Ami Says

The idea is that you awake from the world of unremembered dreams and create the unfolding day. Most of this day is felt before experienced. Meaning we wake up, and as soon as we open our eyes, we start to feel. What we feel is made of remembering our yesterday and calculating our today. Both are passive and reactive but not proactive. Not realising that today can be seen as a reset, an opportunity to approach life with a fresh perspective—a blank canvas to paint on. And then the brush can use co...

During Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I was in Ukraine. In Kharkiv, 50 km from the border, it is a beautiful city, a remarkable city that is suffering a lot. When the artillery hit the buildings all around, everyone went to the basement. I kept sleeping in my bed, well, because I'm Israeli. I lived in Jerusalem on the 17th floor, and I would watch the rockets from Gaza over the horizon from my balcony as the sirens blared and defence systems engaged while sipping on my coffee or a glass of whisky...

A key to winning on the battlefield is to give the enemy the illusion that you are everywhere when you are not, to hold back and allow for some losses so that you can strike when the enemy is overextended, tired, too confident, and running out of supplies. There is great strategic benefit in allowing an enemy to enter deep into one’s territory, far away from their border, and keeping them there for a long time as they lose their support lines and confidence. Allowing for this while attacking the...

An obsession that life has meaning. An objective meaning that we can tap into. We can attach ourselves to this meaning or oppose ourselves. There are objective morals, good and bad, and we can choose how much of each we can be part of. And then we can rejoice about luck and shed tears about unfairness. But what if there is no objective meaning or purpose? What if there is no morality? Right or wrong? But what is is only what you choose to be. They'll tell you, but there are consequences for wro...

The customer who no longer feels anyone cares about them is a problem. This customer starts questioning every business relationship. "If so-and-so doesn't care about me, does my bank? Does my ISP? Does my insurance? Does my gym?" And then they look at those relationships: "It takes forever to get through to my Internet Service Provider," "The teller at my bank isn't so friendly," "My gym is overpriced." This spiral commences because one or two companies showed them they don't matter. Quite a rea...

What are standards, and who sets them? And why are they important? What is technological advancement without the advancement of the values infrastructure? Why do we mistake “more modern” with “better overall”? Is there perhaps a correlation? Maybe society cannot be more modern without advanced values. One of the symbols of a functional society is a police force. A country without a police force can never be considered modern. Yet does a modern society with Tesla police vehicles signal an advanc...

There is an important aspect of sales and business that is not discussed or even understood by many: the concept of letting go. If you’re in sales—or forget actual sales—anything that you want to close on. The girl, that car, the deal. You want it so badly, and there’s every reason why you should and will close this deal, whatever it is. Then it just falls apart into tiny little dust particles before your eyes, and you can’t comprehend what’s going on. It’s going against all logic. What the f#ck...

In a city of millions, one has but a handful of interactions, usually where some kind of financial transaction takes place. These interactions of few words are filled with silent emotion. It’s rare to exchange money without an exchange of emotions. Depending on who you are, where you come from, how you were raised, and your own insanity, the way you feel about money will vary. The way you feel about earning it will vary, and the way you feel about spending it will vary. I’m not talking about a r...

What is it that you fear? The dark? Bills? Your spouse? Your boss? The law? The taxman? Dogs? Spiders? I feared sharks for the longest time until I lived in Cape Town, where great whites roamed the beaches. Once they became real, I no longer worried about them as much. To say I no longer feared them would be an exaggeration, because my logic is based on survival chances in an encounter. While a bear, a pack of wolves, or a wild boar I could outrun, outsmart, or perhaps even fight and survive, f...

Growing up, the question that was constant in the mind of young men, teenage boys, and even into adulthood was, "What do women want?" As a teenage boy, it baffles you, but by the time you become a man in his 30s, you just accept the situation of never quite knowing what women want. But lately, I hear the question "What do men want?" a lot, which is an interesting development with a simple answer: to be appreciated. That's all men want. BTW, it's also what women want. Many women think men want ...

