Month: June 2026

Lidia Poët was born in 1855, somewhere southwest of Turin, Italy. She had a dream few women shared at the time: She wanted to be a lawyer. In 1881, she received her degree and, two years later, passed the official examinations with flying colors. In 1883, she was the first woman to be enrolled in the bar of Turin and, therefore, the first female lawyer in all of Italy.

Her nomination and approval, however, were not without controversy. Two members of the Order of Lawyers resigned in protest. The attorney general also did not approve, and so, only two months later, Lidia’s license to practice law was revoked—a decision ultimately upheld by the supreme court.

This decision started a lifelong journey of activism for Lidia. Her university thesis had already dealt with women’s standing in society and their right to vote. For the next 35 years, she fought for those society considered less-than at the time: children, outsiders, and “the fair sex.”

While the legal profession gave up on Lidia, Lidia did not give up on the law. At her brother Enrico’s side, who ran his own law firm, she did everything a lawyer would do minus two details: signing letters and pleading in court. With her brother’s and sometimes other lawyers’ support, she took on cases, solved crimes, and even ran his practice completely when Enrico was away. As long as “a lawyer” signed or said the words on occasion, Lidia had all she needed.

The Law According to Lidia Poët, a Netflix show loosely based on Lidia’s life, pulls one of history’s forgotten tales back into the light. Is it a perfect representation of Lidia’s struggles? Of course not. Lidia’s family was rich but Waldensian, a forward-thinking church dedicated to asceticism. In the show, Lidia doesn’t seem particularly religious or put off by her brother’s comfortable home. Lidia’s grandnephew also criticized the series for depicting Lidia with an extensive, flittering sex life, which she may never have had in reality. She also swears like a sailor, which seems an unlikely habit in the late 19th century.

Lidia’s essence, however, remains well intact. The creative flourishes make the ending no less satisfying: In 1920, after nearly 40 years of activism, the law finally gave way and, at age 65, Lidia Poët was officially recognized as a lawyer.

The show’s closing arguments perfectly recapture its main point: to remind us to dream a little bigger. With “The Times They Are A-Changin'” playing in the background, the final screen reads: “This story is dedicated to those who can imagine what does not yet exist and find the courage to turn it into reality.”

Cheers to Lidia Poët!

At work, you create value. That value is compensated with money. You can argue about the meaning of the work, but whatever it is, if it’s paid, it’s useful enough to someone else to pay money for it.

The value can be small but add up. A thousand screws checked for quality issues can keep many paintings from falling off their walls. The value can also be large and complex. A CEO gets paid for her reputation, demeanor, and strategic foresight more so than her ability to crank out spreadsheets.

Whatever you create, be it a physical product, software, art, connections, or deals, in exchange for your creations, you get money. The question is what do you do with it? Sure, you’ll need some of it to pay the bills. Rent, food, insurance, kids. But, ideally, you’ll have some left over. You might keep some in cash, but not too much, because, you know, inflation. But what to do with the rest? “Retirement planning, of course!” you might say.

Okay. Retirement planning. But what does that really mean? You want to put the money where it can grow. Grow in what? Value, of course. Aha! Doesn’t that lead us right back to the beginning? I think it does.

Your creations are valuable, which leads to money. Then, you take as much of that money as you can and try to preserve, even grow that value in a different form. In the end, all we’re doing is converting between different ways of creating.

Your job at the assembly line may “only” be worth $3,000 per month to the market. And while you certainly can, should, and will expand your skills over time, while you’re making those $3,000, when it comes to leftover cash and investing, the real question is: Who can create value with that money in a different, more efficient form?

Let’s say you save up and buy $3,000, one month’s worth of your salary, in shares of a large car company. Now, you’re the one asking for value in exchange for money! But instead of merely buying a product like those screws, which get used, serve their purpose, and depreciate, you’re essentially loaning that company money. Your demand for shares helps boost the price of the stock, and whatever stock the company has, they can sell to raise capital.

In return, the company will work for you as long as you hold the stock. That’s incredible! If you had given the money to someone with the same job as you, you’d have gotten a bunch of screws. Like this, you have a 100,000-people firm toiling away for you! Thousands of screw-checkers, designers, salespeople, and even executives, all working to preserve and grow the value of your money. What an excellent conversion!

