Month: April 2026

One of my coworkers consistently calls me out every time I say something along the lines of, “Oh, I’m stupid, I forgot to link the doc.” “You mustn’t say that,” she’ll counter. “Don’t beat yourself up.” She’s right, of course.

Verbal self-abuse is only the lightest form of torture. Back in college, when I missed a deadline or frittered away an evening meant to dedicate myself to writing, I tried to get things back on track with Draconian measures. “I will not watch any TV until this is done,” for example. These rarely worked, if ever. All they did was keep me fixated on my mistake instead of looking forward.

The more time we spend in self-flagellation mode after a mistake, the less time goes into thinking and building a better future. The speed of letting go matters. Mistakes are part of the deal. Punitive measures aren’t.

Now, whenever I mess up, even if it’s in a big way, I at least try to move forward quickly. I talk to myself calmly. I try to show myself kindness, forgiveness, and love. It doesn’t always work. I rarely sleep well on those nights. The emotions are still working their way through the system. But come morning, I can often start fresh.

Some mistakes are worth dwelling on for a while so you can extract the lesson. Those are, however, far and few in-between. Most offer obvious little course corrections. In your gut, you immediately know how to adjust. What you need to internalize is the adjustment, not the mistake.

Skip the punishment. Focus on integrating more so than fixing. And whatever you do, don’t call yourself stupid.

If a Pokémon card is “off-center,” it means the distinctly colored border of the card is too wide or narrow on at least one side. Even in 2026, a task as simple as printing ink on cardboard has not been perfected. At least not when you’re printing billions of units every year.

Many cards are slightly off-center. You have to try hard to notice it. But some get pretty wild. A card with four silver edges might have only three, or two sides are super thick with two others being barely visible, making the card look almost disturbing.

Outside of specialized collectors seeking so-called “miscuts” and other error cards, nobody wants off-center cards. At minimum, they don’t want to pay market value for them. Usually, they come with a discount proportional to how off-center the card is. Conversely, perfectly centered specimens come with a premium.

I find life, too, can be off-center. Sometimes, you pull a day out of your calendar, and before you’ve left the house, you’re already on the wrong track. A last-minute coffee spill. Public transport not lining up. Running for the train. Somehow, one of the edges got pushed out, and now, all you’re left with is a fine line to tiptoe on.

At other times, you overshoot in the other direction. You wanted to get a lot done, but instead, you spent your entire weekend watching TV. That, too, is needed on occasion. But it can also mean you balanced so much you tipped over. You’re nestling in a wide border that feels like a beach, but it’s actually already past time to get back to the center.

And we, too, would happily pay a premium to return to normal when normal feels far away. “Just give me back my balance, please. I’ll put in extra effort if need be!”

The thing is, if you’re printing billions of cards, some are always bound to be off-center. You’ll never nail them all perfectly. If the center wasn’t dynamic, it couldn’t move at all. That’s only a good thing if you can ace it the first time. But room for error also creates room for perfection. If every card was perfect, centered ones wouldn’t feel so special.

The same applies to our days. You live so many of them! Of course some will feel off. And while balance is worth striving for, the fact we can’t always reach it is part of what makes it rewarding. Keep your off-center cards, and let the imbalanced days remind you of the good kind of average you seek.

That’s what they write next to the election results in Germany. For example recently, in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Even days after the vote had ended and, presumably, everything had been counted several times over. “This is the preliminary, official, final result.” It’s a tiny detail but emblematic of German politics at large: never a statement without a hedge.

Any normal person will look at this and ask: “Well, what is it? Is it the preliminary result or the final one? And if it’s preliminary, how can it be official? Isn’t it only official once it’s final? Did the state sanction these without confidence? Or will they only be sanctioned once no longer preliminary?” The disclaimer provides zero answers but also—and this is the part politicians care about—plausible deniability.

No matter how you might attack the results, if they’re preliminary, official, and final all at once, you can thwart any contestation. Turn left. Turn right. Wherever the closest verbal escape hatch lies. It’s bullshit, of course, and it has harmed our political discourse across the globe tremendously, especially in the last two decades.

And though it has crept into many other areas, too, every now and then, examples still remind us: Actually, a few lines are all it takes to cut through the maybes. To live and act in reality, where consequences happen but can be dealt with. And to realize that most people are happy to support someone even when their ass is un-covered.

