Category: Food for Thoughts

☆ People believe what they want to believe

We all interpret facts different as it is about our whole outlook on the world. This is a wild mix of our DNA, the way we were raised and the experiences we made in the past. Not only this but also how we view and judge ourselves as well as what our friends believe play a crucial role in our outlook on the world.

Tell me, have you ever had a dynamic as well as heated discussion in which your counterpart said you were right in your argumentation and that he has therefore changed his point of view? Imagine yourself discussion religious belief or politics and showing up with a strong argumentation line.

Did you ever succeed to convince the other one of your opinion because of the facts you have had prepared for the talk? Or because of the long speak rich of deep words or the statistics you have worked out?

Me personally not. A change of mind like this barely occurs in discussions that are emotionally touching.

The reason for this behavior is simple. We keep certain opinions, yes. But we do not maintain our views because they rely on the underlying facts. Therefore, it is not likely that the counterparts change their minds when you bring up arguments.

What really happens is we form our beliefs with the help of our gut feeling. After that, we rationalize our opinions and are in constant search for facts that are supporting our belief. Again, the facts are not leading us to a certain view. It is more the way around: our gut feeling is the base of our belief and we back it up with arguments.

When debating, neither your words, nor your facts or any statistics will make the other one change her or his view. She or he will always believe in what they want to believe.

It is completely nonsense to insist on changing her/ his view.

Actually, it is even a waste of time.

And same applies for me. If someone wants to change my belief system, it will not work. I am not saying that it is impossible to change what I believe in. What I say is that it cannot be changed externally.

For a change, you need an internal experience. You and I have to live it for ourselves. You cannot do it for me. And I cannot do it for you.

Just look back in life: how often have you changed your beliefs. Whether a cold pizza is better than a warm one. Whether real love really exists. Whether you believe in god or not. When did you stop voting for the socialist party and when did you decide for divorce?

In how many cases the reason for this change was the outcome of an intense discussion with your wife or colleague? And how often did your believe change to what happened in your life as e.g the death of a close family member or the knowledge that your husband cheated on you? Maybe you were also newly surrounded by different people who live a new life ethic codex? Or you moved out of your old home town?

My point is that it is very probable that you changed your beliefs yourself. You had no one who changed the beliefs for you. You changed your belief system because you adopted to a fresh situation or a new environment.

So, next time you are in a heated situation in which you or your counterpart is holding on her or his view, keep in mind that most probably you will not changing the person’s view. Even if you consider her or his view as dumb and stupid. At the same time I am not saying you should not speak up to tell your truth. Just be aware that chances to shift your partner from one perspective to another one are realistically pretty low.

☆Three ways to keep your attention level high

I’m pretty sure you know those moments, when we are keen on finishing a professional task or another project milestone but instead of completing it, we get distracted. And as soon as we get distracted, our attention is – of course – divided. You might not only get distracted by scheduled meetings but also by your own inner world, your mind. 

Here are my personal top three tools to keep my focus level high and to play out my mind: 

1. Use multitasking only for very selected, simple activities 

Our attention space is more limited than we think it is. Multitasking is not to recommend – unless it is a matter of habits, i.e. things that our mind can handle without much effort. Therefore, stop multitasking except you are making your laundry or cooking spaghetti. Decide for yourself, which of your daily tasks require full awareness and which part can live with just a „part of your brain” being present. You are adult enough.

2. Watch your mind and call it back when it starts to wander around

Our brain is build to crave for new, constant stimulation, and immediate gratification. It creates something called a “compulsion loop”. With various distractions pulling us in many different directions during a working day, keeping us focused on the important, and most urgent tasks that requires maximum attention often become difficult for us. Our brain simply want to move away from the task and rather think about the next vacation, how to get a coffee or how to solve the issue with the neighbor. 

One of the best practices for managing your attention is called meta-awareness where you become aware of what you’re thinking. Simply start noticing what occupies your mind. You’ll most probably notice that your focused mind expands and shrinks depending on your mood. Your mind is constantly changing as do the clouds in the sky. The more you notice what’s occupying your thoughts and the less you judge them, the faster you can get back on track when your mind begins to wander. 

Awareness is key here. 

3. Have a plan for the next day before you go to bed 

Always make sure to leave enough time to accomplish complex, creative tasks. To improve effectiveness, decide even the night before on the most important thing you want to accomplish the next morning. Start every day with a plan and commit to it.

Own your attention. 

#mindfullness #empowerment #mentoring #management #creativity #technology #future #careers #motivation #productivity

☆ CARD GAME TO BE RECEIVED AT BIRTH

I was once reading about one – another – way HOW to see the world. I don’t know whether I will find the right words but I think the story was the following ….

What if we all received a card play with birth. 

Some of us get better cards than others. 

It is pretty easy to get hung up on your cards and feel to got screwed over. 

But that is not what the game is about. 

