Interview with Niko

In my role as the Area Governor I was recently interviewed by the Croatian Toastmasters for their Newsletter. I thought to share this interview with you:

Q: Niko, as a short introduction please tell us something about you. Where are you born and how did you end up in Austria
A: I grew up in Southern Finland, in a small city by a big lake with 30.000 inhabitants. I finally ended up in Austria because I fell in love with an Austrian woman:-). I have been traveling and working in more than 50 countries in the world. I am a college graduate (hotel management) and currently finalizing my MBA Dissertation and should be done with it by 2008. I work as a project manager in a hotel investment fund and on my free-time I also have my own small company: Fizz Academy.

Q: When and why did you join a Toastmasters club?
A: I joined Toastmasters in about 5 years ago, to improve my public speaking skills.

Q: What are your achievements as a Toastmaster so far?
A: Up to now I have achieved the following awards: ACB (Advanced Communicator Bronze) and CL (Competent Leader).
My goals for 2008/2009: ACS (Advanced Communicator Silver) and AL (Advanced Leader)
My goals for 2009/2010: ACG (Advanced Communicator Gold) and DTM (Distinguished Toastmaster)

Q: What are some of the benefits that you experienced as a result of your activity in a Toastmasters club? How did the Toastmasters help you in your personal and private life?
A: Toastmasters has had an immeasurable effect on my life. I have not only improved my speaking and leadership skills but improved in every area of my life. Toastmasters gave me the tools to step out of my comfort zone and make great progress in my personal growth. I am very thankful that I took a chance and joined Toastmasters, it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Q: What are your responsibilities as an Area governor?
A: To keep it short: The main responsibility of the Area Governor is to ensure high quality and quantity of Toastmasters Clubs in the Area.

Q: Would you recommend other colleagues to candidate for such a role in the future and why?
A: Absolutely yes. In my opinion taking up on the various leadership roles in the Toastmasters Organization is a way of giving back to the great organization that helps so many people in their journey of becoming better speakers and leaders

Q: What are your goals as an Area governor?
A: To achieve at least the ‘Distinguished Area’ status goal (defined by TMI) and to increase the quality and quantity of Toastmasters Clubs in our Area. The main goal is to support our vision of making Vienna the Toastmasters centre to Europe. Our goal is to increase the clubs up to 10 clubs in the next 10 years. However, the quality is even more important. Therefore quality first; the quantity will follow!

Q: Many of us are stuck on one speech for months. Could you recommend us a way to prepare our speeches faster and more disciplined?
A: I know what you are talking about. I have been there myself. After my own Ice Breaker Speech I got kind of stuck. It took me another year before I did my second speech. However, after the second speech I realized the only way I can get better in speaking is to speak; and started to consistently prepare new speeches; I defined and committed to new goals, ultimately having the plan to achieve the DTM (Distinguished Toastmaster, Highest Recognition by Toastmasters International) in 2010. The thing is you have to take it one speech at a time. There are no shortcuts. The more you speak, the better you get. Naturally it is also important to keep your eyes open and learn from others and other resources at the same time. The learning speed is up to you. At Toastmasters we say: After finishing the first 10 speeches, you are 10 times better speaker than before.

Q: From where did you take your motivation to prepare speeches and take active roles in the meetings?
A: The motivation, in my opinion, is mostly intrinsic. Each one of us has a choice: We can choose to become better speakers and leaders, or we can choose not to go through that hassle (of getting uncomfortable) of becoming better speakers and leaders. It is ultimately up to each one of us what we do in our lives. If you want to become a better speaker, the best way to do that is to get stage time and practice wherever you can. This includes naturally also taking roles in the regular meetings

Q: I’ve read about an importance of finding your life purpose. What do you think about that?
A: I believe it is of crucial importance to each one of us, to stop and think of our live purpose. I would recommend you to write down your own vision statement. Where do you want to be in 10 years, or 20 years? What dreams do you have? What are your core values? What are your strengths and talents? As Stephen Covey puts it: Think of making a speech in your own funeral about your life: how would you describe your life achievements? What things would you have liked to achieve in your life? Sometimes it is good to start with the end in mind.

Q: Have you discovered your own life purpose?
A: In my opinion, life is like a journey. There are things that stay constant, and there are things that flow and change in life. As leaders and successful people we need to be fully aware of ourselves, our dreams, our strengths, our talents and our core values and at the same time, we need to be able to adapt to the changes life brings along. I do have my own vision statement in my wallet all the time with me. In this vision statement I have clearly defined my own life purpose including my dreams and goals that I want to achieve in my life, my talents, my core values , etc. and what I am and believe as an individual person in all aspects of my life.

Q: Attendees of the last Area D1 conference found out that you really enjoy running. Do you also have some other hobbies?
A: Yes, I love to go to the playground with my three little kids. Its like creativity pure and it truly frees up my mind.

Q: What is your favorite quote?
A: It is my own quote: Success is a mindset® by Niko Viramo

Q: I thank you in advance and wish you even more success, in Toastmasters, and in your personal life as well.
A: Thank you very much. And I also would like to take this opportunity to wish you and all Toastmasters in Croatia lot of success in their lives, and please remember: Success is a mindset. Be the best you can, every day!

For more information about Toastmasters, please visit the website of the Toastmasters International in here.

Success and Leadership

Last Saturday I held a presentation about Success & Leadership for the “Leadership Academy” of Finland.

