While interviewing this week’s invisible mentor Stefan Meister, I was reminded that ideas, concepts or interpretation of things vary across cultures. Stefan felt that some of the questions were too North American, though he answered them in a way that was comfortable for him. And that’s what I want, I want interviewees to interpret the questions based on their own context, because that’s when we’ll learn the most from them.
Key ideas from Stefan Meister’s Interview
- Be authentic to yourself and to others.
- Choose relationships over money.
- Be curious about life.
- Have down times and make space for ideas to come to you.
Interviewee Name: Stefan Meister, Director,
Company Name: intercultures
Website: http://www.intercultures.de/
Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Stefan Meister: I’m an artistically inclined, sensitive person who operates in the field of training, coaching, consulting in the intercultural field. I’ve discovered my entrepreneurial spirit, and my competitive edge.
Avil Beckford: How do you integrate your personal and professional life?
Stefan Meister: I think I’m lucky to professionally live what I’m also curious about in my personal life. There are certain principles like getting the most out of diversity, so I thrive in diverse environments. Making sense of complexity is a key theme in my life, and it also helps to unleash or unfold the full potential of people and corporations. It’s these aspects that professionally while I live them, touch me personally.
In addition to that, I’m very much interested in visual arts. My wife and I are art collectors, and my international travel allows me to visit many galleries, so I’m always refreshed in that aspect.
Avil Beckford: When you have some down time, how do you spend it?
Stefan Meister: With my wife, family and friends. I play sports, do yoga and art as I mentioned, and of course traveling.
Avil Beckford: What are five life lessons that you have learned so far?
Stefan Meister: It would be very hard to put a number because this again is an American concept. But a recent one is that you cannot hold on to something. Another lesson that I’m trying to learn at the moment is that we are mortal. I find that not an easy one.
Avil Beckford: What process do you use to generate great ideas?
Stefan Meister: For me it’s a little bit like when I’m writing poetry, I need to make space for them. And making the space could happen anywhere, it could be on a plane or a train, while walking, but I need to make space.
Avil Beckford: What’s your favourite quotation and why?
Stefan Meister: I don’t have a favourite quotation, but I have a lot of favourite poems, many favourite pictures, many of which are at our house. Even after many years they never stop touching me deeply.
Avil Beckford: How do you define success? And in your opinion what’s the formula for success?
Stefan Meister: You probably detected that I find success to be a very American concept. I would want to be more humble about it. I’m not saying that Americans cannot be humble. But success to me is very much linked to factors such as realizing the full potential of one’s self, and then in collaboration of others full potential of what we can be together. This is obviously something that I cannot measure in numbers, and I cannot measure it by myself.
Success in business is customer related – how deeply do I understand the needs of the customer, am I able to fulfill them while at the same time develop a sustainable relationship, not only with them, but with all the stakeholders involved. It sounds easy but sometimes it’s very hard.
Avil Beckford: What are the steps you took to succeed in your field?
Stefan Meister: The most important thing is to always remain curious, open, excited, authentic and modest. I think these are the most important things that contributed to my success. And these are steps that repeat themselves – they should constantly be present.
Avil Beckford: What advice do you have for someone just starting out in your field?
Stefan Meister: I would give the advice that helped me – to always remain curious, open, excited, authentic and modest.
Avil Beckford: If trusted friends could introduce you to five people that you’ve always wanted to meet, who would you choose? And what would you say to them?
Stefan Meister: I thought about this question a lot and I was flabbergasted. But I have no such people and maybe because I’m happy with the ones that I have.
Avil Beckford: Which one book had a profound impact on your life? What was it about this book that impacted you so deeply?
Stefan Meister: I’m an avid reader so it’s hard for me to name one book. There is one book in the early seventies I remember was like an electric shock to me, which was On the Road by Jack Kerouac. This was a novel that came out in 1958 and I read it in the early seventies when I was 11 or 12. It’s about the Beat Generation. It had a profound impact on my life for the excitement that it transported about being alive.
Jack Kerouac Reads from “On The Road”
If you cannot review this YouTube video, click here.
Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?
Stefan Meister: Lots of things – diversity, love, all the many facets of human passion and I think also what excites me about life is that it’s also sad, but it’s most likely the only one that we have.
Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?
Stefan Meister: If possible, I spend time in nature. I dance, read and write poetry. I love the arts. Nurturing my soul is any sort of love. And of course friendship.
Avil Beckford: Complete the following, I am happy when…..
Stefan Meister: When I can help others to feel alive and fulfilled and I can simultaneously feel that in myself.
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Further Reading
The Invisible Mentor Interviews Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia
The Invisible Mentor Interviews Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia Part Two
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Video Credit: Uploaded by mojo4mojo on Sep 10, 2006
