BACK TO BASICS
Andreas Dorn 
When is it time to start all over again? I am living in Malaysia for many years and get easily around speaking English.
Still, I picked up plenty of Malay words while navigating my day-to-day life.
The challenge starts when I start stringing words together into a coherent sentence.
Or, worse, to understand people's answers when they speak to me in Malay.
Recently, I decided, that good enough is no longer enough.
Because I am angry and sometimes embarrassed that my Malay language skills are that bad, after so many years of living in the country.
I said to myself …. Time to get back to the roots.
Assuming I don’t know anything, I signed up for a language course, to finally learn Malay, the beautiful language spoken in Malaysia.
From….. the…… very….. first ….. beginning.
Here is my class of beautiful people who study with me.
Step by step, I unravel my confusion, and I appreciate my teacher Amir.
Now, it all starts to make sense to me.
Yeah, it is Level 1, so I am not far into my journey yet. We might have covered below 200 words. But this does matter.
It feels good to know that I am back to basics to finally build a strong foundation.
I put the link to my Bahasa Class in the comments.
My point is that I had to (finally) realise my current state, belief, capabilities, and knowledge on how to handle my language skills in Malaysia became an obstacle.
It didn't serve me anymore.
I had to become aware of this and realise that my current knowledge is rather brittle.
Oh, and this can be applied to so many situations, isn't it?
Leadership, career, organisational culture, relationship, parenting......
Anything.
It is about emptying the cup, looking into the mirror, and saying, that enough is enough.
And then things start to move.
We might be able to do so alone, but more often than not, we need to reach out to find support. Be it from a coach, mentor, your partner, or a great friend!