I’ve been spending the last few weeks of summer at the beach in Halkidiki and have made a daily ritual of swimming in the ocean each morning. While the water here is typically known to be gentle and serene, it recently has been much more turbulent and unsettled. I’ve had to adjust my swimming technique to navigate the rocky waves and trust in my body to adapt to the tumultuous conditions. 

This experience reminded me of a lesson that is true of many things in life - the journey is more enjoyable when you can freely flow with the waves that come your way. Diving into this thought more and some of the philosophical musings I’ve been pondering from my time at the beach.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep164

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We won't find truth outside of us. There's no system, no organized set of teachings, no framework of thinking that will lead us to truth. Ultimately, the only place where we find truth is within ourselves. Reading passages from Jiddu Krishnamurti's Total Freedom reminded me once again of this big adventure that awaits each of us: to seek within ourselves.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep163

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There’s a quote by Byron Katie that’s been stuck in my mind. It reads, “Don’t be spiritual, be honest instead. It’s very painful to pretend yourself beyond your true evolution.”

I love it because it ties back to this inner work journey I’ve been on of going deeper within my own psyche and emotions and learning to be fully present and in the moment. I haven’t fully internalized many of the moments of clarity that I’ve had throughout my journey yet. Sometimes I will pretend myself beyond my true evolution, because often times the truth is not that pretty. We stumble around truth and pretend to be spiritual when in reality, simply being honest is the highest level of expression of spirituality. 

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep154

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One of the questions that reading Kafka has brought up in my mind is: How much pain are we causing others by trying to carry their burden? How much of the help I'm providing to others is really in the long run taking away their potential blessings?

Part of Inner Work is about looking beyond the surface of what's obvious and see the deeper ramifications and motivations of our actions, and this episode is me digging into that.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/other-peoples-problems/  

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Here's another episode that can be tagged with "aftereffects of reading Kafka".

Little Voice In My Head A: "Steli, it's 11am and you've not done anything yet".

To which Little Voice In My Head B responded: "Well, fuck you, I don't have to do anything if I don't have to!"

And both of them got into an argument they've been through thousands of times over the past couple of years. But it always happened kinda just below the level of consciousness, where I've never really been fully aware of this micro-battle.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ridiculous-subconscious-thoughts/ 

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Another beautiful insight that came out of some time I spent with my two sons recently was this: Remember to have fun when you do fun stuff.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/remember-to-have-fun/ 

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I recently started reading The Trial by Franz Kafka, and there's one thing I really love about this book: It has already raised so many questions in my mind and made me think thoughts I wouldn't have pondered if it weren't for this book. This episode is just me sharing my reading experience while I'm halfway through the book.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/the-trial-kafka/ 

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Now that I'm back in Germany, I'm spending a lot of time with my two sons, and there was a beautiful experience of trust and courage we've shared together that I want to capture here.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/fatherhood-nonjudgmental-encouragement/ 

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I've never had a great relationship with my Germany, even though I was born here, I grew up here, I have family and friends I love here. I never liked living here. And whenever I came back to spend time in Germany, I always like coming back to a place I didn't belong, nor wanted to be.

But because Germany is such a big part of my life, I wanted to find a way of coming back without feeling that way. And this time around, I asked myself a very simple question to create clarity. I asked myself: What's the most important thing for me during the first few weeks here in Germany?

To me, the answer was simple: I want to spend quality times with my loved ones here. And as long as I accomplished that every day, as long as I shared real quality time with loved ones, where I'm fully present in the moment, then for me, that's good enough.

I won't stress about anything else. If I'm not as productive as I want to be, if I don't get all the things done that I want to get done, if I don't work out as much as I want to work out, if I don't give my time and energy to every friend in Germany that asks for it right away, if I say no to people when they make requests I don't want to fulfill, if I don't eat as healthy as I want to eat, if I don't sleep as well, if I don't stick to the routines and habits I've established for myself, if I don't practice being the best version of myself in every aspect of my life—that's fine. I won't stress about it, I won't beat myself up about it.

