Author: Dominik Spieler

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Do it yourself pension #1 – Real estate for passive income

We all can do something for our own pension. I summarise my readings and own experience in here. Anyone of us can buy their own little real estate for passive income live long. We just have to stand up and learn something about the process how it is done.
Here is one way I do it in a quick summary. We are searching for little apartments worth 200k€ and pay 10% by ourself. To get the rest of the money, we have to make a deal with our local bank. To get this high amount of money we have to have a good rating and have to know what exactly we want. House or apartment? New or old? Where do I find these?

Passive income with real estate

All things begin little. You could buy a small apartment with a little equity with e.g. 10.000€ for an apartment which is worth 100.000€. Lend yourself the money from the bank, pay only the ancillary purchase costs yourself, and rent the apartment. (How to get the money: see below)
But why is it a good choice?
Because the apartment pays for itself through the rental. The rental income should be sufficient to pay the bank, cover all running costs and build up savings for maintenance and loss of rent. Initially, passive income is even lower, as the bank receives its share. Righty, because they pay too. At the end, when the apartment has paid itself off, the share to the bank went into your own pocket. Through this way, a property asset is built up for old age and over time additional passive income is generated for you.

In order to find out my own rating from my bank, I asked the following institutions about my creditworthiness and internal rating. Sometimes data is wrong or not up to date. Only those who ask for it can correct it and raise their rating:

Sector-independent assessment of creditworthiness.
SCHUFA AUSKUNFT

Other interesting credit ratings. Just use the contact form or the contact section.

Bürgel Wirtschaftsinformationen GmbH

EUROPRO

UNIVERSUM GROUP

IHD Kreditschutzverein eV

finance.arvato

 

Purchase price and rent in combination are crucial

Each purchase price for a property can be a good or bad purchase price. The rental income you can achieve with the property is crucial. The purchase price determines the amount of your payment because it affects both the interest rate and the amortization amount. If the rental income is sufficiently high, you can also afford a higher rate to the bank. The right question is: How many annual cold rents fit into the purchase price?
For example: 200K€ purchase price, 1000€ rent per month equals 6% rental yield (1000*12 / 200K€). Tf the apartment is big enough for three students, 333€ per student is not unlikely at all. Six percent and more is a good number, less and you have to pay each month by yourself. That’s not the goal. We try to buy a system with one sum, which pays itself off. The book rich dad poor dad deals with this point in particular. (see in sources)

The leverage effect in real estate – The compound interest for shares

This effect crossed my path for the first time in the Business school when I was 16. At that time I thought it was reserved only for big companies to use this trick. Basically, it’s a simple calculation. If I have a higher percentage return for an amount that I pay for repayment, it makes sense to take up debt. In the end, the percentage difference of this extra money flows into my pocket.

We use this effect when buying apartments. We do not pay for the entire apartment out of our own pocket, but let the bank bear part of the costs. Most of the income flows back into the apartment to pay for it. The absolute return does not change, because the rent does not increase.
If, on the other hand, a share rises, its higher value also bears interest.

Stocks are very flexible to trade. Buy today, sell tomorrow. I personally prefer to hold. Real estate, on the other hand, is not sold with a click. Bringing the notary and the buyer to one table and all that. That can be a disadvantage but also an advantage. We ourselves tie up our capital and let it work on a long-term basis. After 10 years it is even tax-free sellable according to German law. A rented real estate is very directly influenceable, for example by a revaluation (new kitchen or something like that). The expenditure with real estates can be reduced by a property management, shares lie in the portfolio for 10 years, without paying attention to the course.

Where to buy

Everyone wants to buy an apartment in a future-proof location. The apartment should still be available for rent in 20 years. If security were your only criterion, you would only buy in Germany in popular areas such as Munich and Hamburg. Turned around, in unpopular areas, with the risk that the apartment will remain empty. The purchase price in relation to the rent is much too high here. The factor would be too small and you would have to put in money yourself every month. The golden middle can be interesting here. Not too expensive and not too unpopular.

It’s best to look for university cities that you can pass from time to time or that are close to you. Then you sort out those with poor returns and put the remaining ones in order according to their future security. All the data for this is available online free of charge – for example at the well-known real estate portals such as Immobilienscout.

There are enough interesting locations in Germany to invest money in a property and every day apartments change owners because, for example, they have been inherited or the apartment is sold for a house. Take a little time and find the ideal location for you.

Risks like rental nomads

Without the rental income you have to pay the rate to the bank and all costs by yourself. If you can’t do that, you’ll soon be up for foreclosure and lose a lot of money. Therefore, it is important to check the existing tenancy before buying: Has the tenant always paid? Can he pay in the future? Salary statements, Schufa and everything you submitted to the bank help with the tenant check.

