How the story of your ances­tors shapes your profes­sional life and your view of strengths (and also weak­ne­sses)

I am the grand­d­aughter of a former Domi­nican monk. Anyone who has followed my deve­lo­p­ment may have noticed how, year after year, I’ve moved closer to philo­so­phical issues and away from pure career and manage­ment content. It became more or less boring. When I used to be a young woman, I read Freud, Adler, Jung, Fromm, Fried, Maslow, Alice Miller and Arthur Köstler. I loved Hermann Hesse and was very inte­rested in overall under­stan­ding and psycho­lo­gical and philo­so­phical ques­tions. But then I decided to live the prac­tical, commer­cial and entre­pre­neu­rial sides of my family, which also exists. The theme of ances­tors and profes­sion and strengths meets me again and again with my custo­mers. At some point in your life, they had to deal with it even if it is often very painful. Maybe you have reached this point now? Wherever I look, it is the previous gene­ra­tions who set the pace and the themes that deter­mine educa­tion and careers — and also the percep­tion and emotional expe­ri­ence of strengths. How surprised was a group of science-based post­docs when they expe­ri­enced my flexi­bi­lity, spon­ta­n­eity and fault tole­rance. They wondered as they realized that my success pattern is totally diffe­rent from theirs.  In my world, expe­ri­men­ta­tion has always been the basis of ever­y­thing. If I´m inte­rested in some­thing, I try it and accept that I am the worst singer in the world (for example). It comes from me but also from my family. I decided not to follow the perfec­tionism line. In the world view of the post­docs, that “so-being” was not anchored so far. They saw detail-orien­­ta­­tion as the “strength”, “doing always the best one can do” and never show your work before you are perfectly. But this view prevents them from trying out new things.

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If you discover the source of such percep­tions — namely your own family, ances­tors and peer group — then much has been achieved. It would also help to over­come dogmatic views. And to return to a driving thought: Important is deve­lo­p­ment and growth — and not a posi­tion which is right or wrong or how to be or not be. The inclu­sion of the family back­ground in parts — also rightly — condemned by the media. Educa­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties must be the same, no ques­tion at all. But with this article I would like to put another emphasis on the topic and ask: Is the family’s history also a key to under­stan­ding one’s own strengths and iden­ti­ties? In my view it is of central importance to occupy oneself with occu­pa­tional and self-disco­­very. Reori­en­ta­tion and the search for (more) life sense often means going back to the roots — or finally cutting them off. We are seeing many people at the age of 40 or 50 retur­ning to their roots. They are looking for a home, also regio­nally. They search for a profes­sional iden­tity and realize that it is also family and cultural and even reli­gious and spiri­tual. Many who have studied first in the family strive for simpli­city, perhaps the craft. “It was so nice to watcch my grand­fa­ther work in his small company” — the sentence of a young social scien­tist echoes back to me. In Germany only one in a hundred working-age students do a docto­rate, but ten out of a hundred acade­mics. And if, at a later stage in life, this one might set aside his Ph.D. to work  as a craft­sman or mechanic, which is far below the level of educa­tion? Then it may be that it simply wants to go back to his roots. From the view of perfor­mance society we can´t under­stand such decis­ions. How can someone “throw away” his degree? But does the acquired educa­tion harm? Certainly not. You do not have to use what you have learned and expe­ri­enced in your job. This will be more and more diffi­cult in the future anyway. Up is not the only way. Career choice is one-sidedly related to compe­tences and intellec­tual premises. But just because my gray cells go along, it does not give me any profes­sional — and emotional — iden­tity, the feeling of “that’s exactly my thing, I live my life.” This also has to do with the fact that we NEVER just live our lives. It is always shaped by others, but above all by those with whom we are and were most connected, emotio­nally, spiri­tually. The key ques­tion is what we consciously accept or do differ­ently and what we uncon­sciously avoid or seek. Who am I and what is to be attri­buted to my ances­tors? It is very enligh­tening to occupy oneself with the occu­pa­tional history of the family in the career choice and voca­tional orien­ta­tions at more mature age. I find that is a meaningful task even for self-reflected teams. Under­stan­ding why the colle­ague is diffe­rent — it helps to look at its origin, of course, the ethnic, cultural, regional and even emotional. We are always part of our history, the history of family, region, society and and and. It is our decision to change but we cannot and never deny that we are shaped like a coin. Strengths are not only gene­ti­cally but also epige­ne­ti­cally explainable. A look at the profes­sional history of the ances­tors also enables a deeper orien­ta­tion towards strengths. Strengths arise through a gene-envi­ron­­ment inter­ac­tion. But the genes deve­loped by family expe­ri­ences over several gene­ra­tions. That means also in the genes is “envi­ron­mental expe­ri­ence”. These are findings of epige­ne­tics. Unfort­u­na­tely, these have not yet arrived in ever­yday know­ledge. Many consider the preoc­cu­pa­tion with our ances­tors to be spiri­tual nonsense. We were driven out to write paren­ting jobs in the resume. And rightly so, because decision-makers can not adequa­tely reflect on these issues. Nevert­heless, the life and work expe­ri­ences of our ances­tors are important to us today. Even though it is no longer in the CV, it is present in the mind. In each of us the expe­ri­ences of our rela­tives are often lite­rally “buried”. The “me” is never detached from his family, society, culture and even gene­ra­tion. It carries all that in itself.