Career Advice, Entrepreneurship, Leadership

Leave The Office On Time and Don’t Take Your Work Home

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These two lessons are true for every person who wants a long, happy, and satisfying career.

But it’s very hard to put that advice into practice. It took me the first six years of my career to figure that out. And I still have to remind myself that life is bigger than work.

Almost everywhere that I’ve worked in the past, there was a “perception is reality” culture.

That means looks are more important than reality. In other words: The person who’s in the office the longest appears to be the hardest worker. Now, that may be true.

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Health & Fitness, Personal Development, Productivity

All Strength Comes From Repetition

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The biggest mistake you can make is to ignore the basics in your profession. This is true no matter what you do, where you live, or who you are. We forget that all strength comes from repetition.

When you ignore the foundation of what makes you a good person, athlete, friend, entrepreneur, student, etc., you will never be consistent.

That’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned from studying athletes. People who play professional sports are under constant pressure to perform.

Take Daniel Cormier, the current UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, and former Olympic wrestler. The 38-year-old champion has an impressive career until now. He won multiple gold medals as a wrestler. And in MMA, he has won 20 of his 22 fights in total. He’s considered one of the best.

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Life Lessons, Personal Development, Self-Knowledge

The 21 Most Important Questions Of Your Life

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21 questions

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from reading books, interviewing smart people, and having conversations with my mentors is that questions are more important than answers. But that goes against everything you learn in school where you’re rewarded for the quality of your answers.

However, that’s not what you should judge a person on. Instead, look at the quality of a person’s questions, like Voltaire famously said:

“Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.”

And one of my friends who’s a consultant at one of the big three management consultancies, once told me that, “my job is to be ignorant.” He was referring to Peter Drucker, arguably one of the greatest management consultants of all time, who said:

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Entrepreneurship, Personal Development

Impatience: The Pitfall of Every Ambitious Person

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Impatience

One of my mentors, an art dealer, taught me the pitfalls of impatience. He specializes in art from the middle ages. Last time we met, he showed me a part of his personal collection. Impressed by the size of the collection, I asked how long it took to accumulate everything.

He said “45 years,” and then he laughed when I looked surprised. He continued:

“This is not something you can buy in one go. It’s not like going to the IKEA. Accumulating anything worthwhile in life takes time. First, because you don’t have the money to buy everything at once. Second, not everything is always available. You must wait for the right opportunity.”

And waiting is one of the hardest things in life. But if you take a close look around you, you see many examples of people who waited for the right opportunity.

Take all the investors who bought stocks and real estate during the financial crisis that started in 2008. That recession lasted for several years. Recently, I spoke to someone who invested a big chunk of his assets in the stock market between 2009 and 2011.

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