It’s been 4 years now that I’ve worked on one of my best work in my career. This was a campaign for Airbnb around the 25th year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. The Wall and Chain campaign ended up winning multiple marketing & graphic design awards. 

Why I call this some of the best work in my career is not because of the won awards. The story which was featured in the campaign was so powerful showcasing the way people can overcome adversary with so called enemies of the past. 

For the Wall and Chain campaign I worked closely with a brilliant team at Airbnb. Yesterday, two friends launched a new brand marketing agency focussed on bringing purpose-led marketing to growth companies.

Twenty First Century Brand already signed some major brands like Pinterest, WeWork & Peloton. I’m going to pay very close attention to the brand marketing coming out of these companies. So much to learn from the 21CB team. 

With the mid-terms elections coming tomorrow, there is an avalanche of tweets, Facebook updates or Instagram pictures shared about voting. 

Starting Wednesday, you can bet the wildest conspiracy theories will hit the social chatter to de-legitimize the outcome of these elections by either party. 

For my own sanity, I’m going to ignore all of it for the span of 7 days. That means for the next 7 days the new goal, next to my exercise goals in November, I’m committed to snooze all social engagements on political posts for a week to avoid getting sucked in.

So no retweets, no likes and certainly no political sharing by myself.

How are you staying sane in this political climate? What strategies should I adopt to avoid the obvious fake news? 

Growing up in The Netherlands, we hardly learned about the US states, with all the geography ins- & outs. I don’t even know what are the capitals from all US states, let alone where every state is on the map. 

By helping my kids to study for their geography bee, I learn a great deal more. 

Sometimes I just would like to take a week off and bite my teeth into very basic stuff to learn. That way I would be able to help my kids even more. My interest would be primarily focussed on those black holes in my knowledge around the history & geography of the US states. 

Furthermore, I have a big interest in learning the political system of the states and the federal government in the US. Not only the history of the laws but also how the actual system works. How do the house, the senate and the presidency work together making laws in the country. 

I guess I could start with the study materials which are available to become a US citizen. This would be the basics. 

As adults, we rarely stop and pause to learn new skills or knowledge. What are some of the things you would like to learn more about? 

For the last 1.5 years, I’ve scaled back any alcohol consumption to an almost dry spell.

After a quick trip to Las Vegas in October, I’ve been 15 days dry again.

But sometimes water is just really boring, so I’ve found these non-alcoholic beers for my Sunday afternoons.

What is your drink of choice when you don’t drink any alcohol?

Ever since I got struck with a massive heart attack just 4 months ago, I’m learning new skills. Not for my job or for parenting, but new skills on how to control my emotions and channel my energy. 

I use several apps to get into a ZEN mode in my life. These include:

• Mood meter – tracking your mood to identify those moments you got annoyed or stressed out, and a guide on how to get to a better place with your emotions
• Headspace – a meditation app. Andy talks you through a daily moment of ZEN
• H*nest Meditation – another meditation app on advice from my friend Bob. This one makes me laugh often, although I just downloaded it

Even with use of these apps, there can still be moments you feel you’re losing it. Just recently I learned of the proactive formula from Kabbalah on a Podcast by Stephan Spencer. This is what I’m trying to incorporate in situations of conflict or challenges.

…One of my favorite things I learned from Kabbalah is the Proactive Formula, which is a five-step process…It’s about if you’re in conflict, you’re in a situation that is a challenge, what do you do? You follow the five steps if you’re going to be reactive…

I encourage you to listen to the whole episode of The Optimized Geek. 

The five steps are (summarized):

1. Pause. Don’t get sucked into a conflict
2. Recognize the person you’re in conflict with is not the enemy but your own reactivity is the opponent
3. Recognize this conflict or challenge is brought to you to grow
4. Ask yourself for a proactive solution or action to take
5. Take that action

What are your strategies to take control of your emotions and face the challenges? Do you have any apps I should try?

This year is going so fast, we are already in November. For this months, I’m setting new goals today, which tie back into the habits I’m trying to develop while working on the recovery of my health. 

For November, my goals are:

1. Burn 1,000 calories per day, every day in November as measured by my Apple Watch
2. Walk 10,000 steps per day as measured by my Apple watch

As I’m a geek in collecting data about everything, I keep track of the daily calories & steps in a Google doc.

One way to make sure I burn 1K calories a day is exercise on a reclined bike while watching sports. I figured if I spend 45 minutes per day on my bike, the 1K per day is attainable.

Meanwhile, the 10K steps is an extra pressure to get away from sitting behind the desk the whole day. My plan is to take calls while I walk, next to taking the dog out every morning. 

To accomplish these goals, it probably means I need to get up earlier, and hence go to bed on time to get sufficient sleep. 

What are your goals for November?