What you cannot lose

DariaTV is about real estate, entrepreneurship, community, and the journey to the USA. A new format is dedicated to the foundation behind all plans: one's own identity. 

Who are you? Most people answer this question with their profession. I am a doctor. I am an entrepreneur. I am currently building something. As long as everything is running smoothly, this answer is enough. It is enough until the exact day the job disappears, or the position, or one's health.

Jutta Burmeister knows this day. She was sitting across from her coach, burned out after twenty years as an entrepreneur, and said what seemed sensible to her: I need to work less. The coach asked in return: „And what will you do with your time then?“

She had no answer to that.

„I realized that I had lost all my hobbies,“ she says. She had neglected her interests for years. And she couldn't think of who she would be without the role of the entrepreneur. That was in 2008, after a physical collapse. For her, it was the beginning of a new life.

Today, alongside her many responsibilities including at DariaTV, Jutta Burmeister produces the show „True Identity.“ It explores a question that rarely comes up amidst numbers and plans: Who are you really when you have nothing to show for yourself?

Two concepts of liberty

Most people come to DARIA because they want to change their financial situation. Florida real estate, a second source of income, knowledge that is hard to find back home. That is a good reason, and we work every day to ensure it bears fruit.

Jutta Burmeister places a second value alongside this. She calls it emotional freedom, and by that she means something very sober: the ability to trust yourself when there is no external success confirming it.

„Quite often people think they first have to earn money, have a position, a new job, a partner, in order to then be something,“ she says. Her experience goes in the opposite direction. Whoever is internally grounded builds things up more easily. Whoever has to prove themselves builds under pressure.

The difference becomes apparent as soon as something collapses. The money, the health, the relationship, the job. „What I am, I cannot lose,“ she says. „What I can lose is my position, my role, or what others believe about me.“

From the secure desk to self-employment

Her own path began in the civil service, in a legal department. Well-paid, secure. Her parents breathed a sigh of relief, the child had found a stable place. She herself was bored to death.

It wasn't because of the topics. It was because of the response she got whenever she wanted to make an improvement: It had always been that way. She often finished her work in three hours, but she was paid for the whole day. „When I thought about sitting in that chair for another forty years, it seemed impossible to me.“

So she quit, without knowing exactly what would come next. She ended up in investment sales, founded companies, and taught herself law, taxes, organization, and leadership. For twenty years, that worked, in a double sense. „An entrepreneur doesn't get sick,“ she says about her mindset back then. „Things can't run without me.“

Until nothing worked anymore. Then came the stop sign from her body.

After that experience, she completed one training program after another: coaching, hypnosis, systemic work, and a license as a naturopath specializing in psychotherapy. She wanted to understand how illness develops and what a person needs to get back on their feet. Her conclusion may sound unspectacular, but for many people, it’s difficult to put into practice in everyday life: „My first duty of care is to myself.“

Anyone who pushes beyond their limits is no longer good for anyone. Neither for employees nor for customers.

The tissue

At one point in her lecture, Jutta Burmeister reaches for a tissue. That pure, she says, every human being comes into the world.

Then parents come along who mean well and tell you what is right and what is wrong. The school that asks you to sit still. The first relationship, the first disappointment, the first job. And at some point, she says, the smooth cloth has become a small, crumpled ball that believes it is not good enough.

She is not looking for anyone to blame. She is merely observing how little of it was chosen.

For her, therefore, being self-confident doesn't mean being the most confident person in the room. It means being aware of yourself—knowing what you need, what you're capable of, and what you're working toward. Four areas shape who you are long before you even decide for yourself.

Family background continues to have an impact, even if you have never experienced what happened in your family. When Jutta Burmeister started her own business, her family was unhappy. Why, she only understood years later: after the war, her grandfather had lost everything in his business and had to declare bankruptcy. In another branch of the family, the principle was that entrepreneurs exploited their workers. „I had to fight my way through that because I was confronted with my family's fear, which wasn't my fear at all.“

Then there’s your life story: your upbringing, school, relationships, the country where you grow up. After every hurt, a phrase lingers—one you tell yourself from then on.

The environment plays a role. Places where your strength increases, and places where it drains away. People with whom you grow, and people with whom you become smaller.

And finally your essence: talents, energy, a sense of what you are here for.

These four fields do not provide a ready-made answer. They provide a map. „It helps you to understand yourself better,“ she says. And sometimes it helps to uncover an old story that used to protect you and today only holds you back.

How much masks cost

The practical part of her work is more inconvenient than it sounds at first. Because anyone who does not know what they really want makes decisions that turn out to be expensive for everyone involved.

Your example: Someone wants closeness, a shared home, a daily life together. The person they fall in love with wants a long-distance relationship. They say yes anyway, so as not to lose this partner. „That is a betrayal of yourself and a betrayal of the partner,“ she says. One of them becomes unhappy. The other notices and doesn't know why.

The same thing happens at work. DARIA receives many applications, and Jutta Burmeister sees a pattern: the same people apply for one job today and a completely different one tomorrow. „I don't think that's all your passion.“ If the main motive is somehow to get to Florida, everyone loses in the end. The applicant ends up in a job that doesn't sustain them. And we get someone who is not working with their best skills.

Your counterproposal is simple and uncomfortable at the same time: first figure out what you need, can do, and want. Then go out with that. „This is who I am, this is what I can do, this is how I want to work.“ And then the other person gets to decide.

Sometimes a no comes. That is alright. It is honest, and it costs less than a yes on a false basis.

Two years of separation, eight years of retelling

It becomes most apparent in the stories that people carry around with them for years.

She knows people whose divorce happened ten years ago and who still curse every day at the one who left back then. Two years of separation, eight years of retelling. „Every day you tell yourself the story of this terrible person and ruin your own life.“

The alternative is no whitewashing. It consists of two questions: What did I overlook? What will I do differently next time? Whoever looks like this steps out of the past. Whoever stays in it builds nothing new.

This also includes how we treat others. „Don't judge someone until you have walked a mile in their shoes.“ You see a snippet. You don't know what wounds someone is carrying and why they do what they do.

Why this has a place at DARIA

Jutta Burmeister is a member of DARIA's management team. It was founded by Frank Rahlf and Patrick Lauber. Frank has known her for over 36 years, and she has been involved with the project since the very beginning.

Her reason for being there has to do with what she learned in self-employment. Whoever works alone is usually an expert in one thing and suddenly responsible for everything else. The physical therapist who goes into business for themselves no longer just treats patients. They take care of marketing, accounting, client acquisition, and eventually personnel. „One person cannot manage so many different jobs alone.“

That is precisely why a community works. Different people, different skills, a shared goal. Over the past few years, this has given rise to a dedicated program, a custom app, and a summer festival with over six hundred people. „Who could manage that alone?“ she asks. „That only works together.“

Thus, alongside the programs on loans, real estate, and business startups, there is now a format that deals with something different: the question that remains when the numbers add up.

Their motto is so simple that it is easy to overlook: Just be yourself. „There is nothing less dangerous,“ she says. Whoever knows who they are does not have to wait for circumstances to confirm it.