Welcome to Verstreuen - meaning “to scatter” - where I unpack the ideas I’ve collected this week in my 🗃️ Zettelkasten, “note box,” personal knowledge management system. Here, I’ll share the highlights, insights, and stories I find interesting - and think you will too!

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🗃️ This Week’s Highlights

This week's notes come from 14 new additions to the Zettelkasten - here’s the three that stood out most to share with you:

🟨 Why growth isn’t always creation.

🟦 Federer’s secret: Mental toughness is a skill, not a trait.

🟥 Why price has replaced meaning in modern life.

Over the weekend, I attended my sister’s graduation. The auditorium was filled with proud families, excited graduates, and the usual small talk with family friends.

As always, someone eventually asked the inevitable:
“So, what do you do for work?”

Over time, I’ve learned to give a simpler answer. Consulting is hard to explain without sounding abstract, so I just said:
“I help businesses grow.”

They nodded politely, and the conversation moved on. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I hadn’t really said anything meaningful.

On the ride home, the question continued to linger.

What do I actually do?

Am I helping build something new?
Or am I simply helping businesses capture more of what already exists?

This question - Creation vs. Extraction - sits at the heart of how value moves through businesses, economies, and even our personal lives.

• Creation makes the pie bigger. It’s inventing, building, solving real problems, and improving lives.

• Extraction takes a bigger slice of the pie without adding to its size. It’s manipulating systems, exploiting loopholes, or squeezing others for personal gain.

I started by pointing this lens outward. It’s easy to spot value extraction when it’s someone else. Overpriced services, hollow products, businesses that add little but take a lot.

But then I turned the question on myself.

Am I creating something new, or just extracting more value from what already exists?

It was a little harder than I expected to answer.

Extraction might deliver short-term wins,
but creation, truly expanding the pie is what builds long-term growth.

So I’ve decided to keep asking myself - not just once, but again and again:
Am I helping make the pie bigger, or just reaching for a bigger slice?

Because in work, in life, and in the things we leave behind,
what matters most isn’t what we take - it’s what we build.

—🗃️—

I've always looked at people who seem effortlessly disciplined, incredibly patient, or naturally clear-headed and thought, "They're just built that way." I used to believe these qualities were fixed personality traits - gifts you either had or didn't.

But a recent quote from Roger Federer sparked a shift in my thinking, solidifying a belief that's been quietly growing: talent isn't solely what you're born with; it's also what you consciously build and cultivate.

Federer argues that talent extends beyond innate physical abilities like speed or reflexes. He sees it encompassing personal qualities and mental skills, treating them not as static traits, but as something dynamic - something you train, much like you would stamina or strength.

• Focus

• Creativity

• Clarity

• Discipline

• Patience

• Self-management

These aren’t just inherent traits we either have or or don’t, but are instead trainable talents.

While some people may have a head start in these areas, Federer stresses that everyone can work on developing them through intentional practice.

Imagine if:

• Focus is like a muscle you strengthen through repeated exercise?

• Creativity isn't a magical spark you passively wait for, but a practice you actively show up for?

• Clarity is something you build iteratively, refining your thoughts and ideas one messy draft or conversation at a time?

We often treat mental and emotional skills as mysterious or unchangeable. But the truth is, each one of them is trainable - if we approach them with the same dedication we would physical training.

Federer isn’t Federer because he was born with perfect reflexes. He’s Federer because he kept showing up to train every part of his game - including the mental parts.

And if that's true for a world-class athlete sculpting their abilities, perhaps it's just as true for you and I, whatever our field. These aren't just traits to admire in others; they are talents within our own reach, waiting to be trained.

—🗃️—

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the idea of value in this newsletter. This week, a line from The Value of Everything finally brought it all into focus:

For most of history, price reflected value. Something was considered valuable because of what it did, what it meant, or the effort it took to create. In the ideas i’ve been exploring value is defined as a closeness to an ideal (read more here)

But toward the end of the 19th century, as industrialization, mass production, and modern marketing took hold, something shifted. The connection between real value and monetary price started to unravel. The market - shaped by those who controlled it - began setting prices that often had little to do with actual usefulness or substance.

The equation flipped:
If something had a high price, it must be valuable.
If it was cheap, it must be worth less.

We started measuring worth not by what something is or what it contributes, but by how much it costs.

You can see this mindset everywhere:

• Brands that sell image over substance.

• Products priced high just because they can be.

• Metrics that reward attention, not impact.

But it doesn’t stop at products or businesses.
We do the same thing in our personal lives:

• We confuse loud with meaningful.

• We mistake busyness for progress.

• We let other people’s signals define what matters.

And in the process, we risk building lives, businesses, and work that look good on the outside - but feel empty on the inside.

Here’s the good news: we don’t have to keep playing this game.
We can choose a better path by asking a simpler question:
What feels valuable - even if no one else notices?

Because true meaning is never found in the price.
It's found in the making, the doing, the being.

—🗃️—

Closing Thoughts

This week’s reflections circle back to a deceptively simple, but powerful tension:
Are we expanding the pie - or just reaching for a bigger slice?

We live in a world where price is mistaken for value, traits are mistaken for talents, and noise often masquerades as meaning. It’s easy to get caught in the surface-level signals of success - chasing attention, rewards, or validation without pausing to ask if we’re actually building something that matters.

But the path forward is clearer than it seems:

• Build, don’t just extract.
  Focus on what expands possibility, not just what maximizes gain.

• Train, don’t just admire.
  Treat focus, patience, and clarity as skills you cultivate - not gifts you wait for.

• Define value for yourself.
  Align your efforts with what feels meaningful, even when no one’s watching.

Because when all the noise fades, what remains is what you’ve built, how you’ve grown, and the clarity you’ve chosen to live by.

Thanks for reading Verstreuen! 👋 Until next week -GH