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Your top team

Who are your top team? They are your board of directors, your trusted advisors, your unofficial mentors and coaches. Most companies however small have a team that helps them set strategy, deal with major issues and plan their growth. As an individual you can do exactly the same thing and have a top team who you talk to when you need advice.

I'm considering making major changes to my business life and about a month ago I was mulling over the opportunity. I felt uncomfortable and sort of edgy about it and knew I needed to get the advice of my top team. Because my business is me, any major changes are as much about me as they are about the business. I have a top team who I consult about major things in my life. In the space of one evening I spoke to 7 very different people, all friends who know me well. They had very different perceptions of what this might mean for me. They each highlighted different things that I should be thinking about and had a different reaction to the idea. Some were very cautious, some thought it was a risky move, some thought it might compromise my freedom to do the other things that I enjoy doing and some saw it as a fantastic opportunity.

However none of them said they didn't want to talk about it and they all said that I should keep in touch about what was happening. After these calls I felt much more settled. Although I hadn't made a final decision about what to do I felt I was better prepared to ask the right questions that would help me to gather the data that I needed. I've spoken to them all again this week as the matter progresses. It's a difficult one to make a decision about and although no-one else can make the decision for me, knowing that the top team care about my happiness and my future really helps.

Who are your top team? When did you last ask then for advice? How can you include them more in your decision making? What can you do to help them in return?

Have you lost your spring?

I hadn't been anywhere for two days on Monday when I got the car out. I turned the wheel and under the bonnet it went TWANG! That, dear readers, is the sound of a broken spring. I know that because my old car had the same problem. The garage have ordered the part and it'll be here in a day or so. What I want to know is - how come a spring can break when the car is sitting there for two days not moving? One of life's great imponderables. However as well as my car losing its spring it seems that I've lost some of my spring too. A friend visited last week and told me that I wasn't my normal bouncy self. I hadn't noticed this, but on reflection he was right. As a result of the combination of all the travelling, doing things at the last minute, getting to financial year end, coping with the VAT change I had just run out of steam. What is interesting is that until I was interacting with someone else I hadn't noticed it. So since last week I've been taking better care of myself. We've sorted out the finance stuff and I now have about 3 weeks without any work travel so everything has calmed down a bit. I'm also feeling good as things are looking bright for next year. I'm talking to half a dozen potential new clients who are very warm prospects. I already have trips planned to Australia, Spain and France and others might follow. How do you know how much spring you have? What will you do if you also run out of spring?

Where have you come from?

I've just reached my company financial year end. I was discussing this with a friend on Sunday. We have had a slight drop in overall income this year for a variety of reasons. None of these are to do with the credit crunch. However, looking forward to next year I am optimistic. We already have as much work scheduled for next year as we have done this year. That means that whatever new work I secure from here on is an addition to our bottom line, giving a greater income for next year. That's really good news to have just before xmas. But even better, my friend asked how that compared to last year. Well that's the critical thing. Looking back to December 2007, we didn't have the same level of work already programmed in for 2008. So that means that we are already ahead year on year. And that feels even better. I hadn't really taken that in until my friend asked that question. Sometimes we can only see how far we have come by looking back and seeing where we have come from. We often don't do that cos life is always moving forwards, we look to the future, we plan and set goals. So actually analysing where we were a year ago, a few months ago or even a week ago allows us to see how far we have progressed up our success ladder. And of course our success is not just measured financially but also in how we feel, how well our projects are progressing, how well our relationships are going and a million other measures that are meaningful to you. So how far have you come this year? Where were you a year ago? Where do you plan to be in a year's time?

What's your attitude?

This week I'm zooming around the country picking up some training for some of the trainers in our network who are unable to deliver this week. I just arrived south of Birmingham tonight at about 8.30pm after a 4 hour drive from Cumbria. The hotel receptionist was sympathetic to my very hectic schedule. I told her about the reasons for my trip and then she said, what, to me, seemed a very odd thing. She said "So you got the short straw then, driving down to deliver the training at really short notice". I was stunned by that, as that attitude had never occurred to me, nothing could be further from my mind. I'm really pleased to be able to help out colleagues who are in a fix. I'm happy to have work as I happen to have the time available. I'm interested to meet some different clients and people from different organisations. I'm putting on hold the things that I would be doing because its more important to keep the programmes going and to help out colleagues who need it. There is not a bone in my body that feels put upon, short changed or unhappy to be driving down to deliver these programmes. As I said it had never occurred to me. So what that said to me was that my attitude was a long way from what other people's might have been in that situation. I had a much more positive attitude to the situation than the receptionist was expecting. Now that was a surprise to me because I sometimes potter around in my own little world without really checking what is going on outside. So when you are suddenly brought up against the world outside yourself it can be a surprise. And you don't actually know about that unless you ask or you get some sort of feedback like that. What's your attitude and how does that compare to what people are expecting of you? What will you do with the feedback that you have?

