The mating behavior of the Caspian Red Deer, or: why resilience is essential

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes, 17 seconds

Roma Fiumicino Airport. Saturday night. We're not here to party, we're here to fly home, slightly buzzed from the large Aperol Spritz they do so well in Italy. And tired. Very tired. The month of October has been very straining on all of us; I'd even go ahead and say that this month was one of the most emotionally challenging months of my life. We had just interviewed a ton of nurses, and were now looking to get our mind off work - which is really hard sometimes when you're an entrepreneur. The thing that allows me to focus on one and one thing only is writing. I also work really well with challenges, so again I asked Kai, who was sitting next to me, for a topic. 

A topic? "Yeah dude, just any topic. Like the cutlery last time." - "oh, okay." ... and then he proceeds to drop this: "The mating behavior of the Caspian red deer". Shit. I don't even know what a Caspian red deer is. Let alone what their mating behavior looks like. And then I shall extract a life lesson from that? God damnit. That's hard. Or is it? Well, I did some research and I have to say, this Caspian red deer is actually a fairly interesting breed. Let's dive in!

A Caspian red deer, courtesy of kaukasushirsch.de

The crazy world of the Caspian red deer

The Caspian red deer (cervus elaphus maral) is a subspecies of the red deer (cervus elaphus) that lives in the area between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mostly on the Crimea peninsula (yeah, the one Putin tried to annex - probably not due to its awesome deer population though), Asia Minor and the Caucasian Mountains. It's pretty heavy, weighing in at 230 to 320 kg. Would definitely be a good fit for an American Football team, preferably at left tackle due to its agility. In order to fuel the engine, it also has to eat a lot: usually grasses and young tree shoots, along with some bark. 25 liters of that, every day. Kind of like eating a school backpack full of food every day. Finding and eating that amount of food takes a lot of time, around 10 hours a day. 

Short aside here: the "eating bark" thing is actually a problem. As you know, bark is one of the most crucial parts to a tree's survival - and if it loses too much of it, it won't be around for long. Red deer kill trees, and then they make sure that they ain't coming back by eating all the young tree shoots, whose nutrients are very important to the red deer's nutrition. This is the reason why red deer is hunted more than other species living in the wild. They wouldn't eat as much bark if they could live in a non-forest region with lots of grass; but the hunting drives them back to more densely forested areas. And in these areas, aside of bark, there isn't much too eat. It's kind of a chicken-egg problem without a real effective solution. So next time you see a tree whose bark looks awful, it's probably thanks to the red deer. And if you happen to be in the Crimea region (which I would advise against), then it was probably a Caspian red deer. 

Other than that, the red deer live in two different herds: a so called "Kahlwildrudel" (sadly, there isn't a proper English terminology here) which consists of families of 3: the mother animal, a one-year old and a calf. The males live in a separate gang, roaming the forests and plains of the Caucasian Mountains and eating like a Olympic powerlifter. Basically just some dudes hanging out, and it's girl's night out all the time - with the kids. Or something like that. Very hard to imagine for us humans. That's the majority of the year. And then there's the mating period.

The mating period

This is where it gets interesting: roughly in September, the first mating roars start to emerge from the forests (a very impressive recording of the sound can be found here - not too distant from the sounds at a male bathroom stall at the airport). It's mating time, or "rut" as I've just learned. The male gangs start splitting up and approaching the ladies in their Kahlwildrudel, just like in a club on a Friday night. However, contrary to the club, the caspian red deer has the ultimate "winner-takes-it-all" mentality. In order to get to the ladies, a few things have to be sorted out first. Most importantly, who the strongest dude in the group is. To figure that out, the stags engage in a ritual-like fight, where they walk side by side for about 5 minutes, presenting the size of their body, before they with a sudden movement engage in a fight using their antlers. This fight lasts until one of them decides to concede and run away - usually either for reasons of weakness or injury. Every year, 5% of red deer are killed in these fights - also different than in a Friday night club. These fights go through sort of a tournament mode - I wasn't able to find out if it's single elimination or more of a league system - until eventually, a winner is determined. This winner then gets to mate with all the ladies. Doesn't that sound lovely, folks? 

The other poor stags are stuck hanging out in the vicinity of the herd while the victorious stag celebrates an excessive sex orgy. An orgy that lasts for 6-12 weeks. Usually, the winner is an older stag (of course, experience tends to win), BUT: older stags also shed their antlers first, and once they don't have antlers anymore, it's easy for the younger stags to challenge and usurp him. So then, the younger stags also get to their part. But as you can see - it's never going be enough for all male deer, which means that many of them will probably die lonely and single. But at least they have their bros to hang out with all year. 

So we have the fighting and the orgy part. Now, do you remember what I said about their usual everyday activities? That's right - usually these animals eat for 10 hours a day. If you're fighting and having sex all day, you naturally don't have that much more time to eat, which leads to most males losing up to 20% of their weight during rut. In normal scenarios, this isn't a problem - they will just refeed, get some protein shakes and put their weight back on. But sometimes, the weather does what it wants. Like when it's incredibly sunny outside and I figure I'm not gonna need a rainjacket, only to stand in pouring rain 10 minutes later. Rain doesn't hurt the stags, but winter comes very early sometimes, especially in the areas where the Caspian red deer live. Winter means a much shorter supply of food, which again means that refeeding is almost impossible. Being almost anorexic highly hurts your chances of survival in a rough winter, which leads to the death of many stags. So literally they die from the consequences of fighting for the opportunity to have sex. Men ... 

