YOU have the POWER! It is INSIDE

We may not completely control our careers, but we are in full control over

• Which skills we choose to acquire, refine and master.
• Which talents we nurture and refine into our Perfexcellence toolbox.
• Which passions we pursue and what problems we deploy our skills and talents at.
• What impressions we make on the people we meet.
• Whether we respond, or react to the curveballs that our careers throw us.

These are the things that largely determine our career success. The rest is mostly luck and as someone once said “Good luck is opportunity meets preparation”. So how are we preparing?

We may not have full control over every aspect of our health, but we do largely have control over

• Those little habits that make up our personal hygiene.
• What we eat, how much of it and how often.
• How physical exercise we put in regularly.
• How long we let each feeling and emotion (good or bad) live in our hearts.
• How we choose to perceive the ‘injustices’ in the world.

And these largely determine how healthy we are – physically, emotionally and spiritually. There are no sustainably fulfilling careers in unhealthy bodies. So how are we ensuring that our health won’t sabotage our careers and dreams?

We cannot dictate people’s actions but we can chose and do control

• How we perceive people and consequently treat them.
• How we serve, help and appreciate those whose paths we cross.
• Whether by our deeds and words, we leave people better off than we met them.
• Whether our actions paint a consistent picture of our character.
• Whether we leave each encounter better in some way than we got into it.
• How well and often we make and keep our promises.

And these things touch people’s hearts and minds and is the stuff of influence.  When that influence makes their minds dance to that song we put in their heart, they reward us by letting us lead them.

Ultimately, we all create our futures and destinies, by the very thoughts we choose to dwell on,  the acts we choose to do in the present and what stories we choose to tell ourselves when things don’t go as planned.

The dirty office politics, the dubious colleagues, the bad boss, the unfair compensation schemes are only part of the story but they can also be tests and launchpads to true greatness, if only we can find the power within to overcome them, as often as they rear their head up in different forms.

Yes, there is tremendous power within us but we must be willing to pay the price to wield it.

• Can we muster the strength to sacrifice the mundane for the significant … or vice versa if the mundane is what enriches another life?
• Will we have the courage to deny our senses pleasure now that in order to gratify our spiritual yearnings?
• Will we be able to say no to eating the fruit today and rather plant a tree of whose fruit neither we nor ours may eat but that will feed a small nation tomorrow?

The path to perfexcellence is riddled with such choices and we must find that courage, that willpower, that love and that vision to make the right calls and do it consistently no matter how many times we fail.