But somewhere in the middle of all of that, I just stopped. What am I doing here?

We are the most comfortable humans who have ever lived. And we are absolutely terrified.

Not terrified of something specific. Just terrified. Of falling behind. Of missing something. Of the future arriving before we are ready for it. And here is the thing nobody says out loud: the fear is not accidental. It is a product. Someone is selling it to you, and it is working.

We sell fear to our children so they study harder. We sell fear to ourselves so we consume more. We sell the fear that things will not last so we grab more of them before they disappear. The news sells it. The market sells it. Your LinkedIn feed sells it. And the more we buy it, the more real it feels, until one day you cannot tell the difference between a genuine threat and a very well-targeted notification.

AI, geopolitics, inflation, career, relevance — pick your fear. There is a subscription for all of them.

One job is not enough anymore. One career is not enough. One income stream is a risk, two is a minimum, three is where you start to relax — or so the story goes. Everyone is building a side hustle, launching a course, starting a newsletter, flipping something. Not because they love it. Because the fear of the future is so loud that standing still feels like falling behind.

Friends who stopped sleeping because they are building apps. We sit together now and call it a gathering, but half the table is checking if their agents are still running or discussing how to get more tokens. Nobody is fully there. The apps need us more than the people do, apparently.

I am not judging them. I am one of them. I am the person who built the most optimized possible version of a day — work, family, reading, studying, sport, all of it scheduled, all of it tracked — and then complained, sincerely, that life felt stressful. The compression was my idea. The suffocation surprised me anyway.

This is what the machine does. It makes you a very enthusiastic participant in your own exhaustion.

Scholars who changed the world didn’t optimize for output. They had questions that wouldn’t leave them alone. They worked until the question was answered or until the sun went down, and then they stopped. Not because they were lazy. Because they were finished for the day. The idea of optimizing every waking hour for output would have made no sense to them. Output was the byproduct. The thinking was the point.

We reversed it somewhere. Now the output is the point, and the thinking — the real, slow, unscheduled kind — is the thing we feel guilty about.

So here is the question I keep coming back to, the one that arrived uninvited on that sick afternoon between the recruiter email and account number two:

If you woke up tomorrow and the fear was gone — not the circumstances, just the fear — what would you actually do?

Not what you are supposed to do. Not what makes sense on paper. Not what the people who know you would expect. If nobody was watching and nothing was at risk and you were not trying to prove anything to anyone including yourself — what would the day look like?

Most people, when they sit with that question long enough, realize they have not thought about it seriously in years. The machine is loud. It is designed to be loud. Silence is where the question lives, and silence does not have a monetization strategy.

I am not saying quit everything. I am not saying delete your apps and disappear into the mountains. I am not even saying slow down, because that has become its own kind of performance — the person who makes a whole thing about doing less, broadcasting their simplicity like a new optimization strategy.

I am asking something harder. Are you running because you love where you are going? Or are you running because stopping feels dangerous?

Because those two things look identical from the outside. Same hours. Same hustle. Same results maybe. But one of them is yours and one of them belongs to the machine.

Only you know which one it is. And if you are not sure — that is probably your answer.

I spent my morning today (I confess: it was not boring) in the gold rabbit hole trying to understand my options as a German resident and how to optimize gains (of course assuming that gold will increase and not fall). This is not about if you should buy gold or not, but about if you decided to buy, what and how to buy.

What are the options?

Not a surprise but buying gold in Germany is way more complex than it looks—and that complexity creates some genuinely interesting opportunities. For individuals, there are basically three options:

• Physical gold - actual gold bars you hold in your hand and store at home or in a safe.

• ETCs with delivery rights - you own shares but can claim physical gold if you want.

• ETCs without delivery rights - pure paper gold, like any other commodity investment.

In most countries, options 2 and 3 would be treated the same. But this is Germany, where nothing is simple—and that’s exactly where the opportunity is.

Option 1: Physical Gold

You can walk into any gold shop and buy pure gold bars or coins. No VAT on pure gold, but you’ll pay a commission and get hit with a significant spread between buy and sell prices.

Quick math: a 10g gold bar costs around €1,395 at retail (example here), versus about €1,343 for the equivalent in ETCs. That’s a €52 premium - roughly 4% more just to hold the physical metal.

The Tax Treatment

If you hold physical gold for more than one year, you pay zero taxes on capital gains when you sell. None. Yes you read it right. But if you sell before one year, things get weird thanks to §23 EStG (private sale transactions):

• If your total profits from ALL private sales in a calendar year (gold, crypto, art, NFTs, whatever) stay under €1,000, everything is tax-free

• If you cross €1,000, the entire profit gets taxed as “other income” at your marginal rate (14-45% plus solidarity surcharge)

• This is per person, resets every calendar year

Example:

• €999 profit → €0 tax

• €1,200 profit → €1,200 gets fully taxed (not just the €200 over the threshold)

Plan accordingly.

Option 2: ETCs with Gold Delivery Rights

In the EU, gold is sold as ETCs (Exchange Traded Commodities), not ETFs—long story.

Two ETCs in Europe let you claim physical gold:

• Xetra-Gold (4GLD): DE000A0S9GB0

• EUWAX Gold II (EWG2): DE000EWG2LD7

Both have 0% TER (management fees), but you pay small storage and transaction costs—total ownership cost is around 0.3-0.4% annually.

The Tax Trick

In Germany specifically, ETCs with delivery rights are treated exactly like physical gold for tax purposes. Same rules: hold for more than a year, pay zero capital gains tax. Under a year, you’re subject to the €1,000 threshold rule.

This is important. You get:

• Lower upfront cost (no 4% premium)

• Lower ongoing cost (0.3-0.4% vs potential storage/insurance for physical)

• Easy liquidity (sell instantly on the exchange)

• Same tax treatment as physical gold

I haven’t found another EU country that does this. It’s a German special.

Option 3: Regular ETCs (No Delivery)

This is straightforward ETF (equity)-style investing. You pay low fees (e.g., 0.12% for SGLN) and you’re taxed like stocks: 26.375% flat capital gains tax (Abgeltungsteuer) on all profits, regardless of holding period.

So What Should You Actually Do?

I’m not a financial advisor and I can’t make decisions for you, but here’s my mental model:

Buy physical gold if:

• You’re genuinely paranoid about systemic collapse

• You’re highly mobile and want truly portable wealth

• You live somewhere you can’t access gold-backed financial products

• You plan to hold for decades

Yes, you pay a premium upfront, but you own it for real with no ongoing costs.

Buy 4GLD or EWG2 if:

• You live in Germany

• You plan to hold for more than a year, OR Your total private sale profits for the year will stay under €1,000

• You’re willing to deal with the tax reporting

This is the sweet spot for most people in Germany who want gold exposure (IMO).

Buy SGLN or similar if:

• You’re not in Germany, OR

• You want to trade actively, OR

• You value simplicity over tax optimization

Just pay the 26.375% and move on with your life.

Numbers

As I love speaking with data, I did some math calculations assuming €5,000 gold investment with 40% personal tax rate. I also assumed that anyone who owns €5,000 gold would probably own much more in ETFs so they will use their yearly tax allowance on normal ETFs. (Google Sheet here)

If you are selling after 1 year of ownership, you will be better off buying 4GLD for any gains above 1% with very little differences on 1% or below. See Graph.

If you are selling before 1 year, things are more complex but you will be better off buying 4GLD if you are anticipating profit less than 10% and better off buying SGLN for anything more. See Graph

Of course these numbers are my calculations and I might be totally wrong, so take it with a pinch of salt.

The Bottom Line

The deliverable ETC route is probably the best option for most people in Germany who want gold exposure. You get the tax benefits of physical gold without the premium, storage headaches, or liquidity issues.

The fact that almost nobody talks about this suggests either (a) I’m missing something, or (b) it’s a genuine arbitrage that exists purely because of regulatory complexity. Given that this is Germany we’re talking about, I’m betting on (b).

References:

• JustETF Gold Guide

• German Gold Tax Treatment

• §23 EStG (Private Sale Transactions)

• §22 EStG (Other Income)

• Capital Gains in Germany Overview

Usual disclaimer: This is my understanding after reading the actual laws and cross-referencing multiple sources. I’m not a tax professional. Verify everything yourself before making decisions.

We’re all impacted by exchange rates in one way or another. We usually don’t see it because it’s hidden behind our day-to-day purchases, but sometimes it hits us hard: when planning travel, holding stocks, making direct investments, or owning properties in different countries (like many expats do).

For me (and many others), I grew up in a country where a slight change in the dollar versus the local currency would genuinely impact daily life. It has been both a risk and an opportunity. Things have become more sophisticated for me now. I live in Europe, work for an American company, invest in international assets, deal with expenses in two different countries, and travel often. Every financial decision I make involves at least two currencies, and in some months up to four.

As this has been part of many discussions lately, especially after the recent volatility between the USD and EUR, I want to explain how this all works so you don’t get tricked by the numbers and can understand when a “losing” investment is actually winning, and how to do the math before following the latest investment trend.

Same Investments, Completely Different Returns

To illustrate the effect more clearly, let’s look at some real numbers.

An American investor who invested $1,000 in February 2025 in the S&P 500 iShares ETF (IVW) would have a return of 19.91% today. In other words, their $1,000 would now be worth $1,199.10.

