A short twenty years ago, you had to go full-on Sherlock Holmes to figure things out. If you wanted a particular recipe or wanted to learn a new skill, you had to go to the library, know the right people, and be in the right spot at the exact right time. Even then, it wasn't sure you would get the...
Hey, I’m Dennis stoelwinder
I write about things that make us reconnect with our inner world, so we can do better in the outer world.
Download my free ebook and get 11 ideas that will challenge you to radically improve your life.
Life’s a Bitch, Here’s How to Tame It
When transcending from being a child to an adult, it’s almost certain that life turns out a disappointment. All the magic uncle Disney showed us, and the 'you can be anything you want’ crap we were bombarded with don’t translate very well into maturity. I still remember vividly how I used to play...
5 Ways to Not Go Insane During the Corona Lockdown
Let’s say it’s 2030 and the world is thriving again, and this whole Corona thing is way behind us. Will you be able to look back at yourself and say that you did the right thing? Can you tell inspiring stories about that tragic time in the ’20s where shit hit the fan and the whole world was in...
How to Stop Feeling Like You’re Not Good Enough
Meet Joe. Joe is what you call an average man. If you passed him on the street, you'd probably not even notice him. Joe works an ordinary job, drives a 10-year-old car, and makes just enough to pay the monthly bills. Every year he takes his wife and three sons on a two-week holiday. Nothing...
What If We Were Brutally Honest
When was the last time you were brutally honest? When you spoke your mind in a bold and authentic way. So bold, that five minutes later, you didn’t know if you could ever show your face again, but it felt so damn good inside. Chances are you can’t even recall the last time you did exactly...
You Can Do Anything but Not Everything
In the pursuit of happiness, we try a lot of things to find our personal pot of gold. You know, that thing that will make us ultimately happy. That place where unicorns shit rainbows and life is one big excitement orgy. Trying new things is cool, but when you always stick to trying,...
How to Be Happy Again
Some things in life, we get fundamentally wrong. One of those things is happiness. Once we were happy, now we’re not, and we want to know how to be happy again. The obvious answer is to find happiness, and so we go on a journey to find it. If we find it, we hold on to happiness in eternity....
Consumerism and the Lost Art of Creativity
What if inventor Thomas Edison (1847 - 1931) could get a glimpse of how we live now? What would good ol’ Thomas think? I’m pretty sure his face would melt from awe and disbelief. All because in the last 100 years, very creative people have solved mind-boggling problems and made things better,...
Let Go of the Idea That Your Life Could Have Been Anything Else
Remember when life was all about landing your first job and staying there until retirement? When it was about marrying your high school sweetheart and raising 2,3 kids together? When it was about buying the house with the white picket fence? Remember that? Yeah, me neither. This idea makes...
Love and Rejection
1.2 million followers on Instagram, DM’s for booty calls by the dozens, shoutouts on every corner of the internet, and still Amanda felt empty inside every time she looked in the mirror. Well, looking in the mirror is a big statement. After a couple of seconds of eye contact with her reflection,...
Reclaim the Freedom to Be Your Curious Self
Billy was always an adventurous little fella. As a toddler, he would open every cabin, lick whatever was within his reach, and was highly fascinated by everything that happened in nature. In kindergarten, he was always the one taking the lead. Billy would make up fun games and be extremely curious...
The Eternal Struggle for Identity and Purpose
Who’s your favorite superhero? I bet you have one, I know I do. I like the more aggressive ones, the bad-asses with anger issues. Not sure why. They just resonate with me. You know, The Hulk, Wolverine, The Punisher. I even resonate with Thanos, who took over the Universe to kill half of it and...
When All Is Right I Can Be Anything, but It Rarely Is
Sean was just 46 when it all came to an end. There were still tracks on the ice from the kids skating and having fun that day. They didn’t have the slightest clue of the tragedy that would happen just a couple of feet away in the bushes where Sean had laid his head to rest. Later that night, Sean...
The Virtue of Patience
Dave and Joey are waiting for the bus. Dave is enjoying the wind in his face, the smell of fresh raindrops on the concrete, the dynamics between people. His heart rate is low, his mind is clear, he has a smile on his face, and he feels good. He is patient. He is not even waiting on the bus; he...
A Counter-Intuitive Approach to Escaping the System
From the moment our dad's most potent sperm cell colluded with our mom's fertile egg, we belong to a system. Throughout our lives, we encounter many different systems. We enter them, leave them, and stay in them from the moment we are born until we leave this giant rock called earth. They are...
Attention Is a Finite Resource and We’re Going Bankrupt
Last Monday my washing machine broke. Three days later, the dishwasher. The misses text me while I was at work. “The washing machine broke down; I smell rubber”. I respond with “Fuck! Not now!”, like there ever is a convenient time for shit to break down. Slightly annoyed, I get back to work, but...
