 
# A Journey of Self-Discovery

### How I Found Purpose, Meaning and Fulfilment on The Road to Prosperity

## David Ferrers

#### Smashwords Inc

### Contents

1. A Journey of Self-Discovery

Dedication

Foreword

Why Am I The Way I Am?

What Should I Do Now That I'm An Adult?

In What Way Did The Events Of These Early Years Of My Life Mould Me?

What Would A Wise Man Do?

"What's Good About This?"

What Am I?

What Do You Really Want?

Successful People Have Strong Beliefs

Successful People Have A Strong Self-Image

What I Do Is Who I Am

Knowing How You Operate Yourself Is The Key To Freedom

The Challenges You Are Most Likely To Face

How Do I Develop The Awareness To Know How I Am Doing?

What Do You Have To Do In Order To Change?

Why Discipline Is So Important

How You Will Benefit From Meditation

How To Get Into The Zone

How To Enter The Zone When You Feel Stressed

Important Questions and Answers

About Fear, Frustration and Flow

Listening To The Guru Inside

The Trap And How To Escape

Your Journey

Your Self

Setting Your Goals

Creating Your Vision

Right Now!

Creating Your Plan

Motivating Yourself

Relaxation, Hard Work & Practice

About the Author

Disclaimer

# 1 A Journey of Self-Discovery

**How I Discovered What I Am Meant To Be**

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**Journey from Frustration to Expression, from Stress to Happiness, from Anxiety to Confidence, from Poverty to Prosperity**
© David Ferrers 2015 & 2019

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**License Statement**

_This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author._

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Cover design by Daniel Ferrers

# Dedication

This book is dedicated to all of my clients who have taught me most of what I know.

# Foreword

I believe that self-discovery is the most important and exciting journey that we each take in life. It is only when we have an idea of who we are and what we are that we become capable of fully expressing ourselves so that we can start to exercise our capabilities and experience a sense of fulfilment - a sense of being what we were born to be.

Once we feel this "sense of fulfilment" we start to feel more complete, more relaxed, more confident. It becomes easier and more natural to succeed at those tasks that are truly important to us. Then much of the stress and tension departs from our lives to be replaced by self-expression, happiness, enjoyment, love and prosperity that all come more naturally and more easily. After all, we are what we do.

In order to be able to travel the road to self-discovery we have to master techniques for overcoming the barriers that we ourselves have built in our efforts to cope with the challenges with which life has presented us. It can feel risky when we try to approach challenges in a new way. We live in a world of health and safety rules apparently designed to build a society that is risk averse, we are not encouraged to take the risks that are a necessary part of progress.

The greatest challenge of all might be to generate the courage to take risks in order to make progress. But before you will countenance taking risk you need the reassurance that there are techniques that will offer you a reasonable chance of success. It is to demonstrate the effectiveness of some techniques for enabling you to move towards a more fulfilling existence that I tell some stories in which I have overcome barriers during my own life and explain how you can use such techniques.

The first purpose of this book is not to tell my whole life story, but rather to highlight those incidents that were the sources of understanding and learning. In doing this my intention is to pass on to you a means of learning from your own experiences so that you can find the sources of your being the way you are and come to realise how you can make changes that will allow you to express yourself and find happiness and your true vocation.

My second purpose is to demonstrate how I have been able to overcome some of the more debilitating handicaps that my life experiences ingrained into my being so that eventually I was able to express myself and achieve a sense of fulfilment.

It would be untrue to suggest that many of the lessons I have learned were clear to me at the time that the learning occurred. Often I only became conscious of the learning much later in life as a result of my studies and my conversations with over a thousand clients. However, I would point out that the lessons were always there and one only has to look back to see the source of one's good and bad habits. The tricks are to know where to look, how to look and what to do about what you find.

Such learning as I have accumulated over the years has largely come from my discussions with my clients who have highlighted the importance of different aspects of human behaviour. Their revelations have not always been intentional, but they have often been relevant. To which end I feel the need to say that I believe that I have learned more from my clients than from any of the hundreds of books and articles I have read or from the courses and lectures that I have attended.

My twenty plus years experience of coaching has led me firmly to the conclusion that the best way to impart useful knowledge and to ingest valuable knowledge is to work on what one "needs" to know, to do or to achieve. In other words when a client tells you their problems and you together work out what they need to do in order to solve their problems everything that occurs is relevant to them. On the other hand if you stand before people and talk about what you think might be relevant to them, they may spend a lot of time listening to stuff that is of no current value or interest to them. By working out solutions jointly with clients you not only find answers that are relevant to them but you also ensure that they are solutions that the client is capable of implementing with the knowledge and resources that they have available.

Hence I never give lectures, most of my work is done through direct one to one contact with my clients - only occasionally do I run workshops, but, even then I work in a very interactive and participative style that is designed to give each delegate individual attention so that their issues are being recognised and they have opportunities to implement their learnings; the aim is always to ensure that clients find workable solutions to their challenges. You might say that my workshops tend to become "learning communities" in which each individual learns but also acts as coach and mentor to the other delegates.

I encourage you most strongly to have a notebook and pen or pencil by your side as you read this book. Jot down whatever resonates with you. Make notes of points you would like to consider further, to think about more deeply. And, when you come to the section on 'Behaviours' make a note of the questions you should ask yourself about each behaviour, your answers will reveal a great deal about you and give you clear hints about the direction in which your life should go.

A pencil and notebook will help you more than making notes in the margins of the book.

I sincerely believe that it is only when a human being discovers their true Self that they can experience fulfilment and happiness.

My belief is based on over twenty years of having observed people up close as a coach and on the mountains of research that I continually carry out as part of my personal vocation.

I also believe that anyone can find their true Self, their best way of being, if they search in the right way. Happiness and fulfilment then become a matter of having the right plans, the right understanding, the courage and the dedication to make the necessary changes to be the best you can possibly be.

This book is based on my personal experiences on my journey of self-discovery in search of my true Self and on the experiences of many whom I have coached who have achieved this life-enhancing goal.

The question that many ask is: "If the journey is going to be challenging, is it worth the effort and the risk?"

The answer is that it is your life. It is up to you to decide whether you are prepared to settle for less than you are capable of or whether you want to take charge and devote yourself to achieving something much better, to be truly happy. Whether you take charge or allow your life to follow an uncharted course it is certain that you will face challenges along the way.

"If I decide to try for happiness and fulfilment and it doesn't work out, what then?"

The history of human endeavour suggests, strongly that those who commit themselves one hundred percent to the achievement of realistic goals succeed in attaining those goals. It is certainly true that people fail, but this is most often due to either a lack of proper preparation, the failure to use all of their available resources, or a lack of persistence; or a blend of all three.

Most of the things worth having in life do not come easily. The attainment of worthwhile goals requires knowledge, effort and self-discipline. However, as you travel towards your goals developing your knowledge, making the effort and exercising self-discipline you grow as a human being. The effort is never wasted. I simply encourage you to travel in your own way. Do not let others dictate how you make your journey. You will always do best when you do things in your own way.

Imagine a ship sailing from Cape Town to Sydney. The captain has to know where he is going; he has to make sure that the ship is in good working order and properly equipped; he has to know how to operate his ship; he has to make decisions to deal with unexpected events; he has to be disciplined about maintaining his route. You are the captain of the ship of your life so these are all skills you must learn for yourself in order to arrive at your life's best destination.

This book has been designed in three parts to enable you to make the journey to your personal place of happiness and fulfilment. In the first part you will greatly improve the way you operate yourself, you will get to know how to use your abilities and strengths, you will grow in confidence and determination. In the second part you will work out what your true Self is like, your best way of being. In the third part you will prepare your plan for how someone with your talents and abilities can achieve your goals and you will start to implement your plan.

You are about to embark on the most exciting journey of your life. Enjoy the trip!

_David Ferrers, Kent, UK, July 2015_

# Why Am I The Way I Am?

I remember the noise of the bombs whistling down out of the sky, the loud "crump" sound and ground-shaking thuds as they landed. Or do I? Certainly I was born close to London during the height of the German Blitzkrieg bombing. But do I remember the actual Blitz or do I just remember what people told me? I was only 4 years old when the Second World War ended. I remember seeing the dark, threatening images of Doodle Bugs flying above on their way to bomb London and listening for the moment when their engine would cut out and they would start to descend in eerie silence towards their target, and then the enormous bang as they exploded. Or do I? Are my memories based on seeing old black and white movies of the V2's on their way to London?

Whether my memories are true or false I certainly picked up the fear amongst the adults around me who spoke constantly about the war, the atrocities, the casualties, the devastation of homes and factories and their concerns for their safety and the safety of those they loved. My early introduction to the feeling of fear was graphic and constant. It embedded the feeling deeply inside my being. It would lead to life-long issues created by my effects to try to avoid experiencing fear. This led to many unwanted behaviours, many of which I deemed to be beyond my control for much of my life.

Perhaps the best lesson of my life is that such feelings can be contained and controlled - once you know how. That fears don't have to influence our behaviour. That we can overcome a "natural instinct" to behave in a certain way. Once we gain some measure of control over our feelings we start to have choice, if we choose to exercise that choice. Then we can become what we were born to become. But you have to know how to do these things and you have to put in the effort to achieve what you want. As the great American football coach Vince Lombardi once remarked: "The only place where "results" come before "work" is in the dictionary."

My purpose is to tell you the important parts of my story so that you can see how I learned and thus you will hopefully see how you too can gain some measure of control over your own life so that you can find the means of expressing your true self and experience fulfilment in your life. During the narrative I will highlight the moments that made a difference, tell you why they were important and show you how you can apply the lessons I have learned in your own life.

Apparently when my father returned from spending two years freezing and starving in a German prisoner of war camp in Poland he swore that he would never be cold again. As a result soon after his return to England I found myself travelling on a troop ship down the Bay of Biscay to Gibraltar. There we stayed for a few months during which I lost my tonsils and adenoids and my father lost all his teeth which had rotted due to two years of appalling POW diet. As my father was serving in a Scottish regiment I was introduced to the chanter, a reed instrument that is a trainer for learning to play the bagpipes whilst we resided on The Rock. It soon became clear that I have no talent for playing musical instruments. I had far more interest in the Barbary apes that lived on the top of The Rock.

My father's job required some liaising with the US navy who had many ships anchored in the bay of Gibraltar. One night the captain of one of these ships came to dinner with my parents and brought a gift of two boxes of Mars bars, one for my sister and one for me. Until that time I had never tasted chocolate, so I repaired to my bedroom and, sitting at the window admiring the US navy ships at anchor in Gibraltar bay, I consumed the entire contents of my box of chocolate. Soon I was violently ill. To this day I still hesitate when offered a Mars bar. My first experience of aversion therapy.

After our short stay in Gibraltar we proceeded on across the Mediterranean sea, down the Suez Canal and then into the Indian Ocean. It was the custom in those days for Neptune to make passengers crossing the equator for the first time walk the plank until they plunged into his swimming pool. I found the experience of being chased around the ship's decks by bare-footed sailors dressed as Neptune's messengers and ducked in his pool quite terrifying. But I survived the ordeal and duly arrived in the Kenya port of Mombassa.

I must say that Nyali beach, which in those days was largely uninhabited, was a wonderful playground for a small boy. I loved the sunshine, swimming out to the makeshift raft anchored just offshore and building sandcastles from the white sand. But we didn't stay long. We soon upped sticks and headed down to Dar es Salaam where we lived in a nice bungalow situated on a hill overlooking the harbour which has a tidal range of some 13 feet. On occasions it seemed to me that I was looking at no more than a muddy creek. Perhaps our bungalow did not overlook the main harbour but only a feeder creek, my six year old brain did not configure such information?

Once again our stay seems, with hindsight, to have been brief. My father, who was by now serving as an officer with the Kings African Rifles, was posted up to Somaliland and left with his regiment of soldiers. My mother, sister and I followed on a coastal trader. I recall a lively game of tag on the ship's deck with the other passengers. During the game I grabbed the fez from the head of a Muslim passenger who was chasing me merrily. In order to distract his attention I threw the fez overboard. As the fez spiralled towards the sea the humour of my pursuer changed dramatically. I hadn't realised that his fez was a symbol of his having made the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca. He was so enraged and so determined to take my life that the captain of the ship had to lock my entire family in his cabin for our safety. Perhaps this experience, coupled with Neptune's ducking, prejudiced me against the idea of sea travel for many years to come. To this day the concept of sea cruise holidays hold little attraction for me.

Even in those days Somaliland was a country in turmoil. Many buildings were bullet-scarred by the recently ended world war, others were in a dilapidated state. The roads were pitted with potholes. The street beggars often had mutilated limbs and open, running sores. The natives showed a surly dislike for Europeans. My sister and I had to travel to school in the back of an army truck filled with empty petrol drums. Well, they were empty until we were each deposited inside a drum for our safety. It was unnerving travelling inside those dark cylinders while the natives threw stones which clanged loudly against the metal sides of our dark hiding places. I don't recall anything about the school. Perhaps I was too traumatised by the trip to the classroom to pay any attention to the lessons?

I do remember the beach in Mogadishu, it shelved very sharply downwards so that I was out of my depth very soon after I started to wade in to swim. Also, on that beach, I recall fishermen selling fearsome looking swordfish from dugout canoes, stabilised by massive outriggers. The manager of the hotel where we lived promised to give me a football, but instead gave me a mouth organ which was a disappointment. However, that harmonica reinforced my understanding that although I enjoy listening to music I lack any talent for being able to create music.

The best part of Somaliland was a trip up country to my father's posting at Isha Badur, a bush outpost. I remember travelling in the cab of a light army truck with my head and shoulders sticking out of a hole in the roof of the cab. It was a great adventure as we wound our way along the red dirt tracks through the thorn trees and scrubland.

Once again we didn't seem to stay long. My mother, sister and I were put on an ancient and very decrepit bus for a trip along rough dirt tracks back to Mombassa. During this trip I saw my first Masai warriors. They looked very fierce in their dark red robes, coloured bead necklaces and massive earrings. They all carried spears and sticks with which they goaded their small herds of goats and cattle. They seemed to be perpetually cleaning their teeth with the frayed ends of small sticks. These fierce men had a way of staring you straight in the eye that was most unnerving. We must have travelled during the rainy season because we regularly had to alight, build mats out of small bushes to enable the bus's tyres to grip so that we could push our transport through huge puddles and over soft ground where the bus frequently foundered in the mud. I recall the bush being more dense than in Somaliland with low savannah trees and long dry grass above which the occasional larger tree rose like a statue.

From Mombassa we took the night train that wound its way up to Nairobi where a new blazer and shoes were purchased for me before I was put on an aeroplane. A label was attached to the lapel of my blazer. I had no idea where I was going, but I held tightly to the new toy bulldozer that was my mother's parting gift. At the time I did not realise that I would not see my mother again for four years. It was just before my eighth birthday.

How I got to the boarding school in Salisbury (now Harare) I cannot recall. But I can remember that on the first evening at the school the Jesuit priests herded us into chapel for an evening service. My new housemaster insisted that I leave my precious bulldozer on a window ledge outside of the chapel, assuring me that it would be quite safe. When we came out of the service the bulldozer was gone. When I complained the horrible man told me not to tell tales. Thus began my distrust of authorities who are supposed to provide justice for the oppressed and my deep dislike of Jesuit priests. Even today I would cross the road rather than talk to one of these hypocrites. They preached love yet sadistically took small boys to a sparsely furnished, wooden floored office where they made us stand to attention whilst they wrote our names in a ledger before making us bend over so that they could whip our backsides brutally. They dished out this harsh punishment in their chamber of horrors even for such minor offences as putting our hands in our pockets.

The ill treatment from the "grown ups" at the school was in stark contrast to the motherly love to which I was accustomed.

_The sudden and complete loss of love heightened the feeling that I had_ _been abandoned by my parents. I felt that there was no-one on my side. I had no protection from these atrocious Jesuits or from the school bullies who the priests did nothing to discourage. I did not feel safe. The feeling of not being safe was so strong that it persists to this day, although to a far lesser degree._

A number of experiences at this school would exert a strong influence over the rest of my life. One was that we were made to stand up in class and read out loud to our fellow pupils. When I arrived at the school I still had not learned to read properly, so I found the reading aloud exercises an excruciating, highly embarrassing punishment. Another quarter of a century would pass before I would discover that I am dyslexic. However, the dread of reading aloud to my classmates would re-emerge in later life as a fear of public speaking and making presentations. The weird thing was that I won an elocution contest for reciting, to the whole school, a poem by Edward Lear that I can still remember today. In those days the concept of "learning difficulties" did not exist. Students were either "clever" or "lazy" or "stupid". I was probably labelled in the last two categories.

_It is adversity like this that can either bring out the best in us or drive us completely off the rails, although we may not realise it at the time. The fact that I found reading difficult led to my becoming more inventive, more creative in the way that I look for solutions to the issues that I am facing. I have never accepted the one-size-fits-all concept of there being a "right" solution to problems. I simply look for my own solution. I believe that I do this because I found it so difficult to do things the way everyone else was doing them. Circumstances forced me to find my own way. It was tough at the time but now I am very grateful for this gift._

A second major memory of this time was of never having any pocket money. Other boys received fruit and cakes from Pockets restaurant in the town, many had a few shillings to buy sweets and soft drinks at the tuck shop but I only received the odd small postal order from my father on the rare occasions when he wrote me letters which invariably were filled with invocations to work hard. This experience of poverty reinforced by my father's constant moaning that, "people like us never have any money," was probably the root cause of my habit in later life of believing that I was destined to be forever without money. Perhaps I developed the belief, at some level, that I was not worthy of wealth. _I am now grateful that I have never been a slave to money and wealth - rather I_ _have had the freedom to experiment and look for what is interesting and enjoyable in life._

It was probably the search for distraction from my constant pain that I turned to sport which became my outlet for self-expression and learning. I was not particularly outstanding as a player of any sport, but I did enjoy participating and practicing. Looking back I can see that even as a ten year old I was prepared to risk life and limb by entering the chamber of horrors where we had to go if we wanted to borrow sports equipment. I would regularly borrow a rugby ball for an hour or two so that I could go off down to the rugby pitches on my own and practice kicking the ball through the posts and over the cross bar. On one occasion I even wore out a new pair of shoes within a week so diligently did I practice.

The lesson that _" hard work and diligent, solitary practice can lead to_ _higher performance " _did not penetrate my consciousness at the time because I certainly did not use __ that learning in any other field of activity. As far as I was concerned I was simply losing myself in a repetitive physical activity that prevented me from feeling the pain of having been abandoned by my parents and left in this fearsome institution. However, there must have been more to it than just losing myself. Something about sport captured my imagination. Somehow I was able to express myself. I could see myself excelling, kicking the winning goal in front of a large audience. At the time it did not occur to me that I was using my imagination and that this could be a useful asset; I was mainly engaged in losing myself, escaping from the pain of unwanted feelings through physical activity and fantasising.

However, the lessons about the value of practice did emerge in later life where I have often found that I am prepared to spend time on my own studying or practicing skills once I am able to imagine their leading to the attainment of a desirable end and once I have the feeling that they are in some way important.

_In this early cameo from my life I can see that, at some level, I came to understand that motivation is about grabbing someone's attention or interest, creating a vision and then raising their level of desire to a point where they are impelled to take action in order to fulfil that desire. Then it becomes a matter of maintaining the vision and enthusiasm until you make that vision into a reality. At this early point in my life I did not yet have any vision about where my life was headed, but I undoubtedly had an inner belief that I had something worthwhile to offer the world._

The concept of _" capturing my imagination"_ also did not, at the time, register with me. It would be many years before I would learn the art of motivating myself by using my imagination to picture important goals as massive, colourful, lively images that fill my mind.

The tragedy of my education is that I can recall very few occasions during my school life when my imagination was fired. Rather the days were filled with the educators' debilitating, for me, concepts of rightness, of the right way to do things, the right way of behaving, the right way of thinking. However, despite the stultifying effect of the system I can still recall one early example of my imagination being captured. It occurred when I was aged about nine; at that time one teacher would devote part of our afternoon lessons to reading us chapters from Sir Percy Fitzpatrick's book Jock Of The Bushveld. This wonderful book, set in the early days of the settlement of South Africa, told of the adventures of a wagon master carrying freight from the coast up to the new gold mining settlement of Johannesburg. The hero of the book was Jock, a hunting dog of high intelligence and courage who helped his master on numerous adventures in the veld. However, although the story fired my desire for adventure it did not increase my desire to devote myself to my lessons. I made no connection between being educated and experiencing adventures. There was a missing link. If a teacher had been able to demonstrate to me that the lessons I was being asked to learn at school would enable me to become an adventurer those lessons would have started to have some meaning and value for me. But no teacher helped me to make that connection, if there ever existed such a connection, and so the lessons were, for me, just boring interludes between being able to play sport.

The best part of the school holidays was the journey home on the steam train. We travelled overnight, tearing through the darkness down to Bulawayo where we spent the day. It was there that I saw my first technicolor movies. One of the first was Doris Day in Moonlight Bay, if memory serves me right. Then we caught the evening train that went via the Wankie (now Hwange) coal fields up to Victoria Falls, across the Falls bridge which spans the deep, foaming gorge where the waters from the Falls cascade into the Zambezi river. We cut the ends off the train's straw filled leather couchette pillows, packed them with fireworks, set fire to the straw, then threw the pillows out of the train windows and watched delightedly as our exploding fireballs spiralled and banged down to their watery grave. A brief interlude of excitement before we chugged into Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and on up to Lusaka.

The journey was exciting because it was escape from the horrors of school, because it was constant movement, because of the small black boys who would run beside the train shouting and skipping their excitement at our passing or trying to sell us fruit or handmade ornaments. We would run excitedly up and down the train, hang out of the windows until the soot from the engine covered our faces in black spots. And, when we were ten or eleven, we started to smoke cigarettes on that train. Tom Tom came in a cheap red packet of eight which cost a penny, Zonk came in a blue packet for the same price. If we wanted to be really posh, we would splash out on a smart box of twenty five Springbok for six pence.

My father would greet me at the railway station. There was no platform, so for a small boy it was quite a long drop from the train's lowest metal step to the ground. Father would wait patiently on the dusty ground for me to climb down, then, as I drew near, he would remove his hat and hold out his hand for me to shake. In later life I would learn that he was not a cold man, it was just that, having been brought up in the austere Victorian era, he did not know how to express warmth to another human being.

Most of my school holidays were spent on my own on our farm in the bush outside of Lusaka. Once we left the main road a dirt track wound through the bush for a couple of miles to the farm. The farmhouse was a small, white-painted, tin roofed, two-bedroom bungalow with a primitive bathroom, kitchen and living room. Water was pumped up from a nearby borehole by a small windmill. The floor of our bungalow was concrete, very little of it was covered by carpet. The beds were iron, army issue with straw mattresses. It was common for puff adders to enter the house in search of a cool place to shelter from the sun. These highly venomous snakes would often secret themselves under my bed or beneath the bath, but the house boy would soon dispatch them with a large, broad bladed panga knife.

Near the house were open sided stables with a thatch roof. The horses were kept in by the wooden railings which ran round all sides to prevent their escape.My father owned a large black police horse and I had a grey Basuto pony, Snowball. I didn't ride my pony very often because he was lazy, stubborn as a mule and difficult to ride. Besides I was an indifferent horseman and there was nowhere interesting to visit or any trails worth following or anyone whom I could accompany on a ride.

The farm workers lived in a compound, a small collection of round, pole and dagga, thatched, smoke filled huts. They mostly spoke the Chichewa language common in Malawi and Zambia. The compound was sited beside a small stream in which I would play and swim with the sons and daughters of the farm workers.

The farm was a somewhat erratic commercial enterprise. I believe my father was dreaming of some escapist existence when he purchased it. Or it might have been that he could not resist the bargain of being able to obtain large tracts of land for just a few shillings an acre. The main attempt at growing a commercial crop that I remember was when the workers cleared a few acres that were planted with maize. However, a tribe of baboons invariably raided the maize field just before harvest time and ran down the rows snapping the cobs in half, thus ruining most of the crop. I cannot recall any other crops being grown there. Most of the time the workers seemed to be engaged in ensuring that the firebreak around the house was kept bare of vegetation to protect the house from the bush fires that raged during the dry season. Fighting bush fires was one of the few exciting diversions of my holidays. The fire break also served to keep the lions that roamed around at night from coming too close to the house.

Sometimes in the evenings my father and I would sit in the living room and he would read to me, by the light from a paraffin lamp with a tall glass chimney, one of Conan Doyle's Adventures of Gerrard, a dashing young French officer in Napoleon's army. Most days I was left on my own to devise my own entertainment. I would hoe weeds on the forecourt of the farm and dream of my mother coming to rescue me. Once I incurred my father's wrath by hacking down one of the small trees in front of the house. It may have been that in hacking at that tree I was expressing my frustration and anger at not being able to do the things I wanted to do, although I also suspect that I could not, at that time, have defined what I wanted to do. I just knew that it wasn't having to live a solitary existence on an African farm with no friends to play with nearby.

As I look back at these early days of my life I notice that a lot of the time I was not living in the present, but rather I was often dreaming or fantasising about being somewhere else that I imagined would be much better than where I was.

