The RockMeRetreat will help you build up your Emotional Intelligence. Drawing on the Boudewijn Vermeulen® method, I recommend working with “body sensations.” The key point to note here is that being an effective leader requires understanding one’s own emotions to influence the emotions of others. Therefore, I’ll be talking about ways of developing a better brain-body connection and how that sort of learning can enhance one’s sensitivity and consequently, their leadership skills. Emotions manifest in various ways, like moods, perhaps even as physical ticks. Sometimes you don’t even know that you’re feeling a certain way, yet your body does and is tensed accordingly. Listening to these signs given by your body, therefore, allows us to develop a conscious language of sensation […]

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, and […]

On Perception – The Grass Seems Greener in France I sat on the train from Switzerland to France and my stomach gave me a signal. The four border officers who checked passports and went through passenger’s luggage seemed odd. I was on a different continent. In a different setting. I was in a novel. I wondered if I could explain myself in French. But no one wanted to know about my travel habits. I look white. I look the part even though I travel like a bag packer sometimes. What was going on? I did not want to turn around. Probably this was an uncomfortable situation for the person who was questioned. I assumed it was a refugee or someone […]

We talked about why building professional relationships is harder for expats. Now let’s discuss another side of the coin – how to create an inclusive environment for expats. If you were Dr. Rainer Schulz you’d probably ask yourself what you could do to build a safe and collaborative environment with people from different cultures. 1 – Deal with your Gollum If you are an expat leader and want to create an environment where people trust each other, you will need to show vulnerability and role-model trustworthy behavior. If you wish to be trusted you might have to show your weaknesses, your Achilles’ heel, and let your team know how they can best support you. You might have to explain what […]

As I mentioned in this post during the early days of the pandemic my mother could not find yeast. Her village in Southern Germany had a yeast shortage. We don’t have a shortage of anything here in Zurich, neither toilet paper, nor yeast, even though demand for both was higher than in “normal” times. My mother likes to bake in normal times but I felt she needed to bake even more in these times.