Alex Verlek, Author at Alex Verlek

Towards the end of 2020, I came to the conclusion: Man, I´m tired!

I´m not just tired. I´m sometimes also frustrated. 2020 was a HEAVY year!

When I shared my feelings with other people and they shared theirs, I came to a conclusion; the word is tired.

Looking at the recent events, the world is not just tired. The world is not just frustrated.

The world is ANGRY! There is a lot of anger in the world right now.

We’ve now seen that anger can be expressed in ways above & beyond our imagination…

I’ve started to reflect what we as coaches can do to support people that we meet on our path who have the same struggles of tiredness, anger & frustration.

This is why today I shot a new video where I want to share my reflections with you.

Watch it below.

P.S. When you’ve had a chance to watch it, I’d love to hear from you. What do you need so you can hold the space of warmth, safety, love & respect to support those who struggle? To avoid that it has to be expressed in such a destructive and shameful way. Feel free to leave a comment on this blog and share your thoughts.

What a Year!

2020 has been a challenging year for everybody. I had my fair share of challenges as well.

In March / April I was in intensive care with a seriously herniated disk. I’m ending the year with a couple of broken ribs. Yep, clumsy is my middle name : -)

My business had challenges and it was blessed.

Privately I had challenges and I was blessed.

What I’ve learned in this year and I want to pass it on to you as an intention for the coming year is that:

“It isn’t the circumstances that decide how we feel about things, it is how we look at it. It is our mindset.”

I’ve recorded a special New Year’s video for you.

It takes just 4 minutes.

In the meantime, may your heart be filled with courage & strength.

Alex

P.S. Once you’ve had a chance to watch it, I’d love to hear from you. What energy do you want to bring to your upcoming year? What are your thoughts? Your wishes? Your longings? Your fears? What energy are you intending to give to 2021? Feel free to leave a comment on this blog and share your thoughts.

According to the Dalai Lama, gratitude is the birthplace of joy and that JOY IS our purpose.
Gratitude, what a precious word. Many of us long to be able to say they’re grateful and do their utmost to get there. I have a question: “Before striving for something new to be grateful for, what do you already have to be grateful for? As in, NOW?”

My invitation is to seriously explore this question before you hit the ‘purchase’ button on weird days like Black Friday or, the Chinese version ‘Singles Day’.

Looking up the numbers of how much we collectively spend on these days, blew me away. Billions and billions! And the amount is growing every single year. Singles Day 2019 topped off the year before with 25% and the numbers of 2020 are just beyond imagination.

With Black Friday and Christmas on our doorstep, we have a chance. A chance to consciously choose and make a difference by moving from greed to gratitude.

The Alibabas and the Amazons of this world have already filled their pockets. I guess they even had to order big buckets in their own store since their pockets were overflowing…

Sorry, a few more statistics.

A few more years and Amazon’s owner is worth $200 billion. You figure out how many zeros that are… Yet, for instance, in the UK an ‘impressive’ 2,1% of taxes was paid on their profit…

The bottom-line is that the rich keep getting richer and in this challenging year this gets underlined more and more. The small shop owners need to close whilst the online sales grow exponentially. This is where we can make a difference! If we allow a heart filled with gratitude to speak, instead of with greed. Sorry, to me it feels days like Black Friday are to a large extent based on greed and not so much on gratitude. Greed is not the way to joy, gratitude is, remember?

Aren’t we grateful for that cute little shop where they still know what ‘service with a smile’ means? That lovely couple running their shop because they are passionate about their products? With their kids playing in the back of the shop? Who will open after hours to give you that one thing you forgot? Don’t you love them?

Well, these are the ones who struggle big time at this very moment! They had to close and had to see their turn over completely disappear. You do the math, how many zeros that is…

If you choose to buy at the big online shops, fine! Yet you can make a huge difference to spend the same amount buying stuff from your favorite small shop! If you still want them to be there next year, you have to keep them alive! NOW!

Buy gift certificates and give them away for Christmas. The cash from your gift certificate will help them to even make it to Christmas!

That small restaurant, that is trying to survive by selling take-aways? Ask them to send you an invoice for a couple of hundred and pay it today! You want to sit on their terrace next spring? They need your cash NOW to make it to next spring.

I am sure you can come up with other creative ideas to make a difference and help people get through these challenging times. Like this Scandinavian furniture giant; they refuse to join Black Friday and instead they ask their customers to bring back the furniture they don’t use anymore so they can give it to those in need. What do you have that you never use anymore which you could give away to a family in need?

Every amount, however small, you can miss to make somebody else’s life a bit brighter can transform Black Friday into Gratitude Friday.

