A Holiday Greetings Card for You

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The Peak Performance Circle

Performance Architecture is a systematic approach that facilitates the alignment of your knowledge, skills, attitudes and habits to help you attain and sustain Peak Performance. It’s based on training principles used by world-class athletes and teams to win in sports, which can be applied to achieving excellence as a business performer.

The Peak Performance Circle is a workshop that applies Performance Architecture to help you integrate these three key “value design” factors: Focus, Energy Management and Breakthrough Design. The process facilitates the formulation of your personalized action plan (your Peak Performance Blueprint) to go beyond your “personal best” and achieve exponential results as a leader.

I’ve created a Yearly Program to develop with a stable group of 8 to 10 executives over 6 months and also a Weekend Retreat Format for a 2 ½-day program. Please download the PDF Outline to read the curriculum and decide if you want to become a participant or organizer.

The 2009 CEOs Edition is due to start in February, endorsed by BIG - The Business Innovation and Growth Council in Charlotte, NC. For more information, please contact me.

[Download the Peak Performance Circle Outline]

Design Your Inspired Transformation for 2009

So, here's the metaphor for the current times: we're holding on to the towel rack in the Titanic, contemplating our choices for survival in a frozen ocean that surround us and limits our possibilities. Now is a time for new thinking, for inspired transformations. What will help us stay afloat? What will keep us engaged? What will give us a chance to reach a better state?

One thing I've learned from tennis is that you can be match-point down and you can still win. The key is to embrace the challenge and look at it as a problem solving opportunity before you run out of time. Once you get two or three points in your pocket, it's possible to regain your confidence and get back into the match. Giving up is not an option, but many people do, just when they could have found the way out. Peak Performers never quit.

I believe that in 2009 we will discover the threads from which we can pull "Inspired Transformations" out of the jaws of defeat. Yet, we have to design them for ourselves and help those who can't come up with strategies. I've decided to share with you a Transformation Blueprint to get you started. In tough times, being resourceful might be the most important skill. Putting one foot in front of the other leads to high positive energy and certainty up in Mt. Everest or at your office desk.

Here's to your productive 2009.

The Innovation Institute - McColl Center for Visual Art

The Innovation Institute is a new initiative at McColl Center for Visual Art that adds another facet to the Center's core values of creativity and the value of artists to society. The Institute is a professional and personal development curriculum focused on creativity and innovation. The Innovation Institute is a six-day program led by artists with support from a professional executive coach and consultant in organizational development. The curriculum helps the participating individuals discover and unleash their own creative core, experience the challenges of creativity, harness their imagination, develop the capacity to recognize, influence, and support creativity in others, and apply these new abilities to their professional and personal lives.

The individuals being sought as participants for the program are senior level executives who are committed to their company, interested in differentiating their individual and their company's performance, committed to making a difference, who are risk takers and leaders, and want to add to the growth and market value of their company. The program is hands-on and experiential. The program size is limited to twelve participants to ensure a deeply personal experience while providing the dynamic of a group from whom to learn. The program takes place at McColl Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.

For more information, you can contact Barbara Spradling, The Innovation Institute's Director

Leading Successful Change

In December 2005, I attended a Business Executives Symposium in Venice, Italy, organized by Promostudio, on the eve of The Nobels Colloquia in Venice, a yearly gathering of some of the best minds in Economics. One of the presenters was Professor Douglas Anderson (left), Dean of the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business, with whom I had the pleasure to share dinner along with his wife and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, Professor Jean Paul Fitoussi and my colleague Klaus Regnault. During dinner, I had the opportunity to learn more about his viewpoints on how to lead towards successful change.

Professor Anderson says that the pain of change comes from not from the change itself but from the losses, the endings, the anticipations and the transitions they are resisting. Beliefs, fears and unmet needs shape behaviors and they in turn shape consequences. If we are going to encourage change, we need to deal with the mindset, the beliefs set. It's no use to talk about how great the outcome of change will be without addressing the psychological component in a very direct way.

Professor Anderson emphasizes that this story tells us that the pain we associate with change is not so much the new thing that we need to take on but is the old thing that we have to let go. Michael Beer of Harvard Business School offered a perspective on the issue of successful change in his classic book, "Organization Change and Development: A Systems View." He summarized a successful organizational change process with a simple formula:
Successful Change = (D x M x P) > C
D = Dissatisfaction with the Status Quo
M = A new model for how the Organization will be run
P = A planned process for managing the change
C = Cost of the change to individuals and groups

Beer's insight into successful change says the combined effect of the dissatisfaction, the new model and the planned process must be greater than the cost to people and groups (even emotional and psychological cost). The relationships among these three are multiplicative. If any one of them is missing, there will be a zero value and the cost will be far too great. Result: no successful change.

