At the beginning of this series of GuidePosts we noted that the number of people reporting stress, anxiety and depression is massive! The WHO note that mental health issues have increased 13% in the last decade (in 2017) and substance disorders up some 20% and with suicide as the second leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds - you realise that this is a huge problem.

1 Billion people across the world suffer a mental health problem in 2022!

That’s 1 person in 8!!!

WHO World Mental Health Report 2022

The increase of substance abuse is evidence that people are trying to cope with their stress, anxiety and depression with the “pleasure” of the dopamine high. This is creating a dopamine imbalance which can lead to addiction and is instead making us chronically unhappy according to Dr Robert Lustig in his excellent book, Hacking of the American Mind.

In all our striving in the pursuit of happiness we seem to be paying the price in alcohol and drug abuse, gambling, excess unhealthy food (ice cream, chocolate), smoking and social media “likes”. Meanwhile stress and anxiety are on the rise and incidents of rage make the news daily.

And that stress and cortisol increase reward seeking behaviour and decrease reasoning ability!

The world isn’t in pursuit of happiness, it’s seeking pleasure to offset the stresses of living… because it’s quicker than actually pursuing happiness and joy!

How do you increase happiness and joy in your whole life?

I’m so glad that you asked.

As I mentioned - taking a dopamine pleasure high route is quicker - especially (ab)using substances. BUT, it’s short lived and within minutes or hours you’ll be after another high due to the increasing dopamine imbalance and addiction.

Instead we can deal with chronic unhappiness and gain long term benefits through some simple, deliberate changes to how we go about our every day life. Dr Lustig proposes a solution he calls the 4C’s of Happiness: Connect, Contribute, Cope and Cook. (Check out “Hacking the American Mind”)

Connect.

Connect with people you like and enjoy. Join your local church, a social group or simply have a conversation. Preferably in person. Make sure that you practice empathy with them - this engages your mirror neurons to feel what they feel, or to “walk in their shoes”. The result is a serotonin boost and a feeling of personal contentment and fulfils your own personal need for belonging and perhaps mattering.

Time with pets can also be beneficial and achieve much the same result.

PS. Emailing, Facebooking, Insta’ing, Threading or X’ing is NOT connecting.

Contribute

Give something of yourself: your time, your resources, your skills, your energy and your attention to something larger than yourself. Volunteer at a shelter, help a charity, make or repair something for someone else who needs your help.

Giving to others is self-transcendent (spoiler alert! This is a large part of your purpose in this life!) and fulfils your personal need to matter.

Cope

Three activities that will improve your serotonin receptors in your brain (and hence make you feel happier and better): Sleep, Mindfulness and Exercise.

Sleep deprivation increases stress and cortisol and causes depression!. Sleep is so essential for your brain and body and can fill several volumes alone for the essential benefits and much advice. Read Why We Sleep, by Mathew Walker or Claudia Aguirre’s 7 Healthy Tips for a Better Night’s Sleep.

PS. Screens KILL sleep!!! And trying to multitask (which you cannot!!) is costing you sleep because it increases stress and cortisol.

Mindfulness practice helps you alter your brain waves and calms your mind deliberately. We’ll be using a mindful process in bridging from stress to joy.

Exercise regularly. Whatever takes your fancy. I personally recommend walking - even better with some company or a dog. Decent brisk walking is nothing but beneficial. Running is tougher on your body, cycling means dodging pedestrians and cars. And good stretching is amazingly beneficial - pilates or yoga for low impact.

Combine exercise with mindfulness is better than using SSRI’s for treating depression!

PS. TV/Netflix surfing increases dopamine, kills sleep, is mindless and usually accompanied with unnecessary trips to the fridge for another beer, candy bar or ice cream.

Cook for yourself! If you don’t know how to cook, you are being held hostage by the food industry (most who are in it to make profit and care less about your health and well-being and like you being addicted to sugar highs etc!)

You need to boost two items in your diet and knock one out: Up Tryptophane, More Omega 3 and Less Fructose.

Tryptophan is an essential amino acid found sometimes in whole milk, nuts, seeds, eggs, poultry and fish (esp Salmon). It is the precursor to serotonin. You need more of it!

Omega 3 is another fatty acid that is an anti-inflammatory and improves your mood. Find it in fish (esp Salmon and Mackeral), algae, nuts, plant oils.

Fructose is added sugar. Reduce and better still, cut it. It depletes serotonin and ramps up your dopamine. It is the anti-happiness food of choice!

PS Fast food is your enemy. Fish is your friend (and no I don’t mean filet o’ fish burgers!) Learn to cook and choose wisely - your body and brain will thank you.

That’s it! Connect with others, Contribute by giving, Cope by sleeping well and mindful exercise and Cook (fish, poultry, eggs, nuts and seeds) for yourself. You will be happy!

What about Joy?

Where happiness is an emotion (serotonin) and circumstantial, Joy is a choice in spite of circumstances.

It is said that Joy is of the heart, happiness is on the face.

We’re going to tackle How to Increase Joy@Work next.

From what we’ve learned so far, we know that to raise performance anywhere, we need to be able to choose to be At Cause.

We’ve also learned about the affects of five important neurotransmitters: Dopamine (pleasure), Serotonin (happiness), Cortisol (stress), Adrenaline (fear), Anandamide (Peace and Joy).

We need to know about four additional Neurotransmitters in your brain’s “cocktail bar”: Oxytocin (love, trust), Vasopressin (attachment), Endorphins (resilience) and Acetylcholine (focus).

Stay with me, because I am coming back to the impact on your leadership and performance improvement @work. Meantime, let’s talk about love:

Love, often confused with joy or happiness (and sometimes pleasure) is a combination of two things: Attachment and Attraction:

Attachment

Attachment is tied to the neurotransmitters Oxytocin and Vasopressin. Oxytocin is known as the “love and trust” chemical. It’s responsible for increasing the bonding between a mother and her new born, and for that trusting relationship bond with a colleague or team member.

Vasopressin’s effects are less well understood but it appears to be gender specific. For men, Vasopressin is believed to make men more suspicious, even aggressive, towards novel males. Thus a new male joining the team may be viewed with more suspicion by the other males in the team.

In contrast, for women, it appears that Vasopressin makes them friendlier towards novel women.

Attraction

When you enjoy doing something, you are attracted to it, which makes you feel “happy” with a cascade of Dopamine, Norepinephrine and Serotonin.

You can see why feeling attracted to someone or something can easily get confused with fear mixed with pleasure mixed with happiness! Explains a lot that I wish I’d known when puberty struck!

It’s also why attraction can also cause a lack of appetite (your digestive tract got shut down in the fear response!) and a loss of sleep (which is affected by Serotonin).

Performance Enhancement

As you do things well and get into your “zone” or in your “flow”, your performance improves thanks to the additional cascade of Anandamides and Endorphins.

Endorphins are your brain’s natural pain killers. They are released to help cope when your body feels pain or stress. You can get a boost of these through exercise or any demanding activity.

Performance improvement @work

Ok, we’ve got the necessary foundational understanding.

When you do something that matters to you, you are attachedto it (Oxytocin and Vasopressin).

When you do something that you enjoy, you are attracted to it and just a little fearful (Dopamine, Norepinephrine and Serotonin).

Then you get into your zone or flow or your high performancestate (Anandamides and Endorphins).

You stay focused on task because the dopamine high mixed with a little fear to make it an exciting challenge triggers Acetylcholine - and signals your Reticular Activating System (RAS) to focus attention on the task at hand.

These eight neurochemicals significantly enhance performance and is addictive (scientists prefer to use the word “autotelic”). Hence we experience “flow” in our performance and we will go out of our way to re-experience it. Basically, we increase our own intrinsic motivation and inspiration to continually enhance our own performance!

AND there’s more! These chemicals also augment the creative process and pattern recognition. Oxytocin and Vasopressin disregulate your Neo-cortex, widening your self perspective, liberating your mind to new thoughts and feelings. Making us more creative and faster in how we do things!

Command and Control leaders should be aware that, in contrast, fear narrows perspective and inhibits performance and increases distress further degrading performance!

Which would you choose?

Public speaking is one of the top fears of many people – in fact, it’s been rated as the number one fear for some. But why is that? Is it really the act of standing in front of a group of people and talking that’s the problem?

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It turns out that the real fear behind public speaking isn’t the speaking itself, but rather the fear of public humiliation. We’re all concerned about what other people think of us and being put in the spotlight can be a scary thing. We’re concerned about whether we’ll make a fool of ourselves or look out of place. We worry that people will laugh at us, ridicule us, or even outright make fun of us. This fear of looking “stupid” or “silly” is what really stands in the way of many people.

And, because we fear this, we can quickly become overwhelmed with performance anxiety. Now, any time we need to perform in front of anyone else, anxiety sets in.

Performance Anxiety is the fear or stress you experience before, during and after a performing any specific task.

Public speaking is one example, but it could be as simple as brushing your teeth or getting out of your bed or a chair. Or it could be your boss asking you a question for which you haven’t got the answer - it’s not necessarily that you don’t know the answer, but in the pressure of the moment…. Poof! It’s gone. Or maybe the factual answer is not the correct answer?

Any time that you feel pressured to perform or feel the need to meet an expectation, performance anxiety can take centre stage - your mouth dry, head aching, nauseated, shortness of breath, uncontrollable shaking, racing heart, loss of concentration and feeling overwhelmed… heck, you only need to add incredible intense chest pain and you were off to A&E and the cardiac ward!

Performance anxiety is not fun! It’s an equal opportunities affliction caring nothing for age, gender, experience, fitness or race. And fortunately, it’s all in the mind.

If only there was a way to interrupt our anxious thinking and overcome performance anxiety…

If you ever suffer from a little or a lot of performance anxiety, here’s four simple mind hacks I’ve learned from people who always appeared to be calm, cool and super-confident. And anyone can do all of them as easily as you can breathe, laugh, pose for a picture or dance. I didn’t say that you could do them all well, but easy for sure 😃.

Before we get into this, a little medical disclaimer - the information presented in this article is not medical advice and should not be used to replace the advice of a qualified medical professional. Please consult your doctor to discuss any medical issues or treatments you may be considering.

First up is the easiest of all and something you’ve been doing since birth: Breathing. Only, you probably don’t breathe well at all (few people do!)

Breathe!

Instead, deliberately breathe in through your nose for 4, hold for 4 and breathe out sharply through your mouth for 4. And do it 4 times!

This reduces your stress hormones, especially Cortisol, and triggers your vagus nerve and your Parasympathetic Nervous System and helps calm you down.

Easy peasy, right? Ready for something a little more tricky?

Have a Laugh!

No really. Laugh out loud. Start making the sound of laughter and just keep at it.

Of course you can watch the crazy, funny videos on YouTube or TikTok or wherever, or listen to a joke. Whatever tickles your fancy. Or just laugh like the laughing policeman song:

The Laughing Policeman - Charles Jolly / Penrose

It takes a while but I know that you feel way better already. That’s the dopamine rush that’s making you feel good.

And any time you witness someone performing in any capacity who kicks off with a joke… they usually think it’s to warm up the audience, which it can do (but it can backfire badly!), it’s really to warm themselves up.

Ready for a little challenge?

Pose!

This is an astounding trick to play on your own brain. Lets boost testosterone and serotonin in the brain - and a drop of dopamine for good measure :-)

You know that feeling you get at the end of a race where you win? Or when your favourite team scored the winning goal? Or maybe when you scored highest in a competition, or your name was on the coveted list? That moment when you were a winner, a victor, a conquerer, a champion?

Yes? Fantastic - that’s the feeling we’re after. What did you do with your body at that moment? Chances are it was the V for victory pose, a fist pump, a salute, hands on hips or a high five. Whichever you like the most, that’s your pose. Strike it!

No? Oh really? That’s sad. Not even once? You ever felt proud of any achievement? What did you do? A nod to yourself, a secret fist pump, a little “uha” under your breath?

You can strike a pose anyway right? Hands on hips like superwoman, V for victory like a winning runner, fist pump for a medal winner or an ace in tennis.

Strike your pose and let out a roar.

The roar’s just for added bonus 🦁

Feel the pose, close your eyes and hear the crowd cheer. They’re cheering for you. In less than two minutes, your brain is switching channels from SNS to PNS, increasing testosterone, a smidge of serotonin and a dose of dopamine. Feel it as your performance anxiety melts away and is steadily replaced by pride.

Too embarrassing for you? Head to the toilet facilities, and do it in private.

Not so tough after all, huh? A bit odd, sure, but your body is telling your brain that you are proud, a winner, victorious - and your brain, ever wanting to get the world to make sense, responds.

And now for the pinnacle of positive feelings…

Dance!

Dance is complex for your brain. There’s usually music, a beat, which involves your hearing and sense of kinaesthetic touch. There’s some sort of coordinated movement which involves your motor cortex and your body muscles which releases endorphins which make you feel good. There may be memory involved for a specific dance routine - a dose of dopamine. It can be social (some oxytocin) and it’s always fun and it makes you happy. All that and it’s good to stave off dementia, alzheimers, dizziness, anxiety and depression.

Do yourself a favour. Have a little celebration jig. Flail your arms, move your feet, swing your body.

It doesn’t need to be pretty, it doesn’t need to be coordinated, heck it doesn’t need to be in time to any music. Just do the movement and your brain will respond with the appropriate signals, chemicals and feelings because you’re celebrating with a jig - ergo, you must be in a good mood, having fun and are happy.

I saw a Tony Robbins video of his pre-stage routine and adopted something like it for myself just before a vital meeting with the board of a major organisation I’d been trying to win over against much more established and branded providers.

Just before the meeting I was anxious in the waiting area outside the conference room and I was alone. Every “what if” doubt and worry came to the front of my thoughts. There was a large mirror on the wall, but that as OK. I started my jig. I got into it. I did a few vocal exercises, a couple of fist bumps, and slowed down to breathe. I shook it all off and my intense anxiety subsided.

I was invited into the conference room all smiles and pumped and confident and then I saw the huge glass wall looking directly out into the waiting area. The very spot I had been doing my little jig… And I looked at the people and there were a few smirks and looks of disdain… Nothing to lose - I flushed beetroot and shared my little trick with them. I even got them on their feet and doing a jig.

Our fear and anxiety isn’t that we can’t perform, it’s that we will be rejected and feel humiliated!

So accept yourself. Breathe because it’s good for you. Laugh because it makes you feel good. Pose because it makes you feel victorious and dance because it’s fun.

Thanks for reading Joy@Work! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

I’m Dr John kenworthy and it’s been my pleasure to share this Joy@Work AdvantEdge Guide with you today. Thank you for joining me and supporting my work.

Remember if you ever think that you might benefit from an outside voice with a fresh perspective to challenge and empower you, your team or your organisation to a new level of performance and engagement, then let’s talk now. You can follow the link at my website joyatwork.coach

And if you know someone who you know would benefit from this Joy@Work Guide, please share this with them either by sharing the podcast link or, if you’re listening on the Joy@Work website, it’s even easier to just click the share button.

Be blessed and have an awesome day.

This is a story of two leaders. We worked with the organisation on team leadership because one of their sales teams was "highly successful" and another was "doing poorly, with a very low morale". The organisation wanted us to "find out what's working in [the high-performing  team], fix the [low-performing team] and run a training programme for all the other sales teams to  be as good as [the high-performing team]." Ann, the leader of the high-performing team had joined the company 5 years previously as a  sales representative. She was good at her job and always exceeded her targets. She was  promoted to team leader after 3 years and had infused her own enthusiasm, determination and  will to her team. Her team members were happy, hard-working and also successful, most  exceeding targets. Joe, the leader of the low-performing team had similarly joined the company 5 years previously,  though as sales team leader. Joe's team were, by contrast, unhappy and unsuccessful in  achieving targets. This had been the case for all 5 years. The team members had changed  frequently over, this time, only one member remained from the original team that Joe took over. Ann was enthusiastic when we spoke with her about her success. Saying "It's great to have  such a wonderful team. I enjoy working with them and we're doing well." She went on, "My  boss is great, really believes in me and lets me run things the way I want. I like that, and I try  to treat everyone in the team the same way. When they are down about something, maybe  their kid is in trouble or sick, I let them take time out if they need to, so long as the work gets  done sometime, it doesn't 'have to be 9 to 5. I trust them to make up the time, and they do,  and more!" Joe was belligerent when we spoke, "I have tried everything possible to make these people  work harder and make target. They're always moaning that their kid's sick or they have to visit  the doctor. Always skiving off, taking toilet breaks, going for coffee. If I turn my back for one  instant, they're gone." When prompted, Joe continues, "My boss is pretty useless. Only ever  comes round at the end of the month to [tell me off] for not making target. To be honest, I'm fed  up, I don't 'think I'll ever get this team to perform and the stress is making me sick." There are, of course, several things here we could expand on, but what was clearly apparent  was that Ann's boss believed in her and she, in turn, believed in her team and their abilities, that  she could trust them and that they would deliver. Joe's Ann's boss believed in her and she, in turn, believed in her team and their abilities, that  she could trust them and that they would deliver. Joe's boss, didn't appear to be that  concerned for Joe and didn't help. Joe, in turn, trusted staff to 'skive' and believed that she  would never get the team to perform. When someone else, particularly someone in authority over you (a leader, parent, boss,  teacher) believes in you and your abilities it helps you to believe in yourself and your team.  What you believe on the inside, becomes manifest on the outside. This is usually the attitude  that you portray and the way you communicate. It saddens me that quite a number of clients I meet who have had someone steal their self-esteem at some point in their life. Be it a parent, a lousy teacher or a bullying superior. The good news for many is that it has helped them to turn victimhood into victory. Making sure that they never do that to someone else. But not everyone has someone who will help build them up. And, unsurprisingly, those who, like Joe, tend to believe the worst of everyone, were themselves robbed of their self-esteem earlier in their life and career. The great news is that you can turn it around, by appreciating your own value, your own core strengths and choose to edify yourself. The quickest and most effective way to build yourself up is remarkably simple. Believe in someone else today If, by some chance you

