# Nika Sakandelidze

> Essays and a digital library from Nika Sakandelidze — practical, first-hand insight on AI, software engineering, productivity, and self-improvement.

Source: https://nikasakandelidze.com · Index: https://nikasakandelidze.com/llms.txt

## About

I'm Nika Sakandelidze, a founder and engineer. I co-founded [Mazeg](https://www.mazeg.io/), an AI-native studio in Tbilisi. Our team takes software products from strategy and design through engineering and launch.

Most of my attention goes to AI: where it is genuinely useful, and where it still falls short. I write about the technical craft of building with AI, focused work, and the human side of pursuing ambitious ideas. I also help organize [Hacktoberfest Tbilisi](https://hacktoberfest.ge/).

## Projects

- [Lasso](https://trylasso.online/) (2026): A screen drawing and annotation app for Mac. Draw arrows, circles and numbered steps over live apps, save annotated screenshots, or let AI agents see and draw on your screen.
- [Replay](https://tryreplay.online/) (2026): A meeting recorder for Mac. Records Meet, Zoom and Teams calls without a bot, transcribes them on-device, and drafts editable notes with Apple Intelligence.
- [Tomato](https://trytomato.online/) (2026): A Pomodoro timer for Mac that times focus sessions, keeps quick notes, and shows which apps and sites took your time, all stored on your Mac.
- [Mirrorly](https://trymirrorly.online/) (2026): Docs your team and your agents write together. Teammates and AI agents like Claude Code or Codex edit the same live doc, comment, and tag each other.
- [Animated Essays](https://animatedessays.com/) (2026): Great essays by writers like Paul Graham, Sam Altman and Naval, explained in a few minutes of narrated drawing.
- [Wholelook](https://wholelook.shop/) (2026 — ongoing): Helping fashion stores sell the whole look. Turns a single product into complete, shoppable outfits from the store’s in-stock catalog, with merchandisers in control.
- [AI Fusion Photography](https://aifusionphotography.com/) (2026 — ongoing): An experimental photography vertical I coined—real photographs reimagined with generative AI to uncover creative worlds in the ordinary.
- [PromptWear](https://promptwear.ge/) (2026 — ongoing): An AI-powered apparel platform that turns a text prompt into a one-time-printed t-shirt, hoodie, or tote bag — wearable design for everyone.

## Contact

- Email: nikasakana@gmail.com
- X: https://x.com/nikaskn
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nika-sakandelidze-004720189/
- GitHub: https://github.com/nikasakandelidze
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nikasarchive
- Contact form: https://nikasakandelidze.com/#contact

## Essays

### Why Being a Good Teammate Matters When You Lead

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2026-08-23 · 2 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/importance-of-being-a-team-player

> Not the only reason leaders fail — but one of the most common ones I notice.

Leaders fail for a thousand reasons. One of the most common ones I notice: they don't know how to be a good team player. We've all been programmed to believe that theoretical knowledge, managerial skills, or psychological tricks are the most important things to focus on if you want your team to thrive.

I've seen leaders who try to skillmaxxx and check every box pop culture gave them, but still fail — often because their teammates don't want to work with them. They're too focused on getting results to learn how to be a good team player.

Often, what they're missing is simple. Being a good teammate is mostly about the subconscious meaning of your actions. People infer it even if you never say a word. For example:

- You cut someone off mid-sentence. What they hear is: "Your idea can wait. Mine can't."
- You listen without actually trying to understand. What they hear is: "I'm only here because I have to be. You don't really matter."
- You talk without thinking first. What they hear is: "Your time isn't precious. Sit with me while I figure this out."

These things seem small, but over time they change how people feel about working with you. When you lead, people copy them. They become what the team thinks is normal.

Start by reversing those signals.

Start listening before talking — actually listening. Try to understand what the other person is trying to tell you.

Think before you speak. That's just politeness: you don't disturb people with something you haven't thought through yet. It leaves a subconscious message that you respect their time.

Avoiding those signals isn't enough. You also have to send a good one.

And try to ask people if you can help. There is "together time" — planning, brainstorming, retrospecting — and there is individual deep work. During deep work, people might be struggling on their own. Offer a hand. Ask if everything is okay, without making it weird. That leaves a subconscious message that you care about them succeeding — not because you want something back.

---

### Collecting Evidence

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2026-07-27 · 4 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/collect-evidence

> You change how you see yourself by collecting new evidence — through different decisions, not motivation

You are always watching yourself make decisions - and your mind turns it into a story of who you are.

One of the most life changing ideas that i've found is this: you are an observer of your life. You are always there to see yourself choose easier path, avoid hard things,
or not engaging in an awkward conversation. Even if noone else sees them, you are always there. Based on that - over time your mind forms an opinion on what kind of person you are.

It actually works just like when you form opinions about other peple. The unsexy truth in case of other people is that you can leave others if you find out that they are unreliable or dishonest. but with yourself
you can't. At the present moment - you are stuck with the story you have been writing. So if you think yourself as a lier, dishonest, procrastinator, unreliable, etc - it means that your mind has evidence for it from the past.

Some people go through the whole life without being able to break this loop and you might too - unlsess you start collecting new eviednece.

The only way to actually change an opinion of yourself is to collect new type of evidence: that you are a different kind of a person, by making different decisions in life. Every single time
when a situation comes up where you want to improve - make sure to break the loop of making decisions that you are used to and try to make decisions from the perspective of a person you want to become. I know that It
is quite hard to do at once, but with enough practice and perseviernece it's for sure doable.

If you do it enough you will reach the inflection point where your mind will for sure analyse that you have consistently been making different decisions, thus trigerring different thought patterns and as a fact
you have formed into a different person, much better, wiser and stable.

All of this also has scientific backed reasoning called: neuroplasticity. The ability of our brains to reprogram themselves according to our consistent thoughts and actions.

If you want to chagne your life, your self - obsess over collecting facts and evidence that you are who you want to become in the future. Start today, it won't come in 1 month, you might need a lot more time, but this is
the only logical and scientific way to actually change yourself.

