Welcome to NextLetter, where Frederik Pferdt helps you become one step closer to your next opportunity.

The One Thing That Can Prepare You for Change

Back in 2017, when I was about to start teaching a class at Stanford, I got a call from a German number that I didn’t recognize. It turned out to be Oliver Bierhoff, the football hero who scored the golden goal in Germany’s 2-1 over the Czech Republic in the final of the 1996 European Championships. 

He had read an interview I did about being open to innovation, and he wanted to talk.

Then, the director of the federation overseeing the German national teams, Oliver wanted to bring the country’s team back to global dominance, and he thought I could help. I soon learned that the organization’s systems were outdated, and that many people were stuck in the past, toiling in the old ways of doing things and hanging onto the glory days of previous teams. 

They cared more about back then, less about right now, and hardly at all about tomorrow.

But Oliver and the leadership were committed to trying something new. When working with the German Soccer Association on building an innovation culture, I used something they were familiar with from their A-team: rituals. I introduced rituals as a way to create and activate their values.

Rather than just change for the sake of change, we zoomed in on rituals that they could create, which would then turn into them being open to the systems and ideas that would help them get back to where they wanted.

We embraced openness and experimentation, with the creation of a winning culture being the primary gooooooooooal.

Three memorable rituals came out of this:

Ritual 1: ”Eigentor,” meaning “own goal,” where people shared their own mistakes or missteps, and the group discussed openly what they could learn from it.

Ritual 2: ”Neunzig minuten,” meaning 90 minutes (the length of a match), where people in the organization were given from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. to work without interruption. 

Ritual 3: ”Allez maximal!” where players come together in a circle and yell this (meaning everything to the max); it’s a ritual that the German Women’s Soccer A-Team introduced 

This is a prime example of another dimension of a future-ready mindstate: unreserved openness, which allows you to have confidence when you’re uncertain or uncomfortable. 

Best of all, once you start being more open to being more open, you generate even more (and reinforce) your openness. And this is the greatest combatant against missed opportunities.

If you open more doors, you’re going to find not only interesting rooms to enter. You’re also going to find even more doors.

Plan Less, Explore More

In a way, this philosophy is the same one that my family has when traveling. We look for more doors. And roads. And camp sites. And places to eat. And things to do. And views to admire. 

Instead of doing what many people do when it comes to taking holiday (detailed plans, spreadsheets, dozens of reservations), we go where we feel like it. My former colleague and close friend Adam Leonard, who has coached hundreds of senior leaders at The Google School for Leaders, is a big believer in this improv style of travel–letting the freedom take you to new places and meet new people and using that openness to discover his inner life.

Doing this with three kids—who get hungry, tired, and have every urge and emotion in between—can be difficult. But they’ve learned to love it, but I really hope they’ve learned the bigger lesson: Be open.

To new foods. To new experiences. To new people. To new stories. To new adventures.

(You may wonder how we decide whether we stay in a campground or a hotel, what direction we go, or what we eat. We either take turns or let the person in the family who typically makes the least decisions make most of them; for us, that’s our middle child.)

When you over-plan, you can often leave disappointed when weather, traffic, or other logistical hiccups derail you. When you go where the whim blows, then you’ve opened yourself up to surprise, wonder, and experiences that you never could have imagined. And isn’t that an amazing way to think about your future—not just in terms of how you travel, but also in your career and relationships?

This traveling technique is actually how my wife and I knew we were a perfect match. Before we were married, we took a backpacking trip through Southwest Asia. No plan, no itinerary, no reservations. As you can imagine, a lot can happen in such circumstances—you get hungry, you don’t speak the language, you have nowhere to sleep.

We didn’t do it as a test, but it turned out to be one. I saw how she reacted in difficult times, and she saw how I did.

We both liked what we saw. Quite much.

Because we were open when we set out on our journey—and have tried to stay that way ever since. 

Quote I Love

Make Sense of the World

There’s a reason we fall into the same habits, stay in the same jobs, and oftentimes auto-pilot our way through life: It’s easy.

Our bodies and minds crave certainty, which can close us off to new ideas and avenues.

We’re less tense and anxious when we choose what’s certain because it takes out the mystery of the outcome. But what if we flipped that thinking so being open was more automatic, that the mystery is part of what will help shape our futures?

Next time you feel you’re going to default to the certain decision—at work, at home, with your kids, with your personal choices—do this:

Choose one sensory activity to engage in: Smell the seasoned meats coming from a taco truck, look at the subtle differences in the colors of rain clouds, really taste the flavors of your preferred morning pick-me-up, rather than just swigging it down as a mindless habit. Next, think of words to describe your senses.

This simple activity helps snap you back to the present so you can focus on what’s ahead of you and maybe—just maybe—you’ll choose a path where the unknowns outnumber the knowns.

Can You Do This 3-Minute Exercise?

Try this with a partner or close friend. Sit across from them, put your phone away, and look into their eyes for 3 minutes without losing eye contact. Most people can’t do it, and I’m not quite sure why. But it is a good (and easy) way to test openness–and could lead to something unexpected.

Once, I did this experiment with executives at a major firm, and I paired up people who didn’t typically work together or may have even had problems with each other; it was tough—some even ended up crying. This exercise is one of the hardest things for humans to do, but it serves as a little lesson about the power of openness.

Let me know what happened after you tried the eye contact experiment. Just hit reply to this email, and I may share your experience in a future NextLetter. My new book, What’s Next is Now, is officially out!