Summary:
Every person has a special gift. However your gift can only be recognised and bring joy to others when it is released. It may not seem special to you because you are the only one looking at it.

Every person on this earth has a special gift, we have all been born with a purpose. The gifts ans talents may not always appear to be equal or valued the same, but they are all special. What is your gift, where do you add your talent to the human family?

You have the gift of speaking, being a motivator,or listening well to others. You may have an eye for detail, allowing you to turn an ordinary space into a wonderful haven, where people would want to spend their time.

It’s never too late to make a change and find a path that will allow you to be true to yourself. You just need to recognize your gift and take it out from where it is hidden.

If you have a candle in the darkness ans you do not use it. It does not serve you or others very well. Your talents and gifts are not for you they are a gift presented to you to share with the world.
The time has come for you to let your light shine and to do what you truly enjoy. Do it for yourself and for nobody else. But when you do, your light might just lighten up somebody else’s way.

Before I started my business I thought I had no special talent and that I therefore had nothing worthwhile to offer. I know that many of you are at that place right now. I want to encourage and tell you that you have got something. What it is I don’t know, only you do. But I know this, it is something special.

Not sharing it with the world will be doing a great disservice to yourself and to the entire world. Nothing is appreciated until it is released for all to see, hear and treasure.

Imagine a world without a Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Bill Gates or a Picasso. It’s almost like imagining a world without music or computers as we know them. By sharing their talent with us, these individuals have certainly made our world a better place.

There are others you can think of, who have appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and have redefined our worlds. They have changed the way we eat drink and relax, even the way we do business. But before they took that step to show us what they had, nobody had even an inkling as to what was coming.

What about you. Who knows how you could change our world. You could be the next big thing, but even if you don’t change the world like Bill Gates, you could still change your world, in a million ways. And ultimately that’s the most important part. Changing your world.

If you don’t do something about it you’ll never know, what you’re capable of. You’ll never know how it could have been. By taking that first step you’re making a declaration of your independence.

What caused me to take that first step? I was sick and tired of living for weekends. I was tired of working for a living, of always not having enough money. I got tired of getting up in the morning and going to work even if I didn’t feel it. I was tired of being told what to do and how to do it. I wanted my freedom and independence.

I realized that there are so may people all over the world who need someone to tell them that they can achieve their dreams, just as I needed someone to tell me that.

I knew that when I made it I would inspire so many others who thought they couldn’t make it. When you make your dreams come true it may be only for yourself, but there are hundreds and maybe thousands who’ll be inspired. Especially in your own community.

They’ll say if so and so could do it, I can do it too. People are not as much influenced by people from afar as they are by those close to them. Your success becomes their success.

So go out there and follow your dreams. Don’t be afraid to become the first in your community. Take it little by little, day by day, step by step. As you accomplish the one step the next step will come into view, and will be that much more manageable.

First: Our smile shows others people that we are friendly.
If a stranger approached you and gained eye contact with you and then treated you to a broad smile you will have a fairly good idea that they are being friendly and certainly mean you no harm.

By contrast we would find it far more difficult to offer trust to the stranger that wears a scowl or unfriendly face features.

Second: A smile can make people happy.
When someone treats you to a smile, even a stranger, you usually smile back. For that moment you enjoy a flash of positive communication without saying a word. As you walk through a crowed area such as a main street you can do this hundreds times in a very short period of time.

When you smile at someone who is not already smiling and they smile back you have brought a moment of happiness into their lives which, who knows, could last all day.

Third: Smiling is infectious.
When you spend a lot in the company of someone who smiles a lot you will soon discover that their smile starts to wear off on you. It is hard not to return a smile; most of us do it at a subliminal level without thinking.

Fourth: Smiling can make you popular.
Which type of people do you prefer? A person that has a tired and listless face. An expression that may reflect their inner thoughts of boredom and worry? Or, would you prefer someone who is always smiling and shows that they have an enthusiastic passion for life.

I think for the majority of us the choice would be obvious!

Fifth: Smiling can help you to make new friends
In the same way few of us would choice a miserable person for a friend. Lets face it we all want someone who is going to be bubbly and a happy and positive.

Sixth: A smile is usually returned
When someone smiles back at you it make you feel good inside. You have just made a short but very positive communication and possibly the first step in the process of getting to know or making friends with someone new.

Seventh: Smiling makes you positive and happy inside.
When you smile it is hard to feel unhappy, negative or sad in anyway. Smiling gives you enthusiasm and drive, it is also habit forming.

Eight: A smile makes you look far more attractive.
You don?t see many celebrities or media personalities that are not smiling because if you did it is fairly certain that their popularity would quickly start to drop!

