Achievements have greater appeal as failures, therefore they are systematically overrated. The media usually reportes only about stars, the unsuccessful are not mentioned. Therfore we end up a distorted perception of the real chances. It is useful to study the unsuccessful. #SurvivorshipBias

Behind each successful author hide 100 unsuccessful, behind each unsuccessful there are 100 that did not find a publisher, behind each of them there 100 who have not yet completed their manuscript .... But in the news only the stars get the whole attention.

do you have at least one enemy? Good. Invite him or her over for coffee and ask for an honest opinion about your strengths and weaknesses. You will be forever grateful you did.

Smile big at the right time. Women who were slower to smile in the corporate world are perceived as more credible.

The flooding smile: when meeting someone, don’t smile right away. Pause for a moment, then let a big flooding smile go over your mouth and eyes. This will give them the impression that the smile is more genuine

Your mind is for having ideas, not for holding them.

Pretend your brain is a white board. Is it covered with to-do lists and “DO NOT ERASE”? Is there space for drawing and combining ideas?

If we don’t appropriately manage the ‘open loops’ in our life, our attention will get pulled.

Differencing: We listen to differences; we discount sounds that remains the same. To make it easy for your conversation partners train to variate your voice.

Filters like, culture, language, values, beliefs, attitudes, expectations, intentions etc. take us down to what we pay attention to.

Exercise 1: Silence Just three minutes a day of silence is a wonderful exercise to reset your ears and to recalibrate, so that you can hear the quite again.