I don’t particularly enjoy exercise. I’m not a gym bunny, or someone who eagerly looks for extra classes to “feel the burn”. I exercise simply because I want to be healthy for my two children (aged 2 and 6) and have the energy to keep up with them (both relatively virtuous reasons), but also because at the age of 40, vanity is becoming more of an issue (not so virtuous)!

I attend a fitness class at the same time as my daughter goes to gymnastics. As she bounds into her class downstairs, I trudge up the stairs of doom to attend mine. I don’t share my misgivings with my little girl but inside I’m like a petulant teenager who is being forced to attend some grim extended family event, when she’d rather be hanging out with her friends.

Nevertheless, with heavy heart and even heavier legs, I go.

JP, our fitness instructor is like a machine. He is ripped, tight, lean….…bear with me readers, this post isn’t about to turn into some middle aged lust fest……because that’s where the machine analogy ends. He doesn’t see the people in his class as bodies to be sculpted, but lives to be made better. Week in, week out, he talks through the best way to keep fit in body and mind, talks through the exercises with such enthusiasm, encourages us to raise our own personal bars, demonstrates how we can use really small spaces at home to replicate the same exercises so we can continue our training regime throughout the week.…all very nice.

I still hated it.

Up until last night, that is.

Last night, something clicked. A couple of the women were chatting throughout the exercises, making off the cuff remarks and I was laughing along with them as I was doing my lunges and squat thrusts.

JP started talking about the class as we continued to exercise. “It’s one hour of your week, that’s all. You can talk about your weekends and your families before or after the class. One hour. That’s all I’m asking of you to focus and push. I can show you how to make the exercises harder. I can show you how to make them easier. The only option I’m not giving you is to stop. Nothing in life can be achieved through giving up at the first hurdle, or when it hurts a little. Yes, you’re tired. Yes, your muscles are beginning to feel fatigued. But I’m here to help you work with that in a good way so your bodies respond positively. You can be tired in life, but there are always ways to make life better. You can make life go faster, or slower, but there is no option to stop – except a very extreme option of course! In this hour, you don’t need to worry about mortgages, or spreadsheets, or what is going on at home – this is about focused attention. On what is going on within you. On stretching yourselves beyond what you believed possible. I will not let you be unsafe but I will encourage you to dig deep and do what is necessary to surprise yourselves.”

And in that moment, everything changed. I thought – this is exactly what I teach! Why hadn’t I made that connection before? My whole life and business is around helping people get better in their lives, their work, their focus, their approach and yet I’d never applied that same thinking to me and my exercise!

Here was a man who totally believed in his message (so do I); who passionately wanted to help other people achieve more (so do I) and who wanted them to challenge their own personal boundaries and beliefs (so do I).

In that moment, I became super focused. Good grief, it still hurt. I was POURING with sweat (sorry for that picture!) but I kept going. I would not give up. I pushed on through, keeping focused on JP’s instruction and what I needed to do. I felt fantastic. Sore, aching, but fantastic. And JP was super encouraging – he noticed my effort and the focus. As one of my personal core values is to recognise when others are really trying, that meant a lot.

I’m actually looking forward to next week’s class. Life can be made harder or easier, faster or slower, but there is no option to stop. So what needs to happen for YOU to feel the burn and push through what life is throwing at you? Anything I can help you with? I'd love to hear your comments or challenges!

If you’re anything like me, you’re juggling a number of priorities, tasks, people and tasks, making life incredibly busy. Hey – we’re well into the 21^st Century and as far as I can make it out, this is how it’s going to be for a while, yet! But are you actually getting anywhere? Are your actions taking you forward or are you simply “being busy” – and there is a difference. I call it Action Illusion.

Action Illusion can happen to the best of us. It's when you fill your time and space with “busyness” – lots of different things that fill your time – but how much of it is actual action, rather than an illusion of action? How much of it is actually moving you forward in a positive, meaningful way? 



Good grief, you and I know that our time can easily be filled up, but is it all good, or actually causing us more burnout? We need to make sure that what we do makes a positive difference, and if it doesn’t – we need to recognize that and stop it! 



Here's a quick exercise which will help you to identify the things you do which are “illusions” of action and those which are actual, positive steps forward.

EXERCISE:

1. Draw a circle – the bigger, the better. I find this exercise works best if you’re standing up, so if you can find a large piece of paper to pin to the wall on which to do this – go for it!

