 
# The Free Self-Help Handbook

## David Ferrers

#### Smashwords Inc.
Copyright © David Ferrers 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

### Contents

Inspiration

1. How This Book Will Help You

2. The Battleground - How to Overcome Obstacles

3. Managing Your Monkey Mind

4. How It Started For Me

5. The Largest Room in the World

6. Awareness The First Essential of Change

7. People Can Change What They Do and How They Are

8. I Want To Be A..........

9. Know Yourself

10. THE BIG IDEA -

11. Intuition the Positive Voice Within

12. How?

13. Excellence is The Only Standard

14. Make Yourself Unstoppable

15. Intensity

16. The Power of Feeling Proud

17. Passion - the Level at Which to Love What You Do

18. TheWonder of Feeling Fulfilled

19. Tattoo Cement

20. What's Stopping You?

21. Courage - The Personal Quality Displayed by Achievers

22. Let Go of Your Life Raft

23. Self-Belief - The Personal Quality that Drives Achievers

24. Over-writing The Effects of Your History, Your Limiting Beliefs and Your Fears

25. Triggers Routines and Constant Awareness

26. Stand in the Traffic

27. Make Yourself the Person Who Makes Your Big Idea Your Reality

28. Create Your Own SWAP book

29. Your Generosity Will Be Repaid

30. The Sad Fact About Medicine

31. The Money Trick

32. The One Thing That is Guaranteed to Change Everything

33. Danger, Poison

34. You Can if You Think You Can

35. Success on Autopilot

36. Don't Try

37. Meditation Can Make a Real Difference

38. Flow Down The River of Life

39. Spend, Spend, Spend

40. How To Fail

41. Surefire Route to Success

42. The Power of Process

43. Feedback, The Measure of Excellence

44. The Irresistible Force

45. The Millionaire's Story

46. Do Yourself a Favour

47. Your "GO" Button

48. About The Author

# Inspiration

"It is necessary to combine knowledge born of study with sincere practice in our daily lives. These two must go together."

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Dalai Lama

# 1 How This Book Will Help You

If you are not as confident as you wish to be - if you are not as good a public speaker as you would like to be - if your career is not progressing as you would like - it is self-evident that you need to change. What you are thinking and doing at the moment is not achieving the results you want so you need to think and behave differently. Not just differently but in more effective ways.

Over the course of the last seven years I have been on a journey to try to discover an effective way to communicate to more people the benefits of all I have learned over twenty five years of coaching others. My goal has always been to help my clients make changes to their thinking and behaviour that will enable them to enjoy more joyful and fulfilling lives.

As part of my research I wrote seven books of varying length. Each book explains how to master some of the fundamentals of self-mastery which I believe to be the foundation of a joyful life.

Recently I decided that it is asking too much of anyone who might want to create a joyful life that they have to read so many books. So I decided to edit three of the shorter books into one volume.

The Free Self-Help Handbook contains those three books. They have each been thoroughly rewritten and edited with the benefit of the further learning that I have accumulated in the intervening years. During the course of this rewriting I have considerably amended, updated and, I hope, improved the narrative.

The concept of The Free Self-Help Handbook is that it should act as free centre from which the reader can gain an understanding of all the skills and abilities needed to become the person they would really love to be.

You may find that as you read the book there will be moments where you say to yourself: "He already mentioned that earlier in the book." The repetition is for your benefit. I could easily have removed the repetition but I have allowed it to remain to highlight the importance of the subject and to reinforce what experience has shown to be necessary in order for you to reach your destination. Repetition will aid your understanding.

Throughout The Free Self-Help Handbook you will find links to other books that have been written to help you on your journey to living a life in which you can express fully both who you are and what you are. It is one of my firm beliefs that self-expression holds the key to both our happiness and our prosperity.

It is when you express who you really are that you feel whole; you feel that your life has a purpose and meaning and you walk around filled with enthusiasm - a big smile on your face.

You want to be more than you are now. You want your life to be more fulfilling. First you have to know what you really want. This is much more challenging than we ever imagine. Yes, I also believe that you can make your life to be any way that you want it to be, but you have to know what you want it to be and that can be a moveable feast. One moment we want to be famous, the next we want to be wealthy, the next we want to live in a beach hut, and then we want to be in a box at Royal Ascot races.

It is easy to have your life goals shifted hither and yon by the whims of the influences of the environment in which we currently find ourselves or by the stories we are reading or by the programmes we are watching on TV.

I have found that the best place to start is by discovering your prime interests, what it is that you enjoy doing more than anything else? What does fulfilment look like to you?

Is your motivation sufficiently strong to enable you to drive yourself to what you do want? Obviously you will have to change some of what you do now because it is not working as you would wish, but what should you change, and how should you change it?

The guidance contained within The Free Self-Help Handbook will help you to greatly improve the quality of your life. You will discover that I have used many NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) techniques because I have discovered that they help many of my clients.

I was brought up to believe that there is a right way to be in life. Both my family and my teachers enforced rules and standards on me from an early age. However, the experience of my life has been that many of these rules do not feel natural for me. Some rules make sense to me and I comply without difficulty or protest. Other rules seem nonsensical, they simply do not seem right for me. But the worst rule of all is the one that suggests that "they" know that there is a right way for me to be.

I understand that I am a human being and therefore it is my role to "be." However, this doesn't tell me how or what I should be in order for my life to be meaningful, fulfilled and happy. Much of my life has been spent in the search for my natural niche in life - a way of living that feels comfortable to me - rather than a niche prescribed by others. I have spent my life in search of the niche in which I can achieve fulfilment, happiness and prosperity. In this book I will pass on to you what I have learned on my life journey. You can read about my actual journey in my memoire A Journey of Self-Discovery.

My great good fortune has been that twenty five years ago I was inspired to become a performance coach. This career choice was initially driven by my desire to improve my own performance. However, I have greatly enjoyed working with over one thousand clients in both the corporate and private sectors. I became a coach so that I could work individually with each client on the issues that are of concern or importance to them. For me individual "tailor made" coaching is a better way of improving performance than training programmes that present 'one-size-fits-all' solutions to the challenges that life presents. When I run workshops or seminars they are always highly inter-active so that I can address each individual's issues within the framework of the workshop.

At this early stage I should clarify what I mean by "improved performance." To me "improved performance" means that people are achieving what they believe will make one or more aspects of their life more rewarding for them and they are doing this in a way that feels natural to them. Individual goals vary from client to client. For one client improved performance may mean a promotion or a pay rise at work. For another it may be starting their own business. For yet another it may mean finding a partner with whom they can enjoy a loving relationship.

What gives meaning, fulfilment and happiness to each of us is unique to each individual. Because of the buzz I get from helping others to find fulfilment I have immersed myself for over a quarter of a century in researching and practicing the optimum ways for people to prosper in their lives, careers, and relationships.

When you work closely with people over extended periods of time you develop clear insights about what works and what does not work. My aim has always been to find ways of improving the lives of my clients in ways that work for them. My sole interest is, "does this way of thinking and behaving enable this person to improve their experience of life?" My way of coaching is a constant process of questioning to elicit a challenge, suggestions from me, trial by the client and feedback, all with the purpose of discovering whether or how the suggestion worked.

In the pages that follow you will find ways of making changes in your life that will enable you to live the life you want. All of these recommendations have been tried, tested and found to work by many of my previous clients. However the recommendations will only work for you if you implement them. There is little point in simply reading the book and learning what it says. This is not knowledge presented in order to enable you to pass an exam. It is a personal development programme devised to empower you to create the life you want. Like any other development programme it will only work for you when you implement and practice the steps in the programme.

Look at it this way: you know how to run, with that knowledge you could run a marathon, but in order to run a long race you need to train, to get fit, to practice running. Life is a long distance event, you know how to live, you are doing it right now, but in order to live the life you want you need to learn and practice the essentials of being the master of your own destiny.

The simple processes that you are about to discover are practical ways of mastering the use of essential life tools. These are all natural, uncomplicated activities, most of which you already do. You just need to become more conscious of using them and more disciplined in the way that you practice their use.

Once you're comfortable with using the tools you will learn how to create a direction for your life that will give your life meaning and therefore the opportunity for you to enjoy the feeling of fulfilment when you reach milestones that really matter to you. By the end of this book you will have had the opportunity to create a journey plan to get you to the life you want.

You will then move on to practice excellence in everything you do. Implementing your plan with excellence and intensity are the two pillars on which success is built. Too often people fail in life because they do not put enough quality and effort into what they do. To succeed in creating the life you want you need to go flat out towards your goal. The exciting point is that once you have a clear idea of how you want your life to be you will find energy coursing through your veins.

I have also devoted time to show you how to overcome the obstacles that will inevitably be thrown across your path. These can be anything: doubt, old unwanted habits, the things people say, a lack of resources or insufficient time.

My philosophy is simple, "if you have the choice, there is no point in spending your life doing things you do not enjoy, that is simply a waste of life, it is much better to find a way to spend your life doing what you enjoy and find fulfilling." You now have a choice, you can go on doing what you do now, which will result in your life remaining much the same, or you can implement the simple processes in this book and lead the life you'd love to live.

**Managing negative thoughts:**

_Why do negative thoughts so often enter my mind?_

Apart from specific conditions like clinical depression that can be hereditary as well as induced, negative thoughts arise largely because of our conditioning, upbringing and what is happening in the world around us. We live in a world where the media are constantly expressing negative points of view; constantly stirring negative thoughts and feelings. As a result those around you are filled with negativity.

The media is constantly expressing anger, finding people to blame, stirring up hatred and suggesting that revenge needs to be extracted. Social media is awash with news, fake news, sensationalism and scare stories.

This is the background noise against which you live your life. The themes tunes of blame, anger and revenge blare out all around you.Misery and fear are constant themes that the media broadcast. We see and hear them so frequently that we become immune, unaware of the impact they have on us.

Because you are a tribal being you want to belong, to conform. You may not believe everything that you hear, you may even think that some of it is harmful, but you nonetheless go along for the ride so that you can feel part of the main body - you are in with the in crowd.

There are many people in the world who seem to like being miserable. They are always looking for others with whom they can share their misery. Hence the saying that, "misery loves company." Do not join in such people's misery. Just walk away.

There will be times when you find yourself feeling anxious. Perhaps you are contemplating taking a risk, or you are waiting on a result that is very important to you. At such moments remember that your feelings are the result of what you are thinking, so when you find negativity invading your being change your thoughts to something positive. For example you may be nervous about spending a significant sum of money, in case your investment turns out to be less valuable than you hoped. In this case you should focus on the investment turning out to be very valuable.

Here's the good news! Your mind is your servant. You have the power to decide what you want to think and believe. You don't need to be influenced by the media or anyone else. You are your own person.

All you need to do is keep in mind that you cannot hold two thoughts in focus at the same time. For instance when you are driving your car and talking with your passenger your mind is focussed on what you are saying - the driving is happening on autopilot.

Keeping in mind that you cannot focus on two subjects at the same time, all you have to do when a negative thought or idea comes into focus is change that thought for an opposite positive thought. In doing this you will naturally 'swap' the negative thought out. As you do this you will also notice a change in what you are feeling.

If you want to change your life you have to make it your mission to change negative thoughts to positive thoughts. You have to steel yourself to use the SWAP tool that you are about to master from this book.

Make it your mission to always SWAP negative thoughts to positive thoughts.

**Managing Limited Resources:**

_I don't feel very strongly equipped for the journey I want to take. How can I resource myself better?_

There are five main resources that you need to change your life. Let's check them out.

Knowledge - do you know enough about what you want to do? Have you researched your plan and developed your knowledge about what you are planning to do? Have you done a lot of reading? Have you completed any training in your chosen area? Have you put your knowledge into practice?

Product or Equipment - have you developed your product to a level where you are confident of the benefits it offers to your potential customers? Have you tested your product or equipment?

Time - no-one ever has as much time as they think they need. My friend Clare Evans, author of Time Management for Dummies; tells me that most of her clients are simply not using their time efficiently. The key is to prioritise and then get on with the stuff that really matters. You can waste a lot of time worrying - just get on with it.

Finance - people never seem to have enough money. If a lack of funds is inhibiting your ability to execute your plan, it's time to review your plan again. Is there anything that can be cut out or reduced in order to save money? Can you start on a smaller scale? Most successful enterprises "start small." Can you start small, then take small upward steps until you reach your goal? Very few people buy a house by paying the full price in cash. Most of us take out mortgages and pay for our houses in small instalments. Businesses build up in the same way, starting small and growing in small steps. Your dream can build in the same way.

Support - the first place to look for support is amongst your family and friends. Your immediate family are the ones who most want you to succeed and to be happy. If the support you need is not to be found in your family ask yourself, "who do I know who might be able to help me?" If you cannot find a friend to help you perhaps you should consider working with a coach or mentor.

Never allow a lack of resources to stop you. Always look for alternatives, be creative and find solutions. Tailor your plan to be achievable with the resources you have available and advance one step at a time. What are your first, second and third steps?

Keep moving forward regardless of the obstacles in your path.

**Doubt, The Great Inhibitor:**

_I still have some doubts about my ability to change my life. What reassurances can you offer me?_

The second step in my philosophy is to "release yourself." You should release yourself from the prison of your habits and your doubts.

Doubt can halt progress and stagnate your mind. When in doubt the tendency is to do nothing. But there is a way forward. Doubt is nothing more than an expression of uncertainty. You want to do something but you are not sure that you will succeed.

The point is that you can never be certain about anything that might happen in the future. All you can do is reduce the odds against failure and believe in yourself.

You can reduce the odds against failure by researching your market, looking at what other people do in your niche, how well they do it, and how successful they are. You can plan with care. You can test what you want to do by taking small steps towards the life you want. Such diligence will help to improve the odds on your succeeding.

Over many years of working with clients, I have observed that nothing succeeds like enthusiasm and commitment. Both are byproducts of a strong belief in the importance of what you are doing. Nothing overcomes the sense of doubt better than developing a sense of certainty about the value of what you are doing. And the more you believe that you are benefitting other people the stronger that sense of certainty can be.

I'm not talking about blind, unfounded optimism here. I am simply saying that if you have developed a clear idea of what you want and a robust plan for it's achievement then you should believe in yourself and your ability to execute your plan.

Release your enthusiasm, commit yourself totally and swap doubt for certainty.

Make it your habit to be optimistic and positive

# 2 The Battleground - How to Overcome Obstacles

"S _trength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength." Arnold Schwarzenegger_

_Why do there have to be obstacles all the time in life?_

Many so-called obstacles are simply not real. The monkey mind on top of your shoulders is constantly unsettled, restless, capricious, whimsical, fanciful, inconsistent, confused, indecisive and often appears uncontrollable. With all that going on it is little wonder that it is a constant battle to achieve what we want.

When you add to that the millions of combinations that are created by other people's thoughts and activities the challenges that any venture encounters are always going to be numerous and unpredictable.

Those who achieve their goals are those who follow their plans with determination. They do not accept excuses or give up when they encounter obstacles. They keep on battling on. They are always prepared to adapt and change to meet the challenges of any new situation.

The battles make us what we are. If you keep giving up you will never achieve anything. It is the people who keep battling on who learn, who forge their characters in the heat of their battles. These are the people who eventually become what they want to be. As winners they then take great pride in their achievements because they have overcome the obstacles that life has placed across their path.

# 3 Managing Your Monkey Mind

_W hy do you refer to my mind as a monkey?_

Minds do not sit still any more than monkeys ever remain stationary for any length of time. Watch a monkey - it is always moving, whether it is its constantly searching eyes, its twitching tail or searching for mites in its fur. In the same way, your mind is unsettled; restless; capricious; whimsical; fanciful; inconstant; confused; indecisive; uncontrollable. Life is a constant struggle to direct your mind to pay attention to the things that matter.

We will speak later about the importance of daily meditation, of developing the habit of noticing and working with your thoughts for at least a small part of every day. The more you can be aware of, and in command of the activities in your mind, the more control you will have over the events in your life. The result will be that you will increasingly become your own person. This is the key to becoming the master of your destiny.

When you accept that being in control of your thoughts is a key part of being able to create the life you want you will have taken a giant step towards the achievement of that goal. It is not enough to live in hope - you have to take control of your most powerful friend and ally.

A woman was going to the shops. She had in mind two items she wished to purchase. She also knew that there was a third item she needed, but she couldn't remember what it was. "I expect that I shall remember it just as I return home," she told herself, laughing. Then her discipline kicked in and she changed her thinking, she told herself, "No, I shall remember that third item just as I enter the store." And sure enough the moment she walked into the store it came to her.

