We all have a hare đ start when it comes to forming a new habit. DAY 1 visiting the gym, we’ll do a 2-hour workout. We’ll do cardio, weights, yoga, pilates, stretching! We’ll have a protein shake too! No one ever will visit the gym for 12 days in a row only to do a 10-min workout. Most people are like that including myself. If only we could get to the finish line tomorrow!
My experience shows it doesn’t work like that. When it comes to habits and goals, we’ve got to be a tortoise đą. Maths say 1% better every single day means 37 times better after one year (1.01^365 = 37.78). We’ve just got to show up every single day and do that tiny little bit we’ve got to do for the day.
Got 10 minutes? Do a few push-ups or sit-ups, practice meditation or breathing, read 10 pages, whatever the habit is, then forget it. You’ve done the thing today. You’re a winner today. You’ve ticked the box today. Go have a coffee with your friends now. Just show up again tomorrow winning tortoise.
I’ve used only “we” because I’m a hare myself who wants to be a tortoise.
Any tips on becoming a tortoise? Leave a comment below.
PS: I was inspired to write this after going back to James Clear’s book Atomic Habits this morning. I say âgoing backâ because that’s not a book you read once and then shelve it. Itâs a book you keep going back. Itâs the habits bible.
This is probably one of my top 5 books đ. I first read it 10 years ago when serving in the army. Although this book is intended for intelligence analysts who want to understand why and how they make inferences, this book can teach you human relationships, marketing, the secrets of a happy marriage, mindset, politics, economy, and … life!
I’ve taken a screenshot below to give you an example. Suppose some country A does something that has some unfavourable implications for country B. Country B instantly concludes that Country A did that to harm Country B. Hang on! That may be some secondary or tertiary effect of Country A’s action, or the result of some other player’s involvement (Country C), or pure coincidence! How many times have you thought, “That person did that because he doesn’t like me!” Are you 100% sure your that person took certain deliberate action because he doesn’t like you?
Daniel Kahneman wrote Thinking Fast and Slow, a fantastic book (probably the most famous book) on the way we make inferences but if you’d like to read something different try Richards Heuer’s book, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis. You can download it from the CIA’s website here. You’ll love it!
PS: – Talking to myself – We often tend to read the same and the same books, we’re after best-sellers, the top 10 marketing books, the top 10 psychology books, etc. However, a few times, the answer might be hidden where you don’t expect it to be. Be different. Be curious.
In this guide, I will explain the basics of investing in the Stock Market in simple words without assuming anything. Stock investing is not and should not be presented as rocket science. To become a successful investor you donât have to be a math genius. You only need to understand a few things well and keep emotions away from eroding your investment decisions.
This guide is for people who want to invest their money in great companies and be rewarded for doing so. A real investor invests in a great company today because he thinks it will be a great company after ten or twenty years. Here, I want to teach you a long-term Warren Buffett approach to investing which will make your money grow slowly but surely.
If you want to make money in the Stock Market and turn from broke to rich this year, this guide is not for you. If you want to become a stock day trader buying stocks in the morning and dumping them in the afternoon, this is not the right guide for you either. There are other resources out there that promise to make you a successful day trader. In that case, I wish you good luck with that because youâll indeed need lots of it.
Steffan Surdek is a professional speaker, author and coach. His passion is collaborative leadership. He works in organisations and helps them to improve communication, unleash leaders, and define that element of success which is a shared vision. He regularly writes for Forbes. You can find Steffan here.
This is the long Skype session we did together a few months ago. Enjoy!
Highlights
Steffan insists on learning by doing. Don’t focus on success or failure but take action, experiment and aim to learn something out of the experiment.
17:35 I don’t charge consulting commissions when I refer people to a job. It’s business. If they I helped them, they are more likely to help me when I am in need. You have to give to get.
30:40 Bring the people to the feeling space. How does the progress feel?
32:15 Awesome Stuff Here: On marketing yourself and how to get noticed: Deliver value first and the money will come later. First, get to know your customers to see what you can offer to them. If you want to sell them something, you have to meet their needs. To see what their needs are, you have to get to know them. Maybe a free workshop at the beginning? Give them the opportunity to introduce themselves and their needs to you first!
36:59 Question: Is it OK to give stuff for free? People don’t value free stuff. Steffan says giving away stuff always creates business. When you give away stuff though, you have to be prepared that you may not be given anything back. Do something because it’s part of you.
