Category Archives: Sketch

On Emotional Intelligence: Self-Awareness

November 26, 2015 by philipp68

Our ability to monitor our own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide our thinking and actions, is called emotional intelligence (Salovey and Mayer, 1990). Reading the article “What Makes a Leader?” by Daniel Goleman, I had the idea to capture the five basic emotional intelligence skills in the form of iconic images. This sketch represents the first dimension of emotional intelligence, self-awareness. I hope these images will remind you to […]

Categories: Sketch • Tags: Emotion, Emotional Intelligence, Mind

Sketch: Rolling along

November 22, 2015 by philipp68

The last post was about the essence of leadership. But what happens when you step into the unknown? Inspired by Shel Silverstein’s beautiful allegory The Missing Piece Meets the Big O2 I drew the following sketch about the process of learning. Learning is an emotional roller coaster. Afraid of failure we will hesitate to start. Why not wait another month to collect more data for the journey ahead? The first step will take a lot of courage, because we will feel that […]

Categories: Sketch • Tags: Fear, Modern Workplace, Wisdom

Sketch: The dance of mind, hand and heart

October 21, 2015 by philipp68

Creating is a dance between mind, hand and heart. It does not matter what we do nor how good we’re at it. The dance is always the same. I strongly believe that the key to happier work is to learn how to let this internal dance happen in a way so that mind, hand and heart all get their turn. Let’s dance Let’s have a look at today’s sketch. It shows hand, mind and heart dancing together, creating a drawing. […]

Categories: Sketch • Tags: Action, Heart, Mind, Modern Workplace, Wisdom

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Sketch: The cycle of life

October 4, 2015 by philipp68

Last week’s sketch showed a parachuter slowly gliding towards earth, symbolising the idea that our life starts when we’re born and ends when we die. With this sketch of a Dandelion plant I would like to invite you to look at life as something beyond conscious thought. I think, therefore I am How do we know that we exist? In 1637 René Descartes answered this question with the famous sentence “I think, therefore I am”. He wanted to assure us […]

Categories: Sketch • Tags: Aging, Consciousness

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Sketch: Getting older

September 20, 2015 by philipp68

I’m around 50. The age when life gently reminds us, that our body and our mind age at different speeds. To learn what it means to grow older, I decided to do a couple of drawings that show different aspects of aging. Experiencing Happiness-Sadness With these drawings I would like to invite you to lean into the uncomfortable realisation, that one day we all will die. I’m convinced that by allowing the feelings of fear, loss and sadness to wash […]

Categories: Sketch • Tags: Aging, Fear, Mind, Wisdom

Steve McCurry, Golden Rock, Kyaiktiyo, Myanmar

Sketch: A great guide

September 14, 2015 by philipp68

I believe that having a great guide on your side makes it so much easier to appreciate an art exhibition. It’s the same in our lives: Having someone pointing out what we would have otherwise missed, makes it easier to see the magic in life. Visiting an exhibition Last Sunday we took a guided tour to see Steve McCurry’s famous photographs. I had strolled through the exhibition before. But his time, with an excellent storyteller on our side, the whole experience […]

Categories: Sketch • Tags: Emotion, Heart, Mind

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Sketch: What do you do?

September 13, 2015 by philipp68

We often define ourselves by what we do. For many of us this is a paid job, raising a family or taking care of a loved one. I believe a first step towards more job satisfaction is to stop judging ourselves by what we do and instead use our work as an opportunity to get to know who we are. Job snobbery We live in a world where the first thing we’re often asked is: “What do you do?” Alain de […]

Categories: Sketch • Tags: Attitude, Ego, Mind, Modern Workplace

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Sketch: In praise of idleness

September 6, 2015 by philipp68

With my first job after university my father gave me B. Russel’s collection of essays In praise of Idleness. I think it was his way of telling me: “There is much more to life than work.” I tried to capture the feeling of blissfull idleness in today’s sketch. Want to feel the same? Just lay back and do nothing. Namaste

Categories: Sketch • Tags: Balance, Idleness, Mind

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Sketch: The art of un-freakability

September 6, 2015 by philipp68

I believe we can only learn the art of un-freakability by turning everyday challenges into moments of practice. If we use these everyday experiences to grow stronger, we will be prepared to stay true to ourselves in a difficult moment. Buying groceries in the shop from hell Let’s go through the four steps that can help us to stay calm by using a simple example: Buying groceries in the busiest shop in town. Step 1: Embrace your needs Let’s imagine you want […]

Categories: Sketch • Tags: Attachment, Mind, Needs

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Sketch: The fear of letting go

August 23, 2015 by philipp68

A recurring theme in my sketches is the way our mind works. In this sketch I tried to show how we often struggle, because we hold on to ideas what our life should be like, instead of enjoying what is. Holding on Life can feel like a struggle, if we hang on to fixed ideas that will make us happy. A bigger appartment, a new job title, a published book, a loving hug, a healthy body. It’s not that these […]

Categories: Sketch • Tags: Attachment, Fear, Mind

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Sketch: Childhood memories

August 13, 2015 by philipp68

Visiting the place I grew up made me remember many things I thought I had long forgotten. I felt how my childhood memories are like strong roots, that keep providing me with the nourishment to keep growing and evolving. I tried to capture this feeling in this week’s sketch. Childhood memories A couple of weeks ago, I went to visit my parents who live in the Swiss countryside. It was a beautiful, calm, hot summer day. Here a couple of […]

Categories: Sketch • Tags: Memory, Mind, Roots

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Sketch: Nourishing body and soul

July 31, 2015 by philipp68

The last post was about our psychological roots, how old memories can provide comfort and nourishment. In this sketch I tried to capture our physical roots, how a good bowl of soup can nourish our body and make us remember that we are children of Earth. Earth is an amazing planet As a kid I always dreamt of leaving Earth to explore the universe in a spaceship. I thought that being an astronaut must be the coolest job in the […]

Categories: Sketch • Tags: Nature, Roots

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Sketch: The immune system rocks

July 30, 2015 by philipp68

These last couple of days I have been at home, drinking a lot of tea, sleeping long hours and slowly getting better from a bad cold. Browsing through my notebook I decided to post the following sketch, showing the deeper layers of our body. Thank you immune system, for helping me and kindly telling that virus to find shelter somewhere else. In the meantime, let’s discuss similarities between the inner and the outer world to continue the series I started two weeks […]

Categories: Sketch • Tags: Body, Heart, Mind

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Sketch: How many likes

July 27, 2015 by philipp68

While I was doing this sketch, trying to show that the senses connect our inner and outer worlds, I realized how the addiction to be popular on Facebook is similar to the way our mind likes or dislikes everything it experiences. How we learn Our mind is this incredible apparatus that translates what we sense into what we know. The rational brain learns about the world by categorizing, memorizing and naming sense patterns. Our inner life is packed with words […]

Categories: Sketch • Tags: Attachment, Body, Ego, Mind, Senses

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Sketch: The inner and the outer life

July 26, 2015 by philipp68

More sketching, less writing It’s been almost 6 months since the last post. I was struggling to finish what I have been working on, probably because what I wanted to say was not clear in my head. It felt as if every time I sat down to write a couple of sentences, I would miss the point and get lost. Somehow I was trying to say too much, without knowing what I really wanted to communicate. So instead of writing […]

Categories: Sketch • Tags: Balance, Body, Mind