Coaching, reloaded - Coaching question of the day #256. - Something splurge-worthy for you

If you have been reading some of the coaching questions of the day during the last eight months (!), I am sure you noticed a recurring pattern about avoiding generalizations and, even more, about realizing that what makes sense for some people and maybe even for most people doesn't have to make sense for you at all costs.

So it will be not so surprising for you when I say that a splurge, like many other things, lies in the eye of the beholder: What's a perfectly reasonable splurge for you could feel not suitable under any circumstances for someone else or, on the contrary, not even worth mentioning for others.

[Something splurge-worthy for me?

Tattoos, healthy food, coffee table books,

good shoes, a massage. How about you?]

What's splurge-worthy for you could be cringeworthy for others, and the other way around may also be true. And that's okay. 

One pivotal mental switch in the way you are thinking about money - Part I

Lately, someone told me that they read somewhere that the difference between poor people and rich people can be spotted thanks to two questions. You are considering a purchase?

Poor people ask themselves: "Can I afford this?".

Rich people ask themselves: "How can I afford this?".

It may be true, to some extent.

Still, a way more important question is missing, in my opinion.

[Besides basic items needed for survival,

the question should not be "How can I afford something?", 

but "What do I want to afford in the first place?"]

As long as we are not talking about something pivotal for surviving (food, water, shelter, and so on), the very first question should be "Is this worth my money, my time, my work?".

More on this on the next posts.

Stay tuned!

Tags: Minimalism, Minimalism life, Minimalist principles, Alternative lifestyle, Money mindset

What to read next:

Why decluttering one's life, one day at the time, could be the most important thing you will ever do - Introduction


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A different take on how these holidays can help you change your life over time? 10 posts for you - Part #1.

You don't have to go as far as Kate Beringer (Phoebe Cates) in Joe Dante's Gremlins for not liking Christmas and Christmas presents. Before this powerful reframing, I was not that much into Christmas as well, to use a big understatement.

[What's the perfect book to give as a present? *

Wait, I have a different idea...

Pic: Me, December 2018 © Radoslaw Kosiada]

Now, while seeing Christmas as a wonderful chance to make a difference and to give back, even better if in a meaningful and minimalistic way, I prepared for you a list of 10 posts from the blog that can help you change your life over time, embrace a new mindset, switch gears and learn how to love all the baby steps that are necessary for achieving something big, where "big" means "something big for you", in whatever shape and form this can be.

Here you have the first five posts. Enjoy and stay tuned for Part #2. of the list!

Short and sweet motivational questions for your self-care #12. The t-shirt each of us should wear every day

He's smiling and talking with passion about what moves and motivates him. I'm listening attentively, and I smile back, because we are on the same page about so many things.

When he's about to close the zipper of his sweatshirt, I suddenly notice the slogan on his t-shirt:

Everything is my fault

[What if you would wear a t-shirt like this

every single day, and you would live by its message?]

And so I smile even more. We're on the same page, once more.

Lunchbreak at Dussmann #1. Books in display - Unicorns, flamingos, mermaids or llamas?

In Blake Edwards' classic movie adaptation of Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, the socialite Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn, the one and only) explains to her puzzled and amused neighbor Paul Varjak (George Peppard, also gorgeous) what to do when you have the mean reds, that could be probably described as a sort of panic attack or anxiety attack:

Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place that'd make me feel like Tiffany's, then - then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name!

[Nobody was able to rock the little black dress like this lady:

Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly,

dressed by Hubert de Givenchy, with Edith Head's supervision]

I like to think that, mean reds aside, we all have our own personal version of Tiffany's.
A kind of magic place where you can switch mood in a matter of seconds and feel safe, in peace and full of hope that, no matter what, everything is going to be alright, eventually. Every single time.

I am so lucky that I even have twice magic places: Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Garden and Dussmann.

Cool places to discover: Ekoplaza, the plastic-free aisle in Amsterdam

Ekoplaza is a Dutch organic supermarket, located in Amsterdam and soon in The Hague as well, where customers can find plenty of plastic-free goods packaged in glass, metal containers, cardboard, and other compostable biomaterials. 

It sounds like a very good shopping solution for every person interested in ethical consumerism, minimalism, downsizing, and environmentally friendly stores.

If you are in Amsterdam, check it out and feel free to let me know what you think!

Tags: Ekoplaza, Plastic-free aisle, Shopping, Amsterdam, Minimalism

What to read next:

Why decluttering one's life, one day at the time, could be the most important thing you will ever do - Introduction 

Visiting the blog for the first time? Aloha!

Where to start, if you are new

Why decluttering one's life, one day at the time, could be the most important thing you will ever do - Part 2. Minimalist living - How this shapes my life every day (#7.-8.)

Have you ever met a person that truly likes Mondays?
Yes, me neither.

