Spirituality

stop working on your business and start working on yourself
Career  ·  Direction  ·  Entrepreneur  ·  Health  ·  Life  ·  Personal Growth  ·  Spirituality  ·  Wealth
Work More On Yourself And Less On Your Business And See Your Results Soar

Stop working on your business.

Start working on yourself.

Many entrepreneurs spend their entire working day putting out fires in a never-ending cycle of reacting to problems that arise in their business in order to survive.

It’s called the Survival Trap.

And it IS a trap because as we respond to what is urgent rather than what is important, we get the immediate satisfaction of fixing a problem. We live to fight another day but there is no long-term benefit.

Surviving is not thriving. And what’s stopping you from thriving is YOU.

Entrepreneurs often become comfortable with the grind of long hours, so they keep doing the things that keep them in their comfort zone.

But if you want your business to succeed you must get out of your own way.

You need to stop working so hard and take time to work on yourself: examine your beliefs, your perspective, your habits and your behaviours.

You need to analyse what elements of your psychology are holding you back and work on changing them…

It may not be comfortable, but it is 100% necessary if you want to build a solid foundation for success.

Do you recognise how important it is to regularly take the time to work on yourself?

I help entrepreneurs and go–getters turn their dreams into reality.

I can help you build a business that delivers the income, freedom and fulfilment you truly desire.

If you want to learn more about my coaching and mentoring programs, please click on the button below.
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August 4, 2022

the 3 ps - person, passion, promise
Direction  ·  Family  ·  Life  ·  Personal Growth  ·  Spirituality
How The 3 Ps – Person, Pleasure, Passion – Can Make A Huge Difference To Your Life

As a busy entrepreneur, it can often seem that you are beset by a never-ending mountain of problems. It can be extremely stressful.  

One of the most valuable coping mechanisms I have discovered in the last few years to help me cope is carrying out some form of gratitude practice. It has helped me enormously in maintaining a positive attitude when things have been tough. 

When you express gratitude, your energy immediately shifts. And when you shift your energy to a higher frequency, you will attract more good into your life.  

One of the best exercises I’ve discovered is called the 3Ps (thank you to  Dr. Rangan Chatterjee) 

The 3 Ps stand for Person. Pleasure. Promise. 

Person: Think of someone you feel grateful for on that day and focus on sending them love and wishing them well in their life.  

Pleasure: Do the same thing but think of something you experienced during the day which gave you pleasure; however small it was.  Maybe it was watching a kitten play. Eating a particularly yummy sandwich, or playing a great shot at tennis. Picture this in your mind and fill yourself with a powerful feeling of gratitude. 

Promise: Think of something that happened in the day that holds some promise in the future.  Maybe you’ve finally booked a few days away, you have found a nice pair of shoes you want to buy, or you have arranged to meet a friend for a good catch-up. Focus on this and form a strong feeling of gratitude. 

I’ve found it really helps improve my mood and raises my general well-being… so why not give it a try. 

I help entrepreneurs and go–getters turn their dreams into reality.

I can help you build a business that delivers the income, freedom and fulfilment you truly desire.

If you want to learn more about my coaching and mentoring programs, please click on the button below.
Learn More About My Coaching Programs
July 11, 2022

Direction  ·  Entrepreneur  ·  Life  ·  Personal Growth  ·  Spirituality
Do You Have A Tendency To Focus On The Negatives?

One day, a professor entered his classroom and asked his students to prepare for a surprise test. They all waited anxiously at their desks for the exam to begin.

The professor handed out the exams with the text facing down, as usual. Once he handed them all out, he asked the students to turn over the papers.

To everyone’s surprise, there were no questions – just a black dot in the centre of the paper.

The professor, seeing the expression on everyone’s faces, told them the following: “I want you to write about what you see there.”

The students, confused, got started on this odd task.

At the end of the class, the professor took all the exams and started reading each one of them out loud in front of all the students.

All of them, without exception, defined the black dot, trying to explain its position in the centre of the sheet.

After all had been read, the classroom silent, the professor spoke.

“I’m not going to grade you on this,” he said. “I just wanted to give you something to think about.

Not one of you wrote about the white part of the paper.

Everyone focused on the black dot – and the same thing happens in our lives. 

We insist on focusing only on the black dots – the niggly health issues that bother us, the lack of money, the business problems, the betrayal by a friend.

The dark spots are very small when compared to everything we have in our lives, but they are the ones that pollute our minds.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK? DO YOU HAVE A TENDENCY TO FOCUS ON THE BLACK DOTS?

