Tough love and self discipline

Rule #4. PRACTICE TOUGH LOVE

The golden thread of a highly successful and meaningful life is self-discipline. Discipline allows you to do all those things you know in your heart you should do but never feel like doing. Without self-discipline, you will not set clear goals, manage your time effectively, treat people well, persist through the tough times, care for your health or think positive thoughts. 

I call the habit of self-discipline 'Tough Love' because getting tough with yourself is actually a very loving gesture. By being stricter with yourself, you will begin to live life more deliberately, on your own terms rather than simply reacting to life the way a leaf floating in a stream drifts according to the flow of the current on a particular day. 

As I teach in one of my seminars, the tougher you are on your-self, the easier life will be on you. The quality of your life ultimately is shaped by the quality of your choices and decisions, ones that range from the career you choose to pursue, to the books you read, the time that you wake up every morning and the thoughts you think during the hours of your days. When you consistently flex your will-power by making those choices that you know are the right ones (rather than the easy ones), you take back control of your life. Effective, fulfilled people do not spend their time doing what is most convenient and comfortable. They have the courage to listen to their hearts and to do the wise thing. This habit is what makes them great.

"The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do," remarked essayist and thinker E. M. Gray. 'They don't like doing them either, necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose." 

The nineteenth-century English writer Thomas Henry Huxley arrived at a similar conclusion, noting: "Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.' And Aristotle made this point of wisdom in yet another way:

'Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it: men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players, by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we come to be brave.'

Excerpt from Life lessons from the monk who sold his Ferrari

Booking.com Media Campaign Analyst

Job Description

Note: This position is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. We will cover your move and all the documents necessary for yourself or your family.

Booking.com is one of the leading digital advertisers in the world. We are currently looking for a Media Campaign Analyst to join Marketing Science Analytics. As a Campaign Analyst you are responsible for driving the measurement and optimization of the global digital media campaigns we run through DoubleClick, Youtube and Facebook. You will ensure campaigns are setup to measure marketing effectiveness and incremental ROI and are a driving, innovative force behind the performance optimization agenda.

To succeed and thrive in this position, you must love mining large data sets, to turn data into actionable insights that can drive the performance of our campaigns and communicate your findings to a broad range of stakeholders. You must have a solid understanding of statistics and experimental designs, A/B testing in particular, and enjoy thinking critically about complex problems. The majority of your time will be spent analyzing data to find new ways to improve the performance of our digital media campaigns.

We are looking for a team player with a self-starting approach. You must have gravitas and the ability to get things done. This is a unique opportunity to play a key role in an exciting, fast growing and multicultural business.

B.Responsible
• Measurement and performance reporting of digital display and video campaigns running through various channels
• Mining and analyzing event-level campaign data to provide actionable insights in the drivers of incremental ROI
• Use A/B testing and a variety of alternative methodologies to measure marketing effectiveness, attribution, and ROI
• Advocate and communicate ways to optimize the performance of our campaigns working closely with different internal teams and departments
• Providing ad hoc analytical support to key stakeholders

B.Skilled
• A postgraduate degree in a quantitative field (e.g. Business Administration, Economics, Finance, Econometrics, Statistics, Mathematics or Data Science)
• Understand all components of experimental design from sampling to measuring the effect(s), hands-on experience with A/B testing in a commercial environment a plus
• 2-4 years of experience work with big data (Hadoop, Hive, BigQuery, SQL)
• 2-4 years of experience with statistical analyses in an applied setting (experience with R, Python and/or Spark is required)
• Ability to prioritize work according to business objectives, understanding the balance between effort and impact
• A strong eye for detail and an inquisitive mind, naturally being driven to continuously finding ways to improve the department's and your own performance
• A real team player with solutions-focus and entrepreneurial spirit
• Exceptional communication skills in spoken and written English
• Excellent organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple, competing for priorities simultaneously and deliver results under tight deadlines
• Professional experience in the digital media landscape is a plus