#832 Insight From Mistakes

Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: How can we actually gain insight from our mistakes? That’s the question we explore in Room #832 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 very warm welcome to you all. This morning we’re talking about insight from mistakes. Yesterday we already gathered quite a bit of material, touching on aspects like success and failure in connection with insight. Today the focus is really going to be squarely on mistakes specifically — how can insight be drawn from mistakes, and what does the whole thing have to do with learning? We want to take a closer look at that, so you’re warmly invited again this morning to join in, bring your own examples, share the first thoughts that come to mind on the topic, and so on, so that together we can shape this reflection space through exchange and see which direction the room takes us in today. A quick reminder for anyone joining for the first time: the room is being recorded, and by joining you automatically agree that the recording isn’t just running, but will also be published afterward. And we have three small room rules: a profile photo where you’re clearly recognizable, your first and last name, and at least your role in your bio. Anyone who, for whatever reason, doesn’t want to do that, or can’t speak right now, is of course welcome to contribute via chat instead, and I’ll happily pick up on that — whether it’s a question or a comment. Please just keep it on a factual level, with consideration for the others who might be contributing here too, in the spirit of the room rules and of respectful, appreciative interaction with one another. So, with that, let’s get into it — insight from mistakes. What are the first thoughts that come to you on this, that you’d like to bring in? Let me unmute for a moment and see who wants to step into a dialogue with me this morning. A wonderful good morning to you, Marc. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear “insight from mistakes”?

Good morning. I’d like to look at it from the entrepreneur’s perspective, because as an entrepreneur — or generally when we’re self-employed, or even when we’re employed — we’re pursuing goals in order to achieve something or get tasks done. And an important learning process for me was observing how I talk to myself, even when it comes to mistakes. Because there are two options. One is to say, “ugh, typical, of course this happens to me, I should have known” — and yes, I can laugh about myself, and those thoughts do come up too. But the second question that follows is: why did this happen, how can I do it better? And as an entrepreneur, all I can say is that it’s a huge learning process not to question your entire business model just because a mistake happened, because then it’s a shame — an idea that might actually work if you only adjusted a few small screws suddenly gets abandoned, and that would be a real pity. We’ve talked about this topic so many times. So the way I approach mistakes, after they’ve happened and after maybe I’ve gone for a walk, or as you mentioned this week, slept on it for a night, is to try asking new questions, and with those new questions get different answers too, so I can try again or do it better.

Wonderful, thank you so much. I find that distinction really interesting, on different levels so to speak — not questioning an entire idea or business model outright just because of individual mistakes, but instead looking closer, and you said, why did this happen, how can I do it better — picking up that individual aspect and turning it into an optimization, and through examining the mistake, gaining insight that then lets you make decisions about how to move forward, without questioning the bigger picture unnecessarily. I find that fascinating, and it also got me thinking about different levels here. We can look at ourselves, in the sense of learning from our own mistakes, for example. But we might also have the possibility of learning from other people’s mistakes — and that could be someone on a team, someone I know. But it could also be a complete stranger, so maybe we’d have another distinction there too — a third party who’s an acquaintance versus a third party who’s a stranger. What comes to mind for you when I ask that?

That’s a really great point, because for me that’s part of it — asking questions, talking to others. That could be an acquaintance, a stranger, or even someone I pay, simply because they have a different perspective. And to help you picture it better, I’ll give an example — without turning this into a pitch. As it says in my profile, I work with promotional products. At first I wanted to work as a creative agency and offer branding on every kind of textile out there, and I focused mainly on jackets, sweaters, T-shirts — how to make employee clothing nicer. What I hadn’t accounted for, though, was that there aren’t actually that many companies in Germany with the ability to buy 500 jackets from the Far East. Because 500 units is the minimum order for many factories, and you can imagine that if you’re buying 500 jackets, you’re paying very different prices than if you’re selling 500 baseball caps. My company nearly failed because of that, since I simply couldn’t find enough customers willing to buy 500 sweaters and 500 jackets from me — the budget just wasn’t there. The underlying idea, that I wanted to brand textiles and that I believed I could succeed with that, stayed the same the whole time. It was only once I shifted my main focus away from jackets, sweaters, and T-shirts — because that business idea didn’t work, since the big corporations that come to mind immediately, like Mercedes and BMW, all the DAX-listed companies, already had partners, sometimes fixed contracts with advertising agencies, which doesn’t mean you can’t still sell branded textiles — that things changed. When I had the insight that caps are textiles too, and that with caps my customer base — instead of maybe 100 DAX companies with a promotional budget of 20, 30, 40, 50 thousand euros — suddenly multiplied, because there are around 2.9 million companies in Germany, and every second company uses promotional items. Meaning every company with more than five employees has some kind of promotional item, even if it’s just a pen. That shift in perspective led me to completely overhaul my business model. I didn’t just offer a different product — I stayed within the broader category of textiles, but addressed a different customer group. And then it worked. And that’s what I meant at the start: not questioning the whole business idea, but staying with my topic, my favorite topic of textiles, and just realizing I’d been offering the wrong textiles to the wrong customer group.

