

Ask Me Anything

By Yann Girard

<http://yanngirard.com/books>

**  
**

**Your Free Gift  **

**As I feel grateful for everyone that buys some of my books, I'm offering you a free gift that's exclusive to my readers.  **

We live in very troublesome times and choosing yourself (instead of waiting for someone to choose you) has become many people's choice. But being yourself is not always easy. Being your own boss or an entrepreneur is never easy.

The self doubts, the fear, the lack of free time, the head busy spinning all the time drive you crazy. That's why I wrote _Rethinking the Now._

In this PDF I share my thoughts and experiences as an entrepreneur, how to fight fear, how to overcome bad times and some other stuff that keeps me busy thinking. You can download your free copy by clicking here.
**Who the hell am I?**

I grew up as an ordinary German middle class guy, divorced parents, former 9 to 5 slave, turned into whatever I feel like doing right at this very same moment.

This includes occasional entrepreneurial adventures, writing, publishing and selling books, blogging, photography, keynote speaking, startup mentoring, advising and selling all sorts of stuff online.

You know. The usual stuff we do to keep ourselves busy, entertained and happy during our journey on this planet earth. I try to do pretty much everything that helps me from not getting crazy or depressed.

Ever since I quit my corporate gig I tried to get as much out of life and learn as much a possible (and teach it to others at the same time). Lots of fun and struggle included...

At the same time I try to share all of my lessons learned with everybody else out there and built a nice little community of like-minded people.

I regularly publish my ideas, thoughts and lessons learned about entrepreneurship, life and a lot of other things on my blog called "rethinking the now".

It's pretty much like my notes to self gone public with the quest to inspire and motivate people to rethink their now, take action and help them find their purpose in life.

Oh and I was working, starting businesses and traveling all over the place. Including a business that I launched, managed and shutdown (failed miserably) in China. Moreover I worked on the investor side in Berlin & New York for a bit.

But after a while I got fed up with all this evaluating and talking about other people's businesses that I felt like rolling up my sleeves once again. So I quit my job and have ever since been on the grind.

I currently don't have a place of my own and just travel around the world, trying to establish a few location independent businesses, meet incredibly inspiring people and am on a quest for the meaning of happiness.

I write, blog, answer people's questions and publish photography at http://yanngirard.com. I tweet at @girard_yann. 
**Why would anyone even ask me anything?**

This is a really good question. And I don't really have a good answer. But let me be honest with you here.

I'm a totally ordinary guy. I'm struggling just like you. Like most of us, I am fighting to get over the daily struggles of life and trying to figure out a way on how to craft and master a more meaningful life. To make a difference.

I guess we all want to leave our small marks here and there. I am trying to do so by sharing some of my thoughts, lessons learned and ideas about life, the world we currently live in, entrepreneurship and building and doing meaningful stuff.

I didn't make millions. I'm not famous and I'm not married to a super model. I didn't go to an Ivy League college. My parents aren't rich. I don't live in a multi-million dollar apartment. I also don't drive a Ferrari. Hell, I don't even own a car.

I'm probably not qualified from a traditional point of view to answer any of your questions. And most of my answers might even be complete BS.

But what I'm always trying to do (and more than happy to) is to offer a completely honest and independent point of view paired with some of my personal experiences and my own limited view of the world.

All of my answers are completely biased and subjective. Should you want to ask someone that went through years and years of theoretical models I advice you to go and see a shrink.

But if you're looking for insights from someone just like you, I'm your guy!

Here are a few quotes from some of my community members and readers:

" _I followed your last updates with a lot of interest. What you wrote about did really touch my heart. I was also reflecting a lot about my own behavior, my life and especially my vision of the future. I would be glad to exchange some of my thoughts with you and see how I could implement the life of a warrior and how to start living more in the now.  Looking forward to your reply!"_  
\- Michael from Germany

" _You write the brutal truth that's what matters to most of us."  
_ \- Ahmed from Pakistan

" _Inspire to be inspired."  
_ \- Isabelle from Germany

" _Hey, Yann! You're awesome. If you ever come to Barcelona please let me know! You're really inspiring. And I connected with a lot of posts from your blog. Simply amazing."_

\- Nuria from Spain

" _Thanks for being a true role model."  
_ \- Philipp from Germany

And because I felt that a lot of the questions I'm being asked (via Twitter, Email, Facebook, Quora, etc.) might be valuable to others as well I decided to collect them, publish them and make blog posts out of them.

Some of them have already appeared on my blog. Some of them haven't. So if you're a regular follower you might be familiar with some of the answers already. If you haven't read any of my stuff yet, welcome to my world. I hope you enjoy it here!

And please, don't hesitate to send questions my way. The best way is to send an email to yann@girard.net.

I'm really looking forward to your questions. 
**Why would I even want to answer random stranger's questions?**

Because it's a real challenge for me. And I just love challenges.

It's a challenge for me to get up, get started, think about it, start writing my thoughts down and then hit the publish or send button. I struggle every time. But every time I hit the send button I get stronger. I can literally feel how it helps me to become a better version of myself. A starter. Someone that constantly creates things.

Over the past years I realized that the best way to reflect about my own experiences, lessons learned and my life in general is to write about it.

We live in such a fast paced world that we barely ever take the time to think a thought through. To reflect about what the hell just happened.

To grasp our thoughts in their entirety. In all of their complexity.

And that made me feel like I was losing some valuable lessons life wanted to teach me. That's why I started to write down some of my thoughts, ideas and lessons learned and shared them with the world. And a lot of people told me that they loved it. So I kept on pushing. And then people started asking me all sorts of questions.

Life is sometimes so full of so many lessons that we usually don't even notice them. So I started answering random questions people asked me. That again helped me to reflect about some of the things I experienced myself. It forced me to relive my own experiences and think them through.

I guess I'm learning more about myself and the world surrounding me by answering other people's questions. I realized that by teaching people all sorts of different things or answering someone's questions, the stuff magically becomes a part of who I am. They become your thoughts.

I also strongly believe that the world we live in today is entirely built on trust. Every interaction, every transaction and every move you make is built on trust.

Everything you want to do in life is about being able to build up a relationship based on mutual trust.

And for me, answering someone's questions (which I might or might not be able to answer properly) is my way of initiating a relationship based on trust.

So do I want to meet everyone along the way personally? No, not at all.

But having some sort of connection is the best way to start things. To create things. To make the magic happen.

And one of the best ways to build up trust is to deliver value first. I believe that the first thing you should always do (be it in business, relationships, friendship, etc.) is to create value for the other person. Give before you take.

And delivering that value can come in all sorts of different shapes and colors.

It can be about sending someone flowers to cheer them up, bringing over a soup if that person is sick or telling someone about a way on how to maneuver through the jungle of craziness and complexity we call life.

We simply trust people that help us out in one way or the other. And that's the basis for all human interaction. Business or private. And from there everything is possible. All the magic can happen.

I really encourage you to start doing the same stuff. Answer people's questions. Help out random strangers. Be kind. Give before you take.

And never ask "what's in it for me?". Just do it. And you will see the magic happening to you.

It will probably help you a lot more than anybody else. You will start to realize that people care about you. That you can really make a difference. That you can really show the world your magic. That you can break out of your daily grind.

It will take some time, persistence and consistence, for sure. But you clearly do not have to wait until you're a billionaire to deliver value and try to help out other people. Me first doesn't win anymore.

We all experienced a lot of different things. Good things. Bad things. Happy things. Sad things.

So share your experiences (doesn't matter if positive or negative) and help other people to make better decisions. Help them to get a different point of view. Help them to see the world from a different perspective. Help them to rethink the now.

Be the guy or gal "I was telling you about". Become the source. Become the one everybody is talking about.

**Why did I write this book?**

I wrote this book for your convenience. That's why I'm not trying to make any money with it and offer if for just $0.99 (I will only get $0.30 or so. Amazon takes the rest). I could also have offered it for free. That's actually what I wanted to do in the beginning.

But after a few tests I realized that no one really reads books anymore they got for free. And because I feel that some of the messages and questions in here are very powerful and should be read by as many people as possible I decided to not offer it for free.

So I created an e-book that offers a much nicer user and reader experience than a simple website or blog.

An e-book you can conveniently read on your Kindle, your phone, your tablet or what not, instead of having to click from one post to the next.

Moreover I feel that publishing these things in an e-book might give even more people access to the things they might be curious about.

Oh, I almost forgot: feel free to share this e-book with your friends. Spread the word...
**How did you even come up with the idea of collecting and publishing questions?**

A few years ago I worked in email customer support at a startup.

Most of the questions we were asked were very similar (not to say exactly the same). So the people running the startup collected some of the most important questions and made templates out of them, which we then simply copied & pasted.

The most popular ones were added to the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section on the website so that every customer could read them. I always felt that this was kind of a smart move to make sure that people don't ask the same questions over and over again.

Then a few years later I started writing my blog. At the same time I also started reading other people's blogs, such as the one from James Altucher. And the really cool thing about his blog was the fact that he used this exact same approach.

He collected the best questions people asked him and then published them on his blog. I totally fell in love with the idea the moment I understood what he was doing.

So I decided to do the same thing once I had enough people asking me questions.

That way I had a place where I could send people to if someone already asked a similar question. This does not only save time but it also helps other readers.

And here's another really smart thing he did. After a year or so he made a book out of the best questions and put it on Amazon. You can take a look at it here.

As you can see, you don't always have to reinvent the wheel. You only need to have an open spirit, keep your eyes wide open and be willing to experiment with all sorts of stuff.

That's all this book is. It's an experiment. Please, let me know what you think about it and send a tweet to @girard_yann.

In the following pages I'll introduce you to some of the best and most frequently asked questions. I put them in different categories so it looks a bit more structured. Are you ready? So let's do this!

# HAPPINESS

## How can I be happy?

The happiest person I've ever met in my life wasn't a millionaire, a billionaire or someone that won the lottery (I actually haven't met any of those three yet, but it helps the story).

It was a guy that works at the cashier at my local supermarket.

He seems to be the happiest, friendliest and most fulfilled person on this planet.

I never saw someone being so passionate about doing his job. He talks to everyone, asks how their day was and usually lightens up my and everybody else's day. It's a gift.

Sometimes I even go and buy my stuff there just to see his friendliness at work. It fascinates me every time.

But it also makes me wonder what his recipe might be, his recipe for happiness. And why so many people are chasing what he seems to have found.

Most importantly, he probably found it without ever having searched for it. Maybe one magic morning it just happened to be there. And I guess that might be his secret sauce.

The secret sauce that might help all of us to be happier and enjoy our lives even more (in case there is such thing as happiness).

As soon as we start questioning what we are currently doing, see hundreds of other shiny opportunities, start comparing ourselves to others and let ourselves blind by the awesome lives that others seem to be living on the outside we start questioning our own path.

We get the feeling that something might be missing in our lives. A feeling that could best be described with unhappiness. So we start the pursuit of happiness. A never ending pursuit...

This is something completely natural and human. So the question should be more about how we can stop questioning our own path and start living a happy life instead.