In order to make this Monday more enjoyable for you and for me, today I am following up with the last post of the Minimalism series about the elements that define what minimalist living is for me.

After long-term shopping, meaningful spending, decluttering, downsizing, clean eating and honesty about wants and needs, here you can find the last pieces of my personal "minimalist living" system:

#7. Pursuing only goals that are meaningful to me. 
More on this one in the post related to emotional minimalism, but as a short sneak peek: instead of aspiring to be or to become the person that others want me or even worse expect me to be, I chose to be and to become the person that I want to be.

[This is my wallpaper at work 
so that I can have a chance 

to read this quote on a daily basis:

"What you get by achieving your goals 
is not as important

as what you become by achieving your goals".

It is sometimes attributed to Goethe 
or Henry David Thoreau,

I know it as a quote by Zig Ziglar]

In order to achieve this and to live by this commitment to myself, I pursue only goals that are meaningful to me, even if most people would never get why or what for I do what I do or behave like I behave.
An example: getting to the point of having 66% of my body being tattooed before turning 41.

Why decluttering one's life, one day at the time, could be the most important thing you will ever do - Part 2. Minimalist living - How this shapes my life every day (#5.-6.)

In the previous post of this Minimalism series, I explained how long-term shopping, meaningful spending, decluttering and downsizing add value to my life, one day at the time.
Here you can find two further elements that define what minimalist living is for me:

#5. Eating nurturing food of good quality on a daily basis. 
Whole foods, paleo diet, low carb, high carb, ketogenic diet, traditional cuisine, halal, kosher, your grandmother's recipes book...

The mileage may vary depending on someone's age, physical and health conditions, geographical area, blood type, religious or spiritual belief system.
In my opinion, every person should go for food that helps them to feel happy, fit and able to deal with their activities and with their lives in the best way possible. What works for someone could not work for someone else.

[Saisonal, fresh and tasty ingredients, 

perfect for a yummy salad bowl

Image credit: ISO Republic]

To me, this means:

From clean eating recipes to green smoothies, from ketogenic diet to stuffed panini, gluten-free friendly places to try out in Berlin

Are you feeling like having a piece of cake and yet you want to try out gluten-free desserts?

In Berlin for a weekend and curious about special places normal tourists usually didn't visit?

How about something healthy and delicious and a little bit bigger than life?

[When millennial pink is not only a stunning color, 

but also something super-tasty to try out:

Healthy Raw Red Velvet Fudge

(no bake, sugar free, low carb, gluten-free)

©Desserts with Benefits]

As promised here, a short and sweet list of gluten-free friendly places to try out (and to fall in love with) in Berlin:

Bowls and clean eating

The Bowl

Warschauer Str. 33, 10243 Berlin

Located in Friedrichshain near the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn stations, in the same building where you can find vegan supermarket Veganz and vegan shoes store Avesu, offers a fresh and seasonal menu dedicated to clean eating, with lots of vegan and gluten-free options.

"What would have Marie Antoinette notoriously not said, instead of "Let them eat cake", in a gluten-free world?", or the one about how it feels to live with celiac disease

How would your life look like without pizza, without pasta, without bread?
Can you imagine that?

And can you imagine a life without cookies, cakes, muffins, cupcakes, brownies and amaretti, donuts, biscuits, waffles, croissants, baklava, strudel?

Without grissini, tacos, burritos, food in breadcrumbs, bruschetta, piadine, churros, crackers, baguettes, and pies?

Without licorice, chocolate bars, ice cream and ice cream cones, French fries and potato chips, biscuits and crisps, savory snacks and crunchy cereals?

Without rolls, wraps, sandwiches, toasts, panini, sweet buns?

Without bulgur, soba noodles, couscous, chapati bread, focaccia, calzoni, and soja sauce?

Pastry of any kind, anyone?

Can you? Would you? Should you?

[Kirsten Dunst as the Queen Marie Antoinette

in Sofia Coppola's underrated biopic 
released in 2006.

It is very unlikely that the French Queen 
ever said "Let them eat cake". 

Still, what would have people misattributed 
to her in a gluten-free world? 

"Let them eat Cañihua and caramel scented popped Amaranth"!? ]

It would look like the life that, just until one generation ago, most people affected by the celiac disease were forced to live.

Not because going gluten-free was the ultimate hipster hype, not because some celebrity said that gluten is evil, not because they wanted to lose weight, but just because they had no choice.

Why decluttering one's life, one day at the time, could be the most important thing you will ever do - Part 2. Minimalist living - How this shapes my life every day (#1.-4.)

Coco Chanel, featured in 1999 in TIME magazine's "Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century", is still one of the most well known and most quoted fashion designers to have ever lived, and doesn't need any kind of introduction.

