success

  • Interested is not committed

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Interested is not committed Chart

    Interesting is the biggest enemy of lean life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Interested is not committed Cycle

    The mental shift from being interested to being committed

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

    Make room for the important things in your life

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

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

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

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

    Follow your True North

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Enjoy the things you do

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

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

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

    Interested is not committed

    A story about how interested is not committed

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

    A Pig and a Chicken are walking down the road.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The key takeaways

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

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

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

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

    The old way of setting a vision

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

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

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

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

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

    Life vision

    Your Agile and Lean Life vision

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

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

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

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

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

    Who do you want to become?

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

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

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

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

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

    What do you want to experience in life?

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

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

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

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

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

    Testing and experimenting in life

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

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

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

    Make environment and global flow your friends

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

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

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

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

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

    What kind of a legacy do you want to leave?

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

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

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

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

    The agile, not linear way

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

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

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

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

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

    The vision is as important as the drive to achieve it

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

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

    How the Agile and Lean Life superior strategy looks like:

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

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

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    AgileLeanLife – Vision Template

    Example of my life vision

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

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

  • The biggest impact

    In management theory, there is an important principle – the so called 80-20 rule or the Pareto principle. The principle states that, for many events, roughly 80 % of the effects come from 20 % of the causes. Examples in practice would be that 80 % of your sales come from 20 % of your clients, fixing top 20 % of the most reported bugs also eliminates 80 % of related errors and crashes, you wear 20 % of your clothes 80 % of the time (except if you are minimalist) and so on.

    The Pareto principle is also very important when you are implementing changes in your life. You can decide to do linear or rapid changes in your life. Linear changes are smaller changes you make in your behavioral patterns. You improve your diet a little bit, you wake up a little bit earlier, you decrease the number of hours you spend watching television. You make more effort in your job and ask for a raise, and so on.

    Rapid changes are big changes that totally shift your life to the better, if you do the right change. Instead of watching TV, you start reading books. No TV at all. You go from a standard carbohydrate-based diet to another diet that suits you much better. You get rid of all the relationships that don’t empower you. You shift from being an employee to being an entrepreneur.

    Usually, when you pick a life area you want to improve (health, money, career…), you start with small linear changes. Some changes suit you and others don’t. You are in the search mode, looking for small improvements that lead to a better life. Some changes you preserve, others you discard (pivot). But after a while, every new linear change brings less value into your life. The marginal value of linear changes decreases over time. Then you hit the so called “local maximum”. Every additional change brings no additional value into your life. You run out of ideas for new experiments.

    When you hit the local maximum, it’s time for a rapid change. Rapid change means you try to do things completely differently, looking for another maximum that brings much more value to your life. Usually a rapid change enables you exponential growth. In some cases, your “local maximum” is your highest potential in life, but in others, there could be a much better setting for you and your potential. Sometimes I also call it leveling up your game.

    Now let’s get back to the Pareto principle.

    20 % of all the changes you will make in your life will have 80 % of the positive (or negative) impact on your life. That is to say, what will have the biggest impact on your life are the first few linear changes and the rapid changes you will make. That is where your focus should be.

    In the life areas where you totally suck, you should implement the first few linear changes. They will have the biggest impact on your life. For example, if you are in bad shape, just start doing some kind of exercise you like. If you are completely in debt, just save 1 dollar per day. If you want to change your career, just try a couple of new things to find what suits you best.

    The idea is that when you make the first few linear improvements, other changes will follow by themselves if your motivation to improve your life is big enough. You get engaged when you see the first small benefits, and your human nature will push you to get more. You just have to make the first few linear improvements and stick to them. They will have the biggest impact on your life and the rest will follow.

    If you totally suck at something it is almost impossible to do a rapid change. There are statistical exceptions, but that’s just because some people really find themselves in something, they are naturally good at. But in general, you first have to start with a few linear improvements.

    For example, if you want to get fit and you are totally out of shape, it doesn’t make sense to go straight to bodybuilding and hyper-intensive training. You first have to prepare your body for new efforts. If you can’t get a job, it’s usually not very smart to get self-employed or become an entrepreneur. That is the so-called push entrepreneurship and the success rate in this kind of situations is the worst.

    It’s different for life areas you are already good in. You first have to decide if it’s enough or you want more. If you want more, you should look for potential rapid improvements. You should get yourself into the search mode and start curiously exploring how other, more successful people are doing the same things, whether there is a completely different way you could be doing it, are there any additional leverages you could use and so on.

    For example when you are really good in an industry, have the knowledge, the social network, and know what the market wants, you should switch from being employed to being self-employed. When you master the basics of exercising, you can start with hardcore exercises. When you are able to save up small amounts of money, you can start thinking about big money.

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

    When making rapid improvements, there is one very important question you should ask yourself, namely what is holding you back. Usually there are one or more personal values that hold you back from doing things in a significantly better way.

    For example, maybe you think that you do everything better than everyone else, thus you don’t delegate. With no delegation, you also do all activities with low value added. Starting to leverage other people’s time would be a big rapid improvement in this case. But first you have to deal with your values.

    And one more thing. The Pareto principle also works in a negative way. That is why you must thoroughly analyze what is strategic testing, experimenting and improving, and what is doing stupid things. Because 20 % of the negative changes will have 80 % of the impact on your life. Some of these changes are very obvious. Starting to drink too much alcohol, eating too much sugar, starting to cheat on your spouse, going into bad debt etc. These are all big negative rapid changes (one big or a series of small ones) that can have the most negative effect on your life.

    When living an Agile and Lean Life, you don’t just do work and execute tasks. You have to think regularly about why you are doing something and how you are doing it, and whether you are making real progress. One of the aspects you have to reflect on is also which change will have the biggest positive impact on your life.

    No matter if you are implementing linear or rapid improvements, always go straight to the best knowledge for ideas how to do it.

    Homework

    The biggest impact on your life

    Knowing that 20 % of the changes will have 80 % of the positive (or negative) impact on your life, you should carefully analyze which changes fall into this 20 %. Based on that, you should update your Kaizen list of improvements.

    Here is what you should do:

    • Open your personal Kaizen list. If you don’t have it yet, you should make one. You can help yourself with the template below and with the article Growth mindset and continuous improvement on how to make the Kaizen list.
    • You should do a general evaluation of every life area, how satisfied you are and how well you are mastering a specific life area.
    • Then you write down all the linear and rapid improvements you should make in different life areas. You note your own suggestions and suggestions from other people.
    • Based on your evaluation, you can easily determine the magnitude of every improvement you have listed.
    • For the areas you suck in, the first linear improvements will already have a big impact on the quality of your life. For the areas you are already good at, rapid improvements will probably have the biggest impact.
    • On your Kaizen list, you should have a maximum of five changes of big magnitude for the next few years. Remember: you cannot implement many changes at once, and the big ones even less so.
    • You should constantly update your Kaizen list and stay flexible depending on the feedback you are getting from your inner self and the environment.

    You can help yourself with the spreadsheet below to do the analysis. You can also look at my own spreadsheet and see how I have done my analysis.

