"You Shut Up" - An Author's Life

Erasing Boredom for Teens This Christmas

2011-12-04T11:27:00.000-08:00

Many times during my years as a family coach, I’ve been asked about how parents can make sure teens aren’t falling into a ‘bored rut’ during the school holidays when one or both parents are still hard at work, and it’s especially important to ask this question at a time and age like this when buying them the latest Xbox game and plonking them down in front of the TV for the holidays seems like the easiest option.

The key aspect of boredom is being unproductive, and many young people get very impatient when there’s ‘nothing to do’ – after all, they’re in their element when there’s something going on all the time – think the instant gratification of a world they’ve grown up in.

So here are a few tips I’ve picked up on, and have found actually work as win-win solutions for pre-teens & teens and their parents

Tip 1: Give Them Their Own Time
With the end of the school year, teens feel like they’ve finally got some sense of freedom, and with the exams having just passed, they need to relax. Give them the time to sleep in, or even laze around the TV sometimes.

Tip 2: Decide on the Rules of Having Friends Over
Do you have to know their friends who are coming over? Are you even happy for them to have their friends over? Whatever decision you make around this, make the rules clear – rules are easier to bypass for teens when they haven’t been verbally communicated by you, the parent.

Tip 3: Get Them To Plan Out Their Week
I thought this was the most lame thing I had ever heard when a colleague told me about this, but it works. When you pose the challenge to your teens to plan out their week, it gives them time to search online to see what’s going on in the local area, and actually realize there is a world outside of their house!

Tip 4: Give Them the Task of Making Dinner
With all the cooking shows going around, many younger people are getting into cooking (think Junior MasterChef). When you’re leaving for work, leave them a budget and the challenge to surprise you with dinner.

Tip 5: Busy Business
Plant an idea in their head about starting up a business. Or perhaps start with getting them to list some of your household’s unwanted items on eBay – it could be their pocket money! With the internet, anything is possible

Tip 6: Hand them a Camera or Art Supplies, and watch…
Young people have a wild imagination, so help harness and unleash this through art – this will give them hours of time to spend on something that will help them express their creativity.

Tip 7: Endorse Sport
Suggest some sports they can go play with their friends – if you have the equipment for it, just hand it to them – they may have forgotten you still have that set of tennis racquets in the garage!

Tip 8: Writing Christmas Cards
If they are totally bored, give them the Christmas Cards you need to write to family and friends, and get them to write messages in each card, and sign for the whole family. Not only is it a lovely gesture to get a Christmas Card from a family friend that was written by one of their kids, but it’ll tick one more thing off your list AND give your teen something useful to spend their time on.

Tip 9: Decorate the Christmas Tree
Same as above – great fun for teens, and a task that ‘just needs to be done’ for you, that actually gets done!

What are some of the ways you get your teenagers out of the ‘boredom rut’?

I Think Religion is Great, but....

2011-11-07T16:44:00.000-08:00

...is it possible that it's good nature is being taken advantage of? Not the believers...no, they're fine - I mean the people out there with no faith that go out, screw up lives for themselves and their kids, and then turn to Religion for answers, in turn giving God, or whoever else half of the responsibility they should really be carrying 100% of.

I've noticed a trend lately...out of the goodwill of their hearts, people go out, and with a 'no returns expected' attitude set up programmes, camps, and even boarding houses for youth, who for family reasons end up homeless, helpless, or alone. Right, OK, for the extreme cases, it's lucky that these outfits exist, because sometimes government funded services aren't the easiest to find, but especially having the boarding homes put up, does this not give terrible parents a 'get out of jail free' card? Why would parents need to try to support their kids, when there's people out there who have goodwill with nothing expected in return, ready to take your child into their own care, while you continue living in a wine cask?

I'm really angry. Angry because as these boarding homes become more mainstream, parents can hand off their responsibility (i.e. child) onto someone else. I know this is not the majority of parents, and reading this you might think 'what kind of parent would ever want to voluntarily hand off their kids into someone else's care' but trust me, it happens. It happens WAY too much. It may not have been the parents' intention, but as kids grow up, economy goes up and down, people find it hard to fend for themselves, let alone care for their kids. But if you don't feel like trying to build a better life for yourself, surely you'd want to do it for the sake of your kids? And if you 'can't be bothered', why have kids in the first place??

Maybe people are having kids because there was no other option for them - I understand that. But do these parents really have to not care, 'give' their kids away, and just go back to whatever they'd rather be doing in the bar?

At least they're doing one good thing - fueling the economy, because the last time I checked, prices of the bad vices of the world have enough mark up to keep the economy going.

Oh Lord, what a world we live in.

Taking a Holiday with your Teens

2011-10-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

Christmas can become one of the most stressful times of year very quickly – with work commitments, as well as the worry of where to go on holiday, can all become too much very quickly. So if you’re thinking of taking a holiday this festive season with the family, here are a few quick tips about how you can make the holiday time as stress-free as possible.

In sync with my newly released second book ‘Shush, You!’ I stand by the belief that you can improve relationships with your kids through small actions in 5 minutes a day or less, so this article is in hope that you can achieve that on holiday!

1. If you don’t know where to go, ask your kids!

2. Give your teen a time frame and budget, and let them come up with a travel itinerary.

3. Don’t ban iPods or cell phones – simply dedicate some time to when you can discuss something as a family during the trip.

4. If you’re taking your work on holiday, make sure you dedicate your time to it for an X amount of time every day.

5. Make a rule that if it’s a family trip, the whole family goes. No exceptions. That also narrows your chances of coming back to an un-supervised party house.

6. When conflicts arise, cut them on the spot. Take them for a walk and have a good chat to them.

7. Most of all, remember to have fun! Without banning anything, or starting up arguments, remember why you went on holiday, and that was to bond, and have fun!

What other tips would you recommend when going away on holiday?

Happy Holidaying!

Gen Y: Handling Recession

2011-10-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

I hadn’t really dedicated much time to stop and think about how youth were affected by the recession, until I got an e-mail from a magazine in Sydney, asking what I thought on the matter.

I did the research to see what others have been saying on the topic, called around some friends, and even got together with some to interview them. It turns out, most of us didn’t notice it. I reflected this feedback to my own experiences. To be perfectly honest, while speakers around the world are complaining that organisations are having to deal with budget cuts, and all the rest, they as speakers are getting a smaller fee than what they have been getting during previous years. As I’ve only started in business on my own during the recession years, they have been the best years in business of my whole life…because they were my first! Those youth who entered the workforce during the recession, entered at a time when resources were rare, and their perceived value of the work they do may be lower than it actually is…it will be interesting to see whether our Baby Boomer and Gen X employers will take advantage of this once the economy picks up in future years. Why does this sound like a contradiction to the lazy and demanding Gen Y everyone describes? Because I only described the part of Gen Y that are in their late-teens, early-twenties who entered the workforce during the recession, not before. The part of Gen Y who entered the workforce before recession struck were those demanding, ill-mannered youth giving us all a bad name.

Gen Y are the bubble wrapped generation. I hope you enjoyed playing bullrush, rugby, or pretending to be superman running around the playground in a cape, because our generation missed out on all these things while growing up. Thank you Political Correctness. What’s more, is that we’re the generation that were babied from Day One. Society set many restrictions to what we are allowed to do, so as a generation, we’ve grown up a little less witty, or able to in some ways think for ourselves. What dumb kids, huh? Not quite…if you put yourself in our position, our whole lives, we’ve been told what we are allowed and not allowed to do, so we’ve learned to act, or rather not act at all within restrictions, because if we put a foot wrong, maybe we’ll get told off! We are not the most daring of generations, as we’ve been raised to be cautious at all times to not put a foot wrong. When entering the workforce, it’s important to set out the exact rules for youth when giving them responsibility so that they are clear around the exact guidelines of what they can and can’t do. Otherwise you will find them in your office every day, asking yet another small question, wanting your guidance, practicing their rehearsed cautiousness yet again.

Although Gen Y can be viewed as a whole bunch of bad news, there is one major advantage of this generation in the world. They are technology-savvy. Although the knowledge around technology has been viewed as a downfall, where youth are dedicating their time to ‘useless’ technology activities, imagine the power youth can have when gearing all that tech-knowledge into positive actions! Do you think you could gear their knowledge into perhaps executing your Social Media Strategy? Or perhaps having them as the ‘voice of tech’ in board meetings? Although this may sound like too much responsibility, or that you’re putting in too much trust into someone who’s not ‘that experienced’, why not give it a try…firstly, you have nothing to lose, and secondly, you don’t know what you don’t know…and youth may just know it!

How much trust are you willing to put into younger generations during these post-recession times?

Keeping Safe on the Roads

2011-10-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks with the Rugby World Cup, I must say it’s been quite a record for how many times I’ve been breath tested! I think it’s awesome that the Police are so onto-it at this time. I guess many would say it’s nothing special – they better be onto-it during such an international event. But having said this, when the World Cup is over, the dangers on the roads won’t stop, and it’s likely that although there will be less Police officers breath-testing and patrolling our roads, there a number of ways you can help minimize the risks of a young person in your home ending up in a deadly situation.

If you think the teen in your home isn’t behind the wheel right now, it’s possible they will be very soon. There’s been an increase in younger drivers on the roads over the last years, so here is a short three-point checklist of what you can do to help the youth in your home be as safe as possible on the roads – now, and in future:

Set the Rules
First thing many caregivers forget to do. Whether your teen is preparing to get their learner’s license, or are already on their restricted or full, you must set some rules in place so you’re both on the same page.
The obvious rules are that the legal rules must be followed. “No Johnny, you can’t take the car out now – it’s past 10pm, and that’s your curfew for your restricted licence”

The second set of rules are those that you are comfortable with, for example, if you have a car you’re sharing with your teen, a great idea is to come up with a schedule of when the car is free for them to use, or rostering on who has possession of the car on what days or times of the week. Another rule for them to follow is their existing curfew – is this in line with when they are legally allowed to be behind the wheel?

Be firm, allow for one-off cases, but don’t let one-off cases of a missed curfew, for example, to become the norm.

Help and Trust
Obviously they will need your help to actually learn to drive! My parents hired a driving instructor to help me smooth out the ‘kinks’ I had after learning to drive with Dad. You don’t need to hire an instructor, but they are very useful in the sense that they know what assessors will be looking out for when your teen goes to get their next level of license, and will be able to alert them to these ‘small things’.

The most you can do is pass on your knowledge of the roads if you drive, and the hardest part at the end…will be to just trust them to go out there…but not before you take note of the third, and last point…

Educate
Please, please, please tell us what to watch out for on the roads! If you don’t tell us, who will? Yes – that’s right, we’ll have to learn from mistakes…by which time, it might be about $5000 too late! Just like there are legal rules set in place such as driving sober and not being out past a certain time with some stages of licenses, we’re looking for your wisdom to educate us how to do things ‘right’, or properly. One of the first things my Dad told me when I got behind the wheel with him in the front seat was to watch out for driving too close to the parked cars. For two reasons:
1. I might hit one
2. Someone might be opening their door without looking, or estimating the distance between my car and their door
Not so much the first one, but the second one has saved me a number of times, and gosh am I glad Daddy was there to tell me to watch out for this, because I can almost guarantee I wouldn’t have even thought of people flinging their car doors into my car, but I assure you it happens.

So now it’s your turn…what piece of wisdom can you pass onto your teen about driving safer on the roads?
Oh, one more thing – do tell them to drive sober (we need to actually hear it from you in a stern voice).

Drive Safely!

Epic Change, and Engaging People Online as a Charity

2011-10-09T16:07:00.000-07:00

Recently while browsing online, I came across a fantastic charity called Epic Change that I felt needs to have its word spread to those who haven’t yet come across it. It is a charity that is behind many successful American Social Media Campaigns such as Tweetsgiving and others. They use a very similar engagement process for all their projects, which is way too cool to be kept a secret, thus I wanted to spread the word for what they’re doing.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Epic Change’s Mission in their word: Epic Change amplifies the voices and impact of grassroots changemakers and social entrepreneurs.
Epic Change collects donations from people like you and I, and put this into communities with lack of resources to give people the opportunity to utilize their skills to come up with an entrepreneurial idea in their area, using the micro loan given to them by Epic Change.
As an online-operating project, you can bet that the majority of your donation will actually be going toward those loans!

An inspiring story of Epic Change’s $35,000 impact on a School in Tanzania can be found here - I was totally sold on the idea after reading this – what an amazing opportunity to help a community, as well as give them the opportunity to have a ‘story’ to share for the rest of their lives.

Now to go a step further, I want to dissect Epic Change’s process as an organisation, because it really is a fantastic one that utilizes four basic principles that are valuable for any non-profit, or even business organisation who want to achieve success online.

Epic Change’s 4 Step Process

Step 1: Raise Money
First of all, after reading all about the amazing work Epic Change or their project is doing, they ask for a donation. They make it easy by allowing you a number of online and offline ways to donate, and in some cases will actually spell out what influence exactly your amount will have on those they are helping.

Step 2: Make a Change
This goes on from Step 1 – they actually tell you how your donation will influence others. In the example of Epic Change’s actual website, they are very transparent that your funds will go towards giving out loans to help those wanting to create positive change within communities. How cool is that! You’re contributing to business growth just by doing a good deed. It’s based on the ‘teach them how to fish’ principle, and boy, is that powerful when you know your funds are going towards something.

Step 3: Share the Story
By donating, you are becoming part of the story that you can pass on. It’s a feel-good factor that your donations are contributing to the success of others.

Step 4: Pay it Forward
Become a part of history! Some of Epic Change’s projects offer you the option to spread the word through your networks online by a one-click action that will send out a message to say you’re supporting the cause. What more would you want – a whole army of people that are your personal supporters out there to their networks. How cool!

So are you using the four step process in your Social Media? Give it a try…you never know what might come out of it!

Conflict with Teens…Averted

2011-09-30T05:32:00.000-07:00

Many people have a child in their lives. Whether they are a toddler, a child, pre-teen, or are on their way to adulthood, youth are everywhere! And as scary as it may sound to some, the existence of people is inevitable in this world, as is the existence of young people.

