Tag Archives: empowerment

Life Change Event Definition

Life Change Event

Oooops! Didn’t see that coming!                 Image from social-kerala.blogspot.com

Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes.   Hugh Prather

What is a “Life Change Event?”

I was asked what I do recently and it gave me pause to think about the many people I have coached, consulted to and worked with over the last 25 years, and one theme kept coming back to me. Each person in their own way found a way to say:

“I expected more out of life than this by now!”

Each person was moving into a life change event phase, and needed assistance to make that life change.

Typical life change events:

• Forced job or career changes
• Trauma or tragedy in your family or close community
• Financial challenges forcing lifestyle changes
• Relocation to a new community
• Health challenges, accidents
• Relationship changes
• Birth of a child, or the kids leaving home
• Personal unrest or dissatisfaction with life, success and/or achievement
• Inspiration to set new goals
• Seeing someone else fail or succeed and being prompted to change
• A seminar. Workshop or even a conversation that changed your mindset

There are many possible life change events, and they will be different for everyone. The same #life change event will have different effects and impacts on different people. For example, your company restructure means that you are suddenly redundant and looking for a new job. For some people, it’s just a matter of getting another job. Someone else might take it as a sign that it’s time to find another career. Others might think it was time for them to set up that business they have always wanted to run. Others fall apart and cannot handle the thought of having no job security! It’s different for everyone!

Life Change Event

OH NO!                    Image from wagnernutrition.com

The Defining Factor

A defining factor of a Life Change Event is that it is an event for which preparation and support are required. It’s not something that you can just launch into without time, energy and effort invested into preparation and planning.

Perhaps you’ll have the resources. Maybe not. Maybe you can blunder through on your own. It will take longer, cost more and stress you more, but it’s to your own timeframe. Unless the Life Change Event is costing you financially as well.

You might also recognise the value of an objective viewpoint when looking at all your options, and retain a Life Change Coach to assist you to make this change process happen faster, more effectively and perhaps provide insights that will ultimately make it an incredibly powerful and positive event in your life, and that of your family.

If this is you, then Life Change Coaching is available.

Life Change Event

Make Tomorrow Different!             Image From adelarubio.com

What is Life Change Coaching?

Life Change Coaching is a specialised field. Rather than a performance coach who might help you squeeze the last increments of performance increase from your existing systems, a Life Change Coach is the person you need to see when it is time to reinvent your systems or yourself, to start over in some area of your life.

That new job, career, business strategy, investment, relationship – when the life change event is likely to impact your existing life in a major way, or you wish that it would, then it is time to call in a Life Change Coach.  When your existing life and or business strategies are not working, it’s time to seriously consider Life Change Coaching.

Click here to meet your new Life Change Coach now!

If you know someone else who is facing a Life Change Situation, please pass this message onto them – you know they will thank you for it.

Til next time, fair winds and full sails!

Ray Jamieson

The Entrepreneurs Credo

I do not choose to be a common man,
It is my right to be uncommon … if I can,
I seek opportunity … not security.
I do not wish to be a kept citizen.
Humbled and dulled by having the
State look after me.
I want to take the calculated risk;
To dream and to build.
To fail and to succeed.
I refuse to barter incentive for a dole;
I prefer the challenges of life
To the guaranteed existence;
The thrill of fulfillment
To the stale calm of Utopia.
I will not trade freedom for beneficence
Nor my dignity for a handout
I will never cower before any master
Nor bend to any threat.
It is my heritage to stand erect.
Proud and unafraid;
To think and act for myself,
To enjoy the benefit of my creations
And to face the world boldly and say:
This, with God’s help, I have done
All this is what it means
To be an Entrepreneur.”

― Thomas Paine, Common Sense

Related Blogs:

Help From My Friends

Those who can must! We all can!

Those who can, must!

             Miracle on the Hudson River:                     Image from nydailynews.com

“You can’t do everything but you can do something!” ― Jeff Dixon

Those who can must!

It’s a simple philosophy, but profound, as many simple philosophies are. It came to me while musing on the world and life in general when, as a teenager, I was driving a tractor and plough in seemingly endless circles on the night shift, preparing a seed bed for planting. Deep in the night, alone with my thoughts, it resonated. Forty years later, it’s still my guiding principle.  #Those who can must!

Why is it that “those who can must”?

“Those who can must” is more than a one liner. It is possibly the most powerful philosophy of all. Why is it so important that we do all we can? What does it mean? Let’s look at the first part – “those who can”.

Those who can what?

Why is it that we have skilled crafts people? Artists, architects, builders, mechanics, pilots, plumbers, lawyers, accountants, entrepreneurs; each of these is a skill-set in their own right. If a person has one of these skill sets, why is it so critical that they be the best they can at it?

Look at what “being your best” can mean.

You’re a mechanic. What difference does that make, whether you are “your best” or not? After all, you’re just servicing family cars. EXACTLY! The young mother who brings the family’s second car in for you to maintain, because the lousy, cheap skate husband has the good car with the good tyres on to drive to his work, leaving mother with the old car to transport the precious cargo of children to and from school! (Yes ladies, this is a global problem – show your husband this blog and let him have both barrels!) If you are an average mechanic, you’ll pop the hood, change the oil, check the water and let it go. If you are an excellent mechanic, being your best, you’ll be aware of the valuable cargo this vehicle carries, children – our future population – and take a closer look at the tyres, brakes, steering, suspension and even the seatbelt fittings. Because you know that when it rains again, your workmanship could be the difference between this little car spinning out of control and putting those lives at risk, or not!

Those who can, must!

Mum’s Taxi? Image from www.vintag.es

What about being a pilot? You became a pilot perhaps because you loved flying and decided to make a career out of it. Now, you fly commercially and may have anywhere from 5 to 500 passenger lives under your control on any flight. Only this year, we have seen two Malaysian jet air liners crash, taking nearly 300 lives each time. It‘s obvious there is a huge responsibility on airline pilots to be the best they can. Yet in the news yesterday we saw a report of an Indian pilot snoozing while in command, and the co-pilot playing on an iPad and didn’t notice that the jet had dropped 5,000 feet and put it on a collision course with other aircraft! A mid-air collision could have killed 500 people in the air and who knows how many hundreds more on the ground!

Why be the best pilot you can, even more than just staying awake? Because sometimes being the best means you could retrieve an impossible situation such as the pilot who landed a US Airways Airbus with 155 passengers on the Hudson River after a bird strike killed the engines and forcing the landing. This incredibly skilled pilot landed the huge plane on the river without loss of life and you can bet he wasn’t looking at his iPad at the time! Every second of his life’s experiences was with him, and came into play as he settled that jet airliner onto the river near the rescue boats and saved every life!

