Appreciation of our feet

Today I want to write on feet.  Why? – i hear you ask.  After all I had said my bloggs were going to be seasonally relevant. Well, for me they are – as soon as temperatures drop below zero I stop feeling them.  The only time i am then drawn to think about them is when the circulation returns causing excessive pain (yep – i am one of those Reynard’s suffers). So for the last 2 months i have had a fairly bad relationship with my feel – particularly when the temp dropped to minus 11 this week.

The thing is – feet may look a bit odd, but they are in fact brilliant.  This week i am drawn to conclude that i don’t look after them half enough.  If i didn’t have them then i would be prevented from easily doing some of the things i like to do the most; running, swimming & walking, feel sand between my toes and paddle in the sea.  So i resolve to look after my toes and feet – starting today!

So as well as thinking about my feet, i am also going to try to feel them more as well -(no i not have a weird foot fetish / a non weird one for that matter), i just think that sometimes we all think to much – me a lot.  So i think and worry about my feet, my i forget that they are actually me too.  They are a long way away from my head and where i am thinking, but if you start to think from the body then they are not to far away at all.  They are meet – funny looking thinks, filled with nerves and blood vessels, tendons, a few muscles and a lot of little bones.  Try wiggling your toes now and feel the tendons pull the blood circulation increase and feel them as a part of you.  Nice isn’t it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot

My personal Top-10 Hit List 2008

The absolute No. 1 of my personal hitlist in 2008

My intention for this blog was to write about things that go beyond my work at self but the opening of our 1st Hub in Germany on January 24, just HAS TO BE my number one on the hit list. It was such a joy to finally open the doors after so many months of countless people contributing to the design, building and shaping what’s there now. I got to hold a speech and I was really emotional and I still remember the moment where we raised the glasses to the first incubator for social innovators in Germany.

We had 3 1/2 days of celebration, starting with a party, opening the stage to our members to use as a platform to introduce themselves with over 30 small events such as speed datings, workshops, seminars, discussion panels and much more. And we had our 1st Open Space Conference on the theme ‘give what you can, receive what you need’.

Photos of the hub in those early days you find on our Flickr account here.
But it was not just about professional development. We had fun, we finally relaxed and celebrated what we had achieved together with this stunning community and Björn, our top notch IT genius, even met the woman of his live during the kick off. And they lived happily ever after… If that’s not worth coming 1st on my hit list!!!

So, what am I specifically grateful for, you might ask? I am grateful for being in the right place, at the right time, which allows me to do this work. But more than anything else I am grateful for having the opportunity to work with all these wonderful people, to get to pursue my vision of a new generation of entrepreneurs and social innovators, which many, many others share.

I am grateful for all the people around the world who stuck out their neck to make this happen by buying shares of our cooperative, providing us social loans or guarantees to secure our bank loan, giving generously of their time and sharing their knowledge and wisdom with us.

I am grateful for all the critique, which allows us to improve the business model, the services we provide, the atmosphere we create for true collaboration resulting in ever growing social impact.

I am grateful for the personal and professional learning curve, for having partners like the GLS Gemeinschaftsbank (a social bank in Germany) and BMW Foundation at our side, for having found our dream property thanks to Anja who never gave up on finding that perfect place, our landlords and the previous tenants Druckerei Gericke who left us so many of their furniture and for our coach Gertrud who diligently and patiently mirrors us directors how to improve.

There is millions more people and things I am grateful for in this context and the great thing about this blog is to reflect it all again consciously

Walking on Water

I feel this post needs a little background:- It was a Friday night.  It was cold outside.  It was very cold outside – like really cold.  The snow had frozen to ice on the pavements of Berlin.  Little old ladies were falling over in their dozen -you get the picture.  Two new friends met in the warmth of a jazz bar with some good hot Kartoffleln Suppe and Tempranillo wine, (one perhaps had a bit too much – crazy what a bit too much potato soup can do to you).  Conversation covered life, the universe and most things.  As I say, fuelled by the potatoes, two solid actions were decided upon; one being a trip to a lake on the West of Berlin the following morning and the other a weekly positive observation to supplement Wiebke’s blog to the world.

