Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: How are reflection and change connected? Dr. Yasemin Yazan, Marc, Jürgen and the group put it to the test on a very live example — a surprise Clubhouse redesign that hit everyone mid-scroll — to unpack why our brain only ever asks two questions before it lets us change anything at all…
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
A very good morning to you. Yes, today we’re continuing, and I’ve decided to still include reflection and change too. So, to what extent are reflection and change connected, is the question we want to engage with once more. And specifically also concretized with the example of the Clubhouse update, before we then move together into reflection and bringing it together tomorrow, to round off the overarching topic of reflection for now and transition into the second overarching topic, thinking. Yes, and with reflection and change we have two aspects we can pick up today. On one hand, looking at how that’s connected, and on the other hand actually also picking up the Clubhouse update example, and taking that as a really concrete example too, to illustrate the way on one hand, and on the other hand at the same time also use the opportunity to exchange with regard to the update. Look again at what you’ve noticed in the meantime, so to speak, what you’ve tried out, and maybe we can also exchange a few aspects that are helpful for the coming days and weeks, in which these changes will now accompany us, so to speak, and maybe make it a bit easier for one person or another to find the rooms, and so on, again. So I’m absolutely curious about that. You’re all really, really warmly invited, as every morning, to join in, contribute your thoughts, impulses, experiences, and then let’s just see which direction the room develops in today. We have a recording running in the background, that as a reminder too. That means, anyone who joins automatically agrees that the whole thing gets published too. And we have three small room rules: a profile picture where you’re recognizable, first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio. And anyone who doesn’t want that for whatever reason, or can’t speak right now, can of course also gladly use the chat, to share an experience or two or contribute to the topic. A very good morning, dear Marc, what do you say to that?
Good morning to the group, nice to be back with you and among you. Yes, first I’d like to thank you, dear Yasemin, because I only had the chance this morning to look at what topic we have today, and first thought, emotionally, this is a strange topic for me with regard to Clubhouse, and then really had to think about what I could say about that, change at Clubhouse, and then found that I evaluate change for myself, just for Marc, quite differently. I find Clubhouse hasn’t changed at all. That means, that’s had, in my perception, zero relevance, so 0.005 percent, and then I asked myself, well of course it has changed, but why do I go to Clubhouse? I use 99 percent of your rooms on Clubhouse, dear Yasemin. Nothing has changed about that. That’s not a change, neither good nor bad for me. It’s just there. And that’s why I really engaged with it almost not at all, next to nothing, except in the moment when I realized Clubhouse was suddenly different now. That briefly led to stress for me, but positive stress, because I wanted to join in the morning. That led to me being in contact with Jürgen and us exchanging, saying, do you know where you find this now, or that. But once I found the button, the starting situation was that it wasn’t clear to me how you get into a room where it shows up. And I came to the realization, or the conclusion, Yasemin will invite me. And I told Jürgen, I’ll invite you too. And with this invite button, we’ll somehow find it. And with this invite button we’ll also somehow, even if maybe with a delay, be able to join this room, and that resolved the stress again. I was really curious, like Christmas, like when there are presents, what happens at 8am, through which door will I enter this room. So, that’s it for the beginning first.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Let me ask you back, how many minutes beforehand did you notice there was an update? So if you then had the opportunity to exchange with Jürgen about it, it wasn’t quite so close to 8, was it?
No, it wasn’t quite so close to 8. Since I correspond with China in the mornings, I’m always a bit earlier, I’m already sitting at my emails and checking what we’re talking about today, and then really noticed and immediately realized, oh, this is different, and knew right away I wanted to act immediately, because if it’s different, I check, of course, not to lose time, how do I get in, and that’s how it came about that I contacted Jürgen, because at first I couldn’t even find my profile anymore. I was really curious, and my first reaction was, well let’s see how many people are in the room with us today, because I really had to try a bit and think about how I’d do it.
Yes, great, thank you so much. That means, in your case we now have a special situation you described, namely that you usually exclusively visit these rooms here, and accordingly, when you noticed it had changed, you described it as positive stress at that moment, namely finding out how you get into this room afterward and how you find the room. And accordingly, in quotation marks, used strategies too — on one hand exchanging with Jürgen, on the other hand trying this or that out, to see how you manage to find this room. And then a calming effect with regard to the invites. We’ll definitely manage that, at least that one of us gets into the room and maybe pings the other. Wonderful, thank you so much. Then let’s bring in Jürgen too. A very good morning, dear Jürgen.
