Ten Years of Going Full-Time With My Business
About ten years ago today, I left my day job. I was a full-time lecturer, but in early 2009 I decided to go full-time with my online business (which I built since 2006). I still teach part-time even today, but it’s no longer how I make a living.
In the past ten years, I have built a so-called lifestyle business. Here is the definition from TechTarget:
A lifestyle business is one that is geared toward supporting the owner’s income and personal requirements rather than maximizing revenue. The goal of a lifestyle business is to create a sustainable and pleasant work/life balance… The type of business may also be sel...
Source: Life Optimizer - February 23, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Purpose Working Source Type: blogs
Making the Most of Every Opportunity
Do you want to reach your full potential? To do so, you need to make the most of every opportunity.
The fact is, you have many opportunities in life. In fact, you have them daily. The question is whether you make the most of them or not.
How can you make the most of every opportunity? Here are three tips.
1. Never take things for granted.
First of all, it’s important that you never take things for granted. Why? Because many of the opportunities you have are things that seem normal! So normal in fact, that you might take them for granted.
Being healthy is a good example. If you have always been healthy, you might not thin...
Source: Life Optimizer - February 16, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Attitude Working Source Type: blogs
Ask the Readers: What Are Your Best Creativity Tips?
We are living in a world where more and more things can be outsourced or even automated. Lifetime employment is no longer a given. You need to keep upgrading yourself to stay relevant.
A big part of them, I believe, is being creative. Being creative helps you adapt to changing situations. It helps you stand out from the crowd.
So here is my question to you:
What are your best creativity tips?
Or, put another way: How do you get creative ideas?
Please share your answer in the comments so that everyone can learn from it. Thanks! (Source: Life Optimizer)
Source: Life Optimizer - February 7, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Thinking Source Type: blogs
A Proven Key to Turning Your Life Around
When your life is in a mess, what is the key to turning it around?
I thought about it when I read the story of Jon Shafer. Shafer is the lead designer of Civilization V, a video game that was released in 2010. The game was a huge success. But after the game was released, he decided to quit and start his own company. He started working on a game called At the Gates.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go well for him. He was diagnosed with adult ADHD that made it difficult for him to focus. He relied on medication for it but found himself needing a higher and higher dose. After working on the game for years, it was still far fro...
Source: Life Optimizer - February 2, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Attitude Source Type: blogs
Living a Creative Life: Lessons From the Making of Stardew Valley
I recently read a story in Blood, Sweat, and Pixels about the making of Stardew Valley. Stardew Valley is a popular video game that was released in 2016.
What’s remarkable about the game is that it was developed by just one person. Eric Barone did the programming, arts, and sound by himself. It took him four and a half years to finish the game.
The game was a success. In six months, it had sold 1.5 million copies! Eric Barone, who was twenty-eight and decided to make the game because he couldn’t get a job, was now a multimillionaire. He had 12 million dollars in his bank account.
The story contains useful lessons on li...
Source: Life Optimizer - January 25, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Working Source Type: blogs
The Importance of Staying Balanced
To live a full life, there is an important principle you need to remember. The principle is stay balanced. Violating this principle will only lead you to misery.
There are five aspects of life that you need to keep balanced:
Work
Health
Learning
Social
Spiritual
Unfortunately, many people have what I call “unbalanced success”: they have tremendous success in one or two aspects of their lives but at the expense of the other aspects.
To the outsiders, they might seem to be ‘wildly successful’, ‘living the dream’, and so on, but the facts are different. Their family life might be unhappy, they might be physicall...
Source: Life Optimizer - January 17, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Attitude Working Source Type: blogs
Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions
I recently read the book summary of Big Mistakes by Michael Batnick. The book has an interesting subtitle: The Best Investors and Their Worst Investments. Interesting combination, isn’t it? It contains story after story of how very smart people made bad decisions in investing.
But how could that happen? How could these smart people make bad decisions?
In essence, what happened was that they failed to manage their risks. They didn’t prepare themselves for the worst things that could happen. They were overconfident, thinking that good times would last forever. So, when the opposite happened, they lost a lot and sometimes...
Source: Life Optimizer - January 4, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Thinking Source Type: blogs
Purpose Mastery Is Now Open!
Happy New Year! I hope 2019 will be a great year for you. I’m excited about this year and I hope you are too.
To help you start the new year strong, I’m glad to announce that Purpose Mastery is now open! Purpose Mastery is my online course on how to find and live out your purpose. It will help you live your life, not someone else’s life. It will help you start 2019 with a renewed sense of purpose.
