Rather Carnival than Kitchen or Church

Ines Imdahl
– A Portrait by Welt am Sonntag

Published on May 14, 2017 | By Alexandra Iwan

She manages a company, writes books, researches, gives speeches, raises four children, takes care of a family – Ines Imdahl lives multitasking. Every day looks different. Only at carnival, she doesn't work.

A life in a state of simultaneity: Ines Imdahl is fully employed as an entrepreneur, graduate psychologist, advertising researcher, author, columnist and speaker. Her four children, 7, 9, 13 and 19, prepare her for the second full-time job. She is demanding when it comes to her relationship and her appearance. And that brings us to the heart of the matter: "There is neither a typical working day nor a typical day off," says Imdahl. She has been investigating the depth psychological effect of advertising for more than 20 years. Ines Imdahl is the female synonym for a load of compressed energy. Jack of all trades was yesterday – today it's better to say “Ines at the start.”

Her working days are extremely different, they can start as early as six in the morning and, in extreme cases, end after a survey round at 11 p.m. The not so perfect working day can also start like this: She wakes up in the hotel and doesn't know which city she is in. Advantages of these travel days: she can run. She has already explored almost all European cities in jogging gear. That's her perfect time – without running, she would probably be completely exhausted. This one hour, ideally three times a week, is her time. She comes back refreshed and with new ideas.

Three cities in two days are not that rare and Imdahl's soul doesn't always keep up. That's why she says: "I prefer to be at home."

On the other days, the children have to quickly get their school sandwiches in the morning, have breakfast and be sent to school. After around six hours of office work, she has already done a lot: many employee discussions, phone calls, emails and fire brigade operations, then the afternoon beckons with Latin vocabulary or math tasks. Every second day is reserved for the children from noon – she is full-time in the office or on the road for three days, which means more than eight or ten hours of daily work.

Surviving in multitasking

Perfection has a new dimension for her every day of the week. For a working mum, it is sometimes pure survival in multitasking – that's a good day. At work she is often asked in amazement: “You have children? You can't tell.” You wonder what you look like when you have children. Better or worse?

The other frequently asked question is: “How do you manage everything? Entrepreneur and four children?” She has two answers to this, the first is: “I can't do it, I improvise with everything, but I can do it so well that it looks like I can.” The second is: “I'm not alone, my husband does it all too.” This is absolutely central for her; few women have a partner who lives equality in every respect. He also looks after the children in the afternoons, alternating with his wife – but is always available and a lot of work has to be taken into the weekend.

And that's exactly what she misses – the weekends. There haven't been many of them in the last twelve months and she sees that as a “real failure”. Family should be a priority and yet she is too often at the computer. But she takes time for the children's questions, for games or small trips to the zoo – and for food. Once a day all six of them sit at the table in the evening, they often realize this at home when her husband cooks or when they go out to eat. When you ask her what her greatest success is, she answers “My four children”, she doesn't value cooking and church.

Understanding why people do what they do

Her motivation as a psychologist has always been great understanding, understanding. Why do people smoke even though they know it is harmful to them? What follows the why? Philosophy in the advanced course couldn't explain that to her, so she studied psychology and learned that people always have two souls in one breast. They always want at least two contradictory things at the same time. Eat unlimited chocolate and lose weight, for example.

Getting to the bottom of things has become Ines Imdahl's mission. Why is that? Why does someone feel like that? She always gets to the bottom of things, her thoroughness is a formula for success: “Ruthlessly creative” is one of her favorite compliments.

She says of herself: “I am very fortunate that people pay me for what I do best. And I can't really do much other than psychological market research. Plan B would have been therapy. I am a trained psychotherapist, but today I usually joke that I would feel sorry for my first patient.”

Her company, the “rheingold salon”, was also created from the constant question of why and the desire to always do better: depth psychological market research combined with psychological advice for people and companies. People are at the center for her. An Imdahl interview lasts at least two hours, a group often four hours. She and her team try to explore and understand people's thoughts and feelings.

Understanding advertising as a fairy tale

Her everyday life was at its “most perfect” when she wrote her first book two years ago. For three months she led an orderly life with a lot of depth. Every day she wrote for four to six hours and in the afternoon she had time for the children. “Advertising on the couch,” the title says, deals with modern fairy tales – and allowed her to write down all the research ideas that had been collected over the years and never really put on paper. Author Ines Imdahl says: “That's exactly what good advertising should do. Tell stories that fascinate us, that captivate us, that make us smile, that we tell each other or, in today's media world, like and forward – just like fairy tales used to.” Understanding advertising as a fairy tale shows how much more would be possible. How wonderful the advertising world could be, beyond superficial glitter worlds with good, solid stories.

For Ines Imdahl, the book and writing were a great joy, a great relief – but financially completely out of the question. You can't make a living from writing books, says Imdahl. Despite the sold-out edition, the project was not cost-covering. Goethe already said: “You have to be able to afford to write books.” Today she is happy that she was able to try it.

But how did she get into market research? After starting her career in management consulting in 1996 (“That wasn't my thing”), she went back into research. After just four years, she was managing director and partner – and in 2011, together with Jens Lönneker, she implemented a new vision with the founding of the “rheingold salon”. So good that she is often requested as a speaker or keynote speaker. And then also press inquiries: “Sometimes I can't coordinate the appointments anymore,” laughs Imdahl. She just stood in front of the camera for seven episodes of a new WDR advice series – sometimes a nice change with audience ratings of over ten percent.

“I don’t work from Fat Thursday to Ash Wednesday”

For her, almost perfect days: Carnival in Cologne. “All the children are also infected and talk about their costumes months in advance,” laughs Imdahl. They could hardly speak and were already singing the first Cologne songs: “I don’t work from Fat Thursday to Ash Wednesday.” Customers and employees know that too. Her favorite carnival store: Entlarvt, Zülpicher Straße in Cologne.

She loves dressing up so much that she also gave the first lecture on her book release in a pirate costume, but that was mainly because no one had ever done it before, she had googled that.

And it is her motto: “If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got.” Making something different again and again fascinates her. And she also has to do it, because her everyday life forces her to constantly improvise.

If she should have peace and vacation, then at the Baltic Sea – as often as possible also in winter. And in Cuba: a few weeks without WiFi – that's the perfect day!

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