort with a long-term view in mind makes a lot of sense. It’s probably the winning combination.

    The low-hanging fruit

    The low hanging fruit are your early wins

    Early wins are very important, because they boost your self-confidence. Early wins motivate you and show you that it can be done. Early wins push you to go forward and achieve more. Early wins help you to go from the search to the execution mode. Early wins help you to overcome fatigue before achieving your final goal.

    On the other hand, early failures can dampen your spirits. They can make you regret that you’ve even tried. Early failures usually happen because you go way out of your comfort zone into the panic zone, or because of naivety, lack of focus, lack of strategy or lack of flexibility.

    In the search mode, it’s expected of you to fail and learn. But when you find your fit and start executing, you really do need early wins.

    Besides the low-hanging fruit, there are several other options to help you with the transition from the search mode to the execution mode. Here’s a list of what you can do to keep yourself motivated:

    • Low-hanging fruit and early wins
    • Motivating environment (pictures, reminders, wallpapers…)
    • Like-minded people (new friends, mentors, coaches…)
    • List of pains and gains for achieving your goal
    • List of your past achievements
    • Gratitude
    • Visualization and affirmations
    • Other mechanisms

    But now it’s time to go back to low-hanging fruit.

    Low-hanging fruit in different areas of life

    Let’s look at different areas of life, how and why the low-hanging fruit is so important.

    We can start with health. First, as advised on this blog, you should enter the search mode – read about different diets, try different foods and sports, talk to people, listen to your body, gather information and feedback. You should try to find your best fit. After that, you should decide to stick to a specific new diet and practice the selected sport regularly every week. You decided to go from the search mode into the execution mode.

    Okay, let’s say that you’ve been in the execution mode for a week. You can clearly see that it takes a lot of discipline, effort, time and even money to make changes regarding your fitness and health. It’s clear that it will take weeks if not even months to see a real body transformation and an improvement of your fitness level. But you need motivation through all these weeks before seeing real results. You need motivation to keep walking after your first step.

    You can definitely stay motivated by changing your computer wallpaper, finding an exercising buddy, making a photo of yourself every week to see progress and so on. But you should also consider low-hanging fruit that can help you with your transition.

    Here are some ideas for low-hanging fruit:

    • Before doing any serious exercise, take a walk every day with your best friend, just to feel better and to see how good it is to be filled with oxygen. At first, it shouldn’t feel like hard exercise at all.
    • Groom your body to look better in the mirror.
    • Go to a spa or a massage to connect with your body better (or do yoga).
    • Drink a lot of water so your body will cleanse and you’ll feel better.
    • Start using olive oil, brown sugar, Himalayan salt etc. as reminders that you eat healthier.
    • For once, don’t eat that hamburger, order a healthier meal and feel good about yourself etc., you will start feeling proud of yourself and strengthen your willpower

    The domino effect

    Small decisions will lead to greater changes and they will accumulate. It’s called the domino effect or compunding interests. With employing this strategy you’ll start seeing progress and feel better even in a very short period of time. Other people will start to see your progress and after the first compliments, your desire and will for improvement will grow even stronger.

    Practical examples

    It’s the same in all other areas of life. The low-hanging fruit for money is to save a little. Don’t buy one item you always buy in the grocery store, maybe ask for all the change back, maybe there’s something you buy every day out of habit but don’t really need, you can reprogram your debt etc.

    On the other hand, you can sell things you don’t need, you can ask for a raise, you can do some extra work etc. You can make small changes without any big shock. When you see money piling up, you’ll become motivated to implement bigger changes.

    If you want to improve your relationships, for example by meeting new friends or spouse or being more social, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit. The easiest way to meet new people is to be introduced to friends of your friends. It’s also very easy to renew relationships with some of your old friends you’ve lost contact with. It’s also very easy to make new friends by using social networks and so on.

    As you can see, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit in different areas of life. The problem, as mentioned before, is that you run out of it very fast. But the purpose of low-hanging fruit and early wins is not to make life completely easy, but to motivate you more and to keep you on the right track.

    For every new thing you want to do in life, first enter the search mode to make the map of the terrain and then think about the low-hanging fruit that can help you with the transition into the execution mode and keep you motivated on the path to achieving your final goal.

    Low-hanging fruit for this blog as an example

    There is another example we can look at. It concerns this blog. Because the market is saturated, with more than 2 million blog posts being published per day, it’s very hard to acquire organic traffic. And you need thousands of dollars to get any real visibility by using paid channels. It’s a challenge that can test your motivation.

    In the long term, both paid and organic traffic are the ways to go, but in the middle, some low-hanging fruit is essential. To start seeing first results, to make different tests and experiments, to stay motivated, to keep writing articles and marketing the blog, the low-hanging fruit is the first step to do.

    Here is a list of 20 ideas for low-hanging fruit I tried when I started my blog:

    1. Writing to people in my address book and telling them that I’ve started a new blog
    2. Linking to my blog from all my Slovenian pages
    3. Posting blog posts on social media (Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter)
    4. Starting to follow people on Twitter and getting some traction
    5. Making and pinning images with quotes on Pinterest
    6. Publishing summaries of articles on LinkedIn influencers
    7. Writing a few short guest posts per month
    8. Finding and posting on productivity and personal development forums
    9. Writing comments on productivity and personal development blogs
    10. Answering questions on social media like Quora
    11. Posting blog to all directories, aggregators, RSS lists and other similar sites
    12. Making and posting Agile and Lean Life slides on SlideShare
    13. Adding a signature to my e-mails
    14. Sharing blog posts on social groups (Facebook Groups, Reddit…)
    15. Submitting an article to PDF sites
    16. E-mailing people who I think would be interested in the content
    17. Using people on fiverr to help me gain traction
    18. Posting on Scoop.it and Squido Lenses
    19. A little bit of paid traffic won’t hurt
    20. Making a blog exchange network could also be a way to go

    Stay motivated and keep going towards your goal by first picking up the low-hanging fruit. Bon appétit.

  • The best preventive cure for your mistakes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The best preventive cure for your mistakes

    Perfect fit is the best preventive cure for your mistakes

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

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

    Practical examples

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    In summary when you find your fit in life:

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

    Find your fit and shine

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

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

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

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

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

    Resources -> Product-market fit -> More resources

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

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