Are You Ready and Able to Adapt to a Changing World?

There is one constant in our lives today, that constant is CHANGE. You can either allow change to overwhelm you and be the reason that you never manage to break free from your self-imposed comfort zone. Or you can accept 100 % responsibility for your life and anticipate change, plan for change and utilise change as your ally. When I speak of responsibility, I mean take charge of your life and accept that no one will design the future you want, it is all up to you. The moment you accept this reality, you empower yourself and equip yourself to create the future you have dreamed about all your life.

If you place bees in a jar, which is open on one end and you lay the bottle on its side, with the closed end facing a bright light source. The bees will repeatedly fly into the closed bottom, trying to escape through the closed end. They are programmed, instinctively, to only fly toward the light. Even though the one end of the jar is open they will just keep flying toward the light. They never reverse gears and fly out of the open end of the jar.

Do you act like a bee and just keep repeating the same pattern of behaviour every day? Are you locked in your present circumstances, an unhappy and unfulfilling place, yet you are unwilling or unable to change? As long as you continue to repeat the same behaviour patterns, you cannot ever expect to change anything in your life. If you continue to repeat the same pattern of behaviour, something miraculous will happen, NOTHING!

It is time to reach in a new direction and to break free from your comfort zone. A place I am certain, which is anything but comfortable. Stop doing all the things that are making you miserable and choose to no longer do what is comfortable and convenient. Open your mind and accept that you will need to experiment and explore. Break new ground; accept that not everything you will attempt will work out.

Follow a process of trial and error; learn from all the feedback you receive and turn this into a set of daily success activities, which will, over time turn into the success you desire. It is far better to try and encounter a few challenges, than it is to just do nothing. As long as you do nothing, there is no chance; you will ever break free from the bindings of mediocrity. The more you try and fail, the more you will learn and grow.

Action Idea: Starting today, explore your life and discover exactly what you want in your future. Once you have a crystal clear picture of exactly what you want, it is time to, examine your daily actions and discover, exactly what is holding you back. Try one new idea at a time. When you introduce one new activity into your schedule and measure the result this new activity delivers, you will soon see that things will begin to change in your life. If the new actions are delivering the results you want, keep doing it. If not adjust your activities, until they deliver the results you want.

As you follow a cycle, where you plan what you are going to do, take action or just do it, review or measure your actions daily and if necessary, improve the actions you take. You are equipping yourself for super success. Keep repeating the cycle of “Plan, Do, Review and Improve, until you succeed. You can never fail, if you don’t give up.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Awaken Your Internal Champion

Before the advent of video games and the constant bombardment of 24 hour entertainment streaming directly into our lounges, the highlight of our year was attending the carnival, when it came to town. We could hardly wait to ride the bobbing wild animals and whirl, round and round to the music that was blasting out of the old antique pipe organ. Surrounded by flashing lights and strategically placed mirrors, our hearts would race as we all competed to be the one who could reach out and grab hold of the gold ring, thereby winning another free ride. I believe that the simple act of always giving my all, trying desperately to reach out and grab that gold ring, helped give birth to my competitive spirit.

I would always compete in every sporting event I could, trying to win at all costs and overcome everyone around me, so that I could be the best and be recognised. Watching world class athletes standing on the highest pedestal in the centre of the stadium, raising their hands to the loud roar of approval from the crowd, was a huge joy for me. I would feel the pride and honour as though it was me standing on the podium. I held onto that dream of one day standing on that podium myself, wallowing in the glory.

I believe that the dream to be the best is ingrained into us from an early age. Going back to riding the merry-go round and being the one who managed to grab the gold ring. It was not just the fact that you won another free ride on the merry-go round that drove me to win; it was the fact that your name was announced over the loudspeaker and all the other kids and parents would applaud your success.

Due to the pressures placed on us to always be the best and to win at all costs, we are mistakenly led to believe that success and winning is something you earn by reaching outside of yourself. Constantly trying to prove to others that you were worthy of their praise, as you strive to prove yourself, earning more, winning all the time or attempting to perform in some special way.

