3 weeks later on 23 March my life outlook changed!  My first grandson Joshua, was born.  In that moment my life seemed to take on a new direction.  Everything I had been working on, just didn’t seem as important as this addition to the family.  What a blessing grandchildren are!

When I called my Mom to tell her the exciting news, it was amazing to hear her weep with joy as she heard of the birth of her first great-grandchild.  Just 2 weeks later she was booked off work and sadly on 17 May we said our goodbyes to our dear mother, grandmother and great grandmother as she left this earth to take her place in heaven.  We seldom saw my mother ill growing up and she had remained healthy all her life, so to see her ill and taken so suddenly by end-stage kidney failure was a shock to us all, but she was ready and began to focus her eyes more on her Heavenly Father as she bade us farewell.

However, the worst was yet to come and on 1 August our dear little Samantha, my sister’s daughter, was diagnosed with Leukemia (AML).  The family rallied around, were tested for bone marrow matches and prayed more earnestly than ever before, but sadly Sammy did not survive the onslaught and on 9 December she went to live with her grandmother and in the arms of Jesus.

Since there was already a crack in the façade, and emotions ran high as they did in this year, there was little control over emotions even in the workplace.  In spite of the trauma, I continued to work under a great deal of pressure, but something had to give.

In all 13 weeks were spent away from home and while this amount travel can be seem very exciting, it is also very exhausting and each trip requires recovery time that never came.  Remember, I was still holding down a full time job as well as a leadership role in Toastmasters after hours.  Adrenalin will keep one going for a period of time, but too much adrenalin and eventually something has to give.  More cracks began to appear in my superwoman façade.

With everything on my plate, I should have asked for help.  I was beginning to feel the cracks in my ability to cope but selfishly did not want to let anyone think I could not cope by asking for help, so my nights became shorter with often only 3-4 hours of sleep at night.  The adrenaline kept pumping and in spite of the cracks I still felt that I was thriving.   I was after all Superwoman!  But there’s more!

An opportunity to develop leadership skills

As a member of a Toastmasters club, I was always willing to take on leadership roles and had begun developing my leadership skills as an Area Governor, working closely with and assisting 4 clubs to achieve excellence.  It was a leadership journey that I thoroughly enjoyed, especially since I did not consider myself a natural leader.   I fulfilled this role for 3 years in a row and then decided to continue on the leadership track and joined the executive leadership (Cabinet) of Toastmasters Southern Africa, initially as District Secretary and then District Public Relations Officer.  The growth experience in every role was phenomenal and did not come without that hard work and dedication.  In 2005 I took up the challenge of Lieutenant Governor Marketing for District 74 (9 Southern African countries) and committed to 4 years of top leadership.  It required a minimum of 4-6 hours of additional work on top of my already busy full-time events coordination job.  Toastmasters was voluntary and always after hours and I was now working anything between 12-16 hours a day, on top of visiting clubs 3-4 nights a week, every week.  But I was thriving on the lessons and opportunities learnt.  Juggling all these roles became my new passion!  The adrenalin was pumping and I was loving every minute of the extremely busy lifestyle, which included a fair amount of travel, both for business and Toastmasters.  But that’s not all folks!

As an events coordinator I remember going for my annual staff appraisal in 2005 where could very honestly tell my boss that I was living my dream.  I was passionate about events and thrived on the stress related to coordinating the events from start to finish.  Every detail of the event was challenging and so rewarding and the biggest reward of all was on the day or days of the event and seeing everything roll out just the way we planned.   My life was exciting and because I enjoyed doing what I was doing so much, it was not difficult to take work home and work for hours in the evening to make sure that everything was done according to plan.  No one even needed to know about what I was doing at home – just so long as the event was successful.  Being as passionate as I was, meant that nothing could get me down and the more challenges I faced the harder I worked and still loved every moment.  But that’s not all folks!  More later this week.

However, without going into all the scientific details of what happens in the human body, suffice to mention that the adrenaline that keeps us pumping is often the same reason we don’t even realise that we are heading for burnout.  It will then take just a proverbial straw to break the camel’s back.  Over the course of the next few days, I will share about the teabag that broke my camel’s back.

Consider the following scenario:

You are driving to work in the morning and a taxi driver turns left in front of you from the right hand lane.  How do you react?

Years ago, a colleague pushed me to the edge of my limits and I saw red!  What did he do?  I cannot even tell you, all I know is that he pushed me so far that all reason vanished.  I had no way of controlling my anger.  This is not something that happens to me too often, but I know that there can be times when we are no longer in control of a situation and we react in some way.  Managing anger is learning how to recognise the triggers and controlling them even before we spiral out of control.

If you need to learn how to control your anger, the Anger Management course is a must for you.

• Anger Management Workshop
  Start Time: March 28, 2011, 8:30 am End Time: March 28, 2011, 4:00 pm
  Anger can be an incredibly damaging force, costing people their jobs, personal relationships, and even their lives when it gets out of hand. However, since everyone experiences anger, it is important to have constructive approaches to manage it effectively.
  Venue: Trainyoucan CC
  Street: 206 Stamford Hill Road,
  Area: Morningside
  City: Durban
  Province: KZN
  Post Code: 4001
  Country: South AfricaFor more information please click on the link: Anger Management Workshop

So, Nia Training with Purpose has another purpose and that is to become known in the virtual world as well as the real world.