Have you ever sparked conflict with a young person? They’re quite easy to start – it can start off with a miscommunication, a bad word, a mean look. But what many people don’t realize, is the small things you can do to help build a better relationship with a young person. My second book ‘Shush, You!’ focuses on this fact in greater depth – the array of stories from people who have contact with youth in today’s world through different environments – whether it’s family at home, family living outside of home, in the workplace, at school…and all these stories are bound by the quick 5 minute tips I’ve observed that can help make a great relationship.

I won’t go into detail of these 5 minute tips – there are so many of them, but I’d like to share three specifics that can be applied to a number of small things you can do to get a young person on side right now, today, tomorrow, and in future.

When a conflict arises, and dare I say that whether it’s with your own kids or not, there is a sure three step process of how you can work towards resolving it, with the end product being a healthy relationship based on common understanding and communication.

1. Listen
My first book is called ‘You Shut Up!’. Without having to remind you that this is a common term many families hear in their household when kids are starting to turn into teenagers, there is, yet another side to reason behind the title. And that is that everyone wants to be heard. As a teenagers, we want to be heard, and whatever you say before we have a chance to speak out will be lost. So ask them for their side of the story first – over time, this will help them realize that sometimes it’s important to hear the other person out.

2. Show Your Side
While they’re speaking, pick up on some of their points so that like in a good debate, you will be able to answer their issues. Start with telling your side, and then ease into some of the issues they’ve raised. You will be showing them that you’re giving your side of the story, but also acknowledging what they have raised. Also remember to use the same language – if they say ‘Well you never talk to me’, don’t say ‘I always communicate with you’ – the meaning is the same, but it will have more effect if you use the same language and come back with ‘I always talk to you’, or similar. Plus, if they hear you using ‘big’ words that weren’t part of their issue, they will discard the entire sentence all together.

3. Compromise
A good conflict resolution technique is to end in compromise. Although this may not always 100% benefit everyone, it doesn’t un-benefit either side. After hearing both sides to the conflict, and deciding that you both want to resolve it, without any ego getting in the way, compromise! Let’s say it’s a matter of curfew – you have set a rule of 10pm and your teen wants it to change until 2am. Try to find a middle ground and then set some extra rules in place as your previous rule of 10pm is being compromised. How about you compromise and set the new curfew at midnight, but the extra rules will be that they have to TXT or call you at 10pm to let you know they’re OK. If this doesn’t happen, take it back to the drawing board, and address their lack of communication at 10pm. The moral is that there is always a way to compromise – you just need to find it amongst the issues from both sides.

Trust Your Future!

Social Media: Online vs. Offline

2011-09-25T18:15:00.000-07:00

Time and time again, business owners enquire about why Social Media is right for their business.
Let’s get this straight: you went into business because you have a product, service, or even a gift to help others. Am I right? I hope so. The business aspect of running this wholesome goal I to make money, right?

The logic continues…in order to make money, you need to have customers. And how will customers find out about you? Some businesses invest in advertising through magazines, newspapers, newsletters – a small ad on page 3, in home that the phone will start ringing off the hook, right? Well what if I told you that for the very same price, you could be on the front page of every top newspaper or magazine with an instant engagement tool? Social Media makes this possible. The only difference is that the money you’d be investing will be translated into time. I know – not everyone has time – as business people, as a good friend and colleague speaker Tony Ryan once said, we only have 28 hours in a day. So how can you make this happen?

I won’t go all evangelistic on you about the benefits of Social Media, or how much success it can bring you. But the point I really want to bring across is that you can engage people more when you’re talking one-on-one. The most powerful marketing tactic they say is word of mouth, and there is some great truth in this – people want to buy from people they trust – you must have heard this a million times. So as a person in business, how could you start a conversation with someone, to build the trust you need for them to take that step and buy from you? We don’t have time to become best friends with all our potential clients, but think of the online world as a place where people like you and I are on every single day and they might actually be in need of something that you’re offering. All you need to do is tap into a conversation with them – just start talking to them. The easiest way to do this is to talk about something relevant to them. Perhaps you’re a café owner, and you go onto Twitter and see a whole string of updates of people that have gone on and said something like ‘Gosh I just had the worst coffee at *insert your competitor’s name here*’. This is your perfect cue! ‘Hey, have you tried our coffee? Might be a way better experience!’ is all you need to reply to them, and from there…who knows, maybe they might visit your café and you get another customer, maybe they will start up a conversation with you, but at the very least, they will see you’re making an effort to improve their coffee experience. This might be all you need to do to build that trust.

At the risk of sounding like the used car sales-man, people want to know what else is out there; we all love our options, so look at it as your way of helping people find other options.

Let’s look at some of the traditional methods of marketing, and how this could be replicated online with less time, and more importantly, less investment on your behalf.

Putting up a big sign outside your business
This might be a good idea for Google Maps the next time they come around the street your business is on, but the only way people are going to see it is if they’re in the area. The way you can replicate this online is to associate your business with where you are geographically. Instead of naming your Facebook Business Page as ‘Brad’s Restaurant’, why not go a little further and enter your address details into the ‘Info’ section on the page, or perhaps even re-name your Facebook Page name to: ‘Brad’s Restaurant: home of the best pizza on Brazil Street’. Now we’re talking.

Advertise on a billboard or in a local newspaper
If you’re advertising in a publication that specializes in a local area, why not go online and find forums, or networks of people in that area? Perhaps your target market are people in the Wellington area; go onto Facebook, or find Twitter lists that are for people in the Wellington region; voila! You have people in that particular area, and you can single them out, direct market, and advertise to them through the channels they are used to online.

Putting out flyers
Flyers take quite a bit to print. Bring those costs down by going out there and do a direct marketing campaign! Going back to Facebook, go online and search for networks of people in a particular area, or with particular interests – Facebook is so huge, that it’s likely you will come across a group of people that, for example, have created a group along the lines of ‘What is the best rest-home in the X region?’…or ‘Soccer Moms Unite’…it’s all possible!

Most importantly, these online vs. offline marketing is all going in the direction of direct marketing: the way marketing should be. If you don’t know who your target market is, it’s time to go back to the drawing board, because just by putting up a large billboard in your town, won’t be bringing in thousands of customers overnight – because you’re trying to market to a mass amount of people, without any personalization to them. Go online; go straight to the source – the right people who actually need your product or service. You definitely can’t go wrong there.

Benefits of Using Facebook & Twitter

2011-09-18T13:38:00.000-07:00

Time and time again, business courses, workshops, general media and people are going on about using Social Media for business.
People are pretty much sold on the benefits of it, but are still unsure – what is my ROI? What will I get out of it? How do I know this is beneficial for my business?

Simply speaking, Social Media is merely another platform for your brand to be seen by the public. Just like newspaper and TV advertising, Social Media is a medium for promoting what you do, and letting people know of the benefits you can bring their current situation.

At the same time, Social Media also doubles as a networking tool. Think about how much time you currently spend talking on the phone, replying to e-mails, networking at events, and any other ways you use to socialize and network for your personal and business use. To really make Social Media work for you, you’d need to invest the same amount of time you currently spend networking, and do it through social networks.

Social Media gives people the opportunity to combine marketing strategies with networking into one. The nature of Social Networking helps you network, and when coupled with basic marketing principals, it can fully succeed no matter what way you need it to. The way to market on Social Media is to spend time on there. Unlike setting up a billboard and have it bring value to each person who sees it, you need to bring that value with individual comments, joining in with discussions, being forward enough to introduce yourself to potential clients, and bringing value by sharing links to articles, products and services you recommend.

So what ARE the benefits of using Social Networking Sites like Twitter and Facebook?

Engage with your target market. Through the power of Social Media, it’s all about the amount and quality of content you produce and share with your target audience. The relevance to your audience and value you produce makes sure you are positioned to be as much of an expert in your field as your words portray. The amount of content you produce gives you the advantage to make sure your audience never forget about you, but also as we all know, we all have our own lives and people just aren’t sitting at their computer waiting for your next update, so you need to make sure you catch them when they finally do get round to logging onto their social networks. So that’s where the repetition and amount of time you keep putting yourself out there will amount to valuable engagement with your target market.

Getting straight feedback. Sure it may sometimes be from the general public, but it’s very valuable information for you to obtain about how others perceive your services and benefits of doing business with you through the internet.

Instantly reaching out to your potential clients. The beauty of the internet is that the entire world, news, advice and events can be uploaded and circulated instantly. As soon as you have any new press releases, or content to share, upload it! The benefit of the internet is that it has the power to update the world about events as they happen. Once something happens and you wait until tomorrow morning to report on it, chances are it won’t be as current or someone else would have taken the space of being ‘the first reporter’ of the happenings.

Get the inside scoop about your industry. Social Media is public. And that can be a good thing. This means you can find out valuable information about your competitors, and any current events or news happening within your industry. This can also be a great opportunity to tie in popular current events with the relevance of your work. A friend of mine races Suzuki Swifts, and he loves the singer Taylor Swift, so he called his car ‘Taylor The Swift’ and made a Facebook Fan Page for it. So when the big mishap happened at the Music Awards when Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech, everyone around the world of all ages were talking about how unfair this was on Taylor, people were searching the internet for the video clips, opinions, forums and pages about this event. Coincidentally, although for most people a race car driver wasn’t going to be of interest, because of the amounts of people searching the name ‘Taylor Swift’ guided their Google searches to my friend’s ‘Taylor the Swift’ Facebook Page. Almost overnight, his Fan page grew from about 100 of his friends and fans to about 700 fans. That’s a 600% increase! How would you like to increase your target, pin-pointed audience online by 600%?

Raise awareness of your brand. Through your involvement in Social Media, you have the power to not only connect and engage your target audience, but by doing so, you will also be raising the awareness of your brand. Of course we can’t all be McDonald’s with the yellow arches, but we can certainly try become the expert in our industry through the value of our content we produce and share with our online audience. Just make sure you’re including your website, logo, and anything else that will give your brand association with your name online, so when people say ‘Eva-Maria’ online now, if they are within my target audience and don’t necessarily know my name, they will at least be able to identify with my bestselling book’s title ‘You Shut Up!’ because I always make sure I’m consistent with my subject, brand and content.

Promote your Content. Once you write anything – a press release, article, blog post or update on your life, use your social networks to update the rest of the world. By keeping in constant touch with people online, you’re ultimately building awareness of your being, expertise and important-ness online.

What would it take to convince you to get onto those Social Networks?

Teen Suicide

2011-09-11T14:24:00.000-07:00

It’s not news that New Zealand has one of the highest rates for teen suicide in the world. It’s a sad thought that our dear country has this kind of history that keeps repeating itself, but there are definitely some sound ways parents and relatives can make the growing up years a little easier.

Here’s my stance on it: depression is real, no doubt about it. However, at some point of our lives, we have those days when we don’t feel like getting out of bed, when we feel lonely and when we just don’t want to talk to anyone. Those feeling are normal. Like I say, if you were to quickly diagnose people generally feeling ‘sad’, should we have a tax on emotions like ‘love’ aswell?

Depression is real – I’m not saying it’s not, but we all have those days when we feel a little ‘emo’, or ‘depressed’ if you must. If this goes on for a little longer than a day, a week, month, then yes – professional help is needed. But you can actually stop this unwinding of events! Don’t let that sad stage of a teen’s life turn into ‘depression’. There are three things to remember:

Communicate
Whenever you notice something, talk to them! Even if they don’t want to, keep talking to them – even the small things count “How was your day darling?”, “What do you think about….” Get them involved in conversations, family activities – anything. Just keep that communication going, because when the time comes, they will open up about what’s bothering them. More times than never, parents seem to drift off and stop talking because they don’t want to deal with another snappy answer – this is just them taking some of their issues out little by little. Keep talking, talking, talking.

Support
Did your teen have an interesting idea? Do they need a lift from you somewhere? Do they need to talk to you? Be open to support them in their decisions. At the end of the day, if you tell them not to do something, as much as I hate to say it, psychologically that makes them want to do these things even more; to try these things to find out what all the fuss is about. Don’t let it get that far – if they hear the word ‘no’ from you often enough, that translates into ‘I don’t care about you’ to a teen sometimes, and that’s exactly what you don’t want. If you must say ‘no’ to some things – a tattoo, a party they want to go to, a business venture they might want to start up by dropping out of school, say ‘no’ as much as you want, but don’t forget the reasons behind it and tell them about this. This will automatically put them into the ‘understanding’ mindset, and just like it would be perfect for you to read their mind, give them something to work off by giving them your side of the story – what you’re thinking, and why you’re thinking it.

Love
I cannot stress this point enough. When you don’t say a happy ‘Good Morning’, ask for their opinion, say ‘no’ to anything they want to do, that all translates into ‘I don’t care or love you’. Wrong, wrong, wrong! A great book about the ‘5 Love Languages’ talks about how different people show their love for each other. With a teenager, you don’t necessarily need to study that book, unless you have the time – small things count. My parents always remember to tell me they love me, heck when I was little, after Mum had been away in another city, just her bringing back some cheap lollies from the plane as a ‘gift’ got my brother and I excited – you can express your love through so many different ways – don’t forget that it can stretch out further than a simple ‘I love you’; it can be anything from a small gift, to a gesture of love (“Would you like some tea?”), to just sitting down when they need to talk to you the most and hearing what they have to say.

How do you communicate, support and love the teen in your life? As hard as it may be, they hold so much energy and power to balance out the world; to make something out of themselves, and to make the world a better place – if not now, then definitely in future. Cherish and love them – who would want to end their life when they’re surrounded by love and understanding? No one is my guess!

Social Networking: Our Future?

2011-09-05T12:40:00.000-07:00

From the GrownUps Column that can be found here

Social Networking has exponentially grown in popularity since I started this column. Although some of my entries are to do with the young people of today, I think there are many parallels between the online world and the way younger generations are growing up in the 21^st century; after all, they, or should I say we, are indeed the product of what technology has created. And what technology has created is a fast-paced, never-still, ever-changing world that surprises us every single day.

I remember when the iPhone first came out, and a speaker from the US was speaking at a workshop I was sitting in on. At the end of the talk, he went on to give a couple of points about why people in business need to get onto the new technologies and embrace them. I was not impressed; “Isn’t that obvious to these people in suits?” I thought. I was even less impressed when he took out his iPhone, and went on to show the audience a new app where you can tilt the phone and it makes it look like the phone is a glass with drink disappearing. A teenager at the time, I was most of all un-impressed by how easily these ‘adults’ were impressed. I had heard of this new drinking app, but there are definitely more impressive things in the world, surely.

