MEDIUM 101

Do you also have five million unpublished drafts? And do you hesitate before you publish something online?

Join the club. I wanted to write online for a decade before I actually started in 2015. I kept thinking: What if my family or co-workers read this? What if no one cares? What if people give me criticism?

Writing itself is already hard. But we tend to make it even harder by thinking about things that actually don’t matter.

And because we get in our own way, we struggle with self-doubt. We talk ourselves out of publishing. “It’s not that important! I…

There are many ways you can achieve your goals. No matter what road you take, you probably have to work hard at it.

So here’s something to think about: Why do we often pick the shortest route?

We think we’re being smart by taking shortcuts in life. While that’s great if you’re driving your car from point A to point B, everyone knows that there are no shortcuts in life. To build a strong body, you need to work out and eat healthy food every day.

To build a career, you need to learn skills, build a network, and provide…

What are some traits that make you successful at work? Let’s go over a few things that a lot of people who’re doing well usually do:

1. Sacrifice the present for tomorrow: People who achieve substantial goals usually spend years getting there. An athlete who wins a gold medal at the Olympics usually dedicates their whole life to the end goal of winning.
2. Working through pain: We’re all human beings, and human beings get hurt, physically and mentally. People who succeed usually succeed despite being hurt. They have a higher pain tolerance. They persevere.
3. Single-minded focus: When someone has a very…

Medium 101

When I started publishing articles on Medium in 2015, I had no readers, and no one on the internet knew me. But as soon as I started writing here, I instantly enjoyed this platform.

I had just published my first book, Win Your Inner Battles, and I was trying to find readers. I found Medium through Google. I was searching for a bunch of topics on writing, productivity, and entrepreneurship.

And I thought, “Why are there so many Medium articles ranking high on Google? I need to look into this.”

What I found was this: Medium is not only a…

Do you feel this urge to experience life to the fullest? Do you feel like you need to do more in life?

A lot of people have a bucket list with a lot of great things on that list. And they chase those things desperately. “I don’t need to buy a new car or have a fancy job, I want to have great experiences.”

When I stopped my habit of consumerism and got out of the rat race, that was my mentality. I was reading philosophy and personal development books, which gave me the inspiration to live differently.

I’m not…

Throughout history, people were often born into the job they would do for life. A carpenter’s kid would also be a carpenter. A farmer’s kid would later work on the land too.

But ever since the industrial revolution, and as more people have gotten educated, most of us now have the power and opportunity to shape our own lives and careers. We’re no longer bound by what our parents did.

This has been an amazing development in human history. On a macro scale, our lives are getting better. However, all this opportunity has a downside.

There are now so many…

Let’s do a thought experiment to demonstrate the steps one can take to build financial stability in their life. Imagine that you wake up tomorrow and your net worth is zero.

It’s not an uncommon thought. While it’s not very likely you’ll lose everything, there are many people who live in a perpetual state of anxiety about their careers and finances. And that fear is worse than actually starting over.

If you go to bed and wake up every day with an uneasy feeling in your gut that tells you life is uncertain, I hope the steps in this article…

Are you feeling stressed or tired from your work? I like how Simon Sinek looks at stress and work:

“Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress: Working hard for something we love is called passion.”

I bet you’ve worked hard for things that excited you in the past. And let me guess, it didn’t stress you out. It probably even gave you energy!

But that’s not how everyone lives. 38% of Americans who work for large employers feel like they’re in dead-end jobs. …