Lemanskills.com

How to become the best version of yourself?

We all have idols. People who we admire, out loud and/or in hiding. They can be our role models in different areas of life – perfect businessperson, entrepreneur, manager, expert, parent, partner, singer, actor, photographer, you name it. A lot of us want to be perfect in every role we have in our lives, even when we know that it is not possible. The best possible version.

What if I told you that it is possible? But in a different way. We all can be the best version of ourselves in all the roles that we have at the moment. What does it mean? And how to achieve it?

Let’s dig deeper and find out together.

What is this best version actually?

The best version of yourself is the person that you want, and you can be.

The beauty of it is that YOU define who is this person by yourself. Not the society, culture, country, your parents, other people WHO KNOW BETTER. You. Because you live this life, not anybody else. And you should know what is the best for you and how you want to live this life.

There are two types of mindsets that influence this subject. And there are not strictly connected to religion, sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t.

The first one is conservative mindset. This one is all about keeping the status quo. Taking for granted everything that we have been taught: our role in society as men and women, our role in society as children (boys and girls separately), adolescents, adults and elderly people. The cycle of life (school, work, marriage, kids, sickness, death) or the beliefs we have about the position certain elements in life (how we should treat certain things, with what kind of priority they should have): family, work, country, church, house etc. It means that we live certain values, priorities that were given to us, until the end. It’s easier for most people, we don’t need to think about it, because it’s there. We don’t need to create anything new, since it’s all already there. It is what it is, no need to discuss it.

The second one is post conservative mindset. This is the place for people who have been in conservative space, took what they needed or wanted to take from it, and move further. They challenge the status quo, don’t agree to what is given, but looking for the best shape of reality that fits them, individually or as a group of people. They want something more from life, don’t want to spend their lives because somebody told them to do it in a certain way. It is harder, since we need to go way beyond our comfort zone to reach out for what’s over there, and we don’t actually know what we’re going to discover. But it’s worth the risk, sometimes a person discovers something, sometimes not – and that’s perfectly fine. It is all about living lifelong learning value: try, fail, make conclusions from it and move forward.

To be the best possible version of yourself you can be in both stages. It all depends on what “best version” means to you, individually. Though, I am a huge avocat of the post conservative mindset, since I can see how much more we can do when we challenge ourselves, ask hard questions, reach for more. Again, depends on what “more” means to every single one of us.

What to focus on to become this best version?

We can really use the structure of process thinking to become the best version of ourselves. These are the steps that can help you in making a plan to achieve what you want.

  1. Define what this best version means TO YOU. Personally. In which areas of your life you would like to become that? In all of them? In one of them? It is your choice and your definition, no one else’s. Write it down. There is a beautiful book written by Ben Hardy “Be Your Future Self Now” that can help you with this exercise. Use it, define it, make it yours.
  2. Choose your priority. You can’t be everything at once. You can’t do everything at the same time, there is no such thing as multitasking. Choose one role that you have right now to work on. Sometimes the roles are connected – in that case you can pick more than one, but be careful and mindful about what you do. Choose baby steps over a huge change – the more radical your moves will be, the higher risk of resistance and natural aversion to change of your body and mind. And quitting as a result of that.
  3. Make a plan. Use OKRs technique (I’m going to write another article about it, but until then you can use THIS SOURCE to get to know more about the framework). Make 3-5 objectives with 3-5 key results that will give you an answer to a question “am I achieving the goal?” to each role you chose in the previous step. Make it simple, memorable, measurable. Perfect OKRs are designed to be “stretched” by nature – it means that you need to go outside of your comfort zone and do better to achieve it. Try to do a little bit more than yesterday. Little steps will make you better, stronger, more resilient.
  4. Do it mindfully, cut what is not bringing you closer to your goals. One step at the time, every day. Be consistent with your decisions, don’t waste time on things that are not bringing you closer to this person you would like to become. Ben writes about it in his book that I mentioned above – cut the bs that is poisoning your life. How to do it?

What to avoid to not waste time?

We all need time to rest. To reset our brains, to watch a less ambitious movie or make fun of cute cats on Instagram. But there is a line between a need to have a little break and wasting time.

When I know that I’m wasting time?

When I do something repetitively, every day and it’s not giving me any value (i.e. scrolling social media).

When I get distracted all the time, since people ask me to do several things at the same time, and I can’t focus on one thing.

When I spend time with people who are energy vampires, and not creating any value to my life, often only whining about the world and other people.

So what can we do to avoid it and not wasting time? Cut it. Set healthy boundaries, protect ourselves and our time. If you do it right, it’s not rude or selfish (it can be seen that way at first though since people around you are not familiar with that kind of reaction; but no worries, they’ll get used to it). That’s the way of taking care of yourself, to be better in what you do, more efficient, more satisfied, healthier.

