“Make no mistake, what’s happened recently is due to one thing and only one: a major shift in mindset.”

The virtual meeting room went quiet for 5 seconds. A 30% quarter-to-quarter growth, our best quarter of the year, the biggest contract we ever signed, shares soaring… “What is happening? What are we doing right? What have we changed?” Our CEO had asked 5 minutes ago. Now, Alex had taken over the sound waves of our Zoom meeting to answer, and his speech was about to go down as one of the best of the year. He continued.

“A belief that we can not only sell more, but also sell for more money, by fundamentally changing our approach to the sales process. There’s a ton of learnings from this past quarter, but 99% of everything comes down to the mindset switch we had internally.” …

Over one year ago, Mark Cuban sat with Wired to answer questions about building a successful business, making money, and best practices in general. If you don’t know who the guy is, he became a billionaire towards the end of the 90s thanks to the sale of his company Broadcast.com. It was acquired by Yahoo! for $5.7 billion in stock. Cuban also bought a basketball team, a chain of 58 movie theatres, and invested over $33 million across 151 deals on the TV show Shark Tank. …

“I learn from my mistakes. It’s a very painful way to learn, but without pain, the old saying is, there’s no gain.” — Johnny Cash

It’s been a rough year for everybody. Although 2020 is finally coming to an end, the second wave of the pandemic is now hitting harder than ever, and many countries are implementing new restrictions likely to last into the first 2 months of 2021. Does this mean that next year will only be 10 months long? It all depends if you look at the glass half empty or half full.

No matter how good or how bad the year has been for you, it’s very important to consider it, in a way, like any other year. Johnny Cash is right in his saying about mistakes, but it’s also important to highlight the good moments of the past year. There are always at least some. Once you’ve created a good overview of the last year, including what you didn’t achieve, what you succeeded at, you’ll be equipped with the right knowledge to plan for the next year in a successful way. …

The year was 1999. Mark Cuban was sitting in his Broadcast.com offices in Dallas. His flickering CRT monitor displayed the my.yahoo page, with his company stock in fullscreen. He was a few pips away from becoming a billionaire, and he wanted to see the moment happen live. After frantically pressing the F5 key (the refresh key of the 90s) for what felt like hours, it finally happened. The stock price reached a peak value that made him an instant billionaire (on paper). Mark was 41 and on top of the world. So what did he do?

In his own words, Mark Cuban “got up, I did my little naked billionaire dance”. He took in the moment for a little more, maybe 5 minutes. Then, he got right back to work, because “the only thing worse than being a billionaire is being a billionaire and then not anymore, because you stopped putting in the work”. Mark sat right back in his chair, and went along with his day. …

I started being interested in meditation a few years back, when my 9–5 job was stressful and I was trying to build my blog on the side. At the time, I was seeking calmness, peace of mind, and mindfulness, at least a few times during my week. I wanted a few moments where I could let it go, sit still, and do nothing.

The one book that had the most impact on my practice of meditation and my relationship with the outside world (events, people, letting go of control…) was The Art of Happiness by Howard C. Cutler and The Dalai Lama. For me, it laid the foundation of a very long journey of change I’m still going through. …

Around a month ago I published a story about a few lessons I learned from my millionaire CEO. I’ve known him for 3 years now, and he recently sold his company after 10 years of hard work, becoming a multi-millionaire in the process. In my previous article, I emphasise how he’s always been easy to talk to and down to earth. Funny enough, I happened to have lunch with him a few weeks after writing the piece. He was sitting alone at a canteen table watching a video on his phone. You would have never guessed this guy had just sold his company for tens of millions of dollars. …

I love asking top authors on medium how they work on their craft and stay productive. It inspires me, it keeps me motivated, and I often learn about new tools and techniques I didn’t know about.

A few months ago, I released 50 People Who Do, my most comprehensive expert roundup on productivity to date. It contains 35 interviews, 15 extra-long interviews, and 8 pages of recap with all the tools and the books mentioned, plus some fun data crunching. For instance, 60% of the people I asked wake up before or at 6am.

Most of my guests created their own business, and they got where they are today by successfully implementing self-discipline into their life. To each one of them, I ask questions about their life, their learnings, their tools, and sometimes about which celebrity they would like to have coffee with. …

With 2020, we entered a new decade, and although it’s been the craziest year in a while, nothing says this decade won’t be the best in a very long time.

The classic Silicon Valley model of sinking gazillions of dollars into an idea for years in the hope that it will one day start to be profitable is starting to lose momentum, especially with the economic downturn we are now facing. Cryptocurrency and online payment gateways are on the rise, allowing for fast and seamless transfers of money. The world has never been so connected, and as a consequence, power is changing hands. Independent business owners, bloggers, influencers and visionaries now have the key to build the world of tomorrow. …