Personality vs Attitude – Limitations vs Potential – Dreams vs Daily life

Is it really always a difference? Are we human beings staying in our comfort zone and is that less of who we can be? And is it really bad not to stay where we feel home and at ease? Birds can fly – we can change, so what stops us from doing so or do we really need to?

I’m a risk taker & coach potato at the same time. I like to travel to foreign cultures as well as stay home with a book. Since 7 year I life at the same place but in my business things changes all the time.

For me it’s the balance in-between that is needed. I cannot stretch on all areas all the time. I need some limitations – some stable elements – some home places where I can relay, where everything is known. Not traveling like a bird just because I can. Rest on a branch and save energies for future travels, yet unknown where to go. Kathrin

Last Friday I was in a big leadership event with one of my clients. I took notes while the VP made his inspirational intro to the day. He said that we should embrace our development areas and that being on the right track does not mean we make no mistakes or that the path is always clear. We have to focus on a few things and we have to not only be technical experts in what we do, but also foster our personal growth.

In that context I like to share the following graph that I saw today on Facebook from my friend Helen Attridge, Director at the Academy of Coaching & NLP in the UK. She elaborates on growth of consciousness and asks the question where every one of us is at present. Well…a good one isn’t it?

Personally I see my path of grow since 2004 when I started my journey of personal development on a very conscious path. I sometimes really felt as victim and that I cannot change things. Overtime I grew and saw the unit of action  / reaction as well as the context and the dependency in-between the elements.

And now you may ask? Oh well… when regularly meditating, while being in my ZEN retreats the world starts to get even more connected: I understand what was unclear years back, I get insights I could not be aware of as I never paid attention to. I feel that there is my place in this world and I sometimes get humble about all the elements in life.

But that is not all the time the case, sometimes there are moments of a victim feeling,  or moments of control – moments is where the focus is. Having done the path so far it gets easier to proceed to further levels of consciousness. However no one of us humans is protected to fall back, see unclear, make mistakes. It all depends how fast you get conscious about what you do and that you learn from your mistakes. Kathrin

Der bewusst gelebte Moment kann reicher sein
als ein ganzer Tag

Rennen die Gedanken umher kann keine Stille gefunden werden. Auf dem Philosophenweg im Engadin stand ein Zitat von Aristoteles im Sinne von “Sein und denken sind mit sich im Wiederspruch”.  Die innere Mitte zu finden im Wirr Warr des Alltags ist nicht immer leicht als Konzept, doch den Moment zu geniessen, inne zu halten und zu verweilen ist einfach.
Als keiner Tipp: sich ab und zu nur auf das Atmen zu konzentrieren hilft. Kathrin

Every one of us has rituals, habits, manner or just little freaky behaviours. As society we have them as well, mostly linked to religious events such as the past Easter. But there are some other rituals that we keep close to our hearts, welcome flowers for new employees – welcome Anna to my team – farewell flowers for people that leave – an early good-by to Renate – or gifts for special contributions – thanks to the board for the nice gift voucher.

Why do I write about all that? -Yesterday I had my last day as president of the Swiss female entrepreneur association and Anna her first day at work for us as CEO.

When new people start or take over positions, we think of so many things that we need to share, information to pass or processes to be done. But do we also think about the rituals we have, the non-disclosed rules and attitudes we expect to be kept? Today is my first day in my new role as “just a member of the board”, the second day of Anna’s work and I’m already flabbergasted about all the things I have not thought of that will have an impact for her  – AND most of them are no where written down.

As an organisation we hardly ever talk about rituals, we say: “this is what we do” or we try to frame processes, write guidelines and establish best practices. But the winning game are in the “humans” rituals: the hello in the morning, the going together for coffee or lunch, the smile @ work or the goodbyes at the end of the day. Every team, every organisation has those rituals, let’s be aware of them, especially when new people are joining our environments. Let’s make the entry point easy for newcomers, let’s be open and share what we know about the “how” and not just the what. Elude  the big picture before picking on details. Show around, introduce and be there for questions to be asked and not only download “things” that are important for you. Inspire the mind and do not overload – an advise that I have to take on as well with Anna in the next few weeks. Kathrin