A New Beginning

Like millions more, I watched the England v Croatia soccer match last night.

For those who don't follow soccer (and many of those who watched last night's game must be wishing that they didn't, either), Croatia won the match, at England's own home ground; England failed to qualify for next year's Euro 2008 championship; bars, sportswear manufacturers and sellers, pizza suppliers and various other companies are projecting a total of over £2 billion lost earnings; and the head coach has, not too surprisingly, been fired.

As my own team, Ireland, has already been dumped out of the competition and has sacked the manager, I've got a pretty good idea of how they feel, and it isn't pretty.

No-one, either in Ireland or in England, is likely to thank me for saying this, but I believe the only thing to do now is to learn whatever lessons are appropriate, and move on.

Dwelling on a disappointment hurts - and it does nothing to put the situation right.

So the English and the Irish teams won't be in Euro 2008 next summer. Fine. That's one distraction out of the way. That gives both teams an extra year to prepare for the next World Cup, in 2010.

Yes, that might sound like a whole long way away - but not when you consider just how far both teams have to improve to be contenders... and yes, we're into reframing things again.

Well, why not? Both teams are capable of far more than they've shown us recently, and both countries' fans would relish some good performances and a few convincing wins. At the very least, we'd like to see them play as if they have some purpose out there.

Commentators in both countries have blamed the dismal showing on the players' and the coaches' attitudes. I don't want to labor the point, but if people can't go out and play as if they've got some self-belief (Croatia clearly had no problem doing that!), then all they can expect is failure.

Please, boys - on both sides of the Irish Sea - put some positive energy into it, and give us something that will make us proud of you. It isn't just success we want. Most supporters can endure a gallant failure, but we can't support a team that doesn't show much passion.

Believe in yourselves, so the supporters can believe in you, as well.

We really want to.

Rocking The Boat

"If anyone's going to rock the boat, it's not going to be me."

This, according to "A Bridge Too Far" (shown on TV on Sunday as a mark of respect for Remembrance Day, and watched for the same reason), was why the person responsible for checking the radios needed in the 1944 attempt to capture Arnhem didn't tell his superiors that he believed they weren't fit for purpose.

With the battle under way, the radio communications failed. It turned out that the radios all had the wrong type of crystal (a vital part of radio construction at the time), and the commanders had no way of making contact with each other.

Worse still, they couldn't even tell the pilots of the incoming planes that they were dropping their much-needed supplies and ammunition over an area that hadn't yet been taken... a free gift for the enemy.

The radios were not the only thing that went wrong that day, and it wouldn't be fair to blame them for the whole disaster, but their failure played a major part in it... and more than 8,000 people, both combatants and civilians killed in the reprisals, lost their lives.

It's easy to criticize, and not even very fair. Rocking the boat can take a lot of courage.

It can be hard to stand out against what someone in authority's expecting you to say. It must be even harder if you're in the military, and much more used to taking orders than trying to make your senior officers listen to something they don't want to hear.

All sorts of things go through your mind. You might be jeered at as a crank, a negative thinker who doesn't see the bigger picture, someone who's scared to take a risk, someone who's "not one of us".

It might not sound like much, but that one hurts. Being accepted by our peers is one of mankind's deepest needs. It goes right back to prehistoric days, when someone cast out by the tribe or family grouping faced a slow starvation.

It can take a lot of self-belief to stand your ground.

Sadly, there are many, many people so inhibited by social pressures that they're unable to assert themselves in any way. They feel obliged to do everything the way they think that others will expect of them.

From how they dress to where they live, from what they eat to the candidate they vote for, every aspect of their lives is governed by the perceived need to fit in, to be part of the crowd, to be what others think appropriate - to be accepted.

It doesn't need to be that way. Things have moved on a little since the dinosaurs roamed the earth.

You aren't going to starve if someone doesn't like your hairstyle. It's not a sin if you prefer a style of music that your friends don't like. There's no law says you have to live in one area rather than another, or change your car more often than you want to, just to show your colleagues or your neighbors that you can afford it.

Most importantly of all, no-one on earth has any right to tell you who you are - or who you're meant to be.

If you'd like to have the confidence to let your light shine, visit Supreme-Success.com and find out how you can most easily project your real, dynamic self.

You may not need to save 8,000 lives - but you'll transform your own.

The Slave In The Triumphal Chariot

In Ancient Rome, when a general won extra territory or crushed rebellion, he would be welcomed home with a triumphal procession through the city.

It was his big opportunity to show the crowds how much success he'd had - how many prisoners he'd taken, and how much treasure he'd come back with.

Beside him in his chariot there would ride with him one of the most important people in the whole procession - a slave, who from time to time would lean forward and whisper just one sentence in his ear: "You're only human."

Successful Roman generals had a track record of believing that a man who'd won a battle had a right to rule the world... and to get rid of anyone who argued.

Reminding them that they were only human, and subject to the same laws as the rest of Roman society, was therefore more than just encouragement to keep their triumph in perspective. For other generals and prominent citizens of Rome, it was also the best chance that they would stay alive.

Sometimes it can be hard to remember that we're only human, too. It's very right and proper to want the things you do to turn out perfectly the whole time... but life's not like that.

We get things wrong sometimes. We make mistakes. We lose our concentration for just a moment, and do something that makes us feel completely stupid. We lose our temper sometimes with the people closest to us, and say something sharp that hurts somebody's feelings.

The other side of the coin is that we sometimes have that done to us, as well. It's easy to remember every mean, wrong-headed thing our parents, teachers, bosses, friends and even partner have said or done to hurt us - and to forget the things they've got spectacularly right.

It's easy to demand perfection from ourselves and everyone around us - but it isn't very helpful. The truth is that we're not perfect - any of us. We sometimes need to cut ourselves, and everybody else, some slack.

Self-belief means expecting the best possible performance from yourself - but not the impossible; self-esteem means knowing you're not perfect, but respecting yourself for always trying to improve - and liking yourself, anyway.

Once you can accept it's neither necessary nor possible for you to be completely perfect, you can start to feel the same way towards others, too - and once you let go of your perfectionism and stop expecting them to do exactly what you want, exactly as you want it, all the time, it takes the stress out of relationships and makes getting on with people much, much easier... and much more fun.

Relax, and stop demanding the impossible. Remind yourself from time to time... you're only human.

Jon Lester Rox!

Congratulations to the Red Sox (aka Rox) on their 7 World Series title, their second in 4 years... and you really don't want to know what time it was this side of the Atlantic by the time the game, let alone the celebrations, ended!

The red and white banner held up by one fan expressed it all - "Believe Again".

Special congratulations to Mike Lowell on winning not just one car but two for being MVP, and, for that matter, to the Colorado Rockies, who have reached their first World Series in only their 15th series - no mean achievement in its own right.

For me, though, the real star has got to be a player whose courage, determination and commitment, let alone his skill, would defeat all efforts to describe them.

At first I thought I hadn't heard aright when the commentator said that this time last year Jonathan Tyler Lester wasn't pitching for the Red Sox - he was undergoing chemotherapy.

It turns out, though, that it's absolutely true. The Red Sox pitcher had a rare form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and might not even have survived it, let alone been able to go on playing baseball... but Jon Lester has an attitude of total focus and determination.

Three months ago, his treatment over, he came back to the Red Sox, and last night he claimed his place in baseball's history books... and his comment on what he'd achieved just to get over it and make it to the Final?

"I was a normal person, and did anything that anybody else would've done."

What's more, he says that the experience has actually helped his playing. Last year, he admits, he could get upset about small things too easily, and lose his concentration and effectiveness.

This year, he believes he's got things in perspective, and can focus better on his game.

Jon Lester's example will be an inspiration and a badge of hope for every cancer sufferer, or loved one, friend or family member of a cancer sufferer, who gets to hear about his heroism and its great and brilliantly-deserved success.

Letting Your Light Shine

One of my favorite inspirational quotes is from Nelson Mandela. It's not in Your Daily Inspiration because of the sheer length of it, so I can't resist the chance to put it here.

I believe the quotation comes originally from Maryanne Williamson, and Nelson Mandela used it in the speech he made at his inauguration as the first black president of South Africa in 1994.

He said: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

His words have the power to stir the heart – but for many people, they represent a serious, uncomfortable challenge. It's not that they don't want to let their light shine. The problem is, so many people don't believe they have one. They've got so used to criticism, self-doubt, negative experiences and poverty of expectation that the idea they might be supposed to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and famous, instead of being a delightful affirmation of everything they want to be, disturbs them deeply.

It doesn't bring them joy – they find it threatening.

Well, don't just take my word that you have the right, the power, the duty and responsibility to be those things.

Listen to the man who spent 27 years in prison because he wouldn't give up on the things that he believed in, and then came out to be not only his country's first black president but a man revered and loved throughout the world.

If Nelson Mandela believes in you so strongly, why don't you?

If you need some help to be persuaded that you can be gorgeous (naturally gorgeous!), check out Reveal Your Inner Beauty. If you don't believe you're brilliant, you can improve your self-esteem. If you don't believe you're talented, you can improve your self-belief. If you believe you lack assertiveness, try out Project Your Real, Dynamic Self.

If you believe the things you want most are beyond your grasp, check out Supreme-Success.com, or else Achieve Your Wildest Dreams - and for your free book of inspirational quotations for every day of the year, just visit Your Daily Inspiration (while it's downloading, you can get get a taste of what you will be reading at the Inspirational Quotations page).

Share Nelson Mandela's faith in you, and let your light shine!

The Secret Ingredient

I've just watched England beat France 14-9 to reach the Rugby World Cup Final.

I don't know that much about rugby (except, of course, that Ireland's already out of the competition), but it didn't take an expert to recognize the transformation in the English play and attitude from the demoralized bunch of guys who went down so spectacularly 36-0 to South Africa a few weeks back.

One of the TV pundits was asked what he thought had caused the vast improvement.

"Their coach, Brian Ashton," he replied. "He's filled them all with self-belief."

If that one simple difference, an increase in their self-belief, was all it took to turn a disorganized group of players who were being ripped to pieces in the press for their performance, into a proud, deserving team of World Cup finalists, in just four weeks, what can a real and lasting increase in your self-belief achieve for you?

You can find out at Supreme-Success.com/Self-Belief.