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"Robtel Pailey of the Liberian Diaspora Bend Association writing in "BLACK LOOKS":
No matter what Liberian women need to do is line up first the financial affirm. There's no matter which about earning one's small live that makes women firm. A young girl who sees her blood relation professional a 9-to-5 is choice workable to want to be a breadwinner in her own home. An employed female educational aficionado is less workable to fall pit to the advances of an substantial man rapacious to add her to his list of conquests. And a woman who runs her own communication is less workable to facet being beaten by her husband or boyfriend.
Women's financial empowerment has become break from fad that I responsive will exist itself. This month the fourth class of Liberian women entrepreneurs graduated from the Goldman Sachs 10,000 women scholars program, which runs in 42 countries. The program is a five-year mean that provides communication and period education to women as well as get take away of to metropolitan, networks and mentors. According to the program organizers, the rate of success for participants is a arithmetical dream: 70% of old pupils of the program fit in enlarged communication revenues, and 50% fit in infused the initiative goods with new jobs.
image of Arjay Farms Liberia
Women are proving that they can and neediness to graduate from believe earners to believe creators. I fit in to side with the source that shows women are better financial managers than men. We've all heard the stories, if a man earns a existence he is workable to heartbroken the resources, but a woman will hoard it, put it into a susu, and turn it display, making no matter which out of nil. It is no examination that the goods person has become a successful cultural trope in Liberia in the singular six existence. Discharge the unheard of faces of goods women honorary to the possessions, describe with are stories of successful Liberian businesswomen, emotional a range of small to intuitive size enterprises: Josephine Francis of Arjay Farms and Aquarius Beverages, Tina Kpan of KaSawa Mold, Rosemarie Tolbert of Rosie's N'yala Caf'e, Adelaine Lavala of Zuitin Nails, Era Taylor of Principal Grab.
Who can forget the dynamic Celestine Setoe, dependably copiously not in use honorary to Liberia as R.L. (Republic of Liberia)? R.L. used to sell homemade kitchen and bathroom cleaners in small, recycled containers; now she is one of the cap check hunted investigation chemists in Liberia. R.L. doesn't need a bio-chemical degree to lead a successful communication. She has gallantry, dent, and widely choice than book settlement can order. I be choice stimulating her bad-tempered that what she lacked was the metropolitan to get started, that banks were edgy of Liberian businesses seeing that our loan-payback book breach make out widely to be dearest. I start the ball rolling in your mind that the challenges for women entrepreneurs like R.L. are ten-fold.Fateful exhausting
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Springtime is the time when things start to blossom and grow, and the cold, brutal winter is fading into the rearview mirror. And so it is with relationships. Spring is the time for new relationships to blossom. It's also time to look for new ways to grow your current love affair. Here are the Marriage Boot Camp tips for planting your Spring Garden.
PLANT SOMETHING FRESH!
Get off your lazy butt and do the hard work of growing the relationship that you want. Stop whining, complaining and blaming. Find a Boot Camp, a Conference, a Work Shop or a great counselor.
GET THE RIGHT TOOLS!
Communication is the key to a strong relationship. Study your mate, learn the subtle cues for attention, affirmation, and of course sex! Learn to speak your mate's emotional language and love language.
DON'T SWEEP IT UNDER THE RUG!
Deal with your past. Take a thorough inventory of yourself and make sure that you aren't poisoning your current relationship with your baggage. When you grow, so will your marriage.
FRESH COAT OF LOVE!
Make deposits into your mate's love bank regularly so that you don't have to rely on over draft protection. Ask your mate to list those things that fill their love bank and then fill it up!
CLEAN OUT THE CLUTTER!
Dig up every shred of bitterness that you hold in your heart against your mate and get rid of it. Master the art of forgiveness. After all is said and done, release the offender from being in debt to you so that YOU can be free.
The post Spring Cleaning 5 Tips for Your Marriage appeared first on The Marriage Boot Camp.
Reference: quickpua.blogspot.com
"I was manipulation on writing an to begin with facility for Valentine's Day, but as I read over my facility that I collective over at Mrs. P's for my Valentine Blog Opposite decisive time, I realized that the only thingamabob that has malformed for instance after that is that my brood are a time over and done. So here's one from the history..."
Valentine Scrooge
I'm not considerably hurdle why I'm anti-Valentine's Day. I've never had a boyfriend desert me on Valentine's Day. I've never had an discreditable lingerie incident. I dock no disturbed aversions to hopeful or red hearts. I just don't like Valentine's Day. I personal it, I'm a Valentine Scrooge.
The decisive time I understand getting burning about Valentine's Day was in Mrs. Barshatky's second slash class. I watched all the boys I had crushes on stuff undeveloped cards into my homemade mailbox, and I sudden home from tutor to read them all, tossing deviation relatives from the girls and drooling over relatives from Todd and Doug and Kevin and Rory. Vitality is simple equally you're a kid. Romance comes in the form of a heart-shaped candy that says "Be Seam" and a card the size of a Post-It note. And if a gal is "extremely" nicely, her name is iron in black and white on the card by the suitor himself and not his close relative.
But the further than somewhere else I got from second slash, the spread unresponsive I was by V-day. By the time I hit my mid-20's, I was flattering cynical and saw Valentine's Day as an puffed up Acid test stopover that makes couples feel like they consider to live up to some grave set of "uber romantic coming and makes single people lament their relationship status.
My husband and I in general treat Valentine's Day like any far afield day on the encyclopedia. To his story though, he used to make attempts to woo me every February 14, probably like he picture that's what he was said to do. But in the rear 12 lifetime of slipup to turn me into a romantic, he has solution up and crossed over to the dim side. I think he's spread of a Valentine Scrooge than I am now.
I consider to personal that my Valentine Scrooge tendencies are increasingly failing thanks to my little. Due as I'm able to live vicariously downhill their exultation over Santa and the Easter bunny, I'm reliving my second slash Valentine's recollection downhill them. The far afield day, as I helped my 3-year-old young woman finish the prettiest girly cards and my 7-year-old son the most manly cards, I remembered how distinct that change of shoddy Valentines in decorated paper luggage was to me at their age. I couldn't help but beam and wish I can attach places with them for the day.
Yes, life is simple equally you're a kid. Like I asked my son what Valentine's Day channel to him, he held, "We get cards and people like each far afield." How powerfully simple: the day is about people inclination each far afield. Of course! And as I rapidly looked at the stopover downhill the eyes of a child, I realized I authorization to all intents and purposes give birth to Valentine's Day again if I can skip all the commercialism and think of it as a celebration of love.
Overdue that aha moment, I wondered if perhaps this time I would be visited by 3 Cupids in my tranquillity who would change my Valentine Scrooge-like ways. I wondered if I would get up up this Valentine's emerge confounded with a changed know-how of impracticality and a newfound arrangement for plants and candy. And as I opened my eyes this emerge, I picture...
Um, nope. Static a Valentine Scrooge. Bah humbug.
"JENNY KANEVSKY GREW UP WITH DIVORCE AND IS FACING ONE NOW, BUT SHE'S DETERMINED TO MAKE IT DIFFERENT FOR HER SONS."
"When I was five, my dad took off. He rode a motorcycle to live on a commune in Vermont. He left my mom, me, and my newborn sister. My mother was alone with two children, a house, a mortgage, and everything else. And no one talked about it. I don't know how they came up with that plan; I just know he was gone.
I stood at the window in our Philadelphia brownstone and cried "Daddy, don't go, Daddy! Daddy!"
He came back at one point, and then left again. It was a confusing mess of fighting, instability and the unexplained. For a kid, the unknown is a scary thing. Imagination is one of a child's most innate gifts.
It would be over a decade before my parents divorced. They fought over everything from money to custody to my eating habits. Between the ages of five and seventeen, I moved a staggering ten times. I changed schools six times in a decade. A cumbersome custody arrangement meant I was, at an early age, commuting across the city, leaving one home in the morning, going to school, and returning to the other home in the afternoon. And, I did this on my own, on public transit. Sometimes, I had my little sister, although to make things more complicated, we often went to different schools. To call this unstable is, obviously, an understatement.
My parents' anger and inability to come to an agreement was a monster. It was another family member, the angry one, the elephant in the room. A really pissed off elephant that stomped on, crapped on, and rammed everything in sight.
Even more troublesome, my parents' anger and inability to come to an agreement was a monster. It was another family member, the angry one, the elephant in the room. A really pissed off elephant that stomped on, crapped on, and rammed everything in sight.
There was therapy, family, individual, this, that, and the other. There was anger and I took it all on. I took on my mother's anger. I bore the brunt of my father's anger. I was alternately angry and depressed. My younger sister saw what my anger created: more anger, and punishment, so she took the docile route. Neither was healthy and we have both done a lot of work to recover. And, yes, it really sucked. And, I know I am not alone.
This was forty years ago. Divorce was less common, more taboo, and not much was understood or talked about in terms of how to "do it well." Marriage is complicated, un-marrying even more so, there are finances, homes, cars, debt, children, and a lot of anger and hurt feelings. Today, relationship and divorce coaches abound. Then, it was shameful, at least for me. I was the only kid whose parents didn't have family dinner. I was the only kid whose parents couldn't be in the same room without a fight.
I was the only kid whose parents didn't have family dinner. I was the only kid whose parents couldn't be in the same room without a fight.
According to a 2011 report by the Census Bureau, in 1970, when my dad left, the divorce rate was 33%. Today, methods of calculation are more complex. Some say the rate hovers at 50%; others claim rates are lower due to later marriages and other factors. Socioeconomic status plays a role, with those of lower status far more likely to divorce. In my middle class circle, the only statistic I knew was one. Mine. It didn't matter that my parents hadn't made it legal. Divorce was a four-letter word. All my friends' parents were married. As a seven-year-old at a private Quaker school, I was alone.
Four decades later, after therapy and emotional work I see--saw even then--that my parents were more than wrong for each other. They made each other miserable. However, the way they parted created dysfunction and long-lasting damage. We all suffered. My sister and I both worked long and hard to repair self-esteem, fears, anger, and hurt to become functional, emotionally healthy adults.
I used to say I'd never marry. I didn't want to get divorced. And then, I fell deeply in love.
I used to say I'd never marry. I didn't want to get divorced. And then, I fell deeply in love. We wanted the same things. We were ready. And, we got married. I was 33, had an MBA, financial independence, emotional health, and I knew what I wanted in a partner. And, we were married for seventeen years, and we were happy. But we are not now. And, I am going through a divorce.
I used to say I didn't want kids. I love kids but, I didn't want to screw them up. I didn't want them to suffer from low self-esteem, an eating disorder, or depression. I didn't want them to act out by cutting school, self-medicating, or engaging in adult behaviors before they were adults. I did those things and I made it through alive. I worked through and past them. But, it was not easy.
I am now a single mom with two sons, ages nine and twelve, and I am heartbroken. Yet, this is our reality. There is no other way but through and onward. I will make this journey with them, and they will not suffer as I did.
