Last week, a Brush Turkey decided to claim the area between our neighbour’s place and ours for a nursery.  Having noticed the absence of our neighbour’s dogs, he had been parading around for ages, obviously spying out the terrain.  Some time had been spent checking out the surroundings from the roof,  the top of the pergola, the verandah railing, and other vantage points.  Eventually he found his spot, and construction of the nest he was responsible for, began in earnest. 

Actually, it did not take very long. He was an amazing worker.  In the space of a few hours, he had constructed an enormously impressive mound, about a metre high and more than that in diameter. The eggs the female laid would be incubated in this mound so magnificently constructed by the male.  Attempts to shoo him away were fruitless. His little brain was programmed, and he returned to do more work as soon as your back was turned.  Mulch from our garden beds was scratched and kicked onto his mound and a few bushes were left bare rooted.  Finally, in what looked like a grand entrance for his mate, he constructed a path of strewn leaves and mulch all across the foot paths of both properties. Again, any attempt to clean it up was met with ‘reinstallation’. His doggedness and determination were amazing. 

As always, there are lessons to be drawn from observing nature.  This time I was struck by the idea of stimulus-response whilst watching the turkey’s behaviour.  There was no space between the stimulus of the biological need to build the nest and doing it.  He just went on relentlessly.  Had he chosen to build it on a road and had cars driven over it all day, the next morning, he would have had it there again, ready for the the next onslaught of cars.  He could not learn from experience, but functioned purely out of instinct. As long as he lived, he was ‘programmed’ to live in a particular way, even if it killed him!

Unlike Brush Turkeys, as humans,we do have the option of choosing our behaviour.  Some of us do it better than others, but between a stimulus occuring, and us responding, we have the ability to think, analyse, predict, evaluate, and so on. 

We have the opportunity to make good choices or poor ones and have to face up to the opportunity of living with the consequences of those choices.  Our choice can be made from a perspective of ownership, accountability and responsibility, or from a stance of blame, excuses, and denial.  This choice, no matter what life throws at us is made basically out of love or fear. Our choices will lead us to being a victor, proactive and better, or, on the other hand, a victim, reactive or bitter.  Think about it.  Observe your own behaviour next time there is a ’stimulus’.  It could be interesting.   

I have just returned from a trip to Koh Samui in Thailand.  It was an island, tropical, laid back and beautiful with lovely people. The pace of life was different.  The way people lived was different and it was an enriching experience and often humbling experience. 

The world of Occupational Health and Safety which often paralyses life in this country does not seem to have made any in roads there as yet.  Power lines, intertwined like spaghetti, buzz and hum just above your head in the streets. Cats can be seen in restaurants and dogs roam freely up and down the beach and snooze on the roads.  Scooter riders don’t wear helmets and tear up and down the main road as if their life depended on it.  I saw men scaling coconut palms like monkeys to remove coconuts which might fall on our heads.  They used their bare hands and feet and had no safety gear. 

Perhaps what struck me most was the beach hawkers.  They seemed to live their lives according to a different drum.  Fully protected from the sun, (unlike the European tourists) they would wander up and down their section of the beach trying to catch the eye of a relaxing tourist with their array of bedspreads, doona covers, shirts, dresses and jewellery.  Others sat around a little mobile food bar, which consisted of a pole with a basket at either end.  One basket had the food in it, and the other a charcoal burner.  It seemed to be the Ko Samui equivalent of a snack bar.  In a flash, if we wanted it, we could have corn, spring rolls and other ‘delicacies’ served up to us.  The charcoal burner would be fanned into life, and a few moments later, the food would appear.  We enjoyed corn cobs for lunch each day prepared in this way.  In between customers, the ’snack bar’ became a meeting place, and it would have been great to understand the language and be a fly on the sand!  There was a simplicity about their pace of life that made me reflect on the often frantic pace that we allow to consume our lives.  Despite their apparent material poverty, they seemed rich in other ways- in how they communicated with eachother, their cheerfulness and their laughter.  Even with the language barriers on our part, as their English was much better than our Thai, they could make a joke, and smile even when a sale did not come their way.

 I was a sitting duck for one such hawker.    Believe it or not, she was sitting on the sand crocheting something.  I went up closer to have a look, and she was using a very fine cotton to crochet a top. She told me that one top took her two weeks to finish. Later, when she did her rounds on the beach with her wares, she came past me and waved the tops she had in front of my nose.  Despite my protestations that they were all too small, she found  one the right size and apart from my half hearted attempt at bartering, it was all over!  She had a sale! I had a new top!   

When we are away from our usual occupations and daily concerns, and sample life in a different environment or culture, it is easy for us to take stock and to reflect.  The challenge is not to lose that feeling and spirit we were aware of whilst away, on our return.  I, for one, will try to stop  making ‘being busy’ sound like a virtue, and will attempt to live more ‘in the moment’ and enjoy that for what it is.   