A European investor who invested €1,000 in the S&P 500 iShares ETF (SXR8 - the European equivalent of IVW) at the same time would only see a 1.36% return. In other words, their €1,000 would be worth just €1,013.60.

The underlying S&P 500 index performed nearly identically in both ETFs—they track the same stocks. The massive difference in returns comes entirely from the EUR/USD exchange rate movement over this period.

In February 2025, the exchange rate was approximately €1 = $1.024. By the end of January 2026, it had moved to €1 = $1.1854. This ~15.7% strengthening of the euro against the dollar wiped out most of the gains for European investors.

This surprises many people, especially when following the news where every few days the S&P 500 hits a new record high. For an American investor, this is genuinely exciting news. But for a European investor, they could have invested in the “boring” European stocks index like the STOXX 600 (EXSA), which would have delivered a 14.27% return instead, without any of the AI hype.

The Opposite Can Happen Too

On the complete opposite side, between June 2021 and May 2022, European investors would have been better off despite the losses in the S&P 500. During this period, the IVW ETF (the USD-based S&P 500 ETF) went down by 4.65%, but the SXR8 (the EUR-based S&P 500 ETF) increased by 13.18%. European investors would have gained money at the same time American investors lost money—of course, relative to their currency. This was mainly due to an 11.62% decline in the euro during the same period.

So why does this happen?

There’s no simple answer. Exchange rates move based on a complex mix of factors: from central bank policies to investor perception to outright speculation. This makes them nearly impossible to predict with certainty. Main drivers:

Interest rates are the primary factor. When a central bank raises rates, it typically strengthens that currency by attracting foreign investment seeking better returns. The recent EUR/USD swing partly reflects the European Central Bank’s decisions relative to the Federal Reserve’s stance.

Economic performance matters, but not always in obvious ways. Strong growth generally strengthens a currency as investors chase opportunities. But sometimes a booming economy triggers rate hikes to cool inflation, which then strengthens the currency further—creating unpredictable feedback loops.

Geopolitics and global events create ripple effects. An oil price spike in the Middle East impacts the dollar, which affects the euro. Markets often move more on perception and expectations than hard data—which is why even sophisticated quantitative models struggle to predict currency movements reliably.

This interconnectedness is exactly why currencies remain one of the hardest assets to predict, even for professionals.

And what should I do?

It’s very hard to predict exchange rate movements. I thought I had done my homework in 2025, and I was convinced the USD wouldn’t go any lower and doubled down on that assumption. It went lower—much lower than most professionals predicted.

The opposite can also happen, which is why I’ve learned to think differently and manage risks, especially around currency exposure.

For Short-Term Savings: Match Currency to Spending

The best approach for short-term savings is to hold reserves in the currency you’ll actually spend. If you need to pay something in USD a year from now, it’s better to convert and save in USD now rather than wait until the last minute and risk unfavorable rates. This is particularly common for expats buying property in their home country or planning major international trips.

You can also use Cost Averaging (CA)—converting a percentage monthly instead of all at once. This smooths out fluctuations, and you won’t feel as bad if rates move against you on any single conversion.

You should also be careful about tempting savings accounts. For example, in Europe, Revolut offers savings in USD (up to 4.18%), EUR (up to 2.02%), and GBP (up to 4.05%). The USD rate is almost double the EUR rate—but is it worth it? Looking at 2025’s exchange rate movements, keeping your euros would have been better than converting to USD despite the higher interest rate.

For Long-Term Investments: It’s More Complicated

Before we discuss long-term strategies, let’s align on some concepts. First, being too risk-averse by definition reduces your gains. I’m sure you’ve heard “no risk, no gain.” Second, you cannot avoid being impacted by currency fluctuations. The world is interconnected, and unless you live under a rock or in a cave (and I doubt you do if you’re reading this), you will be affected one way or another by other countries’ currency changes.

One option to reduce risk is hedging. Hedging, in investment, is a strategy to protect against currency risk. When you buy a currency-hedged ETF, the fund uses financial instruments (like currency futures) to offset exchange rate movements, so your returns reflect only the underlying asset performance—not currency fluctuations. Essentially, you get the stock performance as if you had invested directly in USD, but receive your returns in EUR. Sounds cool, right? Well, there are definitely some hidden issues.

Before we jump into hedging issues, let’s look at the numbers. In 2025, the S&P 500 EUR-hedged ETF (IBCF) achieved 13.4%, the USD-based version achieved 19.91%, and the unhedged EUR version achieved only 1.36%.

Have you noticed something? First, hedging costs eat into returns. Hedged ETFs charge higher fees that drain your returns over time. Also, you miss currency gains. Hedging protects you when your home currency strengthens, but it also prevents you from benefiting when it weakens.

Another consideration: currency fluctuations usually balance out over the long term. Instead of paying consistent fees every year, time will smooth things out anyway—as long as you stay invested long-term (10 to 20 years).

I know this doesn’t provide a simple answer, but that’s why many experts propose investing in diversified ETFs that aren’t solely US, EU, or Asia-focused. VWCE ETF, for example, achieved 7.35% last year and covers a multitude of stocks and countries. Yes, it will be affected by currency changes and economic turbulence, but not as severely as country-specific ETFs or even currency-hedged ones. It’s safer in the long term compared to doubling down on a specific country or industry.

The Bottom Line

Currency movements are part of investing—there’s no avoiding them. The question isn’t whether you’ll be exposed to exchange rate risk, but how you’ll manage it. Here’s what I’ve learned from getting this wrong (and occasionally right):

For money you’ll need soon, keep it in the currency you’ll actually spend. Don’t chase higher interest rates in foreign currencies unless you’re genuinely comfortable with the exchange rate risk.

For long-term investments, diversification across geographies is your best defense. Instead of trying to time currencies or paying ongoing hedging fees, spread your bets. A globally diversified ETF like VWCE won’t protect you from all currency swings, but it won’t leave you entirely dependent on any single exchange rate either.

Most importantly: Don't let exchange rates paralyze you, and don't let exciting news from other countries rush you into bad decisions. Do the math in your own currency before getting swept up in the hype. Sometimes the boring local option is actually the better investment.

A final note: This isn't investment advice—just my perspective based on experience. All the numbers come from Yahoo Finance, and while I've done my best to get them right, I can't guarantee perfect accuracy. Do your own research and talk to a professional before making any investment decisions.

I’ve been avoiding writing about AI for the same reason everyone else has been yelling about it: the topic is everywhere. But after yet another breakfast, lunch, and dinner conversations dominated by it, I figured I should stop hiding and share my own take, focusing on my experience, and not the headline.

(Note: When I say “AI”, I’m talking specifically about large language models and their interfaces: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, etc.. Not the broader sense of AI that’s been in everything from Snapchat face filters, cameras, phones, etc.)

The Good

I use LLMs every single day. For work: brainstorming, drafting, challenging documents, prepping Q&A, summarizing meetings, extracting action items. For life: researching purchases, practicing languages, getting photography feedback, summarizing news, running financial simulations, even building websites and handy scripts.

It has become a magic stick for people who already know enough to steer it. It is productivity on steroids for competent, critical users who know what they want to achieve but want to achieve it faster. Though I should note: anyone can develop over-reliance or blind trust. Magic always comes with hidden costs.

A motivated, ambitious individual now has leverage that was unimaginable five years ago: anyone with internet and some smart machine can teach themselves advanced topics, prototype ideas, or research opportunities at a level that was not achievable before.

The Bad (and some might be pretty bad)

That said, the downsides are real, frightening, and growing.

First, the noise is exhausting. Everything and everyone is about AI right now: news, dinner parties, LinkedIn posts, Instagram photos, and even toilet papers. Strong opinions everywhere, but evidence far less so.

Second, we’ve flooded the world with polished-but-shallow content (slop). Anyone can now produce professional-looking websites, articles, images, videos, or “expert” takes. Signal-to-noise has skyrocketed. The world is becoming so artificially polished that it’s become depressing. I stopped opening LinkedIn because of the amount of junk displayed there. Yes, it has helped more people create and introduced more diversity, but it also introduced a lot of low-effort junk that is soulless and meaningless.

Third, over-trust and false confidence. LLMs speak with perfect grammar and zero hesitation, so people treat them as oracles. I’ve seen business plans written in a couple of hours without verifying sources, medical or political advice taken at face value, life decisions influenced by chatbots with no skin in the game. Daily, I spot obvious mistakes from AI that users miss entirely. The Dunning-Kruger effect got rocket fuel.

Fourth, the impact on learning—especially for kids. Students have always sought shortcuts, but AI makes it seamless and undetectable. The deeper problem is that education already over-optimized for task completion rather than deep understanding. Now we’re supercharging that flaw. Learning how to learn, how to reason, how to challenge outputs—these muscles will fade when you offload the hard parts.

Longterm, we risk raising a generation that can generate credentials but struggles to evaluate or originate ideas. What happens when the generation growing up with ChatGPT reaches adulthood without developing the foundational skills to validate AI outputs? When the baseline assumption is “the AI is probably right” because they never built the knowledge to challenge it? This isn’t just about students cheating on essays—it’s about the erosion of critical thinking at scale.

The Future (and I hope it is not so ugly)

I don’t expect world-eating AGI or a sudden singularity. Instead, we’ll see steady, incremental progress: more reliable domain-specific models, better agents, tighter workflow integrations. Useful applications will solve real shortages—healthcare triage, personalized tutoring—without replacing humans entirely.

