Teaching and learning in Kyrgyzstan
Have you ever heard of Kyrgyzstan? Two years ago I had no idea where exactly this country was. And this year it was already the second time I traveled to this amazing country in Central Asia.
Everything started when Gerrit Beine asked me to join him giving a workshop about agile software development in Bischkek (here some impressions from 2012).
This year I was offered the possibility to teach, inspire and learn again in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. This time Michel Löhr joined in as the main coach for the agile workshop at KSUCTA University. And it was amazing this time I was already used to the not so good things like infrastructure or air pollution (which has improved in a good way over the last two years) and then on the other side I saw all this beauty!
The nature is stunning and looking to those massive mountains just outside of Bishkek is amazing. Hiking in those mountains was even more rewarding and then you had the people of Kyrgyzstan: Awesome! So friendly, hospitable, open minded and curious people it was a wonderful experience. Every day at least two students took care of us by doing activities to explore nature, culture, people or food. Thank you all for making this possible.
The 5 days agile software development workshop was a lot of fun where we taught the basics of Scrum. With a lot of games and interactive exercises so that the students could experience the agile culture first hand and learn to work and improve as a team and excel with each iteration.
I’m already looking forward to inspire, teach and learn more in this wonderful country called Kyrgyzstan in the next years.
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How to master any skill
Traveling around the world for me is about meeting awesome and inspiring people in interesting places AND to learn new skills.
Recently I stumbled on this article in which a great approach from Tim Ferriss was explained.
In the last three month it was swimming for me. I started out with 1 lane of crawling and then I was already exhausted. The goal was 152 lanes. And now after less than 3 month I can crawl those 152 lans. How is this possible?
First of all I had a written Dreamplan to help me focusing on the goal. Second I tried to deconstruct the task into small pieces. And then after weeks and weeks of practicing the small pieces, I was finally putting it all together and it worked! Breathing was not a problem anymore and swimming felt almost like running for me and I can now meditate while swimming. It’s brilliant and now I love swimming!!!
So what is it, that you always wanted to learn?
Give it a try and learn something you always wanted to achieve!
Here the Video from Tim Ferriss:
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How to make your inner weaker self your friend
I just returned from a run in snow and rain and was surprised how happy this made me feel. You should probably know one more thing: I don’t like cold weather, I love the beach and the sun … but snow and rain with 0°C … bbbrrr no way!
Somehow I still enjoyed that. And I had the same experience one month ago when I actually started to enjoy swimming in the pool and I was somehow in a flow while doing this.
2 month ago I hated free style swimming and didn’t see the point in doing it, beside becoming fit for my first triathlon coming up in May 2014. So I was thinking: “How come I enjoy something where my inner weaker self was so strong a month ago?”
And then I found a wonderful article at: http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/11/how-to-beat-procrastination.html
with a wonderful picture (Source Waitbutwhy.com) which explained it perfectly for me.
waitbutwhy.com Dark Woods
In the beginning I was in the dark woods and my freestyle swimming was very limited and I didn’t enjoy it … But once I could handle to swim for 40+ laps I appreciated it so much and I was even getting into the flow 🙂
Thanks guys at waitbutwhy.com for this great illustration and explanation! Awesome 🙂
Where is your inner weaker self so strong that you are still in the dark woods?
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How to make your Dreamplan work
Ever thought about making your New Years Resolutions work? Well I have some ingredients for you to achieve your dreams. At least those are the ingredients I use already successfully for the last couple of years to attain my dreams:
(1) Write your dreams on paper
This helps me to vizualize my dream. As we all get distracted once in a while this is a great reminder to look at the goals we dream about to achieve
(2) The dreams should be SMART
Setting up tangible dreams which are archivable given my current situation is the second key to achieve them
Specific: Be as specific as possible about your dream!
