Augusts are my Austrian time when I head back to the Alps, enjoying mountains and lakes. Every year I notice the difference to the life I have in Spain a bit more. (Living between Worlds, 22.8.2025)

Walking my dog here is something very different. Dogs are not allowed to be social. When another dog owner is walking toward me I already hear the sound of the leash being shortened, and then the voice telling the dog to stay away. I am smiling as my dog anyway is not interested in any fight, he would much rather be social. Sometimes people even cross the street and drag their dog away. This makes me sad for the dogs. And it keeps me thinking.

In Spain you go outside the house and there are people sitting in chairs in front of their doorstep. Kids are running around even after midnight. The neighbor waves at you, says something about „qué calor”, and you share a few words. Yes, of course I am deeply biased by living in Spain.

And of course Spain has its own rules and social barriers too. They are simply somewhere else and I probably do not see all of them yet.

Still, walking around here I keep seeing the same picture. The fences around the houses, the neighbor who keeps an eye on no noise after 22:00, the signs everywhere: „keep dogs out”, „no swimming”, „private area, do not walk in”. I wonder why there is so much craving for control.

The media adds to it, in words instead of signs. When I read the articles and the comments, the tone is judgmental and complaining. Somebody is always doing something wrong and it is never the one who writes it.

If you keep looking at the outside and checking all the rules, there is no more time to check what is going on inside yourself.

This summer I realized that I built my own version of it. My own fence. Only my fence is not a bush or a wall. It is the versions of my business positioning, five of them by now. Every time I start the next version I do not have to decide. I can work all day and feel productive and still stay exactly where I am. This is my way of controlling instead of deciding.

Funny enough, the business cards arrived this summer and the stickers are printed. Those were decisions, and I cannot change them now. And there you go: I already caught myself thinking that I could redesign them. But for now I am happy I finally decided and no, I will not change them.

The neighbor controls his area with signs. I control by burying my head in the next version of my website. Both are control, just different versions of it.

I kept thinking about it, and this is my hypothesis: If you trust yourself that you will manage whatever comes, you do not need so many rules. You know you got it, so you can go into the unknown. But if you doubt yourself and your own skills, you start building rules. And you build them around other people too, because they might do something you did not plan for.

Control is not a character trait, it is a feeling of safety.

The downside: this tactic only works as long as there is no movement and everything stays the same. But hey, this is live and it is moving all the time.

Control is trying to be sure before you decide.

But it never gives you what you are asking for. The safety you want comes after the decision you made, not before.

I think that is the same with the fence around the garden. It is not really about the garden I think, it is about not having to decide who is allowed to come close.

This is true for your working environment as well. I once had a manager who wanted to read my emails before I sent them. You can imagine how that made me feel. And besides that: he was so busy controlling that his own work kept piling up. He was stressed and working overtime. For me that was the example of a leader who is not leading, only spreading mistrust.

What I ask my clients, and you can try it for yourself: take a paper. On the left side write down what you can actually influence. On the right side what you can only watch. You might be surprised how short the first column is. And how much time you spend on the other one.

This shows how we keep watching instead of taking action. We focus on control and on safety, and we forget what is already in our hands. „The glass is half full” is a perspective, not positive thinking. The voice that doubts you gets a lot of room. And the other part, the one that managed every situation so far, that one hardly ever gets to speak. It is allowed too.

I am still a master of building a safety fence. I keep thinking about optimizing my website, and my latest idea was to set up a German version. I have to admit: that is the next fence, not the next step. So it is on hold. What changed is that I recognize my fences much faster now, and I am starting to build doors instead.

Where are you still building a fence instead of making a decision?

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I am guilty.

I am procrastinating my training. I am postponing tasks. I am avoiding putting myself out there.

Do you know this?

I feel bad. And this is also because I should know better. In theory I have my sh* together, and many people think this from the outside. In the end I am also „just” a normal human being. And it is great that we are all struggling with the same. I think being human also makes life fun, and working together much easier.

Why is it so hard to start doing?

Let me share my story. I normally do not like to talk about me. I am a coach and it is always about my clients. What I realized is that sometimes it helps when we see our story in others and learn how they solved it.

All my life I am a very energetic, driven and highly competitive person. Still I sometimes doubt. About how to start. About how not to be too much. I know that my energy can be infectious but also overwhelming.

Since a few months I am working on my own business. In theory it should already be flying. I get confirmation and support everywhere. Even clients keep coming back and recommend me. And still I am holding back.

It is so scary to reach out to people that I became the master of excuse. In the meantime I have five different versions of my website, positioning and branding. Not to mention the stickers I designed for my brand. Exciting. Not bringing me a cent of money. But it is what I love to do.

And it is the best way to hide away from putting myself out there.

I am the best example of the study I ran during my Master at the University of Salzburg. A study about exactly this gap between deciding and doing. I decided, I got an idea of where I wanna go and I can even envision my future self. But there is this gap I am fighting to get over. Quietly, in my office, behind my screen.

I started pushing myself out of my comfort zone with speaking at conferences. That was a big step. Weeks before I found enough reasons why not: who am I to stand there? Is my energy too much for the room? I am so glad I found people who supported me and did not let me talk myself out of it.

Fun fact: I felt very comfortable on the stage and I truly enjoyed it.

I built a routine over the last months. No, not in three weeks. It takes months, I know the real studies. Writing my thoughts in this newsletter. Posting on LinkedIn, even though I would rather hide away. On top I built smaller steps, long term rather than expecting it all needs to happen today.

And finally, I am trusting the process more. Yes, my anxiety still kicks in, much more often than I would want. But I am aware, I watch it and let it go. Because it does not define me, it is just an emotion that comes and goes.

So if you feel not good enough, if you are going in circles and do not know how to start, or if you simply feel you need support on your journey: let me know. I am in this with you. Talking is the first step.

So Strava published their new data, and it caught me immediately.

Running clubs grew 3.5x last year. One million clubs on the platform for the first time. Gen Z everywhere.

I worked in exactly that field for years. adidas, Runtastic, getting people to move, getting people to run. That was my job and I was really good at it.

But the number that actually got me was the next one. Hiking clubs grew 5.8x.

And I’m happy about that. Because that’s exactly where I want to bring my clients. Out into nature, moving, and not because of the sport. Because of the adventure outside. Because of the experience.

So why is there such a difference?

Running is always tied to performance

That’s the thing with running clubs. It’s always: if I go there, I won’t be good enough. I’ll be the last one.

And that’s exactly the point where people first decide yes, I’m going and then cancel anyway. The fear of not performing, of not fitting in, gets too big.

With hiking you’ve made a plan with someone

You arrange to meet someone at the mountain. You’ve told them you’re coming. They drive out to the spot. You don’t leave them standing there.

There’s no second round of deciding. That’s the whole difference.

And then it’s social in the other way too. You have a shared experience, you talk the whole way, maybe you stop at a hut on the way back down. It’s much less about the data and the numbers.

And no, the screen isn’t losing

The article says Gen Z is going off-screen now. I’d love that. It isn’t true. It still gets tracked, it still shows up in the feed.

Screens matter to me a lot, by the way but that’s a whole newsletter of its own and it’s the one I’m writing next.

Being outside is the best mental training I know

For me this is the real point. Next to the physical side, going out into nature is the best mental training there is.

When we’re outside and we can feel ourselves, not distracted by screens, actually in nature, actually with ourselves, that’s when we get to our inner resources.

And there’s research on it. A study from 2015 compared walking in the city with walking in nature. The city walk led to basically nothing: people kept ruminating and were just as wired as before. The people who walked in nature came back calmer, and much more connected. Same exercise. Completely different outcome.

So what I’d take from all this

Keep the entry barrier as low as you possibly can.

I know this one from myself. I start a training plan, the first days are only a few kilometres, and I think: nothing’s happening here, I need to run way more, I’d rather just start with a half marathon straight away. And that brings so much pressure and fear with it that I end up exactly where I didn’t want to be, this is far too hard, and I never get into the routine at all. It holds me back much more than the small steps ever would.

Find someone to make a plan with.

Accountability. That can be the hike. It can also be a coach or a trainer you check in with, someone who’s going to ask whether you actually did it. Either way, it’s what stops you from changing your mind at the last minute and cancelling again.

Leave the tracking and the screens at home.

Just be in the moment and enjoy being outside.

That’s how I got through my ultra

In the end it was never about the big far-away goal. I looked for mini steps. The next checkpoint. The next hill. The next person I’d meet out there.

Break it down into smaller pieces, and make the entry barrier lower. That’s really all of it.

See you out there, Cris

Sources

• Strava, Year In Sport 2025, club growth and participation data

• Bratman, G.N., Hamilton, J.P., Hahn, K.S., Daily, G.C., & Gross, J.J. (2015). Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex activation. PNAS, 112(28), 8567–8572.

I live in a place people dream about. Tarifa, the southern tip of Spain. On a clear day I can see Africa from my office. There is wind, there is ocean, there are trails into the hills I still haven’t finished exploring after years here. When people hear where I live, they sigh a little. I understand the sigh. I chose this place, and I love it.

And still, for months now, I have known that I want change, and that there will have to be change.

And at the same time I am afraid. This is the part that took me longest to admit, and I only fully realized it now: I don’t want change. I love my life here. Both sentences are true at the same time. I don’t want anything to change, and I know that I have to move to move forward. Because if I stay like this, comfortable and circling, I don’t actually stay. I get stuck. There is a difference, even if it looks exactly the same from the outside.

I can’t tell you when the feeling started. It’s not dramatic. It’s more like a nagging feeling, the sense that something about my life wants to shift. Maybe the place. Maybe not the place at all. Maybe the work, the rhythm, the way my weeks are built. And that’s exactly the problem. I know I want change. I don’t know which one.

And so I do the thing I would gently point out to any client within about ten minutes: nothing. I freeze.

And then life stopped waiting

Recently, a decision arrived from the outside. No pre-warning, no discussion: I need to leave my house.

For everyone who has no clue what Tarifa is about: the town runs on a nomad rhythm. It’s a holiday place. You find a home here, a lovely one, and it’s yours until May, June at the most. Then the season comes, the rents explode, and you hand over the keys. Maybe you come back in September. In between, you figure it out.

I went through this years ago. I know this state. And I know what it does to me, because I am not built as a nomad. I’m a person who wants a home. For me, this in-between state is not an adventure. No fixed address, everything in boxes, we’ll see. It’s not stable ground. If I’m honest, it feels dangerous.

So here I am. Wanting change, not knowing which one, afraid of choosing. And suddenly forced to move, on a deadline I didn’t set.

You’d think that solves it. It doesn’t. Because being forced to move is not the same as deciding to change. The outside world can hand you movement. It never hands you direction. The real question is still mine, and it is still unanswered:

Which change do I actually want?

The move only took one option off the menu. Standing still.

The step before the step

This is the story: I wrote my master’s thesis on exactly this topic. On why people don’t do what they planned to do. Why the training plan is perfect on paper but never gets executed.

My whole work is built on one insight:

Wanting is never the problem. Deciding is. Doing is. And the doing is something you can train.