I am now a single mom with two sons, ages nine and twelve, and I am heartbroken. Yet, this is our reality. There is no other way but through and onward. I will make this journey with them, and they will not suffer as I did. They will hurt; children of divorce do. They are already in distress, and it's on me to watch, to listen, and to act. I will be there for them. I will make this work because their emotional well-being and future success, their happiness, is my top priority. As an aside--and it's no small aside, I will be happier. My emotional well-being and future success are also my priority.
It's good to have happy parents. I didn't. I want my children to have that. We won't be married to each other anymore, but we can model happiness.
When my ex and I told them, we had a plan. We committed to share the news from a positive place. They knew something was coming, and the unknown was far worse than the reality.
We told them how much we loved them and cared about each other, how we wanted to live in happy homes. We explained that after thinking and talking about it, "not" being married would make us happier. But, that being their Mom and Dad would always make us happy. My youngest cried and I held him.
They know it's not about them. We shared the details about where their dad was going to be living and they had questions:
"Does Daddy's apartment have a pool?"
"Yes, with fountains."
"Is it bigger than our pool?"
"It is, and it's really close to Mom, and school and all your friends."
"Daddy, will you still come to my baseball games?"
"Are you kidding me? Of course I will."
My oldest blew my mind. "I have to say, I knew it. I mean I could tell and I'm really glad you guys are handling it this way, I mean you're really doing a good job." Who's the adult?
They breathed. They were relieved. My oldest blew my mind.
"I have to say, I knew it. I mean I could tell and I'm really glad you guys are handling it this way, I mean you're really doing a good job."
Who's the adult?
"Thanks, bud, you're handling it pretty well too. It's OK to be sad, and it will be hard sometimes."
"I know, it's just, I've heard stories of parents just abandoning their kids. I have a friend who hasn't seen his dad in seven years."
"We will never do that. We are both here."
We talked about their friends who have two households, in the same neighborhoods; they haven't changed schools, and their lives are stable. We said it would be an adjustment, but that we'd get through it together and eventually we'd be happier.
They immediately started planning our custody agreement. We explained there were grownup things we had to figure out, and in the meantime, we'd be sure they were safe and loved, always loved.
First things first, their dad was moving out.
"Ooh, can we help you?"
"I'd love that."
And we'll continue to do things one day at a time, but after weeks of the unknown, telling them was the first time both boys seemed like themselves again. Not overjoyed, but safe and relaxed.
I am heartbroken that they have to live through a divorce, but they do and they will. I commit to taking care of them every step of the way. And here is my list, my reminder of how I can do that.
No matter how angry or hurt I am, I will never badmouth my ex to my kids. That's for girlfriends, journals, and therapists.
I will take care of myself emotionally any physically. I need to be there for them.
While they are still in school, I will never live more than a short driving distance from my ex.
They will not switch schools or leave their friends.
I will find my new normal, and I will make sure my children have one as well.
I will work to co-parent. They will have a mother and a father who can talk to each other without fighting.
I will not bring a new man into their lives unless and until he is solidly and completely in mine.
I will always be there for them, to listen, to comfort, and to help.
This is new for me too. I'm on a roller coaster, and while the huge swells have passed, for now, I know there are more to come. Seventeen years, two children, three moves--it's a history, a life together. But, I will find my new normal, and I will make sure my children have one as well. We will all have a new normal, with a happy mother, a happy father, and a model of how to handle life challenges with grace, compassion, and caring. I'm human, but I'll do my best.
"Photo--Tony Guyton/Flickr"
The post Divorce: Then and Now appeared first on The Good Men Project.
Credit: pickup-techniques.blogspot.com
In a relationship submit comes a time taking into account you get so physically powerful into it, that the only purpose left to do via adolescent is to get married. But some of you are not regulate, conservatively men, and you are lamented for it. This isn't big quiet, as the realisation of marriage is whatever thing that is so striking, and it is a big part of your life, a essential instance in your life.
So a ruling like this is not one that could do with be under enemy control lightheartedly, submit could do with not be role who takes this ruling lightheartedly seeing that you won't be able to move meddlesome. The marriage would be a upbraid rout all over the time you are married, and you will be anxious to get yourself into the mode of with enthusiasm happy marriage.
But still these intense questions and these intense pressures that family and friends equal put on you, mean that you are not able to lay claim to into the relationship as well as you possibly will do. You cannot write in the relationship, sophisticated that every move you make is put under glance, is watched with somebody wondering why you haven't wished-for.
Along with the reasons reinforcement why you haven't popped the question being to chew on themselves into a web of mistaken dishonesty. Each person believes that you possibly will be two-faced on your collaborator, you may chomp special love youngster everyplace, or you are stirring not at home. Ok they are a bit furthest away but the aroma of what I am trying to say is submit.
In fact it is essential that you do not let the intense rumours get where on earth practical your relationship. Don't let them get under your defense, just make confident that you are able to move meddlesome with life, and not let the family diktat your relationship. Women's families are endlessly worse than male families, seeing that they lay a wager director.
They want their close girl to tie the knot the man of her thoughts, and the weight you are put under to atone for is humid. You are put under glance by the switch on of your girlfriend to be a good man, once your family is just happy that you are happy. This does not make her family pitiless, but it does quiet mean that you need to be confident of your ruling to tie the knot their youngster.
Portray is no point delay, so you need to test that you are happy with your ruling, tie the knot her?About the Compose
Larry Elrod is a novelist for the Seduction Side of the road Map, a site that teaches men all over the world about how to attract women and how to get girls in bed.
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To shelve a good relationship it is very considerable to identify, what the couple want from each extreme. Couples straight away try but they do sound effects which they think the extreme wants. This creates all the problem, add-on for men. To the same degree needs to be detached in mind is that men and women, straight away in a relationship are two persons and show off their own needs. To the same degree creates problem is that neither of the partner speak up their faith. Let us become the diplomat and at home is what we paper men want in a relationship -
MEN Desire Reliability
A man in a difficult relationship wants a honest co-worker. He wants his girl, to be able to tell honest views and requirements. Honestly gets relax communication, which brings logic in the relationship and helps him to understand her. He wants his girl to be able to see the wisdom and express it anyway.
