Tanja

Our everyday life has changed dramatically. We are once again encouraged to work from home, and anything involving in-person interactions requires the constant monitoring of possible changes to the current situation. In addition, long-planned events or meetings may end up being cancelled or adjusted at the last second, making our improvisation skills more in demand than ever. Only those who stay permanently in motion manage not to get lost in memories of the good old days of a pandemic-free world.

All this effort seems to take away our energy for aspirations and kindness. Emails are getting shorter and responses take longer, while both salutations and greetings in messages are disappearing. Suddenly you see men who used to walk across Zurich’s Paradeplatz in elegant suits in sporting jeans and turtlenecks. Restaurants in the Old Town, where you used have to fight for a seat at lunch, now have free tables even on the same day. And everyone has redefined their dress code – as evidenced by the revival of jogging suits.

Meanwhile, the construction industry is enjoying a surge in demand. If you spend your days at home online and in Zoom meetings, you at least want to feel comfortable in your own bubble. Our move into the digital world makes us forget our standards from the (old) reality. Christmas cards that used to be signed by hand were sent via WhatsApp this year, if at all. It seems as if many are asking themselves: what’s the point? Has the pandemic helped usher in a new age with new rules of style and decorum? Have we become kinder to ourselves and forgiven ourselves for no longer following the yoga or workout app every morning? Have we learned that it’s nice to spend time with the people who are close to us instead of travelling the world to pursue others or grandiose goals? And has this led us to start redefining success? The ideals of “faster, higher, stronger” seems to matter less to us – and they are also less tangible online. But what then is important to us in this new phase?

People are always looking for what they cannot have. The spontaneity now frequently imposed on us may lead us to desire permanence: this can be in the form of a place to live, familiar products or stability in our personal environment (work, family, partner, and friends).

The question we should address now at the beginning of 2022 is: how can entrepreneurs give their employees and customers this consistency?

People who used to be able to tell stories about their latest trips or business meetings now talk about the baker who makes the best sourdough bread or the latest Netflix series. Conversations have become boring, because nothing happens anymore. As we have become poorer in experiences, our lives have lost a bit of their meaning.

“In a society that is used to making such comparisons, success that is visible to all becomes the basis of prestige and an end in itself. One demonstrates one’s own achievement in order to gain prestige and escape contempt.” (Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class).

After two years of the pandemic, we have lost our habits of having social interactions and conversations, which, according to Thorstein Veblen, a 19th century economist who was one of the first to reflect on consumerism, leads to the conclusion that we are losing our social status. The only consolation is that if everyone feels this way, our status symbols may soon be redefined.

One of the main characters in Kundera’s famous book is Tereza, a woman marked by self-doubt who describes in a dream her fear of not being enough. She dreams that her husband, Tomas, a philosopher who enjoys life, sends her to Petřín Hill in Prague, where a man with a gun is helping three suicides kill themselves. When the armed gentleman turns to her, she cries out, “It was not my choice!” and is granted permission to leave. Only at the moment when it is literally a matter of life and death does Tereza take responsibility for herself and make a decision. Why is it so difficult to make clear decisions?
It starts with the sheer volume of possibilities we are offered. The routine walk to the café around the corner in the morning becomes an interrogation game: Flat white? Small or large? What kind of milk? Cash or card? This drags on into the meetings that follow, where future investment decisions, hiring or corporate strategies are discussed. There is no shortage of options or opinions; in fact, there are too many. The trick is to figure out how you like your coffee—what you actually want.

The goal here is not perfection. We are not machines, nor can a decision be made with the gift of perfection, like that of the master forger Beltracchi. Clarity about what you don’t like is a good first step. “It was not my choice!” cries out Tereza—I don't want to die. Although this was a dream, by taking it a bit further, one can imagine that this decision on Petřín Hill brought further consequences. Because the moment of clarity has an incredibly liberating energy. Most of the time, this clarity has been present in us for a long time, nevertheless we tend to hesitate. There are many reasons for this: not yet being ready for the consequences that come with it, being afraid of change and letting go of the familiar, or (still) lacking the words to express it. One thing you should be aware of is that life is not static, but in a constant state of flux. Whether you decide consciously or choose the strategy of waiting, life keeps flowing. The greatest security is found in trusting continuous movement.

Looking back at the past, none of my decisions have ever brought anything bad. Change, yes, but that’s what happens when you move. The context changes, and a trained intuition is a tool that gives support and clarity in a state of continuous movement. I will be speaking on how this can be trained on October 27 at a lecture at the Senior Management Program of the University of St. Gallen. Details will be available on the website afterwards.