What I’m trying to get at is not that young generations are not easily amused; it’s that the world in all its fast speed is constantly coming up with new inventions and discoveries for the potential to do something better; to amuse people more and more. It’s not impressive to have a touch-screen phone anymore. If anything, speaking from my own experience, I’m hating my new touch screen phone. I need a phone to call and TXT; I don’t want all the weird gadgets on there…necessarily, and get very restless when a TXT takes longer than a split second to open up on my screen. That’s the reality.

But here comes my biggest point:
Social Media has brought people closer. What we couldn’t do 20, 10 or even 5 years ago is available at our fingertips. I never try to be an evangelist for the online world – there are many things it cannot replace, but for what it’s worth, it has made some things attainable. Think meetings. I’m on the National Executive of the National Speakers Association. We have a meeting every month. It would take a large collective investment to fly everyone to one city, but the Association can use the pool of knowledge from people from all over the country by having a Skype conference. People have meetings from all around the world over the internet, I can coach people about relationships with their teens, or about how to use Social Media for their business over the internet; years ago, we couldn’t even dream of doing business deals without meeting someone in person, but it’s possible.
Social Media isn’t all about how many Skype conversations you can have; it can serve a higher purpose: to connect. Connect with your existing, future and potential clients, family members; anyone. It’s about starting a conversation.

Imagine you’re at one of those networking events, standing in a corner and everyone seems to have some sort of natural link, but you. Enter the online world; you can butt into any conversation, put in your two cents about a topic, or person, and it’s normal. You don’t need to be the awkward freak of nature trying to ease your way into the conversation; online, it’s a GOOD thing to butt into conversations, compliment people, and all the rest.

Of course the how-to of engaging with people online isn’t something you can break down in a few words, but when you start with the ‘why’ when you sit down at a computer, ready to take on the social media world, just keep your goal in mind – is your goal to connect and network with potential client? Is it to keep in touch with existing clients or relatives? Is it to make new friends or find a soulmate?

Just keep the end goal in mind, and everything will come from there.

The Recent London Riot & Youth

2011-08-27T21:08:00.000-07:00

The recent London riots have caused a lot of controversy and speculation from the world, focusing on a small suburb in the capital. Without having been there at the time, or in my case…ever, but having had close friends from there, it is something that has sparked my own interest. Apart from the over-televised proof of what happens when people go wild, or in New Zealand’s case, papers were focusing mainly on the fact that the riots were caused by youth.

England is no stranger to horrific ‘when youth go wild’ stories, but from some of the (maybe biased) news I’ve seen and heard, here are some of my own speculations of how something as tragic as this has happened.

Tipping Point
There comes a time when people have had enough. Having seen how corporates working in their cubicles can reach a tipping point where they go as far as a bloody fight in a what can be described a very rigid and calm environment, I am not surprised that there came a time and reason for people to rebel. I am not condoning actions of the looters, or the rebels, but come on – people only need to see violence, when some reach their tipping point of having to join in to prove something. What happened in London, I would go as far as say that there were people who had reached a tipping point. Unfortunately, it had been against the Police, but among sufferers were peaceful citizens who owned businesses in the suburb. I think we can all reach a tipping point when we have had enough, and other people starting something can make us join in with the action.

Bad Parenting
Speculation from BBC quickly started focusing on how it was many youth who had joined in to be ‘rebels without a cause’, and their observations came down to bad parenting. I haven’t personally met these so called ‘bad parents’, but perhaps it’s worth exploring: who are the parents of these looters and hooligans? No parent ever wants to raise their kids ‘the wrong way’, yet some get sucked into drugs, crime, hate…so where do the kids of these parents go wrong? I am not religious, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that even books like the Bible teach those who will listen to not steal, kill, or disrespect their elders. So why do some take such extreme actions when they reach their own tipping point?

Rebels without a Cause
There are many who idolize the likes of Che Guevara, Martin Luther King Jr and Mahatma Gandhi. I remember at high school during one assembly, we were challenged with an interesting question: if you wanted to make a big impact in the world we live in, does this mean breaking the law? All three of these (and many more) significant leaders of our past all broke the law in some way to fight whether aggressively or passively for something they believed would produce a better world for all. Che Guevara used to go around with his gang in his school days and break street lamps as a sign of rebellion against the world they were living in. The likes of the Sex Pistols used the music scene to voice all that was wrong with the world. Was Martin Luther King Jr in the wrong to fight for his rights in a world where he was considered an insignificant citizen? Without condoning the actions of what has recently hit London, should we perhaps be taking a step back and recognizing or questioning what all these people are protesting against? And if many of them are youth, is it not a good thing that all have found a way to band together to fight for a cause? I guess in my mind the question still remains: was this a cause? With all my work and research, this to me, is yet another example of how quickly people can pull together for a common message. The challenge though, still remains in my mind: how can we take this energy among people, and more importantly the ‘rebellious youth’ and gear this towards more positive action?

What do you think?

Entrepreneur School

2011-08-21T20:36:00.000-07:00

Recently on my travel adventures, I came across a very low-decile community. I got the opportunity to tour around the high school in the town, but it was heart breaking to see and hear the young people’s perception of what the future involved. Girls saw having a family as soon as possible as a sure way out (or maybe into?) of the ‘poverty’ of toxic households they were living in. And guys couldn’t see past the weekend about what they wanted to achieve in life. This started me into some thinking about the opportunity to set up an Entrepreneur Course.

Many have talked about setting these types of programs up, but I have seen very few in the world actually take off. I realized that the reason these young people didn’t see much of a future was because they felt it was out of their control. Some wanted to move to bigger cities to start a corporate life, but their education restricted them from doing so. I figure young people have many creative ideas floating around in their heads, with minimal support from people around them about how to make these ideas into reality.

What if there was a way to set up an Entrepreneur Program for schools where the students could come to, and actually create and see their ideas come to life – whether it’s commercially viable or good-cause oriented (or hopefully both)? What if these were to happen over weekends, or after school so instead of going out to get drunk or have sex, they could take responsibility and learn to say no to getting wasted every weekend because they’d want a clear head to keep working on their projects when the course was held.

What are your thoughts? Are there programs like this in your area, and how well are they being executed? And my main question: how are they influencing the students?

Google Plus…the future…?

2011-08-07T12:02:00.000-07:00

Recently, I’ve been bombarded by invitations to join the Google Plus social network. There’s been a lot of talk around how Google is trying to conceive ‘the new Facebook’, and even rumours that Google is thinking of partnering with Facebook because they’ll never be able to re-create the revolutionized social networking aspect that Facebook has created to date.

What are your thoughts? Have you tried it? Are Google trying to be wannabes, or is this really going to revolutionize the way we view social networking?

Comment on my video below, or on YouTube

Turning 21: Give Us Hope

2011-07-31T20:11:00.000-07:00

The inevitable happened at the end of July.
I turned into an adult.
Oh gosh.

It was horrible – seriously. I woke up, ready to take on the world as an adult and guess what??!
I didn’t feel any different!
I didn’t have that much of a big night out, but seriously…come on! I thought adults were supposed to be responsible and awesome and I well…felt the same!
I have come to the conclusion that every parent, adult, teacher, youth worker, manager…they are just the very same 16, 18, 20 year olds in an older person’s body. No big transformation exists! No Easter Bunny, Santa Clause or Tooth Fairy came to transform me – I still looked the same, I FELT the same.

I have used the same techniques in numerous speeches where I get adults in any given audience to remember what it was like to be a teenager, or a young person, and the only thing everyone always agrees to is that the only difference between how they used to be and how they are now was the sense of absolute freedom they felt. It’s interesting though, because as an adult, we have more responsibility – for ourselves and others. But isn’t the whole point of having freedom that we have more responsibility? Were we more responsible when we were younger if we feel we have less freedom than we did back then? Or is it the feeling of no consequences that fades as we age?

All these are valid questions, but the one thing I’m starting to feel kicking in is the hope I have in the world. When you get older, we feel more hope, more opportunity to change the world. Partly because we are allowed to do more things, but isn’t hope something that every human being on Earth should have?

Time and time again, I make sure to share with my audiences the grim future that was painted for me at primary school: the two divorces I was apparently prone to as a young person living in today’s world, and the 15+ career changes I was expected to go through. Now, I’m all for teachers being honest with us as kids right from the beginning, but the one thing they forgot to instill and paint for us at school was hope. The one thing that will keep us going through the tough times; the hope for a better future. When you look at all the possibilities, it’s exciting that there are numerous ‘things’ we will go through during our lives, but at the same time, it instills a feeling of insecurity of our futures. With the expectations of many changes, how are we supposed to grasp the concept of goal setting, and more importantly the concept of goal achieving when we are told the rules are going to change so many times on us, that we will never have a feeling of security?

I guess the reason I write this is because youth cannot go as far as they can if there is no adult support. And as an adult, there is so much support you can give us just by instilling hope. Try it – let’s have a look at a number of options.

If you are a parent or teacher, instilling hope means supporting us through the good and bad times. Every parent wants to do this – I’m not saying they don’t. But the way you can help show that there is hope is by reassuring us; your kids that whatever we want to achieve, we need to stick at it. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was really little. By then though, my dreams were doomed. School told me there is no point in striving for something that was already possible. Great. OK, fair enough. But the way they went about giving me other options (or in this case option) was to try a career in animation. 3D animation was the ‘it’ thing back then, and all the teachers were enthralled that this had become a job, so it almost seemed like it was their mission that we all needed to become little ‘animationists’ because that was the way of the future. Ding dong! It’s now 2011 and that is not the hottest or newest job anymore. The world will keep changing, but don’t just try get your kids involved with the latest trend – that is almost a formula for them to fail. Look at me now – if I had followed the advice I was given, I would just be finishing my studies, looking for a job in an over-stocked market. I’m not suggesting I would have been the world’s best astronaut, but hey, who knows – if I had stuck at it, I could have been the first New Zealander into space (by the way, there hasn’t been one YET), so although I was like what, 8 years old, that dream was dead in the water. So be careful how you pose your support. Make sure you are giving us hope through the support – not by shutting down our ideas.

OK, say you’re not related to a young person – say you are a manager, or some high exec, and it’s your job to mentor some new employees. How do you instill hope in them? They are likely to be at the higher end of teen years, or even over 20 – so how can hope become alive in these ‘kids’?
A popular technique for employers is to sit a young intern or employee down and draw up a 5 year plan. OK. Do you remember what you were like when you were 20? Wasn’t the only thing you knew you’d be in 5 years time was OLD? How about going at it from a different approach – ask what they want to achieve in the industry. They may have no idea, they may have some idea, or they may have already made their own plan. No matter where on the scale of assurance they are, you can help by showing them some options, and offer advice around how they can get to wherever they want to go. I think many young people think in achievements rather than years in today’s world. It’s possible to slice 3 years at University into 2 years – anything is possible in today’s world, so it may be your way of thinking that a 5 year plan is best, but we have grown up with speed, and the best way to instill hope in the fact that we have a future, and better yet, a future in your industry is to let us know that there are pathways we can take to achieve whatever we are there to achieve, or at the very least that there are people that can help us decide what we want to achieve.

How do you instill hope in the young generations?

I have a hope for my future, and for the future of this world in general because of all the wonderful adults that have helped me gain this, and I hope that the young people who’s lives you touch – today and in future can attain this. And while thinking about this, maybe you also need to ask yourself – how bright do you see YOUR future? And do you trust it (the future, I mean :))

What they didn’t teach us in school

2011-07-17T13:16:00.000-07:00

At the start of last month, I was asked to present at a local High School around the life lessons I’ve learned from my journey of being an author, speaker and consultant.

I was shocked to find that after sending my presentation through, I was asked to write out a new one…some of my suggestions and lessons were too ‘provocative’ for the student body, and something that they didn’t want their students exposed to.

It was an interesting piece of feedback to hear, as I’ve never been censored in such a way before, so I thought, for this to not go to waste, I’d re-tell some points in the online world (where everything is allowed). Many have heard, or have heard of Bill Gates’ speech he gave at an American High School around his life lessons, and I must say, it was nothing different to it…apart from the fact that I don’t have any sort of billion dollar empire, I’d love to see the day that some of these life lessons are at least discussed at school – after all, isn’t this the institution that’s supposed to prepare youth for the ‘real world’?

At the same time, I know of many schools that have Leadership Days where they invite speakers, and teach them some of the real life lessons…maybe this school was just a bit too sheltered for the truth, but here we go, my three points that I wanted to share with the school…judge for yourself how it may break students as the school thought…

1. You Need to Work Hard
In our generation, somehow we get it into our heads that life is going to be easy. Who can blame us? Our parents are Generation X, or for some, even Baby Boomers and all their life they had to work really, really hard to get whatever they wanted in life. They obviously didn’t want their kids to go through some of the same struggles, so they tried to make an easier life for us – their kids. Back in the day, some of our parents were working at 13 or 14 years of age, whereas today, that’s illegal! Our parents had to work hard to get their first job, while we expect to have a steady job in our late teens, because we hear of how some of our parents had been promoted to manager positions in their late teens. What we forget, or what our parents forget to tell us is that they had to work up for years before then to get to that position. You are going to work hard to get to wherever you want to get to – whether it’s a promotion, or starting your own business, or anything else, you’re going to have to get out there and put in the hard yards. That’s what we don’t get to by parents or teachers…not because they’re lying to us, but because perhaps they forgot about their own journey and challenges. The best advice I was ever given is to choose what I love and put in all my passion, blood, sweat and tears into it. And I have. Have you? What do you want to do? Whether it’s a short term or long term goal, what do you really want from life? Find out, pin point it and get ready for some hard work – there are no shortcuts there!

