When I was growing up, my father did a good job nurturing my sporting talents and my youthful desire to be an athlete. But he also did his best to make me consider more practical, sustainable career paths. In the latter he was unsuccessful: when I finished school I became tennis instructor. Then I spent many years working as a ski coach before, out of curiosity, I took a degree in economics. So how did I, as a young economist and sports coach, then go on to build a career? A headhunter once told me I was unemployable, because I had too many interests. Two years later I was leading a small research team in the trading room of a major bank, developing a tool to help analyse investor behaviour. By then, it was already clear to me that there were plenty of alternatives to traditional career paths. You didn\u2019t have to conform to a straight or logical progression through life. Anything was possible.<\/p>\n
As you go through life, in time you begin to get a feel for things. These feelings should be taken seriously. Working on Wall Street, I knew deep down that my heart was not in it. I fought for two years against my gut feeling, before finally being brave enough to change things. I moved with my wife and four children from a beautiful house by the sea to a modest apartment back in Switzerland, to throw my lot in with an innovative little start-up in the Swiss Alps called zai. Today I know that it was also the best decision I ever made. Sometimes I wish that people would listen more to their gut. It\u2019s the place where many things come together. Even if you see yourself more as \u2018head person\u2019, there are times when strictly linear thinking is not the best approach. This is especially true when considering complex issue such as one\u2019s life path and future role in the world.<\/p>\n
There are people who prefer to over analyse and predict every situation. Let them do that. But if you always need to know all the answers before you act, there\u2019s a danger that you never move. Today at zai we are a small team, but we are leaders in our industry because we keep moving. We were the first company to build skis with a stone core. We apply high-tech carbon composites previously only used by the medical industry. Of course there are tools \u2013 for example those developed by the ETH – which could help us to simulate our innovations before we put them into production. Yet, here too, sometimes it\u2019s better to let instinct rule. Once a new prototype makes it into production, nobody asks whether the ski is born from the intuition of the developer or with the aid of a model. What counts is that we build skis that are better than anything we have made previously. If you use only known methods then you will never break boundaries. In order to truly innovate, you need to take risks. This applies life as much as it applies to work.It is important, too, to always keep an eye out for new avenues to explore. The other day I was talking with my mother-in-law, a 75-year old Feldenkrais teacher. “You know,” she said, “There are a few things that I really want to do in my next life.” And then she smiled at me and added: “But why wait? I might as well start now!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last week I was sitting on the train, surrounded by young people on their way to a crafts exhibition in Bern. They were secondary school students, about 15 years old, on the point of planning their entry into professional life. One of the boys looked straight at me and asked me what I did for a living. What should I tell him? Ski manufacturer? Economist? Managing Director? Life coach? I settled on a combination of all, and got an enthusiastic reaction: “Wow, skis!”He went on to tell me about his own passions: how he loves books and would love to work in a library, and how he had already done two days of work experience as a librarian. I was impressed: this guy knows what he wants! But then it got me thinking: what about other people like him? Do all adolescents these days share his confidence? What can we do to support and advise them? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":43399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16382],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-speakers"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n