Failing to plan is planning to fail.

Mr Taylor at ISSH

Mr Taylor was the principal at ISSH and the person who interviewed me for my final scholarship before I joined. As far as I remember, I never got to meet him in person - he left before I arrived. Yet his quote was everywhere. People repeated it almost as a rule of life.

The International Baccalaureate is a two-year marathon. In the end, the only grades that matter are the final exams, so preparation is everything. Planning was one of the main battles I fought during those two years in Schaffhausen. The other was learning to live (semi) independently. When to write my IAs. When to do laundry. When to see friends. When to revise.

I attribute a large part of my achievements to this mindset. One of my main strengths today is breaking down complex tasks into small, manageable pieces, putting them into a calendar (Google Calendar, in my case), and - most importantly - executing exactly as planned.

Underpromise, overdeliver.

Joris at DDG

Joris was the co-founder of the startup where I had my first real job. It was an intense and formative experience; I learned a ton in a very short amount of time (a common experience in the startup world, I reckon).

One thing I appreciated was that the founders would sit down with us interns and share their business lessons openly. The quote above came up often (quite catchy actually), and it stuck.

It’s a powerful way to manage expectations - with others and with yourself. Underpromising makes goals realistic. The momentum of hitting them builds confidence. And that momentum often leads you to exceed what you initially committed to.

Try and fail, but dont fail to try. In progress.

It takes me four hours to read a page of a Linear Algebra book.

Fabio Maccheroni, Professor of Linear Algebra at Bocconi, in response to a student complaining that it takes him an hour to read a page of Linear Algebra.

Professor Maccheroni was one of the best professors I encountered at Bocconi. Not necessarily because of performance or charisma, but because he would drop some golden nuggets of knowledge from time to time.

The point is simple: depth takes time.

If you want to truly master something, you cannot rush through it. You must sit with it. Wrestle with it. Refuse to turn the page until you genuinely understand what you’ve read.

It may feel inefficient in the moment. But in the long run, it saves immense time, because foundations built slowly do not crack under pressure.