_This escapist practice of living in a "land of make-believe" can be the cause of much lost time. It is often highly un-productive, except for writers and other "creative" people, as it can dissipate our energies. Imagination is a powerful tool, it can help us clarify our goals and it can motivate us greatly, but it has to be controlled. We have to learn to be disciplined about the way we use our imagination. This was a lesson that no one ever even mentioned to me, let alone taught me. So, what is education all about? How do we identify what it will be useful for us to know? How can an ordinary person learn the lessons that will be of use to them? How did I eventually come to be more disciplined about how I use my imagination?_

The years dragged by. I became an accomplished swimmer, again a sport, again something I could practice on my own. I kept a white mouse in the pocket of my school blazer and fed her surreptitiously under the table in the school refectory, but she escaped and I never saw her again. I started to read Just William and Biggles adventure stories on my own. With my gang I practiced stalking imaginary wild animals and enemies in the bush land beside the school. We swam, illegally, in the dark of the sunken concrete fresh water reservoirs and burrowed up the drainage tunnels that led out of the school assembly hall.

Occasionally I would walk down into Salisbury and wonder around the shops to gaze longingly at toys and sweet treats that I could not afford to buy. Only once in three and a half years did my father manage to get down to the school to take me out for a treat. So my term times were long, uninterrupted periods of several months that seemed to go on forever. I cannot remember ever being interested in any of the lessons. It just seemed to me that the classroom was a place where I was made to look stupid so that I felt embarrassed, blushed and wanted only to escape. I could see no purpose in school. Classes were just periods that got in the way of my being able to play.

There was an area beside the school driveway where visitors could park their cars in the shade of a few eucalyptus trees. Whenever a car arrived there one of the students would race across the lawn to greet the visitor and find out who they had come to see. We would then run of to find the lucky scholar. One day, when I had been in the school for about four years, a taxi arrived in the car park. I happened to be the first person who saw it, so I set off at a gallop, skidded to a stop beside the car, removed my hat and asked whom I could fetch. When the visitor said my name I recall feeling taken aback. No-one ever visited me. She came forward and extended her arms for a hug. It was unexpected. Her hug felt uncomfortable. I was not accustomed to intimacy from adults. In fact I had trained myself to not expect affection from adults so that I would not feel hurt when there was no affection. Suddenly I recognised that she was my mother and a storm of emotions welled up inside of me. I just climbed into the car and sobbed. I really did not know how to manage myself in circumstances like this. I suspected that I should feel overwhelmed with happiness, but the barrier I had built to protect myself from "soft" feelings was too strong. Was there also an element of wanting revenge against this person who had abandoned me? (At the time I didn't know that she too had been abandoned by my father. Sent back to England with very little money to live with her sister. In those days divorce was not at all socially acceptable. But she had been forced to leave my father because, as a result of his wartime experiences, he was impossible to live with.)

For the next few weeks my mother spoiled me with trips to Mermaids Pool, Pockets restaurant and the theatre. Some evenings my mother and I would play cards at the hotel where she was staying. I guess this was a period where the lawyers where fighting it out about which of my parents should have custody of me after their divorce. At the time I had no idea what a divorce was and I did not know that my parents were divorcing. If I was told the information did not register with me.

All I know is that I was eleven years old when my mother and I boarded a propeller driven Dakota aeroplane at Salisbury airport for our journey to England. We came down to refuel at Ndola and then flew on to Entebbe on lake Victoria only pausing to lose hight so that the passengers could get a closer look at a herd of elephants. We disembarked and spent the night in an hotel on the shores of the lake.

Next day we flew on to Khartoum, where the Blue Nile and the White Nile meet up and where I saw my first jet plane, an RAF Gloster Meteor. The same day we continued on to Wadi Haifa for the night. On day three we flew to Benghazi in Libya where we spent several hours whilst one of the plane's engines was repaired, then it was on to the George Cross island of Malta for another night. Bizarrely I recall that my mother purchased a tin of butter on the island of Malta. Strange the details that one remembers. I guess she was hoarding a luxury because food rationing was still in force in England and butter was scarce. I even recall the story, from the Denis Compton cricket annual, which my mother bought to entertain me during the flight, about a man who got so excited at a cricket match that he bit off the handle of his neighbour's umbrella. Anyway, on our final day we flew to Nice in the South of France to refuel for the final leg of our flight to Blackbush airport.

It was just before Christmas when we arrived in England. I remember feeling very cold in my short trousers and thin grey pullover. An uncle, the husband of my mother's sister, met us at the airport and drove us to their home in Herefordshire where I would live for the next four years in a house set on the side of a steep hill beside the river Wye.

Before I could go to boarding school in England I had to pass the Common Entrance exam. In order to get my education up to the required standard to pass this exam I was sent for two terms to a crammer in Gloucestershire. This establishment was run by a Dickensian madman called Mr Eveleigh. He beat the exam curriculum into the skulls of a dozen boys by grabbing our hair and shaking our heads from side to side whilst shouting the parts of latin verbs into our ears. The lessons went on from early morning until late in the evenings with only short breaks for recreation. To be charitable he was probably frustrated by our inability to master the useless subjects about which he was teaching us.

During recreation periods he and his wife took us for long walks in the nearby woods. They supervised games of football and projects like digging a drainage ditch in the garden and baking our own 'bread of angels' bread. I have to admit that his brutal teaching methods succeeded because I did pass the exam. But I hated the place and once again I formed the impression that teachers are bullies who spend their time imparting useless information, in boring ways, to young people who have little interest in the subjects they are teaching.

My reward for having been subjected to cramming was yet another boarding school. Once again the lessons were of little interest to me. The teaching failed to inspire me. The rules were tiresome and often pointless, seemingly designed for the specific purpose of curtailing self-expression. Students were expected to conform and study what the school taught. I was subjected to classes about algebra, chemistry, physics and latin, none of which have ever proved to be of any value in my life. Not once in the four years that I was at this school did anyone ask me what I was interested in or what I would like to know more about.

My greatest piece of good fortune at this school occurred at the end of an excruciating lesson during which I had failed to read Shakespeare out loud to my English class. I had stood in the midst of my peers holding the book chest high; as I looked at the words they flew about before my eyes. None of the words looked right to me. When I tried to say them they sounded strange. But the impossible bit was that they just kept moving around. Odd sounds came out of my mouth. My classmates started to titter. The master looked annoyed, perhaps thinking that I was playing the fool. But then he must have noticed my blushes and state of acute embarrassment. Mercifully he told me to sit down.

When the class concluded the master, a mister Coulson, asked me to remain behind for a private chat. When we were alone he said: "You're not very interested in what we're doing here, are you?" When I confirmed my lack of interest in being asked to study the writings of a man who couldn't even write what I considered to be "proper English", this insightful man said: "Well look, the one thing that will prove useful to you as you go through life will be to develop the habit of reading." He then gave me permission to borrow any books I wanted from the well-stocked school library and, furthermore, he gave me permission to read those books during any and all of my private study periods.

This was a breakthrough moment in my life. I started to read the books that appealed to me, cowboy books, war books and adventure stories. Then, quite naturally, because I became interested, I graduated to more classical books by Thackeray, Trollop, the Bronte sisters, Conan Doyle and Walter Scott to name but a few. I never have become a fast reader, indeed I don't always read intelligently or remember all that I read. But I have never stopped reading, and a lot of what I have read has stuck. I found the subjects that interest me by the simple process of reading widely until I noticed what I wanted to read about more often. Reading fed and educated my imagination.

Being institutionalised at a boarding school does ingrain certain lessons because of the need to survive in the environment coupled to the process of constant repetition. So I learned to communicate and to get on with other people of my own age. I also learned to obey the bells that ruled the life cycles of the school. There was a bell to rise in the morning, a bell to go to church, no bell for breakfast that followed morning mass, a bell for the start of lessons, a bell for breaks between classes, a bell for lunch and so it went on throughout the day. I learned that it was better to obey some of the rules in order to avoid punishment rather than because I believed that they made any sense or would benefit me in any way. I never did learn to communicate fluently with any of the monks who ran the establishment or the masters who taught us. They were superior beings whom one obeyed without question, they were not sources of friendship or easy banter.

There were boys in this school and my previous school in Africa who possessed an air of superiority. They appeared supremely confident, as if they knew the answers, had hacked the code of life. Some of them excelled academically, others at sport and still others just seemed to belong in the higher echelons of the establishment. They all seemed to enjoy easy relationships with the staff. I could not help but feel inferior to these super-humans. In later life I would come across more of these superior-humans who are seemingly gifted by nature with a natural place at the top of the tree and I would automatically cede to them their superiority. My feeling of inferiority did not make me feel good; indeed it often led to feelings of anger and frustration but I could not find a way to compete with them. _I will deal later with how I learned to_ _overcome this feeling and feel the equal of any man._

The sports facilities at the school were excellent for their day. So I once again managed to get some relief from the daily grind of lessons, rules and routines by playing games. I never reached the heights of the first teams, but I enjoyed the process and I enjoyed my fantasies.

Eventually the great day came when I could escape from the school system forever. I remember that as the school bus transported me out of the school gates for the final time I promised myself, "I will never return to this awful place as long as I live." This was a promise I kept for over forty years and then I only broke the promise for a very good reason which was to do with sport, of course.

_My conclusion about the education system is that it is designed by people who are good at passing exams. Many of these "educational superstars" then go on to teach others how to pass exams, most of which have little value in life. It is the good academic learners who become teachers. This is a shame because it is the poor learners who most need the teaching and they may possibly be better taught by those who have themselves struggled to learn and possibly need a totally different learning environment_.

**Influences From My Early Life Experiences**

People with authority cause you pain - keep away from them.

I must obey the "rules", even when I find them tiresome, irrelevant and frustrating.

Avoid the spotlight (reading out loud), it is scary.

Do not trust people. Trust only yourself.

I can survive. I am at my best on my own. I can trust myself.

Fantasy and escapism (books, sport and movies) are enjoyable.

I can use my imagination to solve problems and deal with the issues that life throws up.

I believe there is something better for me out there. I have no idea what that is, but I feel strongly that I am destined for something of value. Where did this concept come from?

# What Should I Do Now That I'm An Adult?

After school no-one knew what to do with me. I certainly had no idea how I would make my way in the world. To be quite frank I hadn't given the matter much thought. Indeed I knew little about how to think about anything. And when I did think about the subject it was like peering into darkness. I had no idea what people did after school. I had never made a connection between the people who were teachers, engine drivers, postmen, soldiers, lawyers and me. It was beyond the capabilities of my imagination for me to see myself doing any of these jobs. I had no concept of what was involved in actually turning up every day to be a postman or a soldier or a lawyer or whatever.

My mother, who was an excellent cook, developed the idea that I should work in the hotel business. She arranged for me to have an interview with the manger of the Hyde Park Hotel in London. I remember this small man sitting in a rather dark office in the bowels of the hotel chain smoking cigarettes and chatting nervously with my mother. I cannot recall that I said a single word. Anyway, the outcome of their conversation was that I was sent off to Grenoble University in the French Alps to learn French which in those days appears to have been considered an essential skill for anyone who was going to work in the hospitality business.

It was winter when I arrived in Grenoble. The streets were covered in snow. But I only had to cross the station courtyard to Hotel du Gare where I spent my first night. The next day I somehow found my way to the University building where I started the search for student accommodation and class times. I found a sparsely furnished room with a huge window owned by an old spinster lady who demanded that I keep regular hours and not cook on the premises.

I soon purchased a pair of sealskin boots that kept my feet dry and started to explore the town on foot. I enjoyed dragging my feet through the slush and exploring the narrow alleys, broad avenues and squares of this typical French provincial town. I even managed to attend a few lectures and classes, but they were all conducted in French which made them difficult to follow. However, I met other English, American and Swedish students at these classes and established a social life. At first I found the girls a bit alarming. Having spent most of my life either on my own, during the school holidays or in entirely male institutions I had little experience of the opposite sex. There were certainly girls who attracted me and girls who overwhelmed me with their joviality or superior manner. But it was the conflicts of physical desire against fear of rejection that most confused me. Eventually it transpired that when physical desire was sufficiently great it overrode the fear of rejection and I was able to approach the objects of my desire.

_The lesson that strong desire can overcome fear did not really register in my consciousness. I did not observe what was happening to me and I certainly did not see that the principle could be applied to other areas of my life. At the time it was just something that happened. It would be many years before I was to recognise that emotions can be controlled to a great degree and that positive emotions can be elevated to a level at which they can be used to override negative emotions._

My time in Grenoble was spent skiing, partying, socialising in the university restaurant and various bars and cafés around the town as well as attending the odd class or lecture. It was an important period of transition from boarding school life to life in a mixed community. New skills had to be learned. I had to learn to manage money, to organise my daily life, to find food and to mix with people of different nationalities, different sexes and different backgrounds. It was an enjoyable time - until I broke my arm rather badly in a road accident on my motor scooter and had to return to England for treatment.

When my bones mended I spent a summer working on a dairy farm. The exercise of hefting heavy milk churns, driving tractors and working around the farm soon built up the arm again. Then I was, once again, faced with the need to find a job that might provide career prospects. I decided to give the army a try. My decision was mainly based on the supposition that as my father and many great uncles had been soldiers I would have some aptitude for the job.

My army career started as a private soldier stationed in a camp made up of a number of brick blocks and tarmac squares surrounded by a high wire fence and set in the middle of a bleak moor in Scotland. All of the other recruits came from Glasgow and spoke, what was to me, a foreign language. It was at least a week before I could comprehend what they were saying so thick were their Glaswegian accents. As the summer months drew to a close and chill winter winds started to race through the camp we were put through basic training in marching, shooting, physical fitness and dismantling and reassembling a number of different weapons. Night time guard duty involved little sleep and freezing whilst walking the perimeter fence clad in a thick overcoat and carrying a rifle that froze to your fingers.

I eventually passed the Officer Selection Board and moved on to the British army's officer training establishment, the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. This being the army I had to spend sixteen weeks doing basic training all over again. But during this period I made friends who have remained my firm friends for the whole of my life even though we have not seen each other that frequently over the intervening years. A bond that has stood the test of time was formed while we suffered the hardships of training.

_Another lesson that did not register at the time is that hardship shared binds people together. This is true in the army, at work, in marriages and other relationships. Indeed all shared experiences tend to bind human beings together._

By the end of my first year in the army it was becoming obvious to me that I was not cut out to be a soldier or an army officer. The regimentation, the lack of opportunities for creative expression, the hierarchy, and the rules all made me uncomfortable. Looking ahead for the first time in my life I could not see how I would happily fit in to the lifestyle that the army provided. Also, at that time I fancied that I was in love with the woman who would give birth to my first two children. Therefore after four terms at the Royal Military Academy, when I inherited a small sum of money, I purchased my discharge from the army, got married and entered the advertising business.

My first job was as a trainee in an advertising agency in London's Mayfair district. The salary was very low, but the opportunities to learn were good. I enjoyed the advertising business because it had a certain prestige to it and the results of one's labours were highly visible in newspapers and on the sides of London busses which I found rewarding. But the low wages put an enormous strain on our family finances and thus our ability to live, even in a low cost part of London. Eventually my wife had to go and live at her family home in Cornwall. Finance would remain a bugbear in my life for a number of years and eventually become a major contributing factor to our divorcing.

My early twenties were years of confusion, exploration, finding my way, boredom when work was quiet, excitement when work was active, when I was able to be innovative and when friendships blossomed. At this time I laid no real foundations. Everything was in an unstable state of change, nothing was permanent. I moved from place to place, from job to job, from relationship to relationship. I was restless, uncertain, energetic but undirected. Perhaps "unstable" would be a good way to describe me as I had no clear sense of direction, no clear idea of how I wanted my life to be. I had made only a limited connection between work and reward. I did not see how industry led to reward. To me it just appeared that some people got on and got promoted and others did not, and I was one of the latter group. It is obvious, with the benefit of hindsight, that I had no clear vision of myself or how I wanted my life to be. I had a somewhat pessimistic outlook on life.

In my late twenties I became more committed to my work. This was partly because I needed a way to hide from the pain of my uncertainties, from my lack of fulfilment and from my multiple fears. I literally threw myself into my work. At the same time I started to work in better quality agencies and to master the art of producing good advertising. As I learned more about the business and my role within it I became more confident. And as my confidence improved so results also improved.

And then I had what I regard as my second enormous stroke of good luck. At the time I was sharing an office with an Indian executive, Jagdish Raja, in an agency near Regent Street in London. We were both highly motivated, intolerant of mistakes or poor work, and both lived on somewhat short fuses. As a result we ran through assistants at a great rate of knots. Our secretary's desk was a revolving door through which a new incumbent arrived about every month or so. One summer I took a break for a week's sailing on the Norfolk Broads. Whilst I was away Jagdish employed a new assistant. When I returned I took one look at her and was smitten. Sally had a happy smile, a lively personality, shapely legs and great common sense. She was also very tolerant and hard working. We soon started going out together. A few years later, when I moved to Hong Kong she joined me there and we were married in City Hall just before my thirtieth birthday.

The early years of our married life in Hong Kong can only be described as "stormy". Two independent minded and rebellious people found it difficult to resign our freedom and to settle down. But we were good friends and both committed to the idea of our life together so, somehow, we managed to stick it out.

When I left Hong Kong I made a bid for freedom. I had decided to follow a dream of becoming a writer and to live in Greece. Therefore we purchased a camper van as soon as we returned to England and set off to drive via northern France, Spain, southern France, Italy and the Adriatic coast to Greece. All went well until we recrossed the Pyrenees into southern France. We had got as far as the Camargue when Sally started to complain about feeling sick. She wanted to go home, so we turned up the Rhône valley. In a campsite near the Pont d'Avignon I called in a doctor who diagnosed that she was pregnant. We hurried on home, only pausing to taste the delights of the monastery at Chartreuse, for purely medicinal reasons.

Back in England I rejoined the advertising business and our daughter was born nearly two years after we had married. Even though inflation was pushing up property prices at an alarming rate we eventually managed to buy a house and we settled into community life. I played squash and cricket regularly and made friends through those sporting activities to add to the friends I made at work. Although my career progressed reasonably well and I worked long hours I could not overcome the feeling that there was something more to life. The feeling that I was a valuable person, a man with a talent and a destiny grew inside me with every passing year, but I could not identify either the talent or the destiny.

It was my terror of public speaking that led me to start studying Psycho-Cybernetics and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) in a desperate search for a means of overcoming my fear so that I could achieve the level of performance that my executive position in the advertising business demanded. Helped mainly by NLP techniques I gradually improved my presentation skills, but, despite the valuable help that I derived from these techniques, it would not be until I found my true vocation that I would become a relaxed and fluent presenter.

_It is undoubtedly true that familiarity with one's subject and belief in the benefits of what you are promoting play a very important part in the ability to communicate with fluency_.

Eventually, the feeling that I was meant to be doing something more meaningful than creating advertisements became so overwhelming that I sought professional help from a firm of industrial psychologists who specialised in testing people's abilities, skills, aptitudes, strengths and qualities in order to ascertain their most productive career path. Under their guidance I spent the best part of a day completing a battery of psychometric and aptitude tests. Their recommendation was that I should become a teacher. Unfortunately at the time I had a large mortgage and a family to support. I could not afford to take the time out to spend two years retraining as a teacher and then to start a new career on a low salary.

When I look back, what frustrates me about their conclusion is that it was not that wide of the mark. If they or I had done a little thinking outside of the box, we might have come up with the idea of my becoming a management trainer or something similar that would have allowed me to teach whilst, at the same time taking advantage of my extensive business experience. In this way I could have built a "bridge" from my existing career to a future, more satisfying, career in a way that would have provided a more substantial income than that of a school teacher. But neither of us possessed the nouse to think laterally, or to challenge ourselves to look at my issue from a different angle, so I remained stuck in my unfulfilling box for a few more long years.

Many people's lives are driven by the need for security of employment in order to provide their basic needs for food and shelter. As a result they hang on to a job simply for the money. They do this even when the work gives them no sense of fulfilment and frequently makes them unhappy or even unwell. By selling themselves into job slavery they prejudice their chances of self-esteem, confidence and happiness. This was certainly true, to some extent, of my early career. Of course there were times when work and the successes achieved there did give me satisfaction. But during the quiet times, or times of heightened anxiety, I would set to wondering what I was really meant to be doing with my life. By failing to be what I was meant to be I was aware that I was failing to make myself as happy as I could be. The concept that I was destined for something other than what I was doing was a constant plague.

_The desire to escape from the pain that corporate life caused me would eventually build into such strong AWAY motivation that I had to take action._

There came a point where the pain of spending my life doing work that offered little fulfilment became so intense that I just had to escape. It felt to me as if I was compelled to find something that would allow me to express who I truly am and that I would go on feeling dissatisfied until I found my true vocation. So, at the first opportunity I departed life in the corporate jungle and started a small marketing business of my own. It was not a hugely successful enterprise, neither was it a complete step into my right career, but it did enable me to escape from having to live by other people's rules, of having to spend my days engaged in activities dictated by others. Most importantly the experience provided me with opportunities to try different ways of working; different fields of activity; and, importantly, it also taught me that I could survive financially as an independent human being without the "prop" of a corporate salary.

The challenge was that I had little experience of any type of work other than what I had been doing for the previous twenty years. This made it difficult to imagine what was involved in other sorts of work. It made it impossible to understand what type of work would give me fulfilment. So I eventually hit upon the idea of simply trying to do different things to see if any of them would pay me a living wage and make me feel like I was doing what I am designed for. Under the guise of my marketing business I tried publishing a newsletter. I tried various sales jobs. I tried making furniture. I also thought of scores of different jobs and career paths that I might try, all of which I discarded for one reason or another - the common factor of each discard was that it failed to earn me sufficient income and this was often because I did not maintain sufficient interest in the project. As soon as I realised that the work in which I was engaged was not providing fulfilment I would become restless and start to look around for the next opportunity.

At the same time that I was experimenting with different forms of work I was also reading copiously about human development, psychology, NLP, transactional analysis and psycho-cybernetics, as well as studying the life stories of successful people.

My first experiences of coaching occurred when I was doing a marketing job for an agency that specialised in helping people to develop their careers. The agency employed me as an independent contractor because my experience in the advertising industry had taught me to manage relationships with other managers and to make sales. This agency's clients were both people who wanted to change the direction of their careers as well as people who simply wanted to find a new employer who might afford them better prospects, a more acceptable working environment or greater remuneration. As I interviewed prospective clients I could often see that the desire for change was simply a desire to escape. But, escape to what? Usually a new job would quickly result in the same dissatisfactions as those left behind with the last employer. _What most of these clients actually_ _needed was to find a job that would enable them to express themselves so that they could feel fulfilled._ The problem they all faced was exactly the same problem that I had faced myself, "how do __ you support yourself whilst taking the reduction in income that often accompanies a change of career direction?"

_Eventually I came to the conclusion that the low-risk answer is to make "staged changes" that will move you step by step to where you want to be_. For example, I could have moved from my __ management position in advertising to management training and from there I could have become a management coach and thence become a personal development and leadership coach. The problem for me at the time was that I had not identified that I wanted to be a personal development coach. What I actually did, almost by accident, because I had no clear plan, was to use my marketing experience to move from being an Advertising Manager to being a Career Development Coach and from there I became a Personal Development Coach.

# In What Way Did The Events Of These Early Years Of My Life Mould Me?

When I came to examine the source of many of my habitual ways of behaving I found that many of them originated during the early part of my life. For instance:

**Weakening habits formed during this period:**

Surrendering power to anyone who appeared to have authority regardless of any evidence. I simply submitted to their title or other trappings of authority.

Motivation by fear of others, fear of failure, or any other type of fear works, BUT, it creates negativity and pessimism and it makes one unhappy.

Telling myself fantasy stories of what I wished to happen in the future rather than living in the present and developing a clear vision of a brighter future and a plan for the attainment of that goal.

A tendency to restlessness and wanting to move on - to escape the pain of the present. However I had not learned to create visions to inspire and direct me.

A compulsion to want to move away from pain or what might be painful.

A disinterest in education and learning in any formal, structured way, balanced by a love of learning about anything which I could see might benefit me.

Awkwardness with intimacy.

Viewing love as a potential source of pain. Coupled with a feeling that I must be unworthy of love. The only exception was Sally and my children who could be trusted.

A preference for my own company rather than that of groups.

A fear of public speaking.

An acceptance that 'Criticism is king' because that was what people did to me. Criticism made me defensive which, in turn, often made me become angry or forced me to retreat - either way I was not in the best frame of mind to make progress. I became a harsh self-critic.

An ambivalent attitude towards money.

Using my fears to make me angry and my anger to drive me past obstacles. This was a very stress-inducing way to behave.

Giving free rein to the compulsion to compete to win at everything in which I was engaged. Only winning would do, but winning only produced short-term satisfaction.

Restless, unguided searching, with no clear idea of what the goal would look like when I found it.

Frequently giving in to my desires, with no discipline checks.

The ability to convince myself of my rightness, even when I had no way of knowing whether I was right or not.

**Strengthening Habits Developed During This Period**

**K** nowing that I can survive.

Making friends.

A spirit of adventure and preparedness to take risks to achieve what I want..