IF SO:

Take your eyes away from the black dots in your lives.

Enjoy each one of your blessings, each moment that life gives you.

Be happy and live a life filled with love.

I help entrepreneurs and go–getters turn their dreams into reality.

I can help you build a business that delivers the income, freedom and fulfilment you truly desire.

If you want to learn more about my coaching and mentoring programs, please click on the button below.
Learn More About My Coaching Programs
July 4, 2022

Personal Growth  ·  Spirituality
How To Build A Gratitude Practice And Attract More Good Into Your Life

Did you know that when you express gratitude, your energy will immediately shift. And when you shift your energy to a higher frequency, you will attract more good into your life.

We all lead busy, stress-inducing lives. There are always way too many things that need doing and we often forget to stop take stock of everything we have and all the good things that happen to us.

It’s easy to forget when you’re caught up in your day-to-day, how fortunate you really are. Anyone with a good job and a half-decent home lives in more comfort and luxury than 99.9% of people throughout history… and yet we are as a society more stressed and anxious than ever.

If you focus on the negative things in your life, you will be on a low vibrational frequency and will only attract more negative things to you.

That inevitably will lead to depression and health problems and very possibly even serious conditions like cancer.

Instead, be grateful for what you already have rather than what you don’t have and being envious of other people for what they have.

The world is abundant.

There is no shortage of money, big houses or fancy cars and, just because someone else has something you would love to have, there is no need to be envious.

They haven’t taken your slice of the cake. There is plenty for you too and you can have whatever you want.

So practice feeling grateful, no matter what’s going on around you. It helps keep your mind fixed on the best in life… and when you do, your energy will immediately shift.

It will naturally put your body in a higher frequency that is in harmony with the Universe (the infinite supply) so that the good that is in everything and everywhere gravitates toward you.

Wallace D Wattles wrote in “The Science of Getting Rich”, “The grateful mind is constantly fixed upon the best. Therefore, it tends to become the best; it takes the form or character of the best and will receive the best.”

When you have a challenge in life, whether it’s financial business or another type of issue, rather than adding energy to the problem by focusing on it, instead focus on thing you are grateful for. When you change the way you look at your problems, the problems themselves will actually change – perhaps dissolve altogether!

Take time to focus on positive things, and really send love and gratitude out into the world. Your vibrational frequency will become higher and you attract more good into your life, and the more good you attract, the more things you’ll have to be thankful for.

Now I can guarantee you will feel better immediately and the more you practice the longer that good feeling will last. The circumstances in your life may not change immediately but they will change sooner rather than later if you practice consistently. It may take days weeks or even months but if you keep doing it, things will improve.

Tips For Practicing Gratitude

Practice being grateful for what you already have. There is no need to go out and spend loads of money in order to have something to be grateful for. You already have so much to be grateful for.

  • Leave your phone behind (Shock! Horror!) and focus your attention on the people you are with. Enjoy being present with them.
  • Make it a regular thing to take long slow walks in nature. Really appreciate and give thanks to the beauty and wonder that is all around you in trees, flowers, wildlife, rivers… and the ocean if you are lucky enough to be able to walk near the ocean.
  • Recognize that everything is made from one universal energy – you are part of that energy and are connected to everything. Be grateful that you have unlimited potential.
  • Set aside 10 minutes every day – make it a habit; block it out in your calendar and do a guided gratitude meditation. There are plenty of free ones on Spotify or YouTube.

Or just do your own meditation. Sit quietly; relax; close your eyes, breathe slowly; and give gratitude that you are alive, for being you, your good health. Give thanks to the people in your life who help and support you. Be thankful for all that you have, the home that provides comfort for you, the food that nourishes you, the beauty of the sky, your children or your pets who bring you joy, your partner for all their support, your parents for everything they have done for you, maybe just for the great cup of coffee you had this morning and the friendly barista!

There is much to be grateful for.

Keep a gratitude journal.

You don’t have to spend a ton of money

You can buy a gratitude journal from a stationary store or Amazon or just use a nice notebook something with a good-looking cover that you will treat with a certain amount of respect

Reflect at the end of the day on all the good things that have happened, the people you have spent time with.

Write at least 5 things down EVERY DAY that you are grateful for. Don’t be flippant.

They don’t have to be big accomplishments! It can be as simple as “I am grateful that I sleep in a warm bed. I have a roof over my head. I ate a lovely nutritious lunch.”

Find new things and new ways to be grateful every day.

To help you create a feeling of gratitude there is an exercise called the 3Ps (that I learned from Dr Rangan Chaterjee).

