Persistency: the key to success of “the Colonel”

Colonel Sanders

How many times in your life you had an idea, but you didn’t take action? How many times in your life, after some “no”, did you give up? Persistency, having 100% faith in you is the key factor to success. That is what makes the difference between all successful people and all others, who had a great project/idea and didn’t even have the courage to tell anybody else. Not all people exercise their “guts”, embracing their fears, giving them a deadly embrace. How many times do we take excuses for not achieving our goals? I am too old, I don’t have enough money, I don’t live in the right place and I don’t have a title and many more, the most creative ones for not achieving our dreams, for the fear of failure.

I came across a story of a very famous man, whose face is very familiar to me, although I have never been in one of his restaurants. I think I am one of the few on Earth. I think you are familiar with the face of an old man on a big basket of fried chicken. The smiling visage of Colonel Sanders has been the face of KFC (also known as Kentucky Fried Chicken) for many years. Even nearly thirty years after his death, the image of the jovial southern gentleman (Sanders himself was born in Indiana) still stands as the public face of the company he started in the midst of the great depression.

He was 65 years old, when he received his first cheque of $ 99 for his retirement, when he decided he wanted to do something, starting his business. He realized, although he didn’t have a lot of money, he was 65 years old, he was in the midst of the great depression, to have something important: a great recipe to cook the best fried chicken. He started to go one after another to propose his fantastic recipe. And guess what? He received a no, another no and then another no and so on. He collected 1009 no.

His persistency was his success, because at 1010 was a YES. And then it is history the big success he achieved. He died in 1980, leaving a great legacy: His image remains iconic in KFC; a foundation he established in his later years aids charities and funds scholarships with over a million dollars in grants a year.

“The Colonel” is a great example of someone who didn’t care about his age, money availability, depression…We create our destiny with our decisions we take every minute of our life. We are the creators of our fortune or misfortune. Only when we believe 100% in ourselves we can succeed and when we run towards our fears. Only when we are strong enough to face 1000 no, we can win. That’s the Soul’s Expansion. By the way, we are on this planet for this reason, to give us the most beautiful gift: the gift of the experience. No mistakes exist, only experience exists.

Remember “to exercise your guts”.

Linda Lattuca

L.E.A.D.E.R.S.

I came across a small book from Deepak Chopra, who inspired me a lot many years ago, when I started to work on my self-discovery with awareness. The title of the book is “The Soul of Leadership”. In this book, he told about the meaning for him of the acronym L.E.A.D.E.R.S. After I read something from this book, I was meditating about this acronym, too and my meaning of it. That is what I would like to share with you in this blog post.

L = Law of Attraction of Attraction and Law of Karma:

True leaders know the universal laws and especially these two. They know how to play at the best in their lives, exploiting of the universal laws. They know very well that the Universe is conspiring to make their dreams come true. The Law of Attraction works 24 hours a day in everyone’s life, but only few people know it. True leaders study the principles which govern nature and they apply what they have learnt in their life on a daily basis. They pay attention to their thoughts, feelings, words they speak and actions. True leaders know also the Law of Karma; they know that what they put out, they will receive back. They take responsibility for everything they do.

E = Empowerment

True leaders love empowering themselves. They do it reading books written by great souls; they listen to audiobooks even when they drive, commute or doing their workout. True leaders attend seminars on line or live to expand their knowledge and ultimately their soul. They know that if they don’t have, they can’t give others. Only if they empower themselves in many ways, they are able to empower other souls.

A = Action

True leaders love the process of creation and they have guts to take action to make their dreams come true. They love shipping projects, they love having new experience. And if they “fail”, they stand-up again, carrying on in what they do, learning from their experience. Many human beings stop themselves at the phase of creation, because they don’t overcome their fears: fear of success, of failure or to be judged.

D = Dream

True leaders love dreaming BIG. They know that they are not limits in dreaming and that the only existing limits are the ones we create by ourselves (the bars of our “golden cage”). They dream new projects, new connections, a new life style…They dream to inspire others, to grow other leaders. They have 100% faith their dreams come true; that is why they manifest what they desire. The Universe is their best friend, which supplies them everything they want, just because they “know the rules of the game” and they play at their best.

E = Embracing fears

True leaders embrace their fears. This way, they embrace their life. They know they have the command, that they are the captain of their soul. They use fears to boost their courage. It is also exciting embracing their fears. In doing that, they expand their comfort zone, increasing their confidence.

