This years World Championship of Public Speaking was won by Dananjaya Hettiarachchi. In his award winning speech, Dananjaya tells the story of how people believing in him, changed his attitude to himself and as a result his life.
Have you ever had the joy of improving someone’s life by believing in them. The more they don’t believe in themselves, the more powerful someone else’s belief can be. Start by telling someone you can see potential in what they are doing or could do. It is this belief that can and will change lives.
If you are someone who needs direction to change your life, seek out people who believe in you and can guide your way. We can all improve our lives by seeing something in ourselves and setting the bar a little higher to reach that next goal.
Be inspired today to see something in everyone. Be that glimmer of hope that can turn into a bush fire of potential. Who knows were it will take you or them?
You’re given $500,000 dollars tax free (any currency), what do you spend it on?
$500,000 would allow me to have a different lifestyle, which I would be grateful for. I would repay most into my mortgage, so I could work part-time. I would also pay it forward by giving the children a reasonable deposit for their own mortgage—payable only on a property purchase. I would make a donation to one or more charities or causes that make the world a better place. My special treat would be taking an extended 3-6 month round the world trip with my husband, ticking off many things from our bucket list.
What’s the finest education?
I believe self-confidence and self-belief to be the finest education a person can acquire. With these two life skills, you can achieve what you want in life and if necessary adapt your circumstances to meet your needs. Without these skills you can have a degree in any field and not be able to get a job despite your high marks. This is because your lack of self-confidence shows at interview, resulting in the more confident person with lower marks being chosen for the job.
What kind of art is your favourite? Why?
Pottery is both beautiful and practical and something I have always been drawn to. It cannot be made perfectly and pieces are really identical as they are individually made. My good dinner set was made by artist Helen Temasi over 30 years ago. I happened upon an odd piece of it by mistake in a small shop in Newcastle. Originally, she had made it for the Adelaide Art Gallery and to ensure she had enough quality pieces for an 8 piece dinner set, she needed to make an initial run of over 20 pieces—which in this case all worked. My dinner set is made up of the these pieces sourced from all over Australia.
Is there something that you memorized long ago and still remember?
I didn’t memorise things growing up. I am still not good at it today. When I am learning my speeches for Toastmasters, I learn concepts because I cannot remember exact words. This makes delivery difficult. sometimes, I write a great speech with everything in the exact order but some of the punch is lost by me not remembering the exact word at the exact time.
What are you grateful for from last week?
Last weekend I was awarded the One Lovely Blogger Award which I was grateful for. This helped my blog receive its highest ever views in one day, 167. Three weeks ago my best was 52, so I am growing and becoming more comfortable in this medium.
This week in Australia is Mental Health week. A time when everyone is reminded how common mental health problems are. Statics state 1 in 5 Australia will have problems with their mental health this year. These numbers are reflected similarly in other parts of the world.
The Private Hospitals Association have decided to tackle awareness with the theme of addressing the elephant in the room. The phrase the elephant in the room means something large that is also in the room with you that nobody wants to talk about. But until it is addressed and dealt with nothing can change. Our hospitals all have large elephants with trunks pointing upwards throughout them to encourage everyone to talk about their mental health.
By making our mental health a priority in our lives, the lives of our loved ones and work colleagues we can help to control this illness and reduce the stigma attached to it. The more we talk about it, the more we can recognise its power and help reduce its impact in our lives.
Some areas of mental health that commonly affect people include but are not limited to:
Anxiety
Bi Polar Disorder
Depression
Drug and Alcohol issues
Eating Disorders
Psychosis
Schizophrenia
Don’t assume everything will be okay. Talk to someone—a family member, friend or professional about your concerns. Your symptoms may be as simple as not sleeping well, having no energy and low mood. Don’t assume it will fix itself—address your elephant or help someone else address theirs. if we all work together we can help to normalise this debilitating illness and improve everyone’s mental health at the same time by getting treatment earlier and no hoping it will go away.
The cycle of married life for us and many others has been:
Two of you
Nappies
Childhood
Return to the two of you
The question is when you return to—the two of you—are you happy? Is you lost and found story complete.
When you lose yourself in the nappy or childhood stage, it is easy not to focus on your relationship with your partner. Children are a distraction with wants and needs to be addressed. You can both work together giving them a full and rewarding life and forget about yourselves. However, there is always a point when children no longer want to spend time with their parents. They want their independence and this is healthy. This is when you return to being a couple again.
Suddenly you have lots of time together—no distractions. For us, this happened around the time of my 50th birthday. It was a perfect time for us to take stock of our life and make plans for what we want for the next 50 years—you never know. Questions we asked ourselves included:
What was on our bucket list?
Where did we want to travel if possible?
Did we want to continue to live in the same home?
How did we want to spend our time both together and apart?
Did we want to retire in the city or the country?