To answer this question let's take a look at this beautiful short story, which is a true story by the way (originally appeared in form of a poem in The New Yorker, May 16th, 2005):

_An author was at a party on Shelter Island given by a billionaire. A friend came over to him and asked him how he felt that the guy throwing this party makes more money a day than he will ever be able to make with all of his books combined. And the author said, "Fair enough. But I've got something he can never have". "Now what could that be?", his friend was wondering. And the author replied, "Enough"._

Not having enough is the beginning of the vicious circle and the reason why we start comparing ourselves with others, start questioning our own path and feel like something is missing (although we might already have everything).

As soon as we start realizing the power of having enough we might get a step closer to finding the key to happiness.

The key that the guy working at the cashier at my local supermarket has found already. The key we are all trying to find.

He has enough...

# LIFE LESSONS

##

## What are the most important lessons you've learned in your twenties?

##

A few months ago I turned 30. The big 3-0. I didn't celebrate it at all and I don't really remember where exactly I was when it happened or what I did.

I think I was in a small town somewhere in Romania.

It's so funny when that big moment is finally there and nothing really changes at all.

You're still the exact same person you've been the day before and you don't just magically change your life overnight.

When I was still young (I can finally and officially say that!!) I always pictured myself as a guy that settled down, that has a career going on and just does his thing every single day.

Or was that someone else's vision? I don't remember. Maybe...

But as you might have figured out by now already I haven't settled down, I don't have a family yet and I don't even have a flat anymore.

Am I upset about it? No, not really.

I guess everything has its advantages and disadvantages.

Even though I didn't change my personality overnight, I did realize that I learned quite a few lessons during the last few years.

And because I want to remember them (and not forget about the in the course of my life) I decided to write a blog post about the most important things I learned. Or the ones that came into my mind while I was thinking about it.

As you know, my blog is mostly about my personal notes to self gone public, lessons learned and the occasional spark of genius, you'll also get the chance to read about the most important lessons I learned in my twenties.

So sit back, relax and enjoy the (free) show:

****#1 Believing that you have a reputation will only hold you back.****

Believing that you have a reputation will only hold you back from really experiencing and living a life you deeply care about. It will hold you back from doing the things you'd really like to do but people discourage you. Be it you parents, your teachers or that career counselor. Screw them! But most importantly: screw your reputation!

****#2 We tend to forget that others have problems, too.****

We all have heavy baggage to carry on our journey on planet earth. Unfortunately we tend to forget about this and wait for people to help us out when we might need some help. And because no one shows us love or helps us out we sometimes tend to stop showing love to others. Because nobody seems to care about us, we stop caring about others.

****#3 If you want to change a bad relationship you have to be the one to take action.****

Relationships are almost always complicated, be it between men and women or between friends. If there are tensions in a relationship and you don't go the first step nobody else will. As a matter of fact most people will only talk about things but they won't change anything. Why? See #4

****#4 Screw your pride.****

Same like reputation. It will only hold you back from doing the things you know you should be doing and screw up most of your relationships. He's the one who has to make the first step. She has to call back. It's been like this for ages. It's the rules. So it has to be like this. You know what? Forget about the rules. That's your ego talking and it's complete BS!

****#5 It's never a good time to change things.****

There will never be a good time for change. It's almost always a bad time to change things in your life. You might not have enough money. People might turn their backs on you and talk shit about you. You have to pay the bills. You have a mortgage. You have a gf/bf/spouse/kids and so on. Change will never be easy. But if you wait for change to magically happen you'll most probably be waiting your life away...

****#6 Creating things will help you to figure out what you really want in life.****

If you wait until you have that perfect idea or until you know who you really are or what you really want to do with your life you will probably never start doing anything. You'll be waiting for that perfect moment,that perfect idea or that perfect investment opportunity. But it's only by starting to create things that you will figure yourself out and find your true purpose in life. So stop waiting and start creating.

****#7 Our opportunities might be risks for others.****

What might look like big opportunities for us are indeed very risky for others. So it makes a hell lot of sense to put ourselves in our opponent's shoes first and try to consider their objections before we start talking to them.

****#8 The world is guided by fear.****

Everyone is afraid of taking risk. Every human interaction is guided by the fear of taking on a risk that might just be too big and not really worth the investment.  Be it a potential customer, a potential investor, your bf/gf. They are all afraid of risk.

****#9 No life decision will last forever.****

Decisions are temporary. Every decision we take today only lasts until we take the next decision. So it's not really worth it to procrastinate on decision making. The faster your decision making, the faster you get access to new decisions and new opportunities.

****#10 Friends.****

Sad but true: They come and go.

****#11 Trust is the basis for everything in life.****

It's all about trust. If someone doesn't trust you they will never do what you expect them to do. If people don't trust you they won't buy your products, they won't hang out with you, they won't call you back and they won't make business with you. There's no single human interaction that's not based on trust.

****#12 Honesty is the only way to connect with people.****

People tend to feel when you're being honest with them. They feel it when you're a genuinely honest person, when you write down your honest words and speak the truth. Unfortunately people tend to put on so many masks and try to hide things from each other. And then they get all busy hiding things instead of just living their lives.

****#13 Be human and admit your flaws.****

People connect with people and not perfect machines. So put that mask away and be more human instead. Don't be afraid to show your flaws. Be yourself. Be authentic. Be visible. Be transparent. Tell your story. And make sure that it's your own story you're telling and not someone else's...

****#14 Family.****

Will always be there for you, no matter what. The only thing that really matters...

****#15 Not having enough money can sometimes make you more creative.****

If you have too much money you tend to become fat, lazy, inflexible and lack you creativity. If you don't have enough money you start being creative, innovative and will try out all sorts of crazy things that you would otherwise not have tried. Not having enough money sometimes helps you find out what you're really capable of doing.

****#16 New is not always better.****

Most of the time it's worth it to invest some time and effort into fixing things. Otherwise you might just run into the same exact problem a few years later and you still don't know how to fix it and it somehow becomes a vicious circle.

****#17 Only by challenging yourself over and over again will you really grow.****

****#18 Nothing in life is really a waste of time.****

Not the shitty job you worked at for many years. Not the bad relationship you've been in for many years. Not the money you lost in that one big deal. It really is like they always say: It's either a blessing or a lesson.

****#19 No book, blog, podcast or any human being can beat experiencing things.****

There's nothing that will ever replace experiencing things first hand. Never ever.

****#20 Luck is predictable.****

Luck only comes to the ones that go out there, show up over and over again and constantly expose themselves to luck. A lot of successful people will tell you they were just lucky. But what they won't tell you is that it was just a matter of time until luck found them. They were constantly on the grind. They were not sitting on the couch waiting for luck to find them. They were hunting it down...

****#21 We can learn so much about how to approach life from the perspective of kids.****

Here are 14 things we can learn from kids.

****#22 The best things in life are the things we never really planned.****

So I just stopped making plans. The plans I made never really turned out as planned anyways. Moreover, having had a plan has usually made me somehow inflexible and not agile enough to exploit other opportunities ahead of me. It always felt like I had planned it and that's the way it has to be done now...

****#23 Happiness is about having enough.****

Every time I visited a developing country I realized how much happier the people were compared to back home. They didn't seem to have a lot but they looked happy. I guess the secret to being happy is to be able to tell yourself that you actually don't need all of this crap. You don't need that new jacket, that new pair of jeans, that new car, that house or whatsoever. I believe that the secret sauce to being a happy person lies in these three simple words: "I have enough".

****#24 The best way to learn things is to teach things.****

I guess the moment you try to explain things to others you start to not only understand them a lot better but they somehow magically become a part of you.

****#25 Being yourself fits you best.****

I tried to be many different things but the one thing I'm really good at (and better than anybody else) is being myself. Am I a bit weird. Yes, I am. Do I care? No, I don't. Do I run around when I hold a presentation? Yes, I do. Did people tell me that I should stand still? Yes, they did. Do I follow their advice? No, I don't. Why? Because that's just not me...

****#26 Creating things is not enough.  ****

It doesn't matter how cool the stuff you're working on really is. It might be the coolest thing on planet earth but if you don't push it, promote it and market the hell out of it nobody will even notice it.

****#27 You have to lose yourself to find your true inner self.****

I had to learn it the (mini) hard way. But it's true. You actually really have to lose yourself to find your true inner self. I still haven't found it yet but I have the feeling that I'm on the right track.

****#28 There is no such thing as overnight success.****

Everything in life takes a hell lot of time. If we think we might be successful in one year, we won't probably be successful until the third or the fourth year. Have funds that might last one year? Then cut your spending because it will probably take a lot longer than just this one year...

There are probably hundreds of other things I learned in addition to these, but I guess that's enough for now...

What's the best way to learn new skills?

I was living in China, trying to get one of my projects off the ground and trying to make ends meet. I didn't have a lot of money so I had to find ways to earn some more money to pay the bills.

And to earn some money on the side I taught English in Chinese and Japanese companies. I didn't have a work permit but it didn't really matter.

My mother tongue is actually German and English is only my third language (after French).

But a lot of people ask me where I'd learned English so well and how the hell I'm able to talk completely free in public without any notes for hours and hours (in English).

I usually told them that I guess it's because I was raised with German and French and a third language might have been easier for me to pick up. I don't know...

But then the other day, one of my friends who happens to have a blog as well asked me about an interview (you can actually read it here). Of course I said yes!

While reading and answering her questions I realized something that really blew my mind.

Of all the things I learned in my life, the stuff that really stuck was the stuff that I also taught to other people.

And it didn't matter whether or not I was an expert or I just learned it myself a while ago or was still in the process of learning it.

It seems that I have unconsciously developed the habit of sharing all of my lessons learned with other people (even though I'm not an expert or anything).

As you might have realized by now, I even started sharing my lessons learned on my blog about all sorts of things that fascinate me and the stuff I learn along the way.

So by reading her questions I realized that the best way (at least for me) to learn new things is to teach them to others at the same time.

To me it somehow feels like the moment you try to explain things to others you start to not only understand them a lot better but they somehow magically become a part of you.

Just like the English language has somehow magically become a part of me while I was teaching it to others...

##

## Which is more important, previewing the lesson or reviewing the lesson?

Until the age of 25 I never really failed at anything in life. I had a great CV, a great career ahead of me and never had any problems with anyone. I was the typical middle class guy that was about to start living quite a decent life with no worries or whatsoever.

It all went "downhill" from there. I'll turn thirty next month. During those last five years I can't even recall the number of times I failed, got rejected or was treated in a way I thought I didn't deserve.

It was a hell of a rollercoaster ride (with a lot of fun times as well).  
Today, a lot of people ask me whether or not I regret any of those things I did in the past five years. What things? Well, the things I failed at. Be it a startup, a relationship or money I lost.

Honestly speaking? Not a single second! I would do all of these things again and again. Maybe slightly different but I would still do them...

I learned so many things and lessons. I had to learn most of them the hard way and I'm actually very thankful for it. I strongly believe that reading, hearing or people telling me about their mistakes and actually committing these mistakes myself is a totally different story.

_You can tell a kid over and over again and try to stop it from touching the hotplate. But she will try to do it over and over again, nevertheless. A child will only stop wanting to touch the hotplate after she burned herself._

And the same holds true for adults. Even though we might consciously be aware of the things we shouldn't do, we do them nevertheless. We might have read or heard about this or that but we still do it.

Which is totally fine, because trying things out, experimenting and failing is the only way that we'll remember these lessons. We need to experience it firsthand. If we didn't experience it, it never really happened. We simply forget about it.

