Your Changing Direction

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken”
(Oscar Wilde)

Today is celebrate your unique talent day. So it seems like it is an appropriate time to share with you some thoughts about uniqueness and talent.

It’s not at all uncommon to loose track, or even not acknowledge, the gifts that you have naturally, by focusing on comparisons to others or to a perfect you. The artist Henri Matisse said, “It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else.” Even though that was Maitisse’s comments, others said he was actually the most important French painter and artist of the 20th Century.

Sure you’ll have similarities with others, you may even have things about you that are identical to someone else (particularly if you are an identical twin ) but we are not all exactly the same.

Logically, you already know that – it’s why many people like to try items of clothing and footwear on first before buying so that you know that it fits and suits you. If we were all identical you wouldn’t need to do that – it’d bring a whole new meaning to “one size fits all”.

Talent, abilities, knowledge, gifts, passion and everything else makes you what you are – unique, even if you don’t yet acknowledge that for yourself.

The dictionary definition of unique gives the following:
“Unique (yoo-neek) adjective: 1. being the only one of its kind.
                                                2. unusual and remarkable.”

Sometimes people are happier to consider themselves as unique as described by the first point, yet the use of the word remarkable doesn’t sit as comfortable with them and feels strange and different. If this is something that applies to you, how often have you considered the fact that you really could be remarkable? I’d hazard a guess that your answer, is not going to be that high, which will explain why it feels different and strange.

Just for today I invite you to appreciate your own uniqueness. (You can then make a choice at the end of today if you want to play again tomorrow ;) ) If this is something you haven’t done before then be gentle with yourself and let this be a possibility as you play with the following:

Make a note on a piece of paper your answers to the following – there are no right or wrong answers, just the ones that are relevant to you.

1. What are your gifts? What seems really easy to you so that you dismiss comments such as “I wish I could do that” as people being nice and/or polite?

2. What are you passionate about? – Those things that time just flies by when you do them.

3. If you were asked what your “claim to fame” is what would you answer?

4. What is it that if you shared with others they’d look at you in amazement?

5. Imagine someone is going to make a film celebrating you. The actor who is playing you wants to spend time with you to fully understand what makes you so unusual and remarkable. You find that it’s really easy to get on with this actor so that it seems natural when they shadow you as you go about your normal day.

Once the actor has seen and heard everything they need, what is it that they would say that makes you remarkable. Imagine a conversation with the actor as they tell you what they have observed that will really help them with the role.

What is it that you could add to them to help them get into character?

Make a note of your answers

6. What do you think others would say are your unique talents (if there’s someone who’s opinion you trust you could even ask them in reality)

7. Read back over your answers and pay attention to what you have written. Allow yourself to accept your own remarkableness.
How and where can you use this newly recognised talent?
As always,I love to here your unique experience with playing with this.

Enjoy Celebrate Your Unique Talent Day and have a lovely unique week

Love

Jen

One of the games I sometimes play in trainings is to pick some of the largest companies with well-known brand names and as a group answer questions such as:

If Brand x was a person:

(a) What would they wear?
(b) How would they spend their spare time?
(c) What would be their favourite food?
(d) What would they do on holiday?
(e) Where would they shop?

Interestingly, despite doing this with very different types of groups the answers for each brand are often the same. When we discuss how the group came to decide upon the answers that they gave they often say that they considered things such as:

Personal experience of the brand’s product or service
The companies marketing and advertising
Stories in the press
Knowledge of the people in charge,
Printed material – letters, catalogues etc

When we look at how these successful brands describe themselves and their identity it becomes obvious that they successfully communicate this by demonstrating it in their behaviours.

For example, people often say that a well known airline would go hot air ballooning or do some fun extreme sport in their spare time. Visiting the companies own website to shows that they describe themselves as fun and list some examples of how they communicate this.

This link between communicating using behaviour and action is not something that can be confined to successfully branded companies. Individuals will find it easier to communicate more authentically if their behaviours and actions match with what they are saying (or wanting to say).

