Would you like to win a copy of THE BOOK OF CHAMELEONS by Jose Eduardo Agualusa? It is an enchanting novel exquisitely translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn. Agualusa, an Angolan, is a master of telling stories within stories. He creates in the magical realism tradition of Latin American writers. At A Writer’s Edge I posted briefly about the book last month, and I continue to be haunted by the tale of identity.

Now I have an opportunity to interview the author, and I need some intelligent, pertinent, thoughtful questions to ask. Send me your best (one) to enter the contest by July 10. Email your question to CONTEST@WRITERS-EDGE.INFO. You can read about the book on Amazon by clicking on the book image at the beginning of this post and read an excerpt there, too.

It’s a time to feel pride of being able to do the things we do in this country, and to be able to have the pets we have and treat them the way we do. For all the crazy, negative things in this country, there are also the happy, positive things that we need to remember this time of year.

So, I’ll be celebrating like I always do; accidentally dropping food for the pets, watching fireworks, taking in a ballgame, and listening to the songs that only get played this time of year; including “We’re Coming to America,” “God Bless the USA,” and all the classic American Marches.

Happy holidays to your family, friends, and pets. And let’s go Yankees!!

See more of Matt’s writings at the Pet Haven Blog.

http://www.the-pet-haven.blogspot.com

Every single individual was created for a particular purpose. The reason why many people fail in life is because they are not fulfilling their purpose. Many fail because they are in the wrong profession. You cannot fit in just any profession. A discovery of your purpose will launch you on the route to success. Purpose draws success.

2. Have a vision that consumes you

Having a vision of success enables you to plan for it. Many people fail because they do not plan. To fail to plan is to plan to fail. Vision is imaginative insight; sagacity in planning; statesmanlike foresight. A clear solid vision gives you the drive to press on towards success. When you are entirely immersed in the vision of your life nothing can hinder you from arriving at the desired destination. Vision has the power of drawing you into destiny. The power of vision is positive. It will pull you to overcome failures and land in the hall of success. Your level of success is hooked on the kind of vision you have. Your level of success is hooked on the kind of vision you have. If you can see success, you can have it. You can if you think you can. The reality is that you can only succeed when you see the end from the beginning.

3. Know your potential

Potential is what one is capable of doing. Potential is the highest possibility that one can attain. Potential is the resources that one has for carrying out a particular task. Many people fail because they embark on big things, which they are not capable of carrying on to the end. Do you have the potential to complete what you are starting? Otherwise you will be defeated to complete it and people will ridicule you for your failure. This again speaks of planning. Have a formula for achieving your desired end. He who wills the end, wills the means. Have it clear in your mind on how you will proceed towards your goal. Look before you leap otherwise you will break your leg. Do you have the ability to jump over the bar that’s ahead of you? If not, don’t do it.

4. Don’t fear failure

What you fear and dread most is most likely what comes upon you. Fear is the opposite of faith. Most people never step out because they fear that they will fail. When you don’t even start out on what you should have done because of fear, you never know what would have been the outcome. Banish all fear and step out. Fear is a thief of destiny. Your destiny is success. You were predestined to win. It was Dale Carnegie who said that most of the things people worry about never happen. Quit worrying about failure.

5. Expect to Succeed

Expectation is anticipation. What you look forward to is what you will get. If you expect a wonderful future and success that is what you will receive. Your level of success is hooked to your expectation. We all need a high EQ - Expector Quotient. High expectations bring results in life.

6. Do not personalize past failures

When you individualize past failures you cannot rise to go on to greater heights. You will always be thinking about it. The past is gone. Yes you might have failed in one area or another but do not personalize it. There is a difference between saying I have failed three times and I am a failure. You are not a failure. Even if you fail seven times, you can still rise again. I don’t care how many mistakes you might have made in the past. The past is gone. Things past cannot be recalled. The things you said, the deeds you did, they are over. Give the past a decent burial, work on the present and meet the future with joy.

