We just concluded March which is the month designated to celebrate women around the world. We have not done much to celebrate the month because of the challenges globally. A few weeks ago I had breakfast with some of the exhibitors at Tower Suites for us to discuss how can we sustain ourselves and business in these unprecedented times. I encouraged them to have a positive life stance and we will get through this stronger than before. Let’s not only go through this together but grow through this together. Teamwork is important because all of us are smarter than one of us and we need to collaborate more. We discount how changes will be necessary for all our businesses. “It is not the strongest of species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.”

Charles Darwin
We left that café very optimistic that we are a family and looking out for each other. We decided to postpone Expo 2020 indefinitely and decided to host INSPIRE YOU as a virtual event which will be rebroadcast on NCN and FB. Leaders with vision and wisdom help people get traction in distraction and put people first especially in times of crisis.
I love the definition my mentor John Maxwell has for crisis. CRISIS is an intense time of difficulty requiring a decision that will be at a turning point. Very few people can convert bad experiences into something good in a crisis. Crisis allows adversity to help us to discover who we are and test our values. We are social distancing at the moment and I know many people miss the gym but there is a gym that is always open. The Gym of adversity.

I was listening to one of my mentors last week and he was talking about the gym of adversity that builds out will power muscles and it also builds our love, focus
and resilience muscles.

Choices make us Crisis reveal us.
Creativity and innovations are birthed in challenging times so I am pausing and reflecting to intentionally focus on those. Allow me to share the techniques I learnt from John Maxwell.

How to use four I’s to direct our reflection:
I decided to share because it may help someone today and you are free to share.
INVESTIGATION – Ask questions, dig into the situation, find out exactly what happened, both good and bad. By fully investigating the experience you can uncover what went wrong, what went right and what you can learn from it all.

INCUBATION- Maxwell says that reflection should be like putting your ideas and experiences in a slow cooker to simmer for a while. Don’t just give them a passing thought and move on. Truly meditate on them and see what you can learn.

ILLUMINATION – After you investigate and incubate an idea or experience, Maxwell says you need to illuminate the lessons from it. You should find areas you did well at and areas that need improvement. Illumination distinguishes between the two.

ILLUSTRATION – Use your experiences to tell a story. Write out the lessons you took from it, how it made you feel and what you will do differently next time. Maxwell calls this putting meat on the bones of your ideas. Come up with action plans for implementing what you learned.

The law of reflection says that to grow we must intentionally learn from past experiences, both failures and successes.

I am a proud a member John Maxwell Team and his teaching contributed to my growth in a major way to and assisted me to be a better servant leader.

The question I am asking myself is How can be of service and be better after this crisis?
I am encouraging you to call some to discuss how you can be a blessing to them as we continue to celebrate life BEYOND THE RUNWAY.