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    AgileLeanLife – Kaizen Template (xls)

    AgileLeanLife – Kaizen – Blaz Kos (xls)

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    Practical example

    My own analysis

    As you can see in my spreadsheet, based on my analysis, I have found that the following changes would have the biggest impact on my life. Therefore they will be my focus in the following few years, alongside some other minor linear improvements.

    There is one more thing you should be aware of. Never overestimate what you can achieve in a month and never underestimate what you can achieve in a few years’ time.

    Changes and improvements take time. First you have to sow, then you can reap. So make sure that for rapid changes, you have a long-term goal without a fixed deadline, especially if you are still in the search mode, looking for a perfect fit. What is important is that you make small daily progress. What is important is that you make small steps that accumulate into a much better life. For more guidance, please read the Agile and Lean Life manifesto.

    But now let’s get to my own analysis.

    Learning how to code
    Here I am learning how to code.

    Going back on my own and writing down business ideas

    I was always self-employed or owned a business. It was only after the 2008 financial market meltdown, when I had to close my small venture capital fund and had lost a lot of money (100k€+), that I had decided to get a job. I needed a more stable income and less stressful work for a while. Thus I was in the management board of the biggest technology park in Slovenia.

    I know that entrepreneurship is not for everyone, but I personally feel much better as a freelancer, a business owner or an investor. I am not against having a job at all costs. Well, somewhere in the future I want to experience working for a faculty (educating students), a global blue chip company in ICT, investment banking and some other industries. And those can be all jobs.

    But for now, going back on my own is an important step, an important rapid improvement for me. For me, it means more focused time without many unnecessary meetings, a bigger value added, a stronger motivation and many other benefits. Shifting from being employed to being a freelancer or a business owner is an important big decision towards a rapid improvement for many people.

    I have quit my job in October 2014 and started my own consulting/contracting business. I already have a few clients on the domestic market, but the next big challenge is going international. It was a half-year long process, but I do feel much better now and I already feel the power of being on my own, having a much better control over my life. For this change, I already went from the search into the execution mode.

    I also decided to systematically write down business ideas and to find the next big thing I really want to devote following decade of my life to.

    Update – Nov 2015: I am over a year on my own and it feels great. I am still more or less in the startup business as a contractor, but with the New Year I am making another big change in this area.

    Changing the country/language

    I live in one of the smallest countries in the world. Slovenia only has 2 million inhabitants with a not-so-good economic outlook. It’s a very well developed country, with many life quality benefits, but after doing business here for more than 10 years, I basically know everyone and the additional potential is quite limited. The maximum potential the country could offer to me definitely doesn’t suit my ambitions.

    Therefore an important identified rapid change for me is changing the country or, to be more specific, the language in which I operate. What I have found out in all these years is that small markets only give you headaches. If you want to be really successful and you are from a small country, you have to be globally oriented nowadays.

    The challenge is not easy, since it’s much easier to operate in your mother tongue and the competition on the global market is much stronger, but the unlocked potential is enormous.

    That is why I started this blog. Besides the opportunity for sharing my knowledge globally, it is also a great way to sharpen my skills – from English skills, writing skills to internet marketing. And I can also get some global exposure, of course.

    In the future, I would also like to spend a few years living abroad, but I want to stay flexible – lean and agile. This blog is the first step to a different kind of settings, but it’s still way too early to know what will come out of all this.

    For this change, I am somewhere in-between the search and execution mode. I have done a lot of research, planned my first steps etc. What I plan to do now is make regular adjustments based on the feedback I will be getting from the market.

    Building products

    The work I am currently doing has one big downside: even if I am self-employed, I am still selling my time. Selling your time quite limits your earning potential. Selling products is totally different to offering consulting services. You can sell many products without any time restrictions.

    Right now, I see three ways for how I can capitalize my knowledge via products. The first one are info products like books, e-learning courses, membership forums, premium content. The second one are mobile or SaaS applications related to the subjects I am mastering. The third one is to not only have a blog, but to build a real global media site on personal productivity.

    I have no idea where the future will take me, but I will definitely work hard on one of these options. I am a very hard-working person, but I also very much like passive income.

    At the moment, I am totally in a search mode, not even close to a proper execution. I am researching, testing, getting to know the market, analyzing what the competition is doing, and so on. It may take me a few years to get to the right product, but you know how it is: you only have to be right once.

    Core muscles and flexibility

    The previous four rapid improvements were connected to my money and career. This one is about my health. I have invested a lot of energy into finding my perfect diet and the sports I like, so that I can be as active as possible and live a healthy lifestyle. I still have a few linear improvements to make, but overall I have made big progress in the past few years.

    However, when it comes to my health, there is one rapid improvement I have to make and is really holding me back. That is the flexibility of my body and strengthening my core muscles. I was fat for most of my life, therefore I have always had weak core muscles and a completely inflexible body. Both contributed to a bad posture and, consequently, to many health issues like nerve entrapments, back pain and so on.

    Yes, I have to lose a few percentages of fat. Yes, I have to further work on my physical condition. But those are linear improvements that currently won’t bring the biggest value added. What I really have to do are daily exercises for flexibility and strong core muscles. That will be a big improvement for my overall health.

    The thing that is really holding me back is that I feel much better when lifting weights or doing highly intensive training than when stretching and planking. But I know very well that if I don’t work on my core and flexibility, I won’t be able to gain muscle mass and improve my overall health.

    Thus I am going to yoga with my girlfriend every week now, I do some daily stretching, resistance band training, planking and similar exercises. I also try not to overdo it with exercising, since I am only doing damage to my body, because I don’t have strong enough foundations yet.

    I was in a search mode for more than a year in order to figure out where my weak spots are. I visited a few doctors, physiotherapists and other specialists, read many articles on the internet and tried many things to identify the weaknesses and exercises that really help me.

    So for this rapid change, I am in the execution mode. The rapid change was going from weightlifting and overdoing it to doing “girly” exercises for core and flexibility. Now I have to do proper execution. I have to keep a daily routine for a whole year. Then I hope I will be able to switch back and work more on my muscle mass.

    Learning how to code

    The last rapid improvement is connected to my skills. I would like to learn how to code. Many people see that as a big waste of time, but I have a couple of strong arguments for why that would be a big rapid improvement in my life.

    First of all, it’s a big intellectual challenge; and I like that. Secondly, I already have a strong business mindset, but I would also like to install a more engineer kind of thinking into my brain. Thirdly, the skills are really useful, since if you get a new idea, you can just take a focused weekend, execute, and test the market. Fourthly, when I was a kid I was a computer geek, but then somehow business started to dominate my life. Thus this is a wish from my childhood.

    The problem that’s holding me back is a lack of time. Learning how to code isn’t that easy. You need big blocks of time with no interruptions, and fresh brain.

    For this rapid change, I am still in the search mode. My searching is not so much connected to what to do – it’s more about how to do it. I have enrolled into Lynda and Threehouse courses, I am watching videos and trying to do some basic front-end work myself, but I am still far from any serious development skills. I also visited a two months Python course.

    The real question for me is how to do it. I am thinking about three options:

    • Taking one day per week totally off and focusing only on learning how to code
    • Taking one whole week every quarter totally off and really improving my knowledge
    • Going to one of the coding academies for three months

    Since this rapid change is my last priority, I am not yet sure how and when I will go from the search into the execution mode. It strongly depends on how other things will turn out.

