It’s that time again – at least in the western world.
Christmas is upon us.
For a few days, people will stop their frenetic pace and take time out to gather with friends and family, to share a meal or two, exchange gifts and express greetings of love, joy and hope in the coming year.
However or wherever the greetings and wishes are expressed, or whatever language, as the old year winds down and the new one beckons, the message is as universal and timeless as the message in this medieval Celtic blessing:
May peace and plenty be the first to lift the latch on your door and happiness be guided to your home by the candle of Christmas.
And in the New Year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship and never in want.
My best wishes to you and all whom you hold dear – and all the best in the New Year.
See you in 2014.
I invite you to join me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn or email your thoughts and comments to drew@drewsimmie.com
[kkstarratings]Continuous learning is dependent upon many factors. One of the most critical is to have an inquiring mind – and to not be afraid to ask questions.
Questions are essential for growth. Many think that they already have all the answers. For them their sense of security and self-image depends upon their thinking that they know it all and, worse still, are never wrong.
They try to understand everything in terms of what they already know – but what they already know is rooted in the past.
The thing is, when you stop inquiring and learning you cut off growth that eventually leads to the future.
To embrace what you don’t know means you have to give up your fear about not already knowing the answers. Learning and improvement only occurs when you are open to new possibilities and courageous enough to ask questions.
Questions like, “what if?” Or, “Why can’t we do it this way or that?” Or, “I never thought about that. Tell me more.” You get the idea.
One of life’s many axioms is that you can’t grow from what you already know and you can’t learn from what you are unwilling to experience.
I invite you to join me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn or email your thoughts and comments to drew@drewsimmie.com
Leadership is not what you do to the other side. That’s always easy. It’s what you do for and say to your own people.
If ever there was even a modicum of doubt that technology has shrunk our wide, wide world down to a virtual global village, it will forever be laid to rest this coming Sunday with the burial of Nelson Mandela – in Qunu, a previously obscure actual village in the eastern Cape province of South Africa. The whole world will be watching.
The gods work in strange ways…
Every so often, just when a country or the world needs it, they produce a leader (often from places far removed from the usual centres and customary sources of power) who grabs the world’s attention and takes centre stage – a man or a woman whose beliefs and actions reminds us that there is a better side to human kind if only we would dare to walk in others shoes and make room for one another.
Many of them have their share of human flaws and foibles. They don’t always get it right, nor are they all saints.
What they are, though, are authentic. They derive their direction and focus from an inner, spiritual compass. They know who they are and speak with their own voice.
They have courage and are willing to take risks. Totally engaged in what they believe, their head and heart are twinned as one.
Compassionate, yet shrewd, willing to be vulnerable but tough, they are open to different cultures, customs and belief systems.
In so being, by action and deed, they inspire and rally their followers to a common purpose by providing meaning and values to their lives.
Unfortunately, when they are gone, most of time, the world goes back to business as usual, but these are not usual times. When leadership is so needed and sorely lacking on many fronts, perhaps, this time, the words and deeds of this leader, Mandela will have some lasting effect.
Read his full story here, compliments of PBS Frontline, The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela.
I invite you to join me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn or email your thoughts and comments to drew@drewsimmie.com
It’s that time again – at least in the western world.
