I've always liked this phrase, "Feedback is the breakfast of champions".

FEEDBACK comes from many sources--clients, friends, employees, vendors, bankers, competitors, family and friends. What keeps us from fully utilizing this feedback is the judgment we place upon it. Too often we label it as a complaint. We become defensive, and in doing so, we diminish the help it can provide.

We should look at ALL feedback as simply information - information we can use to make improvements, corrections or provide us with support that we're on the right track.

How do you handle feedback?
Do you welcome it?
Do you encouragemore of it?
Is it your friend or something you avoid?

Have a look at the following quotes that can inspire and help you over the week.

Something to think about . . .

"If it is not truthful and not helpful, don't say it.
If it is truthful and not helpful, don't say it.
If it is not truthful and helpful, don't say it.
If it is truthful and helpful, wait for the
right time." --Buddha

"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort." -- Herm Albright

"Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be." -- Charles "Tremendous" Jones

"Forget mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you are going to do nöw and do it. Today is your lucky day." -- Will Durant

Most quotes inspire, they are meant to do that. I would like to quote one, which meant a great deal to me. I am not sure as to who quotes the following: “ I was complaining about my shoe till I met someone without feet” - Anon

Though this is ingrained deeply in my mind, I must thank my colleague and friend Sanjay Aloor who reminded me of this quote during one of our conversations. I took that and developed it further. It is my pleasure to share it with you all through this mail. Here goes the story:

In a certain village a boy used to go to the hills and the forest for picking wood. This boy’s family was also engaged in the same pursuit for their living. It was an engagement down several generations.

The young boy used to find the scorching heat of the sun too hard. It used to take a toll on his tender feet, which was already bruised and battered with pricking thorns and sharp stones.

He pleaded with his father to buy him a pair of shoes or slippers. The father used to listen patiently but often cry helplessness because the income they got was barely enough for their existence.

It was a Sunday and the family was at the church and this boy was fervently praying to the almighty to get his father change his mind and buy him a pair of shoes or slippers. The prayer seemed justified. Again in the church on the same day another boy was praying on similar lines but with a difference. This boy was praying that his father buys him a pair of ‘Nike’ shoes as most of his friends at school wore ‘Adidas’ or ‘Reebok’. While this prayer was on, this boy noticed another walking into the church with crutches. The boy was wearing designer shoes though but was also polio stricken and couldn’t walk without help.

Seeing this the boy who was praying for ‘Nike’ thanked God and said, “ I am okay with what I have because I can walk on my legs “.

The boy who came on crutches was there to pray to God as to why he was being punished for no fault of his - being polio affected. He was praying as though he was the only soul with this handicap on this planet. While this prayer was on, there was another boy who was dragging himself into the church. This boy had no feet at all.

Looking at this, the boy on crutches thanked god and said. “At least I am on my feet even if I have to use crutches.”

There was a change in the other boys too and the entire attention of the church was on the poor boy who had no feet. He had come there to pray for everyone’s welfare including his.

Moral
Let us thank God for all that he has bestowed on us and be content with what we have.

"You simply will not be the same person two months from nöw after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you." -- Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance

Cheers
Bill