Toastmasters Area Conference

In my role as the Area Governor for Toastmasters International, I was honoured to organize, the Area Conference last weekend at the Hilton Plaza Hotel in Vienna. This conference turned out to be (as planned) a great Success Story.

Our keynote speaker had to cancel last minute, therefore I stepped in to give a keynote speech by myself. I was making a presentation about achieving goals in toastmasters and in life; metaphorically training for running a marathon one run at a time.

We had a great mix of educational workshops ranging from “Attention Grabbers” to “How to Achieve anything and everything in life” as well as the famous speech competitions on 1) impromptu speeches as well as 2) humorous speeches. The venue at the Hilton was great (an executive meeting room in the upper floor), the service was excellent (BIG thanks to Mr. Björn from Denmark), the speakers were superb, the attendance was excellent (50+) and the dinner ceremony later on at the Café Schottering Club Room was very cosy. There we could enjoy traditional Austrian food, with some awesome acoustic music, played by a friend of mine, Lee Hoffmann. (Lee is also competing at the local IDOLS (Starmania) so please remember to vote for him - he is a great talent.

Diashow of the Conference (Click me)

After Café Schottenring shut its doors at around midnight, some of us still took the opportunity to go out together in a cocktail bar at the city centre for one more drink. Once we got in, I immediately smashed into a pretty girl, who was carrying a strawberry tranquili in her hands. Now three quarters of her cocktail landed on my freshly pressed suit. It was a mess. My handsome, expensive, hand-tailored suit was a complete mess. And damn sticky…The Bangladeshi guy in the kitchen was very friendly and doing his best to rub the sticky liquid off, but he was chanceless.

Although I am a very positive person, I am a bit doubtful that the laundry will be giving me a clean suit back later on this week…Let’s wait and see… At least the Manager at the Cocktail Bar promised to take care of the laundry bill….

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

Hiring the Best

Prepare yourself well for the job interview. Identify the talents & skills you need for the job. Review the resume beforehand and brainstorm some questions that make sense (dont just stick to the standard blablabla) and remember, it might be a good idea to hire the weird. And with this I mean that in order to get your organization the creative kick it may need right now, you need to hire people from different backgrounds and cultures, otherwise there is a danger you just keep producing the standard stuff, and no GREAT ideas are flourishing…

Conducting the Interview

Plan enough time, avoid distractions, take notes, ask weird questions… Try to get to know the person, his talents, his skills, his aspirations, how he is spending his freetime, what his values are, what his 5/10 year vision is, what he thinks is the purpose of life, if he has kids yes/no,…and so on… And: YES! Abolsutely! - In todays business world, we need to get personal; we need to get to know the potential new hires before we hire them; we need to get to know them damn well; how else should we find the right person for the right position? Too much resources are spend everywhere in the world for people who dont love what they do. Do you have any of these in your team? Are you one of these yourself? If any of the answers is YES: try to find a suitable position for your staff member/yourself; Try to find a position that will match your/his talents; Try to find a position that you/he will be able to say, everyday: I LOVE WHAT I DO!

Al Walker

It was a great pleasure to be, among many other founding members, at the 1st ever meeting of the newly formed Vienna Speakers Club yesterday evening at the Cafe Griensteidl. For this occasion, we were also very happy to welcome our honoured guests from the USA: Al and Margaret Walker.

Al Walker is a professional speaker, author and consultant. He is a member and a past president of the NSA (National Speakers Association, USA), Cavel Award Recipient, NSA Speaker Hall of Fame (among only a few speaking professionals in the world such as Colin Powelll, Zig Ziglar and Ronald Reagan). Al and Margaret also gave the Vienna Speakers Club a beautiful birthday gift: A bag  full of Al’s newly released motivational books “Thinking big and living large”. Just great. And both were also participating in our Table Topics Session (impromptu speeches)…

We from the Vienna Speakers Club, would like to thank you, Al and Margaret Walker, by being our honoured guests at the first meeting of teh Vienna Speakers Club, and naturally we would also like to thank all other guests and hope to see you soon again!

To find more about Al Walker please visit his website at http://www.alwalker.com