Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: How can we use reflection to recognize and correct our own weaknesses? Marc, Vera and Jürgen join Dr. Yasemin Yazan to explore why the word “weakness” itself can be the obstacle, the expert-overconfidence bias, and why self-criticism might actually require self-confidence first…
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
A very good morning to you all, today on the topic of reflection and self-criticism. We’d like to look together at how we can use reflection to draw out one thing or another to identify weaknesses and work on them accordingly. Let me check how we phrased it in the sub-headline — how can we use reflection to recognize and correct our own weaknesses, that’s the question we’re engaging with today. I already said yesterday that we can also consider strengthening strengths here too, so we can gladly open up that side too. First, though, let’s start with the aspect of self-criticism. So you’re all very warmly invited to join in this morning too, and bring in various perspectives, impulses, thoughts you have on this. Just raise your hand and join in. Another note, we’re recording the room the entire time today too, so you automatically agree that the whole thing gets published afterward. We have three small room rules: a profile picture you can be clearly recognized by, last name, and at least one sentence in your bio. Anyone who doesn’t agree with that, or doesn’t like it, or doesn’t want to, can gladly use the chat, so we can check in on that in between too. And a quick note here — we’re currently near a shopping center, so there are noises around me outside too. I’ll try to keep it as quiet and still as possible. If it gets too hot in the car, I’ll occasionally open the window and such. So please don’t let that distract you — those are just the circumstances, so to speak, of the drive home from Turkey to Germany right now. So, with that, I’ll gladly mute myself and see who’d like to join this morning.
A very good morning, dear Marc. What do you say about the topic? Good morning, everyone. First let me say about the topic, dear Yasemin, that I’ve never thought about a topic mentally for as long as today’s topic. And I really didn’t know if I could contribute anything to it. And I’ll tell you why too. I noticed, in my own reflection, that the word “weakness” bothers me — it bothers me, because I really tried all day yesterday to think of an example to bring in, of how I do this. And I can’t find one, because I just don’t think that way. When I founded my company, or generally, when it comes to recognizing weaknesses in myself and ignoring them, everything in me resists, the hair on my neck stands up, and I have more the principle of the bumblebee. A bumblebee is far too heavy, it has a weakness too, and it flies. And so for me, all day yesterday, I kept wondering, who even defines what your weakness is, Marc? Who says that? And why should I correct it? For me, that partly makes no sense, engaging with that. But that comes from the fact that I’ve met a lot of perfectionists who tried to correct weaknesses, and who kept treading water in the process. And I’ve had the experience that when I accept weaknesses — of course I have weaknesses too — but for me it’s always been, strengthen your strengths, and weaknesses are just there. Weaknesses, but I’ve accepted them, and I can laugh about them, and I’ve actually never really engaged with how I reflect on them to get rid of them, but rather I’ve thought, is that holding you back? So where does a weakness actually stop me? But in order to even approach the topic at all, since the topic is, after all, reflecting on weaknesses, I can only say that, of course, in various situations, I also get into situations where I think more solution-oriented, or think about how a situation came about — that could be a good or a bad one — and I think about the decision, how this situation came about, what my behavior was like, and then it ultimately is, after all, a matter of thinking about a weakness again, if you call it that, or a cause — if I replace the word weakness with cause, that this cause led to this and that result — then I first think about how I feel about the situation. Do I want to get into a situation like that again? Could I improve it? And then I’m back at what Jürgen mentioned so often yesterday, perspectives — I try to capture different perspectives, right after the situation, and look at what led to this current state, and how you can avoid it afterward. But the thought of sitting down and reflecting, like how I reflect on how I can move my company forward, how I can achieve different results — I think about that. But I’ve never consciously sat down and thought, now I’m searching for my weakness and considering how to get rid of it, because I haven’t recognized the added value in that for myself. I hope you understand that. I’ll stop there for now.