Resilience in Peru

I have just arrived on 3400 meters, on the top of the Mirador san Christobal, amidst the old Inca-land in the southern Andes in Peru. After a little climb of about 2 hours I am sitting here together with Robin – our youngest son, enjoying the majestic scenery. We are surrounded by 6000-meter mountains. On our right the abyss drops down for almost 1000 meter, and all the way down there the brown ‘Rio Apurimac’, a wild river, is winding its way through the untouched and wild nature. Lots of little green terraces are scattered about the mountain slopes. And here and there we spot some little primitive huts. The Quecho-Indians live here together with their sheep and lamas.

Robin and I are here for 8 days to discover Peru and to support the amazing hospital, the Diospi Suyana, in Curahuasie, as I have been conducting a ‘Healthy Leadership’ training for some of the employees of the Hospital for the last couple of days. Like so often during journeys like this one, I find that I am learning and discovering as much as the participants of the training!

Building resilience: and being amazed!

After an intensive trainingsday in Paris, together with 8 beautiful people, covering the theme: ‘how to build a positive team’, I am now sitting by myself in ‘Café de France’, on the ‘Place d' Italie’. Just before coming here I’ve changed into my relax-pants and a cozy sweater, and went looking for an inspiring nice typical French Café. And, obviously, I didn’t have to look far.

And already I am enjoying a glass of Saint Émelion, and I can take some time to write a little. I love it! Writing is one of the most ultimate ways for me to relax and be creative. And, in the middle of the autumn, which is the most busy and stressful time for me in the year, a little resilience is becoming quite handy…

The resilience-factor Nr. 2 is optimism and basic-trust. People that have an optimistic view of life, regenerate much faster after major efforts or high-stress-phases. Optimism is in this sense often a consequence of a positive attitude: ‘things will work out fine, after rain comes sunshine, etc.’! Optimism is also a consequence of positive amazement. Being amazed is an attitude through which one be positively surprised by (re)discovering the little things in life. Children are much better at this then us! It often seems we have unlearned it by growing up.

Building resilience: going for gold!

The first resilience-factor that contributes to a lifestyle of resilience is: a reconciled past and an emotional stability. A dear friend of mine, Guenter Refle, a philosopher and consultant has described it as follows: ‘he who isn’t aware of his own history, who doesn’t accepts and embraces it, cannot really enjoy his present, and can hardly plan his future in a meaningful way. Who gets stuck in his past, because of unresolved negative experiences has not enough energy to build a healthy lifestyle of resilience and emotional stability.

Naturally, I am not saying that it has to be the goal to ‘solve’ everything of our past, or that we are able to reconcile it all to gather and would be able to leave it behind us. We are all human beings and are faced with our personal boundaries within this thematic.

Developing resilience, a must!

September the 21., autumn had kicked in again. Bringing us a most beautiful colorful nature. But sure, it is also bringing us these harsh winds, the days grow shorter, and the sun is not as warm as it used to be. Personally I think that every season has its own charm, and I am perfectly able to enjoy any kind of weather. I like it incredibly warm, freezing cold, snowy, storming rain, there is always something exciting about it. Why so? Am I crazy? Perhaps. I like to think it is because I am a natural positive optimist, and I love to discover new things in all circumstances. But, this attitude is an attitude that I have worked on, that I have developed over the years through a lifestyle of gratitude.

Mastery = to enjoy craftsmanship day after day

Sylvia (my wife) and I have stayed in the Dolomites (in South Tirol) for 2 weeks, enjoying the holiday together.  This most northerly province of Italy offers a phenomenal combination of South-European craftsmanship, and you find traces of it all around you. The ´simple´ wooden-pin construction in the wooden barrier, which is dividing two mountainsides at 2000 meter, is a great example of this.

The art of the learning master

‘… you might miss the talent to write, paint or compose, but everyone has been given the gift of being creative with their own life. In that perspective we are all called to become an artist, to give an unique shape to our lives, to make it something beautiful.’