Now, even the best conversion from value to money back to value won’t always pay off. Companies go bankrupt. Cryptocurrencies fail. Real estate markets decline. But it’s an interesting way to look at money, markets, and the world.

In the end, we’re not so different from one another. We all create value. We get paid for it. And then we convert what we don’t need to preserve and grow our collective contributions.

In yourself and in others, look for value more so than money.

Osha is trekking through the jungle on a distant planet with a group of Jedi. She’s looking for her estranged—and long believed dead—sister Mae. None of their family remain. They all died in a fire accidentally started by Mae when they were young.

At some point during their search, the group runs into a sleeping colony of giant moths. Osha disturbs one of them by mistake, and one of the Jedi kills it with his lightsaber. A while later, Osha expresses regrets about her carelessness. A young Jedi padawan, Jecki, whom Osha is slowly befriending, explains that death sometimes can’t be helped. But Osha could never let go of her grief over her sister, she admits, which is why she believes she failed her own Jedi training back in the day.

To that—both the people she lost for good and as friends—Jecki offers some sage advice for her young age: “We are not defined by what we lose. We are defined by what we survive. And you’ve survived a lot.”

After every loss, Osha somehow kept going. If she focused on this side of the coin that is her story, she could see she is progressing. Dwelling on whom she couldn’t save, on the other hand, will keep her stuck in the past for as long as she continues to dwell. Only the present and future hold potential.

Everyone has different scars—but we all have scars. Don’t let what got lost along the way define where you’ll go next.

My company is a non-profit but runs like a startup. It’s a 110-people organization in a highly technical, fast-paced, and currently also struggling industry—blockchain. Naturally, things shift more than at a 100-year-old corporation. But so far, 2026 takes the cake.

Besides macro headwinds, AI disruption, and infighting in our ecosystem, I’m splitting my time 50/50 between two teams this year. One is my old team, the other a new one. During the first quarter, I ramped up, shipped my first projects, and things seemed to go well enough. In early April, however, I noticed I didn’t feel very good.

Both teams have more than enough work for a full-time job, so no matter how much I did, I always felt behind. As if I was neglecting whichever team I wasn’t working for at the moment. The double-role required even more context-switching than usual, which was exhausting. And I felt my growth potential was thwarted: I had integrated well into my old team the year prior, and now, technically, it was time to compound and reap the dividends! But with 50% of my focus going elsewhere, that wasn’t possible.

There were other problems, too. Less budget, more output, and the expectation that AI would magically solve everything when, in reality, it took more time to make it work than to develop stuff with our existing ways. It’ll likely pay off later, but not from day one.

One day, over some schnitzel at the local rabbit breeding club—which, 60 years into its existence, is basically just a pub—I told my dad about my situation. He said something that struck me: “Even if you’re doing well in terms of output, if you’re feeling bad inside, something is still not right. You should tell your manager about this and ask for a change.”

He was totally right. On paper, things were going great. I was shipping more work than ever before. Showing up in meetings. Sharing new ideas. And of course doing all the usual extracurriculars that come up here and there. But on the inside, I plainly felt like crap. I wasn’t sleeping well, anxious all the time, and sometimes took forever to even begin my next task—analysis paralysis galore!

When the problem is invisible, it’s harder to communicate. Most people only see a sliver of what you do at work, let alone what happens outside of it and how you feel about everything. But even if they might not understand at first, a problem is a problem. If you’re doing well but feeling bad, the overall situation is still bad! Multiplying plus and minus still leads to a negative number.

During my mid-year review, I flagged all my problems. I don’t yet know what’ll happen next, but it feels good to drag them into the light.

An invisible weight is still heavy. Share your burdens, and don’t speak up too late.

Yuri has done the impossible: With the help of her friends, she has put together an entire fashion line within 48 hours. After her dad lost the family fortune, Yuri’s been struggling. Not just with money, but with who she is now that it’s gone.

Fashion was always a passion of hers. Now, it’s become a welcome distraction. And after her whole gang rallied around her, even volunteered to model the new designs, maybe Yuri’s luck is about to change. Just before her big debut, Yuri tries to absorb her new reality. Standing on the balcony, she looks out on the crowd and models presenting other upstart designers’ work. Her best friend Kitty joins her.

