Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: After weeks exploring thinking from every angle, Dr. Yasemin Yazan and Marc, joined by Sabine, look back at what actually stuck — from “do you think your thoughts, or do your thoughts think you” to a 100,000-euro lesson in questioning even trusted advice, the stop button as an emotional circuit-breaker, and why simply agreeing on what a word even means can change the whole direction of a conversation.
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
Good morning again, everyone, dear all. Now actually with recording, for the room on reflection and consolidation. We’ve looked at and examined the topic of thinking from various perspectives over several weeks. And today it’s time for reflection and consolidation. That means we want to look at what aspects actually stuck with us. What are the interim insights we want to hold onto, so we can continue with the next overarching theme? And with that, I warmly welcome Marc at my side. And Marc, I’d ask you to briefly summarize, dear Marc.
Yes, very gladly. This topic is really, really important to me, and I think that all of us, that every human being is automatically searching for happiness, because we all wish for a happy life. And then it makes sense for me to first establish, how do I find this happiness? How can I be happy? And I don’t mean happiness like winning the lottery, but being happy and content with myself. Simply saying, wow, this is great. And we notice that we humans, since we’re emotional beings, are steered by emotions, and understanding these processes behind these emotions means we don’t become a plaything of others, of people who deliberately use emotions to steer us, whether that’s in a private context, or as an entrepreneur or employee — there too we’re emotionally influenced. And once you understand these processes, it makes sense to look behind them, to engage with the topic of thinking. And I’ve mentioned a few times already, at the start when we began with this topic — do you think your thoughts, or do your thoughts think you? And for me that was the central insight, to actually sit down and think about it. I never did that before, because thoughts are just there. Establishing, why do I think this? Where does that come from? What social environment do I have? How did I arrive at this? And then also questioning, are these thoughts and feelings I have — they’re real, I really feel them, I can’t think them away — but are they justified? And when I question things, how does someone manage to trigger certain feelings in me, what actually happens to me? And then to question and recognize, no, it’s not actually like that, I can think about something else, I can be funny on command, I can decide, or that happens unconsciously — I laugh about certain things and I cry about certain things, I get annoyed about certain things and I’m happy about certain things. And then to recognize, when that moment is there, why is that so? Do I really have to be upset about it? What evaluation and what meaning do I attach to it? And all of that we can steer ourselves, we don’t need anyone for that. And that’s the fantastic thing about this topic, that we don’t need a partner for it and don’t have to wait for anything, but that this thing that steers these processes, or can give us a happy, or at least content, life, sits primarily on our own shoulders, namely our head.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Now we basically already have various aspects covered. We’ve talked about emotion regulation in this context. We’ve talked about how it’s possible to get into self-steering and thereby into self-efficacy, if I direct my gaze at my thoughts too, not just thinking unconsciously. We’ve also talked about this “can I actually not think” question — is it even possible not to not think? Or how does the whole thing unfold? And we’d established that basically thinking processes are always active. The moment any stimuli come from outside, I’ve already relatively quickly triggered thinking — these processes are already active the whole time, insofar as we process stimuli from outside, they’re immediately connected with thinking processes too. But that it definitely makes a difference whether I look at this again quite consciously, look at it on a cognitive level, go into an analysis, for example, make considerations, and so on, or whether I let myself be led more strongly by emotions here. And then we opened up so many different forms of thinking too — stimuli, constructive thinking and so on, critical thinking, all sorts of different focus topics we looked at. Would you like to add to that, dear Marc? What has stuck with you there?
