#34: Birthday trip to Stockholm
And why you should start being more authentic, both online and offline
Hey friends,
I am writing this newsletter from a coffee shop in Sweden; It’s -9C outside but warm and cozy inside, so I’m excited to share what I’ve been doing over the past week.
First things first, today is the last day you can take advantage of the 85% discount on my Agile Productivity course by using “BF2023” as a code when you check out.
1/ A few updates from my side.
We had a public holiday in Romania on the 30th and the 1st of December, and we took this opportunity to visit our friends in Stockholm.
There’s so much to tell you that I don’t know where to start.
First of all, everything is covered in snow, and everyone has lights and candles in their windows, so it’s a magical place.
Our friends have a lovely brown Labrador, and we walked with him in a forest near their house. We went and drank Glogg (Swedish mulled wine) in one of the many Christmas markets and wandered around the streets.
My birthday was on the 2nd, and incidentally, we were booked for a Juleboard for lunch.
A juleboard is a Swedish Christmas buffet that is served during the holiday season.
We had a lot of traditional meals (most of them including herring or some other type of fish), drank schnapps and Christmas beer, and had a lot of fun.
We ended our days with some classical Christmas movies, like “Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Holiday”.
But this was only the first part of the vacation, as we haven’t left yet, so I’ll tell you more about it next week.
My friend, Madalina, who started a “wellbeing” calendar on her Instagram account, inspired me to have a gratitude calendar in December.
What does that mean? It means every day this month I will post one thing I am grateful for, with some reasons for it.
This will be on all my social media accounts, so you can follow through on LinkedIn or Instagram.
I think it’s important to take some time and reflect on the good things in our lives.
I want to take advantage of this holiday season to leave aside the business and leadership aspects of my writing and maybe inspire some of you to reflect on the things you should be grateful for.
Until now, I was grateful for the following:
Dec 1st: My health
Dec 2nd: My memories
Dec 3rd: Books
I can’t wait to see what I’m grateful for this week. Follow me to find out.
2/ Embracing Authenticity
In light of my decision to take a step back this month, relax more, and write about the things I am grateful for, some feelings came creeping in.
The voices in my head started talking (they’re not really voices; it’s a metaphor; don’t call the ambulance yet):
“But if you don’t write about career growth, your followers will be disappointed.”
“You won’t be associated with leadership anymore, but with new-age mambo-jumbo”
But then I thought about it more, and I came back to a principle I hold dear: authenticity.
We get so caught up in other people’s expectations that we stop being authentic.
We become afraid to show sides of us that don’t resonate with how other people see us.
We stop being who we are, and we become only what others think we are.
This happens in both our personal and professional lives.
Especially in our online personas, we feel pressured to maintain a consistent image or theme, focusing solely on what we believe our audience expects.
However, true authenticity comes from being honest about where we are and what we feel at the moment.
Gratitude, in its essence, is a practice of authenticity.
It's about acknowledging the good and the bad and finding reasons to be thankful for both.
By sharing my gratitude posts, I want to be thankful but also authentic with my audience, showing a different, more personal side of myself.
Being authentic, both online and in life, is about aligning our actions with our true selves.
It's about being brave enough to show up as we are, not just as we think we should be.
Authenticity breeds genuine connections and fosters an environment where others feel encouraged to be true to themselves.
As we step into the last month of this year, I encourage you to think about how you can be more authentic in your own life.
Whether it's through expressing gratitude, sharing a different aspect of your journey, or simply being honest about your feelings, remember that authenticity is not just about being true to others, but being true to yourself.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on authenticity and how you incorporate it into your life.
How do you balance being authentic with meeting external expectations?
3/ Recommendations: The Newsletter Launchpad
I am a part of several online communities, but if you want to build an online business, the best one for your buck is the “Small Bets community”.
The community is led by two former software engineers, Daniel Vassallo and Louie Bacaj, and is focused on getting a small project out the door and getting your first $1 online. When you join Small Bets, you'll find a support network ready to help you get your first small wins, along with regular live classes to teach and inspire you.
They have one-year and lifetime memberships, and the community is centered around a Discord server, where hundreds of people who want to start an online business talk about ways of doing that.
But the main benefit of being in this community is that there are regular “masterclasses” focused on different aspects of an online business, like “publishing books and courses on the side”, “getting started on YouTube” or “intro to google ads”.
And the most useful one, at least it was for me, is the “newsletter launchpad”, which will start these days.
It’s a 3-week course that teaches you how to start a newsletter.
You can join the course here:
https://smallbets.co/event/5e580103-8f9b-4bea-9154-605d22960bf6
PS: I have NO affiliation with small bets, and I get 0 cents if you sign up for their membership.
It’s something that I found valuable and thought you should know about.
As a side note, writing my newsletter is one of the most exciting things I do, and I think more people should do it.
Thank you for reading, and let me know if you liked something in particular in this newsletter.
Until next time,
Leo
P.S.: If you would like to read my content daily, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and Linkedin.
P.S. 2: If you want to take your productivity to the next level, check out my extensive Productivity course that can accelerate your career.