Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: What influence does relationship management have on acting? That’s the question we explored in Room #1014 of the Deep Talk Club, under our overarching theme of “Action.” Listen in on the examples that came up and the perspectives that emerged in dialogue…
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
A very good morning to you all, on the topic of acting and relationships. What influence does relationship management have on acting? That’s the question we want to explore today. I mentioned briefly yesterday that we might also weave in the terms morality and ethics here, just to let that start working in the back of your minds, so you might bring in a thought or impulse already. But that’s just a side note for now. Let’s look together at, this falls under self-management competence again, this is the fifth level from the model I’d introduced, relationship management, what does that actually mean, and what influence does it have on acting. You’re warmly invited, as always, to join this morning and share your thoughts, so we can open this space for reflection together, pick up different examples, and see which direction the room takes. Quick reminder, we’re recording, and the recording gets published afterward, so joining means you’re agreeing to that. With that, let’s get started — let me mute myself and see who wants to open the round with me this morning.
I see a request to speak, give me a moment to unmute you — I recognise the name from the bio. Even without a photo, since we said we’d be a bit more relaxed with the rules this time, to see how it develops. Good morning, what are your thoughts on the topic?
We can’t hear you yet, you’d need to turn your mic on first. Let’s see if it works. If not, you might need to leave the room and come back, and see if that helps — it’s worked for some people before. Doesn’t seem to be working. Let me mute myself again and check on the others. Please join, let’s not lose too much time here. Wonderful, someone else is requesting to speak. Let’s get going as quickly as possible. Good morning!
Good morning to the round. I was a bit confused, actually, because this room was overlaid with silence and I missed the opening moderation. There can always be technical things to sort out, but that’s how misunderstandings happen. Personally I’m struggling quite a bit with today’s topic, and I really thought about it for a while, because I personally have an issue, or a challenge, not a problem, with the word “relationship.” I define relationship for myself — I looked at my whole life, my business, everything I’ve done, relationships never really played a role in any of it. Partly because I moved so often — I think I’ve relocated 10 to 15 times, so those tend to be contacts rather than relationships. And I’ve only very recently started actually cultivating relationships. For me, relationships would be intimate contacts, really intimate ones. Everything else is contacts and encounters, for me. And the word “relationship” in the conventional sense, maybe I have the wrong image in my head too, that’s why I was waiting to see if our other friend would be the first one to come up. Relationship in the sense of, I know someone, I call them, they do me a favour and open doors for me — I don’t have that. If I wanted doors to open, I had to open them myself. That would be my starting point.
Wonderful, thank you so much. We can of course look at relationship management from a professional angle, that’s the professional perspective I picked up from what you said. And then there’s relationship management in the personal sphere too, which for me definitely falls under this as well. Maybe it looks different there, or the same, for you. And I remember, I’m not sure if you were part of that expert talk with Julian Backhaus — we’d talked about that reality series with the consultants. I’d watched it beforehand too, which is actually why that expert talk happened. Really fascinating, because especially with those consultants, who gave a real behind-the-scenes look in that show, it was very clear that especially in turbulent times, when deadlines couldn’t be met, when a partner leaves you in the lurch or similar, it was exactly those networks, those relationships, that played a huge role in saving a project that might otherwise have crashed, at the very last second, and getting everything delivered in time so the client actually got the order they’d originally placed, implemented after all.
Would you like to build on that, or anyone else?
I remember that. I have it somewhere in the back of my mind, maybe I’m misinterpreting this, but what I liked a lot about what Julian Backhaus said, I don’t want to put words in his mouth, is that he also separated emotions — though maybe I’m mixing up the point — that you can approach people you might not have a great relationship with in the emotional sense, meaning, someone I like, who fully shares my values, but maybe I’m interpreting that wrong. That’s how it’s worked in my own business anyway, where I think, I have a problem, and this problem needs solving, so I look for a specialist, help, to solve that problem. And then, standing back and saying that emotion sometimes needs to be dialled down, to focus purely on the problem, that can be helpful. And of course there are relationships in my professional life now that formed through working together. A relationship always forms eventually, but to get into that relationship in the first place, I didn’t use an existing relationship to get into a new one — relationship, for me, is work. And when you’re in contact with people, and we’ve been in contact for a very long time now, that contact naturally becomes more intimate over time, if you open up. And I had to learn that it can be good to allow yourself to lean into relationships, into closer contacts.