2. Grab a pack of Post It notes and for each task you have to do (phone calls; meetings; projects; conference calls; events; kids stuff; partner stuff; home stuff; admin, etc.), write each one on a Post It note. It's best to do this as quickly as you can rather than giving it lots of “pondering” thought. Think and write quickly and give each item/task its own Post It note. Place all of these Post It’s into the circle.

3. Once you've exhausted yourself (literally!), stand back and have a look at all the Post It’s. Then go through each one and ask yourself this question:

“On a scale of 1 – 10 (1 being "virtually none" to 10 being "completely") how much is this task moving me/my project/my family/my team/my business forward? 

Write the number in red on each Post It note.

4. For any Post It note that has 7 or less – remove the Post It and put it on the outside of the circle.

5. Any Post its that remain inside your circle are the ones that you should continue doing, as they're positively contributing to your moving forward in some way. The others are simply Illusions of Action – contributing to your feeling of "busyness" but not actually being that meaningful or fruitful – in fact, they probably cause you more stress!

Now’s the time to be brave. Go on – I dare ya! Pick one thing on the outside of your circle and be ruthless. Stop doing it. Just completely stop. Give yourself one week of not doing it. At the end of that time, notice what difference has been made as a result of not doing it. Chances are, no noticeable difference will have been made at all – which only goes to reinforce your decision in stopping it!

Then try choosing another one and doing the same. One item at a time. You'll soon see the difference in a positive, productive, “Fired Up” you, rather than someone suffering from Action Illusion!

P.S This is also great for sharing with your teams, individuals you’re responsible for, or are coaching. It really helps to bring them clarity, perspective and motivation. Have fun!

Driving along in the car yesterday the 1999 song by Baz Luhrmann "Sunscreen" came on. It was quirky then and it's still quirky now, but as I listened to the lyrics I thought – WOW. These words are PHENOMENAL. I wish I'd written them myself! There are just so many great little points and nuggets of wisdom in here that I thought – I need to share! So here are the full lyrics reproduced. What do YOU think?

"Sunscreen" By Baz Luhrmann

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience…I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth…. oh never mind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked….you’re not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy.

Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters; throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents; you never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on.

Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen…

Wow! Isn't it great? And it got me thinking….if you had to add just one more sentence, what would it be? Let me know!

Given that I adore helping people to be the best they can be at work and encouraging them to enable others to do the same, the whole subject of motivation has long fascinated me.

Give one person a bells and whistles recognition party – she loves it. Give the same thing to another guy and he wants to crawl under a stone. Because that's not how he's wired.

So often businesses spend an inordinate amount of time creating wonderful rewards packages and yes – some of them ARE great. Yet so many of them seem to miss the mark. Plus there are a whole heap of other businesses and leaders who still continue to lead through intimidation and believe that fear (however they like to package it up) is the best way of getting people to toe the line.

But I want so much more than people just toeing the line. That's compliance. That's ticking a box. I want people enjoying their time at work, engaged in what they're doing, contributing meaningfully to the business, their colleagues around them, their customers. Because – let's be honest – we spend far more time at work than we do anywhere else! I think it's criminal for people to be dragging their heels because they're disengaged, demotivated, or have lost their mojo.

That's why I love – and completely buy into – Daniel Pink's "surprising truth about what motivates us". Through lots of practical, grounded research, he found the three key components necessary for people to truly feel inspired and motivated by what they do. They are:

• Autonomy
• Mastery
• Purpose

Take a look at this 10 minute video, where Dan talks through these key principles. It's highly engaging – fabulous visuals to stimulate the senses. But listen to some of the examples he gives, too, and see what ideas they conjure up for you……. 

As Howard Thurman once said, "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

How could you help create that for your people? How could you increase the autonomy, mastery and purpose for your people? And if you work for yourself, how can you get better connected with each of these principles? They are there for the taking – I believe that as we get more people connected with these types of principles, their work life is going to be better, which leads to a more satisfying personal life too and the world is just a better place for people being engaged like that. That certainly motivates me.

There are many methods for coaching, designed for the session itself. But very few help the coach (and coaching client) think about the success factors prior to the session. I like this model for that reason. It helps them take into consideration all the factors that will help make the coaching session an even greater success. (And best of all, it's a really simple mnemonic to remember!)