Madame was all about quality over quantity, and she was used to saying: "Once you've dressed, and before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take at least one thing off". She knew that, way more often than we'd like to think, less is more.

["Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance",

or said in another way: quality over quantity matters]

Just like the timeless style created by the woman that invented the little black dress and chose the future Chanel No.5 among different perfume samples presented to her, minimalist living is not a fortuitous occurrence.

Embracing a minimalist living means being bold enough to take the path less traveled and smart enough to make the right decisions and to adjust your trajectory on the way, every time that you need to.

Why decluttering one's life, one day at the time, could be the most important thing you will ever do - Part 2. Minimalist living

What are the five items you would bring with you on a deserted island?

What would you buy at any cost, while living on a budget, and why?

What are the possessions that energize you and make your life better, and what are the ones that suck energy and life out of you?

(And here we are again, with Marie Kondo's suggestion about verifying if a specific item sparks joy or not)

[Minimalist living comes in many shapes, forms, and flavors -

Just like in this amazing unicorn multi-layered cake.

What's yours?]

For some of you, these can look like mundane or rhetorical questions, and yet they are not, at least if one is truly interested in minimalist living. They are, in a nutshell, what minimalist living is all about:

Just yet another epic DHL delivery fail, or the three pivotal elements while building (and keeping) trust in a relationship - Part I

Shopping for products online can be exciting, funny, time-consuming, smart, interesting, frugal, money-draining, surprising, safe, addictive, disappointing. 

And even if what you purchased is exactly how you were expecting it to be and you are not experiencing one of the more and more common online shopping epic fails that go viral these days, after purchasing something online you probably feel a little bit nervous until that very special moment where, after such a long waiting and so much patience, you are going to hold the package in your hands, at last.

[Not a long time ago, happiness was...

being in love with someone that loves you back.

Now happiness is way more mail-related]

Funny merchandising for Jane Austen fans: Jane Austen bandages and beautiful stamps

You may or may not know that I really admire Jane Austen and her work. And that I consider her one of the best English writers of the last centuries, even if other writers (including the otherwise awesome Mark Twain) and a lot of literary critics were not always that crazy about her.

[Classy parody of Jane Austen 

as modern and a little bit pompous Hollywood screenwriter]

And yet Jane Austen is still absolutely popular and well-known, her persona reached the status of a pop culture icon (with new deductions about Miss Austen being murdered with arsenic, no more and no less) and her works keep providing the perfect materials for movies, plays, television adaptations, comics and graphic novels, re-writings with zombies or XXX sexual fantasies and... knitting sets as well.

This could not be enough for very die-hard fans of the British author, who can not find cookies, puzzles, jewelry and other stuff interesting any longer. What about a package of colorful Jane Austen bandages then?

Discovering Sushezi, a Sushi maker that simplifies preparing Sushi at home for Maki-lovers

As you already know, I rave about delicious Vegan Sushi and Vegan Frushi...

I could eat it every day. And yes, I enjoy it so much, that I write Sushi with a capital letter...

[Easy-to-follow instructions of Sushezi

Image source: Sushezi.Com]

Unfortunately Sushi and Frushi can be either expensive, or time-consuming, or they can mess your kitchen up. I know a couple of places in Berlin where eating Sushi is less expensive than usual, but eating Sushi every day? It's tempting, but not healthy, at least financially speaking.

That's why this week I was so happy to discover the Sushi maker Sushezi, produced in New Zealand since 2007. Why I am discovering it only now?!

But I am digressing from this interesting Sushi maker...

Its motto is "Perfect sushi made easy" and looking at the pics preparing Sushi at home looks really easy and "dummies-proof". And the rolls are perfectly formed, regular and neat.

[Sushezi instructions - Steps #1. to #5.]

According to the instructions for using Sushezi & preparing sushi rice tips (downloadable in PDF format on the official website and included in the package) it's possible to use the Sushi maker for preparing Maki at home in 10 easy steps, with fillings of your choice. 

In my case, it would be slices of avocadoes, cucumbers, celeries, carrots, bean sprouts, tofu, bananas, strawberries, apples...

What about you? 

[Sushezi instructions - Steps #6. to #10.]

Sushezi website has a simple, elegant and user-friendly layout and includes five common sections: 

1. Home 
2. Instructions 
3. Other uses 
4. Where to buy 
5. Contact us

Unfortunately "Where to buy" is currently listing only stores located in New Zealand, but there are international distributors for Argentina, Australia, France, Israel, North America, Republic of South Africa, Singapore, Spain, Ukraine and United Kingdom. And I have also seen Sushezi on Amazon and eBay.

The website is announcing the forthcoming publication of its first Sushezi recipe book and meanwhile it suggests other uses for Sushezi: Ginger-nut Log, Lolly Cake Roll, Chocolate salami, Walnut fudge rooll, Basic biscuits...