    The conclusion

    You change yourself by finding a way to do things better. With changes for the better, you remove waste from your life, thus improving your overall happiness, productivity and quality of life. You can make linear or rapid improvements/changes in your life. Linear ones are the first small steps or final optimizations, while rapid ones are completely new ways of doing things.

    In the life areas where you suck, the first few improvements will have the biggest magnitude. In the life areas where you rock, finding rapid changes is the way to go. Your Kaizen list should have up to five changes of a big magnitude and with a big impact on your life. Based on the Pareto principle, these 20 % of changes that you plan to make will bring 80 % of the new value to your life. You should constantly update your Kaizen list and ask yourself: which improvement will have the biggest positive impact in my life? That should be your focus.

  • What I wish I truly knew in my twenties

    You can find many articles and posts written on the topic What I wish I truly knew when I was young, but most of them are about the universal life truths that are true no matter the age, and which we frequently remember, but are at the same time somewhat too lazy to follow. Whether this is; travel as much as possible, save some money, enjoy the moment, you can learn something from anyone in life, take care of your health, make a good first impression, spend as much time as possible with the people you love, love is the most important thing in life, and so on.

    All that advises are nice, important and true, but there are much more dirty secrets about life. I am talking about harder life discoveries and lessons that are those most primal experiences, sometimes making us stronger, while at other times unrelentingly killing our dreams and potentials, and leading us to disappointments in life. Let’s look at some of the most difficult discoveries about the world and life; those realizations that would’ve been truly useful if I had already known them in my early twenties.

    • Being good means being good and nothing more.
    • The role of biology is much stronger than we’d care to admit.
    • Soft and naïve aren’t qualities that this world is looking for.
    • Politics are a large component of life.
    • Accept people for who they are, or find new ones.
    • Always be honest with yourself.
    • Environment and trends have an incredible influence on our life.
    • Reflection and strategy before actions.
    • Different doesn’t always mean better.
    • It’s easy to stand out, it’s incredibly hard to truly succeed.

    1. Being good means being good and nothing more

    Be a good person and you’ll get good things in return. It’s true. But people often confuse and simplify this; to their own benefit, of course. And this later leads to disappointments. I am talking about the mentality that goes along the lines of: Be a good person and life will reward you with a good job, a lot of money, luck in love, and so on. Not true.

    Be a good person and you’ll get good things in return; yes, in the same context of life. People will mostly act nicer towards to you (not all of them). You’ll feel better in your own skin. Your world will be calmer. You will also obtain some social capital. You will be rewarded with additional spiritual/karma points. But all this has minimal correlation to the amount of money you earn, luck in love and a good job.

    Both bad and good people can have a lot of money. The amount of money is mostly connected to skills that are connected to money, if we dismiss lottery and inheritance. Luck in love depends more on our personal relationship skills and commitment to partnership, and beforehand the effort we put into searching for the most suitable partner (perfect fit), than on whether we are generally a good person (except if this is a value that’s important to our partner). Sometimes being good can even be counter-productive. For example, it has been psychologically proven that being only nice (niceness falls in the category of being good) isn’t the smartest male seduction strategy, while if women are nice, this can quickly give false signals to men.

    It’s absolutely must that we are a good person in life – that we have integrity, are nice, compassionate, don’t harm others, help, connect, collaborate, and so on. However, what’s wrong is the expectation that life will reward us all by itself and that this is why we don’t have to make an effort in other areas of life.

    2. The role of biology is much stronger than we’d care to admit

    We are animals and we are spiritual beings. To deny one world or the other can be very painful. The fact that a part of us is animal means that we are partially acting from an entirely biological impulse written in our genes – one that is completely direct and clear: spread our genes as far as we can and with the best possible combination for our offspring. Nature (biology) knows two mechanisms for the purpose of reaching these two goals: the first one is lust and the second one love. The role of the former is quantity (everything that suits our genetic/psychological code) and the latter quality (cohabitation until producing offspring and raising it). It’s clear from this alone that we aren’t fundamentally monogamous beings, but that monogamy is definitely a sensible social innovation that can bring a lot of good into our lives; if we have realistic expectations and are prepared to keep investing into a relationship.

    What’s even more important is that both mechanisms (lust, love) play an important role in finding true love, in the first place; before love, sexual attraction is needed in most cases and infatuation oftentimes as well, especially in the younger years.

    The sexual force is, besides the wish for survival, one of the strongest forces of humanity; based on this force, each individual actually possesses a certain sexual capital. One part of our sexual capital is given, namely looks and the general quality of genes, while a large part of sexual capital is also obtained. The bigger the sexual capital, the larger the choice of potential partners, while our relationship can also have higher quality.

    Sexual capital can be obtained in three different ways: the biological, sociological or psychological one. The first, biological one simply means being fit. The most visible way of being not-fit is being overweight. Not only does excessive body weight lower our sexual capital, it also brings many other inconveniences and potential complications. Thus being fit and taking care of your health is incredibly important, not only from the aspect of energy and physical performance, but also the (sexual) status in society. We can also put neatness, well-groomed appearance, care for oneself, motoric abilities and other things under the biological aspect of sexual capital.

    We can also increase our sexual capital with a sociological and psychological approach. This includes everything from material status, social skills, individual’s values, diversity, self-confidence etc. All things listed increase either the individual’s social capital or their psychological one, and consequently also their sexual one. So even if we weren’t born to be models, we have quite a few options for increasing our sexual capital.

    If we go one step further, to the level of biology and sociology, there are generally two ways for climbing the social ladder (and consequently increase our sexual capital too). The first one is based on dominance in the broadest possible sense, including intimidation, domination of other people, aggression and dictatorship. This strategy mostly works in a crisis or in battle times and survival situations; sadly, those situations make up the biggest part of the known history of humanity. Others follow in hopes that with an aggressive approach, resources will be guaranteed for them as well. It’s upon these foundations that the concept of an “alpha male” is built, as is the path to a bigger sexual capital based on physical/biological dominance (being fit, having muscles, good athletic abilities etc.).

    Nowadays, in increasingly less violent times, this strategy is subsequently also less and less effective. Namely being an alpha male is always possible only in a certain context and in a certain situation. In another situation and another context, even an alpha male can become a beta male (e.g. an esteemed professor who’d find himself in prison). Since there are fewer and fewer life and death violent situations, there are also fewer and fewer contexts and opportunities for the success of the dominance strategy. The access to resources is also increasingly more frequently connected to creating value rather than taking things by force.

    Thus another path to the top of the social ladder has come to exist – one not based on dominance but rather on the prestige of an individual. This one still encompasses several qualities of an “alpha male”, namely a high level of self-confidence, ambition and strength, but in a combination with compassion, care for others, empathy, niceness and an easy-going nature. Such a strategy is effective in significantly more social situations than dominance. If dominance is effective in battle situations and competitions, then the strategy of prestige is effective in most aspects of life, including society management. But this doesn’t mean that dominance is bad and that prestige is a good approach.

