Blog Action Day 2009 Climate Change

This is the day we have been awaiting for the past few weeks. Today we will talk about climate change as a contribution to Blog Action Day 2009. As I declared previously, positive thinking touches all walks of our lives, the same applies to Climate Change – we have a role to play.

It is very easy to point fingers at others when it comes to talking about climate change and global warming. Climate change and global warming are different things but they normally go together – the later is a sign of the earlier. In most cases, we put the blame to our political leaders both at international and national levels. There is another battle between the developed and developing world – each trying to prove that the opponent is more responsible for the climate change. The discussion hovers on the developed world putting the blame on poverty, while the developing world incriminating the opponent’s industries. I am not trying to nullify the arguments from each side but I rather feel that the fight is causing harm more than good to the efforts on climate change. Bringing this at a personal level, the result is the story of nobody’s job which is very dangerous to each if not all sides.

The Badge

Pointing fingers or search for the witch affects the way we feel about climate change. The effects are in two folds, one being the notion that climate change is something afar from our surroundings and the other being feeling unconcerned or rather unburdened. It is my feeling that it’s easy to think that climate change is a devil affecting people far from us and it doesn’t make sense to talk about it. In other words, there is a perception or belief that climate change is either non-existent and even if it does, it affects others. Although it is common to hear people among us mentioning climate change when we face high temperature increase and other things like drought, we still feel that the causes are either unknown or if they exist, they must be caused by other people than us.

It is time to change the way we feel about climate change. Climate change is in our vicinity and we are living with it. The effects of global warming are remarkable and terrific to us all. Upon this, it is my urge to all to take action (including myself). There is a very simple principle to help this agenda and that is “starting from within” or for simplicity we may call it SFW. Starting from within involves letting each of us feeling concerned and responsible to climate change. The word “starting” in the SFW principle has a very important meaning and thus shows a continuous process. In other words, the whole process will start at each of us and continue to others. Putting this into actions, it refers to feeling responsible for the climate change and taking actions by involving the issue in everything we do in our daily life. To my colleagues in the positive thinking journey, climate change alike, it is a life embedded endeavour. If we are able to do this (of which I know we can), I am confident and positive that the fight against climate change will have a real and desired outcome.

It doesn’t require rocket science to know that our societies and all the institutions embedded within are formed by individual or group of people. In simple words, it is you and me making the world. We can now see how SFW can result into a world free of blame but rather all people joined together with a common goal and efforts towards managing climate change.

Together we can!!!!

The return of the Mastermind….

Ete sen!!!

Don’t be puzzled…. This is the greeting from the people of Nkrumah’s land (among the things I have learnt while I was away). You only have to respond “eye” in case you are fine. I don’t know how you should reply in case things are not moving well…. Besides, we always declare to be fine even if we are not… A friend complained that his colleague requested for an excuse from duty two minutes after claiming that he was fine…. perhaps you have done this before. In case you don’t believe me, try to greet a sick person lying on a hospital bed. Keep the response for future use.

What a meal.....

Forget the blah blah…. I am back after disappearing for almost a year. I am not going to give any excuse for my absence (positive minded people don’t give excuses… this should be a rule … give a number please!!!). So don’t bother asking me the reasons for the absence. I am also convinced that it might not help you trying to find reasons on my behalf… it doesn’t work that way…. Let us focus on the present and the future….

By the way, it has been a very interesting and great year. A lot of things have gone and come. The incomings include Obama securing an office, the economic recession, the victory of football giants (Brazil) in South Africa and swine flu (now it has hit East Africa…). To my Ghanaian colleagues, the list includes the coming of Atta Mills and his party NDC earlier this year and the visit of Barack Obama on 10th July (congrats Ghana… the first country to host Obama in the South of Sahara). Oh!! I can hear some of you asking whether that means something or not? I am just saying it…. it’s a fact.

He can cook sometimes!!!

That’s enough for the incoming. Turning to the outgoing… Normally the outgoing always bring grief, unhappiness, sorrow and pain. Some of us still have wet faces as we cry for our beloved king of pop … the late Michael Jackson. The list is long but I am not going to exhaust it here, instead, may their souls attain eternal peace… Amen (you can have a minute of silence, just to pay homage to our beloved friends).

