I hope you all had a great last week of August (and probably of summer)!

School holidays in Berlin are over, so my boss is also back in the work game! I have to say, I’ve really enjoyed my freedom over the past few weeks. Not necessarily because I’ve been working less - since starting my PhD, it’s probably been more the opposite, now I will never reach the feeling of “being done with work” - but because of the simple freedom to do what I want, when I want to do it, with almost no meetings.

And I also have to say that I truly maxxed-out everything that Berlin-summer has to offer, and will share more of that in the next newsletter. But August has been truly amazing :)

Over the summer, every other Sunday, an episode of a podcast that my boss Verena and I recorded went live. What a privilege for me to also get so much exposure! In the last episode, we talked about our different perspectives on career and family planning, and what we would tell somebody who is currently thinking about these topics.

to the podcast

Recording the episode also made me reflect on my own career, my expectations, and how much of my path has actually been planned. Ironically, I sometimes feel like my “career” hasn’t even really started yet - and I’m still not sure what will eventually count as a “good career” for me. So I definitely wouldn’t consider myself an expert in something that is so very individual.

But it was fun to ping-pong ideas with my boss, who most people would probably describe as very successful and as having had a great career- so I thought I’d scrabble some of our thoughts down here :)

A career cannot be planned from beginning to end - but there are still ways to always move forward

• Not planning is not necessarily true for people who have a very clear professional destination and know exactly what they want to become - a partner in consulting, a corporate department head, etc. - where steps and qualifications are pretty fixed

• If you know where you want to go, you can make relatively deliberate decisions to move in that direction - but even then, there is usually more than one way to get there, you do not necessarily have to start at the very bottom of the food chain or follow the traditional route through a company.

• I have never had a clear picture of what I want to become, I had initially thought that starting a PhD would give me a little more clarity about what I want to do with my life and my future - but turns out (okay, after 2 months in) I still have no different idea about it.

• So instead, I always tried to maximize: a good education, useful skills, a solid reputation, interesting experiences, relationships with smart people, and staying open and curious about what could come next…

• This is also what I mean when I say that you have to be highly agentic (I wrote about that here before), you need to create movement in your own life, because without movement, nothing happens, and if you don’t put yourself out there, no one will ever see you

Love it, change it or leave it

I hear it all the time from people around me that they are unhappy with their jobs, but they cannot let go. In the end you will always find reasons to stay, and probably it’s also more comfortable sometimes: Looking for a new job is a pain, interviews are a pain, case studies even more and finding something you actually like more than what you are currently doing is even more difficult.

But if you have spent the twentieth Sunday in a row feeling bad about the week ahead, I think you are wasting your time - and a little bit of yourself.

I grew up in a “Beamtenfamilie” (civil servants), where basically everyone knows when they will retire and roughly how much they will earn by then. So I feel very lucky to now be part of an environment where unusual careers - or paths without one obvious red thread - are completely normal. People support each other in finding new jobs, starting companies, changing direction, or figuring out what they want to pursue next.

I know all of the excuses that you’ll find out there in order to not change anything in your life, so I would like to debunk some of the common ones by showing what my friends and people in my close actually did over the past few years.

“I won’t find a job in another industry.”

• A friend of mine worked in the heat-pump industry for several years but really wanted to move into media - and she now works at Netflix

• Of course you have to explain what you can bring to the table, why the change makes sense, and why you are not starting from zero, because you’ve already built skills, experience that can be useful in many different industries

• And if you really want it, you usually have to fight for it: write a zillion applications, talk to people, ask for introductions, get rejected a few or many times, and keep going anyway…

• In the end, especially in our bubble, we probably do not apply all the knowledge we studied at university in our day-to-day jobs. So we should also stop pretending that our degree determines exactly what we can do for the rest of our lives

“I need to stay for X years, otherwise it will look like I’m job-hopping.”

• One of the most heard sentences are “I need to stay at least 2 years in consulting/be promoted to consultant or people will think..”

• A friend of mine started her career at a scale-up, left after six months to found a company, realised that it was not working, joined a private-equity-backed company, left again after a year, and now works in her dream job at an AI start-up

• There is no universally correct number of years you have to stay in a job, my mom has been working 40+ years in the same job, I have many friends who quit jobs after 6 months or less

• Of course, moving four times in a short period can become a problem if you are not learning anything, cannot deliver, or cannot explain your decisions. But it can also be completely reasonable if every move makes you more capable and brings you closer to the kind of work you want to do

• Sometimes the red thread is only visible afterwards

• And ultimately, it is none of your business what other people think. I don’t know anyone who will care, ten years from now, whether you got the fast-track promotion or the normal one.

“I need to find another job before I can quit mine.”

• A friend of mine quit her job without having another one right after because she wanted to create enough pressure to find something new

• Of course, this is not easy, and it is not necessarily the right decision for everyone. But sometimes it can be easier to completely free your mind - especially if you are coming from a very high-paced environment like consulting - and take some time to figure out what you actually want to do next

• I have another friend who left consulting and did a training as a sex coach while using the rest of the time to find out how to continue in the bubble

“I can’t take a pay cut.”

• of course it feels “to be taken something away” or like a step back

• And of course, salary is a real constraint, not everyone can afford to earn less, but a high salary also comes with costs. I think it’s always worth checking: What does this job pay me - and what does it cost me?

• But don’t forget that in environments without fixed positions and traditional salary bands, the upside can sometimes be bigger. You might get more responsibility, learn faster, or have the opportunity to build something that would take much longer in a more hierarchical company

• Experience & people > salary

• My dad always says “das letzte Hemd hat keine Taschen” (the last shirt has no pockets)

• If money is really important you will work hard to match your previous price tag

And what about kids?

I’ve noticed it in myself: as a woman, you start considering a potential future family all the time. It also adds pressure to dating, since the next one needs to ideally be your kids dad because you have to be together X years, before going for next steps family wise…but you also start asking yourself career questions: Could I do this job with children? Do I need to reach a certain level first? What if I get pregnant just after starting a new job? Do I need a “secure job” or one that supports families? blablabla..

For me it would look like this: finish the phd ideally until I’m 30, then find another job, and then do one more step up there, and theeeen we could talk kids.

And then other days i think about freezing my eggs, haha.

My boss told me she started thinking about this very early, at around 23, she already knew that she wanted to become a mother relatively young and have several children. So she also tried to plan when she would return to work, when she would be back in the saddle, and how that would fit with future promotions. Of course, it did not work out exactly like that.

She had just started a new job when she became pregnant and initially thought it was the worst possible timing. Later, while she was heavily pregnant, a headhunter approached her about a CEO position. When her youngest child was four months old, everything was chaotic but it still worked - the timing was shitty, but because she decided that both things were allowed to exist at the same time: being excited about her child and being ambitious about her career.

I don’t think this means that every job can be combined with every family situation. But I do think we should be careful not to reject ourselves before anyone else has rejected us (which accounts for so many more things in life!). Careers are never completely secure anyway, promotions get delayed, companies change, and the role you are waiting for in three years might not exist anymore. So why not just do what you’re feeling like. 🤪

Last Tuesday, we hosted a live book-club session with one of my favourite authors, Elena Fischer, and asked her how she became a writer. She told us that she had already written a lot as a child. After finishing school, she applied to study writing and literature at university and was rejected. She was so disappointed that she stopped writing altogether, for more than nine years.

Eventually, she slowly fought her way back to it. She kept writing, finished her first novel, and received offers from six publishers, she was already 36 by then.

I found that incredibly encouraging -and this also shows how you should never give up on following your true interests and then at some point in time it will pay out (but i hope for most of you it will not take as long).

And with that I hope you have a great start into the weekend ❤️❤️

— Constanze

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It was definitely a bit difficult to get back into writing on here after my last newsletter, in which I shared some of my experiences with mental illness and my therapy journey. The feedback was immense, and it turned into my most-liked post on here so far. I’m still not sure whether you felt sorry for me or whether you simply prefer the more personal stuff ;)

Sometimes I still get goosebumps when I think about the fact that I actually put all of this on the internet…

Just before sending it, something new appeared on Substack: an AI scan. You can now check whether your newsletter is likely to have been written by AI and add a badge to show that it was written by a human. The scan said that mine was at 0% AI, of coursseeeeee

I think this new feature shows more and more how important human input, thoughts, and ideas are becoming, especially in contexts where opinions and personal stories matter.

Over the past few weeks, there have been several news reports about politicians who seem to have discovered AI, somewhat later than the rest of us.

For example, media reported that Economics Minister Katherina Reiche may have used AI for guest contributions published under her name. That came shortly after reports about Federal Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger, who was also accused of relying heavily on AI for speeches and articles. Shocker, or no?

I’m not sure whether I mean this positively or negatively, because the news also made me feel slightly proud of my expectations of politicians. I expect my tax money to be used wisely, and if AI helps people in government work more efficiently with fewer resources, I’m not automatically going to complain about it.

However, Thuringia’s State Premier Mario Voigt has faced similar criticism over AI-assisted speeches, including a Holocaust remembrance speech, a eulogy, and a New Year’s address.

There are moments that require 100% of your brain and your heart. Not because AI would necessarily get the facts wrong (although it sometimes does) but because a human being sitting down, thinking it through, and choosing their words is the point.

This is what I’ve been thinking about and trying to write about for some weeks now:

How can we really detect AI writing, and where do we draw the line? When is it acceptable for AI to support the writing process, and when does it become a problem if the writing is completely AI-generated? Why is it important to understand where AI has been used and where the human thoughts are actually coming from?

So in the following some of the thoughts that I’ve gathered on this :)

How to detect AI writing:

1. Use a Tool

Substack has partnered with Pangram, which is one of the leading AI-detection companies. It claims to be able to detect AI-generated text with 99.98% accuracy - however, The tool used to analyze the speeches and texts of the previously mentioned politicians is GPTzero. They use different technologies to detect AI writing.

While GPTZero mainly analyzes how predictable and varied the writing is, Pangram focuses more on identifying patterns or “fingerprints” associated with specific AI models, including text that has been edited or paraphrased.

However, AI detectors can produce false positives, and they do not explain why they reach their conclusions. So even if these tools can be useful, I don’t think they should be treated as definitive proof.

2. The em dash

For now, we’ve all learned that the em dash — is apparently a pretty reliable sign that AI has been involved in a text ( & anyone who has not yet added “please don’t use em dashes” to their agent settings is clearly running years behind ;))

3. Look for Patterns

But spotting AI writing can be much harder than that. There is no single, universal AI style, and different models write in different ways. As the technology improves, AI writing is also becoming more human-like, since language models learn from human writing and human feedback.

The Economist compared AI-written text from different models with human writing and found that AI writing can be identified through a combination of signals, including vocabulary, punctuation, sentence length, paragraph structure, and rhetorical habits:

3.1. AI tends to use unnecessarily complicated language:

lots of long words, rare or Latinate vocabulary (require instead of need, approximately instead of about, obtain instead of get, numerous instead of many…), scientific jargon, nominalisations (e.g. “conduct an analysis” instead of “analyse”), and overly formal language (e.g. “significant”, “increasingly”, “consequences”, “interdependence”, and “methodology”)

3.2. The text can sound inflated or pretentiou

Simple ideas are expressed in complicated language, without necessarily adding any clarity.

3.3 The punctuation can be limited

AI writing tends to use fewer commas and semicolons, almost no parentheses, and more long sentences connected with “and”. It also tends to include fewer quotations from other people.

3.4. The sentences tend to be long and evenly shaped

There is often less variation in rhythm and fewer short, unexpected interruptions in the flow of the text.

3.5. AI often relies on familiar rhetorical formulas

E.g. “not X but Y”, “not only X but also Y”, and groups of three

The important thing is that none of these things proves that a text was written by AI. Humans can use complicated words, em dashes, and the rule of three too. A single suspicious word is not directly evidence, it is the combination of several habits that can make a text feel weirdly generic or “tried too hard”.

For example, look at this person who has somehow magically managed to become the first commenter on my boss’s LinkedIn posts for the past few weeks.

If you look at a single one they might seem weird but not necessarily AI, but once you put several of them next to each other, they start to look pretty similar, the prompt was probably something along the lines of: “Say something nice about the post and then ask a question that sounds intelligent.”

So where is that we draw the line? These are the rules I follow along for the moment:

Step one: distinguish between AI-generated and AI-assisted

There is a real difference between using AI as a tool to draft, structure, research, or edit something you are already thinking about - and typing “write me a speech/posting about X” and copy-pasting whatever comes out.

