Everyone has a few missing pieces in the puzzle of life. A few pieces which are lost and can never be replaced and a few which add beauty with their empty spaces. A few others are replaced but fail to fill the void. It is how we choose to deal with the emptiness that matters most.
I appreciate it when people are so passionate about things they love. The things that drive them forward to do more, achieve higher and work a bit harder to get what they want.
Each one of us makes trivial or important choices daily, some may have its impact till the ends of our lives! It’s not always necessary what decision we make, it is rather about how we feel after opting one. There will be numerous people to give suggestions and point out what to choose. But at the end we should trust our gut in making our own decisions. After all who knows what we want better than us.
No choice is perfect!
As a child we never doubted our instincts, but as most of us grew older, we fear making the wrong decisions, obsess over alternatives or simply not choose at all. There will always be a better option in our world of abundant choices, but there will only be one perfect for you, and that’s the one you have already chosen. We all like to be the author of our own lives.
For me, it is all about the individual “mind-set”. Looking at a picture of open cages and birds flying in and out, I am reminded of how important direction and insight is. When we learn to deal with the inevitable emptiness in life, we unconsciously choose the direction of our flight. Some restrict their flight to the space inside the cage, a few others can’t gather the courage to take that one step outside to fly, and a handful fly to such great heights that it is impossible to measure the distance.
So, let’s relearn not only to make decisions based on our “mind-set”, but be happy with what we choose. After all, happiness is a choice!
Welcome to my contribution of “mind-sets” through this website and my personal mind-set story:
I always had from the early stage of my life the ambition to do something creative – something very exciting – something special. I knew from the beginning that such an ambition will be very challenging as a creative life demands constant effort to improve one’s thoughts and actions. It was clear to me that the dynamism involved in the effort is the most important thing – actually in almost everything we do. A lot of people so don’t cultivate creativity, they do not realise it could be applied to literally everything in their lives.
After my university graduation I started my journey as an investment banker in Frankfurt, Germany at a private bank in the first years of my career before entering for a short period of time in renewable energy investments – ending up later on in the field of real estate investments. Initially I was under the impression that the sector of real estate is conservative and boring, not a creative business at all. My life and experience taught me the opposite. Leasing Europe behind me after the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) opened in early 2004 I entered into branding and selling real estate developments in the Middle East. Branding real estate projects in Dubai at that point of time was very unique. As I was one of the first person doing so in the region of the Middle East, I had a hype media coverage and received several business awards. For that kind of business model, I was at „the right time at the right place “with the amazing support of my family which is in my opinion one of the most important aspects when it comes to business success. I was flying high at that point of time in my life. The Business had exceptional growth rates which is today comparable to a number of technology companies rather than a real estate company. It was initially a very successful business model with an amazing leverage and a lot of money to be made on paper as the real estate projects were all off-plan. I was at this point of time 32 years old. In such a young age you get used very easily to billion dollar turn-overs, success and money. You rarely think about „market risks “or „market change “– you are more under the impression that life all of a sudden turns into a one-way-street to heaven without any traffic against you. During the period of time, I really made and spend a good amount of money, reinvested even more money into the same market and diversified only a small portion of my capital and profits into different business models. I was under the naive impression, that the market will continue like this for years to come and never really questioned the sentiments of
the market or even other markets. The success made me blind fold. Today I know, it something can’t go on forever, it will stop.
Then all of a sudden came the financial crisis of 2008/2009 like a Tsunami and destroyed the market and within my business. Initially, I was naive, hopeful, and under the impression that the crisis will affect everyone else but not me on my one-way-street flying high. Life and the market proved me wrong. Due to the most probably worst financial crisis the world has seen since the great recession in 1929, I literally together with a lot of other investors lost almost everything. Everything I have been working for so hard day and night including the week-ends – all vanished and destroyed almost overnight.
Then of course the „blame game “started. Everybody was blaming, accusing and filing cases against everybody – everyone lost control – nobody wanted to lose! Sharing good times is much easier than sharing bad times, especially when huge amount of money is involved. Then I learned it the hard way that the legal time is much different than business time “.
