They’re not about what’s on the slides. What matters is the story you tell. Everything else is just supporting material.

At work, we collaborated with master’s students over several weeks on a business project. They did some research for our firm, built an evaluation model, and will soon present their findings. The team has done a lot of great work, but in a dry run, they only showed us the results.

“You need to tell the audience why these results matter to them,” my colleague remarked. “Content is king, but context is God,” I quoted an old marketing saying. “Even if all you do is add five one-sentence slides before each section to set the frame, you’ll go a long way in delivering the message.”

I remember learning these same lessons as a student. It’s tempting and feels obvious. You’ve worked so hard to get all these amazing ideas onto these slides! Why wouldn’t you share it all, line by line? Because no matter how much effort you put in, the audience is not clued in. You need to pick them up from the first bus stop on the route. And then you need to convince them your effort was well-spent along the way.

Whether you use slides from which you only share 10% of the points, big numbers and bold letters, only visuals, or nothing but your voice and presence: Great presenters pull us into a story, make us care about continuing its arc, and help us remember it long enough so we can tell our families over dinner.

Knock ’em dead!

“I’m impressed you got your fiancée into video games and now it’s become a regular, shared activity for you guys,” a friend told me. I was going to tell him that it’s a lot of fun indeed. That you learn a lot and it can really be high-quality downtime.

But then, right in that moment, I realized something else: Video games can be part of anger management. Not necessarily to manage anger from elsewhere that’s already there, although that can work too, I guess, but to prevent anger in the first place.

Because while it’s true that video games are fun and educative, they can also drive you up a tree. Most of the games my fiancée and I play are cooperative, not competitive. Many are actually single-player adventure games, and we alternate. One person plays, the other provides commentary, support, and advice. Then, we change roles every 10 minutes or so.

The non-player needs to learn patience. To not intervene too soon or spoil the answer to a puzzle the other can solve. But of course, that patience sometimes runs out, especially when one of you has been playing video games for 30 years, the other for just three. “No no no, that’s wrong! You totally missed that shining thing in the other corner!”

Often, the coach is right, and they’re just trying to help. So it’s usually the good kind of yelling—the one that’s meant to win you the championship, not make you feel bad about losing it. But the energy can get intense, and that’s sometimes exactly what makes it valuable—because it prevents yelling in other moments where it would do more harm than good.

If you get worked up during a video game, it’s easy to laugh about it 45 minutes later. Berating your partner for an expensive purchase, on the other hand, might fester for a whole week before it gets resolved.

Yell where it’s inconsequential so you can address big challenges immediately with calm and composure. If video games, board games, shooting hoops, or solving the crossword together provide nothing but the space to do that yelling, they’ll go a long way in keeping you and your loved ones on the same team—and that’s even more impressive than getting someone else to share the passion for your hobby.

Monetization can short-shift the potential of your work. There’s a path to making meaningful money off almost anything, but that path is usually long and hard. It’s supposed to be. A decade, two, sometimes three or even more.

Today’s media and culture make it look like six-figure paydays for a side hustle are the standard two years into the journey—but they’re not, and, often, they merely indicate an unsustainable business, not a brilliant one.

This isn’t to say you should only charge for your work once you’ve mastered the craft in some far-off cave in a mountain. But you should give each product and service ample time to ripen. Let it reach its authentic potential, and flesh it out until you are 100% satisfied with your own standards. Then, present it to the market, and start adjusting from there.

My friend wants to start a coaching business. In the past, he tried working with a few clients for free, then charging the next batch. In hindsight, he rushed into monetization, he told me. “Now, I’m more open to developing the service until I know for sure it provides the value I want it to give to people. Even if it takes a few years.”

When I start writing an article purely because I care about the topic, that’s a good start. It’s the beginning of a battery charging. “Authentic product loading…” Then, I have to keep working on the article until it’s done. Only I know what the standards are, what needs to go into it, which words must be added, and which should be cut. The work takes as long as it takes.

If I’m hell-bent on publishing that article in hopes of making money from it, I sure can set a deadline and crank it out in a week. But it’ll likely hit the market too soon, and its “authenticity battery” won’t be full by the time it goes out. I pulled the charger at 50, 60, 80% and said, “No, you have to earn something back now!” And while I may end up making some money from it sooner, in the end, not bringing the piece up to 100% of my personal, unique artistic standards will likely hurt its lifetime earning potential.

If you’re trying to make a living from your calling, the quality of the work must be the number one priority—because if you’re cheating where you care the most, that creates a hole no number on your bank account can fill. Don’t force the money too early. Ship like you mean it, and let the dollars follow.

No matter how hesitant I feel or how ill-timed I think the meeting is, ultimately, there’s very little that beats spending time with old friends.

We have our annual gatherings, and those are an important staple, but the additional, spontaneous ones often end up being the best. They get rarer over the years, but they do still occur.

“How’s work?” “What’s dad life like?” “Is your family doing ok?” Even if you already know the answers, there’s something about asking these questions to folks you’ve known the longest.

Live. Laugh. Eat. Share. Celebrate. Relate. Commiserate. Make time for the joy of seeing old friends. 

The better I manage my neurotransmitters, the more smoothly my life goes.

Dopamine is the big one, and, in recent years, it has taken the spotlight for millions of other people, too. Compared to the other main three, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins, dopamine has vastly outperformed in search trends since early 2022. There are books and videos and courses about “dopamine detoxing,” and much of what doesn’t explicitly mention the chemical is still aimed at regulating it, like reducing screen time, curing phone addiction, quitting social media, and more.

Why? Dopamine runs our brain’s reward and pleasure system and, as such, affects what we feel motivated and not motivated to do. Therefore, it has perhaps more power than any other to mess with our lives, and it does. If a bad habit hijacks your reward system, you can spend endless time in ultimately unfulfilling pleasure loops. Instead of spending our lives meaningfully in ways we won’t regret, we get sucked into meaningless slot machines chasing information, money, entertainment, and other cheap thrills.

In the last few months, I’ve pulled too many levers on too many of those slot machines. As part of trying to do better, I decided to list the sources of dopamine which I find benefit my life. There are 15 of them:

1. Reading—books, mostly.
2. Writing—also books, mostly. But really any kind of writing.
3. Meditation. In almost seven years of daily sitting in silence, I haven’t regretted a single session, and I feel better after each and every one.
4. Acts of love. These aren’t just about physical intimacy. Hugging my partner is great, but so is texting my dad, calling my grandma, buying a cookie for my fiancée, etc.
5. Acts of kindness. Extensions of acts of love, basically. That circle of people is broader, but it feels just as wonderful to send an old friend a picture out of the blue or hold the door for a stranger at the bakery.
6. Breathing exercises. My favorite to cure the hiccups and basically any kind of stressful situation is “square breathing.” Breathe in while counting to four, hold for four seconds, then do another four-count as you breathe out. Repeat a few times until your mind and heart rate settle.
7. Movement. “Exercise” sounds like work. But moving is fun. I can get up from my couch, and I’ve moved. And it does make a difference. Helps with creative blocks, too.
8. Going outside. It’s an amazing shift: From staring at my screen and worrying about my problems in my tiny universe to getting out the door and walking around the block. There’s a whole, much larger world out there, and it’s so reassuring. The best kind of reality check.
9. Water/peppermint tea. Drinks laden with caffeine, sugar, alcohol, or all three offer the wrong kind of dopamine. Cool water or hot peppermint tea actually help me center.
10. Music. It shouldn’t always be on, but, chosen deliberately, a good song, mix, or playlist can work wonders.
11. Real learning, for example with a purposefully chosen online course. I’m working through all the ones about writing on Masterclass. It’s too rare a treat still, but it’s highly rewarding.
12. A high-quality story on film. I deliberately phrased it like this, because it’s not about watching TV or a movie. It’s about consciously spending 15, 30, 60 minutes immersing yourself in a story to then come out stronger—even if you had to pause halfway through, just as you would with a book.
13. High-quality video games. For me, most of those are also driven by their story. The puzzles and action are fun, but the narrative is what makes it worthwhile.
14. Working on a meaningful personal project. For me, that’s improving this blog, growing my personal brand as a writer, making small user experience updates in the background, and pulling my overall product lineup and portfolio together. Anything that’s not the core task of writing, basically.
15. Quality time with people. A bit of a catch-all category, but when in doubt, engage with humans. Talk. Sit. Listen. It always gives you perspective.

