TED talk,

As I mentioned in my previous post I was invited to give a TEDx talk in Osijek this week. First of all I want to thank Ivan for not only inviting me to speak, but paying my travel expenses and being such a great host of the whole event. I want to thank my friend Mickey who picked me up from the train station, took care of me so perfectly and went with me to the TED talk. This world is full of wonderful and inspirational people, I feel like they should be up on the stage speaking instead of me, but they are inspiring me every day through their simple acts of love and humility. Surely this unseen kindness and love is a far greater power to change the world then all of our bigger efforts in business and visionary action.

To get to the seminar I first car-shared a ride to Zagreb, everyone I REALLY recommend you use BlaBla car when travelling in Europe, not only is is safe and cheap, but a great way to meet new people, share your story and make friends. After arriving in Zagreb I wandered around a bit to check out the city before continuing on the train to Vinkovci. The next morning we went to the TEDx seminar, my talk was at 7.30 in the evening, so I had plenty of time to watch the other talks and get really nervous. The stage was pretty small and not intimidating, but I always get really bad nerves when performing or speaking. I often start to shake or get a bad stomach before any such things and I was definitely getting nervous before this one, especially when I saw that most other speakers did not have notes. Watching some of the other talks really helped to inspire before I went on stage, even though all the local speakers were in Croatian, there were also videos shown from all over the world, with great life advice. I suggest you all take a look at some of these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtBsl3j0YRQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

When it finally came my time to talk, I took a deep breath and told myself that no matter what happened it would not be the end of the world. I did feel really nervous but towards the middle of the talk it edged off and I felt strong confidence in my story and a real connection with the audience. Its such a fascinating story, its so hard to put it into 18 minutes and there were so many different phases we went through and so many things we learnt. To concise it is hard, to tell my life story or what I do in a few minutes is really hard… its such a big story with so many twists and turns, colours and shades.

I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the beautiful people that I met on this trip. I had the pleasure of staying with my friend Mickey for these two nights and met his mom. This crazy strong lady does not have a husband anymore and runs her farm single  she gets handed. 

She gets up in the morning to feed and care for the pigs and the chickens, to tend to their garden and clean and prepare food. She drives a tractor and is as tough as nails. When I look in her eyes I see a strong resilient toughness, a hardening from the many experiences she has had living in the part of Croatia that was one of the most violent areas during the recent wars. She must have seen so much sorrows, sadness and suffering. Yet shes not only tough, when you look at her you also see love, you see her care for me… a little girl from UK staying with her for just two days. Oh and did I mention she won awards for shooting a gun when she was younger, it was a really funny to see her take the airgun that they have at home in her hand, and practise her shots.

We also visited more of Mickeys family, all of them sure pure and beautiful.  I can’t describe to you how much I love these Balkan people, they are such good souls, so kind, so caring, so good from the inside out. I sometimes just stare at them and I am amazed, how can people who have gone through so much, been working their whole lives very hard, struggling for everything remain so pure hearted and good, with all the evil that they have seen, how can they do this. Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia…. Are truly special countries, truly special people.  You have to just walk into their homes to see that they are full of love, see the way they interact with each other, such strength,  such humour but above all such love. Everyone hugs and kisses each other, everyone speaks kindly, everyone shows trust and faith in you when you enter their homes.