Posts in the blog of Ramon Stoppelenburg

As Time Goes By: Two Impressive Months in Casablanca

In a previous post, I wrote about how Georgia didn’t work out for me and how I moved on again. After my time in Georgia, I ended up in Casablanca, Morocco, at the invitation of American friends who I met in Cambodia before. I was given the opportunity to “recover and recuperate” entirely at their expenses in their villa, located within a secure complex on the grounds of a large American school campus.

With the last of my money, I booked plane tickets for kitty Shady and me, via Paris, to Casablanca!


Yep, that was quite a view!

To Casablanca, where – after Morocco opened its borders again after the Covid Omicron scares – I was met at the airport on February 9, 2022!

I was offered a room in the family’s three-room villa, equipped with a spacious living room and a large family kitchen, mainly intended for the American expats who worked on the school campus. Breakfast and lunch were always available, and evening dinners were cooked up for me. Alternatively, I joined them to the McDonald’s in the immense Morocco Mall nearby, where they invariably ordered the largest menus to take home (after all, they were Americans), or pizza was ordered for delivery.

This campus was actually not very close to Casablanca, but rather in a pretty empty suburb, far south of the city. This area still contained vast barren agricultural areas in which entire villa districts were planned. Although the sea was visible, the coastal strip was still developing. Even a short walk to the beach was not allowed because of construction activities. In a few years, the Moroccan Riviera will be ready here, intended for the elite.

But then when I took the local cab, also called the “petit cab” (it’s mostly a French-lingo country) it was a completely different experience. These were often old, packed passenger cars, sometimes even with animals on board, that you could stop along the main road. They would drive toward town, stop randomly, and you would literally throw some small change at the driver, and he would leave with smoking tyres. Or I opted for the slightly more expensive cabs via the Bolt ride-share app, but then you’re soon talking about €7 per ride into town, which could end up being quite expensive.

Eventually I got the opportunity to explore the city on my own (my host family left campus mostly just for shopping at the mall), and what a splendor I encountered. The city was steeped in a lot of French-colonial architecture, and palm trees were everywhere, making the comparison to what Phnom Penh was like for a long time, quick. However, in Morocco they were masters at creating remarkably large, green parks. I wore out the soles of my shoes as I wandered through various neighborhoods of this magnificent city.

I had to discover the food on my own, though, as my extremely hospitable host family already pulled a strange face when I pointed out the couscous in the huge Marjane supermarket (where, by the way, I also feasted my eyes: I hadn’t seen supermarkets this big with everything for years).

I like to explore locations with a little help from the locals, so that was slightly more difficult there. Not only because the language of communication was French, but also because my host family was not really interested in Morocco. And they worked all day at the school.

Eventually, I managed to connect with local ladies through dating apps like Tinder and Bumble. It is important to understand that in an Islamic country, “a date” mainly consists of having coffee or dinner together somewhere in public – which suited me perfectly! Any form of PDA, “public display of affection” is not really socially accepted, so I seriously wondered if I was even allowed to give people a hand when getting acquainted. A greeting with three kisses on the cheek or an embrace was out of the question.

Thanks to these apps, I met some nice ladies who, with genuine pleasure, did want to show me something of the city, or take me out to eat at the most unusual local restaurants.

Eating out at the traditional restaurant Le Cuisto in Casablanca

Without any romantic commitments or the like, I was delighted to meet any local and be able to talk to them about life here. They were likewise happy to speak with a foreigner who had their perspective on their city and country. The friendly Asma even took me to Marrakesh!

Marrakesh was a wee bit cold in March!

And, of course, being a big movie lover, we went to the cinema here. Too bad, of course, that all the movies were dubbed in French….

And even though the ladies were over 30, all still living with their parents, they were not so happy with life and opportunities in Morocco and all had plans to leave the country after a certain time. “To France, or Canada. Anything is better than here.”

As much as I enjoyed Casablanca, I paid close attention to what I could undertake here myself. A movie house for the English speakers? But where could I find them? The local drinking holes of the foreign expats in Casablanca was the sports bar of The Irish Pub Casablanca, or very elite the expensive roof top bars, or the Bar Atomic.

(I did expressly walk around the tourist attraction Rick’s Café, named after the nonexistent bar in the movie Casablanca, which was filmed entirely in Hollywood. So I did’t fall for that).

The last bar offered almost a Western atmosphere, which is remarkable in a country where drinking alcohol is not encouraged. A local lady had invited me and a friend of hers, a university professor, to come to this bar. However, she arrived 15 minutes late and was not allowed in as a woman alone. The doorman even literally said “whores are not welcome here,” because a woman visiting a pub alone is considered a lady of lust in Casablanca. Eventually the professor and I were able to get her inside, but this incident gives a clear impression of the culture here and explains why the bar was mainly frequented by men.

The existence of such a backwards culture (synonymous with retarded and weak-minded, but I want to keep it neat here while still being absolutely honest), doesn’t exactly make me jump for joy to do very nice things here.

I also had a 90-day visa for Morocco, which meant that after my 90-day stay with my American host family (a full 3 months!), I would have to temporarily leave the country to get a new visa stamp and return. The most budget-friendly option, according to my hosts, was to take a RyanAir flight to Lisbon.

Lisbon. Portugal. European Union. Okay… I had never been to Portugal before and had very little knowledge about it. Friends of mine had been there before and their photos showed the winding hilly streets and charming yellow streetcars that still ran through it. When I started looking at flights to Lisbon, I was actually convinced.

What took me so long?!

I saw much more than narrow streets in a very hilly city. I saw a Golden Gate bridge, huh?, a historically impressive city on the Tagus River (in Portuguese: Tejo), I saw huge amounts of greenery, international cuisine and heard the Portuguese tackedonlanguagewithits3,000vowels. I saw colorful houses!

I put aside my extensive list of learned Moroccan-Arab Darija phrases. Thank you and goodbye. Shukran and beslama.

(And my hosts could have just mentioned Spanish Valencia, but nope, they said Lisbon.)

Long live social media, on which, without much thought, I posted the question if I might know someone who lives in Lisbon, or know someone who lives there. Because I was very interested in visiting this city.

And who responded there? Romanian Mihaela, who flew me to Bucharest in 2009 to be a guest speaker at the World Blogging Forum! She was now living and working in Lisbon and even had a room available in her apartment for the month of April for €500.

This was even more than I expected from any contact in the city!

Although Casablanca had its own unique charm, it was quite disappointing compared to a city like Lisbon. Especially when it became clear that the upcoming Ramadan, which would fall throughout the month of April that year, would close everything: cinemas, cafes, restaurants and every form of entertainment you can think of in an Islamic country.

It was clear. I just had to quickly swap Casablanca with that offered room for April in Lisbon!

Fortunately, I was doing much better financially and had saved enough to make a move possible. My cat Fifty Shady still had to visit the vet for final vaccinations and a health certificate to fly. I myself also had to arrange a negative Covid test to be allowed to leave the country and travel to Portugal.