    From the aspect of the social ladder and the probability of it working, the optimal strategy is a combination of building on prestige that shows care for a group, while using dominance only in situations when this is absolutely necessary. It’s written in our genes that such individuals have an advantage in the society, and with this, access to more resources, power and potential partners.

    In short, I definitely don’t want to stamp all over the meaning of true love and nice ideals. But the fact remains that sexual capital stemming from biological and sociological dispositions is an important category besides the intellectual, spiritual and emotional capital. It leads to more choices when choosing potential partners, to a higher status in the society, and may consequently also lead to a more suitable partner.

    The main lesson is that hoping for true love means giving power from one’s own hands. And that is never good. The bigger our sexual capital is, the bigger is the possibility of finding the right partner. This is why it’s right that we focus on our sexual capital and its development, not only for the purpose of finding a partnership, but also for developing our power, improving our social standing and potentially having a (positive) influence on the environment.

    On the other hand you should definitely not glorify sexual capital or go too far in developing it; even it has its boundaries, especially when focusing on partnership. After all, people with low sexual capital find their partner as well. Why? Because another category exists, and that is the uniqueness of an individual.

    Sexual capital plays an important role in first impressions, at the beginning, with the general social standing, but in the long run, in the context of searching for an ideal partner, sexual capital loses value and the uniqueness of an individual starts gaining value. At that time, infatuation also plays its role; we go from quantity to quality.

    However we have to realize that it’s much easier to work on our uniqueness, as it is largely already given. Each and every one of us is unique and we only have to sharpen our traits. Meanwhile it requires a lot more effort to develop sexual capital, but the latter is so very important in youth and later. More possibilities, more freedom.

    • Don’t forget to take care of your sexual capital (be fit, work on your self-confidence,…).
    • Use prestige as a path to the top of the social ladder.
    • Use dominance only in situations when it is absolutely necessary, meaning step up for yourself if needed.
    • Don’t glorify sexual capital, you are also unique. Sharpen your personality traits.

    3. Soft and naïve aren’t qualities that this world is looking for

    Naivety is probably the most painfully marked quality of youth. Life is incredibly beautiful and full of adventures, but also very demanding and hard; the most difficult lessons are sadly most often hiding precisely in relationships with other people.

    Naivety most often stems from the belief that 1) relationships aren’t exclusively due to exchanging benefits, while the second source of naivety is that 2) our benefit in a relationship is so big that people will always behave according to our expectations.

    With most people, temptation, mostly originating from biological (survival, reproduction) forces, quickly beats the value added of any relationship. If we add to this equation that our value added changes (seems low to someone at a certain moment) and that grass is always greener on the other side, we simply come to a situation where husband did stupid things on a business trip he went on after a fight with his wife; or a family arguing over a division of assets.

    This of course doesn’t excuse their actions, neither am I claiming that this happens in relationships every time, however it is very important to understand human nature – without naively believing in relationships, no matter their type. We can definitely have healthy, loving and good relationships in life, but we have to try incredibly hard for them and even then there’s no guarantee – neither on our side or the other. Extremely good or bad times are especially big tests of every relationship.

    The lesson of this discovery is that we have to have realistic expectations for people and understand humanity’s temptations. We also have to be aware that not all that glitters is gold, and that people often show us things to be nicer than the truth actually is.

    Sooner or later someone will rob us, lie to us, cheat on us, take advantage of us, take it out on us or do any other negative action. This is more a rule in relationships rather than an exception. Thus it’s incredibly important that we set realistic expectations for people as soon as possible in life, but especially develop our social skills to such an extent that we successfully manage relationships even when things don’t go as planned. And, of course, that we have a firm core in our life and don’t live in a bubble of naivety.

    4. Politics are a large component of life

    What happens in a situation when someone wishes to position themselves on the social/material ladder, but isn’t prepared to invest energy into ensuring the right real value added, a fair competition or maybe doesn’t even have the opportunity for it due an underprivileged situation?

    This leads to politics (the negative connotation of the word), manipulation and exploitation, while in the more extreme cases, it can also end in violence or even wars for natural resources. Politics, manipulation and exploitation are a large part of our world, often already ingrained in the educational and financial system, healthcare, religious institutions and everywhere else. People wish to ensure that their positions are as monopolistic as possible at all levels.

    It’s worth to note that the above-written words don’t only concern politicians but rather the human nature in general. Politics is just the most illustrative example of this part of human nature. Discrediting the opponent, false promises, misleading, exploitation, corruption, manipulation and so on – all of this can be found anywhere, in all industries of humankind, but is most obviously expressed in politics; most such “political” actions simply bring voting points, and who allocates the points other than people. Leadership is always merely a reflection of the people.

    And there is only one reason why there’s so much politics in the world. It’s because it actually works to a great extent. Don’t put too much hope into friends, learn how to take advantage of enemies. Never show your true intentions. Others should work, you take the credit. Avoid miserable people. See to it that people are dependent on you and come to you on their own. Completely destroy your enemy. Make it look like you are stringing up achievements without any special effort. Play on people’s feelings, conjure false promises. And we could go on. Sad but part of real life.

    I see this type of behaviour at every step, and the sooner we resign ourselves to the fact that life isn’t fair and that politics are also a vital part of the human nature, the sooner we can start making better decisions by taking this part of the equation into account. It would be ideal if politics were truly there for managing social situations for the common good, but sadly politics are far too often used for manipulation and gaining benefits without creating any real value added.

    The question that arises with this is whether such an amoral strategy is a sensible survival strategy. It depends on our values, our goals and environment. The more value added that we can create, the more we will be valued in the environments that acknowledge value added and healthy competition. Those are the systems that are striving towards transparency, integrity, healthy competition and collaboration. In a system like this, there is no place for corruption, exploitation etc. However, this doesn’t mean that the human nature is any different in such a system. There’s just systematic effort for trying to direct it onto a more productive path – progress.

    In such a context, it’s also right that we are honest with ourselves and know how much of a politician lies in us or, alternatively, to what extent we are disgusted by political behaviour. But it’s definitely impossible to escape politics in life, neither at a workplace nor in the family or amongst friends (gossiping, for example, is one of the most basic political actions in groups of friends).

    Questioning life

    5. Accept people for who they are, or find new ones

    Changing oneself is incredibly hard; the hardest thing in the world. And each individual has plenty of positive and negative behavioural patterns in their life. Changing a behavioural pattern is nearly impossible. Up until now, I’ve met only a handful of people with enough self-awareness, self-criticism and will to change one of their behavioural pattern.

    Let’s look at a banal stereotypical example, a bit upside down. A young couple. The boyfriend is extremely upset if the girl leaves the toilet seat down; since this had already annoyed his father with his mother. Now three scenarios are possible: 1) boyfriend explains to the girlfriend how vitally important this is for him and asks her to change her behavioural pattern. 2) Boyfriend confronts himself and realizes it’s not a big deal and that he can simply put the seat up, therefore changing his own emotional reaction to the situation. 3) There are daily fights about the toilet seat.

    And sadly 99 % of people will stay with the last scenario, be it in a personal or a business relationship. People change with much difficulty, if we even do at all. We definitely develop, acquire knowledge and experience, but we rarely change in our essence and our habits. Besides this, we humans are often incredibly uncritical towards ourselves, full of ego and thus very easily point fingers at someone else.