The distinction matters most when the thinking itself is the product. As a huge fan of books, I of course have to include this:

The Economist also tracked monthly e-book releases on Amazon and found that the numbers were relatively flat before ChatGPT launched at the end of 2022. Afterwards, they nearly tripled, and most of that growth came from AI-generated titles. Nobody sat down and wrote those books, they were entirely prompted. Would you read one? When I’m deciding to read a book, I want someone’s perspective, the imagination they had, the argument they built,, and their way of seeing the world.

Step two: look at the quality of how AI is actually being used

This is where it gets more complicated, because the quality argument cuts both ways. AI can genuinely make some things better. A well-briefed model might help a politician structure a complex policy speech more clearly, or it can help an author find a better word, make a paragraph easier to understand.

But I have also seen plenty of examples where AI-assisted content was worse than what the person would probably have produced themselves: keynote speeches that sound polished but hollow, event briefs that were completely uninteresting, interview questions that would lead nowhere.

So for now, I would say: Let it help with the parts of writing that are repetitive, unclear, or unnecessarily time-consuming. But the opinion, the perspective, the feeling, and the part that makes the content recognisably yours still need to come from you.

I still find it difficult to turn this into one universal rule, because the context matters so much. The same tool can be useful in one situation and completely inappropriate in another, so happy to also hear more opinions here :)

When this is being sent out I’m already on my way to Copenhagen, where I’ll be spending the next 3 days eating Cardamon Buns. Could not imagine a better start into the week ❤️

As always, don’t let them get you!

— Constanze

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I hope you all had a great week so far!!!

First of all: we just hit 2,000 subscribers to Constidential, woahhhh! I would have never expected this to grow that quickly - and in just over a year, my random thoughts are landing in the inbox of 2,000+ people. Thanks to everyone reading, commenting, or sometimes hitting reply!

Second: thank you so much for all the kind messages about my PhD endeavour. Didn’t expect that many of you to reach out, it meant a lot :)

Now - while we started out here talking about successes, I’m hitting a different kind of milestone this week.

(Trigger warning: mental health 🙌🏻)

While my life on LinkedIn maybe looks like I’m pursuing a big career and on Instagram it looks like I’m travelling all year, I’ve already been a bit more sincere on here. I’ve written before that there have been harder times, that I’ve been dealing with anorexia for parts of my life - and three years ago this week, I entered a psycho-somatic clinic.

Maybe the journey regarding this to today is also the thing I’m proudest of in my life, and there’s no public posting about it :)

I’ve been thinking for a long time about whether I should share more about my mental health journey. The first thing that always came to mind was what a future employer might think (very cool, Constanze). But I do want to contribute to a more open culture around this - and if being a bit too honest on the internet helps reduce stigma even slightly…

Also: I’ve already heard of two people in my surrounding who went to seek help because we talked openly about my issues. In all spheres, that’s the best compliment I could get.

Looking back, I could write a book about my months in the clinic and it still makes me equally laugh and shiver.

I do know that therapy is unfortunately still a privilege in Germany. Getting a spot can take forever and finding the right therapists takes time, energy and lots of luck.

I’ve seen eight different therapists over the years (most of them in the clinic). They’re also just humans with their edges: I once had a therapist with a handshake like a dead fish and such a soft vibe that I was afraid to tell them the crazy stuff going on in my brain.

My current therapist is really good and we get along well - but she’s also a West-Berlin boomer who today just suggested I should schedule Skype sessions with my boyfriend once he goes back to Boston for his studies. Skype :))

What I learned (so far)

1) In the beginning, therapy felt like school

My first real exposure to therapy was Behavioural therapy, which I started in 2020. Every week I went there and I left with home work every time. Tasks to complete, things to observe, worksheets to fill in. In the beginning I made a lot of steps forward almost immediately - which, after quite some time already suffering, felt huge. In retrospect it mainly helped because we put everything into pictures. I had to give people and the parts of the sickness animal plushies (There’s still a guy I dated from that time that my friends call “the sheep”, my sickness was a “spider”, the real me was a “red parrot”). My problem with that kind of therapy was that I’m good at executing the tasks but I was still lying, to myself, to the people around me, to my therapist. So it didn’t do nearly as much as it could have, because I wasn’t actually letting anyone in. At some point the effect reversed and I was just going through the motions and keeping the real stuff locked away.

2) The real shift came later

The shift came later with depth psychology, which I started in the clinic. There, we weren’t just looking at what was broken - we were looking at how long it had been broken and why it was broken in the first place. Understanding that the problems didn’t start at a single moment, but had been quietly building for years, helped a lot.

3) The clinic is a very specific micro-universe

Imagine a place where everyone inside has more problems than the average human should have. It was the wildest mix of people and problems I could imagine. Also humbling, and also a good reminder that literally anyone can be affected: a Forbes 30under30 with burnout, someone depressed after a heartbreak, a survivor of an amok attack, young people with long Covid, an 80-year-old with an eating disorder, people treating it like a mental health retreat… stereotypes didn’t exist.

They put me into two different groups (“settings”) that shared group therapy: one mixed group for under-30s, and one specifically for eating disorders (all kinds, all ages). In between, I had solo sessions with different therapists.

Group therapy is weird, because everyone triggers everyone all the time - and you have to open up to people you’ve never met who are not stable and could overreact any second.

I realised pretty quickly that I should share less personal stuff once I started (not so subconsciously) managing the group: making sure everyone got equal speaking time, basically facilitating, almost including the therapist in the round. The therapists realised what I was doing quite quickly though :D

And then there were the themed sessions:

Art therapy

The idea: draw or create something based on how you feel. What I did: scroll Pinterest the night before, decide what I wanted to draw, and then retroactively interpret my emotions into it, which is not the intended approach (they told me more than once).

Afterwards you had to comment on everyone else’s art: “nice, thanks for drawing the dying rainworm”, “why did you draw all black again”

Sheep therapy🐏🐏🐏

When I first heard this I thought: oh cute, I get to cuddle animals.

It was not about cuddling :( Sheep are herd animals and the whole point was to observe group dynamics. Our task was to keep the sheep together as a group.

One person immediately started assigning roles and talking about team performance (Forbes 30under30). Another looked a sheep directly in the eyes and started crying.

Probably still top 3 strangest things I’ve done in my life.

Nature therapy

I’m fairly convinced the therapist put me in this one specifically because they knew that I would hate it.

We sat outside, we walked around, we touched trees (to feel them??), we listened to the wind.

Once someone started crying because they were missing the tree from home, and I could at no point take it seriously.

Cooking therapy

The worst of it all. Someone decided it was a good idea to put twelve people with eating disorders in a kitchen together to cook a three-course meal.

Already in normal group therapy everyone triggers everyone, but I’ve never felt such a tension before. I eventually asked to be exempted, because I genuinely believed it was doing me more harm than good.

After All

In the end, my time in the clinic kind of… flew by, without any big improvements (I thought). And in retrospect, I also didn’t take it as seriously as I could have.

I kept wondering what everyone else was doing with all that free time. I was still writing my master’s thesis and basically read a book a day. Only afterwards did I realise: most people were journaling, actually sitting with themselves, actually thinking - while I was, once again, distracting myself.

On the last day I stood there like a kid on the last day of school, holding my art-therapy drawings.

The next day, I moved to Berlin. And that’s where the real improvement began - because I landed in an environment that took care of me, often better than I would have taken care of myself. A real safety net.

Without my friends, I genuinely don’t think I’d be where I am today. My therapist says the same thing: my biggest asset is the social capital I have - the people around me who care, and actually show up.

The years when anorexia dominated my life were the loneliest and most isolated times I’ve ever had. My days were full of compulsions, and I missed out on a lot of memories. I won’t get that time back - but I try every day to make sure tomorrow feels a little better.

Ironically, in the “young people” setting we still have a WhatsApp group. Last week someone dropped a casual “how is everybody from setting 7?” which honestly read more like “is everyone still alive?” (fair question). But then everyone replied - pictures, short updates, what life has looked like since. And without exception, everyone said they’re doing much better, and how much therapy and the clinic helped them.

It was a good reminder: things can change and life can get better again :)) Either it works out or it passes.

I hesitated a lot before sending this - and now the internet has it forever. Also because there are many people I haven’t shared this with before. But if you have thoughts, experiences, or just want to reply: hit reply, I read everything.

Greetings from the train on my way to Munich!

Have a great weekend,

— Constanze

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I hope you all had a great summer weekend!

I spent most of last week at home with my family near Munich for a series of events - a friend’s wedding the weekend before, my cousin’s wedding last Wednesday, and my brother turning 30 on Saturday. We’re from a small town near Munich, right by a lake, which is a very different reality to what I usually have in Berlin. Life did not change since I grew up there and the same people say hello on the street. I did many morning runs at the lake during sunrise, and also jumped in for a swim, which was beautiful!

I also used the opportunity to introduce my boyfriend to the family - exciting, since I haven’t brought a guy home since 2014 lol. It was of course cringe, but we made it through. I had especially been hoping this would finally give me some bonus points with my 93-year-old granny, who for years has been casually mentioning she probably won’t survive long enough to see me find someone. But when I introduced him she looked at him once and immediately started talking about something else entirely. Can someone please explain old people to me.

I also spent two days in Aachen last week - and that’s the actual personal news I clickbaited in the subject line. 😂

I’m going back to uni to do a PhD

Starting this July, I’m joining the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Chair of Malte Brettel at RWTH Aachen - while continuing my job. The program is designed for two years and I only need to be in Aachen every other month. Why I think this will work: I function best when I have a lot going on. Nothing drains me more than weeks where nothing seems to move. Both my job and the PhD are highly self-directed - the progress depends on me, there is not a fixed schedule.

Right now it all still sounds manageable. But I do know that there will be moments where I’ll be wondering why I voluntarily did this to myself. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.😄

The idea isn’t new, I’ve been thinkint about it already since high school. When I was still planning to go into consulting at BCG, a PhD would have come naturally after two years (and it was one of the reasons I had considered going into consulting). I took a different path, but the thought never really went away and after many conversations with people who told me to do it - and people who told me not to - here’s why I decided to go for it (no particular order):

• I was looking for something new that’s just mine. After two years in my job, I wanted to grow in a direction that had nothing to do with my role or anyone else’s expectations. I’m not going anywhere - I genuinely love my job - but I craved something new on the horizon that I’m building only for myself.

• Education is power. My grandma only went to school for 6 years. That I got to do a bachelor’s and a master’s is entirely down to my parents working hard for creating more opportunities for me than they had. Getting one of the highest educational titles feels like a way of honoring that - and acknowledging what this country made possible for us.

• I still believe in universities as places where ideas and people grow. Most of my own role models there unfortunately pointed me toward consulting or investment banking - but I’ve always loved teaching, and one possible future for me involves working with students, just maybe not five days a week (as everything I ever plan to do).

• I actually enjoy research. I already published my master’s thesis, so this isn’t completely new territory.

• Politics is another possible path down the career line for me. Right now, 10 out of 16 German ministers hold a doctorate. That probably says a lot about the system - but it’s unfortunately the current reality.

I still have no proper plan

My first day in Aachen was a lot of reality check and not nearly as romantic as I’d imagined. Academia, especially in management, is its own little world, one that doesn’t always have a lot to do with actual reality. It sometimes feels like people are randomly throwing variables together to measure things nobody outside of academia has ever thought about or needed. The first six months are about finding my niche and defining my research topic and I’m hoping to land on something that keeps me motivated through the hard parts AND actually delivers value for someone other than me collecting a title. We’ll find out :)

I’m trying to do an AI-native set up also for the whole process - if someone has experience in or some ideas for that, hit me up!

I’m happy it’s finally happening. And genuinely curious what it’ll add - to my thinking, my work, and whatever comes next. I think I’ll be documenting some of the journey here :) Also: we’re two subscribers away from 2,000, that’s more I ever thought it would be!

In the moment im writing this (5:24am Monday morning) I’m already on my way to Reutlingen today, to ESB Business School, where I did the first half of my bachelor’s. For the third time, I’ll be interviewing high school students applying to the same program I did. Going back always makes me nostalgic. It’ll forever be the place where I made some of the best memories of my life and met people who are still the most important ones in it. A true full circle!

For now, I hope you’ll have a great week. And as always: don’t let them get you 🌞

— Constanze

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We officially made it through the first half of the year, yay!

I was lucky enough to spend the hottest weekend in German history at the Baltic Sea at the wedding of one of my dearest friends, which was just picture-perfect (and a few degrees cooler, with some lovely wind). The whole thing ended in a rave on the beach until the early morning hours, and I’m just so happy for them.