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152
You might wonder why the number 152 is so interesting for me …
… a couple of years ago I started to write my dream plan for the next 6 or 12 month (Thanks to the book: “The 4 hour work week” from Tim Ferriss). I can highly recommend this book and if it is only for creating your dream plan 🙂
In general at least 80% of those dream goals are archived which I’m total happy with. This year one of the things I haven’t archived is to crawl continuously for 1km. So a couple of weeks ago I finally started my training and there is some progress but the 40 laps on a 25m lane seems still far away. But there is one more month to go 😉
So last Sunday I went into the swimming pool and started to swim “breast stroke” style … 20 lanes … 30 … 40 (ok at least in this style the 1km is possible) … 70 … 80 (oh double the 1km is working as well) … 120 (3km … mmmhhh maybe I should aim for a bit more) … 130… 140 … 152!!!
Wow 152 lanes this is 3.8km and the distance of swimming for an Ironman. Never biked 180km or run a full marathon (which are the other two distances in an Ironman) but at least the swimming part on it’s own is doable. So for me the lessons learned is that when you have a goal which seems achievable work hard and try to go for it, especially when it is on your dream list! 🙂
PS: And if someone is reading this who can teach me Front Quadrant Swimming, let me know! I’m eager to learn it 🙂
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Top 3 things I have learned
Recently I had a talk with a very good friend of mine and he asked me an amazing question
What are the top 3 things you have learned on your trip?
We were talking on the phone and so I was ready to argue myself out of this question with telling him: “This is a tough question, let me think about it for a day” but he said: “NO! Trust your guts and come up with three things!”
So here they are my top 3 things I learned on my 6 month around the world trip:
- Self awareness of my goals and how I want to live my life (My perfect day which I wrote down more than a year ago is really archivable and I love it!)
- Trust in my own strength and my principals for life, i.g. I love people and I love to inspire people with my thoughts and my radiant optimism (Personal Mission)
- Growth of self confidence and taking baby steps into the direction I want to develop
I love this question so much and believe it’s great to ask this question once in a while to yourself or to your friends.
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Personal Mission
Have you ever thought about your personal mission here on earth? I was reading an inspiring book while traveling (actually a funny story on it’s own how this book came into m life …) and this was one of the questions:
What is YOUR personal Mission?
So what is your mission? Looking forward your comments 🙂 After some thoughts here is my version:
My personal mission is to inspire and support others in positive ways so they can make a positive change in their lives. To accomplish this personal mission on a regular base I …
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Octoberfest
October in Munich and everywhere friendly and traditionally dressed people on their way to the Octoberfest. So together with a friend we went to the Wiesn.
And what a great day. Dancing in multiple of the big tents each with a capacity of up to 6000 people. Talking to people from around the globe and having a good time. Especially the “Old Wiesn” was great. Check out some pictures …
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Cleaning apartments
After traveling for a while and now coming back home made me realize, how little stuff I actually need to be happy. For me
Events and people are much more important than stuff
As I’m moving apartments anyway it was time to get rid of a lot of stuff. And after the initial step was taken, cleaning the apartment was a lot of fun!!! Getting rid of old papers, magazines, clothes, books and all the other junk felt amazing. And I believe it was great for the junk as well as I could release it to other purposes.
So I went to two flea markets and wow it was awesome. Actually it felt like a little around the world trip. I met so many interesting people with great stories to tell …
One book I can highly recommend and which helped me a lot with cleaning is from Karen Kingston “Clear your Clutter with Feng Shui” (German version at Amazon: Karen Kingston: “Feng Shui gegen das Gerümpel des Alltags”)
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What do you want to do?
A very inspiring video and after coming back from my around the world trip these were my big questions as well:
What do I want to do? What do I desire?
My best answer so far is: Live my life next to an ocean where the weather is warm and I can surf and exercise outdoor every day, spend quality time with my partner and listen to the waves. Building businesses that help others to enjoy life! Inspire others and travel to meet new and inspiring people and visit friends! What’s your best answer?
What do YOU want to do? What do YOU desire?
Sven Around The World 