Independence.

A love of learning, provided that the subject is of interest to me.

A strong desire to help others - to prevent them from having to suffer the same pain as I experienced and to help them develop a means of self-expression that will enable them to feel happy and fulfilled.

The continuous search for means of communicating better.

The determination and drive to get things done. I have started therefore I will keep going until I get to the end.

Searching outside of the box.

The desire to be very good - to achieve high standards at things that were of interest to me.

Searching for the means of self-expression.

Belief in myself. (I was starting to recognise that one's abilities and one's vision breeds self-confidence, energy and the discipline and courage to commit to a direction. The vision comes first followed by belief, discipline, courage and self-confidence in no particular order. Keep polishing the vision.)

As you can see I had a lot of self-development work to do if I was to achieve anything in my life. There were many contradictions. But perhaps that is how life works - our history sets us challenges and it is then up to us to find ways to rise to those challenges.

**Try This Experiment:**

Sit still, in a quiet place, close your eyes and think back as far as you can into your early years.

When a memory emerges, capture the feeling that goes with that memory. Write it down.

Ask yourself, "when do I get that same feeling these days? And, how do I behave when I have that feeling?" Make notes.

Is that a strong, positive behaviour? If so, keep doing it. Make a note in your notebook to continue with this behaviour.

Is that a weak, negative behaviour? If so, make a note in your notebook that you want to change that behaviour. You will learn how to make behaviour changes in the coming pages.

# What Would A Wise Man Do?

When I look at the history of my life thus far I can see a great amount of negativity, fear and pessimism. So what lessons can be learned from this life? How can this information be put to good use?

At about this time the Greek philosopher Socrates came to my aid. I asked myself the question that Socrates taught his pupils: "What would a wise man do?"

As I searched for an answer I realised that the question could not help me unless I knew what I wanted. So, I asked myself, "what do you really want out of life?" At first my answers were all about money. If I just had enough money, I told myself, my life would be easy. I would be able to relax, enjoy the fruits of the good life and be comfortable in my own skin. But when I started to think about how I would accumulate the money I hit another brick wall. I had no idea how to become wealthy. I asked myself endlessly, "how do people become wealthy?" I studied the lives of wealthy people until I eventually realised that each wealthy person finds their own route to wealth. There is little or no similarity between the routes followed by the investor Warren Buffett, the footballer David Beckham, the entrepreneur Steve Jobs and the actor Harrison Ford. They all have talent, they all work hard and they all create something that other people want.

This led me to refine my question, to ask myself, "how would you like your life to be?" Then I asked myself the questions: "what do I really want? If I had all this money and it worked for me, how would I be feeling?" The key word was "feeling". I realised that what I really wanted was to not feel fearful, to not feel stressed, to not be driven by pain - or, to put it more positively, to feel happy, to feel positive, to be relaxed, to feel good about myself, to be drawn towards feelings that caused me to feel pleasure.

It had not yet dawned on me that once you are feeling good it will influence the way that you behave and then other good things happen for you. But as we go on you will see how I eventually unravelled that mystery and how you can also use the same system to produce the same results in your life.

The journey of my life has been one of self-discovery as I have travelled to where I now am. The question is, "could I have got here sooner?" The answer is, "yes, provided I had known the right questions to ask myself, I had been clear about what I want and had appropriate support along the way."

The secrets are:

create a clear vision of what you really want,

and ask yourself the right questions.

To my way of thinking the difference between coaching and counselling, lecturing, teaching, instructing and many other ways of imparting knowledge is that the latter group recommend or tell people what to do, whereas coaches ask questions that encourage their clients to think, to work out their own answers. And when you work out your own answers they are believable and they are answers that you know you can make work for you.

The issue here is, to my mind, a simple one. If you instruct people, tell them what to do, order them to behave in a certain way, they become lazy or you create resistance. Your audience may not agree with what you tell them to do. They may have a different view, a different idea of what to do. The moment someone disagrees you have conflict and in conflicts people stick to their own ideas and behaviours. So progress towards a new way of being becomes difficult. This is the problem with affirmations, how to books, teaching and any other form of imparting knowledge that tells you what to do. You only have to disagree with a small amount of what you are being told to do and conflict begins and the likelihood of your succeeding using this method diminishes. Or you react in a 'lazy' way, saying to yourself, "OK I now know what to do so everything will work out for me." BUT you do not DO anything, so you do not make progress.

This is the problem that those of a rebellious nature, like me, have with the education system. Teachers talks at us, they tell us what to do, and we do not always like or agree with what they tell us. We thus react against their knowledge and reject what they say. The issue here is knowledge -v-wisdom. They are trying to cram knowledge into our heads but they are not telling us how the knowledge will benefit us or what to do with the knowledge. If only they had focussed more on wisdom, what to do with knowledge I might have found school more interesting. If only I had focussed more on what to do with what I learned from all the self-help books and courses I went on I might have found answers more quickly. The problem was that everyone was telling me what to do, and I don't like to be told.

When I look at the shelves of self-help books that surround my desk I realise that I know a great deal, but that knowledge did not make me take action. And because I did not take sufficient action things changed only very slowly in my life.

When I discovered coaching I found the key. It was not the answer, but it was the key to the door behind which the answers lay. When a coach asks you a question you have to come up with your own answer. When it is your answer you are likely to agree with it. So, no conflict. Then, provided you act upon your answer, your chances of success increase.

The job of your coach is to help you develop a plan, your own plan for the attainment of what you want. You are much more likely to diligently implement your own ideas.

At this stage in my life I did not yet have the questions that could help me move further forward. I kept asking myself: "What have I got to do to be happy and relaxed?" And I could not then find an answer. Some time would pass before I managed to move to the next step. But at least I was asking myself: "what would a wise man do?"

What's good about this chapter?

You learn to ask questions, questions make you think and work out your own answers.

**How Do You Learn About Yourself And What You Want?**

_"After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It's better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life." Sophia Loren_

Now the emphasis of this book moves from my story to your story. I will refer back to my story from time to time in order to emphasise important lessons, show how I learned them and to reinforce the importance of each point. More importantly I will use these references to show that it is possible to achieve everything that you wish to achieve.

There are three aspects to finding your way of expressing yourself so that you can find fulfilment and true happiness. The three aspects with which we will deal from now on are:

* discovering your way of expressing yourself - by which I mean a form of employment that will allow you to use your innate wisdom so that you can feel a sense of fulfilment. It may well transpire that within your current job there is a way of working that will lead to your being able to more fully express yourself and thus to find fulfilment.

* Working out how you can make the transition from your present life to your new way of being.

* Maintaining the excitement, motivation, discipline and determination that will ensure that you achieve your goal.

I believe that until you know what you are and you start to pursue a way of being that will allow you to express yourself you cannot be happy. It is the striving to fulfil our destiny that makes life worthwhile. The five keys to success are:

* to know how you want to be - what you were born to be.

* To know the personal strengths, qualities and interests that will make you successful.

* To be focussed on what you are becoming and to be disciplined and determined about holding that vision constantly in mind.

* To have a clear image of yourself, of who you are, what you are, how you think, the way that you feel about yourself and the important issues in your life, and the way that you behave.

* Finally, you must have the means of making your vision a reality, a plan, plus the motivation and the energy and discipline to bring your plan to fruition.

Most people spend far too much time beating themselves up for their failures rather than focussing on the positives in their lives. Don't beat yourself up about your failures, learn from them. Your past may not be everything that you would like it to have been, but it is what it is and you _unconsciously_ _identified_ a lot of important lessons along the way. You discovered things that you are not or things __ that you do not enjoy doing. When Thomas Edison was researching how to make a commercially viable filament for the light bulb he discovered over two thousand filament elements that did not produce long-lasting light economically before he discovered the carbon filament that was commercially practical. When asked: "How did you manage the constant disappointments?" He replied: "I never felt disappointed, merely that I had eliminated another substance that did not work and thus had moved nearer to discovering the element that would work, which I always believed existed."

From here on you need to be aware every time you get off track you need to bring yourself back to your path, to your vision, to the image you hold of yourself, to your belief in yourself. With each thing you try that does not work you have eliminated one more thing that does not work, moved one step closer to what will work for you. By constantly readjusting your thoughts, your feelings, your behaviour and your questions you will eventually form the habit of being the person you want to be, doing what you were born to do - then you will be happy and fulfilled. And, most likely, you will also be successful.

Make notes of the situations in which you tend to beat yourself up and ask yourself, "what is the lesson in this situation that can help me?" "What do I need to know in order to make progress?" Then, once you have the knowledge, "how should I use this information?"

Self-awareness is the key. It is by noticing what you do, what you like, who you like, what you read, what stimulates you, what makes you feel anxious and all of your behaviours and feelings that you come to know yourself. And as you learn more about yourself and the world around you so you gradually become wise. In the calm of your wisdom you will find what you really want in life. Notice that you have to be calm and allow your vision to come to you.

It is not possible to live a happy life in a state of constant stimulation or excitement. These moments of elation have their place, but they are highlights not the norm. Neither is is possible to live a good life in a state of depression or anger. Such states lead to unhappiness. To live a good life you need to create a place of peace and calm within your being.

# "What's Good About This?"

_"The power to question is the basis of all human progress." Indira Gandhi_

About five years after I set up as an independent Personal Development coach I was working for a very large corporation, the leader in their field, in London. I was coaching seven of their senior managers. Each week I ran a clinic in a small meeting room on the company's premises where each manager would get 50 minutes coaching. Some six weeks into the programme I received a message saying that the Chairman would like to see me at the end of the day. His office was a spacious penthouse suite with wonderful views over London. As I entered, a large, imposing man rose from behind the massive desk that dominated the room. He led me over to the space where three leather two-seater settees formed a "U" shape around a low coffee table. As we settled into our seats he remarked: "the coaching seems to be having a noticeable effect on my team. So it would appear that you know what you are doing." He steepled his fingers and placed the tips under his chin before continuing thoughtfully, "Therefore I want to ask you a question." He paused again to further gather his thoughts. "I run this company by continually asking three types of questions. They are: 'what have we got to do to grow our sales and profitability?'. Then, when I want people to be creative and give me ideas, or when things go awry, I ask, 'Why did you do that?' followed by: 'What have we got to do to make it right?'" He gave me a penetrating look: "The issue is that when I ask people, 'what have we got to do to grow?' they respond with useful thoughts and ideas which is excellent. But when I ask, 'why did you do that?' They become defensive and give me excuses rather than useful explanations on which we can develop solutions and move forward."

For the next half an hour we discussed the way that people responded to his questions. We talked about the feelings that he might be generating amongst his team members and how those feelings were affecting the way that they behaved towards him. He told me briefly about his beliefs concerning leadership, strategy and motivation. He was a steely, driven man who strongly believed that his employees were there to do a job and although he knew that their welfare and feelings had a significant influence on their performance; he also did not believe in mollycoddling his staff. It was an interesting and valuable discussion, but I have to admit that I was struggling to think of a solution to the challenge that he posed because, over the years, I had seen the same pattern of behaviour from so many senior executives.

Suddenly intuition came to my rescue, in a flash of inspiration I asked: "What do you think would happen if instead of asking, 'why did you do that?' you asked, 'what's good about this?'"

His initial response was to give me that steely-eyed look that seemed to penetrate right inside my brain. He did not respond for what seemed like a long time whilst he chewed the idea over in his mind. Then, just when I was starting to feel anxious, he said. "I get it." He smiled. "This question bypasses making them feel guilty or defensive and cuts straight to making them think of a solution in a positive way, so they immediately set off down the creative path." He rose to his feet. "Would you like a drink?" He asked over his shoulder as he headed towards the cupboard in the corner of the room which I could see contained bottles and glasses. "I sometimes have a gin and tonic at this time."

I knew from office gossip that I had gleaned over the weeks that being offered a gin by the Chairman was a clear sign of approval. I made a mental note to give a lot more thought to the ways that I might make use of the question, "what's good about this?"

As I thought more about the question, "what's good about this?" it became clear that it opened up a valuable pathway to thinking positively about any situation regardless of whether it initially appears to be favourable or unfavourable. And when you are thinking positively it becomes much easier to become motivated to take positive action - to move towards a solution.

Over the years I have made it a habit to continually ask myself: "what's good about this?" I ask this question when things are going badly wrong. I ask it when I am feeling angry. I ask it when I am feeling downhearted. I ask it when I am feeling happy. Whatever the situation I find myself in and regardless of how I am feeling when I ask the question I find that it has the wonderful effect of focussing my mind, of making me look for something positive, something good in the situation. IT is my default way of becoming positive, of cheering myself up. It is a great self-motivator. It is a wonderful way of appreciating and learning from every situation that you encounter in life.

In order to make progress in your journey of self-discovery you need the motivation to set out on the journey. That initial motivation is relatively easy to conjure up, it is the motivation to keep going which can prove to be a lot more difficult to maintain. You will find that you need discipline - self-discipline, not someone else's discipline. It may become necessary to force yourself to do whatever you need to do, because you may not always want to do what is necessary. There will be times when your determination to keep looking and to never give up will be severely challenged. And, like Mr. Edison, you will need the persistence to keep trying different approaches until you find your true path. The question is: "how can you develop the self-discipline, the determination and the persistence?" Often the best form of discipline is simply to ask yourself a good question.

A good question to ask yourself might be: "What would a disciplined person do now?"

Let's explore the subject of motivation further from the perspective of the two basic sets of human feelings: the need to feel SECURE and the need for IDENTITY.

**Security**

**Shelter** \- protection from the elements, is a most basic human need. You require a roof over your **** head and walls around you. If you do not have shelter finding protection from the elements becomes a major priority. Once you have shelter your motivation is to maintain it. This can lead to intense feelings of fear when our shelter is threatened by concerns about eviction or when the income to pay the rent or mortgage is endangered by the loss of employment.

**Food** \- rates as equally important to shelter. You need food to remain healthy, to provide you with **** the energy to move around the world, to work and to keep your body warm. Threats to sources of food are regarded as being so serious that they can cause wars which are fought to secure the land on which food is grown. People become fearful when their income, which pays for their food, is threatened.

**Health** \- is about physical power. Through exercise and good diet you can make your body stronger **** or capable of greater speed or endurance. Physical fitness can empower you to achieve your goals. Alternatively, when you feel unwell your power can be minimal; you cannot defend yourself, you may not even want to defend yourself; when sick you can lose both physical power and will power, all your energies are focussed on getting well. When you're healthy you have more energy, therefore a greater ability to do what is necessary to reach your goals. We enjoy good health and fear bad health because it can render us helpless.

**Family** \- human beings are tribal animals. When homo sapiens first emerged as a distinct species **** some one hundred thousand years ago we were individually too weak to compete with the lions, baboons, elephants, buffalo and other animals who were all foraging for the same sources of food as us. It therefore became necessary for humans to band together for the strength in numbers needed to defend food sources and to protect each other when we were unwell and unable to forage. Throughout our evolution as a species we have prospered as a result of our ability to hunt in groups, grow food in groups, fight in groups, defend ourselves in groups. It was probably our need to operate in groups that led to our learning to communicate by speech. The feeling of belonging, of friendship and of being loved and cared for by a group is very important to every human being. We enjoy group activities, we fear being ostracised from groups. (This is why work redundancy holds such a stigma for human beings.)

**Implements** \- like knives, guns and cooking utensils help us to feel secure because they can be used **** to defend us against our enemies and also to enhance the experience of eating food. They enable us to fight more effectively to defend what we own.

**Clothing -** helps to keep us warm but also serves as a means of identifying us with our social group **** or tribe. When our Ego gets out of hand clothes can become a symbol of our wealth or social status.

It is possible to enhance feelings of security by improving our hold over any of the elements that make us feel secure. We can for instance insure our home against fire and flood. We can pay off our mortgage to provide greater security of tenure. However, the threats to our security can never be entirely dissipated. They always lurk somewhere in our sub-conscious mind, ready to emerge and cause us disquiet at any time.

Our major fears in life are all to do with the loss of security or identity. And _these feelings are_ _always caused by our imagination about what might happen in the future or about what other people may be thinking_. Note that word "imagination" it is where we both lose power and gain __ power. We lose power when we become fearful, we gain power when we create images that are so powerful that they attract us inexorably to make those images into reality.

The PAIN we cause ourselves with our fears, from what we imagine might happen, makes us want to move away from the source of that pain or cause us to take action to drive the source of our pain away. Pain can make human beings aggressive when they feel that they are being driven away from a source of security.

Conversely the PLEASURE of a great vision can draw us towards what we deem will cause us to feel pleasure and thus motivate us to achieve great results.

**Identity**

**Self-image** \- we are what we repeatedly do. We are the way we see ourselves as being. In other **** words we create our self image by what we would like to look like, by what we imagine we look like and how we actually behave. We behave powerfully when we pursue an image or goal that interests us, that fires our imagination in such a way as to inspire us. We behave poorly when we allow our fears to dominate our thinking. Our reputation is based on how we behave in every type of situation. Other people judge us, pigeonhole us and talk about us based on what they hear us saying and what they see us doing.

The way that we see ourselves in relation to others is a highly important element of our self-image. When we see ourselves as more important than others we can become overbearing or arrogant. When we see ourselves or feel ourselves to be less important than others, or gain the impression that others are treating us as inferiors, the feeling of inferiority can aggravate us and make us aggressive or overly defensive.

The clothes we wear and the way that we wear those clothes contribute to our image because they are what people see. Clothes identify us as being of a certain "type", probably belonging to a certain social group.

Similarly possessions like motor cars, watches, computers and the style with which we decorate and furnish our homes identify us.

All of your achievements, the goals you reach and the growth of your knowledge serve to strengthen your self-image. You become confident in your abilities and your self when you realise that you can create reality out of what you imagine might be, and that you can do this on your own, without the help of others.

**Interests** \- are subjects, activities or objects that naturally attract us. We tend to devote more time **** and energy to that which interests us and thereby become more expert in that area. When we enjoy spending our time and energy on a particular area of interest we tend to spend even more time on that area and become even more expert. This is how we develop above average skills and abilities.

Your abilities and interests are important keys to identifying a career or vocation in which you are more likely to be able to express yourself. They can enable you to identify how you should behave in your existing job so as to become more successful. Once you are interested you are more likely to enjoy the subject that interests you, and because you enjoy engaging with the subject you are likely to do it more often, then, because you do it more, you are likely to become expert at that subject and when you become an expert you are likely to be well rewarded for your expertise.

**Beliefs** \- are subjects for which we have no reliable proof yet we strongly feel them to be true. We **** pursue what we believe, drawn towards the object of our desire like bees to pollen. When we believe in the importance of something that is of interest to us our expenditure of energy and resources rises to levels that can lead to world class results.

Very often, at the start of an enterprise, the only force driving us forward is our belief that we can do it. That belief serves as a powerful motivator that can drive us to succeed.

_It was my belief that I was destined for a particular type of work that drove me out of the advertising business and caused me to continue experimenting until I eventually found my way, my niche._

**Recognition** \- human beings crave recognition. Recognition is the way that others tell us that we have done **** well, that they like us, that we belong, that we're loved. Recognition makes us feel proud and important. So recognition has the twin benefits of causing us to feel secure and also of making us feel that we are doing well at that which we were born to do. It is a reinforcement of the rightness of our choice of field for our self-expression.

Conversely the lack of recognition, particularly when we feel that praise is deserved, can cause us to feel disgruntled and demotivated.

**Self-Expression** \- we find ourselves when we find an outlet for our interests, skills, abilities, **** knowledge and beliefs - a means of expressing who we are. When you can truly express yourself you experience a depth of contentment and happiness that tells you that you are doing what you are meant to be doing, what nature designed you to do. Then you find that you can suddenly call to your aid many resources that may have previously lain dormant within you. The quality of your communication can improve dramatically, you feel more compassionate and patient with others, you become more creative in your planning and the solutions that you find to challenges. You become more sociable, you express your love for others more freely, more eloquently and more credibly. When you are expressing your true self you become more confident.

Before we move on from the subject of motivation we need to briefly discuss the subject of risk.

**Risk** \- is not about having a carefree, 'gung-ho' attitude to what you are doing. Nor is risk about **** being over aggressive. Risk is about taking responsibility for a course of action that might not have a proven, secure track record or appear to be as safe as other options, but which offers new and exhilarating possibilities. Risk demands that you act with conviction and commitment. Risk is not always the course of last resort. Risk should be taken when it is perceived to be the path to improving a situation even when the likely result cannot be quantified. Take risks when the current situation is intolerable or when the current method is tired and results are flagging. Take risks when stimulation is needed. But always assess the probabilities of success and failure before committing to your new course of action.

Risk can be thrilling. Taking risks can make us feel more alive. People often fear new courses of action, new relationships, new situations because the unknown appears risky. But often 'new' provides stimulation, the renewed energy that can generate success.

Sometimes it can actually be safer to take a risk because there is more risk in the status quo than in taking action to create change.

Sometimes the failure to take a risk can lead to stagnation or a reversal of fortunes.

Consider the mass migration of peoples from Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century. People fled from the potato famine in Ireland, from the 'clearances' in Scotland, from oppression and lack of opportunity all over Europe. They left the security of family homes and relatives to risk all for the chance of a better life in America. These migrants had no clear idea of what lay in store for them in the new world. However, simply believing in the possibility of a "better life" they laid the foundations of a mighty country.

Consider John Logie Baird working away on his own in his workshops in the seaside town of Hastings and later in his studio in Soho to produce the worlds first working television set. Many thought him mad to risk his health and livelihood on such a venture. But in 1925 he managed to transmit the first television picture of the head of the ventriloquist's dummy "Stooky Bill" and in 1928 he managed to transmit a colour image which must have given him a great sense of fulfilment.

Consider the risk when Leo Burnett gave up his job as creative vice president at the Erwin Wasey advertising agency, borrowed against his life insurance policy and mortgaged his home to found his own advertising agency in 1935, at the hight of the American depression? People gossiped that he would soon be selling apples on the street corner like all the other bankrupts. Yet the advertising agency that still proudly bears his name grew to be one of the worlds top agencies. It retains that status to this day. And in the foyer of each agency you will find a dish of apples from which anyone can help themselves, free of charge.

So, when you are considering, "should I or shouldn't I?" consider the possibilities, the probabilities and behave responsibility, but do not hold back for lack of courage.

I set one of my clients, a senior project manager, the task of asking herself "what's good about this?" and "what would a wise woman do now?" every other hour for 7 days. This is what she told me about what happened:

"Thank you for setting me the project of asking myself the questions, "what's good about this?" and "what would a wise woman do now?". I have used an iPhone app called Nag. Each question would pop up when scheduled and I would then put the app on snooze for 2 hours."

"The questions are slowly becoming second nature and I found them very helpful in many situations. What I realised is that by asking them I have started to look for an opportunity in every situation. I had a few challenges over the last week (some related to health problems in my family, so quite serious) and even though in some cases when asking "what's good about this?" I had to look really hard to find even a small good thing, it has certainly helped to diffuse the negativity that I was immersed in and put things in perspective. The key to getting a benefit, I found, was to definitely answer the question, not just ponder for a moment and then forget it."

"For the last couple of days I also noticed that now the questions just pop into my head as and when needed, not only on the hour."

"I still have to work on acting on some of the answers to the question, "what would a wise woman do now?" as very often the answer is to get some rest but it is difficult when there is a presentation due the next day. I am determined to get better at going to bed not too late though."

"I am also planning to carry on with the questions reminders."

"Thank you again for this exercise."

Another, male client, carried out the same exercise for a week and reported as follows:

"I diarised the hourly reminders on my iPhone and liked the cadence of stopping often and reflecting in this way. However, I sometimes saw the reminder but then didn't stop for long enough to answer. It's definitely better when I stop and answer. I noticed I also began to ask myself these questions sometimes without the hourly prompts. I also noticed that I found it easier to answer the question "what would a wise man do?" than the "what is good about this?" question: I found I had to change the focus of *this* to find something good."

"I will definitely continue this practice beyond this week as I want to continue until this becomes a habit."

It's your turn now - set yourself the exercise of asking yourself, "what's good about this?" every hour on the hour for one week. See what happens. You are likely to be pleasantly surprised by how positive it makes you.

What's good about this chapter?

You have learned that asking good questions can produce positive answers.

# What Am I?

_"When I was growing up in Terrell, Texas, I felt that it was not where I was supposed to be. I knew that I was meant for a different destination. I think that the minute I was born, there was something inside telling me where I would go, it's like energy - an intangible destiny." Jamie Foxx_

You have to tune in, listen to and act upon that " _energy - that intangible destiny_ "

For me it wasn't like a 'road to Damascus' moment. There was no sudden flash of blinding light, no clap of thunder. I just gradually realised, through a growing awareness that came from watching what was happening to me and to many of my clients that I was meant to be a Performance Coach. The "itch" that made me feel uncomfortable with what I was doing when I was not coaching kept urging me to keep looking until I eventually stumbled on the right solution. It took most of my working life. If I'd had more knowledge earlier in life and more courage I could have made the transition much sooner. It is to save others from taking so long to find their destinies that I am writing this book.

