The five heart qualities: Jan Mayer on potential, compassion and letting go
Reza Mehman meets sports psychologist Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer, Managing Director for Innovation and Science at TSG Hoffenheim and founder of Heidelberg’s Institut for Compassion. They discuss personal potential, letting go of external control and why happiness begins within.
English translation of the German article published on 7 July 2025, including its entire published conversation text. Roles and biographical details reflect that conversation. Editorial clarification: Asch’s 1955 account of his conformity research describes matching a standard line to three comparison lines. The explanatory sections below use that description; the spoken recollection of a 1960s “shortest line” task remains faithful to the German transcript.
Heart qualities and personal potential with Jan Mayer
Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer is a sports psychologist, Managing Director for Innovation and Science at TSG Hoffenheim and founder of the Institut for Compassion in Heidelberg. His new book describes five heart qualities drawn from Eastern wisdom that also apply to life in the West. In this conversation with Reza Mehman, he explores personal potential, letting go of external control, the Asch experiment and why happiness begins with ourselves.
Summary
In one sentence: Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer discusses five heart qualities from Eastern wisdom and why letting go of external control can help us fulfil our potential.
In three sentences: Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer is a sports psychologist and founder of the Institut for Compassion. He argues that when something outside us triggers a reaction, we need to regulate ourselves rather than change the outside world. His guiding thought: “I need to start with myself rather than try to control the outside world.”
In five sentences: Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer is a sports psychologist, a TSG Hoffenheim managing director and founder of the Institut for Compassion. He is publishing a new book on personal potential and five heart qualities from Eastern wisdom. His central theme is learning to regulate ourselves when something external triggers a reaction. The Asch experiment shows how people can conform to a group’s judgement even when it is wrong. His guiding thought: “I need to start with myself rather than try to control the outside world.”
Context: who, what and why
Who is speaking: Host Reza Mehman and Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer, sports psychologist at TSG Hoffenheim and the Institut for Compassion.
What this episode covers: Five heart qualities from Eastern wisdom, personal potential, letting go of external control and the Asch experiment.
Why it matters: Many people try to control the outside world when they feel bad. Jan explains why he considers that approach unhelpful and how he instead works on regulating his own responses.
Three central themes:
- The Institut for Compassion and five heart qualities from Eastern wisdom.
- The Asch experiment: how pressure to conform affects us.
- Letting go of external control: “I need to start with myself.”
Contents
- Introduction
- Summary
- Context
- Themes and perspective
- Key takeaways
- Frequently asked questions
- Selected quotes
- The published conversation
- Keywords
- Names and terms
- Quotable passage
Themes and perspective
1. The Institut for Compassion and five heart qualities
Jan founded the Institut for Compassion in Heidelberg, a non-profit organisation working in care homes, kindergartens and prisons to help people find inner harmony. His new book explores five heart qualities from Eastern wisdom that can also apply in the West.
Keywords: Institut for Compassion, heart qualities, wisdom, inner harmony, potential
2. The Asch experiment: pressure to conform
Asch’s research from the 1950s illustrates how people may follow a group’s incorrect judgement. Jan says: “Not just in the Asch experiment, but in many situations, we simply don’t reflect—we just adapt.”
Keywords: Asch experiment, conformity, groupthink, reflection, subconscious
3. Letting go of external control
Jan says: “I need to start with myself rather than try to control the outside world.” When something external triggers him, he tries to regulate his response. He calls this one of his most important insights of recent years.
Keywords: letting go, self-regulation, triggers, control, mindset
Key takeaways
- Jan is a sports psychologist, TSG Hoffenheim managing director and founder of the Institut for Compassion.
- The institute helps people in care homes, kindergartens and prisons work towards inner harmony.
- The Asch experiment shows how people may conform to a group’s judgement even when it is wrong.
- Jan: “Perception is not the perception of an objective state—it is always a construction.”
- Jan: “I need to start with myself rather than try to control the outside world.”
- Reza: “Happiness begins with yourself. You have to decide to be happy.”
- Jan: “When something out there triggers me, I need to question myself.”
- His guiding thought: “That is one of the most important insights of recent years.”
Frequently asked questions
What are the five heart qualities from Eastern wisdom?
