Was ist Life Coaching?

Life Coaching ist schnell und direkt. Es ist eine praktische und effektive Methode, Energieblockaden in den verschiedenen Bereichen Ihres Lebens aufzulösen. Sie befreien sich damit von nicht sofort erkennbaren Hindernissen und richten Ihr Leben nur noch nach Ihren eigenen Vorstellungen aus.

Wenn Sie mehr wissen möchten ...... www.ihr-life-coach.de

Mit besten Grüßen
Heinz J. Fritz

Everything Is Easy

My guitar teacher once told me: „If you practice guitar correctly, it should be easy and it should not take long hours. Why? If you practice in a wrong way, the more you practice the more difficult for you to unlearn the bad habits.“

When I think back, I realize that all the major mile stones in my life were coming without any struggles:

1. I was nominated for a university exchange program to Germany without any efforts from my side.

2. I got my first job without lengthy recruiting process. I contacted a former PhD student of my PhD Professor. And that was it.

3. I met my wife coincidently in my friend apartment in Cologne. I wrote her a letter. Few years later we got married, until today, 25 years later.

4. The chance to go back to Shanghai as Expatriate came without any efforts from my side.

In contrast I put a lot of efforts, energy in some projects which did not succeed as I would have wished. My conclusion is, if you do the things in the right way, it should be easy. It should come naturally to success.

When I observe how people work in some companies, I found out that people who work long hours and unhappy are usually people who often create cost of non-quality. They try to fight in all fronts and try to maximise ambiguous benefits. It is doubtable that they create more value overall for the company and for the customers than other people in the company.

Life should be easy, if your mind, body and soul are in perfect alignment.
Life should be easy, if you extend your boundary as broader as you can image.
Life should be easy, if you have complete clarify about what you want to achieve.
Life should be easy, if you are certain that you will eventually achieve your goals.
Life should be easy, if you live your passion and dreams.
Life should be easy, if you take time to enjoy it.
Life should be easy, if you love everything around you including yourself.

Second Profession for the Second Half of Your Life

People in our age may start to think about the following question: what would I do in my second half of the life?

Just take an example: I worked in Telecommunication Industry for last 18 years and can hardly image to continue in that industry for next 18 years until I would be able to retire officially. Even if I would like to, my employer with best intention may not be able to keep me that long.

A colleague of mine, a highly capable female professional decided two years ago to be a Yoga teacher. And now she seems to be extremely happy with that decision.

During today’s lunch I opened this discussion with few colleagues. I started saying to a colleague: “You are maintaining an image of a perfect detective with you cool look, a long coat, analytical capability and communication skill.” He laughed: “There might be a market for coaching for second profession for the second half of the life for you. But detectives are absolutely not what I would do.”

People with our experiences are extremely valuable when we focus on our strengths. And generally education in its broadest scope can be one of the areas you might want to look for opportunities. In that industry your value will increase when you get older, provided that you never stop adapting and learning new things.

Another growth industry will be something I would call “how people spend their leisure time?”. Think about how often you go to massage in China compared how often you go massage in Germany. Productivity will grow, efficiency will increase. People will work generally less time with more results. They will generally have more money and have more idle time. What are they going to do with the extra time and extra money? There is a market from macro economy perspective.

Then we have some well known growth industries such as alternative energy and health care. If you are working in one of the related industries, you are lucky and can try to move to one of the hot spots for your second half of your professional life.

It is your life and you absolutely deserve the best out of it.

Vacation for 3.5 €

Since I am in Germany I decided to go swimming every Saturday. It takes me 15 minutes to drive to the public swimming pool. I usually swim in the in-door pool for 30 minutes, non-stop. Then I go to the out-door area for one hour, enjoying the sun shine und the whirlpool. It gives me a feeling of vacation and the cost is only 3.5 €.

Changing life is as easy as like that, if you are open minded. A single shift of mind, a small decision, a phone call, a google search, a conversation with a smart person, who has different life focus than you, can fundamentally renew your habits, revolutionize your life style and change the people you interact regularly.

Other small things I am doing is practice guitar daily (still looking for a guitar teacher nearby) and I also registered for Salsa course (still missing partner) and probably Hip Hop some time later (right now there are only couses for teens, I was not sure if I should join them :-) . Enjoying life is some thing I learnt from a good friend in Shanghai. I really appreciate to meet that friend.