What is the issue with execution? Why don’t you start doing. Everything about getting into action assumes one little thing: that you know what you are aiming at. And the research here is clear. This is how it works: You make plans that name the exact when and where. You write down your progress and you hold yourself accountable, which means there is someone who sees it. You rehearse an answer for the voice that starts negotiating halfway up the climb.

These things work and every single one of them needs a target to point at wo work.

The problem is that nobody tells you what to do. And there is no pressure to start. It is fine as it is. What you have instead is these underlying feeling of “what's next?” and a fear that is very hard to admit: if I choose change, I lose all I have built. If I name “it”, it becomes real. If it becomes real, I can fail at it. And underneath all of that, the quietest fear of all: what if the life I love is the thing I have to risk to move forward?

Unclear feels safe. No decision, no wrong decision. No doors close.

Except that’s not really true, and I think we know it. The doors close anyway. Slowly, quietly, without us choosing which ones. Sometimes a landlord closes one for you. And every month of standing still costs something that doesn’t show up on any list: the trust in my own ability to move.

What frozen actually is: the overthinker in me

I kept thinking about what this freeze really is, and I’ve stopped believing it’s laziness or weakness or a discipline problem. I don’t think it ever is.

I was telling a friend today about my search for a new place, and I explained all the thoughts and plans I had and might have, the options, the fears I am having. I went deep down into my rabbit hole. And she only said: “You overthink it. Stop.” She is right.

A head without clarity is a head that produces options. Endlessly, at three in the morning. It is the fear that does not rest. It makes every option look both possible and dangerous, so the safest available action is to keep all of them open and touch none of them.

That’s the freeze. Not an absence of will. An absence of a target the will could grab onto.

When there is no clear answer to the question of what I actually need and want right now, then it is not about motivation or discipline or whatever the topic seems to be. You need a clear idea first, so you can decide what you want and start working toward it. Where do you head otherwise?

A captain needs a plan, a destination. Otherwise the ship is just out there on the ocean, moving without ever arriving anywhere.

I see it in almost every first conversation I have with clients. People who struggle come to me with all kinds of “problems” that are holding them back: a lack of discipline, no time for themselves, a partner who doesn’t play along. They say it with real shame, because they are capable people. Then we look closer, and quite often the problem sits one step earlier. They haven’t actually decided. And they haven’t decided because underneath, they’re not clear what they actually want and they are afraid of choosing wrong.

I could hand them the best tools I have, and it would be like handing someone a perfect training plan for a race they haven’t picked.

The order matters

This is why the order is the whole point.

Clarity first. Then decision. Then action.

Clarity is not a vision board, and it’s not waiting for a sign. It’s slower and more honest than that: separating the noise from what actually matters, saying the quiet want out loud to another person, and looking at the fear directly instead of around it. It’s uncomfortable, and it is work. Which is maybe why we’d all rather skip ahead to buying the running shoes, or simply stay where we are. Like me, for the last year.

But once I’m clear, I can decide. Concretely, with a date, not as another resolution. And once I’ve decided, I can plan and a plan, for someone like me, is home territory. Checkpoints, next steps, progress you can see. That part I trust. That part, honestly, is the easy part.

The hardest mile isn’t the last one. It’s the one before the start line, when there is no start line set.

So I’ve started doing with myself what I would do with a client. I write the question down instead of letting it circle. I say the scary versions out loud, to someone who isn’t me. And the other day, out running on my favorite trail, I tried something from my own toolbox: I went looking for the version of me who has already made the change, whichever one it turns out to be. I tried to see “her face”. And I discovered something: she didn’t look frightened. And she didn’t look homeless either.

That’s information I didn’t have before.

And there you go.

Maybe the freeze isn’t the enemy. Maybe it’s the most honest signal I’ve had in months: something real is at stake, and the next step is not to push harder, but to get clear. Frozen isn’t the opposite of driven. It might be what driven feels like without a direction. A forced move is not the change I was circling around. But maybe it is the question, finally refusing to be postponed.

Where in your life are you calling it stuck, when the truth is you haven’t yet dared to name the change you want?

End of June was the start of the Transpyrenees - a self supported ultra cycling race from San Sebastián all along the Pyrenees following the highest peaks,most crooked roads into Catalunias seaside at Llançà. Participants have to cycle 1,124 kilometers, >30,000 meters of climbing,34 cols, the highest at 2,141m. The race is one single stage, the clock never stops, and a time limit of six and a half days.

This was not the first time I supported an ultra cyclist - only this time I was the Mental Coach of my athlete.

I stepped myself into something like Ultra the last years - as a runner. And just now being back with cyclist. I remember when I was following the Race Around Austria - non stop in the car behind my friend Geri Bauer who also became a RAAM (Race Across America) finisher. At that time I thought this is pure madness and at the same time it was my biggest inspiration to become a mental strength coach. I remember the night being in the car and telling him jokes via the loudspeaker so he would not fall asleep. It was not his body but his mind that kept him going. Because I could see what is possible - mentally not physically - I wanted to learn how it works and later to experience myself how ti implement it as an athlete yourself.

Coming back to working with a cyclist got be back to where I am coming from. The months of preparation, daily training - with barely any rest days. Boring hours on the roll - I was in awe of the consistency of my client. So we did not had to focus on the routines or the consistency that is normally a big thing (also for me!). It was more the preparation for the race itself, how are the stages, what things can happen (mechanically, physically) making sure the equipment is ok was a big thing - not only for a fact but overall mentally. The challenge was also to keep the expectations in a frame, that did not built up pressure. The goal was to enjoy the race, not risking anything but being able to sleep properly, be focused on the track and make the most out of the beautiful track.

As I could be at the start and at the finish line, we integrated a visualization my athlete had told me before. Hands in Cantabrian sea and a swim in the Mediterranean- his type of motivation and following through that activity I could see his face lightening up. I took the pressure from the big 1100km and >30K ascent to something as simple as: I touch the water - here and there.

It was mind-blowing seeing so many different type of athletes at the starting line - from around the world. I could sense the tension, the excitement, the curiosity of what to come and the pain they know they will face ahead.

Seeing all of these people at 7 in the morning, on a rainy Sunday in San Sebastián - knowing that all of them have weeks of intense training behind them - I did not know their „why’s“ - why every single one is doing this. But you could read in their faces, they all have their own reason to stand here. 256 riders and pairs rolled out that morning. 56 of them would not see the Mediterranean.

My focus was on my athlete still I was so excited for all of them for what is ahead, who I will see on the finish line.

The race itself I spent following along the live tracking - and driving myself with the care a loot of kilometers to make it in time to the other side. And believe me: it is also exhausting in the car to drive those crooked mountain roads. For my athlete it was not about winning agains others - it was about his personal longterm dream to come true. Others where just smashing it and you could see on the live tracking show fast the field spread out. And while I was in awe for the first one (who finished in 2,5days nonstop) I was even more enthusiastic about „normal“ people, a lot of women (19 started) who found their own rhythm, did not get distracted and made their way through.

The Instagram postings from the organizer gave a hint on what was happening out there. My athlete had a deep crisis after a thunderstorm that blew the riders literally off their bikes. No water, the intensity of the storm, cooled out - he managed to finish his personal stage. And he told me afterwards that he used a Methode we have been training during our preparation: what is the next step I can do? Break it down and take it from there. He managed to get himself together, recover a bit longer to be able to get going the next day. And the third day he only stop in the middle of the night as he got back his power.

While waiting at the finish line for him to show up - after 5 days - I saw many familiar faces from the start line. I cold not help and thinking of „modern cowboys“ - sweaty, dusty, mostly alone on their bikes - big smiles, relieve, proudness on their faces. They made a huge ride over the Pyrenees. And the sneaky views, high fives they gave each other in the labors boat hall - nothing glamours, no champaign, no big finish line. But their smiles and glance in their eyes because only they know of what they have experienced out there the last days.

Of everyone who started, 56 didn’t make it, roughly one in five. Storms, mechanicals, bodies, minds. That is the honest math of a race like this.

My athlete finished. And then he did what we had visualized for months: he walked into the Mediterranean. He had for the first time in his amateur career a proper rest day afterwards - well deserved. And looking back he is not only proud. I asked him: What did you think out there on the bike? And he said: Many things but overall I feel this was a long time needed brain reset.

And as the mental coach - I could only nod along.

And there you go.

What would your version of touching the water be, the image simple enough to carry you through 1.100 kilometers?

This is my first real edition here on Substack. Or edition #21, if you count the 20 I wrote on LinkedIn this year. I moved my newsletter. Fully. And I want to start by telling you why, because the why is exactly what this place will be about.

I write almost every week, consistently. Like what I preach. Writing helps me to sort my thoughts, to share unfinished ideas and give them structure, and to connect with you.

But recently I felt more and more that I wanna write much more raw. Less business outcome driven and more in me. My authentic, creative, sometimes chaotic thoughts. And I felt this was not a fit on LinkedIn anymore. I am not about fluff, I go deep. I am not about shiny over-performance, how you optimize your life. I am here for the real shit.

This is what I do with my clients, this is what I live in my own, sometimes messy life. Where I struggle as much as everybody to find a balance between work, life goals and fun. Between training, sleeping in and following my dreams of crushing another race.

Writing was always an expression of myself, something I truly enjoy. I have never done it for “performance”, for “building a funnel” or for “gaining reach”. I have no content strategy. The ideas for my writing come out of my daily life, out of conversations I have with friends, clients and in my head. And many times they come up during my runs.

So this is home now. And I am taking it serious. Here I will write rawer, longer and more personal. The stuff that never fit anywhere else. About the mental game, in ultrarunning, in building products, in life. Every week, same rhythm, more depth.

Some of you followed me over from LinkedIn. Thank you, it means a lot that you clicked one more link for me. Some of you are new here. Welcome, you picked a good moment, this is where it really starts.

I am not promising polished. I am promising real. Me, thinking out loud, taking you along.

And there you go.

Four weeks after I sent a complete stranger a message I almost didn’t send, DHL was standing at my door in Tarifa.

Inside the box: a book, signed by hand. And a plain aluminium water bottle that has, not left my side since. I stood in the doorway holding both of them and had that feeling, you know the one, it comes out of nowhere. You stop for a second, let it land, and then you think: that actually happened.

But the box is the end of the story. Let me start where it started.

A few weeks earlier I’d stumbled, through a few detours, a job posting I think, onto a video of a founder talking about his why:

I’ll admit it: my attention span almost never survives a corporate video. This one I watched to the end. Partly because the man on screen knew exactly the pain I live with: I’m a one-woman show, and he named the thing without flinching. And partly because the whole mission was about the people building something alone, with no one clapping at the side of the road.

So I did the thing I tell other people to do and rarely do myself. I followed the impulse and wrote to him. No agenda, no ask. Just: this landed with me, thank you.

He wrote back the same evening. And here is the detail I keep coming back to.

He didn’t send a calendar link.

