Team

It is sunday evening, and I have barely slept for the last week. I am sitting on my sofa and in a not too long it will hit me how tired I should be.

But I can't really feel it right now. Right now I feel empowered in a way that I cannot remember ever having been empowered. What a feeling to be part of a team where people give everything and stretch themselves beyond what you would ever expect to deliver on a plan, on a goal on a vision.

We had Local Seminar this weekend. My team has spent so much time in order to get this weekend JUST RIGHT. All of them were holding sessions (brilliantly might I add). All of them were stepping up and taking responsibility not only for themselves - but for others. Not because I told them to, not because they were required to. They just did it.

I am proud. Really, really proud. I am proud of our team and what we are doing. I think I am starting to learn some really invaluable lessons when it comes to leading a team. Direction and vision - quite simply common PURPOSE - is a drop of magic that empowers people to go beyond themselves, to support one another, standing shoulder to shoulder to carry on towards a common direction.

I was getting tearful today when I was trying to tell them how I felt. I almost couldn't even finish the sentence, as I was close to having tears of pride and joy running down my cheeks. It really feels like we are becoming a great team now. It really feels like we are going places where I have never been before in my life.

What amazing feeling - and what a dangerous feeling... All of a sudden one raises ones eyes and sees that sky's the limit. Never-ending opportunities, never-ending goals that one could reach out and grab if one wants to. Who's going to stop you? Who is going to tell you that it cannot be done?

There are no limits to what can be done. I am never ever going to let anyone tell me that something is too ambitious, that something cannot be done, that something is too much. The limits we see are limits we set for ourselves in our mind. In some absurd attempt to shield our mind off from the thoughts, feelings, creativity, imagination, dreams, hopes and wishes that we actually have. That we actually see clearly in front of us when we are sleeping late at night, when we are reflecting upon our own reality, future and ideas.

Why do we limit ourselves to this degree? I do not know.

Perhaps team is the solution? That feeling of being a part of something larger, where one dares to unfold oneself, and push oneself? Perhaps here the limits can be erased?

I am honoured to have a team to lead like the one I have. They are more than patient with me, always willing to support me and listen to me, even in my most crazy moments. They give me an energy and and a joy which I cannot describe. Thank you.

Where do we push on from here? We will see tomorrow!

Looking foward to travelling again

Been back in Oslo since the 12th of January now. That means three weeks tomorrow. It might not seem so much, but to me it's too much. I become restless when I stay in one place for too long. I start getting bored with myself, my surroundings, well basically anything.

Last fall I didn't travel at all from when I came back from Malta in the middle of november until the end of december. By the end of it I was desperate. I was stressed, people were being stressed by me, and I was certainly not a particularly happy company. Then I went away, first to Sweden and Germany, then to Trondheim. Now I am good.

Now I have been in Oslo for three weeks, and they have indeed been wonderful weeks. Not that everything always goes well, or one is always happy with everything. But I am happy. That is, I feel well. So even when things are going hayway around me, I remain calm. I am, somehow, at peace with myself.

If I am good with myself I am usually good with those around me too. I am usually able to help people, have fun, I have patience with them, I don't get too angry too quickly and I enjoy my surroundings, no matter what they are. Moreover, I have more energy so that I can actually shape and change my surroundings, which of course mean they will be better suited to me at that particular point in time.

I guess my girlfriend moving here has alot to do with that tranquility. Even without really being aware of it, the fact that she was so far away was tearing at me. Not at our relationship as such, but on me as a person. Not because I was doubting, but because it was difficult to adjust and be there for her when she needed me. It became like a constant pain in the side, with which I had to live. At any given time it wasn't really a problem, but over time it became exhausting.

Now that she is here, I feel like the pieces are falling back into place, that I am somehow whole again. She has been here a week now, and already my life has improved. My appartment is turning into a real home for her and me. Yesterday, we did the all-important relationship IKEA-test. That is, a whole day at IKEA without falling out, without disagreeing, without getting annoyed at eachother... My friend told me that we might as well get married now. Perhaps.

My girlfriend is definitely an important factor. But, she is not the only factor. I need to travel again. I need to change my surroundings again, just for a couple of days, just for a weekend. I haven't been to Italy, which for over two years was my regular scenery-changer since september. But somehow it seems harder to travel to Italy now. It seems a little further away from where I am in life right now. I will definitely have to make some time, sometime this spring.

But I am going to travel. Not to Italy, though. To Germany. In two weeks my grandmother is celebrating her 85th birthday, and inviting all branches of the family. I cannot wait. It will do me some real good to again see something else. Anyway, I haven't been to see the German part of my family collectively since 2004 - that is 5 years ago. And back then, I wasn't doing too well at all. Now I am.