In addition, you should, of course, buy an apartment that is interesting for tenants and maintain it over the years so that it remains attractive for them. It is advisable to transfer about 5% of the rent to a reserve account every month for a possible loss of rent until three months’ rent is covered.

Financing creates a further risk for you: Interest rates are often fixed for 10 or 15 years. If the interest rates rise significantly by then, the financing for the remaining debts can suddenly become more expensive and in the worst case, the rate can even increase. So prepare yourself for this. When you take out the loan, fix the interest as far as possible – at least as long as the interest premium is still within the limits.

You can’t really exclude any of these risks. But if you understand them and actively deal with them, you can do a lot to protect yourself. When it comes to risks, you can make the difference for truly successful wealth accumulation!

That’s it for now. See part two on my website for further information 🙂

Sources:

Die Do-it-yourself-Rente: Passives Einkommen aus Immobilien zur Altersvorsorge (Link)
Erfolg mit Wohnimmobilien – Thomas Knedel (Link)
Rich dad Poor Dad (Link)

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Search engine optimization #1 | Basics in five steps

Here we cover the question of “How you can find your perfect keyword” for your for example website. that google ranks it as high as possible.

What is SEO

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines. In one sentence: Let people find your side on google or yahoo searching for things they need.

Step #1: Keywords – how to feed the search engines the right way

Search Engines look up for Keywords. First, we want to know which Keywords are relevant to us. Here comes the tool “Keywords Everywhere” in place. It shows you additional information about how valuable your keyword is and how much competition there is. Lower than 0,3 is good, higher is not beatable. Up to 0,6, it is very hard but from 0,6 and more it is damn hard.
Furthermore, it shows you related Keywords and what people also search for. Great information I guess 🙂

First, we have to clarify some words

Bounce rate: You go to a side and leave without buying anything. You “bounced off the page”. Bad for the site owner.
Conversation rate: Go to a side, find something valuable and buy stuff. You got converted. Good for the site owner.

Broad Keywords: 1-2 words & high search volume. Example: chocolate cake.
Longtail Keywords: 2-8 words & more specific, so less search volume but a higher conversion, because of a higher chance of finding what I’m searching for. Example: chocolate cake for 5-year-old pirates.

Step #2: Where you can find keywords for your page or niche.

In school, they taught us Wikipedia is a bad source for information – I disagreed. Also, in this case, its a great source for finding good keywords to fill up our Keyword list. Just search for your topic and let’s see what highlighted words we will find there.
All these topics, all these words are connected to your topic you have searched for. One tip is to write down all these words down, we will use them later on. We will filter them by their value and place them on our webpage. Not just like a big text rubbish, we simply prefer these words over others with the same meaning but a higher value in search engines. We also convert the short ones into longtail keywords to increase the conversion rate even more.
Another good source is Ubersuggest for getting new keyword ideas. You can also find a good information about Cost per Click in your area for google advertising. You also get a list of other keywords you can use for making your own list bigger. Just download the ones which are interesting for your specific topic. Not blindly any of them.

Step #3: What you now can do with your keyword list.

We now filter them for the high-value ones.
Two words. Keyword Planner. It’s from Google and we can import in our list we have created and analyze them, and get also more ideas. You here can find new keywords or get search volume and forecasts. You now can filter for average monthly searches, competition, and cost per click. you now will end up with 5-10 good keywords, because we will compare five phrases at the same time in “Google trend” to find out the best ones. For example, you find five which have low competition but a good search volume.

So let’s get into google trends. Here we can see as a chart the interest for our searched topic. For example Bitcoin. You can see, that the coinmarketcap course and the interest on google for bitcoin look pretty much the same. A high peak at the end of 2017 and then a free fall till today.
One great thing about google trends is, that we can filter for categories, for example, finance. Next, we can also filter for the Web search. News Search or YouTube search for example. Great! We can find the funnels we want to promote our side and look at how the changes are back in time. Very valuable information.

We now can compare different phrases to find out the best ones on the basis of interest in the search channels. You also have a breakdown by region. If you run a german blog, only german speaking people are your target group, so you may prefer the keywords which are searched in Germany.

Finally, you now have 5 Keywords ranked by your special needs.

Step #4: Can we reach #1 on Google

Here a tool named MozBar will help us. It’s also a Chrome extension and when you now search for something you see under the websites additional information. Mainly “Page authority” (PA) and “Domain Authority” (DA). A DA of over 80 ist hard to come over, but for example, 50 is achievable. If there are pages with let’s say PA of 40 and DA of 50, we can get a high position on google, maybe #1.
So all you have to do is to write down your keywords and take a look at the PA and DA of the result.