The first nine are the most dependable, I would say. The last six can also become distractions if done too obsessively, but for me, they all at least provide material for more writing.

The real trick, however, is that most of them don’t just release dopamine. Some of them throw in serotonin, others endorphins. Others still produce only oxytocin or serotonin. They’re dopamine enhancers but also balancers. Hormones in charge of bonding, trust, well-being, pride, pain and stress relief, and mood stabilization. Because, as often, the picture is bigger than what we can see, and the sum of all the colors is larger than the canvas altogether.

Going forward, I’ll do my best to draw on this list as a default. Whenever I do, my neurotransmitters stay in equilibrium, and so do I. What will your list look like? I have no idea. But I know you must find your good sources of dopamine—and be kind enough to yourself to let go of the rest.

In the 2013 installment of Tomb Raider, a legendary action-adventure video game series featuring archeologist turned gunslinger Lara Croft, our heroine and her crew end up shipwrecked on a mysterious island.

The island is the one they had searched for, but it’s wrapped in perpetual storms, filled with dangerous animals, and host to a cult assembled around a lunatic leader named Mathias. As they explore the place, they learn the archipelago was once part of Yamatai, an ancient Japanese kingdom. After the death of ruler Himiko, the Sun Queen, some curse befell the area, and no one has been allowed to leave since—hence the eternal storms.

Lara is a woman of science. When she first hears Mathias’s theories, she brushes them off. Storms caused by the vengeful spirit of a long-dead queen? Her friend Sam, a descendant of Himiko, as a ritualistic sacrifice to appease the demon? And, to top it all off, Himiko’s original samurai guards still lurking around the island, ready to cut down anyone closing in on her majesty’s territory with their swords? No way, José!

But the more she sees and experiences, the more Lara begins to believe. What if these storms are supernatural? What if the only way to get off the island is to somehow soothe Himiko? Early on, the crew is separated, and by the time the survivors reunite, everyone has experienced a vastly different story.

At a critical juncture in their escape, Reyes, the ship’s mechanic, finds a boat, which she plans to fix up and use to sail away. With one ship, one helicopter, and one airplane already in her crash log, however, Lara finally decides to try a new approach: What if, instead of failing at one flight attempt after another, the team works to resolve Himiko’s mystery, clear the storms, and calm the island not just for their own departure but for good?

Having been shot at more than once in the last few days, Reyes isn’t keen on venturing deeper into the jungle instead of out and away, and this is when Lara makes a desperate pitch, which, surprisingly, works: “Look… I know you want to get home to your daughter, believe me. I do. But the fight’s not over yet. I’m not asking you to believe, Reyes, I’m asking you to trust.”

When she heard this while we were playing the game, my partner immediately responded: “Aren’t those two the same thing?” The more I thought about it, the more I could see them as different colors of the same concept.

The belief Lara is talking about is the belief in the bigger story. The mysticism and supernatural occurrences and rules they supposedly follow. The trust she is asking for, however, that’s just trust in Lara. “You don’t have to think I’m right—but you should bet on me to get us out of here no matter what that path ultimately looks like.” It’s a plea to Reyes to have faith not in some bedtime story she found out about mere days ago but the friend she’s known for many years. A fair ask, don’t you think?

That’s why, in the end, the boat bobs inland on the river rather than out to sea—and why Reyes, like Lara, makes it safe back home. Sometimes, a small trust advance can be the biggest leap of faith. If you can’t believe, ask yourself if you can still trust. It might make all the difference.

The Hakone Open Air Museum is a beautiful experience. The art is directly integrated into a green park lush with rolling hills and all kinds of flora. Some pieces fully embrace the setting, others stand in contrast to it.

