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A runner moves through the forest, silhouetted against the light

You Want to Start Running? 10+1 Very Personal Tips for Beginners

Published by Trotzendorff

A while ago, a friend of mine told me she want­ed to start run­ning – and asked if I had any tips. That got me think­ing: wait, didn’t I write some­thing about that ages ago?

And yes, I did. Ten years ago, to be exact. Back then, I had just gone through the ups and downs of learn­ing how to run – the excite­ment, the injuries, the first few kilo­me­ters that felt like marathons. So I wrote down what had helped me.

Now that ques­tion from my friend gave me a great excuse to take anoth­er look: How much of it still holds up today? What would I change, know­ing what I know now? Here’s the result: ten very per­son­al tips for begin­ners – tried, test­ed, updat­ed, and trans­lat­ed into English.

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Why We Crave Strong Leaders in Crisis — And Why That Might Be a Problem

Published by Trotzendorff

1. The Pattern: Crisis Hits, and We Look Up

Take a moment and think back to the last time you felt tru­ly uncer­tain — maybe dur­ing a glob­al pan­dem­ic, a major reor­ga­ni­za­tion at work, or a per­son­al cri­sis. Chances are, you found your­self grav­i­tat­ing toward some­one who seemed to have all the answers. A boss. A polit­i­cal fig­ure. A loud voice in a crowd­ed room. Read More

The Pace of Presence

The Pace of Presence

Published by Trotzendorff

In Octo­ber last year, when my Achilles ten­don had final­ly made its opin­ion known, I found myself in a park in Cologne. I was­n’t run­ning. I was jog­ging, slow­ly, with my eyes cov­ered and one hand light­ly rest­ing on the arm of some­one guid­ing me. We were part of a work­shop for sight­ed run­ning guides—learn­ing how to help blind and visu­al­ly impaired run­ners move safe­ly, con­fi­dent­ly, freely. It was hum­bling. I was there to learn how to guide. But at that moment, I need­ed guid­ance myself. Read More

The «Real Men» Dilemma: Why Leaders Struggle to Say «I Don’t Know»

Published by Trotzendorff

Lead­er­ship has long been entwined with tra­di­tion­al mas­cu­line norms. The ide­al leader is often seen as deci­sive, strong, in con­trol, and emo­tion­al­ly sto­ic – traits stereo­typ­i­cal­ly cod­ed as male. In fact, clas­sic research found peo­ple implic­it­ly asso­ciate lead­er­ship with being male («think man­ag­er, think male»). Many orga­ni­za­tions still oper­ate like a «mas­culin­i­ty con­test» cul­ture. Some core unwrit­ten rules of this old-school mas­cu­line code include: Read More