My Guitar Teacher and His Time Value

Since June 2008 I have started taking guitar lesson every Saturday. My teacher Mr. S is 24 years old, very talented in playing guitar and in teaching. He is always calm and patient and never gets angry.

26 years ago I also learnt playing guitar in Germany for one year and then stopped, since I was too busy with the study. When I think back, that time Mr. S was even not born. Now, he had learnt playing guitar well, had become a teacher with around 100 students. Time changes everything.

Mr. S has a regular job at the government institution. I could never figure out what he is doing there. My impression is though that the job must be boring, because he gives 40 hours of guitar lessons per week in addition to his regular job. He does it well and has fun obviously.

As a guitar teacher he works for a music school. Since the demand for leaning guitar is growing recently (talking about recession), he was asked to teach additional students. Because it is impossible for him to spend more time, he came to me und asked if I would be willing to take a large class instead of one on one lessons, so he can add more students.

The deal is structured like this. I would pay only half the price and would stay double the time with him. So the price per hour would be only one fourth. It sounds a good deal for me. He will take up to 8 students in the large class, so the total income for the school as well as for him per hour would be also doubled. This is a truly win-win situation.

The moral of the story: there is a limit of how much time you can work per week, even for a talented and ambitions Chinese like Mr. S. If you want to get more done, you have to increase the time value.

Changing Life Forever

There are two ways to change life. One of them is called life changing moments. The other is called life changing habits.

Life Changing Moments

Some of my life changing moments are

- Met a passionate mathematic teacher so I started to love mathematics
- Passed the University Entry Examination so I entered into one of the best Universities in Shanghai
- Selected to the student exchange program so I could study in German
- Fall in love with a girl secretly who is interested in philosophy so I started to be interested in philosophy, religions, success teachings
- Met my wife so I am married for 23 years
- Kids were born so I enjoy the real family life in its full abundance
- Finished the PhD so I got a job in Germany
- Moved back to Shanghai so I rediscover the whole new aspects of life

These are things that revolutionized my life. Some of those things I planned. Others just happened without slightest hints in advances.

Life Changing Habits

Some examples from my life

- Run on the treadmill twice a week, 30 minutes every time
- Do sit ups twice a week, 120 times per session
- Read books on the subway to the office 30 minutes every working day
- Meditate in the taxi or in the buss on the way to the office 20 minutes every working day
- Take the guitar lesson every Saturday, 30 minutes
- Get the hair cut every two weeks and enjoy the massage at the hair salon
- Practice guitar every day after the dinner, about 30 to 45 minutes
- Join the dinner and talk with my wife, when she is late for dinner
- Wash-up dishes at every weekend
- Write down any title ideas for blog, when ever it comes into mind
- Write blog entries twice every week
- Say thanks to the taxi drive every time, independently of his mood
- Smile to the receptionist every time I pass by the reception of our office
- Make sincere compliments to any one around when there is a good reason
- Coach regularly colleagues or friends for any professional, management issues
- Go monthly to the gathering of the German Expat Community in Shanghai

These are the things which make evolutional change of my life. Add, delete or modify any of those things will shift my life’s focus, consciously or unconsciously.

Emotional Write Offs

Are you an investor? Do you feel some times that you hold an investment too long, an investment which gets you nowhere, but you can’t just get rid of it, because it cost you already too much money, time and energy?

The same can happen with your emotional reality. Here an example. Let say you fall in love with some one who has absolutely no bridge to your emotional world. You tried to date with her, make presents, send flowers, send letters, emails, sms, make phone calls, say nice words, make compliments, take care of her where ever possible. But there is absolutely no response and no return. You get mad and can not concentrate on your work, but have to think of her, knowing with the certainty that it will get you nowhere.

What would you do? You say to yourself: “Stop. I made a terrible mistake in this emotional investment. And now I have to write off this investment.”

Close your eyes and start to imagine, that every thing from her is getting out from your body, your heart, your mind, slowly, but surely, away from you, to a far destination, that you do not know and do not care. Imagine that you can absolutely live in peace and harmony with the remaining pure YOU.

