Another reason this event was so special was because for the first time in our Vemma business some of our leaders received recognition awards for Diamond and Platinum.

The event was held at the Maritim Hotel in a beautiful older style conference room in the style of a large theatre with a balcony all around and a huge stage with stairs on either side leading onto the balcony.

The reason I had a special interest in looking at the stage layout was to mentally prepare myself for my performance as Mick Jagger (the Rolling Stones Experience). I must say I was very impressed with the totally professional approach of the sound crew and especially Hanna Kugiel for her attention to detail and her kindness.

Fred Stege and Simon Grabowski and their support team did an outstanding job, with the whole day being filled with informative speakers good entertainment and an amazing lazer show to end the day.

According to Simon, 2010 will be even better.   Julieanne and I will definitely be there so we’ll see you there.

P. S. The pictures here are one of the little gadgets in with out bag of convention goodies. It is a tiny little replica of a Verve energy drink can with a USB memory stick, which we will make very good use of.

Looking forward to seeing you there! We may not post much while away.

Bye…

And, guess who’s playing there?

Executive leader John van Zyl, is playing as Mick Jagger!

Here is the entertainment page for Vemma Royale Europe:  Europe convention

Maybe you’re thinking “So, why should I read this stuff?”.

Who is this John van whoever, and what’s all this going to do for me?

What I’m about to tell you has happened to millions of people in some way or other and you could be one of them.

I’m going to show you how reading Richard Brooke’s “Mach 11 with Your Hair on Fire” has changed my life.

And, I’m going to give you the book too, so just hang in there OK?

I need to go back in time just briefly so this whole thing makes sense. I was always a confident kid even though for the first couple of years in school my English skills were poor (my family emigrated from Holland when I was 6).

By Grade 5 I loved music and badly wanted to be the lead drummer in the school marching band.

I practised for hours and then cunningly asked the principal if I could fill in if the other drummer was absent or sick.

The principal who was about to teach his grade 7 class asked me to get the drum and play in front of his class.

I did it without hesitation playing it precisely and with more flair than he’d heard it before.

At the end he said, “Good, you can start tomorrow, the other guy can fill in for you”.

In high school I was influenced by the super cool dudes
of that time: James Dean, Marlon brando, and Elvis.

It was cool to be rebellious and NOT to go with the flow.

After high school I spent many years as a musician travelling around the country, still very confident and somewhat of a legend in my own mind, as so many Rock Musicians seem to be.

Suddenly after years of Rock ‘n Roll bands, I decided it was time to change direction.

I needed something new, exciting, challenging, something where I would be totally responsible for my own success, rather than depending on the rest of a band’s input, ideas and perhaps dedication.

I chose to play piano, and practised furiously for 5 yrs, about 3 hours a day and WOW, I discovered Billy Joel.

I played every BJ record I could get 1,000 times, knew all his lyrics, could practically see him walking around Manhattan or Long Island.

I could visualize the kind of place he would have played in when he started out.

An end of year concert came up at my piano teacher’s music school.

I convinced my teacher I could play and sing Billy Joel’s “She’s Always a Woman”.

My first public performance and doing that!!!

I must have been crazy .

I got about a third of the way through and looked out at the audience that were staring back at me and FROZE.

I was used to being on stage as a lead singer, surrounded by lights,
smoke machines, sound crew and other band members.

But now, there was just me!

After trying to kick start the piece 3 times, I stood up and lifted the lid on the piano and said

“Jim get outta there” (trying to pass it off as a joke).

After that, I walked off the stage with half the audience laughing.

After this experience, I went into a shell type of existence, lost a lot of confidence and after 2 years of semi enthusiastic practise, gave up
piano all together.

Since that performance, that one REAL performance, I have re-lived it 1,000 times at least.

I could remember the line where I blew it, I could still see my teacher’s face feeling so bad for me when at last I walked off.

I could still see my fingers on the keyboard not responding. That was 15 years ago.

Recently, I read Richard’s book and realized how much that one performance affected my life and music career.

