Bruxelles ma belle...!
Together with my wife and son we celebrated New Years eve in the heart of Brussels. We booked a nice hotel in the center of the city and had dinner in a delicious Thai restaurant. In the middle of the Grand-Place de Bruxelles… #noonecanstopus Read More…
Art that helps revive a city...
Some days ago I drove through Baltimore MD, Station North District and I saw a monumental and strong image of an Asian man on a wall… The next day, early morning, I went back to make a little movie… Read More…
All men are unique... and some are very special
09/03/14 18:39 Filed in: Leadership | Art
This week they buried Jan Hoet, one of the world’s leading personalities in contemporary art. Since I was young I was intrigued by him. The way he talked, the way he presented art, the way he argued when debating, his strong and sharp opinions… it inspired me. However I must admit that I did not always fully understood what he meant, but what he said was beautiful in it self. Art and communication, it belongs together. I remember how he…
Read More…A Short Moment of Spiritual Flow
25/12/13 08:38 Filed in: Spirituality | Religion
While many religious places in Europe are struggling to attract people who seek spiritual guidance, the situation in most Chinese and Japanese temples is very different. In this temple, even whole families come together to pay their respects to Guan Yu. The temple is visited by several thousand people a day and the setting is busy but serene. The sound of prayers, the fragrant…
Read More…Who Seeks Shall Find...
22/12/13 14:58 Filed in: Bookstores | Machiavelli
It’s a little pleasure of mine to visit bookstores everywhere in the world and to ask if they would have the book “Mandragola” by Machiavelli. It might sound silly but each time there is a little tension inside of me while I await the answer... Read More…A Beautiful Man
The world of the 21st century with all its great inventions and its highly interconnected people is an exciting place to live in. I wouldn’t want to live in any other time. Like every episode of history, this century creates new opportunities for humankind and unfortunately it also destroys old…Read More…
The Ego Evolution of Leaders
It is almost a fixed pattern. As soon as leaders get a little bit of power or success, there is a fair chance that their ego gets corrupted… Read More…He's Back…Germany's Healing Process
09/07/13 18:03 Filed in: Leadership | Society
I read the book “Er ist wieder da” (He’s Back). It is an in Germany best selling satiric novel by Timur Vermes about Hitler returning to Germany in 2011. It is a book full of humor but it is not the cliché humor you normally hear about Hitler and Nazi Germany. Timur studied the subject...Follow @LievenVerbrugge Read More…
Three long minutes of your life
Some days ago I went to an open martial arts championship. Fighters from different schools and disciplines gathered to test their… If you would like to react on this thought, please feel free to use the contact page or contact me via twitter. Follow @LievenVerbrugge
Read More…How to Prevent Burnout? Or is it Something Else?
15/02/13 01:08 Filed in: Psychology | Burnout
In quite some cases I could observe that low energy levels and other symptoms are not (fully) related to the change and are mistakenly related to burnout... If you would like to react on this thought, please feel free to use the contact page or contact me via twitter. Follow @LievenVerbrugge
Read More…The Teachers Who Influenced Me… (2/3)
01/01/13 18:18 Filed in: Leadership
We met the first time when I was still a student. The faculty of Psychology invited five experienced psychologists from different fields to share their thoughts on what it meant to be a psychologist. I must admit with some shame, that I only have a vague memory of what four of these psychologists said and who they were. However I have a very vivid memory about the fifth psychologist...If you would like to react on this thought, please feel free to use the contact page or contact me via twitter. Follow @LievenVerbrugge
Read More…Moments of Change...
