Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: How does reflection help us understand ourselves better? Marc, Jürgen, Sonja and Stefan join Dr. Yasemin Yazan to explore reflection as self-knowledge — from “reflecting into the future” to why elite athletes are trained to reflect very differently depending on whether they want to win or improve…
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
A very good morning to you all. Today we’re continuing with reflection as self-knowledge, and we want to engage with the question of how reflection helps us understand ourselves better. We already touched on a few aspects of this yesterday. So I’m really looking forward to deepening this aspect further today and looking at it more closely, with various examples you might bring in, impulses you have on the room topic of reflection as self-knowledge. So you’re all very warmly invited to join again this morning, to open this reflection room together and see, through the impulses and examples brought in, what variety and what facets we can bring together again today, and derive conclusions from that, and hopefully generate insights too. So please join in, just raise your hand, and please also keep in mind that we have a recording running the whole time, which will also be published later. That means anyone who joins automatically agrees to that. And we have three small room rules: a profile picture you can be recognized by, first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio, simply to make sure these are genuine contributions and not Clubhouse trolls. Anyone who doesn’t want that for whatever reason, or can’t speak right now, is of course also warmly invited to use the chat to bring in questions, thoughts, examples, or similar. And with that, I’ll mute myself and see who’d like to open the round with me this morning.
A very good morning, dear Marc. What do you say about the topic? Good morning. Well, I’ll start by saying that, per se, I think we don’t need any reflection at all — and that’s obviously a provocation. We don’t have to reflect on anything at all. There’s no rule anywhere that says, if someone says, Marc, you should reflect on that — no, I don’t have to. I don’t have to do anything at all. But I arrived at the topic of reflection through the fact that at some point we take stock of things, and now I’m getting to the benefits of reflection. But we don’t have to do anything. We can go through life perfectly well, but then we also can’t complain if we don’t engage with ourselves as to why some things make us sad, why some things make us happy, why some people maybe earn more money than we do, why things work out better in their relationship, and so on. All of that can be influenced by going into reflection or engaging with it. And that would be my starting point for now. But we don’t have to do anything at first, and that would be my first point. Your subtopic for today’s room is, I believe — I can’t read it right now, but if I remember correctly — how does reflection help us? And reflection has helped me by simply arriving, in various areas of my life, at a point where I said, okay, you’re standing where you are today. And where you’re standing has certain triggers behind it — that could be bad luck, could be good luck. And then it makes sense, if I want to go somewhere else, to think about whether I’m taking new paths now, whether I’m adopting new things. And that’s where I’d connect to what Jürgen always said — education, the desire to want to change something, is the first point to even get to reflection in the first place. So the desire to want to change something. And then education, to know what happens during this reflection. And that this can be an opportunity to even engage with the topic at all.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And two aspects arise for me right away here. One is the question — because you said we don’t have to reflect — and the question that arose for me is, let’s actually check that, is that really true? So of course we don’t have to reflect, but isn’t it the case that even in situations where we might not be consciously reflecting, we’re still reflecting? That would be, so to speak, the first derived question. Maybe it’s more a matter of more reflecting, because a certain degree of reflecting is happening automatically anyway, without me really realizing it. Let’s check that together. And the second aspect, how does that help us — I’d like to narrow that down a bit, namely to the point of self-knowledge, so reflection in order to attain self-knowledge, so we look at this a bit more specifically here. Jürgen, a very good morning — what are your thoughts on the topic?
Good morning, dear Yasemin, good morning Marc and everyone in the room. I’ll take up Marc’s provocation and provoke back, and align myself with what you just said last. Because I’d say, we can’t help but, provocatively speaking, not reflect. There’s also a famous saying about this, which could also serve as a definition, from several centuries ago, of what reflection means. I also think it’s an important point that we get clear on what reflection is. And it went: reflection is, namely, the attention that’s naturally within us. You could also say it’s the curiosity that’s grounded in us. And in that sense, I’m deliberately setting this counterpoint, because in many definitions, reflection, in contrast to thinking, is seen as a conscious activation. And personally, based on what I just said, I put that in doubt. And I think we should get clear about this — but if we’re asking questions with today’s topic, “how does something help us,” then I think it’s important that we get clear on what that even is, namely reflection, in order to then be able to define through what, or by what means, this reflection can help us. That would be my first attempt, mainly to build a conscious counter-position, and secondly, to go clearly into the terminological definition again. Thank you for listening.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And alongside “what is reflection,” maybe it’s also worth picking up on what we understand by self-knowledge — so maybe also creating a shared understanding here too. A very good morning, dear Sonja, what do you say about that?
