Thomas Santos

18/08/2026

I fought cancer twice, and it took me ten years to notice that was never a story. Lesson of the Week #32

12/08/2026

From surviving AML to sharing my story on national TV. ❤️

Grateful for every step, every second chance, and the opportunity to inspire others through my journey. Thank you, NET25! 🙏🎥

Ibinahagi ni Thomas Santos, isang cancer survivor, runner, student,...

12/08/2026

Lost a couple of hours to Tetris in a cafe last week, mostly losing to my partner. The game rewards holding four possible futures in your head at once—the falling piece, the next few in the queue, and you rotating both against a tower you haven't built yet. I'm good at that. Which is when it occurred to me that I might be mistaking a tolerance for input for something more flattering.

04/08/2026

A dead phone on a bridge in San Mateo, a field of feather flags in the rain, and the thing said about leadership that I needed to hear. Lesson of the Week #30

04/08/2026

July was the month I kept looking for the right time to workout.

5am. Lunch. 2pm. I tested every slot except one where I actually just did the workout.

I took only 3 rest days in July and turned all of them into to-do lists. Monthly review was 31 journals long and 29 of them saying "I need to slow down."

28/07/2026

It rained so hard last Tuesday that I had to pick a time to decide whether to cancel. I picked four o'clock. If it's still like this at four, we call it. If it lets up, we start at seven instead of six. Four came, we were a go, and I left the house at 5:30 and drove straight into putting up feather flags in wet grass.

128 people had signed up. Around a hundred came anyway. The workout got announced and you could watch it land on them, the exact face of someone who has just understood the sets. Then they did it.

This was due yesterday. Looking back was the only thing that got it out of me. Lesson of the Week #29

27/07/2026

Bangkok with the boys, courtesy of Puma, for the launch of the Deviate Pure.

We ran the city at six in the evening in the pouring rain, then kept the same shoes on for dinner after. Pure speed on the run, pure steez off it.

📍 Sunday Shades SYLK

PUMA Philippines

20/07/2026

Effort plus attachment creates tension. Effort plus detachment creates flow. You already know this—you can't force your best idea onto a deadline, you can't force the pitch that actually lands. Same rule applies to the business you're building. The tighter you grip the outcome, the further you push it away.

Lesson of the Week #28 - What a Pixar trilogy about toys taught me that four years of grinding never did.

13/07/2026

This week the hardest thing I did wasn’t creative. It was telling someone their work wasn’t good enough—on a call, on a Friday afternoon, trying to keep my voice level while everything in me wanted to just take the work back and do it myself.

I’ve been learning what it actually costs to pass the ball. To let people do things slower than I would, in an order I wouldn’t have chosen, and trust that it holds when I’m not the one holding it.

It held.

New Lesson of the Week is up. This one’s about ego, control, and the weight nobody warns you about when you build something with other people.

Lesson of the Week #27

08/07/2026

The way in is to train for it. T5000 registration's open now.