Being afraid of success is one of the most common problems that holds people back, along with being afraid of failure.

For most of our lives, especially in our early years we are told to conform – sit down, be quiet, and don’t do anything different to anyone else.

That starts because of (a) the need for parents to have some quiet time and (b) the way the education system is structured.

Our Education System

The common school was started by the British industrialists because they needed the poor people, the workers, to be able to follow instructions and work in the factories.

To understand and obey, they needed at least a basic education. Thus began the three ‘R’s of reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic.

That is why our education system is structured so as to teach compliance – the ability to do as you are told and follow the teacher’s instructions. Maverick behaviour, wherein young people challenge the status quo and seek to create and/or innovate is often viewed as disobedience and non-compliance. Thus, that creativity and self-expression is stifled.

Teachers will argue that we need discipline to avoid anarchy, that people need to be trained to follow the rules of society and of course there has to be some of that for our western world to function properly. My disclaimer of course is that there are many great teachers out there, who do their best to do an amazing job, but they too are often hampered by the system.

Shouldn’t the system be designed to help students discover who they are, who they aspire to become, and how to navigate the real world, rather than just achieve qualifications?

The Origins of Compliance

Our compliance behaviour dates right back to our caveman ancestry. If we stray too far from the cave, from the safety of the rest of the tribe, we put ourselves in danger. As human beings, our most fundamental motivational influencer is our need to feel safe and secure. If you were to drop us in a jungle or on a desert island, our first priority is to ensure that we find somewhere safe to shelter or some kind of weapon with which to defend ourselves and to feel safe from the potential threat of wild animals or dangerous creatures. Then we immediately seek out water, because without that we won’t last very long, closely followed by food.

Cavemen understood that the tribe was powerful – there was safety in numbers. People who strayed from the tribe or tried to do things differently were scorned.

Often they were mocked because the other cavemen felt jealous of the courage that the maverick was displaying, courage that they wished they had themselves, so they mocked the maverick. “Who does he think he is?” they’d ask. “Does he think he’s better than all of us?”

Being the maverick was also a challenge to the leader of the tribe, because only he was allowed to take risks for the greater good. So the leader would try to put you back in your place, unless of course he wanted you to be eaten by the wild beast and believed that you would be!

So it is in our DNA to fit in with the tribe and yet we have a creative side to us – one that is bursting to get out.

Whenever we try to use it though, our jealous tribe members will put us back in our place with helpful (not) comments like, “That won’t work?” or “What makes YOU think you can do that?”

We want to be liked. We want to fit in with our families and our tribe.

One of my coaches used to use the example that a man (or woman) born into a family of criminals, thieves and vagabonds will actually feel guilty if he tries to go straight. That guilt, that shame caused by no longer belonging to the family (demonstrated by adhering to their values and behaving just like them) will eventually pull him back into the tribe, unless he is extremely strong-willed.

So we come back to the fundamental issue of our own identity. Who we think we are is the one thing that we will fight ferociously to defend. When you strip a person of their identity, you destroy them.

The Quest to Establish Our Identity 

When the Greeks invaded Egypt, they set about chopping off the noses of the statues of the gods. Why didn’t they just destroy the statues you might ask? The Greeks knew that the Egyptians worshipped their gods and their beliefs were a fundamental part of their national identity and culture. They argued that if the Egyptian gods were true gods they would not allow their symbols to be damaged. So they kept the damaged statues around to reinforce the question mark about their real powers.

When you label a person, you are challenging their identity. If they admit to one of their faults by themselves, they now believe it to be true, so that’s ok, but if YOU try to label them with that same fault, they will most likely defend themselves and refute your accusation.

So, little wonder that when we try to (figuratively) step outside the cave, go outside of the safety or comfort zone, the rest of the tribe feel uncomfortable and try to drag us back. Even if we overcome that, we still have that little voice in our head that says, “This probably won’t work. It’s probably dangerous. Who am I to think that I can achieve this? I’m not that special – I’m just like the rest of the tribe.”

So, sadly, just as we were making headway, we allowed the waves of doubt to wash over us and we returned to the safety (the comfort zone) of the tribe, where they welcomed us back, reassuring us that we belonged back in the cave with them. That way they didn’t have to ask themselves why you had dared to be different and they hadn’t.

Identity matters today as much as it always has – this is why Hitler labelled the Jews as ‘rats’ – to dehumanise them, to strip away their true identity, so that the rest of the population could hate them more easily and justify their awful treatment. Trump has followed the same playbook – blaming the country’s problems on the immigrants. Vance even admitted to making up stories about the Haiitian immigrants stealing people’s pets and ‘eating cats and dogs’. This was for the same reason – to strip away that identity and make them the scapegoats and common enemy of the rest of the ‘good and wise’ people. The same tactic is also being used to label all the ‘terrorists’ in Iran. Granted some people from Iran have committed acts of terror, but you can see why the other ‘peace-loving’ people in Iran might view the Americans as ‘terrorists’ for blowing up schools full of children. There’s an old saying that ‘one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter’.

The point is not to get into a political rant, but to illustrate that ‘identity’ is an individual matter first. To simply label all people of a race, colour or creed with one common adjective or noun is absurd. There are kind people just as much as there are evil people in every nation throughout history. It’s way too easy in this age of spin and misinformation to blindly believe everything you read or watch on the media without applying critical thinking to question the agenda behind the news.

Success Requires Change

Being afraid of failure makes total sense to most people – we don’t want to feel or look stupid, inept, weak or incompetent. But why would we fear success when most people to some degree at least crave more of it?

Because success requires change, and that means stepping outside the comfort zone. Our default is to ‘stay safe’, which means ‘do nothing at all’, or ‘do nothing different!’

Here’s the problem though…

If you carry on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting the same results you’ve always got!

Einstein said, “You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.” Some suggest he said you’d be insane to expect a different outcome from repeating the same actions, though this never appeared in his notes, so he may have been incorrectly credited with that statement. Nevertheless, the implication of insanity holds true.

Change represents the world outside of the cave. Change represents danger. Change requires us to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. For some of us that pressure overwhelms us. Yet, when we make smaller, more manageable changes, we begin to believe.

If we venture a few yards further from the cave each day, the tribe doesn’t notice so much and doesn’t feel so threatened. We gain in confidence until one day, we find a new level of comfort and possibly even a new tribe! That doesn’t mean you have to give up all your dear friends in order to succeed, but it may mean you allocate more time to new people on your new wavelength. It will almost certainly involve learning new skills or gaining new knowledge.

When you look in the mirror who do you see? Is it the person you’ve always been; the person everyone else wants you to be; or the person you know you truly are capable of being?

If you need any help with defining your ideal life and overcoming those fears, don’t hesitate to contact me, Tony Inman to set up a time for a chat.

The post Could You Be Afraid of Success, and If So, Why? appeared first on Mindset Coaching, Life Coaching and Business Mentoring Tony Inman.

Do Your New Year’s Resolutions Seem Like Groundhog Day and What Can You Do to Change That?

If you’re like many of the population who find the beginning of the calendar year a good time to reflect on your goals and set ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ for yourself, do you also find that several of your goals feel like déjà vu as in the movie, ‘Groundhog Day’.

