HAPPY BIRTHDAY: the year of 8

Life is a miracle. From the biological point of view, statistics show that a new life is an almost impossible feat, and yet every day there is a birth… RIGHT NOW, a baby is being born, a mother wolf is licking its new cub and a new whale is starting to swim in the oceans of the world.

Celebrating a birthday is not a small thing. It means a reverence to that miracle and at the same time, a commitment to help life to continue.

On January 12^th, I have the honor to celebrate mine. I feel humbled by the thought I was given a chance to live in this wonderful world.

However, it is not a single birthday; I celebrate two birthdays on the same day. How? Besides my birth, on that same date, in 1983, I got in touch with the subtle part of me, the soul that I am. It was and it is still is an incredible experience.

Every year I do something different and special for that celebration. For this double birthday, I would like to play with the number 8. After all…

• ·        2018 ends in 8…
• ·        My physical age is 53 and when you sum the numbers… yes, right, you get 8! Wait a second… my SPIRITUAL age is 35 and guess the result of summing its numbers…
• ·        And summing both ages, I get 88 – so, DOUBLE EIGHT!

There are eight affirmations I feel that have helped me to live spiritually in a very non-spiritual world. Each of these is associated with a spiritual power, which you can check on my blog about it.

I hope they will work as a gift from me to you. After all, a birthday means gift…

EIGHT AFIRMATIONS

THAT ENABLE ME TO LIVE AS A SPIRITUAL BEING IN A VERY MATERIAL WORLD

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The power of facing consequences

One of the most common games played in our society is the blaming game, that silly contest to see who is the most stupid to take the fall… And yet, that is probably what we are all looking for in our leaders today: someone who willingly takes the fall.

How refreshing is when someone says sorry or it was my fault. But quite often what we hear is I am not going to apologize or they are the ones to blame!

When I wrote my first book, The pathway towards Self-Leadership, I was able to discern very clearly two different concepts which are used in similar situations: guilt and responsibility.

The first one is behind the attitude most people have and, really, who wants to be guilty? After all, they are sent to jails or exiled somewhere. They are even legally killed in some places.

When someone makes a bad decision, guilt is hardly the solution. It only makes things worse and everyone becomes very heavy and upset with whatever happens.

But responsibility is something else as people naturally like to be responsible; it is part of who we are. A responsible person is admired and praise, these people are able to change their own lives and other people’s existence.

However, you see, it is easier to be guilty… A person goes to jail and he does not have to bear anymore the responsibility of whatever happened, while a responsible person has to be working and living with his own mistake, looking for solutions and working on that.

This is why we all should take some course on how to face consequences. It is really enriching and it helps to build our own personality.

A friend was telling me about his realization when he saw that all the businesses he started failed. He told me about the emotional burden he felt; relieved by his religion and the presence of his family, and at some point he decided to take over one business. He took over responsibility over it; he talked to very angry clients and rebuilt their trust. Slowly he started to see things get right.

Responsibility has an interesting effect in people and it can be compared with going on a roller-coaster: it is scary, but with the right attitude you will enjoy a lot.

In the case of my friend, the support from his religion, his wife and parents helped a lot, it was crucial in his success. The technical part – budgeting, strategy and calculations – was of course what customers saw, but I am sure that was not what they felt… After a while in the process, a project came through, associated with the embassy from another country, to represent part of their interests. He and his company were just in the crawling stage of their recovery and yet, he decided to try it out. You can probably imagine the amount of documents they required, how much scrutiny he would have to go through and yet, he got it. I am sure it was more due to what they felt than what they saw.