The students of the Leadership Academy are 15 hand-picked, most talented young entrepreneurs and leaders of Finland that have been selected for the one year Academy that consist of three parts.
The first part is a 3-day intensive seminar in Northern Finland, the second part is a one week retreat in Cyprus, and the third part is the closing session held in Vienna, at the Hotel Tulbinger Kogel.
Last year I took myself in this Academy as a student, and it was a great experience. This year I was invited there as a Speaker, and it was a great honour for me to present for this great audience. I spoke about success and leadership; what I learned from my own experiences in Timbuktu, Kazakhstan and California. I am very much looking forward doing similar session next year as well.
Thanks Ollis for inviting me over.
Respect, Niko

When Success is Slow, What Can You Do?

Can success be sped up? Is there an antidote to slow outcomes despite arduous planning and actions taken? What is the secret for seeing huge results right now?!

I get versions of these questions frequently from people who feel frustrated at sluggish progress in their success journey - despite all the know-how and principles they rigorously employ.

But first, let’s get one thing straight…

When we admire someone else’s success, or even our own, we often focus on the end result and not so much on the effort, time, discipline, and setbacks that it took them to get there.

This can often cultivate unrealistic expectations and frustrations, especially the idea that overnight success can happen through careful strategy and execution of sound advice.

Truth be told, success typically follows a series of little events and achievements that include a few disappointments along the way, which challenges everything about you to the core–your stamina, courage, integrity, and even your willingness to keep going.

If you focus on what’s not working, guess what: You’re likely coming from a place of aggravation as your mind wraps around all that is wrong. You may even have negative thoughts like “I’m not good enough,” “It will never work,” or “Something must be wrong with me.”

What this does mentally is engender more of these counter-productive feelings. And given what we know about the Law of Attraction, you attract what you are feeling. Negative experiences, people, and results will beget more negative experience, people, and results. There’s not much success in that.

The key, then, is to focus on what IS working.

To do so, I recommend two simple practices: journaling and meditation.

Maintaining a journal

(I call it an Evidence Log, Results Journal, or Gratitude Journal) is a great way to steer your attention to the positive and it helps to continually renew your vision for yourself. Start each day with reflections on what you are grateful for in your life (list them out!) and end each day with notes on what went right (again, write them down), however small.

Meditation

can be a powerful tool for arriving at solutions to problems and shifting your attitude so you can attract success sooner rather than later.

The magic of meditation is its ability to essentially shut down the outer layer of your judgmental, highly-critical brain and allow your unconscious mind to take over. This is where you enter a deeper state of inner peace and joy, tapping into a higher level of creativity that will help usher in the results you want.

Through the practice of meditation you will begin to become even more aware of your subtle intuitive impulses, insights, ideas, emotions and inspirations.

Don’t know how to meditate? Lots of books and materials are available to guide you this practice. It’s easier than you think.

Okay, let’s say you’re doing ALL these things, but you still aren’t happy with your results…

Then, I’ll ask you: Are you taking real ACTION? You may be taking the actions you are used to taking. But therein lies the problem: if you keep doing what you’ve already done then you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten. It’s a matter of practicing some new behaviors. Shake things up a bit and see if you can take new actions or modify existing ones.

Remember the Rule of 5. Every day do five specific things that take you toward your goal. Change up the five actions regularly and be open to feedback so you know when you’re off course.

Lastly, I want to remind you about patience.

It’s natural to underestimate how long a certain goal can take, especially a profound one. When I set a goal to become a millionaire, the year was 1983. How long did it take? Eleven years. It took time for Chicken Soup for the Soul to hit the bestseller lists. You could say our tenure on the New York Times list was more than a decade in the making. That’s a lot of patience for someone who initially wanted overnight success.

So, yes, patience is a virtue. But keep at it, and in time, you’ll be only one week, or one day away from your ultimate success.

Remember… be grateful, reflect on what IS working and continue to take ACTION!

© 2008 Jack Canfield

Jack Canfield, America’s #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you’re ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com

Glenna Salsbury

Asbolutely fantastic! One of my favourite speakers at the international GSA Convention in Salzburg was Mrs. Glenna Salsbury

She was honest, emotional, and inspirational. She was telling her story, with a lot of passion. In this “series” I will be summarazing my notes from my messy convention papersheets and put them down into my blog so that I will remember the points at anytime ;-). The convention as such was awesome. I never had the opportunity to listen to so great speakers in my life; and Glenna Salsbury was definetely one of them. Here are some major points of her presentation: “Leaving a lasting Legancy”

Discover your calling!

1) Events of Significance

2) Persons of Significance

3) Values of Significance

4) Significant Purpose

5) Significant Passion

Delight your audiences

1) Tell spellbinding Stories

2) Utilize Powerful Rhytm

3) Bring Elevating Laughter

Dare to Dig Deeper

1) Sift through your past experiences

2) Seek personal growth oppportunities and experiences

3) See if you are walking your talk

Worth Remembering:

“A legacy worth leaving is founded upon our standard of life, not our standard of living. A legacy worth leaving is founded upon our measure of giving, not our measure of getting…and upon our simple goodness…not our climb to greatness”

Glenna’s core message throughout her great speech was that we should focus on the positive and meaningful 80% in our lives, and not on the 20% that doesnt work. And the same in partnership - we should focus on the good things and not on the 20% mess.  We should wake up every morning starting our day with the positive energy. What I really liked was when she asked the audience: What is your passion? What word(s) would you write on your T-Shirt? What is your most important core message in life? I would probably write:

EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE

or

SUCCESS IS A MINDSET

Thats my calling. That is mostly my core message in my own speeches & presentations. That is so me.

Upgrade your skills.

There is one point in leadership and life that is extremely crucial in staying competitive in the global human capital marketplace: YOUR SKILLS. As we live in this highly competitive time with huge amounts of human knowledge capital, skills, and brain capital (most of it unfortunately ends up in cemeteries without any purposeful use), that is now available from all the corners in the world within a mouse click; we as leaders need to constantly…

upgrade your skills

Upgrading skills should become our daily habit and a life-long journey.  Peace.