Dads ot The World, Celebrate!

Dads of the World, Celebrate!!

©2015 Scott Wilson

Father's Day - The day where sons and daughters get together to show their appreciation for dad, right?  Not for me.  Today is my day to celebrate the awesome, frightening, incredible privilege of being a dad.  Much as I am grateful for the acts of appreciation, I sincerely enjoy a day to stop and reflect on this one significant role that I added to my life.

Throughout life we wear many hats: child, adult, parent, student, teacher, employee, passenger, driver, team member, coach, caretaker, friend, lover, spouse, artist, reader, writer and so many more.   Few of these roles compare to the unimaginable experience of fatherhood.  Parenthood, real parenthood, is not for the faint of heart.  The joys and the sorrows, the excitement and worry - it is truly a roller-coaster of emotion.

First, your love for your mate materializes in the words "I'm pregnant."  Then there is anxious waiting and anticipation that climaxes with the announcement "It's time." In one miraculous moment this new life emerges into the world and they are your responsibility - to love, to care for, to nurture and to introduce to all the wonders and possibilities of this amazing world.  The very thought of it overwhelms your mind and emotions.

For some twenty or so years you then standby as a guardian, teacher, disciplinarian, coach, guide, confidant, and eventually, friend. You struggle between holding on and letting go.  Ultimately, you are expected to release them completely, to make their own way in the universe.  Yet, no matter how old they get you still feel the weight of responsibility for them.  Through it all you cheer their victories, console their losses, support their trials, hurt with them through their pain, and laugh with them when life called for it.  You are the witness to so much of the formative and critical parts of their lives.

Dads, you have signed on for a most amazing and beautiful of missions.  It will test your resolve, stain your heart, leave deep scars, and sometimes tear you to pieces.   In return, you have the privilege to share in the unique creation of a human life, a character, a personality, and an individual person. It will carry on for your entire life and you may never know whether you were truly a 'success'.  You will make mistakes, guaranteed.  Your job is to persevere and do your best.  In the end, that is all you can do and the rest is up to them.

So dads of the world, today I salute you and encourage you to celebrate the opportunities that you have been given.  Remember to enjoy every moment that you have with your kids, both the good and the bad.  We all have a fixed number of rotations on this globe.  Today is your day, so commit again to doing your best to earn the esteemed title of 'Dad'! 

Move with Purpose

Move With Purpose

© Scott Wilson 2015

My tip for today from my study on successful leaders:  Move with purpose.

In my interactions with and observations of effective leaders I have noticed that they tend to walk and move with purpose.  Their bearing and demeanor let others know that they are in charge.  I am not stating that their is not a time and a place to meander and stroll.  However, when these people are working towards their goals they move with purpose.  Their minds and energies are focused; they do not indulge distraction.  Likewise, I am not implying that these people are stiff and formal.  Good leaders are usually relaxed and tend to convey that easiness to others. 

In French there is a saying "Il sens bien dans sa peau." which means "They feel comfortable in their skin."  This is definitely a key trait of the most successful leaders.  They are at ease with themselves and tend to put others at ease.  I believe that part of that relaxed nature is due to their sense of purpose and drive.  Leaders have a plan and they are working that plan.  They are not waffling about their decisions.  They make decisions. Commit to them and see them through.

If a decision leads to an undesirable or unexpected outcome the excellent leader stops, takes ownership of the event, changes course and moves on.  This should be our lesson.  First, learn to accept ourselves and become comfortable with who and what we are; only then will we be able to extend that grace towards others.  Note that only we can determine who and what we are; others will always see us from there own biased perspective. We are so much more than mothers, fathers, lovers, friends, workers and colleagues.  Get to the core of yourself; know definitively from head to toe who you are.

Next, from a proper sense of self we determine a purpose that we wish to pursue.  Famous motivational writer Earl Nightingale called this "a worthy ideal."  A worthy ideal can be any goal that one strives to achieve and maintain, anything from weight loss to career achievement.  This must be chosen with care as we will be orienting ourselves to achieve this and shedding any distractions.  Difficulties will arise when we develop goals that compete with each other for our time and energy or when we permit distractions.