Resilience

The winter wouldn't be an issue if the stags were 100% in shape and had their full level of resilience. But due to long periods of exhaustion, smaller things all the sudden become very big and sometimes deadly. And I believe that this is something that we can all take away for ourselves: if you're in great shape, physically and mentally, no matter what happens will probably not faze you. On the other hand, if you're constantly stressed, sleep-deprived, eating pasta and burgers all day and haven't seen the inside of a gym for a month, chances are that even smaller events will completely shut you down. 

As mentioned earlier, the month of October was a very stressful one and very straining. Under other circumstances, it would have taken an even greater toll on me, but luckily I came into the month healthily, in arguably the best shape of my life and with only mediocre stress levels. Therefore, I was able to absorb all the blows thrown at me. I was resilient. 

Now, how do you build this resilience? Well, if I'm writing this - what else could it be but my favorite topic? That's right. You form resilience through habits. The philosophy with which I approach my day is that by the end of the day I wanna say, "it's been a good day". In order to achieve that, I have very particular morning routines in place (on which I will publish a newer in-depth article at some point - you can find the old one here, it's a bit outdated). To me, a definition of a good day is a day where I took care of my body and mind and learned something new while being in control of what's happening. Therefore, I try to integrate the following activities into my morning: 

• making my bed (control)
• meditation (healthy mind)
• foam rolling & stretching or gym (healthy body)
• journaling (healthy mind, learning)
• riding my bike to work (healthy body, also has very positive effects on the immune system)
• listening to audiobooks or podcasts (learning something new)

Once that's over, the actual day starts. But no matter how shitty the day is, by the end of the day it was still a good day because I achieved all of my goals. Whatever happens, it can't possibly ruin my day. That's resilience. And on a larger scale, these behavior patterns also impact your overall outlook on life, leaving you unfazed when faced with difficult situations. 

If the Caspian red deer had built that resilience, it wouldn't have died from an unexpected change in weather. It didn't. And that's okay, because in the end, these stags are also just men. And at the end of the day, they'll probably say: "doesn't matter - had sex". 

Dear Kai, there you have it - a comprehensive piece on the mating behavior of the Caspian red deer. Hope you (and all you other readers) enjoyed the read! I'm always happy about feedback, positive or negative, and if you feel like it you can even drop me a topic to write about - either because you'd like to know more or you simply wanna challenge me. Either works. Until then, take care and stay awesome! 

If you want to build resilience, too, I'd suggest checking out my blogpost on routines. That will give you a first glimpse about what you can do. 

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Two magic words

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 49 seconds

Wherever the tracks take you ... 

It's a rainy day in Southern France. I'm sitting in a giant landhouse - more like a villa - and wondering what to do with a day when you're stuck in the middle of fucking nowhere. Naturally, being bored gives you room to think. And I was thinking: how did I get here? There are two answers to this question...

The first answer is: by car. We drove here, and it was quite the ordeal. One tunnel in Switzerland was blocked as an excavator had slipped from a truck. It was dark already. So we figured we'd take the mountain pass. It got foggier and foggier, the temperature dropped to around 2°C and slowly but steadily I began thinking we probably should have put in Winter tires. Especially when our tires started losing grip on the streets. Well, I'd like to tell you a crazy story about how we got stuck there, spent the night in the Swiss mountains and almost froze to death - but actually, we just made it out okay and all the sudden were greeted by a sunny morning at the Côte d'Azur. However, that's not the story that I wanted to tell. Let's focus on answer #2. 

So - how did I get here? As most of you know, I've been working with a startup called "Linguedo" for quite a while now. We bring nurses from Italy to Germany and teach them German. Being our own bosses, we can pretty much do whatever we want as long as it adds value to the business. That includes having a company offsite twice a year at this very landhouse. The last year has been incredibly challenging and full of opportunities of growth. Working in a startup environment can be very rough, but it mostly is rewarding. You get to observe the direct consequences of your actions, something that's rarely to be seen in corporate firms. And the only reason I'm with Linguedo is because I accepted a package for a friend. 

Wait .. how? Kind of a weird job interview, isn't it? My boy Kai asked me to accept a package for his co-founder who'd then pick it up at my place. He showed up and got it, but I was in a hurry - it was Wednesday, and Wednesday means Lacrosse practice. It's a holy day. On the way back from practice, I thought: man, that was a pretty interesting dude. Would love to talk some more to him. When I got home, I had a text message from Matthias if I wanted to have lunch the next day. Hell yeah.

Long story short, 45 minutes into our Vietnamese fried noodles, I agreed to join Linguedo. A career in consulting, as I had envisioned it previously? Whatever. Join a startup? Why not. Let's do it. 

WHY NOT

Why not. These two magic words shape the outcome of many lives. They're the ultimate opener for doors that you previously didn't even know existed. They're the words that can turn your life around by 180 degrees. "why not" means saying "yes" to an opportunity. And that's all you need. 

Let's rewind a bit. In 2008, my mother asked me if I wanted to spend a year abroad. I said "hmm ... why not". We negotiated a little bit (my parents wanted me to go to France because they're manically in love with this country; I was set on going to Chile, but my mother wasn't very convinced: "dude, you don't know any Spanish". Yes, mom, point taken.) and I finally was off to the United States of America. The beautiful state of North Carolina to be exact, and the not so well known town of Elon, close to Burlington (BurVegas or Borington, as the locals like to call it). I had a blast. This year turned my life around. It took me from being an overweight, clumsy guy to being an above-average athlete. It showed me that it's easier than you'd think to step out of your comfort zone - and once you're out there, it's beautiful. It took my confidence to other galaxies, as being the only German guy at a countryside high school with 1200 students equals rockstar status. And all this stems from two words: why not. 