Step #5: The best possible choice for our web page!

We now are ready for the keyword validation. Now it’s getting serious. Get back to Google Keyword Planner and click on “Get search volume and forecast”.
Now let’s say you want to place advertising on google. You now can look for each keyword how much it would cost per click, how many customers will see it, for an exact period of time. It will give you a good idea to select the best keywords for your case. You maybe choose one with high volume, because many will see it and low competition.
Now you search for this keyword you have chosen and look via MozBar if you can reach #1 because the competition sites have a PA lower than 45. After checking in google trends you now have ONE best keyword for your case. Not two, not three, only one.

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Head is capital – Kopf schlägt Kapital | Booksummary

Concept and creative idea

Even a small idea that is simple but well thought out can do. IKEA serves as an example here. It was the first furniture store to offer its products for self-assembly. At that time nobody could have imagined having the customers set up the shelves themselves, it was far too complicated. It was then. The founder had to rethink the complete assembly concept and build a shelf that a customer can put together himself without the slightest experience. The idea was born, the rest is history.

Function instead of convention
Most people associate an idea with an idea, but that’s not what this is about. Apparently, the development of an idea can be approached systematically and brought to a successful conclusion. Alternatively, it is noticed early on that and what needs to be worked on, which saves time and effort. This is the first idea. He may be something fleeting, theoretical and perhaps idealistic. Great, write them down and think them through. Write down all the steps necessary for a first prototype and just start. You will be amazed how quickly you have something ready to test that allows you to get feedback from other people.
The Internet is the perfect medium for this, as friends and family are not always honest with you. So please write me on how you like this post and how I can improve them! Thanks 🙂

The bait must taste good to the fish, not the fishermen

Very important: the buyer decides on the economic success. The market determines the success or failure of any idea. Therefore, it is important to get feedback as early as possible and to adapt your strategy or idea if necessary.

Imagine we are back in the Stone Age, and see fish swimming in the water. We think good and want to catch one. Now we know that we love to eat berries ourselves, so why not the fish if they are so delicious. It should come as no surprise that the yield will not be too high, as would have been the case with maggots, for example. They just used the wrong bait. And exactly this is the art to find at the beginning. Just because you are super convinced of an idea yourself, the others do not have to like the idea automatically. However, it can be changed in such a way that interest arises!

3 final tips

Scalability
It must be possible to duplicate the idea without much additional time. This is why many people work with their own product, such as a DVD collection or software that is copied and released. The software only needs to be written once, and can be used by 1 million people and more without any additional effort. When I run a restaurant, the amount of customers I can serve is directly linked to my time or that of my employees. A scalable system here would be the well-known delivery hero or delivery command. The founders are not in the kitchen themselves, but earn money with every order.

Simplicity
“If you can’t just explain something, you haven’t understood it enough.” – This quote was written by Einstein and describes it quite well. For the masses to use it, it has to be simple, because they all have different backgrounds and levels of knowledge. There’s a rule that says if you can explain it to a 10-year-old, then you really understand. If an app is not easy to understand and use, the masses will uninstall it immediately and the customer will be lost.

Pareto – 80/20
Everything doesn’t have to be perfect. Didn’t you feel like you wanted to finish something, but needed the same time again towards the end, even though little has changed in the end result? In 20% of the time we achieve 80% of the result, said Vilfredo Pareto. And in a way that’s true. Too often we waste time with something that is ok and in this state is actually already finished. It is simply more effective to be satisfied with three 80% results than with a 98% result we are still sitting on. Done is better than perfect!

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Money – Master the Game | Booksummary

In the following, my notes to Tony Robbins book Money – Master the Game are listed. A quick summary for the people out there who want maybe buy this book and want to know whats inside.

#1: Asset managers

Most asset managers can’t beat the market, even if they say. 96% of mutual funds don’t beat the market for a consistent stretch of time. The market is a scale that is always in balance.

#2: Cost Average

Take 10-15% of your income every month, whether the market is up or down. Use the Cost Average Effect. The longer the investment horizon, the greater the potential compound interest effect on the initial value of the investment.

#3: Automate your investment

Automate investing or you probably won’t do it. That’s the key. It’s a lot of work doing it two times a month for 20 years. You will forget it sometimes. I personally use ETF savings plans, because they are debited directly 2x a month from my bank account. Tony Robbins mentioned Schwab in his book.

#4: Index investing

He mentioned, that it’s hard to beat an index the long term. His example is the “S&P 500“. You can invest completely passive. Even if a company which is in the index goes bankrupt, it hardly weighs in the index. The purpose of a stock exchange index is to provide representative documentation of developments on the respective submarket.