At the moment, even basic functioning feels a bit more ambitious than usual. The graph below, based on data the Financial Times published last year - in case anyone still needs a justification - shows why: once indoor temperatures move much beyond around 23 degrees, sleep gets worse, productivity drops and learning suffers too.

While I’m still too cheap to get an AC at home, I do think that places where serious brain work happens should be air-conditioned by now. I still remember the times when we got sent home from school because it was too hot - I think that started at 33 degrees, now we are talking about 40. And extreme heat comes with extreme storms: the one last week filled my cellar with water. Nothing better than standing in a dark cellar in 40-degree heat, unpacking stuff from wet cartons that you had already forgotten about. 🙃

And maybe that physical overheating is also part of why the broader mood in the country feels so frayed right now. Last Thursday I was invited to a talk show on a boat in Berlin that brought young people into conversation with politicians currently in office from different parties - in this case Franziska Giffey (SPD), Gregor Gysi (The Left, the most legendary guy, eating sausages the whole way through the show) and Christoph Ploß (CDU).

The hook of the show was the fact that, according to a recent youth study, 41% of people between the ages of 14 and 29 could imagine living in another country for a longer period of time, and one fifth of them are already working on making that happen.

And you can feel that mood elsewhere too. The comments under posts about Germany’s exit from the World Cup range from “shows pretty much the state of the country” to “not even football we can do anymore, what are we even good at?”

And I get it, a lot is not moving in the right direction right now, my Germany fan shirt still has the sticker on it, I did not even get to use it.

It no longer really feels like we are living in an economy or a society that is moving forward with confidence, and there is stuff to improve at every turn. It also often seems that politicians don’t really get it. Today - July 1 - they are having the last coalition committee meeting before the summer break, and let’s see whether there will be any big shots in any direction. It feels like quite a decisive moment, with state elections coming up in Saxony and Berlin, and in Sachsen-Anhalt the AfD, the far-right party, could for the first time become part of a state government in Germany.

Still, I’m not fully in the doom camp :)

I do know and see that there are a lot of things that should be improved in Germany, and that there is a lot we could copy from other countries. But the grass is not always greener on the other side either - I’ve spent six months or more stuying, living and working in other places (Costa Rica, São Paulo, Copenhagen, Barcelona), and life is not completely easy anywhere.

I’ve been keeping a list of things I like about Germany and the very specific things that make living here what it is, and now feels like a good moment to share some of them. Gen Z would probably call this Germany-maxxing, which basically means fully embracing the positive sides of life in Germany.

The list is not intended to be academic - it is a mix of shallow and fun things with some more specific information. My list has over 100 points by now; here are just 10 of them:

1. There is a special season for asparagus and strawberries.

Asparagus season runs from mid-April to 24 June, strawberry season from May to July - and people actually care about that here.

2. Spaghetti ice is a thing.

- and I haven’t seen it anywhere else. It was invented in Mannheim in 1969, annual sales estimates vary, but sources suggest between 30 and 50 million portions a year in Germany. The best part is obviously the frozen cream at the bottom!!!

3. What I appreciate is that nature in Germany is accessible.

It’s not just that the country has lakes, mountains and the sea - more than 30% of its land is protected, and even in Berlin, public parks and green spaces are part of everyday life rather than something you have to pay for or plan around.

4. Germany is really generous talking about time off.

20 vacation days is the legal minimum, the average is 28, and many contracts offer 30 - while in the US there is no federal minimum at all, and the average after one year is about 11 days.

5. Germany also has a very strong culture of Ehrenamt.

Volunteering is a bigger part of everyday life in Germany than in many other countries. Across the OECD, fewer than one in four people volunteer regularly on average; in Germany, nearly 40% report some form of volunteer engagement. If you are still looking for a way to engage, go check out: LifeTeachUs

6. Germany still takes punctuality seriously.

Not because everyone is always on time (I have some friends that should be called out here), but because being on time is understood as a form of respect.

7. Another underrated Germany thing is the tap water.

You can just drink it. Officially, it’s considered excellent quality, and more than 99% of samples comply with legal standards - which is absolutely not something you can take for granted in many parts of the world.

8. Germany still takes Sundays seriously.

And while it can definitely be annoying that you can’t just go shopping, I also think there is something really nice about having one day a week that forces everything to slow down a little.

9. Public education is the default.

It is not perfect, but compared with countries where education feels much more like a pay-to-win game, the system is still relatively egalitarian. I went only to public schools and public universities in Germany and received a good education.

10. Low Corruption Index.

In Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index, Germany improved from 15th to 10th place year on year.

I’m sure some of these points are debatable. But I’d be very happy if you wanted to add something to the list instead of tearing it apart :)

My boss put it really well last week - Imagine starting the week with your boss standing in front of you saying: “Everything is broken, everything is terrible, it has never been worse. And now please go back to work and give 110%.” That is hardly the kind of framing that brings out the best in people. And maybe that is also why I tend to see more value in optimism than in constant decline narratives.

In that spirit, I’m wishing you the best for the rest of the week - and for the second half of the year ❤️

— Constanze

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I’m writing the first draft of this on Wednesday, June 9th, sitting on the terrace of a tiny cabin on the coast of Costa da Caparica, working from the dunes basically. By the time this lands in your inbox, I’ll be back at my desk in Berlin (For anyone curious, I share some recommendations from my trip to Portugal in end of this newsletter).

I spent last week in Portugal on what could be called workation: working in the mornings and evenings, then spending the sun hours reading, and eating so much fish I might have turned into one. And after a few days I realized how much peace of mind these few days gave me: I didn’t work out or run for five days straight (first time in years), I slept up to 12 hours in one go (which, if you’ve been following along, is roughly three to four times my usual amount), I didn’t use headphones for five days, and I cut my screen time in half (I’m still not brave enough to share the actual number 😅).

I was reading a lot though, and one of the books I read felt like it was explaining a lot what was happening in my brain that week.

Getting Bored?

It’s called The Meaning of Life by Arthur C. Brooks - the title sounds a bit like an esoteric mindset-improvement thing (which I normally avoid, because most books have never made me more productive or “fixed” anything, I read for enjoyment and to get smarter).

At its core, it’s about why so many of us feel like something is missing. Brooks argues that a lot of meaning comes down to attention: where we direct it, and what constant noise and technology are doing to our ability to reflect, feel, and think deeply.

One part I thought a lot about was his point on boredom and distraction. Humans hate boredom so much that, in a study, people preferred to give themselves electric shocks rather than sit quietly with their thoughts for a few minutes (like wtf 😂). Boredom became a business opportunity, he says - and we built “anti-boredom machines”: smartphones, apps, and endless content on all kinds of platforms.

205 times a day

We check our phones all the time, the average American looks at their phone 205 times a day, more than once every five minutes (I feel like I probably do it more often). His point is that this doesn’t just steal time. Every time we reach for our phone, we’re basically practicing how to avoid stillness - and stillness is where meaning tends to appear. He even hints at the bigger consequence: constant distraction doesn’t just change what we do, it can literally rewire the brain and mute the right hemisphere - the part that’s better at the deeper, more meaningful and more creative kind of thinking.

That also explains why we probably have the best and most fun thoughts in the shower, or looking out of the window in an airplane or train, waiting at the red light, or walking on the beach.

Do you even have own thoughts?

But what I’d add to his point is: when we consume this much content, it gets harder to produce original thoughts.

We’re constantly taking in other people’s opinions like e.g. scrolling comments under reels, listening to podcasts, reading reviews. And because every quiet moment gets filled, actually sitting with our own thoughts has become rare. So we end up repeating ideas that already exist out there, and just rephrase them. Not necessarily because we’re lazy, but because we don’t give ourselves much space to think from scratch.

Paying attention to this, I don’t find it easy either, I don’t always know what I think, and there isn’t always a smart thought coming through 😂. A question I’ve been trying to ask myself more often is: am I agreeing because someone is right, or because they sound convincing? Or because I’ve heard the same argument so many times that it starts to feel like “my” opinion? Figuring that out is not easy - but maybe that’s exactly where real thinking starts.

Half thougths

I’m also trying to get comfortable with “half thoughts”, thoughts that are not thought through. And it’s also how my best newsletters happened: they weren’t written in one go. They sat in drafts, I added a line here and there, and at some point it clicked.

I still don’t really have a clean conclusion for this - but last week showed me how much energy my body gets back when I stop filling every second with noise. And it good to have a bit more space for thoughts and ideas that aren’t borrowed from the internet.

That being said: I hope you have a great week ahead, enjoy the sun if it shows up, and don’t let them get you!

— Constanze

Recommendations for Portugal:

Caparica

• Beach house in Caparica where we stayed (nothing better than waking up to the sound of the waves every day): Cabana Bonita

• Beach club right next to it: Nuua Beach

• My favorite Brazilian açaí spot right on the beach (and it’s opening in Berlin soon, apparently 👀): Oakberry Caparica Pop Up

• Good coffee shop: Asante Boutique Coffee Roasters

Sesimbra Region

• Beautiful “hidden” beach - you have to climb ~30 minutes to get there (spoiler: it’s still not empty, but worth it): Praia Ribeiro do Cavalo

• Choose the fish you want to have grilled: Bar do Peixe

• Restaurant with the best view: Hangar

Other

• Recipe for the bouillabaisse we cooked (aka: that has been cooked for me):
  https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/12637-mark-bittmans-bouillabaisse

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May is officially over and it was a good one!!! The sun was out a lot, I spent quality time with family and friends, had a lot of fun at work - and looking back, it was a month full of firsts, in all kinds of ways.

So here we go:

1. I built my first AI workflow

Maybe I’m late to the party, but considering only ~5% of ChatGPT users have a paid subscription (and I assume it’s similar for Claude), it’s never too late to learn.

Last month I was part of the TenMoreIn AI Bootcamp and genuinely loved it - big big recommendation if anyone is interested (sorry, it’s only for women 😉). While building an agent, learning about prompting, and generally getting a better grip on how AI works, I also built my first workflow (and 3 more afterwards wohooooo) using Langdock– a Berlin-based startup, and coincidentally where my best friend just started working, so double recommendation ❤️

It’s the closest I’ve come to coding since being forced to learn SQL and Python during uni and internships - skills that are now largely replaceable by a good prompt, but it was genuinely a lot of fun. My first workflow is now sending me a morning briefing about the mails in my inbox and my calendar for that day - if anyone has more ideas for workflow that are truly useful, let me know!

2. Berlin institutions: Borchardt and Sisyphos

Also late to the party, but I did two things in May that everyone else probably did in their first week of moving to Berlin.

Borchardt: Very posh and expensive restaurant, famous for their Schnitzel. The crowd was an interesting mix: old regulars, older men with much younger dates, B-Promis, 16-year-olds from Charlottenburg with Gucci bags, a lot of Botox. Memorable, but I’m not sure I need to go back - however, It was also the first time anyone asked me how I wanted my asparagus cooked: lightly, medium, or well done. 😅

Sisyphos: I also spent an entire Saturday dancing at one of Berlin’s most iconic clubs and really loved it. Incredible weather, best company, and we randomly ran into people we already knew. The place is basically a playground for adults: You can pick up a telephone and call a club in Hamburg, dial another number and a dragon breathes fire, hidden doors everywhere. The crowd is everything all at once as well (but in a completely different way): a grandpa dancing all day, a guy with an entire palm tree on his hat, people half (or all out) -naked next to people in Ralph Lauren polo shirts, people who had clearly been there since the day before, they take “come as you are” very seriously.

3. My first friend from school got married

Tosca - one of my closest friends and my best friend from school - got married near the Tegernsee, and it was one of the best days of May! Seeing how much we’ve both grown since our Abitur feels strange though! Back then, she had just broken up with her boyfriend and we were both convinced we’d never figure out relationships with boys. Watching her marry a genuinely great guy (& policeman) made me really happy (:

I also sang at the wedding - the first time I’d performed in front of people in about ten years. I used to sing a lot, did classical vocal training, but somewhere along the way I basically lost all my teenage hobbies. When she asked me, we were still six months out and it felt easy to say yes. However, as it got closer, I got really nervous and started regretting my commitment 😂

In the end it went really well, everyone was crying (I believe they didn’t cry because it was so bad) and we ended the night dancing with her 93-year-old grandfather to Disco Pogo. A really wholesome, easy, wonderful day 🕺🏻

4. Capitalism?

In May, I randomly got asked twice two what I think about capitalism - once at the wedding, and another time at Sisyphos (both weird places for that). My honest answer: I like capitalism because it pays my rent and my bills 😀. Beyond that, huge topic. What would be your one sentence take?

