After being phone-free for 18 months, having kicked any and all old digital habits (read: addictions) I’ve now decided to get a used iPhone. Here is my rationale:

1. Since I spend so much time in, on, and around water I’d like a connected device that’s smaller and easier to handle than the iPad.

2. After researching smart watches, I’ve decided on getting a used Apple Watch Ultra which can only be configured and updated via an iPhone.

3. I’m getting more projects from the sustainability consultancy I’m collaborating with so to keep my freedoms, I need to be better connected.

How we use our smart phones is in theory our own choice but in practice, being intentionally designed for overconsumption and addiction, very challenging.

Clear intentional usage

I’ve decided to buy an older used iPhone because my personal intention is to only use it for a few things: calling, limited texting, listening to music, learning via Gemini AI, bus and train schedules, my daily schedule, and health tracking.

These are all features that also work well on the Apple Watch Ultra in addition to its unique water sports capabilities like dive watch and swim lap tracking. Everything else I’ll do on the iPad to avoid getting addicted to the iPhone again.

When I asked Gemini AI for which used iPhones I should consider I got three recommendations: iPhone SE 3rd Gen, iPhone 12 Mini, and the iPhone 13 Mini — very much inline with my own research. They cost $150-$250 dollars used.

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It’s Monday morning in Santa Barbara and I’ve just knocked out 10+ hours of nonstop sleep, feeling properly rested for the first time in a few weeks. Sleep, really good sleep, that deep (3N), slow-wave rejuvenating sleep is truly gold.

Choosing between supplements and sleep, always pick sleep. It’s natural and contributes to physical bone, tissue, and muscle repair; boosts the immune system; and cleans out the brain from daily waste build up.

I’m on a few days break from swim practice after having clung the certification in Lifeguarding with Waterfront/Title 22 last week after two weeks of intense on land and in water training and daily skill testing.

A new respect for lifeguarding

It was harder and more comprehensive than I thought and takes more than youthful energy and fitness to pass. Two weeks to learn 400-pages of critical lifeguarding knowledge and the lifesaving water rescue moves was tough.

I had no idea how challenging lifeguarding is and how many ways there are to drown [and be rescued]. Suffice to say, my respect for lifeguarding and water has increased tenfold and I’m thinking differently about being in water now.

Yesterday when I walked along the Santa Barbara Harbor I saw people making really bad choices: an older man paddled his SUP without life jacket too close to the rocks and a woman paddled her canoe with her life jacket tied to the bow.

It would only take a small wave to knock them both off their watercrafts with possible fatal results. When accidents happen there is no time to get prepared, to protect your head from hitting the rocks or putting on the life jacket.

It’s never too late

Today I wonder why it took me so long to get certified. I’ve been windsurfing since I was 12, sailing since I was 14 years old, and spent a lot of time in water surfing, swimming, and wakeboarding — thankfully without major accidents.

People invest in fancy equipment, what they are told they need when they enter a new interest, when in reality you should start investing in real and essential skills. Sure, I learned water safety when I learned how to sail but not this comprehensive.

If you’ve the skills you can always access the equipment you need wherever you’re in the world. I’ve never owned my own boat, always rented, mostly in the beautiful Mediterranean, thanks to my yachtsman certification.

Crossing the Atlantic

During the past few months the idea of sailing around the world has been entering my mind, inspired partially by having read “Swell: A Sailing Surfer’s Voyage of Awakening by Captain Liz Clark” a few years ago.

It’s been a lifelong dream to cross the Atlantic on a sailboat, cruise the Caribbean, and follow in Liz Clark’s footsteps wake to Tahiti and the South Pacific. For that you need wicked sailing and safety skills, and an ocean-ready sailboat.

You can loose all your possessions, but never your skills; they stay with you forever. They become a core part of your being, your identity, and how you show up in the world—who you truly are beneath the superficial layers we all wear.

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One of the many antidotes to conspicuous consumption and mindless hoarding is to switch mindset from having and owning stuff to acquiring new, or refreshing and deepening old skills. Knowledge always beats ownership.

Two years ago last week I returned to lap swimming for the first time in decades. It happened as so many other things in life by chance. Learning that there was no surf in Santa Barbara during summer, I was advised by a new surfer friend to join him at the pool to stay in shape until the West to Northwest swells arrive.

Getting back into the pool brought back really great memories, not just of fun times but also of mental clarity and a very peaceful and relaxed mind. But since I hadn’t swum in a long time, my swimming skills were rusty to say the least.

