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Pause and reflect

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According to the Oxford English dictionary, “…a pause is a short period when you stop doing something before continuing, and when you reflect on something, you think deeply about it.” In these strange, uncertain and frightening times, how is it that some people ‘keep calm and carry on’, while others panic?

  • Get active and do some form of regular physical activity, even if it’s just walking 10 minutes a day.

  • Keep learning as your mind need to keep active too, so give it a regular workout.

  • Random acts of kindness are contagious, please spread the word.

  • We are hardwired to want social connections as they are essential to good mental wellbeing.

  • Take time to notice things, whether it’s your neighbour’s new hairstyle or reflecting on your experiences.

  • Caring for others, it’s essential to do what’s right for the global community.

Take time to shift your focus

I think that people with high levels of gratitude have low levels of resentment and envy. As when we take time to focus on what we are grateful for, we choose positive emotions over negative, thus we take steps to nurture our mental health and wellbeing. I was recently asked: How can we trigger gratitude in ourselves? And I answered, start with a gratitude practice, it’s like a workout or healthy eating plan for your mind and it’s simple.

 

Have you ever noticed that when you are looking to buy a new phone or a jacket all of a sudden everyone around you has it? That’s because, consciously or unconsciously, whatever we are focused on is what we see. If we want to trigger gratitude in ourselves, we need to intentionally shift our focus to that which we are grateful for. The simplest way to do this is through questions and prompts and a few daily rituals. Contact me via e-mail when you are ready to shift your focus.

“You can’t feel envious and grateful at the same time. They’re incompatible feelings, because if you’re grateful, you can’t resent someone for owning things you don’t.”
— Dr. Robert Emmons
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Discover the person you were born to be

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Stress is the body’s response when it senses danger. We all experience stress and need it to function, but when stress interferes with our lives, it becomes a problem. Too much stress, for too long, can make us ill. If unaddressed, stress can cause mental health issues like depression or anxiety and harm our physical health. Listen to your being, it’s continuously giving you hints. It is a still, small voice and it does not shout at you, that is true. If you are a little silent you will start feeling your way. ‘

“Never try to be another, and you will become mature. Maturity is accepting the re-sponsibility of being oneself, whatsoever the cost. Risking all to be oneself, that’s what maturity is all about.”
— Osho

I offer a customised process for implementing, executing, and measuring your results, once you have identified, defined, and described the results you want. I’ll give you the tools and inspire you to tap into your personal drive, identifying and leveraging natural talents, and applying them toward accomplishing your goals. Contact me via e-mail when you are ready to discover and create your ideal future. 

Increase your activities

The pandemic over the past 2 years should have taught us to focus on mental health and well-being. I think it’s time to focus on being a better human first, and then the science of being a good salesperson will take care of itself. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being.

The biggest mistake people make when it comes to listening is they’re so focused on what they’re going to say next or how what the other person is saying is going to affect them that they fail to hear what’s being said. When you focus on what’s going wrong then emotions take over your attention, the words come through loud and clear, but the meaning is lost. Remember mental health affects how we think, feel, and act and keeping your brain healthy involves habits that keep the rest of you healthy.

Mental health conditions don't discriminate

People of all genders can experience depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. I think that one can reap massive returns from believing in things people think are stupid until it’s no longer stupid, which is why immunity to embarrassment is such an important superpower for founders and investors. And I tend to follow the Brain Tracy advice - “Never complain, never explain. Resist the temptation to defend yourself or make excuses.”

A gift

Six things mentally strong people do:
1. They move on and don’t waste time feeling sorry for themselves.

2. They embrace change and welcome challenges.

3. They stay happy and don’t waste energy on things they can’t control.

4. They are kind, fair and unafraid to speak up.

5. They are willing to take calculated risks.

6. They celebrate other people’s success and don’t resent that success.

No one likes us

Where do your beliefs and opinions come from?
People need to process information quickly to protect themselves from harm. Most people believe that their opinions are based on years of experience and objective analysis of the information they have available. Everyone thinks they are rational, logical, and impartial. We are susceptible to confirmation bias as many factors of which people are unaware can influence our information processing. Humans are better able to rationally process information, giving equal weight to multiple viewpoints, if they are emotionally distant from the issue. Another reason people show confirmation bias is to protect their self-esteem.


