Peek in my week 14#

Week 44 – Arambhashura, second brains and why Charlie Sheen reminded me of my mother

“We have a rational and irrational side. A part of us that builds and a part of us that destroys. Who will rule? It’s the fight of a lifetime to beat these forces. Who will win in you?” – Ryan Holiday

The week of calm

A quiet week. A couple of days off, so I got some proper rest. But quiet doesn’t mean still.

I still had my Heroic peer coaching sessions this week (the coaching training I follow for life). I always get so much out of those. Because I believe everyone should keep working on personal development. Especially when your skills matter for your work – to be of better service. But really also in general: to be a better human and keep growing.

You’re never done. You are “never exonerated from doing the work”, as Phil Stutz puts it so beautifully.

What I practiced this week: bringing more clarity and mutual agreement into coaching trajectories, and I immediately implemented that more effectively.

Client results: 2 months in, look at those steps forward

Like in the evaluation session last week with a client who has now worked with me for 2 months.

And holy moly, what a leap in such a short time.

Self-love and self-care? From a 2 to a 4. Energy? Also +2. Relationship with his family? Better. More quality in his free time. More relaxation, and I could go on, because he improved in literally every area. And what’s important to mention: this isn’t a coincidence.

These are the results I see in people who actually do what they learn. Who use the Tools. Who practice every day. Who do the work.

When I asked him what he felt had changed so far, he said: “I’m more relaxed. Less frustrated. I put less pressure on my family. I’m more positive. I feel more connected to myself and others.”

And about his energy: “I only now realize how big the impact is of the basics combined with your mindset. Sleep, food, exercise, relaxation. Of course I knew that already, but I didn’t realize how important it is to actually DO it and keep DOING it to truly feel fully yourself.”

And the best part: “The challenge now is to maintain this. To stay consistent.” That is always the challenge.

In Sanskrit they have a beautiful term we use within Heroic: Arambhashura – it means “being a hero at the beginning”. Someone who is great at starting, but keeping it up? Not so much. We’re all heroes in the beginning. Full of energy, full of good intentions. But after two weeks? After two months? After a year?

That’s where the real test comes.

And I’m speaking for myself too, I’m anything but perfect. I have my own challenges here and I’m always a work in progress, so I’m working on it myself as well, with trial and error.

That’s why coaching with me doesn’t stop after 2 months (and my own training never stops). It’s a wonderful start, but still just the beginning.

“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”

Now it counts. Now it’s important not to slip into the arrogance of “I can do it on my own now.” Because the real question is: will he keep doing it when it gets hard? When it gets boring? When life gets in the way?

We’ll see. And that’s why we keep working together and he keeps training.

This is what I do it for. To see people grow. From self-criticism to self-love. From exhaustion to energy. From frustration to patience. I’m grateful and proud of his steps so far.

Wisdom Takes Work

In the meantime I keep training too. My partner and I are reading Wisdom Takes Work by Ryan Holiday together. So much fun to do this as a pair. I still can’t believe I found someone who’s just as into personal development as I am. So grateful.

One of the things Ryan talks about: Create a Second Brain.

He writes about Joan Didion, who received a notebook from her mother at age five. She would continue using them for the rest of her life. She used them as a reporter and as a novelist. She used them to process after conversations with her therapist. When she died she still had dozens of blank notebooks left, clearly she had planned to keep writing.

“We keep the notebooks, sure, but in the end, they keep us. Each event, each exchange, each moment we think is important enough to record is an insight into who we are in an instant that will never happen again.”

The greatest thinkers throughout history all had systems. Montaigne, Emerson, Anne Frank, General James Mattis. They all kept notes.

As Ryan says: “Write it down. Write it down. Trust nothing to memory. Capture it before it passes.”

Well, I feel that deeply. I can be such a sieve when it comes to remembering things, so I’m incredibly grateful for notebooks and the Obsidian system.

I wrote about it earlier, but it continues to be such a game-changer. All my insights, quotes, ideas, tools, as much as possible goes into Obsidian now. It’s my second brain.

And I’m getting better and better at it, partly thanks to Martijn Aslander, who helps me get the most out of it through his wonderful book and free lessons. This coming Friday, November 7, there’s another free beginner’s class in Utrecht. Will I see you there?

Why this matters so much: Because we rarely start from scratch. We’ve often read, heard or experienced something before that’s relevant to whatever problem we’re dealing with now.

“Whether we’re beginning some creative work or we’re trying to solve some complex problem, we should never be starting from zero. Invariably, at some point in our lives, we have seen or read or heard something that would be of use in this situation. But will we remember it? Will we have access to it?”