"Watching what was happening to me" is an interesting concept because little was visible on the outside, although some things were. Most of what I saw was inside of myself just as it is inside of every other person whom I have coached. _Perhaps this is what intuition means - inner tuition - or teaching ourselves what is going_ _on inside_ \- or learning from what is going on inside? Certainly the understanding always comes __ without conscious thought. There is not always a lot of reasoning in the conventional sense of the word. My understanding came from observation of what was going on, thinking about what I saw and trying out techniques that seemed to work. As the Roman emperor/philosopher Marcus Aurelius said: "Dig within. Within is the wellspring of good; and it is always ready to bubble up, if you just dig." By digging inside yourself you will come to know yourself.

Your true vocation already exists inside of you. It has remained hidden from you because you have busied yourself with doing whatever you do now in such a blinkered way that you have been unable to see below the surface. You have not looked closely enough at the way you think, you have not noted what causes you to feel enlivened or depressed, and you have not observed your own behaviour in order to notice what you naturally do. It is probable that you have done what other people suggested, that you have been driven by a desire to please others. It makes sense to want to please others because that makes you a "good" member of your tribe and thus ensures your security. But this route is rarely the route to the satisfaction of self-expression.

What is the best way to look inside myself at my natural thoughts, feelings and behaviours?

It may help you to break down your search into specific areas that will reveal more about your self. In a moment we will look at some Behaviours that will enable you to identify what you are. Then we will look at your Abilities, your Skills and what you Enjoy to see what they have to say about you.

**Behaviours**

We will look at the different ways that people behave at work. No one person behaves exclusively in just one of these ways. We tend to use a number of different behaviours in order to achieve our ends. However, one of these behaviours will predominate and this one behaviour will tell you a great deal about yourself, what you should be doing and where you belong within an organisation.

Whilst studying each behaviour you should ask yourself:

"am I like that?"

"Is that something I do?"

"Do I see or feel myself to be like that yet shy away from actually behaving that way?"

You should refer back to these three questions as you study each category of Behaviour. Use all three of the questions as you consider each Behaviour. It will help you if you use a notebook to write down each behaviour and your answers about how like that form of behaviour you have observed yourself to be.

Caution: you may be tempted to categorise yourself as a particular type because you fancy that it is a good way to be. For instance you may know someone who appears very successful because he has lots of money, a fine house, drives a fancy car and has lots of friends, who seems to you to fit the category of a Commander. As a result of your observations about this person your Ego might prompt you to consider yourself to be a Commander so that you too can enjoy riches similar to those of your friend - it doesn't work like that - _it is about finding the real you, NOT about trying to_ _make yourself into something that you are not._ Right now you are probably trying to make yourself __ into something that you are not. That is why you are uncomfortable, not achieving in the relaxed way that you know you should be achieving. Probably why you are reading this book.

Beware of your Ego, it can lead you wildly astray. It will tend to point you towards glamour, fame and superficiality. Such attractions are often ephemeral, they come and go on the whims of the gods and produce little lasting satisfaction or happiness. True success is simply the achievement of something that you really desire deep inside of yourself.

These exercises are not about other people and what they have achieved in their lives, they are about you. Your destiny may be in a completely different place to someone whom society regards as successful. And you may be able to achieve even more than the person society regards as successful and be happy and fulfilled at the same time.

We know of an Indian, born into the 'Untouchables' caste, whose family were leather workers. From a young age he started to work in the family leather curing business. He learned a lot whilst still young, but he was frustrated because he could see that the caste system would chain him to poverty for his whole life. He knew that he would never be allowed to become wealthy or to make fine products with his leather working skills. So he saved every penny he could until he had enough money to go to England. There he got a job in a leather curing factory. In short time he rose to become a director of the business. In his spare time he started making high quality leather accessories which he sold to fancy goods stores. He became wealthy and brought his family to England where they lived in a big house. Our hero felt happy and fulfilled that he had achieved so much from such a poor start in life by doing something that he enjoyed doing.

Roy Thomson was a thirty seven year old unsuccessful radio salesman in Northern Ontario, Canada when he heard in a breakfast bar that the local radio station was closing down. Up to that time his career could only be described as "chequered" and not very successful. He had tried farming in Manitoba and held many jobs in and around Toronto. It was the news that his radio customers would soon have nothing to listen to that galvanised him into action. He caught the night train down to Toronto and purchased, for peanuts, the license for the local radio station which was considered worthless. However, he made a success of his first radio station. From there he went on to buy a newspaper. Over the next sixteen years he purchased a further 18 newspapers. In time he came to own a vast network of over two hundred newspapers including The Times and Sunday Times in the UK, radio stations, TV stations, travel agencies and oil exploration companies. At the age of seventy, only 33 years after he bought his first radio station, the Queen of England made Roy Thomson a Baron. His title was Lord Thomson of Fleet. Since 1982 the Toronto Symphony Orchestra has been homed in the Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto.

Kate Castle was a Multi-Channel Category Planner on a retail website when, whilst on a camping vacation with her young family, she had the idea for BoginaBag. This simple product is just a folding stool, with wooden legs and a canvas seat, whose cover can be removed and replaced with a degradable bag inserted below the seat to form a portable toilet. The bag can then be disposed of and the stool recovered and reused as a seat. Kate had the courage to go on Dragon's Den where she won backing from retail magnate Theo Paphitis. Now she runs a successful business selling her stools to campers, festival goers and parents with young children. New products are being developed to expand the business further. Yes, I know, it's such a simple idea you are asking yourself: "why didn't I think of that?"

These stories show that people from different backgrounds with different levels of education can all build careers that allow them to express themselves, give them a sense of fulfilment and which make life enjoyable for them. Notice that they all took a risk to kick-start their new lives. You can do the same.

Remember, as you study each of the Behaviours that are about to be discussed you need to consider:

"am I like that?"

"Is that something I do?"

"Do I see or feel myself to be like that yet shy away from actually behaving that way?"

**Commander** :

A Commander is a person who cannot help but take charge of whatever is going on. Do not confuse this person with a "bossy" person. Your Commander may not be at all "bossy". However, he or she will have a strong, inner belief that the project is more likely to be brought to a successful conclusion when they are running the show.

Commanders are often good delegators because they recognise that they do not know everything and they cannot do everything. They tend to be good coordinators of other people's work.

Commanders tend to have strong, clear visions of the outcome of the projects on which they are working.

Commanders tend to be good "people persons" with good ability to build empathy with their colleagues and workers.

Commanders are usually good communicators both in writing and in speech.

Commanders are very decisive. History shows that their judgement is excellent because most of their decisions lead to good outcomes.

Commanders can be very sensitive to the feelings of others although they are not always this way.

**Coordinator:**

Coordinators bring people and loose ends together and get them moving in a single direction. They are usually well organised. They tend to have good people skills. They work by persuasion rather than by command.

Coordinators like to be in control. They make plans and schedules quite naturally. They usually like detail. They hate it and can get upset when things go wrong.

**Creator:**

Creators are imaginative, they have ideas. They are often good at solving problems or finding new ways to achieve goals. 'Outside the box' thinking is a strength with Creators. They are stimulated by thinking of ideas. Creators become excited and energised by new ways of thinking, new directions and new concepts.

Creators are often good at visualising outcomes.

Be careful ; Creators can become so seduced by and excited by an idea that they would rather not carry out viability checks that might take up valuable time or might kill their idea.

**Developer:**

There are two types of Developers. The first are Developers of people they tend to utilise a style of leadership which enables them to develop members of their team. The second are people who love to develop plans, projects, products or situations. These are often situations that were initiated by someone else.

People Developers like to work as Coaches, Teachers or Trainers where they can use their skills and abilities to empathise with and to understand the unique qualities of individuals. They love to relate to and bring out the best in others. The achievements of others whom they have helped are highly rewarding to Developers. People developers can make good leaders.

A Developer will find it difficult to contain themselves when they see someone else doing something in a way that could be improved upon. They notice how others hold implements like pencils, knives and forks. They will watch someone making a presentation or giving a talk and immediately have thoughts about how it could be improved. They even notice other people's clothes and want to remark on their suitability or otherwise.

Developers of plans and products are rarely satisfied with their work. For them a plan or product needs to be perfect and it never can be. Best to move on to a new plan, another product rather than drive yourself mad trying to perfect what is not perfectible.

**Diplomat:**

Diplomats enable people to work together to achieve a common goal. These are the peacemakers in your organisation, your constructive peacemakers. Without good Diplomats in your organisation politics will become rife and internal vendettas will waste many hours of productive time. Diplomats need to be clear-minded, tough, yet fair in their dealings with all parties.

**Explorer:**

Explorers are filled with a sense of adventure. They want to go places, see new things, learn new knowledge, meet new people. They just can't wait to find out what is somewhere other than where they currently happen to be. They enjoy researching information in order to discover something they do not already new.

Explorers tend to be restless by nature. They are full of get-up-and-go in their eagerness to find out what makes the world tick or what is on the other side of the mountain. They can be the ideal leader of a commercial or exploratory venture that needs to break new ground. They love to take risks for the sheer excitement. They will not be good leaders when a long term slog is required in order to reach a goal. They can make excellent leaders of short term projects.

**Facilitator:**

Facilitators are people who make things happen. They oil the wheels. They're prepared to organise things themselves in order to make things happen. They have great drive and ability to persuade others to help them make things happen. Diplomats and Negotiators often possess a strong facilitator profile. Facilitators like to get results through others by a process of co-operation.

**Implementer:**

Implementers are also people who make things happen, but in a different way, with different motivation. They will take someone else's idea or plan and make sure that it happens. For Implementers the work and the process are often more important than the end result. Implementers are often more dictatorial, more direct than Facilitators.

**Joker:**

Jokers take a light-hearted approach to activities. This does not mean that they lack serious intent, although it can indicate a lack of certainty about what they are suggesting or doing. The great strength of Jokers is that they create environments in which people naturally relax and relaxed people tend to be more productive, provided that they are clear about what is expected of them.

**Organiser:**

Organisers cannot help themselves, the moment they see untidiness or chaos they feel impelled to do something about it. They cannot sit still in an untidy room or at an untidy desk. Chaos disturbs them they feel a need to take action to make things run smoothly. They love everything to be in its right place and looking neat and tidy.

**Planner:**

Planners love to work out how to make things happen. They love to make charts, timetables and timelines that will oil the wheels of a project. The plan itself is what matters to them. They like to see the plan working but can take little interest in the end result.

**Servant:**

A Servant is someone who does not want to take responsibility. They do not like making decisions, rather they prefer to be told what to do. Once they know what is required of them they will usually take pride in doing the job well. They prefer to work with decisive people. They may occasionally like to be asked for their opinion, but do not wish to take responsibility if their advice is accepted.

**Teams** \- good teams consist of people with complementary work behaviours and strengths. Too many of one type of person causes imbalance and can lead to conflict of interests. Writing about cricket teams in The Sunday Times, Ed Smith noted that: "A balanced team needs a blend of flair and solidarity, aggression and resilience, extroverts and introverts. It also greatly benefits from a mixture of styles and temperaments. Some players - often regarded as "good team men" - are so emotionally bound up with the team's form and performance that their own games tend to be up when the team are up and down when the tea are down. Effectively, they extenuate the group's mood, surfing the wave of team morale."

"There is another type of cricketer who, though warmly regard and generous-spirited, stands slightly outside the central nervous system of the team. Their performance and motivation is more insulated from the group environment. Their energy comes from a different source. His type should not be underestimated in providing important ballast in the team mix."

A business team benefits greatly from the same mix of types and motivations.

**You:**

So, how do you mostly behave at work?

Once you have made a note of your main behaviours you should start to look at jobs or business opportunities that appeal to you.

Ask yourself: "How do people doing that type of work behave?"

Then ask: "What skills and abilities do they employ in order to work successfully?"

Then ask: "Am I like that?" and "Can I see myself doing that?" and "Would I really enjoy doing that?"

**Skills and Abilities**

What are you good at?

Do you possess any particular skills? Like: writing, woodwork, playing, singing or composing music, playing sport, presenting, calculating, drawing, communicating, inspiring or cooking. Is there anything that you can do? Write it down. Do not focus only on the things that you do well, write down everything that you can do. It may be that you lay out documents very clearly or you are always on time for meetings, it is a skill, write it down.

Once you have your list of skills mark the skills where your performance is above average standard. These are your abilities. Even if you're only slightly better than most people give yourself the credit.

**Enjoyment**

It may seem strange but work should be enjoyed. Work takes up a huge part of your life so you might as well enjoy that time.

Enjoyment at work is very important because we tend to spend more time on the tasks that we enjoy and we thus become more proficient at those tasks.

When we enjoy ourselves we are more relaxed. When you are relaxed your muscles coordinate better, even your brain muscles. When your muscles are coordinating well you produce stronger results.

So, what do you enjoy doing at work and at play? Play may be very important because it may show a characteristic. For instance you may enjoy showing others how to play a sport or how to paint a room. These are indicators of what you are naturally designed to do.

**Mining Your Lists**

Work your way through your lists pausing at each item to ask yourself these questions:

"can I see myself doing this every day?"

"If I were to do this everyday would I be enjoying myself? Would this activity give me a feeling of satisfaction or achievement?"

"Should someone ask me, 'what do you do?' and I were to reply that I did this, would I feel proud of my occupation?"

"Have I heard of anyone making a good living doing this?" (At this stage do not concern yourself with how or where they make a good living. It is enough simply to know that it is possible.) At the end of the book you will see how you can create a vision and a plan to make that vision your reality.

What's good about this chapter?

You have taken a closer look at yourself. Come to understand yourself a little better. Now you can use your strengths to make a better life.

# What Do You Really Want?

_"Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally." David Frost_

What was it that motivated you to pick up this book? Maybe you just noticed it and started browsing a few pages. But there was something about the cover or the title that caught your eye, it went further than idle curiosity, something made you pick up the book and leaf through a few pages. What was it that made you take action?

Was it the idea of a journey or freedom? And, if so what do travel and freedom mean to you? Would you like to escape from a boring or stressful job? Or perhaps your love life is getting you down? Or is there something about your lifestyle that is at odds with the way you believe that your life should be? If the idea of freedom appealed to you it may well be because you feel trapped in a situation where you cannot express yourself, a situation that does not enhance your life. But, if the idea of freedom appeals to you, what does freedom look like, sound like, feel like to you?

Perhaps it was the idea of happiness that made you reach out for this book. If so, what is your understanding of happiness? What does happiness look like, sound like, feel like to you? What happiness are you not experiencing at the moment that you believe you should be experiencing? Is it the joy of freedom to express yourself? The joy of romance? The joy of being able to do something that you have always wanted to do, all day long? Is it the joy of creating? Or perhaps the joy of building something that will be a monument to your life? What is this joy you desire?

Or perhaps it was the concept of personal achievement that appealed to you. So, what is it that you are not achieving at the moment? Is it power, or money, or lifestyle, or a relationship, or sporting success, or career success? What is it that you want to achieve? Can you express it in a positive way? What does personal achievement sound like to you, what does it look like, what might it feel like?

If you are to achieve your goals they must be expressed in a positive way because they need to motivate you and you need to know when you have reached your goals.

Sara was addicted to shopping. Every weekend she would feel compelled to set out on a shopping expedition. Buying clothes made her feel good. Flashing her plastic made her feel powerful. She enjoyed walking through shopping malls swinging her shopping bags filled with designer clothes. But when she returned home the excitement and happiness of shopping soon left her to be replaced by guilty feelings of having spent more than was necessary.

Sara was never clear about why she was buying so many clothes. There was some vague idea that she would look good and maybe attract the man of her dreams. But she was not even sure what the man of her dreams would be like. Then one day she had a ghastly thought, what if the man of her dreams turned out to be disinterested in fashion, not even interested in clothes? During her coaching she came to realise that her shopping was just an ego trip, a way of making herself feel glamorous and powerful. And she also realised that she had been chasing a false god because the good feelings she got from shopping never lasted. The good feelings evaporated as soon as the shopping expedition ended. Indeed the good feelings from wearing fashionable clothes were limited because the clothes quickly became tawdry or went out of fashion. For a while she felt that she had been a superficial person, then she realised that she had simply been expressing an urge to find a mate, but that the urge had got out of control and morphed into something that had a life of its own.

Sara was surprised that when she greatly reduced her shopping expeditions she didn't feel any sense of loss. Instead she filled her time with other activities that expressed who she was. She started to exercise more regularly and to do part-time work for a charity in which she was interested. These activities gave her greater satisfaction. One day, at a fundraiser, she met a very nice man.

What is it that you want?

If you were living your ideal life what would it look like?

What would you be doing?

What would you feel like?

What career would you be pursuing?

Who would you be spending your time with?

Where would you be living?

What would your accommodation be like - house, apartment, villa?

How do you want other people to see you?

What do you want to hear others say about you?

How do you want other people to feel about you?

What would you like to do in your spare time?

Who would you like your friends to be?

What achievements would give you a feeling of satisfaction?

How will you know that your life is meaningful?

Take some time to write down your answers to these questions. Please, for your own sake, put the book down for a few minutes and write down your answers to these important questions. Don't think about it too hard, you already know the answers. Just relax and write down the first answers that come into your head. Let your intuition and your sense of what is true and right for you be your guide. Take a few minutes - do it now.

What's good about this chapter?

You are starting to understand what drives you. Now you can escape from your Ego more easily and start to be yourself.

# Successful People Have Strong Beliefs

_"Belief in oneself is one of the most important bricks in building any successful venture."_

_Lydia M. Child_

If you are dissatisfied it is because you believe that your life should be a certain way. That certain things should be happening for you. Perhaps you believe that you should be wealthy, or famous, or well-liked, or loved, or successful in some way. Are these your beliefs or your interpretations of what you think other people expect of you? Are your desires and expression of your Ego or of your true self? Are these things really important for you? And, if so what is their order of priority for you? Is being loved more important than career success? Or, is being wealthy more important than job satisfaction?

* * *

These are knotty questions and most people have not thought about them in sufficient depth. They are not clear about exactly what they do want, are you? We simply take on board a number of beliefs that we assume others expect of us. You may believe that you need to reach a certain income level, to live in a certain standard of house, to achieve a certain status at work, to enjoy a certain relationship and family setup. But are these your beliefs? Or are they what you assume others expect of you? Do you know what is expected of you? And do you know who expects that of you? Are any of these as important as what you expect of yourself?

* * *

What do you believe is really important in life?

* * *

What is belief? The dictionary says: "Confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof."

* * *

What way of being is so important to you that you will make the effort to believe you need to become the person who is like that? Write that belief down, now!

* * *

Our beliefs control much of our thinking, feelings and behaviour. Many of our beliefs were formed early in our lives from observing and listening to the powerful adults around us. But not all of these beliefs are in the best interests of the adult we have become in the world as it is today. For instance you may have a belief that you should respect and follow the opinions of your elders, but your elderly boss may have many opinions that you find unacceptable or outdated. In this situation you would suffer from internal turmoil as your belief was constantly challenged by the evidence of your boss's behaviour. This could lead to your feeling angry or confused.

* * *

Because beliefs are so deep-seated in our psyche they exercise powerful influences over our behaviour and have a strong influence in formulating who we are.

* * *

So, have you really thought about what you believe? Have you considered what belief is driving which aspects of your behaviour?

* * *

Write down six beliefs that you hold. For instance you might believe:

* * *

Some people are more important than me.

* * *

I should always obey the rules.

* * *

All other people should always obey the rules.

* * *

Children should obey their parents.

* * *

People should always tell the truth.

* * *

It is wrong to take anything that is not freely given to you.

* * *

There is a God and.........

* * *

Humility is more important than status.

* * *

Status is more important than humility.

* * *

I should be compassionate towards those less fortunate than myself.

* * *

I should be faithful to those I love.

* * *

People should not harm one another.

* * *

We should always tell the truth.

* * *

I am destined for great things, for fame, for fortune, for awards.

* * *

I should help those who lack understanding.

* * *

Make a list of your beliefs. The ask yourself: "do I truly believe that or is it just something that I think I ought to do because everyone else does that or thinks that way?"

* * *

Once you have a belief that you would rather not have it is hard to change it. However, it is possible to override any belief, and you might want to do this if a belief is having a detrimental effect on your behaviour. The problem is that one belief can be useful in some circumstances and annoying in other circumstances. For instance a belief that you should be compassionate may make you feel good when you are donating to a good cause, but it may make you feel bad when you ignore a beggar in the street.

* * *

An advantageous position to take is that rather than changing beliefs that have served you well up to this point in your life it is better to formulate new beliefs that will allow you to achieve what you want. You might have been brought up to believe that "money is the root of all evil" and this may be inhibiting your ability to make money. You may even have observed obnoxious behaviour by people who are very wealthy which has reinforced your early belief. However, in order to provide for your family it may help you to formulate a new belief that "money is a necessity of life and there would be a great benefit in me providing my family with sufficient funds to enhance their enjoyment of life."

* * *

The most important belief is the belief in yourself. You benefit greatly from believing that you have a valuable contribution to make to the lives of those you love and to those who share your interests. And you will benefit from believing that you are becoming what you can become.

* * *

Which of these beliefs do you consider might enhance your life should you decide to adopt one or more of them:

* * *

I believe that I can always remain calm in any circumstance.

* * *

I believe that my unique contribution to the world is important.

* * *

I believe that I am a kind and compassionate person.

* * *

I believe that I am loving and loved.

* * *

I believe that it is important to always do the best I can.

* * *

I believe that I am becoming what I can become.

* * *

I believe that I should work and practice to make the most of my talents and abilities.

* * *

I believe that humility makes me a better person and that my Ego often makes me arrogant. Therefore I practice humility, particularly when I am aware of my Ego asserting itself.

* * *

I believe in treating others as I would like to be treated myself and this shows in my behaviour.

* * *

I believe that all men, and women, are created equal and should be treated as such.

* * *

I believe that calm feelings and a clear mind are essential to leading a fulfilling life.

* * *

I believe that all projects need leadership and I am the best person to lead.

* * *

Add here any other beliefs that you consider it would be beneficial for you to hold.

* * *

When you read through this list which of the beliefs gave you a warm feeling? It is the ones that resonated with you that you should adopt. Write them down. Challenge them: "I believe that all men, and women, are created equal and should be treated as such" \- challenge "so, how do I treat the bully guarding the entrance to the place I want to enter?" Challenge each belief and visualise how you will behave when the challenges arise. The world is not perfect and things do not always work out the way you hope they will. But will you still behave in accordance with your beliefs when things are not as you want them to be?

* * *

Meditate upon your beliefs, think about them constantly and feel what it is like to believe that your beliefs are true. Use your beliefs as your guides for your life. It is your beliefs that will make you the way you want to be because your beliefs exercise such a powerful effect on the way you behave.

* * *

So, now that you have explored something of your thoughts and your beliefs; ask yourself again, "what is it that I really want? What would fill your life with joy, with a sense that you are expressing yourself and a feeling of achievement?

* * *

What's good about this chapter?

* * *

You now know that you need to get clear about what you believe in - what beliefs drive your life.

# Successful People Have A Strong Self-Image

_"The 'self-image' is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self image any you change the personality and the behavior." Maxwell Maltz_

Until such time as you start to really work on your personal development you probably have more than one active self-image. Each of your self-images consists of several influential parts each of which is influencing your behaviour.

Your main self-image is what I refer to as your Dominant Self-Image. This is the way that you most commonly see yourself.

But you also have a number of Dormant Self-Images that only emerge in particular circumstances or environments. Some of these dormant self-images may have outstanding qualities that can be highly beneficial to your journey to success. For instance some people see themselves as strongly self-confident when they are with people whom they regard as being in some way inferior to themselves, but they lose that self-confidence when they are with people whom they regard as superior to themselves in some way. What we learn from this is that they have self-confidence but that it is environmentally mobile.

However, if you are capable of seeing yourself in a certain way then you can be sure that you can recreate that part of your self-image at any time.

The challenge that you face is to build up the constituent parts of your self-image into one consistent self-image that will guide your behaviour and serve you well, that will help you on your journey to achieving what you want in life.

So, what are the parts of your self-image?

Do you see yourself as:

Confident?

Enthusiastic?

Knowledgeable?

A Teacher?

Goal fixated?

A Learner?

Determined?

Hard working?

A Communicator?

Sociable?

Friendly?

Compassionate?

Wise?

Honest?

Fun loving?

A Leader?

Brave or Courageous?

Thoughtful?

Inventive?

Independent?

Imaginative?

Creative?

Responsible?

Funny?

Unselfish?

Respectful?

Considerate?

Helpful?

Supportive?

Can you form any of the above into a single self-image which, if you lived by that self-image would enable you to become the person you need to be in order to achieve what you want in life?

Take our your notebook and write a heading on a new page, "my self-image". List below the heading each of the qualities that you see as being necessary to the attainment of your goals.

Once you have you list carry out a reality check. Ask yourself: "do I already possess each of these qualities that I have listed?"

You probably already possess most of the qualities that you listed. However, some of them may only emerge in certain circumstances or environments.

If you have any important qualities that are dormant or only arise in certain circumstances or environments you need to work on them. This exercise will help you:

In your mind's eye create a picture of yourself in an environment or circumstance in which you can see yourself behaving in the desired manner.

As you look at the picture of yourself, generate the feelings appropriate to that quality. e.g. I see myself behaving confidently and I feel very confident.

