Life is a Mosaic

Pics from Energy

That was great conference...



Everyone full fo Energy!


And beloved faci team

posted by Vija @ 11:50 AM 0 Comments

Energy 07 - Push the Envelope

This is a phrase which was used by my dear friend Venky long time ago, and which simply means "stretch your boundaries". And that is the key idea I have after coming back from Baltic Energy 2007 (AIESEC conference), where I was a part of facilitators team.

This conference was special for me in several ways. First, it was getting involved with AIESEC again. Coming back to my dearest region - Baltics. It was fulfilling one of my passions - training and development, as I didn't do much in that field recently. It was connecting and sharing with people who in one or another way have inspired me. It was going through intense development. I do believe that AIESEC is one of the most amazing youth networks, and I realized AGAIN, that it's one of the strongest platforms for self-development, not comparable to any corporate experience I ever had so far. My gut feeling was right - this conference helped me to make some of the things crystal clear in my head, discover some new things about myself, meet like-minded people and connect the dots that were still missing in the big picture.

I was overwhelmed.

Neverthless, I got to know amazing people, had some interesting conversations and discover the amazing team of facis that will definitely stay in my heart forever. We did a good job and we had amazing time together.

My observations could be separated to personal and general ones.
I have discovered personally, that:
- Creativity is the key to most of the successes that I reach. Knowledge and experience is powerful, but it relates to the past. Creativity is smething new, unknown and beautiful. When you try something new, it is unknown and risky, but when you do it, and you see people respond to it, that si teh best thing that could happen.
- Opportunities are easy to miss. Just one doubt, and that's it. Simply strech the borders, do sth and fix it on the way. Dare to connect, dare to show emotions, dare to be different. I thought I was doing it, but the conference made me realize that I can do way much more.
- Communication is the key to making things happen. I will refer to my idol Paul Arden again - "It's not about ideas, but what you do with them". So excercising at least some of those ideas that I have and making them work should be the focus for me. There will always be people who understand, people who don't, people who agree, people who don't, but as long as it stays true to yourself, that gets the right energy going ad the right epople gathering around it!

In general, I have this one main overall discovery:

Baltic region has an amazing potential in terms of leadership development. This region in a way is unique, because here young people get to finish their studies very quickly and work at the same time. That means they have more time to gain experience, more time to make mistakes and learn from them, and more time to develop themselves to become leaders. Have you seen a 24-year old manager of national chapter of a multinational company? I know quite a lot of them. They are strong and hard-working, like nowhere else in Western Europe.

The only thing that yet should be taken forward, is the idea of entrepreneurship, responsibility and self confidence that young people are able to make a difference.

What has AIESEC have to do with that? In my opinion, this organization catalyzes pro-activity and entrepreneurship within young people! It encourages active, non-text-book learning, encourages to take decisions and responsibility, learn from mistakes and shows that you actually can make a difference. At least this is what I think, when I get to talk to the delegates throughout or after the conference.

AIESEC is great, Baltic region is great, and I am very thankful for all the people in the conference that made me realize that. Especially chair and faci team, you guys are all amazing!

And it's up to every person to stretch his or her own borders, as they have no limits!

posted by Vija @ 7:23 PM 2 Comments

Reconnections Part II

Yes, here we go again :)
We had EuroCo hosted in Lithuania, therefore it was absolutely exciting opportunity to see some more people that are precious to me... Here is the part fo Belgian delegation:




...Enriching chats with Andries in - you know where - Briusly, about life and ideas, and the way creativity is applied in business practices. Thanks for the thoughts! And I feel that I have more to say about this, so keep on checking back in my blog. I just have this need to exercice my ideas before writing them publicly.

Later on Thordis from Iceland, not seen for ages, all charged up after EuroCo. Sitting in the cafe and drinking a lot of fancy-flavoured coffee.

Also chilling with Micky, Pieter and Kuhn in a coffee place, finding out how they and the rest of the aiesec people in Belgium are going. Micky trying the Lithuanian chocolate and getting a rough face with the chili flavoured one ;)

Labels: AIESEC, Diary

posted by Vija @ 5:02 PM 0 Comments