Women’s Expo 26 May 2013 – Zurich

Date: Sunday, 26th May 2013

Time: 10.00 – 16.30
Venue: Zurich Kongresshaus
Entry: Free Admission

Women entrepreneurs are rising up and showing they’re a beautiful force to be reckoned with.
Come and meet some of the women who are making things happen in Zurich.
I’ll be here all day reading hands and having lots of fun meeting new people.

Expat Expo 2 June 2013 – Basel

Date: Sunday, 2nd June 2013

Time: 11.00 – 17.00

Venue: Congress Center Basel

Entry: Free Admission

Find out more…

Curious Courses Day – 8 June 2013- Zurich

Should be a really fun, interesting day.
Several speakers on diverse topics.
I’ll be projecting hands on the wall, revealing the higher purpose, depth and beauty of each person.
Download a flyer and join us

Life Purpose Creation through Hands and Heart

28th June 2013 – Zurich – Jena with Edson Williams

more info

Life Purpose Retreat 8 – 15 September 2013

– Escape totally with Jena and Laura Heselton
More info on how to join us for this game changing retreat.

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27 -29 September 2013 – 3 Day IIHA Hand Analysis Intensive

facilitator – Jena Griffiths
This is a professional course and a prerequisite for yearlong training.
Your first step to becoming a certified hand analyst.
Join us/more information

We’ll be talking to Richard Unger on Tuesday, May 7 2013. Exploring this topic from a LifePrints fingerprint perspective.
This is a paid call. Members log in here.
Join this series of calls here
I’ll also be interviewing other experts on related topics in the open auditorium in the coming weeks.sign up free for these calls

More about guilt etc.?
I once met a man who walked out on his family when his children were toddlers. He never once went back to see them or find out how they were doing.
40 years later, when we met, I asked him if he had done this because he thought it would be less painful for them in the long run.
His answer?
“I’ve never hurt anyone in my life!”
We forget that doing nothing/not connecting is also a way of hurting other people. And one that leaves broken hearts, or more, in its wake.

But how much of yourself and your time should you give?
When does sticking around become self betrayal?

I remember the first time I betrayed myself in a significant relationship.
We had just sailed in from across the Pacific, and were moored in a marina on the East coast of Australia. Land hungry and looking for adventure, the only thing sticking up on a very flat horizon was the Glass House Mountains, quite a distance away. They became an obsession. I urgently wanted to photograph them closeup so we hired a car for 2 days and a night to do just that. I had planned to get up half an hour before daybreak, to catch the morning light, the best time to take photos, but my partner wanted to stay in bed and have more or whatever it is we were already having.
It would have been so easy to say “No, let’s go.” or “Wait here, I’ll be back in an hour.” But I didn’t. I stayed in bed, and missed the light and perfect shots as a result. And it was a downward slide from there on in our relationship. Totally my own fault, and without realizing it, I found myself giving up on my own wants, compromising more and more to keep the show on the road.
It’s hard to see choices when you’re right in the thick of things. Yet keep making decisions like this and you very quickly turn yourself into a doormat.

It’s situations like this that we’ll be exploring this Tuesday with Richard.
How is personal integrity, guilt and self esteem connected?
Why is this whole arena more difficult for some of us than it is for others?
How does this play out in different contexts?
And what to do in future.
Join us for this call here.
The live call is at 11 am Pacific, 8 pm Switzerland. Elsewhere.
The replay is on the same link.

What are your thoughts on this subject? Please share your views, lessons or stories below.

I recently attended Failcon’s first seminar in Zürich for entrepreneurs and startups.

Various speakers shared mistakes they had made in business.
The point made over and over was
to have success you first need to make a lot of mistakes.
Reminds me of something I wrote a few years ago titled
Can you do cartwheels?
The point in this story being that fear of making mistakes is the real show stopper.


One of the first speakers of the day, Deep Parekh, told a great story about his sailing instructor taking him out into the middle of the lake and immediately capsizing the boat. Nothing tops direct experience. And that’s what most “failure” is – invaluable direct “learn by doing” experience.
Problem is that’s not how it feels. There’s a lot of shame and stigma attached to failing. The real danger is not learning anything. Not moving on.
And of course, not having the courage to make mistakes/suck/fail in the first place.

The main takeout of this day for me was the importance of not isolating oneself and getting feedback – not only from clients and from results but also from friends and colleagues and even – yikes, dare I admit this – from family.

One of the many speakers who impressed me (and there were many) was Liam Boogar who writes a tech blog out of France called Rude Baguette. Liam spoke exactly to this topic, telling a heart wrenching story about business failure and his own personal regrets as an onlooker – about not giving feedback when it was due.

