POSITIVE THINKING

+Thinking

JOHN A. GLOVER (1980), BECOMING A MORE CREATIVE PERSON; PENTICE HALL, U. S. A.

For something to be “Creative” it must be “novel” that is, it must be unusual, uncommon, and different or unexpected. It is something statistically infrequent and must be utilizable (useful).

Creative Behavior Is Assessed At Three Different Levels

1. Personal level- is your behavior, actions, sayings, talks or any of your life for novel and useful? Have you done any today?
2. The peer group level- these include friends, associates and so forth.

The more people you compare your behaviors to, the less likely it is that your behaviors will be viewed as uncommon.

Example if three offices have already done something like that you are doing, that is not “novel” and hence not “creative”

c) The societal level- At this level a behavior must be both novel and useful for society as a whole; it is more difficult to be creative at this level than the two because the society evaluation system is for the most part, informal and unstructured. However the work that has some enduring significance over a number of years is considered more creative. While the work that is a “flash in the pan” is considered less creative.

The society changes over time, therefore what might have regarded as creative in 1940 we must not regard as creative in 1990’s for any human product to be creative currently it must reflect to some extent, current human conditions.

Specific Components Of Creative Behavior That Psychologists Study

1. Fluency (the number of ideas a person produces)

1. Flexibility (the number of different kinds of ideas a person develops)
2. Elaboration (the extent to which a person fills out his\her ideas)
3. Originality (the uncommonness or statistical frequency of a person’s Ideas)

NB; although the factors necessary for creativity can be specified, the exact creativity of any particular work cannot be measured. Remember that, the right idea must appear at the right time to be recognized as significant.

• Scheele for instance was the first person to separate or isolate oxygen from the atmosphere although Joseph priestly is usually credited with the discovery.

• Therefore, the significance of an idea relies on the rightness of the time.
• Example, the ideas of Copernicus (the earth revolves around the sun) was not clear until the world had changed.

Why Become Creative

1. Increasing personal satisfaction

1. Enhancing problem solving abilities
2. Fulfilling our potentials and so on
3. Most importantly, creativity behavior is necessary because the complexity of our world is increasing exponentially day by day.

NB; becoming more creative does not necessarily make a person happy, most of creative people are unhappy but this may increase the likely of your success.

1. However developing your creative behavior will make your success in life more likely.
2. Your approaches to everyday problems will be different.

Creative And Intelligence

Intelligence –is that ability which is measured by intelligence tests.

• In the perspective of IQ testing, intelligence can be defined as the ability of a person to progress new information (primarily in the form of words) and subsequently answer questions about that new information, both in short and long run.

• Criticism of IQ tests is that, they are open to cultural biases and therefore have only the crudest sort of ability to measure intelligence.
• Intelligence in this sense is not particularly closely related to creativity.

High intelligence	Moderate	Low intelligence
Highly creative	Highly creative	Minimally creative
Moderately creative	Moderately creative	Minimally creative
Minimally creative	Minimally creative	Minimally creative

• However it is suspected (at about an IQ of 80 or 50) cannot be creative because of their intellectual short comings. Above this cut off point there is no relationship between creativity and intelligence.

NB: person below 80 IQ who may perform novel behavior are regarded or bizarre but not creative.

Creativity, Education and Academic Achievement

• Rote learning activities do not allow for novel approaches.

• The educator Benjamin Bloom has postulated that there are five possible kind of learning.

1. Knowledge (the simplest form- acquiring information).

1. Comprehension (the next most difficulty level-acquiring plus understanding information).

Analysis

2. Synthesis The increasingly more complex levels.
3. evaluation

• However surveys indicate that, less than 10 percent of child’s elementary and secondary education is likely to require leaning beyond the level of the comprehension. Hence this does not exactly bode well for the development of creative talent. Worse enough, teachers tend to reward conformist thinking while discouraging or punishing novel or creative behavior. Similarly, large the extent of your education has nothing to do with your creative ability.

Creativity And Personality Traits

A personality trait- is a learned pattern of behavior that an individual consistently exhibits. These patterns of behavior are labeled this way by people.

1. Honesty

1. Diligence
2. Stinginess
3. Altruism and so forth.

Consider the following persons renowned for his or her creative ability.

1. Emity Dickinson
2. Ernest Hemingway
3. Marie curie
4. Albert Einstein
5. Agatha Christie

There are very few similarities of personality behavior patterns in most creative persons.

Behavior Patterns In Most Creative Persons

1. Perseverance- creative persons tend to become totally immersed in their work forcing themselves to completion with fierce determination.

1. Tolerance for Ambiguity- ambiguity and unstructured directions do not cause much anxiety to creative persons.
2. Internal control-internal locus of control is a hypothetical centre of control over one’s life, corresponding to where a person feels such control is located. The three type of locus control are;

1. Internal (as in people who feels they personally determine what happens to them.
2. External- change (as in people who believe that fate, luck or “the odds” control what happens to them).
3. External- powerful others (as in people who feel life is controlled by teachers, politicians, bosses and the like).

The fact is that, creative persons tend to feel that they control their own lives.

1. Risk taking ability – creative persons are more likely to take risk.

3. Sense of humor- psychologist in one way characterize jokes and humorous situations in terms of incongruities that, is thought to result from a perception of things as being out of place, unusual, novel or un expected. Creative persons have the powerful ability to see the humor in situations that many of us miss.
4. Capacity for self- entertainment. Creative people seldom suffer much discomfort from boredom nor does their boredom last long. They invent their own forms of amusement rather than looking for something or somebody to entertain them as we do.
5. Ability to fantasize- creative people have a strong fantasy life that they tend to be day dreamers with more detailed and richer kinds of fantasies than most people. They turn off the outside world.
6. Focused creativity- creative people tend to excel in only one or two areas of their lives.
7. Capacity for adopting personal and unusual problem solving strategies.

Creative persons creative persons frequently try several approaches to a problem, develop several solutions, and choose one of the alternative solutions.

1. Ability to see complex relationships-creative persons tends to see complex relationships between apparently unrelated variables in problems situations.

8. Ability to redefine and elaborate concepts-without the ability to elaborate ideas, situations, concepts and problems we are back at novelty without use fullness.
9. Innovativeness- creative persons tends to be highly innovative (novel).

Styles Of Creative Behavior.

Al Gary and Morgan worthy- did the original research in reactive or self- paced behaviors,1973.

There appear at least two distinctive styles of behaving among human beings:

1. Reactive behaving. Typically, those who prefer the reactive style perform better in situations where they must make rapid, spur-of- the- moment decisions in an environment with rapidly shifting conditions.

1. Self –paced behaving. Self- spaced persons, on the other hand, tend to perform better in situations where they can take their time pace themselves and rehearse their behaviors.

Some people are more comfortable with one style, some with the other.

Components Of Creative Behavior

There are the sounds or hundreds of behaviors which could be measured but for general components have been defined and accepted by the majority or psychologists as characteristic and basically comprehensive.

1. Fluency- no; of ideas a person generates in response to a given

1. Flexibility-
2. Elaboration and
3. Originality

Fluency

• The number of ideas a person generates in response to a give situation.
• The more ideas a person generates, the more fluent that person is.

Generally – the more fluent a person is, the more creative that person is.

Flexibility

• The number of different kind of ideas a person comes up with about some problem and number of approaches he or she adopts.
• On the other hand flexibility requires some fluency.

Elaboration

• Is the process of filling out or detailing ideas, generally the more elaborate a person is in developed ideas, the higher the person’s level of creativity.
• However Glover’s research indicates that elaboration and fluency tend to be negatively correlated. That is highly elaborate people tend not to be highly fluent, and highly fluent people tend not to be highly elaborate.

• A positive correlation may fit that of Intelligence and salary.

Originality

• In the strictest scientific sense refers to the statistical infrequency of an idea.
• The less statistically frequent an idea is, the more novel it is. The more original ideas are, the more likely that they are to be creative.

• Person’s repertoire of behavior or respect to some group of persons may be used to determine the infrequency of behavior.

Problems In Studying Thoughts And Motives

Glover treated creativity from two perspectives

1. In terms of the traits of creative people.

1. In terms of the kinds of thinking that result in creative behavior.

• Thinking- is an internal process which is not open to an observation.
• You may see behaviors which allow you to infer what are being though, but you can never observe someone else is thinking.
• Given the current technology in psychology (eletroencelographs), the best we can do is tell whether someone is awake or asleep.
• We don’t study creative thinking, we study creative behaviors.
• Personality traits
• One of the more widely accepted definitions of personality is that – it is a series of relatively stable behavior patterns.
• Similar to thinking, we can never actually observe a personality directly as it is internal to person, lodged somewhere in the brain or heart (although hearts have no capacity for storing information that we know of.)

Introduction To Self Management

There are many different approaches to the behavior change process, all with some claim to being the best. The one most amenable to self- administration however is the approach based on learning theory sometimes called contingency management, behavior analysis or behavior modification.

