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Notre Dame Cathedral Is Crumbling. TIME reported last month. Like ice cream in the sun, melting, some 854 years after construction began, one of Europe's most visited sites, with about 12 million tourists a year, is in desperate need of urgent extensive and expensive repairs.
You don't know what you've got until it's gone.
In Phuket for our mid year review last month, a colleague commented to me that view of the sunset from the beach was beautiful. In reality, I hadn't seen a sunset for a while now. But you know what? It was there whether I saw it or not. It was right there in front of me the whole time.
Perspective is how we decide to see a thing. Blindness is the decision not to see it at all.
Choosing a negative perspective is limiting. Choosing blindness is a tragedy.
Many of us prefer the hunt to the capture. The grass is always greener. Burying ourselves in the hustle and bustle of daily existence, we rarely take time out to experience and appreciate our friends, health and relationships. It is not unnatural that sometimes we feel a need for a change. The mistake most people make when they feel this way, they don't stop to take stock and instead are so hung up with that chasing mind-set.
Don't compare yourself to others. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday.
We tell ourselves, "When I get that promotion, I will spend more time with the people I love," or "I will exercise next week, when I get this project out of the way."
It's one thing to try and be a better person by periodically resolving to improve. There is nothing wrong with that. But maybe we need to spend more time recognizing the good that is already there and allowing it to blossom.
"A maniac," "a fool," and a "son of a bitch." Those were the words, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte used to call North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, just before an ASEAN meeting in Manila.
Most of us have little or real understanding of one another. And it takes a heap of understanding to make a relationship and/or a team.
In personal life as in work life, the key to unlocking almost any interpersonal or relationship problem, however severe, is good, effective communication. Most couples know this. It is the only way we can show anyone who we are, what we want and why we behave as we do. It is the only way we can really understand what makes someone else tick.
Two people can have an apparently identical experience but both will view it differently. For example, imagine a couple taking a walk by the sea. It makes one feel happy and light-hearted, touching off old memories of fun at the seaside as a child. The other, however, never learnt to swim well and finds the sea threatening and hostile, and brings up old feelings of fear.
Stephen Covey's 5th habit of highly effective people is : Seek first to understand than to be understood. Nowadays, though highly challenging, I try to remain calm and not be drawn into drama when I deal with impossibly difficult people who can suck oxygen out of the room. I practice restraint of tongue, phone and email until I am in a centered place. From a centered place I'd say, "I can see why you feel that way. We both have similar concerns. But I have a different way to approach the problem...."
A little more understanding can change the world.
As a leader I make the effort to understand the different worlds my team members inhabit and to respect the individuality within them. I find that this energizes those around me and leads to sustained high performance.
No one can ever know what it is like to be you.
We all know what it feels like when someone "gets" us. That level of connection is different.
Glen Campbell, the guitarist and singer who gave us "Rhinestone Cowboy" died last Tuesday following a six-year battle with Alzheimer's disease. In his final years, his friends and children would often spend days with him playing him his old songs.
A great benefit of letting people care for us and of us caring for them is that no matter what happens, we know we're not alone. We know someone's got our backs. Being valued makes us stronger.
Relationships affect us deeply - the state of our relationships has an impact on every aspect of our lives. A failing or struggling relationship - may it be with a spouse or a colleague, friend, child, parent or sibling that has fallen on rough times - may have a negative impact on the way we perform at work, the way we feel for ourselves, the way we spend our time. The opposite is also true. When we are thriving in our relationships, we tend to carry a very positive energy with us wherever we go and tend to be more effective and efficient in the workplace.
Top sales people don't get to where they are just because they make a lot of calls or because they know the best closing techniques. In most cases, their customers recognize that they're truly cared for, hence they show their satisfaction by buying again and again - and referring them to others.
A common thread amongst couples who have stayed together long and are as happy together as they were when they first met is this: they care for their partner's happiness more than they do about their own. And here's the truly remarkable thing - their partners seem to want the same thing.
Support is the key concept here...be it at work or in personal life. You both can take each other further than either of you can go alone. Contrary to what you may think, you don't always have to like each other or agree. But you'll learn from one another. Two are stronger than one. You make each other better.
Soul connections don't happen every day. When you find one, be grateful. They are gifts.
Charlie Gard battled for 12 minutes after his life support was removed before dying. Charlie suffered from a rare brain disease with no cure. He had brain damage and was unable to move his limbs and breathe unaided. His parents wanted to take him to America for experimental treatment and his case ended up in the courts when doctors opposed the plan, saying the untested therapy wouldn't help Charlie and might cause him to suffer.
His life — and illness — drew us all in, from the Pope and President Trump to the man and woman in the street. Why? Because the controversies surrounding Charlie’s life — and ultimate death — encapsulated a dilemma we all find almost impossible to face: who should decide when to end a life?
It's easy to feel mentally strong when life is going well, but at times problems arise. A job loss, an illness in the family or a death of a loved one. When we're mentally strong, we're more prepared to deal with life's challenges.
The most dominant emotion today is fear. We are afraid. Afraid of losing the things we have worked hard to buy, afraid of rejection and failure, afraid of certain types of people, afraid of criticism, afraid of suffering and heartache, afraid of change, afraid to tell people how we really feel. We are afraid of so many things.
Leaders can't avoid stress, fear, pain and pressure.
The pain of realizing we're not in control, admitting we're wrong, letting go of a long and dearly held belief. Or the fear and stress of having to make a decision without having as much information as we would like to have. That all comes with the territory of leadership.
I always try to be conscious for the times I'm feeling sorry for myself, fearing risks, feeling like the world owes me something, resenting other people's success or worrying about pleasing everyone. I try to regulate these emotions.
No one is immune to making mistakes and having bad days. There are times my emotions get the better of me, and times when I engage in self-destructive or unproductive behavior. But those times are getting fewer and farther between as I actively work on increasing my mental toughness.
Although increasing mental strength is a personal journey, I don't go it completely alone. I ask for help when I need it and surround myself with supportive people.
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