#835 Insight & Readiness for Change

Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: What role does readiness for change and adaptability play in gaining insight? That’s the question we explore in Room #835 of the Deep Talk Club, under our overarching theme of “Insight (and gaining it).” 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 wonderful good morning. Today we’re talking about insight and readiness for change. What role do readiness for change and adaptability play in gaining insight? That’s the question we want to dig into today. I’m really curious, especially after yesterday’s really fascinating, stimulating exchange, to pick that up again today and keep going. We had some examples come up yesterday, and I’d noted at the end that we shouldn’t forget the question that came up about gratitude and success in the context of writing things down. We can gladly pick that up again shortly if you like — I’d need the concrete question again regarding this, I’ll call it a success journal, whatever you call it yourselves. Fundamentally it’s always about the same thing, and we can look at that again. Otherwise, today we really want to look at readiness for change and adaptability — is that a prerequisite, so to speak, for even opening the door toward gaining insight, or how does it all connect? Maybe you have different thoughts or examples you’ve brought along. Then I’d love to dive in with you today. Just a quick reminder, you’re warmly invited to join. There’s a recording running in the background. Anyone who joins agrees that it’s being recorded and also published. We have three small rules for joining the interaction on stage. One is a profile photo where you’re clearly recognizable, your first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio. That just helps ensure it’s not troll accounts, and it applies equally to everyone for fairness. And anyone who, for whatever reason, doesn’t want to do that is warmly invited to simply use the chat. A wonderful good morning, dear Marc.

Dear Yasemin, good morning. I want to thank you right away, but first I have to tell a story. My topic is insight and readiness for change, but I’d put readiness for change first. When Covid started in 2020, Clubhouse came along too. And Clubhouse was, and is, really a blessing for me. There are a lot of rooms on Clubhouse I didn’t like — that’s just how it is. There are rooms that are just like sitting in a bar, where people tell each other stuff, there are conspiracy-theory rooms and crackpot rooms. But your room is a real highlight. And through this room, through this readiness for change to enter this room and participate, and also through the readiness for change to come to Rosenheim, so much has changed for me. And I didn’t listen to the people around me who said, well, what’s the point of that Clubhouse thing every morning, sitting there with whoever, and you investing that time. No, it’s brought me so much. Through getting to know you, dear Yasemin, and through Rosenheim, I met Dr. Johanna Dahm in your room. And Dr. Johanna Dahm talked me into taking part in a book project. And yesterday, for the very first time, I received a box with our books in it. And now I can understand the feeling — you did a wonderful project with Anna Krey too — what a wonderful feeling it is to work on a project with several people. And the whole thing wouldn’t have happened if the readiness for change hadn’t been there, to get involved in something. And if I hadn’t done that, and if I’d listened again to people who thought, that’s pointless, why do you listen to that and win contracts through it, and getting this knowledge out of your head — that not everything we do has to immediately turn into money, meaning, does this move my business forward, can I do business with someone — but simply opening up, approaching people honestly, that has enriched my life enormously, and at this point, a thousand thanks, dear Yasemin, because if I hadn’t met you in your room, so many, many doors wouldn’t have opened, doors I had absolutely no idea existed, doors I hadn’t even seen — those doors only opened because I discovered them through your rooms, and for that, thank you. I’m really proud to have my package sitting here now, and I stand by that, and I told my friend — my friend is a school principal — and it’s really, really important to me to give a talk at the school sometime, because in secondary school I got a D in German, because I never managed to correctly interpret a Kafka poem. I left secondary school with a D in German because of poem interpretation. And I want to encourage the kids there too — don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do German, or that you can’t write. If you want to become a writer, become a writer. And if your dream is to become an actor, look at what you can do. But never let anyone tell you it won’t work. That was a long speech, but I really felt a deep need, dear Yasemin, to thank you. And readiness for change is the first step. And the insight from that, looking back, is, yes, it’s worth it.

Oh, wonderful, thank you so much for sharing. What a great story to start with. Well, congratulations first of all. So if I understood correctly, this is also the first joint work where you’ve contributed as an author, meaning you’re an author now too.

An author, I find that great.

And I celebrate that so much, this aspect you brought up too. There’s often a starting point, and we set off with a certain openness, or readiness for change, and often we don’t quite know what will happen along the way, or where it might lead. And that’s a really, really beautiful example of what can come out of that. I mean, so many different things have surely come out of Clubhouse, and this is one of them. And it was very clearly audible and felt that this is moving you right now, and I find it really fascinating to get to be part of that. So thank you so much for that too. And, well, the insight from this book project itself, independent of Clubhouse now — there were probably various insights gained along the way of preparing, writing, and so on. Maybe there’s something you’d like to share with us. You can think about it briefly. And that also means it’s not just the one insight, or that one moment of insight we often have, but that because it’s a process we go through, there can be various stations of insight, or gaining insight, along that path. Marc, would you like to add to that?

Very gladly, and I have to smile. You can’t imagine, Yasemin, and we already touched on this yesterday — how do we get into action? I gained the insight to take part in this project not because dear Dr. Johanna Dahm convinced me, but because she simply swept me along. She didn’t need to convince me. And I thought about it, well, I can imagine taking part in a project like this. That decision led to me actually doing exactly that — getting into action, and starting that very afternoon. I dropped everything. I started writing that afternoon. That led to me not sleeping a single hour that night, just drinking coffee, and then tearing up all the drafts I’d written that night the next morning, saying, what nonsense, you can’t publish that, no one should read that. I sat back down, and Clubhouse helped me there too, because I focused on, what real value can you actually offer? What’s really the central point that influenced you, that really moved you? With that insight, I continued the next day. So it really took two full days, and I implemented it immediately. We’ve often talked about how you get into action. I didn’t wait for the perfect moment, for time on the weekend, or for this and that to be done first. Instead I thought, this matters to me right now. If I’m going to do it, I do it right away. I pushed everything else aside, only occasionally checked emails — emergency replies, because customer processes and business operations have to keep running. But this getting into action — I said, I’m doing this, and I didn’t say on the weekend, or tomorrow, or tonight, or maybe, but started right away and saw it through. And the insight, again, is that when something really matters to us, we unleash so much energy that we can even go a night and a half without sleep, as I said.

Yes, absolutely, thank you so much. And tomorrow — no, not tomorrow, next week — we’ll have an authors’ breakfast where we’ll talk together about this book project, or about the book, and I’m already really looking forward to that. So stay curious and keep tuning in to hear more. We won’t reveal more today. And with that, I’d like to welcome Layla into the round. A wonderful good morning, dear Layla.

A wonderful good morning. Well, I looked at your headline and was just listening, and thought, well, insight and readiness for change. Insights often lead, and experiences often lead too — we’ve differentiated on this for a while and thought about it — to a readiness for change, because life is change. I think a lot of people agree that there’s one constant in life, and that’s change. What I was just thinking internally — Marc, that really could have happened to me too, because I get that kind of focus and then I just power through. And Yasemin, you said yesterday, moving-away-from and moving-toward. And I like this “moving-toward,” and I’ve noticed that in all the books I’ve read on this topic — “Eat the Frog,” the 1% method, I don’t know if it’s in there, but in “Eat the Frog” you’re supposed to start with the most unpleasant task — readiness often gets denied to people, and I don’t want to misparaphrase these books, but I mean, they say, well then you don’t want it badly enough, then things aren’t bad enough for you yet. And I’ve somehow figured out for myself, because you said that yesterday too about moving-away-from, that you can also see that neutrally, which was a huge insight for me. And I know why I connote it negatively too. Why is that? Because it’s always been denied to me, or I’ve always experienced it being denied to people — then you don’t want it badly enough, then the will isn’t there. And I’ve found the will was actually very, very consistent. And going from my own experience — I won’t talk as long, Yasemin — I found the will was very strong. The “how” wasn’t there, how do I do this? This working memory thing. And that’s really why I take this position that I want to be gentle with myself. Because I’ve noticed for myself, sometimes it’s not about readiness at all, but this “how,” this “why” point. And that’s why I like to look for reasons why I want to do something, because this moving-away-from doesn’t motivate me. In that sense, I don’t like it when one person tells another, then you don’t want it badly enough, if they don’t want to change. I’m curious what you all think about that.

Yes, that’s a really, really fascinating point you’re raising. And there can certainly be very, very different backgrounds to that. On one hand, to pick up on this moving-away-from and moving-toward, we have many examples where it’s often not about the “how” at all, where the “how” comes later, for example. You might know this — think back to a time when you were freshly in love or something, suddenly you can move mountains. And you don’t sit down and make some plan for how to pull that off — you just know, okay, I want to be there, or be on site, this meeting has to happen somehow. And that emerges as a second step, not because you’d already planned and thought it through beforehand, but the decision comes first, so to speak, and then comes the “how do I actually do this?” Okay, do I need a ticket, or do I have to drive, or whatever, reschedule appointments or whatever — and that in the situation, when it’s necessary, you find the way, whatever options are available in that specific case. And this moving-away-from is really fascinating too, if we look at it historically. I find it really interesting, for example, that Tony Robbins once made this comparison, that life to some extent, or the economy, is like the four seasons. I think I’ve told this before, but he says basically everything is a cycle, if we look at nature, if we look at the economy and so on. There are ups and downs, it’s a kind of cycle. And he compares that to the four seasons, and says when we’re in a bad period, that’s basically winter, in that analogy. And historically, it’s often the case that during a boom, during summer, so to speak, not that much actually happens — in terms of the economy, are there big innovations during that time, do a lot of companies emerge, or a groundbreaking development or something? And if you look closer, it’s exactly during that winter period where that happens, because maybe we’re allowed to be inventive, because we’re facing challenges. And because we’re facing those challenges, we now look for possibilities, what we can do in this concrete situation. And if we apply that to our own lives, we can maybe also look back historically, so to speak, at our own biography, and check which stations in life led us into motion. Was it moving-toward, because we were totally euphoric about something and looking forward to it, or was it — and there will surely be both — situations where we couldn’t stand something anymore, or suddenly faced challenges, where we said, oh, now I have to think about how I can deal with this. And this “how can I deal with this,” I have to somehow change this situation, for whatever reasons I want to or need to get out of that situation — it doesn’t necessarily have to be existentially threatening, that would be an extreme case. There can be other motivations too. It could simply be that it just improves my situation, in a manner of speaking. And that’s something our brain controls, so to speak. Meaning our brain always checks, is this important for survival? That’s the first question. The second question, if the first is answered no, then I don’t do anything. Then the second question is, does this improve my situation? And if the answer to that is no too, then I just stay at a standstill, so to speak, and don’t get into motion, because there’s no reason to. That’s how simply our brain is wired, so to speak. And now, of course, I have the option of setting various incentives from outside and “overcoming” that, or counteracting it, however we want to phrase it, by setting various incentives that act as the initiator to get into motion. That means if I know how my brain works, per se, then I have the option of using the corresponding levers sensibly for myself, to get into motion. Marc, did you want to add something?