Update January 8, 2012.Some people emailed me because they want to make sense of this video. Some even gave very nice interpretations about what I wanted to express with it. Actually there is not really an intended message. It is because recently I'm reading about time and the psychology of time. Out of that came the idea to do something with it. I wanted to make time visible in some way and also experiment with the knowledge that so many things are changing in one day or even in one hour that we don't see and that we are not conscious about (anymore). So I started to make time lapse movies everywhere I went. I think I would make a bad film director, because I confused most people who saw the video :-))
The Institutionalized Followers
23/12/12 08:06 Filed in: Company Values | Company Culture | Company Ideology | Employee Satisfaction
At a first sight it looks as if the employees (or at least some of them) are loyal and dedicated to the goals of their organization. They work hard and are ready to sacrifice their work-life balance for the good of the company. Some may argue, that this is an indication of a highly motivated workforce. I agree that this could be the case, but unfortunately I discovered in some cases that people are motivated by an “unhealthy” social dynamic... 
This article was also published in Peoplesphere a Belgian magazine specialised in Human Resources (Flemish language).
If you would like to react on this thought, please feel free to use the contact page or contact me via twitter. Follow @LievenVerbrugge
Read More…Constant Change
What is the unit of change? I think it is time. We live our life and time keeps on throwing changes at us…
Read More…Children and Spirituality
I try my best to give my son an idea of what religion and what spirituality means. One of the things we do therefore is visiting…
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London Taxis...
16/07/12 20:08 Filed in: Society | Public Transportation
If you have a business trip to a city somewhere in the world, one of the first things you need after your airplane has landed is a taxi. You hope that they are not to expensive, that they are clean, that the taxi driver is friendly and honest and most important, that he knows the fastest way to your destination. I must say that I have been disappointed a few times. Dirty cars, (very) unfriendly… 
Read More…The CEO's who weaken our economy
25/06/12 08:28 Filed in: Leadership | Society
A few months after I started my first job as a young psychologist, I attended a presentation that was given by a “captain of industry”, a man in a top position of one of the largest…
Read More…Addicted to the work of François Schuiten...
I don’t like to read fiction and I definitely don’t like to read fantasy stories. However I have to admit that I make a few exceptions. As soon as a new story of the Brussels cartoonist François Schuiten is released, I always buy it without hesitation. His latest creation is called “12 The beautiful”. It’s about a man and his passion for a steam locomotive. I bought it, read it and …
Read More…The illusion of a relationship…
25/03/12 08:08 Filed in: Psychology | Narcissist
It doesn’t matter if it is with the one you love, your boss, your employee or anyone else, sometimes the relationships you have are not what they seem. You could be connected with those among us that are incredibly self-centered and because of that, they are not capable of having a healthy two-way relationship. You give them your time, your energy, your commitment, your love, your creativity and all the other things that make you so valuable as a person, but in return you...
Read More…An extraordinary man...
17/03/12 22:08 Filed in: Leadership
Some time ago I had the chance to have a talk with Eddy Merckx. The American magazine, Velonews, called him once “the greatest and most successful cyclist of all time.” He was, and still is a hero and an inspiration to many people all over the world. On the table were coffee and cookies and…
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Read More…The art of storytelling...
05/03/12 23:28 Filed in: Art | Storytelling
Some people tell stories of great people or great events, and other people have the gift to just tell great stories. Judith Vanistendael is such a great storyteller…
Read More…Is It Better to Be Feared or to Be Respected As a Leader?
25/02/12 22:39 Filed in: Leadership
As a psychologist I come across both, the feared and the respected leaders. Both can be very effective in realizing the goals of their organizations. Therefore I have learned not to judge either of them. Although both types of leaders can create success, they create very distinctive journeys for themselves...
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Read More…One Percent Against One Percent…Why this Apathy?
I met Michael in Washington and Aaron in London. Both are active members of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. They sleep in tents outside and it is cold these days. They have the courage to persevere... Read More…Past and Present Interwoven…
It is a strange sight, almost disturbing. Nazi propaganda posters in front of the Holocaust Museum in Washington... Read More…The teachers who influenced me... 1/3
22/12/11 03:28 Filed in: Leadership
So far there are three teachers that have influenced my life significantly. Although I’m forty now, they are still on my mind every now and then. The first one is the mathematics teacher I had when I was about seventeen years old. He had a picture of a monkey…
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Stand up for your leader and take responsibility for your future
I’m in Washington DC and I reread his speech. Many people all over the world can remember that moment when the forty-fourth president of the United States of America gave his inauguration speech, that powerful message of hope. I am one of them. I left my job early that day to...
