Ok let’s face it, failing is unpleasant! It makes us feel as we will never reach our goal, it will convince us that we are not good enough, or not as good as you believed, or not as good as other people believe.
We weigh failure in different ways and this depends upon many factors – the fear of disappointing ourselves, the fear of wasting the time, the fear to disappoint the ones we love, lowering the high expectations that our friends and family have from us, and fear of being criticized by others – just to mention a few.
Society has always made us believe that failing is bad, and that you will be defined by your failures when in reality it is part of the learning process and that’s what makes us climb faster on the learning curve. In a few words, failure helps us to thrive.
The only thing that there is between your failure and your goal is how you process and use failure at your advantage.
So when we fail we have two options: we can either be passive, starting to blame everyone, convincing ourselves that we are not good at it, and fueling the negative mindset that will lead you to fail in the future maybe with a different goal; or we can be proactive, process the failure in a healthy way, and be paradoxically positive about it because you have some material to work on and improve, realizing you are one step closer to success. So, here’s a list of what you can do do overcome failure and to make the best out of it.
Start with this very simple life lesson: failure does not exist.
The literal meaning of failure is “lack of success”. It’s not just a part of the learning process, but it is THE MOST IMPORTANT part of the learning process. How did we actually learn to walk? by smashing our ass out countless times on the ground until we finally did it. Same thing when learning to cycle, or skate, or learning our mother-tongue, or learning a different language. The common denominator of our successes is the continuous failure from which we have learned.
Think of Thomas Edison – the guy thanks to whom we have light in hour houses – he was working on some models of light bulbs and he had to go through 10000 versions that failed before inventing the right one. During a press conference a journalist asked Edison “how did you feel about failing for 10000 times”, and he replied “I didn’t fail at all, I have only discovered 9999 ways of how not to build a light bulb”.
This mindset helps you to consider the lack of success as invaluable hints and opportunity to get better, and not as failures.
Identify why do you feel bad about failing.
Feeling bad when we fail is normal, but this should be due to the fact that we are not quite there with the results we were hoping for, and this phase is usually followed by an analytical phase where we try to understand what we have learned from it, and what could we have done better.
But if there is something else that makes you feel bad when you fail that goes beyond what we have discussed above, try to pin point what it is. Ask yourself what you feel the way you feel, write it down if necessary.
Do you feel bad because you have let yourself down? because you think that all your effort came down to nothing? because you think you have disappointed people who believe in you? because you think that you have lowered the other people’s expectations?
Whatever your question is there is only one answer: you are not a machine and failing is normal.
Whatever it is try to get at the root of it, and address it first. Try to scrape-off from yourself the fear of being criticized and do what you do for yourself and for no-one else. Failing is normal, embrace it before it destroys you.
Fail Fast
The philosophy of “fail fast” is very well known, especially in the start up context. If “failing” is a synonym of “learning” (as it should be), the phrase “fail fast” can be translated into “learn fast”. The more you develop your tolerance for failure, the faster you can get over the initial emotional part, the faster you can learn, and the faster you can succeed.
Change
Whatever your strategy, method, or plan was, it led you to fail… it sounds harsh, but that’s what it is. There is no point in repeating what you did because you already know where it will lead you, so change your plan. Try to objectively analyze what you did and spot some flaws. Don’t be afraid to ask for feedbacks to whoever you think can help you, step out of your comfort zone and try new strategies.
Don’t compare yourself to anyone else
Everybody is different and everybody has their own strategies and their own methods. What works for them won’t necessarily work for you. Take a moment to think about it, how does comparing your weakness with someone else’s strengths going to help you? Do you really think they will size up? Comparing yourself to others takes up energy that you could use to actually improve yourself.
The only person you should try to be better than is who you were yesterday.
