Decision Making & What to Wear?

I realised that I started, unconsciously, applying my professional decision making techniques to personal choices in fashion.

I have never been a big fashion follower, and while doing a spring clear I noticed that my wardrobe became very simplified. I prefer classic, timeless pieces. No patterns, no special materials, no bright colours, no white. I like dresses. All of my trousers and skirts are pretty much in the same colour: black or navy. I only have shoes in 3 colours: black, nude and grey.

Doesn’t sound too exciting – but hey – whatever I grab from my wardrobe it all fits together. There is no extra thinking required, especially at those difficult morning hours. And in case I am suddenly unable to even select which top should go with which bottoms, I just grab a dress: all in one piece, no hassle.

I’ve only realised what I had been doing when I read Anna Vital’s experiment. Anna is the co-founder of Funders and Founders and amazing infographic creator. I bet you’ve heard about her before. The experiment, if I remember well, was to wear the same black dress for 60 days – make it her uniform to save time on selecting what to wear. Then it clicked, my wardrobe is my ‘black dress’. I have minimised the number of choices available to make the decision making process as quick as possible. It works efficiently, but the chances are if you are a guy you probably still don’t understand what I’m talking about 😉 The lesson here is to apply the same technique to all other part of life: eliminate unnecessary choices and ones that overcomplicate the situation, simplify,  make quick decisions and move on.

 

Remind yourself to Thrive

Update 1 : I wrote this post on a plane to Israel, which was end of March and it took me over 6 weeks to upload it here – that’s a big red flag! Where has this time gone! Especially that the post was about thriving and living a balanced life – serves me well as a reminder. Hope you’ll enjoy and share with me your tips for thriving.

Update 2: I have gone down from reading 9 books to reading 3 books as of now and if you’re such a big book worm as me let’s become friends on Goodreads. Over there I keep a list of books I’ve read, currently reading and would like to read.

So here’s the original post, dated 28/03/2014. I’m hopping on a twice longer flight tomorrow, so hopefully more to come soon..

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Arianna Huffington is right.

As if I’m not already reading 9 different books right now (in parallel, depending on my mood), I couldn’t stop myself from picking out the latest book by Arianna Huffington at the airport. ‘Thrive’ is about all the things other than money and power that drive us and give satisfaction. According to Arianna our 4 key ‘life goals’ should also be: well-being, wonder, wisdom and giving. I realised that I’ve actually been discussing them all at different times with most of my friends; and it links well with plenty other books I read in the last couple of months. Take ‘Drive’ which explains what drives people and guess what – only half is driven by extrinsic rewards, others are mostly driven and happy when they do something meaningful.

Why am I writing about this… I believe that our generation will massively change how people work. Hell yeah – we’re already doing it. Check out what folks do at Netflix and how they re-invented HR: no one counts your holiday (why should they, do you count your evenings spent working), they always look for A players and reward them accordingly (forget the bell curve appraisals, it work only if you also have B, C and D players in your team or is greatly unjust).

Millennials setting up companies know that work must be fun or we’ll all get bored or burnt out. We know we can work hard, but it needs to be recognised. We also know we need balance, as when we have time to do things we like, take care of our physical and mental well being, and hang out with people who enrich us – we perform better. I’m not even going to attach any scientific or research references to this, as there has been too many to choose form.

So let’s not forget about the importance of well-being, wonder, wisdom and giving and may this post serve you as a reminder to thrive. 

Hello Stranger.

Don’t Talk to Strangers. 

Few weeks back I’ve discovered that my mind is little bit stuck. I was working with the same people every day, socialising with the same group of friends and, as much as I enjoy and adore all these people, I started feeling stuck in my way of thinking and doing things. As a result, I decided that it’s time to step out of the circle of people I know start talking to strangers. At least once a day.

Now… how do you approach strangers? Firstly, look around where you are. There are probably people in your own office whom you haven’t met yet – approach and introduce yourself. If you’re at home or out and about – you can always start chatting with your neighbours or the corner shop owner. Your hairdresser, taxi driver, receptionist, anyone really… You never know who you could meet and everyone has got an interesting story to share. There are also plenty of networking events you could go to, check out Eventbrite or Meetup.com to find a group of your liking. Having closer relationships with people in your society, as well as being part of interest groups or associations is what makes Danes the happiest nation on Earth after all. Worth trying!

Secondly – there are plenty of strangers out there on the internet. The benefit here is you can ‘screen’ them in the comfort of your own sofa while you browse through their social media profiles. I’m sure there are people who inspire you and you wish you could just talk to them and ask few questions. I’m sure there are people who’ve done things you would like to do in your career and life. People with skills compatible to yours. People with businesses you’d like to work for. Reach out to them – introduce yourself, explain why you’d like to talk to them. Most likely they wouldn’t mind spending half an hour on a call or Skype with you; or if you’re nearby, maybe you could even meet for a coffee? Some won’t respond at all, but it really doesn’t hurt to try.

So what have I achieved through approaching and talking with strangers? Well first of all – I have learnt loads, they suggested other people I should meet or places/resources I could learn more. Secondly, by providing different perspectives, they expand the way I think, which helps me to be more creative and more innovative. Most importantly – this way I have made some friends and met my mentors. Although, there’s still a long way till I meet and speak with all the people I want to, but I already feel more connected with my online network. I feel more inspired and motivated. I have a better clarity of where I want to go. Even today I had an ‘Eureka’ moment while speaking with one fascinating person I reached out to on LinkedIn – but that’s another story for another blog…

Me talking to strangers… 😉

It’s worth trying – forget what your mum told you about strangers and go, talk to them. Share your stories in comments.

Which brain wave are you on?

I learnt about brainwaves quite late in my life. Somehow we never covered them at school or at least I don’t remember. I was researching creativity and what makes us more creative than others, or why in some situations or time we are better at coming up with ideas. The famous ‘Eureka’ moment in a bathtub – is it true? And when I discovered the brainwaves , I had my own ‘A-ha!’ moment. I’m sure there’s plenty of scientific material on the web so what I’m going to share today is a rough summary of it and mostly my insights.

Alpha, Beta, Theta, Delta

First of all brainwaves are not to be mistaken with REM phases, this is a different topic. When we’re asleep our brain produces Delta waves. This is the state of unconsciousness. And you know that feeling before you fall asleep, when you’re drifting away but are still awake and conscious – this is when you’re in Theta. This phase doesn’t last too long, but it is definitely a moment of deep relaxation and creativity. Your brain is able to produce vivid visualizations and you might have some extraordinary thoughts. It’s useful to keep a notepad by your bed to write them down before you fall asleep. Theta can be also reached during deep meditation. You must have heard about all those ‘mind programming’ courses which promise to teach you a foreign language in a month or something like that – what they do is trying to induce Theta through relaxation so your brain can absorb more and you learn faster.

However, most important for us is to be aware of the brainwaves our brain produces during the waking hours : Alpha and Beta. Beta are the fast brainwaves and we on them most of the time during the day. They make us alert and logical, but they also makes us stressed and anxious. The moment we have enough, close our eyes, drift into daydreaming and just simply try to relax – our brain switches to Alpha frequency. This is when we’re creative – in Alpha we have a better imagination, generate more ideas, we can concentrate and we learn more. I hope that explains why you get ‘Eureka’ moments in a bathtub?

This was my breakthrough insight – you cannot be creative when you’re in Beta, no matter how hard you try. When you’re in highly demanding job, trying to meet deadlines, sales targets, juggling five things at once – you will not be creative. Sure, you will reach your targets, but you won’t come up with any innovative ideas. Understanding the effect of brainwaves on how our mind works made me realise:

1. You cannot just walk into a brainstorming meeting or creative workshops and expect everyone to throw ideas. You first have to help your team (and yourself) switch to Alpha. This is when, normally pointless to me, ‘small talk’ comes in handy. Help your team relax, crack a joke, talk about the weekend, last holidays, or anything else which will put people into a more relaxed phase. Lowering the brainwaves frequency even a little bit will help you to be more creative.

2. If you’re desperately trying to come up with a solution to a problem, or an idea – go on and have a bath. Or go for a walk. Or have a nap. Don’t feel bad for ‘wasting’ your time.

3. Meditate. Even if you’re not interested in spiritual aspects of it, it will help you to relax and be more creative. If you don’t know how, search for guided meditations on YouTube – there are plenty of helpful people who will talk you through it. I can recommend Calm – it’s a great website & app, which will help you relax in as little as 2 minutes.

