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success

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  • Morning and evening habits and rituals

    You make hundreds upon hundreds of smaller and bigger decisions about your life and your future every day. A lot of those decisions are more or less the same every day. They’re called habits and we are creatures of habits. Our habits are what defines us most, especially in the long term; because they accumulate.

    There are actually two ways of succeeding in your life or messing it up:

    • You make one big right or wrong decision (for example what you study, who you marry, the friends you choose, the markets you operate in, etc.)
    • You make right or wrong small decisions each day (for example you go for healthy or junk food, how much money you spend, do you watch TV or prefer to read etc.). Let’s now focus on these small decisions you make every day, called habits.

    Positive habits, like brushing our teeth regularly, exercising, reading, trying new things, analysing ourselves, etc. lead to our constant improvement and evolution, and thus increase our capacity for productivity, creativity, longevity, income and so on. On the other hand, a lack of positive habits or negative habits like smoking, drinking, clinging to anger or depression, watching TV and so on, decrease our capacity to create, truly enjoy life and contribute.

    Don’t get me wrong, we all need to relax and release some tension from time to time, just let it go. That isn’t a habit, that’s perfectly normal and it leads to better long-term performance. For example, resting and doing “nothing” one day per week makes other six days of the week much more productive, especially in the long run. We all need to give ourselves a break from time to time.

    The problem is a lack of daily positive habits, since for some people they don’t even exist at all. Not doing things that improve your body, mind, emotions and spirit on a daily basis means going back, not forward. It means throwing away your potentials. It means lagging behind and making your position worse. When you take a very passive approach to living in that kind of way, life kicks your butt from time to time – you know, you lose a job, you break up etc. – but it’s usually not enough to really change. It’s just a reminder that you constantly have to struggle, fight and push yourself.

    As already mentioned, positive daily habits accumulate through time. You become a little bit better every day and in the long run, it makes a huge difference. With a new positive habit, you can become a completely new person in a few years. With a new positive habit, you can upgrade your body, mind, emotions and spirit in the long run, and that’s what really leads to a better performance and happiness.

    Of course the big challenge is developing a new positive habit. It’s usually true that motivation gets you started and habit keeps you going. That’s why you first need a strong why and then follow the process through which you also develop new habits.

    Nevertheless, developing habits really is very hard, so let’s look at a few tricks for developing a new habit. Before we even begin with the tricks, remember that you can’t implement too many changes in your life at once; and habit is change. Thus you should implement one new healthy habit at a time. One positive change usually represents an early win and that will motivate you to implement even more new habits. For example, when exercising gives you the first results, you will automatically also be more motivated to eat a healthier diet.

    But now, let’s look at the tricks. Every habit starts with a reminder, a trigger. After the trigger, the routine starts, your subconscious autopilot. At the end, there is the reward. The reward brings you pleasure; but the key question is what kind of a pleasure you’re focusing on. There’s usually a conflict between short-term gratification (immediate pleasure) and achieving long-term goals (true pleasure). If you change focus from the former to the latter, your life will change dramatically.

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

    Here are three tricks you should do:

    The first one is having a “why” that’s so strong it puts instant gratification to shame. Your long-term pleasures must dominate your short-term appetites. You have to see instant gratification as pain, and following your true goals as pleasure. Let me give you an example.

    Let’s say that you want to eat a really unhealthy meal and it’s right in front of you. You can get instant gratification from eating it. It smells so good, it tastes excellent and your cravings are strong. The short-term reward you get from eating a fast-food meal is immediate. The pain of getting fat and getting a medical condition is somewhere in the future. And when we’re hungry, our brain couldn’t care less about our long-term goals and our future.

    Now let’s turn things around a little bit.

    Let’s say your goal is to train your body and become really fit. You’ve found the sports you like and the diet your body best responds to in the search mode, you’ve decided to follow and trust the process; and the process doesn’t include eating fast food.

    You have a greasy, unhealthy meal in front of you. With your goals and process in mind, that meal should represent pure pain for you, not pleasure. You should see how not eating that meal is a reward for you and eating it is a big misery. By having a strong enough “why” (why you want to become fit, in this case), that should be easy. But you’re still hungry… and that’s how we come to the second trick.

    The best way to develop a new positive habit is by exchanging a bad habit for a new, positive one. Every time a trigger comes into play, decide for a new routine, have a new personal reward system in mind. That’s the best way to develop a new healthy habit.

    Every time a hamburger is put in front of you, just nod your head, and order a super healthy meal; eat a carrot or a banana or whatever. Every time someone turns on the TV, go read a book. Every time someone orders an alcoholic drink, order yourself a smoothie or a lemonade. Every time you want to buy an expensive latte, put the money in your piggybank instead. Every time you want to buy yourself a new fancy car you don’t need, go study investments you’re going to make.

    The third trick are the cues, triggers. There are two points every day in your life that work great as triggers for your healthy habits. It’s when you wake up and before you go to sleep. Throughout the day, we’re all usually extremely busy, running from one activity to a meeting to another task and so on. Your phone keeps ringing, your inbox is filling up and you face many unexpected events. Daily challenges slowly take away your capacity for discipline and cognitive abilities. It’s quite hard to follow any new serious habit during the day (well, it can be done, for example if you have a no-interruptions day, but it’s harder to do something new).

    But before 9am and after 9pm, everything is quiet and peaceful. They are the two time blocks of a few hours that you can really dedicate to yourself and your long-term goals. It’s even better if you connect the trigger of your routine for waking up and going to sleep with a healthy habit. Then you’ll definitely be a winner in the long run.

    Your own personal rituals

    Your morning and evening habits should be more than just habits. They should be your personal rituals, something, you never miss, no matter what. Your personal rituals for keeping inner peace, focus, personal development, life planning, health and happiness.

    The best thing you can do in life is to first take care of yourself, and your personal rituals are the best way to do it. Because rituals are something divine and nothing should come in the way you of performing your rituals. You should put yourself first. Because if you’re happy, people around you will also be happy.

    • You can call your morning rituals the kick-off routine and
    • You can call your evening rituals your shut-down routine

    Make sure you have visual aids that remind you and help you stick to your morning and evening rituals. Have a Kanban board, a checklist or whatever works best for you. Another very important thing is to have zero distractions when taking time to carry out your morning and evening routine.

