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Chiara Cokieng

📍 Berlin, Germany

The battle against letting people manipulate us with guilt

I just finished The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26887738-the-truth] by Neil Strauss. One scene had a significant impact on me. Neil’s wrestling against Sage’s attempts to use guilt to manipulate him Just when Neil felt like he was

A Fountainhead moment

This is my view from my window seat in an airplane flying from Manila to Puerto Princesa in Palawan. It’s a short flight. Only one hour. People tend to rail and hate against flights. How they are constantly delayed. How uncomfortable the seats are. How disgusting the food. I’

Be a woman who wrestles

I was on a 2-month North America speaking tour. We were in Boulder in Colorado, and I was the only female speaker. During Q&A, a young woman asked me, How do you overcome biases against women in business? My response was that it’s not something I

What sitting taught me about work: notes from a Vipassana course

I completed my first 10-day Vipassana silent meditation course last Sunday, May 22, 2016. Upon returning, people asked me how the course was. I have never had a harder time responding to this question. Now that I’ve reflected on it, this is my response — why it’s tough

Break the opponent's balance before you attack

WRESTLING – I will be competing in my first takedown challenge in April 30. I have been thinking a lot about tactics. Which takedowns should I own and practice? Should I focus on offense or defense? (Offense) Should I train to be powerful, flexible, or nimble? These seemed to be the

Are your problems worse than mine?

These days, all I talk about are wrestling and biotechnology. Less than a month ago, I knew nothing about them. My friends are all strangers to them, as I am. They want to know, “Isn’t that hard?” I don’t know. Probably? The thing is, I don’t think

Why do you climb mountains?

Personal experience would seem to be a no-brainer but very, very few people will trust their own experience against the word of either many people or a single “expert.” Rory Miller on how you decide what is true; from Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training &

The day I got it in my head to join the Olympics

Jimmy Angana [http://en.wikipilipinas.org/index.php/Jimmy_Angana] – the #1 freestyle wrestler in the Philippines today – was laughing at me, pulling me up, and cajoling me to stand up and fight. Albert Balde – then-president of the Wrestling Association of the Philippines – was at the edges of the

Book: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom (8/10)

A reread from my teens, just like The Alchemist. This is way better. Morrie’s life is a story on how to live your life as a novel, not a textbook. He wasn’t a superhero who always lived up to his ideals and never felt bad for himself. He

Why and how Coins.ph can improve retention in the next 60 days

Note: This post is heavily influenced by Brian Balfour's Building a Growth Machine. It came from the era when 'growth hacking' was all the rage. I still recommend the thinking and framework to product managers and product marketers alike. Isn’t bitcoin a scam? That’s