A very good morning to the round. It’s been a while since I’ve contributed something, so I’d like to add a bit again. Great topic, reflection as self-knowledge. And yesterday I got to hear a wonderful talk by Britta Steffen, the swimmer, who comes from competitive sports and talked a lot about mental training too, which I really, really liked. And she used a phrase that fits wonderfully here. She said, there were times when I didn’t have enough time to evaluate my day. And this evaluating is exactly what I’d call reflection — when we look back on our day, during the day or in the evening, it’s basically exactly what that word describes. We evaluate data that we’ve collected over the course of the day. We’re not aware that it’s data, but that’s exactly what it is. All the experiences we have that day are basically nothing other than fragments of information and data that we bring to consciousness — this activating of consciousness, Jürgen, that you just mentioned, I noted that down too, that’s exactly it — that we don’t just take the data wildly and unexamined, but we want to do something with it. And it’s about this doing-something. If we want to live our lives with intention, if we want to achieve something, then it’s conducive to becoming aware of what we’ve experienced and then making evaluations and, if necessary, adjustments to our behavior, to make the intention we’re pursuing, or a goal we want to reach, more meaningful or more productive — that is, so that we actually achieve it. And I think that’s something we can beautifully take a cue from in sports, because there you constantly look at how capable you are, what processes are currently happening, and we express that in data. And this thought appeals to me personally very, very much, because it takes out this emotional component a bit — even though I’m otherwise an advocate for feeling, I also find it very nice to look at the objective level for once, and see everything just as information, to bring it into an order, and if we don’t like that order, to create a different order. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Marc, Jürgen, would you like to follow up? Go ahead, Marc. Yes, I underline everything, dear Sonja. My provocation was also, and I’ll repeat it, this reflection, this step — I can underline everything, 100 percent, from my own experience. Thinking consciously, making yourself aware. And for me it’s a reflection to go into an examining consideration. That’s my life, my day, and every day. But I can also, in the evening, and I have to make this decision first — I can also end the day by just sitting in front of the TV in the evening and saying, was that a lousy day, cracking open a beer, and saying, yeah, that was a lousy day, and tomorrow will be another lousy day too. And that’s why the first — sorry for the phrasing, but there are people who distract themselves that way — this decision, wanting to make an examining consideration, that’s the first step toward reflection. This reflection doesn’t come automatically, and what Yasemin said, whether we can consciously not reflect — normally a lot of things happen in the subconscious, but this decision, I want to become aware of something, I first have to make that too. And only then, through an examining consideration, do I manage to carry out a reflection. Because I think reflection doesn’t happen automatically, because our head is simply wired so that we then have avoidance mechanisms. There’s a reason why something is the way it is. But just the reason, just this approach, this impulse to think it over — that’s the first approach that lets us get into conscious reflection at all.
Yes, thank you so much. And that really raises the question of whether this differentiation needs to exist too — to say there’s a conscious and an unconscious reflection here. So does reflection only start where I say, I now want to quite consciously order and evaluate what I’ve experienced, or the data, so to speak, or are we then already somehow inside a thinking process? So if we think about this precisely within this process chain, with the overarching theme reflection, thinking, acting, I’d like to take a closer look at that. Or what is this unconscious reflecting? Maybe there’s another term for it too, because maybe reflection doesn’t really hit the mark there, and maybe we’ll find that too. Go ahead, Marc.
No, okay, let me try to phrase it again, and I’m also noticing how important it is to pay close attention to every word. No, a reflection does actually take place. I’m defining the term reflection again here in the sense of an examining consideration. That means I’m considering everything in some way. If I come to the conclusion in the evening, somehow unconsciously, that was a stupid day, then that’s already a consideration, and also a reflection. And the difference, or what actually takes it further, only comes if I have a conscious reflection, meaning an examining consideration, where I say, why do you decide the day was stupid? Maybe you arrived at new insights. Now you know exactly how not to do it. That would then be the examining consideration that actually takes us further. Just becoming aware, so reflection leading to becoming aware, taking stock of how things are, doesn’t yet go into the analysis and doesn’t lead me to being able to walk new paths, take new steps, and even evoke new feelings through an examining consideration.