It means that I'm fine saying no to a lot of things. Funny enough, I've given entire talks on that topic for startups.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/steli-returns-to-germany/ 

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Some books have literally been life-changing, epic adventures in my life. I wouldn't be who I am if it weren't for these books.

But if I've read books the way most people read books, I'd probably never have experienced any of that.

Today I discuss my deep love for books, my appreciation for everything they've brought into my life, different ways of reading books, and much more.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/read-books-your-own-way/ 

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In this episode we geek out about the art of storytelling, and it's magical ability to touch and move us, to think new thoughts, to live life in new ways.

Books discussed:

• Story by Robert McKee
• Dune by Frank Herbert

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/storytelling-touch-audience/

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One of the emotions I still haven't found a good way to relate to is my anger. For most of my adult life, my way of handling anger was simply to suppress it and pretend it didn't exist at all. Getting angry meant that someone else had power over me, someone else was able to control and impact me—and I didn't want to allow and admit that. So I pretended to never get angry—not only to others, but to myself as well.

Now there are blessings in disguise, and there's also such a thing as a curse in disguise. I'm great at sales. The downside of that is that I'm also great at selling myself stuff. In this case, the believe that I'm not angry. It wasn't only that I pretended to not be angry to others, I made myself belief to not be angry.

But you know how it goes with emotions: If you suppress them, whatever they're meant to express comes out in other ways. In my case, it's a what I call my OLD TESTAMENT JAW. My jaw becomes very tense. Painfully tense. Out of control tense.

I'm a big believer that our body can be a great source of wisdom and insight. And so I figured this tension is trying to tell me something. I spent around two painful hours trying to listen to what it had to say—and eventually (re-)learned an important lesson (that I had conveniently forgotten).

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/suppressed-anger-choking-me/

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I don't know how to explain this to people who've never felt it, but I've been suffering from jaw tension for quite a while now. It comes and goes, and I never really know what triggered it until I did some deep introspection.

I believe it's forcing me to confront truths I'd rather not face. Like a harsh and unforgiving teacher, it won't relent until I learn my lesson. It won't let me leave the table before I finish eating up all of the bitter truth soup in front of me.

I recently had a situation where I got angry about something, but wasn't honest to myself about it. I had a fear and I pretend to not feel it, even to myself I couldn't admit that I was scared. And when I realized that, I got angry at myself for pretending, for not living my truth. It took realizing and admitting all that, until the bitter end, and only then did my jaw loosen up and I found some relief.

So in a way, my body is conspiring with my higher aspirations. It's keeping me real. It makes me do the inner work even when I don't want to.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/jaw-pain-truths/

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I recently came back to a book I read many years ago called Loving What Is by Byron Katie. She has a really great self-inquiry method called The Work that I’ve been putting into practice daily for the last couple of weeks. It’s a very simple 4-question framework that is so practical and pragmatic that anyone can do it. In this episode I’m breaking down this method, the inner truths I've learned about myself and the lasting positive impacts it’s had on me in just the last 2 weeks. 

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep153

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I was out on the balcony on a sunny day in Austin. It was a nice day. Everything was fine. Beautiful music playing. My day's work was done. And that's when it hit me:

I'm good at many things—but relaxing isn't one of them. Even when you see me chilling, inside of me, there's so much tension, so many things I try to fit into any given unit of relaxation.

I'm constantly reaching for more, forever striving for something else, incessantly trying to live up to some chimerical ideal, always attempting to climb an insurmountable peak. I turn everything into work, judge myself and others very harshly. It just never stops.

It's just who I am today. Maybe one day I'll change. But for now, that's me.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/i-just-cant-relax/

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Today I'm talking with my good friend Ryan Robinson, one of the most disciplined people I know, and also one of the most prolific content creators. But that's not what this conversation is about. 2020 has been an intense year for Ryan, a lot of personal transformation, and I saw many parallels to changes and realizations is in my own life.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ryan-self-discovery/

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In this episode, I talk about our podcast, and why it's so different from the content we've created in the past.

