Editor’s Note

Our cover article in this issue is an incredible story of forgiveness. Immaculée Ilibagiza was born and raised in a small village in Rwanda, Africa. She enjoyed a peaceful childhood with her loving parents and three brothers. It was while she was home from school on Easter break in 1994 that Immaculée's life was transformed forever. Immaculée was one of the keynote speakers at our Leadership event, LEAD 2017, which was held recently.Her story on how she used the power of forgiveness to fight her suffering is truly inspiring. Check out our cover story to know more.

How Forgiveness Can Change Your Life

How is it possible to forgive someone who destroyed your family? Not easy, but not impossible either. Immaculée Ilibagiza was born and raised in a small village in Rwanda, Africa. She enjoyed a peaceful childhood with her loving parents and three brothers. It was while she was home from school on Easter break in 1994 that Immaculée's life was transformed forever. An ordeal, which taught her some great lessons on forgiveness and hope, made her understand that life is a precious gift given to each one of us.

Personal Excellence April 2017 Advertisers

When Life Gives You Lemons, Eat Them!: 3 questions I ask when things go wrong

Things don’t go as expected or desired all the time, right? How we respond determines how quickly we embrace the opportunity. I don’t like to think of making lemonade from lemons. It’s a good sentiment for sure, but for me, it means the lemon is bad. I have found that the simple strategy of reflecting and learning can often turn seemingly bad situations into good things

Women And The Second Layer Of Pressure: It’s global!

I never knew there was a second layer of pressure that women face that I don’t. I have the first layer – deadlines, change and uncertainty, goals, too many meetings and e-mails, etc. For our Women Under Pressure initiative, we interviewed senior business women from many large organizations and we discovered that it doesn’t matter what country, culture or background a woman comes from, they face an additional layer of pressure that men don’t:

Don’t Let Your Emotions Crush Your Career: How to handle negative emotions at work

According to a study on Well-being in the Workplace and its Relationship to Business Outcomes, employees who were not given clear direction about their job responsibilities, or felt that there was no opportunity for success at their job,developed negative emotions such as resentment or frustration. This caused them to be more focused on surviving than contributing to company success. What does this translate to in dollars?

Feeling Excluded At Work?: Strategies to avoid feeling left out

The feeling of exclusion or being ostracized has been found to cause a pain sensation in the same regions of the brain where we experience physical brain (i.e. the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex). Basically, feeling left out (of an important meeting, for example) can have the same pain effect as being punched. But exclusive behavior can have a whole range of psychological effects on us.

You Have No Limits*: Reaching your goals against odds

How many times have I heard experts that said such and such can’t be done? It must have been a million times. Most recently we have former presidential candidate, now President Trump. The experts in both parties and I don’t know how many news commentators said the same thing: It will never happen. Well, it did. But we don’t need to look only at the Republicans. It was only a little over eight years ago, that I was a guest on the Presidential Yacht “Sequoya” for a cruise up the Potomac River. During the cruise, I had a discussion with Democratic Congresswoman and former Ambassador to Micronesia, Diane Watson about this new man, Barack Obama.

Do You Play The Numbers Game?: The power of 1

How much of your mind space in your day is taken up playing the numbers game? How many likes do I have? How many people shared what I posted? How many people signed up for my Seminar? Workshop? Training Program? How many people responded to my job post or team building idea? Perhaps we have come to a conclusion that does not serve our inner peace and confidence: my work in this world has worth and value if it’s responded to in a specific way: numbers; positive feedback; conversion rates; ROI. Basically have my efforts paid off in a monetary and physical way?

Getting Things Done: Tips to remember

Remember when the “experts” predicted that by the 21st century, we’d all be down to a 35-hour workweek with more free time than ever before? “They” also predicted large unemployment rates due to new technology and automation. Well, I’m still waiting for that day to come, and I’m sure you are, too. In reality, most of us have never been busier. In previous e-zines, I have talked about the “tyranny of the urgent.” Some of those conditions arise from our not being able to get things done.