Anggriawan Sugianto

What Resetting My Phone Taught Me About Making Space

I usually know it’s time to reset my iPhone when two things happen: the storage is full, and everything starts moving more slowly than I’d like.

At that point, my phone and I are both a little frustrated. It’s running out of space, and I’m running out of patience.

I perform a factory reset at least once a year. Sometimes it feels like a practical response to a practical problem. My phone is crowded, so I clear it out and start fresh.

But over time, I’ve realized that the process is about more than storage. It gives me an opportunity to pause and ask a question I don’t always ask when I’m busy downloading, saving, and subscribing: If I were starting over, what would I choose to bring back?

Before the reset, I usually feel frustrated by my full, sluggish phone. Afterward, I feel happy—and I experience a sense of mental clarity.

The reset doesn’t magically organize my life. But it gives me a chance to start again with a little more intention.

A fresh start for your digital life: keep what matters, let go of the rest.

How Did My Digital Life Get So Crowded?

Digital clutter rarely arrives all at once. It builds quietly.

We download an app because we need it for one task. We save a document because it might be useful later. We take a screenshot so we won’t forget something, then forget the screenshot exists.

And then there’s WhatsApp.

WhatsApp is useful precisely because it makes sharing so easy. Photos, documents, and other files arrive in the middle of everyday conversations. But over time, those conversations can become a storage system of their own—one that isn’t always easy to sort through.

Many of the things I save were useful when I saved them. The problem isn’t necessarily that they were mistakes. It’s that I don’t always stop to ask whether they are still useful now.

That’s where the KonMari method gives me a helpful perspective.

What KonMari Helped Me See Differently

Marie Kondo’s KonMari method encourages us to imagine the life we want, tidy by category, and choose what to keep based on whether it “sparks joy.”

I find the shift in perspective especially useful. Rather than focusing only on what to throw away, the method asks us to pay attention to what we want to keep.

In a digital context, “spark joy” doesn’t have to mean that every file makes me smile. A document can earn its place because it’s useful. A photo can matter because it preserves a memory. A work record may need to be retained because of a responsibility to a client or team.

My version of the question is simple: Instead of asking only, “How do I free up space?” I also ask, “What deserves space in my life?”

Applying KonMari to apps, files, and phone resets is my own adaptation of the method. I don’t think there’s a single perfect way to do it. The value is in becoming more deliberate about what stays.

How to Build a Healthier, Happier, and More Meaningful Life

A better life is rarely built through one dramatic change. More often, it comes from small actions repeated over time: moving your body, sleeping well, focusing on important work, and caring for the people around you.

The ideas below are a practical interpretation of topics from Scott Young’s personal development course. They are not summaries of the original lessons.

Each section has one key habit and twelve ideas to help you put it into practice. You do not need to work on everything at once. Start with the area that would make the biggest difference in your life today.

Building a good life, one step and one habit at a time.

1. Fitness: Make Movement Part of Your Day

Key habit: Move every day. Daily movement does not mean hard training every day. A run, strength session, walk, or gentle stretch can all count. The goal is to make movement a normal part of life while allowing enough time to recover.

1. Start with your physical health. Your body supports everything else you want to do. When you have more energy and strength, it is easier to work, learn, care for others, and enjoy your time.

2. Build slowly. Going too hard at the beginning can lead to injury or exhaustion. Start at a level you can repeat, then increase the challenge gradually.

3. Replace the movement modern life removes. Many of us spend most of the day sitting. A planned workout helps, but walking, taking the stairs, and moving between meetings also matter.

4. Choose activities that fit your goals. Running, strength training, walking, and sports offer different benefits. A useful routine balances what your body needs with what you enjoy enough to continue.

5. Use daily movement to make the habit easier. A daily commitment can reduce the question of whether to exercise. On a demanding day, the answer might be a short walk rather than a hard workout.

6. See movement as an investment in health. Regular activity can reduce the risk of many health problems and help people maintain strength and independence as they age.