Most of these episodes are unstructured conversations and explorations of random themes of my life—there are no actionable takeaways, no bitesized nuggets of wisdom, and oftentimes no answers to the questions we pose.

And at the same time—it's the most honest content we've ever created, the stories are more real, and while it often doesn't lead to a clean, neat work product, we're on our path to building a beautiful body of work, and it's a labor of love.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/work-in-public/

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Most of the episodes of this podcast are me talking about a topic that’s currently on my mind—oftentimes meanderings that don’t lead to a clear conclusion, or challenges I’m facing that yet lack a satisfying solution. It’s inner work in progress.

Today is a little bit different: I’m sharing an heuristic of my inner work that's tried and tested. It’s been valuable for me thousands of times, and it’s been part of my daily toolkit since 2008. I always carry it with me and make use of it all the time.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/upset-with-others/

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I'm the CEO of a very successful software startup. 8-figure revenue, thousands of customers all around the world, employees spread out all across the globe. I know what email stress feels like. In fact, I was stressed out AF about my email inbox. Until my friend and co-founder showed me how to overcome it years ago. It's worked for me, and for team members and friends I've shared this advice with. Today, I want to share it with you too.

Shownotes: http://steliefti.com/email-stress/

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I'm excited to release our first ever interview on the Inner Work podcast. I spoke with Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu.

If you're really into Muay Thai—maybe you're familiar with the amazing work he and his wife Sylvie are doing together.

But even if not, I'd encourage you to check out this episode!

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/love-a-fighter/

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There's a reason why I grew a multi-million dollar company through content marketing. I'm good at content because I've consumed a ton of content in my life—starting out as a child where I spent all day every day in front of a TV.

I was basically raised by a TV. From the moment I came back to school to the time I went to bed, I was in front of the TV. And while I barely watch TV anymore—I've simply replaced the TV with other forms of media consumption. Podcasts, YouTube, Netflix, Twitter, etc.

In this episode, I talk about my addiction to consuming content and using it to distract myself from thoughts and feelings I want to avoid. It's a conversation I've had in the first half of December 2020, and at that time, I had for the first time in my life not mindlessly consumed any content for 30 days straight.

If you're hooked on content consumption too, give it a listen!

As always, I love to hear from you.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/content-fast/

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I've been very out of touch with my own emotions, wants and needs for a long time. And much of the past year has been about getting to know myself better: What do I want? What do I really like? For myself, not for my company, my family, for my team, for my career, but for me myself, just Steli.

And one thing I do know about myself is that I was a very utalitarian person, praying at the altar of productivity. "Get shit done" was my mantra. 

And recently, I discovered that I can surround myself with objects that give me positive energy, that sing more harmoniously with who I am and what I want my life to be.

In this episode, I talk about how my good friend Juan, who happens to be a plant. I talk about the veneration of objects in Japan, and the power of caring for things beyond the fact that they are tools we use to do something.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/soul-of-little-things/

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A while back I was driving my sons back home with the car, and they got excited about a dope looking sports car they saw. And it led to something I almost never do: I shared advice on how to be successful in life with them.

In this episode, I'll share it with you too, but more importantly—how they reacted to me sharing these lessons. Just a beautiful little moment that's dear to me as a father.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/fatherhood-odyssey-5-success-rules-for-5-year-olds/

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Today's episode is a rant about the power of commitment. It's something that's so rare—to see someone being fully committed, to truly go all in, to not hold anything back. I want to see and create more of that in the world, and less people who spend most of their time half-assing whatever they do.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/the-half-assed-life-be-one-of-the-few-who-fully-commit/

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I've been pondering a quote lately from my favorite Dostoevsky book, The Brothers Karamazov, which reads, "we ought to treat everyone like little children, and most importantly ourselves."

It got me thinking about the way we are with our children - how loving, patient, lighthearted and encouraging we are when we're parenting these tiny little humans. Why can't we be this way with everyone in our lives, especially ourselves? How incredible would the world be if we could remember to treat one another with this same level of tenderness and also extend this grace inwardly to ourselves?

