“Dear [your Name], your situation is serious. Unless you quit smoking, improve your diet, exercise, and manage your stress, you will either die or need major heart surgery within a year.”

What would you do? Would you change your lifestyle?

Most people would say YES. But the research suggests that making lasting changes is much harder than we think.

In his book Change or Die, Alan Deutschman cites Dr. Edward Miller, former dean of Johns Hopkins University’s medical school, who reported that 90% of patients who underwent coronary bypass surgery had not changed their lifestyle two years later.

Think about that. Even after major heart surgery, only about 1 in 10 patients had made lasting lifestyle changes, according to Miller’s estimate.

In 1993, Dr. Dean Ornish tested a different approach with patients suffering from severe coronary artery disease.

Instead of relying on medical advice alone, 194 patients entered an intensive, 1-year structured lifestyle program designed to improve their heart health and reduce their need for surgery.

The program included a very low-fat vegetarian diet (less than 10% of calories from fat), support group sessions, and regular yoga, relaxation, meditation, and aerobic exercise.

Three years after the program began, approximately 77% of participants had avoided bypass surgery or angioplasty. The findings were published in the American Journal of Cardiology in 1998.

The lesson is that lasting change often requires more than willpower, motivation, or fear. A structured environment with practical tools and ongoing support makes a huge difference.

This is one reason we created our 10-week programs at Inspired Life Circle: to provide the right environment for change.

Ten weeks is long enough to begin working on patterns you may have followed for a lifetime, yet short enough to maintain focus and momentum. We believe it offers a practical balance.

So, the next time you want to change something in your life, consider joining one of our structured programs. Or find another environment that provides structure and support.

If you rely on willpower alone, you have less than a 10% chance of succeeding.

Love and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

Einstein was one of the first scientists to talk about the relativity of time. He said that two hours with a nice girl feel like a minute, while a minute on a hot stove feels like two hours (The New York Times, March 1929).

The relativity of time has been expressed in different ways for thousands of years. The Bible says that with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day (Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8).

If we look at how people perceive time, we can see four main categories:

Perpetual Time Crunch

Here, people have multiple things to do in an hour, and it’s simply impossible to do everything they want to do. Sometimes it feels like a hamster wheel: they have to keep going. They are constantly interrupted by notifications or by others. Coffee and other stimulants are “mandatory” in this lifestyle.

There is an illusion of productivity, but most often people are very busy without doing impactful work. If you ask them what they accomplished at the end of the day, they will have a hard time remembering.

Time with Priorities

Here, time is still divided into many small pieces, but people have one focus per hour. Think of a dentist who is focused on one single patient for an hour, who doesn’t look at their phone and isn’t interrupted. So, productivity at this level is exponentially higher than at the previous one.

At this stage, the work is usually repetitive and has little impact in time and space.

Focused Time

Here, people manage to block chunks of time (at least a few hours) to work on something without being interrupted. Not even the notifications on their phone.

At this stage, people manage to create things with higher impact in time and space. Maybe they write a scientific paper or work on the business strategy for the next year. Whatever it is, productivity is again exponentially higher than at the previous stage.

Focused Priorities

Here, people don’t manage their time anymore. Often, someone else might be in charge of their agenda and tell them what they will do next. But they have two or three priorities that are very clear to them.

Sometimes these priorities come in the form of very clear criteria. Because the criteria are so clear to them, they are able to make very complicated decisions in a very short time. Think of a president who makes life-or-death decisions daily.

We once met a very successful entrepreneur who had seven businesses. He told us, “It looks like I’m doing many things, but I’m really doing only one thing: financial management.”

Conclusions

The reason we told you about these four types of relationship with time is to make you aware that something else is possible. If you are in a perpetual time crunch now, don’t let your mind convince you that this is the reality. It’s only a stage of development.

Love and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

P.S. We are planning a live two-hour masterclass for our clients on your relationship with time, between Christmas and New Year. It’s one of the rare occasions when we will teach together: Monica and Stefan. If you are interested, join the waiting list here.

Her family worked the weekend markets, selling fruit and vegetables from a stall with a striped canvas roof, crates of apples and potatoes stacked high and handwritten price signs blowing in the wind. Often they stood there in the cold and the rain, and every sale was paid for in cash.

Every Sunday evening, once the stalls were packed away, her whole family gathered at her grandmother’s house, around a table so long it stretched the length of the kitchen. Cousins squeezed onto benches, plates passed hand to hand, and four conversations ran at once. It was the loudest, warmest room she knew.

Soon after they finished eating, the plates were cleared, the room fell silent, and the counting began. The table that had held dinner now held the week’s takings from the market stall. There were coins stacked carefully, notes smoothed flat, plastic bags organized neatly, a notebook and a pencil, and a single dim lamp pulled low over the table.

Around it sat the adults of the family, her father, her aunts and uncles, minds focused, lips moving, losing count and starting again. Every coin had been earned from a long market day, and it had to cover the family’s rent, food and next week’s stock, so nobody was going to lose a penny. It took hours, every Sunday, for years.

Seven-year-old Olivia stood in the doorway, watching. “Don’t disturb them,” her mother said. “They’re counting.” Olivia watched her father, her aunts and her uncles, the people she loved most, go somewhere she couldn’t follow. Their eyes stayed fixed on the money, and there was no time for her. In that moment, she learned her first lesson about money:

Money is scarce, and it makes the people you love disappear into it.