Now, holding onto that picture of yourself and that feeling, create a new picture of a circumstance in which you do not normally see yourself and cause yourself to feel that way. Make sure that you hold onto the desired image and feeling as you move about in your new environment. Carry out this exercise in your mind as frequently as possible. Create an image of yourself and create the accompanying feeling. Make the image large and colourful. Create the feeling as you look at the image. Make the feeling strong. Now move yourself into different environments, always keeping the same vibrant self-image and the same strong feeling.

Then, when you find yourself in a situation where you need to see yourself and feel in a certain way, recreate the desired image and feeling.

It requires self-discipline to make yourself create a desired self-image and its accompanying feeling in a situation where you have not traditionally experienced such an image and such a feeling, but you can do it if you make a determined effort.

The question is, "do you really want this?" If your answer is "yes" then you must make the effort. Nothing will change if you go on doing what you have always done.

What's good about this chapter?

You can now look at yourself in the mirror and better understand what you see. Now you can no longer dupe yourself. But once you have settled on your self image you can develop yourself and use it to be consistent in your behaviour and thus achieve more consistent results.

# What I Do Is Who I Am

_" I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want." Muhammad Ali_

* * *

I knew when I had found myself because I identified so strongly with the work I was doing. The work inspired me. I felt that I could express myself through what I was doing. I studied and researched endlessly and I still do. Retirement has never figured in my thinking because I identify with my work. Like an actor I just go on doing my work, age is not an issue for either me or my clients because there is no difference between work and life, they are as one. The motivation comes from what I have been through and what I have achieved, which has led to a strong belief that I can help others - and that is what I do - it is who I am.

* * *

You will have achieved this state when you find that you think constantly about what you are doing, when what you are doing feels "just right", feels like, "I am doing what I am meant to be doing". When you are constantly aware of your thoughts, your feelings and your actions.

* * *

What's good about this chapter?

* * *

You can now see how not being in the right job is affecting your performance and how finding the right job is of the utmost importance.

# Knowing How You Operate Yourself Is The Key To Freedom

_" Without self-knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave." G.I. Gurdjieff_

In order to make the most of the opportunities that life presents to us it is essential first to understand how you operate yourself and then to finally decide what you are cut out to be. The order here is important. You may be thirsting to go ahead with what you have decided you are cut out to be with establishing yourself in your niche in life, but you will not take good decisions and neither, in all probability, will you persist with your new career path and way of being unless you can properly drive the vehicle that is you. Look at it this way; you need to learn to drive before you can enjoy the ability to travel around which you gain from the purchase of a car. First you learn to drive, then you purchase a car, then you can travel. It is the same with people; first you learn to operate yourself, then you get the most out of yourself, then you achieve your life's goal.

As part of my personal search I read, for the first time, a small book that was top of the New York Times bestseller list for a many months. It was entitled How To Be Your Own Best Friend. In the book the authors Newman and Berkowitz said something that really caught my attention: "People will go to a lot of trouble to learn French or physics or scuba diving. They have the patience to learn to operate a car but they won't be bothered learning how to operate themselves." It was those words "how to operate themselves" that really got me thinking, "how do people operate themselves?"

The advantage of being a coach is that one can closely observe numbers of people day-by-day. When you do that, and you keep alert, pay close attention, you come to understand something of how people do what they do. And sometimes there are common threads in what people say and do that teach you that this is what most people do.

After much more observation of myself and my clients I formulated the belief that people operate themselves in a very specific way. We all do what we do as a result of a process that we all use. Once you understand this process you have the power to make yourself do anything. Well, you have to understand the process and then you have to be prepared to do what is necessary to make it work for your benefit.

A big part of the trick here is to make the process work for your benefit by using the process. Many people take the trouble to learn the process but they never discipline themselves to use the process. So, they assimilate the knowledge, but never behave with wisdom.

You have, no doubt, heard the hackneyed saying: "knowledge is power". But there is no power in knowledge if you do not put your knowledge to work. For instance you can know where New York city is situated, you can know many different ways to get there. You can know the benefits that might accrue to you by visiting the city. But you will not benefit from a visit if you do not go there.

It is the same with knowledge. If you do not use what you know - if you do not make yourself do what you know you should do, you will not derive any benefit from your knowledge.

DOING IT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE.

There are many well educated people who have libraries of books who nonetheless achieve little in their lives.

Joichi Ito, who is the head of the Media Lab at MIT says: "Education is what people do to you, learning is what you do to yourself".

The fact is that we learn, really learn, by doing. Learning is about creating habits and we create habits by continually **doing** the same thing. That is how you learned to walk, to talk, to write, to ride a bike and all the other activities that you know how to do and that you do every day of your life without conscious thought.

You could say therefore that the role of the coach is to enable people to do what they need to do in order to achieve what they want to achieve.

Your operating system is the key to being able to harness your inner power. And using your operating system opens the door to your being able to achieve whatever you want. This is how your operating system works:

As you move around the world you are a **Sensing Machine**. You use your senses to gather information about what is going on around you:

You use your **eyesight** to look at people and events, at buildings, furniture, cars, trains and everything else that comes into your field of vision

You use **hearing** to listen to what is being said, to enjoy music, to alert you to danger behind you.

You use your nose to **smell** bad odours and enjoy good aromas.

You use your tongue to **taste** what is good and bad

You use **touch** to decide whether to like or dislike the person with whom you are shaking hands, or to remove your hand from a hot surface that might burn you.

You use your **intuition** to make decisions and judgements when thinking and logic will not provide an answer for you.

Once your senses pick up some information they pass it to your brain to process, to find out what, if anything, you should do. You process information gleaned from your senses by asking yourself **questions** like:

What is this?

Have we encountered this before?

What, if anything, should we think, say or do about this?

The questions go first to your **memory** which makes the decision about whether this is something you have encountered before or whether it is something new.

If it is something or someone you have encountered before your memory will tell you what you did last time. For instance if you are shaking hands with and looking into the face of an old friend your memory will likely tell you: "This is your old friend Julie. You like Julie. You get on well together. You do business with Julie and you make money from the association. Treat her well." In this instance you will likely smile and give a warm greeting.

However, if you notice in a room full of people, someone with whom you have previously had bad experiences your memory might tell you: "That is Simon. You do not like him. He is the one who spread that nasty rumour about you." It would then be likely that you would take evasive action.

Should your memory have no recollection of experiencing the information that your senses have picked up and forwarded, you would then pass the information on to another part of your brain where you would have to work out how to respond to the situation.

The important point to notice here is that human beings are hot-wired to respond because our memory is likely to prompt us to do what we did last time. Responding is our natural behaviour.

And that is the trap!

More about the trap in a minute.

First, we need to compete the cycle of how you operate yourself.

When your memory tells you what you did last time you encountered the particular scenario that your senses have picked up it also generates the feelings that you have generated in that situation on previous occasions.

For instance when your memory recognises Julie, and the good business you did together, it will generate a warm, friendly feeling.

Those warm friendly feelings will dictate how you behave, how you act in that situation. For instance you might smile at Julie and, possibly hold out your hand in greeting. The stronger the feeling the more active your behaviour. So, when the feeling is very strong you might embrace Julie.

Can you now see that you use four very distinct and separate activities to operate yourself?

First, you use your senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch to gather information.

Second, you feed that information to your brain to consider the questions: "what is this?" - "Have we encountered this before?" - "What, if anything, should we think or do about this?" The part of your brain that considers the information first is your memory. (If your memory does not have an answer you will have to create a way to respond based on previous similar experiences or you have to work out a response to the situation that is appropriate.)

If your memory tells you that it recognises the situation, which it usually does, it will tell you how you felt about it last time and what you did last time.

Third, you then generate feelings about the situation and it will be the strength of the feelings that you generate that will dictate how strongly you then behave.

Fourth, you then do something, you act or behave in the way that you did on previous occasions in that situation.

So, in brief, you operate yourself by:

Sensing,

Thinking (memory or creativity),

Feeling,

Acting.

But, what do you do if you interrogate your memory and your memory says, "Don't know. I can't recall seeing or hearing anything like this before"? In this situation you have to start to research possible solutions. You might decide to create your own answer, or you might Google the question to see what possibilities the Google database can suggest, or you might ask a friend or someone whom you consider might know a good answer. Most commonly we try to work out a solution on our own. We invent something that we might do and then interrogate our memory with questions like: "based on our past experiences, do we think this might work?" You might also do some research to try to find parallel situations that might suggest whether your solution might work. Or you might run your idea past a friend or colleague to see what they think. You are trying to find a way to judge whether your possible solution will work.

Before finally deciding what to do we will usually try to get some reassurance that our proposed action is likely to succeed. You will try to minimise the risk of taking a route which is unmapped by previous experience. Or, you might become so excited by your idea of what you should do that you just rush ahead fired up by your own enthusiasm. Rushing ahead can be risky. Rushing ahead with enthusiasm can sometimes provide the energy that ensures success.

Now let us consider 'the trap' because 'the trap' can keep us stuck where we are. This is how we get trapped - when we sense something, send it to our brain for analysis and our memory tells us what we did last time we are likely to repeat the previous behaviour. By repeating a previous behaviour over and over we generate habits or auto-pilots. The danger is that we behave on auto-pilot without thinking, without exercising any judgement. Habits soon become difficult to break. Ask anyone who has tried to give up smoking or to lose weight, they will tell you that breaking a habit is very difficult because you are trying to force yourself to act in a way that your brain is telling you is not what you usually do. And, whilst what you usually do may not now be right for you, it has not harmed you in the past. Indeed that behaviour might have had some benefits. For instance alcoholics often led very jolly, alcohol infused social lives.

We use habits and auto-pilots all of the time. They can be very useful because they save us from the work of having to think about what we are doing. For instance it would be irksome to have to think all the time about all of the actions you need to take in order to drive your car.

But habits can also be very dangerous when we have automatic ways of responding to situations that we find disagreeable. You might have a habit of blushing when you make a small mistake, which can be embarrassing. Or you might have a habit of becoming irritated easily when other people cast aspersions at you or try to dominate you. Or you might have a habit of not being able to concentrate for any length of time on important tasks. None of these habits can be broken, but all of these _habits can be overcome by overriding them with new, more empowering habits generated by_ _deciding to act differently and by repeating the new behaviour until it becomes your new automatic response to the situation._

It was the realisation that there is a very simple protocol that we all use to operate ourselves that enabled me to start to understand how we can generate the power to achieve anything that we wish. The trick is to control your operating system - rather than have it control you on auto-pilot.

The control room for your operating system is your mind.

The power for what you do comes from your feelings.

The results you achieve come from your actions - the way you behave - what you do.

A very important point about the way you operate yourself is that you create habits by repeatedly **behaving** in a certain way. Behaviour is the secret of changing a habit. It is not what we think that **** results in us making changes, it is what we repeatedly **do**. When you want to change you have to do something differently, _you have to repeatedly behave in the desired way until it becomes your new_ _habit_.

By repeatedly behaving in a certain way you become that person.

BUT, you still do not know what is the right path for your life. You now have the power to achieve, but you will not be on full power until you find your vocation, your niche, what you are meant to be doing with your life and how you are meant to be doing it. Only when you point yourself in the right direction will you start to feel that sense of calm certainty that you are fulfilling your destiny.

What's good about this chapter?

You now have the key to being able to perform at your best at any time.

# The Challenges You Are Most Likely To Face

_"I've always had better luck learning things on my own. And I really love the challenge of doing it yourself and kind of being alone against the system." Oren Peli_

The challenges that you have to overcome in order to create the life you want are:

your habits,

your Ego,

your limiting beliefs,

your lack of a clear idea about what you rally want.

You need to be clear about what is truly important for you. Your Ego will tell you that you want possessions and status, but, in reality, such things are of only superficial importance. You could have the largest house, the fastest car, the best looking partner, the most powerful position, wealth and fame and still not feel satisfied. _The only satisfaction is in being what you are meant to be._ You need to think constantly about who and what you really want to be and why you believe that being this way is important for you.

The fact is that most of us are lazy thinkers. Thinking is hard work. We would rather let others do the thinking for us and simply follow their thoughts. Have you noticed how the mass circulation newspapers and magazines have very few words and lots of coloured pictures? The reason is that pictures are worth a thousand words and they are emotive. The newspapers want to generate strong feelings about issues without putting their readers to the trouble of having to think about those issues. This gives the newspaper power over its readers. The readers must be happy with this arrangement because they go on buying such newspapers and magazines. For them anything is better than the work of having to think about the issues and form opinions of their own.

Scams succeed because they make it appear that someone else has worked out a wonderful way to make money easily. People buy into the scam because they are too lazy to work out the faults in the logic of the scam. They would rather believe that they will become rich without effort than do the work themselves to make the money.

Part of the reason why you have so many habits is that you don't want to be bothered with continuous thinking. You probably use the same route for journeys that you take frequently because you don't want to have to think about the detail of how you are going. You probably shop at the same shops most of the time for the same reason. We develop all sorts of routines to save ourselves the trouble of having to think.

What we really enjoy is feeling. Soap operas on TV deliberately create drama in order to stimulate the feelings of their audiences. It is the drama that attracts us to sports events. People often create dramas at work in order to feel that what they are doing is important or to make themselves feel important. It is because we enjoy heightened feelings that our Ego is able to so easily convince us that we need ostentatious possessions. We revel in the feeling that others will admire our new, fast, expensive motor car. Our Ego tells us that others will admire us for the successes that made such a purchase possible. It will not tell us that other people could be feeling jealous and be actively disliking us for highlighting their inability to be able to afford a similar motor car.

Your Ego always wants to feel superior to others. There is no room for humility in your Ego. And yet humility is an important part of your true self. You are, after all, only a very small player in the grand scheme of life; and this is true however much power you wield and however many possessions you accumulate. There is always something or someone superior to you.

Your Ego hates to be suppressed. Once it has set its eye on a gleaming object that it would like to possess it will generate a lot of energy to push you in the direction of that gleaming object and it will suppress your ability to think clearly about the true value of owning such a possession in terms of enhancing your life. It will not hear rational arguments about 'a waste of money' or 'unnecessary expense'. All your Ego wants is to get its own way. Your Ego is very selfish. Your Ego loves excitement. It loves to party. But true happiness is based in peace and your Ego does not really like peace, unless, of course, it can look good whilst being peaceful.

As a human being you are a creature of habit. You may not like the way that you are, but it is familiar, and you accept the way you are, even when it causes you pain or embarrassment. It is much easier to go on being the way you are than to go to the trouble and effort of making changes. You made yourself this way by repeatedly behaving in a certain way. So you made the choice to be this way many times. Is now the time to make the decision to be some other way? It is easy to forgive yourself simply by saying, "that's just the way I am." It is much harder to make a conscious decision to be some other way and then to practice being that way until you become that way. Your old habits will put up a stern fight to hang on to their position of superiority in the hierarchy of your habitual behaviours.

The industrialist Henry Ford said: "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right." With these words he drew our attention to the power of our word/thoughts to influence the way that we behave. The conversations we have with ourselves formulate the way that we are. Thus you have the power to decide what you really want in life. You also have the ability to make yourself the way you need to be in order to achieve that goal. First you have to decide, then you have to visualise yourself that way and feel that way. Then you have to practice, practice, practice - even when a voice inside you is telling you that you are short of time or making some other excuse for staying the way you are.

In order to make yourself the way you want to be in order to achieve your goal you need to take control of the thoughts, feelings and behaviours that make up your operating system. You need to master the art of living, working and playing in the private zone that is the true you - the being that is true to what you are meant to be.

Do you believe you can lead the life you want? This is a very important question because of all your feelings 'belief' has the greatest power to drive you to your goal. You might paraphrase Henry Ford and say: "Whether you believe you can or you believe you can't, you're right."

A major challenge in becoming the best 'you' that you can possibly be will lie in your ability to persist in the effort to achieve what you want. You are likely to be tempted by new and exciting alternatives as you follow the route to your goal. There will always be distractions. Think how easily you are distracted by the arrival of a new email or text when you are working. The temptation to stop what you are doing and just have a quick peep at the new message is all but irresistible. It might, after all, be very important. Throughout every day you will be tempted in similar ways by distractions which could lead you off the track to your goal. Your persistent fears will also raise their ugly heads, to paralyse your efforts. _You need to exercise rigid self-discipline in order to stay_ _on track._

How disciplined are you normally?

Are you good at being disciplined about important acts like getting out of bed in the morning?

Are you less good about being disciplined about say, eating the right food, or not splashing the cash on whims?

Are you disciplined about always telling the truth?

Are you disciplined about always being honest? Have you never pinched a paper clip, a pencil, or a Post-it note from your employer?

Do you sometimes forgive yourself for "minor" indiscretions?

Then there are the challenges of other people's expectations of you. Your friends expect you to behave in certain ways in order to justify their friendship. Your superiors at work may ask you to behave in ways that offend your personal code of conduct. Your spouse may want you to go to a movie that you feel will express views contrary to your beliefs. You may not agree with the opinions being expressed by a group of friends at a dinner party, what do you do? Do you keep quiet or do you risk incurring their displeasure by telling them what you believe?

Once you set off in a new direction, to become the person you want to be, you risk upsetting a number of your existing relationships. Are you prepared to be disciplined in your behaviour, to stick to your guns, to keep going ahead no matter what opposition you encounter? The fear of ostracisation, of being excluded from groups to which you have always belonged, is very strong. These groups may be an important part of what makes you feel secure. Have you got the strength to survive happily without that security?

Your ability to live in your personal zone is important because it is the place where you can happily survive and manage the challenges that may come your way, without stress. The only proviso is that you have to believe that what you are doing is important for you and that it will not injure or offend others in any way.

As you set out on your journey to a life in which you express your true self you will need to be constantly aware of when you are on the right path and when outside forces and the forces of your habits are seducing you away from the path. You will need to be strongly determined and disciplined in order to fight off the attacks of the seducers who will constantly try to ambush your efforts to keep moving towards your goal.

Once you have set your goal you need to constantly review it, to constantly remind yourself of where you are going. You will not get there unless you make constant effort day in and day out. This is not a journey for those who lack persistence.

What's good about this chapter?

Your challenges come from within - you have to master your own nature and habits if you are to achieve what you want in life.

# How Do I Develop The Awareness To Know How I Am Doing?

_"What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself." Abraham Maslow_

In order to make necessary changes in your way of being the first essential is that you become AWARE of what you are doing during each moment of your day that is making it difficult for you to achieve what you want. You have myriad small habits and ways of reacting that are getting in the way of your progress. Many of these happen so automatically that you probably never notice what you are doing. For instance when someone accidentally knocks into you on a busy street you may automatically spin round and utter some aggressive words. Or, when your train is late arriving you may start to mutter to yourself and imagine all the different ways your plans will be upset by this unwanted lateness. Or, when a queue in which you are waiting in line moves more slowly than a parallel queue you may find yourself cursing your bad luck in joining the wrong line. Or, when another driver cuts in sharply in front of your causing you to have to break or swerve suddenly you shout your curses without thinking what you are doing.

* * *

These kinds of automatic reactions may seem of little importance to you because they are just what you do, what you have always done. But they are, in fact, of great importance simply because they occur without you making a conscious decision to act in the way you act. And, because other people judge you by the way you act, these reactions become a part of who you are. To check the validity of this just try to stop yourself from reacting the next time one of these incidents occurs. Try to react in a different way, perhaps a more kindly way. The key is not to correct your behaviour after you have reacted. The key is to actually behave in a totally different way as soon as the incident occurs.

* * *

So the next time another driver swerves suddenly across your bows you might say: "Lucky I left enough space between me and the car in front for this white van to be able to get between us." Or you might say: "I do hope that he gets to his appointment on time. He must be in a fearful hurry." Can you imagine yourself behaving in such ways?

* * *

Once you are aware of how you want to be it is your job to make sure that you are in that state all of the time. For instance if you want to be relaxed you could drive around continually asking yourself, "what's good about this?" and noticing all the good things happening in your current environment.

* * *

Do not allow other people's behaviour to influence your way of being. You know that the behaviour of others will not make any difference to your life. The behaviour of the driver who cuts in in front of you will make very little difference to your life. Previously you may have felt peeved because he had taken your space, or was it because you feared an accident that could have endangered your life? The probability was that you felt that the other driver had broken the "rules" of the driving game and you held a belief that everyone should drive according to the rules. Even so there was no good reason to waste your precious energy on getting upset. The new "relaxed you" won't bother to upset yourself in such a situation.

* * *

The amount of time you have between an annoying incident and your reaction is very small. If you were to try to plot reaction time on a one minute long timeline you would find that you reacted in a fraction of a second. It is in that fraction of a second that you have to become aware of what you are about to do and make sure you stay in your desired state of being. To be able to jump into that small window of opportunity and confirm that you remain in your desired state takes training and practice. But think how much aggravation you could save yourself and think how much better your life will be when you do not waste so much time muttering to yourself about small matters that have little effect on the important issues in your life. In fact we waste huge amounts of potentially productive time muttering to ourselves about unimportant matters. This is time that could be put to productive use. Time that could be used to work towards your goals.

* * *

This is where you start to act like your true self.

* * *

You are about to discipline yourself to be aware of everything that you think, feel and do, throughout the day. And, importantly, to practice staying in your optimum state.

* * *

I am now about to take a short break. "Do I need a break?" Yes, my back is aching from spending too much time at the keyboard. So it is justifiable to take a break to do a few loosening exercises. Then I will be able to return refreshed to the task of typing this book.

* * *

Did you notice that I asked myself a question that enabled me to think about what I was about to do? I did not blame myself for 'slacking off' or feel guilty about taking time out.

* * *

As I started my break I asked myself: "what exercises should I do to loosen up my back?"

* * *

During my break I looked out of the window and noticed that a strong wind was bending the tops of the trees. This made me feel glad that I was inside, protected from the elements. And also glad that I can see trees from the room where I work. The sight connects me to nature and gives me a feeling that there is much in the world to feel good about.

* * *

On that happy note I went downstairs and made myself a cup of tea. Back at my desk I enjoyed the warm feeling as the tea went down my gullet.

* * *

Did you notice how I was deliberately making myself aware of all of the thoughts, feelings and actions going on in my life during this short period? Now all I have to do is keep that level of awareness going for the rest of the day. I probably won't be able to do that for the whole day, but the awareness of the importance of awareness will help me, and practicing will move me towards the day when I can be constantly aware of what is happening inside of me.

* * *

Did you notice how I used questions to heighten my awareness?

* * *

Watch a domestic cat prowling the neighbourhood and notice how she is constantly moving her head from side to side so that she can see and hear everything that is happening in her environment. She is living in the present moment. As you become more self-aware you will develop the same ability to be present, to be constantly aware of what is happening in your world and how you are responding to the events that occur.

* * *

Prowl through your world - alert - aware of the responses that rise up inside of you - thoughtful of the possibility of different ways of responding if such responses are more likely to bring you good results.

* * *

Richard always felt nervous before he went on stage. Even if he only had a small part or if the scene was short he still felt the butterflies churning around in his stomach. One day, when he had a small part in a Shakespeare comedy, he wondered what would happen if he was to feel happy before he went on stage. As he stood in the wings, waiting to make his entrance, he brought to mind a picnic he had recently enjoyed with his family at an idyllic spot by the river. He remembered the children frolicking in the water and the smile on his mother's face as she doled out sandwiches and soft drinks. He felt the sun on his back that had seemed to soak his body in relaxation. He smiled at the memory and walked out on stage. Afterwards he could not recall doing any acting. All he could remember was feeling happy to be out on the stage doing a job that he loved. But the audience applauded when he left the stage after his cameo appearance.

* * *

How aware are you of what is happening in your life from moment to moment?

* * *

How will being more aware help you to achieve your goals?

* * *

What are you doing to improve your awareness?

* * *

Here are some exercises that may help to build your awareness, your sense of being in the present.

* * *

*As you clean your teeth in the morning feel the brush on your teeth, hear the sound of the brushing, taste the toothpaste (what flavour does it have?), smell the toothpaste, see the toothpaste as you spit it out into the basin. Do this every morning for a week.

* * *

*As you walk feel your feet in your shoes, see the trees or buildings around you, hear the sound of the traffic, taste the air, smell the air (are there any good or bad aromas there?).

* * *

  * As you listen to friends talk in a meeting sense the atmosphere generated by their words, see the way that others listen, pay close attention to the sound of their words, check for any smells in the room, taste the coffee you are drinking.

* * *

What's good about this chapter?

* * *

Awareness is the light that alerts you to the need to act appropriately in the situation in which you find yourself. Without awareness you will always go on doing what you have always done - on autopilot.

# What Do You Have To Do In Order To Change?

_"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." Barack Obama_

Change happens constantly during our lives. It is an inevitable consequence of the human condition, of wars, of new inventions, of advances in medicine, of new fashions and fads, of advancements in human understanding, of movement of all kinds and of your desire to be part of what is happening.

You, quite naturally, change your thinking and your behaviour in order to adapt to new environments, to the new people you meet, to the changes in the people you already know, to a new job or a new relationship.

In truth you are a bit of a chameleon. You adapt to fit in with your current environment. You also change when you see that changing will benefit you in some way. Thus you learn and understand and change when changing suits you.