I found it impossible to stay away from music (what is life without music, I can’t imagine) and now I play and teach Classical Guitar.

It’s the hardest thing I have ever done, man it’s sooo hard, but so beautiful I can’t resist.

Believe it or not, I have performed at my student’s concerts, which I held in the same hall and on the same stage I demolished my piano career.

I felt very very nervous on those same floor boards,
with this little voice inside my head saying

“remember this stage”?

“Do you really want to do this, do you?”

“Are you nuts”?

“What are your students going to think when you stuff up”?.

Now comes the amazing part of my story!

I read Richard Brooke’s “Mach 11 with Your Hair on Fire”.

I read it again and then again, and slowly it started to sink in.

This one bad performance, affected me, my personality,
confidence, self-esteem, and even my attitude towards other
performers for all these years.

Richard Brooke talks about focusing on those
good movies inside your head, and eliminating the bad
ones.

Since reading his book, I now focus on the people who say
my playing is great, not that one poor performance.

I just find some positive movie to put inside my head and forget the others.

It’s a great feeling, and it’s allowing me to do the things I have always wanted to do.

We come to the link for Richard Brooke’s book.

You can read it online or print it out.

But, please read it more than once , keep reading it until it sinks in!!

Just click below to read the book:

Richard Brooke’s “Mach 11 with Your Hair on Fire”

I hope the book changes your life like it has mine!

Bye for now,

John (and Julieanne) from Down Under

” If you Don’t Have a Dream,
How you Gonna Have a Dream Come True?”

However, FaceBook is now public and will soon be all over the search engines. I recommend that you:

1) Join Facebook here – http://www.facebook.com

2) Then, to learn the best way to set up your FaceBook page, visit my Facebook Page here at
MLM Internet Network Marketing Tips

Remember to select your keywords carefully before creating the page, so your page will be seen in the search engines easily.

For more updates, follow me at Twitter here:  Julieanne van Zyl

www.flickr.com Julieanne’s Vemma Convention 2009

Here are some photos of the Vemma Convention 2009 and our trip to the Grand Canyon. Click on following if you’d like to see the rest, or Just refresh your screen to see different ones!: Vemma Convention 2009

www.flickr.com Julieanne’s Vemma Convention 2009

When we got to Tahiti, we got off the plane, went through the check out, they gave us a boarding pass, and we went straight onto another plane.  The passengers on that plane had been waiting for over an hour for us to arrive.  We were late landing in Los Angelos and a few people missed their connecting flight.  John and I rushed off the plane, got through customs and all the finger print taking as quickly as possible, then almost ran with all our baggage to Terminal 1 – South West Airlines, to catch the plane to Vegas.  We made it with 10 minutes to spare.  That was a bit stressful!!  

I will write later with news about the convention, which was fantastic!!

There are a lot more countries opening in 2009 so stay tuned.

1.  Do research on your market to discover what your prospective customers and business builders want.

2.  Attract Visitors to your Websites.

3.  To encourage these visitors to become customers or business builders, build a relationship with them.

We have divided those 3 things into smaller steps, to describe how to make this work.  A lot of people start their business with a recommendation to purchase leads.  Puchasing leads “sounds like” a better and faster approach, but as you may have learned already, it doesn’t work for everyone.  I agree, it does work for a lot of people, and there are also a lot of people it doesn’t work for.  Go to the following page to see our MLM Internet Steps

Watch this video to see an Introduction to the system training:

Watch the Video below to find out more..

On Tuesday we walked to  the Colysseum and a very old church.

That night we went out and John had his first pizza in Rome, which was delicious. On Wednesday, we got one of those tour buses which takes people right round to all the tourist places, and lets people out at a stop, then you can get back on again, when the next bus comes.

We got off at the Vatican and were lucky enough to see the Pope, along with thousands of other people.

Damjan took some time off work to take us to the airport and Svetlana came also. Peter was also there to see us off, with another surprise. He had spent part of the night putting the video onto a DVD for us. Peter and Damjan talked to that man at Jat and he fixed the flight for us.