    The basic rule of each relationship is that we first take enough time, without prejudice and expectations, to get to know the person. Then we accept each person fully for the way they are. If we are bothered by something in that person to the extent that it’s a deal-breaker, then we don’t count on the person to ever change. It’s simply a deal-breaker. An exception are smaller things, whereby even for a small change, a lot of communication, tolerance and understanding are needed. Even with these smaller matters, it’s better and fairer if we first try to change ourselves, and only then the other person.

    At the end, it absolutely makes more sense to find someone with whom you are more compatible than to change someone. Thus it’s right that we accept people for the way they are and then decide whether they fit into our lives. We patiently communicate on the matter of some trivialities that truly bother us, while we try to changes ourselves for others.

    6. Always be honest with yourself

    The biggest harm we can do to ourselves (and others) is by not being honest with ourselves. When you don’t listen to yourself, you insist on a path that leads to long-term personal dissatisfaction and unhappiness in relationships. The problem of course lies in the fact that our deepest desires are usually inconsistent with society’s expectations or with expectations of people in our life. The second problem is that the path of honesty is usually a much harder path.

    Dissatisfaction in the job. Dissatisfaction with the partner. A new business opportunity. Be it whatever. The larger the change in life or the decision we have to make (marriage, changing jobs, the type of study, longer journeys…), the more we have to be honest with ourselves, the more we have to listen to the voice inside us. Before every important decision, we have to take time for ourselves and see whether this is something that we truly want, truly desire? Do we see ourselves doing this in five years? Is this something that is a part of us and our nature?

    Whenever we feel that something isn’t right for us deep down inside, yet still let ourselves be convinced, a much more difficult situation in the future follows. Dissatisfaction and doubt keep growing. Each time we are dissatisfied, dishonest with ourselves, this has to surface sometime. If we repress these feelings, they fester in us that much more and have to come out somewhere; be it in our health, dissatisfaction, but also in our relationships.

    Adhering to ourselves and the voice inside us is often accompanied by social pressures and pressures that come from expectations of people we are in relationships with; by choosing the right path for us, we often disappoint people and don’t fulfill their expectations. But the only right thing is being honest with oneself. However, we should also expect and understand the same thing with others.

    The sincere path is often also the harder path. This can mean searching for a new partner, new job, developing new skills for switching industries, or for whatever else. Despite all this, it’s right to fight for what we truly want and feel is our real path, while at the same time knowing how to say no.

    The compass is simple. A longer period of positive emotions shows that you are going in the right direction, while negative emotions (anger, dissatisfaction, sadness…), maybe even forcibly repressed ones, warn you that you aren’t on the right path; negative feelings are a signpost that you aren’t on the path that’s meant for you. If you are accompanied by negative emotions, this means that your soul is suffering. The exception is (non life threatening) fear, which is an indicator of what you still have to face in your life.

    7. Environment, trends and macro changes have an incredible influence on our life

    People are much more a product of the environment than we’d dare to admit. It’s scientifically proven that the most successful people on this planet, in any life discipline (sports, business, art…), don’t only have talent and do hard/smart work, but also benefit from an enormous support in the environment. The government, family, religion, school system etc., they all strongly influence our potential and the extent to which we can realize it. But trends and planned structural changes are the ones that influence this the most.

    What presents an incredibly important insight into an individual’s optimal performance is a bird’s view on how the society functions, where we are located, what our starting point is, the forecast of trends, and which environment will be the best for the realization of our goals. This is a discovery I most wish I had understood in my younger years.

    You can’t piss against the wind, no matter how far it carries. The more your values are incompatible with the environment, the more that trends are turned against you and macroeconomic changes are making your life difficult, the harder it is to reach your goals. While it’s true that good times soften the character to a large extent and create naïve people, the range of an individual’s success is significantly limited without the help of the environment.

    Of course despite all this, we mustn’t search for excuses for not working just because the trends aren’t in our favour. However we do have to constantly keep asking ourselves how we can turn the trends and structural changes to our own advantage.

    To everyone in their early twenties (and even later on), I would thus strongly advise to research trends, predictions, structural changes and how they will influence their career development – positively or negatively. It’s important that we’re mobile and set ourselves in an environment where our values and goals can prosper the most.

    8. Reflection and strategy before actions

    Few people read. Even fewer people write something. And even fewer people invest energy into truly thinking before doing. This is especially hard when we’re young, because we don’t have enough experience or a sufficient amount of coordinates to design a more sensible strategy for our actions.

    The most frequent strategy in youth is thus incredibly simple: a dash of inspiration, then onwards without a break. But today, in a creative knowledge-based society, smart work is much more important than hard work. Smart work requires a bit of inspiration, a lot of reflection, some action, reflection again, a bit of action again etc.

    Designing a sensible strategy can save years of work, but what’s much more important is that it can lead us to significantly bigger potential. Oftentimes doing things of the top of one’s head or following emotional impulses without thinking can lead to a situation that’s worse than if we did nothing and indulged in laziness. Regretfully. And the more complex that our environment becomes, the bigger need there is for strategy and profound reflection, if we wish to reach our goals.

    This mostly means three things. The first is that we have to take enough time for an analysis, without doing anything or making any decisions. Getting to know the environment, connections between people, their motivations, the key stakeholders, the decision makers, the trends and everything that goes with it is as important as the actions themselves. Analysing and planning can take weeks, or even months, but they also have their own importance, if they head us into the right direction. By analysing the market I don’t mean only doing research behind the desk, but also doing small experiments that gives us real insights into something (testing our hypotheses).

    Secondly, when it comes to analysis, it is crucial we take a sheet of paper, a pencil and think about our strategy, as well as answer some key questions, such as what is the final goal that we wish to achieve, how will our actions affect others in the environment, what if we don’t succeed etc. On the basis of analysis and consideration, we set clear assumptions about the environment, which we can later correct and adjust based on our actions. The clearer our thoughts are about what we want as the output, the more clearly we can set a strategy.

    And thirdly, talking with the right person can save us years of work, which is why in life, surrounding ourselves with mentors who help us in different fields of life presents an incredible value added.

    Deliberation and strategy are a step further from setting goals. They include the external environment, small steps that confirm or refute our assumptions, engaging the environment in the sense of mentors, and finding alternative paths or goals if our assumptions were incorrect. It’s the hardest to sit down and thoroughly think about something; and yet it’s so important.

    9. Different doesn’t always mean better

    At every turn we can find the underlying philosophy of “be different”. Difference certainly presents an important advantage in a lot of cases, but not always. In reality, being different isn’t even that hard. What’s incredibly difficult is being different and better at the same time. This is an important lesson, since it’s easy to accept the philosophy of being different in one’s younger years, but it’s much harder to understand that you have to be better at the same time.

    The average and generally recommended guidelines for life have their own certain meaning. They suit the majority and guarantee the safety of the entire society. An average diet is the most sensible diet for the majority of people. An average savings plan is the most reasonable for most people. Finishing university makes sense for the majority of people, especially if education isn’t excessively expensive. I’m not saying that this is an optimal way, nor am I saying that it’s the best path for an individual, but it’s the most sensible for the majority. Why?