I thanked the American host family from the bottom of my heart. It is not natural to take someone in for almost two months, like an extra son or half-brother, and give them all the time they need to recover from a less than successful experience in Georgia.

Ramadan was coming and I was gone!

Casablanca, thank you! But I’m going to look on anyway. Beslama!

And hi Lisbon! But more on that in a future post!

Ramon.

Young Holland Publisher Spending Summer (1991)

In one of my previous lives I was a big boy publisher, publishing two different monthly magazines.
I was 14 (yes, I had hair).

We are talking about 1989-1991, before I went to hi-jack the newspaper of my high school.

This young publisher had to expand his wings and traveled all the way to the town of Independence in Oregon, USA, where I was under the mentoring wings of former FDNY firefighter-turned highly awarded photographing journalist BILL BONGIORNO (who sadly passed away way too early in the late 90’s) for an entire hot summer of 1991.

It was there where the young staff journalist JOHN OLIVER interviewed me for the local paper Sun-Enterprise.

This might pop up in my upcoming book “WHAT THE HELL DIDN’T YOU DO?!”

Click on the image below if you want to see it large.

What I learned as a remote worker

This month marks the end of my first 8 months as a person who only works remotely, doing only online jobs through Upwork.com. That’s where 100% of my income now comes from. Last year I had lost all my savings and was covered by a few friends and family for a few months and slowly climbed out of the rubble.

 So, in no particular order…

The 10 most important things I have learned about working in the online gigs world:

1. Clients (people, businesses or agencies) post their jobs with their budget and you send them a proposal with your rate. Of course there will be many other people bidding a lower rate and most cases these people get the jobs so the client saves money. But stick to your professional expert level and stick to your desired rate. Once the clients find out cheap labour means bad quality rush jobs, they knock on your door. You get paid by the hour (and thanks to a nifty time tracker from Upwork or entered manual hours) or by project (milestone).

2. Get your business profile right. It’s your business card to anybody you send a proposal to. Be in your client shoes. They get the job proposal from you and might click on your profile on Upwork.com. What they read about you is what they get. Be straight to the point, professional and make them want to pick you for the job. You can always add a link to your professional website if you wish to elaborate more on the services you offer. But keep the client impressed: even your website has to be solid professional too.

3. There is no right or wrong answer on the number of hours you need to work. Sometimes it takes 75 hours one week and 30 the next. The following week I work only 4 hours. The most important thing for me was generating income, also for the long run.

4. Burnout happens when you lose control, not when you work hard for long periods of time. Be organised, arrange your time slots, get those bloody yellow post-it notes in your face.

5. Self-care through nutrition, exercise, down-time (doing nothing!), unplugging, etc. is a MUST. You are not a robot and you can’t go on forever. Do something totally different for the same time you “work”. Go to a gym and get a workout done. Turn your favourite song up loud and dance in your living room (nobody seems to do that at an office).

6. If you don’t have a solutions-oriented mentality, you likely won’t enjoy working online through Upwork gigs. “You” are the structure and all resources are available online.

7. Don’t hang around folks who say something like “can’t be done” or “why would you do that stuff?”. Go find people that accomplish difficult things against all odds and who keep on trying and keep going. Find people that inspire you.

8. Toxic clients can destroy your culture, so get rid of them immediately. You are nobody’s slave: end the contract when things take a weird turn or the communication goes off rails while you did your utmost and professional best: take the loss and cut it from your life. And breathe again. That clears up.

9. Stay active online. If you stare at your screen and wonder why nobody wants to hire you, you should quit and get a real job. Like what ordinary people do. But no, we are special people living a special life and doing special jobs. Send in those job proposals – even daily and even when you have ongoing gigs – for anything you could handle. Clients need supermen like us!

10. It’s hard to plan things in advance as jobs come random. I spent plenty of time daily to send in job proposals for any job I could handle and get job contracts offered in return. But suddenly that doesn’t match the planned long weekend out. Make the choice: cancel that weekend or work during that weekend away? Will I miss a solid $800 income or will I enjoy time with family or friends? Decide what you need most at that time.

11. Don’t ever burn bridges. We all make mistakes from time to time. If you do, apologize. Make things right. You might lose an unhappy client. I could tell you about that one time with that loony Fortune500 CEO that was my client and he was a total – but I don’t. Stay humble and friendly. Your personal brand and your network are the most important things you have.

So how is it going for me as a remote worker at the moment? Boy, did things improve! I started rather empty handed, with an empty profile and no reviews, client feedback or recommendations.

Persistence paid off and Upwork gigs became my real life job, which I can schedule whenever I want, wherever I want. And it is finally paying off too.

Regards from Almada, Portugal!

The 26 Best Job Sites To Find Remote Work

With Remote Work I don’t mean you working from your way cheaper Caribbean cabin with approval of your boss in New York City. I mean it more the digital nomad way: you can work wherever you are or wherever you want to be. You only need a laptop and a sturdy internet connection. And a bank account to receive money on.

I have always done freelance jobs for over 15 years. As an independent social media specialist I started with applying offline or with actual office visits. Laying out plans or basically offering my services. With moving to the tropics from 2011 I had to depend fully on the internet.

Thankfully the internet grew along and more and more platforms came up helping me pave a way to work online and get paid for the work I did. Online jobs not only gave me flexibility with my time but also allowed me to make my dream of living wherever I wanted come true.

And yes, when I lived in the Netherlands I needed to make at least €3,000 per month to pay the mortgage, insurance premiums and pay a ridiculous amount of tax on everything I earned. Moving to a country where the monthly costs are not even exceeding €1,000 took away a lot of hassles!

It’s not for everybody, of course. But if you seriously crave (and actually can) leave your current rat race life behind and Just Go, go for it. The world has enough people that are totally happy with the security of a huge fixed salary, their house with rent or mortgage, marriage, kids and being home in time for dinner. They really won’t miss you either.

While building a freelance career from zero can be tough, finding remote work (where you can work for a company location independently) doesn’t have to be hard. There are plenty of remote job sites offering fully remote full-time or contract-based positions.

2018: My office in a hostel in Ella, Sri Lanka.

With that said, the internet can be an intimidating place. When I signed up with some platforms, I thought I would never survive this way. Look at all these people already going for these job offers! And they might be so much better than me! And look, their rating on their profile is going through the roof and I have nothing yet! That’s where I kept going. Everybody had to start at that same beginning. I scored jobs, I earned money, people rated me 5 stars and that earned me more jobs!

Below I have collected the 26 best job sites I have ever come across, with some additional information on each so you can find the best one for your needs. Some I use myself, others I have ran away from quickly.

I either got work from these sites, helped or referred others, or have colleagues who got long-term work from trusted companies through these job boards. Did I miss anything new and not listed here? Send it in the comments at the bottom of this blog.