I’d like to say something first, this is important to me too. If I’m a guest and listening somewhere, whatever it is, with any coach, I want to share too that you shouldn’t have a problem with there definitely being days where tears run down my face too, where I’m simply sad. And there are days when I feel simply helpless, and there are days when I immediately get up laughing and could hug the whole day. But the most important thing I’ve learned is to use this stop button, to notice, to recognize, today is one of those days, I’m sad now, I feel helpless now — and then really go into the helicopter perspective, for me that’s doing my Spock from Star Trek, so to speak, switching off emotions in the sense of really looking at, why do I feel this way right now? Is it justified that I feel this way now? For example, that was the case during Covid — like everyone, I was afraid of losing my business, and I always checked, in conversation, in exchange with many, many other people, how does it look for you? Have you sold anything? Are you getting customers? How do you assess the situation? And that’s the most important thing for me, and that’s why, thanks to this exchange, this club is of such invaluable importance to me — being able to go into this exchange with other people, which I can’t do since I’m basically alone in my office, I work from a home office, but this exchange of thoughts with other people, that gives me an incredible amount of strength, and I can only encourage everyone to always go into exchange with other people too, while at the same time also being careful with thinking — if you only surround yourself with a social environment where people can never switch perspective, where someone isn’t just positive but only says everything is crap, everything is crap, everything is crap — we’ve talked about that too — then we get into this state where we get emotionally pulled along too, and that’s also the reason why, on my trips, I completely step out of the world I otherwise live in. I try not to check even once what’s happening in the world — it just does you good to be able to move around for 14 days, not because the world doesn’t interest me, but because it doesn’t do anything for me right now, I can’t do anything about it right now, and for me this time is recovery, recovery from news, and I only focus on what I encounter, whether I can take new impulses with me, but I avoid — I generally do this on trips — I don’t watch or listen to any news, I don’t know what’s going on in the world or in Germany, you’re currently my only contact I have in Germany.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much, and there we have this aspect of dialogue included again — we’d differentiated between self-dialogue and dialogue with others, and in this context also brought up the role of language and communication, both with myself, this inner dialogue, and externally with others. Then you also brought up the environment, whether that’s the topic of it always being the same people, or me always moving in the same bubble, in quotation marks, or also something like changing your environment, for example through traveling — that was an example that was really underlined with you too, in the sense of new encounters, getting to know cultures and so on, and thereby thinking processes get set in motion again, maybe checks happen too, observations outside, and also through interaction, through communication with others, through the encounter with the other and in exchange with the other, new insights get generated here too. Yes, would you like to add to that too, dear Marc?
Yes, of course, exactly, that’s it, I’ve thought about why I do this. We’re not talking about vacation, but really this traveling, and for me that’s the reality, being able to dive into a world, into an active life, and I can’t say what I’m searching for, what I’m looking for, but I notice things, for example — you can’t help it, when you walk through a city with open eyes, you notice in the evening that there might be restaurants where all the tables are full, people are standing in line, and then there are restaurants right next door, same position, that are empty. And for me as an entrepreneur, that’s always where I think, what insight can you draw from that, and then I look at it, whether I find something, why is one restaurant packed while the other is empty, and sometimes it’s things where I say, hey, they don’t even have any light, how silly can you be, they should have noticed that there’s no candle on the table, no artificial light, and that people maybe prefer to sit where there’s more light, where an umbrella is set up, and then these are the small things that help me in my entrepreneurship, or if I have a business, and say, where am I different from others. That means, I can’t reinvent an entire industry professionally, I also move within the industry I’m in, namely promotional products, and then I consider, what can I do differently, without starting a completely new business, so I stand out from my fellow entrepreneurs, but not with this cliché, this is a product, it’s better — that would be the biggest nonsense for me, because for me there are no bad products anymore today, but finding where you differentiate yourself. And when I come home and sit in my office again, I think, what did they do — I already mentioned yesterday, with the ice cream parlors, I’ve known ice cream since I was a small child, but I’m always fascinated by what decoration and design possibilities exist with such a simple ice cream, where your mouth just waters, and that’s just one example I had, we’ll get to that with creative thinking — that I don’t just go out and say, I want to think more creatively, but I try to empty myself completely, so free the mind, just eyes open, just ears open, and stop in the most diverse industries, and then ask, hey, what are you doing there, who needs that, who buys that, what can you do with it — and if you train your head that way, the brain is a muscle too, then ideas sometimes come to me when I need them, in a necessary situation, and I think, hey, they found a solution for their problem too, and what solution could there be for my challenge and for my problems.