The plane from Ljubljana to Belgrade was noisy and rocky, but we made it to Belgrade okay. Belgrade Airport was chaos. It was okay except for the transfer counter. We explained to the clerk, that we had missed our flight from Belgrade to Rome because Jad had cancelled the previous flight. One clerk informed us that we would have to wait for the next Jad flight, which was the next morning. I had visions of spending the night in the airport after all. John almost screamed “no no” we have a flight with Alitalia. The lady looked at the tickets again, and said “I see, don’t worry it’s our fault that you missed the flight, so we will check it. Come back in 20 minutes”.

We went back and were told to take the tickets to the Alitalia counter so we could receive our boarding pass. The plane was not scheduled to leave for another 3 hours, so we were told to come back at 2 pm and get the boarding pass. At 2 pm, we went back and they asked us to come back in 20 minutes. We went back and our boarding passes and luggage tickets were almost organized, when a big crowd of people came rushing to the transfer desk. One lady pushed in and asked when she could get her boarding pass because her next flight was boarding. There were about 20 people in the same predicament.

Then another large group of people said their flight was just about to leave for Moscow, so the lady started printing their boarding passes. Meanwhile, the other group seemed to be forgotten. They were not told this, but I believe someone called the flight and asked them to wait for the passengers. So, we stood there for 45 minutes while all the other urgent “cases” were dealt with. Suddenly, the clerk said “van Zyl” and gave us our passes. We were just in time to board our plane. The Alitalia plane was very nice and comfortable, and I even had 3 seats to myself.

At last we arrived at the Leonardo da Vinci airport, Rome. I had found out on the internet how easy it would be to get to our hotel. All we needed to do, was get the train to Rome Termini, get out and walk a few metres to the hotel. However, we had another one of those unplanned incidents (yes, instead of taking Abraham Hicks advice, we were living by default!). This time we were relaxing in the train, and I said to John, this is easy now, we just sit here until it stops at the Termini, then get out. After traveling for what seemed far too long, we started to wonder. I asked the 2 ladies opposite me if they spoke English, and they said “no”. (thank goodness that word is the same in Italian and English). I got out one of the map’s Peter had given us, and showed them Station Termini, and they both said loudly “no no no no no”!! They tried to explain to us in Italian, then a lady came forward and said “can I help, I speak English”. We explained, and she said you should get out at the next station, then catch another train. So, we rushed out with all our luggage, climbed some stairs, and found a station master. He told us what to do, and we got on another train, and got off 3 stops later.

However, this was a big station and we weren’t sure which platform to go to.

We asked some people and they didn’t seem to know, then a young man came up to us and said “you want to go Termini station, follow me”. We followed him very fast, and he took us to the right station, and finally we were at Rome Termini at 9.30 pm (we should’ve been there about 5.30 ).

There were some “not very nice” characters hanging round so we hurried over to McDonalds to get something to eat, and found some Americans who told us what street we were on. Then, we used Peter’s map (thank you so much Peter!) to find our hotel. We used those maps all the time! Getting to the hotel was bliss!!!

Go to Next:- A few days in Rome

However, when we got to the top, the breathtaking views made us forget our fears. The photos demonstrate some of the beauty, nothing can replace actually seeing it ourselves!

Next, we saw the highest mountain in Slovenija named Trijlv, which is 2000 metres high. Here’s a photo of some of the Alps:

Then, we went to that picturesque village of Bled, which is the most beautiful village I’ve ever seen. We drove round a huge lake, and in the middle of the lake is a little island with a castle on it. This gives you a little bit of an idea what it’s like…

Lake Bled, in Slovenija

The scenery is magnificent!! We climbed another castle Bohingsko Castle to look at the lake and shot some video with the lake in the background. Another view of the lake…

We went to a restaurant for coffee and to meet with Ursa, and take some photos of all of us.