A very good morning, dear friends. First question, can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Very good. Sorry, I’m a bit short on breath. I’d just like to briefly, because I really have to move on afterward, empty my idea storage on the topic of reflection. I assume, since you announced we’re briefly moving to thinking now, I thought, let me look at my idea storage, what’s actually in there. And regarding point 2, which I’ll address, this topic hasn’t been in that storage for days or weeks now. But the first point I remembered, dear Yasemin, was once a really brief topic, where we discussed the question — sorry — we discussed the question, does the body think along? That was under the topic of reflection, deliberately labeled with the term thinking, as they of course also transfer to reflection. But let me just remind you of three things. I still have that as maybe a debatable point in my storage — does the body think along. And the second point, this is that point now — over the last, as far as I can trace it, 17 or 18 rooms, we’ve repeatedly picked up a term really strongly connected to the topic of education, to the overarching topic of education, namely self-determination, self-control, and self-empowerment, and at some point I wrote down another term as a significant purpose of reflection, namely self-change in the positive sense, self-improvement. And in that sense, when I heard your introduction with the topic of change, I thought, that can’t be a coincidence now. So that’s the second point I carry with me, as an idea, to maybe see this context of self-change alongside self-determination and self-empowerment as a meta-level over the topic of reflection, thinking, and acting? Question mark. And the third topic I have in my storage is really strongly connected to change, because change, for me, is learning. And we’ve addressed this topic multiple times. I’d just like to remind us again of the link to mega learning and future skills. I’d like to position these three points now. Bear with me that I’ll now focus on just listening, because you notice the same, I’m under a bit of physical stress. I wish you a good course for this room. Warm greetings from beautiful Trentino to you all, and I’m listening in.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And here we can maybe build on this too. Marc, maybe you’d like to build on this again. Especially with regard to “does the body think along,” question mark, with regard to whether that transfers to reflection in some way. Maybe you can think about whether there were physical, for example, reactions of any form too, also with this update that took place. Maybe we can build on that somehow. Marc, would you like to build on this again?
That’s really, really hard for me to answer. I’m so different from how Jürgen can be. Because I’ve always, my body at least has always thought in terms of, let’s say, pain avoidance. And getting as far as possible with as little effort as possible. And Jürgen approaches this really from a mental angle, and has already told me really great things about how our body connects with our mind. I’ve never engaged with that the way Jürgen has. But that comes from the fact that Jürgen also needs that, to be able to draw the power reserves, I’ve understood, from his body, if you do extreme hikes or extreme swimming now, that needs a really, really different mental preparation, a really, really different understanding of how the body functions as a unit with the mind. I’ve so far been more occupied with my mind than with my body. That’s why I can’t say anything about that right now.
Okay, wonderful. Thank you so much. Let’s see, maybe there’s someone else who’d like to bring something in on this aspect too. So a warm invitation to the others too, to gladly join in and bring in your perspectives, experiences too. And yes, and the aspect with learning too, with the link, so to speak, that Jürgen also established. Ultimately, change is about learning processes. And we’ve, and I’d like to establish this connection again, we’ve already looked at this from the perspective, in various rooms, what actually happens in the brain? And with change overall, basically we have two aspects, either a moving-away motion or a moving-toward motion. Either the suffering pressure is great enough, so I say, I want to change something, or the joy or attractiveness of something is great enough, so I say, I want to move toward it. That has something to do with our brain programming itself toward securing existence. That means, it keeps asking two questions again and again when we get stimuli from outside. Namely, first, does that threaten my existence. That’s the case in the rarest of cases, because we don’t encounter a lion or a tiger or something, and it’s really not about life and death here. And the second question that follows directly and immediately is, what use is it to me. And what’s exciting is that, even with an update like the one on Clubhouse now, that’s a nice example, because it’s an everyday example, and in many similar situations, variations happen in everyday life too, that we have situations where something suddenly changes, and exactly this process takes place in the brain, so to speak, and, leaning on that, it’s decided whether we do something or don’t do anything. So whether we want to learn or not. And what’s exciting, and that’s why I found this so nice, is that it was also such a positive example in this context. So I can well imagine there are also people who suddenly notice, there’s an update and it’s all somehow stupid. So maybe I’ll stop using the app, because I have no desire to engage with it, because the question of what for isn’t positively connoted at that point, with a “yes, I want that, because I want to achieve this or that with it,” and that could actually lead someone to quit. On the other hand, there are people on Clubhouse who see a benefit in it, like, for example, I want to, I join these rooms here every morning and I want to keep joining, because I know they take place, and that’s why I now want to find out how this works and how I can join this room again this morning too, so to speak, so as not to miss anything. And just that ultimately leads to saying, okay, now I’ll quickly engage with it, I’ll check and see how I can help myself, maybe develop strategies too, to find answers to my questions and accordingly bring about solutions too. And already we’re right in the middle of the learning process. Whereas if I’d decided to say, no, I wouldn’t know why I should engage with this, I don’t see the benefit behind it for myself, then I’d rather leave the app, or I’m out, then the learning process wouldn’t have started. Then we’d at most maybe have gained an insight for ourselves. Marc, would you like to build on this again?