Years later, in 2013, Kai (who I'm currently working and living with) asked me if I wanted to go to Rwanda. I'd have to learn how to make glasses for less than one dollar during the time when I'm supposed to study for exams, and everybody else from the team of 80 people at the time had declined. As you can guess, I said: why not - and all the sudden I was on a plane to Kigali, not knowing what was expecting me. Needless to say, this experience was very defining and showed me how to appreciate all the things that we have in the Western world. It also showed me that it doesn't take a lot of things to be happy - but that's a different story. 

And then, Linguedo happened. In between, a million other things also happened, but I'm very prone to rambling on about myself and my achievements, so I'll leave it at that. The point that I want to make is: if an opportunity presents itself, seize it! Nobody has grown or become successful by saying "yeahhh maybe I'll do that some time else". Saying "why not" takes you to places that you haven't been able to go to before. Saying "why not" makes you grow. 

If you're reading this, you're probably part of the lucky people who got to grow up in the Western world. We are all presented with plenty of opportunities - yet most of us reject them. "Too dangerous", we say. "It's not the right time right now", we say. "I'm just not ready yet", we say. Hell - are we ever ready? Is it ever the right time?

No. The time to strike is the time when the opportunity presents itself. Say the magic words. Seize the opportunity. It might be your last one. 

I have an opportunity right now, too. There's a fridge 10 meters away from me, and it's full of beer. And I'm gonna have one. Because, after all - why not?

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Relationships, or: why being alone can be the greatest thing ever

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 37 seconds

So you know how they say: "when you don't know what to write about, just start typing and don't stop." Fair enough. That's what I'll do. (Note: this whole post was written in one setting, without review or anything like that. Just words as they kept coming)

Well, today's the day of my birthday celebration. I've got plenty of friends coming, both old and new. However, I feel like these not nearly as many or as good friends as on last year's party. I may be wrong, but man, buildig a social circle is tough when you work full-time or more. 

Building a social circle vs. working full-time

Let's first back up. Rewind one year. I'm in the final push of my studies, writing my bachelor's thesis. Aside of that, I just finished leading a students' organization with roughly 100 students. Moreover, I'm playing Lacrosse in the biggest Lacrosse club of Germany, with more than 100 men and women each being members. Aside of that, I work part-time at Flixbus, which has a tremendous intern turnover, thus always bringing in new contacts. Needless to saya, getting to know people was the easiest thing in the world. 

Then, in November, I moved to Frankfurt. Wherever I had gone before, getting to know people was easy. I'm an extrovert, I'm not afraid of chatting up people and doing crazy stuff. Here, however, it was a different game. I joined a start-up. Those of you who have worked in really small startups before, know exactly that free time isn't exactly part of your daily schedule. It's hard work, but it's well worth it. The only thing is - you spend a shitton of time with very few, awesome people. 

I also joined the local Lacrosse team and chatted up some old friends from school living in the area. I started swiping on Tinder. And all the sudden I had a pretty decent network - but compared to what I had in Munich, it was still tiny. Of course, time makes everything better, but this was a different situation. Something happened to me that had never happened to me before: it was Saturday night, I wanted to go out but nobody else I knew wanted to. Going out alone? No fucking way. At least not if I don't have a favorite place. The clubs in Frankfurt are tailored towards bankers and consultants, which aren't exactly the type of people I usually hang out with. So I stayed at home and felt lonely. 

I felt miserable. Alone in the world. All my other friends are scattered across the globe - nobody was in Frankfurt. That feeling was scary. Because I had never had it before. And then I slowly began to realize ... 

Alone

All the time I had constantly surrounded myself with people, I was running away from myself. Running away from my fears, my insecurities, my true self. It's hard to think about yourself when you always have your friends around you. And yet, the time that you spend alone is the time of personal growth. So laying in bed and thinking, I decided to spend some more time alone. 

Fast forward to June 2017. I'm traveling the Dominican Republic, and I'm completely on my own. No travel companions. No friends that I was visiting. Just me against the world. I went to the beach alone, had lunch alone, spent some time on my own reading and then had dinner without anybody else to talk to. Sounds miserable? You'd think that. But instead, it was FUCKING AWESOME. I was able to think the thoughts that I wanted (or didn't want, but had to) think. To read the books I've always wanted to read. To do whatever the fuck I wanted to, even if that meant going to bed at 9pm on a Saturday night. Nobody was there to say, "duude it's Saturday, we gotta go out". And that was totally fine. 

A wise man once said "success means that you're able to sit somewhere alone not doing anything for 30 minutes". (Seriously, I just cannot find the person who said that. But I pondered that quote a lot). In June, I got a lot closer to that "success". Being alone is not about being abandoned, about being left out by your friends. No, it's what you make of it. So depending on the way you look at things, it can either be miserable or beautiful. I choose the latter. 

Being alone has many perks. For instance, I would never get my writing done if I was constantly with people. I wouldn't be able to think real deep thoughts with people around me. And I wouldn't be able to let emotions flow freely with other people around me (although that's more of a me thing, as I tend to not either have or show emotions). 

Back to Frankfurt. I moved in with two of my colleagues from the company. Now, we're more than a married couple. A married couple sees each other every day in the morning and at night, and on weekends. We spend 24/7 within 10 meters of each other. And when I say 24/7, I mean twenty-four fucking seven. Instead of going out to meet new people, we just spend time with each other. The conversations never get boring. We'll call each other when we haven't seen each other in a couple days. 

My network is totally okay. I've met plenty of awesome people here, yet it's still nowhere near the size of my Munich network. And that's totally okay. Because in the end, it's not about the quantity of the people in your life - it's about the quality of the relationships. That's something I by no means can complain about. Not even a bit. 