Spend time on things that really matter, that get you closer to achieving your goals. Cut everything else, especially if it’s not helpful at all. You will see the difference really quickly.

The bottom line

To become the best version of yourself you need to make a choice. Now. Who I want to be? What is the best version of myself? What do I need to achieve that? What I need to sacrifice to achieve that? Yes, sacrifice is necessary if we really want to change something. We should replace bad habits with good ones, bad people with good one.

Only then our life will be full, happy, healthy and meaningful. Isn’t it a thing that we all want at the end?

Udostępnij

Komentarze

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
0 komentarzy
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Czytaj także

Leadership

What Does a Communication Debt Really Cost Us?

We talk a lot about communication. In fact, I am the person who teach and preach the whole idea of Communication Intelligence. And yet, we don’t talk strategically enough about one thing that is a phenomenon in many organizations: Communication Debt. I see and hear during workshops and one-on-one mentoring leadership sessions that I run a lot of thoughts, problems connected with that, and I wonder why we talk about it so much, and not doing a lot? So, I’ve decided to spend time today and unpack a little bit this subject. Let’s see what the communication debt is, when it appears in organizations and what we can do to address it, before it’s too late.     What is Communication Debt?   When we’re thinking about debt in overall, the first thing that comes to our mind is money. Then a lot of organizations, especially tech-oriented, are talking about technology debt (we didn’t invest in the past in the infrastructure or software, integrations, architecture: So, we have a technology debt). And the same thing is with the communication debt for me. The root cause is a lack of investment in communication processes. Lack of investment and/or lack of priority on all the communication processes that are in the organization on individual, team and organizational level. The communication debt is a gap between the level of understanding, data and information and contracts people should have and we actually have in a certain moment of time in the organization. And it can appear in many different setups: Between employees, peer-to-peer; between employee and manager, a manager and their manager; between the executive team and board or board of directors outside of them; including investors, stakeholders, shareholders, you name it. Again: This is a gap that is between what we should have in the organization and what we actually have. And not many people have awareness that they have a communication debt because… there is a lot of assumptions around. And many companies that I work with right now, and I worked with in the past, have on board people who are assuming that others know what they need, what they should or what they want. So, if we base our communication strategy on assumptions… It is not a huge surprise that people are not happy, their engagement is dropping dramatically. Gallup Institute “State of the Global Workplace 2025” Report shows that employees’ and managers’ engagement level is lower and lower. And the interesting thing is that it is even lower in the management basket than the employee basket. Of course, the differences are not very big, but they’re visible. I’m not surprised when I see that kind of results: People are less and less engaged. They are less motivated intrinsically. They look for a new work more often than 10 years ago, or even 3 years ago. And yes, you can say that this is connected to the generational change. But what the important thing is that the younger the generation is, the better they are in setting boundaries and a need for information. Transparency is one of the biggest values Gen Z has. So, this is something that for me, personally and professionally, as a leader is important to understand. Because I’m asked to support organizations, teams, a specific leader when there’s already a fire, when there’s already a drop in engagement, in efficiency, that the team doesn’t deliver tasks on time or value or projects on time. When people are quitting the team, especially tech talents that are hard and expensive to replace. And most of the time it’s too late.   When the Communication Debt Appears?   From everything I’ve observed for the last 10 years, working in different organizations and different teams, especially IT and tech, I can tell that the communication debt appears when there is no prior or very little priority on communication in overall. We’re not learning how to tailor our communication, we’re not investing in communication intelligence (CQ), because there is a lot of different items (more important in our brain) on the list to cover on a daily basis. And this is totally okay that tech teams need to focus on tech, because this is your genius; as well as HR people should focus on HR, and finance people should focus on finance. Every single person has a genius zone. But there is also a thing named “transferable skills”. And transferable skills relate to every single position, every single job that you are going to have in your future because you can copy and paste them and basically start using them right away. When you join a new team, organization or a new setup, business-wise and private-wise. And another thing is those skills are the umbrella (The Umbrella Skills, I call them that way). You can have your specific Subject Matter Expert skills and competencies, pieces of knowledge, but you also have the umbrella skills that like a real umbrella, are on the top of everything that you do, regardless of the situation, or the context. And this is something that I treat like the ultimate set of skills, like the power skills. Because if you don’t have them, you can have the most beautiful tech skills in the planet, but they will be useless. And now it’s hurtful. You need to have strong algorithmical communication skills, because it is a part of your intelligence. Communication intelligence is a real thing. And I can’t emphasize that enough. So, when there’s a very low or no priority on communication, when we assume that people know more than we ask, or we provide information, even if they appear for us as boring, repetitive, you name it. When you don’t invest your time and effort and energy and money in learning how to communicate better, there will always be a debt, no doubt about it. The culture of the organization determines what kind of communication, what channels of communication, what frequency of communication people