I invite you to play with the following. It’s designed to give you a way to communicate authentically your skills and qualities. This exercise was originally written to be used when applying for a new job as a way of communicating the value you can add. It can also be used if there is someone in your life who you feel misses your value, you may also want to use it as your own confidence-building tool.

1. Pick a situation or scenario where it would be useful for you to effectively communicate your skills and qualities.

2. It’s always easier to know how to demonstrate behaviour when you have identified what that is. So, make a list of the qualities and skills that you would like to communicate to this person or in this situation.

3. Read through your list and for each point consider how you could demonstrate this.

For example: Want to show that you are interested in the other person? You could demonstrate that by listening to what that person is actually saying (not what you think they said) the next time you talk to them. [Listening is a really under rated skill, many people think that if they are not talking then they are demonstrating listening]

Tips for if you get stuck on any point:

· Remember that I invite you to play with this as a game – an experiment if you like. I’m only asking what you could do, you don’t have to go and do it, so you can be as imaginative as you want with this

· You are allowed to keep this simple – there is no need to overcomplicate your answer.

For example, if you would like to demonstrate that you are a good timekeeper – turn up on time for an appointment!

4. Once you have thought of some method of demonstrating that skill or quality for each point, go through the list again and put a Capital B next to the ones that you can do easily

5. Now, read through your list and put a star next to all the ones that you want to do.

6. Finally read through your list again and pick at least one that you will do and using either your diary, calendar, a post it on the fridge door or whatever method you use to keep track of appointments, schedule in a time when you will demonstrate the thing that you picked.

I’d love to hear your experience of playing with this, feel free to let me know how it was for you

Have a fantastic and valued 7 days

love

Jen

“Today, give a stranger one of your smiles.  It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.” 

(Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.)

I’ve just read that Thursday 13th November was World Kindness Day and two thoughts occurred to me:

Several years ago I read a book that amused me by the author Danny Wallace called “Join Me.” [Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com]

Without giving away too much of the plot away it’s is the true life story where the concept of random acts of kindness is involved. (And that’s as much of the plot I’m going to spoil for you J ) In case you are imagining huge charitable donations either in time or money, a random act of kindness don’t have to be anything large – it can be as something as simple as holding open a door for someone with lots of bags or deliberately leaving enough change in the vending machine at work so that the next person gets a free chocolate bar.

I also happen to know that when you are looking for opportunities to give a random act of kindness, the more the opportunities become noticeable as being around. So my invite to you today is to look for the opportunities to give a random act of kindness – you don’t have to do any of them, unless that you really want to, the game is just to spot them.

Have Fun

Jen

PS If you really want to take this game to the extra level you may like to remember that you are allowed to include yourself in this game – what could you do to be kind to yourself?

For a couple of reasons this week I have been thinking about time, or to be more precise, how time can effect our perception of a situation we’re in.

The bits of history that have always fascinated me concern how people lived. Over the past year or so I have been following the correspondence of a British World War I soldier, William Henry Bonser Lamin otherwise known as Harry. (http://tinyurl.com/29oys3 )

I suspect it hasn’t escaped your notice that there has been a bit of an election happening in the United States of America. One of the things about President-Elect Barack Obama’s Victory Speech that set me thinking was what he said about the things that 106-year-old Ann Nixon Cooper had seen in her life so far.

Regardless of whether you agree politically or not with Obama, the changes in society that Ann Nixon Cooper has witnessed in 106 years is fairly dramatic, and although I don’t yet know the fate of Harry the WWI soldier I’m fairly certain that he too would report massive changes in attitudes and what is considered important. I also suspect that they would both report that throughout the course of their lives what they choose to prioritise and spend their time on would be different at various stages in their lives.

With that in mind, I invite you to play with the following:

1. Imagine you’re 106 years old, sat reflecting back on your life so far:
What are the things that you are proudest of?
What brings the big grin to your face as you remember it?
Notice what’s important to you.

