What to invest into when the times are tough?

Self-Development

When the times are tough, we often turn on the “survival” mode. Staying low, not making any sudden moves, waiting for the better conditions. We often don’t invest but just take our time, we withdraw with a fear of losing what we already got.

Is it smart? What do we lose acting that way? Can we manage the situation differently?

Let’s take a look on what we can invest into to use our time the best possible way and protect our future at the same time.

Invest in your skills

To invest in your skills is always a good way, no matter what is happening in the world, what kind of war or crisis there is out there at the moment.

Regarding a lot of studies, we need to be prepared to learn new things, unlearn the old ones and it basically becomes a real competence of future. There is a prediction that 40% of jobs that exist now, will be automated and replaced by technology in less than 10 years. But the same number (or more) of new ones will be created, and it will require different set of competences and abilities to cooperate with technology and other people, that’s for sure.

And that’s why we don’t have a luxury to wait until the times will be better to start learning.

Create an image of your future self as a professional. Who is this person? What kind of skills and knowledge she/he has? Then go back to the current situation. What do you already know and what do you need to learn? What are 3 the most important things that you want to invest your time and money into in the next 12 months? And what you want to start with? Pick one thing and start acting on it. Today.

Remember that you don’t need to necessarily spend tons of money on education if you don’t want or you don’t have it at the moment. These are many low-cost sources of knowledge, the main goal here is to find the proper one that will support you achieving your developmental OKRs. Here are some possibilities:

blogs in the area that interests you,
e-books, books about the subject and/or about people who succeeded in a certain area,
e-learning / training platforms, line Mastermind, Udemy, Coursera, EDX, Pluralsight, Future Learn and many more. You can find a longer list HERE, check this out and choose what works for you,
webinars, online meetings, discussion sessions on a certain subject, i.e. in Facebook groups,
getting a mentor in your current place of work or finding one outside, i.e. through LinkedIn.

And of course you can add to that list workshops, training programs, certifications, formal education (master, post-graduation studies, MBA etc.) if you have space, capacity and money to invest more in yourself. It is always the best way to spend your money since you invest now to earn more and live better life in the future.

Invest in your health

We have only one health and one body. If we are not treating it well, it will fail and we’ll be miserable, disabled and we die sooner than later. There are plenty of examples of people over 80 years old, that are champions in sports, checks, sudoku tournaments and so on. You can find them and get inspired, because there are a lot of them, living long and healthy life all over the world.

But it’s not a story about them. It’s a story about you, your decisions that you make about your life. Investing in health, mental and physical is one of the most crucial things we need to spend our time on. And yet, we often forget about it, treat our bodies like trash cans, eating badly, sleeping badly, not drinking water, scrolling social media all the time, nourishing our brains with rubbish.

It’s not about perfection. We all can eat candy, pizza or having a wine night from time to time. 80/20 rule should be used here – take care of yourself really well 80% of the time, and have this 20% stock on the unexpected, bad moods, pizza Fridays or whatever.

Invest in your health by eating fresh ingredients, get rid of candy, processed food and everything that makes you feel bad after having a meal. Drink water, go to bed and wake up approximately the same time every day. Do regular medical checkups, don’t wait until you are sick. Don’t treat your body like you have more than one. Respect it, learn how to listen to its needs and how to respond to them in the best possible way. You will see the changes really quickly.

Invest in your relations

We are social animals, we like it or not. Regardless our personality type, whether we are more extraverted or more introverted, we all need to be in a group. This group can be a group of 2, can be a group of 1000. Every person needs something different and the beauty of it is that we can actually choose in which relations we want to invest and when.

To invest in relations means to intentionally decide to spend quality time with somebody. Either it is a partner, child, parent, friend or a manager, coworker, mentor/coach at work. Relations are everywhere, in each area of our lives. Even when we go to yoga class, we spend time with people, having the same goal – doing a workout to be healthier, stronger or more flexible.

Check with yourself, how you spend time with people.

At home: when you finish your work, do you spend it with a phone in your hand, and the other person does the same thing? Even if you are in the same room, on the same couch. Do you listen, openly and actively what your partner or children are saying to you?
With friends: when you meet your friends, how do you spend time together? Are you talking or having a phone on the table all the time and being distracted by each notification? Do you ask questions or only listen? Or do you talk all the time without a space for the other person?
At work: when you have a meeting or an online training session, do you do different things at the same time, like writing e-mails or responding to people on Teams or Slack? Do you actually care about the content of the meeting, or you are there because it’s some kind of obligation and you don’t want to say “no” to people? Are you focused on what other people say or ask for?

Ask those questions to yourself, be honest with the answers. It’s fine that we are not perfect. It’s not possible to be mindful every minute of every day, but it’s all about our priorities. If we want to really invest the most valuable thing we have – time, we need to be wise about it and put the energy where it is really valuable. For us, for our minds, bodies and relations with other people.