• To explain behavior modification, we have to explain the basis for behavior modification.

The operant learning theory

• The term operant was coined by B. F Skinner to denote that, his theory “operant theory” describes the process of organisms (including people) operating on the environment.
• This was dominant over that of Hull, Tolmam, Guthrie, and Spence among the others.
• In operant theory, the interaction between the organism and the environment is all important in determining which behaviors are learned and which unlearned.

STIMULI

Stimuli- Are those things in the environment we perceive. It can be seen, heard, touched, tested and smelled. Anything we are aware of is a stimulus. It can be very small or larger one. Generally, Stimuli are any and all of the things a person perceives via any of his or her mode of perception. The environment is made up of different stimuli.

NB; anything not perceived by person cannot, for that person be a stimulus.

Example; if a person stands in your back and yet you don’t notice, it is not a stimulus, but the moment that you notice, it become a stimulus.

Group Or Kind Of Stimuli On The Word On The Basis Of How They Affect Our Behavior

1. Neutral stimuli – those that you are aware of but that do not affect your behavior. Neutral stimuli can come to have effect behavior through experience.

1. Reinforcing stimuli( reinforcers) stimuli that strengthen our behavior

• A reward- is typically something which is given to another person in an attempt to strength a behavior.
• If a stimulus strengthens a behavior, it is a reinforcer. If it doesn’t, it is not.

Primary And Secondary Behaviors

Reinforcers may be (primary or secondary) or (positive or negative)

• Primary reinforcers –stimuli that reinforce behavior because of our biological nature.

• Those things that are necessary to our survival; food, drinks, air, climatic confort, affection, sexual stimulation.

• Secondary reinforcers – Are stimuli that acquire ability to reinforce us through our experiences with them.

• They become reinforcers in association with primary reinforcers example books, money, credit cards, pock chips, clothing, facial expressions and phrases (example ‘I love you’)

NB; Not all stimuli have the some ability to strengthen behaviors and that some stimuli have different strengths at different times.

• This is called potency.
• Rinforcing a person with food while she or he is not hungry is not successful.

Positive And Negative Reinforcers

Primary or secondary reinforcers may be characterized as either positive or negative.

• Positive reinforcers- are those stimuli that occur after a behavior and strengthen the behavior they follow.
• Negative reinforcers are stimuli that occur between four behaviors and strengthen the behaviors that follow them.

NB; negative or positive terms does not connote negative or positive altitudes, or anything else like that but just to describe how reinforcers can work.

1. Punish stimuli

• Are stimuli that follow behaviors and weaken them. They are exact opposite of positive reinforcers.

1. Eliciting stimuli- are stimuli that bring about involuntary reflexes. They may be innate (a pies of meat on your tongue eliciting salivation) or learned (a buzzer paired with the meat until the buzzer elicits salivation by itself).

2. Discriminative stimuli are “sign posts” in the environment that they tell us what to do and when to do it. Examples in the street “don’t walk”.

Generalization And Discrimination

Generalization accounts for the fact. That a behavior learned in one place (in the presence of one discriminative stimulus) will tend to occur in similar yet unfamiliar places. An example of generalization can be seen in the human behavior of stopping at red lights.

Learning of behaviors; shaping

Learning- a relatively permanent change in behavior

Shaping- is the reinforcement of successive approximations of some goal behavior (the behavior to be learned) from any stating point.

Do Not Become Discourage With Life Difficulties And Find Yourself Confused, We Need To Control Our Reaction.

When you lack joy and happiness, do not be confused, be calm and count your blessings, the things you are truly grateful for, knowing the power of your gift. True happiness comes from being grateful for what we have. Happiness also comes from giving, for example  encouragement to someone who is feeling discouraged, you are giving and at the same time becoming a source of happiness for others. Therefore “there is happiness in giving.”The Following Are Some Simple Principles And Keys For Successful, Life With Full Of Fulfillment; This Means The State Of Being Healthy, Happy And Satisfied In Your Survival. 

1. Have a Plan: Planning is a critical element in the cause of success. If you don’t have goals or plans then you are going to be a part of other people's plans. If you don’t plan you will get swept away by the people who do.

2. Be Fit and Healthy: Being fit and healthy is an important indicator of success. Implementation and accountability towards your goals or plans depends much on the health status of an individual. Good health necessitates intense commitment to habit change, but it is most definitely not complicated. Eat a lot of raw fruits and vegetables for enzymes. Eat a variety of seeds and nuts. Do short, intense, and interval type exercises.

 
3. Keep things Simple and clear: count things humble and modest. Do not allow confounding in life, avoid stress and confusion by sticking to few choices because, the more choices you have the more you lose hope and become unhappier. Therefore confess success throughout your life and don’t complicate things.4. Meditate bigger things; the commonest attitude to many of us is that, we spend most of our time and energy thinking about minor issues and not focusing into bigger matters. Change your attitudes and allow your mental energy think things of higher levels and live according to you vision   not according to the sight of your eyes because the way you think today tomorrow you become.

5. Specificity & Sincerity. Don’t do everything in front of your sight, do something visionary and exceptional. Be yourself, and do what you feel is right based on your values and beliefs. Be focused on what you want to achieve in life, don’t forget this; if you need to do to succeed do exactly what successful people did.

6. Build self-confidence: you cannot present your ideas unless you are confident. You may give up your dreams as soon as someone tells you that they are not possible, therefore you may fear to take any risks and so ignore many opportunities that could result into your success.

7. Think Internal Locus of Control; don’t assume that everything that happens to you is the result of external factors. Think and believe that you are in charge and in control of everything that happens to you. If you need to be successful person you should change your way of thinking from being based on external locus of control to being based on internal locus of control.

8. Be Flexible: Flexibility is the ability to adapt to external circumstances. It's the ability to try something else or another method when your current method fails. The more flexible you are, the more you will adapt to changes and the higher your chances of success will be.

9. Exclude the Drain Persons: The people who drain your resources should be eliminated. If you think you can’t eliminate them, at least limit your interaction with them and set yourself free from manipulative relationships.

10. Be passionate: Be wholehearted and committed about what you do. Be devoted to life and everything that you set out to accomplish in life. Always follow your heartfelt values, and never let a situation or anybody steer you away from doing what you know is right.

11. Be Persistent: Don’t lose hope in succeeding even if you fail once or twice. The only people who succeed in life are the persistent ones, those who continue working right to the end until they get what they want even if everything was against them and even if they failed many times

"The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit." - Samuel Gompers

References

John A. Glover (1980), Becoming A More Creative Person; pentice hall, U. S. A.

MENSA OTABIL;UNCOMMON LEADERS CONFERENCE

Basic tips for someone to become the uncommon leader

1. suitable posture
2. Definite purpose
3. Clear perspectives
4. Desirable price-sacrifice is inspired by a desirable reward
5. inspiring passion
6. mental precision
7. Deep principle
8. Objective priorities
9. Flexible plan
10. To follow a right path
11. Functional placement
12. Valuable people
13. challenging pressure
14. Repeated practice

Success is not a misty but a deliberate thing. We pursue the signpost for success. Joshua 1:28,1:8.You may have to do something so that you may become successful and if you don't,expect failure. Failure is deliberate. People choose to be successful or failure. All is in your hands. comfort is good and Comfort can comfort you for too long. people get comfort and when they get comfort they stop moving. However there are many people who settle comfortably whether they are poor,rich or whatever. Their language is all is good,nothing gonna be wrong. Excellence then is not an act but a habit. People can have a habit of patriot,success etc. Psalms 126:6 there are words which may mean repeatedly. Africans should rise and work for success. Growth comes with the challenges of management. If you don't manage your growth,then you are going to decline. Mathew 4:19-20, there are the first words that Jesus spoke to his followers “follow me and I will make you fishers of men”.Therefore if you are a leader and you look behind you find no followers,you must be out of your work and you are not a leader. Follow me on the other hand may mean trust me,watch my examples and so forth. Somebody cannot follow you if he don't trust you. A leader invites people to follow him. For this case ,a leader has to transform people from their system of belief,living or whatever to the leaders system or belief. Therefore leaders have to transform or make people. It is well known that the church has more power than the government. For this case,then,if the church is more powerful,it has to transform people. Jesus says “I will make you fishers of men” this is just changing the scope of fishing but still fishing. It is just using the same skill for different purpose of more values. People may use your skills you used and achieved very little,then by the same skills they achieve very much. An example here is Mike Tyson ,before becoming the world champion,he used to beat people in the street and being jailed. But Cus D'Amatho gained that and started beating people and being paid a million dollars,still beating too but for different values and purpose. Therefore,you may be very powerful,but the use will determine the value you achieve. You may use the same skills that yourself or someone else used and achieved very little to achieve very greater values. According to some researchers, 95% of all the self improvement knowledge are based in the Bible. They use the same bible but for different value. Leadership nowadays is not hereditary but acquired and learned. Luke 6:39-40 “can the blind lead the blind?” they will both fall into the ditch. If the country is poor and the president is asking “why are poor?” the parliament also “why are we poor?” the people asking “why are we poor?” then they are all poor and blind. In the church also if the pastor is asking the same questions that the congregations are asking,then the pastor is blind (change right now).There are three things that emerge from Luke 6:39;

1. vision (the ability to see beyond what followers see).If you are in a line,the only one with clear vision is the one standing in the front. Leadership therefore requires vision.
2. Influence-The ability to make people follow what you want them to follow. You must have a clear vision of where you are going before you want people to follow you. If you have never seen the future never tell people to follow you.
3. Determination(destiny)-Leaders determine the destination of followers. You are where you are just because of who you have been following.

