Cutting corners – when a shortcut isn’t short
We are all tempted to cut corners or take shortcuts once in a while. What do we do when the shortcut isn't short?
Being thankful – the ‘Who’
Last week, I wrote about what I am thankful for. I want to conclude this week by covering the ‘Who’. Who am I thankful for?
Like many of you, I am thankful for family, friends and colleagues but there are always people who stand out in our stories.
My Father
The first person who stands out for me is my father. I am thankful that he believed in me and set before me a vision that showed me anything is possible if I’m willing to work for it.
Two of the first books he bought for my brother and I were ‘The Power Of Positive Thinking’ and ‘A Guide To Confident Living’ by Norman Vincent Peale.
I flipped through the pages wondering where the pictures were. I was at an age when all my books were meant to have pictures in them.
Thinking the words were too many, I looked at the titles again. I told myself, it must be important to think positively and to be confident, otherwise daddy wouldn’t have bought ‘the books with no pictures’.
This was the start of my journey into personal development and recognising the responsibility that comes with that.
A wolf in sheep's clothing
I am thankful for a co-tenant when I was a young child for teaching me to listen to my inner voice and trust my intuition. As a young child, I was scared of the dark and always imagined monsters hiding under the beds. I often snuck into bed with my parents. 
One day my parents travelled and left us in the care of a co-tenant who was like family. As I was scared of sleeping alone, I stayed with him. After a while, I felt very uneasy and I just knew I wasn’t safe. I realised I was more scared of being with him than I was of the monsters. So I left.
He taught me the power of my intuition, the importance of listening to my inner voice and recognising when a hand bigger than I understood was delivering me from evil.
My intuition has bailed me out more times than I can count and that protection from above has been my life saver.
My Science Teacher
I am thankful for Mr M.S. Ali who taught me for one year. Until he came to my school, I had believed the lie that I wasn’t cut out for sciences and had no hope of passing them. 
M. S. Ali came, saw that I had the potential to be good in Sciences and he made it his mission to help me.
The most important thing he did was to challenge how I saw myself in relation to those subjects and the mental block I had put up.
Over time, I realised that I could grasp contents that previously seemed like Ancient Greek. In one year, this amazing teacher helped me to turn around my grades.
I have never forgotten the impact he had on my life and the lesson he taught me. He taught me that ‘can’t learn’ was my fear and did not have to be my reality.
Being Thankful
What do you need to say thank you for?
It has been a wet week but for once I was grateful for the rain in the middle of the British summer. The gardens were crying out for a relief from weeks of intense sunshine. So was I.
As I pondered about saying thank you for the rain, I thought about people we need to say thank you to and things we need to say thank you for.
For the most part, when we consider saying thanks, we think of good things. But I want to spin this on its head and challenge us to think about the ‘Not so great’ things that we can still be thankful for.
We take the power away from situations when we look for the lessons they teach and the opportunities they give us to discover we are stronger than we thought.
When we are in the thick of a situation, it’s difficult to find the good in it but if we look hard enough we will always find some good.
As I pondered about the experiences that I am thankful for, a few stories came to mind.
Thankful for being cheated, bullied and feeling powerless
I remembered the first time I felt cheated and bullied. I was in primary school and a teacher wanted me to name the noise makers. I told her I didn’t know who they were and she accused me of protecting them and decided to send me out to sit in the hot sun. I felt powerless.
Later she found out the school inspectors were visiting the school and asked me to come inside the class. I refused and told her that if she was right in punishing me, then she had nothing to fear. I took my power back.
I was proud that I stood up for myself and this experience prepared me to deal with bullies later in life. I am thankful for learning I had a right to fair treatment.
Today, I remind myself that if I could speak out against injustice as a child, I have no reason to stop now.
Thankful for when the money wasn’t enough
I am thankful that my parents couldn’t afford everything I wanted and I didn’t have everything I desired. I knew what I wanted but I understood what my parents had to offer.
This led me to look for a part-time job as a student. I worked as a trainer with a Consulting firm which massively boosted my confidence as I found myself training people old enough to be my parents.
I was scared the first time I walked into a training room full of strangers who looked at me wondering if I was in the right room.
I am so grateful that I took a job for the money but got so much more in return. The job is still paying me forward today as I get opportunities to speak at events.
Thankful for being told ‘No’
There were many times in my career that I was told ‘No’.
‘No’ on the back of job interviews, ‘No’ to getting an opportunity to develop a new skill and sometimes ‘No’ to being chosen to be part of what I considered to be interesting work.
Every ‘No’ drove me to work harder and do self-assessments on what I could have done differently. On the back of these, I was able to take the necessary actions.
I went for qualifications years before I needed them. I prepared better for interviews and I worked hard on any opportunities that I was given.
Soon I became the person people wanted to work with and leaders were proud to have on their teams. Some missed opportunities turned out not to be so great.
Was I disappointed when I got the ‘No’?. You bet. Did I give in to despair? Yes, for a bit but then I dusted myself off and learnt from each experience. Today, I am confident in my ability to do great work.
Really?…………… It’s not coming home!
The World Cup brought a fair share of drama into our lives for a few weeks. Real life also has its own drama and there are some parallels we can draw from both.
What if ….
I dashed into my local supermarket to pick up a few items. As I juggled my handbag, two shopping bags, car keys and my cup of coffee, I dropped my keys.
An older gentleman bent down to help me get them even as I tried to do so myself. We chatted for a bit and he commented that I was a very happy person and I responded that life was too short not to choose happiness.