7. Do not assume aging means giving up fitness. Bodies change with age, but inactivity can also reduce strength and endurance. Adjusting your training is more useful than assuming decline is unavoidable.

8. Plan for setbacks. Travel, work, illness, and family responsibilities will interrupt your routine. Decide in advance what a smaller version of your habit looks like, and give yourself permission to restart.

9. Exercise supports the mind too. Movement can improve mood and support attention and memory. It is not a replacement for every mental health treatment, but it can be a useful part of caring for your mind.

10. Balance stress and recovery. Training creates stress that can help the body adapt. Too much stress without enough recovery can have the opposite effect.

11. Give habits time to develop. There is no fixed number of days that guarantees a habit will stick. Repetition, a supportive environment, and a willingness to start again all help.

12. Move for the life you want now. Exercise is not only about future health. It can also bring enjoyment, confidence, friendship, and a better mood today.

2. Sleep: Protect Your Recovery

Key habit: Set a bedtime boundary. Choose a time to begin ending your day instead of waiting until every task is finished. The goal is to give yourself a reasonable opportunity to sleep, not to create another rigid rule.

1. Understand that sleep is active work. While you sleep, your body and brain carry out important processes related to memory, recovery, and health. Rest is not wasted time.

2. Notice the cost of too little sleep. Poor sleep can affect attention, judgment, patience, and emotional control. It may also make a normal workload feel much harder.

3. Make your bedroom support sleep. A dark, quiet, comfortable room and a simple evening routine can make it easier to settle down. Small changes are often more useful than buying complicated sleep products.

4. Recognize how modern life changes sleep. Artificial light, screens, late meetings, and constant entertainment can keep us awake longer than intended. A boundary helps protect rest from these demands.

5. Learn the value of a well-timed nap. A short nap can improve alertness for some people. If naps make it harder to sleep at night, try changing their timing or length.

6. Sleep is part of learning. Studying or practicing is only one part of learning. Sleep helps the brain process and retain new information.

7. Treat sleep needs as individual. Eight hours is a useful reference, not an exact requirement for everyone. Pay attention to how you function over time rather than focusing on one perfect number.

8. Know the difference between tired and sleepy. Low energy can come from stress, illness, overtraining, or other causes. More sleep may help, but it is not always the complete answer.

9. Get help for persistent insomnia. If difficulty sleeping continues or affects daily life, speak with a qualified health professional. Evidence-based treatments can address more than the symptoms.

10. Pay attention to exercise timing. Exercise often supports sleep, but people respond differently to intense workouts close to bedtime. Notice your own pattern rather than following a universal rule.

11. Respect your daily rhythms. A reasonably consistent sleep and wake schedule helps your body know when to feel alert and when to rest. Consistency matters more than making every day identical.

12. Use caffeine with awareness. Coffee can improve alertness, but caffeine later in the day may affect sleep even if you fall asleep quickly. Experiment with an earlier cutoff if your sleep feels unrefreshing.

3. Food: Build a Flexible Eating System

Key habit: Plan food flexibly. A useful food plan makes healthy choices easier without making life rigid. Keep a few reliable meals and ingredients available, then adapt them to your work, family, travel, and training needs.

1. Focus on principles before diets. A sustainable eating pattern matters more than finding a perfect label. Start with a variety of nourishing foods, enough energy, and portions that suit your needs.

2. Decide what breakfast does for you. Some people feel better and perform well with breakfast; others prefer to eat later. The useful question is whether your routine supports your energy, appetite, and overall nutrition.

3. Be selective about nutrition advice. Nutrition is full of confident claims. Look for the quality of the evidence and whether advice applies to your situation, rather than following the latest trend.

4. Manage hunger before it becomes urgent. Meals with adequate protein, fiber, and volume can help many people feel satisfied. It is easier to make thoughtful choices when you are not extremely hungry.

5. Choose a pattern you can maintain. Strict rules may work briefly but become difficult during busy weeks or social events. A flexible approach makes it easier to return to your routine after a disruption.

6. Understand that appetite is complex. Sleep, stress, food availability, hormones, and habits can all affect eating. Treating every food decision as a test of willpower misses much of the picture.

7. Improve one choice at a time. Add a vegetable to a regular meal, prepare a useful snack, or drink more water. Small changes are easier to test and maintain than a complete overnight overhaul.

8. Organize your kitchen for better choices. Keep useful ingredients where you can see and reach them. A well-stocked kitchen makes a simple meal easier when you are tired or busy.

9. Learn basic food skills. Shopping, preparing a few meals, reading labels, and adapting recipes can be more valuable than collecting nutrition advice you never use.

10. Fuel the work your body does. Food supports thinking, exercise, and recovery. If you train for long races, your needs may differ from those of someone with a less active routine.

11. Avoid turning food into a moral test. One meal does not define your health. A calmer relationship with food makes it easier to make good choices over the long term.

12. Make room for real life. Food also brings pleasure, culture, and connection. A healthy pattern should leave room for family meals, celebrations, and flexibility.

Many people think The 48 Laws of Power is only for ruthless people who want to control others. But at its core, the book is about how people behave. Power dynamics exist in every company, client meeting, family, and friendship. If you do not understand them, other people may make important decisions for you.

You do not need to use dirty tricks to learn from this book. You can use the laws as a shield. They can help you recognize office politics, protect your time, and stay focused on what matters. Real power is not about controlling other people. It is about controlling your own actions.

Be reliable, steady, and quietly strong.

To make the book more practical, I grouped all 48 laws into four simple pillars: Master Yourself, Manage Your Reputation, Work with People, and Use Smart Strategy. Below is a practical checklist with one key point from the book, one tip for personal life, and one tip for professional life.

Pillar 1: Self-Mastery and Executive Demeanor

This pillar is about self-control, confidence, discipline, and flexibility.

Law 4: Always Say Less Than Necessary

• Key Point: Speaking too much can weaken your position and reveal more than you intend.
• Personal: Pause for three seconds during an argument and listen before you respond, so you do not say something you later regret.
• Professional: Make your point clearly, then stop speaking and let the other side explain its needs and concerns.

Law 10: Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky

• Key Point: A person’s negative behavior and poor choices can spread to the people around them.
• Personal: Limit your time with people who complain constantly and leave you feeling tired or negative.
• Professional: Be careful with clients, partners, or employees who always blame others and never take responsibility.

Law 25: Re-create Yourself

• Key Point: You can deliberately shape your identity instead of allowing other people or your past to define you.
• Personal: Do not let your past identity limit you; you can start a new hobby, sport, or lifestyle at any age.
• Professional: Upgrade your professional identity as your company grows, moving from technical executor to strategic advisor.

Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness

• Key Point: Hesitation often creates doubt, while confident action can make an idea appear stronger.
• Personal: Commit fully to important goals, such as training for an ultramarathon, instead of making a half-hearted attempt.
• Professional: Present your pricing and recommendations with confidence, and do not offer discounts before the client asks.

Law 34: Be Royal in Your Own Fashion

• Key Point: People often treat you according to the standards and level of respect you show toward yourself.
• Personal: Protect your sleep, health, and recovery because people learn how to treat you from the standards you set for yourself.
• Professional: Set clear boundaries, such as declining meetings without an agenda and pricing your work according to its value.

Law 38: Think as You Like but Behave Like Others

• Key Point: You may think independently, but openly rejecting social norms can create unnecessary resistance.
• Personal: Follow your own habits, such as waking early to run, without judging people who choose a different lifestyle.
• Professional: Respect a client’s formal culture while keeping your own team fast, practical, and flexible.

Law 46: Never Appear Too Perfect

• Key Point: Appearing perfect can create envy and distance, while appropriate vulnerability can make you more relatable.
• Personal: Share honest struggles with trusted friends because people connect more easily with reality than with a perfect image.
• Professional: Share useful lessons from past mistakes to show clients that your experience comes from real work.