LEADESHIP AND CULTURE

In some parts of African towns and cities,if you are driving and you ask a person to direct you,because of ignorance,they point anywhere to show up that they know. If you want to change the location of your group,leadership must be redefined. Leadership are the product of their culture (Nigeria,Tanzania,Ghana etc).The problem here is what the thinking your culture is. In Luke 6:40,leadership is transferable and hence you should be able to transfer your followers. Some pastors if their churches don't grow or die,they just start blaming and cursing the devil forgetting about their culture .They don't think of the real life and circumstances. Our African problems are the same. Singapore solved her problems long ago,China also did it. But the problem with Other African countries is solving problems in the same context other countries did forgetting that we are different cultures. Following is not a permanent condition but a role we play. Followers also can become leaders and here, every country have got its leadership models. Leadership is not just about moving people because some leaders have not been good examples although they did great things. In this sense,leadership is not having a position (not positional but functional).Leadership must be trans-generational(not just for the people you save).Real,don't just point at people just because they look good. Every situation produces a kind of a leader(but may not be permanent).This is because after the situation pass,such a person may no longer be a leader. He/she is a leader only in a specific situation. Some leaders are only individual but in a group they are no longer leaders and are incapable. Acts 6 in the Bible shows that Growing leadership goes with learning new skills .Pastors also must be ready to learn new skills. Not just about praying,preaching and fasting but also how to manage people.

Luke 2:40 points out three things (physical,spiritual and mental growth).Somebody may grow physically but not mentally. Leaders must grow equivalently ,that is physically,spiritually and mentally. Mental growth comes through receiving knowledge when we see,hear and experience things. Spiritual growth comes through learning the life of Jesus. Physical growth comes through just eating and some exercises for keeping our bodies in their shape.

The problem in some context is not knowing who you are but where are you going and identify your mission. Luke 2:42-52 out-covers the notion of growing and increasing. When you grow,there are some things you have to do just after you separate yourself from the crowd. Therefore when you want to become the uncommon leader,separate from the crowd.

04.Desirable price

• the reward should be valuable.
• The reward should excite you.
• sacrifice is inspired by reward.
• The price makes the price bearable or the rewards makes the price bearable.

LEADERSHIP-Enhancing The Lessons of Experience (2002),

Richard L. Hughes,Robert C. Ginnett and Gordon J. Curphy. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.4th Edition ISBN 0-07-244529-7

Often,the only different between chaos and a smoothly functioning operation is leadership. There are are psychological values which go togather with leadership and these are:

1. personality
2. Values
3. attitudes
4. perceptions
5. self esteem

The successful leaders are those who learn from earlier experinces,by reflecting on and anlysing them to help solve larger future challenges.

Leadership is a process,Not a position.

There is an interaction between a leader and the followers. Better leadership is that which everyone shares responsibility for it. Leadership is a complex phenomenon as you may see how different researchers have defined it:

1. Leadership is The directive and creative force of morale (Munson 1921)
2. Leadership is The process by which the agent induces a subordinate to behave in a desired manner (Bennis 1959).
3. Leadership is The presence of a particular influence companionship between two or more persons (Holland and Julian 1969)
4. Leadership is Directing and coordinating the work of group members (Fiedler 1967)
5. Leadership is An interpersonal relation in which others comply because they want to,not because they have to.(Marton 1969;Hogan,Curphy and Hogan 1994)
6. Leadership is transforming followers,creating visions of the goals that may be attained,and articulating for the followers the ways to attain those goals.(Bass 1985;Tidy and Devanna 1986)
7. Leadership is THE PROCESS OF INFLUENCING AN ORGANISED GROUP TOWARD ACCOMPLISHING ITS GOALS (Roach and Behling 1984)
8. Leadership is actions that focus resources to create desirable opportunities (Campbell 1991)
9. The leaders jod is to create conditions for the team to be effective(Ginnett,1996)
10. Generally,Leadership may be defined as the process of influencing an organised group toward accomplishing its goals.

Leadership is both a science and an art.

Being an expert in leadership research is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being a good leaders. Some may be good leaders without any training but other are poor leaders despite their school in the field of leadership. NB:Even though,knowing some of the major researches and findings may help in the variety of perspectives and give leaders insight about how to be more effective.

Leadership is both Rational and Emotional

Leadership includes actions and influences based on reasons and logic and inspiration and passion. People can use rational techniques and or emotional appeals to influence followers,and weigh the rational and emotional consequences of their actions. Good leadership is not just about calculating and planning,or following a checklist;good leadership involves also touching others feelings. Emotions play a vital role in the leadership too. Dr. Martin Luther Jr inspired many people to actions and touched their hearts and heads in the Civil rights Movement of 1960s.It was a movement based on emotions as well as on principles.

Aroused feelings can also be used either positively or negatively;constructively or destructively. Some leaders have been able to inspire others to deeds of great purpose and courage. However images of Adolf Hitler's mass rallies or present day angry mob attest,group frenzy can readily become Group Mindlessness.

For instance,emotional appeals by Reverend Jim Jones resulted in approximately 800 of his followers volitionally committing suicide. It should be apparent that leadership involves followers feelings and non rational behaviors as well as rational behaviours.

Leadership and management

For too many people,management suggest words like efficincy,planning,paperwork,procedures,regulations,control and consistency.Leadership is more associated with words like risk taking,dynamic,creativity,change and vision.some see leadership as fundamentally a Value choosing,and thus a value laden activity.where as Management is not.Leaders are thought to do the right things,whereas managers are thought to do things right ((Bennis,1985;Zaleznik1983),from Bennis 1989)

Some differences between Managers and leaders are:

S/N	Managers	Leaders
	Administer	Innovate
	Maintain	Develop
	Control	Inspire
	Have short term view	Have a long term view
	Ask how and when	Ask what and why
	Imitate	Originate
	Accept the status quo	Challenge the status quo

However ,these terms are complementary;and both are vital for the originizational success despite some different functions. In some cases they seem to overlap.

Leadership and followership

Leadership is not restricted to the influence exerted by someone in particular position or role;followers are the part of the leadership process too. Practitioners and scholars have emphasized the relatedness of leadership and follower ship as Bunnis 1978 observed the ides of “one-man leadership” is a contradiction in terms. The question of “what is leadership?” cannot be separated from the question “what is is follower ship?” There is no single line dividing them,they merge although not the same thing.

Myth:Leaders are Born,Not made

Look at college professors;are they born or made? the answer is that,every college professor is both born and made;they are partly “born” since (among other factors) there is a genetic component to intelligence,and intelligence surely plays some part in becoming a college professor. But also they are partly “made” because professors have and must have advanced education on specialized field. Becoming a college professor depends partly on what one is born with and partly on how that inheritance is shaped through experience. The same is true of leadership. Researchers indicate that mny cognitive abilities and personality traits are at least partly innate (McGue and Bouchard 1990;Tellegen, Lykken, Bouchard,Wilcox, Segal,and Rich 1988);Mc Gae and Foster 1995).

Thus natural talents and natural characteristics may offer certain advantages to a leader. A man's height above the average height may increase the tendency of people to think of him as the leader. It may also boost his own self confidence,but it doesn't make him a leader. The same holds true for psychological characteristics which seem related to leadership. Remaining at a single place,for example at school,college,or village for a long period of time keeps the same personality as years earlier and reinforce the impression that our basic natures and thoughts are fixed,but different environments nonetheless my nurture or suppress different leadership qualities.

Hence leadership

1. Is an interaction between the leader, the followers and the situation.
2. Various formal theories attempt to explain leadership effectiveness in terms of those interactions.
3. Leadership develops through experience.
4. Leadership can be assessed and studied.

In solving organizational problems,followers can better contribute to the leadership process through becoming better skilled at “influencing upward” because followers are often at the level where many of the organizational problems occur. They can provide leaders with the relevant informations so that good solutions are implemented. Although it is true that,some leaders need to be better listeners,it is also true that many followers need training to in expressing ideas to superiors more clearly and positively.

The future portends more change,not less,and followers who face change with positive anticipation and an openness to self development will be particularly valued and rewarded (Senge 1990).Leadership more increasingly must be understood in terms of both leadership variables and followers variables as well as the interaction among them. In addition we must also understand the particular situations that both leaders and followers may find themselves in. Leadership makes sense only in the context of how the leader and the followers interact in a given situation (W.J Rorabaugh,Berkeley at war;New York,Oxford University Press 1989).