A few tips to develop that sense of responsibility, so that you would never ever again would go through the blaming game:

• Don’t whine or complain, just understand what is happening.
• Firstly in private, accept your own responsibility and see what you can do to fix what needs to be fixed.
• Don’t think, at least initially, about things that are out your responsibility limits, leave that to other people.
• If others are somehow responsible for what is going on, completely or partially, create a strategy to talk to them and get them to do the right thing.
• Learn the lesson and create a plan, so that error does not happen again (don’t trust your own promises).
• Talk to people you trust, embrace your responsibility in front of them.
• Do whatever is required within the limits of your responsibility; don’t think about the present cost or time you would need to spend.
• From time to time, follow up.
• When you start with the fixing part of your responsibility, celebrate your actions, by buying a nice chocolate or enjoying the sunset. Seriously, do it.

Welcome to the I am responsible-game. Enjoy it and win as many times as you want.

This article is dedicated to the Brahma Kumaris and particularly to its founder, Brahma Baba, who faced all consequences with a smile and a spiritual attitude.

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Marcelo Bulk is a Brazilian business consultant, author and coach, resident in the beautiful city of Bogota, Colombia. He has been working for more than 30 years in his own personal development and he has been a volunteer with the Brahma Kumaris, travelling worldwide.

The basis of being a leader

I think this is a world which should have an overpopulation of leaders. There are a few reasons for that.

If you consider leadership a competence, its formula is very easy:

• Knowledge. There is plenty of knowledge on leadership, thousands and probably millions of books and an infinite number of articles on this topic, in most languages. There are courses in colleges and universities all over the world too.
• Skills. Apart from that, there are probably millions of consultants or training schools who can help leaders to develop certain skills for a better leadership.
• Attitude. With all courses and people talking about leadership, I feel it is not difficult to develop a leadership attitude, although that, as it is a little subtle, would require more effort.

Of course, that is problem the question of the century: What is leadership? Not in the sense of definition, but it is more like "where does it come from?". A friend of mine says there is no leadership; what we have is leaders (I particularly do not believe in that, but it is an idea...).

Ideas are coming and coming, but still leadership, from many different points of view, is easy and it is getting even easier. But then, why our wold is in such a situation? Because it does not matter what line of thinking you follow, a leader will always emerge at times of crisis. And, well, I guess this is not happening... At least not in a way to really overcome crises...

As a thinker, I feel that what is missing is self-leadership. You can find many articles in this blog itself on that, and thousands more in other places. The basic reason: you can't lead if you are unable to lead yourself!

So, what we have is not really a lack of leadership, or leaders, but a lack of self-leadership and leaders of the self.

Taking the same formula and understanding self-leadership as a competence, we have:

• Wisdom. Knowledge is good, but to be a leader of the self, that knowledge has to transcend and turn into wisdom. It is difficult to teach that in universities, but it is easy to assimilate that from reflection, contemplation or meditation.
• Powers and virtues. Skills are used to put leadership into practice. For self-leadership, you need more than skills. Spiritual power is an energy the being has that helps the self to overcome situations (check my post on 8 attitudes). Virtue is that energy that enable the being to live in the world adapting to all situations that come. Both could be called attitudes.
• Awareness. Leadership of the self is only possible if the leader's awareness is awaken. Most of the time, we are not aware of what is going on around us; it is only when that is interesting or it requires more from the senses, that you become aware of its reality (for instance, the sound of air-conditioning system or the traffic in front of your office). To be a leader of the self, for that you do need to awake the deep hidden awareness of who am I, where am I going to, what am I doing here and many of the traditional questions on self-existence.

So... you see, it is not that difficult!

Is it? I will help you with more and more posts on this topic. I can help you personally with examples of my own life and, most important, I am sure YOU CAN HELP me and others with your own example!

8 attitudes of self-leaderhship

Seeing the news and the confusion of people and government, employees and employers, there is something missing in the air: LEADERSHIP.

How is it possible that in such a world, with so much information and knowledge flowing around, we don't have capable leaders to solve things that are quite simple? One response is the lack of leadership on the self; due to that, the leader cannot manage his or her own emotions and desires, preventing good decisions to take place.

And how to become a leader of the self? Self-leadership can't happen without some thinking and reflection. In fact, it only happens that way.