Law 47: In Victory, Learn When to Stop

• Key Point: Continuing to push after achieving your goal can turn success into a new problem.
• Personal: Know when to end a hard workout, a late night, or an argument before it causes unnecessary fatigue.
• Professional: Close the deal once your important goals are met instead of risking the agreement for a small extra advantage.

Law 48: Assume Formlessness

• Key Point: The strongest position is often the ability to adapt instead of following one rigid plan.
• Personal: Stay flexible when life changes your plans; if bad weather cancels your run, choose another form of training.
• Professional: Keep your company adaptable so you can change your services when markets, technology, or client needs change.

TL;DR: If your brand depends on marketplaces, paid media, and algorithmic recommendations to reach customers, you may not own your growth. You are renting access to an audience, and the rent is rising.

Digital sovereignty is the strategic ability to control your customer identity, data architecture, and brand experience without becoming dependent on any single platform.

In the age of AI marketplaces, this is no longer a technology preference. It is a profitability imperative.

This essay was originally published on the Suitmedia website.

The Hidden Cost of “Growth”

Many enterprise brands appear to be growing rapidly.

Marketplace revenue is rising. Social commerce is producing record sales. Marketing dashboards are filled with impressive reach, impressions, and conversion numbers.

But beneath the surface, the economics may be deteriorating.

The brand is not necessarily building a stronger business. It may simply be paying more to access the same customers through increasingly expensive intermediaries.

This is the logic of “renting an audience.”

You do not own the relationship. You rent access to it from:

• Marketplaces
• Social platforms
• Advertising networks
• Search engines
• Recommendation algorithms
• Emerging AI assistants and shopping agents

As long as the rent remains low, the model appears efficient.

But platforms rarely remain cheap. Commission rates increase. Advertising becomes more competitive. Organic reach declines. Algorithms change without notice.

The result is a business that grows in revenue while weakening in control.

The AI Marketplace Will Intensify the Problem

Generative AI is changing the discovery layer of commerce.

Consumers increasingly expect AI assistants to compare products, interpret preferences, recommend alternatives, and summarize the best options, all without visiting ten different websites.

The traditional journey looked something like this:

1. A customer searches for a product.
2. The customer visits a brand website or marketplace.
3. The customer compares options.
4. The customer makes a purchase.

The emerging journey is different:

1. A customer describes a need to an AI assistant.
2. The AI synthesizes the market.
3. The AI recommends a shortlist.
4. The transaction happens through an integrated interface.

The brand website may never be visited.

The brand story may never be read.

The customer relationship may never be established.

In this environment, a brand risks becoming invisible infrastructure: a product supplier operating behind the AI interface.

The AI layer owns the conversation. The platform owns the transaction. The brand absorbs the operational complexity while receiving an increasingly commoditized share of the value.

Around one in the morning on the second night of BTR Ultra, I realized I was surrounded by spectators.

One stood quietly by the ditch. Another leaned against a fence post a few yards ahead.

I gave them a polite nod.

They didn’t nod back.

When my headlamp beam cut through the darkness, the spectator on the left turned out to be an overgrown banana plant. The figure by the fence was an abandoned plastic chair. A little farther up, two marshals waiting to cheer me on became a parked motorcycle and a rusted road sign. After more than twenty-eight hours of black volcanic dust, mud, and climbing, my sleep-starved brain had decided reality was too lonely and invented a crowd.

I took a short power nap on a wooden bench at Alengkong. When I opened my eyes, the imaginary fans were gone.

The rest of the mountain, however, was still waiting.

BTR Ultra 2026

I started at 6:00 PM on Friday with a color-coded spreadsheet promising a neat 27-hour finish by Saturday night. Instead, I crossed the timing mat at approximately 3:12 AM on Sunday, in 33 hours, 12 minutes, and 25 seconds.