Your remote income is only an app away.

  1. For remote working freelancers: Upwork.com.

Upwork is an American platform, used to be known as Elance in the past. Upwork connects businesses (the clients) with independent professionals (us freelancers) around the globe. It is the world’s largest freelance talent marketplace and that’s why I put it on number one. You can send a proposal to any job you see available. You get paid by Upwork once the job is finished and the client is happy.

Everybody starts at the beginning. And when I signed up I was a novice with no experience or rating on that site. I still proposed to job offers and slowly raised my rates. It took me six months to make a four-figure income per month through jobs I scored through Upwork.
www.upwork.com

  1. For Startups, Mostly US-Based: AngelList.

AngelList is basically like Match.com for startups, helping them get connected to both investors and employees. You’ll find 1000s of jobs here at some of the BEST startups around the world. It is very user-friendly and allows you to browse jobs by location, role, technology, and salary. Try this if you want to work at a start-up.
www.angel.co/remote

  1. For Creatives: Authentic Jobs.

This site is best for creatives. Enter ‘remote’ in the location box and you’ll get a list of full-time and contract-based (freelance) job opportunities for writers, designers, and other creative professionals.
https://authenticjobs.com/

  1. Blockchain Jobs: Cryptocurrency Jobs.

This site is the hotspot for finding blockchain jobs, cryptocurrency jobs, Bitcoin jobs, Ethereum jobs or, DeFi jobs. Absolutely not my niche, but worth a mention on this list. Filter for ‘remote’ in the location search block and get a whole list of blockchain jobs with startups for engineers, designers, customers support, sales, and marketing.
www.cryptocurrencyjobs.co

  1. Europe Based: F6S Jobs.

This site is focused on startups in Europe. It’s a home for founders and startup programs with thousands of jobs.
www.f6s.com

  1. For Contract-Based Jobs: Freelancer.

Freelancer is one of the world’s largest marketplace for freelancing and crowdsourcing. On this site, you can find work in software dev, writing, data entry, design, engineering, sales/marketing, accounting, and legal.
www.freelancer.com

  1. For Designers and Developers: Gun.io.

A site for full-time freelancers in software development, UI/UX, design, project management, etc. Based on your skills, the Gun.io team hand-matches you with clients.
www.gun.io

  1. For Freelancers: Guru.

Guru is a marketplace for employers and freelancers to connect, collaborate and get work done on a contract or one-off basis.
www.guru.com

  1. For Freelancers: Hubstaff Talent.

This site is a hub for remote startups, software companies, agencies, and e-commerce businesses looking to hire freelancers. Great place to find one-off projects and contract-based work.
https://talent.hubstaff.com

  1. A HUGE Job Board For Just About Anything: Indeed.

One of the biggest sites for job seekers where you can find pretty much millions of jobs online. Enter ‘Remote’ in the Where search box to access the list of remote job offers. Tip: You can set up job alerts to be notified by email whenever new jobs match your criteria.
www.indeed.com

  1. Diverse Job Board For Everyone: Jobicy.

Categorized remote job board with a diverse range of roles from sales and marketing to finance to programming and design.
www.jobicy.com

  1. A Curated Collection Of Job Boards: Jobkit.

A collection of job boards that you can filter by category (creative, freelance, remote, startup etc). Click on ‘Remote’ to view remote job boards.
www.jobkit.co

  1. For European Tech Pros: Landing.jobs.

A European online marketplace for folks in the tech field.
www.landing.jobs

  1. For anything: LinkedIn.

I suppose you already heard about LinkedIn unless you’re hiding under a rock. But did you know it’s not only for finding 9 to 5 office jobs? LinkedIn offers several remote and freelance positions as well.
www.linkedin.com

  1. For Freelancers: PeoplePerHour.

Online marketplace for freelance work and services. It’s like Fiverr, where you can set up your skills for anybody who needs to book them from you.
www.peopleperhour.com

  1. For Interpretation, Transcription and Translation Professionals: ProZ.com.

This site is the leading source for finding freelance translation, transcription and interpretation jobs. It took me over one hour from registering to get everything set up an once it did not accept my US bank account for payments while living in the European Union, I gave up the idea of ever working with ProZ.
www.proz.com

  1. For Latin Americans: RemoteCo

This site is dedicated to connecting SMEs to remote workers in Latin America.
www.remoteco.com

  1. For All Things Remote Work: Remote Co.

Remote companies, remote workers, remote work articles, online courses, remote jobs, career coaching and so much more for remote workers.
www.remote.co

  1. Diverse Job Board For Remote Work: Remote Ok.

Categorized high-quality remote job board with a diverse range of roles. Roles range from sales and marketing to finance and legal to programming and design.
www.remoteok.com

  1. Diverse Job Board For Remote Work: Remote Work.

Categorized high-quality remote job board with a diverse range of roles. Roles range from sales and marketing to finance and legal to programming and design.
www.remote.work

  1. Diverse Job Board For Remote Work: Remotive.

A robust job board for roles in about every industry. You can find work for every niche, including sales, finance, design, and tech.
www.remotive.com

  1. For Developers: TechMeAbroad.

TechMeAbroad only lists jobs from tech startups and companies offering visa sponsorship. Find the job of your dreams, in the country of your dreams.
www.techmeabroad.com

  1. For Anyone: The Muse.

Enter ‘Remote’ in the Location search box and select ‘Flexible/Remote’ to access a wide range of remote and location-free jobs in any field.
www.themuse.com

  1. For Developers, Designers and Finance Professionals: Toptal.

Exclusive network of the top freelance software developers, designers, and finance experts in the world. And when I say The Top, they mean the top 3% best of them. They provide access to top companies, a community of experts, and resources that can help accelerate your career.
www.toptal.com

  1. For Interpretation, Transcription and Translation Professionals: TranslatorsCafé.com.

My bilingual friends love using this site to find remote translation and one-off projects. Interpretation, transcription, and translation freelance jobs. The site’s design will bring you back to 1995, so don’t be afraid to slowly take it all in. This ain’t 2022 anymore, Toto.
www.translatorscafe.com

  1. Huge Remote Database For Anyone: We Work Remotely.

One of my go-to favorites. On this awesome site, you can find remote (fulltime) jobs in marketing, design, programming, customer support, DevOps and sysadmin, copyrighting, business/exec, and management. Companies pay already $299 to post one job on it, so that seriously raises the bar for everybody.
www.weworkremotely.com

You can leave a comment on this blog if you scroll down.

It’s never too late to apply for a job…

Those were some exciting days in the last week. I was not even back in The Netherlands for one week and I applied for the job of Cinema Manager of a local 4-halls movie theater in the exact town I am staying in!

It was a fascinating experience, where I was instantly invited for a first conversation with a big recruitment agency in ‘s Hertogenbosch and then invited for a meeting with the big boss at the cinema’s headquarters in Wijchen City. There weren’t many applications from people who had actually ran a cinema before!

They loved my experience as a cinema manager in Cambodia and the big boss was floored with my experience in running three movie theaters, my endless energy to pick things up, work on improvements and come up with any great idea that leads to positive changes and higher revenues.

That was also the point that made me fall out of this race (from 300 applications I got to the last 5 candidates): my enthusiasm and active hands-on personality made the big boss scared that I might be bored at some times, because it’s not always about Being There and motivating a team of colleagues to give their best at all time.

I know I would have been terribly lucky (unbelievably lucky) if I would score myself an amazing full-time job with a very nice salary within two weeks of being in The Netherlands. It would even have allowed me to rent an apartment and live a life here.

But you can’t always get what you want. And a cinema will be missing out on a fascinating manager who would have its guests complain why it is suddenly so busy.

Now, I am not a person who ever gives up easily or gets bored fast, at the right job. I can plan and project major marketing campaigns, I can organize unforgettable Mount Kilimanjaro treks, I know everything you can do with the internet and all social media opportunities and can write a damn good piece of alluring text too.

I am full of ideas before you can even ask for them.

And I am immediately available, anywhere in the world – I am flexible – if you know anything, do let me know. Or if you need a house sitter, pet sitter, an in-house chef or amazing house mate, contact me. Because I can’t stay at my friend Janske’s place forever. Please help me out for her too. 

Ramon

How Georgia didn’t work out for me…

After a lifetime in Cambodia (11 years!) I moved to Georgia in August 2021, ready for another lifetime in Tbilisi doing other adventurous and absolutely Ramon-like stuff. But it didn’t work out and I have moved country again.

Cambodia had me blessed as long as people would visit my movie theaters, so besides a few pandemic months of closure in Phnom Penh, that actually worked out very well. Cambodia had me spoiled. And add the fine weather, the cheap life and the enormous bubbles of foreigners that keep that country going – which also makes it a warm bath for anybody going there.

Life plans, ideas for the future, craving for seasons and changes in landscape and a little desire to be a little bit closer to my aging parents; those were reasons for me that I would not stay in Cambodia and end up as that old man that asks if you want popcorn with your movie.

While trying to sell the movie theaters (3 locations in 2017), I studied new locations for life. I had great interests for Buenos Aires and Mexico, but that would have been a continent too far. I studied Spain and Portugal, looked at the Baltic countries and even Finland. Language would be no problem; I would just have to learn it.

Georgia was on my mind for years too. A magical country, with its lush green valleys and snowcapped mountains, where they made wine before the French even knew how to pour it, the food is a hidden gem and the chacha only for those who actually dare to participate in a traditional supra. It has more history than I could ever experience in Cambodia! It was also located nicely near the EU and had a handful of low-budget airlines allowing me to fly into Europe without breaking the bank.

And one major reason why Georgia was on top of my list: life would be 40% cheaper than Cambodia. Remember, I am Dutch, right?

The pandemic made it impossible for me to sell the movie theaters. The last possibility was canceled in late 2020, when a future with tourists and a rather normal life in Phnom Penh was still a rather impossible sight. I stayed until August 2021 and put every dollar in my savings. These savings would make me survive at my next location, while I would set up something amazing and life would be great again. You should know I am a dreamer.

And Tbilisi is amazing. Its cobblestoned old town with mostly German architecture reflects a long, complicated history, with periods under Persian and Russian rule. Its diverse architecture encompasses Eastern Orthodox churches, ornate art nouveau buildings and Soviet Modernist structures. Looming over it the city are the Narikala, a reconstructed 4th-century fortress, and Kartlis Deda, the iconic statue of the “Mother of Georgia” which welcomes visitors with a warning.

Mother of Georgia symbolizes the Georgian national character: in her left hand she holds a bowl of wine to greet those who come as friends, and in her right hand is a sword for those who come as enemies.

You can understand that I spent these late-summer days exploring the city and the country with ultimate joy. The honeymoon months in a new city where every corner exposed another beautiful photo opportunity, or a café or restaurant to remember. And every street had a story.

I had set my mind to find out if this city could use a movie theater, a community movie theater, the coziest place in town where you just want to go and watch movies on a big screen. Which was fun to explain to the foreigners I met, which understood my dream partially. “You should have a movie night at this or that bar on Thursday!” was for me a no-go. Georgians would ramble with their English and point to the top floors of the malls that has the multiplex cinemas with their 2D, 3D and 4D options. And ask if my movies would be in Georgian, please?

Knowing exactly what I would need location-wise, I set out for location scouting. It took me a few months to figure out which neighborhoods would work, which are out of reach, or too residential. I had to find a hub and found that in the neighborhood right next to the Old Town, in Sololaki. With its wine bars, coffeeshops and restaurants lining pretty much every street, this area looked promising.

I found a $400pm 2-bedroom apartment there with ease and only had to find this business location to set out my dreams and show the people here what a good life with great movies is.

But that’s where I struggled.

I met the most friendly and enthusiastic real estate agents that would totally promise me exactly that what I was looking for, but they came with flooded dungeons with pillars (“these pillars might be a problem”), oversized former gym halls (“how can I heat this up in winter months?”) to class rooms of an elementary school (“you mean, there will still be classes given here in day time, but I can use it in the evening?”). One guy even took me to a secret underground and never-used metro station, where I walked around the platform and asked out loud: “what can ever happen here?”.

The few places that would fit my plans, were boarded up. Probably for years. Phone numbers stayed unanswered or the location was owned by four owners and they all want to have a cut on the rent. It was not weird to hear $4,000 rent on a 100m2 basement. And goodbye.

In the meantime I started a side hustle. I discovered nobody was selling cupcakes in this city and that opened a chance for me to jump in and see how it goes if I would be that somebody. I even added alcohol to my cakes and went commercial with my Shotcakes. Shotcakes received raving reviews, had enthusiastic crowds and was a big hit at parties. But I would have to sell 12 cakes (one box) per day to even get even on my rent and very slowly I realized that was not actually happening. Perhaps if I threw in a giant marketing campaign to get the entire city involved, but I had no budget for that.

It was in December when that budget had shrunk that much that I actually saw the bottom. Finding a business location and starting a crowdfunding to begin something magical was getting less and less of a feasible chance. I could easily start the 5th wine bar in my street, or start neighborhood bar number 11 on the same street, like everybody else seem to do – while I see them barely survive financially.

Stress on the money side, not finding what I was looking for, lack of decent sleep (oh, while living above a noisy club), not caring about myself that much ended up in an unexpected epileptic seizure right on the street on my way to the bakery. With bloody scabs on my hands and face I realized I had to change my priorities – and perhaps my dreams.

I became a remote worker, trying to find paid hours of work that can be done for an employer anywhere in the world, as long as they get done. I can write, I can translate, I can copywrite, I can do marketing, I can do social media management, I can do publishing, I can do proofreading and editing.