OK, so you’re not an airline pilot, you’re just a local railway worker. How important could it be, to be your best in a railway yard? If you haven’t seen it, look for the movie “Unstoppable” starring Denzel Washington. It’s about a heavily laden freight train that becomes a runaway, speeding into a heavily populated area with a very dangerous turn in the tracks, after a slack train driver is too casual about changing tracks and lets the train get away from him. Denzel’s character in real life – the film is based on an actual drama in Ohio – uses skill and imagination to find a way to stop the runaway train and avert the catastrophe that could have happened.

Everyone has something that they CAN do, but why is it that they MUST do it?

Everyone also has something they are hopeless at! It would be a wasted life if we spent it trying to do something we would continually fail at. Wasting our lives, wasting our energy, when there is someone else who is great at exactly that job we are failing at, and we are depriving them of the job they love! We have skills so that we CAN use them, for the good of our family, our community and the world in general. Imagine if Einstein continued being a children’s tutor, then a clerk all his life, instead of following his brilliance and passion into the fields of Science where he contributed so much to the world and humanity in general! He followed the ethos of “those who can must” brilliantly, and changed the way the world saw itself. He changed the future, changed the lives of you and I, a hundred years ago.

Those who can, must

He followed HIS passion! Thankfully! Image from hj.vc

When you and I follow the ethos of “Those who can must” we follow our passion and our skills into living and create lives that only WE can live. We are each unique and using our unique talents and abilities and fuelled by our passions, we can make differences like this too. Only WE can live OUR LIVES!

“Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.” ― William Shakespeare

Does “Those who can Must” apply to everyone? Who does this apply to?

This is for you and for me. Everyone can do something to contribute. Therefore, everyone must, if we are to make this world better for our children to follow on from us, to take our batons for the next leg of the Human Race.

Yes, that means you and me.

“You are responsible for doing what good you can with what you have, and any good is better than none.” ― Bryant McGill

But if you think, “I’m just a stay at home Mum”, then remember that this also applied to the parents of children such as Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and so many more parents we never hear about. We only hear about the achievements of their children.

Maybe a police officer who notices someone loitering and feels the energy of a crime in the making apprehends them, and prevents who knows how many muggings, rapes, assaults and robberies. Perhaps they also prevent the loiterer from continuing in their dark world any further; perhaps enabling redemption from a possibly wasted life to a life well lived.

The writer who creates fictional novels, wonders how “those who can must” applies to them. Think of Wilbur Smith. Besides giving joy, peace and relaxation to millions of readers, how many people have been inspired by his writing to contribute to the conservation of the endangered ecosystems of Africa, where poaching has all but decimated the populations of elephants, rhino, lions and many other species. His writing has brought the plight of these ecosystems and many others globally to public awareness, far beyond anything he ever thought about when he first put pen to paper. How many other aspiring writers has he inspired to follow their dreams and passion to also become published authors, and reach out to millions more around the globe with their own messages of hope and inspiration?

Even the lowly blogger – if your writing changes or influences the life of just one other person and puts them back on track, then you have done your part. You don’t need to be a global superstar; one life saved is well worthwhile!

Being an unsung hero may be our life’s calling, following our passion into whatever we do. We may never know the magic we create downstream from the effects we have on the lives of the people with whom we interact, but there is no doubt the magic is there, as long as we do our part, as long as those who can must, and then do!

“Those who can must”, demands that we seek and follow our passion and skills, so that we can provide for our families, enrich our communities and make our world a better place for those who follow us! Whilst it seems huge when you examine it like this, all it really means is that we be the best we can, at whatever it is we are good at. If you don’t know what that is yet, then perhaps look at the Business Profits Program, where your skills, abilities and passions are explored for you to find your life’s calling. Perhaps you will uncover your passion and your calling there, to enable you to do what you must.

If you know what your passion is but are having trouble finding the time, discipline or motivation to follow it, then Life Change 90 is for you. Putting a structure into your day, infusing it with the inspiration, motivation and congratulations that make a day both worthwhile and enjoyable, is what you need to create positive habits that will stay with you for your lifetime.

Perhaps all you need to do is to pass the message on so that someone else can find and follow their passion. If you know someone who is searching, looking for a way to put meaning into their life, who is a square peg in a round hole at the moment, this may be your way to help them. Pass the message on; let them have the opportunity to decide, with new information, where they want their life to go. It only takes one to make it worthwhile!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

PS: We watched “Unstoppable” again this evening, on DVD. It’s one heck of a ride – treat yourself to watching it soon, to see what a difference a person can make when the chips are down!  Those who can must watch this movie!

“If your life is a miserable disaster, you might want to consider, that it’s because you are doing something wrong.” ― Bryant McGill

Recent relevant blogs:

Og Mandino – Lessons from the Master

Life Change 90 Relaunch

RISK

Empowerment through Challenge

Best Business Ideas For You

Perils of Small Business.

Perils of small business

Kayangel Atoll and Belau Palau Islands – what a paradise!                                                                        Image from wallpapersphotography.com

If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work. WIlliam Shakespeare.

Perils of Small Business.

Imagine you are going on a holiday to a small, remote tropical island, a beautiful island, dotted with coconut palms, rainforests and a mountain in the middle of course, to climb and look out over the endless ocean. There is a lagoon with fringing reefs protecting the island beaches from the powerful ocean waves, a lagoon with a catamaran for your use, fishing rods and diving gear. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it.

You hop on the seaplane and it drops you off in the lagoon and takes off again and there you are, in your idyllic, island paradise. Still looking forward to the holiday?

Perils of Small Business

Arrival on your holiday island.               Image from privatejettourguide.com

You look out beyond the reef and see the shark fins beyond the breakers, masses of them. The sun beats down on you because that’s what happens in the tropics, right? But it’s OK, because here you are safe on the beach, where you can sit in the shade when THUMP on the sand beside you, a huge coconut falls – luckily it missed you, it must weigh 3 kilos! So it’s not safe in the shade, not safe in the sun, not safe in the water, and who knows what’s in the rainforest!

Evening falls, and out comes all the mosquitos and other flying, crawling and mostly biting insects! Sure, this is some tropical paradise!

Perils of Small Business

Perils of tropical islands!                         Image from watoday.com.au

“Life keeps throwing me curve balls and I don’t even own a bat. At least my dodging skills are improving.”  ― Jayleigh Cape

Or it could have been! With a little planning. If only there was a phone, you could arrange a few things, but then, a Satellite Phone should have been first on the list of things you planned for this remote island holiday.

What else would have been on your list? How about sunscreen, something around 50+ SPF? What about a hat and protective clothes to prevent sunburn? Insect repellent? Checking the accommodation for what it was stocked with first? Lots of things you could have planned in to make this the most fabulous holiday ever. Except you need to plan ahead, not as an afterthought.