This crazy notion that you need to always outperform, outmanoeuvre or outplay everyone around you, is the single biggest reason why people give up on their dreams. They are so desperately trying to win all the time, trying to earn self-worth through external praise from others, that when they are unable to be no 1 all the time and they no longer get the external praise they so desperately need, they simply give up and stop trying.

We are mistakenly led to believe that the approval of others always precedes feelings of self-worth and self-confidence and that you are only entitled to feel good about yourself after you have outperformed everyone around you. It saddens me to think how many people still live by this mistaken belief and keep themselves trapped in lives they hate, because they have not realised that the key trait needed to live a life of meaning and fulfilment is, simply creating a fundamental belief in your own internal value.

It has taken me many years to realise that the wellspring of personal and professional success is found by applying the following principals in your life:

The value you feel must be an inside job. Never rely on the opinion of others to develop your feelings of self-worth or self-confidence.

Your performance is only a reflection of your internal worth and never a measure of it.

Your own sense of value must determine the quality of your performance.

The less you strive to impress everyone around you, the more impressive you are.

Believe in your own internal value and stop looking around for approval from others. You are truly magnificent and unique and have so much to offer the world. Stop measuring your success by your external possessions or you will be constantly subject to anxiety. Do not rely on the cheers of your peers to drive your success. You can never succeed in the long run, if your concept of success depends upon always winning, offering a perfect performance every time or hearing the cheers of everyone around you.

It is very clear that good looks, talent and other attributes are not equally distributed, but the one thing none of us is ever short of, is value. We are all filled to overflowing with value, more than we could ever hope to use in several lifetimes. The game of life is never played on a level playing field, in terms of education, supportive environments, available resources and many other circumstances beyond our control, but I know that you were born with unlimited value and the ability to be the best possible version of yourself. What are you waiting for, unlock that value and become the best you can be. Note I said be the best you can be, not be the best all the time.

You were born a champion, but you have allowed yourself to be broken down by perceptions, unrealistic expectations, exposure to a judgemental environment and your need for external recognition. You came into this world a winner, but have programmed yourself to not live according to your highest potential, because of responses you have received from your environment. Recognise your internal value and use that as the foundation for achieving your full potential. Become an inner winner, believe in yourself and you can succeed at anything.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Author: Andrew Horton Business Motivational Speakers

Change is a Door that Opens from Within

Where you find your business right now is the right place to start, if you want to improve the results you are currently enjoying, by evolving your current culture. It is important to know that the current culture within your organisation is not a bad culture; it is merely a culture, which can produce a certain outcome or result. If you want to produce a different result, then you will need to make a few shifts to inspire your people to think and act in a manner that will produce the different result. It is seldom necessary to total transform the culture within any organisation. More often than not, all that is required is a few shifts in thinking and activity, which is facilitated through changes in the daily experiences people are exposed to.

Unless you invest effort to introduce the new culture, which will produce the new results you want to see in your business, you will be unable to realise those new results. The old culture will never produce different results. You can never expect the old culture to magically abandon its powerful, persistent existing attributes and miraculously produce different results. That can never happen, no matter how many resources you throw behind attempting to flog the old culture to produce different results.

Action Idea: The way to start the process of shifting culture, to produce the desired results, is by first defining the shifts needed to the way people think and act within the organisation. This means that you need to explore ways of introducing a new experience into your business, which will help to shift the beliefs or the way people think, so that they will be inspired to act differently. Understanding how a shift or evolution in culture can produce remarkably different results in your business, puts a really powerful tool in the hands of the leader. They have a tool that is so persistent and powerful that it will even outlive the personal influence of the leader.  

I was speaking to a CEO from a large organisation a few months ago and he highlighted the power and longevity of a great culture in a business. He was transferred to a branch of their business in Spain early in his career, in a junior leadership position. He returned a number of years later to head up that same division in the company. Although there were very few of the original people left in the business unit, the culture was essentially the same.