Thank you so much. Let me pick up on that example. Suppose you’d offered caps from the very beginning, and only through doing it had you realized it wasn’t working, and from that mistake you’d learned in the sense of analyzing it and figuring out how to approach it differently, and then decided on baseball caps. If someone else had told you about that exact experience beforehand, would you have learned from that mistake — someone else’s mistake, whether an acquaintance or a stranger — to the same degree? That would be an interesting question. Would you have adapted it in the same way? And maybe you can check whether there’s another concrete example you can draw on, where you can say, yes, that worked, or no, that didn’t work.

I really had to make that mistake myself, with eyes wide open so to speak, to have that experience myself. Does anything come to mind on that, Marc?

That’s really fascinating. When you found a company, you’re totally enthusiastic about your idea, and I probably wouldn’t have accepted that experience back then. I think I would have learned it if I’d been willing to be open, to take on that other perspective, but I always avoided talking to people who told me why something wouldn’t work. That was poison for me, and when I decided to go my own way and start my business, I avoided any conversation where people explained to me that it wouldn’t work, that others had already tried it, and why it should work for me. I simply didn’t go into those conversations. If I’d met someone back then who was in the same business as me, who said, “hey, from my experience you have to approach this differently, I’ve been doing this for five years, I’m in the same industry, and we’ve found that it can work like this,” then I would have been more open. But I couldn’t have had that learning insight a few years ago, because I would have simply shut myself off and said, I’m not focusing on the negative, I just want to know how it works, and then went at it with a sledgehammer, so to speak. And the only reason I eventually reached that insight was actually my father, with whom I sat down and thought through why it wasn’t working — it’s such a great idea, I’m convinced of it. And in a kind of brainstorming together, we figured out that if jackets are too expensive, that was the key point — why aren’t we selling anything, we’ve analyzed it — but that learning insight only came through exchange with another person, in this case my father, because I was so convinced of my idea that it would have taken much longer for that turnaround, that shift, to happen.

That’s really fascinating, thank you so much. And then there’s another aspect to add. One is before you’ve actually started, so to speak, and then there’s what happens once you’re already in the middle of it, in a manner of speaking — because that reminds me of something very concrete too. If you’re warned beforehand, so to speak, it might be that you still say, yes, interesting thought, but I want to try it myself anyway. That’s one thing. The other is when you’ve already gotten into an activity — you’ve already started, and then someone tells you that, maybe even someone you really respect. And then to abandon a process that’s already underway because of the realization, oh, they probably know what they’re talking about, and maybe I should do it differently after all — that’s also a really fascinating aspect. I’ve told you before that, right at the beginning, in order to burn my bridges so to speak, I rented office space across two floors, in a rather crazy way. A fair amount of money went into making it all look great, and so on. And I remember that one of my mentors and role models, right at the start — he only came into this process once the space was already rented and everything was already set up — and I remember very clearly, it was the first conversation we had about this, that he said, well, this whole office thing isn’t going to work, it’s madness, you need to get rid of it immediately. You’re going to need that money for other things, but this is basically a bad investment. He didn’t call it a bad investment in so many words, but that’s essentially what he recognized very, very quickly. And at that point the activity was already underway. A lot had already been invested. And to say, okay, now, of course, you have the experience, I’ll just abandon this and undo everything — that wasn’t remotely an option for me at that point, even though I hadn’t fundamentally doubted it myself at first. But once a certain amount of investment had already gone in, there was of course that feeling, well, now I can’t back out anymore. I’m going to see this through and figure out how to make it work. But that didn’t work out that way. In hindsight, he turned out to be right, which eventually led to that whole undertaking being abandoned — but only, I don’t know, a year and a half later or so, and in the meantime it cost a huge amount of money, so to speak, that really wasn’t necessary. But it took that painful insight from my own mistakes, so to speak, to actually act accordingly and draw the right conclusions from it. Although later there was also a reframing, in the sense that it was actually good that it happened, even though it cost a lot of money and came at a high price — because that whole situation also led to other decisions and brought a certain speed to things, and so on. All of that probably wouldn’t have happened in that form if that heavy burden hadn’t been there too. So there were definitely good and positive sides to it as well. But the price that was paid for it was relatively high. So I find that really fascinating. Marc, is there anything you’d like to add?