    Last but not least, your willpower is the strongest in the morning. That’s why your morning routine can be a little bit more demanding, and your evening routine should be more about relaxation and reflection and calming down.

    Since your willpower is the strongest in the morning, you should also plan to do your most complex and difficult tasks right after your morning routine.

    Ideas for morning rituals or kick-off routine

    Here are some ideas for the best morning rituals you can introduce into your life:

    • Be grateful for a new day and reinforce positive emotions, read a positive quote or two
    • Brush your teeth
    • Drink a glass of water first (with some lemon if that works for you)
    • Meditate for 10 minutes or more
    • Exercise or stretch if you don’t have time to exercise
    • Eat a healthy breakfast
    • Take a shower or a bath (end of the kick-off routine)
    • Daily stand-up meeting for planning

    Ideas for evening rituals or shut-down routine

    And here are some ideas for the best evening rituals you can introduce into your life:

    • Have an alarm on your phone to trigger your shut-down routine (9pm for example)
    • Meditate or do yoga
    • Read, read and, one more time, read (but not on electronic devices, exception being an e-reader); if you read right before going to sleep, read something lighter and not too intellectually demanding
    • Reflect on your day
    • Visualize your goals
    • Take a shower or a bath (end of the shut-down routine)
    • Be grateful for the day you had

    You first make your habits and then your habits make you

    Never forget that you first make your habits and then your habits make you. Your personal culture (values, beliefs, habits…) eats your strategy and goals for breakfast. An important part of your personal culture are also rituals. The more positive rituals you have in your life (in quantity and quality) the better; because you only have two options:

    • You either take good care of yourself or you neglect yourself
    • You either burn more calories than you consume in a day or not
    • You either spend less than you earn or you’re probably accumulating debt
    • You either improve and evolve, or you lag behind and waste your potentials
    • You either go up or out

    Make sure you have daily positive rituals in your life, as they will accumulate through time and lead to the things you want to experience in life. Having strong rituals is an important part of trusting and following the process that will lead you to your goal, your endgame. Strong rituals in your daily life are what prayers are to every religion; they are a must so you can stick to the process more easily.

  • Mind the process phases

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

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

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

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

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

    There are five phases in the process:

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

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

    Empathy or the search mode

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

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

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

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

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

    • Stop doing
    • Start doing
    • Continue doing

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

    Let’s look at an example.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Stickiness or finding your fit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Virality or becoming an evangelist

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Identity shift
    Source: The Power of Habit, James Clear

     

    Revenue or reaping real rewards

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Scaling or the execution mode

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

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

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

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

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

    So start with the why.

  • Process versus event

    There are two ways to get the things you want in life. One way, the very easy one, is that someone gives it to you. You inherit it, you win the lottery, you get lucky, your family or someone else simply gives it to you. You may have gotten good genes, you may have been born in a rich family, you may fall in love with the right person right away, you may have been born with good looks or intelligence. There’s nothing wrong with that, but almost nobody on Earth is born with all their big desires fulfilled; and if there were no other way of getting the things you want, the world would really be very unfair.

    That’s why we know the second way of getting the things we want in life. It’s called following a carefully orchestrated process. We can give different names to the thing you want, we can call it your endgame, your desired outcome, the final event or simply event. But to come to the event you want, process comes into play first. If you don’t respect and follow the process, it’s most likely that there won’t be a final event for you.

    The sad truth is that most people want the big events in their life without investing into the process. Most people look at the few people who were born lucky and feel sorry for themselves, wondering why they aren’t that lucky in life; even more: they see people who put all their effort into the long process as lucky. They see success, but they refuse to see years and years of hard work and the vigorous process that successful people have followed.

    As a consequence, people get mad at life as if life owes them something. But life owes you nothing, it was here first. Disregarding the process and giving away your personal power means giving away your potential to live a full and quality life. It means giving up your desires and dreams.

    You should remember two things. The first is that you’re never given a wish or a desire without also being given the power to make it come true. And the second thing is that life rewards those who master its rules and respect the process.You have to work hard for what you wish for.

    But it’s also true that following and respecting the process isn’t easy. You need a long-term view. First, you need to put in the effort and you only reap the rewards after a long time of investing. Following the process takes discipline, stamina, persistence, resilience, fast learning, competitive mind-set, smart work, hard work and much more. It’s only after years of hard work that the rewards and the events you wanted follow.

    The events you want in your life

    Having desires and needs is in the human nature. It’s in your nature to want things in life, especially avoiding pain and striving towards pleasure. It’s in our bones to progress, evolve, achieve and experience life as much as possible and be happy. It’s true that happiness has more to do with our inner state than outer rewards, but we still need achievements and good events to happen to us. You need to respect your own desires and needs.

    Here are the events most people (90 %) want in life:

    • Health: To have a ripped body and be fit
    • Relationships: To fall in love, have the spouse of your dreams and many honest friends
    • Money: To get rich or be financially well off
    • Career: To be respected and promoted, to have a good job/business
    • Competences: To be really good at something and contribute to the world
    • Emotions: To be happy and strong

    And here are the most important facts of life:

    • Having a ripped body is the final event, but to get fit, you must first follow the process
    • Falling in love with the right person is an event, but to get to that, you must first follow the process
    • Getting rich is the final outcome, but to get wealthy, you must first follow the process
    • Getting promoted is your endgame, but first you have to follow the process that will lead you to the promotion you want
    • Being good at something is the final event, but before that, you have to invest into the process
    • Being a happier person is an event, you can’t just decide to be happier, you must first follow a specific process to get there.

    All these are final events you probably want in life, at least some of the outcomes you might desire. Being aware and knowing what you want in life as clearly as possible is very important and the first step towards a better life. But after you know the events you want, it’s time to follow a carefully orchestrated process. As I already mentioned, the process is usually the thing that creates the events and final outcomes that most people see as luck.

    An interesting fact to mention here is that the same philosophy is the foundation of the lean start-up methodology. To quote Eric Reis, father of the lean start-up movement: “Start-up success is not a consequence of good genes or being in the right place at the right time. Start-up success can be engineered by following the right process, which means it can be learned, which means it can be taught.” The same rule applies to all other areas of your life.