You can thank me later 😉 Have a nice , relaxing day!

Photo credits: http://www.topnews.in/health/high-brain-waves-linked-better-memory-recall-212456

Life lessons learnt while skiing

I could not be happier! In 24h I will be heading to the airport to hit the slopes in French Alps 🙂 If I could live there, I’d be skiing every single weekend… But this is not a blog about my love of skiing, but rather what skiing (surprisingly!) taught me in life and business. I love skiing now, but the beginnings were not easy.

1. Feel the fear and do it anyway! 

Three years ago I went for a weekend skiing trip with my then new boyfriend and his friends. No idea what the hell I was thinking. Never skied before, and there I am with a group of advanced skiers. Biggest objective of that weekend: do not make a total idiot of myself.

I had a 4-hour crash course to skiing and then I just had to go ahead and ski…. I was *paralysed* with fear. And I mean PARALYSED. I could stand on the piste and be so terrified that I could not move, too scared to face the mountain downhill. I was counting down the hours to après-ski so I could indulge in couple of glasses of mulled wine and finally relax.

But eventually it would always come to the same point: ‘I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I’m too scared, I can’t to it… [half an hour later]… F*ck it! I CAN do it’ and go down easily. Every. Single. Time.

It’s incredible how big effect fear has got on our lives. For some it is motivating, but for most – paralysing. It stops you from doing things, that deep down you feel you should or actually want to do. Every hour I stood there on the piste scared was an hour wasted. Don’t waste your time on being scared. You will do all those things anyway, it will just take a long time to overcome the fear. So screw it, feel the fear and do it anyway!

For those interested in the subject more, there’s actually a great book titled ‘Feel the fear and so it anyway‘ which I read few years back.

2. Practice makes the master

Initially, each piste would be a massive challenge, with many stops and ‘I can’t do it’- type monologues. But every single time I came back to the same piste, I noticed that I would be little bit more confident, faster, with fewer stops and eventually I would be able to do the whole piste in one go after few tries.

It applies to everything. If you’re scared of something or are not good at – do it frequently! This is the reason why I started this blog. I was very bad at writing so I decided to practice regularly by writing blogs and become better at it. And there you – now I even have you reading it! If you’re terrified of public speaking, sign up for Toastmasters or other public speaking meet-ups. If you’re not applying for jobs because you’re scared of interviews, then just go to a few for jobs that you’re not that interested. You can become great at anything. Research says you need 10,000 hours of practice to master something, but even few hours will help you to become better than you are now.

3. You can trick your mind

Few days ago at a dinner with friends someone asked me how after a year of not skiing (since last winter) I could still do it well or even better than last year. And I responded that it’s because I practised in my dreams! They all laughed at me a lot. But the truth is that because I was looking forward to the next skiing trip so much and thinking about it all the time, I would dream about skiing very often. I would do my best turns and be able to go really fast in my dreams. And then when I hit the slopes, I would do just that in real. I was amazed. I know this sounds very silly, but think about the last important meeting or presentation you had. The time when, on the way to work, you were going over and over through what you want to say in your head. See – you do it as well – you practised in your head. Your mind usually doesn’t differentiate between something happening in real life and something in your head (either thoughts or dreams). You can trick yourself. Not really sure yet how you can apply it in your life, so I’ll leave you to ponder on this idea…

Not enough time? Try this.

‘I don’t have time’ is our best excuse for almost everything, especially our dreams, aspirations, or New Year resolutions. Isn’t is sad? We sabotage ourselves and make this lame excuse to not do things that actually make us happy. So what’s the solution? I’d like to share my 3 ‘time-stretching’ strategies I have and also recommend 2 best books on the topic:  4 hour working week by Tim Ferriss & No BS time management for entrepreneurs by Dan Kennedy. The books helped to organise myself better and work more efficiently, but the techniques I want to share with you today go beyond working hours. So here we go…

1. Wake up earlier.

Do not dismiss this idea too soon. I am a night owl and my favourite time of the week is Sat & Sun lie-in… but believe me it is possible. When I was doing my masters while working full time, the only time I had free was before work. I forced myself to get up 2 hours earlier than usual to study, research and write my thesis before I began my usual work. I already finished my degree, but I continue doing this as it gives me extra 2 hours to work on my own business ideas. It takes discipline to develop this habit, but it’s great – you can do your morning workout, do your writing, or whatever it is that you don’t have time for. Here are 3 things that  help me to get up:

a) UP Jawbone. I got it for Christmas and I love it. Not only it tracks my physical activity but also sleep patterns. It shows my deep and light sleep phases. I programmed it so that it vibrates to gently wake me up within 30 mins of my selected wake-up time. It smartly chooses the best possible time to wake me up, as it’s easier to get up if you’re woken up from a light sleep, than deep sleep (when dreaming).