5. I had a dog

In the first weekend of May, I dog-sat my boss’s Labrador. I don’t think all parties fully understood that I had never had a dog before, and I’m also not sure the dog was informed.

She was extremely cute and we had a good time - but I quickly realized that I am not ready for the emotional responsibility of another living being. They make you feel guilty for everything: being at home, not being at home, going for a walk, not going for a walk, feeding them, not feeding them immediately enough 😫

This is the look she’d give me all the time:

6. A guy moved in

My boyfriend moved into my place for the next three months. For context: I’ve lived alone for the past seven years and I’m used to protecting my private zone a lot. Due to my history with anorexia, I also built a lot of habits around habits and routines that are now being challenged in new ways - something my therapist and I are definitely working through 😂 But for now, we are managing pretty well!

We also opened a shared bank account for the first time, which feels very adult! I highly recommend the Revolut shared card: 5min to set up, no trip to the bank required, and it just works from minute 1.

7. I organized a blind date

Also a first: I set up a blind date for two friends of mine. My boyfriend’s friend and one of my girlfriends - I just had a feeling they’d get along and both agreed they trusted me enough to organize that. I paid for the wine upfront and they had a great time.

I’ve always believed the best connections come through friends - dating apps work, but social proof is hard to beat. You can consider this the beginning of my side career and you know where to apply 😄

8. I turned into a podcast host

I got the chance to interview my boss in a proper podcast episode and ask her everything I’ve always wanted to know but never really got the chance to ask. Last time the interview was about me - this time I was the driver’s seat.

And I obviously didn’t go for the boring questions, I asked the important stuff: whether she’s ever been to Berghain or KitKat, when she feels most attractive, how much money she’d need to be employed again, her secret to her relationship (and how to find a husband like that), and her top tips for getting over heartbreak.

Spoiler: more episodes to come ;)

Alright, that’s it for today - I’m heading to Portugal for a week of workation and I’m very ready for sunshine, seafood, reading time, and taking many photos. Can’t wait for doing my emails from a place that’s not my desk. More updates soon 🌞

— Constanze

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Hope you all had the good sense to take Friday off for the bridge day - you know, that magical German tradition of turning one public holiday into a four-day weekend. I took one for the team, and went to the office on Friday! It was a near-apocalyptic experience, I was the only person in the entire office on Friday, which either makes me employee of the month or extremely stupid.

However, I had a wonderful weekend with lots of me-time and even more coffee. Ever since last week’s Flat White Index, I feel like an investigative journalist now - and I swear the baristas are being extra nice because they’re afraid of being exposed 😄

This edition is going to be a bit of a brain dump – things that made me excited, happy, sad, think, pause or laugh this week. My therapist would be proud that I was emotionally moved!

My Influencer Kick-Off

For the first time ever, I recycled one of my Substacks for an Instagram post - as a test to see if I’m cringe enough to actually put stuff out there on a bigger platform. Actually, even more people saw it than I expected, and the feedback was really nice.

But some people also felt quite strongly about the data - I know LAP Coffee has been a controversial topic for a while, but I don't want my little flat white index to become the battleground for that debate.

Also: no, I’m not sponsored by anyone. But if a café wants to change that - please, my DMs and my bank account are wide open !!

And the best part – we finally solved the Ben Rahim mystery! They actually responded and explained the €1 price drop. Love the honesty & kind words!

Sun’s Out

For everyone who loves hating on Berlin – yes, it’s dirty, loud, there’s always someone screaming on the U8, and it’s not the startup party city it used to be. BUT: we have the most sun hours of any state in Germany, 2,068 hours. Take that. ☀️

Find the best Sun Spots!

Related to that - I’m currently testing 3 different apps that help you find the sunniest spots in the city at any given moment: SunSeekr, KaffeeinderSonne, and Sunlitt. Honestly a bit annoyed that this wasn’t my idea, but I’ll be trialing them over the next week and report back!

Life just got a bit better

Strawberry season is officially here 🍓 The stands are back in Berlin!! This might be the one of the best thing about Germany: Strawberry’s and Asparagus have their own season :) Who’s up for a Strawberry Inflation Index next?

Talking about asparagus…

-

…dlid you know that the only difference between white and green asparagus is how they’re grown in relation to sunlight? They’re literally the same species - white asparagus grows underground, green asparagus sees the sun. Just proof of how important sunlight is (+ I’m green asparagus)!!! 🌱☀️

Berlin Mitte could never

I sent a photo of my fancy bagel to the family group chat and my dad responded with “what is that? 🧈” – followed by a photo of Weißwürste with Breze. Grateful to have people in my life who will never let me forget where I come from 😄🥨

I’m a big baby

My wisdom teeth have been growing for 3 weeks and I’ve been surviving on ibuprofen and Kamistad Gel, which is designed for teething infants. 28 years old and using baby cream, adulthood is going great as you can see 😅

Tech Theology

Sounds as something usually Enpal would be posting ;)

Saw that job posting a few days ago: Anthropic is looking for an "Applied AI Claude Evangelist." The job description includes phrases like "driving awareness and activation" and "lighting up the community."

Next up: AI missionaries going door to door asking if you've already changed from Chat GTP to Claude or what (but apparently the position is paid with 315k$) 😄

Fangirl Moment

Last week I had the privilege to be at the German Podcast Awards, and while stalking people on the red carpet, I spotted Senna and Bahar – who were part of a girl band called Monrose back in 2006 (if anyone remembers). They had a poster in my room, right next to Hannah Montana. Little Constanze was really happy in that moment :))

Yes, I’m afraid

Spotted this on a lamppost: “Scared of the math Abitur?” - buddy, I wrote mine 10 years ago, on the 28th of April 2016, and my heart rate still goes up thinking about it. I barely passed. Looking back, that had less to do with math and more with the fact that I had fully decided I was bad at it. Turns out, believing you can’t do something is a pretty reliable way to make sure you actually can’t (& luckily also the other way around) :-)

So if nothing else, take this into the week: you're probably better at more things than you give yourself credit for.

Have an amazing start to the week, enjoy the sunshine while it lasts, and don't let the world get to you. Annnndddd if you liked this, hated this, or just want to tell me your favorite coffee spot, whatever – hit reply. I read everything ☕✌️

— Constanze

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I hope you all had the sunny weekend you deserved. Quick reminder: it’s a short week! Thursday is a public holiday, and I think we all know Friday will be quiet too 😉

The past week was intense, I attended OMR, one of the largest trade fairs in Germany - an amazing experience, a lot of fun, and honestly a huge privilege to be able to go behind the scenes. I’ll skip the recap – I’m sure you’ve already scrolled past enough AI-generated OMR takeaways paired with sweaty selfies on LinkedIn - plus my throat has been paying the price since Friday. 🤒

Because things have been all over the place, I haven’t managed to send out what I’ve been wanting to share for a while now:

It’s been already one year since I published my coffee price map on here after all the cafes I used to frequent a lot in Berlin Mitte, so I thought it would be time to update!

Plot twist since last year: I got a portafilter machine (Siebträgermaschine for my German friends 😄). In theory, that should mean less café spending - in practice, the office coffee is still shitty and I’ll never say no to a reason to leave my desk. So I went back to all 13 spots and checked what a flat white costs in 2026.

Quick note on methodology

Germany’s real inflation rate is based on a weighted basket of ~700 goods. Mine is based on one flat white at 13 cafés - so, slightly less scientific ;)

I’m also using the median instead of the average, because one shop (Ben Rahim) dropped their price by a full euro (which is probably not a market trend, but instead them realising that they were completely overcharging), and that kind of outlier would drag the average down and make it look like coffee is barely getting more expensive. The median just picks the middle value and doesn’t care about extremes - same reason economists use median salary instead of average salary. One billionaire in the room shouldn’t make everyone feel rich.

So here it is: The 2026 Flat White Inflation Index

The most important number: +2.3%. The median flat white price across 13 coffee shops in Berlin Mitte went from €4.40 to €4.50 in one year. For context, Germany’s general inflation rate is currently sitting at around 2.9% (highest since the beginning of 2024), which means, that flat whites in Berlin Mitte are actually getting relatively cheaper. One of the few things in life that is, and one argument more to enjoy them once in a while :)

The winners and losers:

LAP Coffee is still undefeated! €3.00 for a flat white + highest Google rating of all the shops I tracked (4.7 stars) and this even even though there was a boycott and big medial backlash against the VC-funded coffee concept.

What Do You Fancy Love - went from €4.80 to €5.60, which means that it is the most expensive flat white in Mitte now. Completely overrated if you ask me, for that price it should be the best coffee of my life, and it very much isn’t.

Ben Rahim did a full 180° U-turn! From €5.50 (most expensive last year) down to €4.50, that’s an 18% price cut.I still haven’t been there in forever though - I genuinely don’t know why, it just kind of fell off my radar. Maybe this is the sign to give it another chance. :)

6 out of 13 shops didn’t touch their prices: The Barn, Distrikt, Five Elephant, Coffee Circle, Codos, and LAP Coffee all held steady, yeah!

One thing that I found interesting: the coffee shops everyone knows - The Barn, Ben Rahim, Distrikt - all have 2,000+ Google reviews but sit at the bottom of the ratings with just 4.2 to 4.4 stars. Probably they are just easier to find on Google Maps…

Also genuinely curious: do you tip for coffee? Every time, or only when you sit down? Because with tip, some of these are already hitting €6 per flat white - which feels like a lot for espresso with milk No judgment either way, just wondering what everyone else does.

As for my personal favorites

From the list, Sant Buena is still my number one in Mitte. But there are some exciting new spots around that didn’t make it into the index yet - Garten Mitte (just opened a few weeks ago) is amazing if you want to sit outside, it’s like a small hidden paradise inside the courtyard. Kolo Cafe on Brunnenstraße is also worth checking out! And Sofi now actually serves proper coffee, which is a nice upgrade for anyone who also wants nice bread and pastry. But if you’re looking for me on any given day, you’ll most likely find me at Sant Buena, or in Prenzlauer Berg, at Material or Zacharias Tagesbar (also sort of new).

Before anyone comes for me

I love all these cafés. Prices go up because rent goes up, wages go up, oat milk goes up - that's life right now. The fact that flat white inflation is actually below general inflation is probably a win.

And - obviously this list isn’t exhaustive - there are hundreds of great coffee spots in Berlin and I only tracked 13 in Mitte and I do this all for fun! If I did not mention your favorite one here, send me your recommendations!

For now, have a great start into the week and be nice to your local baristas!

— Consti

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I hope you had a really good weekend!

On Saturday, two of my favorite people got married and had their afterparty at one of my favorite cafés. We went from the civil ceremony straight there by tram, in full wedding outfits, which felt very Berlin, in the best way. It was the most amazing day 💛

And then yesterday the podcast episode with my boss went live, and seeing myself on the cover still feels unfamiliar and I’m not yet entirely comfortable with it. As easy as “putting yourself out there” sounds, I still find it surprisingly hard not to instinctively step back again.

I’ve always been much more comfortable putting other people into the spotlight and my job is also pretty much working behind the scenes. I’m also the first one to tell people they should start posting - whether that’s a newsletter, LinkedIn, TikTok. I genuinely think there are so many people out there who should take on the opportunities that new media is handing out right now, who have interesting things to say, strong opinions, or just a personality that could work really well online.

And at the same time, I know all of that only works if you’re willing to make yourself visible. Because people only notice you if you show up - and once they notice you, things can actually start to happen. But also for myself, it’s still different. Even with things I enjoy, like photography, I’d always rather be behind the camera than in front of it.

The newsletter has helped a lot, but I still catch myself overthinking it. Reading things again, changing small details, and even after hitting send it feels like I’ve taken a bit of a risk.

Reason enough to started wondering if this is less about the content and more about what’s going on in your head when you put something out there.

The psychology behind cringing about yourself

1. Social Validation

Humans are herd animals! We are wired for social belonging, because back in the days being accepted by the group meant survival. So our brains treat social exposure as a mild risk scenario and starts scanning for potential rejection:

Will people like this? Does this sound smart / try-hard / obvious? Am I overestimating how interesting I am?

So the stakes feel higher than a casual conversation.

2. Cognitive dissonance

A lot of the cringe comes from a small gap between how you see yourself and how you come across once something is out there.

And there’s a very specific kind of discomfort that comes from reading or hearing yourself and thinking. E.g., You don’t think of yourself as someone who is self-promotional. But the second you publish something, it can feel like exactly that.

