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An Attitude of Gratitude Can Attract Blessing

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Personal Development for Career Professionals

It’s amazing how much our attitude can affect the way we react to our circumstances. It’s even more amazing how our attitude can affect what happens to us.

On checking out of my room at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, where I had attended a company conference, I found that I had 5 hours with nothing to do, as all my friends were either travelling or otherwise occupied. When I asked where I could sit to spend the time, the staff very kindly took me to the VIP lounge.

How disappointing, I thought, to spend the last 5 hours in a place as exciting as Vegas, stuck in a lounge, particularly as I was due to go on a 12 hour flight that night back to Australia. Then I remembered that a colleague had told me that, if I was to become more grateful for what I had, I would attract more of what I wanted into my life. So I decided to give myself a challenge and give it a go. I decided that I was grateful for the comfy chair, the free wifi, the free snacks, and the fact that I was sitting in the VIP lounge, when I certainly wasn’t a VIP!

Some time later, when I was catching up on some training videos I had meant to watch for a while, who should tap me on the shoulder and start talking to me, but the CEO of the company! This was a woman who I greatly admire and respect, and who I never thought I would meet, let alone chat with. I told her that meeting her had made the next few hours I would spend here worth it. As she left, she said: “you simply must eat before you go. Please have whatever you want and charge it to the company account”. I was amazed!

Quite some time later, a man entered the lounge and introduced himself as the head butler at the MGM grand. “I’ve never met a butler”, I said in surprise. He laughed and said, “I hear you’re hungry. Please follow me”.

“Where are we?” I asked a few minutes later, as the butler seated me at a table set for dinner. “This is skyline, a hotel within a hotel, which is where all the famous people stay” he said, and my jaw dropped. “Your company is a good client of ours, and I thought it was easier to bring you up here for your meal”.

The butler and I conversed on many topics as I ploughed my way through the biggest sandwich I’ve ever seen in my life, and a bowl of chips that could serve as a meal on its own. I love america!

As the butler filled my water glass for the third time, the hotel manager, of all people, appeared with my suitcase, and asked if anyone had booked transport for me. I said that I was going to book a cab to the airport, and he said “don’t worry about that, we’ll take you in one of our cars”. Little did I know what was in store!

We all went down stairs, me on the butler’s arm, and the hotel manager wheeling my suitcase. I felt like a princess. This feeling of royalty was magnified when I discovered that the car that was to take me to the airport was a Rolls-Royce! I thought only the queen had one of those!

As I glided to the airport in the back of the Rolls, I pondered the events of the afternoon. I became convinced that, had I remained disappointed and ticked off about how things had turned out, the CEO would never have spoken to me, and I would never have experienced the dream afternoon that I had. So, I am living proof that an attitude of gratitude really can attract blessing.

If you’ve got anything out of this post, please let me know in the comments section or, if you prefer, contact me directly.

The Value of Serving Others

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Leadership Development with Amanda Heal

When I was going through the redundancy process in early 2013, a friend told me about an organisation called Project Starfish, saying that it was an organisation that employed blind people to work from home. He said that the founder was interested in growing this organisation outside the US and that I should contact him.

Intrigued, I called the founder Subhashish Acharya and found that, in fact, Project Starfish is an organisation that teaches people with vision impairments, and other disabilities, basic business skills, so that they can then work on projects with businesses, and become more employable. (see their website here) After a long discussion with Subhashish (or Subs as we like to call him), I said that I would be very interested in becoming involved with Project Starfish, as I would like to see the organisation grow.

I spent the next few months on conference calls with the other Project Starfish members, learning about how businesses work, and hearing about their opportunities and challenges. It was something I’d never been exposed to before, and fitted in very nicely with the work I was doing in setting up my own business.

Some of the Project Starfish members had a lot of experience in areas such as Microsoft applications, sales and business analysis, so we decided to put together a formal training program for the other members. I expressed an interest in learning to manage a team, so was appointed training Manager. As our membership grew, we added trainers to our group, and ended up providing our training to members in 8 different countries. It was great!

I learned a lot about training, scheduling, dealing with people from different cultures, and managing conflicts. It was wonderful to feel valued and needed again, and to see others growing and flourishing as they gained skills and confidence.

When I joined the John Maxwell team, and started my training, Subs was kind enough to let me try out my new coaching, training and speaking skills on the project Starfish members. It was not only a wonderful chance to practice, but also to see what value John Maxwell’s material could bring to others. Even now, I have a new mastermind I want to add to my collection, and have been given permission to try it out on Project Starfish.

In his book “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership”, John Maxwell states that “Leaders add value by serving others” (The Law of Addition). I learned this lesson very practically through my work with Project Starfish. But little did I know how much they would give back to me. I am very grateful to Subs and Project Starfish for helping me become the person I am today.

If you know anyone with a vision impairment, or other disability, who is unemployed and willing to learn some extra skills, please visit http://pstarfish.org or contact hr@pstarfish.org or call Nasreen on +1 781 262 0520.

 

How to Build Your Self-Belief

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Personal Development for Career Professionals

“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval”, Mark Twain.

I spoke in my last post about how comparing myself to others lowered my self-belief, and caused me to stop doing the things that I needed to do. I realised from that experience, and others, that my main weakness, and the main obstacle to my personal and business growth, is my self-belief. I have started to work hard on this, and so it is a topic that is dear to my heart.

There are many different ways to grow self-belief. It’s just a matter of finding which one, or few, work best. Different methods may work better at different times and in different circumstances.
Some methods I use to build my self-belief include:

• Reading about people who are on a similar journey to me, and who have found success;

• Listening to Ted Talks;

• Pondering on inspirational quotes;

• Reading books by, and watching videos of people who inspire me;

• Talking to my mentors;

• Spending time with positive people;

• Reciting daily affirmations;

• Reading encouraging verses from the Bible; and

• Imagining myself succeeding at the things I want to do.

I find the last 3 of these methods to be particularly powerful. I think that this is because they focus directly on my imagination, and as I said in my last post, the brain doesn’t know the difference between imagination and reality.
What do you do to improve your self-belief and thought life?

If I can help in any way, please let me know in the comments section or, if you prefer, contact me directly.