jalléCafe

What I learned from my duvet

As my alarm sounded this morning, blaring Allison Road from the Gin Blossoms, I could not believe I was already waking up under my summer duvet in my own bed at home. 

First, I couldn't believe I was already waking up at all.  I arrived midday yesterday from Chicago fully jet lagged and could have slept another week.

Plus it seemed like just a blink ago that I awoke in this bed thinking it would be 14 hotel nights before I found myself here again.  Yet, I am here again!

Life goes so fast.

I try to write down the stuff that occurs to me first thing in the morning.

Seems like the Gin Blossoms sum it all up really.  Their lead writer Robin Wilson once said he tries to create a lyrical vision that "joy and grief go hand-in-hand in life."

That was sure the beauty of it I felt as I stretched under my duvet.

Nurturing moments of brilliance

A client motivated my latest reading through a "reciprocal recommendation." I recommended Tribes by Seth Godin to inspire ideas about how individuals can build momentum and community.  My client recommended Seth's latest book, Linchpin, about (in my words) careers, creativity and making something happen.

I finished Linchpin during a flight from Argentina.  You can find lots of excerpts and an excellent list of related resources on Seth's quite active blog. 

What resonated with me: that brilliant creativity happens in a flash.  It may come together through being present and disciplined in your field over time, but it happens in barely a moment.

My best ideas often come through "moving meetings" when I travel.  I take in the stimulation around me, add to it what I already have learned, ponder over it while seemingly doing something else like walking or just observing my surroundings. Then, pouf!  Something comes together that changes my next step.

I wasn't sitting at the computer pounding out a strategy.  I was out in the world, noticing my feelings and thoughts while they happened. Capturing them in my journal.

This is why Seth thinks the office is becoming less relevant and hourly work less valuable.  And it has taken courage for me to unleash myself from my desk and the 9 - 5 grind.  Yet I could see it even in my journal during the 14-hour Argentina flights, my best business ideas happen when I move!

Mystery solved at 35,000 feet

One good thing about my four-full-length-feature-film flight yesterday is that I unexpectedy and enjoyably solved a mystery from February 2009 when I walked out of my office directly Into a movie.

I never found out what movie they were filming.

Until yesterday, three films in, I watched a charming one titled Julia's Disappearance. This popular movie released last year with a script by well-known Swiss writer, Martin Suter tells the tale of a woman who decides to skip her 50th birthday party.

At the end she stepped out from the door just beside my office exactly into the same scene. Ah! Now I know!  I could totally relate to Julia.

The other charming and miraculous thing about my day with a four-movie flight: I sipped coffee while sitting sleepily on my sofa in Zurich at 6 a.m. and enjoyed dinner while sipping a nice glass of red wine  (again rather sleepily) in a country half-way around the world.  Modern life is indeed a miracle of opportunity!

 

Motivation and moods that spring up on you

Last Wednesday, I stepped out of my apartment door and made a dead halt not two feet further: I smelled cut grass, heard a buzzing lawnmower. Ah, what a lovely first moment of Spring.

Next morning; same dead halt. Turned around to find different shoes for snow. It was April 1st, no joke! 

Two days later (Easter Saturday, they call it here), I spent hours in my favorite garden center. I have to drive 45 minutes to get there. (A friend said yesterday that he thinks it is amazing I go to a garden center for the 10 plants I can fit on my balcony and garden box.)  Yet when I took a little coffee break overlooking the plants, with a mountain view through the window, I realized suddenly I was 100% relaxed and happy. I felt I was in the middle of my garden dream.  I can see it all in my mind and hope I will plant it one day. It starts there. I needed nothing more and nowhere else right then.

Then there was this morning.  Cold. Errands to run. Car noise to check. Carpenter to meet in office. Emails to return. Phone calls. And, a little ear ache that annoyed me now long enough to stop by and check that too. Nice doctor first asked if my reported dizzy feeling when lying down came from blood rushes of a thin person not eating enough protein.  I smiled while thinking, I know the difference between hunger pains and my ear hurting.  Sure enough, he took a look and was surprised by a little infection. Stuck a strip with antibiotics in and told me I should leave it there "just four days. "  I smiled while thinking, you're not the one with the creamy thing stuck in your ear! Four day?!