2. Take the Opportunity to be Curious
When I came to New Zealand, I was the most outgoing child you could ever imagine. Even now, I can’t contain my excitement when telling a friend some good news that I end up telling the whole street rather than the person I’m talking to. But what happened for a little bit when I came to New Zealand, all of a sudden people were speaking a funny language, and I didn’t understand a thing. So I became really introvert and started to really take in what other people were doing. I guess my observation skills have stuck with me since that time, but now that I finally know what language everyone is speaking, I can add my extrovert-ness into any conversation. What I’ve learned over the last 4 years of being in business, being an author and speaker, is that people think that celebrities and opportunities are out of their reach. If only people knew the truth. I’ve learned to be brave, which is what I’ll touch on in the next point, but the biggest thing I learned is the importance of being curious. I wrote my first book when I was 17, and luckily, I was invited onto a live radio interview with some of the other top parenting authors of the country. After the interview, I e-mailed all of them – even the ones that I disagreed with on the radio, and expressed my gratitude and honour for the opportunity to be heard alongside them on national radio. One replied. But you know, that one was, and still is THE biggest, most respected parenting author in the country. The busiest people are the ones that have enough time for everyone and I now know this and am not afraid to e-mail or even call some of my most admired heroes. This parenting author is now one of my dearest mentors and friends, and always makes time for when I’m in her city and vise versa. The lessons she’s taught me and all the information she’s helped me out with has been priceless. Get mentors, contact whoever can help you – even if they’re at the very top of their game – they always have time for you! Take some time to be curious about the world around you – whether it’s contacting someone you think is out of reach, or doing some extra research about some topic, job, or person – just do it! What’s the worst that could happen?

3. Learn to be Brave
So you work hard and you’re curious about the opportunities out there…with all of this, you need to learn to be brave. Many self esteem books will tell you to be yourself, but the beauty of life is taking risks. I used to hate public speaking. I mean I used to love being the centre of attention, but as I became more and more introvert when I came to New Zealand, I bought into the whole ‘public speaking is worse than death’ belief. I had to get out of it, because very early on, I realized that in order to get the message – my precious message of how people can build better relationships with each other, across to many people, I was going to need to get out of my limiting belief. The fear used to really get to me, but I knew it was for the best. I knew I was going to have to swallow my pride and fear and get out there and do it for the people – without sounding like some sort of revolutionary, I knew my message was going to really help people. Sometimes when following your dreams, you need to be brave. Do you think Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t scared – getting up and speaking about something that he truly believed in? All those people watching him, but his passion and vision drove him. He could have hid in his room and stuck with the life he was given, but his belief that his vision was for the greater good of people, drove him to get out there. Your fear may not be public speaking – it might be getting out there and contacting J.K. Rowling – who knows! But if you really believe in what you’re doing, get out there – be brave, and just do it!

What other advice would you give to youth today? What do you wish you knew when you were 13, 16, or 19?

My Generation - Generation SMART

2011-07-11T21:06:00.000-07:00

The term Generation SMART is one I’ve coined over the past couple of years and it covers the 15 to 25 year olds of the world. It’s an important generation – with half of the population under the age of 25, we as a society need to listen and understand what those hooligans are all about, right. I can see people in the audience going yeah right girl, convince me they’re smart. They’re not necessarily smarter than you, they’re SMART because of the world they’re immersed in.

Think back to your teen years. What were you like as a young person? Think back to what you were going through and feeling when you were 13, 16, 18…go on – take a moment.

You know what you just felt?
You felt exactly what young people today feel. We are no different to how you used to be. The only difference between you and us is that you’ve forgotten what it’s like!
Ten feet tall and bulletproof? How about Twenty feet tall and superman! We know we can do anything! You had that attitude way back when, and look where it got you? Tell me all these years have been a waste of time? The attitudes, energy and passion of young people is something I wish I could bottle up and sell to the depressed old men out there who look angry going to work in their suits to sit in a cubicle every day. You see, our emotions and attitudes haven’t changed – the only thing that’s changed is that you grew up.

Although there are many similarities between younger and older generations today, the current young generation comes down to five simple things.
Generation SMART can be broken down into five simple words:
Swift, Mobile, Accessible, Ready, Transparent...get it...acronym for SMART!

Swift
Young people are fast. They always have been. Perhaps not THE fastest, but definitely fast-ER. And in many respects, they have no way of channelling this speed at which they can achieve and do things.

Mobile
This generation is more likely to travel, change jobs and houses more regularly than any other generation. A longitudinal study in Auckland concluded that the under 25-year old newlyweds are more likely to move houses within the first year of getting married. How’s that for the big dream of owning one and only house for the rest of your married life? Generation SMART have more access to travel, cars…they can travel halfway across the country in a night if they wanted to. Back in the day, it was a big deal to have a car…these days more than half of teenagers out there own one!

Accessible
Generation SMART are more accessible – with the advances in technology, you can make contact with them whenever you need. This generation is easier to reach than other young generations have been, only because of the technology that’s out there…and it doesn’t only extend to cell phones – GPS systems, security systems and everything else can help keep track to increase accessibility to youth.

Ready
We’re ready…ready to take action! Coupled with our speed, want to help, and thinking we’re invincible, we’re ready for the challenges you set in front of us…we won’t always succeed, but the main this is we’re ready.

Transparent
With the age of Facebook, young people are now becoming more transparent – with their thoughts, feelings, and everything in between. Some have no shame putting up intricate details of their lives, while some hide certain facts, knowing these may been seen by any one on the web. Generation SMART are transparent because they understand that their lives are an open book…should they choose to narrate it through some of the new means.

As you can see, there are some aspects that relate to when you were younger, but some that may be a bit new, but realistically, the only thing that different in today’s world is the environment we live in.

There is no miracle cure to make Generation SMART see things the way you do, but there are definitely ways to understand them – how they think and perceive the world because of the environment they were immersed in from Day 1. We can always learn to understand, so why not start today…all you need to do is perhaps something as simple as…strike a conversation.

2am the New Midnight...?

2011-06-29T20:49:00.000-07:00

A common problem the average parent is likely to come across is the timely issue of youth growing up too quickly. Time and time again, parents are faced with decision time about what curfew to set for their teenagers. The only problem is, with the invention of constant communication technology, like cell phones and GPS tracking systems, the old ‘be home by midnight’ is no longer valid. Teenagers are taking a stand, and they’re hitting the sore spot by claiming their friends are staying up later too…and before you know it, the old midnight turns into the new 2am.

The key is to do your research and set some rules. Take your teen as a starting point for your research. You need to take into account that their friends may be very different to the friends you had at your age – everyone knows that there are some groups that stay out later than others for whatever reasons. There are daytime skaters, as opposed to the night-time ones. The night-time ones aren’t necessarily there at night to drink and do drugs – they may have divided the time because the skate park is quieter, or has more of their friends around at night-time. You’ll need to ask them to see their side of the story and understand their reasons why they are staying out so late.

Your next port of call is the other parents around. These can be family friends with teenagers, or even your teen’s friends’ parents. What do they think about their proposed curfew? Is it too late? What do the other parents set as curfew for their teens? Why?

Now after you’ve done your research, go back to your teen like a sales person, and try compromise the best time you can both agree on. Maybe not be as sly as the stereotypical sales person, but try work towards your both advantage. Through this process, you’ll be able to set some rules down, because even if you decide on a particular time, things do come up, so set them straight. Perhaps the curfew can be at 2am, which is the time when they must be at home, but they must TXT you at midnight, or an hour or two after they’ve left home to let you know they’re OK. Come up with a number of scenarios they can reference to in future. For example, what if the bus, taxi or their ride can’t get them home by 2am – do they need to TXT or call you? Are they hanging out in your suburb or in town? What if there is a family emergency – how fast can they get back home?

Now, if you need to, write these rules out and stick them on the door, or the fridge, in their car, wallet, or even in their room. Perhaps it might be embarrassing for them to have these rules up in their room, or in their wallet, but I personally think friends can be very considerate in today’s world – teenagers have a conscience too, and if your teen’s friends see you have set rules for them, they’ll know about the rules their friend has, and I hope you find, in the perfect scenario that they will actually peer pressure your teen to stick to them.

What curfew would you set for the teen in your life? What was acceptable when you were younger, and what rights are they demanding in today’s day and age?

Keeping Youth Safe Online

2011-06-26T14:07:00.000-07:00

Many people out there are scared of the internet. They’re scared of its power, but hey, if Superman hid his powers from the world, he wouldn’t be able to help anyone at all!

The key is to contain and protect your youth from what they might come across online, and with some extra knowledge about what to do and what not to do, can help go a long way.

So here we go, three key points to keep youth safe online…

1. Don’t give our personal information. It’s kind of simple…in real life, if you don’t want someone to go use your credit card, don’t give out your details to people. Same with the online world; if you don’t want randoms calling your cell phone, don’t give out your personal information. Re-iterate to youth that whatever you put online will stay there forever, regardless of whether they take it off, it will always be stored somewhere online in a little box, and hackers have ways of retrieving this information. Don’t let them be a victim to this, so just a gentle reminder to not put out their address, contact phone numbers, or any type of details they don’t need on there. Many people are scared to set up profiles on social networks, because they believe their identity may get stolen. The way I see it, living in real life is way more dangerous – if someone really wanted to steal your identity, they can stalk you to your house, get close-up shots of your face, and steal your credit cards out of your wallet. Online, you hold a certain amount of authority over what information you want to make available for the public; heck, you don’t even need to put up a real photo of you – put up a photo of a cartoon, or a nice sunset…you are allowed to be in control, so stay in control.

2. Invest in security software. Just like parents put parental locks on certain channels, you can do the same to prevent any viruses, or to block unwanted websites online. It’s fantastic that you have the option to protect your online use so much, so don’t overlook a few tens of dollars.

3. Limit their time on the internet. Research is coming up with horrific figures about how much time young people are spending online…help contribute to minimize this in your household by limiting the amount of time your young people are spending online. It will ensure they are most productive during the time they do have, and also have time to do other things in the REAL world. A great tip many parents are talking about, is to not let young people…probably more the pre-teens, be online past their bed time. Apart from the corneas getting damaged, it will disrupt their sleeping patterns, which is not recommended for growing, evolving bodies of adolescents.

They may be simple, but definitely effective to help keep your youth stay safer and healthier. You can put all these in practice, starting today, and if matters are getting really out of hand, how about an online/computer-use set of rules to make sure everyone knows the rules they can stick to. It doesn’t have to be a big Super Nanny poster, but a good 5 points that you can brainstorm with the whole family can make online use fun, productive, and staying safe, effective in your household.

What is the best piece of advice you can give, or have been given about staying safe online?
Also, check out the video about the topic here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l8vo0_HUtY

Annoying Youth Habits in your Workforce

2011-06-19T19:09:00.000-07:00

Day in and day out, more and more youth are coming into the workforce. And no wonder – half the world’s population is under 25 years old, and the new generation’s work habits are following them into the workforce. Bad attitudes, scruffy work clothes, turning up late and in general, disregard for not understanding when the business doesn’t do well, they may be out of a job.

Sure, that sounds like the generic youth job of a bartender, or coffee-maker, but it extends way into the corporate and SME world too.

The twisted youth minds are a hard one to understand, but when it comes to it, unless your generation wants to be blamed for the bad habits instilled in today’s youth, it may be good to pay some attention to what they react to, and what will help them achieve more in your business.

Many attitudes come down to the parenting young people have received. Do they respect you as an employer, comes down to: do they respect adults in their lives? Showing up in scruffy clothes, comes down to: were values instilled about respecting the people around them?

Having asked around, some of the most common problems with youth come down to the same answer:

The issues are: coming in with scruffy clothes, Bad attitudes, and showing up late for work
Why do they do that? They know when their shift starts…do they not own an alarm clock??!

If only things were that simple. When a young person’s shift starts at 9am, they’re likely to show up at 9am on the dot. Coming in scruffy clothes…perhaps that’s how they actually dress. Bad attitudes aren’t kept in check unless someone complains. So why not just tell them! Picking up on turning to work late, older generations understand that a 9am start time means coming into work 10, 15, minutes before start-time so they’re dressed and ready for work. Well, not in this world – youth will show up when they’re expected, sometimes later. The warning for being late will be obvious, but not when they show up on time, even if they spend 10 minutes to get into ‘work mode’, thinking they’re paid for the time they’re on the premises.
What’s the way out of it? Tell them what you expect and why – whether it’s about the dress code, attitude or time management. What may seem very obvious to you about workforce attitudes will be different to today’s youth due to their parenting they received. If you expect to run your business in a particular way, don’t let it to their common sense to decide what’s right and wrong – tell them. Come up with a Code of Conduct with all the rules written out so if they come to work ‘on time’ instead of 10 minutes earlier or are wearing a ripped shirt, you can point them back to ‘the rules’. No if’s or but’s there….

How do you/how would you keep your young workers in check?

Parenting Expo and Second Book Launch!

2011-06-12T18:56:00.000-07:00

So the second book is finally here.

FINALLY!!

Absolutely excited to the max about it - check out the video HERE

The official launch will be at 2pm at the Parenting Expo....all you people in New Zealand, I look forward to seeing you there! More info on here: www.upperhuttcity.com/parentingexpo

It's The Little Things...

2011-06-06T14:10:00.000-07:00

Imagine starting your day with a cute coffee that someone's put some effort into! Wouldn't that just make your day a gazillion times better?

After all, isn't it the little things in life that make the biggest impacts?
Think about the little things that you can do...for anyone, on any given day...

Saying 'I love you' to your teen who you just had a huge fight with
Getting a friend some flowers just because
Leaving a handwritten note for a colleague to congratulate them about...anything!
Calling a long-lost contact, just to find out what's up
Leaving your mark in your work with pride (like drawing on a coffee...although I AM yet to find someone who is brave/skilled enough to draw their number in a coffee...I'll find them...one day...)

What are the small things you can start doing today?
Or what are the small things you do already? Let's add some happiness to this world, peoples...
I'm off to write a whole bunch of handwritten notes on bright pink Post-its...just because :)

Love and kisses! xoxox

Engaging Us as a Generation...

2011-05-07T05:03:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I blogged on here, but I have something I'd love your feedback on, as I wrote on the Emergen ygenclub Blog ...

An article I wrote got published in last month's Speaker Magazine that goes out to all members of associations run by the Global Speakers Federation around the world. I've put it up linking back to the magazine on HERE.

I tried to focus on key myths that I've heard go around teachers and speakers, breaking myths like...

You have to be young to engage youth.
You need to be cool.
Textbook content is good.
I’m an adult, so young people need to hear my funny stories about my life.
You must be inspiring and positive.

What's been amazing is getting gazillions of e-mails and calls since the article came out, from people wanting to know more tips, more insights into how to engage us, young people as an audience.