Yes, very gladly. I actually wanted to say something basic about the topic of reflection and change. It just occurred to me that I know an incredible number of smart people. Of every stripe, that has nothing to do with education. And it also became clear to me again this weekend that there are really, really many people who think, who think about many things. But thinking and reflecting, that’s a huge difference for me. And then I tried to figure out how I’d answer that for myself now, after all these rooms. Reflection is asking different questions. Thinking alone doesn’t help, because I think about many things. And then it occurred to me, what’s, for example, the most annoying question children ask adults. And I remember, when I was a child. Why? Why is that so? Why do I think that? Kids can really annoy you with why. And I just asked myself, why do children maybe annoy you with the question why? Quite simply, because I — this happens to me often — can’t answer the simplest things to a child anymore as an adult, because I’m too far out of school. I do notice the change, I register it, I’ve also heard about it somewhere, but I can’t give a smart, brief, and scientific answer in many cases. And for me that also means the topic of reflection in other matters, when we ask ourselves why we think that, why we do that, and then become the shaper of our own thinking. And that’s why, for me, this “why” was one of the best topics we’ve ever had in this room. So, content-wise, it’s not about thinking. As I said, we all think. We think about why they’re not responding, why they’re upset. Every one of us thinks. But for me it’s
reflection, the art of arriving at different questions. So thinking, with a different technique, in a different way. And I had to learn that myself first. I didn’t know it. And this reflecting can change the world so much for us personally, because through this reflecting, through this different thinking, we become the shaper again, and not the administrator of some media or other people. And that’s why, at this point, the room isn’t over yet, but dear Yasemin, thank you for the topic, and I hope it keeps flowing in again and again, because for me, in my over 50 years, this was one of the most exciting topics, reflecting, so thinking things through, becoming the shaper again and steering myself again, so steering my operating system, my mind, is one of the most exciting topics I’ve come across.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Yes, let’s also actually talk a bit more about this practical aspect in this context, and gladly exchange experiences too, if you like. Marc, you already said you basically don’t visit other rooms. So how is it for you now, for example, that there’s no Main Hall currently, but you probably get notified automatically, I assume, because you left a follow with the club. Maybe you can describe how that works for you right now, so I can follow along too.
Yes, well, I’m a play-it-out kid. For me personally, the only relevance, and it would have a really big relevance and change, where I thought about it, is if it were no longer possible to use Clubhouse at all, that would be a really big change, because I’ve been here for almost over three years now. That would be a really, really big change, a noticeable change. And I didn’t think about this new appearance of Clubhouse, because I found access to the room through playing around. And for me it works like this, that I click on the profile picture at the top right, where I am. I searched for my photo, because I knew there were more pages and more levels connected behind my photo, and if I go to my photo, then the rooms show up, either the ones I’ve already visited, and I discovered this morning too, there’s a plus sign, and when I open this plus sign, I see a selection of several rooms, and that’s how I can pick out the room I’d like to visit again. And I didn’t go deeper than that, because I found that this surface change of Clubhouse really has, for me, 0.001 percent effect, because I know where the Deep Talk Club room is, and I didn’t search for the others, and that’s why I didn’t engage further with the Main Hall and so on.
Yes, thank you so much. Did you maybe notice anything with regard to notifications too, because we have the option of keeping Clubhouse notifications turned on. On one hand that had the advantage in the past that you could get pinged, and on the other hand, when a room is currently running that you planned to attend, so clicked “I’ll attend,” that you then also get a notification, so a kind of pop-up on your phone display, and can click directly on it to enter the room. Have you been able to gain any experience with that now after the update, Marc?
Yes, I mean unconsciously, you also keep forgetting that, but I mean unconsciously, yes, that always pops up, and with the people I’m connected to, I also get the message that Clubhouse says, so-and-so is speaking and so-and-so is speaking, and I at least get the message about which rooms are taking place. That’s not always an invitation, but I get the message, this room is currently live now, and this room is currently live now. And then there’s another thing I noticed, that there are now exclusively voice messages, except now in the room chat. There we still have the chat, to be able to write. But otherwise all messages, as far as I’ve seen, have been switched over, so you can send voice messages, but can no longer write, if I saw that correctly.
Have you already tried that? Have you already gathered experience with that, or what do you think of it?
I notice that in certain points I’m still a dinosaur. I’d rather write, so with voice messages, that’s faster, I do use that sometimes, but I’ve also found, with regret, that these voice messages are gone, regret because many voice messages, in the sense of WhatsApp, don’t necessarily offer added value now either, because you’re just wishing someone a nice day or exchanging information you won’t need after a year. Those are irrelevant even after a week or after a day. But if it’s about having met someone who wrote you a private phone number, and I haven’t saved this phone number yet, because I have access to these messages. But I know where this phone number is. Then I find it annoying if there’s no warning, because then I can’t make this connection anymore, to this information, so the connection to people who might be important to me. And then I find it quite annoying that the chat history is gone.
Yes, absolutely. Yes, that’s really the case, if you haven’t saved something somewhere, then that’s now probably no longer findable either. At the same time I find it really, really exciting how far back certain recordings go, because there we’re also at the data protection topic, especially for Germany, I find that really exciting, because there really are quite a few rooms I find again in my profile, so to speak, that get shown to me. And these, to my knowledge, weren’t rooms that were originally recorded, so where the replays were on. And there’s, well, I now have a room shown to me, for example, where I just spot-checked the dates and found that this room took place last summer. So it goes back a year. And if I press play there, then I can, so to speak, listen to the full recording of the room in its entirety. And I find that also really exciting, because especially for Germany that should be relatively problematic. I can’t imagine that staying in that form, or being allowed to stay at all, at that point. I don’t know if you’ve maybe made similar observations too. Marc, have you noticed anything about that?
Indeed. That was actually a reason why I, before we met here today, entered the origin of Clubhouse into Google. And you don’t necessarily find great reports there. And the first thing you find on Wikipedia is that Clubhouse isn’t data-compliant, and is really, really strongly criticized because of these things, because, more or less, according to our legal system, or according to what we understand, basically all data protection regulations are more or less suspended. But well, that goes for many things we use daily. If we start there, we could fill a few, not just one, a few extra rooms with that. I mean, I don’t want to say anything wrong, please, in quotation marks, I also think I’ve read that even pictures I send you, dear Yasemin, via WhatsApp, I’m agreeing, by using it, that I’m transferring all rights to all photos I send. That would just mean, if that’s the case, that if I send you a picture from vacation and you suddenly find out that Marc has become the new Coca-Cola face, which of course would be great, then I’d have no rights to my own picture, because I’m using a medium where, by using it, I’ve more or less already signed on page 468 of the contract, you know what I mean, agreed that I transfer all image rights.
Yes, thank you so much. Yes, and so we really do have, with a lot of software apps and so on that we use, a lot of guidelines, so to speak, framework conditions, which are indeed defined, probably everywhere in the fine print, and in many places where we also don’t exactly know what actually happens with the material afterward. So especially with the rooms. Over the last, it’ll soon be three years, on January 15th it’ll be three years, we’ve really, really intensively made sure not to turn on replays, in many places without corresponding announcements. We didn’t do the recordings for a really long time, and only when we did, with announcements, and so on, we acted accordingly with hand signals, and so on, to comply with these data protection guidelines as much as possible. And then you suddenly find that there are rooms stored that go back a year, and that definitely weren’t recorded by us in any way, no replays were on, and are actually saved on our own profile. That leads to certain surprises. Because it was communicated, at least, that there are recordings, if, for example, a report was made in the room. And it’s not all rooms either. It could of course be that something led to that, which I could imagine. Because you don’t see all the rooms that somehow took place, but these are, in quotation marks, some picked-out rooms, so to speak, that show up here selectively. And it might have something to do with that. It was communicated that, if for example something happens in the room and a report gets filed, or similar, that someone submits a complaint about someone else, or similar, that the room then gets recorded, and possibly these are exactly the rooms that are now accessible, because some report happened there that led to the room getting recorded accordingly. So that would be one idea at least, that could explain it. But we ultimately don’t know. And here it’s a bit of a question. I mean, I’m personally relatively relaxed about it. We haven’t had any secret topics or anything. They were all open rooms. And in that sense I’m relatively relaxed about it. But it did lead to a bit of a surprise for me, so to speak. And regardless of what’s communicated externally, there can still be surprises too. And that was, for me, also a clear sign of that. I find that really, really exciting. Yes, let me briefly invite the others too. We’ve now spent about half an hour on a mix, so to speak, of reflection and change, and have also quite concretely picked up the Clubhouse example, against the backdrop that there was an update, to also enter into exchange on one hand. What experiences have we already had? What have we maybe already tried out, so it might be a help for one person or another at this or that point too, to find the rooms they’d like to visit again too. Marc has already described how he gets into the room. Then we addressed notifications. We addressed that there are no more written messages, but everything is now primarily switched to voice messages. That’s of course also a change, especially against the backdrop that you might not always be able to send a voice message, for whatever reason, because it’s loud in the background or similar. And in that sense writing would of course be more pleasant at that point. We talked about how the old written messages are gone. That means, I haven’t seen anywhere where you’d have access to saved written messages. That’s a shame too, you’d probably have to, if you notice on short notice that there was something in there that you actually need and haven’t saved it, probably go through support again, to ask whether they could maybe provide a message tree, in quotation marks, to be able to pull certain things out again. And then I also saw with the voice messages that there’s not just, on one hand there’s the option to send yourself private voice messages, and on the other hand there’s the option to do a kind of live voice-message chat, so to speak. That’s like, basically, opening up a kind of unplanned room, and then the people who come in, they just come in. That means, the friends, in quotation marks, get notified, and when they come in, they can, so to speak, reference each other via voice messages. But I haven’t tried that. Maybe there’s someone who’s tried it, who’s already gathered experience with it. I only picked up that there were various friends who talked to each other via voice messages, and that then got saved accordingly, so the room, so to speak, wasn’t live anymore, the voice message room, but saved, so that if you go in, say, an hour later or half a day later, you can just listen to these voice messages one after another. Have you had any experience with that, Marc?
No, I haven’t had any experience with that. Now it’s a bit like drifting off topic in school, but your title is reflection and change. And what’s also important to me, because you said you’re closing this topic, this is really, really important to me, something just occurred to me — people don’t just have a fear of speaking, but also a fear of change. And I always like to remember, one of the best author breakfasts for me, for the added value, for this awareness-raising, was Dr. Mario Herger, who told us that back then people were afraid telegraph poles would transmit diseases, that mirrors were a devilish invention, because if women, and maybe also men, look at themselves in the mirror all day, then they don’t work anymore. And there are so, so many countless examples. And those bring a smile to my face now whenever change comes up. And that even goes so far that I once talked with a psychologist about relationships. There are unfortunately, and of course also men, who are subjected to violence in a relationship, and they still don’t change. Not because they feel comfortable in it, and not because they feel great about it, but because the fear, basically, of change processes — they do reflect on it, or they do think about it, I don’t feel comfortable in the situation I have now, but the change is something unknown, and the unknown is much, much worse than the process of change. And then I basically don’t search for the unknown, but rather stay with what’s known. That would be another reflection for me, on the topic of change in current life examples.