In this book I will encourage you to meditate every day. To sit down and keep your body and mind still and calm for 10 minutes. Start as you mean to go on. Meditate every day from now on. The best time is first thing in the morning, before other activities take over your life. If early morning is not possible choose a time when you can find somewhere quiet in your home.

The important point is to do it, every day bearing in mind that there is no such thing as bad meditation - only no meditation.

# 4 How It Started For Me

**T his is how it all started for me - maybe you had a similar experience?**

For much of my life I felt a bit like a small baby, yet to learn to walk, sitting on the floor, staring up at adults who were doing all sorts of cool things like walking, talking and eating with knives and forks. By my twenties the adults to whom I was looking up were Achievers; those people who won Olympic Gold Medals, became Chief Executives, coached winning teams, had loving relationships, lived in beautiful houses, had close friends, took their vacations in out-of-the-way places and generally seemed to have it made. The questions that absorbed my thinking were, "How do they do it?" "What is their secret?" "How come they manage to create such good lives for themselves?"

It wasn't that I felt the need to live in a mansion, or make a million, or marry a film star; I already had everything a man could desire in a wife, a life-long friend and companion - no, it was more like an inner voice demanding that I lay down a marker for my life, that I achieve something that would define my having passed through the world.

You can, if you wish, read more about my personal journey of self-discovery in my memoir A Journey of Self-Discovery.

In my search for answers I read hundreds of books; autobiographies and biographies, psychology books, self-improvement books and 'how to' books. A quarter of a century ago I became a Performance Coach because I felt that I had accumulated more knowledge on the subject of personal development than most people possess, so I thought I might as well pass that knowledge along. Also, being a coach gives me wonderful opportunities to study human beings close up, and learn even more.

One of the breakthrough moments on my journey of self-discovery occurred when I read in a wonderful little book entitled How To Be Your Own Best Friend, this paragraph: "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."

Those two words "operate themselves" sang off the page to me. "Is it possible that human beings actually operate themselves?" I wondered. "And, if so, can we control that operating system or does it just happen for us?" I became more and more fascinated by the questions, "How do human beings operate themselves?" and "How do we get control of that operating system?"

In the thirty odd years since I read those words I have come to the conclusion that human beings use a very clear operating system. However, knowing the process is only part of the secret, you have to learn to master the art of operating yourself effectively in all circumstances if you are to achieve your goals.

From my experiences of coaching myself and others I have found many "tools" that enable us to use the self-operating process effectively so that we can achieve what we want in life. The most useful part of my toolkit has undoubtedly been NLP, Neuro-Linguistic Programming. In the pages that follow I will be showing you how to use those NLP techniques that I have found to be really useful.

In some chapters of this book you will find some short stories which have been chosen to illustrate methods that have proven to be helpful to many in their efforts to make themselves into the people they want to be. The stories are followed by explanations of techniques that you can use to create the life you'd love to live. Wherever possible I have laid out the "steps" that lead to success. All you have to do is follow these steps. I have synthesised everything down to its simplest form so you just have to take action.

I am a book buyer. The walls of my study are lined with books. Many of these books are what you might describe as self-help or self-improvement books. I have read them all. I am a believer in personal development, in growing my knowledge and ability about how to transform myself into a better, more loving, more helpful, more effective human being. I hope that you will follow my example and invest in your own personal development because I know that applying all that you learn from your reading will benefit you enormously.

Over the years I have noticed that I turn most frequently for advice and inspiration to the smaller books that are packed with wisdom, rather than to the large books that are padded out with hot air. This is not a book designed to give you a good read - this is a book designed to provide you with stepping stones to enable you to SWAP your unhelpful or unwanted thinking patterns, feelings and behaviours for the stronger thoughts, feelings and actions that will enable you to live the life of your dreams. This book has been devised to provide you with the wisdom you need rather than hot air.

# 5 The Largest Room in the World

"T _he largest room in the world is the room for improvement." Anon_

**What's important about this?**

Of course we all know that we were born perfect, our mothers told us, didn't they? The problem is that somewhere along the way we became slightly less perfect. Now we need to fill in the cracks. The way to do this is by:

accumulating knowledge,

applying knowledge,

well-directed hard work,

and practicing what works.

**Kaizen** is a business philosophy of continually improving all processes and functions. The idea that nothing is ever finished, everything can always be improved upon, was introduced into Japan shortly after the end of World War II by W. Edwards Deming the American engineer, professor and management consultant and other American business and management lecturers.

Three years after the end of World War II a Japanese entrepreneur arrived at a factory in Sheffield, England, the centre of the British steel industry. The factory made needles, and the Japanese wanted to study their manufacturing process. At the end of his visit the factory manager presented his guest with a packet of needles. "These are the smallest needles in the world. It is not possible to make smaller needles than these," the manager announced proudly. The visitor bowed, thanked his host profusely and returned to Japan.

Two years later the Japanese returned to the factory in Sheffield and presented the factory manager with the small packet of needles that he had been given at the end of his previous visit. He encouraged his hosts to open the packet and study the needles. Inside of each needle they discovered an even smaller needle.

Each of us is a work in process. There is always room for self-discovery, room to improve.

The question is: "are you prepared to make the necessary effort to improve?"

# 6 Awareness The First Essential of Change

_W hy do you say that awareness is the first essential tool for change? Surely direction, planning and implementation are the most important elements of change?_

In any form of change you have to know what is going on in order to identify what needs to be changed. Only then can performance improve. For instance, if a runner came to you and said, "I'm a good runner, I'm really fit but I can't find a way to win races," the first point you would need to research is "what are you doing at the moment?" You would then study all elements of what the runner was doing, her diet, fitness regime, the distances she was training and competing, her style of running etc. etc. The same principle applies in life, you have to know what you are doing at the moment in order to decide what you need to change. And you have to be aware from moment to moment what impact your thoughts, feelings and actions are having on your life.

The reason why awareness is important is that you are a creature of habit. You do much of what you do in life on autopilot, without conscious thought. You do not think about the way you speak, the way you hold your knife and fork, the way you brush your hair and many more of the daily activities that make up your life. Not all of your daily activities will need to change if you are to create the life you want, but many habits may well need changing. These might include some habitual ways of thinking, some beliefs and even some of your likes and dislikes.

In order to decide what you need to change or add to your ways of being, you first need to choose the direction you want your life to take. We will deal with this in the next section of this book. However, regardless of what needs to be changed or added to your ways of being, it is certain that you will need to be aware of how you are now and how you need to be. So now is the time to start to practice noticing what you are thinking, feeling and doing - at every moment of your life.

It is not difficult to be aware of what you are doing if you make a conscious effort. At the moment you can easily make yourself aware of the fact that you are reading. You may even be aware that you are sitting down. You may also be drinking a cup of tea or eating chocolate. Noticing these points is easy when you are prompted to make the effort to concentrate on what you are doing. However it becomes more of a challenge to be aware of what you are doing at the moments when you are on autopilot. When you are walking through the cinema foyer you are probably not aware of the actions of your feet or the expression on your face.

The challenge of using the Awareness Tool lies in the question, "How do I become constantly alert and awake to every single thing that I am thinking, feeling and doing? By 'constantly' I mean, at every second of my life."

The answer is that it requires concentration and practice. You have to develop the discipline of making yourself pay attention to yourself. You need to be wide awake - all the time.

In his international bestselling book The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle counsels us to simply live in the moment. Be alive to what is going on in your life right now. To do this you need to monitor, from moment to moment, "What am I thinking right now? What am I feeling right now? What am I doing right now?" A big benefit of doing this is that you will start to notice many things that had previously been concealed from you. You will notice the colours of flowers, the shape of trees, the smiles people give you and many, many small happenings that had previously been hidden beneath your radar. You will be more awake, more alive.

There is only one way to achieve this and that is to follow the recommendation of the ancient Chinese philosopher Lau Tzu, "start and go on."

Make a habit of asking yourself constantly: "What am I thinking right now? What am I feeling right now? What am I doing right now?"

Be sure to make a point of doing this at 'highlight moments,' e.g when your feelings are strongly aroused.

You can also use "tagging" as a way of embedding actions that you want to make into habits. For instance, as you brush your hair each morning, you could ask yourself the questions: "What am I thinking right now? What am I feeling right now? What am I doing right now?" Once the habit starts forming, it will be easier to apply later in the day.

# 7 People Can Change What They Do and How They Are

_C an people really change? It seems to me that most of the people I know are pretty much as they have always been._

It is a common assumption that people cannot change. That the pattern of our lives is somehow set in concrete. But this is not so. Many people whom you know have created major changes in their lives.

One man I know was a farmer who lost his farm. After the setback he reinvented himself as a manager of sports grounds and was highly successful. Another man was the finance director of a major international transportation company. After a setback he reinvented himself in the office cleaning and security business. A lady of my acquaintance was a school teacher who became disenchanted with all the paper work that was preventing her from teaching. She reinvented herself as a garden designer.

Examples of major career changes that you will be aware of include the "B" movie actor Ronald Reagan who became President of the United States of America as did the peanut farmer Jimmy Carter and the lawyer Barak Obama. The runner Sebastian Coe became vice president of the International Association of Athletics Federations. The journalist Jeremy Paxman became a TV presenter. Walt Disney was a newspaper editor before he became a cartoon movie maker. Harrison Ford was a carpenter. Andrea Bocelli was a lawyer and Elvis Costello started life as a computer programmer. If all of these people managed career and lifestyle changes, then it is certainly possible for you to make changes in your life.

It seems to me that we often do not choose to recognise when other people make changes in their lives because by recognising that change is possible it puts the onus on us to make the changes we would really like to make ourselves and we are often unwilling to take the risks that change might incur. On the other side of the coin we often choose to not acknowledge changes because they can make us feel insecure. We want everything in our lives to remain as they have always been so that we can continue as we are.

A key point to recognise is that change is inevitable. In the 1920's/30's over a million men were employed as coal miners in the UK, today only a few hundred still have this occupation. Popular music changes from generation to generation. Fashions in both men's and women's clothing change almost from month to month. The food we eat changes constantly. The number of people who smoke cigarette in the USA has declined from 21% in 2005 to 15% by 2015. Virtually no-one was employed in any form of computing job fifty years ago, today most people can use a computer of some sort. In 1973 Motorola produced the first handheld mobile phone, it weighed nearly two and a half pounds and took 10 hours to charge. Today's mobiles weight less than three ounces and millions of people find it difficult to live without their "phone."

It is likely that with the ever increasing use of robots in industry many of the common jobs today will disappear in the next few years. The onus for human beings will be on employment that involves thinking and creating. Anything repetitive will be outsourced to a robot.

Whether you like it or not there is a high probability that the job you are doing today will disappear in the coming years and there will be a need for you to do something different. So why not gear up to consider the probability of change in your life?

If change is inevitable does it not make sense to be ahead of the game and to make the changes that you want in your life rather than be the victim of changes forced upon you?

The good news is that those who welcome change with open arms can look forward to renewed interest, stimulation and rewards that are likely to totally refresh their lives.

To get started write down the names of two people whom you know who have created the lives they want.

Write down the names of two famous people who have changed their lives.

# 8 I Want To Be A..........

Your mother may have said to you, as did mine: "What do you want to do when you grow up?

Let's put a different spin on the question: "What is it that you want to be? What really really matters to you? What would make you feel really good?

The Big question:

_What are you doing when you feel really good about yourself_?

Good feelings can be achieved in many diverse ways, in many different spheres of life. "Ice cream with chocolate sauce, a new hair do, exam success, a promotion, your first car, a pay rise - all of these can make you feel good, and nothing wrong with that.

They are good, even precious, moments in our lives.They may be lasting memories to be sure, but they are from OUTSIDE ourselves.

The real game changers come from INSIDE ourselves.

_"I feel really good about myself"_ is far more personal; a feeling about oneself created by personal thoughts, actions and achievements.

Others may suggest by word or by example what is good or even great, but only one person can make the final decision, because only one person knows what you _really feel_.

The name of the game is to identify the situations that create strong feelings inside of you and then make those situations happen! Think about it carefully and positively.

Let's talk about me for a minute. I am a keen golfer. Usually I play a reasonable game, but yesterday I had one of those days. It was a club competition, and I could not have hit the clubhouse with a five iron from twenty feet. I played awful.

In golf, as in life, we all have days like this. I went through eighteen holes of hell telling myself my next shot would be better, although it never happened.

I am proud to say I refused to sink into "a slough of despond."

Although I was near despair with my game, I kept trying. At the end of the day, as I watched my last ball hit the water, I did not send my clubs in to join it. Instead I asked myself as I had all afternoon: "What are the good things to take out of this?"

I came up with some answers that pleased me. I had kept my cool. I did not burden my friends, who were playing well, with copious moans of "poor me". We all had a really nice afternoon, with a few laughs at my expense, but that's what your mates do - it did me no harm. On a difficult day I had been in control, if not of my game, certainly of myself.

_I felt good about myself!_

I had reinforced the valuable lesson that my feelings are my own. Any situation can influence us to want to feel a certain way, but we always have a choice as to how we decide to feel. I could have given in to a feeling of self-pity. Instead I chose to use the situation as an opportunity to test my determination to make every effort to do my best. A significant part of being my best was to ensure that I remained good company for my companions.

It is up to each one of us to decide what constitutes success, what will make us feel good about ourselves, and how our success will affect those around us. We may wish to impress, cement friendships or even influence others. If it makes us feel good, why not!

The opinions of others reinforce our feelings of self esteem. But, are they more important than our own feelings of self-esteem?

Friendships and successful relationships give us a great and durable sense of wellbeing better than possessions, be they Ferraris or Ferragamos.

Surroundings that are attractive to us help us feel good. They may be the nonstop action of the city, the quiet and peace of the country or warm sunny beaches and the sound of the sea.

How about the fireside when a storm is due. A warm, cosy home, with an atmosphere of love for family and friends should make us feel as good as just about anything.

There are those who profess to prefer isolation. Indeed it may be true for some. Others may not have succeeded in identifying worthwhile goals, and shield their feelings and insecurities in loneliness. Perhaps they need our friendship, for us to share what we have learnt about about our own wellbeing

When I first decided I wanted to write books, it seemed like a good way to earn some money. I now know better. I have written several books and the royalties would not pay for me to ride in a big city taxi more than once a year.

This led me to think that perhaps I am motivated by the desire for fame. Wrong again. "Oh, you write books? I've got a great idea for a book. Perhaps we could write it together?"

I have moved on. I now know I am someone who works to help or entertain others. That is my very personal success - My PASSION!

And here is that passion in action as I rewrite and hone the text of this book in my efforts to make it more valuable to you my reader. I may well come back and rewrite it yet again. The important point is not that I am just a writer, it is that I want to use what I have learned to help you to make a difference in your life.

It is this urge, this passion to create, to communicate, to pass on what I have learned that I know is helpful, which keeps driving me back to the blank screen and keyboard in the middle of my IKEA desk.

Now you know my PASSION - one of them, but not the only one. But did you notice that the passion is driving me to persist, to keep on trying, to look for new and better ways to achieve my goal.

More important - what are YOUR PASSION?

To help define them let's ask a few basic but important questions:

What do you really love doing? What are you doing when you feel really happy?

Got that one down? Good! Now try these:

In what situations could you more frequently do what makes you happy?

What changes do you need to make in yourself to enable you to do that more of the time?

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# 9 Know Yourself

"T _here is a legend carved into a stone above the entrance to the Greek temple at Delphi. It says simply, "Know Thyself."_

A critical part of understanding yourself is understanding your personal motivations. In particular it is the hierarchy of your motivations that makes a significant difference to the way that you make decisions.

We each place our own priorities on those of our motivations that are most important to us. Our priorities are based on what we have learned from our experiences of life and on the conditioning that we have had imposed upon us by our upbringing.

There are six main driving forces that motivate human beings:

  1. the basic need for food and water
  2. the need for shelter and warmth
  3. The want to feel safe and secure (confidence)
  4. the desire to reproduce; family, relationships & friends
  5. the desire to feel important and achieve (recognition and achievement)
  6. the desire to achieve our full potential

I have taken for granted that you can obtain sufficient to eat and drink and that you have some form of shelter. Yes, I am aware that you might want to improve or upgrade your accommodation; we will come to that later. For the moment what we are concerned about are motivations numbers 3 to 6.

In my experience the issue that frustrates most people is their inability to achieve their full potential. Most of us simply do not know what potential we possess and what we ought to be striving for.

