Courage = Faith + Determination

At these times of pandemic, we have seen heroes who are changing our world and helping us, if not selflessly, undoubtedly beyond their own capacity: doctors, nurses and people who are laboring in hospitals are risking their lives. It is courage.

Some would say it is their job; others would say they didn’t have a choice, but IT IS courage, and you know what, courage is the result of a very interesting formula:

Faith + Determination = Courage

In the example mentioned, faith comes from their profession and their call, the reason for what they are doing what they are doing; determination comes from a sense of purpose.

What about you and me? How much courage do we have?

Well, let’s go to the formula and check our faith – I am not meaning the religious faith although it could be it:

• Looking at the negative situation in front of me, how much do I feel confident I will overcome it?
• If I don’t feel I can conquer this situation, what can I do so that I feel OK even though this is happening?
• Looking into my past, which other situations I was able to go through well, that can teach me a useful lesson for the present circumstance?

In relation to determination, the best way is to:

• Understand what is going on, what are the best steps I can take now and my next steps.
• Experiment with thoughts and ideas, exploring new ways to put them into reality.
• Keep on checking the self and results, motivating the self to move forward no matter what.

By strengthening both faith and determination, naturally courage will come from within, enabling the person to shape their reality and hopefully, other people’s reality. A new hero is born…

Migration and the mirror of our society

The present big wave of migrants in all continents should not be a novelty… It has been growing and taking the present shape for a long time.

Its reasons are not clear, because there are many and they are very complex. The solutions are also not clear; as in any system, many times a solution can become cause of another reason…

By seeing these people leaving and fleeing their places to go somewhere else, I cannot stop thinking this is the real mirror of human civilization.

So, although we measure our success as how close we are to send someone to Mars or how wonderful is a new car model, these people scream in the ears of our conscience that there is something wrong going on. Very wrong.

What can I do about it? As an individual, I start checking myself and looking for those reasons – those same reasons that make people leave their places. They are as human as I am and if they are scared by something or have been suffering from something, it is possible that is also within me…

Perhaps I am not hungry, but the way I eat may become a problem for Earth at some point. I don’t think I am afraid of people killing me because of the way I dress, behave, speak or think; but discrimination is hovering over my head and I must learn how to deal with others without hurting anyone.

In this way, I eat a little less, a little better, or I am able to smile for a person I wouldn’t smile before. It is a small contribution, but for me is a big step to clean our shared mirror.

Values: how to accomplish your goals

Values are normally kept to be used as a preaching method: when something goes wrong, we tend to talk about values to others, showing how good we are (or our parents, partners, relatives, etc.), and how things should be done.

In fact, values are very powerful tools. The reason is they are connected to the core of a human being. This is why when we work on something that is linked to at least one of our values, we feel enthusiasm and motivation, and it is as strong as that value is for us.

Then just imagine about the impact of values in the economy and a country development. Yes, it has lots of influence, but we normally don’t pay that much attention to them.

An easy way to bring values to our mind is connecting them to our goals. It is a very easy process…

1. Think about your goals – all of them, or just one.
2. Ask yourself: Which values I have that will help this goal to be fulfilled?
3. A second question is necessary: Which values I don’t have in my personality or they are not well developed and that would help this goal to be fulfilled?
4. Related to the former questions: How do I check whether my values are present in the actions corresponding to the goal? In which way can I develop the values I am missing?

That will help particularly in the area of emotions and motivation. After all, achieving a goal is not that easy; if it were, it wouldn’t be necessary to be a goal; we would just go and do it.

A few more tips:

1. Be very clear about your goals and it is better to focus on just one at a time.
2. Be very honest about the values you have, no moral judgement will help you. An easy way is to think about the last time you have used that value in your life; if it is more than one year, you should think of including it in the list of values to be developed.
3. There are several ways to develop a value. If you are a religious or spiritual person, your practice will help you. You may also check on another person you feel who has that value and check with him how he does it; don’t try to copy her or him, but just use that life as a foundation for your own development.
4. Checking is fundamental here. If you are serious about this, you could get someone else as a coach, mentor or a good friend, who may help you doing it.

By doing this a few times, it will become natural and you will develop your own way of doing it too. I am sure it will work for you as it has worked for me.

Are you really learning?

One of the best moments many people celebrate is the end of school, college or any form of institutionalized teaching system. That joy may come because of success, the feeling of conquest or the at least it is over feeling.

However, learning is bigger than that and starts from birth, ending in death. All the time there is something to be learned, something to assimilate from the environment, news or personal experiences.

In all researches, nobody has found a limit for learning, except in the will from the learner and his or her preparedness for that. And this is the point…

Many people several times use the word learning in a very casual way, like when they go through a tough period. They make a mistake or they say I learn something every day. Let’s understand something… Learning means change; so, if anyone has learned anything, that means they have changed even slightly.

