My House by the Lake. 10 Years Entrepreneur.

Why my company is a house, and other things I’ve been up to the past 25 years.

At the beginning there was an idea.

I’d been planning to build my own house for a long time. 25 years ago I began designing individual rooms. One for training and seminars, and one for workshops and moderation. That was the basic layout, which has remained so until this day.

About 15 years ago I laid the foundation for my house.

Built walls, worked hard on it a further 5 years to make my house exactly the way I wanted it to be. And to make it safe and solid for many years to come. This was no walk in the park. And some things didn’t get done.

Building a house is a heroic effort.

Then, 10 years ago, I moved completely into my house, left the familiarity and security of co-habitants I had learned to cherish behind me. And dared to step into my own home. I furnished every room, painted it a colourful orange, planted sunflowers. Sowed seeds and harvested the first fruits.

My co-habitants

Nicole came in 2014 and moved in for a few hours a week. She oversaw the building of the extension that became my library. And polished up my fassade. Together we repaired walls, brainstormed ideas for new rooms, accommodated guests, and had a lot of fun doing all this.

Now and then my enthusiastic son Ben came by for the big cleaning jobs, and my dear neighbour Andrea stolidly supported me with the small daily chores.

And thus it went on for a few years until, at the beginning of last year, the big storm hit.

Stormy times for housebuilding.

Phew, how the walls shook!

And I spent many sleepless nights. Trembled with fear for my house. No guests came, the rooms remained empty.

But the solid foundation paid off.

While the old rooms remained empty for a while because of considerable rain damage, Ben and I – with Nicole’s support – speedily erected a stable extension in which guests would once again feel safe and sound.

Honestly? At the beginning I didn’t find it easy to fill the new rooms with life. I was able to move a lot out of the old rooms, but there were some new and unfamiliar things too.

But that’s how it is when you build a house, isn’t it? You often have to go back to the drawing board, re-think things, and knock down a wall here and there. You need to be flexible and resilient.

At the end, however, I got used to the new rooms and slowly the changed environment became really fun.

Time for a new coat of paint.

My house had grown, the long-planned extension was built within only a few months, in the meantime Sarah moved in, supplying guests with information on all channels, and then somehow it was time for a new coat of paint.

What we had achieved together was worth its weight in gold, and it had to reflect that.

Not pompous and flashy, rather subtle and modest, but still top-quality.

A new sign was put on the door, and the lettering adjusted accordingly. The extension was better integrated into the house.

We added loggias to some rooms.

One loggia is named virtual EU project moderation. Because Nicole and I have many years of experience with this and like to invite our international friends to our house, to apply methodological hightlights in order to extract brilliant results from our guests together.

Currently the loggia virtual team development is under construction. This is where Ben and I invite team colleagues to virtual team buiIding and to develop strategies together, and where we spend exciting, bonding times with our favourite tool miro.

Are you now saying you’ve heard quite enough about houses?

All right then.

But you know, BusinessMind really is like a house to me. My house. Our house.

And I am very proud of what we have built. And every guest is most welcome, those who know BusinessMind know that our hospitality comes from the heart, is sincere, and we can hardly wait to give you a warm welcome at our BusinessMind house.

Have a really fantastic summer,

Birgit and the BusinessMind Team

To celebrate the day, here is my book “Blossoming Workshops and Trainings Guaranteed to Succeed” for you to download as a free PDF: