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Update August 2021

2 min readAug 1, 2021

August — the most beautiful month of the year. Everybody seems to relax and start enjoying life.

I remember the first days when I started working in a multinational company after graduating from the University of Graz with a Masters's degree. It seemed like August is the month in which the entire working society is on holiday.

It didn’t change much over the last 20 years — August, the holiday month.

It has an additional flavor as it is also the month in which I celebrate my birthday.

Reason enough to pick up a habit that I learned in business:

August is the month to reconsider the strategic setup.

When I experienced my first summer in a huge public company, I asked the question? Why August?

“Most employees are on vacation, thus there is less activity in the company. The leadership and owners have sufficient time to take a few days off for a strategic retreat and talk about what changed in the past 12 months that may or may not impact the strategy of the company.”

It made total sense to me, so I adopted this strategy for my life and used August to reconsider my life’s vision. Simon Sinek has put it into a nice statement:

Start with why

The question contains to elements that I want to answer:

Changes to the why that is important to me and
What is a valid mission for this why for the coming 12 months

In an example:

One part of my why is being a sporty guy. On the one hand, because it is key to a healthy life, and on the other hand, I want to raise awareness for a healthy lifestyle through my actions.

Last year as the pandemic hit, I focused on trying out calisthenics exercises and document them on social media to show the world that no gym is needed to exercise.

This year I want to maintain this habit and try out a new sport to be more outdoors: Golf.

Enjoy your summertime.

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