What difference are you making?

"You`re not here to make a living; you`re here to make a difference" 
- Andrew Matthews

People often believe that it takes a special kind of person to touch lives and
 change them for the better, but the truth is, everyone of us has the potential
 to do that almost everyday, often without even noticing it........

There was an art teacher at a local high school. He had been there for many
years and was well liked and respected by colleagues and students alike. On one
 particular day he was visited by an ex student, returning after four or five years
 to show off her wedding ring, her new baby and her promising career.
 He remembered her as a quiet, plain girl who mostly kept herself to herself
 and was generally quite shy. Now she was a confident young woman, and a
 mother. She had come to see her former art teacher for a specific reason.

“When I was in high school,” she explained, “my stepfather abused me.
 He hit me and came into my bed at night. It was horrible. I was deeply
 ashamed. I told no one. No one knew.

Finally, I decided I`d had enough. My parents went away for a weekend, 
leaving me alone for the first time. I planned my escape.

They left on Thursday evening, so I spent the entire night preparing. I did 
my homework,wrote a long letter to my mother, and organised my belongings.
 I bought a roll of wide plastic tape and spent an hour taping all the outside doors
 and windows of the garage from the inside. I put the keys in the ignition of my 
mother`s car, put my teddy bear on the passenger`s seat and then went up to bed.

My plan was to go to school as usual on Friday and catch the bus home, as usual.
 I would wait at home until my parents called, talk to them, and then go to the
 garage and start the engine. I thought nobody would find me until Sunday 
afternoon when my parents returned. I would be dead. I would be free.”

She stuck to her plan until the last lesson of the day, her art class. When her
 teacher sat on a stool next to her, looked at her artwork and slipped an arm 
around her shoulder. He made small talk. He complimented her on her ability, 
asked a few questions, listened to her answers, squeezed her arm gently
 and moved on. That was it.

She went home that Friday afternoon and wrote a second, different letter of
 goodbye to her mother. She removed the tape from the garage and packed her 
teddy bear with the rest of her belongings. Then she called her priest, who
 immediately came for her. She left her parent`s home and never went back. 
Her life turned a corner at that point and she gave her art teacher the credit.

 “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a
 listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which
 have the potential to turn a life around”

                             - Leo Buscaglia

Isn`t it interesting that in the politically correct world in which we live, where to
 touch a pupil would be distinctly discouraged and spending time on idle chit chat 
would be deemed “wasted” time, in this particular situation, with this particular
 teacher, it seemed perfectly natural. He probably used that approach a hundred
 times.It was his style. It was natural. It saved a life.

 To him it was nothing special. To this particular student, at this particular
 time it altered her entire life. She decided in that moment, in that art class,
 that if a casually friendly teacher cared enough about her to take the time to stop,
 make contact, look at her and listen to her, then there must be other people who
 cared about her too.

After all these years she had come back to tell him that he had saved her life!

The key point here is, he didn`t even remember the incident!

Whose life have you changed today??

 Whose life will you change tomorrow?

"The 10 Pillars of Wisdom" - (or what your mother should have told you!)

1.                 “YOU WILL RECEIVE A BODY”

You may like it, you may hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around. So many people are dissatisfied with their bodies, particularly young people. 

Recommendation:- Learn to like it! Look after it! It is difficult to have a healthy self esteem, if you don`t like yourself. Good self esteem and a strong positive self image are essential to long term success and happiness.

2.                 “YOU WILL LEARN LESSONS”

You are enrolled in a full time informal school called life. Each day in this school , you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid. (You may not even realise that they are lessons at all! – and if so, you won`t learn from them. Have you ever noticed how certain things happen to certain people?

Every time someone abuses you, each time you blow a sale, or your girlfriend/boyfriend dumps you, there was a lesson staring you in the face. If you find yourself being miserable most of the time, it`s likely you`ve missed a lesson somewhere along the line.

We are not here to be punished  -  we are here to be educated!