Relationships

I've also realized that it doesn't matter where in this world your friends are or how often you see them. Whenever we see each other, it's just like it's always been - despite not having met in more than a year. On my birthday, I received so many messages that came from the heart (and a lot that came from the Facebook reminder). I was full of thankfulness for all these awesome people in my life, all over the world. For the guys I'm living and working with, for all my boys and girls in Frankfurt, in Germany, Europe, USA, all over the world. My readers, too, as the blog has started to grow that people that I don't even know are reading it (if you're one of them - holy shit, you're fucking awesome!). 

It's about the quality of your relationships. Screw quantity. Because if you're really passionate about maintaining great relationships with people, the quantity will come automatically - or it just won't matter. Either way, you'll be happy. And then, being alone at times is totally okay. 

But now ... it's not the time to be alone. It's time to hit the supermarket to get a ton of beers. It's time to party. Maybe even building some new, great relationships. 

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Cutlery, or: Challenge Your Assumptions

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 53 seconds

Frankfurt Airport, roughly two weeks ago. We're waiting for our flight to Rome. As we are trying to board, everything halts and we are ushered back into the terminal. A thunderstorm is coming up and holy shit, it's huge. No departure for us - yet. Out of boredom, I ask my boy Matthias to "name a topic". What do you mean, name a topic? 

"Dude, just name a topic. Anything, really." 
"OK bro. Cutlery. Why do you need that?" 
"That's the next blogpost that's coming out."

I am convinced that you can put an interesting spin on literally any topic if you're a good writer. Hence, I wanted to hone my craft doing just that. So cutlery it is. Fuck. What can you write about that? Something that's not totally boring? I don't know, man ...

Until I realized that cutlery actually is fucking awesome. Or, more specifically, the topic in itself is awesome. Let me show you why. 

Cutlery

Why do we use cutlery? I've hypothesized about different things and done some research, but I am really not convinced. Doesn't it make much more sense to eat with your hands? Upon closer investigation, you don't need cutlery to eat any dish, really. A thick steak might be hard to eat, but your teeth should be a lot stronger than the average knife. We eat burgers, fries and pizza with our hands, so why not pasta, soup and salad too? Other cultures do this as well - in India and Ethiopia it is very common to eat your food with hands, and I've heard (no citeable source though) that in Ghana, people eat soup with their hands. The purpose of making eating possible therefore is not a valid reason to use cutlery. 

In fact, cutlery hasn't been around for that long. While knives that are used to prepare food have been around for ages, forks, spoons, sporfs and whatnot (somebody on Wikipedia actually took the time to put together a list of all cutlery, which raises two questions: holy shit what do you need all this for, and is there really not a higher impact that can be generated with your time than putting together a list of fucking cutlery?) have first been mentioned in the 13th century. There, the term of the profession "cutler" first appeared in a tax declaration (quick aside here: this then is also what ex-Bears QB Jay Cutler's ancestors did for a living - guess that skill doesn't translate to football). Considering all human evolution (or at least the time homo sapiens has been around), we've basically not used cutlery at all; especially because back in the day, cutlery was reserved for the filthy wealthy. Hence, there is absolutely no reason to use cutlery, because our nutrition hasn't changed that much in the past couple hundred years. 

Let's look at another factor: hygiene. One could argue that eating with your hands you do all other kinds of funky stuff with isn't exactly hygienic. Therefore, we use cutlery. However, we're taught to wash our hands before eating. This certainly makes sense, but why wash hands if we use cutlery anyway? I believe that washing hands before eating is actually a leftover from the times when we were still eating with our hands. KInd of a strange thought, isn't it? 

Now, the usage of cutlery has become cultural etiquette by now and there are even two-day seminars on which fork and which knife to use for which course. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you create a market for your product - by establishing social norms that serve no visible purpose. This notion, however, is starting to change as reported by the NY Times. Some argue that eating with your hands is more natural and gives you a more intense eating experience; other say that it's good for the body to go back to your wild, stone age self. 

Challenge Your Assumptions

Whatever it is - the point here isn't whether we should use cutlery or not. This decision is up to your discretion. The point here is that we walk through our lives with countless assumptions that are never even attempted to be challenged. We use cutlery because we've always done it this way. Why? No fucking clue. This is the same in all areas of our society. I mostly observe it in our own lives and in business. 

Many companies do things a certain way because "they've always been done this way." While it certainly made sense at one point in time to do things "this way", it doesn't necessarily make sense to do it anymore. Challenge your company culture. Challenge the status quo. We at our company Linguedo do exactly that. Go to a villa in Southern France for two weeks with the whole team to work from there? Sounds crazy and a little bit weird, right? But then again, why the fuck not? We create our own reality, we create our own world. And so can you.

You're the master of your world. You're the creator of your reality. You can do things the way YOU want to do them - who says it has to be different? If that means to be weird, that's totally okay. Let the others talk. Most of the time, they'll be busy worrying about themselves anyway. Take charge of your life and challenge your assumptions about the status quo. They might turn out to be total nonsense.

And then, by all means, feel free to get yourself a nice plate of food and dig in with your hands. Who says you can't?


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Commitment: Why You Should Never Click The Maybe Button

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 7 seconds

"Don't be a maybe" - every Marlboro commercial not so long ago

Cigarettes are shit. There is not a single good thing about them. They're expensive, they make you smell like an ashtray, heavily impact your athletic ability and worst of all, they kill you. To a rational mind, there is absolutely no fucking point in smoking a cigarette. Want a high? Go lift some weights. Flirt with a beautiful woman. Play an instrument.  But don't ruin your body and your wallet for the sake of being cool, getting a buzz or getting to know people - there are plenty of other ways to do that. 

