The Spirit of Christmas
Stuck for an idea as to what to give your loved one this Christmas? Want to treat yourself to something you've not thought about before whilst reflecting over the festive period? Want help with your New Year's resolutions, making them last longer than just a couple of weeks? Maybe a session in Life Purpose is the answer.
Purchase this Christmas Life Coaching Voucher from Set Your Spirit Free before 31/12/10 and you can redeem it any time before 31/03/11. Once more you'll get an additional half hour free consultation thrown in if you want, and all for the bargain price of £35*, at least 30% off the normal recommended retail price of the Set Your Spirit Free life coaching service.
Or why not consider a trade in services in the true spirit of the season, my service in exchange for yours. Are you prepared to see your life from a new perspective giving you a massive clue as to where your future ultimately lies. If so do not delay.
*Offer limited to the life coaching service only.
Contact me now to find out more!
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Greetings!
Christmas is a time more so than any other during the year that we welcome both community and nature into our everyday lives and feel infinitely better for it. Once more for many of us it is the only time of the year we get to truly reflect on the 12 months that have passed, celebrate and be grateful for all we have around us and give just a gentle nod to a more hopeful future.
Beneath the glamour and glitz, extensive commercialism and consumerism that has now become synonymous with the event, if you scrape down far enough you can still find the true spirit and nature of Christmas. A spirit and nature that if we value highly enough can be found throughout the rest of the year too.
For Christmas now is perhaps metaphoric of us as people, beneath the tinsel, sparkly lights and general business of our everyday lives still lies our true nature, sense of community and spirit and if we can reconnect with this for longer than just the 12 days of the festive season, perhaps, just perhaps, we have a chance of bringing true happiness into our lives all the time.
In my absence from writing to you over these past 4 months searching for inspiration for my monthly newsletter which at first didn't come, I have gradually come to the same conclusion that I can no longer live without nature and community being a part of my life if at all possible and a part of these newsletters too.
Whether it was turning 40 whilst I was away, I don't know, but a greater sense of responsibility has gently begun to rest upon my shoulders, like the snowfalls we have experienced in recent days. Where nature has given us a timely reminder that you can't ignore it, it ultimately has the greatest influence upon our lives.
Once more I think a great many of us are thinking the same way too, government also perhaps, not only about profit any more but our triple bottom line, people and planet as well as profit and of course purpose. For purpose can drive this all forward in the most helpful of ways. And that is what I have been doing too, strengthening the argument behind more purpose and meaning in our work and what benefit that brings.
Many people I know this Christmas are giving up the contemporary notion of giving presents to giving of their time. Be that dishing out soup canteens to the homeless, or hosting parties for the old and lonely and partaking in more traditional ceremonies in appreciation of nature's shedding of the old and the generation of the new.
So in my final newsletter of 2010, I would like to offer you articles on the spirit of people, community and nature as well as a special yuletide offering, for either you or someone you know, a gift in life coaching, a free consultation and a session on finding your life's purpose at a special festive rate.
Compliments of the season to you!
Simon
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The Spirit of People
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This poor chap (pictured within this article) doesn't look as if he has much Christmas spirit about him, probably because he is not particularly spirited or engaged about anything much these days. He represents the large majority of us that are not in touch with our true nature and therefore ultimately are left disengaged with our work.
According to the latest Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development figures only 3 out of 10 of us are fully engaged in the work that we do. Which leaves a massive imbalance within our organisations.
The 70% of us that are not fully engaged are likely to be unhappy and disenchanted with the organisation as a whole and soon will become susceptible to mild mental health problems such as anxiety, stress and depression, leading to less productivity and absenteeism in the process.
However the 30% of us that are fully engaged, are likely to have to work harder to compensate and will then fall victim to presenteeism, which also leads to similar problems in productivity and well being.
Mild mental health problems now cause 40% of all absence from work up from 26% in 1996, costing employers £25.9 billion per annum, or £1035 per person per year based on an average of 7 days sickness. In comparison a sample of more authentic businesses have registered as little as 0.3 days absence per employee per year.
