Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: How do changes actually affect us, and what can we do about it? Dr. Yasemin Yazan and Marc (calling in from Florence again), joined by Sabine, explore pain and joy as the two real triggers for action, why reevaluating a sales career transformed Marc’s relationship to it, the “what would you do if success were guaranteed” question as a way to unmask hidden fears, and why comparing your first step to someone else’s finish line kills momentum before it starts.
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.
Good morning, everyone. Today we’re talking about action and change. How do changes affect us, and what possibilities are there for dealing with them — that’s the question we want to explore today. So I’m curious what comes together today, and what experiences you’ve had with change, what helps you deal with it — so bringing this way of dealing with it into focus too. Maybe not necessarily the techniques in that sense yet, but at least looking at what possibilities there are. So you’re all very warmly invited to join this morning too, bring in your experiences, your impulses, so we can shape a reflection space together and see what insights result from that. And as every morning, the entire room gets recorded over the 60 minutes today too, and then published accordingly. So, anyone who joins automatically agrees that the whole thing gets both recorded and published. And we have three small room rules: a profile photo where you’re recognizable, first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio. And if for whatever reason you can’t or don’t want to speak right now, you can of course also use the chat, provided that at least one person joins to step into the exchange, so I can pick up one thing or another from the chat here accordingly and look at it and respond to it too. So, with that I’ll mute myself first and see who’d like to join this morning.
Good morning, dear Marc.
Good morning, everyone. I needed a moment to think. I slept deeply and soundly and saw it’s already so late. It’s nice to be able to start the week with you. And then I thought and reflected about action and change. And nothing came to mind quickly. But I thought about my environment, friends and acquaintances, and thought about how hard it is to actually bring about change through action, or rather through acting, with really everyday things, because humans are creatures of habit after all. And I had to smile, because I really do train myself now and then to act differently — but not to bring about professional change, just simply, and this starts with mundane things in how I spend my free time, by consciously choosing a different restaurant when I go out to eat with my partner, because I also tend to always go to the same restaurant or the same places. We had something nice there, that was good, I found that nice. You tend to go back to the same places, because it was nice, you want to have that experience again. And just with such mundane things as leisure activities, I notice in my environment that there are people who, per se, always do the same thing. That means, when they travel, they always go to the same place. So even with leisure activities, it apparently is hard to get into new action, because the new thing, you don’t know it, the new thing is unknown. And since you don’t know what the unknown is like, you’d rather stick with the old. So even with leisure activities, where it’s really just about having fun and nothing happens. That just came to mind as an entry point to the topic.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And there we basically have the active change I can initiate through action, so to speak. And there we already have the first starting points regarding, well, do I even want to change something or not? Or do I tend to stay in old structures, so to speak? And you mentioned the unknown, which definitely has relevance here. Namely, whenever we initiate changes, we also enter an area where we, to some extent, engage with something new, to whatever degree. And, yes, that’s at least partly something the brain doesn’t necessarily want to do, because it’s energy-intensive. And even if we take these leisure activities as an example now, or maybe traveling too, which is close to your heart, then we have an example here where I do have to engage with it and look at what I want to do, or do alternatively. What alternative places might there be for that? What opportunities are there for that? That means, we already see relatively quickly here that we need to expend more energy than if I fall back on something familiar, and maybe already know the website with ease, or similar, to make a booking here, or simply get in the car and drive there. And then we have a second component too, which I’d like to open up right away, and then we can look at what results from that. So, we’ve said we can initiate a change ourselves through action, so to speak. And then we have this component, that a change happens externally, so to speak, and gets brought to me in some form. And then the question arises, what do I do with it? So we have these two components at this point. And maybe we can bring in examples here too. Marc, would you like to add to that?
