I believe we are living in one of the most fascinating and at the same time most challenging moments in human history. Not because the world has become so complicated. But because it is showing us so unmistakably clearly right now what truly matters.

We have optimised everything.
Except ourselves.

Processes. Tools. Structures. AI. We have created tools that think faster than we do. Amounts of data that no human can overview. Organisations that function more efficiently than ever – and yet we sense: something is missing.

Burnout is no longer a fringe phenomenon. Meaninglessness sits in meeting rooms. Well-trained people leave organisations – not because of salary, but because they don't feel seen. Because they can no longer sense what all of this is good for.

Frederic Laloux describes in "Reinventing Organizations" a development I experience in my own work every day: organisations led by old patterns – control, hierarchy, performance pressure – are increasingly losing ground. Not because the model was wrong. But because the time is ripe for something deeper.

The person is not the means.
They are the origin.

Here lies for me the fundamental question of our time: do we truly believe that people are primarily resources – human resources – that can be optimised, deployed and replaced? Or do we believe that every person carries a unique potential within them that cannot be replaced?

I believe the second. And I believe this conviction makes a difference today – not only for the wellbeing of individual people, but for the performance of entire organisations.

Brené Brown has shown what decades of research confirms: trust is not weakness. Vulnerability is not a risk. They are the foundation for innovation, creativity and genuine collaboration. The teams that perform most are not the hardest. They are the most connected.

What shamanism has to do with leadership.
(More than you think.)

I know what you might be thinking right now. Shamanism? Energy work? That's not for my company.

I like to provoke this – not to convince you, but to open a door. Because shamanism in its most original form is not esotericism. It is a millennia-old practice of looking carefully. Of sensing. Of the honest question: what is really happening here? What carries? What burdens? What needs to let go?

As a PhD physical chemist I learned: energy is measurable. Vibrations are real. And in the laser laboratory I worked daily with electromagnetic waves, frequencies, resonances. What I experience today in energy work is in my eyes the same reality – described in a different language.

E = h · ν – energy equals Planck's constant times frequency. Every system vibrates. Every person vibrates. Every team has an energy. Every organisation has a culture – and cultures are nothing other than collective vibrational patterns.

First be with yourself.
So you can be with others.

This is the sentence around which everything revolves for me. Not as a spiritual idea. As a practical truth.

I have experienced it myself. For years I was on the move – to the next performance, the next goal. University, doctorate, sport, career – all at the same time. I functioned. I delivered. And then it became quiet. My body showed limits. And for the first time I asked myself: Who am I, really, when I don't have to perform?

That question changed my life. And it changed my work with people. The more I worked on myself – through coaching, through energy work, through shamanic practice, through simply pausing in nature – the deeper I could work with teams and organisations. That is no coincidence. That is a principle.

Leaders who have arrived with themselves no longer need control. They can give trust – because they trust themselves. Teams whose members know themselves don't need micromanagers. They self-organise. They take responsibility – because they sense that their contributions matter.

Why now?

Because the complexity of our time no longer permits simple answers. Because no CEO can know everything anymore. Because the best decisions emerge in spaces where people trust each other and think for each other. Because artificial intelligence does not free us from the question of who we want to be – it asks it more sharply than ever before.

Marianne Williamson writes: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. I believe this is true for people. And it is true for organisations.

The question is not whether we are ready for change. The question is whether we are ready to begin with ourselves.

This is not a spiritual claim. It is an observation I have made in over twelve years in technology companies, in agile teams, in transformation processes. Again and again. In Braunschweig, in Salzburg, in teams from five different countries.

When people arrive with themselves, extraordinary things emerge. For themselves. For their teams. For their organisations. And yes – for the world.

That is why I do what I do.

– Simone Reichstein