He didn’t reply with “great to connect, let’s find 30 minutes.” There was no deck, no “let me show you what we’re building,” no soft little hook to move me one step down a funnel. He asked for my address. He wanted to send me something. And then we just - talked. About Tarifa. About his sister, who’d lived here for five years (what a coincidence!). About coworking and tired Central Europeans who need a change of scenery. It was a lovely, personal conversation without any „goal“ or „outcome“ that needed to happen.

Four weeks later: the box.

I’ve been trying to work out why something so small stayed with me this much. And I think it’s because of what I’d quietly become.

When you build alone, you optimise everything. You can’t help it. Every conversation becomes a maybe-client, every coffee a maybe-collaboration, every message a faint second motive you don’t even want. He had none of that. No play, no funnel, nothing I could do for him. He just sent the box.

The man, by the way, is Matthias „Matze“ Henze. He built Jimdo, the website tool millions of small businesses quietly run on, and he’s spent the last while writing a book about the roughly four million solo self-employed people in his country. Forty real stories of what it actually feels like to go it alone. I read the whole thing and what happened: it felt like sitting across a table from him over coffee, even though I’ve never met him in person. Every story breathes. Every one of them made me feel a little less insane.

And it arrived at a moment when I needed it more than I’d admit. I’m in one of those phases right now, working on the business instead of in it, the endless experimenting, the running into a wall and getting back up.

Last week I realised that the focus for my offer, the one I’ve been refining and reshaping and second-guessing for a full year, had quietly brought me right back to the thinking I’d had almost twelve months ago. Full circle.

I spent that entire year convinced it wasn’t ready, that I needed to make it more perfect first, do more research, that it still wasn’t good enough to start actually saying out loud, to actual people.

The book read like an experienced founder pulling up a chair and saying:

you’re not alone, and you’ve got this.

Which, again, he had no reason to give me. There was nothing in it for him.

And there it was, sitting on the table next to the box: I’d been doing to my own work exactly what I do to every conversation. Optimising it to death. Waiting for the version that finally justified itself. Matze didn’t wait for the perfect moment to be generous, he just was. The book didn’t wait until it was flawless, it got written, and it found me anyway.

You can’t optimise your way to trust, or warmth, or being seen. And, this is the part I’m only now admitting, you can’t optimise your way to ready either. At some point the research is just hiding. At some point you send it.

The founders and leaders I coach do the same thing to themselves: wait for the perfect plan, the right quarter, the flawless moment to say the hard thing. It almost never comes.

So I’m grateful, for the box, the whole small thing. It reminded me what I actually care about, and I’ve quietly started practising it myself: send the message, mean the question, let a moment be a moment with nothing attached.

And the book, Matze’s „Das Unternehmen bist du“, was one of the most inspiring things I’ve read in a long time. If you’re building anything alone, read it. I’m glad I have more people like him around me now: people who do the thing instead of perfecting the thing. If there are more of us building like that, I’m honestly not afraid of much.

And there you go. That’s the thing I wanted to say this week.

What are you still making perfect, still researching, still telling yourself isn’t ready, that you could just put in front of someone this week?

—

I’m Christina, a mental coach and ultrarunner. I spent years building products at Red Bull and adidas, and I learned the same thing in both worlds: the body and the strategy aren’t usually what give out first. The mind is. This is where I think out loud about that, somewhere between kilometer 80 and the next big decision.

If this landed with you, the best thing you can do is stay. Subscribe and it shows up every other week, quietly, in your inbox.

And one more thing: I read every reply. What’s the wall you’re hitting right now, in training or at work? Hit reply and tell me. I mean it.

Last week I stood on stage at DES in Malaga, my first time speaking in a professional setting. And the interesting part wasn’t the stage. I felt confident up there, well-prepared (over-prepared, honestly), and I actually enjoyed the panel discussion, even if it was way too short.

The stage was never my challenge. The networking is.

This is no big news to anyone who knows me. At these events, where the whole point is connecting with new people, I struggle and I feel out of place. It started in my early twenties: I’d go to conferences and the voice in my head would run its loop:

too young, not experienced enough, what do I have to say anyway

and I’d hide away awkwardly in a corner. And I’ve been to a “ton” of these. From re:publica to SXSW, rooms full of outgoing marketing people who seemed to move through the crowd like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Then last year I started my own business, and I realized I can’t hide anymore. I have to put myself out there, to be seen, to be recognized, to get clients and, you know, earn a living.

Terrifying.

Last year, that was the moment, at DES 2025, when I decided: next year I won’t be the one quietly listening in the corner. I’ll be on the stage.

Well, I did it.

And somewhere in the preparation, my little imposter voice

everyone belongs here except me

got quieter. Because I had to confront the truth: I do have something worth saying. I do have experience that’s genuinely valuable. I usually wave this away, but let me say it plainly: I’ve run 120km through the desert. I’ve worked inside high-pressure organizations like Red Bull. I’ve led people through transformations where we had to let 250 of them go including myself. There is a lot I can bring to a room.

Six in Ten experience impostor feelings

If you feel that imposter voice too, you’re in very good company.

When researchers pooled 30 studies covering more than 11,000 people, they found that roughly six in ten of us experience impostor feelings, the persistent sense of not really belonging, despite the evidence. It was first described in 1978 in high-achieving women, and we now know it reaches across every gender and field. So when you look around a conference room convinced everyone else has it figured out: statistically, most of them are running the same loop you are.

The gap I stopped apologizing for

And still, a casual conversation is hard for me.

That’s the honest gap. I can hold a stage, but I freeze at the cocktail table. And the more I talk about it, the more I hear it back: friends, professionals, people who from the outside look like absolute masters of the room, easy talkers, effortless at slipping business into conversation, quietly tell me they feel the same!

So I watched what I actually do at these events. I end up having one deep conversation over dinner. I listen to someone’s whole life story on day two. And I finally named it: I’m someone who values deep, trusting connection over light small talk. As a coach, I’m not just used to listening, asking, staying curious, I’m trained for it. I can’t switch it off. People often read me as an extrovert, but inside I’m an introvert who gets overwhelmed by too many people and too much noise.

And here’s what I want you to take from this:

that wiring is not a weakness to fix. It’s an asset to use.

The science is on our side here. When the psychologist Matthias Mehl tracked people’s real conversations, he found that the ones who had more substantive conversations were happier and that held true whether they were introverts or extroverts. The depth is what matters, not the volume. Adam Grant’s research points the same direction in leadership: introverted leaders can actually outperform extroverted ones with proactive teams, precisely because they listen instead of needing to be the center of attention.

In other words: the very thing I thought disqualified me from networking is the thing that makes my connections worth something.

The two stories I tell myself

So how do I reframe this? I borrowed a lesson from other introverts who struggle exactly like I do. It comes down to the stories we tell ourselves, and which character gets the microphone.

There’s shy Christina, who doubts. And there’s courageous Christina, the one who ran through the desert. Both are real. The work isn’t to silence the first one. It’s to give the second one more space in the moments that count.

I walked away from DES thinking: it was never going to be an endless stream of new contacts and shiny possibilities. But I left with two people who opened up to me deeply. And that felt like proof. They sensed they could trust me with their inner world. That is my superpower and it’s exactly how I operate professionally, too.

What I’m taking with me and what I can offer you

Staying authentic and true to myself is the biggest lesson. I don’t need to hide, and I don’t need to become a “sales person” I’m not. I have proof, from my clients, from these very conversations: I make a real difference in people’s lives.

So my goal isn’t to collect the most business cards. It’s to practice, to be open, to connect deeply and stay proud of where I am and where I belong. And to open the door for the people who do want to work with me.

If you’re a leader, a founder, or someone carrying that quiet gap between what you’ve achieved and how you feel walking into the room: that’s exactly the work I love. I help people stop performing a version of themselves that drains them, and start leading from the strengths they already have. Not by getting louder - by getting clearer.

I’ll never be the loudest voice in the room. But I can make sure more people see the value I bring and feel genuinely supported working through their hardest challenges.

And there you go.

I write a weekly newsletter sharing personal experiences and impulses for leaders, runners, and people who want to grow. Free learnings and tools in your inbox every week.

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When I talk about my yearly running goals or the achievements of the last years of running ultra marathons in the desert people only see the big achievement, the big goal.

But what is actually much more impressive then performing that specific day are the moments nobody is there. The boring runs, the paperwork for your taxes or the intense discussions in a project that are needed to develop something together.

This is not glamorous nor is it always fun. Sometimes you start doubting what you are doing and when you are tired from the day before and crawl out of bed at 6:30 to get your run in before heat hits, you ask yourself why the hell you are doing this when nobody is asking you to do it.

And I believe this is not only true for ultra running.

It is true for everyone who is building something without certainty: Freelancers, founders, people looking for a job and people changing careers, you keep going before there is proof.

You send the message, rewrite the offer, update the CV, follow up, try again. Most of it is invisible. But it counts.

The 5K nobody sees

During my last race in Peru I met Zuzanna, a lovely vibrant polish lady who lives in Switzerland. She shared hot water for tea with me, I learned about her cleaning routine in the dessert but overall I learned about her training. She has no plan - for somebody like me that itself is already impressive to run an ultra with no plan. Her „plan“ is 5km every day (or minimum 3km, as she says). And she is doing this since more than 4 years. It became a routine for her - like brushing your teeth. And with this consistency she has built an impressive foundation - physically but also mentally. Sticking to „her plan“ every day, became her routine. You won’t believe how rigid she is: even the day after finishing 120km in the dessert she showed up. While I was chilling at the pool, she showed up in her training clothes for her daily 5k which of course she finished.

Why small steps matter

Behavioral science shows that we are more likely to follow through when we make actions small, concrete and repeatable. Vague goals like “I want to get stronger” or “I want to build my business” are hard to act on. But “I run 5K every morning” or “I send one offer today” gives the brain a clear next step. And that reduces complexity and adds clarity. It provides more space in your brain for other things and helps to reduce overthinking.

Additionally small actions reduce the emotional weight of big goals.

I think everyone who is building something without external structure knows this feeling. Freelancers. Founders. People looking for a job. People changing careers. Nobody sees how much energy it takes to keep going when there is no immediate feedback.

My story of starting all over again

14 months ago I started building my new professional chapter becoming self employed. What a hell of a ride it has been since then. Ultra marathons feel easier than this journey. But I could see so many similarities. And I do see them in others as well when I exchange about the dark moments will fellow „autónomos/freelancers“ here in Spain or elsewhere. The moments you feel very lonely, unsure if what you are doing will get you there. Losing your focus with being distracted - by endless AI opportunities, IG advertisement that is a welcome distraction when you are down in the rabbit hole.

It is the plan, the tiny steps and the direction you need to create for yourself.

My working days these days are much more intense then when I was employed. Defining the next steps, executing on it and not to forget to follow up, working on projects and coaching clients while at the same time thinking about the next step. And pushing and running even there is no proof it will lead you to success.

What is next? I do not know, and nobody knows.

I only know what I want my future professional life to look like. How I am getting there? With consistency, showing up every day and doing the tiniest task every day.