Yes, that reminds me of my own story. When I became self-employed, I didn’t have an office. And I remember moments when clients would say, okay, let’s set up a meeting, I’ll come by. And how you inwardly gulp and say, “oh, well, actually I’m nearby right now anyway, I’ll come to you instead.” I avoided at all costs having a client come to me. Today I can laugh about it. Back then I didn’t have an office because I didn’t have the money for one — certainly not in Cologne, and certainly not one that would have impressed me. Today I don’t have an office because I’m deeply convinced that I don’t need one, and that clients accept that. My answer to a client is: you could come to my office, but if I had an office, my caps would cost twice as much, because someone has to pay for it, and ultimately that’s you, the customer. So I don’t see any need for it. Today you ship things, and if people really want to meet in person, that still works too — you can go to trade fairs, visit the client, or simply have a coffee in a lovely city like Cologne.

Thank you so much. And yes, that makes it clear — we’re talking about offices right now, but there can be all sorts of other beliefs at play too, even though these are often images, so to speak, that we carry because they’ve been passed on to us by others, or through the way we were socialized — how is this shaped for us as an image, so to speak? And that doesn’t necessarily have to be right, but how is it shaped for us? What does a self-employed person look like to us? What does an entrepreneur look like to us? What does it mean to run a business? Whether that’s online or offline, whether it involves employees — employees are also a really fascinating topic in this context, I think. Many people still have this mindset that they have to have employees, meaning employees in the sense of a formal employment relationship, otherwise it supposedly can’t work, or can’t be successful, or something like that. That means the moment you’re operating as a solopreneur, so to speak, regardless of how much revenue or profit is coming in, when you get into the details, there are a lot of encounters where I notice it’s fascinating to see what images are present on the other side. And this thought process has become even more intense for me lately — we were actually just talking about this yesterday with someone, because they’re currently having some challenges with two team members who are working as virtual assistants, in this specific case. There are a few challenges there. It’s been apparent for a while that this probably won’t work well in the long run, maybe there are cultural factors involved too, and so on. But whatever the case, with all the technological developments happening now, this is intensifying. In our conversation we noticed that something that maybe already existed in some form before — less so for her, much more pronounced for me — is now, in various places, even more present as a thought: because of this efficiency boost we’re seeing now, with AI-powered tools and so on, there’s this reinforced thought that it’s becoming even less necessary, so to speak, than it might have been before. And I find that really fascinating too. So we have a lot of directions we could look into here, and I’m curious what other perspectives will come up. But for now — based on the examples we’ve brought up so far — it does seem to be the case, at least initially. And I’d really have to think longer myself to come up with an example, but it does seem, at first glance, that we bring a certain resistance to learning from other people’s mistakes, as opposed to learning from our own mistakes and drawing insight from them. So, with that, I’m curious what Stefan has to say. A wonderful good morning to you, Stefan.