“We often say that choosing a co-founder is like marrying someone, but we miss the inherent inverse on that statement, which is that your spouse, and those close to you, become like co-founders as well, and they are the best source of constructive feedback, because they (should) have a very intimate relationship with you that allows for brutal honesty.”


“If you’re not asking for constructive feedback you’re already failing.” - Liam Boogar

Here’s a slide show of Liam’s key points in his talk “Failure by omission”

Some of the other “lessons” or reasons for not succeeding mentioned by speakers:

lack of focus
choosing the right staff/wrong partner
too much money too soon (expanding/diversifying/employing too many people too soon)
failure to recognize an opportunity
isolation
failure to truly innovate
not defining responsibilities
not being yourself
not being willing to suck in the beginning
quitting too soon
not quitting early enough! (if you aren’t growing quit)
sometimes you only find the right path by taking the wrong one


William Kanaan of Google pointed out that entrepreneurs are by nature more risk tolerant than the most and, because of this, it’s hard to see when you should actually bail out on a project. He cited himself once having maxed out his credit cards and was still feeling fine. Fortunately a friend advised him to go get a job before it was too late.


Update – you can now view videos of all the talks here.


All in all it was a really successful, well organized event with generous catering all day long and even into the evening.
I met a lot of really interesting people and look forward to attending again next year.


Here’s a list of the rest of the speakers and what they discussed.
You can find out more about each of them here

Troubleshooting Failure: Building a Resilient Entrepreneur
Deep Parekh – Geneva

How the Swiss perfectionist ‘syndrome’ leads to a larger fear of failure
Sandrine Szabo – Geneva

Quitting, ‘sucking’, and failing your way to a better life
Michael Wolfe – San Francisco

Failure as a requirement for successful startup eco-systems
Marcus Kuhn – Zurich

3 x (virtually) broke – and still going
Dorian Selz – Zurich

Amazee 2 Amazee Labs
Dania Gerhardt – Zurich

Fail Forward >> Nine Notions of Innovation
William Kanaan – Zurich

skim.com – the story of a failure, lessons learned
Balz Roth – Zurich

Morning Panel: Finance & Failure: Investor perspectives.

Afternoon Panel: Why failure is a stigma in Switzerland

Here are some great tips from Lolly Dascal (of lead from within) on turning mistakes into lessons.

What will we discuss?
We’ll discuss why it’s important to view your relationship warts and all – and see the Naked Truth.
Stripped bare of pretense, defence or denial —simply acknowledging what is.
What will you learn from the call?

Jitendra and Pia will allow us to peak behind the scenes in their own relationship and will share some of their secrets with us about their work in this field – The 5 Naked Truths to Wildly Fulfilling Relationship program.
How to finally create the intimacy, passion and respect you have longed for and deserve in your relationship
How to get through the “hard stuff” together with passion and intimacy
How to build relationship stability, true companionship and genuine appreciation.

Says Jitindra, ” A Wildly Fulfilling Relationship is not some outlandish dream, it is YOUR BIRTHRIGHT.”

This is a free call. Join us here.
If you have any questions for Jitindra and Pia type them in right now on the event page.

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Who are Jitendra and Pia?
Jitendra is a shaman, channel and spiritual teacher, informed by a consciousness awakening in 1974. He has been developing and teaching embodied awakening for nearly 20 years. Pia is a Law of Attraction coach, energy healer and pet communicator. Her 30+ year spiritual journey, together with her corporate business experience, synergies as a beautiful balance of profundity and practicality.
Together, Jitendra and Pia live and teach these transformational relationship principles. They say it’s the reason their union is so wildly fulfilling.
More about the 5 Naked Truths program

Who is she really ? What is she like?
The Red Queen is a personality type you get when you mix emotions with power and authority.
(Water qualities + Zeus)
Like every type there are both good sides and bad sides. Plus a lot more than meets the eye.

Can you get the mixture right? Or are you more like Lewis Carroll’s Red Queen
shouting “Off with their heads!” on a whim?
To know more about this type and how to identify personality types through hand shape, join us this Tuesday.
Here’s a special introductory offer.
As usual, Richard has a wealth of advice to share. Not only on identifying and understanding this archetype but also on learning to transform her into positive potential.
More about this series.
In case you’ve forgotten about Alice in Wonderland’s Red Queen, here are a few clips of her in action from the latest movie version of Lewis Carroll’s classic

Join us here
For an example of what this hand shape looks like plus a red Queen story from my own life, here’s another post:
Is your girlfriend a Red Queen?
To access two free calls with Richard on six other hand shape and personality archetypes register free here.