What LSS gave me...

As I wrote in my previous post, I got inspired by Dan's drawings and really literally shocked by knowledge in RV's training about Presentation skills...

O.K. I admit, drawing is easier to implement than reset your brain to new level of presentation, but... I think that was just initial push and I started to roll quite well...

Trainings are more personalized, "little red square" is more red and sides are more equal with every training...

P.S. I love flip charts now, not just as a tool for recording ideas of the audience, but as core of the training ... I much rather use FC than ppt...

offtopic - more or less...

Do you remember the strings, the blue and green and yellow and pink and red ones? At the LSS 2010, at the closing ceremony, one of our trainers, Wendelien, introduced us to a tradition she had got come across in Thailand: at social events, everyone always presents coloured strings to his beloved ones, to his friends, to people he likes, to show his appreciation. In fact, I do not know exactly. Every of the strings' colours has a meaning: blue is leadership, green is health, yellow is friendship, pink is... I think something like "You're cute" - didn't get any of those, luckily... or not? - and red is love - neither got such. Well, to be honest, I never really got if by presenting such a string you're saying "I wish you..." or "You are..." because the pink one rather fits with "You are... cute" and the green one for example rather fits with "I wish you... health". Or should it be "You're sooo healthy, man!"? Well, "I wish you to be cute... one day" wouldn't be that nice, would it? So, if someone knows better - Wendelien? - please enlighten me. Or rather, post a comment and enlighten all of us. Sharing is caring, Baby!

Oh, and the reason of this post: Yesterday, my strings tore. Strange feeling, to have my right arm blank now. Although before, I had never been carrying any jewellery, bracelets, or anything else on my arms. Now, somehow something's missing. Well...

Just had a short chat with my new flat mate, and let her know that she has been written about on the internet and will become famous. I had been planning to get up early and go to work early, today. It's 7:46am. Don't think that that will work out. Time to go to bed. Wish you all a nice day.

"Okay" is just not enough!

Last Wednesday I got to know my new flat mate. Three days after she moved in, because we seem to not only live at different ends of the corridor, but also at different ends of the day. So I don't see her too often. But today I might, as I still want to finish some work and she will probably be getting up very soon. As in maths where straight lines are circles, the different ends of the day meet at some point ; )

Well, this is not what this post should be about. But the paragraph the title hints to is somehow connected to my new flat mate. As we met for the first time in the kitchen/dining and living room, I was just intending to prepare a phone call to the Dutch YiA NA to clear out some doubts we (the LSS 2011 CT) had on which action of the programme to apply on... - okay, irrelevant. I didn't, but instead started chatting with her - would have been impolite to ignore the new flat mate, wouldn't it? Well, so we chatted about what you chat about when meeting and chatting for the first time: about where she came from, what she was doing, the size of her shoes and the size of her bra... - quite small by the way; her shoes, of course. And we didn't talk about it. Neither about her bra. Just noticed the shoe thingy as I saw them standing in the hall way the other day. However, talking about the plans she had and what she was doing now, about how she liked her first days at school, etc., being a smartass as I am, I of course gave her some good advice I personally never had followed - maybe because no one gave me that advice and I had to learn from my mistakes. Well, she mentioned that the school was not exactly what she had expected, classes were not teaching her what she wanted and not the way she wanted it - so, as she seemed to know what she wanted, I told her to best figure out how to get it and then to go and get it. Simple and straight forward. But somehow I myself have just started acting this way recently. In fact a shame at my age. But then today, I remembered a horoscope a friend read to me yeeaaars ago. It stated that at the age of about 28 I would become more selfish, or at least more focused on myself. And strange enough, the day on which I decided to follow the path I am currently following, the day I set my mind to do things the way I am doing them now, a day in late summer 2010, was my 28th birthday.