After that, Damjan wanted to show us Bohinj in the Alps, which is usually just as beautiful as the lake, when the sun is out. We took a long time to get there, and ended up going through a very picturesque forest for about an hour, where there are wild strawberries and blueberries growing when there has been a lot of warm weather. The forest is beautiful.

When we arrived at Bohinj, the sun had gone behind the clouds so we couldn’t see the effect of the sun on the Alps. We did see it later when we drove past again.

We drove back to the restaurant where Ursa cooked us a delicious meal. Damjan and John had steak, and Svetlana and I had chicken and vegetables. The meal was obviously cooked with a lot of love put into it, thanks Ursa!

It was getting close to the time when we should be at the airport, ready for us to fly to Belgrade, then to Rome. I was getting a little nervous because the time was getting close. Peter was at the airport waiting to meet us, and he called to say that there were no flights to Belgrade that night! I was not looking forward to our flight to Belgrade because we were to stay in Belgrade airport for the night, then wait until 7 am for our flight to Rome. We planned on sleeping at the airport because there was not much time to go to a Hotel.

Our original plan was to pick up a car at the Rome airport and drive about 450 kms to a resort south of Naples. However, we found out in Amsterdam about our card not being accepted by rental car companies, so on the internet I found a hotel in Rome and booked it, so we could stay there until Thursday, when our flight was booked to go home to Australia.

Anyway, we arrived at the airport and found that Jat (the Serbia airlines we were meant to fly with) was not open, and there was NO flight to Belgrade. At the information desk, the person told us that Jat was only open Monday to Fridays, and we should come back in the morning to speak with them. There’s another lesson learned for me – always check the plane flights before leaving home and 3 days before the actual flight. Svetlana was kind enough to offer us her apartment for the night, and she went to sleep at her parent’s home, because there was only one bed.

In the meantime, Peter took some more video in front of the Alps, then we drove up a very steep mountain to a restaurant that Damjan’s father owned at one time.


The views from there were magnificent also. Peter had more surprises for us, he gave us a DVD tour of Rome, and some wonderful maps that we made good use of during our stay in Rome.

So, we slept at Svetlana’s and I awoke at 4 am to call the booking agent (BestFlights.com.au )in Australia. They were of no assistance at all, saying they couldn’t issue us with another ticket. They claimed that because we had paper tickets, there was no way they could send us more tickets. BestFlights suggested we purchase more tickets, and they would refund us for the tickets we already had, when we got home.

Go to Next:- Getting to Rome

After that, Svetlana drove Damjan’s BMW down along the coast to Piran, a very beautiful part of Slovenia, with many very old buildings, some were 500 years old. Svetlana is a good driver, although one time I caught her driving 160 kms an hour!! We took a long walk along the sea and Damjan pointed out Croatia (we yelled out to Drago but he didn’t reply) on one side and Italy on the other.

We stopped at a restaurant for a yummy fish platter of some whole fish (not sure what kind), calamari and prawns. John had spaghetti bolognaise.

There were lots of beautiful old buildings to look at ..

While we were down by the sea, we went to a beautiful church where we looked at all the amazing paintings, especially on the ceilings. Damjan pointed out that one picture showed each of our states of consciousness, from those bad feelings that make us feel like we are in hell, to those emotions where we are happy and feel really good, and to those of the highest spirit. Religion often identifies these states as “hell”, living and “heaven”.

On the way back to the car, we saw lots of old cars from a car rally:

That night we met Peter at the Hotel, and he had some beautiful gifts for us to remember Slovenia. One of them is a DVD of the Alps, which I can’t wait to watch, and another that John and I both love is a CD of Rolling Stones and Queens music played by a Symphony Orchestra. I love rock music played by a classical orchestra! And a poetry book by a famous Slovenian poet, and translated into English by a very clever person who obviously knows English and Slovenian, plus poetry very well. And, some Blueberry Brandy, which is the most delicious alcoholic drink I’ve ever tasted! Next time we come, we’ll buy a bottle. I’m so pleased customs didn’t search our bags!