**Prompt to paste into an AI assistant:**

````text
You're going to help me collect evidence that I am becoming the person I want to be. Don't rush, don't hand me a tidy identity makeover, and don't try to reinvent my life in one message. Your job is to be a patient thinking partner who helps me see the story I've been writing about myself — and how to start writing a different one through real decisions.

How we work:
- Ask me **one question at a time** and wait for my answer before moving on.
- When my answer is vague, or sounds like something I think I *should* say, gently push back and ask me to get more concrete or more honest.
- Help me name specific past decisions as evidence, not vague personality labels.
- Don't let me off the hook with "I don't know" — help me explore a real recent moment instead.
- Every so often, reflect back what you're hearing so I can see the shape of my current self-story.

Walk me slowly through these, one thread at a time:
1. What story does my mind currently tell about who I am — and what past decisions gave it that evidence?
2. Who do I want to become instead — in plain, concrete terms?
3. In the situations I usually avoid or take the easy path, what would that future version of me actually do?
4. What is one small piece of new evidence I can collect this week by making a different decision?

We might not finish in one sitting, and that's fine — treat this as an ongoing conversation. When it feels right, help me turn my answers into one clear commitment: the next piece of evidence I'm going to collect.
````

Don't try to answer all of these things in one go, it's an always work in progress set of questions that you should have at your hands.

---

### The Importance of Being Bored

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2026-07-15 · 3 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/importance-of-being-bored

> Boredom isn't something to escape — it's where creativity, reflection, and real growth start

// Problem
Not knowing how to handle boredom correctly is the reason why you aren't living your best life. We have all went through this kind of subconscious programming of avoiding boredom by: scrolling on your phone, going out with friends or doing literally anything. All of us are in this never ending loop of being overstimulated -> reacting to boredom with more overstimulating activities.

// Emphasis - Make Problem Feel Huge

// Solution

Idea: Full boredom is the actual place of disregarding all the informational structures in your brain, not stressing yourself &  and having the higher chance of coming up with something new.

Uh, in today's essay and reflection, I wanna talk about the importance of being bored. What I've noticed is that in the daily cycle of a modern person, you might live for months or years without actually looking into boredom as the source of creativity, as the source of improvement, and as the source of improving your life. And we are always conditioned to think of boredom as something to avoid — with different activities like scrolling on mobile phones, going out with friends, etc.

Now that I'm thinking from personal experience, when you are bored, there is this turbulent period initially when you have to choose what you're gonna do — whether to get some cheap dopamine, whether to see friends, whether to do something else, or you decide to look at your boredom in the eyes and try to make something useful and good out of it. I've noticed that the best ideas in my mind come when I'm bored, and when I choose to spend and target my boredom in terms of reading something, understanding something, gaining some kind of new experience and thoughts and ideas.

But what is it about boredom that most humans do not like? What I've noticed is that boredom is usually associated with loneliness — well, at least for me. And we, as social creatures, do not want to feel alone. We want to be part of the group. We wanna be approved, we wanna be validated socially. For those people who especially seek social validation — maybe because they don't have enough self-confidence — and seek external and extrinsic rewards for feeling good, boredom is something to be afraid of, 'cause sitting home alone, being bored, not knowing what to do, starts emotions that make you feel odd, make you feel not part of some kind of group, especially if your peers are together, if your peers are going out.

And especially in Georgian culture, I've noticed that each and every person by default fills their boredom with some kind of social activities — and it is not conscious social activity, it is subconscious social activity, because we have been conditioned and taught from childhood that this is what you gotta do when you feel bored.

But what if I told you that starting from today, when you feel bored, when you feel alone, it is the exact time for you not to subconsciously and reactively go out with people and try to feel better and validated — but what if that is exactly the moment and time you need to look into yourself, reflect on your thoughts and emotions? And not only thoughts and emotions — maybe that is exactly the time to learn a new skill, read one or two pages of a new book, understand some new idea, and challenge your existing ones. All of these things happening inside yourself.

Finding the peace and the cure to boredom inside yourself is one of the biggest virtues and processes that one can think of and create within itself. Let's try to be more thoughtful about how we cure boredom, how we actually treat boredom, and what we can get out of it. Thank you.

---

### Be The Author Of Your Goals

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2026-07-13 · 3 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/be-the-author-of-your-goals

> Why useful skills only compound when they serve goals you have consciously chosen

Having conscious & thought through goals is more important than you think.

Lots of modern resources popularise idea that: courage, motivation, discipline, creativity and other virtues are the most important in one's success. I strongly believe that all of these (and other) things are only beneficial when you have consicous, thought through and clear goals. The easiest way i've found to explain this is using the next analogy -  Imagine that your Life is a road trip, on a road trip you have a destination that you want to visit(Goal) & on this road trip you'll have different attributes like: car, map to navigate, clothes, etc - all of these are just ways & mechanisms to get to the destination easier/faster/sane, etc. According to this analogy - Without having clear goals, every single thing you do has the risk of getting you faster to the wrong destination.

The scariest thing about this equation is the fake feel of progress. Don't get me wrong - progress, by it's very definition, is there, but it could have gotten you much further if you were on a right track. Because of this - it gets super hard to notice that you are in this loop and you need to fix something, until you arrive at the destination.

If you don't know where to start, sit down alone and try to answer these questions:
- What Do You Want Your Day To Look Like In 5 years from now?
    - What do you want to mainly think about?
    - What do you want to mainly do?
    - What kind of people do you want around you?
    - Where do you want to be?
- What Do You Not Want Your Day To Look Like In 5 years from now? (anti-goal is also very important to state)
- What habits of yours do you want to get out of?
- What new habits do you want to achieve so that they become your daily drivers?

Use this prompt in any LLM of your preference to help you start answering these questions:

**Prompt to paste into an AI assistant:**

````text
You're going to help me think through my life goals from scratch. Don't rush, don't hand me a tidy list of answers, and don't try to solve my life in one message. Your job is to be a patient thinking partner who asks good questions and helps me hear my own thinking more clearly.

How we work:
- Ask me **one question at a time** and wait for my answer before moving on.
- When my answer is vague, or sounds like something I think I *should* say, gently push back and ask me to get more concrete or more honest.
- Help me tell apart goals that are genuinely mine from ones I've absorbed from other people, social media, or expectations.
- Don't let me off the hook with "I don't know" — help me explore it instead.
- Every so often, reflect back what you're hearing so I can see the shape of it.

Walk me slowly through these, one thread at a time:
1. What do I want a normal day 5 years from now to look like — what am I mainly *thinking* about, mainly *doing*, who's around me, and where am I?
2. What do I *not* want that day to look like? (my anti-goals)
3. Which of my current habits are quietly pulling me toward the wrong destination?
4. Which new habits, if they became automatic, would carry me toward the right one?

We might not finish in one sitting, and that's fine — treat this as an ongoing conversation. When it feels right, help me pull my scattered answers into one short, clear statement of what I actually want.
````

Don't try to answer all of these things in one go, it's an always work in progress set of questions that you should have at your hands.

---

### Knowing Things Is The New Superpower

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2026-04-26 · 1 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/knowing-things-is-the-new-superpower

> Why breadth of knowledge matters more than ever in the AI era

*TLDR: In the AI era, just knowing that something exists - even without knowing how to do it - became a superpower.*

There's a kind of knowledge people have always undervalued: knowing *that* something exists, without knowing how it actually works.

