Your Past Can Benefit Your Present!

Unlike an investment, your past success can be an indicator of future success. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, replied in the FAQ section of his book that Robert Burgleman, one of his favorite professors at Stanford Business School taught him, “The single biggest danger in business and life other than outright failure, is to be successful without being resolutely clear about why you are successful in the first place.”

Have you made a connection to the patterns of thoughts, emotions and behaviours that creates your success? A connection to WHY you are successful provides you with a keen awareness and a road map of familiar patterns of thoughts/emotions/habits that you can adapt to present day realities to improve your effectiveness towards desired achievements.

Like many people when faced with new challenges or adversity your initial thought is probably not…OH YEAH! another obstacle for me to overcome! Your initial thought is probably alone the lines of WHY ME? or WHY NOW? I’ll give you the answer that I state to myself once I get pass my moments of “this couldn’t be happening to ME!”… SHIFT Happens.

SHIFT Happens implies change. Most of us say we want change but then when it occurs without our consent our response to it implies just the opposite. Our acceptance and ability to adapt to changing realities can and often does dictate our level of progress in life. Consider the steps that it took for you to learn how to read at various grade levels, if you had not been flexible and open to new learnings you would have not been promoted to the next grade level!

At each new grade level you were expected to use what you had previously learned as the foundation for the next grade level of studies. Year after year you built a foundation of academic progress based on previous academic success. Your patterns of perceptions, feelings and actions from one year to the next influenced your effectiveness and progress as a student.

Your Action Plan: Make a list of your top five achievements. Underneath each achievement list three to five dominant thoughts, emotions and daily habits which led to your success. Decide how you can adapt these thoughts, emotions and habits into your present reality to create the desired progress and success you want to experience. Your success is a clue to what you can do!

Business Coaching Tip – Dare to Be PRESENT – Or What’s the Point?

As a business coach, I ask my clients, “Have you ever had any of these experiences?”

~ You drive home from work and then don’t remember how you got there.

~ You sit through a meeting or business coaching session and can’t account for what happened in the meeting, the outcome or the details.

~ You read a book to your child or grandchild and can’t recall what the book was about.

~ You work out and have so much mind chatter that you’re not even sure what muscles you were working.

~ You have a conversation with a colleague and miss the important undercurrents of that discussion because your mind was elsewhere.

~ You give a presentation and miss the impact you’re having on the audience because you’re too busy wondering, “How am I doing as a public speaker?”

~ You have an argument, and you’re so busy proving your point, you miss the others’ points completely AND any opportunity for alignment.

~ You go home at night and spend time with your family, only to think about everything that happened at work today and what’s about to happen tomorrow.

Sound familiar? Perhaps the better business coaching question, instead of “Have you ever experienced any of these?” is: “Have you experienced any of these things today?”

We’re talking about presence. Being PRESENT is defined as “existing or being in the time occurring NOW.”

I work with business coaching clients on several kinds of presence: “Leader’s Presence”, “Emotional and Mental Presence” and “Physical Presence.” It’s essential to pay attention to all three in order to be aware of your impact, create intentional impact and be present to your life. Because if you’re not present to your life, what is the point? Truly. Think about that. IF YOU ARE NOT PRESENT TO YOUR LIFE – WHAT IS THE POINT?

We’re given the beautiful gift of life, relationships, family, work we can love, health, emotions, the ability to make an impact, gain work/life balance and so much more. We could go through our days with our minds in other places, missing all the beautiful gifts of the moment, wishing we were an hour, a day or a week ahead. We could yearn to be somewhere other than where we are NOW. Or we can go through our lives, each day, conscious of each moment – easy or hard, stressful or peaceful, mundane or exhilarating.

When we are fully present, we experience LIFE. We can see more clearly what has to happen. We can see the truth about the moment. We can see the truth about our impact. We can fully feel our feelings: joy, anger, sadness or excitement. We are present.

It is from this place that life happens. It is in this place we actually can find authentic emotions, and ultimately peace, in the moment. It is in this place that we can better identify, as leaders in our own lives, what needs to happen next.

Field Work Challenge: This month, notice when you’re present in the moment and when you’re not. Do you find it challenging to stay present 100% of the time? Most of us do. So, no big deal, just notice the impact.

