Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: What role does resilience play in dealing with power and violence? Marc and Jürgen join Dr. Yasemin Yazan to unpack the difference between resilience and “hardiness,” why resilience is best understood as the outcome of a learning process rather than an innate trait, and how radiating resilience can itself become a source of personal power…
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
Good morning, everyone. Today we’re talking about resilience in dealing with power and violence, and we want to look at what role resilience actually plays when it comes to power and violence. As every morning, we’ll approach the topic slowly, starting by asking what impulses come up first, what the term resilience even means, and how we can use it for ourselves when dealing with power and violence. So as always, you’re invited to join in with whatever thoughts and impulses first come to mind, so that together we can move into a kind of analysis and reflection and see where the room develops and what insights we can draw from it together. A quick note for anyone joining for the first time: the room is recorded the whole time and published afterward, so anyone joining automatically agrees that the recording will be published. We have three small room rules: a profile picture you can be recognized by, your last name, and at least a sentence in your bio. Anyone who doesn’t want to do that for whatever reason can of course use the chat to share questions and thoughts, so that over the course of the 60 minutes the room is limited to, we can pick those up too.
And with that, I’ll mute myself and ask who’d like to share the first impulses on resilience in dealing with power and violence this morning. A very good morning to you, Marc — what do you have to say on the topic? Good morning, everyone, lovely to start the day with you again. I first thought about the situations in which I actually need to be resilient at all, and I concluded that there are different kinds of situations. There are situations that have nothing to do with my daily routine — when I get up in the morning and talk with you, that’s become routine by now. And as the day goes on, I don’t need resilience either, because everything I do is routine: I call clients, process orders, answer emails, it all just flows. I can even do several things one after another, in parallel, I can be interrupted, and I stay fairly calm. It’s different when situations suddenly arise unexpectedly, where I don’t have an immediate answer — and what I’ve learned for myself there is that, depending on the situation, it makes sense to get help. And “get help” isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer either. I’ve thought about what kind of help, for what kind of situation. For me as an entrepreneur, that could be legal matters — a client says, “I’m not paying,” and I think, oh, he’s not paying, now I stand to lose however many thousand euros if the money doesn’t come. What can I do? Can he really not pay? Is he allowed to do that? In that case the help I’d seek would be legal counsel, not advice from a friend. Or it could be that, here in the building where we live, people just leave their trash in front of the door, or bicycles block the path — then I might look for help in the sense of several tenants joining together and saying, hey, we need to talk to him, or we need to do something. And if it’s something private, with a partner or whatever else, then I might look for professional help, someone who knows the field and has experience with it.
I stress this deliberately, because for me, seeking help is a crucial way of dealing with resilience and power — if someone is exerting power over me. But there are professionals of every stripe out there, and on every side, whether it’s a lawyer, a therapist, or someone doing social intervention work, there are very different people. And I’ve learned that we always pass on our account of things subjectively. We live in our own reality, and when, say, it’s a private matter, we might tell a friend, my partner doesn’t understand me, I’m having problems. And he might say, I get that, oh yes, I see it exactly the same way — because all he’s hearing is my version, how I perceive the situation. And if the person I’m talking to hasn’t learned to ask the right questions — or if, say, I go to a therapist who doesn’t ask the right questions and just says, “Ah well, you had a bad day, that’s just how it is, since maybe as an entrepreneur I’m just not getting into action” — and if the person I’m talking to doesn’t understand their job and isn’t really an expert there, then it isn’t necessarily help. In fact it can lead to completely different results. And that’s why it’s so tricky — you can tell I’m jumping all over the place, but you can see how complex these topics are and how much thought you really have to put in. When it comes to the question of how to deal with resilience, “get help” isn’t the whole answer, because you always have to go deeper to eventually take the right steps for yourself — how to become resilient, and who can help you with that. And once I know who can help me, I need to know what abilities that person needs to have, so that afterward I end up going in the direction that’s right for me — not the direction that’s right for the other person, but the path that has to be right for me, which doesn’t have to be the path that’s right for whoever I’m talking to.
Wonderful, thank you so much. Your remarks already show how relatively complex this is, and how many different levels and perspectives can be opened up here. I’d like to bring in a definition from Wikipedia, which I think highlights these different levels quite nicely. I actually find this definition pretty good. It says resilience comes from the Latin “resilire” — I hope I’m pronouncing that right, I never took Latin — to spring back, to bounce off, not to cling. It’s also described as the adaptive process by which people respond to problems and changes by adjusting their behavior. This process is broken down into three areas: first, triggers that require resilience — for example trauma or stressful strain; second, resources that favor resilience — for example self-worth, a positive outlook on life, a supportive social environment; and third, consequences — for example changes in behavior or attitudes. Resilience can make an important contribution to an individual’s ability to recover or respond to challenges and change. And then it says: when resilience is viewed as a trait of a person, it is largely innate. That’s a really interesting aspect, this idea of being innate — one would probably need to look at that more closely, I’m not sure I’d simply agree with it, but maybe we can discuss that together. In any case, I find this three-part breakdown makes clear that there are different levels here: there’s something like prevention — what can I do to prevent things in advance — and then there’s what can I do once something has already happened that requires resilience from me as a reaction, and then the aspect of behavioral change as the consequence. So I find this three-part structure quite exciting, and with that I’d also like to warmly welcome Jürgen to our side this morning. What do you say on the topic, Jürgen?
Good morning, dear Yasemin. Good morning, Marc, and everyone in the room. I’ll build on your Wikipedia definition and offer two thoughts. I was curious whether the third point you mentioned in the definition of resilience would come up, namely — and I’m interpreting what Wikipedia said this way — learning from it. I think resilience is very often positioned too one-sidedly, focused only on having and attaining a certain resistance, rather than on this attaining itself: drawing a conclusion from situations in which I had to demonstrate resistance, resilience, and learning from that, so that through this learning process I have even stronger resilience in the future. So for me, being resilient, like many other things, is an outcome quantity that results from becoming resilient. And that presupposes a learning process for me. On the second point — and this connects to what I wanted to bring up from yesterday’s room with Andreas — the point came up there that as human beings we actually all carry within us the dispositions that make life, or make us, capable of living. You said — and I’m not sure if that was your own remark or still part of the Wikipedia definition — that it’s innate. I’d like to qualify that somewhat and say: yes, it is innate to acquire this resilience through learning. But I personally doubt that every one of us walks around with a ready-made package of resilience. No — I’d say each of us has the possibility of becoming resilient through learning. Thank you for listening.
Wonderful, thank you so much. And on that last point — yes, that really was still the Wikipedia quote about being innate, and for my part I’m completely with you in saying that, fundamentally, we bring everything with us — connecting back to yesterday’s expert talk. I agree with that. But it’s not that we can already simply do it; rather, it’s this learning process that actually produces the resilience in the first place. In that sense, the dispositions to become resilient come with us on our way — everything we need is already there — but from my personal view, it’s the learning process itself that first enables us to become or be resilient. Marc, would you like to add something here too? Yes, I completely agree with both of you, and I’d like to add one more word, which relates to recognizing emotions as prevention. That covers both learning and prevention. We usually react, or we need resilience, when we get into situations that don’t dock into our routine — situations that have nothing to do with getting up, brushing your teeth, driving the car, but where we experience stress. For me, stress arises when I enter unfamiliar terrain and the emotions are so strong that they threaten to take over. And now I come to Jürgen’s point: if I’ve learned, if I know that I’m entering such a state, or as prevention I already recognize, oh, this is making me angry, this is making someone angry, this is making me sad, or this is scaring me — and if I then know how to handle these emotions, then the learning process would be: in what situation were you ever afraid, Marc, and was that fear justified? No. What happened? Actually nothing, it was all only half as bad. That would be the learning effect, where I say, ah, maybe that’s also true in the current situation — that you’re expecting it to be much worse than it actually turns out. And if I don’t yet have that experience, then the learning process would be, at least from someone telling me, “Listen, Marc, you’re in this emotional state right now — let’s actually check whether the scenario you’ve worked out for yourself can really happen, whether legal steps are really going to be taken against you, or whether the money is really gone,” and so on. And then we’re back with the counterpart, the therapist or the lawyer or whoever is helping me. But I find it really interesting that you split the topic this way — on one hand, what prevention can we do to be resilient, and what Jürgen said, the important thing from a behavior we’ve already had: what can we learn from it, so that in a new situation we’re already resilient enough to apply what we’ve learned?