At the last second, Yuri gets stage fright: “I came out here to take in the moment, and all I see are people who knew me when I was rich…and then laughed at me when I lost everything and fell on my face,” she tells Kitty. “Sure,” her friend says, “but look at how far you’ve come. I mean, life cut you down, and you stitched yourself back together.”

“I didn’t do it alone,” Yuri admits, sounding defeated. But that is the point! “None of us ever do,” Kitty says. She pulls back the curtain to reveal all of Yuri’s friends dressing up for the show, making final adjustments to the designs, putting in the best effort they can. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who’s in front of you. What matters is who’s behind you.”

Even if it’s you against the world—as long as you have one person who has your back, you may succeed against all odds. Don’t worry who or what is blocking your way. Look behind, take comfort in your supporters, and then put on one hell of a show.

I have a rule about selling Pokémon cards: If it’s not worth 10 bucks, it’s not worth listing. Given my life stage, time commitments, and financial situation, I literally can’t afford to mail around cardboard in letters for which the stamp costs more than the goods. But many collectors get lost in small transactions. And while I’m wondering if I should raise that threshold to 20 or even 50 euros, everyone is playing the game at a different scale.

Of course, relative value matters: If you only have 50 or 100 bucks to spend each month, getting your money’s worth is important. But it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees.

A few weeks ago, I listed around 20 cards in one go. I wanted to move a bunch of inventory quickly, and so I put up most cards at the low end of Cardmarket’s many listings. Every offer needs a market, and there’s no better way to sell something fast than to undercut that market by 10%. If you’re the cheapest seller, you’ll rarely have to wait long.

Lo and behold, within a few hours, the sales emails were already trickling in—and so were the questions. One buyer was interested in a golden card of Mew, which cost around 20 euros. In comes a second rule of selling Pokémon cards: always with photos. Especially for cards priced 50 euros and higher. Who buys an item for 50 bucks they’ve never seen before? So even for my cheap listings, I always add a picture.

In this case, the picture was of the card in a sleeve. The potential buyer wanted to see the card without it. The next few listings of the same items all had no pictures but asked for higher prices. So technically, my card was already the best deal on the market: It was the cheapest, and you could see what you’re buying! What a no-brainer, right? Well, not for this guy. But I was dealing with cards all day anyway, so I sent him another picture of the back of the card.

A few hours later, he came back: “Can you take it out of the sleeve?” He wanted more pictures all around, without the sleeve. This, again, is important if you’re truly trying to assess the condition of a card. But if it’s a relatively recent print marked as “near mint,” you can rarely go too wrong. Unless you’re trying to have the card graded, of course, in which case every tiny detail matters. I wasn’t sure whether this guy was trying to be smart about picking up a gradable card on the cheap or was simply worried about how far his 20 bucks would go, but I felt generous, so I once again complied.

I forget the rest of our conversation that day, but I do remember his panicked messages the next morning: “Hey, do you still have the card? I don’t see it anymore! Can you re-list it?” As a matter of fact, I could not: Someone had bought it while I had been asleep—no questions asked. And why not? It was a good deal!

This wasn’t the first time I saw this pattern. It has happened to me with 20-euro-cards, 50-euro-cards, and, just last week, with a 200-euro-card: Someone acts all interested, demands tons of pictures and information, then tries to haggle down what’s already a bargain price. In the meantime, another buyer swoops in and eats their lunch. “Good card? Fair price? Awesome! I’ll take it!”

Whether it’s in Pokémon, plants for your garden, or home decorations: If you plan to stick around in a hobby or market, you better train your opportunity scanner. Know your prices. Learn to assess quality. Build a gut for what’s a good deal, what’s not, and what might convert the latter into the former. Can you negotiate that person down the 30% it takes for this to be worth it? Or are you better off talking to the seller behind another listing? Will this purchase stand the test of time? Or fall apart in the shipping box? And, most importantly: Will this item still be available tomorrow? Because if not, you must strike while the iron is hot.

