The door of death

A young minister started to attend to his exotic king, who used to quote wisdom phrases and do his best to rule the kingdom in a… funny way.

One of the things the king used to do was related to the execution of prisoners, an event that the young man had to regretfully y attend. It was always the same…

“You have been condemned for your atrocious acts against the kingdom.”, the king used to start. After some deliberation, he would finish his interference with this:

“Now, if you are brave, REALLY brave… My kingdom needs VERY COURAGEOUS people and I am willing to pardon you…”, the king would wait for the prisoner’s smile and close his speech like this, by approaching a simple door at a corner: “… if you cross this door. This door takes a person to the most horrible place of my kingdom, a place not even the best men of my army would dare to go! This door keeps us safe from a monster nobody has been able to defeat.”, this time the king would wait for the smile to vanish. “Now, my men will free you and if you want you can cross that door, or you will be executed.”

ALL OF THE PRISONERS would rather die than crossing the door.

One day, he found the king in a good mood and he decided was safe to ask the king the big question

“Your Majesty, I would like to ask you a question that has been haunting me since I have become your servant.”

“Of course, you may ask the question.”

After a brief hesitation, fearing for his own life, the young man asked: “What is behind the door?”

The king showed an enigmatic smile and start to walk very fast, followed by the young minister who realized soon where they were heading to: the execution field.

Now, the young man was almost crying with the fear the king would throw him out through the cursed door, but he was able to kept a certain calm face; they at last were both facing the door themselves.

“Open it!”, ordered the king. The young minister rather clumsily opened the door and…

…And he was amazed! It was an extremely beautiful piece of jungle there. He was able to identify some flowers and trees, and no sign of the monster.

When he looked back to the king, he was definitely smiling.

“Where is the monster, your Majesty?”

The king whispered something under his breath, looked at the eager eyes of his new minister and said without a smile: “The most horrible monster of all does not live in that jungle, but in the hearts and minds of people. It is called FEAR… If the prisoners didn’t keep that monster inside themselves, they would dare crossing the door and, as I promised, they will be free again. But that monster kills them before our executioners. Be careful, minister, and don’t feed your own monster! Just trust yourself and the fear will eventually die.”

The formula for determination

If you have an objective in your life, there is something that is true, no matter what it is: you are not living or enjoying it today.

Why is this important? It is common that as soon as you set a goal in life or you start to pursue your dream, somehow you start to feel you are that already.

This is good, since it gives you the motivation, but some people falls into that trap and they stop to endeavor, as they think they are what they would want to be.

When you keep the fact you are not living that objective yet, you can move on by planning and creating that dream, bringing into your reality.

There are many techniques you can use, however no matter which ones you choose to do it, there is a common virtue, quality or value that will be useful for you and without which, it will be difficult to fulfill your goal: determination.

It means the energy that makes you move forward, despite obstacles, difficulties and, quite often, loss of interest. It helps you in critical moments of your self-progress and it gives you the boost you need.

However, to keep determined, particularly with long-term goals and when the road ahead is bumpy, there is a formula that may help you. As any formula, you may work on the factors, making it easier.

First, it is essential to understand that:

DETERMINATION is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to FAITH and SELF-CONFIDENCE

In other words, the more you have faith in the goal and you trust your talents, skills and whoever you are as a person, the easier will be to experience determination.

 

The formula

DETERMINATION = (CLARITY) + CONCENTRATION + SELF-EMPOWERMENT

Determination comes as a result of (first) having clarity in relation to your goal (and here, the order of the factor is very important). Then focus or concentration will keep you moving towards it, but due to obstacles and distractions, you do need to empower the self in many ways.

 

Although it does not mean you will fulfill your goal, to keep determination is probably half of the effort towards your objectives.

The art of trusting the self

Do you really want to change things? Really?

You do know you can’t, right? Remember when you tried that summer? It didn’t work! You can’t change things, they are what they are!!!

 

This is an inner dialogue performed inside our mind so many times that for many of us, self-confidence in relation to promote changes is very slippery.

And yet, if you really want to have a wonderful year – you do want that, right? – self-confidence is the most important thing to develop, probably before anything else and there is a particular reason for it.

Self-confidence enables you to trust your decisions and to perform well even when your actions are against odds. Particularly when you are in a change process generated by yourself, it is very easy to fall back to the comfort zone or to copy other people, and either of these options may make your change process fails.

 

So, let’s talk about how to overcome the wonderful temptation of our comfort zone…

It is really not that comfortable, but it gives a false sense of security and stability since even bad things are known and you learn how to bear. Breaking out the comfort zone means to go out in the wild and maybe it will not be a pleasant experience; but it could be wonderful.

The trick to overcome the attraction is to increase the personal capacity; in this way, you feel confidence you can go out there and be successful. Think: what could you be doing differently if you really believe in yourself?

This post is part of a series for a better year. Good luck!

 

A basic instinct whilst changing is to try and copy other people who have gone through a similar process and there is nothing wrong about it, after all if somebody was able to make things work, why can’t you just go and replicate their development?

This brings me a memory from my school: two guys tried to get top marks by copying every movement of the most intelligent guy there, including going to sleep early… I guess I don’t need to tell you their experiment failed miserably.

You cannot really copy others, because you are very different, but you can take ideas, be inspired and motivated by someone else’s success, you can even duplicate their effort. Remember that you are what you are, however you can adapt their success into your life.

