More and more people are starting to create, learning and spreading human-centered approaches in various fields: coaching, design, entrepreneurship, management, politics…And yes I am a fan. I agree on most of the directions those theories take, but sometimes I wonder if there is more.

When CreativeMornings started back in 2013 in Munich I would have misspelled the name, neither did I know what it is all about.
By that time I lived in Vienna, I was traveling through China during the summer and moved back to Germany in late autumn. Munich wasn’t on my “places I want to live at” list, different than most other cities on this planet. Nevertheless I ended up living here. To date it: I have been a Wannabe Bavarian since May 2015.

That was also the time, when I met a girl, Christina, at the 6:30 AM morning class in a CrossFit box. I wasn’t really into CrossFit by that time, I was more the yoga girl who was trying to get back into dancing, but Christina taught me better. We spent quite a lot of time lifting weights and running miles. After a while there was no way around THE after coffee and the answer to the question “What are you actually doing in life when you’re not busy carrying sandsacks around?”. And there it was: the same way of seeing the universe, the respect for diversity, the pure enjoyment of the little things, the will to grow and to challenge yourself, the vision of creating something -  but not alone, together.

Things were settled.

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There are five of us. Five persons, five characters, five visions of life, five stories to fall back on, five job titles, five favorite coffee shops, five must-read books, but there is only one CreativeMornings Munich chapter - one.

We are setting up an event every month, like every other chapter around the globe. From the outside this might look easy: a location, a speaker and some coffee - done. But there is a lot more to it than meets the eye.

Things can get really tough between us. We all have full-time jobs, a social life, family,  personal needs, lots of travel hours and random wishes. Besides those external restrictions,  

you have to consider us as a herd of different shaped alpha animals. We all are used to express ourselves, to be the wired one in a team, the one people expect to have a different opinion and to turn things around - the hardest part of the truth, we actually enjoy this role. But whether we like it or not, there is no space for five energetic characters like this in our team.

Whom am I actually talking about? I will allow you to gain a little insight into the team:

Christina is the girl who pulls all the strings while making sure everybody is happy. She also is the person to approach about any problem. Priceless!

Jan is the one who has this unbeatable ability of telling random jokes and switch into serious business in the next second, to make sure we actually get things done.

Vanja is the person who will always be one step ahead of you, in ten minutes she will give you as many ideas as somebody else is not able to give you in a week. She is always all-in and eager to learn and to grow, while putting a smile on your face.

Yann-Yves is the man, who always has a story to tell. We can all agree on the fact that nobody can count the different nationalities his family is comprised of, that he is a tremendous videographer, and most exciting, he is a daddy to be.

And yes there is me, the little one. While writing this post I’m asking myself if my words sound like a secret love letter, but as the rest of the team is already used to get overloaded by heart emojis and virtual hugs, they might just brand me another time with “fluffy, cute and naive” - I guess there are worse things in life.

Via whatsapp, facebook and email we are in touch almost every day.We can no longer avoid not getting a deep scope of personal life of one another. For all our differences and not a lot of firm ground to stand on, there is one thing that keeps us together: respect, as simple as it sounds.

Instead of spending time on throwing words around, or trying to define the next agile, human-centred working process and trying to look good, while pronouncing them, we actually listen to each other. We try to make sense of off different perspectives and honor each one’s fortes.

And that’s what the whole secret is about.

Start looking around you, inhale and appreciate the environment you are living in, give the people who surround you the chance to shape your thinking and your doing. Use the words they are using and start speaking the language, they are speaking, while not loosing your own ones on the way.

In a creative world life sometimes seems to be unfair and without scruple, people fight for their creative vision, their talent, their way of working, their extraordinary way of thinking outside the box and their principles. You might be one of those people, that’s okay, but be aware of your growing ignorance while fighting your battle. The others might not know better,but their perspective is not without reason. And if you continue ignoring them, they will have time watching you and learn from you, so you better start respecting them and let them become part of your own process. It’s not always about aiming higher and leaving the others behind to be first to cross the finish line. It’s more about experiencing the human connections right in front of you, because they can’t be put into words on paper and definitely won’t become the next hyped buzzword. If you start respecting the persons next to you today, and thus connecting and grow through them, you will find yourself pushing your personal finish line in every single moment of interaction.

No matter how, we will all evolve and move forward, and create innovation and unique designs, but if not together, how?

See you in the morning!