Expedition into subconscious areas – Working Out Loud Part I

Remark at the beginning: The original post in "Almuts Anekdoten" is in German and I did my best to make it understandable to non-Germans here 😊.

In this episode I share personal experiences with the self-learning method which shares its knowledge with others in circles. To those who want to know hard facts and details about the new „Working-out-loud“/WOL method may refer to the link below. This link is especially for those who like it rather short and simple. All undecided people should feel free to continue reading 😊..

Last week on Friday afternoon. Towards the end of our fifth global Skype telephone conference with 30 international participants of the WOL Mentorclass who are trained to be a WOL mentor: 

It was deadly silent. Nobody was writing something in the chat. Nobody says anything. It seems as if the world stands still for a moment. John Stepper, who refined the WOL method which appeared by Bryce Williams in 2010 with the explanation

Working Out Loud = Observable Work + Narrating Your Work

and who is our trainer for this period gives us an assignment which nobody expected in our group. Everybody has to post something about the experience with WOL or the own goal he/she defined during the sessions, ideally the text should cover about 500 words.

Immediately I remembered a scene during an art lesson during my school time. Our teacher gave us the task to draw a group of people sitting on their bicycles. We had no template or photo for that (mobiles didn´t exist yet). First the whole class reacted with a mixture of astonishment and silence. It seemed as if in their heads hundreds of pinions were clattering: „I can´t do that…I´ve never drawn something like that…will I succeed?...How does my bike looks like?“ The mixed feelings passed fear of failure, resignation, desperation until one of the most courageous of us outraged that this task would be too much. Most of the pupils won´t succeed quite apart from the fact that the task to draw people is truly horrible.

I realize that maybe some of our Mentorclass seem to have also these kind of filters in mind: „Did I ever do this in the past? Was it well received by others? And proved very popular? Regarding my professional context is it if at all reasonable to post such a theme? What will the people say if I posted something like that? Am I good enough to phrase? Am I really good enough? I am not an author and not an expert concerning that subject. 
This issue is  adressed to John as a question by one of our class. John repeats as in the sessions before that perfection isn´t the aim for that assignment. At the same time we all know about the brilliant posts of our management in our intranet and the perfect phrasings of our communication department. It seems so easily written. Many see this as standard yardstick.
Some of our group share their doubts what their direct manager would think about them if they posted their personal view of this training. In comparison to America the “show up yourself” isn´t common in Germany, especially for the elder generation. 

John liberates us from our thinking carousel: “Your post may contain your comment which you would give to a good friend of yours if you talk about WOL, absolutely personal.” Some of us discuss if it makes sense to write only positive aspects. I think we are part of a test program, a concept and role model for further WOL Mentorclass Trainings. Let´s imagine a prototype: if you design something new, you experience a lot of aspects in practice. Good ones and issues which might be/have to be changed and aligned for future trainings.

There is no “wrong” but there are always possibilities for improvement and need for honest feedback and trust. We have got a common goal to spread WOL-circles. Everybody of our group already experienced this process tool as a milestone in approaching problems, personal development and thinking “out-of-the-box”, in creating new valuable relationships who will probably last for the rest of our life.

Everybody of our group may spread the idea in his/her own individual personal manner. John lives this values: use your means, connections and tools you know and perhaps a way more you didn´t use before. Even if you think that this means or tool doesn´t correspond to your talent. To try something, collecting “WOW-effects” and to build trust for the next step.

In principle I experienced the reactions of our Mentorclass as multi-facetted as during school time. The following filters might accompany like shadows in our expectations and influence the perceived scope of experience:

•          Is it a challenge which I know from the past and which I already met? 
•    Did I succeed and what said/thought others about me? Were my efforts appreciated or did other laugh or criticize?
•       Does I think deep in my intuition/heart that I can trust in my talent to face the task?
•        If I never faced such a task how I should perform to fulfill it as perfect as possible?
•         Even if I did it, xy would do it surely better than I would do. 
•     Don´t I have more important things to do? These thoughts often lead to the all-known procrastination. Any other issue and task suddenly seems to be better than to cope with the challenge. Even polishing pots seems to be more comfortable.

·  How is my motivation to approach the task as a challenge. May I confirm:”It will be done in some way,” or with my self-confidence:” I am confident that somebody will like it.” ??

To be continued in part II “Out of your comfortzone”

Madame Botox goes shopping

Remark at the beginning: The original post is in German in the Blog "Almuts Anekdoten" from 2014 and I did my best to make it understandable to non-Germans here 😊.

As a self-employed exhibition assistant including demonstrating products of different manufacturers and interacting with potential clients I have a lot of contact with different people from all over the world.