So I'm here to get your feedback...what other myths should we bust?

What advice would you give an older speaker who completely missed the target of engaging an audience you were part of?

What tips can you share, perhaps even from your experiences?

New Year Resolution for Grandparents: Getting Social Media-ized

2011-02-11T15:38:00.000-08:00

The world has brought on a huge hype about Social Media and how we communication with one another as a result of this phenomenon.

New Year resolutions come in all shapes and sizes, but this year I hope you take into consideration utilizing Social Media as a grandparent. There is much literature about why you shouldn’t use Social Media, but you know what, here are some strong reasons why you should use and embrace it.

Communicating with Grandchildren
Young people with their technology are a lost cause these days. Just kidding.
But seriously, Social Networking has opened up many doors for families to keep in touch. In what other age could you keep up with what your grandchildren are doing 24/7, with instant updates?
People think they need to make a Facebook profile, and that they’ll need to spend a lot of time to maintain it which means they’ll need to go on there every single day and write something every 12 hours. Firstly, you can sign on there once a month for all Facebook cares – they are about numbers anyway. Secondly, when you set up any sort of profile, be completely clear as to why you’re on there. If your primary goal is to see what your children or grandchildren are up to so you can stay in the loop and make conversation later, or comment on it through Facebook, don’t worry about updating your page every time you log on. All you’ll need for your profile is to upload a photo (if you like), set your profile to private so weird people on Facebook won’t stalk you, and write one or two sentences about what you’re up to once in a while if you feel like updating your family members about it at this platform.
It doesn’t have to be hard or take a lot of time. Facebook is one of the only platforms where you may find out about your daughter/grand-daughter’s engagement before they announce it, you can keep tabs on who is visiting what city, what someone’s latest favourite food is, and get invited to and learn about events the whole family are attending (this can be family reunions, concerts, and others).

Blogging your passion
The world marvelled when a girl called Julie started blogging out of all the meals she cooked from Julia Child’s recipe book. Blogging can start you off on a ride to stardom, but even if stardom isn’t in your cards (or in your hopes), if you enjoy a particular hobby that you enjoy writing about, you can create a small following of an audience online by blogging about your hobby.
Go onto Blogger or Wordpress, create a simple account and start posting! What does this ‘posting’ mean? It’s a simple way of saying you are writing into your blog – like an online diary. Hate to write? Why not show off your photography skills? Instead of writing, post your photos online.
Tell all your friends and family about your blog – people may start following it, and at the very least, you’ll know your work is floating out there in cyber space that people will be stumbling upon from time to time.

Make a community
You probably have a whole group of friends who either hate or are confused by social media just like you. Why not get a group of you, and visit SeniorNet who can help you become computer-savvy. Or, if you already are on social networks, apart from keeping tabs on your family, you can socialize with them through the internet. The internet will make it so much more faster for you all to..
Share links to interesting stories, recipes, events
Update each other instantly, instead of phoning around only to come across answer phone half the time
You can use it at any time of day. How awkward would it be to get a phone call at 4am from a friend who’s calling to ‘just remind you about this week’s event’? On social networks, if they really must get in touch with you, they can leave you a comment or message at any time of day, and be rest assured that you will check it when most convenient for you.

Are you already excited to get onto Social Networks?
Or aren’t you?

Get your Business Social-Mediazed!

2010-11-14T03:04:00.000-08:00

Although I’m a huge advocate for Social Media, but at the end of the day, it’s merely a marketing platform, and just like you, as a business, don’t visit every business networking event, your business also doesn’t need to be on every social networking site, so here’s a few tips to help you be as productive as possible in your online ventures:

- Have a reason. Sit down and ask yourself: what do I hope to achieve through social media? Is it to drive traffic to my site? Or will I get more business by sharing articles and links that will be useful to my potential clients and become a trustworthy brand by being an information hub?

- Do your research. Numbers are available everywhere – as a business, take a look at the social media sites that attract your demographic, and use those. If you’re a business selling office chairs to large corporates, your primary audience won’t be found on Bebo, which is made up of the Gen Y & Z audience with a passion for socializing with their age group.

- Find time. Social Media can become daunting if you get stuck on checking your profile every time a new alert comes into your inbox. Set aside, say, half an hour every Monday morning to reply to messages and update your personal/business page and stick to it.

- Automate it. A couple of useful tools our clients love are ping.fm and futuretweets.com. Ping lets you update all your social networks at once with the same message. Say you’ve done your half an hour of updating on Monday but come Tuesday and an important press release just appeared in a local paper about your company. You can log onto Ping and send a link to update all your profiles without logging onto each one individually. FutureTweets is a great partner for businesses on Twitter - you can schedule a series of tweets to go out to your Twitter audience at different days and times. Free, quick and easy!

And if you need any extra consulting, or a full-time person to do everything to get your business social-mediazed for success, let us know – our team of Social-Media savvy youth are ready to add success to your business exposure and profits.

Catch you soon,
Eva-Maria
eva@socialnetworkingnz.co.nz
www.socialnetworkingnz.co.nz

....WOW technology's gone far! For the video version of this blog post, watch it here:

Parenting Teenagers of Today...my latest two cents...

2010-10-31T02:35:00.000-07:00

Cell phones, laptops...today’s teens seem to have it all! But in reality, even though our environment has changed over the years, relationship dynamics haven’t. Even in the 21^st century, a baby, child, or even teenager needs the same amount of care and support as they always have, but for some reason parents tend to think their parenting needs to somehow mould into today’s PC society.

How many parents are guilty of creating a Facebook account not to actually use it but take advantage of the opportunity to see what their kids are up to? Don’t get me wrong – there are situations when parents want to know what their kids are up to if they’re living on the other side of the world, but when youth are in their teen years, they just want to be left alone. Remember yourself – didn’t you want the world to leave you alone when you were that age?

Sure, today’s technology has given parents more ways of protecting their kids from harm, but there’s a fine line between spying and protecting, so going back to some good old fashioned tips of building a solid relationship with your kids, here’s some advice and proven methods to refer to when you’re just not sure what to do...

You Shut Up
Everyone loves to be heard.
Next time you’re talking to your teen, or even if there is an argument or misunderstanding, no matter how badly you want to speak over them, yell, scream or add your 2 cents worth, take a breath and hear them out first. One of the following things may happen:
a) You may hear a story that’ll change your mind about what you were about to say
b) They may blurt out some silly heat-of-the moment comment that you can share at dinner tonight

c) You would have prepared your teen to let them listen to you, by psychologically respecting their right to speak. This means they will subconsciously make a note of this, so when they’ve finished, they will be more inclined to listen to you without interruption.

Be the Parent – Communicate your Values in full
Of course, no one can hold their kids’ hands for the rest of their lives, but you can teach them make rational choices, especially as they enter into the teen years...
Every adult is likely to have been on both ends of this scenario which didn’t leave anyone happy:
“Mum, Dad can I go to that party tonight?”
“No!”
“But why??”
“Because we said so”
The moral is: next time you have an opinion or make a decision, explain and back these up with reasons behind it to your teen! Humans are curious by nature, and youth aren’t exempt from it, so feed this curiosity – voice your reasons.
This not only provides solid ground for your point, but when done enough times will instil those decision-making skills in your teen, so next time they make a decision, they’ll have an automatic reaction to question it and think “Is this a good enough reason/choice for my actions?”

Trust and give MORE responsibility
Next time there is an opportunity to give your teen a responsibility, from cooking dinner for the family to leaving them the house for the night while you’re out, give it to them! Nothing does it for youth quite like having ownership over a situation, and you may find yourself surprised at how much they rise to the challenge of a responsibility. Explain what’s expected of them, and leave the rest to trust. Trust CAN be a scary thing, but hey, everyone makes mistakes and if that happens to be the case, rinse and repeat – as long as your teen knows where you stand, what’s expected of them, and have your support to try better next time, that’s a winning combination!

2010-10-19T20:26:00.001-07:00

Testing out Ping.fm from ELF Conference 2010! Woo!

2010-10-18T13:00:00.001-07:00

Yey yah! Rotovegas, here I come! http://ping.fm/nBj2b

2010-10-15T02:39:00.001-07:00

Amazing site 4 youth about relationships - gotta be 1 of the coolest sites I've seen this year - worth checkn out http://ping.fm/Uw5xY

The Broke Generation?...

2010-09-30T17:43:00.000-07:00

Watch the video!

27 Degrees With Rain

2010-08-31T10:09:00.000-07:00

So my latest trip was out to the big cities...Melbourne and Brisbane!

Lovely Australia, never lets us down - the weather was close to perfect, even when it was raining - the hottest it got to was 27 degrees which was heaven on Earth, on the count of me missing out on the full on Kiwi summer, due to my absence in the cold wintery Russia in December and January this year!

I am promising myself that I will make up for the lack of Vitamin D in my body by spending the next New Zealand winter somewhere warm....France maybe?

So to keep everyone in the loop, a couple of pics I took while over there...

Beautiful Melbourne...

Relaxing in the Sun...

Author Talks at the Brisbane Libraries...

2010-06-20T04:14:00.001-07:00

Interview with the Auckland City Library during Youth Week! Waaa hooooo!!!

http://ping.fm/xGub6

2010-06-13T17:50:00.001-07:00

Like it! http://ping.fm/3Ca2t

2010-06-12T15:24:00.001-07:00

Under 60 hours left of the 101 Challenge! Ask a question about Social Networking while you can! http://ping.fm/Dn83V

2010-06-10T15:03:00.001-07:00

New Zealand's Social Media Challenge is on: http://ping.fm/hEvx1

Social Media in New Zealand

2010-06-09T15:47:00.000-07:00

I've just been told I'm a Social Networking Expert :O And funnily enough, here's my latest project: Successful Social Media in New Zealand:

http://www.eva-maria.co.nz/page/snstart/default.asp

Get on it.

Lost Generation...?

2010-03-08T11:21:00.000-08:00

The AARP (American Association of Retired People) wanted to know what young people were thinking about their future.

They ran a video competition called "U @ 50"

The second place winner was "Lost Generation"

It is brilliant in its simplicity. When it was shown to an AARP audience, they broke into spontaneous applause.

What are your thoughts...?

Un-Impressed by Social Networking

2010-02-22T16:24:00.000-08:00

My regular Agony Aunt Column for teachers in NZ schools came across an interesting case last night, and I thought to share this very interesting exchange with you!

Dear Eva-Maria

I'd like to know your views on the latest scandals about social networks and how this is negatively impacting schools. We all know with new age comes change, and this generations' it's unfortunately the opportunity to hide behind a computer screen and write anything they want about the people who truly care about them - their teachers. You've grown up in this age Eva-Maria - what do you think - is it fair our students are allowed to post such public and hurtful comments for the entire world to see?

Un-impressed

*
*
*

Dear Un-impressed

Do you remember a teacher you didn't like, and you felt you may have to tell your friends about your frustrations too?

Social networking = same thing, except online.

Whether there is a social network or 'group' dedicated to something bad about a school or teacher, it does NOT make any more or less students feel this way. There are always different
people, different teachers, different students. The internet has given people all over the world an environment and an opportunity to voice their opinions, but this doesn't necessarily convert
people. It may bond together the like-minded, but that could happen in real life too if the internet didn't exist. I find the same mind-boggling thing with adults who won't put their photo up on the internet because they're scared someone will steal their identity or something. Realistically, these people leave their house, and any person passing them, if they wanted to, could take a photo of them and steal their identity. Putting a photo up online is just as dangerous as leaving your house!

The main point is to use the internet for positive purposes. If you're annoyed at all the hate groups online, make an 'I Love My School' group! Like-minded people will join you, and you will be making a positive impact in the internet world - impacts will be made through the internet - it's up to you if you're going to contribute to them in a good or bad way! "Be the change you want
to see in the world" - famous words of Mahatma Gandhi, and I cannot agree more.

But bottom line, no; I'm not impressed either because students should respect their teachers. Perhaps this whole social networking business is a point you can raise at your next class - what are their views on this? You both have alot to learn, and a different point of view to see from each other - they may just surprise you!

Trust Your Future - it depends on you too!

Eva-Maria

To see more Agony Aunt Columns, or perhaps ask your own question
you'd like answered, click here!

So what are your thoughts on Social Networking?

Professional Speakers Ignite Wellington!

2010-02-06T01:58:00.000-08:00

With my latest appointment of youngest Chapter President in the History of NSA History (BIG news internationally, let me tell you that much!!), the Wellington Chapter of the National Speakers Association of New Zealand is finally in action!

I am very, very pleased to say that the third-time-lucky Wellington NSANZ Chapter has officially started up with a bang on the last Thursday of January! And this time, I am sure it will stay this way!

I must say, this time, I truly understood the power of networking - it truly brought us all together, and we had so many different ages and people working on inviting people to the night, and let me tell you – the power of networking is the same, whether you’re 19 or 99! We had a successful amount of over 60 people come along to enjoy our very first evening of 2010!

MC-ed by well-known Toastmaster Dave Stonyer, opening the night was Mark Blumsky. Being heavily involved with the business community, he genuinely acknowledged the starting of this chapter, and shared some insights into the necessity and value of professional speaking from his experiences of being Mayor of Wellington – how this was a key skill to getting things done, and the huge difference between reading a speech (especially one written for you), and telling a speech (straight from the heart!).

Following Mark, we had Wellington Chapter’s NSANZ veteran John Faisandier, who shared his journey into professional speaking, and the great benefits NSANZ had in store for him, just from being a member which gave guests a fantastic insight into an association, some of them, had never heard of before!

And wrapping up the evening, we had the lively Billy Graham. As said in one of the feedback forms: “It’s been said before ‘He’s in a league of his own’” and it was absolutely true. Billy is one of those people who are truly ‘On Platform, On Purpose and On Fire’ absolutely 500% of their time, and it was an absolute pleasure seeing him in action, but to learn about the entertaining tips to be the best speaker (one of them is actually to always believe you’re an entertainer, no matter what your subject!)

We had a fantastic response and an overwhelming amount of feedback (over and week onwards and I’m still receiving e-mails every day), so with more people excited about the future of the chapter, our next meeting will concentrate on branding. Which we figured will be the perfect starting point for our current and future members in Wellington (I’m sure you’ll tell all your friends in Wellington about this one!), presented by NSANZ member Mike Handcock, called ‘Rock Your Personal Brand’ on the 24th February, and the only way to find more information about it, will be HERE!