The other day, I bought a 1000-euro-item on impulse. I saw it, briefly researched it, and my gut told me the market was not yet correctly pricing this brand new, unexpected item on release. So I bought it. Days later, the lowest listings start at 1500. I would never have made this purchase a few years ago when I just started getting back into collecting. But now, having looked at thousands of listings and made hundreds of purchases, I know a good deal when I see one.

Train your opportunity scanner. It takes time but compounds. Graduate from small to medium to large, and don’t let the noise drown out your wise inner voice.

One day in early 1930, J. R. R. Tolkien, then a professor at Oxford, was grading his students’ papers. A sentence popped into his mind: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” It took Tolkien seven years to go from that line to The Hobbit being published. The book was a success, and readers wanted more.

Many years later, in the foreword to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien provided some more context on how the sort-of-sequel eventually came to life:

Those who had asked for more information about hobbits eventually got it, but they had to wait a long time; for the composition of The Lord of the Rings went on at intervals during the years 1936 to 1949, a period in which I had many duties that I did not neglect, and many other interests as a learner and teacher that often absorbed me.

Nonetheless it took another five years before the tale was brought to its present end; in that time I changed my house, my chair, and my college, and the days though less dark were no less laborious. Then when the ‘end’ had at last been reached the whole story had to be revised, and indeed largely re-written backwards. And it had to be typed, and re-typed: by me; the cost of professional typing by the ten-fingered was beyond my means.

That’s 17 years, for those keeping count. 17 years to write one book. A large one, but still: one book.

Of course, even before 1930, Tolkien had already spent 20 years writing stories and poems set in the Middle Earth universe. So, really, The Lord of the Rings is the work of a lifetime.

If one of history’s most beloved authors needed this long for his masterpiece to ripen, you needn’t worry: You have time—just make sure you spend it on what matters.

The semester is about to end, and Kitty and her high-school friends have painted themselves into opposite corners of the same room. The past weeks have been full of drama: school drama, relationship drama, and I’m-a-teenager-ok?-drama.

With only a few days of time left together before the big summer break, no one is talking to each other. As Kitty looks around the student cafeteria, she sees everyone pretending to be lost in their phone, sulking to themselves. The real reason? Fear. People are worried: about their future careers, about not seeing their partners for weeks, about what will become of them after high school will soon be over altogether.

Kitty, a born matchmaker, decides to take matters into her own hands. All it takes? A good crisis! Her good friend Yuri is designing clothes for a fashion show. But with only two days to spare, her mentor tells her the styles aren’t good enough. Refusing to let Yuri give up, Kitty rallies their entire friend group together: Q, who has beef with his boyfriend Jin, besties Mihee and Madison, with the former currently feeling abandoned by the latter, even Marius, who’s the reason Q and Jin are fighting.

No matter how they feel about each other, no one wants to let either Yuri or Kitty down, so they all show up, put their heads together, and come up with a completely new fashion line from scratch. Spats flare up here and there, but Kitty helps everyone find their way back together and, in the end, the show is a raging success—not least thanks to Min Ho’s music, who happens to be the only person Kitty didn’t invite—since he is her ex and, though she doesn’t like to admit it, Kitty has her own people-problems, too.

Thankfully, Kitty’s oldest friend, Dae, has been paying attention. Having listened to Kitty’s matchmaking advice for years, he secretly invited Min Ho and included him in the group effort. Then, all he has to do is get the two into the same room—and he does.

Over the course of the evening, the inevitable happens: The spirit of kindness and harmony catches on, and, like everyone else, Kitty and Min Ho make up. Not quite the way he expected it would go, but they leave the building on much better terms than they entered it, which makes both Dae and the rest of their friends smile.

It’s always hardest to apply your skills yourself. When does a great baker ever make a cake purely for herself? Someone who negotiates for a living might make a terrible deal on buying a car. And the calming voice of reason in a friend group may still snap at her husband after a long day of counseling for others.

Sometimes, the matchmaker needs to be match-made. But often, we can help it before we need help. All it takes is a kind check-in with yourself: Isn’t this what you’re usually good at? Sell yourself a few hours of your own time, and who knows? Maybe your own problems will rectify themselves along with all your friends’.