Tonight on my walk home, I halted again, this time near my favorite sitting rock, and forgot my ear ache, my dream garden, that it snowed in April - all those moods that sneaked up on me good and bad. Motivation is something much deeper and more powerful. Like watching the first really good sunset of Spring.

The value of contagious enthusiasm

After enjoying the first day of Autumn in Buenos Aires (a city that is definitely growing on me as you can imagine from this view), I took a late flight with my clients to Sao Paolo - scheduled to start our second workshop at 8:30 a.m. the next morning.

Landed after midnight and still managed to be stuck in a Sao Paolo traffic jam. Checked-in just before 2 a.m. to a room in a very nice hotel with the noisiest minibar in the history of mankind.  Switched rooms.  Slept well and deeply four hours.  Five minutes into my hair drying at 7 a.m. the hotel-provided dryer konked out.  Nearly 30 minutes later, all was repaired and I dashed to the restaurant for a quick breakfast.

There, a smiling, enthusiastic Maitre d' followed me personally around the buffet to explain the lovely traditional Brazilian options.  He obviously didn't realize that I genuinely do not care to speak before my first cup of coffee (especially on a bad hair day with sleep that could only be described as a nap) which he was delaying. Yet somehow in the extravagance of his effort, I started to smile.  Had a great cup of coffee alongside his suggestions.  And really enjoyed the rest of my day.

The view from my still unconnected desk

After sleeping so well and deeply this weekend that I recovered my voice and banished the sniffle, technology nearly proved my undoing today.

The Handsome Electrician - who came to my office because we STILL have not installed my Internet as a result of not being able to find the wall DSL connection - told me there was "bad news." Somehow this building which was built before the invention of the telegraph does not have a telephone line running from the basement to my fourth floor studio. "How is this possible?" we all scratched our heads in wonder in our various dialects.

The long cable has been ordered for Thursday installation (said Handsome Electrician after discussion with Friendly Real Estate Agent).

I was definitely ready for a Prosecco, but instead returned a sample chair to a large store and raced home to connect my computer with the outside world.

Tonight's menu: pasta, broccoli and a reminder that one year from now there's some chance this will be a distant memory.  New day tomorrow!

PS, I'm also still using my window ledge as a Coke refridgerator while a kitchen designer I met this morning takes a couple of weeks to propose a plan.  Maybe later I'll look back and think these were the "glory days..."

Things that rise

  As I started the New Year, I saw and felt some things rising:

1. 1. The sun on mountains and hills. OK, mostly I saw sunsets during the holidays - including this lovely last one of 2009.
2. 2. Cinnamon rolls - baked using my family's traditional recipe on New Year's Eve for New Year's morning with my friends. Needed two tries: the first time I accidentally bought packets of baking powder instead of yeast. That dough didn't rise!
3. Fireworks and champagne glasses lifted with friends for the New Year and in celebration of all good things we managed to enjoy even in the unstable 2009 economy.
4. My beloved Ohio State Buckeyes, who rose to the occasion to win the Rose Bowl. I surely did not see the sun rise that next morning: stayed up until 2:30 a.m. to celebrate the win. Hope I didn't awaken my neighbors!

What didn't want to rise:

Me - this morning when my alarm went off, even when I'm genuinely enthusiastic about the year ahead.  But now a few hours later, my spirit for the next weeks and months is already on the way up.  It's so hard to go back to work, eh?  Even when you find it inspiring most days.

Tomorrow, I'll finally see the sunrise, too. Promise.

Do you ever do this?

I have a file in my Outlook email program that I renamed some months ago from "To Do" to "Will you ever do this???"  I thought maybe if I goaded myself with a little humor I might actually act on one of the three things in it faster.

Nope.  Didn't work.  I thought about relabeling it "Will Never Do."  Because we all know that the minute we say "never" it always happens.

