100. Visualizing and Manifesting. Why “visualization” is so powerful and how you can achieve your goals with it!

Hi everyone and welcome to the 100th episode of Project Mindset! For me, this is a fantastic milestone. I’m truly delighted that I’ve been able to keep the podcast going for so long, and also that I have the opportunity to share my experiences and that people are listening. It’s a real honor for me that people take the time to listen. So, to all of you out there who have been with me for so long, thank you so much! I plan to continue for a long time to come.

And in today’s podcast episode, I’d like to talk a little bit about what I have planned for the next few episodes, the direction things are heading in. Don’t worry, there will definitely still be plenty of my tools, my tips, and experiences from my life. But I also want to take you along on the journey I’m currently on, the one I embarked on some time ago, and a few changes I’ve made. I’d like to share a bit more about those with you in the podcast, but I’ll get to that later.

The theme of the anniversary episode

And the main topic of today’s episode will actually be about… well, I actually want to talk about visualization and manifestation. I’ve had these topics on my mind for a long time, I’ve written a lot about them in my journal, I’ve thought about them a lot. But I’ve never really dared to talk about them because… well, it didn’t really make sense to me. I can’t really pin down what visualization brings to the table based on specific facts; I can only speak from my perspective, from my feelings.

Why visualization is so important and how I approach it – maybe you can take something away from it for yourselves. Before I do all that, I’d like to briefly introduce myself again. I typically do this in some podcast episodes, at regular intervals, to briefly explain who I am, why I started the podcast, what the content of the podcast is for me, and what my purpose behind it is.

Looking back at the challenges so far

And once I’ve done that, I’d also like to talk about the challenges I’ve encountered over the last hundred episodes. Things haven’t always gone smoothly; there have certainly been some frictions and challenges for me as well. I’d like to touch on these learnings a bit more in today’s podcast episode. So, you’re watching a real anniversary episode where I’ll touch on everything and take you along on this journey.

Why I’m doing Project Mindset, what my future plans are, and what my biggest learnings have been. But let’s start with introductions. My name is Resa, I’m married, have two kids. I started this podcast some time ago with the background that, in my professional career, I founded a startup that initially went relatively well. Unfortunately, I then made a few wrong decisions and ultimately had to close my company and find a regular job again.

What triggered the end of the startup

And when I realized I had to give up my startup, even though, as I said, it was going relatively well at the beginning—we also had quite a few people on the team, nine people in total—it was incredibly fun. But then I realized, wow, I can’t go any further. The decisions I’d made weren’t actually good; they had their drawbacks. For example, I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I decided against an investment. There was a bit of arrogance involved on my part, too. I knew I needed the money on the other hand.

The investment’s framework wasn’t what I had envisioned, and given my attitude at the time, I thought, “I can manage that on my own, I don’t need anyone else.” Long story short, the decisions were made, and unfortunately, the startup didn’t progress as I had hoped. I found myself in a real emotional funk. This was coupled with a feeling of shame; I felt like I had failed in the public eye. That’s the interesting part. If you’re a startup founder, you know exactly what I mean.

Dealing with public failure

As a founder in the public eye, you also lose out in the public eye, and for me, as a native Iranian, a native Persian, that was a source of shame. It’s like being completely transplanted from your culture. That was incredibly uncomfortable for me, simply having to admit that I couldn’t go on anymore. Thinking about what to say to my parents, what my boyfriend, relatives, acquaintances, and so on would say. Yes, and that emotional hole—I had to work my way out of it. It took a long time, and then at some point, I decided, okay.

Continued

The best way for me to process this is through the podcast. I’ll talk about my experiences, my “Meinzeit” experiences, from my perspective, and what I think about them. For example, when I have certain experiences dealing with other people, including business experiences, I haven’t shared these very often in this context. But there will probably be a bit more in the future. However, I’m also focusing on a personal mindset level in the podcast. I’ll simply use the tools I’ve set up for myself. As I’ve mentioned several times, I have a journal, a digital journal, where I write quite a lot and then summarize it.

I also regularly reread my experiences to keep things fresh. Whenever I gain an insight, I make sure it doesn’t get lost, so to speak. That’s why I keep a journal; I also draw many ideas for the podcast itself from this journal. So it’s really no wonder that I’ve now reached 100 podcast episodes. An interesting question that’s actually been asked of me is whether I’ll ever run out of ideas for the podcast. I don’t think that will happen because if you keep a journal regularly, you constantly gain new insights, refresh your existing knowledge, and while some nuances change over time, the core messages remain relevant.