    Any deviation from the average requires risk, an enormous amount of knowledge, experimentation, trying, falling and also failures that can hurt us significantly more than benefit us at the end. We don’t only need a different approach, we also have to find a better system by trying; namely a system that brings us better results than the one that is generally suggested.

    Let’s look at a concrete example. We have a standardly recommended diet; at the same time, it is common knowledge that such a diet includes too much sugar and that you should add more fruit, vegetables and wholegrain foods into your daily life. Up to here, we are still in the safe and somewhat above-average zone from the aspect of quality of the diet. But we can claim with certainty that such a diet will ensure survival, satisfy the nutritional needs of the body and provide a certain level of health for the average lifestyle.

    Now we wish to go a step further, be it from a health, ethical or aesthetical aspect. Vegetarianism. Veganism. Macrobiotics. High-protein diet. Cabbage diet or whatever else there is.

    Most of these approaches demand almost entirely removing one group of foodstuffs (hydrates, proteins, fat) from the diet. And here is where suddenly appears a certain risk that we won’t be getting all the necessary nutritional substances. This is why more knowledge is necessary for correctly combining foodstuffs, changing our lifestyle etc. With vegetarianism, for example, we can do more harm than good if we don’t possess enough knowledge, and substitute the lack of meat with a larger intake of simple sugars. The more we deviate from the average, the more knowledge we need.

    With this, I am not claiming that vegetarianism isn’t a good diet. I am only saying that if you really wish to benefit from the real value added of this diet, you must have enough knowledge to substitute the loss of animal protein with a suitable combination of plant protein, mustn’t significantly increase the intake of simple sugars, somewhat change your lifestyle at the same time and we could go on. There’s also a question of whether vegetarianism truly suits everyone, as it probably suits someone more and the other less. In short, the purpose isn’t to find reasons for or against vegetarianism, the purpose is to emphasise that each deviation from the recommended is accompanied by a risk.

    It’s exactly the same with career – entrepreneurship, as an alternative to a job; money – investing instead of saving; partnership – polygamy instead of monogamy; sleep – polyphasic sleep instead of eight hours in one piece, and we could go on. Smaller life decisions are no different, for example when it comes to arguments. It’s simple to not agree with someone, we are already different by doing it, we have a different point of view. Justifying it with arguments, however, explaining why our viewpoint is better and maybe even making a synthesis of both viewpoints and slightly changing our perspective is much harder. Despite everything, conflicts are a source of progress if the synthesis of differences leads to something new; different again, but better.

    A big trap also lies in the thousands of books, blogs and other authorial self-help contents that offer shortcuts to success, no matter which area of life you look for. The formula that led somebody to success won’t necessarily do the same for everyone else, including yourself.

    This is why being different doesn’t only mean standing out or taking an approach different to the one of the majority, but rather means that we are prepared to invest drastically more energy into trying, gaining knowledge, failures etc. with the purpose of finding a way that’s perfect for us and allows us a high quality of life, including feeling good in our skin and achieving personal goals.

    If we are prepared to invest all this effort, we can of course strongly benefit from the investment (more energy, more money, more happiness, more whatever else), but the path to a different and better alternative isn’t simple. We oftentimes come to the conclusion that we are most suited by what suits others as well; and we mustn’t close our eyes to this. Being different has no value added if we harm ourselves.

    10. It’s easy to stand out, it’s incredibly hard to truly succeed

    It’s incredibly easy to stand out from the average, as this only requires a bit more work than others invest. If we generalize a bit: all we have to do is go a step or two further than the average person is prepared to.

    But it’s incredibly hard to truly succeed. It demands careful strategic reflection, dedication, focus, help from the environment, hard work, luck and a lot more.

    Being somewhat fitter than an average person isn’t all that hard. If we run a couple of times per week or go to fitness, we are already standing out from the average. However, having a fit and muscly body means doing an extreme diet, long years of training a couple of times per week, a lot of knowledge, food additives, listening to your own body, giving up things, resting etc. Having a fit and muscly body means being completely devoted to health; it’s a way of life. This is why the majority of muscled people are coaches, athletes or training is somehow a part of their professional work.

    Having a bit more knowledge than an average person isn’t hard if we highlight the fact that an average person reads a few books per year. If we want to know a bit more about, for example, sales, then we simply read one book per month for a couple of years in a row, and we will already have more knowledge than an average person, if not maybe even more knowledge than an average salesman. But in case you wish to become an excellent salesman, this requires complete devotion to the occupation, an incredible amount of practice, constant education, improvement etc.

    Earning a bit more than average isn’t hard. We invest into a good education, develop a very sought-after skill and get an afternoon job if necessary. But becoming rich demands a completely different approach, owning resources or a high managerial/professional position, being at the very top of a certain industry, be it entertainment, art or anything else. Becoming rich is practically a lifetime project that demands strategy, knowledge, the right trends, bravery, luck and many other things.

    In short, being better than average requires a bit more effort and invested work; but to truly succeed in life, no matter the field, is a lifetime project that demands total commitment of the individual and using levers of the environment (market, social, financial…). So if we wish to truly massively succeed, it’s incredibly important that we don’t only have lifetime commitment and hard work, but also incorporate all the previously written life discoveries into our decision.

    11. Techniques of an Agile and Lean Life

    And finally, I wish I had known the techniques of the Agile and Lean life, which would’ve enabled me to be more productive, more focused and play the game of life even more smartly ten years ago. Well, today these techniques are available to the entire world.

    These are the eleven things I wish I truly knew in my twenties. And what are yours?

  • You only get out what you put into it

    Life can be very unfair from time to time, but not always. There is one important rule in life that we often forget about and is quite fair. You only get as much out of life as you put into it. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Nothing great can be achieved quickly and effortlessly. If you want to blossom in life, you will have to put more into it than other people do.

    The global trends are unfortunately heading into the opposite direction. We are becoming more and more of a “fast food” population in many ways, where fast food doesn’t only mean eating fried meals, but also indicates the way of dealing with information, relationships, activities, and so on.

    The average attention span is getting close to zero. Unfortunately, investing close to zero into things brings you almost zero real value.

    That is the biggest trap you can get caught into in the 21st century. But that’s okay. You have to choose for yourself. You can join the crowd and live a fast food life. You can watch “important” news, hate your job, scan articles on the internet, share funny pictures via e-mail, eat fast food while you watch TV, and hope to win the next reality show.

    It’s just good to know what you will get out of that. A very average life or maybe not even that much. I call it zombie life. From negative TV shows, you will get a more or less negative mind; from scanning articles on the internet, zero progress in real knowledge; from eating fast food, fat all over your body; and from hoping to win the next reality show, a nice little fantasy you can escape into.

    In real life, all those “fast food decisions” make your body less healthy and less attractive, your mind more unfocused and confused, your emotions more shallow and escape-seeking, your soul losing its purpose. The average life today is more or less about escaping into short-term fake hedonism.

    Don’t get me wrong: we all need this kind of stuff in our lives. You cannot be ultra-productive all the time. And you simply can’t escape the global flow of short-span activities that come into your life, like Twitter for example. It doesn’t at all make sense to ignore global trends. You just have to use them to your advantage.

    That means being on the right side of the table.

    Level 1: Have awareness and control

    The real and the most important question in the beginning is who is in control. Do you control your life and decisions or is “fast food” stuff controlling you? Are you able to keep a healthy limit of “fast food” stuff injections or not?

    The situation is very similar to using a fire. You can burn yourself or you can cook a nice dinner. Technology, including TVs and smart phones, is not good or bad. It’s neutral. Like money. The only question is what you do with it. You need to have control over it and use it to your advantage.

    The test for having control is very simple. Set the limit for how many times and for how long you may look at your Twitter and Facebook profiles, your favorite TV shows, newspapers, pointless instant messaging apps and other time wasters. If you can set healthy limits and stick to them, bravo.

    Not many people can take such control. Most people get caught in the so-called “online loops”. When you check your e-mail, you automatically check a dozen other applications. Before you know it, an hour passes. If you can’t maintain control, you should go straight to the next level, which is eliminating most “fast food” stuff from your life.

    Level 2: Replace fast with real progress

    Let’s go to the second level. The best thing to do, whether you can control your “fast food” desires or not, is to replace all “fast food” stuff with stuff of higher quality. The higher the quality of the stuff you do and consume is, the better your quality of life will be. It’s that simple. Garbage in, garbage out. Quality in, quality out. Throughout your life, you should try to replace as much “fast food” things as possible with real progress. It’s part of the process of eliminating waste from your life.

    Slow down
    Slow down and do high value added activities. Impress with making a step further.

    Of course you can become Dionysus from time to time and have a real “fast food” fest with all the “mental masturbation” you want, but the funny thing is that the more of a quality life you live, the fewer “fast” things you need. At some point, you don’t need “the breaks” at all. It’s like an addiction you get rid of. The biggest illusion that prevents you from doing that is the belief that a quality life is a boring life. In reality, it’s far from it.

    Therefore try to identify all the “fast food” things you are doing in your life and think about what the best replacements would be. It’s a no-brainer, really. Let me give you a few examples. You should switch from burgers to broccoli, from newspapers to quality books, from shallow parties to deep relationships, from checking your online profiles to exercising in nature, and from scanning meaningless articles on the internet to reading posts on this blog. Replace as much fast as possible with real progress. I promise you won’t regret it.

    Level 3: Go from a consumer to a producer

    If the first level is taking control and the second level is total elimination, there is one more level beyond that. You can step to the other side of the table. You can go from being a consumer to being a producer. Instead of just giving your money, attention, time and energy for short-term satisfaction, you can build products you believe in and offer them to the market yourself.

    You go from having a job you hate, buying things to impress people you don’t like and doing activities for time to pass, to creating value, earning money, sharpening your skills and leaving a real legacy. It’s a simple formula: producers get rich and consumers get poor. When you watch TV, the actors and the director on the other side of the screen are making money while you are losing it, together with your life. Be smart and go to the other side of the screen. Start brainstorming business ideas.

    Length does matter

    This blog post is very important in another way. You have probably noticed that some blog posts written on here are really long. Well, they aren’t fast food articles. They are meant to help you master your life better, be more productive and happier. The purpose of the long articles is to guide you in setting a superior life strategy. That will not happen from scanning articles on the internet.

    I am well aware that most people just screen articles on the internet. I know that lists have a much better reader engagement than long guidelines do. I know that every headline should be something along the lines of “33 easy ways to…” But in reality, those articles are mostly a waste of time – you screen them fast and then forget all about them. You get out of it as much as you have invested into it.

    That is the opposite of Agile and Lean principles. It’s a waste and there should be no waste in your life. Thus don’t discard articles just because they are long. It’s better to read one long article, think about it and implement changes in your life, than to screen hundreds of “list articles” all with similar advice and no real value. You should not ignore long articles just because you don’t have the time or enough focus to read them and study them intensively. Be smarter.

    I know you are better. I know you are prepared to invest more.

    The longer and the more eye-opening the articles, the better.

    You only get out what you put into it.

  • Zombie life

    The opposite of a successful startup is a zombie company. The opposite of the Agile and Lean Life is a Zombie Life. Zombie life is being stuck in the land of the living dead. You don’t actually live, you just exist. On the one hand, there is no death, but on the other, there is no growth or moving ahead either. It’s just a terrible drain of human energy, only waiting for life to pass by. I know it sounds horrible, but unfortunately many people are living such a zombie life.

    There are ten areas you have to manage in life (yourself, health, relationships, money, career, emotions, competences, fun, spirituality and technology) and if you neglect any of the ten areas or even several of them, you can get stuck in the land of the living dead very quickly. If you don’t fight and push yourself to make progress in all areas of your life, life itself will transform you into a zombie. Use it or lose it. Up or out.

    Practical examples

    If you work a job you hate, you are already living one third of your life as a zombie. Going to work with resistance, hating your boss, trying to do as little as possible, gossiping and complaining about your job to all of your friends is definitely a zombie life. It’s a waste of your talents, your precious time and your energy. There is a perfect career for you, you just have to find it first. You just have to first invest your energy into finding the right fit.

    If you don’t take care of your health, you land in the zombie land sooner or later. Your health is the most precious thing you have. Good health is a must-have condition for working, enjoying life, feeling good about yourself and having good relationships. In my youth, I was extremely overweight. Now I am trying to take care of my health as much as possible. I still have much work to do but hey – I know very well how it feels to be overweight and I know how horrible of a zombie life that is. No great mountain views, no team sports, a worse sex life and so on.

    If you don’t earn enough money, or if you are in a big debt, the quality of your life is also damaged. There is a lot of arguing over whether money really does bring happiness. Well, it has been scientifically proven that it does. When earning less than 75,000 USD per year, money has a big contribution to your happiness. The less you earn, the more every additional dollar means to you. Of course money doesn’t bring happiness if you earn more than 75,000 USD per year, but have crappy relationships and bad health. You have to optimize your life as a whole. But when considering money, you should fight to earn at least 75,000 USD per year. It greatly contributes to your happiness.

    Your spouse has a great contribution to the quality of your life. As the saying goes: happy wife, happy life. And vice versa. It’s totally unreasonable to be married to someone with whom you constantly argue, you don’t want to make passionate love before going to bed and you are not a good team in handling the household and chores. That is a real zombie life: being surrounded with people who don’t make you happy, don’t contribute to your growth and don’t support you or empower you. And vice versa.

    Same goes for your friends, coworkers and all other relationships in your life. The more shitty relationships you have in your life, the more of a zombie life you live. In movies, I haven’t seen any zombies that would have good relationships.

    Good relationships, stable health, purposeful work, a positive outlook and a full bank account are the foundations for your long-term happiness. You and your competences are the enablers to achieve all that. You need to work on your knowledge, skills, intelligence, emotions, the social network, your mindset and so on. When you stop improving and developing, you start becoming a zombie.

    You can also add fun, spirituality and technology on top of all that. Fun is about enjoying life and “putting down the saw”, spirituality about a more purposeful life, and technology a leverage to achieve more with a greater pace. All three help you not live a zombie life or encounter situations such as experiencing burnout or questioning the purpose of life. Whether you want it or not, you have to manage all ten areas of your life in order to live a happy life.