Do you believe that to succeed you just have to be lucky, Or perhaps you believe it's all about your own hard work? No, then perhaps you think it's down to having the right connections. After all, the saying goes, it’s now what you know, it’s who you know.
"Luck" hints to us that all good things are the result of chance. Some people are lucky, some aren't.  Or so the conventional thinking goes.
But the truth is, fortune isn't found in a four leaf clover or at the end of a rainbow. Good luck follows hard work. It may seem that the people who get “all the breaks” do so effortlessly, but when you look deeper, you will find effort, persistence, and determination.
In other words, “lucky” people reap opportunities because they've worked hard to get where they are, not because circumstances have magically lined up to give them a smooth ride.
So often, “lucky breaks” in life have actually come about because you have worked diligently, and often unglamorously, to achieve your goals. In other words, good luck doesn't come to you… you must go to it. And that’s why the key to being lucky isn't chance. It’s good, old-fashioned, roll-up-your-sleeves-and-make-it-happen work.
M. Scott Peck in ‘the Road Less Traveled’ starts: “Life is difficult”. What is most surprising, is that, for many people, this is a revelation! Go to any business networking event, or meet a potential client – especially during the current economic situation and they will be moaning incessantly about the enormity of their problems, burdens or difficulties as if life should be easy.
Perhaps you are struggling on your journey to achieving your ‘success’ and you may be suffering the consequences of one or more of the nine common delusions about achieving success. Depending on how much you believe your ‘success’ is down to what you do (cause) and how much is down to external forces over which you have little or no control (effect) determines where you might be:
It’s impossible!
Particularly for those just embarking on their journey, ‘success’ is a place far away. We may have wonderful dreams about it and a delightfully crafted goal. But as the days, weeks and months go by and ‘success’ doesn't appear to be any closer, many people throw in the towel. More budding entrepreneurs than I can recall have given up – life without a salary is just too tough.
When we've given up because ‘success’ is impossible, we’ll then criticize it. Anyone who achieves success whom we deem less worthy is the subject of our scorn and contempt – “they don’t deserve it!”.
It’s a mystery to me…
If we survive the ‘impossible’ stage, seeing others achieving yet success continues to elude us we search for the secret.
We need to find the magic formula, the silver bullet or the golden key.
Returning to that bookshop to find ‘the’ book that will change our lives. So many promise that you can achieve success in business, life, management, health, diet and they are snapped up.
Business people are constantly looking for quick fixes to problems:
To sell more, we need the sales messages and techniques that instantly convert a cold call into a lifelong customer.
To produce more, we need the unique leadership skills that magically and massively increase performance.
To maintain shareholder value we need to increase profitability by increasing sales and reducing costs simultaneously. Either that or we cook the books to make it look as though we did.
Lady luck?
OK, so there’s no absolute secret to success. Sure we can learn from others, but they didn't really do it instantly, it took time. But essentially, they were in the right place at the right time. No more than luck.So if success is down to luck – all I can do is hope for it. One day my ship will come in. Next year, when the current economic crisis is over. The dice will fall my way.
May as well buy lottery tickets.If you've waited for ‘lady luck’ long enough and still on the journey, by now you may believe that luck only comes to those who create it for themsel

“True heroism is remarkably sober,  very undramatic.  It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever the cost, but the urge to serve others whatever the cost.”Arthur Ashe

I've been working with a client this past week who's something of a maverick. A rebel. A person who has a different opinion and ideas about the way forward. It's a joy for me to work with someone so intent on making a real difference and not content to follow the way things have been done in that particular organisation for years. Because the organisation is in a bit of a rut. They're not growing, they're stagnating. And before long, they could easily simply die out.
This leader has passion and believes that, with a few changes, things could be different. That there is life in the old dog yet.
But no-one wants to change. Whispering and worry abound in the company, everyone knows that there's problems. That margins have been squeezed, that the market is drying up and they could easily become obsolete. They know this. They understand this. Yet, this leader, my client, is struggling to be heard. Anytime he rises to offer a possible solution, it is rejected out of hand as being too new, too risky, too dangerous. After all, that is not the way we do things around here.
He faces tension from all directions, the company leadership, his peers and the staff: but in different ways that I refer to as Tall Poppy Syndrome and the Madras Crabs.
The old guard resent his new fangled ideas. They see this upstart as a tall poppy in the management team. The younger staff keep their heads down and seem fearful of supporting any proposal that wins such disfavour.
There's a tall poppy in every workplace . They're the people who seem to have it all. Whether it's looks, talent, success or simply they got what you deserve.
Resentment can soon build and, left unchecked, turn into abject misery.
What would you do in the same position? You are certain that you know how to turn things around. Do you push back or do you back off?
When should you push back?
Are you telling them what they NEED to know rather than what they WANT to hear? Then you should push back.
If you know that time is running out, you should push back (heck, if you’re right, then maybe the business won’t exist so you’d lose your job anyway!) I love this phrase about time running out: The broken glass on the ground is from the window of opportunity that was slammed shut.

The broken glass on the ground is from the window of opportunity that was slammed shut.

If you have been entrusted with a responsibility and are having difficulty, it is better that your boss knows about it and has the opportunity to help you rather than fail miserably alone. Push back
Or should you back off
If you’re promoting your own agenda. Doing your own thing. If you’ve said it a couple of times and they don’t seem to catch on… they probably don’t want to catch on…. Back off.
Have I already made my point?

“You do not lead people by hitting them over the head – that’s assault not leadership.” – Dwight Eisenhower

Does my request exceed my relationship?
I was working with a Malaysian company and the Chairman’s son and daughter were in the ‘high-potential’ group I was coaching. And as is quite common when such situations occur, they had an air of superiority because of their relationship with the big boss. Quite often they would both step beyond normal boundaries in their relationship with their direct bosses, which was inappropriate. Not only is it inappropriate in that they were trying to abuse a family relationship, but by stepping beyond the relationship level with their direct boss, they were actually antagonizing their own direct bosses who would often respond by deliberately undermining their power whenever they could. They were not making friends and influencing people, rather they were building a culture of nepotistic favour and would become reliant on positional power in the future.
Now I pushed the matter with them both and the cha

Are you at Cause or Effect?
One of the most common issues faced by people in their lives and leadership is: life happening. John Lennon's famously said

"Life happens whilst you're making other plans."

Some of you are going to like this, others won't like this one little bit. Essentially, you have a choice. A very simple choice. You can choose to create their future, or you can accept the one that you get.
Moving from effect to cause
"But..." I hear you about to interrupt... there are no 'buts'. Sorry about that. Yes, it is true that other people, the world, the circumstances around them may well prevent them from achieving their goal. So what are you going to do about it?
Can you cause the world do something different? There are many things that you cannot change... the weather for example. So the answer is…. overcome the problem.
Can you make another person do whatever is necessary? Neither you nor anyone else can directly cause them to do something, though you can influence them.
"But..." I continue to hear... There are no buts. You choose to act to overcome the obstacle.
In any given situation, we start with a choice. We can act to make something happen, or, we react to the external situation. Both appear to start the same way. Yet, they start a cycle that is either virtuous or destructive in the long term.
Most people who are motivated towards achievement are likely to be in the creative cycle. Those of you who are more motivated away-from things that you do not want, will be in the survival cycle.
When you are at effect, you react to something external to you (or something that you believe is outside your control). Your primary purpose is to protect yourself (or your people).
Your personal values and beliefs will determine what you see as obstacles, both conscious and unconscious and these influence your choice to address or avoid the obstacles.
In the survival cycle, you will try to avoid the obstacles in your path to reacting to the external 'threat'. And, as you try to avoid them, you will adapt or assimilate your reaction to do so. As a result of obstacle avoidance, your result is likely to be less than optimal. Most often the result achieved is not really the desired result. This leads to disappointment and your survival vision... "I have to"..."I must..." in order to survive.
On the other side, you can choose to take action. The desired end result could be considered to be exactly the same thing, and the external environmental pressures could also be exactly the same as for the person who 'reacts'. It's a mindset choice that makes the greatest difference here. In the creative cycle, your purpose is to discover potential and possibilities.
You take action and come across the self-same obstacles. But instead of trying to avoid the obstacles, you address them. Experimenting and testing to find the best way to overcome the obstacles. When you find the optimal way to address the obstacle, you gain your desired result and CELEBRATE!. You have a creative vision... "I like to..."..."I want to..."
Survival cycle strategies that we employ (and we all employ them at some point) are often developed early in life and were originally a creative response to a situation. It worked then and achieved the desired results then. Later in life, we continue to use the same response yet circumstances have changed.
A common example of taking an early life response and applying it in later life that I come across frequently is when a child's parents use punishment as their primary means of maintaining discipline at home and as their primary means of getting the child to do certain tasks or chores. This often means that you may be choosing to be at cause, and using the creative cycle, yet those obstacles, well they turn out to be insurmountable... so you avoid them instead, adapting and assimilating, true, not getting the optimal result but, life really does happen whilst you are making other plans.
Do you want to be at cause for your life,

When we ask this question in our workshops, we are usually met with blank  stares at first. I call them ‘blank stares’ because to be looked at as if you  are completely off your trolley isn’t something I choose to reinforce.
The first response from that first brave soul suggests that there is no need to  influence oneself. Basically, it runs like this: I decide to do something, I  tell myself to do it, and I do it. No influence is required. I don’t have to ask  myself nicely, or threaten myself with unpleasant consequences, or  persuade myself that it will be worthwhile. Really? If we could slow down  the thought processes going on, you might think differently.
Let’s take a slightly different approach. I suspect that you have, inside  you, at least two ‘voices’ - the pro voice and the con voice. The optimist  and the pessimist. The good and the bad. You may have more, you may  not consider them as ‘voices’ - that’s OK, I hope that you can work with  me on the concept for a little while.
 
Let’s say that this is two radio stations, 55.5 and 66.6. The first station on  55.5 is supportive - bolstering your ego, always proud of you and your  achievements. The second, on 66.6 is the doubter, always casting doubts  in your mind, running you down, always suggesting that others are trying  to get you, that you should not listen to 55.5, it always lets you down -  you never realise the dreams that 55.5 suggests. 66.6 reminds you of the  difficulties you had the last time you tried to do this or that. How nothing  ever works for you, that it’s all about luck and fate and chance and that  you just are not a lucky person. If you buy a lottery ticket, you will always  miss by one number at best. That nobody else deserves to win anything  either. Basically, this is a bad voice.
I can see some of you nodding your heads as you read this. Don’t worry,  you’re not schizophrenic - this is normal, everyone has this going on.  Some days it’s like a continuous debate, others, one or both are quiet with  little to say. You know you have a problem when you cannot distinguish  between the voices and which of you is real.
So, which station do you tune into?
Here’s the two stations output for a few common golfing scenarios…
66.6
Approaching the first Tee on competition day:
‘Well, it’s a lovely morning  with plenty of gusty breezes to knock your ball off centre, and a touch of  rain in the air, but very unpredictable whether it’ll rain now or later. You did  some good practice yesterday but you know it’ll all go to pieces today  don’t you? You know that you always screw up on the first drive and  there’s no mulligans today. See your competition today, wow, that first  group were good weren’t they. No chance you’ll keep up with them is  there. Still, perhaps you can just enjoy the game for a change and not  worry about winning or losing - after all you know you’ll lose, so why get  your hopes up? Ridiculous game, I don’t know why you bother, should  have stayed home and cut the grass. be more useful than out here, being  mocked by your friends… oh no, talking of which, there they are, why do  they have to come and watch my first drive. They’ll cough or chatter  just  as I’m lining up, I know they will. Oh well, my turn now, what a disaster,  prepare for the worst and don’t get angry…
First Tee shot: So nicely lined up, but then anyone can put a ball on a tee  can’t they. Now settle down, breath, how’s the grip - that instructor why  did he have to change my grip, it won’t work. Right align my feet, look up,  look down, those people down there, are in my line, why do they have to  stand there, don’t they know they could be hit… calm yourself, that’s  right, may as well get calm now, because once you hit it there won’t be  any calm left, And if you screw up this drive, it’ll all be downhill for the  whole day. never recover, so get this right. Wiggle the bum, yes nice,  settle, legs bent just right, what if my weight shifts before I strike then hit  those

Size Doesn’t Matter; Impact Does When you think about thought leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, or even Oprah, it’s tempting to conclude that YOU couldn’t make very much of an impact in the world like they have. After all, they are special. They are “big”. I couldn't possibly do what they have done! And while you may not be Mother Theresa or the Dali Lama, you are NEVER too “small” to make a real difference in the world. Because the truth is, you don’t need to be famous or lead an historic movement to have an impact. You just need to do what needs doing in your corner of the world. Too often, we talk ourselves out of taking a stand or making a contribution because we tell ourselves it won’t matter, or that no one will notice. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, ordinary people around the world make the GREATEST impact in the lives of others. You can’t put a price on teaching a child to be kind and empathetic. Or spending time with an elderly person who has no family. Or feeding a single mom and her children who have fallen on hard times. Think of someone you know who makes a real difference in your life. Are they famous? Probably not. When you think of ways you can make an impact, you don’t need to be big, world-famous, or change the course of history. You just have to believe in the value, significance and influence you have on others. And then go out and share it. Do you want to impress or impact people? Making an impact on people takes time and effort to build and maintain a closer relationship. Impressing followers can be done with little or no relationship. All we need is the will to be involved and to leave a memorable impression on followers. It can be done at a distance – a concert, a convention, a conference, heck you can impress on YouTube or Facebook, even a tweet. Influencing followers can be done with some relationship. Influence requires the will of the follower to be involved. The follower must want to be influenced by the leader and this usually involves a connection between leader and follower. Impacting followers can only be done through an intimate relationship. Both the wills of the leader and follower need to be involved. They agree to accountability and growth usually “up-close and personal”. It is time to shift paradigms. Especially for our younger future leaders. They don’t want a “sage on the stage”, they want a “guide on the side”. As leaders who desire to impact others we need to follow Dawson Trotman’s axiom, “More time with less people equals greater impact for everyone.” To truly impact people, leaders need to coach and mentor others effectively for organisational and individual results. My challenge to you is to become a true leader to the people you serve.

I watched a movie recently about a Michelin Star chef, it's called Burnt and the movie is quite good and somewhat realistic, certainly in the way the chefs behave under pressure. It reminded me of my early career in the kitchens and some of the Chef's I had worked with. Superstar Chefs are renowned for screaming vulgarities, throwing tantrums and punishing staff for any wrong-doing, perceived or real. And with sharp knives and live flames around, you learn to quickly obey. As the saying goes, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. In my own experience, chefs use coercive power to achieve what they require, with the excuse that any other form of leadership simply takes too long. So what other sources of power can a leader utilise when they want to motivate others and get them to do things that matter? This week I want to help you understand five different sources of power in the workplace and how you can build a more sustainable source of long-term leadership power and gain influence. People follow powerful people Leadership and power are closely linked even though leadership is NOT about power or position. People follow people who are powerful. And because others follow, the person with power leads. [player] You can Download the Report and Template here   But leaders have power for different reasons. Some are powerful because they alone have the ability to hire or fire, others may give you a bonus or a raise. Some are powerful because they can assign you tasks you don't like. Yet, while leaders of this type have formal, official power, their teams are unlikely to be enthusiastic about their approach to leadership, if these are all they rely on. More positively, leaders may have power because they're experts in their fields, or because their team members admire them. People with these types of power don't necessarily have formal leadership roles, but they influence others effectively because of their skills and personal qualities. And when a leadership position opens up, they'll probably be the first to be considered for promotion. Do you recognize these types of power in those around you – or in yourself? And how does power influence the way you work and live your life? Five sources of Power One of the most notable studies on power was conducted by social psychologists John French and Bertram Raven in 1959. They identified five bases of power: Legitimate – Power that comes from the belief that a person has the right to make demands, and expect compliance and obedience from others. Reward – Resulting from one person's ability to compensate another for compliance. Expert – Power that is based on a person's superior skill and knowledge. Referent – The result of a person's perceived attractiveness, worthiness, and right to respect from others. Coercive – Comes from the belief that a person can punish others for noncompliance. When you are aware of these sources of power, you can better understand why you're influenced by someone, and decide whether you want to accept the base of power being used. Recognize your own sources of power. Build your leadership skills by using and developing your own, appropriate sources of power, and for greatest efficacy. The most effective leaders develop and use referent and expert power mainly. To develop your leadership abilities, learn how to build these types of power, so that you can have a positive influence on your colleagues, your team, and your organization. The Five Bases of Power Let's explore French and Raven's bases of power according to these sources. Positional Power Sources Legitimate Power A president, prime minister, or monarch has legitimate power. As does a CEO, a pastor, a policeman or a fire chief. People holding these formal, official positions – or job titles – typically have legitimate power or auhtority. Social hierarchies, cultural norms, and organizational structure all provide the basis for this type of power. But it can be unpredictable and unstable. If yo

Carol Dweck’s excellent book on Mindset shows us that there are two dominant mindsets that people choose to believe of themselves and about learning and growth. Anyone, who is involved in any learning and growth, will recognise these two mindsets. The diagram here represents the two types of mindsets, and I’ll sure you’ll recognise the attitudes of many people you know. Download the Learning to Learn Workbook here Growth Mindset Let’s first take a look at the Growth Mindset: Individuals who hold the Growth Mindset believe that intelligence can be and is developed that the brain is like a muscle that can be trained. With this belief is the desire to improve. To improve, firstly you embrace challenges, because you know that overcoming challenges makes you stronger. No matter what you decide to do, there will be obstacles. For the growth mindset believer, external setbacks do not discourage you. Your self-esteem and self-image are not tied to how you look to others or your success. You see failure as the best opportunity to learn. Thus, either way, you win. You don't see the effort as something useless to be avoided but as necessary to grow and master useful skills. No-one truly enjoys criticism or negative feedback, but the Growth Mindset individual integrates feedback that has genuine worth as an opportunity to change and learn. Negative feedback is not seen as a personal attack, but for what it is; feedback. The success of others is seen as a source of inspiration and information. To Growth Mindset individuals, success is not seen as a zero-sum game. Growth Mindset individuals will improve because of this, and this creates positive feedback loops that encourage them to keep learning, growing and improving. Fixed Mindset Let’s have a look at the Fixed Mindset side: Those, who hold these beliefs, think “they are the way they are”. This doesn't mean that they have any less desire for a positive self-image than anyone else, and they do want to perform well and look smart. But, to achieve these goals... Challenge is hard, and success is not assured, so rather than risk failing and negatively impacting their self-image, they will often avoid challenges and stick to what they know they can do well. Obstacles face everyone but the difference with the Fixed Mindset individual is that obstacles are seen as external forces that get in the way and are either avoided (leading to sub-optimal results and usually, blaming others) or are the 'excuse' for giving up. When effort is required, and your view is that effort is unpleasant and rarely pays dividends... what's the point in exerting that effort? The smart thing, to do then, is avoid as much effort as possible. Negative feedback tends to be ignored because the Fixed Mindset leads you to believe that any criticism of your capabilities is criticism of you. This is discouraging to the people who are giving you feedback and after a while, they stop giving any negative feedback, further isolating the person from external influences that could generate some change. Other's success is used as a benchmark to beat yourself with. Success, in this worldview, is put down to luck or unprincipled actions. Some will go further and deride another person's success finding juicy gossip to attach to them when their success is being lauded by anyone else.   The result is that they don't reach their full potential, and their beliefs feed on themselves: They don't change or improve much with time, if at all, and so to them this confirms “they are as they are”. Download the Learning to Learn Workbook here

FEAR is the number one reason that people never
achieve their breakthrough to success. Yes, we can blame other
people for not giving us the chance. We can lament that we took the
wrong course. We can express concern about the uncertainty of
obtaining that success, and maybe, just maybe I'll look stupid.
In short, our fear comes down to two enemies. Our
uncertain future and our excuses from the past. Or. More simply:
"what if" and "If only".
 
