Strange things are happening....
Hello again, it's great to be speaking with you again after the summer break but what a strange summer it has been! I spoke with the sales team leader of a television company recently and asked him to sum up the mood of the business world right now. He did so in one word, ‘Fear’
It's been a strange summer here in the UK. Some might call it disconcerting even worrying. I say that because strange things are happening and people are puzzled why. We've had unseasonal weather, riots on the streets, money markets with the jitters, and the stagnant economy to name a few. And our country is not alone.
Now you may be thinking.. ‘nothing new here!’. But l disagree. Even if we've seen all this before there is a different, shifting energy now and people are nervous. The old familiarity of what we have come to expect in life has been replaced by a general feeling we are stepping into the unknown. Now don't get me wrong, depending on one's interpretation, this can be seen as excitingly different with possibility, rather than a fear of the unknown. There are two things are certain in life, death and change. One cannot be avoided (eventually!) The other can be embraced or resisted, it's a matter of choice.
If you like to read and research, you may be aware that in this new 21st century the world consciousness is rising and rising fast now. This is wonderful news for us humans and society at large, however that's not to say that the transition is easy, comfortable or enjoyable. Many of our changes are due to quite unexpected events like banking crisis, phone hacking revelations, struggles to topple dictators, angry weather patterns across the globe and a general nervousness that our “familiar” ways of life are now being challenged like never before.
A few years back some people may have discussed whether or not they "liked their job". Now they are grateful to have one, if they still do. Business owners would talk about business expansion, now focus is all about maintaining the business they've got and adapting as required. To those of us who can remember the average seven year economic cycle we know we have seen all this before. But for the younger generation who lived through 12 years of unprecedented economic growth, credit offered to them at every opportunity and a plethora of social benefits readily available if deemed necessary, the new reality has come as a shock to them. And who can blame them? They haven’t known anything different. This all takes its toll on family life and our relationships too as the young people are finding it harder to find jobs.
So what's the answer? How do we make it easier for ourselves to adapt to these new circumstances? How do we remain positive with so much uncertainty around? How can we feel more optimistic about the remainder of 2011?
Well without being dismissive of any of the current challenges we are all facing, the good news is that some things in life don't change! Some answers have always been available to us and still are. It's just that we may require them more now, than we did before and all we have to do is accept and embrace them and many of our concerns will immediately dissolve. I say that because human nature responds to us in the same way it has always done, if we give it a chance. When "times are good" it is easy to forget this, so if we can accept that there is always an answer to everything in life it depends how keen we are to find it that makes all the difference.
Throughout the coming weeks I will refer often to positivity and how we can maintain a “can do" approach to our challenges. I'm not just talking about positive thinking here because positive thinking alone isn’t enough. I am however, referring to generating and maintaining positive energy within us so that we can go about our daily business and personal lives with much more confidence and peace of mind, regardless of what is happening all around us.
It is how we react to events that dictate how we feel. Not the events themselves that dictate our feelings. Think about this. We may think events influence us but in actual fact they don't. It's how we react to events that determine our confidence, self-reliance, our success and our results. We don't have to disregard others' plight in life, however there is a vast difference between allowing it to weigh us down and being self-reliant on our own internal energy to cope with anything that life challenges us with. It is also this very positive energy within us that will:
- Help ourselves to cope and help others to cope as well,
- Maintain our jobs and build our businesses,
- Inspire our workforce to be more productive and feel less troubled
- Help rebuild our local economy and global stability too
What we need to do is to see the strange things that are happening as inevitable rather than regrettable. That there is a new dawn happening in the world where society's values are changing. What mattered before now matters much less. Perhaps what we had lost before we will rediscover and make new welcome learning too. That while unprecedented "good times" seemed good at the time, they weren’t sustainable and that a new more sustainable balance will emerge. It's easy to look at the starving African children on television and think how fortunate we are. That is beyond doubt. However we won't fix our situation with gratitude alone. We need to be proactive in generating our own positive energy within us because if each of us does this we collectively increase the energy for each other. Moods become more optimistic, “can do” replaces “can't”, and everyone adjusts and feels better about themselves and their situation. It's about embracing change rather than fighting it. If we do this, we will in turn help, ourselves, those we care about and the plight of the starving third world too. It’s called raising the state of the world’s consciousness and it begins on our own doorstep, starting within ourselves.
Anything and everything is possible, we just need to be open to that belief. During the coming weeks I will give you many suggestions and answers to help you and yours do this. We are all in this together, let's make it work.
Until next week make the most of this one!
Billy
