A journey begins with a single step

The year is not over yet, but it seems safe to assume that 2020 will get a prominent place in history books. I try to imagine how decades or even centuries from now, kids will learn about ‘2020 The year of the great Corona Pandemic’, or ‘2020 The end of …’ or maybe even ‘2020 The beginning of ...’. I leave it up to your imagination to fill in the dots. No matter if COVID-19 marks the end or beginning of any era, this year it changed a lot of things and put our lives upside down. It wasn’t just bad and sad. Somehow I seem to thrive on stress and crisis that tend to speed up development. It has been a year of trying new things and ‘first times’ for me.

In the first months of 2020, Corona still seemed far away in China. As mini traineeship I took my oldest son along to the Lufthansa Aviation Centre in Frankfurt, one of the epitomes of global aviation, where he joined my Global Corporates team meeting and several other meetings. In the next weeks we celebrated Carnival in my wife’s little hometown in Germany and visited open days of secondary schools in the Netherlands with our youngest son. During spring break me and my two boys spontaneously went on our ‘first ever man only’ vacation to London. Just like working as a therapist does not guarantee for having good relations, working in the travel business is no guarantee for good personal travel planning. The idea for the trip arose on a Tuesday and we flew with standby tickets on a Wednesday. We arrived late at Dusseldorf Airport and had to run to catch our flight to Heathrow. Arriving in our hotel north of Hyde Park, I found out I had rightfully booked for the three of us, but the little writing on my Booking.com confirmation only showed one double bed. The second day we were woken up by a fire alarm and briefly had to leave our room. Despite these minor setbacks and the cold and rain, we had a great time visiting highlights and eating out and even made some jolly pictures in China Town. I hadn’t been to London since I was a kid myself. Having lived in Amsterdam and Berlin, I was impressed with London’s tremendous Cosmo political vibe, comparable to cities like New York, Bangkok or Rio only if you ask me. When we saw two distinguished ladies riding their horses through Hyde Park in early morning, I somehow almost understood why some British feel ‘the continent’ is so far away.  

Regardless of that issue, Corona hit all of Europe in March. I had just met Eurowings’ new CEO on his first working day in Cologne, when that same week world’s biggest travel fair ITB in Berlin and many other events were cancelled. Like many airlines, Eurowings reduced its network to a bare minimum, just like my working hours. Overlooking the forest from my home office in the Netherlands, I was busy promoting repatriation flights, seasonal workers flights and numerous other Corona related actions. Next to the new CEO, I saw my complete managerial line change, ranging from a new ‘Head of’ and ‘Vice President’ to new ‘CCO’, which is challenging even under normal circumstances. All of this mixed up with my private life, because my complete family was at home during the ‘first wave’. My wife had to close her yoga studio and was improvising by recording online yoga classes from our basement. Our boys were studying from their rooms or in the kitchen and all of that happened parallel, each individual event and the combination thereof, constituting unique ‘first time’ experiences. Digital meetings became the new standard and a new ‘netiquette’ for behavioural rules around online meetings (‘please go on mute!’) developed. I learned about the incredible efficiency of digital home working but also experienced the stress of calendars relentlessly filling up and marathon video meetings.

I used the extra spare time caused by short time working for other activities. I spent more time with my family, more time in nature and I increased my outdoor running activities, sometimes with my sons as their team sports were mostly cancelled. I also started writing and publishing articles about previous travel adventures and life experiences under the header ‘Corona Times’, more than ten by now including ‘Being sea rescued by helicopter from the Norwegian Skagerak’, ‘Bjorn in Tanzania’, ‘Travelling the world with my father’, ‘Being a sailor and meeting my wife’, ‘Surviving the Amazon Jungle in Suriname’, ‘Being a Travel Guide’ and ‘To travel or not to travel, that is the question.’ My stories had varying success rates via social media, but I am proud to say that I received reactions from more than forty-five countries from all corners and continents of the world! As a spin-off I started-up Imaginair, world’s first virtual, climate-neutral, no-cost and pop-up airline and even organised the first virtual advisory council, hosted from an art café along the Costa Rican Pacific with attendance from four continents.

Between the first and second Corona waves me and my family managed to do some more travelling in our summer vacation. First we went surfing in quiet and safe Bretagne in France and then we celebrated my mother’s seventy-fifth birthday on the Dutch North Sea coast. We also spent one week in our former hometown Berlin where we enjoyed the company of many dear friends. In August I was supposed to start a new role at Eurowings in Berlin, covering North-Eastern Germany and the Nordic countries. Since my current job involving Western Germany, Global Corporate Accounts and Small and Medium Enterprises would not be replaced and because of the whole Corona situation, I stayed where I was and simply overtook part of the new role including the Eastern part of Germany and the Nordic countries.