Good morning, Yasemin. Good morning, Marc, and everyone here in the room. I think it’s mainly about the fact — if I can briefly add something on the business topic — that I’m always amazed at how many mistakes young entrepreneurs make, or generally people who’ve spun off a company, including from universities, for example. They’re all really enthusiastic, and normally, given their level of education, they’re well able to inform themselves. And yet the same mistakes keep getting made. There are a few things, for example, that Marc already touched on. You don’t want to be talked out of it. You believe in an idea. And that’s actually correct too — not letting yourself be immediately talked out of it — but you always have to prepare a solid strengths-and-weaknesses analysis for everything. You have to question a project, and once you’re convinced, you should follow through. But it’s also important to always ask yourself: how was my market research, am I really as well prepared as I think I am? And that has nothing to do with not wanting to be talked out of it — it’s simply because I don’t want to burn money. And there really are enough ways to inform yourself. We’ve talked about this before — there are these so-called Fuckup Nights, where you sit down in the evening with entrepreneurs and listen to what went wrong for them, what mistakes they made, and how they managed a great restart afterward. But you can avoid a lot of that. It usually costs a lot of money, a lot of energy, a lot of nerves. So it always makes sense, when preparing a company or really any project, to do proper research, to always question how professionally you’re really approaching the whole thing. Can I actually do this with my budget — that question, that situation too. I know this myself, of course — I also started out right away with a super fancy address, always convinced that potential clients would look at where you’re based, and so on. That’s true to some extent, depending on which business you’re in — an address in some back alley in Kassel-Bau xel might not come across as well as being in the media harbor in Düsseldorf. That can certainly be the case. On the other hand, you should always be honest with yourself and say, okay, depending on the business, it does make sense to rent something representative, at least for the times when you have to meet clients in person, so you have a nice atmosphere. But you can also rent, say, modern coworking spaces, which exist everywhere in major cities now, for relatively manageable money, so you always have representative premises with the right technology on hand when you need to have professional conversations, and so on. You don’t have to pay expensive rent for that. So those are just small things, mistakes you can learn from, especially in the business area. It’s really important, I think, not to let yourself be talked out of the idea, but to be sensible and do good research, and to listen a little before investing a single euro — what am I doing here? And you have to be clear about every single step. I’ve had the opportunity to speak as a guest speaker in front of universities, and also in front of various entrepreneurs, quite often, showing them what they maybe shouldn’t do at the start and what they could do instead to start a successful business. And that certainly includes questioning your own mindset to some degree. How open am I really? Am I even suited to this profession? And does it make sense if I’m the one driving the idea and being creative in the background, but maybe I’m not the right businessman or businesswoman for it? Wouldn’t I be stronger in a strategic partnership, or should I bring in a partner, and so on? So you should be very open. It’s very complex at the start, but you can save a lot of money and a lot of nerves. And the very first thing that came to mind, which has nothing to do with business, or usually doesn’t — insight from mistakes — I thought, in Germany every second marriage ends in divorce. Where’s the insight from mistakes there? So I don’t want to make light of it, that’s certainly dramatic, and thankfully I don’t have to go through that myself. But I just want to say, there are things that keep recurring, mistakes that keep being made — people who decide to take drugs, or smoke, or drink excessive amounts of alcohol, and so on. Those are all things where we know very well, with clear evidence, that they’re not good for our health. And people still do it. So you always have to look at what the root of it all is. Why do I do something?

Thank you so much. And that ultimately shows that this is a phenomenon, evidently a human phenomenon. Because even if we look at other areas outside of a business context — let’s take something really basic, how is it with children? You can’t explain to them how walking works, or riding a bike or anything like that — they learn through the experiences they have themselves. That means falling down is ultimately part of it too, and is sometimes even needed, to have that experience, to feel the pain that comes with it, so to speak, and to draw conclusions from that. And it’s probably the same, whatever it is — you can probably relate — you can explain to a child a thousand times not to touch a hot stove, but the experience only really sinks in once the child has tried it, depending on how close they dared to get, to really feel what happens, and then it won’t happen a second time. So this might sound a bit like, well, that’s just children, but especially since you brought up the divorce example, if I think about it, I can imagine that a lot of people ultimately go there because, on one hand, it’s interesting, maybe even inspiring — and that would certainly be fascinating to research, or to analyze, how much of other people’s mistakes actually gets adapted or taken on in the sense of, I turn it into something positive. Or whether it’s more the case that — and we might tend more toward this, say with consulting, coaching, or other things — we look at what’s working well, and pick up on those positive things and imitate them, to see whether that represents a shortcut, so to speak. But especially when it comes to painful experiences or mistakes, we might really need our own experience for that. So, I’m curious — do you have anything to add, especially with these examples about children and so on, how you see it? Because what you said, Stefan, I completely agree with. There’s so much information out there, and so on, but it evidently doesn’t lead anywhere. And it’s probably not necessarily because you couldn’t research it yourself — maybe you even did the research, and it still leads to the same mistake being made again, so to speak, and only through your own learning experience does insight actually get gained from it. Marc, Stefan, do you want to add to that?

