Petal Miller

Petal L. Miller is an experienced Human Resource professional with an extensive portfolio in the People Management and Development field. She has been involved in education, learning, training and development since 1977. Petal is passionate about children and people and believes that her role in life is to facilitate the growth and development of others.

Petal is known as The H.O.P. E Dealer - Helping Other People Excel/Evolve. She is the trainer's trainer. She specialises in designing and facilitating innovative management and leadership development programmes and strategies. As well as being a creative and results oriented executive coach, she is also an extremely energetic conference facilitator and a highly experienced presentation and skills trainer. Petal is the specialist in re-igniting passion in businesses and individuals. She is a ‘people person,’ who touches your heart as well as your soul. She makes you laugh, but importantly, she makes you think! According to a delegate – ‘Petal has given my brain a workout!’

She is a dynamic speaker who gets her ideas and the message across with clarity and passion. An intriguing combination of humour and ability makes Petal an outstanding presenter. She has become well known for her sound practical approach to training. Petal regularly receives high praise from participants for her refreshing, thought provoking and informative delivery.

Why ‘The MIRROR Challenge?’ In 1999, a colleague sent me an email which contained the following words:

‘. . . they don’t even make good mirrors like they used to!!’

At the end of reading this, especially the line, which I think is funny, which states, ‘they don’t even make good mirrors like they used to’, it resonated in my spirit for a long time. I am a fan of acronyms and in 2004, I thought about the letters of the word mirror and penned the acronym MIRROR - Mirror, Impact, Reflect, Respond, Opportunities and Results. This also coincided with the decision to develop a one and a two day personal development training programme, as well as a coaching programme, The MIRROR Challenge™.

The MIRROR Challenge™ is aimed at challenging you to challenge yourself. Throughout the book there are a series of questions for you to think about and find answers. Each chapter of the book consists of a series of questions relating to each letter of the word ‘MIRROR’ – to get you to provocatively think about all aspects of your life. There are also a number of MIRROR Challenge Exercises in each chapter as well as ‘Have a Mirror Moment!’ Exercise. These are for you to complete on your own initially and when you have finished, find a partner, colleague or friend and share the questions and answers with each other. The true purpose of the questions and the exercises is to help you get a fresh and new insight as well as a different perspective of who you are and ‘unearth’ the real picture/reflection of you. Be authentic. You need to be honest, truthful and frank with yourself, or you will end up as someone else and that’s not who you want to be!

The book is not about weight, height, dress size or body image, but it is about you looking in the mirror of life metaphorically and challenging yourself, your reflection, your thoughts, your thinking, your vision, your mind, your feelings, your senses - what you see, hear, feel? Most importantly, this book is about what action you need to take to change your current situation (if you don’t like it) and taking it!