R – RAPPORT

- How good is the rapport between you now?

- Do you need to increase it, in order to get a better connection between the two of you?

- How will you do this? (Remember, if the rapport isn’t high enough – your coaching efforts will probably be wasted).  Think through all t he actions you could take to build rapport

O – OUTCOMES

- What is your desired outcome, as a result of holding this coaching conversation?

- What is theirs? How do you know?

- Do they dovetail? Or are they contradictory?

- How can you prepare them for the best outcome?

- Always make sure your own outcomes are well formed – think POWER (see my post on this)

M – METHODS

- What is the best method for coaching them?

- Think about the coaching outcome, as well as the personal preference of the individual.

- Will this particular method require any additional resources? Help from others, material, equipment, etc…..

E – EVALUATION

- How and when will you both review progress against the coaching outcome?

- How will you reward and reinforce their success?

By spending just a little bit of time thinking about all these factors will contribute to a rewarding and successful coaching session – enjoy!

Whether you have a small business or work for a large organisation, the principles of engagement are exactly the same. And engaging people really doesn't take huge amounts of money and time – very often it is the simple, fun ideas that make the biggest difference. Engaged people are more loyal, motivated and productive at work, so whichever way you look at it, getting your people engaged should be a priority for all leaders! Here are some ideas to get you started.

- Create a “Best Ideas of the Month” Newsletter and include peoples’ names, pictures and a statement of their best innovation.

- Buy lunch for a different group of people once a month.  It doesn’t have to be extravagant – a sandwich and a coffee is fine.  Listen.

- Give your people copies of the latest business best sellers or a subscription to a business journal.

- Provide tickets to a sporting, musical or cultural event.

- Invite your people to a restaurant for a special recognition celebration – (how about sending a stretch limo to pick them up!).

- Encourage your people to participate in important meetings and committees on your behalf when you’re not available.  Make sure you’re not available some of the time.

- Take out a full-page ad in a local newspaper thanking your team for their contribution.

- Provide a donation in the name of an employee to the charity of their choice.

- Send every team member a card expressing your appreciation – on their birthday, New Year’s Day, Easter, anniversary of joining…make it personal – a standard message just won’t do

- Establish a place to display information, posters, pictures and so on, thanking individuals and teams for their contributions

- Always give your people credit for their ideas when presenting them to senior management, peers or customers.

- Write “hero-grams” to individuals when they’ve achieved something extraordinary – pin these up on notice boards and send copies to your boss and Human Resources.

- Ask your boss – or your boss’ boss – to send letters of thanks to specific individuals – or the whole team.

- Create symbols of the team’s work or effort (T-shirts, logos on coffee cups, posters, coat-of-arms, photographs)

- Have an appreciation or welcome party whenever somebody joins or leaves your team.

- Hold the monthly or quarterly team meeting at an unusual venue to build some creativity into the situation. Go to the bowling alley, the racecourse, a local park, a museum or on top of a mountain…..!

- Take the entire team to the cinema after an end-of-day meeting – and buy them all popcorn.

- Bring a tape recorder or CD player to work, and give everybody a chance to choose their favourite music for a day.  Use the music for short 5-minute energisers or ‘breathers’ during a busy day.

And what about you? What are YOUR tips for better engaging people at work? Share your ideas here – we'd love to hear!

In order to really succeed with your goals, you not only need to take action, but feel motivated to do so. Very often, even what initially sounded like a great goal can lose its edge. Here’s some ideas to get you reconnected with your goals, re-energised and raring to go on your actions!

Take 2 of your business goals and 1 personal goal. It doesn’t matter whether you’re highly motivated to achieve them or need to re-engage – just choose the ones you’d love to kickstart!

Write a paragraph about them, as if you were selling the outstanding benefits of achieving these to someone else, to inspire them. Why are they so amazing? What would you gain by having achieved them in your life? What will having them enable you to do? How will it make you feel/ make others around you feel? By doing this with even the most mundane of tasks or targets, you can start to change your perception of them. Which in turn starts to awaken your curiosity as you look to finding ways of achieving them!

Now write down the first action you will take to move towards each of them in the next 24 hours. The power, the absolute energy of making any goal work is to take action immediately on it. I have a saying – never leave a place of learning without taking action. So if you’ve learned something so far in this exercise, identify what you need to do to take action on that!