Yes, thank you so much, and to actually connect this to the rooms too, just as a reminder, we also had, for example, a room about thinking blocks — what influences are there actually, and what helps — all the way to various author breakfasts and also an expert talk regarding thinking too, we had solution-oriented thinking, where Julien Backhaus was with us, for example, with the reality show we talked about, what influence thinking has, for example, on solving complex challenges, then we talked about NLP with Dr. Susanne Lapp, for example, about various techniques that can be applied to look at how I can steer my thinking in a desired direction, so to speak, and thereby influence it myself, and maybe one thing or another has stuck with you here too. Then we also had Katrin Leinweber with us, about high performance, about various hacks I might set as a goal for myself, so to speak, that I can pick up, to approach certain aspects with a certain ease, in the direction of implementation, so to speak, in preparation for the next overarching theme we’ll now be tackling, namely action. Can you remember one thing or another there, Marc? Were you even at any of the rooms? I don’t know now. Maybe you’d like to add to that, go ahead.
I wasn’t at the room you mentioned, but I saw the announcement, and you can find it on the internet, and she also advertised her book, and I watched her contribution and was totally enthusiastic, because that’s exactly what we mean, programming our own head. I don’t know if it was in your show, I saw it too, this contribution from the lady, how she got up and said, I now have the ability, immediately when I get up, to already make a decision. Will this be a good day? Am I curious like a child? Or will it be a stupid day? And if I get up and think in the first two minutes about who I need to respond to, that I have to sort that out, and what a pile of junk maybe lies on my desk, I can’t get into a good mood at all. And if I’m open, curious, like we were as children when we got up, we were totally curious what would happen that day. And if I already program myself and say, whoever crosses my path today won’t spoil my mood, I’ll manage it, and I start with that, then I always notice, even when I manage to focus and concentrate on that in the morning, that it’s often — I don’t want to say always, because I always wanted it to be 100 percent — but it was often just a much, much better day. And that’s why I find it totally fantastic to learn such techniques, and with that we’re back at thinking and reflecting, that we can decide for ourselves, do we feel like today, or do we already get up and say, we wish the day were already over and we’d rather go back to bed.
Yes, thank you so much, and with that I’d like to invite the others too, so we can maybe secure a few more insights from the different perspectives. So, anyone who joined over the last few days and can remember one thing or another that might have a certain relevance for us, or maybe was part of these various talks or author breakfasts, what insight was drawn from that too — we can gladly add that here too. So you’re all very warmly invited to join, to add to these memories we now have of everything we’ve worked through over the last few days and weeks, and to open it up from different perspectives too. So those are the aspects that have come to mind for me now. Regarding thinking blocks, would you like to say something about thinking blocks, dear Marc?
Nothing comes to mind on the spot right now, Yasemin, I’d need a keyword there. Since I don’t have any notes, can’t see any progression at all, nothing comes to mind quickly right now, because I’m also quickly — you can hear it in my speech, a bit of stuttering — I can’t think clearly and give smart sentences right now, but let me consider — actually, when I have thinking blocks, what do I do when I have thinking blocks, I don’t know if that was discussed in that room — when I have thinking blocks, movement comes to mind, then I know I drop everything and allow myself — I don’t need anyone, I don’t have to ask a boss, just say, office door closed for 30 minutes, if it’s sunny, just go for a walk, just go outside, come back. Often, with this active, different activity, not with the forced thinking about the problem, but with a completely different activity, the solution comes to me, and you hear this often, that people get their best ideas on the toilet or in the shower, where they’re certainly not thinking about it, but where they’re thinking about a completely different activity instead, and the thinking block might be, and evidently can be, solved through something like that — through a different activity that has nothing to do with the concrete work at that moment.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Among the solution approaches, we actually had something like movement or changing rooms too, and among the influences, it was also clear that emotions play a big role again there, and that’s in the moment when we get triggered, for example — you already mentioned triggering earlier — I know, for example, when I’m with someone, how I can trigger the other person too, and of course also in encounters where we maybe don’t know each other well, where we might meet someone for the first time, it can definitely be the case that through some word or something the other person does, something in me gets triggered, which leads to a cocktail of hormones happening in the background, in the brain, so that, in the heat of the moment, feelings arise through the emotions, and then, in the heat of the moment, something in behavior can also be observed — and it can definitely make sense to first give yourself some kind of pause, to step out of the situation. We’ve talked about things like emails that come flooding in, not answering them immediately, but letting a bit of time pass, to look at getting out of the emotion first, so as not to send something, for example, or say something you might regret later in hindsight.