Czytaj dalej
Self-Development

4 Things I’ve Learned About Looking For a Community

You know what they say: It’s always lonely on the top. Whatever the “top” means. Being in the board or executive team in the organization, a founder or co-founder of a startup, entrepreneur in overall. Being a top athlete, art creator, innovator of any kind. Visionary that no one really understand because their brain works in the modalities that are not available to most of the people. There are even books, articles, podcast episodes that are saying that there’s a cost of being “on the top”: Loneliness and alone, hard journey. But you know what? The last years of being an entrepreneur showed me that it’s bullshit. You don’t need to be alone, and I’ll go even further: You can’t be. Because it’s extremely hard to juggle all those hats and tasks we have on our lists to do it all on our own. Community can be the answer. That’s why I’ve decided to start looking for people who can be with me on this journey. Here’s what I’ve discovered so far (because it’s still an unfinished project) that I believe can be helpful for you in hunting for a great community for yourself.   #1 Your family and friends usually aren’t the best option   If you have around you people who are your cheerleaders, they support you in your work-related decisions that’s great. Not a common thing, though: I am familiar with many experiences (my own and different people I worked with or be friends with in the past) that have quite the opposite ones. Here are few examples (quite nice one, since I know also more aggressive options): “You should be happy about what you have, why you need to change something?” “If you risk, you can lose what you’ve already have.” “Maybe it’s not the best idea, stay where you are and enjoy it.” “You’ve never done something like this before.”   If we think about it deeper, most of the time people don’t’ have bad intentions while saying that kind of things. They mean to protect us, reduce the risk of the failure, disappointment, loss. The truth is that most of those behaviours have a root cause in their own insecurities, fear and bad experiences from the past. Or sometimes unconscious jealousy: Because they’ve always wanted to do something like that, but they’ve never had enough courage or skills to do so. That’s why quite often people that are the closest to us are not the best when it comes to our community. The only exception I see is that they are also experts in our field and they are extremely flexible when it comes to changing the hat that they’re wearing at the certain moment. Then they can be our spouse in one moment, and the other entrepreneur in the next one. But let’s be honest here: That’s a rare situation. And it’s not about that they are bad people. They really aren’t. But we don’t need the second thoughts in our brains (more that we already have on our own). We don’t need second guessing our decisions, giving our brain more holes of fear to go into. I’ve heard years ago this, and I stick to it ever since: “I don’t take business advice from people who never ran a business. I don’t take parental advice from people who don’t have kids. I don’t take relationship advice from people who can’t build a healthy relationship.” Finding a community outside of your closest circle can be so much better for you, and for your friends & family as well.       #2 Looking for community is not a weakness. It’s a strength.   For a very long time in my life, I had a strong belief that I need to do everything on my own. That I need to be strong, look for answers on my own, even if it takes a lot of time and effort. It was a pattern that I’ve got in my childhood, and it helped me in many situations, but in my middle 30s is not as useful as before anymore. We all have patterns in our brains. Most of them are unconscious, printed in our wiring since we were kids. They were mechanisms that supposed to be the best solution to be worthy of love and attention of our caregivers. They answered the question: “Who do I need to be / How should I behave to “be worthy” of those who I crave the most?” And I remember that situation from my childhood where I asked a question about something and I’ve got and answer: “Go and find it in the book on your own”. It doesn’t look angry or hurtful, but it put a seed in the small person’s brain that’s saying: You can’t reach out for help, you need to do everything on your own. Sounds familiar? That’s why so many people are struggling with looking for a person, group of people or a bigger community that consists of like-minded people because they still have those beliefs that are not serving them anymore. There was a copying mechanism for a child we are not as adults. I know for me it was a journey and a healing process to go through, so my brain rewires into a new belief. There’s nothing wrong with reaching for support. I’ll go even further again: It’s a sign of strength, wisdom and an ability to use one’s resources the best possible way. Because from the rational and logical perspective we do know that if I ask somebody for something, there’s a bigger chance that I’ll resolve my problem faster. 80% of the problems I had in my past somebody else already experienced or they know somebody who did! So why wasting time and energy that we can reinvest in something else that creates more value?   #3 Put yourself in the rooms where there are people who have what you want to have   A couple of years

Czytaj dalej
Leadership

Building a Product-Centered Organization: The Power Skills Leaders Need to Succeed