 Do 'the rocking chair' test. Close your eyes and imagine you're 95 years old, sitting in a rocking chair, looking back at what you achieved in your life and in particular, these goals. How would you feel had you not taken action, had not done what you said you were going to do?

Now, some of you may be thinking – I can honestly say I would not be thinking about these goals in my rocking chair! It was only about decorating the spare room! Or getting another 5 clients by the end of the month. Big deal! But think of it like a domino effect. If you hadn't pushed that first domino (or taken that first action step), you might not have met one of the best clients you ever had. Which may have led to you being recommended for promotion. Which may have led to you enjoying that so much, you looked for the next challenge. Which may have led to you moving to another company, or growing your business. Which may have led you to be able to take that trip of a lifetime/pay off your mortgage early/buy your dream home/travel more/anything that you'd only previously dreamed of.

Get the picture? Every action you take (or don't take) in your life has a direct consequence later on in your life! So go back to that rocking chair. Now imagine looking back at your life and viewing yourself as a person of purpose, of action, of always looking for those small steps to take to move forward. How far away from that image are you now? What steps do you need to take to move closer to that reality?

Identify the steps – commit to taking them – take action! 

When babies learn to walk, we congratulate every tiny step, every courageous wobble. We cheer all those tiny pieces of progress they make… Isn’t it funny how we don’t give ourselves that same encouragement and support. Just because we’re “officially” grown up (and I reserve the right to be a big kid whenever I want!), we set ourselves mammoth tasks to achieve and then get disheartened when progress is slow!

The more I work with people who show a desire in "getting better" (whether that's to be better in dealing with a challenging situation, better at leading others, better at dealing with difficult people), the more I have seen that grand gestures very rarely make the difference that lasts. It is those small steps - in and amongst the wobbles but constantly focused on "getting better" – which lead to sustained, meaningful change.

Here's the trouble with people like me. I run events, workshops and seminars where I'm delighted to say I get people motivated, fired up and ready for change. I have testimonials and videos and emails from people who leave feeling they've had a real awakening and are going off to rock their worlds! Yay! LOVE that!

But what can sometimes happen after people attend an event, or a teleseminar, or read a self help book is they have the rush…..and then the comedown. Within a couple of weeks they think to themselves – "I'm no further forward. Nothing's changed. That course/book/expert isn't all it's cracked up to be. This stuff DOESN'T WORK." (Ever experienced that? Be honest!)

Being positive and focused on this stuff for one day or one week won’t do it. Doing twenty push ups a day isn’t going to give you a washboard stomach overnight (more’s the pity – sheesh). You’ve got to keep doing it, putting the effort and energy in – and only then will you start to see a return and some big changes in your life that you didn’t even notice happening at the time.

This is where a bit of patience comes in. You all know the principle of sowing and reaping, I’m sure. You reap the harvest after you’ve done the work. You dig the soil, plant the seeds, water the seeds (effort), wait a while (patience) and then you reap your harvest. Effort + patience = results/reward.

In this day and age, this principle is lost on people. We’ve lost the art of patience. So people ask – “If I plant my seeds today and put the work in, what do I get tomorrow?” And of course the answer is – wet seeds! Instant results are so rarely seen – we need to put in the consistent small action steps in order to see our results.

You don’t eat a meal in one gulp, you eat it one mouthful at a time. It’s exactly the same with these actions. Pick something small – it may even seem insignificant – that you can work on. Get it into your skin and into your psyche. Then choose something else and do the same. Keep chipping away over a period of time and you’ll be surprised at how all those little steps and actions add up. 

With small, simple actions, no effort is wasted.

Whenever you try any action at first, it can seem as if you’re putting in loads of effort for very little return. Keep persevering, because all those actions and small steps added together and layered on top of one another will bring you the progress and the difference you’ve been seeking in your chosen area.

OVER TO YOU: Tell me – when has taking regular small steps and perseverance made a difference in your life? I'd love to hear!

This is a post I've been mulling over for a few days. It's been really difficult to articulate because on the one hand it feels very self righteous, but on the other, I really feel it needs to be said! I guess the judge of how it comes across is the person reading it – i.e. YOU!

