Moments of Change

The summer has been good. Time to take a deep breath. At the end of August, I crossed the main Alpine ridge with my wife, with just a rucksack on my back. We spent a lot of time outdoors, bathed in mountain lakes, drank from streams, stayed overnight in huts and enjoyed the simplicity and online-free time.

In between, with a view of the surrounding peaks, there was space to reflect: on what we think people need most urgently at the moment. Confidence, courage and joy - to be able to take on the challenges out there. They are huge. Starting with climate change, which is particularly noticeable in the Alps. The route that I've known since I was a child, which used to have several snowfields to cross, has long since melted away. In the valley: the devastation of a mudslide.

There are also upheavals on the job market: with the artificial intelligence revolution and its penetration of all sectors, millions of jobs are in jeopardy, reaching from the banking sector to interpreters or journalists. Some professions will no longer exist in a few years' time. And what use is it to those affected to say that new ones will be created?

What can be done about the helplessness and despair that grips those who have enjoyed their work for decades and lose their job?

Experience shows that it is a great relief to see that you are not alone with these problems. And that others have successfully overcome them before us. What stories life writes! We would like to tell them. In our program, a former airline captain talks about how he went from being a pilot to a permaculture farmer and now runs courses in this area - what a change! Life, he says, couldn't be better.

 That's exactly why at OneEightZero® we bring people together and introduce them to people like him who are changing in a direction they had no idea they were going.

To reach even more people, we are launching a new format this fall together with the Inner Development Academy in Vienna: the “Moments of Change” talk. In it, people talk for 30 minutes about how they overcame obstacles in their lives. What was difficult. What paid off. How they have grown. What message they want to pass on. They will then be available for another 30 minutes for questions and discussions.

Nicole Natter, who was elected Miss Austria at the age of 17 and broke several vertebrae in a fall from a roof after years as a model. She will talk about her journey from outer to inner beauty.

A horse whisperer in Chile who steers animals using only movements and talks about the power of listening awaits you in the next issue, followed by a former banker who became an environmental activist on a week-long hike, no longer gets on planes to travel and sold his car.

 We often think we know what's coming. But Pema Chödrön, a powerful woman who became the head of a Buddhist monastery in Canada after her divorce, aptly writes: “We think something will bring joy, but we have no idea how it will really turn out. We think something will bring us suffering, but we know nothing: making space for not knowing is the most important thing. Even if we experience a great disappointment, we cannot know whether this is actually the end of the story. Perhaps it is the beginning of a great adventure.”