In the tech world, it’s easy to get caught up in the latest innovations, algorithms, or cutting-edge frameworks. As leaders, we often pride ourselves on our deep technical expertise. However, even the most advanced technology can’t save an organization if it’s not aligned around the product—a product that solves real customer problems, delivers value, and drives the company’s success. Yet, many leaders struggle to build a product-centered organization. Why? Because it requires more than technical know-how. It demands a set of “power skills”—social skills like communication, problem solving or collaboration—that many tech leaders have not prioritized in their own development. These skills are the foundation of Communication Intelligence (CQ), which is essential for creating an environment where people thrive and want to stay longer in their careers. So, how do we build a product-centered organization? Why is product focus so critical? And what do we, as leaders, need to do to make it happen? Let’s dive in into that today.   Why Product is the Heart of Your Organization?   At its core, every company exists to deliver value. Whether you’re building software, hardware, or services, your product is the vehicle that delivers that value to customers. A strong product focus ensures that every team, from engineering to marketing to customer support, is aligned with the same goal: creating something that solves real problems and delights users. When organizations lose sight of the product, chaos happens. Teams become siloed, with each department prioritizing its own metrics and goals instead of working together toward a shared vision. Engineers might focus on writing code without considering user needs. Marketing and sales teams might overpromise features that don’t exist. Customer support might be left out of the loop entirely, unable to provide meaningful feedback to improve the product. The result? A fractured organization that frustrates employees and customers alike. Without a clear product focus, employees lose motivation because they don’t see how their work contributes to the bigger picture. Customers churn because their needs aren’t being met. And ultimately, the company’s bottom line suffers. Sounds familiar? Anyone ever experienced that kind of reality?   The Leadership Role in Building a Product-Centered Organization   As leaders, it’s our job to create an environment where teams are aligned around the product and empowered to deliver their best work. But this doesn’t happen by accident. It requires intentional effort and a specific set of leadership skills—skills that go beyond technical expertise. I know that for some of you it’s way out of your comfort zone, but growing those skills is a must, not a luxury. IF you want to be a leader that people don’t hate. The choice is always yours.   #1 Communication Intelligence (CQ)   At the heart of a product-centered organization is strong communication. Leaders with high CQ understand how to communicate clearly and efficiently across teams, breaking down silos and ensuring everyone is aligned. The understanding the bigger picture is crucial for people to work together, focused on what is important and bringing us all closer to achieving our goals. High CQ leaders: – Actively listen to feedback from all levels of the organization. – Communicate the “why” behind decisions so teams understand their purpose. – Create a real space for the open dialogue so employees feel comfortable sharing ideas, discussing bottlenecks and solutions to the problems that appear.   #2 Visionary Thinking   A product-centered organization starts with a clear vision. The product should make a real change and solve a real problem that bothers clients. As a leader, you need to articulate what success looks like for your product and inspire your teams to go with that vision. This means being able to zoom out and see the big picture while also understanding the details that drive execution.   #3 Cross-Functional Collaboration   No single team owns the product—it’s a collective effort. Leaders must break down silos and encourage collaboration across engineering, design, marketing, sales, and customer support. This requires building bridges between teams and fostering a culture of mutual respect and shared responsibility. A great solution to implement when there are any issues with collaboration between certain teams is to shift their leaders for a while. For example, sales and marketing team is not working together very well (common issue). So, a marketing lead becomes a sales lead for a month and the other way around. That way they get to know exactly what those teams are dealing with daily and thanks to that starting building bridges, instead of fighting each other. It’s one of the ideas of Ben Horowitz and I personally love it.     #4 Understanding for Customers and Employees   The ability to understand what people need and why they behave in a certain way is a superpower for any leader. To build a great product, you need to deeply understand your customers’ pain points and aspirations. But empathy doesn’t stop with customers—it extends to your employees as well. By understanding their challenges and motivations, you can create an environment where they feel supported and engaged. You know what I see often? Great tech people are designing amazing products and solutions. But then nobody buys it. And they are so surprised, frustrated and they blame everyone around them. But the truth is: You don’t design the product for yourself. You create it for people who have a certain problem to solve. That’s why you need to focus on their needs and voices more. Listen better, ask questions to understand what is underneath the surface. Go to your team and discuss it, brainstorm together so you generate the best possible solutions and start building a MVP for that. Iterate, don’t overinvest time, focus and money into a monster that can be something completely out of the interest zone of potential customers. It might sounds difficult, but over time it becomes easier and easier. You can do it.   Addressing Bottlenecks in Your Organization   Even with strong leadership skills, building a product-centered organization isn’t without

Czytaj dalej
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x