Wonderful, thank you so much. Let me try our other friend again while you were speaking, technically I took her out and brought her back in as a speaker. Let’s see if it works now — can you turn on your mic and speak with us?
Doesn’t seem to be working, unfortunately. What a shame. Otherwise, as I said, try leaving the room and coming back, maybe that’ll fix it. In the meantime, we have someone else with us too — let me give her the chance to build on this, or maybe raise further points. Good morning!
Good morning. I’m not sure I can jump in that smoothly, but I was thinking about how relationships might affect acting. And I thought, well, we’re always in relationships, whether we want to be or not, whether we consider ourselves philanthropists or misanthropes — at the latest when we go get the mail, we’re in a relationship. Maybe not a romantic one, but we’re engaging with someone. We’re in relationships with people. And then I thought, what do we actually do about that? Some people distance themselves. Others lean too far into relationships.
The sound just cut out.
Oh, sorry. I just wanted to say, I think finding the middle ground is the goal here. I don’t see everyone as family, and I don’t see everyone as an enemy either. I think that’s what we should aim for, the middle. I thought about this in the political context too — when we look at political friends and opponents, there are some we say a lot to, and others we say nothing to at all, since they might as well be listening in. Well, I just wanted to set a few impulses.
Thank you so much. Let me bring our other friend back in on this. Especially on this point — aren’t we always, inherently, in some kind of relationship anyway? If I go get the mail and meet the postman, would we already call that a relationship? Interesting question. Or is that just an interaction? What actually is a relationship, in the first place? That’s worth asking too.
Exactly what I was getting at — that’s why I was hoping our other friend would join, since I can lean on the English language here, I see it differently. For me, in my head, “relationship” defines the connection and intimacy between two people. And I don’t want an intimate relationship with our postman, who’s lovely, neither sexual nor otherwise. But I still have “a” relationship with him in a sense. And that’s why I distinguish, from the English, between “a relationship” in general and the kind of relationship we’re talking about now. Yes, it’s always technically “a relationship,” but in English that’s called “relationship” specifically. And you immediately know, that’s the beauty of English, if I say “relationship with Nicole,” everyone instantly knows what kind of relationship I have with her. But if I say I had contact with Nicole yesterday, or I had an encounter with Nicole yesterday, nobody knows what kind of relationship I actually have with that person. And that’s why, for me, the distinction, that’s why I struggled so much with the term. Relationship, sure, if you define the word very broadly, but for me a relationship is first and foremost a very close, very intimate encounter between two people. And in my entire circle, if I even get to seven people, and those are mostly family members, I have a truly intimate relationship — and intimate relationship includes people having insight, not just into strengths, the way we like to sell ourselves, but especially into weaknesses, which I can share openly. And to have a relationship with someone, an intimate and deep one, there’s one word I’d place ahead of it: trust. And I only get that trust, that’s what I meant, over time — by seeing you, I gain trust by seeing how other people treat me, how that reciprocity plays out. And that takes time, and trust equals relationship.
Wonderful, thank you so much. And that’s exactly why it’s worth looking at this more closely. I see you’d like to add something right away too.
I’d like to add an impulse, because there are different forms or types of relationships. On one hand it can obviously be a romantic relationship, that’s what you’re probably thinking of first. At the same time we also have things like social relationships, business relationships. And in English too, worth noting, there’s Customer Relationship Management, the CRM system we use, for instance, to manage our relationships with customers. So the term “relationship,” or “relationship management,” is common in English in that sense too.
What do you think about that?