Although when we think of successful people we start to think at fame, wealth, and high social status, in its most simplistic form, success is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. This is something that we have to keep in mind when we talk about success because we tend to wrongly label successful people by the numbers of figures in their bank account or Instagram followers. And yes, all the big names out there (Tesla, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc…) have both money and followers, the underlying common denominators that took them where they are are passion, hard work, sacrifice, time and patience.
We all see successful people as beautiful, tasty cakes, a product of a recipe that shaped them as such, and we want to follow the same recipe that made them successful. That’s why we get hooked up when we see “The 5 habits of Successful People”, because we hope that by literally and religiously following those steps we will become as successful in life as they are.
But the reality is, we can be successful in our own ways, without the freezing cold showers first thing in the morning, or waking up at 4:50am everyday, as we read and watch everywhere on the web.
Don’t Wake Up at stupid o’clock in the morning.
Why? Because if you are 28 years old and you have been having the same routine for the last 10 years waking up at 8:30 in the morning, it is highly unlikely that you will find the motivation to implement this in your routine for years on end. It might last from less than a week to 10 days and than it will start to fade off.
We have all read articles and watched inspiring Youtube videos where the first thing they mention is to wake up at 5 o’clock in the morning (or similar times) in order to be a successful person in life.
I have tried several times over the years to implement this habit inside my routine, and I have systematically failed every single time because I am not a 5:00 am kind of person. If anything it led me to believe that I wasn’t made to be successful because of my failure to wake up at 5:00 am.
If you are a morning person and you naturally wake up early, well… good for you. If you are more of a late-morning person than guess what… it is totally fine and you won’t be less successful than the early bird.
There is an amazing book, which I highly recommend you to read/listen, called “Why We Sleep” by Dr Matthew Walker, a scientist and professor of neuroscience and psychology. In his book, he states that there are two kinds of people: the early birds, people who naturally wake up early in the morning, and the night owls, people who go to bed late at night and wake up later in the morning. This reveals that our sleep schedule is not just a personal preference but there is an innate, biological predisposition that also has a genetic component. Early riser find their productivity peak in the morning whereas night owls find their productivity peak in the early afternoon and evenings. It is hard to be a night owl in a society that wants you to be an early riser, because they have to fight against their innate sleep timing in order to fit in, and this can heavily affect how you sleep, how you eat, your mood and health.
In summary, it is not waking up stupidly early that will make you successful, but what you will do from the time you open up your eyes and get out of bed.
Start with the end
Whatever is the project you are working on, try to start with the end. Having in mind what you want your final product to be like gives you the possibility to be a lot more efficient when you actually work to make it. This is because having your eyes fixed on your final product will help you to determine what tools and techniques you will need in order to achieve it. It also gives you the right positive mindset to start and work on it, because in that case we become goal oriented, and it will make less frustrating working on the tedious staff that we need to work on in order to achieve our goal.
Look forward to fail
To me this sentence is equal to “to look forward to learn”. Failing is unpleasant, and no one wants to. It gives a feeling of not being able to achieve something, and that we worked hard for nothing. The truth is that failing is a crucial part of the learning process, we get better and better each time we fail. The most vicious loop you can fall into is failing and do the same things that brought you to fail all over again. We have to be mindful every time we fail, process and acknowledge the failure and retrospectively look at our work spotting potential flaws and reflecting what we could have done better or differently. So, in essence, you either succeed or learn, you never truly fail.
Plan your day the night before
Planning your day the night before is an effective time-management skill that allows you to be more organized during the day.
Having a list of things to do gives us the opportunity to waste less time in actually thinking what we need to do during the day. There is the temptation to be carried away by the enthusiasm of being productive the day after, and this takes us to write down way too many tasks on our list, probably even big tasks that require a lot of time and energy in order to give us the satisfaction to cross them out. So, there my be the risk that you will be left with way too many unchecked things in your list at the end of the day, and this can give you a feeling of “I haven’t done enough”. So here’s my suggestion, write down only a few tasks that you think are realistically achievable and estimate the right time you think you will need in order to complete them, and most importantly prioritize them. Leave the most challenging ones to the time of the day where you think you have your productivity peak, but off course this will then greatly depend on your work and life schedule.