What did we consider to be our role in any possible grandchildren’s lives
You should have seen the surprise on the children’s faces when we told them of our possible plans. What about us? Its interesting how in their minds it is okay for them to be actively considering moving out and getting an independent life, but not their parents.
As you grow back into married life—the two of you again—everything you learnt from the family years makes a solid foundation. But a foundation doesn’t build a house. You need to make new memories and experiences with your partner to build your new, solid married life home. The children are making their own lives which we get to visit and they get to visit ours. Even if we all physically live in the same house—our lives need to be seperate.
Personally, I am happy to be back in married life. Only needing to consider my husband in my plans. Now all the things that we have missed for twenty years have returned, dinners out, weekends away and my favourite—overseas travel and new adventures together. The other advantage for me is the hours I spend writing and blogging—neither of these passions were possible in the nappy or childhood phases of my life.
Congrats! You’re the owner of a new time machine. The catch? It comes in two models, each traveling one way only: the past OR the future. Which do you choose, and why?
You can’t move forward by looking backwards. It is for this reason that I would choose the time machine model that travels into the future. The future is full of excitement and anticipation. The more we plan our future, the more it is created rather than something that just happens to us.
I would like my time machine to take me to my future where my book on eating disorder recovery has been published and is available for purchase—hopefully either 2015 or early 2016. How well is it received? What are people saying about it? Does the general population find it as helpful as early feedback from people living with an eating disorder found it? Are any changes required? Does anything need to be done differently? How am I and my family coping with the pressures of being a published author? These are all questions that if answered by travelling to my future would allow me to make my book and my life even better.
However, the time machine doesn’t fix any of these problems. It will only highlight them. I may still choose to leave things as they are and go with the flow seeing where the journey takes me. Just because the time machine has shown me a potential problem, doesn’t mean I must react to it and change it immediately. My choice would be to response to any changes necessary—with thought and consideration.
I see the time machine as a tool, not a director issuing instructions.
Planes, trains and buses are essential to get us from place to another. Every trip has feelings attached to it, created by the person making the trip and your attitude to the trip and can have a big impact on the outcome of your trip.
I commute approximately 1 1/2 hours each way to get to work, sometimes more depending on my train connections. It’s my choice. I could drive but it would take me a similar amount of time depending on the time of day. The reasons I choose the train are:
I walk to the station—includes my daily exercise
It’s reliable—most of the time.
Half the price of driving
Less stressful. I don’t have to watch the traffic and predict other drivers behaviour.
I can be productive—write, read or blog—I wrote half my book on the train in 45 minute sections.
I can sleep. Every afternoon I find the train rocking automatically puts me to sleep and I wake refreshed, even if I only slept for 10 minutes.
No parking hassles.
No damage or wear and tear on my car that I left safely parked on my driveway. In some cases also lower car insurance premiums.
There is always something welcoming about looking out the carriage window each morning while travelling across the Sydney Harbour bridge and saying “good morning” to the Sydney Opera House. It puts me in a good mood.
Last year, we were in Ghangzhou and were excited to be able to explore the city like locals by train. The previous year in Nanjing, we couldn’t get into the train station, let alone work out how to buy a ticket or know where we wanted to go—so we left stressed and defeated, happy to breath fresh air. We just made alternate plans. Ghangzhou’s train system was different. We could choose where we wanted to go, work out the closest train station and go. Easy. We even took ourselves to and from the airport with luggage. It was a sense of freedom for us. While in Ghangzhou my favourite was catching the People Mover—an automated train. This train had no driver and moves people—lots of them—between the main stations in Central Ghangzhou. It was a weird experience but it worked.
Next time you are at the airport, train station or bus stop and need to wait, experiment with focusing on being grateful that you can use public transport to get you to where you want to go and that you are going somewhere. Find alternate ways to occupy your mind and time will appear to travel faster and you will arrive more refreshed.
Remember the old saying “A watched pot never boils.” In my experience this can be true for the planes, trains and buses we are willing to come.
Getting lost is unusual for me. If I am in familiar surroundings, I can usually act like a homing pigeon, make the correct turns and end up where I want to be. However, I cannot read the street directory as the navigator, when the car is moving. Taking my eyes off the road makes me feel nauseous and I lose my concentration. In order to stop me getting lost, I look up where I want to go before leaving home. That works for me.
When we visited China however, you could take me two blocks form our motel room on the first day and I had no idea where I was because everything was so different. My husband loved it and kept singing “I find my way home”, which overtime became reassuring that at least one of us knew where we were.
Who was your best friend in elementary school?
I don’t remember having a specific childhood friend in primary school. I had many friends and like a butterfly, I would flit between groups and friends regularly. I was also the person someone would come to for counselling—even in the third grade—when they had fought with their special friend.
Since the news television season has started in the US, list three favorite TV shows.
In Australia, I am not sure how we match with your current T. V. shows. Although it doesn’t matter to me as have little time for television with working full time, commuting and blogging.