There are abstract sculptures and a stained-glass clock tower you can climb from the inside. There’s also a figure of a man who, seemingly, has fallen on his face. Then, there’s the life-size floor plan—or remaining foundations, if you will—of what used to be a small church elsewhere, now transplanted into this new location.

Tucked somewhere along your route through the park, there’s an exhibition hall featuring works of Picasso. Right past the entrance, a quote greets you from the wall. Presumably translated from Japanese back to English, it reads a little differently than how you might encounter it elsewhere. If anything, it brings out the message even more clearly:

The painting is not thought and pre-set in advance. While you create it, it follows your thought processes. Once finished, it changes even more, according to the observer’s state-of-mind. A painting lives its life like a living being, experiencing changes everyday life imposes. This is totally natural as a painting only lives when a person looks at it.

Whether it’s an art installation, an idea, or a relationship with another person: From a lived-experience point of view, all things only exist in relation to us at the time we observe them—and what we think in that moment becomes part of the larger whole of “the thing and us.”

Sure, the paintings in the hall will remain on their walls—but while we’re not looking at them, their journey through life does not mesh with ours. The meaning only appears once someone observes the colors on the canvas—and whatever they bring to that interaction is as important as the painting’s seemingly unchanging nature.

Even if, collectively, we agree on a painting’s message, that message changes for each generation. An acrylic of a general will be interpreted differently before and after World War II. And differently still by wartime survivors and someone who’s had a sheltered childhood.

True art exists for its own sake. Even in a vacuum, it will always achieve its purpose for its creator. But as it finds its way to an audience, the more it gets looked at, the more it comes to life. Until, one day, you’re strolling through an open air museum, witnessing a piece crafted hundreds of years ago on another continent, keeping it alive for the moment and beyond with your emotions, impressions, and thoughts.

In March, I spent most of my mornings and many nights writing a 5,000-word draft for a novel. It was an entry for a competition with a grand prize of $50,000. The money wasn’t the motivation, just a nice excuse to finally try my hand at fiction for real—and I did.

For weeks, I kept stumbling into obstacles, then climbing over them. It was the must fun I had while being out of my depth in a long time. Eventually, I made it and submitted.

After the deadline had passed, the numbers came in: The company received nearly 15,000 submission. Yowza! There would be a longlist, then a shortlist, then a winner announced. I kept my expectations low. I had already reaped most of the rewards by showing up and doing the work.

When the longlist eventually dropped, 183 people were notified via email. My inbox, like most folks’, stayed empty. People took to the online forum. “Not gonna lie, I’m pretty devastated.” “Today, I am sad.” “I was so sure I would get picked.”

Even with the odds against you at 100 to 1, it’s natural to feel disappointed. What surprised me was the number of people indicating they might throw in the towel. “Guess I’ll let this sit for a while…” “This is my umpteenth rejection for such a contest, I’m done.” “Am I really that bad of a writer?“

I had no concrete plans to finish the whole book when I began, but participating in the competition actually made me want to work on the book more, not less. As I browsed the comments, I thought: “That’s strange. I don’t feel any less equipped to finish my novel than I did when I submitted it.”

If it had been a 12-month contest for a full book instead of a one-month contest for 5,000 words, I would have kept plugging away all the same. One opportunity disappearing doesn’t make me or any of the other contestants any less capable—but in order to see that, they need to keep believing in themselves.

When you didn’t get picked, have faith. You’re someone you can bet on 100% of the time. You just have to keep putting down your chips.

The message from the book Die With Zero is in the title: Don’t try too hard to preserve your money for when you’re no longer around.

Since my young adult years, I’ve had a fascination with investing money and “growing the pile.” But at some point in my 20s, my overall attitude shifted from “rack up as much as possible” to “focus on getting what you need, then stop.”

That’s a hard enough game as is, of course, and most people, myself likely included, might never get there. If you live in Europe, you’ll need a solid million or two to keep drawing on your money indefinitely, even if you’re frugal with your spending. But it’s a nice, contained goal.