Wonderful, thank you so much. And beyond that, I’d like to bring in another term from neuroscience. There’s an approximate definition I picked up that I think is also very important to think about: that resilience, fundamentally, represents the elasticity to spring back to the original position. So it isn’t the same as resistance, according to neuroscience. If we were only resilient, or only had resilience, we’d essentially be in constant motion. The counterpart to this term is “hardiness” — robustness. And resilience is elastic, so to speak the sibling of hardiness. Ideally we have both, hardiness and resilience. And especially when we think about things like health, all these stressors and stress factors, brain research also emphasizes that both are needed — it’s not just about holding firm against something, it’s also about, for example, giving way, stepping back. We see this in many areas, and maybe we can picture it through architecture: anyone who’s looked into this a bit knows that, classically, skyscrapers have a certain range within which they move — they flex — but once it becomes too much, they have to hold firm, otherwise they’d collapse. That could serve as an image here to make this a bit more tangible. And I find this approach especially interesting since yesterday’s expert talk also touched on violence and the response to it, and this same aspect came up there: violence needs a counterpart, so to speak, in order to unfold its force as violence. The moment I, for example, evade it, or give it no room, with whatever means, strategies, or techniques, then it isn’t violence at all, because it runs into emptiness, so to speak. I find that approach quite interesting to bring in here too — Marc, Jürgen, what do you say to that?
Yes, Jürgen, go ahead. Thank you. I like this counterpart enormously — if you follow it through consistently, as Yasemin did, seeking the counterpart to resilience, so to speak the counterpart to recovery, resilience being, in short, a shorthand for recovery, for restoring oneself. And this happens, and is necessary, once I’ve been confronted with something in some form and held my ground, was resistant, had to mobilize forces, both mental and physical, in order to show hardiness — and then, in the phase of resilience, to recover from that, so to speak, or to emerge strengthened from it. So I took that connection you made very gratefully. And if you allow me, I’d also like to bring in another view, connected to our overarching theme, because you asked about the connection between resilience and power — resilience in dealing with power and violence. As an initial subtitle for myself, I drew out the question: what role can resilience play in gaining power, in gaining personal power? And the other side: how can I use power that I already have, in all its possible facets, positive and negative, to strengthen my resilience? Maybe that’s another starting point for further exchange. Thank you.
Wonderful, thank you so much. And have you already developed some initial thoughts on this that you’d like to share with us, Jürgen, as approaches? Well, fundamentally, if I start from the question of how resilience can be used to attain power, then I myself must already take a significant step through self-positioning and self-determination as the basis for that — to say, if I am resilient and resistant on one hand, but can also recover accordingly, how can that become a position of power for me personally? For me, that immediately branches into the point of power over myself — empowering myself for future situations, emerging from them strengthened, which is why I said resilience is really the outcome quantity. That also means, for me, becoming more powerful in relation to my environment or the challenges that confront me. And the second position, of course, concerns the environment — whether, through resilience, one can take on a clearer position of power there. And I’d say yes, because I think that radiating an ability for resilience has an effect on others. Especially in a professional context, in a leadership position, when things aren’t going well, when there have been setbacks, I think it’s a very essential leadership quality to carry this personal resilience — hopefully present — outward as well, through certain signals and positioning, for example clearly saying no to a directive, to set an example for others of what it means to be resilient. And I think the resulting outcome, if a person in a leadership position manages that, is that their personal position of power — and I mean power here as personal power backed by competence — is clearly strengthened by radiating this resilience. That would be, from my professional field, a positioned example of how I can indeed understand resilience as a position of power. Thank you for listening.
Wonderful, and let me build a few bridges here to different rooms and terms we’ve already opened up in this context, which might fit in nicely here too. On the first point, you used the term self-empowerment, which I think is great, and it’s exactly what awaits us in tomorrow’s room, titled “Self-Empowerment — Who’s Actually Holding the Reins?” That means, in relation to my own person, empowerment and sovereignty play a role again to some extent. And what’s interesting in this context is that, in this second position you opened up, where you said the ability of resilience has an effect on others, we’re also relatively quickly back at this aspect of sovereignty. That brings me directly to the room where we talked about authority and such things — authority doesn’t just arise from position. It has a lot to do with the fact that, say, a manager who’s above me — I don’t necessarily have to accept or embrace them as a leader, so to speak; different components play a role here, as we discussed in various rooms before. And here we have this aspect of effect through sovereignty, which can then, for example, again produce power such as authority or similar. Authority is one example I find very exciting in this context. And with that, the circle closes a bit — that on one hand, self-empowerment is possible in relation to myself, and it also unfolds an effect outward that has a positive impact in various directions, an effect in the sense of radiance, I’ll call it that, unfolding in various directions. Marc, would you like to add something here too?