Yes, thank you so much. Jürgen has raised his hand, and then Sonja again gladly. Jürgen.
Thank you, dear Yasemin. I actually wanted to connect fairly seamlessly to Sonja’s remarks, since she comes from the same field over decades as I do. And that triggered me enormously, dear Sonja, and it brings me to a point that you, Yasemin, I believe briefly touched on at the start — when we say self-reflection. For me, self-reflection doesn’t mean only focusing on oneself alone, in a kind of blinkered view of the self, but rather reflection as a whole also includes reflection about the environment surrounding me, the environment I move within. And especially — I can confirm this, dear Sonja — as a swimmer specifically, you’re taught to put on these blinkers, and to consciously exclude reflecting on what surrounds you, namely the opponents standing to your left and right. And now maybe to a really essential point, namely the benefit of reflection, to explicitly direct the focus onto the strengths and weaknesses of one’s own self, and not to reflect on how strong the opponent, the competitor, might be. So, again, for me reflection has two medals with regard to focus. One toward myself in isolation, but also toward myself in connection with others. And maybe we can also approach this a bit through an interface we had in the last overarching theme, namely in answering the question, why do we even do this? Why reflect at all? Marc addressed this right at the beginning too, more or less implicitly, why does the whole thing even happen — doesn’t it just run automatically? And for me a really decisive and essential answer to the question of why you actually reflect, human, is the topic we had, self-empowerment. Namely, putting ourselves in a position to take responsibility, and with this responsibility, to also be able to achieve goals. And so thanks again, dear Sonja, for this trigger, and I’m very happy to have you back here on stage. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Sonja, would you like to connect directly?
Yes, well first of all, thank you so much for the kind words, that really touches me. Thank you. And this talk yesterday touched me very, very much too. And I find this aspect, Jürgen, that you just brought in with comparability, this looking at others too, is really working in me right now, because I myself was never in competitive sports, and I find this point — that you have to consciously learn, or that it’s helpful to consciously learn, not to focus on your fellow competitors — really exciting, because of course it also says something about ourselves when we see how others next to us are swimming right now, to take that example. We’re constantly getting feedback about our position, about our current performance, and this comparing doesn’t have much influence yet, but how we evaluate it, if the person next to us in the lane is much faster than we are, we can evaluate that emotionally very differently, and the danger of evaluating it negatively — I’m not good enough — in this stage, of performance measurement, that’s just very high, and it’s not very motivating, and then it helps not to compare yourself with others in that moment. Whereas, if we assume a normal everyday context, I find it very helpful to compare yourself with others, in order to be able to make exactly this positioning determination — where do I stand in context, in a social context with others? Does that still fit? Is that coherent? Or am I currently running some ego project that makes me feel great, but everyone around me is suffering and somehow has to bend to my wishes? That’s not something desirable according to my values either. And so it’s very important to keep checking how we come across in context with others too. And another thing occurs to me on the word reflection, because we’ve been talking about this conscious reflecting the whole time. And Yasemin, you asked earlier whether it has to be conscious, or whether reflection doesn’t already happen without us being aware of it — at least that’s how I understood the question. And if I look at this word, reflection, then for me it contains both this backward-directedness and flexibility. And I like that very much. A retrospective flexibility also says that it’s up to us to look back into the past from very different perspectives, whether that’s the most recent past or one further back. And we have the chance, in retrospect, to adopt different perspectives. And we often find that easier in hindsight than adopting different perspectives in the present moment. And we can learn a whole lot from that. If we train ourselves to adopt different perspectives, we get better and better at transferring that to present moments too, and thereby shaping better communication, a better social togetherness, and also conducting much higher-quality communication in self-talk, thereby triggering better feelings in ourselves, motivating ourselves better, and overall leading a happier and better life. Thank you.
Wonderful, thank you so much. Marc, Jürgen, would you like to connect again? Go ahead, Jürgen.
