12 is Your Number for 2014
by Abe Brown

There is huge emphasis today on the symbolic and almost spiritual significance of certain numbers and their relationship to our daily lives. Many are captivated by the mystical connection between numbers or units of measurement, and various aspects of our lives in general.

My sense is that 12 is the number you need to know for 2014! Twelve is a number of unique significance in many religions, faiths, and forms of spirituality all over the world, and in mythology. Twelve is the number you need to know, understand, and embrace as we move forward into 2014.

Twelve is the number of publishers that rejected J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter manuscript when she was living on social assistance in the early 1990s. Eventually, it was picked up by Bloomsbury, and today Rowling is worth an estimated $1.5 billion, and the Harry Potter brand is worth an estimated $25 billion. J.K. Rowling went on to sell 450 million copies.

The lesson for us all is this: don’t give up... be tenacious in engaging your strengths, relentless in following your passions, and unyielding when you fall down! The number 12 teaches us the following lessons for 2014:

• Be Tenacious In Engaging Your Strengths—Discover your strengths, your unique shape, and “LifeFIT” as a person, and begin to live them. Fully embrace who and what you are, and live in alignment with yourself. Don’t allow the setbacks from your weaknesses to hold you back. Don’t let the discouragements from not being as strong as you want to be to hold you back. Be tenacious in engaging your strengths. Steadfast. Resolute. Constantly feed and nourish yourself. Take time for you. In the Teaching of The Buddhist Master, we read the following: “Your breathing is your greatest friend. Return to it in all your troubles and you will find comfort and guidance.” Take time to breathe. To reflect. To self-nurture. Devote a tithe, 10% of your waking hours to self-care, self-nourishment, paying attention to yourself, and to developing your strengths. You are 100% worth it in 2014 and every year.
• Be Relentless In Following Your Passions—Terri Guillemets said this: “Chase down your passion like it’s the last bus of the night. Follow your passion, and success will follow you.” Resolve that 2014 will be a year of chasing your passions, rather than chasing success. When you chase success, often disappointment and bitterness is the result. When you chase your passions, success is often the result. Your faith-box and self-mirror determine your whole life: what you think, feel, experience, and do; what you create, grow, build, and dream. You are thinking, feeling, experiencing, and doing what your faith-box contains and what your self-mirror shows. You are creating, growing, building, and dreaming what your faith-box allows and what your self-mirror permits. And all of this is tied into all of us following our passions with full engagement and relentless focus.
• Be Unyielding When You Fall Down—We all fall down when we are seeking to walk, run, and soar. If we are not falling, it is because we are not trying, not risking, and not stepping out. Henry Ford famously said, “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” When you fall down, don’t yield, resign, or surrender. Simply get back up, learn from the event, and begin again, this time with greater insight and intelligence. Never walk in pride. Keep yourself constantly humble and needy. Keep your ego in check. Don’t have an inflexible agenda. Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be broken. The power of humility is that it draws all the support and help you need to thrive and be successful. Pride and ego repel people. It discourages them from offering the help you may need, because you project that you do not need anything. Be like the Greek word for “meekness,” a war horse that is trained and powerful, yet under control. Benjamin Franklin said, “A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.” The truth is that for many great leaders, humility is the missing ingredient.

Twelve is the number you need to know for 2014. Be tenacious in engaging your strengths, relentless in following your passions, and unyielding when you fall down while living your dream!

Abe Brown, B.Th., M.R.Ed./C., C.P.C., C.M.C., is a Certified Master Coach Trainer and President of the Certified Coaches Federation. He has been a professional Life and Executive Coach for over 15 years, and also trains others to be Life Coaches. More information can be found at www.certifiedcoachesfederation.com, or at www.momentumcoach.ca, or by calling 1-866-455-2155. Email: abe@certifiedcoachesfederation.com. Also, see the colour display ad on page 19 of the 19.5 January/February issue of the WHOLifE Journal.