Here it is finally: my first blog post! This is the blog that was waiting to being started for the past 5 years already….And now I am wondering why it took me SOOOO long to finally write the first lines. When I attended the Fast Forward Your Business -conference with Roger Hamilton in September 2014 I was inspired by many great speakers. One of them was bestselling author Shaa Wasmund with her clear message: Stop talking, start doing!

“Talking will take us nowhere and one year from “NOW” we will think to ourselves once again: I SHOULD have started…well…next time then…

Now that same message struck my mind at the DNX-conference in Berlin just a week back. Many of the speakers like Conni Biesalski (founder Planet Backpack), Sebastian Canaves (founder TravelWorkLive) and Tim Chimoy (founder Earthcity) had one important message: Everyone of us has great potential to achieve great things in life. Many of us simply don´t know it or we are too influenced by self-doubts and fear. All of them are great examples of people who overcame initial doubts and embarked on a journey beyond 9-5 office routines or something the world would call “standard”. Instead they chose to live a life of freedom, flexibility, inspiration and constant learning. A life that is not static, that is intense and adventurous. At the end of the event I thought to myself: end of procrastination, it is time to step into action! Let my blog finally go live!

Identity is more than just a concept

On my last flight from Bangalore to Germany I happened to sit next to a young man called Mohamed (name changed). We started talking and I learned that he was on his way back to Middle East where he was working on a big metro project as an engineer. After a while it turned out that Mohamed´s father was a Muslim and his mother was a Sikh. This combination is less common in the Indian context, as inter-cast marriages are often not encouraged or accepted by families. In order to maintain the peace of the family his parents had to take on two identities. In Punjab, his mother´s native, both parents were Sikhs with typical names, married according to the Sikh rites. In Bangalore his parents would both use their Muslim names, go to the mosk and adapt to the father´s religious community. Interestingly Mohammed also had two names: one which he would use in the south of India and one in Punjab. When I asked him which identity he felt more comfortable with he said:

“I love both. They are both part of me, they are both in my heart.

India has taught me that identities are complex, yet they don´t need to be complicated. Our heart has room for more than one concept of self, as it knows that all ideas and concepts originate from ONE source.

The vision: “Bridging Cultures”

So what is the bottom line of this first post? Be inspired. Connect. Start. Life is unfolding in this very moment and we have the great opportunities to co-create it. Identities are manifold and that is the beauty of traveling. We are daily confronted by different nationalities, people, cultures – only to come back to that one place in us, that is beyond names and locations. My vision is to connect people across cultures and to inspire people with stories from around the world. More to come soon…