Marc, would you like to add to that too?
You’re completely right there, dear Yasemin, and I have to confirm this with the emails, I can only confirm it — most of my work consists of acquisition, which every entrepreneur maybe wants, winning new customers, and I’ve gotten into the habit, in a conversation with a customer, of making sure the internet is off — and it really has to be off, so I don’t get any incoming emails during that time, and if I do get them, that I don’t see them and can’t read them. I can’t always control that, headlines fly into our eyes that immediately distract us, and the only thing I have open during the conversation is the customer’s website, so if they ask, do you see our product or our logo, I can respond — but that’s exactly what happens, that we then have to focus, or that I don’t manage it, when we concentrate or focus our thoughts, every distraction can lead to us simply not being able to follow the conversation anymore, and for me at least, my concentration drops really, really strongly, and that’s of course embarrassing in a customer conversation, because you often only get this one chance to get to know someone — in the private sphere you can refocus, the partner is usually a bit more considerate with you there.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much, and then I also remember deductive and inductive thinking — that was a bit more challenging too, because these aren’t classic terms we use in everyday life, though we’d established in that context that these are indeed things that surround us in everyday life, but that, maybe because we normally don’t use these terms this way, or because we’re not so aware of it, so to speak, I remember that was somewhat challenging for one or another person in the room. Can you remember that, dear Marc, shall we look at it again briefly?
Look at it, yes, but I won’t say anything about it, because I remember — I’ll definitely mix up, without a recording, without being able to look at it again, the two words inductive and deductive — it was somehow about, with what we observe and how we then arrive at solution approaches, and if we’ve observed certain things multiple times, that we can then establish a rule — that’s roughly it, but whether that’s deductive or inductive, I’d dealt with that before, these words just aren’t so etched and burned into my vocabulary, so I’d rather not make a statement about that for a recording.
I’ll gladly support you there, I’d have, without going into the details, but at least briefly picking up the definition again from Study Smarter, given the reference that these terms ultimately concern reasoning-toward-a-conclusion, and it’s spoken of as the ability, or the process, of deriving new knowledge or assumptions from given information, and we’d made this differentiation between the terms deductive and inductive. With deductive, it’s about arriving at something concrete from the general, and with inductive, exactly the reverse, from the concrete, so to speak, to the general. And we’d picked up examples from the research context too, like whether qualitative or quantitative surveys are done, while with something like, if I do questions or surveys, also in a professional context, if I already give certain aspects, so to speak, and have various options someone can check off, then it’s more about something like confirming certain theses, that it’s then a check of that, so to speak, whereas if I formulated the questions completely openly, I might actually arrive at aspects I hadn’t even thought of before myself. And I don’t want to say much more about that, so as not to go too deep into the topic, but maybe that too, to actually have it on the recording for the consolidation. Are there other points, dear Marc, or the others too, that we haven’t mentioned yet, in connection with the overarching theme of thinking we’ve worked on, any aha moments you had that we haven’t picked up yet, that we can connect to?
Very gladly. I’m just looking at my phone and see Sabine, and that reminds me of the conversation about the bank clerk. And my topic is critical thinking. Critical thinking, especially toward parents or your closest circle, is extremely important to me. I lost a certain amount, 100,000 euros, in my entrepreneurship because I didn’t think critically. Why? My father, a successful businessman, gave me a recommendation. A recommendation about which shipping company I could use. I never questioned this recommendation. Why should I? Because if a successful entrepreneur gives a recommendation, then I’ll follow it. And this critical thinking is important for our future too. And now I come back to Sabine. If parents say, listen, your uncle did a bank clerk apprenticeship, and if you now get your high school diploma, or even without a diploma, and you’re really diligent in school, then you go to the bank, then nothing can happen to you, my boy. I wouldn’t want to train as a bank clerk today. And Sabine can maybe confirm that, because the banking world is going to change completely. The same as with medicine and the world of doctors — that will change too. Of course we’ll still have doctors in the future, but here too, computers will, let’s say, take over a lot of tasks like tumor evaluations, scans, and CTs. The same will happen in the legal field. I always find it hard to have this thought, when you tell someone, you have to think critically. Parents only want the best for their child. But parents can only recommend the best for their child based on the level of experience they have as of today. So looking back on the past. And that’s the hardest thing I had to learn for myself, simply being open. Being open doesn’t mean distrusting someone, saying I fundamentally distrust them and check everything, but being open means, is the statement and the knowledge I have today, which my brain and my head have stored up to now, still going to be correct in five years, in ten years, or 20 years? Or could there be other aspects in my life that are of great importance, that will change my life, where I already align my actions today so that in 10, 15 years I’ll be where I want to be?
