I went to a Business Chicks breakfast recently and the speaker was Anne McKevitt. If you don’t know of Anne, here is a short summary of her story.As a 15 year old, Anne left working class Scotland to become hair stylist to the stars in London. After surviving a horrific car accident she was told she wouldn’t walk again, that is, until Linda & Paul McCartnery sponsored alternative rehab and she made a full recovery. She then began a globally, successful interior design, property development and homewares business which included TV series, books, and lifestyle products (think a UK version of Martha Stewart, without the time in jail!). She now heads up 22 businesses, is on Bill Clinton’s Clinton Global Initiative, and leads a number of social and humanitarian projects. You can read more of her story here.

She is a success by anyone’s yardstick. So how did she do it? The answer is simpler than you might think - She believed she could.

Anne asked two important questions of her audience at the breakfast. The first question was, Where is your line between possible and impossible? Most people, she said, have a line. Unlike most people, Anne does not. She believes the impossible is possible. Where do you draw your line? How do you hold yourself back? Can you achieve more than you think?

Anne’s second important question was, When was the last time you tried something new? Most of us take the same route to work, have our coffee the same way every morning, and brush our teeth the same way every night before bed. We are creatures of habit. Rituals and regularity are, of course, beneficial. Without them, life can be chaotic. But sometimes we need to extend beyond our comfort zone by pushing and challenging ourselves to try something new.

So this month, we challenge you to try something new. Order a chai latte instead of a cappuccino. Get on your bike instead of driving to work. Start yoga, pilates, scrap booking, mosaics, Taekundo, archery - anything! And see what it feels like to do something new.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 3:50 am and is filed under Wellbeing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.