But I am not alone in that world. I had already figured out that most foreigners that I had met in Tbilisi are remote workers. And they had been for a while and came all the way from Chiang Mai or Da Nang as visa-issues made their easy life there difficult, while Georgia just lets everybody enter for a one-year-free visa period.

Where in Cambodia foreigners can be teachers, work at NGO’s, volunteers, artists, entrepreneurs or even gold diggers, in Georgia I met remote workers. Only remote workers. Of which 50% can only talk about crypto and trading coins and I loose all my enthusiasm at the beer table. I even met a young lady that was bored and was asking around what she could do with her $2,500 of money she made monthly. (Her 5,000 friends on Facebook weren’t helpful enough, she stated)

While making my online hours every day and Georgia got colder and colder, I would sit in my sweater next to the heating elements in my living room, looking up to the sky where sunrays would pass my house. My remote jobs would pay my rent. Barely.

And I am just going to be honest about it. If nothing would change big time, I would be in trouble. Financially.

When my most necessary piece of equipment here was about to die on me, friends abroad bought me a brand new laptop! My parents chipped in on the rent. Others would offer my support, too. Even though I am historically known as that traveling freeloader, I knew that could be not be the rest of my life. I made it to getting 45 years old and I am not done yet!

I made a few foreign friends here (my Shotcakes came in handy), but it was difficult to enter the local market in anyway. Georgians prefer to speak Russian better than English and then there were the cultural differences. Forget about dating, because Georgian women are very conservative and the foreigners would talk my head off about crypto trading and their weird remote work hours in different time zones.

I realized Cambodia was amazing when it came to meeting random people, and Georgia was not going to be that way.

I realized also that if I can survive doing online remote jobs, I don’t have to do them in a barely heating apartment, wearing a sweater and sitting next to the heating elements. Heck, I don’t have to be in Georgia to do that.

I had to move on again, that was clear. But with an almost insufficient bank account and a minimal income, I could not just see myself move off to a country where I could do all my daily jobs under a palm tree.

That’s where other friends jumped in. Young folks around my age that knew me from Cambodia. Who know how my clock ticks and what exactly makes my heart beat. They noticed it wasn’t working out for me in Georgia too. I wasn’t happy anymore.

“Come stay with us for a while?” was their invite. We’ll see what I could do there. They know people there. To get myself on my feet again. Knowing them I would be surrounded by happy and positive people, whose life had been a rollercoaster from time to time too, and I can relate to a lot.

So that’s where I ended up. In Casablanca, Morocco. It took a while though, because when I was ready to leave Georgia in December last year, Morocco closed its borders due to the omicron fears and I had to stay put and simply get through every day in the most possible boring ways. When Morocco announced to open again from February 7, I booked the flights out of Georgia with whatever funds my credit card allowed me. Together with Shady, my weird Cambodian cat.

It’s time to explore a new country, a new HUGE city, but be more focused on my health, on opportunities and perhaps dream a little bit less. But be more happy. I am very thankful for these friends here to put me up, in their house, and adopt me as their goofy half-brother. Perhaps I should bake them some Shotcakes.

You can now continue on my blog on my time in Morocco, right here.

Get vaccinated

I’m fully vaccinated and got boostered last week. No, I don’t know “what’s in it”. Neither this vaccine or the ones I had as a child. Nor do I know what’s in the 11 secret herbs and spices at KFC.

I also don’t know exactly what’s in Ibuprofen or Tylenol — they just cure my headaches & my pains.

I don’t know what’s in tattoo ink, botox and fillers, or every ingredient in my soap, shampoo or deodorants.

I don’t know the long term effect of mobile phone use, or whether or not that restaurant I ate at yesterday REALLY used clean foods and washed their hands.

There’s a lot of things I don’t know.

I do know one thing: life is short. Very short. And I, personally, still want to do things. I want to travel and hug people without fear, and find a little feeling of life “before”.

Throughout my life I’ve been vaccinated against many diseases. Measles, mumps, rubella, polio, chickenpox, hepatitis, pneumonia, influenza, rotavirus, tetanus, pertussis, rabies, yellow fever, typhoid and cholera. My parents (and I) trusted the science.

And bummer, I had a fit with typhoid for a few months in my life. No fun. It was like all the Dengue I had, times 10. It was a variant I wasn’t vaccinated against.

I’m vaccinated. Not to please a government. Or the lady at the store next door. Or to get a Green pass on my app.

Not to make other people do it. But I don’t want to not to die from Covid-19, clutter a hospital bed if I get sick, not able to hug my loved ones, have to test myself routinely and live my life in fear.

I can’t say it any clearer.

My Neighbor’s Granola

Tbilisi, December 10.

There was a loud banging on my door this morning. My neighbor from next door. A rather big-sized, older Georgian man. He was red faced and pointing to his throat with panic. Within five seconds I was Heimliching behind him. With success, because he left a piece of a bar of granola on the floor.

Fifteen minutes later we were having coffee at my place and we try to understand each other. He doesn’t speak a word of English and I don’t speak Kartvelian. He walked back to his apartment, came back and handed me a box of granola bars. He doesn’t need them anymore.

So this is the Goodbye Cambodia post

So this is the GOODBYE CAMBODIA post as I left the country on August 13, 2021. I thank everybody who has ever supported me on this almost 12-year journey. An utmost colorful chapter in the book of my life.

Thank you for your connection here, your dedication in Phnom Penh, your time to escape to the most comfortable movie theater South-East Asia has ever had, and your desire to see it grow into what it became.

Kolyan Keth now runs the Foodoo – The $5 Gourmet Dinner Box project, which I founded when I saw the need for dinner box deliveries three years ago. My pride and joy for better bread baking in Cambodia, Sandwich Heaven, is passed onto the hands of the highly professional Khmer managers. I keep the secret recipes for my vegetarian nut cheeses by The Nutcracker with me (I can always restart such production elsewhere again). The Phnom Penh’s English Book Exchange with a collection over over +1250 English fiction books has moved to Botanico Wine & Beer Garden.

My latest project, the literary magazine The Quiet Reader, will always stay an online project with the world’s most beautiful short stories by new and emerging authors. But imagine a Best Of-book, one day. To be continued…

The Flicks Community Movie House is closed forever and the venue has been stripped bare. What an enormous joy and connection with the community that job gave me. I don’t think I will ever meet that many people as through an operation like that.
I am so happy the ceiling plates did not fall down in the last weeks, the projector lamp didn’t die, the AC only needed one final re-gas, nobody fell through the termite infested floor planks below the carpet — so it can all nicely collapse on its own, in peace.

Living in Cambodia allowed me to travel and experience the different cultures in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia (where the earthquake tremors gave me some serious PTSD for months), Singapore, Malaysia, but also further away in Japan (which is “the most beautiful woman I have ever met, but I have no clue what she’s saying”), South Korea and China.