To lead the self quite often is more difficult than leading a company. At least, in the case of a company, it is easier to see its results, vision, mission, etc. In the case of an individual, that only comes with deep reflection. Sometimes the person does not have any kind of support from other people for self-leadership.

But there is an easy way to develop self-leadership. Reflection will be there too, but it won't be that you will need to contemplate for twenty years to start seeing glimpses of that. It can start right now...

The eight attitudes are based in an Eastern knowledge on how to deal with inner and outer situations. After all, that is what leaders do: they deal with whatever comes to them. The basic and main difference with a manager is that a leader will look into each case with depth, thinking in the long term, while a manager has to solve things right now.

In other words, when you have a problem in front of you, instead of just reacting and solving the problem as it shows, you prepare yourself, you check possible solutions and you implement that which will last longer.

I will give an example: if you find out you have cancer, a common person will just get desperate and will try as best as he or she can to cure the sickness. If the person is a good self-manager, she or he will research a little bit in relation to the best possible solutions. A self-leader will go beyond, understanding what is going on and accepting whatever can happen, either healing or not.

So, what are these eight attitudes?

• Introversion. It is the attitude that helps preparing the self for action.
• Tolerance. It helps to live in a world full of contradictions and differences.
• Adjustment. It enables the self to be flexible and adapt in any environment.
• Discernment. That is a key attitude, as it enables the self to understand what is coming and make his or her own mind in relation to what to do.
• Decision. It is very important to implement whatever the person feels it is right to do.
• Facing. Not hiding, escaping of fighting; facing means to accept and see how to solve tough circumstances.
• Cooperation. Another key attitude, as it helps the individual to cooperate with others and get cooperation from others in tasks that bring benefit to many.
• "Packing-up". Healing and moving on.

Even when you think in terms of leadership, these eight attitudes can cooperate with your leadership. For instance, Tolerance and Adjustment are key attitudes at the time of making a team come out of a crisis. There are however three ways to use these attitudes, and I will give examples related to that.

The first one is that of a manager: she or he uses tolerance, but after the argument. Typically, a person like that (supposing it is a manager) will send some sweets or a soft email trying to get the team together after screaming at some of its members... It is not a bad use, and no doubt, if you have a situation like that, do it. But it is not what a leader would do.

The second and third one are the ways a leader would use these attitudes. Let's understand the PROACTIVE way of using these attitudes: a leader won't wait for the crisis. He or she will prepare the self through contemplation, studies, dialogues with other people, and other means to improve tolerance. In that way, when some problem emerges, the leader naturally will be able to manage it.

In other words, being proactive is to prepare the self in relation to all of these attitudes so that they come naturally when time comes to use them.

It is possible the situation is really critical and the preparation was not enough. Even though that can happen, the leader will make her or his best to not react. He will listen to the situation, or she will look at what is happening and, instead of tolerance, the leader will use another attitude, for instance, making a decision that can help the moment (Guys, I invite all of you to come to my place this evening...).

The ACTIVE way is all about humility and self-esteem. The leader acknowledges his lack of capacity to solve the present situation, but at the same time recognizes there are other capacities within that can help it.

I will talk a bit more on these when I talk about self-empowerment, but I hope with what was written, you can start using these at least in a basic level.

The capacity for resistance II - Tolerance, The Pathway towards Self-Leadership

I would like to give some interesting examples of resistance and tolerance.

Gandhi’s fight

At the beginning, he was considered a crazy idealist man by those who met him. Gandhi used his skills to keep himself above the English domination. His fantastic Salt March was an example of a man’s charisma, who left the easiest option (about three hundred millions Indians with knives running after the British Lords) and who adopted the idea of the ahimsa, that is, non-violence.

We can see in him very clearly the former cycle: his idea was that mental and spiritual freedom was higher, which generated a change in the world perception. For the first time people were talking about the freedom of a whole population without violence. Nowadays, we see international negotiators traveling country to country, many of them successfully attaining peace. But at that time, Gandhi emerged as a deep paradigmatic change agent challenging the biggest empire of the moment.

