Yep, I do realize that I’ve been awfully silent lately… Well let me start by telling you what the plan was and most of all, what made me change it! Ok, once in a while my inner-nomad feels the urge to pack my bags and go wherever the road leads me. After almost 8 ½ months of non-stop working, my inner-nomad woke up and started to emotionally prepare me, to go travel the world and the seven seas, for a week or two. Simply wake up one morning, call the office (yes, I had been smart enough to leave a warning already a week before), get into the car and follow the sun.

Now, I’m flexible by nature. Kind of like that vibe. But what universal mastermind came up with the ridiculous plan to stop me in a very clumsy way? Ok, I do admit, I might have been a bit too tired to go for a long road trip. I agree with that one. Yet a simple flue might have done the trick! Nope, the universe had other plans, as apparently they are smart enough out there to mistrust me with the flue. Yes, yes, I’m stubborn enough indeed, not to let a flue attack hold me back. Again I plea guilty…

So what did happen? While the day before ‘the night that made me change my plans’ I had stated in an interview with Fashionscene, (Dutch Pride column) that I was ready to go on a holiday, 24 hours later I lay flat down on the street. Yep, not so elegant! I had trembled over my own feet, while walking the dog… Full weight on my kneecap! Yep!

Well, I do believe in mind power, but in this case even my mind couldn’t help me! At this point, my suitcase was the least of my worries, as you should know: I live on the first floor! And no, these fun old Amsterdam houses are not equipped with an elevator. On top I’ve got a dog to walk. Oops!

Lucky me, my friends came to the rescue (a big big THANK YOU!!!). Each of them took turns, got me my groceries and so on. My stubborn nature didn’t get me very far, as whenever I gave it a try, my knee simply didn’t agree. So instead of a holiday I ran a small home office and decided to work on a ‘secret’ project, I’ve been working on for a while now. And yes, I now have to say that I’m somehow grateful for this ‘divine intervention’, as I finally noticed how much I physically needed this state of ‘nothingness’.

 

 

 

 

 

Can I walk? Yes, and I’m very grateful for that. As I never confessed to anyone, besides my inner-circle, that I do suffer from a rheumatic disorder, so the severe amount of arthroses in my bones slows down the healing process of a ‘simple’ accident, such as this. Why tell you now? Probably because part of me always feels the need to shout out, that no matter what, you can always try to beat the odds and follow your dreams!

Oh, that takes me to another subject…I owe you all a major THANK YOU too! Why? Because our new So PR website, achieved the magical score of 99.538 visits within the first two days of its launch! WOW!

C’est tout! Looking forward to see you back soon for another unexpected rollercoaster ride throughout the unpredictable universe...

For now remember just one more thing:

“You can’t plan life, but you can always learn how to make perfect use of the tools at hand.” 

 

They say "Time flies when you are having fun", well in my case this saying perfectly suits the life I live. However, with my work being so much fun, I tend to forget to take some time off once in a while... Actually this 'while' took me over 7 months this year! Up until the point where my friend Busy B. (yep, those who read my blogs on a regular base already know this nickname), convinced me to join her on a weekend trip to the cute town of Gent in Belgium. And I almost forgot how inspiring this city is, until I rediscovered it this weekend. All the more reason for me to share it with you through a photo-overview I made... Enjoy & I'll be back soon with a typical walk around the jungle I tend to call my life!

Most of you will recognize this: It’s one of those weeks! And no, it ain’t funny, far from it… Once in a while, no matter how good your mood is, misfortune roars it’s ugly head (and tail). This certainly was one of those weeks. I’m not planning to bother you with all of it, but the past weekend three people I know, had a scooter accident, one of them being our beloved intern Jamie Lee, who is luckily doing okay, yet had to stay in the hospital. On top our sweet dear Mignon lost her dad way to young. As if all this wasn’t horrifying enough, I also had a funeral, as my aunt passed away. Well, we can make this a real depressing blog of course, but as you know me, I intend to take you on a different kind of journey. The journey of how to coop with situations that are not in our own hands.

Last Tuesday my dear friend Mabel van den Dungen, who teaches meditation, came to our So PR HQ in order to offer the team a meditation course. A great plan, as not only were we all confronted with personal tragedies around our interns, but stress also grew by the minute. We had big events coming, shiploads of work and a lack of helping hands, as some team members are on holiday. So how to keep our calm, became a running topic.