The hype will eventually fade when diminishing returns kick in (and probably an AI bubble burst) and investors chase the next shiny thing or a geopolitical crisis steals the spotlight.

We will see serious privacy issues, embedded bias, addiction problems, and a Big Brother moment when companies and governments start monitoring what you do and share.

We will definitely have more deepfakes and personalized propaganda—Cambridge Analytica-style manipulation, but now available to anyone with an API key and a motive. This will accelerate polarization until we find ways to validate outputs with the same speed we generate ideas.

Of course, I see more power concentration in a handful of tech companies. That will raise geopolitical safety and antitrust questions. And of course the ethical question of whether using AI in weapons is acceptable or not.

What do you think? What have I missed?

Yes, I spend most of my waking hours working, but the moment I get free time, themes start popping up everywhere. One day it’s writing. Another day photography. Then kayaking, motorcycling, running, cycling, triathlon, business ideas, investing, cryptocurrency, gardening, chess… you name it. (Well, except cooking. Why try that when my wife cooks better than everyone I know?)

The problem isn’t trying these things.

The problem is the obsession — the way I go all-in until they collapse (or, more accurately, until they vanish). Sometimes the cycle takes months. Sometimes weeks. Sometimes just 12 hours.

Like yesterday: I started a new Substack, wrote the first post, published it, and deleted the whole thing the next morning.

I sat there staring at the screen after I deleted it, asking myself the same question I’ve asked a hundred times: What’s wrong with me?

These interests take all my rare free time, and in the end they control me. I watch documentaries, read books, subscribe to tools… then the interest disappears, and the cycle repeats.

For years I thought this was about freedom or curiosity. Sometimes I even imagined quitting everything to start a new life as a photographer, traveler, writer — whatever the theme of the moment happened to be.

Then something clicked.

I realized I have a restless mind.

(This part I knew already, but stay with me.)

I am an explorer at heart. I always wanted to be one — exploring the world, ideas, problems, systems. I want my brain to be stimulated by the world, not by algorithms.

My real problem wasn’t the interests. It was that I didn’t understand what I was already doing.

I work intensely for long periods, then get obsessed with something, then forget about it, then rediscover it… I don’t just explore things; I explore the dream of exploring them. I imagine the maximum I could achieve, and because the early progress is small, I get discouraged and quit.

So I asked one of these AI tools a simple question:

How do I get out of this loop?

And the answer wasn’t a solution. It was a mirror.

According to the AI (and based on all the secrets it knows about me), my life already operates on three components. I just never saw them clearly:

Anchor — Exploration — Expression

Let me explain.

Anchor

The part of life that stays steady.

This is the responsible adult in me — caring for family, work, finances, health, long-term plans. It’s the sponsor of both my stable life and my crazy one. If this collapses, we collapse (”we” meaning me and my other me).

This is my father-self, reminding me to stay grounded.

I’ve always had this. I just never called it anything.

Exploration

The part that fuels my life.

Like in a video game where you look for blue energy diamonds so you can reach the next level. Exploration gives me that energy.

This is the part I misunderstood for years. I kept turning experiments into identities. Each new hobby became “maybe this is who I really am,” instead of “this is something I want to explore.”

But these explorations are not identities.

They are fuel. They are my good drugs.

And here’s what I’m realizing: they’ve always been intentional, even when they felt chaotic. They show up when I need them — like rest days in training or vacations in a busy year. They are escapes, and I genuinely need them.

The problem was never that I explored. The problem was that I judged myself for it.

Expression

The part that keeps me sane.

This was the piece I couldn’t see until now. Expression is where my internal noise becomes clarity. Where chaos turns into something I can understand.

It’s not just creativity. It’s integration. It’s closing the loop.

Writing, notes, photos, journaling — I’ve been doing these things for years without realizing they serve a purpose. They aren’t random creative urges. They are the way I bring all the exploring back to earth. They are how I make sense of the restlessness.

Even this piece. Even the Substack I deleted. They weren’t failures. They were me trying to express something I couldn’t yet name.

Now What?

I don’t know if understanding this changes anything.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll get obsessed with something new. Maybe I’ll start another project and abandon it by evening. Maybe this framework itself will fade like everything else.

But for the first time, I’m not trying to fix the pattern. I’m just trying to see it clearly.

And maybe that’s enough.

Maybe recognizing that I already have an anchor, that exploration is fuel and not failure, that expression is how I process the chaos — maybe that’s the only system I ever needed.

Or maybe I’ll delete this tomorrow too.

Until another day,
Ahmed

Twenty years ago, I started my career in a startup that had no processes. We brought your own computer. There was no security policy, no bug-tracking system, and hardly any rule for anything. When we installed Bugzilla and started using instant chat, it felt revolutionary.

Those were the “let’s just make it work” days — we focused on writing code and keeping customers happy because we weren’t sure when the next paycheck would come.

That was it. Nothing else.

Then came the automotive world — where everything had a process. We even joked that we probably needed one to visit the restroom (In some projects, that wasn’t far from reality). We spent over 75% of our time managing the process, not the product.

It was exhausting. And many of us left — not because we couldn’t handle complexity, but because we couldn’t handle nonsense.

Later on, with more experience (and a few scars from unnecessary red tape), I worked on process transformation in a couple of companies. I intentionally avoid the word “agile” here — I’ve seen it twisted to mean more meetings, more documents, and less actual work.

Our real goal, though we didn’t phrase it that way back then, was simple: Deliver value fast and stay competitive.

Transformation Principles

To make things simple, we used four principles that guided the transformation:

1. Focus on Customer Value Early
   The era of making customers wait is over. Deliver something early, then improve it. No one wants to sit in the dark for months waiting for the big reveal.

2. Processes Are for Critical Steps
   Processes exist for things that must happen in a fixed order — to prevent disaster or significantly reduce cost.
   Think: “Install electric wiring before laying tiles” — not “get four approvals for every line of code.”

3. Default to Guidelines and Checklists
   Most tasks don’t need a strict process; they need direction.
   A checklist, a shared principle, or a reminder of what “good” looks like — that’s usually enough to stay flexible and consistent.

4. Increase Team Autonomy and Accountability
   You can trick a process. You can’t trick accountability.
   The right people, in the right structure, will deliver without needing permission every five minutes.

Processes vs. Guidelines: Know the Difference

Processes are about “how we must do this to avoid disaster.” They ensure compliance, consistency, and safety. Think: test before production or confirm with compliance.

Guidelines are about “how we might do this better.” They’re flexible, evolving, and rely on judgment. Think: use this checklist before merging code.

In short: Processes prevent failure; Guidelines enable success.

The Art of Balance

Too many processes — and companies suffer. Innovation slows, talent leaves, and everything moves in slow motion.

Too few processes — and you wake up every day to a new fire, compliance issues, or wasted time figuring out how to do things from scratch.

Balancing processes, guidelines, and innovation is an art. The smart teams I’ve seen don’t wait for auditors or consultants to tell them what’s broken. They do small, regular check-ins to see if what they agreed on still makes sense.

Most teams focus heavily on delivering new stuff — and some time to improve how they deliver. You don’t need a committee for that.

An improvement log, where you pick one thing every now and then to fix, works wonders.

Style

Something people don’t usually speak about: style — the personal preference that sneaks into process discussions.

I’ve seen executives insist their favorite way of coding, planning, or communicating become “the company process.” Not because it was better, but because it was theirs.

You’ve probably seen this too.

Sometimes it’s easier to just follow along. But knowing the difference between process, guideline, and style changes everything — it gives you clarity and influence instead of quiet frustration.

Some Last Words

(Because my AI assisstant insisted that I wrote some)

In the end, the goal isn’t compliance — it’s results. Processes exist to serve people, not the other way around. Keep that order straight, and everything else falls into place.

Until another day 👋🏽.

In my 15+ years as a project/program/portfolio manager, I’ve seen endless confusion—and a lot of misalignment—about what these roles actually mean. Since this discussion keeps following me around, I decided to write down my point of view. This is how I personally think about project management in tech, and the mental models that guide me. It is not the only mental model to do project management but it is one that I relied on a lot.

Disclaimer: This post focuses on project management in tech—especially in highly dynamic companies where requirements, teams, and budgets shift constantly. The framework mainly covers product companies (teams building products for their own company) but applies to service companies too (teams building products for clients). There are plenty of great books on traditional project management for pharmaceutical, construction, defense, or regulated industries. This is not that.

Some Definitions

Let’s start with definitions. At least we can build some common ground before the debates begin.

What is a Project? The textbook answer: “A project is a unique, temporary endeavor to create a specific product, service, or result, with a defined start and end date, and distinct objectives, time, cost, and resource constraints.”

That’s fine, but I prefer a more pragmatic version:

A project is a unique, temporary group of activities to create specific customer value while managing constraints—the iron triangle of scope, cost, and time.

I removed the “start and end date” because most tech projects don’t stick to specific dates. You sometimes find yourself in the middle of a project without knowing when it officially started. You deliver multiple milestones but rarely “complete” the project at a specific time—things are more fluid. For example, a customer comes with an idea and asks for the cost. Your team evaluates requirements, creates a POC, and offers it to the customer. They accept or reject. What’s the start time? When you got the request? When the customer signed? It really doesn’t matter unless you’re chasing certifications. Most projects start without a PM assigned—kicked off by sales, product management, or some engineering work—and often end with a list of open items that might never be addressed. You know, those 20 bugs you agreed to fix “after launch.”