The technique was amateurish, my breath uncoordinated, and my stamina low. Getting through a swim practice felt like being thrown into the wilderness, fighting for survival while being suffocated, only one breath away from drowning.

The post-workout feel-good

But the feel-good I experienced afterwords, the explosion of neurotransmitters — dopamine (reward & motivation), serotonin (mood & stability), endorphins (pain relief), and norepinephrine (alertness & focus) — after every practice, felt like being in heaven. Add jacuzzi on top of that and you think that you really are.

Once the surf waves arrived in the fall and winter I just kept on swimming. I rose early, before sunrise, and dove into the pool shivering from the cold winter air, which made the pool look like a steaming hot bath, and did my daily laps.

What had been just a short parenthesis and placeholder, now became a whole sentence, then a paragraph, and finally a whole new chapter in life.

I first set the goal of learning to swim breaststroke and freestyle well, measured by technique, speed, and endurance. The better I became, the more doors opened.

Less gear, more progress

With the minimum of gear (swim trunks, googles, paddles, kickboard, and pool access) I could acquire the necessary skills and physical stamina to learn and master all the six main strokes (something that I’m currently pursuing).

The path forward became crystal clear with a new, attractive lifestyle emerging; a lifestyle focused on fitness, wellbeing, and longevity in pools and oceans.

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A few days ago I swung by REI Re/Supply in Manhattan Beach, Southern California and found a used Benchmade Mini Adria pocket knife that I’ve had my eyes on. It was $90 dollars off and at $135 dollars what you could say a great deal.

I left the store to reflect on my true needs and realized that my 10-year old dull but functional Wenger pocket knife could suffice for another few years since I only use it to slice open avocados and wrapped sandwiches.

But before I decided to not buy the knife I did a lot of research on pocket knives and learned what needs they match so if my needs change and team up for what it’s designed to do, I’ll go back and buy it or something equivalent.

When our needs align

The Mini Adira is such a lovely knife; well made with a firm grip and a sharp blade. Benchmade also offers free sharpening and repairs for life. It’s definitely a “fever better things” product and brand but I can wait until our needs align.

The knife is designed for water use; the serrated version for boating and fishing and the non-serrated for everyday carry (EDC) around ocean activities.

But I do neither of these activities right now so it would just end up in a drawer; a bit fancy to just slice my daily avocado with.

Instead I opted to ask Gemini, my AI-assistant, for how to clean and sharpen my Wenger knife in the good spirit of using what I already have.

“The simplest and most reliable way to sharpen your Wenger pocket knife (which shares the same general design principles as Victorinox Swiss Army knives) is to use a dedicated small, handheld pocket sharpener or a fine-grit whetstone.”

This knife was gifted to me after a speech I gave in Zürich ten years ago as a thank you from the host company and a fine memory from the time when I was traveling the world teaching corporate executives digital transformation.

And since I as a rule have that I’m mainly doing replacements of the really fine things I own, I had to give up my knife made to last for a new purchase, something I was not yet prepared to do.

How to keep clutter taking over your life

This might sound weird and foreign in the age of abundance but is exactly the intentional and high-quality sustainable thinking we need to keep from cluttering our lives and destroying our nature and our environment.

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A little over seven months ago, around the time of Thanksgiving last year, I began the high-level planning work for this year and wrote two newsletters about the process: Lifestyle Planning For 2026, Part I and Part II.

I’ve revisited these plans a few times during the past six months to make sure I stay on target and to make potential adjustments. And since we’re now at the half year mark, I’m doing it again today, in writing.

My high-level new years intentions have stayed the same for the last few years:

1. Improve wellbeing and fitness: This covers taking care of physical, mental, intellectual, spiritual, and financial wellbeing.

2. Build deeper relationships: This covers taking care of personal social wellbeing, and relationship with people and community.

3. Create positive impact: This covers taking care of the wellbeing of people [in general] and planet, inspire and support, making a positive impact.

It’s really the everyday activities that have evolved.

My focus for this year was to keep swimming regularly, reading books but without a specific numeric target, start learning French, acquire a used mountainbike and start using public transportation, and acquire new skills.

Swimming

I started off the year a little slow as the holidays made it hard to get access to public pools but once they were over, I could return to my five times per week swim schedule.

During this time I’ve been exploring different drills and come up with a new better and more effective schedule:

• Aerobic training (2,500 yards / 100 laps) on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays building aerobic base, improve stroke efficiency, and increase stamina.

• Anaerobic training (2,000 yards / 80 laps) on Wednesdays and Saturdays increasing lactate threshold, build fast-twitch muscle, and boost sprint power.

