What a tremendous experience obtained during 12 consecutive days offline !

Hi all You followers of my blog and readers of my posts. Before getting started on writing my first post during 2021, I would like at first to to wish all of You all the very best for this still quite new year. I hope, that none of You has fallen ill and/or caught Covid-19 since we met here for the last time shortly before X-mas. Take a hell of care! Things around the globe continue very critical with respect to this pandemia- despite the words of too many ignorants and liars and  the still quite slow start of the vaccination in meanwhile 65 countries, but - what a surprise ?! - not yet here in Brazil. As explained by our federal health minister, General Pazuello, we still need to wait for "day D" and the "hour H" for vaccination start in Brazil. 

Do You remember my comment in my last post with respect to my own curiosity about my conditions and discipline to realise the plan mentioned here, to go 100% offline of all my social media channels incl. whatsapp, instagram, linkedin, Xing, as well as of all my private & corporate email and  online conference accounts (Teams, Zoom, Cisco Webex) and - last not least - keep also my mobile fone completely switched of during at least 1 full week during my year`s end holidays? 

I must admit, that this has never come into my mind as an intention during the last 30 years of my life, when I kept all these communication channels open and active during all days and nights of these 30 years uninterruptedly for private and professional purposes. The only off-times I gained, happened without my active participation during the so many flights to all kinds of national and international destinations, to where I went during all these years constantly for professional (approx. 98% of all flights) and private airplane trips. And I can frankly admit, that I would even have considered such intentions as totally crazy and impossible for me to realise.

But - as mentioned already in many of my earlier posts - my experience has led me to the conclusion, that life is beautiful and wonderful and that many things are much more easy and important for us to realise, than we tend to think. So why not give this a try?

There were 2 reasons for my plan, to use my year`s end holidays for doing such a challenging experiment. First of all I had reached X-mas 2020 totally exhausted by my 9 months long uninterrupted online activities incl. endless participation in webinars, conferences, H2H (Human-to-Human) calls, chats etc. Having initiated my new home office routine at our house in Vinhedo, Sao Paulo, immediately after my return from Paris on March 18, 2020, where I had participated in an intensive French language training at the renowned Alliance française, and the confirmation of my positive Covid-19 test, I plunged deeply into the new digital and online work and live and communication mode, lost very soon completely the feeling for the weekdays and the hours of the clock. Doing such activities permanently on different continents, there is no general "off-time". The world never sleeps completely.

 Apart the symptoms of a starting burn-out and total information overload, my management team colleague Marco Santos, HR & Special Projects Director @ our company Vulkan do Brasil, mentioned to me his intention, to recommend to all our Vulkan do Brasil employees, to go totally offline and disconnect completely during the year`s end period for at least a couple of days. This sounded like a wake-up call to me. And I have always been open and interested in gaining auto-experiences and development of new life & work culture tools and styles.

I told all my Brazilian management team colleagues and also some colleagues in our Vulkan Group HQ in Herne, Germany, my plans. The reactions came immediately and without exceptions. Everybody doubted, that I would find the means, to go totally off-line for more than a few days - if ever. This increased enormously my motivation and gave my discipline a strong boost.

But things did not start as planned. My original plan had been, to spent 1 week together with my wife and our sons in Recife, where we have our 2nd, very small (flat) home close to the beach. To leave Recife for 1 complete week together with my wife only for flying to another wonderful beach region in the further north of our country and to come back to Recife from there for spending a final week together with our complete familly in Recife, before our return from there to Sao Paulo. 

So far my planning. Now reality started. 2 days before our departure to Recife my wife was tested positive on Convid-19. As we had no chance to postpone our complete holidays, we decided to pass my wife`s quarantine time at home, to cancel all already booked reservations for our trip to the northern region and to spent instead of this just 2 weeks altogether in Recife. But for sure - not earlier than after the re-testing of my wife (and all other familly members) and the receival of the liberation for travelling by our doctor.

But this completely scrapped my original plans for going totally off-line by leaving my mobile fone, my notebook and my ipad at our flat in Recife, when departing from there to Sao Luis, in Maranhão state, together with my wife.

This was not exactly according to my original intentions, but it also was not a game stopper at all. I have a strong ability for  always developping "plans  B" and "plans C" for all kinds of situations. A new challenge popped up, once arrived in Recife. As there was no wifi internet connection in the building of our flat, I needed the internet hotspot of my mobile fone for gaining internet connection on my ipad. How should this allow me to disconnect? There are always solutions. You just need to look these up. In my case it was very easy. I switched off my mobile fone, took out the telefone chip, put it into my ipad, deleted on the ipad all my social media and communication apps and all my corporate and private email accounts. From that moment on I could only use my ipad for internet browser surfing and as an access gate to my numerous apps for all the national and international newspapers and magazins, which I have suscribed since longer and which I definitely need for daily lecture. People believe me, this was a really perfect solution for the realisation of my plans to go off-line online. 

I need to explain, that like for a great part of the rest-of-the-world the Covid-19 crisis and my new home office work and live routines had made me re-think lots of things and so I had decided to cancel all my paper subscriptions of newspapers and journals and since about May 2020 I am now exclusively reading newspapers and magazins in their digital online versions. Which turned out fantastic. Much easier access and handling, much cheaper subscriptions and no more huge amounts of unwanted and unnecessary paper waste in our house. Even my wife loved this improvement process!