Thanks for all the memories, drinks, the foods, foreign friends visiting, the laughs, the journeys, pub quizzes, bike rides, brunches, beaches, sports, islands, and the many celebrations that made it all too unforgettable for the rest of my life.

Cambodia surely has its ups and downs and I have had my share (and enough) of all tropical diseases you can throw at me (I will tell you about that unforgettable typhoid experience for a few beers), but they are experiences nobody can ever take away from me.

There is a expression going around that if you can’t handle yourself (or a business) in Cambodia, you can’t handle yourself anywhere else and I see a good sense of truth in there.

Cambodia is a weird, sometimes baffling, but other times a true magical kingdom of wonder – that will always keep you wondering (and bribing the relevant ministries).

I am moving on, pursuing my dreams and passions. It’s time for a new life elsewhere.

To cite a recent fan mail: Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. THANK YOU.

The day my music died

Back to this day, June 25 in 2009.

I escaped my home in Amsterdam for a week off and bought myself a night train ride to Italy. And after a few days in the metropolis city of Milan, I continued on to Rome in a 3-hour train ride through the green country side. I was able to couchsurf with a young Italian couple living in the outer suburbs of Rome.

They basically took my hand and dragged me along in their Italian life. When they were working, I managed to explore Vatican City, I saw the Pantheon, ate pizzas and saw the impressive Colosseum. And I probably visited all 19 basilicas, because I am a nerd. And I did what the Romans do: eat all that delicious gelato ice cream. All day long. It was a hot summer day.

In the early evenings I would meet up with my hosts again and life was very pleasant. We played music, they invited friends over or we went out for drinks.

I was very lucky when one of my hosts had to work in the security department of a big stadium concert. If I wanted to join her. Yes, of course. It was a concert by Tiziano Ferro. “He is the Michael Jackson of Italy. Our biggest pop star!”, she said. I remembered that name. Tiziano had a little summer hit in The Netherlands earlier (youtube). Thanks to my hostess I was able to get into the stadium if I only could just help out the people in their wheelchair area in front of the stage and make sure they are all happy there. What a blast that was. And the crowd sung along. I learned some more Italian and the concert was an absolute joy to attend.

It was just after the show, when I was taken backstage in the catacombs of the stadium and waiting for my hostess to be finished with her job, when the mood changed by a full180 degrees.

I had a received a text message on my phone from a good friend in The Netherlands. Everybody around me seemed to have received such a message. People were on their phone sending more messages. This wasn’t the time yet when we all had data and could surf to the BBC website for a news update. It went by phone and texts. People were in disbelief. Some people cried.

The night ended in mourning. Playing the music. Sharing stories. Have more wine or beer. Staring out of the windows.

It was the day Michael Jackson died.

Letmestayforaday becomes UNESCO Digital Heritage

The story below is the English translation of the original story, written by Janske Mollen, for De Stentor, a Dutch national newspaper. (click here for the original Dutch story)

Conceived on the back of a beer coaster in a pub in Zwolle, since today it has been labeled ‘UNESCO Digital World Heritage’ by the Dutch Royal Library. The website Letmestayforaday.com of the Zwolle former journalism student Ramon Stoppelenburg will be saved forever for posterity.

The Royal Library of the Netherlands in The Hague, the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB), sees it as its task to preserve websites in a sustainable way and to keep them accessible and to protect them from loss. That is why the KB archives websites that as a collection provide a ‘representative picture of Dutch culture, history and society on the internet’.

“Many of those websites contain unique information,” says collection specialist Peter de Bode of the web archive of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. “Sometimes those websites disappear when the owner no longer has the money to keep it up. Or because the technology is outdated. .”

Stoppelenburg’s website has been selected for the construction of a special KB collection of blogs. “Very special”, Stoppelenburg says. He responds via Skype from Phnomh Penh in Cambodia, where he has lived for several years. “Who would have thought, that when I was with my friends at the bar of student café, Iscribbled a few words on a coaster? I can still hear a friend wonder out loud ‘Who’s ever going to invite you to their home?’.”

International
The idea behind letmestayforaday.com was to see more of the world. At the time, Stoppelenburg studied journalism at Windesheim University of Applied Sciences. But he got the idea through the American website sendmeadollar.com. “But I didn’t want money, I wanted to travel.” In exchange for an overnight stay or a lift from address A to B, he would write about his adventures on his website, one of the first weblogs. After the launch of letmestayforaday.com in 2001, he received offered airfare and lodging from all over the world, he was closely followed by the international media and traveled for two years without spending a dime.

“I thought I would travel around Europe for a few years,” Stoppelenburg looks back. “But that I was allowed to travel halfway around the world?” With the help of tourism agencies and generous donors (a lady from Canada offered him Airmiles: ‘Otherwise you’ll never come to Canada’) he also traveled from address to address through South Africa, Australia and Canada. His experiences were followed worldwide and as soon as it was clear that he would visit a country, the invitations poured in.

Unique
Stoppelenburg finds it particularly special that his website is now ‘digital heritage’, because his website is in English. According to De Bode, that does not matter: “The criteria for being selected are that the information on the website should preferably be unique, that the site should be under Dutch management and that it should say something about culture, history and society. on the internet.” De Bode was also intrigued by the Stoppelenburg website: “Two years of free travel, that is so unique.”

10 million websites
KB has been working on a web archive since 2007. “In the meantime, 13,400 websites have been selected, says De Bode. “Every year, 1,000 to 1,500 are added. In total there are 10 million Dutch websites. This also includes websites with the extensions .com .eu .info. There are 5.8 million of the .nl extensions.” Archiving is not very fast, says the archivist. “That is because the selection is done manually, then the owners have to be emailed, they have four weeks to decline. Then we start archiving automatically.”

Vlogs
And not every website is archivable. Vlogs are mainly visual material that cannot be archived. Also because they are often on YouTube and we cannot archive that.”

Incidentally, archiving is sometimes also delayed by the archivists themselves. ,,I must honestly say that I did linger on the Stoppelenburg website for a while, yes. That does happen every now and then, when we come across something special to review.”

World Heritage
The fact that websites are ‘digital heritage’ is internationally recognized in the Unesco Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage from 2003. “They call it world heritage”, says De Bode. “We regard it as digital heritage”. interest in websites that threaten to go offline. If that happens, we’ll lose them, and the information on them too.”

That World Blogging Forum 2009 in Bucharest

It is 2009. It all started with a suspicious email.

“Hello Ramon, we are inviting you to come to the World Blogging Forum in Bucharest in two weeks. Let us know your details and we arrange the flights.”

Me: “This is a scam, right?”

“Not at all. Have a look at our website. We have a full program with many bloggers from all over the world and are backed up by the Romanian government and all. Oh, and it will all take place at The Palace of the Parliament [only the second biggest building in the world]. We need you to be there too.”