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep152

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It took me a long time to get rich. It still feels weird to say this about myself. But financially, I’m definitely rich. What’s funny is, I’ve been rich long before I even realized that I was rich. It was actually through conversations with friends that I eventually realized: Fuck yes, I AM rich.

I care much less about it than I thought I would. I’ve heard rich people say this many times before, but: it really doesn’t make much of a difference in my life.

Now, that’s not to say that the human animal in me is above it all. I still want more money. I still sometimes get ensnared by the prospect of making money. I still sometimes struggle to say no to enticing financial opportunities, and one thing that I can tell you is: the more money you have, the more tempting opportunities come your way.

In today’s episode, I’ll talk about my struggles when it comes to resisting these temptations, and most importantly: I’ll talk about how you can get rich much faster, and with much less suffering than it took me.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/i-got-rich-slowly-but-heres-how-you-can-get-rich-quick/

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I was surprised to see McGregor get knocked out by Poirier this fast. But one thing that’s been bothering me about McGregor is that I don’t think he’s been picking the right sparring partners to prepare for this fight. None of his sparring partners really had the chops to seriously challenge him as much as he needed to be challenged.

And it reminded me of a principle I’ve been trying to put into practice myself for many years: the willingness to look foolish in the name of progress.

It prompted me to ask myself again:

• Are you putting yourself out there enough?
• Are you humble enough to seek advice in areas where you need it?
• Are you willing to expose yourself and risk getting your ego bruised?

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/mcgregor-vs-poirier-2-looking-foolish-in-the-name-of-progress/

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In this episode, I talk about a breakthrough I've had in my martial arts after a training session on LSD.

In my training of martial arts, there are periods where I'm on a very intense schedule, practicing five, six, or even seven days a week. And then there are periods where I train only once or twice a week. And then there are weeks where I don't train at all.

And I noticed that oftentimes, when I pick up training again after a couple of weeks of not training at all, I've always leapfrogged to the next level of skill in some area. I discuss this in the first part of the episode, and then later share a major breakthrough I've had in my practice after a shadowboxing session on LSD.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/lsd-martial-arts-finding-my-flow-in-fighting

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Here's a conversation where I talk about the importance of pacing myself and managing my energy throughout the course of a day. 

I have a tendency to go full speed whenever I feel energized—until my tank runs out of fuel and I crash hard. 

Today, I practiced breaking that pattern. When I felt excited or inspired by an idea, I didn't immediately rush into action. I stayed with that feeling first, and acted more deliberately. Or at least, I tried. Turns out breaking deeply ingrained patterns isn't that easy, but like so many things in Inner Work—it starts with awareness. You do the best you can right now, and if it matters enough, you keep practicing until you get better at it.

Shownotes: 

https://steliefti.com/pacing-myself-full-speed-until-the-fuel-runs-out-isnt-a-good-strategy/

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A few weeks ago, I ordered a guitar. I spent most of my teenage years chasing the dream of becoming the world's best guitarist, practicing all day, every day... until one day when I realized I'd never become the greatest. And from that day on, I've—with a few rare exceptions—never touched a guitar again.

Until THIS day. When I held this guitar, it felt magical: the beginning of an intimate, private love affair, a holy communion, a secret bond between me and my guitar.

In the first part of the episode, I talk about another nascent love of mine: sailing. I've been wanting to learn sailing for a long time, and my first actual sailing lesson was quite sobering. The first 20 minutes of this episode is dedicated to this, but the tldr is: it wasn't much fun. Be free to skip to minute 20 where I talk about the guitar.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/intimate-art-loving-playfulness-and-my-secret-guitar/

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Here's another very personal episode. If you're looking for sales, startup, and business advice, skip this episode, it's not going to be a good use of your time.

If you want to get to know me better as a human being, particularly some of my private struggles and the inner work I do, then maybe this is for you. However, be aware that it's another raw recording: an unstructured, meandering conversation without a clear ending or an actionable takeaway.