#5: Avoid mutual funds

Avoid mutual funds! The banker wants you to buy funds because he earns money with it. It costs regularly and the return is less due to the costs incurred by the banker. Do it yourself. Be your own banker.

#6: How much money for financial freedom

6) Do not aim for a sum until the end of your life, but for permanent interest. A system must be created that supports itself. People are getting older, you don’t know how long you will need it. A rule of thumb says: Take your annual expenses, multiply by 25 and that’s the fortune you need to live on the interest.

#7: Fund manager VS. fiduciary

Fund managers are not your friend. It’s their job to sell you more so they keep their job and get their commission. Find a good fiduciary for expert opinions. A fiduciary manages the assets of another person. He doesn’t care about your finances, so he has no interest in it.

#8: Save taxes

Robbins mentions the “Roth IRA” or “Roth 401(k)” which is generally not taxed under US law. Now, because I live in Germany that’s no option for me. Under German Law, selling real estate after 10 years or cryptocurrency after one year holding is tax-free.

#9: Rule 1: Don’t lose money

Rule 2: Repeat rule 1

#10: Tax is different. Depends on where you live.

Your money “disappears” faster in some places than in others. What do I mean by that: The cost of living and rents are different everywhere. Robbins mentions a website, where you can see the differences in the US. It’s not relevant for people outside the US but burns a nice picture to your head: Click

#11: Diversification

Betting on just one horse is the biggest risk, even with an index. Distribute your risk so that the total yield will decrease though for the start but is the better choice.

#12: Nonprofit organizations

He mentions websites like Vanguard and TIAA-CREF which are not profit-oriented. In other words, no conflict of interest. TIAA’s goal is to help their customers reach their financial goals. I personally write down all my costs in an app and report them every six months. The result is a saving rate of 60%. You can see here how I did it for two years now.

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How to run php code in WordPress

When running a blog, you often face the problem that you want to execute PHP code to customize your site. I love Quotes and want to realize a “daily Quote” on my page. I tried to do it without one of the numerous plugins since we normally don’t want additional plugin ballast, nor another plugin that has to be constantly updated. I’ve found some outdated customizations of the function.php file, but nothing of them worked. Since I will use PHP customization in the future, I decided to use a plugin named “PHP Code Widget”.

Let’s get into it.

After installing the plugin, you can use it as a normal text field, which can interpret the PHP Code.
As always, the first thing is a “hello world” to test if the code is working.

echo 'Hello World!';

After that, I thought about showing a random Quote each time a user opens the website. I have plenty of Quotes and will code them hard in that text field. No database. For that, I need a random number which will be the index for my Array.

int random_int ( int $min , int $max )

With an array, it could be looking like this. We need an array filled with quotes and an echo which chooses one of them. Reminder: array indices start with 0, that’s why I used “-1” after the Array count. I count the array because if I add or delete one, I don’t have to change the maximum random number.

$quotes = array(
"Quote1",
"Quote2",
"Quote3"
);

// Random Quote each time the site is refreshed
echo $quotes[mt_rand(0, count($quotes)-1)];

My last edit was to put in the daily thing. With this code above you get a new quote each time you move through the website. I want to see a new one only each day. So we need a timestamp and modulo of all quotes as an index.


$quotes= array(
"Fall down seven times - Get up eight.",
"Stop wishing - start doing.",
"Don't call it a dream, call it a plan."
);

// Dayly Quote - one Quote for each day
echo $quotes[date("dmY")%count($quotes)];

That’s it. Hope you like the new collection of my motivating quotes I’ve collected over the years 🙂

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Improvement Story – The conversation booster

In this post, I’ve collected my best, personally experienced, ice breaker questions for any kind of conversation. I use them for meetings while we wait for all to come in or for business dinners the most. As always, a short summary can be found at the end of this article. Have fun learning!

Let’s get into it:

Imagine you got your dream job and the first meeting is at a hotel for two days with all your new team members. You know you have to work with at least 10 of them each day for now. Now you have two options. Pass the days as “the new one” who don’t know any internal business topics so far, or as the guy who is charismatic and has interest in the teams live beside the job.

Seat picking

The first point on the agenda is lunch. You all had a long journey to come to this hotel from all over the globe. You choose the table with six seats instead of the one with two. Positioning is the first important step because the chances are higher to find conversation partners with whom it is easy to communicate.
You know that more seats mean more communication partners. If the conversation breaks up with one guy, another on the table is taking the word on. At a one on one conversation, it’s hard if the counterpart is not in the mood to talk. So you take the middle seat of the table side with the wall to your back. You know have all your new colleagues in sight and all of the persons who will join you will have the same distance to you. So you can understand any of them the same way, even it is loud at the restaurant.