Meanwhile, having completed the sixth of six seminars last night, I was feeling a little free to look at a new horizon this morning and began naturally brainstorming about "what's next."  None of the new things on my list are in the "Will Never Do" folder.  For sure, most of them I will do.  Sooner.

So why the heck have I kept that Never Do folder, I ask myself?  What's funny is that I can tell you exactly what's in it because "should do" morphed into self-imposed guilt long before the folder renaming.  Obviously I can live without doing these things. Maybe one day I'll do them because it will make sense at that time.

Tonight, I'm hitting delete and running for a Gluhwein.  Fast.  Before I start trying to do something else. 

Stubborn will, challenged

Incredibly early, originally uploaded by jalléCafe.

Last Thursday - 19 November - Zurich's holiday lights started glowing for the season, which explains why I first saw these strings hanging in October!

Seemed incredibly early to me, as I'm still in the middle of client projects and seminars and 2010 budget planning. Who has time for this? I mean, really, I'll make my annual scramble for my advent wreath this week - before they are all sold out - and hope for a little time this weekend to bring four boxes of Christmas decorations from my basement. (The same basement where my Autumn-Winter sweaters are STILL stored for last season...) But hanging-out at the Christmas market is still a few weeks away.

I love the holiday fun and festivities and cookies and kitsch. Yet I always thought it was to start AT LEAST after Thanksgiving (this coming Thursday).

So I've NEVER allowed myself a gluhwein before 1st December. Never.

But now how will I walk out of the office into the lovely street for seven more days, see the lights, smell the cinnamon and just walk home?

My favorite rock

I took this photo just one week ago - on Sunday morning, 2 November - while perched on my favorite rock after jogging down to the lake.  Said to myself, "This might be one of the last beautiful Fall mornings of the season.  Fantastic!" 

Not far from reality.

Since then the fog has descended and most leaves have dropped. I now have to be a bit careful not to slip on them when I walk down to the tram station (let alone jog).

And it rains or drizzles or drips for hours on end.  Hard to know when to put up or down the umbrella. A month of bad hair days!

But that helped me stay inside to get my 3rd Quarter bookkeeping together, check-out some new training facilities, write (and deliver) two seminars, plus light a few candles and a fire in my chimney. 

Despite such positive thinking, this evening as darkness overtook the tram while I rode back to the office from a meeting, I thought, "Ready for those holiday lights now!" 

Becoming adventurous

Nearly all of my life I've carried around the idea that I'm not adventurous.  I mean, how can anyone afraid of heights (Mom said I was afraid to climb on the sofa when I was a toddler) ever come close to that concept?  But mostly I thought this because I never backpacked across the world, Europe or even Ohio when I was in my 20's.

By the time I got around the world (which I did mostly), I was staying in nice hotels and had drivers meeting me at the airport. Never had to take care of myself. Risk minimized.

I've been thinking lately that it's high time I go on an adventure.

So I looked up "adventurous" to help brainstorm the options. Definition: Inclined to adventure; willing to incur risks; prone to embark in hazardous enterprise; rashly daring; outcomes uncertain — applied to persons.

And then I thought, I have moved a few places where I didn't know anyone.  Taken jobs that no one (not even me) would have thought about me doing.  Quit and started a business when I depend on myself for an income.  And this is not even taking into consideration daring personal adventures like going on dates: never a certain outcome!

So let's be specific, I'm not often physically adventurous.  But my personality leans in an adventurous direction. Adventure involves risk and uncertainty, who says it always has to be about jumping off of something literally?  Jumping into something with passion and desire to explore must also count?

I guess adventurousness, like beauty, is in the mind of the adventurer. And I still do admire the people I know who have backpacked or literally climbed mountains.

It hope it is not too late to become my own special kind of adventurer, a pirate of living...attack maties!

Managing the peaks

I drove to work today because it's supposed to rain later - and I need to carry groceries.  Often, during my 15 minute drive (on the rare days I bring my car), my mind explores random ideas that sometimes even prove creative or useful. 

Today, my thoughts wandered around a presentation at the Professional Women's Group Tuesday evening during which the speaker helped us identify our "peak times" in the day.  As I drove along with pop music playing, I thought what a shame it is that my peak time today will be spent on a train this morning on the way to a client meeting (8:30 - 10:00)!