Happy birthday......................

Some things have also happened at a personal level. One significant change since my last post is the change of address to Kumasi – Ghana and afterwards, Dar es Salaam – Tanzania. I have enjoyed my stay in Kumasi and Ghana in general. I once became a tourist and had few trips to several tourist destinations (I might share some pics in the coming posts). I have also met great and sweet people in Kumasi including a book seller who sold me a book that I believe will contribute a lot to the betterment of my life.

I have added one more year to my age and that happened on 11^th of March this year. This was an interesting experience as I happen to test the way my Ghanaian friends celebrate their birthdays… arguably in a differing way from that I was familiar with. I will not forget the hard water pounding and powder.

Banku and Okra soup

Enough about the past, let’s now focus on the future. As usual, we will continue with our common goal – seeing ourselves learn and apply positive thinking in efforts to solve our daily lives. In the same tone, we can feel how broad life is and the same will be reflected to the topics we are going to cover. Fasten your seat belts as we are about to take off……

Just for you information…. I missed you all… one year is not a joke.

Confidence

Confidence.. Yes! – one of the most important qualities for positive thinking. The higher the confidence, the easier is to think positively.

Psychological gurus say that there are two types of confidence: natural confidence, which comes from being brought up in a loving environment where your parents told you that how wonderful you were every time you put felt-tip to the paper; and artificial confidence, which comes from sniffing felt-tips. There are people who have steady and abundant amount of confidence, others having fluctuating and the last group having less or not aware of the small amount of confidence they posses. It doesn’t take magic to find the group to which you belong.

Let’s ask ourselves simple questions: how do you feel when you want to ask for help from a stranger? What doubles your heartbeat when you are about to speak before the mass? Does this happen often? Another important question would go to men – how do you feel when meeting a beautiful, intelligent and independent woman? (Does this happen to women when they meet the so called HBs?) What do you do? Great, smile or pretend you don’t care about her? (It sounds silly but let’s face it, men find it difficult to mingle with intelligent and independent women. It is a fair truth for most men out there).

Talk of job interviews, how many times have you felt nervous when approaching the interview panel? What about exams? My friend once told me that it’s more daunting to go through the exam fever during preparation period, than the agony in the exam room. Why do we have to worry however prepared we can be?

To be more unbiased to students and job seekers, let’s see what others can experience in a different environment. Imagine you are in a party (most suitably – a cocktail party with people you have never met before) and try to figure out how would be your reactions. How would you feel? Would you feel as a skyscraper in Serengeti national park or a child at its mothers’ hands? Can you guarantee to get contacts of potential partners at the end of this party (don’t count contacts given to everybody).

The list can go further but I am sure you have got an idea of what you are lacking and when you feel lacking it. That feeling you are lacking is called confidence. And for sure, you also have an idea to which group you belong.

Now let’s share how we have experienced the loss of confidence (a problem understood is a problem half solved).

From there, we can discuss the measures that can help us bring ourselves to the first group – possessing stable and abundant confidence. Be positive, we can!

The funny thing is you cannot learn to build confidence if you don’t have at least some confidence in you.

Best wishes…. til next issue

Positive eating

Can you say something about the dishes below

Positive criticism

Have you ever thought how strong the word “positive” is? It just happened that I thought about it and was amazed by its power. It makes our mind to think of things belonging to the light side (the opposite of “dark side”…. Have you also wondered why it’s so easy to express matters from its dire characteristics? It’s funny when you think of the effects we get when we see the word – positive. Adding the word “positive” to a noun draws our minds to think of better outcome. No wonder you may be convinced that “positive killing”, “positive stealing” and the like, to have a differing meaning to those without the word “positive”.

The same effect is achieved when it is connected with the word “criticism” – coming up with “positive criticism”. It is very true that you may get amazed to find out the differences between the two – ‘criticism’ and ‘positive criticism’. The first sounds ugly and unfriendly: without any solution attached to it. The later, echoes affirmative, encouraging and helpful – more importantly, you can sense a solution attached to it.

Criticism is vital in our everyday life – as it helps to monitor our deeds. On contrary, no one can deny that criticism is the last thing we would wish for, at least for the “honourables”. Who would put a smile after being criticized? Who wants a negative feedback after hours of hard work? No body and indeed no body! ….

Most of us feel to be doing the right, thinking we are the best and thus can’t make mistakes. Self belief and determination is good but when it is overdone tends to be harmful… it is better to realize our weaknesses. In some cases, we may be aware of what’s going wrong but still be reluctant to admit negative feedbacks. Lovers are most likely to fall victim of criticism from their counterparts, however, today let’s not dwell on that.

Very few people if no one at all can handle criticism and those few must have come across what is called “positive criticism”. So what is positive criticism and how can we better understand it? This is a question I want to share with you. Let’s get together for a while and see how we can polish the “conventional criticism” so that we benefit most from its advantages.

Please don’t get mislead by word ‘understand’ thinking that I will dwell on definitions.

What we get from positive criticism is not only the mind setting from the effect of “positive” but the actions/things that we need to keep in mind when using it. The following are things to bear in mind when giving positive criticism.

Personalize your statements

First and foremost, personalize your statements. This implies the use of “I” statements instead of “you” statements. For example, if somebody has delayed in an appointment, and this has made you furious – you can use “I really don’t like it when you are late” instead of “How could you be so late?”

Show the effect

Show how the behavior or action affects you. Taking the above example, the conversation could be like “I really don’t like it when you are late. It is upsetting to me.” Instead of saying “What am I supposed to think?” Or “You always make me angry”

Be specific

Being specific is very helpful for both – the giver and recipient of the criticism. To help you remember all the specific situations, please put this on a paper (remember this will not be the case always). Mention the time, place and frequency of the behavior/language in question.

“During our last meeting, I had waited for 30 minutes, called you twice to find your whereabouts and ordered a taxi which brought you here.” Instead of “You are a complete timewaster” or “You are such an irresponsible person”

Hey! Mind you, this is just an example, never mind the context of the story.

Do not overstate

It’s very likely that we give criticism while we are either frustrated or angered. This lead us to overstate our concerns. We end up using words like “always” and “never” which in most cases they are rarely true, and worse enough, the listener invalidate the statement.

For example, avoid this kind of statements; “You are always late” or “You have never been on time”

Use of proper adjectives

Be careful on the adjectives you use to describe the thinking/behavior/situation you are criticizing. Avoid the use of adjectives that will show venom/anger since this will hamper your comment from being heard.

Instead of saying “you are completely irresponsible, you never care about our business” ….try “Have you considered the fact that we may not succeed with our plan if we continue with this pace?”

Suggest a solution

When offering criticism, it’s wise to also suggest a solution. It’s a very common phenomenon to know good things but yet can’t figure out how to do get them. Have you ever wondered why we know or rather have ideas on how good things look like, worse still we end up doing the opposite. This may apply to a person you want to change, as he/she may have no idea where to start or lacking confidence to pursue a better solution.

In this case, you are dearly responsible to suggest a solution or rather an alternative to what is happening. Imagining the person is a good late comer, the suggestion may sound like “how if you plan your to leave your house 30 minutes earlier? Or “I would really appreciate a call next time you are going to be late”.

On the other hand, you can focus on the cause of the problem perhaps “I would suggest you develop a habit of sleeping earlier so you will wake up early too”.

Be direct

Please do not let the receiver of your criticism to figure out the meaning of what you want to comment. Try to be as direct as possible so that you don’t end up being misinterpreted. I think this is helpful in all settings; a message has to be well defined such that it serves the intended purpose.

Ask for feedback

Find out by asking the person hearing your criticism heard what you meant, not what you said. This can be done by having them repeat back what they think you said needed work and the suggested solution.

“I think you’re saying it’s discomforting and a concern that I keep coming late to our meetings. I can leave home 30 minutes earlier and see if that helps me to come on time. I can also call incase circumstances proves I will be coming late”

Ask if there are any limitations or obstacles keeping them from doing something about their troublesome area.

(For instance, do they agree with your criticism? Do they have a different point of view that will influence your opinion about how it should be handled?)

As applied to all other “positive” thinking issue, it requires inspiration, time and efforts in order to utilize them and realize the successes – the same applies to positive criticism. Be positive, you can!!

