The Value of Education and Overcoming Fear

Trust, Positivity, and the Power of Self-Belief

Biver asserts the importance of trust in overcoming fear. His mantra is to trust oneself, trust life, trust nature, and stay optimistic. Having a positive outlook is a must for this Swiss watchmaker, as he believes that positive thinking often results in positive outcomes.

Lifelong Learning and the Need for Mentorship

Biver, a fervent believer in lifelong learning, emphasizes the need for mentorship at any age. According to him, learning is a key ingredient to staying young and connected to the future. The moment you stop learning, you start aging.

Seeing the Upside of Crises

In the current global climate, Biver urges individuals to view crises as opportunities. His perspective is that every crisis comprises an 80% threat but also a 20% opportunity. He encourages people to focus on the positive elements in a crisis and leverage them for growth.

A Masterclass in Resilience and Innovation

This insightful interview with Jean-Claude Biver provides a glimpse into the mind of a visionary who has constantly pushed boundaries in the Swiss watchmaking industry. His wisdom and insights are not just valuable for those in the watchmaking business, but for anyone seeking to grow and thrive in any industry. If these highlights piqued your interest, you’ll definitely benefit from watching the entire video.

I was honored to spend d 30 minutes discussing life with legend Jean-Claude Biver. From Chinese philosopher Confucius to Education to the power of risk taking and finally to the upside of COVID, we covered it all!

Interview transcription

Here are some of the highlights of our conversation. I would recommend watching the entire video but if you can’t, you’ll still get a lot from these.

Me:

How do you stay relevant these days in the sea of sameness? How can one stay relevant when everything seems to be the same and everybody wants to abide by the same rules and do the same things and maybe is afraid of standing out. What is your take?

JC Biver:

You just have to remember, a few thousand years ago, Confucius wrote already that “only the dead fish go with the flow”. A fish that is alive swims left or right of the current or against the current and if he swims with the current, he goes twice the speed. So dead fish means you just follow the current of the river. And today is no different than during Confucious’ time. You must always try to be first, different, unique. And if you are first, different, unique, then you will be different, you will be first, you will be unique. And, that’s my philosophy. As a kid, I told myself that I’d never be like adults. I will always try to be first, different and unique. And I don’t want to be a dead fish. I don’t want to swim in the river like a dead fish. I want to be alive.

Me:

I couldn’t agree more with you, but some people are afraid to be unique to stand out.

JC Biver:

Of course! Because people are not educated, they are afraid to be different. People are afraid to be wrong. People are afraid of failures. And that’s a problem of education. If you educate your kids that failure is the necessary step to success – that success can only be reached by a certain number of errors, failures or mistakes – that every mistake brings you further to the success and that every failure should be forgiven. To be an entrepreneur means you have to invent. You have to be different, you have to innovate, you must have the courage to be wrong. You must be able to accept that you are wrong. You must be able to share your mistakes. You must be able to doubt, you should not be afraid of your doubts. The doubt is there to help you. So the difference comes from education and education from school, education from religion, education from parents and education from social life. It’s the whole education system that brings certain kids to success, teaches them not to be afraid while others, which is the majority, unfortunately, will be afraid of being different.

Me:

How have you in your life overcome fear and what has been your mental discipline and routine? I’m sure maybe it changed as you got more successful and wiser.

JC Biver:

My routine is trust. I trust myself; I trust life because I’m optimistic and I am positive. I trust life, I trust nature. I trust me. I trust human beings. It doesn’t mean I trust everybody. And it doesn’t mean that I’m not afraid of certain things. But my major attitude is I trust myself. I trust God. I trust nature. And that helps you to stay positive. If you have positive thinking, positivity might happen. If you have negative thinking, never will you get a positive result. So stay positive, trust you, trust your destiny, trust your activity. Trust your entrepreneurship, trust your friends, trust your family. Trust God. So, trust is an important element, to avoid that fear takes over you. But I had fears and I still have fears – if somebody would tell me now that I’m going to die in 15 minutes. I might have fear for the last 15 minutes, who knows? But, nevertheless, my entire life has been guided by trust and trust is for me the best way to get away from fear.