Ninth: Smiling also helps make you memorable to others!
Have you noticed that smiling people are usually far more memorable than those that are not? It is fact that you are 3 time more likely to remember the person that is smiling over the one that is wearing a negative or neutral features.

Tenth: Most importantly, smiling is good for your health!!!
When you are smiling you find whatever you are doing far easier. It releases stress, worry and tension that you may have built up throughout the day. Long term, developing the smiling habit will be one of the smartest things that you can do to improve most aspects of your life.

Eleventh: The effects of smiling can last for hours
Whatever problems and challenges you have in your life, smiling temporary puts them and hold. For a while you forget the problems and become positive, and while you are in a positive state you have far more potential and power to advance and improve your life.

Lastly: Smiling is FREE!
You are never going to run short of smiles and will always have enough to go around. When you weigh up the positive points of smiling it is a no brainer decision to do far more smiling and share them with as many people as possible.

Keep smiling.

11 Great Reasons why Smiling makes us More Successful!SMILE!

If all you have is a hammer everything starts to look like a nail

Summary:
What stops us from releasing our passion. What stops us from behaving naturally. What makes us waste energy.

We were watching the movie “CRASH” yesterday and it suddenly hit me like a bolt of lightening. How many times we misdiagnose a situation. How many times we carry on a path not knowing that our assumption have taken us miles off course.

It is like playing golf and only knowing how to use three clubs and having to use them in every situation.

It is like looking through a camera zoom lens instead of a wide angle.

It is like blindly following another’s opinion.

The fact is that most of our lives are spent reusing the information collected in our formative years. Thus, when anything new enters our arena we immediately go to the past to try to make sense of it.

The outcome is: we each live an illusion. We each see our world through some really heavily tinted spectacles. We each act as though we are a hammer and everything that comes in front of us is a nail.

The problem is. IT DOESN’T WORK.

We were amazed how easily we fell into the trap. How easily we interpreted what was happening before our eyes and made it logical. How easily we searched for closure.

To make us comfortable we wanted to put things into a comfortable categories, having simple and easy ways of understanding our environment. We wanted to place happenings in a box,people in boxes in the same way a librarian codes books for easy access. When we have an interaction with a family member we know exactly what box that fits in. Ah! That goes in the family box. That is rude behavior, do that goes in the jerk box. That is unacceptable in public, so that goes in the ignorant “foreigner” box.

Yes, you could argue that this form of coding is important in life because it helps us get through life quickly. Can you imagine having to think about every encounter you have on a situation by situation basis. It would be incredibly tiring.

BUT!!!
Why do we like to put ourselves and others into “psychological boxes”? What is it about us that we like to say we are this type of person or that? Why do we want to limit ourselves? Why do we want to sell ourselves short?

It’s like being a carpenter who only has a hammer in his toolbox. We are restricting ourselves beyond belief. Just imagine how restricting it would be if you only had a hammer in your toolbox? How can you get passionate about anything if all you are capable of is knocking the brains out of any information that comes your way?

How do you find out what you were brought onto this planet to do if all you can do is respond in the same way to whatever is put in front of you.

How do you develop and grow your children if all they see is the same behaviour irrespective of the problem posed.

How do you rise to the challenges of our society if all you do is apply the same reasoning even though it doesn’t fit?

As Howard Schatz. The famous New York dance photographer stated in one of his books:

+I told each dancer that when it was easy, it had probably been done
before, probably many times. I explained that only when it was so hard
that it was nearly impossible were we perhaps close to getting something unique and extraordinary.

Is this why we like to categorise situations and people? We actually don’t like hard work.

Is it that we don’t like the pressure of being our true selves? Because to do that we have to stand out?

Is it that we can’t cope with being unique and extraordinary, so we just want to be similar and ordinary?

Is it that we are afraid of who we might be? Are we afraid that we can be successful? Afraid that if we admit to ourselves that we have talent we might have to do something with our lives?

Is it that we don’t really want to find out who we really are and what we are capable of?

We don’t know about you but we want to be unique, we want to find out and use our uniqueness. We want to be fulfilled. We want to find our energy source that is released when we are doing what we are intended to do. We want to be in the flow, as some writers describe it.

We have come to realise that what stops us from being in the flow all the time. What stops us from releasing our passion. What stops us from behaving naturally. What makes us waste energy.

FEAR.

Fear keeps us placing people and situations into categories.

Fear stops us from leading ourselves.

Fear stops us from letting go of the past.

Fear keeps our habitual patterns in place.

Being frightened and feeling second best stop us from finding our true selves.

Fear buries the natural me.

“A musician must make music, and artists must paint,
a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.
What a man can be, he must be”
(Maslow)

What about you?

Good Luck

Andre Koen
www.andrekoen.com