The bottom line

When the times are tough, it’s natural to want to take a step back, to wait for better times, to not risk more than necessary. But with this attitude, we can lose more than we think, so I strongly encourage you to not waste any more time. Invest in yourself, be smarter and healthier every single day.

If you do it when the times are hard, imagine what you could do after, when the times are better.

Udostępnij

Komentarze

0 0 votes

Article Rating

0 komentarzy

Oldest

Newest Most Voted

Inline Feedbacks

View all comments

Czytaj także

Self-Development

2025 Lessons That I Take With Me for 2026

I would never say that I’m going to be that person, but this year it seems proper. I’d like to share with you my biggest lessons, gleaned from various aspects of my life. Because we can talk a lot, but the actions are what make the whole talking meaningful. That’s why I’ve decided to share what I’ve learned this year, so you can get inspired, see how my brain works, and maybe make some plans for yourself for 2026 using this sparkle. 2x Business Takes Time and Effort It was a year of hustle. Saying goodbye to safe options, making bold decisions about ending some partnerships, and going all in on who I really want to be as a Founder and Leader. Those decisions are never easy, but I’ve learned that if I want to go into the next level, I need to be scared but do it anyway. To mitigate risks, be smart, but take massive action. Building a business from scratch is never easy. Even if you do it for the 10th time, there’s always something that’s not going to look the way you planned. Not to mention when you do it for the first time ever. But I’ve discovered that consistency, moving forward, even if it’s one small step a day, is making the difference. 2026 is going to be a year of further progress. Because 10x is easier than 2x. Hosting a Podcast is my Thing This week, Leman Tech Leadership Podcast celebrated episode number 121. 2 episodes per week, 52 weeks of the year. Amazing guests from all around the world are joining me to have a conversation around leadership in technology, startups, and Founder’s struggles, building teams, fighting burnout, and many more. Last year was a year of starting it; 2025 was a year of staying consistent. 2026 is going to be a year of scaling it, so more people can use what we create. It is demanding, it requires scheduling, matching calendars, time zones, and doing research about the guests and solo content. I want to give as much value as possible every time I start recording, so I need to be mindful about the process all the time. But it’s totally worth it, and as long as people are listening, I’m going to continue recording. Writing a Book is Not THAT Hard I’ve struggled with starting to write a book for years. There was always something else to do, more important, more urgent. Moving from 9-5 through hybrid, to full-time entrepreneur, building a business from scratch, learning completely new skills I’ve never needed before, like sales, marketing, or social media strategy. But the second half of the year taught me that it will never be less busy; I just need to make a schedule, book the time, and do it. Don’t negotiate with myself. 2025 was a year of starting to write, and 2026 will be to publish it. Being an author is going to be a new part of my identity that already started growing in me, because the writing process… Is not that hard for me. I sit in front of my computer, I put on headphones that reduce ambient noise, and I just write. It’s also a lesson: People think that things are hard, sometimes impossible, or out of reach. But the truth is that many of them are hard only in our brain, which tries to protect us; when we start doing it, it turns out that it’s not THAT hard. We might even be mad at ourselves that we didn’t do it sooner. But hey, no regrets; only lessons. Obsession About Health is a Good One Ever since my MS diagnosis almost 7 years ago, I’ve become more conscious about my health choices. But this year was on steroids: Prioritising movement (6 workouts/week), moving into the next level as a hiker (finishing Korona Gór Polski and doing my first long-trail event [45 km in less than 16 hours]). Tracking my food habits, transforming some of them, and some are still in progress for 2026. But almost half of my MS brain changes are gone, so… I guess it’s worth the effort. Am I a little bit obsessive about my waking up / going to bed time or food choices? Maybe. Do I regret not eating late with my friends or watching TV so I can catch up on the endless shows that are on my Netflix list? Not at all. The lesson is that everything is a choice. And what I do with my time, health, and energy is the most important choice of all. No drama. Keeping Boundaries is not Selfish When you build something from scratch, you need to be very mindful of where and with whom you spend your time. What serves you and what robs you of the energy you need to push forward? 2025 was a year of keeping my boundaries where they should be, even if people around me weren’t happy about it. Getting up and going to bed early. Cutting the relationships with people and clients that are energy vampires (yes, you can fire a client and survive). Eating what serves me and not getting others’ into my brain with: “Ooooh, it’s just one time, how harmful can it be?” Not negotiating with myself: When I have something in the calendar (like “Book time” for writing), I cut the distractions and sit to write. Even if I have 10 different things I should take care of. Learning how to keep boundaries with myself was a lesson of the year. I plan to do it even more in 2026. Travelling is Freedom For me, travelling is freedom. Whether it’s about work or pure private trips, when I get on the plane, I feel like I can breathe again. 2026 is going to be even more abundant with it: Q1 is for Portugal and New Zealand (first APAC stage!), Q2 for a 3-week US trip, and then… Who knows! What makes you feeling free?