You need to burn your fingers first, before you stop wanting to touch the hotplate. You need to experience life firsthand instead of just reading, talking or dreaming about it.

And that's what no book, blog or any person on this planet earth will ever be able to teach you.

You need to experience life with all of your senses, your mind and your entire body.

Or else you might be thinking and dreaming your entire life away...

## What is the most important life lesson that you have learned up to this point?

It was the end of 2013 and it was kind of a rough period in my life. I didn't have a regular job anymore, no stable income, I broke up with my girlfriend and had to move back in with my mom.

I learned the most important lesson of my life not too long ago when I was on vacation in Vietnam "when some Vietnamese kids taught me a life changing lesson"

But it was at the same time the beginning of a new period in my life, which was introduced to me in one of the strangest, but also most wonderful experiences in my life so far.

A bunch of Vietnamese kids taught me the most important lesson of my life when I least expected it. It all started when I thought that pretty much nothing in my life turned out the way I imagined it to turn out.

I was in Vietnam to spend some quality time with my girlfriend when we unexpectedly broke up. I am not going to tell you what exactly happened, as she might be reading this here as well.

So to get my shit straight, I spent a lot of time hanging out in parks in Ho Chi Minh City, reading books, watching people and thinking about what I wanted to do next.

I had all kinds of crazy thoughts going on in my head, such as making a bike trip through Vietnam, moving back to Asia and quietly working on some projects (this idea is still an option) or going back to work in a corporation in Germany.

That's when one of the best and surprising things ever happened to me. While I was sitting in a park a weirdly looking Vietnamese kid came over talking to me. In the beginning I thought he wanted to sell me some stuff.

After I figured out that he didn't want to sell me anything, I quickly assumed that he might be gay and wanted to hook up or something.

This was wrong again and a brilliant example how judgmental and suspicious I had become over the last couple of years. Instead of assuming that this kid just wanted to talk, I was quick about judging him.

But this was not the lesson I wanted to tell you about, even though this might have been it already.

What I figured out after a while was that he just wanted to talk to me to learn more about my culture, talk some English and just generally see whether or not he could learn something from me.

To my surprise, after talking for about five minutes with this young student of 18 years, we were quickly joined by another dozen of Vietnamese kids. Some of them joined the conversation, whereas others just listened carefully and tried to follow the conversation.

I realized that until this day nothing similar had happened to me in my life so far. Kids at the age of 15+ were proactively searching and literally screening for opportunities to learn and understand new things by talking to others.

It was this very moment that I understood the real meaning of lifelong learning and what it means to be passionate about progressing. What these kids taught me would ever since be one of my guiding principles.

Even though their circumstances might be rough, their parents live far away, they have to live in an unfamiliar environment and they don't have any friends they are taking their destiny in their own hands and don't wait for things to magically happen to them.

It's up to us to decide whether or not we want to progress or stand still in life. It's about whether or not we proactively take the piece of the pie we think we deserve. If we don't take it, someone else will definitely take it. And that's exactly what these kids have shown me.

It doesn't really matter in what kind of life situation you might be in. It's about willing to stand up, about taking risks, about getting over your fear of rejection, about getting your ass off the couch and trying to learn and understand new things.

There are opportunities to grow and educate ourselves everywhere and right in front of us, sometimes even in the comfort of our own neighborhoods. We just have to grab them.

If we are unhappy with a situation, if we think we don't learn enough in our job/school or if we feel unchallenged, the only one that can change this situation is us. It won't just magically happen.

Ever since I read more than 20+ books about all kinds of subjects (death, relationships, money, holocaust, being a teenager, war, sales, drawing, marketing), met more than 30+ people I didn't know until recently and try out new things every day.

I decided to be the architect of my own future, instead of waiting for things to just magically happen. Thanks so much Vietnamese kids from Ho Chi Minh City. You will always be remembered!

# UNIVERSITY

Should I quit university and follow my passion?

Just before I turned 30 I had to move back in with my mom. It's been more than a year now that I don't have a "proper" job anymore. Everything that's usually left at the end of the month is a glimpse at a bank statement that shows less and less.

While my friends go on vacation all the time, buy new cars and spend money like crazy, I just sit in front of my laptop and work for approximately 70+ hours a week. All by myself.

Adding the countless hours that my projects keep my head busy thinking (consciously or unconsciously) it might be around 100+ hours. I never can get away from it all. It's always there. It doesn't matter where I'm at. It won't go away.

Just a few months ago I was crunching the numbers on how much I made since I quit my job and stopped receiving paychecks at the end of the month. The result wasn't very encouraging I have to admit.

The before tax amount I earned was less than 1/10 of the amount I would have earned if I stayed at my job. So I guess I could have worked for minimum vague, which would probably not have eaten me alive as much as the stuff that I do right now.

Just a few months ago I also lost my last tower of power. You would be right, if you'd say that I arrived at the other end of society, at least according to society's conventions, not my conventions.

And all of this in spite of two university diplomas, countless internships and two longer stays abroad and so on and so forth.

But how did all of this happen? How could someone that had it all including a perfect CV struggle so much? The answer is actually quite simple.

I have chosen this path of my own free will. I quit my job and am ever since following my passion, or at least trying to find my true passion (blogging, writing, speaking, testing startup ideas, etc.). So I'm not complaining about my situation here.

Nevertheless, most of the things didn't quite work out as I expected, or as I secretly hoped they would turn out. I was probably as much blinded by all the bling bling in the media as you were.

Stories and people talking about following your passion and so on. In the end everything will turn out just fine. That's at least what I thought or imagined.

While writing this I had to think back at my favorite quote that I had posted on my Facebook profile round about 5 years ago. Back in the days it made me chuckle. It went something like this:

_"_ _We were all raised by the media that wants us to believe that at some point in time  we will all either be millionaires, movie stars or rock stars. But we won't. That's what we start to realize little by little. And then we are about to snap and go completely crazy."_

I think it's from the movie Fight Club. Astonishingly enough, I fell into the exact same trap that I was chuckling about and making fun of a few years ago. A trap I thought I would never ever fall into. I walked just right into it...

I was talking myself into becoming a rock star. I was sure that one day I'll magically become a rock star. Others that are a lot less skilled and passionate than I am have also done it somehow.

Unfortunately, reality will punch you right in your face when you start to realize that it's not going to happen within the next few years or maybe never. The stuff you see on TV, read in the newspapers or on blogs usually looks like a total piece of cake.

But in reality it all comes down to rock-hard work, many years of struggling (in one way or the other). It's nothing for quitters. Crawling under your sheets back home and waiting it all out is not going to work, buddy.

Since I started following my passion or at least trying to find it, I had to deal with failure more often than I had to within the last 29 years of my life.

Whenever I thought "that's it, the downward spiral is over", another low just came across. Quitting? Giving up? Not an option. You have to go on. But why the hell am I telling you all of this?

Because I'm a big fan of being honest about things. Not only to others but also to myself. I like telling the truth and I hate sugarcoating things. And that's what most people out there do.

Taking the decision to work on your own projects, following your passion and trying to make a living is probably the worst decision that young and inexperienced people can ever take.

You'll have to go through a lot of shit. You have to do things you don't want to be doing. Things you absolutely hate doing. And in a worst case scenario you'll have to wait many years until you're successful. You need to be ready to sacrifice a lot and you need to be able to get your damn ass out of your comfort zone all the time.

In a nutshell: you need to be aware of the fact that you're going to trade your secure life against a life in insecurity, constant doubts and existential angst. And that's something most of us would not feel very comfortable with It would kill some of us. I would probably have quit quite a while ago if I haven't been going through a similar situation in life already.

The time when I had to go to school and university. For almost 20!! years... I absolutely hated it. It didn't make any sense to me and I thought that it was just plain annoying. But I didn't quit, even though it was hard, sucking all the creativity out of me. It all seemed so pointless.

Ironically it was this exact experience that taught me how to get over a massive period of drought, doubts and countless ups and downs. It's this experience that now helps me not to quit, that keeps my engines running and makes me optimistic about the future.

To me it seems that university taught me probably some of the most important things in life, especially when you decided to take the rocky and exhausting path of following your passion.

It taught me a hell lot about persistence, how to do stuff you don't like, how to go through countless doubts and how to keep your inner engines running through numerous ups and downs.

It taught me all of these things that I would probably not have learned anywhere else, especially not if I would have started off following my passion right away and only did things that I loved.

Without the experience of going to college (and finishing it) I would probably already have quit following my passion quite a while ago....

Read more of these stories here:  _Confessions of an Entrepreneur_  

# BEING STUCK

I feel like I'm holding myself back all the time. What can I do to change this?

Every time I want to hit the publish button for one of my blog posts thousands of thoughts flash through my head at the same time. Will people like what I wrote? Will they hate it? Will they talk bad about me? Will they think I've gone crazy?

What about that one particular guy? Will he read it and then never ever answer my calls, my mails or even ignore me the next time we bump into each other? I get scared and want to delete it. But I can't. I have to keep pushing...

That's the moment when I usually sit back for a while, relax and tell myself that most of the things might happen or they might not. But at the end of the day it doesn't really matter anyways, because I remind myself that I don't have anything to lose. I can only win.

Whatever I do, I can only win.

If I do nothing at all, no one will ever hear about that one awesome idea I had, that one cool product I built or that cool service I just launched. If I don't get my shit straight and get my stuff out there I will die old and lonely reflecting about all the cool things I could have done.

And I know that this will drive me crazy.  Nevertheless, I have to constantly fight that small beast in the back of my head that makes me hesitate and question the things I do over and over again.

It's a nasty little creature. A creature that wants to slow me down all the time. A creature that holds me back from doing and creating things.

I'd like to call that nasty creature reputation.

It comes out when you least expect it and it crawls up your skin, up your neck and gets into your head and starts to screw up your thinking. It makes you blind. It somehow makes you stop thinking clearly and it forces you to focus on this one single thing only:

But what about my reputation?

And the moment it gets into your head all these thoughts keep popping up again. And that's the moment you start to get stuck. You start to get stuck in your doubts and your tremendous fear of losing your reputation. You're stuck, just like that expert is stuck.

The worst thing that can happen to you is to believe that you even have a reputation to begin with. That people do really care about what you say, feel or do. But the truth is people generally don't care about you at all. I know it's hard to accept it, but that's the sad truth.

And the only way to get unstuck and get out of this vicious circle of believing that you have a reputation is to remind and tell yourself this one thing over and over again:

Screw this. Screw my reputation. Believing that I have a reputation will only hold me back from doing great things, from creating cool things.

That's at least what helps me every time I'm scared to hit the publish button (just like right now)...

## How do I get over my bad habit of procrastinating?

I was scared. Really scared. What happens if I fail? Will I have to do this stuff for the rest of my life? Will I be stuck forever? What if I don't like it? What if I want to go back, but I can't? What if I want to start a family one day but don't have enough money to do so? What if..?

These were all questions I asked myself when I went out there, rolled up my sleeves and started working on my first own project. Questions that were all highly hypothetical. Questions that I actually never really had to find an answer for.

Similar questions like these include the following:

Will she leave me? Is she the one? Is this the right job for me?  Will I have to work this job for the rest of my life? Will I be able to ever feed a family and so on...