Ahhhh, the perils of deserted tropical islands. They are a bit like small business – and the perils of small business are equally as dangerous, but equally as easy to plan for!

Perils of small business

The beach can be a challenge too!            image from entrepreneur.co.za

“I don’t run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run towards it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your foot” ― Nadia Comaneci

The perils of small business are many, but few of the perils are as dangerous as the failure to think ahead and plan where you are going and what you need. Arriving and hoping to make do is not a viable option. However, many people end up in business in exactly this situation, and then the perils of small business become too obvious, and very painful.

What are the perils of small business?

Perils of Small Business

Perils of small business – it’s not just your competitors!                                                            Image from bigmouth-marketing.com

The first and most obvious peril is not having a focus, a goal, direction or strategy. Why are you in business? What do you want to achieve? Is it a money-making thing? Did you buy yourself a job? Is it your retirement funds invested? Or is it a passion you want to monetize and make a business, a career and a life from? It doesn’t matter, as long as you know, because it affects everything else.

Your business planning is based around where you want your business to go in the future. If you are buying a business to build up and sell, your plan will be very different to a business built on your passion and love for something you want to build a career and a life around. The perils of small business are waiting for those who get the fundamentals wrong.

Then there are the details, like the finances, the people you work with, the products and services, marketing and dealing with customers.

Not only are the fundamental issues like your business purpose and direction important, the details are critical too! You can have everything right except for one of many small but critical factors, and the whole lot can go awry before you realise. The perils of small business need to be examined and dealt with, long before you discover them the hard way.

How do you go about preventing these perils of small business taking you down, before they become an issue? The best way is for an intensive examination of your business concept, well before you take any other action on it. Even before your business plan is formulated, you need to be asking a lot of questions, designing and testing your concept and ideas, researching a variety of ideas, looking at your own motivation, your skills and capabilities before you even settle on your business model, around which you can start planning.

Once you settle on the concept, you can start designing the business model and whether you will be doing it alone, in partnership, with a company or in some other entity. All the different factors that will eventually become your business will have an influence on these foundation issues.

Once the foundation of your business model is established, you need to look at the whole raft of factors that are required to work in your favour, to ensure you don’t fall prey to the other perils of small business – failure of the business due to issues such as lack of capital, low sales, poor product or service quality, inadequate marketing, untrained staff or too many overhead costs.

How can you possibly hope to manage all of this, and still look forward to the adventure of being in small business for yourself, without the fear of succumbing to the perils of small business?

There is a way. It’s called the Business Profits Program. It looks at your idea and concept for a business, or helps you with one if all you have to begin with is the desire to be in your own business. Then it builds on your desire through your passion, finds a focal point for it, builds in your resources and capabilities and gives you the options for the businesses you could look forward to creating and building your new career around.

Next, you need to consider the details and the finer aspects of business planning. All that is taken care of too – with all the questions you need to ask to build a solid business plan and contingency plans for your concept, before you spend a cent on setting up the business. At this stage, the perils of small business are all on paper and you can work your way through them without fearing the disasters that could befall you, without this degree of preparation and forward planning in place.

Perils of small business

The delights of small business ownership!                                                                                Image from wellsfargoworks.com

A bit like that holiday. It can be a great idea, perfect location and the most wonderful opportunity, unless you forget something like the insect repellent, or the sunscreen…

The Business Profits Program ensures everything is in place for your business, before you have to face any of the perils of small business.

Perils of small business

  Yes, it’s possible, just plan for it!     Image from mondaysorchids.wordpress.com

If you find yourself in business and feeling like you landed on that deserted tropical island, facing the perils of small business all at once on your own, then it’s not too late – the Business Profits Program can help you re-examine your business and create a whole new plan for it, reinvigorating, reinventing if necessary, to ensure you are in the business you really want to be in. Take a look, no matter where you are up to in business. If you have some friends in business who look like they are facing the perils of small business also, please invite them to take a look too.

Preparation and planning never go astray. Just think of the tropical island holiday. It can be wonderful, or it can be a nightmare. The difference is all in the planning and preparation.

Til next time, fair winds and full sails.

Ray Jamieson

“I want to put a ding in the universe.” ― Steve Jobs

Other related blogs from Life Change 90:

Best Business Ideas For You

Life Change 90 Relaunch

RISK

Empowerment through Challenge

Just as a pet can be more of a challenge than a gift, so too can the holidays.  John Clayton

Life Change 90 Relaunch

Life Change 90 Relaunch

The Life Change 90 Relaunch!

Tonight we are launching an effort which holds the promise of changing the course of human history. – Ronald Reagan

Who would have thought that since last publishing Moving House some time ago, it would have taken this long to resume blogging on Life change 90? When we relocated to our new home, a modern, single level home in a reasonably new estate, that we would have had internet problems!

However, as you can see in the Spaghetti photo, the builder was a budding electrician, but without staying power. He stopped before the job was finished and the wiring was an absolute nightmare! The technician who eventually sorted out the tangle was flabbergasted. Eventually, he solved in as in the fable of the Gordian Knot. He found the active wire, and bypassed everything else to start all over!

The time offline wasn’t totally wasted though. As you will see from browsing the Life Change 90 website, we decided on a Life Change 90 relaunch, with a whole host of new goodies for you. More you ask? Let’s take a look at what the Life Change 90 Relaunch means for you.

First change with the Life Change 90 Relaunch

First, the Life Change 90 program has been reworked, and is now at Version 2.1. We considered the feedback we had, corrected some typo errors (my typing mistakes there), simplified the instructions more, added a whole new goalsetting module up front and changed the 1-31 sheets at the end, to make it simpler to use, and we have found it also flows much more easily between days and sections. You will love it! Check it out!

Then, as life change is often as much external as it is internal, we decided to work with and assist those who are thinking of a life change into business for themselves. Perhaps second only to the dream of owning your own home, comes the desire to be the boss in your own business. The Life Change 90 Relaunch has really come to the party for you.

New features with the Life Change 90 Relaunch

First new item in the Life Change 90 Relaunch is the free download Quiz, “Should you be the boss in your own business?” This is a quiz to look for your inner entrepreneur. Whilst it’s nice to think we could be Sir Richard Branson or Warren Buffet if only we had the chance, perhaps there is a different model we need to look at. Not everyone can be the “front” person in a business, although many can. Many people work best with a partner, or with a board to advise them. Only a few can be the solo entrepreneur, and this Quiz can help you find out what your best model of business management would be. Check it out HERE, and in the Side Bar on the right of your screen.

The #Life Change 90 Relaunch also gives you the next step in the “be your own boss” business process: how to create, plan and launch your own business. We created a new download for you there too.  It’s called the BUSINESS PROFITS PROGRAM. Check it out HERE!

