Watch what you say

I received a gentle correction the other day. I had fallen into the habit of replying to the common greeting ‘How are you?’ with ‘Not too bad, thanks.’ The point of contention was on my use of the double negative. The focus on the negative ‘bad’ rather than saying ‘I’m good thanks,’ leaves a poor resonance on your soul. ‘Out of a man’s heart, so he speaks’, the double negative infers that my thoughts were probably not where they could be. Thoughts determine actions, and if I am continually reinforcing a negative emotion every time someone greets me then it’s going to build up eventually.

Armed with this knowledge I observed the rest of my speech for the next few days. Oh horrors, the double negative was everywhere! How was business?-‘not too bad thanks’, How is your head?-‘not as sore as it was’, How did the presentation go?-‘not a total disaster. There was a virtual minefield of them scattered liberally throughout my vocabulary. It was as though someone had slowly replaced my tongue with another. Some serious de-mining was called for. The next time someone greeted my I almost bit my tongue off to stop the reaction. ‘Not too…ah, actually I’m good thanks.’ The next time I forgot, hit myself over the head, and succeeded in the next dozen or so consecutive responses.

Since then my speech has been a little sweeter, a lot more positive and better constructed. Rather than being just out the starting blocks, I am now well on my way to a better vocabulary.

A Learning Curve

Every made a mistake, done something wrong, not done something to the best of your capacity, failed at anything? If so then join the rest of the universe in 5 seconds of communal pity and anxiety before moving on to better things. Mistakes is a sensitive issue, dwell on them too much and you get stuck wallowing in the self pity of the past, ignore them completely and you fail to learn from them valuable wisdom.

Me, I’ve had my fair share. I could probably write a fair sized book on ‘how not to run your business’. I think I’ve made every business error under the sun, and a few that weren’t there before. They never taught you how to run a business at physio school, after all you were supposed to become a neat little manikin treating unimaginable volumes of patients for the government hospital system, never querying anything or having wicked, non-conformist thoughts of independent health care. So I learnt business the hard way. First mistake! Learn from others’ hard ways-ask the right people for the best advice.

That said, the practice has survived thus far, although it has been touch and go at times. I am still recovering from some errors and have learnt and adapted things as the result of others. The best advice I was given was ‘charge what you are worth.’ It’s taken me 2 long and foolish years to get there-never let a third party (eg medical aid/insurance) determine your value for you. So embrace your mistakes, learn from them and then relegate them and their negative emotions to the back of your mind and with fresh perspicacity embrace a brighter future.

To finish off, a quote by James Allen-“You will become as great as your dominant aspiration. If you cherish a lofty ideal in your heart, you will realize it.”

Purpose, passion and the New Year

The New Year is but a few hours old and my mind is already abuzz with ideas to write. It’s amazing how sometimes you can be stuck for a topic and at other times have to decide between 3 or 4 different ideas.

I guess I’ll start with purpose this year. People strive for significance, to be greater than they are and to leave an impact in some manner that extends beyond the scope of their lifespan. I mean, think about it, the idea that in the grand scheme of time you are but a breath and will be forgotten by the majority within a few short years after your death is a rather unpleasant concept. Somehow in the whole quest for significance comes the idea of purpose-that there is something that you are set to do, by fate, society, a higher conscience, the universe, God-take your pick. Now it’s a large leap for some people and there are those who believe that you create your own purpose. For me though, I take the first option, that there is a purpose to my life in which I will find fulfilment (not necessarily without a struggle though). “Oh my gosh, I have a purpose, I have to find it out or I will fail!”-panic, major psychological trauma! Relax it’s not that bad, I think.

While the fine tuning may take a while the chances are you are already in some manner living out a part of your purpose, whether it be; to make people laugh, to collect ideas, to challenge others to higher levels of life, to create new inventions. It’s that part of you that you get an inner ‘yes!’ from, the part of you that feels passionately about a task, situation, group of people and when you are involved in it you feel energised and in your ‘zone’. Someone asked me how close passion and purpose were linked-I’d say he hit it right on the head. Purpose aside, passion is a great help. Let’s take the scenario where purpose doesn’t exist and you still want to achieve sustained success and significance. You are more likely to succeed and stick with something that energises and invigorates you, and success promotes future success. Taking on things that you are passionate about is the key to this, as well as keeping to a minimum those things that are passion killers. Imagine a day where all you do, every minute of the day, is achieve a level of fulfilment and satisfaction from doing things you love. Imagine the buzz, the thrill, the joy. It’s not as far fetched as you may think.

PS Here are the Kariba pics

2007 to 2008

It’s New Year’s Eve! Again. Strange that, we always seem to be shocked that the season has come upon us so quickly, as if it wasn’t going to come round again.

