Slow Bets

About 15 years ago, I moved back to Germany, locked myself in my condo, and wrote a book I thought I needed to write. It was an incredibly stormy time in my life, where I was questioning everything. The book was about work, life, success, failure, entrepreneurship, marketing, friendships, family, and, god knows, what else.

I had these hypotheses about how to live life the right way, but ultimately didn't have the life experience to back them up.

I decided not to publish it. Partly because I didn't want to be preachy about unproven assumptions. Also, because I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to constrain the topic into something compelling.

So I kept writing. I kept starting over. I kept editing. Publishing essays. Giving talks. Fifteen years of circling the same ideas without quite knowing what to call them.

And over the last year, I think I finally figured it out.

Not a book. Not a framework some consultant cooked up in a hotel room. A theory of life that I've actually lived. Backed up by my real facts, real bets, real time. This isn't about me studying a million people. It's my idea. My life. My theory.

I'm calling it Slow Bets.

If you've been reading this site for a while, you've probably noticed the theme. Most of what I write about comes back to the same idea: the best things in my life happened slowly. Not because I was lazy. Because I was patient. There's a difference.

IdeaMensch didn't make money for years. After three years, it was making $100 a month. After ten, $1,000. Seventeen years in, I could live off it. I didn't grow it fast. I grew it long. That's a slow bet.

Real estate. Marriage. Ironman. Marathons. Ultras. ETFs. Financial Independence. Teaching. None of them were overnight wins. All of them happened because of compounding.

I kept wanting to write about that - the compounding part. Not in a finance-bro way. More like, what does it actually look like to commit to something for a decade when everyone around you is chasing the next thing?

That's what Slow Bets is about. It's a Substack about building wealth, health, friendships, and freedom one patient bet at a time.

I've already published a half dozen posts over there. One about the moment I realized I had one shot to stay in America, and what that taught me about commitment. One about the flywheel that turns a $100/month side project into real assets. One about the joy of missing out - and the house I didn't overbid on. One about playing games you can keep playing, which might be the most important idea in the whole thing.

This site isn't going anywhere. Schulzke.com will keep being the place where I write about whatever I want - walking, vinyl, reps, books, the random observations of a German immigrant who still doesn't fully understand Halloween.

Slow Bets is the focused version. One idea, explored deeply. If you've ever wondered how to start something on the side without quitting your job, or how to think about building wealth when you don't have a trust fund, or why patience might be the most underrated competitive advantage - then Slow Bets is for you.

You can subscribe at slowbets.net.

I locked myself in a German condo 15 years ago trying to write this.

Turns out I had to live it first.