All of these questions, all these doubts will only eat up your energy instead of helping you. They will only slow you down. They will paralyze you. They will hinder us from taking any sort of decisions.

And then we start to get afraid. We are guided by fear.

But all of a sudden all of this doesn't matter anymore. All of your worries, all of your sorrows and all of your regrets suddenly vanish into thin air within a few seconds when you start to realize one really important thing:

Nothing really lasts forever. No decision that you take today will last forever. Every decision is temporary. Every decision you take will only last until you have to take the next decision.

Be it the decision to leave your current job you once decided to accept because you found a better one. Be it the decision to stop working on this project you once decided to work on because you now have a better one at hand or be it the decision to leave your current girlfriend you once decided to be with because you now love someone else.

Everything is just temporary (ok almost everything..).

But knowing this doesn't mean that you should stop giving 150%. No, that's not what it means at all. Knowing this should actually push you even harder. You should go all in all the time because you understood one crucial thing:

Taking one decision will usually allow us to tap into even more opportunities that allow us to grow even further and progress even more in life. Making one decision usually opens up the door to ten other opportunities we can now choose from and pick the most appealing ones.

Instead of worrying about all the negative consequences of all the decisions you have to take at one point or the other in your life you should welcome them. You should welcome life changing decisions and not try to chase them away or let them wait in front of your porch.

Offer them a place to stay. A roof over their heads. Build them a house and make them feel at home. Because they will be the ones that will introduce you to a highway full of other life changing opportunities and decisions.

So you'd better treat them right and stop procrastinating. Invite them in. Serve them your best meal. Stop putting off decisions and say goodbye to a half baked life where you're constantly in doubt about every decision you take.

After all, decisions are only temporary. The decisions you take today might not be valid anymore tomorrow.

They will be replaced as soon as you take the next decision...

What is the biggest waste of time in your life?

We've developed the habit of waiting for things. We wait for the bus. We wait for trains. We wait in line at the supermarket. We wait for the new iPhone to be released. We wait for our paychecks to arrive at the end of each month so we can start buying more things to then again wait in line to pay for them.

We were literally educated into believing that waiting is the only way to get the things in life we so desperately want or need. It somehow looks like we unlearned to proactively fight for the things we want.

To me it seems that we forgot how to take care of ourselves.

It even had such a huge impact on our behavior that we simply started waiting for pretty much everything in our lives to magically happen. It will happen if we just wait long enough...

So now we also wait for a lot of other things to happen. These things include:

Waiting for that promotion, that pay raise, that job offer, that investment opportunity, to get our lives straight or that girl in the bar to come over to speak to us.

But unfortunately all of these things don't just magically happen if we only wait long enough.

The truth is that none of these things will ever happen if we just wait long enough for them to happen. It's actually up to us to start doing and stop waiting.

Otherwise we will just be waiting our lives away...

And one of the best ways to stop waiting is to start creating.

You actually don't need to wait to create things until you know who you really are or what you really want to do in your life.

I had no clue who I was or what I really wanted in my life when I started writing this blog (go all the way back and compare my writings from back then and now to see the difference).

But the moment I started creating things (just like this article right here), I started to figure myself out and am ever since understanding more and more what I really want in my life.

So stop waiting and start creating things instead and you'll figure yourself out and stop wasting your life away...

# LUCK

Is it really possible to make your own luck?

There are so many people out there when you see them or read an article about them you'll be like:

"Man, she is so lucky! She is living my dream! Why can't I be so lucky? How does she even do it? And why the hell am I so unlucky? Damn it, my life sucks."

But the thing about luck is that it's quite predictable. Luck comes only to the ones that take more chances. The ones that expose themselves to opportunities over and over again without giving up.

It won't just come knocking at your door when you sit in your cubicle all day long or when you sit at home, watch TV and do the same things every single day.

It comes to the ones that are active. The ones that show up more often. The ones that don't wait their lives away. The ones that take more risk. The ones that explore new things.

It comes to the ones some people call crazy. I call them passionate.

So be one of them and it'll only be a matter of time until luck will find you... 

# NEGATIVITY

## What should you do when you're being viewed negatively?

Just the other day I received a message on Twitter telling me that automated direct messages are a poor way of pushing your content (I use automated direct messages).

And this person was totally right.

It might not be the most intelligent, sophisticated, Harvard graduate kind of way that will be celebrated and glorified by our society and it will definitely not make me win a Nobel prize.

But let me tell you what it is: It's something that works really, really, really well for me.

That content has now over 300+ retweets (I will try to re-engineer what I did in a later post). Click here if you want to see the proof.

Even though it might not make me look super smart I'll continue doing it. I don't really care.

Everything I really care about is to get where I want to be in life. And if the non-smart way beats the smart way, I'll just use the non-smart way.

Sticking with the smart way just to make you look smart even though it doesn't really work is actually the really poor way.

And there are so many things in life where people try to convince you that it makes more sense to stick to the supposedly smart way. Here are some I could think of:

  * Get an education of 15+ years to be ready for the real world.

  * Work a 9 to 5 job in a large corporation to be safe for life.

  * Get a prestigious and expensive college degree to earn a lot of money.

  * Work your ass off while you're still young.

  * Build a tech startup to get super rich super fast.

... and many more.

So if you found a not so super sophisticated way of reaching your goals why not stick to it? Why listen to others?

Why do something that might make you look smart but doesn't get you where you really want to be in life? Just to please others? Hell no!

If you meet someone that tells you something like "that's a poor way of doing xyz" just walk away and screw them!

They might just be jealous that they weren't able to successfully pull off the "poor way" and are still stuck trying to make the smart way work out.  
Funny enough, in the end they will also try out the "poor" way because they saw it worked.

And then they realize that the poor way isn't actually as "poor" and "easy" as they thought.

I was one of them. I laughed at the supposedly poor way and when I tried to copy it and pulled it off it never really worked.

So if you can make money in a not so smart way and can enjoy your life at the same time why not do it?

If you have an export business and you make a lot more money with a lot less work than your buddies at that consultant gig why even care about whether or not you look smart?

If that small corner shop where you sell flowers is what makes you really happy then just enjoy it and screw everybody else that doesn't want you to be happy... 

# CREATIVITY

How does one become more creative?

The other day someone asked me how I come up with all the stuff I'm writing and talking about. He seemed to be impressed by the constant flow of ideas I come up with and wanted to know how he could come up with ideas for his blog.

I follow a very easy to copy pattern to come up with ideas and it looks something like this:

  * I read a lot of books from different disciplines (relationships, business, life, death, entrepreneurship, dating, spirituality, etc.).

  * I don't have a smart phone (I actually do have one but I only use it when I'm traveling) because it distracts me quite a lot.

  * I read Quora to see what problems people are facing and what questions they have (I even published one answer I gave on Quora on my blog here).

  * I test things on Twitter before/during/after I publish an article.

  * I have a list where I collect all of my ideas and select the ones I'd love to put into action.

  * I go for a lot of walks outside where I don't have anything except a notepad and my eyes wide open (I guess I actually also look for cool photo motives but I don't have a camera with me)

... that's my entire secret. And it works all the time (at least for me).

I guess the most important thing is to not get distracted by the permanent noise from multiple devices at the same time.

I realized that for me having more than one device distracts my brain too much and it will just shutdown, go into autopilot and it just stops being creative...

That's why I try to work on one single device only (the netbook I'm currently writing this article on) and not have other devices around with an Internet connection with multiple distraction sources...

# ENTREPRENEURSHIP

## What is the one piece of advice you would give first-time entrepreneurs?

If I could give just one single advice it would probably sound like this:

_"Don't just blindly follow the entrepreneurship hype. Be true to yourself and try to figure out what you really want to be/achieve in life. Do you really want to be an entrepreneur?"_

Most of the times becoming an entrepreneur is absolutely incompatible with the things we really want to achieve in life. Most of us simply want a relaxed and chilled life, not too much to worry about and enough cash to do what we want to do.

If escaping the 9 to 5 treadmill and having a relaxed lifestyle is your goal, becoming an entrepreneur is probably the worst decision you could ever take.

If you're not 150% committed to your idea, your venture, your project, your product or HECK even becoming an entrepreneur at all, it will kill you over time.

For me the story of the Mexican fisherman and the American fisherman always helped a lot when I couldn't see things clear anymore. I highly recommend reading it, because it's probably one f the greatest analogies out there.

_"_ _ _An executive from America was standing at the pier of a Mexican village, taking a much needed vacation. It was his first in more than 10 years. He noticed a small boat with just one fisherman had docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The executive complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.__ _

_ __The Mexican replied, "only a little while."__ _

_ __The executive then asked, "why didn't you stay out longer and catch more fish?"__ _

_ __The Mexican replied,   "I  have enough to support my family for a little while."__ _

_ __The executive then asked, "but what do you do with the rest of your time?"__ _

_ __The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, and stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life."__ _

_ __The executive scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."__ _

_ __The Mexican fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"__ _

_ __To which the American replied, "15-20 years."__ _

_ _"_ _ _But what then?"__ _

_ __The American laughed and said that's the best part. "When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."__ _

_ _"_ _ _Millions.. Then what?"__ _

_ __The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."__

__Shaking his head, the executive bade the Fisherman farewell. After returning from vacation, the Executive quit his job. "__

If I want to become an entrepreneur, where do I start?

I can still remember my mom's toolkit in the basement. As a kid, it was longer than I was tall and it was heavier than my own weight. I still have problems lifting it today. But it had absolutely everything in it. It was a dream come true for every home improver.

It was even popular among neighbors and they regularly came over to borrow tools. My mom's toolkit is probably worth more than the first car I bought. I always wondered why my mom needed such a huge toolkit, which she was barely able to lift. She barely used any of the tools in it anyways.

So one day I asked her, "Mom, why do you need such a big toolkit? You're only using a fraction of the tools in it anyways, right?" Up until now I never saw most of the sorts of tools in there ever again in my life. I didn't even know how to spell most of them or what their name actually was.

What she told me that day made total sense to me, although I didn't really understand all of what she was trying to tell me back then. Here's what she told me:

_"_ _You never know what needs to be fixed next. It's best to have a full set of tools available or no tools at all. If you don't have a full set of tools, you might find some things you can't fix, get discouraged and call a handyman._

_And if you called the handyman once you'll call the handyman over and over again, because he can quickly and easily solve all problems for you. Humans are a lazy bunch and convenience is everything._  
 _So you either have a full set of tools or you'll start to rely on your handyman... and that's when it starts to get expensive ad you're in trouble."_

Just recently I had to think about these words again when I was trying to prepare a presentation on skills you should have when you want to become an entrepreneur or find out why you suck at being an entrepreneur. A complete toolkit for aspiring entrepreneurs so to say.

Reflecting about my experiences of the past years and the people I encountered on my journey I tried to narrow down a list of skills which I found out to be most essential when trying to become or being an entrepreneur (feel free to add yours).

It actually took me many years, a lot of hardship, countless mistakes and probably way too much money to learn the importance of assembling my "entrepreneurial  toolkit" in advance. A lesson my mom told me many years before already. But just like every kid I didn't want to listen to her. I ignored her advice.

Most people (including myself) think the path to becoming an entrepreneur starts once you quit your job and start working on your own business. Even though this is possible, it makes a lot more sense to start working on the required skillset in advance.

