Month: April 2014 Page 1 of 2

Last week I was both inspired and moved by a story in the media about an amazing young man called Stephen Sutton.

The terminally ill 19 year old cancer patient from Burntwood, Staffordshire posted a heart-breaking farewell to his followers on Facebook with the message “It’s a final thumbs up from me”.

Stephen had been charting his illness on social media to raise thousands for charity. He had who won the hearts of thousands of well-wishers by drawing up a bucket list to raise cash for other cancer sufferers.

Writing from his hospital bed, he said: ‘I’ve done well to blag things as well as I have up till now but, unfortunately, I think this is just one hurdle too far. It’s a shame the end has come so suddenly – there’s so many people I haven’t got round to properly thank or say goodbye to, apologies for that. There were also so many exciting projects and things I didn’t get to see out. If you want to carry on the fundraising please do”.

The comedian Jason Manford had met Stephen on several occasions when organising and hosting the annual Teenage Cancer Trust comedy galas at the Royal Albert Hall. Jason was so moved by what Stephen had written on his Facebook page that he directed his own army of followers on Twitter and Facebook to help make Stephen’s desire to reach £1m raised for the Cancer Trust a reality.

He hit on a perfect means of spreading the message, creating an instant “thumbsupforstephen” campaign that encouraged people to share pictures of themselves raising their thumbs in the cancer patient’s honour.

As the media around the world has been swift to report, the pay-off has been record-breaking in its speed and scale for the fundraising site JustGiving.com. Incredibly In excess of £3m has been raised.

Although anxious not to be seen as blowing his own trumpet, the comedian explained to the media why he was inspired to act. He said that he looked at Stephen’s website and saw some of the stuff he had written. He thought that it was so intelligent and profound even though he had every right to be bitter and angry and he wasn’t. It put things in perspective for him.

Jason explained that he had spent the whole morning moaning because he couldn’t find his children’s shoes, then he couldn’t find a parking space. He got stuck in traffic, got a flat tyre and had to spend an hour getting it changed. Then he read what Stephen had written and thought “None of these problems matter”. He was inspired to do something positive to help Stephen in his fund raising efforts.

Last Thursday on learning that Stephen had rallied a little. Jason popped in to see him in Birmingham Children’s Hospital and spent a couple of hours with him. He is to donate the proceeds from one of his future gigs to the appeal.

The story reminded me of a favourite film of mine “Pay it Forward”. This film is about a 12-year-old schoolboy in Las Vegas, Nevada named Trevor McKinney who is given a class project to complete by his social studies teacher Eugene Simonet a man with terrible burn scars on his face and neck.

His task is to come up with a plan that will change the world through direct action. On his way home from school later that day, Trevor notices a homeless man, Jerry and decides to make a difference in Jerry’s life. Trevor then comes up with the plan to “pay it forward” by doing a good deed for three people who must in turn each do good deeds for three other people, creating a charitable pyramid scheme.

This week how about looking for ways to make a difference to the life of others by performing random acts of kindness? (it can be as simple as helping an elderly person cross the road, smiling at a stranger, holding a door open, giving up your seat on a train/bus etc. or you could donate some money to Stephen’s charity appeal or another charity).

Details of Stephen Sutton’s charity appeal can be found at:

https://www.justgiving.com/stephen-sutton-tct

Quote for the week:

“We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give.” Sir Winston Churchill.

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk

It occurred to me that at the weekend that 13 years ago this week, I took my first steps to establishing a career as a Corporate and Executive Coach.

How quickly that time has gone and I am so pleased that I acted on the little voice inside of me that said I should find out more, when I saw an advert in a newspaper that stated “Train to be a Coach”.

When I started my training to be a coach, we had to undertake practical sessions with our peers to develop our knowledge and experience. In my first session my colleague asked me what I would like to achieve in life. My instinctive reply was that I would like to be happy and successful.

He then asked me a very simple but powerful question. How do you define success and happiness? “Good question” I said, because I had not clearly defined it for myself.

During the remainder of the session, we then spent some time coming up with my personal definition of happiness and success.