Sure, go ahead, Stefan. I didn’t want to cut Marc off, that’s why I waited a moment.

Generally speaking, it’s exactly that mix. It’s a really exciting journey when you decide to start a business — you’re euphoric, of course. I believe in it, I believe in myself. That’s actually a positive thing in itself, having that self-confidence to start, to trust myself with it, and to believe in my idea, my product, or my service. That’s fundamentally correct, and you shouldn’t let yourself be talked out of it. So that’s one thing — I think it’s just that mix. Of course, there’s never a real master plan, no matter who’s standing there giving you expertise. There’s no master plan for my business. It’s simply too complex. So many contingencies can arise, and I have to be prepared for that. And of course I’m better prepared if I don’t avoid things, but actually do them, and if I generate my own experience from that, so to speak, or draw my insights from it, then it’s even stronger. Of course, people grow stronger because they learn from their mistakes, or at least react better the next time. So it’ll always be that mix. But still, I think good preparation avoids a lot of unpleasant situations. None of us has unlimited time on this planet. We should just enjoy life. And a lot of people wear themselves down by allowing too many mistakes, making too many mistakes, maybe partly out of a certain stubbornness, insisting on pushing something through no matter what. And what I was getting at is that you should simply follow certain basics that are obviously clear, but that you should, of course, let yourself in for this journey. It’s an adventure that, ideally, is a lot of fun. It’s an up and down for a lot of people. You can be as professional as you like — if a war breaks out somewhere, like what’s happening now, and the markets go crazy, prices suddenly look completely different, then no matter how well prepared I am, I can’t control that in the moment the way I’d like to. And with children, it’s the same — I have two kids, and it’s been a huge joy for me to witness how they learned in each phase of their lives. I’ve genuinely learned a lot from that too, as a father, or as parents in general. With the first child, obviously, everything is different than with the second. You’re a bit more relaxed, calmer. You don’t immediately panic or rush to the hospital the moment your child has a fever. So that’s been really lovely too. And what I also had to learn is that you simply have to give children more freedom than you think you need to, in your protective role, so to speak. Children are capable of much, much more at every stage of life than we tend to give them credit for. And that’s an important aspect for life in general — that you allow things, always with a protective hand in the background, but that you allow more, even for yourself. Making mistakes is simply part of life. And unless they’re truly foolish mistakes, ones I can foresee or judge to not be great in the moment, it’s certainly a real strength to draw insight from them and do better next time, or share them with others.

Thank you so much. And I’d like to bring in one more component in this context. We’ve talked about generating insight from mistakes, but not every mistake, so to speak, necessarily leads to us generating insight from it and actually drawing out learnings. So what’s needed for that? And I’m thinking here particularly about the repetition of mistakes. You surely know examples, or people, who repeat one and the same mistake, or the same mistake adapted to different situations, over and over again. One of my coaches, for example, says that making mistakes again and again isn’t a bad thing — that’s part of it too, and we draw learnings from that. But if someone keeps making the exact same mistake over and over, repeating a mistake, that borders on foolishness, so to speak. That’s quite provocative, I know — I’m just relaying the stance he personally holds. I’m curious what you think about that, Marc, Stefan.

I’d say, again, feelings are involved in everything we do. And euphoria sometimes crowds out openness. I think it sometimes depends on the timing of a conversation — from what point onward we have a certain conversation and receive certain information. If we’re open and ready, that also leads us to no longer want to make the mistake, or to be able to prevent it. Even though the content of the information we receive, at the wrong point in the conversation, is exactly the same content, it just doesn’t land with us, because — exactly as you said, dear Yasemin — we first have to have that experience ourselves. For me, for example, when I became self-employed, I was convinced I could get anyone on the phone. It was a challenge for me — whether it was a CEO, a managing director, or an owner — I’d find them at the golf club, at the trade fair. No one would refuse to talk to me. What I learned, though, is that this conversation didn’t actually help me at all, because nothing happens after that conversation. Because the process that follows, if you actually manage to get the supposed decision-maker on the phone — the head of a company, the board — well, those are nice people, they’re trained. They give you the feeling of wanting to help, and say, thanks for your call, Marc, let me connect you with person A. And person A at a big corporation kindly and warmly passes you on to person B, who says, I’d love to, but that’s organized differently here, person C decides that. And then it turns out that the initial strategy — thinking that the top boss would open the door for you, pave the way — no, he doesn’t. He just gives you a name, and you start back at zero every time. And that’s where I learned, on my own, that there are certain structures and relationships and contracts that, despite all the euphoria, despite total conviction, just don’t move your business forward, because there are so many small factors that determine why a deal comes about, why people come to an agreement, and sometimes so much money is at stake that even the better offer, the better product, the better business idea isn’t the one that ultimately wins out in the market, because there are so many decision-making processes involved. And if you simply accept that and tell yourself, okay, in this case I’m not getting anywhere, then that’s the right moment — you process the information, and it probably comes down to your own personal pain threshold, which everyone has, and your personal capital too, for when that fuse blows, so to speak, which hopefully we all have, where you say, this isn’t working anymore, if I keep going like this I’ll really have no money left, if I keep going like this my company will be insolvent. At the latest at that point, we’re forced to act. And an example that might make it easier for you to picture: I have a huge fear of the dentist. I didn’t go to the dentist for a long time, but at some point I did go — and that was when the pain was so great that I said, the pain is now bigger than my fear of the dentist. That’s what finally drove me to act.

Thank you so much. On one hand, it’s often the pain, indeed. There are generally two reasons for change — either it’s joy toward something, or it’s pain. Meaning the suffering is great enough, moving away from something. And we often observe that many people, in many contexts, tend to wait until the suffering is great enough to move away from something, rather than building up the joy to move toward something. Stefan, would you like to add anything on repetition?

What comes to mind right now is — well, of course, if we ask everyone here in the room who actually likes going to the dentist, we naturally try to avoid unpleasant things like that. Maybe there’s the odd person who says, okay, that’s not a problem for me, but generally that’s how it is. There are simply unpleasant things we don’t like doing. We don’t sit down with full enthusiasm to do our tax return, or pay someone else a lot of money to do it for us. That’s just how it is. There will always be things we file away as negative, based on our own patterns of thinking, or based on what we actually classify as unpleasant or pleasant in the moment. The same applies, of course, when I look at what effects it has when mistakes happen, whether in private life or professionally — what’s going on with me in that moment. Can disappointment turn into anger, into panic, in various situations, or at least escalate into that, where I’m a bit shaken psychologically, so that I maybe don’t even recognize my own mistake, or my mistakes. That I maybe don’t really allow an outside view or reflection from others, because I’m struggling with myself, because my

personality has taken a knock. Those are also things that play in. What probably gives us insight from mistakes also means first recognizing the mistake, or the mistakes. But that also means doing a kind of reflection — really sitting down properly and, whether it happened professionally or in your private life, really working through it. Simply, reasonably. And if you say, look, I need to bring in a neutral person, then you find someone you trust and go through it with them. If necessary, with an expert too. And these negative experiences we have, just like the positive ones, have an effect on everything. And I think we need to be aware that, just as with anything else, we shouldn’t handle mistakes too emotionally, but try to place things on a somewhat neutral level — which, of course, is easy to say. I know that if I lose a lot of money, or lose my partner, I’m not really in a position to classify everything neutrally and calmly right away. But at some point that moment comes, that insight arrives, where I say, if I want to keep moving forward in my life and be successful again on every level, then I can’t present it any differently than it actually is. Then I can’t dress up these mistakes in some other coat, so to speak, but have to clearly name what went wrong, what part I played in it, what part others played, and then I have to draw learnings from those insights and simply do better. That’s probably, for my health and my wallet, the most sensible way to find that turning point. Do you have any concrete examples that come to mind, where you repeated one and the same mistake? Does an example come to mind straight away?

Well, I know it’s always important to make things a bit clearer or illustrate them with examples, but I think one thing I keep getting wrong, for example, is that even though I know it’s healthier — there are project phases where I really sit in front of the computer for a very, very long time writing concepts and so on, and then there are phases where I’m active outside, out and about, and that of course does me good overall — but what I’m talking about is that I actually know certain things aren’t good for me, that I tend to eat the wrong things at the wrong time, that I don’t do enough for myself. I keep making that mistake, unfortunately, even though I know it’s not good for me. It’s a very mundane story, but it’s one of those mistakes that keeps happening. I actually know how it should go, what proper nutrition looks like and when you should eat what, but I get that wrong. And then I always have the problem of having to really, really strongly overcome my inner laziness to fix it again.