R = Responsibility

As captain of their soul, true leaders know they are responsible for everything happens in their lives. If they don’t like something, they have the courage to change it.

S = Self-Discovery

True leaders understand that the most fascinating, wonderful, interesting journey is the one in their within. Only when we discover who we truly are and our infinite power, we start thinking, speaking and acting in a very different way. Magically, our outer world changes for better, because we have changed our inner world. We can travel around the world and this is fantastic to be open- minded, but if we miss the journey in our within, we miss the main purpose of our life on this planet: our soul’s expansion.

Keep leading from Within!

Linda Lattuca

How to handle criticism?

The more you are higher visioneer, the more you are innovative, the more you deliver excellence, the more you will attract criticism. You can look at criticism from different points of view:

- as an opportunity to grow and think/perform bet...ter what you do;

- as a compliment. Leaders attract critisism, because they deliver not less than excellence;

- as a "trap" which tries to let you defocus from your goals/dreams/mission;

- as a good sign about you are an innovator (normally people don't like change...you are changing the status quo!);

- as Leader without a title...criticism is part of the "package"! :)

At the end, criticism fuels you, because if you are a real "Leader without a title" you won't be discouraged!

Linda Lattuca

Self-Esteem & Leadership without title

How do you respond to situations? I just finished a coaching session with a wonderful girl, who is a receptionist in a hotel in London. She is very loved and adored by customers. Recently, a customer embraced her, telling her: “You are the best receptionist in the world and I travel all around the world!” Wow, what a fantastic compliment!

Anyway, this wonderful receptionist, who delivers excellence in doing her job, felt very bad because of some words spoken from her boss, recently. Her manager told her to go back to her working place, being nice and doing her job. She started questioning about herself, if she really delivers excellence and so on. Her self-esteem was down and down. Today, she told me she would like to change her job, but she can’t find another one and she feels “powerless”.

What I started to tell her is that it is important how we respond to situations and not the situation itself. The words spoken from the manager hurt her very deeply; although she knows her value and that she delivers excellence to customers. What does it happen in these cases? Every time, we feel hurt from some others’ words, questioning about ourselves, with a consequent loss of self-esteem, we have to take our responsibility of our feelings. It is our decision to feel bad, it is the decision we take about the reaction we have. In that moment and this way, we decide to give our power away. Yes, we give our power away!

The most important person, who has to know your value, is yourself. Why? Because in your life, you can find, on your path, people who can have self-esteem issues, trying to put you down (it’s their favourite game! Only, this way, they feel stronger!). Don’t give your power away, please! Of course, every one of us can improve the performance in any kind of role; no limit, but at the same time, don’t lose your self-confidence, because everything starts from there in life, in any area of your life.

Don’t take personally what others tell you, try to understand if someone is talking to you in a certain way because he/she feels anger or frustration or she/he is under pressure. At the same time, be strong and if someone is not dealing with you with respect, exact respect and be respectful, at the same time. Don’t give your permission to people to deal with you without respect. Be still about that!

Self-esteem is the first brick to put at your base – one of my favourite quotes. Feel to be a leader whatever you do. It’s not important what you do, but how you are doing it. Are you delivering excellence to your customers? (Any role you play in this life. Even if you are a mum/dad…your “customers” are your husband/wife, children…). Self-esteem is a daily inside job and leadership, too. Leadership starts from your mind, heart and then actions. It’s about how much passion you have in your belly in doing what you do. And if you don’t like what you do, stop complaining and act to find what you like, to pursue your dream. Being bold!

Today, I had a powerful chat with one of my cousins and he told me: “I learnt that to have success in life you need two things: courage and respect. You need to take risks and only the experience will give you the answer you are looking for in taking a decision. Then, you have to be respectful in front of everyone!” Wise words!

Be the CEO of your area, whatever job you do or role you play. Do you think you need titles and money to be a leader, to have an impact on others’ lives? Change these limitative and false beliefs, if you have them, please! What about Mother Teresa and Gandhi? Not very tall, not riches (her best richness was inside them!), but at the same time with an incredible inner strength, with a will of iron towards their goals, expressing their talents and potential, their True Self (they expressed the God/Divinity they had in their within! Like every one of us should do it!). You can follow their example, because they are great examples. Feel inspired from them and emulate their best practises: be loving, caring and be still in your great values. Deliver not less than excellence, have faith 100% in yourself and don’t forget how power-full you are and that you can everything…only if you decide it!

Linda Lattuca