In that timeless film classic, Phil the weather man, played by actor Bill Murray awakens each day to find that every day is the same as the previous one and that no matter how he tries to change it with his actions, he is trapped in some kind of time loop and he experiences the same things with the same people, over and over again.

So, why is it that many of us seem destined to realise that the goals we want to achieve may be the same unfulfilled goals that we set at the same time last year?

There can be many reasons for this tendency to appear stuck in the same kind of weird, but annual, time loop that Phil was subjected to on a daily basis. Let’s explore why this happens and how you can break free from this apparent curse.

Lack of Clarity

People often set a resolution such as for example, ‘This year, I’m going to get myself fit!’

What does that even mean? How fit? What does ‘fit’ look like? Do you measure it by your ability to walk up the stairs without getting breathless? Does it involve fitting into an old pair of trousers that you wore when you were ten years younger? Is there an arbitrary figure on the scales that would signal success?

The point is that vague = meaningless. You are setting yourself up to fail because you haven’t clearly defined how you will know when you’ve achieved it, or even if you are ‘on track’ to achieve it. In short, you need clarity and specifics. Most importantly, you need to be clear about why it matters to you, and you need a plan. I cover more on this topic in my book, ‘If Life’s Worth Doing, It’s Worth Doing Well’, especially in relation to ‘SMART’ goals.

Lack of Motivation

The first question that you should really ask yourself is ‘Why is this important to me?’ If you can’t answer that, you’re onto a non-starter. If you’re reliant on willpower to get you through the testing times but you don’t have a big enough ‘Why’ then you’ll probably cave. That’s why most New Year’s Resolutions fall by the wayside before the end of January. You simply weren’t serious or sure enough about why it mattered. If you want advice on this, I’d highly recommend Simon Sinek’s inspirational book, ‘Start with Why’.

Lack of Action Plan

Another big reason why many New Year’s Resolutions are abandoned is simply that you don’t have a clearly defined, written plan of how you will achieve it. Chunking down the big goals into smaller steps will massively increase your chances of sticking at it. If you want some excellent help on this, I’d recommend reading James Clear’s excellent book, entitled ‘Atomic Habits’. James points out that when you fail, it’s usually because you didn’t have a good enough system to succeed. He offers invaluable tips on how to stack the odds in your favour by creating new habits. For example, if you want to go running, change your identity to think of yourself as a ‘runner’ and leave your running shoes by the bed, so that you see them first thing. If you can do the new habit for even two minutes a day, and you build on that, you’ll soon become the new you that you aspire to be. Having a clear, structured plan will also help you overcome procrastination. Tony Robbins, the ‘Mindset Guru’ always says that you should never set a goal without immediately starting with some kind of action step towards its accomplishment.

Lack of Skills or Knowledge

We often fail to achieve our goals because we lack either the required skills or specific knowledge to achieve the desired result. Both can be overcome if you are willing to put in the effort. The amount of information available either via YouTube, Google or AI is simply mind-blowing. If you study enough on your chosen topic, you will find an abundance of ‘how to’ material.

Lack of Resources

As with skills and knowledge, resources can usually be tracked down easily via the internet, AI or through personal contacts. As they say, it may be a case of ‘who you know’, not just ‘what you know’. The more you can surround yourself with friends and associates, the more people you can reach out to on any given topic, and people are usually more than happy to help with information or connections when you ask. If you want people to help you, be a person who helps others.

Wrong Mindset – Fear of Failure (or Success)

This one is a big determinant of success – how we think of ourselves, bearing in mind that we are often our own worst critics. An excellent book on this subject is “The Imposter Cure’ by Dr Jessamy Hibberd. We can also really learn to acknowledge but still repel those negative thoughts as are brilliantly explained in Eckhart Tolle’s book, ‘The Power of Now’.

Lack of Confidence

You build belief through action. You will almost always have some setbacks, but as you overcome those challenges, you realise that you are in fact capable. You become competent by doing, failing and going again until you master something. Think about how you as a baby first learned to crawl, then walk. You probably won’t remember that far back but think about other things you have achieved in your life – perhaps learning to ride a bike or drive a car. You could probably drive down a street so effortlessly that you’re on autopilot, planning what you’ll have for dinner that day, yet when you first sat in the driver’s chair, you had to concentrate intensely to put the car in the right gear and interpret all the road signals. In other words, you CAN develop confidence if you’re brave enough to get started. A brilliant book on this is ‘The Obstacle Is the Way’ by Ryan Holiday.

Lack of Discipline

One of the biggest reasons for abandoning those resolutions or goals is our inability to stick at the new habits and actions that are required to implement the changes needed. Most of the books I’ve already cited will touch on this aspect, but you can also find a comprehensive list of self-help books on my website. Discipline can be better achieved by ticking off all of the above issues: gaining clarity; understanding how you and/or others will benefit; creating and immediately beginning to implement the first steps of an action plan, acquiring the skills and knowledge required; sourcing the necessary resources; overcoming any limiting beliefs or fears; building confidence as you go; and generating the discipline to see it through.

Finding a Mentor or Coach

One of the best things you can do in life is to ask for help and guidance. Seek people who can mentor or coach you to achieve your goals. Model the actions of those who have already done, or are still successfully doing, what you aspire to do. As a Business Coach and Life Coach I have helped many people to work through the issues mentioned above. I too have sought advice on my own journey. In fact, if you really want to learn something and master it, try teaching it to others. In helping them, you too will challenge yourself to grow further.

I hope this has helped you and I wish you the best of luck to escape the ‘Groundhog Day’ trap this year. If you need any help, feel free to get in touch through this site.

The post Do Your New Year’s Resolutions Seem Like Groundhog Day and What Can You Do to Change That? appeared first on Mindset Coaching, Life Coaching and Business Mentoring Tony Inman.

Are you grateful for all the good things in your life? Or are you too busy focusing on all the problems you have to solve?

My mum lived to be 100 years old and like everyone else she wasn’t perfect, but as my days are passing by and I hurtle towards the ‘vintage’ years of my life, I reflect increasingly on some of the life lessons my parents taught me as they navigated the incredible changes in lifestyle and technology that have come about since the days when they listened to their wireless radio and the internet was not ‘a thing’.

My dad also lived to reach his 90^th birthday and their 70^th Wedding Anniversary before he passed. You try finding a 70th Anniversary card – they don’t make many of them! Consequently, they both gratefully received several cards from the Queen, and for their 70^th, they even received cards from the Prime Minister of Australia, the Leader of the Opposition and the Premier of WA. I guess that all adds up to acknowledging that it’s no mean feat to achieve that milestone in this day and age.

The Gift – How Gratitude Bestows Resilience

One of the glues that kept their marriage stuck together until death literally parted them, and I also think was a major component of why they lived such long and vibrant lives, is that they both had ‘attitudes of gratitude’.

To begin with, they were grateful for having met and falling in love. My mum was an unmarried mother, a truly scandalous situation in her younger years, whereas now it’s fairly commonplace. My father fell for her at first glance – one of those Hollywood-style thunderbolt moments and he took on her son as his own without hesitation. They went on to have another five children together, though sadly one girl didn’t survive, and the brother I never met, Michael suffered a heart issue and died after only six months.