“This is what I believe in. I think this is the right way to do it.” “I was wrong. I apologize.” “I don’t know. I don’t have all the details yet. I will find them and report back.”

If you don’t have the results, don’t report them. If you do, stamp them and get them out the door. The preliminary, official, final result won’t help anyone, and life’s too short to hide behind probabilities.

My sister gave me a Harry Potter–themed scarf as a present. It’s beautiful, soft, and comes in the Gryffindor colors: red and gold. It even has the house logo embroidered on one side. If you adjust it right, you can have it show up on the front of your collar.

Last winter was the first time I regularly wore the scarf. Within a few days, I noticed a surprising pattern: People wanted to talk to me about it. Like, everywhere. “Is that a Harry Potter scarf? That’s so cool!” I heard over and over again.

At the Christmas market, people yelled in passing: “That guy’s wearing a Harry Potter scarf!” Young girls pointed at it and giggled. My baker asked me if I was Harry Potter. Even the receptionist at the orthopedist double-checked: “That’s a Harry Potter scarf, right?” At the coworking space, I ended up in a five-minute conversation. “Are you actually a Gryffindor man?” this senior startup guy wanted to know. He even recommended some fan fiction I’d never heard of.

All told, I was approached about my scarf at least 10 times over the winter. I didn’t try to turn any of those interactions into serious business, but if you had asked me beforehand what the best networking tool was, a Harry Potter scarf wouldn’t even have made the list. I figured it was just another awesome token of nerdiness for me to wear, like many of my favorite t-shirts. But, as it turns out, other people are nerds too, and as soon as you connect on a shared joy, you’ve got stuff to talk about!

Of course, not every franchise is as popular as Harry Potter. I get much fewer inquiries about my Steins;Gate t-shirt, although that, too, sparks conversations: People want to know what the teenagers in lab coats stand for. In both cases, curiosity drives people to speak up.

The best way to network is rarely to go where everyone else wants to network as well. It’s to express yourself in a new form and see how folks react. Grab some merch from your favorite franchise. Add a unique accessory to your backpack. Share your ideas and creations online for others to see, or attend an event you’re genuinely interested in.

Poetry slams, live music at the pub, and Harry Potter fan meetups all outrank the biggest industry conference in my book. After all, what’s a million flimsy connections against one with whom you genuinely click?

Chris Broad moved to Japan in 2012 as part of the country’s exchange teaching program. Little did the young Brit know that, within a few years, he would run the most popular Japan-focused Youtube channel in the world, cleverly called “Abroad in Japan.”

Chris’ early hits included the kind of video you might expect from a 22-year-old: Testing McDonald’s latest fries with chocolate sauce and ranting about North Korea after being woken up by a missile alarm. It’s the kind of video you might now see on every internet corner but which, back then, offered a unique take on Japan beyond “5 Must-See Sights in Tokyo.”

Still, Chris always felt there was more calling out to him. Deep down, he knew these were not the videos his channel was truly for. Shortly before hitting the big milestone of one million subscribers, Chris set out to do something bigger. Having lived in Japan’s Tohoku region for over half a decade, he decided to make a documentary. On the international stage, the area was mostly known for the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. But there was so much more to it, and a lot had happened since the earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

So, instead of a two-minute video covering the hottest fast food of the day, Chris spent months traveling, shooting, interviewing people, and editing to create an 18-minute film a large TV station could not have produced any better. He showed how people had gotten on with their lives after the disaster. How creative and resilient they proved themselves to be, with ideas like building a Lamborghini out of cardboard, having fishermen provide wake-up calls to people struggling to get out of bed, and opening new cafés for customers yet to come.

Most memorable to Chris was the story of Ichiyo Kanno, a local B&B host, who first lost her little hotel to the disaster, then, years later, her husband, daughter, and son-in-law in a boat accident. And yet, she was still here. Still being of service to her guests every day. Still hosting them with a smile. In his memoir, also titled Abroad in Japan, Chris recognizes the documentary as a turning point:

“Until the tsunami documentary, I’d never felt proud of any of my videos. But when I released it, the outpouring of comments from viewers around the world inspired by the stories of Ichiyo Kanno and the reconstruction of Onagawa made me understand the power and satisfaction that comes from sharing important stories with the world.”