Yes, regarding the example of when a change gets brought to you from outside, what I do with that — I need a few more minutes to think, to have a plausible example about action there. What comes to mind is, how do I get into action? Either I do… I mean, in this leisure mode nothing happens. So I’ve established for myself where I immediately get into action and can release enormous energy, is when pain drives me to act. And everyone probably knows this, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. When you have a toothache… I really love the dentist now. But when you’re in pain, physically, which I wouldn’t wish on anyone, and that doesn’t have to be teeth, when the pain is so great that you can’t sleep anymore and really wake up from the pain, then I can immediately look for a doctor. I don’t have a regular doctor, I don’t even have a family doctor, thankfully, I’m in perfect health. But then I’ll spend time immediately looking for a doctor. Then even the evaluation might not matter to me at all. Then it’s only about acting immediately to get rid of this pain. And pain can of course also be in the form of threats of punishment, when unpleasant letters come from the tax office, that things need to be submitted with the penalty stated in there. If action isn’t taken by then, it costs 500 or 600 euros. There too I immediately get into action. Everything else gets dropped. Then I forget a coffee and so on. The punishment, or the pain — the reaction, so to speak — that others then take over for me, which I don’t want, that immediately gets me into action. And when I recognize this situation, I have to smile about myself afterward and notice how much energy is in me. And I just have to bring it onto the street, I just have to release it. I notice then how much is possible when you want to. Well, wanting might be the wrong word there, since I’m being forced. But ultimately it is a kind of wanting, because I do decide to do it then. I could also say, I don’t care, I’ll keep having pain. And then I notice that the pressure from outside, in this case the punishment or the pain, is a really, really strong — at least for me — a really, really strong action drive, or action initiator.
Yes, great, thank you so much. That means, basically — and we’ve picked this up in other rooms too — there are two factors that initially have an influence on whether a change gets initiated or not. So, the backgrounds against which we act, or omit acting, so to speak, are, on one hand, pain or joy. So either the pain is big enough that, so to speak, under the suffering pressure I feel, I have enough motivation to go into a change here. And then we have the second aspect, that’s joy — when I’m looking forward to something, think of a romantic relationship, for example, then I can move mountains, I don’t need much to get into action. And often, when we look at everyday life, we tend to go into change mostly against the backdrop of pain, or suffering pressure, so to speak. And relatively, comparatively speaking, relatively little goes toward joy, in quotation marks. This share could of course also be deliberately, or consciously, increased through self-steering. That means, whenever I set goals, for example, that have a corresponding attractiveness for me, that get connected with joy, then I can achieve quite a lot here too. And I can of course also, against the backdrop of suffering pressure, look at what would actually bring me joy in the changed situation, to paint a positive picture and not look at it negatively, to make one thing or another more attractive for myself, up to rewards or whatever, to see how I can steer that in a positive direction, so to speak. And then, in terms of strategies, there are basically different ones you can apply. Classically that’s avoidance, distraction, or reevaluation. Avoidance would be, for example, that I somehow get myself out of the situation, that I switch jobs, for example, if I don’t like it at my old employer or similar. Distraction could be that I do something else, to distract myself mentally from these circumstances and accordingly maybe avoid, to some extent, thinking about it, getting into action, or whatever. Or I can also do a reevaluation, a reevaluation of the situation, namely of the change itself. That means, regardless of whether it’s a change I want to initiate myself, or whether it’s a change — let’s take something like losing weight, for example. We’d talked about resolutions or such. Then, at first, I don’t think about how that’s fun in many contexts, but instead first see what I have to accomplish or manage, namely, for example, possibly the sacrifice many people think of when they think of diets or such. And then I can definitely do a reevaluation and look at what, for example, the result is, or what the advantages are of, say, sacrificing something at one point or another, or having the feeling of sacrifice, not just looking at it negatively, but also discovering the positive in it. Namely, something like, maybe I get an energy boost from it, or I have a certain detoxification the body goes through, which ultimately does me good too, and similar. So there are quite different, diverse possibilities for how you can look at it. That’s maybe an example for the reevaluation. And with reevaluation, we’re basically back at the term reframing too, so a new frame, to grasp the change here at this point too, and thereby maybe neutralize emotions too, and so on. Marc, are there some impulses in there you might want to pick up one thing or another from?
Yes, something just came to mind, dear Yasemin — you once had a really nice author, namely Dr. Friedrich. And when I went self-employed, I listened to Dr. Friedrich’s podcasts for a while, and he wrote a book too. I generally don’t do advertising, but these sentences helped me, and that’s why I liked it, that’s the only reason I’m mentioning the title of this book myself. So I don’t get anything from it, I can see a few things. “Günther, the inner couch potato” [colloquial for “inner weaker self”]. And Dr. Friedrich back then explained exactly why we actually don’t get into action. And since then, whenever I face situations, I always ask myself a question that’s very painful. But when we go into inner dialogue with ourselves, so into inner self-talk, then I always ask myself, regarding a matter to be done, what would you do, dear Marc, if it were guaranteed that this works 100 percent? I can tell you right now, it works. Do it and you’ll immediately have success. And then you notice, if that were really true, if you guaranteed me it really works, I’d start immediately, I’d drop everything. And often, even though I have this knowledge, I still don’t immediately move into implementation, into action, and I notice, there must be something else there. So if I assume it works, what’s holding me back? And then it’s either fears — so, either it’s fear, though I’d have to locate that more precisely, it sits in the subconscious, I can’t always answer that immediately. Or the wish for the change isn’t strong enough either. That can of course also be that the motive comes from outside, that other people say, I should do that. And then I notice, that’s not actually my heart’s desire, I don’t actually want to go in that direction. And I only brought in this aspect because, for me, it was really important not just to give examples for action and change, but first to understand the process, why it’s so hard. Because if all it took was reading a single sentence, like, just do it and it works, that would be totally simple. Then all the coaches wouldn’t have much to do either — you’d need a quarter of an hour in the session. And we notice too, thankfully we had the topic of thinking and reflecting before this. And how strongly we’re steered and acted on by our unconscious too. And once you’ve understood these processes, it’s at least easier to recognize, ah, there seems to be something stopping me. What is it? Listen inward, into myself. And check whether this reason, this often pretextual reason for not acting, whether I can’t change it, whether I can’t dissolve it. But the topic of action and change is a really difficult topic. You can’t just solve that in five minutes, or in a quarter of an hour. If that worked, that would really be great. Then we’d only have successful, and only super happy people all over the world.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Motives and motivation are of course also a really important aspect in this context. And we’ll pick that up and discuss it again in a separate room, to be able to go into depth. And in this context, maybe also again — we’ve pointed out in the past, again and again, that changes, or change processes, always have to do with learning too. So that these are basically learning processes. If we just pick up this term now, learning in connection with action and change — how is learning connoted for us? In quotation marks, question mark. And what does it do when I bring in this term? I’d like to look at that again too. Marc, would you like to share your impulses on that?
Yes, that’s why I started with the leisure example. So that, exactly, my brain learns that action doesn’t just mean a change, but simply a great solution. Where you say, oh, if I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have seen that. I wouldn’t have discovered this nice restaurant. I wouldn’t have thought of this nice corner. And that’s why I try, in my daily routine, this extra action, which has nothing to do with work, but simply doing something different, doing something new, to recognize, oh, that was actually great, good that you took this path. Good that you drove this route. Good that you called someone there again that you hadn’t spoken to in a long time. So that the brain gets a small step, a little practice task every day, where you noticed, action, action itself doesn’t hurt. And what then happens with the action is usually a positive effect. Where I then ask myself, man, you could have called them a long time ago. That was such a nice phone call. Good that I did it. So it’s not always just the big things you have to tackle with action and change, but for me it’s simply a training task for my brain. In the really, really small, in everyday, really, really mundane things, just always daring to go, to take a different path, to have a different routine, so that the brain learns, action and change is, in principle, first of all something nice and does me good. And that success after acting is a reward too.
Yes, wonderful. And there we have this aspect of experience included again too, which I find really important in this context. That means, the more opportunities I have and use, where I do one thing or another, so to speak, to then, as you just said, good that you did this and that, or that you discovered this and that, and so on, then I’ve experienced positive experiences, so to speak, through the change too. And with a next change coming up, I can then automatically fall back on these experience values, and also realize that, for example, something good has come out of it again and again, which might possibly help me too in comparable situations, or similar, to overcome fears, for example, or similar. What do you think about that, dear Marc?
Yes, I have to smile a bit right now, dear Yasemin. I’m thinking right now about partnership, when we get to know a new partner, where we always try, or where it’s often tried, to change the partner by wanting to change things. And that’s when the change gets brought to us from outside. That means, when parents say, you need to study more, you need to do more sports, you need to do this, you should change your business, and we constantly encounter these things. And if this inner motive doesn’t happen with ourselves, so the wish for change, if it doesn’t come from us, that we want to go toward this change, then I find that really, really hard. And the first thing that would come to mind for me, if I had to write a book about action and change, would be, who actually wants the change? Do I want it, or does the outside want it?