The next colleagues arrive and two of them are taking place at your table. They sit opposite each other and begin talking. They know each other well and arrived together on the same plane. First, you are listening carefully and wait for a chance to jump into the conversation. The one is talking about business topics, but you can see the other gives quick answers like “Yep” or “Jea you are right” or “I don’t know”. He is not that interested. You wait until one of them is dedicated to his drink and jumps in with:

Did you see any good movie or Netflix series lately you can recommend?

This will steer communication in the private direction. At this moment another colleague sits down, has heard “Netflix” and starts to report from the series “House of money”. The persons who don’t know the series can listen to the story and the others can talk about their favorite characters.

“Got any favorite quotes?” is a nice open-ended question, which leads to many opinions and talking. After a while, you expand the conversation further or switch the topic. Simply the best that serves the flow of speech. Actors are famous, so maybe a colleague has met one before?

Have you ever met a famous person?

This is a good one. One colleague met a famous IT CEO while he was walking a marathon. “They are just as normal as we are!”. This leads to films or other stories you can tell or listen to the ones of the others.
In the meantime, the table is fully seated and two conversations can take place. You see the others are more the kind of an introvert, they didn’t say anything the last 20 minutes. That’s your chance to ask them an open question, anyone has something to say about:

Seen anything lately that made you smile?

This has two effects. On the one hand he or she will recall the good feeling thing, and on the other hand, the lunch will turn better on their side. We all know a conversation we all sit quietly next to the others. It’s a bad feeling. So you turned this lunch into a good feeling thing for your counterpart. He won’t forget. Maybe someone was the first time skydiving and is excited to report on the experience he smiled a lot while falling. So he had been pleasantly surprised by anything lately. This question is also a good one.

The lunch ends, the team challenges begin. The goal of this two-day workshop is to know each other better and trust each other more for a better performance at the office. After that, we had dinner, another great way to meet other people. Everyone got time to freshen up and meet for dinner. Same seat picking as a few hours before and round #2 begins 😉

Got any phobias?

You could start talking about a spider in your room. Creepy little animals, kind of scary, but I don’t know why. “What is it that you fear?”, is a great transfer to pass the conversation on to the other person. There is no way to say just “Ok”.
Another way to make your counterpart feel good is a little question about their past:

What was your first job?

It is interesting to learn that a Manager once delivered newspapers when he was a child. Back then the life was easy and our biggest problem was to fill our free time with funny things. If we chose to work then with a reason. We needed something our parents didn’t want to pay for:

What was the first thing you bought with your own money?

In my case, it was a Gameboy Color with Pokémon Red. One of my greatest gaming experience, because I had to work a full year for it. The feeling after I got this was indescribable. Maybe some of your colleagues had similar experiences.
As a kid, our environment shapes us the most. So the next question can be a good boost:

As you grow up who had the most influence on you and why?

Maybe some action hero or a book author like Joanne K. Rowling, who wrote Harry Potter. Most of us have a person we like what he did. If books switch into the center of the conversation, this question maybe this question comes all on its own:

What book are you reading right now?

Books are great gates into other worlds. You now have the chance to find out which worlds your colleagues like and which recommendations you can exchange with each other. Maybe someone started reading a book because his life changed in certain areas. For instance got kids, want to manage their money or get lost in a story. Perhaps the opportunity for an exchange of books arises, so the second contact is guaranteed in any case.
After so much to eat, a little sport is not wrong. So you could ask all on your table if there is someone who wants to go for a walk with you.

Who wants to take an evening walk?

Ask for a walk. Maybe some of them took a run lastly, as I did the Tough Mudder. You do sport and talk. Last time I ran with a colleague who had a star wars t-shirt to run on. Star Wars is one of my favorite topics since I’m a kid.

Summary

He reported back that he liked the conversation because I had hit exactly his three favorite topics. It was a very interesting conversation. I learned a lot about him, his interests and how powerful specific questions could be…

Who do we prefer to have a conversation with? With a person who we feel to be great ourselves, or with someone who gives us the feeling. The last probably… Now you can be that person who gives that feeling to the people!