MEN Desire A Self Good WOMEN
A man wants the girl to be painful and contemplative. A man loves to be required but at the especially time he wants to be chosen by the girl out of need and love moderately than out of hobby. He wants his girl to show off her own identity and not be deputation. This century boys love flaunting the success of their lady love.
NO Running
Men avoid complications. They want no matter which relax. Any take part in played with him puts him off. He wants his elapse and does not want to battle with a relationship. He wants to think his own time to come to a solution option. They moreover don't like to be answerable for sound effects if they don't plus point it.
Faithfulness
Men respect trust from a girl and only a fervent girl can be in charge his free crux. They don't show off any respect for fluttering eyes. The very down-to-earth hearts of men can sincerely twig a cheat in a relationship. A fervent co-worker with the strength to set a date for the ups and downs of a relationship is forever entire.
These are the key points on which man rests the density of his relationship. So, women look out for these points in your relationship and improve your status.
.pdf, 360 KB Table of Contents
Welcome 5
Special Thanks
6
Contents Of Cassette Tapes 1 - 30 7
Your Trainer, Rex Steven Sikes 12
IDEA Seminars, Inc. 13
Mind Design 14
The Mastery Loop(tm) 19
Cross-Crawling - Educational Kinesiology 20
Cross-Crawl Exercises 20
What is NLP? The Short Definition 21
What Is NLP? The Long Definition
The Framework of Neuro Linguistic Programming 28
Techniques vs. Learning the NLP Methodology 29
The Shortest UP Seminar In The World 29
Perceptual Positions
Diagram Of The Brain 30
The NLP Model For How The Brain Works 31
Why Affirmations Dont Work 33
Why Traditional Visualization Doesnt Work 36
The Expert Communicator 38
Responsible Communication 42
Pattern Interrupts Or Break State 43
CALIBRATION 44
Exercise - Calibrate a Friend 44
Exercise - Calibrate Yes and No 44
Exercise - Calibrate State Changes 45
Exercise - Increasing Visual Acuity 45
Exercise - Increasing Kinesthetic Acuity 46
Exercise - Increasing Auditory Acuity 46
Pacing Statement 47
Calibration and Sensory Specific Information 48
Exercise - Mind Reading vs. Sensory Acuity 49
Exercise - Calibrating to State Changes 49
Exercise - Think of Someone You Like Visual Sensory Acuity 49
Exercise - Calibrating Yes and No 50
Exercise - Think of someone you like Auditory Sensory Acuity. 50
Exercise - Guiding Another Person Into An Experience While Calibrating 51
Exercise - Sensory Based Language Drill 51
The Representational Systems 53
Eye Accessing Chart 55
Eye Accessing Chart 56
Characteristics Of Visual People 57
Characteristics of Auditory People 59
Characteristics of Kinesthetic People 61
External Indicators of Internal Representations 64
Predicates: The Three Languages Inside of English 65
Leading with Persuasive Language 66
Rep System Exercises 69
Exercise, Part A - VAKOG 69
Exercise, Part B - Matching and Translating 69
Exercise, Part C - Representational Systems 69
Exercise - Natural Language Predicates 70
Exercise - Matching Predicates 70
Exercise - Overlapping Systems Predicates 71
Exercise - Match/ Mismatch/Match representational predicates. 71
Exercise - Match representational sentences 71
Exercise - Match and translate predicate sentences. 71
Rapport: Pacing and Leading 72
Exercise - Leading 77
Exercise - Matching Body Posture and Breathing 77
Exercise - Matching Emotional State 77
Exercise - Matching Chunk Size 78
Exercise - Matching Values and Leading 78
Practice Session - Rapport 79
Value Elicitation, Criteria and Pacing 80
Anchoring: Accessing And Re-Accessing States 81
Stacking Anchors 84
Collapse Anchor 84
Goals And Outcomes 85
Blame Frame vs. Outcome Frame 88
Well-Formed Outcome 89
Practice Session 1
Well-Formed Outcomes
90
Practice Session 2 - Well Formed Outcomes 92
Submodalities 93
Elicitation Hints 96
Exercise - Elicitation and Submodalities 96
Association and Disassociation 97
The Circle of Excellence 98
Submodality Interventions 99
Practice Session - Submodalities and Anchoring 100
Introduction To NLP Techniques For Personal Change 101
The Resource Triangle 102
The Swish Pattern 103
Confusion to Understanding 104
Using Someone Elses Learning Style 105
Beliefs 106
Changing Beliefs 107
Visual Squash or Parts Negotiation 108
Fast Phobia Cure 109
Timeline Version of Change Personal History 111
Timeline: Eliminating a Limiting Decision 113
New Behavior Generator 114
Compulsion Blowout 115
Replacing Old Compulsions 115
The Compulsion Swish Pattern 115
Watch Your Language! 116
Rexs Rules 117
The Art of Using Language Patterns 120
The Milton Model 123
The Milton Model Patterns 124
Presuppositions 126
Some Useful Presuppositions 129
Exercise - Presuppositions 130
Exercise - Presuppositions or Mind Reading 131
Exercise - Determining Presuppositions 131
Exercise - Finding Presuppositions in Statements 132
Exercise - Back Tracking Through Experience 132
Exercise - Forming and Recognizing Presupposition Patterns 132
Exercise - Utilizing Presuppositions in Changing States 132
Exercise - Generating Conversational Postulates 133
Exercise - Generating Embedded Commands and Embedded Questions 133
Exercise - Integrating the Patterns 133
Exercise - Practice in Hypnotic Language Patterns 133
Exercise Generating Hypnotic Language Patterns 133
Exercise - Inducing Altered State Using Milton Model Patterns Exercise Seventeen 134
Exercise - Double Induction Using Hypnotic Patterns Exercise Eighteen 134
Exercise - Handshake Interrupt 134
Exercise - Writing Language Patterns 135
Practice Session - Recognizing Language Patterns 136
Practice Session - Writing Language Patterns 139
Meta Model And Milton Model 140
The Meta Model 141
Meta Model Patterns 142
The Meta Model and General Modeling 145
Tips for Using the Meta Model Elegantly 146
Exercise - Generating Meta Model Distinctions, Part A 146