In this case, the best thing is to talk with those people or to try and see what works with you, discarding whatever is not working and improving whatever you can improve.

 

You are the leader of yourself, who is generating a change that will impact many others. Good luck!

This post is part of a series for a better year...

Step 1…

We are just starting to live a new year, so this is a time for a transition.

That means you are probably so busy celebrating (with mask and all) that you are not thinking much about the remaining 362 days or so, and yet this is the right time to start thinking of it.

Consider these first days as the first step to have a MUCH BETTER year and here are three suggestions, which are stages of this first step:

• To let go – the first part of this step is to let go not only the bad things, but even the good things. You need space to generate a new experience, and to start from a blank mental whiteboard is the best option.
• Trust yourself – this is the part in which you design the New Year and you have a style that is completely different than mine, your spouse’s, children’s, neighbors’, mother-in-law’s and anybody… Let your ideas flow by brainstorming, using creative methods like journaling or just sitting down and reflecting. The basis of this stage is to trust your inner voice and maybe you want to use this powerful question: What are the ways to be successful this year?
• Perseverance & patience – you will need this couple of virtues this year. On one hand, perseverance will help you to put all those beautiful ideas into reality. On the other hand, patience will help you to trust yourself and wait…

 

In the next posts, I will get into each of these stages, but you probably would like to start something. Good luck!

A session of coaching, just for you – part I

This has been a very interesting year and so, this session of coaching, distributed in two different posts, has an aim of helping you find meaning in the past year.

 

First of all, look for a place where you feel secure, safe. Along with that, do this at a time when you are not needed by others.

Please, don’t look at this as just a series of questions or tasks. Take them step by step, and take your time…

Take paper and pen, or pencil. If you want you can take a watch to keep time, but try not. And yes, be unplugged for the time of the exercise.

Let’s begin…

 

Session 1: it is better if you do all of this first, in order and during a certain time limit.

How do you feel in relation to this year? Write as much as possible.

Which things, scenes of your life or aspects of your environment you would prefer they would be rather different?

How much was your life impacted by all that happened this year?

Now, think you are being interviewed in 2025 about the year 2020. Indicate a few things you would tell your audience.

 

Session 2: do this after the first session; as you can see, there are two main questions, you can change the order if you want.

During this year you or another person has made an error that impacted your life. Which error was it?

By correcting that error, what would happen to the rest of your year?

By not correcting that error, what did REALLY happen (to the rest of your year)?

Something right happened that touched your heart or created a positive impact in your life; it may be the right thing you or another person did. Which right thing was it?

What was the impact of that right thing in the rest of your year?

If that right thing hasn’t happened, what would happen to the rest of your year?

 

Next week we will continue…

You are the sparrow, not the snail, of your story - Reason 72

Would you rather be a sparrow than a snail?  An old song[1] used to do issue this challenge, which could be translated into: Would you rather be a hero than a victim?

OK, victim is a strong word, but reality is: most people are trapped in their own world, like snails that cannot fly.  Normal people avoid or are prevented to look into the sky, leave earth and the possibility of creating a new reality.

Leaders create their own story and they fly very high, avoiding traps and attempts of decreasing their value.  Leaders are heroes, flying sparrows in the sky of their lives.

What makes the difference is the fact a leader sees her or his reality as a set of choices and makes the best use of it.  So, instead of dragging on the earth of their decisions, in the case they went wrong, leaders reflect, open their wings and fly, not away, but into the situation, changing it and opening new possibilities.

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[1] El Condor Pasa (The Condor Passes) is a song composed by Paul Simon in 1970, based on a Peruvian folklore song .  You can watch it here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pey29CLID3I

(Excerpt from the book 82 Reasons to be a Leader)

Self-confidence; that's it!

There is a basic principle: you cannot experience something you never experienced. It helps in understanding dreams, for instance, but it can be used to grasp the meaning of goals and objectives.

You cannot wish to be something you cannot be. If you are having a difficult goal in mind or starting to pursue an objective that looks like it is impossible to reach, there is possibly a part of you that knows you can reach that aim.

What is missing? You have a goal and because of that, you do have the qualifications to reach for it.

Well, in fact it is not that easy. For you to fulfill an objective in your life is a process, sometimes very long, as you are coming out of the present stage and you want be something very different than that.

So, there will be many obstacles to win over within and, at least for me, the main one is to believe in oneself. I CAN DO IT! It is a simple phrase, but very powerful indeed.

Developing self-confidence should start at a very early age, but you can do a lot much later. Self-confidence helps you to understand your full potential and also your limitations, which is very useful when you look for job or try to improve your relationship with someone else.

But how do you do it? When you are a child, self-confidence comes from different stimuli received from parents and other family members, your friends and colleagues at school, your teachers and even your vicar, if that is the case. In other words, our self-confidence comes from outside to inside.

When you are older, that approach does not work properly, since you are not so innocent anymore and praises will be filtered, you won’t trust all of them or even though you would, maybe you wouldn’t see that compliment reflected in your own life. If you ever try to help someone pointing to their strengths, you will understand me…

But you can do something you were not able when you were a child: reflection. This means you can go inside yourself and find solutions, talents and qualities you need, and apply them to your present situation.

Therefore, self-confidence for an adult comes from an inner journey, by acknowledging strong points and by understanding your own weaknesses. That will change your perception about yourself and the possibilities of improvement will increase.

And after it, it is time to relish your goals coming into reality…