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How Jennifer Aniston Helps Me Change the World
Sunday, 7th March 2010
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Wow this year is certainly flying through quickly! We had an all time record number of visitors during February - 3,338 visitors. Thank you all for continuing to come back every week to be inspired by my philosophies on life and turning your dreams into reality. Words cannot begin to describe how much I appreciate it. Thank you so much!
This week’s post is about how Hollywood actress Jennifer Aniston helps me to change the world. I know it’s a bit of a weird title but bear with me here while I explain.
So once upon a time, I’m not sure from whom or where I got this, but I heard a story about Jennifer Aniston and something that she does that is very Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!’esque.
You know those challenges that life sometimes throws up at you and it just hits you so hard it’s like someone as just whacked the side of your face with a cricket bat with an all mighty CRACK!And then you can’t focus on anything because this problem has just blown your whole world apart. You know the problems I’m talking about right?
Well Jennifer has a very interesting way of dealing with them. Whenever a problem like that comes along, no matter what time of the day it comes through, she’ll take the rest of the day off and not do anything. Just completely shut down and try to relax for the entire day until she goes to sleep that night. Then when she wakes up in the morning the next day, she’ll take complete responsibility for whatever was her part of that problem, no matter how little it is, and try everything within her power to fix it. And considering she’s doing great in Hollywood I’d say it’s working for her.
Sometimes when a problem hits you in the face like that you feel as though you’ve been wiped out and there’s often very little you can do to get control of the situation. Plus in that moment even if you did try to get control of the situation you’re fully charged with a million different emotions and you run the risk of making a bad decision in the heat of the moment. What Jen’s technique does is to allow you to relax and let your ego come into play to build up your self esteem and confidence over a period of a few hours and also while you sleep at night. Then when you wake up in the morning is up to you to regain control over your part of the problem and really make things happen for you. This is how you turn your problems into challenges and overcome them.
Now there’s a good chance that you are not the sole cause of your problem and there might have been others involved too. Unfortunately you cannot control those other people. It’s a fact of life. Get used to it. But you have complete control over your own actions and emotions towards the situation and that’s what helps you continue to Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!
So onto this week’s challenge. I challenge you to use the Jennifer Aniston method in dealing with your next big problem that comes your way. Take the rest of the day off - if you can’t get out of work or school, just take it off mentally and start having positive, empowering Internal Conversations that help your ego to do it’s job. Then when you wake up the next day its time to start changing these problems into challenges and take responsibility for the items within your control. It’s not an easy task, but it’s something I do quite often that has helped me out. I hope it helps you too.
Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!
AJ~
Author: AJ Kulatunga
Category:
inspire, lead, Jennifer Aniston, positive thinking, problems, challenges,
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The Art of Story Telling
Sunday, 28th February 2010
I live my life through stories. I’m either telling them or collecting them all the time. Have you ever really thought about how powerful stories can be? I thought I’d explore the art of story telling in this week’s post.
Throughout the ages of time stories have been used to for a variety of different purposes. Think about it. Remember those bed time stories your parents read to you as a kid? The Classic fairy tales told by parents to their children all over the world in many different languages and environments, all had the purpose to make you fall asleep at night happy, content and feeling safe and secure.
Then when you were in school you heard stories about history that provide valuable clues to our past and why things work the they do in the present. More recently the Obama election campaign was filled full of stories of ordinary people that resonated with the masses because they could identify with the people in those stories. They are an amazing tool for conveying emotion, information, and valuable lessons in life. Stories allow facts to be palatable.
Consider the following. It’s a statistically proven fact that wearing a seatbelt can help save your life in a car crash. Over in the western world wearing a seat belt is considered normal behaviour but there are still a lot of countries in the world where people don’t bother. A major difference between these two behaviours is how the consequences of not wearing a seat belt are portrayed. In the western world our media is filled with car crash horror stories and the consequences of not wearing a seat belt, whereas in those other countries you never hear these horror stories and thus are less likely to think wearing a seat belt is important.