That being said, I'm a big fan of cigarette commercials. More specifically, of the Marlboro commercials a while ago. Their line was "Don't be a maybe". And while they were referring to the feeling of freedom that you apparently get when you smoke, I like the overall message. You really shouldn't be a maybe. As a matter of fact, the word "maybe" should not even exist in your vocabulary. But in order to elaborate that, let me back up a little bit. 

It's summer in Frankfurt, and my birthday is coming up. Knowing me, it's not very surprising that I may or may not be throwing a rad house party (for the sake of this post, let's just assume there will be one). From my professional endeavours, I know that it's very important to plan properly a few weeks before the deadline at the very latest. As soon as you start going into firefighting mode, productivity is diminished and costs skyrocket. That's not where you wanna be. So I'm sitting here, thinking about all sorts of stuff - how much beer will we need, how many red cups do I still need to order, is our apartment actually going to be big enough to hold all the people? You know, the big questions of life. In order to get any idea how many people will be attending, I take a look at the Facebook event. What does it say?

Some people are going. Some haven't seen it yet. Some can't make it due to some legit or shady excuse - either way, I know what's up. And where is the majority? 

FUCKING. MAYBE. 

What do you mean, maybe? You might be able to make it? You just don't know yet? The event is in two days but you're not sure? To quote my Canadian lacrosse coach: "FUCK." Do you not have control over your life? Are you not able to distinguish for yourself what's important and what's not? Are you simply a playing ball of fate? I don't think so. If you were, you probably wouldn't be reading this blog. If you are, welcome to the good side of life!

It's really not hard to make or not make the commitment. In fact, it's a binary decision. Zero or one. Yes or no. There is no alternative. Either you'll be there or you won't. Sounds easy, right?

Nowadays, we live in a society where it's easy to stay uncommitted. Which makes sense, too - after all, there are a million options there. Sure, you could go to this party or that party, go to Madrid or to London, attend a lacrosse tournament or go hiking. That all sounds nice and could potentially be really awesome. It's cool to be able to do so many things. Yet in the end, without making a commitment to anything, you're falling into two traps: the paradox of choice and missing out on anticipation. 

The Paradox of Choice

"But Dom, you've been writing about that shit over and over again..." Yes, I know. I'm very aware of that, actually. I'm also not the only one - there have been plenty of scientists and authors going on and on about that topic. Here's a refresher: the more options you have, the harder it is to make a decision. The harder a decision is to make, the less likely you're going to make it. And that's how you end up not doing anything on a weekend night with thousands of options - you're simply paralyzed by the amount of information you have to process. There is only one way to get out of the paradox of choice: making a commitment. Making one decision and then sticking with it. This also includes not asking "What if?", because that question will leave you circling back and forth around that decision. 

Treat the decision as one that lies in your past and that you cannot influence. Thinking about it this way frees up a lot of mental capacity, giving you a chance to actually make some really important decision, such as "what do I want to do with my life?". 

Anticipation

Studies have shown that doing cool things makes people happy. Pretty groundbreaking, I'd say. What's more interesting: anticipation of doing these cool things makes people even happier than actually doing them. Looking forward to something is one of the most amazing things that we can do. 

I've never understood why my parents would book their vacation one year in advance. Holy shit. Who plans that far? I certainly don't. I just thought my parents were planning freaks who cannot deal with going into the unknown. But I've changed my mind: while they still may be obsessed with planning things, one thing that's even more important to them is anticipation. They love looking forward to traveling somewhere, and they also look forward to doing all these cool things that they will be doing (because they've already planned them and booked them - or, committed to them). 

Man, I'm so pumped about having that party. It's 4 weeks away. I'm also incredibly pumped about going to Thailand in November. That's gonna be so cool. And just thinking about these things makes me smile. The future holds bright things. Yet, before actually booking these flights or setting up that party, I wasn't pumped at all - it was a drag. Where should I go? Whom should I invite? Rough decisions, and after making them, I felt very relieved. And happy. 

Commitment makes you happy. And the best thing: it doesn't make just you happy, but everybody else around you too. 

Non-Commitment is a punch in the face

Yes, you've read that right. Saying "maybe" is the same as "I really don't know if you're cool enough for me, but maybe if all the other options suck, I'll spend some time with you". Would you ever say that to a friend? To a teammate? To a family member? I highly doubt it. Because it'd be highly offensive, and rightly so. 

Imagine the coolest activity you could possibly ever do. For me, one of these activities would for instance be having a few beers with my favorite author and idol, Tim Ferriss. If I had the chance to meet Tim, would I say "yeahhhh maybe I'll go?" Fuck no. I'd be all over that opportunity in an instant. I highly value this dude, therefore I am able to make a commitment. Is it the same for something that I don't really wanna do? No. And then I should have the balls to say "no, I'm not going to do that" instead of "yeah maybe I'll do that" and then backing out last minute with a "sorry I can't make it, I have other priorities". Stay firm, stay strong and say the things the way they are. 

I'm not particularly great at this, either. I sometimes back out of lacrosse practice last minute because I didn't control my day properly, got caught up in some stupid shit and then other parts of my life had to suffer. It happens to all of us. But being aware of it is the first step in the right direction. So, the next time you tell yourself that you might want to go, ask yourself plain and hard: is this what I really want? If the answer is no, say that you're not going to go or do it. And if the answer is yes, go ahead and make a commitment. It's a great feeling to have. 

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700,000 Hours: The Only Thing We Have

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 45 seconds

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700,000 hours - what are you gonna do with them?

Let's do some math. 80 * 365 * 24 = 700,800. Cool - anyone can do that. Thanks for reading!

Or wait. What did we just calculate there? I was wondering how many hours my life would actually last. Assuming I'll live until I am 80 (which considering my current lifestyle isn't necessarily a given), there is a total of 700,000 hours in my life - 210,000 of which I've spent already. Is that a lot? I have no idea. I simply cannot relate to such a large number in the context of hours. There's only one thing I know: once the current hour is gone, it'll never come back. Ever. 