Since change is the function of leadership, being able to generate highly energized behavior is important for coping with the inevitable barriers to change. Just as direction setting identifies an appropriate path for movement and just as effective alignment gets people moving down that path, successful motivation ensures that they will have the energy to overcome obstacles.

Professor Anderson reminded his Venetian audience that, during transitions, we need to let the grieving process take place, just like Elizabeth Kubler Ross described it in her work: Shock - Denial - Anger - Depression - Bargain - Acceptance and Exploration of the New State. It's easy to get stuck in one of these stages and we might cycle back into one of them. In corporations, it's easy to see how leaders react to external changes in the market by forming a task force that will bring about change in the company to adapt; yet, very rarely they ask themselves: "What must I do to change?"

Learn how you can lead towards successful change

2009 Consumer Trends from trendwatching.com

trendwatching.com is an independent and opinionated trend firm, scanning the globe for the most promising consumer trends, insights and related hands-on business ideas.

They have released their 2009 Consumer Trends Report, summarized as follows:
1. “NICHETRIBUTES” (Low-cost, practical tributes to the zeitgeist)
2. “LUXYOURY” (In 2009, you define what constitutes luxury)
3. “FEEDBACK 3.0” (Think we’ve reached full transparency?)
4. “ECONCIERGE” (Savings are the new green)
5. “MAPMANIA” (Why maps are the new interface)
6. “HAPPY ENDING” (The silver lining of each downturn)

To apply these six trends, the company suggests you ask yourself if they have the potential to:
1. Influence or shape your company's vision.
2. Inspire you to come up with a new business concept, an entirely new venture, a new brand.
3. Add a new product, service or experience for a certain customer segment.
4. Speak the language of those consumers already 'living' a trend.

[Link to the original source]

[Thanks to Tom Merilahti from SICU for the tip]

"NEVER SURRENDER" Workshop in Dusseldorf

"NEVER SURRENDER: Achieve and maintain Peak Performance under pressure"

Learn to apply the strategies of sport champions to maximize your executive performance under pressure by improving your Focus, increasing your Energy and designing your Breakthrough

One- Day Professional Development Course for Executives

Course Directors: Klaus Regnault (Germany) and Carlos Salum (USA) - Peak Performance Experts
Date: Monday, November 24 from 9:00 to 17:00 hours
Location: PowerPrinting GmbH Headquarters
Im Taubental 30 - 41468 Neuss - Germany
Language: English – with clarification in German, if required

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: November 14, 2008
Early Registration Fee: Euro 495 per person + 19% Tax before Deadline
Late Fee: Euro 595 p.p. + 19% Tax at the door (subject to availability)

Course Description
What do peak performers in sports and business do exceptionally well?
Why do peak performers overcome monumental challenges while others give up?
What keeps high achievers motivated after they have conquered their goals?
What do some of the world's elite athletes have to teach us as professionals?
How do the skills and routines they practice translate into helping us all achieve peak performance for ourselves and our clients?

As professionals, we are all performers. We all need to deliver results on demand and under pressure, just like world-class athletes do.
The global financial crisis has reshaped the corporate landscape for several years to come. To respond effectively to challenges and difficult situations, we need to train to become Peak Performers.
Peak Performers in sports align, integrate and monitor three critical factors: Focus, Energy Management and Breakthrough Design. We call this alignment “Performance Architecture”
As professional Peak Performers, we systematically use specific techniques to operate in our Ideal Performance State to remain fully engaged and increase our creative thinking skills. As a result, we are able to manage more effectively, help our clients in more responsive ways and improve our organization’s creative output.

Key Factors in Performance Architecture:
Focus: Identifying the Right Things to Do
Define your values, worldview, goals, objectives and inspiring visions.
Broaden your perspective and expand your possibilities.

Energy Management: Doing Things Better
Expand your physical and mental capacity to respond to challenges.
Increase your influence by instilling energy and purpose in others.

Breakthrough Design: Doing Better Things
Surpass existing parameters to mobilize others towards positive change.
Accelerate your transformation and generate exponential growth.

Who Should Attend
Any professional, corporate executive or entrepreneur of any background, culture, educational history or slate of personal experiences who wants to the opportunity to take the fullest advantage of unique, astonishing developments in human performance.

Overview
To enhance your "life's portfolio" and assure your long-term success as an executive, you must adopt a multi-dimensional training program, just like professional athletes do. The quality of your life as an executive is directly proportional to your ability to think better and to manage your physical, emotional and mental energy.

This course will teach you how to achieve and maintain your Ideal Performance State [IPS] by expanding your physical, emotional and mental skills through systematic training. Through peak performance training, you will balance your individual needs, your family responsibilities and your profession's demands. Your training plan will allow you to improve your efficiency in practical, measurable ways.

“Never Surrender” also teaches you leading-edge ideas and findings in such frontier sciences as evolutionary psychology and biology, brain research, game theory and theory of moves, complex adaptive systems, non-linear dynamics and numerous other post-postmodern fields of inquiry.

