31 January, 2026
A few years ago, a girl came up to me after my training. “I am not beautiful”, she wept, “I will never get married.”
Thirty countries, thousands trained from over 75 nationalities, and having worked in areas like the Balkans and the Caucasus famed for the ethereal beauty of their people, I have realized that some people‘s internal beauty is so powerful and intense that it overshadows the external beauty and the looks.
This beauty is the beauty of their dreams; the sagacity of their purposes; the strength of their characters; and the elegance of their competencies. As we traverse through life, external beauty‘s transience is repeatedly juxtaposed with the permanence and grandeur of the internal beauty. At times, we miss seeing this just as we miss the beautiful chirping of the birds at sunrise. All we needed was to pause and pay attention.
And then the tragedy unfolds as we judge people based on the external beauty and external conditions: employees, team members, spouses, our children, and friends—and also, a lot of times, ourselves! I sat the girl down and explained to her how beautiful she was. A smile erupted from the tear-stained eyes, and I sensed that her paradigm on life had shifted. A year later, she wrote to me that she was engaged. Alhamdulillah, someone had walked into her life who had seen the sparkle of her inner beauty and proposed.
So today, please pause. I repeat, pause.
Look at the people around you and the mirror. Take a deep breath. Tell me, what do you see, hear, and feel?
Do you hear the birds?