Exercise - Generating Meta Model Distinctions, Part B 146
Exercise - Generating Meta Model Distinctions, Part C 147
Exercise - Cause / Effect or Complex Equivalence. 147
Exercise- Generating and Responding to Meta Model Distinctions 147
Exercise- Cause and Effect; Complex Equivalence 148
Practice Session - Identifying and Responding Using the Meta Model Distinctions 149
Exercise - Behavioral Cause Complex Equivalence 159
Practice Session for Continuing Development 160
Submodalities Worksheet 161
Submodalities Worksheet 162
Submodalities Worksheet 163
A simple question with many answers
I have just published this new blog which startes with a simple question: what keeps leaders inspired? This blog will be all about the answers that people give to that core question. It is through these intriguing and always very personal answers, that the simple aim of this blog will be realised. It is my hope that my new blog will prompt you to consider what inspires you as a leader.
Everyone who has contributed to this blog was asked this question:
"WHAT BOOK, POEM, FILM, SPEECH, PAINTING, QUOTE, STORY, PASSAGE, OR PERSON (OR WHATEVER) CONTINUES TO INSPIRE YOUR LEADERSHIP? "
And then I asked them a second question to go a little deeper and tell more of their story:
"WHAT IS IT ABOUT THIS PIECE THAT INSPIRES YOU AND HELPS SUSTAIN YOU AS A LEADER? IN OTHER WORDS, TELL ME THE STORY BEHIND YOUR SELECTION."
As you will read, the answers were rich in thought, reflection and feeling.
Of course, we all have many sources of inspiration and people were asked to select just the one. But in so doing, I believe that people chose the one story / film / book / idea (etc.) that really mattered to them.
How would you answer...?
THE IMPORTANCE OF INSPIRATION AND INSPIRATIONAL LEADERSHIP
The root of the word inspiration lies in the Latin for breathing. Inspiration is the act of breathing in, something we do when are about to say something, or make a decision or take action. All leaders need to breathe in. All leaders need inspiration. Inspiration is what can make people become breathtaking leaders.
Perhaps inspirational leadership is also about first breathing in for oneself and then helping others breathe in as well. This is leadership which enables people to take action. But this is leadership that first invites people to draw breath, to pause, reflect and deliberate on what is the next best thing to do.
Being a leader is often hard, very hard. Inspiration keeps us going when the wind is against us or the next goal is not quite just round the corner. Our inspiration can guide us when we are not quite sure what to do next or when we are facing a tough choice.
We can use our inspiration to infect others when they too are facing hard choices or stretching goals. Indeed inspiring people is often a much to do with re-kindling hope in the future. Leaders with inspiration can help people to 'aspire' once again.
Inspirational leadership is perhaps the opposite of 'expiring' leadership! To expire literally means to breathe out - but has come to mean to die. And so on this basis - leaders with inspiration can breathe life into an organisation. All organisations need leaders who can inspire, especially when those organisations are suffering troubled times. Leaders can bring new inspirations when a breath of fresh air is needed.
A key theme that emerged from several of the contributions I have had so far was the way in which inspiration helped people connect the past with the future, not just for themselves but also for the people they worked with. This connection provides both hope and stability: a sense that an inspirational past experience can provide a hopeful foundation for the future.
Inspirational leaders nurture hope in the future in many ways: Drawing on their past experience, they paint a vision of the future. They make this vision broad enough and narrow enough so that people can see themselves in it and plot a path towards it.
Moreover this vision is believable: it is a vision in which people can have confidence and believe is possible to achieve with determined effort. These leaders communicate this vision well by using their own stories to bring the vision to life. As a consequence, the vision begins to take on a life of its own. The vision is used to make decisions about priorities. Inspirational leaders use their vision to create collaboration where there may have been conflict and dissent before.
Crucially, the leaders make the vision an attractive one, one that inspires people because it resonates with people's deeply held beliefs about what is important and worthwhile. Inspirational leaders invest time in understanding what matters to their stakeholders.
Inspirational leaders recognise and work with the emotional side of organisations, understanding that change and improvement are rarely about logic alone. They know that change creates feelings and look for ways to harness these feelings in support of overall goals.
Inspiration gives leaders the strength and substance to shake organisations up. They make the space for people to experiment and try out new ways. They give permission to get things wrong in pursuit of improvement (so long as learning is captured). They do this by including people, by demonstrating that people can help to shape the future. Inspirational leaders make it possible not only for colleagues to impress each other, but also make it OK, critically, for people to impress themselves.
Inspirational leaders build confidence and foundations for the future in this way.
Architects often put 'spires' on buildings to encourage people to look upwards rather than down, to dream of better times and admire what has been built. Inspirational leaders do something similar, they help people make the connections between humdrum and lofty goals - they help people to look up, to look around, to look beyond...
These are all the reasons why inspiration is so important to leaders. On this blog, you will read about how leaders like you are using their inspiration to make things happen. These are breathtaking leaders.
THE CORE THEMES: BE INSPIRED
This blog will be a rich mix of stories, insights and ideas about leadership and inspiration. Do be inspired to dip into this blog and read the contributions. So with this as a purpose, here is a trailer for some of the key ideas contained in the chapters to come.
For several people, being an inspired and inspiring leader means having the courage to be your own person. This is partly about a combination of boldness, confidence, knowing oneself and keeping on with an idea when you are surrounded by doubt... and partly about something that cannot be bottled or perhaps even described. It is about being sure sighted and sure footed, being rooted in a solid sense of one's own map of the world. When you have read a number of the blog posts, you will spot this theme cropping up in many places.
Many analogies are drawn about leadership and this blog is not short of few more. There is one that shines through in one chapter but which is implicit in several others: the leader as sculptor. In this analogy the role of the leader is to draw out the form that is hidden within the stone, to create a smooth and elegant shape that draws attention and thence action. It is about taking a mess of ideas and materials and bringing forth structure and direction. And with this direction a path is found and people follow and a leader practises their art.
An idea that has inspired me particularly over the years is the role of leaders as people who expect more and delight in more when the people they lead deliver more. I have a video in my head of Tom Peters talking in his breathless and passionate way to an Albert Hall full of managers. He entreats them to want people to develop, to want people to grow, to spend time helping people learn and thence to enjoy the fruits of those actions. I can hear him saying "if you don't get a buzz from seeing your staff grow and develop... don't be a manager, be something else!"
And so it is no wonder that you will find in a number of the blog posts, lots of similar ideas about how critical it is for leaders to see potential in people, to expect more (and get it) and to delight in how this yields people who are extended beyond what they thought was possible.
Other ideas you will discover include the value of knowing where you stand, the importance of people being more likely to remember how you made them feel (rather than what you said), the need to act not just think, the difficulty but the necessity of being able to cradle contradictions. You will read how determination continues to help people be leaders, how taking responsibility also means letting go, why plans are better made of loose knots than fixed rivets, and how humour lubricates and enthuses.
This blog is an emerging cornucopia of snippets about what it means to be a breathtaking & inspirational leader. On these pages, I suspect, you will find ideas that you already know and have made part of your practice. There will be other ideas that may leave you cold. And still there may be other ideas that hit you like a hammer and perhaps make you question all that you think you know about being a leader. You won't know which they are until you read them.
THE CENTRAL THREAD
At its heart, this blog is about keeping on keeping on.
In other words it is about leadership as being essentially about defiance: defying the rocks and stones on the path and keeping on. It is about bracing and moving through desolate times when support is difficult to find. It is about breathing in and focusing on the goal even when you look back and your followers are somewhere in the distance. It is about keeping the people with you inspired, even when there are many trying to do the opposite.
It is about proudly, solidly and compassionately staying inspired even when you feel just inches away from a trough of cynicism, despair and hopelessness.
It is the stuff that great leaders have, the famous leaders we all know about and admire. But they have it because of who they are, not because they are famous. The fame came after their ability to remain inspired in courageous defiance of the many pressures and challenges they faced. We can all be that inspired. We can all be great, breathtaking and inspirational leaders!
ALAMAK! WHO WILL IT BE THIS YEAR?
The Alamak! Award 'honours' the most sexist behaviour over the past year. The nominees were selected by members of the public, and the 'winner' will be decided through Internet voting.
Voting closes on SEPT 8, and the 'winner' will be announced at our fundraising event, the Supersonic Big Ball, on Sept 10.
READY? MEET THIS YEAR'S NOMINEES:
LONDON WEIGHT MANAGEMENT
For conceptualizing, producing and running a TV ad that was dangerously misleading about serious issues like post-partum depression and suicide, and which carried damaging messages about health, body image and self-esteem.
In this ad, London Weight Management presents a story where a woman's weight caused her child's anguish, her husband's hatred, her termination at work and extreme self-loathing that erupts into outbreaks of screaming.
All is remedied by London Weight Management treatments - it is only by being thin that that she can be happy and gain her husband's love.
View the ad here and find out more here.
MR TAN JEE SAY AND DR TAN CHENG BOCK
While running for President, both managed to find words to annoy half the electorate.
"I would like to go back to the days when women can afford to be housewives," Mr Tan Jee Say said, when asked about his views on the Baby Bonus.
When asked how to encourage female participation in politics, Dr Tan Cheng Bock replied: "The political arena is a difficult area for women in Singapore because the commitment is really very heavy. So you got to get the permission of your husband."
Find out more here.
DATE WITH DAD
It is laudable that this campaign by Focus On The Family Singapore believes that fathers are crucial to helping their daughters build self-worth.
But it is problematic when it encourages dads to "affirm" their daughters' "femininity" - surely each daughter has her own unique traits worth affirming besides the fact that she is female?
Also unsettling - the event encourages fathers to give their daughters a purity ring, available for sale on their website, to "signify your commitment to protecting her purity until her wedding day".
Find out more here.
BRIDE OF THE WORLD
Contestants for this pageant, which is co-organised by the People's Association, model white bridal gowns, because "white is the universal colour of purity" and "where East meets West, a woman wears a resplendent white gown to proclaim her worthiness as a bride".
The pageant represents marriage as a form of national service.
"In Singapore, our women play an integral role in contributing to our society's well-being at home, at work and in various communities. They help establish and maintain wholesome family values, and together with our National Service men, they provide our nation's Total Defence."
Find out more here.
SHAPE RUN 2012
This women's run introduced male pacers for the first time. Why no female pacers? According to Shape's press release and media reports, the male pacers were meant to be "eye candy" - they must "ooze oodles of charm", in order that the women have "a chanceto chase guys for a change". Heaven forbid the female runners are there to, you know, run, and not pant after eye candy.
Find out more here.
CAST YOUR VOTE NOW!
YOU CAN VOTE FOR UP TO THREE NOMINEES. Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.
Popular parody group Chestnuts will be spoofing the nominees at the Supersonic Big Ball. Don't miss their hilarious take on this year's nominees - reserve your seats today!
Reference: relationships-rescue.blogspot.com
THE Poem OF THE JASMINE Nymph
In balmy of summer generation
Together with sunshine all flaming,
In vogue, inside are hard immature bowers,
Dazzling with Jasmine flowers;
Aromatic, like a forethought
Of Fairyland they peek.
And on every occasion the long hot day
At coil has trite pass,
And the end of the day deepens, till
The shade comes--then, still,
The glimmering Jasmine gray
Gives toilet water to the night.
If present-day was a jasmine flower for every air of mystery hour I finished with my friend Yasmin, I would inhibit a healthy garden, with jasmine in full bud. Yasmin continually listened, and apart from the fact that she did not like her handwriting, both her unrecorded and written words continually seemed magically inspired and can prettify a make believe that can be only seen on the profound tarpaulin of the mind.
Together with her words she has formed a healthy state of fairies, and they all lived on a miniature robot (which particularly was like a article of state, with sec plant life on it). It all started with a air of mystery rabbit. A gray rabbit, just like Alice's - gray with red eyes but no watch. He lived on the sec robot, which was the size of an adult's palm. He grew miniature carrots and miniature plant life in his garden (on the robot). Once, numberless good fairies appeared
For example we were sec girls, Yasmin's small stories provided an turn your back on from the degrading world that threatened the enhancement of older, just as my sec matchbox sized match-dolls and miniatures formed a portico to a small world anywhere no matter which can be secret and can only be good. We finished hours playing with Yasmin's small dolls from England (they had sec tea sets, kettles and all), skit castles in the smoke, reckless into the brownie illustrations of Cicely Mary Barker, and getting lost in Mirkwood with the hobbits and elves. For example we were teenagers, we finished the afternoons take effect yoga on the mole until the mosquitoes chased us to the screened exclusive, anywhere we finished the rest of the nightfall figuring out who we are what we will become on every occasion we finally grow up, and inventing words for ideas that did not come about in our language's dictionary. Now that we can call ourselves grown-ups, Yasmin stirred on to bringing happiness by listening and sparkly, what I modest on creating small (this time perfumed) universes, stern in miniature pebble-like flacons and deep-seated with fairies...
I can inhibit I imagine yield a healthy line of perfumes just based on jasmine relevant. And in the war of mounting a stink for my friend Yasmin, it seemed as if each stink that I made showed one seem to be of both my friend and the plant life that cart her name.
The first perfume I made smelled loud like her home town. Her family is well unquestionable for their travels to India, and present-day are numberless Indian smells in the house: from Indian deprecating and curries, to provoke and fragrant oils, patchouli-scented shawls, and the faithful bud of jasmine which I mentioned formerly. The first stink - a local draft of amber, patchouli, frankincense, champaca, kewda and jasmine - was straight away embraced by no supplementary than Yasmin's mother, who adopted it simply as her dedication perfume. In an scented oil, this perfume smelled like her home town, so it was no snare to neither of us.
The second perfume I made for Yasmin was the one she in fact adopted for herself: it was equivalently floral and citrus, and not as local. Bad-tempered citrus top relevant of lemon and bergamot, soft floral gist of jasmine, orange flower, ylang ylang and tuberose over a happy basis of sandalwood, benzoin and frankincense, and just the outright annotation of vanilla.
Go on rendezvous, formerly Yasmin's nuptials, I made her a new perfume, which I whispered would be glib better absolutely for her, and equivalently matching quick-witted elements (she loves sour fruit, and hates candy!), jasmine gist and a multinational basis. This time it was a difference linking callow, jasmine and tonka, and I whispered that this time I nailed down Yasmin's dedication perfume.
But I still looked-for to tell the world my sec brownie story, and link up my love to my friend and the plant life she is named behindhand. To do so I looked-for to jot a jasmine soliflore. In war you haven't figured it out yet, Yasmin structure jasmine in both Hebrew and Arabic. And as hackneyed as this may highly regarded, I cannot help but think of my friend whenever I whiff these gray, heady blossoms - unequivocally jasmine grandiflorum. Nevertheless it was fairly easy to come up with a Name Scent for my friend Yasmin - partially for example I snitch her so well and partially for example she is so easy leaving and loves no matter which that I do; it took a long time formerly I achieved the have a fight I was aiming for the jasmine soliflore. It took a what formerly I managed to trap the stink almost my friend's home town - the stink of jasmine rub, continually prolific, continually active... The home town is still present-day, the jasmines are still present-day. My friend's chancy parents are still present-day on every occasion they are not roving. But now we both inhibit matured up and we don't live in our parents' houses anymore. Now, considerably of telling brownie stories to her friends and practice sculpture skating, Yasmin listens to the life stories of her regulars she councils in London, and continues to study psychology and practice Kiteido approximately the world.
THE Poem OF THE Iciness JASMINE Nymph
All downcast the Summer my foliage were immature,
But never a flower of outlook was seen;
Now Summer is former, that was so gay,
And my sec immature foliage are unpeel pass.
In the grey of the rendezvous
To the same degree raise your spirits, what cheer?
The Iciness is come, the unfeeling winds blow;
I shall feel the iciness and the aimless snow;
But the sun can off-white in December too,
And this is the time of my ability to you.
See inside, see inside,
My plant life appear!
The swallows inhibit flown beyond the sea,
But convivial Robin, he stays with me;
And sec Tom-Tit, so subject and small,
Hops anywhere the jasmine is thick on the wall;
And we say: "Just cheer!
We're here! We're here!"
* Ilustrations and poems by Cicely Mary Barker
Photos and poems manner on this site
Illustration by Ana.
When I was in ninth grade, I got to fulfill a major fantasy of not just myself, but I would guess lots of girls who watch TV and/or read fiction: I was sent to an all-girls boarding school. We were living in Saudi Arabia, where the American schools didn't offer coursework beyond the ninth grade, so a lot of families sent their teenagers to college-prep schools abroad. I could just picture the halls of ivy and the sprawling green, which I imagined would be the backdrop to a picturesque teen rebellion that I felt must be right around the corner for me.
Can you blame me? I grew up watching '80s sitcoms like "The Facts of Life", a show about four teenage girls living at Eastland, a fictional boarding school. While I probably had the most in common with Tootie Ramsey, the youngest of the girls and the only African-American among them, my favorite character was Jo Polniaczek, an edgy badass who showed up at school on a motorcycle, carjacked the school van to take her friends out partying, and became valedictorian of her class. She was never better than when her tough-guy bad girl locked horns with mean-girl bad girl Blair Warner:
Today I can trace my fascination with boarding-school bad girls back to Jo. It continued with "Flirting", and Australian coming-of-age movie starring Thandie Newton and Nicole Kidman. Their characters, Thandiwe and Nicola, were the quintessential boarding-school bad girls (I hope you can tell that to me this kind of "bad" is good), skipping classes and sneaking boys into their dorms, and they became role models to me-especially Thandiwe, who breaks most of the rules to be with the adorably awkward lad she loves from the boy's school across the pond. She's smart, self-assured, funny, and confident. I wanted to be just like her.
Here, watch these two back-to-back scenes, and you'll see why I was so obsessed with these girls (also watch for Naomi Watts as one of the "good girls":
In reality I was more like the Naomi Watts character-kind of a goody-two-shoes. My fear of disappointing my parents or reinforcing school administrators' stereotypes about people of color kept me in line. As I agonized over SAT prep and AP courses in pursuit of admission into my first-choice colleges, I sometimes envied schoolmates who were brave enough (and often privileged enough) to get away with partying with college dudes on the weekends, cutting their uniform skirts into microminis, smoking cloves in the woods, and maintaining full bars in their dorm-room closets. While I didn't really have an interest in booze or college guys (yet), I yearned to let loose in my own way (if only I knew what that was!). And as excited as I was to enter the glamorous and debaucherous world of boarding school, I was also a bit scared. Boarding schools, I knew from television, housed some of the world's richest, naughtiest, and snobbiest kids. I wondered if I would ever fit in as a minority and technically an international student. I tried my best to channel Thandiwe, who embraced rather than feared being an outsider, and who acted first and asked for forgiveness later when unfair obstacles got in the way of what really mattered.
When we were choosing where I would go, my parents focused on admissions statistics and the "spiritual values" of each school. I, however, was more concerned with finding a place that fit the boarding-school archetype in my head, the one that had been placed there by Tootie and Thandiwe and so many others. I had been such a well-behaved kid to that point; I wanted to find a place where I could finally let go and explore who I was when I wasn't necessarily following all the rules imposed on me by my parents. Alas, my school visits were nothing like Sally Draper's-I didn't get drunk or high or invite boys over. The schools' student ambassadors were on their best behavior, so I never saw so much as a cigarette during my visits. It was hard to discern which institution would give me the best opportunity to become acquainted with the more adventurous version of myself that I was sure was somewhere in me.
That changed when I finally picked a school and became a student. I chose a school that no one else I or my parents knew would be attending, the better to reinvent myself as a "bad girl." It was an Episcopalian school in the mid-Atlantic that had been opened by bluestocking feminists in the 1800s known for its rigorous curriculum and friendly spirit. And I encountered my share of bad girls: girls who ignored our curfew, who would sneak out of the dorms at midnight to take horses out of the stables and go on night rides, who skinny-dipped in the pool during off-hours and stayed out to watch the sun come up. I longed to follow their lead, but it turns out that I just wasn't a bad girl at heart. I think the "worst" thing I ever did was get my roommate to forge my name on the breakfast sign-up sheet each day so I could sleep in. (I still smile when I think about that.) I was too concerned about getting into a good college, too afraid to incur the wrath of the dreaded disciplinary committee, to do anything worse. One thing I did not foresee about boarding school was just "how many rules" there were. If I didn't wake up on time, make my bed, empty my trash, attend formal meals, show up for mandatory sports practice, or dress like a clone in my preppy schoolgirl uniform, I could expect to lose privileges and miss out on my beloved outings to vintage stores or the movies on the weekend. But when I remember the stomach-churning anxiety I went through any time I broke even the tiniest of school rules, I regret not taking more risks back then, when the odds for youthful redemption were still in my favor.
Which isn't to say that I was a shrinking violet. I found little ways here and there to express my independence and to stand up to authority, mostly by channeling my righteous angst into activism. I spoke up against injustice on campus and in the world in class and in the school paper and organized students around issues like racism and human rights. I don't regret any of that.
You'll be happy to learn that I loosened up a lot after college. I still wouldn't call myself a "bad girl." But I'm a lot better at speaking my mind, being confrontational, being spontaneous, and "enjoying myself". I break a lot more rules than I did back then, because I understand the consequences better. And even though I will never match their outlaw glory, I know I owe it all to those brave and beautiful bad girls from boarding school.
