When you know who you are, you know who you want to be.

When you know where you are, you know where you want to go.

You can have this awareness as a child already (“I want to become a firefighter” and became one, or “I want to become a train conductor” and became one), or you need a longer process to reach that clarity. For me it took about 30 years.

With the current clarity I could say:

I’m a not-in-front-of-the-camera-person. I’m a behind-the-mic and working-behind-the-scenes person.

I enjoy working behind the camera (photography, videography, director), and behind the microphone (radio, podcast, Anchor, voice over acting).

I enjoying being the voice behind a text and the originator of a script or screenplay.

I’m generally a person that likes to execute mono-medium tasks, like writing and voice-recording.

With that in mind, I’m currently building up my writing business (step by by step), and train myself in voice-over acting. All because of clarity and good company helping you gain clarity.

What kind of person are you? Do you know yourself?

The take-away from today: Know thyself, know you your strengths and make this the foundation of your actions. If you suck at doing sports, basketball is not yours. If you’re relatively small (like I am with about 1,77m), basketball is even less yours.

Find what you’re good at and execute on your talent, meaning: put in the work. Don’t relax on your talent. It won’t bring you all the success you want. If you struggle finding what you’re good at, I invite you to join a learning journey through the startup ON BOARD I’m co-creating. People love it. You will, too!

This was episode 33 of the #weekdaykickoff 🌊. Every Monday-Friday morning. Colombian time. Until episode 5 I also audio-recorded on Anchor, you can find me there as “Alexander Kluge”.

Full disclosure: I was thinking to write the headline more dramatic like “How To Spend 11 Insane Years And Never Work Again” but I will leave that for LinkedIn and Medium.

An average week consists of 40 working hours. In a month that makes 160 hours only for work, assuming you work properly and don’t just hang around and goof around.

Now, let’s say you’re crazy. I know everyone is a bit, but you could be even more. You could be working your whole monthly hours in one week (7 days), and even have 1 hour and a bit (1.14) left for sleep every day.

It’s insane how cool that is. Imagine all the work you do in a month you do in a week, or even the work of 4 months in 1 month, or 1 year in 3 months.

That would mean to have 3 months of hard, insane but very productive work and 9 months of vacation or whatever you do in that time. Some dudes would probably just continue doing their thing.

Let’s go further with that:

• 2 years in 6 months
• 3 years in 9 months
• 4 years in 12 months (1 year)
• 8 years in 24 months (2 yrs)
• 16 years in 48 months (4 yrs)
• 32 years in 96 months
• 45 years in 135 months
• 48 years in 144 months
• 64 years in 192 months

The average employee has a work life of 45 years, 20 to 65 years for example.

With my calculation above, this person would only have to spend 11.25 years to reach the pension. I just saved this lucky one 33,75 years (3/4) of his/her work life.

Of course this is all crazy … and fascinating at the same time.

If you went all-in and if it was humanly and biologically possible to work 160 hours a week with 1.14 hours of sleep every day, you would spend only 1/8 of your life with work instead of the regular 1/2 of your life – assuming you’re getting 90 years.

So, let’s say you just finished high school with 18, finished university or any other kind of higher education with 21 and now your “all-in”-work-phase starts. You would be done with work by 32. That’s my age now! And from this age until you want to live, you have nothing else to do, if you’re an employee with average salary and average pension.

Now here comes the clue: You have your fixed pension covering all your monthly costs, are happy to not be employed anymore and now start your own business! I mean, you’re only 32 years young and have at least 40, 50, 60, 70 years in front of you to make that business successful. To make it really successful it takes 25 years on average, like it was the case with known companies as Apple.

I’m not crazy here.

I’m trying to widen your horizon with simple math and make you see the possibilities if you escape your average-thinker’s mindset.

Go crazy and stay sane!! 😉

The take-away from today: Not having time is not the issue. Taking the time and using it so you accomplish your things, is. And… understand how little time 40 hours are if you have 168 to spend. So much free time, or so much accomplishment time.

This was episode 32 of the #weekdaykickoff 🌊. Every Monday-Friday morning. Colombian time. Until episode 5 I also audio-recorded on Anchor, you can find me there as “Alexander Kluge”.

Many people don’t have time. I wonder what happens with all the time since we have all the same time, don’t we? 24 hours per day and many more in a year.

So, what happens when people don’t have time?

Here’s my thesis: People are lying when they say “I don’t have time”. They would be honest if they said “I don’t have time for you because I’m doing something that I prioritize over you”.

Ouch. That hurts. A K.O. punch right into your confidence. You wanted to talk to that person and he/she said that there was something more important than you.

Do you feel offended? Yes. Is it offensive by that person? No.

That person was even nice to you by telling you the truth. Yes, it could be a way of avoiding people but in this context here we believe in the good and honesty of people.

What if the person said “Yes, sure” and would be lying to you?

Then he/she would be listening to what you want to say, respond here and there but never be fully engaged.  The result would be: You being happy that the meeting happened but not satisfied with how it went.

The take-away from today: There’s a reason why people “NO” your request. It’s not because they’re bad people. They simply prioritize different than you. Also, even if they physically just passed by (a few steps from you), mentally they’d be probably somewhere else – being occupied in their head. How valuable is a conversation when the other person that is supposed to listen to you is not mentally there with you? Zero. If you want the person to be all in, let him/her finish his/her things, and the conversation will happen after. Only you and him/her. Full attention. Full engagement. Full satisfaction. Win-Win.

This was episode 31 of the #weekdaykickoff 🌊. Every Monday-Friday morning. Colombian time. Until episode 5 I also audio-recorded on Anchor, you can find me there as “Alexander Kluge”.