Before AI, this was already useful. If you knew "there's a thing called X that solves Y", you knew where to dig when the time came. You didn't need to be an expert in everything - you just needed enough breadth to ask the right questions.

But back then, there was still a gap between knowing and doing. You still had to spend weeks learning how to actually build the thing.

AI closed that gap.

The cost of doing is now approaching zero. AI can write the code, draft the design, build the pipeline. But it can only do it if you know to ask. You can't ask for something you don't know exists.

So the bottleneck moved. It's no longer "can you do it?" - it's "do you know it's a thing?"

That's why breadth of knowledge - the kind people used to dismiss as shallow - is now the highest leverage asset you can have. Read widely. Stay curious about things that aren't immediately useful. The returns on just *knowing things* have never been higher.

---

### Sense of Urgency

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2026-03-03 · 2 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/sense-of-urgency

> Why creating and sharing a sense of urgency is non-negotiable in startups

*TL;DR: If urgency is not shared across the team, you are already slower than you think. And in startups, slow compounds into irrelevant.*

Startups rarely die from lack of ideas or motivation. They die because time quietly runs out.

Time is the only resource you cannot raise, extend, or negotiate with. Money can be raised. Talent can be hired. Strategy can pivot. Time just keeps moving.

That’s why urgency is not a “nice to have.” It’s structural. Urgency is not panic. It’s not chaos. It’s not 18-hour days or dramatic Slack messages at midnight.

It’s clarity.

Clarity that: runway is finite, market windows close, competitors are iterating while you’re polishing, every extra week of hesitation compounds.

If you don’t deeply feel that, you default to comfort. And comfort is expensive in startups.

The real problem is this: urgency often lives only inside the founder’s head. Founders see the bank account. They see the burn. They see the opportunity cost. They see how thin the margin is.

But if the rest of the team doesn’t feel that same tension, you create a dangerous asymmetry. A few people are sprinting. Others are walking. Nobody says it directly, but friction builds. Momentum leaks. Eventually, speed collapses.

Urgency cannot be isolated. It has to be shared.

Not imposed. Shared.

When a designer independently thinks, “We need to ship this this week,”
When an engineer feels uncomfortable with unnecessary complexity because it slows release,
When a PM prioritizes impact over elegance by default —

That’s alignment.

No framework creates that. No Agile ceremony injects it. Culture does. And culture is built through transparency.

If you want urgency: Show the runway. Explain the stakes. Talk about competitors honestly. Make trade-offs visible.

Let people see consequences.

When people understand the real constraints, urgency stops being a command. It becomes rational.

The strongest startup teams I’ve seen don’t talk about moving fast. They just do. Because in their mental model, moving slowly is not neutral — it’s risky.

And once that belief becomes collective, speed stops being effort.

It becomes the default.

---

### Hacktoberfest 2025

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2025-10-20 · 7 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/hacktoberfest2025

> Here i'll share some observations, learnings and advices after i've reflected on hacktoberfest 2025's event

*TLDR: I co-organized one of Georgia's largest hackathons with 110+ teams. Here are my key learnings from organizer's perspective and participant's perspective - from handling logistics to winning strategies, networking tips, and how to make the most of hackathons*

On 18-19th of October, Four Loop Podcast (which I'm a part of) co-organized one of, if not the, largest hackathon in Georgia: Hacktoberfest 2025. It was kind of amazing. So many hackers, in a single building, hacking their products non-stop for 2 days.
During these 2 days, I've had so many new observations, realizations and experiences gained, that in this essay I want to reflect on them publicly and share some of the most important points that might be interesting for you.

For you to better understand the scale & intensity of the event - there were over 110 teams, hacking non-stop for 2 days straight. Bunch of the teams did full-nighter coding sessions, without even going home. Personally I've
never even been to a hackathon of this scale, not to mention organizing one. So there were a handful of new learnings and experiences, some of them from the perspective of organizing the event and others from observing the different behaviors of participants.

## Most important is finding people with the same values to organize the hackathon with

Organizing any kind of event is quite hard. Organizing a hackathon of this scale is even harder. I can't imagine doing it without the right people around. There are so many challenges, and due to the dynamic nature of hackathons,
you can't plan everything ahead. You will have lots and lots of f*ckups. So you need to have people around who will have the same motivation and urge to react to these challenges and solve them. A 2 day long hackathon might sound easy, but
actually it's quite nerve racking, so when you get a bit tired or overwhelmed with intensity, looking at your co-organizers giving their all, you get motivated as well to do your best.

## Organizing a hackathon is very much like building a product

While planning the hackathon, it appeared to me that organizing a hackathon (maybe even any kind of event) is very much like building a software product. You have to understand what resources you have, what kind of infrastructure you need
and what is the maximum traffic that your system should handle. If this wasn't enough, one of the things we were also doing is building and writing down the flows of user personas. All the potential user flows of our participants were thought through and written down.
Which, for those of you who have built a software product, will sound familiar.

Key learning: If you are building software products the patterns will be familiar, you just have to do all of this much faster and in a much more dynamic way.

## Food and other resources are never enough - take more

This is one of the biggest learnings. Everybody knows that food and any kind of energy refuel shouldn't be underestimated, but everyone still always does it. I'm not sure yet why this happens or why
people are always overly focused on other verticals and not food, but one thing is for sure - GET A LOT MORE FOOD THAN YOU THINK YOU NEED. That's it.

## Bridging the gap between participants and the jury

As an organizer, you spend the whole time with participants, talking with them and observing their work. This makes you the only person with enough context to make the jury's judging process more fair and valid.

You as an organizer are interacting with all the participants a lot. Most of them are asking you questions, maybe you are proactively starting to engage with them, but overall - during the hackathon you are the one
getting the most context about what is happening and what kind of products are being built. This is actually very important context to share with the jury. Since for a person who might only look at source code or the product idea
and label it as good enough - you can introduce additional variables that will be much fairer, since all the context you introduce allows for much fairer normalization of assessments (especially in large hackathons where there are 100+ teams and each jury can't assess every single project)

## Be more creative, take more risk

One of the things I've observed is that most people at hackathons don't take enough risks, just as in real life. They don't try to build something amazing and they are ok with good enough or something trivial when it comes to the topic.
I think hackathons, at their core, are the place for doing some crazy things, challenging every single aspect of your creativity and skills. So why not use it? It's literally a space where nobody will be judging you (if you are afraid of it of course).
So when you get some topics of hackathon - think outside the box, don't follow the rules too much. Follow them exactly as much as it takes someone on the other side to not say "This is out of the rules" and let your imagination and creativity do the rest.

