Paul Koeck’s blog

Last saturday, I was interviewed in Budapest by Hungary’s psychiatrist & celebrity, Dr. Joszef Telkes about our new online e-therapy business:

Internet Assisted Psychotherapy interview by Jozsef Telkes.

Tonight I rejoin my friends at the European JCI Conference in Budapest in the Corinthia Hotel till saturday evening.  Looking forward to learning new insights and discovering old & new friends. If you are there, leave me a note at the reception so that we can meet.

A discussion with a friend reminded me following transcript of a diaogue among two of my most important mentors. It reflects deeply my personal beliefs about Lasting Love:

In 1959, Jay Haley, the famous family therapist, asks his mentor, Milton H. Erickson, MD, the words most renowned hypnotherapist and psychiatrist: “If you were to describe what a good marriage is, how would you describe it?” Milton H. Erickson replies: When I describe a good marriage to my patients, I point out to them that there are essentailly four kinds of Love:

1. The infantile type of love, “I love me.”
2. The next stage, “I love the me in you. I love you becaue you are my brother, my mother, my father, my sister, my dog. The ‘me’ in ‘you’.
3. Then the adolescent type of love, “I love you because your dancing pleases me, and because your beauty pleases me, and because your brains please me.”
4. The adult stage of love wherein, “I want to love you and cherish you because I want to see you happy, because i can find my happiness in your happiness. The happier you are, the happier, I’ll be. I’l find my happiness in yours. Il” find delight in your pleasure and intellectual persuits. I’ll find a delight in your enjoyment of dancing.” So the mature love is the capacity to find enjoyment in the enjoyment of the other person’s enjoyment. It works both ways.

Dr. Erickson continues: ‘So in a good marriage upi’ll see some of the “I love me.” You should expect that. You’ll see some of the I love the me in you. You’ll see some of the adolescent variety of your good qualities that please me. But there should be a very considerable percentage of the enjoyment of the other person’s state of happiness.
It isn’t enough to just enjoy your wifes cooking. You ought to enjoy the “pleasure” that she has in cooking. You ought not just enjoy the fact that she keeps the kids quiet while you are working. You want to enjoy, really, the pleasure and satisfaction that she gets out of dealing with the kids, even though you can’t understand why that particular dealing with the kids gives her so much satisfaction. It is beyond your capacity to understand, but you are so glad she enjoys it. You know that as long as she ’s happy, enjoying inexplicable things, you’re going to be happy too.’

I wanted to share this wisdom with you. Who would not dream of such a lasting loving relationship? Paul

P.S.: A friend has sent to right now another interesting related quote:
Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’
Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you’

Today was a usual therapy day. Some other days, I am more into business coaching and building our new e-business. This morning, I felt peaceful, happy and calm. I know this feeling. It often occurs to me while working with clients. And my 10 o’clock client, mentioned the same: working with people makes him feel calm and good. Why is this so, I wondered?

1. First, I remembered that I started to develop this pleasant feeling right after my first years of being a professional. Probably one needs to build ‘competence’ first, to feel selfconfident in what one is doing. So, if you read this and are still building competence in your profession, just accept that learning takes effort. And that there will be a day where you feel ok with what you do. Your customers will let you know when you do a good job and that will reinforce you.
2. Second, this pure concentration on one person - no phone calls, no interruptions - gives our brain the time to tune in, the time to focus and as we know from litterature: focus is that what provokes “flow” in a human beings. Focussing relieves stress & tension and opens us up for joy. I remember from my philosophy classes the quote of Jean-Paul Sartre, in “L’Être et le Néant”, describing self-consciousness as  ”Conscience de soi de quelque chose” (being aware of yourself through being aware of something).  Now, years later, I start to see that we become more ourself, indeed, when we focus on something else with dedication and concentration.
3. Third, in working with clients, one knows -after years of training- that one can only focus on one small concrete result at the time. Your client needs this, or (s)he would get confused or lost in your words. Since you focus on small & measurable results, you automatically start to do that what is good for yourself too:  breaking big & complex projects into small measurable steps, so that you setup for visible success. Focussing on big & vague goals leads to confusion and “Learned Helplesness“.
4. Fourth, the feeling of contribution, is probably another important contributor to happiness. By focussing on helping others, one feels useful. And we are born “social animals“. We need contribution for our own personal survival and satisfaction. We exist partially in the eyes of the others, we become more ourselves through adding value to others.

