#811 Inspiration & Insight

Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: What role does inspiration play in gaining insight? That’s the question we explored in Room #811 of the Deep Talk Club, under our overarching theme of “Insight.” 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.

Today we’re continuing with the topic of inspiration and insight, under the Deep Talk Club’s overarching theme of “Insight and Gaining Insight.” I’m really curious, because today it’s about looking, on the one hand, at what role inspiration plays in insight and gaining insight, and at the same time, in this context, especially looking at your own experiences and seeing what inspiration even is, or what it can be. So how is it for you? Based on experiences you’ve made yourselves, and how does it relate to this aspect of insight and gaining insight? So maybe there are concrete examples you’d like to bring in, and then we’ll pick those up and, along those lines, look at the role, and also at the aspect of what things influence what you find inspiring, and in what context this inspiration then maybe also becomes insight or a gain in insight. And with that, I’m really looking forward to opening up the room as a reflection space with you again this morning. Just a quick reminder, as always, this is being recorded, and so you’re warmly invited to join with a hand-raise. We have three small room rules to follow, simply to make sure these are serious contributions and not Clubhouse trolls: a profile photo where you’re clearly recognizable, then first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio. If, because of the recording or for other reasons, you’d rather not do that, you of course have the option to join in via the chat, to bring in contributions, questions, and so on, and I’ll check in on that from time to time and pick up on the relevant ones. And I’ll gladly repeat it for those who might have come in a bit later: today we’re talking about inspiration and insight. What role does inspiration actually play in insight and gaining insight? What experiences have you had? On the one hand, from the perspective of relevance — does it take inspiration, to some extent, to gain insight? And on the other hand, how is it for you personally, looking back — what experiences have you had, what are aspects that have an inspiring influence on you and maybe also led to a certain insight? Right, so that we also have a few examples from our own lived experience, our own world of experience. And with that, I’d like to briefly point out that today too, I’ve pinned the link to the event here again, Neuroscience for Practice. It’s happening on April 13th and 14th, live online with me. It’s about insights from brain research, their relevance for business and practice, and specific ways we’ll apply them, plus best practices. It’s an exclusive small group, and right now the number of participants is limited too, so I can really speak of an exclusive small group. And we currently still have a few spots available, so if you’d like to join, feel free to just click the link and secure your ticket before it starts. And with that, I’d like to mute myself briefly and see who’d like to be the first to join and open up this room for reflection with me, so it becomes a dialogue instead of a monologue.

And at this point, I’d also like to give a reminder to the viewers, at this point, for anyone who might be thinking, well, I’ll just wait, maybe someone else will speak up. Since we’ve agreed that we’re now recording these rooms and will later publish them, both as audio and later as a transcription, another reminder: please don’t wait too long here, because otherwise we’ll have recordings where you can hear minutes of silence. That’s not exactly great for the recording either, in inverted commas. So just go for it, come on up, don’t have the feeling of “I’m on stage so often anyway” or similar — whoever has the chance to speak on the topic, just raise your hand and come up right away. Those are valuable minutes we’ll otherwise be missing in the exchange later on. I think it’s a fairly simple topic to talk about. The question is inspiration and insight. What role does inspiration play in gaining insight? And here we can look at it from different perspectives — both from the perspective of what role that ultimately plays, what significance it has, and at the same time from the perspective of what has had an inspiring effect on you, on insight and gaining insight. A very good morning, dear Erik.

Yes, good morning. I was actually already unmuted. Well, let me just jump in, I was a bit late. So, an insight I had two days ago, when Vera saved the room, so to speak, was that this 15-minute limit applies here. I wasn’t aware of that yet, but it’s good to know. So, inspiration — we’d already had creativity and insight, and inspiration, I’d say, is also closely linked to creativity, in the sense that creativity can be fed by inspiration too. For example, you, when you start the room here and sometimes throw in a few opening thoughts or give an introduction, that’s also a form of inspiration — it steers your thoughts a bit in a certain direction, and you can tie your own thoughts onto that and think a bit in a direction you might not have gone on your own, and out of that new thoughts, new directions arise, which can ultimately also produce an insight, and can, so to speak, twist a perspective or a way of looking at things a bit, so that you arrive at other insights. An example that comes to mind is the development of the airplane, for instance. That’s inspired by seeing that birds can move through the air. And it would actually be nice if we could do that too. And inspired by that, you can look at how they do it, what do they have that we don’t, and so on, and then try to develop something similar, and somehow arrive at the insight, we could do that too with technical means, and that’s how you can end up developing airplanes, for example. That would be my starting point.

Wonderful, thank you so much. So that basically means inspiration through, for example, impulses from outside. Impulses can come in very different forms. You just gave two or three examples — one, when the room is opened up here, a few impulses, opening thoughts on the topic from my side, which then create images, maybe open up some reflection, so to speak, and get you thinking about ideas or thoughts you might not have had before. Then the example with the birds flying, and from that coming up with the idea, couldn’t we do that too, in the sense of aircraft development. I find that really exciting. I’m curious what else comes up on this. And with these aspects you just mentioned, one question immediately comes to my mind — to what extent do we actually need this, that inspiration keeps coming through impulses from outside, for example through observing something, or specifically listening to someone, or similar. And there are certainly a lot of formats for that. Maybe we can go into that too, what formats you use for that yourselves, something like a podcast or whatever. And to what extent does it need to come from outside? Or are there maybe also inspirations that arise, so to speak, seemingly out of nowhere? I’d be really curious about that too, if we could look at that as well. Sabine, a very good morning. I’d like to welcome you to the round too.