My neighbor and I were practicing soccer tricks. I held the ball with my neck, then rolled it up over my head and tossed it in the air. My friend would catch it in the same fashion, and we passed the ball back and forth.

On one of the tosses, the ball went high in the air. We both jumped forward to catch it, and bam—my nose went straight into his forehead. It hurt like hell and bled accordingly. That day’s session was over, and there wouldn’t be any others for a while.

At first, I thought it was a normal nosebleed triggered by the accident. But it took a long time to stop, and, the next morning, I could hardly touch my nose without intense pain. Eventually, though, the pain subsided, and, day by day, I felt better. I never bothered going to the doctor.

A few weeks or even months later, I took off my glasses and looked into the mirror. There was a bump on the right side of my nose. “Was that always there?” Soon, I put two and two together. “Oh my god!” My nose had likely been slightly broken, and rather than confirm and set it, I had simply waited it out—and now, I had to live with the permanent result.

Your body is just a shell, but it still needs to carry you for a lifetime. Nobody gets through life without a few scratches. That’s normal. But if you incur wear and tear solely out of negligence, the tough blows you can’t avoid might one day knock you out.

To my own dismay, I have more than one story like the one about my nose. My left big toe felt numb after wearing tight shoes for two days straight at a conference. I planned on seeing a doc about it but “never got around to it.” It’s recovered, but sometimes I still wonder if I have the same level of feeling in it that I used to have before.

Three months after a bowling accident, the muscle I pulled doesn’t hurt anymore, but something in that area still feels different. The orthopedist didn’t fully grok the situation, and while I finally have a slot with the physiotherapist in a few days, it’s already way overdue.

It’s a lesson I need for myself but also a public service announcement: When it comes to the doctor, go early, go often. Germans are notorious for working through sickness, and not every cold needs an intense analysis. But whenever a small ailment could turn into a chronic issue, don’t dilly-dally. Face the challenge head on, and get back to 100%—so you can keep playing soccer with friends for as long as nature will allow it.

It’s one of those universal aspirations. Like how people say, “I’d love to write a book someday.” We have a fantasy of what it’s like in our heads, but we wouldn’t actually want the reality of it.

Running a shop of some kind might be the most persistent dream of this sort. Ask anybody, they’d love to run a shop. Probably a coffee shop. Or a book shop. Or a shop specializing in fresh produce and delicacies. If you run into someone with more niche interests, they’d love to run a video game shop, a Pokémon card shop, or a shop for equestrian equipment.

Heck, many people, myself included, have dreamed of running a whole variety of shops over the years! There’s something about it, isn’t there? It’s just you and your goods, a warm, friendly space, and loyal regulars dropping in to chat and pick up some baguettes. So much for the vision, anyway.

Cleaning up after hours, dealing with paperwork, stocking shelves? Nobody wants to know about that! Annoying customers pinching pennies? Wares running out? Shipping fees going through the roof? Inflation, taxes, bureaucracy. Like most endeavors, operating a shop is a grind 95% of the time.

The 5% of movie-like moments will still be beautiful—but even if they’ll define the experience, they’ll barely be a part of it. Which is why many shops opened on a whim close down shortly thereafter. What the owners fell in love with was the owning. The feeling of running a shop, not the experience.

Every time I dream about opening, say, a coffee shop, I try to remember this lesson. I think of myself in the shop. Hanging out, writing. Serving coffee to customers every now and then. Enjoying the smell of freshly roasted beans on the shelf. Then, I realize I’m barely working. “Oh. Right. What you’d like is to own a shop run by someone else—but actually, that means you can just go to any coffee shop!”

Money and other barriers aside, it is much easier to buy a drink at a shop you already like going to than to set up the perfect one for yourself. The best way to keep the dream alive is to let it be a dream and not force it into reality, which could never live up to it.

If it’s something you’d die with regret over if you didn’t do it, by all means. Give it your best shot, and go after the dream! Grunt work and all. But if it’s only a feeling you’re chasing, a story you know deep down you won’t enjoy once you’re stuck on page 243 out of 1,500, relax. Find the feeling without the burden, and savor the fantasy as it is: unreal yet still satisfying.

Beware the dream of running a shop.