2021 has been an eventful year for me. I have explored new fields and grown as a person, and looking back, I can hardly recognise the person that started this year with an idea to go to Kickstarter, she feels so distant to me now. And she has no clue of what’s awaiting her. So as the year is ending, and before I start making plans for 2022 (that would undoubtedly seem naïve by the end of 2022 again), I am taking the opportunity to reflect. So here are the 6 most important lessons I’ve learned in the past year.
The idea really is only 1 % of the project
You know how everyone is saying that? Until now, I’ve always thought, yes, but you’ve got to have an idea to have a project in the first place, so it’s got to be worth more than just 1 %. Well, this year I’ve learned that you can take almost any idea and make it into a successful business. Or you can have a really good idea, and the project is still a complete failure without the proper execution.
I think it helps if the idea you are turning into a project is good, and something you are passionate about, as the first makes it easier to actually implement it, and the second ensures that you will have an easier time sticking with it. But it will not magically make the project happen, or make it a success, you will still have to invest your time and resources into executing it. And I’ve learned that even if you start with a good idea, you inevitably encounter times when you feel like you should just drop everything and move on to the next project. (But you don’t.)
Looking back, I would say that idea is like a signpost — it gives you the direction in which you need to go and provides a vision of the end goal, but you then need to physically take all of the steps, cover the distance and climb the height difference to actually make it there.
Successful people know how to network
I’ve known for a while now that a lot of people who are highly successful and accomplished are really open and approachable. I think this is because they are satisfied with themselves and their achievements, and they have confidence and positive perception, which influences their interactions.
But recently, I’ve also found that they are not only approachable, which is a relatively passive thing, but they also take initiative to actively reach out. I’ve had a few occasions where after an event or a lecture, I received a note from a person I highly admire and respect, and I didn’t expect would remember me. I was very flattered and I thought it was really kind of them.
I discussed it with a few colleagues and they tell me that for successful people, or successful entrepreneurs especially, this is encoded into their mode of operation, as they are masters of networking. And I think if that’s true, it doesn’t make them any less kind — I think it was still very nice of them to remember me. If anything, it makes it a habit worth following. It is not that hard, it doesn’t take a lot of time, and it allows you to have positive and meaningful interactions with other people.
Learning the jargon can significantly lower the entry barrier to a new field
Sometimes, an area that you are not familiar with can look extremely complex from the outside. Especially if you listen to experts talking about it among themselves. This happened to me when I heard marketing experts talk about leads, ROAS, ROI, pixel, conversion rates and stuff like that. It sounded like rocket science. And then I googled the words and found that it’s not so complicated after all, and that as a physicist, I find their logic and formulas pretty straightforward. It’s just they were wrapped in so much jargon that it looked a lot more intimidating than it really is. Now I am not saying that I’m a marketing expert and that I know anything about psychology or content creation, but the technical part of it is not hard to grasp for someone with a technical background.
I had a somewhat similar experience when I decided to start investing a while ago, and I suspect it will again be like that when I finally take the time to dig deeper into crypto and NFTs.
At 30, our generation is not necessarily in touch with the latest technology
I belong to a generation that thinks that is in sync with the newest trends in technology. So this realization hit pretty hard. I consider myself to be a tech-savvy person, albeit with a slight aversion to social media. So I expected I’ll have to learn a lot about using all the latest social media channels when we started the project. What I didn’t expect however was that I’ll also learn that a lot of technological advancement is happening in the digital world, so it can be hidden if you live in the physical world and you are not directly in touch with it. And I don’t think it’s happening only to me — I’ve had a conversation with my colleagues about this and they feel the same.
Some of this new technology has the potential to shift the global power relationships, but the shifts are hidden as a lot of it is happening in the virtual world. The problem is, we live a pretty comfortable life, so we don’t have the need to seek these new technologies for our everyday life. And therefore we’re being left behind by those that do. So I think I should invest some time to actively stay in touch with the latest developments.
The perception that you need to have a good job is outdated
I think we all realise that the mentality that was true in our parents’ and grandparents’ times — that you can have the same job for the entirety of your professional career — is no longer true for the majority of employees. I’ve heard a lot of very intelligent people say, in different words, that in the future, everyone will have several different careers. And I like that idea, as firstly, it means that if you decide a few years in, that what you do is not what you want to do for the rest of your life, you can change it, and not fall behind compared to others, and secondly, it will allow individuals to develop unique combinations of skillsets, which in my opinion can sometimes lead to concepts and breaks that would otherwise not be possible.
But I think we need to think one more step further — that in the present, having a job and working for someone 9 to 5 (or whatever hours you want to put there) is not the only viable option anymore. (Well, it never was the only option, but I think now, it has become easier than ever to build your income through different channels). And I think this notion is already widely accepted, it’s just not so obvious maybe.
When I decided to quit my job and focus on my project, with no solid plan for the future (and a lot of options opened), I was expecting to get at least some ‘You are crazy, what are you doing?’ responses. Instead, what I got was a lot of very positive responses and people telling me they think it’s great that I am doing this. And a lot of them told me they were thinking about it too, but don’t have the courage yet! I was very positively surprised. So I hope in the future, this perception can become more obvious and public, and hopefully, it can inspire a positive change to our lifestyles. And for all of you that are like me a few months back, thinking about it — you are probably less alone than you think. You just need to find the right people.
Embracing failure enables progress
I think this is true for all areas of life, and I think I’m following this principle in a lot of them. But there was one, where I refused to, until recently. Climbing. When I started climbing more than 10 years ago, my climbing instructor said that falling is a part of the sport. But I said to myself, well, I think it doesn’t have to be. And I’ve climbed in a way that was very secure and I rarely fell, and I made good progress. But then I had a bit of a climbing existential crisis last year, and I decided that I need to step up my game. And I knew that this never-falling approach is something I need to change.
So I did. I started training falling and taught myself how to deal with the fear that it involved. And it allowed a quantum leap in my progress. I am not joking. A quantum leap. I wrote a separate blog post about it, where I go into more details, but the bottom line is I have not expected such a drastic change.
And I think this is true for most of us and for other areas too. We all know that fear is holding us back, but we often don’t realise just how much of an impact it actually has.
I’m not very original with my wish for 2022, and I’ve seen different variations of it from different people that I admire and respect, but after the last paragraph, there really is no better way to end this post, so I’ll just copy it:
Let 2022 be brave!
Nika
If you are interested in that quantum leap and how I dealt with the fear of falling, it’s in this post: https://nika-m.medium.com/my-first-7a-497fb8a843b9