A very good morning. Can you hear me? Yes, can you hear me? I googled it — it says “creative idea, thought, sudden insight,” so practically insight, sudden insight, “illuminating idea, the kind that carries someone forward especially in intellectual work. Enlightenment, a sudden notion,” and then there’s also, especially for medicine, inhaling. But that’s not really important for us. And I think without inspiration you rarely have an insight. So if you go jogging in the morning and see birds or whatever, then you get some kind of insight, that nature is beautiful. And I think you simply need inspiration to have insights.

Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Did you want to add something? Oh, okay, right, because I wanted to check, since the mic was still on. Wonderful. So, yes, this is really exciting, and I’m really curious now what the others say about it too. So does it always need this impulse of some kind from outside, an inspiration, an impulse, whatever we call it, to actually arrive at these thoughts? I’m really curious what the others say too. Right, let me bring in Marc and Sonja first, and then we can gladly make those cross-connections too. A very good morning, dear Marc.

Good morning to the round. First, I’d like to share as information that if I leave the room later, it’s not because the topic doesn’t interest me, but because I’m using one of those rare, happy moments to have breakfast with my beloved in Italy today. But the topic still interested me, and I’ve already listened to you this week, and I’d like to share something — my topic is advertising. I deal with advertising a lot and always found it exciting, and I found it really interesting. I read an article about a very successful communications agency that deals exclusively with advertising, and what I found really exciting was that they divide their employees into, on one hand, the “creativists” — people who say, I know this, it feels right, I can’t say why, I can’t prove it either, but I have it in my gut, we have to go this way, this is the right campaign. And then there are the “evolutionists,” the people who do market research, how many people would drive a convertible, how many people prefer a Jeep, and so on. There you get precise, scientific findings. And this agency, whose managing director I read a really great interview with — I hope I’m pronouncing the brand right, I only know how it’s written — Dove for women, I think they make shampoos and shower products. And they came to the conclusion, and said, my innermost gut feeling simply tells me that if we want to address women, every woman is good the way she is and every woman is individual. And I’m not interested in any statistics there. We shouldn’t prescribe to women how they should be — she just feels good and is allowed to be the way she is, and so on. Those were the people who made a decision from the gut. And then of course there are the people who approach it factually, which hair types and whatever else goes into the product, where the data really has scientific relevance. And the exciting thing is that the managing director of this agency said that in the end, the two results these two teams arrived at aren’t actually that far apart. That means there are people who listen to their gut, who tell the client, this feels right, that’s how it is, we firmly believe this, it comes from deep in my gut, we have to go this way, this is right — and the others analyze it and then propose a path. And what’s exciting is that both paths end up pretty close together in the end.

Yes, wonderful, thank you so much, really exciting. And here we can of course also tie in a bit with what we’ve had again and again in the rooms before — the topic of gut feeling in this context. Gut feeling is primarily the sum of your experiences. That means, if there’s a team at work here that already has certain prior experience regarding certain topics — it would of course be really exciting to look scientifically at what effect that prior experience actually has at that point, and how it unfolds. Yes, I find that really exciting. Thank you so much, dear Marc. Sonja, a very good morning.

Yes, a very good morning. So, a thought that occurred to me is that the word “inspiration” contains a bit of the word “inspire,” a notion, and the word “spirit.” And for me, inspiration is a notion entering the mind, something we can then work with, and an impulse we pick up on, to develop it further mentally and connect it with other thoughts and ideas. And that’s why, for me, it necessarily has to be something that comes as a stimulus. Whether it comes from outside or from inside is actually secondary. But it has to be something that wasn’t there before. That’s just a small thought. Not very much, but maybe you can do something with it.

Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Let’s go ahead and make those cross-connections, like I said, and see what additions or thoughts come up with the others too. I’d like to give a brief reminder for anyone who might be new in the room today. First, the room is being recorded, and it will be published afterward. Second, we have three small room rules to keep in mind: a clear profile photo where you’re recognizable, first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio, simply to make sure these aren’t Clubhouse trolls. If for whatever reason you don’t want to do that, you have the option to use the chat. And otherwise I’d just ask for understanding that I might not be able to take every single hand-raise into account. Erik, I think you’d already spoken up briefly before — feel free to tie back into it if you like. Otherwise I just saw that Sabine also wants to add something.

Yes, gladly. That was about the point Sabine brought in, that inspiration arises suddenly, so to speak — you observe something, or engage with a topic, or maybe listen to something somewhere. Also a bit on your question, how we might do that — I also enjoy listening to podcasts, for example, or audiobooks. And inspiration could also, or I often suddenly feel inspired by some topic, where I start thinking along with it, and then you have this moment where you suddenly think, oh, I’d love to learn more about that or engage with it more. So that was a good point I thought.

Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much. I’m just tidying up the chat a bit, so let me keep going right away. Sabine.