Yes, great, wonderful. And in this context, picking up this aspect again too — that we can only ever connect to experiences that lie in the past. And that there’s change happening outside too, and against the backdrop of this change taking place, whether that’s technological developments, how professional fields are changing, as in the example just brought up, and so on, that this can definitely lead to a misjudgment if we always only pick up on what lay in the past and don’t take into account, so to speak, that there’s currently change happening too, that new generations partly tick differently, think differently, the market is changing too, and so on and so forth. So all sorts of different influencing factors coming together here, that might evaluate the future differently too. And not actually exclusively going by your own experiences and well-meant advice, which can then also become blows, so to speak, and maybe not necessarily hit the direction things are actually going. And Sabine, I’d like to bring you in again first, maybe you’d like to add directly too, before I pick up another aspect that just came to mind through what Marc brought in. Good morning, dear Sabine.
Good morning. It’s a bit quieter here now, so I can join too. I actually wanted to say something you just anticipated perfectly, Yasemin, that must be telepathy. Regarding this coupling of past, present, future — that would often already be what we just experienced, is past for us. And we very often engage with the past. But we actually want to live in the here and now, in the present. And we often think far too much into the future. Of course I have to think into the future, otherwise I couldn’t plan. But I maybe shouldn’t think too far into the future — of course I have ultimate visions or long-term goals. But for me the important thing is, what happens in the short-term future, what makes me happy there? And these rings, this permanent reflecting, I think is really important. Above all, that you don’t get stuck in the past and stand still and keep struggling with yourself over why yesterday was this way or that. Because what happened yesterday is largely over for me. I can’t change it anymore either. I can maybe draw good conclusions for the future from it. And that’s reflecting again. But I shouldn’t get stuck in it. For me, out of this whole complex, this chaining was really, really important. First, for myself, finding a situation where I have concentration, focus, discipline for my things. That’s already a basic prerequisite for entering into all these processes. And then of course I keep thinking — I don’t want to change that, I don’t change that either. But I shouldn’t just think, I should also talk with myself. Then we talked about this inner dialogue. And you often forget that a bit too much when you only go outward. For me these were the three rings that play into each other, and are always in contact with each other too. And going back again too, meaning reflecting, then forward again. That’s a process for me that I’ve taken away from this whole series, and that I keep thinking about too, and hope to implement as well.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And there were so many aspects included there again too. On one hand these overlaps again, the interrelationships taking place. That we tend to always think linearly, steered by our brain, because it helps us reduce complexity. But that it’s important to also realize that it keeps going in different directions. And not just in one direction, not just in the other direction, but that these chainings really are there, and interrelationships above all are there too. And with the inner dialogue, we’d also picked up, among other things, how important the self-talk is regarding what I actually say to myself. So here too, actually going into self-observation again. What kind of things do I say to myself in my thinking throughout the whole day, without even noticing it at all? And that this, just like in communication externally and internally, definitely has a really massive influence. And then something else came to mind, this aspect of constructive and destructive thinking. We’d also talked about the aspect of perception and such there, and also ultimately the evaluation. I can still remember the room very well where we really discussed who actually evaluates whether something is constructive or destructive thinking. Because ultimately I do that from within the bubble I’m in, in quotation marks. And there we’d also established how important a kind of perspective comparison is. So on one hand looking at what my thoughts are on it, on the other hand looking at what the perspective of others outside is. Whether that’s in my imagination, that I know someone well and can maybe put myself in the other person’s shoes, to consider what they would say about it or what they would think about it, all the way to looking at it in conversation, so to speak. And the more perspectives we open up here — and we’d also talked about how it’s important, possibly even quite deliberately, to go into exchange with people who aren’t necessarily well-disposed toward me, in quotation marks. Because we tend, to some extent, especially when we want to get confirmation for something or similar, to go into exchange precisely with people who are maybe similar to us or where there are overlaps, similar interests are there, or similar. But the other thing might be at least just as valuable, which doesn’t necessarily align with what I think or how I typically think, but that it can also be very fertile at this point, to actually generate new insights beyond your own, in the sense of thinking outside the box, so to speak. Would you like to add to that, Marc, Sabine?