I talk about my challenges with happines, visiting an alternative healer, never feeling at home anywhere, and many other things I'd usually not share publicly.

So why am I sharing it now?

For one, look at the name of the podcast. What you hear in this recording is inner work in progress—and that's not always pretty.

And secondly, it's easier to share this now with you because this was recorded in the last week of July—and a lot has happened since. I do feel happy. I have a vision for a place that I'll make my home where I truly feel at home. I'm much more in touch with my own feelings.

And finally, after I published Episode 31: Listening to myself: A bad day many of you told me that sharing my inner struggles helped you.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/i-visited-an-alternative-healer/

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Here's a personal conversation I've had with a friend back in September. I've been feeling tense and tired for a very long time, and I wanted to allow myself to just feel this feeling of tiredness more, rather than do what I usually do: trying to overcome my tiredness, and just push it away.

And when I did this, I realized that I've never really paid attention to my tiredness. I was never that aware of what tiredness actually feels like in my body.

On this day, I got to know my own tiredness better, because I just stayed with it and experienced it fully.

There's no major breakthrough or magic revelation in this. I'm just sharing how I experienced my own tiredness in a new way for the first time. 

Looking back at it today, I can say that getting more in touch with myself, my feelings, my body has drastically improved the quality of my everyday life. I'll share much more of this in future episodes.

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/feeling-my-tiredness-fully 

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One of my favorite reads of this year was Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis. I love Zorba’s practical wisdom and zest for life. He manages to see the everything and everybody as a miracle worth celebrating, while also recognizing that we’re all just sacks of bones and flesh and flaws, and that everything we do is probably meaningless in the end. In many ways, he’s embodying the principles of inner work for me. If there’s a man who’s mastered the art of living in the present moment, it’s Zorba.

This book has made me laugh, feel sad, think deeply, and moved me in many more ways. In this episode, I share my favorite from the book—and hopefully inspire a few of you to read this beautiful story.

As always, I'd love to hear from you:

https://steliefti.com/the-wild-wisdom-of-zorba-the-greek/ (includes episode transcript)

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Here's another Way of the Warrior episode, where I share lessons I learn while practicing martial arts. Today, I'm going to talk about the difference between theory, practice, and real-world application.

There's a certain technique I've practiced many times and understood well—or so I thought. Let's just say it was a very humbling session, where the idea I carried in my head wasn't fully aligned with the reality that unfolded on the outside.

In this episode, I discuss the big gap between theory, a scripted practice scenario, and the real world.

Whether you practice martial arts or not—we've all had situations we confidently walked into, self-assured that we'd be able to handle this well, only to then be taught a lesson. The first instinct naturally is to say: "Oh fuck!"

Now it's very easy to then go: "This didn't work out. I'm not made for this," and throw in the towel.

But if you practice inner work, you do it differently.

You still say: "Oh fuck..." but then you go: "Interesting. What can I learn here?" You already ate the humblepie. You already have that taste in your mouth. Now see how you can grow.

Transcript: https://steliefti.com/way-of-the-warrior-getting-real/

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I recently read Herman Hesse's book Siddhartha, which tells the story of a man seeking enlightenment. From a young age on, together with his best friend, he sought spiritual teachers and mentors to learn and guide him. Because he was a very dedicated disciple of these different teachers, he excelled in many practices, but soon reached a point where he became dissatisfied with what they could teach him, and that despite their life-long spiritual practice, they still were far from enlightened.

He embarks on yet another quest for a worthwhile teacher—this time, the Buddha. He recognizes that the Buddha is indeed enlightened, and is everything he's hoped to find in a teacher. Yet, he decides to not become a disciple of the Buddha, but instead let his own life be his teacher. And that's the moment in the story that was most interesting to me—when he decided that the best way to evolve spiritually was not to obey the instructions of a teacher, not to follow in the footsteps of an enlightened person, but to instead find his own way.