Course Goals
To provide a road map that will enable you to align their personal and professional goals
To help you understand and manage their behavior under pressure, which is essential to achieve and maintain the Ideal Performance State (IPS)
To empower you by making them aware of the power of the mind-body connection, so they can operate more effectively, both at the interpersonal and team levels
To provide you with lateral thinking tools that will enhance their capacity to think creatively and find alternative solutions in a variety of situations
To introduce you to effective performance design tools to refine their goals, overcome barriers and define action plans in the context of their individual, professional and social roles
To integrate the individual training process with the corporate culture, a sure way to consolidate the overall progress of an organization

Course Benefits
At the end of this insightful, comprehensive course you will:
understand how the mind-body connection influences your behavior under pressure
manage your emotional responses by using effective mental and physical strategies
design a personalized road map to achieve and maintain your lifelong performance goals
have more physical and emotional energy available throughout your weekly schedule, thanks to compact yet effective workouts
become more resilient and resourceful in the face of obstacles and disagreement
interact with others in the organization in a more effective and constructive way by developing new ideas out of solution-design instead of resorting to argument and criticism
transfer your peak performance mastery to your relationship with your colleagues and your clients

Methodology
Inventory: You will be introduced to the fundamentals of peak performance, followed by intensive analysis of your lifestyle and working patterns.
Training Plan Development: You will create a personalized training plan to increase your physical, emotional and mental energy overtime. The application to team training issues follows a specific model and group exercises. The Course Director employs a variety of training tools, such as: personalized inventories, questionnaires, tests, workshops, group discussions, flow diagrams, video examples, physical and mental exercises, role-playing, study binders, guide charts, reading recommendations and a personalized plan outline.
Commitments: You will commit to achieving measurable results, which you will monitor through specific charts.



About the Course Directors
Klaus Regnault is a Peak Performance Consultant based in Düsseldorf, Germany. In association with Josef Brauner, former president of Sony Germany, Board Member of Deutsche Telekom and CEO of T-Com. Together, they run Complex Coaching and Consulting, covering the areas of business, sports and the arts.

As a corporate trainer, he conducts workshops based on his "Complex Coaching" method, which unifies physiological, mental and emotional aspects of performance. Regnault also talks about his experiences with the Maasai Warriors in Tanzania. The Maasai are regarded as the most mentally tough native Warriors on Earth. Certain aspects of their training and sense of teamwork are applicable to the corporate world in Western countries, and Regnault helps organizations make the transfer in practical and effective ways.

As an international tennis coach, he works with professional players ranked in the top-100 in the world. He also trains golfers to help them become mentally tough under pressure. Klaus Regnault has been the European representative of Dr. James Loehr’s sport psychology speaking tours from 1988 through 1992.


Carlos Salum is the President of Salum International Resources, Inc., a management consulting firm based in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. Since 1993, he has focused on Performance Architecture applied to executive training and corporate events’ management.

His clients are located in the United States, Europe and Latin America. Salum regularly lectures on Performance Architecture for corporate audiences, which include HSBC Private Banking, Bank Julius Baer, ABN AMRO Private Banking, Benfield Group, The New York Knicks Organization, US Air Force Academy, Swiss Military Leadership Academy, Manres AG, Information Management Group, KPIT Cummins and The Neurological Institute, among others.

He has participated in ground-breaking research in peak performance training with some of the world's leading sport scientists, such as Dr. Jim Loehr, Dr. Nick Hall, Dr. Jack Groppel and Pat Etcheberry This work involved some of the world's top athletes. Salum contributed to the careers of outstanding tennis players such as Gabriela Sabatini (U.S. Open champion, 1990) and Sergi Bruguera (French Open champion, 1993-94) and the Italian Davis Cup Team, among many others. Salum has organized corporate events featuring world-renowned creative thinking experts like Dr. Edward de Bono, Richard Saul Wurman and Dudley Lynch.

He is currently developing a sponsored conference in Europe in association with Promostudio (Italy), which will feature several Nobel Prize Laureates in Economics and top Economics' professors from Harvard, Yale, MIT and Stanford. Salum is also an international tennis coach, a radio and television journalist, a produced playwright (London, Tampa, and Buenos Aires) and a documentary film producer.


INFORMATION and REGISTRATION:

Klaus Regnault
E-mail: kr@complex-coaching-consulting.com

Carlos Salum

E-mail: csalum@saluminternational.com

Leadership - Rebecca Merrill - "Living in Yes"

Salum International Resources has recently established a strategic alliance with Merrill Leadership, an executive coaching and consulting company based in Durham, North Carolina focused on optimizing the potential of senior executives, senior management teams and boards of directors. Through the experience of executive coaching, clients learn to skillfully handle real-time leadership challenges, create more strategic leadership paradigms and develop fresh perspectives.

