Embark on your journey now

As a salesperson you already know there is a vast difference between understanding something well enough to buy it as opposed to understanding it well enough to sell it. Zig Ziglar described selling as a transference of feeling and I tend to agree with him. I think effective sales procedures work everywhere and you do not need to be a “natural born” salesperson in order to be a good one. Selling is an exciting profession and in many ways a complex one. There are many specialists in the field and no one person has a monopoly on all the information.

The reaction to success is different for different people. A common problem people experience, following success, is to go into an emotional dive or feel depressed. There may be a bit of an anti-climax afterwards due to the loss of focus and routine. I have never seen a spreadsheet that tells you how you should treat people. How do you react when you experience a dive in emotions? Contact me via e-mail for tolerance, understanding as well as solid actions.

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Confidence is a key leadership quality

c/o Getty Images

Regulating and balancing feelings of confidence requires considerable self-awareness and knowledge. I have seen really good salespeople lose confidence in their ability to sell simply because of a bad relationship with their boss. It’s normal to feel quite confident in some circumstances and less confident in others, this is influenced by past events and how we remember them. Over-confidence can make you take on projects that are beyond your capability, and you might not be able to complete them, so in the same way that you don’t want to lack confidence, you also don’t want to be over-confident. 

Self-confidence is an attitude about your skills and abilities. Self-confidence comes from really feeling good about yourself, and one of the best ways to feel good about yourself is knowing that you did your best in every situation. This state is changeable according to the situation we are currently in and our responses to events going on around us. This knowledge will allow you to accept and trust yourself as you are and generate a sense of control in your life. On the other hand, low self-confidence might make you feel full of self-doubt, be passive or submissive, or have difficulty trusting others. 

Are you familiar with the “ACT” acronym?
A = Action, C = Changes and T = Things.
Individual mentoring can also help increase your self-confidence if you need more help contact me via e-mail to arrange a meeting.

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Stop and smell the roses

Happiness is an inside job, you really should not assign anyone else that much power over your life. Most people operate on autopilot, doing the same things today that didn’t work yesterday. They rarely stop to measure the impact of their actions on themselves and others, and how those actions affect their total well-being. As you stop to literally smell the roses, you start to realise other areas in your life where you could slow down a little to enjoy the beauty that surrounds you.


Many people wait for something to happen or someone to help them live their best lives. They expect others to make them happy and they think they have lost the ability to improve their lives. I think there are three components of happiness - something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to. Think about it, if we have useful work, sustaining relationships, and the promise of pleasure, it is hard to be unhappy. And I use the term “work” to encompass any activity, paid or unpaid, that gives us a feeling of personal significance. If your daily actions and choices are making you unhappy, contact me via e-mail and let's arrange a meeting.

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Generosity is admirable

Business owners and leaders, your greatest asset is not your product or service, it is your people. How are you taking care of your employee's mental health during these stressful times? Investing in coaching for you and your team can save your business! Contact me via e-mail and let's arrange a meeting.

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The nod of approval

c/o Financial Times

Life is short and you don’t have time to figure everything out by yourself. Now if you could just align your work with your why.

·      Have you taken full advantage of the opportunities offered to you?

·      Do you have habits that are destroying your health and well-being?

·      Are there things that you could do that would make things around you better?

·      Have you said what you need to say to your colleagues? 

Contact me via e-mail for mentoring or coaching sessions. Another voice, another opinion, this could be the catalyst for the change you have been seeking to make.

“Dependent people need others to get what they want. Independent people can get what they want through their own effort. Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.”

— Stephen Covey in "The 7 Habits of Effective People"

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You can figure it out by yourself

I won the birthday lottery and have great parents who encouraged me to follow my dreams and do something of use. I think skills are far more important than talent, because we are all born with talent. Here are nine qualities I admire more than skills:

1. Compassion

2. Sympathy

3. Empathy

4. Kindness

5. Gratitude

6. Humility

7. Patience

8. Self awareness

9. Sincerity

Contact me via e-mail as I will not tell you what to do, I will just guide and help you figure out how to best use the resources that are available.

