Technology Archives | Page 3 of 11

Why Your Writing Stats Don’t Matter

March 14, 2020June 26, 2024 Nik

Do you write for your readers, or do you write for your numbers?

Once we see a number, we want to make it go up. It’s addicting. It doesn’t matter what number it is. Your bank account, your Instagram, your step count, and, of course, your stats on writing platforms.

A higher number leads to a shot of dopamine. It feels good. Mmmh. You beat yesterday. Nice. But then what? Oh no! What if I lose the new number? What if it’s not higher again tomorrow? Where is my dopamine? I need my fix!

Stats are the bane of a writer’s existence. They give you a sense of control where you have none. If you publish something and the number goes up, you think you should write another post like that. If you publish something and the number goes down, you think you should avoid that kind of post in the future.

This is bad judgment because it’s not based on any critical reflection of your artistic work. It’s based on an outcome which you don’t control and that has an infinite variety of input variables. Here are some of the factors that determine how many views you get on any platform on any given day:

Why You Should Unmatch People on Tinder

January 14, 2020June 26, 2024 Nik

Seven years ago, I went to the theater with my then-girlfriend. Defending the Caveman is the longest running one-man play in Broadway history. It’s also full of great dating advice.

The show is about a guy who gets kicked out by his girlfriend, and then uses the time on his doorstep to tell the audience about the evolutionary roots of men and women. While I’m not sure how much of the play is based on actual science, plenty of it feels like it could be, which makes it fun and informative.

A recurring concept in the play is the hunter-gatherer analogy: Men hunt, women gather. Men have spears, women have baskets (in more than one literal sense). Men chase, women collect.

According to Rob — the guy on the street — this is why men are, on average, more competitive, single-minded, and prone to forgetting everything but their goal, whereas women are more collaborative, better at lateral thinking, and can juggle more balls at once.

Stereotypes or not, when it comes to modern dating, the online variant in particular, it seems at least one of them immediately falls apart: Both genders collect matches, even if they end up not pursuing most of their chat partners.

Let’s think out loud about why that is and if there’s a better way to handle your list of lucky swipes.

The 5 Best Decisions I Ever Made

December 21, 2019June 25, 2024 Nik

Three weeks ago, I graduated from Technical University of Munich with a Master’s degree in Management & Technology.

I’m not wearing the gown in this picture yet, but it’s the favorite one I took with my parents that day:

That day, November 29, 2019, marked the end of a very long journey for me — and the beginning of a new one.

It was the end of nearly ten years of fighting, struggling, learning, failing, repeating, but always continuing my way through the German academic system.

It was also the first day of the rest of my life as a full-time writer.

See how I said that without even blinking?

Ten years is a long time. While I was constantly second-guessing myself, wondering about the teaching methods, the practicality, the purpose, and the kind of career and life academia would give me later on, I also used that decade to do something about it.

That same day, Nov 29, also happened to be Black Friday. While I was out with my parents, at the ceremony, having dinner with my friends and later partying at a club, my website made over $2,000.

$2,000 in a single day.

Granted, it was the best day of the year, but still. That’s pretty damn amazing.

My name is Niklas Göke. I’m 28 years old. The year I finished grad school, I made over $100,000. I’ve never held a normal job, and I hope I never will.

Every day, I feel grateful that I get to do what I love, that it pays my bills, and that I’m in control of my time. I live a very happy life.

It’s not perfect. I have problems, issues, things to work on with myself and others. But I feel I’m in the best position I could possibly be to have a wonderful, fulfilling future.

These are the five best decisions I’ve made in my life thus far.

4 Things That Will Make You More Intelligent, Focused, Inspired, and Caring

December 13, 2019June 25, 2024 Nik

The less you talk, the smarter you become.

I love Zen stories of all kinds, shapes, and sizes, but this is one of my favorites:

Four monks engaged in silent meditation for two weeks. As a symbol of their practice, they lit a candle and began. On the first night, the candle went out.