The video did well and got featured in more important places than his usual clips, and that was nice too, Chris writes. “But most importantly, in the years since the release of the documentary, many Abroad in Japan viewers have made the long journey 400 kilometres north to the city of Kessenuma to stay at Ichiyo’s inn. It remains one of the proudest chapters of my career.”

The work worth doing is never the easiest, but, usually, we know what it is. It’s the work for people who deserve it. The work that makes our hearts sing, if only after we complete it. The work no one else is willing to do but which the world will be better off for once it has it.

In the years since the documentary, Chris has continued to cater to his audience’s tastes. Sure, there are videos about expensive wagyu, tiny cars, and cheap trains. But the documentaries, too, have become a staple. Chris talks about volcanoes, earthquakes, and the problems tourists and influencers like him sometimes cause to the country. When he looks back on his career, these are the videos he remembers more so than which vending machine snack tasted the best.

Choose the work worth doing.

In hindsight, it was an unfortunate decision: In late 2023, I set out to collect a master set of every English Umbreon Pokémon card. Little did I know the dark cat resembling the night had recently dethroned most other popular mons and even the legendary Charizard, making any cards featuring it increasingly expensive.

Still, when I began, there were only around 50 Umbreon cards in total. How bad it could be, right? I bought some of the newer and cheaper ones to get going, and some older ones in medium to played condition. Gotta start somewhere, right?

In the summer of 2024, however, I found myself at a crossroads: The Umbreon VMAX alternative art from Evolving Skies, a card contending for the greatest artwork ever—it shows Umbreon on a clocktower at night, reaching for the moon—was about to elude my wallet’s grasp. After much debate, I shelled out nearly 400 € for a “Moonbreon” specimen in very good if not perfect condition. It was the most I had ever paid for a single card. I ended up shocked but happy. Phew! One of the big grails secured!

I continued buying some of the smaller cards here and there, but, for over a year, none of the hard hitters came my way. Until September 2025, when I was in Japan. A certain, very special Umbreon card from over 20 years ago was only available in Japanese, but I had always known I wanted it as part of my master set. Copies were rare in Europe and came with a hefty premium. So while in Japan, I visited dozens of card shops, hoping for good fortune. Alas, no Karen’s Umbreons. That is, until the very last day—when I found two in the span of a few hours. It was fate and, perhaps, my last chance! I ended up buying both, which is its own story, and yet again, at around 600 and 800 €, they were the two most expensive, individual cards I had ever bought. And back to back, too.

For better or for worse, the Pokémon hype kept growing over the following months. So when a new set featuring Umbreon as the top chase card landed in early 2025, I prepared for the worst: 1500 € and more was the asking price for the new “Sunbreon,” a crystallized, colorful successor to the “Moonbreon” card I had bought half a year earlier. Thankfully, single prices always plummet after release. Unfortunately, for hard-to-pull grails like this one, they’ll never drop all that much.

Eventually, in late 2025, more than a year after my most expensive purchase ever, rising demand once again knocked at my door. Just as I was mulling over whether I should pull the trigger on what was still an 800 € piece of cardboard, a massive buyout happened on the platform I was browsing. I could see all listings disappear in real-time. I even messaged customer support, but they told me all was well.

Over the next few days, new listings slowly appeared. 2000 €. 1800 €. 1600 €. “Geez!” I thought. “Have I missed the train?” Luckily, I found a vendor elsewhere and, by the time I did, I barely thought about the 910 € price tag. Yet again, it was the most expensive card I had ever bought. I had to breathe into a paper bag a few times but, ultimately, it turned out okay. The card never dropped much lower in price afterwards, at least until now.

Months passed, and I further built out the set in waves. I would order a whole bunch of cards, then forget about it again for a while. In one of my less active phases, I stumbled upon a video where a big Youtuber did the exact same project for a fellow collector: He helped him finish his Umbreon master set! My first thought? “Oh no.” The video racked up three million views in a matter of days, and I knew it would further drive up prices for Umbreon cards. On the other hand, it was incredibly inspiring to watch a grown man hunt down rare collectibles for a stranger turned friend.

“I guess it’s now or never,” I thought to myself—and set about finishing my collection. I already had a vague sense of what some of the more vintage cards were going for, so I braced for impact. Some cards I had simply procrastinated on, so it wasn’t too hard to pull the trigger on those. Others ended up causing yet much more deliberation. Many more hard and easy decisions followed, but, of course, I subconsciously saved “the best” for last: The vintage Umbreon holo from Skyridge, a set from 2003.