By the time Olivia was ten, she had watched that ritual hundreds of times. And one Sunday, she gathered every bit of courage she had, stepped over the invisible line of the doorway into the forbidden hours of the counting, and asked, “Can I have some money for the tuck shop?” She had a school trip coming up and wanted sweets like the other children.

The room stopped. Pencils dropped. A total someone had just reached was lost, and the counting would have to start again. Her aunt shook her head, her father looked at her with what felt like sheer disappointment, and the silence stretched until she could hear the kitchen clock and her own heartbeat. Nobody gave her any coins, and nobody said a word to her for the rest of the evening.

Her cheeks burned, and she walked back to the doorway, feeling too loud, too much and ashamed for asking, which is where her second lesson sank in:

If you reach for money, the people you love look at you with disappointment.

So she never asked for money again, and she never spoke about that evening, not to a friend, not to a partner, not to anyone. In time, she forgot it altogether.

From that day, Olivia lived by two subconscious rules:

1. Money is scarce, and it makes the people you love disappear into it.

2. If you ask for it, the people you love will look at you with disappointment.

In her direct words, “Money and family don’t go together. I don’t want any big money that’s going to draw me away from family.”

Fast forward to the start of 2026…

Olivia was now a qualified counselor in her mid forties.

Every day she drove to her job at the local authority, where someone else decided who she saw, when she saw them and what she was paid. For years she had carried a dream of a practice of her own, with a price that paid her what her work was worth. She envisioned a sunlit studio with two armchairs and an amber glowing lamp, her name painted on the glass of the door, and a fully booked calendar.

Every weekend she sat down to price her first private package, opened a blank page, typed a number and deleted it, the cursor blinking back at her like a pulse. Her shoulders rose toward her ears, and her stomach tightened the way it had in that kitchen. She had been someone who gave generously, lending and gifting her time and service, yet the moment she tried to ask for more for herself, her body pulled back.

The sensible thoughts always arrived right on time: ‘People who need help shouldn’t have to pay more for it.’ ‘I need one more training course before I can charge for this.’

Sound familiar? Olivia called it good judgment, closed the laptop and made a hot cup of tea, feeling relieved, without ever really knowing what she was relieved about. What she couldn’t see was that the reflex to pull back came from a ten-year-old who was told no when she asked for money.

Olivia lived like this for years. Until one day,...

….in the Spring of 2026, tired of watching that cursor blink on a blank page of her business plan, she did something she had never done before and invested her savings in herself. She signed up for the Inspired Money Foundation, a ten-week program which addresses the deep-rooted patterns that prevent your income from growing.

And because she was courageous enough…

…to invest in herself, she discovered support through the program she had never had before.

Each morning she met her program partner on a call to look at what stood between her and the practice she wanted, and for weeks she turned up without knowing exactly what she was looking for. Then one morning her partner asked her to find the first time she had learned it was dangerous to ask for money.

At first, Olivia struggled to answer, and then suddenly the memory came back to her. She was ten years old again, standing in her grandmother’s kitchen. The lamp hung low over the table. Coins clinked in tall stacks, the clock ticked, and her father looked up with that look of disappointment. Her face burned, her throat closed, and her eyes dropped to the floor exactly as they had at ten.

Her partner did not hurry her. She asked one slow question after another, allowing space for the discomfort, and Olivia stayed with the process. Slowly, the memory began to soften. She could revisit her grandmother’s kitchen table through the eyes of the woman she had become.

She saw a tired man at the end of a long week, counting money he had earned in the cold and afraid of losing what the family had worked for, and a little girl who had only wanted sweets and a seat at that table. The look that Olivia had interpreted as losing her place within the family had simply expressed his worry about money.

As the perception dissolved, her face cooled, her throat opened and her shoulders dropped. For the first time she knew in her body that it was safe to ask for more and safe to earn more, and that she could do both and still belong to the people she loved.

The shame she had carried around money for decades was gone. “The feeling is no longer there,” Olivia told us. “I no longer experience the burden I was carrying.”

And because of that,...

…a new energy came into her. Over the following weeks, she developed her new offering and built a page for her practice that she felt represented her beautifully. She worked on her offer until midnight, the desk lamp pooling gold across her notes, and she awoke inspired to keep taking steps to bring her business to life.

For now, she kept her job at the council, because its steady pay covered her bills. But she wanted her time back. One morning she knocked at her manager’s door: “I’d like to move to four days a week,” she said, and waited. Her manager looked up from her screen, nodded and said yes. It was as simple as that. From then on, Fridays belonged to her.

Finally,...

…on a Friday in September, her phone lit up with a message. The woman from her community, who had spent months asking whether Olivia saw people privately, had seen her new website go live. “I just saw your page,” she wrote. “What does a session cost?”

Olivia read it once and set down her tea. Her breathing stayed slow, and her shoulders stayed low, and she typed the number without a flicker of the old hand pulling back. “$200 for the session”, three times what the local authority paid her for the same hour. She pressed send, and within a minute the reply came. “That sounds fair. Sign me up.”

The following Friday, they sat across from each other in a room Olivia rented by the hour. The space had two armchairs and a lamp glowing amber, so close to the studio in her dreams - that Olivia’s heart warmed. The client’s shoulders were already easing, and Olivia felt a spark as her work came alive.

Ever since that day,...

…Olivia asks for what her work is worth. She is building a practice of her own, with her own clients and her own rates, and she told us, “I know I can earn $1 million, and I will be investing it into growing my practice.” She is no longer the child in the doorway watching her family count scarce coins. These days, she has a seat at the table, and when she counts, she’s counting what she’s building.

