When I meet a new person, I choose to be open for a new story.

Stories matter. Persons matter. You matter.

One of the most precious feedbacks is that people appreciate when I “see” them. Attentiveness in communication is the door opener to successful business, life-changing encounters and prevention of conflicts of all kinds.

I seek to see the individual in the crowd. An individual with a story of hope, a history of pain and pleasure, a future to be created and a present to be touched.

Communication is a necessity. It’s a challenge, yes. But most of all it’s a gift. I had a cancerous knot on my vocal cords many years back and was not allowed to utter a single word for two weeks. This was such a important experience. I learnt to appreciate the non-verbal aspects of communication but also to just be more thankful for the gift of speech.

All human interaction is an opportunity to get a glimpse into the life of a person. Through verbal, para-verbal and nonverbal signals we not only transmit data, we actually tell and hear a story of who we are.

When I communicate in this awareness, in this “Grundhaltung”, I listen more carefully and choose my words, respecting that listening to them is a gift of time and attentiveness.

Humans are human because we have the gift of empathy. We carry our culture in our food, our music, our language and our ways of life.

We celebrate our culture and humanity in communication.