Yes, direct feedback, thank you, dear Yasemin. Direct feedback to you, dear Sonja — I’d like to go back to the example with Britta Steffen, or swimming, and my own past too. That’s absolutely right. It requires both sides — it requires both self-reflection in the mode of the blinkers, as well as this reflection about my environment. But that needs to be applied situationally and depends on the “for what.” That’s always my third question, after the what and the why — for what purpose, reflection? And both have their justification. And in sports this is aptly demonstrated — self-reflection focused only on me, on my strengths and weaknesses, what I’m capable of achieving right now, applies when I want to win, when I’m in competition mode, in tunnel mode. This reflecting on what others can do, and how I measure myself on that scale, that’s the “for what” in order to improve. And these are two really essentially different timing criteria, which is why they require quite different reflection, and that’s meanwhile become an essential subject of training in competitive sports. The head does — there are many coaches who say the head does 80 percent — I find that a bit exaggerated, but it comes very close to that. Thanks again for this initiative.
Yes, thank you so much. Sonja, go ahead, and then Marc, I believe, wanted to add something too.
Yes, I wanted to emphasize this time aspect again, because reflecting costs time. Even if we only think about something very briefly, it first distracts us from automatic routines. And I think especially in competitive sports, hundredths of a second are very, very important if you want to win. And there, reflection, conscious thinking, is counterproductive. There it’s much better if you can fall back on automated, trained processes, because the brain can process it much, much faster, and the body reacts faster. And that might make exactly the difference between first, second, third place, or no placement at all. And that brings me to the point that reflection always costs time. And in everyday life, it’s not about hundredths of a second, but about larger periods of time. And I keep wondering how often I hear the sentence, I don’t have time for that. And when people don’t have time to think about their life or question individual aspects, then I ask myself, what quality does this life have? Of course we can function on automatisms, on routines, and can fulfill all the tasks the outside world places on us well. But if we want to live a lived life with peaks and troughs, and don’t want to live a flatline, then, in my view, it’s indispensable that we take the time to really reflect. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Let me mention here that the day after tomorrow we’ll also be looking at the topic of routines in this context again. So I find it great that this is already coming up here, namely under the topic reflection in everyday life — how can we integrate reflection into our daily routines? And I find that quite exciting too, because you just made this distinction, that outside of the automatism, so to speak, we look very specifically at certain things, and the room will then deal with how we can build that back into a kind of routine, or into our routines, and make it a routine, at least certain sequences of it, even if not the reflection itself. So I find that — well, I meant reflection — I’m glad this point already came up today. I think Marc was first, and then Jürgen again if he’d like. Marc.
Yes, I wanted to bring in another example, dear Jürgen. I hope you’ll forgive me, I’m an anti-athlete, so here’s an example from everyday life for — Sonja just gave an example of reflection looking into the past, and I’d like to bring another example of how reflection looking into the future can help us. We’re all emotional beings, and we’re emotion-driven. And reflection was also, for example for me, why do certain things make me angry? And once I know why certain things make me angry, then — well, I can’t look into the future right away, or first I look into the past — what made me angry, why did I get angry, and then I know in which situation I get angry. And then I can take measures for myself, directed toward the future. If this situation happens again — I already mentioned the stop button yesterday — that I notice, now you’re sliding again exactly into a situation you know from the past. And so I can change my behavior going forward, or handle the same situations I’ve had before differently, because I’ve now thought exactly about, meaning reflected on, what this annoyance and this anger triggered in me. And how it might then escalate in a relationship, because we notice, the other person is making us angry, we then give a counter-word, the other person gives a counter-word. And going forward, this reflection is there for that, and an advantage, in that you say, we’re moving exactly toward where we’ve always moved toward. Now I break out of the old behavior pattern, either with a stop button, or I briefly remove myself from the situation, and so on. And so reflection isn’t just important for the past, to understand processes that happened in the past, but also to be able to shape future processes better. For example, communication too, as you mentioned, dear Sonja.
Thank you so much. Yes, Jürgen wanted to follow up, then Sonja, and then we have another hand raised, and in the meantime I’ll bring Stefan in too. Jürgen.
Yes, thank you, dear Yasemin. And I’ll pick up directly on the last comment. Dear Marc, thank you for the great assist, namely we shouldn’t lose sight of the question to Yasemin that’s still standing in the room. In my view, reflection can also be unconscious. And you named a component for me that’s connected with unconsciousness. I have to say honestly, I’m not clear myself on whether reflection, in the sense of the definition we’ve now approached together, can really run unconsciously. But if there’s a way, it’s through emotions. The moment very strong emotions grip us — let me put it this way — a process of self-reflection can run within us, especially in an emotion like fear, or a state of anxiety, or an emergency situation that demands something of us. And an, in brackets, automatic, unconscious check of what we’re capable of, how we stand toward this situation — take the topic of violence we had — should I intervene or not intervene, in order to then take responsibility and make a decision, which for me are the significant cornerstones of reflection. So that’s a position where I’d say, yes, I wouldn’t rule out that reflection can be not only a willed act, but can also lie in the unconscious. Thank you for listening.