Widening my horizon even further in September, I started a one year Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training. It’s a totally new environment to me and absolutely getting me out of my comfort zone as such. No airlines, no suits, no commercial strategies, no Power Point presentation and no sales meetings. I am probably the least stretchy and least experienced participant in my group that further consists of eight women and a very experienced female lead teacher. Besides the attendance of six full weekends in the yoga studio in the East of the Netherlands and one full retreat week at the end, we have digital meetings and homework in between, meaning I need to practise at home. I mostly get up at 6:30 in the morning, make breakfast with some fresh orange juice for my family and then do my ‘Sadhana’ or morning practise followed by a cold shower! Once I start working, writing or walking the dog I am already in a positive vibe as I have reached my first few goals of the day. Three weeks ago I taught my first online yoga class followed by the first live yoga class in my wife’s studio earlier this week! It’s an enriching experience giving me the exact energy, focus and inspiration that I am looking for. The training builds up on the international Kundalini Yoga Coaching Training that I did in 2019. Normally one would first become Kundalini yoga teacher and then yoga coach, but I am doing it in reverse. I basically coached myself towards the yoga teacher training and many other new things. You could say I am gradually adding spiritual travel to my work in physical travel. Don’t let the words ‘yoga’ or ‘spiritual’ foster any prejudice. Kundalini yoga can be extremely tough and challenging both mentally and physically. 

If that’s not enough, I have been running a lot in 2020. The last few months I try to run a half marathon or a fifteen kilometres (nine miles) trail run every weekend. The trail run, titled N70, is almost more challenging as it goes up and downhill all the time, explaining the nick name ‘Welcome to the Dutch mountains’. Earlier in the year I often took my oldest son with me on another fifteen kilometres (nine miles) route called the ‘Seven Hills Run’ in my hometown Nijmegen. As youngster he had some trouble keeping a steady pace, but on the last stretch he always outran me, another new experience! On half marathons along the scenic river Waal my youngest son sometimes keeps me company by bicycle. My goal is to run a full marathon with my brother in 2021, ideally in Berlin!

In the autumn break we once again visited Berlin. Normally we stay over at friends or relatives but this time we booked the Radisson Blu Hotel next to Alexanderplatz, its iconic TV-tower, the river Spree, the popular avenue Unter den Linden and the Berlin Cathedral. From the time that my good friend Hank and his wife stayed there, I remembered the hotel had a huge aquarium in the lobby that is sometimes cleaned from the inside by scuba divers. Our boys loved it and we enjoyed the Spa and swimming pool. It was a weird experience to walk through the almost empty streets of the German capital. 

In November the University of Applied Sciences in Mechelen, Belgium asked me to give a guest lecture on the topic ‘air’ for their international students. I gladly accepted and focussed on Corona and its colossal impact on aviation. After a brief history of Eurowings, I compared Corona with previous catastrophes like nine-eleven, SARS and Iceland’s Eyjafjallaj?kull eruption and showed how Eurowings deals with the crisis. I finalised my lecture by giving an outlook plus happy end as I do realise students also face uncertain times now. It was nice to get in touch with the future generation of the travel industry. Once again I noticed I really like teaching. Some years ago I had given a guest lecture on the ‘the rise and fall of airberlin’ to fourth grade minor aviation students of Dutch NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences, where I had once studied myself, but this was my ‘first digital guest lecture’.

I could also write ‘2020 Year of the Rat’, being the first sign of the ancient Chinese Zodiac or lunar calendar assigning animals and its reputed attributes to each year in a repeating twelve-year cycle linked to the orbital period of Jupiter. Born in 1972, I happen to be a Rat but of course that is no coincidence. This particular Rat Year is linked to the element Metal. That is definitely a first and last one for me as the Metal Rat Year only takes place once every sixty years. Maybe all that Rat energy, combined with me being a Lion in Western astrology, scared away a cat walking by my house. It climbed a high tree opposite my house and had to be rescued by the Fire Brigade. Would you believe me if I tell you that the exact same cat climbed the exact same tree two months later and had to be rescued by the same Fire Brigade again? It really happened.