They were married in war time, in 1941, and at just nineteen years old, my father found himself on Malta as a Flight Sergeant, overseeing a young team of engineers who worked on the Hurricanes and Spitfires that were fighting the German and Italian air forces, while the Island was being bombed relentlessly. They were starving because the island was under siege. Convoys of ships bringing supplies were frequently sunk by German U-Boats.

It was vital that the British and Maltese held on, for the security of Montgomery’s allied army in North Africa. Had Malta fallen, the German planes could have used the island as a base from which to bomb the British Eighth Army, possibly turning the War. Meanwhile, my mother worked back in England in a munitions factory to support the war effort and was living on food ration coupons.

They had several big reasons to be grateful. My father once avoided a bomb that landed where he would have been had he not stopped to talk to a colleague. On another occasion, a bomb destroyed the barracks where he would have been sleeping, except he and his team were working 24 hours on and 24 hours off.

One day, back in the relative safety of Chester in England, my mother answered a ring of the front doorbell to find an RAF officer waiting to meet her with a telegram in his hand. She knew what that dreaded telegram meant. All the wives waiting at home for their man to return from the War knew what that piece of paper would tell them.

She opened it and read the first line, “Mrs Inman, we regret to inform you that your husband…”

Vera fainted in the hallway.

When she regained consciousness, she discovered that he had not in fact been killed in action, but that he was gravely ill with meningitis and had been admitted to St. Paul’s Hospital in Malta. A flicker of hope was restored.

Despite the relentless bombing, despite the hunger, and despite the illness, Flight Sergeant Inman pulled through. When Malta survived its siege and held out against the Nazi blockade, he travelled with his squadron to both Italy and Egypt, keeping the RAF planes flying.

As World War Two ended, Bill and Vera were reunited and stationed in Aden in the Middle East. They had a new fresh start to married life together after the War, feeling initially like strangers again, and were filled with gratitude that they had survived the ordeal. Many people didn’t.

Their sons, Peter and Geoffrey were healthy, and they had a good lifestyle in Aden, with Bill playing the accordion while glamorous Vera sang and featured as the lead role of Robin Hood in the RAF pantomime.

Then came baby Michael, but he had a heart problem. They returned to England to seek treatment for the baby, a condition whereby he could easily have been saved today, but not in those days. He died at six months to the grief of the family. When the RAF NCO in charge of accommodation callously remarked that with one less child they would be much lower on the married quarters waiting list, Bill was so angry after everything he had been through to serve his country, that he bought himself out of the RAF for 50 pounds.

Although they had lost a child, they were very grateful to move to the English Channel Island of Jersey, a haven for British tourists, to start over and add Cheryl to the family.

How Struggles Are Conquered by Gratitude

Bill was a man who could fix anything. He’d just take it apart and figure it out, then put it back together again. It’s what they had to do to survive on Malta. So, he worked as a mechanic for six months before joining as an Engineer with British European Airways, who later merged with BOAC to form British Airways.

They bought their first home. Then calamity struck. Bill contracted polio and Vera had to take in a lodger to help pay the mortgage.

Once again, he pulled through this serious condition and the tradition of turning a bad situation into an opportunity, the idea of a lodging house stuck in my mother’s mind.

They were fortunate to get a loan to buy a guest house. Vera had also worked in Chester’s Grosvenor Hotel in her youth and had learned a lot about the hotel business. While he worked on aircraft, she ran the guest house. Then I came along unexpectedly!

They worked extremely hard and were so grateful that they had the opportunity to do so. Gratitude generates optimism and self-belief, so it was no surprise that the light of a golden opportunity shone on them.

An elderly couple had a hotel that they wanted to sell, so they agreed a deal to vendor finance my parents into buying it. This was a much bigger hotel, with a bar, chefs and silver service waitstaff.

Bill and Vera were a tremendous team. She had the business brain and could talk the leg off a chocolate frog to welcome new guests, and he could decorate, renovate and fix anything. He also played music in the lounge bar with his band. As a toddler, I even sang in that bar. They rose to the challenge of running a business, whilst he held down a tough job and they raised a family.

As my mother would say, ‘To cut a long story short…’ (always the start of a very long story with multiple deviations from the main tale), they bought and sold businesses as my mother developed, then grew tired, before getting bored, and going back into business, several times. I also grew up in that environment, learning the hotel business and about management from them, helping decorate, taking bookings, serving in the bar, cleaning the kitchen, shopping for supplies, checking in late night arrivals – you name it, I did it.

My first real job after school was washing and delivering hire cars for Hertz, whilst helping run the hotel, including manning the bar, for my keep. When my parents took a holiday, I managed the bookings for the coming season. Eventually my mother admonished me for not getting a ‘real job’ and I became a Trainee Supermarket Manager, becoming a Deputy Store Manager at just nineteen.

Key Philosophies around Gratitude

Later on, after a career in retail management, I found myself taking on my own lodging house with sixty guests, getting my own bar, playing guitar and singing in it, and with a fleet of my very own hire cars, and several apartments nearby. This was evidence of one of my mother’s beliefs that, ‘What goes around comes around!’

Or, by extension, ‘Do as you would have done to you’. (also called ‘The Golden Rule’) So, ‘Treat people well and that’s what will come back to you. Work hard and it will pay off. Do the right thing and don’t lie – always be honest!’

Sure enough, I gained the experience, worked hard and reaped the benefit of all that experience and hard work later on. As Steve Jobs said in his famous Harvard speech, ‘You can connect the dots backwards.’

Whenever my parents suffered setbacks, and they had many in both life and business in their time, she would adopt what I now know to be part of Stoic Philosophy, and say, “Never mind, it obviously wasn’t meant to be, but there will be something better around the corner.”

She was able to work with what she could control and surrender to the Universe those things that were outside her control.

When things were very bad, especially for example when she suffered health setback in her old age, she would say, “I mustn’t complain. There are plenty of folk out there who have it much worse than me.”

Bill’s biggest mantra that stuck with me was, “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.” I think that was one he got from my grandfather, who had served in the artillery in the First World War. I was so grateful for this maxim that I paraphrased it and entitled my first coaching and self-help book, “If Life’s Worth Doing, It’s Worth Doing Well”.

He had incredible tenacity, especially when it came to fixing things and solving problems. He wouldn’t give in until he had exhausted very possibility. I think the War taught him that one.

I am extremely grateful for the upbringing and education they gave me. When I look back, they sent me to a fantastic school, but they taught me way more about who I should aspire to become as a decent human being. Money was never really their focus, other than paying their bills and never letting anyone down.

They were grateful for the rewards of their efforts, and they travelled, a lot! On many occasions I went with them as a child and absorbed their fascination for the big world out there. We were very grateful to British Airways because one of Dad’s perks was heavily discounted air travel. No surprise that my sister became a BA Stewardess. One brother became a helicopter pilot in the services, then flew privately for a multi-millionaire, and I gained my Private Pilot’s Licence at 19, and set up many of my own service businesses, whilst the other brother became a Police Inspector – all service-oriented jobs which prioritised people.

My Personal Gratitude

I’ve enjoyed a really varied and interesting life, taking the baton from my parents and balancing working ridiculously hard in my younger years, whilst still having fun, and now massively relishing my chance to give back, through life and business coaching and mentoring work, and by presenting and writing. I like to help people to learn both from my successes and my setbacks, but I especially love to see them achieving their potential. Sometimes people need to see that someone else believes in them even when they may struggle to believe in themselves.