Turns out that wasn't the only distraction from my peak:  when I arrived at the office, our parking space was fully and unexpectedly blocked by a crane (cute little mobile one) delivering blocks of tile to a store nearby.  Ugh!  Now my acceleration to the peak was spent negotiating how I would move my car in time to make my train.  I cannot say I was the friendliest girl in the world to the crane driver, although I tried to throw a smile in at the end for good measure.

The only thing I could think of to do productive with the now 12 minutes remaining before I will run for the main train station was to post this blog, that I also thought about while driving but modified a great deal for reality.

Sometimes our knowlege of the best thing to do collides with real life.  And when I grab a cup of coffee on my way to the train platform, I'll send a mental apology to our great PWG speaker Felix as I once again make a compromise on my way to the peak!

Lost days?

Last weekend, I saw the movie "Julie and Julia" with Meryl Streep.  In addition to making me hungry, it also inspired me to think about my own blog.  What's cool about Julie's blog is that it had a clear goal: cook 536 Julia Child recipes in 365 days. Gave it an intrigue to see if she would meet the goal.

Could I add intrigue to my blog, I wondered?  A plot?  Problem is that my blog is about my life - well, the on-going goal to make my life fit with my work and, after mixing it all together, feel like it is meaningful in the end.  I don't think Julia wrote a recipe for that.

But I think I'm going to try.  Goal: Grow my business, really be an entrepreneur with a successful little boutique consultancy that reaches more people than my current friend "fans" and my Mom.  And while doing it have a life, not just work.

There I said it.  That's what I really want to do.

Of course, soon after I thought of it, life got in the way: I woke up Monday night sick.  Spent yesterday dragging around (having realized I did not have a fever and was not throwing up on anyone, I probably was not contagious) from appointment to meeting.  Slept 13 hours last night.  Loped into work today just before lunch. Albeit, feeling better.

So if my 365 days started on Monday, 12th October, I'm already three days into it and the only recipe I've tried so far is "slow down and let yourself sleep until your body is ready."

Why do you always have to wear red shoes?

I heard this voice chanting through my head as I listened to the sound track of Chocolat  while taking a warm bath to relax my muscles.  In my bright yellow bathtub.

I first watched Chocolat on a transAtlantic flight during my big travel years. Soon, I'll be back at that travel again.  Sometimes anyway.  It was, in fact, my best way to watch movies.

"Why do you always have to wear red shoes?," Vianne's daughter cried as she scurried in from being picked-on at school. "Why can't you be like all the other mothers?"

"Well, it's not always easy being different," Vianne replied. 

I've always remembered that line. I began wearing red shoes when my triplet brothers were born.  I had no more choice in being different then than they had in being the same.

Then I moved away.  Finally overseas.  Thought I might try a new lifestyle.  A new profession.  A new life. A new business.

Why can't you be like...?  I even ask myself sometimes.  Life would more simple if I had just stayed in my hometown, or in the States, or in my marriage, or in a big company with perks...

But I realized between client meetings, working with our team, chatting with friends and generally getting through the week - and especially cleaning closets this weekend - that then I wouldn't be in Zurich, growing my little idea of a business that has my heart and intellect in it.  Living among my friends here who help keep me alive and active and always learning.

Today I watch Roger Federer win the French Open, worked on my accounting, answered PWG emails, made a short jog and finally took that bath in my bright yellow bathtub.  BUT my first accomplishment this cool Sunday morning (after a cup of coffee of course), was miraculously finding a good way to keep so many of my shoes found in my closets and cellar organized and easy to find.

So I guess I'll have to just keep walking in them.

Out of my way

Today I heard the perfect description for having a bad day when my friend and follow blogger Helen said, "I had one of those days when I couldn't get out of my own way!" 

She hadn't really had such a bad day; she just couldn't seem to get motivated at her normal (very high) energy level. 

The quote actually came from her grandmother.  Lovely wisdom.  I said it was bound to become a staple in my motivation repertoire.