I’d like to just say the three words again, because they’re the central words for me connected to this topic. You just said perspective change, dear Yasemin. And then two more words come to mind for me, two other words that are directly connected, evaluation and emotion. So, perspective change — I can change perspective on anything. And if we know we’re actually only capable of consciously perceiving 30 percent, then I recently had the thought, if someone stands vehemently in front of me and explains the world, both in politics and in economics, then they very probably also belong to the people who only have 30 percent perception, unless they read a lot, maybe they have a bit more. And then also to question, do they know everything? So going back into the question, they can’t know everything either, because they also only have one brain and are also only capable of consciously perceiving a certain percentage. And then evaluation and emotion, those are the most important words for me that I’ve learned in German usage. I
unfortunately took far too long for that. I wish I’d known these words at 18, or even earlier, because it starts with evaluation. When we see people — and this helps me now on vacation too, and on my trips — if I now pass by an ice cream vendor, that happened to me yesterday, and I ordered an ice cream and thought, man, you could look friendlier too, with such a war-grim face, that’s just not okay. And then at the same time I awaken the perspective change and think, maybe they just got bad news, that has nothing to do with me, they’re not mad at me, but maybe experienced something really terrible. That helps me at least in that moment to be in a good mood again, to look forward to my ice cream, and not think about why they’re specifically unfriendly toward me — that’s the emotion again, how can they just be unfriendly toward me, I haven’t done anything to them. And emotion is just our strongest driving force. And through this evaluation and the perspective change, we can always get into a state where we’re at least emotionally balanced, and then the day becomes much easier and nicer to manage.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And with this aspect of perspective change, we’d also picked up that it can definitely make sense to engage a coach or something from outside. Because we all have blind spots too, so to speak, where it can also be useful to have someone look at it from outside. And I recently got a nice new image handed to me, by the way, which I found great, which I’d like to share with you too. Namely, whoever is inside the bottle can’t read the label from outside — I found that a nice image. So I think you can remember that quite well at this point too, that this plays a really important role, always quite consciously, depending on the context, maybe having yourself accompanied by an outside coach, who can open up completely different perspectives too. Sabine, did you want to add something?
Yes, I think he didn’t quite — I think the words evaluation and emotion, he’s known those for a long time, but he hadn’t consciously perceived them. And I think that’s the problem. I know the words too, for a long time, but do I think about it consciously and try to change the standpoint a bit too? There we are at this great reframing. I didn’t know this word until recently, but now, when you’re sitting together in the middle circle, that you engage much more strongly with the other person and just listen and say, yes, they’re right, and still a reasonable argumentation. And that ultimately moves both forward, because you talk, you try to exchange thoughts, you try — and there we’re at communication — which should then be on a reasonable level and somehow moving forward for both.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And in this context we’d also talked about how it’s often the case that precisely this aspect of awareness you mentioned, that’s why it’s so important, against this backdrop, to just do what we’re doing here in the room now — picking up terms, thinking about them, going into exchange, without there being a very specific occasion for it, because through having this reflection space here, for example, and that’s just one example of how you can do that, you become aware of quite a lot of aspects that you might otherwise never have engaged with in everyday life, because the necessity isn’t seen in the first place. But especially regarding critical thinking, for example, or critical questioning, because so many things are taken for granted for us, and there seems to be no reason to think about it, we’re not aware in many places how important, for example, definitions are, to check whether we’re talking about the same thing — we’ve had that here in the room very often too, and it’s often not even about, do I want to define the term this way or that way, but simply about creating a shared understanding in the first place. I’m talking about this, do you understand it the same way, or do you maybe interpret completely different aspects into it? That means even with word choice, for example, that we make, or similar, we always assume the other person automatically thinks the same thing when I pick up terms, or that I assume, when the other person uses terms, that I’ve already understood what they actually mean by it. And that this isn’t necessarily always the case, and how important it is to really look closely in exchange, what are we actually both talking about, is that just the assumption that we currently understand each other, or do we really understand each other? Marc, Sabine, would you like to add to that? Go ahead, Marc.
