Hinweis: Der ursprüngliche Text wurde auf Englisch geschrieben und kann aufgrund der automatischen Übersetzung in deine Sprache manchmal kleine Übersetzungsfehler enthalten. Bitte galant drüber hinwegschauen.
My name is Johanna Pardo, I am almost 44 years old and I am the founder of mallorca-united. This idea and concept is the result of 8 years of experience, experimentation and research, which I would like to share with you in this first blog.
I was born in 1980 in beautiful Paris, France. At the age of 15, I started an apprenticeship as a bakers-woman, which I completed 3 years later with a commendation. After 2 years as a journeywoman, I developed an allergy to flour dust, which forced me to rethink for the first time in my life. I decided to go down the commercial route, retrained as an industrial clerk and ended up in sales relatively quickly. Probably because of my big mouth, which I’ve kept to this day. Within 12 years, I made the classic social climb. Starting as a call centre agent at Bertelsmann, I later moved to one of the largest personnel service providers and placed personnel throughout Germany. A few years later, I found myself as a member of the management board of a medium-sized catering company, leading a team of around 30 people.
As life would have it, I fell ill at the peak of my career and from one day to the next I could no longer do anything. I had simply lost the meaning of my life and my work. It was the first time in my life that I was looking for a new purpose in life. A meaning that was not based on ‘my house, my boat, my work’. Around the same time, many people were dying in the Mediterranean. I wanted to get going, make a difference, help, not sit around pointlessly in my too big flat. But when I thought the spiral through to the end, I had to realise that the suffering in this world has a different origin than I initially wanted to assume. No matter how I twisted and turned it, I always ended up coming back to myself. With my way of living, consuming, loving and making decisions. Had I ever thought about the fact that our system was set up in such a way that the wealth of one person was often based on the poverty of another? While we could buy Billy shelves cheaply in the West, they were produced at starvation wages in the East. While I drove off the farm in my fat Daimler, our kitchen staff started their 10th double shift in a row. ‘Anyone can become a millionaire, but not everyone.’ – Volker Pispers (I don’t like him much anymore, but the quote is good).
Back then, I promised myself that I would do everything I could to find meaning in my life that wasn’t based on status and money. Something that no one could ever take away from me again. To do something that really made sense and make this world, at least from my point of view, a slightly nicer place. Even though I was just a drop in the ocean, I felt it very keenly, the ocean was inside me. What kind of world would we actually live in if there were more happy and contented people? So I spent almost 2 years travelling and making myself visible as a blogger and hero midwife. During this time, I accompanied myself and people in giving birth to their inner heroine. An incredible time that changed me from the ground up.
I had a dream
When our world went so crazy 4 years ago, I had a dream at night that made me sit upright in bed. ‘Come together, the rest will be easy…’ I sat in my bed drenched in sweat and suddenly I had a crystal clear vision that I immediately wanted to put into action. Only today do I understand the ‘quiet’ ironic undertone of life in this call.
At that time, however, I sat down in the night, fuelled by this loud inner call, and immediately wrote a short concept that I wanted to send to my closest confidants the next morning. What was the lowest common denominator that could unite people, regardless of their opinions, backgrounds and orientations? How could we manage to connect as many people as possible under one roof so that something bigger could emerge? Is the problem really that we are not enough people who want something new, or rather that we are too scattered and hidden?
No sooner said than done. The next morning I sent the concept to 10 people, put out a call on Facebook and within a very short time around 300 people had joined a Facebook group. Wow. Without thinking any further about structures and concepts, or even knowing each other, 11 women came together who wanted to bring this project into the world. My vision was to live the ‘new’ right from the start by listening to and considering all opinions. I was cute, because I only had theory in my head.
However, we quickly reached our limits. If it were that easy, it would probably have been done long ago? How do you find a consensus when one person doesn’t want to create a legal basis for the project, but the other has their name on the legal notice? How do we finance a programmer to build and provide the whole thing for us if there were no funds available and nobody knew anything about it? No problem, I’ll go back to school and learn web design. The fact that I now build websites for others came from this original vision. We had a great and intense time. Unfortunately, the project, which had started so euphorically, came to a standstill and over time everyone lost the desire and strength to continue working together to reach a consensus. The energy had dissipated. Did there really have to be a train driver? Was that what I wanted? Was that the new thing?
Time change us
In January 2022, I began training as a systemic change manager, which I successfully completed 6 months later. Through my experiences in recent years, I have seen a huge wave of change rolling towards us, for which (almost) nobody is/was prepared. Least of all me. So how does this coming together work when, at the end of the day, we are all traumatised children who believe they have to fight for their value and place in this world? How can real connection happen if we can’t relate to each other? I finally realised that nothing can change in this world if I carry the war and conflict within myself and pass it on to others. I withdrew more and more from the public eye and focussed on my personal issues and my desire to discover and live my calling.
Welcome to Mallorca
In May 2023, I made the crazy decision to pack my belongings and finally fulfil my wish to live in a warmer country. As a child with a Spanish and Algerian immigrant background, I felt increasingly uncomfortable in Germany. Did I really want to finance war with my taxes, while our sick, children and elderly have less and less?
Welcome to Mallorca!
I looked and observed my surroundings and saw how more and more people on social media were fighting for the next customer, just like me. I watched myself become a barker to get attention and not go under. Most of my day-to-day life as an entrepreneur was spent generating content on social media. Was it really meant to be? At the expense of my heart and my authenticity? What is going wrong in our endeavour to become successful with our heart business?
Is what we do natural? Is it natural in the sense that nature intended, or is our lone wolf mentality, trained by society, the reason for our hard struggle in everyday life? How easy can life be if we work together instead of against each other?
Nature teaches me that everything is a cycle. The tree gives nutrients to the earth, the earth feeds the meadows and flowers, which in turn provide food for bees and insects. And how do we live together as humans in contrast? ‘Go away, these are my nutrients?’
And we wonder why it often feels hard?
Do you want to know how ‘mallorca united’ has emerged from all these experiences and what the vision and concern is? Read on in the next blog 🙂
Thank you for being here. This is a gift for all of us!
Author: Johanna Pardo
"Sich liebende Menschen, schaffen friedliche Welten."