b) Philips Hue lightbulbs. I have them installed in the bedroom and programmed to slowly light up in the morning to imitate sunrise, way before the sun is up on those winter mornings… It  helps to wake up more naturally, the light will trick your body into thinking it’s daytime and become more awake.

c) Coffee machine with a timer. It’s so nice to wake up to a smell of coffee mmm… I’m very lucky that I usually find a freshly brewed cup of coffee by my bedside when I wake up, because my boyfriend beats all the records in waking up early. But you can also have it done by programming coffee machine for brewing few minutes before your wake up time. Make sure it’s close enough so you can smell it!

I also set a normal alarm, just in case all of the above fails! And I have cats who climb on top of my head if I don’t get up soon enough to feed them 😉 Whatever works!

2. Eliminate something.

You can only stretch a day by little bit, but the simplest and harshest truths is that if you want to make time for something, you’ve

Watching the time go by

got to eliminate something else. Write down things you do within a week. How much time do you need to do things you want? How can you eliminate something else? Let’s say you want to learn to play piano and you need 3 hours of practice a week. Maybe you could ask your manager to work from home once a week and that will save you 3 hours of commuting time. Maybe you can hire a cleaner to save you 3 hours of weekly cleaning? Maybe you could not go to Fri after-work drinks? You get the idea. But make sure that once you make time/financial commitment – you stick to it!

3. Plan for the future.

I always get disappointed when I can’t squeeze enough into my schedule; or spread myself too thinly not achieving anything. One good solution which gives me psychological comfort is planning for the future. So let’s say there is no way I can find those extra 3 hours a week to practice piano right now. The earliest I could start is in April when my dancing courses / important work project/ language classes finish. Then book it for April. Or next year or whenever you can. At least it gives you a feeling that you have it planned and will do it in the near future. You can go as far as creating a 3 year plan of all the things you always wanted to do. I got this idea from Barbara Sheer’s book What do I do when I want to do everything? and I must say it works. As silly as it may sound in the first place, it does help you to prioritise your ideas and make an actionable plan on how to make them happen.

Good luck. I hope some of my tips will help you stretch the time a little bit so you can make your dreams happen. I am super curious to hear what works for you, so please share that in response!

Photo credits: http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/conceptual-photo-manipulations/

How do you develop a habit?

There we go – 3rd blog post and that’s where it’s stops. For the 3rd time. Coincidently, we’re now in mid January and some time soon people will start breaking their New Year resolutions. This one started before NY, so no excuses! I have promised myself to keep writing and there’s nothing worse than failing your own expectations. At least for me.

Btw. this is the soundtrack to this blog post is: Linkin Park, Breaking the Habit. The song is about breaking bad habits, not developing good ones, but still it’s stuck in my head right now.

While trying to self-analyse myself as to why I stopped something I wanted to do so much , I pondered on how much does it take for people to form their habits. According to research from UCL it takes on average 66 days. Which would take me till the end of March… Long time, yes. Challenging, not really – if you’re taking small steps. I noticed that people focus too much on the end goal, e.g.  want to lose 10kg, want to set up a business; rather than thinking about what would be the process of getting there, what would bring them one step closer.

So this year, instead of grand plans of who and what I want to become I focus on the small, realistic and actionable steps. That includes 10 mins a day clearing clutter to make the space around me more organised; getting up at 6am, so I can work for 2 hours on my own projects before work; going for a run 3 times a week, so I can feel healthier and stronger. So far it works – but let’s see if I last till end of March. I should schedule in my diary blog writing too. If you have any proven methods of developing habits – share them in the comments!

 

Entrepreneurs underestimating the value of education?

I am always shocked how many entrepreneurs underestimate the value of education. Many genuinely have talent and such a good idea that they just have to abandon studying and pursue it – and that’s fine. But there are others that clearly despise those in higher education and I truly do not understand why. I often hear it is a waste of time. Really?