Yes, quickly. Then I’ll look forward to Sabine. I have to get this out. I find this really fascinating and then I’m done. You said, does it improve my situation, if I’m a supervisor? Then I should think together with my employees, my staff, about how it improves their situation, I mean, as a supervisor. Because if I only react based on how it improves my situation, then it becomes clear to me why nothing happens in so many companies, because most supervisors only ever argue based on how it improves their situation, meaning the company’s situation.

Thank you so much. Interesting aspect. A lot is becoming clear to me, and I can really relate to that now. Good morning, Sabine, I’m glad you’re joining too.

Yes, wonderful, thank you so much, and Marc, that’s a really important aspect you’re bringing up, and it’s also one of the reasons so many change projects or processes in companies fail. So I really want to underline what you just said. That means, especially when we look at contexts like this, in team contexts and so on, it’s all the more important that we don’t direct our attention to ourselves or the logic of it, or whatever, in the sense of, I create transparency and we talk about it and the employee recognizes, cognitively so to speak, that the change is necessary. All of that is nice, but it doesn’t actually make the difference in whether someone moves or not — it’s these two questions I get to address. And that requires that I know what’s important to my employee. And that’s a really fundamental prerequisite, because if I don’t know that at all, I can’t apply the right lever here either. That’s a really important point. With that, I’d like to bring Sabine in now, and then we can draw cross-connections again.

Hello, I thought you’d already brought me in, because my daughter just called and wants to be picked up, to get bread rolls. It’s all fine. Hey, I have to tell a funny story real quick. I was just messing around on WhatsApp and then your podcast “Building Bridges” came up on Spotify. Does that fit? I found that pretty funny just now. But I actually wanted to say something on the topic, insight and readiness for change. You’ve said great things just now, and a lot is becoming clear to me too. For me it was like this — when Covid happened and I got a bit more digital, I tried an incredible amount and stressed myself out a bit, because I always thought, this has to work, this has to work, and I’ve now noticed that I don’t actually need that depth, that I actually get my clients elsewhere. And I talked yesterday with someone who’s now doing some media work for us, a young media student, she’s studying media and does some of that work for us on the side. It was really enlightening to talk to her again about it. I think, above all, you have to stay in the process constantly, keep reflecting again and again, and not just set off somehow saying, this has to, this has to, this has to, sitting there at night forever doing something, but always check, is this the right path, or am I just getting swamped from every direction, and this isn’t the right path for me. And what you said earlier, I found that great too — always checking, what did you say, that was point two, is it also the right thing for me? Does it move me forward? Not in contrast to what Marc just said, which is of course also very, very important, not just does it move me forward, but does it move the overall goal forward too — but am I actually on the right path within that overall goal, or have I fixated on something and I’m driving myself crazy for a goal that, deep down, I might not even really want to reach in that form. So I think this constant rebalancing is really, really important.

Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. So the second question is this “improves my situation.” Exactly, and those are really important aspects we get to keep looking at, and I found it so lovely that you — I’ve already emphasized this several times this morning — being gentle with yourself, having patience, and so on. That’s a really important aspect in this context too, not falling into self-sabotage or self-punishment or anything like that. None of that helps us at this point. And by the way, I watched something on Netflix yesterday I’d like to mention, for anyone who doesn’t know it yet and might be interested. It was an interview with Michelle Obama, and I found it really fascinating, about her book — I can’t quite remember the title, something with “the light within you,” so to speak. And it’s really fascinating because it addresses various stages of life. And one of the key aspects discussed is, what’s expected of us from outside, so to speak? And you can’t possibly fulfill all expectations. There will always be people who expect different things from you. We’ve touched on this before in the context of feedback and so on — if you get feedback from five people, one says you spoke too fast, another says that was exactly right, and so on. So these are constructs of reality and expectations that keep getting bundled together on different levels by different people, each from their own individual perspective. And that’s why it’s all the more important to stay true to your own line, and above all recognize and discover, what’s my own thread? Who am I, and who do I want to be? And that this is a lifelong process ultimately — and she described that beautifully, I think — that it’s not this “yes, in a year I’ll have achieved it,” but, and this was already mentioned this morning, that change is constant. That means we change over our entire lives, and there’s no endpoint or anything like that, but basically it’s like a kind of journey, you could say, in a figurative sense — I start somewhere, and along the way I gain various insights, and the better I am with myself, because I allow myself to get to know myself, to love myself, and discover this light within me, then I also have the opportunity to carry that outward. So it’s really worth watching from this perspective, especially against the background of the conversations we’ve had here on this topic, in the context of gaining insight, to look at it through this lens, so to speak. I think you can rediscover a lot in that interview. Layla, you wanted to add something.

Yes, I found that really, really important points, because I’ve noticed for myself, I think, whether you’re in HR or in negotiation — Jack Nasher once said, you’re actually always negotiating, whether you’re talking to your partner about whether they should take out the trash, which country to go on vacation to, or whether you have to make decisions on an administrative level. You always have to not only distinguish between your own needs and the needs of others, but also weigh them against each other. I was just thinking, I’m always in this bigger construct, and thought, well, we live in the age of individualization. Now, they don’t want me raising little egotists, because I’m a teacher, so I’m always a bit in that mindset. And then I thought, no, but it is important to tell children — and I think this is something that’s brought up here in the room again and again, and I think it’s also one form of criticism, this “why do they even need this” direction. And I keep quoting this young woman who said she can now translate poem interpretation into four different languages but can’t fill out a bank transfer form, and I thought, well, education is something you have to actively seek out, not something that’s just handed to you. And you can learn that differently too. But this “why,” “why do I need this,” is really important. That’s why I have this point — I think school is often misunderstood. And even if I don’t want to raise someone to be an egotist, because being individualistic doesn’t yet make you an egotist, I should tell them what it’s for. And I just thought of myself — I talked to a student last week who wants to play in the Bundesliga. And I said, well, to be allowed to play, you need a certain grade average, otherwise they won’t let you play. I know that because I know someone — I know both a coach and someone who almost played in the Bundesliga once — and I said, you know, if you get injured, it can be over from one minute to the next, which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, but it’s simply important that you have a foundation. And this “why do you need this” gave him, I think, an incentive. And I found what you said about extrinsic and intrinsic really important too, thank you, Yasemin, because that’s something we learn, and we automatically evaluate it. And I think that’s a point I want to bring up at the end. I think this evaluation — because what I find so lovely in your room, and keep learning, is actually this perspective shift, and we very, very quickly go into evaluating the other person, even linguistically. And I think, telling someone, you’ll never learn this that way, or telling someone, well, that’s the most normal thing in the world, even a small child can do that — that gets you nowhere. But if you think about why do they need it, what could be an incentive for them, and then don’t go into evaluation. An extrinsic incentive isn’t worse than an intrinsic one, because you just nicely disproved that, which I also believe — I think motivation is simply motivation. But we go into evaluation, and that’s why I find this a really important point. Thanks for that.

Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. By the way, I used the time just now to look up in the background so I can tell you the name on Netflix — it’s “The Light We Carry.” Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey in an interview, so to speak. Really fascinating, so anyone using Netflix has the chance to really go in and enjoy it, to rediscover certain parallels here too. So it’s pretty fascinating, I can really only recommend it. It’s worth looking at it again through this particular lens. I think there’s a lot to rediscover here of what we talk about in the mornings. That’s one thing. The other thing I’d like to pick up on, because Sabine mentioned “Building Bridges” with the podcast, which I find funny too — and actually I wouldn’t have thought of it otherwise, but it’s nice, because it’s a keyword that reminded me that I thought yesterday, actually I can go into communication about this today. I’d promised you that we’d record the dailies, so to speak, and then transcribe them and so on. Some of you may have already discovered it. The reason it hasn’t been communicated yet is that it also takes a while before it actually appears on the various channels through the podcast. So that’s a bit of a time-delayed process too. On YouTube it’s already there. That means if you look on YouTube, on my YouTube channel yaseminyazan.com, basically, so through this, through my name and not through Deep Talk, then you’ll already find it there. That means the first episodes are now up in transcribed form, along with the recording itself, on one hand. That means starting now, one episode will appear there every day. So you’ll have the option, of course a bit delayed in time, to tune in if you couldn’t join, or maybe something went by too fast, or there’s an episode you want to listen to again to pull out certain information or something. You have that option starting now. That’s one thing. And in parallel, it will also be broadcast on the podcast, the Deep Talk Club podcast, and it’s currently already running on the most important, or best-known, channels, let’s say the ones people typically use. More channels are coming over time, it’s controlled automatically technically in the background, increasingly, whether that’s Spotify, Amazon, or Apple or similar — you’ll find it there too. It’s called Deep Talk Club Daily. It’s listed under that, classified a bit differently. We have the authors’ breakfasts, we have the expert talks, and now we also have the dailies, and at some point there’ll be another category with the digital campfire too. Right, and I’d like to use this opportunity, through this bridge that’s now been built, so to speak, to remember to communicate that to you all too. And, take the opportunity, feel free to tune in. And above all, we talked about the books on our shelf — I often have this feeling, after a while, when I look at it again, that it’s a new edition. That means, because we change, because we’re in a constant process of change and development, when we look at things after a certain amount of time, pick up a book again or something, we suddenly discover completely new things — not because someone recorded something new, or anything like that, it’s still the same show, still the same book, the same edition. But because we’ve had different experiences along the way, developed further, we discover new things here that we might previously have claimed weren’t in that show or that book at all. So that’s a really, really fascinating aspect too. Marc, Layla, Sabine, would you like to make a connection at any point, pick something up again, did anything come to mind for you?