## Use AI more for ideation and brainstorming (didn't know that I would have said this tbh) - not only for coding

Now if you think that you aren't creative enough or due to some specific reason you can't let yourself be, use AI for ideation and creativity more. I've noticed that everyone is using AI for coding, but not everyone is using it for brainstorming ideas.
Those who do often use it in a very shallow manner, not providing enough context and not prompting it correctly. My suggestion would be to use AI for brainstorming, idea validation and the creative part more.

## Network more! - it's one of the most valuable assets you can take from a hackathon

I know everyone says this. During hackathons it's not as easy to network since you have so many things to do. So at least try to share your ideas with your desk mates or the teams sitting beside you.
Ask them for feedback and show them a working demo. The topic of being afraid that someone might steal your idea - isn't that relevant. Most probably someone is already doing something like yours, and I don't think that an idea in and of itself has that much value. It's more about execution, implementation and presenting it in a clear manner.

## If you want to win - do a background check on the jury members (kind of human engineering)

When you have an idea and start working on it, on the last step, ask one of your team members to do a background check on the people who are going to assess it. Do a bit of human reverse engineering. It will for sure provide valuable context to your presentation.
For example, if only technical people are going to assess your idea, there is no reason to focus on the business side of the project.

Disclaimer: Don't use this when coming up with your idea - only for tailoring the presentation.

## If you fail, learn to fail gracefully

I've noticed some participants (especially students) getting kind of angry when not winning or proceeding to the next phase of the hackathon. This isn't the right approach. The whole idea of participating in a hackathon shouldn't be to win it and boost your ego.
It should be to challenge yourself, learn as much as possible and get to know people who are better than you. Try not to get annoyed or start a blame game - instead reflect and extract as many learnings from the experience as possible.

## Face your fears! - public speaking

People go to hackathons for different incentives, but remember hackathons are one of the best places to challenge your fears. One of the most popular ones among engineers is fear of public speaking.
Challenge yourself. Trust me, if you are going to fail in the future (and you most probably will) - a hackathon is the best place to do so.

## Don't boost your ego in case of winning

If you happen to win - congrats. But winning shouldn't be the main goal, it should be a side effect of the process. Don't let your ego drive you. This applies generally to life as well.

To sum up - go to hackathons as much as you can. Challenge yourself. Network with other hackers and improve your hacking skills. Don't be afraid to take risks, fail gracefully, and use every opportunity to learn and grow.

The experience you gain, the people you meet, and the lessons you learn are far more valuable than any prize. Whether you're organizing or participating, remember that hackathons are about pushing your limits and becoming better - everything else is just a bonus.

---

### Bad Habits

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2025-09-24 · 3 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/bad-habits

> How Bad Habits Can Be Detrimental To Your Life

*TLDR: This is the first essay in my 30 day challenge. I'm using you - a person reading this - as an accountability buddy to try to commit to someting hard - to changing bad habits that i've accumulated up to this time. This is my way of trying to get back my borders, that got loosened up in many different ways.*

There are thousands of different books, articles and talks about the nature of bad habits, how to identify and break them. I'm not trying to add some new findings to this big topic - just want to share my 2 cents about it.
In this essay - i want to reflect on bad habits of mine, share my own perspective on what are the biggest struggles of breaking bad habits and using this platform i want to commit publicly(even though nobody might be reading it at the moment) to doing my best for next 30 days to break worst of these habits
that have become part of my identity.

As i've noticed, there are bunch of different types of bad habits. Each one of them have different severity. Some might be detrimental to your life and some might be just a mildly annoying thing.
I want to underline my personal experiences with severe bad habits. Severe in a sense, that not paying attention to them on time and letting them progress might easily cause catastrophic results in your life.

Most people have realisations when they observe the results of long running bad habits - and let me tell you it doesn't feel good. It feels like your whole world is breaking down.

And the worst part? - you can't change anything about it. It's already too late.

In public literature, this realisation moment is also known as "Wake Up Call". It feels like you suddenly understand what was the meaning behind the words: "If you continue doing it, it will break your life".
You suddenly understand what the meaning of serious damage in long term means - as you are standing exactly at that point.

Some people are lucky enough to have this kind of a realisation, when it's not too late, when there is still a time to turn the ship around and survive. This means that
light is stil present in your psyche, even though this light can be dimmed in certain circumstances in other ones - it shines bright. So don't let other people or outer forces
to put it out.

Some of the worst habits of mine that fundamentally go against my core principles:

- Treating other reactively: One shouldn't treat others based on their instincts, weaknesses and reactiveness. You should take care of other people just like you do with yourself

- Being addicted to sudden dopamine rush: Be it smoking a cigarrete, doom scrolling, suddenly consuming bunch of social media posts or others, i'm too addicted to sudden dopamine rushes and it wires your whole psyche in a very non-health way

- Being too self centered: It has become quite a habit for me to only think about myself. You should consciously think about other people, what part they are playing in your life and what should a healthy dynamic between you and that person look like

These are the things that i want to focus on. Let's see what happens in next 30 days.

P.S. I'll be sharing every day updates to this point of change. Hope there is still a hope, hope i've not made non refundable mistake yet. Let god decide what's better for me

---

### What's Your Attitude About Feeling Bad?

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2025-06-06 · 2 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/thoughts-about-feeling-bad

> Is it possible to limit the impact area of feeling bad in your life

It's been quite a while since I last wrote an essay. Not because nothing important has been happening — on the contrary, there are so many important events happening around me that it's been hard to find quiet time to sit & write down my thoughts.
Now at last I've found myself in a relatively comfortable place to reflect on one of the topics. This will be a short one — I promise.

As the title suggests this essay is about your attitude towards feeling bad and how tweaking it might help you handle tough life situations better.

Feeling bad — in and of itself — isn't alterable for sure. We're all human after all, and hard times come for all of us — some extremely hard, some not. But what is alterable, and even more important, is to consciously think about and realize what your attitude toward feeling bad is.
As most often - it's where the main problem lays.

The core idea is:
It's not the feeling bad itself that's the problem — it's your attitude toward feeling bad.
Most of the time, this attitude makes things worse than they are.
Shift that, and you can limit how much impact feeling bad has on you.

As i see it most of these cases appear because either a person haven't been exposed to enough painful and uncomfortable situations(having had a princess treatment their whole lives) or they've never reflected on these experiences.
Some time you SHOULD arrive at a level of life where you realize: bad things will happen to you. You will feel bad for sure — but you shouldn't let these painful experiences define you in that specific moment. Because you are more than the bad experience and feeling you're having — you are much more and you have the ability to be ok with feeling bad.

