Welcome back to my monthly reflections 🎉

This newsletter has three purposes:

1. A dedicated time for me to reflect on and draw meaning out of the last month ✏️.
2. An entry for conversation – if anything of what I write awakens something in you, I encourage you to reply 🙋‍♂️.
3. An insight into my thoughts regarding the topics I write about 💭.

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If a person you know would benefit from what I write about, forward this newsletter to them! At the bottom, they'll find a link in case they want to subscribe, too.

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In this very email, I write about safety and self-love, weighted running, my bday, the books that have kept me thinking lately, the iceberg model of change, goosebumps, and tomatoes in winter. I hope you'll enjoy!

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Safety Through Self-Love

I'd like to experience safety. With change being the only constant in life, where could I find stable safety? In a life where my physical circumstances can change through illness, accidents, politics, war, extreme weather etc., where can I find safety? What comes closest to that safety must be something internal, then...

I've found that self-love is one of the things that can give me safety. It's something that I can cultivate and that, apart from giving me a sense of safety, it can also guide my life.

Additional to striving to create more stability in my physical life, I now invest in building inner stability through self-acceptance and self-love. I've worked with these topics before but only recently the connection to safety became clear to me.

What do you do to cultivate self-love? What kind of insights do you have on this topic?

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Heavy Running

A couple of months ago I went to do a callisthenics bodyweight workout at the bars. One of the people working out next to me observed me doing a difficult exercise and suggested I try doing a different one because "it's easier".

I was perplexed. I don't work out to do something easy.

Gains don't come from doing something easy. They come from exerting oneself. And working out, for me is not just to gain muscle, it's also rewarding because I'm going through something hard.

Rucking (walking or running with a weighted backpack) is one of those hard things I do. This time I put two 7l water bottles in my backpack totalling about 14kg/30lbs.

After about 10 minutes of rucking, I noticed that my shorts were getting wet. One of the bottles wasn't entirely leakproof. It reminded me of the time I (voluntarily) walked 6h in wet shoes...

It added to the discomort and, therefore, would add to the reward when finishing this workout.

I ran 10km in 1h35min. Parts of the path were gravel (see picture), others were directly in the dry river bed and more rocky. I actually had to walk for some parts because of the badly uneven surface.

I got home exhausted and satisfied. Voluntarily facing challenges grows my self-esteem.

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Bad Weather Surfing

Sunday, 11th Dec was my birthday

The weather wasn't great but I did want to go to the Ebro Delta regardless. Specifically, I wanted to go to a spot of the delta, where there is the open sea with waves on the left but shallow and waveless sea water on the right. Perfect conditions for skimboarding!

(For those who don't know: skimboarding consists of running with a small wooden board, throwing it and jumping on it to skim on the water surface).

It was 9°C (48°F) and we packed warm water bottles, hot choclate and my wetsuit. I had a great time skimming the puddles and shallow waters. I even got an unexpected birthday present: local photographer Ignasi came by and took some pictures of me (the one on the left)!

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Indirect Work & Motivation

As soon as Carol Sanford announced her new book Indirect Work on LinkedIn, I knew I'd get it as soon as possible. I've had some deep insigts from her The Regenerative Life.

Indirect Work actually touches on something that I teach in my university courses and convey in my coaching. It's best depicted with an iceberg graphic and I'll go to explain it in the next segment.

I'm also listening to Daniel Pink's Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. It's a good book and easy to listen to. Unsurprisingly, his insights are not very surprising to me.

The book is writen for managers and other business people and argues that motivating employees through rewards and punishment is outdated and can even be counterproductive - no news for me.

When I founded Chat Languages, we had volunteers working for us. That opened my view regarding motivation a lot. They were intrinsically motivated and paying them would've actually undermined that high-quality intrinsic motivation.

Listening to the book, however gives me some ideas on how to structure one of the courses I teach at university. If you'd like to understand motivation better, check it out!

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The Iceberg Model of Change

I made that name up. But it's pretty accurate. The only layer we can immediately perceive are the actions. But if we go on a deep dive, we encounter trends, that are influenced by structrues, that, in turn, are held in place by consciousness or a certain mindset.

Looked at the other way around, consciousness creates structures, which create trends, which create action.

To create real and lasting change, it's mostly unneccesary to focus on the action level. If we can uplevel the mindset or consciousness of another person - by helping them think, exposing them to alternative perspectives, etc. -, we indirectly influence the structures, trends, and actions.

In a previous edition I wrote that some companies buy coaching for the wrong reasons. The action is right. But the consciousness behind it is not one of empowering employees but of distracting them, convincing them, that they are cared about.

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The Cause of our Current Crises

Remembering that the most fundamental level of change is on the mindset level, it will not surprise you that the cause (singular!!) of our current crises is a mindset, too.

I started reading Giles Hutchins' The Illusion of Separation about two years ago. I'm fascinated by it but it's also pretty dense. The author argues - and does so very convincingly - that there is just one cause of our current crises: the illusion of separation. He writes:

Let me expand on that. We are not separate from the rest of Nature. Without interdependence with the rest of Nature, we wouldn't be able to exist. Everything exists in relation with everything.

That may be hard to picture for modern humans but for indigenous peoples it's difficult to see it any other way. They see themselves as part of all of life and strive to live in harmonious interdependence.

Sure, materialistically, we are more advanced than these people. But from a mindset perspective, we've gone astray to a way of thinking that gets us into trouble because we don't see the reverberations of our actions.

Albert Einstein said "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

To go through the current global challenges, we need to act differently, yes. But more importantly, we need to think differently!

Let go of your desire to control and start perceiving the omnipresent interdependencies.

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Past Reflections

Did you join my monthly reflections recently and want to check out the previous editions? Now you can do so here!

The newsletter feed is also another way to share what I write about with people you think might benefit from it.

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Finally Goosebumps Again!

In summer, the water temperature here goes up to 25°C (77°F). That's great for some snorkling or freediving but not for cold water exposure.

Now, it's gone down to about 16°C (62°F) which is great. It means it produces goosebumps again and gives me a whole range of health benefits. I've actually found that it helps me get clearity of mind, especially if I dive.

In the coming months, it'll go down just a little more to about 12°C (53°F) but if I want colder, I can go to the mountain creeks!

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Tomatoes in Winter

I've left one tomato plant that sowed itself. It's growing all over my bamboo structure around the compost and produces cocktail tomatoes continuously. They only get orange, probably because of a lack of sunlight but are tasty regardless.

Winter is also the time of kakis. Not far from where we live, there's a kaki tree that I I've picked some fruit from. It's funny, I always thought of kaki (and kiwi, too) as tropical summer fruits. However, they get ripe in autumn/winter and grow well in non-tropical regions.

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Made it!

And that's my reflection for November!

There are two things I'd like you to consider:

• Reflect on my reflections. I'd be happy to receive a reply from you.
• Forward this newsletter to a person you think would appreciate it.

Until next month,

Jorim