About Zze.st blog & me

One more blog? What is this one about and why is it different from all the others?

First of all this blog, as I planned it, is about lifestyle design – proactive planning, creating and developing lifestyle to be happy & achieve all your goals.

Why is it called Zzest?

I think that zest for life is what makes us happy. It’s when we feel enthusiastic about life, we feel alive.

I think that one can plan, design and then achieve this state of soul. Different people feel enthusiastic about different things. For me it’s freedom. Freedom to do what I want, financial freedom, freedom to travel, freedom from distractions and unnecessary obligations. When we’re free we can do what we want to and what we’re enthusiastic about.

Am I some kind of self-proclaimed guru? Does it all mean that I have totally succeeded in all the spheres listed above? No way! My life and myself are still far from being perfect. I’m being honest about it.

Certainly, there is no one universal way to create the perfect lifestyle over night.

I do believe that certain beliefs, attitudes, knowledge, skills, habits, actions, lifehacks, technology tools and internet resources can help us to shape the life the way we want it to be.

This means I’m not going to condescendingly bullshit you about the ultimate ways to succeed by buying some kind of eyes-openning product or joining some kind of sect or religion.

Otherwise, what I’m going to do is to share some ideas, methods and tips which I personally found useful, which worked for me personally and which presumably will make your life better as well.

I’m still in a search (a constant one) of making my life more exciting, meaningful, fulfilling and free from bad habits and demotivating thoughts. Moreover, if you feel that I’m “playing guru” or writing useless or simply wrong posts you’re more than welcome to tell me about. I’d be happy if you use strong arguments though!  ;)

What are the main topics I’m going to cover?

Usually, I try share information that is presumably useful and can help one to become more conscious, productive or happy.  I try to keep my posts realistic, down-to-earth and most importantly practical and actionable.  Sometimes, I also share stuff I’m simply interested in, feel excited about or just find to be simply fun.

So, the main topics are:

• technology: how to utilize all those amazing opportunities the Internet provides us with and become less of a robot at the same time;
• wellness: it’s all about health & sport, I’m personally a big fan of feeling & looking great, so let’s discover ways to achieve it together!
• entrepreneurship: I have already launched few small Internet start-ups and looking forward for more ambitious goals, so join me in this trip;
• travel: pictures and stories from all around the world and advice on how to see the world for less money and extend your cultural horizons;
• lifestyle design: lifestyle design is the conscious planning and shaping of your life according to your personal values and goals, it may include choosing career, place to live and many other things;
• self-development: very controversial and ambiguous term which is often used to convince you to do something you neither want nor need to, but in this blog this is just a collective word for all the posts which aim to actually improve the quality of life by teaching you some skill or simply by providing useful information.

Also, topics of a special interest for me are web 2.0, creativity, psychology, social science, business, marketing, start-ups, blogginng, writing, leadership, international business, world economy, cultural differences, art, photography.

I prefer to update blog rarely and make my posts long and comprehensive and try to deliver real value with my posts and write only about things that I find fascinating and useful. In other words, I won’t make push your “mark all as read” button every few hours.

What goals do you want to achieve with this blog?

Well…

First of all,
is to remind myself about to be optimistic about achievement of high goals, pursuit of dreams and lifestyle design, self-development. Sometimes, it’s so easy to conform to a day-to-day reality, work or whatever it is and stop to think big without constantly reminding yourself about the other possibilities. The blog is just another reason to keep on believing and moving forward.

What else?

2. Meeting likeminded people;
3. Developing and practicing my English;
4. Developing and practicing my writing skills;
5. Developing my internet and technological skills;
6. Developing my design and creativity skills;
7. Experimenting with different social media;
8. Trying various marketing strategies;
9. Just having FUN!

Not so bad for an hour a week on average?

So, basically the whole blog is a kind of experiment lab for me and I’m still not sure where it’s leading.

Who is the author?

In case you’re interested who is on the opposite side of screen, let me say a couple of words about myself.

My name is Max and I’m from Russia, Moscow and I’m 24 years old now (June, 2009). I was born in Tyumen (yup, this is in Western Siberia, guys!), Russia, graduated from Tyumen State University in 2008 with a specialist degree (post-USSR system, 5 years of studying, something in between bachelor and master degrees) in world economy & international business and interpreter/translator of English language.

While studying I worked as a free-lance web-designer, traveled to the USA, NYC (in 2006) and spent 4 months there working in e-commerce sphere. I’ve also launched few more or less successful projects in runet. (Russian segment ofthe internet). Earlier I was keen on photography, so you can check out some of my old pictures.

In the beginning of 2008 I worked in the largest Russian bank Sberbank, in the investment financing department. Later I moved to Moscow, where I started my Management Trainee (aka Challenge Initiative) program (>in order to get on which I’ve passed 7 stages of selection) in the marketing department of transnational corporation (I currently work in the Strategy Planning and Market Research department) and to start studying in aspirantura (post-graduate education, similar to PHD) in the Higher School of Economics, World Economy and International Affairs department.

In the late May of 2009 I travelled to Madrid, Spain, thought a lot about my life-goals, slightly re-defined some of them and decided to start this blog.

Contacts

If you want to contact me personally, the best way to do it is to send me email to zest.blog@gmail.com

I’ll try to reply ASAP, but don’t expect the immediate response.

I would also like to connect with you through the linkedin and facebook, but please make sure you write me that you’re from the blog and mention the reason you’re adding me.