Last year on this day I was away for the weekend in Mombasa, Kenya with a close friend/client at an “out of this world resort” which he owns and calls Zawadi (Swahili word for a gift).
We decided not to wear a watch or use the Internet. We were there for less than 1.5 days but it seemed like 1.5 months!
We had several intense discussions about spirituality, business, and family in different amazing settings within the resort. We swam in the ocean, slept under the sky, took power naps around breathtaking views, drank madafu (coconut water), ate lobsters, crabs, fish, and prawns.
I had gone to Zawadi after spending four full days with 20 branch managers of a major Bank, so I was exhausted when I reached there. However, after 1.5 days, I felt energized, inspired and uplifted!
When you are in the company of close friends in a wonderful setting, you get rejuvenated. It was a real Zawadi (gift) and an experience which will be etched in my memory forever!
Zest creates joy; it gives you the ability to appreciate life even when there are ups and downs; the drive to face challenges in a positive manner.
Zest is fueled by what excites you, makes you enthusiastic and passionate. If you know what this is, do more of it.
When you are living and working with passion, it is contagious and it inspires others. Work and life are then less stressful.
Finding things that make you feel excited about life help to increase your zest – but doing the right thing does too. How you build your relationships with loved ones can have an impact on how zestful you feel. If you have loving and jovial relationships, you enhance your energy.
People who practice zest embrace life as an adventure and push the envelope. They see possibility where others only see problems. They do big things and bring other people along on their journey.
Create zest in your life and experience a life of unbridled energy and enthusiasm!
“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional,” said the Dalai Lama, quoting an old Zen saying.
Life inevitably brings pain and temporary defeats, even on the road to success. Nothing is better for softening blows than developing a good sense of humor. Learn to laugh at yourself.
When you see the humor in embarrassing situations, they cease to be stressful. The person who can laugh often can keep going when others fail.
You can’t win all the time. Michael Jordan, considered to be the greatest basketball player of all time, scored on fewer than half of his field goal attempts. Great athletes know that they will fail often on their road to victory. They also know that every failure carries the seed of success.
Every failure makes room for future success if you allow the failure to teach you a lesson. In a particular week, you may miss your deadlines or have an argument with your spouse. This may make you lose hope and become fearful. However, respond with faith and persistence!
There is a purpose in each of our lives. We may need to dig deep within ourselves to find out what that purpose is, but the clearer our mission is, the better are our chances of accomplishing it.
Step 2 – Maintain Positive Attitudes
We’re all gifted and blessed in our own unique ways. When we treasure who we are and believe in our inherent capabilities, we find that the world also starts to believe in us. When we are willing to bet on ourselves, the world will bet on us as well.
Step 3 – Discover Hone Your Life Skills
Our happiness comes from focusing our energies on the things that we identify as important in life and that are aligned to our mission. If we try to do too much, our priorities become jumbled, which can lead to confusion, frustration, and unhappiness.
Step 4 – Build Healthy Relationships
Our relationships with our close ones play a big part in our lives. When we have healthy relationships filled with love, respect, dialogue, and learning, we experience abounding happiness.
Step 5 – Let Ethics and Values be your Guide
Our deepest joy comes from living an ethical life. Unethical living may bring temporary happiness, but it will be short-lived. Deep within each of us is a soul that is pure, which is why when we engage in pure activities, we experience happiness.
Step 6 – Awaken your Spirituality
Spirituality does not just exist in places of worship; it is right in our midst, in everything we do from dusk to dawn.
Step 7 – Enjoy the Ride
Working on the first six steps in this gives us internal contentment of having lived to our full potential and living an ethical and empowering life, but it is the seventh step that brings about the fun and joy of life. The seventh step without the first six can bring about a limited happiness, but lasting and sustained happiness comes from working on the first six steps whilst savoring and enjoying the process.
Every moment is a priceless blessing. Happiness is not a destination, it is a process. Life is a journey to be savored every step of the way.
First – Craft a Wow statement you would want to articulate to either your creator when you report back or to your loved ones so that they may share it when speaking about your life.
Second – Define your short, medium, and long-term goals by aligning them to your Wow statement.
Third – Execute and consistently evaluate your life based on your goals as defined above.
When you come from a place of authenticity there is power around you!
A lot of people fear being authentic because maybe they won’t be liked or accepted. If someone is going to like you because you are living a lie, then sooner or later the truth will reveal itself and their liking for you will be short lived. Thus. you will attract people in your life who you really do not want to associate with.
If you want your success to be sustainable; if you want your success to have a strong foundation; if you want your success to have a purpose and meaning, then there is no other way but to be authentic.
As Steve Jobs aptly said:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice……”
When you are authentic, there is a twinkle in your eye and something magnetic around your aura that reflects power!
When it comes to voluntary service one must experience the benefits that come with it to know that the ROI is staggeringly high!
Most think that it is a waste of time to volunteer, and the opportunity cost is not justified. On the contrary, the skills you learn leading voluntary groups are difficult to learn elsewhere. You learn interpersonal skills, leadership, time management, patience, tenacity, as well as many other skills while working with people who don’t get paid. You are inspiring the team not with money, but with a cause – a purpose. This requires a different and more powerful skill. This is tangible ROI!
For me, whenever I start my morning with voluntary work, the day flows smoothly and effortlessly. This is Intangible ROI! I don’t need a bigger justification for continuing to do voluntary work!
Step 1 – Discover Yourself
