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Chiara Cokieng

📍 Berlin, Germany

3 Rules on How to Be Happy, according to Alexander Green

Rule #1: Don’t pursue it. Searching for happiness is a chief source of unhappiness. Why? Because happiness is a by-product, not of searching for it, but of getting busy with other things. Which things? See Rule #2. Rule #2: Get busy on things that produce happiness as a by-product.

I Have Met the Enemy (And It Was Never My Job)

Sometimes, people ask what my biggest learning was during my time wrestling. My answer: I learned not to blame my job for my unhappiness. Before wrestling, whenever I felt unhappy, I would tend to blame my job. Something about this job is hard. Frustrating, Stressful. If only I had that

Why I moved to Germany

It was easier to move from the Philippines to Germany than it was to move from Caloocan to BGC. I think it’s the Filipino-Chinese. Perhaps, it’s just my family. Either way, it was frowned-upon and kind of unacceptable to live on my own. When you already live in

The last time I cried

was 6 days ago. It was during a 1 on 1 with Timo, our CTO. Oli and Lukasz had told him that I seem to be feeling much better about my work these days. That is true. Ironically, it prompted me to tears. The thing is, I cry a lot.

Notes: How do I prepare for my German B1 Exam?

Update: I took and passed the B1 Exam in December 2020. These were very helpful: * I took SmarterGerman's B1 Exam Preparation [https://courses.smartergerman.com/p/b1-exam-preparation] course taught by Michael Schmitz (the person in the YouTube video). * For speaking practice, I hired Andrea from Lively German [http:

Monthly-ish Personal Update (Oct 2020)

Overcoming anxiety, Coaching Project aka "Gen Propel", learning German.

Monthly-ish Personal Update (Jul 2020)

An update on the not-so-new job, Write of Passage, and Coaching Project.

Meetings can be the best type of work.

Most people hate meetings. We’ve been indoctrinated with the belief that meetings take us away from our “real work.” In this post, I share a belief I have about the world that others don’t realize. It is that meetings can be the best type of work. People give

How I change careers so "easily"

In 8 years of working, I’ve held 4 different roles in 6 companies, based out of 3 countries. I went from Management Consultant to Product Marketer. From People Manager to Product Manager. I’ve worked for companies based in the Philippines, the US, and Germany. This has enabled me

Don't make a hundred (product) decisions when one will do

One thing that pains me at work is when people perceive me to overthink. I don’t agree that I do 🤪 What I try to do is articulate decision criteria, product principles, and similar things, not for mental masturbation, but in order to make one generic decision that makes a