I want to focus on the things we don’t think about, or notice, but without the world would be a lesser place.  I want to keep it relevant to the season of the country that i happen to be in, they’ll be short, and of course it will end up being slightly personal – we’re in a blog site after all.  So here is the first issue of ‘ellie’s seasonal things she likes’ – right – catchy – i’ll work on it…

Walking on water

Isn’t water brilliant!? Two atoms of hydrogen completing the outer shell of an oxygen atom making a stable but charged molecule – essential for everything – including ice skating.

Picture yourself:– wrapped up snug and warm; thermals on; ear muffs secure; scarf draped appropriately; ready for a winter’s walk along the banks of Schlachtensee, somewhere outside Berlin. As you approach the water’s edge you realise that there are people gliding over the water. ‘That’s strange you think’ – people = dense objects, water = liquid with weak dipole interactions…’Hmm you think – perhaps a god does exist’. Then the pieces slot into place and you realise how amazing physics and chemistry are, and witnesses and enjoyed by so many biological beings with bladed shoes.

Wizzing across the ice, where once water flowed, people (regardless of age) are transformed into 5 year olds – gliding; spinning; slipping,; sliding; running; laughing; playing; living. I am not sure what the rest of the biological beings think of it all – birds constrained to water holes, fighting for space; fish confined to darkness listening to the weird scraping, scratching, tapping and muffled voices. And god it is cold!  But hey – the humans are having fun, (well – except the old ladies that have fallen over – see above).

When you think about it water is possibly the best molecule – not only are we made of it, drink it, eat it, but it is less dense as a solid than a liquid – amazing – solid but floating – i think that is why i like ducks too. (Expect frequent duck entries in these blogs). Without it we would have to skate on frozen milk, or beer; both would smell, so i don’t think that would really work.  Long live frozen H20.

This is harder than I thought ;-)

Yesterday I thought to myself, goodness gracious, what did you get yourself into with this blog? I spoke to a couple of people about it and they all loved the idea though. More even so, the first person already committed to contributing with her personal column on the things she loves. Wow!! Well, I guess that means I can’t chicken out.

So I sat down and just checked back in with my intention. My intention was to learn to reflect more often and install a deep habit of seeing the good things around me. So, why not start with ‘The things I’m eternally grateful for’? Here we come, world. It still feels very clumsy ‘cos I think nobody will want to read this and if people will look at me strangely when knowing this kind of ’stuff’ about me but I’ll do it anyway.

Here are (some of) the things I will always be grateful for and proud of:
• Having lived in Australia, by the seaside enjoying the best life-style on earth. Having gone there just by myself, no visa, not much of a plan but with great naivety and optimism that everything will just fall into place. And guess what? It did
• Being the child of my mother who used to stare her fears right in their eye asking ‘ok, so what do you want?’. My mom died of breast cancer at the age of 59 but when learning that she had lost that one last fight she stunned us all by organising her entire burial and funeral ceremony herself as well as saying ‘good-bye’ to every single person she cared about – making peace with them and gifting them something special she carefully chose. On the other hand she didn’t make peace with people she didn’t want to make peace with, no pardon there!!! It was her most of all who inspired me to follow through on my vision for a social entrepreneurship landscape here in Germany as I understood we might not have years to wait for more money, more self-confidence, more skills or simply less excuses.
• My grandmother who didn’t care about the opinion of the rest of the family when she decided to support me throughout my second round of graduate studies (see a pattern in my family there??).
• My soul sisters & friends who support, push and pull me, inspire me and question the things I do and don’t. Doreen, friend for over 25 years now and more of a sister than just a friend. Manja (Manjanti) who I met at the first social marketing competition at University of Arts in Berlin (Bruttosozialpreis) and who’s – just like Doreen – taken immense personal hardship to found self and who can be just as much fun as she can give me a hard time when I’m leaving my path. Angela (Ange) from Melbourne who made it really, really, really hard for me to leave Australia and who taught me how to live in integrity, reduce swearing (sorry, didn’t stop it altogether yet) and bitching about others and to go for what I’m passionate about. And Michelle, still one of greatest and most inspiring coaches I know who I used to dream the dream of setting up a community coaching foundation with back in Australia. Of course, there is many others and I could go on and on for ages. I spare you for now but am sure we’ll cross their paths at some stage earlier or later
• The conference on organisational learning by SoL in Vienna in September 2005 where I met many our future business partners from what is now an international Hub Movement like Tatiana Glad (Hub Amsterdam), Mark as a co-founder of The Hub London and many more. Tatiana was inspiring me so much with the World Cafe she facilitated for the start of that conference that I outed myself for the first time ever with my intention to start the first network by and for social entrepreneurs in Germany.
• The first Ashoka Conference on Social Entrepreneurship in Germany held in Berlin in November 2005, where I met many of those people who now are my dearest friends, most admired colleagues, inspiring business partners, greatest mentors and like-minded souls on a similar path. These are in particular
• Peter Heller, Director of Canopus Foundation and many enterprises in the field of renewable energies through who I later met Peter Spiegel, co-founder and president of the board of self,
• Jutta Weimar who also became a co-founder of self and still serves self on the board of directors,
• Dennis Hoenig-Ohnsorg, now Director of Ashoka Youth Venture in Germany,
• ever-inventative and infamous Jochen Holtrup who intrigues the online world with his new project www.netzwirken.net

