The Mystery

This is really wonderful!

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Winners Work Hard

OK I know that’s probably not what you wanted to hear!

We all want to believe that winners get there because they are lucky or naturally talented or they knew the right people or because they knew some magic “secret” that no one else knew. But the truth is that whenever you look closely at anyone who is really succeeding in life you find out that the harder they work the luckier they get.

Real winners know that in order to achieve lasting success sacrifices will have to be made. Real winners know that they will have to work really hard, often when they would rather be doing other things and often when they are really tired, frustrated, sick and broke. Real winners know that stress is part of the deal and that if they want to stay successful they are going to have to find a way to deal with stress rather than collapse with a nervous breakdown and let everyone else take the strain! Real winners know that lasting success takes time and they are prepared to stick with it until the job is done.

The thing is that not everyone has it in them to be a real winner. The sad truth about life is there are winners and losers and the winners generally win because they have put in more time, more energy, more effort, more thought, more passion. And sometimes they put all of that in and still don’t always win because, like it or not, life isn’t always fair.

But winning is not just a one time thing and if you consistently put in the time, the energy, the effort, the thought and the passion, over time you will find yourself so far ahead of what you believed possible you will know that it is always worth it.

You never know when you are going to make that breakthrough. But even when you make it, only your best effort will pull you through to true lasting success. So isn’t it worth making your best effort a habit?

 

 

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Credit where credit is due

Deputy blogger on duty. Your normal host is tonight being deservedly celebrated with a number of stars of Dubai–based businesses and opinion formers, at the SME Awards Summit. But blogging must go on, so I have stepped in to ensure continuity of posting at least, if not quality of insight.

One of the most important pieces of any personal development path is to celebrate success, recognise achievement and acknowledge progress; see how far you have come, don’t worry about how far you have to go.

Celebrate your achievements now. Tomorrow will take care of itself.

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Still On Weekend Time

I love elephant journal! There’s always so much to learn on there and since its still the weekend and I’ve got a horribly early morning tomorrow I thought I’d share this with you!

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/11/uncover-your-souls-purpose–what-is-lifes-intelligence/

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Action and Purpose

I was talking about this video with a group of people this afternoon so I thought I’d post it again. This is worth watching and if you’ve seen it before its worth watching again! Powerful stuff about what makes some businesses great!

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Clarity

A lot of people ask me why I put so much importance on having a clear purpose and vision underpinning and supporting everything you do, and that this should be in place as far as is possible before you start to take action.

There are so many reasons but I think for me the most important thing is having clarity about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. When things get tough and the Inner Reptile tries to take over, the more clarity you have the more easily you will be able to calm him down and retake control.

When you’re under severe stress you only have access to about 10% of your normal intelligence so its vital that you have a clear and simple plan of action put in place before stress takes hold. Once the Inner Reptile is in charge this is not a good time for making decisions! So if your detailed plan is all there for you, telling you exactly what your next step should be, your chances of making a bad decision under stress are much less.

The problem with the Inner Reptile is he can only ever predict consequences one step ahead. Remember, his job is to save your life in that moment. So dealing with complex decision making is beyond him. Decision making under the Inner Reptile tends to be only about short term survival and often only preserves the status quo. He really only has three possible solutions – fight, flight or freeze. These reactions was developed back before the stone age when the most complex decisions were about eat or be eaten. Its unlikely in a complex stressful situation that any of these decisions are going to be helpful! Can you imagine if the GPS in your car only ever gave you three instructions? You wouldn’t get very far and your stress levels would not be improved! And it wouldn’t do you much good to wait until you were lost to programme it!

Having a definite purpose and a clear vision also means you can keep your eye on the result you want. This means you can stay on track towards your goal, or even if you choose, meander off for a while! Sometimes the direct route is not the most interesting or the most fun, and sometimes life just gets in the way and you have to take a break. Having a clear picture of your destination means you can quickly and easily to get back on track after a detour.

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Kissing Frogs

I made a client laugh yesterday when I told her she was probably going to have to kiss some frogs so she might as well do it with purpose and get as much learning out of the experience as possible!

You know the old saying – “you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince”. Well its true in business too. You will have to do business with some complete idiots before you find your dream clients! Some people will treat you badly. Some will fail to pay you. Some will just be totally disorganised and not have a clue what they’re doing. Some will have business ethics that make sewers smell fragrant! Unpleasant as they are, they are all learning opportunities for you!

And not everything we have to do to achieve our dreams is going to be pleasant. Sometimes we have to do stuff we don’t want to do in order to get the results we want. Lets face it, who really wants to get up at 5am to go to the gym, or to a networking meeting? But while we may not want to do the thing – we want the results of the thing more! We are doing the thing with purpose!

And when you do things that other people are not prepared to do, you will get results that other people can only dream of!