Yes, thank you so much. And especially the example Marc gave earlier, with the day was crap, period, whatever — if I’m now including different evaluations here, then something must already have happened beforehand in terms of reflections, so to speak, just for me to arrive at this evaluation at all. And that’s exactly where this emotional aspect you just described, Jürgen, certainly plays a role. So it seems there’s something that leads to this evaluation, drawing on prior experience, drawing on comparisons, whatever, but which runs, to some extent, automated, without this consciousness playing a role here. Jürgen, would you like to add something here too?
Oh yes, thank you for giving me the chance to react right away again. Another link to topics we’ve had comes up here, namely this unconscious and corresponding reacting is nothing other than a callback to unconscious bias. Thank you.
Yes, great, thank you so much. Sonja, you wanted to say something too.
Yes, I wanted to name two points. First, I really like the term reflecting into the future. I thought about that just now, Marc — normally I’d call that planning, but using “reflecting” toward the future in this context really appeals to me too, because it shows a bit that we can adopt different standpoints in planning too. It’s bendable, flexible. We have the chance there to integrate this flexibility in thinking, and that’s, in my view, much more present in the word “flexible” than in the word “planning.” I really like that. Thank you for this impulse, dear Marc. And the second thing I’d like to contribute is, when we reflect and don’t make it conscious, an internal reflection still happens in our brain, a comparison of experiences we’ve had and knowledge we’ve accumulated. Usually only the special anomalies, the outstanding deviations, become conscious to us. But if we make ourselves aware of this process, then it’s also possible for us to consciously perceive and consider the less outstanding points too. And through that we get more depth of detail in our picture of the day, or in this picture of reflection. And the more information we have, the better our decisions can turn out too, if we’ve learned to make decisions with this information. Because it can also happen that if there’s too much information, that overwhelms us, and we end up in decision paralysis. But that would be a different point. Fundamentally, more details, more information means better decision-making capability, to start with. Thank you. I’m curious what Stefan will say now.
Yes, thank you so much, and I’d like to pick up on something before I hand over to Stefan, because I’d like to bring in something from another room where we’d already talked about this before, namely the four phases of learning, which we picked up once as a model. Sorry, my phone is ringing right now, I hope you can still hear me throughout. So, the four phases of learning — there we also had this unconscious and conscious aspect, and I’d like to build a bridge back to that now, to make clear that what we’re talking about here is basically about this transition from the unconscious into the conscious, so to speak. With these four phases of learning, this model, it’s about the fact that at the beginning I’m on the level of unconscious incompetence regarding something. That means I don’t know that I don’t know or can’t do something. Then, say, I get feedback from someone from outside, or I realize it myself, doesn’t matter how — somehow I become aware that I can’t do something. Then I arrive at the level of conscious incompetence. Then the next stage is, now I know that I can do it, meaning I say, okay, I want to change this, I’ll tackle the topic. Then I’m at conscious competence, but I haven’t trained it yet, not sufficiently trained, so it’s conscious competence. And only once I’ve trained that over time does it become, so to speak, unconscious competence. And with these stages, I find it quite exciting — maybe we can try a transfer or an adaptation here too, to see whether we can establish an analogy with these stages of reflection, if we were to take that as stages of reflection somehow. I’d find that quite exciting. Before we do that, you can let that sink in a bit, we can just make sure to bring Stefan in too now. Thank you, dear Stefan, for waiting so long.
