04/10/2015

Best Selling Author, Andy Andrews Provokes AFT Members With Inspiring Message and Practical Advice

Andy Andrews, an American author of self-help/advice books and a corporate speaker, delivered a stirring keynote at the 2015 AFT Spring Summit at Bonita Springs, Fla.

Andrews does not describe himself as a motivational speaker, “I help people at a level that the competition doesn’t know there is a game going on.” Best known for his 2002 bestselling book “The Traveler's Gift,” he shared common elements – or principles – that emerged after reading more than 200 biographies of happy, influential, content and financially secure successful people.

The seven principles he revealed:

1. Responsibility. People have to accept responsibility for their past and accept they are accountable for their own difficulties and that by accepting responsibility they free themselves. It also is does not help a person to blame anyone else for their present situation. “The truth about responsibility is that it is about hope and control,” Andrews said. “The game becomes making better choices.
2. Seeking Wisdom. What people read and watch influences them. “Wisdom is different than education and knowledge,” he said. In seeking wisdom, the quality of answers depends on the quality of questions. Wisdom today, Andrews explained, has never been so accessible, it is there waiting to be gathered. However, people must actively seek it out.
3. Action. Do something to create a new future. By taking action, individuals inspire confidence in others. To become leaders you must decide to move forward.
4. Have a Decided Heart. “More people fail because of an undecided heart than anything else that they do,” Andrews explained. He also maintained that there is a value placed on analysis. The problem is that people want to continue to analyze even when it is no longer effective. The power to control the direction lies within each person and we each possess the power to make decisions and make course corrections to make them right.
5. “I Will Choose To Be Happy.” Happiness is a choice and is the result of certain thoughts and activities, which bring about a chemical reaction in the body. You will greet each day with laughter because it increases your energy and makes you feel different. Laughter is your outward expression of enthusiasm. “Successful people have a high emotional IQ,” Andrews suggested to the attendees to practice smiling while talking to others.
6. Forgiveness. “Forgiveness is a decision, it is not an emotion,” Andrew said. He also recommended for people not to waste valuable hours imagining revenge or confrontation but instead giving up the bitterness. You are content in your soul and have a forgiving spirit.
7. Persisting Without Exception. Andrews said, “There is no penalty anymore in our society for quitting.” However, people possess the power of choice. Today you choose to persist without exception. No longer will you be blown off your course, you know your desired outcome, you hold on fast to your dreams, you stay the course, you do not quit.

“Everything you do in life matters,” Andrews reminded everyone and then asked, “what kind of difference you are going to make.”