7. Learn from your failures

The good thing with failure is that it gives you experience. Experience is one of the greatest teachers because it gives you first hand information. Experience is the father of wisdom. Someone said once bitten, twice shy. Failure is not profitable unless you learn from it. The key thing is in avoiding the same mistakes the next time round. Most people who succeed in life had many initial failures before they made it into the great hall of success. Thomas Edison, one of the greatest inventors in America, spent many long months failing before he found a filament that would stay in his incandescent light. The secret is in persevering at what you know you are capable of doing.

8. Stop making excuses about your failures

Making 10001 reasons as to why you did not do this, why you could not do that, why you should not do this doesn’t help anything. Excuses will keep you rotating at the same point. You can never progress into bigger things so long as you keep focusing on your failures. Focus on success and not failure. Don’t be preoccupied with your past failures. What’s done cannot be undone.

9. Accept failure as part of the journey

The issue in succeeding is not failure but your attitude towards it. An attitude is a settled mode of thinking. Your attitude will always determine your altitude. Most people have a poor attitude towards failure. They think that once you fail, you can never ever make it again. No! Failure does not mean that it’s over.The good thing with failure is that it gives you an opportunity to weigh your potential, calculate your strategies and rebound right to the top. Failure is healthy and inevitable. Everyone has his own share of it. Accept your failures and move on to better things - success.

10. Never ever surrender to failure.

It is powerful to know that the human spirit is never finished when it is defeated but when it surrenders. The moment you surrender to failure you have submitted your will completely to it.

Know that every person is an architect of his own fortune. Success and failure are a choice. Whatever you choose is what you will receive. Choose success today. Knowledge of success will cause you to prevail over the arrows of failure. Above all, associate with successful people. Great minds think alike. Like begets like. 

This sounds supremely simple, yet every day the energies and resources spent refuting the truth are insurmountable. For what I hear everyday around me are phrases like: “Well, they’re just a jerk”, “The economy is in the tank so things are bad right now”, “I have no control over that”, “I guess this is just the trial I’m suppose to be going through right now”, “It’s not my fault”, on and on and on. The words shift but the meaning is always there, responsibility is always to be found elsewhere and there’s an excuse for everything, especially when it involves work.

Can you imagine how different things would be if instead of sowing seeds of negativity, victimization and redirects we spent more energy sowing seeds of positivity, empowerment and responsibility?

Yesterday I spent a few minutes reading some of the book “All I Really Needed To Know I Learned in Kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum. I’ve always enjoyed his writings and find re-reading them gives my spirits a little boost. Specific to the thoughts I’m sharing today, the concept of “Clean up your own mess” as one of his lessons fits perfectly. The seeds that are being sown too often and the fruits they bear are those of irresponsibility. Not only do we not recognize that the pickle we’re in is most often direct result of our own making, we expend valuable energy and resources justifying why it’s not our mess to clean up instead of just digging in and getting the job done.

Another common thread I’ve observed is how easy it seems to be to find and see this truth in the lives of others while dismissing ourselves. It’s usually more subtle but it’s still there. I see it manifest in discussions where I hear someone describe a specific problem and then turn it into a spiritual matter saying that faith and prayer will solve it for them. Of course, it’s not said that directly but that’s what I hear. Sadly, people with this attitude will never understand the concept of an answered prayer. For they will not recognize any answer that doesn’t suit them just as my 5 year old fights against every “no” he receives. Hopefully he’ll learn the lesson and carry it with him, hopefully he won’t forget that just because the answer isn’t what you wanted or expected doesn’t mean the answer wasn’t given or isn’t there.

For the past 5 years my husband and I have been implementing, to the best of our ability, a life of personal responsibility, positive affirmations and hard work. We stopped finding fault with circumstances and praying for a rescue from the financial storm we steered our ship into. We stopped using the crutch of uncontrollable health issues and September 11th aftermath as the reasons for our being in the eye of the storm. It didn’t matter because we were in the storm and while these things may have hastened our arrival, our course was set before they hit. Besides that, focusing our energies there sure wouldn’t help us get out of the storm. Not surprising, the journey out of the storm was proportionate in time to our getting into it the first place. There was no single miracle that pulled us out and dropped us on a sunny beach. However, there were daily miracles and daily progress. In fact, things have been beyond good for us, especially within the past couple years and they are growing every day. It’s not free, it’s not easy, it’s not luck. We just started sowing different seeds and now we’re enjoying a very different garden full of variety and sweetness.

Thinking cultivates talent - It’s one thing to have talent and it’s quite another to know how to exploit that talent. It’s the quality of thinking that separents talented achievers from talented underachievers. Learning how to think at a higher level is key to maximizing your talent.

Attitude sustains talent - Denis Waitley is fond of saying that the winner’s edge is in his attitude. Attitude shines and it is the key to maintaining a successful pursuit of one’s real talents. A great attitude will enable you to achieve so much more than you ever dreamt possible.

Leadership elevates talent - Talent can enable you to soar from obscurity into the limelight but it takes leadership to keep you in the limelight. Having a leadership bent and a mind for what it takes to stay at the top is key to utilizing talent efficiently. Your leadership skills will elevate your talent.

Excellence magnifies talent - A solid commitment to pure excellence is the foundation for the magnification of one’s talents. Doing everything with excellence creates room for you to extend your talents. Excellence also sets you apart from the crowd because most people are used to mediocrity.

Nature nurtures talents - Nothing is more natural than a person’s talents. The key to being able to develop your talent is to stay natural. Don’t be a cheap copy when you can be original! Your nature actually sets you apart and makes you a winner. You’ve got to stay connected to the essence of who you are as a person.

Trustworthiness secures talent - A lasting legacy comes from lasting qualities. Developing a reputation for trustworthiness enables you to secure the use of your talents. People want to be able to trust that you will deliver. The key to that is in being truthful and honest with them.

Talent is never enough. It takes TALENT to realize the fulness of talent!

So, go ahead and develop your TALENT!

Generate a passion for growth within yourself - Personal growth is not easy. It takes a special commitment to maintain consistent growth. The key to this is to make a personal decision for continuous growth. You have to decide that no matter what you will carve out time for your groth.

Read widely with a desire to expand your knowledge - Leaders are readers. In order to stay ahead of the pack, you must do what the pack doesn’t do. Few people read on a daily basis. What you do daily will decide who you become permanently. You have to read and listen to audio books daily.

Omit useless activities from your daily agenda - Personal growth goes hand-in-hand with time management. In order to develop yourself you must learn to discriminate wisely amongst activities. That’s the key to maintaining focus. Activity doesn’t necessarily equate to productivity.

Wear a whatever it takes attitude - I was watching Tiger Woods play golf on the final day of the 2008 Buick invitational which he won by a staggering eight strokes for his 62nd PGA tour win. Tiger has committed himself to continously improving his game. Nobody wears a whatever it takes attitude better than him. 

Treasure the company of others that are growing - Who you become in five years depends a lot on who you associate with today. Find people that are growing and share in their growth. Your environment should consist of people that are going in the same direction in which you are headed. That is the key to achievement.

Hammer-out a lifestyle of growth - Developing a lifestyle of growth is not easy. Once you set your eyes on growing, all sorts of obstacles will try and prevent you from attaining that goal. You have to “chisel” out a pathway of growth in your life.

Embrace these keys to growth and you will definitely attain more than you ever thought possible! 

Everyone seems more than able and willing to ‘research’ and write articles, books, etc. on every subject imaginable. Yet most of them seem to be playing a game justifying why a lack of common sense is acceptable. It’s easy to jump on the newest fad or popular bandwagon of rationalization, but at the end of the drive you are left feeling cheated. And heaven knows we all want what is easy.

Take my experience last night. It shows not only a lack of common sense but also the way it is fueled (literally) by a desire for the easy way out.

I was watching a pair of teens make attempts at starting a fire in a fire pit. The goal was to make smores. I walked over to see one holding a piece of paper and lighter in front of her. The other was holding a can she explained was hairspray and was trying to help her friend get a flame going by spraying it. Brilliant.

So I attempted to explain a few basics. I told them that first, there are too many things to list on the “stupidity” front for using a can of hairspray as lighter fluid but suffice it to begin with the fact that you don’t need any help getting paper to burn. Moreover, spraying it in the general direction of the one holding the paper and flame is also a bad idea. This could definitely be listed in the “stupidest stunts” top ten. Second, any fire held up in the breeze is likely going to blow out with the wind before you get it back down to the ground, not to mention the increase in risk for burning yourself, so when starting a fire you should keep the flame as close to the source as possible using the wood and surroundings to provide a protective barrier against any breeze for you. Which brought us to their prepared log formation. Great T-pee formation: of full sized logs! I asked where their kindling was and they both gave me a blank stare. I explained that you can’t start burning full size blocks of wood, you need to build to it and therefore need a pile of kindling - smaller twigs and branches of wood - to get the process going. The one holding hairspray explained that was why they had hairspray because the wood wasn’t catching on fire. *sigh* I was about to give them a full lesson in fire safety and basics of starting when another exuberant teen walked up with a can of gasoline sharing how the problem was solved. Clearly, I needed reinforcements.

At this point I walked over to the parent of the gasoline marauder and another leader informing them that the element of gasoline had just been introduced. The response from the parent was a short wave of the hand saying how glad she was she wasn’t a leader for the group. I guess parent doesn’t count? (A post for another day.)

I look back over to see a blazing fire burning…for about 30 seconds. One of the youth is sent to look for more gasoline. Thankfully, by this point another leader (who later shares how a family member received 3rd degree burns after a lighter fluid can burst in his hands while lighting a fire in a fireplace) steps in to help me bring a close to the gasoline fix. The parent now joined the scene with instructions on where a Duraflame log is and it is retrieved. As it is placed under the full size log T-pee and slowly begins to burn with a small flame on one end. Several minutes pass as the group sit around the tiny flame which moments later turns into a raring blaze after a surprise attack of…you guessed, a cup of gasoline.

I could add another entire chapter on how roasting marshmallows in new flame is missing the point of cooking and roasting in a campfire; how the point is to let the fire burn good and hot long enough to produce coals for that purpose, or even how flinging a marshmallow on fire back and forth isn’t the best way to put the flame out, but I’ll let your imagines finish that part of the story. Perhaps I’ll come back later and tie in the greater lessons we could learn from that but for now let’s move on to the real point of sharing this.

I shared this story because it’s so chuck full of possibilities to explore and fits in nicely with the permanent vacation of common sense. But at a more general level, it typifies life today in a nut shell. Everyone is in such a hurry to find the easy way that it matters not what is sacrificed along the way, common sense being one of the greater causalities, not to mention unhealthy and life threatening hazards. Our “Duraflame” logs may take on different forms, but they still represent a cheating element - the concept that you can replace beginning and foundational steps by cutting a few corners. That it’s as easy as running to the store for what you need, that someone will always be there to provide you an easy out. Even egotism is fed by this growing epidemic, nourishing the belief that nothing but your selfish desires matter and whatever you do to obtain them will be inconsequential. We’ve spent so much time trimming the fat that we never noticed we’ve been whittling away at the meat for so long there’s almost nothing left.

I for one say it’s time to back the train up. Everyone needs to call back common sense from its extended vacation. Everyone needs to step up to the plate and help repair and rebuild critical foundation elements in every aspect of our lives that have been replaced with laziness, instant gratification and debt. Our children need to know and understand how to do things for themselves the right way, what the dangers and hazards are of the easy way and how important this knowledge is. We need to be better teachers and examples. We’re the current engineers and conductors of the train, but we’ll be passing it on to a new generation and we’ll still be on that train for the ride. It’s time to think about that and make some positive changes now so the future journey won’t be disastrous.

Stepping off my soapbox. Thanks for letting me vent.

As a woman from the south, born in the ’50s, I was raised to be small, quiet, polite and inauthentic… a perfect southern belle. The instructions were to look and act pretty, speak when spoken to and keep a low profile, ESPECIALLY around men. I was groomed to be a perfect southern housewife, much like “the good wife” described in the May 1955 Good Housekeeping article. Here were just a few of the steps from that guide:

Have a delicious meal ready and on time for your husband. Prepare the children, eliminate the noise, light a fire and put out his slippers. Prepare yourself. Freshen up. Put a ribbon in your hair. Let him know you are thinking of him and concerned for his needs. This will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.

