Be Thankful - Author Unknown

Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire,
If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don't know something
For it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations
Because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge
Because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes
They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you're tired and weary
Because it means you've made a difference.

It is easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are
also thankful for the setbacks.

GRATITUDE can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles
and they can become your blessing.

Doesn't time fly

I've just realised that it is over a month since I lasted posted to my blog. No excuses, just busy I'm very glad to say. Serious bloggers will note that this is not really good enough and you should contibute something to you blog on a regular basis.


Earlier on today I came across this quote from the mountaineer, WH Murray and really think it is worth repeating its entirety

"Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.

Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.

A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.

I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

'Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.'"

I'm off on a family holiday for a couple of weeks. In the meantime why not visit our website www.enfysacumen.com. I'd love to hear from you when I return.

Retreat for Summer Miracles

Indians, we are told, do it more than any other nation. People with religious beliefs often do it once a year. Captains of industry do it less often. You can do it whenever you like.

For centuries, the practise of taking time out to do something different has been recognised as a sure-fire way of recharging your batteries, igniting your enthusiasm and solving problems. In commerce it is sometimes called a sabbatical, others may call it going on retreat, I’ve often called it an away-day.

We could all benefit from this simple procedure, couldn’t we? I’ll even go a step further. You don’t have to spend a week as a hermit on a mountain top. Just one day will release amazing benefits and the best part is that it doesn’t cost anything.

As a coach, I see that many of my clients benefit from this simple change to their routine. When you put a little distance between yourself and your routine challenges or issues, you see them in a different light and from a different perspective. You may even create a few miracles for yourself as a result. These will come as flashes of intuition that can lead you to take the action needed to resolve a problem.

Look at it this way, If you look at something, say an apple, and hold it close to your face so that it is touching your nose, you will see a very small part of it. Hold it at arms length and you will see the whole apple and its texture and colours. Look at it from the other end of the room and you won’t see the detail but you will see it in the perspective of its surroundings and in true proportion. It is the same with issues or problems. You add distance and see them from a new angle.

I know the weather out there this week might not seem like summer, but this is a great time of the year to do this. Simply set a weekday date in your diary right now, when you will take off to the countryside, the hills or the beach. Go by car, bike, train or on foot but go to somewhere that you have never been before and where you can be sure of some space alone. Set off early and plan to be out all day. Leave your mobile phone at home and travel light. Then just wander around for the day, thinking of nothing, focusing on the ‘now’ experience.

Many coaching clients are amazed how easy this is. They are ‘off the leash’ and just by being in a different place they find that their thoughts turn to solutions and answers rather than problems and challenges. You create in life what you think about.

So, make that date in your diary now. Look forward to it, keep it without guilt, enjoy it and return refreshed.

I am always happy to discuss this or other aspects of my approach to coaching, absolutely free of any cost or obligation. You can contact during usual office hours on 01633 769657 or by email.

If you do the same thing, in the same way, you will get the same results. Your away- day summer retreat may be the one enjoyable change that you need to create those spectacular ‘miracle’ results that you know you deserve.

10 tips for developing better relationships

Twenty years ago I qualified as a teacher and my first position was in a residential school for boys who were labelled in those days as emotionally and behaviourally disturbed - an awful label I know and it certainly helped me to realise that labels are for jam jars not for people.

I entered the teaching profession with lots of values and a real vision to make an impact on developing young people. Although I'd had various holiday jobs over the years, this was my first experience of the real world of work. I think at the time I used to see the world through rose tinted specs, but over the next two years my worldview changed significantly and now I realise it wasn't necessarily for the better and has had a very negative effect on my professional life.

The term I started coincided with the appointment of a new headteacher, it was his first headship and even though I am sure he was a great teacher, he lacked a lot of skills in managing and motivating his staff team. I really learnt a lot about how not to manage and motivate people and some of the pitfalls in organisational development.

In the two years I worked at that school, I think I only went into the headteacher's office about three times, one of which was for the actual job interview. I never had any one-to-one support and the only feedback I ever got tended to be negative and involved a ticking off in front of the kids. I'm sure you can well imagine how that made me feel.

