This video blew my mind when I saw it. It demonstrates in a symbolic way what each and every one of us should be doing in order to reverse some of the bad trends in our society and create a better environment for everybody.

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Which way do you read the script of your life?

It’s looking around the world, at what is happening with starving people and violence, which makes me feel small and helpless sometimes. I can remember thinking about it ever since I was 15 years old, like Atlas, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. I wrote poetry, listened to Joan Baez and wrote John Lennon’s words of “Imagine” on my notebooks.

Have you ever been asked about the teachers that influenced your life? Well, it’s happened to me quite a few times, and I’ve always given the same answer. Reuben.

It was in grade 11. I was on the school council and headed the newsletter committee. One day, five of us were sitting in the principal’s office, accompanied by the teacher who had supported us for the entire year. This teacher, Reuben, had a family of his own, yet he spent hours with us, during breaks and after school, something no other teacher ever did. He sat on “our” side, facing the principal, and moved our chairs into a circle, breaking the authoritative seating arrangement.

Later on that evening, I asked, “Reuben, why are you doing this? Why are you spending all this time with us?” and he said something that changed my life forever. “If I make a difference in the life of the five of you and each of you will make a difference in the life of some other five, it’ll spread, and together we will make this world a better place”.

I think that, inside of me, I came up with the belief that his words were the answer to easing the load of the world. Each of us will make Heaven on Earth with the people around us, and together we will make this world a better place.

You see, he never said anything about the pace, about how long we’ll have to live until this starts affecting others. He didn’t even say anything about how to do it.

It was only 5 years later, when I studied Special Education, that I learned the 7% rule, which made another change in my life (except for the other million changes that happened every second in my life up until then). I figured out how to do it. I came to study Special Education with his words inside of me and was a bit surprised to find out that words make up only 7% of our communication.

You probably understand how devastating it can be for a writer, who treats words as colors in the hand of an artist, to find out that words don’t have that affect because they represent only 7% of communication. I wondered about his words numerous times and realized that what he gave us was his passion, his time, his love, his smile and his faith. He gave us encouragement and the belief in our ability to make a difference. You see, his words were just a summary of a whole year of communicating his belief. He was the candle and we were the mirrors to reflect it.

It changed my life because I realized that what matters is the things I believe in and the things I pass on. I realized that in order to change the world, I needed to change myself. I know that, no matter what I do, I’m a candle, and if I want my mirrors to reflect beautiful light, I have to shine that light. During that time, I dived deeper into the journey of self-discovery, brightening my candle, or the way we now say it at home, “bettering myself”.

Coaching, or personal development, existed since the beginning of humanity. The desire to “better ourselves” is probably carved inside of us and learning is the greatest tool to achieve this.

Brian Tracy, in his books and talks, presents this concept of success as a measurement of the drive to get better and better at things that are important to us. Technically, if every day we get just a tiny bit better, the effect is compounded. This results in faster and faster growth, which is then reflected by all the people around us. Together, we can spread the light.

It’s funny that people typically start the journey of self-discovery at a late stage in their life, when they are fed up with the compromises they’ve made and they want to make changes. Funny, because they had it when they were born, they believed they could do and have anything they wanted, but life gradually strangled that belief.

The most important five people that I chose to spread my light with are Gal and the kids. In our house, we’ve introduced the “bettering myself” concept to our teenage daughter, our 9-year-old son and our 4-year-old daughter. It helped us change life from an unconscious existence of doing things “because Mum told me to”, or “because everyone does it”, into a sequence of purposeful actions.

We ask questions like “What can I do today to better myself?” or “Is what I’m doing now going to help me better myself?” When a kid is bettering himself, because he is so young, can you imagine what he can achieve in a lifetime? Purposeful children never get to be fed up, because they ask themselves these question every day and learn to be responsible for their life.

The bad news: time flies. The good news: you are the pilot

When you are an adult, you might see the bad news, but children are born to embrace the good news. It is amazingly powerful to be in full control, to be the pilot.

I think Reuben was a “kid” who realized not only that he is the pilot of his own life, but also that he is somehow a pilot of the life of all the people he’s in contact with. I think he changed our life and made this world a better place by believing and spreading this belief, by making sure that the other 93% of communication will come out shiny and enlightening.