See you there!

From Russia, With Love

2009-12-27T08:57:00.001-08:00

So, here I am back home in Russia.

After winning at the Her Business Awards, to top the night off, I got told I was going home.

Yusss!!

This was fabulously perfect - this year I have spent many months of talking to schools, a parenting group, two businesses interested in the new ways a teenager can improve business service within their company to appeal to youth, and Magazine Snob in Moscow (who have been waiting a few months for me to visit them!), and finally I have come back to my home land. I'm very happy to say, that with a few days before the new year (THE biggest celebration here), I have talked to and presented to everyone who invited me, and am awaiting my next trip to Moscow, from Kazan (where I am now) to visit my friends at Snob.

Can't wait!

I thought I'd add a bit to this blog, seeing as I haven't written for a few weeks with some insights and photos of my 'White Christmas'.

Firstly, it's very beautiful. It's my favourite country in the world. I love New Zealand as if she's my sister, but I love Russia as if she's my Mum. This country is everything to me, and if I ever criticize, it's out of love (honest).

The first few days in Kazan, the weather got to over -30 degrees (i.e. very cold), and half the time here, we've spent looking for a warm coat for me. Almost everyone wears fur coats. Not because we hate animals (Russians are among the world's top nations who own the most pets per person), but because it's so cold, no cotton is going to save you!

Food is cheap. Laptops, cameras, cars from other countries are about the same price as in New Zealand. Although, you can find cheaper stuff, but it's not something you'll find in New Zealand. For example, I think the other day we got recommended a Samsung hair straightener. Same qualities as a GHD (except they've never heard of GHDs), but is something like NZD$30. I guess prices depend on where you look.

Most cars have tinted windows. It looks so shady and cool, I think I'll put some on my car when I get back. NOT.

All Universities are free. Unfortunately, you have to be almost a rocket scientist from New Zealand to get in. University Entrance exams are VERY extreme, and only the very thin top percentage of entrants get in. AND every few months, they check up on all students, and if you're lagging with less than average marks in assignments, they get kicked out. But I guess free education must have rules. Beggars can't be choosers.

Shop keepers will pretend you're interrupting their exciting day of calling up all their friends off the store phone, by walking into their store. If only they knew that their paycheck comes out of the pieces of paper we'll give them in exchange for something useless from their shop...

Russian's love to talk. In fact, they love to talk so much, they will start arguments with strangers on buses, in malls, in cafes, in restaurants, in stores...everywhere. And they never think they're wrong. Even if they ruin someone's day, or swear at them, their day has become brighter, just because they got to give a piece of their mind to someone they don't know.

You can barter at a store. Not at a market - like at an actual store in an actual mall. WHAAAT is up with THAT??!

And lastly, why I love my country on a distance....all the women look like models from a magazine. No matter how old they are, their hair, make up, neat clothes and high heels make up a woman here. If you lack in at least one of these, you're either foreign, or a man.

I love my country.
It's the most beautiful, and I hope you come here one day! :)

Hope you enjoy a few of my photos with my brother of our adventures around the big country this month...

Paris Airport - I LOVED it!

Moscow, outside our Hotel

St Petersburg - can you guess the landmarks?? P.S. They actually do hold large historic value....

Hint: A church...

Hint: Ship starting with 'A'

Hint: The square in front of the biggest museum in the world...which used to be winter palace of the Russian Tsars, and Parliament Members...

Hint: They hold the whole world on their shoulders (they're my favourite men!!)

Church: 'Spasa na Krovi'

And my favourite photo...just to show that a foreigner could never go hungry in this country!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Wellington Her Business Awards 2009

2009-12-05T16:45:00.000-08:00

Well, well, the Wellington Her Business Awards at Hotel Intercontinental proved to be exciting as can be!

Out of seven categories, I went home as winner of The Most Inspirational Role Model Award, sponsored by City Life.

Also, keep an eye out on Snap Star - photos from the night are sure to hit their website soon!

Check out the photos from the night...

MC Mark Blumsky, Clare Menzies from City Life, Eva-Maria, Annah Stretton and Sally Connell:

Table 16 was the coolest:

At the VERY start of the night:

Women in Business - Eva-Maria and Annah:

Annah and Eva-Maria getting media-ized:

Lisa Martin from Go Fi8ure and Eva-Maria

Eva-Maria and Lynell Tuffery from YWCA Wellington Board & AJ Parks:

Lisa Martin from Go Fi8ure, Mandy Smale from Style Sense and Eva-Maria:

WOW!
Whatta Night!!

Da 1: Surviving Xmas With Teens

2009-12-01T00:10:00.000-08:00

The 25 Day Countdown of 'Surviving Xmas with Teens' has officially started!

Day 1 is all about:

ATTITUDE!

Sign Up Now 2 get your daily Xmas tip at www.eva-maria.co.nz

Happy Holidays!

Why Teens Lie

2009-11-18T12:32:00.001-08:00

Late at night, let's really dig into why teens lie....

more about "Why Teens Lie", posted with vodpod

Teen Author Eva-Maria and Entrepreneur Paul Dunn

2009-11-10T16:27:00.001-08:00

Last night, I got the great opportunity to catch up with Entrepreneur Paul Dunn during his visit to New Zealand.

The Buy1 Give1 Chairman talks about the positive impact every single one of us can make, no matter what.

www.B1G1.com
www.youshutup.com

more about "Teen Author Eva-Maria and Entrepreneu...", posted with vodpod

19 Year Old President of NSANZ appointed

2009-11-09T17:24:00.000-08:00

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0911/S00049.htm

Eva-Maria and the Otara Youth Collective Redefine Youth!

2009-11-02T21:23:00.000-08:00

Last week's trip to Otara in Auckland was a huuuge success!!

As the papers raved about the event, the OYC girls were quick on their feet to make the event a huuge success! Apart from my workshop of 'How to get a Better Relationship with Any Teenager', the girls had a bake sale to raise money for their exciting upcoming projects! Woo hoo!!

Read all about the rave article about the day in Scoop HERE!

Check out some pics from the day below, and don't forget to connect with these amazing OYC-ers on...FACEBOOK and BEBO!

Youth Zone Access Radio!

2009-11-02T21:05:00.000-08:00

Had an aaawesome interview today with a couple of pretty wicked teens!

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture with the two amazing boys (damn!), so if they become famous soon, I do not have any actual proof that I've met them, but hey...

Victor and Brad were kind enough to ask me over 20 questions about my work, being a speaker, author, and all that jazz....

See the Youth Zone Program on the Access Radio Website Here!

xoxo

"With Mud Flaps At The Back"

2009-10-25T21:31:00.000-07:00

Teen Trends and Fashion Today!

Inspired by a comment about a teen boy's hair as having 'mud flaps at the back', I decided it was time to dig down and give the dirt on fashion and teens.

This video is for adults.

After all, we're all just a product of the adult world!

www.trustyourfuture.com

Check out the awesomely awesome video by clicking below! :)

Source: http://www.flixya.com/video/2223619/Teen_Trends__and__Fashion

Dear Daddy

2009-09-27T21:20:00.000-07:00

My good friends from DIY Father have been absolutely wonderful over the past couple of years that I've known them!
So with all their exciting overseas travels and book releases of their very successful work, I thought I'd help these amazing people out, and let the world know that here is this wonderful resource every single daddy and daddy-to-be absolutely must, must, must have this Christmas/Birthday/Random Surprise Event Where It's Cool To Give Gifts....

Their book is available online right this very second!
DIY Father - Call Me Dad

Seriously check out their site - it's full of wisdom and many dad-parenting things, and remember to grab a copy of DIY Father - Call Me Dad too..for that special man! :)

Social Networking 101 - Teen's View

2009-09-07T19:47:00.000-07:00

So I thought I'd try out my knack for the camera in little informative videos to celebrate the e-book that people have been begging for me to release for a while....all about social networking, why teens love it so much, whether there's any point in it, and most importantly, how to market using social media!

Since this post, we've actually put some of the info into a 7 Day Social Media Course...check it out at www.socialnetworkingnz.co.nz and sign up to receive a lesson a day for the next week in the right hand column!

And you can click on the picture to see the video!...

Blenheim!

2009-04-21T05:45:00.000-07:00

Aaaaand so the trip to Blenheim started off on an absolutely amazing day...
Wellington was in all its glory and wind and rain, which even made the stewardesses flying in from all over the world in little old Wellington Airport leave their planes in a bit of a mood, but after the COOLEST plane ride (the plane inside reminded me of a big family van) with the bumps in any turbulence and skies that made you feel like you were in an unknown land with blizzards around you, we set down in sunny Blenheim.

For some reason all day people were saying how windy it was.
I didn't notice.
Wellington would refer to THAT sort of weather as a 'slight breeze' I imagine.
The sun was shining, and town welcomed me with it's coffee (I think Blenheim has the best coffee I've ever had...and I have spent a lot of time in cafes for a whole variety of reasons).

Highlights of the trip:

Blenheim Palms: Base Camp for the Night

Wither Hills Vineyards....beeeautiful place! Must be even more amazing than it was on a nice hot summer's day!

Project K Mentors Evening Workshop.
The workshop went A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!
The evening consisted of a workshop for mentors and students to get a better relationship with each other, and better ways to achieve this through things like TXTing, building rapport, wheel of life, and visualization.
Check out Project K - great place to get involved in!

Awesome Trip!
Go go Blenheim!

Long Time, No See!

2009-04-15T20:50:00.000-07:00

I've been slack, and yes, I'll admit it.
I love my dearest blog, but you know throughout the past year, big businessmen in expensive suits who are all so "amazed at how I'm achieving such big things at such a young age" have all on some occasion mentioned the word 'Twitter'.

Now, as the world keeps silently spinning, Twitter has actually made it quite big over the few months it's existed. It's become (apparently) the 'it' thing of celebrities all over the world, going as far as Ashton Kutcher taking photos of Demi Moore ironing or something (I'm embarassed to say I had nothing else to read on the plane than the magazines in the front pocket....) and posting them up on Twitter. I'm sure you could find your favourite business entrepreneurs (or maybe their assistants write the stuff for them...), Shortland Street Stars, Musicians - almost everyone on there!

So now, the usual things I'd save for blogs, might make it onto my Twitter the second they happen. The immediate update is the niche for this little birdie. Oww yeah. I must say, this function of 'waht you're doing' was always available on Facebook and Bebo and whatnot, and I never took much notice of it - why do you need to update the whole world about what kind of cookie you're eating when you can comment people that really need to know about it?

Anyway, if you still don't know what I'm on about...go here, start your own Tweet-thing, and follow me too!

And now I actually promise to put in a bit more effort into my blogging from now on.

:D

Latest Media:

2009-02-19T02:49:00.001-08:00

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0902/S00270.htm

Auckland and Schizz

2009-02-14T15:43:00.000-08:00

So after about a billion years, I decide to update my blog.

No, no. Don't worry. I haven't forgotten about it....I'm in the middle of setting up a blog on my site....but it's proving hard due to the fact that they don't really teach you how to make websites when you're born so you have to learn everything as you go through life...maaan...wouldn't it be cool if we had little chips to install in our brains and then we'd know everything we needed.

Last week my uncle came all the way from the Mother Land. Sweet. He's in love with the Haka already. My brother-in-law and niece danced it for him a couple of days ago. He LOVED it. Says he'll dance it for his colleagues when he goes back to work in a month.

The trip to Auckland went wonderfully.
I was on the Breakfast Show on Monday morning where I met the resident Chiropractor (photo below). Awesome.
Spoke at a school and rotary, met with CanTeen, and spent half a day almost at the lovely Waiheke Island. I love it there, because even if the weather's yuck, the people make up for it big time. Someone's always eager to see you and meet you and take photos with you.

Thursday was an exciting day. I'm part of a regular youth panel on the Good Morning show. We talked about boy racers this week. All the presenters are the loveliest people you'll ever meet. Glad I get to spend all my waiting around time with them. Seriously. You know when you're with boring silly people, and you think 'I can't believe I have to spend every blah blah night with them for the rest of the year'. Yeah well these people aren't like that. Owww. It's pretty sweet - everyone's family there.

Keep a lookout....the Good Morning Show every Thursday at 10.15am. Be there or be square. And in all honesty, who really wants to be a square? I'd love to be a circle, personally. Roll around as much as you want, and no one says anything!

Yep.

Art of War & Power of Persuasion

2009-02-05T03:09:00.000-08:00

Apart from the last days' super secret squirrel agendas and meeting I've been having, I must say the week started off and ended (seeing as tomorrow is Waitangi Day) very very productively indeed.

First off, today, I learned that people assume they get holidays. Today, after calling around pharmacies to see if anyone is open on Waitangi Day, getting back to the first guy I called, I asked if I could get what I needed somewhere else. He proceeded to go and consult with his supervisor.
The result?
They actually ARE open during regular business hours tomorrow.
So don't assume, even if the employees do.

Also, I witnessed a rather distressed Mum who tried to shove her daughter into the doors of the library, after the approximately 6 year old kid clearly showed her wish to leave her scooter outside (because of the 'no scooter' sign on the doors). Instead of an acknowledgment of her daughter's:
a) reading abilities
b) her obedience of law (i.e. no scooters, means no scooters as far as a kid's concerned)
c) her complete trust in the fact that the people outside won't touch her precious scooter

The literal 'shoving' into the library kinda got me. If this was a teenager, I'm sure this situation would end up badly for all in a 20 metre radius. So does talking not work with people? If this was her partner, would that woman be trying to shove him into the library doors and get some obedience?
"Darling, if you leave the scooter outside, someone might take it and your name and phone number isn't even written on it. And they only put the sign on the door so people don't scooter around the library and knock all the books over."....could have been one scenario.
Could have.
A billion other less physical ways could have taken place. Because, next time, that little girl won't want to go to the library with her scooter. So she will walk. And because she's little, she'll walk slower than she would have otherwise been riding on her scooter. The Mum will probably tell her off for walking too slow next time.
Where does this end?!?!

So anyway, to finish off my latest news update, at the moment I'm reading 'The Art of War' by Sun Tzu. I've been actually meaning to read this since I was 12, but hey, better late than never, right?
Although the book is about ancient military tactics, the wisdom in this book is still valid even today - hey, all's fair in love and war!