Yes, Marc, gladly. I’d like to go back to what Sabine said yesterday. We’ve established that we all have our own methods for keeping track of things. For me it was GTD, Getting Things Done — I try to enter into my phone in the evening what I did today that moved me forward a bit. And I have this gratitude aspect too, where I enter some moment every day that made me happy. Yesterday it was the books arriving. And then Sabine said she sometimes finds, in the evening, that she really has to think about what to enter. And I wanted to respond to that. I say, dear Sabine, it’s exactly the same for me. Sometimes I just forget. The daily routine grabs hold of you so much that I find in my phone, you haven’t entered anything at all for Monday and Tuesday. And then I discover, with horror, that I can’t even answer that question retroactively anymore, because my thoughts simply weren’t focused on it. And I really try to think about it briefly every evening, at least, about what put a smile on my face. And sometimes that takes a moment too, because this focus — what Patrick, the biologist, told us — there must have been something today you were happy about. And I don’t mean contracts, new clients, but simply the arrival of a package. A call from someone I hadn’t spoken to in a long time. A smile from a passerby on the street. Really, really small things. And what I always notice is, if I don’t specifically focus on directing my attention back to these things, I can’t manage it retroactively. So if I don’t enter it into my phone, and someone asked me now what made you smile on Monday, on Tuesday, or on Wednesday, I couldn’t answer that. I’d have to think really, really hard. And that’s why

this technique, which we all apply in different ways, is really great, because at the end of the week you can really scroll back a bit with your finger, either in your journal or on your phone, and say, wow, that was actually a great week. I’d already completely forgotten what great moments there were, both in terms of this feeling of gratitude and in terms of great moments where we did something that moved us forward too. And yes, there are also days where I haven’t entered anything, and that reminds me too — now you still have to do something today. So that puts a bit of pressure on me, or motivates me to do something. You still have to do something today that you can enter tonight, that moved you forward a bit. You don’t have anything yet. And then something comes to mind that I could do, so I can end the evening satisfied. Satisfied in the sense of, yes, you’ve made progress on one point or another again.

Yes, thank you so much. And I believe there was another comment. I was just in the chat, so I didn’t see it. Yes, Sabine, and then Layla, please. And Sabine, you’d also announced yesterday that you had a question here. Maybe you’d like to make it more concrete and bring it up again, and then we can address it too.

Now I dropped my phone. Yes, gladly. First of all, I found what Marc said really great, because it’s exactly the same for me, and I sometimes think, maybe it’s because I’m getting older, that I sit there in the evening and think, hey, the day was so busy, you were so wired the whole day, and now you’re sitting there and can’t think of your points. So I find Marc’s approach great, but by now, since I do this so regularly too, this mental agility is better, I really have to say.

We can’t hear you right now, Sabine, or at least I can’t.

Now again. No, my daughter just called. I declined it though, she’s standing at the corner. I find this routine really great. It does something to my head, I think, that I sit there briefly in the evening and say, let me quickly look back. What was great? And I write things down too. They don’t always carry the same weight. So sometimes you have things where you say, wow, you’re excited, that was great. And sometimes there was nothing. Only three things come to mind. And what I also do now is sit down again on the weekend and go through my whole week and summarize the week again. And I have to say, that lets me experience things twice, or what you said earlier, Yasemin, that it just comes back up for you, and you notice too, for the first time, how much you actually do in a day, and it goes in and out and you don’t really register it. I find that great. On the point from yesterday — yes, that’s a coach thing again too, we were told, make three points on gratitude and three points on success. I find that really difficult, because six points is already quite a lot. Marc often says he makes one point. But for me it’s a bit hard to properly separate the topic of gratitude and success. I don’t even know if you have to separate them. What I’ve ended up doing is writing down three points. And sometimes that leans more toward gratitude and sometimes more toward success. Because often, for me, success is connected with gratitude too. You could clarify that for me sometime. And I’m in the car now, because I’m picking up my daughter, but I’m staying with you all.

