Recently I went to the ballet. They showed Nutcracker and Mouseking. If you know the story of the nutcracker you might be able to relate to his feeling. He is a prince trapped in a wooden statue. Maybe you feel more like “Aschenbroedel”? A princess trapped in a gray suit who sorts out the beans or the dollars on a spreadsheet. You are well-traveled and fascinated by traveling outside the shores of your country. You are presumed to have the same bubbly experience as an expat sent on an international assignment to another country. You thought your experience would be like the adventure that you had on your previous vacation trips. Your first day in the foreign land was laden […]

This time I really wanted to get it right and stop buying “plastic stuff made in China” (because to be honest, these modern brushes always have a catch and then I throw them out in a rage). I also don’t like the vacuum cleaner. It smells. It’s loud. It takes away space. Speaking of space. What would a Jedi do to keep their spaceship or humble house clean? Probably deal with it through energy. Not sure. I’ve never seen Yoda clean or even go to the bathroom.  So, I bought a broom and a brush of wood. Very old-school. I only needed one rubber ring, but you never just order one rubber ring online and my weekend seemed too precious […]

By Romée Jager   Do you feel overwhelmed and overloaded before the day has started? You are not alone! It is 7:30 AM, and I started working half an hour ago. Even though it is only the beginning of my working day, I already feel way behind. I am staring at my screen and scrolling through my emails, marking them as unread again and giving them a color code.  I feel overwhelmed. I don’t know where to start. My solution? Making myself a second cup of coffee. While the smell of freshly roasted coffee beans reaches my nostrils, I think about how to structure my tasks for the day.  I wonder why we ‘’only’’ have 24 hours in a day, […]

Thanksgiving and Black Friday are over and for the last few weeks, I was not in the Holiday spirit at all. Even if Starbucks hands me a red cup and I order drinks with Holiday flavors and eat Maroni it still feels very wrong that we are entering December shortly. It’s also a bit too warm outside. For the last few weeks of this year, I would like to bring more presence to all my interactions with you and my clients. Presence is important as we are constantly pulled in so many directions, and “energy flows where our attention goes” (Robbins, T n.d., para. 2). I would like to share with you a small confession: Before I launched my business […]

I am dedicating a weekend to sorting out old stuff, decluttering, and preparing the apartment for cleaning. I would like to do this before I start decorating for the holidays because it is giving us a fresher spirit and as I mentioned most of us get really stressed in the last few weeks before the year-end as we wish to focus more on family and friends during the holidays.  What I would also like to do is finish open ends and projects and before starting too many new ideas and projects reduce the “Pendenzenliste” (It’s one of my favorite Swiss German words and can be translated into the list of open tasks). Most of my friends and I keep laughing […]