Social anxiety and shyness are more around us than we think. Social anxiety is anxiety, or a sense of extreme fear, about social situations, interactions with other people, and generally how we perceive social settings. Social anxiety is often formed during childhood, and usually remains unnoticed until adolecense or early adulthood. Social anxiety is usually a great burden to those individuals impacted, since it normally results in a small social circle, and the inability to engage in new relationships and friendship. However, at a business level, social anxiety also has a …

Yesterday I had written my review for 2009, in which I had identified quite some pros and cons for the year. Today, being the last day, I want to focus on 2010, and my commitments. As I had written in the article Good Intentions for 2010 – Personal Change Management not to focus on too many items simultaneously, I will keep my list short.
A start towards financial independence
My main goal for 2010 is to start working on being financially independent. I remember many conversations I had with friends about this …

Yes, I know… I wrote an article one or two weeks ago about why it makes sense to spend Christmas at home, yet I am planning a trip around this time of the year; I live in Frankfurt, and my family lives in a smaller town in The Netherlands, so I decided to visit my family for Christmas. So I though. Just as I was about to get on a delayed flight at 13h10, the flight crew anounced that Amsterdam Schiphol Airport has cancelled all flights and is closing its …

We continuously hear about how people make unwise financial decisions, and how we rely too much on our emotions. We tend to think “this will not happen to me, I am a smart and educated person”. A documentary I saw yesterday demonstrated the exact opposite. Below, I would like to take the opportunity to recap two scenarios of yesterday’s documentary, and the results.
5 Euros now, or 40 Euros in six weeks
Different random people on the streets were offered a 5 Euro bill on the spot, or they had the option …

When I got home the day before yesterday, I had a very interesting message waiting for me on my answering machine. The text was clearly spoken by a computer, and although I already deleted the message, this is roughly what it said:
Hello, this is “Mr X”. Your number has just been selected from our database, and you are a winner. This is not a joke, you have just won a BMW 3-series, or the equivalent of 30,000 Euros in cash. Again, this is not a joke. You can claim your …