I will call these skills muscles, because it is something you need to train and use all the time, just like your body's muscles. If you don't use them every day they will get weaker and weaker. But if you use them constantly they will grow stronger every day.

For none of the below mentioned muscles you need to have your own business. You don't even need to quit the job that pays the bills. You can easily do all of these things at your regular job, on the weekends or during your free time...

 ** **#1 Networking Muscle****

One of the most important muscles you need to develop is your networking muscle. These days, a lot of companies win the race just because they knew this guy or that girl at this one startup website or have some awesome biz dev contacts.

If you're like me and bad at networking, hate being around people you don't know or are fed up talking about some unimportant BS at networking events take a look at "How to be a Super Networker". Feel free to copy the described strategy there.

****#2 Giving Muscle****

That's actually a hard one. How can you give if you don't have anything? The thing is, every one of us has at least some people they hang out with or know. You don't need any money to train your giving muscle. All you need is to know about 10 people.

Know exactly what they do by heart. Think about what they would need and start looking for people that could fill their blanks. When I go to networking events I usually don't go there because I need to find new contacts for some stuff I do (I usually don't know what I want anyways).

Instead I just go there to find people that might be relevant for projects other people I know are working on. For me it doesn't make any sense to harvest one contact after another, piling them up on my LinkedIn profile and watch them get all dusty and shit. That's what most people will do.

But guess what. If the guy you met three years ago might become relevant for your stuff he won't remember you. So he'd better remember you from introducing him to the one guy he made 10mn with, or the woman he's now married to.

 ** **#3 Story Teller Muscle****

If you're not able to tell a story that fascinates people, that people will remember, you'll just be a fish in a very, very big sea. You need to be the person that everyone talks about once the conference is over.

You need to be the guy people will talk about afterwards saying things like "This guy was so funny. He was telling awesome stories. I loved him. I don't even care what he was selling, but I absolutely need to have it".

People won't remember charts, numbers, frameworks or some other highly specific stuff. They remember the stories you build around them. Your stories need to make them want to become a part of this story.

For example when I go on stage, I can talk about some of my stories for several hours. People are still fascinated about it. And guess what. You can make a story out of everything.

You can even tell great stories if you're a failed bum (like me). And people will love your stories. They will even want to get to know you because of the stories you tell. Not because of what you're trying to sell.

Most people that get in touch with me don't know what I do or who I am but they love the stories and then they start getting interested in what I do.   
And trust me, everyone can become a storyteller. I was always bad at school in telling and writing stories. All you need to do is exercise it.

You just need a simple blog, a social media account, an account on meetup.com or a membership at a local toastmasters community. That's all you need to start telling your stories and exercising your storyteller muscle.

That's what I'm doing every day. Telling stories. And I'm getting better at it (or at least I can come up with story's much quicker). The stuff you read right now is nothing else than just another exercise of training my storyteller muscle...

****#4 Sales Muscle****

The storyteller muscle and the sales muscle usually go hand in hand. But to be able to properly sell the product or service you were telling stories about you need to understand the entire psychology behind sales and your prospects.

The problem is that it usually takes quite some time until we are finally able to sell a product that we built for many months or sometimes even years.  
When it finally comes to the sales part we are already too exhausted to pay attention to sales and are surprised and mostly desperate when our stuff doesn't sell.

And then we quit. And we never really understood the entire sales game or were able to exercise our sales muscle. It makes so much more sense to start training our sales muscle with an easy to built and very simple product.

This allows us to exclusively focus on the sales part. It helps us to better understand the entire psychology behind sales and marketing. If you want to know more about selling products read the article "Why selling orange juice is better than building a tech company".

The learning will still be the same (complex or simple product) and they can easily be replicated and adapted to other products.

****#5 Failure Muscle****

Failing is always a tough thing. But what's even tougher is to be able to dust off your shoulders, get up when you just got knocked out and still be motivated after 100 punches right in your face. But the good thing is that it can be learned and exercised as well.

The more open you're to accepting failure, the more mistakes you make in the beginning, the more likely you'll be able to deal with it and get up over and over again.

A simple way to train this muscle is to constantly bring yourself into situations where you can experience rejection.

Be it publishing a post on your blog, talking to strangers, going over to that girl in that bar, going on stage and presenting your ideas, making this cold call or sending that cold email and so on.

There are so many situations where we can train our failure muscle and pee our pants while on stage. And after a while you won't wet your pants anymore and grow some balls instead...

****#6 Opportunity Muscle****

There are millions of opportunities out there and that's great. But most of us don't really see most of them anymore. Sometimes we start working on one opportunity and then we usually begin to tunnel. We stop seeing other opportunities.

But the thing is that tunneling exclusively on one thing isn't usually a good choice. Imagine the following situation:

You know that the probability of closing the deal with this big corporation is probably around 1% (maybe less).

After all you're a startup with no track record or whatsoever. But you'll nevertheless focus on this one big deal, start tunneling and don't see all the other potential deals anymore (been there done that a hundred times).

You're focusing on this one damn deal. But what you should do instead is to get in discussions with 200 people at the same time so you'll make sure to have at least 2 deals instead of 1 deal with a probability of 1%.

Simple math. Simple theory. Even a five year old gets this (took me a while to really get this).

Unfortunately while tunneling most of us tend to forget about this simple but often quite deadly equation.

Tunneling is probably part of the main reasons for startup failure...

_**Key Take Away:**_

It makes a lot more sense to start training our different muscles way before we start working on our own company and quit our jobs.

If we only start exercising them once we put everything on one card (our own business) the things at stake and the risk is a lot higher.  
And as every athlete and my mom knows, assembling a toolkit takes a lot of time and patience.

Something we usually don't have when we start our own business and need to feed a family, pay the bills or need to show results to shareholders...

**Recommended follow-up read:**  Confessions of an Entrepreneur

What is the best advice for a young, first-time startup CEO?

I quit my job last summer. I wasn't really sure what I would be doing or where I would see myself within the next five years (the stuff headhunters and interviewers or your parents will ask you over and over again).

Right now I tell people that I write books, have a blog, hold presentations and workshops for people interested in starting a company.

I consider myself an entrepreneur. Maybe not a tech entrepreneur. Maybe a lifestyle entrepreneur. Hell, I don't know. Does it even matter? I don't think so. You can call yourself whatever you want... This is a free country, right?

So what will I be doing next year? Where will I be living in 2015? I have absolutely no clue. Maybe Africa? Maybe the States? Maybe I will be cleaning toilets or living on the streets somewhere on this planet. Maybe I might have settled down and started a family. I really don't know, but time will tell...

And who's able to answer this stupid question anyways?

If someone told me 5 years ago that I would live in China for almost two years and start a company there I would have said that they were absolutely crazy. If someone told me two years ago I would write books about startups and publish my thoughts online I would probably have said the exact same thing.

Same holds true for holding presentations at some of Germany's biggest universities and travelling by bicycle from one university to the other (I actually covered +500km).

If I predicted my future a few years ago those things would probably have been the last things on my mind. They would probably never ever even have crossed my mind at all...

If you were to ask me right now where I would see myself within the next five years and what my plan was, I would probably tell you that I'll try to grab every opportunity along the way, as long as it sounds interesting and I can learn a hell lot.

Having plans usually holds me back from experiencing and trying out new things. So I just stopped having specific plans a long time ago. For me, plans never really worked out anyways. I just go with the flow...

It's been now more than a year that I quit my job and do what I do. And I learned a hell lot of stuff about being an entrepreneur. I feel like these lessons or rules might be valuable for some of you out there. That's why I'll share some of my best ones right here. I'll try to focus on the things you would usually not read on any mainstream media.

It's the stuff that I had to learn the hard way myself out in the fields. It's not some stuff you would come across while researching for an article. I figured all of this out during the last four years doing what I'm doing. Whatever that is. Feel free to add some more...

**#1 If you suck at sales don't build a startup (or learn it first)**

Today, the challenge isn't about building products anymore. Everyone can build products. You can outsource it for cheap, code stuff with a bunch of friends, conveniently order physical products from China and so on.  
The real challenge today is about finding a real market need and having the necessary skills to sell them. If you have no clue about sales don't build a startup. Please learn how to sell first...

**#2 You need to train your entrepreneurial muscles every day**

If you don't train your entrepreneurship muscles every day, they will start to atrophy. These include your sales muscle, your opportunity muscle, your story teller muscle, your networking and your giving muscle. And you don't even need to have your own company to start exercising them.  
Read more about the muscles and how you can train them in real life here.

**#3 Start building your demand before you have your product**

If you don't have a demand already lined up before you start selling your product you'll be screwed. Most company sales (80%) come from customers a company interacted with 7+ times. And interacting with a customer more than seven times needs a hell lot of time. It will probably take longer than your funds will last. So start with building up your demand...

**#4 Only an incredibly small number of people will buy your product**

Even though 100 people told you they would buy your product or signed up to your newsletter you will only be able to sell your product to round about 3 people. The rest will not buy your product. Accept it, act accordingly and increase the number of customers you're talking to to at least 10x right now. That's what I call The Rule of 97%.

**#5 Validate & sell your idea first**

We all have many ideas but we usually don't know how to make sure which idea is worth building. What we do today is that we write business plans, research numbers, ask a few friends or strangers on the streets and start building our product.

And then, after a few months we figure out that no on really needs our product. Hence, it makes a lot more sense to validate our ideas upfront by trying to sell our idea/product to a few hundred people (see #4).

In case we find people willing to transfer money to our bank account we can start building the product. We validated our idea. It's pretty much about flipping the entire value chain around. You should start with sales and marketing instead of building your product...

**#6 Start fundraising only once you have a proof-of-concept**

A lot of people these days try to raise funds from business angels or VCs before having a proof-of-concept. Unfortunately, today this doesn't work anymore (we're not Facebook or Twitter!). If you don't have the proof that people are willing to pay for your product, it's a waste of your and other people's time and resources.

Focus on building a product the market needs and is willing to pay money for. Once you got this thing right, go out and raise funds. And then it won't be about you finding people, but it'll be about people finding you...

**#7 Know your cost per customer acquisition**

You need to know your KPIs (key performance indicators). You need to know how much your business is able to generate if you put in one dollar. If you put in one dollar and at the end of the day you get back more than one dollar in return you might be in business.

**#8 You won't go viral**

When we start working on our companies the last thing we think about is how we will actually find customers. We don't have a proper plan on how to acquire them, where to find them and what tools we need to be able to use.  
In our business plans we simply write down an amount x for marketing and that's about it. Unfortunately this approach never really works. And going viral isn't a proper go-to-market strategy either. Want to know more about how to go viral? Then continue reading here.

**#9 You need to own the customer relationship**

If you don't own the customer relationship you have to pay for every interaction with your customer. Remember, the more you interact with your customer the higher the probability of a successful sale. Hence, you need to interact more often with your customer.

If you don't own the customer relationship and go through platforms you don't own (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) you will have to pay a hell lot of money to reach your customers over and over again. Because platforms, such as Facebook are monetizing their reach.

That means that you'll only be able to reach all of your potential customers if you are ready to pay each time. If you don't you will only reach a small fraction of your customers, which leads to very few sales and ultimately to the death of your startup...

**#10 It makes sense to copy your own products**

Many people are afraid of copycats. In case you're one of them consider copying your own products. You simply open up a new business, use your existing suppliers, backend or whatsoever, replicate it (use lower quality) and offer it for a cheaper price.

