Look around you …

When you get involved in an activity, that grows into a movement and put your heart into turning it into a community, amazing things happen. Human connection inspires!

Here is the story:

After about a year organizing and holding FuckUp Nights in Basel with my partner Isabelle Valibus, creating an open and diverse community of people sharing their real life stories and what they learned, I decided that it is time to meet like-minded people from other locations.

I am now in Mexico meeting the FuckUp Nights family members in Puerto Morelos. The reason: the 5th birthday of the global movement. Unfortunately all plans changed due to two earthquakes that recently happened in Oaxaca, Chiapas and Mexico City.

So instead of a FuckUp Night in Puerto Morelos, a Bazar con causa was organized by the team here. Knowing first hand from family and friends affected in the regions, the decision was to personally help with what the can.

In the below video interview Niza is personally telling how it happened that so many people donated their services during the 8 hours of the Bazar: Local Mexican Food Specilities, Massage, Cartoonistas, Henna Painting …

Look around you and support each other.
If we all look around us and help the next person, we will all reach.

Niza Mendoza Lafitte

Very early this morning Niza and supporting friends – among them Dejan from FuckUp nights Vienna left with a truckload of things.

Humble and happy to have met Niza – have a very safe trip!

The FUN Puerto Morelos Team:

Leticia Gongora
Niza Mendoza
Paola Tlapale
Luisa Cano
Israel Figueroa
Arian Falcon

 

LINKS

Mexicans aren’t counting on the government to rescue them. They’re saving themselves

@puerto_morelos #fun.basel @FUN_Vienna

Advertisement

Horrible – I am overqualified

I have been reading from, working with, coaching and support highly qualified people with the skills our businesses need.

At the same time companies claim that they do not find the skills they need.

Something is seriously wrong!

Here is an article from a highly creative person, powerful and driven – I want to share with you today.

TEAM HUMAN

What do you do when you are overqualified?

My story starts with my 5-year search for my dream job. Before starting my narrative, I will provide you with a key piece of information: I have a 5-year gap in my professional career during which I was a flight attendant

How terrible !!!! How can someone change their career path for 5 years to see something else and then come back to the real “professional world”?

At the time, call me naïve; I had no idea that most of the people I would meet would put me in a box, i.e. the “Air Hostess” box, which is so hard to escape. At this point, I feel that it is important for me to provide some perspective to this “most terrible of professions” … being a flight attendant.

It is one of the hardest jobs in the world! You are permanently tired because of the shifts, working on planes is physically exhausting, you have to look good and represent the values of the airline brand at all times. But worst of all, you need to be polite and serve thousands of passengers every month, regardless of their moods, which you can believe me, is often bad. Air travel today is a far cry from the luxurious experience it once was. So, believe me when I tell you that being a flight attendant teaches you customer service on steroids.

After a long period of intensive job searching, finally someone saw my potential, gave me a chance and hired me. I was fortunate, it was a good job and I learnt a lot. Things were moving pretty fast and quite nicely, until the day the company decided to relocate abroad, and sadly, I had to move on.

Since then, I have been doing gazillion interviews … for zero outcome. I have received offers, but they weren’t what I expected.

For 90% of recruiters, the questions were not very original and focused on the following point: how come you became a flight attendant (I didn’t know I had to explain myself so extensively on this matter), and obviously the answer to my explanation was: “well… you don’t have enough experience in your field of expertise and activity! Really??? 5 years out of a 15-year career were putting my professional fate in the balance?

Being seriously downhearted about the lack of progress vis-à-vis job searching, the day finally arrived: I hired a headhunter, I paid a fair amount of money to help me understand what’s wrong with me, my CV, my positioning. The professional analysis that was made on my CV, career, employment track, studies was a surprise to say the least and was quite unexpected.

She simply told me: “You are overqualified! I don’t think even I can imagine the face I made when I answered “WHAT?”

She then explained to me the simple facts of my CV: “You have enough studies to be in different sectors, you are driven, hands on and quite a personality, most of the jobs out there, they demand character and creativity, but in reality, what they really want is someone that sticks to this “bloody” predefined (easy-to-categorize) box and doesn’t seek to get out of it. Your crime is that you did”.

FUN.Basel Vol VIII – Event of your choice

Basel has so many events happening on regular intervals: Wednesdays, Thursday – the days all have specific labels already and I know that there are other events tomorrow night that even I would go to … if there was not a FuckUp Nights Basel.

Thank you so much for your decision to join the conversation about failure! Thank your for the trust in us and your engagement to be part of this cultural shift Isabelle and I are working hard to keep on pushing along here in Basel.

The time our evening was a little different than before – we were all active and a lot of the conversations was circling around this quote:

“Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door. ”
Coco Chanel

Our special guests and speakers you had the honor to meet were:

Carol Daubney
Looking behind the “How are you? I am fine.” ritual reveals a lot of insights – the corporate executives Carol trains benefit from her deep understanding based on her own experiences.  Her advice:

There is no shame in asking for help!

She touches all of us with her story and the reason why she is really happy to share her story:
“I am doing what I am doing because I wished that someone had told me 20 years ago.”

www.inspirecoaching.com
www.Inspire-hypnotherapy.com

 

Ludovic Pureur
We really enjoyed the story of Ludovic, especially the coaches in our audience who all went to thank him afterwards. Ludovic`s experience in sales & marketing in consumer electronic distribution within European markets and the end of a company lead him to a Start-ups he loves to work for and partly owns today.

Being open and transparent to your employees pays off !

Success requires getting out of our comfort zone – and leads to something better!

www.visionarity.com

 
 

Stephanie Boehm
A humble young lady who owns a designer label and 3 shops – despite the cultural and family pressure. She could not find a FuckUp, even searching really hard.

I can only see feedback, don`t you?

Steffy is really passionate about fashion but never a fashion victim. Even though her first stepy did take her to do a Master in Business Administration in Marketing, she never gave up her dream and build up her plan to become a designer.  With lots of experience from the trade working for large companies in retail management before she today knows exactly what she is doing.

“I am nervous now – speaking to your own employees or people you know is different than speaking to a crowd of people who do not know.”

Les Robes d`Antoinette
The Secondhand Secret Room Basel

 

We are looking forward to see you on November 9, 2017.

The Organisers

Jutta Jerlich & Isabelle Valibus
​www.fuckupnights.com/basel

 

LINKS

FUN.Basel Vol VIII Speaker 6.9.2017

Read about previous @FUN_Basel evenings

Launchlabs Basel

#FUN.Basel @FUN_Basel

 

The thin line between the meanings of words

The selection of the words you use to introduce a new product depends on your viewpoint and attitude: it is a discovery, an invention or a creation that happened by accident or because of a failure on the pathway towards your original goal.

A thin line.

How do you interpret the meanings of the words around failure, mistakes and errors? Which ones do you use?

The story of the microwave: Percy Spencer accidently discovered the revolutionary process while experimenting with a new type of vacuum tube called magnetron in 1945. First available for home use in the early 1950s, it was very unpopular because of its bulky size and high price (said to be $5,000). Only in 1967 a 100-volt countertop version was introduced to the market at a price of $495.

Does your company have the ressources to afford such a long time to market these days?

My parents still have the first microwave, no not as a post box. Believe it or not, it is still in use.

It was about that 3.000 Austrian Schillings when it was bought.

I love this particular use of a microwave … my grandfather was working for the Post and would have loved it.

Your answer to this question alone, is the reason for why you should join a FuckUp Night near you.

Join our FuckUp Nights Basel Vol VIII

 

Special guests and speakers you have the honor to meet in Basel

Join our FuckUp Nights Basel Vol VIII

LINKS

Read about previous @FUN_Basel evenings

Launchlabs Basel

#FUN.Basel @FUN_Basel