For the past few days I attended an awesome "Leadership Cruise" from Nice to the Island of Elba, then to Portofino and again back to Nice. Here some photos of our cruise boat "Sea Cloud":

The trip itself was for around five days, and of superb quality. First of all, it was a group of world-class entrepreneurs and leaders; secondly we were cruising to some of the most beautiful places in Europe; and thirdly we had additional value from the leadership training organized by a UK based company called "Ten", and as the cherry on the cake killer presentations by well-known entrepreneurs and leaders. Just Tom Cruise was not there...

All in all, a great get-a-way from home - a combination of holidays and learning, masterminding and chilling, and now with full power ready to start new ventures. Here is link to my photo set of the cruise at Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fizzphotos/

Free WiFi access in the guest rooms should be a standard feature by now with international hotel chains, wouldn't you agree? But it's not! Most international hotels still charge for the internet access, sometimes ridiculously.

Just stayed at Hilton Beijing, and although they do offer free WiFi in the lobby, you pay 30 cents per minute for the access in the convenience of your room (so for example 2 hours equals EUR 36,-).

McDonalds, on the other hand, gets it. If there is no other reason to visit McDonalds; it is the free WiFi access in all of their restaurants worldwide - it does not matter whether you check-in to McD in New York, Beijing or Dubai - the WiFi is free of charge!

So, it is about a time that the international hotel companies (in all categories from budget to luxurious) also offer free WiFi in their guest rooms as a standard feature.

Sometimes, traveling outside your "home circles" can be a real eye-opener. Thank you Beijing!

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If you are like me, you don't have time to go to the fitness studio....

Here is a possible solution:

All I need to do now is to swing it, and get some cool exercise tricks thru youtube. Lovin' it already!

Nature is timeless.

Just look at this beautiful beaver which we encountered today in the Vienna woods.

There is a deeper message with the beaver: Wherever you are, be there totally!

If we would have asked this beaver "What time it is?" It would have probably answered: Of course it is now! What else is there!

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People get often so easily stressed, caused by being here but wanting to be there,...or being in the present but wanting to be in the future. But when you look at the beaver, he is totally focused on living in the moment, because that's all he's got. This is something we human beings tend to forget while living our mega-busy lives.

The Native Americans don't make a separation in between "work life", "home life" or "any other kind of life" -everything is life!

Life is meant to be lived in the "now" doing what makes your heart sing (...or if you are the beaver - what makes your tail slap).

When visiting Finland last time, I got myself a pair of Asics Arctic running shoes with spikes. The Finns know how to do it in winter...., so now I have no more excuses not to do in winter too...

With the combination of hard packed snow and ice today, Vienna provided the perfect settings to test these shoes. Considering the intake of red wine the evening before, I was glad finishing a reasonable workout in this beautiful Winter Wonderland...

It was just too much fun to run on ice and snow, without caring much about the sliding at all. These shoes are really awesome!

Before I was sliding all over the places. Now, I felt totally confident with each step on snow/ice and just ran without having to fear at all - ...and did not slip once!!

The spikes are amazing for keeping stable and secure on icy paths. They feel a bit "different" than usual running shoes feel, but are still very comfortable and great running shoes. Just remember to take them off before you walk on your hardwood floors inside (not like me :)...

Alternatively, you could just bring your old jogging shoes to a shoemaker, who will nail some screws on the sole. This will probably function as well on snow/ice. With Asics, you do have the advantage though, of being able to unscrew the spikes anytime, giving you perfectly fine running shoes on any weather...

Thinking out of the box is at least as important as thinking inside the box. Here are some practical things I personally recommend and practice to get my creative juices flowing. What are yours?

1. Take dancing classes (ballroom, latin, hey - even Finnish Tango...) 
2. Travel to new interesting places - perhaps one of the best things you can do to boost your creativity
3. Try meditation, go to church, or visit other spiritual places
4. Go to opera, musical or classical music concert
5. Learn a new language - commit yourself learning around 20 - 50 keywords daily and you'll master the basics (conversational to get you through) of any language in very short time. Try it! 
6. Try new & different foods, tastes and recipes daily - we have a friend coming over from Hong Kong shortly and the kids cannot wait to enjoy some real Asian cuisine...(not really, but us parents at least :)
7. In general break the routines of your life and do things differently (driving/bicycling/taking a horse carriage to work, eating with left/right hand,...) to stimulate your creativity
8. Do some volunteer work - see how good you'll feel when helping others. As you know, giving back to the universe is one of the best things you can do in life
9. Take a class in a subject you know nothing about - I am currently planing on things I never tried out such as laughter yoga, learning to play ukulele and learning to yodle (quite popular here in Austria, at least on the mountains)
10. Learn something new every day - dedicate yourself and put 15 minutes a day to learn something completely new. Think Kaizen! And live Kaizen!

Hope there are some ideas you can put on use for yourself. Cheers.

This is a view from the Empire State Building on 1.1.2011:

For best burgers (and delicious Maine Lobster as a matter of fact too) in town, head down to PJ Clarkes close to the Central Park: 

Sex Museum, what else?

We went to see Memphis (musical) this time, something to recommend to everyone visiting NYC. The birth of Rock 'n' roll:

To see more photos from my New Years NYC trip, please check out my flickr set in here.