You change by learning, by watching and assessing what's required of you, by behaving in the way that you consider important. You are motivated to change by your desire to fit in with your social and work environments. You even change when pressure is brought to bear on you.

You are an expert at changing.

Yet, strangely, we often find it difficult to change when change is needed in order to achieve something that we really want or something that we know will be good for us. People find it hard to lose weight, to give up smoking, to save money, to be faithful to a single partner and to resist temptation. We sometimes find it hard to make the small changes in our behaviour that are necessary requirements of achieving our goals. We can have difficulty in changing from living a freewheeling life to a goal directed life.

The fact is that human beings seem to be hot wired to naturally resist force. We hate being ordered to behave according to other people's dictates. We resist strongly when attacked either by fighting back or by making ourselves feel bad. We don't like being told that we "must" do something. We often resist authority and rules, even taking delight in flaunting rules. We hate being shouted at and ordered around.

So, if you are going to change you have to have a very strong desire to behave differently. And you have to have a strong belief that the change will benefit you. There has to be a lot of pleasure associated with moving in a new direction. You have to find a way to dissolve any pain associated with changing to the new behaviour. The joy of winning, of behaving in the new way, has to be stronger than the fear of losing an existing behaviour that is part of your habitual way of being. Our behaviours, good and bad, are bound up with our feelings of security and identity. So if you cease to behave in a certain way you will feel a level of insecurity. You need to fill the gap, your new behaviour needs to make you feel just as secure as the old behaviour that you are dropping.

Please pause for a moment and think about the question mentioned earlier: **" what's good about** **this? " **If you were to ask yourself this question every minute of the day as you implemented a new

behaviour how do you think it would affect your awareness? How would it affect your thinking? How would it affect your state of mind? How would it affect your behaviour?

Please start asking yourself: **" what's good about this?"** every time you are conscious of what's going on in your mind. Even if something terrible happens, ask yourself, "what's good about this?" Well, you are still alive. You have an opportunity to learn. If you find yourself reverting to an old habit ask yourself: "what's good about this?" and notice that you are aware of your behaviour and your need to change.

The question: "What's good about this?" Will always bring you to the present moment and it will lead you towards a positive way of thinking about the situation in which you find yourself.

When something good happens ask: "what's good about this?" Well you noticed that something good was happening and you can feel happy about it. You can then fully appreciate the joyous occasion. You can consider how you might be able to make the same good thing happen again in your life. You might see how you can make such good happenings a part of your way of being.

Even when nothing special is happening at a particular moment ask yourself: "what's good about this?" Notice that you are calm, that this is a good way of being. But also notice how much more aware you are of your surroundings. This heightened state of awareness can bring great joy to your life.

When you notice that you are doing or saying or thinking something that will lead you towards your goal, ask yourself, "what's good about this?" Then you will be able to reward yourself by feeling good about your progress.

But the single most important point about change is knowing what you want to change into, what or how you want to become.

I want to be............

Then let's discuss the discipline that will enable you to implement and keep on implementing your plans until you achieve your goals.

What's good about this chapter?

You now know that it's up to you - no-one else can make for you the changes you have to make.

# Why Discipline Is So Important

_"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity." Calvin Coolidge_

The key to change, to making changes in our lives are goals, plans, awareness, discipline and persistence. I have found that the most important and the most difficult to master of these five essentials is Discipline. For without discipline you do not set goals. Unless you are disciplined you do not make proper plans. Without discipline your mind can wander around and avoid the present moment where you get things done. It takes discipline to persevere when the going gets tough. And the going always gets tough when you are in pursuit of anything worthwhile.

For many years I resisted discipline because I associated it with other people's rules and with being punished, or, as they put it, disciplined for disobeying their rules. In those days I would do anything to assert my free-spiritedness and independence, even when it was obviously not in my best interests. Looking back I have come to the conclusion that I associated discipline with the feeling of fear and I therefore did not want anything to do with discipline because I did not want to feel fearful.

It was only when it dawned on me that I was already highly disciplined in a number of ways and that I derived a lot of benefit from disciplines like, punctuality, respect for those I love and for superiors, thoroughness in preparation, cleanliness, hard work, practicing and being pleasant to people, that I started to reconsider my relationship with Discipline.

I had a tendency to beat myself up when things did not work out as I wished. When under stress I would tense up and find it difficult to relax. It required discipline to make the effort to learn the lessons when things went wrong. With discipline I mastered the art of relaxing when under stress so that I can give of my best when the going gets tough.

It was when I realised the benefits that I could derive from being more relaxed and more persistent that I asked myself: "how does one become that way?" The answer is that you have to make yourself that way. You have to discipline yourself to "act as if" and go on "acting as if" until you develop new habits and change your habitual responses to situations. I surrendered myself to obeying whatever "musts" would be necessary for me to obey in order to achieve my goals. I realised that I needed to become self-disciplined in 5 important areas:

*I must start with the right mental attitude; with accepting that self-discipline is essential to success and with the determination to control my thinking, my feelings and my behaviour in order to operate myself in a way that will always maximise my potential.

*I must be aware of my current state, my thinking, my feelings and the way that I am behaving.

*I must use that mental strength to set goals, to focus and remain focussed on my goals.

*I must make thorough plans and constantly review those plans, changing or adapting them as the unfolding situation demands.

*I must be disciplined in my determination to keep going when times get tough.

This is about self-control, about your determination, about your willingness to surrender some of your existing ideas and behaviours, and to change some of your habits. It is about moving out of your comfort zone and **making yourself** do what is necessary.

Because we are resistant to force we resist self-discipline which is often about forcing ourselves to do what we need to do. Self-discipline can feel like you are fighting against yourself. Self-discipline can feel unnatural. But I rather suspect that we create the feeling of "unnaturalness" as a way of resisting being disciplined when we don't feel inclined to be disciplined, when we want to remain in the comfort zone of what we know.

When you commit yourself to being self-disciplined be aware that you are about to embark on a battle between your mind and your feelings. At times the decisions you make will feel "unnatural" and you will not "feel" inclined to do what your thoughts are suggesting that you should do. So, when you're in a battle with yourself, ask yourself, "what's good about this?" Well, you are aware of the battle and that can lead to an awareness of what you need to do in order to make progress.

The secret of success with self-discipline is exactly the same as the secret of success with anything else that you attempt - PRACTICE. You have to exercise self-discipline constantly until it becomes your auto-pilot. Until you just naturally behave in a disciplined way.

The questions you have to ask yourself are: "What is the best course of action here?" Or, "What is the best way to think about this situation?" Or, the Socratic favourite: "What would a wise person do here?" All your self-questions should be designed to help you to reach your goals.

These questions should replace your normal questions which may sound something like: "What would I like to do here?" Or, "What would I normally do here?" Questions like these will tend to keep you in your comfort zone, keep you stuck in the place where you currently reside because such questions go straight to your memory which will churn out the same old answers.

Once the answers to your self-questions have indicated a course of action you then have to ensure that you follow that path. You may find yourself prevaricating, telling yourself 'this it is too risky,' that you are too tired at the moment, that you don't have enough money, that other people may not like you taking this course. None of these excuses can be allowed to get in the way of your forward progress.

You have to be tough with yourself.

As part of my personal journey of self-discipline I practice daily meditation. I make myself sit on a small black cushion, called a zafu, and count my breaths for at least 15 minutes a day, often for 30 minutes a day. I do not always enjoy the process, in fact I often find it very hard to not be constantly distracted. But daily meditation is a way of practicing focussing my mind. For this reason I find that it of ever-increasing benefit. Everyone I know who practices daily meditation finds it of benefit. That is why there are chapters on Meditation and The Zone towards the end of this book. The benefits of becoming more self-disciplined that can be derived from meditation are one of the major reasons why I recommend that you start practicing meditation as soon as possible.

Or, you could, of course, say, "I don't have time for all that. Can't you find something easier for me to do?"

To which I would answer, "You find the time for other daily routines like meals, sleep, cleaning your body, texting, watching TV etc.etc. This daily routine will provide at least an equal amount of benefit. It will make you a more disciplined person. Plus, it will enable you to achieve goals that will allow you to express yourself and feel fulfilment in your life."

Only you can decide whether you want to spend time in this way, to become self-disciplined and to make your life more meaningful. Do you want to express who you are? Do you want to achieve your goals? Do you want to experience fulfilment and happiness? Or do you just want to go on as you are? Progress requires action - most probably action that is different from what you do now.

What's good about this chapter?

You now know that you cannot succeed without discipline.

# How You Will Benefit From Meditation

_"The purpose of meditation is personal transformation." Henepola Gunaratana_

It is mostly when we are physically still that we can slow down the activities in our mind and focus on just being. Of course you can slow your mind at other times, like when you're walking the dog, eating a meal or playing a sport. But any activity will tend to demand your attention so as to ensure that you do it well. As a result we focus mainly on the doing rather than on just being.

The fact is that it is difficult to focus on just being for any length of time. The moment we fix our thoughts on one subject, like breathing, our exploring mind injects another thought that demands our attention. The only way you can get to focus for any length of time is to practice. And, in my experience, meditation is the best way to practice focussing. I favour Zen meditation the aim of which is to just sit, suspending all judgemental thinking, allowing words, ideas, images, and thoughts to flow by without becoming involved with them. Because the Zen concept appeals to me Zen is my most likely path to success.

In Zen we practice focussing on our breath. We watch each "in" breath and then we watch each "out" breath. And so we go on - and on - and on.

So you ask: "What has focussing on my breath got to do with my ability to focus my mind?" And I answer: "Focussing on your breath is simply a way to practice focussing. As you improve your discipline of focussing so you will be able to focus more easily on what is happening in your mind and become better able to make your mind work for you." This practice of focussing on your breath is the key to being able to enter The Zone which is a state of being from which you will be capable of achieving outstanding results.

Begin your meditation by taking a deep breath. The air must go right down into the lower part of your lungs. When done correctly it feels as if the breath is going into your stomach. Your stomach expands with each "in breath" as you pull air down into the lower part of your lungs; the stomach then contracts with each "out breath" which serves to squeeze all the air out of the lower part of your lungs.

When you breathe normally you tend to only breathe into the upper part of your lungs. This 'shallow breathing' is sufficient to provide your body with the oxygen it requires for your normal, sedentary activities. It is only when you yawn or take strenuous exercise that you start to employ the lower part of your lungs.

Try this right now: place the palm of your right hand on your belly button, open your mouth wide and yawn deeply. You will feel your stomach muscles working as the incoming air travels right down to the lower part of your lungs. That is what a deep breath feels like.

Why is deep breathing so important?

There are two reasons.

The first reason is that when you fill our lungs completely by taking a deep breath the air permeates out into your blood stream and oxygenates your blood. At the same time the up and down movement of your diaphragm serves to remove toxins from your bloodstream. This oxygenation of the blood relaxes your body, induces a feeling of calm and can play an important role in the reduction of stress. Significantly, deep breathing can also reduce feelings of anger or fear.

The second reason why deep breathing is important is that it releases endorphins throughout your body. These endorphins are natural painkillers as well as having the ability to make you feel good.

**Learning to take a deep breath:**

Sit upright in a chair with both feet flat on the floor, knees slightly apart, back straight, relax.

Place one hand on your belly button.

Slowly push out your stomach muscles as far as they will go. Feel the pressure in your hand. Hold for a count of four.

Slowly draw in your stomach muscles as far as they will go. Feel your hand moving in towards your spine. Hold for a count of four. Repeat this 'stomach out' and 'stomach in' exercise three times.

Pause before completing the second part of your exercise.

This time, as you slowly push out your stomach muscles, breathe in. Gently draw the air right down into the bottom of your lungs. Then, once the bottom of your lungs are full of air, fill the top part of your lungs. Hold for a count of four.

Slowly draw in your stomach muscles and gently exhale all the air out of your upper lungs and then your lower lungs. When you have squeezed out every last drop of air, hold for a count of four.

Repeat this second part of the exercise ten times. Ten in breaths and ten out breaths.

Note: you may feel slightly lightheaded after completing this exercise. This is caused by oxygen having entered your bloodstream. When this happens you should feel relaxed. Feeling lightheaded will not cause you any harm.

You should practice deep breathing at every possible opportunity.

Practice in bed when you first wake up in the morning.

Practice on the train or bus on your way to work.

Practice when you're sitting at your desk at work.

Practice when you take a break at lunchtime.

Make 10 - 15 minutes available for yourself in the evenings and practice your deep breathing.

Practice when you lie in bed at night, just before you drop off to sleep. In fact deep breathing is an excellent way to put yourself to sleep when you are tired.

The deep diaphragmatic breathing technique which you just mastered is the foundation of Zen meditation.

To move from deep breathing to Zen meditation all you have to do is sit still, in an upright position as you breathe. If you are sitting on a chair make sure you have both feet flat on the floor.

Zen Buddhism is widely practiced in Japan, Korea and parts of China and Vietnam as well as in many "Western" countries. Zen is part of the Mahayana or northern school of Buddhism. It is deeply concerned with personal spiritual practice. It places more value on meditation and intuition rather than ritual worship or study of scriptures.

When Buddhist monks sit in Zen meditation it is known as Zazen. Most practitioners sit cross-legged, in the lotus or half-lotus position, on a small round cushion known as a Zafu. The cushion helps to support the hips when the legs are crossed. The Zafu is usually placed on a padded mat known as a Zabuton. But you can just as well sit upright on a chair to meditate.

Lying down is not recommended as a position for practicing meditation because, as The Buddha found, it is too easy to fall asleep when meditating lying down.

Each meditation session is called a Sesshin which means literally "touching the heart-mind."

This is the procedure to follow in order to meditate the Zen way.

Start by doing this for 10 minutes once or twice a day:

sit comfortably and relaxed either on a chair or on a Zafu. If you're on a chair ensure that both feet are flat on the floor. Make sure that your clothing is loose and your back straight, head upright.

Your eyes should be almost fully closed. You should just be able to see a spot on the floor about one metre in front of your feet. Having your eyes slightly open will ensure that you do not fall asleep during long meditation sessions.

Your hands should rest, palms upwards, on your inner thighs. The fingers of your left hand rest lightly on the fingers of your right hand. The tips of your thumbs should touch lightly together. Thus your hands form a circle or "mudra".

As you draw in a deep, relaxed breath, count "one".

As you exhale your deep breath, count "two".

Continue counting until you reach "ten". Then start again at "one".

If you become distracted, as you will, go back to "one" and start again.

Note: This is not about forcing yourself to not think of other things. It is not about forbidding other thoughts to come into your consciousness. Thoughts will enter your mind because your mind is always active, always searching. The aim is simply to remain focussed on your breathing. When thoughts interrupt your counting simply focus on each thought, acknowledge its presence, thank it for coming to your attention and allow it to fade away - then return to your breathing; "one", "two", etc.

When Peter first started Zen meditation he found it very difficult to count his breaths beyond number "six". New thoughts would constantly interrupt his counting, demanding his attention. Peter would become angry and frustrated that he was not able to meditate "properly". After discussions with his teacher he realised that he was being tested. That it is normal for everyone to pander to each new thought that comes into our consciousness. Peter soon came to realise that one of the reasons for his lack of success in many areas of his life was his inability to remain focussed on the task in hand for long enough to achieve good results. His coach advised him to treat each interruption with compassion rather than allowing it to make him feel angry. After all his thoughts were accustomed to receiving his immediate attention, they were trying to help him. Now he had to retrain them to only come to his aid when he requested their presence.

When he next met with his teacher, only a week later, Peter reported that he already felt more relaxed and he had been aware that he had become angry on noticeably fewer occasion during the past seven days.

It is recommended that you put the book down now and spend ten minutes doing the meditation breathing exercise outlined above.

Over time it will benefit you to increase the length of your meditation sessions by 5 minutes at a time until you are meditating for half an hour at each session.

If you are going to make changes in your life - if you are going to learn to operate yourself in a way which will enable you to achieve your goals - you have to become disciplined. You have to take charge of your Ego and it's desire to go wherever a whim takes it. You have to become master of your Self. You have to practice.

If you do not make up your mind, right now, that you are going to master yourself you have wasted your time reading this far and you will continue to live a life lacking in fulfilment.

Even if you are filled with doubt and you lack conviction that this will work for you - try it. Act as if it works for you and, in time, you will notice changes in your behaviour, and your results will improve in many different areas of your life. But this will only happen if you start to practice right now, before you turn the page.

What's good about this chapter?

You now have the ability to control your mind, the control centre of your entire being.

# How To Get Into The Zone

_"Letting go is the lesson. Letting go is always the lesson. Have you ever noticed how much of our agony is all tied up with craving and loss?" Susan Gordon Lydon_

You are now ready to enter The Zone for the first time.

If you have not completed the exercise in the previous chapter you are advised to go back and complete that exercise first. Without doing the previous meditation exercise what you are about to attempt is unlikely to work for you.

The Zone is a special state in which your thoughts will be clearer, your emotions will be calmer and easier to control, and your body will be more relaxed and therefore more likely to perform at its best. The Zone is the state in which your performance will always be enhanced. It is possible to enter this state at any time provided that you have mastered the 2 arts of:

* being aware of your current state,

* breathing correctly in order to clear your mind, calm your emotions and relax your body.

To enter The Zone you will use a modified form of the breathing exercise you practiced in the previous chapter about Zen meditation. Now you will use a form of guided meditation based on a technique practiced by The Buddha himself. This technique has been specially developed for use in modern-day situations.

In this guided meditation you will **talk, see** and **feel** yourself into the three different states of "clear mind", "calm emotions", and "relaxed body".

To succeed in using this technique you need to both **see** yourself in each of the three states and **feel** that you are actually in that state. Only when you have experienced each state separately during the exercise will you be able to enter The Zone.

First, a description of what you are about to do so that you can understand the complete exercise before attempting to execute it. Then the 4 parts of the exercise will be laid out for you as a step-by-step guide. In part one you take a deep, relaxed, diaphragmatic 'in breath'. As you draw in the air you say to yourself, "as I breathe in I am aware that my body is relaxed". You then breathe out and say to yourself, "as I breathe out I am aware that my body is relaxed". With each in and out breath you should see your body as relaxed and your body should experience the sensation of feeling relaxed. You repeat this part of the exercise five times before moving on to part two.

In part two you take a deep, relaxed, diaphragmatic 'in breath'. As you draw in the air you say to yourself, "as I breathe in I am aware that my emotions are calm". You then breathe out and say to yourself, "as I breathe out I am aware that my emotions are calm". With each in and out breath you should feel your emotions as calm and experience the sensation of your emotions being calm. You repeat this part of the exercise five times before moving on to part three.

In part three you take a deep, relaxed, diaphragmatic 'in breath'. As you draw in the air you say to yourself, "as I breathe in I am aware that my mind is clear". You then breathe out and say to yourself, "as I breathe out I am aware that my mind is clear". With each in and out breath you should be aware that your mind is clear and your mind should experience the sensation of being clear. You repeat this part of the exercise five times before moving on to part four. _The author is often aware of bright white or light blue colours before his eyes as he carries out this part of the exercise._

Part four makes use of the three parts that have just been practiced but works in a slightly different way. You take a deep, relaxed, diaphragmatic 'in breath'. As you slowly draw in the air you say to yourself, "relaxed body (then pause), calm emotions (pause), clear mind (pause), I am in The Zone". You then breath out slowly saying to yourself, "clear mind (pause), calm emotions (pause), relaxed body (pause), I am in The Zone". You should visualise each state and feel each state of relaxed body, calm emotions, clear mind, as you go through the exercise. You repeat this fourth part of the exercise five times.

This exercise should be practiced every day. It is of great benefit to carry out the exercise at the end of a 10-15 minute meditation session. You should use the exercise whenever you feel under stress or when you particularly need to feel relaxed so that you can perform at the top of your game.

Here is a step-by-step guide to entering The Zone:

*take a deep, relaxed, diaphragmatic 'in breath'. As you draw in the air say to yourself, "as I breathe in I am aware that my body is relaxed". Then breathe out and say to yourself, "as I breathe out I am aware that my body is relaxed". With each in and out breath see your body as relaxed and your body should experience the sensation of feeling relaxed. Repeat this part of the exercise five times before moving on to part two.

*Take a deep, relaxed, diaphragmatic 'in breath'. As you draw in the air say to yourself, "as I breathe in I am aware that my emotions are calm". Then breathe out and say to yourself, "as I breathe out I am aware that my emotions are calm". With each in and out breath feel that your emotions are calm and experience the sensation of your emotions being calm. Repeat this part of the exercise five times before moving on to part three.

*Take a deep, relaxed, diaphragmatic 'in breath'. As you draw in the air say to yourself, "as I breathe in I am aware that my mind is clear". Then breathe out and say to yourself, "as I breathe out I am aware that my mind is clear". With each in and out breath be aware that your mind is clear and experience the sensation of being clear-minded. Repeat this part of the exercise five times before moving on to part four.

*Take a deep, relaxed, diaphragmatic 'in breath'. As you slowly draw in the air say to yourself, "relaxed body (then pause), calm emotions (pause), clear mind (pause), I am in The Zone". Then breath out slowly saying to yourself, "clear mind (pause), calm emotions (pause), relaxed body (pause), I am in The Zone". Visualise each state and feel each state of relaxed body, calm emotions, clear mind, as you go through the exercise. Repeat this fourth part of the exercise five times.

Your ultimate aim should be to carry out this exercise twice a day at the conclusion of a 10-15 minute meditation session.

What's good about this chapter?

You now have the ability to perform at your very best in any circumstance.

# How To Enter The Zone When You Feel Stressed

_"If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension." George Burns_

Obviously there is little benefit in only being able to enter The Zone when meditating. You're not going to spend all of your life in a meditative state. So you need to be able to get yourself into The Zone, and experience all of the performance-enhancing benefits of being in that state when you need to up your game.

The first essential is daily practice so that your body, your mind and your emotions become familiar with the state of being in The Zone. The more you practice the more natural it will be for you to feel that you are in The Zone. After a while you will find that you are naturally calmer in every situation that you experience in your daily life. You will also find that on the rare occasions when your temperature rises it becomes much easier and quicker to return to a calm state. And you will notice greater awareness of your internal conversations, so that you are able to talk yourself out of those circular conversations that previously consumed a lot of your time and often led you to say or do things that resulted in undesirable consequences. You will become a calmer, happier, more compassionate and considerate human being.

The second essential is to create an **anchor** that will enable you to recreate the state of being in The Zone whenever you need to be in that state.

Anchoring is an NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) technique probably invented originally by family therapist Virginia Satir and incorporated into the NLP toolkit by NLP founders Richard Bandler and John Grinder. However, all human beings constantly create anchors by associating what we see, hear and do with the emotional states that we experience as a result of our activities. For instance you may have created an anchor that makes you feel nervous whenever you are in a high place; or you may have anchored a feeling of fear with the sight of a snake or a spider.

For our purposes here we can consider an **anchor** to be; a physical act that recreates the way that you thought, felt and behaved on a previous occasion when you encountered a particular experience.

An **anchor** can be any physical act that you can use to create a bridge between your previous experience of being in The Zone and your current situation. For instance you might cross your middle finger over your index finger on your right hand; or you might pinch together the thumb and index finger of your left hand; or you might purse your lips together hard. You can choose any act you wish and use it as an anchor for any desired state. The only caveat is that you do not choose some act that you carry out normally as part of your everyday activities like blowing your nose or scratching an itch. After all you do not want to create your desired state by accident.

**How To Create A Zen Zone Anchor**

Choose a physical action that will serve as your anchor e.g. pinching together the little finger and thumb on your right hand.

Get yourself into The Zone by carrying out the exercise in the previous chapter entitled 'HowDo I Get Into The Zone

When you arrive in The Zone, at the end of step 4, drop your anchor, e.g. pinch together the little finger and thumb on your right hand.

Hold the anchor for 10 to 20 seconds and then release the anchor.

Distract your thoughts away from what you are doing by thinking of something else.

Then, once again, get into The Zone and, at the end of step 4 drop your anchor once more.

Hold the anchor for 10 to 20 seconds and then release the anchor.

Distract your thoughts away from The Zone.

After the 5 repetitions of the "getting into The Zone" and anchoring you should have anchored the sensation of having a relaxed body, a clear mind and calm thoughts.

Test your anchor by dropping it. Notice whether you feel as you do when you're in The Zone. If The Zone state recreates, your anchor is working.

If The Zone state does not recreate when you drop anchor when not in The Zone you will need to repeat the exercise from above.

It is not uncommon for people to not create The Zone state when they first test their anchor. Do not worry if this happens to you. With practice you will master the art of anchoring and then you will be able to enter The Zone whenever you wish to or need to.

Every time you meditate spend a short time at the end of the session entering The Zone and then refresh your anchor every time you are in The Zone.

There is no prescribed number of times that you need to enter The Zone and anchor the state before the anchor becomes firmly set. But with practice and patience you can master the art of entering The Zone whenever you feel that it will benefit you. From then on your life will change radically.

What's good about this chapter?

You can now cope with stress.

# Important Questions and Answers

_"Our ability to handle life's challenges is a measure of our strength of character." Les Brown_

Here are some questions that I am frequently asked and the answers I give:

What is self-expression?