    The process

    Let’s say that again, so you’ll really become aware of it. The process is the overnight success that comes after years of hard work. It’s the effort you put in that leads to the results you want. The process requires discipline, sacrifice, commitment and delayed gratification. The process is your sweat and tears, it’s the life’s test of whether you really want something badly enough. Because if you really want something badly enough, you’ll always find a way, if not, you’ll always find an excuse.

    In most cases, the process consists of:

    • “Bottom lines” or core of the matter
    • Educating yourself and levelling up your skills
    • Searching and experimenting to find the right thing for you, your fit
    • Identity shift and changing your inner world
    • Building a superior strategy with all your creativity and strategic thinking
    • Regular adjustments, staying flexible and constantly innovating
    • Choosing the right environemnt
    • Putting in smart and hard work for years (usually three to ten years)
    • Constant improvements and adjustments

    We can divide the process elements into five phases that are called empathy, stickiness, virality, revenue and scaling. More about the phases in some later post. But now, let’s look at the process elements in a little bit more detail.

    First are the bottom lines. The bottom lines are simple, in most cases eternal, truths about life. They are the core guidelines for what to do, you only have to find your own way for doing it. Here are the bottom lines for the most desired things in life:

    • Health: You have to exercise (aerobic, anaerobic) regularly and mind what and how much you eat
    • Relationships: Mutual value added that has to be in balance, you have to meet enough people
    • Money: You have to spend less than you earn and invest the difference or build your own business
    • Career: The more ambitious career you want, the more people you have to impact (preferably in a positive way), fighting for a cause or providing and delivering the value people want
    • Competences: To be an outlier in life, you have to invest 10,000 hours into something
    • Emotions: To be happy, you have to increase your capacity for love and your feeling of self-worth

    The bottom lines are very simple in theory. There’s no need to complicate them more than that. The problem is that there are unlimited ways of discovering these bottom lines; and everybody has to find their own way.

    Although there are many ways to achieve bottom line results and that can be quite confusing, there are also some other general rules about how to follow the process and what to do.

    First of all, you have to educate yourself and level up your skills. No matter what you want to do or achieve in life, acquiring and applying knowledge is power. Go straight to the best resources and study them carefully. In the information age, we have an inflation of information, and most of it is shit. A copy of a copy of a copy.

    Don’t just consume information, go for the best knowledge and apply it to your life. Read constantly, keep talking to people who are smarter than you, and never stop educating yourself. And applying knowledge in your daily life.

    Nevertheless, no matter how much knowledge you acquire, no matter how many role models you study, you must find your own way to success. We are all different. Something else works for me than it does for you. Thus you must search and experiment in life to find the winning combination for you only. Life is like a puzzle, you have to build your masterpiece for yourself. You have to be you, since everybody else is already taken.

    After you find your fit, hard and smart work follows. Making an identity shift and changing your inner world. Using all your creativity and strategic thinking to build a superior strategy, which should then be your own personal system that leads you to better odds for success. Making regular adjustments and staying flexible. Putting in smart and hard work for years. Constant improvements and adjustments. You have to focus yourself, you have to push yourself, and you must never give up.

    Sooner or later, the process will lead you to your final outcome. The beginnings are usually the hardest. You first have to set strong foundations, but you’re also doing something new, something you’re not really good at. In the beginning, you may even be surprised about how much innovation and effort it takes to achieve an outcome you desire. But remember, every master was once a disaster.

    When you see your first early wins after starting to follow your process, you’ll get more motivated. Your effort will accumulate, your skills will level up and you will see your progress clearly. Remember that with time, the hard road becomes easy and the easy road usually becomes hard.

    It usually takes from three to ten years of following the process each day to really achieve the final outcome. During the process, there are always setbacks, disappointments and obstacles. They are like little tests to see whether you still really want something badly enough. Sometimes you have to take one step back to take two steps forward. Sometimes your progress slows down. But you don’t have to be afraid of slow progress, what you have to be afraid of is giving up.

    Never give up, always trust and follow the process. Without the process, there is no final event.

    There’s another important thing. If you skip the process, you won’t really enjoy the event as much as you could. If something is given to you, you don’t respect it as much; and even more: you don’t evolve, your skills don’t level up, you don’t improve and become a better person. Following the process has many other benefits besides achieving the desired final event.

    Things that influence the process the most

    There are, of course, many things that influence how fast you can go through the process and how much time it will take you to get to your final event. Here are the six most important things that influence the process and that you have to take into consideration when building your life strategy.

    • Your starting point – The worse your staring position is, the longer the process will probably take.
    • The resources available to you – The more resources you have available, be it inner (intelligence, skills, stamina, knowledge…) or outer assets (money, connections, brand, technology…), the faster you can go through the process. That’s why focusing and acquiring resources is so important in life, and why in the long run, success brings success.
    • Market trends (financial, job…) – Market trends can accelerate or slow down or even stop your progress during the process. Never forget that markets always win, take them into consideration very carefully. Changes create new winners.
    • Your environment – From your country, company and spouse to your friends and colleagues. You’re also the product of your environment. Make sure that your environment supports your process and that it’s possible to achieve your desired outcome in the environment you operate in.
    • Creativity and innovation –. On your individual path to success, you always have to invent and create new things. There’s no successful process without good and creative ideas. If you find yourself stuck, you have to innovate your way out.
    • Rituals and habits – To follow a specific new process, you need a new reward and value system in your life, with new rituals and habits. The more flexible you are and the faster you can upgrade your thinking and introduce new rituals and habits into your life, the faster you’ll start following the new process.

  • Environment you operate in and ideal conditions for you

    I’ve frequently mentioned that you need an environment that supports you at achieving your goals, an environment where you fit in perfectly. To prosper in life, you need to be a part of something that feels like home and natural to you, and enables you to prosper, develop and grow. You need an environment with ideal conditions for you to thrive.

    To better understand what ideal conditions really mean, let’s look at the environmental variables you can choose from and even change if necessary. It’ll help you to clarify what ideal environmental conditions mean for you and how to build such an environment.