Yes, I’m still thinking about what was said, about these forces, about exerting pressure and accepting pressure. In my environment I keep noticing that there are people who are simply placed in a position where they’re technically superiors. But — and I can really only speak about the school context here, this has nothing directly to do with my partner, but I keep hearing about it, it concerns someone else — there are people who, by virtue of their position, are superiors, so more powerful than others. But some people don’t recognize that power, because the communication isn’t right. And if, say, something is ordered — we have a meeting at such and such a time, we’ll meet — and the employee, even though they’re obliged to follow instructions, simply doesn’t show up, then my power is worth nothing, because the pressure and the power that the other person now also has, through a strong sense of self-worth, is simply: this doesn’t suit me, I’m not coming to the meeting. Both positions become so dependent on each other that the consequences — what actually happens if an instruction from a superior isn’t followed? Especially now, with the shortage of skilled workers, what are you going to do about it? I’m not coming, and “do you want to fire me? Then you can see who does my job tomorrow.” The balance of power has completely shifted. And that brings me back to something very important: communication. Because if I only want to enforce something by virtue of my office, my position, then I might not get the other person to actually do it at all. And if the other person doesn’t want to go into confrontation with me, because maybe they don’t have such a strong personality, then, if push comes to shove, they simply call in sick. That removes every lever of power I thought I had.
And to strengthen resilience further — that also has something to do with self-worth, which of course doesn’t always happen. I once had a very large client, the kind many people would probably love to work with, and because of its size it dictated to me that we’d meet Monday mornings in Munich. And I said, then I’ll forgo the collaboration. I could afford to do that, though, because my family is so important to me. I only get to see my partner on weekends. And what I decided for myself once I was self-employed — I couldn’t have done this as an employee — was that I wouldn’t take Monday-morning meetings in Munich, because that would mean having to drive there already on Sunday. You’re taking away a piece of my quality of life. And unless something truly terrible has happened, I don’t see why there aren’t things we could just as well discuss on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, as far as I’m concerned late into the night — just not Monday morning, because otherwise I’d have to set off at one in the morning. I won’t do that. I’m not in a state where I can drive safely then. And I won’t drive on Sunday either, because that takes away a piece of my family time. And lo and behold, it worked. But that only worked because, at that point, my sense of self-worth had grown enough that I said, I’ll let it ride on whether the collaboration continues or not. And if not, then it’s lost, that’s just how it is. But in that case, self-worth meant that the power structures being exerted on me — and they were very, very large, since it was a huge company, as I said, one that’s used to dictating meeting times because everyone likes being able to say they work with a big company — that power was taken away from the other side once I said, look, this might be the kind of behavior your other suppliers put up with, but it’s not how things work with me. And if the two of us are going to work together, then we both need to make compromises.
And of course, my explanation wasn’t simply “I don’t feel like it” or “I can’t.” And I didn’t dodge it with a lie either, saying I don’t have time, that doesn’t suit me — that would have been a lie. Instead, open communication also means saying: this doesn’t work for me right now, for this or that reason, because this point matters so extraordinarily much to me that it leads me to a different decision. And when you’re dealing with someone who is themselves a family person, you suddenly notice a shift in their reaction — they say, oh, I find that a clear point, I find that a real stance, it’s a shame, Monday would have suited me better, but I understand your position. And when someone has a clear position, they can actually gain respect from the other side because of it. That’s how you can resolve situations. And since this came up yesterday in the room too, with that image of the handshake, of pushing back against pressure — when power is being exerted, the other person also has to allow that power to take hold. And it becomes difficult once the other person withdraws from it entirely and says, I simply won’t push back, I’ll dodge the situation completely. And a lot of people don’t dodge with a direct message, saying, this doesn’t suit me for this reason, I’m not coming. Instead, if they’re afraid of confrontation, maybe because their self-worth isn’t high enough, people simply dodge by withdrawing from the power altogether — they say, I’m sick, I’m not coming, or they find some other excuse. And since, thank goodness, we live in a democracy and not a dictatorship, the power-holder exerting that power over us suddenly becomes helpless — they theoretically hold the power by virtue of their office, but they still can’t exercise it, because the other person has withdrawn from it.
Thank you. And several aspects become clear here at once. On one hand, we again have this interplay between power, counter-power — powerlessness or self-empowerment — different parties coming together here, and it has an effect both on how this is shaped, how it’s lived out in this interaction, and what the consequences of that are. And the other thing, from the leadership perspective, what you described, I find interesting too — we had an expert talk with Dr. — on power in the classroom, where she brought up the image of the funnel, saying that fundamentally it’s also about something being dictated from above that somehow has to be passed down, and it has a lot to do with how I dose that, so to speak. That transfers to leadership too — how do I handle it, and communication and how the people involved deal with it plays a role there as well. What transparency do I create, how do I handle it, what do I communicate, what don’t I communicate, how do I shape spaces, so to speak, so that despite the given framework, within certain guardrails, we can move together with employees and still, for example, offer opportunities to help shape things — so that not everyone has already quietly quit inside, so to speak. Because on one hand there’s calling in sick, and on the other there are statistics that, I believe, one in five people has already quietly quit internally and is looking around for another job or something like that. Those are really quite dramatic figures in this context — one would have to check the current numbers, this was a few years ago, but I don’t think it’s gotten any lower. Jürgen, would you like to add something here too?
