Life's Coincidences or Are They?

Life's Co-incidences

Have you ever thought to yourself, if I wouldn't have done that I wouldn't be here today or doing what I'm doing?

Four years ago, when Queen Elizabeth II was visiting Singapore, I was invited to join the Welsh Society's table because I was a Past President of the Society. For some reason, there wasn't room for me at the Welsh Society's table (most probably because I was 'past'), so my husband and I ended up sitting at the British school teachers' table, which also happened to be where our daughters attended school. I looked at the list of teachers who would be sitting at the same table as us and remember saying to my husband 'Oh no, I hope I don't end up sitting next to the Headmaster, I won't have anything to say to him.' The only observations I had of the Headmaster was that he was a quiet, reserved and private person, so very different to me! I didn't think we would have anything in common to talk about. Although, I did admire him for his hard work, drive and passion for education.

Who should sit next to me?  It was the Headmaster, Ronald Stones, OBE. I had my husband sitting next to me on the other side, so I had no choice but to strike up a conversation with the Headmaster. We had an amazing conversation, so much so that we ignored everybody else at the table. We suddenly discovered that we had a lot in common. After 12 years dedication and commitment to building an incredible British school in Singapore, the Headmaster was moving on.  He wanted to re-invent his career after having spent all of his professional life building British schools in Asia. I too was re-inventing my career, by setting up my own personal and professional development company in Asia. We also discovered that we both had a passion for Bali. We were both inspired by Bali's unique culture, its beauty and creative, artistic abilities. We talked so much, the Headmaster only managed to have the first course, a bowl of soup, for his lunch! Finally, the Headmaster had to excuse himself, as he had a personal appointment to meet the Queen. Understanding that he was obliged to meet the Queen, rather than continue talking with me, we exchanged business cards and kept in touch via email.

Two and a half years later, Ronald Stones made it possible for us to experience living in Bali.  He became the Director of the Green School. I was lucky enough to be invited to Ron's Symposium on Leadership at his own villa in the beautiful, green countryside of Ubud (an incredible villa that he has personally designed and built over the years). As I was visiting Ron in Bali, I asked him if I could see the school. Ron arranged for me to have my personal tour of the school. I was immediately hooked on the idea of sending our three daughters to this 'once in a lifetime' school.

Our three daughters have now completed their first year at the Green School and it's the first time I've heard them complain that the school weeks have gone too fast! They were enjoying school so much, they didn't want their first year to end!

Was it a coincidence that we ended up living in Bali or was the seed already sown?  As a family we had been going on holiday to Bali for ten years, since we first moved to Hong Kong. As the saying goes 'As you sow, so shall you reap.' Just make sure that what you sow is in line with what you want.

What thoughts or intentions can you sow that work to your advantage? Once you know what you want, you will find that good 'coincidences' happen, which will bring you closer to your goals, dreams and wants.

"There is no such thing as chance, and what seems to us mere accident springs from the deepest source of destiny."

Friedrich Schiller, German poet, philosopher, historian and playwright

Enjoy life's coincidences and let them work to your advantage.

Janet

No Limits

NoLimits

My feet are starting to land back on the ground again after having run an intensive 7 day NLP leadership programme at the Oberoi Hotel in Bali. For many years, I dreamed of running leadership development retreats in Bali and this dream became possible, which demonstrates the power of 'no limits' thinking. Where there is a will, there's definitely a way.




What stops us from being or doing what we want to be or do?  It usually has something to do with the limits we impose upon ourselves. We use excuses such as 'I can't; it's not possible; I'm too busy; I'm no good at.......; I will never make it; I don't have it in me; I'm too .......; one day when ......' These excuses become our limiting beliefs and we start to believe in them as if they are true. The more we think 'I can't', the more we become entrenched in our thinking and if something happens to us that validates our belief that we can't, we will use this as evidence to justify why it's not possible. What we are doing is shutting off ourselves from possibilities and our thinking becomes closed.

Last week, as I looked out to the turquoise blue sea from the Oberoi Hotel and heard the waves gently lapping up against the beach, I couldn't help but wonder in disbelief how I had got there. One of the programme themes I ran was 'We have all the resources we need.' It took me over 10 years to pluck up the courage to set up a leadership development company. My limits had been stopping me from achieving my dream.  I used all sorts of excuses such as 'It's only me' to 'One day when I have enough experience, qualifications and the children are older etc.'  I used to say to myself  'I've done good to get where I am', as though I couldn't expect myself to go any further!

I deliberately called our company 'NoLimits' as it's only our limits that hold us back and there are no limits to what we can achieve. All that is required is for us to focus our mind on what we want, take action and trust that we can always find a way, if we have a will to make it work.

As one of the most influential martial artists of the 20th century said: 

"If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits.  There are only plateaus and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them."