When I have those days, it is usually because I'm tired.  I bump into walls of unmotivation: pessimism, ambivalence, overwhelmed feelings, stress. You name it.

Fortunately, this weekend I wised-up:  slept, read, spent time with friends like Helen.  And laughed.

I also did an incredibily productive amount of good idea generating.  Amazing how sleep, friends, and good ideas can go hand-in-hand.

A little humor never hurts either! 

Chin-up and coatless

Last Friday, I wrote about remembering to turn on my relaxed emotions for the weekend.  It worked for two hours.  Then I came out of the networking meeting I also mentioned, to go home fairly early, and found that my (favorite, of course) winter coat had disappeared from the (very nice) restaurant's coat rack.

Relaxed emotions gone.  Felt like the world crashing after a busy week.

Three days later, the coat is still also gone.

But my very nice insurance agent (have a great one here) has quickly filed a claim.  And the restaurant manager will pay my deductible. I'll survive. It is only a coat.

But it felt like much more at that moment when I burst into tears.  And I realized I needed to get a perspective.  That incident has, in a funny way, helped me through this busy week of meetings. I keep saying "it's not like it's your favorite coat on a Friday!"

As this picture from my mini-Spring break in Thun shows, pretty soon I won't need a coat anyway! Chin-up, girl...

Storm Spotters

It's been a while since I posted a Lesson from Mom.  Last week, she shared a classic:

Three generations of my family - Mom, two of her sons, and two of her grandsons - are currently taking training from the local National Weather Service to be certified as "storm spotters." 

My home town, which has recently been hit hard by DHL closing its US domestic shipping service (laying off thousands of people in the area) - is also long-known in the Spring as "tornado alley."  A warning siren system sounds each time serious dark clouds approach.  As children, we were trained to go to the basement or the most reinforced room in a one-story house.  We conducted tornado drills at school.  Dad put candles and flashlights together in a "survival kit."

Mom says she's tired of going to the basement all of the time; so, she's going out with my brothers to find the storms!  (Must be in the genes.  Her father also tended to pile the four grandchildren all in the car and chuckle gleefully as he drove through the farm fields chasing lightening saying "we are in the safest place because we are grounded by rubber tires!.")

But Mom is more educated.  "Lightening is not an indicator of storm intensity, " she informed me as I reminisced.

What I love is that - in the most dismal of economic times with 100s of For Sale signs in yards and families moving in together - someone is offering and my family is taking a course about a fascinating natural aspect of life in Ohio.  Tornadoes.

This, to me, demonstrates persistence at its best - finding something new to be motivated about instead of sitting around depressed.  In fact, I won't be surprised if the entire family becomes "Advanced Storm Spotters" by later taking the second course at the regional level. (They are already dreaming about it.)

Tornadoes don't care about the economy or respond to economic stimulus packages.

And Mom is not going to the basement either!

Mondays

Mondays, originally uploaded by jalléCafe.

For lunch, late as usual, I tramped across the street and stood at the intersection where I walk nearly every day. Sometimes sunny weather makes me wonder why I seem to be the only person still working.

Sometimes we all share the same feeling: it's Monday.

So I went to McDonalds for chicken nuggets and french fries. It helped.

On the way back across the intersection, I felt new energy. Decided I would I try something creative on my blog to make the most of this mood: a "thin frame collage of Monday"

Nothing like a few fries for inspiration. No wonder Mondays are always the busiest at my health club.

And sometimes life is just too busy

I am normally an optimist and rarely in a truly bad mood.  Or at least I can usually talk myself out of a bad mood quickly.  But yesterday I just stayed in an irritable state from dawn to when I hit my bed again.

So this blog post proves life is not always idyllic in Zurich or as an entreprenuer. 

There wasn't anything specifically wrong yesterday.  The sun even came out for the first time in weeks (which made me even more irritable about being irritable on such a beautiful day).

I just had so much to do that I felt I was walking knee-deep through quick sand. I needed to hit deadlines and to update computer software (which, as is inevitably the case, required hours instead of minutes) and to review graphic designs , and to answer 50 emails, and...