The first monk exclaimed: “Oh no, the candle went out!”

The second monk interrupted him: “Hey, we’re not supposed to talk!”

The third monk was annoyed: “Why must you two break our precious silence?”

The fourth monk started laughing: “Haha! I’m the only one who didn’t speak.”

The reason I love that story is that it highlights that most of our talking — in this case 100% — does nothing to serve our current purpose. We talk about ourselves, about others, and about things we can’t control, and none of it changes anything for the better.

All of the monks got carried away by some minor detail to the point where they couldn’t keep their mouths shut. They allowed life to hijack their minds at the very first chance.

One because he wanted to be a news bearer, one because he was a stickler for rules, one because he was angry, and one because of his ego. Instead of curating their thoughts, they spat them out like bad milk, when, for each of them, there was a clear option to actually improve the situation: Re-light the candle, keep meditating, stay calm, enjoy success in silence.

I wonder what a fifth, wiser monk would have done. I think it’s this: Stay silent and continue to meditate. It would have been enough to show all the others where they went wrong — without saying a single word.

The more you talk, the more likely you are to say something stupid. The less you talk, the more you can listen. Listening leads to learning.

When you stay quiet, you can observe what’s going on and look for the right time to speak up. Make sure what you say is going to matter. If you can’t, listen and learn.

The less you speak, the smarter you become. And, maybe not quite coincidentally, the smarter you become, the less you speak.

Your Career Isn’t a Marathon, It’s a Series of Sprints

November 5, 2019June 25, 2024 Nik

I hated sports in high school. The main reason was the Cooper test. It’s a standardized test of physical fitness devised by a man named Kenneth Cooper for the US military. The goal is to run as far as you can in 12 minutes.

However, since it’s meant to measure your overall condition, you’re supposed to run at a steady pace, not sprint and rest in between. Despite being a nerd, I was never terrible at sports, but I definitely wasn’t a long-distance runner. So while some of my soccer-playing, well-trained friends easily crossed the 2,500 m mark and netted awesome grades, you could catch me somewhere between corner three and four, wheezing on the tarmac or, on one particularly hot day, trying not to throw up in the bushes. D- is the best I ever got.

The Cooper test came to represent everything I thought was wrong with school. Is this really the best test they could come up with? Why did they make kids run in a circle for 12 minutes, like hamsters? Why couldn’t the runners just run in their spare time? Who cares if my stamina sucks if I’m not one of them? And why on earth do I have to keep a steady pace?

That last one irked me the most: The steady-mentality. Somehow it seems to creep its way into every part of our lives, doesn’t it? It’s a mindset we’re taught universally across domains. In school, you’re supposed to show up each day, do your homework, and study on the regular. College is the same. And even though freelancing is on the rise, a lot of employers still expect you to show up from nine to five each weekday.

So long after we’ve left high school, the Cooper test is alive and well, instilled deep inside of us, secretly driving everything we do. What I’ve learned is that consistently taking small steps is a good baseline for most endeavors, but it’s not enough. Many of the big goals we have in life, like owning a business, excelling at our job, being creative, or making lots of money, can’t be achieved on consistency alone.

Sometimes, our marathon mindset is the very thing preventing us from attaining them.

We Used To Just Live

September 3, 2019April 11, 2024 Nik

I remember simpler times.

I remember a time when I woke up every morning and didn’t immediately know what time it was. Sometimes, I looked at the clock on my nightstand. Sometimes, I didn’t. I just…woke up. That was my task for the first few minutes of the day. Wake up. Realize that it’s another day. Another day that would be good or bad, long or short, slow or fast, but another day that would be, above all, full of life. Not devices and tools and to-dos. Life.

7 Daily Opportunities To Be Mindful as a Non-Meditator

August 17, 2019June 25, 2024 Nik

Dan Harris is as American as it gets. He’s outgoing, confident, and calls a spade a spade. He’s been an anchor for ABC News for the past 20 years, informing his fellow citizens on what matters. He has reported from war zones, interviewed drug lords, and co-hosts Good Morning America on weekends.