One routine I built up, based on a beta testing with Nico Herbst who is writing a book on networking, is my daily morning checkin where I define what are my 3 priorities this day, and who I wanna talk with today. As well as defining a focus for my week. That way I break my big vision of my future professional life down into every day tasks that built up to something bigger. It is my 5K every day - my plan, my to do list I can cross off. And also when I know: ok, today is enough.

Showing up also means showing up for myself and granting myself to be done.

Let’s be honest: as a founder and freelancer you are never done.

This is also the work I do with my clients. We do not create huge plans that look good on paper and collapse in real life. We look at what really matters, what is already there and where the resistance comes from. We find out what the smallest repeatable step could be.
People do not need more pressure, more tools more of something. They need clarity, structure and a way to keep showing up when motivation disappears.

The question is not: What is your big goal?
The better question is: What is your daily 5K?
The small thing that keeps you connected to the person you are becoming.

In my 1:1 coaching, I help you do exactly this work: build consistency, create structure and keep showing up for yourself.

Whether your goal is a marathon, a career move, becoming self-employed or simply finding your next step again, we find your daily 5K and build from there.

Find out more about my coaching or reach out if you feel this is exactly where you are right now.

I am back in Sevilla, escaping the crazy Levante wind that has been blowing nonstop for five days. Since a few months I have the privilege to be home in Sevilla and Tarifa, getting the best out of both worlds. Over the last weeks I discovered a new side of Spain. And I discovered a new “me living in Spain”, because this feels real.

It is normal life here in Sevilla, more serious and less of the ongoing laid-back vibe I have in Tarifa. At the same time it is busy, vibrant, and yes, it lacks access to the sea, which I try to compensate with running in Parque María Luisa.

I started coming to Sevilla last year, connecting more and more with Innovators Hub, a diverse community set up by a Spaniard who moved back home after years abroad. Then I met someone at Marathon des Sables two years ago who is also from Sevilla, and somehow there was a clear pull for me to explore this place more.

It felt like life wanted me to be here.

Even though Sevilla is still not a world metropolis, I enjoy the vibrant life, the concerts, the culture, and having more options for food. Running through historical parks and streets gives me so much joy. It feels like I am adding more color to my Spanish life, and also becoming more Spanish overall. I am diving into the culture for real.

The best example: I already have my local fruit and vegetable store. Tiny thing, but it feels so right when I walk in there and the guy already smiles at me.

I feel myself here.

Grounded and truly arrived in Spain. Sevilla brings out more of my female side as well. Dressing up when you go out, being in a real environment with people running their businesses, startups and meetups, conversations with ambitious people. It is so easy to connect and just meet for a coffee.

I still love my Tarifa style, but I feel I need a bit more Sevilla in my life. Almost three years ago, when I decided to stay in Tarifa, it was a process and I followed through. There was not this one big decision - well yes, there was this one moment when I had to decide: do I go back, or do I truly commit? And in that moment it was actually easy because I had been drawn to my happy place for years. I needed this environment to grow personally. And no, it was not clear from the beginning: I am immigrating to Spain.

It was this slow “poco a poco” and finally my commitment to jump fully into it. I remember when the truck with my stuff from Austria arrived and it actually became real. And now this pull toward Sevilla is not magic either.

It is again the right vibe, the right moment, the right environment to ground myself and build the foundation for my next professional steps. Sevilla unlocks a different kind of power in me. It unlocks me stepping up, and literally stepping onto a stage.

No longer can I hide away in flip-flops. It is time for the stage.

Funny enough, I think I knew for a while that Tarifa would not be the whole story. And hey, I am not moving away. Tarifa is still part of me. It gave me freedom, nature, space, and the courage to build an unconventional life. I just need this other side of me a bit more. I need the environment that unlocks the female leader who goes out there and leads her business. The side that wants more connection. More visibility. More ambition. More stage. The side that does not only live freely, but also leads, builds, and shows up with her work.

And somehow, without fully realizing it, I have already started moving in that direction.

Without knowing it, I took so many unconscious steps toward a different environment, and I guess this is why it feels so natural now. I realized it by watching my patterns.

Everything flows and it becomes super clear. There is no need to force any decision. My mind is already there while I have been still figuring things out. And this is the part I find interesting.

Clarity did not come because I sat down and overthought every detail. It came because I started noticing what was already there. It was this pull, the energy, the people and the places I kept returning to because I felt so me, so home.

Often we think we are stuck because we do not know enough yet. So we research more, analyse more, ask more people, compare more options, and try to think ourselves into clarity. But sometimes we are not stuck because we do not know enough. Sometimes we are stuck because we are so busy thinking that we no longer feel what is already clear.

A common problem

It is not surprising that I see this also in my work with clients, especially with leaders and founders who are analytical, cognitively strong, and used to managing their businesses, their teams, their families, and a lot of complexity.

They are not afraid to ask the right questions.T he problem is that they often want to overanalyse. They try to create clarity through control, by understanding every single detail before they allow themselves to move. There are surely not too few thoughts in their decision-making process. On the contrary: there are too many.

They lose themselves in analysing and trying to think themselves into clarity.

And what happens is that the overall feeling of what provides energy gets cut off. It does not fit into the analysis. So they manoeuvre themselves into a dead-end road and start to feel stuck. And then suddenly it feels like they have a big decision to make, when often the next chapter has already been showing itself for a long time.

Through energy, curiosity and momentum or may be a conversation that stays with you, a place that makes you feel more alive or a person who brings out a side of you that you almost forgot. And this is not just some spiritual “follow the signs” idea.

Not spiritual bla bla. Science.

Neuroscience has been showing for years that decision-making is not purely rational. Antonio Damasio’s work around somatic markers suggests that bodily and emotional signals help us evaluate options, especially when there is uncertainty and no perfect answer. Our body stores experience. It recognises patterns. It gives us signals before our conscious mind has fully built the argument.

Interoception, our ability to sense internal body signals like breath, tension, heartbeat or gut feeling, also plays a role in emotional regulation and decision-making. So what we call intuition is often not magic.

It is pattern recognition through a calmer nervous system.

And that is why overthinking can become such a trap. When your nervous system is overloaded, everything feels urgent, risky, complicated or unclear. You try to solve the pressure with more thinking, but the more pressure you add, the less you can actually hear yourself.

So what can we change?

We can start giving more space to the feeling of aliveness. Here are some questions to follow along your reflection and that helped me also in my process and I sue with my clients:

• Which environment, which conversation, which place left you with inspiration and this itchiness of wanting to start?

• Where do you feel more focused, sharper, more yourself?

• Where do things actually start flowing without huge effort?

• Are there people who bring out a new side of you?

• What keeps returning in your life?

For me, there are many patterns that became very obvious. Moving abroad and living in a Mediterranean area was always somewhere in the back of my head. I always kind of knew, without really paying attention. Integrating in a new culture is deeply rooted in myself and I always wanted to live it.

What I experienced myself and I am sharing with my story: There is so much data you have already collected. Trust it.

At the same time, don’t take signs blindly as the truth. See them more like a trusted friend by your side, someone who knows you inside out. This inner guide can help you distinguish between a sign and a pure impulse.

My best decisions have come from gut feeling, but usually with a lot of research before. When I decided to stay in Spain, I had analysed a lot. I had looked at options. I had thought it through. But the final clarity did not come from one more spreadsheet. It came from listening to what had been obvious for a long time.

In Tarifa, I created my unconventional life and started trusting my journey. In Sevilla, I find more connection, with myself and with like-minded people. It gives me visibility, growth, and a different kind of aliveness.

And maybe this next chapter is less about escaping a conventional life and much more about integrating all the steps of my journey.

What makes your heart sing? (My clients know this question)

Listen carefully. It might already be telling you where you feel most alive, long before you can name it.

I followed two ultra running events over the last weeks. One I couldn’t stop watching. The other one I couldn’t really feel. And I kept asking myself why.

The first one was the Cocodona 250. 250 miles through Arizona. Heat, dust, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, endless hours on your feet. And then Rachel Entrekin won the whole thing. Not the women’s race. The race. She beat the entire field, men included.

I have to admit, I had never heard of her before.

But watching her race, seeing her attitude, her smile, her calmness, her ability to keep moving without making everything about herself, really touched me. There was something so refreshing about it. Toughness and lightness at the same time. Focus and fun. She was out there doing something almost impossible and still there was this feeling of joy around her.

And then there was Courtney Dauwalter, one of the greatest ultrarunners in the world, somewhere in the same race, tired, human, real. This is what I love about ultra running. No matter how strong you are, at some point the race strips everything down. You eat, you move, you get tired, you take a dirt nap, you get up again. There is no glamorous version of it when you are 100 miles deep into a race. And somehow this is exactly what makes it beautiful.

What really stayed with me was the energy around these women. They were racing hard, of course they were. But it didn’t feel ego-driven. It didn’t feel like a personal brand campaign. It felt like running. Like community. Like people going through something together, even while competing against each other.

Rachel had a crew. She had people supporting her, feeding her, pacing her, documenting parts of the race. But I never had the feeling that the whole thing was built around making her look bigger than the race. It felt like the race was still the main character.

And maybe this is what I loved so much.

At the same time, I kept seeing another ultra project popping up in my feed. Red Bull’s Cyborg Season Ultra 600 with Arda Saatçi running from Death Valley to Santa Monica. 600 kilometres. Cameras. Livestream. Branded kilometre signs. Constant updates. A full production.

Typical Red Bull.

And I say this with love because I know that world. I worked in that machine. I know how powerful it can be when storytelling, sport, courage and production come together in the right way.

So I was curious.

I had never heard of Arda before either. And of course, running 600 kilometers is impressive. There is no question about that. Most people will never even understand what it takes to keep moving for that long, with that amount of pain, heat, sleep deprivation and mental pressure. He missed his original 96-hour goal and still kept going. He finished in around 123 hours. That takes something.

So this is not about taking anything away from the achievement.

Still, I did not feel connected to it.

I kept watching clips, seeing the branded signs, the camera angles, the livestream, the crew always around him. And instead of being pulled in, I felt more and more distance. I couldn’t really understand why at first. I just felt that something was missing for me.

Maybe it was the backpack he didn’t have to carry because the support was always there. Maybe it was the constant production. Maybe it was the way the whole thing looked more like a media project than a race. Maybe it was because I couldn’t really feel his Why.

So I started googling him.

And quite quickly I understood that he comes from a different world. More media. More influence. More extreme projects. More “look what is possible” energy. Again, nothing wrong with that. This is also part of sport today and clearly it attracts people who might never follow a normal ultra race. That is a good thing.

But for me personally, it didn’t land.

And there is some science behind this.

In motivation research, there is this idea that we are much more likely to sustain effort when it comes from something intrinsic. When we feel we have chosen it ourselves, when we feel capable, and when we feel connected to something bigger than ourselves. This is also what research on ultra runners keeps showing. It is rarely only about beating others or being seen. It is about personal challenge, meaning, community and the experience itself.

And maybe this is what we feel as an audience too. We feel whether someone is moving from a real inner place, or whether the whole thing is mainly built around attention.

