Hi there, I’ve not written a newsletter in a few weeks 👀. This was mainly due to two factors: Cycling and struggles at work. For the cycling part, my knee is healing really well, and I have trained a lot over these last weeks. Training releases hormones that give me the biggest feeling of euphoria. Smiling when the sun starts shining and feeling really good after a hard interval, this is what I live for.

Next to that my last few weeks have not been great at work. I had struggles with concentrating and keeping my inbox up-to-date. Guess what? These are essential to keep up with work and do the things that you need to do. With these struggles came a lot of lost time on the important work that I need to do. Which in turn gave me a signal that my work was not where it should be now.

This is a vicious circle that I needed to escape. Cycling helped with that but it got me thinking. Life is not always a straight line. Sometimes you have these weeks that life is not simple, it’s overly complicated. And I need clarity in my life.

So that is what I have been doing, finding clarity. Have I found it? No, but I will get there.

Have fun reading!

- Mark

Finding a passion

As you might have noticed, I have found my passion. Riding a bike is pure bliss for me. Nothing in the world can give me this much joy and feeling of freedom. If I could, I would just ride my bike all day.

Lately I spoke to some people about passions, and they told me that they need to find out what their passion is. And that got me thinking, how do you find out what your passion is? So I did some research and got tips to (hopefully) finding a passion.

Change your mindset

Thinking that finding a passion is hard or if you are convinced that you will not find a passion, disables you to actually find a passion. You’ll block the little pulls and signals that guide you towards a passion.

Instead, adopt a perspective that you can do what you want in life, that you are not constrained to your current state of living. That perspective will eventually give you a passion. Surround yourself with people that are living examples of that perspective.

For me that’s connecting to people that work in the cycling industry and finding out how they made a living out of riding their bike. This enabled me to grow in my own passion.

Rocking chair test

Try the Rocking Chair Test, a visualisation of yourself in a rocking chair at the age of 90. Visualising this and asking yourself: ‘What is your biggest regret?’, ‘What passion do you wish you followed?’, ‘How do you want to be remembered?’. By doing this visualisation you unlock something in yourself and point you to the things that really matter to you.

Get out of your comfort zone

One of my favourite youtube channels - Yes Theory - is based around the practice of saying ‘yes’ to things out of your comfort zone. They inspired me to think outside of my comfort zone and try new things in live.

Here are some of the videos that inspired me to do things out of my comfort zone:

• Travelling to the least visited country in the world

• Asking a stranger to go on a date across the world

• I Jumped the World’s Most Extreme Skydive (Near Death Experience)

By going out of your comfort zone you experience things that you have never done, and might really enjoy. Go camping in the middle of nowhere, eat that wierd food that you heard of or go singing in the streets.

Notice where you spend your free time

Do you spend time with friends? Do you spend time reading books? Do you spend time in the gym? This could be a sign that you might already have a passion. By noticing where you spend your free time you can get a general sense of what your passion is.

For a friend of mine this is going to the gym, pushing himself and meeting new people in the process. He noticed that going the gym was his passion and he built his life around it. Now he goes to competitions, is sponsored and works at a gym. He made his free time his passion.

Things

• My first article on Cyclingdestination.cc was published! A recap of my recent trip to Gent-Wevelgem. Read it here. And see the pictures below!

• I read this article about how management is not a step but a skill. For most people management feels like a step forward in their current role, but most of the time it is a step in another field of work. Working with people is not something that suits everyone, but why is it almost always to only way to earn more?

• Going to say this again, but Apple has the best series across all streaming platforms. Severance, Ted Lasso and The Morning Show are true pieces of art. The last weeks I enjoyed watching For All Mankind, a ‘What if’ show that shows how the world could have been if the Russians were the first to set foot on the moon, sparking a space race to be the first in a lot of things. Watch it on Apple TV.

• Elon Musk is going all rampage on Twitter, and he has his eyes on Substack. If you search ‘Substack’ on Twitter you will instead find the results for ‘newsletter’. He has made Twitter his little playground and just does things impulsively.

• This article about the learnings of a father to become a better person inspired me.

• The whole Pas Normal Studios universe came together on the island of Mallorca, and my friends Rik and Ruben were there to capture it all. Find their content on their instagram @rubenhoogland and @rikdevoogd.

Gif of the week

Thanks for reading this instance of interesthings, if you have anything you want to share or see in a future newsletter, hit me up on LinkedIn or Instagram (@harkmeij)