Brinky Blog

Living the Brinky life

Auteur: Kees Brinkmans

The effects of moving to a new place every 2 days.

Door

Op januari 27, 2025

In Nomadic Kees

I’ve spent the past month intensively travelling through Japan. Spending 2-3 days in each place, then moving again.

I explore and go on adventures every single day. Yes. Every single day. From following a Ramen class, to visiting a nuclear bomb memorial, to a day trip to the mountains.

Every day something new, but every day I’m back at home at 17:00 to start working. I then work for 8 hours straight and go to bed at 1:00 A.M.

Then I wake up at 9:00 and I do it all over again.

It’s been an absolutely crazy schedule, it feels like there are 2 days in every day.

And it has been incredibly fun. Unforgettable experiences, and I actually got some work in as well.

But after having done this for 1 month, I must say I am completely done with it.

I’m just not in the mood to travel and go on adventures anymore. Even though the experienced are amazing, it is getting less enjoyable every day.

Not because it’s not fun, but because of a simple reason:

I am not doing the things that are important to me. I am not working out, I am not writing, I am not putting enough effort towards my main goal.

It just feels like I’m lagging behind and not living to the fullest. And I’m at a point that no matter how beautiful the temple or the park I visit, I can’t fully enjoy it.

When I’m there, I just feel like I’m not taking care of myself enough, and there are other basic needs of mine that I’d rather do. Like working out or writing.

Having this crazy lifestyle now, one that many people dream of, I realize that I don’t need much to be happy.

I’m a pretty simple creature to be honest. I just need to work out, see friends regularly, get work done, and spend some time alone to write.

And I’m realizing more and more that these are the absolute core things that I should always prioritize.

Now it’s about finding the right balance between those things.

And I know now, that balance is definitely not my current schedule.

I’m done with travelling so intensively for now. I just want to move somewhere for a couple of months, get a routine, and make big steps towards achieving my goals.

So that’s the plan for January.

Big plans and a big move coming up….

In Kees you want to follow what that move will be, subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of this page.

Thanks for reading.

Kees Closed.

3 months in Japan, and I have never felt so healthy.

Door

Op januari 27, 2025

In Nomadic Kees

I have spent almost 3 months in Japan now, and never in my life have I felt so healthy.

This has numerous reasons, which I’ll sum up and break down in this article.

Before I do, first a brief bit of context:

I have taken my health seriously for 5+ years now, by working out and choosing a diet consciously.

My view was health to build muscle and become fit. Working out 4 times per week, and eating any protein I can get my hands on. All whilst eating 3000+ calories every day to make sure I gain muscle and weight.

Big heavy meals, full of protein and carbohydrates.

And I felt good. I thought I was doing amazing.

Then I came to Japan.

And for people that move to new countries often, you’ll that it’s hard to maintain your diet the same as it is back home.

My diet automatically adapted to the Japanese one.

And wow. To say it is good is an understatement.

After 2 weeks I already felt it. I had more energy, I felt healthier, and I had ZERO after-dinner dips.

I believe this is because of 2 main reasons:

  1. No heavy meals. There is a principle here to only eat until you are 80% full. No more than that.
  2. But most importantly: no processed carbs. The difference it makes for me is CRAZY.

Only now I noticed how many processed carbohydrates I ate. Pasta, bread, everything. Every carbohydrate that is not purely natural and is produced by the food industry.

They barely eat those here. And cutting those completely from my diet here, made me realize that it’s exactly what always makes me feel so heavy and slow after eating.

It seems to take energy instead of giving energy.

Instead, the Japanese eat healthy protein rich natural foods. And when they eat carbs, it’s rice. Which is unprocessed.

I’m no diet expert, but I definitely feel a difference in how good and healthy I feel. And I also see it, my muscles have never looked so toned, and I have lost excess fat.

But their diet is not the only thing making me feel so healthy. It’s also their customs.

Not only because they stay active until an old age (working in restaurants at 80+), but also the way they take care of the mind.

Their religion places great emphasis on this. 50% Buddhism, and 50% Shinto, which is an ancient Japanese religion.

I don’t know close to enough about it yet to explain, all I can tell you is that the Japanese seem to live very purposefully. When I see them at local temples, and when visiting local Onsens (spa), I notice they seem to take the time to actually relax, more than in other countries I have visited.

Onsens are a great example. They are spa’s located all over Japan, and cost about €3-€4 to enter. It is common here to go to a spa daily.

Ice baths, sauna, and mountain water rich in minerals, which they believe have healing properties.

I don’t know if it is because of their religion, but the Japanese seem to know a lot about health and place great emphasis on it. They seem to know what every ingredient does to the body, and they seem to know how to take care of their mind.

A kind of deep knowledge that seems common here, but is unheard of in the west.

No wonder this is the country where people live longest, with women reaching an AVERAGE age of 87. That is a ridiculously high average.