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TOUGH MUDDER 2018 – From couch potato to a 16 km (10 miles) obstacle course in just two month

We all find challenges in our life, but take less of them, because of fear. My friend Marcel convinced me to begin jogging. I hated it in school. I did martial arts for over 10 years, so I’m not that bad in sports. But jogging was just too exhausting, too slow. Riding a bike is better because it’s faster. More efficient.
As we learn in software development, it is good to divide your goals into small parts in order to experience and liven up small successes on the way to the goal. Now my goal was the “Tough Mudder”, an obstacle course here in Germany. In order to survive this, I had to be able to jog the whole distance at home. The obstacles will cost enough power. (Key lessons at the end of this post)

Since I couldn’t imagine running the whole track, I signed up with Marcel for half the mudder. A 7,5 kilometer (km) long track. The goal was set. What’s gonna happen except I do not make it? (Later on, we did the full 16 km, because of challenge 😀 )

 

“To become really good at what you do, you have to be comfortable failing at it.”

The training plan

Source: https://appadvice.com/app/c25k-5k-trainer/485971733

My goal was creating a jogging routine within two months. Marcel himself started jogging with the C25K Run plan. It’s a plan were you walk till you reach the 5 kilometers or 3,1 miles in about 30 minutes. He did it months ago, then why shouldn’t I make it? I used the same app as he did. (see picture)

The Mudder Tickets were bought, there was no way back. We scheduled three meetings each week at the same time after work for the next two month and started right away.

 

The first month – wow that’s easy

The first week was no big deal. A brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes. That’s not that hard? I can do that?
That’s the point of this concept. You start with little baby steps to create a routine. The second week was the same but 90 minutes of jogging and two minutes of walking.

In these usually 30 minutes you can exchange super about the current projects and ideas. Without a partner, both of us would hardly have been able to get up and running on such a regular basis.

Week one to four

 

The second month – Uff! that’s a bit tricky now

The jump in week four was hard. You see the plan expands the jogging units piece by piece while adapting the running units. You jog longer, you walk the same you lazy ass. We want to make progress!
Session after session we became more and more familiar. After work, we waited in jogging shoes for each other to finally run this half hour. I have to say I rediscovered the beauty of nature for myself. Our routes run mainly through woods and meadows. Exhausted but full of energy arriving at home.

Week five to seven

Some days my family sat in the living room, I went running, came back and everyone sat in the same place and talked. What I’m trying to say: They could have talked while jogging. They could have combined both and felt even better after jogging.

 

The last week – Wow, we walked 8 kilometers (5 miles) by mistake?!

The last week was funny. We have tested a 5-kilometer track which is often used for small marathons here in the area. The route runs through a forest with altitude meters and a beautiful environment. At some point, the app must have reported that we had already run the desired route, but we were too far off course. 3 kilometers too far. We then decided to walk the now 8 kilometers, or at least as far as we can jog without walking. Finally, we reached the goal. Exhausted but happy.

The table you see below is purely for the sake of completeness. We have run a lot more this week, simply because of this mistake.

week eight

 

Tough Mudder challenge – Fun doing things you did as a kid

Obstacle course passed (see video below for proof). It’s amazing what the body can do in two months with a little regular training. I hated jogging, now it’s an integral part of my week 🙂

 

Key Lessons

  • Achieve things you didn’t think possible just by trying them.
  • Small steps can be too easy in the beginning, but they form a habit which makes the difficult tasks last longer.
  • A partner with the same goal is incredibly valuable. We often said to ourselves that we wouldn’t have walked today if the other hadn’t waited for the other.
  • Working towards one goal (passing the mudder) makes you think of progress as a journey needed to get there. How we need the plane to get to a distant continent.

– Update – Two days after mudder

Everything hurts. My arms, my legs, anything. It’s a sign we made progress. We did the Tough Mudder on Saturday, now it’s Monday. The routine goes on. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Marcel and I complaining about our pain. Some would say “Mimimi”.
The first kilometer behind us, we know again why we do it. The landscape is beautiful and today’s 6 km are over very fast. I have added a picture for all of you who read this to start as a motivation yourself.

Just do it! 🙂

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How to: Syncronise data on all your devices

We all know that. If we have more than one end device, in my case a laptop and a computer, files are missing on one side that has been used on the other. That can be time-consuming as hell. This problem can be solved with “Syncthing” a peer to peer network and a small Windows task. It is open source and decentralized. Your data is yours. Syncthing takes over the data synchronization and the Windows task set up to start the service in the background. Thus all devices are always up to date.
This is no sponsored post, I just love this program and use it frequently at home.

Setting up Syncthing

First download Syncthing, unzip and run it.
The IP Adress http://127.0.0.1:8384/ will open in your Browser. At the top right corner is a gear with “Action” next to it. Click “Show ID”. You will find a QR Code and a number. This is the number you need for connecting to each other. Any PC which runs Syncthing will get its own number.

This number is needed for the next step. Do this step on all devices you want to connect. That’s the Device ID.