The way we did this was to take a sheet of paper and write down 10 bullet points that reflected both happiness and success for me. It doesn’t have to be 10 bullet points (it can be just 5 points).

Following the end of the session, I developed the framework by giving a score out of 10 (1 being low, 10 being high) for each of the bullet points. These scores reflected my satisfaction with each element. For the areas where I wanted to improve the score, I set myself a target score and noted down a few action steps to help me achieve this. I then regularly rescored the areas to see how I was progressing.

It was a simple but really excellent exercise and I have recommended it to many people since. It gave me clarity and a great framework to compare how I was doing in life against my own unique definition. I realised in that moment that if you are not specific with your goals you have no clear way of determining how you are doing.

Something that I have noticed when I have done this exercise with customers is that when I asked them to describe their definitions for happiness, their descriptions often include things that do not cost a great deal of money and in some instances are free. Perhaps there is some truth in the old saying “the best things in life are free!”

We get one life, it’s short. Everyone has the right to be happy and we can all do our best to not delay or defer our happiness. Choose to be happy starting right now!

This week I suggest you take some time to define what happiness means to you? You might want to do the same for your definition of success too.

Once you have completed this initial step, you may want to give yourself a score out of 10 for how satisfied you are with each element (10 being high, I being low) and come up with a few action steps to help you improve your satisfaction scores.

Quotes for the week:

“Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.” W.P. Kinsella.

“People are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” Abraham Lincoln.

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk

When coaching a client a few months ago we talked about when he gets really busy, stressed and feels under pressure with an increasing workload, he becomes very single minded and inflexible in his approach to pursuing some goals and sticks rigidly to his ideas and plans.

We discussed the impact of this approach on him and his relationships with others. The client shared that it can lead to him losing perspective, can make his vision very tunneled and in doing so, on occasions he stopped listening to the valuable input and ideas of others. He said that he can become quite defensive, which had an impact on his relationships with others as they tended to distance themselves from him and kept their heads down.

He said that he found it extremely challenging to show his vulnerability and admit that he may have made a mistake and traced this back to his upbringing. He told me that he sometimes gets so caught up in a goal that he becomes unwilling to let go of it even when he knows deep down that the existing plans won’t work as well as they could and was not willing to try a new approach.

He conceded that it came down to a need to be seen to be right. He said that he wanted to change this particular pattern of behaviour as he felt that it no longer served him and actually made him feel quite unhappy. He wanted have a better connection with others and sought my help to make some changes.

I shared the following story to demonstrate what can happen when we are too rigid in our thinking and how having a willingness to change direction can be beneficial. In my experience, the people with the most flexible approach to goals, relationships and life in general, tend to be happier and enjoy a greater connection with others. The story meant that he had a metaphor to refer to and remind him when he felt that he was slipping back into his old way of being.

On a dark and foggy night in the midst of a stormy sea, the captain of a ship spotted what seemed to be the light from another ship in the distance.

He quickly went to his station and flashed a message across the water, “Change your course twenty degrees north.” No sooner had he done this than a reply flashed back, “Change your course twenty degrees south.” The captain became angry and flashed back, “I am captain and a commander in the naval forces, and I say change your course twenty degrees north.”

The responding message was signalled back, “I am a seaman first class with no commander, and I say change your course twenty degrees south.” This infuriated the captain who now signalled, “I am a battleship, and I say change your course twenty degrees north.” There was a brief pause as the angry captain awaited the reply. Finally, the response came, “I say change your course twenty degrees south, I am a lighthouse!”

I am pleased to report that the client has made changes and is enjoying his new way of being and is getting positive results from the new habits that he has adopted. He feels happier, is more relaxed and his relationships with others have improved and are more productive and harmonious.

This week have a think about if you need to change your plans and approach to a particular goal or project that you are pursuing. What would be the benefit of doing so and what motivates you to make a change?

You may like to seek the views and input of others and think about in terms of:

• What’s working?
• What not quite working yet?
• What needs to change?

Quote for the week – “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” George Bernard Shaw.

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk