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September 2008 Newsletter: Identity fraud
This
Confidence newsletter is sent each month to subscribers of
www.yourmostconfidentself.com from Kate Burton and Brinley Platts,
the authors of "Building
Confidence for Dummies" and creators of the Your Most Confident Self
website. September already, and so soon after the wonderful Olympics the news bulletins this morning are about as full of gloom as I can remember. Radio 5-Live is asking listeners to text in with anything that can help return the “feel good factor”. So what better time for us to introduce something new: this month’s newsletter has been written by one of our regular readers, and from now on we would like to invite any of you to share your thoughts in this way.
We’ll be redeveloping the web site to make it more interactive so that you can also respond to each other’s contributions, offering support and insight, challenge and new ideas. This is your chance to practice becoming more confidently self-expressed. What happened to the optimistic mood in the British media between that first week of the Olympics (when it seemed we were becoming a great nation again) and this morning when we’re horrified and depressed by the return of stabbings over the weekend, redundancies in the City of London (because a German insurance company has sold a German bank to another German bank), and millions of people fleeing Hurricane Gustav, desperate to avoid a repeat of the New Orleans tragedy?
All that has changed is the focus. For the British, winning so many gold medals in Beijing was an unexpected news story that made a change from the familiar reporting of escalating costs of the 2012 Games in London. It was a delight for most of us but it didn’t last very long. Well, what if you could feel that sense of delight whenever you choose? What if you focused confidently on your own projects, ambitions and achievements regardless of what was happening elsewhere (like the athletes do)?
I’m not suggesting you should become indifferent to the real suffering of others, but it would be far better to focus on the things you can influence wouldn’t it? That way you could do more to help. So how can you become more centred in your own identity, becoming more influencial and thus more powerful in your world? This is the question that came to my mind when I read the contribution below from Trevor Hill of Inspiration at Work (http://www.inspiration-at-work.co.uk).
Trevor is a successful executive coach and his thoughts reflect his work. Remember, we would love to have you share your own thoughts too.
Identity Fraud, a contribution by Trevor Hill
In our work it is easy to get lost in busy-ness. The demands of the day become all-consuming. We get so involved in the doing, that we forget who we are being. Over time we evolve a professional persona, honed to fit in with the prevailing culture, bringing the danger that we lose touch with our real identity.
In his excellent book ‘Crossing the Unknown Sea – Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity’ David Whyte says that one of the distinguishing features of courageous human beings is their ability to remain totally true to themselves in the midst of the pressure to conform. When we see this we admire it and even honour it. It is a trademark of very great leaders – Gandhi, Churchill, Mandela. We are drawn to this quality in others because it has an echo in our true selves. It may be buried but it can be brought out and made active. As Whyte says, this takes courage. Where do we find this courage? The clue is in the root of the word which comes from the old French cue, meaning heart. To be courageous is to act in a heartfelt way – tapping into what is really important to us. This establishes our growing edge, or frontier, without which we become numb.
To reconnect with what really matters, we need a healthy relationship with time. Whyte again: “Good work takes patience, and our colleagues at work sometimes seem to need even more of our patience than the work itself, but it is hard to have a sense of ease with others when we have no time in our workday for a private encounter with the frontier of our own lives.”
On a practical level, you can start with small steps, perhaps just 10 minutes to reflect at the beginning of the day. When you discover the value of this time, you will be able to extend it. What is your heartfelt frontier?
By lifting our true identity out of hiding and taking action that is consistent with it, we rise above busy-ness and our work is transformed. The reward waiting for us is a wonderful sense of freedom and possibility.
Thank you Trevor.
Best wishes - Kate and Brinley
Kate’s new "Neuro-Linguistic Programming Workbook for Dummies" by Romilla Ready and Kate Burton ISBN 9780 470 51973 8 is now out on Amazon and in good bookstores. It’s the sequel to "Neuro-Linguistic Programming for Dummies" by Romilla Ready and Kate Burton ISBN 0764570285
The best selling "Building Self-Confidence for Dummies" by Kate Burton and Brinley Platts ISBN 0470016698 is also on Amazon or contact us for signed copies.
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