Dear Yasemin, I already have a smile on my face. That’s exactly the most important conclusion I’ve taken from this room, from this series on reflection and thinking. And it’s also thanks to Jürgen, who always started in the room by saying, before I say something, let me say how I see it, how I define it, so we have the same basis. That helped me so incredibly much, now also in my professional and private environment, always saying, we’re taking a trip now. How do we define trip? How do we define recovery? Do you understand the same thing I do? I hadn’t thought about that so concretely before. When I talk with a German, I think, they know the words, and yes, we use the same word, and we’re still like in a foreign language to each other, because the meaning attached to these words is totally different. And that was, for me, one of the biggest learnings from this room, to look at terminology again. So not just when I talk with someone from another country, in terms of language, which makes the whole thing even more complex, but also in German, what are we talking about there? What do you understand by that? And once that’s clarified, you have a foundation, and then a conversation often goes in a completely different direction.
Yes, great, thank you so much. And there’s one more point I’d like to bring in too. Namely, we’d also talked about exercises, about training, so to speak, and established that if I’m not practiced in observing certain things and then analyzing and weighing them and so on — all of that we talked about — then it needs a certain concentration, it might need a certain calm too. Maybe a space where I do this. But the more often I apply this, the more often I use it, both this aspect of self-observation on one hand, and on the other hand actually observing context and situations on the meta-level, for example, and then only later going into an evaluation, then it becomes easier for me over time too. That means I can then, for example, in a meeting or in the situation itself, switch perspectives faster too, the one I’m currently in, and that this has a lot to do with practice, and that it definitely makes sense, for example, to develop various routines or techniques, tools to have on hand, that can support me here too, to turn what maybe requires a bit more effort at first into a practiced state later, so that in different situations I can relatively quickly switch standpoints, for example, or the levels I’m looking from. Would you like to say something more about that? Go ahead, Marc.
I’d like to go a little bit further with this. You just mentioned the topic of coach earlier, and it went through my mind again. That helped me a lot. I still remember that I was in a relationship back then, and looked for a coach, and the first answer I got was, well, I could have told you that too, and you don’t need to spend money on that, you could have gotten these insights from me too. Yes, but I tend, or we tend, when our partner hasn’t learned to ask the right questions. And questions can often sound like an accusation too, so that we go into defense mode. And for me the most important insight was to take a coach, because they ask me completely different questions, sometimes uncomfortable questions too. And it enabled me to find answers, to find them myself. So I didn’t get a prescribed script where everything’s written down, where I say, thank you, what does the script or the book cost, I’ll work through that, then in a week I’ll know what I need to do and my life will be better. Instead, by first asking smart questions. And if you haven’t learned to ask smart questions, or if we ourselves try to ask an author on a stage like this a really smart question, a really smart question, then I notice you have to think about it for an incredibly long time, and smart questions don’t just fall out of your sleeve.
Yes, absolutely. And especially this aspect of formulating questions against the backdrop of neutrality, so to speak. Whereas if I share this among friends, in the family, or with my partner or similar, it can definitely be the case that interests play into it too, and accordingly maybe not all the questions get asked that a coach would ask. So this aspect of neutrality, and aspects like which interests are in the room too, definitely play a role here too. Yes, do we have any more points we want to pick up, or shall we move into the closing round? Do you have anything to add, Sabine?
That doesn’t seem to be the case. Yes, then I’d say, then I think we had a nice reflection and consolidation room, so to speak. Maybe let’s look at what the closing words or highlights are that you’d like to underline again for today’s room. Marc, Sabine, go ahead in that order.
