Tag Archives: mission

Who are YOU to Leave a Legacy? Read on…..

24 Saturday Feb 2018

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After a 45-minute spin session on my clothes horse this afternoon, watching Dr Covey training large groups of the wise, I found a YouTube video of a gentlemen in heavy facial tattoos having a go at the book First Things First. (I’ll come to those tattoos and why I mentioned them later.) Of course, I was always going to defend the book, but the focus of this post is one criticism that the vlogger made.

He suggested that the book was great for high-earners and those in powerful positions, but (to paraphrase) ‘the guy struggling to make ends meet is never going to be interested in leaving a legacy’.

How patronising. For a start, why shouldn’t the guy struggling to make ends meet want to leave behind something important when he’s gone ? From something as simple as a loved child, through to some magnificent contribution that changes the lives of millions, why is it that this vlogger thinks that the remit to leave a legacy is only within the power of the wealthy, the super-clever or the unbelievably talented?

A legacy isn’t necessarily a Microsoft, an Apple, a World Cup or other personal title. A legacy is positive contribution that lives in the memory of those left behind, whether it is a stadium-full of happy football fans or the spark of love remaining in the hearts of your children and grandchildren. It exists when a professional remembers a teacher that had faith in them when they doubted themselves. It exists within a charity worker who holds a child until it realises that people love it, and that life is worth pursuing. It exists within an author who writes a book that informs or entertains.

It exists within YOU. But it is only you who can bring it out into physical existence. You can leave a positive legacy, a bad legacy, or none at all. Those who feel they have nothing to offer live homelessly on our streets, abuse alcohol or drugs, or mope from day to day with no concept of meaning. And many die as a direct result of that sense of meaninglessness.

That’s why I promote The Three Resolutions and that is why I wrote the books. I believe that people who live in their accord – knowingly or not – live happy lives of competently executed purpose and service, resulting from a sense of self-discipline and great personal character. And in doing so they will all leave a legacy, similar to those described above. Even if they don’t realise they have done so – they have. I remember teachers, role models, trainers, writers and others that have had faith in me and whose example have made me what I am. (It’s me who hasn’t quite fully capitalised on their faith!) I bet you remember such people, too.

Leave a Legacy. PLAN to leave a legacy. It’s a lot more fun to plan one that leave one by accident.

Anyway, back to the tattooed vlogger.. I don’t like excessive tattoo-ery but those are my values in action. He has every right to have a tattooed visage if he wants one.

The reason I mention it is not to criticise, but to ask this.

If he doesn’t think leaving a legacy is important, why is he vlogging and why is he raising his individuality and sense of self-esteem by painting his face?

To leave a legacy, that’s why.

Bloomin’ hypocrite.

100-Day Challenge, Day 27. Talk -or read – yourself into success.

27 Thursday Jul 2017

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I have never really been all that enthusiastic about affirmations, those sentences one states (ideally out loud) to oneself that are intended to reinforce the cognitive integrity between what we say to ourselves and how we behave. Not that I don’t believe that what we say to us influences us, but the woowaah suggestion that doing so out loud makes any difference. Until this week.

Until last week, I had got into the habit of reading my PMS daily – it was on my to-do list and the brevity of time it took, allied to the simplicity of the particular to-do, meant it was an easy ‘tick-off’ in my planner. I didn’t shout out loud (partly because I was in an office full of personal development sceptics, aka ‘detectives’), but I did focus on the reading. And for the couple of weeks I did that I lost weight, produced, and lived according to said PMS.

This week, I did not. I allowed myself to believe that I had, by now, ‘got it’ and didn’t need to read it any more. This was the week I didn’t exercise, ate too much (and it doesn’t take ‘too much’ to stop weight loss, I assure you), and didn’t study for my forthcoming test as well as I could have.

In other words, my failure to read my PMS influenced – well, my failures.

So it is back in the planner and will be read daily this week. And I respect affirmations a little bit more than I used to. And to be frank, if they are good enough for Stephen Covey, then they are certainly good enough for me.

Now, dear sceptics – you may think this silly. Now ask Lewis Hamilton, Tiger Woods, many premiership footballers, and copious other successes who you’ve SEEN talking to themselves or meditating with closed eyes just before they perform, what they are doing. And if it is good enough for the successful – why isn’t it good enough for YOU?