That’s why I write down as much as I can. Not just for now, but also for later. For coaching sessions. For my own development. Maybe even for future generations.

Because if I don’t write it down, it’s gone. And then later I run into something and think: damn it, I know I read something about this. But where the f* is it? Now I put as much as possible into my second brain.

Podcast Meppels Kwartiertje: success or meaning?

This week I also recorded a podcast: Meppels Kwartiertje (Meppels 15 minute). Thank you Sander Veldman for this opportunity.

The conversation was partly about my entrepreneurial journey. And about the choice we all face: success according to society – external, status, money, possessions, security. Or doing what truly brings fulfillment to you and others. What adds something to the world.

It’s about the ladder leaning against the wrong mountain. I choose meaning and share how I went from a secure but empty life to a meaningful life full of uncertainty.

And again it’s the same question: who wins in you?

The voice of external success? Or the voice of meaning? I love Jim Collins’ “Hedgehog Concept” – his 3-circle model. DO:

1. Something only you can (exceptionally) do
2. Something that contributes to the world (or: what the world needs)
3. Something that gives you deep meaning/purpose (what truly moves you)

The best part of the podcast? The connection with Sander, who understands my mission so well. It feels so good to meet someone and quickly feel: you get it. The podcast will be published soon. I will keep you posted.

Weekend: sick, weak and Netflix

Over the weekend I suddenly got really sick: the flu. So strange, because just a few days earlier I had thought: huh, it’s been a long time since I’ve been sick… and of course that’s when it hits.

And for me, surrendering to that was a challenge. My Part X said: “You just had days off and now you’re sick too?”

Funny that my kid said he hadn’t seen me lying on the couch even once since I moved into this apartment. So I must have been really sick, he said. But it was what was needed.

I used the Active Love tool. Love toward myself. Toward my head. Toward my stomach pain. And it actually helped. After one intense day it was gone. Coincidence? No idea, but I’m glad I’m better.

So I decided to fire up Netflix.

Normally I avoid long series these days. I’m pretty prone to addictive behavior and can’t easily stop watching (I’m sure I’m the only one who struggles with that ;-). So I prefer a documentary or a film. And this documentary about Charlie Sheen was only two episodes, so that was perfect.

Charlie Sheen: 8 years sober and why he made me think of my mother

The documentary shows how far he fell and how he has now been living clean for 8 years. What touched me the most? The commitment and sadness of his father.

That last part hit home because I felt that too about my mother, who died from alcohol addiction. I would have wished it for her so much: to live sober. To be free.

And what I recognize in Charlie’s story – and in my mother’s – is that once you’re loose, there’s no brake left. I recognize that in myself too. That’s why I don’t drink anymore.

Charlie’s method to stay sober:

“I let bad events keep spinning in my head constantly, like a mobile above a crib. Every time I think: ‘Maybe I should do this,’ one of those memories floats by again to remind me why that would not be a good idea.”

He keeps the worst moments of his addiction alive in his mind. Not to punish himself, but to remember why he never wants to go back.

I find it powerful and impressive. I also read Matthew Perry’s book, which is another tragic story with a very different ending.

Barry Michels Webinar: on entitlement and why your shadow holds the key

From the couch I also joined a webinar on Sunday by Barry Michels from the Tools.

It was about something many people struggle with: Entitlement – the feeling that you have a right to something (without having worked for it).

Many people struggle to send food back in a restaurant, even when it’s cold. (I personally don’t struggle with that at all, haha. I’m absolutely terrible to go to a restaurant with.) They struggle to tell their boss: “You don’t pay me enough.” They lack a basic sense that they have a right to ask more from life.

Barry’s tool? The Entitlement Tool.

Three statements:

1. I want it.
2. I demand it.
3. I deserve it.

It’s not about proving that you deserve it. Entitlement is a priori – it comes before evidence. It’s an inner posture: I deserve good things. I don’t need to prove that.

And here comes shadow work:

Your evil shadow – the ambitious, I-want-something-from-my-life part of you – often has the sense of entitlement that you’re missing. The more you work with your shadow, the more it gives you the spark you need.

Shadow work is my “not so secret anymore (since I talk about it here often) sauce” with the Tools. It’s the key for many people who struggle with setbacks, impulsive behavior, depressive feelings, lack of energy, victim mentality, insecurity and self-doubt.