I ran my accommodation business and my other businesses – car sales, hire and servicing, serviced apartments, adventure tours and charters, cleaning services, to name a few, all following the same mantra as my parents – ‘Look after the people first, and the rewards will follow.’

These days, in my slightly slower paced lifestyle, I love studying Stoic Philosophy and self-help books with my wife, taking our dog for a walk in the amazing Perth Hills, swimming with our grandchildren in the pool, playing guitar and singing in a local bar, and travelling to amazing destinations and meeting new and interesting people everywhere. Our family and friends are the ultimate gift and we’re extremely grateful for the life we lead.

I believe that focusing on the things you’re grateful for, every day, will change your life for the better. You will literally manifest the good stuff into your life. (It’s the Law of Attraction). And always remember that ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’. (Another of my parents’ quotes.)

• What are you grateful for, right now, in your life?
• Write it down and remind yourself. Try it for thirty days and see what happens.
• Then keep doing it! Enjoy

The post Why Being Grateful Can Improve Your Life So Much appeared first on Mindset Coaching, Life Coaching and Business Mentoring Tony Inman.

The gentle sounds of the River Nile lapping against the side of the boat and the opportunity to relax in decadent luxury on a sunbed, being served drinks as the world floated past had already put me in a contemplative state, when I glanced towards the banks on the luscious green side. I saw a local man in a kaftan going about his business, and I wondered ‘What meaning does life hold for you over here, in this place, with your country’s customs and traditions?’

He was filling a container from the flowing waters. I don’t know if he planned to drink it or if it was for the animals that were near him, presumably he was tending them as they grazed peacefully beneath some shady palm trees.

The boat kept moving swiftly and although I captured the fleeting moment with my phone camera, I didn’t reach its conclusion of finding out who was the recipient of the water. The serenity of that scene has remained in my memory banks though as one of innumerable special reflections on a life blessed with a multitude of journeys around this planet.

A Fortunate Life

There are many people who have travelled far more than I, yet I am so very grateful for the incredible variety of people, places and experiences that I have been blessed to encounter.

I’ve clambered through subterranean caves in Malta and Mallorca; the catacombs full of human skeletons beneath a Church in Lima, choosing a resting place as close to their God’s home as possible; a Pharoah’s chamber in a pyramid at Gaza; and I’ve climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Eiffel Tower and trekked the Inca Trail through the Andean Mountains to Machu Picchu; my feet have trodden on a floating reed village in Lake Titicaca and 150 metres of ice on the Athabasca Glacier in British Columbia, as well as the muddy trails of the Amazon Jungle. I’ve scuba dived inside shipwrecks to as much as 63 meters below sea level in paradisiacal locations like Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.

I’ve ridden camels, quad bikes, jet skis and elephants. I’ve piloted light aircraft over France, Belgium and England, been on South Pacific boats, and flown on hundreds, if not thousands of planes around the globe. I’ve been in helicopters over the Iguazu Falls of Argentina and the Red Centre at Uluru. I’ve been on hot air balloons over the Valley of the Egyptian Kings, the Parliament House at Canberra and the Australian Outback. I’ve sailed on yachts and a houseboat, plus cruise ships to Alaska and Asia. I’ve met sharks, snakes, spiders and crocodiles; I’ve played with a pod of dolphins by the Cocos-Keeling Islands and held the calming gaze of whale sharks in the clear blue oceans of the Ningaloo Reef and the Philippines. There are too many adventures to list, but I’ve loved them all, and my bucket list seems to grow ever longer.

I say all that not to brag or ‘big note’ myself, but to give context and provide contrast. Most people have travelled, at least in my privileged Western World anyway, though many people I’ve encountered on these journeys have not been so fortunate. Many live in abject poverty and can only dream of one day, going somewhere, other than where they were born and raised.

I was fortunate indeed to be born into a family whose thirst for travel and adventures was in my blood. But above all these things I have mentioned, what do you think remains with me the most?

It’s the same thing I think that enabled my parents to live long and interesting lives.

I inherited from them a great interest in, and fascination for, people.

For Me, It’s All about the People

When I think of the places and the adventures, the added icing on the cake, and the real meaning of the journeys was all about the people we met along the way.

My parents were hoteliers. My mother who lived to 100 years old, was always interested in people. My Dad used to joke that he could leave her sitting alone on a waiting chair in the middle of a shopping centre while he went into a store to buy something, and by the time he returned she’d have a bunch of new friends around her! He was a little shyer than her, so he kept working with the aircraft he had loved since being a young RAF engineer on Malta in the War, but he helped run the hotels outside of his airport job, and he lived to see their 70^th Wedding Anniversary and his 90^th birthday. One of his mantras was that ‘Everyone you meet has something to teach you.’ They were decent people with humanitarian values and strong principles.

They didn’t care too much about money, though they worked really hard for what they made. But, as long as they had enough to raise the family, live comfortably and travel, they considered themselves very fortunate. Their friendships were their currency.

So, when I think about our many travel adventures, I remember the smiles and charisma of our tour guides, Mark in Australia, Edwar on the Inca Trail, Sherif and Mohammed in Egypt, and Holly through America and Canada to name just a few who spring to mind. I think of our scuba diving guides, like Dharma in Bali, Neil in the Solomon Islands, and the German brothers, Flo and Fabian who taught us to dive.

I remember people who ran bars, restaurants, and hotels around the world, or just worked in them, and people who drove taxis, like the young lad in Rio, who proudly told us about his mother’s chocolate cake business. I have a good memory but not an encyclopaedic one alas, so many of the names escape me, but a host of stories linger fondly in the recesses of my mind.

You Don’t Have to Travel to Find Meaning

You don’t have to travel though to be an observer and student of human behaviour and to be mindful enough to conduct self-examinations of your own. You can do that in your everyday life, right where you are. After all, not everyone is lucky enough to travel.

My love of travel became a lower priority, as are many other people’s, by helping to raise children in Perth, Australia and running businesses. I compromised by following in my parents’ footsteps. It is said that ‘If Mohammed can’t go the mountain, bring the mountain to Mohammed.’ So, I operated a backpackers’ hostel business for 14 years, which meant tens of thousands of travellers came to me from all over the globe, living under my roof. Taking after my mother, it was never about the money, it was always about the people, the stories, the sharing of ideas, cultures, and experiences; I could write a book about it and I loved it.

After years of coaching people in business and life transitions and cramming in loads of personal development courses and reading hundreds of self-help books, I’ve developed a great interest in the philosophy of the Stoics, hence the existential title of this blog.

‘What meaning does life hold for you?,’ is a question for each one of us to answer according to our own unique interpretation of our individual and collective purpose. Is it merely to exist? To pay the bills and get through the working week? To get the kids through school and off your hands? To pay off the mortgage? To be a volunteer in the community? All of these things may claim priority at different times and there have been many studies and a plethora of books exploring the answers to the question. Certainly, a life that involves helping others seems to be a fulfilling factor.

If you don’t know the meaning, perhaps your mission is to find the meaning?