Between Friday’s sunset and Sunday’s dawn lay three volcanic peaks, an underfueled climb, a tropical downpour, one reckless downhill, knees that went on strike, and a humbling lesson in resilience. This is how it unfolded, segment by segment.

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The Plan: 27 Hours, If All Went Well

Before the race, I was a master of theoretical endurance.

I had mapped out all 106 kilometers and 7,200 meters of elevation gain with executive precision. The spreadsheet had target paces, heart-rate zones, hydration schedules, and an aid-station fueling matrix. For daytime running, I swore by the golden rule: find something salty, something sugary, and something icy cold.

I even left a strict note for my future self: Do not touch the soy milk until after the finish line.

Spreadsheets are comforting. They give you the illusion of control. Sitting at home with fresh legs, it’s easy to believe that when the trail turns to volcanic scree or knee-deep mud, you’ll simply stick to Section 4, Column B.

The volcanoes of Bali, as it turned out, had other plans.

Start to Culali: Summiting Mount Batur in the Dark

The race began at 6:00 PM on Friday as twilight faded over Kintamani.

The opening 10 kilometers offered no gentle warm-up. They sent us straight up to the summit crater of Mount Batur. We climbed through the dark, headlamps forming a snaking ribbon of light across black sand and jagged volcanic rock, before descending the crater rim toward Culali.

My strategy was disciplined patience: stay in Zone 2, ignore the eager runners flying past on fresh legs, and sip my isotonic mix at a steady cadence. At Culali, I grabbed a wedge of watermelon and a banana. Light, clean, controlled.

Standing on Batur’s windy rim with the whole race ahead was breathtaking. But an ultra doesn’t reward early bravado. One volcano in the first two hours meant very little when two more giants were waiting in the dark.

Culali to Tanjakan Cinta: A Little Room to Run

From Culali, the trail smoothed out and let my legs settle into a natural, rolling stride.

I reached Tanjakan Cinta in 3 hours and 9 minutes, roughly thirty minutes ahead of schedule. The night air had turned crisp. At the aid station, steam rose over the comforting sounds of a generator and the smell of boiled potatoes and warm green bean soup. I dipped the potatoes in rock salt, drank the soup, and felt quietly confident.

My legs felt responsive. My gut was happy. The plan was holding.

Being ahead of schedule at an early checkpoint is intoxicating. Experience whispers a caution: when you think you’re beating the trail, it may just mean the mountain hasn’t started asking much of you yet.

The silence at 10 PM in Selo, Boyolali is not like other silences. It's not the quiet of sleep. It's thick, wet, and heavy—the kind of quiet that happens when a sleeping volcano is watching you from inside the clouds.

I stood at the start line of Merapi 360°, looked at my watch, then looked down the dark road ahead. Seventy-seven kilometers of asphalt stretched into nothing. No trails. No rocks to trip over. Just me, my shoes, and a giant mountain that hadn't moved in a very long time.

I told myself this would be easy. I told myself wrong.

Running to Finish Line @ Merapi 360º

What I Planned vs. What Happened

I usually run on dirt. I love the rocky climbs of trails, the switchbacks, the way your body has to think about every step. BDG Ultra and Siksorogo Lawu Ultra—those are my home. So I looked at Merapi 360° and thought: This will be simple. Just a road race. A chance to build fitness before my bigger race, BTS Ultra 170K, in a few months.

I thought of it as a training run. Something controlled. Something safe.

The mountain laughed.

The Map That Didn't Match the Road

Before the race, I tried to load the GPS file onto my watch. Amazfit, Coros, Garmin—nothing worked. So I did what I call "GPS laundering": uploaded it to Strava, downloaded it again, and finally got it onto my watch. It worked, but something was wrong with the map.

The GPS showed straight lines between points. The actual road was never straight.

