Do you use Medium?

Turns out you should. It's the next big thing. Actually, it's already a pretty big thing.

For those of you who don't know what Medium is, it's basically an online publishing platform for anyone to share stories. It's kinda of like a magazine for personal blogs. You should check it out. 

I started reading it regularly a few months ago. It's cool because I simply chose the topics I am passionate about and every day I get a daily digest email with the latest posts for those topics. Many things there are different than my usual list of regular reading which is why I enjoy this so much, for example there are lots of personal posts (like this or this or this) rather than just the usual industry-related stuff that I follow and so it's nicer to start the day with such an inspirational piece or some sound leadership or business advice.  

I only posted something on Medium a couple of weeks ago because I feel it needs to be more personal there, different than what I usually publish here or on LinkedIn. I'll certainly be exploring it more but what I noticed is how people like, recommend and highlight pieces of your post. It's really cool to see which thoughts of yours people find most interesting and worth remembering. This is how this awesome feature works: 

It's not often that when a company introduces a new feature, it gets adopted by all users (think about the new Facebook Like Button reactions - I haven't even used one yet). Medium has succeeded here as users seem to love highlighting things. 

Anyway, what I really wanted to share with you today are the 101 top Medium highlights for 2015 as compiled by my company in the below Slideshare, and the 12 quotes that stood out to me the most.

You know me, I love reading and I love quotes (here's a quotes compilation, and another, and another, and another) so I couldn't resist. 

I wouln't leave you without the ones that most got to me so here's a list of my favourite highlights form the deck and some thoughts on each of them. 

12 Highlights from Medium's 2015 Top Posts That Got To Me:

"It's only in mid-life that we finally realize, there was no need to hurry."

I so suck at this. My life moves so fast, I need to learn to slow down because I'm burning out. 

"We’re among the first generations expected to maintain connections with every single person we’ve ever met, thanks to the Internet. The weight of our swollen social networks can be super stressful, let alone a distraction from knowing who you want to focus your time on."

This is what makes us busy all the time. Busy and in a hurry. Running in all possible directions instead of focusing on the most important, on what we excel at so that we get better and better. 

"What is wrong with wanting to give? Being positive? Making sure everyone around you is happy? To me, these sound like the furthest things from a “weakness” and it blows my mind why people would want to label it as such."

Here we are again at the old understanding of business and how it all revolves around making money and forgetting that it's all a vicious circle. Happy employees make happy customers. It's as simple as that.  

"There’s a sort of barbell effect: If you are super small and super focused and super niche you can succeed, arguably. And if you’re super huge and mass and gigantic and growing quickly, you can succeed. But in the middle, is death. The valley of death. So arguably we got caught in that valley of death."

This one nails why positioning is so important as I've been preaching this for my agencies. Why does anyone want to be stuck in the middle? 

"We find that it’s not unusual to discover that different people in the room had just attended completely different meetings."

So funny and so true. We sometimes just overdo it with meetings or prolong or plan them for way too long. I like walking meetings or quick coffee chats. It's so much more productive. 

"We wouldn’t go to work drunk, so why the hell do we go to work on four hours’ sleep, when we’re more impaired than if we were hammered?"

Fair question, isn't it? I don't drink alcohol but I've learned to prioritse my sleep. Otherwise I don't function. And I want to thrive. 

"I am not a misanthrope. I am never mean to the people I meet. But experience tells me that, in most cases, I prefer my own thoughts to yours. Sorry. It’s nothing personal."

Haha this one so applies to business too! People don't want to listen to how awesome your product is, they want to talk about themselves. If they want your product, they'll find it on their own. 

“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” 

The ugly truth. There's nothing more I can say here. 

"Indecision is a bad decision."

This is so simple, yet we mess this up so often. And we find excuses, we always find excuses. But as another quote said earlier, it's our lives and it's our choices and decisions that define them. 

"The research is clear: beyond ~40–50 hours per week, the marginal returns from additional work decrease rapidly and quickly become negative."

Nothing to add here. The research said it. 

"I spend so much of my day having information pushed at me, yet I spend almost no time to actually process it."

This is my nemesis too. Information just flies all the time at me and I feel I don't spend enough time reflecting on it. My days are so crazy that I don't even remember what happened just the day before.

"Rate the importance of a task by asking yourself, “If this is the only thing I do today, would I be happy with today?”

My challenge this year is to learn to say "no". No to things that won't bring me futher and just be another burden. 

I hope these inspire you but I mainly wish that they make you consider them deeply. And I wish that they not only make me think, but really sink in my head and make me take action.