Read More…What is the value of freedom and privacy in the digital age?
Freedom is this beautiful thing that gives us options in life. Are we protecting it or are we taking it for granted?… Read More…
A vision to connect... Blue Assist
02/12/11 18:50 Filed in: Society
Sometimes a good idea is so simple and therefore so ingenious. In a highly connected society no one should be left out. People with an intellectual disability however need to ask for help sometimes, but are not always able to connect with the people around them... Read More…
74 Miles Away...
30/11/11 18:28 Filed in: Music
My friend Peter told me, "Let’s go to a concert. There is this great band called 74 Miles Away and they are giving their last gig this year." Well, Peter really knows about music, but the concert was on a Sunday at 11h00 a.m., in a small town somewhere in Belgium...Read More…
A different perspective on shrimps…a little experiment
26/11/11 20:10 Filed in: Cross Culture | Psychology
In my work as a psychologist I became especially interested in the reasons why it’s so easy for people with a different cultural background, to have misunderstandings or even conflicts... Read More…
Have we created a system that we can’t control anymore...?
Recently we are hearing in the media that our economy is out of balance. What is often meant is that the current economic structure favors a very small proportion of the rich over the rest of us. However, out of balance can have also a different interpretation... Read More…
A need for a revision of the separation of powers?
13/11/11 22:39 Filed in: Democracy
A fundamental principle in democratic governance is the trias politica, or the separation of powers. Many democratic states are therefore divided into three branches, a judiciary, a legislature and an executive power. Although there are differences among countries in the way that the trias politica is organized, the reason it is implemented is the same: when a single person or group has too much power, they could become dangerous to citizens… Read More…
Voice is power...
11/11/11 18:39 Filed in: Psychology | Leadership
I spend the last two days in Amsterdam following a seminar on vocal awareness. The name of the seminar was “Your voice is power. Maximize your leadership potential”. Normally I’m very skeptical about seminars with such a title. I’m probably biased but it triggers a kind of fuzzy New Age image in me... Read More…
Finding our soulmate
An acquaintance of me has a new girlfriend. Together they have five children. Two from his two previous relationships and three from his current one. He is the biological father of the first two. Most of my sons friends are...
Update January 9, 2012
This article got a lot of response. Here is one I really want to share. It’s a funny but really interesting too. “Arranged marriage: How to find a beautiful wife?” see http://comedy.rajiv.com/goodwife.htm The author is Rajiv Pant, find more of him on Twitter @rajivpant
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Update January 9, 2012This article got a lot of response. Here is one I really want to share. It’s a funny but really interesting too. “Arranged marriage: How to find a beautiful wife?” see http://comedy.rajiv.com/goodwife.htm The author is Rajiv Pant, find more of him on Twitter @rajivpant
Read More…The Chinese man and a confrontational view on the BHV problem
Being a Belgian, I come across quite some people in different countries that ask me about the current problems with the Belgian government. This is one example of such a conversation... Read More…
Do the freedom of speech test
30/10/11 08:08 Filed in: Democracy | Cross Culture
One particular question I get a lot is “Can I say [this or that] to someone from another culture?”. First, I don’t believe in do’s and don’ts when dealing with other cultures and second you can say whatever you want to someone from another culture… Read More…
Indignados...and the potential of severe violence
18/10/11 13:37 Filed in: Democracy
I went to talk to some indignados in the Jubel-park in Brussels. The mayor of the city allowed them to stay another night in the park. When I arrived they were... Read More…
Democratic fundamentalists
Why is it that questioning the democracy is often a taboo? A while ago I was attending a conference in Brussels on the economic... Read More…
Irony is an expression of cowardliness
08/08/11 22:38 Filed in: Psychology
Irony can be a very beautiful form of humor. But unfortunately it is often an expression of cowardliness. Because when someone comes up with...Read More…