This became a problem at 2 AM, when I was running through Boyolali/Klaten/Sleman in the dark. At every corner, I had to stop and look for a red painted arrow on the road. In the darkness, those arrows were nearly invisible. I would slow down, squint, wonder if I was lost, then see it: a faded red line pointing me forward.

Later, I thought about this. In my business, I see the same thing happen. You have a plan that looks perfect on paper. Clean lines. Clear directions. But when people actually try to use it—when they're tired, scared, and it's 2 AM—the plan falls apart. The arrows that seemed so clear in the office are invisible in real life.

The difference is that when a business plan is broken, people lose money. When a GPS is broken and you're running at night, you lose time. Both hurt, but one is more honest about it.

Di tengah keriuhan transportasi publik kita, entah itu di gerbong KRL yang padat atau di sela antrean ojek daring, ada sebuah pemandangan baru yang seragam: layar gawai yang digenggam vertikal dengan volume suara yang tipis namun dramatis. Masyarakat kita sedang dijangkiti demam mikro-drama atau "dracin pendek". Hanya dalam durasi satu hingga tiga menit per episode, drama ini mampu menyihir jutaan orang, mulai dari pekerja sektor informal hingga eksekutif yang mencari pelarian sejenak dari keletihan mental (decision fatigue).

Sebagai praktisi Customer Experience (CX), saya melihat keberhasilan mikro-drama bukan terletak pada kemegahan sinematografinya, melainkan pada ketangkasannya membedah anatomi psikologi dan perilaku manusia modern di era seluler.

Ilustrasi: Menonton Mikro-Drama di dalam MRT

Matinya “Format Menengah”

Secara historis, kita terbiasa dengan durasi standar 22 menit untuk sitkom atau satu jam untuk drama televisi. Namun, hari ini kita menyaksikan apa yang saya sebut sebagai The Death of the Middle-Form. Konsumsi konten kini bergerak ke dua titik ekstrem: format sangat panjang seperti podcast berjam-jam, atau format ultra-pendek.

Mikro-drama mengeksploitasi interstitial time, celah waktu sempit di sela fragmentasi kesibukan kita. Ia menawarkan frictionless consumption. Tanpa perlu komitmen waktu besar, ia hadir mengubah waktu tunggu yang "mati" menjadi jendela hiburan yang intens. Di sinilah letak kemenangannya: ia tidak meminta waktu kita, ia mencurinya di sela-sela kesibukan.

Pembajakan Vertikal dan Efek Zeigarnik

Platform mikro-drama melakukan vertical hijack. Dengan format vertikal yang memanjakan ergonomi satu tangan manusia, teknologi ini menyesuaikan diri dengan ritme fisik kita, bukan sebaliknya. Ini bukan sekadar soal rasio aspek layar, melainkan desain yang sadar konteks (context-aware design).

Daya pikatnya kian adiktif berkat penerapan gamified cliffhangers. Setiap episode dirancang menggunakan Zeigarnik Effect, tendensi psikologis di mana otak manusia cenderung merasa terganggu dan terus teringat pada hal yang belum selesai. Rasa penasaran ini dikomodifikasi sedemikian rupa, sehingga pengguna secara bawah sadar akan sulit melepaskan layar sebelum cerita tuntas, meski harus membayar per episode.

Secara kultural, mikro-drama di Indonesia sukses karena menyentuh "DNA" lokal. Tema seperti balas dendam menantu yang terzalimi atau CEO yang menyamar adalah topik universal yang menawarkan gratifikasi instan melalui narasi “justice porn”, kepuasan melihat keangkuhan ditundukkan oleh kebenaran. Strategi ini lalu diperkuat dengan algorithmic funneling yang presisi di Facebook, Instagram, atau TikTok, menjerat audiens masuk ke dalam corong konversi (funnel) menuju aplikasi utama.

There is a specific kind of silence that only exists at 3:00 AM on a muddy trail in the middle of a race. Your headlamp is failing, your quads feel like they've been tenderized by a mallet, and your brain is screaming—rationally, logically—that you should stop.

