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or the first time it is possible to abolish the historical separation of “work” and “pleasure”, “9 to 5” and “5 to 9”, working hours and holidays in our modern economy. There are more and more people who are actually able to make use of the German shop opening hours because they are no longer forced to work during this time.

But you enjoy “working” whenever you want to, including weekends or in the night, if you go your own way. You do what nourishes you, permanently and gladly. Someone who is comfortable with himself knows his worth, his values and the price at which he can sell himself.

To reach that stage we must go back to death again. How do I feel about the thought of it? Am I frightened of it? What stops me from dying? Is there anything for which I would give my life? To answer such questions to yourself is anything but deadly. It enables you to think about life and its value. If there is anything worth dying for, then it is also worth living for.

What obsesses you so much that you would dedicate your whole life to it? And why aren’t you doing it? Because we all prefer to play it safe.

In the classical division between job and pleasure we land in a job after our training that we like more or less, receive compensation for the time we spend there, instead of uniting work and pleasure. We would have to suffer less and would not abandon ourselves to partially senseless occupations, hobbies or chronic partying. What are you waiting for? Your old age pension?

Use questions about death to discover possibilities. Devote some time to it, a little solitude, and pen and paper. No distractions, no email nearby, no cell phone, not even a normal phone. Rent a hut on an alpine meadow. Do not take your partner with you. If I had only a year to live, what would I do in the time remaining? What should take priority? If the doctor told you that you had only thirty days to live, what would you concentrate on? And what if it were only a day, an hour? And how much time would you spend in self-pity?

The answers to these questions are the beginning of a lifelong search for the really important things in your life – the much quoted “meaning of life”. Your meaning, your values.

The secret is this. If there were no death we would not think about our lives. Death is there to make sense of our lives. A rich, meaningful life therefore entails coming to terms with our own death.

Then we see ourselves as we really are. The closer we get to our own real values, the more alive we feel. You can judge your values by the vitality and energy within you. They will be carried over into everything around you, including employees and customers, once these values become “lived”.

They are deep and therefore longer lasting than everything else. One of the largest and most successful hotel chains in the world is the Hyatt Regency Hotel. In his autobiography the heir to the chain explains the fundamental principle of its long term success. The “core values” of the founder have been passed on from generation to generation and taken up by all employees. It doesn’t have anything to do with visions on the drawing board during weekend conferences, but with deep human values that are according to the Hyatt family genuine and long lasting. Above all “the spirit to serve”.

The possibility of always being able to perceive what guests lack and what they expect, to put oneself in their place or their character and their demands, automatically raises the quality and promotes progress, so that there is hardly one stone left upon another in spite of the lasting values in the over 70 year old history of the Hyatt chain.

Its reputation as one of the leading international hotel chains justifies these “core values”, in accordance with the Lampedusa motto: “Everything has to be changed so that everything can stay the same.”