
Hi, I’m Daniel.
I’m paving the way for people with great ideas for improving the world.
About me.

I’m the COO at Polaris Ventures and a personal and executive coach, currently based in Amsterdam. See my LinkedIn for my professional background, and here for what I’m doing now.
I’m curious about almost everything and love to learn new things. I’m particularly interested in how to have peak energy and focus, get the most out of my time, and struggle more gracefully. I spend my downtime meditating, hiking, and enjoying dark chocolate.

Coaching.
I help people in the effective altruism community face difficult challenges and make their biggest contribution to the world while taking care of themselves. My clients include people at 80k, CEA, Charity Entrepreneurship, CLR, FHI, and Rethink Priorities.
Resources.
Occasionally I write about issues that I address with my clients and other topics that pique my interest.
Reflection
One thing I’ve changed in 2020 has been to shift (even) more time towards structured reflection. The volatile and sometimes chaotic environment this year provided a helpful nudge for what would have been worthwhile without it already. In this post, I’ll elaborate on the benefits of reflection as I currently see them and suggest ways…
Self-care
Self-care is challenging yet essential for almost anything you care about. In this post, I’m going to address why I think that’s true, and offer a few strategies that you can implement to manage yourself more deliberately. If you’d prefer a more animated version of this post, you can find a recording of my talk…
Energy Log
Being able to show up energized and motivated every day is necessary to achieve big goals and enjoy the process. This post presents a tool to benchmark your current energy levels as the basis for improvement. Energy levels are a complex issue where causal links are hard to establish. There are too many variables at…
Issue Log
Mistakes are one of our best opportunities to learn and improve. Unfortunately, we’re conditioned to associate mistakes with failure instead of opportunity and to deny or turn away from them. This way, we end up staying the same and likely making the same mistakes over and over again. To start learning from mistakes requires a…