2. Think of something that the you in 2008 would like a new perspective off. With the benefit of hindsight, as you imagine being 106 sat reflecting back, what do you notice now about that thing? Take all the time that you need to play with this.

3. When you’re ready, come back fully to the present, bringing with you anything that is important for you to bring, you may want to stretch or wriggle your fingers and toes as you become more aware of your current surroundings.

Every person’s experience of playing with this is different, some say that they gain new insight on possibilities; others say that it confirms that there are potential consequences that they hadn’t considered. Often people realise that what they have been choosing to prioritise is not that important to them in the grand scheme of things.

Whatever your experience I’d love to hear about it. Email me at hello@yourchangingdirection.com

I love completely random facts, there doesn’t have to be any obvious practical application for the information I’ve found/been given to provoke me to give a genuine “Really? That’s interesting” response.

One of my favourite completely random pieces of information is that false eyelashes were invented in 1916 by a silent movie director who wanted to make his female stars eyes look bigger on screen. I came across this information years ago at a time when I still worked in the pub and hospitality industry, I never dreamed that it would come in useful, I just thought it was interesting. However, a few weeks after I learnt this fact I was called upon to quickly come up with a tie-breaker question for a busy quiz night that gave all teams an equal chance.

I love learning new stuff, I can’t help it – I am naturally curious. It’s one of the things that got me to where I am today, I found something that interested me and I just got curious to find out more. Just like with the randomness of the false eyelashes, the opportunities that can arise to use the skills/ information etc that can be developed from being curious may not always be obvious before hand.

It was this curiosity over the weekend that led to me being at an event that was in effect eavesdropping on a rehearsal between the actor Patrick Stewart and the successful director, John Barton. They introduced the event by saying that they were going to play with the text and experiment with different ways of using it – they too were getting curious, with some incredible results.

There are lots of hidden benefits to this curiosity about stuff you find interesting. For me, it’s also the easy way of doing things. When I’m curious and interested about any topic then I’ll happily read, watch, listen or take action to find out what happens next and generally want to find out more. This means that the momentum often snowballs on a project very easily.

It can also be a great way to increase your confidence in an area – sometimes a lack of confidence is based around your own perception of your skills in any area, getting curious about developing those and having an accurate assessment of where you are can be a huge benefit.

What can you get curious about today? What would you love to find out more about?

If you are up for it I invite you to give yourself some time to play with this. Pick a time frame that fits with where you are at the moment and your life, it may be a couple of minutes, it may be a couple of hours, maybe a couple of days … you get the idea.

1. Pick a topic that interests you and decide that you are going to spend your allotted time getting curious about that topic.

One of the key parts to this is pick something that you find interesting – not something you think you “should” find interesting, something that you actually do. It doesn’t have to be an earth shattering, life-changing topic – we’re only playing J

If you are still wondering what to pick – if you were reading a magazine what articles would cause you to pause and read more – or if you were flicking through unlimited TV channels and a documentary/ behind the scenes/ day in a life of show caused you to stop, what would that topic be?

I wonder what would happen if you allowed yourself to get a bit more curious?

2. As you allow yourself to wonder and be curious about this topic notice what questions come up for you around this area….

Maybe it’s a “how do they do that” type question, or a “why does that happen”, it might even be “I wonder what that feels like” perhaps its something else entirely – make a note of the questions you are aware of and note them down.

3. From your list of questions notice which (if any of them), you want to go find out more about – it may be that you can do a quick search on the Internet, perhaps taking someone to lunch and asking them would find you the answers. Maybe it’s even trying something for yourself.

4. What would be a fun way of finding those answers out?

NB: Here’s the disclaimer bit, do check out the safety aspect and consequences of any action you choose to take – In the unlikely event you are curious about what it feels like to electrocuted I am not suggesting sticking your fingers in a plug socket to experience it for yourself – maybe find a second hand account and find the answer that way!

5. Pick an action that would be fun (yet safe!) to do, something that you are curious to see the results of, and go and play.

I’m curious to know about your experience playing with this and would love to hear how you get on.