Achieve 2009 feelings and elections

Achieve was such a different conference to me. I don’t know if it was because I was running for president of AIESEC Norway; or because I had to select the team that will work with me next year; or because I worked with very experienced people that gave me great insights; or because of the small number of people (nether less very important people) that were there; or because the organizing committee was so smiling and helpful; or because of the new people I met; or because of the old people I knew and met again; or because of Deniss, the Estonian chair; or maybe everything at once? I don’t know, but the thing is that Achieve 2009 in Trondheim was one of the most exciting conferences I had. Not tiring at all. Full of joy and fun - even when the problems came with the venue and everything needed to shift place one day before the conference actually started.

This is one of the moments that I am wordless. I just enjoyed the moment and lived it fully. And I could feel members were exactly with that feeling. I could see, maybe for the first time in large scale in Norway, their drive for the organization, their shining eyes and how much fun they had, even though it was hard work. It impressed me in several ways. I think MC, facilitators, OC, chair, LCPs, EBs and other delegates made the best they could out of it, took everything and contributed with everything. It was one AIESEC Norway, which I hope to keep for the next months to deliver in our huge goals. Because now we need to “achieve” as the conference name stated.

And, well, yes, I was elected the next president of AIESEC Norway, which throws me right to the infamous worst-paid-CEOs hall of fame. Not that I do it for the money, which obviously I don’t. I do it for basically 3 reasons:

1) what I will learn and take from leading and managing a country unit of a global organization with more than 33.000 members, present in more than 100 countries;

2) the belief I have in the organization, a true passion, a passion only possible because I experienced the product (the AIESEC experienced) and it trully changed my life by making me discover and develop my potential and what I want to do later in life;

3) the impact I can bring to AIESEC Norway, generating more results, which will turn up into more life-changing experiences like mine. Only this is a great deed on itself, I hope I am up to the task.

It’s hard to describe the feelings (including the happiness and the weight of the responsibilities), but for sure they are generally very good and, of course, lots of times very scaring. But I wouldn’t do it if it wan’t challenging and scaring, so I guess this is the right feeling.

Well, take some pictures of the conference and mine elections (in the next post, I will talk about the selection of my team):

The Talent Management team's rap...