What fundamentally shapes my mindset

The core of my set, as I would call it, remains very similar, I think, although nuances change. There are a few foundations that are extremely important to me, the topic of gratitude, for example. I base many of my attitudes and mindsets on that, my tasks and challenges in life. But these foundations, I believe, are where nuances change. What also comes into play, of course, is new experience. When you interact with other people around you, I think that’s where you gain most of your experiences.

Unfortunately, I’m often disappointed, and sometimes bad things happen, not so good things. On the other hand, good things still happen, of course, which I’m happy to share with you. This will continue to be the case with the “My Set” project. It’s actually one of my challenges, or at least one I would say is… I’d like to present three challenges I’ve faced with the podcast itself over the past weeks, months, and years. One is that I want to be as transparent as possible in the podcast with the topics I cover.

Transparency and personal boundaries

On the other hand, there are of course also topics that are super, ultra-intimate for me. So I find it, or would find it, very difficult to talk about them. I think there are some things you just want to keep to yourself. At the same time, I’ve also told myself I want to be as transparent as possible, so all the topics like how I deal with feedback, how I deal with gratitude, how I handle relationships, and so on and so forth—these are, of course, partly intimate things, but the ultra-intimate things, those I can’t share.

I hope you’ll understand. I think everyone has their own things they just don’t like to share. That’s always been a challenge: how much can I actually reveal without losing myself in the process? Another challenge I had, and funnily enough, a very good friend who’s listening here brought it up. He said, “Hey, you’ll manage somehow.”.

It’s incredibly difficult to talk anonymously about certain incidents in your life without mentioning the names of your acquaintances, friends, and so on. Even my buddy, who’s listening to me here, said that even though he knows me so well, you can’t really tell my friends. I actually never know exactly what you mean. So it’s always been a challenge for me to remain anonymous, to abstract as much as possible, but still retain the core message.

Why podcast content can’t be forced

And what I’ve also noticed in the last 100 podcast episodes is that I can’t force certain things. For example, if I’ve written something in my journal and then think, “Wow, yes, that’s a good thing, I want to talk about that in the podcast,” it sometimes just takes time until I’ve somehow fully formulated the idea for myself, or at least formulated it in my mind. And that’s why I’m not always consistent..

For example, I might have to take a two-week break to realize my podcast. It’s not necessarily because I don’t feel like doing the podcast, but simply because sometimes I just can’t, or I don’t want to force myself to talk about a topic that I feel I know absolutely nothing about, or at least pretend to know something about. I want to talk about things that I think I know something about; that’s my experience and my learnings are structured this way.

And I wanted to tell you this: I’m trying to improve by posting more regular content, but because it’s partly very personal experiences, it’s difficult, in my opinion, to find a super firm, consistent rhythm, like posting every Sunday. I hope you’ll continue to understand how the podcast will continue; I’ll get to that at the end of the podcast. I want to talk about it first because it’s actually become increasingly important to me over time..

My approach to visualization

The topic has become relevant. Perhaps you also heard the podcast with Aicha Vibes, a super interesting personality and musician, where we also talked about the topic of visualization and manifestation, and perhaps you already heard it there. I believe I now attribute the topic of visualization 100 percent to the fact that at some point this thought that one has in mind is embellished, i.e., visually embellished, so that it then manifests itself at some point.

How my view of visualization has developed

I haven’t always seen it that way. It only developed for me later, and when I think back, it wasn’t the first time I consciously sat down to visualize something, and when it actually happened, that was in 2014. So it’s been a while. But I remember it very clearly.

An experience at the SAP Arena Marathon

My wife and I were invited to the SAP Arena Marathon in Mannheim. It’s a demo marathon, meaning it starts around midday and continues into the evening. We were invited to a really cool place, like the Mannheim Rosengarten, with a direct view of the start and finish lines. We could see everything from up there. The food was fantastic, especially asparagus, which I remember very clearly because I love asparagus. It was a really great atmosphere with wonderful people. We had the chance to chat with lots of people..