Thank you so much. Marc, do you have anything to add?

I could hug you, Stefan. Today you’re the one doing it — I have to laugh so much. The food topic. I really like to eat, and when I’m traveling, I enjoy spending an hour or two over a meal. I just don’t enjoy spending much time in the kitchen, and I still live like a student. I drink too little, I was so happy when Twix briefly went back to being called Raider again, and so on. I promise myself every year that I’ll really try to eat vegetables or fruit, to eat a more varied diet. But I can only fully sign off on what you said. I make this mistake fully consciously. Every time, because for me alone, spending an hour in the kitchen just isn’t fun. I never learned to enjoy it. A lot of people find cooking relaxing — I just don’t have the patience for it. But I really love eating, I can only underline that. There are certain mistakes I keep making even though I know they’re wrong. And on the topic of the dentist, my attitude changed there too — recognizing, you said something really great, shifting your perspective, and this “recognize my mistake” was the biggest challenge I identified for myself. “Recognize my mistake,” and now I go to the dentist because I know that not going just gets more expensive, and I can avoid pain. And if the dentist is nice, you have a conversation. My perspective changed there too. And what also comes to mind in this context, recognizing this mistake — I’ve had a few relationships, and I never learned to communicate there either. Communicating means, what does the other person really want? What really matters to them? What do they care about? Or you try to change the other person. And if you shift your perspective here too, then at some point you don’t just say, they all misunderstand me, I’ll stay single, I don’t want anything to do with women or men or whoever anymore, they’ve all disappointed me. And the nice thing — we’ve talked about this in this room before — disappointment just means the end of an illusion. And if we learn and recognize our own mistakes, no matter what we’re doing, in private or professional life, that really opens up new doors and gates, so that things can simply go better next time.

Thank you so much. And especially now, bringing these examples back up and remembering that we’re also steered by our brain — just as there are two main drivers of change, moving away from and moving toward, joy and pain or suffering are aspects that can initiate change — ultimately we’re emotional beings, and how does our brain function? Whenever we’re in a situation, even one we’ve reflected on, especially with things like, I don’t know, eating sweets or exercising, we observe this very, very often — there are two components our brain operates on, that’s simply how we’re built evolutionarily. One question is: does this threaten my situation? If it doesn’t threaten my situation, I don’t need to take any action. And the second question our brain deals with is: does this improve my situation? And especially with the example Stefan brought up, about being outside in nature or pursuing activities — I know it’s good for me, but I still don’t always do it. And even though I know it’s good for me, the energy I’d have to spend to overcome that inner resistance, to go outside and so on — that’s simply more energy expenditure than if I just stay sitting in front of the computer, and maybe supply myself with certain hormones in a different way, so to speak, consciously or unconsciously, for example through food or other means. It might not feel exactly the same, but it’s the same underlying mechanisms at play, leading to the release of corresponding hormones. And while one is simply much easier, and the brain is always striving to expend as little energy as possible, so to speak, to secure survival and so on — that’s something we can explain nicely from that angle. That means insight alone, or realization alone, doesn’t automatically trigger change — we then have to consciously counteract it with various tools. And I find that really fascinating too, looking at it from this perspective, or explaining why it is that we don’t take on everything from others, or need to have the experience ourselves, right down to our own experiences, even painful ones, where we sometimes fall back into repetition mode, even though rationally the alternative would probably be much more sensible and logical. But logic sometimes switches off precisely when that emotional component and those processes happening in the brain kick in, in the background, and sometimes it takes real willpower to break out of that pattern, whatever we want to call it — discipline or something similar. Marc, Stefan, do you have any other closing thoughts to add? Otherwise we can move into the closing round for today, and I’m already looking forward to announcing tomorrow’s topic.

Dear Yasemin, I just want to add that, again, the point about exchanging with others — and that can include strangers too — has helped me get to know myself better. And that includes your insights from neuroscience, about how I myself function — and by that I mean my brain. Those were such valuable contributions. If I’d had this information a few years earlier, it would have led to a hundred percent different decisions and different insights for me too. Thank you for this space, and I wish you all, as always, a wonderful start to the day.