Make your bed
Although I might sound like your mom now, this is a take-home message I have actually taken from the homonymous book “Make your bed” by William H. McRaven. It might sound like a simple task, and it certainly is, but making your bed as soon as you wake up will actually let you start the day with your first accomplishment, your brain will start to release endorphins because if there is one thing the brain loves is to have that feeling of accomplishment after completing a task this will accoany all the way through the night time when you go back to nicely done bed.
Prefer quality over quantity
This is quite self-explanatory, but preferring quality over quantity is better in the long term. Although preferring quantity can somehow gives a sense of satisfaction as we have a feeling that we achieved more (with little effort) and we have been very productive. But if you think at the meaning of the word productivity: “the effectiveness of productive effort”, you will soon realize that it is better to focus on three tasks and do them well, as opposed to doing ten tasks superficially and with the mindset of “I just want to get rid of this task so I can cross it out from my list”, with the risk of actually having to make them again in the future.
COVID-19. A virus, an epidemic, a pandemic, the beginning of an unprecedented period characterized by uncertainty, sadness, distancing, bereavement, job loss and negative economic impact.
If you are reading this, sit down, grab a cup of coffee and buckle up because I am taking you to an eye-opening journey that will cover everything you need to know about COVID-19
Today is Saturday the 13th of June 2020. Well, random sentence that might seem unrelated to this topic. But when we talk about these kind of stuff it is important to know when these information and statistics are given to you. All the information provided in this article are valid and up-to-date at the moment of writing this article. And that’s the beauty of science, what it might be true today it might not be true tomorrow, because the more time goes by the more we learn about this virus that could either agree or disagree to what we knew yesterday.
Coronavirus is a family of respiratory viruses responsible for some conditions in humans that can space from the common cold that you and I get every year to other respiratory syndromes. It is also very common in some animal species like bats. Its name comes from the characteristic crown-like spikes that it has on its surface.
Although the name of this pandemic has changed over the course of these months, the World Health Organization (WHO) has baptized this condition with the name of COVID-19: Co (Corona), Vi (Virus), D (disease), 19 (year 2019) because in December 2019 China identified a new strain of coronavirus which was never identified before in humans, and which was causing unusual types of pneumonias. It all seemed to start in Wuhan, in the province of Hubei.
Coronavirus, COVID-19, SARS-CoV2 – which one to use?
It all sounds pretty confusing and sometimes these words are (wrongly) used interchangeably to indicate the virus or the pandemic. So let’s get familiar with the terminology here: Coronavirus refers to the family of viruses (see above); SARS-CoV2 refers to the specific strain of the virus which is causing this pandemic, it is called SARS because it is genetically linked to the strain of virus that caused SARS in 2002; COVID-19 refers to the condition caused by the virus SARS-CoV2.
Where does it come from?
Despite all the conspiracy theories out there, to date the most accredited theory is that SARS-CoV2 started with the transmission from a bat to a pangolin (see picture below) and then passed on to humans. This happened in Wuhan, and more specifically in a ‘wet market’. Very rarely the strains of coronavirus affecting animals are directly transmissible to humans. But in certain cases the virus can mutate so much so to be transmissible to humans using other animals as vectors.
It is not a laboratory invention, it is what happens when you disturb nature and offer yourself as an alternative host for the virus that lives on wildlife animals.
This is not a new thing at all. In case you didn’t know many viruses that we know today come from animals and scenarios like the one we are living today happened over and over again in the past.
HIV – 1920
HIV crossed from chimps to humans in the 1920s in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. This was probably as a result of chimps carrying the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV), a virus closely related to HIV, being hunted and eaten by local people. The virus was transmitted either by eating their meat, or with their blood getting into cuts and wounds on people in their course of hunting.