Here are some examples of confirmation bias:
· Not seeking out objective facts
· Interpreting information to support your existing belief
· Only remembering details that uphold your belief
· Ignoring information that challenges your belief

 

Humans are bombarded with information in the social world and cannot possibly take the time to carefully process each piece of information to form an unbiased conclusion. I think that human decision making and information processing is often biased because people want to feel that they are intelligent. When informationarrives that suggests one holds an inaccurate belief or made a poor decision this may make one feel he’s lacking intelligence, therefore, we tend to listen only to the information that confirms our preconceptions.

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A process to understand

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I recently discovered a beautiful Hebrew word, “kavod”, and it means honour and respect. Honour and respect are very important in any society but even more so in Middle Eastern societies. The Middle East is a place where people swear “on the honour of their mother” without thinking too much. Perhaps we should ask ourselves, “Is it kavod?” before everything we say, think, or do. 

 

Most people don’t know the difference between coaching, mentoring, and training. Rather than having a one size fits all approach, I try to use self-discovery methods to enable the customer to see where they fit in. If you want your brand to stand out in these competitive, unstable times, you’ll want to shift from a product-based “what” brand to a mission-driven “why” business. Shifting your brand and business from “What” to “Why" will bring huge economic benefit and help you secure optimal customer preference and loyalty.

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Once upon a time

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Illustration by Liz Fosslien ©

As a guest lecturer my role was always to help the students to create some kind of value from day one. I was not expecting them to be mini-CEOs, all I expected was open-minded fresh thinkers who are willing to learn and where possible offer value. Technology, products, and services flow effortlessly around students and the way they navigate them is totally different than someone like me.

1.         I ask them to reflect and articulate what they see?
2.         What are the values that are important to them?
3.         How can a brand (product) or service tap into their important values better than now, and in relation for their future audience?

I met 3 types of students:

  • “The hopeful” - Who were excited about the creative industries and the possibilities. My role was to give them a deeper sense of reality

  • “The disrupter” - I can do it better type! Here I would give them another perspective, a greater sense of realism and balance so they could better understand the change mechanism and transformation.

  • “Help me” - The ones where the challenge was not meeting their expectations. 

Growth is a process

Too often experts will dive into their presentation without presenting a roadmap and this usually leaves the audience unsure about what is going to be covered, why and when the presentation will end. Presenting a table of contents before they dive in and begin to talk puts everything into context and helps your audience to know where they are in the presentation. Road mapping allows the audience to see the key points you are going to explore and puts them into context and helps them relax into your teaching and allows them to relate it to the bigger picture and the promise of your presentation. I think if you implement this simple framework with your content, copywriting and speaking you will begin to see a sense of trust, and ultimately this will lead to more conversions.

The start of the work week

I have never let any constraints block my path. Here’s a few tips in how to improve your social skills:

  1. Say 'Thank you'

  2. Say 'Please'

  3. Listen without interrupting

  4. Do not brag

  5. Wait your turn

  6. Choose kind over clever

  7. Hold doors open longer

  8. Forgive first

  9. Talk less, but say more

  10. Show gratitude

  11. Do not respond to negativity

  12. Be humble

““When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love…””
— Marcus Aurelius

Sunday exercise

To paraphrase Henry David Thoreau: “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” I have been a big fan of Byron Katie for many years, so I would like to give you an opportunity to get familiar with her work. Write down your stressful thoughts, and then ask yourself the following four questions:

1: Is it true?
Ask yourself if the thought you wrote down is true.

2: Can you absolutely know it’s true?
This is another opportunity to open your mind and to go deeper into the unknown, to find the answers that live beneath what we think we know.