Yes, gladly, and perhaps a bit far-fetched, but I’ll take Marc’s example as the trigger to ask: when we discuss the connection between power and resilience, the question for me is also how does the other person recognize that I’m a very resilient person, and perhaps more or less unconsciously link that to a recognition of this power, this personal — hopefully personal — power and authority that this person radiates? How does one even recognize something like that, and how does it become apparent to the surrounding environment? And that’s where Marc’s example was, as I said, the trigger for me — his handling of his business partner, for me one of the essential positions, being willing to say no sometimes, to show strength sometimes — hardiness is one thing — and then also to follow through with it consistently. That’s the second thing. And that, for me, is essentially a possible definition of the sovereignty someone radiates: namely, that they send the message, I’ve made a decision, and I stand by this decision and take responsibility for it, even if — and I don’t know, dear Marc — that might mean the business relationship with me breaks off. So this reaches, in an increasingly recognizable way to me, into many of the areas we’ve touched on and discussed over the past few days, weaving them together. And alongside empowerment and self-empowerment, resilience, hardiness, I’d also like to bring back in the term and context of responsibility. Thank you for listening.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much, lovely keyword. Responsibility, I believe, already came up yesterday as a term, but we were moving through so many different areas that we didn’t manage, time-wise, to actually dig deeper into that aspect, because time had already flown by. On one hand we can of course touch on this aspect of responsibility a bit more today in this context; we can also pick it up again on Sunday at the digital campfire, when we talk about power and education, and take up this concept of responsibility there too. Marc, would you like to add something here as well? Yes, it just occurred to me that tonality plays a big role for me. I always really try to put myself in the situation. Of course I didn’t say this to my counterpart, but imagine the same situation: I’m on the phone with someone, he says, can you come on Monday? I say, no, absolutely not. Why not? I’m just not doing it. And then he says, you’re being stubborn, why is that? No, I don’t need to explain, Monday is off the table for me. Then maybe two alpha males run into each other. If the person on the other end is an alpha male too, he’s not used to that kind of pushback. Then he hangs up and says, what an arrogant jerk, I don’t want to work with him, I don’t want anything to do with him. Same starting point, completely different outcome. That’s why tonality and creating clarity matter so much to me. Creating clarity — saying, I understand, we already talked about this more in yesterday’s room, I understand that Monday matters to you, and it matters to me too. We’ve had this in the room before — first finding a shared basis, what matters to both of us, what values connect us. Because once you have something in common, you can look for a solution-oriented way forward together. And if I then explain to him that Saturday, in my relationship, is the one day, at most a day and a half a week, that I see my partner, and that this one day a week is extremely important to me because otherwise I don’t see her at all — really extremely important — then something really has to happen for me to give up that day. My business partner, who maybe has his family all day, might be glad to have some peace and quiet. Some men might even be glad if they can schedule appointments on Saturdays, since it means they’ll be home later. But creating this clarity and tonality means it’s not about two alpha males, who’s right and who prevails, but rather: I have a position, and I try to explain why I hold this position. I don’t expect the other person to share my values and see it exactly the same way, but I’ve created clarity. Simply making a decision without creating that clarity, including the tonality of how I convey it — there are so many adjusting screws there that someone might write something down and say, I’ll take that with me, or I’ll do the same next time in some dispute. And if it’s with a partner — no, I won’t go with you, we’re not going on that vacation, that’s my decision. Great, I’ve made a firm decision for myself, I have a standing. Hardiness, as Jürgen said — but that can also go badly wrong, because if the other person can’t understand my reasons, I’m conveying something completely different, coming across as mere stubbornness. And that can, of course, backfire enormously between two alpha males too.