Time is our most valuable resource, nevertheless we disrespect it in an almost frivolous manner. How often does the day just pass by without really having achieved anything? To me, that happens a lot. Tic Tac. Another day gone. And while we tend to think we have plenty more of them, they'll pass by sooner than we can even fathom. 

Idleness

Fairly easy to stay idle here though ...

This post was inspired by the idleness I've observed here in the Dominican Republic. Monday, around 11 am. I'm walking down to the beach and there are people sitting everywhere. Hey - it's awesome that you can do that, but ... is this really where you want to be? I've talked to plenty of these people just hanging around and if they were happy where they currently are. 100% of them said no (sample size 12). That made me think - you're telling me you're not happy in your current situation, yet you're just sitting around doing nothing? Something's wrong here. And I'd like to find out what it is. 

We all know the old adage: "time is money", or in more mathematical terms, "time equals money". Following that logic, it'd be perfectly rational to put the exact same value on both time and money. Therefore, if we value one hour of our time at 50 €, then it'd be perfectly rational to flush at least 100 € down the toilet every day. Would you ever do that? I highly doubt it (unless you're some filthy rich masochist, but then it'd be better invested just giving it to me). However, we all do this every day: check some Facebook here, some Instagram there, wait for the bus for 15 minutes, sitting around idle because we don't know what to do with ourselves. In my opinion, that is borderline criminal. The same is true for the people in the Dominican Republic: in the previous logic, they're constantly throwing money into the Atlantic Ocean. And that just cannot happen. 

"But Dominik, I have a job, I do sports, I live a great life, I'm not one of them." Right. And you never "have time" (aside: this phrase is my personal arch enemy). That's okay if you're happy with what you're doing, because you've got your prioties straight. Most of us however haven't. "I'd like to read more", "I'd like to speak another language", "I really want to spend more time with my girlfriend". Cool - so why don't you do it? "But .. when?" 

Glad you asked. 

I'd like to present a few activities that you can leverage and techniques that will help you free up more time for the things that really matter to you. I'm also most focusing on the things happening outside of your professional life (although some of the below points can also be applied to life inside the office). Let's get into them:

5 ways to get more out of your time

1. Leverage your commute

As normal human beings in our society, chances are that we're not working from home but instead have to go to our job or our university. For instance, it takes me around 15 minutes to get from my home to the office. Now, there are several ways that I could get there. I could either take a bus or use my bicycle. The former is convenient, but the latter is a lot faster and allows me to work on my cardio every day - something that I normally do when absolutely necessary (I prefer lifting weights) and probably would not make time for outside of it. While commuting (I have a route without a lot of traffic), I listen to audiobooks or podcasts. 15 minutes isn't a lot of time though - or is it? Here are some number acrobatics: 15 minutes * 2 (because I also have to go back home) * 5 (5 workdays a week) * 4 (4 weeks in a month) = 10 hours of time spent commuting every month. 

To put this into relation: this is the time it roughly takes to listen to two average audiobooks on 1.25 listening speed. In other words: I get to read two books every month and have amazing cardio simply due to leveraging my commute. This adds up to an additional 24 books a year - on top of the time that I dedicate to reading anyway. That's a ton of books, more than I've probably read during my studies. Just imagine what you could do with all that information. It'd be insane. If you want to start doing that, podcasts on Spotify and an Audible subscription are good places to start. The apps are incredibly easy to use and in no time, you'll be listening to a lot of cool shit.

Because I really want to hammer this point home, do the same equation again but this time, you have a 60 minute one-way commute. This adds up to 40 hours every month - or, roughly, 11.3 % of your awake time (assuming you sleep 8 hours every day). Shit. That's A LOT of time - and it'll be gone forever. You better use it. 

Personally, I always tend to pay a premium for location. A long commute to work simply isn't worth paying $200 less in rent every month, as I just demonstrated. So if you're stuck in a situation like that, you might wanna think long and hard about moving closer to your workplace. 

2. Leverage other activities

In order to not let this go unmentioned, you can apply this principle to any activity that does not require your full attention. I like to call my parents and grandparents while I'm cleaning or washing dishes, for instance. Household activities are things that I absolutely despise, but by calling the family, they become a lot more enjoyable. Grandma is happy and so are the flatmates. Same goes for the gym: you have plenty of time between sets (if you train like me at least), so listening to a podcast while working out works pretty well. 

3. Outsource things that you dislike doing or aren't very good at 

Speaking of household activities, we really need to get a cleaning lady. Why? Back to "time equals money". I value my time at around 50 € per hour (if you want to get into the nitty-gritty economics with perfect substitution and all that, feel free to message me). Therefore, if it takes me two hours to clean the apartment and I can get the job done for less than $100, I shouldn't do it myself. I can get a cleaning lady for this purpose for around 40 € in Germany (not to mention that she probably does a lot better job than I do. Just ask my flatmates.). Why should I do it myself? I don't enjoy it, and it's not worth my time. Therefore, the only rational solution is to outsource it. 
Side note: This, of course, changes a lot if you enjoy cleaning. Then, it's absolutely worth your time! 

4. Eliminate time consumers

Breaking news: social networks eat up a lot of time. Nowadays, I believe we're all aware of this - but we don't act upon it (myself included). I still spend plenty of time every day looking at my Instagram feed, checking Facebook and WhatsApp messages and whatnot. Now that my phone has been stolen, I don't feel the urge to do that at all - I'm really not missing anything (or have you ever felt like you REALLY REALLY had to check Instagram?). Now, the easiest way out would be to simply not have an account there; which is easy to say, but hard to impossible to actually put into practice. Facebook has been a blessing in managing my whole network, and I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world. 