Sync a folder on two devices (or more)

Remote devices

The first thing you wanna do is to connect the two devices. For that you click on “add Remote Device” in the right lower corner. You now can play with the “General” and “Sharing” Settings.

General: The “Device ID” is the number of your computer you want to connect with. “Device Name” is a local name you set for your own tidiness if there are many devices.

Sharing: Personally I check the checkbox “Introducer” and check all devices I want to connect with. You maybe won’t see anything under “Share Folders With Device”, because we didn’t create a folder yet. Now we click “Safe” and create a Folder we want to share.

Folders

We now can create our first folder. Anything in this will be synced. For this we click “Add folder”. Folder Label is just for your device local. The important thing is the “Folder path”. Here you set the parent folder which will be synchronized. Tip: This folder path can be different on any device and is set on each device separately. After choosing a path, set the checkbox on all devices you want to connect, click save and you are ready to go!

Task Scheduler for no manual start anymore (Windows)

Start Task Scheduler. You can just search and start it. What’s the goal: We want a task which will be started when the PC is running, without starting it manually.

First things first. Click on “Action” menu the “Create Task…”. Now we see different Tabs. On the General Tab, we just Name the task (for example ‘Syncthing’) and press the Button “Run whether user is logged on or not”.

Next, we are setting up a Trigger, which will – of course – trigger the task. Here we click “New…”, then set the “Begin the task” to “At Startup”,  make sure Enabled is checked and press “Ok”.

On the Actions Tab, we click “New…”, the Action is set as “Start a program” and finally we need to enter the path to syncthing.exe which we can easily find through “Browse”.

We skip the conditions and get right into the settings. In this Tab, I set anything you see in the picture below. Then type in your password, that the Task will get the right permissions.

Tip: Restart your PC and check if you can get access to your Syncthing IP Adress without starting Syncthing (in my case it’s http://127.0.0.1:8384/). That’s the proof your task is running 🙂

Finally, you have set up your connection yourself. All you need is Syncthing and a little Windows Task to set anything running.

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My journey of starting programming

Back in 2010, I was 15 and on the way to get my A-Level in three years. Back in that time I was playing many games and wasting my time on it. I knew it was a kind of waste, but there was no other option to get so much fun. These games gave me a goal to reach in my spare time beside my sports. In one game, a farming browser game, I had to place crops, wait till they grew, harvested them and repeated this process. Soon I started to have more than one account, to play while the other account had to wait. I didn’t know something about programming, but my dad did. I asked him to write a program for me, which can do the login and farming thing for me, that I can do the other things in the game, which are way more fun. He replied he will help me doing it, but I had to do it by myself. He will help me with any questions I got and show me the basics of programming, but I had to do it on my own. My vision was created. I want to learn to programme to be the best player on the server. Sure it was cheating, but who cares.

Time investing VS time wasting

I started to invest my time in programming and growing my farm accounts. Soon I had five Accounts who worked fully automatically for me and my main in-game account. My “in-game business” grew and had nothing to do with the original sense of the game. You could say my first five employees worked for the chef of this little business. I spent afternoon and afternoon to improve my in-game money printer. Finally, some of my friends saw that I was rich on the server he was playing on. He offered me five euro for some in-game money, I made a mass of doing nothing. Of course, I replied yes! Free Pizza this afternoon!

Money creates more Money

Real money for giving you something I generate with my program? That’s a nice idea. I started programming harder and producing more online currency to sell. Soon my shitty laptop was too bad to run my programm a multiple time, so I decided to buy an extra one, just for running the program. Back in time, there was no cloud computing 😉
I bought them with money I got from selling my in-game money, so no loss, just invest to increase my sales. First experience where money is making more money. In that step I had 100 Accounts running, and my main Account was one of the best 50 players in the server. Can you imagine what’s going on in my mind?

Time to expand my mini business

An idea grows in my mind. When classmates will give me money, then there must be others who will. A nice website named eBay will help me. I set my first auction, with the note, that they won’t pay for the in-game money, but for an access data to an account with a decent amount of in-game money. Of course, they will transfer it to their main account, but the rules of the game prohibited selling in-game currency, but not selling Accounts. The first auction sold five times higher than my classmates gave me for the same amount. Simply supply and demand I guess. There was no one like me on eBay. I now had the opportunity to use my time for a dream I made myself and had a real impact on the monthly money I had per month. Great!