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And yes, I find that aspect quite exciting. I could imagine that there probably aren’t many people who sit down and say, now I’m going to specifically search for a weakness. What’s interesting in this context, though, is this association that came up for you, this aspect of weaknesses — just the term alone already does something to a lot of people, it feels somehow uncomfortable. And the question is, do I not even want to engage with weaknesses at all, deal with them, or could I grasp something else here instead? And that was an exciting phenomenon I came across in the interviews for my dissertation. It was about an expert survey. And interestingly, especially when it came to the question about concrete failures in their lives, many of them initially couldn’t think of anything at all. And the analysis of the data also showed that it wasn’t along the lines of “I don’t want to talk about that” or such, but they simply needed a while to even find something at all, because they were, in a sense, already so good at their ability to reframe, that what had maybe previously turned out to be something flawed, or such, for them, had been reframed. They’d reflected on it, drawn their lessons learned from it, and then made the reframing, and through the reframing, because they’d learned something from it too, they no longer categorized it, so to speak, as a failure or such at all. And I could imagine that it’s similar here in this context too, or runs similarly, that the moment someone is already practiced at using reflection well and regularly, weaknesses might no longer be so easy for us to find afterward either. That was the case with the experts anyway. They found examples, but sometimes it really took minutes for them to think about it first, to even bring something out of their treasure chest, so to speak. That means, with longer consideration you eventually get there, but it’s really hard, so to speak. So that was the result of that. If this reflection, and the training behind it, so to speak, is already relatively perfected. And I could now imagine that it runs similarly with this aspect of self-criticism, or recognizing weaknesses yourself — that once they’ve been recognized in some form, in some context, and then picked up and worked on, that it’s simply no longer stored as a weakness or such, but that it’s then processed accordingly. And even in this search mode, if I were to ask, what were some weaknesses of yours that you addressed and somehow changed, it can definitely take a while again before you actually feel like you’ve found a good example for that too. Marc, before I bring in the others, Vera and Jürgen, would you like to follow up briefly here?
That helps me a lot, dear Yasemin. As I said, I had thoughts — it occurred to me that the group might think I just don’t dare to say it. But you know I speak relatively often, openly, even about parts of my life where things haven’t gone so well. But I really needed until this morning to find an example of how I handle my weaknesses. And it just occurred to me — then I’m really done — if I didn’t have my company yet and were talking with you all and said, I have a really great idea, I need your advice, I want to found a company. Then together we’d find so many weaknesses in me that, thoroughly ashamed, I’d tell my partner tonight, we came to the conclusion together with the group that it’s better if I don’t do anything. I can’t do bookkeeping, there are far too many promotional products already, and my English definitely isn’t good enough to do anything with China. So if I start searching for weaknesses, then by tonight I’d actually have no idea how I could earn my money. But I definitely wouldn’t found a company.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Yes, let’s gladly bring in Vera and Jürgen in that order too. Vera, what are your thoughts on the topic?
Good morning, everyone. And, unlike Marc, sorry, I actually already like the word, because I’ve also used it for myself, or use it for myself. I wanted to contribute a very small example, namely, ahead of my move here, to a place where I didn’t know anyone, I knew that if I wanted to live here, I’d have to get to know people, and I’m very open toward people, I approach people, but then there’s a point where I shut the gates and take the second, third step to actually build an acquaintance, and I knew, Vera, that’s your weakness, and if you don’t work against that, it’s not going to happen. And quite consciously, with these thoughts, I remember the situation after the new-residents reception, and I thought, Vera, you have to say now, come on, let’s exchange phone numbers, shall we meet up sometime? And that was a process that probably took almost an hour before I got that sentence out. But I knew, I knew it’s my weakness. I’ve been working on it ever since I’ve lived here, and I have to say the weakness has already become very, very small, but through active engagement. Just wanted to say that.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And it’s wonderful too that we definitely have different perspectives and experiences here. And with that I’d like to bring in Jürgen too, and then we can gladly make cross-connections again. Good morning, dear Jürgen, to you too.