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Things that rhyme show up

It’s quite clear that the world needs more peace of mind and justice if we are to recover from the pandemic. I spent the weekend with some good friends in the Swedish countryside, this experience of fishing and hunting for mushrooms was amazing. We found both Karl Johan’s and chanterelles. We cooked them with garlic, onions, and cream, we ate them with French toast as a starter and they were delicious.

Millions of years ago on earth everyone was a hunter, nowadays, there are hunters and farmers. I think that being a hunter requires a different skillset than being a farmer. We have only had ca. 500 years’ experience of being farmers, and as a farmer you get really good at sitting still and focussing and making tiny incremental improvements. In a world that moves so fast with trends and habits, the old hunting skills of being able to notice just a little bit of movement in the bush are still valuable.

What do I do?
I help people to see where they are and what’s holding them back, and then I help them get to where they want to go. I try to educate, connect, and lead a small group of people who actually care. Contact me via e-mail to arrange a meeting.

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You do have a choice

c/o BBC

New technologies will always encourage different types of thinking, the symbiosis between humans, machines and nature has enabledI us to move forward in new ways. Some things never change, for example, relationships. You get what you pay for and this especially true in relationships, so if you truly want them to be great, then you are going to have to invest in them. I’m a believer in therapy and anything that makes you look at yourself in a constructive way. There are so many levels to life, I think it’s always beneficial to sit in front of someone who is not going to give you the answers you want. It’s also really important to maintain a student mindset and learn from relationships.

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If not for you, then who?

A few weeks ago my father said to me that I am much smarter than my bank balance indicates. My first question was why isn’t it bigger?
And he said, “You don’t have enough reasons, you have enough intelligence but you don’t have enough reasons.”
This made me stand up and go for a walk, and during my walk I realised that reasons can change your life - reasons come first and answers come second. You don’t get the answers to do well until you get the reasons. My father explained that reasons altered his whole life and sometimes it’s those little reasons that will alter your life.


Life has a mysterious way of hanging onto all the reasons and only gives them up to the people who are inspired by reasons. So, in other words reasons makes a difference as to how your life works out. What are some of the reasons for doing well? Personal, recognition, family, respect and the way it makes you feel. I love the feeling of being a winner and now I understand is all you need is a reason! Would you like to get yourself a list of reasons so that you never lack inspiration? You may not get all the answers straight away, but you will get the answers if you can get the reasons. I have some mentoring openings available from September, contact me via e-mail for an appointment.

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The science of possibility

If you can’t explain it, it’s not wired in your brain but if you can build the model and explain it, you will be installing the neurological hardware into your brain in preparation for the experience. Therefore, the more you understand what you are doing and why - the how will get easier because you can assign meaning to it.


The people who get their intentions to match their behaviours, their actions equal to their thoughts and then get the mind and body to work together - are going to have a new experience. The experience is not only going to enrich the philosophical circuits in the brain, because experience does that, it will produce an emotion. So then they will begin to feel unlimited, they will  begin to feel free, they will start teaching their body chemically what the mind has always understood. Happy days! Contact me via e-mail for mentoring or coaching.

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Prevention is better than a cure

Dear managers,

Your team need you now more than ever, they need emotional support. I know you may be consumed with solving problems and overwhelmed with keeping your organisation running. Your team members may also fear that as you hold the key to their future advancement, you may view  their request for help as a weakness. Therefore, you may want to take in an external mentor. A mentor can play a critical role, providing the team with someone who can help and guide them when they’re scared, burned out or confused, and all off the record.

Managers, please contact me via e-mail to arrange a meeting. While virtual mentoring may not be as satisfying as the in-person kind, there is evidence supporting its efficacy.  In ways large and small, one person can make a lasting difference, even a few words, mentioned in passing, can last a lifetime.

Yours faithfully
Stephen

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To see and be seen

After my many years of learning, unlearning and relearning about myself, my relationship with the fashion/lifestyle industry and my place within the system, I can’t start talking about fashion without naming the external elements that allow this industry to exist. Just like any other business, fashion companies provide solutions to specified sectors of global communities answering their needs based on the individual and collective life continuum that the community requires to coexist.