Life Change 90 Relaunch

The Business Profits Program

This program is designed to enable you to look at your situation, decide where your strengths are, what you have to offer the business world and then to design a business around it. Then it helps you totally plan your business, right up to and beyond launch day, and even assists with identifying business partners, if that is what you need too.

This program is the essential tool to make sure your new business venture – if you desire to and choose to create one, doesn’t become one of the sorry statistics we hear bandied around about how many businesses fail. Businesses that don’t prepare correctly fail, and if you use this program, yours is most unlikely to be one of them!

The Life Change 90 Relaunch is the start of great things to come. New blog topics prepared, new products, and whole new focus to add to the already powerful Life Change 90 Program that has already been providing #empowerment to so many people.

Come on, join the crowd and come check out the Life Change 90 Relaunch. See you there.

If you felt this article could have helped you relaunch your life with your own business or a fresh start elsewhere, please share it with others. Pass it on, because just like you, and me, there are so many people praying for a new start in their lives too.  We need to help them where and when we can.

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you won’t, you most assuredly won’t. Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad. – Denis Watley

Belief in Miracles

#Belief in miracles

Another miracle
Image from trekearth.com

Belief in Miracles

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”  ― Albert Einstein

The man knelt beside his bed each night, praying to God for a miracle – to win the lottery.  Each night for years he prayed, until at last one night, it happened……..

A great voice boomed from out of the heavens, it came from everywhere, all around, powerful, resonant, soft yet strong.

“Sir, each night you pray for me to help you win the lottery.  Why oh why can you not make it a little easier for me?  Can’t you at least buy a ticket?”

#Belief in miracles

Lucky number?
Image from abc.net.au

Smile if you want, but this is what life is like for so many people of all denominations around our planet.  Each day and night, they pray to a God or Goddess they will never see, whom they were told in infancy was all powerful and that they were unworthy sinners.  They pray for miracles that are almost beyond imagination, but fail to understand that they already have within their grasp, the most powerful miracle machine there is!

“Miracles are like pimples, because once you start looking for them you find more than you ever dreamed you’d see.”   ― Lemony Snicket, The Lump of Coal

#Belief in miracles

Ancient Deities
Image from 10piecescleaner.blogspot.com

Praying to a divinity for miracles is what has kept Man, as a species, focussed for hundreds of thousands of years, an unseen force greater than himself, a God of Fire, or Thunder, a Sun God, or some other deity relevant to his life, his hunting or the seasons and the harvest.  Then he became ‘civilised’ and started praying to images of himself, but ever more powerful, and so many times, abandoned belief in himself and his own personal power only to give it away to a deity from which he could never hope for more than symbolism in return.

If you want to access your personal power again, then you need the #belief in miracles that others ascribe to their Gods, but realise that the miracle is YOU!  Belief in Miracles has created a miracle already, you and the life you lead.  You are not simply the result of an ‘original sin‘, but the result of a belief in miracles, a faith of the generation before you that there was a wonderful life to be had and you were the child they wished to have it.

To nurture this belief in miracles, you also need to be worthy of them!  This is not a diatribe against people with a belief in miracles.  Rather, it is an admission that I am an admirer of them.  Not only do I have a belief in miracles, I have an expectation of them!

#Belief in miracles

Personal Empowerment – be your own miracle!
Image from jchristoff.com

But there’s a difference:  If you expect a miracle to happen, prepare for it, plan to be worthy of it.  Imagine that YOU were the Almighty Deity sitting up there, looking down, choosing who to bestow with miracles.  Who would you choose?  The one who just prayed and hoped, or the one who had rolled up their sleeves and was creating their own miracles for themselves and others around them?

That’s right.  Be worthy of earning a miracle and more often than not, the miracles will be bestowed on you.  And if they aren’t, you’ll still have a better life than you would if you were still kneeling, and praying, waiting for it to happen.

As He said, you gotta buy the ticket!

If you’d like to “buy a ticket” and become worthy of having a miracle bestowed on you, CLICK HERE and learn about a Personal Empowerment Program that could change your life, while you are waiting for the miracle.  If you have a belief in miracles, this could just be the ticket for you!  Come on in.

If you felt this article could have helped you get your ‘ticket’, please share it with others. Pass it on, because just like you, and me, there are so many people praying for miracles.  We need to help them where and when we can.

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

“Miracles don’t happen. You make them happen. They’re not wishes or dreams or candles on a cake. They’re not impossible. Reality is real. It’s totally and completely under my control.”  ― Julie Anne Peters, Far from Xanadu

Old Habits Die Hard

#old habits die hrd

Intense conditioning and programming of habits under way!
Image from git-security.com

“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”
Samuel Johnson

Old Habits Die Hard!

Norm was fresh out of the army.  For six years, it had been the ‘spit and polish’ routine, and “Yes Sir, No Sir” had been the way of life.  Now, all that was finished, Norm was back home for a while.  It felt good, having the chance to break away from all the routines and settle into the easier going life on the farm for a change.  Well, that was the intention. Old habits die hard!

The first day back, and his father decided to bring in a load of firewood.  While Norm and the other boys polished off breakfast, Dad put the chainsaws on the truck, along with a few crow bars and axes.

Breakfast over, the boys trooped out.  Suddenly Norm called out, “Hang on a minute,” and darted back into the house.  About a minute later, he reappeared, with a silly grin on his face.

“I don’t have to polish my boots for you bunch.” He said.  “Let’s go!”

#Old habits die hard!

“Some rules are nothing but old habits that people are afraid to change.”
Therese Anne Fowler, Souvenir

We all have conditioning drilled into us.  Conditioning is habit – we all have habits and have had for many, many years.  Our lives run by habit and that’s generally OK.  Takes a lot of pressure off remembering what to do, like breathe, walk and so on.  Subconscious programs are developed when we learn and develop habits.  We may not even realise they are running, while they take control of our lives.  Maybe we’d like to change them, but old habits die hard.

#old habits die hard

A habit to change?
Image from abcnewsradioonline.com

Not all conditioning or habits are good, and some may need to be changed as we outgrow them.  We do outgrow habits and their subconscious programs.

Habits and subconscious programs are like railroad tracks.  Hard to get off, once you get onto those rails.

#old habits die hard

A program in motion
Image from wikipedia.org

Programs can fail or go wrong, without us realising until it has happened.  That’s when trouble hits and we find the program no longer serves us.

#Old habits die hard

Can someone please explain this to me?
Image from gizmodo.com.au

Getting off tracks and out of habits and programs can be a challenge.  Old habits die hard!

#old habits die hard

A bit of a challenge changing tracks the hard way.
Image from ptarm.tumblr.com

However, done correctly, changing an unwanted habit or program can be easy!