Yes, that’s a relevant question, above all to gain a bit of clarity first. Yes, and then we basically have, if we look at the questions again, how do changes affect us? That means, self-initiated or externally steered? And what possibilities are there for dealing with it? That means, how do I deal with it in everyday life? Let’s look at that more specifically again. So we’ve already opened up a few examples now. Maybe we have further examples, where we might also establish in exchange that there are deviations, or similar. So you just took a concrete example from leisure activities. Maybe we can also pick up something from a business context, and then go into these different scenarios too. So, what situations — and the others are of course also warmly invited to join and bring in examples too, so we can work our way along, so to speak. So, what examples come to mind for you, where you yourself initiated changes, what helped you with that, or also held you back, or also changes that were initiated externally and how you dealt with that. So, what you can also establish in self-observation, in retrospect, so to speak, now too. Marc, would you like to add to that before we bring in Sabine, or should I read Sabine first?
Sabine first, gladly.
Okay, wonderful. Sabine, good morning.
Good morning. Unfortunately mornings aren’t quite as early for me anymore. But I’ve been listening, and a really interesting topic, especially with the inside and outside. I’d just like to contribute, for me there were two major changes from outside. And I wasn’t happy with it at all in the moment. And in hindsight it was the best thing that could have happened to me. So I think the inner weaker self is already quite big and puffs itself up and says, does it have to be this way? And the same weaker self is of course also there when I want to change something from within myself. Besides, it’s not that I change just one thing, there are quite a lot of side effects here, and then of course comes the brooding, the thinking, the reflecting. For one thing I might want the change, but do I also want the change for the other things?
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Let’s first pick up these two major external changes you mentioned, where you said you weren’t happy at first. And in hindsight you established that it was basically the best thing that happened to you. And there we’re back at these experience values too, for future situations where something similar happens. And the question I have now is, to what extent, actually, do the experience values we have, having had positive experiences — so an anchor point, a resonance point at this point. In the past there were situations where I didn’t feel comfortable, where I maybe didn’t agree with the change, because it came from outside and didn’t initially show itself as positive, so to speak. And then, through what I actually did, I got into action, maybe you changed the environment, and so on. That can of course be quite different in various contexts. But at least the action is included there, which then leads to, or contributes to, doing a reevaluation in retrospect, so to speak. Namely, that it’s actually the best thing that happened to me. And there’s also this aspect of trust included, to some extent, which can help me in new situations too, to go into this trust. I’ve had this situation more often, that changes got brought to me from outside that I didn’t like at first. But in retrospect I found that, because I got into action, something great came out of it. That means, what role do these experience values we have, and then also this aspect of trust, play in this context? That would be the next question I’d like to formulate. Sabine, would you like to add to that?
Yes, gladly. The biggest problem I see there is that one situation isn’t comparable to another. Of course, my path into self-employment didn’t come voluntarily. I got pushed a bit and got there in two steps to where I am now. And each time with a push from outside. And that was already a good thing. But I always think, do I actually want to have every push forward in that form again? Or would I then actually have to make many compromises in other respects? And here it’s actually again about my several roads running in parallel. Would I necessarily make compromises there? I don’t think so. In this context, the question arises for me whether it’s really not always comparable with each other. We can look at that.
Because we often have situations, and I think that’s an art too, to actually look at that from the process on a meta-level. Let’s take the example crisis. You know the book “Adventure Entrepreneur.” There we talk about the situation, we talk about crisis and various steps you can take, that you can apply. And if we pick up this example — those were eight steps we’d picked up — then you can abstract that on an abstract level so that you can transfer it to different situations that at first might not seem comparable at all. And the question arises now, is it really the case that these situations aren’t comparable with each other? Or is that just a feeling, that it’s not comparable with each other? And that there actually is, on the abstract level, a scheme or a formula regarding the process, so to speak, which I can always lay over it like a template, to maybe arrive at decisions for myself too. What do you think, Marc, Sabine?
