The Ultimate Guide to surviving the 21st century is online

Hi. Welcome! You’re here, and wondering where you ended up. Well, my name is Nigel van Houten and I’m going to take you on my journey for surviving the 21st century. That might sound a bit ambitious and maybe even strange, but just hang on and read on.

It’s a jungle out there

As a figure of speech: it’s still a jungle out there. Where the pressure is higher then ever. To perform, be the best of yourself, take care of the people around you. And this, while you’re being confronted with an overload of information, feeling pressure from the perfect lives of others on social media and maybe even the question if this is what you’ve always dreamed about. The world is changing rapidly and seems to demand that you change just as fast.

Surviving or living?

So while in the this modern age jungle you’re just trying to survive or really feel like you’re enjoying life to the fullest? It’s a thin line between feeling overwhelmed and overrun, with a busy calendar, work pressure, screaming kids, and keeping a social life running while you also need to stay healthy. Survival in the 21st century is not about escaping the sable tooth tiger, or finding fresh water, but about making choices. Basically choosing between feeling you’re trying to survive and.. just live.

The Ultimate Guide

So what I did is gather everything you need to deal with all these modern era challenges. I figured out the science behind it: what works and why. I made the connection to our ancestors, by studying our brain, figuring out why we respond in certain ways and what we can do to go from basic survival tot comfortable living in the 21st century. This website is a starting point to learn about the skills you need to develop to cope with living in the 21st century: dealing with stress, how to keep your physical health in order, developing yourself as an individual and at the end feeling like you can deal with everything live throws at you. You could say, I’m going to show you the path to happiness.

Why struggle alone?

You’re not alone. We’re all in this. Social media made you believe that other peoples lives are perfect. That everyone else is happy, with perfect abs, a perfect job, the perfect hair, you name it: it’s more perfect then yours. And the main question we should ask ourselves is not ‘how can I become like that?’, but more ‘what do I need to do to feel happy?’. Well, let’s start with knowing you’re not alone and you can get help. I’ve not only build this website to help you on your way on your own, I’ve also developed myself as a professional coach and am available to help you one on one. See the coaching section for more information about my approach and options for coaching. Also: feel free to reach out to me or leave a comment.

About me

So when I grew up I noticed that I’m a bit different then most. Alone in a world that was hard, cold and based on superficial behavior more then individual growth and development. This gave me a hard learning school in personal development, people behavior and individual differences. After more then two decades working in leadership positions I’ve developed myself as a coach, learning people how to deal with our stressful lives by understanding your inner depth, needs and psyche, while being able to connect this to practical advice in family life and work. My recent background is in studying psychology, I’m a certified MBTI coach, have a master in science, an degree in IT, am an entrepreneur in leadership consultancy and coaching, but above all a loving father of two beautiful children and a caring husband.