But I think I am going to focus on Vegan Sushi and Frushi. After all I have to catch up years without eating enough of it...

Did you already know Sushezi? (and if yes, why didn't you tell me?!)

Or do you have another Sushi-making procedure? Let me know in the comments!

Previous post:

Waiting for home-made Vegan Frushi...

Tags: Sushi maker, Frushi, Sushi, Vegan, Maki, Sushezi

Are you tired of museums and clubs but you still want to enjoy Berlin? Try out these 10 places instead

People sometimes ask me which my favorite places in Berlin are.

This seems to be a very easy and innocent question, but it isn't.

It's difficult to only give one answer since one of the things that I love most about Berlin is that it is unruhig, unsettled. 

Streets and places change fast, restaurants open and close fast, clubs shine and die fast. Shops renovate and move fast to a new district. Trends come and go fast. 

Everything changes, the city changes, people change. And yet the atmosphere is quite the same.

By walking on the streets, you get the impression that the city is living fast and that everything is possible. Not only for the city itself but also for you. Being part of it is magical.

[The Turkish bath in the Schokofabrik

Image source: Hamam at the Schokoladenfabrik]

I decided to list ten of my favorite places in Berlin anyway, but since on the internet you can already find plenty of tips about museums, cool sights, theaters, art exhibitions, and clubs, this is another kind of list. The numbers do not represent a ranking, however.

What if shock advertising would show what we don't want to see? Are you in?

After having the impression that everything has been already seen, showed, tried, experienced, and consumed... 

What can still shock the consumers and the audience?

Shock advertising is usually the answer. The answer most marketers are going to give.

[Domestic violence for a coffee, anyone?

Shock advertising is usually related to a specific culture and time:

what is shocking or gross now, 
could have been socially accepted in the past and viceversa]

What do you think about shock advertising? Does it make you feel uncomfortable or inspired?

Do you find some advertising campaigns interesting, original, funny, ironic? Are they pure genius and are able to start a conversation or are they just gross and unpleasant?

[Advertising promoted by IndyAct.Org

for the "Stop the Carnage" campaign]

Even if not always, I have overall a good opinion about very aggressive advertising campaigns because they force people to reflect on topics and subjects too often forgotten, such domestic violence, children abuse, racism, discrimination, organ donation, endangered species, human and animal rights, pollution and so on.

One of my favorite campaigns ever is a frightful portrait of a French anorexic girl created a couple of years ago by Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani:

Creative fashion design made in Berlin at The White Market

Do you like creative fashion design made in Berlin?
Then you have to take a look at what's next on The White Market calendar, in Kulturbrauerei in Prenzlauer Berg (Berlin, Germany) from July 17th, 2010 to September 11th, 2010.

Where and when

U-Bahn: U2 Eberswalder Straße
S-Bahn: Ringbahn S42, S47, S8
Tram: 12, 53, 50, 20
From noon to 7 PM

[Amateur Fashion]

Further information:
The White Market

Tags: Berlin, Fashion design, The White Market

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Rebel Without a Cause #1. Albert Camus

How easily can you say no?
How would you describe a rebel? (A real one)

On LinkedIn, I'm having a really interesting and proactive discussion about sustainability and I've decided to share with you one of my comments.

Qu'est-ce qu'un homme révolté? Un homme qui dit non.

(What is a rebel? A man who says no)

Albert Camus [1913-1960]
L'Homme révolté

Waiting for home-made Vegan Frushi...

I really enjoy eating sushi, or vegetarian maki, to be more precise, like Kappa Maki, Avocado Maki, Hoso Maki, and so on.

They are healthy, delicious, nutritious, vegan, and easy to prepare.

Ingredients are just rice, Nori seaweed, a little bit of sesame and slices of cucumber, avocado, carrots, pumpkin, or other vegetables. As much wasabi and ginger as you want, but no soy sauce for me, since it's often not gluten-free and I suffer from celiac disease.

In Berlin, it's very easy and convenient to go out for having sushi in some Thai or Chinese or Japanese restaurants, but what about Frushi?
Frushi is another kind of maki, prepared by using slices of fruits instead of slices of vegetables.

I haven't seen Frushi in any Berlin restaurants so far, beside of Avocado Maki, so I should learn how to prepare it by myself.

But meanwhile... I'm looking for this elegant Purple Weking rice cooker. If you should see it somewhere, please let me know!

Do you like Sushi too?
Do you prefer Sushi or Sashimi?

Tags: Rice cooker, Weking, Frushi, Sushi, Vegan, Purple shopping, Maki

What to read next:

Exotic and interesting restaurants to try out in Berlin - Asia (Indian, Japanese, Israeli, Korean, Vietnamese food... and more)

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