Wait, I lost the connection for a moment. I’m picking up another train of thought right now. It was similar for me as for Sabine, I’d add that to Sabine, with self-employment. I went into self-employment because the situation required it. In hindsight I’d say I wouldn’t have done it earlier. All the advantages I have with self-employment, that has nothing to do with earning money, that has to do with autonomous decisions, with feeling good, with the shaping of my day. But I didn’t go into self-employment because I had a very… that has to do with the attribution, because I had a very successful
father, and this comparison always took place in the family. And I told myself as a young man — Jürgen mentioned that he did sports, Jürgen will probably understand this best, when you have a father who’s an elite athlete. You have a father who’s achieved everything you can achieve in sports, he’s an Olympic champion. And now the parents say, you should do sports too. And I notice I can’t manage 1,000 kilometers and can’t get into running at all. Then the comparison and the difference are so huge that you don’t even get to the sports field in the first place. And that it’s not that hard at all. And if you have the right partners, the right networks, that all of that’s possible when you get support. That kept leading to a learning process, where today I’d say it’s not bad at all being an entrepreneur. And, yes, you can manage that. And what held me back was really going into this comparability, and looking at a goal that’s so far in the distance that you don’t even take — I’d rather say, in parentheses, not “better,” but you don’t even take the first step, because you simply can’t imagine how the path will unfold. And if you have no idea at all — and now the word trust comes in — if you don’t trust yourself at all to go down this path, then you’d better not go down it. And this self-confidence, what you said, that the brain first learns, through small, mundane processes, learns, I managed that. That’s not a diploma, where you say I got a school diploma. I had situations, and I managed them. Those don’t have to be the big things, those are really small things we can learn every day. Always with the learning process, I did something and I had a positive result. And that’s why, for me, action and change today begins with really small things, that I also try things out, to see if I get a change from it. Today I even try foods I don’t like, I try drinks I don’t like, just so I’m always in the process of doing something different, to arrive at a new result.
Yes, I find what you’re bringing up really exciting. And I’d like to follow up on that, because you differentiated again with small things and big things. I’m wondering whether the difference is that big, or what actually makes the difference. With the small things, basically — and we’re talking about experience again here — you have aspects where you connect to something prior, so to speak. And that’s why you judge, or evaluate, that as something small or a small step, while other things get evaluated as big steps, because you maybe don’t have enough connecting points here. Now, with this template I mentioned earlier, couldn’t there be a template I can lay over it on the more abstract level, to go through, to build in certain aspects that ensure, for example, that I look at where the strengths and weaknesses are, where I’d need to build up certain things to have these connecting points accordingly, and so on and so forth. And I’d like to bring up another example too. I always find these examples really nice, to make it vivid too. What are small things for us, something like walking, for example, was once a really big thing for us. For children learning to walk, that’s a really, really big step. And they don’t have any connecting points either. And yet nothing holds them back from taking this path. I don’t know, what do you think about that? Why is that? Do they have something else that moves them to do that? What’s the motivation that drives them there, so to speak, and doesn’t make them think, well, I’m missing the resonance points here?
Marc, Sabine, would you like to connect to that? Sabine, go ahead.
Yes, though with children, I think the small thing is already huge for them. Because when they learn to walk or learn to ride a bike, that’s of course a huge milestone for them. And I’m a bit with Marc there… I don’t even know if I… well, I’ve told this story a few times before, I was at this training, and it was always just about how many more zeros at the end, and, and, and. And you probably have to be that type too, whether you even want that, or whether you say, I actually want to bring everything together a bit. And whether I have one more zero on there or not, does that actually make me feel better? Or do I actually feel better when I live together with my family, when I do something good for my kids, when I can maybe hand my kids a zero, because they might have an easier life then and still make sure they get ahead? And that’s probably a bit of the point for me where I say… and I probably often struggle with myself there too, that I simply ask, do I even want that? Or am I actually quite happy in the situation? Of course things should move forward, but does it have to be about six figures, seven figures? Or does it go forward step by step? But that’s a personal attitude. Probably, I mean, maybe I can say something about that too, I’ve recently met a lot of solo self-employed people. And I don’t want to lump this all together, but I’ve seen certain parallels, and also met a lot of women who want to take the step forward, and do, but do it very laboriously. Not because they’re not willing to take the step, but because it’s maybe not always immediately successful. And I also hear, they often come from employment relationships, they do want to make it, but it’s sometimes really difficult, industry-wise or whatever.