The 3 Ps stand for: Person. Pleasure. Promise.

Person: Think of someone you feel grateful for on that day and focus on sending them love and wishing them well in their life.

Pleasure: Do the same thing but think of something you experienced during the day which gave you pleasure; however small it was.  Maybe it was watching a kitten play. Eating a particularly delicious sandwich, or playing a great shot at tennis. Picture this in your mind and fill yourself with a powerful feeling of gratitude.

Promise: Think of something that happened in the day that holds some promise in the future.  Maybe you’ve finally booked a few days away, you have found a nice pair of shoes you want to buy, or you have arranged to meet a friend for a good catch-up. Focus on this and form a strong feeling of gratitude.

You don’t have to do all these things. In fact, it’s best to start with just one and add in one or two more gradually over time as you develop the habits.

Keeping a journal and meditation both work well for me. But whichever way you do it it’s not just about thinking, saying or writing down the words, it’s about creating a genuine feeling of gratitude in your heart that:

  • Elevates your vibration
  • Decreases stress levels
  • Makes you feel lighter and happier

The more you practice, the more you will feel that way.

Why not start today? Take the first step to a more grateful and joyful life.

I help entrepreneurs and go–getters turn their dreams into reality.

I can help you build a business that delivers the income, freedom and fulfilment you truly desire.

If you want to learn more about my coaching and mentoring programs, please click on the button below.
Learn More About My Coaching Programmes
June 20, 2022

Career  ·  Direction  ·  Entrepreneur  ·  Personal Growth  ·  Spirituality
How To Turn Your Thinking Into Results

When you look at your results and let the results register in your mind, the results cause you to think. The thinking produces a feeling and that feeling causes you to act in a certain way that produces further results.

The same results!

That is the reason why most people keep getting the same results year in year out.

It’s called struggling.

If you want to change your results, you need to stop allowing the outside world to control your thoughts. You need to train yourself to objectively observe what is going on externally without getting wrapped up in it.

Treat the outside world as though you’re watching it dispassionately as you might do a TV show. You can choose how engaged you become with it.

You can then start to respond rather than react and say to yourself, “ no that’s not what I want!”

You then start to think of what you do want. You think those thoughts that create the feelings you’d like to have and those feelings will cause certain actions and those actions will produce different results.

When you consciously observe the new results, you mentally adapt to them and immediately begin to think the thoughts that create ideas on how to improve upon them.

It all starts with your thinking.

Stay in charge of YOU.

Don’t let the outside world control you. Create your own circumstances.

You can also book a free no-obligation call with me to see how I can help you achieve your goals by clicking on the button below!

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May 30, 2022

Career  ·  Direction  ·  Personal Growth  ·  Spirituality
Simple Steps To Improve Your Self-Image

Your self-image determines the level of success you experience in life, in much the same way as a thermostat controls the temperature in your house. It may vary from time to time but the thermostat will bring the temperature back to the level you have set.  

So if you want more success – you must improve your self-image.  

Here are 4 simple steps you can start right now that will have a dramatic effect in just a few weeks. 

  1. Call to mind a person that you admire and respect. someone who clearly has a very positive self-image. It can be somebody you know personally, someone famous, or even a fictional character. 
  2. Think about the qualities they exhibit that you admire. and write out a description of them in the present tense. 
  3. Take that description, close your eyes and relax. Begin to imagine yourself as that person, imagine acting as if you literally have become that person. Embrace that self-image and begin to imprint it on your subconscious mind. 
  4. Identify just one action step you can take immediately to start integrating the qualities of this person into your life. What can you do to embrace those qualities and this person’s positive self-image; think of how they would deal with situations; how they would carry themselves; how they would talk to people.  

In short, immerse yourself in the role, as a method actor like Marlon Brando or Daniel Day-Lewis would do.  

You will be surprised how quickly you and other people will start to notice a positive change. 

May 23, 2022

Personal Growth  ·  Spirituality  ·  Wealth
Are You Stuck In A Metaphorical Cave?

If you look back to prehistoric times, when our ancestors were hunter- gatherers, they lived in caves for safety from the carnivorous beasts that roamed outside.

They usually only left the cave in groups tooled up with spears because they would have died of starvation had they not done so.

That sort of behaviour may have made sense when there really were sabre-tooth tigers ready to attack. However, tens of thousands of years later, getting eaten isn’t quite the danger it once was.

Yet many people are still sitting in their metaphorical caves – afraid to venture outside them.

