Motivational Team-Leading?
Motivational speakers, team-building events… Cheering up the crowd… It can all seem superficial. An open leader looks further. Such ‘energizing’ is not necessarily effective in motivating the workforce. It may even be a de-motivating surrogate out of want for real motivation, construed precisely to ignore the real problems at the workplace. In any case, synthetic Read the full article…
Experiences
One experience may convince more than thousand words because an experience lives – if experienced well – inside your heart. To convince someone of a clear-cut idea, rational argumentation may do. To convince someone of a deeply ethical viewpoint, or a visionary one, or a personally appreciative one, or even a religious viewpoint is much Read the full article…
Do Not Turn the Other Cheek…
… unless you think it’s worthwhile. I have a lot of respect for other-cheek-turners. If however, nothing gets learned from it, one may keep turning cheeks indefinitely. If someone slaps you on the cheek, then I think that it’s better to look at that person than to turn your gaze away while offering the other Read the full article…
What’s the Problem?
The problem is worldwide. Burnout within company X -> search for a direct solution. Symptom Y in psychosomatic healthcare -> search for a direct solution. And in combination: a lot of physicians – apparently more than any other profession – get into burnout. Part of the cause may well be their being incarcerated in a Read the full article…
Religion is a Conversation between God and Me
In the course of time, many have been killed for daring to say so. Many of these have found it worthwhile nevertheless. God and me ― an introduction For the sake of this text at least, we can take a very broad view on the notion of ‘God’. It can be the one (or many) Read the full article…
Open Vision on Leadership
Leadership is created and supported at a deeper level by all members of a group, including the leader him/herself. ‘Leadership’ is not only a typical human concept but also a very remarkable one. Humans are, beyond any doubt, profoundly social beings. For as long as we can remember – literally – we have been living Read the full article…
What is Subtlety?
Subtlety is not weakness, nor evasiveness. In many cases, it demands courage, especially when at risk of being misunderstood. Subtlety is not plainly vague, nor elusive, nor ‘indistinct’ but on the contrary: as distinct as possible in a domain in which distinctness is difficult. It’s not indirect but precisely to the point. Subtlety is about Read the full article…
Don’t Be Vulnerable
Now and then, an admonishment is ushered to ‘show one’s vulnerable side.’ Thereby never to show oneself as ‘the tough guy’ (or girl). OK, there is something in this. But I don’t quite agree. I think that one should never readily show oneself as vulnerable. There is no point in showing oneself as vulnerable, nor Read the full article…
From Grief to Growth
There can be positive elements in grief – if you open yourself. The death of a person – the death of an idea – the death of a relationship – even the death of a hoped-for electoral outcome… One should not get rid of grief or bypass it. Yet what regularly happens, is that a Read the full article…
How to Meditate and Not Get Bored
Are you willing to meditate but afraid to get bored of ‘doing nothing’? With good reason. You want to do something – anything – and you’re just sitting there. You may wonder why, doing nothing. You’re bored. Then in your mind you fill in things you could be doing. Or you just wander around in Read the full article…
From Identity Politics to Utopia
Identity politics = “based on or catering to the cultural, ethnic, gender, racial, religious, or social interests that characterize a group.” Gay versus straight, black versus white, Palestinians versus Israelis, Catholics versus Protestants, Englishmen versus immigrants (see Brexit)… To many, the own group is ‘the box that I and others think I belong to’. I Read the full article…
How to Focus Your Attention
Attention is the weirdest thing. It seems so close and yet, precisely through its closeness, we cannot directly look at it. Compare it with not being able to see your own eyes, except in a mirror. And prepare for weirdness. Attention shifts happen unconsciously. Consciously you only notice that your attention has already shifted. If Read the full article…
Burned Out. The Sky Has Come Down. What to Do?
What to do if you feel that the slightest bit of energy to do anything at all has gone? Burned out: you feel drained. You’ve put too much energy in an endeavor that symbolically failed. This means: it may have failed objectively, in reality… or only in your perception of that reality. The distinction is Read the full article…
Secular Society
Secularism = the individual’s right to be free from the imposition of any religion by government, in a state declared to be neutral on matters of belief. [This text goes further upon ‘Freedom of Religion’.] Sustainability from the start ‘Secular society’ is about ‘freedom of religion.’ But not only that. In order to be sustainable, Read the full article…
Freedom of Religion
It seems a nice endeavor, the ‘best thing to do’. But is it even possible at an individual level? Is anyone ‘free to believe’? Let’s agree that you don’t believe in the existence of unicorns. Are you then ‘free to believe’ in them? Can you take a conscious decision to believe in such? I cannot Read the full article…
Two Racisms – One Way Out
At the surface, racism is simply about a feeling of superiority over people from another race or ethnicity. Here ends the easy part. Why do people rank other people as inferior or superior based on inherited characteristics, be it visible in color or anything else? With due respect to those being racially discriminated, I want Read the full article…
Six Steps Every Drug Addict Could Take
Psychology should ALWAYS be part of managing an addiction: not just fighting it but really managing it in due respect for yourself as a ‘total human being’. Thus, in every case, if you want to overcome an addiction, it’s good to take the psyche into account. First step: it’s you. Within the totality of your Read the full article…