Yes, back to what I said earlier, the medical meaning was inhaling. And I think “inspirare” also means to breathe in. And that fit with what Sonja just said, that something comes flying in from somewhere. So that fits. And what Erik just said, yes, about the suddenness — it doesn’t necessarily have to be sudden. Because I thought about it — if I’m writing a post, say, I do sit down and think. And if no thoughts come to me, then I go, whether I use keyword analysis or ChatGPT now, where you just put in a keyword and suddenly a lot of keywords come up, and suddenly ideas come up on my end. So I think you often let yourself get inspired by other ideas quite a lot, and then arrive at an insight.

Thank you so much. Yes, how is it for the others? Marc, go ahead.

Yes, something comes to mind, and I’d like to share it with you too — this isn’t a pitch, just something I’ve observed in myself. I’m firmly convinced that, whatever we do, whatever service we’re in, or whatever product we sell, there are hardly any — I don’t want to say that about services, I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes there, but with products I just think there are hardly any bad products left anymore. So at some point I thought about this, and there were two processes going on there. If there are hardly any bad products left, then I also can’t talk about my product anymore. Unless, I’m looking at Jennifer now, unless it’s financial products, of course, there are very different approaches there because there are different strategies. But with a run-of-the-mill product, a car, or a baseball cap, they’re all the same. So what do I do, then, when I call a client, if my product is exactly the same as the others and I can’t talk about my product? And then I had an aha moment, where — I keep all packaging — and at some point while tidying up I found an old Apple box again, because I just don’t throw packaging away. I don’t know why I’d ever need it again, but at least I still have the box. And then I remembered the feeling of happiness when I unpacked this device, because this company really understood how to take perfect photos, the packaging, the images, the device fits in there exactly. And that reminded me that I still hadn’t found a way to ship my own products to a new client, simply to stand out not through the product, but simply by being different. So, pleasantly, noticeably different from others. And then I remembered that the market leader for baseball caps, New Era in America, is the biggest cap manufacturer, and if you walk around America, there are entire shops that sell nothing but baseball caps, especially all these sports brands. And nowadays you can barely find a shoe store that doesn’t also offer caps. And New Era has a special bag you can buy as an add-on, so that the cap you buy, which is also quite expensive, doesn’t get damaged. And I copied that, and now I ship my products, when I get an order, or also to certain large new clients — I don’t have that many of these bags yet — simply inside this bag, just so I’m noticeably different, because nobody else who deals with promotional materials does that. And the idea, the inspiration, simply came from also listening to feelings. How did you feel back then, when this or that happened to you? Or when I’m in a restaurant and notice that, without having ordered anything, I get offered a coffee. Just like that, during the meal. How they manage that as inspiration. So you’re on vacation and get offered something and are served incredibly nicely. Then you go to that restaurant a second time too, because you think, oh, they were nice to me. And somehow my brain doesn’t store, the food was so fantastic there. And when I really listen deep inside myself, listen to my gut, why do I react like that? Why do I want to go back there? Then it’s often not the product, but this whole package, how we felt comfortable. And if my brain has learned to think not just product-related, but feeling-related — what did they do to make me feel comfortable? Was it the surroundings? Was it smells? Was it music? Was it the lighting? Then that gives me inspiration, and sometimes our subconscious works away at it for days, and nothing comes to me right away. But at some point the thought comes back and says, how can we pick up this idea and, with this idea and this feeling, develop something new again. Thanks for listening.

Yes, wonderful, thank you so much, and that aspect is already included there, in the sense of, how can I pick that up a bit, maybe look at other models too, and let myself be inspired by them a bit. And before I switch to Sonja, I’d like to pick up Wolfgang’s contribution in the chat: “I often get inspiration and insights when I’m in a relaxed, informal situation — at the beach, in the bathtub, cycling, in the forest, etc. So my thesis is, inspiration needs, among other things, free space.” Maybe you’d like to connect and tie into that too, Sonja. I’m curious what you have to say about that.

Yes, well, free space, I think, is definitely something very supportive for inspiration. But what I actually wanted to tie into was Marc’s account, because I think it’s great how he described his process, looking at things — first the insight that products are all somehow very comparable. That was the first thing, and then he went searching for inspiration to develop new ideas. The other way around. Oh no, actually it is the other way around from what’s in the title — first the insight, then the inspiration. And basically that’s exactly it — once we’ve recognized something, we then work with it and look for inspiration, what can we do with it. And what’s interesting about it, I think, is that factual information specifically has no biological correlate in our brain. Only emotions have a biological correlate, and that’s exactly the insight Marc arrived at through his observation too. And when it comes to products, it’s always about how it feels to be in contact with this product or with the provider. And this insight, this alternation between inspiration and insight, is exactly what makes a successful business — that you keep searching for it, and grow from it, and never rest on what you’ve already created, but keep looking for inspiration. And it often helps to look at other areas too. If Marc sells baseball caps, then it’s nice to look at other product categories, other industries, and transfer that to your own industry. Because that combination, taking something that’s totally standard in another industry and transferring it to your own, is often something we overlook, but it’s a really creative idea and can land really well in the market. And that reminded me that I have very different packaging for my bike helmet. And I like one bike helmet especially because it has a really smooth sliding drawer box, where I can see the helmet from outside and can pull it open like a drawer, and even after years it still works. That’s why it’s my favorite helmet, and that’s purely the packaging. It has nothing to do with the helmet itself — it doesn’t even fit that well, and yet I still reach for it over other helmets. So it has a significant influence. Thank you.

Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much. And I think a really important aspect you brought up, using it as a term, is the interplay that takes place between inspiration and insight. That means maybe it’s not so much about the question of what comes first, or which direction it runs in, but that it runs in both directions, and it’s a bit like the chicken and the egg — which comes first. So both are “first” and it can also run in the other direction, and it conditions itself, so to speak, mutually, and cross-fertilizes itself, both for insight on the one hand and inspiration on the other. And every one of us, and the examples that were brought up are wonderful for underlining this too, every one of us also knows this situation of reversal. That means, once I’ve observed certain things, or I want to talk about a certain topic, the first thing I often do, for example, is type search terms into Google, to see what’s out there, and through that I come up with new ideas again. So specifically searching for further inspiration and looking around too. Right, and with that I’d like to welcome two more candidates into the round. Jennifer, I’m so happy. A very good morning. We have our expert talk tomorrow too, so I think it’s really cool that you’re already here today, and I’m really curious what your thoughts on this topic are.

A very good morning. Yes, I’m happy too. I’m in Germany, so I can make it work a bit better here today, and I of course also wanted to get a little in the mood for tomorrow’s topic. You asked a question earlier — does inspiration always come from outside — and I believe yes, it always comes from outside, whether we perceive it consciously or unconsciously. I got advice from my father a long time ago that I should go through life with open eyes. I assume he meant I should consciously go through life with open eyes. But I think we’re always taking everything in anyway, whether we perceive it consciously or unconsciously. And then there are these quiet phases, where I think the unconscious things then shoot into our head as an idea, as inspiration. And we think, whoa, where did that come from, because we didn’t consciously perceive it at all. And then there are also these conscious things, for example when we have coaching, when we’re asked questions, when we have a shift in perspective, when we consciously notice something in nature, or have ideas we can then implement for our business, in this case, or maybe for personal matters too. I believe we always need outside stimuli, so to speak, to be inspired and to gain insight. Of course in that interplay, which I also thought was very good. Thank you.

Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And I’d like to add my own agreement there too. I also think, for inspiration, we now have a distinction between conscious and unconscious, and here of course this aspect of free space plays a role too, which Wolfgang also brought in. That means, basically, there are various influences from outside that get transmitted through our senses, so to speak. And sometimes we perceive them consciously, and sometimes we don’t perceive them consciously, because our focus might be directed at something else. Nonetheless, they have an effect, and they have an effect even when we don’t consciously perceive them. And that’s really exciting. And a while back, I told you about this one study, this research, where participants were shown certain things on a computer. And in the bottom left corner, various things were displayed on the screen that the people didn’t consciously perceive at all. It was like a kind of advertisement running in the background. And afterward they had people fill out corresponding questionnaires and so on, and suddenly questions came up that were connected to what had been shown in the advertisement. And it was really exciting that there was clearly a connection, an influence taking place, so that, in line with what was shown in the advertisement, corresponding answers were given, even though the participants, based on their knowledge background, didn’t come from that field or anything — in that specific case it was about stock prices and so on, so they had no special prior knowledge or anything, they weren’t people who dealt with those topics per se. So the test subjects were selected accordingly too. And it’s really exciting that there’s clearly a mechanism at work here, even when we don’t initially consciously perceive certain influences from outside. And the moment we very deliberately and consciously take some time out, and go into nature, for example, or ride a bike or whatever, and then our focus isn’t on everyday tasks or similar, we suddenly have a completely different way of perceiving, of mindfulness, of sensing the body too, and so on, and also of observing what’s outside, so to speak. And that of course has a really, really intense impact or influence on how we experience and perceive things, and what thoughts we come to through that. And with that, yes, I’d like to warmly welcome our winner at this point. Wolfgang, I don’t actually know if you’ve heard yet — you weren’t here yesterday, so to speak. We said yesterday, the giveaway, Wolfgang Jung won the ticket. I don’t think you were in the room, and the news also went out to you as an email yesterday. I’m not sure if you’re finding out now or already knew.

Yes, good morning to the round. I was really happy too. I of course already got the email yesterday and I’m really happy. And I also came into the room today even though I don’t really have time. But this conversation inspired me a lot. And that’s of course exactly my topic. I had a webinar with Semrush yesterday on the topic of emotional storytelling. And there I always say, emotions always beat facts. That’s the somewhat provocative thesis I derive it from. And that’s why I say, we’ve developed from Homo sapiens, who somehow learned over 45,000 years that stories and emotions are super important, to, over the last 30 years, Homo powerpoint, that’s what I call it in my presentation. Because I just say, at some point we somehow thought, okay, the more facts we write down somewhere, the better it is. But it’s clear that emotions trigger us a lot, bring us to inspiration, and, by the way, and these are my two new cents I’d like to add, are a really, really important lever in marketing too, one that’s also relatively easy to apply. Google says, for example, John Mueller from Google says, convince or inspire people, and then you get good rankings too. So don’t do any keyword optimizations etc. purely based on facts and values, but convince people through your emotional information etc. And I actually have an example, because this always sounds so abstract. It’s quick too. The example is, very classically, companies often write on their website, we have 46 field service employees nationwide. The point is, as a customer that doesn’t interest me at all, whether they have 46, 30, or 70 field service employees, that’s not relevant to me. What’s relevant is, if I have a service issue with the machine or whatever it is, I want to know how long it takes until someone gets here to help me, so to speak. And if I say at that point, we’re there for you, guaranteed within 24 hours, then that’s already a step toward the emotional, toward safety, toward triggering something positive in the brain. And that’s better than the fact, I have this many field service employees. So what I wanted to say is, emotions are really important, in marketing too. And I’m happy.

Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much. Yes, I’ve already seen the blinking hand-raises, so Sabine has been waiting a while. I just saw Sonja too — if the others want to say something too, feel free to give a signal. And then let’s go ahead and get into the cross-connections. Sabine.

Yes, hello. I actually wanted to say something to Marc earlier, about emotions — I’m totally with him on that. Of course from my side too — if I’m selling a mortgage, the client’s emotion is in the house, in the property, in the new kitchen, where it’s located, and so on, and not in the dry numbers of the financing, even though those will probably follow them for 20 years. And it’s the same with insurance — often it’s about safety, but even more important is the story of what could possibly happen. Imagine your child riding their scooter across town, across the street, and there’s an accident. Can you imagine that? Then the client comes to me much faster. But I also wanted to say something else — we all learn in marketing to position ourselves sharply. And this sharp positioning ultimately serves to inspire the customer as much as possible and get them to take that step with us. The third thing I wanted to say, Jennifer, I’m totally with you. I also believe inspiration has to come from outside. Whether conscious or unconscious, I’m totally with you on that.

Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. You’re not muted yet.

Yes, I’m on my bike.

That always takes a moment, all good. Thank you. Sonja.

Yes, I wanted to add something to inspiration from outside, something I once picked up from an author and found really impressive, and after I heard it, it was totally plausible to me too. It was a scientist who tried to write a popular science book. He wrote part of the book in a university setting, and later noticed that he used completely different vocabulary than when he wrote a chapter at home. So the environment inspired him to use vocabulary and sentence structures that fit more into an academic setting, and that was much too hard to read for him. He later noticed that this didn’t fulfill his goal, or his intention, at all. And then he decided he wanted to write his book in a much more normal, less academic environment, and went to a cafe and put himself into his target audience, to also pick up unconscious inspirations, and through that find different sentences, different phrasings. And lo and behold, he had shorter sentences, simpler language, didn’t dress things up with technical terms, but could describe things in a generally understandable way. And that just confirms again how many stimuli we perceive and process unconsciously, and create something from them for ourselves. And the learning I took from that is that, when I’m working on a certain idea meant for a certain target audience, I also try to put myself into the environment of that target audience, because then I simply have a lot more unconscious inspirations too, which steer me exactly in that direction, so that it fits later and I feel like I’ve addressed that target audience. Thank you.

Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And that’s also a good transition to the aspect of, how can we ultimately, so to speak, change our environment too — really consciously get into that activity, in order to foster this aspect of inspiration a bit, to use that influence too. And we’d had things like walking, showering, and so on. Here we can look again — what kind of spaces are there? And I think it’s nice too, if we make ourselves aware of this, from our own experience. Where do you get the most ideas? Where do they come? Where does it feel good? On the one hand for general inspiration, and then this targeted approach, with the example you just brought up, Sonja, that you can really think about it in a certain context too. That could be, for example, like this cafe with the relevant target audience. So making a kind of transfer here too, mentally, and thinking about what might serve that positively, and accordingly changing and influencing the environment, and thereby the influences and what I perceive, to some extent. And I saw that Marc raised his hand again too. And then Sonja can go ahead and tie in too, and then the others too, if they’d like. Marc.

Yes, that reminds me — I’m really curious when our German tax law is going to change, and I want to get right to the point — I believe, I can’t think of the name right now, can I pronounce it right, from Harry Potter — she also wrote large parts of her novel in a cafe in Porto, and in Porto there’s also a university where the students still wear these robes today, and I wanted to get right to the point you made, Yasemin — Sabine asked me yesterday, dear Marc, are you on vacation, and then I thought about it again and looked it up, and read that vacation is actually a time when we’re off duty. That doesn’t exist for me. I also engage with things on vacation that I don’t have time for during the day, and this environment, the trees, nature, the food, I come back with so much inspiration and energy. Whether I’ll ever get that through in German tax law, I don’t know, but here in Germany, you pursue work, and the German tax office can only imagine that this happens in a concrete office with dark windows or neon lighting. But I know a lot of people who work on vacation, and of course you sit outside in a cafe and thoughts come to you too. And I’m really curious when our system will change, so that with the mobility we have through the internet, through phones, it must also become possible to work anywhere in the world, and be allowed to, according to tax law. We’re already allowed to now, of course.