The more we look for friendships, the lonelier we are. The more we look for family, the lonelier we are. The more we look for success and money, the lonelier we are. These feelings of loneliness that we so define and dread, questioning as part of our inefficiency or lack of value, are only such because of our definition of them. A life without being drained by "friends" and "family" is a better life in every sense. Not having to suffer relatives and their drama, not having to bail out friends f...

If you're writing for others, it’s no different than taking pictures for others. One might argue: what is writing worth if not for the appreciation of others? But is that what motivated artists to create their great art? Surely, if it was, they failed, as many only reached fame after their deaths. So, is the motivation for posthumous fame? Isn’t that sad? Or what if it’s not about others, but about the self—a desire to express oneself, something to say that must be said for oneself? As an ape t...

Something to note about technologies that are all the rage is that they're not new technologies. AI has been around since after the Second World War. It was nowhere near as impressive as today, but it was AI. And now it's all the rage because somehow the masses got crazy about it, but also because it's reached an impressive point. However, as with any technology that becomes all the rage, many things that are not AI are attributed to AI. For example, before the AI craze, you'd hear, "It was pho...

There's this expectation to love life. To be positive, grateful no matter what. There's this expectation to be alright and answer with "I'm good," even when you're not. Nobody wants to hear a different story. So then you have this existence where you look around and you're afraid to hate all the things you hate: all the people, all the situations, parts of yourself, the world, and its systems and processes. To be negative is the greatest crime against the shit world we live in, for it's a slap i...

Industry-leading countries in chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and technology were the US, European countries such as Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, and Japan. While Germany and Switzerland were the leaders in the chemicals industry, the US and Japan led in electronics, computers, and the automobile industry. Japan, while not typically the original inventor, had the effective capacity to adapt to US technologies, which Europe mostly did not. Europe tried to be the leader in electronics and computer...

The chemical and pharmaceutical industries are similar to the tech industry—not so much in when they were formed, but in how they were developed. Chemical and pharmaceutical companies are older and experienced significant growth during the expansion of railroads, canal shipping, and road networks. This growth is particularly evident in Europe, especially in areas like Switzerland (Basel) and Germany (Lörrach) along the Rhine, which witnessed the blossoming of these industries【1】【2】. During the ...

AI is a fascinating topic, creating many new niches in our world, from defence strategy and security AI to business AI, healthcare AI, education AI, financial AI, and ethical AI. The question is not whether future drones will decide on their own to drop a bomb that kills 100 enemies; for sure, these days are coming fast. The question will be who is accountable if these enemies were civilians? If no human action took place, where does the investigation start, and where does the court martial end?...

We know life is finite, but we don't accept it. And if we do accept it, then we don't address it. Many don't have life insurance—then again, why would you? The longer you live, the more expensive it gets, and if you live too long, it expires. We don’t write wills—again, why would we? Who deserves our treasures if we have any? Looking towards future generations like a good Japanese enterprise is rare, especially since we don’t want to look ahead to the next fifty years. Besides, look how much li...

Sunday is a weekend day or a weekday. For me, being Israeli, it's the first day of the week, especially since I own a business in Israel and the calls and orders start coming in. BUT because I was born in Europe and now live in Europe, it was also always a partial weekend day. So to accept it as a full working day doesn't jive with me. So it ends up being a mixed day of work and pleasure. If you know me, you can argue that every day of the week is a mix of work and pleasure for me, which I guess...

While the US was a neutral and isolationist country during the beginning of WW2, after Great Britain, Germany, and Italy were already at war, but before Russia and Germany were at war, there was already an interest in creating a world free of aggression. This meant the countries that tended to show aggression—such as Germany, Italy, and Japan—would not be allowed to rearm. It was not from a perspective of punishment but more from the perspective that if the world is at peace, it is better for tr...

Discipline sounds so brutal and violent. Sounds like a father who beat his kids too hard. Perhaps with his belt or a stick. It sounds like disciplinary action and getting into trouble. It sounds like an insult: "You're so not disciplined, you worthless piece of shit." Then, if you served in the military, it sounds like the military. So freedom sounds like the opposite of discipline—doing what you want whenever you want. Yet, as long as we live in society, we never truly do what we want and are ...