	CHARACTERISTICS OF
S/N	Successful leaders	Derailed leaders
	Ability to develop or adapt	Inability to develop or adapt
	Ability to establish collaborative relations	Poor working relations
	Ability to build and lead a team	Inability to build and lead a team
	non authoritarian	Authoritarian
	Consistence exceptional performance	Poor performance
	Ambitious	Too ambitious
Source:J.B Leslie and E van Velsor 1996)

Groups that lack vision

Vision-both transformational and charismatic leaders are inherently future priented.

Groups with Vision

8. Rhetorical skills-sharing vision in a positive and positive manner
9. Image and trust building-Be trusted and confident
10. Personalized leadership-personal nature of the leaders power

Some of the famous and successful entrepreneurs

1. Steven Wozniak-Apple computers
2. Steven Jobs-Apple computers
3. Bill Gates-Microsoft
4. Darren Hardy-successful magazine
5. Oprah Winfrey -HarpoInc.
6. Bill Hewlett-Hewlett Packard.
7. Larry Page and Sergey Brin-Google
8. James Kimsey -AOL
9. Napoleon Hills-Think and Grow Rich (Author)

Followers characteristics

1. identification with the leader and the vision
2. heightened emotional level
3. willing subordination to the leader
4. filling of empowerment

Situational characteristics

1. Presence or absence of crises
2. Task independence (every leader has hi/her own task)
3. Other situational characteristics

Mentoring

Is a personal relationship in which a more experienced mentor (usually someone two or four levels higher in an organisation) acts as a guide,role model,and sponsor of a less experienced protégé. Mentoring may not target specific development needs.

Coaching

Is the process of equipping people with the tools,knowledge and opportunities they need to develop themselves and become more successful (Peterson and Hicks,1996 p 14).There is two types of Coaching which are Informal coaching which occur anywhere in an organisation and formal coaching which erequire planned programs that provide a similar kind of service for excecutive and managers in leadership positions (Curphy,1996 a;Peterson 1996,1999;Witherspoon and white 1996,1997; and peterson and hicks 1998)

DEVELOPING A HEALTH MIND

A Practical Guide For Any Situation. By Julian Melgosa; 3^rd edition, June 2008,

ISBN 978-84-7208-168-0, Editorial Safeliz

“Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of travelling” Margaret Lee Runbeck.

Enjoying life is not a matter of luck; everybody has much to choose in life. A great deal of happiness is attained through personal decision making. We can set our own mood, whether good or bad. Happiness is made by each person. Try much creating happiness to yourself and those around you by doing something that cultivates happiness into them.

Positive thinking must be an ongoing, permanent of style of mental activity which should extend to almost all life aspects. Self esteem development come from two basic sources:

1. Persons we interact with
2. Ourselves.

The word we pronounce and listen to end up carrying pleasure or pain, security or insecurity, closeness or rejection encouragement or sadness etc.

Being happy consists of choosing appropriate acting, feeling and thinking and options. Grasping happiness is matter of will. Unlike conversional intelligence, which posses a strong innate component, emotional intelligence is susceptible to great changes and improvements. Hope is perhaps the most important source of motivation. This quality, together with optimism and the ability to keep good relations are the major feature of mental illness.

Mental health promotion can be carried out by avoiding negative emotions like:

1. Hatred
2. Envy
3. Rage
4. Frustration
5. Pessimism
6. Sadness
7. Impatience
8. Despair
9. Focusing on positive emotions.
10. Also where appropriate (opting for natural remedies).

True life is learned through living not learned in schools. We learn to think adequately because thoughts are the tools to solve problems and to face situations wisely. Thoughts bring about emotions that may affect behavior- the way we perceive the quality of our relationships, work and school achievement, and eventually our mental health and our happiness.

Human existence has multiple facets which include:

1. Physical
2. Mental
3. Social
4. Spiritual

All of them (above) need a balanced and harmonious development. There must be a correspondence of growth between various aspects of life of an individual and thus bring about enjoying life.

Self esteem development adds to life’s happiness. Self esteem as a psychological trait affects almost every perspective of thinking and behavior. The senses are the channels that link us to external world. All senses may become a source of pressure and their enjoyment can contribute to mental health.

Sexuality is an experience where all senses come together, an extraordinary gift where a man and a woman who love each other exchange sensual pleasure.

In order to free ourselves from mental and emotional burdens we need to learn how to relax using adequate exercises and mental rest- techniques. We also need to learn about how to communicate with others. Hurting words can damage friendships in minutes, whilst wise words, used with appropriate emotional tone, affirm people and contribute to lasting mental health.

Being Optimistic and living happy lives can be learned. Whether by imitation, habit or by inertial, people tend to make a pessimistic analysis of situations. This is a step towards depression and other mental disorders. Learn putting aside what has been previously learned and eliminate habits leading to our own or others unhappiness are goals that everyone should seek.

Emotional intelligence is nowadays seen as increasingly valuable as is closely associated to happiness. In order to develop these basic characteristics one needs to learn perseverance, self motivation, control of impulses, mood self – regulation, understanding and trust in others. It is also necessary to live hope fully and to truly desire happiness. Conventional intelligence is now a day’s seen insufficient. Being happy is choice and those in search of happiness must explore the path leading to it.

A health mind is linked to a healthy body. The mind and the body are difficult to separate. Mental illness precedes many bodily diseases. Preventing of mental disorders avoids bodily ailments.

The power of thoughts

Where there is a will there is a way holds a great deal of truth. Athletes know that beating a record is not a matter of more physical training, but of nourishing the mind and thought. Behavior we adopt, the emotional states we experience and even the illness we suffer from find their root in thought and thinking.

Environment (people, places, circumstances among the other), personality (optimism, suspiciousness, aggressiveness and so forth) together with memories and past experiences are the stimuli resulting in thoughts. People process them at will, and these thought lead them to an eventual reaction that may become of great significant to their lives.

Mental content and its processing can be the origin of quite opposite consequences.

Thought and behavior

With the exception of automatic reaction or repetitive acts behaviors find their root in the preceding thoughts, the environment, the kindness of a sales person, there beautiful images of the apartments, may encourage someone to consider the option of buying it later. Everyone is in charge of their own thoughts, and everybody can, with more or less difficulty harbour, channel, elaborate, reduce or reject their thoughts. Govern your thoughts and you will build up your own happiness. Your way of thinking results from your behavior. Your negative thoughts can probably lead you to an undesirable conduct or mood. In order to avoid adverse thinking, choose a life style that is guided by universal principles and values such as:

1. Honesty
2. Responsibility
3. Justice
4. Respect for others
5. Integrity
6. Truthfullness

Tracking situations, Emotions and Thoughts

You have to identify and control emotions and undesirable thinking and undesirable behaviors like getting angry at your family, becoming nervous and many more.

Here are some practices in which you have to analyse which one are undesirable and possibly reject them instantly to power up your positive thinking.

Situation	Emotions	Thoughts
A fight with my sister in law ---	Tension---	This woman never give up
Observing Charlie’s play---	Pride---	If it were not for my children
Someone jumps the queue---	Anger---	I’ would slap him
Irene finished the report of time---	Joy---	I’ a like to give her a good present

Negative Emotion	Positive Emotions
Anger	Understanding
Envy	Generosity (kindly giving more, being kind towards others)
Aggression	Acceptance
Fear	Trust
Sadness	Happiness
Frustration	Patience
Agitation (making troubled or nervous)	Serenity (being calm, peaceful, and untroubled; tranquil)

The physical benefits of positive mind

David Sobel and Robert Ornstein (2000) obtained empirical evidence on the benefits of positive thinking, optimism and the sense of personal control over the following areas of health:

Immune system – Human saliva contains chemical that protect us from infections which become effective in the happiness days and ineffective in the sad days.

Cancer- the antibodies of patients with cancer worked much more active in those patients who were taught to think positively and edifying manner and those who received relaxation techniques than the second patient.

Longevity- Positive mind lowers mortality rate.

Recovery from surgery- the optimistic group of patients who had undergone cardiac surgery recovered in less time from intervention, suffered from fiver complications them the pessimistic ones.

General health- According to researchers, those who optimistically look at their future problems show fewer symptoms of illness than the pessimists.

Thought are not the answer to everything (limitations).

1. Example situation like death of one’s dear, disaster, and so forth.
2. In the midst of shock or a very critical situation
3. They deceive us and forget the reality of sad realities.

Do not those who plot evil go astray? But those who plan what is good find love and faith fullness. (Proverbs 14:22)

Positive thinking results

There is a greater variation in the way persons react to different circumstances due to the fact that different persons perceived and process information in very different ways. Marcus gets upset when it rain considering the negative results of rain but lucy assesses the positive results of rain and enjoys the sweetness of life.