Wonderful, thank you. That brings up a memory for me, of a tax audit that happened at some point, and they didn’t find anything, and in the end — it’s not just about vacations, dear Marc, that’s sometimes what’s so fascinating — in the end they got stuck on an event with Tony Robbins, where they said, well, but that’s more personal, private rather than professional, because it pays into personal development, and I think to myself, since when is a person, so to speak, decoupled from the company itself, from the business thinking, within a company? I mean, basically it doesn’t matter what form of continuing education or whatever you do, ultimately that personal development always pays into the business too, in that respect. But I found it really exciting, in the sense of, we have to find something to make the numbers work, so to speak. So there are completely different mechanisms at work behind that too, regardless of whether they’d interpret it this way or that way per se. So a really exciting point you’re raising. Go ahead, Sonja.

Yes, that’s a really good example you’re bringing up with Tony Robbins. Because when we work with people, it’s always beneficial to the work when we engage with topics related to people and personal development, because that’s professional development too. And especially in coaching, I often think about it too — when I buy books purely out of interest, is that really a business expense or is that private enjoyment? And I have to say, it’s both, because my business activity is my personal enjoyment. I’ve simply found a good mix there, and in that case I really can’t use that as a yardstick for a tax audit at all, because that would mean work isn’t allowed to be fun, or isn’t allowed to have anything to do with a person, and I find that completely absurd, because the moment we’re fully engaged with a topic, wholeheartedly and with passion, we simply do much, much better work, and can serve others much better too, and I think tax law will need a very long time to get there, because that would mean they’d have to engage with people and with feelings, and those simply can’t be evaluated and measured by a template, and that’s why it’ll take a good while longer.

Yes, that’s one thing, and the other, to pick up again what you said earlier about the author who changed his environment to change the language and so on — I find that really exciting too. And since we’re talking about tax law and things like that — especially bureaucratic language is one of those things that always knocks us off our chairs and over, in inverted commas. Maybe they should also change their environment now and then, to change their language in the forms too. That was another inspiration that came to me here with these examples. Sabine.

Yes, so Marc, in the future I’ll ask if you’re having an inspiring time, not a vacation. But that’s not what I wanted to say. I think I do my taxes at home, because my tax advisor is my husband. And he keeps saying, you have to use the room for maneuver properly. And I think, I try to use it. And I try to do it in a target-audience-oriented way in the end too. But it’s not just the tax authority, it’s basically all authorities. We were talking about this at breakfast this morning — my husband was somewhat seriously ill, and his health insurance just denied him a gastroscopy, because that would be a preventive screening. I got so worked up, and I said, today I’m going to grab the phone and tell them, listen, if the doctor tells you, listen, this could have gone badly, you could be lying flat tomorrow too, and he’s giving you this examination, then that’s not a preventive screening anymore. That’s a life-necessary examination. And then let’s see what he says. Talk to them. You have to explain it to them. Emails back and forth will probably just keep going, paragraph, paragraph, paragraph. That’s one thing, and a second example that really got to me yesterday — we were invited yesterday with our women’s group to Pro Familia, and they support sex workers. And it was incredibly interesting to really look into this topic. But what shocked me was that they have to pay 25 euros a day in taxes, per person, whether they make any income or not, because they’ve just rented a room there. The venue owner has to remit that. And that’s already outrageous — if they don’t make any income, they still have to pay the 25 euros. But even worse, I thought, was when we talked about how you could help them get back on the right track, they mentioned the cooperation with the job center. And the first thing they say there is, well, you’re not registered with us, so we can’t help. So a few things really made me think, hello, poor Germany.

Yes, thank you so much, and here we can pick up on something we’ve had in recent days too, and we’ll also talk about this on Friday, in the direction of openness too. So, in the sense of, because you just named a field that’s maybe probably not something you deal with or come into contact with day to day, that it’s worth looking into fields, or specifically looking into areas where we maybe don’t have much experience yet, where we have no points of contact, that we haven’t engaged with — picking up topics and focus areas that aren’t per se classically in our field. And especially this, in inverted commas, in the sense of inspiration, this cross-pollination, so to speak, that happens there, I find really exciting. There are a lot of approaches to this. And that’s ultimately connected to the fact that, for example in a mentoring context, I have the chance to bring together like with like — there’ll certainly be inspiration there too. But if I bring together people in a mentoring program who come from completely different fields, who maybe can’t even stand each other at first, in inverted commas — I’m using these terms very, very deliberately here — then at first it might seem a bit exhausting, or maybe not immediately fun, in inverted commas. And at the same time, especially in relation to this aspect of inspiration and gaining insight, I think there’s really, really fertile ground there, from which quite unexpected, magical things can truly emerge, things you might not have counted on at all at that point. Go ahead, Wolfgang.

Right, let me just jump in there. I’ve wanted to say something for a while, but this fits perfectly with what you just said, Yasemin, because it’s basically the transition. I wanted to — you asked the question, where are you most inspired, or where do you get inspiration, is there a specific place. And I wanted to first give a recommendation, namely Kirby Ferguson. He’s an Australian. There’s a really great video of his on YouTube, it’s about 30-something minutes long. And the title of the video is “Everything is a Remix.” And he basically says, everything you see inspires you, and if you go through the world with open eyes, like Jennifer said, greetings to Jennifer too, if you go through the world with open eyes, then basically everything inspires you. So go through the world with open eyes, then everything is a remix. And I can really, really recommend this video, it’s really cool. And I thought about my point, where am I actually always inspired? And I’m always inspired in museums. Personally. It doesn’t matter at all whether it’s about sculptures, paintings, sounds, installations. When I go into a museum, I always come out with some idea. That’s the first thing. And the second thing I wanted to add is, for my talk on the topic of creativity, which is called “Creativity Made of Steel,” a play on words — well, stolen from “Everything is a Remix” — I did a survey. It wasn’t representative, but a few hundred people did take part. And I wanted to give you the funny fact of what people mentioned most, what the most commonly named place for inspiration was. I could normally ask you to guess, Yasemin, but I’ll spare you that — the most commonly named place was the toilet. Because that’s where people, let’s say, come out of their everyday life for three, four, five minutes, into a completely different space, and then suddenly have some idea. So I just wanted to add that too.

Oh, wonderful. Yes, and I of course wanted to mention the toilet too. I was already waiting for a chance to bring it up in relation to my own room. And I’m actually relieved that it’s not just me, or that there are apparently a lot of other people who feel the same way. Because I actually get most of my ideas on the toilet. It’s just like that. And really exciting. And I use that quite deliberately too. That means, whenever I have a point where I get stuck on a sentence, or get stuck on some thought, and notice, oh, it’s time for a short break again, I really deliberately use going to the bathroom, so to speak. And also this trust, that when I come back, I don’t have the feeling of, well, the sentence isn’t finished yet, I have to finish the sentence before I go there — but that I can let go with a clear conscience, so to speak, knowing that when I’ve been to the bathroom and come back, I’ll know how to phrase that sentence. And that actually works too. Sabine, you wanted to add something too. Let’s see if it works. Yes, wonderful. Yes, yes, yes, I thought so.

You don’t get cold fingers from it either. I find the toilet thing really interesting too. I have to say, it’s really great in the home office too. It’s the same for me — if I ever get stuck, I get myself a coffee, go to the bathroom. But I also know that in between, nobody catches me anymore. I just come back to the computer. But honestly, what did I want to say? I don’t remember anymore. So cycling inspires me so much around me that I forgot my own thought. Sorry.

Would you like, before you keep cycling, to tie in right here, to bring your closing words for today to the round?

I’d love to. I’m actually stopped at a red light right now. So very much — oh, now I remember what I wanted to say. About this room on prostitution. The person who organized it happened to run into the woman from Pro Familia and got talking with her, and at first felt a bit guilty about bringing something like that into our group, and had also feared that in the end nobody would show up. But we were very diverse and very interested, and it kind of opened all our eyes a bit. Especially given the direction of, we donate to Afghanistan, we donate to Ukraine, and so on, and here Pro Familia is struggling along, and this is in Ludwigshafen. She also told us how different it is, for example, from Ludwigshafen to Mannheim. It’s really unbelievable, and you live right in the middle of it and don’t notice much of it. Really great room overall, very diverse. I actually had to google it at the beginning to find anything at all on inspiration. As always, I have to agree with you again — you just say, come in, make something of it, and something comes of it. Great, everyone. Thank you so much, and have a nice, sunny, cold day.

Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Yes, Sonja, you wanted to tie in, and then we can move directly into today’s closing round. So, Sonja, go ahead with your contribution, and then also the closing words for today.

Yes, as a neuro-nerd I of course have to add a bit more from the neuroscience department, and it fits with inspiration. Because I know that when we stand up, our hippocampus becomes more active. And the hippocampus is strongly involved in our working memory, and it just helps us process information better, and through that gives us inspiration. When I notice I’m stuck with my thoughts, sitting at my desk and not making progress, then I use this insight quite deliberately, to stand up and allow new inspiration in. And that always works. And right now, in this moment, I also notice, because I’m a bit nervous speaking in front of an audience here and don’t quite know yet what I’ll say, that walking around helps me too, bring new inspiration for my thoughts, and also be a bit calmer. And I feel totally comfortable in your group, and I can hardly even remember anymore that at the start I didn’t dare say anything at all. I love these rooms, and it’s just a wonderful start to the day. Thank you so much.

Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much. And I don’t want to miss mentioning sleep too, alongside everything already listed. Because our brain also keeps working in sleep mode, so to speak. That means I really like to get inspiration there too, in inverted commas, whether that’s a power nap in between, or really the sleep, the regeneration during the night. Especially when you’ve been working on topics and aren’t making progress or similar — this “I’ll go to sleep first and see what comes of it” is something that works wonderfully for me too. Thank you so much. And the walking around, by the way, I can only confirm that for myself too. Especially when there’s a certain restlessness or excitement in some context, walking around helps enormously too, I find. Also to burn off that energy, in inverted commas. And with that, I’d like to bring in the others for the closing round, in the order Marc, Wolfgang, and then Jennifer. Then we’ll have the announcement for tomorrow again too, and I’ll have a sentence or two more too. Marc.

You’ve kept me here today too, in my room, even though the sun’s already shining outside, and I haven’t even had coffee yet. Simply because your thoughts and the conversations with you were so inspiring that I skipped the coffee. But it’s coming now. I wish you all a wonderful day.