Ebola – 1976
Ebola virus was discovered near the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Similarly to HIV, the most trusted theory is that the virus was passed on from bats to non-human primates and than passed to humans via direct contacts of blood or other bodily tissues.
SARS – 2002
For example, in 2002/2003 something very similar happened when a strain of coronavirus was passed on from bats to civets (animal found in tropical Asia and Africa) and then to humans. This gave rise to an epidemic called SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and it stared in China, specifically in the wet market of Foshan (southern China).
MERS – 2012
In this case a strain of coronavirus was passed on from bats to camels and than to humans. This gave rise to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome also knows as MERS. The outbreak happened in the the Saudi Arabia peninsula.
Why China?
But why COVID-19 originated in a market? And why in China? And why SARS started in China in 2002? And how could a bat infect a civet cat in the case of the SARS? and how could a bat infect a pangolin in the case of the COVID-19? And why are there tropical animals in China?
Let’s start by clarifying what wet markets are. Wet markets are types of market where live animals are butchered and sold. These animals include chicken, bats, goats, crocodiles, civet cats, pangolins, dogs, cats, koalas, snakes and rats (just to mention a few). These markets are scattered world-wide mainly in Africa, Saudi Arabia, South-East Asia and a few areas of Latin America. But the most well-known and powerful markets are in China, like the ones where SARS and COVID-19 originated from, Foshan and Wuhan wet markets respectively. These markets are well known for the variety of wildlife that they have, animals from all over the world with each one with its own potential to carry its virus to the market.
Animals are stack in little cages one on top of the other, making it possible for cross-contamination to happen with fecal material, blood and pus to drip on other species.
This condition creates the perfect “soup” for viruses and bacteria to thrive and to be transmitted to different animals and then to humans.
Nature didn’t really predict that a bat would be over a pangolin, or over a dog, or over a camel in an environment very close to humans.
The reason why all these animals are in the same market at the same time is because of a decision made by the Chinese government a few years ago.
In 1970 China was going through a very rough period, the communist regime had the control over the food production, and it was struggling to feed its 900 million people, 36 million of which died because of very little food resources. In 1978 the Chinese regime allowed private farming and many farmers did very well with swine and poultry meat, but small farmers could not still sustain themselves, and they started to hunt and sell wild animals.
China saw a very lucrative business with the trade of wildlife, and in 1988 the government approved the “wildlife protection law”, which stated that wildlife belonged to the government and it also encouraged the domestication and breeding of wildlife. These animals were than introduced to the wet market to make profit out of them.
Parallel to this activity, an illegal commerce was also developing, with the importation of endangered species like tigers, rhinos and pangolins to China and sold in the wet markets. These animals were used not only as food, but also as aphrodisiac ingredients mainly bought by rich people.
In 2000, the markets were full of a wide variety of wildlife and this brought to the SARS outbreak in 2002, originating from Foshan. Scientists found out that the virus shared the genetic material of civet cats, and the Chinese government was forced to shut the wet market banning the breeding of wildlife.
However, a few months after, China not only reopened the wet markets, but it legalized the breeding of 54 species of wildlife, including civet cats.
We all know the very similar story that led us to this situation today.
How does the virus attack the body
The virus spreads via respiratory droplets either directly (for example a person talking/sneezing very close to us) or indirectly (for example touching contaminated surfaces).
Once the virus enters into your body from either your eyes, nose or mouth it starts by attacking your upper respiratory system from your nasal mucosa to your throat, hence the temporary loss of smell, taste, as well as flu-like symptoms. According to the CDC, symptoms might appear 5-14 days after the exposure to the virus. When the virus reaches the lungs it deposits in the air sacs called alveoli, which are extremely important structures in your lungs where oxygen can get distributed into the body via your circulatory system. The immune system tries to fight off the virus, and this generates local inflammation. Depending on the severity of the infection, fluid and pus builds up in the air sacs and this generates bronchitis and pneumonia. At this point oxygen cannot reach the blood vessels and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) might happen. It may be required to place the patient on a ventilator to help supply the oxygen.