By establishing the difference of potential, of consciousness between the English conquerors and the people of India, Gandhi got to create a huge resistance towards the empire where the Sun never sets. English weapons and the power of their culture could not overcome that.

A resistance that turns into tolerance: instead of fighting for their rights, Indians started to tolerate defamations and distress. Soldiers beat people without reaction. However, like ants in the jungle, the people did not stop. Tolerance made them even stronger and helped to increase their numbers until that point when the giant kneeled before the weak half-naked slim man who looked more a fakir than a Chief of State.

With tolerance, they got a bigger shift in their consciousness and that generate more resistance and so on. It was not a lineal process; it was not that millions of people joined the Mahatma immediately. No, at every cycle, more people joined the cause of non-violence.

Gandhi influenced many thinkers and known XX Century Western people. The idea of non-violence was the flag of the 60’s and 70’s hippies, and it is still present somehow in modern thinking.

Motherly love is the purest way to love

Mother’s consciousness enables the woman to stand in front of the worse suffering and insults for the sake of her child. In other words, the elevated consciousness increases her resistance in front of any adversity.

However, one of the most painful processes the Western society is going through at present is the breaking down of families. It is calculated that in United States, 40% of families have gone through a separation processes. In Latin-American, this number is increasing: in Colombia, a statistic indicates that marriages last in average a little more than twelve years.

Motherly love is also going through the consequences of a change in the family members’ lifestyle. In this way, resistance to day-to-day problems is less, tolerance decreases, which translates into an even lower level of consciousness. In this way, the cycle keeps on going until the person ends with stress and very exhausted.

In fact, at this moment, all of us – women and men – can be mothers… of the world. Perhaps we are living a unique situation in history in which our perception of humanity is stronger than the religious, cultural or race barriers. And for that we need to think of the self as a mother capable to give love and attention to the lives of our friends, co-workers and even to unknown people, to the whole world.

It might sound idealist, but it is a possibility we have to avoid stress. It is a question of not think too much, but developing this consciousness, either you are a mother or not, either you have children or not. It is a question of think of what you have within to give humankind. Physical charity is not as fundamental as feelings and thoughts.

When I put these examples, I try to show the role of resistance in terms of tolerance. Why don’t we reflect about the level of our own consciousness? I would like to ask three questions that may help you to check if the difference of potential is high enough to face the current. Sometimes, when we respond such questions, we tend to know the “right” answers, as they are a bit obvious. The idea is however to have honest responses even though they are not like the “right” ones.

1. When you wake up, where do your first thoughts go to?
2. During the day, are you more involved in problems or solutions?
3. By night, do you relax and try to forget whatever happened during the day or do you try to dedicate sometime to create, learn and live something new and different?

 (partial extract from the book El Camino hacia el Autoliderazgo)

The capacity for resistance I - Tolerance, The Pathway towards Self-Leadership

To resist is the ability to withstand the effects arising from external and internal causes, without getting hurt. A material is measured by its resistance to electrical and thermal effects. "Burn the resistance" means that the material could not bear the load that came from outside.

For resistance, there is a formula you all have learned at school:

R= V/I

Where V is the voltage and I is the intensity with which the current passes. Talking in terms of human change, the most important is the voltage difference, that is, the difference of potential. It can be the difference in the consciousness, as the current (external and internal processes) cannot be controlled; sometimes they are stronger, sometimes weaker.

An example is a person who allows himself to be influenced by his job. I believe day by day this happens more often; the work should be our server, but instead has become our master.

In this situation, there is no way to prevent work pressures. Obviously I can accept some changes to relief the burden, but there is a moment when these changes don’t work anymore. In fact, any energy I apply in a negative form in my work (complaining, for instance), comes back to me.

If you open a shower and put your hand in front of the water, it deviates and keeps moving. However, the closer you put your hand to the shower, more the water pressure will wet the whole bathroom.

The same happens with work: by trying to put obstacles in front of the pressures, you are increasing it even more until it explodes. Paradoxically, we are increasing the current, instead of diminish it. And, by observing the formula, by increasing current, you are decreasing resistance, that is, the effect is opposite to the one you wanted.

So, what is the solution to increase resistance? According to the formula, the simplest solution is to increase the difference of potential.

A very interesting person I’ve met in Brazil was Dr. Roberto Shinyashiky. He is a transactional analyst, author of several books, one of which is Padres e filhos, companheiros de viagem (Fathers and sons, travel companions). In this book, he describes the experience he had with one of his sons who was born with some deficiencies. Depressed, feeling powerless, Roberto travelled to the United States to work with his son in therapeutic processes. In the extent he went over the therapies, he found out some aspects that helped him to clarify the moment he was living.

A few days later, whilst walking, Roberto faced a very strong wind. It was so strong that did not allow him to mover further. He tried to take some steps but he was forced to go backwards. It was then he found out a unique truth: you cannot go against the inevitable. The wind was inevitable as his son’s illness. From that moment, Roberto changed his consciousness and started to love him unconditionally, without bothering how he was.

Roberto transformed his ideas, he started to accept the reality and found other ways to live with them. Just like the Beauty, he embraced the Beast, that is, his situation and turned it into another beauty. In other words, he increased the difference of potential between his consciousness and the reality.

Unfortunately, I see people nowadays walk with their difference of potential almost in zero, even negative. That is, the reality dominates and determines the pace of life.

When I realize that fighting against the wind does not help anything, I start to love it and I take those moments to do something useful; in that instant, I become stronger than reality.

I want to go back to the example of working. The more I blame it for my present state, I am giving it strength and power and my consciousness is lower than the work pressures. How many of you have seen a more elevated spiritual person to be worried with something that another person who is in a lower state can do? Resistance is stronger when the consciousness is more elevated than reality. A person who is rich internally won’t bother with someone else’s insults; a saint won’t bother with someone else’s defamation; a true leader won’t bother with provocations from certain critics.

The change of perception makes individuals to transform their environment as it increases the person’s resistance in relation to opposite forces. The bigger is the resistance, the bigger will be the tolerance. The more tolerant you are, more open you will be towards the changes, because tolerance is the front door that helps you to meet those changes. It is a cycle:

• The change of perception increases your resistance.
• The resistance increases your tolerance.
• Tolerance helps you in changing your perception.

The moment I realize the work is not guilty, your family is not guilty, the neighbour should not go to jail just because he likes loud music, neither the employee nor the employer are guilty… only then I can start a transformation process. I increase my inner resistance in relation to all the outer “attacks”, it does not matter how painful they can look like.

(partial extract from the book El Camino hacia el Autoliderazgo)

Tolerance, The Pathway towards Self-Leadership

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”

Tao

How many problems do we have with others? We live in a world of differences. Everyone has their own opinion, their lives and their inner and outer world. We live with people who are different; who do not think as we do, nor they want what we want.

After looking into the self, we have found what we have. Now, it is time to go out, face the reality and to live with it. Tolerance works as a powerful armor that does not allow we get affected by what comes from outside.

For our defense, we can build castles of sand, which are so tall that we can live in them, but they won’t stand to the slightest change of tide. When a strong wave comes, the dream is over.

In the ancient times, fortresses and castles were made in such a way that enemies could not access easily. However, human fortresses are fragile and they go down with any wind. It seems the world  is now at a battlefield where bosses fight against employees, parents against their children, governments against their people; all are against all. If not externally, internally we live in prevention. And it is now, more than ever, when fortresses must be reinforced, but not with sand and rock; with positive qualities.

The quote from Tao, which means literally Pathway, is in itself the basic key for tolerance; to be wise and to have power. Tolerance is not a state of supreme effort in which a person hates whatever he or she has to tolerate, looking at the watch all the time to see when that is going to end. In this world where we live, none wants to be a martyr, all of us want to be happy and we have to accept that.

If we do want to be happy, we can reach the conclusion that the other person who is causing us such a problem is upset with something; his or her own happiness was stolen. But through tolerance, I am able to give them that happiness back. Tolerate does not mean to create wrinkles, but to avoid them, to have a healthier physical and mental life.

(partial extract from the book El Camino hacia el Autoliderazgo)

A personal model of self-leadership

For me, self-leadership is the key to everything in terms of managing your own life.

Along the years, I have been working on several models of self-leadership. And I know this is something that won't end today... But, as it is for today, this is my present model, and its outcomes:

• My self-leadership is based in a model of 8 basic attitudes. I call them "spiritual powers", and I have written a book on that in Spanish and Portuguese.
• I understand self-leadership as the basis of actual leadership. When problems arise, I always look at the leadership that comes from inside.
• Empowerment is key, and self-empowerment is irreplaceable. I get that from 3 main sources: meditation, constant study and blessings (yeah, you heard right!).
• Blessings are the main fruit of self-leadership. It means a positive and powerful energy that comes from other people as a result of your service to others, and it is a complement to self-empowerment.
• Checking. Nothing is perfect, a leader of the self is always checking the self.
• Changing and transforming. To be a leader of the self means to change from your own will and to embrace transformation as a positive step, always.

I will be talking about each item later. Take care.

Radical change management

One of the things I appreciate mostly about my choice of profession is to meet incredible people. I do believe deep thinking can make a difference in a world of such a "shallow" thinking...

Jimena, a very good friend, has made a wonderful effort to fulfill her career dream, by becoming a Master Coach. Even though she is not a psychologist, I have found few people who can understand human psyche like her. One example is a model of change management, based on the emotions people feel. It does look like Kübler-Ross model, but I tell you, it came from her own observations on what happens in the reality of change.

After preparing the model, she decided at some point to try it out: during a workshop at a warm place in Colombia, she just jumped in the swimming pool. When I say she just jumped, I mean WITH CLOTHES AND ALL. She motivated the participants to do the same, what they did. All the emotions she compiled in her model happened there.

I think there are two main aspects left out when we deal with change management in the normal consulting stream, and emotions is one of them. It does not matter about which culture we talk, change, and especially radical change, provokes too many emotions.

But there is another one, and I feel if people could focus on that one, the untimely changes that take place from time to time would be able to be managed much better.

To talk about that, let's understand one thing: every time we react against a change, it makes it stronger. So, to face a change and overcome it with success, it is required to not fight against it.

But, if fighting is off the table, what should it be done? The second aspect I want to mention is the awareness of self-leadership, which allows the individual to respond to the changes. The more the person is a leader on himself or herself, the more he or she will be able to get success.

Self-leadership allows the individual to be calm during a storm and to find solution when only problems are visible. It helps the person to manage the emotions in such a way they don't follow my friend's model.

I will talk about the 8 powers of the self at some point, which is my personal model of self-leadership... for this post, let's think of each power as an attitude to deal with changes:

• When the change is too big to be dealt with, introspection is the best policy. Reflecting from inside will help to find solutions faster.
• When the change creates a situation that is temporary, tolerance is the best power to use. However, if the situation is not temporary, then to be flexible is the best thing to do.
• If the change threatens principles, then the individual must stand to it. Not in an aggressive way, but from inside not allowing change to take those principles away.
• Sometimes, change generates situations which require other people to act along with the person. Getting cooperation is a power that comes from a deep self-realization.
• But apart from all of that, decisions tend to be made with no good results. From inside, the person can discern among the many choices life gives her or him, which one will take him to right solution; then, it is just a question of bringing the power to implement that decision into reality.
• And lastly, whenever some process ends, it is vital to withdraw again. This time, to assimilate the lessons and to just let go of any wounds.

If the person develops that level of self-leadership, it will be easier to manage changes, especially radical and untimely ones.