What if/If only
When you have a goal worth achieving, you will need
to achieve breakthroughs.
Breakthroughs that take you outside of your comfort
zone and going outside your comfort zone is fearful.
 
So what can you do to ensure that you create the
necessary breakthroughs that will lead to your dramatic
transformation?
And we have to conquer two enemies: “What if” and “If
Only”
And each requires you to do two things:
Take courage
Get off your ‘but’
 
Take courage
Let me share a brief personal story:
Known as the Swiss Wall, La Chavanette at Avoriaz is
one of the most dangerous ski slopes in the world.
It is a disturbingly steep, mogul run and the slope
gets icy quickly, turning the area between moguls into ice sheets.
Not making a turn in these situations means that you miss the next
mogul, and pick up too much speed to make the next one after that,
starting off a tumble that ends a couple of hundred metres down the
slope, while hitting a few dozen icy bumps in the course.
 
A number of years ago, as a reasonable, but by no
means good skier, I decided that I just had to conquer this
slope.
Why? Well, I can only now think that it was a moment
of sheer madness. At the time, however, I just wanted to prove to
myself that I could do it.
 
Standing at the top of the slope, I looked down the
40 degree slope with considerable fear mixed with trepidation,
mixed with determination and a whole lot of cortisol and adrenaline
pumping through my body.
I took about 5 minutes to muster up the courage. To
launch myself off the edge.
 
It was exhausting, knee jangling, hard concentrated
deliberate movements. Desperately remembering to keep my weight
down the hill and my edges as loose as I dared. Turn after turn
after turn after turn. Around one mogul, push off, turn, shift
weight, edge, again and again and again. Endorphins took over from
the adrenaline to mask the pain in my legs and screaming lungs.
 
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, I arrived at
the bottom of the slope. My legs like jelly, my heart racing tears
from the icy wind streaming down my face. Every fibre of my body
was pulsing with electricity and sheer, unbounded joy as dopamine
filled my entire being. I was alive, I had done it. I hadn’t
fallen. I had conquered the wall.
 
I hadn’t been fast. It hadn’t been elegant. But it
had been me.
 
 
FEAR is the #1 issue when it comes to making a
personal breakthrough.
 
FEAR is what you FEEL when your Amygdala (the
emotional centre of your brain) considers that there is a threat to
you and signals the production of Cortisol.
Cortisol floods your blood stream and informs your
heart to beat faster, your lungs to pump faster, your legs and arms
to prepare to run or to fight and since all this demands energy,
your digestive system is shut down. What you FEEL is warmer, you’ll
perspire more due to the energy in your muscles and faster heart
beat. You have “butterflies” in your stomach as the digestive tract
is closed for business (heck who needs to digest food if you are
about to be eaten…
 
Only, you are not about to be eaten. It’s highly
likely that you are not about to die, nor about to get injured.
The amygdala response is a primitive and essential
trigger for survival. But it is very poor at distinguishing between
a real threat to life and limb, and one that might possibly hurt
your pride. It’s the same cortisol induced response.
Your amygdala is essentially like a sentry guard
checking the external environment and your own thinking process for
the slightest sign of a threat to you. It is a

Let me start by telling you that I have found the secret to
success is not a 20 step process. It's not even a ten-step journey.
No, not even seven steps to success. It's three steps.
Seriously. After all this time and experience I've stumbled upon
the secret to success, and it is a three step process! That's it,
just three. And it's not going to be a secret for long. But before
you get overly excited it's not a shortcut, nor is it a silver
bullet. But it is a simple three step process.
Why are there No Shortcuts?
As I look back on my life, I finally begin to see a
pattern emerging.
You see, if you looked at my CV (resume for those of you
preferring American English), it's rather difficult to make sense
of all the, rather odd, directions my career appears to have
taken.

The term "chef" is a little grand for my
first real job. More chief pot washer and floor scrubber than chef
exactly.

If you already know me, then you almost certainly know that my
first career was as a chef. Well, perhaps the term 'chef' is a
little grand for my first real job that was frying eggs and bacon,
peeling potatoes, washing pots and scrubbing floors.
I did, later train as a commis chef, became a sous chef and
became a head chef. I also did my stints behind the bar and waiting
in the restaurant.
You see, while I had some abilities in cooking, no one was going
to allow me to run a kitchen until I understood what was happening
in all parts of the kitchen, and to know my diners.
I went to University to study hotel management because now I
wanted more than a kitchen. I loved being front of house as well. I
enjoyed running back of house too. My industrial placement, which
today would be Americanised into an internship, exposed me to the
delights of housekeeping and cleaning rooms after an Irish stag
weekend. And many other delightful and disgusting moments.
I presided over a disastrous lunch for 3500 militant unionists
at their conference that, due to my lack of leadership, was served
lukewarm and two hours late. Used the wrong extinguisher on a fryer
fire to the amusement of everyone who did not lose their eyebrows.
I even managed to spill soup on the lap of a kindly Royal
personage.
If you speak to anyone in the hotel business, they too can
regale you with stories of exhaustion, disasters, drunkards and
learning. Yes, learning.
But there are those who insist that it
has to be easier than this.
Then I'll meet a young manager in another industry. They got
themselves a degree in business, for example, and they get an
Associate Director title or a Vice President title. It's an entry
level position but with a fancy name and a pretty fancy salary.
They expect to be in a managerial role within a year or two and
want to know what they need to know to get there as fast as
possible.
The expensive shortcut that isn’t

The MBA is regarded as an instant success
secret to megabuck salaries. Another myth.

Many have embarked on an MBA, and having spent a small fortune
on their education, want to know why they haven’t gotten to be a
senior manager yet.
People are signing up for courses that promise instant results
even though they've been burnt more than once already.
I've fallen victim to this thinking myself on many more
occasions that I like to admit.
I cast an envious eye on someone else's success and think that
if only I can emulate them, I too will have that instant
success.
Of course, it's nonsense.
You know that it is nonsense. You too have found out that there
are no shortcuts. Or at least, according to Maya Angelou,

there are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

So now, I look back and think, if only I had cut across the
meandering path of my career. There are some useful diversions but
many useless ones.
And ultimately, had I known that I was coming this way, I could
easily have cut across.
The trouble is, of course, that we don’t know which direction is
the real shortcut.
If I had known that I would essentially end up teaching, writing
and recording

We all want an inspirational leader. Someone to look up to, to give us hope and direction. A leader who engages us as individuals and treats us well. But most of all makes us want to be better.

But what if that leader is you?!? And today, You’re just not feeling up for it?

Welcome to this Joy@Work AdvantEdge Guide to Find Your Mojo Again by harnessing the power of your inner chemistry.

Thanks for reading Joy@Work! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

And today you're feeling a bit blah. Everything's sort of "meh" and you'd like to just hang in there for the time being and let Future Self take responsibility for that.

We all go through phases in life when our mood is uplifting, positive, dynamic and we feel like we could conquer the world. And then there's that "meh" moment, when everything is a little bland, and what would be really really nice is if someone else would just take charge and be the one to inspire and engage and buck us up.

To choose to switch your drive and motivation on so that you can inspire others, we're going to delve into the neuroscience of how your brain works, learn what drives you (and everybody else) and then we're going to take charge of the chemistry cocktail bar inside your brain.

The Neuroscience of your Get Up and Go (aka your MOJO)

Your brain is not your best friend when it comes to feeling positive, enthusiastic and inspired. In fact, neuroscientific evidence shows that our brains are hard-wired to make us feel mentally crappy most of the time.

Let me geek out with some acronyms for a moment - it's interesting stuff. Briefly, your brain is survival focussed and it is controlled by the Sympathetic Nervous System (the SNS) and the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis (HPPA). Both the SNS and HPAA are reactive systems. That is, they register any (and every) possible threat and fire you up chemically to respond.

This is fantastically useful in keeping you safe but it has the rather unpleasant side effect of making you feel anxious, stressed, disappointed and generally low spirited.

Today's living environment for most of us, especially in urban areas means that both your SNS and HPAA are fired up much of the time in response to the daily challenges you face on your daily commute, in noisy, crowded offices, surrounded by beeping devices and with a boss imposing impossible deadlines... Modern life is taking a large toll on your peace of mind.

Yet, you have another system available to you called the ParaSympathetic Nervous System (PSNS). And when your PSNS takes charge you feel great: calm, relaxed, chill, tranquil, clear-headed, and well, happy.

Yes, the name of the Sympathetic Nervous System is a little misleading in our modern understanding of the word "sympathetic", but it is the system that makes you feel stressed or basically, crappy.

OK, so a quick summary, your brain automagically, or rather, unconsciously, reacts to environmental stimuli through your Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and/or your Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis (HPAA) to prepare you to deal with any threats. Once the threat passes, or you choose to consciously engage it, your ParaSympathetic System (PSNS) switches on to calm you down and get back to other important stuff like digesting your food, maintaining homeostasis, slowing your heart rate and so on.

Just make a note that you can choose to consciously trigger the PSNS. I'll be back to this at the end.

Before that though, let's remember what actually drives you. i.e. what gets you getting up and going?

As you know, we all have six foundational drivers that are at the heart of practical neuroscience.

Of course, your brain is an incredibly complex organ and variations of human behaviour are an endless ocean of subtle differences. But we can identify six neuro-scientifically founded basic needs of human beings and how these influence our motivational behaviours and how we interact with the world around us.

As human beings, we have developed to use the environment to its best and allow for reproduction and the furtherment of our species: our survival and growth.

Your six drivers are:

* Physical Survival! Our physiological needs of hunger, thirst, sleep and sex.

* Maximising Pleasure and avoiding pain to feel safer and more secure.

* Growing Attachment, so that we have a better sense of belonging.

* Increasing our Control.Which helps satisfy our need to matter.

* Boosting our Self-Esteem: Which helps satisfy our need for self-actualisation.

* Being of Service to others. We are only truly satisfied when we help other people.

Each of these stimulates different neuronal circuits and will activate different regions in the brain. Let me briefly share a little more about each of these needs and then we'll examine how we can consciously and deliberately affect them and hence, our FEELING of drive, inspiration and engagement. You can easily remember this using the SPACES acronym.

For a full reminder about SPACES and details of each of your drivers:

Is Your Battery Running Low?

Understanding the 6 Essential Human Needs of Your Team for Successful Leadership

Now, we’ve reminded ourselves about what drives you, it’s time to geek out on some chemistry…

What's chemistry got to do with my feeling driven and inspired?

Well everything!

How you FEEL in any situation is your conscious interpretation of the physiological response of your body, triggered by the combination (or cocktail) of chemicals released as a result of your conscious thinking and your SNS, PNS and HPAA and unconscious responses.

It's a lot more complex than the five chemicals I'm talking about here, but understanding how these affect you will help you understand the essence of how a change in the balance of these chemicals inside you changes how you feel, and hence your motivation and desires.

You will already know much about adrenaline and cortisol - your key stress hormones. And just in case you don't, I have a wonderful little whiteboard video you can watch.

But you also have some "happy" chemicals. These are Oxytocin, Serotonin and Dopamine.

Five chemicals you need to know about:

* Oxytocin - regarded as the “love” hormone. Makes you feel "loved", "trusted", "cared for".

* Serotonin – closely linked with your mood amongst many other vital functions. Makes you feel "proud", "satisfied", "content".

* Dopamine – triggers the joyful hope of anticipated reward. Makes you feel "happy", "joyful", "driven"or "motivated".

* Cortisol – our stress chemical. Makes you feel "stressed", "anxious", "on-edge"

* Adrenaline – creates arousal and readiness to ‘fight or fly’. Makes you feel "frightened", "scared", "angry", "stronger", "alert".

Good times, bad times, you know I've had my share...

(whoops, a little Led Zeppelin slipped in there.)

When our thinking and perception of the environment is associated positively to our own experiences, this triggers the release of our "happy chemicals" : serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin.

On the other side, when we feel stressed, anxious or upset about the fulfilment of our basic needs, this is the result of cortisol, Norepinephrine (the brain's 'adrenaline') and adrenaline.

On the positive side:

* Increased self-esteem means more serotonin.

* Greater orientation and control means more dopamine.

* Having a trusted attachment means more oxytocin, and

* When pleasure is maximised we get more dopamine.

On the negative side:

* Lowered self-esteem means more cortisol.

* Reduced orientation and control means more cortisol.

* Little or reduced attachment increases adrenaline,

* as does pain increase adrenaline.

Your approach to your six basic needs may not be the same as mine of course. Generally speaking, I am a very positive and optimistic person. Someone else might be more negative and pessimistic about it. These approaches are known as your motivational schemata.

Motivational schemata

Motivational schemata are the instruments and methods that a person will develop through their lifetime to help satisfy their basic needs or to protect them. Within this there are two base schemata. On the one hand the approach schema which is a result of a person striving to fulfil their basic needs. On the other hand if a person strives to protect their basic needs this is known as an avoidance schema.

What does this mean?

Depending on your approach, you may be someone who continuously seeks to fulfil your personal needs, or someone who focuses their attention on avoiding the bad things. The way you speak, as in the words you use habitually, often reveal your schemata or approach.

By the way, neither is right, nor is one necessarily better than another, expect to say that we tend to get in life, what we focus on. Thus if you focus on avoiding pain, you'll probably experience (or be aware of) more pain than someone who focuses in the exact same circumstances on pleasure.

Dale Carnegie summed this up beautifully:

Two men looked out from prison bars, One saw the mud, the other saw stars.”

Are you happy or unhappy?

Happiness is a perception of how well the world matches your expectations and desires.

Stress, in contrast, comes from the expectation that our resources are not enough to achieve our desires,

There are days when we don't feel as if we are progressing towards our purpose. Heck, many people don't consciously know their purpose, but unconsciously we are all aware of those days when something just isn't right. we have no sense of progress or fulfilment. These are the "blah" days. the days when we don't feel like "getting up and going". The days when we have lost our mojo.

Well those days are days we have incongruity between our perception of the world and how well you have fulfilled your basic needs.

Any mismatch between your current motivational schemata and your perception of the world defines your feelings, behaviours and actions. Whether you act with the intention of fulfilling your needs or protecting what you perceive that you have.

You sense a need for change.

And maybe, just maybe, the world will see fit to make that change happen to you. Some call this luck, or karma, serendipity or synchronicity. But in the 99.9% of times when that lady luck doesn't happen to call on you today, you'll want to be able to pull yourself out of that funk and reignite your engines.

As a leader, it is your job to inspire others, to engage them and motivate them to do the things that matter. And that's awfully difficult to do when you are not feeling inspired, engaged or particularly motivated. And you already know that it's unlikely that someone else is going to lift you up right now.

Sure it would be nice, and I know that you deserve it, but here's the rub: your boss isn't inspiring you because they ain't feeling it either. So let's choose to take charge of life and choose to switch the motivation engines on.

We can even measure how well we are aligned to our basic needs by assessing how much each of the six needs matters to use personally and how well that is currently being fulfilled.

I'm sharing a simple SPACES assessment tool that you can use to measure the congruity between your current work environment and your preferences:

Now this is going to be a whole lot easier for you if you already (consciously) know your own life purpose (that is you are a eudaemonite). Per chance you don't have clarity on that then here's a podcast and guide for you. In the meantime let's switch on your motivation engines shall we?

If you're busy paying attention to something else right now, like emailing, facebook trawling, driving a vehicle wait until you can take five minutes out. I'll need your complete attention.

Ready?

Breathe!

Yes, I said: "Breathe."

Deep, long, slow breaths. In through your nose and blow it from your mouth.

Surely I'm kidding you? You've been doing this all the time and feeling "meh". Yes, there is more to it, but right now just breathe.