Okay, next point. The dream she had had had not worked out. She had wanted to join the police and somehow they didn't want her to join them. So, as her mother was a social worker, she decided to follow in her footprints and become a social worker, too. And she mentioned that till now, after her year of initial obligatory internship, it was quite okay... Okay? Quite okay?! "Okay" is not enough! This was the moment when I realized that lately, I have gone beyond. Finally! To me, "okay" is not okay anymore. And I don't want to be satisfied with just "okay" anymore. I want 100%. Or better even a 120%. And I think this thought motivates me. : )

"Hello World!" - An initial transitional development review

Ha! Yet another "Hello World!" message. It's the last day of 2010, even getting late on new year's eve and the year has already passed in quite some countries further east. I'm finally finding the time to contribute my first post to this lovely blog. And it's not only my first post to this blog, it's personally, my very first blog post at all. So, "Hello World!" : )

As, if I am not mistaken, this blog was created to share about the ongoings at the Leadership Summer School 2010 in Ljubljana and the development after, I decided to add my part as a participant of LSS 2010, and moreover as member of the new LSS 2011 coordination team (CT). At this moment I still cannot say where my contribution to this blog will be going, but my initial intention is to share a bit about my life related to the Leadership Summer School and the topic personal development. I guess I myself am probably far more excited about this than you reading it. Well, I will see where it moves and what it creates.

For the beginning, and because it's the right time, NYE, I'd like to start with a small personal review: How LSS 2010 went for me.

• Jul 13, 2010, late Monday night/very early Tuesday morning I received a message to my e-mail inbox: Due to unexpected cancellations, there are places left at the Leadership Summer School 2010 Ljubljana. Starting Friday. First come, first served.
• Description sounds cool. Immediate response to Luka, head of the OC: Want to join!
• Wednesday afternoon, after sending another mail to the CT - time had been running and I hadn't received any reaction: Luka's reply: You're in! - Yeeha! : ) (and just checking my mails and seeing who else joined last minute... whoohoo!)
• Hithchiking to Ljubljana on Friday, but reaching a bit late. Luka picks me from the service station on the highway. Great!
• Saturday the LSS content programme starts. An entire week of high quality and high energy trainings at day, reflection groups in the evening, parties at night, a recreation day, an OST session, a TEDx-like event and regularly barely 3h of sleep a night. Awesome! And despite the variety of trainings I had already visited before - so I think I reviewed quite some topics - I believe to really have learned a lot. Extended knowledge on pretty much every topic and got to know new ones. Thank you, trainers! And the exchange and networking was just perfect. A world without the usual borders. And the probably best OC I have had so far. Top Shit! ; )
• Great trip hitching back home, half way with Lara (from IAAS), and got to ride on a quadbike in the back of a van *g* (Yeah!)
• Since then, quite somewhat has happened in the LSS world. Some of us participants have become trainers themselves, and I also advanced in this field. But to be honest, sadly, I have not managed to keep track of what has been going on in the lives of most of my fellow LSS 2010 participants. The reason is that also in my life a lot has happened, and, after bumming around for a while, I have become quite busy.
  
• Concerning my professional life, still being a student, in October, I finally started on my Diploma thesis. In the end, finally something practical in my studies: I will be developing a position control for a light-weight robot arm, and, working on a prototype, I also have to deal with mechanical and electrical issues. I'm really enjoying this multifaceted work.
  Therefore I moved to Stuttgart - a town I felt rather uncomfortable with before, but I'm starting to really like it.
  And in December, I found myself a small job to support my living. And it promises to become really interesting - I will be evaluating 3D cameras : )
  
• Concerning projects, after having been active in mainly local projects during the last years, I really wanted to finally get some experience in working on an international level. So I joined the TrainersPath project as member of the promotion team. I didn't want to overdo it at that time, as I was still expecting to have to dive a 120% into a diploma thesis shortly. However, this work has been finished, at least for my side, and I have gone another step further. In October, I joined the LSS 2011 coordination team. Being responsible for PR & Communications, next to my diploma thesis, this project has probably been most time-consuming during the last weeks. So far we have set up some working and communication structures, started the fundraising and have just freshly elected the organising committee: IFISO NL. They featured a great concept, that will once more take the LSS further in its development, and a challenging fundraising situation, so we're now out to conquer the world ; ). Big expectations. And our first face to face coordination team meeting in Naples right ahead. 6 days to go...
  
