In 2005, we moved to Spain.

In 2005, we moved to Spain.

We left everything behind in the Netherlands

– the social circles
– the expectations
– the unspoken rules about what a responsible life is supposed to look like.

And when we got to Spain,
we didn’t plug into that culture either.

We didn’t adapt to Spanish customs or social norms.

We just did our own thing.

What that gave us and I didn’t fully understand it at the time
was a permanent question we couldn’t escape:

“What do we actually want?”

Not what looks right.
Not what people expect.
Not what the next logical step is according to someone else’s playbook.

Just: what do we actually want?

That question changes everything when there’s no external measuring stick left to compare yourself against.

It’s how we built the company too.

Lifestyle first.

Then the business wrapped around that,
not the other way around.

I think Special Forces was the only place in the military that could have held me for the same reason.

There were rules, yes.
But not too many.

You had real freedom in how you made decisions.
Creative problem solving was the job.

Get it done, find your own way to get it done.

That kind of environment either builds you or breaks you,
and it built something in me that I never wanted to give up when I left.

Most people spend their whole lives measuring themselves against a standard they never consciously chose.

The move to Spain in 2005 just made that standard
impossible to see anymore.

And once you can’t see it,
you stop measuring against it.

📌 When did you last question whether the standard you’re measuring yourself against is actually yours?

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