Ah well. Life is good I guess. In any case, I have decided that I am going to take that attitude. From now on, I AM going to be positive. I AM going to look at the bright sides of life. I AM going to enjoy every moment of the ride.

"A case of the mondays"

Today made me think of that phrase from "Office Space". I love that movie! Absolutely fantastic.

It should be obligatory viewing really, about the dangers of living a life in a modern world without consideration for what one enjoys doing and where one wants to go in life. So f***ing great! And funny too.

In any case I wonder what "the mondays" means. I mean, I understand that it means what we call "blåmandag" in Norwegian (literally blue monday). It means that after the weekend where presumably one has been relaxing it can be harsh to return to the daily struggles of work/school or whatever it is one days on a monday. However, this whole concept basically presumes that what one does on a monday isn't really what one wants to be doing. It is the weekend (presumably) that is great, where one can do whatever one wants. Which, again, one cannot supposedly do on a monday, or any other day of the 5-day week.

Well - that is quite simply - awful! To live ones life, that is, by definition 5/7 (71%) of ones life in order to have a great weekend is surely the worst invention humans have ever come up with. I mean, you spend most of your life, in order to have a good time the remains of your life.

I don't think I have the mondays. I mean, I appreciate a good weekend with a different schedule as well, but it's during the week that I do what I love. Interacting with people, learning, challenging myself, having fun, being stressed (in a good way!) etc.

My attitude is that if people are having the mondays then they are not doing the right thing in their life, or they are not doing that thing the right way for them. It's like Steve Jobs says in that speech online from his speech at Stanford that you should live every day like its your last and that if your own answer to that is no for too many days in a row, you should change something. Probably that was entirely misquoted but that's what I understand out of it anyways.

People will tell me that "sometimes you have to do things you don't like in order to get things you like later", and surely they are right, at least on some basic level. However, my general answer would be - "really?". "Are you sure?". "Why?". I mean, surely things can be great and fun and exciting to a varying degree, but I believe that mostly one can find great and fun things every day - and every monday in particular. I mean - a new week is new beginnings, just like any morning is. What a great day that particular day might turn out to be!

Are you having a bad case of the mondays? You should ask yourself why and do something to change that. Starting next monday.

Football

In a couple of hours my team will again play another match. Bologna. Away. Who cares?

Once upon a time not so long ago I would have been full og tension, waiting anxiously for the two hours of play on the not so green surface of the Dall'Ara. Now I am still waiting, and still with some anticipation, but the magic has gone. The self-illusion bubble has burst. Can it ever be restored? Would I even want it to be restored?

Football is funny business, no matter what perspective one takes. Mine has, for the last few years, been that of a fan. Now, many might say that the fans perspective is a passive one. They might say that being a fan you are nothing more but subject to others actions and reactions, and you subject yourself passively to a life of watching and spectating.

I do not share this view. At least, I do not share it without reservation. My perspective of a fan was always a very active one. Whole days would be adrenalin. Whole weekends or even longer would be spent in nighttrains with strangers, sleeping restlessly, sweating and smelly, simply to get that feeling of being an animal in a cage.

In away games I would stand there. Part of a group, part of something larger than myself. Devoting all my voice, my strength and my feelings to our colours. All my energy to our glory. And the glory was only projected by what happened on the field. We were the glory. Our chants. In canto.

Being a fan is interesting. It is the greatest form of self-illusion there can possibly be. Just like a religion, one convinces onself of the objective importance of an event one cannot reasonably affect. One says in effect that what other people are doing is going to matter to me, and my well-being. Then one takes it a step further and convinces oneself that one can actually influence these events. Wear the right scardf. Put the right sock on first Sit on the same seat. Never predict the result before the game. Never talk about the opposition. Always take the same tram to the stadium. Always consider the same rituals. Like religion one gives importance to rituals, to a creed, to a way of seeing and believing things. Unlike religion, there is no after-life, no larger reason beyond what happens here and now.

Then the magic breaks. Why? How?

Well, how can you keep going to a church if the priest tells you there is no God? How can you pray when the Pope tells you it is only for fun? How can you keep an illusion up, that even the illusionists do not approve of?

Well, you can't.

The magic is gone.

Bologna-Milan. Today. 15.00. Forza Milan.

Coaching and leadership development

Just started properly with the coaching of my team members this term. Not quite sure whether the relationships are producing the desired outcome yet, but I believe they are getting there. It gives me alot to work with such intelligent and challenging people all the time.

I always realise something more about myself after I have had a chat with one of them, which I'm not even sure they are realising.

Yesterday was the first session of the 5 week leadership development program we are holding. It was really good I thought. It seemed like everyone had fun, I certainly did, we were able to dig into ourselves quite a bit, and we actually opened up as people to one another. I really appreciated this. I was reallly nervous beforehand, because it's again a new experience, something I have never done before, never even tried doing, and all of a sudden I am just doing it.

Makes you wonder - all these experiences - where does it end?

The snow is melting now. Its around 1 degree outside, and it slowly bur surely turning into mush. Such a shame. Naively, I was thinking it was going to be happy super-duper cold and dry and loads of snow for the rest of the winter. WRONG.

And I didn't even have the chance to ski. Perhaps this weekend? But it would have to be sunday. I guess we will see..

Really quite nice this evening with my LCP. I always appreciate him so much, when I get to talk to him one on one. It's strange. Him and me are quite different from alot of aspects, but we simply get along well. It's just bouncing ideas of eachother, chilling, having a great time etc.

We had quite an interesting discussion right at the end. We were talking about priorities and we were disagreeing. Where he said that he could understand work commitments going before EB meetings, he couldn't see how training times should be prioritized. Even though I agree in the sense that training is surely one of the things one can adapt in time, more easily than work usually, i don't agree with the basic premise.

Surely, for all individuals, any priority is their priority? How come we are standardizing which priorities are the right ones and which ones are the wrong ones? In my opinion this is one of the great freedoms of life - to be allowed to make those choices ourselves. Then I started wondering whether we really make them ourselves and to what degree they are simply subject to what we are already fitting into ready made cartboxes... Then I realised I shouldn't think so much in abstract terms. People tell me I do that alot. I like it. But I also like concrete things... I guess I'm just weird perhaps?

Looking forward to going to Romania in March. I've never been there. I'm actually embarrassed to say, but I've never been anywhere in what used to be eastern Europe, with the exception of a couple of days in the Czech Republic with my father and brother when I was 14... Thats bloody 13 years ago!!!!

I want to travel more. Not only in the sense to see things, but more in the sense to experience more. To live more alternative paths, so I can see more opportunities, more ways, more options.

Yesterday I had my coach helping me out with my own personal development plan. I really want to set up one that helps me becoming more adapt. I really want to become more aware of others, and better at perceiving and listening. Often I guess it's also a question of being perceived. I would like to be better at adapting, so that I don't force others into defensive positions. It happens too much, and I don't intend to.

What I am trying to do is to ask some questions of myself every evening after a long day, to try to conciously analyse my behaviour. I am going to try to expand on this with time, I think. I feel that in the last few weeks, perhaps two months, my self-awareness has gained another dimension. I see now not only things about myself directly, but also more indirect impacts of myself on others, and I am trying to finetune certain aspects to allow others space around me, so they feel comfortable around me - not threatened. Who wants to threaten people anyways? Talk about useless, short term strategy to achieve anything...

I heard somewhere that dogs aren't aware of their own physical size. I don't know whether this is true (and I don't know how you would even go about finding out if it's true: "Hello dog, do you know how big you are?) but I am just going to use it as a metaphor. I think sometimes I'm like that. I am a 1.93 tall man with a dark voice, imposing physical appearance, quite aggressive in discussions, strong opinions and very self-confident. But sometimes I forget. And I don't realise automatically what these external and internal factors bring about when it comes to reactions with others. Independently of my intentions. I thought of this metaphor because it's kind of different if you see a large german sheppard barking and growling at you. You might become quite scared. If a tiny dachs did the same you might only laugh and think it was cute. The behaviour would be the same from the dogs, but the effect on you quite different.

Sometimes I am like the german sheppard. I might not be any more scary than a dachs from my point of view, but that hardly matters! Perceptions are reality.

The thing is - I know this. I know this rationaly and I even realise it quite often in different situations. But every now and then I seem to forget that I am a German Sheppard. But of course, the people seeing the German Sheppard don't forget... I wonder why?

One could do he whole psycho analysis thing. Look into my troubled childhood when I was smaller of statue and commanded little or no respect by anyone anyways, and shouting the loudest was a reasonable way to get my way. I sure became good at shouting. But surely I must adapt. Surely I must see the reality the way it is now. This is what I need to take into consideration to a larger degree.

I wonder if I'll be able to in the long run. My goal is to adapt my natural behaviour so that I can get more out of interactions with others.

Ah well - I guess I will find out.

Yes, we are becoming an EB again!

Really excited about the coaching this morning. Despite apparently seeming in a negative mood I am actually really happy about how things went this morning.

I was quite sceptical beforehand, because it seems we are scared as a group of facing difficulties together and actually excelling in order to overcome them and perform. I got some people being quite sceptical beforehand as well.

Then the meeting started with everyone being a bit late, and in quite a tense mood (or coach even commented that "we were allowed to talk" at one point). So to say the least, I was not very optimistic.