Everything that happens to us has the potential to transform us.

ACT AS IF EVERY EVENT HAS A PURPOSE AND YOUR LIFE WILL HAVE A PURPOSE.

3.                 “A LESSON IS REPEATED UNTIL LEARNED”

A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When we fail to learn a lesson, we get to take it again and again! Once we have learned a lesson we move on to the next one. We reach points in our lives when we are ready for new information (it`s called maturity!) Until then, something could be staring us in the face and we don`t recognise it. So life provides us with gentle reminders and if we don`t respond, it gives us a nudge, and then a slap at the back of the head!

“Growth is most painful when we resist it!”

Because most people fear change, they don`t change until they have to:-

They exercise and diet – after the coronary

They study at school and begin to work hard – when they`re about to fail

They start to deliver excellent customer service – when the customers are leaving

They work on the marriage – when the relationship is falling apart

Winners recognise the lessons earlier – losers ignore the warning signs.

And when we are forced to learn the lesson, what do we often find - 

“That`s the best thing that ever happened to me!”

4.                 “THERE ARE NO MISTAKES, ONLY LESSONS”

There is no failure, only feedback! Growth is a process of trial and error and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately “works”. 

We often celebrate our successes – but we don`t learn too much. Negative feedback is a powerful teacher. When did we get the most negative feedback? As kids! Everything was a steep learning curve. Did we think of it as failure? No! So when did we suddenly get the idea that failure was wrong?

5.                 “LEARNING DOES NOT END”

There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive there are lessons to be learned, which is bad news for those people who thought that learning stopped when they left school/university! Does life get simpler? No! But you can learn to handle it better. We know that we have to keep retaking lessons until we have learned them, but the other inference of this pillar of wisdom is, we should proactively learn. The future belongs to those who keep learning. What have you learned recently?  What new skills have you acquired?

6.                 “THERE", IS NO BETTER THAN “HERE”

When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here”. Otherwise known as “the greener grass syndrome”. Learn to love what you do – cut out jealousy and envy of others. If you want to be “there” instead of “here” because you are surrounded by problems “here”, don`t be surprised if when you get “there”, you find the same set of problems you had when you were “here”!(because you probably took them with you). Remember, you create your own environment.

7.                 “OTHERS ARE MERELY MIRRORS OF YOU”

You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself. Lesson no. 1. Start learning to love yourself. One of the most important gifts you can give anyone is the gift of self esteem – helping people feel good about themselves. What about your own self esteem? What kind of self image have you designed? Some people are well balanced – They have a chip on both shoulders! 

8.                 “WHAT YOU MAKE OF YOUR LIFE IS UP TO YOU”

You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours. Life is all about choices:-

“The entirety of one`s adult life is a series of personal choices, decisions. If we can accept this totally, then we become free people. To the extent to which we do not accept this we will forever feel victims”  -  The Road Less Travelled (M. Scott Peck)

 When you ask people what they want out of life they say happiness, guess what - Happiness is a choice!  It`s all in your attitude. You choose your attitude. The facts don`t count. The fact that it rains has nothing to do with how you feel – unless you let it!

The fact that someone cuts you up on the motorway doesn`t bother you unless you let it!

The fact that you didn`t get a job doesn`t mean that you are a loser unless you think that!

"Men are disturbed, not by the things that happen to them, but rather by their opinion of the things that happen" - EPICTETUS.

9.                 “YOUR ANSWERS LIE INSIDE YOU”

All the world`s great philosophers, teachers, leaders and wise men since the beginning of recorded time Confucius, Lao Tzu, Jesus, Buddha are agreed in one thing -

The answers to life`s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust. They hadn`t got the benefit of modern neuro science, they had no knowledge of the power of the subconscious. We can now explain  some of what they knew instinctively. They just knew that when people meditated they got insights, answers, truths. We know that the bio computer is capable of solving virtually any problem that you pose it. Many of the world`s greatest discoveries have come as flashes of inspiration after a period of concentrated  thought/meditation or even sleep ( Study MOZART, McCARTNEY, EDISON to see how this phenomenon operates)

Plant the seed, wait, listen and trust!