And by that, I mean they stick with jobs they don’t particularly like and have no passion for because they’re scared of the danger the outside world may hold for them.

Nothing in this world can standstill.

It’s a law of the universe that everything is either growing or disintegrating… whether that’s a tree, your body your business or your life. If you’re not moving forward and growing in some way, then you are stagnating… And stagnation leads to deterioration and eventually death, whether that is mental, physical or spiritual death.

If you’re familiar with the fantastic book ‘Psycho-Cybernetics’ by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, you will understand that we human beings are purpose-driven creatures and are happiest when we are moving towards the goals we have set ourselves.

The fact is the primaeval instincts that are there to preserve us from life-threatening situations are no longer relevant in the modern world.

You are not going to ‘get eaten’ if you leave your job, yet fear prevents many people from doing it.

We all experience fear – without exception. The difference is people who set up and run successful businesses must learn to push through that fear barrier to the other side where happiness and freedom live.

To use my own story as an example: I started my career as a solicitor in a top law firm in London. For many people that may well be their dream job; certainly, my parents and my contemporaries all believed it to be a good career.

It took me a few years, but I eventually acknowledged that I had made a mistake – the legal and corporate world was not for me. I simply wasn’t able to be who I wanted to be.

Going to work each morning used to fill me with a sense of dread. I used to come out of Blackfriars station in the morning along with thousands of other anonymous, dark-suited, brief-cased professionals, feeling like we were all rats pressed together scurrying down the road worried about being late.

I remember I frequently thought about stepping in front of one of the buses going up Fleet Street.

Fortunately, I always held on to the belief that there was something better and I was free to take a different path. So, I weighed up the highly paid career on one hand and following my own path on the other – whatever that may be.

I looked at the partners in the firms I worked for who were earning hundreds of thousands of pounds a year and asked myself: “Do I want the sort of life they have?” To me, they all seemed unhappy and stressed.

They worked twelve-hour days and had little social life. Many were divorced or never saw their families.

For me, it was not such a difficult decision.

Even in my 20s, I was aware of the importance of being true to yourself if you want to be happy. And I knew being in that job was never going to make me happy. There was no way I was going to spend the rest of my life doing that… even if it was very well paid.

Now, I must admit one of the things my friends tell me they admire about me is that I am quite fearless about starting something new and I’ve done it several times throughout my career.

So, I just decided to quit.

I had little in the way of savings and I had no sort of safety net or guaranteed income just an idea of what I wanted to do and the faith that it would work out. So, even for me, that was quite a bold move.

The one and only time in my life I’ve had a panic attack was when the enormity of what I’d done hit me as I was getting ready to go to work in the new office I had leased and try and start getting clients and making money in my new business.

That was twenty-two years ago and whilst there have been plenty of ups and downs – I’ve built and sold companies for millions and I’ve been broke during that period – but I’ve never regretted it. I was a young man at the time without any family commitments and I appreciate that most people will not have the same attitude as me and may well have family commitments and responsibilities.

In any event, I would not recommend just giving up your job immediately as ultimately it can be self-defeating if you put too much pressure on yourself to make your new venture work. But you can start making preparations whilst you still have your job.

If you are at the stage where you recognise you are not happy in your job, but you don’t know yet what your purpose and passion in life is the best thing to do is some personal development work to find out what it is that you really love doing and then find a way to start generating income from that activity. Because there will be a way to make a living from it and even if it won’t make you rich it you will spend your days doing what you love – and that’s what counts.

The next step is to block out time in your calendar to devote to creating your new business. Be disciplined with it. Make it sacrosanct so that you will not get pulled away by any external distractions. I find that getting up early and studying whilst everyone else is still asleep works best for me but you may be more of an evening person.

It doesn’t matter just make sure you are disciplined enough to stick to it and let your family know not to disturb you during that time. After all you are doing it for their benefit as well.

Focus on studying about both business and creating the right mindset for success. Having the right attitude and mindset is the most critical factor for success in any business but you clearly need to have an understanding of business basics such as company set up, finance, sales and marketing and any regulatory issues that affect your particular business. It will no doubt take a good few months – maybe longer, but sooner or later you will be generating enough income from your side business to give you the confidence to ‘leave your cave’.

The crucial factor, if you are going to overcome the fear of leaving your cave is that you must have faith that you won’t ‘get eaten alive’, that people and things will appear to help you that you would never have imagined that it will turn out alright, if you follow your heart.

If you’d like some help find your purpose just let me know in the comments below and I can send you some exercises to help with that.

Or if you’d like a chat about how I could help, click here to book a call.

May 3, 2022