Author: Nik

If I tried to say something clever on this blog every day, I wouldn’t have lasted a week. After thousands of articles, I can still count my smartest insights on two hands.

I can, however, show up every day and tell you something true. I can tell you that I believe in making the more expensive but higher-quality, longer-lasting purchase because the pain of the cost will quickly fade, but the joy of having a solid tool you can rely on stays. I can tell you that I rarely fall for jump scares, but my girlfriend does, and since I never know whether she will or not, I’m still tense when watching a horror movie — and that makes it more fun, not less.

Whether it’s in working, talking, or making art, true beats clever because clever has both limited availability and application, but true is always true, and honesty is its own end, not just a means.

You can’t be the smartest person in every meeting, but you can work hard every day. You can’t shine with your wits at every first date, but you can always let yourself be seen. You can’t crank out masterpieces on a daily basis, but you can pick up a brush every morning.

Authenticity is self-sufficient. The pride of having done your best, shared your real opinion, or made an honest effort is all the reward you’ll need — and if that’s not a mighty clever way of ensuring you’ll sleep peacefully at night, then intelligence really isn’t all it’s cooked up to be.

There’s a popular meme on crypto Twitter where people remind each other to “touch grass.” Often, it’s used in a snarky way. “You’re bitter because you spend too much time staring at screens. Go outside.” Every now and then, however, someone also issues a plain, friendly reminder: “Hey! Don’t forget nature. Get your dose of sunshine.”

When my girlfriend’s aunt learned that we had a garden, she said: “Oh, great! You can do earthing.” Now, the earth’s electric charge somehow drastically altering our physiology is probably a stretch, but it doesn’t take a research team to guess that, yes, being in nature is good for you.

Of course, six weeks after the move, I’ve been outside only a handful of times, and that’s why I’m now typing these words while touching some grass. Your own little patch of nature is a great luxury, but it’s by no means necessary. Most of us have access to some kind of green within walking distance, and I can only recommend to you — as to myself — to make use of it.

While I’m working outside, I get less flustered. The nature all around me will inevitably do its thing. It doesn’t get distracted. The grass grows whether the sun shines or it rains. It’s a nice reminder that there’s a bigger world with a bigger plan beyond the edges of my screen — and I can see it, right beyond the edges of my screen. I’m a small piece of the universe, doing its thing. What happens to me matters little — but I should continue as doggedly as the grass grows all around me.

There are enough days when nature makes going outside uninviting. Don’t knock away its extended hand when it reaches out. Touch grass — and everything you touch afterwards will come a little more naturally too.

When I was 14, we played with a big group of kids during a party at my neighbor’s house. It was spring and not too warm yet, but after running around outside, playing soccer, and trading Yu-Gi-Oh! cards for a while, we still ended up sweaty and thirsty. After we went back into the house, a bunch of us queued at the guest toilet, and for some reason, I’ll never forget what one of the guys said as he dug his hands into the sink and splashed water on his face: “I love cold water like this! So refreshing!”

For my entire life up to that point, I, like most people, used to shy away from cold water. But after that moment, I never looked at it the same way again. Seeing someone so honestly excited about splashing ice-cold water on their face on a 15-Celsius day in April changed my perspective forever. It’s as if, before, I was completely zoned in on the negatives of coming in contact with cold water, and now, every time I imagined it, I saw that guy having the time of his life in that tiny guest bathroom sink.

“Cold water is refreshing. It’ll get your blood flowing. It cleans away the dirt. It awakens and re-centers you.” These are the kinds of things my mind now tells me whenever I approach the tap in the morning — and most days, I end up splashing cold water on my face. It has become a morning ritual akin to folks dipping into the river back in the day. “They, too, had to make do with cold water! It was good for them! There’s nothing to whine about here.” Yeah yeah, alright, calm down.

My perspective on cold water changed so much, at one point, I took cold showers for 365 days in a row. 13-year-old me wouldn’t have believed he could survive that. 23-year-old me thought it was a great idea, and he learned a bunch of lessons along the way. Nowadays, I still occasionally turn the knob to cold, and I sometimes randomly wash my face with cold water in the afternoon, just to refresh my mind and reset my perspective.

The point is that for one, a dash of cold water can go a long way — from the tiny courage and confidence boost to improved blood flow to a moment of reflection amidst a busy day — and for another, small moments can lead to big changes. Someone flicks a tiny spark at you, and if the stars align and your mind is open, your entire soul will be set aflame — and the afterglow might last forever.

When you feel stumped, tired, or confused, try cold water. I love it. So refreshing!