Be happy to see him. His day may have been boring. Make him comfortable, have a cool drink ready for him, let him lie down if he needs to. Be sincere in your desire to please him and provide a place of peace and order where he can be renewed. This is your duty.

Do not ask questions. Do not complain. Listen to him. His topics of conversation are more important than yours. His is the master of the house. A good wife always knows her place…

Put a RIBBON in MY hair? Cater to HIS COMFORT? Never question HIS JUDGEMENT? Be sincere in my desire to PLEASE HIM?

Whew! Where is today’s amazing Southern woman in this description? No wonder Southern women of my era question who they are, what they are here to do and whether they need permission to follow their own inner guidance. No wonder southern women stay small avoid being bold or playing big in the world. And, this guide applies to all women, not just Southern women, right?!

As a coach, I work with remarkable, powerful and amazing women who know they are more than the roles they’ve played. They simply feel a little stuck and unsure of what to do next. These women have learned to be chameleons, becoming what they need to be, shifting roles from moment-to-moment; charming and graceful, weak and subservient or strong and powerful. They’re equipped to do it all.

So, what’s in the way? How is it that these Southern women, and many women for that matter, with these extraordinary skills frequently finds themselves wondering what’s next? Why do they question who they are and the value of their contribution to others? Why do these powerful women stay (or feel) so small?

Hmmm… with years of rules and roles and a life time of practice, perhaps these women don’t know they have a choice. Here are my Top 8 Reasons Southern Women Stay Small. Don’t let these reasons stunt your growth!

A Southern Woman…

1. Keeps her gifts a secret.

She’s waiting for others to do what she must do for herself - celebrate her freedom and toot her own horn.

2. Plays by the rules she was given.

She’s been handed her list of rules and roles all her life. Stay in your place, look pretty, be gracious, don’t argue, don’t show up your husband…

3. Gives up her dreams and settles for what she has.

She has adopted the false truth that the life of her dreams is out of her reach. She’s squashed her spirit and inner passion deep down inside.

4. Boxes herself in with limits.

She’s afraid to step outside the boundaries of what is “normal” for a Southern woman. What will people think?

5. Is out of alignment with her power.

She feels guilt and shame when she lets her mind drift to questions about who she is and what she wants.

6. Chooses based on fear and conditioning.

Faced with a choice, she feels anxious, worried, confused, angry and frustrated. She’s not used to choosing for herself.

7. Is out of touch with her women’s intuition.

As a Southern woman, she was taught to hide her power, stay small, stuff her emotions and ignore her soul – her inner guide and compass. How can she know how she feels when she was trained that her body’s own wisdom can’t be trusted?

8. Isolates herself from her sources of support.

She feels guilty and not worthy of asking for help. She feels ashamed and weak for needing it. The truth is that every woman needs and deserves a coach, guide, mentor or teacher, a confidante to tell her the truth, someone to believe in her until she can believe in herself.

Sound familiar? Do any of these descriptions ring true for you? If so, it’s time to do some “real housekeeping.” Throw out the rules and roles that keep you small and find a NEW GUIDE (a-hem).

Today’s woman, Southern or otherwise, is here to be bold, play big and make a difference in the world. She can learn to rise up, seize her inner power, and become a bold voice for self-expression. Empowerment is hers for the taking.

So… are you ready to discover your freedom, make your mark on the world, live your outrageous life… PLAYING BIG - full out and on your terms?

I’m waitin’ on ya!

Tuck Self, The Rebel Belle, is a Southern voice for bold self-expression. As a coach, writer and speaker she inspires women to wake up, crank it up, and squeeze the juice from life with passion, purpose, and a lot of play! Let The Rebel Belle guide you to freedom and bold self-expressions. Visit www.rebelbelleblog.com and get your complementary outline of The 7 Steps to Discovering Freedom – Full Out and On Your Terms!

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