Importance of optimistic thinking

1. Causes good mood
2. Helps maintain optimal social interactions
3. Increase school achievement and work performance
4. Blocks anxiety
5. Enhances self-esteem
6. Reduce pain and other somatic symptoms
7. Strengthens the immune system.
8. Helps patients recover from illness and from surgical treatments.

How to think positively

Reject negative thoughts and substitute them with alternative positive options constitutes a good way to obtain positive thinking style. Pessimistic thoughts tend to take over the person automatically and without following any logical pattern.

Positive thinking must be an ongoing, permanent style of mental activity and that extends to almost all life aspects. You have to consider the following:

1. Positive thinking about oneself. Don’t compare yourself with TV stars and from public life because they portray unreal images “you are you”
2. Positive thinking about the past. The past cannot be changed, let it not obsess you not blame it because of your present difficulties “today is today”
3. Positive thinking about future. The future can be changed your attitudes today affect tomorrows events. “Wait and think of the future with plenty of positive hope” these will increase the probability that the future will be successful. Make plane to prevent any negative aspect that approaches.
4. Positive thinking about people and environment. Not everything is perfect, try to understand the problems of the others and help them, trust them, respect them and love them. Stop irrational beliefs.

Hope as a factor in good thinking

Filling our mind with spiritual thought and themes can be a safe way to attain mental peace. Meditation in the sacred messages in the Bible produces mental peace. Pray to your God and tell him of your pains. “Do not let your hearts (thoughts) be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me (John 14:1)”

“The good man brings out of the good things stored up in his heart and the evil man brings evils thinks out of the evil stored in up his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks (Luke 6:45)” Read also; psalms 55:22- 23; 116:3- 4; 118:5- 6.

At Carnegie Mellon university on interview was called out and it was found that the most pessimistic individuals had the highest propensity to contract the infection and manifest the symptoms- congestion, cough and headache but the optimists managed to successfully resist virus thought the infection (Sheldon Cohen and his team (2003).

Sheldon Cohen and his team (2003) at Carnegie Mellon University interviewed 334 health individuals to ascertain their level of optimism in regards to their strength, well- being and inner peace. They also assessed depression, anxiety and hostility. Next they administered doses of the human rhinovirus (the virus most frequently causing a cold) via their nostrils. The most pessimistic individuals had the highest propensity to contract the infection and manifest the symptoms- congestion, managed to successfully rest the virus.

Mind control

Negative self- dialogue	Alternative
All this is horrible	It not all that bad, it could be worse’
This is useless	There must be something of good.
This man is a pain	I can learn something from this man
My cold will end up in pneumonia	I will soon recover from my cold

Mind body connection

Aristotle, addressing a team of physicians said, “In the same way that we do not attempt to cure the eyes without the head, or the head without the body, neither can we treat the body without the soul”

The body and the mind work very closely together and that the failure of one means loss of health for both. There is a greater interaction between moon and physical health.

Roman law maker Juvenal (60-140A.D) coined the famous sentence “Mens sana in corpore sano” (A sound mind in a health mood) to emphasize the intimate relationship of these two aspects, it is therefore better to tackle both in order to enjoy total health.

“Mens Sana” in corpore sano

1. Laugh often

• It relaxes tissues and muscles
• Diminishes anxiety depression and worries
• Increases the respiratory function
• Oxygenates the body
• Lowers blood pressure
• Act as a pain killer

2. Practice optimism – Optimists suffer from less illness than pessimists.
3. Use memories to relax- Retrieve experiences, anecdotes and event from the past that bring about relaxation.
4. Look at the future in hope.

• It rein forces self confidence
• Promote personal ability
• Helps achieve a general state of well being.

5. Be sure to have an adequate social support system.

• Initiate solid friendships to shove your sorrow as well as your joys.
• Optimal social support does not only prevent illness but also helps once one has contracted an ailment.

6. Maintain anger control and practice assertiveness. Avoiding anger, use assertive communication, share thing calmly with respect and true care towards others.
7. Practice religion and spiritual life. Religious beliefs nowadays reduce mortality in hospital patients, help to achieve better post – surgery recovery, reduce the risk of dependences, strengthen the immune system and result in fiver visits to the doctor. (John 6:48, 51)
8. Get regular exercise

• Help in toning and the stimulation of all vital organisms and muscles,
• Causes the production of endorphin, a hormone serving is a pain killer that stimulates good mood and well being.
• It successfully compensates for the effect of anxious and depressive thoughts.

9. Eat with balance moderation. Foods close to their natural state prepared with simplicity and with taste taken in a moderate amount facilitate clear thought and reasoning. Heavy meals, with much spice, fat or sugar negatively affect not only the body but also the emotional and cognitive functions.
10. Drink what is good. Drink water abundantly (one- two liters per day outside meals). Juice and blends of fruits and vegetables are delicious and healthy. Water help somebody renew organic fluids, think clearly and fell better aver all.
11. Do not neglect rest. Have enough rest.

12. Reject all unhealthy substances. Psychoactive substances (drugs, alcohol, and tobacco) directly affect your central nerves, system and your mood. They also intervene adversely upon cognitive functions: reasoning ability, memory and the capacity of discern between good and bad.
13. Use breathing as relaxing method. Seek pure air and breathe deeply two or three times in a row two or three times each day.

An honest and simple life

By Jose’ De Letamend 18 28- 1896

• An honest and simple life
• Use just a few remedies
• And by all means try
• Not to worry about anything
• Moderate food
• Sun and exercise
• Out to nature for a while
• Little time alone
• Much with people
• And constant activities

Try and practice this, you will see changes (3 John 1:2).

Learning is done everywhere, not only in schools or universities. The surrounding context and events also teach as a great deal and shapes us in one form or another. We also teach ourselves through reflection and practice. Zacchoeus (a tax collector) changed much Just after meeting Jesus (Luke 19:1-10).

Therefore, we learn through anything we see, anything we meet, any person of any kind we meet, any environment we meet, any situation, any pain, any good, any bad, any circumstance is there for use to learn and to change in some way our patterns of thinking. Don’t just see and analyse, take action to improve your level of thinking through it. (Psalms 32:8, 9)

(A health emotional intelligence) move to creativity

A traditional idea of intelligence as general capability to predict success is being questioned today. Feelings, emotions, motivation and social interaction have, in practice more relationship with success and failure than pure intelligence

Daniel Goleman, in his book Emotion intelligence ‘1995 broke the traditional pattern on the authority of intelligence quotient (I Q).Without diminishing the importance of cognitive and intellectual tasks, Goleman considers them insufficient and suggests the following components of emotional intelligence which without these components, the greatest talent would become useless:

1. Ability to motivate ourselves.
2. Perseverance to achieve our goals.
3. Impulse control
4. Ability to post pone rewads to make necessary efforts even thought the reward may be delayed.
5. Self regulation of mood

It helps to escape from

• Discouragement
• Irritability
• Jealousy
• Impulse of revenge
• Despair etc

6. Empathic ability
7. Ability to trust- A basic trait to obtain tranquility, safety and satisfaction
8. The use of reasons in intense emotional moments

Two type of intelligence in men and women

Conventional intelligence	Emotional intelligence
Mans traits:	Man’s traits:
Ambitious, predictable, productive, tenacious, critical, apprehensive, inhibited, distant, uncomfortable with sexuality, in expressive, cold and tranquil	Socially balanced extroverted, happy, responsible, ethical, pleasant, kind caring
Woman’s traits:	Woman’s traits:
Intellectually, good communicator, theoretical, interested in ethical and intellectual matters, introspective, predisposed to anxiety, worry and quilt	Energetic, good communicator of feelings, positive vision of herself, open, sociable, able to resist tensions, socially balanced, rarely anxious, possible feelings of guilt and apprehension.

How to nourish emotional intelligence

Unlike conventional intelligence, which possesses a strong innate component emotional intelligence is, “susceptible to great changes and improvement”

Tips for development of emotional intelligence:

1. Know your emotions
2. Learn to control your emotions practice self – motivation
3. Identify other people’s emotions
4. Nourish your relationships

Practice the following social arts in your relationships

1. Try to give touch of organization to the group
2. If these is conflict after yourself as mediator, peace maker or negotiator.
3. Connect with people and make them feel good
4. Recognize and respect their feelings and interests
5. Sense and indentify the feelings and motives of others
6. Accept the other person, even thought her/ his ideas are contrary to yours

Avoid the following practices in your relationships

• To continue with conversation when the other person has sent signals to finish
• Speaking repeatedly of yourself
• Insist in discussing a topic that your opponent shuns
• Ask indiscrete questions
• Openly and directly oppose the other person’s ideas.
• Any form of provocations

(Mathew 5:9)

According to Furnham and Petrides, 2003) research, Emotional intelligence is strongly linked to happiness.