10.     “YOU WILL FORGET ALL THIS”

(Adapted from Cherie Scott Carter)

For some powerful, positive affirmations  check out this video:-

The most important words in the English language

                                      “The Power of words”

It is often stated that,” It`s not what you say, but what you do”, that counts. Nevertheless, words are still the building blocks of communication.

The combination of certain words can have a real impact. If you want to build relationships and high performing teams, these are some of the most potent combinations:-

THE 6 MOST IMPORTANT WORDS…… 

“I`m sorry I made a mistake” 

There isn`t a human being who hasn`t made a mistake, but there are plenty who would never admit it! It is often quoted that it takes a “big man” to admit when he`s wrong. Most just ignore it or get into the “Blame Game” syndrome and start pointing the finger. One of the hallmarks of a truly mature human being is the ability to accept total responsibility for their lives, their actions and their behaviours – good or bad, right or wrong. Many people mistakenly believe that if you are a manager or hold some prestigious title you aren`t allowed to make mistakes! Of course you are! More importantly, if you are not, you are not trying hard enough. People actually like to work for someone who is human like them! Nobody likes a “Peter Perfect” neither do they want a “Calamity Jane”, but there is a desperate need for someone, somewhere to accept full responsibility when things go wrong. “I`m sorry”, is a good start.

THE 5 MOST IMPORTANT WORDS……… 

“You did a good job” 

Positive feedback and recognition are “endorphins for the soul”. Human beings thrive on them. In fact they can only thrive if they get enough of them, enough of the time. Unfortunately, there are still managers who subscribe to the old paradigm of, “Why should they be rewarded for doing a good job when that`s what they get paid to do?” These people clearly have no idea about human nature. It is this kind of blinkered , ignorant, one dimensional thinking that gets just the response it deserves, i.e. “minimalist employees”, who do just enough and no more. Positive recognition costs nothing and yet delivers so much.

THE 4 MOST IMPORTANT WORDS……. 

“What is your opinion?” 

Where there is no involvement, there is no commitment. How can we realistically expect employees to be committed to Mission Statements or corporate goals, etc. when the first they hear of them is when the senior management team descend from their “Ivory Towers” clutching their tablets of stone proclaiming, “This is where we are doing, this is where we are going. Now get to it!” These Mission Statements and goals are not those of the employees, they are the managers. They only become the employees when they have been involved in the process. The first stage of involvement is, “What do you think?” In addition, by asking people, you are giving them positive recognition, you are according them respect. They begin to feel valued. Being valued is one of the most profound desires of human beings.

THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT WORDS……. 

“Would you please…….?” 

Only in Her Majesty`s armed forces and services can you give orders and expect to get away with it. Ask, don`t order. How we communicate our requests determine how they are received. People generally want to be helpful, to feel useful (again it reinforces our primary need to be valued). If they feel as if you are requesting their help they will be only too pleased, but if it sounds like an order, they will do it grudgingly!

THE 2 MOST IMPORTANT WORDS…… 

“Thank you!” 

Without question, the most common complaint I hear when running management training courses is, “we don`t feel appreciated”, and, “a simple thank you would mean a lot”.

So simple, so obvious, so ignored. More often than not people don`t want lavish praise or over the top ceremonies. A simple, sincere “thank you” is often reward enough. Even more powerful would be a “thank you” note/card. Never be too busy to acknowledge people`s help or contribution. These are two little words that make a big difference.