Jan’s new book describes five heart qualities from Eastern wisdom that can help people find inner harmony and build good relationships. The Institut for Compassion puts these principles into practice in settings ranging from care homes to prisons. The published conversation text does not list the five qualities individually.
What is the Asch experiment?
Asch’s conformity experiments asked participants to match a standard line to one of three comparison lines. People working with the experimenter deliberately gave the same wrong answer on selected rounds. Some participants then followed that incorrect majority. Jan uses the example to discuss how we sometimes adapt to others without reflecting. See the editorial clarification above for the difference between Asch’s 1955 account and the spoken recollection below.
Who is Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer?
In this 2025 conversation, Jan is introduced as a sports psychologist, Managing Director for Innovation and Science at TSG Hoffenheim and founder of the Institut for Compassion in Heidelberg. He says he has lived in Heidelberg for 32 years and has two children. Trained in sports science, he found his way into sports psychology after two cruciate ligament tears.
Selected quotes
“I need to start with myself rather than try to control the outside world.”
— Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer
“Perception is not the perception of an objective state—it is always a construction.”
— Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer
“When something out there triggers me, I need to question myself.”
— Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer
“Happiness begins with yourself. You have to decide to be happy.”
— Reza Mehman
“That is one of the most important insights of recent years: I need to start with myself.”
— Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer
The published conversation
Introduction: the Institut for Compassion
Reza Mehman: Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer, thank you very much for your time today. Thank you for letting us come here to your beautiful office—can we even call it that?
Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer: We call it our institute. The Institut for Compassion is a non-profit organisation. We do lots of wonderful projects here in all kinds of areas of society, from care homes and kindergartens to prisons. We help people return to a state of inner harmony. When you have that inner harmony, you can have good relationships with others again. Hopefully, that makes the world a little better.
TSG Hoffenheim and personal potential
Reza Mehman: Among other things, you are also a managing director at TSG Hoffenheim responsible for innovation and science, which I find incredibly interesting. You are bringing out a new book, and I would like to explore that with you in more depth. A lot of it is about how to maximise your own potential.
Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer: My name is Jan Mayer, and I have lived with my family in Heidelberg for what feels like forever—32 years. I have two wonderful children, a wonderful wife and a great dog. Professionally, I originally trained in sports science. I actually wanted to become a teacher, but then fate intervened and I suffered two cruciate ligament tears.
The Asch experiment: pressure to conform
Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer: There are wonderful studies around the Asch experiment. It is so old—the 1960s. Four actors and one test participant sit in a room. The person running the experiment, a professor in a white coat—very important—simply shows four lines. Participants are supposed to say whether a particular line is the shortest. The actors give the wrong number, one after another. You notice the participant becoming unsure, saying, “No, it’s four.” Then the person next to them says, “Three,” again. After just three or four rounds in which the actors give the wrong number, the participant also says it: simply pressure to conform. Not just in the Asch experiment, but in very, very many situations, we simply don’t reflect—we just adapt.
Letting go of external control
Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer: This insight—that I need to start with myself rather than try to control the outside world, that the outside world exists and I have to deal with it rather than being able to change it—has genuinely been one of the most important things in recent years. It was a realisation along the lines of, “That just doesn’t work. It simply doesn’t work.” So I try to regulate myself in response to whatever comes from outside. Sometimes it works better, sometimes worse, but it is something I am constantly working on. That is why I would say it is one of the most important insights that has really sunk in for me over the past few years.
Reza Mehman: Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer, thank you very much for a lovely conversation.
Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer: Thank you, I really enjoyed it. Have a lovely Sunday from me.
Keywords
Tags: heart qualities, Eastern wisdom, Jan Mayer, TSG Hoffenheim, Institut for Compassion, potential, Asch experiment, conformity, mindset, Reza Mehman
Names and terms
Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer, Reza Mehman, Institut for Compassion, TSG Hoffenheim, Asch experiment, conformity, heart qualities, Eastern wisdom, personal potential, Kahneman, Project Mindset
Quotable passage
Prof. Dr. Jan Mayer: “I need to start with myself rather than try to control the outside world.”
“Perception is not the perception of an objective state—it is always a construction.”
“When something out there triggers me, I need to question myself.”
Reza Mehman: “Happiness begins with yourself. You have to decide to be happy.”
Explore more perspectives on personal development in the Reza Mehman Podcast.