    There are two ecosystems that you spend most of your time in, both consisting of space and relationships:

    • Personal environment, with your home, spouse, family and friends
    • Business environment, with your office, co-workers and stakeholders

    The better you know yourself, the better you understand what kind of an environment you need to flourish. It’s good to first do a personal SWOT analysis and reflect on what you like in your current environment and what you liked and disliked in your past environments. Based on that, you can make validated assumptions on which environmental elements support you and which drag you down. You’ll also get an idea of what to test and what to change. It’s the typical Agile and Lean Life process of searching, experimenting and then executing.

    Building an environment that supports you is an important part of your life strategy. Now let’s look at some ideas on which variables to test, experiment with and validate when it comes to your environment.

    Your personal environment

    Your personal environment is your private space where you spend your free time, usually with people who are the closest to you, meaning your spouse, family and friends. There are some major decisions you have to make regarding your personal environment. Even if you don’t make any decisions, life makes them for you. But it’s always better to be the pilot of your own life.

    When doing an analysis and setting goals for the personal environment that would perfectly support your personal goals, you should consider the following elements:

    • Country that suits you best – if there is an option to move, otherwise optimize within
    • Political and macroeconomic stability of the country and the level of bureaucracy
    • Metropolis / City / Countryside – which supports your personal goals best?
    • Local weather and climate (number of sunny days, seasons…)
    • Available infrastructure (for you to commute, travel…)
    • Access to healthcare and social security
    • Opportunities for your personal evolution and growth
    • Access to (healthy) food you like and easy access to sports you want to do
    • Cleanliness of natural resources (air, water etc.)
    • Access to formal and informal education for you and your family
    • How close/far you are/need to be to your primary family
    • Support environment for the elderly population (you’ll get old one day as well)
    • Is this the right environment for you to find the right spouse and build your family?
    • Does the environment support your hobbies and things you do for fun?
    • Access to nature and pets (if important to you)
    • Cultural life (art, music etc.) (if important to you)
    • Access to technology and information
    • Safety of the environment
    • Dominant religion
    • House / Flat / Other – the one that you feel best in and can afford
    • Interior decoration (including visual aids supporting your goals)
    • Tidiness and cleanliness of your surroundings (order, creative chaos…)
    • Other elements

    As you’ve probably figured out, you can’t have everything. Thus you have to choose your priorities and rank every factor based on how important it is to you. After knowing which elements of the private environment are important to you, you can analyse which cities support you best.

    • For some, living in New York city centre is optimal
    • For others, living in a small European country in the countryside is better
    • For someone else, a safe city is perfect, just big enough to have enough variety in cultural life

    A factor that’s even more important than the space where you spend most of your free time are the private relationships in your life. Private relationships include your spouse, your primary family, your secondary family, your friends, your acquaintances and your neighbours.

    By far the most important relationship you have in your life is the one with your spouse. Your spouse can make you or break you. If you don’t fit together, if you don’t support each other and have common goals, life is much harder and more complicated. The problem, of course, is that because the people we love are the closest to us, we know their weaknesses and can consequently most easily hurt them when we aren’t satisfied with ourselves. But you should never take your own problems out on your partner.

    In order for you to have a healthy relationship with your spouse, there must be lust and there must be respect. There must be a clear picture of who will do what, who will invest what and what each one expects out of the relationship. If you complement each other, even better. The foundation of every good relationship is communication. If you want to communicate well with your partner, you must know what you want and explain what your expectations are.

    Here are some elements you should be clear about with your spouse (making a persona can help a lot):

    • Basic demographics (age, gender…)
    • Basic psycho-sociological traits (religion, culture…)
    • Must-have values and traits (intelligence, integrity, health…)
    • Key characteristics (kindness, persistence…)
    • Deal breakers (smoking, cruelty)
    • Goals (building a family, )
    • Other

    When thinking about these elements, don’t only consider what you want, but also what kind of a person would have to be by your side in order for you to thrive the most. It’s not only about finding people you feel good with, but also about surrounding yourself with people who push you to prosper and develop as quickly as possible.

    For example, I know how to make money, but I’m lousy at keeping money. Having a spouse who is frugal is a big value added for me. I know I have to eat healthy, so having a spouse who also eats healthy is very important for my optimal health. If I had a partner who loved to bake and cook unhealthy food, I would definitely get fat. Like ultra-overweight.

    You should do the same analysis for your friends, acquaintances, neighbours and other people you meet in your personal life. Ask yourself:

    • Which country would be optimal for my personal goals?
    • Where would I feel the best and prosper (city, space…)?
    • Who is the optimal spouse for me (lust + respect + daily life + being your best)?
    • What kind of a friendship would help me flourish the most?
    • Which visual and other aids in my home environment would motivate me the most?

    Your business environment

    Most of us usually spend even more time in our business environment than at home. Much like you need space and people who support you in your private life, so you need the right environment for your business life and goals. The rule is quite simple. The more ambitious you are, the more you need the right environment that supports your ambitions.

    Working in the office

    Business hubs are usually the right business environment to support great ambitions. They are the geographical areas where talent, technology, tolerance and transparency are concentrated. It’s an environment where the flow of people, money, information and other resources is the greatest.

    Here are some macro-elements of a business environment you should consider:

    • Political and macroeconomic stability
    • Market and job market trends
    • Economical (in)equality
    • International integration
    • Are there enough opportunities to build a career you want and to earn adequate income?

    That is a macro-level view. On the micro level, you have many other decisions to make. Let’s look at some important factors that can support you or stifle your ambitions:

    • Industries that fit your talents, industry trends and opportunities
    • Employed, self-employed, business owner
    • Size of the company (micro, small, medium, big)
    • Level of specialization
    • Opportunities for promotion
    • Level of stress and uncertainty
    • Individual / Pair / Teamwork
    • Responsibility level – decision-making or more of a consulting role

    People you spend time with are also very important:

    • Values and competences of your boss and other superiors
    • Company values and values of your co-workers (should be similar to yours)
    • Stakeholders you’re dealing with

    And last but not least, don’t forget about your office:

    • Cubicle / Private Office / Co-working space / Working from home
    • Technological equipment
    • Visual aids (like Kanban boards)

    You should consider which business environment would allow you to deliver the most value, develop your competences to the full in the long run, achieve the position and the renown you want and, of course, achieve your financial goals. If your business environment doesn’t enable you that, you’ll have to either change it or lower your ambitions.