Until next issue

Online courses

Do you work in education, management, health, development, peace and conflicts, and feel a need to improve your skills? Do you consider returning back to school but can’t detach from your office? If you have answered yes to any of the above questions, please try to visit Global Campus or click here and you will be directed to the online courses page.

Global campus is InWEnt’s learning platform on the Internet. It is an online learning platform for professionals from all over the world: learning together, discussing and sharing experiences, and collaborate on projects.

Funding is also available.

Good luck!

Under Construction

Hey pals! am putting up things so as we start with a bang!!!

Stay tuned!!

However, get this piece!!

“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Positive Thinking! Your Key to Success

I hope you must have heard this phrase made by the two words, ‘positive’ and ‘thinking’.. yes they make something called “positive thinking”. Being it the major theme of this blog (at least for now), I would like to stress about my stand on positive thinking. As it is apprehensible, concepts can carry different meaning according to beliefs and attitudes. My understanding of positive thinking is shared to those who refers to belief in possibility for something to happen. Putting it more personal, positive thinking is believing in oneself that “you can” achieve any noteworthy goal your are focusing to. Under this consideration, obstacles are regarded as common problems which may not necessarily impede success of what you are trying to do, but rather issues that need to be taken care of along the process.

Others have gone further to fragment belief into three levels: thoughts, words and actions. Success is then determined by the way someone connects the three levels of belief – limiting yourself in believing through the mind without demonstrating your beliefs puts you in a very low possibility to prosper in whatever your are trying achieve. In one way or another we have fall victim of failing to use all the three levels of belief… we have come across a number students who believe that they are very brave and thus can pass an exam, ending up taking less efforts in studying and likely finding themselves failing (I would also like to believe this has also happened to ourselves).

On contrary, utilizing all the three levels, that is acting and saying according to your beliefs (thoughts) ensures success. The secret behind being the absence of contradictions between your thoughts, words and actions.

Remez Sasson’s declares that “positive thinking brings inner peace, success, improved relationships, better health, happiness and satisfaction. It also helps the daily affairs of life move more smoothly, and makes life look bright and promising”.

Having read all this, the most important question you now have is how to develop what is called positive thinking? In a way, this blog is meant for that and please don’t take me wrong.. I am not going to lecture about that… by the way I am also learning.. so what I may ask is both of us to contribute in efforts to develop positive thinking. Its better we learn this through reflecting our daily life experiences rather than lecturing what is in books.. Hope we are together on this…

For the start we will borrow Sasson’s actions and tips in developing the power positive thinking. Find the list below … (please note that the list below may not work in all circumstances, thus, its worth trying working on those which seem to suit you best )

• Always use only positive words while thinking and while talking. Use words such as, ‘I can’, ‘I am able’, ‘it is possible’, ‘it can be done’, etc.
• Allow into your awareness only feelings of happiness, strength and success.
• Try to disregard and ignore negative thoughts. Refuse to think such thoughts, and substitute them with constructive happy thoughts.
• In your conversation use words that evoke feelings and mental images of strength, happiness and success.
• Before starting with any plan or action, visualize clearly in your mind its successful outcome. If you visualize with concentration and faith, you will be amazed at the results.
• Read at least one page of inspiring book every day.
• Watch movies that make you feel happy.
• Minimize the time you listen to the news and read the papers.
• Associate yourself with people who think positively.
• Always sit and walk with your back straight. This will strengthen your confidence and inner strength.
• Walk, swim or engage in some other physical activity. This helps to develop a more positive attitude.

As you can see from the list above, attaining positive thinking results, it requires more than repeating positive words or telling yourself that everything is going to be all right. Some effort and inner work are necessary.

More information on more advanced tools and techniques on positive thinking development can be found in books and online resources.

Illustrations from www.allposters.com

Big Babes

I just love cars… however, this does not mean that I love any car.. oh no! I am a fun of what I have come to call “big babes” and its my hope that you are with me on this…

Check one of the babes below and definitely u will understand what I am referring to… I am aiming to get one but lord knows when… Don’t laugh.. am not acting crazy here… for sure am gonna own one of these babes one day… Tell me what do you think?

Hello world!

Please let my blog find some time within your tight schedule… Your comments are very welcome in efforts to build this space