Authentic Businesses work more true to nature, both inner and outer, they know why they are in business, as well as what they do and how they do it. They work with more purpose and encourage as many individuals within the company to focus on their own individual talents and passions in affect their own authentic leadership to start to lead the company forward.
So if greater alignment and engagement can be achieved through helping people find their authentic leadership and forming a common purpose, vision and set of values, helping your business become more energised, efficient and productive in the process, isn't that worth thinking about as an investment for your organisation?
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The Spirit of Community
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I believe that the ancient people of the past knew something that was essential to their existence on this planet, that we have forgotten or lost as society has evolved, certainly over the last century or so.
They knew how they immediately impacted on their environment, how their actions affected other members in the community and what their duty of care was to other tribe members and vise versa. This knowledge led to more successful community building and ultimately more fulfilled and authentic lives.
We in essence have become disconnected, it is the same in work, as it is in community, as it is in life and there are means afoot to correct this imbalance, ways to encourage more of us to engage with our wider community and environment, let alone ourselves.
Within our businesses, by introducing an environmental, corporate social responsibility and / or duty of care policy we can start to show that we care more for our employees, our community and our environment, this starts to raise the feel good factor in work and encourages more inspiring, engaging businesses. Of course by creating a greater knowledge of purpose within the workplace you can align all of these factors even more.
The birth of the social enterprise is springing forward and government themselves are laying on all sorts of schemes to encourage involvement with community, the combination of which are supplying us with projects such as Business In The Community, Transition Towns, Plymouth Better Together (local to me, I'm sure there are others) and The Big Society.
Larger organisations too are now legally responsible for their carbon impact, companies using 6 GW of electricity will now be accountable for the amount of CO2 they produce and this will have an effect further down the supply chain. The more of us with environmental policies already in place the less affected we will be by the changes and the more opportunities for business will abound.
Our more inspirational companies are partnering with local leisure centres, introducing healthier food options, organic box schemes, therapies, coaching and health awareness campaigns into their culture believing quite rightly that a healthier workforce equals a healthier business, but also seeing their employees as a community themselves and with their families a slightly larger community and with all their connections in the vicinity an even greater community and how each can impact on each other for the benefit of all.
With all these things it is up to us as to how proactive or reactive we want to be, embracing new ideas into our work and wider community, but all evidence would suggest that when we are ahead of the game we have a lot to gain, the more ethical businesses of the FTSE 350 have outperformed their peers in 7 out of the last 8 years. Perhaps it is time to move to a more authentic way of leadership, business and living.
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The Spirit of Nature
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In the last 4 months probably the biggest impact upon how I am now viewing life came through watching a 38 year old Rhino named Sudan, struggle to keep his species in existence in a documentary aired on BBC2 on the 1st day of November.
He is a geriatric by all accounts and yet is one of only 8 Northern White Rhino left on the planet, numbers being decimated from 500 in the space of my lifetime. The blame for their decline can be laid absolutely at the foot of my door as well as all us human beings and our collective expansion across the Earth's surface with our belief systems as they are.
This was one of a number of articles that I have viewed recently and stem from issues that I have been aware of for sometime but not acted upon. Sudan's issue was however enough to start me to blog about it at the very least as I became truly aware of my responsibilities as a human being, as an Earth steward.
In the 5 essentials of any personal, leadership or business development let alone global, the first essential is to take responsibility for our lives. That is what I feel more of us must now do.
To read more about Sudan and what I think needs to happen to help him, read my blog, by clicking on the link at the foot of this article.
For continued inspiration keep in touch with me via twitter, facebook and linked in available through the quick links of this newsletter or via the web links on the news page of my website. Alternatively you can always wait for my next monthly newsletter sometime hopefully in January.
Have a fantastic Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone but spare a thought whilst you do so for Sudan and what you personally want to see changed in the world in 2011 and beyond. Seasons greetings!
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