Great, wonderful, thank you. Yes, thank you so much, and we can look at that in a moment. Maybe the others who use this too have thoughts or comments on it as well. And what’s important in this context is that we consciously make this shift in focus. It has several effects. On one hand, our brain is wired so that we place much more weight on things that went negatively. There are again these aspects of survival security running in the background there. That means everything that seems threatening is where our focus lies too, because we constantly have to make the decision, do we need to act now, yes or no, and so on. And accordingly, the things that happen positively throughout the day, our focus isn’t on that at all. Those quickly fade from memory, so to speak, and that’s all the more why it’s important — and this is a tool we can use for that — this success journal, or whatever we want to call it, that we quite consciously and deliberately write down these various points, to direct our focus onto them and actually acknowledge them, so to speak. And you described it so nicely just now — it also has the effect that on one hand we relive it a second time, for example when we flip back or look at the whole week, or look back on past days with a bit of distance, and also in relation to the next day, that the focus shifts again here too, that we automatically get into a kind of search mode, let’s call it that, in the sense that we already know we’ll be noting down a few keywords again in the evening. We don’t do that so consciously. But it runs in the background, that basically, the more often we do it, routinely so to speak, we already realize during the day, unconsciously or subconsciously, that this or that could maybe be picked up on this evening, and through that this shift in focus already happens again too. And then I’d like to give Layla the chance, since you’d already raised your hand earlier, and then bring in Susanne. And you’re welcome to connect back to Sabine’s question too, if you’d like. And then I’d love to add my own perspective on it too. Layla.

Yes, so I was just thinking, this thing about becoming conscious of it, I find that a really, really important point. Sabine, I don’t even know if you have to distinguish it, whether you should, or whether you should go into evaluation there. It probably comes from the fact that people say, okay, then I have a focus, you divide things up. And I once kept a gratitude journal too. I called it a success journal, and I wrote in it that I’d done my laundry. I think I told you yesterday that I’d ironed shirts. I think what counts as a success is different for everyone. And that’s exactly the point where I’ve noticed, this is my approach, and it’s an individual solution. I’ve now hung up a chalkboard — from my time in the restaurant industry — where I write things down, and I’ve heard often that people said to me, do you have a board, do you write things down? And now I have a chalk pen, and I have a lovely sign from my old workplace that I got as a gift, and I write on it. I’ve had this for a really, really long time. And it’s really lovely. And I really enjoy it. And I think that’s what it’s about, a bit. And I’ve been smiling the whole time, because I thought, oh god, as a child I kept a diary. And then I learned you shouldn’t write down negative things, that’s not good, that leads to re-traumatization. And then I thought, well, but it’s not just negative things. You summarize, Sabine, the way you do it too. And I think those are important points. And Yasemin, I wanted to thank you sincerely, because I can summarize now too, because you’ve put it on YouTube. Because I’m sometimes there for the Daily Talk. And that means I can listen to all of us again, I can look at my own change process, look at where the readiness for change was, summarize, and look at it on different levels — the linguistic level, the intellectual level — and that’s really lovely, and who would have thought that… So thank you so much for that, I really mean that seriously, because I didn’t think I’d be findable on Spotify or YouTube so quickly, so wow.

Wonderful, that makes me happy. Yes, and on the aspect of writing down negative things — with this success journal, it’s really about positive aspects, though there might be some who also keep a diary that way too. So to distinguish again, in one you really specifically set yourself certain tasks and certain keywords. It’s not about elaborately formulating something here either, but noting it down in bullet points. That has a really different effect than a classic diary we might have written in the past, or still write. And here I’d like to address this negative aspect of the classic diary too, and maybe go into neutral language here again too. Not in the sense of evaluating negative, positive or something, but a classic diary also has the effect that I reflect on certain things by writing them down. And this writing down doesn’t trigger a traumatic reaction or anything, in the sense of “I’m reliving this,” but quite the opposite. I’m sorting my thoughts, sorting what I’ve experienced, and so on. And so it has an incredibly healing effect, whether I do it in writing, or — we’ve talked about this in various contexts before too — verbally as well. So theoretically I could also stand in front of a mirror and tell myself about it again, to process it, but we’ve learned it’s strange when we talk to ourselves, so we tend to do it in dialogue instead of doing it alone. But in principle it has the same effect. A lot of conversations that we rate positively aren’t actually the conversations where the other person talked a lot, but simply where they listened. And because I hear myself talking, so to speak, I reflect on and process certain things in a completely different way than if they just existed in my mind, so to speak. And it’s similar with this writing process too. That means, the moment I keep a diary, quite generally, and certain everyday things — and that doesn’t necessarily have to be every day, but whenever there are various experiences that seem important enough for me to write down — and that can be positive or negative — then I go into a certain automatic reflection and organizing process, so to speak. And that helps me process it. And we know this with dreams too, and so on, which we might have over the course of the day — our brain doesn’t distinguish there either between what was positive or negative. We have completely different dreams at night. And processing probably happens on that level too. Susanne, I’m so glad to welcome you. A wonderful good morning.

