About
My name is Nicolas Endres but most people call me Nicki. I speak German and English.
My main focus in work and life is on creating environments which foster healthy states, traits and spaces. This endeavour ranges from the individual to the collective.
In my early twenties I became extremely fascinated with the mind, the brain and existential questions. This led me to an exploration of these topics both from the Western and the Eastern perspective, or in other words, from the outside and from the inside.
To understand the Western perspective I studied psychology, neuroscience and philosophy and worked in academia, for example within the ReSource-Project, a large, longitudinal study on the effects of meditation at the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognition and Brain Science.
Exploring the Eastern perspectives I dove into the teachings of ancient contemplative traditions, especially Buddhism and Daoism, and the meditative techniques associated with them, e.g. meditation, Yoga and Qigong as well as breathwork, plant medicine and other healing modalities. The more I practiced these internal techniques the more I realised their value for individual and collective mental health and well-being.
I had the chance to combine these two perspectives on the mind, the inner and the outer, in designing and teaching an experimental inner science course at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain at Humboldt-University, Berlin.
I am generally fascinated by the idea of applying the scientific method and ideals that we have used so successfully in investigating and transforming the external world and applying them to our inner worlds. I work towards integrating the wisdom of ancient contemplative traditions with the insights of modern science and technology. The ultimate goal of this endeavour is to raise our collective level of consciousness and become more mindful, compassionate and wise as a whole. Towards this lofty goal I give talks at festivals and scientific conferences, teach courses on inner science and meditation, and direct The Garden, an organisation focussed on integrating inner, interpersonal and systemic regeneration.
With the goal of creating The Garden in mind I got more and more interested in organisational design and facilitation. Working in different contexts in scientific and other organisations I have again and again seen well-meaning, highly intelligent people having difficulties working together in constructive ways which I now realise was mainly due to a lack of healthy processes and structures. Seeing the need for wholesome spaces which enable joyful and efficient collaboration I trained as a coach, mediator and agile manager.
A lot of my work at the moment focusses on supporting teams and organisations in their transition to new ways of collaboration, participation, relating and being. I am particularly interested in psychological safety, sociocracy, self-organisation, the agile mindset, iterative-incremental workflows, decentralised organisational structures, collective decision-making, compassionate systems theory and transformational and regenerative leadership. I apply and explore these practices in my work as an organisational coach and consultant. I have also co-founded and for three years co-directed a cooperative, self-organised coworking community in Berlin-Kreuzberg, CoopSpace. Our goal in this coworking community is to create a space that enables community, connection and collaboration and to create a model that we would like to see in the world.
For more info you can check out my CV here.