Give it a few more seconds of deep breathing.

...

Powerful huh?

Breathing is your first step to Relax!

Now as you continue focussing attention on your breathing, I'd like you to touch your lips with your (clean) fingers. You might like to lick your lips with your tongue.

Now, you can choose what to do for the next four minutes.

* Practice deliberate physical and mental relaxation

* Meditate

* Pray

* Bring your attention towards sensations in your body

* Focus attention on immediate sensory experiences and feelings (also called mindfulness)

Choose one of the five. I like to spend my time meditating on a verse from the Bible and praying to God.

Whatever you choose, be aware of your breathing, deeply in through the nose and blowing sharply out through your mouth.

Pause the podcast and do it now, safely of course. Come back when you are done and I'll wrap this up with why it works.

Good to have you back (or maybe you're going to do it later.)

What just happened?

Your brain needs a lot of oxygen because it burns a lot of energy, 20% of your body's calorific burn for a 3 pound mass! You just increased the availability of oxygen in your body and hence available to your brain.

Breathing out sharply through your mouth reduces cortisol in your body, which reduces your stress and anxiety.

Because you have taken executive control (by deliberately choosing what to do instead of your body reacting to the environment) you have reduced adrenaline production. The threat must have passed if you aren't concerned about it!

With the two key stress hormones reduced, you then touched or licked your lips, which triggered your PSNS (Parasympathetic Nervous System) to get working - remember this is the system that slows your heart rate and calms you down. You're clearing your thinking brain to consider positive, uplifting thoughts and ideas.

Touching your own body (especially the lips) also stimulates the release of oxytocin - better still when you do this with your life parter. This makes you feel more loved, trusted or cared for and increases your feeling of attachment.

Thinking positive, uplifting thoughts stimulates dopamine and serotonin production and you are believing that you have taken charge of the situation, which increases your self-esteem and sense of orientation and control.

You will also begin to feel greater pleasure whilst reducing pain through this very simple exercise.

To find your Mojo again, Take 5

All it takes is 5 minutes to breathe and either pray, meditate, be mindful, or simply be relaxed to regain that sense of control, to engage and re-ignite the fires of your motivation.

And if it doesn't happen in the first 5 minutes. Take just 5 more.

If you need an outside voice with a fresh perspective to challenge and empower you, your team, or business to a new level of performance and engagement then let’s talk now.

And if you know someone who you know would benefit from this Joy@Work Guide, please share this with them. Just click the share button.

Be blessed and have an awesome day.

Thanks for reading Joy@Work! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

It was 4.30 on a cold and wet morning and I was choking on the
stench of thick layers of years old grease behind the deep fat
fryer and I was ecstatically happy as I scrubbed and cleaned the
once white tiles back to their original gleaming brightness.
It was my first day on my first proper job and I would soon be
delegating this filthy work to some other poor sap who similarly
wanted to become a chef de cuisine. In the meantime, my job was to
scrub, peel, haul, carry, chop, clear and clean it all up
again.
The head cook (for in the mid 1970's we had few "Chef's" as that
was far too French and suggestive of "haute cuisine") had agreed to
take me under her wing and teach me how to prepare the only famous
dish to come from England and clogged the arteries of its working
classes: The Great British Breakfast.
Putting talent in perspective

Talent is often misunderstood. Business
leaders are obsessed with finding it, keeping it and banking their
succession on it. They recruit the top students from the best
universities, promote them quickly, reward them lavishly and label
them as talent.

Talent is often misunderstood. Business leaders are obsessed
with finding it, keeping it and banking their succession on it.
They recruit the top students from the best universities, promote
them quickly, reward them lavishly and label them as talent. Then
there is surprise at the realisation that:
More than half the CEO's of Fortune 500 companies averaged a C
or C-
And more than 50% of the world's millionaire entrepreneurs
never finished college
Let me clarify, I am not anti-talent. I believe that we should
seek our talent and we should put it to work. But talent alone, is
not the answer to leadership succession, productivity and a growing
economy.
Everyone has talent
I was 15 years old as I crouched behind that deep fat fryer and
about to discover my talent but first I had to serve my time and
observe Mrs Brown at her work as closely as possible whilst
simultaneously keeping out of the way of her sharp knives and even
sharper tongue.
Once allowed, I soon mastered the fry-up served with tea and
slices of Hovis with thick butter. I was cocky with my demonstrated
obvious talent, but was soon cut by Mrs Brown's sharp tongue as she
remarked:

"Anyone can cook. It's just that not everyone should."

Her simple wisdom is true in all walks of life: Today, watch any
"talent" show on TV and you'll find plenty of contestants who would
do well to follow Mrs Brown's advice in their own dream pursuit.
Anyone can sing, but not everyone should.
So how do you know if you should?
It's not simply a case of doing something, it's doing something
exceptionally well and enjoying doing it. That's an "and" not an
"or". I knew that I thoroughly enjoyed cooking but it takes others
to tell you if you do it exceptionally well. When you find out what
that is, then you've found your talent. And everyone has something
that they do exceptionally well and thoroughly enjoying doing.
Develop the talent you have, not the one you want
When I ask if you know what your talent is, you may struggle to
identify it. You may not be an exceptional musician or artist,
actor or even a sports person. These are the types of things we
traditionally associate with the word "talent". You may think I'm
referring to your job. It could be and I hope that your job does
enable you to use your talent, but the chances are that you are
unsure, and probably too humble to realise that you really do have
talent. But I can assure you that you do.
The 10,000 hour rule

The 10000-hour rule is the idea that we
have to deliberately practice any activity for at least 10000 hours
before we are great at it

Malcolm Gladwell based his 10000 hour rule in his book Outliers
on a study by Anders Ericson that it takes 10000 hours of
deliberate practice to become great at something. Such 'greatness'
is often confused with the "talent" that enables it. For your
talent is rarely manifest as something great, usually, your t

Motivation is chemistry.
That feeling you call motivation is to do with the dopamine in
your brain, specifically the increase in dopamine in your “nucleus
accumbens” is the brain’s feedback for predicting rewards. Dopamine
is known as a neurochemical of pleasure, and sure, dopamine makes
you feel good, so why can we also get a spike of motivation in
times of great stress? Indeed, why are some people motivated to
jump off suspension bridges?

Dopamine is the neurochemical associated with pleasure but its
real role is in motivation[/caption] The role of dopamine goes
beyond our feelings of pleasure; it performs its task before we obtain the rewards. Dopamine’s actual job is
to encourage us to act to achieve or avoid something. 

To act or to avoid?

Motivation can be encouragement to
act or to run away
Many successful golf players (and business leaders) are
motivated by their dissatisfaction with their performance. It can
be a very powerful motivator. You would expect someone who is thus
motivated to improve their game to be similarly motivated in other
aspects of their life. Do you see a golf course as a series of
obstacles to be avoided, or do you see the fairways and greens as
the thing to hit.
There are a few people who aim for the obstacles because they
excel at the tricky shots – most, however, find themselves in the
obstacles due to misfortune… or were they actually responsible?
For most people, the
self-directed anger resulting from dissatisfaction is not a positive state
to be in. If you condemn yourself for playing poorly and use
self-talk phrase such as “I should have…” Or yelling (at yourself
or outwardly) your self-disgust such as “useless idiot” and perhaps
more colourful phrasing – you are doomed to repeat it. Not only
will you repeat the ‘error’, but you are also physically hurting
yourself – self-condemnation causes self-directed anger causes
stress causes physical distress causes physical sickness and, for
many, heart
failure. It’s a little as if your heart
decides that’s it’s had enough of your inward abuse and is
desperately trying to communicate your need to stop doing it. If
you’ve had a heart attack or stroke you’ve probably completely
reassessed how you live your life – and sought more tranquility,
less stressful behaviours – in some cases avoiding the major
contributors to your previously high-stress levels – work
and/or golf.

Driving a car often brings out the worst in our character.
Some people don’t realise that this is what they are like. The
way you drive your car is often a good indicator of your style. How
angry do you get when someone cuts into the queue in front of you?
When you pull up to the red traffic light, do you swerve over to
the other lane to be at the front of the queue? When motoring along
are you more concerned about getting somewhere quickly, or more
concerned with the traffic around you? Back to
golf. When you stand at the tee, what do you focus
your attention on? Your target?
Avoiding the trees/bunkers/water/rough? I hope
the former by now if you’ve been with me all this time. What you
focus on is what you’ll get. Motivation is
a multi-faceted phenomenon. In large part, motivation is about the
satisfaction of values held. It is the result of using particular
personal resources towards a specific goal that satisfies
a value or value held by that individual. Connecting any of
these three in any order, resources, values and outcome creates the
feeling of motivation as the nucleus accumbens anticipates the
reward for the price you are prepared to pay. In smaller part,
though often the critical component, is encouragement to
achieve a goal.
Encouragement to act or avoid

Encouragement is the eager
anticipation of doing something fearful
 It is worth spending some time here on
what we mean by encouragement. The word has ‘courage’
at its root. Thus, to encourage is to develop, enhance or
build courage. Courage, you’ll remember, is not the absence of fear
but the continuation to do

He who stays latest is working hardest.

It's 10 O Clock as you turn the lights out that you switched on
that morning as you leave after a 16 hour slog of a day. Grabbing a
quick bite as you run for the train home knowing that the kids will
be fast asleep by the time you get there. Another day in
paradise.
At least you can relax easily at home knowing what a hard worker
you are. Thinking of all you have accomplished today in the
mistaken belief that effort equals results.
You could be suffering the busyness
delusion.

Being too good at your job might reduce
the perception of the value you are giving!

I worked for a French company for a while some years back. In
spite of their reputation for taking incredibly long lunch breaks,
French companies often display what I call a very macho culture.
It's essentially based on being seen to be busy and actively
involved.
There was essentially, a competition to be first into the office
and last out of the door at night. And, at a minimum, arrive
earlier than the boss, and leave after he had left the
building.
The staff would turn up early in the day and place their coat or
jacket on the back of their chair and on into the computer. Then go
for coffee.
Whenever any of the bosses were around, there was a flurry of
activity and people rushed.
I never really figured out whether people were busy because they
were so focussed on being seen to be busy, or whether they were
busy because they wasted so much time appearing to be busy.
Sweating my assets

When we put in a lot of effort, we sweat.
And in financial terms, we want our assets sweating to show that
they are productive

Businesses have long been aware that assets, once bought, need
to be used as productively as possible. 24/7/365 ideally, else
there is some productivity left unused. The financial term for this
is to 'sweat your assets'. It's based on the same idea that when we
are working hard, we sweat. The harder we work, the more we sweat.
And the harder we work, the more productive we are. Or at least,
that's the theory.
As I live in Singapore, it's pretty easy to get a sweat on. All
I have to do is turn off the AC. Doesn’t make me any more
productive, just hot and a little pungent.
If you were any good at the job, you’d do it in half the
time
Dan Ariely's meeting with a locksmith http://danariely.com/2010/12/15/locksmiths/
No one really cares how hard or long you work http://99u.com/articles/51908/nobody-cares-how-hard-you-work
Whilst you worry about what everyone else is thinking about you,
they're worrying about what you're thinking about them. So you
should be worried about what you are thinking about them but you're
not, because you’re too consumed with what they're thinking about
you, but they're not because they're spending all this neurological
effort thinking about you thinking about what they're thinking
about.
No balance

Striving for work life balance because we
allow work to take over our lives

Levels of stress that cause your body's cells to age prematurely

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/give-up/410485/

Hard work doesn’t lead to rewards

Show leadership - what your boss really want is help to get
things done. Not analysed, not talked about, not paraded, done!
Share and carry the load.
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/work/real-reason-get-promoted.html
Being seen to be busy
Perceived value. People prefer to watch how busy and hard
working a website is when searching for results. They actually like
to watch the illusion that the website is working hard!
http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=40158

It's not enough to jump through the
hoops. You've got to be SEEN jumping through the hoops

This increase PERCEIVED value.
So why do we need to be seen to be busy?
Remember that website being SEEN to be working hard as it
searched for the results?
That seems to be true in most offices as well.
The people who get promoted are those who are seen to be
actively busy and producing results.
It

"Change is the only constant" goes the refrain. There would be little need for change if people were happy to stay the same as they are now. You know that change is uncomfortable. It doesn't matter how big or small the change is; it's how uncomfortable that change makes you feel. For some, difference is something to be avoided. If they appear to go along with the required change, it is because they (perceive that they) have no choice, For others, they'll actively seek change. Staying the same is boring, they need change, they need to learn. They are incomplete if they are not learning to be better. Some people initially resist transformation but accept it after time or practice. For these individuals the transformation has to be proven to be valuable. And there are those who initiate change, sometimes just for the sake of change. And change often fails because of your discomfort with change. How can I change an organisation if I don’t like change myself?
Try a little experiment with me. Fold your arms in front of you and settle for a moment.
Cross your arms the opposite way round. How long would it take you to be comfortable with this change?
Now, switch the way you fold your arms. Instead of right over left, change it to left over right for example.
How comfortable are you? A few people who do this feel fine, most will soon revert to their preferred, and far more comfortable, old way of folding their arms.
How long would it take you to force yourself to switch your arm folding, before you became comfortable? A day, a week, a month, a year? Never?
However long it would take you, there would be many times when you "slipped back into your old ways". Especially under pressure. Perhaps you would eventually switch forever, perhaps you would revert to your original way of doing things. It all depends on how motivated you are to change and if there was a purpose of changing.
Most transformation programmes fail to deliver because most people neglect the key elements that facilitate change to take place. To help transform anyone they need to be encouraged, enabled and empowered. Fall short on one, and the transformation project will not achieve the desired change.
Why is change so difficult?
Going on a journey with people through change can be challenging and exhausting. Bringing sustainable change is even harder. Most people resist change even when they see the need and believe it can occur. [caption id="attachment_12850" align="alignright" width="244"] Resistors - who may not even notice the change, deliberately ignore it, or be so overwhelmed that they push it out of their awareness.[/caption] The owner of the first hotel I managed was just 40 when he suffered a heart attack. His lifestyle, booze, food and a lack of regular exercise were contributory factors but prior to the heart attack, there were no significant symptoms. Life was good, and then BAM! He was on the floor in agony. He survived. His doctor told him bluntly that he had to change his diet, give up alcohol, smoking and take up regular exercise. Change or die! A stark choice. And one that many people face. Initially, my boss came out of hospital ready and eager to take this advice seriously and changed everything that was harming his health. It wasn't easy for him, but he stuck with it and now enjoys a slim, healthy life retired and sailing around the Mediterranean. Yet, in the US alone, some 90% of heart bypass patients can't change their lifestyles, even at the risk of dying. It's not surprising then that changing people's behaviour in business is a challenge. And you would think that I, as a reasonably intelligent human being would have learned from that particular experience, or at least learned from life. But no. I maintained my personal biases and beliefs that such a thing would never happen to me. I wouldn’t be someone who suffered a heart attack because of bad choices. We rarely learn from observing what happens around us, to others or from what others do, unles

Jeff sat on a bar stool at the front of the room. He had no slides, no props, just sat and talked. Within minutes, he had everybody in the room on the edge of their seats eagerly nodding and ready to follow him wherever he went.
None of us in the room had met Jeff before. In fact, none of us had a clue who he was. This quiet, unassuming man simply walked to the front and sitting on the bar stool began to speak and captivated everyone.
Jeff shared why some adverts worked, and some fell flat. How some adverts tapped universal appeal, and others neglected to do so.
The good news is that you don’t need to spend millions of dollars on creating a fantastic TV advert to influence people. The great news is that you can easily tap into the four universal appeals.
And I'll come to those four universal appeals in a moment.
You'll remember in the triangle of influence that the motivation to change is the result of the evaluation of the personal benefits gained and the personal cost in the resources required to achieve a specific outcome.
Whether that outcome is buying a new toothpaste or a new car, giving our time to serve in a soup kitchen or sharing our wisdom with a stranger. We weigh up what we get from the action and what it costs us. We will then be motivated to act when our perceived benefits outweigh our perceived cost.

Influence is maths. When the perceived value is greater than the perceived cost, we are motivated to act on the change.

If you know what I am likely to perceive as beneficial and what I perceive as costly, then you should find it easier to influence me.
Influencing someone you know well
When we know someone very well, we can influence them more easily. For example, if I want to go to a particular holiday destination with my wife, and she wants to go elsewhere, I might emphasise all the aspects of the type of holiday she desires (honestly) regarding my preferred destination. I might lay on some evidence to add credence to my interpretation such as photos, TripAdvisor recommendations and so on.
If I want to buy a particular car model, and she would prefer another, I might focus on specific qualities of my chosen car that I know will appeal to her.
It's not manipulation; it's just a conversation. It's something we all do, every day. We will sway or steer others towards our preference.
We are in a position of influence every time someone allows us to communicate with them. Most of the time, we are unconsciously influencing entirely based on our personal bias.
But that's selfish!
Yes, you’re right. I am. So are you. So is the person beside you.
I am, and you are. Even when someone is apparently altruistic, the reality is that they get something valuable personally from being so.
What if I don’t know the other person well, how do I influence them?
People are more easily influenced by people who show empathy for their situation and can be trusted. But more than that: people will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, allay fears, justify their failings, or help them throw rocks at their enemies.
Some of the most effective and powerful ways of influencing appeal to these four universal motivators:
Encourage their dreams, allay their fears, Justify their failings and helping them throw rocks at an enemy.
1. Encourage their dreams

If a genie gave you 3 wishes, what would you ask for?

Every single person I have ever met has dreams. They want to achieve something in their life, they may not know exactly what that is, but it is better than whatever they have achieved thus far in life.
To influence someone, you could encourage their dreams. That the benefit, they will attain moves them towards their dreams.
You might be encouraging the dreams of your child to get into a great university if they study hard, or more relevant perhaps, the new iPad you will buy them if they get an A.
You could be encouraging someone to diet or exercise by communicating how good they will look and feel (and hence be more attractive.)