This is where the interesting part starts. Sometimes an achievement can be objectively impressive and still not feel meaningful to you. Or someone can do something huge and you still don’t feel inspired.

And sometimes someone else can simply run, smile, suffer, continue, cuddle a dog just before the finish line and suddenly you feel something deeply.

This is not the truth. It is my personal, biased feeling. But I think it has something to do with authenticity. Not authenticity as a marketing word. I actually hate how often this word is used. I mean the kind of authenticity you can feel before someone explains it. The kind where you immediately sense that the person is not doing this for attention, but because there is something deeper pulling them forward.

With Rachel, I felt it immediately.

She was racing others, but it didn’t feel like she was racing against them in a hard ego way. It felt like she was part of something. She was in the race, with the race, with the people around her, with the community. And yes, she won. She won big. But even after the finish line, the energy still felt humble. Smiling, talking, laughing, making something incredibly hard look almost light.

That inspired me. And I am sure it inspired many other women and men too.

Because this is the version of ultra running I love. Not the cyborg version. Not the bigger, louder, harder, more extreme version. But the human version. The version where people do extraordinary things without needing to turn themselves into superheroes.

And maybe this is also why women are so exciting to watch in ultra running right now.

There is something happening in this sport that goes beyond performance. Women are not only participating. They are winning. They are beating entire fields. They are showing that endurance is not only about power and speed, but about patience, pacing, emotional regulation, pain tolerance, problem solving, humility and the ability to keep moving when nothing feels easy anymore.

And maybe that is exactly why it resonates so much with me. Because in ultra running, as in life and work, the loudest person is not always the strongest one. The person with the biggest production is not always the most credible one. The person who looks most impressive from the outside is not always the one who moves something inside us.

And this is where I also think about leadership, business and personal brands.

We live in a time where everything can become content. Every challenge, every struggle, every achievement, every “hard thing” can be packaged, filmed, streamed and turned into a story. And sometimes this is beautiful because it allows us to witness things we would never see otherwise. But sometimes the camera becomes too present. The production becomes bigger than the purpose.

The story starts to feel more important than the experience itself.

And people feel that. Teams feel that too. Clients feel it. Audiences feel it.

And I think this matters a lot for leaders. Because teams feel the same thing. They feel when a strategy is only a slide deck. They feel when a transformation is mostly a performance for the board. They feel when a leader talks about purpose, but actually rewards visibility, speed and personal positioning. And they also feel when something is real. When the Why is clear. When the work matters. When people are not just there to look busy, but to move something meaningful forward together.

You can create attention with production. But you create trust with purpose. You can create movement with pressure. But you create endurance with meaning.

And maybe this is the difference I felt so strongly between these two events.

One made me watch. The other made me care. And caring is the deeper thing.

This is also something I keep thinking about in my own work. What is the reason behind what I do? What is the real mission? Where am I trying to inspire, support, guide or contribute? And where am I maybe just trying to make something look good from the outside?

It is not always easy to answer honestly. Of course we all need visibility. We all need to communicate what we do. We all need to show our work somehow. I also write this newsletter. I also share my thoughts. I also want people to understand what I stand for.

But there is a difference between sharing from a real place and building everything around being seen. And I think ultra running makes this very visible. At some point the race always tells the truth.

You can have the cameras. You can have the crew. You can have the perfect story. But you still need to keep moving. And if your Why is not strong enough, the cracks will show. Maybe not in the result, but in how people feel when they watch you.

This is what Rachel reminded me of.

You don’t need to be loud to be powerful. You don’t need to put yourself in the center to inspire people. You don’t need to make everything about you to leave an impact.

Sometimes the strongest message is a woman running 250 miles through the desert, beating the whole field, smiling at the finish line and making it feel like the most natural thing in the world.

And there you go.

Maybe this week’s question is not how can I become more visible. Maybe the better question is:

What am I doing because it truly matters to me, even if nobody is watching?

Because that is probably where the real strength starts.

And I mean your personal ones. Not the nice words companies put on their websites or into their offices, usually developed to describe the company culture, where they sound good, polished and meaningful, until you join the first meeting, walk into the kitchen, or see how people actually behave when pressure rises. That is when you experience values. Not as words, but as behaviour.

And I think it is the same for us personally. We can say that freedom matters, that family matters, that health matters, that meaningful work matters, that connection matters, but what we actually choose in daily life tells the more honest story.

Last week, my mum visited me in Spain.

She comes twice a year and every time I try to show her something new in Andalucía. This time it was Córdoba and the open patios, which only happen for two weeks in May, when private people open their homes and gardens and you can look behind doors where you would never expect these beautiful outdoor living rooms full of plants, flowers, tiles, shade and little hideaways for the heat.

Each patio has its own vibe and setting. Some are more elegant, some more wild, some are clearly looked after by older women who probably know every single plant by heart, others are run by whole families, from grannies to grandchildren, and everywhere you feel this quiet pride of people showing their little paradise.

One patio really got my attention.

It had huge walls full of single pots with flowers. Countless pots. The whole scenery was so impressive that I first just stood there and looked at it, until my very practical Central European brain kicked in and I thought: but how the hell do they water all of this?

So I started talking to one of the women there.

She was in her mid-twenties, standing next to her mum, who was probably in her fifties, and they told me that both of them take care of the patio together. Every week they water the plants for around four hours, and in summer, when it gets really hot, they do it every two days.

Mother and daughter, watering flowers for hours.

And immediately I thought of Austria and Germany, where something like this would probably be solved quite quickly with a watering system, because of course this would be more efficient. Someone would calculate the effort, compare options, install a system, and then proudly explain that now it only takes ten minutes instead of four hours.

And technically, that would make sense.

But standing there, looking at these two women, I also felt that this would completely miss the point.

Because the point is not only the flowers.

The point is that this patio connects them. It gives mother and daughter a shared project, a rhythm, a reason to spend time together, to care for something, to continue something that probably existed before them and might continue after them. You could see how proud they were, how much they cared, how naturally they shared this place with strangers walking in from the street.

And this is exactly what I love about Spanish culture.

No, it is not always fast and efficient. And yes, sometimes this drives me crazy. Processes can be slow, paperwork can feel endless, and life here in the south of Spain is not the endless holiday fantasy many people imagine when they hear that I moved here.

Making money is harder. Salaries are lower. Jobs are often underpaid. Houses often have no central heating, which sounds like a detail until you sit in your living room in winter with 14 degrees and humidity in your bones. And even if people imagine sunshine all year, this winter was one of the rainiest I have experienced here, with weeks where I probably had less sun than I used to have in Austria.

So no, I did not move here because life is easier.

I moved here because something in this culture feels closer to how I want to live.

And I think this is where values become so important. I work on values with my clients quite often, because values give us orientation. They help us understand what direction feels right, not because everything becomes easy, but because we understand better what we are actually choosing for.

And this is also what they did for me.

They gave me direction when I decided to move to Spain. I wanted to live in a place where people are more open and warm, where connection is a high value, where life happens outside, where people speak to each other more easily, where family and friends are not squeezed into whatever space is left after work, and where nobody really cares what car I am driving or which job title I have.

And this might sound like a small thing, but for me it is not.

Because I come from a culture where we often value efficiency, structure, reliability, planning, performance and individual achievement. And I am not judging this, because I have built my whole career on many of these values. I love structure. I love reliability. I love good processes. I love people who take ownership and get things done.

But I also know what happens when efficiency becomes the dominant value.

We start solving everything that takes time, and sometimes we do not even notice what else we remove with it. We optimise the process and lose the conversation. We automate the effort and lose the shared rhythm. We speed up the reply and lose the moment in between. We make everything a bit more productive and then wonder why life feels strangely disconnected.

This is why the patio stayed with me.

Because technically, of course, a watering system would make sense. But maybe the four hours of watering are not the problem. Maybe they are the point. Maybe this is the time where mother and daughter talk, laugh, complain about the heat, care for something together, continue something that existed before them and feel proud when strangers like me walk in and admire their little paradise.

And I think that is the part we often miss when we only look through the lens of efficiency. We see the effort, but we do not see the connection. We see the time it takes, but we do not see what this time creates.

And values are exactly like this.

They are not abstract ideas we write down in a journal or on a company wall. They become visible in what we are willing to spend time on, what we protect even when it is inconvenient, what we keep doing even when there would be a faster way.

And of course this also matters at work. Maybe even more than we think.

Because companies love to talk about values, but the real values are visible in the daily culture. Not in the brand book, not in the all-hands slide, not in the leadership offsite where everyone agrees on beautiful words, but in the small moments where people understand what really counts.

They are visible in what gets rewarded, what gets tolerated, who gets listened to, how decisions are made, how people speak when pressure rises, whether there is time to think or only time to react, whether “people first” still counts when the deadline is close, and whether “trust” still exists when something goes wrong.

A company can say that it values ownership, but if every decision needs three approval rounds, people will understand that control is the real value. A company can say that it values wellbeing, but if the people who constantly overwork are still the ones being praised, everyone gets the message. A company can say that it values focus, but if priorities change every week and everything is urgent, focus is not really a value. It is decoration.

And this is why I think working with values is not soft at all. It is deeply practical.

Values help us choose when there is no perfect answer. They help us understand why something looks good on paper but still feels wrong. They help us make decisions that are not only logical, but aligned. And sometimes they also help us leave a job, a relationship, a rhythm, a city, or a version of ourselves we have outgrown.

For me, moving to Spain was not only about moving to another country. It was also about moving closer to a life that reflects more of what I value. Warmth, connection, simplicity, being outside, and having conversations that are not only efficient, but human.

Living here keeps reminding me that I do not want to define myself only through work, achievement or a job title. I want to live in a place where people greet each other with warmth, where the lady at the supermarket says “hola guapa”, which in German would sound completely strange and maybe even overstepping, but here is just a friendly way of interacting. I want to live in a place where the slow lady at the post office can still make me smile, even when the Austrian part of me wants the process to be faster.

And maybe this is one of the biggest things I have learned by leaving the system that shaped me.

You suddenly see what you thought was normal. The speed, the rules, the status symbols, the way people work, the way people rest, the way people define success, the way people introduce themselves, the way people measure a good life.

And then you get to ask yourself what you actually want to keep, and what you only carried because everyone around you carried it too.

For me, the answer is not to romanticise Spain. Spain is not perfect. No culture is. But living here keeps reminding me of something I do not want to forget.

Values are not what we say.

They are what we build our life around. They are what we make time for. They are what we protect when things get inconvenient.

They are what we water.

Again and again. Even when it takes four hours. Even when there would be a faster way.

I am in so many conversations recently about the challenge of finding out what you really want in life. And yes, I know, it is such a privilege to even have the space to think about this. To sit somewhere, drink a coffee and ask yourself what you actually want. What kind of work gives you energy. Who you want to become. What kind of life you want to build.

Not everyone has that space. Not everyone has the financial, emotional or mental room to reflect on purpose, work or their next chapter. And at the same time, I don’t think this question is only a luxury question, because when you are not clear about who you are, what you stand for and what direction you are moving towards, it costs energy. I see this not only in private life. I see it at work, in teams, in founders, in people who are building something and still somehow searching for the next destination.