Ciao Cacao!
<333

My Message To The World

2009-02-01T15:37:00.000-08:00

http://myvideowebmail.net/view/?id=99I2FYIAZJGME94X1WLW2

Created at the speed of light by the lovely....Joe McHugh...

http://www.ecademy.com/account.php?id=114854

Hurraaaahh!!!

Global Awareness Campaign - Join It!

2009-01-31T23:46:00.000-08:00

Well, the lesson learned today is that you never know what's in store for ya!
Even more so, you never know when you'll become the next spokesperson for a worthy and noble campaign!

Today started out as just another extraordinary day...I got up, and started my day with something completely different to how I started the day yesterday. For example, yesterday I woke up, and spent about half an hour updating a scrapbook I started sometime last year, but never get time to get up-to-date. Today I opted for extra exercise. Very different.

So I'm sitting, checking e-mails, doing some mail outs, rocking out to some Mozart, and by some crazy chance by the time it's 8pm, I end up being the 'face' for the Global Awareness Campaign mail out of the day.

Check this

Funny isn't it - the power of the internet. People all over the world connected today to make a finished product to market and advertise a worthy cause. How awesome is that?!

It truly is an amazing campaign, I must say.
Pett Corby really deserves alot of credit.
Check out her website here to see what she's doing, and to support her cause.
It is 100% something I believe in, because her mission is based around the fact that as humans, we should have the freedom to choose when we become parents.
This means in the ideal world, there will be no reason for abortions and girls especially will be making smarter choices in terms of drug-free contraception that works!!

It is an important issue that was bound to be raised in the 21st century. I for one have grown up in a household where things such as the pill were not accepted as a smart, or safe 'option'. Watching my friends and their reactions to the pill, there has been numerous times when I truly felt grateful and happy for knowing my Mum was right once again!

Mum does know best!

Keep happy, keep safe, keep smart!

Back in Welly-town

2009-01-29T20:18:00.000-08:00

So I have been away but with good reason....
My looovely boyfriend Fernando decided to pop by all the way from Brisbane, so I spent most of last week and this week with him. We didn't sleep on the last Monday-Tuesday night, which resulted in driving around for the sake of driving around so we wouldn't fall asleep. His plane back to Brisbane was at 7am, and mine was at 9am to Blenheim.

We survived. Mum joined me on my journey to Blenheim. She is the co-publisher, so should be 'in the loop'.
We flew in, and got picked up by Kate - the Her Business Network Co-Ordinator. Maaaan is she amazing!!!!
She took care of us, and organized accommodation and transport and everything...lovely lovely woman. That's her and I standing in the picture below:

Tuesday night was the Blenheim Her Business Network meeting where I was guest speaker.
It was the best speech ever. I had a couple of hours sleep beforehand, but I was still calm enough to speak in a slower manner than I usually do when I just want to spit out every idea in my head at the given second because I know my head will keep filling up with thoughts so I have to say them fast.....Yes.

The feedback was awesome, and the ladies stayed on for dinner. The place we were staying at - Marlborough Vintners Hotels is absolutely amazing. Both at night and day. The hotel, and actually, the city in general, I must say I absolutely fell in love with. It has the serene peaceful feel that I wouldn't mind immersing into for a couple of months a year to just write.

The next day after morning hustle and bustle, we visited the local library (who had my book), the Paper Plus, the newspaper (to pick up the paper with this article :D ) and were off on our way to Nelson.

We arrived a couple of hours before the evening was to start. Once again, Nelson is a lovely quiet little place, and as Kate pointed out, it has the beautiful flower baskets hanging from the roofs, decorating the main street.

Once again, the speech went fantastic.

And then we all got hungry.
The local 'it' place to eat at is Cafe Laffare...apparently. Pop in there at some point because they have the weirdest stuff....guns on the walls, staff wearing nothing but black, and when you order food, they bring it to you raw on a sizzling hot piece of rock which in turn you must use as a stove to cook your food on. Interesting....

We stayed at an absolutely lovely lady's house - she owns properties that she sells and rents off - family business, but a very good one...she's converted me to do this when I'm older. The thing is I've always known about Property Investment, and my parents did it with us as a family, but I guess I never got into the big numbers and possibilities of it as much as I did that night driving in the orange car with this lady telling me all about it....

The house was awesome.
To point out two of my favourite things in it, apart from the fact that it was HUGE, it also had a boombox.....

and huge giraffes:

Is that sweet or what?!!

The next morning at 7am Mum and I graced the local BNI Chapter, after which we both had back-to-back meetings, up until the time we had to run off at 2pm to catch our flight!

And if anyone's been to Nelson airport, it is THE cutest thing I have EVER seen....apart from my brother....

:D

This isn't the Ego Talking...

2009-01-17T18:34:00.000-08:00

Reading my own book has been on my To-Do list since mid 2008.

I must admit, shamelessly, that the last time I read it was the final edit on A4 paper, a week before it went to print in December 2007.
Still haven't read the finished-finished printed product.
I have been procrastinating this job for a while.
I'm a perfectionist at times.
If my end-work shows any sign of flaw, I WILL set off a nuclear bomb inside of me, filled with regret, depression, and negativity.
Not to feel like I'm not good enough for the rest of my life, but it is because at any point I can go back to past work, and even if it felt like 110% right back then, now, it may feel like 70%. And 70% is 40% off what it needs to be.

Tis the way it is.

But guess what.
Today - out of all the busy days, I actually sat down to read it.
WOW
Amazing isn't it.
Jokes aside though, I'm about halfway through it.
I actually laughed in some parts. How crazy.
And yes, the dreaded happened - I found a couple of places that would now need changing, but hey I was 16 when I wrote it, 17 when it was last edited, and now 18, I still strongly agree with everything. I don't think I took too wrong of a path.

Actually about 15 minutes ago, my friend came round to drop off some books he borrowed off me.
Needless to say you can imagine his reaction when he saw me sitting on my bed, cracking up while I was reading this book with my name on it.

There's one part that got us both laughing...just because we're at a loss where my train of thought was when I wrote this (actually a similar situation happened, so there)...

So I'm talking about how saying 'No' to the little things will mean it's an automatic 'No' for the bigger things, etc. And I'm talking about what if there was a real cool gig happening 3 hours away, your teenager wanted to go to it, and they remember last time they asked you to drve them to the mall, and you said 'NO!', so this is how they'd find transport with their friends to this gig.....

This means your teenager and their friends may go to the extremes and somehow find their mate's girlfriend's heroin addict dad who doesn't have a driver's license to drive them there.

Hey man, it happens in real life alright....
If you wanna read more, or make sure it's really in the book, check it on page 17.

Click the photo below and get the book - it's REALLY good.
And ask my friends - I wouldn't say this if I didn't believe it.

How To Get What You Need and Want

2009-01-14T13:56:00.000-08:00

So it's all decided...I'm going on TV.
Again.
TV1 to be exact.

Yussss.
It's gunna be awesome.

Two things to teach you children:

Great things happen when you don't even think about it.
And
Ask for what you need.

That's it.
You are educated to go into the world when you know that.

Go.
Fly.
Fly Pretties.

Fernando, I love you. x

So I'm still lining up Her Business Network speeches around the country. Also gotta practice for them. And I'll be going to Waiheke Island when I'm up in Auckland start of February to see wonderful people! So excited! I love that island!
For today, must contact media in towns I'm scheduled to be speaking at.
Also, send off books I packed yesterday.
Contact more people to help with my one million mission.

Sweet as a cupcake!

Let's get started!

The big small world!

2009-01-13T19:56:00.000-08:00

I swear the world is tiny when you think about it, and huge when you don't notice it!

I was at the shopping mall today, and in a matter of half a minute of going in, I lost my brother. How can that happen?!

On the other hand, I JUST got an e-mail. And this is the THIRD e-mail like this I've received since Thursday. It started off with
'Hi Eva-Maria, etc etc etc. Also by the way, I think it would be awesome if you connected with blah blah blah.'

And this blah blah blah is for the third time another person I personally know!! And this particular person he referred today lives in a different country too!!

Whatta way to start the evening eh.

Totally stoked about TV1 contacting me though because apparently they 'heard I am touring New Zealand in February-March, so they wanted to catch me on their show'.

So so exciting!!
Getting ready for the Her Business Network Speeches. Keep an eye out on my site, because we're going to be putting up a whole lot of dates of when and where I'll be!

I'm listening to a Russian song, the focus of which is brunette and blonde chicks.
Greeeeeat.
Just realized.

Just the daily piece of random news for ya.

:)

CC, PC and ACC

2009-01-11T23:15:00.000-08:00

I'm gunna make this quick...
So I just got off my second conference call today.
LOVE business through technology.

You know the funny thing though?
We live in a world where technology dictates our every day lives, yet it'll still take about 17 minutes for a group of 5 people to get all their internet connections more or less to get working together.
OK, so we're past the first danger.
Secondly, something will go wrong. A presentation won't open, someone's computer will crash (great timing, right?), or someone's girlfriend will call in a jealous rage. It can all happen, right.
You will personally disconnect on average about twice. Consider it the norm in our complex age.

Technology eh...can't live with it, can't live without it.

So I got this e-mail today from a friend...
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=129317965424&h=HxG4j&u=P3eQF

Ch-ch-check it owwt.

Seriously some cool stuff in there. Basically comparing online relationships to real life relationships.
Very true...because as they point out, online is all about consistency - you gotta keep your image, message, etc etc the same. Because once you change it, people get confused, uninterested, and BANG you end up with less contacts.
Real life is much easier (maybe that's why contradictory me likes it so much).
You can like this person one day and that person the next.
You can have a friend fall out, and then be back on tomorrow.
You can change jobs, and your friends will get it.
You can change your political views a complete 360, and your friends will understand and keep up.
You can go get plastic surgery, and the people you know will still know it's you.
Haha good luck trying to change your photo online after plastic surgery. People will think the person in the photo hacked into your account, and delete you as a friend. What a tragedy!

Actually, it's also funny how we dictate how many friends we have by 'numbers' on our profiles. In real lifem you see a good friend, and mentally you know 'They're my good friend'. Online - completely different game, ma man.
Gotta keep up cuz you snooze, you lose.
There ain't no other place out there where that saying it more true.

So technology...can't live with it, can't live without it.

And also another thing....Why is it that every time I sing out of my hotmail account, ever since yesterday, the redirected page keeps coming up with the same headline and photo: "Breaking News: Teenager claims McDonald's burger infested with maggots".
Hell if that's breaking news, then call me Tomato!
That's SO disgusting! I don't wanna see that!!!!
No wait...I get it...I should be a bit more sensitive to the subject...I mean, in the meantime while no one's bombing any peaceful countries, the media gotta make something juicy outta nothing, right?
We call the people powering this: ACC
Awfully
Controversial
Croutons (they're the dry crusty media who have contributed to farming and grooming entire generations of people who believe as humans they're mentally 'attracted' to disgusting news and gossip).

Either way, I'm grateful for this beautiful world we live in.
The Earth is still revolving around its invisible little stick, and it's consistently night and day, which means it won't be stopping any time soon, so I'm glad.

Love, Peace and Respect
Eva-Maria

Go Green, Man!

Coming of Age

2009-01-04T03:10:00.000-08:00

So at 1am this morning, we flew into good old Wellington.
Let me tell you it was one amazing trip to Brisbane.

We left on the morning of the 26th December. I didn't sleep the two nights before, hence the photo.

This is what people look like when they've been awake almost 72 hours straight (a 2 hour nap on Christmas day morning doesn't count).
The over 3 hour flight consisted of speech practicing and a small sleep time.

Woodford Folk Festival is about 1.5 hours car drive from Brisbane. The heat and humidity was unbelieveable for Mum and I who are almost used to the cold Wellington weather. We started buying water. Just in case dehydration was hiding around the corner.

There were just under 20 speakers like me who got invited to come talk and run workshops for the biggest festival in Australia which alone attracted 3,000+ performers. That's only the performers, not taking into account maintenance workers, drivers, people with stalls, and most of all, visitors. The grounds cover 340 acres of land...or some rediculous number like that. It's crazy!

Here you can see the speaker's tents:

Let me tell you. Our first class tents were amazing. I can tell you that much. I didn't mind the camping part of the trip as much because the crazy school camps are still fresh in my mind as if it were yesterday. To be honest, I was amazed at the amount of room in the two person tent we got. Of course, it was wonderful because we didn't exactly pack light...I can swear to you I have NO idea how that happened...stuff does pile up though don't it.

Hiding in an air conditioned hotel room wasn't an option at this place, so if you got too hot, you could go stew in the tent, or walk around under the sun. If we look at it logically, it would have been worse if it rained. I'd rather die from drowning in my sweat, rather than from pneumonia.
However that's open to individual opinion.

We would keep waking up early. A three hour difference is actually HEAPS when you experience it.

The first couple of days we got everything together - scoped the place out and all that jazz.

We finally found where I was doing my speech on the 30th - it was the Blues and Roots Venue.

And this was the sign for all the speakers (I'm the second one from the top left).
Some pretty awesome people that come to this Festival.

Look - I found a 'Shut Up!' Caravan!
Sweet!

Te festival was amazing.
Met some very interesting people, spent some time with Mum outside of home. It was so good. Although I did have minimum internet and cell phone access, I wasn't using then every day. It was liberating to say the least.
At places like these, what you're presenting really needs to be in synch with the mentality of the people that come to it. You gotta take into account - people that will come to it - are they looking to listen to a whole bunch of scientific facts and research, or have things spelled out? Do they mind moving around with hands-on activities, or would they rather have discussions.
Very very important.

Also, gotta start doing some things...gunna start a sustainability teenage movement this year as well. I have absolutely NO idea how to help the Earth. Being at Woodford though has opened my eyes to a lot of the politics surrounding the economic crisis and global warming, and such issues. The thing is there isn't any more time for Al Gore to come up with another movie about how the world's dying out. There's no more time for businessmen in suits to sit around 'brainstorming' and making plans.
It's time to step up, and do something - do anything, because plans for the past 30 years haven't resulted in radical change for the environment. And all I'm thinking, if action is all that's needed, why can't it be teenagers taking initiative?