Bruce Lee (1940-1973)

Take away the limits that you impose upon yourself and discover a whole new world of possibilities.

To find out more about our training on overcoming limits and achieving what you want, contact Sandra Lai at our NoLimits Head Office sandralai@nolimitsasia.com or call +65 6232 2466
 
Overcome your limits now and reach your full potential.

Janet

Seeing is Believing

Seeing is Believing

Following on from the last couple of blogs and the theme of the power of our words and thoughts, how do we get beyond positive thinking to even more powerful and better results?  We all know how easy it is to get drawn back into unresourceful thinking, even if we have told ourselves to think more positively. What makes a difference is the way in which we use our visual representations in our mind to see our outcome with more clarity.

Let me share an example with you to explain what I mean. Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to get whisked away on the back of a motorbike by a former trainee on one of my NLP programmes and who has now become my good Hungarian friend.

My friend lives in Ubud, a major arts and cultural town in the central hills of Bali and nestled in the middle of the lush, tropical countryside. We were two women on a shopping mission heading towards the Tegallalang Road. This road is adorned with one shop after the other, offering a magical, artistic array of colours and textures, from wood, glass, mirror, tiles, beads, house decorations to beautiful pieces of furniture and ironwork. It's a complete cornucopia of hand made artefacts and an Aladdin's cave of treasures. When you think the road must surely come to an end, it carries on gently twisting and turning for at least two miles. As my friend sped past these endless shops, my head swivelled round and round like an owl on the alert for prey. I was tempted to shout 'stop' at every place. There was so much to see on either side of the road, I couldn't take it all in. When we did stop we walked into what seemed like a small wood carving shop on the outside. On the inside it was a completely different story where it became an overwhelming vision of every conceivable wooden animal, god, box, tray, trinket, picture frame and object. I put on a positive face for my friend, but underneath I was totally overwhelmed.

Just as we can look positive on the outside, we can become overwhelmed by our thoughts on the inside. In order to respond to my friend's question 'what would you like to buy?', I had to focus beyond the sheer volume and dust and dirt on all these objects. I had to focus clearly on what I wanted. To do this properly, I had to visualise what these objects would look like when they were clean, shiny and polished. We have to do this with our thoughts too. Beyond the dust and dirt lies a gem and this gem can be illuminated through our mind's eye. The reason why seeing what we want is more important than just positive thinking, is that our mind naturally works in pictures. The more we see exactly what we want and make it more vivid in our mind, the more real it will appear to us and the more likely we will get to our desired outcome.

We can use the power of visualisation i.e. seeing what we want with anything that we are thinking about and is on our mind. Whether it's health, wealth, happiness, relationships, careers, business, self esteem, you name it.

What's on your mind right now? What specific outcome do you want to see beyond positive thinking? Picture in your mind your vision. Imagine what it could look like. You can use your mind to see beyond what you can see already.

As the conductor says in the Polar Express film:

"Seeing is believing, but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can't see." 


I will be looking at the power of how our visual senses in our mind can be leveraged for powerful and resourceful thinking in our next NLP programme. Please click on the NoLimits NLP link on this blog page. Alternatively, NoLimits can provide bespoke leadership development programmes for corporate organisations. Please click on the NoLimits Asia link on this blog page.

Keep on visualising successful outcomes!

Janet

Getting Caught in a Rip Current of Thoughts

Getting Caught in a Rip Current

It's funny how our thoughts can lead us into all sorts of situations. I was only thinking yesterday about what story I could include in this week's blog, along the lines of my friend Margit's quote from Wayne Dyer 'Change your thinking, change your world' and then something happened to me ..........

My family and I went to our local beach on a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning, to try out our children's new Toysrus boogie boards. I borrowed my youngest daughter's board and went out to have some fun with my two older girls. We were having a wonderful time. What I didn't realise was that every time my girls said "No, not this one Mummy, let's surf the next wave," we were going further and further out and the waves were getting higher and higher. In between dipping and rising on the big waves, I could see my husband in the distance waving at me from the beach and it wasn't one of those 'hope you're having fun' waves. I knew we were out of our depths.

I told my two daughters to hit the next big wave and head back to the beach immediately. Luckily they followed my instructions and the next few big waves hurtled them back to the beach. I wasn't so lucky as I had got caught in a rip current. Every time I tried to hurl myself forward, the rip current kept on dragging me back further into the sea. The tide was going out too, so I was being dragged by the suction of the sea in the wrong direction. The more I tried to take myself in the right direction, the more I kept on getting sucked back. My thoughts were in a complete torment. Worried I was going to end up like Tom Hanks in Cast Away (only he didn't get washed up on a deserted island on a pink, children's polystyrene Toysrus boogie board), I kicked harder and harder to head in the direction I wanted to go. My thoughts ranged from 'I'm getting nowhere' to 'this sea is getting bigger and deeper' and 'I hope I won't have to be airlifted from my pink, polystyrene children's boogie board!'

I had so many thoughts in a short space of time, but it seemed like an eternity. While wondering how I was going to get out of this predicament of getting nowhere, a young Matt Damon lookalike swam up to me on his surfboard and asked if I needed help. I was so relieved to meet this kind gentleman and like a scene from The Bourne Identity, he towed me back to safety. What a relief!



Do you ever feel like you are caught in a rip current of thoughts? The more you try to push away, the more you get sucked in, until your thoughts get deeper and deeper. The deeper you go, the harder it is to see anything else but these thoughts. You can end up in a sea of thoughts that overwhelm you. It's as if you cannot control your thoughts and they have a mind of their own.

The good news is that we can control our thoughts and we can easily change them. With hindsight, I realise that my biggest mistake in the sea was failing to paddle across the waves and head out of the rip current. Instead, I hoped that by going forwards, I would miraculously find myself back to feeling good and in control. If we use this analogy in life, it's like having some positive thoughts 'on the surface' but you've become so habituated to a certain path, you end up back in the underlying current of unresourceful thoughts. Unfortunately the force of the rip current was so strong, it kept on pulling me back, like one of those toy ping pong balls attached to a bat on elastic. The best thing to do was to break the grip of the rip, just as we need to break the grip of our thoughts when they are not sending us in the right direction.

As the anonymous saying goes:

"Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny."

Be careful of your thoughts. Your thoughts can either help or hinder you. You might as well choose the ones that will help give you a good destiny.

'Change your thinking, change your world.' Learn more about how you do this beyond just positive thinking, by attending our NoLimits NLP programme in Bali. See the link attached on my blog for more information.

Janet

Changing Your State of Mind

Your State of Mind

This week, while working in Singapore, I've observed two interesting conversations with people, which have prompted me to remember the importance of our state of mind.

The first conversation which alerted me was when I hailed a taxi to take me to a training workshop. I told him where I was going and he asked  why I didn't take the MRT, the local underground train system! I pointed out that I had a suitcase packed with 10 heavy manuals and video camera equipment as well as my laptop, so I didn't feel like lugging a heaving load up and down the MRT's escalators. He then proceeded to ask me the usual Singapore taxi driver interrogation questions:

"Where you from?" he enquired.

"I'm from the UK." I responded.

"Ah UK. You from England ...... you like Manchester United?" asked the taxi driver. Singaporean taxi drivers are addicted to the English Premier League football, especially Manchester United and they expect all British people to be avid football fans too.

"No I don't like football." I sensed an end to this part of the conversation.

"When you go back?" the taxi driver gnarled in his Chinese, Singaporean accent.

"I've lived in Asia for over 10 years. I've lived in Singapore for 8 years." I retorted and couldn't contemplate explaining to him that I also live in Bali.

"Singapore so boring lah," the taxi driver grumbled.  

"Singapore can be exciting, you just have to make it that way." I found myself continuing to give examples and sell the excitement of Singapore to the taxi driver.

"No, it's boring. When I make money, I go Malaysia. You can drive long, long way."

Admittedly, Singapore is only a small island and you can't drive very far before you end up in the sea, but a move to Malaysia will not necessarily change the taxi driver's state of mind. He's already habituated to thinking this way. So many people wait and hope that one day their life will be more exciting when they have enough money or retire, but why wait?  We can adopt a state of mind where we can enjoy life in the now and enjoy the process of working towards our goals. We can all mind the gaps we create, simply by changing our state of mind.

My second, much more uplifting conversation was with a good Swedish friend of mine who works on a contract basis with a reputable Swedish multinational. This lady's state of mind was so different to the taxi driver. She told me how she loves her job and is so pleased to be given the role of an internal Leadership Coach. She hopes that her contract will be extended to a full-time, permanent role. The words she was using enhanced her state of mind to be resourceful and powerful.  It was inspiring and refreshing to be with this person. Her upbeat and positive state of mind was infectious. I'm sure the organisation she is currently working with will do what it can to ensure they continue to employ her, as she has such a motivated state of mind.

We can change our state of mind by changing the words we use to ourselves and the words we use with others. By changing our words we can change our thoughts. We can make washing up, doing the ironing, paying the bills, doing a boring job or living in a boring place exciting. We can even turn around our health for the better, if we apply the right state of mind.

Will the taxi driver discover excitement rather than boredom?  Does he really want to wait until he can afford to retire and live in Malaysia? Why wait if he can find excitement now, simply by changing his state of mind.

"The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind."
Wayne Dyer - motivational speaker and author

Change your state of mind and change your life. There are no limits to what we can do.

Find out more about how to empower your own thinking by attending our NoLimits NLP Business Practitioner Certification programme this June by clicking on the NLP link on this blog.

Janet