While not being productive could cost you hours or days, not finding your purpose could cost you years. That’s why I believe that this topic is essential.
The enrollment is open for one week and I plan to open it just twi...
Source: Life Optimizer - January 2, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: General Source Type: blogs
Purpose Mastery Is Coming Soon
I hope your holiday has been great! In addition to spending time with your loved ones, I believe it’s also a good time to reflect on the past year and prepare for the new one.
To help you start the new year strong, I’m happy to announce that Purpose Mastery will soon be open for enrollment!
Purpose Mastery is my online course on how to find and live out your purpose. The course will help you live your life, not someone else’s life. The end goal is that you live a fulfilling life.
The enrollment will be open for one week starting on January 2. I plan to open the course just twice a year.
Stay tuned! (Source: Life Optimizer)
Source: Life Optimizer - December 29, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: General Source Type: blogs
What Is Your One Habit in the New Year?
With the end of the year approaching, it’s a good time to start preparing for next year. During the holiday, especially, you will have the clarity of mind and time to do it.
What exactly should you plan?
Well, I believe that one thing you should plan is your habits. Why? Because your habits can make or break your life! Build the right habits and you will be on your way to reaching full potential.
The good news is: you don’t need to build a complex set of habits. In fact, you only need to build one habit. One habit can make a big difference in your life. Such a habit is called a keystone habit and your job is to find yo...
Source: Life Optimizer - December 22, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Time management Source Type: blogs
How to Make the Most of the Rest of This Year
We are now only a couple weeks away from the new year. That doesn’t mean that you can’t get anything done during this time, though. Even during the holiday season, you can still make the most of your time. Let’s finish this year strong!
Here are some tips on how to do that.
1. Finish Your Project
Yes, there are only a few days left, but you can make the most of them to finish your project. In fact, the sense of urgency could boost your productivity.
In my case, I want to make my apps ready for the new year. Some of them are ready, but some of them aren’t. I’m now working on them.
2. Review the Past Year
You don...
Source: Life Optimizer - December 13, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Purpose Thinking Source Type: blogs
The Mindset for Making the Right Decisions in Life
The way you make decisions is essential. After all, your life is just the result of your decisions.
So how do you make the right decisions in life?
I found something interesting in the book summary of Reinvent Yourself. It says that in order to advance in life, you should make growth-oriented decisions instead of fear-based ones.
For example, let’s say that you are in a job that you don’t like. If you decided to stay because you are afraid that you can’t find another job, that’s a fear-based decision. It might make you feel safe in the short-term, but it would lead to regret in the long-term. The growth-oriented de...
Source: Life Optimizer - December 1, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Attitude Thinking Source Type: blogs
Black Friday Deal: Get 50% Off Blinkist
Quick link: click here to get 50% off Blinkist
If you want to reach your full potential, you need to invest in your self-education. Knowledge is power and having a knowledge advantage will take you far in life.
To help you have it, there is a Blinkist Black Friday deal for you: for a limited time, you can get 50% off Blinkist subscription.
Blinkist is an app that helps you get the key ideas from nonfiction books. It solves the problem of having to spend a lot of time to read a book. With Blinkist, it takes you only 15 minutes to get all the important ideas from a book. It’s a great way to upgrade your knowledge and save ...
Source: Life Optimizer - November 22, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: General Source Type: blogs
Developing a Heart of Giving
What attitude do you think would make the world a better place?
While there might be other answers to this question, I believe that a key attitude is the attitude of giving.
You see, almost everything that we read or hear is about getting: getting more money, reputation, or something else. Only occasionally do we read or hear about giving. That’s why I’d like to write about it today. I still have a lot to learn, but I’d like to share what I’ve learned so far with you.
Why You Should Develop a Heart of Giving
The main reason for developing a heart of giving is that it makes the world a better place. Imagine how the...
Source: Life Optimizer - November 17, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Attitude Purpose Source Type: blogs
The Why and How of Having Personal Projects
Do you want to have a meaningful life? Then one thing you should do is having personal projects.
I first heard about it from Brian Little. But when I looked at my life, I realized that I have been doing it for a long time. I have always had personal projects. And indeed, they make me feel fulfilled.
Here are some of my personal projects throughout the years:
Writing simple computer games when I was in high school.
Writing a published book on Linux when I started working as a lecturer.
Building a personal development blog when I took my master’s degree abroad. That’s the blog you are reading, by the way. :)
I continue...
Source: Life Optimizer - November 10, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Learning Purpose Source Type: blogs