A question I’ve thought about quite often. I used to be a bit, I don’t know, I think I’ve become more reflective now, I used to vehemently disagree with our friend, I wouldn’t do that anymore, I’d say, sure, it’s totally okay that you see it that way, and it’s totally okay that I see it differently, because I think, and it’s not that I want to ignore this, I think social relationships, what I’ve noticed is, every salesperson should really be strong on the relationship level, every person in a social profession too, it’s not always the case, but it should be, these are strengths. And relationship levels are where you can achieve a lot, in acting too. And I really have to say, sparking someone’s motivation and strengthening the relationship, that’s why they hand you the fruit basket, that’s why they hopefully show appreciation — you can achieve a lot with that. And I think this appreciation, since you mentioned trust, I thought, how does that work, and I thought, treat the other person maybe not the way you’d want to be treated, but the way they want to be treated, which doesn’t mean becoming naive. Because being nice doesn’t mean being dumb, and being dumb can also mean over-sharing, and not everyone has to see it the way I do. If I see it differently, I have to accept that just as much as when our friend sees it differently. Then I can say, but that’s mean, you can’t do that, that’s immoral.
And bang, there’s the next point coming in, which is what I said yesterday too, think about how morality and ethics play a role here too. And you just said, treat the other however you might continue that phrase, I find that really fascinating, and you brought in the word “moral” too. So this aspect clearly plays a role here.
Maybe we can look at it from that angle too, and it’s not at all about changing your mind on this relationship concept, I’m totally with you on that — but still worth looking, and we’ve had this in rooms before, that through exchange, one of us actually gains another perspective, and with that the possibility, on both sides by the way, not in the sense of who’s right, but that it’s possible that by the end of the room, we conclude that there are aspects in what was said that we hadn’t seen yet, and maybe we even adjust our own view in that direction.
Would you like to follow up on that?
Gladly. That was a wonderful word, appreciation. Appreciation has nothing to do with relationship for me, and one of the most important beliefs I managed to end, through Clubhouse, is that saying, treat others how you want to be treated. Today I’d say, in Julian Backhaus’s words, bullshit. I don’t treat other people how I’d need to be treated. In business, with appreciation, I treat other people how they want to be treated. That’s a huge distinction, because through different cultures, different belief systems, different values, it doesn’t help me to treat people how I want to be treated, but how they want to be treated. That requires a complete shift in perspective, and for me, relationship has a lot to do with appreciation, and appreciation, we coincidentally had this exact topic on LinkedIn this morning, how in so many businesses people just want to be noticed and appreciated. And I have my favourite quote, my favourite motto, hanging on my wall, which I found at the Banksy Museum in Amsterdam: be the reason someone smiles today. So be the reason you put a smile on someone else’s face today. That’s a life philosophy you can actually train too, and you get so much feedback from it, because perception and appreciation, as our other friend put it, really matter a lot. I agree with you, with my clients, if you don’t appreciate them, or if that feeling and shared way of talking, everything you’ve packed under the word relationship, that’s how you build sales, that’s how you keep contacts, that’s how you retain people. For me, the difference is simply that a relationship is a very intimate, open contact, that’s how I define relationship, and with my clients it’s always positive conversations, you talk about things sometimes. I learned at some point, from the Chinese, that it’s very wise, in a business relationship, to avoid two topics if possible — politics and religion. If you stick to that rule, that can become an incredibly long relationship.
Let me just check back on this so there’s no misunderstanding. You said, appreciation has nothing to do with relationships for me, and later, at some point in your explanation, said the exact opposite. So which is it, does appreciation have something to do with relationships for you, or not?
No, sorry, appreciation has nothing to do with relationships. Appreciation, for me, has to do with perception. Appreciation starts with, when I’m out on the street, and I really do this, if someone were watching me. If I walk past a postman and see him pedalling away on his bike, while I’m just outside enjoying a bit of sun, and see everything he’s still carrying on his bike, still has to deliver, I wish him a good day. And you surprise people, especially in a city like mine, I don’t live in a village, I live in a city, and in the city people seem to have forgotten how to greet each other, whereas in a village that’s just how it’s done. You know each other, you know exactly who’s coming toward you. But you experience really lovely things when you just see people, I see that you’ve got a lot left to do on your bike, and I wish you a good day. And I don’t get anything out of it, I don’t wish him a good day hoping some relationship will develop with this postman. I don’t expect any advantage from it either, it’s simply the perception of our surroundings. And I notice this in myself too — whenever I’m noticed, no matter how, no matter by whom, it’s an incredibly wonderful, appreciative, and therefore lovely feeling, one we can give other people and receive ourselves.