So finally, having wisely chosen our goals, we move to achieve them. We move with purpose.  When conflicts arise we own them and deal with them either according to their priorities or we adjust our priorities.  Make your decisions with confidence based on knowledge and tempered with instinct.  Listen to both your heart and your mind and do no waffle.  Accept that priorities can change and goals can be paused.  For example, an ailing family member may temporarily trump weight loss plans or career goals. Do not distress - choose and continue to move with purpose in the new direction.

No doubt there those who read my words above and are distressing that they do not have the confidence in themselves or they lack commitment to their purpose.  I offer this advice.  Act as though you do.  Some call this "faking it till you make it."  You want self-confidence.  You want purpose.  Your mind is rarely the problem.  Your fearful heart is usually the culprit holding you back.  In this situation your best course of action is to act decisively with purpose.  In so doing you will be teaching your timid heart to become more bold and to build its trust in you.

I teach young Air Cadets.  One of the things that we instill in these fine young folks is to walk in a certain way when in uniform.  I am not talking about marching.  They are instructed to stand tall, carry items in their left hand and to keep their arms relatively straight.  Having their right hands free allows them to easily salute or shake hands.  Keeping their bearing upright and in control keeps them alert and ready to respond to others.  In short, by teaching people to walk with purpose their thinking  and demeanor changes.  They are beginning to feel and act like the very leaders that we are training them to become.

I do not downplay the difficulty of what I have outlined.  Learning who we are takes a lifetime so we better get started.  Choosing our goals can be equally challenging for they can impact who we become.  But if we want success we cannot shy away from these requirements and then putting them into action.  So I heartily encourage you today to:

Learn who you are...

Choose carefully your goals...

And move firmly with purpose!

 

Get a perspective!

Get a perspective!

© 2015 Scott Wilson

 

"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot." – Charlie Chaplin

 

As we navigate this thing called life we will routinely encounter both joys and sorrows. Goals will be thwarted.  Dreams will meet with difficulties.  Steps in the correct direction towards self-improvement will seem to stall and fail.  How we choose to deal with these events will literally make the difference between genuine success and failure.

 

If these events were simply logical matters we would all naturally resolve them in a dispassionate way.   Unfortunately, despite our beliefs to the contrary, we are not truly driven by rational thinking.  We are emotional creatures and emotions tend to drive thinking and trump our best intentions.  Emotions are the elements that turn easy tasks arduous and dreary work into joy.  When we simply try to mentally suppress our emotions we inevitably cause them to build in intensity until they overcome our control.  So we need to understand what factors affect our emotions.

 

One of the most powerful influences on our emotions is our perspective.  Fortunately, perspective is also a variable that we can greatly influence with our rationale minds.  Our minds can gain a measure of control over our emotions if we are willing to understand how our emotions are affected by our perceptions of the things and events around us.

 

To explain the power of perception and emotions allow me to use the extreme illustration of a phobia.  Arachnophobia is the extreme fear of spiders.  I have seen grown men and women jumping up on chairs and leaping great distances to evade the approach of a harmless house spider.  This tiny delicate creature that could easily be smashed by even the smallest toddler has the power to hurl an over 150 pound human being across a room.  Amazing.

 

Why does this happen?  Because the people affected by the phobia perceive the spider as a far greater threat than it is in reality.  Phobias are usually overcome by gradually changing the person’s perspective towards the object of their fear.  By repeated exposure the individuals come to realize that the objects of their fear are not truly threatening to them.  For the arachnophobic people, they come to see spiders for the delicate and benign creatures that they are.

 

This understanding can help us with our own difficulties.  I often see people developing a great deal of stress about what someone said or did to them or about some personal failure.  We tend to internalize these external stressors and then exaggerate their implications.  A person who is trying to lose weight succumbs to temptation and overeats on a weekend and then beats themselves up for the rest of the week.  Or worse, they contemplate quitting their efforts to improve their health.  We do this because we have lost perspective on parts of our lives and enable our emotions to overcome us.

 

I have a simple solution for such events.  I close my eyes and take a deep breath.  When I let out the breath slowly I try to imagine how I will perceive this difficulty tomorrow.  I then imagine how this problem will look in a week.  From there I move to a month and then a year.  Beyond that I seek to imagine the trouble from 5 and 10 years away.  Lastly, I imagine this matter from the perspective of my deathbed.  When I return from my time-travelling I ask myself “How was it?”  Based on my answers at the various times I respond accordingly.