I know now that my writing to you represents only 7% of my belief and that you all know the other 93%. So if you do feel sometimes that there are bad things in the world, that we have too many wars, fear or hunger, think of the light that is fading and brighten your light by looking at the mirror.

Until next time, have a safe journey of “bettering yourself”.

May the force be with you!
Ronit

One day, I was standing at the post office, waiting to be served, and in front of me in life were a few people, who cam to pay their bills there. While I was waiting, I looked around, and noticed a rather large sign behind the counter, which said in red, bold letter, “Avoid Penalties!”

The people who come to the post office to pay their bills are usually (and I’m not saying always) the kind of people who get a short paycheck and calculate every cent of their expenses, while being unaware of, or unable to use, automatic payment means, credit cards, etc. Many of them have bills hanging over their heads anyway, they’re afraid of losing their job, not making mortgage payments, disconnections and other threats, and now they are being warned of penalties?

Often, when I drive on the highway, I see a sign saying “Wear a seatbelt or wear a fine”, another one saying “Speed cameras are operated in this area” or even one asking “Which one would you rather ride tonight?” and showing a taxi and a police car (that one’s for people thinking of driving drunk).

Obviously, we want drivers to behave on the road and to drive safely, but what happens when the incentive given is to avoid being caught? I know I keep my eyes on the speedometer, which is really not where I should be looking when I drive. I should be looking at the road. I know that drivers, especially young ones, see these signs as a challenge and do their best to drive too fast or while intoxicated and not get caught.

Now, I can’t do much about the sign at the post office, but I did write to the government department in charge of the highway and said, “How about writing on the sign something like ‘Thank you for driving safely’?”

Well, after quite a long time, I got a call from a man, who said he was really sorry, but he couldn’t approve such a change. When I asked him why, he said “Because I don’t have the authority to approve sign changes”. I asked him, “In that case, why did you ring me? Go ahead and escalate my suggestion to the person with the proper authority”.

“Oh, no, I can’t do that”, he said. Go figure.

A few months later, I saw a sign that said “Good morning”, which was a nice start, but not quite there yet.

Anyway, my point is that threats send the wrong message to people, a disempowering message, telling them to conform to other people’s rules. Instead, it would be better to use positive reasons, even provide a “what’s in it for me” description to motivate people to do things.

My other point is that you can help change this motivation style in your immediate environment (with your employees, suppliers, kids, etc) and you can also contact the appropriate authorities and ask them if they wouldn’t mind creating a positive world through their messages to the public.

Good luck! Let me know how you go through the comment box below.

As a life coach, my role is to empower people. From my point of view, every person has all the power in the world to achieve great and wonderful things, but that’s not the way most people are brought up, so I help my clients find the power inside them and become independent in their thinking, feelings and actions.

Now, if you’re living in suburbia like me, and especially if you’re working from home like me, you have heard the knock on the door, gone to see who it was and found someone collecting donations for charity. They range from extremely nice to disabled (and sometimes both), and use their charm and rehearsed pitch to get you to part with some money. Sometimes it’s a raffle ticket, sometimes it’s a poor child in some third world country and sometimes it’s a local community organization. All good and noble causes.

Call me cruel, but I always feel that charity money ends up prolonging the problems it is collected for. For instance, children in third world countries are poor because their parents feel helpless and cannot see a way out of their situation. Another example is a person with some disability, who comes up to my door and asks for my donation, because they cannot go to work, which makes me thing they could actually work as a door-to-door salesperson just as well.

When a person is given handouts, they build an identity of need. When the handouts stop, the person cannot survive without them. The alternative is to support organizations that develop infrastructure and teach people how to take care of themselves. There are such organizations, but they seem to be few and far between.

A very big issue in Australia is the money given to Aboriginal people, which they end up using to buy beer and get drunk. This is also the case with many Native American in reservations. Both of these situations arise from giving money to people who want something else – the feeling that they have power over their own life. These examples are extreme, but they illustrate the issue well.

Don’t get me wrong, from the point of view of the person donating, this is great. It’s an act of kindness and sharing and it feels really good. However, from the point of view of the recipient, more often than not it develops a dependence on others and takes their power away.

I would like to encourage you to donate to organizations that build and empower individuals and communities, rather than giving money to people.  If you can, instead of giving money, volunteer your time and support the needy by teaching them skills and encouraging them to be self-sufficient as much as possible.