Sital Ruparelia

Having spent the last 3 weeks in sunny Hong Kong and a very humid Singapore, I thought the UK weather would give me a shock to the system when I arrived back home.

But the weather has been very mild in the UK.

What has been a shock though is the general doom and gloom about the new year. Having spent 3 weeks in Asia, I’ve found the papers, the media and the general mood in the UK pretty depressing to say the least.

But despite the depressing predictions it’s worth pointing out that what happens to you this year is not wholly dependent on the economy.

It very much depends on YOU do. It can be the worst year yet – or the best. It all depends on how you think and act.

So as we begin a new year,  here are some questions for you to think about:

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We’re all facing increasing amounts of uncertainty these days.

The ongoing sovereign debt problems in Europe, fluctuating financial markets, the stumbling world economy, the dip in business confidence,  lay offs and recruitment freezes have created a cocktail of uncertainty.

But uncertainty isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Uncertainty can actually become a friend rather than simply an enemy. It all depends on how you view it.

You can either view uncertainty as:

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This weekend the Italian parliament fast-tracked drastic austerity measures to cut national debt to coincide with the managed resignation of Italian president Silvio Berlusconi. 

So why now? And why so swiftly?

The reason, of course, is the pressure from the financial markets resulting from a lack of investor confidence. The cost of financing Italy’s debt reached unsustainable levels last week and without drastic changes to reassure investors – the Italians could have been looking at a possible default and the implications that would have in Italy and beyond.

So the pain associated with potentially going bankrupt outweighed the pain of making drastic changes – and so forced Berlusconi to resign and forced the Italian parliament to make big decisions to pacify investors.

The Pain of Not Changing

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 In November 1993 my first boss in my first job as a management trainee with the retailer Marks  & Spencer told me:

 ”Sital, the next 6 weeks will dictate your success next year. The respect and credibility you earn  (or don’t earn) with the teams you’re leading will have a profound effect on your success next  year.

He was right.

Aside from the fact that, as a retailer, this was the busiest time of year – the goodwill I built by  attending every social event, wearing silly santa hats when asked to and putting my hand in my  own pocket to buy drinks and small presents for my team helped me strengthen my relationships  with the people I was leading.

 In November 2000  I was working as a recruiter in London’s financial district when my boss told me:

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Every problem, every challenge and every thorn in your side is here to teach you a lesson

And once you learn the lesson, you get to move on.

Fail to learn the lesson (or run away from it) and it keeps coming back in various guises (different people, different situations, different conditions).

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Most people have a vague idea about the type of change they’d like to make (even if they never share them with anyone else).

Maybe it’s a new career, maybe it’s a move to a life near the sea or the countryside. Or maybe it’s the dream to become self employed or have a flexible freelance career to create that elusive work-life balance.

But despite these grand plans and very good intentions, many people never get their ideas off ground as they simply overthink things.

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“.. almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

Today is Leonardo Da Vinci’s birthday.

That’s right, 558 years ago today, one of the smartest people that ever lived was born.

A genius, some would say.

A Genius…..Why?

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I’m sitting here in the after-glow of successfully completing my first ever sky dive this weekend!

“Awesome”, “amazing” and “brilliant” were the words which most of my group of 13 used afterwards.

But all of us felt some element of fear beforehand.

Here are 4 lessons about breaking through fear from this weekend’s  sky dive and how they may apply to our careers and work lives too.

1.  Don’t think too much

We booked the sky dive 6 months ago.  Someone suggested the idea, we got a group together and in a short space of time booked the event.

The more you delay on a decision, the more paralysed you become with fear and indecision. So think less and act quickly. If you’re 70-80% sure about something, just do it.

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