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This is my third, and longest, post in a series on the importance of (post 1) and the science behind reading (post 2) and what that means for any ‘service’ or ‘read it later’ app that comes after Pocket.  The goal of higher income is not just bigger piles of money. The goal of longer […]

I’m trying to be a better reader. Part of that is taking notes. So now I have all these notes about ‘Deep Work’, a book by Cal Newport about why not being distracted is so important if you want to get anything meaningful done. I thought I might as well share them. If you like […]

With a new year starting, I thought I’d write a short post to recap the year, and to reflect on Q4 and 2021 as a whole.  Main takeaways: keep setting goals – and reflect on your progress My main takeaway is definitely that I should keep setting goals. Q3 was when I really started experimenting […]

Leadership Had another really great intervision session. Intervision is a training technique where you and fellow trainees reflect on leadership, or whatever your training is about, in your day-to-day work, and how the course is changing your approach. The intervision sessions have been really good, because one of the participants has been really struggling with […]

This was a full-on vacation sprint, so I purposely put little thought and effort into my Leadership and PMI certification goals.  I did put a lot of thought into blogging, though. Especially the Recommended Reading posts I used to post here. I realized writing those little summaries that accompanied each link was time spent not […]

Operation Fox Hunt: How China Exports Repression Using A Network Of Spies Hidden In Plain Sight – China has a program where they send their own law enforcement officials to other countries, usually undercover, to extract wanted Chinese refugees. The officials also recruit local Chinese immigrants to aid them.  Reinventing the Transformative Vision Of America […]

Leadership During this sprint, I really started to come to grips with the ‘connection’ thing my book is pushing on me. For my leadership course, I’m reading Frans Wilms’ ‘Groeien in Leiderschap’ (Growing in Leadership). The message basically boils down to: stop trying to lead people, or worse, managing them. Instead, just listen to them. […]

Why Russians Do Not Smile – Cultural differences between people are so… Interesting. The Netherlands is a small country. Yet during a trip to my home town recently, on the other side of the country from where I live now, I found myself thinking about this article constantly. It’s a two-hour drive, but people do […]

This week’s Recommended Reading starts with a nice homely about social media addiction; sees the Internet consuming a developing nation and a government fighting back; urges us to negotiate peace with the Internet; laments the Internet’s co-conspiring to commoditize community; and ends with gut-wrenching intimacy from a time without wifi. You Really Need To Quit […]

I post these biweekly updates to share my progress towards my goals. For context, read this Leadership  Had a really challenging and open conversation with 2 of my fellow students about what we were struggling with in our day jobs from a leadership perspective. Learned a lot!  Apart from that, we were asked to consciously […]