Yes, thank you so much. And I think two aspects stand out here as very important. First, communication, which from my perspective actually comes second, downstream. Because what comes first is that, in order to create clarity, I first need to have clarity myself. That’s the prerequisite for creating clarity in communication — having clarity myself first, which in turn presupposes that I’ve already engaged with certain topics. So we’re again connecting to various themes we’ve already opened up in different rooms here. And the other thing, what you brought in with tonality and so on, I’d place somewhat under this context-dependence — developing a feel for what’s needed, where, how, and in what form. So that I distinguish depending on the situation as well — it’s not that one particular approach always applies in a given situation, but that in interacting with the other person I also bring a certain empathy, knowing when it’s appropriate to go into full transparency and when it might be appropriate not to, or only partially. There can certainly be situations where I don’t bring full transparency, maybe only partial or none at all, and still communicate the statement clearly outward — not aggressively, that’s not what I mean, the tonality can still be friendly and so on, as Marc just said. But the degree of transparency itself can vary quite a bit, depending on what kind of interaction it is and what position I’m in at the time. Marc, go ahead.
And then it also occurs to me — same example — that it’s hugely important for me to always be able to take alternative perspectives too. Same situation I mentioned, a Monday morning appointment in Bavaria, and I explained why I wasn’t attending. Now, the other person could also have responded, Mr. Schentschetzky, I understand that very well. Now we only have the following problem: I’m about to have surgery, and afterward I’ll really be in rehab, which means our business project would be delayed by four to six weeks if this Monday meeting doesn’t happen. That would be a real shame, because we need your goods, and we can’t manage it with China anymore. Could you perhaps make an exception and come on Monday for this reason after all? If that person signals that to me, then I’m not the one dictating the meeting by virtue of my office, by virtue of my company being much, much bigger than their tiny one — instead, they say, this makes complete sense to me as an entrepreneur, if a process gets stuck for six weeks just because I don’t come on Monday, I can’t do that either. Naturally there’s an exception again there, meaning I’m able to consider alternative perspectives and the other person is too. And that brings us back to communication — same starting point, different outcomes, depending on how the two people interact with, or approach, each other. And that quickly brings us back to the term responsibility too. I mean, there are different ways of handling this here as well. I could check whether, even if I myself don’t want to come because I’ve made that a principle, I have the option of delegating someone else to that task, or whatever else. There are various constellations here, lots of possibilities. But it also shows very clearly that this isn’t an interaction in the sense of “this is right” or “this is wrong,” or that there’s a formula for it in general — rather, and here we’re basically back at this theme of education, it’s ultimately about overarching skills and competencies that are built up over time. And that brings us back to the learning process, to the aspect of education — that a certain capability develops here, to handle a wide variety of situations appropriately, whatever “appropriate” may mean in the moment. And often, when I make decisions, I don’t necessarily know right away whether it was the right decision — I can only judge that in hindsight, and there we’re back at that aspect too. So a great many different components come together here, which I think also makes clear how all these topics are interwoven, and why we’ll be focusing tomorrow on this aspect of self-empowerment — who’s actually holding the reins? That’s the question we want to look at again tomorrow, very specifically from the individual perspective. And then we move on to power and education, and I’m very grateful that this reminder came up, so that we can round things off accordingly on Sunday and pick up this foundation again, making the connections more visible externally. Marc, Jürgen, would you like to add anything else?
I saw Marc first, and Jürgen — well, in whatever order you like, you can decide yourselves. I just wanted to say, another example just came to mind of how power is exercised and how I can respond to it with resilience — something I find totally unfair, that I keep seeing from a lot of supervisors: things like, if you don’t have this done by Monday, you’re not good enough, or others manage it. And I’ve noticed it causes real surprise when supervisors threaten with things like “other colleagues manage this” and imply you’re incapable, or even too dumb to manage it. It gets interesting when you start with, well, if person A — if Jürgen can finish this project by Monday morning and I can’t, then we don’t actually have a problem at all. Just ask Jürgen right away, it’s no problem for him, he can manage it, I can’t, I’ll own that, and it’ll be done Monday and we’ve solved both things. And then you notice that Jürgen actually doesn’t have the time either, and that it isn’t possible at all. But this unfair rhetoric and this power get exploited by supervisors when they know a person isn’t going to push back — they can corner that person and keep pushing them to do more, more, more, because, as Jürgen said, if you can’t say no, at some point it’s too late, and then you can never say no again. That’s also something you have to learn in situations throughout your life, both in a relationship and at work — being able to say no sometimes.
Yes, thank you so much. And exactly what you just described are the kinds of things that, over time, if they keep repeating, can even make you sick. Jürgen. Yes, sorry, going back a bit — there were two points I’d jotted down that might still be worth mentioning for a room, possibly even, in the context of — I believe — your second- or third-to-last remark, dear Yasemin, that I myself first have to recognize that there’s a need to act, or that a learning process is being initiated, and for me that’s the theme — we’ve had this in various rooms before — of perception and reflection, which lays the foundation, in my personal opinion, for arriving at the realization that I’m now going to do something and need to strengthen my resilience. So something has to happen beforehand, an inner process of conviction, let’s call it whatever we like. But for me, that’s where perception and reflection belong too, in this diverse conceptual context I wanted to bring in. And the second thing that occurred to me, also from various other rooms, I believe there isn’t a great danger of this among us, but there’s always this undertone that swings along with topics like resilience, self-empowerment, strengthening self-confidence: there’s a problem, I’m telling you, you have a problem, and here’s a recipe for it. And I’d say one should approach that very constructively and individually, person by person, because — to use a phrase again — every person is like every other person, and like no other person. So to detach from this and say, for today’s topic of resilience, there’s a very clear characterization of what resilience actually is, but an all-encompassing, universally effective recipe that fits everyone — in my opinion, based on everything said, that doesn’t exist. Mind you, that’s my personal opinion. There are aids, tools. And now I come to my last point: when I ask myself what possibilities there are to approach and question this learning process, this development process toward resilience, whether it’s even suitable for the person in question — one point has already come up that I find very important, namely learning to say no, taking a certain position and taking responsibility for that position. And the second point — please don’t laugh — is constructive self-talk. Constructive dialogue with myself, questioning, in situations that require resilience, which require both resistance and the corresponding flexibility, whether I actually have the skills and competencies for it. And that brings us to the last point, or the last terms you mentioned at the end. And with that, the circle closes for me for now. Thank you for listening.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And what you said about the recipe connects again to other rooms we’ve had — it’s exactly one of the traps we all tend to fall into. Because our brains love setting up routines, having orientation, gaining certainty, we keep tending to look for a formula for success, in whatever context — companies do this with methods like Scrum, Agile, whatever else, Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches are in demand and so on. And from time to time there are new trends, always different things, but always this kind of promise that it will give you the solution. And that’s exactly where we hit this point: there is no recipe, because every person and every situation is different every time, and so there are always different influences and effects at play. However simply our brains may be wired in some ways, we’re also, ultimately, just as complex. We don’t actually know that if A goes in, B necessarily comes out, or doesn’t come out. And we had this aspect yesterday too, with cause and effect — I can change the lever of cause, for example, to see what effect unfolds, but I don’t know exactly when a desired effect, say, will occur. I can work with probabilities and so on, but it’s not a ready-made recipe I can simply apply somewhere. And at the same time, I think it’s important to underline that, given how our brains are constructed, we keep searching for this “recipe,” so to speak. If I just want to make a soup, I want to know the ingredients and so on, and once I’ve worked through that, the result comes out and it’s tasty. And in many places we run up against our limits there. I think it’s one of the important aspects to acknowledge that there is no recipe. That doesn’t mean, though, that we can’t have cornerstones here too — as you so nicely put it, Jürgen, aids, tools I can be given to work with. But I always have to look, situationally, individually, in context, what fits where and how well, and try it out, and gather that learning experience again. Jürgen, go ahead.
Yes, that’s why I raised my hand again so quickly, dear Yasemin — I want to spontaneously hug you for this connection. It plays right into my hobby-horse from two or three days ago, when we talked about unconscious bias. From my own professional experience, I named exactly this circumstance as the number-one unconscious bias, or heuristic — this illusion of experience, that we believe we’ve learned something from the past, that we can explain the past, and we fall prey to the delusion of thinking we can therefore also explain, and pre-explain, the future in the same way. So thank you again — another fitting connection to our theme of unconscious bias, well done. Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Marc, feel free to add something too, and then, given the time, we’ll move straight into today’s closing round, where you can also add your closing word, dear Marc, and then Jürgen again, and with that we’ll wrap up the room for today together, so to speak.
Yes, I had to smile just now, Jürgen, at your remarks — you brought self-talk together with experience. And I think I once told Yasemin, sometime in the Deep Talk Club, that I was traveling once and a problem came up that really occupied my mind a lot. I was about to say, I need to call Yasemin now, I need to talk to Yasemin. And I actually did talk to her, without her knowing it — I didn’t just have a conversation with myself, but I was so fixated on the problem that I couldn’t see any solutions at all, just the scenario of everything that could go wrong. And then I pictured Yasemin, among others, and another friend, and through imagining that, I arrived at different questions. Suddenly I managed to ask myself other questions: “Hey Marc, is this really a problem? What happens if this client falls away? What happens? Is there really no possibility left of making sales? Is there really no possibility of finding someone else?” And so on and so on. And then I had to laugh. And indirectly, Yasemin helped me a great deal there, because I know her answers, because I value her so much, because I drew on the experiences I’ve had here together with all of you in the Deep Talk Club. And this switching, taking on another perspective, made me suddenly see the sun on the horizon again, feel better, and wear a smiling face again.
