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.

But that morning I couldn´t control the 61.5 kilometers, the temperature, the weather rolling over the mountains. Or whether my shoulder would hold at kilometer 40. How I’d feel when it got dark. Whether any of it was fair.

That was the 95%. None of it was mine.

One thing was mine. The next stroke.

So I took it. Just one. Then another. I didn’t swim 61.5 kilometers that day. I swam the next stroke, a few thousand times.

That’s the whole idea behind this letter, and behind everything I do.

95% of your life isn’t yours. The odds. The outcome. The result. Whether it’s fair. How you feel when the alarm goes off. Grip that part, try to force it, and it will burn you out every single time.

5% is yours. The next stroke. The 5:00 alarm. Whether you start. It looks small. It’s the only part that was ever going to move anything.

So you flip it. You take that 5% you actually control, and you pour your whole 100% into it. That’s the trade. That’s the brand line. That’s the point.

Make 5% your 100%.

What this letter is

Not a broadcast. Not me talking at you.

Every week, we pick one idea and the whole list tests it together for seven days. Real life, not theory. Then the following Saturday I tell you what people found, what worked, what didn’t, what surprised us. Including me. I run every experiment too.

You’re not reading a newsletter. You’re joining a room that’s trying something on, at the same time, every week.

This week, we start with the one everything else is built on.

This week´s experiment: find your 5%

Three moves. Seven days.

1. Name your 5%. Pick one thing this week that is fully in your control and moves you forward. Not the big goal — the smallest daily action underneath it. Not “get fit,” but “shoes on & out the door.” Not “finish the project,” but “first 25 minutes, before email.” Make it small enough that you can’t argue your way out of it.
2. Pour 100% into it. For seven days, that 5% is not up for debate. It happens on the good days and the bad days. Especially the bad ones.
3. Let go of the 95%. When you catch yourself gripping the outcome — will it work, is it enough, is it fair — come back to the stroke. Your job this week is the action, not the result.

One rule for the week: you don’t have to feel like it. Feeling like it is the 95%. It comes and goes and owes you nothing. Showing up is the 5%. That part you own.

I’ll be honest with you, because that’s how this works.

Some mornings I don’t want to get in. 5:00 alarm, 6:00 in the water, cold and dark and quiet. My body says stay in bed and it makes a good case.

I’ve never once regretted getting in. I’ve often regretted staying in bed.

That’s the 5%. Nobody claps for it. It’s the only thing that ever built anything I’m proud of.

So here’s my ask for issue 001.

Hit reply and tell me your 5% for this week. One line. The one small thing you’re going to own for the next seven days. I read every single one.

Next Saturday, I’ll tell you what the room reported.

You can’t always choose the water. You can always choose the next stroke.

See you in seven days

Bernhard