Niko’s Blog

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Here are a few little things you can use to make a big difference when you are together with a woman…
Please feel free to add to the list if you have some killer ideas

1. Bring her flowers (classic)
2. Make compliments on her looks
3. (Offer to) help with housework 
4. When she talks to you, stop doing what you ‘re doing and give her your full attention
5. Give her at least a one BIG hug a day
6. Don’t try to solve her problems
7. Tell her “I love you” at least once a day 
8. Empty the trash (voluntarily), I know this is a hard one for us guys…
9. Wash her car! (or if you are going for a date wash yours before)
10. Offer to give her a massage, mmmhhhhhhhhh….YES!
11. Don’t look at your watch when you are having sex
12. Buy her little presents often, rather than big presents less often
13. Take short romantic getaways (I love it) 
14. Carry her picture in your wallet (and let her see it)
15. Drive slowly and safely (or let her drive)
16. Take her dancing or take dancing lessons together - (I’m doing this right now)
17. Surprise her with a poem (don’t just google one, create one on your own)
18. Always open the doors for her
19. When she is cooking, compliment the food
20. Last but not least: Guys, remember to leave the bathroom seat down!  

Last 10 days were quite exhausting, yet extremely rewarding. I took an NLP course by Trinergy International, which is a company led by Roman Braun, an Austrian self-made successful entrepreneur.

Why NLP? I had been thinking on doing NLP Practitionier since the last 2 years and did a lot of research about various companies offering the course in Europe. I wanted to find the best one, so I was googling feedback from hundreds of attendees, checking on the qualifications of the various companies, institutes and trainers, their styles, mission, vision, marketing materials etc. Then I finally came to a result: it seemed that a company called Trinergy was the best one for NLP in Europe.

Now after having done the course, I am very happy to confirm that Trinergy is a top notch training company offering NLP, and it is no wonder why they are so much praised here in Europe. They even claim to be the No1 for NLP and coaching in Europe, and I can only say from my own experience that you can take this for granted.

Roman Braun, himself, was leading us throughout the course as the Head Trainer, and sharing in his charismatic and professional manner, an enormous amount of information and resources about and around NLP. Roman Braun used his own stories and anecdotes to illustrate points from the NLP theory giving us always a very practical ‘hands-on’ view. Although the very intensive course (10 days, almost everyday 10AM to 10PM) had more than 60 participants, the organization by Trinergy was close to perfect, and you were able to connect with many wonderful people as a result of the large group, and this was a nice bonus.

As a conclusion I can say that I was deeply impressed by the quality of the course. Especially as I have participated in countless leadership & communication trainings and workshops in my life and I have seldom been left so impressed as I was this time. So BIG RESPECT for that! As a member of the German Professional Speakers Association and as the Governor of Toastmasters Austria, I was also very impressed about Roman Braun as a professional speaker. He would easily have the balls to be one of the Top 10 Speakers in Europe, if he wants.

Anyway, if you are considering on doing an NLP course in Europe, make sure to check out Trinergy International.

Here some resources for you check out:

Definition of NLP according to Wikipedia: Neuro Linguistic Programming

Trinergy International Homepage: Trinergy International

This morning at 6:00 AM I turned on my iMac, and got a Facebook message from a good friend of mine; Makke Leppänen, who is currently studying and surfing the waves in Australia. The message contained this beautiful quote from Mahatma Gandhi, which I thought of sharing with you here in my blog:

”Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviour. Keep your behaviour positive because your behaviour becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny” -Mahatma Gandhi

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Most people would say: Sleep more!, I like to say: Sleep less!

Why? Because it is not the quantity of the sleep but the quality of the sleep that matters, and I can prove that as a father of three little kids.  

Sleeping less could be one of the best investments you can make to make your life more productive. Most people do not need more than 6-7 hours to maintain an excellent state of health. Try getting up one hour earlier for 1 month and it will develop into a powerful habit. Remember, it is the quality and not the quantity of sleep that is important. Just imagine having an extra 30 hours a month! to spend on the things that are important to you. Happy sleeping!

Frankly speaking, and being really honest with you, I seldom write my speeches before performing them. The reason is simply that I like to use almost always use my own real-life stories. The second reason is that I like to take risks (in business and when giving speeches ) so I really like to leave some creativity space for the actual performance so that the connection with the audience can also be spontaneous if things don’t go as planned.
However, when I do write a speech down, for example when I need to do research work about the topic, or when I’m speaking about a topic that’s not in my expertise I follow the simple guideline:

1. First I plan the framework; the speech structure, opening, closing, body of the speech, main points and roughly the little stories/items inside the speech (I prefer not more than three) that support the main point, which is the main PURPOSE of the speech. What do I want to achieve with my speech? I think having a central point in almost every speech is vital… even when I sometimes tell stories of my family life, I try to squeeze in a point :-). Naturally some speeches simply are there for entertaining purposes etc. and don’t really have a point, except entertaining and making people feel good.

2. When writing a speech down, I always try to write it in the same way I would talk it to a friend. This means basically taking my mind in to the next Starbucks, and talking the speech in my mind to a friend while writing it down on my iMac.

3. Once the draft is done, I read it out loud, correct any mistakes, add some ’spices’ like cool words and pauses and vocal variety, etc., so it’s like editing and cutting the screenplay. Then I re-write the speech, also so that it fits in to the required timeframe. 

