Behind him stands a wall bearing a poem by his father, one of the Netherlands’ most honoured writers¹. It stands in the Dutch town where Stijn McAdam’s story began thirty-two years ago. Years later, life would take him far from that town to investment ventures in Paraguay, a country that happens to share the same red, white, and blue flag.
The first moves
Some lives move in straight lines. Others take sharp turns through bold choices and personal revolutions. McAdam took that second path.
While classmates kicked footballs across muddy fields, he sat behind a chessboard, absorbed in the slow logic of the game. He liked how every move carried weight, how patience could turn into victory. “It sometimes felt lonely,” he recalls, “but it made sense to rely on myself.” That quiet discipline became the foundation of everything that followed.
Building strength, inside and out
His first ambition was to join the Dutch DSI, a special unit similar to SWAT. When that goal fell short, McAdam entered the army at 19 with a single focus: to come back stronger. What followed was six years of both physical and mental transformation.
“I liked being part of a pack where everyone pulled their weight,” he says. “There is something beautiful about like-minded spirits united in their purpose.”
During his service, he entered a national bodybuilding competition to push his limits and find outhow closely the mind and body could move together.
Losing the badge
Six years later, true to his first ambition, he returned to law enforcement, trading army green for police blue. McAdam joined the police academy’s bachelor programme and was on track to graduate with honours. The station became a second home. “I would rather work a double shift than go home early,” he says. The work filled every hour, until the day everything stopped.
He was fired, officially on the grounds of alleged autism, he states. In an instant, the badge and the title were gone. For the first time in years, he had no uniform to wear and no role to play.
“You give everything, and in one letter it is gone,” he recalls. The silence that followed felt familiar. Once again, he was back to relying on himself. The next question came naturally: if that same energy went into his own venture, what could it create?
Selling everything, starting again
The answer came through complete reinvention. By his late twenties, McAdam sold almost everything he owned, including his house, car, and comfort.
“With two suitcases and no fixed plan, I left the Netherlands in search of direction. From Bangkok to Dubai, I built and exited ventures across e-commerce, digital marketing, trading, and content creation. In the expanding world of blockchain, I contributed to several Web3 projects, one of which ranked among the global top fifty.”
A later visit to a Bitcoin mining site powered by Paraguay’s Itaipú Dam left an impression. “You can feel the potential here. Paraguay has energy in every sense of the word.”
Sharing life lessons by writing
Along the way, Stijn McAdam began writing, sometimes under his own name and sometimes for others. Through his books, he shared what he had learned about building strength, creating independence, and earning the freedom to live on one’s own terms. Over time, that work broadened into features on technology, including contributions to The Asunción Times.
At a tech event in Hong Kong, while presenting a strategy game he had been part of, fans asked him for photos. “It felt strange,” he admits. “I had always worked quietly in the background.” Recognition came not for fitting in, but for standing apart. The quirks that once cost him belonging had become his signature.
The turn towards Paraguay
Over time, McAdam’s focus shifted from building ventures to studying the systems behind them: finance, technology, and geopolitics. That lens led him to Paraguay. “It has been under the radar for a long time,” he notes. “People are starting to notice it now, but the key is to be early in trends.”
His decision to invest there was calculated. Paraguay’s renewable hydropower, pragmatic leadership, and clear economic course all stood out. President Santiago Peña, a former finance minister, gave that sense of direction even greater weight. To McAdam, it was a place where potential was handled with care.
Beyond economics, he was struck by the warmth of local life, the family ties, the way neighbours still look out for one another. “There is a groundedness here that I have grown deeply fond of,” he says.
Freedom
Today, Stijn McAdam spends most of his time writing and working on cross-border projects. His daily life is quiet, almost minimalist. “There is little spectacle to it,” he smiles. “Most people find me rather boring.” But he likes it that way. Freedom, he has learned, is the right to design your own structure.
“And I still play video games,” he adds. “You should never edit out the parts that make you unique, especially the childlike ones.”
He once tested how far the body could go. Then how far the mind could follow. Now, his work tests something else entirely: how far freedom can reach when both move together.
Readers can explore more of Stijn McAdam’s work at stijnmcadam.com.
¹English translation of the poem on the wall in McAdam’s hometown
IJssel Bridge in the Morning
Mist above the river,
Gulls quietly on the sheet-piling.
Geese rise with outstretched necks
From a silvery haze.
Two swans skim low over the washlands,
The soft whistle of their wings,
The stately descent –