Story telling is also a very powerful tool to use when networking either in a business or social environment. There is nothing worse than two people meeting at a conference and having nothing to say to each other. Stories can really make or break a connection and so you really should get good at the art of story telling. When I was over in Thailand in 2008 for the HP Entrepreneurship Summit I got the amazing opportunity to make contact with Mechai Viravaidya aka “Mr Condom”. He’s an amazing man who’s biggest claim to fame was introducing condoms to Thailand and curbing the rate of unwanted pregnancies and the spread of diseases. Unfortunately that evening he was tired and perhaps a bit overwhelmed at the conference and didn’t seem to want to engage any of us sitting at his table. So during a break in the conversation I decided to tell him a really crazy story about condoms that I’d heard and after I’d finished telling the story he just stared at me. The rest of the table had their mouth’s open in pure shock that I would tell such a story. I just smiled back at everyone and then to my relief Mechai started laughing so hard that he nearly fell off his chair. He’d never heard anything like it in all of his life and immediately pulled out his business card to give to me. The POWER of story telling!
So here are 5 tips that will make you a better story teller:
1. Make sure your story is RELEVANT
There is no point telling a story that no one has an idea why you brought it up in the first place. So before you begin to tell your story make it relevant. Use phrases like “Speaking of
2.DESCRIBE the key points in detail
Start to describe the key points of the story including the setting, the people involved, the items used etc. This helps people imagine your story in their head and they can identify with you and your surroundings.
3.Go EMOTIONAL
Make sure your story includes some sort of emotion in it so that the person hearing your story is able to invoke that same emotion. It helps them to get involved with your story.
4.VARY your voice
There is nothing worse than speaking in a slow, monotonous voice when telling a story. If something exciting is happening speed up your pace and speak louder. When you want drama, slow it down a little and speak softer. You’re taking people on a journey so make them feel part of that journey.
5. SWAP Stories.
No one likes people who constantly talk and never shut up so get into the habit of swapping stories. Tell one. Listen to one. Tell another, listen to another. Aim to collect stories as well as provide them.
Now to put all of those into practice, a lovely friend of mine on Twitter - Kellie (@YaGirlKellz) posted a story last week that went something like this:
* * * * * * *
“so i went to go out for drinks after work with my friend last night and i didn’t get home until 230 smh....
oh but of course i have a funny story to go along with it. a guy comes 2 our table sets an apple down & says “did one of u drop this?” were like “um no whered u get that” he said thats my pickup line
hahaha.... the good old “did you drop an apple?” trick.... im sure hes gotten laid off that one before...
#wordsofwisdom after u say a pickup line, your next response PROBABLY shouldnt be “thats my pickup line”
* * * * * * *
What do you think? Now keep in mind that Twitter only allows 140 characters to be posted at the one time, so it’s a little hard to put together a great story but lets apply those 5 tips to Kellie’s story and see the difference:
* * * * * * *
Speaking of crazy nights, I went to go out for drinks after work with my friend last night and I didn’t get home until 230. smh. But of course I’ve got a funny story to go along with it. So we’re at this cocktail bar in the city, just chilling out at a table over in the corner. Usually the place is packed full of people but tonight there’s not many in there and the music isn’t too loud either so you can actually have a decent decent conversation with your friends, you know what I mean?
So my friend and I are chatting away on everything and anything and having a great time. It’s weird we haven’t known each other for long but you know how you can just click with certain people and end up really good friends? It’s like that. So we’re chatting away sipping on our cocktails and surveying the bar for cute guys when I spy this one guy walking over to us. He wasn’t that tall, had short blond hair, a little chubby but he was wearing the most hideous, dark brown shirt I’ve ever seen. Looked like he was still stuck in the 1970s and had no intentions of ever leaving! Right on cue “Play that Funky Music White Boy” comes on in the bar and it looks like he’s walking over in time to the music. CLASSIC! My friend and I burst out laughing.
So Disco Boy comes over to us and places an apple on our table totally out of the blue?!? and very slowly says in this REALLY deep...low...voice “Did one of you...drop this?” and I look over at my friend and she’s got the “what the hell!?!?” look on her face and we’re both totally confused. Why would a complete stranger come over to us and put an apple on our table and wonder if its ours??? Like why???
And you know how when you’re in weird situations your mind tries to rationalise things??? So my mind’s just gone into overdrive thinking that he’s spiked the apple or something crazy like that!!!
So finally I stumble out “um...no...where’d you get that?” and Disco boy looks at us both and all of a sudden drops the deep accent and says in a totally normal voice says “oh thats my pickup line!” And my friend and I just lose it and start laughing like crazy. Can you believe that??? That was his pickup line!!! Have you ever had anything like that happen to you???