Yes, a wonderful good morning. I just followed my impulse, I’m here again and I’m really glad to hear you all. We don’t see each other, just the pictures. I wanted to respond to what Layla said, about what’s taught to children in school and what’s actually needed. What do our children need, what do we need? My kids that I still have at home, two of the four, are 14 and 10. There’s an incredible amount happening right now with the younger generation. That was really, really interesting. Yesterday I picked up the book “Atlas der Entscheider” [Atlas of Decision-Makers]. I can only thank everyone that this book exists. I’m devouring it right now, and I told my boys, for example, that if our children, or if we want to change something, if we’ve recognized, hey, something’s not right here, what can we do? And I told my boys about this teenage boy who was very, very active and achieved so much already with his idea. My boys are sitting here right now building things out of Lego, Lego Technic and so on, and I said, you’re such creative minds, maybe you have an idea here too? And maybe you can also contribute something right now? Because they’re always in this mindset of, what does this actually get us? So this question, what do we learn in school, what can we use from it, what’s really important — that comes up more often, of course. And especially in these days, I have to say honestly, I’ve gotten incredibly great impulses from outside, which I can use for my boys, for their upbringing, but also for myself. I’ve recognized something for myself too, and I’m at the point where I say, I’ve let quite a lot slide. What Marc said, that he writes it down daily — years ago I always did that daily with my family, at dinner, where we told each other two things that made us feel good. We didn’t call it happiness or joy, just, what made us feel good. For a while we wrote it down too, put one thing each into a jar, and looked at the end of the year at everything that was great that year, what made us feel good, just to see, that wasn’t such a crappy year after all. And being here in this room right now gives me the huge insight of, hey, wait a minute, where’s that jar? Why don’t we do that anymore? Why aren’t we still focusing on what did us so much good, and holding onto it, maybe even refining it? And that’s something where I don’t always say, we have to change everything, but why can’t we just keep it up too? And for that I want to thank you all, that I’m now steering toward this change process, that I’m pulling out again what did all of us a lot of good. And I want to thank everyone again — I saw there are others here who helped create this book too. And I thank you all for this “Atlas der Entscheider,” because I personally already got so, so much out of it just from reading the first pages, and I’ll be able to implement quite a bit of it very positively for myself. Thank you so much.

Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And I mentioned this briefly before, I’ll gladly mention it again — not tomorrow, but next Sunday, we’ll talk about this book. There will be authors there, the editors, and so on. So anyone interested in joining, feel free to note it down or save it and tune in. So we’ll be talking about this book too, and I’m really looking forward to that. And you brought up a few points I’d like to pick up on too. First, to really, really explicitly underline again what was said earlier, this being gentle with yourself. We often recognize, looking back, that we’ve let slide something that did us good. And not because you just said this, Susanne, but because I think it’s important to underline this again in this context too — that we don’t have to go into evaluation here either, in the sense of, hey, that did you good, so why aren’t you doing it anymore, or something, and searching for answers to that, but instead going into gentleness with yourself again, and saying, hey, for some reason that’s somehow disappeared from my everyday life. And I find it wonderful that there’s now an occasion where I was reminded of it again, so to speak, and because it did me good, I’m picking it back up now, without going into evaluation in either direction, positive or negative, but simply picking it back up and letting it come alive again. And I can say from personal experience, I’ve had this repeatedly too, with the success journal — there are times when it does me a lot of good and I enjoy doing it, and then there are times when I push it aside and it’s just gone. It’s not on my radar then either. And that’s totally fine too. And when there are times when I feel like it helps me now, or I need it now, so to speak, I pick it back up. And that’s just one example. There are so many things in our lives where this can apply too, where we can say, there are different phases we’re in. And whenever certain things do us good, we’re allowed to pick them up. And if it’s apparently not needed right now for whatever reason, we’re allowed to just let it fade from memory too. So both have their place here, so to speak, and being gentle with that, being gentle with yourself too. And regarding Sabine’s question again, gladly — gratitude and success. Yes, that has a lot to do with how I define success for myself, of course. And there are a lot of people who define success as achieving certain concrete goals or something. Then it’s probably easier to differentiate between gratitude and success, with three points each. So success could be something like, I set out to do something today and I achieved it. But if I define success differently for myself, in a way where it blends together a bit, that’s totally fine too. That has to do with my personal definition of success. I could say, for example, I’m grateful that my family is doing well, and I could classify that as success, as a success experience. Then I have a different definition of success than someone who connects success with, for example, having put certain to-dos on my list, to take an extreme example, and having ticked off certain points on my to-do list. For that person, success is something different. And then it’s easier for me to differentiate between these three points each. If I have more of an understanding of success that’s a bit more holistic, more open, that it’s not just about achieving goals or something, but that I record something like, I’m grateful my family is doing well, as a success too, then of course I have difficulty differentiating here or drawing a clear line. And that’s not a problem either, and it’s not about whether it’s three points. I’ve kept a success journal before and said, at least three points. And then I just collected them. And on some days that was five points, on others ten points. And sometimes there were only two points. So here too, we’re allowed to handle this very gently. And just in a way that ultimately does us good, so to speak. I think that’s another really important aspect. And since we’re now looking at the time, shortly after nine, I’d like to invite you to join me in today’s closing round.

Then I’ll do the announcement for tomorrow morning’s authors’ breakfast, and with that we’ll wrap up today’s room together. Marc, Layla, Sabine, if Sabine can speak, and then Susanne, gladly. Marc.

One point, one word I’ll add — what I enter into my phone doesn’t necessarily have to do with success, I also call it energy points, and energy points can also just be things we were happy about. With that, I wish you all a great start to the weekend, and lots and lots of fun with whatever you do.

Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Layla?

Yes, well, I’m very grateful that I love quotes and that I’m an ethics teacher, which has to do with success. Because that’s why I know that Jesus said — that’s how I feel too — become like the children, and I just googled it, and there’s a quote, unfortunately I can’t attribute it, but it says, all children have the fairy-tale power to transform into anything they wish for. And I think that’s a point that’s really, really important — that when we change and generate insight, that, well, I feel right now that this childlike enthusiasm I have, and childlike isn’t childish, and that maybe we have to look at what we can transform into, and that it’s not necessarily just fairy-tale-like, but, yes, a process and a journey, the way you described it. Thanks for listening.

Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Sabine, can you speak right now? We’ll see — if the mic doesn’t turn on, we’ll know, and go over to Susanne. Yes, then Susanne, gladly.

Yes, I joined very late, and I can just say, I’m very grateful for this room today, that I got to be part of it. I don’t want to say more. Thank you.

Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Then let me pick up a contribution from Alexander in the chat before I do tomorrow’s announcement. He wrote here, to accompany the joint book with Marc, I’ve launched a Decision-Makers Challenge. I’ve called for change, to move every day, adjust your diet and so on. I’m running 500 kilometers in 79 days, once from Cologne to Frankfurt and back — and then a winking smiley after that.

Yes, thank you so much to you too, dear Alexander, for sharing. As I said, we’ll come back to talk about this book. I’m really looking forward to it too. And first, tomorrow, we’re expecting Dr. Jürgen Sammet. I’m really looking forward to that too — from trainer to agile learning companion, how does teaching and learning work in digital times. And to what extent can we build the bridge here? Building the bridge, I’m really, really curious about that too. He doesn’t even know yet what questions will come, so to speak, and I don’t really work out the questions in that sense either. But of course it works in the back of my mind a bit, in terms of what direction that might go, in keywords so to speak, what aspects move me too. And we’ve now talked a lot, over many days and weeks by now, about insight and gaining insight as an overarching theme, and now we’ll build a bridge, so to speak, through this book into next week, where it goes from general insight more strongly into this aspect of self-knowledge. And now there’s not just ourselves, but also many changes happening on the outside, and especially digitalization is such a topic, AI is such a topic and so on. And all these technologies, the framework conditions, these are also political topics that bring about change, and we can address climate topics with this too. So everything that currently occupies us and comes to mind leads to certain things changing here too. And these changes require, so to speak, that we handle certain aspects or partial aspects differently too. And you can hear that a bit already in this title, from trainer to agile learning companion. That means there’s a shift in roles here too, and as humans we’re always moving in different roles, depending on whether it’s professional right now, or private, who we’re currently in exchange with, whether that’s with parents, or with our own children. We always have different roles, and here I’d like to build the bridge toward next week too, in the sense of, yes, self-knowledge and gaining self-knowledge, to look not only at how the role changes here from trainer to agile learning companion, what’s concretely behind that, and what that means in relation to ourselves too — how do roles change through this outside influence, in how we handle ourselves too, and are there shifts here too, I find that a fascinating question I’d like to look at. So you’re all very, very warmly invited to join tomorrow morning at 8am under the umbrella of Bestselling Authors, and dive into these depths with us, and in exchange, together gain new insights again accordingly. Thank you so much for the wonderful contributions today, from so many different perspectives, directions, and questions that were brought up. I think that’s helped enormously, to keep picking up these connections into the different rooms, aspects too, to build bridges again, and then continue with the next points. And with that, I’m looking forward to opening these doors together with you again tomorrow morning at 8am. Until then, take care.