What You Stand For

Some years ago, while in corporate life, I was fortunate to be selected to attend a highly regarded leadership training programme, along with about thirty other senior and middle managers.

At one point during the course, we were confronted with the somewhat nerve wracking task of announcing to the group – in the context of the business that we were all part of – what we personally stood for.

The guidelines were simple. “Proclaim to the group clearly, and in as few words as possible, what it is that you, as a leader, stand for.”

Remote Possibilities

No matter what you may think about the hyper connected world we live in today – and thanks to our media, its not hard to believe we are all going to hell in a hand basket – there’s no doubt that the Internet, voice over IP (Skype, for example) and other modern technologies available to us have opened up opportunities that our parents could only have dreamed of.

Even though many of our governments work to impose constraints and restrictions to uphold nationalistic ideals, the truth is that there is more free exchange between world citizens now, than at any time in the past. And that trend will continue to accelerate.

What, if anything, are you doing to capitalise on this trend?

Goal Setting. Goal Getting

Master the simple art of goal setting and getting and you could find your life turned on its head (in a very positive sense of course!)

Here are four of my favourite tips:

The Authentic You

One of the many wonderful sources of the inspirational quotes that we include in the New Insights Life Coach Training programme is a lady who calls herself Oriah Mountain Dreamer,

Oriah is a Canadian teacher who has had the privilege of studying with and learning from native American elders who gave her the medicine name Mountain Dreamer.

Some years ago, after attending a party and making a real effort to be sociable – asking all the usual questions – she went home feeling hollow as if she had just ‘gone through the motions’. And so she picked up a pen and wrote this provocative and intensely inspiring  ‘invitation’:

Ja, well, no, but…

I always giggle at the silly, yet commonplace statements we frequently use – without thinking whether they really mean anything.

Take the UK, for example …

“Yeah, not bad” is pretty much a standard response to any inquiry about personal wellbeing, though it doesn’t convey much of substance.

And in South Africa …

“Ja … well … no … but …” is one of the favourite answers when one wants to deflect a troublesome question such as: “Have you washed the car yet?

Inertia

Bodies at rest tend to stay at rest!

This is what my school PT instructor (with ambitions to be a physics teacher) used to bark at us as we sat in the change room contemplating an energy sapping session of star jumps and burpees outside in the cold winter weather.

The Happiness Factors

The Law of Attraction was at it again yesterday …

I spent Saturday night at a reunion with people from my era who had grown up and been schooled in the Helderberg basin.

What fun it was to reconnect with friends and colleagues after so many years. It was a truly happy event and as I reflected on the evening yesterday, I made up my mind to write about happiness this week.

Yesterday morning, as I drove into town, I thought about the various perspectives from which one could write about happiness. I diverted briefly to pick up a takeaway coffee and, on a whim, added a newspaper to my purchase. I had to smile …

… A quick glance inside revealed a supplement called ‘Life’ with a feature article titled ’12 Secrets of being happy’.

“Someone else has done my work for me,” I thought, happily!