THE 1 MOST IMPORTANT WORD…… 

“We” 

“We”, is a word that reflects teamwork, togetherness, unity, and should be liberally used in conjunction with success, achievements and celebration. The best leaders accept personal liability when things go wrong and acknowledge the team contribution when things go well. Any long term, enduring success can only come by working with people. As Stephen Covey points out in his “Maturity Continuum”:-

The three stages of maturity are 1. Dependence (as children we depend upon everyone else for all our needs), 2. Independence (when we can fend for ourselves and feel we are self sufficient), 3. Interdependence – this is the maturity to realise that we need others, and working together with others give us our greatest success. Remember, people will often do more for the “team” than they will ever do for themselves. Harness the power of “we”, and there will be very little you cannot achieve.  

What difference it could make in our families, businesses and relationships if we all committed to using these words on a more regular basis. What do you think?

Here`s something else to consider about the power of words:-

Inspiration vs. Desperation: The two keys to real change

The truth is when it comes to creating REAL change there are only two forces that really drive us:-

Inspired Action -  When something ignites such a powerful force inside you that you will do whatever it takes to succeed. You will overcome whatever obstacle is in your way - internal or external, in order to achieve your goal.
Desperate Action - When you get to the stage where you say, "That`s it. I`ve had enough. I`m not going to put up with this any more!"

It seems that for most people significant change only takes place when the pain of inaction becomes greater than the pain of taking action! Then, and only then will they begin to move forward.

If you really want to galvanise yourself you can combine both strategies. Visualise the long term pain  of not changing and at the same time get a very clear picture and feeling of the pleasure of achieving your goal.
(N.B. It`s important to associate extreme pain to inaction and the maintenance of the status quo and extreme pleasure to moving forward and attaining your goal).

It doesn`t matter which force drives you as long as you get the right result. It`s truly amazing what you can achieve when you have a big enough WHY. Here`s a brilliantly powerful and moving example.....

What would get you moving?

The Keys to Long Life? Not What You Might Expect

"Cheer up. Stop worrying. Don’t work so hard. Good advice for a long life?" As it turns out, no. In a groundbreaking study of personality as a predictor of longevity, University of California, Riverside researchers found just the opposite.

"It's surprising just how often common assumptions -- by both scientists and the media -- are wrong," said Howard S. Friedman, distinguished professor of psychology who led the 20-year study.

Friedman and Martin examined, refined and supplemented data gathered by the late Stanford University psychologist Louis Terman and subsequent researchers on more than 1,500 bright children who were about 10 years old when they were first studied in 1921. "Probably our most amazing finding was that personality characteristics and social relations from childhood can predict one's risk of dying decades later," Friedman concluded.

The Longevity Project, as the study became known, followed the children through their lives, collecting information that included family histories and relationships, teacher and parent ratings of personality, hobbies, pet ownership, job success, education levels, military service and numerous other details.

"When we started, we were frustrated with the state of research about individual differences, stress, health and longevity," Friedman recalled. "It was clear that some people were more prone to disease, took longer to recover, or died sooner, while others of the same age were able to thrive. All sorts of explanations were being proposed -- anxiety, lack of exercise, nerve-racking careers, risk-taking, lack of religion, unsociability, disintegrating social groups, pessimism, poor access to medical care, and Type A behavior patterns." But none were well-studied over the long term. That is, none followed people step-by-step throughout their lives.

When Friedman and Martin began their research in 1991, they planned to spend six months examining predictors of health and longevity among the Terman participants.

But the project continued over the next two decades -- funded in part by the National Institute on Aging -- and the team eventually involved more than 100 graduate and undergraduate students who tracked down death certificates, evaluated interviews, and analyzed tens of thousands of pages of information about the Terman participants through the years.

"We came to a new understanding about happiness and health," said Martin, now a psychology professor at La Sierra University in Riverside.

"One of the findings that really astounds people, including us, is that the Longevity Project participants who were the most cheerful and had the best sense of humor as kids lived shorter lives, on average, than those who were less cheerful and joking. It was the most prudent and persistent individuals who stayed healthiest and lived the longest."