Now I’ve been meditating since I was way younger, so to me it’s more of a habit. As for the ones who did it for the first time, they were so relieved. It had it’s immediate effect on them. Again, like you might have read in my previous blog Happy Energy on the left & right side of the brain, meditation takes you into the right side, which results in calm, relaxation and affects your body in a positive way, both mentally, as physically. No, it doesn’t change the situation we are in, yet it helps you look at it differently.

Well, at this point it was Tuesday night. Let me tell you: things didn’t get better. The tragedies that followed were small and insignificant compared to the previous events, but hey, we could have used a ‘break’ on ‘bad luck’. Part of us worked from 7 am till 11 pm, I had one weird car problem after another, the drinks transport almost arrived too late, which could have left us standing outside with tons of drinks in front of a closed storage, technical things kept breaking and so on.

Yep, one of those weeks…On top, this morning my iphone crashed to the floor, resulting in a 10000 glass pieces. Oh well, it’s only a material object (however, a very much needed one in business).

Ok, but how does one keep its calm? Honestly? I didn’t. Well, most of the time I did, yet I too had a few minor ‘let me disappear under a big blanket’ moments. Never the less, those didn’t last for long, fortunally. For me the breakthrough came when my dear friend Watson, who some of you know from previous posts, cheered me up by saying “Sometimes things just keep falling, before rising up as a new bright sparkling star in a shiny sky”. That little message kicked me right back into the bright side of life. So: thank you Watson for reminding me! As that is who I am and what I always try to bring across. Yes, we are not always capable of controlling what happens in our lives, yet even if everything seems to work against you, the best you can do is try to accept it and see how to coop with it. Believe me, I too had my portion in life and attended far more funerals than weddings. Yet through it all I learned one huge lesson: accept your emotions, feel them, live them and conclude that no matter what you do, some things we can’t change…

As our So team member Laura always says: “The best lesson O. gave us when it comes to stressing out or circumstances in which one feels powerless, is that it doesn’t matter whether you cry, feel sjitty or smile. It will not change the circumstances, yet when you smile, in the end you will notice that you feel a bit better.” Life is a bitch sometimes, that is true. Yet in the kind of weeks or days you simply feel hunted by bad luck, try to look at that one little sparkle in the sky… Even if you can’t see it, I promise you, it is there!

C’est tout! Looking forward to see you back soon out here in the PR-jungle I tend to call my life...

For now, remember just one more thing (and yes, today the credits go to Watson):

“Sometimes things just keep falling, before rising up as a new bright sparkling star in a shiny sky”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although lately I’ve been blogging a lot about our ‘internal affairs’ as due to talks at the office and with friends, we came across topics such as judging and left versus right brain, in the meanwhile business went on as usual. Well, not completely usual… Let me tell you why!

One fine day I discovered a special beer on a trip to Ljubljana, the capital of the ever so lovely Slovenia. No, not Slovakia, Bulgaria or whatever mix-ups people so often make, but Slovenia. A small yet extremely beautiful country, just below Austria, next to Italy on one side, Hungary on the other and underneath it lays Croatia.

 

Now I am no drinker. Better said I’m known not to drink at all. A few glasses of wine or one glass of champagne is my average yearly amount. Yet this beer is something special! It’s fine mixture of beer and grapefruit makes it so refreshingly tasty that it is hard not to love it. Even if you don’t like beer at all! But hey, after tasting my first Union Radler, I could only be sure that I liked it and apparently the majority of Slovenes like it too. So I took a bunch home. Guess what? My whole team and all my friends loved it just as much as I do. A few months later we took a bunch of journalists to Slovenia, as a project for the Slovene Tourist Board. On the first night I suggested they might want to try a Radler. Guess what? All ten of them were hooked from the first sip on! For the rest of the trip they kept ordering Radler’s!

Again, I took a bunch home. It almost created a fight, as everybody wanted one. That made me think. If this drink truly is such a specialty that everybody loves it, why don’t we have in The Netherlands? For those of you who know me by now, it probably does not come as a surprise: within a year after my first sip, I can now proudly state that we became the official distributors of Radler. The reason being that I can’t resist the temptation to share this delicious drink with everyone!

 

Now while we were at the brewers, they pointed out several other drinks to us. Half of them I liked, but they did not blow me of my socks. However two others did! Again, we took them home and since last week we can proudly state that we will also be the distributors of Lasko Pineapple Malt, a lovely alcohol-free soft drink that is not too sweet, tastes super and is comparable to Ginger Ale, yet with a fine pineapple flavour! Yummy!

And number 3? It is called Bandidos Ice and it’s a friendly white beer with a hint of Caiprinha! Yep, gorgeous too!

