Has It Been One Year Already?

About a year ago, we started posting on a regular basis on this blog. With this anniversary we want to thank all of you for supporting us and we hope that you have enjoyed reading this blog as much as we enjoy writing for it.

Writing this blog has been an amazing learning experience. Here is what I learnt in the past year:

• Everyone can do it. Before starting I would always find excuses to not do it. I need someone to edit it, my writing is not that good, I haven’t found an interesting topic and any other excuse. But then one day, I turned to Helen and told her “You know what, we are starting the blog next Monday”.
• You need a schedule. And you need to keep it. Having a schedule helps you get into “writing mode” on a daily basis. It also helps you brainstorm ideas for posts and come up with more ideas without even knowing it. Have a look at our schedule here.
• To improve your writing, you need to write. Before we started this blog, I had problems writing. Not that I couldn’t write well, but whenever I sat down to write something I would literally feel pain from trying to focus and get my "writing brain" to work. The best way to improve is by writing on a daily basis, and a blog is one of the best ways to do this.
• It’s the best way to show what you stand for. For people to understand what your beliefs are, you need to share them. Having a blog not only helps you do that, it also lets you add a certain voice to it from your writing style.
• You need to use your own voice. I hate it when I visit a company blog and all I see is corporate speak. If you are going to do it, do it right. People are looking for a way to connect with you, so use your own voice. If you have been reading this blog and have also met me in person, you will know what I’m talking about.

Enough with lessons learnt and on to what rewards you should expect from having a blog. For me it has been the following (this time I will keep it short):

• Ideas start flowing. Because you are producing on a daily basis, your brain becomes more active and ideas start flowing.
• You feel better. Every time you write something inspiring, you also inspire yourself. You finish it and when you read through it you can say “Wow! I just wrote that!”.
• You build a reputation. When I started this blog, I wanted to place minimoko at the junction of branding and simplicity. One year later, I believe the blog has strengthened our place in this junction.
• It’s the best SEO. Forget about backlinks, meta and all the other c**p. If you want good quality traffic and good positions for the search terms you want, then start writing good content.

I’ve blabbered enough for today and as you know by now this is not my style. This past year has been an amazing journey and we’re really looking forward for this new year. Stay tuned and we will always do our best to bring you the best content. 

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Learn From Your Mistakes

Everybody tells you from a young age that you need to learn from your mistakes. And it's true, it's one of the best ways of learning. The problem is that people try to not make mistakes that often.

We live in a world that awards compliance and achievement of specific targets. If you are a "failure", you're out, if you are an overachiever your peers won't be happy with you. As a result, what we all do is work safely, without taking any risk and without having anything to lose. We show up, punch the card, get the work done, punch out and head home. This leaves no room for mistakes to happen, since compliance doesn't like mistakes.

If you want to see change in your life then you need to take more risks. Start new things, projects, companies, if it fails you'll learn something, if it succeeds then pat yourself on the back. Take risks and don't succumb to compliance, mistakes are a great learning experience.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

The Fisherman and the Businessman

A friend posted a link to the amazing story about "The Fisherman and the Businessman" on Facebook yesterday and I immediately knew I had to re-post.

There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village.

As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish.

The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?”

The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.”

“Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The businessman was astonished.

“This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said.

The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day?”

The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.”

The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman.

“I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.”

The fisherman continues, “And after that?”

The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.”

The fisherman asks, “And after that?”

The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!”

The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”

This is a classic Brazilian story posted on Paulo Coelho's blog. I remember having read it somewhere else a long time ago but I can't remember where. Have a great week everyone and evaluate what you currently have, maybe it's not very far from what you want to achieve.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Are You the Best?

No matter what field you decide to work in, you need to become the best.

Being just good enough won't cut it any more. You need to identify what you are good at and then work on it to become the best. That's the only way that you can ensure your personal, professional and company's success.

Of course there will be obstacles and it will be difficult, but that's what will make you the best. If it was an easy ride, everyone would do it. If you need to work on projects to become the best in your field and you don't have the right clientele, make them up. The only way to get the experience is by doing it. Come up with a project, complete it and then talk about it.

When talking about how you achieved great results and how you do it, remember to stay consistent and tell engaging stories. Once you become the best and have all the elements of your brand in place, then people will start coming to you and asking you to do your magic.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

You Have Everything

We are always looking for reasons and inspiration in order to do something. What we don't realise is that we have everything we need, no matter what our situation, in order to produce great work and achieve happiness.

Even if you are in the worst situation at the moment, realising that you are still here, that you are still alive can help you look at things differently. 

Once you stop measuring achievement by purchasing power and start measuring it by what really matters to you, you will be able to feel complete and that you achieve a lot every day.

Have a great week!

Posted by Harry Mylonadis