When you grab your perfume in the morning and realize it says “Hero,” does that make you feel more confident after you put it on? When someone says “Have a good day,” and you’re not sure if they mean it, do you give them the benefit of the doubt and have a good day regardless? I do, and I’d like to think it makes all the difference.

They say life is what you make it, and since almost everything depends on how we interpret it, that’s absolutely true.

Five days after he got married, a young Levi Stanford almost died in an accidental explosion. The aspiring musician lost his left hand — a devastating blow for someone used to playing both the guitar and the piano. After months of recovery and training with a Captain Hook–like arm, eventually, Levi started making music again.

“Say what you wanna say,” he sings in If You Believe It!, a music video for an original song he filmed in over 60 locations.

If you believe it and you know it’s true
Then take what you can dream for
You will achieve it
As you push on through

Stanford took what many people would have taken as the ultimate downer and turned it into fuel for more, better, and happier. Nowadays, he travels the world when he can, inspires others through his story, and, of course, still makes music.

Don’t let them bring you down, no
When time is fading so fast
Only you can know what’s good for you

Most of us will never have to bounce back from something as traumatic as Levi has experienced — and that’s all the more reason to cherish the little butterflies of positivity that fly into our lives every single day.

The next time you come across an uplifting message, hear some encouragement, or stumble upon an upbeat music video, remember: It’s up to you. You can dismiss it or embrace it. Only you can know what’s good for you — but if you see something that might be good for you if you look at it from the right angle, don’t be afraid to change your point of view.

A basic glass carafe from IKEA costs 1.50 €. A liter of water to fill it costs one third of a cent. But if you drop a fresh stalk of mint in there, the whole thing looks like ten bucks.

The mint costs less than the carafe, but its accentuating power can enhance the value of the set by 500%, both in terms of perception and flavor.

Sprinkling pepper on a finished dish, adding a frame and logo to all slides, signing off with a kind phrase — these actions don’t take much effort, but if we perform them consistently, they’ll add up to a reputation.

No matter what you are doing, ask yourself: “Where’s the mint?” Find it before you ship, and never let a dish leave the kitchen without a tiny dash of magic.

When you ask Gary Vee why he wants to buy the New York Jets, he might tell you that it’s the biggest goal he could find that would keep him playing the game of business for a long, long time. He’s also a die-hard fan, of course, and wouldn’t it be nice if they won the Super Bowl again? They haven’t done so since 1969.

Every now and then, however, Gary will tell the real story behind his Jets obsession, and it’s much simpler than any of the ulterior-motive versions: As a young US-immigrant who barely spoke any English, the Jets became the first American idea Gary latched on to and could rally around with his friends. Since his family couldn’t afford to buy a jersey, however, his mom spent three weeks knitting at night to make one for him. Gary felt both the poverty and the love, and so in fifth grade, he decided he’d one day buy the Jets — and when he did, he’d hang his sweater from the front entrance with the following words: “From not being able to afford a jersey to buying the entire team.”

So, which is it? A selfish motive to make lots of money? An excuse to hustle 24/7? A fan fantasy? Or a giant “Look what my mom made for me!” campaign? A way of spreading the unconditional love he received when he was seven? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that Gary is aware of all these possible explanations — and he can tap into each one whenever he needs it the most.

When I was a child, I had a poster of a Ferrari F40 on my wall and the model car to go with it. I guess it’s wholly unsurprising that I’ve wanted a Ferrari ever since — and many 90s kids feel the same way. There is, however, between blindly chasing something that was dropped into your lap when you were five years old and knowing you’re chasing something because it was dropped into your lap when you were five years old. You realize it’s a game, and you can now turn it on and off.

A Ferrari is still a fun piece of motivation on some days for me; the video game version a consolation prize on others. But I don’t need a Ferrari any more than Gary Vee needs to buy the Jets. As long as we know why we’re on the journey we are taking, whether we die with our without our goals in hand matters little. We’ll enjoy the climb, slopes, and even the occasional descent, and we’ll swap out important reasons for fun ones and vice versa.

Know why you want. It’s the ultimate Lego kit of motivation, and one of the most important aspects of being an adult is remembering how to play.

I got my driving license at 17, one year earlier than usual, as part of a pilot program for young drivers in Germany. One of the conditions of the program was that you always had to have an older, more experienced driver with you in the car.

Thankfully, my parents were mostly cool with putting their life into my hands, but I still remember my mom holding on to her door handle for large chunks of most drives. “Are you scared?” I would ask her. I don’t think she was, and her behavior was purely instinctive: We don’t like not being in control.

Autopilot driving systems are already close to, sometimes even better at save driving than humans, but in order for people at large to risk a robot chauffeuring them around, it’ll take a lot better numbers still — because the feeling that comes with a lack of control is not easily compensated.

