No Day Without A Thought

You are constantly being influenced - consciously or unconsciously. 

You might just have read and article that you haven't processed or brought you into a specific mindset. You likely carry around deeper believes and biases that blind you of some aspects of your surroundings or make you misinterpret them. Or just a weekly stress of things you need to go through. Pain in your back, I don't know.

Your mind is constantly in a state of evolvement and never still. There is always sth going on.

As same as with your software, so is also other people's software (aka your mind and thought patterns). Show empathy, but also challenge them in their current believes.

You want to be with the ones who can be honest about their shortcomings and have a healthy discussion around it. Maybe you help them uncover a blind spot and appreciate it, or they will help you uncover a blind spot.

Or, maybe you guys are not there yet and still in processing mode, so acknowledging and action upon it doesn't happen yet. But you should be honest with each other while not "destroying" or getting offensive towards each other.

I've been reading "The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F***" recently by Mark Manson; and while there might be further blog posts to come about thoughts that got stimulated by this book, I want to kick it off with this one.

What KPIs do you use to measure your life?

This comes from two angles.

1) Values
There is only so much you can influence and you don't want to give any power away, read: be in full ownership of your goal knowing that you can completely influence it while being in charge. So, being patient, friendly, helpful, good friend, curious, honest, standing up for your values, ... are all values that you can directly influence and that only require you.

On the other side, being famous, owning car x, more money, being liked by everyone, being beautiful ... are often things that require external validation. And what if you suddenly don't get that external stimulation any longer? You are in a vicious cycle trying to apply to other people standards and following what makes them like you or praise you. You are not playing by your own rules any longer, but try to fit into what they like. 

With that approach, you won't be real and lose yourself, being a b*** to what other people want.

Btw. no one cares about you. Let's face it, they don't care that YOU are famous or have money. They like you because they need someone who is famous, has connections and money, because that's what they need in their lives and if someone else is there that has more to offer or is nicer to them and will bring them further, bye bye.

2) Actions
If you have been following my writing, you might notice a recurring event. Every once in a while it gets quiet here, before there is a blog post like this, when I pull myself out again to hit the keyboard. Often the break comes from a feeling of that I don't have anything new to say at that point and I feel like hammering on themes again, again and, well, again. But then, it's not about being unique, right, special or having a mind expanding post every day. And let's face it, not sure I had one good one at all. But that doesn't matter.

What matters is, repetition and the process. So the KPI by which I measure this, is not how unique it is, but just by doing it every single day and over time I will automatically get better at writing and generally wondering about my own thoughts making me more aware of them. So my value here is self conciousness and exploration, also maybe getting better in writing. There is a hidden little wish of actually being good and making this into something, but, that I don't consider this to be the main driver. How do I achieve continued self questioning? By going through the process every day.

So the KPI is the action, and I am in full charge of this action. No one else.

If you ever have a bad day, just think of the social media managers of Tesla and Space X today.

Elon Musk, based on a Twitter exchange simply shut down the Facebook pages of the two companies. Leaving the respected social media teams with...honestly, i don't know what to do.

Jaja, I know, there is worse things in life that can happen to you.

Still, funny:)

I've read a similar post from someone else a while back, but can't remember who it was - sorry for that lovely person.

However, I want to bring in a different angle (well, how would you know, anyhow..)

Why does climbing the career ladder happen outside your working hours?

The books that you read, the thoughts you have, the additional tool that you test, the blogs that you read, the people you talk to and tell you something you didn't know which you can use the next day, the mentors that challenge your thinking, ... all that puts you one step further then your colleague.

For context, I am not speaking about that you need to be better than your colleague, it's not the competition, but getting better in what you are already spending a lot of time on.

Now, the whole concepts would mostly only work for you, if your daily work is actually something you like. If you don't like your job and want to switch off afterwards, then no need to do that. If you like your job and limit your "mental focus" to the working hours, might be that others who put in more time will learn more than you. 

Might also not be, because you spend time on improv theatre that increases your emotionally empathy which then helps you at work. However, if you only spend time watching TV, playing video games and are not interested at all in something and don't develop any skills, don't complain for not getting further.

Some might rather have the problem, of not being able to switch off or not getting into a different setting, i.e. sports, another project or something which basically still excites them and they learn sth, but they would benefit from the mental switch.

I've always been an advocate for side projects. I just don't find pleasure in only hanging out and not doing anything. 

Maybe that's driven by anxiety or other negative emotions, but I leave that for another time.

So, that's the reason why I got into teaching HIIT which already gave me the lessons of:

• organising people
• motivating them
• showing me one can do basically everything even without sufficient prerequisites, you just learn it on the fly
• how to make a killer playlist
• I roughly need 10k followers on Instagram to get sponsored (should I ever want that + I hardly have 450 I think at this point, just a regular accounts, friends etc)
• energy through doing the things I actually like doing, seeing progress in an area and living up to my values

I've also kicked off another side project, a project I've been doing for myself which fits 100% my "brand" as people describe me: a life planner. I know, I know, quite a loaded word and right up my alley with self improvement. However, I haven't found a system or actual planner who helps me set a vision, make goals and actually keeps me focused/on track.

Especially the last part is sort of always missing, my work flow is currently still across multiple tools and places.

Anyway, here it is: https://365dayslifeplanner.carrd.co

What do I want with that?

Well, for starters, I am not sure I will ever make money with that or I am also not thinking about putting too much time into it that it actually brings money. However, I always wanted to be able to

• throw a website on the internet (done before)
• have a form for people to fill out (done)
• send them an automated email (done)
• put emails in a database/sheet (done)
• have the option for them to download a pdf/file (done with the email and Dropbox currently)
• set them up to be in the newsletter (done)
• option to send them a drip email campaign afterwards, either for a survey or because the product is actually via email (MISSING, but know now that possible via Mailchimp)
• ability to charge, so people can make a payment on the side to me (MISSING)
• send them a file or sth after in exchange of the money (MISSING)

For the last two there are a bunch of different options that come with different problems:

- I am using Carrd.io for the website. to be able to change the behaviour of a button, i.e. leading to a specific page, I need to upgrade my current account. Also, not sure I can actually go into the code of the website and add a code snippet for a payment provider. I've seen others do it via Stripe, but not sure yet how. Good point about Stripe, no monthly payment, only a fee once your get a payment

- I looked into Gumroad which basically offers a page for your service where people can leave their email and add any amount they want to donate for the file (note: you can also set a price). This would basically check many boxes, but also costs €10 per month. 

So I am not sure yet, if I need to look for another website provider. Carrd.io is pretty easy tbh, but also so easy that it is limiting once you want to get more customised (at least my current feeling, might be wrong if I use it more) and then basically how I can make the website-payment-eligible to get file connection.

But, you see, I am pretty close.

At my current work I also learned how to install a Facebook pixel - again, need to go into the code. But that would eventually allow me to retarget prospects, should I ever get serious about the project and spend marketing budget on it.

And obviously, if I go down that road, I also want a nice analytics system in place. That all however is over engineering and I first need to get the payment-file flow done.

Learned quite a lot again and also personally, while doing this I was in the *flow* the first time in any time I can remember. The energetic flow where you look at the time and you wonder how fast time just past.

Same with this article. Love it! More to come