4. Once the ‘master draft’ is ready, I exercise my written speech a few times; sometimes in front of the video camera, sometimes in front of my kids or wife, but I always make sure there is an audience watching me (poor family :-). Just mirror doesn’t work for me, it’s just too awkward and doesn’t give me the feedback I need.

5. Once I feel OK with the speech, I head down to the Mind Meister website (www.mindmeister.com) and prepare a (free) mind-map of my including only the few key-points.

6. Finally when performing the written speech, I have my mind-map with me just as a reference, however I almost never need it.

That’s pretty much about it. I still prefer to speak from the heart and not writing down the speeches; perhaps just preparing a mind-map as a back-up. But naturally different preparation styles fit for different people. What’s your style?

One of the coolest thing I lately started to use is Nike+. It’s a system that tracks your runs, and much more. Basically you just need Nike+ compatible shoes (around EUR 100,-), where you insert this tiny zip (with gps) and the other tiny part on your iPod. Then you can choose a distance (miles or kilometers), time (1/2hr, 1hr, etc) or calories you want to burn (500cal, 1000cal, etc), and you input this information directly on your iPod before the run, and off you go!

You can choose a playlist from your iPod or just shuffle songs, or whatever you prefer. The first time I used my Nike+, was quite funny. I didn’t really know how it works so I had these songs on shuffle. And at one point I was listening to Rocky “Eye of the Tiger”, and then Red Hot Chili Peppers “Give it away”; so I was running faster and faster, really in the feelings to run quickly and powerfully, sweating my butt off… and then, suddenly, came this song from Harry Belafonte: “Day-O, Day-O, Come Mr. Taliban Talimabanana…”, and the cool running feeling went down like Lehman Brothers’ Stock. And all I could do, was just to laugh about the situation… this song just didn’t fit at all….

There is another cool feature on Nike+: You can choose a female or male voice to give you feedback on how you are doing. Guess which one I chose? Yes, of course the female. It’s really awesome and motivating to run, when you get feedback from a hot female voice “15 minutes to go” “You can do it”…( dot-dot-dot :-). So in these days, I don’t only have an absolutely adorable wife, but also a ‘girlfriend’ in my iPod.

By the way when you reach your goal, there is Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, or another Nike sponsored superstar congratulating you “Hi, this is Tiger Woods. Congratulations for your fastest run!” I mean, this is really great marketing from Nike, simply awesome! And they don’t stop there, Nike also realizes the importance of a community and social media today, and if you look at all the things you can do under Nike+ homepage (www.nikeplus.com), its amazing! For example you can challenge other runners from all around the globe for a competition. I already started and finished 3 challenges, and to my own amazement, only within few hours there were around 20-30 runners from all around the world and all continents to ‘compete’ with me on the challenge. 

If you look at the Nike+ widget on the left upper side of this blog, you can see that according to it, my last run was beginning of January. Luckily this is not true, I have been running many times ever since, however, as I recently bought an iMac, my iTunes library is still in my old Windows PC :-). So bear with me, to get an updated info. My goal for 2009 is to do at least 3 workouts per week; this could be running, surfing, rollerblading or whatever, just to do at least 1/2 hour sports (preferrably 1 hour) each time. How about you? What are you sports goals for this year? What are you doing to keep you fit?

I was just wondering what trips I would like to make this year, and in the near future. And I don’t mean business trips but either pure vacation and/or combined vacation and business. This also made me think to which countries and cities I have visited in my life so far, and I came up almost with 60 countries, which are here in the map (clik on the “view my profile” to enlarge it):

• View my profile
• Create your own travel map or travel blog
• Travel Info at TripAdvisor

The great thing in Europe today is that you can easily just hop on the plane and make cool micro-vacations many times a year at relatively low-cost, yet you can still afford a great quality of living standards (if you prefer). Where are you going this year?

This morning I learned through JCI Austria, about a relatively new Erasmus program for entrepreneurial change in Europe called Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs.  Personally I think it is a wonderful idea of bringing young start-ups together with the experienced entrepreneurs in Europe for an exchange of ideas and learning by sharing. The Erasmus program is subsidized and supported by the European Union, which makes it very attractive for many young entrepreneurs (Travel -and accommodation costs are taken care of etc.). It is great because it is intercultural and not just limited to small regions, but it does cover the whole European Union. For example a young entrepreneur from Helsinki can do 6 months in Lissabon learning how to run a kite-surfing school business and then establish something similar in Finland, or young Viennese entrepreneur learns in Stockolm how to start a Scandinavian bakery and takes his ideas and concept to start-up something similar in Vienna. I think the benefits are really many, the young entrepreneurs learn many do’s and dont’s of running a ‘real’ business from the experienced entrepreneurs, and the experienced entrepreneurs will most likely get a fresh wind of ideas to tehir exisiting business. Naturally choosing the right partner is vital, afterall it’s all about relationships and depending on the individual people. 

If you are interested, Fizz Academy in Vienna is also offering a program for young entrepreneurs called Mentoring Circle. Young entrepreneurs can apply for the free mentoring that will be conducted by hand-picked and very well established European business people during the first months of the mentee’s start-up phase. This mentoring can come in many forms such as 360 business-plan feedback, giving suggestions how to raise venture capital or get in contact with Business Angels, discuss the business strategy, marketing strategy, branding, expansion, etc. Naturally it all depends on the needs of the entrepreneur, and the availability of the best suitable mentor.