43:00 Create content that’s reusable. Create content that you can chop up and use it in a different form or source. Do you have a long talk on YouTube? Take that long video and create a new one with the highlights.
A few months ago I had a very interesting chat with Kit Carstairs, the founder of the Manuscript Appraisal Agency.
Kit shared with me a lot of tips for those who want to write a book and get published. Here we discuss Traditional VS Self-Publishing, book editing, writing inspiration, entrepreneurship, work-life balance, and more.
I enjoyed this talk so much! Kit is not only a publishing guru but more importantly a sweet, lovely person! Enjoy!
05:57 – Why go with a traditional publisher?
09:35 – Self-Publishing
11:00 – Appraisal Fees
16:00 – What can an editor do and cannot?
17:46 – How to edit your book – common mistakes
21:44 – Wanna write a good book? Experience Life!
25:25 – Freelancing, growing organically, work-life balance
Recently I came across an interview of Maria Popova on the Tim Ferriss Show – Tim Ferriss’ podcast.
When Tim Ferriss asked Maria what she does, she answered: “I read and I write, in that order”.
Maria is the creator of BrainPickings.com, a ridiculously adored website.
Brain Pickings is Maria’s life journey, the books she reads, and mostly her subjective lens on what matters in the world and why.
Glorified Productivity – The Video
I also created a YouTube video for this article. Watch if you don’t fancy reading.
Maria Popova on Routine and Productivity
Tim Ferriss asked Maria: “What does your day look like”, “What is your daily routine”?
I was blown away by her answer. She says word by word:
Well, Iâll answer this with a caveat. The one thing I have struggled with or tried to solve for myself in the last few years is this really delicate balance between productivity and presence, especially in a culture that seems to measure our worth, or our merit, or our value through our efficiency, and our earnings, and our ability to perform certain tasks as opposed to just the fulfillment we feel in our lives and the presence that we take in the day to day.
Thatâs something thatâs become more and more apparent to me. So, Iâm a little bit reluctant to discuss routine as some holy grail of creative process because itâs just really â itâs a crutch. I mean, routines and rituals help us not feel this overwhelming massive mess of just day to day life would consume us. Itâs a control mechanism, but thatâs not all there is. And if anything, it should be in the service of something greater which is being present with oneâs own life.
What a beautiful answer. A ton of wisdom on how to live your life in a few sentences.
Talking about the same topic on her website, Maria mentions Annie Dillard:
How we spend our days, is of course, how we spend our lives.
Ours is a culture of how to get things done. How to be more efficient. How to master speed-reading. How to learn a language in 7 days.
Hey!! Stop! Take a breath. Be present.
If what you want right now is to go for a walk, or cycle your bicycle, or shoot a few free throws, or sit on the grass doing nothing, do it. Break your routine and do that.
And after you do all what you felt like doing, you realise you’re suddenly more productive.
From my experience as an author and YouTuber, I often struggle coming up with article or video ideas. Of course, if you sit in front of a computer all the time being loyal to your daily routine, how do you expect to be creative?
An author has to live in order to write. Creativity sparks when you do things out of your schedule, when you talk to other people, when you walk and more oxygen reaches your brain cells, when you travel, when you taste new flavours.
My Battle Against Routine
I’m making this video for myself so I don’t get sacrificed on the altar of productivity.
In the past, I used to be a productivity freak and today still I often get eaten by productivity.
One of my mentors, Dr. Teresa Hunt, who is an astrophysicist, writer, composer, musician, a totally Live Diversified lady used to tell me: “You are obsessed with your schedule Angelos, getting up early, doing the same things every day. You shouldn’t be living like that.”
And imagine that was after I quit investment banking to become an entrepreneur.
An Internet entrepreneur is supposed to be have a flexible schedule but I still used to stick to my daily routine as if was something holy I had to protect.
Teresa was right but I couldn’t understand her a few years ago.
Why Do We Love our Routines So Much?
I guess it’s our psychological bias again.
We are reluctant to deviate from the equilibrium point, ie. our daily routine, because we believe that our daily routine is what will lead us to success.
For example, we can’t afford to go to a theatre play because we haven’t crossed all tasks off our to-do list.