To me this resonated with me because a lot of my inner work this year has been around finding myself again, building a relationship with myself, realizing how important is to spend more time with myself, instead of just being outward focused.

As always, I'd love to hear from you:

https://steliefti.com/when-siddhartha-met-buddha-and-walked-away/

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/steliefti/

When I was 18 all I wanted to be was successful, which at that time to me just meant rich. I pictured myself with the fancy car, expensive apartment and crushing it as a business man like Gordon Gecko in Wolf on Wall Street. But something I’ve been reflecting on lately is how glad I am that plans I had for my life when I was younger didn’t work out. My life now is tremendously richer in many more ways than I ever could have imagined at 18.

When things don’t go according to plan it’s usually for a reason we aren’t quite capable of understanding yet. It’s important to maintain a level of humbleness and grace (and a little bit of humor doesn’t hurt either). I’ve learned that getting upset won’t change what’s happening in the moment. And maybe sometimes things don’t go according to plan so that better things can fall into place. 

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep151

Connect with me:

https://steliefti.com 

https://twitter.com/steli 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/steliefti/ 

In the summer of 2019, I went on a boat trip around Ibiza with a group of good friends. Now in this episode, I tell a story about a random woman who flashed her boobs, but that's only what this is about on a superficial level. On a deeper level, it's about the attitude we bring to live: to not take ourselves too serious. To remain playful, have a bit more fun, a bit more wild, a bit more spontaneous, and the impact we can have on someone else.

Connect with me:

https://steliefti.com

https://twitter.com/steli

https://www.linkedin.com/in/steliefti/

What's the driving force that keeps you excited, motivated, and makes you come alive?

This is not always an easy question to answer, but in this episode I share a simple way of uncovering your purpose at work.

Think about the last 3 months. What were some of the best moments you've had at work? The moments you were most alive, most excited, most inspired? And what do these moments have in common?

For me personally, at the time when I recorded this video, the answer was change and growth.

First, it's when I myself change. When I change what I believe, when I change how I act and think, because that's when I grow.

Every year, I review the year that has passed, and I ask myself: How have I changed? How have I grown? If I think back to the version of myself I was one year ago—do I think that version was a total idiot, that version of myself was completely wrong?

If the answer is yes, then that's actually pretty exciting to me. But if the answer is no, I feel devastated, because I've basically just wasted a year without learning anything meaningful, where I had no true growth.

The other thing that really excites me and makes me come alive is when I can help others change and grow, when I can get them to take action.

What's the driving force that makes you come alive at work? Take some time to reflect and go really deep on this question. Maybe you've done this a few years ago and you have an idea—and if that's the case, then challenge yourself and ask: "Do these answers still feel true to me, or am I just repeating my older self, and there's actually something else that brings me alive today?"

Reflect on your best moments this year and see how you can create more of that, how you can honor and bring out more of your true authentic self and share it with the world.

As always, I love to hear from you: 

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/steliefti_purpose-findyourpurpose-purposedriven-activity-6733223655448350720-KTCE

This might just be the most uncomfortable piece of content I've ever published. I recently had a lousy day, and captured my mood and thoughts in a rare, ad hoc voice memo. I want to share this with you, because I believe there's value in realizing that we all have down days.

But rather than just throw the recording at you, I actually listened to it again and added my comments to it afterwards. This way, you get both the raw, bruised-up version of myself on a bad day, as well as myself reflecting on it.

Heads up: This is a very experimental format. I feel uncomfortable sharing this with you. Heck, not too long ago I'd feel uncomfortable sharing this part of myself with even close friends. But inner work is called work for a reason: Oftentimes it means doing the thing you don't feel like doing.  

For transcript and comments: https://steliefti.com/a-bad-day/

Connect with me:

https://twitter.com/steli

https://www.linkedin.com/in/steliefti/ 

How much of our days do we spend on our image? How often don’t we do something we feel like doing, because we’re concerned how others might perceive us? How often do we do something we don’t feel like doing, simply to portray ourselves in a certain way to others?

What a waste of life.