Rebecca Merrill, the founder, earned a bachelor’s degree with a double major in Psychology and Religion graduating magna cum laude with honors from Wellesley College in 1985. She earned a master’s degree in Education from Harvard in 1989 and a second master’s degree in Clinical Social Work from Smith in 1993. Rebecca’s first book entitled Living In Yes: Helping Smart People Make Good Decisions was published in 2003. Rebecca's excellent book includes "The Living in Yes Tool Box" to help us navigate life's toughest decisions by examining critical issues through nine lenses: Serenity, Energy, Attraction, Integrity, Generosity, Power, Honesty, Creativity and Happiness. The book is available through Amazon.com

[VISIT MERRILL LEADERSHIP'S WEB SITE]

Emotional Intelligence Mastery: Introducing EQmentor

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is a highly acquirable skill critical to today’s rapidly changing workforce, workplace, and work-life trends. The most effective way to enhance your EQ is to learn from someone who has walked your path and to learn over a committed and extended period of time.

EQmentor unveils a powerful approach to mentoring and enhancing EQ. Working adults in general have four primary developmental areas: Physical, Intellectual, Spiritual, and Emotional. We have gyms, libraries, schools, books and places of worship, but where is “Life’s Gym” where an adult can safely explore experiences to harness knowledge and wisdom to make better daily decisions? EQmentor is the place for 24x7 emotional and intellectual exercising allowing the working professional to learn at the point-of-need.

EQmentor boasts the industry’s most rigorous mentor certification and matching processes, a cross-industry community of professional peer-collaboration (user-generated content), custom-built Web 2.0 technology and unique parameters of engagement. [

See why EQmentor is unique]

Salum International Resources has recently become a strategic partner of EQmentor, offering corporations and consultancies the opportunity to provide Emotional Intelligence training to their managers and staff.

>>If you are interested in EQmentor, please let us know

Edward de Bono 101

I'm confident you will enjoy watching Dr. Edward de Bono describe the key concepts of Creative Thinking in four short video clips on a YouTube Video Channel.

If you are looking for a deeper understanding on how to apply these concepts to generate new ideas in a systematic way, please contact us.

[WATCH THE VIDEOS]

How to present like Steve Jobs

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is well known for his electrifying presentations. Communications coach Carmine Gallo discusses the various techniques Jobs uses to captivate and inspire his audience — techniques that can easily be applied to your next presentation.

[WATCH THE VIDEO]

One of the key markers of peak performance is the quantity and the quality of sleep we have every week. When your sleep patterns are disrupted, your performance drops significantly and your mood changes, putting your health and relationships at risk. Now, the BBC offers you a Sleep Profiler that you can take for free. The Profiler takes about 10 minutes and includes the Epworth Test - an assessment tool used by sleep experts worldwide.

[TAKE THE TEST]

Corporate Events - Team and CEO Challenges

CORPORATE TEAM CHALLENGES
Intelligent Sport® is the fastest growing team development concept, in the world - specifically designed for business. The concept is owned by Challenger World (an IMG company). It fuses high energy sports action with strategy and intelligence, specifically designed to inspire & motivate people and teams for business. Intelligent Sport® involves fun physical pursuits such as running, kayaking and mountain biking combined with important business skills such as: Teamwork - Time management - Decision making - Devising strategy - Logic problems - Communications - Strategic navigation - Scaled engineering

[CHALLENGER WORLD] [FRANCE CHALLENGE]

CEO CHALLENGES
CEO Challenges is the world leader in sport competitions designed specifically for CEOs. Its ultimate goal is to find the world’s best CEO in a number of different sports. It began in 2001 with the CEO Ironman Challenge, and now it has expanded to include CEO Triathlon, Golf, Cycling, Marathon, Fishing, Sailing, and Tennis Challenges. CEOs who take part in these events really do love to compete. They compete for business constantly, and love the feeling of accomplishment when they achieve success. These people have typically achieved any goal they have set out for themselves, and they like to be around people like themselves – goal-setting, high-achievers who let nothing get in their way.

[CEO CHALLENGES] [SPONSOR A CEO CHALLENGE]

Since 2001, over 300 CEOs have taken part in our events, and the total gross revenue of all their companies combined is $270 Billion. The average company size of the participants is $935 million, however this is heavily skewed by a number of CEOs that run companies with over $10 Billion in revenue. The majority of CEOs that participate own companies that are in the $50 - $100 million range. The events are open to CEOs, Presidents, or Owners of companies with over $2.5 million in annual gross revenue ($5 million for C-Suite Executives).

Brainware: Your ToolKit for Higher Achievement

In times of transition and uncertainty, high achievers and peak performers get ready to reengineer their skills, their thinking and their careers. To do this effectively, it helps to use Brainware developed by Brain Technologies Corporation.