The real game lies 
1) in the choices we make with those cards, 
2) when you play which card, 
3) which risk you are willing to take and 
4) the consequences you chose to live with.

I just remember this concept as I found this picture taken during a great summer girls night. 
Three women enjoying the time spent together. 
All of them have different cards to play in their hands.

A whole individual card deck to play life with.

And each of us succeeded to play their game of life with what life have to offer.

I believe there is so much more in each of us, we “just” have to get connected to our inner energy, our power bank. My goal is to wake people up by showing what is possible in life. I want them to take immediate control of their lives.

☆ Geht Kreativität auch im Home Office?

In den letzten Monaten durften viele von uns von zuhause aus weiter arbeiten. 

Im Austausch mit manchen Führungskräften habe ich dabei die folgende Frage vernommen: „Können sich Kreativität und Innovation wirklich entfalten, wenn mein Team nur digital miteinander arbeitet? 

Dass das funktioniert zeigt nun eine frische Studie der Universitäten Köln und Hannover. Die Studie ergab, dass es für den kreativen Output keinen relevanten Unterschied zwischen digitaler und persönlicher Kommunikation gab. Das Kreativitätslevel im Team wird beibehalten. Anders ist das hingegen, wenn der kreative Austausch schriftlich in Chat Rooms mit dem Team stattfindet. 

Das Ergebnis überrascht mich nun nicht besonders, weil Kreativität auch von Spontanität und Mut lebt. Etwas auszusprechen ist „leichter“ als es schriftlich niederzuschreiben und auf das geschriebene Wort später ggf. sogar nochmals „festgenagelt“ zu werden. 

Meine Learnings:

  1. Kreativität kann sich im virtuellen Raum mit dem Team genauso entwickeln wie vor Ort bei persönlichen Treffen im gemeinsamen Meetingroom.
  2. Ob dies tatsächlich gelingt hängt im wesentlichen von der Wahl des Kommunikationsmittels ab: gemeinsame Calls sind einem Austausch im Chat Room dabei aber vorzuziehen. 

☆ WHAT MAKES US HUMAN?

What is it that makes us human? 

One answer is “FLOW”. Like the state I was in when I was spontaneously invited by the Sadhus in India in and accepted the unexpected singing circle. 

Flow is an unobstructed feeling and unobstructed allowance, not only if what is around you, but what is arising from within you. 
Abiding in a state of flow involved being a conduit, like a channel, that merely allows the life energy to flow free through, free of obstruction. 

Maybe you feel like taking your attention inward today and ask yourself: “Do I feel any resistance, fear, or hesitancy? Is there something that needs to be said or done? Is there something I need to act upon?

It’s easy: The more you go where you feel moved to go, laugh as you feel moved to laugh, the more you speak when you feel moved to speak, and cry as you feel moved to cry, the less resistance you have to the flow of life. 

The flow is simple allow the energy of life to circle through you, and to trust in the impulse of the life to move you.

☆ Time to shape the business rules

I still remember very clearly how, during my time in investment banking at Deutsche Bank, I understood that negotiations are conducted differently by men and women, even on an unconscious level.

That was my first job after graduation and I was the only woman among many men in our meeting room in the Bank Towers in Frankfurt. – During that meeting, there were questions about derivatives trading and some of the “biggest” floor traders were in the room. Definitely a lot of testosterone.

I noticed how the men in the negotiation room clarified their ranking shortly after entering it. This was done through gestures and facial expressions, appearance and literally taking up “space” in the sense of “taking up a lot of physical and mental space”.

I was flabbergasted and had to think how I once witnessed a cockfight in Java, Indonesia, which was organized by the men of a village. The strong stings the weak.

During our meeting in Frankfurt, most of the negotiation was also based on the hierarchical levels established in the first few minutes. In this way, competence, power and status were conveyed.

Two points, however, I took with me at the time:

1) The effect through “space” engaging behavior

2) The meaning of body language.

On the last point, I have learned a lot in the course of my professional years: If I sit at the negotiating table with my legs elegantly crossed and my hands crossed on my lap, I am perceived differently than if I speak with my legs apart and my elbows on the table. A direct eye contact that goes round means strength and power and is a different sign than tilting the head down when speaking. But to go into the room when entering it instead of standing at the doorframe, even to walk or walk towards the person opposite when speaking, if necessary, brings with it a special perception.

I currently have a lot to do with the “younger” generation and appreciate that they can attribute competence, power and status to other factors than the aforementioned, perhaps more “traditional” oriented behavioral patterns.

My experience is that the younger generation is able to attribute competence to women even if they do not heed the above mentioned “tactics” but stand fully in their feminine energy.

And this is exactly what I hope for the future, also for the generation “in the best age”: That we can bring more feminine energy into the German career floors and that we can shape the economic rules of the game even more in that light.

For more inspiration subscribe to my podcast newsletter and listen to it, more info here https://linktr.ee/THEHUMANPROJECT

☆ Where can one find happiness?

