An initiative, which I look back upon with great memories and positive feelings, is stringing tennis rackets for people. How did this initiative come about? Well, playing tennis I noticed players had to continuously get their rackets restrung. At that time there were not so many people, who were restringing rackets. One day in the 1980s, I discovered that the sports equipment store Skærbæk Sport on Søndergade in Aarhus was closing. When I came by, employees were cleaning up in the store. I asked them what they were going to do with their racket restringing machine. They said they had not decided yet. Hearing that, I asked them if I could take over that restringing machine. They said yes. What I recall happened after that will forever stay in my heart and mind and remain a prime example of great character and great mentoring. The person, I primarily talked to after expressing interest in buying the restringing machine, helped me in several ways. Not only did he help me understand how the machine worked. He also taught me - right there on the second floor of the store - how to use tools needed to restring rackets. In addition, he offered me to take along with me some old tools they had used to operate the machine and to repair as well as restring rackets. He also gave me a variety of strings. By doing what he did that day, he helped me become more self confident about taking this entrepreneurial initiative. I am grateful for this.

Wanting to better understand content in the relatively large books I was reading during bachelor and masters education in the 1990s, I started creating compendia containing the most important information from the books I was reading. What motivated me at the start of this work was simply better understanding what I was studying. In other words, I wanted to transform information from the books I was reading into knowledge that I found particularly useful. Later, as social media and self publishing platforms developed, I increasingly started sharing with other people what I learned.  Sharing research and teaching materials on social media and other publishing platforms such as Calaméo, eduki, issuu, Scribd, slideshare, and TPT, I learned that the demand was relatively high. Over several years, I discovered that sharing research, teaching materials, questions and methods help people to learn and grow. Slideshare was among the first publishing platforms that I used. In 2008, for example, I shared the publication 11 advantages of using a blog for teaching.

Reflecting about how important creative thinking is for making progress across companies, schools / universities, cities, countries, and other types of communities, I decided to invest more time in understanding how we can develop our creative thinking skills further and thereby create more value for each other. I developed creative thinking exercises and also tested them when working with students. Doing this work I have been inspired not least by Paul Sloane.

Working as a lecturer for people doing higher education studies, I found out that students had a need for physical spaces that help them to learn. So before facilitating workshops with students, I found it meaningful to arrive a couple of hours before the start of workshops to do preparations that would help students learn well. 

To design workshop spaces that would help strengthen learning for students, I brought with me a variety of teaching materials. Some examples: 

1. Flip charts which I prepared in my home office. On the flip charts, I created exercises and questions to help students learn.

2. Pens as well as cardboard on which students can write their names. In previous workshops, I had experienced that such an initiative can strengthen communication and connection between workshop participants.

3. Post-it notes in various colors, for example for moderating creative thinking exercises.

4. A notebook and mobile speakers.

5. Digital learning resources such as video clips, blog postings as well as other digital inspiration that can help strengthen curiosity and learning. Over several years I had learned that by sharing content online and thereby strengthening openness, learning experiences for students improve, as students can learn anytime and anywhere. Also, I experienced that the strong degree of openness enabled through the Internet can help to increase trust. What surprised me at that time was that very few teachers shared information over the Internet. With blogging and the use of other publishing platforms to share content, I felt quite alone at that time. Fortunately, significant changes happened later. 

Among other initiatives I took to help create great learning experiences for students was to organize chairs and tables in small groups and use mobile whiteboards to make learning zones in workshop rooms. Why did I want to do that? Through research I did and experiences I had facilitating workshops over a few years, I had learned that design and architecture can have a significant impact on learning experiences. I found out, for example, that reorganizing tables and chairs in small groups can help strengthen communication among participants. 

Hygge is a unique Danish and Norwegian term that does not have a direct translation in other languages. It is about ways to live well. Hygge has gained international popularity, especially in cultures that value well-being and self-care. Creating cozy indoor spaces is an important initiative to help strengthen hygge. Creating cozy spaces can be done in several ways. I experienced that many Danes create cozy indoor spaces using candle light and other beautiful lighting solutions. Also, for many Danes comfortable furniture is important to strengthen a feeling of hygge. To learn more about hygge and how to create it, take a peek at this posting.