#old habits die hard

Changing habits should be this easy!
Image from leungkm.blogspot.com

You just need to install a new program.  Not all old habits die hard, after all!

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
Jim Ryun

My Darling wife bought a new computer today.  A beautiful object, a work of art.  However, it’s useless.  It has no programs installed.  YET.  The program is in the box, ready to download.  Then, the computer will be ready to do the most amazing things for her.  With the new program installed.  Doing what SHE wants it to do.

#old habits die hard

Isn’t it lovely?
Image from zdnet.com

This is also how to change a habit you no longer want, a habit that is running as a subconscious program in your life.  Insert a different program into your computer.  Change your program!

#old habits die hard

One new program/habit coming up!
Image from www.mln.com.au

Yes, it can be done.  There is a program specifically designed to enable you to change habits, simply, quickly and without getting yourself off track and into trouble.  Creating a controlled environment around you, supportive, encouraging, and one that celebrates your successes and supports you into new habits and conscious programming of your mind and your life.  Old habits die hard, but only when you don’t know how to change them properly!

Click here to find out more about changing habits, and learning new ones that can make life so much better for you, in any way you desire.  And kick that old, unwanted habit to the kerb!

“A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit.”
Desiderius Erasmus

If you found this post to be empowering, and supports you into changing old programs and unwanted habits, please share it with your friends and associates.  Reblog it so that other people can gain these benefits too.  They will be grateful you did.

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

 “Warren Buffett chuckled and said to me “I hope it’s not my bad habits”. Good Habits once established are just as hard to break as bad habits, and bad habits are easier to abandon today than tomorrow. So what are you going to do about it?”
Lucas Remmerswaal, 13 Habits.com the Tale of Tortoise Buffett and Trader Hare

#old habits die hard

What a great New Habit!
Image from thingstodococoabeach.com

Empowered by Gratitude

Gratitude?

#Gratitude

A new day, a new start
Image from aquabumps.com

“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”
L.M. Montgomery

Did you wake up this morning?

That’s something to have gratitude for.  Many didn’t.  What does waking up each morning mean?

When you wake up each morning, or whatever time you wake up, it means you have another chance to start life all over again.  Now I know that some people are locked into a pattern which is not easy to break free of, and I’m thinking here of people in chronic pain, people who are on minimum wage and who know that finding a better paid job won’t be easy, and so many more people who have life challenges to face.

But you woke up, didn’t you?  That’s the first step towards a new life, a life change if you wish, but regardless of how you look at it, your life starts again the moment you wake up each day and that’s something to show #gratitude for.  You got another chance to start over.

What can you do with a new day?

Perhaps you can’t change everything in your life all in the next day, this new day you have given to you.  But you can change something if you need to, want to, or HAVE to!  Start small, with the single thing that will make the most difference if you change it.  A habit?  A thought?  Something you don’t do, but perhaps should?  Something, anything, but if your life is not exactly where you want it to be right now, at this time of your life, start making changes, little ones, to gently steer your life in the direction you need it to go.  Then show some gratitude, say a little “thank you” that you can do even this much.

How do you know if the change is the right one?

In a way, it doesn’t matter.  It’s the stagnation that is the death of a life.  Sometimes, any movement is better than none, but once you make a start, get some movement, you can steer from there.  It’s very hard to steer your car when it’s parked at the kerb.  You need to be moving, any direction at all, before you can steer it.  So start moving.  And show gratitude that you can actually move a little.  A little “Thank you” for the ability to move.

#Gratitude

Image from http://innerdelight.com/thriving-in-times-of-change/

Gain some momentum.

Once you are moving, after your feet hit the floor, you started to move, you turned in the right direction, you got a little speed up.  Perhaps not much, but a little.  This is called momentum and there is power in momentum.  The weight of your movement, the mass of you moving along has a force.  Use it to shift other bigger things.  Point it towards obstacles, tack on another change or two and use your momentum to carry you through.  Old train drivers called this “getting up a head of steam” and there you go, you have momentum.  You are moving, steering, gaining power with your momentum and making more changes.  There’s something more to show #gratitude for, a little “thank you” for the momentum.

#Gratitude

A head of steam!
Image from burnham-on-sea.com

This is called changing your life, a step at a time.  It’s simple, but not always easy, and much depends on where you are starting from, whether at the top of the slope, or the bottom.

“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
Read more at http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/10-quotes-to-change-your-momentum/#GZhkeeqdED5smDXI.99
“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
Read more at http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/10-quotes-to-change-your-momentum/#GZhkeeqdED5smDXI.99
“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
Read more at http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/10-quotes-to-change-your-momentum/#GZhkeeqdED5smDXI.99

Sometimes you need a hand.

Look around you.  How many people are there in your life?  How many of them do you think are feeling the same way each day, facing challenges and wondering how to make it?  There are a few, feeling just like you, and some feeling very challenged also, much more than you.  My Dad told me something that has stuck with me, when I was around 7 years of age and walking out on a frosty morning to milk the two old milking cows.  I complained about the cold frost on my boots and he said “I cried when I had no shoes, til I saw a man who had no feet!”  I didn’t realise he was quoting the old Sufi proverb but it didn’t matter.  I gladly walked down to the cow-bail, in gratitude for my boots.

There are many people who would like a hand, and many who would like to help you.  More than you realise.  Sometimes though, you need to take the first step on your own, to demonstrate to others that you are serious about the changes.

One way of making little changes that add up to a powerful momentum in a short period of time is to lock into a program that has these gentle changes built into it, and can help you decide what and when and where the most effective changes could be made.  That program also has a gratitude section in it, and without a doubt, showing gratitude for where you are already is perhaps the most powerful tool at your disposal! 

To learn more about this powerful program with the inbuilt gratitude program as well as all the other vital tools for changing your life, CLICK HERE NOW! 

You’ll be glad you did, as you watch your life change direction under your guidance, and build up a head of steam in a way that you will always want to show gratitude for!

Show some gratitude!

After all, you DID wake up this morning, didn’t you?

If you feel gratitude for the lessons I hope I have presented to your here, please reblog and share this post with your friends, family and associates.  Share your journey with them.  Everyone deserves an opportunity to look at their new day with fresh eyes and feel gratitude just for having the chance to start again, this new day.

Til next time, fair winds and full sails.

Ray Jamieson

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. 
Melody Beattie

 

By the way, if you are looking for some inspiration on how to make the most of your new day, please also refer to my other posts below on Empowerment: There might be something of special interest for you here.

Empowered by my Failures

Integrity, Spirituality and Empowerment

Empowerment through Emotional Intelligence

Financial Empowerment

Empowerment

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Empowerment for Teens

Empowerment for Children

Personal Empowerment

What would an empowered man do?