I will not reveal the secret people have been seeking for since thousands of years: where can I find true happiness?! But I will give you a little hint!

Imagine you buy a new pair of shoes and feel happy about it. Where is the happiness feeling coming from? It was definitely not built into the pair of shoes by the shoemaker.

Is it possible that you have instead brought the feeling with you?

Imagine now you are terrible in love and when you see your new love, you feel overwhelmed by the butterflies that spread in your stomach area making you feel like being high and as if you could hug the whole world? Maybe you think you have the feeling because your new love is sitting next to you, holding hands with you. But can it be that you are wrongly seeing your partner as being the reason for your emotions? Maybe you are wrong because your feeling will also be there even if your partner is geographically nowhere next to you as e.g. she/ he needed to travel to the other side of the planet. Your love feeling remains the same.

What if you brought also that feeling with you?

Sometimes, we people get addicted to buying new stuff or falling in love because we enjoy the feeling so much. In my case, it was to travel to remote countries with my backpack, to learn to know new culture and have an exchange with new people. I feel excited, adventurous and my sense for curiosity was nourished. I also believed that I needed to have the external trigger, that is to travel as often and as far as I can, to create that feeling. For me it was long time the only mean to sate my adventure impulse.

In the meantime, I know that the secret is not about finding the external triggering points but rather about finding the trigger of the feeling without anyone else or anything else being involved.

No, don’t ask me how!

This one you have to find for yourself.

And yes, it is the one place you would have barely thought about looking – it is inside yourself!

☆ Covid-19: In welcher Welt willst Du leben?

Die Welt, so wie wir sie bislang kannten, ist gerade dabei sich aufzulösen. Aus jedem Chaos kann Neues erwachsen und oft braucht eine Neuausrichtung auch Chaos. Die Energiestränge müssen sich wieder frisch finden und sortieren. Ohne Unordnung geht das nicht. 

Die brisante Frage ist, welche Welt wir uns für uns und unsere Kinder wünschen. 

Wie viel Überwachung, Polizei, Staat und nun auch Verschuldung (wer soll das zahlen?) zum Schutz unserer Gesundheit?

Wie viel freies Leben, das stets und immer mit Risiken verbunden ist. 

Leben ist nicht nur Angst vor der Krankheit und vor dem Tod. Leben bedeutet immer auch Risiken für das Schöne und den Genuss in Kauf zu nehmen. 

Gerade mein Unfall im Februar hat mir das nochmals deutlich gemacht: auch Rad fahren in Schwabing ist lebensgefährlich. Mache ich es trotzdem wieder: ja. Warum? Weil ich Rad fahren liebe. 

Alkohol ist lebensgefährlich. Tabak auch. Wenig Schlaf und Angststress wegen Covid-19 ebenfalls.

Es liegt an uns, an jedem einzelnen.

Love,

Corinna ♥️

Zum Hören geht es hier für Dich:

☆ Always think for yourself

You might be tempted to think it is too obvious when I say that you should think for yourself. And yes, I assume that you are already thinking for yourself and I appreciate it!

What I mean by saying “think for yourself” is to even have a clearer look into how you create your opinion. You should be incredible clear what parts of your opinion is build on your own core and your own personal identity and what is build on external patterns.

We humans all have the need to feel loved and accepted by our environment. We all want to belong to a community, let it be our company, friends & family or the Sunday afternoon chess club. We all want to fit in and get along with our environment.

Therefore it is so easy for all of us to just adapt to our surrounding, to not speak up your personal truth and not show our edges.

To really think for yourself, you have to have a pretty clear understanding of who you are, how your mind is working (as your mind can be tricky and even fool yourself). If your mindset is like an unclean kitchen, it might be difficult to think clearly for yourself.

And if you cook in the kitchen by only relying on what is stated in your cooking book, you might be able to serve a nice dish for diner. But the diner will not be a meal created by you and your creativity but rather a result provided by the algorithm of your cooking book. It is exactly the same with opinions.

A good friend of mine comes from a very conservative family. She adapted their way of thinking, took their value system into hers and is mainly repeating what her parents told her when she was a little girl. Another friend of mine is daily reading the same kind of journal so her opinion on the world is crucially influenced by the news source she daily digests. In both cases, their opinions on a certain topic can certainly be theirs but there is a risk that they reflect more what is said within the family or what is written in the news.

Opinions are taken over if there is no other source of information available.

Therefore, it is crucial to keep a fresh and open mind by gathering as many divers sources of information as possible. Sometimes, it also helps to completely change the source of information. Sometimes, it helps to put yourself in a different social environment as taking part at the Burning Man Festival, staying in magic Ubud or joining the local tennis club.

Whatever it is, diversity will keep your mindset free and open.

It comes without saying that if you want to think for yourself you not only have to have something to think about but you also have to do the thinking.

This is work.

You are right: following an already pathed street is the easier option. But then you will always be a follower and you miss the chance to express yourself.

Do you really want that?