* * * * * * *
See the difference between the two stories? Which one would you rather prefer to hear? Sure most of the details might be made up in the second story but the point of the story is still there and using those five tips help to engage the people listening to your story to give it more impact.
So your challenge this week is to take something that happens to you during the week and “story” it up Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead! style using my 5 tips. Post it in the comments section below because I’d love to hear about your adventures.
Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!
AJ~
Author: AJ Kulatunga
Category:
inspire, story, stories, story telling, tips, presentation, networking
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I’m Sorry…No I Really Am!
Sunday, 21st February 2010
Do you ever pay attention to the times when you say the words “I’m sorry”? It’s a very common terms these days as people are saying “sorry” for a variety of reasons, but does this mean that we don’t truly understand the meaning of the word, or does it imply that we no longer care what it means as long as we say it? I thought I’d explore this question further.
Consider the following scenarios:
A family sits down to dinner. The youngest is serving and accidentally knocks over the father’s wine and spills it all over the table. The child starts laughing as the wine is everywhere and creating a mess. The father fuming with anger raises his hand with the intent of punishing the act when the suddenly child recoils in fear and utters the words “I’m sorry”. The father lowers his hand. The child continues to smile while cleaning up.
On the other side of the world. A man in a suit is late for a million dollar appointment and begins pushing through the crowd of a busy shopping centre. He knocks over an old lady and she falls to the ground spilling her shopping everywhere. “I’m sorry” he utters but doesn’t even stop to help her, nor does he even look back to see what happened.
Members of the press begin to get restless as they await for a young black sporting hero to enter the room to answer their questions. Eventually Tiger Woods emerges from behind the curtains and takes his place at the podium to speak. He looks visibly shaken by his experiences over the last few months and begins his speech addressing friends, family, associates and last but not least, his fans. To each one of these groups of people he utters the words “I’m sorry”.
Three different scenarios with no other commonality other than someone apologising but What does it actually mean to apologise to someone? The conventional definition of the word sorry is generally to express regret over an action taken by oneself that has caused some sort of distress for another person. Which is fine if we actually have caused the distress, but more often than not the term sorry is just thrown about without seriously considering what we are apologising for.
In the first scenario do you think the child is saying sorry because they feel regret over spilling the wine, or just as a knee jerk reaction to calm the father down so he wont hit them? What about the second scenario. Does it seem like the man in the suit was genuinely concerned about the old lady that he knocked over? And last but not least Mr Tiger Woods apologising over his antics of infidelity over the past few months. Do you think he means it?
Tiger’s case is an interesting one. Personally I don’t know anything about him other than he’s black and is quite good at hitting a little white ball over long distances, but over the past few months the whole world has learnt more about him and unfortunately as part of that learning was uncovering a lot of his mistakes. The Tiger Woods scandal blew up in the public eye in November 2009 but it’s now February and it’s taken him a long time to issue a public apology. Some may argue that he took too long and others argue at least he had the guts to do it. I’m of the opinion that he should have done it sooner because when you live in the public eye you need to be able to handle the responsibility that comes with it. But having said that, I can understand why he took so long to do it and I honestly believe that he is sorry for all the trouble that he caused.
But it’s not just about being sorry is it? It’s about taking responsibility for your actions and fixing the situation. Making the wrongs right again. That’s he real power of an apology.
One of my heroes Donald Trump offered Tiger some interesting advice. He basically said that Tiger should get divorced, be a playboy and go back to what he does best - playing golf. While I don’t agree with the first part of Mr Trump’s advice, he does raise a good point about going back to playing golf. This is what made the world fall in love with Tiger in the first place. Playing golf was what attracted those corporate sponsorship deals that made him quite wealthy. Playing golf laid the groundwork for him to start his own education foundation to help others. Golf is Tiger’s thing, so if he is serious about making amends with his family and the rest of the world he should start there.
When you think about it. Society in general is quite odd. We spend a massive amount of time and money building up ordinary people into superstars and then when they fall because they were acting like ordinary people, we are quick to tear them down. Then if they apologise and MEAN it, then we are more than happy to build them up again. And so the cycle continues...