Earlier this year, I had the privilege of hearing Dr Martin Seligman speak .  He is a Professor of Psychiatry at Penn State University.  After some thirty years of practice, in which he had to deal with a lot of the trauma and devastation that goes on in people’s lives, he began to think of how putting a positive spin on life might make a difference in the lives of his clients. It did make a difference!  Although he had numerous strategies, one that struck both my husband and me, was the simple strategy of thinking about ‘three good things’ that happened today (or this week).

Those three  things do not have to be really earth shattering, or profound.  For instance, seeing a beautiful flower and noticing its fragrance or colour, could be one good thing.  Receiving a phone call from a friend might be another, and of course, winning a sum of money in a lottery would definitely be in there! 

Now we often ask each other about the ‘three good things’ for the day. That way we often come up with six things!  When I feel down, I try to think about the three good things, and it is amazing how quickly it seems to help.  I guess it ties in with the idea of practising an ‘attitude of gratitude’. 

What three good things are you thankful for today? Challenge yourself to jot your items down on a calendar for a week and see what a difference it makes.  Your life will suddenly seem to be more meaningful and you will be more positive.  Have fun trying this out for yourself.  Let me know how you go. 

She was so positive, hopeful and even though she knew the prognosis was poor, she refused to let anything dampen her enthusiasm for and love of life. Her attitude was amazing and her spiritual energy conveyed itself forcefully. 

I was reminded of the age old problem we have as humans with stimulus and response.  If you have ever had a dog, you will have noticed that there is a very short time between stimulus and response.  If you have a piece of meat in your hand that the dog wants, it will start salivating spontaneously and will most likely make a grab for the meat.  As humans, we have some space between a stimulus and our response to it.  We can choose our response and act on it. 

For instance, in Belinda Emmett’s case, the cancer was the stimulus.  She could have responded by being devastated, withdrawing into her shell, shutting the world out, blaming God, the universe or whatever.  She could have ranted and raved, screamed out about how unfair it was, or chosen to jump off the nearest bridge. 

Instead of this, she chose to face the cancer and her terminal illness squarely. She looked it right in the eye and decided quite intentionally to keep living, smiling, creating, loving and contributing to the lives of others no matter what.  She laughed and joked her way through the video she made of her final months. She was a strength to her family in the way she dealt with what was so devastating to her health and life. When, coming briefly out of a coma,  she saw her sister quietly weeping at her bedside,she asked, “are your all right?” They were her last words. 

What a woman! What a legacy she has left to other sufferers of cancer.  People will always feel uplifted as they think of her and her contribution to society.  Even death has not silenced her, as there is now a fund to which people can contribute which will help with more breast cancer research, and a CD to ensure her voice and message are not lost.  

Belinda could not control the stimulus of the cancer that turned out to be her lot.  She could and did control her response to it. She could have been bitter, but she chose to make the most of what she had and gave encouragement and light to others in the process.

None of us know what we might come up against in the storms of life, but because we are human we have a choice in how we respond to it.  Will we be ‘bitter’ or ‘better’?

All of us know stories of people dealing with incredible odds. How about sharing some of the victories with me?  I’d love to hear from you. 

Some 13 years ago, I did some training with a guy called Kevin W McCarthy in Orlando Florida.  Kevin had written a book called “The On-Purpose Person” which I had read and on which a lot of our work is based.   In the course of the training, Kevin invited us to explore the idea of having a Purpose in life.  He had some tools which made articulating words that really meant something quite easy.  I came up with a couple of words that sounded good to me at the time and thought I had completed the exercise. 

Some considerable time later, when my husband and I were driving around New Zealand, he challenged me about the words I had chosen as embodying my Purpose in life. He thought that what I had chosen wasn’t really me.   As we talked, admiring the magnificent mountain scenery so common in that part of the world, two new words came to me as the embodiment of what my life was really about.  Suddenly I felt WOW! This fits! This is me! My two words were Rejuvenating Spirit.  I exist to serve by Rejuvenating Spirit! It fitted across all my life areas as far as I could see and feel and it just seemed right. 

As a B&B owner for six years, I found I was often doing just that with the people who came to stay.  That was what I did with my husband, children, grandchildren and friends.  It was the essence of who I was, and when I was going about what I did in the course of the day, I found myself rejuvenating the spirit of others. I felt fulfilled and at peace.  Those words seem like my spiritual DNA and are so important to me now. 

What two words would you pick to describe what you are about?  Have fun thinking about it and see if it fits all areas of your life.  I would love to hear from you.  

My goal is to empower personal leadership so that individuals proactively align themselves personally and professionally through living on-purpose, intentional and balanced lives. This will enable people to maximise their potential and to achieve fulfilment in life.