Today, I want to share a personal story with you that culminated in a wild, shirtless night in a tiny bar on a Greek island.

Stop letting your ego get in the way of living life fully.

It’s too easy to get caught up in our own sense of self-importance. Let go, and celebrate life fully.

I'm currently with 2 friends in Thessaloniki and want to share the story of 3 encounters with different beggars we've had here, and what we can learn from it.

One beggar was an aggressive hustler, a young boy who probably was forced to work for a gang.

One beggar was an proud old man who was selling pencils, who said that he's currently out of work and wants to make an income.

One beggar was an apologetic old lady full of sorrow that kept telling pitiful stories.

In today's episode, I share how each beggar moved us in a different way, and conveyed a different lesson about ourselves.

Transcript: https://steliefti.com/3-beggars-in-thessaloniki/

Connect with me:

https://twitter.com/steli

https://www.linkedin.com/in/steliefti/

A few years ago I fell in love with martial arts, and it’s become a great source of learnings and insights for me. In the Way of the Warrior series, I’m going to share these lessons with you—and I find that most of them are relevant not just in the context of fighting, but also in other areas of life.

Being in the ring is a very humbling experience for me, and it forces me to look at the world with beginners eyes. In the ring, nobody gives a fuck that I’m Mr. CEO. And that’s a beautifully honest way to be.

In today’s episode, I talk about two recent realizations I had while training. The first one is about how being pushed to our limits can make us do things we wouldn’t normally do, and why people commit acts of desperation.

The second one is about using compliments as a way to implicitly ask your training partner to go easy on you.

As always, I’d love to hear from you!

Transcript: https://steliefti.com/way-of-the-warrior-desperation-made-me-pull-on-another-mans-pants/

Connect with me:

https://twitter.com/steli

https://www.linkedin.com/in/steliefti/

On a recent summer night I witnessed something touching and magical that I want to share with you in today’s episode. If you have a negative self-image, or simply want to build a more positive self-image, it’s well worth the ten minute listen.

As always, I'd love to hear from you! 

Transcript: https://steliefti.com/negative-self-image-what-a-little-girl-taught-me/

Connect with me:

https://twitter.com/steli

https://www.linkedin.com/in/steliefti/

Being a dad also means dealing with a lot of mundane little issues. Things like making sure your kids do their homework.

To be honest—I’m not big on homework myself. I was terrible at school. I don’t think school is a great preparation for life.

But I do strive to look at mundane little issues and ask: What’s an important life lesson that’s contained in here? What’s something meaningful that I can pass on to my sons?

Recently, my eldest son kept saying he’ll do his homework later. Inevitably, the day turned into night, with not enough time left to actually do the homework.

Not only did it mean he wouldn’t be able to present his homework, it also affected his little brother and me, because we didn’t get to spend some quality time playing together.

My eldest son very much comes after me. When he realizes that he failed at something, he can be very hard on himself.

On the one hand, I want him to set high standards for himself and strive to live up to them. On the other hand, I don’t want him to beat himself up. I want him to learn the lesson and use it to become a better version of himself. I want him to cherish his wins and learn from his mistakes.

In this episode, I’ll share

• how I dealt with my son’s homework struggles,
• how I deployed storytelling to teach him the importance of fulfilling your responsibilities
• how I shared my own challenges to help him have compassion for himself

Finding the right balance between self-discipline and self-compassion is a challenge I’ve been grappling with myself, so I’m not surprised to see this in my son. Hopefully, he’ll learn this much earlier than I did.

As always, I’d love to hear from you. Drop a comment here https://steliefti.com/fatherhood-odyssey-homework-struggles/

I've been out of touch with my emotions for a long time—without even knowing it. In this episode, I share how this realization dawned on me.

I also share how I'm using an "emotion tracker" to become more aware of my own feelings.

As always, I'd love to hear from you. Get in touch:

https://twitter.com/steli

https://www.linkedin.com/in/steliefti/

What do you do when you get angry?