Although I enjoyed the teaching side of things I really hated the school environment and couldn't wait to get away from there at the end of the day. I'm sure I used to get on my housemates nerves moaning about my job and complaining or rather in line with my view of life at the time, I would be making excuses for my boss. After all it was his first management position, he was only developing his skills too!

One day things really hit home. I had gone home quite upset and started making excuses for the headteacher again when a friend really pulled me down to earth.

"Stop there!" she said "This man is your manager, he's doing the job because he demonstrated to someone he could do it , he is getting paid twice as much as you are, you deserve to be supported and developed in your role."

I thought right, I either stand up to him or get out of that environment as soon as I possibly can. I chose the latter and at the end of term I was gone, off to pastures new and out of the teaching profession completely. I was escaping or running away. What I resolved in my own mind however was that I would never again expect less than the best possible support from my line manager.

Now I have had several jobs since that first teaching job and have had some great managers and some downright awful ones. What I did however was set myself some very high expectations for the way I wanted to be managed and how I, in return, would manage my staff. When my manager or the people responsible for employing and supporting me didn't fulfil my expectations of them or if my staff didn't meet my standards and in my mind, refused to be motivated and led in the right direction, I would often get myself into a rut of depression and consequently the quality of my own work and impact would suffer. I would be on a downward spiral until I lifted myself out of the situation by moving on to employment elsewhere. Running away again.

Since starting the Enfys Acumen however, becoming my own boss and having no-one else to blame as it were, I have put a huge amount of effort into personal development and understand now that I had placed myself in a position that I was setting myself up failure. Nobody is perfect and managers and staff have a shared responsibility to the team-playing role.

I have written before about teams and how in a team you have some people you are completely comfortable with and others you don't necessarily want to have much to do with, but recognise they too have a crucial role to play. See my blog post on Teamwork and Bicycles.

The rest of this post gives 10 tips on developing better relationships. I wish I'd discovered them sooner. If you are in a role where other people aren't meeting your expectations, I'm sure you'll find them useful:

1. Remember that however unreasonable someone is acting, their behaviour is derived from a positive intention. When you act as if all behaviour has a positive intention behind it, through discovering it, your life will become more pleasant. An example: You meet an angry person and you think how childish and silly they are. But if you were to ask yourself, "what is the positive intention behind this persons angry behaviour?", you could come up with something useful that allows you to feel more comfortable. For instance people often act angry because behind this they believe it will protect them from harm.

2. When you find yourself feeling uncomfortable in an interaction get some perspective by disassociating. In your mind's eye see yourself and the other person interacting over there, rather like you would if you were to see a video film of the situation.

3. Step into their shoes. This is one of the most powerful methods for gaining wisdom about your relationships. To begin, you imagine communicating with the other person, noticing how they talk, observe their facial expressions and so on. You then step into their shoes and see through their eyes and hear through their ears. So of course you will be looking at yourself! Run through a conversation you've had before, that could have been better. Notice yourself and become aware of how seeing things from this other person's perspective gives you new insights into the relationship.

4. What assumptions are you making about the other person? Are you willing to challenge those assumptions? Pick one. What is the opposite of that? eg narrow minded/open minded.
Now imagine interacting with the person with this new attitude.

5. Step into the WE frame: Think about a person you want to get along with better. Disassociate: Picture both of you interacting in your minds eye. Now allow yourself to find a common purpose between the two of you. Of course if you can't come up with anything you can always fall back on the fact that you are just two human beings who are trying to experience more happiness.

6. Funify your boss (or that irritating colleague). Many people experience difficulties communicating with their boss. It's often due to being too serious. So here is a simple, quick way to inject the antidote: FUN! Okay, picture your boss or whoever. And then notice their facial features. What stands out? Is it their nose, their eyes, eye brows, chin? Now you simply exaggerate those features rather like a caricature cartoonist does. Exaggerate and funify it in such a way that it makes you laugh or at least feel better towards the relationship.