In critical cases, the combination of lack of oxygen to the rest of the body and this persistent infection can lead to organ failure that can potentially be fatal.
The mortality rate varies depending on the age group of the affected patients as well as the presence of underlying medical conditions (i.e., hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, chronic respiratory illnesses, cancer, immunosuppressed patients, etc).
Symptoms
COVID-19 presents with the following symptoms
Coughing
Throat-ache
Fever
Muscular and joint pain
General feeling of being unwell
Shortness of breath
Congested or runny nose
Anosmia (loss of smell sensation);
Ageusia (loss of taste sensation);
Some people can be asymptomatic, which means that they present no symptoms at all and still be positive.
Testing
As a general rule, if you have been in contact with anyone with COVID-19 or have the symptoms discussed above, you have COVID-19 unless proved otherwise by reliable testing.
To date, two types of tests are available for COVID-19: viral tests, which tells you if you have a current infection; and antibody tests, which tells you if you have been previously exposed to the virus.
Treatment
To date, the only treatment available at the moment is supportive care (pain killers, fluids, ventilator etc…) but there is not a gold standard cure as such. However, there are several clinical trials out there that are tying to come up with a cure for it.
As of today, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approved the emergency use authorisation for three drugs: hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine (anti-malaria drugs), remdesivir (anti-viral medication), and a drug used to sedate people on a ventilator.
A very promising and safe treatment seems to be the hyper-immune plasma transfusion. According to preliminary studies, transfusion of plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19 appears to be safe for severely ill patients and may speed up recovery. Again, the level of evidence for this treatment method is very premature at the moment.
Vaccine
As of today, there is no vaccine against SARS-COV2. There are about 100 active projects worldwide that are working restlessly to develop an effective and safe vaccine. Some researchers are positive to deliver the vaccines within next year.
With no doubt 2020 has started in quite a unique and unprecedented way. The Coronavirus pandemic forced us to stay at home, and suddenly our strict and busy schedule turned into an empty agenda, a white canvas that, at the beginning, we could only fill in with grey colors, as the uncertainty of what was truly happening and not being able to see an end to it was overwhelming.
But if for some of us it was a period of uncertainty, financial difficulty, and despair for others it was an opportunity for self-discovery and meditation, starting to question whether you are in the right job, or in the right relationship or in the right mindset to thrive. It was (and still is, as of today) an opportunity to analyze ourselves and find those gaps in our lives that we could fill in to make our life more meaningful, our relationship stronger, ad to be a better version of ourselves.
In other words, it is a great opportunity for change and self-improvement… because this is the mindset of successful people, seeing opportunities where others see a problem.
During this period we started to ask ourselves “How can I fill my time?”, “How can I be more productive during this period?”, “How can I make the most out of this time?”.
If anything now you have more time, more freedom… and no more excuses!
What better time to start a new skill then? So here’s my top 5 skills you can learn during this lockdown.
Learn How to Code
If there is one thing I would highly recommend is to learn how to code. This is an invaluable skill that will become handy in pretty much every single aspect of your life.
Knowing how to code teaches you how to solve your everyday problems more quickly and efficiently. And this is because it will teach you how to look at problems in a different perspective, breaking them down in multiple easy problems.
It also opens up your mind to new business ideas.
Have you ever encountered a problem in you daily life where you said “oh man, I wish there was something to solve this problem” or “I wish there was something that could make this situation easier”. Well, that’s what Mark Zuckerberberg asked himself when he wanted to rate the attractiveness of college students, and he came up with ‘Facemash’ which then developed into the multi-million dollar social platform that we all know as Facebook. Another good example is the story of Jan Koum, a Ukrainian American entrepreneur who asked himself “I wish there was a way to text my American pals from Ukraine with my internet connection without spending a fortune with SMS”, and that’s how he came out with another multi-million dollar app that we use everyday called Whatsapp.