Do you let the negative, desctructive shadow-side of anger take over? 

Do you just control or suppress your anger?

Or do you have ways to transform the energy that comes with anger into creative work?

My oldest son recently had more frequent angry outbursts, and I made up the story of the Angry Samurai for him. I'm a huge believer in the power of stories, and I believe that storytelling is a great teaching vehicle.

But as I was discussing this topic with a good friend of mine, I realized that I myself have some work to do when it comes to dealing with anger. 

This is not the typical episode format we have here—it's a actually a recording of a conversation. But we decided to turn it into an episode and share it with you, because anger is one of the core human emotions we all have, and yet few of us have probably mastered our own anger.

As always, we'd love to hear from you!

Get in touch:

https://twitter.com/steli

https://www.linkedin.com/in/steliefti/

Ever wake up and think of all the things you gotta do, and it just destroys you? I can't tell you how many times I woke up feeling miserable because of everything I'd have to tackle on that day. In my younger years, it would actually make me cancel everything and fall into a depression. Later I learned to willpower my way through my responsibilities, no matter how I felt about it, and that was a great step forward. But if you do that for too long, it eventually eats up your soul. You become very good at what you're doing, but you're also disconnecting from yourself. When the first thing you do every day is suppressing your feelings about what you will do today, you lose touch with yourself, and the longer you do this, the higher the price you eventually pay for it.

Today, I tried something different. A very simple tweak that made a huge difference—I'll talk about that in today's episode.

Check out my substack: https://steli.substack.com/

Shownotes: https://steliefti.com/ep150

Connect with me:

https://steliefti.com 

https://twitter.com/steli 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/steliefti/ 

Salesmanship is in my blood. I discovered 20 years ago that I have a natural talent for it. Closing deals always came easy to me.

In this episode, I share the story of my first major close. And more importantly, I share why my greatest strength was also the flipside of my greatest weakness—and how I finally overcame that. 

You can also check out this episode as a video: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/moment-i-realized-would-great-sales-steli-efti/

As always, I'd love to hear from you!

Today I want to share a little story I read. The story is about Cus D'Amato, an infamous boxing trainer, most known for training Mike Tyson. But his influence on the boxing world went way beyond just Iron Mike.

He was one of the first boxing trainers that really focused on the importance of mentality in combat.

He really focused on the mind, not just the body. And he was interested in hypnosis, the subconscious mind, affirmations, positive psychology. And he used Mike Tyson as a star pupil to apply some of these philosophies and instill a mentality in Mike that would make him the most feared fighter alive, still one of the most iconic boxers of all time.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/just-tree-your-path-steli-efti/

https://twitter.com/Steli/status/1258316677353107456

Many friends and fellow entrepreneurs come to me for investment advice during this crisis. The first thing you need to understand is that I'm not an investor. So don't put too much stock into my advice.

That being said—I do have strong opinions.

There are a lot of attractive opportunities out there nowadays: gold, cryptocurrencies, foreign currencies, certain stocks that took a dive due to the crisis but will almost certainly come back strong once things get better.

I believe for most of the people that are going to read this, there's really only one thing you should invest in right now:

You yourself.

Unless you yourself are a skilled investor, I don't think that you should make big investment decisions during this crisis in anything other than yourself.

How can you invest in yourself, and grow?

Maybe this is the time to build a side business.

Write that book, and promote it. Experiment. Learn something new. Stretch yourself beyond what your current limitations.

Level one area of your live up. If you already had a side business, start investing into ads, make the design look real slick, sharpen your copy, ramp up your marketing, improve your product, sharpen your skills by signing up for a course or finding a coach.

But invest into something that's actually yours, and that doesn't rely on a currency moving one way or another, or a big multinational corporation hitting certain revenue numbers... invest into yourself. It'll not only save you a lot of anxiety when things don't go the way you expect them, but also sharpen your focus on the things that really matter: those things that you can actually impact yourself.

As always—I'd love to hear from you. Hit me up on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/only-asset-worth-investing-during-crisis-steli-efti/