Thank you so much. Enjoy it. Wolfgang.

I’m taking away, on the one hand, Sonja’s example and also Marc’s, who both talked about how spaces influence you, in writing too and in your own creation. And as a takeaway, I’m taking away that inspiration, on balance, is something positive, and a positive mindset simply helps us become better. And especially, since I’m always looking at marketing, that with positive inspiration we can really do a lot of cool things and achieve a lot. Thank you for the great room.

Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much. Yes, and Jennifer, that fits perfectly right here — just closing words, and then the transition to tomorrow’s expert talk, right?

Yes, really great. So first of all, thank you so much for the warm welcome back here, so to speak. I was out and about too, I moved, went for a walk, used the hour directly, because that’s actually where I get most of my ideas, when I’m moving. And yes, I’m just happy to be here again. It’s a really great feeling, and of course I’m looking forward to tomorrow too. So, Yasemin, is there something specific you’d like to bring up for tomorrow? What am I allowed to announce already? How should we do this?

Yes, so we’re of course looking forward to welcoming Jennifer Pickhan tomorrow for our expert talk on mastering business recommendations, and it’s about the aspect of cold calling. If I know, for example, that cold calling personally isn’t really my thing, there are different ways we can handle that. There are some who try, through training or whatever, to turn a weakness into a strength, and that’s certainly legitimate too. But there are other options too. There are others who then say, okay, I don’t really want to engage with that so intensively, but how can I still make it work, so to speak — that’s an insight I’ve arrived at, so to speak — and then look at what alternatives there are, and that’s where we tie in with tomorrow’s topic, Jennifer Pickhan, mastering business recommendations. That’s one of the options you can pursue. And Jennifer will pick us up on that tomorrow, introduce it, and so on. And now feel free to add your own personal note, Jennifer.

I couldn’t have phrased it better myself. Oh, wonderful. Yasemin, thank you so much. Yes, so it’s really the insights and inspiration I’ve gathered over the past few years around the topic of sales, and setting the whole thing up a bit differently, and looking at us differently too. I don’t want to give too much away, but I’m really looking forward to it. And yes, I’m of course also happy that I get to share this with you all here. And Yasemin, that I now get to share this in your group too, so to speak. It’s just wonderful being here with you. Thank you so much for the room today. And I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

Oh, that’s wonderful. I’m really excited about tomorrow too. Yes, anyone who’s been following the Deep Talk for a while knows Jennifer was one of the co-hosts and co-initiators who, together with me, along with Mona Tenjo and Jan-Marc Pickhan, whom I of course don’t want to leave unmentioned here either, brought the Deep Talk to life, so to speak, and made it, together with you all, what it is today. And so it’s of course always a special occasion to get to experience you here in between too. And I’m really, really looking forward to tomorrow. I’m very curious about the content. And yes, for today, my closing words are, I really thought it was great. I’d like to pick up again on the link I’ve pinned up here — there are many ways to approach inspiration, and Neuroscience for Practice is a wonderful opportunity to get new inspiration from brain research in an exclusive small group. So it might be a field you’ve already engaged with, or one you haven’t at all yet. Either way, there’s a lot of inspirational power in this small group we’ll have there too. The number of participants is limited, so there are still a few tickets left. Just take a look, if you’re looking for new ways to draw inspiration, you can check it out, and one option is to be part of this. April 13th and 14th, two three-hour sessions each, from 2 to 5pm, and yes, I’m really looking forward to this event, and I’m really, really curious about our insights from this small, exclusive group too. And then, to close, I’d like to pick up on the aspect Wolfgang mentioned with this video and the remix — I can really only recommend it too. You’d mentioned it in one of the other rooms before too, and I watched the video myself. Wolfgang, thank you so much for that tip. I think it’s great, especially against the backdrop — and this is now another inspiration from today’s room for me, to think about this again in that direction. We’ve often, we had various points today — this thing of always making these PowerPoint presentations, always wanting to hold onto these things, always onto the content and so on. And ultimately it’s about storytelling, it’s about emotions, and even with this remix, when you look at it, it becomes clear that any further development, or innovation too, if we talk about innovation, always builds on what came before. And we had that in the context of science too — science always builds on insights that other researchers have already laid out, so to speak, and always moves one step further to the next level. And so, no matter what field we look at, we’ll always be able to observe that. But we learn something different, and that’s what I’m taking away as inspiration from the room again. We learn, namely, that copying is not a good thing. We’re not allowed to copy, we’re not allowed to plagiarize, and this “we’re not allowed to copy, we’re not allowed to look, we’re not allowed to plagiarize” maybe also leads to us unnecessarily holding back on one thing or another in many places, in inverted commas, and it would be much more fruitful if we simply allowed it sometimes, and really got into rethinking here, letting go of the fears we have, moving toward “sometimes less is more” at that point. And yes, those are my closing words for today. Thank you so much for this inspiring room, not just content-wise, but really also on the level of the ideas that came together here, which might also lead to your own inspiration afterward. I’m really looking forward to the expert talk tomorrow morning with Jennifer. I’m really excited about it. You’re warmly invited to join again tomorrow at 8am. With that, I wish you well, and see you tomorrow. Ciao.