Motivation - Choosing Wisely

MOTIVATION –  Choosing Wisely


By Nikki Viljoen of N Viljoen Consulting CC – February 2013

W Clement Stone says “Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them.”

Life for me has a natural segregation in terms of the people that I choose to associate myself with.  We all know people who we cannot abide in our space – you know the ones that make the hair stand up on the back of your neck!  I avoid those.  There are people who you meet for the very first time, who you just get a ‘feeling’ about – you know the ones that something is just not right and you can’t quite put your finger on what it is.  I avoid those too.

There are those folk who are negative about everything – you come away from spending time with them and you are completely and absolutely exhausted and thoroughly depressed, you can barely put one foot in front of the other you are so tired.  I avoid those too, they are definitely not good for the soul.

I am also not too good with people who have hidden agendas.  The ones who say one thing and mean another.  The ones that are always undermining what you say, who twist your words to suit the occasion or even worse, who twist your words to suit whatever issue they happen to be championing. Those are just hard work.

I am a pretty open and transparent person.  What you see is what you get. I say what I mean and I mean what I say.  I am very loyal and very protective of my friends and most of my friends are also business acquaintances and clients – they trust me and I trust them.  Most of my friends are people who have high moral standards, their word is their bond and they believe in being fair, not judging folk on where they work or what they wear, but rather on who they are as people, what they stand for and how they treat people.  Most of my friends strive to make a difference in the world that they live in, they care about their fellow human beings and they lend a hand when and where they can.

I really enjoy being around optimistic people, folk who have great energy.  Folk who make your hearts feel light when they are with you.  Folk who light up the room with their positive personalities.  Folk like most of my friends.

Quite frankly, I am proud to be associated with them, I am proud of their achievements and I am proud to be ‘counted’ with them.  They are like minded individuals who strive and work together for the ‘common good’ and what more can you ask of anyone. 

I am more than happy to know that my life has touched theirs and that their lives have touched mine and I am more than happy to ‘become like them’.

I guess I am well and truly ‘shaped by my environment’.

Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za or http://www.viljoenconsulting.co.za