A very good morning, dear Yasemin, with hope for a good drive back. Good morning, dear Vera and Marc and everyone else in the room. Yes, the false start of the opening, with the reference to experts, that just triggered me, in the direction of unconscious bias again. I recently read about various experiments and tests at American universities that dealt with this so-called expert illusion, and they clearly identified it as one of the most serious unconscious biases. Namely, the illusion that experts in particular tend toward this illusion of overestimating their own abilities. On one hand due to their deep knowledge of a matter, and also in relation to, or in reaction to, the feedback given to them. And if it’s just the labeling — you all know this from the media, especially in recent years, who suddenly became an expert at everything. That’s not meant to be disparaging. But it was definitely a fact — we had a huge number of experts for most of the topics that gave us trouble, that gave us significant trouble. Nice, okay. Only now it’s been definitively established that these experts are subject to a very strong unconscious bias, which I’ll call — though it’s not entirely accurate — self-overestimation. And this unconscious bias — that’s why the term isn’t quite right. If I recall correctly, it’s not the actual self-overestimation that’s the cause of the unconscious bias, but, watch out, here it comes, the way one thinks about, reflects on, oneself. That’s the cause that leads to this illusion. And why am I saying this again? We are experts too, namely in the self-talk with ourselves. Because we are the ones who, or we are the one, who knows us best. And I mean, or I think, regarding my own person — I don’t presume to judge others — that being aware, and I’m glad to know, that this unconscious bias exists, keeps forcing me, in self-reflection about my strengths and weaknesses, to acknowledge that this existence, this danger of this unconscious bias, that I might misjudge myself as an expert against myself and build up an illusion, that being aware of this is very useful, and basically really an essential prerequisite for me to arrive at an objective result, namely regarding my strengths, and, dear Marc, my weaknesses too. Thank you for listening.
Thank you so much. What would be interesting in this context now is whether there was a control group where non-experts were also, so to speak, questioned, if it was interview-style, or also studied, where data was collected, whether that’s actually different with others. That might be quite interesting to know at this point, dear Jürgen.
Yes, great question, had to come from a scientist. Yes, indeed, there were various comparison groups. There was also a relatively — and I found this quite interesting — a very objective, in my view, approach, where from the outset certain checklists, question catalogs, you know these too, where you’re often run through them, which of course are already subject to a certain conscious bias from the outset, meant to lead toward a certain goal, that you set up, I’d really say, fact-based cascades of questions with the background of predicting certain events. If you will, actually in the direction of — how would an artificial intelligence solve this problem based on which key questions, one that’s never dealt with it concretely or as its life’s work, versus us experts. And they arrived at the result — what stuck with me — that in most cases the results of these logically structured question lists made a better assessment of the future than these expert estimates. That’s what stuck with me. But I’d have to look into the details again and could also provide the sources.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Highly exciting. If you find that, if you have it, gladly share it with me too, I’d like to read into that too. I find that topic mega exciting. Thanks so much for that. Yes, Marc, Vera, let’s see — where would you like to follow up, Marc?
Gladly. Split it with me, dear Jürgen, I have a grin on my face right now, because I’m remembering a lot of articles on LinkedIn about defaming people. I’m talking about politics now. And if I sum that up correctly, if it doesn’t actually depend on being an expert, but if we also need to look at how we make our decisions and then can also make good decisions, then that opens up completely new discussions in politics too. Thanks, Jürgen, for that assist.
Wonderful, thank you so much. Vera, would you like to follow up too?
Yes, namely regarding the difference between experts and skilled practitioners who engage more deeply with a subject — their way of thinking is probably significantly more critical and precise in approaching it, compared to someone like me, for example, who wouldn’t go that deep and probably interprets this question catalog differently too, maybe interprets the individual questions differently, or answers differently. So I find this a mega exciting thing, because with reflection, even with self-reflection, I’ve noticed that remarks from others that were made at some point, or judgments, or whatever, somehow flow into your own reflection too.