and many, many more. Oh, did I mention the Internet and everything that comes with it?? Love technology I could go on for ages, I just realise. That’s a good sign, right? Tomorrow I will continue with the Top-10-Hitlist of reasons to be grateful of the year 2008.

Hello world!

Welcome to my personal blog. This is my very first blog, which I set up by myself. I am very proud! I used the momentum of my reflections on the year 2008, the things that I was grateful for, the things I wanted to change as well as the ones I wanted to continue. 

So, this will be my experiment for as long as it lasts. The intention is to have a medium to reflect my thoughts and actions over and above being the head of self, the network by and for social innovators I initiated in 2006. Like any being, I am so much more than my roles and especially I am so much more than ‘just’ self. self is a great way to express myself, my values and principles, my learnings, my beliefs. And yet, I noticed how I get identified (and identify myself) more and more with self and the Hub Berlin, our first large project. 

Here I’d love to share of myself and everyone and everything around me that inspires me, motivates me to get up in the morning and work late at night, that rocks my world, my pains and sorrows, counts of luck and wealth, wisdom evolving and heureka’s hitting. And I’d love to see it becoming an instrument of sharing with others – with friends near and far, with colleagues, with strangers and like-minded. 

The thought of starting a blog is not new. In the past, I kept it neatly to myself. I couldn’t, I kept saying to myself. I can’t write, I don’t have anything to say, I won’t have the time to keep at it.I make myself to naked, vulnerable. Sure… Good excuses, aren’t they? Anyone else knows them?

What made the difference that pushed me into action is a small-medium personal crisis. In this crisis I keep going on in loops and loops of the same thoughts. Obsessively. And they aren’t the most positive thoughts for that matter. I noticed a habit. I’m pretty good at noticing other people’s strengths, I validate them, I would like to think of myself as resource-oriented and a positive thinker, optimist when others have given up a long time ago. And yet, I don’t do that in all areas of my life. 

And as I was browsing the Utopia Website on New Year’s Eve, I came across the forum articles by Nils Horn who wrote about happiness. And that happiness is in our very own hands, even a continued feeling of happiness versus just a moment of it. According to latest research only 10% of the feeling of happiness is influenced by external circumstances. Only 10 percent!!! 50% are influenced by our genes and hormones. The rest – an incredible 40% – are depending on our thoughts.

Then there was many tips and hints how to go beyond just mere positive thinking. And one of them was a diary of gratitude. Wow, I thougt. How about that as a focus for reflection?? Remembering how it had touched me when I met ‘Mr. Bean Counter‘ in December, I decided. This would be my way of counting those little white beans in my (virtual) pocket.

And WHO is this blog for? I don’t know yet. First of all, for myself. And of course, for anyone else who cares to read it, share of themselves, comment and contribute.

May you all have a blissful New Year!
Wiebke