Yes, good morning everyone. I — well, I listened with interest, of course. So it’s fine for me to wait a moment. I think, for myself now, as I was listening, I was briefly out and about earlier too, and had all sorts of thoughts, because self-reflection, sure, that’s of course, we don’t have to do anything first, I agree with Marc on that of course, but we should. Because ultimately it’s the case that self-reflection, or generally, when you recognize self-knowledge or things and can and want to change them, you actually only benefit — not just yourself, but of course ideally the whole environment too. And because we also, I think, have this expectation that when things aren’t going right, whether that’s abstract or in your direct environment — self-reflection is, I think, a really important instrument for how we, as humans, or generally in society, can move forward, can develop further. We live in an age where a lot of things come raining down on us every day, and we always have to look, to some extent, at how we get through this jungle of demands and expectations. And it’s of course completely normal that you make mistakes there too, or that you should distinguish, what’s my private everyday life, how am I as a father, as a mother, or generally as a person myself, when I — well, I do it, for example, that I actually — that’s also always a note — that I write things down for myself, quite classically. I’m, I’d say, 99 percent digital in some way, but I take time in between to write down thoughts. So I’m still a bit old school there, I still write a lot of things by hand somewhere on paper, because that lets me really crystallize the most important things for myself and think about them, and then I also make my own little mind maps that lead to certain results. So, others do this with mindfulness exercises, or try to gather feedback too. And you can do that within your own family too — you can definitely sit down and say, folks, is something going wrong here, or is everything okay, or can we change something? What’s my role? Did I overdo it there? How does that come across? Were there decisions where you’d say, that wasn’t right? So this kind of self-reflection in everyday private life, of course also toward your wife or husband, that you also look at how, through reflection and self-knowledge, you can make optimizations that do you good, and that of course ultimately also benefit everyone else. In professional life, it’s naturally the same. This self-assessment, or overestimating yourself, is of course always an issue that then always evokes a whole chain of reactions too. It’s also enormously important that you do mentoring there, or an error analysis, depending. It’s not always just about human behavior in that sense, or social behavior — it’s also about things I implement in practice and possibly do wrong. There are plenty of methods for how I can address that. As part of society, you can also ask yourself whether that’s environmental awareness or political participation, because ultimately, given the political disenchantment prevailing here, where left and right camps keep getting stronger, it’s enormously important that you find, I’d say, some kind of middle ground for yourself. Because I think we won’t manage if we develop too extremely to the left or to the right. And then, of course, applying a lot of methods too, just looking at it, seeking out certain literature. So I consider this an enormously important topic, one you shouldn’t tackle just once and be done with, but rather one you should take time for and really work through carefully, to do something good for yourself and for everyone else you deal with too.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Marc, Jürgen, Sonja, are there aspects you’d like to follow up on here? Go ahead, Jürgen.
Thank you, dear Sonja. I wanted to pick up on your last transition and the starting point you set regarding the four stages of the learning process. And I think it’s absolutely great that you bring in this topic and this connection, because I think, personally, that exactly this transition from unconscious incompetence to conscious competence is what constitutes reflection. And there’s a lot you could philosophize deeply about too, by questioning, or temporarily questioning, whether maybe there’s an unconscious lack of knowledge or a lack of competence slumbering within me, and I reflect on what this incompetence could be. Or, on the other hand, probably the more common case, that I get prompted by an external stimulus to be able to recognize that I’m incompetent in some sub-area. But I think that’s already the second level. But I found the link you made between our topic of reflection absolutely apt — not leaving it standing there isolated in the room, but connecting it to a learning process, which, we already agreed, is basically a lifelong one. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And you all heard it, Jürgen called me Sonja. Did you all notice that, dear all? Oh, Madonna, saints above. I’m sorry, sorry, sorry. But I believe, even if it were, never in any direction or sense meant negatively. Sorry again.
I didn’t take it that way either. Thank you so much. So, I just saw a hand raised, I think Marc wanted to add something. Exactly, great. Marc.
Yes, I can only agree with that. And Jürgen, you made me laugh with your slip-up. I’m really having fun, I always have fun when I’m in front of you all. On the topic of reflection, I’d also like to say — we always have this — I’d bring perception back in again. This examining consideration and perception. So not just going inward to reflect on how I process this, what does it do to me, and to a statement, but could the other person also have a different perception? Why is the other person tired right now? Does the other person see it that way? And that means, in reflection, I have to engage with myself once, so what does it do to me if someone says, I’m stupid, or I’m dumb? And why can the other person say that? Maybe they don’t even find me dumb. Maybe something else is bothering them right in that moment. And that’s why this learning and this training is extremely important, to engage with yourself once, what does that trigger in me, and at the same time to include the other person too. And that requires — that’s already like the master’s level, I’d say almost like in a martial art, or in an Asian — and generally in that sport, the next level, that I have to engage with myself once, get to know myself once, and at the same time be totally neutral and open again, and consider what might have led the other person to behave this way or that. What perception might the other person have? And when I accept — and that’s the hardest part — when I accept that there are different truths, because we construct truths for ourselves too, then you notice how complex this whole topic is, and how sensible it is to engage with the topic of reflection at all, and also with the perception, both of myself and of the other person.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Would anyone else like to add something here? Sonja, Stefan, Jürgen? Sonja, go ahead first. Yes, of course. Wait, Sonja, go ahead. Thank you, because — oh, you want to go first, okay, let’s let you. Sorry, excuse me.
