From The Preface

Philipp Johner is a man who truly knows how to be a friend.  He’s not only defined by what he does professionally; he embodies the principles that drive his life.  Love is what he values most and he shows it in every interaction with his family, his staff, his clients, his friends and with strangers.  Love and abundance emanate from him and simultaneously create a path to his door. 

As a practicing psychologist and executive consultant, he focuses on helping people reach their full potential, removing obstacles to their growth and teaching them how to communicate with themselves and with others. 

He is an athlete and former kickboxing champion who ranked 5th in the world, an amazing feat for someone who had been told that he would never walk normally again after having a terrible accident.  Since we share a sports coaching background, we have traded stories about the remarkable power of transformation of sports, of which he’s the poster boy. 

Undoubtedly, Philipp is a man who “walks the talk.”  He lives by the principles and ideas expressed in this book and I feel privileged to be chosen by him to join him in this literary journey.  I am convinced that his fervor about promoting friendship as the “immune system of society” will inspire many readers, who will discover the transcendental power of his message.

Through this book, you can design your personal future and make positive waves in the vast ocean of society. I trust you will do so with ebullient passion.

Carlos Salum

From Chapter 1

Johner on Johner

I was born in the 1950’s in Switzerland, a protected area of the world that has been spared from war for more than 200 years.

I grew up as the son of a Protestant pastor in the suburbs of Zurich.  At the end of World War II, my father had worked as an interpreter and had earned the trust of both French and Germans. He was a great friend of people from all nationalities.

My mother was from Geneva, the French part of Switzerland, which required some degree of assimilation on her part due to the cultural differences between the French and German-speaking cantons. 

From weakness to strength

I was often sick.  Every virus in the air sent me to bed.  I had blood poisoning and pneumonia, twice.  The second pneumonia was almost terminal. I was eleven years old.  My mother told me that I could not recognize her anymore. I remember opening my eyes and seeing my mother sitting besides me.  She was completely composed and she told me calmly: “God isn’t through with you.  He brought you back.” 

Through her, I really saw faith in action.  There were two things, two absolute convictions that she imparted to me, which I saw as a central part of life. One is that “God is omnipotent.”  Everything is His, either if I die or live.  The second is “God is good.” Those were important guidelines when I was growing up.  If you embrace these two ideas, you can already eliminate some troubles out of your life. 

Although I was a hopeful pupil, I never really excelled.  I went to boarding school from the time I was thirteen till I was sixteen years old because of my physical condition.  The doctor had said that if I had one more infection he could not guarantee my survival.  The mountains were supposed to strengthen my health. 

At fourteen, I had a teacher who had a great impact on me.  He was a former athlete from East Germany who preached nothing but discipline, but he was predictable and fair.  He had arms like steel. He had an unwritten law that said: “If you are good in math, I take care of you in athletics.  If you are good in athletics, you can never be bad in math.”  The former applied to me. 

When the other boys went to the village to meet girls or have fun, I had nothing to do.  They didn’t want me to be there.  My only past-time was to work out.  Through exercise, I learned that discipline worked, that it helped to meet my needs.  So, I started to love discipline and I still do today.  I started to become physically strong.  I started to earn athletic awards and I went up the ranks socially.  I was already the best academically but I became the best in track and field.  Suddenly, from being nobody at the beginning, I had become number one.  People looked up to me.

A steep hill to climb

I went on with my classic education but at seventeen I had a big accident.  From one second to the next, I was crippled.  My foot was lame and I had no sensation.  The doctors told me that I would have to stiffen my knee to walk, that I could really try but it was hopeless.  While in recovery, I applied mental training techniques I didn’t know existed.  I saw myself constantly jogging. I wasn’t an invalid, although I got money from the disability insurance every month and I could not do anything physical.  When people wished me to get well again, I would get so mad because it sounded as if I was sick. My invariable response to them was “same to you.”  Full of youthful arrogance, I didn’t let them have pity on me.  Pity was a poison I rejected.  I wanted to feel I was ahead of everything. 

At twenty two, through many operations, I started to lift my foot again.  The professor who performed an experimental operation on me, said: “You are now like Frankenstein.  You will have to teach your brain to use the muscles completely different.  The muscle that moves the foot inwardly will now move it outwardly.  You will need therapy for two hours, three times a week for six months or more.”  I recall coming out of the plaster four weeks after the operation. I was so happy.  I had my crutches with me and I walked home for two miles. I lied down on my bed. I focused and concentrated really hard and after forty-five minutes I had it.  I never spent one minute in therapy.

The eternal student

Three years later, I was Swiss champion in kickboxing.  I had started with kickboxing with the use of one leg.  I trained just technique.  In my head, I had fought all the time I couldn’t actually do it.  When I went to the first championship, it was like coming home.  I had been there.  Later on, in the eighties, they discovered the benefits of mental training and visualization.  I knew how it felt to look at people who could walk and say “I would do anything to walk again.” I had overcome my limitations on my own. 

My first love was physics, but half way through my studies I thought it would be more interesting to become a psychologist. I started studying philosophy and psychology, but in the beginning it was a big disappointment because it wasn’t thrilling at all.  To tickle my brain again, I went back to the technical college and got a degree in physics.  I became an “eternal student.”  I could care less about a career because I had reignited my love for life. 

One man, many hats

The guys I had met at the bodybuilding gym were interested in me because I was a good fighter and I was from the “another world.”  Aware that I needed money, they invited me to become a bouncer at night clubs.  My training took place at the Hell’s Angels Club. It was an appealing and mysterious world and I quickly became immersed in it.  I may have studied psychology at the university but I most certainly learned real life psychology from the night life.  That’s where I better understood human beings and myself. 

To earn more money, I became a stockbroker at the Zurich Stock Exchange.  Trading consisted on buying and selling shares by screaming at the top of your lungs.  That was great.  You never had to drink coffee to be awake.  I developed a strict work ethic and became part of the incredible dynamism of the marketplace. 

Manres

I founded Manres AG to bridge the worlds of psychology and business.  I started the company to serve people, developing a concept to assess employees in a short time and in a dignifying way. Our clients get to know learn more about themselves and understand how to handle themselves better. 

We believe that if you assign tasks to people according to their strengths, they will be motivated and they will work better. Consequently, our second focus is training.  Once you know people’s potential you do the best to develop them. 

As a consultant and entrepreneur, I focus on friendship, on building bridges. I love the interdisciplinary work.  I love to talk to people who have a completely different specialty to see how we can benefit from each other.

Why I wrote this book

As I move on in my life, I discover that people reveal to me their need for friendship. So, a few years ago, I started to analyze which of my gifts enhanced the probability of producing friendship.  I wanted to know what the ingredients of friendship are and integrate them.

In my business, I found that many issues were revolving around social skills such as leadership, empathy, authenticity, appreciation, motivation, conflict-solving and all these things.  I thought long and hard about what the connecting thread was between all of them.  It is friendship.  Friendship is the crown jewel, the core of all social skills.

Friendship gives you strength to go on living. Dante defines Hell as “a place where there is no hope.”  Friendship is about hope and if you have no hope, you live in Hell.

In practical terms, I wrote this book to tell people that everyone can become a craftsman in the art of friendship. If you study the art of friendship and you attain an average level of mastery of all the ingredients of friendship, you will have a different life.