Going up in smoke

Ancient traditions, writing down wishes with pen and paper, letting them go up in smoke to hand them over to the universe on the darkest nights of the year.

Pushing my coaching work to be more asynchronous to escape zoom fatigue, creating connections, learnings, and room for reflection through text and voice messages driving digital transformation, and scaling product organizations.

Sounds like it doesn't fit together?

For me, it’s two sides of the same coin. I have taken a lot of my leadership coaching work async this year honoring that problems arise when they arise, that the right moment to pause and reflect is not necessarily Thursday at 11 each week, not wanting to contribute to overly full calendars and zoom fatigue. Honoring the principles of great async communication and coming together 1:1 when it makes sense not when the calendar says. Creating space for reflection and growth continuously.

The above-described ancient ritual of the Rauhnächte still alive in the valleys of the Alps does a similar thing. It honors the moment - the darkest nights of the year, opens up room for reflection, and provides a little nudge. It goes as follows. Sometime in December you sit down and write down 12 wishes and then each night following Christmas you take one of those wishes and burn them so that the ghosts who are thought of being especially close to our world during those dark days can pick them up and make them come true for you. By January 6th only one wish remains and that one is for you to take care of. No matter if you believe in the ghosts the ritual provides you with a format to reflect at a time of the year when we are drawn towards reflection.

So today I want to offer you a combination of those two worlds and invite you to do your own Rauhnächte ritual with a little twist. One wish instead of handing it over to the universe you send it to me by voice, text, email - your choice. And I'll try to find an impulse, a tool, a nudge to help you get just a little bit closer to that wish.