A Parting Thought on Your Legacy whilst Living in the Present

I’d like to think that I learned much from my parents, such as to be a decent human being; to respect other people; to seek to keep learning and improving myself; to be grateful for the joys life brings you and not grumble at the adversities, because there are always others who have it worse than you; to work hard for what you want, but through service and never at the expense of others. I don’t remember them explicitly telling me all those things, but they did it most often by example. I’m not perfect, so I stumble like everyone else, but I keep trying every day, and I know that I’ve been able to help and positively influence many of the folk I’ve encountered along the way. That knowledge is the true power that eludes the power-hungry and it means more to me than money ever could.

One day, unless you do something truly extraordinary, and probably after your grandchildren pass, most people will never even know that you existed, and that’s a sobering thought, right? But today, right now, you know, and those who know you and care about you, know that you exist. So, what meaning will you choose to make of it?

Good luck in finding an answer that works well for you. I hope you do. Asking the question of yourself is the first step.

I’ll conclude with the unforgettable words of Sherif, our tour guide through the antiquities of Ancient Egypt in 2007, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, get ready, because today is going to be the best day of your life!’

And as Jean-Luke Picard of Star Trek would say, ‘Make it so.’

The post What Meaning Does Life Hold for You? appeared first on Mindset Coaching, Life Coaching and Business Mentoring Tony Inman.

There are many traits that a small business owner must have to survive and thrive in today’s world, and ‘resilience’ is one that comes up in most expert’s key elements list. With the forces of change gathering pace at an explosive rate, however, resilience has become increasingly important, not just in business, but also in everyday life. It’s hardly surprising then that we are so drawn to tales of courage in what has become known as ‘The Hero’s Journey, a framework used by writers and filmmakers – more about that in a moment.

Tales of Resilience in Business

Resilience is an aspect of successful leadership has been a fascinating study topic for me since I first went into my management career as a young man. I was intrigued by the case studies outlined by authors, such as Peter Drucker and John Adair about how CEO’s of major companies not only survived major setbacks, but turned their fortunes around with a sheer determination to survive and succeed. Napoleon Hill wrote about this trait after years of researching the top businessmen in the U.S. Today’s top authors have continued exploring this tenacity, with writers, such as Stephen Bartlett, Mel Robbins, Seth Godin, Brene Brown, Ariana Huffington, Angela Duckworth, and many others, all attesting to the vital importance of developing resilience.

One of my favourite stories is that of Jan Carlzon in ‘Moments of Truth’, and how he became CEO of Scandinavian Airlines in the 1980’s. His story combined resilience, adaptability and innovation to turn around a loss-making organisation into a highly profitable airline.

Tales of Resilience in Life

Perhaps among the most powerful for me were the personal stories of overcoming adversity, such as Turia Pitt in “Happy’ where she graphically relives her survival of a bush fire in Australia’s north whilst running in an ultra-marathon event. The journey back from being horrifically burnt, to rebuilding not just a normal, average life, but an extremely inspirational and very successful one, is a testament to her incredible resilience.

Another standout for me was Viktor Frankel’s tale of surviving unimaginable cruelties in a Nazi concentration camp in ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’. He explored the question of why so many prisoners lost the will to live and simply gave up, versus those who found purpose in the struggle to survive.

Many years ago, I was blessed to hear a man speak on stage in the Perth Entertainment Centre, named John Perkins, who had survived a nearly fatal accident when a steel drum he was cutting with an oxy torch, that was thought to be empty, exploded. His story is told in the book, ‘Get Perky’ by Vailima Calton, where he had to teach himself to talk and walk again after suffering severe brain damage. Not only did he bounce back through a long and arduous journey, but he then cycled across Australia to raise awareness and funding for head trauma research.

Another person whose story blew my mind was that of mountaineer, Tom Whittaker, who lost a leg in a vehicle accident, but was challenged by a friend to pursue his dream of climbing Everest, despite his disability. Reporter Jim Waley did a feature in his Sunday program about the incredible resilience shown by Tom in overcoming various setbacks to achieve his goal, including being trapped in a storm three quarters of the way to the summit, then developing altitude sickness and having to go back to Basecamp, before using every ounce of his strength to go again all the way to the top.

Resilience in ‘The Hero’s Journey’

Screenwriter, Christopher Vogler is attributed to have outlined this story-telling structure that is used by many filmmakers and authors today as a go-to template. His book, ‘The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers’ described the twelve steps that your standard hero has to take on his or her journey.

1. Ordinary World: The hero is in their everyday life
2. Call to Adventure: The hero is faced with a challenge that starts their journey
3. Refusal of the Call: The hero hesitates to answer the call
4. Meeting the Mentor: The hero gains knowledge and confidence from a mentor
5. Crossing the Threshold: The hero leaves their ordinary world
6. Tests, Allies, and Enemies: The hero faces challenges, makes friends, and meets enemies
7. Approach to the Innermost Cave: The hero gets closer to their goal
8. The Ordeal: The hero faces their biggest challenge
9. Reward: The hero earns a reward that allows them to take on the biggest conflict
10. The Road Back: The hero returns to their ordinary world
11. Resurrection: The hero experiences a final moment of death and rebirth
12. Return with the Elixir: The hero returns with something to improve their ordinary world

As you can see, there are several challenges along the way that build the tension and keep the audience in suspense about whether or not the hero will succeed, but it is his or her resilience in persevering, despite the odds, to finally triumph.

Is Resilience Enough to Succeed?

I did an AI search on the key traits for a small business owner and it came back with these suggestions:

Key success traits for a small business owner include: adaptability, passion, resilience, strong leadership, creativity, risk tolerance, customer focus, strong communication skills, financial literacy, and the ability to learn and adapt to changing market conditions; essentially, being able to pivot, take calculated risks, and stay motivated while providing excellent customer service in a dynamic environment.

Wow! That’s a lot – no wonder small business success isn’t always easy! So, there are a lot of ingredients needed for the results you want.

Consider this though – whilst resilience is of course not all you need to succeed, its absence would mean that you would probably crumble in the face of adversity, no matter how talented you are.

So, how do you build resilience? I’ll answer that one in my upcoming book.

Stay tuned!

The post Why Resilience Matters So Much in Business and Life appeared first on Mindset Coaching, Life Coaching and Business Mentoring Tony Inman.

Most of us periodically set some kind of goal or resolution, but then we come up against the challenge of following through with the actions we need to take to make it happen.

Set the Intention

When is a goal not really a proper goal? When it’s just a wish, or what some people call a ‘Someday, I’ll…”

Ok, you’ve made a ‘decision’ but decisions are fickle, because we humans are emotional creatures who are prone to being swayed by other people’s opinions, or by external circumstances. Consequently, mere wishes can soon be discarded, with the excuse that, “I wasn’t very serious about it anyway.’

To make a goal real, ideally you want to follow the SMARTS formula. Write down your goal and address these headings:

S – Specific and detailed, but preferably simple.

M – Measurable and Meaningful– set parameters around it.

A – Attainable – if not, you’re setting yourself up to fail, but always remember that if someone else can do it, maybe you can too. Affirm it as if you have already achieved it.

R – Relevant – To you, or to someone you really care about. If they’re not, you’ll soon lose interest in the execution.

