It's Happening!!

Getting my foot in the door

The journey has begun! And who would have thought my first motivational speaking and team building experience would be in Pharma.

Monday morning (free day in the ballet) I woke up at 6.30, took a cold shower to raise my dopamine levels and energise my body and mind. High level of calm and focus. Ready to go!

see YouTube video below at 1hr 29 mins

Arrived at Zürich Airport, close to where the pharmaceutical company headquarters are based and to meet Jeff Grant an established coach in the Greater Zurich area. Jeff and I were put in contact by a close mutual friend whom thought we could collaborate together. We are from completely different backgrounds, Jeff previously worked in the corporate finance world, mediating and closing contracts between large companies and myself from the ballet world. He loves a good physical challenge and the outdoors (who doesn’t) and we are both involved in Non Profit Organisations operating out of or that have been present in Africa.

It's the first time Jeff and I have met in person and we do a quick briefing together before making our way to ‘The Circle’, a business convention centre that hosts offices for many different international companies.

We start at 9.15 and we have a three hour slot with a team of employees, that have been working together via online communication since one year. Today they were meeting in person for the first time.

It's a team building event and we have been brought in to establish a deeper personal connection with this international team. The stakes are high for me and Jeff is taking a risk bringing in a novice like myself but I feel quietly confident.

If I compare to a performance, I know for myself that when I execute those first steps of choreography fully immersed in the role the rest of the performance will happen more easily. If on the other hand, I step on that stage and within those first 30 seconds I’m not fully present I know it will be more difficult and take me longer to get ‘in’ to the performance. I have rehearsed my opening sentences to a tee and I know that if I deliver them as prepared, the nerves will wash away, the adrenaline high will remain and I will (hopefully) find my flow from there-on. As in any performance, one has their guidelines but if you know your topic or role inside out, within the guidelines one can be free to explore and get artistically creative with their words or steps.

Jeff introduces me with a few words of his own and a video of myself dancing.

Here goes!

I start by giving a light hearted intro explaining the rather funny, naive questions a dancer typically gets asked in social situations when meeting people for the first time. Particularly in Zurich, a mostly German speaking city which is very much focused on business. Often having to clarify in German that I said Ballet dancer rather than Belly dancer! It’s really true.

And then the following question is often one of these three: Can you live from that? How do you earn your money? Is that a job or a hobby?

I spoke about what it ‘means’ to be a ballet dancer, the training, hours and dedication and went on to explain what it ‘means’ to be a Principal dancer in particular. The expectations, on yourself, from your colleagues looking up to you and younger colleagues hoping to one day dance those main roles. And not to forget your audience that has watched you grow and progress through-out your career and come to expect a continuous level of high quality performances one after the other, after the other. The stress and nerves of performing under high stake situations and the daily habits I developed over my career in order to be able to handle those. For example, napping and pre-show rituals or even things down to washing my clothes before starting to cook dinner in the evening so that when I was done eating the washing would be ready to hang out. Ballet dancers have a lot of laundry!

I took a break here to ask the employees if they are aware of any daily habits they do in order to make there jobs more manageable and if not, are there any they could think about and develop. If I was leading the team building workshop I would have taken the time here to start to pry and find out what those were but I had my 20 minutes to talk and though I had plenty of material I had to keep it tight.

Coming back to the short intro video, I gave a running commentary of my mind in the opening moments of the performance. I remembered the performance like yesterday - in the previous weeks I had just been promoted to Principal dancer on stage for my performance of Romeo and this was the first thing I was dancing after that promotion. I was well prepared and I enjoyed dancing this piece, it is not a well known choreography as it was created for the muses of John Cranko in the 70’s. The piece is called Initialen (Initials) R.B.M.E. - Richard Cragun (whose part I was dancing) Birgit Keil, Marcia Haydée and Egon Madsen. Richard Cragun was a particularly virtuoso dancer so one can imagine that the role involved lots of turns and jumps.

Beginning of the show, music (Brahms), lights up, walking forward to centre, centre stage and starting the nail biting solo. There was a little hiccup as I landed from the first jump slightly back and as I transferred the weight into the back foot, my front foot and turning leg slipped slightly forwards. It was nothing - but a little hiccup on stage in front of a full audience becomes massively magnified in ones mind. All eyes on you!

I remember clearly that little voice - ‘stay calm, you've got this’ then I leaned in to the stress and attacked the turn!’ I sailed through the turn with ease.

Here, I pause the video pointing out to the room the moment the ‘stage’ smile evaporates and as the stress washes through me, having nailed the next step after the hiccup, a genuine smile of complete joy (and relief) spreads across my face. After that moment I was in my flow state. High concentration, performing the challenging steps one after the other, present and in my happy place.

I went on to address topics such as trust in partnerships and team work (showing short clips as references) and finally the feedback loop in the ballet world that is a constant from show to show, trying to iron out the things from the previous performances.

Finally, I had the whole Novo Nordisk team on their feet - people on either side of the long corporate type oval table, doing choreographed everyday human like movements across the table at each other.

It was like a kindergarten and at the same time they all took it very seriously, laughing and counting together. I’m certain each of them had never seen their team members in such a light or even close. There's something about seeing others having fun, it just puts a smile on your face.

In the moment! Giving praise to the team for their ability to pick up and execute choreography.

Soon, I’ll be leading my own team building event with Open Ride a spinning brand started in Zurich by CEO Eva Nidecker (mentioned previously in another post), a team of 18 to 20 people both front of house and instructors. I was not expecting such a big group but its great to dive in the deep end with this team, as I know them well and they are all on board and incredibly supportive. I’m really looking forward to this one because I will be able to experiment to see what can work for future events. Already, another brand in Zurich has heard about this team building event with Open Ride and through ‘word of mouth’ they have asked me to present them with an offer for their own team and brand. More on that next time !