We were not “bloggers” like how they are known nowadays. All participants were mostly the first ever people publishing on the internet. Some participants had no rights or freedom of expression in their own country. Some could not come because they were afraid. Others were arrested and detained when they returned to their home country after this event.

It was one of the highest honors to be present and discuss along with people with such caliber.

This was in times when we were still figuring out what this Twitter thing could mean. The world was modernizing really fast and phones lost buttons and became smarter. Don’t even think about uploading a video from your phone onto Youtube yet, though. Instagram did not even exist for another 3 years.

This ended up to be one my most dearest experiences ever. The people. The ideas. The care by all the English University students. Tours. The parks. The enthusiasm. (The after parties). Bucharest.

How to keep a place forever in a heart.

“Hope to never experience it again”

My mother was born in 1939 and survived through the World War II in Rotterdam with her entire family. At times when the country is remembering the dead and fallen on May 4 and celebrating liberation and freedom on May 5, she will always have problems with these times from the past. For the newspaper the Old Rotterdammer she wrote her story “Hope to never experience it again”.

Here some excerpts:

“I can remember that we had to leave our house on the advice of the municipality, to the air-raid shelter on the East Square in Rotterdam. I don’t remember how long we’ve been there. At one moment we we were taken out of the shelter and loaded on a cart to the town of Bergschenhoek. We were brought to a farm for a few days and returned back to Rotterdam when it was safe again. The shelter had been bombed. According to my parents, our house had been emptied out nicely too.”

“One day, all men between 20 and 40 years old, had to report for the Arbeitseinsatz, to work in Germany. My mother and me brought my father to the Beursgebouw on the Coolsingel in Rotterdan. He was transferred to Germany where he had to work in a bakery. With the help of his German boss there, he managed to escape and he walked all the way back to Rotterdam. The Red Cross came to the house to tell my mum that my dad had probably died. But a few weeks later he was suddenly standing at the door.”

“I have experienced the liberation of the country more or less consciously and saw the airplanes flying over our heads, they were that big and close. My parents were cheering happily, I remember. My dad got his hands on a parachute. Years later I had made a dress from it.”

“Too bad I asked very little about the war from my parents. We didn’t talk much about that at home, or we were at an age that we were probably not interested in that either.”

That one week in Kugluktuk, in the cold North of Canada

From 2001 to 2003  I traveled the world for free, thanks to my own social network www.letmestayforaday.com and the thousands of people from all over the world who invited me over through that website. In return, my compensation for free accommodation for one night, I published a daily travel diary on the website. The entire diary of over two years of traveling is still online and was published as a Dutch travel book in 2004. Below is an English translation from a chapter in this book, which became relevant after the release of the movie The Grizzlies, filmed in Kugluktuk one year after my visit in 2003.

First, some background on the location. Yellowknife is situated at the North end of the Great Slave Lake and came to being after the gold rush of 1934. Yellowknife consists of the Old Town, built on a small island, and New Town, spread out over the bare, frozen tundra’s of the North. During the long and dark winter days, the Great Slave Lake becomes a ring road for Yellowknife and people drive over the vast ice pack. After the slow decline of the gold findings, pure diamonds were found decades ago and the city quickly developed into one of the most important diamond supplier worldwide. Read More

My First Christmas outside of Cambodia

Because that was technically what it was. After living in Cambodia for over 7 years now, I had never left the country for the Christmas holidays.

I had escaped to beaches, or just hide out, while pretty much everybody else leaves the country to “go back home” for a few weeks. And I would be jealous. And all the social media channels would show photos of these friends with families and friend back home, mostly involving lots of food and, of course, snow.

It was in September last year that I got an invite to come to France this winter.

The invite had come from the French mademoiselle Mathilde, who I had met on Otres Beach in Sihanoukville (Cambodia) last summer. Add a bit of financial luck on my side and I had simply booked the tickets. I told my family I would spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve with them in The Netherlands and then spend another 10 days in France.

After training hard for the Angkor Wat International Half Marathon (Dec 3) and the Chiang Mai Throwdown in Thailand (Dec 9-10) and working (perhaps a bit too) hard on a short literary story.

And what a beautiful escape that was.

And as I want to add: COLD. I had forgotten how cold could be.

I went shopping in Rotterdam with my dad and after parking the car we just had a 1km walk and my toes had become numb. I had him figure out which speaker system he had to buy for his personal computer as I was still crawling up the stairs of the MediaMarkt in agony and with the anxious desperation of getting a sense of feeling back in my feet.

The escape from Cambodia to Europe for the Christmas holidays was a necessary one, too.

Once in a while you have to leave home (Phnom Penh for me) to empty the head, defragment certain damaged brain cells, get loose, let things go and experience something else before returning back and gain a way fresher start.

And loose I got and went in France!

On New Year’s day I arrived by train from Rotterdam in the small city of Valenciennes, in the northern departments of France, where I was welcomed by the lovely Mathilde in the warm and historic castle of her mum’s. And Mathilde had all her lovely friends still-left-over from the previous day New Year’s Eve party. A house full of fun and welcoming people, added with plates of cheese and Belgian Kasteel Rouge beer (what a joy) followed.

In Valanciennes we spent the days walking around (strangely zhe French love walking and I seriously wondered why they don’t have bicycles to get around faster – or even tuktuks!?) and even climbing up a nearby terril, a man-made stone mountain from the region’s former glory coal mining days. And did I add already that it was cold? My Cambodian body was slowly getting used to below 10 degrees Celsius temperatures.

Then followed a week in Paris, where I lived with Mathilde in her small student studio near the Université Paris Nanterre, just west of the city of lights (and cheese). Thanks to a mocked-up student pass with my pass photo on it for the regional train, Paris was within 10 minutes of public transport distance at all time.

Start the accordion music by Yann Tiersen now – and see us wandering the streets of Montmartre and up the Sacre Coeur, see me go selfie crazy at the Arc de Triomphe, The Louvre museum, the Notre Dame and of course the Eiffel Tower (which gets lit up like crazy for 5 minutes every hour after sunset!), walk down the Avenue des Champs-Elysées, crossing the Seine and get lost in the most existing book store on earth: Shakespeare & Company.

We ate French raclette (think lots of melted cheese!), stick bread, cheeses, Italian pasta and pizza, Mexican burritos, at Burger King or at Amélie’s Les Deux Moulins and croissants. Lots of croissants – however I learned it’s a crime in France to have croissants at anytime after breakfast! We had the best hot chocolate ever (in my life!) at Angelina’s, a super fancy lunch room where we simply jumped the 30-minutes queue outside.

If you think I returned to Cambodia quite fattened up, these were the reasons. I also thought I needed some fat to warm up a bit more.

Trying out one CrossFit class at the Reebok CrossFit Louvre was a great excessive workout that included a 4x 400m run through the streets of Paris. Yes, cold, but I can’t complain about that, I was trying hard to get sweaty!