Over the years, I've realized that the "algorithms" I learned in ITB and the "frameworks" I mastered in KAIST MBA are exactly what keep me moving on the trail. And conversely, the "grit" of the trail is what allows me to lead Suitmedia through the volatility of the Indonesian tech landscape.

Success is isomorphic. The same principles that scale a company win a mountain race. These are the mental models I live by, grouped into the pillars that define my world.

BTS Ultra 2025

I. How I Think

These are the foundational models for clarity. If my internal "Map" is wrong, no amount of speed will get me to the right destination.

1. The Logic of Truth

Before you can solve a problem, you have to see it clearly.

• First Principles Thinking: Strip a problem to the core truths. Don't reason by analogy; build your own logic from the ground up.
• Occam's Razor: When faced with two competing theories, the simplest one is usually the truth. Avoid over-engineering your life.
• Map vs. Territory: Your mental models, plans, and spreadsheets are just "maps." Never confuse the abstraction with the messy reality of the "territory."
• Circle of Competence: Be brutally honest about what you know and where your expertise ends. Play only in games where you have an edge.

2. Strategic Decision Making

Choosing the path when the fog of war (or mountain mist) is thick.

• Inversion: Instead of asking how to succeed, ask "How could I spectacularly fail?" Then, build systems to avoid those specific pitfalls.
• Probabilistic Thinking: Life is a game of odds, not certainties. Focus on making high-probability bets rather than chasing sure things.
• Regret Minimization: When at a crossroads, choose the path that your 80-year-old self would be most proud of.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: Having the courage to walk away from a bad project or relationship, regardless of how much time or money you've already invested.

3. The Physics of Growth

How to ensure effort results in exponential progress.

• The Pareto Principle: Identify the 20% of inputs—habits, clients, or training—that produce 80% of your results. Ruthlessly cut the rest.
• Compounding: The most powerful force in the universe. Tiny, 1% gains repeated over a decade create exponential wealth, wisdom, and fitness.
• Velocity vs. Speed: Speed is how fast you move; Velocity is speed plus direction. It's better to crawl toward the right goal than sprint toward the wrong one.
• Theory of Constraints: Every system has one primary bottleneck. Improving anything else is an exercise in futility. Find the bottleneck; widen it.

4. Human & Social Dynamics

Navigating the "Human API" in leadership and life.

• Incentives: Show me the incentive, and I will show you the outcome. If you want to change behavior, change the reward structure.
• Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by neglect or a simple mistake. It saves a lot of unnecessary anger.
• Social Proof: We are biologically wired to mimic others. Use this awareness to choose mentors wisely and avoid groupthink traps.
• Pygmalion Effect: People generally live up to or down to the expectations we set for them. Lead with high belief in your team.

5. Systemic Resilience

Building a person in me that gets stronger under pressure.

• Antifragility: Designing your life so that you don't just survive the storm—you actually get stronger because of them.
• Feedback Loops: The shorter the gap between an action and its feedback, the faster you can iterate and improve.
• Margin of Safety: Always leave a buffer—in your schedule, your bank account, and your heart rate—for the unknown unknowns.
• The Power of Narrative: The stories we tell ourselves about our failures determine whether they become traumas or fuel for growth.

This post is about a 5-year journey that changed everything—and what it taught me about resilience, strategy, and becoming who you thought you couldn't.

Trans Jeju 100K Finisher Totem

The Impossible Beginning

In 2020, I was that guy: an ITB alumnus running a creative digital agency, completely sedentary, leaning hard into unhealthy habits. I wasn't sick, wasn't in crisis (yet), but I was fractured. The pandemic hit, and something in me broke open—not dramatically, but quietly. I hit Obese level 1. My cognitive function tanked. I remember calling it "slow thinking"—like my brain was running at half speed. I'd sit in strategic meetings and feel... foggy. Unreliable. Not myself.

In August 2020, something shifted. I decided to run 5 kilometers.