“International” expansion

My 100 accounts where central in one server, which means they can’t trade with players of other servers. Since my customers were not only on the server I played on, I had to become “international” — active on all servers. 100 Accounts on each Server? No problem. It needs just more technical upgrades. Some servers were older and with it inflation more advanced. The in-game money was, therefore, less worth. That means more effort for me for the same amount of Euros. Finally, my little business produced more in-game money, than needed. The peak is reached. From then on, I made money passively. Over time, however, the game lost to players until sales barely dropped to more than a few euros a week. I never found a simiar game, but the experience I will never forget.

Conclusion

I was just a kid without any programming knowledge. But I thought I can do it, so I did it. Think who you like to be and write down the steps which are needed. Then simply start with it. Little baby steps. One after the other.

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The power of motivating yourself – Now and forever

After reading this, you may will be motivated as I am after finishing it. I’ve collected some of my favorite motivational tips I use in my life to get things done. Be it for school in the past, inside the job or for a side project. Without motivation to actually do it, it will be just a dream.

Create a big vision – a brief look back

Back in 2010, I was 15 and on the way to get my A-Level in three years. I was playing many games and wasting my time on it. I knew it was a kind of waste, but there was no other option to get so much fun. These games gave me a goal to reach in my spare time beside my sports. In one game, a farming browser game, I had to place crops, wait till they grew, harvested them and repeated this process. Soon I started to have more than one account, to play while the other account had to wait. I didn’t know something about programming, but my dad did. I asked him to write a program for me, which can do the login and farming thing for me, that I can do the other things in the game, which are way more fun. He replied he will help me doing it, but I had to do it by myself. He will help me with any questions I got and show me the basics of programming, but I had to do it on my own. My vision was created. I want to learn to programme to be the best player on the server. It was cheating ingame, but who cares.
I started to invest my time in programming and growing my farm accounts. Awesome! I was just a kid without any programming knowledge but thought I can do it, and finally did.

Think about who you like to be, your goals and write down or figure the steps out which are needed. Then simply start with it.

Basketball – think outside the box

As a kid, I played basketball as a hobby in my school. Sometimes, my trainer told me to dribble with my left hand, so the enemy can’t forecast how I will attack. I could only reply “no I can’t dribble with the other hand”. My Trainer: “of course you can, you just don’t try. To fear it won’t work as well as with the other hand is what you are doing.”
We all know this fear when it comes to trying something new, to developing a new habit in order to become more efficient. A new habit may seem a little strange at first, but if we don’t try it in the first place, we will never be able to use even the slightest success. And this way of thinking motivates me to try new things as often as I can. Only challenges will test us and make us better. 

Planning

If we got the plan who we want to be, we have to plan the steps for how we get there. Are there others who did it in a similar way? Is there a book which can get us a hint how to do it? When you plan your path, the purpose and intention should be written down and fixed. Planning an hour saves three hours of useless testing because you follow a strict path. In the beginning, it’s not about making everything perfect. It’s about finding a way for yourself that’s efficient and good for you. Well planned ways will motivate you more and more the further you go. Just try it!

Distraction

While I’m writing or creating something, I always search for a quiet place. Hearing music that sets my mind on a powerful level and covers me from distractions like other people talking or my mobile phone. With this music, your chemicals in your body will change and you feel good and happy. A very nice way to spend a few hours. Motivation and Energy will flow through your body. If you found a funny side of your work, your motivation is boundless… We sing because we are happy, so search for your favorite song and sing it!
As a kid, I was allowed to watch TV from 6:00 pm. The day ended for me from that time, because for years I did nothing else than watch TV in the evening. And my friends were fine. Appointment went a maximum of 5:30 pm because we all had to watch our favorite shows and movies.
Kill the television if you know you are watching too much. I assume you won’t because you are reading this, but if you haven’t, try it. You will have so much time in the afternoon, just for not turning on the TV.

Start with little steps

As I started with my whiteboard animations, my first video was just 10 seconds drawing something. But I finished it. Start in baby steps to actually start it. If can’t convince you to start walking, just convince yourself to take on your sports shoes … and the rest will follow. That’s the reason why so many games reward daily logging in. They know the player will stay once they get there. To start this little step is easy. You are more likely to start, and therefore it gets finished.

Run away from your friends

Leaving all your friends behind may be a little extreme. What I mean by that is find new friends to support your goals and build you up once you’re in a deep. When you’re friends are pessimists, your opportunities fly away and disappear. So look for friends who have the same or similar goal. Example: Steve Jobs would not have come this far without his partner Steve Wozniak who had the same goal.

Be happy first

Many of us think they will be happy when they reach a specific goal in the future. We think happiness is out there and will come to us. The problem here is that it may never happen. Find ways to fill your life with things that bring you joy. Fill your entire life with joy, not only with the goal of having it, in the end. You can bring yourself happiness. You alone 🙂