The set had a limited print run due to the license for card development and printing changing hands at the time. It also featured a unique e-reader design, which allowed you to scan cards with a special Game Boy add-on device to unlock more goodies in the games. Finally, with everyone’s favorite black cat sitting in a dark field at night, looking over its shoulder, it simply is one of the most iconic card designs in Pokémon history.

With the few remaining, unopened booster boxes most likely in the six-figure price range and most 20-year-old cards not exactly having survived in great condition, this card is a grail of grails. Ergo, you know what’s coming: No prices under four figures for not-completely-shredded versions, and Nik, yet again, had to decide: Do I spend the most I have ever spent on a Pokémon card? After days of comparing, I found a friendly seller with a graded copy in somewhat acceptable condition. I swallowed the extra 300 € compared to the Sunbreon and tried not to think too much about it.

Right now, I’m waiting for said card to arrive. Soon, I’ll sit back at my parents house, sort, sleeve, and catalog all remainders. Then, it’s time to document, finalize, protect, and store away the set for the time being. What am I going to do with it in the long term? I don’t know. I hope to own it for many years. It’s been one hell of a journey. As I already have done many times, I’ll flick through it and cherish the memories. And, maybe one day far into the future, I’ll consider letting it go to a fan with just as much love for the franchise. Who knows? But whether I’ll sell it one day or not, I have no doubt it’ll have been an investment worth making. Financially, sure, but the journey was more than half the fun!

Spending ever higher sums on shiny cardboard may seem a strange example, but if you were to feel these situations as I have felt them, you’d know: This, too, is a way of growing with your challenges. Buying or leasing your first car is a big expense. So is throwing a wedding, and let’s not speak of buying a house. A 500 € gaming console feels to a 12-year-old like a Ferrari feels to a 45-year-old man: untouchable. And yet, we learn, we grow, we think. We feel, we decide, and we understand the true power of money: It’s all in how we spend it, and whether we do so on purpose.

There is one more Umbreon card I’m missing, by the way. It’s a Gold Star version from a very limited edition pack. The card itself is inconspicuous—but it’s so rare, even the shoddiest copy already goes for 5000 € and up these days. For now, it’s far beyond my budget, and it may always remain so. Should the time I can afford it ever come, the price will likely have reached yet higher stratospheres. If so, that’s okay. But let’s wait and see—we’re growing with our challenges, after all, and this one’s not over yet.

Your home is your comfort zone. It’s a familiar place you can move around in with confidence. Where work gets done and healing happens. Home is a sanctuary, and that’s wonderful—but it can also make us vulnerable.

No one likes being challenged in their home unless it’s a challenge they’ve deliberately chosen. That’s why, when we visit other people, we take extra care to be friendly and considerate. But even at home you can be humbled, and that’s not always a bad thing.

I recently asked my landlord about the flat’s heating system. He explained how it works and shared some ideas on how I might conserve energy. One of those ideas caught me off guard: “You can vacuum the vents on the control knobs. Sometimes, dust gets in there, and it confuses the temperature sensors.”

“Wait, there are vents on those knobs?” I thought. But I checked and, sure enough, each of the square little plastic switches placed on the room walls actually had vent slits on the side. I’ve lived in my flat for over three years. I’ve looked at those switches thousands of times. I’ve touched them, adjusted them, and glanced at them from many angles. Just never the right one, it seems. For I had always missed those vents.

For a second, it was a little disconcerting. To realize I had missed such an obvious detail in my own home for so long. But soon, I felt delighted: Even in this place I knew like the back of my hand, there were still new things to discover!

This applies to any home you or I will ever live in. My parents’ house is a lot bigger than my flat, but I also used to live there for much longer. Yet, it also still surprises me now and again. I’m sure my parents stumble into the occasional realization, too. “Oh, this area of our basement is actually built out of this material.” There’s much new to be found in the old.

The world will humble you a million ways. When your home does it, don’t lash out extra hard. Cherish the lesson, and let humility inspire you to make new efforts tomorrow.

I don’t remember how I ended up on this random video of a Pokémon card vendor attending a card show. But I watched, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. The video was several months old. Yet, at this one card show, this one vendor made so many deals with so many people, totaling so much money.