Turn the volume up to 11.

28 Sunday Aug 2016

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“The needle of our conscience is as good a compass as any.” Ruth Wolff

I write about Conscience in some detail in my book The Three Resolutions. I write about how a conscience is developed and how we all have one, even the criminals amongst us. I also write about how, in identifying our most important priorities and values, we can utilise that inner voice to direct us in our daily activities. The conscience is a core ingredient of our character.

When we listen to our conscience, we live lives of peace and productivity. When we ignore it, we feel guilt, angst, and occasionally some confusion.

Yet ignore it we so often do. We actively seek to stifle it when something potentially pleasurable presents itself to us. We don’t want to miss out on that attractive experience, and so we ignore the conscience, or turn its volume down to 1. To add to the stifling effect, we raise the volume on the ‘Why I CAN do/have this’ button, to make sure we can hear what is calling us forward to the psycho-hypocrisy that is about to occur. We find a rational excuse for what we are about to do and lie to ourselves. As Covey put it, we tell ourselves Rational-lies. Then, immediately or soon after we execute on the lie we just told ourselves, we feel that pang of guilt.

Conscience does not go away.

No, I am not a saint and I am as guilty of this as anyone. Perhaps more so, in the sense that as a writer on the subject I find myself doing it when perhaps I ought to be setting an example. I am often extremely conscious of that expression, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”

On the plus side, however, this knowledge and understanding arguably presents me with a better opportunity for positive change, eventually. Those who don’t realise what they are doing have no motive to change. They don’t know that they can.

Funny thing is, they will spend a lot of time justifying their poor behaviour. They will argue quite strongly and loudly that the behaviour they are displaying is okay, for some reason or other. (Good examples are smoking and drinking.)

The funniest thing about their shouting is because they know while they are doing it, they (and I quote), “ignore the conscience, or turn its volume down to 1. To add to the stifling effect, they raise the volume on the ‘Why I CAN do/have this’ button, to make sure they and we can hear what is calling them forward to the psycho-hypocrisy that is occurring.”

Now where have I read that, before?

Back to Basics. Best cure possible.

01 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in Purpose and Service

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Please pardon my absence – been hard at it and just completed two weekends away, hence no meaningful opportunity to give lots of thought to this blog. While I was away, however, something happened which I felt worth a good chroniclin’.

I was out with my family, on the first of the two-in-a-row weekend break opportunities that had serendipitously opened up. (The second was a 35th anniversary weekend away that coincidentally happened both temporally and geographically coterminous with some top-level motor-racing, but that was a genuine accident even though my wife doesn’t believe me.)

We had gone out for an evening meal in a busy restaurant and I suddenly felt absolutely miserable. Not wishing to demean ‘real’ depression, but I felt so absolutely and irrationally fed up, all of a sudden, that I could imagine that feeling that way all of the time must be hell. I didn’t like it.

All kinds of emotions welled up, and I decided in a moment of utter pain that I would delete each and every mission statement and values list I had ever written and stored on my computer – and start again. That, I thought, should sort me out.

Well, it didn’t. I did delete all those records, and I did reconsider my values, principles and mission statement. And guess what happened?

Yup, exactly what I should have expected.

Anything I wrote reflected what I had always written. My vales were still what they have been for a long time; my objectives stayed the same; the words got jiggled about but the meaning remained constant.

My discovery?

When you feel down, it isn’t necessarily changing external things that will solve your problem.

Your emotional problems are often solved by reflecting on and returning to a focus upon what you should have been doing in the first place.

My problem wasn’t that my mission statement was wrong; my problem was that I wasn’t properly living it. I wasn’t exercising (hadn’t for a week); my writing wasn’t getting done (too ‘busy’, apparently); some short term plans hadn’t come to fruition and I’d allowed an empty space to develop. But through reviewing my PMS I rediscovered what I am for. The PMS is a reminder of what you/I can be when I/we are at our best. It is a constant that we can rely on.

All that said, there is something I am going to do to my Three Resolutions PMS. And that is I am going to turn it upside down. While development of your compliance with the Three Resolutions starts with self-discipline and develops towards purpose and service, execution of the Three Resolutions should start with Purpose and Service.