Remember what I said earlier though. Life is non-linear. Deciding to answer 10 more emails will definitely contribute to your success “a considerable linear chuck”. At the same time, the solution to one of your problems, or your next big idea may be hidden in that theatre play which you turned down to answer those 10 emails. In other words, the theatre play can potentially contribute a “huge non-linear chuck” to your success. But even if it doesn’t, a wonderful evening in the theatre will at least charge your batteries for the next day that you have to fight against your to-do list.
Yes, life is chaotic, non-linear, unpredictable. What’s wrong with living chaotically then just like life is?
It’s OK to deviate from an equilibrium point. It’s OK to explore without any particular purpose. It’s OK to try something without being certain about the outcome.
And if you are an entrepreneur, this is what entrepreneurship is all about – pushing boundaries, discovering new areas without any guarantee of success.
It’s all about the journey remember. All the experiences, lessons, failures contribute to your success.
Routine Doesn’t Create Memories
One of my favourite contemporary Russian authors, ĐĐžŃ Đ°ĐžĐ» ĐДллДŃ, says in his book “Everything about Life” that an indicator of a good life is your memories. How rich are your memories? Routine doesn’t create memories. If every day of your life looks like the previous, you will probably don’t remember much about those days a few years later.
If you ask me to write about my memories during the five years I used to work in banking I can probably write a short book with the title âgetting to work and back homeâ. If you ask me to write about my memories during the last three years as an entrepreneur travelling the world, I can probably write ten books!
To sum up, it’s OK to have a routine, it’s OK to fight procrastination and aim to be more productive. Just always have in mind Maria Popova’s caveat. And remember, how we live our days, is of course, how we live our lives.
To take control of our lives, we need to take control of our consistent actions. I’m not talking about the things that we do once in a while but what we do consistently.
But what precedes all our actions? What is the father of all action? What drives all our actions? The answer to all these questions is one word –Â decisions.
You take action because you decided to take action. If you don’t take action, it’s again your decision not to take action.
People instead of making decisions complain about their conditions. I came from a dysfunctional family. My parents were really poor. I didn’t get the right education.
No one denies that there are people who are born with advantages. Genetic advantages, family advantages, environmental advantages, relationship advantages. However, for every “privileged” person I can give you an example of a non-privileged person that against all odds smashed all their barriers by making the decisions of what to do with their lives.
But what sort of decisions? Truly committed decisions. The moment you make a decision, it’s a commitment. There is no way back.
We have disempowered the word decision in our lives. We have associated the word decision with something like I should do that one day, I ought to do that one day, it would be nice to do that, wouldn’t it? No. If you decided that you have to do something, you must do it and you have to take action now.
A real decision is measured by the fact that you have taken new action. If there is no new action, sorry you haven’t decided yet.
A truly committed decision has to be unshakable no matter what happens. The stock market collapses, your girlfriend dumps you, your “friends” think you went crazy.
Your decisions need to stay there strong and powerful. Because your decisions reflect your values, your purpose, what you came to this world for. You decisions need to stay consistent with the quality of your spirit, your inner calling.
Make decisions often. The more decisions you make, the better you’re gonna get. Muscles get stronger with use and so do our decision muscles. Feel the excitement that comes from taking the committed decisions that shift your life towards the direction you wanna go.
Learn from your decisions. There are gonna be times when you screw up. Don’t focus on the short term setbacks but focus on the lessons that will save you time, money and pain in the future.
Build flexibility. Once you decide who you want to become, what is you wanna get, be flexible in your approach. Try different ways, learn throughout the process, experiment, don’t become rigid in your approach.
Enjoy making decisions. One moment, the moment that you make a true decision can change your entire life. The moment you decide to quit smoking, to buy a gym membership, to quit your job.
A truly committed decision is the force that can change your life.
Angelos
PS: For those who are asking about camera and lighting gear have a look:
Have you read the title of this post? Well, I don’t know the answer. I want you to answer this question for me.
This is what Gary Vaynerchuk says: “You need to bet on your strengths and not give a fuck about what you suck at.” Watch here.
In another video he says the same.”Legacy is better than currency”. Watch here.
Now, Peter Ducker in a popular Harvard Business Review Classics (Managing Oneself) says the same: The reason people don’t succeed is that they don’t know their strengths. He suggests that we can only find out what our strengths are by looking at our past successes and failures (he calls that feedback analysis). Then, we should only invest in those strengths every single day. Also, we shouldn’t try to change everything at once. The key is in getting rid of the bad habits and continuously investing in our strong areas.
Here is an excellent summary of the book Managing Oneself written by the successful entrepreneur Tai Lopez.
On the flip side now I have to say the following:
 What if you have built your strength to such an extent that any marginal improvement towards your strength is not that important as opposed to an improvement in an area that you have always neglected.
What if your strength is not as enjoyable anymore as it was before? OK, you most probably enjoy things that you’re good at but what if you don’t find something as sexy as before anymore?
What if you have multiple passions and want to live a diversified life? What if you are a mathematician in your 30’s and a degree in history is now more interesting than a PhD in mathematics?
My dad used to be a teacher in primary school. He was a really good teacher. All the kids loved him. I’ve probably got some of his talent and done lots of teaching myself too. I’ve taught mathematics, languages, music and the feedback I’ve been getting all these years is really exceptional. However, I haven’t always enjoyed the process of teaching. Why? Because teaching sucks all your energy. 3-4 hours of real teaching can leave you dead. Does the fact that I can be a good teacher means I should become one? Not sure.
Two years ago I wrote a book about how we can become better learners and memorise better what we learn. I spent six months reading tons of research in cognitive psychology. There is no evidence that we should learn according to our preferred learning style (visual, acoustic, verbal, kinaesthetic) if we want to learn more effectively. On the contrary, there are studies that have shown the opposite. For example, visual learners learn better if they start reading or listening.
In another recent Harvard Business Review podcast, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, professor at University College London and Columbia University says there is no scientific evidence that focusing on your strengths guarantees success.
The problem he says is that we usually compare our own strengths between them instead of comparing our strengths against the same strengths in our peers. Well, I don’t fully agree with that either. Let’s say that more than half of the population is better at something we like and are best at. Giving that something up and looking at something we’re not good at doesn’t sound like a good strategy either.
Professor Chamorro-Premuzic says also that overdeveloping a strong area can become a liability rather than an asset. For example, a really ambitious person can become greedy or someone with good social skills can become a manipulator. But that’s again something you can’t control. Here we’re talking about people who want to get better and achieve the most of life like you and me. I don’t find convincing the reasoning here. Read for yourself. Tell me what you think.
My gut feeling as I’m writing this article is that we should do what feels right and not what we think is right. We live in a “KPI and ROI” society where productivity and optimisation are everything. We put our mind first and our heart second.
I think you shouldn’t follow anyone’s advice. Do what feels right to you. Do you want to explore something new? Do it. Do you find challenge in improving a skill that you thought you were not good at? Do it! You may find out that you’re good at it in the end.
Can you leave a comment below? I want to know your opinion.
Being an entrepreneur is tough. Gary Vaynerchuk says that entrepreneurship sucks! Watch this video.
You quit your 9 to 5 job to build an online business to become your own boss, to work from home, to travel more. You are looking for more freedom and you end up in your own prison!
I guarantee entrepreneurship can get f***** overwhelming. I now work harder and longer than I used to work in investment banking.
Minimalism is not just the key to becoming a successful entrepreneur. Itâs the only way to go as an entrepreneur. Here are my best tips and lessons Iâve learned going through a ton of bad days as Gary says.
Prioritise. Before you start doing any work in the morning ask yourself what the 2 -3 most important tasks are.
I donât think that changing the theme on your wordpress site is your number 1 priority of the day (I changed my theme recently but I resisted doing it for a whole month as I had other priorities).
Look at your to-do list. Do the stuff that adds the most important value. Be damn strict with this!
Remember the 80/20 rule. 20% of the things you do are responsible for the 80% of your success. Focus on that 20%. Most of the time you know what is important but still you donât do it. You fool yourself. Stop that! Reconsider your day-to-day priorities. Iâm repeating myself, I know but itâs so important. Â
Donât check your inbox every five minutes. Set multiple alarm clocks at 11am and 4am every day to check your email. Check your email only twice a day. It wastes your time and it kills your focus and quality of your work. Iâll tell you more about this shortly.
Stop multitasking. Our brains are designed to focus on one thing at a time. MIT neuroscientist Earl Miller says that when people think that they multitask, in essence they switch from one task to another very rapidly. Read this article.
When we complete a tiny task (answering an email, sending a text message, posting a post on Facebook), we are hit with a dollop of dopamine, our reward hormone. Our brains are addicted to dopamine and we switch tasks quickly because that gives us lots of instant doses of gratification.