Today, I am far more relaxed and can confirm to you that these circumstances are all part of the creative life – you will pass through storms, and you may suffer defeat. The essence of this creative life, however, is to persevere in the face of defeat and to follow the rainbow within your heart.
Easy? Not at all!! Why?
Because we are people programmed to succeed. The hardest thing we are ever going to do in our life is failing at something – at something we created – something we have thrown ourselves whole heartedly into with sweat and tears. Something we loved doing.
Today, I know, that if we don’t start failing at things, we will not live a full life. We will be living a cautious life on a path that we already know is pretty much guaranteed to more or less work. That’s for sure not getting the most out of this amazing world we live in – Indulgence and indolence are not creative. We have to do the hardest thing that we have not been prepared for – not at any school: we have to be prepared to fail. That’s how we are going to expand ourselves and grow. You must never slacken in your efforts to build new lives for yourself. As you work through that process of failure and learning, you will really deepen into the human being you are capable of being.
Once you worked through this process, you will realize that the world is this continually unfolding set of possibilities and opportunities, and the tricky thing about life is, on the one hand having the courage to enter into things that are unfamiliar, but also having the wisdom to stop exploring when you’ve found something worth sticking around for. And that is true of a place, of a person, of a special friend I am blessed with a vocation. Balancing those two things – the courage of exploring and the commitment of staying – and getting the ratio right is of course very hard. My life experience has proven to me, that what we most fear doing is what we most need to do to find inner peace again. It is the fear of unknown outcomes that prevents us from doing what we need to do. Therefore, define the worst case, accept it, and do it!
Creativeness means pushing open the heavy door of life. Indeed, it might be the hardest task in the world. Opening the door to your own life is most probably more difficult than opening the doors to the mysteries of the universe. But the act of opening your door vindicates your existence as a human being and makes the life worth living. No one believe me is lonier or unhappier than the person who does not know the pure joy of creating a life for himself. To be human is not merely to stand erect and manifest reason and intellect: to be human in the full sense of the world is to lead in my opinion a creative life. When you put creativity in everything you do, believe me everything becomes available to you. I personally think creativity is one of the greatest gifts that we are born with.
Therefore, I like what is in the work – the chance to find yourself. Work to me is not just an activity that generates funds and creates desire: It’s the vagabonding gestation period, wherein you earn your integrity, start making plans, and get your proverbial act together. Work is when you confront the problems you might otherwise be tempted to run away from. Work is how you settle your financial and emotional debts – so that your travels are not an escape from your real life, but a discovery of your real life.
I had so many bumps starting in the age of 33. They lasted for 11 years, and I would not tell my 33-years-old self anything today. Because if I hadn’t had these bumps, I wouldn’t be me, and I am glad I’m me. I mean, you’ve got one chance here to do amazing things, and being afraid of being wrong or making a mistake or tumbling is just not how you do something of impact. You just have to be fearless. Me personally, I want to do fundamental breakthroughs and try to make this world a better place for generations to follow, if possible. If you have such a mind-set, if that’s what you want to do
with your life – which I want – with this small amount of time that we have here to make a difference, then the only way to do it is to do the type of research that other people would think of as risky or even fool hardy. That’s according to me just part of the game.
I am a big believer that if you have a clear vision of where you want to go, then the rest of it is much easier. Just keep in mind, achieving the extraordinary is not a linear process! Life is about defining your own vision of success and getting there in your own signature style. I always remember something my father said when I was growing up: “Every morning when you watch the face in the mirror while you are shaving, there is no hiding. Can you live with what you are seeing? Because you are the best judge of yourself! Everything I have ever done is with that in my mind “
I wish you all good luck on your journey and hope that you all find your way to a creative and successful life with the right mind-set. I wouldn’t have found mine without the constant support of my family and children who I deeply love, especially one extraordinary, loving friend Khash including others who always encouraged, supported and stood by me – I am thankful to all of you including Laura and I am glad and happy that all of you allow me to be me!