7. No Failure, only feedback (or learning experiences.) A really useful way to make beneficial changes is to view everything as a learning experience. So thinking about a relationship you find challenging, notice how you usually respond to the person and then ask yourself, "How else could I respond?" How many different ways could you respond in your interactions? Come up with at least 3 possibilities. This enables your mind to generate more flexibility of behaviour.

8. Often when we experience difficulties in our relationships it is due to focusing on faults. This distorts our perception of the overall relationship, which is really a mixture of good and bad qualities. To re-focus our attention on the bigger picture begin to remember qualities you admire in the other person. Come up with three, picture them, increase the size of the images and place them around an image of the faulty qualities of the person. And remember positive intention, take a look at Tip 1 again!

9. What would be the consequence of staying stuck in the same relationship dynamic with a particular person, say ten years from now?! The fact is if you want to experience better relationships YOU are going to have to change your viewpoints or attitude. It's okay, this can be fairly simple. Imagine stepping into the future ten years from now and look back at that relationship and notice that it has remained in the same stuck pattern year after year for ten years! Looking at it like this, acting as if it could really happen, allow your feelings to arise that make you say, "enough is enough I MUST change!"

10. Think of someone you would like to get along with better. Choose someone of medium level problematic-ness and then read the following questions slowly: Isn't it true that all of the problems that we experience when relating to others is due to OUR feelings? What if we were to change our feelings? This could make things easier couldn't it?

If you are stuck in a professional relationship that is giving you grief in some way, why not try some personal coaching or ask the Enfys Acumen to help with developing a strategy to help your team work together more effectively.

19 Ways to improve your fundraising

Despite your desperate hopes and prayers, donors are unlikely to just wander into your organisation. You need to get out there and look sharp, and the Enfys Acumen has the tips to help you do it.

Why don't you print this out, post it up and integrate it into your fundraising plan—and get ready for tons of new donations.

First the basics...

1. Create quality (well-written!) fundraising materials

2. Greet potential donors (that’s everyone!) with style

3. Focus as narrowly as possible – narrow your target audience to highly qualified prospects

4. Make the most of meetings – go along for a purpose, not just because you are expected to be there

5. Find out what other fundraisers are doing and learn from them

Then get friendly...

6. Offer your help

7. Offer case studies of what your organisation does

8. Network

9. Cross-promote with other charities in your area

You must get online...

10. Offer an e-brief

11. Don’t wait for donors to find you online, use blogs, submit PR, get links to your website

Spread the word...

12. Go to places where your best prospect donors are to be found

13. Become an expert in your field

14. Host a seminar

15. Get local news coverage

Remember customer service...

16. Thank you, Diolch, Merci, Gracias

17. Offer commitment – a guarantee

18. Get them talking about you

Spreading the word again...

19. When in doubt, pick up the phone

If you need help with any of the above, why not contact us, we would be pleased to help. Click here

Mother’s Day and Lots More Too

Last Sunday’s Mother’s Day made me ponder even a bit more than usual.

Now, we all have a mother and a father and, of course, most of us remember them especially on their special days. Perhaps now it could be time to go beyond cards and flowers.

Do you remember in the 1980’s there was a trend for a range of what were on the whole rather twee A3-sized posters and often featuring a cutesy picture of a kitten, a puppy or some other baby animal with some words of wisdom or a pithy saying of some kind. Do you remember them?

I recall at the time most of them made me cringe, but one poster especially has stuck in my mind. It was given to me by my mother when I left home for the first time for teacher training college. It was a picture of an eagle soaring high above a fantastic mountain range and the caption said “The two greatest gifts we can give our children are roots and wings.” Brilliant don’t you think? It has always stuck in my mind, especially when I later became a parent myself.

I think there is a great message here however, not just for parents but for anyone in a leadership or management position.

In my coaching work I often come across people who would like to be able to give their team members roots of a secure business background and wings to explore the world and soar to the heights of their own potential. This is an ideal position and, alas, one that a great many people feel they have lost out on. Including myself for a greater part of my career.