These instant gratifications make us feel that we accomplish a lot whereas in reality we donât.
Multitasking reduces the quality and efficiency of our work. Organising thoughts and filtering out irrelevant information becomes more difficult.
A study at the University Of London also showed that people who multitask while performing cognitive tasks experience IQ drops. In fact, the IQ drops were similar to what you see in individuals who smoke cannabis or didnât sleep the night before.
Multitasking has also been found to increase cortisol, the stress hormone. The rapid fire-ups of the brain leave us mentally exhausted very quickly even when the working day has barely started!
The biggest instigator of multitasking? Our inboxes. Some studies have shown that even when you have the possibility to multitask when you know for example that you have unread emails in your inbox can reduce your IQ by 10 points! For men, IQ drops can be even worse up to 15 points.
The constant thrill of having new bolded emails in our inbox keeps us distracted. A McKinsey Global Institute Study found that employees spend 28% of their time checking their inboxes.
Studies have also shown that the damage of multitasking in the long run can be permanent. MRI scans showed that people who multitask consistently show less brain density in the anterior cingulate. That’s the area responsible for empathy and emotional control.
So, stop multitasking now, check your email twice a day, put your phone in a silent mode and focus on the task at hand.
Donât skip breaks. Itâs tempting to skip breaks (and even lunch) when you have lots of work to do. However, research again has shown that those who take regular breaks are actually more productive than those who donât. Sounds trivial again? It does. But we skip breaks (including myself of course) and we feel weâre working like a supernatural machines. Total illusion.
A great app to use is Pomodoro One. Pomodoro One has an alarm that goes off after a set interval. Then, it sounds an alarm and gives you a break from work. When the break’s over, it automatically starts timing your work again. You can use it on both Desktop and phone.
You donât need business cards. Itâs a waste of paper. I get angry when I see so many business cards on the streets. If someone wants to keep in touch with you, give them your telephone number, or your email. If they are really interested in you, they will contact you. Iâm sure that the chances are higher that someone loses your contact when getting your business card rather than saving your number in their phone.
Unsubscribe. How many emails do you get that you donât even read or open. When you first decide to declutter your inbox you may get overwhelmed. So, unsubscribe as new emails come in. Donât try to do it all at once. Youâll drive yourself mad.
Delete the Facebook App from your iPhone. Itâs unbelievable how much time we spend on Facebook. The best thing Iâve done in my life is deleting the Facebook App from my phone. Not only did I find inner peace staying away from the Facebook âblink-blinkâ, but I also solved the common problem of the iPhone battery! The Facebook app is probably the #1 energy monster app. OK, to be fair itâs not the app itself; itâs our addiction of checking Facebook on our phones.
Donât check your sales every 5 minutes. As an entrepreneur you strive for every sale. You want to see your income increase. Itâs your dream. You donât want to go back to office job. You want your financial freedom like nothing else.
In the beginning, I was addicted to checking the sales every minute. How many more sales? I used to check sales on multiple sites every hour. I used to get up in the morning and check the sales in my computer with my eyes half-closed. All this checking takes so much time and as email checking kills your quality of work. All this checking adds zero value to your business. Dedicate every minute on how you can make your product better. Spend your time on that and only that. Check your sales once a week, or once in two weeks.
Itâs the same with running a race. If you constantly look around you while you run to check on others, you lose focus. For those who run 100m even a thought can cost you the race. Â
Launch it. then make it better. Have you heard of the concept of the Minimum Value Product (MVP)? Donât wait to launch your product until itâs perfect! It will never be perfect. There will always be something more to do before you launch it. Create a product that adds value to the people. Gauge interest. Listen to the feedback. Your customers will tell you how you can make it better. Again I recommend some further reading here. What else? The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.
Outsource. Iâve said this again before. You canât do everything on your own when you run a business. I know you can do this task very well yourself. And that task. And that task. I know it will take you just an hour. But it will be an hour that you could devote to something else that could add more value.
This is how Muller explains it: âTake the time to eliminate the pointless, the superfluous, the questionable. Then decide what you can hire out or delegate. Then focus on the work that only you can do, that you can do best, and that you can do for the most impact on your business.â
Thatâs all for now. This post is about the Minimalistic Entrepreneur. It shouldnât get too long.
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