Have you set yourself a SMART goal and still not achieved it? Goal setting, we know is a powerful tool in helping us focus on a specific objective and put our energy and resources towards achieving it. But did you know that human beings align themselves to achieving their goal in one of four ways? And that the way you align your energy and resources to achieving your goal can be the determinant as to whether you achieve success or not? What is it about those people who set big, stretching goals for themselves and get there without the fight that the rest of us seem to face? Even something as simple as making sure everything is properly organised and filed and those minutiae are dealt with. All, effortlessly… or at least that's what it looks like. I recall my Godfather shared a story about swans gliding along the river, elegant and poised. No trace of the furious effort beneath the water as they paddled furiously against the current in search of a morsel of bread I had thrown. Is this the secret of those who seem to glide through life to and endless stream of successes? I tried to master this idea of appearing poised whilst furiously beavering away and, of course, failed miserably. It was exhausting. I was expending huge effort in my work and huge effort in trying to appear that I wasn't working. 
Perhaps, I should just let the current take me wherever it would. But then, I would find myself drifting towards the weir of life and the turmoil of burbling rapids and somewhere downstream in the opposite direction. And, it's not just our long term goals where this matters. We live in a world of busy-ness. There's a constant demand for our attention from work, from colleagues, bosses, clients, family, friends, and beeps from devices, and emails and more all clamouring for immediate attention. In part, this modern life itself distracts us from our plans, so it becomes increasingly important that we keep on top of everything and not drown in a sea of todo lists under a cacophony of beeps. So let us explore the four different ways we can choose to align our effort, energy and resources towards achieving our chosen goals. I call them, Push mode, Pull mode, Drift mode and the fourth is really a combination, the PushMePullYou mode.
Push Mode
Multi-tasking, endless todo lists and long hours in the office are all indicators that you are in Push Mode[/caption] If you have to drive others towards an objective, even drive yourself towards it, I call this being in push mode. Push mode is typified by focusing your attention on problems that need to be resolved, or things that need fixing. Many people use a ‘todo’ list or a GTD (getting things done) system. Are you one of them? Take a look at yours now and see if it is a list of problems. The fun, creative or enjoyable things rarely make it onto a ‘todo’ list – rather there is a tendency to say that once the list is done and I have time, then I’ll do the fun stuff. What’s more, you will already know that the things we pay attention to are the things that grow and the things we don’t pay attention to tend to fade away. So if we focus on problems (call them challenges or issues if you must but they are still the same thing), we will find that the problems grow. So here’s a radical thought, if we focus our attention on interesting, exciting, fun things, they will grow. And our problems, won’t they fade away? “But you don’t understand. I have to get this report done, I have a ton of emails to clear, I have to attend this meeting, I have calls to make to angry customers, and if I don’t I’ll get fired. I simply don’t have time to talk to people, take it easy, smell the flowers…” And when your stress levels have made you so sick that you can’t work, let alone afford the hospital bills you’ll feel what exactly? Accomplished? Valued? Important? Nothing more satisfying than lying in bed recovering from a heart attack knowing how much your contribution is missed. I’m not saying that these things (some of th

A few weeks ago I recorded a podcast about the Power of Trust to Succeed and many people wrote and asked why it is that you can do something with the very best intentions but find that it backfires.It seems that it is very easy to lose someone's trust but oh so difficult to gain it back.
Think of trust as a wallet full of cash.
I know that it's rare to have such a thing, but imagine, OK?
Say I have a couple of thousand bucks in various bills in my trust wallet. Every time I do or say something that causes you to lose faith in me, to lose your trust, for whatever reason, is like asking you to take whatever amount of cash out of my wallet.
Of course, being a normal human being, you'll take the 100 dollar bills first.
If, foolishly I hurt you in some way again, you'll take another chunk from my wallet. A third time and you'll probably take the wallet and empty it.
Now I have no trust with you. Is there any way I can influence you if you don’t trust me? Of course not.
[player]
If you do not trust me, the only way I can get you to do what I want would be to manipulate you, or coerce you. That is, I would resort to lies, half-truths, twisted words, force, threats or bullying.
Instead, slowly and steadily and patiently, I work hard and begin to earn your trust back.
Little by little, you begin to trust me again. So you give me a two dollar bill from the hundreds you took when I lost your trust.
I'm consistent, and build trust with you again. And perhaps you'll give me back a five dollar bill or even, if I've been especially good, 10 bucks.
This goes on and on, because you'll be very reticent to give me back your trust. It's normal. It's the way your brain works. You hold a very vivid, pain filled memory of the times I broke your trust and a distant, slightly happy memory of when I build it in the first place.
[popup type="youtube" link_text="Click to open my video on your Brain on Stress and Anxiety" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmwiJ6ghLIM" /]
Painful memories are much more dominant than good memories. We are wired for negativity.
We have two networks for this in our brains:
The pain network, which includes the Thalamus, the Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Gyrus and the Insula.
Then we have the Reward network, which consists of the Amygdala, the Ventral Striatum and the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex.
Now you don’t need to remember all the terms, but I've link some great articles and videos above if you’re interested to learn more about the neuroscience behind all of this.
When I cause you pain, such as physically inflicting pain, or snubbing you, taking something from you that you care about, treating you unfairly, betraying you, or simply speak negatively about you, then your pain network is activated.
Your reward network is activated when you feel things like physical pleasure, a sense of belonging or inclusion, having a good reputation with others, being treated fairly and justly, and even giving to others - because of a feeling of abundance, or simply being appreciated for doing something or just for being you. These things make you feel good.
Smart leaders know this and continuously activate your reward network - which makes you more productive and effective. Poor leaders activate your pain network.
The biggest difficulty for leaders is one word and that word is "continuously".
A leader can be deemed trustworthy by you for years and then they inflict pain on you in some way. They break your trust. Even blaming others for their own failings could be painful for you. At that moment, you take that first big bill from their wallet full of trust.
You may trust them again, but there will be a delay in making the decision to trust as you check your personal records - first in the insula and then in the Anterior Cingulate Gyrus (ACG).
The insula in your brain, helps us anticipate what something will feel like before it happens, like the proverbial “gut-feel” or “6th-sense”.
The Anterior Cingulate Gyrus (ACG) allows us to shift betw

It was 4.30 on a cold and wet morning and I was choking on the stench of thick layers of years old grease behind the deep fat fryer and I was ecstatically happy as I scrubbed and cleaned the once white tiles back to their original gleaming brightness.
It was my first day on my first proper job and I would soon be delegating this filthy work to some other poor sap who similarly wanted to become a chef de cuisine. In the meantime, my job was to scrub, peel, haul, carry, chop, clear and clean it all up again.
The head cook (for in the mid 1970's we had few "Chef's" as that was far too French and suggestive of "haute cuisine") had agreed to take me under her wing and teach me how to prepare the only famous dish to come from England and clogged the arteries of its working classes: The Great British Breakfast.

What's the difference between coaching, mentoring, counselling, training and managing?
Let's, however, take a look at the main similarities and differences, as this may be helpful for you in establishing the style you would prefer someone works with you.
There is considerable overlap between these development approaches with each having a performance, direction, support or personal well-being focus in the context of the organization, your career or your whole life.
Improving performance is largely about developing your job skills (competences). Whilst developing your soft skills (competencies) is better served through direction and support. Developing your character is best served through supporting your development and a focus on your personal well-being.
You will see that there are overlaps indicated in the diagram. Perhaps more so with the growth of 'life
coaching' which has filled a niche in developing you in your life whilst not being therapy or counselling.
 
What is mentoring?
In spite of its origins in Greek culture some 3,000 years ago, mentoring is a buzzword today where life and work is high-tech but not high-touch.
When we use the word “mentoring”, a dozen or more different images race across our minds. It seems that we might not all be on the same page. It will serve us well then, to offer a working definition that brings us all together in our understanding. Here, I have tweaked a definition original from Paul Stanley and Robert Clifton  (Stanley & Clinton, 1992) and later by Dr Tim Elmore (Elmore, 2011):
 
Mentoring is a working relational experience through which one person empowers and enables another by sharing their wisdom and resources.
 
What is coaching?
In the 16th century, the word 'coach' described a horse drawn vehicle to take people from where they were to where they wanted to be. In the 20th century, big buses with rows of seats were also called coaches, and their purpose was the same: to get people to where they wanted to go. The word 'coach' was given athletic meaning around 1880 when it was used to identify the person who tutored university students in their rowing on the Cam river in Cambridge. Later, the word (and role) became associated with musicians, public speakers and actors, who rely on coaches to improve their skills. Don Shula, former coach for the Miami Dolphins wrote about athletes who would come to his team with their skills and talents, ready to submit to the coach whose job was to instruct, discipline, and inspire them to do things better than they thought they could do on their own. Over time, the idea of a coach has not really changed. A coach is a vehicle to take someone from where they are now, to where they want to be. Eric Parsloe, author of "The Manager as Coach and Mentor" (Parsloe, 1999) defines coaching as: 
"a process that enables learning and development to occur and thus performance to improve." 
The table below is an overview of the main differences between the four most common approaches to coaching and how these differ from the manager's role.

What helps distinguish leaders and managers is about control and, quite literally, how "hands-on" you are.
If you have ever learned to play the game of golf, the chances are that you grip the club tightly.
After all
this is basically holding onto a stick that you will swing through the air and hit a ball. Allowing the club to "follow-through' - if you don't hold on tight, the club might just go as far as the ball.
I appreciate that you may have never played golf, but you can liken this also
to the tight grip of the reins of a horse
to controlling your dog on a very short leash
to holding on tight to your child's hand
 
New golfers have to learn how to 'let go' - to relax their grip. If a tight grip is a ten on a scale, we want a 4 out of 10. The same is true of leadership and the way we hold on to our people. Hold on too tight (micromanage) and people have little freedom to use their own skills and strength. Hold on too tight to the club, and it is the golfer doing all the work.
So the question is: "who should be doing the work?" The manager or leader or the member of staff?
The golf club is weighted for a reason. If you allow the club to do the work, the swing and striking of the ball, becomes almost effortless. Relax your grip on your team and allow them to excel at what they do, and the work becomes almost effortless.
Once you know, as a golfer, that the club is designed to do the job of striking the ball, and your job is simply to swing and allow physics do to its job, you can relax. Maintain just enough control to ensure alignment, direction and distance and the ball will fly according to the club used, and the size of the swing. If you want a long distance, you use a long club and a full swing. A short distance off the fairway onto the green requires a shorter distance club and a smaller swing. The power to achieve the distance lies in the tool being employed and the chosen swing - the rest is pure physics.
So what can we learn as a leader?
To hit your target, at some point you have to let go
Isn't it the same? Make sure that you are using the right tool - the person needs the right skill set (and/or mindset) to do the required job. The leader's job is to have a little control to ensure that the skills are employed in the right direction for the right distance - that's about judging how far it is to the goal and translating that into the swing itself - in the case of people, the swing is influence and motivation... let the staff do the rest.
And just like that golf ball landing exactly where you both planned and wanted it to be for the next shot. You celebrate. Unlike golf, though, praise your club and thank them for their effort. After all, they did all the work!
When we use this metaphor on our golf leadership workshops, the feedback is instant. Hold tight onto the club and the golfer has to use a great deal of effort and the ball often ends up being pulled, pushed, sliced or hooked - going two-thirds of the required distance. Relax the grip maintaining directional control and the ball flies straight to the full distance of the club and swing used.
(For non-golfers... try this with a horse, hold tight, the horse will slow down even when you whip it! Keep your dog on a short leash stays by your side while it is pulling your arm out of its socket! Your child dangles from your hand as you cross the road. And, fo course, your team members await your next specific instruction on what they should do next.)
When the going gets tough, leaders in control let go!
Yet, new golfers, in particular, find their grip tightening in more difficult situations. The very moment when they need to be most at ease, most truly controlling, fear envelops them, pressure builds, the grip tightens, and the ball goes astray.
If you have to keep a tight grip on something, keep everyone tightly focused on the goal and direction
The same is true of business leaders under pressure. Listen to the media hype about the doom and gloom of the current econom

Abraham Maslow proposed a sixth level in his renowned five level hierarchy of human needs, which behavioural neuroscience has since confirmed. These levels explain the essential drivers of our behaviours, reactions and reactions.

We all have six foundational drivers that are at the heart of practical neuroscience.

Of course, your brain is an incredibly complex organ and variations of human behaviour are an endless ocean of subtle differences. But we can identify six neuro-scientifically founded basic needs of human beings and how these influence our motivational behaviours and how we interact with the world around us.

As human beings, we have developed to use the environment to its best and allow for reproduction and the furtherment of our species: our survival and growth.

For leaders to be successful, they should first ensure that their own needs are met, and then understand and help their team members meet their needs. To do this, a leader needs to understand that their team members have 6 essential needs easily remembered with the SPACES acronym - Survival, Pleasure, Attachment, Control, Esteem and Service. Each of these needs must be fulfilled in order for an individual to reach their fullest potential. Leaders should strive to provide their teams with meaningful work, opportunities for growth, and an environment of trust, collaboration and respect.

Only by understanding and meeting the essential needs of their team members, a leader can develop a successful and productive team.

SPACES - The Six Needs We All Share

* Physical Survival! Our physiological needs of hunger, thirst, sleep and sex.

* Maximising Pleasure and avoiding pain to feel safer and more secure.

* Growing Attachment, so that we have a better sense of belonging.

* Increasing our Control.Which helps satisfy our need to matter.

* Boosting our Self-Esteem: Which helps satisfy our need for self-actualisation.

* Being of Service to others. We are only truly satisfied when we help other people.

Each of these stimulates different neuronal circuits and will activate different regions in the brain. Let me briefly share a little more about each of these needs and then we'll examine how we can consciously and deliberately affect them and hence, our FEELING of drive, inspiration and engagement. You can easily remember this using the SPACES acronym.

Why you need this

You need to be able to help your team fill their own power cell and ignite their destiny. Every team member has different needs and motivations and it’s the job of the leader to understand and meet those needs through different strategies.

They need to feel accepted, respected and that their ideas matter. Leaders should be mindful to include emotional intelligence in their leadership strategy. They should be cognisant of the emotional needs and psychological dynamics of their team and give team members the space to express their feelings.

Leaders should use empowering language and be mindful of their team’s limits. Each team member should have meaningful work and have opportunities for growth. Leaders should also be conscious of what their team members value and strive to provide them with those things.

It is also the leader’s job to foster a team environment where team members can collaborate, solve problems and grow together. Leaders should recognise the importance of building trust and rapport within the team, and ensure that all team members are treated fairly and equally.

Finally, leading a team requires understanding the different needs of each team member. A great leader is someone who has the ability to empathise and be compassionate with each team member and see things from their perspective. By doing this, the leader can help each individual in the team realize their full potential, and maximise the collective potential of the whole team.

The Sixth Level - Why It’s So Important

Abraham Maslow wanted to add a sixth level to his renowned five level hierarchy of human needs. Today, with our increased understanding through behavioural neuroscience, he was right to want to include it. These 6 human needs are THE essential drivers of our every day behaviours, actions and reactions.

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

Every leader needs to understand:

* How to fulfil their own needs, and

* Their role in helping all of their team members meet their essential, human needs.

Ultimately, by doing so, those leaders can fulfil their own need to help and serve others.

Is Your Battery Running Low

Imagine that your needs are like a discharged battery that you are able to charge through your life activities.

When the bottom cell is sufficiently filled, the next cell can be charged. All human beings have 6 essential needs, or power cells.

Though, some people have faulty power packs - with a corrupted sixth cell that has been taken over by a leaky fifth cell. That is, they care less about other people because their self-esteem is so overfilled they hold others in total contempt - because they matter less than me!

Beware overfilling any one cell: Gluttony and Obesity with an overfilled Cell 1, Excessive risk taking for Cell 2.

And many have a leaky battery, where their own needs never get filled.

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

Every leader needs to understand:

* Your own needs need to be met BEFORE you have enough to give others, and

* Whilst things may look OK on the surface - people tend to hide their emotional needs fearing that they are the only ones who have them.

By this, you’ll be better able to ask the right questions and better positioned to serve others and help them fulfil their real needs.

Empty Power Pack

If your needs are not met, you are an empty shell. Imagine that your brain is being powered by a rechargeable power pack.

The very first thing that you need when you are born is air. Soon after you need food, warmth and shelter. Sorry to tell you, but you were born needy and totally dependent upon others for your basic survival, and that is our first and primary need…

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

* If you’re running on empty - you’re not much use to anyone!

* As a leader, you help your team understand what they need and how you can help them satisfy those needs.

Survival Needs

Your brain’s number one, primary job is to keep you not dead! Thankfully, your brain has been doing a pretty fantastic job of that for you and will continue to do so, providing you look after just a few tasks. You can help your brain and yourself a great deal by attending importance to 4 key areas in your life:

* Eating good, healthy and nutritious food and water

* Getting sufficient rest and good sleep

* Exercising and stretching your body’s muscles regularly.

* Avoiding things, people and situations that may harm you

Do these, and your brain can do its job. Neglect them and your brain will give up sooner than you might prefer.

As a responsible leader you owe a duty to yourself and your continued good health to ensure that you enjoy good rest and sleep, exercise regularly and eat healthy, nutritious food.

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

* If you don’t look after your health, exercise, sleep and nutrition - you won’t be able to achieve much.

* Encourage and guide your team into a healthier lifestyle of good nutrition, suitable exercise and proper rest and sleep.

Pleasure maximisation (and avoidance of pain)

We follow a simple logic to increase our pleasure and avoid unpleasurable, dangerous or painful experiences. This helps make us feel safe and secure in the world.

Our experience over time gives rise to a whole network of mostly unconscious triggers and associations that are linked to either positive or negative experiences and our resultant pleasure or pain.

