The Choice is Yours

When life throws you a challenge, are you equipped to choose the best option to deal with it?

ACTOR Robert de Niro once said: “The talent is in the choices.” In other words, you must make the best choice available to you at a given point of time. The more choices you have, the better the chances of achieving your desired outcome.

Two is better than one

In the philosophy of Neuro-linguistics Programming (NLP), if you have only one choice, it is not considered a choice at all.

If you have two or more choices, you have an opportunity to make the best decision to influence the outcome. You can draw on the vast resources of your brain to create choices for yourself. You can also reframe your problems and see them in a different perspective.

For example, you have a choice to remain as poor as a church mouse or to become more financially stable. You have a choice to be untidy or be organised. You have a choice to do it now or later. You have a choice to be complacent or to be alert to opportunity.

The Post-It lesson

The glue used in 3M Post-It pads was originally meant for fixed surfaces like bulletin boards. A 3M chemist, Arthur Fry, tried to find other uses for the glue but could not think of any.

One evening, while he was singing in church with his choir, a light breeze blew his hymn sheets away. At first, he was irritated. Then he had a creative, brilliant insight. The 3M glue could be used to stick paper onto paper! And the Post-It pad was born.

Fry received a yearly royalty for his invention, thanks to his committed desire to find a use for one of his company products.

No failure, only feedback

Sometimes you make the wrong choice and the result is failure. Take heart, making the wrong choice is better than not making any choices at all. At least, you take the initiative to act.

Failure is not the opposite of success, but its by-product. Inaction, apathy and tolerance of mediocrity are the opposites of success.

We learn valuable lessons from failure, such as taking the hard knocks in life. The lessons are not taught in formal universities but out in the street.

In NLP, there is no such thing as “failure”. Instead, failure is actually feedback that can be used to improve your performance. Failure is a necessary part of success. It is actually a step before success.

Many quit when confronted with failure, not knowing that the next step is success.

Domino theory

Tom Monaghan, the founder of the Domino’s Pizza chain, was only four years old when his father died. Poverty drove his mother to place him in an orphanage. Young Tom harboured two childhood dreams — to be a priest and to play in the Detroit Tigers, an American baseball team.

However, after a year of studying to be a priest in a seminary, he left. In 1960, he started Domino’s Pizza. Initially, it was very successful, but in the 1970s, he started losing control of the company because of rapid expansion. Domino’s was on the brink of bankruptcy.

By 1993, Tom Monaghan had rebuilt Domino’s Pizza into one of the largest pizza chains in America with a sales turnover that exceeded US$2.2 billion (RM7.3 billion).

So compelling was his dream to play in the Detroit Tigers that he purchased the entire team. He also remained Domino’s president. Had he given up during his bankruptcy, he would not have enjoyed Domino’s later success — and he would not have fulfilled his second childhood dream.

He chose to see his bout of failure as an opportunity to do even better. As Henry Ford once remarked: “Failure is the only opportunity to begin more intelligently.”

— Source: Straits Times/Asia News Network

Article contributed by Michael Lum, an American Board of NLP trainer.

Appreciate Your Strengths

Counting your small victories will build your confidence

WHILE growing up in New York City in an Italian family, I rarely left the three-square-block area that was my neighbourhood. My father was a cab driver, my mother was a classic (“raise ‘em on respect”) Italian housewife, and I was a cocky, tough kid.

You had to be tough to survive in the projects on the lower West Side of Manhattan. I remember my initiation into the neighborhood at age five or six. A bigger boy had beaten me up on the way home from school.

I ran crying up to our apartment to my Dad and expecting sympathy. Instead, his response was to remove his belt, brandish it in front of me, and tell me sternly: “Anthony, you’ve got to learn not to run away from bullies. So, here are your choices. Go back outside and face this boy who just beat you up, or face my belt.”

I went back outside (my Dad followed me), found the boy, and fought him again (this time I won). I never lost another one-onone fight (and believe me, I went on to fight in many more ...!).

You may think my Dad’s behaviour was over the top, but he wisely understood a universal rule for developing self-esteem and confidence: Confidence in yourself gets built up gradually, one success at a time.

You can fake confidence, and you may need to at first, but real self-confidence comes from a history of small victories and accomplishments that add up to a sense that you can handle yourself well in almost every situation.

In his many books on selfesteem, Dr Nathaniel Branden agrees as much. For him, selfconfidence is knowing that you have the wherewithal to function reasonably well in the world. In other words, you can’t be confident if you’re fearful or easily intimidated.

The day I beat up that bigger kid was the small victory I needed to prove to myself that I could accomplish nearly anything. Who knows if I would have been half as fearless, half as driven in life if I had chosen to face my father’s belt instead?

Here’s an exercise: I suggest you take an inventory of the major accomplishments you have achieved over the past few years.

Then remind yourself of the minor ones too. What about the computer course you completed? Have you built anything that’s still standing? What about those kids you’re raising? That’s an accomplishment.

Don’t be modest. Tell the truth about how hard you worked, what sacrifices you have made. If you can’t think of any, then begin by congratulating yourself for living as long as you have.

Sheer survival is an accomplishment these days. What is unique about you? What skills do you bring to an organisation or project that you can count on?

Seriously, it pays to take the time to know your strengths and appreciate them. That is the only path to developing selfconfidence.

– Source: Straits Times/Asia News Network

Article by Dr Tony Alessandra, co-founder of MentorU.com, an elearning company. He is the author of 14 books including Charisma; The Platinum Rule; Collaborative Selling and Communicating at Work.

Self-development Begins With You

Stop making excuses – work on the five keys to achieve your potential

I RECENTLY had the displeasure of working with one of the most negative people I have ever met. Let’s call her Cindy.

In Cindy’s world, nothing good ever happens to her, the rain only falls in her part of town and there is a conspiracy to keep her from succeeding. The interesting thing about Cindy is that she is intelligent, articulate and has lots of potential.

The problem is that she will never realise her true potential if she does not change her attitudes and beliefs about who is responsible for her development.

She constantly blames the organisation she works with for not “training her more”, she blames the government for taking all of her expendable income (through taxes) so she cannot go back to school, and she blames her family for taking up all of her time so she can never get anything done.

The one person who Cindy never blames is Cindy, and as a result she never improves in any facets of her life.

Unfortunately, many of us see the world this way.

When we consider personal or professional development, it is too easy to blame external factors for our own shortcomings.

The reality is that making an excuse is the easy way out, and making a positive change in your life comes down to you making a conscious decision to take action without waiting for someone else to initiate it.

Are you ready to start working on personal growth? If so, here are five keys to positive self-development that may be of value to you:

1. Whatever it is that you want to achieve, do something about it.

For example, if you would like to be more efficient at your job, and you work on spreadsheets all day but are not as fast as you could be, make a call and enrol in a night course that will sharpen your skills.

If you believe that your health is holding you back from optimal performance, call your local fitness club and set up a training plan.

Do it now and stop putting it off.

Making the commitment is the toughest part of any self-development plan, so get moving now and you will have the toughest part licked.

2. Choose one or two things at a time.

Do you have a laundry list of things you would like to work on? Sometimes, looking at a huge list of personal “to-dos” can be intimidating, and as a result, you do nothing.

I find it easier (and more productive) if I choose one personal and one professional self-development programme to tackle at a time.

You will be focused on the task at hand, you will not be overwhelmed, and as you complete one task after another, your confidence will grow.

3. Adopt a selfish attitude.

Too many people play the martyr and say: “I can’t do anything for myself because I have to look after others.”

Fair enough, but then how many dreams go unrequited because of this? How much potential is lost and unhappiness caused because you did not take care of yourself first?

The reality is that if you improve yourself, you will be able to do more for others and everyone will be happier.

If you sharpen your professional skills and get a raise because of it, you will be able to provide for your family better.

If you take time to exercise and find optimum health, you will be more confident, less stressed, and you will set a positive example for those around you.

You may have to be creative with your schedule and how you get things done, but you can do it.

4. Spend time with people who are at where you want to be.

Learn from mentors and adopt the attitudes of the successful. Most people who have been fortunate enough to succeed in this world have done so because they are confident, positive and hardworking.

Surround yourself with these people and you will start to understand how they came to succeed.

The people you spend time with have a massive influence on your attitudes and mindset, so be careful about this.

5. Recognise that it is all up to you.

Your growth and development is your responsibility – not the government’s, your employer’s, your family’s or your religion’s.

Randy Gage, an American author, speaker and consultant on the topic of prosperity, recently said that when he looked back at his failed relationships, his crooked business partners, his bankrupt bank account and his failing health, he realised that there had only been one person at the scene of each of these “crimes”. Him.

Are you the only one at the scene of your own failures? For most of us, this is the case.

Start taking some positive self-responsibility for your personal and professional growth.

Recognise that the choices you make now will impact your future.

A positive action today, even a small one, could lead you to a very positive tomorrow – and will help you to avoid becoming the neighbourhood Cindy.

– Source: Straits Times/Asia News Network

Article by Paul de Burger, associate consultant at d’Oz International.