The Process in Between: Why You Should Always Finish What You Start
Life is built out of a million little decisions. Whether you snooze or not in the morning affects if you will take a shower, if you will eat a healthy breakfast, and so on. Every tiny decision is a block in a process, and if you don’t stack the blocks one on another properly, eventually, the thing...
Some People Feel the Rain – Others Just Get Wet
Complaining is a bit like eating. In one hand, I have the absolute best pizza slice, handmade in Sicily by the godfather of Italian pizza. In my other hand, I have an old, rotten sandwich with something in the middle that looks a bit like cheese. Which hand would you pick? Unless you have some...
The 24/7 Hustle: The Biggest Disease of This Era
It seems like everyone wants to be the next superstar entrepreneur, the next Arnold Schwarzenegger, the next person on the magazine covers, the next one that goes viral. And to become that we have to hustle. You know, “do whatever it takes and give it all you got”. We have to sleep just 2 hours a...
When You Feel like Your Life Is Falling Apart
I can't write this article because there are a million and one things going on in my life that need my attention. There's the toddler, the misses, the family, the new job, the bills, my friends, the weather sucks; the world is falling apart. A million things are going on, and I just can't find the...
Voices and Echoes
I like silence. I like a good conversation as well, where someone speaks his truth, but if I had to choose, talking is out the door. Talking isn't really necessary for a good conversation anyway. "Silence is pure. it draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can...
The Gift of Children: 6 Things My Toddler Taught Me About Life
Kids are awesome, and if we pay close attention, there's a life lesson around every corner. Grown-ups are awesome as well, but they forgot they are. If you can't see your own awesomeness anymore, how can someone else? It's like being able to sing like a bird but never opening your mouth, nobody...
Fuck It, I Quit
Whenever I hear someone say "fuck it", my spider-senses get triggered, my ears open wide, and my vision becomes that of a hawk. I know someone is about to quit something. I'm not talking about the "I don't give a fuck" attitude from being indifferent and utterly insecure. I'm talking about a...
The Tragedy of Not Knowing Who You Are
Do you struggle with not knowing who you are? Then it's time to find out, but before you start the journey of finding yourself, let me ask you an important question: Who are you? You've heard this question before, and you can probably answer it immediately, but that's not the answer I'm looking...
This Is Why You Keep Losing in Life
Losing isn't pleasant, and so we try to avoid it at all costs. Being called a loser in high school has probably caused many traumatic experiences that still play a role in our adult lives. Being a loser in high school meant you sucked, you lost, you failed. You weren't the cool kid (anymore), your...
Stop Watching the News, Now
Research shows we have around 70.000 thoughts a day. Not sure how one counts those, but that's a lot of thoughts if you think (whoops, another thought) about it, but not necessarily a problem. What is concerning is that another research shows 80% of our thoughts are negative, just like the news....
The Paradox of Pursuing a Better Life
Humans are a rare species of Mother Nature. In contrast to our fellow inhabitants on the globe, we continuously look for ways to improve and become a better person. This is why we are the dominant force on earth, and why we are responsible for a lot what is happening to nature. In general, we can...
The Deception of Our Aspiring Minds
In the race to the bottom, the mind has taken first place from the body. Taking the crown from heart-attacks, diabetes, obesity, and other illnesses, depression is now the number one illness in the world. Remarkably, this is the first time a mental condition is more common than a physical...
Remember, You Will Die
Talking about death falls in the same category as income, politics, and religion; it’s a taboo. Where the last three are avoided not to stir up heated conversations or comparisons, the first is avoided because we don’t want to think about it. It makes us uncomfortable, scared,, and vulnerable....
The Gradual Death of the Individual
We came a long way in modern-day society. We traded our caves for smart homes and prolonged our life from 30 till over 100. And we have all the information we ever need at the tip of our fingers and went from an honest fistfight, with blood on the walls, to bashing each other on the internet. Not...
The Meditation of Everyday Life
Life can become a string of meaningless events. We do one thing after the other, without paying any real attention to it. If you ask a random person what they did an hour ago, or what they had for dinner last night, chances are they stare into the depths of the universe to come up with nothing...
From Wandering Generality to Meaningful Specific in a Distracted World
Generation Y is the new big thing. The generation born between roughly the beginning of the eighties and the end of the nineties. The millennials, the game changers, the digital entrepreneurs who want to impact the world for a better. The generation that follows their passion. Great times are...
Abundance and the Paradox of Choice
Imagine four guys, age 20'ish, sitting at a table in a bar with a beer. There's no chatter because everybody is faced down with their heads in their phones, fully distracted. Every now and then one of the guys looks up and says "hey, look at this, this is funny". Two guys ignore him, one looks up,...
5 Lessons in Mastery from a World Class Sushi Chef
I’m a firm believer that no matter what you do, pursuing mastery should always be part of the process. Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you land among the stars. The obvious country to visit for mastery is Japan. Land of the rising sun, geishas, and samurais. This isn’t a piece about any of...