I can’t possibly compare myself to the above-mentioned big names, but I will try anyway… I was looking at a way to travel and at the same time trying to offset the CO2 emissions that my travel choice produced. So I started to build this travel search engine whose profit goes towards tree planting. You can have a look here at O2GO.
This skill also gives you the possibility have a side-hustle job, like a web-developer, data-analyst, programmer or any job where coding skills are required.
So… there are a lot of of programming language out there, and the one you decide to use really depends on the nature of the project you want to work on.
If you are a beginner, a good starting point is the “Holy Triad” – HTML, CSS and JavaScript, which are the building blocks of coding. There are plenty of free resourced out there, and if you are interested I have made a course on how to code. This course will take you from the very beginning of coding and will take you to an intermediate advanced level. By the end of the course you will be left with tons of transferable skills that can be applied on any project you want. My course is on Skillshare.com and you will get a 2 months free Premium subscription if you sign up through this link.
Learn To Cook
Among other restrictions, lockdown for us also meant no more restaurants, no more pubs, no more takeaways (…ish) and learning how to cook has become a primary need.
Cooking is one of those skills that we start by thinking “C’mon, how hard could that be?” until we actually try, mess up, get told off by wife/husband, intoxicate our guests, and realize that it is way harder than we actually thought. How many of us tried at least once during this quarantine to prepare a sourdough bread starter? How many of us failed? well.. I did, at least four times before getting it right (…ish). The point is, cooking is a lot more than just a quick mix and match to satisfy our daily energy need. It is science, chemistry, technique, knowledge, discipline, culture, and art. It needs a lot of practice and patience in order to master it and is one of those skills that you can only get better at.
I personally can’t think of one single reason as to why you shouldn’t learn how to cook. So, here are some reasons why you should learn how to cook:
It is a hobby: As I said above, cooking is science, chemistry, technique, knowledge, discipline, culture, and art.
Good for your health: Take-aways and fast-foods are known not to be the healthiest choice, but taking them sporadically is OK. When you cook you are in control of what you are feeding your body with, you know the freshness of the ingredients, you can control the quantity of salt, oil and butter in your dish.
Good for your wallet: Well, that’s actually self-explanatory… on average a person spends $40-50 when going out to eat, and sometimes this is only for a basic meal with a starter, a main and (maybe) a glass of cheap wine. What can $40-50 give you if spent in a grocery store? Well, for me that would be a week worth of food.
Impress your family and friends: Nothing gives more satisfaction than to impress your guests with a nice warm meal cooked with your very own hands and taking credits for your effort and creativity.
It helps you to understand more about a culture: Food is strictly related to the culture of a country, and to best know a culture, you have to start from its cuisine.
It is relaxing: I don’t know about you, but when it comes to cooking it is my favorite time of the day. Kitchen, making great foot, listening to good music, sipping a glass of wine… the perfect equation for a bit of me-time and relax.
Ok, I have convinced you to start (hopefully), but you only have a limited budget or you simply don’t want to spend any money on it. Well, don’t be daunted, there is a plethora of resources out there on the web which are free and extremely useful to get you started. Whether you are a complete beginner, or you want to master a certain technique (i.e., speed chopping, slice a fish), or specialize in a cooking niche (i.e., vegetarian, pastry), or a particular cuisine (i.e., Italian, Greek, Lebanese, Indian), this is the right moment to start.
For beginner and intermediate level I recommend you to start with some free resources like Youtube tutorials, cooking blogs, or subscribe to Skillshare – there are a lot of cooking courses there and if you subscribe with my promo-link you will get a free, no obligation, Premium subscription of 2 months. It will probably redirect you to my coding course, but if you are not interested in that, browse to the cooking session after you complete your registration.