When I watch my girlfriend play video games, I sometimes get the same feeling. It’s that “argh,” “wait!,” “no!” that slips from your lips before you can help it, and that simply comes from experience. But no matter how often you press the invisible brake pedal on your side of the car, experience is something we must all gather for ourselves. You can’t pass it on to someone by sitting next to them. You have to sit there, yes, but you still have to let them make their own mistakes — even if some of them will be the exact same ones you made many years ago.

I now understand a little better than I did back then, but I can still only imagine how tough it must be to watch your child fall into a trap you know perfectly well how to avoid. It is much harder to let go than to grasp for control, especially when control feels in reach and would yield good results. Sometimes, however, the best thing you can do for the people you love is to release the door handle. To double down on your faith in them and make a happy face, even if you’re not sure what’ll happen next.

Driving is easy. The real skill is leaning back in the passenger seat and trusting that the person next to you will find the way — and only once you can sincerely do that will you start enjoying the view.

There’s that famous saying by William Bruce Cameron that “not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

You can count the times you wake up next to someone you love, but once you start keeping track, you’ll lose what it’s about: the feeling. You’ll realize this habit is not one we can ever have enough of, and the more days you rack up, the more you’ll fear losing your beloved instead of enjoying their company.

In other areas, this detrimental tracking-paranoia becomes a tremendous asset. If you love your work, counting the mornings you sit down to do it will ensure you keep showing up for it — and since work we love is not an activity we ever “finish,” there’s nothing wrong with trying to do some of it daily until the end of your life.

Counting is optional. You can devise some metric for anything, and you can abolish any number in favor of your gut. The question is where maths is useful, and where it gets in the way. Determine carefully what you should count, and even after you’ve decided, think long and hard about the how.

Someone who obsesses over the total number of stocks in their portfolio will end up with a diversified set of assets; a safe but perhaps not great return. Someone who chases a high number of shares in just a few stocks will have concentrated investments; more risk but maybe also more return.

Counting is trivial. We learn it when we’re three years old. Knowing when to count, how specifically, and, most importantly, why, is not. That’s a job for adults, and when we get lost in a sea of irrelevant numbers, it is rarely just us who pay the price.

Be careful where you count. Maths is a powerful tool, and, like all strong weapons, it must be employed with caution if it is not to hurt its wielder — and your happiness definitely counts.

Everything you do is part of a project. At work, that’s pretty obvious. An email that’s meant to close a client is part of your Q2 sales goal. A sketch that’s due on Friday is needed to eventually launch a new wearable device. And so on. But everything you do outside of work is part of a project too.

Swiping on Tinder may happen randomly while sitting on the toilet, but it’s still part of “Project Dating,” which, in turn, eventually means “Project Family” for most of us — even if we want our family to consist of just two people. Breaking an egg is necessary to make your omelette, but if you think about it, food and cooking are part of “Project Health.” You can do that project well by cooking nutritious meals, or you can do it badly by eating takeout every day, but it’s a project you’re working on nonetheless.

Ultimately, most of the everyday tasks we complete are the equivalent of adding a tiny leaf on the very last twig of a big, sprawling branch of the tree we call life. The question is: Which branch are you growing?

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you’re swimming in a sea of to-dos, and plenty of times, I have. You try to neatly group chores together and focus on only one sector at a time, but then reality hits, and suddenly, you find yourself rushing from A to B, not feeling like you’re really pushing anything forward in a meaningful way. Life will never be perfect. It rarely does us the favor of neatly lining up our ducks in a row. But even when days get messy, it helps to take a breath, stop, and think for a moment: “Which branch am I growing?”

It’s not ideal to call your grandma for 20 minutes between two meetings when, actually, you wanted to have a long chat and ask her all kinds of things about her past, but if you deliberately make that call because you’ve decided it’s time to add a leaf to the family-branch, not spending those 20 minutes on something else will still feel meaningful.

Whenever you feel lost and stressed at the same time, when you’re no longer sure why you’re doing all that you’re doing, remember: Everything you do is part of a project, and it only takes a few moments of thinking to figure out which high-level purpose you’re serving at any one time. You’re always growing, and every day, your tree of life keeps extending. The only question is which branch you’re tending to right now, and as long as you answer it, you can perform your gardener’s duties gracefully, even if you’re not 100% satisfied with your response.

When I made my latte macchiato, it started out as the hot drink it usually is. After drinking half of it, I realized I’d rather have an iced coffee — so I threw in two ice cubes and moved on with my day.

It’s okay to change your mind. You can add ice whenever you want.