Learn from yesterday,

  Live for today,

    Hope for tomorrow.

A park bench in Leo Mol Sculpture Gardens, Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg,MB

Inspiration for this newsletter comes from a workshop I recently co-developed:

How to Turn Your Worst Customer Into Your Best Customer ? the Five Master Tools of Customer Service. The five master tools are - Competence, Confidence, Concern, Communication, Courtesy. As I was preparing this newsletter I was wondering what the Five master Tools of Life would be? Creativity, Commitment and Courage came to mind immediately. What do you think the other two are?

Send your thoughts to benita@lifematterscoaching.com .

Coach Approach

by Benita Stafford-Smith

Creativity

Imagination is more important than knowledge ? Einstein

In his book Care of the Soul , Thomas Moore gives us a wonderful refreshing look at Creativity. He reminds us we do not need to be a great writer, artist or musician to express creativity in our lives. He reminds us our creativity shows up in the way we dress; decorate our homes and offices, even the vehicles we buy. Stand at a busy downtown intersection and spend some time noticing creativity. No two people are dressed exactly alike, have exactly the same hair cut. wear the same footwear or the same jewelry. Look around your environment, your home and/or your office. What kind of space have you created? What does it say about you?

Consider recognizing the creativity you display. Once recognized, consider enhancing it. What could you do today to further express your natural creativity? List five things and then develop a plan with timelines.

Commitment

Great minds have purposes, other have wishes Anonymous

Commitment is about the little things we do each day. It all starts with making a commitment and then executing on that every day. Here's a beautiful example compliments of an anonymous email.

Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come see the daffodils before they are over." I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead . "I will come next Tuesday," I promised, a little reluctantly, on her third call. Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and so I drove there.

When I finally walked into Carolyn's house and hugged and greeted my grandchildren, I said, "Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road is invisible in the clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see bad enough to drive another inch!" My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this all the time, Mother." "How far will we have to drive?" "Just a few blocks," Carolyn said. "I'll drive. I'm used to this. It's all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience." After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand lettered sign that read, " Daffodil Garden ." We got out of the car and each took a child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down the pat h. Then, we turned a corner of the pat h, and I looked up and gasped.

Before me lay the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it down over the mountain peak and slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling pat terns great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, saffron, and butter yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted as a group so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers. "But who has done this?" I asked Carolyn. "It's just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well kept A-frame house that looked small and modest in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house.

On the patio, we saw a poster, "Answers to the questions I Know You Are Asking" was the headline. The first answer was a simple one. "50,000 bulbs," it read. The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and very little brain."

The third answer was, "Began in 1958."

There it was, The Daffodil Principle. For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman, whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun - one bulb at a time - to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountaintop. Still, just planting one bulb at a time, year after year, had changed the world. This unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. She had created something of indescribable magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.

The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time?often just one baby-step at a time?and learning to love the doing; learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.

"It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Carolyn. ?What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it ?one bulb at a time' through The Daffodil Principle all those years? Just think what I might have been able to achieve!"

My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. "Start tomorrow," she said. It's so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, "How can I put this to use today?"

Courage

There are powers inside of you which, if you could discover and use, would make of you everything you ever dreamed or imagined you could become."~ Orison Swett Marden

Have you given yourself permission to be as great, as powerful and as passionate as you really are? What stops you from Stepping into your Greatness? Is it ? shoulds, coulds and ought tos, - too old, not smart enough, too ugly, too fat, not enough money, time, education - the list can go on and on. All these are the opposite of courage.

Look to your past victories to help you take the leap forward. Look to history for examples of men and women who have displayed courage. Look to present day role models. Most importantly, look deep inside yourself and draw up the courage that has is waiting there.

Where in your life do you need to be more courageous? Work, home, family, relationships, community, volunteering, vacations? Work with a supportive friend and set a plan of action to start exercising your courage on a regular basis. The more you use it the easier it gets. Suddenly that long jump off the cliff turns into a small step off the curb.

In a recently article by Frances Moore Lappe ? ?What are you afraid of?? she tells us that we each have about 66,000 thoughts a day and that two-thirds of them are fear-based. Those fears come in two basic forms: fear of the unknown and fear of conflict. She states that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we are. And she brilliantly ends the article with ?Because when you get right down to it, even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully. Check out her book, You Have the Power: Choosing Courage in a Culture of Fear .

Step Into Your Greatness today!