Alan Greenspan, a libertarian and conservative nerd, had a keen interest in cars and beautiful women. His physical fitness, intelligence, and success attracted many high-class women into his life. Although he was married at one point, he eventually divorced in 1983 and remained an eligible bachelor until his marriage to Andrea Mitchell in 1997. Despite being Jewish and born in Manhattan, Greenspan did not experience the horrors of Europe. However, he did encounter anti-Semitism in the U.S., whi...

There are many great stories that I'm sure you're familiar with. Such as "Footprints," where one looks behind them and sees one set of footprints during their hardest times. Upon questioning this, God answers that there was one set of footprints because the person was being carried by God. Or the story of the builder who was underpaid and was asked to build one more house. He built it hurriedly, only to be told this was his retirement gift. There are also stories of people who don't know their...

We talk about the end of summer and then winter, but what about autumn? How is it forgotten? The season where you can still have warm days but also rainy, cold ones. You might still be able to swim a bit, or run in shorts, but also turn on the heat, go under the blankets, and watch Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. Autumn is a season where you can sit inside a coffee shop, enjoying cheesecake by a real fireplace, but also sit outside with an Aperol spritz on ice. It's a time when your dog mig...

Money is a source of misery for many and joy for few. Actually, I doubt it's truly a joy for anyone, for how can an agreed-upon value of nothingness bring any real joy? When we have it, we're frustrated, and when we don't, we're frustrated. Chewing on our nails as we wait for payday so we can buy all those useless things we don't need. So we can show all these people who don't give two fucks about us what we can afford. But are we then happier and complete? Of course not, we're then not only ens...

Rain or no rain it's time for coffee. Wake up latte the big gun. Butter croissant the soother. Take the dog, spill my coffee only a bit, not bad for the 28kg beast who likes to pull. Or not bad for the 92kg beast who has the morning wobbliness. Chitchat about politics, while I'm optimistic, the country is still going to hell apparently. Good that I have a bunker in my basement in Switzerland. Just need to stack it up with some cans of beans, wait maybe not beans, sweetcorn, carrots and of cours...

What makes a place? It’s people, its energy, or how you feel there? And what if you feel great in a shitty place, is that possible? We all know of people miserable in the same place as someone else who isn’t miserable. I like Vienna but there’s thousands who don’t. I like Switzerland but there’s also thousands who don’t. There’s places I’m not crazy about but others would die for. You’d say, well at least this way there’s a balance, but too many people love Italy and Spain and therefore they’re...

I used to fly every week between Brussels and Athens, departing Monday morning and returning Friday. I was given €500 in cash every week as spending money by the people I worked with—a partnership between two Israeli diamond dealers. My role was that of a buyer, not a seller. I traveled from jeweler to jeweler, aiming to purchase diamonds that they couldn’t sell. Given my fluency in Greek—having grown up there—the dealers believed I would be effective in navigating the market. At the time, Gree...

Seguire la folla significa essere instabili. Anche se siamo tutti un po’ instabili, l’unico modo per stabilizzarsi è fidarsi di sé stessi e sapersi distaccare per vedersi con obiettività. Quando siamo troppo legati a noi stessi e alle nostre cose, non siamo in grado di riconoscere le vere situazioni che ci circondano. Viviamo in un mondo di molte persone con molte emozioni, pensieri, opinioni, azioni e parole, e tutto questo ci influenza. Non si può evitare, ma la misura in cui reagiamo a quest...

To follow the crowd is to be unstable. While we’re all a bit unstable, the only way to stabilize oneself is to trust oneself and to be able to step out of oneself and see oneself objectively. For being too attached to oneself and one’s things, we’re unable to recognize the real situations that surround us. We live in a world of many people with many emotions, thoughts, opinions, actions, and words, and these all influence us. This cannot be avoided, but the degree to which we act on these influ...