    Broke vs. Poor

    Being broke is a temporary situation. Being poor is a state of mind. Same goes for living a zombie life. Your current situation in some areas of your life may be a disaster; you may have experienced a big obstacle, a colossal setback or a real downfall. But what counts is a positive outlook and superior strategic plan. If you see the light at the end of the tunnel, if you see the next small step you can make towards a better life (and actually do it), then you are not a zombie. You are a fighter.

    But if you have given up, if there is no desire to grow, no desire to experience life and to achieve, then you have become a zombie. When you settle for the average, you start becoming a zombie, just waiting for life to pass you by.

    You can easily realize you are becoming a zombie when you are escaping from your life into the TV world, the bad parts of the internet or various other addictions, but also situations when you are “helping others” instead of yourself (dealing with problems of other people when you still have so much cleaning to do in your own life) or when you have many other distractions that distance you from your true purpose. You are on your way to becoming a zombie when you are more and more bitter, ignorant, lazy and bored. Bitching, whining, complaining, blaming others and doing nothing.

    Yes, there will be times in your life, when you will be broke. Your relationships will end. You will lose a job you love. You can get a serious health issue. Life is not easy. There are constant challenges and obstacles and changes. But you have to fight. Your duty is to fight. Your duty is to equip yourself with knowledge, people who empower you, design a superior strategy, and start making steps towards improvements and your ideal self.

    Zombie Tools
    Contemporary Zombie Life.

    You have to escape a zombie life no matter what. Because living a zombie life is a waste of the most precious thing ever – life. Even if you are currently broke, never go poor. Always find a positive outlook you can fight for. There is always a move you can make towards a better life.

    Frogs and zombies

    You become a zombie more or less the same way as you would “cook a frog.” You either make sure that (1) the water temperature is so high that when you throw the frog into the water it will perish in a second, before it can jump out, or you (2) cook it very slowly, increasing the water temperature level bit by bit, making sure the frog isn’t even aware it’s being cooked. The same goes for zombies.

    You can become zombie by making:

    • One or several very big wrong decisions (for example choosing the wrong spouse, industry, career, company, driving drunk and causing an accident…)
    • A series of small wrong decisions (unhealthy diet, not saving any money…)

    Most people become zombies without even being aware of it. They live life as they were taught by the primary and secondary socialization (parents, teachers, television, society…), not even questioning whether it makes sense. But an average diet, an average job, average relationships, average education all bring you a very average life. And in reality, an average life is very close to a zombie life. You don’t want to live an average life. You want to live an extraordinary life.

    The solution is simple, but not easy. You have to set higher standards, you need a superior life strategy and you need to start fighting for your goals and dreams. You need to make extraordinary decisions about how you spend your energy, time, money and talent. You definitely need different strategy than an average person. One of the guidelines for a better than average life is an Agile and Lean Life philosophy. Implement it in your life.

    The second path to a zombie life is making one or several wrong big decisions (for example choosing the wrong spouse, industry, career, company, driving drunk and cause an accident…). The setbacks in this case could be so big that you just give up or don’t find the motivation to go on. When making that kind of wrong decisions, it can take years to correct them.

    Going through divorce, declaring personal bankruptcy, trying to change careers and similar challenges are so demanding that most people just can’t cope with them. Sometimes even external factors cause that kind of a situation and we had nothing to do with it (war, markets meltdown…). Life isn’t fair.

    The solution is, once again, logical but not easy. It’s extremely hard but necessary to avoid a zombie life if you find yourself in a big setback. You need to find a positive outlook, you need to have a superior strategy how to get out of your situation, you have to see the first step you can make and then you need to start fighting. You have to cut your losses and turn a new chapter of your life. Some of the Agile and Lean Life techniques can help you to get easier out of these kind of situations.

    Zombie-land

    Your environment can greatly contribute to your potential zombie life – from the macro level, like your country and the industry you work in, to micro elements, like your relationship, diet and the company’s culture where you work. Among all that there are several factors that you cannot chose completely by yourself, especially at a young age. Some of them not even later in life. For example, for most people changing a country is very hard or even impossible.

    Nevertheless, the brutal fact remains that if you want to make progress in your life, you need an environment and relationships that empower you. Yes, there are always some limitations but there are also always steps towards a healthier environment and relationships. At some point you have to make the changes if the environment doesn’t support you enough. You always have to look for improvements, there is always some optimization you can make.

    The fact is:

    • If you spend most of your time with zombies, you will become a zombie
    • If you work in a zombie environment (country, office, family…), you will also become a zombie, if not completely, then to some extent

    You have to find a way to isolate yourself from negative influences if you don’t have the option of switching to a more positive environment. You have to innovate your way out of the Zombie-land. Maybe by changing your office, maybe by living most of your life in the virtual space (aka on the internet) or in creative co-working spaces, maybe by changing your job, friends, spouse or any other relationship. You know very well what drags you down, you know very well what makes you a zombie.

    What you really need in order to not become a zombie is a positive outlook and a superior strategic plan. Your superior strategic plan should consist of linear and rapid improvments, actions, decisions and moves you will make towards your goals.

    Usually, when implementing improvements, you try to find the local maximum with your current settings, and when you face a real setback but you know that there is still greater potential, you try to find a rapid improvement in a completely new kind of settings.

    When you do a rapid improvement in your life you don’t just do things faster or cheaper, you start doing things in a totally different way. That is how you grow. You grow by finding better ways to do things.

    Whatever happens in your life, never stop growing. Whatever happens in your life, never give up. Whatever happens in your life, remember that there is always a move you can make towards a better and happier life. No matter how difficult your situation is.

    Homework

    There’s a very easy exercise that can be an indicator of whether you are becoming a zombie and you should maybe do a pivot in your personal life and find a better fit. You make a life-satisfaction chart and assess all the chosen areas of life. All you have to do is first draw a scale from 1 to 10 horizontally, and vertically list the key areas of life or the areas you’ve chosen to assess. You assess every area or category of life from 1 to 10. In the second step, you take another look at all areas you assessed with 4, 5, 6 or 7. These are the areas where you’re averagely satisfied, are indecisive about or for which you haven’t taken enough time to make a sound assessment.

    Not knowing where you are and what you want does no good. The average is no good. The truth is that life areas either work or they don’t, you’re either satisfied or you aren’t, there are no middle paths. You either rock or you suck in different areas of life. Therefore, assess life areas again, but now by using only the numbers 1, 2, 3, 8, 9 and 10. In the last step, highlight every 1, 2 and 3 with red, and every 8, 9 and 10 with green. Now you have a clearer picture of the areas of life you should potentially make a pivot. Below, you can find an example of the chart.

    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
    Health X
    Friends X
    Spouse X
    Money X
    Career X
    Emotions X
    Competences X
    Fun X
    Spirituality X
    Technology skills X
    Download a free template of the life-satisfaction chart (table above) that will help you to analyze and assess all the key areas of your life. With performing this exercise you will be able to decide easier on which areas to pivot and also to make sure you don’t become a zombie.

    Don’t be a zombie. Live your life in the Agile and Lean way.

    Read our manifesto on how to do it.