Work Archives | Page 37 of 38

If You Could Call Yourself Five Years Ago and Had 30 Seconds, What Would You Say?

January 10, 2017May 11, 2025 Nik

January 10th, 2012. Rrrrrring.

“Hey Nik, I don’t have much time, but this is important: stop worrying so much about your fucking grades and start earning your own money.

I know you’re stressed out, because in 4 weeks exams will start and you’re taking more than ever this year, but trust me on this. Grades don’t mean shit and they’re not gonna open you the doors you think they will.

However, not having to rely on your parents’ money to live is something you’ll be proud of for the rest of your life.

And yes, you’ll fail that math exam you postponed because you shat your pants last time. But even that will be okay.

Now go work for Starbucks, that’ll really teach you something.”

How To Make Sure You Never Find Your Passion In Life

January 1, 2017December 19, 2023 Nik

Has anyone ever asked you for directions and you were too embarrassed to admit you don’t know? So much in fact, that you tried to tell them where to go regardless? Just to save your face?

“Uhhh, I think it’s that way.”

That’s what most career advice feels like these days. Nobody has a clue, so everyone goes with their best guess — which is everybody else’s best guess also.

Hence, we live in a world of depressed millennials, which is permeated by two ideas:

Only once you find your passion can you become really good at what you do.
This passion will magically carry you through years of hard work, because suddenly, every day will be fun.

If you’re fine with putting your life into the hands of chance, then you can stop reading right now.

Or, you can flip both of these ideas on their head.

This Is What They Teach Students About Being A CEO

November 17, 2016December 19, 2023 Nik

In October 2016 I started a Master’s Degree program at the Technical University of Munich, which is widely ranked as one of the best universities in the world.

This semester, I’m taking a class about strategies of global organizations.

Basically, it’s supposed to teach us how to think like the CEO of a global company, which I expect a rare few of my fellow students to become (don’t look at me, I wanna do my own thing).

Today, I’d like to start an experiment by sharing what I learned from the first of six chapters of that class. If the feedback is good, I’ll turn this into a series.

The No Game: How To Figure Out What You Want

October 30, 2016August 9, 2024 Nik

Being 25 is hard. When you look at the big truths that roll around the quarter century mark, it becomes easy to see why ‘quarter-life crisis’ has become a thing: Your happy, careless, worry-free, post-teenage phase is definitely over at this point. You’ve already spent 90% of the time you’ll ever spent with your parents and closest family.

However, you still have the majority of your own life ahead of you…but no idea what to do with it.

The land of opportunity has never been this big. If you own a laptop with an internet connection, you have more production power than a 200-person company had in 1970. This power is so great that it paralyzes us.

Petrified by the paradox of choice, we can’t decide whether we want to become a freelance Facebook ad designer, surf novel writer, or start a cupcake business – because we know all of it is possible, we think we want each choice equally as much. Like Buridan’s donkey, we’re just as hungry as we are thirsty, stuck between hay and water.

Or are we?

Does The Internet Make You Dumber? Yes, It Does.

July 16, 2016January 7, 2022 Nik

Do you like magic?

Does the internet make you dumber

The other day an interesting question popped into my head: Does the internet make you dumber? As I kept thinking about it, it dawned on me that it does. It’s the internet’s greatest trick. You and I are a part of it. Sadly, it’s not one we volunteered for.

In fact, it’s pretty sick.

How Can I Generate Website Traffic With $0 Marketing Budget?

May 10, 2016March 18, 2025 Nik

Here’s how I generated almost 30,000 visitors in 2 months with a $0 marketing budget, AND no previous experience (I just graduated).

You can do the same. How?

By setting up a content creation process and streamlining your SEO and promotion, so you can write without thinking, publish every damn day and turbocharge your site’s growth (even if it’s brand new).

How To Publish Like A Huge Content Creation Team

April 19, 2016August 4, 2025 Nik

Note: This is a guest post I wrote for SumoMe.

Doesn’t this make you want to punch something?

Screenshot showing google search results

If it were that easy we’d all be internet millionaires by now. Outlandish claims like this are based on either one of two assumptions:

1. You’re a marketing expert.
2. You have a massive pre-existing audience.

When you get 100,000 monthly visitors, you can just install a pop-up and collect an easy 1,000 subscribers without even having to worry about content creation.

But if you’ve never built an email list before and no one in your industry knows your name, you need somebody to take you by the hand and walks you exactly through what to do, step by step.

Lucky for you, that’s exactly what I’m going to do today.

10 Business Ideas You Can Steal From Me

January 28, 2016December 19, 2023 Nik

Over the years, I’ve accumulated tons of business ideas I know I’ll never do anything with. Time to throw them out there.

Disclaimer: All of these could be invented already, worthless, or gold.

1. Readmypaper.com (domain might be for sale) — a platform for students to read each other’s scientific research papers. I always thought it was frustrating in college that we write these theses, papers, and reports, and no one actually gave a damn about them. People could ask others to read their paper and get positive/constructive feedback.

2. Google Maps for old people — seriously, I think you could make millions teaching people aged 50, 60 and above how to use the most basic apps, like Google Maps, WhatsApp or Skype.

What Are Some Uncommon Ways To Work Smarter Instead of Harder?

January 18, 2016March 16, 2025 Nik

One word: self-awareness.

There are a lot of good tactics out there, but the question for every single one is: does it work for you?

Instead of trying to force yourself to make a GTD time management system work, when you’re obviously miserable in it, spend some time learning what actually makes you tick, or work, in this case.

I think very little people know themselves well enough to be able to tell how they work best.

Spend a month learning how your brain and body function, and you can start designing your life and environment in a way that allows you to be very productive.

Here are some starting points.