A $5,000 trade here, a $10,000 deal there. Cash, cards, sealed boxes. It all happened faster than I could follow. Meanwhile, in the background, hundreds of people walked by—all looking to do their own deals with countless vendors just like this one.

This was one event on one day, and yet, it had more going on than I could process. Multiply this a thousand times over, and we’re probably still not even close to how much is actually happening in the world of Pokémon every day.

The video was overwhelming, but it also gave me hope. When you dedicate yourself to something, it’s easy to doubt whether you’re betting on the right long-term trend. “What if I’m investing in all the wrong activities?” All you see is your own small snow globe every day. You’re toiling away in silence—but so are millions of others!

Having faith means trusting the activity in the background. All the stuff that’s constantly happening which you’ll never see. Every now and then, you can check in on it. Watch a vendor video, read an industry report, or attend an event yourself. If it feels overwhelming, chances are, the wave you’re riding is progressing fine.

You simply need to remember that even when times are hard for you, the rest of your global team is still moving forward. Pushing. Growing. Learning. Just like you. Right now, you might be a supporting actor. Maybe one day, you’ll be a star. But whether you’ll go big or not, trust the activity in the background.

Last week, I received two strange pieces of news in one day. First, a college friend told me one of our former classmates would go to prison for nine years for sexually abusing 12-year-old boys. Second, my sister shared that someone in our extended family circle, a young mother with a two-month-old baby, might only have a few months to live.

It was a lot to digest for a single 24-hour-period. More than I could handle, really. But I realized that, so I didn’t force myself to try. Over the following days, every now and then, I just sat there. The knowledge hung in the air. These weren’t your typical pieces of intel. The kind you grab, absorb, and move on. This was heavy new data.

On the surface, I understood, of course. Someone always ends up being the statistic. But, as we’ve all learned before, reality hits different. It’s not the same when it’s you or someone you know. I didn’t know either of these people very well, and yet I couldn’t swallow these news in one gulp. I had to wait. Let it hang there, in the air. Until, eventually, my subconscious absorbed it, and I could move forward.

Sometimes, life hands you information you can’t process. It might be too much, too strange, or too unexpected. Don’t gloss over this kind of news. Your psyche might boomerang it back later. Pull up a chair, and ask it to sit down. Create a little space for it. Allow it to linger, even if you don’t understand it. Sooner or later, it’ll integrate naturally, and life can continue for real.

Eating comes with such unique patterns for each of us, but maybe you’ve observed this one too: If I eat a light dinner, perhaps some yogurt and cereal, I feel normal after waking up in the morning. Not full, not hungry. But if I eat a big meal, my stomach feels empty upon waking. It’s growling, even. How can this be?

Logic says after a filling dinner my calories should be covered, right? So why would my body be complaining? I don’t know the “proper” explanation, of which I’m sure there are many, but my theory is simple enough: Small meal, small digestive effort. After a feast, however, the stomach must kick digestion into high gear to churn through all the food.

Once that machine is up and running, it keeps going. Like a train, it’s hard to stop it when in motion. Digestion overperforms, absorbs all food, then keeps digesting away. But now, it’s out of material! Where is more stuff to digest? That’s when your stomach sends you “I’m hungry” signals, even if, from a caloric perspective, you don’t need any food.

In other words, digestion comes with a lag, and if you don’t account for it, you might feel there’s something wrong with you. Actually, you’re fine. Lag is natural. It’s part of countless processes.

Take stepping on the scale. Weight, too, comes with a lag. I often get lighter after one of those heavy meals, even if I don’t feel it. Meanwhile, a day of dieting might send the scale right up. Add an extra day or two, however, and my weight trends back in the expected direction given the past few days’ eating habits.

Even if you’ve been working hard towards a big goal for years, it might simply have a long lag. Unlike in eating, however, you can’t always suss out the lag’s exact timing. Sometimes, the lag is simply a pattern you must live with, even if you don’t fully understand it. This can be frustrating, but it can also be a source of hope: If all you’re doing is waiting for the lag to clear, it’s almost always too soon to give up.

Look for the lag. Try to determine it where you can. But even where you can’t, account for it. Most likely, something beautiful is happening. You’ll just have to wait and see a bit longer. Embrace the lag.