I’m a slow thinker and introvert. I usually think carefully about a problem before I come up with a solution. People who know me appreciate this very much.

However, sometimes I feel a bit uncomfortable in meetings, because I’m too thoughtful to come up with quick answers and suggestions. I carefully listen to the others, but I often do not participate actively in the conversation.

What can I do to prevent that other people, who don’t know me good enough, assess me to be less clever and engaged as I actually am?

Prepare beforehand. Think about issues that might/will be discussed and how you might respond to them¹.

Good preparation has always been my secret weapon…

Avisit to the bookshop is an inspirational event for me. The books I take home with me afterwards are the souvenirs of my pleasant experience and at the same time they hold the anticipation of further hours of pleasure.

EBooks cannot offer me this experience. Anyway, it is very useful to have eBooks. But they reduce the book to its pure content, to the naked data. The whole experience around the book is completely lost. Books have so much more to offer than just the text they contain.

I asked 11 people why they buy physical books — except for…

Do you have the feeling that you can’t achieve your goals because you don’t have enough time or because you always have to care about other things? You are quickly demotivated and give up your goals, because you are constantly running out of time?

I tell you, in around ten years, you will probably think like this: If only I had done something once a month, or even only once a year, to achieve my goal. How far would I have come now!

Sometimes the only problem that prevents you from reaching your goal is a unsuitable future time perspective…

Have you ever thought about writing on medium because it’s easy and might make you a lot of money? Are you inspired by the many successful articles you could have written as well? Please read my (self-ironic) story first before you start wasting your life on meaningless texts.

I have started writing on medium because I would like to earn some money on the side. The principle seems very simple to me: I just have to find the right words to inspire many readers, then I will be rewarded with many claps. There are so many posts with simple topics…

Software is Eating the World! This sentence was coined by the IT investor Marc Andreessen in early 2000. When I first heard the saying, I immediately thought of all the small and large things that gradually disappear from our desks, walls and shelves and continue to exist as bits and bytes in our smartphones: books, cards, pictures, games, vinyls… Before, there was a variety of colours, shapes and materials, now there is only bare data — hidden in a few digital devices. That always scared me. But now I have discovered a bridge between the two worlds…

Is there a person in your life who has

• rejected you or
• hurt you or
• offended you?

The sun is shining and you are sitting in the room?

No matter

• how much work you have ahead of you
• how many thoughts are circling in your head
• how desperate you are

This is your task today for more inner peace and silence:

Take a few minutes, go outside and let the sun shine on you.

Last week I helped my partner to press straw with an old straw press from the 50s. The press is pulled over the field by the tractor. It swallows the straw and throws out a lightly pressed bale at the back, which is tied together with two sisal threads on the left and right. Now for the first time we had to rethread the thread. With the help of the drawings in the written instructions we quickly found out how to do it.

The principle of such a press reminds me of the IPO model from computer science:

Input =…