My own case couldn’t be different. Quite frankly, during my 2 years of MSc in Business Innovation I have learnt so much that I can compare it to 5 years of learning on the job. During the final year I had to mostly focus on my own research and I read so many books and papers that I feel like I have leapfrogged a major part of my own self-development. I just find it mind-blowing that for most questions you have, someone out there has done their research into it and has got answers ready for you. You just need to find them.

Some will argue with me that modern degrees are outdated and there’s nothing you can learn that can be applied to today’s entrepreneurial world. That’s also wrong. Academic research helped me actually understand better how the whole innovation ecosystem works. One day for instance, I have learnt about Absorptive Capacity. In simple words: it has been proven that the more you know and experienced, the easier it gets to do new things. Seems obvious, right? But that also explains why so many copy-cat startups fail or will never become as good as the original. The original team has got a superior absorptive capacity – the sum of their experiences, their knowledge, approach to business, all of which combined is very unique and almost impossible to recreate. The copycat business has only got an idea, without the same DNA of the team, it will never create the same business.

Alright, that’s it for today’s banter. I look forward to you thoughts on this topic!

Creativity or rather lack of it

You should have noticed by now that I am not a very ‘creative’ person – I don’t have any fancy themes, no pictures so far, and I am also not very creative with coming up with blog names. Deal with it. It doesn’t matter… For year I even fought against this label ‘creative’ to be put on me. How can I be creative if I’m so logical, practical and left-brained? Well – I actually can. I can be very creative with problem solving, coming up with new ideas, even though I am not very artistic.

Everyone in fact has got some kind of creativity inside them but it may be just having a long winter sleep. There are ways to awaken it. Usually those ways will make you feel uncomfortable, but that’s what it takes to make you go out of your way and try something different, a new way of doing things, different approach. Sometimes if you’re facing a ‘creative block’ and can’t find a solution to a problem or a new idea – put yourself in someone else’s shoes. How would this girl do it / how would he go about it?

Another way that helps me is to awaken your senses. Smell the flowers, taste your food (you can force yourself by getting blind-folded), listen to classical music – whichever way you choose just focus on the sense that is leading for that activity. Somehow, even though I am not artistic myself, I appreciate work of art and it opens up new ways of perceiving things around me and as a result – affects my own creativity. There are many more ways, but I’ll stop here for now – maybe you can share your tricks in comments?

The beginnings & Who owns your online life?

This must be my fourth or fifth attempt to start blogging… Last time I was actually going quite strong, committed to writing regularly, until I realised (too late) that the platform I was using has shut down and suddenly I was not able to download any of my writing. All gone. 

Anyways, the reason why I started writing last time (about a year ago), was that I realised writing is my weakest point and it was very difficult to me to write even a single line that would sound just a tiny bit interesting. So exactly for that reason I thought to myself that I really need to practice writing regularly, because practice is what makes us better, right? Even if we really, really hate it – trust me it does get better once you pass a certain threshold. I recently started classes in ballroom dancing and my teacher calls it an ‘awkward stage’. It applies anywhere. Back to the story – this was my motivation a year ago but Posterous’ closure has stopped me from writing (I know, poor excuse).

And now I’m back to the blogo-sphere and 2 paragraph down the line it doesn’t seem as hard as it used to! Why? Maybe because in between I have written thousands and thousands of words – for academic research papers, not blogs though. It just proves the point that whatever it is you hate and you’re really bad at at – just practice the opposite – getting BETTER and you will become better. 

One last though – closure of my previous blog and losing all of the articles I have written there made me very nervous about a lack of ownership of the data we post online. Previously, it didn’t even cross my mind, but imagine this : What if the only place where you stored your pictures was Facebook and it suddenly closed down? What if have never kept any business cards and managed your professional life entirely on LinkedIn and it closed down? What if all your music was on Spotify and it closed down? What if all your files were on Dropbox and then it shut down taking it all down… ? These are just few scary thoughts to plant into your mind and reconsider what you think about the data ownerships online. Whatever you post is out there and most likely you don’t even have a right to it. What do you do then? You retrieve back to the cave, back to the non-digital life… or just keep doing what you’re doing hoping that the technology you use won’t disappear. I hope for that too, because I do heavily rely on Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/Spotify/Dropbox and many many others!