Oh, how lovely, thank you so much. And that really does help in a lot of situations, I can only recommend it from my own personal experience too. I use this approach again and again in connection with certain people who accompany me as mentors or coaches. Once you’ve worked with someone for a while and there’s a certain closeness, you already have a rough sense of how the other person ticks. And often there are situations where there’s no time, no appointment, no chance in the short term, in the moment, to actually go and talk it through — and then simply asking yourself questions like, what would that other person do, or what question would that person ask me right now. It’s amazing what possibilities open up with this shift in perspective. Thank you so much. Marc, your closing word for today?
I’d like to thank everyone listening today, because even if someone doesn’t come up on stage and doesn’t say anything, it still forces me, in speaking, to put my own thoughts in order, even if that doesn’t always sound like it. And that’s how I arrive at new solutions, and you’re a huge help through this exchange with you, whether on stage or not. Being together with you has already led me to a lot of answers that have really, really helped me. Thank you.
Wonderful, thank you so much. Jürgen. Well, enough words have been exchanged — I think we’ve once again worked out a very high level of complexity and, without wanting this to sound like self-praise, brought it into very constructive, reflection-inspiring connections. And second, I’d like to say to Marc once more: it’s remarkable, dear Marc, how you manage to take a stance on the topic with very tangible, relatable practical references and to make conceptual links. I admire you for that. I wish you all a wonderful day, and hopefully see you tomorrow.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. I also thought it was a lovely room, especially for building all these bridges, making these connections to other topics, other rooms we’ve opened up in the past — on one hand to keep making the complexity clear, and on the other to keep coming back to these aspects and making these connections, these relationships, visible. I find that very important in terms of understanding, of grasping, and then being able to decide for yourself what to do with it and how to handle it. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow, focusing again specifically on this aspect of self-empowerment — I’m sure we’ll pick up quite a bit from today, and I’m equally sure we’ll bring in quite a few more points, maybe touching again on this aspect of responsibility, and looking again at the question, who’s actually holding the reins. I’m curious which direction that will take. On Sunday we have the digital campfire, as I mentioned earlier, on power and education — I’m looking forward to that too. On Monday we’ll continue with the power of attractiveness, touching a bit on the halo effect, and then on Tuesday we’ll slowly bring things back together and reflect, since we’ll have spent several weeks on the overarching theme of power and violence, on what overall results we can hold onto, what’s stuck with us, and so on. And I’d also like to bring in this ChatGPT aspect I mentioned before, since I’d told you that this round’s room topics were largely created with the support of ChatGPT. I’d like to reflect together with you on Tuesday: how did you experience it? Was it noticeable to you? Of course we still made small corrections along the way, but essentially we let ChatGPT take the lead here, so that we could draw a conclusion afterward. So I’d love to go into that exchange with you as well. Marc, you wanted to say something.
Yes, I wanted to apologize and say thank you. Godi is no longer in the room, I only just read it — she said I speak too fast. That’s true, my father always accused me of that too. When something’s on my mind, I turn into a machine gun. I’ll work on that too, I promise to do better and try to pay attention to it. Thank you, I learned something today. And like I said, I’m sorry — these are just emotions too, which I’ll try to control better in the future. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Maybe one more note here, since it comes up again and again from people who join the room perhaps hoping to learn German too. I know there are lots of rooms on Clubhouse specifically dedicated to learning German. This room, though, is genuinely a reflection room. Of course, Marc, feel free to consider speaking a bit slower if you like, that’s entirely your own individual decision. It’s just important to me to communicate clearly that, since learning German isn’t the focus of this room, we simply speak the way it comes naturally to us, so to speak. But I still find it lovely when people join who also want to improve their German, because even in everyday life — where do we learn a language as a child, for example, if not in rooms where we simply pick up the interaction? It may be that I only understand half of it, that it’s not entirely clear, but the more I go into these rooms, where the speaking pace, for example, isn’t slowed down, but happens in this everyday interaction, the more I actually pick up. So you’re still very much invited to keep joining, and I hope that, over time and through these connections, you’ll be able to follow along even better. So, just a small note on the side there. Thank you so much for listening, for being here, and I look forward to being back with you tomorrow at 8am in Deep Talk, if you have the time and feel like it. Until then, ciao!