What is frustrating me in general is the fact that whenever things are important to us, we perform increadibly, both as individuals and as a team. But somehow we don't seem to allocate so much importance to our work in general, or at least that is my interpretation. I have difficulty explaining our reluctance to simply perform, seeing as we know how to, we know where we want to go, and how we want to get there.

But, today I saw us rise again. We were an EB once again. Time passing in the meeting we were actually transforming our vision and goals into concrete actions that we were going to do, setting up a structure for meeting times as an EB (despite the usual difficulties) and even agreeing on an internal EB coaching structure.

WOW!

This really made my day. My week. My month. I want this TEAM to work! And I want us to help eachother to reach our vision. And we can! That's the thing that we must realise! We can! And should.

Anyway. A bit of enthusiasm there.

Slightly frustrated that it seems a point for everyone to always point out what I am doing wrong at all given times. Sometimes I wonder whether I am doing everyhing wrong. I guess it has a lot to do with my personality in general, which is difficult to deal with anyway. But we will see how it goes.

I take it as a challenge though. I would really like to work better with people, to be better balanced in groups, more aware of others, more stable and less irrational. Maybe I was dropped on my head as a kid? But I will get there. I think!

I am really looking forward to the sessions tomorrow. Hopefully it will be really good for hose coming as well.

Last point. Had a coaching/feedback chat with one of my team members today and it was such as positive experience! She was all motivated, all smiles and all energy. She is so talented, but sometimes afraid to admit it to herself. I wonder whether I can help her see it? I will try my best.

By the way. The day started at 06.00 today, so it will soon have lasted 18 hours! Wohooo!

A calm sunday

Quite strange to be sitting at home on a sunday afternoon, spending som time to collect my thoughts. I don't feel like I often have the chance to do this, at least not often enough. I really need it though. Things are happening so fast in my life right now. Happy moments and difficult moments, tough decisions and easy ones. Seemingly one after the other.

It's a week ago that I was selected for the MC VPTM position for next year. It's been a long week. I think that finally I am starting to realise what that means, both in terms of opportunity and in terms of responsibility.

I want to do so much. Achieve so much. Make a real difference. Can I? What does making a difference mean? I see myself in a different place now than I ever have beforehand in my life. I see it as my calling and responsibility to make an impact in the world. If I don't, who will?

Today I received an email which made me really sad. It basically told me that I was not being considerate enough in regards to this person. Without intending to do so on my part, the person felt like I was not giving her the respect she deserved, and was talking to her in an inapropriate manner.

Makes me think.

How to communicate right is one of the most difficult things in this world. To what degree I wish to have those communication skills that both make people listen but also makes them think and challenge. That empower and encourages them. That challenges and helps them. Tough.

I was really frustrated in the beginning of the week, as things did not seem to be happening. But then happiness returned to our little AIESEC universe. All of a sudden, within 3-4 days everything changed.

Wednesday I was able to see my team again. I hadn't realised how much I missed them. They are such great people. I see in them potential which is unlimited. They make my day every time I have the pleasure to talk to them. The seemed full of energy and excitement, which always energizes me. I am starting to laugh a little at how well they are starting to know me. Maybe I should surprise them a little more?

Still on wednesday we were were bundles of creativity and joy as we within a couple of hours were able to come up with some great flyers for recruitment. Within a couple of days we had aced sponsors for our event, deals for printing were produced and flyers were in the office! Wow.

I miss my girlfriend. It has been quite difficult this last year to entirely change my life around in terms of priorities, what I want to do in life and my direct life-plans, while at the same time keeping with me the most precious part of my whole life. She is extremely understanding. No matter how difficult I am, no matter how moody or how many times I change my opinions and my view, she is there. Like a rock.

When I told her I had been selected, she became so happy - for me. This despite she knowing it will be tough on us. I am convinced, however, that we will not only get through it, but be stronger, more in love, and better people after it.

Yesterday I was suddenly looking at masters programs in Copenhagen for the year after I have finished my term. What am I doing there? What happened to Bruge? I don't know. But CBS entices me. I will have to find out, I guess. It all depends on where I want to go.

On more calm notes my footballteam won yesterday. 1-0. Everyone who knows me well, know that this has for so long been such an important part of my life. And I still check for news every day, I still think about this team alot. But at the same time it's no longer the same. Some of that irrational, juvenile, but fascinating passion isn't there anymore. I feel like a chapter of my life is becoming a little smaller, whilst not closing entirely.

There are other things that are more important now. Other people. And what I can do for them? How I can help them. That's worth spending time on. Energy on. My life on. Football not so much.

Later today I am going to work out. So what you might think. Yeah, so what. But it sure makes a difference to me. Different priorities, different life-outlook, different direction.

This week I am have three goals.
1. Get a kick-ass recruitment underway
2. Spend saturday getting to know my team
3. Spend sunday afternoon with my girlfriend.

We will see whether I succeed.