So this week I challenge you to PAY ATTENTION to the times when you say “I’m Sorry”. Did something you do actually cause a problem to someone else? Take responsibility for your actions and fix it. But don’t just say sorry for the sake of saying sorry. You’re not doing anyone any favours because one day a time will come when you truly need to say sorry and you won’t have a clue on how to do it.
Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!
AJ~
Author: AJ Kulatunga
Category:
Lead, Tiger Woods, scandal, sorry, Donald Trump, Golf, I’m Sorry
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Jamie Oliver’s Global Seasoning
Sunday, 14th February 2010
Every so often I’m totally blown away by someone who is so passionate about changing the world that they go out there and really make it happen. This week I saw the most inspirational video that I’ve ever seen but why I find it inspiring is not because of it’s message, but because it was a perfect example of how one person can change the world. I’m talking about Jamie Oliver’s TED Prize Award speech.
I’ve been a huge fan of Jamie’s since I first saw his cooking shows on TV from his days as the Naked Chef. I’ve always thought cooking was such a chore and in his programs he just simplified everything and actually made it look fun. Love his work! From there he branched out with a couple of more shows but soon found himself in the business of food by starting up his pet project Fifteen. For those of you who don’t know, the Fifteen project takes 15 young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds and trains them in the restaurant business. It’s a really inspiring project and I guess it marked the beginning of Jamie’s world changing efforts.
After the success of the Fifteen project Jamie started to move into bigger things. In 2005 he embarked upon a program called “Jamie’s School Dinners” which was all about changing the way school children ate while in school. The food they were serving in canteens at schools was very unhealthy and Jamie wanted to shift people’s thinking to get them to start serving healthy meals. Jamie faced a LOT of resistance and it was amazing to see that even some parents couldn’t care less about what their children were eating. Jamie triumphed in the end and the British government agreed to address the issue on a national scale. Kids all around England are now starting to see the importance of healthy eating because Jamie stood up for something he believed in.
Following A few more projects on healthy eating, Jamie went over to America to see if he could tackle the same obesity related health problems. “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” is an eye opening confrontation of the realities of the world that we are just not caring about what we eat and it has turned into a real problem over in America. Some of the stats that he talks about in his TED Prize video are quite alarming. e.g. more people are dying in the US through diet related causes than homicide! Also I’ve never seen kids not know what basic vegetables are. It just totally blew my mind the lack of basic education in the world today. What are parents doing???
The reason why I love Jamie’s efforts is that he is a clear example of one person who looked beyond the realms of their job. He’s a trained chef and he can cook up a storm but he didn’t just stop there. He looked towards developing a message and then forming a big picture idea. Imagine if you did that in your job? Success guru Robin Sharma always talks about the concept of “Leading without Title” and Jamie is the perfect example of that.
So going back to TED. For those of you who dont’ know, TED stands for Technology Entertainment Design and is an organisation dedicated to spreading ideas that change the world. Each year they reward someone who has a wish to change the world with a cash prize of $100,000 and a forum to speak at the annual TED Conference to highlight their wish. This year Jamie won the prize and his wish was:
“I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity...”
Real world changing stuff. Jamie’s prize speech totally blew me away. His message was already strong but the way he delivered it was just amazing. For those 20 minutes he was on stage, he really changed the world for the 1000s who attended and through natural justice, that passion will spill out to the networks of each one of those people and conversations start to happen and ideas begin to form. It’s a beautiful process.
Anyway without further ado this is the clip of his TED Prize Speech:
One thing I really took away from Jamie’s speech is his level of passion about this topic and it got me thinking, what if you could bring that level of passion into anything that you did and hence appears this week’s challenge.
I challenge you to bring the same level of passion that Jamie has into something that you do. So if you’re in sales I want you to sell like you were on the world stage. If you’re a writer, then write as though you were addressing the world. Do something different in your meetings to make things more interesting and the discussion livelier. No matter who you are and what you do I want you to bring some amazing passion into some element of your day to day job for the entire week and see the results that it brings you. Let me know how you go by posting a comment below.
Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!
AJ~
p.s. For my readers in the USA, please help Jamie out with his crusade by signing his American Food Revolution petition. Help him make kids live longer so they can continue to Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!
Author: AJ Kulatunga
Category:
dream, build, jamie oliver, food revolution, TED, TED Prize, passion
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