Lately, I admit, life has been totally out of control. I think it all started in a conversation in a train one day, and this kind, pervy old man started chatting about life and his children and he asked me what I did in real life. I tried to grasp whatever I was trying to explain and in the end I think I said like: Oh I plan growth strategies for Fortune 500 companies.

Let’s zoom back sometime this time last year, where I declared that my life was a drama serial – yes, that was even before terrorist flights, house buying, new jobs and PUA best friends. I declared that life needed to be more normal. And then, in the great grand scheme of things, it seemed that life not only did get a little more normal, it also got totally out of control.

So now, I plan corporate strategies for Fortune 500 companies, like McKinsey or strategy consulting firms. And I’ve been trying to figure that out. The only issue is that in the midst of working, traveling and dedicating my life to planning strategies for big corporations, I seem to have absolutely lost my own inspiration to plan my own strategies or whatever not there is left.

Like the way I once declared that life is beautiful and started to take in whatever I wanted in life. I was crazy creative and funny and somehow something is like driven out of me. Where is that evil sparkle in my eye where I was totally inspired to do whatsoever inspired me, where is that joie de vivre which I normally wake up to?

I think it’s called the feeling of the rut. Like the feeling of when you know a relationship isn’t working out anymore and you want to call it the quits because it is in a rut, but you don’t dare to because you wake up and you are all alone. Then you buzz the person occasionally now and then, to hold that little silver line of hope that if all else fails there is something there. Yeah, that is called the rut. And then one day, you wake up, and you are in your late 40s, wondering what have I done wrong in my life? And maybe that’s called the mid-life crisis. Everything is just wrong, because it was wrong in the first place, then you should fold that life into a small boat, and set it floating down the canals of Amsterdam.

And so, actually, today is the beginning of a bright new era where I actually do a non-data-driven life strategy, possibly to that 23 year old which thought that life was beautiful. Where the train doors open, and I start to breathe and say good morning life, how are you doing today. To paint the rainbows and colors instead of letting life lead me. And then, remembering that life is just an illusion powered by your imagination. And whilst one can just live, I’m one of the imaginateers.

Life perhaps, has just begun.

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I’m crazy sick. I think I haven’t been this sick this entire year, I’m dosed with Paracetomal with Guaifenesin and Yan Ke Ning Pian whilst my teammates are out in the field I’m sick in the extremely pretty but I’m bored of my wits suite because I want to meet customers and go out to be in the field. Sux since this is the second time I’ve been in Beijing and I’ve not even seen the Forbidden City.

Paul the octopus residing in Oberhausen, Germany has done it again – apparently predicting that Spain would win over Germany in the semi-finals of the World Cup! Okay, not that great because I’m actually in Germany right now.

Anyway, I’m neutral, I’m only rooting for Netherlands to win because I’m an Oranje-supporter! (And Jeroen is taking care of my mini friend)

A little out of sync here but I always like photos in my post, so here is the growth and growth of mini b.

When I first got him he was a sweet, sweet friend…

A week later he was still sweet but he bit Jon, so I guess he was already ferocious inside.

For some reason, it seemed that he couldn’t stop eating, this is only one week later.

And this is one week after that, at the rate he’s going he’s going to kind of explode or something.

But he’s so cute!

Otherwise, I have made Amsterdam my new base station and I’ve changed my function (we’re encouraged to move within every couple of years to understand the entire business – I’m still in the same company – this company is a good one – especially when yours truly will now play a part in its future strategy). Funny enough, if there was one question I can remember during the interviews, it was the: What do you want to do in 5 years? I said: No idea. Later I was on the phone with my dad and I was like, maybe I’m like the only candidate who said, no idea, and everyone else said that they wanted to be a business leader, VP or something ambitious and I sort of like screwed up. I got offered the job anyway.

BTW, my new job is super cool, and the team is super smart and hardworking, even the CEO called us “bright MBAs”.

PS: I think you can’t have too much of a plan in life. Whatever comes, comes you know. You just find couple of things you love, couple of things you are fantastically great at, and then, stay happy and healthy, and well, party harder.

Everyone seems to want to see piggy…

Isn’t he the sweetest!

That plug was by Tony Hsieh and he owns Zappos.. so..

This is a shameless plug for a friend who has written an excellent eBook called “Winning Tournament Poker” which teaches people how to win in tournament poker in just under five hours, and his site is here and his eBook is sold here.

Why Poker?

Well, I like poker for a variety of reasons, not just the extra cash and some people do agree with me, just read Zappo’s Tony Hsieh’s “Everything I know about business I learnt from Poker” and his thoughts about it.

Lately I’ve been incredibly busy, there are many changes in life which I might (or might not) blog about. To cut a long story short, life is short (as you know from my Christmas post), so… I am now the proud owner of a little pig. Piggy is one of the new additions in my life which I must introduce to all of you, and he looks like a sweet cartoon character.

Which one are you using?

Apple has sold 500,000 units of iPad on its first week, 150 billion dollars on its first day. Seth Godin kind of labelled it as the greatest launch ever. Me? I kind of agree with him, the iPad falls into that very blue-ocean of I think we don’t need one but we want to have one, we always knew we had to have one, category.

Someone would probably ask, what is the thing with Apple, and what’s next? I think the underlying thing with Apple is probably pushing it to the corporate and business world. Consumers are nice, but enterprise would also be a whole lot better.