I even saw it in the Onsen (spa). Every man there, even the ones 80+ years old, had toned muscles and seemed fit. Absolutely no one here is buffed with huge muscles, but almost everyone seems fit.

There are undoubtedly way more reasons for that, and this is just my experience after spending 3 months here.

And even though I have put great effort in learning about Japanese culture, I still feel I have only scratched the surface, and I doubt that this is a very accurate representation of Japan.

It’s just the honest experience of an uninformed Dutch guy, and I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Kees closed.

Why I shut down my marketing agency and started coding

Door

Op januari 17, 2025

In Business Kees

For 2 years I ran a marketing agency, but now I quit. I quit to start coding, from absolute scratch. Something I never thought I’d do.

Why?

Running a marketing agency is tough. But not the “challenging” type of tough. More the “push through it with pure discipline” type of tough.

And after 2 years of pushing through, I found out this is not something worth pushing myself for.

Not gonna lie, it feels like quitting. But it also feels like a relief, relieved from dragging a dead horse.

Why was it not worth it for me?

  • More than 80% of my time was spent on getting myself clients, which gets boring and annoying.
  • I’m a thinker. I love to strategize. But the things that grow a marketing agency are simple boring tasks that just need to be done. Executers excel here.
  • The income is unstable. Per hour I make much more with marketing than with coding, but the projects are short. And impossible to predict how much I’ll make.
  • It didn’t intellectually challenge me. I didn’t feel like I was learning. Yes I was learning skills and how to use tools. But I was not solving complex issues, and I missed that.

All these reasons, led me to stop my agency. And honestly, I wouldn’t have quit if I wouldn’t have found out how much I enjoy coding.

My start was simple: I coded for the first time because I wanted to create a specific small app. This took me 3 weeks as a little side project, and it worked!

I then realized I enjoyed it so much, that I wanted to continue and started to work for clients.

And it has been a much more enjoyable start than when I started my agency.

  • There’s lots of demand. Instantly got myself a freelance gig allowing me to work however many hours I want, at a decent hourly rate.
  • All my time is spent actually doing the thing: coding. There is no overhead such as meetings, looking for my own clients, or any of that stuff.
  • It’s way more intellectually challenging, and there’s loads to learn. Exactly the challenge I needed.
  • I have instantly created a great income that’s super reliable. I know exactly how much I’ll make each month, whilst having unlimited flexibility where and when I work.
  • The reliable income and the fact that I don’t need to worry about not having clients, allows me to spend more time on my own projects. And I have a BIG one coming up.

To be honest, I never thought I’d go full nerd and start coding. But here I am, and I’m loving it.

And not gonna lie, I didn’t burn my marketing agency down completely. I am still serving clients and taking clients.

I just quit putting in all my time to grow it, get clients, and everything like that. I stopped building a business, and started seeing it as a nice side hustle that’s fun and brings in great money.

All that, whilst I prepare for a big move to New York City next week. And a big exciting project starting soon.

Want to stay up to date with that? Subscribe to my email list using this link.

Thanks for reading!

Kees Closed

My first week as a freelance developer

Door

Op december 13, 2024

In Business Kees

Even though I didn’t have relevant experience, I got hired for my first freelance coding project. Big deadline I had to hit for them, and this is what happened:

Let’s cut the bullshit here and get straight to the point: I failed. I messed it up.

Took me 2 full days of hard work to just set up my coding environment and get everything to work.

And then I still had to start coding.

Got some stuff done, but not nearly enough. I had to tell them that I couldn’t make Tuesday’s deadline, and that the senior developer had to pick it up.

Felt horrible. I wanted to perform, and I wanted to impress.

Because well, they’re paying me $65/hour for this.

That’s €2000 they owe me for the past 3 days of work.

And I was excited about this, the project is truly exciting, I am spending money fast here in Japan, and I could use a big income boost like this one.

Plus I had never made even close to €2000 in such a short time before.

But.

I told him to not pay me 75% of it.

Threw away €1500 whilst I need money.

And above that, told him I’ll put hours in this weekend to learn the coding language he needs (Vue), without him needing to pay me.

I am choosing the long term. Valuable relationships where each one of us benefits.

Him getting quality work for the right price, and me delivering on that.

As I severely underperformed now, I am willing to take my losses and lose the €1500.

The result?

He sees me as a long term partnership now, and trust is incredibly high.

He knows I will give him fair rates and he knows his investment in me will be worth it, and I have even more incentive to do so.

Not the start I wanted to freelance developing, but very happy with this decision and this partnership. It feels great.

Oh and: coding is fucking awesome.

Kees Closed

Making work not feel like work.

Door

Op november 11, 2024

In Philosophical Kees

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this strong drive to make my work so enjoyable that it doesn’t feel like work.

I always hated the idea of just getting an “okay” job. It was such a strong disgust that it fueled me to do everything I can to escape from that.