Me:

Were you always this way?

JC Biver:

No, no, I’m better now. And I will be better in 10 years. I improve!

Me:

So because you have nature and nurture, right? Some people are born more destined to be happy. Genetically speaking, and some have to work on it. So was trust something you had to work on or did it come naturally?

JC Biver:

Of course, I had to work on me. I had to work on my philosophy, my behavior and my destiny. I’m not passive. I have always believed that I’m responsible for what is happening to me. As I am responsible for my life, I am the boss of my life. And if my life doesn’t go in the right direction, it’s because of me. It’s not because of somebody else. It’s so easy to say how I have not been successful because of this or that. No, you are responsible because you are in charge of you and you are the boss of you and you make the destiny for you. That was my thinking, but that’s also very heavy thinking because it means it puts a lot of pressure on you. If you say, Oh, it’s not my fault, it’s destiny, it was my boss then you take the pressure of yourself away and you put it on somebody else, but that’s not the solution.

Me:

Do you think someone can get a mentor at any age or is it at some points like you’re too old to now get a mentor?

JC Biver:

You need a mentor at any age. Why? Because you always need to learn. The older you get, the more you should learn, because if you learn, you cannot be old. You only get old when you stop learning. To be young, what does it mean? It means I am young; I learn. The baby, when he’s born the first thing he does, he learns to see, where is his mother? How can he get the food of his mother? How can he get love from his mother? The learning process is the most important process in life. As soon as you stop learning, you are like the dead, only dead people don’t learn anymore. And therefore, the older you get, the more you should listen, the more you should look around yourself, the more you should learn.

And as long as you learn, you are connected to the future. If you don’t learn, you get connected to the souvenir, to the past. And sometimes you see old people and they talk about yesterday. And when they talk about yesterday, it’s like, they are already dead. You should talk about tomorrow because we cannot live in yesterday. We can only live tomorrow. So the learning process is the most important element in your life. And never, should you stop learning only once you are in bed, you can rest all that as long as you are alive, you must learn. You must listen, you must look. And the worst that can happen is that you stop learning.

Me:

As we live in a challenging world right now, do you have a positive note for those who have become a little bit better or tired of what the situation? Where do you think this is going? What is the opportunity behind this pandemic?

JC Biver:

In a crisis, there are always opportunities. A crisis is a mixture of threat and opportunity. Of course, if there is a crisis, the percentage of threat is probably 80 or 90%, but you have 10 or 20%, which are opportunities. And one should concentrate on those 10 or 20%, which are the opportunities that the crisis brings you. But most of the people I know focus on the 80% of the crisis, which is the threat – and you see it in newspapers, in the political debates… We always focus on the 80%, of the pandemic. Nobody tries to concentrate on the 10 or 20% of the positive elements of this crisis – the crisis must somehow become your friend and not your enemy. If the crisis is your enemy, you have lost already. You cannot win against the crisis. For instance, some of your competitors are having difficulties or some other CEOs are in panic and they sell shops or reduce costs. Try to take advantage of the panic of others. Everybody is afraid, let’s take advantage of the fact that they want to save money. Let’s spend now, we must concentrate on the 10 or 20% positivity that is in the crisis. I agree 80% of the crisis is negative but 10% to 20% is positive.

Me:

What do you think some of the positives are?

JC Biver:

Many positives! The fact alone that people are afraid to spend money. People are afraid to travel. People want to save money. People are reducing hiring, there are many, many, many ways in each industry where you can find positivity.

Me:

Losing jobs is a positive?

JC Biver:

No, but yes, it’s a positive because suddenly you can hire somebody that you never would have hired because they would never have put them out of the job as long as the turnover was good. Now, because of the difficulty, you’re saying let’s get rid of this guy. He costs too much money, but he’s the best. So hire him. So hiring in the crisis is something very positive.

This must have given you a taste of how the rest of the interview went and if you got inspired by this then imagine how you’ll feel after you watch the entire video!

Name

Email*