For me it would be — looking at it from society’s perspective, I keep hearing studies from psychologists, current facts as they’re currently happening in politics, and emotion and thinking play such a big role there. We’re for something or against something, and talking about this thinking, becoming aware of how thoughts get planted in us — that’s a really central topic for me, because I’ve only had this realization since yesterday, since I read a report that everywhere in the world, whether in the USA or now in Germany too, we work with rhetoric where there are people who are for something and people who are against something, and for our brain it’s an enormous effort, fear, we’re afraid of change, emotions get triggered there, and recognizing that is really, really important for me, and that’s how politics gets made, and when people we encounter tell us everything stays the same, everything stays as it is, that’s the answer we want to hear, but it’s not the answer that’s the solution for upcoming challenges, and so I thank you, dear Yasemin, for this topic, for recognizing that — I also don’t have a solution for the upcoming challenges in the future, but recognizing that is the first step for me, that each of us can contribute to our society improving, not falling apart, because if we can reflect on ourselves, and if we get to know ourselves better, we can steer against such processes, and in conversation with others, with our children, with our partners, and not be a plaything of our own feelings, and above all not a plaything of other people either — but instead what’s important to you too, dear Yasemin, and I can only underline that 100 percent, if we ourselves know how our thinking works, then we can have an approximately self-determined life, or at least are on a good path toward it. Thank you for this series.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Sabine.
Yes, I wanted to say something earlier, but I wasn’t fast enough to hit the speaker button again, but honestly I can hardly add anything to what Marc said — I found the series wonderful too, and I found that we think every day but overall engage so little with thinking, and I think that’s often the reason why things simply don’t move forward, because you don’t make the whole thing conscious and also consciously reflect and say, one step back, is there an alternative — not the step back in the sense of going back into the past, but simply going one meter back and taking the fork to the right or left, and not going through the wall headfirst and going straight ahead, where at the moment there just isn’t a way through. What I also wanted to say, that was two days ago, what was also really important for me to reflect on, is that I don’t have to go all the way down the straight path, but I can take detours, and I’ll also never have just a single path that I follow 100 percent — for me it was symbolically like this, I have lots of roads next to each other, and I can also switch from one road to the parallel road, and spend my time on the parallel road maybe with a completely different theme — just as an example, one is business, the other is family, but I can then also turn left again and couple the whole thing somewhere, interlock it, and find happiness there — that’s really important for me. I found the whole topic really interesting, and I’m already really looking forward to action, because if we only think and don’t get into action, then we have a problem too. I wish you all a wonderful day.
Yes, absolutely, thank you so much. I also found it really, really nice that we used the opportunity together to think about thinking, and as you already said, that’s not necessarily an everyday occurrence, so it sometimes needs rooms like this to actually consciously go into exchange, to pick up different terms and reach a state of awareness, so to speak, and against the backdrop of different perspectives, simply, without first going into evaluation, actually analyze, look, step into exchange, to see what insights can be derived from that. And everyone can then decide for themselves what to do with that too. And I’m really looking forward to us starting with the next overarching theme starting tomorrow. We’ve gotten to see in many, many places, both when we talked about the overarching theme of reflection, that we don’t go too strongly into the area of thinking. Then with thinking now, looking at how we always nicely stay on topic and don’t already switch over into action. And so I’m all the more happy that it’s finally time, in quotation marks, that tomorrow we’ll use the room for our first approach to our focus topic of action, and above all then look accordingly, for the following days, which topics we want to pick up on there too, what seems important. And based on that, checking the room topics too and planning the design of the rooms again here and making adjustments. So I’m really, really looking forward to it. Feel free to join us again tomorrow at 8, so we can open up as many different perspectives as possible regarding action. What, from your perspective, are the relevant points we should definitely look at? And in this context, we’ll pick up tomorrow everything that comes to mind about action, to look together at which aspects really come to mind for all of us, in exchange with each other too.
So, with that I wish you a really, really wonderful day, whatever you have planned for today, and I’m looking forward to the next overarching theme starting tomorrow, action. With that, until then, ciao!