3. Spotlight effect

There’s also a tendency to overestimate how much people actually notice. In your head, it can feel like something is being read very closely, almost evaluated. In reality, most people see it, maybe register a thought, and scroll on.

That mismatch is the Spotlight Effect. But internally it can still feel like a small performance that carries more weight than it actually does.

4. Loss Aversion

You subconsciously weigh: potential upside (people like it) vs. potential downside (you look stupid) And your brain believes that the downside feels worse, so don’t risk it.

So what can we actually do about it?

The good thing: all of this is only happening in our brains! I don’t think you ever completely get rid of the feeling - but you can train your brain to not take it so seriously. Because if you actually look at what happens after you post something, it’s usually nothing dramatic. No one is dissecting it publicly, there are no real consequences, and people move on pretty quickly. Over time, that’s what makes it feel less like a risk and more like something you just do. And one thing that has genuinely helped me: I don’t reread after publishing. The moment you go back is usually when the self-cringe kicks in.

Nothing good comes from listening to your own podcast episode five times.🤠

If you still want to listen to it (it’s in German):

to the podcast

So maybe take this as a small push if you’ve been thinking about starting something - an Instagram account, a newsletter, whatever it is (:

In that sense, have a great week everybody - and don’t let the get you!

— Constanze

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I hope everyone had a great start to the week. I personally needed yesterday to recover from the weekend - I went out twice, which is a lot for me (once a month is usually enough), so a rare Tuesday edition today!

On Friday there was open bar and pornstar martinis (probably my favorite drink), and on Saturday I was at a 30th birthday where they had rented a slushy machine producing frozen margaritas (!!!)… which is why overall my body is still recovering from my own rare motivation. 🤠

Today I recorded the podcast episode with my boss (thanks again to everyone who sent questions!). And - in line with the ongoing theme of “how did you get a job like that?” (probably the question I get asked the most) - I figured this was the moment to finally send something that has been sitting half-finished in my notes app for quite some time :)

The one thing that matters more than anything else

When I look back, there is one thing that created most opportunities for me. I would even say high agency is the single most important predictor of success in general.

It’s the belief that you can shape your circumstances instead of being shaped by them and you act on it.

People with high agency:

• are looking for ways to contribute

• come with solutions, not just problems

• don’t wait for permission, start out

• find a way when there is no obvious way

• ask “how can I make this work?” instead of “why won’t this work?”

• don’t complain, they just do stuff

A simple way to think about it:

Imagine you’re in trouble and you can call exactly one person. Who would you call?

Probably not the smartest person you know - but the one you trust to figure things out. The one who will solve the problem and make things happen in real time.

That’s high agency.

Why it trumps other success factors

• Intelligence without agency = paralysis, overthinking

• Talent without agency = wasted potential

• Luck without agency = can’t capitalize on opportunities

Agency simply multiplies every other asset you have!!!

The science part

Julian Rotter studied what he called locus of control:

• Internal locus → you believe your actions determine outcomes

• External locus → you believe things just happen to you

Spoiler: people with an internal locus consistently outperform.

Albert Bandura added self-efficacy theory - your belief in your ability to act is predictive of your outcomes. Which basically means: confidence isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a performance variable.

Where I think I learned it

Back then at uni, I think I already had relatively high agency - not because I was confident (not at all, and honestly still not), but mainly because I just couldn’t say no and was constantly looking for outside affirmation.

I didn’t overthink it - I just did a lot. Everywhere, all the time, helped out, started things, got involved. And that also meant I often went out of my way for people.
Doing things without knowing if anything would come back, helping without a clear return, putting in effort without immediate upside.

And looking back, that’s probably the most important part

If you want to get somewhere, you have to put yourself in situations where something can actually happen. You have to create surface area for opportunities - otherwise nothing will.

• While doing my apprenticeship, I worked in restaurants 3-4 times a week.

• During my internship in corporate, I started at 7am, left at 3pm, and spent the afternoon working for a startup

• At uni, I got recommended for scholarships - not because of grades, but because I was involved in basically every possible association

I really believe that a lot of this compounds. The more you do, the more people you meet. The more you show up, the more opportunities come your way.

“Von viel kommt viel” or “Das Glück ist mit den Tüchtigen” as my dad would say.

Why most people don’t have it

• Schools rewarded compliance: Sit down, raise your hand, wait your turn. We got really good at waiting for instructions and then went out into the world expecting the instructions to keep coming.

• Fear of judgment: Acting means being visible, being visible means you can fail publicly. So instead people prepare, plan, discuss - instead of climbing cringe mountain.

• Social media made us passive: Scrolling is the lowest-agency activity that exists. You consume other people acting while you sit still.

So what do you do about it?

A friend of mine, Lili, recently introduced something on Instagram she calls “Delusional Tuesday.” How practical it is Tuesday today ;)

The idea is simple: Every Tuesday morning - before anyone wants anything from you - you block your calendar and take 30 minutes to think freely, doesn’t have to be “realistic,” nor “makes sense.” Just ask: what would I actually want to do?

Those 30 minutes are basically a sandbox. Nothing bad can happen there, no consequences, no judgment - just trying things out in your head without filtering yourself. Some of the things people came up with: Start a side hustle, get a new job, do social media, become a yoga teacher, write a book, ask your crush out.

And then you use those 30 minutes to take a first step: Send the message, do the research, write the outline, create the account.

None of this is actually delusional. It just feels that way because we’ve been trained to call our own ambitions unrealistic - before anyone else gets the chance to.

So maybe the goal is to make every day a little more like “Delusional Tuesday” - and use it to train agency, start small:

• If the answer to the mail is <2min, write it right away

• New project? Create the ppt/docs/etc. in the meeting already

• Make a decision in a meeting instead of deferring

• Solve one problem without asking for help first

Because in the end: The world doesn’t belong to the most qualified people.
It belongs to the ones who actually do the thing. (:

So, if the one thing that came to your mind reading this - consider this the kick in the ass 🤘🏻

— Constanze

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Apparently everyone is better at promoting this newsletter than I am - thanks to my boss’s very unexpected marathon + newsletter shoutout, which I appreciate so very much!

Glad you made it here, and I hope you’ll stay - even if I don’t run a marathon every week.

(That said: my list of things to write about has been growing quite a bit over the past weeks, so there’s more coming - fun and less fun, pressure is on now)

Ask-Me-Anything 🎙️

I hope everyone made it through the week without further damage. Mine was GREAT - I felt really productive and got a lot of things done in preparation for next week, where we’ll be traveling quite a bit.

Annnnd I’m already getting slightly nervous: On Monday, I’ll be recording a Fast & Curious podcast episode with Verena - this time with me as the guest (episode coming Sunday, April 26th). After working behind the scenes on the podcast for over 2 years, it feels very weird to suddenly switch sides 😅 But I also feel very honoured to have the chance to share a few insider stories 😉

So: if you have any questions for me - about myself, my job, how we work together, or anything else - just hit reply to this email or drop it in the comments.

How Reading Got Me My Job

The question I probably get asked most is: how did you get your job? Closely followed by: how do you read that much?

So I thought we could tackle the second one here today. Because, in a way, reading is actually what got me the job in the first place. When Verena was looking for someone to start a book club with, my best friend Louisa recommended me - and the rest is history. 🕺🏻

And up to today, I still read around ~70 books a year (24 so far this year). There’s no real secret behind it, so I have nothing to gate-keep.

How I manage to read that much:

• I don’t watch series, I just never really got into Netflix

• There’s almost always a book in my bag (close to 100% probability)

• I read in every small gap: trains, taxis, waiting rooms, hairdresser

• When I travel, I easily read ~1 book per day (preferably on the beach or travel bus) and 1-2 books on long haul flights (luckily I mostly travel with my mom, so we can share the 10-15 books I sometimes bring along)

• Slightly questionable: I read at the gym (treadmill / bike)

• And at night when I should definitely be sleeping

• I live alone, no kids, lots of me time, I don’t feel FOMO on social events easily

• Also, it’s honestly a bit addictive - learning more, becoming smarter and smarter, building arguments, getting better in discussions

• But, reading also does the opposite: it calms me down, pulls me into a different world, lets me switch off

• Our book club helps as well - we constantly need new books to present to the community (and yes, if you want to laugh at something - I’ve started climbing cringe mountain and making videos for it)

• As easy as it sounds: good books! If you don’t enjoy reading it, simply don’t read it, we are not doing required reading like in school anymore, I’ve also started reading more fiction again and moved away from heavy self-improvement content, because I enjoy it more

• And luckily I get a lot of books for free from the editors because of the book club, otherwise I probably could not afford the amount of books (I only read physical books, no Kindle)

So no hacks, no secret speed-reading technique. I just read a lot - and it somehow stuck as a habit (even though I’ve again forgotten to take my supplements for the past 3 weeks) and my apartment is slowly turning into a library.

If You Really Want It…

If you know how to read, reading itself is actually quite easy. You just have to make time for it (easier said than done, of course).

But honestly, it’s a bit like dating: If he really wanted to text you back, he would. No one is that busy - people are literally on their phone in the bathroom.

I’m a big believer in: if you want to make something work, you’ll find a way. I really want to read a lot and I’m a very big fan of free will.

And to be fair, I don’t actually care if people read a lot. I just enjoy talking about books - so I’m lucky that some of my friends do too, and otherwise I have the book club, which is more than enough.

That said: I once dated a guy who told me he couldn’t remember ever reading a book. And that made him instantly unattractive to me. Touché ;)

My Favorite Books

All of this makes me at least somewhat qualified to give you decent book recommendations. Which is harder than it sounds, in the book club alone, we’ve presented 30+ #pickofthemonth books, and then there are also quite a few personal favorites that never made it onto that list. (Some of the recommendations will be German-only, sorry in advance).

📚 What I’d actually recommend

Non-Fiction

Future - Florence Gaub

Head of Research at the NATO Defense College, for me one of the smartest perspectives on how to think about the future.

How to Stand Up to a Dictator - Maria Ressa

Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist who was literally arrested for her work. The book is about truth, power, and what happens when systems slowly shift, feels uncomfortably relevant right now.

The Power of Regret - Daniel H. Pink

I wrote about the book on here (actually my most successful post so far).

Abundance - Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson

Our #pickofthemonth in the book club this month, if you’d like to join. Two really sharp top-journalists about how nations and societies really can still create growth and innovation these days (spoiler: more of the old doesn’t bring anything new).

Language and Being - Kübra Gümüşay

One of the books I’ve read more than once. It’s about how language shapes reality, made me think a lot about how we frame things and people.

Soul Talk - Lili Vogelsang

Absolute communication pro - and luckily one of my best friends. The book is honestly a bit of a life saver for almost any situation. It’s full of great questions you can ask to get to know people better, have more interesting conversations, or just survive awkward silence in meetings. I even used one of the questions as a prompt on Hinge - let’s just say it worked ;)

A different kind of power - Jacinda Ardern

Former Prime Minister of New Zealand - known for empathetic leadership, especially during crises, which feels very different from most political styles. Also had a baby while in office, what a hero!

Fiction (huge bias towards Diogenes)

Für Polina - Takis Würger

My absolute favorite book, I sometimes get mad a people if they haven’t read it yet to be honest.

Anything that Benedict Wells has written

Easy to read but still deep - great characters, slightly melancholic tone, very addictive, sometimes makes you cry.

Going Zero - Anthony McCarten

Screenwriter turned novelist (also wrote major biopics), and you can feel that when reading. Really fast-paced book, about surveillance and how little privacy we actually have left.

Melody - Martin Suter

Classic Suter, sharp, elegant, slightly mysterious, very enjoyable to read.

Lazar - Nelio Biedermann

I agree to what New York Times says: „A Very Old-Fashioned Novel Has Made a Star Out of a Very Young Writer Just 22 and still a student, Nelio Biedermann has been compared to Thomas Mann thanks to “Lázár,” his sweeping family saga.“

I could go on, but these were the first ones that came to mind - which probably already says a lot.

If you end up getting one of them, I’d recommend using Genialokal (you can check availability in local bookstores and either pick it up or have it delivered, no need to buy them on Amazon), or Rebuy if you’re fine with second-hand.

Let me know what you think if you read one of them.

That being said - have a great weekend and see you on the other side.

Best,

— Constanze

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Currently finishing this on a plane to Copenhagen and then heading straight to the office - just to get a bit of that consulting feeling back every now and then 🤘🏻

While I’m excited to get back into some routine, there are still a few curiosities from the last days that I wanted to share.