LIVING WITH HOPE

Hope is perhaps the most important source of motivations. Most people work because they hope to get their salary, a good great for students, winning for athletes. Hope is the principle emotion towards the future .The major future to prevent mental illness include hope, they are:

1. Optimism
2. The ability to keep good relations
3. Hope

Resilience

Is an interesting benefit of hope. A psychologist Victor Frankl, explains that most all survivals of Nazi concentration camps made it because they kept their hope of liberation until the end. They also refused to accept that the camp was the end of their lives and focused on the hope to someday be rescued from such hell.

Hope can also affect a variety of daily tasks. Example influence on academic achievement of college students.

To enhance hope

1. Engage in hopeful thinking. What you expect from beginning determine the signal outcome.
2. Reject negative thoughts
3. Reflect on the past with serenity. Look at past events with calm
4. Break the cycle. When despair surrounds you, find some way to break the routine.
5. Practice optimism
6. Use self introduction. Send encouraging messages to yourself
7. Read and meditate on maxims of wisdom. Get books proven of reputation, gospels, proverbs, psalms are inspired texts proven to support and guide to strengthen many people’s sense of hope.
8. Seek a good social circle. The presence of hopeful and positive people does produce a benign effect. Offer your help in whatever you can.
9. Transmit courage and hope to other people
10. Take care of your physical wall being

• Simple and varied diet
• Rest
• Exercise and activity
• Pure air
• Plenty of water
• Absence of toxic substances
• Trust in God.

RELIGIOUS HOPE

A side from favouring positive attitudes toward the future as source of mental health.

Hope is also a quality closely related to religious faith. The majority of religions are founded in hope; to the believer, hope is gift from God. It links the past, present and future, offering an eventual and definite end.

These are the most relevant feature of hope in the religious context:

1. Hope refers to the salvation. Titus 1:2
2. It is essential to survive. Wards which offer hope. psalms 27:13- 14
3. It takes more than human effort to attain it. There is also divine intervention that makes this (hope) wonderful gift possible. (2 Thessalonians 2:16)
4. It brings about joy. Romans 12:12, Romans 15:13
5. It extends to the return of Jesus or the end of the world. This makes the end of injustice, fear and suffering
6. It entails the certainty of resurrection (1 Thessalonians 4:13,16)
7. It focuses in a perfect and eternal reward. (1 peter 1:3, 4), if you have never tried religious hope, you are warmly welcome, you will enjoy the difference.

(Proverbs 24:14, 1corinthians 9:10)

• Good time management prevent stress, thus we need to know how to plan. Time is an asset given equally to everyone, and we make use of it according to our life style.
• In the past, it was thought to be beneficial to vent ones anger much as one releases the valve on a pressure cooker. Today it is clear that the risks of anger are greater than any small achievement that may be obtained through bad manners.
• Slyness has a strong hereditary component, especially if the slyness is very extreme. Nevertheless, the tendency may be modified when a circumstances demand it or when there is a strong determination.
• Loneliness is a source of pain and imbalance to many

Direct Barriers to healthy human relations

Social relations have a lot to do with people mental health. In fact life’s satisfactions are most enjoyed together with other persons. At the sometime, the most complex problems are usually noted in interactions with others. Learning how to solve the problems is a valuable investment towards happiness and mental health.

1. Anger and aggression
2. Shyness- it damage work relations, cause dissatisfactory
3. Jealousy- jealousy hurts the couple’s relationship and destroys the love that may exist
4. Hatred-
5. Mobbing and sexual harassment in the work environment.
6. Physical and /or psychological abuse among married and other couples as well as relationships where the victims end up identifying him/ herself with the perpetrator by a process called Stockholm syndrome. Instead of being a source of closeness and enjoyment, sexual relations are sometimes a source of pain, suffering and anguish.
7. Sexual desire disorders – together with other dysfunctions and anomalies should be understood in order to avoid them and to restore authentic sexuality.
8. Completion producing stress, pain to the majority, absence of the ethics and deterioration of team work.
9. Envy- Thus may even destroy good relationships.
10. Multicultural and multiracial groups must successfully face the inevitable issues of racism and xenophobia.

Resistance and overcoming

The power to overcome stress caused by extremely difficult situations and to bounce back victoriously in spite of adversity is called resilience.

POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Martin Seligman, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, is the name that most clearly represents the new school of positive psychology. It was formally born in 1998 when Seligman met with two of his colleagues in Akumal, on the Mexican Yucatan peninsula, to draft the foundation of this new psychological branch. Unlike tradition psychology, positive psychology is centered on positive emotions and optimism as a remedy to the majority of personal problems.

There are core ideas of positive psychology

1. Optimism- provides the means to prevent and fight mental as well as physical illness. Pessimism is the cause of many mental disorders. Especially depression.
2. Optimistic hopeful analysis of the present, past and future.
3. Hope is necessary to prevent mental health.
4. Competitiveness cannot cause the victory of many, rather the defeat of the majority. Cooperation is therefore a preferred association.
5. Control over thoughts is the recommended technique to free oneself from undesirable ideas of oneself, the environment and future, as these ideas favour pathological behaviors.

LAUGHTER THERAPY

Laughter is highly beneficial. Several things are attained through laughter release of energy, exercise of numerous muscles, and release of endorphins, deep breathing and strengthening of defenses. All these are vital for mental health.

The outreach of positive psychology

The great advantage of positive psychology lies in its scope and versality everyone can apply many of its technique and integrate them into their daily lifestyle. These are the some of the rules you can use on yourself.

1. Practice gratitude- instead of complaining about life, be grateful for the good things it provide for what you are, what you have, what you can get. The bitter moments come and go away there after show gratitude once more.
2. Forgive whoever wronged you- it brings about even greater emotional well- being.
3. Look at the past without resentment. Don’t keep lamenting about the past because it cannot be changed but approach it expecting the different positive result.
4. Enjoy the present.
5. Asses the future with hope. Reject catastrophic thinking towards the future. Do not generalize, think that everything will go right and make/ do best to make it reality.
6. Identify your strong point. Positive psychology helps person to asses strengths: enthusiasm, sympathy, valour, creativity, intelligence, empathy, kindness, precision, good will----knowing your strong points, you can channel your life towards a successful future.
7. Practice the super – virtues’ – Seligman studies a great number of sacred and philosophical writings (for example: Confucius, Buddha, Lao, - tzu, Aristotle, plato, the Bible, the Samurai code, Patristics, the Quran, etc). Among the over 200 virtues identified in these writings as being of superior moral quality, the most valued ones by all sources were:

1. Wisdom
2. Courage
3. Charity
4. Justice
5. Temperance
6. Transcendence

Choose these virtues as the aims for your life; it will bring about unprecedented satisfaction.

RESILIENCE

Is the ability to face highly stressful situations, without falling into psychological dysfunction. Resilience persons gain additional strength from difficult situations, thus increasing their ability to endure and recover.

Resilience is the characteristic of a certain type of person who has an increased sense of teracity to compensate for deficiencies. Nevertheless everybody can strengthen these traits through leaning and practice.

The following are way to increase resilience:

1. Understand that suffering is the form of leaning
2. Secure a good social support system
3. Enhance your level of resistance
4. Consider problems as opportunities. Do not view yourself as a suffering martyr. Instead, look at the problem as a challenge and take the opportunity to successfully handle it.
5. Hold fast to a faith and belief system. Trust in the omnipotent God.

Spiritual psychotherapy

A good number of their patients some of the following Measures:

1. Forgiveness
2. Love
3. Prayer
4. Meditation of reflection upon the Bible message
5. Private or group worship
6. Dependence upon a supreme Being and his presence in your life
7. The hope of salvation.

“A man without a vision is a man without a future. A man without a future will always return to his past.” (P.K. Bernard)

“A knife cuts because it has a narrow focus” (Cleddie Keith)

“A coward dies a thousand deaths, but a brave man dies only once” (Roman soldiers)

“When God predetermined our destiny, He factored in our stupidity. Therefore there’s always enough time to finish?” (Larry Randolph)

 The level of sacrifice that an environment requires will determine the size of people that will follow” (Kris Vallotton)

A progressive revelation of an ageless revival for our generation is growing in our hearts. It is for those who went before us and for those who are yet to be born. Yet, the question of how the vision is to be implemented remains.

One famous Proverb says, “Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, but happy is he who keeps the law” (Proverbs 29:18). Vision is the bridge between the present and the future. Without it we perish or go “unrestrained,” as the New American Standard Bible puts it. Vision gives pain a purpose. Those without vision spend their lives taking the path of least resistance as they try to avoid discomfort. The level of sacrifice that a vision requires will determine the size of people who follow. Sacrifice separates the small from the great.

Consider the example of a young man who has just graduated from high school and joins the military. As soon as he steps off the boot camp bus, the sergeant starts yelling at him. He has to march over to the barbershop and get his head shaved. Then he is up early in the morning to exercise with someone screaming at him and talking about his mother. Just a month before, he was in high school. He would have never put up with any of this nonsense from his teachers or classmates. But somehow his whole mindset has changed. Why? He is enduring the “cross” so to speak, because of the joy on the other side of it. He realizes that boot camp is preparing him for a greater destiny. His vision of the future is giving his present physical discomfort meaning and purpose.