Yes, first regarding the example with the children. I’m totally with you there, that’s what I meant too. For them it’s a really big milestone, learning to walk. But in that sense they don’t think at all about whether they’re getting into action or not, or whether they have enough experience points to try it now, or similar. They just do it, in quotation marks, and they have an inner drive to watch and simply imitate it and accept that they’ll fall down 10,000 times and get back up, if need be, and still not give up, but simply keep going. So, what we today, in retrospect, or when we want to tackle something new, evaluate as a small step or a big step, always has to do with our life history too. That means, for me something might be a small step, which for others is a really big step, and vice versa, because we also have different life histories and different experience values we can connect to here, so to speak. That’s one thing. The other thing, with the zeros and so on that you just mentioned, so regardless of what gets discussed in which training, there’s ultimately no motive to just reach zeros. It’s very often the case that in training or such, it maybe gets connected to certain things, so that, and many will find this too, if you just act on the zeros somehow and say, I just want to make a million, or whatever amount now, it doesn’t matter at all. For one person it might be six figures, for another seven figures. If I don’t know what I’m doing it for, if I have no motive, if I don’t see anything attractive behind it. And that’s not the number, it’s not the money, but it’s something I connect with it. And then there are quite different things. One person might connect it with being free to do certain things. One might rather buy a car or something else. And the other might want to earn the money to be freer, to do good things. So that exists too, of course. And then it’s of course always a matter of type too. We can, for example, very roughly, from the distinction — of course you can’t put everything definitively into boxes now — but, in quotation marks, through socialization and so on, we often already have the effect that can be observed, that for example with men, numbers and so on work better regarding sales, or such, from various training measures or similar, because they hope to reach these six-figure, seven-figure numbers through that. And with women, it’s often more the connection to meaning, to purpose. And then the question arises for me, in this context, whether that’s not also a question of age, in quotation marks. So, of the life phase. Where am I in life? What have I already achieved in life? And from a certain point on, I then maybe start questioning one thing or another, or also look at, is that actually it? Then I have resonance points to look at again. Maybe I thought this or that would make me happy, or more content, and I’ve possibly reached that point. And the question many people then ask themselves, regardless of how old they are, is: is this actually what I wanted? Or does it make me happy? Or does it apparently need something else after all? So quite a few different aspects come in there too. Marc, Sabine, would you like to add to that?
Go ahead, Marc.
Yes, I’d like to give another example from entrepreneurship. You asked earlier what you can look at. And for me it was that I had the great luck of focusing on my strengths and not my weaknesses. If I put myself in the position — if I’d applied back then as managing director for a promotional products company, I wouldn’t have gotten the job, because I really had no idea about anything. You need a manufacturer. And you need to know how the goods come to Germany. You need to know about freight forwarders. You need to know about customs. You need to know, when you found a GmbH, how you do the taxes. Those are so many complex topics I had zero knowledge of, all of them. And I sat down with someone and said, where are your strengths actually? Before you have all that, what do you need most of all? So I said, best of all would of course be customers. Customers would be nice, because without customers I don’t need any of… everything that comes after that, I don’t need without customers. And my strength is that I can really approach people without fear, hug people, talk with people. And that helped me. And everything else I set up, shipping, administration, bookkeeping, legal things, there are people who’ve been doing nothing else for years. I don’t need to understand that at all. There a word comes in, trust. Okay, I find myself a partner at some point that I trust, who handles exactly these tasks for me. And with that I already covered 70 to 80 percent of what I need as an entrepreneur. And the rest, customers, that was my strength, I did that myself. And what I find really exciting, this fear — we’re talking about action and change, and also about the knots we have in our heads. Very, very many people are also afraid of selling and say, I can’t sell anything. That depends on what questions we ask ourselves. I can’t sell either. If you ask me now, Marc, how do you sell a product a customer doesn’t want, then I’d also say, I’m the wrong person to ask there. I don’t see myself, in my case, as a salesman, but as an advisor. If I’m standing in front of a fish stand or a meat stand and customers don’t come to me and someone fundamentally doesn’t like fish, I wouldn’t know what signs to put up to get them to eat fish. No, but I do ask, in the communication, when I notice someone likes to eat meat and approaches my stand, then things come to mind. Would you like to try a piece? Then I can hand them a sample. I can give them a free sample, and, and, and. But that only works if the person is already positively disposed toward me per se. But many people don’t take this sales path the way I did, because they simply say, I’m not a salesman. Selling gets equated in the subconscious with pushing something, giving someone something they don’t want. And I can be honest about that, a company that doesn’t use promotional products, I won’t get them to use them either. But that’s not a problem,