Empowered by love

Integrity, Spirituality and Empowerment

#Integrity

Integrity – it speaks for itself.
Courtesy of life-of-integrity.com

Integrity, Spirituality and Empowerment

“I believe in integrity. Dogs have it. Humans are sometimes lacking it.”Cesar Millan

Spirituality came to me later in life.  Growing up in the bush, my exposure to topics other than beef cattle, crops and sheep was a little limited because of the isolation.  Although an avid reader, it was a subject that I didn’t know existed as a topic.

It was in my thirties, after a series of life changing events, losing my family, my farm and business and some health challenges, and I was laid low for a year.  I relocated to the city and because of my interest in business, became a member of the Institute of Management.  This gave me access to an amazing library!

I gravitated to a section I had never heard of, with authors whose names were totally unfamiliar, but who I grew to love and respect.  Og Mandino, Jim Rohn, Blair Singer, Robert Kiyosaki and many, many more.  I later had the good fortune to see, hear and work with many of these great people.

#Integrity

Og Mandino
Image from conqueryourlife.net

Og Mandino spoke in Brisbane just a couple of years before his passing.  He followed another speaker whose name ironically I do not recall, a high-powered, hard charging success coach type.  He marched about the stage and put on quite a theatrical performance. When he finished, the audience was abuzz with energy and chatter.

Then Og Mandino entered.  An elderly man, he sat on a chair just a little to one side of centre stage.  He spoke softly, quietly.  There was not another sound in the hall.  It was as though eighteen thousand people held their breath for an hour to be sure they never missed a word.  At the end of his talk, we stood as one and applauded.  The elderly man rose, bowed a number of times, and finally walked off stage.  We continued clapping.  Then the hall suddenly went quiet, as we understood we had been in the presence of greatness.

This quietly spoken man held the audience, not with his performance, but with his heart, his #integrity.

“Integrity has no need of rules.”Albert Camus

Jim Rohn was another who I had the privilege to meet and listen to a number of times.  I first found Jim in the audio cassette section of the business department of the AIM Library, and devoured everything I could find by him.  Jim was also a quietly spoken man, a small framed man but a giant among people.  I attended a weekend workshop with him and had the honour of meeting and speaking with him personally a number of times.  I told him my own story one lunchtime and how he had influenced my life.  Later he repeated my story on stage, to show how it is possible to influence someone to change their life and aim higher, with just your words and your integrity.  Sadly, Jim has also passed on.

#Integrity

Jim Rohn
Image from thatgirlamala.wordpress.com

Through Jim Rohn’s influence, I was encouraged to continue my personal development.  I met Blair Singer at a powerful spiritual seminar in Brisbane.  Blair was different again, a tiny man with a huge heart.  His words and presentations gave me the framework for the life I chose, after drifting without purpose for a number of years since losing the farm and my family.  There was never a question from that time, after seeing Blair’s presentation and how it moved people, as to what direction my life would take from then on.

#Integrity

Blair Singer
Image from www.erhardruettimann.com

My public speaking journey brought me into contact with other people who had also chosen the stage and limelight to spread their message to the world.  I was fortunate that I had learnt first about integrity in speaking from the masters of the stage, before I found the charlatans, and there are many of them.

“A mode of conduct, a standard of courage, discipline, fortitude and integrity can do a great deal to make a woman beautiful.”  ― Jacqueline Bisset

The title of this blog is Integrity, Spirituality and Empowerment. 

So many people preach spirituality and empowerment, yet their message is lost in the confusion of their energies.

I attended a seminar in Brisbane by a guy who has since been listed as having a wealth of over 200 million dollars, but at the time was facing bankruptcy.  At that seminar, people were leaving front row seats to stand at the back of the hall, to get away from his ego and energy, without actually leaving the room.  His presentation was about how we should pay him huge sums of money to attend his courses and buy a franchise from him, as they had made him so successful.  Because his presentation was so slick, many people did invest.  By investing the sale proceeds from his overpriced franchises, he was able to turn a bad situation into a personal fortune.  Yet, he has a trail of disenchanted clients all around the world.  He has been sued for sums of money the average person could only dream about, but has kept enough of his fortunes tied up in offshore havens away from the reach of the courts to live happily ever after.

#integrity

Not so sure about this guy…!
Image from oilersnation.com

Another very popular presenter is famous for his NLP workshops.  NLP is a great modality and has powerful applications and value for personal change.  However, hypnotism is also a branch of NLP studies.  Where are the ethics and integrity of getting 3,000 people in a conference room and applying Ericksonian hypnosis (hypnosis by voice modulation and conversational techniques) while promoting your range of “advanced workshops”, some costing thousands of dollars each!

“There is no such thing as a minor lapse of integrity” Tom Peters

There are many charlatans masquerading as spiritual gurus.  Their message is supposedly about spirituality and empowerment.  They have a few nice talks they put together after reading people such as Jim Rohn and Og Mandino.  Their true focus is on taking money from your wallet, through expensive, slickly marketed seminars on idyllic island or luxury resorts, or seminars dressed up as business opportunities to become a life coach or invest in property with them.

It’s interesting that many of the big names in public speaking and the spiritual and financial gurus seem to have a public life that is very short, punctuated by lawsuits and claims of fraud.  Many have paid the price with time spent behind bars for their promotions, but many more still circulate and take easy pickings when they can.

Integrity is simple, but not easy.

Integrity is the province of people with a genuine focus on empowering others to be better at being themselves, and having better lives.  As soon as someone starts spruiking island resorts for their workshops and personal coaching at thousands of dollars per HOUR, or admittance to their “inner circle” of clients, I know that integrity has left the room, in disgust.

Yes, a nice hotel is great to present a workshop to a lot of people at once.  However, the workshop and message should be the focus.  If it is, it won’t need the added attraction of duty-free shopping to get people there.  Price it so that everyone can afford it, not just those with personal fortunes to draw on.

Empowering those who need it most, the people who did not get the great start in life, the people who still work on the minimum wage, the people whose lives have been visited by challenges and who could never aspire to spend thousands of dollars on a weekend listening to a guru, this is where spiritual integrity begins.

Those of us who have a message from Spirit do not own the message!

We are merely the conduit for the message.  Spirit doesn’t mind us charging a fee for it if we are making it our life’s work.  Claiming ownership and charging huge fees that lock away the message away from all but the most privileged is hardly in integrity.

How can you be spiritual, empowered and in integrity?

It’s a personal thing.  It’s about taking personal responsibility and being discerning with who you listen to, and what goes into your mind.  Filter the rubbish, embrace the wisdom.

It’s about picking up the lessons and habits that have been proven over decades, centuries even, to work and to always work.  It’s about integrating them into your life.

