Newsletter #60 - Step Change! I should write more often because it structures my thoughts because I want to have a record of my progress and thinking for the future Especially in times of significant changes Significant changes like right now Change happens in multiple ways: (1) Incremental progress, like dieting or learning something new, which requires effort every day (2) Big step changes, which change the course of life Currently we're in a Step Change The Step Change I'm writing from a...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Newsletter #59 - Update! My local coffee bar has a promotion: 150 THB for coffee and cake. As a child or student I would have tried to choose the most expensive cake, and the most expensive coffee. As students, we even theorized that alcohol price labels should contain the amount of alcohol you would get per euro. So we could optimize for that. I used to check the different European Amazon websites to find the cheapest price for a book. I could save 1-2 euros. Somehow my dominant optimization...
4 months ago • 1 min read
Newsletter #58 - Alea Iacta Est ! I write to document my thinking at that exact moment in time. I wrote the draft for this newsletter last week, in the moment. 10 days ago Monday Toyota announced they wouldn’t extend my contract as the USD JPY exchange rate is making me significantly more expensive Two days later on Wednesday they informed that due to headcount pressure they also won’t be able to convert me to full time if I would want to. That means the Toyota story comes to an end. I’m very...
6 months ago • 1 min read
Newsletter #57 - Marathon Again! Every week multiple things trigger me to write a newsletter. Sometimes it's mental block, sometimes it's a deep thought, sometimes it's a memory. But if I don't force myself into a weekly schedule, somehow I don't get to it. Last weekend I ran Tokyo Marathon. There were so many reasons to write: On Friday I was nervous before taking my flight. Writing is the best way to write off the nerves. At the airport I was contemplating how this travel breaks my routine....
6 months ago • 2 min read
Newsletter #56 - Deep Pockets! Money I just finished a podcast about an ex-prisoner who did bank loan fraud, acquired millions, got caught, spend around ten years in prison, got released and had to start from nothing. And he said he was miserable when he had the millions, and happy when he had nothing. There are similar stories, the book Wild Swans describes a similar maximum happiness at the moment when they're most poor. And yet, money seems to be the solution to many challenges. Where we...
7 months ago • 1 min read
Newsletter #55 - Distraction Is distraction good or bad? When I work, I am not open for conversation, I dislike it when someone comes to chit-chat. Hence why I love remote work. But I'm forcing myself to embrace it. A good conversation is probably more valuable than getting my todo-list done. I once heard this story that people who work heads down get a lot of things done, but get the wrong things done. While people who are open for conversation get less done, but get more relevant things...
8 months ago • 2 min read
Newsletter #54 - Values, Exits and Acting Every now and then, serendipity strikes, and I start reading and updating my old notes. My "Meditations": Problems, uncertainties, and mental models, which might or might not solve the problems and uncertainties. Like Marcus Aurelius. 28 of February 2022, almost 2 years ago, I wrote a long story in my notes I just read Behind the Cloud by Marc Benioff (founder of Salesforce), and his V2MOM model. I wrote down my Values, my Methods, my Obstacles. And...
8 months ago • 3 min read
Newsletter #53 - Triathlon I did my first triathlon last weekend. There is something about doing sporting events in your home town. I guess the presence of many like minded people creates a (short-lasting) feeling of community. Instead of Phuket belonging to the party and beach tourists, for one day, it belongs to the people who want to outperform themselves. They say there is a strong home advantage in teamsports, it's kinda the same feeling here. I felt kinda proud about they're managing to...
10 months ago • 1 min read
Newsletter #52 - Marketing and Lifestyle, and my last email for now? I like it when people make every day products fun. The Dollar Shave Club made shaving fun, Liquid Death made water fun, Richard Branson made music and flying fun, Authentic Weather made a weather app fun, Sam Parr made hotdogs fun, Toggle tried to make the todo list app fun... I want to take an every day product, and make it fun, make it part of people's lifestyle. Most of these tend to be physical products, rather than...
10 months ago • 2 min read