Clarity comes in different shapes. For some, it is clarity around their sports goal. For others, it is clarity around who they want to build a family with. Sometimes it is clarity at work, around a project, around what is expected, around who decides what, around what really matters and what is just noise.

And then there is this group of entrepreneurs, founders, creatives and people in transition. People who, yes, are maybe privileged enough at some point to even ask this question, but who are also restless enough to not just accept the obvious answer. People who want to create something, build something, find something that feels true.

Last week I talked to some very interesting people and those conversations made me think about clarity. About how much of our search for fulfilment at work is actually a search for identity. And how quickly we try to solve that with a label. Because putting a label on something helps us feel safe. It gives us a feeling of belonging. It makes things easier to explain.

Founder. Coach. Consultant. Photographer. Product Manager. Creative. Entrepreneur.

A label helps others understand where to place us. And honestly, I get that. I also want to belong. I also want people to understand what I am working on without having to explain my whole life every time someone asks me what I do. But the problem is that a label is often too small for the person behind it.

I talked to my photographer friend recently, who is a true creative soul. She also has a background in technology. Before moving to Tarifa, she worked as a product owner and quality manager in the sports betting industry. At some point she broke up with this mentality. Now she lives a much more uncomfortable life, financially for sure, but one that is much closer to her passion and the way she wants to express herself. Her work is not just taking photos. Her way of uncovering your true self in front of the camera almost feels like therapy. I can say this because I did my first and only proper photoshoot with her. Some of the outcome you see in this weekly newsletter. And it was not just about standing somewhere and smiling into a camera. It was much more about being seen, about relaxing into who you are, about letting go of the image you think you have to present. She also hosted creative writing sessions, organizes workshops and weekly meetings to exchange ideas. And still she says she cannot put one label on it. She is more than just this one label. And I understood that sentence so much.

I realized I have been struggling with this problem all my life. Not with doing the work, but with making people understand what kind of work I actually do.

I studied Multi Media Art at a time when nobody really knew about creative digital products. It was the beginning of website design and digital experiences. Somehow I was always moving between IT and design, between communication and technology, between ideas and implementation. But there was no simple job title that explained it. Then I moved into my first jobs, again somewhere between IT and design, and I always struggled to explain my job title because depending on the project, I was something different.

It only got a bit better when I worked for Red Bull, because then I could just say: “I work in marketing.” And people were happy. My grandma finally could relate to it at least. Red Bull was something she understood and marketing sounded like a normal enough word.

But even then it was not really the whole truth, because I was never only doing marketing. I was working on digital products, events, platforms, content, teams, systems, users, pressure, deadlines, creative ideas and operational reality. Adding another Master degree in Mental Strength Coaching did not help either, because suddenly I had another profession on top. And the question became even more complicated.

Which one do I mention? Who am I now?

A marketer? Not really. A digital project manager? Sometimes. A product person? Yes, but not only. A coach? Oh hell, also difficult.

I do not really want to be thrown into the field of people calling themselves coach after a weekend course. Not when I studied this properly, worked hundreds and hundreds of hours with clients and come from sports science, psychology and real practice.

So what label could I put? And why is this label so important for me?

Of course it is also about belonging. It is about wanting to be understood. It is about wanting to make it simple for others. Because introducing yourself with one clear label is much easier than explaining that you work somewhere between digital product, delivery, mental strength, leadership, pressure, clarity, movement and helping people and teams not lose themselves when things become complex.

But maybe this is exactly the point.

Maybe the issue was never that I had too many roles. Maybe the issue was that I tried to explain myself through roles instead of looking at the mission behind all of them.

It reminds me of the inner team by Schulz von Thun, one of my favourite concepts when I work with clients, because we are not just one single person or one clean identity. We carry a whole orchestra of inner parts, experiences, roles, voices and contradictions. And maybe the goal is not to reduce all of that into one perfect professional title. Maybe the goal is to understand what connects all of it.

When I look at it this way, I realize I am actually proud of the many roles I have. I love being flexible. I love adapting myself to situations. I love not being just this single one thing.

And in a dynamic world like the one we are living in, maybe this is not a weakness. Maybe it is even a privilege and a strength, because I can adapt the label to what is right in that moment without losing the mission behind it. And the red thread was never marketing or product management or coaching or consulting.

The red thread was always that I build work that creates clarity, movement and growth.

That is what keeps showing up. In digital products, in coaching, in teams, in workshops, in writing, in conversations with founders, in messy projects where people are stuck in loops, pressure, unclear priorities and too much noise.

I help people and teams move again when things feel too complex, too heavy or too unclear.

And when I understand this, I do not need one perfect label anymore. The label can change depending on the context, but the mission stays.

With a product team, I might be the delivery and clarity partner. With a founder, I might be the person who helps turn complexity into movement. With an athlete, I might be the mental strength coach. With a client building a digital health product, I might be the product owner who protects user value and keeps the team aligned.

The wording changes. The work underneath does not.

And then I also met a French entrepreneur here in Tarifa, which gave me another perspective on the same topic. He is very young, has this builder energy and told me how his motorhome got stolen, so he built a GPS tracking product for camper vans. And it worked. He now generates enough revenue to live a comfortable life. But instead of stopping there, he is already building the next business.

I found this truly inspiring. There is something very powerful in people who see a problem and just jump in and solve it. Without overthinking every possible scenario. Without needing permission. Without waiting for the perfect plan. But at the same time, when we talked about technology projects and the problems I often see in teams, like misalignment, unclear ownership, bad communication, lack of clarity, no leadership, too many loops and too much friction, he almost could not understand what I was talking about.

His response was basically: I just jump in and solve it. And yes, that is inspiring. But it also showed me something.

There are team skills you only learn when you actually have to collaborate and adapt to others. Because when you build your own thing alone, clarity can live inside your own head. You see the problem. You make the decision. You move.

The moment you build with others, clarity needs to become shared. Your mission has to be understood. Your decisions have to be visible. Your way of working has to be communicated. Your priorities have to be clear enough that other people can act without constantly coming back to you.

And this is where the label founder is not enough either. Because founder is also just a label. It tells people that you started something. But it does not tell them what kind of leader you are becoming, what kind of company you want to build, how you make decisions, what you protect when pressure increases or what your mission is beyond the next product, the next client or the next idea. And maybe this is the same for all of us.

We look for the right label because we hope the label will give us clarity. But maybe it works the other way around.

First we need to understand what keeps showing up in our work. What problem we keep seeing. What kind of conversations we always end up having. What kind of work gives us energy, even when it is hard. And what mission would still be true if our job title changed tomorrow. Then the label becomes less dramatic. Then we can adapt it to the moment without feeling fake. Then we can explain ourselves without reducing ourselves. Then we can belong without betraying the full complexity of who we are.

And maybe this is especially important now because so many of us are not following linear careers anymore.

We are a lot of people doing a lot of things.

Some combine product and psychology. Technology and creativity. Business and sports. Strategy and operations. Coaching and delivery. Leadership and writing.

And maybe the question is not how we can reduce ourselves into one word. Maybe the better question is what the mission underneath all of it is. Because your label may help people understand where to place you. But your mission is what helps you understand where to go.

The Extra Mile Practice

Take a few minutes and write down the labels or roles you are currently carrying.

Founder. Leader. Coach. Parent. Product Manager. Consultant. Creative. Athlete. Partner. Whatever is true for you.

Then ask yourself:

• Which one do I maybe hide behind because it is easier to explain?

• What keeps showing up in everything I do?

• What kind of work gives me energy, even when it is hard?

• What mission would still be true, even if my job title changed tomorrow?

Maybe this is where real clarity starts. Not with the perfect label. But with understanding who you are and what you are really here to build.

At the beginning of this month, the 40th MARATHON DES SABLES took place in the desert of Morocco. I followed it closely because my running partner Stephen from my first ultra in Fuerteventura was racing there. I watched the live tracking, the social media posts, and especially the long stage: 100 kilometers. I could relate so deeply to it that I almost felt I was there.

After the race, I asked Stephen how he was doing. He sent me a beautiful and emotional note he had written right after finishing. It really touched me.

My first thought was: more people should go through an experience like this at least once in their life. Because it shapes you. It changes your perspective. It challenges you in a way that is hard to explain until you have lived it yourself. It is a real adventure. And honestly, for me, it is one of the purest forms of therapy.

You get to know yourself out there including your deepest strengths. and your darkest thoughts you learn about your reactions when things do not go to plan. In the desert, you end up in situations you cannot fully prepare for and cannot control. I have written about this before. But reading Stephen’s reflection made it feel very real again.And it reminded me of something I keep translating into business life again and again:

Ultrarunning teaches adaptation in a very practical way.

You cannot run an ultra by being rigid. And you also cannot run it by absorbing everything around you and losing your own rhythm. You need both. You need structure, pacing, calm, and self-control. And you need openness, adjustment, responsiveness, and the ability to deal with what the day gives you.

The concept of sponges and rocks

That made me think about a metaphor a former manager once shared with me: sponges and rocks. He described rocks as people who are grounded, steady, hard to move, good at protecting what is there. Sponges, on the other hand, were the people who love change, absorb quickly, adapt, solve problems, and grow fast.

At the time, he said he preferred sponges. And I agreed. Working with a rock has often been difficult for me. I tend to move fast, see possibilities quickly, and get impatient when people cling too hard to the known. But with more experience, in sport, in coaching, and in business I see it differently now. Because being a rock also has qualities.

You need people who bring stability. You need focus. You need consistency. You need some resistance in systems that are constantly changing. And being a sponge is not automatically the better option either.

Sponges absorb quickly. That is a gift. They notice shifts early. They update fast. They are often great in uncertainty. But if you absorb everything, you can also lose your own shape.

So maybe the real question is not: Are you a rock or a sponge? Maybe the better question is:

What has your environment taught you to become?

That is where recent psychological research on adaptation gets really interesting.

A recent paper on cognitive flexibility and stability shows something that feels very relevant far beyond the lab: people do not adapt in just one way. We respond quickly to what is happening in the moment, but we are also shaped more slowly by the environments we are repeatedly exposed to. In simple words:

part of adaptation is immediate, and part of it becomes learned over time.

The research also shows something else important: flexibility is not automatically better than stability. Good functioning needs both. The challenge is not to become endlessly flexible. The challenge is to know when to stay steady and when to shift. That is exactly what an ultra teaches you.

On a long race, you need your plan. But you also need to let go of your plan. You need discipline. But also responsiveness. You need to know when to push and when to adapt. If the heat rises, you adapt. If your stomach turns, you adapt. If the terrain changes, you adapt. If your mind spirals, you adapt. But you do not throw everything away every five minutes. You stay anchored while adjusting.

That is the sweet spot.

And this is why the rock-vs-sponge metaphor is useful, as long as we stop turning it into black-and-white thinking. Because the science suggests these are often not fixed identities at all. They are learned tendencies. People become more stable or more flexible depending on what their context repeatedly demands. Constant switching can train fast adaptation, but it can also reduce depth. Repetition and routine can create focus and stability, but they can also make change harder.