Czytaj dalej

28 December 2025 No Comments

Leadership

Experiencing Burnout in IT? Here’s Why

Are you feeling sick to your stomach on Sunday afternoon when you think about starting work on Monday? Or maybe you are under constant stress and pressure of not delivering everything you have on your task list? Not being up to date with everything that’s changing in the Tech world? Do you have moments of energy so low that you don’t even want to get out of bed to start working? If you said “YES” to at least one of the above, it might mean that you’re in the middle of burnout. A lack of power, energy, intrinsic motivation, and engagement to do things at work. Why is burnout a new pandemic, especially in the tech world? I see so many leaders, startup Founders and team members who are experiencing that state than I can count. That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the subject and give you 2 things: The root cause analyses and some solutions that you can take and implement. So, if you are this person or you know somebody who is in the burnout zone, keep reading. Burnout Root Cause No. 1: Stretching Too Much The first root cause of burnout is staying in the stretch zone too much. In the article about OKRs, I gave you 4 zones of efficiency and growth: Bored, Comfort, Stretch, and Burnout Zone. When we are in the Comfort Zone too much, there’s no growth, and we can go into the Bored Zone. When we are in the Stretch Zone too much, we can go into the Burnout Zone. If you put yourself under too much pressure, you want to learn too much in a super short period of time, if you take on responsibilities that you’re not ready for or prepared to… You can go into burnout very easily. So, the question is: Do you push yourself too hard? Do you demand of yourself the things that you’re not so demanding about when it comes to others? And don’t get me wrong here. I’m a demanding person. I push myself every single day, but it costs a lot. And I’ve learned it the hard way because I pushed myself and then pushed myself and then I got sick. So, it was the wakeup call for me: To take care of my health and get my priorities straight. Do I still have moments of exhaustion? Sure, I have. But I also know that the best way is to move from Comfort to Stretch Zone in balance to prevent burnout. Diluted focus gives you diluted results. Always. The burnout among IT professionals, leaders, C-level people, Founders, and Co-founders in the startup setup is well-documented and a growing issue. So, it’s not like it wasn’t visible in the past, and it appeared like today. It’s growing, and it’s a lot of research, a lot of studies about this issue. Burnout Root Cause No. 2: Excessive Workload Another root cause is excessive workload and working long hours. Of course. Especially when you are a Founder or Co-founder, when you are building your business from scratch. But it should be a phase, not a day-to-day reality until the rest of your life. So, we have heavy workloads and frequent overtime. When you work as a highly responsible person (the higher position in the org chart, the more responsibilities you have), there’s a pattern of an expectation, mostly unspoken, to be constantly available. It’s also attached to the SME level; it seems like everybody experiences it. And we have numbers to show us how much it cost. The research of the ISACA Tech Workplace and Culture survey from March 2025 shows that 54 % of IT professionals have heavy workloads, and 43 % point to long hours as the primary drivers of burnout. We have more. The same research is talking about tight deadlines, 41% respondents say that they lack resources, 41 % underlines unsupportive management, also 41% the lack of appreciation. Burnout Root Cause No. 3: Constant High Pressure Another bucket of the burnout root causes in tech is high pressure work environment. When you work in a startup environment, it is super high-pressure because we are going for the next round of investment, or maybe we have a VC on board, and they require results because they invested and they want to get the money back. There’s always going to be pressure when it comes to money, startup setup or the corporate world. But we also have a high pressure of an expectation for innovation and rapid delivery. Because the world is shifting, and technology is changing so fast that it’s like being on a mission all the time. Tight deadlines, high expectations. Constant misery of the business because they’re not happy with the deadlines, with the functionalities that we deliver. Burnout Root Cause No. 4: Continuous Learning Demand In connection with that, the next part is the rapid technological change in continuous learning demand. So, it adds up to the pressure as well, because we need to continually update skills, especially Subject Matter Experts, engineers, and leaders. We like it or not, we cannot know everything. And I know that a lot of Thinkers are not on board with me on that one, but it is impossible to be up to date with everything. But a lot of professionals are overwhelmed by the pressure to learn new tools and practices while managing the existing responsibilities, tasks, projects, and initiatives, because it is like having two jobs. So, one, my day job is to keep the machine running, and the next job, the second part of it, is to keep up. And it can be a cause of burnout because it’s impossible. After all, it’s a never-ending story. It’s impossible to know everything. Burnout Root Cause No. 5: Work-Life Imbalance The next one is work-life imbalance and blurred boundaries. So, it is a shift, and I think it started

Czytaj dalej

20 December 2025 No Comments

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

27 June 2025 No Comments