[Music]
so it was summer of 2006 and I was
sitting in my apartment after another
quite meaningless day of work finding
myself what I still do today when I want
to distract myself browsing YouTube I'm
the YouTube guys so I was browsing
through YouTube in the video I came
across has accumulated more than 50
million views to this day back then just
a couple of thousand YouTube just
started I'm talking about the amendment
speech of Steve Jobs which he held in
2005 at Stanford when he shared his
cancer diagnosis and reviewed his
greatest life secrets and I was sitting
there and I remember the words of this
exceptional entrepreneur hit me like a
ton of bricks
he said your time is limited so don't
waste it living someone else's life and
then he continued and most important
have the courage to follow your heart
and intuition
they already somehow know what you truly
want to become so the next day I had
lunch with my boss and the conversation
went like this yo I quit what when how
about next week what do you want to do I
mean what's the plan I'm not too sure
yet I will start my own business not
exactly what but I will follow my heart
and intuition okay here's the deal
how about I pay you your salary up until
the end of next year and you give me 5%
in whatever you do
and you can keep your laptop so this was
my very first startup funding no VC
involved nothing but it took me a long
time in a pretty disastrous right to
actually understand that following my
heart and intuition was only part of the
game so if you were to draw a line of
how you want your life
to look like between life is great and
life sucks what would it look like many
young founders I had the idea I would
start off somewhere here and then start
my 10 year rich and famous journey up
until there there was a plan
the master plan but in reality when it
kicked in it looked more like this so I
found myself in endless situations that
I didn't desired or liked or nothing
like that and I thought to myself how
does this make sense you followed your
heart to put everything into it you
followed your intuition and now you're
miserable and broke I even had to sell
my car at a certain point to pay the
rent on the street in Berlin so it's
this idea of doing what you love and you
will never work a day in your life
actually true or a big conspiracy after
years of struggling I figured out that
the only thing I wanted to do was to
escape my life as a PowerPoint slave and
like find a bit more fulfillment in what
I did and I'm not the only one
80 percent of us 80 percent of us look
for more purpose in their work life and
want to work more fulfilled but although
we are looking for it and that's the
biggest dilemma of our time and we have
better technology than ever we can't
find it in fact 85% of us so even more
than that have already quit their job in
their mind or work by the book between
9:00 to 5:00 so as I said I was
struggling again with my with my
business back then and I had my own
company I started it and then I found
myself in a situation again and was
struggling and I quit my job again but
this time I left my own company that I
started in the meantime and I can tell
you it felt like jumping ship
I left my people behind it was one of
the hardest decisions of my life
the thought I had in my mind when I left
I thought the only thing I want to do is
I just want to work a bit more
independently and more free so I was
diving into this world of how digital
tools can support remote work and how we
can collaborate from anywhere with
anyone and we called it the new way of
working so I went onto that mission to
fight against the old word and on that
journey I started a YouTube channel from
like about digital to hex from which a
podcast arose about this new way of
working and to this day we published
something like 300 YouTube videos and
170 podcast episodes with CEOs
entrepreneurs scientists photographers
journalists students I don't know you
name it like everything always with this
one question like what is this new work
and how can it bring more purpose to our
work life so here I was on fire again
and this time I thought man now you have
the master plan finally and during this
time just the last months in like two
years new work as a term became the
latest and it's still growing like
hell in the in the corporate world so
companies around the world are starting
to jump on that topic that's why they
start with initiatives like Home Office
open office spaces footballs casual all
weekdays instead of just fridays and
which are all nice initiatives but only
to make a totally sick work environment
a bit more bearable to get from weekend
to weekend this is not new work not at
all and I have to admit I wasn't getting
it myself although I was on fire in fact
it took me up until episode 100 of our
podcast which we just recorded at the
beginning of this year to finally get it
since the energy in the room is
different when you meet a person we
always fly to someone to interview them
so for this episode my podcast partner
Michael and I flew to Michigan from
Hobart Michigan in the state
to interview the man who actually coined
the term new work back in the 70s quick
important side note our podcast is
called on the way to new work not
because we're smart asses but because we
were on the way to New York and as usual
I was recording a YouTube video being a
dyslexic I made a fortunate spelling
mistake so we ended up with on the way
to new work in the subtitles instead of
on the way to New York and so we kind of
liked the name and we stuck with it
that's how it started
anyhow a foot of back nine is now an 88
year old philosophy professor originally
from Austria who invented this term new
work and that's important for a work
that we really really want because he
believes that work can actually become
the thing that makes you stronger
instead of weaker and I'm like okay I'm
sold
I mean I was looking for this for the
last ten years I didn't get it and this
guy dedicated his whole life so I
thought if not he who else could help me
figure it out so this became a three
hour episode of our podcast that would
absolutely change the game and the
background story you have to know is
that this guy came to the US through a