During the “Ambiente” exhibition in Frankfurt - trade fair with the areas dining, living and giving- I worked for a French manufacturer who specialized on natural algae products.  He wanted to introduce his range of soaps and other Thalasso-products like bath essences and shower gel in Germany. Although speaking fluently English and a little bit of German it was important for him to have a German native speaker who translates the needs and wishes of Bavarian, Swabian or Saxon customers. Together with the local dialect of Mannheim these dialects sounds to him like Chinese.

This time we have the pleasure to meet somebody which I never met before. Like many customers a very elegantly dressed woman with perfectly coiffed shoulder length blond hair looks at our booth very intensively. As advising another customer at that moment I don´t see her face. My French boss slowly approaches the woman and seems to exchange a few words. He waves at me with his hand. The woman seems to be a “dialect candidate”.  I close my conversation and focus my attention on the new customer. 

The first time I see her face I think spontaneously: ”Ouch! This seems to be painful.” Her lips are extremely swollen under the perfect make-up. It looked like if somebody had stretched the skin of her face like a membrane on a drum. Sometimes you see such faces on TV but I have never seen before such a woman in face-to-face contact.

Normally I treat everyone with respect regardless of who the customer is and the way the customer looks like. This is why I don´t show my compassion for this obvious painful situation.

Due to her minimal opening of her lips it is a challenge to understand what she wants to say.  I have the impression that any movement of the mouth could be painful: “Gees give e grice oa there.” It takes a while until I understand the meaning of this sentence:  “Please give me price over there.” She means the natural sponge besides the soaps. This sponge is only decoration,  my French boss is surprised that in Germany the customers want to buy not only the products but even the decoration. In France this demand is uncommon, he doesn´t want to sell his special decoration. I explain to the woman that the sponge is unsaleable.

The woman´s finger points to the shelf unit containing the shower gel and bath essences without saying anything. I tell her more details of the different  qualities and properties, give her the price per piece and let her smell the various fragrances.

After each sentence she nods her head without facial expression, so that I cannot guess which fragrance is her favourite or if she is generally interested. Where is the hidden camera? If she hadn´t moved her eyelids I would have had the feeling to talk to a mask. Her wording is limited to the absolute necessity:”Oger.” (translated: order). While taking the order forms my boss tells me that there is a minimum order quantity and various packaging units as well. All customers before only ordered samples, she is the first one who wants to place an order immediately. I translate the packaging units in German. I ask myself: From which region does she come from? How old is she?

Not long ago a former head of department of cosmetics told me that you can “read” a person´s age at specific areas of the body. First some areas cannot be operated or lifted respectively the operations are very seldom made in this areas. It is the neck (a scarf covered the woman´s neck completely), the elbows (the woman wears a long-sleeved silk blouse which covers the elbows), feet and knees (it is winter, everything covered) and hands.  Whereas the latter was the only exposed area at this moment. The woman wears rings at each finger in various sizes and has got red fingernails. As everybody knows jewellery attracts the attention first to the jewellery itself and not to the skin or person who wears it.  Madonna and Karl Lagerfeld often wear fingerless gloves and a lot of jewellery. They know why.

In my case it was really impossible to estimate the woman´s age. Meanwhile the woman goes back and forth without saying anything. She seems to think about the packaging units.

In order to simplify the conversation I start a new strategy by asking questions. So she has the possibility to nod: “The package unit of this shower gel is 6 pieces. Do you want to order them?” She nods. I continue: “Do you want also 6 pieces from the blue relaxing version?” She nods again. She starts to point at the products she is interested. I comment on the package unit: “For that type you need to order 12 bottles per box.” She hesitates to nod, I explain the advantages to dispose of a complete range of fragrances. She seems to be convinced and nods. No additional questions from her side.  I comment on the rest of the products of the shelf until her view goes back to the top. I guess: “You want to add this bath essence to your order.” She nods again, I note the product down the form.

She gesticulates with her hands, as if she wants to have copy of the order form. I remark: “I need your name, address, tax number and signature.” Quickly she picks a stamp from her bag in order to press it on each page of the order form. Then she takes the ballpoint pen and signs the page with a very creatively curved signature exceeding five lines. Wordlessly she takes the copy of the order form and leaves the booth. My French boss is impressed. In his experience customers who don´t discuss and don´t ask many questions are profitable large customers. Does she deal with perfumery, cosmetics or dispose of a chain of stores? In which business it is so important to have such a perfect look? And where does she come from?

Solution: our first guess is completely wrong. She comes from Austria and manages a camping site. This camping site disposes of a shop where the products are sold. We call her Madame Botox. Our booth neighbors want to know details about the mysterious woman because she stayed a long time at our booth. I tell them her background. Spontaneously I riddle my counterpart by imitating two sentences with a motionless face and frozen lips. The audience starts to guess and to laugh at the same time.  Afterwards I ask myself why this painful plastic surgery was necessary although she already has got an outstanding charisma that draws the attention of her environment. 

Perhaps nobody told her about her attraction before.