This years Hasso Plattner Venture Forum in Potsdam, titled “Crisis? Don’t miss the chance!” ended with a speakers dinner in the beautiful garden of the “Haus am Waldsee – A Place for the Arts” gallery.
As with many big events it is often the “personal encounters” that leave the biggest impact.
One of the guests told a story of how a stranger had once given him a book, “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz, whilst traveling through an airport. The book serves as an inspirational code for life:
Be Impeccable with your Word
Don’t take anything personally
Don’t make assumptions
Always do your best
The day’s event was an information overload. Many inspiring individuals speaking about crisis on all fronts and how each may have applied such a code to turn their crisis into opportunity:
Josef Ackermannand Ketan Patel spoke about the global response to economic crisis. Ketan Patel, stunned the audience with his words, as if creating reality, as he predicted the future in 2040.
Herbert Nitsch is a world champion free diver, who has trained his body to overcome the crisis of having no oxygen at over 200 meters below the surface of the ocean. He allows no person to distract him, in the moment taking nothing personally, before surrendering his body to the ocean depths.
Mel Young put into perspective the reality of how football can bring homeless people off the streets to live constructive lives. Mel spoke of the (mis) assumption that the poor, drug and alcohol addicts etc who as a result become homeless cannot become valuable contributors to society.
Britta Steffen, two times Olympic Gold Medal winner spoke of having to confront the crisis of injury, and how using a personal coach helped her visualize and therefore achieve her success. Despite her injury she continued to do her best, and therefore continues to break her own world records.
The Hasso Plattner Venture Forum once again successfully gathered many inspirational leaders from a broad spectrum of fields, who all follow some sort of “code” in their lives, which has helped them in confronting and interpreting crisis on many levels.