I’m generally not the biggest fan of the US (anymore? not sure if I ever really was?), and it did feel slightly weird being there while everything political is… what it is right now (and my knees are somehow shaking every time I’m at the passport control). But of course, a few things worth sharing 💛

Back to Uni

On Thursday, I was lucky to join a lecture at the Harvard Kennedy School (the politics arm of Harvard) on “Emerging Tech: Security, Strategy, and Risk.”

It was led by Eric Rosenbach (former Chief of Staff at the Pentagon - always nice to see the role represented 😉 ), hosting Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall (Homeland Security Advisor for Biden, also worked for Clinton & Obama).

The topic of the lecture was how to brief a president / governor / manager so that the person is actually able to take a decision based on your input - in this case around a biotech attack on the US.

A few takeaways from the class:

• You get constantly cold-called - I was there as a guest and was slightly afraid someone would ask me for my take

• The main value of going to an elite university is really the access to top-notch speakers and the mix of people in the room (German Mid-Career McKinsey, Norwegian military, Indian police officers, MIT students cross-registering - everyone was there)

• At the end of the day, even though it’s ✨Harvard✨ they’re also just students - and sometimes play bullshit bingo when being called on

• No laptop rule - really unusual for me to focus on something for 1.5h straight (the business schools I went to, everybody was doing something different on their laptop during lectures, nobody took notes with hands)

On the content:

• 30–3–30 rule for briefings, there is 3 different types

  • If you have 30 seconds → you can only present your conclusion, so you have to make up your mind completely beforehand

  • 3 minutes → your key arguments / options

  • 30 minutes → deep dive with all the details

→ you always need to be prepared for all three options, because you never know how deep a leader wants to go

• Elizabeth literally said that for one very important topic there was no time to properly brief Biden, and he just walked up to her signaling 👍 / 👎

• Biden → a lot of empathy for the counterpart, knows exactly how to deal with foreign leaders / governors

• Obama → very good at seeing the value in the quietest person in the room, would often ask for their opinion first

From my bucket list 🦞

On Friday we ticked something off my bucket list: eating a full lobster (I don’t even know why it was on there). My mom sent me instructions from a travel book from 1985 on how to crack it open, and I tried my best on not hurting myself while doing so 🤠

It’s definitely not as aesthetic and sexy to eat as I imagined, but sitting by the harbor, in the sun, with a bottle of wine made up for it.

Free will is a great thing 🏃‍♀️

On Saturday I decided to run a marathon here - of course not the actual Boston Marathon, which will take place next weekend, bust one made by free will.

I’ve been training with a plan from my coach over the past months and felt like trying it. I ran a marathon 3 years ago (when I was still deeply anorexic) and broke my foot twice after that (so basically one year of not running at all). And this time I was 12 minutes faster!!! Just shows that consistency and structured, science-based training actually do their job and lead to more sustainable results, and I’m really proud of the progress over the past weeks and of being able to run that far without anyone cheering on my but myself. 🤪

Running is also always a good way to explore the city:

🥤 FUN DRINKS

The assortment of Spaßgetränke is actually insane. Sparkling, zero calories, probiotics, electrolytes - everything somehow manages to be both “healthy” and enjoyable at the same time. Still wondering why this hasn’t really made its way to Germany yet, it’s probably a mix of stricter EU regulation, retail structure (Aldi/Lidl shelf logic), and maybe also a cultural thing - Germans tend to separate “healthy” and “fun,” while the US combines both.

That said, trends do come over eventually (e.g. Pamela Reif’s Superpop), but I still feel like there’s space for more. Here’s just a small selection of drinks I enjoyed the last weeks:

My favorite: Cacao water - I used to drink this on Brazilian beaches and I have never seen that one in Germany. If anyone is interested in launching that in Europe, I might be curious to talk! 🕺🏻

🛒 Trader Joe’s !!!!

Continuing on consumption, fun fact: Trader Joe’s is owned by Aldi Nord, Aldi Süd expanded into the US under the Aldi name, while Aldi Nord acquired Trader Joe’s in 1979.

So while they’re technically related, they operate completely separately - which you can tell immediately when you walk into the stores.

And while I’d usually pick Aldi Süd in Germany, Trader Joe’s is easily my favorite supermarket here, such a great assortment of snacks and the friendliest workers! Apparently they are regularly ranked as one of the best places to work in the US (was ranked #1 among large employers in the US; Forbes 2026)- which makes sense once you’ve interacted with the staff.

These are my favourite snacks there:

🦃 Thanksgiving came early

Apparently it’s completely normal in Cambridge that turkeys just walk around freely? Still don’t really get it.

🇩🇪 Germany wants you

Walking around Cambridge, I saw an ad from Germany trying to attract researchers.

Loved it - feels very needed, especially in times like these.

📚📚📚

I also really enjoyed working from different libraries over the past weeks. There’s just something about sitting in very old rooms, with books on the side, even if it’s just to do emails.

Now, I have a few very work- and travel-intense weeks ahead, which I’m actually really looking forward to. Annnnd - wedding and birthday season is kicking off, which means lots of quality and fun time with my favorite people on the weekends 💛

As always: feel free to hit reply or comment, even if it’s just a snack recommendation or a strong opinion on fun drinks. I’m always happy about any reaction!

Have a great start into the week and as always, don’t let them get you!

— Constanze

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I’ve been spending the last 10 days in the States again, and over Easter I went to visit my dear friend Julia, who moved to Toronto last year.

We originally met back in 2018 when she was working at the gym I used to go to when I was living with my ex-boyfriend close to Stuttgart, and then somehow ran into each other again in a run club in Berlin in 2023. I still don’t really understand the odds of that, but since then, we’ve been meeting at least once a week to run or do some kind of sport together, which is why I was actually quite sad when she left Berlin.

Now she’s opening a coffee truck in Toronto - which makes me very proud, and also led to quite a few deep dives into the coffee industry. The result: an updated Berlin Mitte coffee price map (+ inflation index) is coming next week, we have stuff to talk about on that!

Canada was fun though!! We went to Niagara Falls in full sunshine (nice, but slightly underwhelming if you’ve seen Iguazú before), walked around the city, had Poutine (not too sure about that one), and went to a baseball game of the Blue Jays vs. LA Dodgers. It took me about two hours to understand the rules (a bit like Brennball, if you went to school in Germany), but I still don’t really get it. The games are very long, not much happens for extended periods of time, and it feels like a lot of pressure on very few players. Also - the outfits? ⚾

Career update: twice the job

I also met a few friends from one of my exchange semesters during my master’s. That’s the beauty of this business school bubble - you can go almost anywhere and you’ll know someone. While catching up on jobs and life, one of them casually mentioned that he’s currently working two full-time jobs at once. Not a “job + side hustle”, but two actual (partly remote, but not in tech) full-time jobs, without either employer knowing.

Which, naturally, made me curious?! I had vaguely heard about this before, but as he explained it, this is actually a whole thing - it’s called “overemployment.”

Basically: people working multiple full-time jobs at the same time. Not job + side hustle, but two (or more) actual jobs, usually remote, without telling either employer.

And naturally, a few people came to mind whose jobs, and how they approach them, would probably make this easier than expected.

The version I heard first-hand:

• He’s working two full-time jobs right now

• Both partly remote (he’s coordinating his office days and his meeting schedule)

• One in public, one in private sector

• Neither employer or colleagues know

He’s even thinking about adding a third, because he still doesn’t feel fully utilized and is still watching movies during work hours.

OF COURSE I had to ask how he’s handling LinkedIn: if anyone asks why the new job isn’t on there, he just says he doesn’t really use LinkedIn and hasn’t updated it in forever.

People are making $1M doing this

Digging into some rabbit holes on Reddit, apparently this is not even that rare: Some people are juggling 2–5 jobs within a normal 40-hour week. There are cases of people making $700k+ with this - even crossing $1M at peak.

Which sounds insane until you realize why it works. A lot of these jobs are officially 40 hours - but in reality closer to 20–25 hours of actual output.
The rest is meetings, coordination, being available. So instead of “wasting” that time, people just fill it with another job. Same hours, double income. Pretty smart, or?

Around ~476.000 Americans are currently working two full-time jobs at the same time - the figure trails only December 2025’s all-time peak of 488.000.

Why this works in some places

This is very much a North American thing. In Germany, it’s basically impossible - mainly because of working time laws (Arbeitszeitschutzgesetz, max hours, mandatory rest periods), plus the fact that second jobs are visible through tax and contracts.

And also: any second job is automatically taxed in Steuerklasse VI, which is the least favorable tax class - meaning a big chunk of that additional income goes straight to taxes. So the whole “double income for the same time” logic becomes a lot less attractive very quickly. (Which, to be fair, is a whole separate discussion - why you’re taxed more for taking on additional work and contributing more to the economy. But that’s for another time…)

So the whole “no one knows” setup doesn’t really work in Germany - in case you were already considering it ;)

I don’t think this is as black-and-white as it sounds.

The case for it:

• It exposes how inefficient some jobs are (for me the most important point)

• It’s kind of the same optimization companies have been doing forever - just from the employee side

• If you are being laid off - you still have a job

• If both companies get their deliverables… is anyone actually harmed?

• And financially, it’s obviously a huge lever

The case against it:

• It only works because it’s hidden, feels like playing hide and seek

• Attention is limited - even if output looks fine

• It’s a clear breach of trust in most cases (and why also some people have already been fined for doing it, especially in terms of compliance when the companies are in the same industry)

• And it probably doesn’t scale very well personally (I’d hate not being able to properly engage with colleagues + constantly worrying about being exposed)

I still haven’t decided if I admire this or if it slightly challenges my ethical compass.

But for me the bottom line is: if someone can do two jobs in the time one job is supposed to take, either they’re exceptional - or the job isn’t really a 40-hour job.

For me personally, I don’t think I could approach it like that. I don’t see work as just a transaction or a pure income stream, there is much more meaning in work for me. It’s also what structures my day, how I interact with people, how I grow personally, and honestly something that keeps me from going slightly insane.

So I’d probably get bored trying to optimize it this way. But if your goal is purely financial and transactional, you don’t care about feeling detached from work, and having more money gives you sense of control, then it actually makes a lot of sense.

But curious to know what you think on that? 🕺🏻

Hope you have a great and sunny weekend!

Best regards,

— Constanze

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Today marks exactly one year since I sent my very first Constidential newsletter!
One year of writing publicly on the internet! 🎂

In numbers:

• 79 newsletters sent

• 142,000 views

• 1,482 subscribers (almost 1.5k, yeah!)

• 69% open rate

• €0 made

So overall: strong business model as you can see 😂

Why I started this

I started this a year ago with the intention of creating a space that feels like my own. I love my job - but it definitely makes me think and communicate like a slightly different person in many situations. And I was curious what would happen if I just write things the way I would say them - and somehow Substack felt less cringe than LinkedIn (as it is😉)

And - since I never really promote this any where, the fact that this exists at all beyond like 5 people is still a bit confusing to me.

What it thought me about leadership🤪

• Action > perfection as always in life
  If my friend Lili hadn’t pushed me to finally send something, I would probably still be thinking about a name for this. (Also: I was convinced I’d rename this at some point - not happening, I fully love Constidential now.) My biggest fear before starting was that at some point this project might ruin my reputation, as far as I can see it didn’t - but if one day I’m drifting apart, let me know PLEASE.

• Writing is thinking
  And sometimes exposing that I haven’t thought enough. What started as “maybe a business newsletter” turned into something closer to a mix of diary, brain dump, and some structured overthinking. But it really made me rediscover my love for writing and it might be fun to scroll back in a few years.

• The posts I almost didn’t send perform best
  The ones that feel too personal/oversharing or not “interesting enough“, those are usually the ones people actually react to. (My best performing post is the one I shared the feelings of regret that I have after living with anorexia with 4 years of my life). So, who wants to learn about my dating experience in Berlin????

• People actually read this (shocker!)
  I genuinely thought I was just sending this into the void. But people reply - sometimes with long messages, sometimes just a few lines - and I’ve even met some of you for coffee, which still feels slightly random (in a good way). For me, even the tiniest reaction on something on here, is the greatest joy.

• Unsubscribes happen (but I’m still offended)
  Sometimes the first thing that happens if I send out a newsletter, is that someone unsubscribes. I took some time to not take that personally (and maybe I still do), but it’s part of it. Quality > Quantity like always in life, or?

• The biggest reward…
  …is when this leads to action. Someone starting something, changing something, doing something differently (Like e.g. one friend Camila , who recently started writing here too). If you needed a sign - this is it!

What My Dad Wants You To Know

On a final note - I asked my number one reader (my dad, who has made a few appearances here already) to contribute a few words for the one-year anniversary.

