People often assume “Agile is a state of mind” must come from a book, a manifesto, or some overpaid consultant’s keynote.
For me, it doesn’t.
It comes from a man in flip‑flops, a blizzard, and one of the worst internal company presentations I’ve ever given.
Let’s start with the flip‑flops.
A Blizzard, Flip-Flops, and a Strange Revelation
Somewhere in the early 90s I was watching the news. Extreme cold somewhere in the US. A camera team wanders through a white hellscape — snow sideways, wind that peels your skin off.
Out of a house steps a man wearing nothing but flip-flops and briefs, casually picking up his mail.
Journalist: “Isn’t it a bit cold for that?”
Man: “Cold is a state of mind.”
Not exactly philosophy class material, but the sentence stuck.
And at the time, in my youthful arrogance, I decided he was right: with the right state of mind, everything is possible. So I began calling everything a state of mind.
Washing the dishes?
A state of mind.
Parallel parking?
A state of mind.
Remembering birthdays?
Absolutely a state of mind — and one I never mastered.
Most of these “states of mind” have died honorable deaths over the years.
A few survived.
The most important one — the one that refused to die quietly — was Agile.
Fast Forward to 2012: Me, a Consultancy, and a Terrible Idea
Jump to Munich, 2012.
I’m working for a small consultancy — the kind where PowerPoint is the native language and “knowledge sharing” means “someone presents slides until everyone falls asleep.”
I was working on a software project using a kind‑of‑sort‑of‑scrum‑ish setup and JIRA.
Nothing heroic.
And certainly nothing particularly good in the way we worked — the software itself was excellent.
One day I get “the invitation.”
Which in consultancy language means: “You will present something, and you will like it.”
They wanted me to explain how we used JIRA to “be agile”.
In hindsight, the entire premise is already wrong.
It was wrong in 2012.
It feels even more wrong now.
But fine — 60 minutes, a PowerPoint, and an audience of consultants.
What could possibly go wrong?
The Moment I Realized They Expected the Wrong Thing
While preparing the slides, something felt off.
They expected a JIRA tutorial.
A show-and-tell of dashboards, swimlanes, burndowns, and whatever else makes consultants believe — or at least hope — agility is happening.
But I had this stubborn feeling — blame the guy in the blizzard — that agile had very little to do with tools.
So I did what felt right:
I threw away the idea of presenting JIRA and created a talk called:
“Agile Is a State of Mind.”
Ninety minutes of stories — because no matter what I put on slides, I tell stories. They could read the deck afterwards.
And instead of turning JIRA into the hero of the hour, I simply refused to make the tool the center of the universe.
And then, in the last five minutes, just to be polite, I clicked through a couple of JIRA screenshots and said, “Yes, this is the tool we use.”
I still have the PPT.
I hope all other copies have burned in a tragic data‑center fire, because when I look at it today, it doesn’t say “Agile is a state of mind” at all.
The talk was fine.
The slides were not.
And if I had to create a PPT today (which I probably wouldn’t), it would look nothing like that one.
But the title survived.
The title became a thing.
Did I Invent the Phrase? Probably Not. But Still…
I once tried to research where “agile is a state of mind” actually comes from.
Nothing older than my 2012 presentation surfaced.
I don’t claim ownership.
I don’t need a trademark.
I don’t need to be the father of the phrase.
I just know how it began for me.
And more importantly, what it means today.
What Time (and Reality) Removed
My youthful “everything is a state of mind” optimism is gone.
Cold stayed.
Empathy stayed.
Agile stayed.
The rest — most of them — faded away without much ceremony.
And I no longer believe the nonsense that you can accomplish anything if you “want it badly enough.”
That’s manager and parent mythology.
A comforting lie for people who don’t want to look at systemic constraints, bad circumstances, or simple reality.
Agile is not wishful thinking.
It’s not a tool.
It’s not a framework.
It’s definitely not a certificate.
Agile is how you cope with change that doesn’t care about your plans.
It’s how you move when the ground shifts under your feet.
It’s adjusting course when you realize your brilliant idea is wrong, outdated, impossible, or simply useless.
It’s the willingness to say:
“We thought this was the goal, but actually — we were wrong.”
And then turning around.
Sometimes 180°.
Sometimes more.
Agile isn’t comfortable.
It’s not glamorous.
It’s not a career path.
It’s a mindset for dealing with reality — especially the parts reality doesn’t negotiate about.
And That’s the Origin Story
A half‑naked man in a blizzard.
An internal presentation that somehow entertained people more than it educated them.
A phrase that grew legs and has been following me ever since.
That’s the unlikely birthplace of “Agile is a state of mind.”
Not exactly the origin story you’d expect — but agility rarely starts where people assume it does.
Most things don’t.
It starts in the tiny moment you realise the thing you prepared — the plan, the framework, the sacred best practice — no longer matches what’s in front of you.
And then you change direction.
Not heroically.
Not ceremonially.
Just… because you have to.
Our ability to change will always matter more than our ability to predict.
Everything else is just theater — a traveling circus. Send in the clowns.