    I worked in a business environment where I felt really great, had the same values as my co-workers, the market trends were right and so on. It was in the venture capital industry, just before the financial collapse in 2008. The market trends enabled me to progress quickly, I loved what I was doing and I was managing a satellite company of a big investment bank which helped me build my own brand. In my early twenties, it was the perfect spot for me.

    I also worked in a business environment where the market trends were against me, I didn’t have the same values as my co-workers, I did tasks that were no challenge to me, there was a lot of politics, and so on. The end result was that I was completely unhappy, my progress in life was slow andI ended up having health issues.

    Never forget. Markets always win.

    And even more importantly: The culture of the environment you function in eats your strategy for breakfast.

    That’s why you need an environment that’s adjusted to your life strategy and goals. That’s why you need an environment where you can flourish and prosper. What is the optimal business environment for you?

  • Considering and setting limits in life

    A very important part of life management is considering and setting limits. On the one hand, the laws of physics limit you and your potential, while on the other, you must set some limits yourself to keep up with the daily discipline more easily and to more easily achieve your goals. We humans are pattern-based beings, seeing patterns even where there are none, and an important part of patterns are limits.

    Limits are nothing but minimums and maximums in our lives. The especially important ones (with time horizon we can understand) are daily and weekly limits. The simple idea is that we have a minimum and a maximum number of units (time, money…) we’re prepared to spend on a certain activity (work, sports, spouse…). Having limits helps us organize investments of our time, energy and other resources.

    The idea of limits is to not overdo it or invest too few of our resources into a specific thing. There is an optimal amount of investment needed for everything we do in life. If we invest more, we’re wasting resources or hurting ourselves. If we invest less than necessary, things don’t go into the direction we want. The big challenge lies in the fact that limits aren’t always in line with our instincts and emotional needs. That’s why we need self-discipline.

    Minimum and maximum

    Your body may crave sweets all day. But you can set a limit to only eat one candy per day. You may not feel like exercising at all. But because you know all the benefits of exercise, you can decide to exercise at least two times per week. Your may love your work, but to keep long-term productivity, you can set a maximum limit of 50 hours of work per week and a minimum of 40 hours and so on.

    Limits can really help you organize your life and introduce steady patterns that are easier to manage. Since you are a pattern-based being, limits can help you to stay organized and disciplined. There are two types of limits we have to consider:

    • Physical limits: Our biological and environmental limits that we have less influence on.
    • Willpower limits: Limits we set for ourselves and completely depend on our self-discipline.

    Physical limits

    Physical limits are limits connected especially to physical laws, environmental limits and your energy levels. One important concept of time management is to not only manage time, but your energy as well. There are days when you’re more productive and there are times when you need much more discipline to get things done. Listening to your body and energy levels is very important for your optimal performance in the long run.

    Considering physical limits in your life simply means that you listen to your body. You have to push yourself all the time, but not too far. You have to go out of your comfort zone into the learning zone, but not too far. If you go too far, you enter the panic zone and you do more damage than good to yourself. If you push yourself too hard when working, partying, anything, then you’re doing damage to yourself. It will lead to a setback.

    If you’re doing something wrong, your body and emotions give you feedback very quickly. You get tired, you start experiencing bad moods, you become grumpy and so on. These are all signs that you’re pushing yourself too hard or doing wrong things. Vice versa is also true. You get the same negative signs and your body feels fatigued if you aren’t active enough. Minimums and maximums are very important.

    Thus you should always listen to your body. If your body tells you that you’re pushing yourself too hard, take a rest. If you don’t feel good about yourself because you aren’t doing enough, push yourself a little bit harder. Listen to your body on a day to day basis and adjust your workload to your daily energy state.

    If you push too hard, you know what happens. We have physical limits. Our bodies can break. Our discipline muscle can break. If you are under stress for too long, you definitely experience burnout sooner or later. If you push your body too hard, you will get an injury sooner or later. All that can lead to a setback that takes you many steps back.

    Two more aspects are important when talking about physical limits.

    The first one is that you can definitely influence your energy levels. So physical limits can be expanded. With a healthy diet, regular exercise, positive people around you, believing in yourself, goals that motivate you etc. you have a great influence on your energy levels. Much like you can increase your body performance, same goes for your intellectual, emotional and spiritual capacity. You should definitely have a lifestyle that enables you to maximize your daily potential for work, play, love and creativity.

    While you’re in the learning zone, your comfort zone expands. Your energy levels and daily output potential rise. You push yourself out of the comfort zone again and improve yourself. Your performance is improving step by step. We call that linear change.

    You reach a plateau sooner or later. When you exercise regularly, have an optimal diet, have positive people in your life etc. there is no more room for linear improvements. In that kind of situations, rapid improvements come into play. Maybe you start using leverage (other people’s time and money), maybe you become a minimalist or start meditating etc. You decide to do something in totally different way. Again, your capacity for output increases dramatically.

    The important thing is to do it step by step. You’re looking for small improvements, especially at first. You search for different ways of improving yourself and doing things better. Your soft limits may be very limited at the beginning. You push but you get tired really fast. Don’t worry, just keep it up. Everything is like a muscle, you build it up with time.

    The second aspect is how to optimally expand your physical limits. There is one sure way of doing it. You want small constant improvements, not one big push from time to time. It’s better to do moderate exercise three times per week than to do it once and not listen to your limits and your body.

    No pain, no gain is probably the worst advice you can get when you first start pushing yourself out of the comfort zone. First you crawl, then you walk, after that you run and in the end, you can sprint. The better condition you are in in any area of life, the more you can experiment, the more you can push yourself, the less limiting the soft limits are. But it takes time (years) to build that. You have to let things accumulate over time. The first step is thus the hardest but definitely worth it.

