Volkmar Völzke's BLOG

What are you getting upset about? What is annoying you? What irritates you?

No matter what your answer is, it is not the thing or the person that annoys you, but the connection to a story inside you.

"Whatever upsets you, reveals you" is old wisdom. In other words, you can only get upset or angry about something if you declare it important. And this importance usually comes from some "story" that we tell ourselves unconsciously.

Since it is rarely helpful for your success if you get angry (because it directs your energy to things that don't get you anywhere), I recommend that you get to the root of the problem - and then eliminate it if possible.

This insight is especially important when you are leading people. Their reactions are rarely to the actual thing, but rather to their inner reflections on it. 

The following tips will help you to deal better with "unpleasant" reactions, from others and from yourself:

1. Your world is not their world. What you associate with certain...

If your environment is not the way you’d like it to be, whose responsibility is this? If your team is not acting the way you’d like it to act, who is responsible for this? If any of your relationships – professionally or privately – are not the way you want them to be, who holds the responsibility? 

You guessed the answer: it is always YOU. Nobody else! And if you think now “well, I can’t control and influence everything!” then you are right. But you can always control your perception of the reality. For example, if you think your work environment sucks, there are two perspectives: your actual work environment and your perception. You can often change your work environment, and you can ALWAYS change your perception. 

You’ll almost always find people on this planet who would appreciate what you refuse. The difference is perception, the mirroring with our own psychological blueprint. 

Let’s make it...

I am sometimes asked about my online program, 100-Day Success Challenge: In business and personal life, shouldn't we be marathon runners rather than sprinters? And shouldn't we focus on the long term instead of just 100 days?

Good questions! My answer is quite simple: We need both.

Whoever only sprints runs the risk of exhausting him/herself too quickly. On the other hand, if you always focus on the "long distance," you often start too slowly and do not build up enough momentum.

It is an old adage: For big plans and goals, if the first actions are not started within 72 hours, usually they just remain plans and goals. We need momentum - and as quickly as possible!

(And because I see a weakness with many people, I have created the above-mentioned program.) 

Here are 3 items for which a sprint is always worthwhile, or even extremely important. I suggest that you take a look at them with your team:

1. Training of success habits. We cannot build habits if we only work at them with...

One of the behaviors I see too often in organizations is casualness. Perhaps you know the old saying: “Casualness leads to casualties.”

The performance of many businesses could improve dramatically if more people took a more serious approach to their jobs.

I think that too many people, particularly in management positions, try simply to “get through the day”.

This has nothing to do with taking time for recreation or being “easy-going”. But it has everything to do with responsibility for your own success and for the people around you. I believe we are here on earth to make this a better place, so let’s get serious about our mission. Each of us can do more and can become more effective.

Here are three ideas to get more results without investing much – except some discipline and a winning mindset:

1. Follow up on opportunities! I find it amazing how many opportunities in life and business show up, but pass by without anybody paying...

It’s an interesting thought: All of your failures and your reasons you don’t unleash your true potential come from ignorance of universal success laws. Sounds weird? Let me explain it with an analogy: 

You are consistently exposed to the law of gravity. The universe doesn’t care if you like it, if you agree to it, or if you ignore it. It simply works. When you let your smartphone slip through your fingers, it will inevitably fall. No protests help change this reality. 

Well, also for any success – and for happiness – there are universal laws at play. Their violation leads to mediocre results or even to massive failure. And that’s what happens to almost all businesses, teams, and people: They wonder why they are stressed and don’t achieve more (like others do). They take action here and there. However, if they don’t act more consistently to the universal laws, they will always remain below their potential. 

Here...

Everything is quite easy to understand—if you boil it down to the essential correlations. It’s usually only the implementation in daily life that is difficult.

If you ask parents what they wish for their children when they’re grown up, the answer is almost always, “Be happy!” That is how it works for each of us. In the end, we just want to be happy.

But what does that mean, exactly? Why do we often find it so difficult, and what does that have to do with you as a business leader?

The answer to these questions not only makes you a better leader but also helps you generate your own happiness.

Answer 1: If reduced to the essential, being happy means that we have peace of mind, which, in turn, comes from living in congruence with our inner drives (which are manifold) and from personal development (mental stagnation is unhappiness).

Answer 2: What stands in the way of our happiness are essentially our fears in various forms (because our inner drives...

Hey, you can achieve something great in the next 100 days! No, don’t play small:

You, your team, and your organization truly can achieve more than you might currently think is possible. 

I know this is true because I’ve studied success psychology and success methods long enough to tell you: It works! The process is simple. However, the execution is not easy. Big difference. And that’s exactly why most people and business do not even start. 

To help you, I created the unique online program “100 Day Success Challenge”. 

Here is what you need to do to make the next 100 days the best days ever (even if you don’t purchase my program): 

1. Accept the fact that you need to change your approaches. When you haven’t achieved substantial progress in the last 100 days (or even longer), the chances are your approach is not working well enough. So, get a new one!
2. Prepare your mind to be disciplined to advance in small, yet frequent...

Last weekend was Pentecost. Do you know why these holidays even exist? Chances are you don’t have an exact answer unless you’re a practicing Christian.

The interesting thing is that whether you know or understand the background of a holiday, you can still deal with it. This reminds me of the laws of nature. Whether you know or understand them or not, they will still affect you.

Gravity, for example, doesn’t care what you think about it or whether you agree with it. If you drop a plate, it will inevitably move towards the ground and probably shatter once it hits the floor. Therefore, the best strategy is to use gravity in a favorable way rather than lamenting it.

Why am I telling you this? Well, the same connections apply to “mental laws”—they exist regardless of your belief or ignorance. The winners in life will always be those who make better use of them than others.

Here are a few important examples of how to achieve more in life with more fun...

Do you know the phenomenal 3D pictures, where some can only see a three-dimensional image after looking at it in a certain way, while many never see it at all?

Here is an example:

Do you see the 3D image? You have to completely relax your eyes while looking at the picture.

I came across a book like this from the nineties the other day when I was tidying up, and was fascinated again. Why? Well, because something unexpected opens up exactly where you wouldn't expect it: in a 2D image that doesn't mean anything.

And there is another conclusion to take from this: what we see is an illusion anyway, constructed by our brain. In principle, this applies to everything in life and business.

What is the relevance of this for our leadership and business success?

Here are three tips that have the potential to make your leadership and your team much more effective:

1. Points of view. What one person sees very clearly may be completely hidden from the other. We all have certain clear fields of...

Did you know that the average car is only 6 km/h fast? Or that each email costs about 1 dollar? Or that certain computer software massively reduces productivity in ways you probably don’t even think about? You can read all of this in this article, which was published recently in a renowned Swiss newspaper (in German). 

So are we lost? Are we unable to increase productivity after all? Are we condemned to work harder and harder? 

Not at all! Let’s be serious: if you want to create more results and at the same time reduce your negative stress and uncertainty, there are three important levers. What is striking is that these are often neglected in so-called “productivity programs”. 

1. Mindset. You need to become serious about productivity! Don’t laugh – many have trouble with it, since this means simultaneously taking more responsibility for their own time. How much more convenient it is to sit for an hour in the next meeting!
2. Value...