 

Obviously I want to extend significant effort to those things that will have an impact on me when I am in my final moments.  However, I rarely find that any of my troubles seem to look all that bad beyond a day or a week.  What happened to the emotions and the trauma of the event that I am dealing with?  They are now tempered by the proper perspective of the situation.  If something will be forgettable or insignificant in less than a year then why would we want to give it so much of our hearts and our minds today?

 

This is only one exercise.  My point is that we can use our imagination and our minds to change our perspective on virtually anything from weight loss to a difficult spouse or from a troubled child to a bad job situation.  Perspective will not absolve us of the need to take action but it will help to relieve us of much of the fear and anger that might cloud our best response.

So if something is troubling you today then take a few quiet moments to honestly and creatively look at your problem from some new and different perspectives. You could discover that it is not nearly as bad as you thought or you might even find some solutions that you never considered before! 

Measuring Success

Measuring Success

©Scott Wilson 2015

This being Valentine's Day my subject will be somewhat intimate to me. I wish to speak towards success in life as a whole. My subject is one of the most remarkable people that I have ever had the privilege to know.

Growing up, my friend had a difficult time in home that suffered emotional turmoil and neglect mixed with bankruptcy, divorce and instability.  She had some struggles in school and several of her teachers as much as told her that she was just not capable in some subjects. Her parents did not support nor did they encourage her academic efforts.  At sixteen, she struck out on her own, heading to live at a college more than an hour's travel from home.

Finally, in college she found some friends and an environment that supported her dream to graduate one day from university. Teachers were now more responsive in helping. And with some tutoring in areas where she had struggled she soon began to excel. Home and its chaos still occasionally spilled over into her path but she pressed on with growing confidence.  It was there that my friend found love, a young man who lived near the college. He saw in her someone who persevered and overcame so many obstacles.  He loved her fierce passion and strong family values despite so much around her that acted to snuff it out. Together they dreamed of forging their own family and future.

After graduating college the pair went off to Ottawa to study at university together. Four years later they both had the honours degrees that they had so dilligently sought. Next marriage and work followed - this took them further from their birthplaces and families as they struck out together into new and foreign territory. His career began as technical professional and she became a support worker. It was then that both happiness and tragedy stuck. They were told they could not conceive normally but were overjoyed when they learned that she was expecting twins - something they both had dreamed about. But their joy was crushed with pain as they suffered a miscarriage and their deeply anticipated twins Sarah Anne and Amy Anne lived but a day.

In there darkness a light arose and she conceived again. This time a healthy boy arrived one year to the day that they lost their beautiful daughters. And then again there came great difficulty and struggle when a horrid woman at a support group falsely accused my dear friend of abuse. Amid the turmoil and betrayal my beautiful comrade wrote a powerful letter of forgiveness to her accuser that touched the hearts of several people.

In time their family grew to six.  And my young heroine sought to give her children the best by teaching them from home. And under here loving care their children proved to be bright and full of life.  Unfortunately, time and biology took their toll. A new challenge arose in the form of mental health struggles. My brave lady presses on to this day  fighting this terrible challenge within herself.

The children are all good and responsible citizens at various stages of life. By all standards the family is a success. Yes, they struggle with bills and daily difficulties but all in all they have no real significant setbacks.  But still my good friend feels a failure at her life. Happy healthy kids, a kind considerate husband of nearly 25 years and a decent home all attest to her powerful drive to make her desires into reality and to keep going. Despite poor family role models and a difficult start she managed to successfully navigate the dangerous landmines of life.

I so wish my friend could see herself and her family differently. Both she and our society tend to judge with a harshness thay guarantees failure for almost everyone. By now you may have guessed that my friend is my wonderful and talented wife. I am torn apart when she criticises her achievements and belittles all that she has done. She is still a beautiful soul to me, with so much to be proud of and so much more promise ahead of her. Today, I think of her and I am so grateful for all that she has given me over our lives together and I am proud of all that she has overcome.  Her ruler does not measure achievement as mine does but that is okay.  Like George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life" I suspect that one day she may find a kinder and gentler way of measuring success, one that we all can benefit from discovering!

Designed to Succeed: The Final Notch

Whether reaching the point of decision or nearing our goals we all find ourselves changed for the better.



Designed to Succeed: The Final Notch: The Final Notch ©Scott D. Wilson 2015 It should be clear to us all that success is not a destination but rather a choice and proc...

