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Hi! I'm Joris

This is my weekly braindump. You can read it, but I don't write it for you, I write it for me.

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Newsletter #58 - Alea Iacta Est !

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...

about 1 month 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....

about 1 month 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...

2 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...

3 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...

4 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...

5 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...

5 months ago • 2 min read

Newsletter #51 - Wrapping up 4 weeks in The Netherlands and Belgium We spent the last four weeks in the Netherlands and Belgium I did that while working Japanese hours. The first 3 weeks I woke up at 2.30am, started work at 3am and worked until 11am. The last week, due to daylight savings time (or "winter hour" as we call it in Belgium), I woke up at 1.30am, started work at 2am and finished at 10am. It was intended for one week, but I ended up doing it for four weeks, as I was waiting for my...

6 months ago • 4 min read

Newsletter #50 - New Ideas Visa shenanigans are keeping me in the Netherlands for at least one more week. That will be 3 weeks instead of the intended 1 week. It's quite disruptive to my schedule, so initially I pushed the newsletter backwards. But I don't want to skip another week. Also, I need a writing moment to sort out my ideas. My previous app, Where Does The A380 Fly, is fully automated now. It's time for a new idea. Artificial Intelligence Ideas AI is hot, it makes sense to come up...

6 months ago • 2 min read

Newsletter #49 - The Boondocks Somewhere around 2014, I read the Powerpoint Rangers article from The Economist. TLDR: companies in the middle of nowhere (the so-called "boondocks") need access to smart people. But smart, young people want to live in the big cities, where their friends are, cool events happen, and with ample dating opportunities. Big consultancies fill the gap by allowing people to live in the city, but flying them to the boondocks from Monday to Thursday to work for these...

7 months ago • 4 min read
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