We have selected the most useful tools to help you find Purpose, Direction, new Thinking Paradigms and your Values' set. The Brainware will also help you identify your Strengths and understand the games people play.

AssetReport is a unique tool to have a multidimensional perspective on your worldview, the way you process information and how you can improve your thinking and emotional skills. When you buy AssetReport, you can also engage in a Personal or Executive Coaching Consultation at a special rate.

[LEARN MORE ABOUT THE TOOLS]

[PURCHASE THE TOOLS]

Avoiding Death by PowerPoint

We are all guilty of inflicting countless hours of pain to many kinds of audiences with MS PowerPoint, "the tool de force" in business today. The world continues to hope for a PPT Killer and, until its arrival and triumph, we need to learn how to become better at handling text and visuals.
Here are a few interesting tips shared by Brandon Utteley, partner and president of Carbonhouse in Charlotte, NC.

[VIDEO 1]

[GUY KAWASAKI]

Read Biz Books in 15 minutes - Join getAbstract

getAbstract is the world's largest provider of business book summaries. We make you the best-read, most expert player on the business scene today.getAbstract's library consists of 4,000 business book summaries.
getAbstract produces 500 new business book summaries every year.

Each five-page summary is presented in a crisp, magazine-page format. You can read it in less than 15 minutes - the perfect length to deliver the book's key ideas. The no-fluff summaries are logically structured to get the maximum out of your reading time. The best way to see what a summary looks like is to read one.

Click for a free summary.

Select from more than 4,000 summaries. That's 10 times the selection of a typical summary site. Download the summaries you need right away.

>> Join Get Abstract and Access over 4,000 business book summaries

Best Restaurants in the World

Vortex readers usually do a lot of corporate entertainment and most of it is international. I recently came across a compilation of the 50 Best Restaurants in the World that might be worth bookmarking to compare with old favorites.

[SEE THE LIST]

Battle at Kruger Video

The "Battle at Kruger" video on YouTube has been watched by more than 30 million people and has over 30,000 comments. The National Geographic Channel is now showing a documentary. It's worth watching and diving into the analysis of the action, as it seems to go beyond a natural occurrence during a photographic safari. This event seems to trigger interpretations that spill over to areas such as:
* Survival of the fittest
* The power of the victims
* Power in unity
* Killer instinct vs the Herd and many others.

[WATCH THE VIDEO]

Performance Architecture Manifesto

Changethis.com has published my Manifesto on Performance Architecture.

You can read it here:

http://changethis.com/46.02.PerformanceArchitecture

or the direct link to the pdf here:
http://changethis.com/pdf/46.02.PerformanceArchitecture.pdf

I look forward to receiving your comments. Thank you.

Exclusive Video Interview with Dr. Jim Loehr, sport psychologist

Twenty years ago, while I was working at the Professional Tennis Registry with master pro Dennis Van der Meer, I met sport psychologist Dr. Jim Loehr. He was starting to get recognition for his approach to mental toughness training for tennis and had written "Mentally Tough," a book that had caught the media's interest as it dealt with winning in sports applied to winning in business. I saw an opportunity to develop Loehr's international speaking tours in Europe on a handshake and on my own dime. For eight months, I lived in my friend Klaus Regnault's couch on a very limited budget, yet I signed up six cities where Loehr delivered eye-opening presentations to tennis pros.

The speaking tours’ success was my ticket to join Loehr at the IMG/Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida, where we worked with world-class tennis players such as Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, Monica Seles, Arantxa Sanchez, Mary Joe Fernandez and many others on how to achieve peak performance.

In 1992, we moved to Saddlebrook Resort in Tampa, where Loehr formed LGE Saddlebrook Sport Science with Dr. Jack Groppel and trainer Pat Etcheberry. The company rapidly expanded and corporations started to request long-term engagements to help their employees become "corporate athletes."

Jim is the author of best-selling books such as "Mental Toughness Training for Sports," "Stress for Success," "The Power of Full Engagement" and "The Power of Story." He's the Chairman of The Human Performance Institute in Lake Nona, Orlando, where executives and athletes learn how to align their physical and mental skills to sustain their Ideal Performance State and becoming fully engaged. I'm honored to have received his mentorship and eternally grateful for having endorsed me to become an American citizen and being able to work with him.

I recently visited Jim in Orlando and he kindly sat down for a video interview that I'm certain you will find both fascinating and revealing.

VIDEO 1 - "What is Peak Performance?" - 6MB - 2.30 min.
VIDEO 2 - "Winning in Sports applied to Winning in Business" - 6MB - 2.30 min.
VIDEO 3 - "The Power of Story" - 7.6 MB - 3 min.

[Click here to Watch]

>> How to start a Peak Performance Program for you and your company

Skills Evaluations: What's Your Rating?