He was, unsurprisingly, slightly reluctant:

When Constanze asked me to write a short guest contribution for one year of Constidential, I was a bit surprised. She knows I’m not a big fan of grand words or long monologues. So I’ll keep it short.

My wish for her - and for the future of Constidential:

Even in times of ChatGPT, AI, and an overload of social media, to stay open to forming your own, critical opinions - and to keep seeking and maintaining real, personal connections with actual people.

With that, I’m looking forward to the coming years - and I already tend to check early if I can read Constidential before the official email goes out.

🤷🏻‍♀️ Final thought

I guess if there’s one thing I’d want to keep, it’s exactly that. Not over-optimizing this, never outsourcing the actual thinking behind this, and not losing the part that makes this feel like an actual conversation.

All I can say: I’m still not entirely sure what this newsletter is or what it’s going to be. But I know I’d miss it if it didn’t exist.

For now, that feels like a good enough reason to keep going. So the only way you’ll getting rid of me is by unsubscribing (but small reminder: I can see who does😉)

And with that - I’m wishing you the best weekend!

— Consti

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It feels like forever since I last wrote here - but apparently it’s only been two weeks. I’m still not entirely sure if I was too busy, too lazy, slightly ashamed of my recent life output, or simply in need of a creative break (maybe all of it).

Either way, I was called out for it ( & thanks to everybody keeping me accountable) - so here I am, Sunday evening, producing your Monday Morning read ;)

Peak Performance lol

I actually spent most of the weekend quite antisocially, mostly reading (I finished 4 books… which sounds unhinged, but my sleeping issues are peaking right now).

AND also because I had to recover from a proper people hangover after being in Switzerland last week for a student conference.

If you’ve been reading for a while, you know I’m not the biggest fan of networking events. And to be fair - it was beautifully organized, full of motivated, impressive, young people, even a whole hackathon going on.

But still - why do conferences always come with the same symptoms:

• greasy hair

• bad skin

• a weird combination of sweating and freezing

• your throat hurting

• being asked the same three questions 27 times

• eating everything but nothing proper

As if that wasn’t enough, I had somehow messed up my back the days before (according to ChatGPT: “just tension, nothing serious”), so I showed up not being able to comfortable sit, walk or stand + I was wearing heat patches on my back like a grandma, which felt like I was wearing a diaper. 🫠 🤝

Why Don’t I Know My Friends’ Parents?

One genuinely great moment last week though: I went to a very small album release show by James Blake with a friend, and she brought her parents along as a surprise for her dad’s birthday.

The concert was stunning, and we ended up having such a fun, easy evening together. And only afterwards it hit me how unusual that actually was.

I had met her parents once before, years ago at our graduation - but with most of my adult friendships, I barely know the parents at all. Even though we’ve been close for years.

Which is kind of funny, because in many cases I know exactly what kind of trauma they gave their kids - just not who they are as people today 😀

If we treated friendships more like romantic relationships, that would probably look very different. After six months of being in a relationship, you’ve usually met the parents. After a few years of friendship, often not.

If Friendships Worked Like Relationships

So I started thinking about all the things we culturally reserve for romantic relationships - that would make equal (or sometimes more) sense in friendships:

• bringing a friend as a +1 to a wedding (instead of a partner who knows nobody, refuses to dance, while your friend would already be three Aperol Spritz deep, dancing on the table)

• buying real estate together (because realistically, you trust your best friend’s financial decisions more than most people you date for 6 months)

• having a shared account for trips and life admin (friendship fund, no more “I’ll send you the PayPal later”)

• making each other emergency contacts (a friend of mine put me down as her Hyrox emergency contact - which, in practice, makes more sense than involving parents who live hours away. )

• power of attorney + patient directive (same logic - someone who actually knows your curret life, your priorities, and your passwords)

• caregiving expectations (who is actually going to show up when things get difficult? statistically… not always your romantic partner)

• co-parenting as friends (honestly, imagine the efficiency if every woman also had a “wife” at home)

• visa sponsoring (if one of my closest friends moves abroad, why is the system like “good luck” instead of “bring your people”?)

• friendship therapy instead of couples therapy (because some friendship dynamics deserve just as much maintenance (and occasionally conflict resolution))

• retiring together as a group of friends (fun shared house situation)

• financial commitment aka financial marriage (without the marriage part, just tax benefits)

• inheritance (because realistically… who has been there longer?)

Once you start going down that rabbit hole, you’ll see: some of this is already possible. Patient directives, power of attorney, joint accounts, real estate - it’s just not socially common.

For example, I’ve now already consulted my (tax advisor) dad on adding one of my best friends to my patient directive (also: if you don’t have one, it’s never too early).

The Math Doesn’t Add Up📊

It gets even more interesting when you look at the numbers: The average dating relationship lasts around 2 years, the average marriage (including those that end) lands somewhere around 10–15 years - with many ending after ~7.
Close friendships? Often 10, 20, sometimes 30+ years.

So suddenly it’s not that obvious anymore that romantic relationships are automatically the most “serious” or longest-lasting ones.

And yet, friendships often
– survive multiple romantic partners, situationships, persons not worth mentioning
– witness every personality upgrade (and downgrade)
– don’t require exclusivity
– continue across cities, countries, entire life phases

They are renewed voluntarily, over and over again without any “till death do us part.”

And still - we legally and structurally prioritize romantic relationships, even though they statistically fail quite often. Meanwhile, the relationships that quietly span entire life chapters?

Just a Thought :)

Anyway - wishing you all a great start into the week. Also: we’re hitting one year of Constidential this week (!!), more on that on Friday :)

See you there - and don’t let them get you.

— Consti

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What a beautiful one this was, I felt unusually calm and content. I even showed up to therapy and told my therapist (quite proudly) “Honestly, I’m really fine.” She looked at me like someone who had just been handed a puzzle (+naturally, she still managed to find something…)

Still - Berlin in early spring just hits differently, the light is back, people are sitting outside again, and suddenly life feels a little less heavy. 🌞

One of the little advantages that Berlin has over Bavaria is that International Women’s Day is a public holiday holiday here. Unfortunately, this year it’s on a Sunday (what a scandal), but reason enough to give some shoutouts here to some women who quietly shaped parts of my professional life, maybe without them even knowing or already forgetting about me (of course there were many men along the way as well, but that’s not today’s topic 😉).

Looking back, I was often lucky that someone took better care of my potential than I would have taken of it myself. What still amazes me is that in all of these moments I didn’t even ask for help - people simply took the time or gave the push anyway.

Today I’m very privileged to work in an environment surrounded by so many impressive and supportive women that I couldn’t possibly name them all. Especially my boss is not only the biggest role model to me - but also to thousands of other people. However, this little list is for the ones who saw something in me, before I had even discovered my own self-confidence.

So in the spirit of International Women’s Day, here are a few women who left their mark on my professional journey.💛

Ulrike

During school I worked a few shifts every week at the restaurant of my best friend’s mom, Ulrike. (She was one of those effortlessly cool moms the kind who gave you adult wristbands even though you were technically too young for the party)

Back then I was extremely insecure, if a guest said something mean, I would take it personally and sometimes cry in the back. Ulrike would always say: when someone is mean, smile even more and be even nicer, don’t let an idiot destroy your whole day. At the time it just felt like practical advice for dealing with difficult guests. In hindsight, it was probably my first lesson in how to kill people with kindness and not letting other people’s bad moods become your problem.

Laura

Laura was the coolest bachelor student at our university, I was very much not. She was already in her sixth semester when I started uni, and somehow she decided to adopt me a bit. When I called her from Brazil feeling miserable after she already finished her degree, she made sure the university actually stepped in. When I later called her crying after a consulting stress interview, she simply said: “Screw them. I once ended a tier 1 interview on purpose because I didn’t like the questions.”

Laura has this way of casually redistributing confidence to the people around her. Being around her makes you believe things might actually work out - and if not, it’s their loss.

Lea

I met Lea during my first semester studying in Brazil. At that point I had very little direction and didn’t really think ambitious careers were something someone like me should aim for. When I mentioned I might want to try consulting, she didn’t just say “that sounds great.”

She scheduled a coffee, walked me through the whole process, gave me all her case prep materials and kept checking in afterwards.

To this day I think there is nobody who has dropped my name in more rooms than Lea. Many things that later happened started with a random “you should talk to her.”

Valentina

During an internship in Brazil, Valentina was assigned as my buddy (already during the application process, which still feels unusually generous).

Once I got the job, she checked in with me two or three times a week. We would walk through my work together, sometimes even code side by side, and she patiently answered all the technical questions I sometimes felt too intimidated to ask in the team. She never made it feel like a burden or like any question was too basic - even though the final output of my internship probably looked like at least 50% her work (and we weren’t even on the same team).

Johanna

Johanna was one of my teammates in consulting and probably the least interested in office politics of anyone I’ve ever met. She rarely joined after-work drinks, often skipped lunch with the group, sometimes openly said she just wanted to go home and watch Netflix instead of the bar.

But she always showed up extremely prepared and delivered excellent work. And because the work was that good, everyone simply accepted it.

Many people thought she was a bit weird. Watching her, though, made me realize how much freedom strong performance actually buys you - and that you don’t have to participate in every bit of group pressure to be respected.

Alexandra

During one internship I had a pretty bad experience with a situation that I initially thought I should just quietly tolerate. Alexandra was in a different team, but when I told her what had happened she reacted very differently. She told me that staying silent would only protect the wrong side - and that these situations need to come into the open so that other women don’t experience the same thing.

Within the same day she escalated the situation in a way that led to it being resolved within about 24 hours. I was able to switch teams and had a completely different experience for the rest of the internship.

Marianna

Marianna was a Vice President at the VC where I worked in Brazil. I didn’t even think she had noticed me much until she started randomly checking in every couple of weeks on Slack. I still remember that I got a heart attack when she first texted me. Then sometimes we’d jump on a short call about what I was working on.

What touched me even more was that she didn’t just ask about my work - she would also openly share some of the challenges she was dealing with, even though there were probably seven leadership layers between us. Seeing someone that senior take time for the most junior people - and be that open about the realities of the job - left a bigger impression on me than she probably realized.

Nina

Nina was my project lead in consulting and pure energy! In front of clients she would jump in front of the team like a lion. Behind the scenes she made everything feel lighter - communicating half the time in GIFs and translating board meetings into extremely entertaining summaries. She even hired a personal trainer who forced us to work out together twice a week. And when things got late, she even managed to turn slide work into a game. She would write the remaining slides on pieces of paper, put them upside down, and we had to randomly draw which one we’d take. It was the first time I saw someone lead a team with both - intensity, but even more fun.

The Small Things

And it’s funny how often it was the smallest gestures that stuck with me: a short conversation, a random introduction, or just a gentle kick in the butt. Those tiny yeses travel surprisingly far. They also remind me to try to say yes a bit more often now - when someone asks for advice, or just a quick opinion. I’ve generally had the best experiences with people who give more than they take, especially at the beginning. So I try to be one of those people as well.

And sometimes I also try to spot the little Constanzes in the room - the ones who might just need someone to say, “You should give this a shot.” (:

Happy weekend everyone - enjoy the sun, go outside, and be nice to each other 🌻

— Constanze

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I hope you all had a good week. I’m not sure if this will last, but it feels like we might have made it through Berlin winter - 16 degrees and sun the last few days!

That, plus the most wholesome weekend, distracted me from being sick for what feels like the 100th time this year. 🤪

Last Saturday, I basically turned my apartment into a café and invited my closest friends to celebrate my birthday. One of my best friends came from Cologne and we spent the whole morning baking and preparing everything. Always worth it!

My name is Constanze, and my worst date…

In the evening, two friends had rented a private room in a restaurant and invited two groups of girls who didn’t really know each other yet - but probably should. And it was honestly so much fun. Instead of the usual slightly awkward “name, job, and why you matter” intro round, the only rule was: say your name and tell the story of your worst date.

For the first time ever, I didn’t overthink introducing myself. I immediately raised my hand because I actually had several stories to choose from.

We were either crying from laughter or completely speechless, not much in between. The waiter looked more confused every time he walked in. Fascinating how much faster you connect over slightly embarrassing stories than over jobs 😉

Future gives me anxiety

Last week I also started producing reels for our book club. We have very engaged community - but barely post anything. So I volunteered to climb cringe mountain and become someone who talks into a camera (at least it’s about books.)

February was clearly a reading month, I finished seven books! And one of them I really have to recommend - not only because it was genuinely fun to read, but because the author is one of the most inspiring women I know and her books actually make me less anxious about the future.