Would you like to follow up too?
I just wanted to say we have tradespeople here right now, so I couldn’t quite follow the sound afterward. For me it’s not that I believe I have to show appreciation for everything, in the literal sense of the word, I don’t appreciate everything people do. But what I can give people is respect. I don’t know, it’s a bit of people-pleasing, I guess, do you want to be nice or not?
We can’t hear anything in the background.
Ah, okay, that’s good, your mic was open, so I thought maybe there was something. Sorry, I just forgot to turn it off.
No worries at all, I don’t want to overthink it, I just want to do it well. A teacher once told me, you have to love every child. I said, no, I don’t, but I want to respect every child. And I want to switch off my own unconscious bias, the things I can switch off, to appear as neutral as possible. But there are certain things, when we meet people, that just come to mind. And that’s a point. For me it’s that if I treat everyone with respect, then everyone’s on the same level. If I appreciate on top of that, then I’m appreciating a specific action of that person. I find that really nice — for example, yesterday I was at the hospital, at the emergency department, and I had to pass by, and I rang the bell, and the nurse said, one ring is enough. And I said, I thought this was the emergency department and it was urgent. And the next nurse was really lovely, and I told her, thank you for noticing me, and thank you for handling it accordingly. And that I appreciated. And I still gave the first one my respect, but I didn’t appreciate what she did.
I find that genuinely fascinating. And above all, the question now is whether the statement about appreciation, made earlier, also relates to the perspective being brought to the whole thing. If he says “relationship,” he’s thinking more of an intimate relationship. Then I can understand why that conclusion comes for him. If I don’t include the postman in that, then appreciation, for me, has nothing to do with the whole thing at first. Because fundamentally I do meet the postman with appreciation, in quotation marks, but I don’t necessarily have an intimate relationship with him. On the other hand, if you broaden the concept of relationship to include not just romantic relationships but every social relationship, business relationship and so on, then the perspective on terms like appreciation, respect and so on shifts too. What I find interesting, though, is that across all these terms that have come up here, this moral aspect keeps flowing in too — what context did I grow up in, how was I socialised, and which terms suddenly play a role in how we treat each other. Let’s maybe pick up the term trust too.
I see a signal from our other friend, let me try again. Can you speak now?
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you now.
I’ve been struggling with this for the last two days, couldn’t get in. So I’m an absolute beginner here. I’d love to jump in. I’ve been working intensively with individual motivation for 15 years. And word choice doesn’t just reflect how we grew up, what’s used in our environment, it has a lot to do with how someone is wired. When our friend describes what relationship means to him, and how few people fall into that category, then I know he’s someone who values independence, autonomy, values distance zones, and that means for him only a few people really belong in that category of relationship, of bonding. Whereas, let me describe the other end of the scale, there are people who, as they say, wear their heart on their sleeve, who carry everything out into the world, even the most personal, most private things, where someone who’s very independent might feel, that’s so much information, who even wanted to know that, that’s private. Those are the two strong ends. The closer you move toward the middle, and there’s a bell curve underneath it, the more it depends, on who it is, how it is. And the same naturally happens with appreciation. Who do I extend it to, or simply the word choice, because we still enter into some form of contact with people, even if we prefer distance, but the word choice differs, the word choice tells me who I’m dealing with. And that’s why I jokingly call myself an interpreter for individuality-based misunderstandings. Meaning, a misunderstanding or a conflict always arises from differing character traits, differing individual qualities. There are things where we understand each other blindly, where we tend to use the same words, and mean the same thing by them. And because we’re wired differently, we automatically produce misunderstandings. The escalation of that is conflict. I just wanted to throw that in, because I think it’s important, since it might resolve one thing or another.