Thank you so much. Now Matthias is writing in the
chat that the messages aren’t gone, that was posted the day before yesterday, but in the back channel, the back-channel messages. Maybe you can write, Matthias, where you found them. That might be helpful for one person or another. Because I, for example, haven’t seen them. In that sense — but maybe you first have to open a message. So as if you wanted to send a message to the person you’d corresponded with. That’s what I could imagine now, and then you’d see them. But maybe you can briefly write into the chat how you can see them. I think that would be quite helpful at this point. A very good morning, dear Werner. What do you say to the topic?
First of all, good morning. On the topic of change, what Marc just said, what I’ve learned, heard, also from my own thinking — our brain wants things to stay the way they’re used to. A topic of change in Clubhouse, hanging up the topic of rooms. On one hand, certain things are just word constructs. The topic was, in the past there were followers on Clubhouse. Now those are friends. There are also other social media, where it’s called contacts, or with Xing, that’s not it either, those are contacts. You don’t need to differentiate. A contact is simply a person you have something in common with. In that sense those are just word constructs. On one hand I can also understand Clubhouse, was also often in other rooms, German-friendly learning, and there I was also attacked, insulted accordingly. There are other cultures with different value systems. If I just think of France, certain things on the topic of abuse against women, then certain things wouldn’t even be allowed to be said in the first place. They have completely different legal regulations. If I speak something now, if I’m in the room and someone writes something in Arabic or English, then I don’t understand it. But if someone speaks something, then it’s maybe on a different level. For finding rooms — there’s simply the bell function in Clubhouse. If you click on that, then there’s the tab all the way to the right, basically for events. That’s actually where the rooms are now, where I’ve registered and where something is happening. Such changes also happened in software, when I started with computers in ’84. Back then it was just called, there were also various terms, directory, folder. Those are actually just word constructs. If you’re familiar with technology, then you’ll find things. That’s my contribution to that. A lot has changed, but mentally, so to speak — when I look at how I can find a room. There’s the search function. Or, as Marc also said, if I go to my profile, then I see the rooms where I’ve registered as a member. If I click on that, then I also see when the next event is. That would be my contribution to the topic of change in plain terms.
Yes, thank you so much. Yes, what I find a shame in this context is that the Main Hall, in that sense, isn’t there anymore. That means, before we also had rooms shown to us that were currently taking place, so you also had the option, for example, to pick this or that room too, just by going by the title, without knowing the people, and just going in. Now it’s, I think, rather that you quite specifically register for some room first, so to speak, to then see these rooms too and then go in there. So that’s, I think, something I personally find quite a shame, because that’s what distinguished Clubhouse from other platforms at that point too. So we also have, for example, the LinkedIn audio format, where only, in quotation marks, only the people you know get notified when an event takes place, for example, but basically you can only reach your own reach, and if then people say they’re attending, their reach, otherwise nobody at first, that there’s also no overview in any form of what rooms are actually taking place. That means, if you don’t follow someone or are connected with someone who themselves makes events, you don’t actually get shown any events at all, and I don’t know how that’ll work in the future on Clubhouse now, so to speak, because with this changeover, you can maybe quite specifically search for rooms or something, but basically, that was a nice thing. At least I found in the past that this Main Hall existed, where you could just look, just at the moment you were live, what rooms are there, and do I maybe feel like joining. And I don’t think that exists in this form anymore right now, at this point. Marc, Werner, do you want to say something about this again?
Yes, I could share my experience about that. There’s the Latin word algorithm, or a German word from English. That just means, searched according to a plan. I joined Clubhouse two years ago. In the past you could still see who nominated you. That’s in that sense not there anymore. But as I said, finding the room — I found that the people who followed me, whom I followed, I also got a hint about their rooms. Right at the start, through my story, I came into Jürgen Engel’s gratitude room, and then at some point into the German-friendly learning room. Then I also, from the people who pinned me as contacts, also got the rooms shown to me from Clubhouse, the Arabic rooms too, for data protection reasons, that’s how I’d imagine it, they’ve now put a lock in front, so to speak, because they also had to hear, or had to listen to, a lot of insults, because people came in here, to Clubhouse, to represent some political opinion. They’ve now put a lock on that, have narrowed it down through friends, so to speak. Those are actually just terms, as I said before, whether I have a contact or a friend now. Business friend, private friend, those are different terms. On Clubhouse they’ve now put a lock in front, narrowed the search term a bit. If I have a large circle of friends now, then I also get shown who’s live somewhere right now, or from my side, if I say, in your living room, German-speaking, in the plurigenium, and other contacts see me, aha, then they can follow me. Not much has changed in that either, only the terms have changed, or the specification, the nuances. To get back to voice messages — everyone now has the option to open a room. Then you can just write text into it. For example, there’s also the room “What are you grateful for?” That also exists in the House, in English. There’s also now the option that everyone can just write something in, speak something in, and you can listen to it later. That’s like voice messages, as a room format. Those are my experiences. Maybe it’ll help. First of all, thanks for listening.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Yes, it could well be that it has something to do with what you described too, with the, partly, Clubhouse trolls, but also people who come from different cultural backgrounds, maybe also certain personal hostilities take place, and so on. I assume Werner might have technical issues. I want to say thank you, Werner, for explaining that. I didn’t really go deep into it. As I said, I like being with you every morning, and for me the challenge was first just how do I get into the room and how do I find you, where’s my microphone, and how do I even have the possibility to enter the room. And afterward I put my phone away again and haven’t looked further up at what possibilities there are. Thanks first for sharing your experience, Werner.
