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More excitement.
You all know there are certain things in life that require managing in a relationship. It starts with moving in together, then getting used to each other, accepting the other’s faults (if there are any of course ,-)) and….once you bought or are in the process of buying you start looking at furniture.
When we first started I did not even know about furniture and where to buy it. What would we need, what did we have. My wife’s first comment was “NO IKEA” - and I agreed. It is functional, we have a lovely Ikea bed but for our own place, we want something nice.
So we decided to look around and we both found something we both liked quite quickly. Isn’t that love I think? Despite different tastes for pictures (my wife hates that £5 picture from the charity shop but puts up with it for 4 years in our living room), different taste for Plants (I better do not go into details of my little greenhouse collection) we found furniture we both like and that will perfectly fit into our wee house.
Unfortunately I cannot download the picture but if you go to www.lombok.co.uk you find out what we like.
I am all excited. Internetworld is going ahead tomorrow for 3 days in London.
When building up today I noticed that this show is very diverse - from ecommerce to email to search to cms…. - I am all curious to see whether it can keep the record of 10,000 + visitors from last year and going ahead over 3 days. If it does and proves successful, then Internetworld might be the number one show in size for the online and digital marketing industry in the UK.
Of course, WebCertain will be there, booth E263, speaking on Wednesday at 16.00 in the seminar sessions about global search. We will also promote our International Search Summit - a good chance to grab one of the still available seats.
Meet me over the next 3 days in Earls Court 2!
Haha, the ones who know me probably realise I am taking the mickey!
No, I am still and probably never will be interested in Football but when Jen and I looked for furniture yesterday we got caught in a massive crowd of people leaving the Chelsea match. Funny enough in the late news I saw it was Ballack, the German captain, who brought victory to Chelsea. Who would have guessed.
Quite an experience to have the tube even more crowded and more sweaty, of beer smelling people standing on the tube. Worse than rush-hour.
Och well, just another day in London ,-)
A new URL, a new name, a new project!
Shortly, Marcelo and I, wil launch http://www.balamadana.com/ - a site that explains a little bit about Buddhism, Management, Personal Development. It is similar to cb consulting, www.cb-consulting.co.uk, a more Buddhism focused project.
Our blog will be on blog.balamadana.com
The beauty is that Marcelo is living and working in Brazil whilst I am still in London - Our path crossed a few months back and now we go a path together. Both working hard but we decided to bring joy and help to our friends out there by giving tips, hints and love!
In Buddhism we have “bala madana” which is part of a ceremony for those who have tantric empowerment and they are always together. That is how Marcelo introduced me to the name.
That means in a general sense: “body and soul”, bliss and emptyness, union of sutra and tantra.
For me, that name which reminds us of our names, symbolizes two souls for one idea.
Stay tuned - we will shortly launch www.balamadana.com officially.
If you believe it or not. Jenny (my wife) and I decided to scrap our TV - at least out of the living room.
Just recently we got a new 30 inch TV from our friend. We are moving soon (hopefully!) and think that we like to try a life without TV. Only thing we would like is a small-ish flat screen LCD one where we can watch DVDs on and can store in the corner if we do not need it.
Besides that we will get more space we also hope to gain more time to do more useful stuff than TV.
Lets see….we keep you updated!
Just a quick progress report.
My career coaching worked well on Monday and my client made a very good decision - in his/her and my view. So I am very happy it works out well.
Marcelo and I are about to set up a blog purely dedicated to Buddhism and Management, helping others, which I will announce shortly. Ergo this blog will focus more on cb consulting and on Search Engine Marketing and general management topics. The spiritual side of things will move.
I also finished my essay on Islands - published within the next few days.
We started de-cluttering our flat too. A friend took a table and shelf. Still no moving date but off to B&Q today for a peek on things….all excited.
Hope you are well.
Volker Ballueder
I now got a picture of my nephew, he is called very Scottish.
Today, 28th of April, I do my bigbrother a favour to eliminate any information about him to keep the little one “google protected”. Fair enough I guess, once he is working in the online marketing industry he might choose to do so himself or just do the opposite.
I just want to quickly use my lunch break to add some good news:
My sister in law gave birth to another Ballueder today, allowing me to be 2nd time uncle. Hurray! Not only do they now have 2 children but also it is great to know - sorry this might sound chauvinistic - that there is a boy in the family! Well done and congratulations to my bigbrother and his wife. I wish I could add the first pictures ….
Today, 28th of April, I do my bigbrother a favour to eliminate any information about himself and his family to keep the little one google protected.
Now, there is not much to add to a day like that, is there?
When I woke up this morning I said to my wife “I have the feeling things are coming together and we are making progress” - guess the above is part of it. An email from a dear friend last night and a great night with old friend all adds to the perfect picture of a “day to live for”.
More news at the weekend.
“Sure I am this day we are masters of our fate, that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win, victory will not be denied us.”
I read that in a book this morning, Winston Churchill wrote it during WW2 - not sure if as a German it might be inappropriate to use it for motivation, but I really like it.
