How easy do you find it to forgive?

This post was written by Ellee Seymour on 18th August 2010

http://elleeseymour.com/

I met Richard McCann this evening and, like the entire audience at The Inspired Group , sat mesmerised as he told us his devastating life story and described how he had overcome one major personal catastrophe after another. Being born with ginger hair was another one of life’s challenge he was forced to face, he joked with us to lighten the mood as his story was dark and haunting.

The colour of his hair certainly paled into insignificance compared to the trauma of being the young son of Wilma McCann , the first of 13 women murdered by the Yorkshire Ripper in 1975, a week before his sixth birthday. A fairly horrendous life followed which forced Richard to lie about the true nature of his mother’s death to Army comrades, culminating with a spell in jail as a drugs dealer, and a desperate struggle to get back on his feet after his release so he would not lose his home.

The theme of Richard’s motivational “I can” speech, which he gives around the country in schools, prisons and to business groups, is to make us believe that even the worst situations in life can have positive outcomes if you focus on them, rather than the negative.  He wants to inspire people and give them self-belief – and counsels others who have lost loved ones in violent situations – using his early wretched life with a brutal father and his unhappy experiences as an example of  this.

His dramatic life story and how he coped with his personal tragedies has been described in his moving best seller, “Just A Boy: The True Story of a Stolen Childhood.” Thankfully, the story has a happy ending as Richard is now blissfully married to a midwife with three adorable ginger haired kids! But that is not the end of the story.

I sense that his real happiness came from being able to forgive – first of all his father for the misery he caused to his family, and then, most surprisingly, forgiving Peter Sutcliffe for the murder of his mother. This happened after he heard Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak at the Forgiveness Project charity which explores forgiveness, reconciliation and conflict resolution through real-life human experience of which he is patron. Afterwards, Richard managed to catch up with Desmond Tutu before he left and told him that he was now able to forgive Peter Sutcliffe who had stabbed his mother 14 times. The two men hugged, and I imagine there were tears following such a huge release and acknowledgement, something 99% of people in his situation could never do.

Richard is an amazing, powerful speaker. He left us all speechless and humbled. His mum would be so proud.

Do you find it easy to forgive?

I’ve been verbed! At a recent meeting, Nigel Wathen of
www.sjpp.co.uk told the assembled gathering that he’d been
“Anned” (thank goodnes my name isn’t Roger ).  Becoming
a  verb isn’t something I set out to do but I’m not
complaining!

If the first action in achieving success is deciding what you want (your  major definite purpose and all consuming goal) and creating a plan to get it, this also involves ‘starting with the end in mind’.

Victoria Beckham famously said that she wanted to be “more famous than Persil” and she got her desire. Lots of people have become more famous than Persil but that was a side product of what they really wanted.

If you can’t decide on your major definite purpose or all consuming goal then starting with the end in mind may help.

I recently spoke to Richard McCormack of www.rjmltd.com who told me that when he started his business it was with the idea of selling it. He has a definite end in mind and is working towards it. Do you?

What comes after that is your belief that you can get it. The old saying “whether you think you can or you think you can’t – you’ll prove yourself right” is absolutely true. Our thoughts are so powerful that they influence everything we do.

You can read below (March 17th) about the number of people who achieved success against all the odds, just because they believed they could do it.

Do you believe you can get what you want? If not, what are the thoughts that are holding you back? The first step to working on a lack of self belief or self confidence is to acknowledge that you have them. The good news is that self-confidence really can be learned and built on. All other things being equal, self-confidence is often the single ingredient that distinguishes a successful person from someone less successful.

Action Plans:
1. Decide on your definite major purpose or all consuming goal. What is the end result going to be?

2. Write down your goal and read it aloud twice a day. Imagine that you have already achieved it. (See post below from March 16th)

3. Do you believe you can get what you want? If not, find out what is stopping you and work on it.

Come to our event on 22nd April to do some practical work towards achieving success.