Believe it or not, I switched of my mobile fone, my notebook and deleted all social media and communication channels on my ipad during January 6, 2021 and I only re-activated all these devices and functions today, means 12 days later.

For sure I gave automated informations about my absence to all email senders and I had given my management team colleagues and my boss in our HQ the mobile fone number of my wife for any emergency situations. But none of them called my wife or sent whatsapp messages for me to her. All these wonderful colleagues and comrades let me relax for full 12 consecutive days and nights. Amazing. Incredible. Thanks to all You great guys over there in Sao Paulo, Bogotá, Mexico City, South Africa, Australia and Herne, Germany. 

But - like always in live - once more there was no "free lunch" for me, or - like the Brazilians wonderfully say - "every coin has 2 sides". When I moved my fone chip out of my ipad, put it back into my mobile fone and re-activated it, 587 (fivehundredeightyseven) unread emails appeared in the outlook icon of my mobile phone. This did not really surprise me. Exchange of information and taking decisions make a totally normal and important part of my job responsabilities and work routines. So I didn`t feel worried about that. I skipped quickly through all these 587 emails, deleted scrap and sorted all important messages into my quite sophisticated and extremely efficient mailbox system ("today", "hot", "to do", "Follow up", "WIP"), in the which I have subfolders for colleagues, teams, external contacts, customers, projects and many other separation categories, which allow me to work this up following clear priorities and without the least loss of control and information. 

To look these 587 unread emails up and to sort them into my system took me little more than 3 hours and gave me an excellent idea of what has happened within our company during my "lost (better: won)” 12 “offline days". Only a few subjects were so important, that I made 1 very short immediate fone call to my management team colleague Luis Traúzola, VP Admin/Finance at Vulkan do Brasil, answered quickly 3 emails, made the - late, overdue - bank transfer payment for my son’s private school fee and that was it. Good job done. Back to vacations!

To resume this for us - I made an extremely important and beautiful experience during these 12 days. Stress or any desire, to interrupt this period never came into my head. I must admit, I felt unbelievably free and satisfied without receiving or doing fone calls, emails, messages, posts, comments, conferences and other communication activities. You can`t imagine my happiness, to open an ice cold can or bottle of Brazilian beer at the beach or in a nice bar or restaurant. 

But this created a new "open bill" for me. Flying back home to Sao Paulo on monday and getting started "on the job" again on tuesday, I definitely need to re-take my daily sports activities, return to much less and much more healthy food and reduce my beer consumption by not less than 90% - at least until I have reached my target weight again and re-established a more disciplined daily activities routine. But no doubt - I will manage this properly. And I won`t take too long for it.......

When I developped the story for this post in my head this morning, the idea to mention a very particular cultural experience from my in total 6 years of tremendous life & job experience (2003 - 2009, thereoff 3 years as MD of ElringKlinger in Toluca, Estado de Mexico, and 3 years as MD of BOS Automotive Products in Irapuato, Guanajuato) in Mexico.

In the very popular, traditional Mexican Mariachi song "Caminos de Guanajuato" there appears the refrain "No vale nada la vida, La vida no vale nada, Comienza siempre llorando y asi llorando se acaba...." ("Live is worth nothing, Live is worthless, Always starts crying and so crying ends......). But this is a very nice song about the beautiful state of Guanajuato and it`s wonderfull places like Guanajuato city, Leon city, the Cubilete mountain and other nice places more, which my familly and I have had the great luck, pleasure and joy to know personally during our 3 years there. It is all but a negative or depressive song. But it reflects deeply the omnipresent ambivalence of great parts of the Mexican culture, traditions and emotions. Finally not so different to the "2 sides of each coin", which the Brazilians describe so beautifully. Just much stronger.....

Unfortunately the Mexican state of Guanajuato, which during my times there was almost a quiet "white" area, where the Mexican drug gangs did not persue their wars against each other, against the government forces and did not commit their terrible crimes. Since a few years this has obviously been changing dramatically, as several friends, former colleagues and employees, who still live in Guanajuato state, told me during chats and talks. Actually during the first week of 2021 alone during 2 terrible massacres almost 20 people have been killed by murderers, several of them during a mourning ceremony in a private house. Today the state of Guanajuato has become the absolute number 1 state in Mexico with regards to violent crime and murders. Unbelievable. So many criminal incidents in Guanajuato, Irapuato, Celaya, Salamanca and the many small villages over there in this beautifull region. 

I mention this, because I wanted to take the opportunity of this post, to express all my best wishes for all my friends, former colleagues, employees and business partners in Guanajuato state. My familly (my son is born in Toluca and has - besides the German and the Brazilian passports also the Mexican nationality) and I are uninterruptedly crossing our fingers for all this crazy, terrible violence coming hopefully soon to it`s definitive end. Like we use to say here in Brazil "the hope dies last".

How shall I finish this post without sharing the beautiful Mariachi song "Os caminos de Guanajuato" in it`s original version presented by the late, great Mariachi musician and composer José Alfredo Jimenéz:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=f_iWQ7ol1QM&feature=share

Hope You enjoyed this experience sharing and I am very curious now to get to know, if the one or other of  You has also already made practicle experience with going offline - at least for a few days - over X-mas and the year`s end. 

See You soon here on ocasion of the publication of my next post. I`ve collected some more good experience stuff for sharing with You. Take care. Stay happy, healthy & successful.