Monday Musings 18 November 2024: Face-to-face interactions are like Wi-Fi for humans (but better!)

I just returned from a conference in Greece (I know, I know – the sacrifices I make for work). I expected the mind-blowing Acropolis views to be the highlight of this trip. But while casually waving at the Parthenon during coffee breaks was definitely a highlight, it was the unexpected moments of connection with colleagues […]
Monday Musings 30 September: Does adulting feel like a constant car crash?

Does your life ever feel like one giant, slow-motion car crash? Mine does. Regularly. But it turns out feeling like a totaled Toyota is pretty normal. Even healthy. According to a reel by Dr. Lisa Damour, the wellness industry has been low-key gaslighting us with this whole ‘achieve inner peace through scented candles and meditation’ […]
Monday Musings 5 August: Life, when a hundredth of a second counts! (And your brilliant idea is just 5% away)

Akani Simbine. Remember that name. In yesterday’s 100m final, the South African ran his heart out. And guess what? So did three other guys! A photo finish where a hundredth of a second – literally – separated glory from “oh well, there’s always next time.” This, for me, is personal. We practically live at the […]
Monday Musings 10 June: You call it GNU, Belgium calls it spaghetti

As a Belgian living in South Africa, watching the formation of South Africa’s first coalition is like a ‘Groundhog Day’ of epic proportions. You call it a ‘GNU’, in Belgium we call it a spaghetti government. It’s a tangled mess of policies and power struggles where even seasoned politicians end up with sauce on their […]
Monday Musings 22 April: All I need is 8 minutes… and a pineapple

Today marks 207 weeks of writing the Monday Musings. That’s 1449 days of navigating the glorious chaos that life has been since the pandemic. How did it all start? As the Big Ambitions team, we wanted to inject some clarity, empathy, and humour in an upside-down world. (We even had a Monday Musing called: “Have […]
Monday Musings 19 February: Why you need a Skid and Slide course to navigate life

It’s only February and I’m already feeling like everything has been hurling at me at 200km/h this year. Life in 2024 feels a bit like an obstacle course on a game show. You know the ones where you’re half expecting to face-plant into a mud pit while the audience roars with laughter. I’m dodging work […]
Monday Musings 30 October: In rugby, we share backward. In unity, we move forward.

Image credit: Flickr Government ZA It’s probably the wrong time to admit this, but I’m not that into rugby. I don’t really understand the rules. I cheer at the screen at random times in the hope I get it right, but I’m never quite sure. I’m like this little dude. And, although I’ve been told […]
Monday Musings 28 August: Are you a hopeless mess? Or brilliantly creative?

I wouldn’t immediately describe myself as a ‘hopeless mess’, but those who know me would say I can be a little ‘disorganised’ and ‘scatterbrained’. My desk is flooded with scraps of papers. At any given time, I have a thousand tabs open on my computer. And let’s not even start discussing the state of my […]
Monday Musings 26 June: What you think about in the shower could shape your destiny!

For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn. It’s the shortest, most impactful story ever written. The story goes that Ernest Hemingway wrote the gut-punching line to win a bet against his writer friends. Of course, there’s no evidence that such a bet ever took place, and some even question whether Hemingway really wrote it. It does […]