If you think you have some advanced cooking skills and don’t mind investing a bit of money towards your cooking passion, I recommend you to sign up to one of those online cooking masterclass held by professional chefs.
Photography
Whether it is for a hobby, or wanting to get better at taking awesome pictures for your son’s birthday or your friend’s wedding, or you’re planning to sell your pictures online, or wanting to create the foundation for a side-hustle career, knowing how to take good pictures is a versatile skill.
A good picture doesn’t come out from the scene you are looking at, but it gets first composed in your mind. That’s the point of photography, capturing the shot that you have in your mind.
It all sounds easy because we get deceived by the simplicity of the action to actually take a picture… pressing a button, and we can get pretty good pictures in the auto mode. But what if we shoot in any other modality other than automatic? “the focus is wrong… delete!”, “too bright… delete!”, “too dark… delete!”, “blurred… delete!”…. Ok whatever… back to Auto mode.
Getting started is not that difficult, it all depends on understanding a few basic principles like ISO, aperture and shutter-speed, having a look at the environment where you are shooting, and adjusting those settings to find a compromise between the environment requirements and what you want to achieve.
Learn a new language
When I happen to talk to a person whose English is his/her first (and only) language, and they find out I am Italian, 99% of times I get told “Oh wow, cool… I wish I could speak Italian”. Ok… let’s face it, the majority of English speakers are lazy when it comes to learn a new language, and this is primarily because they don’t need to. English is the widely used pretty much anywhere in the world. Probably I would be lazy to learn another language too if English wasn’t my first language.
So why should you learn a second language?
It helps you when traveling – Although English is widely spoken pretty much everywhere in the world, you might encounter some situation where knowing a particular language can save you from embarrassing or tricky situation, whether you get lost in the middle of nowhere, or asking for some information to locals. It also shows a sign of minimal effort as a tourist, and this will get hugely appreciated by locals, and it helps you to understand more about a culture.
Training your brain – The area of the brain used to learn new language is also used for concentration and focus when there are distractions around you. So, learning a new language improves your concentration ability. It also promotes the integrity of your white matter as you age, so it strengthens and maintains the connections between your neurons.
Broaden your friendships – Learning a new language can also help you to establish and maintain new friendship that wouldn’t be possible due to language barrier.
Impress family and friends – Show off in front of your friends and family. You’ll never know if they will pay for a holiday for you to be their guide and translator.
There are many free resources out there. My personal recommendation is Duolingo – a free app to learn the language you want from the ground up. It is fun, only takes 5 minutes a day, it is user friendly and super helpful. Give it a try!
Learn to play an instrument
Learning an instrument has the same benefits on the brain as learning a new language (read above) and that’s already a big bonus per se.
Learning to play an instrument is not one of those things that don’t happen overnight or after a week of practice. It requires time, practice, passion and a lot of patience. At the beginning it might be daunting, because you will realize how clumsy you are when you put your hands and the output is everything but a pleasant sound. But with consistency and patience I can guarantee that after a couple of weeks you will be able to notice the difference, and that realization on how good your getting will fuel your future motivation to improve even more.
Musical instruments can be extremely expensiveness, but as a beginner you don’t need a Stradivari violin, or a Steinway and Son grand piano. You can ask to family and friends if they have the instrument you want to learn you can borrow from them, or buy a cheap one to get started. My personal favorite site is Gear4Music, where you can find the instrument that fits your budget.
As for resources, Youtube is flooded with tutorial for any kind of level. But if you are serious about it and willing to invest some money in this passion I would recommend you to pay a private teacher.
So, whether you want to play just for fun, put up some gigs with friends, entertain guests or train your brain, learning to play a musical instrument is definitely a good investment of your time.
If you want to know more about these skills or have any questions (resources suitable for you, more information, etc…) drop me an email that you can find in the About Me section, and I will point you to the right direction.
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This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