You may be seeking hedonistic pleasure focusing more on the subjective experience of maximising personal pleasure and minimising personal pain, or a eudaemonic experience with a more rounded psychological well-being that encompasses the combination of the other three basic needs being fulfilled for a long term meaning or purpose.

Our subjective experiences colour our view of the world and each person has their own unique internal rating process based on our own unique previous experiences.

In short:

* We strive to increase our belief of our own self-worth to ourselves and our perception of how others value us.

* We need to believe that we have some ability to control what happens to us and we need to feel cared for by another human being.

* Lastly, we seek to maximise the personal pleasure we derive from life and avoid unpleasant experiences.

To be able to deliberately impact our feeling of drive, motivation, inspiration or engagement we need to be able to fulfil these six needs in a way that satisfies us personally. And to understand that, we need to get back to those chemicals I talked about earlier.

This is going to help us hack your thinking by knowing the main chemicals involved and what you can consciously and deliberately do to alter the cocktail mix that your SNS, HPAA (and PSNS) do unconsciously for you.

We all need to FEEL and be safe and secure and be free from fear.

In organisations, Psychological Safety is the #1 differentiatorfor personal and team effectiveness!

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

* If you do not feel safe and secure and free from fear - then you are likely to make this even worse for your team.

* As a leader, allow your team members to speak up without any negative repercussions. Protect them from other leaders. Encourage all members to speak up freely and always encourage useful conflict and opposing ideas. Encourage everyone to build on previous statements with “Yes, and…” (NOT “No…But…”)

Attachment and Belonging

Our need for attachment is laid down at birth in our brain and memory. It helps us believe that we belong to a protective family or tribe.

This means that our perceptions, behaviours and emotional reactions and motivations can be laid down very early in life.

This is directly linked to the availability of an attachment figure, usually one of the primary caregivers, for normal social and emotional development. When this is not the case this has a negative influence on the fulfilment of this need for attachment.

(Bowlby, J., Ainsworth, M., & Bretherton, I. (1992). The origins of attachment theory. Developmental Psychology, 5, 759-775)

Whether your primary caregiver wasn't there physically or emotionally doesn't make a great deal of difference.

We all need to truly belong to a tribe of people connected to us and who help us meet our needs. A tribe where we have equal value and treated as equal.

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

* You need a tribe too! If it’s lonely at the top - you ain’t leading, you’re on a walk!

* Treat all team members equitably - they may not be equals but they have equal value! Encourage sharing, and proactively acknowledging each other.

Control and Mattering

Everyone has a basic urge to be able to design and control their environment. This helps fulfil our need to matter.

We need to know where we are going and how to keep ourselves on the right path to reach our chosen destination.

A situation that is unclear and ambiguous stimulates a negative reaction in the limbic system of the brain, specifically the amygdala. This in turn, will stimulate an immediate fear reaction.

If the resultant stress can be controlled and mastered this may stimulate reward circuits and be saved as a learned memory. Otherwise, this can destabilise the neuronal circuits and trigger a negative cycle of thinking.

(Whalen, P.J. (1998) Fear, vigilance, and ambiguity. Initial neuroimaging studies of the human amygdala. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 7(6). 177-188.)

What may matter more, is not that you are actually able to control your environment but that you believe that you control it. This is known as having an "internal locus of control" When the locus of control is external, we'll blame everyone and anyone else and outside forces for what happens to us.

(Fournier, G. (2016). Locus of Control. Psych Central. Retrieved on June 3, 2018, from https://psychcentral.com/encyclopedia/locus-of-control/).

The big downside of an external locus of control is that even if they are to blame, they don't give a damn because they are in it for themselves and their own locus of control.

In modern society our greatest punishment is to remove or reduce a persons ability to control what happens to them by imprisoning them, beating them or executing them.

When our base needs are being met, we want more control over our lives (or at least we perceive we have more control) and need to be recognised that we matter and that what we do matters.

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

* Learn to recognise and appreciate yourself. Respect yourself and achieve mastery in your leadership walk.

* Go out of your way to “Catch them doing something good!” - and deliberately recognise all team members achievements, individually and specifically. Not a catch all - “great job team!” - that’s about as genuine as it seems to you. Show complete respect for others and especially your team members. Coach them for mastery in their roles and beyond.

Self-Esteem and Actualisation

Every healthy individual is constantly seeking to increase and protect their self-worth. This is large part of fulfilling our need to self-actualise.

Self-esteem is a specific human need and only possible through having the ability to reflect and be able to perceive this and bring it to conscious attention.

Our interactions with others enable us to form this self-image that is influenced by a complex network of interactions with others in the environment and their reactions and observations of us.

We therefore develop a perception of our self-worth and a need to be valued and for value.

(Cast, A.D., & Burke, P. (2002) A theory of self-esteem. Social Forces, 80(3), 1041-1068.)

When a friend ignores you (and you notice this), for example, it is likely that you will question your own value to them and hence the value you bring to the relationship.

When your boss tells you that you did a great job on that project, your self-worth increases and your value on that relationship increases.

As Dale Carnegie put it many years ago in the classic ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’: “Everyone wants to feel important”. That includes you!

“Everyone wants to feel important.”

When we are healthy and safe, we belong to a tribe and we matter: we need to pursue our God given talents, to be creative and to fulfil our destiny

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

* Leadership develops daily! Pursue excellence and keep learning how you can be and do better. Think before you speak and remember to Pause and Breathe.

* Encourage, Develop, Guide and Empower your team members daily! Your task is to make them better than you. That’s what will be noticed by those higher up the food chain.

Serving Others

Or self-transcendence as Maslow called it, is our highest need. Serving others boosts your health and well-being (survival), happiness (pleasure), greater connection (attachment), that you matter (control) and uses your giftedness (esteem). That is, serving others helps fulfil all your other needs. But to be in a position to do this, you need to fill those needs. You need to be blessed to be a blessing.

When we are personally fulfilled, we transcend to think more about others than ourselves. We need to give and to serve and to fulfil our spiritual selves.

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

* You will only be truly fulfilled when you give and give some more. If you have yet to uncover your purpose in life - here’s a clue that will save you many hours - “it’s not about you! You were born to serve others.” How you serve them - that’ll be your gifts to them.

* As a Leader your job is to serve others and when your power pack is filled to bursting, you can charge them up and help them find out and practice how they too serve others.

If you would like to learn how AdvantEdge Coaching can help you, your team and your organisation, then join me for a Complimentary Discovery Session by applying here.

Trust is the most fundamental building block of any relationship whether in business, politics, marriage, family or friendships. In the real world, trust signifies different things to different people but it frequently boils down to one point: trust is essential to your success.
Once lost, rebuilding trust is one of the most difficult things to accomplish for the reason that the thought of the betrayal can forever haunt the aggrieved. Rebuilding trust is definitely tough, but it’s not something that can be ignored.
There's a well-known psychological study, conducted by Walter Mischel in the 1960s, which explored delayed gratification in four-year-olds. Individually, children were seated in front of a marshmallow and the researcher told them that they could eat the marshmallow right then, but if they waited for the researcher to return from a brief errand, they would receive a second marshmallow.
Some kids ate the marshmallow within seconds, but others waited up to 20 minutes for the researcher to return. 14 years later, the researchers found out that the children who had delayed gratification were more trustworthy, more dependable, more self-reliant and more confident than the children who had not controlled their impulses.
Trust is largely an emotional act, based on a prediction of reliance. It is fragile, and as an egg shell, one slip can shatter it.
Trust pervades every aspect of our everyday lives closely. It is fundamentally essential in the healthy functioning of all of our relationships with others. It is even tied to our wealth: in a Scientific American article, Dr. Paul J Zak, a neuroeconomist at Claremont Graduate University, found out that trust is between the strongest known predictors of a country's wealth: nations with low levels use to be poor. In line with Dr. Zak, societies with low levels of trust are poor, for the reason that the inhabitants undertake too few of the long-term investments that originate jobs and raise incomes. Such investments depend on people trusting others to fulfil their contractual duties.
In searching to comprehend what was physically happening in the human brain that instilled trust, he found out that oxytocin, a hormone and neurotransmitter, increases our propensity to trust others in the absence of threatening signals. We are indeed wired to trust each other, but, as Dr. Zak points out, our life experiences may "retune" the oxytocin to a different "set point", and thus to different levels of trust all through the course of life. When we are brought up in a secure, nurturing and caring background, our brains release more oxytocin when somebody trusts us resulting in our reciprocating that trust. By contrast, early experiences of pressure, uncertainty and isolation interfere with the development of a trusting disposition and reduce oxytocin levels.
In today's untrusting climate, it is not surprising that study after study shows a decline in the trust that individuals have in business and political leaders, and in institutions. The Edelman Trust Barometer for 2009 found out that nearly two out of every three adults surveyed in 20 countries trust corporations less now than they did a year ago. And a 2004 study by Towers Perrin, shows that only 44% of junior workers (those gaining less than $50,000 per year) trust their employers to say them the truth. This is an alarming statistic, specifically given how much time, effort and concern are expended in crafting leadership communications to workers.
Even although we are faced with a disaster in trust, and have ample examples of leaders who have eroded their employees', customers' and shareholders' trust, I believe that the majority of leaders walk the path of trustworthiness. If truth be told, it might be harrowing for many leaders if they receive feedback that others do not find them trustworthy. But being trustworthy, in someone's eyes, consists of their own perceptions, and can be strongly influenced by the fracture of trust in the world

What is a successful leader?
Because our GAPPS5 report profile benchmarks against "Successful" leaders I get asked this a lot.
And it is a great question! Because success means different things to different people. For some, success is a mansion on the beachfront, for some it's being in charge of a large multi-national, for others, it's a loving family.
However, these simply identify the measures by which individuals evaluate their own success.
We define leadership success as:
" Behaving in a congruent and righteous way that generates a sustainable superior return on investment."
Now of course, this is a very loaded statement:
Behaving: your manifest actions and words.
Congruent: in accordance with stated and unstated beliefs and values
Righteous: acting in an upright, moral and virtuous way (within the context of the environment)
Sustainable: able to maintained or kept going
Superior return on investment: continuously returning greater benefit to the organization and/or people than the investment in time, money, effort. i.e. a greater ROI than most other leaders.
How do you know that a leader is successful?
During the last 20+ years we have been researching leadership, we have assessed, observed and evaluated individual leaders seeking agreement on whether an particular leader is successful. This evaluation considers the individual's own achievements of their own definition of success, the agreed definitions of success of their peers and our own experience.
Surely it's simply that 'more is better'?
Not so! And this is one of the biggest issues with other psychometric tools and why we created GAPPS. More is not always better. Too much food makes you fat!
For example, someone with extremely high interpersonal sensitivity is going to be very sensitive to the needs and wants of others and may choose to implement a policy that satisfies the people at the expense of good business - reduces ROI.
Or, someone with absolute clarity of goals and vision, but does not learn (review) that the goal is the wrong way.
Or someone with very high Outcome... they are heading for a stroke.
Also, consider that if you had a team member who was a junior manager with incredibly strong leadership skills and thus gets labelled as a 'High Potential" put on the fast track and promoted... and promoted... if they do not gain the experience technically or the wisdom to discern, then they won't necessarily be successful as a CEO or even as a senior manager.
"Can I be successful as a leader with a low score?"
Yes! Though it depends on your definition of success. I've met a few CEOs who, quite honestly, shouldn't be in charge of getting themselves dressed in the morning, let alone a multi-million dollar business and the lives of hundreds of staff.
They key to real success as a leader when you have known weaknesses (and we all have them!) is to let go of the ego or pride, admit it and go find yourself someone to fill your gaps.
Let's say you own a business that is doing well, but to get to the next level and expand or go public. As an SMB leader you've succeeded, but you really need a 'Chess Player' character - a real strategist, but you're a 'Cavalier' - a bit of a maverick... then go find yourself a boss!
And remember, whilst you focus on being increasingly successful, I trust that you've noticed I did not say "good" leader. Being successful and being "good" are not necessarily the same thing. In this fallen world, there are times when you sacrifice "good" for "success".
What do you need to change to be more successful?

A little understanding of neuroscience can go a long way to making your own life easier and more fulfilling.
And this week's podcast and article. I thought I should share a few mind hacks with you that are so effortless once you know them and they will give you a powerful edge in life.
These mind hacks are not deceitful or manipulative at all. They just take advantage of a little neuroscience understanding and they can have a positive impact on everyone you encounter.
The first one is I Colour I Listen

Knowing a little neuroscience and how to use your mind effectively gives you a major edge in life.
If you have attended one of my workshops or coaching sessions you probably even know this first one. When you are speaking with someone you want to take a note of their eye colour. Why? I'm so glad that you asked. :-) By consciously noting a person's  eye colour you must have made eye contact with them. You will also tune in to what they are saying and because making a note of their eye colour takes up so much cognitive space, you can only listen and not speak at the same time. Now, I don’t mean stare at them for the whole time, that will creep them out and you'll be perceived as aggressive. Eye to eye contact should be somewhat minimal (unless you are both deeply in love) Instead, after noting their eye colour, focus about 60% of the time on a midpoint above the bridge of their nose and below the forehead. You can drop your gaze slightly lower - directly between the eyes ) for a friend. Focus on the mouth ONLY if you are intimate with this person. Practice this with a friend. Change where you focus attention and for how long, ask them how it makes them feel. Note how you feel when they do this back to you.
Knowing a little neuroscience and how to use your mind effectively gives you a major edge in life If you have attended one of my workshops or coaching sessions you probably even know this first one. When you are speaking with someone you want to take a note of their eye colour. Why? I'm so glad that you asked. :-) By consciously noting a person's  eye colour you must have made eye contact with them. You will also tune in to what they are saying and because making a note of their eye colour takes up so much cognitive space, you can only listen and not speak at the same time. Now, I don’t mean stare at them for the whole time, that will creep them out and you'll be perceived as aggressive. Eye to eye contact should be somewhat minimal (unless you are both deeply in love) Instead, after noting their eye colour, focus about 60% of the time on a midpoint above the bridge of their nose and below the forehead. You can drop your gaze slightly lower - directly between the eyes ) for a friend. Focus on the mouth ONLY if you are intimate with this person. Practice this with a friend. Change where you focus attention and for how long, ask them how it makes them feel. Note how you feel when they do this back to you.
If you have attended one of my workshops or coaching sessions you probably even know this first one. When you are speaking with someone you want to take a note of their eye colour. Why? I'm so glad that you asked. :-) By consciously noting a person's  eye colour you must have made eye contact with them. You will also tune in to what they are saying and because making a note of their eye colour takes up so much cognitive space, you can only listen and not speak at the same time. Now, I don’t mean stare at them for the whole time, that will creep them out and you'll be perceived as aggressive. Eye to eye contact should be somewhat minimal (unless you are both deeply in love) Instead, after noting their eye colour, focus about 60% of the time on a midpoint above the bridge of their nose and below the forehead. You can drop your gaze slightly lower - directly between the eyes ) for a friend. Focus on the mouth ONLY if you are intimate with this person. Practice this with a friend. Change where you focus attention and for how long, a

Put your hand up if you can trust you.
Keep your hand up, if you can trust yourself always. That is, you never, ever let yourself down. There are many areas in our lives where we may have a tendency, a temptation to not do something we promised ourselves, to give in when we know that we really should continue. Or perhaps that's just me?
I’ve been going through this a lot recently.  Last year I had a heart attack. No warning. No symptoms, until that very morning.
That is, you never, ever let yourself down. There are many areas in our lives where we may have a tendency, a temptation to not do something we promised ourselves, to give in when we know that we really should continue. Or perhaps that's just me? I’ve been going through this a lot recently.  Last year I had a heart attack. No warning. No symptoms, until that very morning.
There are many areas in our lives where we may have a tendency, a temptation to not do something we promised ourselves, to give in when we know that we really should continue. Or perhaps that's just me? I’ve been going through this a lot recently.  
Or perhaps that's just me? I’ve been going through this a lot recently.  
Last year I had a heart attack. No warning. No symptoms, until that very morning...

It seems to me if a tool is so widely used, there must be something to it. As a leadership caddy, procrastination is almost always the first thing my clients want to eliminate from their lives. As you will read, I advise them not to eliminate the very tool that is there to help them navigate the rough spots in life and business.

“If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done.” Rita Mae Brown

Detour ahead
It's time I think to do a little more brain hacking and think of procrastination as a detour in the road. The purpose of a detour is to give us a warning, help us avoid something unnavigable, or dangerous and provides a safer route. Detours usually take a little longer, they circumvent the problem, but in the end we arrive at our destination unscathed. In most cases you will discover that properly employed procrastination, like a detour, will give you an alternate route to the solution of the problem at hand.

We're all aware that there are no shortcuts to success. But, have you noticed that success seems to come more easily to some people and not so easily to you?
It's OK, you're not alone. In fact, everyone sees it this way. Even that eejit in your class at school. You know, the one in the big house, with the wealthy parents. They got given a swanky BMW for their 18th birthday. Yes, even they look at others and believe that success came more easily to them. And you know what. They probably even look at you and say how 'lucky' you are to have so easily been successful.
"Me?" you say.
Yes, you. Because you are successful in so many ways. Perhaps not yet in the specific way you think you would like, but you have a remarkable number of successes under your belt already.
And you know how you achieved those successes?
You failed. Yeap. You heard me right. You failed. Sometimes, you failed miserably, other times you just failed. But you failed nonetheless. And from that failure, you learned to succeed.
This week I'm going to share with you some insights on failure and why it carries such a stigma. Then we'll look at the positive role of failure and lastly, learn how to embrace failure… or something I'm going to call: "Unfailure."

