I have started this Video blog to share inspirational impulses that were essential for my way as a Change-Maker and Facilitator. Every post will contemplate one specific “Meta-Skill” that I found crucial on my journey. Confused by all those abstract words like “Meta-Skills” and “Change-Maker”? Read my story fo find out what they mean to me:

Meta Skills any my love of Learning

So what are Meta-Skills? For me Meta-Skills are deeply embodied abilities and ways of being that enable other skills to happen. “Learning how to lean” is the archetypal Meta-Skill as it is not an end in itself. Rather it enables you to learn other skills and concepts. “Personal Development” in all its facets might be another. First you don’t really get anything out of it. But being a highly developed and mature personality allows you to deal with the challenges of life, building the life and career that you love and engaging in intimate relationships. The Intention of the Channel is to share the most important Meta-Skills that I have discovered on my path!

My passion for Meta-Skills comes from my love of learning. As many of us, In my youth I was struggling with low self esteem and not really “fitting in”. Also learning in school was quite a challenge for me and I kept dealing with low grades and problems in the classroom. For some reason I though there must be solutions to those problems and started researching and reading books on personal development and learning. First I began reading on learning techniques so I could keep up with school. I discovered all kinds of creative methods that made learning not only effective but fun too. As a result my grades kept rising but more importantly: I discovered my love of learning which eventually lead me to study Adult Education and devote my career to learning, teaching and facilitating.

How I re-designed my self

After learning a lot about learning I began researching other topics around personal development. Here I began to understand that my life and personality are not something that is fixed forever. These tools and mindset started a longer process for me. First I began learning a few essential skills that i had been lacking so far, like keeping my body and the shape I wanted and communicating with charisma. But as I kept learning all those skills I kept digging deeper into my personality. Discovering old beliefs and mindsets about myself and the world that were holing me down and that I could transform into more fruitful perspectives by just applying a few methods I learned in my books and videos.

But of course the journey was not as straightforward as it might appear. It was a long and winding rode and I kept falling down. It actually took me about 10 years, from 15 to 25, to create the personality and lifestyle that I aspired. Of course it was also combined with other life-transforming decisions like going travelling after school, moving into another city and actually starting to live my own life. But the idea of “Meta-Skills” accompanied me all the way. I kept researching and discovered advanced tools and skills that I had never heard of anywhere else.

When I was 25 I realised that I had become the person that I dreamt of when I was 15. I was living in Berlin, had great friends and attended the cooles parties. Looking back on my journey I realised that I had change my identity and had the crazy idea to change my name to officially announce that I became a different person. My full name is Manuel Robin Hotz. I never used my second name and it was more like a joke of my parents because it sounded like Robin Hood. But when I met a few people who actually changed their name that Idea resonated a lot with me. I had a strong calling to make the re-design of my personality complete by also giving myself a new name. Ever since I adopted my second name Robin. It took me a while to convince my friends and family to call me that. But after a while people adopted and I felt so empowered by telling people “I am a new person now, please call me Robin!”.

Meta-Skills for Change-Making

So what what do I mean with Change-Makings? For me change-makers are people who are also interested in the combination of outer- and inner change. After I had finally made it through my personal transformation process I began thinking less about myself and more about how I could contribute to a better society. I see this trend in many of us and think it’s an underlying dynamic. The more developed and mature we become the greater our concern for our collective situation gets. So in the recent years I devoted my love of learning to researching essential skills that would help me creating the change I wanted to see in the world. That’s when I started my path as a freelancing change facilitator.

One of the first helpful tools I discovered was Visualisation and Visual Facilitation. I met a few inspiring practitioners of “The Art of Hosting” that where using a lot of visuals. I immediately saw the benefit of that an applied the practice to my own work. Ever since I work as a Visual Facilitator and Graphic Recorder and am in love with this profession. But just documenting change processes did not satisfy me long term. I kept learning essential skills for personal- and organisational development. I still loved the creativity I experienced with visualising everything I learned but I sensed that my passion for learning and skill development was not expressed enough in my work.

That is why I started my video blog “Meta-Skills”. Finally I found the perfect combination of my love of learning, the passion for change-making and my profession as Visual Facilitator. Over the next years I am planning to create a little video library of helpful Meta-Skills. This channel is rally addressing anyone who is interested in Change. Whether you are are a Facilitator, Learning Junkie or just interested in change-making. The video blog is intended to provide essential insights and applicable resources for you to really understand and learn the skills that I keep discovering on my learning journey.

Hence, every blog post will provide:

• A short animated video with the essential Meta-Skill
• A longer blog post that communicates my deeper thoughts and passion around the tool
• A Visual Ressource as well as detailed sources and materials

Is there anything that comes up for you when you read my story? Is there any specific Meta-Skill that you would love to learn more about? I would be interested to hear your resonance and feedback!