Well, the reason for me telling you all this, is not to promote our drinks (yes, I know I’m a PR-girl ;-)), yet merely to share a bit of my adventurous business life with all of you. The fun part being that it brings such an exciting joy with it! It’s so magical to be able to fall in love with a drink and get to the point that you can actually import it and share it with the whole of the country you live in. That itself is another dream come true. Well, a new dream, as I never ever dreamed of becoming a drinks distributor. Not even in my wildest dreams! Yet it’s such a wonderful thing to do! As I always say: when opportunities come along, first of all you either spot them or not, but when you do, at least try to grab them and make them happen!

 

Of course I can go on for hours about how distributing, planning, calculating and arranging everything from A to Z, has kept us preoccupied in between our regular business hours, yet that would probably bore you… So let’s keep it to this for now. And if you feel like it, share a smile with us in enthusiasm! Looking forward to raise the glass with you while drinking one of our new drinks!

C’est tout! Looking forward to see you back in the endless jungle of PR & import, for another new happy journey…

For now, remember just one more thing:

“See it, feel it, dream it, do it!”

 

 

Did you ever count how many times a day you are showing judgmental behavior? That's a question that kept popping up during the past couple of weeks. Most of us tend to be more judgmental than we realize. Now before we go for a tour into the why, when and how, let's play a little mind game...

What if I told you that the guy shown on the photo below, would be your new co-worker? And let's say that he's your new co-worker at an insurance office. What do you think that you and your colleagues would say about him on the first day he enters the job? How would you treat him? Would you giggle over his looks? Be honest ;-)

 

Now I'm no psychic, but I dare say that 99 % of us would start talking behind his back over his weird look. He would be defined as a real weird older man. Some would call him scary, others would be wondering if he were cuckoo and so on. Yet, as we all know this gentleman is one of the most celebrated designers in the world, whose name will be remembered for centuries to come, we all of a sudden think he looks super cool & stylish.

Isn't that interesting? The co-worker who would suffer a hard time over our judgement is treated completely different now we know how successful he is. So his looks are approved only for the fact that he is a famous, successful fashion designer. If he’d be your everyday garbage man, he would be the laughing stock of the town.

And how about this woman? What would you and your friends say about her, if she just happened to walk down the street passing you by? Let's say she's an art student who loves to stand out from the crowd... What would you say?

"Oh my gosh, look at her!" Wouldn't that be your first response? The coming hour we would all talk about that weirdo we saw on the street... She would probably be labelled 'totally nuts'. But hey, as we all know she's a famous singer, we all of a sudden label that same girl to be a super cool style icon...

Now we could go on for days with shiploads of photos and I dare predict that the 'judgement' factor wouldn't change, now would it?

Yes, I could fill up a million photo galleries more with successful people who would never blend into the crowd without being judged by their looks. Let alone, by their behaviour!

Now here is the question that you might like to ask yourself: why do we do that? There are multiple reasons we can come up with and they differ per person. For some of us it is simply because we secretly would love to have the guts just to be our true selves. For others judging makes you feel better about yourself. If you define the other to be an 'idiot', it means you are a well-accepted, maybe even 'cool' person. Comparison. And so on...

But let's be real honest again: does the appearance of that particular person bug you in any way? Harm you? Threaten you?

No, it doesn't. So why do we do it? If the other person hears, feels or notices your reaction, how do you think it makes them feel? And: why do we care in the first place about someone else’s looks? As in all honesty it has nothing to do with us, now does it?

So who defines what is normal? Who creates the standard? What if tomorrow someone told you that blending in with the majority is no longer the universal trend?

Now, this post is not about blending in or not. It's about judging... And judging nine out of ten times is a sign of poverty within ourselves (sorry, if this came as a shocker!). No, I'm not advising you to become Mister or Miss Perfect Behavior from now on. And yes, it can simply be a funny moment with friends joking about that weirdo on the street. Yet, once in a while think of the effect it might have on people and most of all, ask yourself why you do it...

Don't feel bad, feel aware!

 

If you feel like it, take a minute and ask yourself who you would be if you were free of judgement about others, but most of all yourself! We consume a lot of our valuable energy by spending hours in a row on judging. We spent millions of precious minutes on blending in, being accepted by the whole world and being perfect according to the 'judgement' of others. If we wouldn't do that, how would we feel? That's the question!

C'est tout! Thanks for joining me for another trip throughout the jungle I tend to call my life...

For now remember just one more thing:

"Your own approval of you, is just as valuable as your approval of others"