It is interesting isn’t it that that many of our attitudes to work, relationships and life in general are coloured by how close our childhood came to this ideal. Any couple can become parents without any training, lessons or experience. Similarly, many people become managers and supervisors without any training or induction into the role. So it is not surprising that many fall short of the perfection that we might have felt was our due.

Let’s continue with the parents and family analogy

The key to overcoming any resentment or regret is forgiveness. After all, what has been done cannot be undone and you are what you are. You are also what you think, so Mothers’ day is a great time to eliminate any negative thinking about your parents or even about bosses who you feel have let you down in the past.

Everyone does the very best that they could with the knowledge that was available to them at the time. Just like you, they only discovered what they didn’t know when they needed to know it - so it is hardly surprising that they may have made a few mistakes along the way. I have to exclude parents who wilfully mistreat their children and bullies on an ego trip from this general observation. These individuals will require a greater effort for forgiveness but it is an effort well worth making.

Some of my coaching clients are held back in achieving the great things in life because there is simply no room to let them in. I see it like this: If you harbour a grudge or resentment it will fester and impact on everything else that you do and that is like trying to cycle uphill with the brakes on. The way to release the brakes is to just let go. If it becomes apparent that a client is being held back by some imagined past injustice I ask them three simple questions:

• Could you let that feeling go?
• Would you let it go?
• When?

Their answers invariably lead to the client becoming aware of the way forward and going for it. This process also has a positive impact for clients who are parents or leaders or managers themselves. In understanding their own parents, they find a greater understanding of their children. In understanding their managers, they find a greater understanding of their own skills and work ethics.

I am always happy to discuss this or other aspects of my approach to coaching, absolutely free of any cost or obligation. He can be contacted during usual office hours on 01633 769657 or through our website.

In the final analysis we all have a choice. We can carry negativity and bitterness with us to the grave or we can decide, right now, to let it go and replace it with happiness and love. Share that love, especially with your parents before it is too late.

The Best Valentine - Love Yourself

This is the month when love is in the air, thanks to Saint Valentine. But here is a thought for you. When did you last give yourself a Valentine?

That is not as strange as it may seem. As anyone who knows true love will tell you, the more love that you give, the more you receive. This starts an amazing circle of ever increasing love, which makes your eyes shine; your energy level rises and improves every aspect of your life. The place to start this whole cycle going is with self-love. This doesn’t mean selfishness and introspection. It means taking time out to truly appreciate all your great qualities, skills and talents.

As a coach and I know that many of my clients benefit from this simple change to their approach to love. Let me explain, because so many of us are brought up in a culture where it is considered bad form to put yourself first, we can severely limit the love that we have to give.

We can also limit your capacity to receive love. If you don’t love yourself, you may feel that you are unlovable by someone else. At best, this can make you doubt any expressions of love that you receive. At worst, it can even make you repel those who want to love you and that can result in the collapse of a relationship.

Self love is not the same as selfishness. It is the ability to acknowledge all your good points instead of a continual focus on your faults. It means looking into the mirror and seeing a person of great potential. When you can do this you can look the world in the eye, you can give freely and you can project love outwards to others.

I think that a reason why so many people never get to find the one true love that the Valentine’s cards talk about. It is because the whole idea of self love is alien to them. If they think about it as self-esteem then it becomes more acceptable. Every truly happy and successful person has high self-esteem. This is not the same as arrogance or conceit, it is about giving as much credibility to your positive qualities as you do to all the others.

Some of my coaching clients have discovered that, once they have addressed the issue of selfesteem, then everything else just falls into place. The process of increased awareness is simple, gradual and very effective. The biggest pay off is that when you have done it once; you have it for all time. Then you become truly aware that you can be, do or have whatever you want in life - and that includes love.

I am always happy to discuss this or other aspects of our approach to coaching, absolutely free of any cost or obligation. You can contact me during usual office hours on 01633 769657 or visit our website.

One last word. We are all born with a good awareness of ourselves. What subsequently happens is that we remember all the negative things that others tell us about ourselves and these can swamp our opinions about the good qualities that we have. Decide to base your impressions of self on what you truly know to be true instead of the opinions of others and you are well on the way to building up that never-ending store of love that is your birthright.