The Final Notch

The Final Notch

©Scott D. Wilson 2015

It should be clear to us all that success is not a destination but rather a choice and process.  In our journey of success there are moments that will forever mark our path. What follows here is some of my thoughts on such events.  I present them here to encourage those who strive for self-improvement.

In April 2013 I reached the last notch.  I was wearing 40 inch waist pants and they were tight. My leather belt was on its last notch. I vowed that I would not buy another belt or a larger pair of pants.

It was then an there that I returned to an application that I had discovered, LoseIt, with the intent to learn control of my food intake and improvement to my activity levels. I knew this was no diet. This was going to be a fundamental change to my relationship to food and exercise. I was no longer going to be a victim to my appetite. To those unfamiliar to such websites and applications, LoseIt.com is a company that helps people to count the calories in their food and to learn the energy burned by activity and exercise.

Fast forward to today. I have again reached the final notch. There are only 5 notch holes in my belt. They are about one inch apart. So I have moved 4 notches down or 4 inches. And the belt is getting loose. I am 'only' down 25 pounds. I am now below 20% body fat. I can run up 3 office flights of stairs without being winded. I fluctuate a bit but I am consistently down. I lost weight this past December. I eat whatever I desire as long as it meets my budget. To me, this is true freedom.

Do I want to lose another 20 pounds?  Yep, eventually. For now, I am happy to have a new problem. I guess I need a new belt soon and I need to replace some pants. I am keeping this belt though. It will serve as my dual reminder of hitting 'the last notch.'

Would I say my journey towards better health has been successful?  Yes, and the owners of LoseIt must believe this too because they have made me a moderator on their site so I can help others on their own journeys. It is my hope that all folks seeking to lose weight and improve their health will soon share my particular belt 'problem.'

Whether it is weight, health, fame, fotune or any noble goal it is important to reach that final notch. Whether starting out or nearing the destintion I hope that you have all reached your own 'last notch.'  I applaud you regardless of which 'last notch' it is!!!!

Ghosts of the Past

Ghosts of the Past©Scott D. Wilson 2015

"The best predictor of future behavior is relevant past behavior." — Dr. Phil

Well, it is 2015, a new year.  January is classically the time to reflect on the past and look towards the future.  I have quoted above the the popular maxim of television personality Doctor Phil McGraw.  From a straightforward context this statement seems completely sound.  Our past is usually a good way to forecast our future.  Generally this is true but specifically it can and will break down.  The burning question that arises from this adage is:  Does our past define us? Have our past choices locked us on a certain and inevitable course?

The answer depends fundamentally on how we view existence. If we are mere biological machines mindlessly reacting to the stimuli of our environment then we are certainly doomed to follow a hapless path of consequence and reaction till we die. Like a mechanical device, our behaviour would be governed by a set of rules, complex or otherwise, and so we would predictably follow a given path from birth to death based on action and reaction. This is the view of many scientists today. If this is so then we are all victims of circumstance and fate.  Our past has locked us on auto-pilot.

Indeed, many people do live predictable lives. They are puzzled by their own reactions and choices. They live many days but experience little difference and rarely learn from their own experiences or those of others.  These unfortunate folks follow life like a dream, letting it take them where it may, hoping that it does not become a nightmare and occasionally hoping they will wake up.  Doctor Phil is correct about such people. They definitely prove the adage about the past and reinforce the scientific view of causality.

Fortunately, there is much evidence to show that we each retain a powerful ability, and that is the option to choose. We always have the opportunity to choose a different path for our life. We can learn from our successes and failures, as well as those of others. With careful consideration we can opt to move away from the choices of the past and put into action different possibilities and open new unconsidered doors of opportunity.

Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith were drunks. Their past decisions had locked them into a wreckless addiction with alcohol. They were both on paths that would have brought sickness and ruin to their lives. Medicine had told them they would either die of alcoholism or become confined to an assylum. One day the two met, fell into conversation and became friends. Together they discovered a different path that changed their lives and ended their slavery to drink. Their choices created a new way for addicts and from their work, today we have Alcoholics Anonymous.

We do not need to be a slave to our past. The past may haunt us but it does not have the power to define us. We all hold the spark of creation within us. Our future is not built for us.  We can build something new today. We can make new pathways. We can say goodbye to our ghosts!

“My past has not defined me, destroyed me, deterred me, or defeated me; it has only strengthened me.”  ― Steve Maraboli