A significant part of my teaching consists of lectures. They often take on the character of a monologue and are therefore the perfect place to start transforming your education to the cloud. Back in 2017 when I was just starting out with online education however, I still felt overwhelmed. There were so many new factors to consider. I wanted to record my lectures with great visual video quality with multiple cameras, crystal clear audio and a screen capture of my slides and preferably live stream it. I have always been interested in technology and find great pleasure in figuring out how things work. But to realize full blown video production in real-time while you are simultaneously giving your lecture was indeed overwhelming. Three years later and that is precisely what I’m doing.

Education is the ultimate investment

Using your money to improve and educate yourself is the safest investment you can ever make. Because the knowledge within you, can never be taken away from you. It is eternal. No collapsing economy, stock market crash or housing bubble can touch it. No corrupt government or criminals can steal it. Not even you yourself can lose it even if you try! And the more you share it with others, the more of it you will have and the more valuable it becomes.

Education, HabitsRikard ÖqvistMay 2, 2020education, teaching, knowledge, value, investment, money, goldComment

Dress like the person you want to become

One of the greatest lies I know of, is that it does not matter how you dress. Anyone who has ever worn a dark formal suit on a funeral agrees with this statement by their action. We dress up to show respect for the dead person. There is a saying that you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and by dressing and grooming inappropriately, you will have made your first impression long before the words start coming out of your mouth. Combine it with a bad posture and insecure body language and you have the perfect recipe for failure in just about any domain.

Style, HabitsRikard ÖqvistApril 25, 2020posture, mensfashion, workfromhome, productivity, dresscodeComment

Do you believe in God?

As I learned more and more about physics, mechanics, mathematics, electronics, fluids, optics, etc, I became increasingly convinced that science could find the answers to our difficult questions. But later, when I started my PhD education and encountered the courses in philosophy, especially Philosophy of Science, something changed. When I got my PhD degree in 2017, I had found my way back to God again. I realized that God was the only rational, logical and coherent answer that would explain everything I had learned. Since then, every single area of my life that I can think of have improved. Massively.

Philosophy, HabitsRikard ÖqvistApril 18, 2020religion, god, sustainabilityComment

Why I stopped drinking alcohol

I am now into my second year since I had my last drop of alcohol. I do not miss it at all. When we were expecting our son back in 2018, I needed to be ready 24/7 to get in the car and bring my wife to the hospital. Any responsible husband, soon to be father would do the same. When our son finally was brought into this world, there where a lot of new habits that needed to be established. We had plenty of new commitments as any parent can attest, and thus there where never any proper time, nor interest to have a drink. Not until I went on a business trip a couple of months later, on the 7th of March 2019. I was staying in a nice hotel and had plenty of time to eat a fantastic dinner. Better yet, I could now enjoy a beer to my dinner, for the first time in months!

Philosophy, HabitsRikard ÖqvistApril 11, 2020alcohol, food, hangover, drunk, incremental improvement Comments

Failure is not allowed

How would you rate yourself on your ability to drive a car on a scale from 1 to 10 where 10 is the best? There are two ways to answer this question and the answer is determined by your reference points. If you accept the doctrine that failure is not allowed, you should use Lewis Hamilton, Ayrton Senna or Michael Schumacher as the reference. Consequently, your driving ability is 1, no matter who you are. Expect the same result if you compare your singing skill to Pavarotti, your cooking skill to Gordon Ramsay or your scientific ability to Einstein. The elite, unfortunately, seems to be the most common reference point. The other way to answer this question – the one I prefer – is to compare yourself to everyone else, not just the elite.

Habits, PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistMarch 14, 2020growthComment

Extreme goalsetting

What happens when you take on an extreme goal? I have found there are many benefits with this approach that can maximize your development in any discipline. First, you will never surpass the level of your greatest expectations. An extreme goal will quickly filter out most of your options until you are only left with one way forward, thus making the problem well-defined and thus easier to solve! I tried this approach out in 2017 for the first time and this was my goal “I am going to sing Nessun Dorma at least as good as Jussi Björling” and these were my constraints “and I shall do it within one year by practising 15 minutes/day.” The results blew my mind.

Habits, MusicRikard ÖqvistMarch 7, 2020goalsettingComment

Quantity over Quality

I have always been obsessed with quality. When I was little, I took great care to arrange the Lego pieces in a symmetrical fashion. Just like a Patek Philippe watch, even the pieces inside the Lego build that weren’t visible to the eye had to be perfectly arranged. Maybe it’s not a big surprise that I chose to be an engineer and later pursued a PhD in Engineering Acoustics? Quality is important, but without Quantity, progress becomes impossible.

HabitsRikard ÖqvistFebruary 15, 2020blogging, vlogging, writingComment

Incremental progress towards mastery

I have been Vlogging since the 5th of November. I had never ever tried vlogging before and did not know what I was doing or how, I just knew that I had to do it. At the time of this writing, three months have passed, and I have produced at least one vlog every single day, some days even more. How long does it take to create a habit? I read in James Clear’s newsletter that it takes forever, because the minute you stop doing it, it is not a habit anymore. However, I just realized there is another way to look at it. You can create a habit instantly. I created my vlogging habit on the 5th of November because I knew I wouldn’t skip a single day no matter what happens. Today I reached a critical milestone in my habit.

HabitsRikard ÖqvistFebruary 8, 2020vlogging Comment

My past self

In a discussion some years ago with a friend of mine, we came to the conclusion that “if a problem seems difficult, maybe it’s because you haven’t made it difficult enough”. A simple problem will have several solutions whereas a difficult problem will have fewer solutions. Crank up the difficulty level, and you might find that an extremely difficult problem only has one single solution. This makes the problem well defined and a well-defined problem is something you can work with. It doesn’t mean that the work required will be easy, but at least you will know where you need to direct your energy to solve it. And then it becomes a matter of time and persistence.

HabitsRikard ÖqvistJanuary 25, 2020productivityComment

The importance of writing

The last two months have been a wild ride. I have attended the London Real Business Accelerator, an 8-week intensive course in business development and online marketing. The course has pushed me to my limits and beyond them and expanded my comfort zone. As an engineer who has a tendency towards analysis paralysis, it is a healthy exercise to attend a program like the Business Accelerator.

Habits, PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistJanuary 11, 2020Comment

Opportunity cost

The word “yes” should be used with great care. We are constantly bombarded with options and opportunities. Every time you say “yes” to something, you are saying “no” to everything else at the same time. For example, when I decided to learn French as my new year’s resolution one year ago, I also decided not to learn any other language. I like to look at this as if I am comparing timelines. I chose a timeline where French will forever be a part of my identity.

HabitsRikard ÖqvistDecember 28, 2019Comment

Focus

These last two months have been really intense. Maybe it’s the same thing for many of us when approaching Christmas. A ton of stuff that needs to get done before the holidays. Anyway, yesterday I started to consider a different approach to my “hard work”. I know I haven’t been using my full potential. Here’s what I did.

HabitsRikard ÖqvistDecember 21, 2019deepworkComment

Consistency matters

The most important aspect of going anywhere in life to keep showing up. This is true for yourself, for your family, your business, your society, your country and all of humankind. I learned this a couple of years ago when we had a band at my old workplace. We put a backline with drums, PA, guitar and bass amps in an unused room in the basement and started to play 15-30 minutes every day instead of taking coffee breaks.

HabitsRikard ÖqvistDecember 13, 2019musicComment