T – Time-framed, with milestones to check on and reward progress.

S – Steps required – break it down into small, manageable chunks.

If you can write down the goal and answer all of the above, then you’re well on your way.

Clarify the Motivation

One of the great motivational speakers with whom I’ve had the privilege of working, Dr John Demartini suggests that, having set a goal, you should write down 200 reasons why this matters to you. Now that’s a tough gig!

I’d highly recommend though that you really work at writing down at least 50 reasons ‘why’. The first ten or even twenty perhaps are usually easy enough to rattle off fairly quickly, but then you may struggle. It will make you really think about the significance of the goal itself. You may also find that some of your answers feel a bit repetitive, but you can tweak them to differentiate from your previous answers.

The goal may be for your own personal gain in some way, or it might benefit other people, such as family, friends or simply people in need.

If you really like a challenge, you could write down the consequences of not following through on your ‘decisions’.

Your job is not yet done though…

Maintain Focus

This is where most of us fall over. We set the goal, then forget to keep it front of mind. Having written your 50 reasons, you need to remind yourself on a regular basis. Some ‘experts’ recommend reading them aloud first thing and just before bedtime. If that sounds like something you wouldn’t be disciplined enough to follow, then you should at least have the goal, and ideally the reasons why it matters, (a) written down, because the act of writing them helps your brain to remember them and re-read them as often as you can, and (b) have the goal displayed somewhere in your regular line of vision.

This may seem a little ‘woo-woo’ if you haven’t read anything about neuro-science, but most of us, when we think about things in our future, tend to find that the pupils in our eyes will look up and to the right when we are imagining things in the future, whereas for most of us, our eyes will look down and to the left when we are remembering things from our past. If you are left-handed, this may be the opposite, plus not everyone will always follow this pattern for different reasons that I won’t go into here.

Let’s say that you have a workstation, and your computer desk is in front of a wall or partition, you should ideally place the written goals on the wall, up and to the right of your normal line of vision. Your peripheral vision will then catch sight of these goals and remind your sub-conscious about the goals and why they matter.

If this isn’t practical, you might have a vision board somewhere that you see daily. I once had a board on the toilet wall, so that every time I visited, I was reminded of my goals!

This is just one of many tips that I give my clients when coaching them, or when they are following my programs. I’ve used it many times, and I can absolutely assure you that it is extremely effective.

Another key support is to find an accountability partner to whom you must report on progress. Some people use a system of rewards and penalties to add extra weight to their need to act.

Recap

I hope this post may have helped you at least realise why you may not have achieved goals you set in the past, or better yet, to help you set and achieve new goals despite the challenge of following through.

Remember these key points.

• Set the Intent – Write down your goal, using the SMARTS process.
• Check that you’re serious by writing down your 50 reasons (and perhaps 20 consequences of not succeeding.)
• Keep your focus on the goal with tools, techniques and rituals to keep them front of mind.
• Find an accountability partner to keep you on track.

Feel free to contact me for assistance or help in these regards.

The post The Challenge of Following Through appeared first on Mindset Coaching, Life Coaching and Business Mentoring Tony Inman.

On significant occasions like Christmas, New Year, birthdays or anniversaries, near death experiences or bereavements of friends or family, many of us make decisions to change certain aspects of our lives. We make decisions about who we are now versus who we want to become, or how we behave now versus how we would ideally like to behave. Many of these changes can be minor adjustments that are easy to make, or they may be major shifts that require solid focus and dedication. Either way, the change we seek always starts with a decision.

You may query that statement in light of certain situations that you feel were not of your choosing or not your fault. For example, you didn’t choose for the boss to fire you or for the car accident to happen. Nor did you choose for your friend to succumb to illness, or for your business to fail. These scenarios can all perhaps be true in a way but consider these alternative perspectives.

Every Decision Has a Consequence

You are where you are now today in this moment because of millions of small decisions you have made in your life so far.

• You couldn’t have been fired had you not chosen to take the job rather than any other job or career path you might have pursued.
• You wouldn’t have had the car accident had you not chosen to drive today. If you want to go further down the rabbit hole, consider that it was you who chose to even learn to drive in the first place.
• You didn’t choose for your friend to be ill, yet you wouldn’t have even known about it had you not befriended them.
• Your business mightn’t have failed if you had learned better business management skills, or had you never even started the business.

That might all seem a bit cheesy or glib, but you can see my point that your life today is something unique that you have created with the intersection of all your previous decisions in life. Everything has a cause and an effect. Also, the world is constantly changing, and your life will too, whether you like it or not, so you may as well choose to keep improving yourself and your situation!

Every Decision Depends on Your Chosen Perspective

I’m sure you’ve probably heard the phrase, ‘It’s not what happens to you that matters; it’s how you choose to respond to what happens to you that counts.’

Every single one of us is a unique human being with our own unique set of beliefs, our own unique collection of life experiences and our own unique characters and complex personalities. So, every single one of us chooses how we interpret, or make sense of, any situation we are presented with, both consciously, and sub-consciously.

Therefore, whenever we are baffled by why another person chooses to perceive a situation or event differently, and therefore perhaps to behave differently than we would if we were ‘in their shoes’, we need to remember that they are ‘not us’. They have their reasons, even if those reasons make no sense to us.

The Effectiveness of Your Decision Depends on Your Motivation

In acknowledging that we are all a unique blend of beliefs, attitudes and experiences, we can see that how we choose to make sense of a scenario and how we will then decide to act, will depend on the strength of our motivation to act.

It’s often been stated by behavioural analysts that we are motivated away from the things we fear and towards the things we desire – pain or pleasure. Generally, it’s agreed that fear is a more powerful agent in this regard. We all have fears, but some of us allow them to paralyse us into inaction, whereas others choose, as author Susan Jeffers calls it, to ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’.

Overcoming the Inaction Default

Human beings have evolved to where we can send probes deep into space and make incredible technological advances, as we have done with artificial intelligence for example, yet in our everyday lives we often allow our fears to dictate our choices.

Human behavioural scientists generally agree that when confronted with the unknown, or the potentially uncertain, our default setting is to do nothing. Our primary motivating force, which is a legacy of our caveman past, is one that has enabled us to survive and outlive the dinosaurs and a multitude of other species, and that is our concern for safety. The known, present state represents safety because of its familiarity, even when it makes you miserable. The default is that it’s better to be unhappy, unfulfilled and safe than to expose yourself to a potentially beneficial, but uncertain risk – hence the status quo remains.

To this end, those whom many describe as crazy adrenalin junkies, push themselves outside of their comfort zones to achieve insane objectives like skydiving, mountaineering, scuba diving and so on. By overcoming their fears, they prove to themselves that they can conquer the more banal, everyday challenges, like career choices, relationship management etc. and instead rely upon their imagination and their steely self-determination.

Our imagination can either trap us in our own fear-induced cage or it can propel us to higher levels. As Seneca said, “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

The Empowering Conclusion

I’m guessing that if you’ve read this far, no matter what has caused this self-reflection, there’s something in your life that you are contemplating changing and it requires a decision to be made. Here’s the key takeaway, from my perspective anyway (yours might be different!):
By understanding and acknowledging that all of the decisions you have made in your life thus far have led you to this moment, you can then draw great comfort in knowing that therefore you also have the power to make new decisions that will help you create your own idealised version of lifestyle, career, relationship, health condition – physical and mental, indeed anything and everything that you want to change can be changed.