Say to her in your mind: “Good bye and good luck.”

Practice this more times, until nothing of her is left. Then you completed the write-off of your emotional investment. It is really as easy as like that.

Irresistible

“Go to the hell. Disappear from my life. Never come back.” He thought about her, tried to focus on all her negative characters, remembered the bad experiences with her. “Why did I fall in love with her in the first place? She is just not worth it.”

After he made the decision to detach with her emotionally, he felt much better, enlightened, relaxed. Then he fell in sleep shortly. It was a long, deep sleep. He hadn’t slept so well for weeks.

Then he woke up, all the determinations last night were fused with a single feeling of love, so strong, so hopeless to resist and so beautiful. Then he realized, that this was his calling, he could not explain why rationally.

He stood up and made his mind clear to approach her, probally in a different way. All he knew were two fixed points in his mind. He loves her right now and he will hold her hand to say good bye when she leave the world. He promised her and he is a man of word. How to get there would be interesting details, he thought and smiled from heart, enligthened.

The sun shined, windy, birds chattered. The nature was created so wonderfully in harmony because of love. He decided to go for it, despite obstacles, difficulties, including her own resistances. It will be a long way, but definitely enjoyable.

Happiness at the Work

The essential purpose of work in the business is to make other people happy.

If you are a waiter, your clients should enjoy the dinner. If you are writer, your reader should like your text. If you are factory worker, your products, such as iPhone, laptop, shoes, pen, watches, chairs will finally reach the end customers who need or want them.

If you are manager, your job is to make your boss happy, as well as your subordinate, so that they can work on things making the end customers happy.

If the essential purpose of work in the business is to make other people happy, you can not really do a good work without being happy yourself, because your happiness or unhappiness will be eventually transferred to the end customers. The obvious example comes from service sector, when your smile makes immediate difference.

However, most people work without a sense of happiness. They just want to earn money, as much as possible, to make a living. I believe this is the largest source of unhappiness in this world.

Therefore most people really missed the point of purpose of work. Help yourself to do something about it, either by changing the job or creating a working environment that will make yourself and the people around you happy. Amen.

Are you the Father of Wenyue Ding?

Last June I started to learn playing guitar, encouraged by a valued friend. And here is the story:

The administrator of the music school called me some times to resolve issues like paying fees or changing time etc. And the nice lady always started with the question: "Are you the father of Wenyue Ding?" To avoid the lengthy explanation, that my father actually already passed away few years ago at age of 90, I always answered: "Yes." Then we quickly resolved the issue and closed the call.

People do not really expect a person to learn some thing new and exciting at the age 48 -- by the way today is my birth day and got a CD "The Best Guitar Gems with music by F. Tarrega and J. Rodrigo" from my wife ;-) -- they expect you to burn out with hard work, get a heart attack and die.

But my plan is a different one. I want to live healthy until 120, having plenty of money, creating a training and coaching business for German Managers and write. I want to leave a spiritual heritage that will reach 120 million people. My mission is to make people at the working place including myself happy. No more and no less.

If I continue to practice guitar, one day at the age of 70 (22 years from now) I may be able to give a guitar concert.

But how can a nice lady at the music school know about all this? And how can I explain this to her? So when she will ask in the future: "Are you the father of Wenyue Ding?" I will simply answer: "Yes." and smile.

The Power Of Switching Off Mobile Phone

I am not a friend of working long hours, especially for things which can be avoided or which do not add any customer values.

Recently I had a conversation with a friend who has to work very long hours as a manager and is forced sometimes to come to the office at the weekend. He never switches his mobile phone off, even while sleeping or during the vacation. He would worry about missing a phone call, maybe from his boss. But one experience changed his entire life forever.

Once he took one week vacation with his family to Tokyo and had not been aware that his GSM mobile phone did not work in Japan. The first day he was very nervous, because his mobile phone did not ring. He felt that some thing could happen and he was not informed. The second day, his fear reduced and he got used into it. After all what could he do?

From the third day he started to enjoy the complete silence coming from the mobile phone and realized how nice it was to spend the quality time with his wife and kids without any disturbance.

Today he switches the mobile phone while sleeping and during the vacation. He delivered even better performance than before, because a human being can not really be always on!