    To sum things up:

    • We all have biological, physical and environmental limits that present our daily output potential
    • We need to listen to our physical limits for optimal productivity in the long term. If we don’t listen to our body, we do damage that leads to a great setback sooner or later.
    • We can expand our physical limits by improving ourselves (diet, regular exercise, reading, brain exercises etc.), sometimes even by changing our environment. By expanding our comfort zone, our physical limits also usually expand.
    • It takes time and effort to expand our physical limits. We need to have long-term perspective. The most important thing is that the whole picture is constant. It’s better to do something every day, but in smaller quantities, than doing something once a week, trying to compensate and pushing too hard. That is how things accumulate.
    • Physical limits are the reason why we cannot achieve everything in life. We often aren’t even aware of how short life is. It is, which is why you should live it to the full.

    Setting limits

    Willpower limits

    Physical limits don’t depend on your will that much and are thus quite unpredictable. You simply don’t know what your natural energy potential will be tomorrow. Maybe you’ll feel super energized or maybe you’ll catch a cold. Thus the only thing you can do is to keep physical limits in mind as life goes by, and adjust accordingly. You have to stay flexible and constantly gather feedback from your body and environment.

    Willpower limits, on the other hand, are a completely different story. Willpower limits totally depend on your self-discipline. You don’t have 100 % control over your willpower limits, because of the influence of physical limits, but your control is definitely much better. You may not know how you’ll feel tomorrow, but in general, you know your daily potential. You know the average amount of hours you have available every day for a certain activity, your skills, your leverages etc. You have a pretty good picture of what you can achieve on your average day or in your average week or in your average month.

    Based on that, you can set willpower limits in your life. They should still be flexible, but it’s about the minimums and maximums you should do each day or each week on average for a specific thing or activity. Knowing your physical limits enables you to stay flexible, while having willpower limits enables you to maximize your long-term performance based on your self-discipline.

    Willpower limits are like your bank account

    Why do you need willpower limits? Well, every area in your life is like a bank account. You can do only two things. Either you withdraw money or deposit it. It’s the same in every area of your life. With every action, you either deposit or withdraw capital. Let’s look at an example.

    If you go exercising, you do a deposit on your health bank account. If you eat pizza and get drunk, you make a withdrawal. If you spend quality time with your kid or spouse, you deposit units into relationships. If you go too far in flirting with others while you’re in a relationship, you make a withdrawal. If you read a quality book for an hour, you invest into your skills and competences. It’s a deposit. If you watch reality shows, it makes you a little bit stupider. It’s a withdrawal.

    Now we can go a step further. You can have a lot of money on your bank account. If that’s the case, a withdrawal every now and again isn’t that painful. For example, if you’re an athlete, you can afford an unhealthy meal without doing any serious damage to your health. You can also have a lot of money on your bank account and do something so stupid that you go bankrupt. For example, if you’re an athlete, text while you drive, have an accident and sustain an injury that prevents you from training and competing. It can be a total bankruptcy.

    As mentioned, your bank account balance can also be negative or you are even close to bankruptcy. It’s like smoking a cigarette when you have lung cancer. The fewer units you have on your bank account, the more painful every withdrawal is and the more welcoming every deposit.

    That’s why you want to have a good balance on your account. You don’t want to go bankrupt, you don’t want to struggle “financially”, but on other hand you also don’t need billions to live a happy and successful life. Setting minimums and maximums can help you a lot with keeping adequate balance.

    Deposit

    Of course your minimums and maximums should be flexible, depending on your goals, on the current state of different areas of your life and so on. It’s good to review your minimums and maximums every three to six months, and adjust them based on your life situation and goals.

    Nevertheless, your willpower limits should be a steady and important part of your life. They concern all the activities that bring you long-term happiness, so any changes to your maximums and minimums should be minor.

    For example, you can decide to not exercise for a month, because you just had a baby, but it should be a short-term decision if you want to stay healthy; you also don’t need to run a marathon two months after having a baby, but you can definitely start walking, stretching etc. to reach your weekly health minimum.

    Now it’s time to sit down and consider the willpower limits you should set in your life and stick to them in the long term. For every area of life, analyze and think hard about your current balance in the account, how much you can start depositing (investing) and how you are going to keep discipline. Below, you can find the general direction of your minimums and maximums to help you out.

    And another important thing: if setting minimums and maximums in your life means making big changes, take things a little bit slower. You cannot implement too many changes in your life at once. Choose one area, set minimums and maximums, and stick to them for a month or two. Then go to the next level. If you try to implement too many changes in your life, you won’t change anything in the end.

    Here are the general directions for your minimums and maximums:

    Standard minimums

    The minimum amount of units you should deposit into different areas of your life weekly/monthly:

    • You (planning, reflection etc.): 2 hours per week
    • Exercising: 3 x 1 hour per week
    • Diet: Two pieces of fruit and vegetables at every main course daily and much more
    • Sex: At least three times per week, better daily ;)
    • Spouse and family: One to two quality hours a day + one whole day during the weekend
    • Friends and socializing: At least one evening per week
    • Money and wealth: Save at least 10 % of your salary each month
    • Career: Work at least 40 hours per week
    • Competences and informal education: Read/learn for at least 5 hours per week
    • Fun, creativity and travel: Travel at least once per year, do something fun every week
    • Donating (your time or money): At least 1 %

    Standard maximums

    The maximum amount of units you should deposit into different areas of your life weekly/monthly:

    • You (planning etc.): 3 hours per week, otherwise you can get caught in analysis-paralysis
    • Exercising: 6 x 1 hour per week (if you aren’t a professional athlete)
    • Diet: Afford one shitty meal per week.
    • Sex: Well… no limits I guess :)
    • Spouse and family: No limits, but you need to keep balance and have a spine.
    • Friends and socializing: Three evenings of socializing per week should be enough
    • Money and wealth: Saving 50 % of your salary per month
    • Career: Working 70 hours per week at the most

  • How to get business ideas

    It’s true: having a good business idea is a tiny part of success in business. Much more important elements of start-up success are finding a sustainable and scalable business model and execution, together with a superior strategy, resilience, building a winning team and so on. Nevertheless, a good business idea presents the beginning of everything. It’s the first step you make. It’s the spark that ignites your fire and fuels your vision and everything that enables you to engage other people and resources.