To summarize: It's not the feeling bad itself that is the main issue — it's your attitude toward feeling bad. And if you can shift that, the feeling bad doesn't have to take over the whole space. You can limit its impact.

---

### Journey Of Starting An Agency

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2025-02-17 · 3 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/why-to-start-agency

> Journey Of Engineer Building An Agency

*TLDR: This essay shares my experience transitioning from a software engineer to running a development agency, highlighting the challenges, freedoms, and key lessons learned.*

It's been a while after my last essay. I've been quite busy with getting my hands dirty with building Mazeg. I have to be honest - it's quite an interesting journey. Lots of failures, lots of mistakes but what's
more important - lots of realizations & learnings. For the context - i was a software engineer for 5 years before starting Mazeg and i think i have a great perspective on what are the initial steps
like when an engineer starts his/her own software development agency. In this essay i want to share exactly that. More specifically - here i'll talk about what are some of the things i enjoy in building software agency.

You have more freedom to make technical & non-technical decisions, since you are one of the few decision makers in the company. For the people who don't like to follow structures or processes created by others - it's a heaven since
one of the most resource intensive steps on initial steps for you as a founder is to build these structures & processes yourself.

You have to do sales, manage your team, manage the product, write code (if you want & in some cases even if you don't want), test, maintain and what's the most important manage the business. In my opinion, this
is the hardest, but at the same time most stimulating and fun part. You have to develop skills on so many verticals.

As a new agency you have to keep up with what businesses want. Most of the time - businesses want whatever is hot on the market at the moment. For us it's AI and all the related systems. It means that apart from
regular boring coding jobs, where you might need to work with bunch of legacy systems - you are on the edge of technology, keeping up with all of the newest things.

Note: This doesn't mean that you won't have to work on boring but necessary things as well, but in constrast to regular jobs here you'll for sure have to incorporate something cutting edge & get to learn it.

One of the most crucial steps is to learn to do the business and not only code. It turns out that these 2 fields are totally different and have very little in common. The paradigm of thinking is different and
it's quite hard to change the mindset.

You might think that it might be so easy to hire people and make them do stuff as a team - but while building agency, it appears to be one of the hardest parts. You'll meet different types of people, and one of your main jobs is to figure out
how to make them work together. To do this you need to actually listen to the people, understand what their needs or problems and do whatever they need. Taking in mind that you need to do this potentially for every person in your company -
It sounds to me that every person is your boss (Compared to the opposite view that - while building a business you are everyeone's boss)

You might think that running a business means spending your day telling others what to do while you enjoy a cup of coffee. While it’s true that I drink quite a lot of coffee throughout the day, the reality is quite the opposite—most of the time, it’s everyone else telling me what they need from me.
To put it another way, your “bosses” include employees, clients, co-founders, and sometimes even random people. If your main motivation for starting a software agency is the idea of being the boss, I strongly advise against it. You might be better off pursuing a more traditional business instead.

---

### Power Of Knowing When To Shut Up

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2024-11-24 · 1 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/one-of-the-most-important-actions

> Learning To Not Get In Your Teammates' way

In this short essay i want to share a recent observation about how to become a more effective team member - especially in small teams.

When you're a part of the team filled with proactive, energetic and smart people, there will always be conflicting ideas. I've noticed that the default behaviour of such people
is to always share their ideas & push for their solutions. This is natural, since they are confident & driven.

However, it's common to find yourself constantly thinking of & suggesting alternative, perhaps "better" ideas to what your teammates suggested.

To be effective as team, you must know when to shut up & let the ideas of others emerge. Of course, this doesn't mean to get to the extreme point of never sharing ideas or never suggesting stuff. It's more about knowing when to not let your ego get in the way of the team's productivity and not interfering constantly.

---

### If You Aren't Afraid Of Your Goals, You Aren't Stretching Yourself

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2024-10-27 · 1 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/streching-yourelf

> The only way i've found useful to improve

In this essay, I want to share an idea that has resonated with me so deeply it has become my motto: "If you aren’t afraid of your goals, you aren’t stretching yourself enough."

I first heard this phrase from an old friend, and since then, it has served as a reminder that I might be on the right track whenever I'm genuinely afraid of what lies ahead.
Fear of your goals can look different for everyone. It might come as a fear of crippling uncertainty, a fear of failing on a project you’re unsure how to complete, fear of not being good enough for some role, or simply negative self-talk. Whatever form it takes, chances are it’s about taking on too much—the fear of "biting off more than you can chew".

As always pop culture has its own take on this as well.

Pop culture says - you should know your limits and be not overwhelm yourself with things you know you can’t handle or are beyond your current abilities. This, it says, is better for your mental health.
I say—forget pop culture. If you want real growth, do exactly what you believe is beyond your reach. Challenge yourself in every possible way and embrace the most uncertain paths.
Be aware that sometimes (or even most of the time), failing or not being able to handle what you committed to is part of this game. Operating at your maximum means you shouldn’t expect constant success. The goal should be to get comfortable with the process of stretching yourself, not to obsess over the outcome.

Don't get me wrong. I’m not saying this approach is for everyone. Not everyone will enjoy it, but if you’re obsessed with improvement and growth, this might be the recipe for you.

---

### Build In Public

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2024-09-30 · 2 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/build-in-public

> Reminder for builders(aka engineers)

*TLDR: If you are a builder, an engineer who loves to create software products and tackle side projects, make sure to start building in public*

Most engineers/hackers i know, tend to favor building side projects in private. This is THE way for them to have fun after a hard & stressful day at work. Just imagine - no deadlines, no technology restrictions, no annoying co-workers, no bosses. It's just you, the technology you're interested in, and the project. So romantic, right? What can be better?

**Note: Everything below is true for some(not all) definition of "better" of course**

Let me tell you what can be and actually is better for you.

Building a project in public and solving a real-world problem - is much better. Building a side project not just for sake of learning, but for the sake of making someone's life easier - is much better. The solution to some of the real life problems might be not the fanciest one(in terms of tech) - but they are real deal if you want to create a real value with your code.
The main, general reason for it being better is, that it helps you break out of the bubble that most of engineers easily end up in. The bubble of - over fixating on tech, learning bunch of new technologies without ever thinking of what real life value does your code bring to people, what real life problems are you tackling with it.

To sum up - I'm not saying "do not build personal side projects". Of course you must do it; For reference - it's one of my favorite ways to improve different skills.
I'm saying(and actually asking you to) - always remember to avoid the endless loop of starting new side-projects, learning new technologies - and never thinking about what value does it have in the real world, where technology is ever-increasing, but still small part of the whole.

P.S. Do not stop working on that side project, you've just started working on. Please.

---

### only 2 types of people in tech

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2024-09-30 · 2 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/best-people-to-work-with

> What do the best people around me have in common? How to become like that?

*TL;DR: In this short essay, I want to share my observations about two types of people I’ve encountered in tech.*

Every day, I meet brilliant individuals who are doing amazing things. They are building businesses, founding tech startups, and solving real-world problems through technology. After some observation, I’ve come to realize that nearly everyone in this field falls into one of two categories:

- People with a fixed mindset: This group primarily focuses on what they’ve already learned and the experiences they’ve accumulated, rather than on what lies ahead. They lack a flexible framework of thinking that would allow them to reconsider everything from the basics if needed. When speaking with them, it’s easy to notice patterns of ego emerging. Their egos are constraining them from focusing on what's important for solving a specific issue at hand and narrows their field of view to their past experiences. In the most extreme cases - ego somehow makes these people delusional, putting them far away from the nature of the problem they are solving.

- People with a growth mindset: These individuals, both subconsciously and consciously, focus solely on solving the problem at hand & learning new things. They are willing to learn or relearn anything they know to reach a solution, even if it means changing their entire framework of thinking. They are not dominated by ego and avoid becoming overly fixated on existing frameworks for problem-solving they are familiar with. They are so obsessed with what they are doing - that they do not even care about actively promoting their past konwledeges and experiences

I’m sure each of us has a bit of a fixed mindset within us & it's totally normal, it comes by default to human psyche. My point is that we should all remember to tirelessly work toward becoming more like the second type.

---

### Why It's Okay to Feel Like a Loser

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2024-09-04 · 2 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/remember-when-you-feel-like-looser

> Read this if you are feeling like a complete loser

I want this essay to act as a reminder that it's totally normal to feel like a complete loser. A loser who hasn't yet achieved anything, who is struggling in every single aspect of life, and who doesn't have anything meaningful happening around them.

If you are a person with big dreams (like me), beware of these thoughts and feelings. They'll definitely visit you, and if you let them, they'll hurt you. Be especially wary of them at your lowest points in life, when you are tired, stressed, and overwhelmed.
I've always been afraid of these thoughts, I've always feared (who isn't?) facing the potential truth of being a loser. Because of this, I've always tried to avoid them. But...

Today, I've come to realize that the goal shouldn't be to avoid these thoughts (or not have them). The goal should be to manage them efficiently and not waste too much time or energy stressing/worrying over them.

The point i'm trying to make, is that these thoughts are actually correct and reflect reality. Yes, you are a loser. You haven't achieved anything. You do not have anything meaningful happening around you. **But all this is because you are still a WORK IN PROGRESS**. This is the objective truth that you should face, straight with your shoulders back.

You can't have a struggle-free life when you are still a work in progress.

You can't look delightfully over your biggest achievements when they are still in front of you and you are working tirelessly towards them every single day.

You can't have anything meaningful happening around you when you are still in search of meaningful things.

What if, starting from today, instead of calling yourself a loser; you started calling yourself a WORK IN PROGRESS. Maybe this will remind you to stay focused and improve, instead of stressing over your current state.

---

### Fail as much, as miserably & as fast as possible

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2024-07-07 · 1 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/fail-more

> The only way to learn as much as possible & as soon as possible

*TLDR: This is a reminder to myself and to you, the person reading this, that not only must you handle failures well, but you must also fail as often and as quickly as possible. This is the only way I've found to evolve*

Some time ago, I wrote an [essay](https://nikasakandelidze.ge/posts/embrace-failures) about embracing failures.

Today, I want to push this idea one step further. I think that, we must not only react correctly when we fail sometimes, but actually try to actively fail at as many things as possible, and as quickly as possible.

I've come to understand that making mistakes and later reflecting on them is the only way to truly learn and evolve, whether in career or personal life. Everything else is literal nonsense.

So if you want to have a great life, one where you've reached your maximum potential, say this with me:

F_ck what others think about your failure. 
F_ck what your co-workers think about your failure. 
F_ck what your family members or friends think about your failure. 
F_ck what authorities around you think about your failure. 

The only thing that matters is that you've been given another great chance to learn something important, just don't miss it. Time spent worrying over your failure is time spent not learning from it.

---

P.S. One mandatory pre-requisite i've noticed, for handling failures effectively, is self confidence & psychological safety. Both of these is absolutely needed to NOT associate your failures & mistakes with your identity. Because in case of doing so, it's effectively impossible to learn from them.

---

### Surround Yourself With Right People

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2024-05-18 · 1 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/surround-yourself-with-good-people

> What to keep in mind about people around you

*TL;DR: Surrounding yourself with people who push your limits might be the missing piece for your level up*

In every self-help book, there's an idea that you have to push through your limits to become the best possible version of yourself. And you should do it not once or twice, but every single day. In theory, it's an easy concept to grasp, nothing too fancy, right? :) But in practice, it's one of the hardest things to do. At least that's how it is for me.

I can never notice these types of opportunities on time, or some times when i notice, i struggle to execute on it. I think the main reason is that during physical or mental "pain," it's very hard for an untrained mind to notice & use these opportunities to improve and push through them with joy instead of stressing and worrying about them.

One practical way I've found to make sure I never miss(use) such opportunities (or at least maximize potential results from them) is to surround myself with people who challenge you and literally make me push through the limits. Having people around who, for mutual benefit, make you do things that you are afraid of, or things that you didn't even know were possible, is the one thing we might all be missing.

Surround yourself with these types of people, respect them, help them back, and notice a lifelong relationship emerge. Feel lucky if you already have someone like this. ;)

---

### Why I Write

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2024-04-07 · 2 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/write

> The reason i started writing and why you should as well

*TLDR: People often ask me why I started writing. In this essay, I share the main reason*

Since always, I've had a hard time thinking deeply and constructively about any given topic for a prolonged period of time.
My mind would constantly wander off in the midst of thinking about things, and this would happen non-stop, multiple times, until my original thoughts perished.

Writing has become my go-to tool to hack and solve this exact problem. When I write, I look at the materialized form of my thoughts, and if my mind starts to wander off again, I can look at my previous thoughts and get in tact with them easily.
Another important thing i've observed is that, while writing, you create a kind of "buffer" between consecutive thoughts of yours, and for a hyperactive brain, that generates too many new thoughts in a small period of time, this is an excellent way to avoid overwhelming yourself.