That way you will be able to control a bigger chunk of the entire market, decrease the margin of a potential copycat and most importantly there will already be a copycat on the market.

Win-win, right?

**#11 Your customers buy when they want to, not when you're ready**

For months and months we work towards the release of our products. And then we figure out that no one buys our product. What happened? People were telling us that they loved our product. Unfortunately people buy only when they feel like buying and not when we feel like selling...

**#12 Lean Startup is great, but it needs some major tweaking**

In case you don't know what Lean Startup is, here's a one sentence summary:

Build experiments, measure results, analyze them and learn what works and what doesn't. Then adapt your offer accordingly. Do the same thing over and over again until you get satisfying results and customers are pulling in.

But the truth is that this approach works from an engineering perspective, but it completely leaves out the part of marketing and selling your products. After having read Lean Startup I had the impression that my products will sell automatically. But they won't.

Read more here: The Lean Startup Hype: 10 Things Lean Startup Didn't Tell You.

**#13 You need to be more human**

After all, your company's success highly depends on you. If you know how to market yourself it will be so much easier to win over partners, investors and everything else. After all, it's not B2B or B2C.

It's H2H (Human2Human). Every business transaction is about interactions between real human beings.

**#14 Do it like the pros: Start selling simple products**

We all dream about building the next big thing. Building a scalable tech company is something everyone is trying to do these days. But only a few of us have ever built, sold and marketed a product that we've built from scratch.

We don't have any experience, yet...

Starting off with the most complicated thing, a tech startup won't work for most of us. It's just too damn hard. So instead do it like the pros and start selling less complex products first. Richard Branson for example started off by selling Christmas trees... More on why you should sell less complex products here.

**#15 It's about decreasing risk**

Fear rules the world. Be it the fear of losing your job, losing a lot of money or not being able to pay rent. Everyone you interact with is afraid of losing things. So take that into consideration and try to decrease the risk involved for everyone you interact with.

**#16 Your products won't sell automatically**

Being exposed to news about products from Apple, Facebook, Twitter and all these crazy successful companies we feel like this is the only way. We build a bad ass, good looking and cool designed product and believe that our products will be sold out as soon as they hit the shelves.

Sad truth: this is never ever going to happen... and if it happens it took many years to get there.

**#17 It's no big deal if you suck as entrepreneur**

No one is perfect at anything right away. We all have to start at some point and most of us will suck in the beginning. I feel that I still suck as entrepreneur, but I'm willing to work on improving my game every single day. And that's what really counts when you want to become a better entrepreneur.

**#18 Not having a bad ass blog  **

One of the most important tools to acquire potential customers is your blog. Your product won't go viral. Your product description won't go viral. The only thing that might help you to get the word about the stuff you're doing out there is incredibly valuable content for your readers on your blog.

**#19 Early adopters don't exist**

Everyone tells us that we should find early adopters. But the truth is that there are no early adopters out there. And even if there were early adopters it would be impossible to find them. Most importantly, most people might not even know that the problem you're trying to solve is a real problem for them.

So instead, educate people interested in your product into people paying for your product. Those people will become your early adopters. Don't get out on the streets and ask total strangers for feedback. That's just pointless and highly untargeted...

**#20 It's about trust**

The only question you need to ask yourself:

" _Do they trust me enough?"_

It's not about whether or not they like this or that feature, if she still loves you or if he will break up with you. All of this doesn't matter. At the end of the day it all comes down to trust...

**#21 You need to show up**

The more you show up, the luckier you will be. It's as simple as that. If you don't show up you'll never be lucky. A lot of successful people will tell you that they were at the right time at the right place.

But what they usually don't tell you is that they were pretty much all over the place and therefore tremendously increased the probability of being lucky. It had to happen one day or the other...

**#22 Stop worrying about copycats**

 A lot of people will tell you that they don't want to talk about their startup ideas. Some might even tell you that it's a stealth project. That's complete BS. If you're not successful, don't generate a hell lot of cash already or don't have millions in financing already, no one will ever copy your product.  
Only products that have proven to be successful on the market will be copied... Ideas are worth nothing. Not convinced yet? Then read this!

**#23 If you can't find co-founders your idea might suck**

Going out there and finding a CTO, CEO or whatsoever is the first test whether or not you have a good idea. If you can't find someone willing to work with you on your project it might be a first indicator that your idea sucks.

Or that you might suck at selling and pitching your idea. But that pretty much comes down to the same thing. Working on your idea might not be worth it...

**#24 An investment is not a proof-of-concept**

There is a lot of dumb capital out there. Capital that gets thrown at you despite the fact that you don't have a proof of concept yet. Now this is not a big deal you might think. Money is money, right?

But the truth is that once you have money on your bank account you'll start to get lazy and never really try to validate your idea.

Why? Because you don't need to generate revenues anymore. You don't struggle enough with rent, food and so on. Dumb capital makes a lot of us fat, lazy and inactive. So don't become one of them...

**#25 Scarcity will make you more creative**

The less you have, the more creative and innovative you will be. Think about packing for vacation. If you take a big suitcase you mindlessly pack things you don't need. The smaller your suitcase the more creative you get and the more focused you are on packing things you really need...

**Summing up:**   After all, these are just a few things I came up within 20 minutes. There are no universal rules for being an entrepreneur. They might be different for you and they might already be different for me by noon tomorrow.

Being an entrepreneur is chaotic, anarchic and you need to be highly flexible.

The biggest enemy of being flexible is falling in love with your business. The moment you believe your business is great you will ultimately kill your business. You will start tunnelling and you won't be flexible anymore.

You will forget about all the stuff you just read or read in any other article. You will believe that all of this is BS and believe that it doesn't apply to your business. From now on you will only believe one thing:

MY BUSINESS IS AWESOME...

## What is the one thing that you would advise against when starting a startup?

When we talk about startups, most of us think about building the next big thing. We want to change the world and see our dreams come true. The problem is that we all want to kick off our entrepreneurial career by trying to get into the Ivy League of building companies straight away. Building a VC financed and infinitely scalable tech company.

The picture that we have in our heads that motivates us to build multimillion dollar businesses can be compared to achieving the lifestyle of the Mexican fisherman that can hang out with his buddies all day long, play cards and only work when he really feels like it or is hungry.

The problem is that most of us just have way too many desires and needs and want to live in fancy apartments in big cities. A lifestyle that is usually too expensive to live an easy and relaxed life like the Mexican fisherman does. Hence, we quickly drop the idea again.

And that's where we see startups (mainly tech companies) as the chance to escape our boring 9 to 5 life and start working on our dream that might some day allow us to live an easy and relaxed life, just like the Mexican fisherman does. Starting a company, a couple of years of hard work and we should be all set for the rest of our lives. Never having to work again.

To most of us, building infinitely scalable tech startups that will receive millions of VC financing and then yield in multimillion dollar exits seems to be an appropriate way to get there as fast as possible.  
 **  
** **Unfortunately, tech companies are the Ivy League of building companies and it's almost impossible to get in. But still, most of us try to get in without any proper preparation, training or experience.**

Think about it. Would you try to get into Harvard, Stanford or Columbia without any proper education, preparation or track record? Let's say without having any high school degree? I guess not.

But that's exactly what we are trying to do. We are trying to enter the Ivy League of company building without any proper education, preparation or track record. Now how does all of this translate into the startup world?

For most of us it means that we want to start building a tech company without ever having built up any sort of business from the ground up. No experience whatsoever. It means that we never ever successfully sold a product that we made or sourced ourselves. If we never did any of those things how can we be able to build a successful tech company?

**Try to successfully build up a bunch of less complex/important businesses first, get more experienced, learn fast and get better every day.**

To me, not having any experience as an entrepreneur is one of the biggest reasons why so many startups fail (even though it's a lot easier to build companies these days). It's the exact same reason why almost no one would ever get into an Ivy League colleague, unprepared. It's the exact same reason why we will never be able to date the girl/guy of our dreams if we have no experience dealing with the opposite sex.

**Without any proper experience or training as a founder we will almost always fail. No one is good right away in anything in life. And trying to figure something out by choosing the most complex and complicated thing (e.g. a tech company) is usually not a good idea.**

You wouldn't try teaching your seven year old kid math by starting off with high school level math, right? Same holds true for building companies. You wouldn't want to start off trying to get into the Ivy League of building companies without having built any company before, right? Surprisingly most of us still have this exact goal and are convinced that it might work out.

Truth is, it usually doesn't. Now what do I suggest as a possible solution? Here's what I suggest (and live by myself):

Everyone that is really willing to start a company one day should start executing one or even a couple of her good or bad ideas today (e.g. making and selling orange juice), instead of waiting for the biggest and most complicated idea to execute on.

That way we will be a lot better prepared/trained and are a lot more experienced in executing, building up the demand, selling, growing our company, etc. once a really good opportunity (e.g. scalable tech idea) comes along.

I truly believe that the entire entrepreneurship thing can be learned. It's just a matter of proper training, the willingness to learn and improve our game every day and a hell lot of patience and discipline.

So go out, start executing some of your ideas (good or bad), see how it goes and get more experienced in building up companies on rather "unimportant projects" today, instead of trying to learn how to fly during the most important projects of your lives.

# IDEAS

How do you know if an idea is any good?

_Every once in a while I have an idea for a blog post, a book title and sometimes even a business idea (ok, I have to admit that I have thousands of ideas at the same time)._

But I only execute a fraction of these. Why?

I have absolutely no idea.

But what I do is that I write down almost all of my ideas for future reference. And once every few days I go over the list.

Some items stay on this list for weeks, sometimes even months. Some of them will probably stay there forever.

The moment I decide to execute ideas, I usually don't start right away.

What I do instead is that I test their "market value" first.

If it's a book idea I usually try to sell it before I even wrote it.

I sell them via pre-order. I discount it heavily, direct traffic to the offer (FB ads, newsletters, Twitter, etc.) and see whether or not people are willing to pay money for it.

And if they buy it, I just write it.

Sometimes I also ask people to leave their email address so they'll get notified once it's out there.

That actually helps a lot to build up the demand before building the product. It also gets people excited.

Building products takes time and I don't want to waste my time working on things nobody wants at the end of the day. I've already done that and it wasn't such a nice experience.

The same applies to products or services. Sell it first and then build it (or at least build up a demand upfront).

Same with blog posts.

I check out platforms like Quora and see whether or not people are asking any related questions. If I find some questions with a lot of followers, I start writing the post and afterwards post it on my blog and Quora (and all other platforms I have an account).

Summarizing, I have to admit that I feel like it's impossible to predict the success of anything anymore.

The market is completely out of control and people decide whether or not it's going to be a good idea.

That's why I completely stopped evaluating ideas and try to put them out on the market first, instead of guessing if it's a good idea or not.

I might hate the idea (and I actually hate a lot of ideas) but others might just love it.

Needless to say that I try to only work on things that I also love... 

# FAILURE

Good ideas to recover after a startup failure?

_The first thing I did after one of my first projects failed was to go hide, crawl under my blanket and stay in bed for a few days. I felt ashamed and sorry for myself. This lasted for quite a while._

I felt ashamed and sorry for myself. This lasted for quite a while.

