Reflective Empowerment

Reflective Empowerment provides the backdrop to enable you to design the precise life you want—it details hw to empower yourself. The fruits of empowering yourself are an abundant life, and your improved contribution to others, your environment and your community. Empowerment is the strength within you to be and do what you visualize. Empowerment is triggered when you have the freedom to do what makes you happy, and the power to get it done. With modern technology you are no longer isolated with limitations of communicating. You can now be connected to all human knowledge, and empowered by infinite possibilities. You empower yourself when you choose to design and control your life, rather than let apathy and complacency rule. My life’s journey of 84 years provided many diverse experiences for which I am grateful. My top passion is supporting people to bring out their potential and greatness. This thread of passion was evident in all I did from age 17. Whether it was in my activities of cricket, table tennis, karate, chess, or football. My professional training as a business economist, chartered secretary, banker, and chartered accountant also facilitated my having access to people to help them unleash their brilliance. Being a former chairman of a commercial bank, an international airline, and a national petroleum marketing company gave me the opportunity to interact with people in pursuit of my passion to support others to be the best that they could be. After my formal retirement at age 60 from fulltime corporate life, I pursued the career of Lifestyle Coach to intensify my passion for the personal growth of others. This has been exciting. It occurred to me that I could record some of my experiences for the benefit of others. This led to my authoring ten motivational books as follows: • Live a Life of ‘Virtual’ Success (2003) * The Executive Speaks (2005) • Infinite Possibilities (2007) • Glimpses of Greatness (2009) • Reflective Empowerment (2010) • From Humble Beginnings (2011) • Enlightened Corporate Leadership (2013) • Think, Be Still, & Grow Spiritually (2015) • 10 Proven 21st Century Success Generators (2016) • National Commercial Banking in Trinidad and Tobago (2017) In my quest to support others to be empowered, between 2004 and 2010 I sent out a weekly e-newsletter to my list. The feedback from the readers was great. To extend the reach of these empowerment reflections, they have been collated, and designed into this book, Reflective Empowerment. May you read, enjoy, and be empowered. You can transcend your despondency Are you distressed, despondent, down-spirited, or depressed? Most persons experiencing such debility are not exploring their full potential. You become bored because you are not taking action consistent with the skill set and talents that you have. You make excuses for your condition, but you do not accept that it is your responsibility to change things. If you want things to change, you have to change. You cannot continue doing the things you have been doing for the past twelve months and expect to get a different outcome than your present situation. Choose to change your current game plan. One approach is to decide on a goal beyond the narrow confines of yourself. If you have a goal that helps others, while providing you with personal fulfillment and/or income, then perhaps you will have something to wake up for in the morning. Each person will have a different calling. You must decide what are your gifts and talents, where there is a need, and your wholesome desire to act on the opportunity. There is another approach you can take. Tomorrow morning when you awake, ask yourself, why am I alive today? Document what comes to you in response to that question. Repeat the exercise on your awaking for the next six days (seven days in all). As you follow this process, you will experience a deepening and better understanding of your purpose. You will also find that your life becomes more meaningful and fulfilled. Be relentless in the quest for your significance. Believe beyond the present moment Your success depends on the belief you have in yourself. You want something different in your life. You do not have it at the moment, but do you believe that you can attain it? Unless you believe that you can attain it, you will not. You have previous successes, and therefore you can have the confidence that you are up to achieving what you want in life. You learned to walk, talk, eat, and think. You passed exams, and you are doing many varied things each day. You have a history of success, and you can build on this expertise. A setback in life is that you do not clearly and specifically determine what you want. For example, you may say that you want a house. That is not specific enough. You must determine, the size and cost of house, the possible areas where the house should be, and the time frame in which you want to occupy it. The more specific you can be, the more likely it will be achieved. A second element to achieve what you want is that you must be passionate about it. Not warm, or cold, but hot. You must really love having it, and get joy and fulfillment from its attainment. Next, you must develop plans, and strategies to deliver it, including polishing your skill-set in relation to your desires. Finally, you must take massive, consistent, relevant action to materialize your desires. Keep reviewing your progress, and make appropriate changes to your game plan where necessary. You must believe in yourself to be the success that you want to be. Belief in oneself is half of the battle of achievement. Putting it another way, if you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you cannot, you will prove yourself right. Belief is the self-starting switch that gets you off the launching pad. Believe in yourself and soar like an eagle!