What does it take from you, to move from greed to gratitude? The answer might lead you to your path of JOY…

After several requests about organizing my Masterclass online, I finally did it.

11th of December 2020 & 12th of December 2020 I will facilitate 3 x half-day Masterclasses for coaches that (in my opinion) will help you be an even more inspiring and impactful coach.

We will dive in a specially designed, brand new model to work with whilst exploring (romantic) relationships. Very hands-on, very deep. Easy to grasp, fast to apply whilst creating huge value for your clients. To support this work even more, you will be introduced to two more new models.

Rather than try to convince you how awesome these masterclasses are, I figured I’d just give you these links and let you see for yourself 🙂

You can see it here:

Excited to see you there!

***LIMITED AVAILABILITY***(max. 20 participants per Masterclass).

P.S. Please share this information with experienced coaches who might be interested in this event.

Today on my morning hike I found something really special.

I found the tale of a lizard.

There is something intriguing about this whole story with lizards dropping their tails when they are being under attack. Instead of protecting it or fighting, they just drop it.

Wow, what a reflex!

I’m sure the universe gave me this lesson today for a really good reason. With the pandemic preparing itself for a second wave, one starts wondering what to do to protect yourself? How do I need to fight back? What do I need to defend to survive?

Yet maybe that is not the question at all…

I share my reflections with you in the new video below:

P.S. Once you’ve had a chance to watch my new video, I’d love to hear from you.

“What, like the lizard, though it is important to me, do I need to let go of?

What do I need to let go of so I safeguard what really matters?”

Feel free to leave a comment on this blog and share your thoughts.

Abundance nowadays is a very popular word. Many of us are doing self research with regards to what that word actually means. As in what is abundance with regards to health? Love? Free time?

There is nothing wrong with the word abundance. Yet, there is something that triggers me with that word.

I share my reflections with you in the new video below.

P.S. Once you’ve had a chance to watch my new video, I’d love to hear from you. Where in your life can you come from an attitude of gratitude? Where is it you can already say “it is enough”. Or: “I’m grateful for what I have and I can relax into that”. Feel free to leave a comment on this blog and share your thoughts.

In my book AwarenessBuilder 101 there is a chapter where I speak about ‘negativations’.

I know it’s a non-existing word 🙂

I made it up to capture the essence of the negative self talk that many of us frequently do.

This is not serving us nor does it build us up.

As I was reflecting on it, I bumped into a song that is so beautiful and taking such a powerful stand against all those negativations that I decided to share it with you.

Curious to know what I’m talking about?

Watch below:

P.S. Once you’ve had a chance to watch it, I’d love to hear from you. What are the negativations that you want to get rid of? With which affirmation or affirmations do you want to replace it with? Feel free to leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

P.P.S. And by the way, listen to that song by India.Arie “I Am Light”. It is so worth it.

This week I celebrated my birthday. Thank you all for sending me those lovely birthday wishes from all over the world!

THANK YOU!

I turned 56 this week. This was, of course, another reason for my son for instance to rub in that I´m really getting old.

Others tried to flatter me with giving me a lower number than my actual years.

You know what they say about age. “Age is just a number”, maybe to put it in perspective?

Well, what is the perspective that you have on the number of years that you´ve been given?

I shot a new Tuesday video for you today with my reflections around this topic.

Watch it below:

P.S.Once you’ve had a chance to watch it, I’d love to hear from you. What is the impact that you want to create with the talents that you´ve been given? And as long as you have the privilege of being alive, how do you want to make every day a joyful day? Curious to hear your answers.

P.P.S. And if you want to celebrate an inspiring day filled with learning, development and in-person fun with me & inspiring coaching colleagues, please check my upcoming masterclasses for coaches in Munich and Zurich in September (very FEW places are still available!).

During one of my recent morning hikes I couldn’t stop thinking of what happened in Beirut.

What a tragedy!

What I noticed is that the world jumped to help the Lebanese people, which is beautiful!

And I hope, and this is the call to all of us, that you are also helping in whatever way is possible for you. They need it.

In this whole stream of help offered to Lebanon, I also noticed that their neighbour Israel offered help.

You may know or not, Lebanon and Israel are still officially at war, and they frequently quarrel, to say the least.

This made me wonder if the help Israel offered was accepted..?

Thoughts went everywhere, and then I started thinking about where I am maybe struggling to accept help when I’m in need?

I share my reflections with you in the new video below.

P.S. Once you’ve had a chance to watch my new video, I’d love to hear from you. Where are you struggling to accept help when you’re in need? Where are you too proud to either accept help or ask for help? Feel free to leave a comment below and share your thoughts.