Last summer I joined Austrian fintech unicorn Bitpanda as Chief Growth Officer, with a straightforward mission: to build a high-performing growth organisation. A lot has changed during this time, and so has the scope of my role. After multiple conversations and careful consideration, I realised that I simply don’t belong to the crypto world, so I decided to step down from my role and move on.
Every new year is commonly perceived as a new beginning. However, the only thing that changes is the calendar year. Not me or you. While it would be great to be able to reset every once in a while, truth is change is a process and it doesn’t happen overnight. So no, you’ll not be happier, healthier, thinner or richer starting Jan 1st. Or any other day for that matter. We’re pretty much the same as we’ve been the day before.
That being said, I think NYE is a good opportunity to take an introspective look, look back with a learning mindset and look forward with optimism and determination. And I don’t think resolutions are bad in themselves. Quite on the contrary, they are very similar with business goals & KPIs: only useful if they’re set in a SMART way, as your North Star, this time at a personal level.
Unsolicited advice has been with us since forever, but has become even more bothering with the rise of the Internet and social networks. Welcome to the internet, where everyone has an opinion about everything. Particularly about how you should live your life, raise your children, build your business, make life-altering choices. You name the topic, they have the solution because they know better than you, don’t they?
When I became a mother I unintentionally stepped into the world of unsolicited advice, where everyone knows how to raise your child better than you do. Truth is I’ve been living in this world before being a mom, but it didn’t affect me as much. In fact, it didn’t affect me at all in recent years. That’s because I’ve become indifferent to what other people say (or think, for that matter) and I’ve built the self-confidence I need to make informed decisions and live with their consequences, good or bad, afterwards.