You can, however, eliminate the most time-consuming part of it: the newsfeed. There is an amazing browser extension called "Facebook Newsfeed Eradicator", which simply blocks your newsfeed and instead gives you a smart quote from somebody. I regularly catch myself going to facebook.com, just to realize that there's nothing going on there. I highly recommend installing it. On the phone, just use the messenger app; not the Facebook app. The same is true for Instagram and others: switch off the notifications and all the sudden, you won't even know what to do with all your time anymore. 

5. Stop binge watching Netflix

"But I love Game of Thrones!" Absolutely - and that's awesome! The beauty and ugliness of TV series is that it's just so easy to watch another one; it's so smooth and shallowly rewarding. And all the sudden, you've spent 6 hours in front of the TV without actually having achieved anything. I personally don't watch TV series (when I tell people about that, sometimes they tend to look at me like I just told them that I'm Amish and have never used a car before), because I prefer to do other activities that I find more rewarding. This is completely up to you - but I want you to be aware of how big of a time sink Netflix and TV is. 

A note on idleness: one question that certainly came up while reading this post was - isn't it good to sit back and relax every now and then? Yes. It isn't just good, but it's absolutely necessary. And I'm not very good at it, as many of you know. However, I believe that you'll know when you have to take that time. After a long workday, I sometimes cherish the ride home without having any input, or sitting on the roof doing nothing for 30 minutes. It's part of human life and we should not forget to take our downtime every now and then. What's important to me is to consciously take that downtime - and not just "letting it happen to you". As I've stated previously, control over our lives is one key factor of happiness - and that also includes controlling your idle and non-idle time. 

Side note: I hesitated publishing this post for a while because I started thinking more and more about the topic of conscious idleness. To me, one metric to tell if someone is successful is if they can spend 30 minutes just doing nothing. That's a pretty amazing feat - one that I haven't accomplished yet. Idleness has its time and place. But it shouldn't be the activity that takes up a huge chunk of your time. Maybe I will look at this completely differently one year from now - I don't know. As of right now, that's my point of view and I'd love your thoughts on it. 

Closing

During the past couple of years, I've gotten the feedback every now and then that I'm very mature and reflected for my age. That makes me feel warm and fuzzy, and it'd be easy for me to say that I'm just super awesome and mature and everything. However, I don't think that that's my personality - it simply is the result of good habits, and especially of reading a lot. Reading is one of the things that I the most on a regular basis, and it has greatly expanded my view on the world as well as on myself. Just think about it: an author (presumably) only writes about things that he has understood at a transcendent level; therefore, he probably put in 10,000+ hours of his time into that topic (or 1.428% of his total time alive). When you read his or her book, you can acquire that knowledge (to a certain degree, of course), within 5-10 hours. That's very accelerated learning and one reason why the invention of printing has advanved our society so far. Use reading as a mean to leverage your time in order to acquire great deals of knowledge and perspectives. It won't hurt you, but instead turn you into a well-rounded human being. Chances are that if you're reading this blog, you're already on a good way - keep going! 

Am I holier than thou? Absolutely fucking not. Like most humans, I'm notoriously bad at taking my own advice and spend plenty of time pondering about irrelevant decisions, sending stupid snapchats to my friends and doing things that I really shouldn't be doing. I have plenty of room for improvement. 

Yet in the end, it comes down to what we want to achieve with our 700,000 hours. And I certainly don't want to be the guy whose tombstone says: "he lived a great life, filled with social media, doing unenjoyable things and spending more than 10% of his awake time going somewhere". Do you?

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Discipline Equals Freedom

Tattoos have always fascinated me. But getting one myself? Never. Because in the end, you're stuck with whatever stupid shit you were so convinced about in your youth. To me, in order to have a tattoo, you'd first have to find something so true, so unchangeable, that you want to have it with you for the rest of your life. But recently, I am starting to become more and more convinced that I might have found such a life-defining phrase that will always hold true. It reads: Discipline equals freedom. 

Some of you may recognize this phrase. I haven't coined it myself, but it is straight up taken from a former Navy Seal Commander named Jocko Willink (listen to the interview with him here - can definitely recommend). However, I would like to add my own thoughts to this short phrase - because in my opinion, it holds a very important truth for living a happy life. First of all, let's get a short summary taken from Tim Ferriss' Book "Tools of Titans" (emphasis mine):

I interpret this to mean, among other things, that you can use positive constraints to increase perceived free will and results. Freeform days might seem idyllic, but they are paralyzing due to continual paradox of choice (e.g., “What should I do now?”) and decision fatigue (e.g., “What should I have for breakfast?”). In contrast, something as simple as pre-scheduled workouts acts as scaffolding around which you can more effectively plan and execute your day. This gives you a greater sense of agency and feeling of freedom. Jocko adds, “It also means that if you want freedom in life—be that financial freedom, more free time, or even freedom from sickness and poor health—you can only achieve these things through discipline.”

I've written plentiful about the paradox of choice and decision fatigue (on which you can read up here). The inspiration for this post comes from a very real situation: I've been traveling for the past two weeks in the Dominican Republic and due to not having any plans, but simply living the day as it comes, I've felt very tired at times. Tired of making decisions. Tired, because I couldn't even get the most basic things in (such as exercise, 5-Minute-Journal and meditation). Despite the fact that these only take a combined 15-20 minutes - so there should be plenty of time in a day where you technically have "nothing" to do. Why is that? I didn't plan for it. I didn't have the discipline to do it every day, and that caused me lots of time "wasted" by thinking about what to do next. Everything was optional all the sudden, and that is very hard to stomach for a person like me. 