It begins with your decision to change, often caused or inspired by a pivotal moment. That decision must then be followed by another decision to follow through with that intention.

Next, you’ll need good systems to increase your chances of success, but we’ll come to that in my upcoming blog post. If you need any help with mapping out the changes you want to make, let’s have a chat.

The post The Change You Want Starts with a Decision appeared first on Mindset Coaching, Life Coaching and Business Mentoring Tony Inman.

Same Inner Critic – Worlds Apart

In Downtown Los Angeles Boris woke up with that gnawing feeling in his stomach. He hadn’t slept well. In fact he had tossed and turned all night, wondering if his latest assignment on thermo-nuclear dynamics would be good enough to get that ‘A’ grade he needed to give him a shot at going to Harvard.

“Mum!” he shouted from behind the cosiness of his protective fleecy bedspread, “Can you read through something for me?” He knew that it made no sense because his Mum actually knew nothing about the topic, but at least she’d know if it was good enough – she always did.

Meanwhile, the same day, but of course in a different time zone, Sally was about to go to a networking breakfast in Perth, Australia and give her ‘elevator pitch’ – that spiel you give to Richard Branson when you’re stuck in a lift with him and hoping not to break wind as you proffer the dream business proposal that he has been awaiting throughout his entire, unrequited life.

Her stomach was already growling at the thought of it. “All those eyes will be looking at me. What if they find out that I’m not as good as I appear?” She looked in the bathroom mirror, wiped an imaginary speck away from her mascara and called out to her husband, who was still curled up in bed waiting for the snooze button on his alarm clock to go off. “John, she said, in a voice that somehow wasn’t her own, “Can I run through my pitch again and you tell me if it’s ok?”

Validation

Have you ever woken up one morning and thought about why you sometimes feel the need to check with other people about why you want to do a certain thing and whether that’s the right thing to do?

If you have done that, you’ll know that it often makes no sense. The person you’re asking may not know anything about the subject – they may not even care about the outcome, and yet we still do it. Why?

It’s because we’re looking for that reassurance, that safety blanket on a dark and stormy night; that validation of ourselves that can only come from an external and somehow trusted source.

Boris could hand in his assignment and tell himself in his mother’s voice now that it was good enough. More than that though, she could reassure him that HE was good enough.

Sally could stand up at the breakfast meeting, and protect herself from the invasive gazes of 14 sets of eyes with the shield of encouragement provided by a half-awakened John who had been more focused on his morning ablution ritual than on the trite mumblings of his ‘girl-powered’ wife.

Strangely enough, when Boris’s lecturer marked his assignment, he didn’t even notice the paragraph that the acne-ridden youth had agonised over. Sure, he made a few critical remarks about other sections, some of which irked our hero beyond belief, but overall the armchair critic adjudged him worthy of a pass with merit, with no marks deducted for pimples at all. Boris had disturbed his own sleep patterns for nothing really.

Sally had made an incredible impact at breakfast, though not in the way she had expected. A veritable array of industrial experts had in turn delivered their stumbling and shaky verbal business advertisements, which had been wasted on Sally because she was so busy rehearsing her own speech in her own head that she had hardly taken in a word of the other ‘spoutings’.

As she arose from her chair, magnificent and polished, with every morsel of mascara intact and aligned, her hand caught her coffee saucer, causing the cup to leap into the air like a Houston rocket and splatter the nervously unconsumed remnants of brown fluid all over her DKNY blouse. With every attempt at self-mopping and every “Oh, you poor thing” from the audience, Sally’s perfectly prepared script had oozed its way out of the rosy-redness of her blushing head. When the mopping stopped and the speech began, she had forgotten every word, so she did what she had no other option but to do – she winged it.

As Sally finished delivering her totally unrehearsed substitute blurb, the strangest of things happened…

Sally received a thunderous ovation, not to mention a couple of cheers and some stereo-typical Aussie “Good on ya’s!”

Later that day, had you asked any of the audience what Sally actually said, they would have confessed with a slightly pained expression that they couldn’t exactly remember, but that she had spilt her coffee (poor girl), but recovered brilliantly and given a hugely uplifting and authentic pitch. John had of course claimed the credit for all that helpful rehearsing he had helped her with in the bathroom that morning whilst reiterating that he had never doubted in her ability for a single moment.

The Common Link

So, what did Boris and Sally have in common? And what do they have in common with you and me?

We all spend way too much of our lives wondering if we’ll be good enough. When the two school team captains are picking their teams, one at a time, from the nervously trembling pack of children, we’re all hoping that we’ll be considered good enough, that we won’t be the last kid to be picked and clearly the one with the least talent and who may as well jump off that bridge now, forever typecast as the ‘rejected failure from class 3F’.

Sometimes we worry ourselves sick. We get nervous about details that nobody even notices or cares about. We worry that ‘they’ might discover that it’s all a sham, that we’re actually not good enough and that we’ve just been winging it all this time. 

Guess what though – when you surrender to the impossibility of pleasing everyone else and just BE the best YOU that you can, you actually allow your inner creative being to shine. The only thing stopping you is you, clichéd though that certainly is. Nobody has all the answers; nobody is ‘perfect’ – yet you are a perfect creation. You can learn whatever you don’t know and need to know. You can choose yourself from the pack. You can give it your best shot and however it comes out, that’s ok.

It’s ok to get advice, sure; it’s ok to practice, absolutely. It’s also ok to just do your best, subject to my obvious disclaimer that if you’re a heart surgeon or an airline pilot, or a Manchester United penalty taker, please do check and please do get it absolutely right (you know what I mean!) To summarise my (obviously perfect’) ramblings in terms that a modern audience of readers can relate to, consider this: “If there was a zombie apocalypse tomorrow, would what I’m stressing about really be that big of a deal?”

Now get out there and pick yourself.

If you need any help figuring out the ideal YOU, feel free to contact me about the benefits of life coaching.

The post Your Inner Critic – What to Do about Self-Doubt appeared first on Mindset Coaching, Life Coaching and Business Mentoring Tony Inman.

It seems as if everywhere I go these days there are coaches with a message – coaches in life, coaches in business, coaches in de-cluttering, coaches in sport, coaches in relationships, coaches in not eating chips at midnight, coaches in how to get out of bed and live your life, but do they mention the vital and necessary first steps on your road to success!?

Everywhere I go, people are saying it’s all about your attitude, it’s all about positive thinking, it’s easy – you just do this, or that. or the other!

Is it easy???!!

* If it’s all so easy then, why aren’t we all super successful, just because we want to be?

* Why aren’t we all top academics without the need to study?

* Why aren’t we all multi-gazillionaires who blow our fortunes one day and get it back the next with no effort required?

* Why aren’t we all athletes who can eat icecream at 1am and not gain a kilo, doing nothing but sitting on the couch?

* And why aren’t we in great relationships with people who love us, while we remain totally selfish?

Answer – The Universe doesn’t really reward us without some semblance of effort, but it is SIMPLE  – What?!!

“It is simple to become successful at anything in life. Look at someone who’s done it and do what they did.” – Anon

“Are you insane, Tony Inman?” you may shout!