“Fashion must be the most intoxicating release from the banality of the world.”

— Diana Vreeland

I think fashion is art, it’s commerce, it’s function, it’s expression and what comes next will be marvellous! Fashion is about storytelling through clothing! It’s about the stories behind them and the ones you create around them. Contact me via e-mail and let me know what you think?

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The past is a good predictor of the future

Deep thinkers always listen to what you have to say because it’s another opportunity to learn. I think everything we experience is the result of something we feel. Yet much of what we feel goes unnoticed, sometimes it is suppressed and at other times it is actively denied. When we are at constant war with ourselves we cannot make much headway in a world that is not really made for us. Contact me via e-mail and let me know what you think.

“Don’t seek the truth; just drop your opinions. Drop your theories; don’t seek the truth.”

— Anthony de Mello

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Life is good here

c/o Getty Images

There is an unstoppable movement towards greater consciousness about what our actions are doing in the world around us. And the younger generations are continuously searching for higher meaning and more sustainable behaviours. I think working together in flat, loosely connected networks, in a peer-to-peer fashion, is behind the most significant changes in human society over past 100 years.

Do you work in an organisation where decision making was clearly expressed and democratically distributed? I wonder what it would be like to work in an organisation where communicating your dreams and ambitions is encouraged. Where the decision making is led by a leader who collaborative and is interested in having feedback from outside of the C suite. Once the decisions have been agreed, no one in the group will have any remains objections and consent to implementation.

What does it cost us to make a decision that no one believes in or is willing to commit to? Are you trying to do too much with everyone involved? Contact me via e-mail for a meeting where we could take a deeper dive into your situation.

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Every generation is limited by what it knows

"Actions speak louder than words." We've all heard it a thousand times, but the fact remains: Leading by influencing and inspiring others through your actions is far more effective than leading by pure authority. My parents and our Christian upbringing taught us to marry passion with reason. We do not get overly excited when life is going well, and to not get too down when it goes badly. I’ve trained myself to take the long term view, about how to stay focused on your goals rather than getting hung up on the daily ups and downs. My ability to maintain composure in the middle of a crisis is a superpower. Contact me via e-mail when you would like to tap into your superpowers.

“To have long term success . . . you have to be obsessed in some way.”

— Pat Riley

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It's OK to take off your cloak

I watched Glennon Doyle Menton’s “Lessons from a Mental Hospital” TED Talk last week, where she described her journey through anorexia, alcoholism and drugs to not being afraid of her feelings anymore. The talk ended with Glennon telling audience about an e-mail she received…”it's braver to be Clark Kent than it is to be Superman”. Powerful! I guess all superhero stories are a form of escapism and they allow us to imagine what we might do with the ability to fly and the courage that comes from being bulletproof. I think the best superhero stories also explore what it is to be human and our relationship with power.

The majority of humans don’t really want to be liars and withholders, they are just afraid to be real. I wonder why so few people tell the hard truth about themselves, their lives and their struggles? Is it because we are taught from an early age that it’s not safe to share the realness of our challenges? Is it because we are scared of being judged or is it because previous experience has taught us that honesty allows us to be scarred, alienated or rejected when we open up?

One of my close friends likes to speak about being authentic, I prefer to use the word, consistent. We may differ on the words but neither of us are afraid of the uncensored truth. We don’t have to walk in another man’s shoes to feel his pain! Due to my upbringing, training and conditioning I have the ability to sit in oneness with another who is in the deepest pain and find love and connection.

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We all have issues

Image c/o Afro-Punk

Mental Health Awareness Month has been observed in the month of May since 1949 in the United States. I am in Europe and still thought it relevant to write a little about the topic. Those of you who are regular readers know that throughout my life I have continuously observed human behaviour and consider myself to be mentally strong. I have been exposed to trauma, stigma and systemic discrimination on a daily basis, so I wanted to highlight that we all make mistakes and no one is perfect. Rather than beat myself up for my mistakes, I focus on learning from them and accept full responsibility for my behaviour and then I choose to move forward in a productive manner. How do you feel about making mistakes?