What do you miss out on when your mind is multi-tasking? On what relationships and connections do you miss out? What opportunities are lost? What shifts for you when you are present to your life? What do you realize needs to be ‘cleaned up’ when you are present? What shifts when you walk through your day fully awake? Fully engaged?

When you notice you’ve lost presence, ‘recover’ and come back to the moment. It’s actually that simple. Enjoy your month. Savor your life. DARE to fully engage.

Ebook Presented Digitally

The ebook is a digitally presented format of any printed conventional book which can be read through a personal computer or through a hardware device called a book reader. The inception of such an innovative idea dates back to 1971 when the pioneer Michael Hart, in U.S.A., decided to create through computers storage, retrieval and scanning of texts available in libraries. This resulted in the origin of the first ebook, a copy of the `Declaration of Independence` which later evolved into `Project Gutenberg`. Today it contains over 20,000 free texts and over 100,000 books.

Every month over 3,000,000 books are downloaded. Ultimately this reached mammoth proportions with ebooks flooding the web because of its easy storage on hard drive or disk. Production of ebooks is carried out generally by document scanning or by using robotic book scanners.

Initially the ebooks were confined to specialty topics which were documents, technical manuals or articles on manufacturing techniques with cutting edge hardware. Such ebooks did not create much impact in the market as there was no consensus on packaging, selling or reading. A number of diverse specifications, supported by leading software companies or by independent programmers, proliferated which catered to readers following multiple formats resulted in further fragmentation of the market. At this stage ebook was not a mainstream item.

This, however, did not stop ebook from spreading its domain. It surfaced in the underground markets wherein the ebook publishers distributed those books which were not readily available in the market. Similarly, authors whose books did not find any publishers started offering their books on-line so that viewers were exposed to the literature. Even unauthorized and unofficial catalogues were available in various web sites. And in this manner ebooks began to circulate on-line. Romantic novels were the first successful ebooks as they catered to a large clientele who bought them on-line and enjoyed reading them in privacy.

These incidents caught the attention of major publishers. Around mid June 2001, the acclaimed publishers started delving into this medium and tried to gain from the ebook formats. This led the publishers to establish on-line stores and partnerships with e-reader manufacturers. Today, the electronic hardware manufacturers are also working in tandem with ebook readers to capitalize on the on-line ebook market.

This upsurge of activity by the reputed publishers, electronic companies and independent operators resulted in the development of new selling models. Simultaneously, a more simple and homogeneous format with better reading hardware was created to achieve a global distribution for ebooks. This has unleashed an array of new publishing houses. Today, electronic manufacturers are wooing the ebook readers through new designs while software engineers are developing new reader application for portable electronic gear ranging from hand held computers, smart phones and game consoles.

The twentieth century readers, unaware of the concept of ebook, are now being gradually exposed to this electronic phenomenon. Commuters read ebooks on laptops, hand held computers or on cell phones. Such is the craze of ebooks in Japan that mobile phone novels have evolved where books could be downloaded and read on the cell screen. Sales which were negligible a few years back has crossed 10 billion yens annually (The Economist). At present, consumers can easily access books of their choice ranging from best sellers to new authors or which ever type suiting their reading pattern.

Ebooks reading are advantageous as it is a space saving device of book storage. One CD / DVD can, approximately, store 500 ebooks and are never out of print, which is a common occurrence in conventional books. For researchers such digitized versions are ideal as they display excellent choice of formats enabling speedy cross references. Readers can adjust their reading convenience by adjusting fonts and text sizes and use back lit facility which allows adequate visibility in low light. Unlike traditional books and paperbacks, ebooks need not be hand held, can be reproduced cheaply and are generally inexpensive as it does not consume paper, ink and other resources used in conventional printing.

The basic disadvantage of ebook is that it requires electronic devices for display. The software may not be readily available or free or compatible with the existing computer configuration. Sudden hard disk drive failure or power disruption causes disturbing interruptions. eBook storage mediums are fragile, the devices are costly and replacement charges could be prohibitive. Finally, and particularly for some publishers, hacking is a perennial danger.