So many of us go through life not understanding the purposes of our trials. We spend our days walking a crooked path, believing that every obstacle in the road is a problem and something to be avoided.

The second part of this Proverb says, “But happy is he who keeps the Law.” The law isn’t just something God gave to Moses. It is also the restraint, boundaries and disciplines we develop around our life to direct us through obstacles instead of around them. These obstacles become baptisms of fire that forge our character so we can attain and maintain a life of greatness.

WHAT IS VISION?

Vision is what we see, but it is also the way in which we see. Vision is the lens that interprets the events of our life, the way we view people and our concept of God. If we have a scratch on our glasses, it may seem like everybody around us has scratches too, but the problem actually lies with us because our vision is impaired. Jesus said that our eyes are the windows of our heart. Paul prayed that the eyes of our heart would be enlightened. In other words, we perceive with our eyes but we see with our hearts. Our minds receive images from our eyes but our heart interprets these images. If our heart becomes bitter, jealous, hurt or in someway infected, the lens of our heart is distorted. What we perceive is happening and what is really going on could be two completely different things. Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). The word truth used here is not referring to the Bible itself, (although all truth is rooted in the Bible) but here the word truth means reality. Jesus is saying, you will understand what is real and that will free you. So many of us live in a virtual reality. The way we view life can feel and look real, or make perfect sense, but still not be real at all. Have you ever watched a good movie and gotten totally into it? You experience all the emotions of real life. You may even leave the theater still “feeling” the movie, but it was just a movie? it was never real. The truth is: we see what we believe to be true. Another way to put it is, if you have the wrong pretext you will misunderstand the context. Having a revelation of what is real will deliver us from a life of torment that virtual reality often causes.

ESTABLISHING CORE VALUES

Therefore, the things we believe to be true determine the way in which we interpret life. These “things” are called “core values.” Core values are the lens or eyes of our heart. It is important for us to realize the incongruence between what our core values presently are and what we really want them to be. Often, the things we say we believe and the things we actually believe are not the same. We must understand that it is not the truths that we believe in our head that are our core values, but rather the ones we believe in our heart. The things we perceive to be true determine the way we respond to the world around us and to God who lives within us.

These core values also help define the part of the flock that we find ourselves called and attracted to. The children of Israel experienced this principle when they came into the Promised Land. Joshua assigned land to them according to their tribes and divisions (Joshua 18:10). In other words, they received land according to their diverse visions. For instance, if they had a vision for farming, they probably did not go with Caleb to the mountain country but instead were given land that best facilitated their vision. Therefore the land they were given and their vision was congruent. From this perspective, it is not very hard to see how some church splits happen. Sometimes pastors, in their zeal to build their churches, attract people that have a vision for things that their churches or “land” (metaphorically speaking) will not sustain. This dual vision eventually ends up in di-vision.

FORESIGHT, INSIGHT & OVERSIGHT

True Godly vision consists of foresight, insight and oversight that come from His sight. Foresight is like looking at life through a telescope. This outlook allows us to know what is ahead as it connects us to our future. Foresight is the element of vision that helps life make sense and gives us the motivation that we described earlier.

Insight is like viewing life through a microscope. This perception gives us an understanding of why things happen in life. It also helps determine the underlying motivations of the heart.

Oversight puts life into context. It is like flying over our house in a helicopter. There is a perspective that we can only receive from this vista that helps us understand where we are with respect to where everything else is. The sons of Issachar are great examples of this kind of vision. The book of I Chronicles says that these men understood the times and had knowledge of what Israel should do (12:32). People that are blessed with this type of vision often have great wisdom concerning the seasons of life.

His sight assures us that the vision we have is from God. A vision from the Lord creates a mission from heaven. This is illustrated in the life of Moses when he went up on the mountain, received a vision of the tabernacle, and was told to construct it according to the pattern that he had received. (Exodus 24:16-28:43) Visions like this are just “pipe dreams” without some sort of administrative plan to complete them. A lot of people have lofty ideas about things they would like to accomplish for God but they seem to have no sense of how to see the dream fulfilled. There are entire books dedicated to this subject, therefore, I will just give an overview of how to accomplish a vision.

PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION

The first part of accomplishing any vision is to take it from the unseen world and bring it into the natural realm. This can be accomplished by simply writing down the vision. Articulating the vision on paper pulls the dream that is in your spirit (that no one can see but you) into the visible world so that others can capture it in their own hearts. Tools that help to visualize the mission such as architectural drawings, models, testimonies of others who have accomplished similar dreams, or visits to places that have a common purpose are all helpful in capturing and defining the vision for both yourself and others who will come alongside and help. Habakkuk puts it this way: “Then the LORD answered me and said, ‘Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run. For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay” (Habakkuk 2:2-3).

There is an old story about three bricklayers that helps illustrate what it looks like when people receive motivation from taking ownership of a vision:

There were three bricklayers working beside each other on a wall. Someone came up to the first one and said, “What are you doing” “What;’s it look like I am doing?” he replied sarcastically, “I am laying bricks!” The man asked the next guy on the wall what he was doing. He said,”Can’t you see what I am doing? I am building a wall.” Then the last man was asked what he was doing. He exclaimed, “I am building a great cathedral for God!”

Who do you think will do the best quality work and be the hardest worker? Vision causes people to love their work because they can see the big picture. Someone once said, “If you want to build a great ship, you can go out and find some talented craftsman or you can find a person who loves the sea.” Imparting God’s vision to the team around us is the single most important factor in seeing the mission accomplished.

The next step is to create a plan to accomplish the mission. The Bible says, “Without consultation, plans are frustrated, but with many counselors they succeed; the plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD” (Proverbs 15:22 & 16:1). From these two verses we see that although the vision must be from God Himself, men are to help develop the plan that brings about the fulfillment of the vision. Notice how Solomon highlights the fact that developing plans in a vacuum, (without the expertise and insight of others who have different gifts and perspectives than we do), will ultimately end in frustration.

It’s important for administrative people to understand that they are there to administrate the mission. The word administrate means, “add-to-the-mission,” not change the mission. Visionaries often do not like to work with administrators because by nature administrators are refiners and finishers. Sometimes administrators do not understand that they are being brought in to help visionaries determine how something should be accomplished, not what should be accomplished. If the vision is so large that it requires the help of Heaven (which it often does when it really is from God), it will be important that the visionary impart the vision and the faith to see it accomplished to the team. First Timothy 1:4 says that the administration of God is “by faith.”

FEAR COUNTERACTS FAITH

People often disguise their fear as wisdom when they enter into a supernatural mission that can only be accomplished with the help of God. Moses had this problem when he sent the twelve spies in to the Promised Land to determine where they should enter. Ten of the spies misunderstood their mission and somehow thought they were being asked whether or not they should take the land at all.

This type of misunderstanding of the roles people are invited to play in the mission has caused the demise of so many would-be miracles, paralyzing the church of the living God. For years, the people of God have often settled for what can be accomplished by human effort and ability, because we have allowed the opinion of faithless people to determine what we will achieve, instead of being faithful (faith-filled) to the vision we saw “on the mountain”. This is a perversion of the gospel of the kingdom. We should never settle for anything less than what God told us to do.

SETTING GOALS

After the plan is established, goals must be set. The Bible says, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).

Goals are simply the vision broken down into smaller pieces that are measurable in time and space. In other words, they are specified parts of the mission that we will accomplish by a predetermined date. Many people don’t like to set goals because they think that if they are not able to accomplish them on time, they have failed. The truth of the matter is that, “If you fail to plan you plan to fail.” Great leaders know that setting goals is what gives the mission a sense of urgency. Urgency is a friend to managers as it sets the pace for those who are carrying out the mission. If wisdom is used in goal setting, very little management is needed to motivate the workers since urgency manages them. However, be careful not to give your workers more to do than they have the faith to accomplish in a given time period. If it is too much, they will not even try, just like trying to catch a bus when it is already a block ahead. You probably won’t even run after it, as there is so little possibility of you catching up to it. On the other hand, if the bus just starts to pull away from the curb when you get there, you will probably move out of your comfort zone to try to catch it. Yet, setting goals too low will not create a sense of urgency at all. People will not be very motivated and it will result in a lot more work for the managers.

The final stage of seeing the mission accomplished is establishing your steps. Proverbs says, “The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps” (16:9). Psalms says, “The steps of a man are established by the Lord, and He delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, because the Lord is the one who holds his hand” (37:23-24). Steps are your day-in, day-out walk with God: the step-by-step, moment-by-moment, hour-by-hour decisions you make and the things you do that take up your time and use up your life. When your vision is honestly birthed by God Himself, He will be delighted to direct your steps. The most important thing to remember about your steps is that they should be found somewhere in your mission. Go back through your planner from the previous month and retrace your steps. Does it look like they are directly attached to your mission? If not, either redefine your mission or redirect your steps. Remember, history is at stake.