And as an athlete, I naturally enjoy that kind of competition in the air. You could really feel it at the finish line when the marathon started. You could really sense the competition in the air, that something really big was beginning. Like I said, it was incredibly fun.

The idea of ​​becoming part of the event oneself

And on that day, I can remember it perfectly, I told my wife I liked it so much here, that I wanted to be involved in something related to the SAP Arena Marathon sometime, maybe even next year. I want to be involved somehow, but I don’t know how yet. The day actually continued to go well. And then it started making me think, “Okay, wow, I develop apps with my company, and what if I develop the official app for this event next time?” Okay, then I’d probably have to talk to the sponsor or the organizer, depending on who’s funding it..

But that would be an option, that I could somehow be involved in the event. That was one thing. The other thing was that we really liked those street banners with the company logos on them. What if I had my company logo on one of those street banners and was allowed to put it up?

A dedicated running team and other ideas

And then there’s another idea: what if, for example, I could field a team of runners with my company logo on them? We’d have six or seven runners, and hopefully they’d be quite good and achieve good results, and so on. So, throughout the day, I visualized these individual things a bit more for myself. I also talked to my wife about it. Wouldn’t it be cool if it turned out this way, and wouldn’t it be great if it happened this way? And that was basically the end of the day. I think we were there until late in the evening; it had been a really lovely day.

From idea to first contacts

Then I realized that in the following weeks, days, and months, I started to move around in this context. For example, I contacted the event organizer: “Hey, my name is Resa, I have a company called Full Control GmbH. We develop sports apps. Are you looking for an app developer for the next event?” That was one example. Or I also contacted some of the event’s sponsors, including SAP: “Hey, my name is Resa, I saw you sponsored the event, and so on. How did it go? Can we meet up, exchange information, apps, and so forth?” I then realized that I was initiating certain actions because I knew I would find it really cool to be involved in some way next time.

Attention to suitable opportunities

And the interesting thing about visualization is that it can be a bit like shouting something into the universe, and certain vibrations are created, and these vibrations come back. That’s certainly possible. But what I find much more important about visualization is that if you vividly imagine what you want to do, you have a much higher level of awareness in everyday life for issues or things that happen to you and that potentially contribute to the goal you’ve visualized.

A runner on one’s own team

I think I have an example: at the time, I also had a designer on my team who happened to be a runner. And what I heard from him was that he was a recreational runner in his free time, and so on. So, in his free time, he was active in a club, meaning he wasn’t just a recreational runner, but actually almost a professional, as far as I can remember. And I said, “Hey, that’s awesome! Okay, if I were to put together a running team for the next SRP Arena Marathon, you could get a few people together, including some pretty good runners who could run so we could achieve a good result.”.

Yeah, sure, no problem. All we need to provide is a nice t-shirt, some drinks, and so on for the day, and then I’ll get a few people together. Okay, awesome. What I’m trying to say is, if I hadn’t known beforehand that runners were important to them, I might not have even talked to that one employee about a running team, or I might not have even noticed that he’s a professional runner.

The app and its implementation in the following year

I also discussed other topics and deliberately made appointments with people involved in this event. And so, one thing led to another, and I got into the SRP (Sports Promotion) and was allowed to introduce myself. They thought what we were doing was great, how we were doing it with the sports apps and so on. And so, one thing led to another, and we were actually allowed to develop the official SRP Arena Marathon starting in 2015..

Then one thing led to another. I spoke with the organizer and we had another opportunity to put up our street banners at a good price. So, one thing led to another because, well, that’s my impression, I had visualized it in my mind beforehand and walked very carefully through my age, initiating certain activities to achieve my goals. And that’s actually the key message for today..

Before I forget: There are also lots of photos and stuff from that day, the best place to find them is on project mein zettpunkt de slash 100. I’ve uploaded some photos there with the running team, the street banners, and so on. I’m also in some of the photos, so if you want to take a look, feel free to go to project mein zettpunkt de slash 100 for today’s Einholze podcast episode.

Embellishing thoughts and recognizing opportunities

And that’s what I find so beautiful about the topic of visualization: you have an idea, and if you flesh it out in detail, you see opportunities and possibilities everywhere in everyday life for how you can actually achieve the goal you’ve set for yourself. I also believe a little bit in the law of attraction, of course. So I think that plays a very strong role here as well. Naturally, you also embody it more outwardly when you have a really big goal in mind..