Yes, absolutely, thank you so much. And then we also have another aspect, which would actually be really interesting and exciting in the study too — there are different fields, there might be fields where, so to speak, reflection is part of the work itself. Let’s take a coach as an example — there it would really be a poor testament if that didn’t work well in this context, regarding self-overestimation and so on. Whereas maybe other people, other experts from other fields — the question arises to what extent a corresponding capacity for reflection is actually assumed from outside there, which might, due to the profession, not actually be given that strongly. So that’s another really, really exciting topic too. Yes, Marc, go ahead. You can follow up again, and then I’d like to look at coming back a bit, away from the experts, back to the actual topic. Marc, go ahead.
Thanks. Sorry that I raised my hand so often, dear Yasemin. Something just spontaneously occurred to me, and I’d like to share it with you — Elon Musk, whom I don’t like. I can’t explain it anymore. I don’t like him, but I still read the biography, because not liking someone and respecting what they’ve done are two different pairs of shoes. And a story just occurred to me, about when he came back from Russia. He flew to Russia because he wanted to build a rocket and hoped he’d find experts there who’d help him build this rocket. And they couldn’t agree. And on the plane, he then said, well, that can’t be that hard. I’m not going to look for the weakness now, I’m just going to build the damn rocket. And that’s what got me started, in that context — I’m just going to build a rocket now. And that’s such a complete thing — so many people have tried to build a rocket, to fly to the moon with it, or to fly at all. And that’s what I meant at the beginning, that when energy is fixed on the solution and not just on the weaknesses, that can propel us tremendously. And, dear Vera, I just wanted to respond to what you did — that’s basically also a weakness. It also doesn’t really matter what exact terms we find here. Basically, we take various actions, and there are various events, and when we notice that we’re not comfortable with a certain current state and would like a different state, then each of us considers what we can do to get there, or what we’ve done so far to be where we are. And ultimately, whether we call that a weakness or just the wish for a different solution, it doesn’t matter, as long as it helps us get to where we all want to go, namely being satisfied, being happy, and doing well.
Yes, thank you so much. And so I think it makes sense, at this point, to first look at what could actually be considered weaknesses at all. Because I think that’s very different, so to speak, shaped or informed by each of us differently too. And that alone can already help, at this point, to first neutralize the term weaknesses emotionally, to some extent, because it possibly covers much more than we’d think of at first impulse. And then we can gladly look at what that concretely means, being able to recognize that, or not, through reflection. Jürgen, go ahead.
Yes, wonderful, great transition. That was exactly my point. Paying attention to terminology again, dear all. Weakness, knowledge weakness. It doesn’t necessarily have to be my weakness. Because with this self-view inward, of course it is a weakness in a certain context. Let me make the distinction here between myself as a person and as a personality. The weakness can — and now I’m back at my favorite topic, unconscious bias — the weakness can simply be that I don’t have the necessary information, and possibly also not the right environment at the moment, to even carry out a self-critical reflection at all, and to recognize my weaknesses defined in a different form, namely grounded in my personality. So I actually have to, in my view, do a check before this reflection — and I’m not talking nonsense here — do a check and say, what status of information about yourself are you actually in right now? And for me that also includes this topic we had recently — am I going into a reflection based on a very emotional status right now, or am I really in a state to think about myself formally and logically? So under certain circumstances I’d notice that I’d say, dear Jürgen, step back, hold on, you’re over the edge, and what you’re reflecting on right now is solely triggering your associative memory, and possibly leading you in the wrong direction. So the weakness of — let me say it again — the necessary information basis, both about myself and also about the initial spark that leads me to reflection, why I’m going into a reflection now — there always has to be an initial spark, a trigger, a stimulus for that, we’ve established that too — do I have the necessary and objective view of things? That would be, for me, another essential point of weakness, defined from a different perspective. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Marc, would you like to follow up here too?