I finally capitulated at 7 p.m. and walked home.  Drank two proseccos.  Clicked through channels with my remote control - wondering for a moment why there wasn't a man doing it so that I could be irritable with him too.  :-)

Woke up on the sunnier side of the bed this morning.  Thankfully.  Some days just have their own karma.

Snowflakes

My year started in the snow:  Zurich enjoyed a little surprise snow and ice storm in the early evening that kept me at home on New Year's Eve.  I finally journeyed out January 1st on a beautiful sunny morning to spend the day with friends (where I should have been the night before!).

Now I'm hibernating.  Nearly literally.  Slept more than 10 hours each of the last three nights.

Normally, I would take one of these snowy days to walk in the mountains.  But instead, I have this feeling that I need total relaxation and space for myself.  Warmth and blankets in my own place.

By tomorrow, we will all be back to work.  Our holiday conversations always included speculation about what the year will bring.  This is the second major economic downturn of my adult career.  The first one brought both challenges and personal growth - maturity - to learn how to make decisions for the longer term.  No one knows what this one will bring. I just know I need to take it with a steady pace, flexibility and somewhat stubbornly persistent optimism in the face of gloom.

I wrote my 2009 goals using a process that has helped me for the last decade.  I read through all of my 2008 journals, then listed about five lessons learned.  I looked over my goals from last year to see how they worked (if I achieved them AND if they were the right goals in the end).  I did OK really.  In fact, I'd say 2008 was one of my more full years in terms of strong personal and professional development. I noticed that it started with some of my most stressful - and high work load - challenges in a while.  Perhaps some of the good feeling includes the reward of having overcome hurdles.

My goals always focus on what I will do new or different. (I assume, for example, that I will still jog regularly and be sure to take vacations - old goals from previous years that are now habits).  There are never more than five (any more is a list, not a set of priorities).  Here they are in short form:

1. Launch a program in my business that I've dreamed of now for a while. It will be the most high-risk step so far because it is new and will not bring in quick cash.  But it's where my passion tells me to go. 

2. Plus, we'll aim for the next year of steady progress with my largest client, working with and building the team that is a genuine pleasure every day in the office

3. Reach 200 members in PWG of Zurich with all that entails

4. Be more creative with meaningful little gestures for my friends

5. Return to playing golf after a five year lull.  (Next after golf: learning how documentary films are made)

So, you can see that hibernation for me is not exactly inactive.  It's time to watch the snow fly and ponder quietly a little.  The New Year came in on a soft, swirling snowflake as during the first silent hours of a snowstorm, before the snowplows take over.

Week 47: Erkaltet

In other words, I got a cold! The way we say it in German is as if "I am colded!"  Attacked by a cold. Nice choice.  That's exactly how it feels.

After all the times I've said, "you must put life before work," it's still hard to accept when life simply steps in front at its own will.  Despite my declining stamina, we had a good week here.  I mean, what's a little sore throat when all the holiday lights are turned on at 4 p.m. Thursday?  Plus, our team was extended via a guest from the USA who added a great deal to our business view.  Overall, valuable and time that felt well spent.

And then.

I snoozed on an oversized pillow in front of my first fire in the fireplace this season.  All the while, snow flittered about outside my window.  Drank two hot chocolates with a good friend on Saturday as we discussed all sides of work, friendship and life (not to mention men).  I sadly declined a few fun social invitations because I couldn't do much more than sleep.  But I did manage a movie and had enough brain cells still operating to remember both the conversation with my new acquaintance before it and the plot. 

Still.  I'm moving slower than usual.  Cannot yet show you the holiday lights because I make a quick run for home after work to bury myself in a blanket instead of take a picture.  Work itself moves along at a little slower pace, although with enough force because of year-end deadlines.  My creativity has to wait a few more days for full recovery.

That's life.

What's great is that some really good friends checked in to see if I was alive and still tell me about their days.  One of them even reminded me that Thursday is USA Thanksgiving and offered to share it.