People are more likely to approach you about it; they sense, “Okay, he’s got something planned, so I can get involved too.” You also harm the people around you in trying to achieve that goal. And for me, that’s truly the beauty of it: visualizing a thought in your head, embellishing it, thinking it through, and then taking action, and the whole thing manifests.

First the target image, then the individual tasks.

Now comes a very important point regarding visualization. I think I’ve also made mistakes with it myself at times, and therefore I want to issue a small warning: when I visualize something, I think—well, if I have a really big goal in mind—I do embellish the goal. But I don’t yet think about how I’ll achieve it. That means I don’t think about the individual tasks, like, “Okay, I first have to do step one, step two, task three, task four, task five, and so on and so forth.”.

But when I visualize, when I really want to embellish a goal in front of me, then I embellish it, in this case, for example, the end result, how it will feel, what the weather will be like that day. I even embellished the Arena SSP Arena Marathon for myself, thinking, “Okay, the asparagus next time will be super delicious, and the weather will be perfect,” and so on and so forth.

Distinguishing the what from the how

And the important thing for me is that over time, what I’ve learned about visualization is not to think about the “how” yet, i.e., how I get there, but then to think about the “what,” maybe also about the “why”—why is important to me at all, but thinking about the “what” is much more important first.

Don’t confuse challenges with the target vision.

Why do I say this? I think that when visualizing, it’s first about somehow imagining your ideal state. And when you start thinking about how to achieve it, a thousand challenges, problems, tasks, and so on and so forth come up, initially seeming impossible to reach. Before you get caught up in all those tasks in your mind, you should first visualize what you want to get there, maybe even why. But then you can integrate these tasks that arise into your normal daily life, so to speak..

So, once I know, “Okay, now I’m going to work on these things,” I start thinking about how I’m going to achieve these five crucial steps to reach my goal. How am I even going to do that? What tasks are involved? Which person do I address them with? And so on and so forth. So, from my perspective, it’s really important to me when visualizing things: first, I think about the “what.” I’ll think about the “how” later, within the context of actual project management, within the context of everyday tasks, basically.

My personal approach to visualization

That’s exactly the part about visualization. As you know, it’s always extremely important to me that I share my set of tools with you. I also thought long and hard about how to approach the topic of visualization. There’s certainly a kind of, perhaps esoteric, aspect where you write something down—as I mentioned earlier—you write something into the universe, certain vibrations go outwards, and perhaps you receive something back, and so on and so forth. Today, I didn’t want to go in that direction..

I’m not really sure how to approach this whole thing. I kind of believe in it, but I’m missing the hard facts and all that. That’s why I’ve broken it down to visualizing things in everyday life, recognizing the opportunities that contribute to it, and then you can achieve your goals that way.

What’s next for the podcast?

So now we come to the part about how I want to continue with the podcast. I will definitely continue to share my set of tools with you; that will absolutely continue. I think I mentioned it in the very first episode, or at least I think I did, that a big part of why I do this podcast is so that my children can listen to it someday and then we’ll know what their dad was like—in the sense of what his life experiences were, what he learned, what he wanted to do, what he absolutely wanted to pass on..

Sometimes, insights from my ancestors are something I wish I could have had. How did they even think? What was important to them? What tools did they have in their heads? We have the technological possibilities now, which is why one of the most important reasons I do the podcast is so that my children can listen to it someday. And to be honest, I’ll make them listen.

Sharing one’s own development with the listeners

But apart from that, it’s also important to me that I continue to develop myself, including through this podcast. That I take you along on this journey. What that means—well, I think I talked about it in the last few episodes (I can’t really remember exactly). But I rarely do—what I actually do in my daily life, what I do professionally, what I actually do for a living, and so on. I want to take you along on my journey a little more, to share my experiences as an entrepreneur..

Entrepreneurship seems to me like one of the toughest self-development programs there is. I told you about my first larger startup around 2000, which didn’t really work out. In the meantime, I’ve started some new things. I’d like to talk to you a little more about them and take you along on the journey.

