So it's May 15th. We are somewhere in the Corona pandemic. How do you experience the situation at the moment?
At the moment, it's quite OK. I'm optimistic about the future, when I look at Germany, my family, my friends, I think I'm in a good spirit of all.
Personally, myself, my family we have endured the situation very well.We haven't suffered at all, I would say. What we have suffered has been more caused by our normal stress more than being Corona specific. We have made some sacrifices in terms of what we like to do socially and related to vacation. But I think probably the biggest sacrifice has been not being able to see people close to family, other family, especially grandparents and my family in Denmark.
We are now two months or two and a half months into the pandemic. If you look back at this time. Is there anything you learned or you observed about yourself or the society or the city you live in?
A lot, I think. On a bigger note thing, the whole society has learned a lot in this situation, and I think I'm also have been the mirroring those learnings in terms of our own vulnerability. How even though we have build our lives and society, especially in the Western developed world, around being able to control every aspect of our life down to the nitty gritty: how many hours of sleep to get with wearables and so on... Something like this can happen. And suddenly the whole your whole life is different. I can't recall an event where I have experienced that to that degree. And I think it teaches you something about your own humbleness. It teaches you a humbleness towards life, towards what it means to be in control of your life, what actually matters in your life? How losing control can also bring great insights and moments with your family, for example. You know, so I think everyone who has a family and kids in particular has been forced to adapt.
And I think the learning in society has been very diverse and different depending on where you live. That's also another thing. I think you can certainly see how things in different countries have really come to light, like in the US. Right? Also about lacking health care, income inequality, opportunity inequality. All these things have been emphasised during this crisis. It's been hard for any society to hide some of these problems in this crisis. Where normally you wouldn't necessarily see it. But now all attention is on this crisis. Right. We are putting you focus on other aspects of society you haven't necessarily found interest in before, also because some of the those aspects of society are suffering the most. You can also clearly see how because the virus is hitting asymmetrically some people more than others, you can clearly see how certain exposed groups are clearly more vulnerable in our society. And you learn you learn that with this crisis in a very intense way.
So I think I've looked and learned and tried to take all of these things in. But I've also learned to not read too much about it because that also seriously affects your mental health. My mental health.
And I think about myself. I think I've learned that friends are super important. I think they are more or less made it possible for us to not suffer too much through this crisis. So it reconfirms that, if we had built our lives around a buying everything for convenience. And buying all the services and not prioritising friends and family and all of these things, we would have been much worse off in this situation. So you also learn that some of the things that has longevity and meaning and so on, are also the things that pay back in situations like this. Unfortunately, you can't connect with your family and rely on them in these situations. And that has also been a learning that having a network of friends is super important.
And I think that also having a connection, a good relation, within your family is important. In our family, Ilene and I are both kind of equally taking care of our child. And that also helps in a situation like this, because it gives more flexibility also in terms of options and how we adjust. Whereas had it just been one and not the other than it have been much more difficult and much more stressful. So I think that has reconfirmed as well.
There are so many things... I mean, it is still so much in my face in a moment, so I haven't really thought about that too much. But I think one of the things we've talked to a lot about at work and with our colleagues, and it's also an emerging theme now, is actually that it works quite OK working from home. On a very practical note, I think a lot of people want to and are expecting to go out of this crisis with an opportunity to continue some of this in some form or shape. So we already at my workplace, for example, thinking about what's the next level of this? How can we actually, instead of just crawling back all the clock and all the flexibility, retain some of it. But also, what would that then mean about the culture we still want to build the company? So I think we are also learning that we can still retain connections and social meaning in a virtual setting. But we also learning, that it's also more stressful, actually, to conduct our way of working with that kind of intensity, because we are tending to be in meetings all the time in a digital phase where you're just sitting at a laptop, focusing on one meeting after the other.