That’s Peter between Julieanne and Damjan – with the orange shirt!

Damjan and Svetlana gave us gifts from Slovenia also, which we should leave wrapped until we get home, so they are safe in our suitcase. I can’t wait to see what they are!! One of them is a beautiful clock with a picture of Bled Lake on it, with the little island and castle (in the middle of the lake) and the Alps in the background. The other is a beautiful Vase and Jug- called a “majolka”, with “Slovenija” written on it!!

Go to Next:- Castles, Alps and Forests in Slovenia

Time flew fast, and soon we were flying down into Ljubljana. I was so excited because Damjan and Svetlana were both there to meet us! They escorted us around for the whole weekend, and were the most hospitable people I have ever met. They took us everywhere in Damjan’s nice BMW, which was very comfortable and drives very fast! Here’s Svetlana driving 160 kms an hour

Slovenia must be the most beautiful country in the world, it’s certainly the most beautiful I have ever seen!!

First of all, Damjan and Svetlana took us to a nice restaurant near the airport, for some really nice food that I can’t remember the name of (sorryJ. Then, they took us to our Hotel, and left us to rest for 2 hours before coming back with Michael Voglar and his Mum, Nada.

Above is Mihael, Nada, Damjan and Julieanne

We had a good chat with them, and then went off for dinner at a Pizza restaurant, with very yummy pizza. When we’d finished, we met Tilly and Tiara, some business partners of Damjan’s.

Go to Next:- By the Sea in Slovenia

And, at last we found an ATM that gave us money using our credit card. We celebrated with an ice-cream then made our long journey home. We tried “hitching”, and a few people slowed down and we got all excited about getting a ride, then they changed their minds and took off.

On Tuesday we awoke very early, and walked down to meet our taxi, taking photos along the way. Here’s our bungalow:

I saw a tiny little squirrel and took a photo of him, but I was a bit too far away. We met some really really nice people in all the countries we visited! One man in particular helped us a lot and we appreciated him sooo much. At the Appledoor train station, there was no-one in the ticket office, and there was only an automatic ticket machine. We weren’t sure what to do, so John asked a man who was drinking his coffee, if he could direct us to where we should get the train. He did much more than that! He set down his coffee, took us to the automatic machine, and typed in what we needed to get to the village where John’s cousin lives. We inserted our credit card to pay for the tickets and the card wouldn’t work again! So, this wonderful man used his own card and we paid him cash for the tickets. Then, he took us to the correct train platform, and wrote down where we had to change trains. He was very helpful to us!

After asking conductors, and going up and down lifts and stairs with our 7 pieces of baggage, at 3 different train stations, we finally arrived at Goes in Zeeland, where John’s cousin and her husband were waiting to meet us. It was so nice to have someone meet us at the train station.

We went back to their home by a beautiful river, had some lunch, then went downtown for John to have a very potent drink of beer (3 times the normal amount of alcohol that he’s used to), and do some sightseeing. Art and Gerda took us for a drive showed us some windmills, and the sea, and some beautiful old buildings. Here’s one of the windmills:

We met up with another cousin and an uncle later, and all went out for dinner. Meanwhile, John started to suffer the effects of the worse hangover he’s ever had. That beer really got to him, and he spent the next day and a half in bed. We were supposed to go to Rotterdam, but John’s hangover was way too bad!

There were some beautiful houses in the little village where we stayed with John’s other cousin, Corrie. She was very hospitable and her and I managed to communicate even though she spoke only a little English and I spoke no Dutch. Corrie lives in a beautiful brand new home, and she was kind enough to give us her upstairs room and bathroom for 3 nights.

Here is Corrie opening the front door of her brand new beautiful house:

Go to Next: -  Slovenia here we come!