I just want to give Marc a hug for his remarks, so apt, dear Marc. And inwardly I’m grinning a bit, because you brought up a word that I already defended yesterday, or consider indispensable in the overall context — that’s perception, or perzeption. And that remains, for me, still a bit of a shadow topic in the background, also with regard to categorizing it within the overall process. Thanks again, and sorry if I now —
All good, thank you. Sonja. I’m enjoying this too, I like this a lot. And I’d also like to pick up the topic of perception again here, because in Marc’s remarks — or was it yours, Yasemin? Now I’m getting mixed up too — the term introspection came to mind for me. The moment we have the opportunity to reflect, that’s something like being able to rewind, and when we rewind into a past event, we also have the chance to focus on a different level of perception. And that’s where introspection comes into play, the perception of internal processes. And we can include the factual information of how a situation was experienced, and we can also consider our feeling about that situation. So deliberately directing the focus onto how that felt for me when my counterpart said this or that, or when this or that happened. Normally, in everyday life, we pay relatively little attention to that, unless it’s just our nature. Instead, we just accept that we feel something and react to that feeling relatively automatically, at least usually. And the process of reflection allows us to play that back in slow motion and pay very deliberate attention to how that felt for me, and whether that feeling, after a neutral consideration of the situation, was appropriate, or whether I felt too much, felt too little, and then we can also look at whether some destructive patterns might be at work in us and whether we want to change something, especially in private situations. If we look at it purely factually, we can of course also apply this to things like sales processes, and then simply notice, okay, my counterpart didn’t react as gently as I’d thought, but reacted much more strongly. Maybe something about my tone was different than it felt to me. And then I can compare these aspects again, and I really like that. So perception and introspection are the two keywords. Now I’ve talked a lot, said little, but I hope the point still came across. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And now a lot of aspects have basically come together that we’ve discussed. So we have this look-back, the evaluation, certain processes that happen automatically, versus the ones we consciously undertake, toward, on various levels, both emotional and factual, so to speak, a kind of ordering of the data — data being information, experiences, and so on. And then we also had this outlook into the future, and then the connection, so to speak, with learning too, understanding this as learning as well. And I find it interesting, especially with this aspect of perception etc., to look at it from this perspective briefly, or at least to have mentioned it — that it’s ultimately, so to speak, a very subjective process happening here. That means we’re in our own bubble, one we’re in both when looking back and also when we want to turn it into a look forward, in the sense of, I want to plan something, handle something differently, or reach goals or similar — then we’re moving within our own bubble here too. I think that’s also really important to at least mention. That means, you might know this too, especially from feedback contexts or such, that when we talk with someone and are in exchange, and the other person has the feeling of having understood, but keeps connecting to different points that weren’t actually meant that way — where you notice in the interaction that the other person hasn’t processed or understood it, or similar. I find that a pretty good comparison point here. And not because they’re stubborn, defiant, or don’t want to understand, but because they’re actually stuck in their bubble, and therefore really have difficulty recognizing what was actually meant. And yes, maybe someone would like to add something here before we move into today’s closing round. Marc, Jürgen, Sonja, Stefan. Go ahead, Marc.
I’d just like to add one word to Sonja’s contribution. You just said something really great, dear Sonja, about how reflection is expressed — namely being able to rewind, being able to rewind, rewind and rinse — I’m already back to tidying up — being able to rewind, yes, and I think we can all rewind. The question is whether we want to rewind. For me, I’d rather use want instead of can, because want is, for me, the most important thing to even set this process in motion at all. Not can, but want. We can all do it — whether we want to, only each of us can decide individually for ourselves.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Lots of slip-ups today, lots of different aspects that came in. I find that totally great. I laughed heartily a lot today. That’s how mornings should always start with you all, dear friends. Yes, then let’s actually move into the closing round, and let’s start from the back today, on the stage, in the picture. Stefan, Sonja, Jürgen, Marc, in that order — what were your highlights today from the room, and your closing words for today, to share with us for the room? Stefan.