Thank you so much. And even though I see our other friend wants to follow up too, let me bring in our third friend first, since I saw in the chat that he can only listen today and isn’t sure how much time he’ll have to contribute. I hope that’s okay, that I bring him in first and then come back to you.
Good morning, what do you think?
Good morning, everyone. I’ll be quick, since I’m on call here. But I want to share, I agree with what our friend said at the start. I also had to think, not reflect, think, about relationships, and I always see it in relation to our overarching theme of acting. What’s actually the reason Yasemin connects the topic of relationship with acting? And my connecting point is one of the meta-level definitions of acting. Because we’d said, to get to the justification of acting, we act either out of personal goals and motivations, or we act to fulfil, or meet, certain social obligations. Which means, for me, today’s topic, the buzzword relationship, stands for the homo sociologicus, the social being. Relationships are about, in my view, under the aspect of acting, I say this deliberately, our shaping of engagement as a social being within a community. And then I dug further into my notes and asked myself, what have we established about what influences this acting, or what it’s shaped by. And the first thing that counts for me is my own personal convictions and goals, and my values and norms, which links right back to the emphasis on morality and ethics. Sorry if that wasn’t a direct response to what’s been said so far, but I’ve had a bit of an aha moment, realising how important relationships are for one part of acting. And it’s worth discussing, if we know our acting is influenced by culture, society, our education, does the relationship we actively shape also define the quality, and thus also the appreciation we show toward other positions. And lastly, I really have to go now, we’re in relationships, I’d even say a very high number of relationships, that we don’t even realise, or that we can’t even opt out of. Thank you so much, maybe I can jump back in later, and good luck with everything, everyone.
Wonderful, thank you so much. Let me leave that as it is for now, and bring our other friend in directly, to build on either what was just said, or what she wanted to add earlier, and then see if our other two friends want to add anything too. Go ahead.
Your mic’s still off.
By the way, I find it fascinating that she asked earlier, just to note this in passing, whether it was too loud in the background — we’re all new to X Spaces, or many of us are, and we’re still testing. We have this test week running until Sunday to gather experience. And I find it fascinating that she mentioned or asked whether it was too loud in the background, meaning she actually had background noise, and we didn’t hear any of it. So there’s apparently noise suppression, which I really welcome. Just a quick note to bridge the time.
Seems like there are challenges again. Let’s see if it works now. Can you speak with us again?
Yes, now I can speak with you again. And I think it’s nice that sometimes you also serve as an example, when you face a challenge yourself. What I wanted to say is I found it really interesting what was just said, on the political point too, that we’re social beings, that was mentioned, Aristotle already said this. The question of how social we are, and what relationships we have, I have a different view on that. I have a new perspective I’d like to add. I think a lot has changed. If you talk to people now, when I was younger, if I met someone who talked a lot, over-shared, I’d think that. And sometimes I catch myself doing it too, thinking, those are things I wouldn’t have shared before. I don’t go to the pharmacy and say, look what I’ve got here, that’s not a thing. I don’t over-share like that, and I don’t wear my heart quite that much on my sleeve. But I’ve noticed how much you can do on the relationship level. I wanted to bring in “Games People Play” too, because that describes exactly this, like with the postman, I think. How are you, did you have a nice day, that kind of exchange. And if the other person gives more, I give more too. I’d need to look into that more closely, you probably know more about that. And I wanted to add, this also has a cultural aspect. For instance, coming from my own culture, I come from a contact-oriented society — of course you could say one person is like this, another like that, but I’d say it’s shaped me to some extent. Worth considering too. And the last thing I want to add is that I think it’s also about how we speak, how we talk about things. If I say I’m a citizen of the world, a child of humanity, there’s a kind of universal community there, if I want to see it religiously too, we’re all humanist. Those are terms that connect people, I think. And if I assume I have a brother or sister in faith, that’s a very close relationship, given how far apart we actually are. Those are the points I wanted to add. Thanks for listening.
Wonderful, thank you so much. And let me actually pick up on that bridge to acting that was built earlier, because I find this aspect, looked at through today’s specific room topic, connecting relationships and acting, genuinely interesting. If we include this aspect of motivation, of goal-setting, within acting — let me summarise again, we act out of personal goals, motivations, and also to fulfil social obligations. And then we have relationships here, and relationships can be shaped very differently. What determines how a relationship is shaped? Meaning the intensity, or the superficiality, to name both extremes, looked at in the context of acting, has something to do with, let me put it bluntly, what’s in it for me? And there we’re back at the brain again. We’d established, from brain research, that there are two questions our brain asks itself within fractions of a second. Does this threaten my existence? That’s usually not the case today. And the second question is, what use is it to me, what does it bring me? Meaning, in shaping relationships, that runs in the background — whether it’s the postman, my boss, a business partner, whoever, within fractions of a second, in the context of acting and maintaining these relationships, that question “what’s in it for me” always resonates too. I find that a really, really essential aspect to pick up here too.
Am I right that your mic’s on right now?
Yes, go ahead.
Can I speak briefly?
Yes, go ahead.
Ah, okay, good. I’d like to abstract these remarks a bit more, and go back to the term relationship itself. Logically, from my background in economics, this is a really essential component, and you raised a position that’s also important for the personal, thanks for repeating that, these spheres of personal relationships. In economics, we define a relationship network, in the sense of corporate interlinkage and so on, based on two or three really essential factors. One is direction, that’s what I mentioned already. Is this relationship unidirectional or bidirectional? Meaning, is my relationship, and what I attach to it, reciprocated by the other person? It doesn’t have to be. The second is strength. And there we’re at the topic of needing different perspectives as a social being and as an individual being, because a relationship’s strength, in the personal sphere, can genuinely range, for me, from love to hate. In the social sphere, I have to assume that’s a completely different sphere. And the third, I’ll skip the others, but the third really essential one, dear friends, is the time factor. We always ask ourselves, when it’s between relationships, between companies, meaning between social institutions, if you like, is this relationship lasting, or is it purpose-bound? And I think that point, alongside intensity and direction of a relationship, matters in the personal sphere too, when we talk about relationships. Because I can definitely maintain and cultivate a relationship for a very specific purpose, for a specific time, to pursue a specific goal. I can of course also maintain a relationship because the person is worth it to me. And there we’re in the dimension of my own presets, my emotions, my cultural imprint. That’s what I wanted to add.
Thank you for that. Wonderful, thank you so much. Would you like to follow up, and then let’s see if our other friend wants to join in too.
Gladly. Thank you for your contribution. I connected with what our host said, what use is it to me? And I noticed that’s exactly what bothers me sometimes about social networks. What use is it to me? Because I can also get triggered simply because it’s fun. And I’ve met people in this room, I’ve met our other friend, I’ve met you, and I’ll meet our third friend, who told me, what use is it to me? It’ll be fun for me. That would be a selfish motive too. If it’s worth it to me and it’s fun, then I do have a small benefit from it in that sense. But I really like this distinction from our friend, that we might also enter relationships simply because things are fun for us. And the second point I want to add, on how our topic of relationship changes acting — my own acting has definitely changed, because now there are two of us. The family has grown. Through that I take on responsibility, and responsibility doesn’t just mean taking responsibility for myself, but also offering my partner security. Security includes money too. It includes prosperity, because money lets you shape your life with certainty, even once you’re retired or no longer working. So my acting is now oriented toward, how will I live in five years, how do I want to live in five years. If it were just me, I might not care, fine, if I have to move out of my flat or my home, then I move out. I’ve relocated 20 times, I’ll relocate a 21st. Not a big deal, I manage. I manage everywhere, with everyone. But now I’m not alone anymore, now I think as a pair. And a private relationship reorients my acting, both professionally and privately, in a new and different way.