    Getting a good business idea is also usually a process, not a single event. That’s where most people make the wrong assumption. Ideas are rarely a one time “aha” moment. In most cases, it takes a lot of testing, experimenting, thinking, changing, reshaping, pivoting etc. of the initial idea to get a really good business idea. The event we want is always preceded by a process. Today, the process of developing a business idea is usually done using the Business Model Canvas or Running Lean Canvas.

    But still, you have to start somewhere. You need an initial business idea, an idea that draws you in so much that you’re prepared to work hard on it and test different assumptions to see if you’re really on to something. Thus let’s look at different ways of how to get an initial business idea.

    Industry insights

    The important fact is that you usually don’t come up with a good business idea. You notice a good business idea. And the best way to notice a business idea is at your daily work in your industry, where your domain expertise lies. You can identify problems your company’s business partners have, from suppliers to distributors and customers. Many new businesses start when someone proposes an idea to their boss and the boss rejects it. The person knows it’s a good idea, and so they open their own business.

    • Think about how the company you work for could be 100 times better
    • Think about the new things that customers want in the industry you work in
    • Think about problems in your industry
    • Think about trends and the next big thing in your industry

    Choose an industry and do research

    If you don’t like the industry you currently work in, go through a list of all potential industries and find the one you could add most value to. Select the industry for which you know you’d be most passionate about. Do research on the chosen industry. Brainstorm ideas. Maybe change your job and start working for a successful company in the chosen industry to learn and collect industry insights. There’s usually a big gap between how you think an industry works and how it really works. Thus real life experiences are always very important.

    Your current network

    Analyse your social and professional network to come up with a business idea. Your network is the most valuable capital you have when starting a new business. So maybe your idea should come from your network. The contacts in your rolodex are your potential business partners and clients.

    • To whom in your network would you sell what the easiest?
    • Who could you invite to become your business partner?
    • Who in your network has really good ideas; who is creative and ambitious?

    Build your network

    If you don’t have any friends, coworkers or acquaintances to start a business with, it’s maybe time to expand your social network. New beginnings in life usually also mean new people. Thus don’t be afraid to open yourself up to new social connections and new opportunities. With positive vibrations and the right attitude, the right people will come into your life. Go to Meetup and find the next event you can join and network.

    • Go to business events and meet new people
    • Go to tech events and meet new people
    • Go to industry or other events and meet new people

    Your personal problems

    Think about the personal problems you’re facing in life. Good business ideas are usually solutions to real life problems. The idea behind business ideas is to make our life easier. To make us more productive and connected and safe.

    The good or bad part of everything, depending on how you look at it, is that every new product on the market usually not only solves a problem but also brings a new set of problems. Think of the personal computer. It brought many advantages into our lives, but also many new problems. Thus the problems will never end, neither yours nor those of other people.

    • Think of problems you’re currently facing and what product would solve them
    • What problems were you facing in the past that were hard to solve?
    • Which products or services would make your life much easier and cosier?
    • How could you use new technologies to solve your personal problems?

    Your personal sins

    As you’ve probably figured out already, we don’t buy products only to fix our problems. We also buy products because of many other needs we have, many of them only psychological. We could also say that we buy our products because of our sins. If we look at the seven deadly sins, you can see the correlation very fast.

    Pride forces us to buy a fancy car, envy to buy the same outfit that a Hollywood star has, wrath to buy a violent video game, sloth to buy a sauna belt instead of going jogging, greed to buy a lottery ticket, gluttony to eat everything on the menu in a cheap fast food restaurant and lust to pay for dating sites.

    Good companies are supposed to get you laid (sex/socializing), made (power/reputation) or paid (saving/earning money). You can see that this concept is very closely connected to our sins. To sum up, we buy many products because of our irrational needs. The fact is that we live in a very materialistic world.

    The third angle of how you can look at this is 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. Pyramid has six different types of needs. The most basic ones are physiological needs, such as air, water and sex. Then we have safety needs, such as personal and financial security. 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 last one are self-actualization needs.

    • Think about which products you buy because of your sins
    • Think about which products you’d you because of your sins if they were available
    • What do your body and emotions need the most and doesn’t exist yet?

    Problem solution

    Other people’s problems and sins

    If you don’t have any real problems or sins that could be good grounds for finding a new business idea, help yourself with other people in your life – from closest friends to strangers you observe in the cafeteria. The idea is to notice something that nobody has really noticed before from the business idea angle. You have one mouth and two ears for a reason: to listen to people and come up with the next big thing.

    • Be curious
    • Ask Questions
    • Listen
    • Observe
    • Be emphatic

    Products and services that suck

    As any human being, you also probably use many products and services. And you’re unsatisfied with many of them or they even piss you off. You see many ways for how you could improve things and make the world a better place to live. One way to come up with a business idea is to find a product you like but you see many improvements that would make the product 10 times better. Don’t ignore the fact that established businesses usually win in the saturated market, but there are also always newcomers who shake things up a little bit. Maybe it’s time for you to shake up a chosen market.

    • Which product or service could you do 10 times or even 100 times better?
    • Could you make something cheaper, smaller, larger, quicker, longer, more attractive …?
    • Could you make something available to more people?
    • Could you make a high-end product affordable for mass market?
    • Could you combine two products together?

    The skills and talents you have

    Think about the special skills and talents you have. Maybe you could build your business idea on that. Maybe you have really good consulting skills and you can start a consulting business. Maybe you are a very sporty type of person and you could do a personal training or fitness app or something similar. Many people start their business based on their skills, special talents or educational background.

    • What are currently the best opportunities in the field you studied in?
    • Do a personal SWOT analysis and think about the skills you could build your business on.
    • Do you really excel at something that’s sellable?
    • Can you make any awesome products with your talents?

    Merging experiences from different industries

    If you have many skills or experience form various industries, what you can do is take a solution from one industry and carry it over into a new industry. Or, for example, if you have #-shaped skills, you can join two of your skills together to come up with a new idea. You know, if you’re bodybuilding in your free time and coding is your occupation, you can make a fitness app and so on.

    • Is there an idea you can take from one industry and implement it in another?
    • Do you have two totally different areas of expertise you could join into one idea?