Be careful what you ask for

I was chatting with a friend last night about manifesting.  There is a whole host of stuff that you can read about this on the web, lots of books have been written about it and you can go on expensive courses to learn about it and how to do it.

However at its heart its really very simple.  Just identify what you want in life and send that intention out into the universe.

Thats it.  Its just that simple. Its about focusing on what you want.

For example I was visiting Kendal to see a client this week.  Its August, holiday time, the place is generally busy with tourists.  There is a small back lane where I generally park.  There are about 10 car psaces there, no more, and its quite close to the town centre.  So it does quickly get filled on busy days.  So from the moment I started my jounrey I was focusing on there being a space for me at this place.  Thats a very different frame of mind than worrying whether or not there will be a space.

So when I arrived there were in fact two places to park.

I know that you could say htis is coincidence but it happens far too frequently to be coincidence. And you can use manifestation for many different things.  Health, wealth and happiness are only the start of it.  So be careful what you ask for.

What will you ask the universe for today.  What will you focus on that you want?

Life's Big Questions

Its surprising but you may think that the big problems in life probably need big answers.

Unfortunately that might put you off trying to answer them. You might want to try to find some solutions for the big questions for the world or just for your own life. So big world questions might be: dealing with climate change, hunger, economic slow-down, continual urban sprawl or the proliferation of supermarkets. Big life questions might be career changes, moving home, getting a new figure, settling debts, starting to study again and so on.

But don't be put off by the size of these issues because for any of them there is not one big answer that is too big for you to work on. No for any of these issues there are many smaller answers to the question. When all of these answers are stitched together then you might deal with the big issue. Each single answer takes us closer to a solution.

You might even been avoiding the questions completely because they were so big. So I now offer you an opportunity to get out those big questions and look at them. Walk around them and realise that you have the power to make just a small dent in their previously unassailable surface. If your big question is "What can I do to be happier?" then just write it down and observe it for while. Then just think about all the small answers that might help you on the way.

The big questions have been there while so they don't need to be answered fully today. Just chip away at them with small answers and its surprising how quickly they will shrivel.

What's your big question today? What small answers will move you forward? What other big things can you whittle away in small chunks?

Focused on the prize

I've been sitting in front of my computer for over an hour today already and I've just asked myself what have I done thats really worthwhile for the business. The answer, today, is quite a lot actually.  However its not like that every day.  I'm sure we all have days like that, days where we never seem to achieve our targets because we are constantly sidetracked by other stuff.

So, back to questions again.  A powerful question that you can ask yourself at any time is:

"Is what I am doing now taking me closer to my goal?"

This question can apply to every ionute of every day, to any goal that you have or any target. It can apply to your life's goal or to the targets that you have for the next half hour.

Its at its most powerful when applied to important goals in your life.  If your goal is a holiday somewhere warm and you are currently at work earning money to pay for that holiday then the answer will be yes.  However if you are out squandering cash on unnecessary purchases then the answer is clearly no!

Asking the question allows you to focus on what is important. It allows you to focus on what is important now as well as what is important for the future.  If the answer to the quesiton is no then you know you have to change what you are doing and change it now!  However some of us are like naughty teenagers and might respond to the "no" answer with "so what" or "whatever". If thats you then you need a different question.

"What am I doing now to take me closer to my goal?"

That will get you moving even if the first question didn't.  What questions are you asking yourself today?

Your question?

I've been away on my NLP course again this weekend so I've come back buzzing with enthusiasm for more success. We were working with all sorts of interesting stuff and its great to be back with this really supportive crowd. Thanks for your input and help everybody.

We spent some time over the weekend working on questions.  In our daily lives I believe that we can be lazy and we don't ask enough questions.  Just try this out for a few moments.  First of all read this statement

Today I will do many things to contribute to my success

What did you notice as you read that?  What happened in your brain?  How did you feel?  What were your thoughts? Now read the following question

What am I doing today to contribute to my success?

What did you notice as you read that?  What happened in your brain?  How did you feel?  What were your thoughts?  My guess is that reading the question had a more powerful effect on you than reading the statement.  There is a level of acceptance that comes with the first statement.  Yes I accept that I'll do lots of good things today. Nothing needs to change, I don't particularly need to change my  motivation.  I don't particularly need to do anything new or different. I'm not asking my brain to do anything extra to move me forwards or support me.