But once I realized that a lot of people might be able to learn from my mistakes and experience, I decided to go out there and talk about it in public.

That was also the only reason why I started writing my first book. I saw that a lot of people were going through the same things that I went through.

So I felt like sharing my experiences with others and maybe open their eyes before they do the same mistakes that I did.

As my book took a slightly different turn, I started a blog called  " _rethinking the now_   ", which I still use today to share my lessons learned about life, business and entrepreneurship.

This blog is like my personal notes to self gone public.

If I look back, I have to admit that what really helped me to get over my own failure was to help others first... 

# TRUST

What are the most effective techniques to gain customer trust?

_Most of my projects failed because I totally underestimated the importance of trust. I thought that people will magically buy my products and I'll get rich. Retire in my thirties. Buy an island. And enjoy life.  _

As a matter of fact that never happened. Barely anyone ever bought any of the stuff I created.

It took me quite a while to figure out why.

I thought that I was working on the greatest things planet earth has ever seen. I was convinced that all I needed to do was to put it online and I'll just start selling like crazy.

I pretty much thought the way Apple works is how it always works. You have an awesome product, you put it in a store and then you see the money rolling in. You observe the madness. The magic. Dollar signs everywhere.

Never happened (and probably will never happen)...

So here are a few things I found out over the past few years that helped me to build strong and trusting relationships with potential customers. These are the things I try to live by every single day.

****#1 Motivate****

This might sound completely against the prevailing business logic. Why should I motivate my customer's to do anything? I want to sell my products. I don't want to do any other BS. And that's where most of us are wrong (including myself many times in the past).

It's never really about selling things. It's about motivating your potential customer to take action. To get out of her comfort zone. To start solving her problems. To get out there and start living a life they really care about.

That's what you should do, instead of trying to sell stuff...

****#2 Inspire****

People want to be inspired. People want to to see the world from a different perspective. They want to experience new things. So be the one that satisfies their cravings. Be the one that makes a difference...

****#3 Tell stories****

You need to tell more stories. People love stories. They can relate to them. Give them the chance to project the hero's stories onto themselves. Let them be the hero of your story. Let them have their 15 minutes of fame. And forget about all the corporate BS. Forget that corporate identity crap...

****#4 Educate****

Most of your customers don't know what problems they have (or might face in the future). It's your task to educate them about their problems. If you don't, they will simply walk away with unsolved problems.

Problems they might never be able to solve because their bandwidth is too limited to figure out what problems they're really facing. We're all just way too stressed out, maxed out, overworked and underused. We try to solve problems in a firefighter kind of way.

They're only going to solve the biggest fires and ignore all the other smoldering fires (the fires that don't appear on the surface but can be a lot more dangerous than all the other fires). Until they find someone that properly educates them about the dangers of the fires they can't see with their bare eyes...

****#5 Be authentic****

People connect with real people. So be yourself, be authentic and don't be afraid that people might not like you. As a matter of fact most people won't even care about you. So try to convince the small portion of people that might be interested in you by being absolutely and mercilessly yourself.

Leave your masks at home and put on the one thing that fits you best. Be yourself. There's no other way...

****#6 Show up****

Having a great online presence with awesome pictures is a great start. But it's not enough anymore these days. The only way that you can truly make any difference is by showing up. Don't try to hide behind the curtain of online interaction. Show up all the time. And then show up even more...

****#7 Help out****

Never be the one to ask for something first (don't ask for money if you haven't provided an incredible amount of value yet). Give as much as you can . Provide a helping hand wherever you can. Help out. Reach out. Connect. That's the only way to go.

****#8 Overdeliver****

If you say you're going to deliver 20 social media hacks, deliver more. Deliver 25. Hell, deliver as many as you want to. That will surprise and make people happy.

****#9 Honesty****

Be honest about everything that's going on. Don't try to hide anything. Don't try to pretend that everything is working out just fine. Because it never is working out just fine. There are always problems.

And trying to hide them will only make it worse. Because at the end of the day people will find out about it anyways. So try to be the one that tells them about it first. That's always better to hear it from you instead of reading about it somewhere.

****#10 Be more human****

At the end of the day all of these things can pretty much be summarized by being more human. Even though we operate in a business world it's people that we really and deeply can connect with. It's people that we establish a connection with. It's initially people that we build a trusting relationship with...

# CONTENT MARKETING

##

## Aren't you afraid that Google might penalize you if you post your content on multiple sites?

_After I published an article comparing  _ _Medium and LinkedIn_ _ _ _(and where I share my entire content strategy) someone asked me if I wasn't afraid that Google might penalize me for posting on multiple sites and downgrade my Google ranking._

I wasn't really aware of the fact that this might somehow affect my Google search rankings. So I googled a bit and came across an article that was describing this exact thing.

Apparently when you're posting the same content on multiple sites Google will downgrade your ranking for this article.

But then again I don't really care about this at all.

Because honestly speaking how big can my blog be (or your blog be if you're reading this) that this might affect any of my article's rankings. I don't even think that one of my articles is even listed in some of the first three Google results. That's where the traffic is. All the other links barely ever receive any traffic from Google anyways.

We have to keep in mind that we're all just small fishes in the sea compared to the real pros that know how to properly do SEO (I don't). To be able to show up under the top three results you would need to be a SEO magician. That's at least how I see it.

So if you're like me, don't have any clue about SEO and just use your blogs basic features to optimize everything for SEO purposes then you will most probably not be affected by this at all. Because let's face it.

If you're doing the same thing that millions of other people are doing then you will be competing with millions of people. And it's hard to cut through all of the outside noise and get noticed (not to say almost impossible).

Even if you have great content it's almost impossible to compete with the big guys out there. I'm not saying this to discourage anyone, it's just how I feel about it. And if you know what to expect you won't be too disappointed.

So instead, I prefer to not compete and try to be creative about my content strategy and test all sorts of different ways to reach my audience. At the end of the day, Google traffic isn't sustainable either. You don't have a (free) way to reach these people ever again.

They come to your website, might read an article or two and that's about it. You're never going to see any of them ever again. They'll browse hundreds of other sites. Read thousands of other articles. And then they'll forget about you (if they ever really noticed you at all)...

## What is the fastest way to get content on your site?

Here are some quick and easy wins to generate cool content people will love:

**_Screen Books Online (inspired by Pat Flynn)_**

  1. Go to Amazon and search for books out of your niche (e.g. cake baking).

  2. Have a look at the top selling books and look inside.

  3. Screen the Table of Content and then mix some of the content and make a post out of it (e.g. Best Ingredients for Paleo cakes, The 5 best Paleo Cookies ever, etc.).

  4. You have your first easy wins and some awesome content to start off with.

**_Questions on Quora_**

  1. This is an absolute no-brainer. Check your niche on Quora (e.g. cake baking), see what questions are trending and then generate your content accordingly.

  2. This way you make sure that you write valuable stuff for potential readers (they are already actively looking for solutions).

  3. Once your content is done post it on your site and answer some related questions to it on Quora/Twitter/etc. and link to your article.

  4. This does not only help you to generate content, but it will also send potential customers to your site.

**_Platforms like BuzzSumo_**

There are a bunch of platforms out there that will tell you what content is currently being shared online. You just need to type in a keyword (e.g. cake baking) and you will see what's currently trending in your niche.

It will also give you an idea what type of content you should create. In this example the top performing post was about how to bake a cake like a pro. If we take a look at the content it tells us that a step by step picture guide with detailed explanations seems to be the stuff people are looking for...

These are just some basic things to get you started. After all it's about experimenting and seeing what works best for your potential audience... 

# RESPECT

What to do to get more respected as a beginner?

_It's always quite a lonely place when you kick off and do something new, unexpected and something "against the norm". You might lose a lot of friends but over time will also gain new friends. Being respected by people when you just started is even harder._

I started round about one and a half years ago and I still haven't reached a stage where I would say that people see me as something more than a beginner.

It takes quite some time. What I found out to be quite a nice shortcut is to start your own platform (e.g. your own blog, etc.). Don't be afraid to put your thoughts out there. Most people want to hear other people's stories. And that's what they really care about. They care about you.

And most of the things that you find obvious isn't that obvious to other people.

If you have a blog, write on Quora or any other platform simply make an ebook out of it and offer it on Amazon (rearrange it, make a nice cover out of it, come up with a catchy title and a great storyline).

I learned that this helps a lot to gain reputation because not everybody writes a book on a specific subject these days. It's like you somehow magically become some sort of expert in other people's eyes.

And you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You re-purpose, recycle and rearrange the content you already have and make an awesome product out of it. Or you start blogging and then make a book out of it.

Even though most people won't read it and you won't make any money with it it's something that will increase your reputation. Try to pick a cool niche and become some sort of expert in it (even if you're not people will start seeing you that way).

And then write another book. And another one. And then one more. This helps you to get better every single day.

Most importantly you need to show up offline as well. Try to ask for speaker engagements. Don't ask for money at first. Make it for free. Then you can put fancy looking logos of universities, companies, etc on your website.

That's what worked for me.

Give it a try, adjust it to your needs and see where it takes you. I started writing my first book (before I had ever written anything before and got straight Ds in school for my essays) about 18 months ago and am ever since working on my online + my offline presence.

I have now written 3 books (more on entrepreneurship though), have recently started to recycle some of my content for guest posts and so on. So you see it takes a hell lot of time...

And never forget to push your content! Over and over again. I post everything I write on my blog, Quora, Medium, LinkedIn, Twitter and sometimes even Reddit. You absolutely need the push. Without a push nothing will ever happen... 

# NETWORKING

How do I get better at networking?

_I  absolutely hate networking and networking events._

I guess there is nothing in the business world that makes me feel more uncomfortable and insecure than a venue packed with people that I either don't know, don't really want to get to know or that I don't know what to talk about. It kills me.

I get the entire idea behind networking events and I am generally supporting it. We are all stressed out, our time is limited and we want to spend some time with our families, friends and on our hobbies.

That's why we usually try to squeeze in as many conversations into as little time as possible.

This usually (in my case) results in shallow discussions about stuff that no one really cares about because we would rather spend some time with our loved ones.

In almost all of these cases I use these types of events to just get back in touch with people that I already knew before going there (whom I could also have met for lunch or dinner anyways).

I could have stayed at home and read a good book instead, sip on my green tea and snuggle up in my blanket. It might just be me and maybe I just suck as networker. I don't know.

This is rather unfortunate because we are missing out on numerous big opportunities that most of these networking events present right in front of us. I always tell myself that simply giving up on the entire networking thing doesn't make any sense either.

I read a lot of books, blogs and have talked to a lot of interesting people. Unfortunately, the single most important advice that I can extract from all of these sources usually boils down to this one simple thing:

"Without a proper network of people that love you and the stuff you're doing you won't be able to get anywhere in life."

Damn it. That's exactly the stuff I didn't want to hear. So I had to find another strategy to manage this entire networking thing. Now who is the single most brilliant networker on this planet earth?

There are hundreds of books and blogs out there that want to introduce us to the world of super networkers. Apparently there are" 7 Key Habits of Super Networkers" (wow I just googled "what successful networkers do" and that's what I got).

But the thing is that the best networker out there isn't human. It's an algorithm. It's the algorithm that Google uses. Google isn't just a search engine.