Part of the explanation lies in health behaviors -- the cheerful, happy-go-lucky kids tended to take more risks with their health across the years, Friedman noted. While an optimistic approach can be helpful in a crisis, "we found that as a general life-orientation, too much of a sense that 'everything will be just fine' can be dangerous because it can lead one to be careless about things that are important to health and long life. Prudence and persistence, however, led to a lot of important benefits for many years. It turns out that happiness is not a root cause of good health. Instead, happiness and health go together because they have common roots."

Many of the UCR findings fly in the face of conventional wisdom. For example:

• Marriage may be good for men's health, but doesn't really matter for women. Steadily married men -- those who remained in long-term marriages -- were likely to live to age 70 and beyond; fewer than one-third of divorced men were likely to live to 70; and men who never married outlived those who remarried and significantly outlived those who divorced -- but they did not live as long as married men.
• Being divorced is much less harmful to women's health. Women who divorced and did not remarry lived nearly as long as those who were steadily married.
• "Don't work too hard, don't stress," doesn't work as advice for good health and long life. Terman subjects who were the most involved and committed to their jobs did the best. Continually productive men and women lived much longer than their more laid-back comrades.
• Starting formal schooling too early -- being in first grade before age 6 -- is a risk factor for earlier mortality. Having sufficient playtime and being able to relate to classmates is very important for children.
• Playing with pets is not associated with longer life. Pets may sometimes improve well-being, but they are not a substitute for friends.
• Combat veterans are less likely to live long lives, but surprisingly the psychological stress of war itself is not necessarily a major health threat. Rather, it is a cascade of unhealthy patterns that sometimes follows. Those who find meaning in a traumatic experience and are able to reestablish a sense of security about the world are usually the ones who return to a healthy pathway.
• People who feel loved and cared for report a better sense of well-being, but it doesn't help them live longer. The clearest health benefit of social relationships comes from being involved with and helping others. The groups you associate with often determine the type of person you become -- healthy or unhealthy.

It's never too late to choose a healthier path, Friedman and Martin said. The first step is to throw away the lists and stop worrying about worrying.

"Some of the minutiae of what people think will help us lead long, healthy lives, such as worrying about the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids in the foods we eat, actually are red herrings, distracting us from the major pathways," Friedman said. "When we recognize the long-term healthy and unhealthy patterns in ourselves, we can begin to maximize the healthy patterns."

"Thinking of making changes as taking 'steps' is a great strategy," Martin advised. "You can't change major things about yourself overnight. But making small changes, and repeating those steps, can eventually create that path to longer life."

It`s interesting to note that most people I meet can`t wait to stop work. They talk of retiring and some actually want to do nothing, not realising that the research indicates that would be the worst thing possible!You can`t argue with the facts  -  here`s someone who has achieved extraordinary things and is very clear about what he considers the 3 keys to longevity:-

Next time you ever begin to say, "I`m too old for...." watch this!

Optimist or pessimist: which are you and does it matter?

"Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable" - Voltaire 

There has been and always will be, much debate and now research, as to which frame of mind brings the best results in life. Now is the opportunity to find out the truth.......

"Imagine you divided everyone in the world into two psychological groups. You put all the optimists on one side and all the pessimists on the other (let’s leave the realists aside for now).

Amongst the optimists the conversation would all be about fantastic plans for the future and how things can only get better.

Meanwhile the pessimists are having what might seem to the optimists like a depressing discussion. Far from working out how to make their dreams come true, they’re worrying about all the things that might go wrong. They’re worried that even the things they have will be taken away from them by some cruel twist of fate.

To the optimists, the pessimists seem too down on everything, always just a little too keen to pour cold water on any exciting plans.

To the pessimists, though, the optimists are out of touch with reality. Can’t they see what a nasty, cruel and accident-prone world we live in? They are deluding themselves!

Which is better?

