The 5P's of Success

The 8-minute speech that has gone viral. Both in video format as well as in a written format.

Good-evening everyone!

Congratulations Dr. Christian H. K?lin for a very concise and informative speech.

We have just completed an 8-hour workshop with members of the Board of Directors and the trusted advisors at Henley & Partners (H&P). And even though in the conference roomthere were - in the conference room there were 22 different nationalities, all I saw was 63 unique and capable human beings.

As the world ‘flattens out’, thanks to the internet, the advancement in technology, the smart phone and the various social media platforms we are presented more and more with informed, enabled and empowered global citizens because all the above factors have enabled us to learn, talk and act together. It is less and less about our cultural differences and more about being able to connect with a human being that will determine how successful we become both as individuals and as organizations.

As I travel the world training and developing the leaders of tomorrow, from New York City to London, to Vienna to my home city of Limassol in Cyprus and I have reached one conclusion and found one common denominator.

We are not in the B2B (Business to Business) or B2C (Business to Consumer) but rather in the H2H (Human to Human) era.

In the H2H era the emphasis is placed more on two words (“human” and “being”) rather that (on) one word – (“label”). Label as in “black”, “white”, “American”, “Russian”, or “LGBT”, etc. Labels, my dear friends, usually end up in wars.

In the H2H era it is about getting one analogy right. It is exactly what I told the H&P executives when I was introducing my concept of “The Circle of Trust?”. This is the same analogy, according to my opinion, that helps H&P differentiate itself amongst its many competitors. That analogy is “Tension vs. Trust”.

Successful individual and organizations are the ones that manage to lower the “tension” and increase the “trust”. Because if they manage to do that they turn a transaction into an interaction. What's a transaction? It is an exchange of goods and services with money. What's an interaction? It is an exchange of emotions before any goods and services are exchanged. And as we all know the heart is closer to the pocket than the brain is. People buy emotionally and then they justify logically.

So if you would like to lower the tension and increase the trust in the H2H era, there are a few ways. I will only give you one way as I was only given 10 minutes to speak (laughter breaks!). Which is the “5P formula”:

1.    Be Positive: As my late father and my first ever Mentor, Rolando G. Virardi, who died 84 days to the date, used to say “Everyday we are given a choice: to be positive or … very positive. The choice is yours son." To my knowledge I do not recall a monument being erected to the most negative person on earth or to a committee.

2.    Be Present: Being fully present. Disraeli and Gladwell story to illustrate the point of being fully present. Also the Chinese symbol of listening which includes five very important words.

3.    Be Prompt: 24-hour rule, throw it out of the window. Michael R. Virardi’s rule of “7 x 7 x 7” rule in promptness. Example of Mathias Dockner and Marco Gantenbein of Henley & Partners who were very prompt in our exchange of correspondence.

4.   Be Passionate: Passion is fueled by enthusiasm and enthusiasm has its origins in the word "en-theo" which stands for = "The God within". It is a differentiator on its own

5.    Be Product centered: Know your product and your competitors inside out. This gives you "freedom of mind" to concentrate on your customers'/prospects' body language and their subliminal messages.

In closing my dear friends I would like to say it is all about connecting. One person at a time (not one culture at a time). Because everyone communicates but very few people connect. Hope that for the remainder of the 11th Global Residence and Citizenship Conference you not only communicate but you fully connect with one another (one person and one smile at a time) thus helping make this event and our world a more inter-connected one! Thank you very much and best of luck to all.