That sometimes saves a lot of time, when you know where to search. Yes, wonderful, thank you so much also to you, dear Marc, for briefly jumping in. Because, yes, I turned my mic on and off several times in a row, and then apparently was on mute and didn’t notice. That means, I didn’t realize you couldn’t hear anything. Thank you for that, dear Marc. So, I already said, and spoke to myself, so to speak, without you noticing, that I can well imagine, Werner, what you described, that it has something to do with these Clubhouse trolls, or also the hostilities, or something, also with the chat messages that sometimes came in. And we luckily haven’t had that many negative experiences, which certainly also has to do with the experiences we’ve had over the many years by now, so to speak, so via this consistent daily broadcasting, and also relatively quickly, right at the start, having set up room rules. On one hand certain criteria that have to be met, before someone doesn’t even get on stage. And then there were sometimes a few messages in the chat that got deleted accordingly by the moderators too. Foreign-language messages also don’t get left standing, because we also can’t follow what they mean. And that’s why, in the sense of a fair togetherness and exchange, foreign-language messages have also been deleted in the past. But I can well imagine that in rooms where clear rules maybe aren’t there in that form, that can be really surprising, and not everyone is somehow trained in moderation or similar, and that you maybe don’t know exactly how to deal with it. And in that sense that can of course also lead, in this way, to now, so to speak, only going into the rooms first, not just that it’s shown in the Main Hall, but going into the rooms, getting shown the ones you’ve registered for, so to speak, let me call it that, that that’s a point of interest and that you actually specifically want to go into that room. So, really, really exciting. You wanted to build on this again too, I think, after Marc. Gladly, if you like.
Yes, actually what I said, what struck me, what I’m thinking about, about the topic of data security or media literacy. Because everyone can also pose here as if I’m the King, Emperor of China, so a German saying. That’s also the case with small children, or if I think of a room like German-friendly learning, there are a lot of people who want to go to Germany and learn German through Clubhouse. There are also some who just want to spread their propaganda. But that also happened in German, purely German rooms, for example the Tagesschau room or other rooms. Basically, if I think of myself as a coach on Clubhouse, because I’m also responsible for security. If someone now — I’ve signed the fine print logo, accepted Clubhouse’s terms and conditions, next political events, no political advertising may be made, if I remember correctly. Right at the beginning, when I joined, I had this aversion to going in there, what’s being stored there, what’s being passed on there. Every country has different terms and conditions on data protection regulations. If I compare Germany with France now, a European country, on the topic of sexual assault, they have much stricter rules. Clubhouse also has to react accordingly to that. What you also said about recordings — there’s also mobile networks that also have to store, so to speak, communication-related things, to be able to trace something later. On the topic of reflection — that would maybe be another term, traceable. Maybe they’re also not allowed to, or don’t want to, say everything they’ve now changed for data protection reasons. That would be the term data protection, or the area of media literacy. First of all, thanks for listening.
Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. And of course you also don’t know, with platforms quite generally, independent of Clubhouse, one thing is what gets communicated externally, the other is possibly what actually happens with the data behind the scenes. So we’re also allowed to be aware of that. We can’t necessarily always look into that. That’s also not just the case with these platforms, by the way, but also with companies quite generally. Regardless of whether it’s about data or selection processes or similar. There too, there are always internal regulations, to a degree, for how certain things are handled. And that can also deviate from what gets communicated externally, so to speak. So that’s, I think, also just common practice in many places, and we shouldn’t walk through the world too naively at that point either, in quotation marks. Well, yes, then we’ve picked up a lot of aspects with Clubhouse again too. I hope that helps at this or that point, to also try it out again too. Thank you so much also to Matthias, who also used the opportunity to share that too. I just see there’s another hand raise from him. Then I’d gladly like to bring him in too. I find it great that you broke that down so precisely. I took a screenshot right away, to keep that too, in case I want to look up this or that again, to actually be able to go back in there. Matthias, would you like to join in too? I’ve just confirmed your speaking request, so to speak. Then you can gladly say something more about it too, if you like.
Good morning.
Good morning. Yes, gladly, that I could help there. And you also saw that in the community in the first few days, that one person knew, this one, that one, and a whole lot is happening. I approached it pretty pragmatically at first, and thought, okay, what’s important to me, the rooms, do I get in there, and they’re unchanged, well almost unchanged, they work. What’s interesting for me, and this would interest me, if someone could look this up, Yasemin, you know, for example, if you’re heard now, you have such a language that gets transcribed almost error-free. This function existed before too, but it’s become more important now with these recorded treasures. And when Werner spoke, not a single word got transcribed. And as I see it now with myself, not with me either. What surprises me, I was amazed at how far along they are, also, by the way, in Russian, where I can judge that, that it gets transcribed almost error-free there, but it seems to maybe depend on the voice pitch or certain particularities, that the transcription works great with you, so with your voice, and not with me. That would just interest me, but it’s a special interest, whether someone can look at that sometime. Otherwise I wanted to say, I was clear from the start with Clubhouse that it’s not transparent to me what they do with the data. There was the argument, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, that exists too. We’ve had a lot, so I personally have had a lot of fun with Clubhouse
and still do, but I’m quite sure someone has to pay for that, and that we pay with our data there? To what extent? That’s not so clear to me. But my imagination is quite open on that, from the life experience I’ve gathered so far. So anything is possible there, and of course you have to know that anything is possible. Thanks first of all. Bye.