Where to begin? I have a brilliant Christmas in Kariba with a whole bunch of friends-old and new. Truly amazing time, no pictures yet, but there will be some soon.

Tonight I will celebrate New Years Eve with some other friends among a crowd of 3000 people. I’ve had a variety of New Years in the past, from the simple family ones to the sleep through, in crowds and with one or two people. Either way, tonight will be fun and exciting.

Despite the party, I tend to take this time of year to reflect on things past and to look to things ahead. I no longer make New Years resolutions. They tend not to work as they are generally set in the negative ( ‘I have to stop…, I must give up, I need to cut back on…). Rather I make affirmations, set in the first person, positive, present tense. This triggers positive pictures and emotions to help you achieve your end result. People may want to stop smoking, but can’t imagine what it looks like to stop, and until they do then there is little hope.

So crack out the champagne, have some great food and imagine all the positive the next year will bring. For me this year promises to be a year of travel, impact and expansion as I take my practice and other business interests to new levels. Enjoy the ride!

Cathedrals, Kariba and Vision

Came across a great quote on vision in the last week-'If people don't think they are building a cathedral, they will think they are cutting stone, and no one likes to think they are cutting stone.'

I'm in the process of building the vision for my life, the picture keeps growing and it is amazing to see the dreams inside me. It's even more amazing to see them begin to come to pass. I am off to Kariba for the week-5 days of doing nothing but fun, fish and spending time with friends. I will have plenty of time to relax in a tranquil environment and do some great thinking. Then its back to Harare for the new year. I encourage you, amidst the festivities of the next few days to spend some thime thinking about whats ahead, about the positive you want to achieve this year.

Merry Christmas!

Decisions in Zimbabwe

Decisions! You make a hundred a day, what to wear, what you eat, who you call, when you change lanes in the traffic, and most of the time you don't even think about them. You just make them. Then once in a while along comes one that forces you to sit back and think. There is that sinking feeling in your gut that cannot be mistaken for bad chicken. That 'if I make the wrong one on this one I'm better off as a stuffed turkey on thanksgiving' feeling that warns you that its crunch time. Well its crunch time at the practice. I've done the budget for next year, I've costed the business in a dozen ways and then I've looked at what we need to achieve as an organisation. I've compared regional prices and the bottom line is that my prices need to go up-drastically, without loosing any patients. Decisions. Before you all run off and book with someone else,which i suspect a lot of people may do, I have also looked at the impact this will have on our service delivery and what we can do to increase 'value for money'. The decision is do we go through with this and risk client loss, or do we keep going at an 'affordable' rate and sacrifice aspects of the business. This is Zimbabwe and there is no garuntee what could happen-some people have little income to spare on health care at the best of times.

I wish there was an easy way to do this, an easier way to know the best way to go. There are a few tips I've picked up. One is to look for all the green lights, when things start to line up one after the other you are probably on the right track. Weighing pros and cons is another, draw up a list with one side positive and the other negative. Ask others-this is a good option to help see different ways, but can be a way of procrastinating. Enough about me, I need to make this choice by the new year. For more useful ideas on weighing options try Mind Tools

Where does the Golden Compass point for you

I see the reviews for ‘The Golden Compass’ are out and about. Varied reports and box office success by the look of things. Surprisingly, considering the anti-theistic issues in the books, I have not received one single e-mail originating from the Christian right decrying the movie. Compare this to the weight of spam that flooded my inbox concerning a certain boy-wizard when HP hit the screens. Perhaps this is because Philip Pulman has been fairly open about his religious views, whereas the accusations levelled against Ms Rowling were largely unsubstantiated. Or possibly the fear of apostasy is less in this case when introduced to the concept of the parallel universe. Back to the idea of movie reviews. They are really someone’s opinion of a movie, hopefully backed up by a wealth of experience in the field. Opinion, however, does not always equate to truth. Have you ever disagreed with a review of a movie or a book-chances are probably.

Movie reviews are one thing, but what about the personal reviews of your life? Who is telling you ‘the truth’? What comments being made about you are not necessarily true and are holding you back? Some comments are probably relevant and should be taken seriously, but there are a number which should be thrown out with the garbage and burnt in some thought erasing incinerator. You alone are responsible for your life and the consequences of your actions. Who says you can’t have the career you want? Why can’t you try a new hobby because someone close to you says that ‘it’s just not you’?

At the end of the day though, is there somewhere you can find the ‘ultimate truth’ or do you just make your own? Is there a guideline to stop me killing someone because I think it is ‘ok’ and fits in with my ‘truth’? I would suggest that you could start by finding a basis in an ancient philosophical or religious text (I personally am a little fanatical about the Judeo-Christian Bible, but look into the Koran, Buddhist texts, writings of Plato etc.). That way you have some boundaries, otherwise the rest of the dream is up to you.