I have created three Self-Evaluations that will allow you to find out how you rate against standards developed by world-renowned specialists in the areas of Peak Performance (Dr. Jim Loehr), Emotional Intelligence (Dr. Nick Hall) and Leadership Skills (Steve Sullivan).

The results are given to you as percentages and you can immediately find solutions within our Services' Portfolio.

Go ahead, check how you are doing and find out how you can go beyond "personal best:"

Are you a Peak Performer?

Are you Emotionally Intelligent?

How strong are your Leadership Skills?

In Search of Meaning

I've always been fascinated by Viktor Frankl's approach to life and the teachings of his book "Man's Search for Meaning." It has certainly influenced my thinking and my life in many levels. His recollection of the Holocaust and what helped him survive the concentration camps against insurmountable situations stays with you forever.

Frankl's Logotherapy Institute offers video clips of interviews in its Web site. I've chosen to share with you a clip of an interview where he describes his key concepts and explains how we strive to find life's meaning while coping with our tendency to seek pleasure and power.

[Watch the Video] WMV - 8MB - 3 min.

>>Are you interest in discovering new perspectives in your personal and professional life?

Steve Sullivan's Leadership Quotes

Steve Sullivan has collected his most powerful quotes, which you can find in his best-selling books "Selling and Mach One," "Leading at Mach Two" and "Remember This Titan." He will be visiting Dubai at the end of May, presenting his Leadership approach in events organized by StratCon.

[Download PDF]

[Purchase Sullivan Books]

Image Power - Roberto da Carrara's Custom Suits

Roberto da Carrara, 202A Mott Street, NYC.

Mott Street has turned into a kind of select Savile Row, with a bevy of bespoke tailors and shirtmakers opening in the past few months. The newest addition to the Nolita neighborhood is Roberto da Carrara, a swank suit shop that has a hip Firenze feel. After two years as a wholesale operation, creators Robert Mazzucchelli and Victor de Leon embarked on this retail adventure to give more men the chance to experience their high-quality custom and ready-to-wear collections. Yet, despite the downtown locale, the prices are uptown—suits are in the $6,000 range, while shirts will run you $400. [Source: Fashionindie.com]

Memorable Experiences - Luxury and Adventure

Customized Holidays in the Cote d'Azur
Vortex Referral (Luxury Activities)

Peak Performance for Golf Course
Vortex Event (Germany) (Spain)

Formula One - Monaco and Silverstone
Vortex Referral (Tickets and Hotels)

Specialty Cultural Events in Europe
Vortex Referral (Unique Concerts)

Tennis Lessons w/Robert Salum
Vortex Referral (Florida) (Cape Cod)

Rent a Villa in Cabo San Lucas
www.suncabo.com

Dive with Great White Sharks
www.cagedive.com

Sail as Crew on a tall Ship
www.picton-castle.com

Drive Ferraris (USA) - Ferrari Official Event
www.experienceferrari.com:80/

Drive Ferraris (UK) - Track Days Event
ferrari driving experience uk

Drive a Porsche-powered Baja
www.wideopenbaja.com

Fly a Real Fighter Jet in Air-to-Air Combat
www.aircombatusa.com

Rent a Harley Davidson and Explore
www.eaglerider.com

Social Responsibility Tours
explore and help pdf

Raft and Bike in the Grand Canyon
www.bikeraft.com

Extreme African Safari Adventures
www.lionworldtravel.com

Military Action and Adventure
www.incredible-adventures.com

Swim with Dolphins in the Bahamas
www.dolphincayatlantis.com/

Teens to Harvard

Dr. Sam Santander, MD, MPH, Director of Medical Affairs, Medical Devices at Bausch & Lomb, Inc. has kindly forwarded this notice to Vortex regarding the Harvard Business School Summer Venture in Management Program 2008

The Summer Venture in Management Program (SVMP) is a week of HBS instruction that exposes high-potential college students in the summer between their junior and senior year to the HBS MBA experience and the variety of opportunities a degree in management can afford. Participants from diverse backgrounds spend the week on campus living the MBA student experience - attending classes, analyzing case studies, and debating management issues with peers and faculty.

This unique educational experience, in combination with a summer internship at a sponsoring company or organization, gives participants a broader understanding of the challenges business leaders face, the innumerable opportunities that exist in management, and the impact they can have on their community and the world through leadership. The application for the 2008 Summer Venture in Management Program is now available online.

In order to attend, a completed application is due May 9, 2008 at 5:00pm EST (Boston time).

The program will take place from June 21-27, 2008.Consistent with the objective of promoting educational diversity and opportunity in business leadership, criteria considered among others, are whether the applicant is:
• the first family member to attend college;
• a member of a group that is currently underrepresented in business schools and corporate America (e.g. African-American, Latino, Native American, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender);
• from a family with little business education or experience;
• from a school whose graduates do not typically attend a top-tier university (e.g., attends a community college as part of a four-year degree or attends a predominantly minority college).