Yes, ultimately we started with a provocative statement, but ultimately I think we all noticed how important it is to keep revisiting this topic again and again throughout our various life phases. I think that reflection, and insight, and the methods toward that, are really important for looking at the whole thing. I think these phases we discussed too, which for example bring results between action and reflection, like acting, doing, deciding, implementing things. And then, of course, in reflection, thinking, thinking-over, reflecting, establishing connections and recognizing that you should engage more with how you can, I’d say, optimize your own life and other people’s lives through this.
Wonderful, thank you so much. Sonja. First of all, I find it really lovely to have found this topic here today, and to be with you all again. Recently I’ve met quite a few people who don’t integrate reflection into their everyday lives. That was new, foreign to me, because up to now I’ve been surrounded by, or around, very reflective people. That made me really aware once more of how precious and valuable it is to be able and willing to reflect, and thereby take your own life into your own hands. This self-empowerment — that’s a word you all use often, and I really like it — that we gain, or take, power over our own lives, and thereby lead the life we want to live. A really great topic, and lovely to be with you all, and very entertaining this morning too. “Marc, you need to go rinse in a minute” — I’ll definitely remember that. I found that really funny. Thank you.
Thank you so much, dear Sonja. Jürgen?
Yes, I’d like to use this now to briefly open up another interface we haven’t discussed yet, namely the interface toward, and the delineation or integration of, the topic of reflection within thinking. That’s one of the three cornerstones of our overarching theme, reflection, thinking, and acting. And for me, the connecting point would be from the discussion around this transformation into the future. And there, personally — and I’m getting ahead of myself here — I define exactly the difference or the transition between reflection and thinking as follows: reflection, for me, is an explicit inward view of myself, both in isolation, related to myself, and in context with my environment. The result of that, though, gives me the vision, the possibility, to transport and position myself, from the result of my self-reflection, into the future. And that, for me, is a transition from reflection into constructive, shaping thinking. But as I said, I just wanted to set that as a possible starting point regarding the connection to our overall overarching theme. Heartfelt thanks. Wonderful room, wonderful people, as always. And I hope we keep this fruitful discussion going in this way over the coming days, and I wish you all a lovely day.
Thank you so much. Marc. You all triggered really strong emotions in me today — that was once you, dear Jürgen, through the word “Sonja,” what a word can do with a different meaning, an uncontrolled laugh, and once through myself, through this slip of the tongue with “rinse.” I’m sitting here with a smile on my face and really starting the day here with a smile, and I’d like to thank everyone for that. Interesting topic, a really great topic. Thank you for opening this room, dear Yasemin. It was, as Jürgen always says, an hour stolen from paradise, or something like that. That was it.
Yes, great, thank you so much. Yes, I’m happy too that such wonderful things, aspects, came together here, and that there were also a few slip-ups, so to speak, or word mix-ups along the way, which simply led to some laughter too. Humor is always something lovely. So I find that really lovely, and I’m happy about it too — I mean, it’s nothing planned, it just happens, and it’s allowed to happen too, to lighten and loosen up the whole thing a bit. And yes, I really thought it was great, and I was happy too, Sonja, that you were with us today. I hope you can join more often again over the coming days too. You’re always, always warmly welcome. That naturally applies to the other listeners here in the room too, and the others up here with us on stage. That goes for you too, Marc, Jürgen, Stefan. And it’s simply an enrichment — the more facets, the more people we have on stage, the more facets we can open up. That’s why this is incredibly enriching here. And you saw that today too, through this variety of different perspectives, just as in other rooms. The more people on stage, the more facets we can open up, and the more results we can achieve and generate together here too. And so I’m happy if one or another of you maybe starts reflecting today, in order to then decide to join tomorrow, when we continue with reflection and decision-making. How does reflection support us in decision-making is the question we want to engage with tomorrow, and I’m looking forward, in that sense, to being able to welcome you here again tomorrow at 8am German time. In that spirit, have a lovely day, and see you soon. Ciao!