11 Ways to Think Outside the Box

November 6 by Dustin Wax 1.6K Shares | Featured, Productivity

Thinking outside the box is more than just a business cliché. It means approaching problems in new, innovative ways; conceptualizing problems differently; and understanding your position in relation to any particular situation in a way you’d never thought of before. Ironically, its a cliché that means to think of clichéd situations in ways that aren’t clichéd.

We’re told to “think outside the box” all the time, but how exactly do we do that? How do we develop the ability to confront problems in ways other than the ways we normally confront problems? How do we cultivate the ability to look at things differently from the way we typically look at things?

Thinking outside the box starts well before we’re “boxed in” – that is, well before we confront a unique situation and start forcing it into a familiar “box” that we already know how to deal with. Or at least think we know how to deal with.

Here are 11 ways to beef up your out-of-the-box thinking skills. Make an effort to push your thinking up to and beyond its limit every now and again – the talents you develop may come in handy the next time you face a situation that “everybody knows” how to solve.

1. Study another industry.

I’ve learned as much about teaching from learning about marketing as I have from studying pedagogy – maybe more. Go to the library and pick up a trade magazine in an industry other than your own, or grab a few books from the library, and learn about how things are done in other industries. You might find that many of the problems people in other industries face are similar to the problems in your own, but that they’ve developed really quite different ways of dealing with them. Or you might well find new linkages between your own industry and the new one, linkages that might well be the basis of innovative partnerships in the future.

2. Learn about another religion.

Religions are the way that humans organize and understand their relationships not only with the supernatural or divine but with each other. Learning about how such relations are structured can teach you a lot about how people relate to each other and the world around them. Starting to see the reason in another religion can also help you develop mental flexibility – when you really look at all the different ways people comprehend the same mysteries, and the fact that they generally manage to survive regardless of what they believe, you start to see the limitations of whatever dogma or doxy you follow, a revelation that will transfer quite a bit into the non-religious parts of your life.

3. Take a class.

Learning a new topic will not only teach you a new set of facts and figures, it will teach you a new way of looking at and making sense of aspects of your everyday life or of the society or natural world you live in. This in turn will help expand both how you look at problems and the breadth of possible solutions you can come up with.

4. Read a novel in an unfamiliar genre.

Reading is one of the great mental stimulators in our society, but it’s easy to get into a rut. Try reading something you’d never have touched otherwise – if you read literary fiction, try a mystery or science fiction novel; if you read a lot of hard-boiled detective novels, try a romance; and so on. Pay attention not only to the story but to the particular problems the author has to deal with. For instance, how does the fantasy author bypass your normal skepticism about magic and pull you into their story? Try to connect those problems to problems you face in your own field. For example, how might your marketing team overcome your audiences normal reticence about a new “miracle” product?

5. Write a poem.

While most problem-solving leans heavily on our brain’s logical centers, poetry neatly bridges our more rational left-brain though processes and our more creative right-brain processes. Though it may feel foolish (and getting comfortable with feeling foolish might be another way to think outside the box), try writing a poem about the problem you’re working on. Your poem doesn’t necessarily have to propose a solution – the idea is to shift your thinking away from your brain’s logic centers and into a more creative part of the brain, where it can be mulled over in a non-rational way. Remember, nobody has to ever see your poem…

6. Draw a picture.

Drawing a picture is even more right-brained, and can help break your logical left-brain’s hold on a problem the same way a poem can. Also, visualizing a problem engages other modes of thinking that we don’t normally use, bringing you another creative boost.

7. Turn it upside down.

Turning something upside-down, whether physically by flipping a piece of paper around or metaphorically by re-imagining it can help you see patterns that wouldn’t otherwise be apparent. The brain has a bunch of pattern-making habits that often obscure other, more subtle patterns at work; changing the orientation of things can hide the more obvious patterns and make other patterns emerge. For example, you might ask what a problem would look like if the least important outcome were the most important, and how you’d then try to solve it.

8. Work backwards.

Just like turning a thing upside down, working backwards breaks the brain’s normal conception of causality. This is the key to backwards planning, for example, where you start with a goal and think back through the steps needed to reach it until you get to where you are right now.

9. Ask a child for advice.

I don’t buy into the notion that children are inherently ore creative before society “ruins” them, but I do know that children think and speak with a n ignorance of convention that is often helpful. Ask a child how they might tackle a problem, or if you don’t have a child around think about how you might reformulate a problem so that a child could understand it if one was available. Don’t run out and build a boat made out of cookies because a child told you to, though – the idea isn’t to do what the child says, necessarily, but to jog your own thinking into a more unconventional path.

10. Invite randomness.

If you’ve ever seen video of Jackson Pollock painting, you have seen a masterful painter consciously inviting randomness into his work. Pollock exercises a great deal of control over his brushes and paddles, in the service of capturing the stray drips and splashes of paint that make up his work. Embracing mistakes and incorporating them into your projects, developing strategies that allow for random input, working amid chaotic juxtapositions of sound and form – all of these can help to move beyond everyday patterns of thinking into the sublime.

11. Take a shower.

There’s some kind of weird psychic link between showering and creativity. Who knows why? Maybe it’s because your mind is on other things, maybe it’s because you’re naked, maybe it’s the warm water relaxing you – it’s a mystery. But a lot of people swear by it. So maybe when the status quo response to some circumstance just isn’t working, try taking a shower and see if something remarkable doesn’t occur to you!

Do you have strategies for thinking differently? Share your tips with us in the comments.

5 STEPS TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX

A few years back our litigation team was faced with a seemingly insurmountable task: how to defend our client’s trademark rights against a Fortune 500 company with a massive litigation budget. They had the facts on their side. Moreover, they had money.  Worst of all, they had a gaggle of lawyers that just made the case downright unpleasant. In spite of this, as luck would have it, they were missing one very crucial thing that they had never learned in law school. Something big firm life had failed to teach them. Quite simply, they were limited in their thinking to that which was rather than that which could be.

Looking beyond conventional defense methods, we deconstructed every element of the case until we discovered a plan to turn the tables. In trademark law priority of use is everything. Whoever is the first to use a specific trademark typically wins an infringement case, especially where the trademarks as well as the goods and services of the parties involved are very similar if not identical. At any rate, the other side had priority of use. The trademarks were very similar. The services were almost identical. We might as well just throw in the towel, right? Wrong!

In thinking beyond the realm of traditional defenses, we wondered what if we could find someone else who had priority of use associated with their own trademark that preceded that of the opposing party? What if we could find this mythical entity and purchase their rights to their trademark, thus acquiring their earlier priority rights as compared to those of our opponent? Could it work?

Well, not only could it, it did. After a brief search we found a small company in a Midwestern state that miraculously had been using the same trademark as our opponent for more than 50 years. They were considering closing their business already when we arrived and bought them out for a fraction of what it would have cost to defend the case in court. After acquiring their trademark rights including the priority of use date prior to that of our opponent’s first use date, that gaggle of lawyers quickly moved from shooting at fish in a barrel to being the fish in the barrel. The case settled within days.

How did we do it? How can you? Sometimes when you are losing in a game you have to stop playing by the rules, switch it up, and change the game itself.

People often speak about thinking outside the box, but how do you really do it? What does it mean to be limited to inside the box as opposed to being outside? The key is to define the box in any given situation and then to seek alternative, often unconventional solutions that would be considered beyond the norm.

When you are faced with a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, train yourself to not merely  focus on the specific issue at hand but also think more expansively about all of the reasons and the paths that led to the issue. Consider every possibility and hypothetical alteration of that reality along the path, never being dismissive of anything. When you do this, alternative solutions will often materialize giving you options you did not see when narrowly focusing on a specific issue.

Here are a few tips that we have learned along the way that have aided us in getting outside the box:

1.  Identify the issue.

2.  Determine whether a regular or typical solution to the problem exists.

3.  If one does, you’re done. If no, map out everything that went into creating the issue. In this aspect, be expansive. Include everything possible.

4.  Once you start mapping out the issue more completely, start looking for ways to  address the situation in one of the more outlying areas that was not considered  previously.

5.  Never dismiss a possible solution on the basis, “It simply cannot be done.” Consider everything. Go through every possibility until you know for a fact it can or cannot be done.

This is exactly the way we won the case referenced above. If we thought inside the box our thinking would have been:

1.  Can we defend on the grounds the trademarks are not similar? No.

2.  Can we defend on the grounds the trademarks are used on different goods and/or services? No.

3.  Do we have priority of use? No.

In thinking outside the box we began looking at how did the opponent acquire their trademark rights they are now asserting against us? Could we acquire trademark rights that are superior to theirs? We could if there was another company out there using the same trademark as our opponent before they did that would be willing to sell it to our client for a reasonable price. Well, let’s see if we can find one. And we did.

Teach yourself to look at problems more expansively. Never be dismissive of a potential solution before you have thoroughly thought it through. Think outside the proverbial box.