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Sell your great idea!

Many (would-be) entrepreneurs approach me to ask for help implementing their idea. They already went too far. “What do you think people would be willing to pay for this? I think I should charge 100€ per month.” – and, without skipping a beat, they add “So as soon as I sold 40 subscriptions, I can quit my day job and work on it full-time!”. Awesome plan! But the next thing most want to do is create the product they’re envisioning. So they figure out what resources they need to create it, worry about financing, pull huge numbers about their idea’s economic potential

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Treat your head right.

The new year has begun, and whether or not you set new year’s resolutions or are continuously improving your plans, one thing is for sure: A calm mind thinketh better! Something that helps me a lot to stay calm and keep focused is meditation. After trying different techniques on and off for years, I settled into using an app called Headspace for my daily practise, and crossed 5.000 minutes of guided meditation in December. I also had a run streak for 30+ days for the first time, which is rewarded by Headspace with a free gift code—for you: Click this code to

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Book Review: Emergency by Neil Strauss

I have read three quarters of Neil Strauss’s latest book on a flight recently, and promptly swallowed the rest shortly afterwards.   I liked it a lot, because it appeals to different personas inside of myself, the reader: First of all, reading a book called “Emergency”, of course there’s the survivalist: Amongst other things, Neil explains how to survive cold, find and identify edible plants or how to build shelter in the woods. Secondly, there’s the businessman: Especially in a couple of conversations with a guy called Spencer, valuable business lessons emerge, such as “no intelligent person spends his own

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Morning Routine? Yes, and relax.

I like to get up early and follow a pretty strict morning routine. I prefer autopilot over making a ton of little decisions in the morning. When I settled in to a specific routine and began to change it less and less, I started skipping over the latest MyMorningRoutine.com interviews in my inbox, and finally unsubscribed. I felt like I didn’t need the inspiration anymore. Fast forward to early October 2016. Asked about his morning routine, my surrogate Asian fatherexplained how he’s checking Instagram in bed, then reaches for his notebook to reply to a bunch of email before even getting up. For

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Book Giveaway: The Magic of Thinking Big

Though it had been recommended to me many times throughout the years, a book with a woo-woo title and even “Magic” in it, did not sound like the book I wanted to trust. I finally caved in, and read “The Magic of Thinking Big”. And boy was it worth it! If you’re like me, you’re thinking “yeah right, everybody knows you need to think big” – and dismiss the book. But if this recommendation comes at the right time or you even get the copy I’m giving away (sign up below!), you’re going to discover strategies and tactics on how

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Prioritology

A primer on how to act on priority. There aren’t many different priorities, since priority is binary. Something either is (high) priority or not a priority. As soon as that’s understood, acting on prioritized tasks becomes easy: HIGH → Let’s do it. ASAP. Medium → Next time. If there’s time. Low → 🗑 And as hard as it feels, take those low priority items off your list. They’re not worth the time, you’ll probably have enough high priority items to take care of.

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Recognize and Prevent Failures by Design

A notification pops up, I tap “complete”, set out to do it after the current task is done, and forget about it. Sounds familiar? If I’m lucky, I remember to do my task later. But usually by then it’s too late. I didn’t put the task on my todo-list and set up the reminder instead, because it was time-sensitive. This is a failure by design, and I’ve since changed my behavior to avoid that problem – by implementing a rule that should be a no-brainer, but wasn’t for me: Checking a task off marks it as done, so I can only check

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Eggs in a Mug

I’ve always been a fan of having bacon and scrambled eggs for breakfast, but found the preparation involved quite tedious and time-consuming. In early April I came across a recipethat got me curious. After some experiments regarding ingredients and cooking technique, this is what I’ve had for breakfast most days in the last six weeks: Cook Bacon and Eggs in a Mug in 4 Minutes You’ll need a regular coffee mug, a fork and a microwave oven. Ingredients 2 large eggs 1–2tbs ham cubes 1tbs extra virgin olive oil 1tbs whole milk salt, pepper and herbs (optional) Preparation (90 seconds) Put

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GründerTalk: Wahnsinniger Fokus! [DE]

Note: Attorney at Law Carsten Lexa, LL.M. interviewed me on GründerTalk, a startup and founders show in German language. Therefore this post is in German as well, sorry! Rechtsanwalt Carsten Lexa, LL.M. hat mich für die Show GründerTalk der Initiative Gründen@Würzburg vor die Kamera gebeten, um von meinen Erfahrungen aus den ersten vier Jahren Sophisticates GmbH zu berichten. Fazit: Wahnsinniger Fokus auf die Kernkompetenz ist nötig, sonst verliert man sich viel zu schnell in unwichtigen Dingen!

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