I've been prompted this week in my own development about setting goals rather than drifting along and hoping for the best and I wanted to share this with you. When I was a very young kid, I remember that we had an old black Austin Wolseley. I remember the leather seats and the 'horse' in the back - which is where I would sit. My sister and brother to either side of me and mum and dad in the front.
On occasional Sunday's when dad wasn't preaching or we weren't going to Grandma's, we would be treated to a Sunday drive. [player] One particular time, we went to Redhill in Kent, southern England. This was long before the M25 motorway went past this particular spot and we parked the old Wolseley at the top of the hill, unloaded the picnic blanket and the basket of treats.

I rolled down the hill with my siblings and had to be carried back up exhausted. It was a beautiful sunny autumn day and life was good. Those Sunday's were special.
We never knew where we would end up. Finding new places to enjoy. Those Sunday drives became less frequent as I grew older. By the time I was around 11, they stopped altogether. And I missed those Sunday drives. I wanted to spend the day drifting around and stumbling across some beautiful corner of England. A day when I could drift along and be taken for a journey somewhere and just enjoy myself.
I've met a lot of people who live a Sunday Drive kind of life.
They're drifting along being carried by the current and the winds of life. Sometimes they enjoy it, but most days they moan about the place they’ve ended up. And of course, it's not their responsibility to take themselves somewhere more exciting. No that's what somebody else "should" be doing for them.
Now, I'm no botanist, but in my experience, when a plant is not growing, it's dying. If you don’t water or feed your plants, or tend the garden for weeds and pests, then your plants will wither and die.
I've found the same happens to the lives of people. When we don’t feed and water our own growth and take responsibility for tending our life for choking weeds and pests, we too will begin to die. A little at a time. My ability and character as a leader similarly needs to continuously grow and mature, be fed and nourished, weeded and cleaned of pests and problems.
Of course, there's the fear that if I grow too fast and too big, well I'll just be the tall poppy and as my peers try desperately to bring me down, and my bosses chop my head off first because I'm too visible.
So I'll just keep my head down and not bother growing.
Imagine what it takes to plan a journey from Singapore to Bintan. I know that Bintan is a little south of Singapore, I know that there are ferry services to get there, so I'll just head to the coast, find the first ferry heading south and get on board." That would be crazy right? No, first you'll fire up Google and search for the right ferry, choose which service, what time, get a ticket, and so on and so forth. It takes a little planning. Every journey can be broken down into manageable steps or goals.
These act as milestones along the way to make sure we're still headed in the right direction, making good and timely progress. Any journey worth taking requires a little effort to plan and prepare.
Your journey to leadership success is no different. Each goal is a milestone on your journey indicating your progress and providing direction to the next goal. And if you go off track, you can easily get back on track.
So where would you like your leadership ability and character to be a month from now?
 INFLUENCE WITHOUT AUTHORITY Be first to know... Click here

When I started my first degree at university, I knew I had to get myself a car. Until this point, a motorbike had served me well, but I was going to university in Manchester, England, 200 miles from my job and my girlfriend.
I spotted an advert in the local paper from a local used car dealership offering a "Reliable, one careful owner, full service history, Austin 1100 in British Racing Green." It was old but almost in my price range. The dealer was friendly, kind and helpful. He took me out for a test drive and assured me that the car was an absolute bargain. He told me how thrilled he had been from the response to the advert and even forewarned me that someone else had called just before I arrived and they wanted to buy the car too. [player]
The dealer was friendly, kind and helpful. He took me out for a test drive and assured me that the car was an absolute bargain. He told me how thrilled he had been from the response to the advert and even forewarned me that someone else had called just before I arrived and they wanted to buy the car too. 
Does it matter whether I influence or persuade or manipulate, so long as I get the right result?
Does it matter whether I influence or persuade or manipulate, so long as I get the right result?
He shared a story about his own Austin 1100 that had been such a reliable little runner. Cheap to maintain and would quite happily trot up and down the motorway regularly. On top of that, it was cheap to insure and easy to get parts "should anything ever go wrong with it."
I asked if he could knock a few quid off the price because I was a little short. He tried to get his boss to help, but there was sadly now way. I borrowed the difference from my best friend and I was thrilled to head off that very afternoon down south and was a little surprised as I hauled past Oxford and an orange light appeared on the dashboard.
Does it matter whether I influence or persuade or manipulate, so long as I get the right result?He shared a story about his own Austin 1100 that had been such a reliable little runner. Cheap to maintain and would quite happily trot up and down the motorway regularly. On top of that, it was cheap to insure and easy to get parts "should anything ever go wrong with it." I asked if he could knock a few quid off the price because I was a little short. He tried to get his boss to help, but there was sadly now way.
I borrowed the difference from my best friend and I was thrilled to head off that very afternoon down south and was a little surprised as I hauled past Oxford and an orange light appeared on the dashboard.
He shared a story about his own Austin 1100 that had been such a reliable little runner. Cheap to maintain and would quite happily trot up and down the motorway regularly. On top of that, it was cheap to insure and easy to get parts "should anything ever go wrong with it." I asked if he could knock a few quid off the price because I was a little short. He tried to get his boss to help, but there was sadly now way. I borrowed the difference from my best friend and I was thrilled to head off that very afternoon down south and was a little surprised as I hauled past Oxford and an orange light appeared on the dashboard.
I had bought a lemon.
So why had I, an educated, not completely dim, and otherwise quite sensible person been duped into buying something?
Are we influenced when we are duped?
Yes we are. You'll remember from the Triangle of Influence that we are influenced when someone connects a desired result in such a way that the benefit outweighs our cost resulting in motivation. Influence is often considered to be a positive thing. But it has some closely related cousins known as:
Persuasion
Manipulation, and
Coercion
Persuasion is still considered OK, but to have been influenced rather than persuaded would be better. To have been forced or threatened into doing something is particularly unpleasant, while being manipulated to do the very same thing is regarded as wrong.
How d

Anxiety is, for many people, most prevalent when you have a need to perform in front of others. Whether you are speaking to thousands in an arena or having a private conversation with your boss. Unfortunately, your anxiety means that you perform less well than you could.
So how do you control those feelings? You may be surprised that most professional trainers and speakers and performers (actors, singers, musicians) have those same feelings of anxiety. So how do they deal wit them?
This week I'm sharing four simple brain hacks, and I really do mean simple, to overcome performance anxiety. Visit my Your Brain on Stress and Anxiety video on YouTube
I've been prompted in part, because of the responses I have been receiving about a little video I made just over a year ago now.
It's entitled Your Brain on Stress and Anxiety, and it's garnered just shy of a hundred thousand views on YouTube alone now. Which is incredibly humbling, but also a little concerning. Humbling because it makes me somewhat proud that a little whiteboard video I drew and produced has been watched quite so many times just on YouTube. But it has also been a little disturbing. If you read some of the publically visible comments, you'll get an idea of the types of questions I've been getting over the past year from those who are suffering from stress and anxiety. Some very serious stress and anxiety as well.
So, a quick caveat if I may. I am not a medical doctor and, if you are suffering from long-term stress or anxiety, please do seek professional help. The four simple ways I am sharing today will help anyone with any degree of stress and anxiety, but I am focused more on people in business or work who suffer stress and anxiety because they are about to perform in front of others. That does not mean that these simple ways won’t help whenever you feel anxious, they will. So use them. And if you have yet to watch my little video, you should do so now or later, and whilst you're over at YouTube, subscribe to my channel as well and do please share with at least 3 people you know will benefit from learning there.
The four simple ways I am sharing today will help anyone with any degree of stress and anxiety, but I am focused more on people in business or work who suffer stress and anxiety because they are about to perform in front of others. That does not mean that these simple ways won’t help whenever you feel anxious, they will. So use them. And if you have yet to watch my little video, you should do so now or later, and whilst you're over at YouTube, subscribe to my channel as well and do please share with at least 3 people you know will benefit from learning there.
Back to today. 4 Simple brain hacks to overcome performance anxiety…. But before I begin on how we overcome performance anxiety, let us understand just what is happening when we get anxious. 
But before I begin on how we overcome performance anxiety, let us understand just what is happening when we get anxious. 
I was just seven years old when I first experienced acute stage fright.
I was due on stage to sing (in my beautiful soprano) in the finals of an inter-church competition. But the room was just so huge. There were more than a thousand people out there. And this was the finals. Something I’d been preparing for and practicing all year. But this song was difficult and required that I hit the high notes perfectly. I froze at the side of the stage. It was as if my shoes had been glued to the floor. My thin shirt was soaking with sweat at the armpits, and I began to shake. My singing coach (aka church choir master) came over and urged me on stage. I got out there and stood, like a rabbit caught in the headlights. I kept my head down and made myself as small as I could, so they couldn’t see me and then the pianist started the piece. The first bars repeated five times as I desperately tried to start singing. Not a chance. I turned and ran from the stage and burst into tears. "It's just stage fright," th

When you aim for the right target, your goal becomes more possible
 You already know that you need to have a clear goal in your personal development as a leader.
Without a goal, you don't know where you are going. And that's exactly where you will end up... drifting somewhere... maybe it'll be great, maybe it'll be a waste of your time. Here are the seven steps to your new leadership development goal:
https://youtu.be/APVrdQo_wQY
Who is in your Inner Circle?
The people closest to you can raise you up or tear you down. Take a long hard look at those who are in your inner circle and fill it, if necessary with people who build you up.

Develop SMART goals in each area of your life.
Know specifically what your goal is, know how you will measure it, make sure that you can attain it (with the help of your inner circle). Make sure your goal is realistic (if someone else has done it, it is!) And put your stake in the ground for time. When will you achieve this goal? Can it change, sure it can... you can move the goal posts any time you like.

Breakdown your bigger, longer term goals into smaller, shorter term chunks.
Any goal worth having is going to take time to reach. Breaking it down into smaller steps makes it much more manageable. I recommend that you "think week' - after all you can pretty well predict a week ahead. But a month... that's tough, all sorts of things could happen in a month. For example, establish steps that you will have completed by Friday each week (time to celebrate at the weekend!)

Work with an accountability partner. Check with your inner circle regularly to review your progress.
Wouldn't it be nice if you could trust yourself to have the self-discipline to do this alone? Sure... but believe me, you wouldn't be reading this if you were that self-disciplined. Work with someone in your inner circle who will support you, cajole you, nag you... whatever it takes. You already know what works for you, so invite them to do so and return the favour.

Celebrate your conquering of each milestone.
Don't wait till the end result. Constantly promising yourself that one day you will celebrate. No, choose to celebrate every milestone. My wife and I have a stupid little dance we do... in private I might add because it really isn't something you would like to see... but we have fun and it's our shared symbol of an achievement worth celebrating.

When you reach the goal, choose to stretch yourself to new heights.
So you've developed yourself well and achieved the goal you set. Well that just proves that you are a lot more capable than even you thought. Now let's raise your game and set new standards to achieve.

Remember - leadership develops daily, not in a day. Keep on keeping on.
It won't happen tomorrow. You don't absorb new competencies or character traits by simply exposing yourself to them. No, you need to put your development into practice each and every day. Repeat what works, learn from what doesn't. Adapt, change and keep on keeping on. Eventually, it'll come 'naturally' and you may even forget that previously you weren't this good.

No-one, who ever achieved anything great truly, did it alone. Build you inner circle, set clear SMART goals and plan each of the smaller steps necessary to achieve them - this is all part of successful personal development. I look forward to hearing about your celebrations.
Which of the 7 steps do you do best and which worst?

In this AdvantEdge Guide we’ll discuss how establishing Command Intent is a more specific way of setting goals than SMART goals, as it has an embedded purpose. It involves imagining a successful future in each of five areas of life (your Rocket Ship for Life), and focusing on the senses of sight, feel, smell, taste, and sound to create a captivating and rich picture. For teams, the unit in charge of military simulations for NATO recommends asking themselves "if I do nothing else tomorrow, I must ____, so that ____". AdvantEdge Coaching can help to further equip and empower individuals to reach their Command Intent goals.

Why do we need a Rocket Ship for Life?

The Rocket Ship for Life came about because I used to suffer from a major problem. Basically, I was easily distracted. Teachers’ could rarely get, let alone keep, my attention. I’d start a new project only to quickly get bored or frustrated and move onto the next shiny object. If ADHD had been popular back then, perhaps, I could have gotten myself medicated for it!

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It wasn’t because I lacked goals. I had much that I wanted to achieve in my career. But, for some strange reason, I was always looking for something. I couldn’t get or keep focus long enough to stick with it and finish.

The big issue it turned out was not lack of clear goals, not an inability to focus it was that there were gaps in what I was trying to achieve. There was no balance. What many have badly described as work/life balance - but what I prefer to call work/life integration. It’s where you identify your desired intent in the five key areas of your life as the drivers of the things that you do every day, steered by your values and aligned to your overall purpose or mission in this life.

If you ask most people what they want from life, they’ll tell you a variation of “to be happy and successful”. What the Bible calls “Good Success”  in Joshua 1:8.

Some people think that more money will make them happy. The problem is money is a great servant but a lousy master.

And so what if you achieve great success at work if you spend all your time at work and neglect your family and health?

As I mentioned, we have identified five key areas in life that, when attended to fully, will bring you real happiness and success as you fulfil them.

What are the five key areas?

These five key areas are like the engines of a rocket ship that you ride towards your life purpose. Your values are the way you steer and choose which paths you are following. The five areas that we’ve uncovered through our research are:

1. Family and Relationships

2. Health and Wellbeing

3. Spiritual Fulfilment

4. Personal Development

5. Work and Career

As you can imagine, like most people, I’d paid great attention to Work and Career and found it increasingly difficult to keep steering straight. I was working 80 plus hours each week (this was in the days when I was in the hotel and restaurant business) with no breaks, rarely a weekend off and scant holidays. I got away with it health wise for a good few years, but it shouldn’t have surprised me when my body rebelled and finally got me to pay a lot more attention to my health and wellbeing when my heart threw a hissy fit on July 4th 2014 at 11:33!

When you neglect an engine, it’s always going to be much more difficult to keep going towards your purpose, and very easy to get blown off course. It’s why your life and work are “off-balance.”

In the many years I have been coaching, fewer than 20% have anything remotely resembling “balance”. And they’ve usually been coached before or have had their own health or personal life crisis.

There’s many a successful person in the boardroom whose family life is in shambles.

Why these five areas and is one more important than the others?

As you think about each one you’ll realise that if you stop feeding one of these areas and consider the repercussions in your own life:

If you show no ambition in your work, your career stagnates and it just becomes a routine you could do with your eyes shut. Your brain becomes inactive and you are simply marking time until one day you retire… and then what?

Or you don’t bother with personal development after school or college and you learn nothing new. Now everything in your life stagnates. Your brain is bored (it is a learning machine). When your brain is bored, you get depressed through lack of Serotonin and Dopamine and opt-out of everything else life has to offer.

Neglect your spirtual man and there’s a big hole in your life. An emptiness that you can’t quite put your finger on. You’ll try and fill it with all sorts of other things but nothing seems to satisfy.

Neglect your health and well-being and your body will, one day, sooner or later, quit entirely. Your brain tried to keep you not dead (that is it's job) but somehow you resisted that urge until it too gave up fighting you.

Neglect your family and or relationships and you will soon be alone. And humans are social animals. You have an innate desire to belong to a tribe, to matter to others.

We all need all of these engines and just like a vehicle engine, you need to keep it maintained properly.

The trouble is, everyone is fundamentally lazy. Or perhaps fairer  to say that your brain is fundametally lazy. If there’s a “do nothing option”, your brain will take it because doing anything requires effort which burns scarce energy. So, if you do not deliberately attend to each of your engines, your brain will neglect them until something breaks.

If we’re going to burn fuel in these five areas, you're saying that we need to have a reason for doing so.

Each engine needs a driver or motivation for the brain to switch from it’s default “do nothing” to “do something” to get... whatever we intend to get.

So we need to tell our brain specifically what we intend to get once we do something. Then your brain is prepared to spend precious fuel in that area.

Why not set a simple Goal? Or even a SMART goal?

Goals are great, and SMART goal even better. However, Command Intent is usually more suited to changing situations (which is real life) and, very importantly, has an embedded purpose. This is what turns your brain on to motivation.

I've written extensively on why goal-setting matters - here for those wanting to know more.

Establishing Command Intent in each area Really Matters then?

Absolutely, noone climbs aboard a space rocket ready to launch into the heavens and then asks, “so where shall we go today?”

And noone replies, “I don’t know, let’s just start her up and go from there.”

No. Everytime there is a clear command intent for the mission and each and every engine has a very precise role in achieveing that intent to help the rocket ship and crew fulfil that mission.

What’s the difference between purpose, mission and intent?

We don’t have time here to delve into the difference between purpose and intent, suffice to say for now - your purpose is why you were born (it's your overall mission), your command intents are what you achieve along the journey to fulfill your purpose or mission in life.

Let’s get practical: How do you Establish Command Intent in each of these five Areas of Your Life?

Ask most people what they intend to achieve in their career (their career goal), for example, and you’ll probably get a vague answer about money, position, happiness level, and maybe a job title. Honestly, that’s about as useful as telling a blind footballer that the goal is at the end of the pitch.

“Which end?” you ask. And many other questions besides, not least is “how will you know when you have scored a goal?”

So we change the question…

Establishing a Command Intent for anything is simply a case of answering the question:

What does success look like?

And when I use the word “look” - I mean all your senses (look, feel, taste, smell, sound). And be as specific as you can be.

And, when we’re asking what does it “look like” - we mean literally what do (will) you see with your eyes in reality and in as much detail as you can.

Repeat with feel (emotions AND touch), smell (the most evocative and immediate of your senses), taste and sound.

And if it’s not evident in your answers: “How will you know that you have acheived it?” (i.e. how will you measure your acheivements?)

Ask, what will you Win or gain (and lose) when you have achieved it? (This is the embedded purpose).

And lastly, “by when?”

Now that you have a very rich, sensory description, you will have a captivating picture of your future.

And You Do this for all Five Areas of Your Life?