Thank you so much. Let me pick up especially on that first point you raised. You can tell fairly quickly that there are moral judgments at play there too, maybe even a trigger for you. I do this because it’s fun, not because I get a benefit from it, even though of course you could package fun under benefit too. Let me underline this quite deliberately and provocatively — if this room were boring for you, or meeting our friend was boring for you, probably no ten horses could drag you to that meeting anyway, in quotation marks. And that shows very clearly that it’s still that same point, what’s in it for me. Meaning, “what’s in it for me” doesn’t have to mean, in this context, along the lines of, I earn money from it, or I’m taking advantage of the other person. You can see how these triggers get set, which now also tie into this aspect of judgment, and the role emotions play in this context, the associations we’ve attached to the term, the emotions that come with it and so on. But if you look at it quite soberly, on the abstract level, there’s still that aspect, what motivates me, what gets me moving, into that acting. And we keep coming back to that aspect, what’s in it for me, when it’s not about securing existence.
Let me give you the chance to follow up first. Then I see our other friend wants to add something too. And after that we’ll move into today’s closing round.
Yes, I’d like to build exactly on that. Because “what’s in it for me” needs to be differentiated between something goal-directed, meaning I think it through consciously, with reason, what profit do I want from this situation. And the other are automatisms that come from personality. When I greet the postman, when I wish someone a good day, when I generally notice external things poorly, for instance if I say to someone, oh, do you have new glasses, then I get something like, yeah, for two years now, I’ve given up mentioning that. But then at some point I actually noticed, oh, my cashier at the supermarket has a new haircut. And I told her, that really suits you. And I made her happy with that, gave her a nice moment, I get nothing out of it, or do I? I do feel good, because I’m happy that she’s happy. And that’s a “what’s in it for me” too, but it’s not calculated, not manipulative, it’s just what we do, if the other person means nothing to me, or if other people generally don’t interest me, then I wouldn’t do it. That’s also part of personality. In the things we do automatically, there’s naturally something in it for us, but we don’t do it out of deliberation, we do it because that’s who we are. And that gives the body its own reward, we get our happiness hormones for it.
Wonderful, thank you so much. Let me pick up on that and add too — there’s naturally the deliberate and the manipulative. The question, and we don’t need to dive too deep into this, I just want to leave it as an impulse in the room to resonate, is whether authenticity plays a role here from my view. This aspect of the deliberate and the manipulative, you might know this from classic networking events. People come together and everyone’s busy pitching their service or product, trying to sell it, in quotation marks, and has essentially zero interest in the other person. How does that land with us? Whereas that supermarket encounter, where I maybe give the cashier some feedback without any expectation in return, in that classic profit-driven sense, but simply within that human encounter, brings joy, sparks sympathy and so on. And it’s not that manipulative thing. And you could take this a step further and consider whether that deliberate or manipulative approach can even bear fruit at all, if it’s not authentic, but only aims to extract my own benefit, without, and here we’re back at this relationship-network aspect, what actually makes up a relationship in the first place? Is it about taking advantage of the other person, just extracting my own benefit? Or isn’t it also, and here we’re at that classic aspect that gets talked about a lot, giving and taking? And what actually comes first, in sequence? And there we’re back at judgments again, and so on. So I don’t want to go too deep into this now, but I think it’s worth just leaving it here to resonate, and maybe going into a bit of self-reflection on it.
Go ahead.
I wanted to add, on this point, that I think… wait, I’ve lost my train of thought, it was about relationships, it was about… give me a second, let someone else speak first, I need to gather my thoughts again.
I was following along.
All good, let’s do that then. With an eye on the time, let’s move into today’s closing round, in this order. Feel free to follow up if you’d like, and then the closing word. What was your highlight from the room, or what would you like to underline and place at the end?
Go ahead.
I wanted to add that, without directly extracting benefit from someone else, there’s also the aspect of providing for someone. I want to offer prosperity, or, I’m in a position of responsibility, and through that I also serve my own personality. Not everyone does that anymore. So that’s a “what’s in it for me” too, but without me expecting the other person to do anything special in return. And I’d like to thank you sincerely, I’m glad I managed to join today. The first session I could only listen to you all from LinkedIn, which was already lovely. And now actually getting to join in, I’m looking forward to continuing to learn and exchange with you all. One thing is the current situation on this platform, and the other is that I find these conversations really valuable, and I’d love to be part of it again. Thank you so much.