Actually, that last paragraph is not quite correct. We do know what we ought to be striving for. It's likely that you have thought about it many times but have chosen to ignore it or confine it to the back of your mind for one reason or another.

For instance I first started writing in my late teens. I did a bit in my twenties. And a bit more in my forties. It wasn't until I was in my sixties that I started to pay attention to my need to express myself by writing.

Two issues stopped me from making more effort earlier in my life. The first was that I did not believe in myself; I did not believe that I had anything worthwhile to say. The second was conditioning, I had been brought up to believe that middle class people like me should be managers of some sort. I just could not bring myself to believe that writing would ever provide me with the status and income that I felt responsible for providing for my family.

Because you obtained a copy of this book I guess that you may well have a similar issue. You simply do not know what you are cut out to be.

Think back is there some dream that you have repeatedly been conscious of demanding your attention?

Have there been times when a particular type of work has suggested itself to you? Has it been the same type of work on many occasions?

It is common for people to dismiss the activities that could give them real fulfilment as being nothing more than pipe dreams. You too have been conditioned by the surroundings in which you were brought up. You may not wish to behave in a way that might seem "wrong" to your family because you either do not wish to upset them or because it could make you feel insecure if you did not behave in a way that would be considered "normal" by your family group.

The biggest challenge of all can be the feeling of insecurity that invades your being when you start to consider a change of direction in your life. How can you be sure that you will be able to earn enough money? What will your family and friends think? They already have you neatly pigeonholed as a.............. It could have a bad effect on their sense of security if you suddenly morph into someone different.

The point about which you have to get clear is this. What we are talking about is your life. It is not a dress rehearsal. This is the real thing. You only get one shot at life. You can either let it drag by doing something that you dislike with people who are not your sort of people and lead a dull, unfulfilling life. Or you can do what you were meant to be doing and find purpose and meaning in your existence.

Making a career change takes courage. Many people do it out of necessity when their jobs become redundant. The strange thing is that redundancy often turns out to be a blessing, it forces people to make the decision to do what they were meant to do in the first place.

Very often problems arise when your motivations come into conflict with one another. Often the desire to feel safe and to guarantee food and shelter come into direct conflict with your desire to achieve your full potential. A step in the direction of doing what you think you were always meant to be can appear risky and therein lies the challenge to just how important is it for you to become what you are meant to be.

What you should consider is this. Cast your mind forward to the time when you retire. Perhaps you move to a bungalow or condo by the sea or beside a nice peaceful lake. As you sit out on your balcony enjoying the warm evening sunshine and look back over your life, how satisfied will you be about the way that you lived your life? Will you look back on some worthwhile achievements, or will you just be able to say I put food on the table all those years.

What's your excuse?

I'm sure you can think of any number of "reasons" why you should not change.

Is the main reason - you are scared to try something new your fear of what might happen it doesn't work out?

The search for What-I-Am is a complex issue that I cover in great detail in my book How To Break Free and Be Happy. In the book you will find detailed instructions to help you identify what you are best suited to and what will enable you to find a way to being purpose and meaning into your life.

May I suggest that you start working on your positive attitude right now. To achieve anything you need to be positive. You need to believe "I can achieve this." And that belief needs to show up in everything that you think, feel and say.

Write down, right now, what you are going to think and do in every situation that you encounter in your everyday life that will ensure that you are always positive.

# 10 THE BIG IDEA -

Your ego often gets in your way.

_I want to create the life I want, but I have so many expectations of the way my life should be that it seems impossible that I can ever achieve everything I want._

You ask about "achieving everything you want." My question to you is, "which you is doing all this wanting?"

You see there are actually two sides to you. There is your Natural Self, the real person, if you like; and then there is your Ego that is always searching outside of you for satisfaction, always trying to keep up with someone else.

The Natural Self is at the core of who you are, the unadorned basic human being who wants to be happy, healthy, loving, loved and to enjoy a meaningful life. This is the part of you that connects to nature's bounty - sunsets, flowers, fresh fruit, simple meals, friendships, lively conversation and the sun's warmth. Your Natural Self feels right when exercising skills and abilities that flow from you intuitively.

Your Natural Self is very different from your Ego.

Your Ego is the needy, greedy, envious, jealous part of you that is forever being seduced by the latest glitzy bauble or status symbol. Like a spoilt child it always wants what other people have. It can seem as if your Ego has a life of its own because it can so easily persuade you that you must have some glittering new possession. Before you know it your plastic is out and you are the owner of a new object. But then, only a short while later, the satisfaction of ownership dwindles and your Ego is searching again for something new that you must own. Your Ego is never satisfied, forever searching for the ultimate possession or position that might make it feel that it has arrived.

It is important to distinguish between what you really want and what your Ego is demanding to satisfy its urge for fame, glitter, status and other symbols of success. All of us are cursed by the demands of our Ego. The problem with your Ego is that it will always find something new that it wants. Buy a car and within days it will want a bigger car, or a more powerful car, or a pink car. Nothing is ever good enough for your Ego.

Your life is a constant struggle between your Natural Self and your Ego. Happiness and meaning can only be found when you stop paying attention to your Ego's demands and focus on what your Natural Self is telling you is right for you, what you need to do to make your life the way you want it to be.

Lasting feelings of accomplishment only come from satisfying the needs of your Natural Self for love, friendship, good health and feeling that you have given valuable service to others.

Make it your habit to laugh at the demands of your Ego. Whenever you hear your Ego demanding just remind yourself of what your Natural Self really wants and refocus on your vision of the way you want your life to be.

**The Flame That Attracts, Irresistibly**

_"I welcome and seek your ideas, but do not bring me small ideas; bring me big ideas to match our future." Arnold Schwarzenegger_

Success depends on moving away from dreaming and hoping that something might happen that will get you what you want. Dreaming and hoping are external activities, they're unlikely to lead to fulfilment. To achieve goals human beings need to move towards self-realisation, this is an internal activity which will empower you to achieve what you want.

On August 5th, 1935, at the height of the Great Depression in the USA, a 44-year old entrepreneur named Leo Burnett hired a suite of rooms in the Palmer House hotel in downtown Chicago and founded an advertising agency. At that time millions of penniless men were queueing for handouts at soup kitchens across America because they could not find employment. Yet here was a man setting up a business whose purpose was to stimulate consumer spending.

The word on the streets of Chicago that summer was that Leo Burnett would soon be bankrupt and selling apples on a street corner, beside all the other down and outs.

By the time Leo Burnett Died, 36 years later, on June 7th, 1971, the Leo Burnett Company was one of the world's largest, most successful advertising agencies. Today they have 85 offices around the world. And in the reception area of every one of those offices you will find a bowl of fresh apples; they are offered free of charge to welcome all visitors. Over the last ten years the headquarters agency in Chicago alone gave away some 3 million apples.

From the outset Leo Burnett focussed his very considerable enthusiasm on his one big idea, "create the best advertising in the world - bar none." He did that by remaining true to his belief in "the warm sell" and energetically leading the hard working teams that created the Marlboro cowboy, the Jolly Green Giant, Tony the Kellogg's Frosties tiger and many more brand symbols and advertising campaigns that have fostered warm feelings about the products they promote. These campaigns were created by a combination of educated intuition and hard work, the two qualities Leo admired above all others. He espoused the saying: "steep yourself in your subject, work like hell, and love, honour and obey your hunches."

Around the world many advertising men and women are proud to say that we shared Leo's vision, that we worked at "Leo's."

Leo Burnett's story exemplifies the path followed by most people who transform their lives. Locking on to a Big Idea is a simple path, but it must be pursued with disciplined focus, with belief that it can be made manifest by diligent hard work.

_**"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all."** Helen Keller_

_It is obviously very important for me to know what life I want to create for myself. I have some vague ideas about how I would like my life to be, but they don't seem practical to me. How do I find the right direction?_

The mistake that most people make when considering changes in their life is to look at what's already out there, at what other people are doing. They ask themselves, "what do other people do that looks cool?" or "What else could I do?" By doing this they miss the point. You're not someone else, you're you. If you are going to create the life you'd love to live you have to be doing what you love to do, not what someone else loves to do. Someone else may be doing what you want to do, but your job is not to copy them, it is to do it your way.

So the best place to start is by exploring what you love doing, and in particular getting clear on what specific aspects of the things you enjoy are meaningful to you. The key is to explore what you do whilst paying close attention to the moments when you are actually in love with what you are doing. By that I mean that you must notice the specific moments when you get a buzz, when you feel a slight thrill. It may be a moment when you feel important or feel that you have made a special contribution.

You can get an idea of how the power of love can motivate a person and give them long term work fulfilment from the obituary of Australian sailor Henry "Nobby" Hall. Nobby joined the Australian navy as a boy of 16 and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. At his memorial service it was said of him: "He loved the navy. He breathed the navy. He dreamt the navy. He had it for breakfast, lunch and tea."

So the area to explore is what do you so love doing that you breathe it, you dream about it and you would have it for breakfast, lunch and tea, if you could?

One of my clients was a fanatical squash player. He played at least four times a week and would have played more had he been able to make the time. When we discussed what he found so enticing about the game of squash he eventually understood that although he enjoyed the physical exercise, it was actually the search for ways to improve his game, for ways that would give him an edge over his opponents - it was this he thought about the most when he was away from the courts.

When we took that discovery further and looked at other aspects of his life, he noticed that he enjoyed helping his children with their homework and showing people in his department how to use new software. The man was a natural teacher. With this discovery he focussed on teaching and trained in his spare time to become a teacher of English as a Foreign Language. He was ambitious and set himself the goal of becoming the head of an English language school. He now runs a very successful college that teaches English in the country that had always appealed to him as being his ideal place to live.

As you start to review your activities so that you can identify what you would like to do with your life, the first two questions to ask yourself are:

"What do I love doing?" Write a list. Freewheel, don't leave anything off your list.

Then ask: "what is it specifically about what I love doing that gives me a real buzz? What skills do I use that feel natural to me?" Analyse how you feel when you're doing what you love to do. When do your feelings become really engaged? When do you feel a small extra spark of life?

At this stage you should pause in your reading and do some list writing. Relax and cast your mind back to those highly enjoyable times in your life. Really think about yourself and what you love. Is there something that you find yourself doing again and again with pleasure. There is a clue in anything that you come back to repeatedly and do again and again. You wouldn't be doing that if you weren't getting pleasure from the activity. This must be something that you really love to do!

This exercise is probably the most important part of the whole process of creating the life you want. Get this part right and the rest will almost happen of its own accord. Please take as much time as you need and be really thorough. You don't decide where you will go on your vacations in five minutes, so give even more time to planning the rest of your life.

* * *

Having decided what you love to do, you need to now formulate that into a vision. Visualise yourself doing what you love to do, then ask yourself:

What particular aspect of doing this gives me the most pleasure? (With the squash player it was observing how he and others played the game. He noticed when mistakes were made, when poor shots were played, when shot selection was poor, and when a player showed a lack of fitness or commitment. It was the observation that he was interested in these aspects of performance that revealed the hidden teacher in him.)

Once you have decided what aspect of your chosen activity gives you pleasure, ask yourself, "Who am I doing it for?" This will give you an altruistic sense of purpose, which creates a "feel good" aspect for your work, as well as defining the target audience for your work.

Part of your vision should also reveal the location for your work. You need to answer the question, "Where am I doing what I love to do?"

Once you have a vision of what you would love to do, two points become important: testing and practice.

You need to immediately start practicing what you will do. If you are to be a writer, write every day. If you are to be a teacher, teach every day in some way. If you are to be a fitness instructor work on your fitness every day and find someone to instruct, even if you have to do it without pay.

Before you launch yourself into your new way of living you should test your commitment to your new course of action by practicing constantly.

Is it easy for you to remain focussed on your new direction? Does it excite you when you talk to others about what you are doing? Do you feel a surge of energy? If it bores you it is not sustainable. Do you feel confident that what you are doing is important to others? Does it make you feel proud to be doing this? When you practice does it give you a feeling of fulfilment?

If the answer is "yes", the time has come to deepen your understanding of what you will be doing by exploring all aspects of your new course of action.

Step 1

To achieve anything your first requirement is your very own BIG IDEA - it is what you want to achieve. This should be something that will define you. When you have achieved your goal other people should look at you and say: "she/he is a wonderful.........................."

Fashion your BIG IDEA into a giant, technicolour motion picture, a VISION.

Make yourself the star of your vision movie.

Notice what you are doing and what those around you are doing.

Hear every detail of the soundtrack.

The vision needs to be already occurring. It is now. You are doing it. It is NOT something that you "will do," or you are "about to do," or you are "trying to do." It is happening now!

See yourself winning that Olympic gold medal,

or

see yourself running that large corporation,

or

see yourself living happily with the partner of your dreams,

or

see yourself living in the house of your dreams,

or

see yourself living on paradise beach,

or

see yourself creating "the best advertising in the world - bar none."

Now it's your turn. What's your BIG IDEA. _Write your BIG IDEA her_ e:

_I see myself:_

..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Feel the feelings that the movie of your Big Idea create inside of you. Dive into those feelings, revel in them.

Step 2

Next, test your BIG IDEA by answering these questions:

Do you sincerely and deeply believe that you can make your vision a reality - that it is already coming true?

Stop, please THINK CAREFULLY about your answer. Give yourself a few minutes, this is a short book, so you have plenty of time. Do you sincerely and deeply believe that you are already making your vision a reality - is it coming true?

Yes? or No? (If you answered "no," go back and recreate your vision.

Next, ask yourself: "Is this really who I am?" Be truthful, it could save you from wasting a lot of time and energy. Pursuing what is merely a dream can be like walking towards a mirage in a desert.

Now for the acid test: Do you feel inspired, excited and energised when you look at the technicolour movie of your BIG IDEA in your mind's eye? I don't mean just a "tingle" of excitement. I mean are you so excited that you can't sit still, that you leap out of your chair and just start making it happen?

Without these feelings you will never have the enthusiasm, the energy, the determination, the persistence to do the work necessary to make your Big Idea your reality.

Your Big Idea has to feel important. No, more than important, it has to feel essential to your ever feeling that your life's purpose has been fulfilled. Do you feel that way about it?

Step 3

The BIG IDEA for this book, my vision, is:

_"I see inspired people everywhere swapping their weaknesses for the empowerment that transforms their Big Ideas into their realities"_

Note: it took me several attempts over a period of many days to express my Big Idea exactly as I wanted it to be. For me it is important that other people are creating the lives they want and feeling happy - that is what does it for me.

When I view this vision it excites me, makes me feel inspired and cements my nose to the grindstone of hard work.

Now it's your turn - do everything you can think of to make your BIG IDEA your reality. Breath life into your vision with size, colour and motion. Make the sounds exciting. Take it out of your mind and put it out there in the world.

Now, once again, write down or draw a picture of your BIG IDEA.

Work on your movie, embellish it every day. Refine it. Hone it. Make it more and more real.

What to do next:

Carry your Big Idea with you everywhere you go. Review it constantly. Embellish it. Live with the excitement of it. Let that excitement flow from you in everything you do.

Learn more about how to do this from How To Break Free And Be Happy.

# 11 Intuition the Positive Voice Within

_I notice that you recommend that I listen to my intuition. How do I distinguish between my intuitive voice and my desires?_

That is a really good question which has important implications for the choices you make. You need to pay careful attention in order to distinguish between the two voices coming from within.

The voice of desire is nearly always demanding. It sounds like, "we must have one of these, immediately." Desire is impatient, it demands instant gratification. Giving in to your desires will nearly always result in some form of gratification, which will nearly always be short-lived. Desires tend to come and go. They tend to be easily sated by simply giving in to the desire.

Desires tend to be emotionally charged. They are often sparked by obvious symbolism, loud, vivid colour or sound.

Intuition on the other hand sounds like a more moderate "nagging" voice coming from within telling you, "this is the right thing to do." Your intuitive voice wants to be listened to. It tells you, "this is the right way to go," or "this is the right person to be with or to listen to."

When you meet someone for the first time your intuition tells you very quickly whether or not you like this new person in your life.

Your intuition often tells you whether or not you can trust someone.

Your intuition tells you right from wrong.

When it is prompting you to do something it is usually right.

Your intuition can beat you up if you don't listen to it, as in: "why on earth didn't you do that?"

Sometimes you get a feeling that something is right for you. Maybe an item of clothing that is unlike anything you have ever purchased before just feels right when you try it on. Or maybe someone from a completely different background appeals to you as a friend. Sometimes a book on a newsstand just appeals to you. Often these choices cannot be justified by precedent or logic, but they are nonetheless right for you.

When you allow your intuitive way of doing things to flow your natural abilities often come to the fore. When you are doing things your way it feels right for you and excellence is achieved much more easily. This combination of trusting your intuition and making use of your natural abilities often oils the wheels of your activities.

There is a wonderful freedom that comes from just being yourself, doing what comes naturally to you. It just feels right when you let yourself go and express yourself through what you are doing.

Warning: letting yourself go when under the influence of alcohol, drugs or other stimulants can be dangerous. When 'under the influence' it is not you speaking but the stimulant. This is not your intuition speaking, this is just abdicating responsibility.

Be aware of your intuition and practice listening for and to your "nagging" voice from within.

# 12 How?

"P _lanning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now." Alan Lakein_

No goal is ever achieved without a Plan of Action.

The bigger a plan the smaller the likelihood that it will every be acted upon.

Make your plan brief, simple and succinct.

Your plan should describe, in easy steps, the means, methods and steps by which your goal, objective or Big Idea will be achieved.

The most useful word in making a plan is:

"BY."

As an example let's imagine that your Big Idea is to open a French cuisine restaurant.

You plan might look something like this:

By finding a good location.

By creating a tasty menu.

By hiring a high class chef.

By designing a warm and friendly, French themed interior.

By opening on July 4.

Etc. etc. etc.

Can you see how this simple process creates the action points necessary for you to make your Big Idea your reality?

Now it's your turn. Start to write your plan here:

# 13 Excellence is The Only Standard

"W _hen you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either." Leo Burnett_

_Why do I have to set the bar so high? Surely it will stress me to be demanding so much of myself?_

It may initially sound like a lot of effort when I suggest that excellence is the only standard to set yourself, but, just like anything else excellence can become a habit. The more you practice being excellent in everything you do the easier it becomes to achieve the standard.

The reasons for setting yourself this standard are so that:

  1. you will always be impelled to give of your best which will benefit both you and those you serve.
  2. You will feel proud of your achievements.
  3. Even when you fail you will know that you have given it your best shot.
  4. You can always be sure that your clients are getting the best that you have to give.
  5. You will feel fulfilled at the end of every exercise knowing that you gave your best.
  6. Clients return time and again to providers who give excellent service.

The achievement of excellence doesn't always mean that you have to work slavishly at what you are doing. Rather it means that you have to seek ways to do what you are doing to the highest possible standard. The questions to ask yourself are, "who does this really well?" and "how can I do it as well as, or even better than, they do?"

When I set out to become an NLP Master Practitioner there were many role models that I could have followed. Many of these teachers had made NLP into an intellectual exercise. That approach neither appealed to me or suited my personality. I wanted to be able to use NLP in ways that would enable my clients to make important changes in their lives.

I followed the example of Richard Bandler because to me he was the master of helping people to make changes in their lives. At the time that I made this decision I did not rationalise my decision I simply obeyed my intuition. It was only years later that it occurred to me why I had been impelled to go in that direction by my own needs. The same rationale applied to my lack of any desire to teach others how to use NLP, I simply wanted to use the NLP tool kit as part of my array of methods for helping others to achieve their goals.

What becomes obvious when you study excellence is that products and services that achieve a reputation for excellence both sell for the highest prices and last longer in the market place. Mercedes Benz motorcars, Rolex watches, Polo Ralph Lauren shirts, Claude Monet paintings, Faberge jewellery to name but a few products that have stood the test of time in the marketplace.

When Jiro Ono set up a street stall to sell sushi his ambition was simply to make ends meet for his family. But he worked at continually improving the quality of his dishes. Today, at the age of 91 he is still preparing sushi dishes. His restaurant is patronised by presidents and he is the world's oldest three-Michelin-star chef.

An important part of the answer to the question, "why excellence," is that people talk about products that do what they say on the tin. They talk about the benefits they received from excellent products and service providers. And nothing in the entire lexicon of marketing works better than word of mouth.

Think, breathe and live excellence in everything you do.

# 14 Make Yourself Unstoppable

"O _ur belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing (now get this - is the one thing) that ensures the successful outcome of your venture." William James_

Many ventures fail because of what you might call "half-heartedness." This is about how to fire yourself with the energy that will ensure that you don't succumb to this malaise.

Belief is the engine room of your BIG IDEA.

Belief gives you the energy.

Belief gives you the courage.

Belief gives you the perseverance to charge through obstacles.

Belief gives you the determination to keep going.

So, what is belief?

You believe when you completely accept that something is true or real even when there exists no evidence or scientific proof of its existence.

What does "completely accept" mean?

It means that you trust and have faith in its existence. That you are completely confident that it exists.

Now, bring to mind your BIG IDEA and answer these questions:

  * Do I completely accept that it is real?
  * Do I trust that it already exists?
  * Do I have faith that is already exists?
  * Am I completely confident that it exists?

If you answered "no" to any of these questions you must immediately go back to your written description of your BIG IDEA and rework it into a form that you do believe in.

If you answered "yes" to each of the questions you are ready to move on to the next chapter.

# 15 Intensity

"T _here's no point in being mediocre at anything." Sir David Tang_

_It worries me when I think that I have to go flat out for everything in life. Is this really necessary?_

You don't have to go flat out at everything but when something is important, when it has a bearing on the speed and success with which you create the life you want. It definitely pays to go harder.

This is about passion, about really caring about achieving your goals, making your plan work, achieving excellence. None of these will become your reality unless you put your head down and charge at your targets.

Probably the most successful teams in the world are the New Zealand All Blacks rugby union teams. Watch any of their games and you will notice how, in the last quarter of the game, when the opposition is tiring, they increase the intensity of their play. Their tempo rises noticeably. This is true of both the mens and ladies teams. Both raise the intensity with which they play as a deliberate strategy to achieve victory. It is remarkable how often they score the points that ensure victory in the last quarter of the game.

Intensity can be viewed as your second wind. When you find yourself flagging for some reason ask, "do I really want to make this happen?" When the answer is "yes," demand increased intensity from yourself - go for it!

For example, if I'm writing and I've got stuck, I will continue to just write - even if what I initially write is gibberish. I write on until eventually sensible words start to appear on the page. It is the same when I run workshops; sometimes I can feel my energy going down. As soon as I become aware that I am not giving my best it's time to up the ante. I stand up, pace about, raise the level of my speaking voice and put more energy into my delivery.

How do you become intense? The answer is that you push yourself. There is a kind of barrier between ordinary level performance and high level performance. The way through that barrier is by forcing yourself, for the love of your vision, to perform at the higher level. It is not natural at first, but like everything else, the more you push yourself the easier it becomes to achieve that level.

Practice intensity! Identify a task each day that usually tires you. Practice pushing yourself through that barrier each day. Notice what happens and aim to improve next time.

# 16 The Power of Feeling Proud

_W hy is it important that I have feelings about what I do?_

Your emotions provide the energy, the driving force if you like, for your life. In order to have lots of energy you need strong feelings about what you do. As what you do, or at least the way that you do it, is unique to you. It becomes important that you take a lot of pride in your way of doing everything so that you have lots of energy for your work.

As George Adams remarked: "Enthusiasm, like measles, mumps and the common cold, is highly contagious." It is noticeable that people who take pride in their work have such enthusiasm for what they do that they draw people towards them. It's as if they have a tidal flow that draws along everyone they meet.

When you feel proud about what you do it makes it much easier to talk about your work. You tend to talk about what is good about what you do. It therefore becomes much easier to convince others. Simply by talking with pride about your work you become a natural salesperson for your product or service.

Think about this: it is almost impossible to feel proud of anything that is shoddy, dishonest, second-rate, incompetent, of poor quality, broken or in any other way not fit for purpose. So, simply by displaying your pride in what you do you are encouraging yourself to raise the bar. Then you will find it easy to endorse the quality of your product or service.

Write a list of everything that makes you feel proud of what you are doing to create the life you want.

Create an elevator statement for your product or service that starts: "I am proud to say that I am a........................" or "I am proud to say that I provide a service that benefits people who need.................."

# 17 Passion - the Level at Which to Love What You Do

_I can understand passion for another person but how can I sustain passion for what I am doing?_

This is why it is so important to love what you do. If you want to change your life and make it into an exciting and enlivening journey you need to raise your level of loving to "passionate."

There are huge dividends to be gained from being passionate about what you do. Your level of energy goes up. Your enthusiasm goes up. Your engagement goes up. When all of that happens it becomes easier to talk about what you are doing with a level of enthusiasm that captivates those to whom you want to sell your product or service.

When you are passionate about what you're doing you create your own enthusiasm. You become self motivated. This is where the magic happens.

For a long time I couldn't understand why motivational speakers had so little lasting effect on my performance. Then it dawned on me. When you listen to a really good motivational speaker you become engaged with them, you catch their energy and enthusiasm. But that is the point, it is their enthusiasm, not yours. You have caught it in the same way as you catch a cold. As a result the further away you move from the speaker, in miles and time, the more the motivation declines; it lasts about as long as a common cold. But when you generate your own enthusiasm, through your passion for doing what you love, this personal motivation lasts for as long as you are producing your product or service.

This is also why it is so important to find your own way of doing what you do. When you have your own style you can love it to bits. It is not someone else's style, it is entirely your own. It is like having your own child. You always love your own child more than anyone else's child. Another child may be cute and beautiful, but you will never love it as much as your own child.

The question then is, "how do I raise the level of my love for what I do from love to passion?" The answer is the same as if you love another human being.

You don't hold back.

You commit fully.

You spend every waking moment absorbed by the vision; you think about it at breakfast, lunch and dinner. You give everything you've got to the venture. You play with it. You think of everything you can that might please it and make it love you back. You give to it of your time, your money, your ideas, your knowledge. And you introduce it to your friends and acquaintances with pride.

Spend all of your time intensely engaged with your vision. Recite it daily at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

# 18 TheWonder of Feeling Fulfilled

_W ill I ever feel fulfilled?_

Imagine that you are really enjoying your life and that you have reached this stage in your life as a result of all your own efforts - how good will that feel?

It is hard to imagine anything better than to feel free and that you have achieved that all on your own.

I know people who work for large organisations who feel really fulfilled in their work. They find it difficult to imagine doing anything else. These people are comparatively rare.

I know literally hundreds of people who have started a venture of their own and used the proceeds of what they do to enable them to live as they want. These people often feel fulfilled. There are many such people.

Then there are the millions of people who work simply to provide the income to enable them to do what they want when they have time to themselves. This lifestyle is becoming increasingly stressful because the ubiquitous use of electronic communications systems ensures that their work follows them around twenty four hours a day. There is also the added issue of jobs becoming redundant as demand for skills changes and as robots and software programmes take over some of the more repetitive tasks. There is little fulfilment to be had in doing any job solely for the purpose of providing an income.

Fulfilment depends to a large extent on using your creativity, your imagination or your knowledge to achieve an end. All people possess an inner need to express themselves in a meaningful way - a way that is important to them. You have a deep need to make use of your innate skills and abilities. But unless you can take an initiative or contribute in some way you do not "own" the result that comes from your efforts, and without that sense of ownership or having contributed there can be no sense of fulfilment. This is why people who do their own thing often feel so much more complete. You may not be an artist or a sculptor or even a blog writer, but provided that you can use what talents you have in some useful way you can get that sense of fulfilment. Many people do this simply by providing a service to others. That makes them feel that they are contributing to the wellbeing of the wider tribe and thus gives satisfaction. There is enormous satisfaction to be had from being of service in some way.

When you feel fulfilled it is as if your life's purpose has been achieved. That is a wonderful feeling that it is worth striving for - a feeling that makes life worthwhile.

So the answer to your question is that you will feel fulfilled when you contribute your thoughts, ideas, skills or abilities to some activity that produces a result that someone wants. Fulfilment often results from doing something which is of value to someone else. I recommended that you make altruism a goal; that you focus on activities that benefit others.

Notice when anything you do gives you a feeling of fulfilment and develop the habit of doing the same thing again and again.

# 19 Tattoo Cement

"A _mind wanders, thoughts flee and memories fade. But tattoos, tattoos are forever." Lauren Klarfeld_

Most people fail to achieve what they want because they lose focus. Here you will master the art of maintaining focus until you achieve.

I have a friend called Jenny who is a valuer. She can tell you the likely price you'd get if you sold any of your possessions at auction. Down at our local watering hole people often ask Jenny to pop round to their house and value something for them for insurance purposes. Jenny is a methodical lady and she likes to fulfil her promises. As a result whenever she gets such a request she takes out her lipstick and marks the mirror in her purse to anchor the memory that she has promised to do something for someone.

The question now is, how are you going to remember to remain focussed on your Big Idea and the good feelings that it gives you?

Anchoring is a process, popular amongst NLP practitioners, that will allow you to RECALL, whenever you wish, an image, a thought, a feeling, a sound or a behaviour. You can use an anchor to tattoo all the ingredients of your Big Idea onto your being.

Once you have created an anchor you will always be able to bring to the front of your mind your vision of your Big Idea together with all its associated good feelings, sounds, energy and behaviours.

The process for creating an anchor is very simple. This is all you have to do:

Step 1

Think of some physical act that you can do naturally, easily and without drawing undue attention to yourself. This might be pinching together your forefinger and thumb. Or crossing your index finger over your middle finger. Or pinching your ear lobe. You decide what you would like to use as your anchor.

Note: make sure your anchor action is specific e.g pinch the top of the index finger on your left hand with the top of the thumb of your left hand. Or, pinch your right ear lobe between the thumb and forefinger of your right hand.

The activity you select as your anchor will be used to recall all aspects of your Big Idea.

Note: in the steps that follow you will see the term "fire your anchor;" this is simply the instruction to DO whatever you have decided is your anchor. E.g. if your anchor is pinching your right ear lobe, when you see the instruction: "fire you anchor," you will pinch your right ear lobe.

Step 2

Link your anchor to your Big Idea. Here's how:

  1. Bring to mind your Big Idea.
  2. Make it big, colourful, moving, loud - be the hero.
  3. Revel in all the good feelings that watching the movie creates.
  4. Make the picture bigger, more colourful.
  5. Make the feelings stronger, more emotive.
  6. When you are completely immersed in the movie and feeling fantastic - **fire your anchor**.
  7. Hold your anchor for five seconds.
  8. Let go or your anchor, and let the image of your Big Idea and the associated feelings fade away.
  9. Distract yourself by thinking about and doing something completely different. You might read the newspaper or a magazine for 5 minutes. Or you might make yourself a hot drink.

Step 3

Repeat Step 2 three more times.

  1. Bring to mind your Big Idea.
  2. Make it big, colourful, moving, loud - be the hero.
  3. Revel in all the good feelings that watching the movie creates.
  4. Make the picture bigger, more colourful.
  5. Make the feelings stronger, more emotive.
  6. When you are completely immersed in the movie and feeling fantastic - **fire your anchor**.
  7. Hold your anchor for five seconds.
  8. Let go or your anchor, and let the image of your Big Idea and the associated feelings fade away.
  9. Distract yourself by thinking about and doing something completely different. You might do a Google search for 5 minutes. Or you might vacuum the floor.

Step 4

Test your anchor by firing it. See whether your Big Idea and its associated sounds and feeling return, at full force.

The word "tattoo" derives from the Polynesian word "tatau" which means "to write." Have you written an effective anchor onto your being? Is your Big Idea tattooed onto your mind, into your feelings and into your behaviour? Is your Big Idea integral to your being? Is it part of everything you think, you feel and you do?

Those who make their Big Ideas into their reality write their Big Ideas onto their beings.

Develop the habit of living with the exciting image, sounds and feelings of your Big Idea by firing your anchor at regular intervals throughout the day.

# 20 What's Stopping You?

"G _rowing pains sometimes may seem unbearable, but believe me they are nothing compared with the pain of shrinking or the pain of standing still." Leo Burnett_

In order to achieve anything you have to surmount challenges. It is essential to know how to identify the barriers that are stopping you from achieving what you want. These barriers are often written into our habitual behaviour. They can be so well ingrained, so automatic that we are not even conscious of the effect they have on our thinking, our feelings and our behaviour. Only when you identify your personal barriers can you break through to the world on the other side.

Peter Eddy was suffering a career crisis. He didn't seem to be making any progress, he wasn't earning sufficient money to meet his needs or wants or desires. He could see no signs that his situation was likely to improve. His work gave him only moderate satisfaction, but it was the lack of a future and the lack of job satisfaction that made him feel impotent and depressed.

Some might say that Peter was well educated. He had certainly attended a "good" school. He was intelligent, presentable and hard working. He made constant efforts to please his superiors. He was punctual, polite and energetic. But his efforts were not bringing him the rewards he felt should be his. He felt deeply frustrated.

It was almost as if Peter's thinking and behaviour had placed him in a dark prison cell. The four walls of his cell were:

His negative Past History was the wall behind him on which he leant. All the bad things he had heard said about him by his school teachers, parents and influential others were scored onto that wall. All the instructions he had been given in his youth were written there, "do this," "do it this way," "look at me when I'm speaking to you," "respect your elders and betters," "you'll never amount to anything if you don't...," and "money is the root of all evil."

Worst of all were the "rules" that had been instilled in him, all the "musts" "can'ts" and "don'ts." Many of these rules were based on the Ten Commandments - if you've ever studied those commandments you will know that seven are presented as negative instructions that tell people what they should NOT do. Peter was very good at not doing.

On top of these instructions Peter was loaded down with "I'm unworthy" stories about himself that he kept repeating in his mind. His self-talk was often negative; he would talk himself down and frequently express his anger and frustration. All of these mental activities were influencing his self-image and therefore, in all probability, affecting the image that he was broadcasting to the world.

On the prison wall beside Peter were the Fears that kept him from taking action. Amongst others these included the fears of rejection, of looking stupid, of not belonging, of failing, of high places and of authority figures.

On the cell wall opposite him were his Limiting Beliefs. Amongst these were his feelings that he was unworthy, that he was stupid, that he lacked sufficient knowledge, that he couldn't afford to take risks, that he was unable to learn and that he was not worthy of being loved.

His fourth wall had come into being because he had never been encouraged to express his own ideas and views. This Lack of Creativity limited his ability to invent an escape route from the hell he had made for himself. Actually that's not quite true, he constantly dreamed of what he would like to do, but, because of his negative outlook he never took the necessary action to make the stories he created become his reality. When he had a "should I" or "shouldn't I" discussion with himself about one of his ideas he just allowed the idea to slide gently into oblivion. His habit of not acting on his ideas was deeply ingrained.

When I told Peter's story to my first coaching mentor Duncan McColl, he responded with this pearl of wisdom:

_"If you do not take personal responsibility for conditioning your own mind, other people and events will do it for you."_ Other people had definitely conditioned Peter's mind.

Peter himself had not taken any sort of responsibility for conditioning his mind. For this situation his parents and the education system must take a deal of responsibility because neither had ever encouraged him to express himself or helped him to understand himself.

However blaming others will not help Peter, or anyone suffering from similar afflictions, to escape from their self-made hell. Like everyone else he would eventually have to " _take personal responsibility for conditioning his own mind_."

In the pages that follow we will see how people like Peter have managed to escape from their prisons of:

Personal History,

Fears

and

Limiting Beliefs

so that they can build the lives of their dreams.

Peter's problem and maybe yours as well, was that his personal history, fears and limiting beliefs were constantly TRIGGERING negative thoughts, feelings and behaviours. The frightening point about these triggers is that they had become ANCHORS - they constantly set Peter off on the wrong track.

What to do next:

Go straight to the next chapter - help lies there.

# 21 Courage - The Personal Quality Displayed by Achievers

_I have never regarded myself as being a particularly brave person. How can I get the courage to create the life I want?_

Courage is not about being macho. Courage is about feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Yes, you may feel fearful about committing to all that you have to do to achieve your goals. However, what you will find is that nothing is ever as daunting as you imagined it might be. Fear is only in your imagination. Only on rare occasions does anything happen in the present moment to scare you.

Most of what you fear is what you imagine might happen in the future. As Guy de Montagne remarked: "My life has been filled with fears - most of which never happened." It is true, most of what we fear never turns out the way we fear it will.

Look back over the years of your life. Bring to mind times when you have felt afraid. On how many of those occasions did you actually suffer some form of pain? And, on how many of the occasions did nothing untoward happen?

When you exercise your courage and push on through the barrier of fear you will feel good about yourself. And the way to push on is simply to intensify your effort to reach your goal.

Fear is nothing but a feeling, it was created by something you were thinking about. So, to rid yourself of the fear all you need to do is think about something different or think about the issues that is making you feel fearful in a different way.

People who are courageous are not people who feel no fear. They feel fear in the same way that you and I feel fear. The difference is how they respond to it. They do not say, "help this is scary!" No, they say, "what can I do about this?" They engage their thoughts in planning an activity to improve the situation, then they get on with it.

US President Theodore Roosevelt put it this way, "I have been afraid, but I make myself as though I am not afraid, and very soon the fear goes away." Notice how he uses the present tense to describe what he does. With nearly all your fears it's not possible to be afraid in the present moment because your fears are simply a story you have created about what you imagine might happen in the future.

_Is there a difference between anxiety and fear?_

Not really, they are both different sides of the same coin. They both result from focussing your attention on something that you imagine might happen that could be dangerous in some way. You feel a sense of foreboding or dread. It weighs heavily on you.

From now on very time you feel afraid, ask yourself, "what can I do about this?" Do this whilst making yourself as though you are not afraid.

# 22 Let Go of Your Life Raft

"I _f you want to fly on the sky, you need to leave the earth. If you want to move forward, you need to let go the past that drags you down." Amit Ray_

We all use habits to enable us to get through the day without having to think about every small thing we do. The danger is that some of these habits disable us from being able to achieve what we want. Here you will learn how to let go of disabling habits.

A good friend of mine was sent to a Roman Catholic boarding school when he was twelve years old. The boys there were encouraged to go to confession every week as part of their religious practice. This involved entering a curtained cubicle in the church where they knelt before an iron grill set in a wooden partition on the other side of which sat a priest. There the boys would confess all of their wrongdoings and the priest would listen and then grant absolution. Past misdemeanours would simply melt away.

My friend once told me that when he confessed a particular sin to which boys reaching puberty are prone, the priest would often intone in a rather bored voice, "how many times my son?"

Was the priest concerned about the boy's level of sinning, or was he worried that the boy could be developing a habit that might have consequences during his married life?

There are so many things that you also do without recourse to conscious thought. These are your deeply ingrained habits or auto-pilots. They developed as a result of constant repetition. They have enormous power over you. You have written many auto-pilots into your thinking and behaviour in order not to have to think. With auto-pilots you can simply respond to a situation.

When you get into your automobile you don't stop to think, "how do I drive this machine?" You simply ignite the engine and away you go. When you pick up your toothbrush in the morning you don't think, "how do I brush my teeth?" You simply apply toothpaste and start to brush away the film that accumulated during the night.

In the same way a habit might cause you to feel anger at someone else's thoughtless behaviour. Perhaps when you see them throwing rubbish out of the car window. Or you might look away when the chair of your meeting asks, "who's going to take the minutes?" These are automatic responses. You have hundreds of them written into the habits stored in your being.

A major challenge is that these automatic behaviours feel "right" to you. You never stop to critique your personal habits. You never ask yourself, "is this behaviour helping me?" "Does this behaviour make me the person I would like to be?" You just go on and on doing them automatically. You are blissfully oblivious of the damage that you may be doing to your self-image, your reputation and your ability to become the vehicle that will enable you to achieve what you want in life.

There's an important issue here - some of your feelings of security are tied in with these automatic behaviours. When this is the case the habit is like an addiction, you can be very reluctant to let go of those behaviours, even when they are not helping you. People will say things like, "well that's just who I am." Or "I've always done it that way; I'm too old to change now."

Hanging on to the life raft of disempowering habits can slow you down as effectively as the disc brakes on your motor car.

In order to be able to release any of these disabling habits the first step is to be AWARE that you have the habit.

Start by becoming SELF-AWARE - make it your business to notice what you think, say and do.

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" asks the Evil Queen of the Magic Mirror in the movie Snow White. She is confident that the mirror will always reply, "My Queen, you are the fairest in the land." The Queen is always pleased with the response, because the magic mirror never lies. But, when Snow White reaches the age of seven, she becomes far more beautiful than the Queen. When the Queen next asks her mirror, it responds: "My Queen, you are the fairest here so true. But Snow White is a thousand times more beautiful than you." This response triggers a titanic rage within the Queen. Overpowered by the emotion of anger, she orders the death of Snow White.

Emotions have the ability to overpower our reason. Do you have a habit of allowing your anger, or any other emotion to overpower your reason?

What habits do you need to release?

Are any of these habits on your list:

  * Allowing small things to spark your anger?
  * Avoiding difficult or irksome tasks?
  * Habitual lateness?
  * Not accepting feedback?
  * Only half listening?
  * Eating too much?
  * Miserliness?
  * Driving too fast?
  * Drinking too much?
  * Laziness?
  * Add your own disabling habits here:

........................................................................................................................................................................................................................

What to do next:

Detoxify. Realise that people are very good at adapting to their situations, to their environments.

The same basic human beings have learned to live successfully in the searing heat of deserts and the numbing cold of the Arctic Circle. They have adapted to where they are. The first arrivals in these hostile environments probably did not feel comfortable when they arrived but they learned to do what was necessary, they persevered they survived, they stayed.

When you first let go of the various elements of your life raft of disabling habits and swap them for a new way of living, it may not feel comfortable but simply by persevering you will adapt and your life will become immeasurably better.

In order to gain the freedom to be yourself, to be an achiever, make this your model for your behaviour:

# 23 Self-Belief - The Personal Quality that Drives Achievers

_H ow do I raise my level of self-belief so that it really impels me?_

People who really believe in the importance of what they do often seem very intense. Their belief comes from "ikigai" - they have powerful reasons for their mission to make their life the way they want it to be. What they are doing matters greatly to them.

Some people go through life hoping that things will work out for the best. Such people are often disappointed because they are not controlling their lives in any way. Others work at making sure things do work out for the best. The self-belief that drives achievers comes from the belief that what they are doing matters. Perhaps it matters to them because of a need to prove something to themselves. Perhaps they need to achieve a person goal. They may even be driven by a need to help others.

Many people are driven to work for charities by their need to do something for others. Others become care workers or therapists for similar reasons.

A friend has made himself into a top chef because he simply believes that he can cook better than most people. It can be that simple - the important point is self-belief.

Practice believing that you can bring to life your vision of the life you want by implementing your plan. You can when you believe you can!

If doubt arises when you view your vision, analyse it and tweak it until you believe.

# 24 Over-writing The Effects of Your History, Your Limiting Beliefs and Your Fears

"D _ecide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work". H. L. Hunt_

You carry a lot of baggage around with you. Here you will master the art of clearing out your attic of unwanted baggage.

Snakes change their skins two to four times every year. You shed thousands of skin cells every day. The epidermis layer of your skin completely replaces itself every 27 days.

When Tracy Waters was made a Team Leader in the technology department where she worked she was both elated and terrified. Elated because she felt it was justification for all her hard work and dedication, but terrified by the thought that she would now have to make presentations in front of her team.

You see in Tracy's past history there were many instances where she had been made to stand up in front of her class and read aloud from a book. For most students this is only a mild ordeal, indeed some students revel in the opportunity to show off their prowess; but for Tracy the experience was sheer terror. The moment she looked down at the page in front of her the words started to dance around, change their order and indeed some words went missing altogether. Although she didn't know it at the time, Tracy suffers from dyslexia. Her acute embarrassment was accompanied by violent blushing, stammering and a compelling desire for the ground to swallow her up. Sometimes she felt bitterly ashamed of herself for not being able to do what others could do. Other times she felt violent anger towards the students sniggering at her discomfort.

The memories of Tracy's classroom embarrassment never left her. She only had to think about standing in front of an audience and all the bad feelings came rushing back. However, Tracy was ambitious, and her dreams were strengthened by a strong determination to show those who had laughed at her that she was at least as good as them.

Fortunately for Tracy her company employed the services of a personal development coach. As a Team Leader Tracy was entitled to join the programme and take advantage of weekly coaching sessions. Her coach gave her three pieces of advice:

First, don't prepare word for word, just focus on what you want the audience to know or do by the end of your presentation.

Second, only talk to one person in the audience, the rest of the crowd may as well not be there.

Third, speak slowly, don't rush.

Then he taught her how to SWAP her old image of herself as a nervous speaker for a new self-image of a confident speaker.

Tracy had opportunities to practice using her coach as her audience. She gradually become accustomed to the sound of her own voice. By the time she had to make a real live presentation to her team, she was ready.

Her first appearance in front of her team was nerve-wracking, but she survived the experience. Gradually, as time went by, her weekly team briefings became easier and easier. She graduated to presenting the results of her team activities to her manager. A year later she spoke on the platform at a technology department seminar. Three years later her manager chose her to make a major presentation about her team's activities to the whole company. She received loud applause.

Your past also contains many incidents that have influenced your thinking and your behaviour. Some of these patterns have been repeated so frequently that they have become habits. You don't even notice how they affect your performance. The incidents that formulated these habits are a matter of fact in your history. The events and the impact they have upon you are written into the story of your life. To a large extent you are the sum total of your life experiences.

But that does NOT mean that the past has to go on influencing you for the rest of your life. It is possible to break the mould that has you in its grip and overwrite the old influences with new influences - if that is what you truly want to do. You can do what Tracy did.

Now that you've got your Big Idea you need to overwrite the events from your past that might prevent you from creating your new reality.

These steps will help you:

Step 1

Be aware of your disempowering habits. Make a list of the stories, situations and behaviours that cause you to lose power. We'll call this list "B". _Jot a few down here_ :

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Now make another list of how you would like to behave in each of those situations in order to achieve your goals. We'll call these empowering habits your list "A". _Jot a few down here_ :

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Step 2

Now all you have to do is SWAP a disempowering habit from list "B" for the way you would like to behave on list "A".

Here's an example:

Let's suppose that you are a poor time-keeper, you are habitually late for appointments. This would appear on your "B" list of disempowering habits.

You would like to become a person who is always punctual. This is on your "A" list of empowering habits.

Make a black and white picture of yourself arriving late for a meeting. Paste the picture on the RIGHT hand page of an imaginary book.

Next make a highly colourful picture of you arriving on time for a meeting. Animate the picture, notice how cheerful and enthusiastic you look. Add the sounds of friendly greetings. Allow yourself to feel proud that you are on time. Paste this picture OVER THE PAGE on the OPPOSITE LEFT hand page.

Now, look at the black and white "B" picture of you arriving late, on the right hand page. Grimace at your unwanted behaviour.

Say SWAP loudly and quickly turn the page. immerse yourself in the highly coloured picture of you arriving on time for a meeting. Notice how animated and cheerful you look. Hear the sounds of friendly greetings. Feel your chest swell with pride that you have arrived on time. Make the picture larger and larger until it fills your reality.

Repeat the page SWAPPING exercise several times.

You are now a good timekeeper.

Do the same exercise with any thought, feeling or behaviour on your "B" list.

Step 3

Get the SWAP habit.

Keep on developing your "B" and "A" lists.

Make black and white pictures of each item on your "B" list and colourful, animated pictures of each item on your "A" list.

Make it your habit to SWAP your unwanted "B" list thoughts, feelings and behaviours for your empowering "A" list thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

You can do this exercise with any thought, feeling or behaviour that you would like to SWAP.

With this simple process you now have the power to change many of your behaviours and become powerful.

All you have to do is develop a SWAPPING HABIT.

# 25 Triggers Routines and Constant Awareness

"C _hoose to be optimistic, it feels better." Dalai Lama_

So now you have a few things to work on that you designed for yourself. Time to get started.

But...............

"Does nobody understand my life!! Exactly when does anyone think I am going to have time for this stuff ."

"I have shopping to do this Saturday and I've agreed to meet Monica for coffee at 11.00. I'll have to start on Sunday when I wake up - when the pounding in my head lets up."

"I wanted get started when I was having my hair done, except Tracy wanted to tell me about her latest while she was doing my roots, and then Sandra got on the telephone and the afternoon was gone."

"I had just settled down with my book and my list when the mother-in-law appeared on her broomstick."

It's all very well to encourage positive thinking but I really don't know when or where to start."

Enough!!

Check on the list - YOUR list. Is 'excuses' on that list of yours?

Now I am not here to organise your day or your life - I have quite enough trouble with my own. However, I do know that triggers always help to get me started and I have a few ideas for you about TRIGGERS.

_I'm in your corner looking out for you on this one, so just a few tips to help you start the day._

Keep your visions in focus. Keep your Passion running high. Keep on Believing that you will get there. Use your Common Sense as a tool, NOT as a crutch.

This may not be the day you achieve your Goals, but today like every day you work towards them.

Use your Good Habits to make the most of your day. They will take you one step closer. Fight all the way, keep the passion up and BELIEVE and be persis..................

_" Right Seconds out of the Ring! No more coaching!"_

...............And there goes the alarm!

_Visualise, feel, hear your principle goal. What achievements are you working on? Are they going to make you feel good about yourself? You might want to set the alarm five minutes early (Sorry darling) so, as you slip from the arms of Morpheus you can take the next step to personal success with your vision clearly fixed in your mind. Like this you start the day with a good vibe as you leap, energised from your bed._

_The leaping bit is not compulsory, but you are on your way with the right attitude - feet on the floor, energy level up, body awake. You are creating the energy you must have to achieve your goal. "I can be the best at what I do, because I care deeply about those for whom I do it"._

_Feeling good? Damn right! YOU ARE THE ONE!_

_Now you have the right attitude, so as you go through the routine of the SH's (Shower, Shine, Shave etc) use this routine to reinforce what you feel:_

W _ash away any fears and doubts, any ill conceived psychic smallness. Look in the bathroom mirror and see "Courageous You" looking back at you._

_Start to live in the moment, the reality of NOW. You are aware of what you are doing and how it is making you feel._

_Think about what we have been talking about: The Good Habits like Passion and Belief and Persistence. They will make you successful in everything you do._

_Smile and the world smiles with you. This may come off a Cornish milk jug, which I suppose makes it corny, but to paraphrase Kate Winslett we can all use some corny in our lives. There is every reason in life to be likeable, a goal which comes from Happiness, which comes from having meaning and purpose. And that means feeling good about ourselves._

_As you look in the mirror, pause for a moment, and ask this question: Are my clothes just hanging on me as if I were hiding in them, or am I wearing my duds as if they are ME?_

_WEAR THEM! Your posture gives you Command, Presence and Positivity. If in any doubt look at any successful person or Leader. The Personality of a successful person can make a sack look as if it were designed by Armani._

_While we are on the subject when you walk, do it with purpose, as if you have somewhere to go. This will gain you the albeit subconscious respect of others, and it will make you feel more confident._

End of Round One

_By now you have all your ducks in a row, so while you chomp on your ChocoWheats make a Plan. What are you going to do today, and how will you get the best out of the day and yourself? Will you advance towards your goals?_

_On the way to work create ideas. Be positively creative. Good ideas separate ordinary people from the exceptional individuals who achieve lofty goals. This is not about wishing and day-dreaming, but about finding workable solutions to problems_

_There was once a man called Arthur, whose Passion was to invent something quite new. He got a piece of paper and started thinking, perhaps on his way to work. He started with the letter A and went through alphabet, writing down ideas.When he got to Z he saw one idea stood out. So he borrowed some money and manufactured his invention, and I am one of literally billions who will be for ever grateful._

_Oh! I almost forgot. His second name was Gillette._

_So never, never ever be afraid to try to create an idea AND think it through._

End of Round Two

_When you get to the office if you have pulled all your Triggers so far, you should be feeling pretty chipper. You are now an asset to your colleagues and your employer. So you can dedicate yourself to becoming more and more skilled at what you do._

_Believe in yourself and your skill set and personal success cannot help but follow._

_Use your natural breaks to mingle. Greta Garbo was telling a whopper when she said "I want to be alone." I could expand but that is a story for another day. Suffice it to say there is not one advantage to being aloof and alone. As I was told as a child: "It's not funny and it's not clever, so stop it!"_

_Never send an e-mail without pausing and reading before hitting the "send" button. There is many a career in tatters for not following this golden rule. E-mail is an opportunity to reach out to others in a spirit of kindness and compassion - or not!!! Handled sensitively it can build a network of friendships which will help you to feel more secure and make you a potential inspiration and leader. Treat this tool with respect._

_Meetings are your opportunity to shine. Make it a golden rule to always say something, but make sure it is sensible, positive and relevant. This means paying attention! Do not be embarrassed to take notes if it will help keep you focused. You may have the chance to inspire others. Always look for it. Be positive, be enthusiastic, be sensible: Meetings are a window into YOU!_

_If you are texting obey the same rules as emailing; think about the other person and be very clear, and be sure you say what you mean. It may be short, but the way out of a bad text can be tortuous._

_Telephone calls can also lead to misunderstandings. You have no idea if the person on the other end is smiling or scowling, playing spider, or petting the cat or the intern, and there's rarely a record of what was agreed. If it is important always try for the face to face, or at least confirm with a text, letter or email_

_When you make presentations practice being in command, your leader posture, and above all rehearse your presentation until it is perfect. Never forgo the opportunity to present. If you think you are a poor speaker do something about it. The more you do it the better you will become._

_If a meeting is a window on to you, a presentation is a glass door. I worked once with the CEO of one of the world's largest automobile companies. He would not move without a a clean white shirt, a pocket looking glass, and powder compact. He was not a vain man, but he was a damn good presenter who always looked the part._

_You have had a busy and rewarding day, because you decided from the moment you awoke that it would be such. Use the journey home as a TRIGGER of awareness, look around you, notice the smells and the feelings you have - be aware of your surroundings. They are part of life and your reward._

End of Round three

_When you take your daily exercise push yourself to go the extra mile. Those who do more achieve more. Enjoy it, embrace it, work hard at it, but do not let it rule you._

_Dinner time is the prelude to the evening and family time. A time for affection and reflection. Do I sense a niggling question floating around: "You see a lot of successful people who do not have a home or family life. Do I really need this?"_

_Damn right your do!!! Part of our aim is to Feel Good about Ourselves. If there is no love in our lives why bother?_

_Before we rush to judgment pause for thought. let's look at our world leaders. Most have a spouse and children. Some keep the family at their side, others shield them from the limelight. Most multinational companies look carefully at the home lives of their rising executives. Yes! Your family is why - and how - you came all this way._

_There is a responsibility for every member to contribute to the family. which generates all of the feelings that will make your family, and you, more united and stronger, a firm foundation from which to launch towards personal success._

_The benefits of a strong family are hard to quantify until you see the alternative._

End of Round Four.

And the Winner is............SELF

Will you every day pull every one of those triggers? Unlikely. Can I tell you exactly how to achieve YOUR personal goal, write YOUR success story? No.

All I can tell you is have Big Ideas - Your very own Big Ideas - Big Ideas that really matter to you.

Have the PASSION to pursue them

Develop GOOD HABITS.

Follow them with PERSISTENCE.

Never lose your BELIEF

Always use your COMMON SENSE

You will be one of

THE ACHIEVERS.

The harder we strive to achieve, the better we will feel about ourselves, the more confident we will become, the happier we will be

"Calm mind brings inner strength and self-confidence, so that's very important for good health." Dalai Lama

And once again this wise, wise man has summed it up in one sentence.

Seems to me to be a pretty good place to be. We, that is every single one of us, can get there.

I'm in your corner.

# 26 Stand in the Traffic

"P _roblems can become opportunities when the right people come together." Robert South_

Very few people ever manage to become successful all on their own.

Modesty and shyness are good traits but they can prevent you from putting yourself about amongst the people you need to know and mix with in order to succeed.

You are unlikely to find the partner of your dreams in the middle of a desert. You won't make money sitting on a raft in the middle of an ocean. You will never overcome your shyness by sitting at home on your own.

You have to be where the opportunities are; where the right people are.

To make money you have to be in a commercial environment.

To meet the partner of your dreams you have to be where such people congregate.

To overcome shyness you need to meet people to practice appearing confident.

To make your Big Idea your reality you have to be where it's at.

Most of the opportunities we seek in life involve interacting with other people. The trick is to be with the people who can help you meet your goals. These may be customers, friends, associates, colleagues, clients, readers or whatever. The sure point is that they will be people.

_I have never had many close friends or allies, how do I build a support network?_

Human beings are tribal animals. Since time began we have always wanted to live in groups for mutual support. You probably already belong to more than one group. You may be in a yoga group, or a tennis group, or a work group, or a professional group, or a reading group. We usually tend to gravitate into a group of people with a shared interest or interests. In this way we can foster our interest and share our experiences, enjoyment or expertise. Being a member of a group makes you feel more secure.

Once you start to create the life you want it will help you to belong to a group or groups of people who are interested in and knowledgeable about what you are doing. Look around and see what's available.

Tribes nearly always have leaders, chiefs or elders. These tend to be people with more experience and wisdom who often take major decisions for the group. When you are seeking to change direction in your life it will probably be very helpful to you to have a mentor. A mentor is someone with whom you can talk over your important decisions, someone who can give you advice. A trusted guide can help you to build confidence in your new direction and hopefully help ensure that you do not do anything that will cause you harm. Even when you are not in direct contact it can help to know that there is someone on your side who is there to support you.

Social networks can be very useful for building up followers and for learning how other people have generated followers. You can create a list of people who you know share your interest in what you are doing and these people can help and support you in your efforts to change your life.

When we are first starting out on a new venture and we are a little unsure of ourselves it can be easy to tread on others toes or upset people in some way without meaning to cause offence. If you do find yourself in the unfortunate position of upsetting someone or something goes wrong, don't be to proud to apologise. It will help you to keep your network intact and a little humility is good for the soul.

Being around likeminded people is important. Look for groups of people who share your interest in the way you want your life to be and join them.

If you can't find suitable groups, start one of your own. Social media has made it easier than ever to convene a like-minded group of people.

If you have any trait, like shyness, or self-effacement, that is making you hesitate now is the time to create a SWAP.

SWAP shyness for good interpersonal skills.

# 27 Make Yourself the Person Who Makes Your Big Idea Your Reality

This is one of the most powerful NLP techniques. It will enable you to follow the routes used by your role models to achieve their successes.

Big name personalities, whether they be sports stars, movie stars or TV presenters, all have the power to sell products simply by adding their name to the product. It is called product endorsement. It works because role model endorsement, particularly by famous people, operates below the level of conscious thought. Think of the effect that Michael Jordan's endorsement has had on the sales of Nike sportswear. Consider what Gary Lineker's endorsement has done for the sales of potato crisps. Or Roger Federer's endorsement of a certain shaving foam.

Product endorsement works because we unconsciously model the behaviour of cultural icons. Anyone who is famous, a leader or a cultural icon can influence our behaviour.

This tendency to model the behaviour of those whom we believe to be successful is a natural trait that is deeply ingrained in our DNA. It probably has its origins at the time when our ancestors lived on the plains of East Africa. They had to learn to hunt for food, build shelters and make tools. They learned by copying others. They naturally chose to copy their most successful peers; the best hunters, those with the most efficient tools.

However, even in those early days, it must have been difficult to ascertain exactly what made a particular individual successful. So our ancestors probably copied everything their role model did and then discarded the things that didn't prove useful. In this scenario they would have needed to copy absolutely every thought, feeling and behaviour of their role model, and then discard the bits that did not prove useful on by one.

It is not unusual for people to comment that a married couple look alike. Actually they very rarely do look alike, but sometimes a couple's behaviour is so similar that people consider them to be alike. What has happened is that the couple have modelled each other. They have done this unconsciously. Now they are both broadcasting similar thinking and behaviour.

Modelling the behaviour of successful others is a well proven way of creating effective human behaviour. Consider for a moment the Angelina Jolie effect on the Preventive Mastectomy (PM) fact sheet. For years the medical profession had been issuing facts, figures and valuable information about preventive mastectomies with little effect. Then on May 14th, 2013 Angelina Jolie published an article about her double mastectomy on the Opinion Pages of the New York Times. The article received 666 comments, compared to a norm of less than 100 comments. But the really startling result was the 69,225 page views on the PM fact sheet; a 795-fold increase - all the result of role model endorsement.

NLP has its origins in the work of Richard Bandler and John Grinder who started by modelling the communication skills of the Psychiatrist Milton Erickson, the family therapist Virginia Satyr and Gestalt therapist Fritz Pearls. Their aim was to be able to reproduce the results of these remarkable therapists.

The aim of modern NLP practitioners is to use the techniques developed by Bandler and Grinder to consciously model the thinking, the beliefs and behaviours of all types of leaders. We are looking for the strategies that these leaders use to achieve their results.

NLP Modelling is the process of recreating excellence. We can model any human behaviour by mastering the specific thought processes, (that is the strategies), the beliefs and the physiology that underlie the skill or behaviour.

It is about achieving an outcome by studying how someone else goes about the process of creating that result. You are looking to discover the thinking strategies they use, rather than to merely copy their behaviour.

You start by deciding what skills and resources you need to make your Big Idea your reality.

Then you ask yourself: "who do I know who is excellent at doing these things?" Once you have found your Role Model of excellence you concentrate on how to replicate that excellence. These are the steps you need to follow.

Step 1: observation

Imagine yourself in a situation that offers you an opportunity to move towards becoming the person that you would like to be. Then ask:

  * "What does my role model think and do in this type of situation?" Observe their behaviour, and make a list.
  * "How do they achieve their results?" Ask about their thinking, and make notes.
  * "Why do they do it?" Ask about their basic assumptions and beliefs, and make notes.
  * "What is different about their thinking and behaviour from people who fail to get results?" Make notes.

Try out each step. Keep the steps that work for you. Discard the steps that do not work. You are looking for the pieces that are the essentials of excellence.

Formulate your answers into steps that anyone can follow. "In order to achieve similar results what do I need to do?"

Step 2: implementation

Image yourself as being like your role model. Start to think like them. Behave like them. Speak like them.

Step 3: practice

You have to take your new skills out into the real world.

One of the beliefs that all achievers possess is self-belief or confidence. So, go out into the world with conviction that you are already successful. It may not seem natural at first, but then neither do a new pair of shoes feel entirely comfortable the first time you wear them.

What to do next:

Decide how you need to be in order to achieve what you want.

Find someone who already achieves what you want in a way that is acceptable to you.

Model their thinking, feelings and behaviour.

Use your model to become the person you need to be in order to make your Big Idea your reality.

SWAP hesitancy for your new, empowered behaviour.

SWAP doubt for full-on acting out of your desired role.

What else do you need to SWAP in order to model your role model successfully?

You can read my story of how I journeyed to become the person I am today in my memoir A Journey of Self-Discovery.

# 28 Create Your Own SWAP book

"T _he whole point about SWAP is that it enables you to change weak thinking for strong thinking, to change stopping feelings for going feelings and disempowering behaviours for empowering."_

You don't need to confine what you want to SWAP to just one thought, or feeling or behaviour. You can create as many pages of SWAPS as you like or need. Write a whole book of SWAPS if you need to.

Many of us have developed libraries of unwanted behaviours. The good news is that they can all be SWAPPED for behaviours that will benefit you.

You can add to your SWAP book any time you become aware of something you would like to change. Just create the pictures and add them to the book.

Realise that you don't have to work on all your SWAPS at the same time. You can focus on just one at a time until you notice that you have changed. Or you may be able to manage a few at a time. It is up to you.

What to do next:

Start creating your SWAP book. This can be in your head or, better still, it can be a real notebook filled with black and white images of the old you and lovely full colour images of the new you.

Go on adding pages to your SWAP book.

SWAP not swapping for swapping.

# 29 Your Generosity Will Be Repaid

"M _ake every person like himself a little better and I promise that he or she will like you very much." Lord Chesterfield_

The world is a giant trading floor. "Give and it shall be given unto you." To become a giver you do not need to break your bank.

Give your friendship.

Give your love.

Give service to others.

Give credit to those who have earned it.

Give praise to those who deserve it.

Give feedback.

Give your time.

Be generous.

Do not act in expectation of reward or reciprocation.

Do not stint. It will cost you nothing.

Give and you will feel good!

Give and others will give to you.

Give something, anything from the list above, to someone, every hour of the day.

SWAP thinking about yourself for thinking about others.

SWAP putting yourself first for putting others first.

SWAP thinking "how can I get praise" for thinking "how can I give praise."

SWAP _write your swaps here:_

....................................................................................................................................................................

# 30 The Sad Fact About Medicine

"Y _ou can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." English proverb_

Most people simply won't take the medicine necessary for success. This section will ensure that you don't join this tribe of people addicted to failure.

My cousin Clive only got ill on rare occasions. But when he did fall sick, boy did he get sick! He was a bad patient. He would moan and groan like a man on his deathbed. His wife knew that her only defence was to send him to see the doctor. When he returned home with the pills the doctor had prescribed he would always refuse to take the medicine saying, "I don't believe in taking pills. They're just quackery." As a result his ailments used to last a great deal longer than necessary.