You’ll find it helpful and inspirational to have a clear command intent in all five areas of your life: Your work and career; your family and relationships; your spiritual life; your health and your personal development. Making sure that they support each other and are congruent. Miss one area and you risk struggling to steer your life purposefully forward.

You said, “by when?” - is this just for the long term future?

It’s best to have Command Intents for the short, medium and long term.

Most clients also find it helpful to establish these command intent’s in three time frames of short, medium and long term futures - whatever is short, medium or long term for you.

A little aside on future time frames - most teens struggle with a long term time frame of 10 years, as do most young adults. As we get older, it becomes easier to imagine further into the future.

What’s next?

If you lead a team, then you are responsible for identifying a worthy and compelling vision and articulating it to the team. People continually need to be shown the team's compass clearly and creatively so that their actions align, and they stay motivated with a captivating picture of their future.

In their book, “Made to Stick”, Chip and Dan Heath share help from the unit in charge of military simulations for NATO, the Combat Maneuver Training Center, who recommend that officers arrive at the Commander’s Intent by asking themselves this question. I’ve adjusted this for use with your personal intents:

“If I do nothing else tomorrow, I must . . . , so that . . .

Answer this question in each of your five key life areas and every day, you will have that often elusive, almost mythical: balance.

Where can you go to learn more now?

As an AdvantEdge Coaching client, we’ll help you fine tune your Rocket Ship for Life so that you have a crystal clear picture of the future you and what your success in each of these areas of your life look like and we’ll guide you on the path that will equip and empower you to achieve them. Apply for your complimentary AdvantEdge Discovery session today.

Or you can take up our 6-part Rocket Launch Coaching Program which is designed to help you Establish Your Command Intent in each of the five key areas of your life, then help you identify the core values, beliefs and habits to support your mission. You’ll be more equipped and empowered to achieve your purpose with a practical, systematic and proven approach to transforming your life and moving you closer to the future you. Apply for your complimentary AdvantEdge Discovery session today.

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All will be well in the morning
My mum would often tell me "all will be well in the morning." For her, it was just experience and age-old wisdom. All will be well in the morning And things always were better in the morning.
Somehow, all the clutter and stress and worry, while, not gone altogether, was, at least more manageable. As I slept, my brain was free to sort through the problem, process it entirely and put it in a suitable place close to a similar experience in memory. I had learned how to resolve whatever the issue was.
More often than not, it didn't even need addressing anyway.
How taking a break improves future learning
It's akin to my mum's advice to "sleep on the problem" so that your memories can be reprocessed, consolidate and shaped for better (faster) retrieval.
Taking a learning break gives your brain time and space to reprocess.
A paper published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest has evaluated ten techniques for improving learning, ranging from mnemonics to highlighting and shows that taking a break in learning (or 'Distributed Practice' to give a scientific title) is more effective thanany of the other nine techniques usually believed to be better. And now there's compelling new evidence from the University of Texas at Austin, recently published in the National Academy of Sciences: that supports the idea that study breaks improve later learning.
When we take a break from learning, our brain can process all the information. 
But how much is the right amount for studying and how long for a break?
I've been researching this for some time now and unsurprisingly; the results are inconclusive. However, there does appear to be a general reduction in the active learning time for younger people.
Typically, I have found that Baby Boomers study well and learn well over a 25 minute period of almost continuous study. That is; they needed a learning consolidation break at 25 minutes. Needing a 15-minute break.
Gen X'ers around 20 minutes. Needing an average 13-minute break)
Gen Y drops to about 12 minutes with a 6-minute break and then:
Gen iY (the iPad generation) around 4 minutes (yeap, just four minutes) with a 2-minute break.All of this in non-academic learning situations, by the way. Tested for learning retention 24 hours after the learning event and 21 days later.
All of this in non-academic learning situations, by the way. Tested for learning retention 24 hours after the learning event and 21 days later. But within every group there was a range, and it would change for an individual dependent on the mode of learning. That is, was the learning in a form that they preferred (reading, video, audio, kinesthetic, etc.). Sadly (from an academic point of view) even so-called learning preferences wasn't a statistically significant factor.
Our brain needs a break
When we take a break from learning, our brain can process all the information. When we are learning anything, our pre-frontal cortex (PFC) is burning a lot of energy as we evaluate the information, process it and check it against working memory. Then the new information is processed, consolidated, and linked to appropriate other memories and emotions... but for this to be held in longer term memory, it appears that the PFC needs to be less active. Perhaps because the PFC is such an energy hog, and we simply need to switch our energy resources to consolidate memories (learn).
So can't we just take a pill and learn better and faster?
To a certain extent, we can. Glucose and oxygen - the fuel we need to burn to learn. (Caffeine can assist as well if recent research is correct.)So taking a moment, munching on candy, taking deep breaths and sipping that cup of coffee all help us learn... oh, I've just described a break So taking a moment, munching on candy, taking deep breaths and sipping that cup of coffee all help us learn... oh, I've just described a break.
Better still, as my dear mum would say, "sleep on it, all will be better in the morning."

The day the CEO learned the importance of empathy
"Some people are just more naturally empathic than others" the CEO brusquely informed me.
"It's not personal, it's business" he went on quoting that bundle of joy Donald Trump.
"They should know what's good for them, and do what I suggest. Why should I have to influence them or show empathy?"
The CEO pushed back his chair as if our session were over. His company was struggling. Several key staff had recently departed and were working for a competitor. He still insisted that empathy was not something he needed to do, and he was perfectly capable of influencing his team. It was they who needed to change, not him.
You've met someone like this I'm sure. And you're wondering how I'm going to suggest that they change right? But no, there is a twist here.
How do you influence them to have more empathy and more easily influence others?
You see, it's terrific to have someone like that CEO in your life. You are not like him. You care. You show a genuine concern, and there are only a few people who, well, they simply don't deserve your love and respect.
How do you show empathy for someone and influence them when they don't "do" empathy? Especially when you know that they really need to "do" empathy so that they can be a better
Especially when you know that they really need to "do" empathy so that they can be a better influencer. You’ll recall from the triangle of influence that in order to influence someone, we need to link what we want them to do to the resources it will cost them and the benefits that they will gain for themselves by doing it. (If you need a reminder about the triangle of influence, I’d suggest you jump over there now and come back afterwards.) 
 I Colour I Listen - Developing Active Listening Skills and Empathy
Download the Be a Better Influencer PDF
Download the Be a Better Influencer MP3 audio
Download the I Colour I Listen Template
Empathy develops Trust. And Trust enables us to Influence others. When we Influence others, we lead them.
For the influencer, we are left with a causal chain:
Without empathy how will you know what is important for them?
Without you showing empathy, how am I going to trust you?
If I don’t trust you, how are you going to influence me?
If you don’t influence me, how are you going to lead me?
To be a better influencer, we really need to know how to have and show empathy.
I wrote a short while back about the usefulness of empathy and how it differs from sympathy. The difference is huge. Sympathy is passive; empathy is active. (Pop over to that article if you need a refresher.
It does a great job of describing the difference—and how empathy fuels connection while sympathy drives disconnection.) In short, if I am to influence someone, they need to have some level of trust in me.
To trust me, I will need to have, and have shown, empathy with them. That is, I need to identify with them. Let us first consider how we can have and show empathy with someone. Then how we build trust with that person, and lastly, how we can use this to be a better influencer.
But before that, let me share the dictionary definition of empathy so that we agree on what it is:
em•pa•thy
"the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another." Dictionary.com
Imagine for a moment that I am sitting opposite you and what I am about to share with you is both critically important and valuable for you. You sit up a little taller, lean your head forward and focus your eyes on me. You carefully watch every nuance of expression, listening attentively to every word. Nodding appropriately as you take in and understand each point I make.
Bring to mind two people in your life that you have known for some time.
The first person is someone with whom you have a good, strong and close relationship. You trust them to be in your corner, to support you and, they understand you well.
The second individual is someone with whom you hav

"And what do you do?"
How many times have you been asked this question? How many times have you asked it? My guess is more than once or twice. We all play a number of different roles. Some are well developed, others less so. Using the right role in relation to another is critical for healthy relationships and better leadership.[/caption] When answering this question, most people respond with their job title or their job function: I'm a banker, I'm the CEO, I'm a teacher. Or they launch into their 'elevator pitch'. We define ourselves often by the major role we play in life. And you know that you are much more than your job: I'm a CEO, husband, lover, uncle, child, brother, skier, scuba diver, teacher, sleeper, trainer, coach, friend, driver, passenger, dog-walker, saxophonist, cook, customer,
We all play a number of different roles. Some are well developed, others less so. Using the right role in relation to another is critical for healthy relationships and better leadership.When answering this question, most people respond with their job title or their job function: I'm a banker, I'm the CEO, I'm a teacher. Or they launch into their 'elevator pitch'. We define ourselves often by the major role we play in life. And you know that you are much more than your job: I'm a CEO, husband, lover, uncle, child, brother, skier, scuba diver, teacher, sleeper, trainer, coach, friend, driver, passenger, dog-walker, saxophonist, cook, customer,
When answering this question, most people respond with their job title or their job function: I'm a banker, I'm the CEO, I'm a teacher. Or they launch into their 'elevator pitch'. We define ourselves often by the major role we play in life. And you know that you are much more than your job: I'm a CEO, husband, lover, uncle, child, brother, skier, scuba diver, teacher, sleeper, trainer, coach, friend, driver, passenger, dog-walker, saxophonist, cook, customer,
We define ourselves often by the major role we play in life. And you know that you are much more than your job: I'm a CEO, husband, lover, uncle, child, brother, skier, scuba diver, teacher, sleeper, trainer, coach, friend, driver, passenger, dog-walker, saxophonist, cook, customer, eater, cleaner, golfer, author, writer, musician, listener, talker, leader, manager, accountant, salesman, communicator, website builder... and that's just the more positive ones today. Am I good at all these? Not all, and not always. There are days when my golf, for example, is fluent and near perfect; today was not one of those days. Today, I was a "shank it in the water, find every bunker, slice it out of bounds" golfer.
Am I good at all these? Not all, and not always. There are days when my golf, for example, is fluent and near perfect; today was not one of those days. Today, I was a "shank it in the water, find every bunker, slice it out of bounds" golfer.
There are days when my golf, for example, is fluent and near perfect; today was not one of those days. Today, I was a "shank it in the water, find every bunker, slice it out of bounds" golfer.
Read the rest of the article on the website here.

“Why aren’t these “young people” stepping up to the mark?” Asked the C-level executive as we discussed the problems of talent management and leadership succession. As if it’s a problem of the younger generation – most notably Gen Y. But it’s not a generational issue! Performance in the typical workplace is at least 20% lower than it could easily be. The information in this podcast is critical to your well-being, your success, your business and your health but you will probably not make it to the end, at least not without interruptions and multiple distractions.
You’re wasting your budget on talent management and development if you don’t get a few other things fixed first!
Brought to you by CELSIM and emPowered by GAPPS5While reading, you will receive at least 5-15 emails, one or two phone calls, 3-25 instant or text messages and a colleague or two may pop-by for a 'quick' chat. You may visit a Web site and get distracted though I do promise to keep this interesting enough so you come back.
You could easily raise performance by 20% with a few simple tweaks to your environment. Click the image for a full-size version.
Visit the website for the full (downloadable) article and images.

I walked to the front of the meeting room past my muttering colleagues.
My hands clammy, my shirt beginning to soak with perspiration in the air conditioned room. Blinded momentarily by the projector, I faced my audience. Their faces raptly attentive as they waited for the first words to come. I noticed my boss as he glanced at his watch. A phone buzzed in silent mode on the table and all eyes were drawn toward it. Someone muttered an apology as he picked up the errant phone and read the message. I had spent weeks preparing for this meeting. We were about to introduce a new computer system across the entire business and everyone in the room would be
Blinded momentarily by the projector, I faced my audience. Their faces raptly attentive as they waited for the first words to come. I noticed my boss as he glanced at his watch. A phone buzzed in silent mode on the table and all eyes were drawn toward it. Someone muttered an apology as he picked up the errant phone and read the message. I had spent weeks preparing for this meeting. We were about to introduce a new computer system across the entire business and everyone in the room would be
I noticed my boss as he glanced at his watch. A phone buzzed in silent mode on the table and all eyes were drawn toward it. Someone muttered an apology as he picked up the errant phone and read the message. I had spent weeks preparing for this meeting. We were about to introduce a new computer system across the entire business and everyone in the room would be
I had spent weeks preparing for this meeting. We were about to introduce a new computer system across the entire business and everyone in the room would be affected. Nobody wanted the new system. I stumbled through my slides, gave them all the facts and outlined the plan. Still nobody wanted the new system.
Nobody wanted the new system. I stumbled through my slides, gave them all the facts and outlined the plan. Still nobody wanted the new system.
I had failed to influence my colleagues to support the project.
So why had my long-prepared presentation failed to achieve the intended result?   When we link the required resources to the goal through personal benefit - we create motivation to change. That is, we influence the person to change.
The answer lies in the Triangle of Influence
When we are influenced to do something, we connect three things inside the brain:
The goal we will achieve
The resources achieving the goal costs, and
The personal benefits that we get out of achieving the goal.
When we believe that we have more value in the benefit than the cost, we will be motivated to act on achieving the goal. But if we believe that the cost outweighs the benefit, we will not be motivated to act.
[player]
Download the Triangle of Influence PDF
Download the Triangle of Influence audio
Everyone has influence!
We all have the power to affect another person. The very definition of influence. But do you have the necessary power to affect the people you need to influence? When I was presenting to my colleagues in an attempt to influence them to support my project I neglected a few critical points. In particular:
The objective of the project was not as clear for them as it needed to be.
I couldn't really explain the cost to them, nor
What was in it for them, personally.
Not surprising then that they weren't motivated to action. People are influenced when they link a clear action (goal) with the PERSONAL benefits that they will gain that are greater than the cost to them of undertaking the action in their mind. It is critical that we realise that people are influenced when THEY make the link.
Influence to act = PERSONAL Benefits > PERSONAL costs
Surely it cannot be this simple?
Well it can. But importantly, simple does not mean easy. If we wish to influence another person to undertake a particular action, to be certain that we motivate them to action, we need to know:
What they PERCEIVE to be the personal benefits
What value they place on those bene

All AdvantEdge Coaching is based on our unique and powerful AdvantEDGE leadership development process based on Neuroscience Research in how people learn, change and develop: EDGE stands for Encourage, Develop, Guide and Empower.

It’s based on my post-grad research into effective management learning and development methods.

EDGE isn’t a silver bullet or a magic pill that gets instant results but based upon the latest neuroscience and social cognitive psychology research, EDGE is like a recipe for a pragmatic change focused approach to help clients realise genuine, sustainable results in leadership, work and life.

EDGE isn't only a model for coaching. You can use EDGE in any communication situation where you want to empower change or influence others.

We will use the EDGE development model in all our GuidePosts, and, as well as explaining the EDGE model we’ll also clarify two other critically important aspects that enable us to help you get those results: That is,

1. to clarify what coaching is (and what it is not!) and

2. how AdvantEDGE coaching truly empowers you to sustain your results.

The Purpose of this AdvantEdge Guide is to help you make better, informed decisions as you consider coaching to develop yourself or your team and organisation. There’s a lot of very convincing marketing out there that coaching is a panacea for all that ails business and organisation. 

Your Payoff will be you can understand for yourself, if coaching is suitable for you, and what type or style of coaching might best suit your needs. You’ll also challenge some of the common assumptions that you may have been making.

The truth is, coaching is not for everybody, and there are very good reasons. Here’s the top 10 I hear from clients, in reverse order and coming in at number 10, but still a biggie:

For the Full AdvantEdge Guide, all the links mentioned in the podcast and easy access to the (free!) resources mentioned, please go to the AdvantEdge Coaching System Website here.

It's not that there is this thing called the “Great Resignation” where an unprecedented 44% of people intend to quit their jobs this year. (58% in Singapore!) 

It's not that there is a global problem for CEO’s and leaders of many organisations who want their staff back in the office and are finding that impossible. Some, like Elon Musk, even after threatening to fire them all.

And it's not really about greed for more money, though when you get approached and offered a 20% pay hike for crossing the street, it is a temptation.

It's not even that it's your best and brightest talent who are abandoning ship first. Even though they are the first to be hunted and poached.

It’s a lot more systemic than the headline numbers suggest. The devil, as they say, is in the details.

During covid we all learned to keep our distance from people because they might just be a tad toxic. We avoided buildings and gatherings and events and restaurants, all so we wouldn’t accidentally meet someone toxic.

After 2 plus years we’re tired of avoiding people. And yet, there's one place many still want to avoid going, and that's their workplace.

The underlying problem? It's considered a toxic workplace. And not because there's covid lurking in dark corners but because there are loud and proud managers who think that disrespecting staff is a motivational weapon, that inequity is unavoidable and diversity is a fad. They seem to think that inclusion is exclusive and ethics are a matter of political expediency.

If your talent are quitting for more pay, it's because someone else is willing to pay them more and dangling a glimmer of hope that this new place won't be toxic, or at least, not as toxic as the current place.

But there is something that leaders and managers can do. And if you want to plug your talent drain, you might want to listen up to this AdvantEdge guide:

READ THE FULL GUIDE HERE 

Imagine that your needs are like a discharged battery that you are able to charge through your life activities.

When the bottom cell is sufficiently filled, the next cell can be charged. All human beings have 6 essential needs, or power cells.

Though, some people have faulty power packs - with a corrupted sixth cell that has been taken over by a leaky fifth cell. That is, they care less about other people because their self-esteem is so overfilled they hold others in total contempt - because they matter less than me!

Beware overfilling any one cell: Gluttony and Obesity with an overfilled Cell 1, Excessive risk taking for Cell 2.

And many have a leaky battery, where their own needs never get filled.

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

Every leader needs to understand:

1. