Make 5% your 100% Hi friend, last Saturday, we swam. 20 kilometers through the Danube, under 20 of Vienna’s bridges, with my friend Johannes. And then the messages (mails, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook...) started coming in. Swimmers and especially people who do not swim, who have never called themselves swimmers, wrote to tell me they got in the water that day too. A lake near them. A pool. The sea. They saw us go... ähmm... swim, and they went. Because of them, NF got heard. Radio....
9 days ago • 2 min read
Make 5% your 100% Hi friend, last Saturday was the M. Momentum. The people who get in the boat with you. That was the last of the four. S, W, I, M. The whole arc. Today, none of it is on paper anymore. Today is the 22nd. Today we swim. My shoulder has been hurting for weeks. It still is. This week I swam anyway. 6.7 kilometers one day. 6 the next with a shoulder that would not stop complaining the whole way. And 20 are planned for today. But Why? A faster time does nothing for me. Another...
16 days ago • 1 min read
Make 5% your 100% Hi friend, last Saturday was the I. Inner Belief. Believing you can before you have a shred of proof. I told you about a young man in a cold room in Innsbruck, calculus in front of him, no evidence anything would work, who opened the book one more time. Today, the last letter in SWIM. The M. Momentum. And this is the one people get wrong. They think momentum is willpower. Something you generate alone, by gritting harder. It is not. The momentum that carries you when...
23 days ago • 2 min read
Make 5% your 100% Hi friend, last Saturday was the W. Your why. I asked you to find the reason underneath the goal, the one that has nothing to do with the goal itself, and put it into a single line. Today, the I — Inner Belief. Believing you can, before you have the proof. Innsbruck. The apprentice years. No proof yet. Only a decision. It was after eleven at night. February. A small rented room in Innsbruck, the heater ticking in the corner. My eyes were burning. My back hurt. I had slept...
30 days ago • 3 min read
Make 5% your 100% Hi friend, last Saturday was Self-Leadership. The S. I asked you to catch yourself handing the wheel away, "I couldn't, because," "there wasn't time," and to take one piece back. To write it as an if-then and give the order in advance, while the calm version of you is still in charge. If you did it even once, you already know the strange part. Leading yourself is quiet. Nobody claps. It's only you, keeping a small promise nobody would have noticed you breaking. Today, the W...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Make 5% your 100% Hi friend, last Saturday I asked you for one line. Your 5% for the week. The smallest thing you could own, on the good days and the bad ones. I said I would tell you what the room reported. Coming to a surprise message and a challenge that we can do together in a second. Mine was the 5:00 alarm. Bag packed the night before, so there was nothing left to argue about at 5:01. Some mornings I still had a small debate with myself. But at least just a short one. A Surprise Message...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Make 5% your 100%. Welcome. You’re in. This is the first one, so let me tell you what you just signed up for, and then let’s actually start. I stood at the edge of Lago Maggiore with 61.5 kilometres of water in front of me, and every part of me said no. The water was dark. The distance was absurd. My mind was already tired before I’d taken a single stroke. I didn’t feel ready. I didn’t feel strong. I didn’t feel like a guy who was about to swim across a lake you can see on a map from space....
about 2 months ago • 2 min read