What is Project Management? Again, the textbook: “Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, and overseeing resources and activities to achieve a specific goal within defined constraints of scope, time, cost, and quality.”

My version:

Project management is the art of continuously planning, organizing, monitoring, and adjusting activities and resources to achieve defined objectives within the changing constraints of scope, time, cost, and quality.

Why “art”? Because in tech, almost nothing is stable. Plans change the moment you finish them. Scope shifts. Stakeholders rotate. Budgets tighten. The PM’s job isn’t following a static plan—it’s creative problem-solving and judgment in the middle of chaos. A good project manager adapts to changes as long as they serve customer value, and stops new changes when they don’t make sense. They know when to charge customers for changes and when those changes actually help the company. I know project managers who charge customers every time they change a button color, and others who never charge them. A good one finds the balance and does change assessment when it makes sense—or at least consolidates multiple changes together to save themselves and the team time.

What Project Management Is NOT

It’s worth clearing up some misconceptions. Project managers are not:

• Note-takers or meeting schedulers

• Chiefs of staff for executives

• Scrum masters (though we sometimes borrow agile practices)

• Technical advisors or architects

• Product managers (Note: at Microsoft, many of the project managers are actually product managers)

If that’s all your company expects from a PM, you don’t have a project manager—you have organizational confusion.

Another important note: In my conversations, a lot of people consider project management an easy job (or even a fallback job when they cannot find the right one for themselves). In practice, everyone should learn how to manage projects, but managing big or challenging projects is not for everyone. It requires experience, learning, and a lot of art. I am sure it is all learnable, but it is not like a developer or a manager decides all of a sudden to be a project manager and succeeds in complex ones.

So What About Product Managers?

Since everyone confuses these roles, here’s the distinction: Product managers own the WHAT and WHY. They define what we’re building and why it matters to customers and the business. Project managers own the HOW and WHEN. We figure out how to build it and when it’ll be ready, given our constraints.

Product says “we need this feature because customers are churning.” Project says “okay, given our team and timeline, here are three ways we can deliver it, with different tradeoffs.”

Sometimes these roles overlap, especially in smaller companies. That’s fine. Just know which hat you’re wearing.

What the Hell is a Program?

A Program is a multi-year, strategic effort tied directly to a company’s financial or market goals. It’s the engine driving the business transformation. A Project is the specific component—the gear—that the Program Manager needs to deliver that engine’s power.

If projects deliver outputs (a feature, a prototype, a product), programs deliver outcomes (a market entry, a transformation, a competitive advantage). Many tech companies call their Project Managers “Program Managers” even though they’ve never run a program in their lives.

Honestly, naming doesn’t matter as long as you know what you’re doing. But it’s much better to know you’re doing project management even if your title says “program manager.”

Project Lifecycle

Let’s tackle the first debate: what is a project lifecycle, and how does this work with all the Agile craziness?

In traditional project management, projects have 5 phases: Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring & Control, and Closure. In practice, these usually overlap. Depending on the project’s progress, you’ll be doing some or all of them simultaneously.

When you compress timelines, you overlap activities. In most projects I’ve run, we started execution before closing on scope (or even initiation). Sometimes without a signature from the customer or stakeholders. Not because we’re reckless, but because the market won’t let you work sequentially. Same with planning—we usually start the plan early and finish it during execution.

Tech projects are so iterative that I see them as a group of sequential projects, each going through full phases until the end. Part of the output of the first project is delivering requirements and plans for the second project.

In other words, a project consists of smaller sub-projects (also known as work streams, verticals, components), each with its own complete cycle. The art is managing them together. This isn’t really a program because the focus is on delivery, not business outcomes.

This matches the agile approach in general, but since it’s too consuming to do a complete project every sprint, I think of it hierarchically:

• Project = set of sub-projects

• Sub-project = set of sprints

• You have a high-level project plan, then smaller, quick plans for each sub-project

Easy? Not really. I honestly think it’s confusing. Let me use a hypothetical project to illustrate: inviting friends for a party at your house.

Initiation: The goal is: Having fun with friends (the goal isn’t to feed them—it’s to have a pleasant time. This is the difference between having a task “make food and drinks” and an objective “have a good time”). Note: this is different if the host is your mother or grandmother, it is usually about the food :).

Planning: What should we cook? How to decorate? What drinks? What day? Are we watching a game or just chatting? Should we get games? Does the group fit together? Do we have enough chairs? Since we’ve done this before, we don’t need to calculate every penny to know the budget—we know it’ll be around X euros. We’re already making assumptions and starting execution.

Execution: You don’t have to answer all these questions to start. In my house, once we know the people, we start executing immediately by inviting them—to eliminate the risk of people not coming. We check the number of chairs much earlier than defining the menu. Buy drinks early because they’re always required. Keep the food planning for the end.

Monitor and Control: Once we send invitations, we monitor the weather to decide if we’re sitting in the backyard or inside, to decide timing, and sometimes even change the food based on availability. We might invite more people if someone cancels. This is usually done intuitively, but it’s really like managing “change” and handling “risks.”

Closure: When everyone leaves, we clean up, throw away the trash, and sometimes assess if we could have done things better or cheaper (retrospective). Again, these aren’t elaborate activities, just intuitive ones.

The Art of Balance (The Iron Triangle)

Every project is a balancing act between three constraints: scope, time, and cost. This is called the iron triangle—change one, and the others must adjust.

(A quick note: Some models add quality as a fourth dimension, calling it the “Project Constraint Quadruple” or “Project Management Diamond.” I personally prefer to see quality as part of the scope, not a separate dimension. This emphasizes that defining the required level of quality—whether it’s “minimum viable” or “gold-plated”—is inherent to defining whatyou’re building.)

1. What are we building? (customer value)

   • “We are doing A to help customers do B, so our company benefits C.”

   • What’s the minimum “valuable” or “lovable” product I can deliver to make customers happy sooner?

2. How will we measure success? (users, revenue, speed, cost, reliability?)

3. How are we going to build it? (technology, resources, process)

4. How much will it cost?

5. When is the right time to deliver?

You rarely answer these in order. Instead, you iterate, negotiating scope, cost, and time until you find the sweet spot.

Planning Is Guessing

Planning is not predicting the future—it’s making the best educated guess you can. Rule of thumb: don’t overdo it. It’s needed because otherwise you don’t know what you’re doing or where you’re going. But changes will always happen. Once you feel around 70% confident, consider the plan done and write down your assumptions and risks to validate later. There’s no 100% accurate plan (unless you wrote it at the end of the project).

Here’s my model:

1. Start with a rough baseline (”Plan 1”). Assume you’re asked to get a plan in one day—what would you do?

2. Review with engineers and product. Challenge assumptions.

3. Iterate and refine.

4. Set milestones and baselines, but expect to update them.

5. Revisit at 25%, 50%, and 75% of the project.

The magic isn’t the plan itself—it’s understanding what really matters and have a laser focus on it.

When I first started in project management, I was obsessed with creating the perfect plan. I would spend weeks trying to cover every scenario and lock down every detail. For a project with just one team, the plan could easily reach over 30 pages (yes, it was insane).

And of course, those plans would change—always within the first two weeks, without exception. We used multiple estimation models, reviewed everything with several stakeholders, and still, in reality, none of it held up.

A plan is meant to help us execute. It’s not a deliverable and it’s not customer value on its own.

Risks, Assumptions, Issues, and Opportunities

• Assumptions → accepted as true until proven. Always track and validate.

• Risks → uncertain events that could help or hurt your project. Dependencies count.

• Issues → risks that materialized.

• Opportunities → positive risks. A new tool, early delivery, or regulatory change could accelerate success.

A good PM doesn’t need a fancy risk register—but they need to keep these close to their heart and update stakeholders transparently.

Depending on your business, location, and geopolitical context, these items might be simple or incredibly complex. For example, during the Arab Spring, we had a risk about Internet going out and a clear mitigation plan. During winter, I calculate lower productivity due to sick leaves; during summer, I assume fewer working days due to vacations. The strongest risks are ones generated by dependencies. If you rely on another organization or team to deliver something and they’re late, your project might be late. Track all critical dependencies as risks.

Change Management

Change is not failure—it’s learning. The PM’s job isn’t to block change, but to:

• Make it transparent

• Assess its impact on scope, cost, and time

• Facilitate the decision with stakeholders

• Adjust the plan accordingly

Stakeholders and Communication

If you remember nothing else from this post, remember this: Project management is 80% communication.

Stakeholders often have conflicting goals. Product wants more scope. Engineering wants more time. Finance wants lower cost. Executives want it yesterday. Your job is to be the translator, negotiator, and diplomat who keeps everyone aligned on reality.

I know project managers who keep mediocre plans and documentation but write excellent status reports—and they deliver like stars. I cannot repeat it enough: communication is the most important skill for a project manager.

This means:

• Transparency: Your team and stakeholders must always have access to consistent, up-to-date information. A PM who hoards or forgets updates is often the root cause of project failure.

• Bad news early: Surface problems when they’re small, not when they’re catastrophic.

• Call out the elephant: Someone needs to say what everyone’s thinking. That’s you.

• Regular touchpoints: Kick-offs (always), periodic check-ins (formal or informal), extra kick-offs when scope shifts significantly, and celebrations at the end.

