Speaking

Vision Y: Is true Progress possible? Some German Kids think the Answer is: Yes!

Nico Rose - Munich Leadership ConferenceTwo weeks ago, I had the great honor of attending the first Munich Leadership Conference, organized by the Munich Leadership Institute – and hosting brilliant speakers such as Prof. Barry Schwartz, Prof. Barbara Kellerman, and Prof. Franz-Josef Radermacher. The overarching motto of the conference was: “How to achieve true progress”.

I had an active part in the conference, being part of a panel discussion on the question of “What attitudes drive true progress? The other panelists were Thomas Sattelberger, former CHRO of Deutsche Telekom, Kerstin Bund, a journalist who works for the Zeit, Germany´s most popular weekly newspaper, and the aforementioned Prof. Radermacher.

The highlight of the conference was the first public presentation of the so-called “Vision Y” – a framework for a peaceful, more egalitarian, and sustainable future – which a group of students envisioned after having interviewed thought leaders such as Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, scientist/author Nassim Taleb, and German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel.

A lot of the things that were presented reminded me of what Martin Seligman told us in the last MAPP class of 2013 about his personal vision for the year 2051. If you are interested in the “Vision Y” (and you should be…), please watch the following short clip that provides an audio-visual summary.

Additionally, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was awarded with the “Deutscher Vordenker Preis 2015” (German Thought Leader Award).

Want to be lucky? Prepare, be there, express & say yes!

Nico Rose - TEDxBergenYesterday, I told you that I would be going to give a TEDx talk at Bergen/Norway today. And that´s already history by now. I had a great time and would like to congratulate the TEDxBergen team for the great job that they´ve done (the event is entirely run by students!). Thanks for inviting me…

Since it´s probably going to take a couple of days until there´s a video available, let me give you a bit of advance information. My topic was: “How to be the architect of your own fortune”. I talked about how some People be seem to be luckier than others by sort of inviting luck into their lives.

In doing so, I cited some work by Richard Wiseman, Esa Saarinen, Steven Johnson/Stuart Kauffman, and Angela Duckworth. I also integrated some quotes by Louis Pasteur, Woody Allen, and Richard Branson, and talked about how God “manages”.

Here´s the summary, basically – which was also my punchline for the talk. If you want to bring more luck into your life, this is how it goes:

Prepare, be there, express & say yes!

Watch out for my video in a couple of days…

 

Positive Psychology Speaking Tour: Martin Seligman is coming to Europe

If you are interested in Positive Psychology and happen to live in (central) Europe, you might be interested to hear that Martin Seligman is coming to Germany in the summer of 2014 together with some other big names in the field, such as Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, and Barbara Fredrickson for several conferences. This is a great way to get updated on the latest developments in Positive Psychology. The presentation will be in English and translated into German. For more information, please refer to this (German) Flyer.

PP_Speaking_2014

2013 – 8760h: How time flies…really?

Every time a year draws to a close, a lot of people start saying something like “Oh, how time flies…”. Mostly, it is used in a slightly sniveling fashion – as if those people might have missed something. I guess that´s why they show all those year-end retrospectives on TV. But then, they invite all these VIP and VEP (Very Exceptional People) – and at the end of the day, one´s own life might seem insignificant in comparison.

So why not create your own personal year-end retrospective?* Why not have a look at what really happened in those last 365 days?

Merry Christmas and happy new Year!

Nico Rose - Neon - Euromasters

One year consists of 8760 hours! I have…

Big Chunks

Need to Talk

Nico Rose - TEDxKoeln

Working with real People

New Beginnings

  • started to study (surprise, surprise…) positive psychology (and therefore spent 22 days in the U.S.)
  • started the blog Mappalicious (surprise, surprise…again…) and written 62 articles (including this one)
  • published 5 articles as “Digital Leader” via lead-digital.de
  • bought an acoustic guitar, taken 7 lessons and practiced about 10 hours (definitely not enough)

Endings

Not so nice

Very nice

  • been promoted at Bertelsmann

Nico Rose - Birthday

Personal Stuff

  • said “I love you” +365 times (not every day, but several times on some of the days)
  • canoodled with my son approx. one million times
  • read +80 good-night stories (definitely not enough, please refer to kilometers travelled)
  • had approx. 700 cappuccinos and 5 kg chicken tikka
  • been to 5 metal concerts and one opera premier

My New Year´s resolution: having myself cloned!

So, how might your very own year-end retrospective look like?

* Please excuse the fact that a lot links in this article will lead to German sites. I´ve really just started publishing in English this year – so most of my stuff is still in German…

A Pain in the Ass: What Teachers and Speakers could learn from Colonoscopy

A couple of days ago, James Pawelski, the MAPP´s director, sent us a comprehensive reading list. It also contains Authentic Happiness, one of Martin Seligman´s earlier popular science books on Positive Psychology. Right at the beginning, Seligman describes an experiment that was carried out by Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman and colleagues.

Before I go into detail: Since you can read this text, I assume you went to school for a couple of years. Consequently, you´ve experienced being taught by a lot of different teachers – with their teaching skills representing a kind of bell curve: most were more or less o.k., a few were superduper, and some were the proverbial pain in the ass. Basically, it´s the same with (keynote) speakers. I attend a lot of conferences and conventions. Once again, most speakers are okish, a few rock, and some, unfortunately, just waste your time.

Now obviously, not everybody can be a master of rhetoric like, e.g., Barack Obama. But even if – for whatever reason – you suck big time by objective criteria, you can still manage to make a lasting, somewhat positive impression on your audience by adhering to a simple rule:

Save the best for last!

Try to give a first-class conclusion! Thanks to the so called recency effect, most people will tend to forget your overall performance. Instead, their evaluation will be by and large based on the final minutes of your performance.

For scientific proof, let´s go back to Kahneman – and a real pain in the ass. For a study, he and his colleagues surveyed several hundred people that had to undergo a colonoscopy. By random assignment, half the patients had a minute added to the end of their procedure during which the tip of the colonoscope remained in the rectum – but without moving, which is considerably less painful than any movement. The results in a nutshell: even though they experienced more pain all in all, patients who underwent the prolonged procedure rated the entire experience as significantly less unpleasant. Additionally, rates of returning for a repeat colonoscopy were slightly higher.

Thank God, speaking skills can be improved easily – beyond just giving a nice conclusion. For inspiration, you might want check out this blog post listing 15 TED Talks on happiness, motivation, and more.