Perspective shapes perception

A guardian angel can be a symbolic entity or real person who appears concerned for our welfare.  We need not know an angelic individual personally, but what we learn from them can teach us new meaning about affection, and open our minds to what it means to be aware and complete. 

I read a story about a devoted Australian mother with a zest for life who died of breast cancer three months after her twins were born.  Funny thing, during treatments, she actually said the date she chose to die and did as planned, after bringing in the New Year 2005. If she determined she completed what she had been born to complete, she may have shifted consciousness.  Her life experience enabled her husband to learn how we choose to live shapes how we react to what happens to us.  He evolved to view her life and passing with gratitude, not grief and pain. He became utterly peaceful and together, turned to focus on his creative energy and potential.

This woman I never knew reminds me love heals our souls and relationships.  Her life story also reminds me I am never a victim of my circumstances unless I choose to lie to myself about what I control.  My life has taught me I may sense that I'm a loving person.  Yet, the experience itself raises my awareness to new levels of understanding that compels a willingness to sacrifice.  Feelings are the language of my soul which I have opportunities to decipher throughout my life.

Another couple I met evolved from being discouraged and in debt in their twenties to becoming financially free in their thirties.  Listening to their life story, which concerns business success, has taught me we're not always consciously aware of what we want from ourselves or our lives.  As we meet people, we may become aware of what we had previously chosen to ignore about ourselves. 

This couple reminds me what I choose to experience expands my awareness of what is possible and transforms my reality.  I instruct my mind and create on a conscious level what I initially imagine.  Like guardian angels, this couple invites me to discover new insights accessible within myself.

13 Steps to greater success

No matter what your line of work or aspirations,your ability to portray self-confidence and strength of character are key to moving ahead, achieving a deeper sense of purpose and progress. Each of us benefits from new ways of seeing ourselves, our behavior and principles.

In 1947, Frank Bettger wrote a classic book entitled How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling. He explains how during his first two years in sales, he barely scraped by. He had to take additional jobs to support himself. Then, he learned some tips from sucessful people like Andrew Carnegie and skyrocketed to become the top insurance salesman in America.  The stories Bettger shares in his book remind you that 13 steps he borrows and expands from Benjamin Franklin can improve not only how you feel about yourself, but perhaps more importantly, how you come across and also achieve results. Even if you're not a sales professional, Bettger explains how you may apply his timeless principles achieve success in any undertaking.

1. Be Enthusiastic!

Act enthusiastic and you'll become enthusiastic. This is a mindset created by your attitude.Any endeavour or situation may seem to grow undesirable or difficult not because you change your circumstances, but because you permit your circumstances to change you. Take back control!

2. Be Organized

Take time to think and plan your schedule. Where will you go? Who will you meet? What will you say? How long will you have? To be prepared and act effectively (even improvise)'on your feet', or present a new idea to someone you know, you would benefit from organizing your thoughts in advance before you meet. When you respect your time, you'll make better use of other people's time and both of you benefit. You never have a second chance to leave a first impression either.

3. Think like the other person

What do you offer or what could you do to benefit that other person? How can you phrase things in innovative ways to put the person first? Reinforce the desire to learn from him and understand.

4. Ask Questions!

Asking questions is to your advantage. You enable another person feel good about dreams or situations.You may provide an opportunity for someone to reflect on issues that hadn't been considered before. The person may realize you could assist in some personal or professional way. Ask questions to qualify a business prospect, to discover a person's true desires and needs as a friend or confidante. To earn respect, build relations and trust,inquire about the person's priorities, stand back and let him or her talk. Take an interest in discovering their personal interests and motivations.  Show the person how you can empower him or her to reach goals.

5. Seek out the key issue

Identify key issues that impact someone's decision-making. As you inquire, learn to seek to learn about the person's primary concerns. Demonstrate how you relate, empathize and or could help. In which ways would this person become more flexible? How might you be able to assist?

6. Listen

Learn to open your ears and read behavior to interpret and intuit feelings of others. Experience offers you opportunities to become a more effective listener.  Societies may teach us how to hear, but rarely teach listening. Rather than permit ideas to go in one ear and out the other, tap into all your senses and retain details. Learn to read gestures and voice tones to understand more comprehensive ideas or a person's underlying feelings about an issue.

7. Deserve Confidence

If you say you're good at what you do, draw from the coinciding reputation. If you feel you're competent, refer to testamonials. It's useful to inquire what people have heard about you before you introduce compliments or advantages to what you offer. It's wise to always agree with objections, expand on the proper context and ask the person to whom you're speaking what he or she would've done in your circumstances. Take responsibility. Be accountable and take steps to build on your existing reputation by empowering other people to comment more than you. As you take opportunities to learn, you will earn and reinforce confidence.

8. Know Your area

Regardless of what you think you know, you can always learn. Remain humble. What do you read or investigate? How do you become involved in life and learning? How do you learn about yourself from other people? How do they learn from you? Ask other people how they might advise you.

9. Appreciation & Praise

We impact how things happen,shape quality and reputation. Compliment your competitors and agree with people who compliment the competitors. You can always take time to turn a situation around with a question. Ask people what they see as desireable advantages. Empower them to tell you what they want or hope. Respond in ways that show your best side and benefit others.

10. Smile & Laugh

A smile is powerful.  What you say is strenghtened by a sincere smile. This gesture, without comment, captures attention and invites positive feelings. Smiling as you speak doubles your success. When have you laughed? Children laugh on average 100x more than adults per day. Remind yourself that being serious is not as good for your health and learning to be light-hearted.

11. Remember Names & Faces

Many "formulas" exist to help you recall details about people. Mental rhyming, mneumonics can be helpful. Why not explore other strategies, including writing details down? Alan Pease wrote a great book called "Easy Peasy" which covers strategies that help jog and reinforce your memory.

12. Relationships

Devote time and attention to your relationships, and nurture new ones. One of your best sources for new business, information and resources is your current network.You can always benefit in new ways from people you know. They can also benefit from you. What are you doing about it?

13.Action

If you desire to accomplish anything, talking about it isn't enough. You must take steps to plan, talk about it, and actually implement a process to make it happen. As you evolve to become more results-oriented, you realize the importance of getting up and performing tasks to earn results. Nothing comes from nothing.

Be true to yourself

I'm reminded that each person I meet is an invitation to change, to become a participant in a process that includes many more people around the world.  Good conscience is a sure reward.

I think of how meeting a businessman at a particular stage of my life enabled me to discover that I was limiting my choices based on what I knew about my potential to that point.  Coincidentally, I have a colleague who met a businessman and got into a new venture just before the colleague's initial business had to close down. A businessman you meet in passing can be an angel in disguise. 

I recall how sharing dinner with a psychology professor in a distant city enlarged my observations about humanity's evolution and my own kinds of attachments.  I had met that person on a plane.   Our few hours of discussions later that evening taught me a negative side of my determination.  That interaction taught me to distinguish and reflect on different levels of desire or aspiration.  I learned I could be true to myself while changing my mind about job, study and career choices.

A friend of mine reinforced her faith in strangers when she arrived at an airport and her luggage didn't follow.  Why was it that airline personnel were so understanding and provided her compensation when she temporarily had nothing to wear? Why was it someone kindly bought her a coffee and someone else paid her transit bus fare before she reached the gate to do it herself?  Somewhere inside herself, she decided not to try to control what was already out of her hands.  She didn't desire to get upset about her lost luggage, so she didn't.  She chose not to assume people were 'out to get her' and discovered the overwhelming desire of strangers to help. 

Rather than accumulate negative karma, you can chose the opposite and benefit from a strong of positive consequences. As you are true, as you believe in yourself, positive outcomes unfold. The guardian angels may appear in the form of strangers yet, your attitude can be another saving grace. Why not act as your own guardian angel? If you don't look out for yourself, how can you expect others to care? As you set an example, you may be surprised to see how you inspire others.

Hang on for the ride

Writers decide to organise their thoughts into books for different reasons.  Some people seek to document travel experience, to research and live vicariously through someone else's life, to devise fiction or to share lessons learned though their own personal or work experience.  Whatever the writer's motivation, what counts is its intensity.  The energy generated in a person's soul is what convinces that person he or she has good reason to share a specific story.

Preparing to write a book is a mental process.  Somewhere in your mind, you will decide this is something you would like to do for yourself and for the benefit of other people.  You may undertake research, collect, sort and edit material.  You may simply begin to transcribe words and see where that journey into yourself unfolds. From the point when you determine you desire to express things, its up to you to take initiatives and figure out how and for what audience.

Writing is a  vehicle that enables you to rediscover who you are and what you're made of.  Your chosen words also become tools that teach you what you're not.   You experience things and describe them in ways which elucidate your relationship with yourself and the world.  How truthful you choose to be reflects your level of ignorance and awareness, how much detail you wish to reveal and how deeply you hope to know yourself. 

In essence, you boarded the roller coaster of life.  You define the experiences you perceive or conceive are possible.  You live a choose-your-own adventure.  You decide what is reality and fantasy.  You can choose to write about the life you lead, the life you would like to lead and evolve into that as part of your own learning process.  No experience has meaning until you decide to give it meaning.  Everything or nothing means anything you choose. Share what you will.

Melt away stagnant choices

Each choice you make has a consequence.  These results can represent the stepping stones of success or, the choices themselves can also symbolize incremental examples of success.  Each choice can attract or prevent the kinds of success you desire for yourself.  If you continue to make the same kinds of choices and you're not obtaining desireable results, this is a sign you would benefit from heightened awareness.  It's your choice to learn to recognize these signs.

Success, therefore, may be experienced as you take responsibility for choices and decisions.    As you agree to be accountable for all your thoughts, feelings and actions, you also take advantage of learning as much as you can about who you really are, who you think you are, and whomever you choose to become.  You build courage to face fears, develop assertiveness and move ahead.

Yet, if you give the responsibility to others to make choices for you, then you also refuse to define your view of success, you refuse to take charge of your life and the pace of your own evolution. Melt away stagnant choices that hinder your personal development. Progressive movement in thoughts, words and action determines the direct ion of your growth.  Success begins inside as an attitude.  It can drive optimism, hope and creative visions to emerge.