Dear Jürgen, thank you. That might have been the reason why this topic is so hard for me. No room has been as hard for me in mental preparation as this room. And you just said something really — I also asked myself, yesterday, the only question I ask myself every morning, am I happy? Not super happy, I don’t mean this super happiness, this extreme explosion, but what Patrick, our happy-ologist, said — am I happy when I get up in the morning? Am I glad when the sun shines? And am I glad when it rains? Am I glad when I go to the office sometimes? Am I glad when my partner calls? And then yesterday I realized that I really am happy, that there’s neither health-wise nor professionally any point right now that I’d need or want to change — if a fairy came and said, dear Marc, watch out, you have one wish, your life is instantly however you dream it to be, you just have to say it, then I’d say, dear fairy, my life should be exactly as it currently is. And that’s the reason that, in order to even think about reflection at all, this desire for change has to be there, or this awareness has to be called from the unconscious into the conscious — that actually doesn’t give me any fun at all. Or if I then notice, in the morning, why am I in a bad mood? Why do I say, I have to go to work, and I’m looking forward to going to work? And I always notice this in the words we use to talk to each other. And I always find it remarkable when people say, I have to work again tomorrow. So they come back from vacation and say, on Monday, I have to work again. And then I smile and say, that’s never happened to me, because I chose it myself. I’ve never said, I have to work again, but rather, I’m looking forward to what’s coming. And so maybe that’s where reflection begins too, with paying attention to how we talk to ourselves throughout the day at all.
Yes, thank you so much. And as you just described that, I just thought, yes, I inwardly thought, I have to go back to Germany now, on the drive here, when we set off. And indeed, we do have to, because we still have a few things to take care of and then can continue. But that’s also a nice point, with this “have to” and “get to,” and so on, to open up this differentiation again too. So also the phrasings we use, to reflect on something like that, for example, and thereby also gain insights, and then, ultimately, also go into action and bring about changes. That just occurred to me now, in this context, through my own reflection, which was happening in parallel too. Dear Marc, thanks for that.
Yes, Jürgen, Marc, let’s look briefly again. Let’s just assume, we take these two levels that Jürgen just opened up. On one hand it’s about the necessary information, so to what extent do I already have the necessary information available, and on the other hand, this, to some extent, on the meta-level, so to say, okay, moments in situations where I’m, for example, emotional, to look at it from the meta-perspective, to realize that, in order to then be able to act again afterward, through this ability, this capability, to get into self-efficacy here. In both cases I can get into self-efficacy, in that, in one context, I notice that I’m still missing information, for example, or that it’s complete, and then act and behave accordingly. In the other, it’s that I can then, in turn, influence my behavior, my own behavior, so to speak, and make decisions based on the result of the reflection, so to speak, here too. And so, if we just take these two levels now and open up the question again, how can we, through reflection, recognize and correct our own — we can put “own” in brackets — weaknesses, that we now look more closely at this “recognizing,” okay, we’ve maybe recognized it now, and then correcting — that we look more closely at this terminology. Marc, Jürgen, wanted to follow up here. Marc, go ahead.
What helped me a lot was really striking — I found it again by chance yesterday, from a Professor Neidelberg, who said that when we talk about perception at all, our brain gets 11 million bits per minute. That gets divided into smelling, seeing, and hearing. 11 million bits of information we get, dear Jürgen. And we process 40 bits. I can’t — that’s 0.0000004%. And then the professor said, the good thing is that we don’t notice most of our life, because we’re simply only capable of perceiving so much. And that led me to think that if I want to change anything at all, I have to learn to call this perception back from the unconscious into the conscious, to perceive more consciously. And that works immediately, that works constantly. It doesn’t just happen in the evenings, but it’s an exercise, a training. And you can do it with the smallest things. If someone makes me laugh, we don’t think about it. That’s unconscious. Yasemin told a joke and I laugh about it. And I can ask myself, what did I find funny about that? Just the same, I can ask myself, when I’ve talked with someone, what made me sad there? Or when I talk with someone who has a completely different political direction, what scares me there? Or why do I suddenly react dismissively? And that would be, for me, the first step, as training, to even be able to reflect at all — reflecting, I believe, is something you also have to learn. Because only once I’m aware that many actions are governed by my subconscious — and I read an article about that yesterday, though it’s too complex for me, maybe you can say more about it, dear Yasemin — that scientists are currently disputing, it’s not yet conclusively clarified, to what extent we’re even free in our actions at all, because there are different experiments on this. So there’s a part of the scientists who say no, it’s laid out by our subconscious and by our experiences in such a way that we can’t act freely at all. We think we’re acting freely, but the moment we act, the subconscious has already decided it long ago. The others say, that’s not true, of course we act freely too. And engaging with this unconscious bias, or generally our brain, and always paying attention to how we feel, not just with bad things but with good things too, that at least helps to bring an ever-larger part of the subconscious into the conscious. And then we have action strategies again too, and can consciously steer other directions.