To make it clear for you, how much writing has influenced my life, let me share that, nowadays if I have some decision to make at work, I grab my laptop and write out what I have in mind. If I want to know how I should plan my week, I write about that, and if I want to reflect on any mistake of mine or an emotional state that I'm in, I write about that as well.
Generally, I've started writing about everything that needs a delicate way of thinking from me, and this has given a significant boost to my life in general.

As a result of this I'm much more confident in my thoughts about the topics that I've written about. So maybe you should at least try to add writing as your primary tool of thinking for some time as well and see it for yourself.

---

### Find People To Learn With

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2024-03-24 · 1 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/learn

> One thing to change in your learning process

*TLDR: If you want to learn anything effectively in a long term, find somebody to learn with*

If you're the type of person who takes the process of learning new things seriously, consider this:

What if I told you that your main problem in not being able to learn as effectively as others isn't your lack of time, focus, or motivation, but the fact that you're doing it alone?

When trying to learn something that requires a significant amount of time and effort (on the scale of months), the thing that most people struggle with is keeping a consistent pace of learning. Learning new programming languages, understanding a new piece of technology, or learning by building software projects all fall into this category.

Of course, absorbing as much information as effectively as possible is also important, but the real key to successful long-term learning is maintaining a consistent pace in it.

I think this is only possible by making the process of learning as fun, interesting, and engaging as possible & having a learning partner does exactly that (and actually much more).
Well, that's exactly what it did for me. I'd suggest you try it too.

---

### Become comfortable with uncomfortable

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2024-03-10 · 1 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/uncomfortable

> Importance of getting used to psychic pain of uncomfortable situations

*TLDR: Being ok to endure & deal with psychic pain caused by uncomfortable situations is the muscle we need to develop more*

All of us have things in personal or professional lives that we avoid doing at all costs. Things that genuinely make us uncomfortable. Things that our brains have some why labeled as "Dangerous", "Unsafe" & "Capable of great harm".
Maybe it's an uncomfortable conversation with a friend or your boss, or maybe it's a task at work that you don't know how to do, or maybe it's just another initiative of yours at which you might fail publicly and miserably.

I think the main question to answer is: why should i even try to endure discomfort caused by these activities? Why shouldn't i avoid it, if the environment makes it possible for me to not experience the psychic pain? Why should i make myself vulnerable to all the worst case scenarios that might end up happening?

Here is my take on it

If you want to have a great life, you have to maximize the output of all the opportunities life throws at you. When avoiding uncomfortable situations you are cutting out a significant chunk of potentially great opportunities only because they make your heart bit a bit faster.
The main challenge is not about solving a discrete uncomfortable situation that you currently have, it's about a bigger picture. By cultivating the habit of enduring & dealing with uncomfortable situations instead of avoiding them, you give yourself much more possibilities to transform & take control of your life.
But since "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" let's try to deal with our current discomforts for today and keep the long term game in perspective.

---

### Dealing With Uncertainty

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2024-02-22 · 2 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/dealing-with-uncertainity

> What to keep in mind when faced with uncertain situations

*TLDR: At some point in time(maybe even quite often) we'll be faced with uncertain situations, instead of avoiding or fearing them, let's be calm & embrace them*

One of the most effective ways to improve yourself is to dive into situations with lots of uncertainty. It might be a task at work that you've been trying to avoid or it might be a startup idea that you've always wanted to try out.

By definition "uncertainty" == "unknown" and to deal with something that is unknown, be it a task at work or simply a life event, you need to do at least 3 things:

- Transition the "unknown" into "known", so that you have an idea of the shape, color & taste of the problem at hand

- Identify wether your existing skill set is enough for dealing with the problem at hand or you need to learn/develop a new skill.

- Using skill set to deal with the problem at hand

so it's pretty intuitive that dealing with uncertainty is an excellent way to improve yourself & to develop new skills. In context of facing & dealing with uncertain situations, i've observed 2 types of people:

- 1st type spend their whole life trying to avoid as many uncertain situations as possible. They've been trying to operate in personal or in career life only in the circle of certainty.
Their emotional reaction, so called fear, to the uncertainty controls them and they'd rather miss an excellent chance of learning something new, becoming someone better rather than be involved in the uncertain situation.
Usually they replay many different bad case scenarios in their heads up front & end up not going for it. And after all this they might even be displeased regarding their stagnant/stuck in career or life.

- 2nd type embrace uncertainty. Even though they know that their involvement might cause great deal of psychic or physical discomfort or they might fail, their psychological security & inner worth compensate for these emotions
and potential failures . They don't let their emotional brain, that causes fear or anxiety to over rule their rational mind and they keep calm in the storm of uncertainty & discomfort.

We should all try to be 2nd type. It's kind of a "Becoming comfortable with uncomfortable" [about which i've written a whole another essay](https://nikasakandelidze.ge/posts/uncomfortable)

---

As a footnote, let me share that today, after having to deal with an uncertain situation at work, i've noticed that not all uncertain situations are alike, there are different types to uncertain problems as well.
Some uncertainties might be so hard to declutter that you might be forced to walk without knowing the final destination for couple of days or even weeks. You might not even fully understand what you are dealing with
for quite some time, so you need to have an internal psychological security & commitment to stick to the problem and solve it till the end.

---

### Effectively Handling Highs Of Life Is As Important As Handling Lows

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2024-02-18 · 2 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/how-to-handle-ups

> Another area for improvement for all of us

*TLDR: Here i share my hypotheses that, more of us should focus on effectively handling daily successes, just like we focus on dealing with failures.*

From what i see, the majority of modern "self help"/"personal growth" resources like books, articles & videos have one and the same recurring theme of how to deal with lows of your life, how to strategically behave in crisis or how to effectively handle failures.

Of course, I'm not going against these resources, as it seems that there is a high demand for it in the modern world & at the end of the day I find them to be very helpful for me, as well as for the people around me.
But what i'm actually saying is that, compared to the topic of dealing with lows, nobody is talking about how to effectively deal with highs of your life & how to navigate success correctly.

At first glance, it might appear that there is nothing to be effective about in handling daily successes, right? That's what i thought for a long time as well.
But if you think deep enough, you'll notice that after achieving a minor or major success, there always is a time window where most people let their egos inflate,
where most people get emotionally attached to their success & take a break like a well deserved prize.

This observation isn't only a theory of mine, i've noticed it on myself and people around me, struggling to handle tiny, daily successes effectively without ego & emotional attachment being part of the game.

Now i've come to realize, that dealing with daily wins of life, strategically & calmly might be one of the most important things that nobody has told us about. It appears that there is one more area for improving ourselves. Area where most people think that game is finished & where well trained mind can squeeze another ounce of improvement.