scholarship which he received for an
essay with the title world which we want
to live in which he wrote at 19 years of
age in 1949 just think of that for a
second that's like four years after
World War two 19 years of age a title
world which we want to live in I mean
you need balls to do something like that
he then started a variety of jobs trying
things like working as a clerk at the
Harbor lumberjack boxer in the theater
later working as a lecturer at Princeton
while still doing his thesis writing his
thesis
and sitting in this room I was listening
to this man and his story and I'm like
the question I had but how on earth
could he keep faith in what he was doing
how was he not afraid with this journey
and the answer was not what I was
expecting
this is cooked hot steamy gets after
human does it was so tool design among
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adverse item unmarked rock the guitarist
[Music]
okay okay it makes you anxious don't get
too unsettled the thought of being
afraid does not make me afraid you
shouldn't be afraid of being afraid
there was the first time in my whole
life that I understood the distinction
between our pre-programmed attitude that
we have and the response we can give to
a situation see the the attitudes and
patterns are usually hardwired in our
brain but the response we give to a
situation is something we can control
so I now understood why my lifeline was
such a mysterious blind flight since we
tend to react out of our primal brain
when fear kicks in you heard of
fight-or-flight
so this fear is very useful in life or
death situations but in everyday life it
can make you get stuck in something we
tend to control our comfort zone but
life pushes us all the time through the
corners of this comfort zone and it
makes us it we can we can become static
as a result of this fear and it makes it
easy to stay in this comfort zone but
what we tend to overlook and that's what
he said
we tend to overlook the amazing
opportunities that can arise when we
become the Optus
server of our fear by simply observing
our fear we're still aware of the fear
but we can act we can step out of the
comfort zone leading to something that
is needed for fulfillment growth by
taking this one step out of the comfort
zone the whole new world of
possibilities unfolds and you grow and
gain life experience I give you one
example I uploaded my first youtube
video in December of 2015 with no
filmmaking experience whatsoever my
thoughts being back then is it okay to
upload a youtube video especially in my
industry is it good enough what will
people think what will my mom think
truth is nobody cares except for my mom
she in fact likes every video I upload
too despite the fact that she doesn't
speak English but realistically some
people like it some people don't some
hate it some love it many others simply
don't care the world keeps turning
regardless but as a result of this one
step out of the comfort zone that came a
journey of many more videos being
uploaded and published from that a
podcast was born our biggest clients
found us a company of thirty people has
grown I got asked to hold a TED talk
today so by just taking this one step
out of the comfort zone the comfort zone
grows in all directions not just the one
side you stepped out but too many other
sites that you didn't expect and without
fear we wouldn't be able to feel and
push the boundaries of our comfort zones
that's why fear is so important it makes
us aware and then over the course of
time a second revelation became clear to
me quite obvious for other people but
for me it was new so some videos were
better than others
some were successful some weren't and
the statistics couldn't tell me why I
was like looking at my and then after a
while I realized every time
I revealed a little piece of myself
showing my own fear my vulnerabilities
there were more and more powerful
reactions to these videos and like that
I was able to connect with people on a
whole new level
revealing something quite obvious I may
be afraid but others are afraid as well
and through this connection I had much
more fulfillment in my work life than
ever before leading to something on a
personal level growth on a personal
level far beyond money or a subscriber
count' which I never expected and then I
thought okay I'm getting closer to new
work I finally get it okay I get the
idea but how do I keep that going I mean
what do I need to do to keep that going
and I have to be honest here sometimes I
just simply didn't like it there were
certain days when the process sucked a
video tanked I had a bad day and had the
feeling I'm gonna quit again at which
point we made of course another video
about exactly the topic and while
sitting there this could have been the
last video of that journey and while
sitting there I was talking and usually
a thing through talking so I was talking
and then it became clear to me I'm like
it's not difficult to make one video to
hold one talk to deal with once of
critic to work like one extra day it was
difficult and is difficult to keep that
going continuously all the time because
you won't like it every day you better
make sure you want it every day and I
knew in that moment I really wanted to
make videos and share the message and
create that's what I really really
wanted to do and this is exactly what
Freddy of Batman meant with new work the
key difference between doing what you
like and doing what you really really
want
so your willpower helps you to make the
necessary decision to make this
uncomfortable decision to make the next
video to like go over the next day but
it became clear to me that my heart and
intuition gave me direction
but it was my willpower that carried me
through to where I really really wanted
to go as I said making the necessary
decision putting in the extra hour
putting in the extra work and like this
your willpower makes your comfort zone
grow each time you make an uncomfortable
decision every day we tend to think that
work should give us purpose but it's in
fact our job to give purpose to our work
every day and if we got this work can
become more than a job and actually the
thing that can make us stronger
[Applause]