That means your work environment has a bigger impact on behavior than many people think.

A highly reactive environment may train people to become sponges. A highly rigid environment may train people to become rocks. Not because that is their personality. Because that is what the system keeps rewarding.

I find that important. Because it shifts the conversation from judgment to development.

Instead of saying: “She is just resistant.” “He just cannot deal with change.” “They are too soft.” “They are too rigid.”

We can ask better questions:

• What has this person learned here?

• What kind of environment shaped this response?

• What is this behavior protecting?

• What would help this person become more adaptable?

That is useful in leadership. That is useful in teams. And honestly, that is useful in relationships too.

So how do we help people become more adaptable? Not by forcing everyone to become a sponge. And not by glorifying the rock.

Building environments where both stability and flexibility are possible

1. Understand people in context Look at where someone is coming from. A person who has spent years in a highly process-driven environment may not resist change because they are difficult. They may simply have learned that safety lies in structure.

2. Stop labeling too quickly “Rock” and “sponge” are helpful metaphors, but dangerous labels. The goal is understanding, not boxing people in.

3. Build psychological safety around adaptation People adapt better when they do not feel that every change threatens their competence or belonging.

4. Train both capacities Some people need more support in holding structure. Others need more support in letting go and adjusting. Development means strengthening the side that is underused.

5. Design for adaptability If you want more adaptable teams, do not just ask for it. Create conditions for it: clarity, trust, room for feedback, some repetition, some variation, and enough support that people can update without feeling lost.

This is why I believe ultrarunning is such a powerful teacher. It does not just make you tougher. It teaches you to stay with yourself while conditions change.

That, to me, is real adaptability. Not becoming hard like a rock and also not soaking up everything like a sponge.

Adaptability to is becoming someone who can hold shape and still respond.

Someone who knows when to grip and when to release. When to trust the plan and when to change it. When to stay steady and when to move.

In the desert, that can get you to the finish line. In work and in life, it can help us build people and teams that are not trapped in black-and-white thinking . It can empower people being able to grow with what is in front of them.

So here is my question for you:

What is your team learning from the environment you create every day?Is it learning to stay rigid, to react to everything, or to adapt with clarity?

Because that is what leadership shapes in the end.

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Your to do list keeps growing every day and while you are working through it, new things keep being added. It feels like a never-ending story. And for me, this is happening not only at work, but also in private life.

I am actually a very organized person. I make lists, I write notes, I try to keep track of things because it helps me not forget anything and gives me at least a little feeling of control. But at the same time, it also creates pressure. Sometimes I drag tasks over for weeks and then I feel bad about it. And if there is surprisingly nothing big left on my list, I immediately find something else I should do next.

I should go running, even though my body feels tired and is clearly processing a lot at the moment. I should work on my own projects because work keeps piling up and nobody will do it for me. I should use free days to finally catch up with all those endless things on my list.

And lately I have been noticing how easily this constant self-optimization mindset can start working against me.

I read a lot, both science-based content and more general things around productivity, habits and how to get your life together. But if I am honest, it often does not leave me feeling inspired. It leaves me feeling like I am behind, not doing enough, and somehow missing something that everyone else seems to have figured out.

Maybe because I keep comparing myself with shiny profiles, smart posts from founders and business owners, people who seem to have their whole life together. Everyone looks focused, clear, disciplined. Everyone looks like they know exactly what they are doing.

And then there is real life.

A few weeks ago, I caught myself diving deep into one of my own classic rabbit holes. I was reshaping my service offer, rebuilding my website, thinking about a new logo, reworking the structure of my newsletter. And yes, that all happened in two days. The problem was just that these were actually days planned for other work. Paid work. The work that needed to happen.

But I had this feeling that I needed to use the momentum while it was there. The passion, the drive, the sudden clarity. I know that mode very well. It feels productive. It even feels right. But it is not always helpful.

So I had to pull myself out of it.

What helped me was something very simple: I blocked my time in my calendar and gave my day much more structure. Two hours for Google Ads. Three hours for client work. One hour for admin. Clear blocks. Visible limits. Less space to just disappear into whatever felt interesting in that moment.

And it worked.

Not because everything was suddenly easy. But because I stopped negotiating with myself every ten minutes. I stopped following every impulse. I gave my energy a direction.

The mental strength coach tricked herself.

And honestly, maybe that is the real point. Sometimes we think we need more motivation, more discipline, more self-optimization. But often we do not. Often we just need fewer open loops, less internal pressure, and a more realistic structure for where our time and energy can go.

For me, seeing my time visually helps a lot. I also track my time, not only for client work, but because it helps me see where my attention actually goes instead of just feeling guilty all the time.

It does not make life perfect. But it does make things feel more honest. And sometimes that is the better form of control.

What helps you when you notice yourself drifting into overwhelm or into the feeling that you should always be doing more?

The Illusion of Control

When digital projects get complex, our instinct is to grip the steering wheel tighter. We try to anticipate every outcome to feel safe. But in fast-moving environments, this need for control creates a massive bottleneck: decision friction. Instead of taking the next logical step, teams get stuck modeling out every possible scenario.

Cognitive Overload on the Trails

I faced this cognitive overload last weekend. I was scheduled for a milestone trail race, but an immune crash forced me to drop to a shorter distance. The problem? The organizers weren’t responding to my emails to make the switch.

Instantly, the pressure spiked my cognitive load. My mind went into overdrive—Plan A, Plan B, Plan C. What if I have to run the long track and face a DNF? I watched my navigation break down. I was burning massive energy ruminating on logistics before I even reached the starting line.

In the end, it cleared up instantly on race morning. I moved to the short track, found my pacing, and finished 12th in my age group. The physical execution was fine; the overthinking almost derailed me.

Anatomy of an Execution Collapse

I’ve seen this exact dynamic derail product teams. We try to control the uncertainty of a launch by over-preparing, and we crush our own delivery systems.

As a Sports Science Lead building a global running app, my team was tasked with creating professional training plans. We wanted it perfect, so we tried to control every variable. We invested heavily in expensive video content and translated everything into multiple languages straight out of the gate.

The cognitive load was immense. We nearly burned out an entire department trying to predict every global user experience. When we finally launched, there was no celebration, just an exhausted “Uff... it’s out.” Then came the agonizing wait to see if anyone would even use it.

What we should have done? Start small. Shoot 3 simple videos. Use simple English text. Yes, you lose some non-English users on day one, but you gain immediate, validated learning. You find your pacing before you scale.

The Science & The Cost of Decision Drag

There is a scientific and financial reason why over-scoping destroys momentum. It comes down to Bounded Rationality, a Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economics theory by Herbert A. Simon. It proves that humans lack the cognitive capacity to optimize every decision. Trying to find the “perfect” translation strategy breaks our cognitive capacity and causes decision drag; finding the “good enough” strategy creates momentum.

Obsessing over uncontrollable variables keeps the brain in a stress response, and the business costs are staggering:

• Team Brain Fog: Research from Microsoft’s Human Factors Lab shows that constant context-switching and unresolved “alignment loops” cause a buildup of beta waves in the brain, leading to literal “brain fog” and destroying executive function.

• Burnout: The industry-standard DORA State of DevOps report consistently finds that tech teams bogged down by heavy approval processes and decision friction suffer from significantly higher burnout rates.

• Lost Investments: Waiting for perfect clarity means you are already too late. The Project Management Institute (PMI) reports organizations waste nearly 12% of project investments due to poor decision agility.

The Practical Shift

You cannot eliminate uncertainty, but you can change how you manage it.

Stop trying to map the entire route in advance. Instead, define a strict operating frame. When the team starts spinning into decision drag, step in and establish boundaries:

1. Name the decision owner: Who has the final say on this bottleneck today?

2. Define the immediate next step: What is the absolute minimum we need to unblock the next 48 hours? (e.g., “Just 3 videos in English. No translations yet.”)

3. Explicitly state what waits: Put all future “what-ifs” in a parking lot. Give the team permission not to think about them.

Once that frame is set, iterate within it. Protect your team’s execution time from the noise.

Restore Your Delivery Rhythm

Are your complex digital projects stuck in an endless loop of overthinking, brain fog, and decision drag?

If your team is busy but real progress has dropped, let’s fix the friction. Book a Clarity Call with me. We will map out exactly where your systems are breaking under cognitive load and how Product Delivery Support can restore your delivery rhythm so your team can actually execute.

The Experience: Rapid Prototyping and Rapid Social Interaction

Last week, I attended a conference in Seville and ended up participating in my very first hackathon. It was a truly inspiring experience for many reasons.

I found myself working with a team of strangers, observing team dynamics unfold in a highly compressed timeframe of just 5 hours. Who is doing what? Who takes the lead? How are decisions made? As a coach, this was an outstanding example of not just rapid prototyping, but rapid social interaction. I saw firsthand how quickly you can shape a group of people and make them productive.

But this accidental experiment also exposed me to a completely new way of working—a style heavily empowered by AI tools and driven by Gen Z.

And I have to admit: I felt old. Not in my field of expertise, but in my approach.

The Product Reality: Losing the “Why”

While the hackathon was less about the final outcome and more about the process, I observed a dangerous trend: the absolute obsession with the next feature. It was all fast-forward, immediate output. My team members kept pushing: “What else can we add?”

While I am stoked about the possibilities and how fast we can prototype these days, it left me feeling that we are missing the point. In the rush to build, we forget the fundamental questions: Why are we building this? Who will use it? Is there a true pain point?

If you are not clear on that foundation, you just build “nice-to-haves.” AI empowers everybody to build fast, but if the foundation isn’t there, the product becomes useless.

The Science: Feature Fatigue & Cognitive Overload

This isn’t just a feeling; it’s backed by research. In product development, this phenomenon is known as “Feature Fatigue” (a concept heavily researched by Roland Rust and colleagues, published in the Harvard Business Review). Their studies show that while adding more features initially attracts consumers, it ultimately decreases usability and destroys long-term customer satisfaction.

Furthermore, the constant chase for new tools (ChatGPT is old, Claude is the new thing, wait—what about the next big model?) creates Cognitive Overload for our teams. As leaders, when we let tools dictate the pace rather than strategy, we burn our teams out.

The Core Insight

Real brainwork is still the key to success. The tools support you, but the creativity, empathy, and strategy need to come from within.

To all the leaders and Product Owners out there who sometimes feel as “old” or overwhelmed as I did during this experience: You are not alone. You are not slow, and you are not missing it.

I truly believe that the strongest skills needed to navigate digital projects today are not knowing the latest AI prompt, but Focus and Clarity.

Leader & PO Takeaways for this week:

• Pause the Feature Factory: Before using AI to build the next feature faster, ask: Does this solve a validated user pain point?

• Embrace the Speed, Protect the Strategy: Let your team use AI to speed up execution, but as a leader, you must relentlessly guard the product vision.

• Tools don’t shape products, you do: Lean back on all the booming AI tools. They are the engine, but human creativity and critical thinking are the steering wheel.

