The Transformational Power of Repentance.
What feels worse than knowing you’re on the wrong path, selling yourself short, heading in the wrong direction and that you’ve got no one to blame but yourself?
Thankfully, repentance empowers transformation.
Far from requiring a person to wallow in shame and remorse, repentance encourages people to use those negative feelings to good effect as powerful stimuli for meaningful and lasting change.
Repentance is a habit that empowers me to live in a state of continuous transformation.
Through it, I am able to learn more, do more and be more, reaching new heights along the way.
It’s a truly incredible principle – a key that will never rust.
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Correct Principles Cannot Be Destroyed. And they don’t care what your values are.
In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche railed against Judeo-Christian morality.
He advocated for a shattering of ‘the old law-tables’.
But Nietzsche’s call to arms was in vain – principles cannot be destroyed.
And principles should not be confused with values.
How, though, in a noisy, chaotic and contentious world can we determine which principles we should live by?
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Happy Valentines Day!
“Love is the antithesis of hedonism; love means putting the needs of others before personal desires and pleasure. In practice, it means serving others to meet their needs. Love is a verb, a doing word.”
– Tom English, Escaping the Hedonism Trap, TEDxMCPHS 2020
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Self-Leadership through Stewardship: The Path to Sustainable Success.
Self-leadership through Stewardship is foundational to a life of purpose, meaning and fulfilment. And it’s foundational to sustainable success.
The path of Stewardship is an exceptional journey like no other.
Want to learn more?
Drop me a line: tom@3stewardships.com.
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To be Mentored is to be Empowered.
To be mentored means to be guided by one who knows the road ahead.
To be mentored means to be the hero of your own story, taking strides forward that you never previously thought possible.
Ultimately, to be mentored is to be empowered.
Whether relating to trapped penguins, future Jedi, or yourself on your own path to becoming a better version of you, empowerment means having the principles and tools to hand to take the next steps forward.
And as those steps are taken, the mentee will slay their dragons and find their gold.
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The Folly of Scoffing at Faith.
Faith is central to extraordinary achievement.
Yet within secular western culture it’s often derided it as naïvety or dismissed as mere wishful thinking.
How can we better understand faith, then?
And what role can it play in your pursuit of success?
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Stewardship for a Better Life – a reflection on 2020
Can you imagine a world in which more leaders and citizens are committed to the principle of stewardship in the governance of their own lives? Can you imagine how much pain would be spared and how much more joy would be had (far transcending the immediate pleasures that are so readily available)?
Can you imagine how much healthier and stronger we’d be as individuals (in body, mind, heart and spirit) and how much more purposeful, meaningful and fulfilling our lives would be? Can you imagine how much more prosperous our communities would be? Can you imagine how much more effective and sustainable our institutions and businesses would be? And what about the ensuing improvements to the natural environment?
I can imagine all of these things, because I’ve seen the transformative power of stewardship in my own life and in the lives of those who work with me. And as we face the evils of our day, I cannot think of a more apt principle than stewardship to empower us, individually and collectively, to overcome and prosper.
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My Story of TEDx 2020
A brief reflection on my experience in achieving my goal of landing and delivering a TEDx Talk in 2020 – a much stranger year than anyone expected!
If you know someone who might benefit from the Talk, Escaping the Hedonism Trap, then please pass it on.
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Remembering the Why of WWII.
Today is Remembrance Sunday in the UK – a time to remember and express gratitude for British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and subsequent conflicts.
Those who paid the ultimate price are especially remembered.
This year, I have an additional sense of appreciation for the values of the allied leaders that drove them forward in their opposition to the overwhelming force of tyranny and evil in WWII.
Neutrality was not, and still isn't, enough.
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How a Near-Miss Can Leave an Indelible Mark of Gratitude.
What’s the biggest near-miss you’ve ever had?
Mine came when I was in a car that was zig-zagging across the road, out of control on the way home from an all-night party.
I thought we were goners.
Thankfully, we lived to tell the tale.
My near-miss experience didn’t leave a physical scar.
But it did leave an indelible mark of gratitude.
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Relax. It's Just a Job.
Throughout our lives, society tells us in so many ways that our jobs are central to our identity, our place in the world and even our inherent worth. It’s no wonder, then, that we take our jobs so seriously. Sometimes too seriously, perhaps, when we put them at the very centre of our lives.
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Making Bullies Impotent.
How is it that bullies are able to have power over their victims?
In a word: fear.
But the power is in our hands to play our best game and make bullies impotent.
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From Disconnection to Fulfilment.
I've recently had an influx of new connections and followers, so thought that a proper introduction might be in order.
I’m Tom English, founder of 3 Stewardships, and I run a self-governance mentoring programme that empowers personal transformation for sustainable success.
My story starts several years ago when I unintentionally found myself in a dark place…
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Crying is not synonymous with breaking.
What are your thoughts about men crying?
That was essentially the question that Aishah Iqbal and I recently discussed on her podcast.
As many things in the world are turned upside down, it’s crucial to our individual and collective well-being to have these sort of conversations openly, with empathy, respect and courage.
Each of us is an eternal soul having a mortal experience.
And emotion is a big part of that experience!
Let’s not forget that or put on a false front to “save face”.
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Barbarism or Civilisation? It’s Our Choice.
I learned from a young age that violence is possible anywhere.
The mores that underpin civilisation cannot be taken for granted.
Civilisation itself cannot be taken for granted.
We have some big choices to make.
And those choices start with engaged, proactive individuals.
Which values will you choose to live by?
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It's Time to Heal. Together.
The beauty of reaching out and getting to know people from different backgrounds and cultures is discovering that they’re remarkably similar to us!
I call this the people paradox: we’re all different, yet in some fundamental aspects we’re all the same.
We, as a human race, have a lot going on at the moment – a lot of problems that need solutions.
Let’s use our God-given uniqueness and diversity to come together to find those solutions as one body. United.
It’s time to heal. Together.
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Rethinking Legacy: From Self-Aggrandisement to Selfless Service.
The richest legacies aren’t triumphalist biographies, palaces or inscriptions on buildings; they’re the inscriptions of love inside the hearts of those you have served.
In the final analysis, nobody cares about the extent of your status or the prestige of your title; they care about what you contributed and how you served.
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Want to Find Your Purpose? Ask a Better Question.
I spent years at the beginning of my career trying to figure out what my purpose was.
It was a real struggle!
The solution to my struggle, however, came through asking a better question…
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The Hedonism Trap: From Pleasure to Despair to Where?
Hedonism isn’t just all-night raves and glow sticks…
It can come in as many shapes and sizes as there are people on the planet!
(There are no shortage of options, lockdown or not…)
But pursuing pleasure as an end in itself can lead to an inner emptiness and a desperate sense of nothingness.
In a world full of distractions, temptations and challenges, anyone can sleepwalk their way into the hedonism trap.
Thankfully, however, anyone can also change course and escape the trap.
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It's Ok to Cry.
Parents, leaders, and anyone else who is looked to as a role model, please be mindful and respectful of your own humanity.
Don’t act like your impervious to the challenges of the day – you’re not. And that’s ok.
Engage with your emotion, reflect on its meaning and then take appropriate action.
This too shall pass. Let’s ensure that we’re in good shape to move forward when it does.
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