Wonderful, thank you so much. And I think it’s really great that you all join in and try this out with us too. We’re newcomers too, in quotation marks — we’re right in the middle of this test week, and we keep gathering new experiences. So I love that we can use this together. And if this or that doesn’t quite work, that’s just how it is — approaching it with a bit of humour, and taking these first steps together, just trying things out. And continuing on the content side while also looking at the technical side, and taking on those challenges or hurdles, in quotation marks, and pushing through that, let’s call it, fear. And every time we test a new platform, that’s a change situation. And I love that we get to go through these steps together as a group, whether it’s the first time speaking in front of others, which we already had on Clubhouse too, or mastering the technology together, always going through these steps as a group. I find that genuinely wonderful. Thank you so much for joining today, and for your contributions too, brilliant.
Go ahead.
Thank you for your contributions. I noticed again today that we talked a bit past the topic emotionally, the room’s actually called acting and relationships. So let me add, quickly, I jotted this down too — when we tell other people about our plans, our goals, the likelihood of actually moving into acting, into implementation, increases. Shared acting within a group can motivate us to stick with it too, whether it’s a sports group or a professional direction. And advice and relationships naturally offer a space for shifting perspective too. Thanks for listening, and have a wonderful day, everyone.
Wonderful, thank you so much. Did it come back to you, what you wanted to add?
Yes, it came back to me. My highlight is this “away from, toward” shift, because I think that has a lot to do with relationships. I was just thinking again, I never remember his name, someone quoted him, you know who I mean.
Yes, I think you’ll mention his name in a moment.
Anyway, he also said this can be a fundamental motive. I want to briefly name, not “develop,” Kohlberg, because he didn’t develop his stages of moral development for nothing. That’s also a topic here, because he didn’t develop the stages of moral development for nothing. It used to go up to stage six, now it’s generally stage five. Let’s take stage four, that’s the one still in the textbooks — orientation toward law and order. Or, I do it because I’m afraid of punishment and want to obey. You can think about what motives drive you to do something. And of course the relationship level, why do I do something, plays into it too — for example, I tend to compliment people. Why do I do that? Maybe because I’d like to receive compliments myself. That could be it. I do it because I think women should compliment each other more. And I think it’s not okay to, I don’t know, only say the negative things. So I try to do that. That’s a bit of a loveable example. There’s a need behind it too. Or, I’m a good person because I want to go to heaven. I want to attain love. There are always underlying motives. And to close, I want to say, we never know what motives the other person has, because we always look at them through our own perspective and lens. So one should be careful with judgments in this regard. And that’s why I find it really lovely, I kept telling myself this the whole time we were talking, that I thought, yes, that’s okay. It’s really lovely to just observe myself and the situation. Thanks for listening.
Wonderful, thank you so much. I really think a lot of aspects came together here on one hand, then we had a few technical challenges today, and we had different viewpoints too. And I find it genuinely fascinating to see the room develop across these different levels, and to observe, on the meta level, what’s actually happening. I’m really happy about how today’s room went. I’m looking forward to it. Tomorrow we continue with acting and communication — how does our communication influence our own actions and the actions of others, that’s the question. We’ll pick up directly from here, continuing with the self-management competence model, and look at which aspects fall under communication. And then we’ll see how everything can be pulled back together across the individual parts, once we’ve covered the various levels of the model. I wanted to bring in this communication aspect, it’s not as explicitly highlighted in this model, but we already put communication more into the spotlight when we covered reflection, or thinking, as an overarching theme, because we saw that language, interaction and so on have a lot of influence, or play a special role in these contexts too. So I think it’s important that we pick up acting and communication really explicitly here too, and direct our attention to it. With that, you’re all very warmly invited to join again tomorrow at 8, to continue together and see what insights we can take from the room again.