I prefer to watch movies in my spare time. Although, I regularly get snippets of television based on shows my family prefer especially The Big Bang Theory.
If you were a mouse in your house in the evening, what would you see your family doing?
After diner our mouse would see my son in his bedroom on two computers at once—one with work and the other with music or anime. My daughter could be either in her room or more likely downstairs on one of two lounges with either parent using her i-pad or phone. My husband would be sitting in his rocking chair—no, he’s not that old—watching his prerecorded television shows or something that he and my daughter have a greed to watch together. Myself, unless it is Saturday night, our mouse will find me at the back of the house in the family room, sitting at my computer—I will be either blogging or working on the book I am writing.
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
This week I am grateful for the warmer weather arriving. I could feel the sunshine on my arms for the first time in months—I love that feeling. It was also the first time I though it was warm enough outside to eat my lunch at work.
I am also grateful for South Sydney Rabbitoh’s winning the 2014 NRL Premiership for the first time in 43 years.
During this long weekend I am looking forward to catching up with family.
Sydney, Australia is a beautiful part of the world. It is set around nature. Sydney Harbour—arguably one of the best in the world is on one side, with national parks on all other sides. It is a multi-cultural city, with people from all parts of the world, often living in pockets of like-minded people—mixing original customs with their new life, which adds to the vitality of the area. As a result, in Sydney, we can source all ingredients for international cooking by going to the specialist communities.
The strangest thing for first time visitors to Sydney may depend on where they are coming from. Living near Sydney Olympic Park—Sydney’s major sporting and entertainment venue—on the train I regularly overhear conversations of newcomers to the area discussing their first impression of Sydney.
Fellow Australians coming from the country Australia discuss:
Trains – how they work and how easy they are to use
The number of people
The traffic
The multiculturalism of the city
The fast pace of life
How long it takes to get anywhere
International visitors discuss:
Our sporting obsession
How fast we talk
Our strange slang and colloquialisms—they thought we spoke English
How slow our trains system is
How long the flight was
The temperature—especially with the high temperature and humidity in Summer
Wherever you come from, always remember you are welcome. We love visitors and it appears visitors love us. According to the following websites, Sydney is rated one of the top cities in the world to visit.
So, come on Down Under. Our beaches, plants and animals are unique. Join the millions of others who have experienced our relaxed, fun-loving way of life. There will always be someone to say—G’Day Mate.
I would like to thank Cancer Is Not Pink for nominating my blog for this award. I am excited to accept it as an acknowledgment that I am developing a voice my fellow bloggers can connect with.
The One Lovely Blog Award nominations are chosen by fellow bloggers for those newer and up-and-coming bloggers. The goal is to help give recognition and also to help the new blogger to reach more viewers. It also recognises blogs that are considered to be “lovely” by the fellow blogger who choose them. This award recognises bloggers who share their story or thoughts in a beautiful manner to connect with their viewers and followers. In order to “accept” the award the nominated blogger must follow several guidelines:
Thank the person who nominated you for the award.
Add the One Lovely Blog logo to your post.
Share 7 facts/or things about yourself.
Nominate 15 bloggers you admire and inform nominees by commenting on their blog:
7 facts about me:
1. I am just finishing writing a book on how eating disorder recovery is possible—I have worked in the field for over 20 years.
2. I love purple.
3. A possum lives in the gum tree next to our house.
4. I am having a white Christmas this year in Canada, not with family in sunny Australia.
5. Dark, dairy or white chocolate—dark.
6. Disney is my favourite, especially Mickey Mouse.
In Australia, today is the 2014 NRL Telstra Premiership Grand Final. One of the largest sporting events annually in Australia, the Grand Final is broadcast nationally and internationally across many countries. This year the two teams left standing of the original 16—South Sydney Rabbitohs and Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs. The last time these two teams faced each other in a grand final was in 1967, as the Rabbitohs last won a premiership in 1971. Both teams have very loyal fans—honour and pride is at stake.
For many, the big day out begins with the commute to Sydney to attend the game and carnival atmosphere at Sydney Olympic Park. If you are one of the lucky 83 000 plus who will be attending the game, your day is planned out for you. Anyone like myself who lives in the area can minimise the stress by getting into the spirit at home, staying off all roads leading into Olympic Park and if attending the festivities, walk. Helicopters fly over head regularly, providing security checks as the afternoon progresses and become part of the build up to game time.
The general population, relieve their anxieties and pre-game nerves by organising and attending Grand Final parties at home or where possible by watching the game at their local Leagues Club. These family B-B-Q’s and parties have developed their own traditions, usually include several drinks and if your regular team is not in the Grand Final, every one attending will choose a preferred team to win and follow them. Sometimes this team may be the one they dislike the least.
So wherever you are around the globe, join us if you can for our big day ahead and learn a little about Australian culture as you go. Its been along time coming and following in the family tradition of being Bunnies supporters, I will dress in red and green and hope my sisters’ team gets up tonight.