All in all, the workshops and speech went wonderfully. Very happy about it, and the book sales over there as well. I think we almost sold everything we sent through.
Sweet!
This trip has definitely made me grow up even more mentally.
I'm an international speaker, since we flew in back to NZ, 15 books have been ordered through the website by people primarily in Australia.
Got time with Mum to learn more from her.
Thanks to the heat, I got to relax for almost a week. Much needed - I feel more energized for this year ahead!

Also I got back one of the most important people to me.

It was a successful trip to say the least.

:)

All the very very very best!

Off to the big city

2008-12-25T06:16:00.000-08:00

3am
gotta be at the airport in 2 hours.
3 phone calls since 11.30pm when I went to sleep. Two from the publicist. So tired.

Last minute packing.

Happy New Year everyone.

....No phone or internet in Brisbane for me.
Yusss.

Aaaa so SO excited!

Much, much love for the time of year!

Trust....Your....Future!!

<3

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

2008-12-24T16:19:00.001-08:00

This time of year totally gets me going. Running around singing carols about Rudolph or Feliz Navidad. Nope nothing's changed since I was a kid.

Last night was work work work, but Ian who just got back from China picked me up at midnight to go 'chill'. Ian's like my brother. We go waaay back to our college days - we did mentor training together with Reuben. Like family.
Met up with some other lovelies I haven't seen in aaages. So good to catch up with them - with them it's like seeing Sam and the boys - you just feel like one of the boys. We all call each other bro. Hard.
Man Wellington was quiet for Christmas.

So we headed to Hataitai.
May I please say I played PlayStation 2 seriously for the very first time - we played some pinball game - I was Ice Man and Ian was that guy on fire from Fantastic 4. Ian and I whipped the bad guy's butts!

Great stuff - the only guy I didn't have a tie to from college or long time friend tried to get everyone to go to town. Haha he thought I could get them off the couch. Nooope.
"Eva man, Eva get them to go to town. Let's go"
"Naaah bro. Dude, I know them. They're the boys. They would go if their girlfriends asked. They won't listen to me!"

Crack up.

Yusss! Workshop time. Finalizing absolutely everything today. So so can't wait. a little more than 12 hours and we're off to Brisbane!!

Got a ile of clothes on my bed behind me, so the suitcases are waiting for me when I finish this.

Yumm we got cupcakes!
I don't even wanna eat them. BUZZ Restaurant make the prettiest little cupcakes. Mmmm.

Merry Christmass!!

<333

Attention to detail and big picture thinking

2008-12-23T09:49:00.000-08:00

As of half an hour ago, 299 people have officially registered on my website in one week!!

Just sent out my little 'Merry Christmas, thank you for making a difference' e-mail to them :)
Man I love people.
Whoa whoa whoa!
So stoked!!

Stayed up all night putting the finishing touches on the workshops. Almost a work of art. Almost.

Sorted out all my financial loans and allowances and all that for Uni. The internet's so cool. It could be 2am on Christmas Eve, and you can still register for serious things!

4 interviews in Brisbane now. WOW!

And Sam, if you're reading this, I've got your big load of Tearaway magazines, including Jono's issue....it's sitting in my room...yup....just as I write!

Big countdown: I'll be flying out to Brisbane in 48 hours!
So rad - 350 acres of pure cultural goodness with circus acts and bands and speakers and workshops and dancers and fire dancing and singing and and and...!!!!!
Mum was freaking today in case we get lost - no phones, no internet, no nothing. Just the outdoors and lovely people. Yussss. I'm looking forward to my tech detox.

Ohh...so so weird. I never gave these online networking sites much thought, apart from keeping in touch with friends, but ya just learn new stuff every single day don't ya. I swear everyone's like family online. I've met 4 complete strangers who are going to be at the festival volunteering and one of them's singing there...

Amazing or what?!

Power of the internet!

And now I leave with some smartage quote said by Ron Dennis (Google him - amazing man)
as told to me by another amazing man - ze lovely Sam:

"The human spirit is unsuppressable. There's no such thing as 'ordinary people' because people are extraordinary.
So there is simply no limit to what we can achieve..........

.....You can combine attention to detail with big-picture thinking.
YOU CAN MAKE THE IMPOSSIBLE, POSSIBLE."

My friend decided to send this to me...he swears he'll leak it to someone one day to show me in my moment of egotisticalness....
In my defence, he asked to see his name in my book.

Wisdom Words

2008-12-22T13:45:00.000-08:00

So after my little burst of interesting inspiration last night, I must say the real Eva is back.

And here's some things I must say to people - whether you want to be an author, or achieve goals, or whatever...

If you want to be in this business, don't. Because you're going to have to go through a whooooole lotta pain to keep up.
If you can't handle the jandle, get out. If you don't enjoy it, get out now. If you can't dedicate and apply yourself, no use doing things half-heartedly, cuz you still won't get anywhere.

When people tell you you're not good enough, or make excuses as to why you can't make it, go call up the nearest TV station, get on TV and prove them wrong.

You are your best PR agent, best friend, and best support. If you don't care about yourself, no one else is going to care about you as much as you are.

Keep your character, unless you want to change it for yourself. That character is what got you to where you are now.

Be grateful.

If you are not satified with the past, learn from it to make a better present.
If you're not satisfied with the present, plan to make a better future.

No matter what they taught you at school, never cycle on the fact that you should come first. Yes, you should respect yourself at all times, but always, always always care about other people, help them, and do things for them - just because.

Never, ever, ever give up.

You think you've seen it all...

2008-12-22T04:09:00.000-08:00

Do you know what the funniest thing about meeting up with an ex is?

That you've already been there, done that, and you already know what failed. You both know who cheated who out of love, or money, or trust, or whatever. It's kind of like playing cards out in the open. If you had a good relationship, you know each other (well, the people you once were) inside out. But one thing that's different is that one of you has a grudge against the other. Maybe you both have it against each other even. And you think even if you wanted to get back together, you can't. It's a different time. And it's useless, because obviously you've both proved yourselves to each other. Next time a conflict comes up, one of you will find link to the past. It 's just in human mentality.

OK, so you're walking to a cafe. We decided to meet at the cafe that wasn't 'ours'. It's funny. You break up, and you stop enjoying the cafes, and places you once went to with that person. You just don't want to remember how he spilled coffee on you and then turned the day into a shopping session, so we could actually go to the long awaited concert - nice and un-coffeed. Oh, and he would have also probably told you how marshmallows on your black skirt accentuate it. Aaah.

So you're walking, walking, walking.
We've been to this cafe before.
It's no big deal. Just the last time you were here was that one day when 'our' cafe was closed down for renovation.
OK, don't worry, don't worry, it's 10.57am. You're sweet - you're supposed to be meeting at 11am. A whole three minutes early girl! No biggie. Step through the door. Look for a spare table....oh....uh oh....they're all taken....wait who's that guy looking....

Oooosh! Damn. Should have worn jeans...slowly, but almost excitedly you walk up to him.

"You're late. You always make me wait. Some things never change, do they?" he says with his half-serious, half...OK, I have to say it...cute-ish smile.

Oh God. I wasn't listening...sorry....you said that fine smile of yours never changed?

"Sorry...." you reply.
You don't want to go into the technicalities of how your watch says it's not even 11.
"How are you?"

THE BANNER!

2008-12-22T00:05:00.000-08:00

I ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT CONTAIN MY EXCITEMENT!!

My real life size banner for Brisbane arrived this afternoon!!!!!!!!

Oh my.....
Now I'll have to look presentable to match that girl printed on it....

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

Joined more parenting networks.

3 Magazines want definite interviews on the 3rd in Brisbane.

Major drama in Portugal. (don't even ask me how this happens. But trust me - relationship problems are universal)

Followed up all bookstores, media places, etc. (Today was THE crucial day - tomorrow most of them will be taking the rest of the week off)

One of the bigger stores called me to say Merry Christmas.
They love it.

Worked on speech for Brisbane. (can't help changing it every time I read it. In Russia we sometimes say: better is the enemy of already-done-well.)

Got invited to Bangladesh.

Most important thing: GOT ACCEPTED INTO UNI!!
Except now I want to do Accounting and Law alongside Psychology, all through the Distance Learning Program. I won't be in NZ next year for longer than 1.5-2 months at a time.

As the boys would say: Oooooooosh

Peace out brothers and sisters

Yo

Toto + Brother = Geniuses

2008-12-20T15:39:00.001-08:00

Went to bed at 6am.
Woke up at 11.30.
Couldn't believe it! Wanted to get up at 8.
9 at the latest.

Millions and millions of things to do...
Can't concentrate...this song 'So Far Away' is playing on my laptop. I'm not sure if the melody is soothing me, or making me anxious. My ex gave it to me on a CD he made.

Change songs.

Just something by Toto Cutugno.
Genius that man was.

So OK, work for todayyy....
Keep looking around on the parenting places. Make profiles, introduce myself, see if I can help. Hard because people think I'm this teenager trying to be sneaky, but I'm genuinely there if they need help....hmm....it's not very popular to listen to teenagers sometimes is it.

Look at the new Fund4Writers e-mail. If you're reading this, and you love to write, go to www.fundsforwriters.com and sign up to the free newsletter. You can buy stuff from there that guarantees you'll be able to quit your job and start being a full time journalist, but sign up to the newsletter first. Every week it sends you an e-mail with links to magazines and websites who need writers, so all you need to do is send your work to them, and see if they want it in their issue. When they say yes, well, that's you sorted with a couple of hundred in your pocket.

Also I gotta write some more e-mails for my newsletter. If you go to www.youshutup.co.nz I now have my newsletter. Exciting! I know. This absolutely means I must have new content every week for the people that have signed up.

Gotta keep practicing my workshops and speeches for Brisbane aswell. The Woodford Folk Festival is nearing. Eeek! We're leaving on Friday!! Still need to confirm when I'm meeting with the Black Seeds. I am SO excited. I started packing last night. I love packing in advance. Gets your hype going even more.

Hmmm and gotta invoice three bookstores today too.

After that I'm sure I'll find some other thing to do like iron shirts. Or maybe I should play some chess with my brother....
He'll probably beat me. I swear he's some sort of prodigy. Love you brotherr.

Ciao Ciao Cacao

Eva-Maria

E-mails at 1.10am on a Saturday Morning

2008-12-19T04:10:00.000-08:00

OK, so 1.10am. On a Saturday Morning. Atleast in the country I am in right now. I'm not even out in town. Nooope. I'm at home.

Checking and replying to e-mails. Between 7.30pm and midnight, you won't believe how many people send e-mails!
Crazy thing is I end up checking about 5 different e-mail accounts every spare minute I have in a day, and although you'd think you would get a couple of e-mails a day, even with so many accounts, but nooooo.
E-mails about interviews, meetings, scheduled dates, events, opportunities, coaching, articles, sales....

Such an exciting night though. One of my best friends - Reuben got back from India last night (the guy in the middle of the photo) - he got a scholarship to go to a college there. So our little group - all us Athena Montessori Kids had dinner (the picture blow was taken a couple of years ago when we got together for a home ec exam assessment for our wonderful friend Meggzzzz). We have the most ridiculous conversations, usually about of course, our past at school. It's amazing we haven't run out of memories and news. I bet we'll still be chatting away like this when we're like....50! So cute - everyone's got jobs, and going away flatting, and enrolling at Uni. It's like we're all 13 again, but with more grown up agendas....

We love it.

Night night darlings. Think I'll be off to bed early tonight.
Workshop and more speech practicing tomorrow for the Brisbane Trip.

Au Revoir,

Eva-Maria

xoxx

First Blog - Bears, University, and the Meaning of Life

2008-12-18T14:31:00.000-08:00

OK, so being the person I am, and loving to write, people kept telling me to start up my own blog. I actually don't know why it's taken me this long to do it.....

So here it goes - my first ever blog. I'll never get this same feeling of the rush of posting the very first blog up for the very first time...

OK. I'm calm.

Guess we'll start with the basics...you know, to get into it...

I'm Eva Maria.
I'm 18.

I wish I could tell you I'm a secret spy squirrel who is secretly an undercover alien, plotting to bring peace and harmony to this Earth.
My imagination takes over half the time no matter whether I'm talking or writing, so don't be discouraged when my mind wanders...it'll get to the point eventually.

Currently I'm living in Wellington, New Zealand. It's a nice little capital away from anywhere big and busy, so it does me good.

I was born in Siberia, which is a huge part of Russia. To put myths at rest, bears do not live in people's homes there, let alone walk around on the streets. It gets cold in winter, yes, however the world doesn't hear about how our summers reach over 40 degrees. It's a place of extremes I guess. Which I just realized reflects my character.
Weirdd.

Also, I feel like I must say that Vodka isn't cheaper than water, or milk for that matter over there. And there's no such thing as a binge drinking culture. You get the odd alcoholic on the streets, stumbling home, but hey, the odd ball exists in every country.

In future, my preferred country of residence is France.
Paris to be exact, but I'm not putting my heart on anything yet.

You must be thinking "gosh silly little daydreamer wants to go to the city of love".
At this point in life, I'm probably one of those 'Down With Love' Renee Zellweger type crazies. Relationships is not my fortay.
Anyway, so Paris. Paris has intrigued me even before I knew what romance was. The culture I saw through French cinema, and more importantly literature, the character of the nation - it excited and interested me.
Also the Sorbonne University is there.
I don't want to go there just because it's like the Oxford of the French speaking world.
I want to go there because the attitudes, learning style, propaganda about education and knowledge, and the revolutionary mindset is what attracts me to it.

At this very current moment, I am an author.
Feels wank writing it as an occupation on those little forms for visas and questionnaires, but it's true now.
I work in other places to get by, but writing is what I'd do even if I wasn't getting paid for it. Actually helping people in any way possible is probably on the same level of things I'd do if I wasn't getting paid for it.

My mission for 2009 is to change one million adult-teenager relationships. Imagine happier people around.
Bageebas!
I'd LOVE that!
What would be really cool is if the guy that sells me salami could just smile at me, just once, instead of mumbling how teenagers like me are probably no different to the menace of a daughter he's 'stuck with'.

So yeeeah I'm getting pumped and ready for the big 2009, and I guess I'll be writing about my exciting adventures in this blog, so keep an eye out should be an exciting year!

Much love,

Eva-Maria

xxox