Welcome back to my reflections 🎉

This newsletter has three purposes:

1. A dedicated time for me to reflect ✏️.
2. An entry for conversation – if anything of what I write awakens something in you, I encourage you to send me back a message🙋‍♂️.
3. An insight into my thoughts regarding the topics I write about 💭.

If a person you know would benefit from what I write about, forward this newsletter to them! At the bottom, they'll find a link in case they want to subscribe, too.

Speak Up

Here's a story borrowed from Jordan Peterson (and certainly completely butchered): a couple of 50 years eats dinner. She serves him the food and he gets angry "why do you always have to serve me dinner on these small plates! I'm not a kid anymore!". She's perplexed "I've been serving you dinner on these plates for 30 years..." and he replies "Yes, and I've been hating it for 30 years!!!"

I've told this example to many of my clients because it drives home an important point: small annoyances, if not spoken out, pile up and can become huge.

If the husband, after a week of being served his food on a small plate would've spoken up, it wouldn't have been that emotionally charged and he wouldn't have resented his wife for 30 years.

Questions for you:

• What are small (or big) things that have been annoying you that you haven't spoken up about?

And if you want to learn more about resentment, listen to this great podcast episode I recorded with Candice Wu!

Think Less

A year ago I wrote about Relentless by Tim Grover. Back then, I wrote about commitment. Another topic of his book has become more present: following my instincts.

In the Emerging Men retreat Felipe Bernardo and myself organised this September, one of the most surprisingly effective activities was to give the participants 30 minutes to go out and just follow their instincts.

When we reunited, the mood of was totally different, much more relaxed and present.

In a world where most of us are bombarded with information and rational thinking is put on a pedestal, what many of us actually need is to calm down, think less and follow our intuition.

It's easy if you don't think. It can be tough if you do. I used to tell my students intuition is easy to practice but it's hard to practice it. Why?

To practice it, you need to follow it!

To ease into doing that, do it with something simple like what you eat or which tea you chose. The more you use this inner intelligence, the more your monkey mind relaxes and trusts it.

You could also go for a walk and just follow your instincts, like we did at the retreat.

Being in nature usually help with all of this.

Definitions

My work is mainly having 1-on-1 conversations with people. In these conversations, I often notice differences in definitions between myself and my clients.

The most graphic happened a couple of years ago with two people who actually weren't my clients but language exchange buddies. One of them, a Brazilian living in Russia told me how he didn't like Brazil because it was "too hot!" Another Brazilian, this one in Teresina, in the North of Brazil told me "I love the cold!"

I asked myself "how come Brazilians don't like the warmth? I'm from a cold country and love the warmth. Is it this thing where you love what you don't have?" Then, months later, I asked my friend from Teresina "when you say 'cold', how many degrees are you talking about?". He answered "22º C".

I'm not sure about you, but for me 22 ºC (72 ºF) counts as "warm", not cold.

We're likely to miss the differences in definition if we don't pay attention. Consider the following table pointing to common miscommunications between Brits and Dutch:

At the moment of writing this newsletter, have clients from 13 countries and 5 continents (missing the South Pole 🤔). I coach them in English, German, Spanish and Portuguese (and sometimes several at once). I'm only native to German.

There's a lot of potential for misunderstanding. So what do I do to overcome it?

I listen for cues. I know there are differences in definitions.

So, I ask clients "what does being a 'high-performer' mean to you?" or "what do you mean with 'being more loving' towards yourself?" or "how does a 'successful' weekend look like?"

I'm pretty sure the two Brazilians from above had different definitions for "cold" despite being countrymen. That means on top of cultural differences, there are individual ones, too.

The next time you notice a misunderstanding, ask for definitions!

Berlin

I'll be in Berlin for ~3 weeks from the 26th of April. If you're around, let's catch up! It was quite a spontaneous decision and I haven't much planned yet - recommendations are also welcome 😊

Challenge Yourself

It's physically and mentally healthy to challenge ourselves. That way, we mentally see what we're capable of (perhaps more than we expected) as well as stimulate our immune system to get stronger.

In my very first edition of this newsletter from January 2022, I wrote I wanted to do monthly (multi-day) bike trips. Guess what, in October 2024 I finally did my first one 😂

I cycled down the coast following the EV-8 Mediterranean cycling route for 60km, stayed a night in Orpesa, continued 20km to Castelló, and came back 80km to Vinaròs on the following Monday.

The landscape wasn't foreign but still I was surprised by the beautiful via verde, a railroad track converted to cycle and hiking path that cuts through mountains and is right at the coast.

Talking about...

I actually challenged myself again this March! I ran my second mountain - it's as long as a marathon but up and down on trails.

The two weeks prior it had been raining. Rain was predicted for all of the next week, too. But on this Saturday there was no single cloud in the sky. The Refugis de Pedra is a circular route with 2500m altitude change.

I did a similar race last year in the Philippines and it took me 12 hours to complete because I had to walk most of the trail. This year, I reduced my time to 8h 32min and ran most of the runnable parts!

I'm still working towards the 80km! I'll let you know!

WhatsApp Channel

I've been less frequent in writing this newsletter than I intended. But I haven't been inactive, I actually started a WhatsApp channel on which I publish more frequent and short-form content - including reflections, strategies, and tools to grow with purpose, lead with authenticity, and live fully.

​Come join!​