What is your experience? Do you feel the AI overwhelm in your daily project work? Let’s discuss in the comments.

For leaders, teams, and product organisations: when roles are unclear in real life, even if they look clear on paper, the cost is friction, rework, slow decisions, and delivery risk.

I have seen this in so many teams.

You start a new project, define the roles, maybe even write down responsibilities, and still there is no real clarity. People step over each other. Others hold back. Some do things that are clearly not theirs. And instead of momentum, the team creates tension.

I know this dynamic well because I have lived it myself.

I come from a world where I did literally everything. Communication, project management, marketing strategy, product management. There was rarely one clean role. It was more a hands-on, get-things-done mentality. I often had to figure out for myself where I could help best and how to make myself useful.

Then I joined Runtastic and suddenly that same energy created friction.

As a project manager, I was asking questions in areas that touched UX, product, and research. For me that felt normal. I saw gaps, I saw things not moving, and I wanted to help. But people were not happy about it. I did not understand what was going wrong.

And to be honest, I also did not really understand what my role was supposed to be.

What confused me most was this: it looked like there were clear rules. It looked like there was a shared understanding of jobs and responsibilities. But when you looked closer, even the people in those roles often did not really know what their part was.

So everybody was doing kind of everything. But not in a helpful way.

More in a nervous, unclear, protective way.

A lot of smart people. A lot of effort. A lot of opinions. But not enough trust, not enough guidance, and not enough clarity on where to head and who really owned what.

That is where things get expensive.

Because unclear roles are not just annoying. They slow teams down. They create repeated discussions, alignment loops, more meetings, more requests for data, more requests for research, and less actual movement. And over time, they push your best people out.

What is really going on

I do not think this is just a role problem.

I think it is very often a safety problem.

From a psychological perspective, it makes total sense. When people do not feel safe, they start protecting. Their job. Their expertise. Their decisions. Their territory. Their relevance.

That is why I believe role descriptions often say more about fear than clarity.

Fear of not being seen.
Fear of not being relevant.
Fear of losing control.
Fear of making mistakes.
Fear of not having enough impact.

We all want to matter. We all want to contribute. We all want to do something that counts.

But when that protection takes over in teams, collaboration suffers.

And sometimes the unclarity even becomes comfortable. Because as long as things stay vague, people can complain, point at others, avoid ownership, and stay in the role of the victim instead of helping create the next step.

That is harsh, but I have seen it.

3 cues that tell you this is happening

1. People protect territory instead of solving the problem

You notice people getting attached to their role boundaries, defending their expertise, or reacting strongly when someone steps into their area. On the surface it looks like professionalism. Underneath it is often insecurity.

2. The team keeps asking for more before making a move

More meetings. More alignment. More research. More data. More validation. Sometimes that is needed. But often it is a sign that people do not feel safe enough to decide and move.

3. Everyone is busy, but delivery slows down

This is the clearest one. A lot is happening, but nothing really moves. Decisions drag. Ownership stays blurry. Rework increases. Friction grows. And the cost for leaders, teams, and product organisations becomes very real.

One small practice

Here is one simple shift I think helps a lot.

Use this in a meeting when you feel overlap, tension, or role confusion:

For this topic, who owns the decision, who gives input, and what happens next?

That is it.

It sounds basic, but it changes a lot.

Because instead of staying in assumptions, politics, or silent frustration, the team names the working agreement. That reduces friction, creates clarity, and helps delivery move again.

You can even copy and paste this into Slack or use it live in a meeting:

Quick clarity check:

• Who owns the decision?

• Who gives input?

• What is the next step?

• By when?

Three minutes. Often enough to stop another pointless loop.

One question

Where in your team are people using role clarity to protect themselves instead of helping the work move?

What I believe instead

I love messy projects. I love getting my hands dirty. But I have learned that the answer is not to become pushier. And it is also not to become smaller, more defensive, or more frustrated.

The better way is to talk early.

Address tension early.
Name concerns before they harden.
Appreciate what others bring.
Ask for guidance.
Use leaders as mediators when needed.
Create clarity through conversation, not assumptions.

Because clarity is not a document.

I help leaders and teams stay clear and keep delivery moving when pressure is high.

And that matters especially when roles blur, trust gets shaky, and complexity starts creating rework, slow decisions, friction, and delivery risk.

If this is happening in your team or product organisation, this is exactly the kind of work I support.

You know this feeling when you start a new project? Everything feels possible. A fresh piece of paper. Teams are defined. Roles are clear. Kick-off meetings are full of ideas, energy and motivation to get this amazing product out into the world.

A few months later, things start to shift. The process slows down. Conversations begin to sound like this:

“We need another report to confirm.”

“Can you run a brainstorming with marketing?”

“Have we checked with partnerships?”

“Oh, and backend engineering is rolling out a new system. Maybe we should wait and see how that affects us.”

Suddenly you find yourself going in circles. Delivery gets pushed. You escalate. Nothing really changes. Except the core team getting frustrated.

At some point people stop delivering productive work altogether. Not because they don’t care, but because the system around them has stopped moving.

Interestingly, it is very similar to preparing for an ultra race.

You spend weeks training. You plan for every possible situation. You stand at the start line ready. And then during the race something unexpected happens. A sandstorm slows you down. Someone next to you starts pushing a much faster pace and you feel the urge to keep up, even though you know it might burn you out later.

Different arena. Same problem. You start with a strategy. But during execution it’s easy to lose the bigger picture.

Busy teams rarely slow down because people are not working hard enough.

They slow down because clarity disappears and coordination takes over. You might recognise this moment:

Decisions keep getting delayed. More input, more reports, more confirmation. The team is busy all day, but progress barely moves.

Meetings multiply, alignment loops increase, and it becomes less and less clear who actually decides what.

Recent workplace research confirms what many teams experience every day.

Large workplace studies show employees are interrupted roughly every two minutes during the workday. Many meetings are ad hoc and teams can spend up to a quarter of their time simply searching for information or answers.

Atlassian reports that 74% of executives say poor communication slows teams down, and teams with clearly aligned goals are far more likely to deliver high-quality work and meet deadlines.

The cost of this is not abstract.

Even conservative estimates show that coordination friction and unnecessary meetings can cost organisations tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands,of euros per team each year.

The real issue is not pressure alone.

It is fragmented attention, unclear decision ownership and rising coordination cost. Teams don’t slow down because people stop trying. They slow down because clarity disappears.

When a team feels stuck, one small step can already shift things.

Ask three simple questions:

1. What is the real bottleneck right now?

2. Which decision is overdue?

3. What can we stop doing this week so delivery can move again?

Often one clear decision unlocks more progress than ten more meetings. Strong teams do not avoid pressure. They reduce confusion inside it.

In ultras, you do not finish by reacting to everything around you. You finish by staying connected to pace, direction, and the next useful step.

Teams are no different.

One honest question to leave you with:

Where is your team currently working hard without actually moving forward?

I help leaders and teams bring clarity back into the system so execution can move again.

If you’re curious about a simple system strong teams use to reduce friction and get delivery moving again, reply CLARITY and I’ll send it to you.

Crowded Mind by Robbie Williams

Let’s get real for a moment. Private life has become a never-ending list of life admin. Contracts, appointments, responsibilities, small optimizations, constant tracking — and you’re never fully finished. And if you look at work, it’s rarely calm either: constant change, high pressure, endless meetings, always the next topic waiting.

Most of us aren’t failing at this. We’re functioning. We’re delivering. We’re keeping things moving. And still there’s this subtle feeling of being permanently “on,” slightly tense, never quite done.

In sport we would describe this very differently. If an athlete trained the way many professionals live, we would call it overtraining. Yet in corporate life we often call it ambition, dedication, high performance.

That contrast stayed with me.

What recent sport psychology research is pointing at

A recent paper in Frontiers in Psychology argues that most stress management approaches are reactive. We focus on what to do once we already feel overwhelmed. How to calm down. How to cope better. How to breathe through it.

But in elite sport, stress is not primarily treated as an emotional problem. It is treated as load.

And load is something you regulate before it becomes destructive.

The research builds on the concept of allostatic load, the cumulative strain on your nervous system when demands stay high over time. Mental load isn’t only about emotions. It includes decision making, responsibility, unfinished loops, context switching, anticipation, the invisible pressure of always being available.

Your brain doesn’t differentiate between a competition, a board presentation, a product launch or your private admin list. It registers demand.

If the demands just keep stacking up and you never truly downshift, your system will keep pushing to keep up. It adapts, it copes, it performs until it simply has no buffer left. And that’s how our nervous system works.

My “structure fixes everything” phase

That shift in perspective changed how I look at my own story.

For almost two decades I worked in high-paced international environments as a project manager. I was good at it. My solution to complexity was structure. Post-it notes filling my desk. The whiteboard in the office became my second brain. I once created huge printed task overviews for 35 people during an event because that level of overview made me feel safe.

It worked. We delivered. I was the one who could handle more. What didn’t work was my brain constantly running at 120 percent.Even when everything was mapped out, I was thinking ahead. Scanning for risks. Afraid to forget something. Mentally rehearsing the next escalation. From the outside it looked like high performance. From the inside it felt like constant activation.

When I started studying mental strength at the sports university, I finally understood that I didn’t have a productivity problem. I had a load management problem.

What elite athletes do differently

No elite athlete trains at maximum intensity every single day and then hopes a relaxation technique will fix it.

They periodize. They monitor load. They adjust intensity before breakdown. They integrate recovery as part of the plan. They protect cognitive freshness before key competitions.

The paper’s core message is simple but powerful: psychological load should be treated the same way. Not as something to cope with after it overwhelms us. But as something to regulate proactively.

A simple way to recognize yourself in this

If you’re reading this and thinking “yes, that’s me,” here are a few signs that you’re not just stressed but you’re carrying chronic mental load:

• You feel productive, but you rarely feel finished

• Your mind keeps running after hours, even when you want to rest

• You’re constantly anticipating what could go wrong

• You’re doing “all the right things,” but your system still feels tight

• You’re proud of how much you can handle, but you’re not sure how long it’s sustainable

If any of this resonates, you’re not alone. It is your pattern of constant activation.

The solution is not less ambition, it’s better regulation

We don’t need to endlessly discuss how overwhelming modern life is. Everyone’s context is different. Just like every athlete trains differently.

But the fundamentals are universal:

Load must become visible. You need a way to track it. Intensity must fluctuate. You need moments of true downshift. Recovery must be integrated, not as a reward, but as part of performance. Focus must be trained, so you stop living in constant mental switching.

This is exactly what I help with.

I help high performers who feel constantly overloaded, not to relax, but to stay in control of their system so they can perform without drifting into burnout.

Projects will stay stressful. Tasks will keep coming. The goal isn’t a pressure-free life. The goal is learning how to decide when to push and when to recover, so you can jump off the ongoing train instead of being dragged by it.

If you want to explore this in a simple, practical way, reply to this newsletter with the word LOAD and I’ll send you a short check-in I use with clients to make mental load visible and start regulating it like an athlete.

That’s the work. And it’s trainable.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1752653/abstract