AND.  A big box of Quaker Oatmeal (Instant - single packs - maple brown sugar) arrived in my office this afternoon. Included some good old American chocolate chips for baking cookies.   All shipped over from my hometown when my mother heard I was sick.  Really, there are only a few things I've not found a substitute for here in Switzerland.  Two of them for sure:  Quaker Oats and Mom.

Week 24: Enjoying a peek around the corner

I prefer life when I carry a little feeling inside every day as if there could be something new and curious around the next corner.  I knew when I chose a more stable daily existence - not flying from country to country from one week to the next - that my personal challenge might become one of battling my restlessness. Of not adopting a "ho hum another day of work" attitude.

Zurich helps.  Nearly every week in the summer, it hosts an event.  Right now of course the European championship soccer tournament. 

Yet the real contest for my heart and well-being takes place in my head. This month, I've tried some conscious adjustments and feel especially good that a few of them finally seem to work:

First adjustment

As I previously mentioned, for two weeks now I start most mornings with a coffee at a local cafe. I take either some reading or my calendar. Always something I find interesting to get my mind open and energized. I spend only 20 to 30 minutes at it. Not long. It has made a huge difference in my mindset as I arrive at work. In the office now, the minute we walk in the door, we work together in a true, fast-developing team environment that has become fun, productive, social and "full-in." I'm ready for it when I give myself the respect of preserving my own space first.

The success of my "jill cafe moments" remind me of something I've known for decades. My personality in general needs some space. I first noticed this inner need as a pre-teen when I loved to sit at my bedroom window, knit and listen to Cincinnati Reds baseball on the radio. Some of my friends in our tiny Ohio town between cornfields needed constant interaction at parties and cruising the local McDonalds; I needed peace first.

With that adjustment of having listened to my voice over a lovely Swiss Kaffe Creme (coffee with a cream) first, I walk out to the street and around the corner to the office eager to see where we go next.

Second adjustment

The other driver of my energy this week was setting aside time to develop a longer-term perspective through writing an article for my client's "thought leadership" newsletter (to be published later this month). We selected a topic and main point I wanted to get across about global communication, but needed a lot of new background information to write it well. That few hours of learning, organizing, and creating the words refreshed me. The team editing also stimulated good discussions. We can use it with other clients. 

I believe these time investments make the difference between pulling of a business that is professionally well-done and carrying an edge that builds something unexpected and unusually excellent.  Sometimes this point gets lost in too much busy-ness.

The adjustments come at some price -- I felt so tired by Friday afternoon I could hardly work.  At 5:00 p.m. I slid out of the office to go see what was around the next corner for the weekend. In this moment as I write by the light of an unseasonably cool, grayish Sunday morning, sitting at my own desk, feeling what I want to say, I know it has been worth it.

If it's hot chocolate you want...

Helen Palmer noted in a comment about The Juice Market that her favorite hot chocolate was at Cafe Shober (that's the name most of us in Zurich know; actually the owner Teuscher Chocolates just changed the name to Cafe Felix AND added a second location at Bahnofstrasse 104 ).

OK.  I will try that. 

My favorite up to now is the Cafe & Bar at Confiserie Spruengli. Paradeplatz.  I especially like stopping by the small downstairs cafe for a hot chocolate before work.  (No not every day as tempted!)  Then you see mostly the locals like me just for some minutes. It's quiet. A few people sit around reading a newspaper. A couple of men talk together. Often there's a dog at someone's feet.  The waitresses are relaxed and wish you a good morning.  Later, the tourists set in...fortunately, the hot chocolate always tastes good.

Dani's Juice Market - Zurich

Dani's Juice-Market
Augustinergasse 42 /44
8001 Zürich

Telefon

044 211 69 33

Freshly-squeezed, original juice combinations.  A home-made soup-of-the-day.  Sandwiches.  Salads.  Not the cheapest, but warm, busy and friendly. 

I started coming here 10 years ago because it fit perfectly on a Saturday shopping day.  Get in-and-out quickly yet great quality and casual.  Not big...and sometimes chaotic.  The owner Dani's own story and voice is worth hearing.  He has built a business and a life.  He encourages me to try a new juice...and smiles if I go back to my old favorites.  Perfect!