Founder and CEO of the same retail chain store. At the time, I was a newly hired Sales Associate in one of their retail stores in Germany that sold sporting goods and fashion items. Given that I was new to sales and sales is a very transparent function, I was keen to work on my sales capabilities and improve quickly. So, I asked him what advice he would have for me to eventually become the best Sales Associate at the city and eventually at country level. And to my surprise, he said to me that I didn’t have to be the best at anything. I was intrigued and asked him how I’d become the best then. And he told me that I needed to do two things to eventually rise to the top. ‘Put yourself into the shoes of your customers,’ and ‘be the best at becoming better every day.’ Since then, I have taken these two simple but profound mantras to heart in everything that I do. How do you practice a work-life balance, as someone with clear ambition, do you actively plan time away from the office? There is a lot that’s already said about work-life balance, worklife integration, work-life harmony, work-life equilibrium, or whatever one prefers to call it. Personally, I very much like the approach that Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy proposed when they wrote their famous HBR Article “Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time” back in 2007. I appreciate their thinking so much so, that I embedded it into the Double Diamond Framework™ of Executive Transitions. In a nutshell, their concept emphasizes that prioritizing personal energy management—across physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions—is crucial for achieving sustainable high performance and well-being, rather than merely focusing on (more) time allocation. As someone with various achievements and accolades, what is coming next for you, are there any projects you are planning or hope to begin in the future? I spend a considerable amount of my available time reading articles and leadership studies, as well as learning about new concepts and methodologies. But rather than coming up with a new idea, concept, or book every other year, I’m a huge fan of refining existing ideas and thinking of productizing them. To be more specific, Mastering Executive Transitions: The Definitive Guide launched as an eBook and Paperback just over two years ago. One year later, I published the relevant Workbook, a Hardcover edition (which includes a very kind foreword by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith and a bonus chapter on How to Select the Right Executive Coach), as well as the Audiobook version, which I narrated myself in a recording studio in Dubai. In 2024, I have launched my book as a text and sound summary on Blinkist and very soon on getAbstract. Very recently, I launched the Certified Transition Coach™ Training program, CEO Today Executive Coaching Awards 2024 - GLOBAL -
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