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During my study at the Free University in Berlin I came across the Human Potential Movement (HPM). It arose out of the counterculture milieu of the 1960´s and formed around the concept of cultivating extraordinary potential. The movement took as its premise the belief that through the development of "human potential", humans can experience an exceptional quality of life filled with happiness, creativity, and fulfillment. The HPM was linked to humanistic psychology and one major place was and some even say it was the geographical center of the movement till today is the Esalen Institute founded 1962 by Michael Murphy and Dick Price.

Through the inspiration of different experiential workshops I moved for a while to California and was based at L.A., just in the midst of this paradigm shift. At that time we discovered deep insides how mind and body does influence our life and how we could be more and more aware and conscious about giving our life conscious purpose. By that we discovered miracles and magic just by being purposeful at any moment. All that changed my world view and opened doors of deeper insides.

Still it felt like we would be in a nice but artificial bubble of workshops, body work and the California feeling….it never rains in California….

I decided to be part of a survival training for bush pilots in the Canadian bush to bring all the new experiences to the test. The bush pilots in training were supposed to get a ½ year of training to be prepared for outdoor survival. I got an introduction for a couple of hours, since I didn´t want to go for a license just for the survival experience. We got dropped in an unknown bush area somewhere in nowhere. The nearest city was Thunderbay.

We build shelters, learned how to kill animals, skin and smoke them, find food... We also made a two day hunting trip. During this trip we got a heavy thunder which made it difficult to use our compass for direction. The lightning’s were extremely dangerous and we were trying to get back to base camp, where the build shelters, could give us protection. We choose a leader to clear the way and guide us through the bush without any idea in which direction we should go. During this trip we decided as a team to serve physically and in our thoughts the one who was leading the group. We used different methods from affirmations (for example: we, he, she finds the perfect way to the base camp…), we didn´t discuss his or her decisions, singing , good wishing and individual positive thinking methods including inner prayers. The amazing outcome was that without a direction by compass, just by intuition and trust , we found in the night a place, where we were able to make a fire during the heavy rain, but at dawn we found out that our place where just some hundred meters away from our basecamp. It showed all of us how a group alignment and by serving a leader in that moment: the leader as well the group achieved its best.

Real mature leader serve and support leader. Tag(s) : #LeadershipCulture, #innermanagement, #Awarness, #Consciousness, #Education, #Paradigm Shift