• Thursdays and Sundays are active recovery days where I allow for glycogen replenishment, muscle tissue repair, and hormonal recovery.

As you can see, my training approach is much more advanced compared to two years ago when I began swimming, grinding through 2,000-4,000 yards without any deeper thought, structure, or knowledge about how to train swimming.

Books

The great thing with reading regularly is that after a while you start to learn what you really enjoy reading about and you find better books. The 44 books1 I finished during the first half year was a combination of peak performance, spy and crime thrillers, and novels about life — very much according to plan.

Learning French

What I’ve learned about learning languages is that it’s a slow process and takes time — at least for me. So during the first six months of the year I’ve been regularly watching French shows and movies just to get used to the sound.

Just listening to a new language has helped me to understand how to pronounce a word or sentence before I know how it’s spelled [important with French], just like kids do. I’m also starting to passively learn commonly used words.

This gives me something to work with and over time I should be more accustomed to the language to build vocabulary and memorize phrases.

Mountainbike

I’ve not found a mountainbike yet, partially because I’m picky and partially because I haven’t made it a real priority. But I switched from driving to taking public transportation in the end of January and that has been brilliant.

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I recently saw a billboard outside a 7-Eleven on my way to swim practice with a picture of a soda drink and two deep-pan pizza slices. The tagline said something like: “where you can give in to your cravings”.

The word cravings stuck with me as I walked down York Avenue in Highland Park towards the pool. A few years ago I wouldn’t have reacted but now my only thought was how blatant corporations are preying on our ignorance.

A soda drink and two pieces of processed pizza spikes the blood glucose in the short term, making the body produce too much insulin to turn the sugar into energy, which in the long term can lead to diabetes, obesity, and malnutrition.

If it’s not enough that we eat too much and too often, we also eat the wrong kind of food, or should I say processed corporate products.

Twelve years ago I did an experiment during one summer when I only ate fresh fruit, vegetables, and fish. It took a few weeks for my old “cravings” to subside and my new to take hold. I then “craved” fresh vegetables and fruits every day.

In other words, our bodies will crave what we teach them to crave.

It’s the same old battle between instant gratification and real longterm results. Fast food creates an addictive behavior faster than functional foods, and therefore often wins as we humans tend to choose convenience over sustainability.

Fewer Better Things is about making intentional and sustainable high-quality choices in life, from what we own, wear, and use to what we put into our bodies.

This summer, as I’m doing a very challenging bootcamp in swimming to get ready to compete this fall, I’m looking to understand what my body really needs to become a better, stronger, and faster swimmer at my age.

Over the past two years since I returned to swimming I’ve learned a lot about how to train, sleep, and recover, and now it’s time to focus on eating well and healthy.

So instead of looking at food as entertainment, a social activity, or instant gratification, I’ve chosen to approach the matter from the perspective of energy, growth, strength, and recovery.

What does my body need every day to function optimally, to improve in strength and speed, and to recover quickly from all the exercise (swim practice, pickleball, long walks, weights, surfing…)?

Now we’re not talking “cravings” anymore but real physical needs. Nutritious meals that will fuel my body, build muscles, and accelerate recovery.

That means I’ll have to subtract a lot of food that is being sold in grocery stores and supermarkets. Actually I’d have to subtract most processed and packaged food in favor of what is referred to as functional foods.

My simple strategy is to organize my fuel intake around my daily swim practice to optimize performance. There are three major buckets:

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In a few months I’m turning 60 years old and am very happy today that I quit alcohol and started training when the pandemic hit in March 2020. It would have been much harder, but far from impossible, to do today.

I was very lucky though, just passing through and having to shelter in one of …

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The reclining chair looked comfortable and the side lamp with its soft light perfect for reading. I was ahead of schedule, and had roughly three hours before the bus arrived for my biweekly pickleball game.

The heavy lunch, consisting of a dozen meatballs, two scoops of mashed potatoes, gravy and lingonberries, had filled up my stomach to the point of a very enjoyable drowsiness and my arms — legs specifically — were tired after a gruesome lap training earlier in the day.

I was due for an afternoon rest, maybe even a short nap, and the recliner with its perfect reading light invited me to sit down, recline, and rest my feet on the footrest. It felt heavenly after a busy morning.

I pulled out the book I was currently reading, Ironwood by Michael Connelly, published just a week earlier, his 42nd novel, and my 38th read this year.

Connelly is a master storyteller, a noir fiction magician. His greatest influence is Raymond Chandler who taught him how to make a city into a living character.

After he watched the Robert Altman’s adaptation of The Long Goodbye (1973), where Elliot Gould plays Philip Marlowe, he read all Chandler’s books in a matter of weeks. Before that he had planned to become a construction worker.

In a few weeks I’ll have read all of Michael Connelly’s books.

I’ve already seen all the Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer TV episodes, and even met the actor who’s playing Bosch while horseback riding in the Santa Monica Mountains. His and my former girlfriends are friends.

I’m not alone in the living room, it’s hard to be at IKEA. There is always someone walking by, even-though the reclining chair is in a corner, and it’s an ordinary Wednesday afternoon. Several women comments on how cosy it looks. I say nothing, just keep reading.

Ironwood is the second book in the Detective Stilwell series where Los Angeles is replaced by the Catalina Island, 70 minutes by boat from Long Beach.

Catalina Island was originally owned by William Whitley, the bubblegum industrialist, and then made public through conservancy.

The island really comes through as a living character in the book and now I’d like to return, preferable in the middle of the week, to explore the places and see how my imagination aligns with reality and history. Last time I was there was in 1985.

My iPad is safely stored in my backpack with all notifications turned off so I’m undisturbed. It’s something I enjoy more and more, to be incommunicado most of the day to work on my projects in peace and solitude.

Three hours later I’ve finished the book and am on track to hit 50 books by midyear and 100 books by year end.

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Since I deleted my LinkedIn account last week, after 23 years of occasionally on and mostly off usage, I’ve experienced a tremendous sense of newfound freedom. I no longer feel trapped or locked in, free to voice my true and honest opinio…

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Yesterday I deleted LinkedIn1 after 23 years, including two year-long sabbaticals where I just hibernated the account. But this time it’s for real. It’s gone.

It’s been on my mind for a long time now but I didn’t dare to pull the trigger until I started reading “The Meaning of Your Life” by the social scientist and Harvard Business School professor and former musician Arthur C. Brooks.

In the book he urges us “to put technology in its place, intentionally foster meaning, and love with openness and courage in the face of life’s unanswerable questions”, what Tolstoy called “irrational knowledge”.

Technology is a tool for the left-side brain

His main thesis is that technology is a fantastic tool for the left-side brain but not for the right-side brain. While technology can solve complicated problems it cannot solve complex problems, like finding and creating meaning in life.

And that’s why people are increasingly feeling anxious, stressed, and very often completely lost. Technology has given us the power to do our jobs with efficiency and precision but has also made us believe that it can also deliver meaning.

It cannot and that’s why there has been a big jump in mental health problems.

When I read the first couple of chapters of his book it just clicked. Partially because I’ve already done what he suggests us to do but also that he urges us to go even further, to become our own personal Neo’s in the face of the Matrix.

Putting tech in its rightful place

To reclaim our mental health we need to put technology in its rightful place and that is a tool which we should use with clear intentions and restraints. It’s a left-side brain answer to complicated left-side brain problems.

But to engage our right-side brain we need to leave the fake simulation and live in the real world. We need to allow ourselves to be bored, to daydream, to wonder, to get lost, to feel awe, to explore and to discover freely on our own — without tech.

Technology cannot provide us with meaning, and meaning is critical for our mental health and wellbeing in life.

This book helped me to take my de-digitalization plan even further, to accept that it means a rebellion: David versus Goliath, the rebel forces against the empire, the resistance against the Nazi Reich — if you will.

Turn off the machine to experience real life

If you desire meaning, purpose, and deep human connection in your life, I urge you to turn off the machine and take a step into reality because that’s the only way you’ll ever be able to find what you’re looking for.

Device addiction is as serious as opioid, alcohol, and drug addiction but harder to cure as technology has become so prevalent. If you want to kick your alcohol addiction, for example, you change environment but where do you go if you want to kick your device dependence? It’s all around us, all the time.

Now, I think it’s pretty simple: my life’s meaning trumps anything else so when I’ve to prioritize I choose my personal wellbeing over the fake simulations.

But when I started thinking about deleting LinkedIn my monkey brain went wild, creating infinite “what if scenarios” to keep me in my place. I’m talking about the fear of missing out, the fear of not matter in life, the fear of not being somebody.

Thousands of followers gone in a second

And then I thought, “What the fuck, what’s the worst that can happen?” and let the cursor hover above the delete button followed by a nervous click. Thousands of [non-paying] corporate followers gone in the blink of an eye. Erased.