Yes, thank you so much. Maybe another note here — I once published an article as a newsletter, I think it was a two-parter, on LinkedIn. You can gladly read up on that aspect of the bit range and so on there, need to specify and differentiate that a bit more too, for those interested. So the range that’s often addressed, in how we do knowledge transfer, how we do marketing and so on, is this 40-bit range. But basically the unconscious processing range is a much, much bigger one that we can address, many times bigger. And I published something about that too, called brain-friendly marketing, using the potential of eleven million — sorry, million, not billion — bits of unconscious processing. And I did a two-parter on that, which explains and picks up on that too. And that can, of course, be applied not just to marketing or such, but many other contexts too. So that’s quite exciting and helpful here, so as not to stray too far, but at least to give a pointer where you can read up on that accordingly. Jürgen, would you like to follow up here too?
Thank you, dear Yasemin. Not on your last point, but on the second-to-last point, with the transition from reflection into action. And let me reach into my sporting toolbox as an example here. This touches on the methodology topic quite strongly, which we’ll explicitly discuss in a separate room. In my phase, in my high-performance athletic phase, reflection was a training content — becoming aware of yourself, exploring current strengths and weaknesses, and also taking in feedback on how I feel and how I’m positioned. The extraordinary thing about this reflection process — and this is also a position we haven’t discussed, or that hasn’t come up yet — is that this process was explicitly about blocking out disruptive information. Namely, knowing that one of my strongest competitors currently had, say, achieved certain training times, whatever the devil knows — and that’s why I said, and here we’re at the method, basically this blocking-out, and saying, I don’t care what he can do, I want to explore where my strengths and weaknesses are. So this explicit focus really on myself and not on the environment, which we’ve already established that reflection actually includes. That’s the first point. And now I’m getting to this transformation into a use, in order to then get into action, or into a different mindset. Now I’m touching on the field of methods. And there were two we were required to do. Number one, quite trivial: I had to keep, or kept, a reflection journal. What was the result of that day? Along the lines of, you all know this, how do I feel today? Just not so much on the emotional level, but on the reflection level. I kept a journal. I documented and recorded the result of the conversation with myself, quite trivially, to be able to recognize progress at some point too. And the second essential point — when it seemed opportune to me, I sought communication with someone else, meaning with my coach. And that’s basically at the level of coaching, classic coaching. Self-reflection and reflection, or reflection as an umbrella term, doesn’t necessarily mean I always stay within this I-myself and with-myself — but to generate progress, I also step outward into communication, toward a person — and now, again close to the term of an expert — someone who knows me very well, can understand me, has empathic intelligence, and who can help me with the transition from the result of the reflection, ultimately into action and utilizing the benefit. That’s an extremely positive gift from my athletic past. Thank you for listening.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. I find the aspects you brought in really important, and I’d like to bring in another aspect too, because if we now say, for example, at certain points, to pick that up as a result, so to speak, and talk about it with a coach or trainer, I’d like to share an experience with you all that I also find quite exciting in this context, and maybe you know this too, especially with this external accompaniment. And because I accompany people at this point, and regularly, and often it’s the case that they don’t just have one coaching session or such, but have booked several sessions as part of a package, a coaching package, a coaching contract, those are different sessions. And especially at the beginning, it’s burning, so to speak, you have a concern, you want to talk about it, and so on. And then you always have the feeling, now, slowly, the knots are loosening, and so on. And then comes the moment where you have the feeling, oh, we have an appointment today, does it even make sense to keep the appointment today? I don’t even know what I should discuss today. And that also gets addressed by me quite often too, that it’s made transparent, but the session still gets used, because often, even though we might not have determined ourselves, through thinking, reflecting, meaning examining thought and so on, that there’s some need there, with which I, so to speak — that’s one level, and then there’s another possibility, not level, possibility, that it can also be the case that, for example, it’s just not visible to me at all. And here we might be at blind spots, that I don’t even recognize at all, if I’m not made aware of them from outside too. That could be a colleague who points that out to me, or however. It doesn’t always have to be a coach. And then we’re also, to some extent, at this aspect of feedback. And it’s quite interesting what then, in coaching, when you actually had the feeling I have nothing to discuss, suddenly arises in that context, once you open up this space and framework at all. So that you don’t cancel this appointment, or attend the appointment anyway, even though you might feel like, I actually wouldn’t know what to discuss today. Marc, Jürgen, would you like to follow up here too?
Go ahead, Marc. I’d like to say one more point before I follow up on that. What actually conditions self-criticism? You said it, Jürgen, and self-criticism actually requires self-confidence first. So I can settle self-criticism with myself, or with someone external who asks me the right questions. And don’t I first need a decent amount of self-confidence, so don’t I first have to work on my self-confidence, and even be capable at all, of practicing self-criticism on myself? That just occurred to me. So for me it was that self-criticism was actually only possible once my self-confidence had grown, with the first successes, with my company and also with the progress of my relationship — my self-confidence grew so much that I could say, okay, now you’re ready, now you can practice self-criticism too, because with this self-criticism, you can laugh about it and establish, that’s just how it is. But on the other hand I have an asset side and a minus side. And it’s a good awareness to know, there’s also a plus side, an asset side. But to be able to establish that, for me it required — that was just how it was for me personally — that I first worked on self-confidence, before I was even capable of going into self-criticism at all.
Thank you so much, Marc. But here too, I think, the question arises, what do we understand by self-criticism. And self-criticism can be both positive and destructive. So especially people who are very self-critical, for example, that can have a very, very negative impact too, if I — and I don’t know if that always has something to do with self-worth or self-confidence — if I, for example, don’t have the methods or the options at hand, that train me to handle that accordingly, but instead just am exclusively self-critical, or practice self-criticism. Marc, Jürgen, would you like to follow up here too?
Self-criticism is hard now, I have several thoughts going through my head. Self-criticism, for me, actually meant more reflecting on the past, so looking back on areas of life, to then recognize that, today, with the knowledge, with the self-confidence, and with the knowledge and the new values that have emerged for me, I’d act differently today in the same situation. Not because I’m a better person, but because my values have shifted, and because other things have become more important to me. But I only recognized that in hindsight. The priorities have shifted, and the values have shifted. And with this shift, I can then self-critically say, back then you had a different perspective. And with that perspective you had back then, you no longer share those values. And that’s why I’d act differently today, and also achieve different results today. But it’s not bad to then tear yourself apart and say, why did I do that, that’s bad. Instead, I still have the possibility — I still have life time left — if something matters to me, to also make that right again. So through this self-criticism, improving the state again, and thereby establishing a different level with people who matter to me in my life.
Thanks, Jürgen, would you like to add to that too?
Yes, I’m trying to put the terminology into a bit of context. And so, dear Marc, thank you very much for your remarks on self-confidence. I do think it’s an essential aspect, especially in the context of this topic of criticism, criticism within a reflection, though one thing seems really important to me — that criticism, please, should not, or should not predominantly, be seen from the negative connotation. For me, criticism excludes exactly these two poles — one, namely both the searching for and categorizing of positive as well as negative. Criticism, for me, means questioning something completely neutrally, but not pre-judging from the outset, as a result, something as positive or negative. And the connection to everything that starts with “self,” I think, leads us back to our topic, our big overarching topic of education, namely, and this has now become quite clear to me, thanks also to your contributions, that this topic — what actually triggers it, what’s the initial spark that triggers reflection — that this has to have a foundation again, namely my striving, my goal, to act self-determined. And you can remember, becoming a self-determined being was one of the criteria for our definition of education. So this longing for self-determination. And I’d then be self-confident, if I bring these three terms into a connection now, I’d see self-confidence as the reflected outcome quantity, that I do something, via this capacity for criticism within a reflection, in the context of my general goal of self-determination, with the result of establishing a stronger self-confidence for myself. That’s how I’d want to bring that together as a result right now. And yes, I think that’s a really good point. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Marc, would you like to follow up here too, before we slowly move into today’s closing round, so to speak?
Yes, I’ll bring the word feelings back into the room. We talk about emotions really often, and each of us — all of us are guided and determined by feelings. And that’s led me to increasingly pay attention, when I have a feeling, to how it arose. So immediately, how did that arise? And that’s reflection then. What triggered this feeling? And this knowledge, dear Jürgen, this education we talked about, to understand what triggers these feelings and what happens in the brain there — that’s then the first aid, knowing that we’re not a victim of our feelings, but if we understand what triggered the feelings, then we can intervene self-determined, self-determined, because we decide what makes us sad, what makes us happy. Only if we don’t know what makes us sad or happy is it also hard to have a happy life, because then we don’t even get into this reflection process at all, and have no possibility to act at all. Thanks.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And I think what also becomes clear again is that reflection — we already touched on this in other rooms too — that through reflection, on one hand, awareness gets sharpened for certain things, whether information is missing, whether I might have acted emotionally here or there, whatever, and on the other hand, through processing, in some form, also leads to clarity, so clarity regarding, for example, such aspects that I derive from it. What do I want? Who am I? And also the target quantity — who do I want to be? Or what do I want to achieve? And so these aspects keep popping up, again and again, in different rooms too. That’s why I want to underline this again, that this connection is a really, really relevant one here too. And with that I’d like to look toward the closing round for today again. Marc, Jürgen, what were your highlights from the room today? And your closing words for today’s room here. Marc, Jürgen, in that order please.
I’d like — my closing word isn’t what I already said, but I’d like to emphasize again, thanks to the people who listen. I keep becoming aware, on the topic of reflection, that when we have people who listen to us, where we can formulate our thoughts, that helps us. The person who listens helps us to say out loud the things that occupy us. And this saying-out-loud helps me extremely with reflection. So my closing word, thanks to everyone who listens. They’ve helped me a lot, in the process of becoming clear about certain things. I wish you all a lovely day.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Jürgen?
Yes, I can only join in Marc’s thanks. I include the audience there too. And it was once again an enormous trigger on this topic. For me too, again. You know it, I’ve said this several times, it’s really a matter close to my heart, this entire thematic context, seeing quite different things in a different connection again. Heartfelt thanks for that, and it’s incredibly fruitful, this hour as a ritual every morning, in the hope of always being able to keep it. I can only say, thanks for that, and I wish you all a lovely day. And a good continued drive to you, dear Yasemin.
Wonderful, thank you so much. Thanks from my side too, to all of you. I think it’s quite exciting too, that we came together again today through this shared exchange, and the shared considerations that led us down various trails on one hand, and then also holding onto interim results. Those aren’t final ones yet, and that’s important too, but just holding onto interim results, then continuing on with the rooms tomorrow and so on, to then afterward see how the whole thing sorts itself, and how we place that as outcome quantities for ourselves, so to speak, as insights from the various rooms. And so I’m really looking forward to continuing with you tomorrow, from wherever. “Reflection and communication” is the room title we have tomorrow. How does reflection improve our communication skills? That’s the question we want to engage with tomorrow. I think that’ll be quite exciting again too. And another note here for those who maybe weren’t here yesterday — I’m currently traveling, and that might mean, so to speak, that there might be slight delays here or there for technical reasons, against the backdrop that we always have to figure out where’s the best place to stop so I can connect with you all to open the room. Just a heads-up on that, but today it worked out wonderfully, so I just hope it’ll continue the same way tomorrow. I wish you well, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Until then, ciao! Ciao.
