Letter of Inspiration #13 - Loss of high standards

Holidays in general, and especially those at the end of the year, invite us to look back. In addition to thoughts on the highlights and the not-so-good moments, I asked myself at the end of 2021 what impact the new normal has had on our habits.
Loss of high standards
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?
What has (not) inspired me recently? Boredom.
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.


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Letter of Inspiration #12 - Clarity

In this Letter of Inspiration, I use Milan Kundera's work "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" to illustrate the difficulty of making clear decisions. In addition, I was inspired by the view of viticulture. —an industry which can be a true role model when it comes to the topic of patience, as it must work within the limits imposed by nature.
Clarity in business decisions
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.
In Globalance Bank’s Zukunftsbeweger magazine, I wrote about stability in motion in my latest column. Click here to read the article.

What has inspired me recently? Patience.
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!

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Column: #3 Rethinking
Rethinking: stability in movement

Rethinking: stability in movement
Routines help bring stability into our lives. That morning cup of coffee before we start the day,
the familiar ride to work, meeting a friend for jogging every other day, or the obligatory Sunday
dinner with the family. All this lends stability and structure to a week that would otherwise run
quite haphazardly.
But what happens when these routines suddenly fall apart? Do we lose our footing and drift into a sea of disorientation? There are many triggers for such a collapse: moves, career changes, but a pandemic is certainly a serious one, even more so because it hits everyone at the same time. Thus, an exciting question for the current situation would be: how can I develop stability in the movement?
As the German writer Ludwig Börne once wrote: “In a tottering ship, he who stands still and does not move falls over.” Does that mean we’d better keep moving and boldly forge ahead? But where to? Straight ahead, left or right? No one will be able to answer that question for us.
Only we can make the decision, and choose where we want to go.
This time has forced us to let go of habitual patterns of behavior and identify what we really want. This means trusting ourselves again. Especially in uncertain times, this seems to be a tall order. If you observe children, however, you will notice that they are constantly in such a state of flux. Everything is new and children embrace the new much more courageously than we adults do. Does experience stand in our way, or have we forgotten to follow our own intuition? I believe it is the latter.
Courage to let go and discover something new requires a shift in thinking: seeing possibilities instead of problems. Indeed, like a children taking their first steps or turns on skis, we too will fall down—but that’s not the point. What counts are the times we get up again.
As a columnist Tanja Schug writes articles for the Zukunftsbeweger magazine on a regular base. The magazine is a wonderful product of Globalance Bank for their customers and partners.
#11 Letter of Inspiration - The Escape to Safety

In this Letter of Inspiration, I would like to share my thesis of why the post-pandemic has left us feeling lethargic and how this connects with how we humans prefer to take the easy way. Besides thoughts on the escape to safety, I write about my new insight into how depth dissolves context. Enjoy!
The Escape to Safety
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?
Step in front of the mirror
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:

What has inspired me recently? Depth dissolves context.
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.

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


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Article: SMAC Magazine - A Good Life
In the past, life was considered good if you could afford everything. Everything usually meant at least one summer and winter holiday a year, two cars, a house, maybe even one or two weekend houses in the countryside or somewhere near the beach. New generations neither have a driver's license, nor do they learn to ski in school anymore. Intercontinental flights are also being questioned in the times of Greta, COVID, and the climate change discussions. What about going out for dinner? Yes, but vegan please, preferably with local ingredients. A good life: what does it mean today?

"The end of consumption leads to a reorientation of luxury. Reducing, leading a minimalist lifestyle, seems to be the consequence of prosperity."- Tanja Schug
Goodbye luxury, goodbye consumption
With consumption it is similar, as with the monthly salary: up to a certain level, we are still happy about a promotion, until the marginal utility of any further increase becomes zero. After this point we do not care anymore because the next promotion would have to be immense to fundamentally change our lifestyle. In the Western world, the last 40 years have been good years. What do I mean by that? We have lacked nothing, everything has been available and if then we have rather asked ourselves the questions about the more, but never about the whether it's necessary. However, constant availability simply leads to turning away, because it becomes boring. Something similar happens with consumption. As it has become vulgar, as a response, we don't want to test the next Michelin Star restaurant, or buy another car, nor do we need a new house in Spain - the children don't fly anymore anyway, to keep their carbon footprint as low as possible. The end of consumption leads to a redefinition of luxury. A minimalist lifestyle seems to be the natural consequence of prosperity.
A simple lifestyle
Luxury has always had a demarcation benefit, represented by the limited availability or high price. Now, platform models such as booking.com or UBER, as well as providers such as easyJet, are trivialising a commodity long reserved for those with the 'good life'. Today everyone has access to a top deal in a 5* hotel, and your chauffeur (UBER) picks you up from the airport, while your flight costs only 39.00 CHF. When the status of luxury is suddenly democratized, this triggers a turning point. Add to that the new ways of communication, which are more visual than verbal. The perfect Instagram image replaces the postcard from the vacation and WhatsApp allows us to be constantly connected with our friends despite thousands of kilometers of distance. In the end, we are longing for a break: break from the availability, to find that imperfect moment that we remember because it doesn't look like it was photographed from an ad of a lifestyle magazine.
A distinct character
Allowing for the imperfect takes courage. We have been trained for decades on what a good life should look like and now we are supposed to just forget about it? Difficult, and yet it opens up a new path. I date to say that the new luxury is strongly linked to the personalty and the stronger we build our character, the stronger our "new luxury perception" will be. The path to the good life heralds the era of artists. Individual and with a clear attitude.
Column: #2 Departure
Departure into a new age - light luggage is recommended

As a columnist Tanja Schug writes articles for the Zukunftsbeweger magazine on a regular base. The magazine is a wonderful product of Globalance Bank for their customers and partners.
Podcast: Interview about Intuition & Leadership
The responsibility to create space for creativity - a conversation with Tanja Schug

Listen to the podcast interview
Episode #38
"It is important that we do not decide things from external influences, but rely more on ourselves again, and thus can also make more agile decisions that are not dependent, but strongly driven from ourselves." - Tanja Schug, in conversation on VonMorgen Podcast - Episode 38
Article: NZZamSonntag - Breaking out of the hamster wheel
The year of the pandemic has raised the question of the meaning of work in our lives. With one very clear insight: we should rely on intuition, and not imitate machines, finds Tanja Schug

I am very happy that NZZamSonntag ran an article by me about the meaning of work. If you missed it, you can find it online or text me to get a copy.
Column: #1 Disruption
Disruption - How can we satisfy our customer needs?

As a columnist Tanja Schug writes articles for the Zukunftsbeweger magazine on a regular base. The magazine is a wonderful product of Globalance Bank for their customers and partners.
Article: Die Welt - The Genuine is the new luxury
"The meaning of work is about to change."Work is now no longer the most important value by which individuals define themselves, says author and CEO Tanja Schug. She observes how a "totalitarian system" is beginning to crumble.

Tanja Schug is exploring the meaning of work. She says entrepreneurs need to act more like artists and train their gut feeling. She also reveals how this can be done.