Taking the biggest risks and passing on so called “unmissable” career opportunities.

I am happy I passed on them, as I got to dedicate myself to finding work that would be the perfect match of the 3 goals most important to me:

  1. I must enjoy and excel at it
  2. I must make a positive impact
  3. I must have freedom: financial freedom, location freedom, and time freedom.

Chasing these 3 goals consumed pretty much all my energy in the last 2 years, to the point where I worked 80 hour weeks trying to make it happen.

I started a non-profit, built it to a team of 12, and shut it down again. I experienced high-impact work volunteering in Ghana. I started a business to work with impact entrepreneurs. I started a podcast, twice. I made YouTube videos about impactful work.

I did everything I could.

So much just to find all those 3 things in my work: Enjoyment, impact, and freedom.

And to be honest, after 2 years of chasing all 3, I ended up doing mediocre in all of them.

My strong focus to make work not feel like work, actually ended up doing the opposite.

I had put such high expectations on myself and how work should be, that it consumed 90% of my energy and it took away from my life in general.

Recently I felt it was getting pointless, I was just running around without getting anywhere. Running around in 3 directions trying to achieve all 3 goals at the same time.

So I knew I needed to change something. This wasn’t working anymore.

So I did a complete 180, and did something I never thought I’d do:

Become 100% focused on making money. That’s it. Just making as much money as possible.

Why?

Well, because it is the only one of the three that you need to stay alive.

I want to eliminate the worry/need for money, at least for a while. Then once I have that solved, I can start thinking about the other stuff.

And money can do quite magical things for me right now. It’s the thing that allows me to take 0 responsibility.

And when I have 0 responsibility, magical things start happening.

I start asking myself different questions, I realize what’s actually important to me, I get in a state of great energy, my intuition becomes super strong. It’s just beautiful.

I had this once in my life, 3 years ago on university exchange to Calgary, Canada. It was one of the best times of my life, and it brought me incredible clarity of what I wanted to dedicate myself to (which was to start the non-profit at the time).

That state is exactly what I need right now. A break from running around all the time, to realize where I actually want to go.

I’ll write another wishy washy philosophy piece about intuition and all of that, but that’s for another day.

The point here is that I need money to buy myself that freedom.

That is why I have shifted my focus and view on money. I now see it as a tool to buy me freedom.

If I spend €3000/month, then having €36.000 saved up buys me one year of freedom.

So that is my savings goal: €36.000

Or as I prefer to say it: my savings goal is 1 year of freedom.

I have abandoned the goal of making my work as enjoyable as possible, and making a positive impact with my work. I’ll get back to those later.

For now the focus is completely on making money. That’s the only focus.

And pffffff. It’s such a relief.

The moment I switched to that goal and 1 focus, I instantly felt less stressed and way more excited about the future.

Less stressed because I don’t have the pressure on me to find the perfect work already.

More excited because I finally have a goal that’s worth working towards, 1 year of complete freedom.

How beautiful is that.

Kees (closed)

P.S. If you want to read how I’m approaching this, read this article.

Throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Door

Op november 7, 2024

In Business Kees

Right now I’m testing and changing my profession so fast, I can barely keep up with it myself.

I want to have €36k saved up by end of March, and I need to make €10-15k per month to get there. (I’ll explain another time why I’m doing this).

For reference, last month I made €3,5k. So I need to triple my income, fast.

The only way to do that fast is by leveraging my existing skills, so I started with a list of services I could provide to businesses. For me this is:

  • Cold email outreach
  • CRM automation and optimization
  • LinkedIn content
  • Coding & development

But I had these skills last month as well, and I made €3,5k. Something needs to change for me to make 3x as much.

The change:

Less thinking, more execution.

Every idea I have needs to be tested fast. So that’s what I’m doing.

For example, I heard a friend of a friend making €15k/month by writing newsletters for cybersecurity companies. I know those companies have similar sales cycles to law firms (people only buy when something bad happens to them).

So I decided to try a similar offer for law firms, as I studied law for 2 years a while back.

From the moment from which I heard this idea, it took me 1 day to send emails to 300 lawyers.

This would have taken me 2 months, if I had wanted to do a lot of research and plan everything out perfectly before hand.

The reason why this testing is so important is because I find out very quick if there is potential or not. I avoid wasting loads of time on something that won’t work anyway.

The law firms is just 1 example, I have about 3 campaigns more going now which I am testing.

  • Selling AI driven WhatsApp software to Fitness gyms. I coded this in 1 week and made a website: fitness-leads.nl
  • Offering freelance coding services to small software companies
  • Offering to set up cold outreach to promotional gift companies, like my current client Bambook.com

And I plan to launch a lot more. I abandon the ones that don’t reply, and double down on the ones that get traction.

That’s my approach to 3x my income in short time.

Let’s make it work.

Kees (closed)

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