When you learn that the square root of 4 is 2, your brain changes and that almost absurd discovery helps you to create a trait of personality so that when you face a problem you don’t sum or rest only, but you try the square root too… that means, you try to find the reasons that situation is happening, instead of just find a simple solution. So, yes, maths changes you and anything you really learned does the same.

Not all situations are used for learning – not that they don’t have something others may learn from it. It is just that learning implies change and for that change to happen you need a few things:

• A complete or partial understanding of whatever you are learning from, different from the understanding you have up to that moment. Different means contents, form or attitude.
• To reflect on the situation, by going beyond the actual facts and seeing either the big picture or focus on something in particular.
• To stop and check the self, looking for the change that situation helped you to bring about.
• The last thing is not obligatory, but quite useful: to verbalize the change that happened in you, the learning you have assimilated, by writing or talking to other people. Then you can help other people to learn the same.

So, next time you want to tell others you have learned something, check with this list if you REALLY have learned it… If not, by doing the checking, you would probably learn anyway.

How to check yourself?

If you are in a company and want to have success in a project, checking is a vital element to get that. Simply saying, when you check you know how far or how close you are from success, then you can make effective decisions in relation to the use of resources. If you don't check, well, you can reach there by sheer luck or a long experience...

Checking also avoids stress - hummm... I can see you're frowning on that. It is right that some checking methods are so complex that you need too much time for that and what was supposed to prevent stress turns into one of the big stress triggers. But it is not the checking in itself, rather it is the method you used for that.

Anyway, what happens if you want to reach success? Do you really want to get there?

I am sure you want, so a proper checking method is necessary for that. In general, checking covers two main areas of success:

• Quantity. You always have some measurement for that which can be money, free hours to spend with family or number of times you have smiled in one single day. It is easy if your notion of success is measurable, and it is always is. Checking quantity helps you to weight the amount of resources you need to invest, withdraw or get from somewhere; resources in this case can be people's help, skills, money and many other factors that come from outside.
• Quality. That is a bit trickier... Quality is subject to whatever you aim in your life, in this case, whatever you consider as success. For instance, if you buy a TV screen, what are the main points you will check in relation to its quality? Probably the quality of the image (if you are a technical person, you will be talking on display resolution and pixels; otherwise, how nice it looks), the quality of the material in terms of durability, etc. So, if you want to have success in your life, what are the main elements you need to check so that success is something that looks good, lasts in time, etc.?

That is probably more important for the self than for a project, so invest time in that. Learn a method that works with you - remember that a good checking method prevents stress, does not create it.

And what to do with the results? It is key that you implement the changes you noticed immediately. Postpone is not an option... Yes, you can try another method and see what are the results you get through that, and then implement whatever you need as soon as possible.

By checking and implementing changes, you are making sure that success came not out of luck and you can replay that later, or use the same steps in other situations. You can even help others doing that.

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.

About coming back to work

As I said in a former post, this blog was designed because of my lack of proper work. Something happened in my life, and companies were not calling me for help. In fact, they were not calling me for anything, really.

I really had the opportunity, the golden chance of learning that having a job is more than working, and that is the reason of this blog.

Now, work is coming back. Slowly, but steady, I am being called by many companies to help them. They are still small projects, but for me they are BIG, because they are a direct fruit of a long work on my own self.

Then, I see other issues emerging, and I feel it is good to revise them, turning them in valuable lessons others can be benefitted:

• The need of having humility and high self-esteem. Working with spirituality, I always know and talk about to have the balance between these two qualities, but I have been faced with them a lot. After all, you cannot tell others something you are not doing, but you have to value your conquests and ideas, as they are your real wealth. As a consultant, one of the techniques is to share examples, and sometimes you think your examples are good, when they are not. But at other times, your example will be the perfect one for the situation, be ready to know the difference.
• The need of researching and studying. One of the opportunities I've got was to deliver a course that I did not do for at least TEN YEARS! It evolved, and I realised (unfortunately, during the same course) that I should study more and research more. One of my mistakes would be too embarrassing, if it was not noticed by a good friend, who did not push.
• Focus, more focus. During my time without job, I generated around 10 areas of work. But, as I am performing again, to keep up with 10 areas of work is not easy, and it would be stressing in the long term. With the help of a coach, I was able to group those 10 areas in... well, 7 areas... As you see, I am still working on that focus.
• CLEAR AIM. I've put myself an immediate aim - 10 days of work! And that is what I have got. So, I have to clear my aim a little bit, remind myself the year has 365 days and my life won't finish on 2012, no matter what fake Mayans are saying. So, don't talk about such a short aim, rather than that plan it better.
• Don't lose courage. When I am working, I feel sometimes a little "rusty". Courage is needed to keep on doing, to just keep on performing and little by little rust will fade away eventually and you will see your optimum performance coming back.
• Don't be afraid of checking yourself. It is harsh. That course with my friend... my God, he was calling me apart, telling me what was wrong with me, with no mercy. And that was wonderful. You do need to check yourself, or being checked by someone else, so that you can improve.

Take care and keep on moving.