It all it becomes very two dimensional and even painful. This monotony of just clicking out of one hangout to the next hangout or zoom or whatever. So we're also learning that digitalisation is also tormenting to some degrees. That's also something I learned. I mean, I haven't been as stressed out as my wife, but I could really see with her. Her workload has been even more intense in this time. And just getting out of the house has been challenging for her as well. Yeah, these are some of the themes.
So about society, what's not working is really now out in the open. Much more attention on some of these problems, which is a good thing. And I hope we can learn from that. On family, that is super important to have family and friends and that this is really something that helps you to endure. And at work, there is actually an opportunity to work more flexibly. But also the mindfulness around digitalisation.
And then there's the whole environment stuff. We learned that we can actually do something to stop the climate crisis. Because we have been forced into this situation that actually have made our behaviour more in line with sustainable behaviour. Obviously, we also feel it comes with a lot of sacrifice, as I said, but nothing that we really can't not sacrifice. We can actually solve the climate crisis, if we approach it the same way as we have the Corona crisis. But I think that would be a big discussion about that afterwards. I think at the moment it is not really the right time to take it up. But I hope there will also be one of the learnings coming out of it.
Thank you. When you look ahead to a time in which we learned to live well with the virus. Is there anything you want more of or less of in your personal life or in the society you live in?
Well, I want more flexibility in comparison to before. I was already quite flexible. But I want to retain that flexibility, as I have mentioned. That's definitely one thing. I want society to be more prepared for these crises. I think Germany has handled it very well. I think there's not a lot I could say about what should have been done better. But it's still, I think, obviously, we need to be more prepared for pandemics like this and situations like this.
For me personally, I don't think that is a much I want more of. But I think there's a lot of things that society that could be improved.
But also when you live in Germany you are so privileged in this time. But less of? Probably I would really hope that we are going to have less traveling, because I think it's just not sustainable. Even though I would one more of it right now. You know, when we can´t have it.
OK, so last question. If you think of the future, what is your wildest dream or the wildest dreams for the future? Maybe something you sometimes don't even allow yourself to dream?
For myself, I think it's quite modest. It's not modest for all, but I think for myself, the dream is simply to retire, sail a boat and maybe between now and retirement work towards a working setting where I can work from a boat and come and do some workshops, allowing me to spend more time on reading, reflection, time with with family, friends and so on.
This is all I could dream up for myself and my family. If I'm thinking about a more wildly, I think it should be something about actually contributing more back to society. I still have an ambition to do more than I'm doing at the moment. You know, when I somehow have the small kid stage behind me, I'd like to find a way where it's where I can also help to build a platform for more radical change, on topics that I care about. And that would be like internationalisation, building bridges between societies and cultures.
And also some sort lifting back to standards of information – informing people not like in a social media context, like what Facebook is doing, but actually trying to figure out ways whereby you can install complementary platforms to classical journalism that can help democracy survive.
I don't know whether I'll be a hobby or an NGO project or whatever when I would take that on. I think before that is probably more about finding a way for myself to work independently, probably in some consulting capacity, but not for a consulting firm and not for traditional consulting company. But something to do with new work and the gig economy. I think that's also something about allowing people to actually come in and contribute that work, but still retaining some of the conditions that you have when you work in a workplace. There is a transition going on between old work and new work. I don't think we should go down the path where everyone is a freelancer and have no security. Not that we have an A and a B team: people who work and have all benefits and then people who kind of work small jobs and don't.
And so I think we need to find a model that works for society where you can have both. But you can also have the flexibility, because I don't think days anything lost as a company if you have people working in and out, coming with great ideas. I'm looking at it from a German perspective now, because I think you need to fit that into a society model. But I think Germany is in a position of wealth and opportunity where you can, make a more flexible working market and still provide the security that I think Germany is also famous for. So I think that is something I would like to contribute to on the mid-term. And long term I would like to look at something more radical.
First, I need to get out of my comfort zone here with kids and careers and all these things. It is not that I have one radical thing, but I like to contribute to more radical solutions over time. That would be my aspiration. And for myself and where I will find peace will just be my boat and retirement in the mediterranean. It does need to be a big boat.
Thank you very much.