There is a disputed experiment, which was conducted using five monkeys, a ladder, a bunch of bananas and a cold water spray system, which was attached to the roof of the cage, which supports this theory. Some people dispute whether this experiment ever happened. There is however enough supportive evidence from similar experiments done by Stephenson (1967) using Rhesus monkeys to support this story, so I am going to tell it, as it is a really powerful example of how persistent belief and behaviour, can be continued even when the people, who started the belief or behaviour are no longer around.

Five monkeys were placed in a cage with a bunch of bananas suspended from the roof. A ladder was strategically placed under the bananas. As each monkey tried in turn to climb the ladder to eat the bananas, a hard blast of pressurised freezing cold water was sprayed on all the monkeys in the cage. The monkeys very quickly learnt that if any one of them tried to get to the bananas, everyone in the cage got sprayed with the freezing cold high pressure water. After a very short time the monkeys gave up and ignored the bananas. They then removed one of the monkeys and put a new monkey into the cage.

As this monkey had never been exposed to the cold water spray, they immediately went for the bananas. Before the monkey could even reach the ladder the other four monkeys attacked the new monkey, until it learnt not to touch the bananas. Over time all the old monkeys were removed and replaced with new monkeys, who had never even been sprayed with the jets of freezing cold water. The new monkeys never went near the bananas, the behaviour had been transferred to the new group of monkeys and they did not even know why they could not eat the bananas.

We as humans exhibit the same sort of behaviour in our work environments. The beliefs within the organisation are never communicated via memos or emails, it is just a knowing, a set of beliefs about the way things are done in the business. These beliefs are usually spoken about, by starting the sentence with “Around Here” followed by the belief or way of thinking. Unless you can introduce new experiences within your business to break or change these ingrained beliefs, it will be impossible to enjoy better or different results.

It is impossible to get people to change the way they act in their work environments, unless there is an accompanying change in beliefs or the way people think. When you consciously work to change the experience within your organisation, so that you can begin to help people to evolve and transform their beliefs, you are able to gradually change their actions and ultimately the results you are able to enjoy.

Shifting culture within any business is not an easy task, but is most certainly a necessity if any business wants to positively change their results. Culture change is facilitated using two distinct steps.

Exploration: This is the first part in the process, where the leadership within the organisation audits the current culture and establishes the strengths and weaknesses of the current culture. They also examine the beliefs, actions and experiences within the business and try to discover which part of the current culture will support the new results they are attempting to achieve and which part of the culture needs to be shifted.

Next the leadership team examines the current culture against any changes in the business environment and the results they are attempting to achieve. Using this as the foundation for creating the new culture, they then explore ways of introducing a different experience in their business, so that they can begin to shift the beliefs within their organisation. The new beliefs will drive the daily actions of each individual in their business. These new actions will result in the improved or different outcomes they are attempting to achieve.

Integration: The next phase is where the leadership team attempts to integrate the cultural changes into the current organisational systems and processes. This is achieved through a conscious effort on the part of the management team to introduce a new set of experiences, which will drive the development of a new set of beliefs within the business. It is crucial that the leadership team monitors the shifts in beliefs and culture and assess if the changes are having the desired effect on the results they are attempting to achieve.

The success of any culture change is dependent on the involvement of everyone in the process. As the process begins to gain momentum and big “MO” starts to play its part, the culture change becomes self-reinforcing and the better results actually become part of the foundational experience, which drives the creation of the new beliefs that you want to create.

As you are attempting to create the new culture, always try to encourage everyone in the organisation to be accountable for the culture shift. When everyone in the organisation makes a personal commitment to toward achieving the required results and they are constantly on the lookout for better ways to achieve these results, the process becomes self-sustaining.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Author: Andrew Horton Time Management Training

Are you Scuttling your Future with your Negative Self-talk?

Research has shown that there is a constant stream of self-talk going on in our minds all day. This constant of barrage of input into our minds, only seems to stop during certain parts of our sleeping cycle. This constant stream of talk is so habitual and part of who we are, that we seldom even know we are doing it. There is a constant stream of comments, judgements and reactions to everything going on around us. These conversations are either supporting you and the success you are attempting to invite into your life or they are destroying your potential. That is why it is crucial that you ensure the conversations you have with yourself all day, are nurturing rather than scuttling your success. If you are constantly feeding your brain with negative input, you are subconsciously sabotaging your success.

Action Idea: Tune in to the conversations you have with yourself all day, listen to what you are saying to yourself. Assess whether you need to change the way you speak to yourself in any way. Negative self-talk destroys your potential, whilst positive self-talk nurtures and accelerates your success.

When you listen to the conversations you have with yourself are you:

·         Speaking as a critic or a nurturing coach?

·         Do you negate or reinforce any success you experience?

·         Are you comfortable engaging in positive reinforcement, where you say things like “that’s more like it” “Now we are in the groove” “Well done, things are working out well”  or is there a constant stream of criticism, which breaks you down?

·         Do you berate yourself when you feel like you have failed, or do you see any challenge or roadblock as a temporary inconvenience, an opportunity to learn, a necessary part of any success journey?

·         Do you see every difficulty, which crosses your path on the way to the success you desire and deserve, as a stepping stone to greatness or a stumbling block, which will stop you in your tracks?

·         Do you reinforce every success, no matter how small, by rewarding yourself with praise, or do you tell yourself you were just lucky and don’t deserve any attention for the success?

·         Are you able to accept a compliment and feel like you deserve it or do you always respond with a negative retort about how you don’t deserve any praise? Learn to accept value graciously whenever it is offered. You are a wonderful person and yes you do deserve praise and support.

·          When you pass strangers in the street, or meet anyone you know, do you greet them with a smile? Your demeanour is a direct reflection of what is going on inside you. If you are sullen and grumpy inside, you are most certainly not in the best frame of mind to be creative, innovative or searching for opportunities. That smile doesn’t just help the person receiving the smile. It helps you too.

·         Accept praise graciously from others and reinforce your own good work with positive self-talk, but avoid engaging in bragging or blowing your own trumpet. When you feel it necessary to constantly shout about your exploits, you are only looking for attention. Anyone, who is looking for attention, will miss all the great opportunities waiting to be exploited.

·         Stop making excuses for lack of progress or any unresolved challenges, always engage in positive self-talk, keep your eyes focused firmly on your vision for the future and affirm the progress you are trying to make.   

Explore the conversations going on in your head all day, ensure that the things you are telling yourself are indeed supporting your vision and helping you to take the daily action you need to be taking. It is so easy to scuttle your future, if you constantly bombard your mind with conversations, which restrict, limit, criticise or constantly distract you with negativity. When you learn to start to think more positive thoughts, which nurture and support your efforts, you have found the most powerful stimulus package for super achievement.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za                        

Author: Andrew Horton Motivational Speakers South Africa

Do You Act The Same Even When No one Is Watching

I believe that the true measure of a person is not found in what they do when they know people are watching, but rather how they conduct themselves even when they think no one is watching. Are you always cordial and empathetic when you deal with people, especially people who carry no sway over your life? When at the checkout at the supermarket, do you smile and greet the person behind the counter. When a beggar asks you for some spare change, do you pretend not to see them and stare into the distance or when walking down the street do you ignore everyone around you, as you get lost in your own thoughts and issues?

A smile or a greeting expressed to anyone you come into contact with each day, goes a long way towards making them feel better. Have you ever noticed how when you look someone in the eye, smile at them and offer them a hearty greeting, their mood immediately lifts and they smile straight back at you? Imagine how much better our world would be if we all invested time into smiling and greeting each other every day. A smile or a meaningful greeting costs nothing, but adds so much value to everyone around you. You have nothing to lose and the world has so much to gain from your greetings and smiles, give them away freely.

Your thoughts create you expectations and your expectations drive your creative capacity, which in turn creates your reality. So by consistently, smiling, greeting and acknowledging everyone around you, showing respect, caring and empathy for them, you are not only helping others to feel better about themselves, but you are helping yourself, by ensuring that you consistently think more positive thoughts too. We can all easily make our world a whole lot better, if we just allow ourselves to care.

Our time on this planet is fleeting, have you ever thought about the legacy you are going to leave behind. What would you like people to say about you after you have come to the end of this physical experience? We have an amazing ability as humans, where we can project ourselves forward into the future and visualise our lives, as they could be. Sit for a moment and project yourself forward to that day when you have come to the end of your physical experience and someone is preparing to celebrate your life with a short message about who you were. What would you like that person to say about you?

Based on what your life is demonstrating right now and the daily actions you are taking. Is the message that is being delivered, exactly what you would want or expect it to be? If it is not then what would you want them to be saying? Based on the message you would want to hear, bring yourself back to where you find yourself right now and ask yourself what you need to do differently to ensure that you live the kind of life, you will be proud of and will add real value to everyone around you.

Eleanor Roosevelt epitomised this when she said “Life is like a parachute jump, you have to get it right the first time” The life you are leading every day is not a dress rehearsal, it is the real deal. Every decision you make or fail to make is shaping how your life will turn out and the legacy you will leave behind. Is the way you are living your life meaningful and allowing you to feel fulfilled? Are the actions you are taking every day, going to allow someone to say the words you would want to hear them say, when you have moved on from this world?  

If you are a leader, have you ever given your legacy any thought? Everyone leaves some kind of legacy. You can either choose to coast through life and see what comes your way as a leader, or you can choose to be intentional about building a meaningful legacy, which will leave something of value for the people, who come after you. Stop merely accepting everything in your life and start consciously “LEADING” your life to where you want it to go. You can only coast in one direction.

Choose to become proactive about the way you live .As each day passes your thoughts and actions are being inscribed in your book of life. As each hour passes, an unchangeable record is being made, which will stand for all time. What message do you want to be written in the record of your life? Do you want it to be a record of a noble purpose, where you offered generous service to those around you and you performed at your best every day? Or do you want it to be an account of all the times you attended happy hour, sat in front of the TV and never extended yourself beyond your comfort zone? How your life unfolds from this moment forward is 100 % dependant on the thoughts you think, the decisions you make or fail to make and the actions you take.

Are you going to continue to coast through life and never really feel content or satisfied? Or are you going to make a few different choices from now on, which will allow you to escape from that self-imposed comfort zone and allow you to begin exploring the limits of your potential? Making the better choice, to become all you can be, will allow you to live a life of meaning and fulfilment and will also allow you to pass the baton on, to someone after you leave, so that they can continue the work you started.

Elton Trueblood said it so well; when he said “We have made at least a start in discovering the meaning of human life, when we plant shade trees, under which we know full well we will never sit” The best leaders always strive to develop other leaders, who will be equipped to carry the legacy they started forward. You have the ability to project yourself forward and see how you will perform as a leader and the legacy you will leave. Use the picture of exactly what you want to achieve as a leader and the legacy you want to leave behind after you leave, to start driving your thoughts, decisions and actions today and you can create exactly that legacy for yourself.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za/leadership-south-africa/

Author: Andrew Horton Leadership Training South Africa  

Are you Willing to Give up To Go Up?

We are instinctively programmed to seek pleasure and to avoid pain at all costs. This worked really well and served us when we lived in primitive societies, where our survival depended on us not taking unnecessary risks, by doing anything out of the ordinary, which could push us outside of the place where we felt comfortable or in other words pushed us beyond our comfort zone. This same instinctive response, still keeps us trapped in “AVERAGE” comfortable lives we don’t necessarily hate, but which forces us to live below our potential. We never manage to break free from our self-imposed limits or comfort zone. There is nothing wrong with being average and part of the herd, if that is what makes you happy. If on the other hand you want to begin to explore the limits of all the possibilities, which are available to you. Then it is time to confront your self-imposed comfort zone and to begin to stretch yourself towards new limits.

This concept of stretching yourself beyond your comfort zone requires you to trade something you value that you currently possess, so that you can gain something more valuable, which you don’t. This is the only way to grow and escape from “AVERAGE” and realise your full potential. If you want to become a super achiever, you must accept a certain amount of risk and be willing to stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone.  Unless you are willing to trade your time, energy and resources and accept some short term pain and risk, you will remain trapped in an unfulfilling life and will never discover the limits of your potential.

If you are comfortable where you are and the thought of extending yourself beyond the limits of your comfort zone is really terrifying, then you need to explore your life and see if the additional pain associated with success is worth the effort and risk.  Jim Rohn said it so well when he said “The pain of discipline weighs ounces, but the pain of regret weighs tonnes” Are you going to allow yourself to remain trapped in a “safe place”, which is not really meaningful or fulfilling, because you are afraid of taking a risk or applying yourself daily to take small disciplined actions, which will result in major success later. I feel it is far easier to escape from your comfort zone today and apply the light weight of discipline to everything you do, rather than coasting through life, never realising your potential and living with the huge weight of regret later.

Once you make the decision to break free from your comfort zone and start down the path of discovering the limits of your potential. You can mitigate the risk by having a crystal clear mission defining exactly why you want to achieve anything great and a vision which will give you a clear picture to focus on, showing you exactly what you want to achieve. Armed with this build a blue print for success or a strategic plan, which defines the individual daily actions you must take and you have the makings of great success.

The next step in the process is around timing. Success or failure either as a leader or in any endeavour you undertake depends on knowing when the right time is to fire. Timing is often the difference between success and failure. Great leaders know that when to lead is as or even more important than what to do or where to lead your team.  When a leader intuitively knows when to lead or when to take action at the right time, they and their team become unstoppable. Great leaders intuitively know when to do the right things and when the right time is to do these things.

The secret to become a great leader is not cantered only on taking the right actions. If you want to lead your team to success, then it is important to explore and discover whether you are leading your team and encouraging them to take the right actions at the right time. Don’t allow yourself to only explore the actions your team will take, invest time to think about the timing of these actions. Look around your environment and try t discover whether there something going on, which could affect the outcome you want to achieve?  Should you wait or should you begin taking action immediately?

Action Idea: Explore any initiatives which may have failed in the past and try to determine if the failure was due to the wrong action by your team or whether it was due to bad timing? See what you can learn from that experience.  Armed with the experience you have gained by exploring any failed projects; examine all your new and existing projects. You can mitigate the risk and enhance the possibility of success with any project, if you have better information and insights.

Examine all your current or prospective projects. Answer as many of the questions below as possible:

·         Is the project aligned with your vision and mission?

·         Have you got a clear set of goals and daily actions for each team member?

·         Does each team member know their individual roles in delivering on the vision?

·         Is it the right time to be tackling this project?

·         Is the morale of your team conducive to success?

·         Are the market conditions right at the moment?

·         Is there any leverage that can help to accelerate progress?

·         Are there any factors, which may work against your team?

·         How can you mitigate or eliminate them?

·         Do you and your team have a clear understanding of the current conditions and market situation?

·         Do you believe in what you need to do?

·         Can you initiate and influence your team to take action?

·         Have you explored the intangibles, such as market conditions, morale and momentum?

·         Have you done enough homework to explore the project and discover any potential challenges or pitfalls?

Not all these questions will be appropriate for your business, but my experience has shown me that, the more questions you answer from the list. The better prepared you are and the higher the probability of success. Always remember that when you take the right action at the right time you virtually guarantee success.

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