• I also proceeded in my trainer carreer. I have got some awesome new mentors. The best I've ever had! And in October, I attended the AEGEE T4T İzmir, to learn how to help people learn : ) in the best way possible. Moreover I attended the AEGEE Human Ressources European School in Budapest, as assistant trainer, in November. Right after starting my Diploma thesis. Really glad my advisor let me go. That's the positive side of not being paid for your work. And in December, I held a training for the International Forestry Students Association (IFSA) and their Interim meeting. And I'm excited about what more there is to come.
  

All in all, I'm very satisfied with the current development. With my Diploma thesis and little job on the technical side, the LSS 2011 CT position for international projects, and the training activities I'm slightly overworked, and the small drop of bitterness is that I, at times, cannot keep my own promises, concerning work I promised to do. But this also forces me to become better organised and more efficient, and might, in the end, maybe even teach me some self-discipline. And I just love this. I love learning and developing. It feels just so great!

Well, this was quite somewhat to read. But I had to catch up with the last months. It's dawning by now, as I had interupted writing to celebrate NYE, at some point noticing that I wouldn't manage to finish before midnight, shutting down my computer and running off to reach a nice view point for the fireworks just on time. But it's not too late. At least the US east coast has not celebrated NYE yet. And also Alaska and some islands out there in the pacific ocean are still waiting : )

Let's see if I learned something on LSS

It's been a while when I last posted anything on this blog, but it's time to do it again.

My training days are starting soon and I'm loving every moment, even though it takes lots of time to prepare... Thanks to great trainers on LSS 2010 I'm full of motivation and ideas how to improve my trainings, how to make them more fun and as Herve would say; how to transmit little red square from my mind to mind of others.

Being inspired by Dan with his great drawings we all admired and following Herve's links on TrainersForum I found out how to make flip-charts more memorable and now I'm slowly implementing some tricks in future training materials... Soon my new room will get a make over with flip-charts hanging on all walls, so will be able to practice when I'll have time to spare...

At the moment I'm packing for 1st eeStec Trainer's Meeting in Banja Luka (Bosnia) and my mind is full of memories of LSS and can't wait to share my experience of LSS with other trainers.

Now I'm floating to my soft side so it's better to stop typing than to start being crybaby :D

Guys, girls... I miss u all... Hope to see you soon somewhere...

Blaž

Stage 5 of a team: Mourning

Yes unfortunately it's over...

I'm still wakening up round 8am expecting breakfast in dining room and realizing that I'll have to make it on my own... There's also no great new friends to say "Good morning!" to and decide how good it will really be or let me rephrase, how great morning we will make for each other...

No mater how exhausted ware we, there was always hidden shot of energy somewhere deep inside each and every one of us, that helped us get back on track.

Did anyone say procrastination?

We don't do that... right?!?

Who am I kidding. We're all doing it and we will procrastinate just a bit more... but much less that we did it before LSS 2010.

Amazing days of LSS 2010 ware flying by and I met lots of new, interesting, crazy, inspiring, hard-working, funny, dedicated (... running out of adjectives ...) people that gave me new energy and motivation to improve myself, my self-confidence and my perspective of life...

Thank you all for amazing moments during LSS 201o.

I'll be really bold for the end and I'll use really worn out line with a twist:

"I'll be back!" ... next year maybe as LSS trainer...

Blaž

Saturday, 24th of July Case Study and Focus Session

Welcome to the last day... :-(
LSS 2010 is already eight days old. Time to wrap up things and this day was indeed to wrap up things. We started this day with a lot of rain and mild temperatures. Perfect to raise temperature in the case study. We got together in out small reflection groups (~8people) and worked on a case study to apply all things we learned in previous training sessions. The trainers really pulled off a great exercise and some great challanges each group had to overcome. In the end we all gathered and all groups had to present a little role play - great fun!
In the afternoon we wrapped up things from a more personal point of view. The case study basically was a summary and application of the academic things we learned. Now, in the Focus Session we had time to reflect, set goals and think about all the great experiences at LSS as well as things to come after LSS.

This grid kind of represents this day in my eyes. Where do you want to go, what do you want to do? You have it in your hands... Alsp the different fields we touched in the LSS (marked) and the fields you still can fill. (My two cents)