Many people are used to pushing this part away. It’s full of shame, it’s not allowed to exist, it’s antisocial. But that’s exactly where the power lies.

As Phil and Barry say: “Your darkness is not the enemy. It’s the material.”

Elon Musk: what happens when the irrational side wins

And finally: Elon Musk, another chapter in the book Wisdom Takes Work by Ryan Holiday. Super interesting chapter that left a big impression on me in what is, in my opinion, an amazing book anyway. I’m listening to the audio version and Ryan reads it himself, full of energy.

Of course I know Elon has completely gone off the rails in recent years. But what Ryan explains is brilliantly written, because he shows how it happened and why it matters for all of us. Ryan begins like this:

“Elon Musk is a smart man. To say he is not smart would be like saying he is not rich.” … “This was someone who at age thirteen designed his own video game. He got his first computer in 1981. By the age of twenty-four, he’d started his first technology company, and he sold it four years later for $307 million. Next came PayPal, which revolutionized the banking industry and sold for $1.5 billion.”

He read thousands of books on rockets. He flew around the world to meet experts. He asked endless questions.

“I thought at first that he was challenging me to see if I knew my stuff,” said an early SpaceX employee. “Then I realized he was trying to learn things. He would quiz you until he would learn 90 percent of what you know.”

He listened. He learned.

And then he stopped doing that.

Ryan refers to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk, where there is a scene that shows Musk in his new element and reveals the rot that has set in. Isaacson observes Musk watching a group of Tesla solar panel installers putting panels on a house. But Musk is no longer going to the source to learn; apparently he’s there to teach, angrily explaining to the crew that they are using too much hardware to fasten the panels and telling them they should reduce the number of nails by 50 percent. “If the house goes through a hurricane, the whole neighborhood is screwed, so who cares?” Musk explains. “Don’t worry about making it as watertight as a submarine. My house in California used to leak all the time,” Musk tells them, possibly referring to one of his Bel Air mansions, which he sold for $130 million. “Somewhere between science and submarine should be fine.”

It doesn’t end well for dictators and tycoons who live in a bubble. It doesn’t end well for the selfish, the incurious or the ones without empathy. If someone can’t see that, how smart are they really? – Ryan Holiday

What happened:

He developed the “idiot index” – anyone who disagreed with him became an idiot. He surrounded himself with yes-men. He fired people who told him the truth.

“The most dangerous thing that can happen to the smartest person in the world is to start to believe that they are the smartest person in the world.”

Because then you think everything you do is smart, even when it’s stupid.

He allowed his mind to become a storm. From crisis to crisis, conflict to conflict.

“That’s the problem with allowing your mind to be a storm. You invite chaos. You ignore warnings. You careen from crisis to crisis, conflict to conflict.”

And here the quote from the start of this newsletter returns:

“We have a rational and irrational side. A part of us that builds and a part of us that destroys. Who will rule?”

In Elon’s case, the irrational side won.

And that is the big insight I want to share with you:

It’s not about how much you’ve achieved. It’s about who wins inside you. The rational part that creates? Or the irrational part that destroys?

Because it’s not just about Elon. It applies to all of us. We all have a very dark side (and that is not your shadow, by the way). And it really is the fight of a lifetime to defeat that negative force over and over again.

That’s why:

“Wisdom is not work you do once. It’s work you must continue to do.”

Action in the Taxi: this week’s steps

Step #1: Podcast Meppels Kwartiertje
Recorded this week with Sander Veldman. Podcast coming soon!

Step #2: Landing pages and website content
Working on the landing pages and other website content. The foundation is getting stronger.

Step #3: Foot off the gas
Took some days off. Got sick. Sometimes you need to slow down so you can speed up again later. Stillness is progress in its own way.

Finally

This week I was reminded once again: it’s about who wins inside you.

Write. Use the Tools. Keep doing the work.

Are you still an Arambhashura – great at starting but not at finishing? Or are you willing to continue, even when it gets hard, even when it gets boring, even when life happens?

Next week: more insights. More growth. Continuing practice what you preach.

Because no one is exonerated from doing the work.

Are you joining again? Thank you for reading! I’d love it if you leave a comment.

Agenda

November 11, 2025 – Network Full of Magic: I get to speak about my entrepreneurial journey. Will you join? 👉 Sign up

December 28, 2025 – New Year’s Workshop at BinnenRuimte in Meppel

Do you want to stop doubting yourself? I guide helpers with the Tools from Phil Stutz. From self-doubt to action. From procrastination to momentum.

👉 Contact me for a free clarity call

✨ With active love, Syl