Yes, thank you so much. Maybe you’d like to say something about the transcriptions too, in that sense. Do you see, while we’re live in the room right now, transcriptions too? I only know that from voice messages, that you get a transcription shown directly there. I don’t see any transcription right now. Maybe you’d like to briefly say something about that too, dear Matthias?
Yes, gladly. Let me check again exactly how I set it up now. There were the three dots up top. And then you get to Live Details, and then All Quality Search and Show Captions comes up. And that’s actually always existed. And you can turn that on, and then you can read along at the bottom what’s being converted from voice to written language there. And again, only yours gets transcribed perfectly, from me. Small errors, but really well represented. And to just know that, that you can already record speech almost error-free, almost error-free, into some file. That does shock me a bit, that that’s possible. But well.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much. I just turned it on. And yes, I think there are a few small errors with you now. But overall it’s already done relatively well. So, in that sense I think it ultimately also has something to do with how clearly someone speaks. So I know that with transcriptions from other contexts, where we also apply AI tools to generate automated transcriptions. We do that with our daily rooms too, and so on. And on one hand it of course has to do with the system itself, how good and advanced it already is. So how much, especially if it’s AI-supported, how much data is already available, to recognize the various languages too, and also be able to perceive slight deviations in terminology. And on the other hand, those are also, yes, also learning systems, so to speak. That means, the more practice they get, the better they get too. Maybe you remember, in the past, especially these translation tools we’ve also used on Google or something. Right at the beginning that was relatively bad. Nowadays you can translate complete texts, and so on. That simply has to do with the fact that the more people use and apply that, these systems are then also learning accordingly, and accordingly keep getting better too. And that of course also has to do with which language it is. I’ve noticed, for example, if you do translations on Google, “German-English,” that already works relatively well. But if I, for example, set “German-Turkish,” or “English-Turkish” or something, then you notice it’s a completely different quality. And that just has to do with user behavior at that point. So at least with the AI-supported tools you can use there. And here in the room, it’s one and the same tool, but pronounced to different degrees, how well it then works. That just has something to do with speech quality at that point first. Matthias, did you want to add anything more?
Yes, I really don’t want to dwell on this special interest. Just one more last question. Yasemin, can you see yourself? So, do you get shown, for yourself, your own visible transcription? Because I haven’t seen myself, and you say you could see what I spoke. That’s really interesting.
Yes, I can see that with you others, only mine doesn’t get transcribed for me.
Okay, then I understand that. There’s still the question of why Werner wasn’t understandable. But certainly that has to do with pronunciation, and one last remark, then I’ll really stop. Yesterday I was, how do you say that politically correctly now, in a room that’s now — I can’t say it right. I think some call it “Fitner” or something. But I don’t know what that means. Anyway, people who practically have a special accent. And there the system says, this language won’t be translated. And they spoke German, almost error-free of course, with their special vocabulary, which also doesn’t quite explain itself to me, so, digger and bros and I don’t know, something in that direction. Just interesting for me, because I don’t normally come into contact with such people, it’s not really where I have touchpoints, and I just wanted to understand what language, so what kind of German, they use. And that was not at all possible, so not a single word got shown, this language won’t be translated, even though it was definitely German. I found that really interesting too. So, the system learns.
Absolutely, yes. And who knows, maybe that’ll be possible in the coming years too, but that, well, we can definitely observe that. So we also have different pronunciations in different states, for example, or also when slang, in quotation marks, is spoken. I think in many places it just has to do with the systems not being far enough yet to differentiate all of that. I’m just curious what all is coming our way in the coming years. I’d shared the link — on September 14th I have a talk on the topic of AI, and whoever has the time and inclination is warmly invited to just join and listen in. I don’t have the link handy right now. Maybe I can just share it again tomorrow, so drop by again, and for those who haven’t saved it, that I’ll just communicate that again. And exactly such aspects will be addressed there accordingly too. That means, especially with the AI revolution, in quotation marks, we’re currently relatively at the beginning, have made a huge breakthrough, so to speak. So AI has been on the market for a really, really long time. But this breakthrough that’s happened in the last half year to year, that’s crazy, what a real boost that’s given. And we’re really at the very beginning here. That means, a lot, a lot is still going to happen here, things we probably can’t even remotely imagine today, what’s all going to be possible there. And we’re allowed to look at that with a lot of excitement too. And of course that has both positive and negative sides too. But we also have a lot of possibilities for how we can use that positively for ourselves. And that’ll then get addressed accordingly on September 14th too. So both explaining AI a bit, as well as our brain, how we react to it, why that’s the case, all the way to what applications and what opportunities the whole thing offers for us too. Yes, and with a view to the time I’d like to round off here for today. So, let’s see, to a degree summarize, what are the highlights, or what do we want to underline again, from the room today? Gladly Werner in that order.