“Absolutely,” I say, “Being sane was far too limiting!”

The reason I say it’s easy to do the simple things it takes to be successful, is because other people have done the things they had to do to succeed, and they did succeed, eventually, even if they had to overcome major setbacks that tested their resolve.

“OK then”, said the smartarse, “How do you eat an elephant?”

“That’s easy” said the wise person, “One mouthful at a time!”

*****

The Law of Attraction and the Law of Procrastination

Here’s the catch though and the reason why most people are not as successful as they coulda, woulda, shoulda been…

It’s easier not to become successful at anything in life.

Those of you who have read ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne or have heard of ‘The Law of Attraction’ would know that we attract what we think about.

It starts with a thought – “Wouldn’t it be great if I could do (whatever it is that you want to do)?” – we’ll call it X.

Then it becomes a decision – “I’m going to do X”

What’s next ? – Well, a big fat nothing if you don’t DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT!

(Otherwise you’d already be, do or have whatever X is to you)

So, here’s the thing – a famous coach, who was actually in the movie of ‘The Secret’, named Loral Langmeier, asked me this question a few years ago:

“So what must you do to be successful?”

Answer – “Whatever it takes!”

There you have it, it’s SIMPLE – if you’re not WHO you want to BE, DOING what you want to DO, and HAVING the things in life that you want to HAVE, there’s a good reason.

Most of that reason is to do with what’s going on inside your own head.

That’s where a coach can really help the most.

The solution is really quite simple – if your dream of what you want, is big enough, and you REALLY want it (not just it would be quite nice if I could ‘X’), then the inspiration of that dream will motivate you to do whatever it takes. That’s why the famous author and speaker, Simon Sinek’s main maxim is ‘Start with Why”, i.e. figure out why doing (the thing) is important enough to you to make you do something.

The best part about it is WHO you become, in the process of DOING WHATEVER IT TAKES.

Conclusion – Your First Steps on the Road to Success

• Figure out what you really want to achieve.
• Consolidate in your mind WHY doing it is important to you (or to a person or cause that you care about).
• Seek the supporting resources you need to make it happen (the coach, the people, the equipment, the funding, the time etc.)
• Look for examples of people who have done what you want to do and model the ones who got it right, plus learn from those who got it wrong!
• Use the power of your mind for creative visualisation, aka manifesting, to see yourself having already accomplished the goal.
• Take action. Even a small step forward is progress. Then take another step and another, and so on. Action inspires more action. Success breeds belief and more success.

If you’d like to discuss it further, please contact me, or leave a message and we’ll organise an initial free chat about how I can help you overcome any obstacles in your way, that may be preventing you living the life you deserve.

Until next time – seek inspiration and take action

The post Your First Steps on the Road to Success appeared first on Mindset Coaching, Life Coaching and Business Mentoring Tony Inman.

“No thank you, I’m not interested” is a standard response that will make most new Western salespeople cringe with embarrassment at their failed attempt to grab a prospective customer’s attention, but this is not the reaction you can expect from Bali beach sales peeps.

If you want to train a sales force you could do a lot worse than sending your team to the beaches of Bali to observe and copy some sales gurus in action.

Firstly, they are very adept at building rapport with a suspect. A welcoming greeting is usually followed up with seemingly Innocent questions, like “I’m Ketut. What’s your name?”, then “Where are you from?” and “How long you stay?”

Think about the information you have empowered them with. With your name and where you are from, they can address you appropriately, crack a relevant joke or bring in some reference to your homeland, like a “G’day mate! How are you today. Mr Tony?” (And they have excellent listening skills and memories!)

They also know from the length of stay question and your divulged travel plans, how many cracks (sales opportunities) at you they can get. If you’re only here a short time, they will cut to the chase, but if they can build rapport over a few days, they will be more subtle in developing a relationship, with an increased social obligation to buy something.

There is no malicious intent to manipulate – with a predominantly Hindu philosophy of Karmic awareness that is not in their nature. They are simply great salespeople.

“You have a look in my shop? I give you good price” is a fair and reasonable question to attempt to grab your attention, given the massive amount of competition. It’s really no different to a Western mall store having ‘Sale’ posters in their windows and we all love to think we’re grabbing a bargain because  it makes us feel successful and smarter than the average bear.

One tip here for the unsuspecting tourist is ‘Be polite but be honest and straight’ in your response. Never say ‘Tomorrow’ or ‘later’ if you don’t really mean it. They will definitely remember that response and will consider that you have made a commitment to return to look at their wares.

If they do succeed in getting your attention and upgrading you from suspect to prospect, they will soon have you trying on clothing, telling you that this dress or tee-shirt colour or style really suits you and offering you deals like ‘buy three, get one free’ or simply a vague “I will do you a really good price’.”

They are great at throwing in low margin bonus products (necklaces, bracelets etc) to cement the relationship and they are exceptionally good at striking while the iron is hot – i.e. upselling you to a whole wardrobe full of new clothes, because correctly applied sales psychology works on all of us. We want to feel good in our personal appearance; we want to feel special; we want to feel ‘listened to’; and we want to feel appreciated.

Most of us Aussies are well aware that Balinese wages are way lower than ours and the majority of us like to feel that we have helped someone and their family to put food on the table and pay for their children’s education. We see these hardworking ladies walking along the beach, baskets full of sarongs, tee-shirts, dresses and necklaces balanced on their heads from dawn to dusk and we want to help. Most of the guys sell sunglasses, watches, lasers (man toys), toy boats (to play with your kids and revisit your own childhood) or men’s clothing, and they too know how to flatter a man’s ego. They are friendly and cheerful, and usually gracious when rejected.

One reason they don’t lose their cool is that they know about statistics. They know that your first (or even your third) “No thanks” is a conditioned response, so they ignore it and don’t take it personally. They know it’s a ‘numbers game’ and they will try a different angle, turning any excuse (objection) you offer into a positive possibility.

“No, I have enough sarongs”, is met with something like, “But these ones are high quality. They are batik – special, and I do you special price.” Or “Maybe you like a dress for the lady?” she asks the husband, “Make your wife feel special?” Most husbands know the golden rule of ‘Happy wife, happy life’, so a little look can’t do any harm, can it?

To sum up then, the Bali beach sales peeps are excellent at building rapport, masters of connecting with emotional trigger responses, brilliant at ignoring or overcoming objections, and tremendous at upselling, cross-selling and closing.

I almost forgot about the children. If you are visiting Bali, I can guarantee that at some point, you will be visited by a child or a group of children, who will either read out or hand you a piece of paper that tells you about how they are raising money for their school, so can you please buy some bracelets (that you neither need nor want), but that will make you feel you are donating to a worthy cause – and in my humble view, you ARE. After all, you are on holiday and what are a few dollars to you? Not much, but in local currency, it can really help them and their families. Just remember though that they will soon tell all their friends about your generosity, so set a few limits and boundaries if you want to sunbathe in peace!

My wife and I are multiple repeat visitors to beautiful Bali and we are very happy to have helped out the local economies on every occasion, (especially after the COVID lockdowns and no tourists for two years) and some of them have become good friends in that time, So, if you want a sarong in Perth, “Come see me – I give you good price!”

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