On a safari holiday in Africa cousin Clive was bitten by a poisonous snake. He refused to lie down and remain still, as he was advised. He also refused the serum that the safari leader recommended. He died later that night.

If you refuse to do anything about what ails you, you will go on getting the results you are getting right now. If you are miserable and you don't do anything about it you will remain miserable. If you are poor you will remain poor. If you are overweight, you will remain overweight. If you have a fear or phobia which is holding you back, it will go on holding you back unless you do something about it.

The medicine that cures failure is EFFORT. It should be taken with liberal doses of the COURAGE to CHANGE and PERSEVERANCE.

SWAP indecision for action.

SWAP doubt for courage.

SWAP stuck for change.

# 31 The Money Trick

"N _ever spend your money before you have earned it." Thomas Jefferson_

Most people who seek wealth are not correctly aligned with money. This section will show you how to align yourself to attract money.

When discussing wealth many people will tell you what they would do should they suddenly find themselves wealthy. They eulogise about all the things they would buy, the Mercedes Benz, the mansion, the holiday villa, the gold watch, the designer clothes. The problem with thinking this way is that the money is going in the wrong direction - it is being spent - sent away from the speaker.

There are countless variations on the Law of Attraction that advise you to lock all of your attention on the good things that you might attract into your life simply by focussing fiercely on the item.

But in order to get anything in life you have to pay the price. First you need the means of obtaining what you want.

In this case we are talking about money. This is about attracting money.

In order to accumulate wealth you need to attract money towards you - you need to start an incoming stream.

The trick is to do something that will create the money that you want. Money does not grow on trees. Your chances of winning the big Lotto prize are millions to one against you.

To make your Big Idea your reality you need to focus attentively on your vision and then carry out your plan with determination and persistence until you arrive.

Create a vision of a stream of money coming towards you and filling your bank account, or your mattress or wherever you keep your cash as a result of you becoming the person you are designed to be.

SWAP poverty for wealth.

SWAP your images of spending money for movies of money coming in.

SWAP inactivity for acting upon your plan of how to accumulate money.

To discover more about how to become the person you are designed to be so that you can live a life of purpose, meaning and fulfilment you should read How To Break Free and Be Happy.

# 32 The One Thing That is Guaranteed to Change Everything

"A _ustere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails in its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistibly greater with time." Goethe_

It is very common for a person to not particularly like their job. This often affects their whole attitude towards work. They think of work as a "drag" or "a grind", something to be avoided. But when your Big Idea fires you with enthusiasm your project does not seem like work.

The one sure route to success is to focus on your objective and then work towards that end. My hero Leo Burnett had a motto, _"When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either."_ The rewards of your hard work may not be immediate, but they will come. When you achieve your rewards they may not appear in quite the way your originally imagined, but they will be there. Many times I have been surprised to find that I have an ability to do something only to find later, when I look back, that I had been practicing that skill for use elsewhere.

The jig-saw of life takes many twists and turns, only those who persevere ever complete the puzzle.

The one ability on which you can bet the bank is that if you work hard towards one inspiring objective you will not come up with a handful of mud.

Those who slave away, who slog it out, doing work that fails to capture their imagination, to inspire them, become grey people. They become exhausted by their struggle to make ends meet, to feel secure, to find any meaning in their lives other than to slog on.

Once our work is directed towards an inspiring goal with single minded persistence and determination the goal is eventually reached. The only short cut is to work harder, with greater creativity and with more thought.

Focus on your Big Idea. Allow it to inspire you, to enthuse you, to energise you.

SWAP slog for well directed industry.

SWAP grinding for doing what you enjoy, and enjoy what you do.

SWAP work boredom for enthusiastic, excited, inspired, energetic, dedication to your task of achieving, of making your Big Idea your reality.

SWAP day dreaming for the daily reality of your Big Idea - it's here - now!

# 33 Danger, Poison

"P _eople spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives." J. Michael Straczynski_

Many things poison our minds and get in the way of our development. These are powerful disablers that prevent us from achieving our goals. However, there is a simple antidote.

In Australia they have a phrase they like to use when referring to the English. They call Englishmen "whingeing Poms."

Whingeing is just another way of saying that someone is not taking responsibility. It is symptomatic of a lack of resolve. It is a way of looking for sympathy. It is a waste of valuable time. No-one respects a whinger. This is a habit that lowers the respect in which others hold us. And it lowers our self-respect.

Blaming others is yet another poison that weakens us. It is NEVER anyone else's fault. You should ALWAYS take responsibility for your own fate, for your own outcomes.

Hate is another great waste of energy. Think how many lives are lost in the hate-fuelled vendettas that proliferate in the Balkan countries between the Adriatic and the Black Sea. This is just a huge waste of energy and time, not to mention human life.

Bribery is an insidious poison. It debases both the giver and the receiver of bribes.

Spreading rumours and gossip debase the spreader. Keep such opinions to yourself.

Practice being constantly AWARE of your thoughts, your feelings and your behaviour. Bite your tongue whenever you find yourself about to say anything that could be construed as: a whinge, blaming someone else, an expression of anger, an expression of hatred, spreading a rumour or gossip - and never offer or take a bribe.

SWAP carelessness for self-awareness. Watch constantly what you think, feel and say.

SWAP your poisons for Positivity.

# 34 You Can if You Think You Can

"P _ositive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will." Zig Zigler_

We live in a world that surrounds us with negativity. Our newspapers, radios and TV sets constantly flood the world with bad news. The bad news is amplified with emotive pictures and sounds.

The only way to not get sucked in to the habit of being negative is by taking personal responsibility for our own thoughts, feelings and actions. To develop our own, well considered opinions. You need to take control of your own life.

Oprah Winfrey puts it like this: "It isn't until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are – not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within – that you can begin to take control."

What comes out of your mouth should be your own opinion not just a regurgitation of something you saw or heard on the news.

By all means research and gather the opinions of others, but in the end, take responsibility for formulating your own opinion.

This is an exercise in thinking for yourself which is important because ultimately your opinion as to whether or not you can do something will influence the outcome you achieve.

You need to think of yourself as the person you are becoming. Forget the person you used to be. As Charles F. Kettering once said: "I am not interested in the past. I am interested only in the future, for that is where I expect to spend the rest of my life."

So make your future bright. Expect the best from life and, more importantly, expect the best from yourself. Become who you can become by thinking that you can become that person.

Take charge of your thoughts.

SWAP negative thoughts for Positive thoughts.

SWAP your negative friends for new positive friends.

SWAP old attitudes that stole your power for new empowering attitudes.

Create the image of the person you want to be and live like that person every minute of every day.

# 35 Success on Autopilot

"T _he purpose of hypnosis as a therapeutic technique is to help you understand and gain more control over your behavior, emotions or physical well-being." The Mayo Clinic_

Self-Hypnosis is a really neat way of programming your subconscious to ensure that you do what you need to do in order to achieve your goals.

Maggie Jones suffered from bad teeth. The problem was that she also had a phobia about needles, so she couldn't allow her dentist to inject her gums with novocaine before her dental operations. The pain was unbearable. Her only choices seemed to be pain from bad teeth or pain from dental procedures.

A friend recommended that she see a hypnotist. Maggie got lucky because the hypnotist also suffered from bad teeth. He sympathised with her predicament and taught her how to hypnotise herself so as to minimise the pain.

You may have seen TV shows where people do silly things under the influence of hypnosis. These people agreed, before being hypnotised, that they would allow themselves to do silly things for the entertainment of others. Do not confuse such antics with the serious purposes for which hypnosis can be used. Hypnosis has proven to be the most effective method of helping people to quit the deeply addictive habit of smoking cigarettes. It has helped many people with emotional, psychological and behavioural issues.

When hypnotised you will always be in control and able to come out of your hypnotic state whenever you choose.

Under the spell of hypnosis you will simply be in a very relaxed, slightly drowsy state. In this state you will be more open to suggestions than in your normal waking state.

**NEVER induce a state of hypnosis when you are driving or in charge of a motor vehicle or moving vehicle of any sort.**

The procedure for self-hypnosis that you are about to master is very simple. By following these five steps you will find that you are able to hypnotise yourself whenever you wish:

Step 1: Find a comfortable chair in which you can sit back with your feet up, do not cross your legs. Remove your shoes and loosen any tight clothing. If you wear them, remove your glasses or contact lenses.

Step 2: Lie back and yawn deeply; feel the breath going right down into your stomach. Fix your eyes on a single point on the ceiling. Yawn again. Tell yourself, using a soothing, sleepy tone of voice: "I feel tired, my eyelids are heavy, I feel sleepy now." Allow your eyes to close slowly and naturally.

Step 3: Start to count backwards very slowly from ten down to zero. As you count down imagine yourself descending a staircase. Allow yourself to sink down into a state of deep relaxation.

Step 4: When you feel deeply relaxed bring into focus your Big Idea. Examine every detail of the movie. Notice what you are doing. Identify the people there. Feel the stimulation of the colours. Allow the sounds to carry you along. Notice how relaxed and effortless is everyone's behaviour.

Step 5: Do not allow yourself to go to sleep. When you are ready to return to your every day life, tell yourself: "I will carry the image of my Big Idea with me at all times to inspire and energise me. I am making it my reality." Then start to count slowly from zero up to ten. When you reach "ten" say the word "ten" loudly, you will come wide awake and find that you are filled with positive energy.

Repeat this exercise as often as you wish but at least twice every day.

This is a very brief description of how to induce the state of hypnosis. In the unlikely event that you find any difficulty with achieving this natural state I suggest that you find a local hypnotist who runs courses in self-hypnosis and sign up to do a short course.

Practice hypnotising yourself at least twice every day.

SWAP your old day dreams for the excitement of focussing on your Big Idea.

SWAP your old image of yourself as a dreamer for an image of yourself as a purposefully directed action taker.

SWAP tension for relaxed believing

# 36 Don't Try

"T _he quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavour." Vince Lombardi_

This is a transcript of a conversation I have with about 100 clients every year:

Coach: "We're agreed then, you are now a maker of prioritised lists."

Client: "Yes, I will try to start tomorrow."

Coach: "No. Please do not try."

Client: Looking confused. "Why, what's wrong with trying?"

Coach: "When you say 'I will try' there is a lack of commitment. Commitment is when you start right now, thinking, feeling and being a person who makes prioritised lists."

Client: "I see. I am now a person who makes prioritised lists."

Coach: "Excellent. You are now indeed a prioritised list maker. I look forward to hearing about your lists and the effect they have had for you at our meeting next week."

There are two sorts of trying:

  1. a person who is doing their level best at some task in which they are engaged - that is good trying.
  2. A person who says that they may try something in the future is only expressing a half-hearted commitment. It is unlikely that they will ever follow through and actually do what they have said they will try to do. This is why I say: "Don't try. Either do the thing or save your energy for something else."

See yourself as a person committed to excellence in everything you do.

SWAP trying for doing

SWAP vague promises for firm commitment.

# 37 Meditation Can Make a Real Difference

_I know that many people meditate regularly, but how will meditating help me to change my life?_

The word 'meditation' has two meanings: "to focus one's mind for a period of time, in silence, for spiritual purposes or simply to help you relax," and "to think deeply about something." In both senses meditation can be of enormous help when you want to change your life. Through meditation you will gain a better understanding of yourself and the spirit within you. You will become more disciplined in the sense that you will be more conscious of what is going on in your mind. This can help you to change your habits. And of course meditating on a subject can help you form better, more considered opinions.

Meditation helps you understand how your mind works. It helps you tame the monkey in your mind. It is an important discipline. The more disciplined your mind the easier you will find it to change your life.

_OK, so how do I meditate?_

Good question! It can be a real challenge, particularly if you are in a negative mood, or a setback has pushed you into a negative mindset at a time when you need to perform at your best.

This is not a book about meditation. My purpose here is simply to provide you with a starter kit so that you can begin to experience the benefits of meditation. Once you have started I recommend that you read one or two of the books recommended in the appendix or you can join a meditation group.

The purpose of this meditation practice to enable you to take charge of your mind.

Meditation is really simple. To get the benefits all you have to do is practice regularly. This is how to start meditating:

  1. sit in a chair or on the floor in a cross-legged position. If in chair make sure that you have both feet flat on the floor. Your back should be straight, upright. Your body should feel relaxed. Your eyes should be relaxed, partially shut but not completely closed. You can look straight ahead or slightly downwards to a point a few feet in front of you. If you experience pain from sitting still for a long time just move slightly to ease the pain. If the pain becomes acute you should stand up and walk slowly around the room in a walking meditation paying attention to your feet as they touch the ground.
  2. As you sit still start to breathe deeply, draw your breath right down to the bottom of your stomach. Pay attention to your breath flowing in and out through your nostrils. Do not strain, just breathe naturally focussing your attention on your nose as the breath goes in and out. If you are finding it really difficult to maintain your focus on your breath you can count your breaths. Count up to ten and then start again at one. It is suggested that you count "one" on the in breath and "two" on the out breath until you reach ten. Then start again, counting "one" on the in breath and "one" again on the out breath until you reach ten. Just keep repeating these cycles of counting your breaths.
  3. Do this for 10 minutes every day to start with, for the first three or four weeks. Work up to 20 minutes after a few months.

It is common for thoughts to obscure your focus on your breath - this is natural. When thoughts do rush in demanding your attention just allow them to pass through like a dove winging its way across the sky. Do not try to shoo them away. Do not join in the conversations or embellish the stories. Just notice that the interruption has occurred and return your focus to your breaths going in and out.

This meditation is known in Sanskrit as shamatha or "calm abiding." The purpose is simply to get you accustomed to paying attention and keeping your mind calm.

The discipline you master from just watching your breaths will spill over into other areas of your life. As you practice daily you will gradually notice an improvement in your discipline in everything you do.

Sit down right now and meditate for 10 minutes. Start as you mean to go on. Meditate every day from now on. The best time is first thing in the morning, before other activities take over your life. If early morning is not possible choose a time when you can find somewhere quiet in your home.

The important point is to do it, every day bearing in mind that there is no such thing as bad meditation - only no meditation.

# 38 Flow Down The River of Life

"M _ost enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person's skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding." Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi_

You can either live in a state of flow in which things come easily to you, or you can allow poisons to infect you and hold on to your life raft of limiting beliefs, fears and stories; such behaviour induces tension. The choice is yours.

Those who flow along the river of life are those who choose to make themselves feel happy, loving and generous. They let their love flow. They allow their life to flow.

The energy in your Big Idea will keep you in a state of flow. You will just flow along on a current of enthusiasm. All you have to do is allow it to happen for you.

Have you ever noticed how, when you feel tense, it becomes more difficult to do what you want to do? Sports people will tell you that when they are tense they are less able to execute. The appalling track record of the England football team in penalty shoot-outs is clear evidence of how tension can ruin performance. Golfers regularly throw away good leads in the final rounds of tournaments when tension gets to them. Speakers get stage fright and deliver embarrassing performances.

The answer to improving your performance is to relax. Don't concern yourself with what others may be thinking - they may not be thinking anything even remotely like what you suppose they are thinking. Do not concern yourself with your performance - just take a deep breath, right down into your solar plexus, relax and do the best you can.

What to do next:

Relax, let it happen.

SWAP tension for relaxation.

SWAP shallow breathing for deep breathing.

SWAP stress for flow.

Discover more about how to induce and benefit from being in a state of Flow from How To Break Free and Be Happy.

# 39 Spend, Spend, Spend

"A _budget is telling your resources where to go instead of wondering where you squandered them."_

The more you put in the more you can take out.

Note this is about Deploying Your Resources Well - how you spend your energy:

Work, work, work!

Practice, practice, practice!

Do, do, do!

The more energy you expend, the more energy you will find that you have.

Ideas that fail to excite you are hardly worth creating. Ideas that excite you will energise you to get results. Your Big Idea should excite you so much that you just have to keep on and on working at it until it becomes your reality.

Spend your energy wisely. Do not save it for the right moment. Spend it now while your Big Idea is hot, frothing over.

SWAP sofa time for sweaty activity.

SWAP slothful inaction for real life action.

SWAP dreaming for doing.