However if you ask yourself a question like this there is a whole different physiological response. A lot of extra work goes on in the conscious brain.  Your brain starts a search for an answer. It starts checking through all your lifetime files, all your experiences, all those stored feelings and thoughts, anything that might provide some snippet of information that will allow it to formulate and answer to the question.  There may be more than one answer pops up. Then the brain has to decide what to do with all these answers.  Should they be sorted?  Should some be rejected?  Is this all the answers?  Are there other questions.  Then after all this the question gets handed over to your unconscious brain and often the processing keeps going on in the background.  There can often be a low level search continuing to run for ages, hours, days, months, even years.

By asking a question you get your brain fully engaged with you.  Its a powerful ally in your life.  You can give it a workout and make it more powerful be getting it to flex its muscles and respond to questions.  Have you noticed how my posts usually end with questions?   What else would you like to know about questions?  I'll write some more about them later this week.

What are the questions that you generally ask yourself?  What new questions will you ask yourself today?  What do you notice when you ask more and different questions?  How will you make your questions more powerful?

Just ask

I was out with a friend the other night and he was telling me all his woes.  His life is sort of lying in ruins around his feet yet he is soldiering on grimly.  In the course of our chat it became obvious that there were several things that he could easily get sorted by asking for help from particular people.  I asked him why he hadn't asked these people to help.

What followed was a litany of excuses, don't want to bother them, take up their time, put pressure on them, seem too needy, appear too out of control, don't want to feel like I can't manage my life, they'll probably say no.  Sorry mate, this is all a load of rubbish.  All the people that he might ask are reasonably articulate adults.  Why is he doing all their thinking for them?  If they don't want to help they will just tell you.

If you've got stuff that someone could easily help you sort out then just ask!! You do not know what the response will be.  They will probably be very happy to help.  They will feel really good for helping you.  You are not a failure but smart for recognising an opportunity to move forwards positively.  None of us are successful in this life without help from others.  People want to do it but you do have to ask and not rely on telepathy.  What will you ask for help with today?

Positive Steps

The papers arrived this morning as I was drinking my bed-tea today and gazing out at the spectacular Shimla mountain view, looking West towards tomorrows destination of Kashmir.  I leafed through the Times of India to find a Speaking Tree article defining confidence.  What do you know - it's all reduced to a simple formula, so all your worries are over. 

Here goes:  Confidence = Feeling good + Taking Responsibility = Being Accountable + Developing Skills

There - simple!

So in typical left field style I am going to start at the end and come back to the rest.  How do you feel when you start to learn something new?  Well mostly rubbish cos you are not very good at it.  But as your skills improve don't you feel your confidence building as you master more and more of the skill, as you become expert at each little step, as what felt awkward and new now feels familiar and safe?  However what often happens is that we try learning new skills and give up too easily before we have even given ourselves enough time to know the basics.  it's time to realise that a little persistence pays off and the skills development success will really boost you confidence and give you a more positive outlook.

So what skills are you developing now?  What did you start and give up on?  What new skills do you want to develop?  Take those first positive steps today.

Thursday philosophy

A discussion on the radio this morning was talking about Socarates and how his basic premise about how life should be lived was that "Life should be lived flourishingly". I thought that was fabulous. In his time it was connected with virtue and doing the right thing.  But I think that living life flourishingly is a great maxim for today.

My two volume OED has almost 4 column inches on "flourish". To blossom, to thrive, to attain full development, to be prosperous or successful, to be at the height of fame or excellence, to be in one's prime.  What an excellent way to live.

What are you doing today to live life flourishingly?  What questions do you need to ask to maintain your level of excellence?  Who can help you keep that prosperous stretch going?  Where will you bestow your gifts to help others thrive?  How are your decisions supporting you reaching your prime?

Live life to the full, live life flourishingly!

Just ask

Well, over the last 24 hours I have had the power of just asking reinforced by three separate events.  Firstly I was chatting with a friend over dinner last night.  She was doing a new apparently "better" job temporarily and it hadn't really turned out the way she had imagined.  She had given it a good run for its money, enough time to really test it out.  Her old job really fired her up and the new one didn't.  OK it was challenging and was "good experience" but she felt she could contribute more back in her old job.  So instead of worrying about what might happen or it being seen as a retrograde step she just asked to move back.  And she got what she asked for. 

Then today I was chatting with a former Springboard particpant and she had also made big changes in what she does and  how she does it just by asking.  She said exactly this "You don't get if you don't ask".  And how right she is.

So thirdly, I am off to India in just a few weeks time to deliver some training with women over there as a result of just asking.  I heard about a big women's development project that they are running and just asked if I could go over and help, originally at my own expense.  As a result of that I have been asked to deliver a course over there so part of the trip will be paid for.  Now I could have worried about all the reasons for them to say NO if I asked to help and if I had done that I'd never have sent the email.  But I didn't.  Instead I just asked.