Leadership Without Authority

Project managers lead without authority. You don’t own the product definition, you don’t write the code, you don’t control the budget. But you own the alignment and momentum.

To lead, you have to gain people’s trust. This doesn’t mean being biased toward one side or another—it means representing everyone’s interests fairly and ensuring everyone stays updated. A good leader makes sure everyone understands the what and why, and surfaces bad news early. They’re the one who calls out the elephant in the room while maintaining respectful relationships with everyone.

Don’t get lost in politics. Focus on facts, deliveries, and customer benefits.

This is where the art is. You have to understand that project management is not the product or the objective—it’s actually a tool to help you deliver the objective. In pure technical terms, it’s overhead. If it’s not adding value by reducing overall time or cost, then it’s not needed. That’s why project managers need to know where and how to spend their time instead of creating plans and reports all the time.

My Style

There’s no single right style. Tools and frameworks are just amplifiers—they either amplify clarity or amplify confusion.

• For short, high-speed projects (6 weeks or less), I like sticky notes, whiteboards, or even a simple Google Doc list. The point is to move fast, not to over-document.

• For longer projects, I build a structured plan, track with Jira/Asana/Excel (whatever works), and send periodic updates.

The only non-negotiable: transparency and communication. Everything else is negotiable based on what serves the project and team best.

TL;DR

Here’s what matters:

• Project management in tech is about judgment, balance, and transparency in uncertainty—process is to help you but not to define all the work

• Plans are guesses—stop at 70% confidence, document assumptions, and adapt

• Communication is 80% of the job—status reports and frequent check-ins beat perfect plans

• The iron triangle is real—scope, time, and cost are always in tension

• Lead without authority—build trust by representing everyone fairly and surfacing bad news early

• If you’re just taking notes, you’re not a PM—you’re organizational confusion

• Tools don’t matter—trust and clarity do

My thoughts above don’t reflect all the details, of course (don’t shout at me saying I missed this or that yet). Each section requires a lot more discussion, and I really encourage you to read more about all of this.

That’s my way of doing it—not the only way, but one I’ve seen work across messy, high-speed, high-stakes projects.

In my first draft of this, I started down the LinkedIn path of “two decades of relentless battles against workplace evil, sleepless nights building the next big thing”… but that’s not me. Yes, I’ve worked hard to succeed — but I’ve also worked hard not to fail. They’re different.

I’ve worked in three countries, eight (or nine, depending on how you count) companies, and with hundreds — maybe thousands — of people from dozens of nationalities. I’ve taken wild, irrational decisions (we call them “risks” in professional jargon) that worked brilliantly, and I’ve made perfectly sensible decisions that blew up in my face. If there’s one thing I know for sure: every story has multiple angles, and you can almost always frame it as a success or a failure.

Anyway — enough philosophy. Here are a few notes for my future self. Writing them here means they might survive. (No promises I won’t delete them later.)

It’s Always Day One

If I learned one thing at Amazon, it’s this: It’s always Day One.

At first, it felt like one of those inspirational slogans you write but don’t follow. But after more than five years at Amazon, I get it. Day One thinking means not leaning on yesterday’s wins. You act like you’re just starting — ambitious, focused, and willing to take action so you don’t miss opportunities or let the competition beat you.

This applies everywhere: your job, your relationships, your startup, your investments. Think about the future as if the past doesn’t exist. Avoid “analysis paralysis.” Treat yourself like a startup that needs to win, not like a comfortable legacy business.

You Have to Unlearn to Learn

Very few things stay true forever — not at work, not in life.

What worked 20 years ago may not work today. Sometimes, success in a new role means unlearning what made you good in the old one. A program manager thinks differently from a product manager, a finance manager, or a software manager. The skills don’t always translate.

One book that explores this idea in detail is What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. The behaviors that fuel early success can become obstacles later — especially in leadership.

Build Your Own Path

There’s no single “right” career path. Success isn’t about picking the perfect role — it’s about making the role work for you.

I know people thriving in NGOs, despite low pay. Others can’t stand big companies and live for building startups. Some treat work as a paycheck; others as an identity. All of them can be “successful” on their own terms.

Hard work plus some luck can make even an unpopular, risky choice turn out brilliantly.

Work With Intentions

I almost wrote “define your own success” — but that’s easy to say, hard to do.

What counts as success changes over time: As a fresh grad, it’s getting that first job. A few years in, maybe it’s a promotion or a big project. Later, maybe it’s starting your own thing, or just having work-life balance.

The trick is knowing why you’re doing things. As a friend once told me: always write your objectives before starting anything new. For example, if you get an offer from a FAANG company — is it the brand name you want? The pay? The learning? The scale? Same with a startup — is it the thrill? The equity? The autonomy? Without clarity, you won’t know what to maximize for. Don’t overcomplicate it, but try to understand your “why” even in hindsight. It helps you understand your own behavior.

Work-Life Balance Is More Complex Than We Think

The traditional 9-to-5, never-think-about-work approach sounds nice, but it doesn’t match reality for ambitious careers.

Work and life influence each other. Great opportunities don’t arrive on schedule. Sometimes you need extra effort for critical projects or learning. Other times, you need to step back completely.

The key isn’t rigid boundaries — it’s being intentional. Ask yourself: Is this extra effort strategic, or am I just being busy? Am I working late because it’s necessary, or because I can’t say no?

Sustainable performance requires both intense focus and real rest. Be strategic about when to push and when to pull back.

Save Money

If you read any personal finance book, you’ll get the standard advice: save three to six months of salary for a rainy day. I’d go further — save at least a year’s worth.

Not just as a safety net, but as a freedom ticket. Enough to let you take bold moves: join a risky startup, take a long sabbatical, accept that international role. Money doesn’t just protect you; it gives you options.

Play for Big Success, Not Just to Play Safe

I still remember this line from The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO: “Don’t be in the business of playing it safe. Be in the business of creating possibilities of greatness.”

When I first read it, it was eye-opening. Most of the time, I was following the playbook — focusing on what the business needed, but not making truly bold moves (other than changing companies). When I started shifting my perspective, everything changed. You do things for the possibilities, for getting it right — not for the fear of losing.

If I could sum all of this up, it’s this: nobody knows the “right” way. You have to build your own career, one day at a time. Not only expect change — seek it, and be ready for it.

I opened Substack today with the intention of writing something reflective — it’s been 20 years since I started working. A milestone. But I couldn’t. Not today.

Gaza is starving. The West Bank is bleeding. And the world is just… watching.

We are witnessing people die — slowly, publicly, painfully — in what’s often described as the world’s largest open-air prison. Not just from bombs, but from starvation, dehydration, disease, untreated wounds. From being dehumanized so completely that even the act of asking for food or water is labeled “political.”

Where are the sanctions now? The same Western world that sanctioned Russia for invading Ukraine is now funding and arming Israel — not for defense, but for devastation. In Gaza, the issue isn’t weapons. It’s flour. Bread. Clean water. Medicine. Shelter. Dignity.

Tens of thousands are dead. An independent survey (link) reports over 84,000 fatalities between October 2023 and January 2025. At this rate, we are likely past 120,000 by now. Gaza is being erased — soul by soul, child by child, block by block.

Entire neighborhoods have been leveled. Schools bombed. Hospitals collapsed. UN shelters hit repeatedly. Controlled demolitions are wiping out what little remains — not as collateral damage, but as policy.

Even Deutsche Welle (DW) — the official German state broadcaster, from a country continuously supportive of Israel — reported yesterday that a third of Gaza’s population hasn’t eaten in days (that is more than 700,000 persons). 2.2 million face acute food insecurity — a man-made famine, orchestrated with intent.

And yet, the report (predictably) repeats that “Hamas is a terrorist group” and mentions the 1,200 Israeli deaths on October 7 strategically — but doesn’t name Israel even once as responsible for the starvation. No mention of its siege. No mention of Egypt’s complicity either.

Mainstream media shows the horror but avoids the question: Who is doing this? Instead, they regurgitate sanitized headlines, bury the truth in paragraph twelve, or blame Hamas. Again.

Yes, Hamas committed atrocities on October 7. But since then? Israel has killed at least 100 times more — by bomb, by blockade, by bureaucratic starvation.

And still, the global “Never Again” has become “Yet Again”, broadcast in HD, narrated by silence.

News outlets report death tolls, but often passively — “X people killed in Gaza today” — as if death is falling from the sky, unauthored. Rarely do they lead with: “Israel kills dozens in latest airstrike.” And only occasionally do headlines cut through, like this one from the BBC: “Israel leveling thousands of Gaza civilian buildings in controlled demolitions.” (link)

We are watching a genocide unfold — and the media is trying to both report it and obscure it.

A recent BBC piece featured a retired U.S. soldier working with Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. It reported that 766 people had died near one of the GHF’s four aid centers. But nowhere in the written article does it say who killed them. Only if you watch the video do you hear it: the Israeli army. (link)

Israel claims it’s withholding aid to stop Hamas from stealing it — a claim their own military admitted has no proof (link, link). The same narrative was used to defund UNRWA, based on unverified accusations (link). Billions in humanitarian aid are now held hostage by propaganda.

Germany still waves the Israeli flag in solidarity. With what, exactly? Mass starvation? War crimes? The U.S. is sanctioning ICC judges for investigating Israel — while arming it with billions. Even CNN and BBC, outlets not known for pro-Palestinian coverage, are reporting horrors from Gaza — albeit with carefully chosen words to avoid assigning blame.

And still, somehow, this is all Hamas’ fault?

As if Hamas controls the border crossings. As if they decide which aid trucks get in. As if they’re the only ones blocking a ceasefire — when Egypt, Qatar, and even Hamas have said progress is possible, while Israel and the U.S. keep shifting the goalposts and changing the terms. (link)

Israeli ministers have said — publicly, repeatedly — that this won’t end until Gaza is emptied. Ethnic cleansing, with bullet points (link).

And then there’s Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur who was sanctioned by the U.S. (and, of course, by Israel) for speaking the truth. She listed companies profiting from the war. She named names. And for that, she’s being hunted by an international smear campaign. Try Googling her — the ads speak louder than the articles. (link)

This isn’t just a failure of politics. It’s a collapse of morality.

The world has lost its mind — or maybe it never had one. Maybe we just see it clearer now.

Wake up.

History is happening. And history will remember those who stayed quiet.

I was staring at the screen, wondering what to write for my first Substack post… and immediately got stuck. Do I say “just another writer”? Do I mention the hundred blogs I’ve started and abandoned? Do I start with who I am, or why I’m even doing this?

Let’s keep it simple: Welcome to my Substack.

Feel free to read, comment, subscribe, or message me. Also feel completely free to unsubscribe when it gets too much, too random, or you just stop liking me. Life’s too short to read things you don’t enjoy.

I started this not to be heard, but to write things out. Call it keyboard therapy — and yes, I do love my new mechanical keyboard. I’m not expecting a huge audience, so I’ll be writing like no one’s watching. Which means… beware of the bad jokes.

Anyway, enjoy the ride.

PS: All posts dated before this one were originally written for other blogs, substacks, or as personal notes. I've kept their original dates since they relate to life events that deserved their own posts.

Ahmed

Berlin, Germany

22 July 2025, 6:30 AM CEST

And so you wait, or never take the decision at all.

But waiting - when it’s born from fear or an inability to decide, not timing - quietly drains the life from your momentum. Welcome to analysis paralysis: the high-functioning cousin of procrastination. It wears a smarter disguise. It says you’re being thoughtful. Strategic. Careful. But mostly, you’re stuck.

Most people think clarity leads to action. In reality, action often brings clarity.

Why “Readiness” Is an Illusion

We live in a world that loves data, plans, and predictions. We’re told to research more, compare harder, and wait for the “right time.” But that obsession with being certain makes it harder to move.

Here’s the truth: you will never be fully ready. Confidence often comes after you start moving, not before.

You may think you need to feel 100% sure, but most real decisions (changing careers, starting a business, moving countries) come with doubt.

Think about it: how many times have you made a fast, gut-based decision that turned out great? And how many times have you spent weeks researching something, only to feel disappointed after all that effort?

You can’t think your way to certainty. You have to walk your way there.

The Creative Bias Toward Action

If you create anything — writing, code, art, products, businesses — you have to choose between safety and progress. Creating is always uncertain. If you wait for perfect clarity, you’ll never ship.

The people who finish things aren’t always the smartest. They just move. (Think about billion-dollar ideas that failed, and tiny ones that succeeded.) They act without knowing everything.

In other words: they decide before they feel ready.

Most of the times, you don’t need to go “all in.” You can test things. Build two features, not ten. Rent the gadget first. Take one course instead of signing up for the whole MBA. You’re not saying yes forever — just trying.

A Simple Framework for Making Decisions

Here’s a value-based way I make decisions — both at work and in life:

1. If it costs less than one hour or your hourly rate:

Trust your gut. Go for it. Even if you do this a few times a month, the cost is low — and the experience is worth it.

2. If it costs more than a week of time or a week of income:

Limit your research to 1–2 days. Think about future effort too. A proof-of-concept feature is easy; maintaining it for years isn’t. A watch can go in a drawer. A giant TV takes up real space — unless you live in a mansion with a spare gadget room.

3. If it’s life-changing — like marriage, kids, moving, buying a house:

Do deeper research. Make a checklist. Break the decision into parts. In my view, three months is enough for most big choices — unless you’re waiting on a future event. But waiting for something that _might_ happen keeps you stuck forever.

4. For very complex choices, use scenarios.

When I planned an international move, I asked: What if I lost my job? Could I still survive? Should I save more before leaving? Should I transfer with my current company?

These scenarios aren’t meant to scare you — they give you mental freedom. They help you feel prepared, not paralyzed.

This is also where I use AI: I ask it to help me imagine situations, plan options, and catch what I missed. It’s not about finding the perfect answer — it’s about clearing the fog.

Practices That Help

1. Decide on a threshold, not on feeling ready.

Use a clear rule: “If I’ve explored three good options and slept on it, I’ll decide.”

2. Use time-boxing.

Give yourself a deadline. “I’ll choose by Friday.” This helps you stop scrolling through options forever.

3. Ask: Is it a one-way door or two-way door?

Some decisions are hard to reverse (one-way). Others are easy to try and undo (two-way). Most people treat everything like it’s final — but, mostly, it’s not.

4. Accept imperfection.

Perfection is fear in a nice outfit. You’ll learn and improve by doing, not by waiting.

5. Understand your feelings.

Sometimes we stall because of fear, guilt, or conflicting values. Maybe you’re scared of change. Maybe your values are clashing. Naming the feeling helps release the block.

How This Shows Up in Real Life

1. The Gadget Trap: Buying an Apple Watch

You read reviews, watch videos, compare specs — but still wear your old one. This is a two-way door. You can return it. Or buy used. Or rent it. The goal isn’t the perfect choice. It’s movement.

2. Career Moves

You want to start something new — but the timing feels off. You don’t feel ready. Growth always feels a little too early. These are two-way-ish. You can course-correct later.

3. Life Moves: Changing Countries

I’ve done this more than once. The first time, I missed things like school costs and lifestyle shifts. The second time, I went slow: moved alone, rented small, avoided big purchases. It wasn’t perfect — but it worked.

TL;DR

Every decision costs something. The point is not to avoid the cost, but to make sure the value is worth it.

Not choosing is also a choice. Make it consciously.

For starters, every time you deal with some bureaucracy, remember this scene from Zootopia (although you hardly can finish anything in one sitting in Germany):

Let me share with you some of my experiences:

The Appointments-Chain

To apply for the German "Naturalization" test in Berlin (which varies by state), you need an appointment to apply for a test appointment. Yes, you read that correctly – an appointment for an appointment. Why can't I just schedule the test directly? Why isn't this process online already, or at least partially digital? Why must I meet someone in person just to schedule another meeting? What happened to cost efficiency? Surely an online system could handle this? While I understand the pressure from increasing citizenship applications, this solution feels like using a hammer to open a window. (read the announcement about new system [here](https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/volkshochschule-spandau-erweitert-angebot-an-einbuergerungstests-li.2264939)).

Where Is My Tire Bill?

Bureaucracy creeps into everyday services too. Last month, I went to change my car's summer tires at a reputable German car manufacturer. First, I needed to book an appointment six weeks in advance (I couldn't go elsewhere since they store my tires). The tire change itself was quick – 30 minutes – but instead of taking my payment on the spot, they insisted on sending the bill by post. The cherry on top? They forgot to send the initial bill, so they bundled the payment request with the late payment notice in the same letter! Let's not discuss efficiency, but consider the waste of paper and postage. I was physically present in the shop – this wasn't some automated service! Why not take my payment when I picked up my car? Naturally, the payment link had expired by the time the letter arrived, forcing me to make a manual bank transfer instead of a simple two-click PayPal payment.

The Never-Ending Residence Permit Saga

Do you want to test your patience? Let's talk about renewing a residence permit, which typically takes 3-4 months (the first lesson you learn in Germany). You need an appointment, must provide every document you've ever submitted (yes, including those from your embassy visa application years ago), and after they verify everything, wait another eight weeks for your new card. Oh, and you can't travel during this time because your residency expires, so you need to apply for a temporary "visa"! Efficiency at its best.

What's Your Name Again?

Want to watch the German system short-circuit? Present them with a Middle Eastern name. This isn't about racism – it's about different naming conventions. In Egypt (and most Middle Eastern countries), we use first name, father's name, grandfather's name, and family name. That's four names minimum in our passports. For the lucky ones with double names, you might have six or seven names (no joke – that's my situation).

Here's how names can go hilariously wrong: When my wife applied to exchange her driving license, the government worker, confused about her first and last names, decided to mark her first name as "+" in all paperwork. Yes, really! This employee not only couldn't determine her names from her passport but also disregarded the work of ten previous employees who had processed her paperwork over seven years. Three years later, we still haven't fixed this completely due to the enormous effort and cost involved. Her driving license, bank account, credit cards, and residence card all bear different variations of her name – all because of one employee's decision!

The Name Saga Continues

After obtaining German citizenship (a story worthy of its own National Geographic documentary), I visited the "Standesamt" to simplify our names to match the German system. Their first request? A document from Egypt proving my names. Let's digest that – they just naturalized me, trusted me with citizenship and a driving license, yet they needed additional proof of my name! When I questioned this, they confirmed it wasn't a mistake. Being stubborn, I managed to get the document in two weeks with help from many people, but six weeks have passed and I am still waiting for an appointment to fix my names.