because there are so many customers who use a certain product. And then it’s just about getting into action, into change, being different than the competitors. And why many people don’t go my way — you don’t have to go into sales, but then we’re back at the topic of fear, that they say, I can’t do that. What you do, I can’t do that. And my simple counter-question is always, we’re talking right now, aren’t we? Apparently you’re capable of talking with another person. That’s exactly what I do all day. I talk with another person and see whether we find each other, so to speak, or not. And if that doesn’t happen, like in the private sphere, that we find someone likable or not likable, then the conversation ends and there’s a new conversation. Actually, the processes we need to get into change are quite simple. But our beliefs, our fears, and our assumptions often hold us back from getting into action there. And the goals, when they’re too big… I keep looking at Jürgen the whole time. That’s sports for me. When people say, you could start doing sports — why I never started with sports, I went into comparability. And if I had to do sports with someone like Jürgen, who’s really incredibly fit athletically, then I might immediately lose motivation. Because if someone, if I start running and I’m immediately tired after one kilometer of jogging, or after 500 meters, then I don’t want to lose face either. Then I don’t even start with this action. If someone told me, I just ran 10 kilometers, 20 kilometers, that’s nothing to me. And then the goal is so big, unreachable. But sometimes you can just start with small steps. And I’d say, today I’d go into communication differently, to say, hey, if you’ve already run 100 meters, that’s great. And it’s not the end goal that’s great, but the path there itself is already great. And if we accept that, take that on board, then in the end we also arrive at a really big change and really big action. But of course you can’t start by buying a certain brand of sports shoes and running a marathon the next day.
Yes, thank you so much. And the path there is already fun. I think that’s a really important aspect in this context. And if we think of children again right now, they have fun with the process, in quotation marks, not with the goal that was reached. We had, at some point, I’d picked up this example with the sandcastle that Dieter Lange told about — a sandcastle gets built for hours, and then you’re really proud. The child enjoys it for three seconds and then it gets torn down, so to speak. And the parents freak out and say, hey, what are you doing? We took forever to build that. And the question really arises, or Dieter Lange asks the question, well, what’s the child supposed to do with it? Manage the castle or what? We can really ask ourselves that question at this point. That means, first the process. And then I’d like to briefly come back to the example you brought up with sales. And I don’t know if you’re aware of this, or otherwise I’ll gladly make it conscious here too. That’s why it’s important for me to pick that up. I said earlier there are different possibilities for dealing with changes. Namely avoidance, distraction, reevaluation. And the example you brought up from this sales context, what you did, is a reevaluation. Namely, evaluating it differently than in the past. And that helped you deal differently with sales, or even go into sales in the first place, and not experience it as cumbersome or similar. And reevaluation, by the way, is a discipline, so to speak, that can be learned. And it’s the most effective of all approaches, though the hardest to learn, but exactly this reinterpretation, the reevaluation, the reframing, so that I actually believe it too. And there we’re at beliefs too. That means, I also correct beliefs by believing in something new, which possibly replaces the old belief, or maybe neutralizes it, and that has an incredible impact on it. Would you like to add to that too, dear Marc?
Yes, that had to do with something similar for me in the past too. When you start in sales, there were old structures there too. And I remember very well that at the Christmas party… I had just started in a career. I had a sales manager who’d been in the military. And that was the first Christmas party I got to organize for the company. And we ended up meeting in the bathroom too. A really pleasant place to meet your supervisor, who then turns around and says, how are you? Seemingly friendly. And you’re totally motivated and say, oh great, wonderful, I’m glad you’re here. And the lock-master [nickname referencing his military background] looks at me and says, given the numbers you’re writing, I’m surprised you’re in a good mood. In your place I’d be in a really bad mood. It even went as far as insults. What do your parents actually say about you being such a failure? I’ve never forgotten that. It really took me a few years to get that out of my head. Today I enjoy it. Today I’ve proven to myself that I can do it, for fun. But I think that’s a big disadvantage, that companies, both in insurance and banking, have incredible trouble getting people excited about dealing with people at all, which can be something nice, because there were simply such old, I’ll say, military mindsets or other people there, where only the numbers counted. And that’s then the selling, exactly this image people had in their heads, where the activity is no longer fun and where it’s no longer put together as a team. Hey, let’s be creative. How could our company be different? How do we get our wine to the man? How do we get our cars to the man? What could we do that the competitor doesn’t have? Does anyone have a cool idea? And not that a boss comes by, looks at the sheet and says, what do your numbers look like? Then you have to smile too, when Sabine mentioned numbers. And then says, dear Marc, Sabine’s numbers are five times as high as yours, so you’re a failure and a nobody and so on. What happens there? So I’m glad this thinking is disappearing. But this thinking and this accumulating also led to — and Andreas Wollermann is currently addressing this topic — that at least I don’t connect anything pleasant with the topic of insurance in my subconscious. And that there are so, so many industries in Germany that don’t get new recruits anymore, precisely because this old thinking led to people saying, for heaven’s sake, that’s not a job for me, that’s not fun for me. And this reevaluation, that’s my magic word, this reevaluation, we don’t sell, we advise customers. And customers only come back and only give a good review if they felt comfortable dealing with us.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Then I’d like to give Sabine the opportunity to add too. And since we’re shortly before nine, then also the closing word or the highlight from today, dear Sabine.