Over the years psychologists have examined many aspects of pessimism and optimism. They’ve wondered whether there are more optimists or pessimists. And they’ve tried to find out which approach is ‘better’. Naturally both camps are fascinated to see which way this one goes.

In fact there’s good news for all. There are some advantages to optimism like it seems to make people feel better about life. But there are also advantages for pessimism in that thinking the worst helps some pessimists cope better with the world.

But we should be less concerned with which is ‘better’ or which camp is larger and more interested in why people see the world in such different ways in the first place.

After all, when an extreme optimist talks to an extreme pessimist, it’s like they come from two completely different worlds. How do people come to be polarized in this way?

What’s my motivation?

A clue comes from a new line of research into how both pessimists and optimists use their differing views of the world to motivate themselves.

We all know how difficult it is to predict what’s going to happen in the future. Life is always throwing us curveballs and most of us accept that our plans often don’t work out. It’s not that we’re doing anything wrong, just that life is unpredictable.

To cope with this unpredictability some of us choose to think optimistically because it helps motivate us to try, try again. For others a pessimistic mindset performs the same function. By thinking about what might go wrong it helps protect us against when things do go wrong.

In both cases what the optimistic and pessimistic standpoints are doing is working in service of motivation. Each provides a protective buffer against what Shakespeare called “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”.

Insight from anagrams

Evidence for this connection between motivation and optimism or pessimism was found in a new study by Abigail Hazlett and colleagues (Hazlett et al., 2011), published in Social Cognition.

In two initial studies optimists were found to have a ‘promotion focus’. In other words they preferred to think about how they could advance and grow. Pessimists, meanwhile, were more preoccupied with security and safety.

This suggested a connection with motivation, but we need a true experiment for stronger evidence. So, in their third study they had participants trying to solve anagrams. However they were split into two groups. While doing the anagrams half were encouraged to think optimistic thoughts and half pessimistic thoughts.

The researchers also measured participants’ natural tendencies towards either optimism or pessimism. This meant that some people would be using their preferred strategy and others would be forced to think against the grain.

What the results showed was that pessimists performed better when thinking in negative ways. At the same time optimists were more engaged with their task when they were thinking positive thoughts.

It also turned out that people’s performance depended on how persistent they were at trying to crack the anagrams. It seems that when the optimists were using their preferred positive thinking strategy, they were more persistent. And the same went for the pessimists, who were most successful when thinking negative thoughts.

Different strokes

What’s emerging, from studies like this, is that both optimism and pessimism have important roles to play in people’s lives.

Being optimistic allows people to pursue their goals in a positive way: to dream a bigger and better dream, which they can work their way towards. Optimists also seem to respond better to positive feedback, and part of being optimistic may be generating this feedback for themselves, i.e. thinking positive thoughts.

On the other hand being pessimistic may help people reduce their natural anxiety and to perform better. Also, pessimists seem to respond better to negative feedback. They like to hear what the problems were, so they can correct them. Again, part of why pessimists generate these sorts of negative thoughts is that it helps them perform better.

So it’s different strokes for different folks. Optimism and pessimism aren’t just accidents; this evidence suggests they are two different, but effective, strategies of coping with a complex and unpredictable world."

(Source:Jeremy Dean)

That said, I am inclined to favour what I would call a "healthy optimism bias!" for more fascinating information check out this video by Tali Sharot...

Why do you do what you do?

If you`ve ever wondered what it really takes to be happy and fulfilled or how come you keep getting involved in relationships or jobs that just don`t work. Here`s the answer. According to Tony Robbins there are 6 fundamental needs that human beings need to satisfy in order to be happy and content:-

It might be worth considering how each of these needs is currently being met in key areas of your life. Look at your relationship. It is impossible to be happy if a significant number of the above needs are not being satisfied. How about your job? If you are not truly happy in your present position, could it be related to these needs being unmet? 

(Ignore any reference to Lance Armstrong - nobody`s perfect!)

So now you know why you do what you do - what are you going to do about it?