We've all got unique gifts and skills. Whether that's cutting through a complicated process to find a simple solution; being a great listener; an inspiring role model in business; identifying opportunities which others don't see; being an amazing administrator, the ability to lead a group of very different people and personalities to success……

What you can do, someone else may struggle to achieve and vice versa. And that's how the world goes round and that's how we contribute to the world and how we gain in return.

At the last count, I'm completely useless at 4,376,897,982,678 things and have a gift in about 3! (And that's fine – really).

The stuff I am good at I use to help others and yes, that's what my business is essentially based on. But it's also a personal drive, too. I love the feeling of helping people move from being stuck to moving forwards. Do I benefit financially? Yes, a lot of the time. But I also benefit from seeing people revitalised, re-energised, fired up and ready to tackle life with a whole new perspective. For me, that's priceless. I love, love, LOVE it. And of course, often I get thanks and praise from people publicly who I've helped, because they're grateful. Which is lovely!

In a nutshell, I thrive on adding value, educating, inspiring and making a difference in the lives of others. It's my soul food  And yes – let's tell it how it is – it's also great to be paid for that, too!

However, recently I've seen others in similar privileged positions to me who seem to have the priority of ensuring their own personal glory and status is recognised. They have a need to be seen as THE one who made a difference, or provided a breakthrough, or increased the success of someone else. They want to make the point that without their help or intervention, Person A would never be where they are now. All hail the guru for providing the breakthrough experience!

It's fab receiving feedback publicly for the work I've done. And of course I use it to demonstrate to others what I can do. I guess I'd just like to see a little more humility and little less self interest from some of the hotshots out there. If we all focus on making a difference, rather than making a point about our talents, that in itself is a great point we're all making, right? 

Do you ever have one of those days where everything within your life seems frustrating? Something that needs finishing, or improving, or removing, or repairing, or organizing……and the more we see of these things, the more it sucks our vitality. 



Whether you have all the time in the world or are Mr/Mrs Busy of Busyville Central, you have a choice whenever you feel yourself getting overwhelmed and demoralized by what you see around you. 



You have a choice to take Action, or Accept. 



Action



I love action takers. People who see something that needs to be done – and go do it. These people are often described as proactive.

However, being proactive is more than simply taking initiative. It means taking responsibility for our decisions, our lives and what we do – or don’t – do. 



Responsibility is the ability to respond to a situation, circumstance, project, task or issue. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility and act on it. They don’t blame others, circumstances or anything else for the circumstances they’re in, whether good or bad. They simply respond and act positively to those circumstances, which in turn gives them empowerment to change their circumstances. 



Accept



There are many, many things happening around you and in the world over which you have absolutely no control and no influence. Now, you can sit here and grumble how unfair that is, but grumbling will change nothing, and if we’ve got time to grumble, we’ve got time to do something else far more positive and productive!

Positive people accept what they cannot change or influence and don’t allow it to negatively impact their life any more. 

Here’s a quick exercise you can do, which will allow you to identify what you can change and what you can’t.

In many ways, this exercise is the outworking of the Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” 


• Draw a large circle on a piece of paper – if using A4 or letter-sized, make the circle as wide as the paper. Then draw a slightly smaller circle in the middle of the large one

• Identify a situation which you are currently struggling to move forward on and which is causing your frustration. Write this at the top of the sheet

• The outer Circle is your Circle of Concern. In this outer circle, write down all things that concern (frustrate/irritate/anger) you about this situation. This is often where we leave our thinking – considering all the things which are negative, or which concern us – and keep dwelling on them! This actually prevents us from taking action and regaining control of the situation.

• So now it’s time to focus on the inner circle – your Circle of Influence. In this circle, write down everything you can do – however small – which would positively impact the situation

• When you’ve exhausted all your ideas, go back to the areas you’ve put on the outer circle. Find at least 3 things which you have named as a concern, which you have at least some influence over. Identify the action to take and write this down within your Circle of Influence – the inner circle.

Notice all the things you actually have control and influence over within this situation. These are the things which you can take action on. You'll probably find you actually have more than three ideas – this will stimulate some creativity about the situation for you.

Enjoy taking back some control….but more importantly, the progress you make on the situation. Because you will progress!

All of the things which are left in the Outer Circle are things which are out of your direct control and therefore you can simply accept. No point in using up any more energy, or worry, or frustration thinking about them – just accept they are what they are and focus your time and attention on taking action. Much more fun!