In short, Dan Harris represents a life most Americans aspire to live: be a strong voice, follow your ambition, but keep your feet on the ground and your heart in the right place. But, like all of us, Dan Harris is human.

For the first few years at ABC, he was a workaholic. Feeling he didn’t deserve his dream job in his 20s, he overcompensated. He fell into depression and turned to recreational drugs. All of this culminated in one incident: In 2004, Dan had a panic attack, live and on the air, in front of five million people.

How do they say? It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

Bullet Time: How To Live A Fully Engaged Life

July 9, 2019August 9, 2024 Nik

The Matrix revolutionized the film industry in many ways. One of them was the introduction of bullet time. It’s a visual effect that allows the viewer to transcend time and space.

Instead of seeing a scene from just one angle in one moment and another the next, you can now witness the same moment from multiple perspectives.

As a result, you can watch the hero not just dodge bullets, but dodge them in style and slow-motion.

At the time, this was a huge innovation. Now, the movie is 20 years old, and others have taken the concept a lot further, like Wonder Woman, Resident Evil, and X-Men. Today, the effect is standard practice in hundreds of movies, which makes it, well, just another visual effect.

At the same time, it’s still not your average action flick gimmick.

When you’re watching a movie, the moment bullet time triggers, you’re taken three levels deeper into the experience. Instantly. Time slows down. You look around. You get to see all aspects of a scene, not just the one the director deemed most relevant.

Suddenly, you’re more invested into everything that happens. Because you’re a bigger part of it. That’s why bullet time was such a brilliant invention and one of the reasons why the movie has become a piece of film history.

So how did they pull it off? How do you shoot a bullet time scene?

Why I’m Ending My Weekly Newsletter

June 22, 2019June 25, 2024 Nik

On January 7th, 2017, I started a weekly newsletter. For more than two years without fail, I sent those emails to my readers. Now, it’s time to stop.

Here are my reasons why.

1. I’m afraid of being irrelevant. But consistency and relevance are not the same thing.

No one ever spells it out for us, but I think all writers share this fear:

If you don’t publish, you don’t exist.

Especially in a world where information is published 24/7/365. Not just by influencers, authorities, entertainers, but by everyone. Every day you don’t press publish feels like a day of slowly drifting into irrelevance. But that’s not what’s happening.

As long as you’re working on something meaningful, we could care less when you show it to us. Who knows? Maybe it’ll be better tomorrow. In fact, I think consistency is the #1 thing that keeps people from being relevant after they’ve achieved a certain level of success.

They keep going at the same rate forever, but routine sets in and they start repeating themselves without saying anything new. I’ve noticed this “maintenance mode” in myself and it’s time to nip it in the bud.

You can publish seven articles a week, yet still be irrelevant. You might feel better, but your impact is not determined by feelings. It is determined by the quality of your work.

Speaking of which…

Everything We Do Is Not For Today

March 25, 2019August 10, 2023 Nik

When the town’s crime boss wants a precious piece of land, he sends some of his goons to terrorize the school that’s built on it. First, they threaten the principal, then they torch a classroom.

Luckily, the local Kung Fu master saves the day. When he tries to acquire more help in form of the police, however, the chief says his hands are tied. His boss took the case. Corruption. After listening patiently, the master starts talking:

“The world’s not fair. But moral standards should apply to all. Those who rule aren’t superior and those who are ruled aren’t inferior. This world doesn’t belong to the rich. Or even the powerful. It belongs to those with pure hearts.

Have you thought about the children? Everything we do, they’re watching. And everything we don’t do. We need to be good role models.”

And then, master Ip Man says something important. Something we forget. Something that, little by little, seems to fade from the human story:

“Everything we do is not for today — but for tomorrow.”

Category: Technology