There are certainly more factors that have contributed to my happy feeling this morning. I just wrote about those that came first into my mind. Paul

At the facutly of philosophy, Hannelore and I became friends. After dreaming away in the worlds of possibilities that philosophers create with words, we went for a drink in Café Erasmus, right in front of our faculty of philosophy (Hoger Instituut Wijsbegeerte) in Leuven. The second half of the day, or maybe night, we would change the word during our nightly meta-discussions. This year, we rediscovered eachother and she offered me her last CD recording - she does with music what I do with people: create a context for inner harmony.  That night, I returned home and discovered the harmony and peace that came over me while listening to her. So, instead of buying an exotic commercial relaxation CD, I would recomend you, my friends, to consider her latest CD: “Hannelore De Vaere - The Fellowship“. It Reminds me what reasearchers found out recently as one of the best cooping strategies for dealing with post traumatic stress: listen to your favorite music. It appeared to be more effective than most official “relaxation” techniques. Paul

Hannelore De Vaere:

Another thing i loved as a child, were my piano lessons. When going to the University, i quit for a while, but some days, I will come back to my old passion. My Cousin made me discover an interesting book about piano teaching, written by a guy who analysed how his 2 daughters got piano teaching from Claude Debussy’s former personal assistant. Genius, has almost always been mentored by genius! Another interesting book is that of Karl Leimer, who summarised his method of teaching to his student Walter Gieseking in the Leimer-Gieseking Method.

Dear friends, we are wondering what happens with our financial world. A wonderful source to learn for free more about Corporate Finance and Financial Valuation, are the free webcasts of University professor Damadoran. You can attend his full MBA teachings, with video, slides & templates on Corporate finance for free on his website: I attend his free seminars too. Join me. Paul

Dear Friends,

I created this blog to keep you informed about things happening in my life and sharing my reflections with you. I will start writing you as soon as I find a free moment to do so.

Paul

Dear Friends, Last year, I fell in love with Tango. For those who love to dance tango, i found some free video classes.  They give a lovely introduction into the basic tango steps, which i share here below. For those, who love the music: a friend of mine composes delicious Argentinian Tango Music, discover Joke’s compositions online. Paul

Tango Classes by Dario

Tango Music by Joke van Oirschot:

Paul Koeck, MD, BA, is president and founder of Coachteam® International. He works as business coach for top-executives, and is in surplus an excellent therapist and physician. He created the Coachteam® philosophy ’Goal-Directed, Solution-Focused Coaching‘, being the pioneer in Europe in Solution Focused Coaching for Business Leaders & Organisations! Paul defines the keys to success clearly: ‘Successful people know what they want to achieve, how to get there, how to mobilise thé required resources and … they dare to be thé Captain of their soul’. Dr. Paul Koeck is an authority in the field of business & career coaching and competence development. He is a frequent keynote speaker, coach & trainer on international scientific conferences and at universities, all over the world. His model and techniques are used in different continents, countries and languages. He is the creator of several expert systems for managing the change of human behaviour.

Paul studied medicine, philosophy and sports medicine at the Catholic University of Louvain. After his management studies, at the VLERICK School for Management, he was profoundly trained in systemic coaching, brief therapy an hypnotherapy in Europe an the U.S.A.

As a trainer, consultant and coach he served important business leaders and organisations like  Alcatel-Lucent, KPMG, BASF, Siemens, Borealis, IBM, Swift, Nextiraone, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Banksys, HP, Junior Chamber International, Haribo, Proximus, Belgacom, Delta Lloyd Life, Generale Bank, Belgian Military Police, Anco, Givi, Axias, IPPA, HBK Spaarbank, Vlaams Centrum voor Kwaliteitszorg,  Socialistische Mutualiteiten, Onafhankelijk Ziekenfonds, Arenberg Group, Partena, Prayon Ruppel, Pandora,  … He coaches fluently in 5 languages: Dutch, English, French, Spanish, German and studied Italian, Portuguese, Latin, Esperanto, & Russian.

Radio Interview with Dr. Paul Koeck about digital stress: Part 1 -  Part 2