I’d like to say something to Matthias again, not to underline it now, but it might also be because it can’t be transcribed, maybe also because there’s youth slang, where the words have a completely different meaning. And I just checked for myself what the main words were in 2023. There’s, for example, “auf Lock,” I thought, like locked shut. And I have to look up the words, like vocabulary. I can’t derive them. In this case “auf Lock” just means approaching things in a relaxed way. I think that applies to many areas. I wish you a really great start to the week.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much. Werner.
What should I say? As a closing word, reflections are important. You can also learn from mistakes, and then, when it comes to the topic of Clubhouse, there are, some are just small changes, but a big effect in the design. The topic of whether I say friend or contacts now. You also want to distinguish yourself that way, if I talk about a slogan topic. I just think of a follower. I’ve heard games like Scarefit or other rooms, they got upset, certain followers are gone. But now there are only friends, that concept. On the other hand I also had a function at the very beginning, when an update said, do you want to make all followers into friends again. Then I first pressed no, and now I could change that, if I knew where I could adjust that setting. That’s always a topic that goes too far, the topic starts over again from the beginning. Changes are normal, because only humans are sometimes afraid of change. I have to say that the scientists, although now, let’s just leave it at that.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Yes, today we looked at reflection and change, and using the concrete example of the Clubhouse update, to maybe also be able to reflect a bit on exactly these aspects that take place with change. That means, let’s note again, we have either a moving-away motion or a moving-toward motion with change. So, changes get initiated when the suffering pressure is great enough. We want to get away from something, then we get into motion, or the joy or the attractiveness is great enough, then we want to move. The benefit aspect is always a really relevant one in this context. That means, the first question our brain asks itself is, does this threaten my existence. In the fewest cases do we have an actual existential threat, where it’s about life or death in our prosperity, so to speak. And the second question that follows is, what use is this to me, what does this bring me. And the moment I see a benefit — and a benefit can be, like now on Clubhouse, I want to visit a certain room, I want to keep visiting or using Clubhouse. And then I also have, so to speak, the benefit for myself to say, then I’m also willing to go along with an update I might not be thrilled about at first, but my motivation, in quotation marks, is great enough to engage with the topic, to be able to keep participating in certain rooms, to open my own rooms, or whatever the benefit hidden behind it for me is, in whatever context it stands. And accordingly we were basically surprised by this update, which came without prior announcement. For me it was really quite abrupt, because in the morning, when I get on Clubhouse, I don’t actually log in beforehand, but really directly to open the room. That means, right at 8am I found that somehow everything looked different, and had to search for my own room myself, to be able to open it, and it all worked out. And you can also stand above that with humor, so to speak, and pick that up directly in the communication. And it was also clear, it probably takes a few seconds until this or that person actually has the same challenge, finding the room at all and getting in. And in that sense I wanted to pick this up as an example today, especially with this topic of reflection and change, to also illustrate what processes take place there. Marc described that earlier as positive stress, when he noticed it, and then looked directly. And this positive stress can come with various symptoms too, that you might have a sweat outbreak, or similar. That means, the body also reacts in some form. One person is maybe relaxed, another experiences it as a stress moment. A kick we can feel. That means, here too, maybe with changes that take place, to definitely pay attention to how the body reacts to that too. Are there physical symptoms or not? So to go into mindfulness here too, to observe that. So there can certainly be different symptoms too, that get perceived physically, if you look at that too, go into self-observation at that point. That’s maybe also a really interesting aspect we can pick up here too. And yes, and then ultimately the decision gets made against this backdrop, whether I have a benefit, yes, no, how do I deal with it. And I could well imagine, I already said this earlier, that there are maybe also people for whom Clubhouse isn’t that relevant now, or that important, and for whom that’s maybe already too much, and who don’t feel like engaging with this update at all, which is indeed also a clear change, at least in the presentation, at least in feeling. We’ve had many updates in the past too, but such an overnight, drastic change without prior announcement, so from the feeling of it, I can’t remember one. So I find that, even if only, in quotation marks, partly the terminology got changed, or similar. A lot of changes came at once now, so that of course also does something to you, in quotation marks. And similar to this situation, this is just one example of many changes that take place in our everyday life, we have that in many, many places too. And it always raises, against the backdrop, does this bring me anything, the decision too, do I want to engage with it or not, especially when we think of companies, and so on, where a lot of changes get prescribed from above, so to speak, decided, and then you get confronted with it, you can also observe among employees that resistances come up, because the benefit isn’t so clear for the individual, and that’s why the question arises, why should I want that at that point. And in that sense communication also plays a really essential role, to keep reflecting on that again and again, and also enter into communication with yourself and with others too, create transparency, to also bring people along at that point, and initiate changes as best as possible. So much for that, for now. I’m looking forward to tomorrow, where we’ll then pick up reflection and bringing it together as the room topic, since we’ve now engaged with the overarching topic of reflection for almost three weeks. And now it’s about doing a kind of bringing-together again, summarizing, and holding onto intermediate results, to then continue afterward with the next overarching topic, thinking, which we’ll then also engage with for about two to three weeks maximum, and then afterward pick up acting too, to then open up and bring together the connections between reflection, thinking, and acting again too. In that sense I’m totally looking forward to tomorrow. Feel free to join, and let’s gather together what’s stuck, what are the intermediate insights we want to hold onto for ourselves, bring together, before we start with the next overarching topic tomorrow. In that sense, I wish you well, and see you tomorrow morning at 8am.