It's the single most important entity on this planet earth you can ever be introduced to if you want to get your word out there (which is pretty much the essence of networking).

If you, your website or your business isn't connected to Google you won't be introduced to any potential clients, partners or investors. If your network consists of only one person that person should be Google. And you'd better become friends with it.

But how does Google do it? Simply put, it is the most resourceful thing out there. It knows everything about you, your business or your service (it actually doesn't know it per se, it just knows where to find the information).

When people are searching for a solution to their problem they go to Google, because they know Google did a background check on everyone and will only introduce us to the single most valuable information (except paid content).

Google is the only true super connector/networker out there. It's the source for everything. Even though it doesn't know anything itself (it just scans stuff and then sends you there) it knows everyone and can introduce you to everyone.

Now how can one apply Google's strategy to our own little networking strategy? Here's what made the most sense to me, what worked best for me and what I am trying to live by every day:

I don't go to any networking events anymore where I don't know exactly who will be attending. If I don't know who will be attending I won't be able to collect any background information about them upfront.

I won't have anything to talk about with them; I don't know what they do and how I could maybe help them out (in case they are looking for help). Meaningless conversations.

I know this sounds stupid and stalker-ish, but here is why this makes so much sense. If I know who will attend an event I can already try to connect the dots between my already existing network and the attendees upfront.

This way I can already make an introduction to someone valuable the first time I meet them. And that's what networking is all about. It's about being able to provide some value to the other party, right?

And that's exactly what Google does. It knows exactly where to send you once you need its help. It doesn't know anything per se, but it knows where you will be able to get that information. It's the source for everything.

But even more importantly, getting to know the attendees upfront, what they do, what they love, etc. will allow us to connect with them on a personal level a lot easier.

This is even more important than connecting any dots out there. It's making sure that all involved parties will have more meaningful conversations instead of some unimportant BS conversations.

Being able to connect on a personal level tremendously helps to judge whether or not any introduction will lead to a successful interaction (in the case of Google, a user that's happy about the information Google provided).

So in case you don't want to waste your time networking anymore, simply stop attending these events. In case you absolutely need to go there try to be more like Google... 

# MENTORS

**How can I find a good mentor?**

_I always hated listening to other people talking. I don't know why but within a few seconds I feel like interrupting the person talking because I believe that I already knew what she wanted to say or because I was just too impatient._

My attention span was probably shorter than the one of a fly.

That's why I also stopped attending classes at university after the first semester. Instead of going to class I preferred to learn it at home all by myself instead of having to listen to someone talking.

I don't know why I had this problem of listening to other people but it might be a problem I have had with authorities. I really don't know.

Luckily, I was able to change that habit and became an avid question-asker (I don't even know if this word exists, but whatever). So instead of trying to become a good listener I decided to become better at asking questions.

And that ultimately lead me to becoming a better listener. And this helped me to achieve three things at the same time:

  1. It forced me to listen because I asked the question.

  2. I was able to influence the direction & topics of the conversation.

  3. I tried to learn new things about all sorts of things by asking all sorts of questions.

Not too long ago some of my friends told me that they feel annoyed by the amount of questions I ask. Even though most of the questions might seem unimportant to most people they usually help me to understand a lot of different things a lot better.

I guess there was just one thing I hated more than listening to other people and it was taking or listening to other people's advice. I was sure I could handle this life all by myself and that I didn't need anyone that could point me in the right direction.

I'm a grown man. I'm not a kid anymore. I can handle my stuff. I don't need an old dude that gives me advice on what I should do and what I shouldn't do. I guess I was somehow immune against advice.

What really surprised me was the fact that becoming a better listener ultimately also opened up my ears for other people's advice. I started reading a lot of books. Before that I never even looked at books at all. The only books I read were the books that helped me pass a test at university.

I thought that books were for self help searching fools that either lost their minds, their dignity or were just plain stupid. But what I realized during the past years is that most of the stuff out there has some really, really good stuff in it.

I hate to admit it but I have to say that books have somehow become my mentors.

Now everyone is talking about finding mentors these days. It's all about finding someone (or even more people) that will help you navigate your life, your career and what not. It looks like a battle for the world's best mentors broke out.

But honestly speaking I never ever met a person where I would say wow she impresses me or anything like that. How do you even ask someone to become your mentor? Do you apply or what? In any case I imagine it to be a super weird situation.

So until I find someone that really impresses me (and even after I found someone), I'll just continue getting the best advice from the world's best mentors by reading about their ideas, thoughts and experiences in their books.

Because what they share in their books is usually their best stuff. Their best ideas. Their best thoughts and their best experiences. No one wants to sell a book with mediocre ideas...

And these days you can even get access to the world's best mentors and their best work for just $9.99 a month. You don't even have to worry about spending too much money on ebooks anymore...

It's like a mentor flatrate!

P.S.: Here's the list of my favorite mentors: <http://bit.ly/1rdh8OS>

# _WRITING_

## _I like your writing. Did you take writing classes? Would you recommend taking any?_

I was nervous. My heart was beating like a drum. My mouth was dry like the desert sand. In just a few seconds I would get the results of my last test. I always sucked at this. I was 17 years old and I was about to get the results for the last essay I wrote. I was freaking out.

And then within a few seconds it was all over. My entire world collapsed. I got an F. I didn't even know that this was possible. But here I was, sitting there and getting the worst grade my school probably ever gave to anyone.

Doubt. Disappointment. Failure.

What's going to happen next? Will I be able to pass this class? Will I have to repeat the entire year? What about my life? Will I ever find a job?

I felt like my entire life just got flushed down the toilet. What about my plans? My dreams? My ambitions? That's exactly how I felt during that moment. I felt like a worthless student that's never ever going to achieve anything in life.

Ever since that happened I was afraid to write. I was peeing my pants every time I had to write an essay. I didn't want to fail again (unfortunately it happened a few more ties).

Then, two years later I decided totally out of the blue to apply to write for a blog that I've been reading for quite a while. Looking back I actually have no clue why I did this. It was a German online news portal that was publishing content about all sorts of digital stuff.

Maybe I had a sadistic tendency back then. Maybe I wanted to punish myself for doing something bad. I really don't know. I also don't really remember what exactly I was writing about.

Everything I remember is that one month I got something like €85, which made me so happy. I was getting paid to write. It was an awesome feeling. I went from an F student to someone that's getting paid to write. How cool is that?

Looking back, I guess I was paid €1 for each 1000 people that clicked on one of my posts. That means that this one month alone I had something like 80000 people reading some of my content. Thinking about it I have to admit that this was probably the largest audience I've ever written for.

That was back in 2003 or something like that. I'm really bad at remembering details. I'm actually pretty bad at remembering all sorts of stuff. I don't even remember what I did yesterday. But that's another story.

So how did I transform from an F student into someone that had a monthly audience of 80k+ readers?

Well there are a few things I did (well some of them didn't have anything to do with me).

I started writing for someone that already had a large audience. And then I copied the shit out of the already available content, authors and websites.

I didn't write any original content at all. All I did was screening other sites, copying their content, rearranging sentences, replacing some words and that was about it. That's all I did in the beginning. Nothing else. I did this for six months or so until the site was bought by some other site and I got kicked out.

For the next ten years or so I didn't write anything. The only stuff I wrote were either answers to tests or project papers. Until 2013 when I decided to write a book.

Actually when I decided to write my first book, I didn't even think about the writing I did for this one website. I somehow completely forgot about this. Now that I think about it, I never put this on my resume either.

I only had to think about it while I was trying to structure my answer and trying to come up with an interesting story how I learned (or taught myself) to write. I don't know if this was consciously or unconsciously. Anyways.

The interesting thing is that I really sucked at writing a book. I was really bad at it. And instead of three months it took my ten months to finish it. I have the feeling that this didn't really improve my writing that much.

What helped me to really get better at writing was to read a lot. Until I was 28 years old I barely ever read anything. Up to this point I maybe read a total of ten books. But then I started to write some of my thoughts down on Facebook. No one was really reading it.

Then I started a newsletter. I continued writing. Some stuff I published and put on my blog. Some I didn't. And then I read even more. Books about all sorts of topics. From all sorts of different genres.

And then I found a few writers I liked. I copied their way of writing. I wrote more.

I combined stuff, experimented with different ways of writing and then I experimented even more.

And I'm still experimenting today and trying to write every single day (and fail very often at doing so). I also try to read every single day. I take notes on phrases I like. Ideas I come up with. Ideas I love. And then I combine them. Expand them into a post. A book. Or nothing.

I never took any writing classes. I'm just not the type of guy to follow advice and do stuff someone tells me to do (that's what I feel writing classes might be about but I really don't know). So what I did and what worked for me can be summarized with these few bullet points:

  1. Read a lot of stuff (preferably books).

  2. Find your favorite authors.

  3. Start copying content, styles, thoughts and ideas from all sorts of sources.

  4. Combine them with each other and publish them.

  5. Experiment, test and see what works and what doesn't.

  6. Find out what people like (and most importantly what you like).

  7. Read even more stuff.

  8. Come up with original content.

  9. Use social media to spread the word.

  10. Create your own blog.

  11. Push your content over and over again.

And do the entire thing all over again. Never stop.

But most importantly, you shouldn't feel like you're writing is not good enough to get published. It's just a matter of fact that we all suck when we start something new. And that's totally ok.

You just have to be willing to push your boundaries every single day, get out of your comfort zone, push even more and try to get better one step at a time. And then keep pushing.

That really is the only way to go.

And that's the true story about how to turn an F student (me!) into someone that others admire for his writing skills...
**Thank You**

Again, thanks so much for downloading my ebook.

I really appreciate it because I know you could have bought hundreds of other books on social media.

So thanks for downloading my guide and finishing it! If you liked this book I need your help. Please take a moment to leave a review for this ebook on Amazon.

Your feedback will help me to continue writing the kinds of books that help other people like you to get better results. 
** **

**More Kindle eBooks by Yann**

The Perfectly Executed Startup - Building Successful Startups

Confessions Of An Entrepreneur - 60 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Quit My Job

The Bootstrapper's Ultimate Bible To Social Media

**Other stuff I recommend reading**

The Best Books For Entrepreneurs: My list of the best books that every entrepreneur should read...

Books That Changed My Life Forever: A list of my most favorite books about life and such...

Join my Book Club: Once a month I recommend the best books I read each month...
**Would You Like To Know More About Me?**

I'm an Entrepreneur that has worked on both sides of the table. I've started, advised and supported several startups throughout the world and have lived and worked in China, New York and Germany.

I've worked together with several tech accelerators and incubators. I supported them and their teams in the area of sales, business development, growth or personal branding.

I'm also a frequent speaker at some of Europe's most renowned entrepreneurship institutions and universities.

I currently also advises a handful of tech and non-tech startups and just finished writing my xxx book (I somehow lost track :-))...

A fan of photography I love to travel and always try to combine my biggest passions in life. You can never be sure where to find me on this planet earth (even I don't know where I'll be next...)

But feel free to add me on one of the platforms below and don't hesitate to get in touch:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yann.girard.1238

Twitter: https://twitter.com/girard_yann

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ygirard
**Ask Me Anything**

Yann Girard

Copyright © 2014 by Yann Girard

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

**Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty**

While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties or merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss or profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For general information and services or for technical support please contact yg@perfectly-executed-startup.com