 

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Let Your Goals Out!

There is a theory that when you have set yourself some powerful and challenging goals you should keep them to yourself or at least only share them with a small select group of people.

I can see why that would work. There’s nothing worse than telling someone about your fantastic goals only to be shot down in flames by a low achieving energy vampire telling you there’s no way you’re going to do that! If you hear that too many times its easy to forget the whole thing and give up!

On the other hand, if you have set your goals from purpose, and you have a powerful and compelling vision for how amazing your life will be as these goals fall into place then why should anyone be able to shake you from your mission? And if they do pull you down it means you need to go back to your purpose and vision and strengthen them. Its like strengthening your foundations.

I think you should put your goals out there! The world needs to hear from people with fantastic goals and beautiful visions. It needs to hear that great things are possible. And if that challenges a few miserable people so what?

In fact your grand goals are more likely to inspire other people into action. And you never know, the more people you tell the more likely it is that someone will say “I know how to help you do that!”

What do you think? Do you keep your goals close or let them out to play?

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Start With The Why

This is one of the best videos I’ve ever seen explaining the role of purpose in business. Simon Sinek explains it so much better than I can:

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A Permanent Reptilian Upgrade

Its all very well having all these ways of fooling the inner reptile to make him compliant to your goal achieving aspirations, but all of this is hard work! Wouldn’t it be nice if he would just let go and come along for the ride?

Well, first of all you need to acknowledge that he is doing a great job! You’re still alive aren’t you? So often we beat ourselves up for our “failures” which does only one thing – it puts us under even more stress.

We tell ourselves we’re stupid, that we are failures, and that we will never improve. I once heard a prominent motivational speaker suggesting we go into a bathroom, look at ourselves in the mirror and give ourselves a big telling off! And what does our system do in response to that? Well, it gets even more stressed, produces more adrenalin and the little reptile says “see, I was right, there is danger” and takes an even tighter hold, stops us doing the things we need to do to succeed and creates even more feelings of failure. Another vicious circle.

So give your inner reptile a big hug instead of telling him off – thank him for all the amazing work he’s done for you in keeping you alive and then gently take back control!

Now your human brain is back in charge how does it stay there?

There is one way to permanently re-programme the reptile so that it works with you to create your fabulous life. We are all born with a purpose, something we are born to do, our own unique ability to make our lives fulfilled and satisfying and to make the world a better place. It is called our Life Purpose. It’s not just some airy-fairy, idealistic thing, that only monks and philosophers get to do. It actually is our very reason for being here, and as such is essential to our survival.

We are also born with another, more basic purpose, that is to survive. That survival instinct is like our basic programming. It ensures that our heart beats, we breath, we eat, drink and stay warm and safe. And as long as that basic programming is in place it will take over whenever things get tough. Very few people spend any time discovering what their life purpose is. It’s the kind of thing you might talk about late into the night as a student, over a couple of bottles of bad red wine. You might even have great insights during these discussions, but sadly you probably won’t remember them in the morning! And once you get into the “real” world, just surviving takes precedence. You have to earn a living, pay the rent/mortgage, keep a job, and have a relationship. Life is really just too busy and full to even think about why you are here. Most people go through their lives so busy earning a living, they never even attempt to get a life!

What this means is that every time they come under stress, the survival instinct kicks in. Where does the survival instinct come from? The reptilian brain! The part of the brain that is least equipped to help us get a life, but the part that will keep us alive and functioning in the same boring/miserable place we’ve always been. Mostly we are not even aware of being miserable. If you ask someone how they are, often they’ll reply “not bad”. But is “not bad” really the way you want to spend your one and only precious life?

The reptilian brain is the least intelligent part of our brain. It doesn’t understand fun, joy or love. All it understands it survival. That’s why people stay in jobs that bore them silly, or marriages where their partner beats them up. Not because its fun or they enjoy it, but because their inner reptile says “it might not be comfortable but at least its safe”. Its safe because its familiar, and the last time you were here you survived.

Even if you are living successful, pleasant life, the minute you come under stress your reptile takes over. When you are under stress this is when you need to be able to make good, powerful decisions about your future, you need the best your incredible mind can give you to get yourself out of this mess. What you get is an iguana!

The way your life purpose works is that it over-writes your basic programming. Once you have aligned yourself with your true purpose in life, and made the decision that this is who you are, then your life purpose becomes your new basic programming. Instead of holding you back, making you do the same things over and over so that you never take on the scary changes, your reptile is now working to help you live your life purpose. Instead of stopping you making that important phone call the reptile will force you to make it. Instead of leaving everything to the last minute and doing a mediocre job, you will start in plenty of time to do the best possible work and shine.

Living your purpose will be as instinctive as dropping a hot potato, and as effortless.

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