And I suddenly felt great. Like a big heavy burden was lifted. I felt lighter, I felt free, and I was filled with new energy. Anything is now possible, I thought.

No Facebook. No LinkedIn. No X (Twitter). No Instagram. No iPhone.

Only fewer better things: An iPad and clear rules of engagement.

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Until I finally move to France, my travels have been constricted to libraries, swimming pools, and beaches in Southern California. Traveling, in this case regional or what some frequent flyer would even judge as local, is how I discover things about the world.

While most of the world today is either…

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It was early Thursday morning and the spring marine layers were low and intense as I strolled down East California Boulevard towards the Metro Rail at Fillmore. Halfway I stopped to grab a day-read at the Little Free Library.

My plan was to spend the day in Malibu, 33 miles (53 km) east of Pasadena. It was after all Thursday, one of my two weekly R&R da…

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A decade ago, even a few years ago I would have deemed it impossible to not own and always carry a smartphone. Today, one year after I resold both phone and watch back to Apple, it’s the other way around.

What began as a quest for personal freedom almost 35 years ago has now come full circle. Like an Escher painting I’m b…

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After six months in Pasadena, California, which is located inland from the coast, offering a very mild Mediterranean winter climate, I’m preparing to return to the coast now that the Pacific Ocean is slowly warming up in time for June Gloom.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time here in a very forgiving climate that i…

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Most people in the world are feeling the financial pinch today as everything but wages are increasing due to gross political mismanagement. The K-shaped economy as it’s called, is favoring the elite who’s asset wealth is growing while everyone else is struggling with inflation and debt.

Al…

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My simple financial philosophy is built on the idea of keeping your spending low — only focusing on the essentials — to increase the freedom in how you spend your time, attention, and [creative and physical] energy to live and make money.

It’s neither rocket science nor revolutionary but it takes determination, patience,…

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I recently bought a pre-loved Patagonia 30 liter Planing Divider Pack on eBay to replace my Patagonia 35 liter Planing Roll Top Pack that I had for five years and returned1 to Patagonia last year through their product warranty program.

The Divider Pack was listed at $79.99 and I offered $59.50, half the full price before it was discontinued in 2020. I received an additional $28 dollars off after I discovered a few minor issues2, making the final price $38 dollars — not bad.

To my knowledge it’s the best daypack Patagonia has ever made for water sports as it has one large outside mesh pocket for wet gear — like swim trunks and wetsuit — and two side pockets for water bottles and one inside laptop sleeve.

Since my ambition is to only own one really great daypack to use for all occasions, this daypack is perfect. It fits my swim gear, iPad, camera, charger, extra shirt, lunchbox, water bottle, and paper book with a little extra space for groceries.

There is also an inner zippered pocket where I keep my wallet, ear plugs3, Swiss knife, and a combination lock. It’s water resistant and really well made with free repairs for life. It allows me to be on the go all day, away from house and car.

This daypack sums up my philosophy around living better with less and is a great example of how quality, even if you pay the full price, always beats quantity.

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The objective behind the philosophy of Living Better with Less is to reclaim time, attention, and energy previously wasted on the superfluous. During the process, you’ll also realize that there is one very positive side effect: you’ll spend less money.

Note that I didn’t say “save money” which has solely become another marketing trick to make you mindlessly spend more. No, you’ll actually spend less money.

For some people, the idea of spending less is incomprehensible with the ambition of growing their status, as their status is solely built on the idea of consumption. They acquire all their self-worth in how much money they can afford to spend.

Of course, this is by any measure a fool’s gold that usually ends badly. The better alternative is to build self-worth in who you are, not what you can afford to spend.

Once we shift the perspective from gaining status through objects to gaining status through personal growth and betterment, we’re free to spend less even-though it might often be frowned upon by the people around us.

The other self-serving argument often used to have us regular people spend more money is that it drives economic growth and progress, and is great for society.

It’s an argument easily debunked by the fact that the 1 percent riches people in the US now owns 32 percent ($52 trillion dollars) of all wealth in the country. It’s true that someone is laughing all the way to the bank, it just ain’t you.

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Hi!

In this last session of The Physical Sanctuary, I’m sharing my journey of becoming an amateur car mechanic. If you can repair your car, you’ve got the skills and mindset to repair anything1 in your personal quiver, from apparel to gear and equipment, bikes, and accommodations.

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Hello and apologies for being a little late on delivering this post. I’ve been working overtime on a new [stealth] professional learning venture that could be my next career in life. That said, since we live in the age of machines and the very impatient expectation of always on-demand delivery of everything, being imp…

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