In their book about the thematic of Mastery (Meesterschap) Paul Donders and Chris Sommer open with this Francis Schaeffer quote. A quote that made me recall a similar thought, one of Abraham Herschl regarding the human being: ‘To be human, is to become human’…

Mastery and entrepreneurial spirit

Secret number 4 of successful mastery = entrepreneurial management

Last week I have spent a couple of days with my wife and my 2 sons nearby Paris, in the ‘woods of Fontainebleau’. We went there to go climbing. Or to be more precise: to go bouldering. Bouldering means that you climb on rock-blocks of various heights, but you do so without any breakers. If you fall, only a small easy to transport mat, a ‘crash-pad’, will break your fall. Blocks of about 2 to 3 meters are often technically very tricky, but they are not very frightening. However, many of the blocks are 4 to 6 meters high. When you are climbing such a rock you notice the great impact that fear often has. The few times that I went above that 3 meter frontier I very much experienced what it means to take risks. And personally, I am not a big fan of risks!

Do you know that feeling? Why take chances. Why go on a new journey? Why take risks? Why go a new direction when the current way of doing things still seems to be working quite all right?

Create your own Tribe!

Becoming a master is a growth-process, enduring on this level is an art!

Secret 3: maintaining positive relationships. The professional who is doing everything on his own, without any feedback, encouragements, amendments, critique or support will possibly slowly start to lose inspiration and substance. Therefore, Chris and I belief that it is essential to create and maintain good relationships.

I have, next to my wife Sylvia – who is my best pal –, some buddies who know me for a long time and who know me really well. Last week Sylvia and I visited an old friend and mentor of ours, Pastor Heinz Schreckenberg, who knows and guided us personally and us as a family for over 30 years. Nowadays we only see him ones a year, but it is an absolute boost and encouragement every time that we see him.

An interesting and increasingly present platform for relations as a professional is the phenomenon ‘the Tribe’. Here are some ideas on how to create and build a tribe...

Challenging training

Becoming a master is a growth-process, enduring on this level is an art!

Secret 2: working like a master!

I am sure that you have noticed before how, after someone had his arm in plaster for some weeks, his arm would have become quite weak and thin. The reason obviously lies in the fact that he could not ‘train’ his arm for all that time. The second secret concerning ‘mastery’ covers exactly this phenomenon. When we are talking about ‘training’ and your ‘profession’ than we see 3 standard scenarios...

What are your sources of inspiration?

Becoming a master is a growth-process, enduring on this level is an art! In our book ‘Meesterschap’ we discuss the 5 secrets of ‘the master’. Secret number 1: a life full of inspiration! In regard to that: next to the phenomenon ‘burnout’, there exists something like the ‘creatieve burnout’…

Becoming a master is a mission, staying at this level is an art!

After an intensive working-day I am driving home. Hundreds of thoughts are crossing my mind. Then I decide to switch the audio-system on, and I start to listen to Janine Jansen, who is playing the Violin Concerto in E minor, opus 64 (by Felix Mendelssohn). It is an absolute stunning peace, performed by an amazing artist. My love for this peace probably is also a result of the violin lessons that I have had as a 5 year old child, and my fascination for Mendelssohn at that early age. Janine is a brilliant violinist, in the true sense of the word: a master in her trade, she is playing on a ‘master-violin’ (one of the very rare 318 Stradivarius), and always performs ‘masterly’.

Jan and Hubert van Eyck

Together with Sylvia, my wife, we stood and stared at an amazing work of art in the Sint-Braafs Cathedral in Gent for over half an hour. ‘Het drieluik – de aanbidding van het Lam Gods’. Truly one of the milestones in the history of art.

A master and 300 years of influence, Abraham Bloemaert

Today Sylvia and I visited the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, where we admired the exhibition ‘the Bloemaert-effect’. If one thinks of the Ducht Painters of the ‘Gouden Eeuw’, names like Rembrandt, Frans Hals en Johannes Vermeer quickly pop up. Abraham Bloemaert (born in 1566 in Gorinchem and died in 1651 in Utrecht), however, should certainly be added to such a list. Next to the great range of extraordinary and beautiful paintings Bloemaert produced hundreds of drawings. It is fascinating to see how he, during his lifetime (85 years), kept on growing in his trade, how he grew to become a master, and finally a artist.