Love and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

P.S. Olivia had forgotten that Sunday completely, and for decades it decided her actions. Somewhere, a buried memory of yours may still be deciding what you dare to build. That’s why it’s so important to work on your past.

The ancients had many words for love. Today, we use only one or two.

1. Eros (ἔρως) – passionate love, romantic attraction, and sexual desire.

2. Philia (φιλία) – friendship and affection based on shared values and interests.

3. Storge (στοργή) – familial love, the natural affection between parents and children.

4. Agape (ἀγάπη) – selfless, unconditional love.

5. Philautia (φιλαυτία) – self-love, which can be healthy or become excessive selfishness.

6. Ludus (Latin) – playful love, flirting, teasing, and romantic attraction expressed through playfulness.

7. Mania (μανία) – obsessive passion that is intense, irrational, or possessive.

Since ancient times, people have tried to analyze, describe, and explain love, from the philosophers of Ancient Greece to modern-day researchers.

And yet, even today, there is no universally accepted definition.

For some, love is a deep and lasting feeling, a bond that remains even when momentary emotions change (Sternberg, 1986).

For others, love is associated with intense emotions, butterflies in the stomach, attraction, and the desire to be close to the person you love (Hatfield et al., 2012).

In this article, we’ll share how we’ve come to understand love and the definition we’ve found to be closer to the truth.

Think of someone you love.

They have positive traits that you appreciate. Perhaps they’re ambitious, generous, or independent.

And, like everyone else, they also have negative traits that bother you. Perhaps they’re stubborn, critical, or don’t give you the attention you want at certain times.

Every trait brings both benefits and drawbacks.

Their ambition may inspire you to grow, but it also means spending less time together.

Their stubbornness may frustrate you, but it teaches you to stand up for your point of view.

When you only want the positive side of someone, can you really say you love them? No. And you can’t have a harmonious relationship that way either.

Only when you see someone with both their positive and negative sides, and no longer want to change them, do you truly love them.

That’s why love is the union of complementary opposites.

Heraclitus and Empedocles were the first to say this approximately 2,500 years ago.

To experience love, you need to see both the benefits and drawbacks of every trait, action, or inaction of the person you love (the law of duality).

When you manage to see them equally, love and gratitude arise spontaneously.

Next time someone you love does something that bothers you, apply the law of duality and ask yourself:

What benefits does this action or inaction bring me?

If this person behaved exactly as I wanted them to (the ideal version in my mind), what drawbacks would I experience?

Alternate between these two questions until you reach a state of love and gratitude.

Love and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

Ever since I was a child, vulgar language has bothered me. Even relatively mild expressions like “shut your mouth” instead of “please be quiet” felt like nails on a chalkboard to me.

After I started studying psychology, I learned that there are two ways the mind operates: the polarizing lower mind and the integrative higher mind.

Different authors, from William James (the father of modern psychology) to Daniel Kahneman (the first psychologist to receive the Nobel Prize), have used different names for these two concepts.

But we’re not going to turn this into a history or terminology lesson. We’ll keep things very simple, as you’d expect from a two-minute article.

The polarizing lower mind is something we share with animals. Every animal seeks to eat (impulse) and avoids being eaten (instinct). So, the polarizing lower mind operates through separation, and its two mechanisms are impulse and instinct, as if they were pulling in opposite directions along a horizontal axis.

The integrative higher mind is capable of holding paradoxes (eg. the opposite of something true is also true). It’s the part of us that sees opportunities where everyone else sees only problems. Instead of impulse and instinct, here we have intuition, which shows us the other side of things. For example, it whispers, “This is too good to be true,” before we fall into a trap, or “it must be a silver lining in this,” when we’re going through a difficult time.

Many people confuse intuition with instinct and say, “I followed my instinct,” when, in fact, they followed their intuition. But the two are very different: intuition integrates complementary opposites, while instinct separates them.

Once you explore these concepts more deeply, you start seeing and hearing them everywhere. Statements like “I do whatever the f**k I want” are a very colorful expression of the polarizing lower mind. They essentially mean, “I do whatever my impulses and instincts dictate, whatever my animal nature tells me to do.”

We cannot get rid of our animal nature. As long as we have a physical body, we share this part with all mammals. So, the polarizing lower mind is not “bad.” We need it to survive.

But most spiritual traditions, from Hinduism to Christianity, speak about taming or bringing the “animal” within us under control. This is, in fact, the purpose of fasting, sexual abstinence, and ritual cleansing. It’s not about depriving the body of pleasure. It’s about restoring divine order and allowing the integrative higher mind to take the lead.

And once you understand this, you can choose for yourself the spiritual practices that are most effective for you.

Love and wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

“What are you doing here?”

“Earning an honest living,” the man replied. “I have children to raise and elderly parents to care for. So I spend my days cutting stone to provide for my family. Several of us here come from the same village, and stonecutting is a craft that has been passed down through our families for generations.”

The wise man praised him and continued on his way.

He came to a second man who appeared to be doing exactly the same work, yet there was something different about him. So he asked him the same question:

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m the best stonecutter here. I work faster than anyone else, and I produce fewer defective pieces than anyone. Every week, my boss holds me up as an example to the other stonecutters because of how well I do my job. I personally keep track of how many pieces the others ruin compared to me. Nobody can beat me.”

