It’s been quiet here. I have not been drawn to writing. I did not do something because “I was not drawn to it”. And this is a good cue for a topic I find interesting.  

For the last 20 months I have been working on my lifestyle. Radically subtracting everything that creates a negative emotion and doubling down on everything that leads to a positive emotion. 

There are different definitions of the word lifestyle. For the purpose of this blog post, let’s start with the definition of the Oxford dictionary: “the characteristic manner in which a person lives (or chooses to live) his or her life.”

I like that it includes the word “choose”. It’s a choice after all. I don’t think I have chosen carefully in my first 33 years of life. I suspect most of us don't choose carefully. I think lifestyle is more a product of many different choices, especially your career choices. I became a startup founder and I definitely wasn’t aware of the fact that I would sign up to a very narrow lifestyle for ten years of my life. Ten years of working 24/7 and doing what I thought a successful startup founder would do. With the sole purpose of making the startup successful. 

I didn’t even think about what this lifestyle would look like and I also didn’t consider whether this is actually a lifestyle I wanted to choose. I just felt like I wanted to be a startup founder and I never looked back.

There are lots of elements of that lifestyle I really like. I like the constant challenges. I like the wins. I like motivating the team. I like finding solutions. I like the recognition. I like the status.

But there are lots of elements of the typical startup founder life I actually don’t like. I don’t like having an alarm in the morning. I don’t like having appointments in my calendar. I don’t like to-do lists. I don’t like being diplomatic towards employees and investors. And on the other side, I actually want to do competitive sports and maximise my athletic performance.

When I talk about this, most people say “Of course, I also don’t like having an alarm, to-do-lists, appointments and being diplomatic”. As if this was obvious and likewise obvious that it’s an essential part of their job and there’s nothing to do about it. And maybe it is.

But what if you could get rid of all things you don’t like (even if they appear to be “normal”) and only keep what you like? 

Then you would do every day exactly what you like to do and you would not do anything you don’t like.

Today, I liked writing this blog post.