He replied, “especially when you get to my age”. He must be in his seventies. Again I smiled and responded that it was the case even at my much younger age.
As the encounter came back to me later in the day, it got me thinking. What if we lived our lives as though life was really short? After all there is no doubt that it is.
What if we didn’t wait until we are retired or in our seventies to choose to be happy? What if we lived each day as though it could be our last? 
What would we do differently if we knew our last day is at hand? Would you be more fearless and go for the life that you really want? Or perhaps you will start that business or philanthropic venture because you can’t bear leaving it undone.
Would you make that call to repair a breach, resolve an ongoing conflict or tell someone you love them? Would you make amends with your neighbours, family, friends or colleagues?
How about dancing like you’ve always wanted to or singing karaoke even though it scares you half to death? You’re going to die anyway so the question is will you do those scary things or would the fear of doing them continue to hold you back? 
If you knew time was short, would you reconsider the choices you’re making right now?
It could be career versus having a work-life balance, or spending quality time with the family instead of being a social media or reality TV junkie. Maybe you need to be more present in all your interactions with others.
Take a moment to consider how short life really is. Even if you live until you’re a hundred years, the years soon disappear.
Children grow up, teenagers pass that awkward phase, students graduate and leave home and it all happens in what appears to be a flash. Youthful strength and exuberance give way to maturity and then old age.
One day the things you postponed may become impossible to do or you could run out of time.
So rather than putting life on hold, do what scares you, do what inspires you to greatness, change a life today, change your own life, make that tough choice or reach out to that person. 
Soon enough the things that scared you will lose their hold, the pride that’s keeping you bound will become pointless and the competition at any cost will become meaningless.
Living life as though it were short is a key to happiness, prosperity and success. It helps you to do away with procrastination.
Don’t wait to be happy, be happy now. Don’t wait to celebrate life, do so now. Don’t wait to tell someone you’ve forgiven them, forgive them now. Don’t wait to say sorry, say it now and say it anyway even if you don’t think it’s fair.
Vision – making your dream a reality
I was at a friend’s 50th birthday party last night and ran into other friends. For many years, we were part of a faith-based organisation, met once a month and spent one weekend together every year. Our children were all different ages.
One of my friends shared her vision about getting the children to become friends with the older ones mentoring the younger ones. We created a buddy system, encouraging them to build and leverage these relationships.
This vision turned ‘social experiment’ was about 10 to 15 years ago. Fast forward 15 years, these 'children' are now in or have finished from top universities with excellent career prospects.
As we all know children sometimes listen to their peers more than they do parents. To the delight of the parents these children have helped each other aspire for better results and make some right education and career choices.
The relationship these young people have built over many years has evolved to one of spurring, challenging, coaching, mentoring and encouraging each other.
Our social experiment has produced excellent results and got me thinking of the lessons I’ve learnt from watching them fulfil our vision.
Here are my thoughts:
Have a vision and share it with those who need to be involved
A few of the parents shared their vision on how our children could help each other through a mentoring and support programme. They told a compelling story and other parents bought into it.
What is your vision and who do you need to engage?
Create an enabling environment
As parents who all lived miles apart, we knew the only way our children could develop the relationship was for us to make room for them. Every month, we released them to be with each other and many times, we waited for them even when we were in a hurry. We needed to turn our verbal support into action to help make it happen.
How are you creating an enabling environment for your vision to become a reality?
You’ve got something to say, so say it
We’ve all got something to say and have stories to tell. Who can you inspire today? Express yourself! Surprise yourself!
A dose of reality and other lessons
I had this week’s post all figured out but after spending Thursday in the classroom called life, I feel the need to share some of my lessons.
I was looking forward to the International women’s day and the inspirational event organised by Melanie Malcolm of Yorkshire ladies link. I spent some time, the day before, agonising about what I would wear and almost cracked that nut before going to bed.
Thursday morning, I woke up to unexpected and generous amount of snow. I wondered who didn’t get the memo that I had somewhere to be. I hate driving on snow.
My immediate reaction was to moan and crawl back into bed, but before I gave in to that thought, a friend calls to tell me she wanted to go with me.
Shoot! There goes my escape. I now have to brave the snow but at least I would have some company for the journey so it wasn’t so bad or scary.
Before I even stepped out of the door, my first lessons were:
1. The world doesn’t revolve round me, my comfort zone and what I want. Deal with ‘it’. ‘It’ for me that day was the snow.
2. Even the best laid out plans have to change and it’s not a big deal. I had my clothes all planned, but priorities changed. I needed to dress for weather and not for fashion. Go figure!
3. A timely intervention can set us on the right path. Getting a call from my friend and realising that I needed to get us to the event, pushed any fear of driving on snow aside.
4. Life is easier with the right people in it. Knowing I wouldn’t be alone in the car on slippery roads eased my anxiety
At the event, I was amazed at the determination, adaptability and resilience of the organisers and the participants. All their preparation and perfectly laid out plans went out the window. At times like this, we are faced with choices to - give in to the disappointment or push through, give up or go on? Remain in the old mindset or look for new possibilities? I watched the organisers’ tireless efforts to re-arrange programme, make calls and communicate potential changes to the participants whilst remaining positive, courteous and professional. Kudos to the ‘cool, calm and collected’ Yorkshire Ladies Link team. Then came the inspiring speakers, starting with Chris Pointon who lost his amazing wife, Kate Granger, after a battle with cancer. There weren’t many dry eyes in the room as Chris shared their story. Instead of the session being about how unfair life can be, it was about how we can all make a difference.