Nobly serving others with excellence, in the field you have chosen, or ‘just’ your family and friends.

That’s what’ll make you happy.

Something challenging is coming. So what?

17 Sunday Jul 2016

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“Just when I found out the meaning of life – they changed it.” George Carlin

When things change, we desperately scream about unfairness, the loss of what was, the inconvenience of what is to be, and No, this is not about Brexit even though it could be, just as it applies to any change. The fact is that people are reluctant to change, so create emotional rationales for why it shouldn’t happen, even when logic suggests that some of the things we fear are not actually facts.

For example, I just heard Andrew Marr on the BBC bleat again about how money from Europe funded Universities and now that’s at risk. Well, AM, as it was OUR money before it was THEIR money to hand it out, perhaps WE can fund the Universities ourselves? Ergo – fear IS False Evidence Appearing Real – to the uninformed.

Change, ladies and gentlemen, just IS. It is the only true constant outside maths and physics.

How we respond is usually based on a couple of factors.

  1. Did WE plan it – if so, it is ‘good’.
  2. Did our bosses plan it – if so, it is ‘bad’.
  3. Can we deal with it? If so, good. If not – what the hell is wrong with you?!

If you have an unchangeable set of core values, I suggest that you can cope with absolutely anything that comes to pass. You can use your unifying principles, values, credo, mission statement (whatever you choose to call your life’s philosophy) to deal with change.

  • New job – treat it by applying your mission statement to it.
  • New relationship – treat it by applying your values to it.
  • New home – create it with your values and mission in mind.
  • Tragedy – focus on your values and beliefs and work through it.

In the end, who you are can be the one thing, the only thing you have that need not change. Hold on to what you believe, be willing to accept alternatives if you discover them; but hold on tightly to what you are, and what happens will be easier to endure. Always.

It’s a lot easier, more productive and ultimately a lot less tiresome and noisy than sheer panic.

Take Action – or reap the rewards of inaction.

04 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Character and Competence, Discipline, Purpose and Service

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You MUST execute on your Mission Statement!

The world is full of nearly people. In his book ‘How to Be Brilliant’, Michael Heppell tells the story of a man we’ll call John, who went to school with a friend of his, a good friend, called Richard. As they passed through school Richard was always coming up with weird ideas about projects and always invited John to take part. John was cautious and would initially promise to help but would then find excuses to avoid participation. When they left school Richard would still invite John along, but John would still prevaricate. In the end, Richard Branson became an entrepreneurial billionaire and adventurer. Who is John?

I’m not for one minute suggesting that execution of your plan will make you a billionaire (even though it might). I AM suggesting that inaction will probably keep you where you are, though. And I am assuming that, having purchased or read this book, you don’t like that place. But your situation may get even worse.

If you keep money in a drawer under your bed, interest rate rises and inflation mean that over time your money will buy less, so it actually lessens in value. If you put it in a bank, particularly a safe bank, it will grow, at least in keeping with inflation (okay, probably just under). If you speculate wisely you might make that money increase in value, potentially by some high degree. It is the same with this book. If you put it in a bank….

Sorry to be flippant. What I am saying is this – if you stay where you are, in that uncomfortable place you’ve decided isn’t where you want to be, things will get worse. If you’re fat and do nothing, you’ll get fatter as you get older and it’ll have serious health consequences. Are you planning on having a Stennah Stairlift, to driving around the local shops on an invalid carriage motor-scooter, and to having your bum wiped by a nurse as you dribble over the side of the bed? If you have no job and you do nothing, you’ll probably freeze to death in your seventies because you have no pension to pay the fuel bills. If you are a person of poor character and do nothing, you will likely live a long lonely life before dying alone and unloved because people know what you truly are. If you don’t contribute in some way, even in the meaningful but simple ways suggested, you will be forgotten. If you suffer from all these maladies, you die fat, alone and forgotten after spending a long time in healthcare/nursing home purgatory. That is what will happen if you do nothing about what you’ve read here. (Scared, yet?)

It may not come to that. You may be part way to being a semi-disciplined, healthy, employed person of good character with some community involvement that benefits others – but you want more or you wouldn’t be here, would you?

But you won’t get ‘more’ if you do nothing. ‘More’ requires effort, learning and contribution. It requires that you stop doing what doesn’t serve you, start doing what does, start living with integrity with principles, ensure you’re current in working practices valued by employers, and you purposefully provide some kind of service that benefits others I some way.

It requires compliance with the Three Resolutions.

 

The 4 Human Needs and The Third Resolution.

16 Saturday May 2015

Posted by in Purpose and Service

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“The four human needs are to live, to love, to learn, and to leave a legacy.” Stephen R Covey

Contrary to all ex-servicemen and ex-police officers basic instincts I volunteered again this week, to serve an association to which I am, er, associated. Why, I don’t hear you ask.

Humans have four needs, as proposed by Stephen Covey. (Tony Robbins identified 6 but they’re encompassed by Covey’s 4.) When all 4 needs are met, you hit a sweet spot, as illustrated.

4HN

As shown above, the needs are:

  • to live (physical, survival, economic needs),
  • to love (social-emotional, connection needs),
  • to learn (mental, growth needs), and
  • to leave a legacy (meaning need).

Let’s focus on that last one for a moment.

The Third Resolution states “To overcome the restraining forces of unbridled aspiration and ambition, I resolve to dedicate my talents and resources to noble purposes and to provide service to others.”

This isn’t a call to action by someone seeking your blind obedience. If you to choose to accept it, it is your personal declaration of, and commitment to act upon your own conscience-driven acceptance that in order to have some meaning in your life, you have to (and must want to) provide service to others.

It is a spiritual need, a need to not just be good, but to be good for something, something outside of ourselves. While an egotist may be satisfied with a headstone that says, “See, I told you I was great,” the rest of us would like to have been appreciated by someone for having done something that they remember affected them positively. Even the statement, “Beloved father/mother/brother/friend” shows an appreciation for who we were in respect of others, and what we meant to them.

That is why charities exist. They exist so that those involved can serve others. The same applies to professional associations, even to political parties – until they get a bit self-focused, but that’s another blog. Several, in fact. (Oddly, competing charities, parties and associations often exist because of the egos of the competing parties who want the charity run ‘their way’, rather than just serving the other. Why else is Help the Heroes now competing with umpteen other charities?)

So, as conscience-driven commitment to, and in compliance with the Third Resolution, it is our responsibility to find opportunities to serve. My own recommendation is that you serve family first, and then those organisations to which you are connected and which, if you think about it, have already served you. That can mean communities, charities, professional associations, you name it.

Anyway, that’s what I’m doing. Next, I get to find out what I have actually let myself in for.

Manage your life.

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

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“You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it.” Charles Buxton

Do you have a plan for the coming week, or are you reliant upon others directing you? Of course, some work is boss-directed but that accounts for one third of 5/7ths of a week (5/21ths = 23.8%). In other words, using the ‘my work is chosen for me’ excuse covers ¼ of your week; sleep accounts for another third, which means that the remaining 41% of your week remains within your control, or lack of such.

If you have goals, that 40% must – must – be spent, at least in part, in pursuit of those goals. If your goals are work focused then work time should include activity directed towards those ends, but some effort towards work goals will have to take place in the 41% – studying for professional exams, for example. But remember that life is there to be enjoyed, too.

The objective for time managing your life is to make sure that you plan time for what has to be done, but also for what needs to be done in terms of self-renewal. By that, we mean renewal in the 4 human dimensions – mentally (growth), socially (relationships), physically (exercise, rest, sleep) and spiritually (meaning).

Plan your week with those 4 parts of your life in mind. Around those necessities created by work and ‘life’, plan time with yourself to exercise, read, meditate, learn, and so on. Plan an hour’s exercise at least 3 times a week – exclude travelling time in that hour! Plan to read at least one book – two, if you like fiction, because non-fiction makes you better, too. Listen to your loved ones and express your love for them. And think about what it is you’re about – connect with your Personal Mission Statement and remind yourself about the way you chose to live your life. Serve others as much as you can while you do all these things.

And do all this before the week begins. I do it on Friday, at the end of a week when I can see what progress I’ve made and can choose what further effort is called for. You might choose Sunday night, Saturday or Monday morning, or the start of a series of work shifts.

People tend to use the start of the working week and do that planning at their workspace. This means that their plans tend to be work-focused. This isn’t necessarily wrong – just don’t forget the other stuff.

Plan weekly, adapt daily. But focus on your mission.

Profound wisdom in two words.

22 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by in Character and Competence, Discipline

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Occasionally, we have off days.

In 2010 I was present at an event in London when Dr Covey spoke to an assembly of about 1,000 fans, after which I was able to briefly speak with hi and get an autograph. I was unable, despite an invitation, to spend more time with him because I had a commitment to my wife to collect her from Victoria Station – being strangers in town I wasn’t prepared to leave her waiting while I indulged myself. (I still partly regret that….) Here’s the pictorial proof.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

During the event they sought questions from the crowd, and I prepared to ask a question but time prevented me having my turn.

In 2011 I was at an invitational seminar where he spoke in the UK for the last time. As the attendees gathered outside, a familiar olive suited, bald gentleman walked around a corner straight towards me, and he read my name out loud from my name tag. Like a teenager meeting One Direction for the first time I screamed….. sorry, no, I just blathered a greeting and waited for him to speak more – while he waited for me to speak. After an awkward silence someone dragged him away. Another opportunity missed, and although I grabbed him for another autograph just before lunch I never took the opportunity to ask him the question I’d prepared a year earlier.

Which was, “What would you say to someone who has a mission statement and set of values, but fails to meet his own standards only too often?”

The truth was that I wanted him to say to me what I already knew, but which I could then use as ‘profound wisdom’ because he’d said it and I hadn’t.

So, in my minds ear, he said this. “Try harder.” Ouch.

Carpe Diem.

 

Start 2015 as you mean to go on…..

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

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“Principle-Centred Living is not an end in itself. It’s the MEANS and the end. It’s the quality of our travel along life’s road. It’s the power and peace we experience each day as we accomplish what matters most.” Stephen R Covey

Do you live your life wholly in accordance with what you know to be true? Are you complying with the rules set by society, by yourself, or by principles? Is there an overlap between your rules and those principles you know to be true? I hope so.

None of us is perfect. Covey also wrote, “I believe that as human beings we cannot perfect ourselves.” I take that to mean that we have a duty, even a desire to continue to strive towards perfection but recognise that our limited knowledge, capabilities and experiences restrict us. We see perfection and often think we are nearly there – then we discover a new, better way to which we can aspire. We never get ‘there’ because we keep discovering that ‘there’ is a bit further away, yet again. That’s part of the beauty of existence, and is a constant.

(Spoiled only by the blame culture that instead of acknowledging that we are learning, takes any ‘failure’ to know in advance what could be done better as proof of conscious, deliberate incompetence. Which it isn’t. Now, back to the plot.)

But if you don’t know what ‘the’ rules are, how can you keep to them? We know the principles. They are extrinsic, they exist outside of us, are always true and always were. Our conscience tells us when we try and work in a way that spites them.

But our rules? Some never set them. They have them but they’ve been set by their upbringing and social mirror. They aren’t consciously held and can change or be broken in the moment subject to societal change and relationship issues. Some people have them and are diligent and compliant all of the time. I envy their strength.

But many are like me. They set their rules (values, Unifying Principles, codes of conduct – the term matters not), and then try, try and try again to keep to them. We occasionally fail but realise we have done so and try again. But at least, having set them, we can strive for that ‘perfection’ until we recognise a better way. Those who don’t have them can never reach ‘perfection’ because they don’t know what it looks like. In fact, because they don’t know what they are they wander aimlessly about, wondering why their lives aren’t what they want them to actually be.

That’s why I maintain that identifying a set of values* is a better way to live, and again encourage the reader to spend some time identifying their own rules and principles, the guidelines for their behaviour and future success.

Because if you know what your rules are, then provided they are aligned with principles (like truth, fidelity, honesty and integrity), complying with them will bring you peace.

Happy New Principled, successful, values-driven 2015, everybody!

 

*For help and advice on doing this, see my book at Amazon or here.