The Never-Ending Story

I have many more tales involving both government offices and German companies (The kindergarten vouchers, changing my internet plan...). Having lived in three different countries, I can confidently say this level of bureaucracy is unique to Germany. I believe it originates from Germans' love of systematic processes and correlates directly with the country's notoriously poor customer service. Native Germans seem okay with this, but as an outsider, I see countless opportunities for quick, low-cost improvements.

PS: A Ray of Hope

For full honesty, the government office that really impressed me and seems to impress a lot of other people (they have 4.8 stars in Google reviews) is the [Bürgeramt Klosterstraße](https://g.co/kgs/QFDPKjf). I went there three times, and they had been the fastest, had the best customer service, and they serve you with a smile (and they speak English). The only problem is getting an appointment, but I would wait months and drive 45 minutes to get any paperwork done by them. Read the reviews.

The Silver Lining

There is one positive aspect: the system treats everyone equally. In Egypt, for instance, the bureaucracy is worse, but you can circumvent it through connections (corruption 101), money (sometimes corruption, sometimes real government request), or sheer determination (like arriving hours before opening and loudly demanding your rights). In Egypt, I once got my son's ID in 24 hours by arriving two hours before opening and paying four times the normal price for VIP service. In Germany, the same process took three weeks because I found an appointment in a district 45 minutes away. Had I wanted an office closer to home, it might have taken months.

This helps explain why bureaucracy is often cited as one reason for Germany's recession and declining attractiveness to new investments.

Here's hoping digitization will eventually save us all 🤲🏽.

I started thinking about toxic workplaces expecting it to be a straightforward topic, but I was wrong. What really opened my eyes was realizing that creating a toxic workplace is actually a team sport. For example, if you have the wrong person in the wrong place and keep them there for too long, you’re slowly building a toxic environment. You can easily transform a good environment into a toxic one with good intentions or without even noticing it.

This wasn’t exactly breaking news, but it hit me like a Monday morning without coffee – crystal clear and slightly uncomfortable.

Enough talk – let’s dive into what this all means.

How to define a toxic work environment

After going back and forth between different definitions, here's what I think captures it best:

A toxic work environment is a workplace characterized by negative behaviors, dysfunctional relationships, and harmful practices that severely impact employees’ wellbeing and the organization’s effectiveness. It typically involves personal conflicts, bullying, poor communication, chronic stress, and lack of trust, creating an atmosphere where employees feel unsafe and undervalued. This toxicity not only damages worker morale and health but also undermines the organization’s productivity, leading to high turnover and reduced viability.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone who has spent a couple of years in a workplace, but it doesn’t really help us understand why these “harmful practices” (personal conflicts, bullying, poor communication, chronic stress, and lack of trust) occur.

Adam Grant defines workplace toxicity:

A toxic company culture is always about a lack of balance. Companies become toxic when they go way too far toward one side on a couple of scales of competing values: relationships versus results and rules versus risk. 

Relationships vs. Results

If not stepping on toes or upsetting people is all that matters at a business (i.e., doubling down on relationships), it’s no surprise that actually getting things done falls way down the priority list. In such mediocrity, even if you do a terrible job, you can still get ahead as long as people like you. Before long, you end up with the Peter Principle, where everyone is promoted to their level of incompetence and gets stuck there.

On the opposite end, there are organizations that value relationships so little that they throw human decency under the bus in the name of performance. Organizations that tolerate disrespect, abuse, selfish cutthroat actions, exclusion, and unethical decisions for the sake of results are toxic organizations.

Rules vs. Risk

If you stray too far toward rules, you end up with creativity- and initiative-killing bureaucracy. On the other end of the spectrum from rules and bureaucracy is the chaos of rules-free anarchy. When everyone can do whatever they want without coordination or alignment, people end up working at cross-purposes, valuable lessons are never learned, and a whole lot of effort gets wasted.

What Does This Mean in Practice?

In simple terms, leaders should always keep an eye on the balance between these four elements. For example, if you have an employee who is burning out, you need to ensure that you help them recover and fix the burnout causes. If you have someone who acts like they know it all and everyone else is stupid, you might need to consider letting them go (even if they’re genuinely skilled). Similarly, if you have someone who isn’t delivering, you should manage them out to avoid impacting team morale.

These are all tough decisions, but they’re exactly what’s required from a leader who wants to build a high-performing team.

In the same article, Adam Grant continues by describing what differentiates a healthy environment from a toxic one:

But culture isn’t about one leader’s behavior– it’s about how widely shared and intensely held the values are. So I want to know how committed others in power are to curbing mistreatment, and what the consequences are. In healthy cultures, no level of individual excellence justifies undermining people. You’re not a high performer if you don’t elevate others.

For example, you might talk about work-life balance and how the team should balance personal life and work, but then work long hours yourself (I have to confess that this is my biggest sin). Or you might regularly brag about how hard you worked or how many things you accomplished today.

I once worked at a company where the director would walk the floor daily after regular working hours to see who was still there. He’d usually have a quick chat with everyone, and it seemed really nice at first. Initially, I felt supported by leadership and believed they were working as hard as I was, but slowly I realized they were actually valuing this behavior (working longer) rather than ensuring people had the right balance. They were doubling down on hours worked rather than people’s productivity.

I also worked in another organization where they repeatedly reminded everyone to focus on customer needs, but when it came time to make decisions, we started with what leadership wanted – even if it wasn’t related to customer needs or was, at best, very low in customer priorities.

You get the picture: Toxic work environments are created by imbalance between relationships, results, rules, and risk-taking. This imbalance happens when leaders either allow harmful practices to creep in without taking action to continuously eliminate them, or when the organization no longer walks the talk – i.e., the spoken/written culture doesn’t match the actions.

What Should You Do About It?

Now that we understand the problem, we’ve probably reached half the solution, right? Remember the saying: knowing the problem is half the solution.

For Individuals:

• Keep your overall behavior in check. Even small sentences or poor word choices can impact team morale.

• Constant bragging about your workload won’t help anyone, not even yourself.

• Acting like you’re the best in the room undermines other values and harms everyone around you.

• Speak up and raise concerns you have. Come up with ideas about how to make things better for the team.

• If you’re a Type A person and highly competitive, help elevate others as part of the process instead of focusing solely on your success.

• Share credit with others and ensure everyone is part of the process – it’s not a “me” moment.

• Most importantly, build trust with others and ensure they trust you.

For Leaders:

• Create an environment that encourages others to speak up

• Work with your team to find the balance between following rules and having enough space for risk-taking

• Close gaps when there’s too much ambiguity

• Give team members opportunities to grow instead of always assigning work to top performers while focusing solely on delivery

• Build a culture of trust within your team and with other teams

• Address incompetent team members: help them, coach them, or manage them out – don’t just accept poor performance

• If you feel incompetent yourself, consider changing roles instead of “burning the ship with everyone on board”

Remember, building a healthy workplace (and high-performing teams) is like having a garden – it takes time, care, and occasionally removing toxic weeds. Just try not to use actual weed killer on your colleagues’ desk plants, no matter how tempting it might be.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and reflects personal opinions and experiences. Names, situations, and examples have been altered to protect privacy. Any resemblance to actual persons or situations is purely coincidental.

This was originally posted by me on October 27, 2024 in another substack.

Have you ever wondered what you would do if you were living through a historic tragedy? We often look back at past atrocities and think we would have acted differently, done more, spoken up louder. Yet today, as thousands die in Gaza, as families lose their homes, and as children suffer - what are we doing? We're scrolling past it on our phones, watching it happen in real-time, while most of the world stays silent. Unfortunately, this isn't a history lesson. This is truth of what is happening now.

If you only have 2 minutes to spare today, please watch this video:

Do you know what governments and powerful countries will do? They would be doing exactly what they're doing right now. Either funding the genocide, supporting it, or turning a blind eye to it (with few exceptions).

When the Russian-Ukrainian war started, the world condemned it. The whole world provided weapons, food, and shelter to Ukrainians. Countries put Ukrainian flags everywhere and even silenced news coming from Russia to avoid misinformation. On October 7th, all condemned Hamas, putting Israeli flags everywhere and showing all support to Israel. Everyone repeated the Israeli story without checking or confirming its veracity. Now, after more than 40,000 killed in Gaza —of which 17,000 were children and 11,000 were women—and after the destruction of 80% of Gaza and the devastation in Lebanon, where is the world? Where is the media? Are you still condemning Hamas now? Do you still see the story as if it all began on October 7th, 2023, and not decades before?

A year later, Germany is still showing full support for Israel, either by putting the flag on their government building or even promising to continue giving them weapons. The USA is gently criticizing Israel while giving them billions of dollars in weapons and allowing Netanyahu to speak in their country and at the UN. China and Russia are just watching and condemning what's happening every now and then.

This shouldn't come as a surprise, of course, as the media has been dehumanizing Palestinians and Arabs for years, portraying them as barbarians and terrorists. The media that always puts "Islamic terrorist group Hamas" as a label to ensure you don't forget that it's an "Islam problem." Movies that show Muslims and Arabs as the terrorists of the world but don't show you the real death toll.

Did you know that since Israel was founded in 1948, it has killed, injured, or displaced millions of Arabs? This is in contrast to thousands killed by Arabs resisting the takeover of their land. Are you aware that Europeans have killed thousands times more Jews than Muslims throughout history, yet they continue to label Muslims as antisemitic? Did you know that Israel was partly founded to reduce the number of Jews in Europe, even though at that time, millions of Jews were living in Arab countries in a much safer environment than in Europe?

Did you know that the USA, which has been repeating that the Taliban is a terrorist group, has actually killed hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan—at least many times more than what happened on 9/11?

Germany, which has been repeating since October 7th that it will "Never Again" allow another Holocaust, is funding one in Gaza and silencing anyone who speaks against it.

Previously, it was easy for people to ignore, claiming they didn't know. But now, I think it's too stupid to say that. In years to come, we will all know the whole truth, but then it will be too late.

How to Help

In case you knew all of this but are only missing a way to help, here are some ideas:

• Donate (please do your homework researching the best place to donate to)

  • UNRWA

  • Islamic Relief

• Fund independent journalism:

  • Zeteo

  • Jonathan Cook

  • Caitlin Johnstone

• Educate yourself, and spread awareness and don't be passive:

  • What’s the Israel-Palestine conflict about? A simple guide (Aljazeera).

  • The Question of Palestine (UN)

  • Urbicide: ‘Even if Israel stops bombing Gaza tomorrow, it will be impossible to live there' (France24)

  • Israel - Gaza War in numbers (Aljazeera)

  • Visual View on how Israel replaced Palestine (here)

  • Gaza toll could exceed 186,000 (here)

  • The untold story of Arab jews (here)

  • Der Weg zum Staat (in german - here)

Disclaimer: The views expressed here aim to raise awareness about humanitarian concerns and do not promote hatred against any ethnic, religious, or national group. Resources and organizations listed for donations are provided as suggestions only - please conduct your own research before contributing.

His case was extreme, but every team has both types:

• The people who deliver results with minimal effort.

• The ones who practically live at work yet create little value.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and talking about this, and I even came up with “Ahmed’s First Law of Success.” (Still debating if I should trademark it.)

Some definitions to ground us:

1. Work → It’s all about delivery. If you work 60 seconds and ship something, you’re more valuable than someone who grinds for a year with nothing to show.

2. Delivery → Giving customers something they actually want. Do that, and you’re already a rock star.

3. Hard work → Raw effort, in whatever form.

4. Smart work → Allocating effort optimally.

5. Growth work → Investing effort today for future payoff (think compound interest).

6. Busy work → Anything that doesn’t connect to the points 1, 2, and 5 above.

So Ahmed’s first law of success states:

Put simply:
To succeed, you need both hard and smart work, cut out the busy work, and consistently invest in growth. Organizations reward you when you deliver things customers use. You’ll reward yourself when you invest in personal growth—because tomorrow you’ll be more effective than today.

Of course, this is an oversimplification. Real success also depends on being in the right environment, aligned with your skills and passions, and sometimes—unfairly—on things like gender, birthplace, or even your name.

But still, the formula holds up surprisingly well.

What do you think?

Both sides are basically running the same playbook when it comes to brainwashing people. It is surprisingly easy to make the story favor one side over the other. You just need to follow simple guidelines:

Control everything. Make sure all media is controlled by governments or rich people who share your views. Independent journalism? That's just annoying.

Your story goes first. Splash your version as the main headline. If you absolutely HAVE to mention the other side, bury it on page 47 in tiny font. Don't bore readers with complexity.

Hide the messy stuff. Lead with your agenda and dump inconvenient facts at the end where nobody reads anyway.

Question everything else. Use phrases like "according to questionable sources" for stuff that doesn't help you, while presenting your unverified claims like they're gospel truth.

Shut people up. Pass laws or create pressure to punish anyone publishing different viewpoints. Can't let others mess with your story!

Make connections. Link anything you don't like to the bad guys and repeat it until everyone believes it.

Go for total control. Silence all other voices completely. Game over, you win.

Well, I get it - being 100% unbiased is impossible. We're all human. But there's a difference between having some bias and running a full propaganda machine. Real people are dying while media outlets turn their suffering into points-scoring games.

We need more independent news sources - ones that aren't owned by governments or billionaires with agendas. Yeah, some bias will sneak in anyway, but at least they try to show different sides instead of just feeding us what powerful people want us to think.

Luckily, I found a piece of information that perfectly describes this behavior. In Adam Grant's Originals Book (citing from the "Exit, Voice, and Loyalty" book), he summarized the 4 options we seek when we are dissatisfied: Exit, Voice, Persistence, or Neglect.

1. Exit: Leave a bad job, end an annoying marriage, leave an oppressive country, or just stop following.

2. Voice: Speak, protest, shout, or scream. You are actively trying to improve the situation: approaching your boss with ideas, encouraging your spouse to seek counseling, or becoming a political activist.

3. Persistence is gritting your teeth and bearing it: working hard even though your job is stifling, sticking by your spouse, or supporting your government even though you disagree with it.

4. Neglect is just staying around doing minimum effort: doing just enough at work not to get fired, choosing new hobbies that keep you away from your spouse, or refusing to vote.

We choose one option or another based on two things: how committed we are, and how much control we feel we have.

If you're committed to your situation - whether it's your company, country, marriage, or friendship - you'll either try to change things by proposing solutions and working hard (when you feel in control) or you'll persist and keep working hard hoping things will change (when you feel powerless).

If you're not committed, you'll either stay and do the bare minimum (when you feel out of control) or exit and start somewhere else (when you feel you have control).

The interesting thing is we don't stick to one position all the time. It's very common to move from one to another based on the situation. You might not be happy with your work overall, but you know it's rewarding so you "persist" until you find your "exit." Same with your country - you might "neglect" the political situation as long as you have a good job and live in your bubble, but once you feel you can make a change, you'll raise your "voice" and start working for change.

I've noticed this pattern in my own projects too. I'll start something feeling super committed and like I can shape the outcome - classic "voice" mode. But when obstacles pile up and I feel like I'm losing control, I slide into "neglect." I'm still showing up, but I'm basically going through the motions.

Although this isn't a problem-solving tool, it actually helped me reflect on my thoughts and actions. Now when I am not sure about my feelings, I ask myself: am I losing commitment, or do I just feel like I've lost control over the process? Sometimes just recognizing the pattern is enough to figure out what to do next.

To put some context, I am a typical Egyptian with a very long regular Arabic name who has lived in Germany for a very long time! I also speak little German, which always raises the question of how I have a German permanent residency.

So what makes me different as an Egyptian passport holder?

• I always need a visa (sometimes even to enter the bathroom)

• I am randomly selected almost every time — I wish I had the same luck with lotteries!

• I always travel with an extra book, so I don't die from boredom in airports while waiting for my passport checks.

• I always have a good reason to book long transit times and walk my legs a bit!

• I enjoy the feeling of having a unique passport with high artistic value, especially when the controller shows it to his colleagues or calls his boss to come and see it.

Initially, I was irritated by all these extra checks until I understood the novelty around owning such a green passport; it gives you a rare opportunity to experience your trip with more stories to tell. These are some of my best:

• During my first trip to the USA, the controller (in Amsterdam) took my passport to check my VISA. Initially, he checked the passport himself, but after two minutes, he called another controller, and then another one. The three guys spent altogether around 15 minutes checking every page of my passport. I initially thought that they were studying the pharaonic drawings inside the Egyptian passport, but after 15 minutes, I figured out that they were struggling with my very long name.

• Within the last 5 trips to the USA, I've had to visit the extra security check room. They took my passport and asked me to wait. After an hour or so, they always return my passport without a single question. The first time, I was irritated, but now I am sure that the real intention is to give me a bit of rest before I take the taxi to the hotel. Why should I rush anyway!

• I was surprised twice in Ukraine by how much they liked my Egyptian passport. Once the passport controller noticed it, he took it and asked me to wait because many people would like to see it. I saw four officers checking it and enjoying looking at the visas and the colors of each page. It took them 30 minutes to enjoy all the pages and take a picture of each one, but I enjoyed the VIP treatment of the empty queues and empty baggage lines afterward. They probably delayed me intentionally as part of a VIP package I signed up for unintentionally.

• In China, when they saw my passport while leaving the country, they immediately asked me to wait and relax. First, at the check-in counter, they called the airline manager who, in return, called the German consulate to check my passport. After 30 minutes, they gave me my passport back and allowed me to leave my bags. They probably wanted to do an extra check of the "cleanness" of my passport, so I wouldn't catch any illness (that was just before the Corona virus breakout).

• The best experience of all is when I get special treatment without even showing my passport. Like in Munich airport when they asked me (and everyone who had a similar skin color) to enter a special VIP queue for better checks. On that day, I knew that I was pretty special.

OK, enough teasing and some serious talk. I can understand all this fuss over all these extra checks and exceptional treatment, but it is annoying to always plan for the worst. As an Egyptian, I always have to travel with a lot of documents and papers. I also must plan for delays. It is very annoying to be the one who always needs to go to a special queue or who delays the whole queue behind you. It's becoming better, but it still happens in many of the Eastern European countries and the USA.

Update Sep 2026: I finally got my German citizenship, and let me tell you, it feels like upgrading from economy to first class in the passport world. I've already saved more than 500 euros on visa-related paperwork (and of course, countless forms and many hours queuing in consulates). Now I get to experience the other side of airport security - the boring, efficient side where nobody wants to admire my passport's value. I almost miss being special... almost!