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Principles

Life’s taught me a few lessons. Every now and then I take time to reflect on them. These principles are a distilled version of my take-aways.

5️⃣The Top Five
👶 Life in General
🛠 Getting Things Done
🧑‍✈️ Entrepreneurship
👨‍🏫 Learning & Personal Growth
🤝 Collaboration
📣 Communication
💶 Investing

5️⃣The Top Five

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Think one step ahead

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Do what you say you will do

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If you’re gonna do it, do it right (”hell yeah” or “no”)

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Communicate Solutions, Not Problems

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The more difficult the decision, the more gut feeling should be considered

👶 Life in General

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Less is More

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Get the Basics Right

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Pack Less. Experience More.

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Act on What Matters

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Be As Transparent As Possible (Without Hurting Anyone)

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Deal with Reality

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Go Big or Go Home

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Fight or Let Go

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Focus on Work-Life Alignment Instead of Work/Life Balance

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Gut Feeling Beats Brains

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Challenges are Opportunities (To Grow)

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Experiment!

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There Are No Shortcuts - Don't Try to Take Any

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Failure is Where You Learn. Success Is What Allows You to Fail.

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Choose Your Sacrifices

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You won’t regret not spending more time on social media

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Fixing things is the best way to complain

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The recipe: Passion, Patience, Persistence and Perseverance

🛠 Getting Things Done

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Keep It Simple (Stupid)

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Activity Leads to Activity

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Help Yourself

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What Can Be Automated, Should Be Automated

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What can’t be automated must be streamlined

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Think in Processes

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Progress over Process

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Always Take Notes

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Avoid Redundancy

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Write "Done" Instead of "Will Do"

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Always Process Tasks in Three Steps

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Know → Plan → Do

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Do one thing at a time

🧑‍✈️ Entrepreneurship

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As an entrepreneur you start with the output (result). As an employee you start with the input (your ability and time).

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Entrepreneurs start with the result. Employees start with the status quo.

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As an employee you do what’s expected from you. As an entrepreneur you do the unexpected.

👨‍🏫 Learning & Personal Growth

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Smart People Learn from Their Mistakes. Wise People Learn from Others.

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Embrace Feedback

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Don't Fear The Unknown

🤝 Collaboration

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Help Yourself

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Help Others Help Themselves

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Communicate Solutions Not Problems

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Communicate Asynchronously as Much as Possible

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You Cannot Communicate Too Much

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Punctuality, Grammar & Precision Mean a Lot

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Always Be on Time - Don't Waste Others Time

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Don't Ask What Google Can Answer

📣 Communication

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Think Before You Write or Text

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Save Unnecessary Roundtrips

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Communicate Proactively, Early and Often

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It's Better to Be Embarrassed for 5 seconds Rather Than For The Rest of Your Life

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The more difficult the conversation, the more synchronous of a channel is required.

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If you talk about someone, be positive. If you talk to them, be honest.

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Negotiation: If it's 'either or' → it's always 'or'

synchronous comms to get to know someone, asynchronous afterwards

💶 Investing

Ideas are meaningless. Validated ideas are priceless

If you are going to panic, panic early

Money doesn’t matter. Lack of Money matters.

Fear is not a strategy

You can be up 1000% many times but 100% down only once

Backlog

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Backlog

Mark Twain (or Blaise Pascal?): If I had more time, I had written a shorter letter