For more information about this program, please visit the SVMP website.

Please forward this information to high-potential college students you think might be interested in applying to the 2008 SVMP Program.

New Peak Performance Corporate Brochure

Now, you can download the new Peak Performance Curriculum from Salum International Resources on PDF from this link or by clicking on the image.

You will learn about our approach to achieving and maintaining Peak Performance, our courses and workshops, our coaching services and how you can develop your creative thinking skills.

Please contact us with your personal and corporate requirements

How do you create an Eureka moment?

I recently answered a question from a peer in Linked-In about Eureka moments:

There's a physiological base for EUREKA moments, which depends on blood flow through the brain, especially the right hemisphere. The modes of activation might vary, such as the warmth of bath water or a shower, deep breathing, visualization, singing and drawing or painting. The most interesting thing about our brain/mind is that we can provoke EUREKA moments as well.

Dr. Edward de Bono, the foremost expert in creativity in the world has created many thinking tools that help us trigger ideas and use our whole brain (the analytical Left and the visionary Right). Daniel Pink's book "A Whole New Mind" does a good job explaining the current impact of using our whole brain in what he calls "the Conceptual Age." What matters most is for us to make a habit of looking for alternatives and possibilities. If we don't engage our conscience and therefore we won't look for tools.

Complacency is our biggest enemy as creative individuals. Provocation is key: making an effort to use humor or ridiculous situations applied to the problem at hand, so our brain can look at the issue from all possible angles (like walking around the proverbial elephant, instead of describing it from the trunk or the tail).

An EUREKA moment is the alignment of Focus, Energy and our Breakthrough Design capabilities inherent in our brain as a self-organizing system. Unlike a computer, which moves around fixed data, we can make connections between the sources of data to generate new configurations and give them meaning. That's the wonderful thing about being Human. Thinking better (something we should all strive to do during our lives) is also becoming a Better Human.

Learn how you can increase your creativity and innovation skills

On Performance Architecture

Salum International Resources has redesigned the initial screens of its Web site to enhance the description of the Performance Architecture concept and its applications.

Now, you can navigate four key areas to understand how you can design your personal performance blueprint and achieve exponential results in leadership, sales, innovation or your personal goals:

- What we do

- How we do it

- Your benefits

- The Performance Architecture curriculum

Take a tour at http://www.saluminternational.com

The Four Jobs of a Speaker

I recently attended a lunch meeting organized by the Charlotte Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America and listened to T.J.Walker present. He's one of the premier public speaking and media trainers in the world, based in New York. He gave the audience key points on how to improve the delivery, understanding and recall of their spoken messages.

His Web site is a source of very valuable instruction you can use right away.

Take a look at this concise, yet critical video presentation on "The Four Jobs of a Speaker"

1- Make the audience Understand
2- Help the audience Remember
3- Drive them to Take Action
4- Make it easy for them to Tell Others

19.20.21

Richard Saul Wurman, the world-renowned Information Architect (www.wurman.com), has launched the project "19.20.21" documenting 19 cities with over 20 million people in the 21st Century. Wurman is the founder of the TED conferences (www.ted.com) and has written 81 books, including 22 city guides and atlases.

The 19.20.21 project incorporates city guides, atlases, Web sites, a TV program and exhibits. It will examine the explosion of supercities and how they will influence a new world order in the decades to come.

Richard Wurman's partners in this project are:
Michael Hawley, director of Special Projects at MIT
Jon Kamen, Chairman and CEO of @radical.media, a producer of award-winning TV programs, films, commercials and branded content
Larry Keeley, President and co-founder of Doblin, the innovation strategy firm with top global clients.

Check out the magnificently designed web site at www.192021.org

Trudi Lacey - From WNBA to Life Coaching

Trudi Lacey is a talented, energizing woman who has overcome limitations to design her successful life. Since a very early age, he fell in love with basketball and managed to play and coach in college at the University of North Carolina. She also participated in the Olympics as an administrator, later becoming a WNBA coach. Her last position was as coach and manager of the Charlotte Sting. Now, Trudi is a Life Coach and helps executives and women to design their future according to their dreams and aspirations.

We are privileged to benefit from her experience through this article she shares with Vortex:

"In stepping into my own Authentic Leadership Style, I based my journey on four principles of building trust with myself and others:

1. Unclutter Your Life. The most successful executives I know spend at least 30 minutes a day taking time for themselves; exercising, meditating, walking the dog, relaxing on the deck with a glass of wine or tea, spending time dumping out the old thoughts that bind us, and laying new tracks for creative thought and energy.

2. Tap into Your Energy Source. Spend time increasing your awareness by being conscious of what you are paying attention to. When you increase your awareness of your thoughts and how they make you feel, you begin to make choices that are in right alignment with your highest vision of yourself. When you make right choices for you and in the service of adding value to others, you begin to trust yourself more. As you trust yourself more, your confidence soars. And as confidence is exuberated, optimal performance is sustainable. You spend less time worrying about circumstances you can not control and less time trying to control others. Use the principle of integrity (living to the highest vision of yourself) and your “third eye” to see the talents and abilities of others. Use your energy towards enhancing your life and performance, and attracting what you want in your life.

3. Check your rear view mirror. What are you holding onto from your past that is blocking your future? Do a personal inventory of your business and personal relationships, your finances, your habits and commitments. Are you planting seeds in fertile soil? Are you maximizing your ROI by investing in the right people for your life and work balance?You may need to walk courageously into your highest self by distancing yourself from those who suck energy from you and from every room they enter. Who will you pass the ball to that can assist you in leading your team to the championship? Invest your time and energy into people and tasks that return the greatest reward for your investment.

4. Be in the zone. You control only a portion of components that lead to your success or failure. Live and lead organically but tune into your “vibe” – utilize the principle of whole body thinking as a life tool to tap into your authentic power. Whole body thinking is living with mind, heart, soul and body in alignment with right relationship with yourself and others. Know that your vibe has impact on yourself and those around you. Use the Principle of Intuitive Knowing for innovative strategic planning, to increase positivity and to sustain optimal performance. Every experience creates a culture of learning for your employees, friends or loved ones who are not made to be wrong but who are free to express creative thoughts openly without judgment.

To step into your Authentic Leadership Style is to walk courageously in the knowledge that you are creative, resourceful and whole unto yourself. You possess all that you need to lead not only yourself, but also to assist those who walk with you. To act on what serves and adds value to your life, you can add value to the world."

>> For more information contact Trudi Lacey at 704.504.8825 or visit her website at www.lifecoachdesigns.com

Joan Wright's Seven Steps - From Success to Significance

I have recently enjoyed listening to Joan Wright present her Coaching Model for transitions from Success to Significance. Her approach consists of Seven Steps:

Step One: Self Awareness Insight: Who is the leader you are becoming? What are the results you want? Where are the gap arenas - mental, emotional, physical and spiritual?

Step Two: Values Alignment and taking stock in unique abilities. How are you perceived by others? What does the organization need and want from you? What is your fit in terms of personal aspirations?

Step Three: Define your NOW purpose and declare your future self. What am I really here on Earth to do? Why do I need to do it now? Who will I be serving? How will it change the world and/or the larger world?

Step Four: Pruning old beliefs, no longer useful habits and activities and reevaluating relationships. Instituting new habits and rituals that re-pattern and align personal belief system. Saying no to good things, saying yes to great things.

Step Five: Igniting your higher self for leadership and significance - from acting as if to breakthrough, impact arenas (internal and external; pull vs. push). Challenging yourself to go beyond earlier limits.

Step Six: Taking stock and solidifying transformation - having gone public with change arenas, soliciting feedback from others. Are you feeling it in your bones?

Step Seven: Ongoing renewal - Staying lit (on fire). Being an arsonists for others' transformation to significance. Staying connected with personal and trusted advisory group for accountability.

>> Listen to Joan Wright and Val Williams - "What leaders are up against in the future" - Windows Media Audio - 2:57 min. >> Purchase the Audio CD

Lynda Thain - Personal Presentation Consultant

Lynda Thain is a London-bred, New York-trained, personal presentation consultant working with senior executives across a variety of sectors. She is as comfortable working with teams in an organisation as she is working on a one-to-one basis with individuals; coaching and developing them to express themselves and their organisation consciously and with impact.

She does this through a variety of means, drawing on her knowledge of voice production, with its focus on posture and breath control, as well as her training as an image consultant.

Lynda is a British national with more than 20 years’ experience in marketing and training. She was one of the pioneers of interactive media in the UK as part of Philips’ Interactive Media Europe (PIME), as well as the creator of bespoke training seminars and development programmes for media professionals in top-tier companies.

After years singing chorally, Lynda trained as a soloist, studying privately with the dramatic soprano Jacqueline Straubinger-Bremar and the baritone David Crown for a period of more than 12 years. In that time she learnt a great deal about voice production and many other aspects of solo performance. Her artistic ability and eye for colour was enhanced by the training she received in New York as an image consultant, enabling her to transfer to others what she had been applying to herself for years.

Lynda still performs regularly in concerts in the UK, and from time to time in Greece where she lived for three years. She speaks Greek and French, as well as basic Spanish and German. However, she is happy to sing in any of those languages as well as Italian. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Manufacture and is on the committee for the south east region of the UK, and has been a member of the Musicians’ Union for more than ten years.

>> Salum International Resources and Lynda Thain are planning a series of seminars in Europe during 2008. For more information, please contact us