Hi Reader, Do you speak to yourself as you speak to your best friend? I often don't. I noticed how I would get upset with myself when I don't perform as I want to, when tasks take longer or when I don't show up as the person I want to be. I call myself names that I wouldn't use for my friend. You might recognise it: pondering over something we said, an email we maybe shouldn't have sent, a moment we keep replaying. Voices debating in our heads. It's no news. But this week, I am trying...
8 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, I was supposed to be back in Amsterdam a week ago. Our flight was cancelled due to the war; then, rerouting via the US, we were refused boarding: apparently you need a visa to transit. One of the most expensive lessons I've learned. If I had been told I could extend my time in sunny Australia by a week, I might have been happy to arrange more "last times": one more beach, more friends, more gelato. But once my trip was extended by circumstances I didn't choose, it became difficult...
15 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, We've spent the last three months travelling through Australia, sleeping in other people's Airbnb spaces. Now that we're heading back home, we looked back and noticed a pattern that had nothing to do with the luxury of the places or their price tag. Some places felt like home. Others felt like hotel rooms dressed up as home. I can put the places in two categories. The perfectly "Instagrammable" ones: beautiful interiors, cold drinks waiting in the fridge, hosts having thought of...
22 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Last weekend, a former German president said something unusual on live television and when I read about it in the German News, I was thinking: Unprofessionalism at its best! Joachim Gauck, 84 years old, was asked about the current political situation and while everyone expected a yes-or-no answer in the logic of political debate, he said: "A crack runs through me." He described holding two perspectives, two truths that pull in opposite directions. His language was unusually...
29 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Last week, my partner and I met up with a couple (two facilitators) we only knew from LinkedIn. I didn't expect much when getting ready for what could have been the usual Saturday afternoon coffee. And in that spirit the conversation started: speaking about work, travel. The usual professional script. But then, our new friends put a set of Lego Serious Play and a deck of connection questions on the table and asked if we'd be up for something different. Of course! And within the...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Last week I missed my own event by two hours. I wish I could blame the traffic or another force majeure. I cannot. I was sitting at home, finishing my meditation, about to journal when I saw an email from one of the 20 people who signed up for the event. They were waiting for the podcast club gathering I had organised, were excited about, and then... did't show up. Timezone confusion. A calendar entry set to the wrong city. A human, irreversible, very embarrassing mistake. I still...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, I'm still hiding behind an old version of myself. Today, I interviewed someone I highly admire, we got deep very quickly, he shared personal stories that are deeply relevant to the podcast and the theme of Unprofessionalism that I am exploring. Each time I wanted to extrapolate to the higher picture, the meta-level, the analytics, I realised that I lost him. The sparkle disappeared from his eyes. The recording ended up being the shortest I've ever made and instead of being happy...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Most people use AI to write faster, I ended up using it to slow down 😅 Recently, many emails sound similar — same structure, same words. I find myself skimming through sentences, filling in the gaps. Basically not reading properly. Luckily, for my book-writing process, I had started to work with AI in a peculiar way: asking it for its tough love when reviewing my content — instead of writing it for me. Applying this collaboration to emails, I learned that I was misreading them,...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, How much money and time do you waste on self-development that you never integrate? It's been a week since I returned from an intensive retreat - four days without phone or access to the external world. I joined with the intention to look inside for insights on how I can better align my intentions and vision to my daily reality. For the first time, I am investing time and money in the integration: I purchased a six-weeks online course and am spending an hour per day on just that....
2 months ago • 2 min read