Florence Gaub is, for me, the definition of kicks ass. She’s Director of the Research Division at the NATO Defense College in Rome. She also serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Complex Risks, is a member of the World Science Fiction Society (and mostly posts surfer photos on Instagram).

In short: she’s a professional when it comes to thinking about the future.

Which is perfect for someone like me. I’m the kind of person who is three hours early at the airport. I don’t do well with situationships. Uncertainty doesn’t energize me. It has gotten slightly better over the years. I can tolerate more ambiguity than I used to. But I still sometimes wonder how I survived three years in Brazil.

Future is a Construct

In her first book „Future“, Florence explains: the future doesn’t actually “exist” somewhere ahead of us. It’s something we construct in the present.

Our brain takes memories from the past, filters them through our current emotions, adds imagination, and then produces a version of what might come next. Neuroscience even shows that imagining the future activates similar brain areas as remembering the past. So the future feels real because we mentally rehearse it - and what we rehearse influences how we act. (Which also means: if you lie awake imagining worst-case scenarios, you’re not just worrying. You’re practicing them 🤪)

How I got detained in Moscow

In „Scenario“, she turns this idea into something even more fun fun. The book works like those “choose your own adventure” stories - just with geopolitics. It starts with a call from Norway about an incident near Spitsbergen, close to Russia, and from there everything depends on your decisions.

In one version, I ended up detained in Moscow as a spy. In another, I somehow reformed NATO. Same starting point, completely different outcomes.

Her core idea is simple: good strategy isn’t about knowing the future. It’s about not being surprised by it.

What I find most helpful is how she challenges our tendency to think in single futures. We often say things like “Europe will decline” or „AI will take all of our jobs“ and reduce everything to one likely storyline. But the future is plural. There are always multiple possible paths, shaped by decisions and trade-offs. The real shift is moving from “What will happen?” to “What could happen?”

What if?

And that becomes very practical when you think about your own life:

Maybe I stay in Berlin and build something long-term here.
Maybe I move to Munich close to my fam. Maybe I go back to Brazil.
Maybe I have two kids. Maybe I don’t. Maybe I have three.
Maybe I stay I go into politics. Maybe I go work in startups.
Maybe I open a book shop. Maybe AI makes my job irrelevant.
Maybe it creates something I can’t even imagine yet.

Same starting point, very different trajectories.

If I tell myself there’s only one likely outcome - and it’s the stressful one - my courage shrinks. If I allow for multiple paths and accept that I influence at least some of the variables, I feel more agency.

Maybe that’s the real value of thinking about the future this way: Not certainty, just more options.

And if you want to have a really nerdy - geopolitical further read on that: Florence was also involved in a project called “What If? Ten Dragon King Scenarios for 2030” at the NATO Defense College.

Some of the scenarios include questions like:

• What if rumours about a new bioweapon triggered panic?

• What if a nuclear weapon detonated in space?

• What if Ukraine decided to go nuclear?

• What if Egypt and Ethiopia went to war over water?

• What if Russia and Georgia suddenly patched things up?

None of these are predictions. It’s basically a structured exercise in thinking through extreme but plausible geopolitical futures - not to predict them, but to train your imagination to handle complexity.

🌞🌞🌞

Anyway - go outside, get some vitamin D, and enjoy the sun while it lasts.

Have a great weekend & see you on the other side!

— Consti

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After coming back from the US, we went straight into a work trip from Monday to Tuesday. And I honestly don’t know if it’s still jet lag or just my usual sleep issues kicking in again, but I barely slept this week. Same story on Wednesday, by 5:30am I gave up and decided to become one of those weird people standing in front of the gym before it even opens at 6 - just to give my therapist a fair chance at 8:30. Therapy without sport beforehand is simply not a good idea for anyone involved 😉

I left the gym at 7, walked maybe 500 meters, and got an AirTag notification that I had left my wallet behind. If you’ve been here for more than 3 weeks, you know I already lost my wallet once this year and somehow got it back. So this felt like: really Constanze?

So I ran back to the gym, asked at reception, checked the changing room, nothing.

While I was still there, I opened Find My - and saw my wallet moving through Berlin.

Next Steps:

1. Called my mom crying (obviously).

2. Wrote a slightly embarrassing email to my therapist that I wouldn’t make it.

3. Called mom again and together we decided I should go to the police to check what to do next.

How I Ended Up In The Back of The Police Car

So there I was, 7:45am, ringing the bell at one of the police offices in Berlin Mitte, explaining to the officer that my wallet was visible on my phone but not in my hand and seemed to be driving through Berlin without me.

And I was actually really surprised: the officer immediately came out, checked my phone, took it seriously, took notes, asked what was inside…the whole program. Small silver lining: I didn’t even have to block my bank cards this time because - shoutout to Volksbank Berlin - they still hadn’t managed to unblock the new ones they sent me after I blocked the old cards a month ago. Efficiency, just in a different direction 😉

Meanwhile the location of my wallet kept updating until, at some point, it stopped. The officer asked if I wanted to come with them to check it out.

So by 8am I found myself sitting in the back of a police van, with three (!!!) officers, being shuttled through Berlin because of my wallet. I really hope this is the only time in my life I get to experience what it feels like to be detained - and to be honest, from the outside, it probably looked exactly like that.

However, the sheer absurdity of the situation- and the fact that I genuinely hadn’t expected that level of effort - made me question whether this was really the best use of taxpayer money. I’m fairly certain the Berlin police have bigger problems than me losing my wallet for the second time this year.

So while I kept apologizing in the back seat, they calmly told me it was completely fine. It was my right to report it, and if someone had taken my wallet, they would take care of it.

Walk of Shame

By 8:10 we arrived at the location. They took my phone and tried to locate the AirTag more precisely, but it wouldn’t connect.

So they handed my phone back, said there wasn’t much more they could do at that point and that they had to move on - got back into the car and drove off.

And there I was, standing somewhere in Berlin at 8:15 a.m., without a wallet, without therapy, watching the police van disappear. Going home from there felt like a walk of shame 🫠

On the way home I was so frustrated with and angry about myself. Rationally, I knew it wasn’t the end of the world, there wasn’t much cash in it. It was “just” the administrative nightmare of replacing my ID and driver’s license. Still, I lived in Brazil for years and therefore I’m usually very careful with my personal stuff. So losing my wallet once was bad luck. Losing it a second time just felt completely unnecessary. And that’s what freaked me out.

By 9:30 a.m. I had pulled myself together and started working - when my phone rang.

It was a man who said he had already tried to reach me on LinkedIn. His wife had found my wallet somewhere in Berlin. She works for the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) - Germany’s foreign intelligence service - which, by the way, is located very close to where my AirTag had last shown up.

Because she isn’t allowed to use her phone at work, she had quickly told him to find me instead. He found me on LinkedIn (honestly, first truly convincing use case for LinkedIn) and then found my number via RocketReach (please don’t get ideas😉).

Apparently the wallet had been lying somewhere near their building (still don’t know how it got there). And since phones have to be locked away inside, the AirTag signal most likely disappeared there - which explains why the location had suddenly stopped updating.

Honestly, I was almost crying because of my luck! How can you be so lucky not only once but twice? I think I never felt so relieved. So In the evening I bought the biggest bouquet of flowers I could find and went to their home to pick it up. They were just the cutest couple and very happy themself that they could help.

So what is this telling me?

1. AirTags are actually a very solid invention.

2. No matter how adult I think I am, my mom is the more competent adult.

3. Maybe the police really are your “friend and helper” (as we like to say in Germany, different experience in Brazil).

4. Learning of the week: Police seatbelts close from the inside to the outside - for obvious reasons, since usually they’re the ones putting someone into that seat.

5. It’s probably not shocking that I get spam calls if my number is publicly floating around the internet.

6. Faith in humanity restored.

7. And maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world to now have a good contact at the foreign intelligence service.

Good Karma

But overall - I’m not esoteric, yet I do believe in karma. I genuinely try to be kind and fair with people, and lately it feels like that has been coming back to me in unexpected ways. I mean, who loses their wallet twice in a year and gets it back both times?

Or as Rutger Bregman writes in Humankind (“Im Grunde gut”): there are many reasons to believe that most people have good intentions. And honestly, if I had found someone’s wallet, I would have done exactly the same.

However, I’m not planning to test this theory a third time. So if anyone has a practical system for not carrying your wallet everywhere, while not forgetting your gym card when you actually need it, and not having to wait for Karsten Wildberger at the Digital Ministry to finally move IDs and driver’s licenses into proper e-wallets - I’m open to suggestions.

Anyway: guard your wallets, call your mom, buy an AirTag. (:

Happy weekend ❤️

Constanze

A little bonus if you made it until here 🤪

While writing this, I remembered there had been one earlier incident with the police.

When I was 16, I was at a train station with my then-boyfriend (he was cool back then, me not exactly) and a group of other teenagers. Some of them were smoking, I wasn’t. Then the ✨Jugendschutzpolizei ✨ (youth protection police) showed up, because everyone was underage. They took all of their names to inform the parents, and they wrote down my data as a witness.

A few weeks later I came home from school and there was a letter placed very deliberately on my seat at the lunch table. My dad was sitting there without furhter comment. It was from the police. 😅

They were informing my parents that I had been caught smoking at a train station. My dad looked at me and just said, “Okay. Let’s not tell your mom. Just don’t get caught again.”

Which, honestly, was very generous (andI also suspect a small part of him was slightly relieved that I hadn’t been perfectly behaved for once). The only annoying thing: it wasn’t even true.

I was so angry that I wrote an actual complaint letter to the police explaining that I had only been listed as a witness - and that not every teenager is lucky enough to have relaxed parents, especially if the accusation isn’t even correct.

Two weeks later another letter arrived with an apology from the police. Unfortunately, this time my mom got the mail. And that was the end of the father-daughter secret and we never ever talked about it again 😂

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I hope you all had a great weekend.☀️

At least the sun came out in Berlin yesterday when I landed, which made coming home a little easier. I had the most wonderful birthday week in Boston. One of my favorite thing were my runs along the frozen river - and wow, Bostonians run fast!! I genuinely thought I was fast until I got overtaken by all kinds of different track & field clubs. That’s when I realized there are over 50 universities in and around Boston -probably one of the highest concentrations in the country. Add the biotech hub situation, and you basically have a city full of ambitious, “high-performing” people… including, apparently, on the running track...

I also wandered quite a lot through Harvard (which is basically its own town), and I have to admit -it has something magical about it. All these old buildings, the colleges where students live in houses that feel slightly like Harry Potter. Watching everyone rush between classes and studying in all those pretty old buildings I did feel a tiny bit jealous. Studying in a place like that - and being able to afford it - must be quite something.

Also: I had never eaten lobster before in my life. Let’s just say my lobster intake last week fully compensated for that.

The only downside of working from the States was the time difference. I’d wake up and already feel behind, with emails stacking up before I even opened my eyes. Not the most relaxing way to start a day.

But now I’m back in Berlin. The flights went smoothly this time (no unexpected Iceland detours this time), and it feels good to be home and back to my routine. As always on flights I used my wifi free time to declutter my camera roll, and I might have found some fun stuff to share with you on here :-)

Not entirely sure whether to feel honored or embarrassed. Either way, that was unexpected.

When I saw this post, I thought: the irony. I have plenty of friends working in consulting. They’re doing well, learning a lot, and they chose it consciously. I don’t think this is about evil masterminds. It’s about how attractive prestige and clarity can feel when you’re 23 and slightly overwhelmed.

The real plot twist? Realizing you’re allowed to change your mind. 😉

An intern from one of the companies in our co-working space wore this in his second week. It made me smile - at that age, I was still buying stick-in-the-ass internship outfits, trying very hard to look “serious.” I definitely wouldn’t have had the courage to wear something like this to the office. Gen Z just seems to skip the whole pretending phase - and I love it.

I worked with John at Knowunity for more than a year and only recently learned about his previous illness. He was always the one smiling, encouraging others, making sure everyone was taken care of (including snack, especially protein joghurts).

Knowing now what he went through makes this challenge even more remarkable. 8,000 km is a lot and I cannot way to follow what he is up to. If you want to check out his fundraise, feel free to click here.

The vending machine in my hotel in Iceland looked like this - and honestly, the only type of vending machine I’m willing to tolerate. ;)

I have way too many photos of books on my phone that I “plan to read” (for obvious reasons). This is the latest addition to the never-ending list.

Still talking about lobsters: this is the furthest my latte art practice has taken me 🦞

And in that sense: I hope you’ll have a great week. ❤️

Don’t let them get you!

—Constanze

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