Disclaimer: The content below is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
10 things mentally strong people won't do:

1. They don’t dwell on mistakes.

2. They don’t hang around negative people.

3. They don’t stop believing in themselves.

4. They don’t wait for an apology to forgive.

5. They don’t feel sorry for themselves.

6. They don’t hold grudges.

7. They don’t allow anyone to limit their joy.

8. They don’t limit the joy of others.

9. They don’t get lazy.

10. They don’t get negative or bitter.

Don’t let the world make you hard, don’t let the pain make you hate and don’t let the bitterness steal your sweetness.

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Mind the gap

One of the big lessons I learned from the pandemic has been patience - “Make do now and then make better later”. We measure success by the way we touch the lives of people and now I realise that everything I learned about parenting was about leadership. Both parenting and leadership have the following attributes in common:
- Caring
- Listening
- Trusting
- Empowering
- Teaching
- Mentoring
- Leading

There is always going to be a gap between your ambition and your ability. The big question is are you willing to trust progress and not seek perfection? Contact me via e-mail to arrange a confidential meeting if you are questioning yourself about: Who you are, what you stand for and what you do for others?

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Juggling many plates

via The Guardian

A few years ago, one of my good friends in Brooklyn switched me onto Dr. Joe Dispenza’s book, “Supernatural”. Being supernatural means overcoming challenges and conditions in your outdoor environment that most people would not be able to accomplish. Supernatural also clarifies the state of being in which you are able to change your body by thought alone to say it another way it means being greater than your body. Many people want to think positively but they are feeling negative, they want to live their dreams and have an exciting future but they feel unworthy. And this means that their body and mind are in opposition. We have to recondition the body in order to create a new mind. How many people do you know who have memorised suffering? I think what they are really saying is no matter what happens, no person, no thing or experience can move them from that state.

The combination of how you are thinking and how you are feeling is called the state of being. We have three brains that allows us to go from thinking to doing, to being. The first brain is called neocortex and allows us to decide on the action to focus our concentration to invent to speculate to have intention or attention. The second brain called the limbic brain which makes a chemical that is called a feeling or an emotion. The third brain is called the cerebellum and it’s responsible for you beginning to develop what’s called implicit memories or non-declarative memories where you have done something so many times that you no longer have to consciously think about it.

Most people wait for crisis, or trauma, or disease, or loss, or diagnosis to really want to change. They wait to the point where ego is brought to such a low level that they cannot go on 'business as usual’ any longer. That’s when we begin to look at how we’re thinking, or what emotions we are living by. My message is: Why wait? We can learn to change in a state of pain and suffering, which tends to be the human model, or we can learn to change in a state of joy and inspiration. Contact me via e-mail if you are interested in change as every time you learn something new, your brain physically changes.

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Will you be the passenger or the driver in your life journey?

Do you believe that the way you think has an effect on your life? According to neuroscience, your brain is organised to reflect everything you’ve known in your life, your brain is a record of your personal environment and an artefact of your past. The big question: Does your environment control your thinking or does your thinking control your environment?


We could say that you were thinking the same thoughts, performing the same actions that create the same experiences and emotions, but secretly you expect something to change in your life. Now as the environment turns on different circuits in your brain you will begin to think equal to your personal environment. As you see the same people and go to the same places at the same time, it’s the external environment that’s turning on the different circuits in your brain, causing you to think equal to everything you know. And as long as you think equal to everything that is familiar or known to you, you will keep creating more of the same.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. - Albert Einstein”

To change is to think greater than your environment and every great person in history know this. They all had a vision, they all had an idea - they couldn’t see it, they couldn’t smell, taste or feel it but it was alive in their minds. It was so alive in their mind that they began to live as if that reality was actually happening now. So can you believe in a future that you can’t see or experience with your senses yet? But you have thought about it enough times in your mind that your brain is literally changed to look like the event has already happened? Neuroscience says it’s possible. Contact me via e-mail to arrange a personal meeting.

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