As I may or may not have mentioned before, I am a person that highly relies on its routines (to a degree that it drives other people crazy). I do that for precisely the aforementioned reasons, and have been doing it for a very long time. It has been part of my education. My father is probably the most disciplined person that I know: gets up every day at 6 AM, has the same breakfast, workout at noon, lunch at 1, double espresso at 1:30, dinner at 7, bed at midnight. Every single day - even on the weekends. I don't know if you're reading this, dad, but if you do - it's absolutely fascinating and I admire you for being so incredibly disciplined. By more or less adjusting to these routines, I've always had great freedom of choice what I want to do - because I had the energy to consciously make these choices. 

This phenomenon also explains something that I've never really had a solid explanation for. In Germany, every young man at the age of 18 or 19 (depending on when you graduated from school) used to be required to do military service. Alternatively, you also had the option to do civil service, such as working in a retirement home, school or social service. A third alternative was to simply be exempt from the service by having health conditions, overweight, vision problems or drug consumption - the latter has been used fairly often. Now, when it would have been my turn to serve in the military, the German government had just abolished it. Everybody around me was happy - one more year to go to university, dabble around while doing work & travel in Australia or doing some social work for a year. And I - I was pissed. I wanted to go to the military. I didn't want to be a soldier, but I wanted to make the experience - and to a degree still do to this day. I'm by no means a warmonger, nor do I have a particular interest in weapons or killing people. What fascinated me was the ultimate discipline that you're taught in the military. I believe that this is something everybody should go through at some point, despite the fact that some of the routines are definitely pointless from a rational point of view. The key is to acquire discipline - and that was something I wanted to learn more and more. 

The urge to acquire this discipline stems from a time earlier in my life, when I was living in the United States. Before going there, I was a below-average athlete. I'd get bad grades in physical education classes, couldn't throw a ball properly, was fairly chubby and so on. By the time I got back, I was an above-average athlete, and I've been getting more athletic ever since. This is something I'm proud of, and something I was able to achieve through discipline. When I started playing Lacrosse in high school, we'd meet up every single day after school to do sprint training or weightlifting for 60 to 90 minutes. It was tough, man. Especially because our conditioning coach was a US Marine on vacation. I loved and hated every minute of it, but it did do two things: transform me into a great athlete and lay the base layer for all the routines that I have now. The routines that allow me to seize control over my life. 

Control Is Key

In his book "So Good That They Can't Ignore You", Cal Newport states that the "passion hypothesis" is simply wrong. The passion hypothesis? This hypothesis is the old mantra that "one should do what he or she is passionate about." However, when you ask most people what they're passionate about, the answers you will get are "traveling", "1. FC Köln", "reading" or "doing good in the world". How many of these people actually work in a field related to these fields? Barely any of them, and yet most of them are very content with what they do. Clearly, there must be something else that creates happiness in work. This something is what I like to call "control": the ability to determine what you do in your job. This ability does not just include the fact that you are free do to whatever you want to do, but also that you have the prerequisites, the abilities necessary to actually do it. For example, in my current job, I could create the greatest language course content ever - I just do not have the ability to do that and therefore, working on this matter makes me unhappy as I cannot control what I'm doing. On the other hand, when I'm working with my colleagues on solving productivity problems, I feel 100% in control and am super happy. 

Control is important. Now, how do you get it? Cal Newport argues that you first have to build up "career capital" in order to achieve control about your job. "Career capital" is defined as a rare and valuable asset that you have acquired over time. In my case, for instance, it's the ability to understand other people's problems and to find a solution by thinking outside the box and using my programming skills. But career capital doesn't come out of nowhere, it doesn't come from attending a two-day seminar (although I've been told that the Tony Robbins seminars might be a different case here - would love to try that some time). Career capital comes from deliberate practice: constantly challenging yourself, constantly facing the things that you aren't good at yet. And deliberate practice has one very important ingredient: discipline. 

"In order to be great, you have to practice the basics consistently well."

Deliberate practice also relates to another mantra of mine: "in order to be great, you have to practice the basics consistently well". In Lacrosse, you have to hit the gym and the wall often and regularly to become a better player - no need for acquiring fancy tricks, but (at least in Germany) having great stick skills and athletic ability goes a long way. In language learning, you don't need to understand the most complicated grammatical concepts - however, you should be VERY familiar with the important vocabulary, sentence structure and your ability to learn from mistakes. In nutrition, doing one week of green smoothies doesn't really get you anywhere when you normally eat what I'm eating right now (I just had two Krispy Kreme donuts and will definitely have a double cheeseburger with fries for lunch - I'm sitting in a civilized western enclave in the middle of the chaos that Santo Domingo is). And finally, doing a two day meditation retreat will not make your mind stronger in the long term - but doing it every day for ten minutes certainly will. 

All of this requires discipline. Sometimes it's raining and you'd much rather stay at home than going to the wall. Sometimes, you're hungover and really don't wanna learn vocabulary. Sometimes, that donut just looks to appealing. But with discipline, you will be able to push through - the reward will well be worth it. 

We've learned that discipline allows for two things: greater control of your day by minimizing decisions, and greater control of your life due to building of career capital. This allows us to create the first part of a not so mathematical equation: discipline = control. We've also learned that if you have control over what you do, it gives you the freedom to decide what you do. Therefore: control = freedom. Applying the law of transitivity, we then come to the conclusion that indeed discipline = freedom. 

Discipline leads to a healther, happier and healthier life. This is why it should be part of all our lives. And this is why I would like to constantly remind myself of it. A tattoo would be a great way to do just that. 

This post was written in the Krispy Kreme store of the Agora mall in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. 

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