# 40 How To Fail

"F _ailure isn't fatal, but failure to change might be." John Wooden_

Failure is incredibly easy. Anyone can do it. Most people do. Here's how to excel at failure:

  1. Blame: your boss, the weather, your luck.
  2. Complain.
  3. Moan.
  4. Look depressed.
  5. Find the negative in everything.
  6. Slouch.
  7. Drag your feet.
  8. Mumble your words.
  9. Feel depressed.
  10. Whinge.
  11. Get angry.
  12. Make enemies.
  13. Make excuses.
  14. Worry.
  15. Focus backwards.
  16. Surrender to your fears.
  17. Spread rumours and gossip.
  18. Watch loads of TV, mindlessly.
  19. Make unnecessary phone calls.
  20. Be Spiteful.
  21. Be critical.
  22. Be cynical.
  23. Give up.
  24. Be timid.
  25. Be half-hearted.
  26. Get downhearted.
  27. Be arrogant.
  28. Quit.

The above all use up valuable head time. Most of them waste valuable emotional energy.

If you recognise that you do any of the above, it's time to get SWAPPING. What is the positive opposite of any of the above which is preventing you from implementing your Big Idea?

Get to work on the positive opposite.

Turn the page to make yourself successful.

# 41 Surefire Route to Success

"T _here are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure." Colin Powell_

Success comes most easily when your head is in the right space, you focus your thoughts on your task, you feel the most positive and powerful emotions, and you take action.

  1. Create a Big Idea movie.
  2. Write it down or draw it.
  3. Create a plan for achieving your goal.
  4. Give generously of your resources & time.
  5. Focus forward.
  6. Smile lots.
  7. Laugh lots.
  8. Be fun to be with.
  9. Challenge your fears.
  10. Give time.
  11. Be compassionate.
  12. Be enthusiastic.
  13. Be inspired.
  14. Be energetic.
  15. Be positive.
  16. Be modest.
  17. Be humble.
  18. Be kind.
  19. Have fun.
  20. Share your knowledge.
  21. Keep going.
  22. Be courageous.
  23. Go full steam.
  24. Persist.
  25. Be the role model for your Big Idea.
  26. Ensure brain switched on before operating mouth.
  27. Keep asking yourself, "what's good about this?"

Do everything on the list above.

Whenever anything negative comes up SWAP it immediately for something positive.

SWAP items on your "How To Fail" list for their opposites on your "Surefire Route To Success" list.

Enter your SWAPS here:

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# 42 The Power of Process

"E _xcellence is a continuous process and not an accident." A.P.J. Abdul Kalam_

Every small thing we do is achieved by taking a series of steps, a route, in the direction of a goal.

The route from bed to breakfast to work (the first goal of the day) might take you from the nice warm sheets, through the bathroom, (a routine in itself), onwards to the cupboard for skirt of the day, downstairs to the kitchen and coffee. You do more or less the same thing everyday, so it has become a habit, not a good one or a bad one, just a routine.

We might get to work by going to the station on the bus which passes the house at 8.13, boarding the 8.28 train, then finally walking to the office. Another routine - an autopilot, a goal achieved.

On Saturday, we find the car keys, get in the car, drive to the town center, park, and walk into the shop of choice. Been there, done that, got the hat and the t-shirt. "Just routine."

Although finding the keys can be a challenge sometimes, we do not even consider these small actions as achievements. In each case we have followed a series of well trodden steps which we have made into a habit.

_These habits are so powerful that they are considered to be the biggest challenge for personal security guards assigned to protect the rich and famous. In order to time their attacks potential assassins study minutely the habits of their targets. You have been warned._

Now let's channel this same almost subconscious technique of forming habits or autopilots. The objective is to develop good habits to lead us to our real goals, our PASSIONS.

We will need our PERSISTENCE to develop these new Good Habits which may well override existing, disempowering Bad Habits. This series of new ROUTINES will give us the BELIEF we can ACHIEVE personal SUCCESS.

Yeah!!!!!!

Good Habits? Bad Habits? I am not standing over you with a whip and a pair of handcuffs. If you want that, try the small ads. I cannot, will not, dictate to you. I hope we all agree by now, habits and routines on the way to YOUR achievements, to YOUR goals must come from.............YOU!

You can do it, and I believe you will.

Now this is the fun part - it's your turn to start your journey!

To set off on this adventure you should answer a few more questions:

"What empowering habits do I need in order to ACHIEVE..............(your personal goal)?"

"What repeated actions that will become GOOD HABITS do I need on the road to this ACHIEVEMENT?"

"What BAD HABITS do I need to be rid of?"

"What GOOD HABITS can I develop in order to override the BAD HABITS?"

Write your list below. If there is not enough room do not be embarrassed. Add an extra piece of paper! But if I were you I would start off in pencil. You may want to make some changes as you consider your options.

My New Empowering Habits:

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The Bad Habits I Need to Overcome (next to each bad habit write the new habit that will override the old bad habit):

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# 43 Feedback, The Measure of Excellence

_I 've always been a bit concerned about asking for feedback in case I hear something I would rather not hear._

Research can be expensive - feedback is free.

Remember how when you were writing your plan you had to insert evidence as proof that your outcomes were likely to happen? Well, one form of evidence is feedback, what other people say about you and what you do. The independent opinions of others are a good measure of how well or poorly you are performing.

It can be painful to be told that you did not do well, but it is valuable to know when your performance has not met expectations; then, rather than deluding yourself that you did well, you can make changes to improve your performance.

It sometimes requires courage to risk being told things that you might not want to hear. The risk is always worth the reward. Feedback can create valuable opportunities for you. Sometimes you learn that you have qualities you were never conscious that you had.

Anthony Robbins coined the phrase, "feedback is the breakfast of champions." This points to the fact that feedback is an invaluable part of the performance improvement loop - train, perform, feedback, improve, perform again. Every top performer works on this basis. All businesses are measured on this basis. Highly productive individuals measure themselves on this basis.

Whatever you do, always ask for feedback. It is the only way to know that you are achieving excellence.

# 44 The Irresistible Force

"I _f anything is worth doing, do it with all your heart." Dhammapada_

Two emotions and one behaviour provide the foundation for all personal success. Belief, Passion and Persistence. They should become bywords in our mental thesaurus.

We must believe in ourselves and in what we want to achieve - BELIEF.

Passion provides the continuous stream of energy to achieve. Passion illuminates the road to our goals.

PERSISTENCE keeps the engine running until we get there.

Without Passion PERSISTENCE will falter, fade, and you will fail to put in those vital hours of mental or physical labour.

So.....Passions? What are yours? In the plural I am sure. A romantic passion, perhaps, a sports passion, a hobby passion, a work passion, a charity passion, a passion for excellence, a passion for helping others, even a passion for animals?

I have a great friend called Tommy, who happens to be a dog. My goal is to make sure he has the happiest life I can possibly give him, even if he does bury my socks in the garden, or borrow the occasional shoe.

I am proud of this goal, but much as I care for Tommy, for me it will never be an all-consuming life ambition. Something inside my head says: "Yes that's great, but is that all you've got? Oh come on! There is room and time for a whole lot more!"

The fact that you picked up this book, and have got this far, suggests you feel the same. That "unscratched itch" keeps nagging at you, doesn't it? You can run, but you can't hide! See? You do have a goal........a passion!

What is it?

This is the passion that had Charles Dickens sitting down with his quill pen every morning. It is Oprah Winfrey practicing her interviewing technique. It was Franz Schubert scrounging the paper he could not afford so he might capture for us the music only he could hear. It is Gordon Ramsay screaming, demanding and achieving perfection in his kitchen. It is that history teacher who could instil in you her own enthusiasm, your spouse digging and planting in the pouring rain, passionate that you should share the fruits of the sore back and broken nails. It is Martha Stewart and it is Serena Williams.

What links them is their passion. Their Success is due to their unshakeable belief that they make a difference in the world. They drive themselves with their passion and they use their routines to perfect good habits so that, even on a bad day, to get up, get out and get going, in the face of fierce opposition and sometimes sheer stupidity

God bless them for what we have received from their passion.

You cannot make up goals and then try to invest them with passion. Real passion is like your passion for the love of your life. You did not wake up one day and say: "Well it's a nice sunny day and I haven't got much on. I think I'll go out and find the love of my life." More than likely when you were least expecting it you saw someone and there was a spark, and you said to yourself: "Hello!! I must get to know this person."

You cannot create this feeling about just anyone, no matter how good they look, how witty, how rich, how smart they are.

Nature lights that spark, and the same goes for the goals that really matter. That spark of Passion is already there inside you, waiting to light your fire.

In love so it is with life.

The Roman emperor/philosopher Marcus Aurelius said: "Dig within, ever dig and you will find." That is the challenge, the need to dig until the goals that really matter shine like the golden treasure they really are.

There is something in the concept of justifying your existence that I have never been able to fully explain. I just know that, deep inside, every single one of us has an idea of what we are. This idea might be a feeling or a vision of what we ought to be doing with our life. When you find yourself doing it you feel good about yourself, it feels natural to you, you suddenly find you have unbounded energy. You also notice a solid confidence in your ability.

Everyone has the ability to succeed. The trick is to be successful in identifying where, when and how..

How often have you given good, reasoned advice to a friend in trouble and got the answer: "No you don't understand. That's just not possible."

Can you think of an adjective to describe this: lazy...scared...self-absorbed...unambitious... ungrateful....unaware..... perhaps stupid covers it.

We are not pre-programmed by our DNA, we are simply victims of our own habitual behaviour, by our own bad habits! We have created these habits by a simple, process of lazily repeatedly thinking, feeling and behaving in negative ways. We created those, but now we need to make different choices - new positive thoughts, new feelings, new actions.

Habits power much of our behaviour. But every day all kinds of people are making all kinds of changes to their habits. You too could change.

The serious dope fiend manages to overcome his craving. The mocked fatty goes on a diet and becomes a slim beautiful person. The Alcoholic becomes a Twelve-Stepper, and learns to enjoy life without a bottle.

Remember how many of previous generations used to smoke? Most of them have changed.

If people can overcome these powerful addictions it is for sure that anyone can overcome an addiction to failure. Many before us have risen from the ashes of failure to achieve great success.

I am a personal development coach. I do it because of a PASSION that I have - I am fascinated by what makes people successful. I rejoice when I see clients break free of the bonds of their bad, self-limiting habits.

They feel good about themselves. Thus they do not beat themselves up even in the face of failure. Let's call this positive thinking, which encourages SELF-DISCIPLINE. They take charge of their thoughts, feelings and actions in all situations. These are their Good Habits, not something they bring out when Mother-in-Law comes to tea. NO! These Good Habits instil PERSISTENCE which is vital on the road to ACHIEVEMENT

The Achievers, the ones who reach their personal goals, are always in control of their personal operating systems - their thoughts, their emotions, their behaviour. They guide themselves towards what they really want.

This book is not a lofty tome about The Theory of Success. It is a practical guide, a handbook if you like, on SELF-REINVENTION. It requires brain work and honesty, but anyone of us can do it.

"What's good about this?"

# 45 The Millionaire's Story

_S ome people seem to have extra qualities that enable them to succeed. I'm not sure that I have what it takes._

I have a friend who, in his twenties was in a terrible automobile accident as a result of which he lost his right arm and eye. By the time he was released from hospital he knew that he would have to find a new career. This is what I noticed about how he managed his situation:

  1. He would only consider a job if it offered exceptional opportunities for career advancement and financial gain.
  2. The moment he started in his new career he devoted himself to learning everything he could about the business.
  3. He pushed himself, he worked exceptionally long hours.
  4. He learned to calculate risk and always had the courage to take a reasonable risk.
  5. He was constantly planning and looking for opportunities to move ahead.
  6. He built a strong network of trusted allies, advisers and clients.
  7. He always imagined himself to be a leader in his field and he behaved like a leader.

As a result of his efforts he now has a town house in a highly desirable area of London, a country mansion, a beautiful wife and a loving family.

The millionaire's plan was simple. He started with virtually no resources except his own courage, self-belief and determination to succeed. He never wavered from his goal of becoming a wealthy and influential leader within his industry.

Every morning, first thing, immediately you wake up, bring your goal to mind and spend several minutes seeing yourself achieving it.

# 46 Do Yourself a Favour

"Y _ou can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and still come out completely dry. Most people do." Norman Juster_

Self-help books sell in their millions every year. People devour information about how to do everything from, how to play better golf, to how to be an expert public speaker. They accumulate knowledge about how to motivate others. They learn how to write convincing sales copy. They learn how to tidy their homes.

But all too often this knowledge fails to permanently change anything in their lives.

The explanation is simple. They don't do anything with their newfound knowledge. They fail to take action.

Knowledge on its own is not power. You only become powerful when you do something with the knowledge you possess.

So do yourself a favour. Become an action person. Someone who does.

Do not put this book in some folder deep in the bowels of your reader of computer. Read parts of it again. It is short. This will not take you long. You will be amazed how much you learn on the second reading.

BONUS: Simply reading the book again will enable you to start to ingrain new habits into your behaviour.

Determine to become an action man or an action woman.

SWAP dreaming for doing

SWAP simply knowing how to for doing something with your knowledge

SWAP passiveness for positive action

Now prove that you have changed. Prove to me that you are a giving person. Do something positive. When the retailer who sold you this book asks you to rate it, take action click on the stars. Give 1 for poor or 5 for excellent.

Thank you.

Enjoy the rest of your life. Enjoy your achievements.

P.S. The secret's in the process.

Suggest you also read:

How To Break Free And Be Happy.

Feeling Groovy.

A Journey of Self-Discovery.

Ignite Your Inner Leader.

# 47 Your "GO" Button

_I sometimes wonder if I'm the right person to do my own thing? It somehow feels safer to go on doing what I do now._

If you do what you have always done, your life will remain exactly as it is now.

Or, as Master Shifu says in the movie Kung Fu Panda says: "if you only ever do what you can, you will never be better than you are."

Your future is up to you, and you alone. You are at least as good as thousands of others who have created the lives they want. They just did it. Know that you too can do it. Screw up your courage - focus on your Big idea - believe in yourself - take determined action - persist until you suddenly find that your life is as wonderful as you always wanted it to be.

Become a leader of yourself and others. It is the best position from which to express your own ideas and to implement your own ideas. It will help you to gain the confidence to become a leader by reading Ignite Your Inner Leader.

Become a "GO" person.

# 48 About The Author

"David is a most astute and exceptionally motivating coach with great personal and professional integrity. For somebody with such depth of experience, he is remarkable in his continuing quest for learning about leading a balanced life."

_Lucian J. Hudson, Director of Communications, The Open University_

"Having David as a coach has made a significant impact to my personal and professional development. His thoughtful, sincere and inspiring attitude enabled me to change the way I think."

_Jane Sutton, Associate Director Strategy and Development, RBI_

"I was coached by David during a time that I was managing a very challenging project. David's approach and help made a big difference; he was one just a few people at that time who provided practical help and support."

_David Croft, IT Project Manager, Ofcom_

"I've worked with David in the context of his NLP coaching and training and I am deeply impressed with the level of humility combined with deep competence that he brings to his work."

_Gene Early, PhD, Early Leadership Solutions_

"I was initially fairly sceptical about the benefits of "coaching programmes" \- but that was before I started my sessions with David. For me, the real value was a much clearer understanding of my behaviours, motivations and strengths which has made a huge difference to my outlook and approach.

_Matt Bye, CTO, eporta_

"David is an excellent leadership coach whose tailored, and confidential, approach resulted in universally positive feedback and improved performance from those who participated in this programme.

_Nigel Sterndale, CIO, Stepstone UK_

"David helps devise strategies to achieve the best results. He helps with one's whole situation – self-esteem, family relationships, etc. He is always available with encouragement and really motivates one to crack on and achieve one's goals."

_Kevin Duck, Managing Director, Ethicheck Ltd_

"David's coaching was a life changing experience which produced profound effects in both my work and personal life. David understands people very well, particularly the workings of the human mind, and is able to explain your emotions and help you control them whilst giving you the confidence and direction to achieve your goals."

_Bob Stark, Commercial Director, Portafina_

"I've attended a few courses on developing 'soft skills' and, to be honest, I've gotten very little value from them. That was certainly not the case when working with David! My view on things and myself has been completely transformed. I am grateful for his insight and help."

_Chad Macey, Principal Architect, RBI_

"As a coach, David has the life experience, knowledge, empathy and understanding to listen, guide and mentor. You have the answers inside yourself. David will help you to find them."

_Andy Pandini, Actor_

David is also the author of:

How To Break Free and Be Happy

A Journey of Self-Discovery

Ignite Your Inner Leader

Feeling Groovy