If your target is to amass as much wealth as possible, the pressure never stops. The answer is always “more.” If you don’t plan on leaving behind a pile of money, much of that pressure immediately subsides.

I can’t pinpoint exactly what changed my outlook, but I do remember noticing various patterns which acted as fuel for a new perspective.

One was that my grandma died at the relatively young age of 66. After that, my grandpa, an architect who has made tremendous coin in his day, suddenly started spending his money with both hands. It taught my dad and, by extension, me, that you must not bank on an inheritance. And that, regardless of what we think of my grandpa’s spending, ultimately, it’s his money to do with as he pleases. He has a right to die with zero.

Similarly, I’ve observed many more stories of inheritances ruining families instead of uniting them. There are the celebrity tales, of course. Like Reinhold Messner’s. He was the first man to ascend Mount Everest, and he’s been paid handsomely for it in his lifetime. Years ago, he already gave away most of his 30-million-euro fortune to his many children with different wives. Now in his 80s, he calls it one of his biggest mistakes. It broke apart the family, he said in an interview. Everybody was mostly concerned with how big their share would ultimately be. He himself, meanwhile, inherited nothing from his parents—except respect and gratitude. He’s happy about that, he says.

I’ve seen that same story play out on a smaller scale in many of my friends’ families as well. As soon as there’s money to be had with seemingly little effort, the gloves come off. And of course, if young adults come into a lot of money too soon, they’ll likely be worse off for it in the long run, either squandering it or becoming depressed due to the lack of purpose in their lives.

One more nice thing about not having to bury a big treasure in your garden: You can spend with fewer feelings of guilt. That’s something I’m only really learning in my 30s. During a trip to Japan, for example, which ended with way more Pokémon card purchases than I had intended, or for my upcoming wedding, which will likely be the most expensive day of my life. But heck, if I’m not going to savor these experiences to their fullest in this life, which life will I hope for to give me a second chance?

If you want to do the next generation a service, teach them. Teach them honesty, integrity, love, kindness, and real skills. Give them what no amount of money can buy: a good upbringing—and let them play their own money game once they’re old enough to decide how they want to play it.

At the peak, my stock portfolio had nearly 50 individual positions. A good handful of them were ETFs which, in themselves, are diversified across dozens, sometimes even hundreds of stocks. Now, I have less than half as many.

Before, if you had asked me where most of the value in my portfolio lies, I couldn’t have told you on any given day. Now, I have a clearer picture. Nearly half of the portfolio is just one stock. The rest is heavily focused on tech as well. Two of the five biggest positions are ETFs but also in tech, and outside of some real estate, the portfolio is minimally diversified.

That’s just my portfolio for my risk appetite at my current age, and the only position I’m currently adding to is a global ETF so that, over time, I can offset my heavy tech exposure. But I’m actually happier that the value is now concentrated in fewer positions. I know which stocks I need to succeed for the overall portfolio to get to the next level.

This is an exercise you can do across many different sectors. Stock portfolios are merely an obvious example.

It recently struck me that, with my Pokémon card portfolio, the distribution looks very different. Let’s say you collect a mix of sealed products, single cards, and graded cards. If you invest $10,000 into Pokémon, you’ll likely end up with hundreds, potentially even over a thousand individual positions. You could have anything from 10,000 cards worth a dollar each to a single graded card worth $10,000. And while the best way to start collecting is organically—buying what you like—at some point, you’ll have to look at your collection and ask: Where does the value really lie?

When you’re running a business, the same logic applies. In terms of different revenue streams and where the bulk of your money is coming from, but also with regards to what your customers see as the most valuable thing you do for them. If customer service is where you can really stand out, should you double down on it? Or perhaps not and branch out? The answer will be highly individual, but in order to find it, you’ll need to know where the value concentrates.

Sometimes, your assets need to stand on multiple legs to withstand impending shocks. Often, you’re better off bundling their power in an area you believe in and which has real growth potential. But in order to make these adjustments, first, you must ask: Where does the value concentrate?