The wise man praised this man too and moved on.

Eventually, he came to a third stonecutter.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m building a cathedral,” the man replied, looking the wise man straight in the eye. “I’ve spoken with the architect, and I know that the stone I’m shaping right now will become a keystone in the entrance hall of the church. Thousands of people who lift their eyes toward heaven will see this very stone I’m working on today. The cathedral won’t be finished in my lifetime, and perhaps even my grandchildren will work on it.”

The wise man did not praise him. He knew this man had no need for his praise. He simply thanked him and went on his way, carrying the story with him to share with people all over the world.

Each of the three stonecutters was doing exactly the same work. At first glance, you might think there was very little difference between them.

And yet, the level of consciousness from which each man acted was profoundly different.

Love and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

For instance, you can spot him missing a bus in North by Northwest, walking past a hotel in Psycho, or appearing in a neon skyline reflection in Rope.

Tradition has it that he started these quick appearances as an inside joke, and audiences soon made a game out of spotting him.

But what stuck with us was that he took an insignificant role in each film, even though he was the director.

This is like a conductor voluntarily giving up his place on the podium to become the person turning the pages of someone else’s sheet music.

Many world leaders have been capable of adopting this attitude, which is quite paradoxical for most people.

Harry Truman (the US president after World War II) put it into words better than anybody:

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

This is one of our guiding principles in life.

It means that you can accomplish almost anything if you are less caught up in the great game of pride and shame. You can’t escape pride and shame (you’re human), but you can become aware of them and do the inner work to move beyond temporary thoughts of pride and shame.

Lore and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

One possible explanation comes from evolutionary psychology. Thousands of years ago, humans had to be very careful about any kind of threat. A rustling in the bushes could have been a tiger ready to attack, and that could have been fatal. So we learned to pay much more attention to negative events than to positive ones because they were crucial for our survival.

But now, there is no tiger in our home, and “negative” daily behaviors from family members or coworkers are less likely to put our lives in danger.

Last week, we wrote an article about the Magic Relationship Ratio. Two researchers discovered WHAT sets inspiring relationships apart from less successful ones. If you missed it, we invite you to give it two minutes. They are worth it.

Today, we would like to build on this idea and talk about a simple HOW. A method that contributes to inspiring relationships, whether with your children, your spouse, your coworkers, or even your boss.

It is a simple principle called “catch them doing something positive.”

Whenever you see behavior that you like, take a minute to point it out as soon as you can. This will encourage them to repeat that behavior. It’s really that simple. What you focus on expands.

Here are a few examples:

To a teenager:

• “I noticed you put your phone away while we were having dinner. I appreciate that.”

• “Thank you for telling me where you were going without me having to ask.”

• “I saw you helping your sister with her homework. That was thoughtful.”

• “You handled that disagreement with your friend really maturely.”

To your spouse:

• “I loved that you made coffee for me this morning.”

• “Thank you for listening to me without trying to fix the problem.”

• “I noticed you cleaned the kitchen even though you were tired. Thank you.”

To a coworker:

• “You explained that really clearly in the meeting.”

• “I noticed you stayed a little longer to finish that. I appreciate it.”

• “You handled that difficult client really well.”

To a boss (yes, they appreciate this too :)

• “I appreciated how clearly you explained the priorities for this project.”

• “I noticed how you gave everyone a chance to speak in the meeting. I really appreciated that.”

You can make the remark right away, or you can do it later through a text message.

The most effective way is in front of others.

And one more important thing: it costs you only a few seconds of your time. So, why not do it?

Love and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

Their research was unusual because they didn’t simply ask couples whether they were happy. They observed couples interacting, measured their behavior and physiology, and then followed them over years to see which relationships remained stable and which ended in divorce.

(John Gottman with his wife, Julie)

The striking finding was that stable, well-functioning couples showed approx. five positive behaviors for every negative behavior during conflict.

That means, for instance, that for every criticism there was a compliment, a smile, or a warm touch.

Many of us have good intentions, but we are much more focused on the negatives. What’s not working, what needs to be fixed, what’s broken, what’s misplaced, etc. etc.

So, what can you do with this information?

Increase your ratio.

For instance, increase the number of compliments in your relationship. It doesn’t cost you anything.

Say simple things like, “You’re so beautiful,” “That shirt looks good on you,” “I liked how you answered Jodie. That was spot on,” “That was such a good story,” or “I appreciate your calmness under stress.”

And sometimes, a flower or a hug can do more than words.

Love and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

Recently, an old childhood friend reached out to me and asked for help. He told me he was in a desperate situation and the bank would take his home. But he didn’t ask for money. He asked to talk with me from time to time.

My initial impulse was to alleviate the pain. To lend him some money, or find a solution to fix the problem.

But then I had a conversation with Monica, and she told me: “Your friend was motivated to do more with his life only when it felt uncomfortable.”

And I realized she was right. This individual was not proactively doing something for his life unless he was in deep pain. I’ve known him for two decades now, and every time he was in a desperate situation, in deep pain, he did amazing things for his life.

For instance, once he was fired. He was working as a junior accountant, and he was the only breadwinner in the family, so the survival of the whole family was threatened. He learned a new valuable skill, changed the domain completely and reinvented himself as a software engineer.

With much bigger pay. And much more fulfillment.

And I remembered the metaphor of the butterfly.

A child once saw a butterfly struggling to get out of its cocoon. He watched it fighting and felt sorry for it, so he decided to help. He opened the cocoon a little so the butterfly could get out more easily.

His mother saw what he had done and said: “That’s a pity. Now that butterfly will never be able to fly. And it will die.”

The child was very sad, because although he had very good intentions, he condemned it to a painful existence. When the butterfly fights to get out of the cocoon, it pushes a liquid out of its wings and that strengthens them, so it’s able to fly. It needs that exercise to be able to fly. Without it, it cannot fly anymore.

So I was prone to do the same for my childhood friend. To take away the only thing that truly motivates him. Pain.

The reason I told you this story is that when you see someone in pain, don’t hurry to take it away.

It might be the most precious thing they have.

Love and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

It’s time for another quarterly update on our personal lives: what we’ve experienced over the past three months (July–Sept 2026), what we’ve learned, and what we’re looking forward to in the next three months or so.

Hormones are very powerful

Monica started this quarter with very little energy and the need to be left alone. She only realized what was going on after a thorough investigation and many meetings with multiple doctors. The conversation with each doctor started like this: “I’m not here to take any treatment yet. In this conversation, I want to educate myself and learn about this issue.”

After digging and investigating, she discovered the cause: the hormonal changes that come with perimenopause. They can dramatically affect your sleep, headaches, menstrual pain, sexual appetite, mental clarity, irritability, all the way to how much you want to live. Yes, it’s that serious!

So, if you’re a woman and you’re doing everything right (time for sleep, diet, exercise, sun exposure) but something still feels wrong, you may want to look into hormones. Unfortunately, there is very little support in this area, and many doctors don’t know enough about hormonal treatment.

We have a dear friend in her thirties who was misdiagnosed with severe depression and given heavy medication for it. Two years later, she discovered the real problem: a hormonal imbalance. Imagine taking drugs that confuse your brain for two years without giving the body what it really needs. Terrible!

Also, the literature in this field is scarce. One of the best books about hormonal changes during menopause is written in German, and it hasn’t been translated into English yet (thank you, Stefanie Mielert, for recommending this book!).

Woman on Fire: Alles über die fabelhaften Wechseljahre (German Edition)

Tip: If you don’t speak German, you can buy the electronic version of the book and translate it into your language with an AI like GPT or Claude. And of course, you can look for other books that are available in English.

Two new books

Speaking of books… we started writing two new books this summer. They are on the same topic, but one is a novel and the other is non-fiction. We’ll keep you curious for now, but we’ll only say this: this is our most important contribution to humanity so far.

It is an amazing topic.

It is very aligned with us.

You are going to love it.

:))))))

Did we make you curious? 😇

Working on public speaking skills

At the beginning of August, we tried to escape the heat in Spain and went to Western Ireland to work on our public speaking skills with another couple. We love learning, and public speaking is an area where we still have a lot to learn.

We are still together as a couple today because we learned together. We’ve seen many couples divorce because they simply grew in separate directions. Most likely, we would’ve parted ways too if it hadn’t been for learning together.

In Ireland, we had a castle from 1450 just for the two of us. We had never stayed in a castle before. Very cool experience!

We had never been to Ireland before either, and we fell in love with the nature there. The Burren is an area we highly recommend if you want somewhere that isn’t too hot during the summer.

Kenya with Elena and Bart

After Ireland, Monica went to Kenya with her daughter, Elena, and her boyfriend, Bart. One thing about Monica… she loves animals. When we were in London, she would jump like a child every time she saw a common squirrel or a fox (yes, there are foxes in London!).

So, the real reason she went to Kenya was to see the Great Migration. They went on safari every day and saw all kinds of animals.

Our first short film

We worked with a team of pros to produce a short film about… Well, it’s a surprise. We filmed in London and in the UK countryside. Here is a one-minute teaser. The film will be released within a month, together with a new website. Can’t wait!

New home

For the last four years, we’ve traveled full-time. Two months here, three months there. We visited all six continents + Antarctica. But this lifestyle also has many drawbacks. Just imagine having everything you own in a suitcase!

For more than a year, we’ve wanted to be more stable and spend more time in one place. And now we’ve finally found the place: a nice traditional house in Ibiza, in the countryside. We plan to spend more time here over the next four years. After that, we’ll see.

The Alchemy of the Shadow

This quarter, Monica delivered a very special program for the first time: The Alchemy of the Shadow. We received amazing feedback from the attendees, and many perceived it as life-changing. We wrote a short article about “the shadow” here. Here is what a few people said:

“It was the most powerful program I ever did.” – Lia M.

“Initially, I thought it was nonsense to work on the traits of the Sun. After I did the exercise, I was amazed at the power of it.” – Marc D.

“I never felt one with everything. I heard about this, but I never experienced it myself. Now it was the first time I felt that. I felt expanded.” – Maria C.

What is NEXT

Retreat in Vietnam

We are leaving for Vietnam in a few days, where we will meet with 30+ amazing people. The retreat is sold out since we only organize one or two per year. But if you want to spend eight days with us, the next retreat is a great way of doing that.

We are planning one in Ibiza (women only) in May and one in Costa Rica next year about this time.

In a few days we will be in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, called Ha Long Bay. It’s an archipelago with more than 2,000 little islands, and we will have a private traditional Vietnamese cruise ship, navigating between them and working on advanced stuff. Dream!

Settling into the new home

After Vietnam, we’ll go home and settle into our new house. It’s been a while since we had a home 😇 Yey!

Surprise project

In December, we are planning to start a secret project. It will be a YouTube show, but not a podcast. We plan to do something very different from anything you already know. Did we make you a little curious? We hope so! 🙂

That’s it from us. We hope you found something inspiring reading about our challenges and wins this quarter.

And again… Thank you for being an important part of our life and following our journey.

Monica and Stefan

When we first heard that some of the world’s best surgeons have the highest failure rates…

…we thought it had to be nonsense.

Surely the best surgeons should have the best outcomes.

But then we learned something fascinating.

The best surgeons often take the cases nobody else is willing to touch.

The impossible tumors.

The desperate emergencies.

The patients with almost no chance.

In other words, they are not failing more because they are less skilled.

They are failing more because they are willing to attempt what others are too afraid, inexperienced, or incapable to handle.

And once we understood this, we started seeing the same pattern everywhere.

The best entrepreneurs usually carry a trail of visible failures behind their success.

The best scientists run hundreds of experiments that go nowhere before discovering something extraordinary.

The best athletes miss shots most people would never dare to take.

Yet when we look only at outcomes without context, excellence can appear indistinguishable from failure.

This is a powerful reminder for how we think about mistakes.

Maybe failure is not always evidence of incompetence.

Sometimes it is evidence of courage.

Sometimes it is evidence that a person is operating at the outer edge of difficulty, uncertainty, and possibility.

And that leads to two important thoughts we wanted to share with you today.

First…

Many times, success needs to be measured differently than you once believed.

If you only count clean victories, safe decisions, and perfect records, you may accidentally reward caution instead of greatness.

Second…

You are allowed to make mistakes.

In fact, some mistakes are proof you are attempting something meaningful.

Proof you are stretching beyond the comfortable.

Proof you are taking responsibility for challenges most people avoid.

Of course, this does not mean carelessness is admirable.

It means courage always carries the possibility of failure attached to it.

And one of the quiet tragedies of life is how many people never discover what they are capable of because they become too frightened of failing visibly.

So if you have a few scars…

A few failed attempts…

A few decisions that did not work out the way you hoped…

You may be closer to real growth than you think.

Because the people who live an amazing life rarely spend their time protecting a perfect record.

They know that success and failure are two sides of the same coin.

Love and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

A man comes to an old rabbi and complains about the situation at home.

“Rabbi, I can’t get along with my wife anymore. I come home tired from work and, instead of waiting for me with food, she starts criticizing me. She tells me this is missing, that is missing, that I didn’t do this or that, that the children didn’t behave properly. I get angry and we argue.”

The old rabbi looks at him gently and says:

“You’re right. But think about it, she works too, just like you. She spends the whole day with the children. It’s as if she has a 24-hour job, and she’s tired. Listen to her with patience. Ask her to put something to eat on the table in the meantime, and you’ll see that things will calm down.”

The next day, the man’s wife comes to the old rabbi and says:

“Rabbi, my husband doesn’t behave properly. He comes home agitated from work, raises his voice at me, and we argue almost every day.”

“You’re right,” says the rabbi. “But think about it, he comes home tired after a long day of work. Put something to eat on the table, let him catch his breath, and then tell him the problems you’ve been thinking about. You’ll see that things will calm down.”

The rabbi’s disciple, who had been present at both conversations, was confused. He couldn’t understand. After turning the issue over in his mind from every angle, he came to the rabbi and said:

“Rabbi, yesterday the man came and you told him he was right. Today the woman came and you told her she was right. They can’t both be right.”

The rabbi looks at him gently and says, “You’re right too.”

The reason we’re telling you this story is that, too often, we become rigid in our own perspective. We believe it represents the whole truth. And we are no longer able to find solutions.

Sometimes, the path to solutions begins by recognizing that “others can be right too.”

Love and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

Two maternity clinics. Same hospital. Same city.

Yet one felt like a death sentence.

In the clinic run by doctors and medical students, women died of Puerperal fever at terrifying rates. Almost 1 in 5.

Next door, in the midwives’ clinic, far fewer women lost their lives.

But, there was a young doctor who refused to look away. His name was Ignaz Semmelweis.

He began noticing what others dismissed.

Doctors moved straight from autopsies to childbirth.

No washing. No pause. No second thought.

Then a colleague died after a scalpel cut during an autopsy.

Same symptoms as the mothers.

That was the moment. A quiet, dangerous realization:

Death was traveling… on their hands.

“There must be some very tiny organisms on our hands that we can’t see,” he thought.

Then he changed something simple: wash hands with chlorinated lime before examining patients.

The result?

Immediate. Staggering in its clarity.

Mortality dropped from 10–20%… to nearly 1–2%.

Many lives were saved. Many mothers survived.

Proof was standing in the ward.

And yet, something strange happened.

No one applauded.

Because Semmelweis couldn’t explain why in scientific terms. Germ theory of disease didn’t exist yet.

To his peers, his claim sounded absurd:

“Invisible organisms on our hands are killing patients.”

They laughed.

But worse than laughter was the implication.

If he was right… then they were the cause.

Doctors, seen almost as gods, faced an unbearable idea: we are killing the people we are meant to save.

Pride closed the door that evidence had opened.

And Semmelweis, frustrated and relentless, became more and more vocal.

He openly condemned his colleagues, and they sidelined him. Proof alone was not enough when it threatened identity.

In 1865, colleagues had him committed to an asylum under false pretenses.

Inside, he was beaten and a wound became infected.

At 47, he died… from the very kind of infection he had fought to prevent.

A few years later, through the work of Louis Pasteur and others, germ theory became accepted.

And the world finally caught up.

“Oh my… Do you remember that colleague of ours whom we thought was crazy and had locked away in an asylum? He was right.”

History repeats this pattern.

Socrates.

Giordano Bruno.

Semmelweis.

People who saw something clearly… before the world had the wisdom to understand it.

They stood for it.

And paid for it.

Today, in our modern society, we worship evidence-based science.

If it isn’t proven, it isn’t real.

Yet some visions appear before they can be proven, waiting for the world to catch up.

How can you tell the difference between a real vision and a fantasy?

What in your life are you not considering because it isn’t proven?

There are two questions we invite you to reflect on today and, if you wish, to answer in writing. Let your hand write half a page or a full page, then see what you wrote.

Love and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

It’s a great movie. It features excellent actors and very strong emotions: adventure, curiosity, friendship, betrayal, death wish, etc.

It is a Hollywood version of what happened in the trial of some German army leaders during WW2.

It’s inspired by true events, but we are not here to comment on the validity of the history it presents, except for one detail at the end.

The story follows a psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), who develops a close relationship with Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe), Hitler’s second in command, after his surrender.

Here is what got our attention…

After his mission in Germany ends, the psychiatrist returns to the US and writes a book. He had just spent thousands of hours with the most hated men on the planet.

Naturally, his book should have been a massive success.

But it wasn’t.

Why?

Because the psychiatrist told the truth.

“We are no different than them. Every nation has the same potential to do what they did.”

That was not well received.

Instead of recognizing the wisdom of the law of reflection, people thought he was “trashing their country.”

The doctor tried for almost 10 years to warn people, in vain, about the possibility of a future regime similar to the Nazis. Nobody wanted to hear that.

He finally committed suicide in 1958.

The law of reflection states that

everything you perceive in others exists within you.

You could not see it if it wasn’t already in you. This was scientifically supported in 1992 with the discovery of mirror neurons by Giacomo Rizzolatti and his team at the University of Parma.

We dedicated an entire chapter to the law of reflection in The 7 Universal Laws. It’s Stefan’s favorite law.

If you haven’t read it yet, we highly recommend giving it a try. After that, you will start to see the universal laws all around you, including in movies. 😇

The audiobook is also available, so you can take it with you to the gym, while driving, commuting, etc.

Love and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

Your brain.

Not a supercomputer. Not a galaxy.

That three-pound organ quietly at work inside your skull.

Ancient Egyptians were already writing about the brain 5,000 years ago in their surgical papyri. And yet, in just the last 100 years, humanity has learned more about it than in all the previous millennia combined.

Even so, we are still at the very beginning.

Here’s a glimpse of how little we truly grasp…

Recently, researchers from Harvard and Google spent ten full years mapping just 1 cubic millimeter of the human brain.

A speck.

Roughly one-millionth of the entire organ.

The effort was staggering.

The imaging alone took 326 days.

That tiny fragment was sliced into 5,000 ultra-thin layers… scanned using a $6 million electron microscope… and then reconstructed using Google’s machine learning systems.

Why?

Because no team of humans could process that volume of raw data.

The result?

1.4 petabytes of information.

From something smaller than a grain of rice.

To put that in perspective, a single petabyte equals about one million gigabytes.

Scale this up to the full brain, and you’re looking at roughly 1.4 zettabytes of data… about the same as all the data generated globally in a year.

The storage alone would cost tens of billions of dollars.

And require a data center the size of 100 football fields placed side by side.

Meanwhile…

Your brain runs on about 20 watts of power. And fits comfortably inside your head.

And this is not all…

Scientists discovered structures they still cannot explain. One neuron can have more than 5,000 connections.

In certain areas, entire groups of cells appeared as mirror images of each other.

And this is only what we can observe at the biological level.

At the quantum level… We are still largely in the dark.

So here we are in 2026.

Building artificial intelligence systems that attempt to mimic neural networks… while still unable to fully understand even one-millionth of the real thing.

If that doesn’t stir a sense of wonder, I don’t know what will.

This is so inspiring!

To see how extraordinary the human mind truly is. And how much remains to be discovered.

The more we learn, the more we realize how much we have yet to learn.

A humbling thought. And one that elevates us at the same time.

Love and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

And with it… the decisions we face.

You may recognize a few of these moments:

You sit down to build a marketing strategy… and suddenly there are dozens of variables pulling for your attention.

You consider buying something important, like a car or a house… and find yourself stuck in analysis paralysis.

Or you replay a conversation with a friend… turning it over and over, wondering what the right move is.

Different situations. Same underlying challenge:

Complex decisions, showing up again and again.

And if anything, life is not getting simpler. It is becoming more layered, more demanding, more intricate.

So what can you do when everything feels tangled?

There is a principle we return to often. It is simple, practical, and has stood the test of nearly 700 years.

In the 14th century, a philosopher named William of Ockham introduced what is now known as Occam’s Razor.

Its essence is this:

The simplest solution is usually the correct one.

Now, that may sound almost too simple. But there is a powerful reason it works.

Left to its own devices, the mind tends to complicate.

It adds layers that are not needed.

It imagines scenarios that are not true.

It revisits past pains and projects them into the future.

This is how clear thinking becomes crowded faster than you clap your hands.

Occam’s Razor cuts through that noise.

It brings you back to what is essential… and helps you move forward with less friction, less wasted energy.

The simplest solution is usually the correct one.

There is, however, one important distinction.

The simplest solution is not always the most simplistic one. It is the solution that requires the fewest assumptions. That difference matters.

So the next time you face a complex decision…

Pause for a moment and ask yourself:

“What is the explanation, or the choice, that relies on the fewest assumptions? What is the simplest solution?”

Very often, that is your answer.

And when you act on it, you may find something surprising…

Clarity returns faster than you expected.

Love and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

Most people live in a quiet tug-of-war with time.

They rush so they won’t be late…

Or arrive late after rushing anyway.

And if you listen closely, you’ll hear a familiar refrain almost everywhere:

“I wish I had more time.”

But here is something worth noticing…

People don’t experience time the same way.

In fact, there is a direct relationship between the impact of your work… and how far ahead you naturally see.

In his book The Time Trap, Alec McKenzie revealed a fascinating pattern. Let me share it with you in simple terms:

Workers tend to see one day ahead.

“What do I have to do tomorrow?”

Supervisors look about a week ahead.

Team leaders extend that view to a month.

Middle managers think in quarters.

Senior managers plan a year ahead.

A CEO sees across several years.

A visionary stretches across decades.

And a sage… thinks in centuries.

Giordano Bruno saw clearly that humanity would only catch up to his understanding hundreds of years later.

Now here’s the part that makes this truly useful…

No matter what you do for a living, all of these roles live within you.

At times you are the worker, focused on today and tomorrow.

At other moments, you are the CEO… or even the visionary of your own life.

Some of these capacities are well developed. Others are quietly dormant.

What determines which one shows up?

Your priorities.

When you act on what truly matters most to you, your highest priorities, something remarkable happens…

Your time horizon expands.

You begin to think more strategically.

You plan with realism.

You act with clarity and focus.

But when you drift into low-priority actions…

Your world shrinks to the immediate.

You look for quick relief, easy wins, shortcuts.

And often, you pay for them later.

So the real question is not, “How do I get more time?”

It is: “What deserves my time most?”

Answer that well… and time begins to work with you instead of against you.

Love and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

Most people in personal development are taught to grow by getting rid of half of themselves.

Every one of us has a dark side. A side we would rather keep hidden.

A part of us that is greedy, lecherous, perverted, angry, and so on.

Naturally, we don’t like that about ourselves. So we do what seems sensible.

We push it down.

We try to eliminate it.

We hope it will disappear.

And when it shows itself, even for a moment, we feel it immediately…

a flash of shame,

remorse and guilt,

sometimes even a strong fear.

Yet here is a paradox few people are shown. As a therapist or coach…

Working with light means, first and foremost, to be able to contain darkness.

Your darkness. And other people’s darkness.

In fact, the brighter the light you seek to embody, the more clearly your shadow will appear.

And trying to eliminate that shadow altogether is a battle no one wins.

But there is another way.

One that does not require suppression… but seeing that it serves a purpose.

And instead of rejecting it… you integrate it.

Monica has been exploring the idea of creating a program dedicated to working with the “shadow” from the perspective of universal laws.

Before she continues in this direction, she would love to know:

Is this something you would want to explore? Would this interest you?

If so, simply reply to this email and let us know. We will make sure you receive more details if and when the program takes shape.

Love and Wisdom,

Monica and Stefan

P.S. Sometimes the very thing we try to hide… holds the key to a kind of freedom most people never experience.

Reply to this email if you would like to receive more information about a future program on the dark side / shadow, from the perspective of universal laws.

Our mornings were more beautiful because of him. He had that rare quality you cannot train… a warm presence, an easy smile, and a genuine way of making people feel welcome.

As we spoke with him over several mornings, we learned he didn’t have a driving license. In a place full of tourists, that’s a valuable skill. It can open doors to better-paying opportunities.

So we thought, why not help?

Stefan offered to pay for his driving school. A simple gesture. Practical. Useful.

But John didn’t seem interested at all.

That surprised us. In fact, Stefan felt a bit disappointed. It looked like an opportunity missed.

But then, when we looked a little deeper, we realized something important…

John already had a rare and valuable gift.

He was exceptional with people.

The way he greeted guests. The patience with which he listened. The ease with which he made others feel at home… this is not common. This is the kind of ability hotels quietly depend on, especially at the front desk where first impressions are everything.

Now here’s the interesting part.

Both of us are introverts. If we had to greet guests with a smile for even an hour, we’d feel drained. Yet John could do it all day, naturally, effortlessly.

We almost missed it…

Because his strength was so different from ours.

And that’s the reason why we’re telling you this story.

Most of us try to help others based on our own idea of success. Based on what we consider is important.

But people don’t grow that way.

They grow the most when they are supported in what matters to them. In their priorities. In their natural direction.

Give someone a challenge aligned with what they care about, and something remarkable happens…

They lean in.

They ask for more.

Their energy rises.

You begin to see their real potential unfold.

Think of a child who loves video games.

Give him a harder level, and he becomes focused, engaged, fully alive.

Give him chores with no connection to what he loves, and suddenly you need to push, remind, and manage every step.

Same child. Different alignment.

That’s how you awaken someone’s genius: by giving them challenges in their priorities.

Not by directing them where you think they should go.

Because at the end of the day, there’s a simple truth:

Everyone wants to be seen and loved for who they are.

You are no exception.

Love and wisdom,

Monica and Stefan