The last vineyards have just been harvested and the main work in the cellar has been completed. Now it is time to wait, because working with nature does not allow for short-term adjustments, nor can the harvest be repeated or mistakes corrected. There is a dependence and with it a hope that nature has been kind to the winegrowers. After all, there will not be another chance until next year. Nature sets the pace and we have to follow.

What this example shows me is not only the dependence on external influencing factors (because they exist everywhere), but also the level of clarity it takes to produce this precious product. For example, do I want an elegant, lean wine with low alcohol that tastes more like dark berries or even tobacco, or something completely different? What framework (cultivation, aging and production) does it take for me to succeed? And even if I can visualize and express all this, I still have to wait to see if my strategy has worked, because the finished result will only be revealed in the bottle.

Patience is a quality that is often lost in the business world, where I have been conditioned to believe that thoughts should be implemented immediately. Silicon Valley tells us we should “fail fast”. But is that the case? Don’t good ideas, just like good wines, need time to mature in order to develop their full potential? This is certainly true in wine, and I think it’s true in business as well.

Summer is now noticeably over and the dark and cool months have begun, ushering in a time for reflection and debate. May this Letter of Inspiration encourage you to do so and initiate new thoughts!

The post-pandemic reactions are different than expected. In almost every conversation, I hear about resignation, motivational difficulties, and signs of exhaustion. Not just in the big consultancies, where hires and fires are common, but everywhere. It doesn’t seem as if everyone was waiting for things to get going again. Instead, drive is restrained. In fact, I even observe a tendency to escape, to flee from the known. This is most likely because we have been through a time in which parameters, both private and professional, have been challenged, thus also calling into question the status quo. Now you might think: a good thing that it has! After all, so much passed us by too carelessly – climate change, digitalization, AI, and so on. It seems as though everything happened at the same time, giving us almost no chance to think about these topics, let alone develop a clear position on them.

The changing frameworks of the last months have offered an opportunity to reflect on the big questions of life. One might assume that the increased fluctuation rates are an indication that people are (finally) pursuing their needs, desires and – yes – perhaps their dreams. There was a moment of enlightenment, and thus clarity, about what we actually want.

But instead of the pursuit of ideals, I hear rather the opposite in conversations – very few are following their true calling. Instead, they are taking the path of safety. The personable waiter becomes a call center agent, the former architect looks for a job in administration, while the entrepreneur again chooses the apparent security offered by a corporate job.

What surprises me about this is that I don‘t believe that this step is the result of honest self-reflection, but rather the most obvious, simple or logical solution for something that, if dealt with further, would only become exhausting. This, in turn, makes me critically question how sustainable these newly chosen paths are. Will a second wave follow in a year’s time – not a wave of the coronavirus, but one that raises the question of meaning again?

As humans, we are hardwired to take the easiest way. This is why, in the supermarket, we usually wait in the longest line, because who knows, something could be wrong with the other ones. A queue of several people already waiting seems to be right – they couldn’t all be wrong, could they? This pattern can also be seen in parks, where paths emerge over time as people repeatedly take the same shortcuts. It seems logical to follow the way that others have already marked out, so that we don’t have to do any extra thinking or walking. My fear, however, is that we may be transferring this pattern to our life choices.

After all, wouldn’t it be worth taking a few extra steps or engaging in deeper thoughts, especially when it comes to one’s future? Albeit grappling with the question of “what you really want” is not easy, I am nevertheless convinced it is one worth asking. Especially in times of uncertainty, that which seems logical is not necessarily the right thing to do. We must not lose the bigger vision now, but should instead take the time to reflect and create within this change. New thoughts, an adapted lifestyle, a new job – yes to all of that! But please: make sure it is based on your own wishes and needs, and not driven by a hope of finding security. If this pandemic has shown us anything, it is that nothing is certain. However, if we can summon up confidence in ourselves, that will be our most important tool for the coming months and years.

For more on how to use and develop this skill, Zero Senses will be offering the “Cultivating Presence” retreat from October 21st–23rd of this year. If you are currently looking for new impulses and inspiration, reserve your spot now:

I recently found myself in an environment that I never would have chosen for myself: crumbling walls, a bed that was just a mattress on the floor, and a level of cleanliness well below Swiss standards. And yet, the week I spent there was one of the best I’ve had in a long time. Why was that so?

The artist James Turrell once said in an interview, “home is where my community is”. For this space and light artist, home has no meaning in the geographical sense; it can be wherever he feels a deep connection with his surroundings. This became very clear to me in my example. The group of people and the depth of the connections between them render the context irrelevant. My thesis is that the stronger the relationship, the less context matters.

Recently, an article of mine was published in the SMAC Magazine on "The Good Life" – a topic quite fitting for this Letter of Inspiration.