Yes, now I’d like to massively disagree with Marc, because I’ve actually learned, if we always just advise and don’t end up selling, then we’re frustrated too, because then someone else sells. So I think we do have to sell, but I’m completely with you, Marc. In the end we should want to sell something where we’re also doing someone some good. And I think that’s been the problem in insurance and banking often, that people sat across from you who didn’t need the product at all, or were already overinsured and got another one on top. But that didn’t matter at all, because the employee had to bring in their numbers. So they bring them in, if in doubt, to people who didn’t need it or got another one on top. I think if someone identifies with my job and knows they’re doing someone good, then I sell gladly. Because then the other person has what they might not have had without me. And if I do the consulting first and then make the sale, then I’ve done both, and then I of course feel more comfortable than if I only advise and someone else sells. That was another really great topic that I personally struggle with a bit too. But I think many others are often not even aware of it — hello, am I changing in this moment? And also what Marc just said, small changes count too, this reframing. I think that’s a bit of a generational question too. I think younger people can do that much better than older people. And I’ll count myself among the older ones here now, because we were raised differently from a young age. And that’s why I think it’s still partly hard for us. But we’ll work on it. And I’m glad I’m working on it, because many others aren’t working on it anymore.
Absolutely, and that’s already the first step, in any case. Thank you so much, dear Sabine. Marc, your highlight or closing word for today?
My contribution is still about this change. I’m getting older too. And for me, I’ve noticed too, when you travel, for example, I once had the situation in Italy where I thought, this can’t be, that I, as the managing director of a company, am too stupid to get a parking ticket. And yet I was. Why was I too stupid? Because you don’t put money in anymore, it’s electronic. And because I didn’t know the Italian word for license plate. So I first had to ask what I need to do. I couldn’t get a ticket at this parking meter, which I’d never seen before, that wanted my license plate. You have to first come up with that idea. And that’s also why traveling, and every technical gadget, is a challenge for me, to simply not lose touch as I get older. Because I know our world is digitizing even more. And I’d at least like, when I’m old someday, to be able to drive into a city, whatever it is, and be able to park, get a parking ticket, so really, really simple things. But thankfully I can also laugh about myself in these processes, and I’m always amazed that such mundane, everyday things, through a change — you already mentioned this too, Yasemin — can lead to you suddenly, as a grown adult, standing in front of a parking meter and not getting a parking ticket, because it’s suddenly digital and electronic, where before you just threw in a euro.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. I’m cracking up. I’m really laughing my head off. Above all I can relate. I also often can’t do quite simple things, because I think far too complexly, in quotation marks. And by the way, that was also one of the backgrounds for how I actually met my husband. So in that sense it does have something really, really positive too, when you sometimes need help from others with the smallest things, and thereby new doors and possibilities open up for you too. And you can see what can result from that. So I find that great. And that just reminded me directly. Thank you so much for that, Marc.
Yes, a great room. Thank you so much. There are various impulses. We just got started. Now some things are coming together. We’ll look at many aspects more closely in the coming days too. Tomorrow we’ll continue with action and emotion regulation. What role does emotion regulation play in the context of action? That’s the question we want to look at together again. We’ve already looked at emotions in general quite often. Now it’s really about establishing the connection to action here too. So you’re all very warmly invited to join again tomorrow too. And please remember, thousandth show on Wednesday, be sure to join both to celebrate and to see, well, what’s actually the next exciting chapter we want to open together? And here too, in the sense of contributing and co-shaping, to join too, if you have time and interest, to bring in your impulses too, so we can pick that up accordingly too. With that, I wish you a good start to the week, and hopefully see you tomorrow morning at 8. Until then, ciao.