3: What happens? How do you react when you believe that thought?
What do you feel? How do you treat the person (or the situation) you’ve written about, how do you treat yourself, when you believe that thought? Make a list, and be specific.

4: Who would you be without the thought?
Imagine yourself in the presence of that person (or in that situation), without believing the thought. How would your life be different if you didn’t have the ability to even think the stressful thought? How would you feel? Which do you prefer—life with or without the thought? Which feels kinder, more peaceful?

“I discovered that when I believed my thoughts I suffered, but when I didn’t believe them I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that.”
— Byron Katie
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Basic goal setting

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When setting a proper goal whether it be for your career, physical, spiritual, social, family, intellectual, or financial well being, you need to make sure it follows this simple format:

S – Specific

M – Measurable

A – Achievable

R – Realistic

T – Timely

I think a good way to ensure you’re able to stick to your goals is by setting SMART goals. Do something today that is going to move you out of your comfort zone and put you one step closer to achieving the goals you have set for yourself.

The little pause

Unlike other animals, humans spend a lot of time thinking about what isn’t going on around them: contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or may never happen at all. Disruption is a down-to-earth method whose objective is to help us think with our rational brains and emotional hearts. It’s not about making things complicated, nor is it an exclusively rational concept but it’s a method whose objective is to release feelings, intuitions, and emotions. I think we should focus on innovation and create results through good conflicts within an innovation culture as nothing teaches us better than our own experiences.

Goal-setting theory

The American organisational psychologist, Edwin A. Locke pioneered the goal-setting theory. The simplest and most direct explanation of why some people perform better than others is because they have different performance goals. I think that nothing intelligent has ever come from intelligence alone, and nothing reasonable has ever come from reason alone. The essence of the theory is:

  • Difficult specific goals lead to significantly higher performance than easy goals, no goals, or even the setting of an abstract goal such as urging people to do their best.

  • Holding ability constant, and given that there is goal commitment, the higher the goal the higher the performance.

  • Variables such as praise, feedback, or the participation of people in decision-making about the goal only influence behaviour to the extent that they lead to the setting of and subsequent commitment to a specific difficult goal.

Traditions are hard to change

Goal setting involves the development of an action plan designed to motivate and guide a person or group towards a goal. We are fast approaching that time of the year where your New Year’s resolutions begin to fade. Remember that as long as you are doing something to achieve your goal, you are making progress. It’s easy to become caught up in routine, but sometimes all you need is a small change of perspective to get the ideas flowing and feel motivated again. 
The F.O.C.U.S acronym = Follow > One > Course > Until > Success

Does this sound familiar?

Distractions have no effect on the truly focused individual as winners focus on the goal, not the pain. There four types of distractions or should I call them, interruptions you will face in your work:

1.     Meetings, office visitors and loud colleagues
2.     E-mail, telephone notifications and meetings
3.     Team lunches, calls from loved one, coffee machine conversations
4.     Social media, news websites, instant messaging 

According to Tim Ferris, we need to “…limit e-mail consumption and production. This is the greatest single interruption in the modern world.” What do you think?

A deep human focus

There may be things present in our lives and our habits that we are not happy about. We want change, yet as hard as we try, sometimes, we are just not seeing the level of profound change we desire. Is there an area of your life you’ve tried changing, made some progress but somehow ended up in the same spot you started in? Real behaviour changes are very difficult to bring about by effort and willpower alone. Contact me via e-mail for 1:1 consultations.

“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.”
— Aldous Huxley

Disciplined and dangerous

I started watching Chelsea regularly in the 70’s when we were languishing in the old 2nd Division and financially broke. Yesterday in Abu Dhabi we beat Brazil's Palmeiras 2-1 to win the FIFA Club World Cup for the first time. We are the World Club Champions! It’s weird to say, but it’s a fact that Chelsea FC are only the fifth team to have won every trophy available, the others are: Ajax, Bayern Munich, Juventus and Manchester United.