I do not believe it is another week. Besides a very busy day at work, I met with a “client” for Career Coaching tonight.
The goal setting process combined with a good NLP technique and the Buddhist view in combination with gut feeling - how do you do that?
You start analytically and write down the pros and cons of the existing and the new job. Purely to find out what your clients likes, dislikes, what scares her/him. S/he gives so much away by talking about it and by using certain terms.
Then you start the goal setting process, stepping stones and the approach of “if you had already achieved what you aim to achieve in this lifetime, how would you have got there“? By internally going where you would like to be in order to look back as if you had lived through your decision already, helps you to get a different perspective on it. Try going backwards on the different timeline, going via stepping stones you set before? Ever tried?
You then have the choice of deepen the “what did you achieve” question with some “how did you achieve it” and “why did you achieve it”. Get some more NLP in there by using different aspects of the decision making process, e.g. use similar terms and digg deep on the reasoning on how someone would have achieved something.
I like to bring in some Buddhist thoughts. The path does not matter as it all has been defined before……but that is an entry in itself I believe!
Then break up with the exercise, take a deep breath and go back to your analytics pros and cons sheet in order to start analytics, a decision matrix, and evaluate the whole situation. Mix it a bit with gut feeling and you will hopefully either see a result or a strong tendency on what the client really would like to do. S/he will see it her/himself, no doubt….
Job done.
Sounds like a recipe, not as easy to follow without experience but surely something for everyone to pick up on.
Leave your comments on how you last made up your mind about a difficult decision!
Hopefully speak soon,
Yours Volker Ballueder
Hello,
This weekend we went up to Glasgow for Karen & Lewis’ Wedding. Congratulations to you both.
It was a great weekend. Friday we enjoyed some retail therapy in Glasgow - and Glasgow is great for that. Saturday, besides the wedding, it was so great to catch up with friends I have not seen for ages.
So nice to return to a city I have not seen for 5 years, catching up with friends we have not seen for months. Weird how people develop and things change in our multicultural circle of friends.
Today is rather slow. Nice Italian food in Glasgow and picked up a bottle of Dalmore. Nice bottle of single malt! Slowly getting into Whiskey again.
Now waiting for my plane which is already delayed but hope to be home soon.
Enjoy the rest of this sunny Glasgow.
Hello All,
At the SMX in Munich I spoke about SEO and Blogging. I was quite chuffed as it went well and the audience’s response was positive. There were a lot of great speakers and we really enjoyed the conference and exhibition.
I have been working with the German Online Marketing Industry for quite some time now, and it is like coming home. The industry is great, you cannot say it any differently!! Just recently I introduced a friend to the industry and he shortly starts with a big ad network in Munich. How exciting is that?!
For everyone who could not make it to Munich, I will shortly be in Hamburg but before that, WebCertain will hold the first ISS, International Search Summit - a summit dedicated to multilingual search!
Also, you find my presentation on my cb consulting website as a download - unfortunately the upload does not work at the moment but I will post as soon as it is up and running. Otherwise just email me and I sort you out with the presentation.
Saying that, the download for SEO und Blogging is now live!
Have a good evening, Volker Ballueder
I finally put my first article on the website:
You find it on www.cb-consulting.co.uk, Volker’s Blurb - I aim to publish another article shortly on my favourite topic of “Islands”.
Please read it and give me feedback. The article was written during my MBA studies.
Thanks
Volker
It is funny that. You wake up on a Sunday, early April, and it is snowing. Brilliant. If I had slept last night and my neighbours would have not woken us up, then I could enjoy it even more.
But it won’t be long now until we move. We measured the house, looked at furniture and are excited about it. The survey gets done tomorrow. So hopefully we exchange contracts before end of April with us moving in as early as first of June.
I only went there the 2nd time yesterday afternoon, and I am so in love with that place. We cannot wait! Away from noisy neighbours, own garden, lovely fire place and “it is ours” (and the bank’s of course).
Weird, my friend K is not the only one who recently said “Volker’s planet” - I seem to have my own thoughts, ideas and live in my own world sometimes. Nothing bad, I get re-assured ,-)
Just thought I explain that to people, that Volker’s planet is an expression coming from friend!
what does make us happy - i was wondering tonight when i got an email from a dear friend, that no matter how stressed we seem, how wonderful work can be, how awful life could be…if you are touched by a friend, his/her story, his/her love - that really takes the pressure off and you feel happy.
if you have a good friend, a boy/girl friend, a partner/wife/husband, children, pets and they “touch” you, e.g they hug you or send you their love, that is what makes you happy. they send you positive energy.
real love, the purpose of life, not money or material goods make us happy!
It is the inner peace and the strengths that comes from within that makes you happy and perform. The love that radiates from your heart or your friends’ hearts into yours. That is what makes you happy and in return ready to perform the tasks you need to do.
Thank you for touching me tonight.
your friend!
ballueder
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