I remember telling people: "I'm going to run a marathon one day." They laughed. Not unkindly, but the kind of laugh that says sure, buddy. And honestly? I didn't believe it either. A marathon felt like claiming I'd climb Everest. A 100K? Laughable. Impossible.

But here's what I didn't understand then: impossibility is just a lack of systems.

By July 2023, I was running marathons with the ASICS Marathon Team. By 2024, I was a Pocari Sweat Marathon Pacer. And in 2025—just 5 years after that first terrifying 5K—I ran not one, but three 100K ultra-trail races in eight weeks.

When I delivered this presentation on October 30, 2025, I had already completed two of them: BDG Ultra and Trans Jeju by UTMB. I was mid-mission, riding the momentum toward the third race (BTS Ultra), still processing what was happening.

Now, writing this in January 2026, with all three finishes behind me, I can see the full arc of what happened.

100+ km. Done.

The journey wasn't about getting faster or stronger (though both happened). It was about discovering that the person I thought I was—sedentary, undisciplined, limited—was a fiction. And once you see through that fiction, you can't unsee it.

Along the way, I learned seven fundamental truths. Not secrets, exactly. More like operating principles—frameworks that work because they're rooted in how humans actually function, not how we wish we functioned.

These aren't just running principles. I've watched them reshape how I lead Suitmedia, how I make decisions under uncertainty, how I handle the scaling challenges of a growing business. They're transferable. And I think they might work for whatever your "100K" is.

Secret #1: The Power of Showing Up (Consistency Beats Intensity Every Time)

The Real Problem with Motivation

Let me tell you about motivation: it's a liar.

Everyone approaches running (or fitness, or any ambitious goal) the same way: they wait for motivation. They imagine themselves as the kind of person who loves running. They picture early mornings, sunrises, that runner's high. They motivate themselves into a frenzy and commit to running 5 days a week, 10km per session.

Then Tuesday comes, and they're tired. Wednesday, it rains. Thursday, work runs late. By Saturday, they've missed three sessions, feel like failures, and quit.

This is the motivation trap. And I fell into it hard in those first months.

What changed everything was understanding BJ Fogg's Behavior Model: Behavior = Motivation + Ability + Prompt. You can't rely on motivation because motivation is volatile. It spikes and crashes. But you can control ability and prompts.

Here's what I did differently:

I started absurdly small.

My first running routine wasn't 10km, 5 days a week. It was 15 minutes of walk-jog, 3 times a week. That's it. Not impressive. Not Instagram-worthy. But doable. Even on bad days, even when I was tired or stressed, 15 minutes felt achievable.

The magic wasn't in the 15 minutes themselves. It was in building the habit first, the pace later.

I treated running like a professional appointment—non-negotiable, scheduled, the same time each week. Not because I loved it, but because it was on the calendar, and I show up to calendar items. This sounds obvious, but most people don't do this. They think discipline comes from feeling like it. Discipline actually comes from removing the decision.

By month three, running 15 minutes 3x a week felt as normal as brushing my teeth. My brain stopped negotiating it. Then I extended to 20 minutes. Then to 5 days a week. Then the distances grew. But the foundation was the habit—showing up, even when it sucked.

The "Good Enough" Run

Here's something they don't tell you: not every run needs to be great.

In October 2025, I had completed a 266-week running streak—5+ years without missing a single week. Some of those runs were transcendent. Most were forgettable. Some were genuinely ugly. I remember a 6am run in Jakarta heat where I barely made it 5km and felt like I'd been hit by a bicycle. But I showed up. That run counted the same as the perfect long run on a cool morning.

The breakthrough moment came when I stopped chasing the perfect run and started celebrating the completion of effort. Some weeks, "showing up" meant a slow 8km jog in humidity. Some weeks it meant a brutal 30km weekend run. Both counted. Both built the streak.

This is counterintuitive but critical: Discipline is built by showing up on the bad days, not the good ones. The good days take care of themselves.