---

### My First Post Mortem

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2024-01-25 · 4 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/first-post-mortem

> Report of my first serious incident as a software engineer

*TLDR: I had my first ever major incident as a software engineer soon after joining a company. In this article i share, how it felt & what i've learned from it*

They say, that there is first time for everything. So, today was my first time, causing a serious incident to a production grade software system. I know, the term: "serious" sounds a bit vague, but trust me, the whole company felt the turbulence. it was a real deal.
The thing that makes this incident much worse for me, is that i've just joined the company, it was kind of like my 1 month anniversary gift to the company.

Take this fact, add on top of it average person's overthinking "abilities" and i hope you'll get an idea of what kind of a day i've had.
Even though i'm worn out from stress and non stop thoughts about how i could have avoided it with a bit more focus & other imposter syndrome thoughts, i still want to dive right into creating my first post mortem document.
All this is just to understand clearly what mistakes i made, to reflect on them & what can be learned.

For those of you, interested in what i mean by post mortem. I generally mean a writing, where one discusses own career & personal life failures. Not for a blame-game but to extract as much learnings from it as possible.
The big idea behind it is, to write down in details all the moments when one is at the lowest point in life, try to retrospect on a deeper level about it & share it to public. With this, embracing all kinds of failures, learning to treat them as first class citizens of one's daily life & learning to live with it.

**Disclaimer**: As a first time "Post Mortem" club member, expect to read biased feelings & thoughts that i've had during this process, what i learned ( or am learning ) from it & details of how stressful it was for me. Don't expect to hear advices about how to deal with incidents or how to write post mortem-s, as i'm the last person on planet to talk about that.

To get a bigger picture of the situation, i'll share a cause of the incident. It was a (very) small software bug(Small in a way, that it could've been avoided easily) that had a big negative impact on the whole system.
When you are a newbie in the company, you expect your reputation, skills & confidence to increase. For this kind of improvement you need a margin for error, as you got to be able to test with lots of things. Usually this margin is created by a set of people who share your responsibilities. This is exactly what i had. Having 2 other reviewers of my contributions, made me forget that there always is place for human error.
The problem slipped right through all 3 of us.
Even though my manager handled this situation in a very strategic manner, solving the problem ASAP & communicating the information to me in a non-blaming manner i still felt an enormous stress.

This was kind of my worst nightmare becoming real. Imagine getting a job that you've been trying to land for quite some time & in your first month messing in such a way. This fact automatically initiated a burst of negative thoughts like a domino-effect, the stress increased & feeling of shame with it.

After letting it sink for a while, the time for reflection has arrived & these are the 3 main learnings i got from this experience.

### Key Learnings

- **Making mistakes is inevitable, treat it like a common case instead of an outlier**
Instead of optimizing your life to not make any mistakes, treating failures as outliers & mourning over them. Assume that failing at something is a common case, embrace it & focus on handling them effectively

- **Learn to emotionally detach from an incident, this is the only way you can learn anything from it**
The only way to actually reflect & grow, is not to be overwhelmed by the emotions & stress about making a mistake or failing. Learn to control your emotions and not let it flourish. You need to be clear headed and calm to go through the mistake in details like a detective

- **Don't let any incident(no matter how severe) seed any kind of fear or self doubt that will mess with you in the future**
The fact that you made a mistake, doesn't mean that you lack some natural abilities & that you should generalize it on whole other aspects & that you are flawed at your core. Don't let the fear of not being good enough take over you. You are good enough, even more then good enough, you are unique

The learnings above might sound easy to master, but i'm sure, that i'll need to spend a lot more time & make a lot more mistakes to actualize these learnings.

This way my life's hardest part is still ahead of me.

---

### Share Your Failures Like Achievements

By Nika Sakandelidze · 2024-01-24 · 2 min read
Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/essays/embrace-failures

> Embracing mistakes & failures

*TLDR: Ever noticed how we're all about showing off only the good stuff on social media? I think that it messes with our heads & sharing failures instead will have a better long & short term effect on us. That's why, i think that, every one of us should regularly write post-mortem/reflection-s of our mistakes and publicly share it*

Today i've noticed that all the social media platforms & people using them(including me) are biased towards creating & consuming positively themed content like: Linkedin posts of starting a new job, Instagram stories of being with friends & enjoying your life, Facebook post about starting a new relationship, etc.

I haven't yet totally understood why this is, but i know it as a fact, that we don't share our downs and failures with each other, like we share our achievements. At least that's what i see on my social media feed.
Maybe this kind of a behavior is just a human nature, i really don't know. But what i can say for sure is, that we need to write & share lows/failures of our lives, at least as much as we do our ups/achievements.

We as humans should create a culture of publicly embracing failure instead of thinking of it as a thing to be ashamed of & hide. We need to understand that making mistakes is a common thing & not an outlier in everyone's life.

The idea being that, writing down & publicly sharing our failure post mortem-s will:

- Help us retrospect/reflect on ourselves & our mistakes on a much deeper level. This will help us to learn & grow

- Increase overall awareness about making mistakes & see it as a fact, that everybody is involved in this process. It's not only you who regularly fails

- Embracing failure. Treating it just like an achievement, from which one can get unique learnings & not something to be ashamed, afraid of

This is why we should start writing regular post-mortem-s. After every major failure/mistake, instead of forgetting about it, reflect on it, write it down & share it.


## Library

### Atomic Habits

- Author: James Clear
- Read: 2026-04-08
- Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/library/atomic-habits

---

### Deep Work

- Author: Cal Newport
- Read: 2026-03-21
- Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/library/deep-work

---

### Thinking, Fast and Slow

- Author: Daniel Kahneman
- Read: 2026-03-02
- Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/library/thinking-fast-and-slow

---

### The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

- Author: Eric Jorgenson
- Read: 2026-02-18
- Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/library/the-almanack-of-naval-ravikant

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### Zero to One

- Author: Peter Thiel
- Read: 2026-02-02
- Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/library/zero-to-one

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### The Pragmatic Programmer

- Author: David Thomas & Andrew Hunt
- Read: 2026-01-20
- Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/library/the-pragmatic-programmer

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### Designing Data-Intensive Applications

- Author: Martin Kleppmann
- Read: 2026-01-05
- Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/library/designing-data-intensive-applications

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### Creativity, Inc.

- Author: Ed Catmull
- Read: 2025-12-14
- Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/library/creativity-inc

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### Build

- Author: Tony Fadell
- Read: 2025-11-22
- Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/library/build

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### The Mom Test

- Author: Rob Fitzpatrick
- Read: 2025-10-09
- Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/library/the-mom-test

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### The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

- Author: Mark Manson
- Canonical: https://nikasakandelidze.com/library/the-subtle-art-of-not-giving-a-fuck