    Hobbies

    Same as for your skills and talents goes for your hobbies. Many people get business ideas from their hobbies and things they love to do in their free time. Make a list ofyour hobbies or hobbies you think you’d like and analyze if there are any business opportunities.

    Just be careful, because real monetization potential must exist. Many business that are treated like hobbies pay like hobbies. That means nothing or close to nothing. Make sure there’s a very strict distinction between your hobby and business if you build your business based on a hobby.

    Research work

    Many new business ideas come out of research work. Google, for example. It’s not easy to find an idea with strong core competency and an unfair advantage. Years of research and development with commercial potential can be a great intellectual property to build business on. Of course there are other challenges, like how to do technology transfer etc. But more and more research institutions have technology transfer offices that make sure that transfer is legal and fair.

    • Could you develop a business idea with the research you did for your Bachelors/Masters thesis or doctoral dissertation?
    • Do you know anybody at research institutions you could connect with?
    • Do you know any scientists doing research that could be commercialized (professionally in cooperation with technology transfer offices)?

    Evolution and thinking about the future

    Close your eyes and imagine how the world will look in 10, 20, 50 and 100 years. The gadgets you will have at home, the transport you will use, how you will work etc. Try to imagine all different details and things that currently aren’t possible.

    Think about evolutionary (linear) changes that will happen and how things will get better step by step (super smartphones for example) and about revolutionary (rapid) changes that will completely reshape the world (for example a phone integrated in your pinky finger).

    • The best way to predict the future is to create it. What products do you imagine in the future?

    Convergence

    When thinking about the future, think about the devices that will merge together. Like ten years ago, you had a mobile phone, a camera, a compass etc. Today you have everything in a smartphone. More and more devices are converging. In the future, we will have smart watches, smart clothes, smart everything that will be connected to the internet. This kind of thinking may inspire you for a new kind of device or service.

    • What devices or services or other ideas could you merge together into a new idea?

    Brainstorming

    Brainstorming

    Your potential to create new ideas is like a muscle. The more you train it, the more ideas you will have. First you need to keep your mind open. You know, because a mind is like a parachute, it only works when it’s open. You need to be focused on new opportunities. After having an open mind, you need to constantly brainstorm new ideas. You will become better and better with time.

    But no matter how good you become, there will always be dozens of shitty ideas when you brainstorm; yet among the shitty ones, a golden one will be listed sooner or later.

    • Always have a pen and paper with you. Brainstorm at least 20 ideas every day.

    Piggyback

    Maybe coming up with your own idea is not really your forte, but you still have the potential to be a good business person. An important part of success is to be honest with yourself and know what strengths and weaknesses you have. Today, it’s business teams that win, not individuals. Thus nothing is wrong if you start searching for people who have good ideas and partner up with them.

    • Do you have any friends that can come up with a business idea and you could join them?
    • Could you join any groups for meeting meet people with good business ideas?

    Get inspired

    Another thing you can do is to look for inspiration. Good ideas mean nothing but making new connections or finding better ways to do things. Below you can find ten different types of sources that can inspire you to come up with a good idea. You can also find many links to help you out. Start browsing, researching and brainstorming. Sooner or later, you will come up with something that will set you on your new course in life. Because if you’re reading this blog, you are a winner.

    Trends

    Future trends are especially important for inspiration. By knowing the trends, you can also analytically decide for the most perspective industries. Here are some sites that analyse trends and predict the future:

    Social trends

    With all the social networks, social trends are becoming more and more important, especially for ideas in culture, media and everything that’s built for the masses. Thus you can get easily inspired by browsing different social trends.

    Magazines and articles

    Magazines can be a good source of inspiration. Articles, ads, interviews, you can find a lot of content that can spark your new business idea. Specialized and hobby magazines can especially be a great help. On top of that, browsing magazines is also relaxing and fun.

    Business idea lists

    You can find many business idea lists online. They’re usually not revolutionary business ideas, but definitely something you can start with. Especially if you aren’t looking for hi-tech ideas, but something you can start cheaply, easily and quickly.

    Product sites and lists

    One thing you can do is browse different product sites and lists and think about how you could improve products. It’s a great way to brainstorm. You can also brainstorm on how to merge two products, how a product could be used in a totally different industry and so on. You just have to keep your mind open.

    Product inspiration sites

    It’s the same with product inspiration sites. The listings on product inspiration sites are only more diverse and you can find many products that aren’t on the market yet or never will be. Product inspiration sites are not only good for triggering your thinking about the future. Many unconventional products can also force you to think more outside the box.

    Affiliate and CPA networks may also be a source for inspiration:

    Copycats

    Much like you can copy products, so you can copy start-up ideas. It’s not the best way to start a business, but it is one possible way. Many European entrepreneurs copy American start-ups in their own country. For example, you now have numerous Groupon clones in every country. Other start-ups may also be a good inspiration for you to improve something, merge something or do it even better in a different kind of way.

    Franchises

    Franchises are a very popular way of opening your own business if you don’t have your own business idea. Franchises can also be a great source of inspiration for starting a business. You can look at successful franchises and think of the ways you could also start a similar business, not necessarily your own franchise, but the business as business.

    Patents

    You can also browse patents to get good business ideas. Patents are, of course, protected intellectual property, so you risk a lawsuit by copying them. The idea is not to copy patents but to ask yourself about the kind of problems the patents are solving and then finding new, better solutions for them. Patents can be a good source of inspiration.

    Groups and forums

    Last but not least, one thing you can do is to browse online groups and forums. The idea is to identify problems people are facing, services they’re not satisfied with and so on. If you have an online group of people with a problem and you come up with a good solution, you can very quickly test your idea. The best ideas are the ones solving real problems. You can find many people complaining on the internet. Present them with a solution. Maybe that’s a good start for you.

    I wish you all the luck and creativity possible to come up with the next big thing. I hope you have found many useful resources in this article that will help you to get business ideas. And don’t forget: ideas are a mere beginning. Building a scalable business model and executing it are much more important and harder things to do. Nevertheless, you have to start with a good (or even bad) business idea. It’s the first step towards your more creative and exciting future.