Pausing your life to help others
Have you ever considered to leave your daily routine and self-designed life to deep dive for 4 weeks into another culture and doing something good? Dreamed about it? Really made it? Why actually not?
Yes I know it’s not easy to skip work and take a pause as things are always busy and super urgent. We are also not talking about a 2–3 weeks summer break vacation, where you stay and relax on the beach and enjoy your drinks at nice bar and “western flavoured” local food in a closed 5 star compound luxury stay?
For me, it was here…. my Social Sabbatical (a month-long pro-bono consulting assignment) confirmation and approval… Hangzhou… where?….China….ah right…. March 2020……excited 😊…….oh wait a minute!
…..pause…… silence……
3rd prep call in Feb 2020 about onboarding to cultural habits, and I can hear the TV in the background — a virus has come over from Asia to Italy and spreading towards northern Europe…. We see people being at home, even dying. Life has stopped and the world is taking a breath and worrying about its future.
Here is where the story could have ended.
There was no thought about continuing travelling, doing the thing I loved most in my life: to discover new countries, exchange with people from all over the world and learn new things. We needed to adjust to a new reality.
2 years later….
I have a new job role within my company and was taking my first steps at work, as I got contacted again to apply for a new cohort for SAP’s Social Sabbatical in 2023. My first thought “What will my manager say? Can I go despite being new to a team and role?”
Thankfully, my new leader went to a Social Sabbatical in the past and encouraged me not to hesitate and re-apply… so I did, and long story short, I am here in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Excited!
After an 11h night flight with Vietnam Airlines I arrived on April 15, 2023 at 6am in morning at Hanoi airport. After passing immigration, being picked a by a driver, and brought to my hotel, I met my first fellows coming from all around the globe and got my first breakfast.
Being tired but needing to get into the right time zone, we spent the first day exploring the city and I refreshed my memories from my last holiday trip to Hanoi in 2016. Nothing changed in first view but this time it was about 30 degrees, humidity about 90%+ and after getting around a full day with a short sleep on the flight, I was happy to get my shower and immediate fell sleep the first night. The next morning, we met up at 9:30am to get an introduction and meeting everyone from PYXERA Global (SAP’s enablement partner for the sabbatical). Melanie, a former Social Sabbatical participant from France, and our team mentor, shared her experience and gave us tips and tricks to make the most out of our upcoming 4 weeks. Trying to get to know everyone, we played human bingo and after doing a short afternoon walk to get to know the area, we played architects and engineers.
Being selected as an architect I got picked out of my group to get 60 seconds to memorize a colourful fairy-tailed Lego sculpture to get 60 seconds afterwards explaining this to one of my team “engineers” who had the task to re-explain to the team members whatever he understood from my side. What a cool game. After 5 rounds of 60 seconds each, we made a great job and nearby managed to redesign the fairy-tale Lego dragon with a duck face. It was the perfect example of great teamwork and a lesson in how difficult transporting ideas only by words can be but how great you can do once you’re getting to know your team and talking the same language.
Tomorrow Vietnamese…. First words…. I have never looked forward so much to a Monday as I did this time! Follow this journey for more!
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>>> Read next: From ideas into action
*Human Bingo
Directions: Identify people in the group with one of these traits and have them sign the box. First person to fill either 5 across, down or diagonal wins!
**Engineers and architects
2 Persons will be assigned as architects and others in the team form the engineers.
- Round: architect gets 60seconds the view the pre-build structure. Afterwards 60sec to explain to one of the engineers who goes to a separate room meeting all other engineers to start the first version.
- Round: 2nd architect get 60 seconds to view and 60 seconds to with another engineer from the group. Engineers are allowed also to ask questions.
- Round 3–5 repeat 3 more rounds like before and wait for an amazing result!