In the evening we went to the movies and I utterly enjoyed Le Brio (with English subtitles at the French cinema night for expatriates in town!) and we went to see what the fuss was all about with the upcoming-awards-winner All The Money in the World.

My digital step counter on my watch went crazy these days and even recorded an all-time record over 24,000 steps made on the last day in Paris. As a late birthday gift to me the lovely Mathilde treated me on a day at the Disneyland Park and the Walt Disney Studios of Paris!

What an utter joy that was. Had I already mentioned anything about the cold? So with extra layers of clothing we took the train and fought the weather at these amazing theme parks.

It was fun, thrilling and pretty exciting (my latest visit to a Disney park dates back to 1980 if I remember well) and I thoroughly enjoyed The Twilight Zone’s Hotel Tower of Terror and the various indoor and massive roller coasters, but melted with the attractions of Ratatouille and Pirates of the Caribbean.

As in every Disney park there was a big fluffy parade through Main Street – but the light show at the end of the day, every day at 7pm, was where Disney gave all of itself. The stunning Chateau de la Belle au Bois Domant (Sleeping Beauty’s Castle) became fully illuminated with a spectacular 20-minutes light show that blew me (and a few thousand other spectators) away, including the fire works show that came with it.

This video is just an impression of that…

Talk about a closing act! Now this all became a birthday present not to forget very easy!

The only downside to the theme park business is that I don’t see much value in waiting in 45 minutes queues for a less than 4 minutes attraction, but –hey– I must be getting old. It also had to do something with the cold – which I might have mentioned before. It was cold outside!

And then it was January 10 and it was time to head back home again.

My escape from Cambodia worked pretty well for me.

I am thankful for the volunteers that stayed behind at The Flicks in Phnom Penh for keeping the business running in my absence (and not burning the place down) and feed the five cats that were dearly missed.

But I am most thankful for Mathilde for inviting me over and taking me in after meeting up only shortly in Cambodia!

Thanks for surviving me that long so far and perhaps our paths might cross again in the future! <3

Now let’s get back to the ordinary hassle in the city, back to eating healthy food (I need to get rid of that extra built-up layer of fat now) and a sportive regime in life.

I can say that 2018 started pretty good and I want to keep it that way. Just keep the cold, it’s all yours.

Valentine’s Day 2017

I am an individual.
And I take everything seriously. Except myself.
I cannot control how I am perceived, only how I am presented.
So I dance like everyone is watching and I don’t give a shit.
Without me, I’ve got nothing.
So when times get tough,
I choose downward dog over downward spiral.
I eat eggs and bacon in the morning, do push-ups before bed time, and ‘Look hot’ is always on my to-do list (right before ‘Go out into the world and kick some ass’).
I can get what I want.
But I can’t get it alone.
So I pull over to ask for directions. I never turn down a free lesson in anything, and when life gives me lemons, I find someone who wants lemons and sell them at a premium.
I am bullshit-intolerant, because lying only complicates everything.
I assume that assuming is a bad idea, and that trying to change people is not my job.
I am replaceable, but I bust up my ass to make sure it’s not so obvious. I never give up, I never give in, and when somebody makes me really angry, I do fifty pushups. (That will show ‘em).
While I know that most people don’t bite, I know the ones that do are usually worse off than me.
So I help strangers carry heavy things.
I never let anyone ruin my day and if I have time to judge someone, I’ll judge myself.
I am not for everyone and everyone is not for me.
So, I just do me,
one day at a time
and see what happens.

You Don’t Have to be Successful

Success is an obsession.

Many people want it more than anything else. And they’ll sacrifice everything to have it – which is often the cost of admission.

I know sport coaches who consider themselves the ultimate beast and they want to beat anybody in the region. They ask me if I will participate in the CrossFit Open (The CrossFit Games Open is the world’s premier test of fitness. Since 2011, the five-week five-workout online competition has accurately ranked the fitness of millions of competitors), and I’ll answer that I will participate at my local gym, but I don’t really care about my ranking with the world. I do CrossFit to keep my General Physical Preparedness “for anything in life”, not to become stronger, fitter, badasser – all the time. It’s Training, not a Sport. It keeps me fit, strong and happy in life.

I know business owners here in Phnom Penh who are having a daily struggle to come out as the best with their business, trying to beat the competition wherever they can. Seriously, every day!

I know local athletic runners, who love doing marathons (seriously, the full 42 km) every few months. They need to run three times a week and they need to “make better times” every time. Anything less than last week’s time on the track field is seen as a failure.

And then you are the beast. And then you are the most profitable business man. And you win all marathons.

You don’t have to.

I made that big, bold and italic and larger for a reason.

There is the problem. Sustaining success, and going beyond success is nearly impossible for most people. Hence Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism, questions, “Why don’t successful people and organizations automatically become very successful?”

McKeown’s answer is succinct: Success is a catalyst for failure.

Being invisible is easy. When you make mistakes, you’re the only one who notices. Even being the underdog is easy. If you fail, you’re justified in doing so.

But when the spotlight is on you, everyone is waiting for you to fail. The external pressure often becomes too overpowering, smothering the values and vision it took to become successful in the first place.

Which is why success is often a short-lived experience. People come and go. Very few remain on top for long.

It is true in all domains of life. If you succeed in business, life doesn’t get easier. It gets harder.

This is where I throw in achievement.

The difference between success and achievement is subtle but crucial. Success is a subjective feeling about how you’re doing relative to why you’re doing it. Achievement is an objective measure about what you’ve actually done.

Yet, success is far more important than achievement. Indeed, you could have all the achievements in the world and not be successful.

You see this all the time, people who have many external indicators of success, yet inwardly, they are a wreck. They’ve lost their why, and thus, no longer remember the reason they are pursuing their goals in the first place.

What once was a genuine passion has now become a need for more external validation. An endless need to acquire and achieve more. Thus, rather than focusing on why, the focus becomes on what will work, and doing as much of that as possible, most likely at the expense of your values.

Interestingly, many successful entrepreneurs admit to being happier before they were “successful,” back when their motivations were congruent with their values. Achievement poisoned them, and their motivation changed.

If “success” is your primary objective, you probably won’t get it. Chasing success is like chasing happiness. You can’t pursue it directly. Both success and happiness ensue from something far more fundamental — who you are.

Don’t let your ego inflate and forget who you really are. This happened to me in the past year when I pursued dreams that didn’t come out in the end. I had to be better, faster and more successful – no matter what. If I had abandoned all my own values I would also loose the most important people in my life. And I almost lost them all.

With whatever you do in life. Don’t forget your “why.” That may be the hardest thing you do as you seek to improve your life.

I realized I am most happy when I do what I do because I enjoy it. I am compelled to create, experiment and improve, because that’s who I am.

My name is Ramon Stoppelenburg.
I break mold.
After a workout.
And before dinner.