What are you worried about?  Just ask.  What's the worst that can happen?  OK they might say no, but that then gives you an opportunity to ask another question or get into dialogue.  If you need help, if there is something that you want to do, a place you'd like to go, some information you want to know, some changes you'd like to make, a project you'd like to work on then just ask.  Simple, direct and really, really effective.  Just asking is taking me to India, where will it take you?

Your authentic self

I got a note from a new Positive Energy subscriber tonight who is searching for her authentic self.  This is a fascinating journey that many of us never take.  However we all have those uncomfortable moments when we know that what we are doing or saying or being involved with just isn't right.  If it feel like its not true to yourself then it probably isn't.  Its a great one to trust your gut instinct on.

Its all about integrity.  Many of you know what a health nut I am.  I have never smoked and I was talking a couple of years ago with some people about doing some training work with one of the big tobacco companies and this really caused me a lot of soul searching.  My health principles would say that I should not be involved with that sort of organisation.  Yet observing my values of freedom and choice and giving everyone a chance to reach their full potential meant that I could see that the women there had a need for my programmes.

Finding your authentic self will give you so much more energy.  Its a really positve step to take as you will be more aligned with your values.  So when you are getting that uncomfortable feeling ask yourself "Is this really me?"  "Given free will would I make this decision in this way?" "What does the real me really want here?"

Elgar on Saturday

As Cumbria sits underneath its own personal rain cloud today and the moving strains of Elgar's cello concerto fill the house I feel that its a good day to settle down on the sofa with a good book.  I have a stack of paperbacks awaiting me.  I then remembered chatting about this with my friend Mike just yesterday.  He lives in the Scottish highlands and has recently been reading a lot  more, getting books from his local library.  He often requests these using their online catalogue so he has an almost limitless supply of literature.  I have a pile of about 20 as yet unread books on the table, still enough to keep me going a wee while.

I reflected that we both go about finding the solution to getting more reading material at little cost in very different ways.  I swap books that I have read with friends and buy cheap used books from the charity box in my local supermarket.  I need to do it this way as I prefer to process information visually and I want to see and feel the book before I am able to make a decision about reading it.  Mike who I think processes mainly through auditory channels can make that decision by reading about the book in the online catalogue.

This is just another ilustration about how many possible solutions there are to any issue or problem.  Its always worth seeking possible solutions from as many people as you can - they will all have a different slant on an issue and not all the ideas will suit you.  However its a very positive move to get a range of possible solutions to consider.  So go on, ask that question that's in your mind as widely as you can and collect all the great ideas that come your way.  Who knows what direction they may take you in?

Being bad....

I discovered today when talking to Judith that ever since we got back from our climbing trip to the Tetons, almost two weeks ago now, she, like me, is having trouble getting out of bed and wanting an afternoon nap!  Today I got up to start work early but then found myself so tired that I had a lie down on the sofa even before I'd had my breakfast.   This felt like a really bad thing to do.  I reflected on that and realised that its all about rules that existed when I was a child.

Its surprising how many of the things that we do are guided by rules that we learnt as children.  However as adults we are perfectly capable of making our own new rules, of setting up our own house rules or rules for living, rather than always living with those of our parents.  I'm not saying that we should throw out all of our rules from childhood, just make a positive choice about what our own  rules are going to be.

I have decided that I will listen to my body and if I am really tired then I wil rest - that will be my new rule - rather than feeling bad if I have been lying on the sofa during the day.  How many of your parents' rules are still guiding you today?  How many of your parents' rules leave you feeling confined or guilty?  What do you plan to do about that?  What are your own rules for living?  Making a decision to live by your own rules is a positive choice for your future.

Looking forwards

It was my birthday yesterday and I always find that for me its a good time to review my progress by looking back at past achievements, both personal and work, and then looking forwards to the future.  I choose this time cos its always easy for me to remember my birthday last year and how I celebrated it.  So looking back this year I realised that I hadn't acquired any new music since last year - no new CDs or downloads - I think that's pretty bad as I love to be surrounded by music both in the car and at home. So action point for the coming year is to get find some new sounds that I like.

Too often though what I have found is that we spend too much time looking back and not enough time looking forward. We dissect all those apparent failures with such precision and go over again and again what might have been, what could have been.  Looking back is a great way to inform our future. We should look back and learn from it, then look forward and make a new plan NOT dwell in the past and beat ourselves up about it.

So what can you learn from your life over the past week, month or year?  What are you going to do differently as a result of that, in your work or personal life?