Happy new year everybody,

I haven't been posting here the past weeks, but I wanted to take this occasion as a final huge THANK YOU to everybody that continued reading these over the past three years!
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This entry will be a final long edition covering the goals of the past years and the intentions that are seeded for the next. If you want to see where things continue to go I invite you all to subscribe to the Source Journal of Askara here: https://askara.solutions/​
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If not, I thank you as our online paths part here! No hard feelings. This newsletter has been an incredible instrument for accountability over the passed years and without it I wouldn't be were I'm at now.

You can read my entire reflection down below.

Enjoy!

✍🏻 Week 52, 2025: The Final Entry - Three Years of Showing Up

This will be the last newsletter I write from this personal medium. Over the past few weeks I’ve already been posting through the Askara newsletter, and now I want to officially close this chapter with a final Winter Solstice assessment.

Three years of weekly writing. Only breaks around funerals and our wedding. What started as an experiment has become proof of how malleable reality actually is.

The Transformation

The difference between the beginning and end of this year is like night and day.

I have a successful startup now. I’m married. My investment theses are paying off. But these external markers only hint at something deeper that shifted. I feel I’ve undergone a true transformation from boy into manhood this year. The inner work with Lorin Krenn played a fundamental role in making that possible.

When I look back at who started this journalling practice three years ago, I barely recognise him. Not because he was wrong about things, but because he was still searching. Still experimenting. Still figuring out what shape his contribution to the world would take.

That searching has crystallised into something concrete. Askara exists. A team operates with genuine trust. Products are being used by real people. The vision that felt abstract back then now has form and momentum.

Some realisations have emerged along the way that are reshaping how I want to share going forward.

The first is about privacy. Some things are too personal for the internet. With Askara starting to work out, I don’t want everything about my life available publicly anymore. It was fine while experimenting with no real family responsibilities. But all of that is changing. Marriage changes things. Building something real changes things. The openness that served the searching phase doesn’t serve this new chapter the same way.

The second realisation is about natural evolution. The Wheel of Life framework I’ve used for goalsetting, dividing topics into Mission, Health, and Relationships, is transforming on its own. The Mission section has been almost completely absorbed by Askara. That’s where the public facing path forward lives now.

Health and Relationships will become more private. I’m returning these topics to physical journalling, something I genuinely enjoy. There’s a different quality to pen on paper. A different kind of processing happens. And I love how journalling continuously evolves with you, always finding new forms as you change.

Looking Forward: Mission

My book is published. The newsletter has shifted. YouTube efforts are making way for content we want to create with Askara.

What strikes me most is how the systems I developed for writing this newsletter formed the foundation for embracing AI in writing authentic content. The weekly discipline of processing experiences into words taught me what my voice sounds like. That knowledge becomes essential when you’re collaborating with AI tools. You need to know what authentic sounds like before you can recognise when something rings false.

Seeds are being planted for a new book. This one would be about the philosophies and approaches I’ve developed over these years in structuring organisations. The content strategy follows teachings from Dickie and Cole at Ship30for30: use real work as inspiration, repurpose insights as social media content, learn what resonates, and let those signals guide the crystallisation of something larger. All while serving as genuine value for people interested in these ideas.

On the financial side, there’s something I haven’t spoken much about because it feels like bragging. But for the sake of honest reflection on this year’s goals: the price of gold and silver has skyrocketed. Silver in particular.

For years I’ve anticipated this move in precious metals. I was convinced there was heavy market manipulation that wasn’t sustainable long term. Building a stack of physical silver over the years felt like a quiet bet against conventional wisdom. Watching that thesis prove right over the past year has been deeply satisfying. Not just financially, but as validation that trusting your own analysis can pay off even when it takes years to materialise.

Silver is used heavily in electronics. With all the AI datacentres being built right now, demand for physical silver is higher than ever. This trend isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

This insight shaped a new investment thesis over the past year. Rather than focusing on AI companies themselves, I’m looking at what’s fundamentally necessary to sustain the AI era: silver, rare earths, and energy. Over the summer I started building an ETF portfolio in the energy sector with special focus on uranium and semiconductors. With silver now branded by the US as an essential mineral, I’ve also found renewed excitement for mining companies focused on this metal.

It’s all connected. The bet on AI through Askara. The bet on what sustains AI through investments. Different expressions of the same conviction about where things are heading.

Looking Forward: Health

The ring training and bulking intentions didn’t survive the year. At first this felt like failure. But sitting with it longer revealed something more important than any fitness goal.

This year was incredibly busy. Transitioning from freelancing to a startup while organising a wedding stretched my capacity to its limits. I was aware that this level of busyness required sacrificing some activities. What I wasn’t aware of was a deeper unconscious pattern repeating itself each year.

I have this tendency to accumulate work related projects over the course of a year. I usually complete them one way or another. But this means compromising on quality for end results and sacrificing personal goals that matter to me. The pattern is subtle enough that I don’t notice it happening until I’m already deep in the consequences.

This year I’m setting out to break that pattern.

I’ve devised what I’m calling a hard ceiling policy that I’ll maintain in a large physical journal. The practice is simple: create my perfect week, then check in weekly on whether I actually maintained it. When personal things get sacrificed, I track it. Every month I make intentional decisions about which projects stay, which get removed, which get replaced.

The underlying shift is about becoming CEO of my life, not just my company. Taking all efforts and initiatives equally seriously. Not letting work consume everything else I think is important. It sounds obvious when stated plainly, but actually implementing it requires structural support. Hence the tracking system.

This year I won’t focus on guarding time for more physical habits. Instead I’m prioritising mental health through pursuing something creative: intuitive painting.

I want to develop the skill of getting more in touch with my internal world by learning to express it through art. I’ve always loved painting but never developed real technique. This year I’ll start taking classes to build actual skills.

What makes this feel different from past hobby intentions is that I want to tie it to something larger. Something tangible that creates accountability. Seeds are being planted for organising some type of exposition by year’s end. The idea feels big and scary, which is exactly the point. Growth lives on the other side of comfort zones.

Looking Forward: Relationships

After a grandiose wedding in the Prosecco hills, some mental capacity has opened up for new next steps in our social life.

The Housing Question

Since the beginning of this journalling chapter, I’ve been sharing plans about communal living. This ambition made us choose not to buy a house, wanting to remain flexible for when the right opportunity appeared. But sadly nothing has materialised yet. What has materialised is a certain resentment towards missing out on exploding real estate prices in the Netherlands.

This feels like a failure, honestly. We tried joining intentional communities abroad. We explored building something on my parents’ old estate. Now we’re looking for co-housing solutions with Daan and Majo. Part of things not working out yet, is because I couldn’t prioritise them enough amidst everything else. But I also held this conviction that the right opportunity would present itself naturally. It hasn’t.

A few weeks ago I discovered a Dutch platform called Crowdbuilding where communal housing initiatives are presented and you can easily connect with them or post your own. Seeing this increased interest in alternative housing in The Netherlands has raised my hopes somewhat. I’m willing to keep moving in this direction through the coming year.

The seed being planted now is a hybrid approach. We’d look for a renting situation in a communal setting while separately buying real estate as investment opportunities we wouldn’t necessarily live in ourselves. This way we could benefit from communal living without relying on complex financial constructions with people we’d barely know.

I’m particularly drawn to buying property in Italy, close to Chiara’s family. Something we could use for visits ourselves, and put on Airbnb most of the year. This requires significant research and financial preparation, but that’s the intention for the coming quarter.

Adventures on the Horizon

After our own wedding, we have several friends’ weddings coming up. These special occasions have always resulted in amazing trips, and I want to use them as excuses for something extra this year. Something more adventurous.

We have four weddings on the schedule taking us across the world: China, Portugal, India, and one at home in The Hague. They’re spread nicely throughout the year, and side quests are already forming. Like camping on unrestored sections of the Great Wall of China. I’m certain we’ll dream up equally memorable experiences for the other journeys.

The Closing

I’ve grown increasingly excited over the past days thinking about the coming year. But before stepping fully into what’s next, I want to honour what this practice has been.

The original intention three years ago was simple: develop a writing habit and content strategy while figuring out what I wanted to do.

It worked beyond anything I could have imagined.

The accountability of other people reading these entries shaped the practice into something consistent. Every week, regardless of what was happening, I showed up at the page. That discipline compounded into something far greater than any individual entry. The clarity it brought. The frameworks it helped me develop. The way it forced me to actually process experiences rather than just move through them numbly.

This journalling practice is the ultimate proof, to me, of how malleable reality is. You can write something into existence. You can declare intentions and watch them take form. Not magically, but through the compound effect of showing up repeatedly with honest reflection.

Everything I’ve built traces back to this practice in some way. The thinking that became Askara. The inner work that prepared me for marriage. The investment theses that required years of conviction. The person I’ve become who can hold all of this.

What started as figuring things out has become a life I’m genuinely proud of.

This was my last personal newsletter entry. Hopefully it stands as proof of what three years of consistent journalling can create. What becomes possible when you commit to honest reflection, week after week, even when you don’t feel like it.

Maybe it inspires you to take control over actively creating your own reality as well.

With care, Ben

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P.S. If you’ve ever wanted to live more in sync with the flow of life, my Start Tapping Into Source email course might be just what you need. It’s a simple system for aligning your inner and outer worlds through intentional practices. Ready to dive in? Check it out here.​

P.S.S Have you ever wondered how aligning your journaling practice with the seasons of the year could amplify your growth? My Tuning into the Seasons course dives deep into this practice, showing you how to ride the natural ebb and flow of life for clarity, growth, and balance. Curious? Learn more here.​
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