It’s about having your own daily personal empowerment program that instills the right success habits, the best subconscious programs and giving you the most powerful tools for personally improving your situation, at your own speed, and being with you all the way through.

It is about becoming personally empowered and building integrity into the environment around you and in your life, which will enable you to create your own success, wealth, and abundance, without making someone else wealthy at your expense.  It’s not about giving your power away to a guru you may never meet, or their disciples, centuries after their passing.  It’s certainly not about giving your power away to any religious leader or doctrine.

It IS about taking responsibility for becoming everything you COULD be, and sharing your own personal, spirit given gifts with the world.  If it becomes your calling to make a career out of your gift, whether it’s Reiki, readings or channelling, then spirit will guide you to where you need to be, and show you how to make that work for you with integrity and bring you the mentors you need – as long as you are willing to accept the challenge.  It’s not something you can half do.

Responsibility is total – you need to be personally prepared for it and a Personal Empowerment Program is what it will take, to lift your energy, intention and ability to where it needs to be.  And if you think you are already prepared, ask yourself why a butcher keeps sharpening his knife….  Yes.  You need to stay sharp too! Click this link to learn more.

Your personal empowerment program – your own pep talk every day!

If you feel this article has empowered and benefited you and you feel it could benefit the personal empowerment, integrity and spiritual development of other people you know, please reblog it, share it with your friends and associates.  It might be the day you changed someone’s life for the better!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

#Integrity

Jim Rohn as I knew him
Image from mlmtraffictactics.com

 

Please also refer to my other posts on Empowerment:

Empowerment through Emotional Intelligence

Financial Empowerment

Empowerment

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Empowerment for Teens

Empowerment for Children

Personal Empowerment

What would an empowered man do?

Empowered by love

Prayer for change

#prayer for change

Prayers count, no matter who prays!
Image from www.atotheword.com

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
Bernard M. Baruch

A Prayer for Change

While looking at my blog today, I chanced upon a section of the dashboard I hadn’t noticed before.  It showed the search terms people had used most to find my blog online.  It shocked me to realise what it meant.

The two top terms were:

  1. Prayer for change in my life

  2. Empowered Person

If ever there was a cry for help, both these terms are screaming it from the rooftops! Prayer for change and seeking empowerment!

For two decades I have delivered life changing workshops and seminars all over my country on exactly these topics, and the cry has been the same:

“I expected more out of life than this, by now!”

#prayer for change

I expected more out of life than this, by now!
Image from www.sott.net

I have heard it from teenagers, from young disillusioned couples, from parents with teenage kids, and from retirees, who were struggling still, after a lifetime of struggle.  A #prayer for change, if ever there was one!

When we were in school, we were told, and probably you were too:  “Study hard, get good grades, get a good job and have a good life!”  Well, these people all followed those directions and by the time they came to my workshops, that is how they felt – ripped off!  It was a lie, and they had fallen for it!  And now, they have this prayer for change!

There’s nothing wrong with having a good education and getting a good job.  However, that’s not it – that’s just the start!  Your education continues and it’s a lifelong program you are enrolled in!  The school of life is never on holidays – it always has something to teach you!  The question is – are you ready, willing and able to learn?

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
Oscar Wilde

For those people truly desiring change and empowerment, we have provided the Life Change 90 Program. Click here to learn more about Life Change 90.

For those people searching for a prayer for change, here is mine – click on this link for the whole blog:

Today, My Perfect Day

A day that I could begin by being of service to another, to start their day also with inspiration and love.

A day when I could plan and begin projects – dreams that could take all of my tomorrows to complete.

A day I would live as though it was my last, as though there would be no tomorrow.

A day when I would play the games I play to the limit,

To laugh as hard as I can,

To love as passionately as I am able,

To work and achieve to my capacity,

yet with time to rest and relax with my loved ones

until we are full of the love we have for one another.

A day when there is time to reflect,

To consider those whose fortunes have not yet been realised, as mine have,

To pray that they may be realised – soon.

A day which closes with a Prayer of Thanks to the Great Spirit and all the guides I have,

for watching over me through this day,

and to ask them to guide me through the next,

so that again someone might say:

“I’m glad that you came by!”

© Ray Jamieson 1993

#prayer for change

A pot of gold, after all?
Image from wordlesstech.com

For those searching for Empowerment, there is a whole series of empowerment blogs for you, everything from Financial Empowerment, to Empowerment for Men, Women, Children and Teens, and explanations on what Empowerment means and how to gain it!  The full list is below.

Thank you for your searches, and thank you for looking to Life Change 90 and our program for the answers to your prayer for change, and for your personal empowerment, in whatever form you desire it.  I hope we have helped you and you know that we will continue with our aims to empower many more people, in times to come.

If you feel this article has empowered and benefited you and you feel it could benefit the personal empowerment of other folks you know, please reblog it, share it with your friends and associates.  It might be the day you changed someone’s life for the better!  If that was that special person in your life, then congrats: you just changed your own life too!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails, and I hope your prayer for change is answered!

Ray Jamieson

Please also refer to my other posts on Empowerment:

Empowerment through Emotional Intelligence

Financial Empowerment

Empowerment

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Empowerment for Teens

Empowerment for Children

Personal Empowerment

What would an empowered man do?

Empowered by love

Empowerment through emotional intelligence

#Empowerment through emotional intelligence

Tip of the iceberg!
Image from www.soulseeds.com.

“In a very real sense we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels”
Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

Empowerment through Emotional Intelligence

Many people have heard of the term “Emotional Intelligence”, made famous in a book by Daniel Goleman and now commonly called “EQ”.  We were all made familiar with “IQ”, our intellectual intelligence quotient many years ago, when intelligence testing was considered the ultimate measure of a person.  Fortunately, that has since been found to be a very small part of the story.  It’s now recognised that a person’s “IQ” is not really as important as how the person is able to utilise their “IQ”. That level of utilisation is often a measure of their “EQ”.

Let me give you an example.  I went to school with a really brainy guy.  In my own high school up to Grade 10, I was considered reasonably intelligent and won class awards in some subjects. Alongside this guy, I was a dunce!  We did a physics exam one day when I was in Grade 11 at College, and he got 65 questions right, out of a possible 66.  HE WAS FURIOUS!  The question he wasn’t marked correct on had a full stop missing!  That’s all!  But he wasn’t used to not getting everything right!

However, brilliant as he was in the science laboratory or the maths class, this is the guy who would walk out of the dormitory with his shoe laces untied, his shirt buttoned crookedly and was forever asking for someone to help him with his neck tie!  In the world outside the laboratory, the poor guy was hopeless and helpless!  I don’t know if he ever got a drivers licence, but I hope not….!

He had a very high IQ, but almost no EQ.  And that is the difference.

EQ is the ability to relate to others, to communicate effectively and to empower others.

What is empowerment?

Empowerment is the ability to influence the environment around you for the benefit of all.  #Empowerment through emotional intelligence is the way you utilise your communication skills, your ability to create rapport and empathy with people, to influence outcomes and the behaviours of other people.

Let’s face it:  Personal empowerment only happens when you empower others.  You cannot be empowered in isolation.  The most powerful person on the planet is no more powerful than anyone else if they are sitting alone in a dinghy miles offshore.  Put that same person in a room with other people and their empowerment becomes evident.  Their influence is felt throughout the room.  Even if their identity remains unknown, their effect on the people around them will be felt.  That is empowerment.  But your own empowerment only happens when people around you respond positively to your behaviour and treatment of them.

#Empowerment through emotional intelligence

Empowered Couple
Image from www.essentialoilspedia.com.

You see the evidence of this in many places.  A loving couple together may be a formidable team, a unit of considerable influence, power and passion.  However, before their meeting and becoming a couple, either of them may have been described by their friends as lacking in confidence.  Together, they empower each other.

A political leader can be a dictator and through absolute power wield much influence.  However, the most loved leaders will often have more power and influence and especially the respect of their people, than the brutal dictator.  As a fringe benefit, they also have more job security and in retirement will be welcome anywhere in the world.

#Empowerment through emotional intelligence

Dictators from history – how many can you name?
Image from www.freemediaproductions.info.

An example of that would be to compare Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi with Nelson Mandela.  Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi were dictators, responsible over their long and brutal reigns for the deaths of thousands of people.  Their armies kept them in power, but ultimately rebellions and civil wars cost them their leadership.  They died as they lived.  Nelson Mandela had the same struggle to begin with, perhaps even harder, but when he came to power, he was loved and respected by all, and empowered other people throughout his many years as president of his country of South Africa.  When he retired, he remained the most respected elder statesman in the country.  The respect for him was global, and even the Pope sought meetings with him.  Other world leaders sought his counsel. When he passed away recently, the nation of South Africa was just one of the nations around the world mourning the passing of one of the greatest statesmen the world has ever been blessed with.

#Empowerment through emotional intelligence

An empowered leader, Nelson Mandela
Image from au.lifestyle.yahoo.com.

The same happens with us on a personal level.  We need to be empowering others, for us to become empowered people and leaders.  Empowerment does not work in a vacuum, or in isolation.  Our empowerment is measured by the degree of empowerment we give to those around us.

How do you gain empowerment through emotional intelligence?

The first part of this is understanding the power of our emotions, and the effect they have on our behaviour.  Below is the Empowerment Tone Scale Chart.  The range of human emotions is captured down the left side of the scale, from the lowest of emotions, apathy, to the highest, up above enthusiasm.  It goes much higher, but those are states not relevant here.

#Empowerment through emotional intelligence

Emotional Tone Scale.

The critical point on the scale is the red empowerment line, just above boredom.  Below this point, a person is purely reacting to stimuli, but not operating rationally.  That is not to say they are not capable of high level thinking and planning, but their thinking is not constructive.  In some form or another, it is destructive.  Above the line is where interest and constructive thinking begin, and win/win solutions and new concepts are possible.

A person in grief is way down on the scale.  In this state, the person is more introspective, turned inward.  To communicate with this person, we need to empathise with them, and find a way to reach their emotional state without entering into it ourselves.  Then we need to raise them up to the level of the Empowerment Line, even if only briefly, to get them to apply rational thinking to their situation.  That doesn’t mean they will stay there, nor should they.  There is an established grieving process that people need to complete before they can move on with life.  Empowering this person is entirely appropriate, but to try to keep that person, who is suffering with their grief, in an empowered, enthusiastic state for an extended period is denying them their grieving process and unrealistic.

#Empowerment through emotional intelligence

Comfort through grief
Image from www.yourdictionary.com

To raise a grieving person up to an empowered level for a time, respectful questions that require processing are needed.  Processing can only be done in an emotional state above the empowerment line. To answer the question, their mind needs to rise to the empowerment level.  Gentle questions can do this, and will rouse the person from their grief and enable them to function more rationally.

However, if the person is angry, in emotional pain or hostile, their emotions are directed outward to inflict their pain and angst on the world, to retaliate.  Much as a friendly dog will bite when cornered or in pain, the person’s behaviour is also a non-rational reaction to circumstances.

Again, gentle but firm questions that require processing will have a positive effect, although it may take a series of questions and the format is quite specific.  Questions such as:

“How can we sort this out?”

“How can we change this around?”

“How can we fix this problem?”

This format aligns the person asking the question with the person feeling the pain or anger, where formerly, they felt alone.  It also puts the source of their pain or anger or grief out as an issue independent of the person.  It identifies it as a problem that can be solved with rational thinking.  Thus the person is raised to the level of rational thinking and empowerment to deal with the issue that was formerly their millstone.  This is empowerment through emotional intelligence – your use of your “EQ” can provide a powerful influence on anyone suffering from a lowered emotional state.

Once the emotional state begins to rise, when appropriate, offer the opportunity for some responsibility in and a share of the positive outcomes of the solutions.  Offer the hope of brightness of the future, and show them that it is their responsibility to claim it.

How important is empowerment through emotional intelligence?

Look at the vertical blue arrow in the scale.  That is the emotional region where most people live, and the majority of them are probably between boredom and hostility, tapering more towards the extremities.  In other words, most people you meet will need to be empowered BEFORE you can relate with them!  They will need a reason to think and to start a rational thought process before you can have a positive relationship with them, because that is not a normal state for them!

Can empowerment become a normal state?

Yes, absolutely, and empowerment through emotional intelligence is the pathway.  It is a learned process, and once learned and the success behaviours and actions of empowerment are formed and become habits, empowerment becomes the normal way of life.  And yes, anyone can do this.

Empowerment is not an event; it is a series of success strategies that are lived moment at a time, day by day.  It is a way of life.  You already have a way of life, a series of strategies that you live, moment at a time, day after day.  If you want empowerment in your life, some of those strategies may need to be changed.  And you can do it. CLick here to learn more about Empowering YOU!

If you feel this article has empowered and benefited you and you feel it could benefit the personal empowerment of other folks you know, please reblog it, share it with your friends and associates.  It might be the day you changed someone’s life for the better!  If that was that special person in your life, then congrats: you just changed your own life too!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

“emotional self-awareness is the building block of the next fundamental emotional intelligence: being able to shake off a bad mood”
Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

Please also refer to my previous posts on Empowerment:

Financial Empowerment

Empowerment

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Empowerment for Teens

Empowerment for Children

Personal Empowerment

What would an empowered man do?

Empowered by love

 

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox

Join other followers: