Take 2 & Vamos fugir

Good afternoon all You faithful readers of my posts and followers of my blog. Time has come, to write my last post here during the year 2020. I have been extremely busy and productive during the last weeks and my countless online conferences and meetings supplied me with an impressive colection of subjects and experiences, which I would like to share openly with You in this and in my next posts.

What a crazy year was this? If I had seen half of what has finally come over all of us in the whole wide world since the outbreak of Covid-19 at the beginning of this year in a movie, I would most propably have fallen into sleep or left the cinema resp. switched the TV channel. Such really impressive stories can`t be invented by human writers and can only be imposed by live reality, which is wonderfully unlimited with regards to the invention of new situations and developments, 

On March 17th, 2020, after an initial shock I cancelled all my already booked flights to Europe, Africa, Australia, Latin America and within Brazil for the rest of the year and initiated my since then continuing new home office reality. It took me only a few days to get familiarized with this and I must admit, that since then I passionately love this way and style of working. For me to go to our factory once per week is more than enough. And to be true,  this has not been so much different for me since several years already due to my almost normal travelling absence. My team and I have since long developped and established our frequent online and fone conferences and conversations. That`s nothing new for us. And we have become quite skilled in doing this efficiently. Otherwise our business would not flourish the way it is doing unquestionably.

The only - but very important - difference is, that since mid of March, I am attending all these conferences and calls from out of my home office in our house in beautiful Vinhedo in the interior of Sao Paulo. But home office doesn’t mean, that I was working in an office at home. Actually I am constantly moving to different places within our house and in our garden for working. This depends just on the weather, my mood, the activities of the other familly members and - sometimes too much noisy - activities of our neighbors or their gardeners. I love this total flexibility and the beauty of the different places. It inspires me and enhances my creativity. To feel good helps me enormously to be productive and efficient. And for sure my faithful companion Luke, our 3 years old golden retriever, is always by my side. It feels fantastic, to have always somebody, who understands and supports me, on my side. I freely can talk Portuguese, Spanish, English, German and even French with him. He`s the only member of our familly, who understands this all. 

But before continuing with my sharing of personal & professional experiences with You, I need to mention personally my good friend and business partner Joaquin Nicolás Bastias Blasco, Sales Manager @ our exclusive distribution & service partner SCEM Ltda (https://scem-chile.cl/) in Chile. During our year`s end online conference with the top management and owners of SCEM Ltda, Joaquin mentioned that he is a fierce reader of my posts in this blog and I was so happy about this, that I promised him, to mention him here. Enjoy this, Joaquin. You know, that my words count gold and that I honestly always try to fulfill my promises.

Amongst the many online events, in which I have participated since March, I liked very much the "A look ahead to the world in 2021" live digital event to which exclusively readers of the international weekly newspaper The Economist had been invited. During less than an hour Tom Standage, Deputy Editor of The Economist, gave us in-debth predictions incl. highlighting key issues and trends for the soon starting New Year 2021. What most impressed me, was Tom`s interpretation, that 2021 will in great parts become "Take 2 of 2020". As if we had the opportunity to record 2020 once more. Now the way, we originally intended. Since this event with Tom, I have reflected a lot his words and I must admit, that I agree fully with what he predicted. No matter all the new projects and plans, which we have developped and realised, some of them at least started, many many originally planned activities and projects - due to the limitations and restrictions imposed on us by the Covid-19 crisis - have not lost any of their importance for us, just have remained on hold and are waiting to be re-taken again by us, hopefully sooner or later during 2021. Thus to label the year 2021 as the "Take 2" of the year 2020 really makes a lot of sence for my concern. 

Many of my friends, colleagues and business partners allover the world have frequently asked me during the whole Covid-19 crisis period, whether I would be suffering not beeing able to travel and whether I was desperate for becoming able to start travelling again. My sincere and true answers surprised most of them. Actually I have been travelling 2 - 3 times more than in the last years, where I was almost permanently on the way to places on many continents. What I mean is, that by meeting people online - which has become my main activity meanwhile since about 9 months ago - I could multiply the encounters with people at totally different geographical locations enormously. I practically started to jump from continents to others within hours. My experience with this has been fantastic. You can consider me as one of the rare individuals, who insist that by meeting people online, even totally new people, You can develop emotions, criate the famous "chemistry" and feel sympathy and antipathy, get excited and/or become annoyed resp. frustrated. There is not necessarily soooooooooo much difference to physical meetings, but this depends massively on the single participants, the culture and the climate - and for sure - on the subjects of these online events.

Good enough for today. I`m on vacations now and I need to catch another ice cold Paulaner wheat (Weiss, or Weizen) beer, which I happily discovered in a new supermarket in Vinhedo yesterday. Over years end my familly and I - like always since my wife and I met there for the first time about 17 years ago - will be flying to our 2nd home in the wonderful beach city Recife, 2646 km away from here, in the beautiful northeast of Brazil. 

My colleagues and friends can`t believe it, that I promised to switch off all my digital and communication devices (notebook, ipad, iphone) during great part of the in total 3 weeks, which we will spent there. I will share my experiences about how this went with You in my first post here in this blog in the middle of January 2021. And I already share Your curiosity.

No song fits better to this post then great Gilberto Gil`s fantastic "Vamos fugir" (Let`s flee), here singing it  together with the Brazilian superstar Anita during one of the impressive live shows, which we all miss so much - amongst so many other liberties and activities:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=PKY5LcOnmWg&feature=share

I wish You a Merry X-mas and a Happy New Year! Take care! Stay happy & healthy!