New topics from everyday entrepreneurial life

A little preview: among other things, this also deals with the topic of visualization, if you want to be precise. Some time ago, I had a podcast with a professor from Heidelberg where we talked about nutrition, specifically antioxidants. And back then, I already thought that nutrition was extremely important to me. I wanted to explore it further, expand my knowledge, and build on the experiences I had and the information I absorbed. That was episode number 70, by the way; the title was “Antioxidants and Their Positive Effects on the Body.” You can listen to episode number 70 on Project MeinZeit, point E70.

A new idea and the first steps

Based on that, I had already decided back then, and now we’re coming back to the topic of visualization, that I wanted to do something in that direction. I also planned to go in the direction of green, healthy powders, since there are many pioneers in America who are working in this area. And I’ve actually been working on it a bit more in the last few months, looking into the topic, and found a partner, a nutrition expert, with whom I’ve been working on how I can actually create something that I think is really great and that tastes really good to me.

Experiences on the way to the product

So, I want to take you along on this journey. I’ll also be posting information about it on Project Meinzeit.de, or some posts have already been published, so you can take a look there. It’s extremely important to me to share these experiences there as well—not just the business-oriented ones, but also the experiences with Meinzeit. Often, when you undertake something, something goes wrong. It’s guaranteed that something will go wrong, whether it’s financially, a collaboration, the product, or whatever. There are many lessons I want to share with you. I hope you’re at least as interested in this as I am in other Project Meinzeit posts. Sharing this journey with you is a direction I want to pursue with Project Meinzeit.

A glimpse behind the scenes of Dinner at the Castle

What I’d also like to talk about a bit more is the topic of “Dinner at the Castle,” which is very important to me. “Dinner at the Castle” is an event series I started in 2022. This year it was even bigger than the first time, with many guests. I’d like to take you along on this journey, explaining why I’m creating this event series and what the themes are. I also publish the episodes on my podcast channel here..

It’s actually about the topic of sustainability, and the guests speaking are either former podcast guests or completely new ones. I’d like to give you a little insight into why I’m doing all this and the direction the dinner at the castle is taking. Something is planned again for next year in April, and I’ll keep you updated with a bit of behind-the-scenes glimpse.

Topics that give back energy

And if you’re wondering why I’m now taking this direction and incorporating new things into the podcast, there’s a reason. I think it’s incredibly important, if you want to do something consistently or with discipline for a long time in life, to do activities that give you a certain amount of energy back. For example, within the context of the podcast, I’m currently on a journey to explore topics like nutrition and to further expand the event series. I find it incredibly enjoyable to tackle these topics, and I naturally bring that enjoyment into the podcast itself, which I also enjoy making.

Joy and effort involved in podcasting

But we all know that not every aspect of podcasting is fun. So not everything about it is enjoyable – editing episodes, uploading, and so on. The technical infrastructure and so forth – of course, not everything is fun..

But I’m trying to include the parts that are fun in the podcast itself, the conversations, for example with my podcast guests. I also want to give a bit more behind-the-scenes insight there, not just the conversation itself, but maybe even do a separate episode where I go into more detail about how I came up with my questions and so on. I want to talk a bit more about this journey I’m currently on as an entrepreneur, as an event organizer, or as a podcaster..

Not entirely selfless, because I think it gives me a lot of energy back. I can then invest that energy even better in the podcast to make it even better.

Thank you for 100 episodes together

So, guys, I think that was one of my longest podcast episodes without a guest, where I spoke alone. It’s definitely worthy of an anniversary episode; this is the 100th episode. I’ll continue for a long time to come. The podcast holds a very special place for me, and I’m incredibly happy and grateful that you listen to me. I mentioned it at the beginning. It’s still mind-blowing for me that people take the time to listen to me, write to me, and give me feedback on LinkedIn or Instagram. It’s truly mind-blowing for me; it’s a huge honor that I can occupy a little space in your minds, that you invest your time.

Feedback and exchange with the community

Of course, I’m also happy when you give me feedback. Write to me if you have questions, or if you see things differently. Just write to me; I really enjoy exchanging ideas. And I think one thing that’s always been important to me is connecting with people. I don’t just say that lightly, which is why I do all these podcast interviews. So, if you want to connect with me, just write. I’d love to exchange ideas with you and plan to continue doing this for a long time. So, that’s it. I really hope you enjoyed today’s podcast episode. I hope you’ll continue to listen. We’ll talk again soon, and don’t forget, until then, my set is everything.