Oh, wonderful, thank you so much, Stefan. In a workshop series we once ran, there was a really interesting insight worth mentioning too. We worked with people in leadership positions who had both professional and private problems, and simply laid them side by side. We started with the business version and thought about what the most common mistakes are that people make in business, and tried to transfer that one-to-one — aren’t these the same mechanisms we also apply in our private lives? Things like self-assessment — can I do something, or do I overestimate myself, or underestimate myself, or am I exactly right and the environment reacts strangely? Or preparation for events, for certain things — things I prepare professionally in business but not in the same way in my private life, even though it deserves, or should deserve, the same attention. All those kinds of things. I think if you lay that kind of template over both, ultimately it comes down to the person — to myself. I’m not infallible. I have to make mistakes to gain certain insights from experience, in the moment. I have to go through that situation. What’s important is being honest with yourself once you’ve recognized it, and getting help if necessary. And otherwise not letting yourself be talked out of things by everyone immediately. Mistakes are something positive. That’s maybe worth keeping in mind — well, at least not the ones I make six times in a row, but generally, mistakes are something positive. Mistakes don’t always have to be treated negatively by our brain — they should be seen as an opportunity to keep optimizing life, professionally and privately.

Wonderful, thank you so much, and I think that’s a lovely segue, because on one hand, recognizing that mistakes are something positive — not necessarily in repetition, meaning we should definitely look at that, to initiate change, and not keep making the same mistake over and over — but fundamentally that we need mistakes, to draw learnings from them, gather experience, and apply and adapt that to other situations too, is a really important connection. And tomorrow we’ll actually be doing the room on insight and motivation — what influence does motivation have on insight and gaining insight, on one hand. And I’d like to build a bridge here to what already came up today. We touched on aspects like euphoria, for example — meaning it has a lot to do with emotions. And the question is, so to speak, maybe it’s actually a good thing that we don’t fully realize certain things even though we’ve heard them, and go into a situation a bit naively and blindly, so to speak. Because especially if we look at it — what might hold us back from going one direction or another, if we engaged with it intensively and thoroughly beforehand, if we really realized, not just heard and registered, so to speak, but truly realized what that actually means. And especially since we’ve touched on business today, self-employment, entrepreneurship, and so on — it’s not always easy, there are a lot of ups and downs. And that applies to private life or other areas too. I mentioned once in another room, and maybe we can pick this up again tomorrow as an entry point into insight and motivation — I once mentioned in a room, I don’t know, looking back, if I had known, if I had really realized, not just mentally registered at some point, so to speak — because of course there were people who said, a dissertation isn’t easy, so to speak. It takes many years, and so on. It’s not something you do on the side. And I had indeed heard that, but went into that undertaking anyway. And looking back, there were many moments, especially after I completed it, where I kept asking myself, if I had known that, would I really have gone into it? Would I have taken that path? Would I have walked it? And there was a really interesting exchange about that with a good friend of mine, who also did a doctorate — we talked about it again and again. And she’s firmly convinced that even if I had truly realized it, I probably would have gone down that path anyway. Partly because I wouldn’t have believed it, and so on, and partly because — maybe this is even a protective mechanism in some way — that we don’t want to recognize certain things in the first place. So not just openness in this context, but maybe also opening that other door and saying, sometimes it’s actually a good thing, in one place or another, that maybe it has a protective function, so to speak. And we can look at that in more detail tomorrow, when we look at it from the perspective of insight and motivation — what role do emotions play here, and then pick up these examples from today again, to build that bridge, so to speak, toward what positive sides it has, ultimately, that motivation, for example, is very strongly pronounced, that certain things maybe simply get blocked out, even though we’ve heard them, even though we could have known them, so to speak, because otherwise we might never have gone down that path in the first place. And you’re welcome to let that sink in — maybe a few examples will come to mind for you today already, which you can bring into the room tomorrow, so that we can start together with these examples and talk about insight and motivation together. With that, thank you all so much. I found this really enriching again today, and I’m already looking forward to the room tomorrow — you’re warmly invited to join again tomorrow morning at 8am. With that, until then. Ciao!