Are you living life at an ever increasing pace?Do you feel as though you are reacting to events and other people in all aspects of your life?Do you feel as though you have little or no control of your time?Do you feel you have a lack of choice about things – feel disempowered?Do you take time to think about what is important to you? I was running a training programme for a number of middle ranking people with a large global organisation. In common with many of us, the attendees would have answered the questions above with a “yes” in nearly every case, apart from the last one! How many of you would do the same? Part way through the programme, I signed onto my email and amongst them was one with an attachment labelled “Slow Dance”, (written by David Weatherford). The verse below gives a clue as to the overall tone of the poem.

Do you run through each day on the fly

When you ask “How are you?”, do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed

With the next hundred chores running through your head?

You’d better slow down

Don’t dance so fast

Time is short

The music won’t last

As we restarted after lunch, I read the whole poem to the group as it reinforced the underlying philosophy of the programme. When I finished there was a long silence while people thought about what they had just heard – before asking me to repeat it! We then had a great discussion about how it struck home to so many and what they would do to slow down!

It led me to think about how so many of us live in such a frenetic and disempowered way that we loose sight of what is important to us. We allow other people and events to own our lives! Perhaps we find this more comfortable as it means we do not have to take responsibility for our actions and reactions? We overlook one of the most powerful things we have available – CHOICE!

We choose what activities we do, based on our values and beliefs (including the limiting beliefs which are often holding us back).We choose our emotions and responses to people or situations.We choose our values and priorities in life – and how we spend our time The challenge is to accept we have choice. This puts responsibility right back with us! We have to stop blaming others for causing our feelings or “making” us behave in certain ways. We have to stop feeling as though we are stuck with a particular employer, boss or situation. To do this we have to accept and own this responsibility. For many it is truly liberating – and empowering. For others it is scary – even terrifying!

Learning new skills in order to develop more choices can transform your life. e.g. Recognising that you can choose your emotions can stop you carrying lousy feelings with you for the day. Taking them home to transfer them to your partner or children can become a thing of the past. Start to behave more assertively at work so that you no longer accept other people controlling your time, or giving you so much to do that you frequently work late or take work home can make you, and those around you, a lot happier!

A challenge for many of us, is to learn to value our own time and to realise that it is our time. To quote Peter Drucker, “Time is a perishable resource and cannot be stored. There is no substitute for time, it is irreplaceable!” Think about this, and what difference it can make to your life if you choose to adopt the message and begin to treat time as important and valuable.

Remember it is your life – you can choose to own it! Sometimes, starting on this journey can be cathartic and painful – breaking through this to the empowered future is worth it.

I know for me, I treasure the fact that I own what I do with my time (and how I choose to respond to client demands on my time compared with the “home” needs). I feel more centred by recognising my emotions and responses are MINE. If I find myself becoming annoyed or frustrated – it is my choice to let this continue, or to change it. The result, I am much calmer, give people around me more time – and love the fact that I own my own life.

Graham Yemm is a partner in managingpressure.com/ Managing Pressure and has 20 years of experience of working with organisations and individuals, internationally and in the UK, to help them manage time more effectively and to deal with pressure and stress. He can be reached through mailto:info@managingpressure.com info@managingpressure.com or 44 1483 480656.

I have a habit of sending a thank you letter for meeting after any meeting I attend. People often tell me it is not serious and out of contest but I believe a thank you letter for meeting is necessary for any decent business man.

In this article I will describe the benefits of a good thank you letter for meeting and the components it should include.

I am taking any meeting seriously. I make sure all the important people accept the meeting invitation and prepare a good agenda for the meeting. I don’t do it to get a thank you letter for meeting. I do it in order to have a fruitful meeting with good decisions.
After this kind of effort the best thing is to get a thank you letter for meeting.

How many times have you conducted a meeting with out getting a feedback? A thank you letter meeting gives you the best feedback you can get.

So let me answer the most important questions about thank you letter for meeting:

When to send the thank you letter for a meeting?
The best time to send the thank you letter for meeting is on the beginning of the first week after the meeting. Sending it right after the meeting will seem too faked and sending the thank you letter for meeting after a long period will not be relevant. Sending it in the beginning of the week will show that you have thought about it during the weekend and decided that it worth a thank you letter for meeting.

Who should you address the thank you letter for meeting?

You should address the letter to the meeting conductor directly and to the information of all the meeting attendees and other interested parties. Remember, you write a thank you letter for meeting so that all the interested parties will read it.

What should be on a thank you letter for meeting?

You should start the letter by thanking the meeting conductor for the meeting with not more than two sentences. The thank you letter for meeting should include afterworlds a brief description of the benefits you got from the meeting. Then, you may add a personal compliment for the meeting conductor for his meeting preparation and management. If there are remarks or points of improvement I usually add them briefly in the end of the thank you letter for meeting.

Of course, A thank you letter for meeting is good only for good meetings. Do not send thank you letter for a meeting that doesn’t deserve it.

Use this tool in your career as leverage to a better career – honor one who conducts a good meeting with a good thank you letter for meeting.

More articles about effective meetings and a comprehensive guide of time management methods could be found on 911makemoretime.com The time management site. It’s all about time management – The most comprehensive resource for Time management, meetings and other time making methods – 911makemoretime.com 911makemoretime.

We may have heard at some point in our lives that if we truly believe in something, having faith that it will happen, then it really will happen. Some people don’t completely accept that, but the Bible is clear; what you believe is what you get. Jesus said, “Whatsoever things you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them” (Mark 11:24).

But, He didn’t say we would see the manifestation of our prayers immediately. We need to give God time to work things out, continue in our faith, and not doubt, “For a man who wavers is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord” (James 1:6-7).

Expectation is the key to receiving from Him. What good does it do to pray without expecting God to answer? You might as well be talking to a tree. The Bible says, “Without faith, it is impossible to please God, for he who comes to Him must believe that He is God, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6).

Have you noticed that most people do not expect for things to work out? In fact, most people have been taught to believe in negative outcomes. The reasoning is; “If things don’t work out, I won’t be disappointed.” There’s no logic in that! Even though one may not be expecting, one still at least hopes. Crushed hopes cause disappointment too.

Having faith and expecting in the positive is vital to our success. If we could only believe that everything will work out and trust that what we want will happen, we’d have great results. Life would change dramatically. But, for some reason, most people just can’t believe that things will work out for them. They look at past results and judge their future based on that past.

It’s true that future results can best be predicted by past behavior. So, if your past behavior has been to not expect in positive outcomes, then change that behavior. It doesn’t take any more effort to believe in a positive outcome than it does in a negative one.

Faith is required to receive from God, and our expectation is proof of our faith. So, if we ask God for something, but then we don’t do anything on our part to bring it to pass, we must question our faith.

God will do His part for sure, but we are required to do our part as well. What is our part? Expect! Believe it, confess it, and anything else that could possibly be done on our part, for “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:20).

Daniel N. Brown is a teacher of biblical success principles! Get his
FREE Special Report, christian-prosperity.com/freereport.html “Christian
Prosperity Secrets” when you subscribe to his FREE Weekly
E-letter… SecretPlaceOnline.com SecretPlaceOnline.com

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.

There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas.

There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation. Whilst there is no sure fire route to commercial success, these processes improve the probability that good ideas will be generated and selected and that investment in developing and commercialising those ideas will not be wasted.

Being receptive to inspiration

Inspiration is one the most misunderstood concepts in creativity and innovation.

Inspiration or insight is that moment when solutions to problems become apparent – they reach the conscious mind from the subconscious. The mind has been tackling problems that have previously been identified either consciously or unconsciously and when the solution arrives, people say aha!

From the above it is possible to construct processes that:

a) Make inspiration more likely.

b) Ensure that the mind is receptive to inspiration when it arrives.

Some of the methods include:

a) Engaging in the task. Instead of waiting for inspiration, it can be triggered by forcing the mind to address problems and find solutions. For example, once screenwriters begin a screenplay, they find that ideas for other screenplays flow like lava from a volcano.

b) Research. Triggers intellectual cross-pollination and advances the boundaries of the task to encompass what is already known. Increases the chance of productivity being out of the ordinary. For example, screenwriters know how valuable research is to the quality of their output.

c) Prolific productivity. The positive relationship between quantity and quality is well known. Further, prolific production increases performance to optimal levels through the learning of competencies, new knowledge, refinement of methodology and so forth. For example, screenwriters know that their seventh screenplay was far better then their first.

These and other topics are covered in depth in the MBA dissertation on Managing Creativity & Innovation, which can be purchased (along with a Creativity and Innovation DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator Software and Power Point Presentation) from managing-creativity.com/ managing-creativity.com/

You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

Kal Bishop, MBA

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You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained.

Kal Bishop is a management consultant based in London, UK. He has consulted in the visual media and software industries and for clients such as Toshiba and Transport for London. He has led Improv, creativity and innovation workshops, exhibited artwork in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London and written a number of screenplays. He is a passionate traveller. He can be reached on managing-creativity.com/ managing-creativity.com/