We went over to the Budget rent a car, and started giving our details, when they asked us for a credit card. We gave them our credit card and said our Visa card couldn’t be used simply because it had “debit” written on it. It is definitely a credit card, and I don’t know why the financial institution has “debit” written on it, but the lady at Budget’s decision was final, it didn’t matter what we said, they wouldn’t let us have the car, not even by paying cash up front. There’s a lesson to be learnt – don’t go overseas without a credit card that will be accepted by car rental companies. We tried the 5 other companies and some wouldn’t accept our card, others didn’t have an available car.

John was very upset and I was busy thinking of a solution, a way to reach the resort. We decided to get a bus, and discovered that nearly all the bus services in Holland were on strike for 2 weeks. A taxi driver told us it would cost about 200 Euros ( around $320 ) to be driven to the village of Eirbeek. So, we spoke with the lady at the airport information desk and she told us which trains to catch to take us to the nearest village – Appledor, then catch a taxi from there. It ended up costing us nearly 100 euros for the trains and the taxi, which was about what the rent a car was going to cost, except this was only one way. After the trip, John told me he had been thinking of other places we could stay, because he didn’t want to be isolated in Eirbeek for the rest of the week. We had booked the car so we could travel around easily, and also visit Rotterdam where John was born, and visit his cousins and uncle in another village.

This is a very small section of the resort forest – there were 300 bungalows throughout the forest, you can see the roof of one in the distance:

The resort was beautiful, but we had no internet access and they made us pay extra for everything, even linen and teatowels. All the resorts we’d stayed in previously had included linen and all facilities, plus tea, coffee, milk and some other goodies, in the cost of the weekly fee for the resort. Plus we had no means of transport, unless we paid another 42 Euros for a taxi to take us to the nearest train station at Appledoor.

Go to Next: –
Moving from Resort

We all had lunch together at a nice Italian restaurant and talked and took some photos.

From left to right, Ivan (Croatia), Ljubo (Croatia), Damjan (Slovenija), John (Australia), and Drago (Croatia).

It was a full schedule at the convention, with leaders from many different countries speaking and also a well known doctor talking about Mangosteen and Minerals. We took some photos, spoke with Peter Francis, met Marie Francis (Peter’s wife ) for the first time, Fred Stege, and Renze Deelstra.

From Left to Right – Ljubo (Croatia), John (Australia), Damjan (Slovenia), Fred Stege (Director of Vemma Europe), Drago (Croatia), Julieanne (Australia)

From Left to Right - Ljubo (Croatia), Damjan (Slovenia), John (Australia), Peter Francis (Australian Star Ambassador), Julieanne (Australia), and Drago (Croatia).

From Left to Right – Damjan (Slovenia), Renze Deelstra (Ambassador leader in Holland) John (Australia), Julieanne (Australia), Drago (Croatia) and Ljubo (Croatia).

After the convention, Damjan and the people from Croatia headed for home, while we had a delicious dinner with other Vemma members. We sat with Fred ten Haff and his wife, and some other very nice people, who’s names I’ve also forgotten (I’m sorry).

Later, Damjan told us a funny story about their trip home. Ljubo wanted to drive, so he drank his can of Verve Energy drink that he was given at the convention, and was so full of energy, he wanted to drive from Amsterdam to Slovenia (about 1500 Kms) without stopping. Drago wanted a toilet stop but Ljubo kept putting him off saying “next station” “next station” “next” until 6 stations later and driving very fast, they were still going after 5 hours. They got to Germany very quickly!!

Meanwhile we ended our Saturday by visiting the Red Light District again because John wanted to see it at night time.

Go to next -
Travelling from Amsterdam to Resort

The girls in the windows looked only about Jessica’s age (18 years). We saw the Flower Markets and the canals, and enjoyed looking at all the buildings in rows, down the narrow streets.

The buildings are much older and have more character than those in Australia.

On Friday night, we went to a reception for Vemma leaders and spoke to lots of people we’d met in Vegas at the 2007 United States convention. We also met up with Peter Francis, Tom Alkazin, Fred Stege and Renze Deelstra. We had a good time speaking to Menno and Regina, who knew us from the internet.

Go to Next: Vemma Convention