2020 was the first time I ever felt uncomfortable when I sniffed my nose or when my dog sneezed in public space. It was also the first time ever that we watched television press conferences by the prime minister to find out which new restrictions would govern our daily lives. Another 2020 ‘first time’ involved me being garbage man for one evening. I did it as voluntary action for my son’s basketball club. It was a boys dream come true really and educating and humbling to step into another man’s shoes. Speaking of basketball, this year I saw my youngest son score his first points in an official basketball game! That same day I saw my older son prevent several goals as hockey keeper. I was able to film both moments so the whole family could relive these nice moments afterwards.

Yet another ‘first time’ was stepping into the shoes of Dutch ‘Sinterklaas’, called Saint Nicholas in English and Nikolaus in German, the character based on the Christian patron saint of children. I recorded a slightly satirical video message in Dutch for the Benelux travel industry incorporating problems around different European Corona travel restrictions for Sinterklaas as frequent traveller, flying back to the Canary Islands. In the same role, I also surprised the yoga students in my wife’s yoga studio on December fifth. The funniest part occurred when walking back to our car in Arnhem city centre. Drivers were honking and passers-by were cheering, waving and making pictures of me. I finally I know what it feels like to be famous! Also my German wife finally experienced the real magic of Sinterklaas in the Netherlands! At night I surprised my own family and my parents who visited us. Near the end of this year I will undoubtedly be Santa Klaus for my German family in law.

I am really getting into the flow of things. I experienced all my ‘first times’ with joy, fun and excitement, but do realise new things may sometimes be stressful and threatening to others. Once you are in new territory, you simply can’t know everything that lies ahead. Also things don’t always work out the way you plan them. Some days I don’t get up at 6:30, I don’t make fresh orange juice, I don’t do my morning exercises and I don’t take a cold shower. I simply snooze my alarm and sleep some more and that’s perfectly okay. It’s about doing it most of the time and giving your best shot at it. It does pose the question “What’s for breakfast?”

“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?" "What's for breakfast? said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"   "I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.

You may recognise this conversation from A. A. Milne’s ‘Winnie the Pooh’ but I first read it in ‘The Tao of Pooh’, where author Benjamin Hoff uses it as one example to explain the principles of Taoism through Winnie-the-Pooh and vice versa, thus linking Western and Eastern wisdom. It’s my all-time favourite book or bible if you will. I am not into a specific religion, but I just pick up whatever I like on my way.

Even though 2020 was sad for some people and frustrating for most, it taught me two things: humans are flexible and structural change is needed. For me this year goes into the books as the year of transformation, which reminds of a quote by famous Kundalini Yogi Bhajan: ‘Vibrate the Cosmos. The Cosmos shall clear the Path’. It’s one of five Sutra’s linked to the ‘Aquarian Age’, an epoch that has supposedly just started and lasts some two thousand years! No wonder things are in transition… Positive as I am, I like to believe that 2020 inspired many people to transform and develop and start new things, bringing us back to the article’s title referring to a wise Taoist saying that goes like this: ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’. When my story inspires one other person to make a first step, it has succeeded.

P.S. If you enjoyed reading my article or want to contribute, please like, comment or share it. On LinkedIn my other articles automatically show at the end. In case you are reading from another source, I have listed all titles and URL’s for your convenience. ? Bjorn Gianotten 2020

Corona Times – Introduction: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/corona-times-introduction-bjorn-gianotten/

Corona Times - Bjorn in Tanzania: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/corona-times-bjorn-tanzania-bjorn-gianotten/

Corona Times - Being sea rescued by helicopter from the Norwegian Skagerak: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/corona-times-story-my-life-bjorn-gianotten/

Corona Times - Being a sailor and meeting my wife: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/corona-times-being-sailor-meeting-my-wife-bjorn-gianotten/

Corona Times - Travelling the world with my father: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/corona-times-travelling-world-my-father-bjorn-gianotten

Imaginair – Your virtual airline: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/imaginair-your-virtual-airline-bjorn-gianotten

Travel now. Dream later. Imaginair: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/travel-now-dream-later-imaginair-bjorn-gianotten

Corona Times - Valle Gran Rey: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/corona-times-valle-gran-rey-bjorn-gianotten

Corona Times – Being a Travel Guide: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/corona-times-being-travel-guide-bjorn-gianotten

Surviving the Amazon Jungle in Suriname: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/surviving-amazon-jungle-suriname-bjorn-gianotten

To travel or not to travel, that is the question.: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/travel-question-bjorn-gianotten

Playing baseball: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/playing-baseball-bjorn-gianotten

A journey begins with a single step: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/journey-begins-single-step-bjorn-gianotten?