1 be YOURSELF - MARTIN IFFERT CONSULTING

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1 be YOURSELF

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be YOURSELF
   
Eckhart von Hirschhausen is a German comedian with a doctorate in medicine. His programs are fun and often with a deeper message. Here in this little clip he gave a great lesson on leadership. It's also a great example of storytelling. In this parable he describes a situation in which he enters a zoo in Norway, sees a penguin on a rock and quickly judges the penguin. At first he only noticed the negative aspects of this poor penguin "... wings too small, stocky bodies and somehow God forgot to give him knees ... clear misconstruction". Then he sees the penguin jumping into the water and swimming like a rocket in its element. Penguins are excellent swimmers and far better than anything humans have ever built. They swim as far as America with just three liters of fuel. He realized how quickly he makes decisions and how wrong he can be. Everyone is different and there is no point in trying to be like the others,… because there are already enough others.
YOU have to find your element and jump - then you are in your environment. It is much more important to improve your strength than to fool around with your weaknesses.
This message is very similar to that of Nobel laureate Aaron Ciechanover in the next video.
Aaron Ciechanover Nobel Price Winner 2004
Professor Ciechanover gave the honory speech at my PhD ceremony. In his talk he gave some impressive advice for life and leadership. He recommended that you follow some basic principles to find destiny in life:
  • Make your profession your job … and find someone paying for it
  • Be happy
  • Be a human being
  • Contribute to society
  • Legacy in life
  • Aim high and dare to fail

My favourite Slogan out of this speech is his advice for the young academics:
"Make your Professsion your Hobby...And find someone paying for your Hobby"

Great Leadership begins with Desire
  • It must be more than the desire for the position or rank
  • Leadership skills can be taught, desire can’t
    • Desire to learn
    • Desire to face the challenges
    • Desire to find the value in people
  • Are you willing to make short-term sacrifices for long-term benefit?
    • Can you make the tough decisions?
    • Are you willing to stand against the tide?
    • Are you willing to face the challenges of changing a culture?
Really?

be YOURSELF
  1. Focus on your Strength and Passion. It is so much better to strengthen your Strengths than tweaking on your Weaknesses
  2. Don’t try to become someone else. Others are already there (many)
  3. Don’t judge others or yourself too easy
  4. Think about your Legacy in Life (which should be more than Money and Assets)
  5. be Happy, have Fun and enjoy the Ride of Life


ROLE MODEL:
LOOK in the MIRROR...it is YOU
  • YOU can achieve everything if you wish to and desire it enough.
  • EXPERTISE and JOY are supporting functions. You are good at things you like and you like things that you are good at.


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