Self-expression is any purposeful activity in which you engage that creates a feeling of well-being. The end product of your activity should, in time, lead to a result that is important to you. e.g. If you enjoy developing a plan for a business project and that project comes to a successful conclusion, you have expressed yourself by producing the plan.

Why are the questions I ask myself so important?

Because you have to think in order to answer the question and that will mean that your answer will be your own unique solution. This can mean that you buy into the solution and implement it with greater enthusiasm and belief. Your chances of creating a successful outcome then increase immeasurably.

How do I cope with the fear that makes me not want to do things?

First, assess whether the fear is real (will it cause me physical or other harm?) or imagined. Then, ask yourself, "will doing what I am afraid of give me a benefit?" If your answer is "yes" go ahead and do it provided it will not endanger your body or security. The more often you conquer your fears the easier it becomes to overcome them.

What is excellence?

Excellence is a level of achievement which is exceptionally good, that surpasses ordinary standards. It is an outstanding fitness for purpose. There is no absolute standard for excellence or any measure for excellence having been achieved. The measure is simply that you have performed to a level that is exceptionally good, above the ordinary, and that you feel good about your achievement.

How do I decide what is of importance to me?

When you get that feeling that you have let yourself down, that you have underachieved, that you should have or could have done better - that is your inner voice telling you "this it is an area that is important to us".

If you aspire to be recognised for an achievement in some area, that is an area of importance to you. You have to decide for yourself in what areas you want to achieve excellence.

How do I find the motivation to be disciplined and to practice?

The motivation is the feelings of happiness and fulfilment that you enjoy when you achieve goals that are important to you. Note: Personally I do not set myself goals to prove myself better than anyone else, or to beat anyone else. I set goals purely in order to create good feelings in my life and to help others. On the occasions when I manage to raise my game to heights of excellence that result in my being in some way victorious I feel a satisfaction, but that is not because I have triumphed, but rather because I have achieved a standard which I was seeking.

It is important to understand that no human being can achieve everything they set out to do. And because so many human beings aspire to achieve in different fields of endeavour the bar is constantly rising. But the only measure that is important to you is your own measure.

Always remember: You can if you think you can.

How do I develop the willpower to keep going when I want to stop?

Willpower is a bit like physical power in the sense that when you tax it too much it tires and its effectiveness as a defence against temptation decreases. Ask anyone who has tried dieting. Resisting extra sugar at breakfast is not so difficult. But when you also resist at coffee break, at lunch, at tea time and at dinner time you will find it much harder to resist that sugar as the day wears on.

Countless, well documented experiments have been conducted into the way that willpower works and they all show that out ability to resist temptation declines as we use our willpower more and more.

However there is another technique that you can use instead of willpower that has been shown to be highly effective. On the BBC TV programme Trust Me I'm A Doctor they tested a method of overcoming cravings that had been proposed by Dr Carey Morewedge of Boston University. The counterintuitive idea proposed by Dr Morewedge is that instead of trying to stop ourselves thinking about what we crave, we should use our imagination to imagine eating the food we want. e.g. see a plate of cakes and imagine yourself eating those cakes without touching them. Do this ten times before you actually eat one of the cakes and you will probably only eat a few of the cakes rather than the whole plate.

The theory on which this technique is based is this - you may have noticed that when you open a box of chocolates you enjoy the first few chocolates that you eat. But as you munch your way through the box your enjoyment of each new chocolate declines until you reach a point where you are not actually enjoying eating chocolates at all. Well, if you open the box and then use your imagination to imagine yourself eating the first ten chocolates you will more quickly reach the point of not enjoying eating chocolates. After eating just a few chocolates you will tire of the taste and stop eating.

By using your imagination in this positive way you can resist many forms of temptation.

What's good about this chapter?

You have learned to look for and find answers to the most important questions in your life.

# About Fear, Frustration and Flow

_"I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that's how you grow. When there's that moment of 'Wow, I'm not really sure I can do this,' and you push through those moments, that's when you have a breakthrough." Marissa Mayer_

Looking back I find that I remember my time in advertising as being dominated by hot and cold winds of emotions. Being highly imaginative I would vacillate between being in states of high enthusiasm, or some degree of anxiety; great optimism or uncertainty. At the time I did not realise what valuable lessons were hidden in my mood swings and the results that they caused. All I knew was that it was primarily my fears that drove me. Sometimes fear would almost paralyse me. When that happened I would not give in to it. Instead I would become angry, and the anger would drive my behaviour. This definitely had an adverse effect on my popularity. However, I became a good organiser and planner with a strong compulsion to get results. (Later in life Belbin psychometric tests would reveal me to be an archetypal 'completer/finisher', but that was many years in the future.)

The first phase of my career in advertising was the boredom and learning period. During this preliminary time the work was mainly administrative. For long periods I never seemed to have enough to do. The work either arrived on my desk in floods, which was good because it provided opportunities to learn, or there were even longer periods of drought when it was difficult to know what to do to fill the day; then being in the office was very boring. However, overall I did use the time to gain some understanding about how the business worked.

The nadir point of this period of my life was the ending of my first marriage. At the time my feelings were very, very dark. A great sense of failure filled my being. I felt guilty as sin. None of these feelings helped me to be in the right space to concentrate on my career. I was either in survival or escapist mode. In my after-work time I read trashy novels to distract me from my feelings and I listened to a lot of music. It was mostly melancholic music. Had I been able to afford it I might well have become an alcoholic during these years of unhappiness.

Before talking about the next phase of my career my life-long ambition to write reasserted itself. So when, quite by chance, I got an opportunity to become an advertising copywriter I saw the job of writing the words for advertisements as a way of learning to write. It was the thought of being paid to write all day that prompted me to move my career path away from executive roles.

At first being a copywriter felt very important. It also felt more relaxed. I could go to the office in casual clothes rather than having to wear a suit. I found it fascinating to be absorbed in the challenge of searching for ways to persuade readers to try the brand about which I was writing. I greatly enjoyed creating new ways of conveying messages about a product to audiences.

The head of my department was a crusty old schoolmaster type who wore pale grey suits with a rose in his buttonhole. His thinning hair was always slicked down close to his scalp. He was a hard taskmaster. He insisted on high standards of English usage and would make us all work and re-work each advertisement until it met with his approval. Only when it had 'Ned's nod' was an advertisement idea allowed to be sent back to the executive who had commissioned the work so that he could present it to the client who owned the product.

It was frustrating that, in those days, we 'creatives' were not allowed to present our own work to clients. We never had the opportunity to fight for the ideas over which we had expended much thought and labour. Our work was often returned with scrawled comments of suggested alterations or rejected out of hand. The executives who presented our work to the agency's clients had the power to tell us what to do and they were often sycophants who would too readily agree with any comments or suggestions that clients made. This was a far from ideal system for getting our best work to see the light of day. In later years I would be employed in advertising agencies where the creative teams presented their work directly to clients. By allowing the creative teams to demonstrate the rationale behind their idea and to defend their work with passion this system helped to ensure that a much higher standard of advertisement eventually appeared in front of the public. Many times I wished such a system had been in operation in the first agency where I wrote the words.

Although I enjoyed the process of creating ideas and writing advertisements I found the constant rejection of my work, often for what I considered to be spurious reasons, more than a little irksome. Also, in those days, writers worked in one section of the creative department and artists in another. The result of this policy was that artists would often interpret a copywriter's idea in a way that the writer had never imagined. (By the end of my career in advertising, a copywriter and an art director would always work as a team which produced more synergistic results.) However, it was the fact that I needed to earn more money that was the prime reason for my decision to move back into an executive role.

By now I had reached a level where the work involved strategic thinking, planning, relationship building, team building and selling. These would be my primary functions for the rest of the time that I worked in advertising agencies. What I find interesting, when I look back at this period of my life is that I enjoyed the challenges of the work but struggled with particular aspects of my relationships with colleagues. The people I found particularly difficult were those managers above me who were more interested in promoting their own opinions and self-interests than in producing good work.

So, my feelings vacillated between deep involvement with the work in which I was engaged and anger at the behaviour of more senior managers. As I climbed the corporate ladder I learned a great deal about how to treat people and how not to treat people. But throughout this period I was motivated primarily by the fears of not succeeding and of being found out. However, I was mainly driven by an inner belief that the higher I climbed the fewer people there would be to find me out, so I drove myself forward; but that was a false belief that caused me increasing amounts of stress. I got ahead mainly because of my ability to get results and by constantly making myself appear unafraid or by acting as if I was confident in my opinions.

I remember my early days in business as a time when I frequently felt annoyed with myself that I was not, in some undefined way, fulfilling my potential. The feeling made me uncomfortable with myself. It was a confusing cocktail of frustration at the speed of my progress mixed with a fear of failure and an underlying belief in myself. I don't think that I particularly lacked self-belief, even though I found certain types of people scary. I pushed myself because of a strong desire to make my mark, whatever that might mean. Oddly, at the same time I felt constrained by a lack of belief that the work in which I was engaged was of particular value. I believe that advertising has great value, but my concern was that working to produce advertising did not give me the feeling that I was doing what I personally was meant to be doing. There was a lack of internal fulfilment which made me uneasy with myself and the world around me.

All the while as I climbed up through larger agencies I found the constant competition for business and position increasingly stressful. It is a law of nature that stress is caused by excessive pressure. With human beings one man's pressure is another man's joy. We have natural aptitudes. One person is good at mathematics whilst another struggles with multiplication. One person runs long distances with relative ease whilst another struggles once they pass the hundred metre mark. One person can draw life portraits whilst another cannot even make a square house look good. And so it is with our careers, one person can carry out executive tasks with ease whilst another would prefer to work with her hands. I had not yet found out what I really wanted to do and I wasn't giving myself time to search for my niche.

It was tough having to act as if I was in control. It wasn't so much that I didn't enjoy the work, because there were many aspects of it that were definitely rewarding. Rather it was a feeling that there was something more out there that I ought to be doing, something that would provide a better way to express my true self. This feeling was a distraction that inhibited me from being fully committed to my work; on top of that I felt a growing desire to be independent. Was this desire fermented by the need to escape from the politics and disciplines imposed by others? This mixture of feelings often made me angry about being caged in and not being able to find a way to break free.

It would be many years before Dr Martin Luther King explained my conundrum for me when he said: "Life's most persistent and urgent question is: 'what are you doing for others?'" The time I started to coach others was the time I found myself. It is interesting that some of the things I found challenging when I worked in the advertising business, like making presentations and dealing with authority figures, ceased to be challenging when I eventually found my niche in life.

I can trace the genesis of finding my niche to the time when I started studying Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and other techniques for personal development in order to help me overcome my anxieties so that I could feel consistently confident. With the help of these techniques I started to spend more time in the present, to think less about my past, spend less time dreaming about an ill-defined future and to feel less guilty. I learned the value of seeking to take control of my thoughts and feelings. I learned that acting as if I felt confident eventually enabled me to feel that way. This was valuable in my personal life even though I still had not found a satisfying direction for my career. I hadn't yet learned to ask myself the questions that could unravel my purpose in life. And, most importantly, I was not yet paying sufficient attention to the voice of my spirit that kept telling me that I had to be true to myself, to find a path that would allow me to feel fulfilled.

It is odd that when people feel discontented they do not give themselves credit for their successes. They do not acknowledge the things they are good at. So they miss the opportunities to learn the lessons and to take guidance from their natural aptitudes. I was certainly far better at beating myself up than I was at praising myself.

At the time I knew from the number of calls I got from executive search agencies and from comments my clients made that my advertising career was progressing well, but the strain was taking a heavy toll on me. I became increasingly restless. Eventually, when nearly at breaking point, I decided to quit the advertising business.

Looking back it seems obvious that the misfortunes and mistakes of our early life are not excuses for the way we are, rather they are tests or trials that we have to overcome in order to become what our destiny has in store for us.

It also seems to me that we have to deliberately break the ties to a job that is not satisfying and make a deliberate effort to do something else. I was attracted by stories about people who had changed their career paths, but did not find them helpful in enabling me to decide what to do with myself. They gave me the conviction that change is possible but they did not provide direction or means.

Eventually I set up a marketing agency that specialised in finding new business for smaller advertising agencies. At first I ran this business in a somewhat haphazard way and allowed myself a lot of time to experiment - try other avenues for earning a living and gaining job satisfaction. During this period I started a number of newsletters, all of which achieved some success only to eventually fizzle out as my enthusiasm wained. The interesting point is that whilst I was developing them I thought that they were vehicles for passing information to other people, however, with the benefit of hindsight, I can now see that they were in fact experiments on my journey of searching for methods of teaching others what I knew.

It was during this period of my life that I started to read a lot more psychology and philosophy books. I researched many methods of personal development for my own benefit. I tried many different ways of channeling my emotions and of giving myself the feeling that I was fulfilling my destiny, doing what I was born to do. But nothing that I tried gave me that feeling and, as a result, nothing gave me a sufficiently strong feeling of achievement to sustain my interest.

Fortunately the marketing business and some very loyal clients kept the wolf from the door. We did a good job for most of our clients and succeeded in helping them to grow their businesses. A large part of what made us successful was that I spent a significant amount of my time with clients helping them to better understand the advertising business. This was probably the first time that I did a form of coaching with anyone other than a member of my immediate team.

All the while I was becoming more knowledgeable about personal development and this was starting to have an impact on the way I behaved in both my personal life and my business life. I studied the Hindu Upanishads, particularly their beliefs on how the mind works. I also studied Zen Buddhism and started to meditate daily. I read many of the psychology lectures of Sigmund Freud and completed a course on hypnosis. All of these activities enabled me to improve my golf game to a standard that lowered my handicap to single figures.

The first major step towards becoming a coach was when I took a part-time sales and coaching role with a company that specialised in helping people to find jobs or to redirect their careers. A lot of the work involved building up clients' self-belief and confidence as we prepared them for their assault on the job market. This was the first time that I ever had the opportunity to work on someone else's development. It was the first time I had to think about how best to communicate to another person how they could improve some facet of their personal performance. The majority of the people whom I coached were suffering from low self-esteem and most did not know how to market their talents.

I quickly learned that it is never enough to tell people what they ought to be doing; it is necessary for them to actually do the thing and feel the benefit so that they convince themselves of the value of a different way of behaving. It is only ever by trying something new, something different that we are able to get different results in our lives. The coach's job is to open up their thinking to the possibilities of new directions, new ways of being.

It is easy when one is in the coaching role to become arrogant and assume that one's client is stupid or idle because they cannot or will not do what is required. I have to admit that in my early years of coaching there were occasions when I fell into that trap. But that was before I learned the value of humility - that if a client could not do what was required it was because I, the coach, had not found a sufficiently effective way to explain what was required and inspired in them the self-motivation to achieve the end.

The two years I spent helping people with their job searches were a very valuable introduction to the personal development work that I now do. I learned an immense amount, but in the end I realised that I wanted to focus entirely on the development of the person and I found the job search element of the work became increasingly tiresome so I struck out on my own.

My first months as an independent personal development coach were not exactly a period of success. Only a few clients came my way and I was not making a good living. My one piece of luck at that time was to have a client who was a wizard at building websites and he worked on the development of a website for me in exchange for some personal coaching. It turned out to be a very good deal for me because the finance division of General Motors found that website and invited me to tender for a coaching assignment for six of their executives. When I won that contract it kick-started my new career because not only did I coach the initial six executives but I went on to coach some twenty other executives in that division of the corporation.

The fact that I could thereafter list as a client on my website an important business like General Motors made a real difference to my credibility in the marketplace as well as to my confidence in my abilities as a coach.

The lesson from this period of my life was that I could be reasonably successful when I forced myself to do what was required to get a job done, but there was little satisfaction in following a road that did not provide fulfilment. Also, forcing myself for purely economic reasons to do something that was not my true calling created high levels of stress. Such stress could only be relieved by playing hard and distracting my feelings. However, in the end the voice inside me grew so loud that it could no longer be ignored. The voice was not shouting at me, it was just niggling away. The problem was that for twenty years I did not tune in to that voice and listen to what it was trying to tell me. I just allowed it to make me feel uncomfortable.

The other valuable lesson was that pain tends to make us move away from the source of the pain. The more pain you feel, the more you want to remove yourself to another place. It was the pain of constant stress that drove me out of the advertising business.

Looking back, my overall impression of this period of my life is one of wandering in the wilderness in search of a long term direction, in search of a way of being that would give meaning to my life.

What's good about this chapter?

You now know that you can cope with and overcome fear.

# Listening To The Guru Inside

_"You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life." Steve Jobs_

Every human being is born with an inner voice. It prompts us to do right and makes us feel ashamed or guilty when we do wrong. The more you live in the present, pay attention to your surroundings and to what is current in your life the more you hear that voice.

No-one can teach you to listen to that voice. You have to learn to tune in and listen on your own. The one essential is that you do not allow your fears to drown out the messages that the voice is sending you. You have to learn to trust that voice and to follow the guidance that it gives you. This is your Buddha mind, or your intuition. It is a combination of thought and feeling that is the voice of your true self.

Your Spirit is at the centre of your being. It is nourished by your achieving what you were born to naturally achieve and dampened by being forced into tasks which are unnatural for you, by failure or the expectation of failure. It is the source of your strength to achieve and to survive.

Your number one job in life is to nourish your Spirit. You should allow it the freedom to lead you to do what you naturally do well. You should feed it with the good feelings of joy, love, excitement, adventure, friendship, optimism, courage, achievement, creativity, camaraderie, triumph, music and happiness.

But how do you find this Spirit of which I speak?

A good way to understand your Spirit is to consider that it is that part of your being that never gives up on its search for ways to make you feel good, to make you feel that you are a decent and worthwhile human being. (Do not confuse your Spirit with your Ego, which will try to make you feel good with superficial possessions like cars and clothes.) Your Spirit is the force that enables drug addicts to rehabilitate and come clean. It is the force that drives great adventures. It is the force that surmounts obstacles to enable scientists to persist until they achieve breakthrough discoveries for the benefit of mankind. It is the force that drives disadvantaged children to educate themselves and climb to the pinnacles of industry, sport and politics.

I like to think of the human Spirit as the driving force that propels us to achieve the most of which we are capable by using the talents with which we were born and the resources that we have accumulated during our lifetimes. If you sit really still, in a peaceful environment you can feel your Spirit inside of yourself. When you do something and feel proud of yourself that is your Spirit speaking to you. It is saying, this is good, this is the way we are meant to be.

When I look at pictures of poverty stricken children, dressed in rags, in Africa, Asia and South America smiling brightly and laughing as they play simple games on giant rubbish tips I have to believe that there is a Spirit within them that allows them to make the most of what little they have. These children do not suffer from envy or jealousies, they are not disgruntled or unhappy like so many of the over-pampered, Ego centric children in developed countries. They are, if you like, in an unspoiled state. I believe that you Spirit lives in that unspoiled state, unencumbered by base feelings and desires.

If your Spirit is not enabling you to achieve; if you are in a frustrated state or trapped in a circle of inescapable needs, it is because your Ego has become addicted to a level of salary, or a social circle, or envy of what others have, or you're driven by jealousy to achieve the same level of possessions as others have, or your Ego is telling you that you need the same levels of possessions or status as others, or your fears are keeping you trapped in a belief that security is where you are and it is not safe 'out there'. All of these needs or feelings are holding you prisoner in a life in which your Spirit is unhappy, not free to express itself.

Only when your Spirit is free can you have the space to express yourself and experience real joy.

In order to release your Spirit you must first find it. So where is it? I have looked for it in my brain and found that I can use mental power to ask myself to free my Spirit. An inner voice is certainly connected to our Spirit. But the Spirit itself is not there. When I am aware of my Spirit driving me I feel a lightness, a joy, in the area of my heart. This feeling does not equate to the feeling of love, yet it is similar. I suppose that when my Spirit feels free to express itself it too is feeling joy and that joy is similar to the feeling of love. Your Spirit is a feeling. It is positive. It urges you to move forward. It is joyous.

But what you want to know is, "how do I release my Spirit?" for it is only when your spirit is released to fly free that you can become what you can become, that you can feel real, deep, long-lasting joy in your life.

What I found was that first I had to acknowledge it. I did this by talking with it. I literally said:

"Hello my Spirit. Are you in there? Can you help me?"

The experience was amazing! I immediately felt a warmth around the area of my heart. I felt a new level of understanding. I felt energised to do, to create. My body felt alive. It was as if my Spirit said, "at last. I have been waiting years for you to ask for my help." And that day my football team won a very important game. Coincidence? Probably.

Try it now. Get yourself into a quiet place where you can be on your own. Sit still. Hold yourself erect in your chair, not stiff and forced. Be aware of your feet on the floor, the feeling of your clothes on your skin. Listen to the sounds around you. Smell and taste any odours or tastes. See any nearby sights or colours. Close your eyes. Relax. Pay attention to your feelings. Then say to yourself: "Hello my Spirit. Are you there? Can you help me?" Then wait for the feeling of your Spirit to grow inside of you. Enjoy!

A word of caution. Before you ask your Spirit to guide you you must clear space for it inside you. You need to feel humble for in the state of humility you are open to new thoughts and feelings. You should be prepared to give up your Ego driven desires for physical possessions, your envy of the possessions of others, your need for status and your petty angers. **Do not set goals**. Your Spirit needs to be able to operate on a clean sheet unencumbered by your historic troubles and anxieties. The more of the junk from your past life you can clear out of the way the better will be your results and the quicker you will achieve them.

Whatever you achieve from now on will be achieved by releasing your inner powers, your natural talents and the positive skills that you have learned during your life to date.

You cannot force your Spirit to take you in any particular direction, it will decide what is best for you and take you in that direction. All you have to do is trust your Spirit and enjoy the ride.

People worry about how they are going to achieve their goals, but they are wasting their time. Goals are man-made ideas that you force upon yourself. They are often the product of envy or of trying to compete with others. They are often false gods, the result of what you suppose you have to achieve in order to gain the respect of others. You don't need to worry you just have to trust - your Spirit will guide you. Your Spirit knows what is best for you. It knows what powers and skills you have and it will use them to get you to where you are going.

People worry about having enough money, of course you need money, but you cannot force money to come your way, it will come to you when you do what you are designed to do because then you will do your life work well and you will be rewarded for your labours.

As a coach the single biggest obstacle that I find inhibits my clients is their need for money. A person gets accustomed to living a certain lifestyle that requires a certain level of income and they cannot see how they could maintain that lifestyle if they were to cut the umbilical chord to the job that earns them the income that supports that lifestyle. They simply cannot trust that if they do what comes naturally they will have a better life.

At the bottom of many people's pile of fears is that they cannot see how they can guarantee their future safety. Their conundrum is often that they want to escape the stress of their current, unsatisfying job. But the job produces the income to support the lifestyle which they regard as essential. So they want to maintain the lifestyle but find another job that pays them the same amount of money. However, they do not possess the skills to earn that amount of money doing something else. So, they allow themselves to live an unhappy life in order to maintain a lifestyle which may not be what they want. For them the important point about their lifestyle is that it is an escape from the tedium and stress of their job. But, is this who they really are?

Because they cannot decide what to do, they ask other people to help them. They have run out of ideas and cannot see a way forward. In fact what they really want is for someone else to make the decision for them. That way they will be able to blame someone else if things go wrong for them.

What they are hoping is that someone else will invent a miracle for them. But the reality is that the only person who can create miracles for us is ourselves.

Now, this is important. You do not have to jump off a high bridge. You do not have to do anything sudden or dramatic. You can work your way slowly and cautiously towards your new destination. You do not have to cut the umbilical chord to your existing salary today. It is not necessary to take a big risk. Often people do not have to even change their career paths, they simply have to behave in a different, more natural way in order to gain the ability to express themselves through their work.

You can start to speak with your Spirit today and allow it to start guiding your behaviour with immediate effect. You can start to behave in your new way right away. But that doesn't mean to say that you need to give up your current job or sell your house or leave your family. You can just start to feel and behave differently.

If you do this what you will find is that you will gradually gravitate towards your new life.

A client of mine was guided by her Spirit to practice yoga. She started to practice in earnest in her after-work time. She spent her vacations at yoga retreats. She eventually enrolled for a yoga instructors course that she took during an extended vacation. When she had built a small following of pupils during her after-work hours she decided that the time was right to become a full time teacher and she quit the job she had been doing for twelve years.

Another client's hobby had always been carpentry, he liked making wooden furniture. After talking with his Spirit he started to build up a store of furniture during his after-work hours. Eventually he had sufficient stock to open a shop. He had noticed that a similar style of furniture seemed to sell well in another country, so he sold his house and moved his family to a town in that country where he opened a shop in the front room of their town house. He has prospered there for some ten years now.

Another client was a highly paid technologist who felt a strong calling to design. She took a course that helped her decide on her future direction. She then did another course on graphic design for business people. She used her IT skills to build herself a website to launch her design business. Today she designs corporate identities for companies all over the world.

Yet another client was mad keen on vintage motorcars. His house was littered with auto magazines. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of old cars. But he was trapped in a high income job in the City. With encouragement from his Spirit he sold his favourite vintage car. The word got out and a colleague asked him to source a Bugatti for his private use. Soon my client became an agent for many wealthy buyers and was travelling the world to find and restore classic models. He is now regarded as a top international expert and has a healthy business writing about and dealing in the cars he loves.

This lady was a highly paid commodities trader who felt a calling to become a doctor of medicine. She eventually, in her mid thirties, managed to persuade the Navy to recruit her onto a medical training programme that would lead to her becoming a qualified GP.

In my Sunday newspaper the weekend I was writing this chapter there is a story about a Tax Manager with a large firm of City accountants who was offered the opportunity to mentor at a local school during his lunchtimes. He found that he loved helping the children and noticed that the teachers seemed to really enjoy their jobs. Soon he noticed that his mentoring days were the highlight of his week. So, after six years of working in the City he decided to retrain as a teacher. He now works in a school and runs a website with video tutorials to help children to study. He has just been nominated at the national teacher of the year at the Technology Awards.

If these people can do it, so can you.

So, here's what to do:

Find a quiet place. Sit still. Pay attention to your senses and your Spirit. Feel the peace.

Talk to your Spirit, say: "Hello my Spirit. Are you in there? Can you help me?"

Allow the warmth of the feeling that your Spirit creates around the area of your heart to permeate through your body and guide your thoughts.

Pay attention to what your Spirit tells you. Keep listening. It may be several days or weeks before you recognise what you are being told.

Be aware of changes in your thinking and your behaviour.

Trust that you are going in the right direction - the direction in which someone with your talents and abilities was always designed to go.

Practice this exercise four times every day. Recreate the good feelings as often as you can. Do what your Spirit prompts you to do.

Take charge of your personal Operating System. Ask yourself constantly, "what's good about this?" Think positive thoughts. Feel the good feelings that your Spirit suggests to you. Smile a lot. Relax a lot. Put your heart and soul into what you are doing.

What's good about this chapter?

I believe this is the most important chapter in the entire book. Once you master the art of listening to and following up on the promptings of your intuition you will become a far happier and more powerful human being.

# The Trap And How To Escape

_"The mind can be extraordinarily inventive in providing reasons to justify what is really unjustifiable." Practical Philosophy 1.7._

The trap lies in the power that your memory exerts over your behaviour. It is the curse of our habits that steals our power. It is those weakening habits that are so automatic that we are not even conscious of the effect that they have on our thinking and our behaviour that insidiously keep us trapped where we are.

Because all the information that our senses pick up is fed first to our memory with the questions: "what is this?" - "Have we encountered this before?" and "What did we do last time?" we tend to come up with the same, or similar ways of responding to given situations all the time.

For instance our memory might tell us: "This is Jack. He is the one who spread nasty rumours about us. We do not feel good when we encounter Jack. Avoid."

Once we have avoided Jack a few times we develop the habit of avoiding Jack and we are likely to continue to avoid him until something happens to change our view of Jack. Other people can tell you that Jack is OK, but that will not change your mind. You can observe Jack making a very generous donation to a charity, but that might only serve to make you think of him as 'ostentatious'. No, Jack will have to do something that offers a direct benefit to you for you to change your mind about him.

With human beings, once we have developed a habitual way of thinking about something, or feeling in a certain situation, or doing something in a given way we stick to that way of being. And it only takes a few repetitions of any behaviour for us to develop a habit of automatically behaving in that way.

Do you remember when you first learned to drive a car? Can you recall how confusing you found it to operate the foot pedals, look in the rear-view mirror, pay attention to the other road users, to watch out for traffic signals and road signs? There was so much that demanded your attention, all at the same time, that you may well have considered that driving was a skill beyond your capabilities. However, after you have been driving for a few months you are capable of driving safely and carrying on a conversation with your passenger at the same time. Driving has become a habit, something you do on auto-pilot, without the need for conscious thought.

You have many of these habitual auto-pilot programmes that you use to make your life easier. You do not think about how you brush your teeth, or how you travel to work, or how you type on your keyboard, or how you hold your knife and fork when you eat. And all of these auto-pilots work in your favour, they save you time, they save you from having to repeatedly think what to do. Once you're on auto-pilot you are not even aware of your actions.

Some years ago I returned from a trip to visit my sister who lives many miles away on the other side of London. Now it so happens that the distance from the junction where the main road from her location joins up with the M25 motorway, that circles around London, is exactly the same distance from my home whether I travel north or south around London. At the end of this particular journey, when I parked my car in the driveway in front of my house I could not recall whether I had driven forty miles on the northern or the southern route around London. I sat in the car for some time trying to remember what I had done during the hour I had spent on the motorway. In the end I recalled that I had paid a toll which meant that I must have come by the northern route, but I could not recall any other details about the route I had driven. The point is that I arrived home safely without having given any though to my driving. That illustrates the power of auto-pilots.

The issue is that you have many other auto-pilots, many other habits that disempower you. These disempowering habits are ingrained in your memory and they are holding you back - preventing you from being able to achieve what you want in life.

Many of your disempowering habits are so automatic that you are not even aware of them. You often hold conversations in your head during which you wind yourself up to take action with little awareness of what you are doing to yourself. Because these internal conversations happen so frequently you tend not to be aware of the power that they have to influence your behaviour.

For years I surrendered power to anyone whom I considered to be an authority figure. This was purely an automatic response that I created every time I saw a person who looked powerful like army officers or the school teachers of my early childhood. Similarly I felt overwhelming anxiety whenever I had to stand up and make a presentation because to me it felt like having to stand up and read aloud in a classroom where everyone had belittled me.

You may have a really bad habit of imagining worst case scenarios when you are worried about the outcome of some project in which you are engaged. You may talk yourself into believing that you cannot possibly win or that no good can come out of the activity in which you are engaged. But these are only your thoughts. They can be changed.

We tend not to understand that fear is almost always in the future. It is not here and now (unless you are at the centre of a catastrophic event or being threatened by another human being.) _Most of_ _the time fear is what you imagine might happen at some time yet to be determined_. It is your __ imagination that creates scenarios in which you feel fear. As the French philosopher Montagne says in one of his essays: "My life has been filled with fears - most of which never happened."

Yet we go on and on allowing our fears to inhibit us, even when we know that they will probably never happen. They will continue to stand in your way until you decide to take charge and change your responses.

The trap is habit.

Your habits keep you doing what you have always done.

And if you continue to do what you have always done, you will get the same results as you have always got.

You are locked in to certain behaviour patterns. So, can you see that until you make the effort to break free you will continue to remain where you are now?

The answer to each of the behaviour patterns that has you trapped lies in the exception - the time when you did something different and got a better result. These occasional good results are easy to forget or to disregard as being mere flukes, or due to exceptional circumstances. But they are hugely important because they are the proof that you can achieve different, better results. And by paying attention and noting how you achieved that result you have an in-built strategy that can change your behaviour and your results.

These exceptions will not automatically jump out at you. You have to go looking for them, to identify them and then repeat them.

Can you now see how AWARENESS of what you are thinking, feeling and doing gives you the power to notice the exceptions in your behaviour and thus to make changes?

For instance I found that when I stood up in front of an audience to talk about my own experiences of overcoming my challenges I did not feel nervous. At first I did not notice the difference. It just felt natural. For me it was not outstanding. I was simply explaining something important, something I felt would be of value to the audience so I never paused to consider whether I felt nervous. Later, after a few repetitions of speaking in public about my ways of overcoming my hurdles, I found that I could speak to audiences about all sorts of other matters to do with personal development and leadership. I could make presentations and tell stories. I could talk at gatherings of family, relatives and friends. I could talk to corporate audiences about leadership. It was talking about subjects that are really important to me and feeling good about what I was doing that opened the gate to my spirit.

So this is the protocol for escaping from the traps created by your weakening habits:

Know how you want to feel and behave. Write down exactly how you want to feel and behave.

Make a list of the thoughts and behaviours that prevent you from feeling and behaving as you wish.

Practice Awareness - "noticing what you are thinking, feeling and doing". Keep asking yourself: "What's good about this?"

When you notice yourself about to automatically behave in a way that is not the way you want to behave change your behaviour, respond differently, in the way that you want to respond.

EXCEPTIONS.

Every time you do something differently from the way that you would previously have done it make a note; if what you are doing is better than what you would previously have done in similar circumstances reward yourself by feeling good about what you are doing.

What's good about this chapter?

You now know that you can escape from the trap of your habits and autopilots.

# Your Journey

_"Transformation is a process, and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It's a journey of discovery - there are moments on mountaintops and moments in deep valleys of despair." Rick Warren_

In order to get you to your destination we will use two tools:

Self-understanding - because you are the one who has to make the journey.

Marketing - because it provides a practical framework within which to plan and execute your journey.

This process works equally well for those who want to develop their careers or for those who want to branch out and start a business of their own or for those who just want to feel good and make best use of themselves. However you decide to use the process you should bear in mind that the "product" will be you and the way that you live your life.

Listed below are a number of questions that only you can answer. This is where you find out exactly how serious you are about taking control of your life journey. If you just read through the questions you will derive very little benefit from the time spent. If you rush through jotting down a few notes, it is very unlikely that you will notice any real differences in your life. However, if you work your way diligently through the list of questions, making thoughtful notes of your answers in your notebook you will experience some very profound differences in your life. You will be taking charge of your life and moving to a much more fulfilling and happy existence.

The self-discipline required to thoroughly complete the exercise that follows requires a great deal of diligence. Most people find it easier to complete the exercise by working with a coach either in 1-2-1 coaching sessions or by attending one of my "Journey of Self-Discovery" workshops

I have written a more detailed description of how to discover meaning and purpose in your life so that you can become the person you are meant to be in my book How To Break Free and Be Happy.

# Your Self

_"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self." Ernest Hemingway_

Your self-image is how you see yourself. The image you hold of yourself is important because we are drawn towards images, they therefore have a powerful effect on our behaviour. For instance, if you see yourself as "weak and ineffectual" then you are unlikely to achieve much; but if, conversely, you see yourself as "strong and courageous" you are likely to challenge yourself to play a high-steaks game. If you see yourself as "inferior to certain types of people" you are likely to submit to those whom you perceive to be "superior to you in some way". If you see yourself as "a winner" you are likely to strain every sinew to win in any circumstance.

You may not have paid much attention to your self-image up to now, but it has been affecting your behaviour every day of your life. You may not have looked at yourself too closely for fear of what you might see. Or you may simply have not considered it important. In any case there will be parts of your self-image that you do not like and other parts that make you feel proud of yourself.

The first important point is that your self-image is entirely yours, you create it, therefore you have the power to change it and you can make it into anything you want. It is simply a mental picture of yourself and you are the artist.

Why, you may ask, would I create a self-image that was not excellent and empowering? The answer is probably because you were not aware that you were creating a self-image. It just grew inside your imagination as a result of your experiences of life. My experiences of being dominated by ruthless Catholic priests helped to create a self-image of an unworthy and inferior human being. But, once I realised how this poor self-image was depriving me of power and curtailing my opportunities in life, I managed to create a new primary, more meaningful self-image of a confident and valuable human being and this enabled me to move forward. The old self-image is still there, it has not gone away, we can never erase memories, but nowadays it serves a useful purpose of ensuring that I behave with humility and compassion towards others. Unfortunately the old self-image does resurface in its worst form from time to time and I become arrogant or fearful, but as soon as I become aware of this type of behaviour I take steps to ensure that my new self-image asserts itself.

The second important point about your self-image is that the way that you see yourself will influence your thinking and therefore the way that you behave. Consider then that "what I do is what I am," and you will see how important your self-image is to your happiness and everything that you do.

So, now it is time to sharpen your pencil. Let's get to grips with what makes you unique. Take out your notebook again and ask yourself these knotty questions:

* what am I really like? How would a longtime friend describe me, worts and all?

* What do I like doing? Listen to your Spirit!

* What do I dislike doing?

* What am I good at e.g. better than most?

*Which activities, from the list above, give me real enjoyment?

* How do I play? (Not just what you play, but, in what way do you play?)

* What do I create from nothing? e.g. what would not exist if you had not thought of it or made it?

* What activities give me the sense that I am expressing myself?

* Check - are the answers you gave above an expression of the true you, your Self? Or, are they just an expression of your Ego? i.e. an expression of the way you would like others to see you?

* What makes you feel calm and relaxed?

* What makes you feel excited?

* What or Who frightens you - makes you feel that you do not want to respond or makes you give inadequate responses?

* What or Who makes you want to escape from the situation or person, to be somewhere else?

* In what type of situations have you felt courageous?

* What experiences give you pleasure?

* What do you sincerely believe is important?

* Do you hold any beliefs that limit you e.g. that you are not good enough, or that you are unworthy, or that you are not strong enough, or that you do not know enough, or you are not intelligent enough, or you are not clever enough, or you are not wealthy enough? Write them down.

* What good habits do you have: e.g. punctuality, truthfulness, tidiness, a trustworthy friend, compassion? Make your own list, and make it as complete as possible.

* What poor habits do you have: e.g. lateness, self-deception, indecisiveness, talking self down, gossiping? Make your own list, and make it as complete as possible

* About Self-Discipline: Do you have the self-discipline to make yourself behave with courage when you are afraid, or to deny yourself pleasure when you need to do something else? Are you capable of "making yourself" when your feelings are trying to pull you in another direction?

* On a scale of 1 to 10 how confident are you? Does your self-confidence hold up in every type of situation or does your level of confidence vary?

* In what circumstances are you very confident?

* In what circumstances do you feel less confident?

* Be honest now, do you believe in yourself? Do you believe that you have an important role to play in the service of others? Does your belief give you the confidence to move in your chosen direction?

* On a scale of 1 to 10 how humble are you? Do you ever feel arrogant or superior to others?

* How do you express your feeling of humility - _give examples_?

* On a scale of 1 to 10 how compassionate are you? Do you ever feel mean or miserly? How do you express your compassion?

* On a scale of 1 to 10 how responsible are you? Do you ever feel irresponsible? Give 3 examples of you behaving responsibly.

Take some time to consider how you **operate yourself**.

You use your **Senses** to gather information from your environment.

You process the information by **Thinking** , by asking yourself questions.

Your answers to your 'thinking questions' create **Feelings**. And it is the power of those feelings that dictate how powerfully you will behave.

You then **Act**.

* In what ways are you going to **behave differently** from now on to **improve your self-image**? Write your answers down.

* How are you seeing yourself from now on? Write your answers down.

* What new beliefs do you now hold? Write your answers down.

* Which of your fears are you going to challenge? How will you do this? Write your answers down.

You will find a more detailed description of how to discover meaning and purpose in your life so that you can become the person you are meant to be in my book How To Break Free and Be Happy.

# Setting Your Goals

_"If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you." Les Brown_

The way that I find goals work best for me and most of my clients is to create pictures in my mind of what I am doing when I achieve the goal. So, get out your notebook again and write each of your goals as a picture.

* Make each picture very large, make it colourful, add lively sounds.

* Make sure that you feature prominently in each picture. Paint on a large canvas.

* How would you like to live? What do you look like when living that life?

* What would you like to be doing? (This can be a number of activities: include work and leisure.)

* What do you look like when you're doing that?

* How are you feeling as you carry out these activities?

* What are you thinking about?

* What skills and abilities are you employing as you carry out your activities? Which of these skills and abilities are you enjoying using?

Checks: _it is important to run checks to test whether your goals are legitimate, likely to be_ _suitable for you and likely to prove fulfilling._ So, now you need to exercise your judgement. Ask __ yourself:

* how does each goal feel to me as I read it out loud?

* Does it excite and stimulate me?

* What outcome do I visualise for each goal?

*Do I feel safe when I see myself doing this?

* Do I feel excited and enlivened when I see myself doing this?

* Do I consider that I will be expressing my true self when I do this or am I just pandering to my Ego?

* Is this really possible, will it help me to earn me a living wage, or is it just a fantasy, a way of escaping from my existing life?

* Given my responsibilities, would it be responsible for me to set out to achieve this goal?

* Who would buy such a product or who would promote me to such a position? Why should they do that?

  * If I set out on this path what would my product or work position look like? Is this credible?

What's good about this chapter?

You can now set goals that will give direction to your life. You will find further help in this direction in my book How To Break Free and Be Happy.

# Creating Your Vision

_"Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world." Joel A. Barker_

Visions can draw us forward irresistibly to achieve what we want provided that they engage our emotions, excite us and stimulate our feelings. Therefore you need to create images in your mind that are large, colourful, loud and full of movement.

From this moment on it will help you to regard everything in your vision as current, present, what you are thinking, feeling and doing NOW!

Your visions are not in the future, something that will occur when you eventually get round to it. They are the way you see yourself NOW!

Are your visions of the way you are now living? If so, what can you see yourself **doing**? List the behaviours that you have now adopted. e.g. I talk positively. I commit fully to everything that I do. I look very enthusiastic about everything I do.

In your vision of the way you are now living - how are **you thinking**? List the thoughts that you have now adopted. e.g. I keep asking myself the question: "what's good about this?". I carefully consider the possible outcomes of everything I am considering doing. I consider the effect of what I am about to say before speaking.

In your vision of the way you are now living - how are **you feeling**? List the feelings that you have now adopted. e.g. I ensure that I always feel positive. I create feelings of love and compassion. I check in to see how I am feeling from time to time. I make sure that I do not allow my feelings to get out of control.

In your vision of the way you are now living - what are your friends, family, clients doing, saying, thinking and feeling as a result of their observing the way that you are behaving? List some of what particular clients, family members and friends are saying about you.

Check: does the vision you have just created express who you are? Does it appear real to you? Are you comfortable living this way.

What's good about this chapter?

You can now create a vision for your life that will shine a light on the path you will follow.

# Right Now!

_"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week."_

_George S. Patton_

In order to be successful in implementing changes in your life you need to be constantly **aware** of what you are thinking, feeling and doing right now, this very moment. You need to notice when you are behaving like your old self so that you can summon up your new vision of yourself and start behaving appropriately; and you need to notice when you are behaving like your new self so that you can reward yourself.

The trick with awareness is to be continually noticing what is going on inside yourself right now. You have to keep checking in so that you know what is going on. You have to keep asking yourself: "what am I thinking about right now? What am I feeling right now? Are my thoughts and feelings serving to empower what I am supposed to be doing?"

Most people live most of their lives without giving conscious thought to controlling the way they operate themselves, they just go with the flow, they respond to the current stimulus, they are on auto-pilot. But, if you are going to change you have to be conscious of what you are thinking, feeling and doing all the time so that you can do what you need to do to get to where you want to go.

_The secret of being aware is to be in the present_ , to not allow your mind to wonder off into the __ future (the land of fantasy and fear) or back into the past. In the present you know exactly what you are thinking and feeling, and you have the power to change those thoughts and feelings right now.

The question, "what's good about this?" focusses your mind on the present subject and how you relate to it. You may answer, "there's nothing good about this," but you will, at least, have thought about the topic and sensed how you feel about it. You will have been focussed on the present. And you will have given yourself the opportunity to find something positive about the situation. If there is nothing good about the present you can do something to change it - right now!

Here are some questions that will enable you to be aware of what is going on within you in the present moment - questions that will enable you to be aware:

What is this?

How am I feeling?

Is this feeling helping me?

If the feeling is helping me, how can I hold on to it? How can I anchor it so that I can recreate it in the future?

If the feeling is not helping me, what can I do about it?

What am I thinking about?

Is there a better question that will improve my thinking?

What do I have to do to get the best out of this person?

What is better now?

What would a wise person do?

Is this useful?

What do I have to do to make this work?

What's good about this?

Notice that it is not recommended that you start your questions with "why?" The reason for this is that it doesn't really help to know why. Why only leads to blame, self-recrimination and possible confusion. You just need to know what is happening and what you can or should do about it. You are not in the business of self-analysis, you are in the businesses of change and improvement.

Once you are aware of the situation you can decide what you have to do to move forward. How you need to behave to improve.

What's good about this chapter?

You can now get started on making your life the way you want it to be - do not delay.

# Creating Your Plan

_"To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan and not quite enough time."_

_Leonard Bernstein_

Your aim is to be what you do. When you achieve this state you will constantly feel fulfilled and happy. See, "What I Do Is Who I Am" above.

Describe your product or career vision. Be specific about what you are thinking and feeling, and above all, what you see yourself doing. Then write your plan.

**A Plan for Starting Your Own Business**

**Marketing** :

What are the benefits that this product offers the TA? Which of these benefits are unique to

my product?

Target audience (TA), who will buy this product?

Why does the TA need or desire this product?

How will the TA find out about this product and its benefits? Website? Advertising? Networking?

Packaging, how does the product need to appear?

Price - how much will the TA be prepared to pay for this product or service?

Distribution, where will the TA obtain this product?

**Timescale:**

When will the product launch?

How frequently will you make yourself aware of what you are thinking, feeling and doing?

What actions will you take to get yourself back on track?

**Budget:**

How much money will it take to get your product to market?

How much will it cost to make your TA aware of your product?

Where will the money come from?

**A Plan for Building A Successful Career**

**Marketing** :

What are the benefits that you offers an employer? Which of these benefits are unique to

you? Catalogue your achievements & wherever possible put numbers to your successes, particularly when you increased sales or profits or turnover etc.

Target audience (TA), what type of employer do you want to work for?

Why would this type of employer want to employ you?

How will the employer find out about you and your achievements? Articles you publish? Talks you give? Networking?

Packaging, how do you need to appear? Is your CV/resume up to date? Do you update it regularly?

Price - how much will the employer be prepared to pay for someone with your skills, abilities and track record?

Distribution, how will a potential employer be able to get in touch with you? Headhunters? Job boards? Your Network?

**Timescale:**

When will you be ready to make your next move?

How frequently do people in your industry, at your level move to new jobs?

**Budget:**

How much money do you spend on career development advice?

When writing your plan be as specific as you can be. For instance if your product is going to be sold in a shop, say which shop that will be. If you are going to launch the next phase of your plan in July, say precisely which day in July the launch will occur. If you need a budget say exactly how much that budget needs to be.

What's good about this chapter?

You now have the tool that will create the path you need to follow.

# Motivating Yourself

_"Do something wonderful, people may imitate it." Albert Schweitzer_

How will I keep going, with enthusiasm, until I succeed?

Praise yourself for the effort you are making and the progress you are making.

Pain: what am I so desperate to escape from that I will sacrifice security to get away? Make notes of all the pain scenarios that you would like to not experience any more.

Pleasure: keep working on the canvas of your vision. Embellish it, add colour every day, add new sounds, see yourself enjoying what you are doing more and more every day.

Keep reassuring yourself that you are getting there. You may not yet have arrived but you are travelling in the right direction - more effort needed. Praise your effort, your strategy and every step of progress that you make. It is worth keeping a journal on your computer or in a notebook so that you can, from time to time, remind yourself how far you have come.

Arouse your **passion** for what you are doing constantly. The more excited you are the more energy you will inject into your activities. Low energy = poor results. High, passionate energy = excellent results. Your passion and your Spirit will ignite your talent.

Feel **proud** of what you are doing. If it is worth doing it is worth doing well. Do everything to a standard that will make you feel proud of yourself and what you are doing. Everyone works better when they take a pride in what they are doing.

You are what you do. So the better you do everything the better you become!

You cannot predict what will happen in the future, but you can make yourself as good as you can possibly be so that you can perform well in whatever scenario evolves.

Believe in yourself. What you do is who you are.

What's good about this chapter?

Your life is now in your hands.

# Relaxation, Hard Work & Practice

_"If a man insists always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it." Herodotus_

Relaxation can seem counter-intuitive when you are making an effort. However, It is a truism that your body and your mind perform at their best when you are in a relaxed state. The deep breathing and meditation exercises that you learned earlier are a great way to get yourself into a relaxed state. So, make it your practice to be aware when you are tense and then take a few deep breaths to get yourself relaxed - to gear yourself up for optimum performance.

Above all, keep talking with your Spirit. Let it guide you. Like who you are.

Work on yourself every day - throughout the day.

Work on your plan every day.

The more you do it the more it will become your habit.

# About the Author

David Ferrers works as a Performance and Leadership Coach for companies and individuals all over the world. He is passionate about developing people to enable them to express themselves and realise their potential. He has worked internationally for most of his life both in the advertising business and as a coach. He currently runs clinics within major corporations in the UK, coaches managers internationally via Skype and runs workshops in different countries.

His first business book Ignite Your Inner Leader has been widely read and critically acclaimed.

Website: http://DavidFerrers.com

If you find the exercises listed in this book relevant you will find it easier, more fun and more fulfilling to work on them to develop your self by attending one of our Journey of Self-Discovery workshops. Or you may prefer to benefit from 1-2-1 Self-Discovery Coaching with the author. Or, the best option of all is to spend a week with us on a Journey of Self-Discovery in India where you will benefit greatly from collaborating with other delegates and coaches in an relaxed environment designed to stimulate your creativity and grow your confidence in your ability discover and make use of your greatest strengths. These workshops are popular and tend to sell out quickly, so book early.

# Disclaimer

Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the information contained in this book is correct at the time of publication, the author and/or the publisher do not guarantee the accuracy of the information contained therein and expressly disclaim any and all liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions, and their consequences. This book is primarily based on the author's experiences and information has also been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but the accuracy and completeness, and the opinions based thereon, are not guaranteed. Please note this book is for general information and guidance purposes only and does not constitute business or legal advice, and no guarantee of earnings or success is conferred.
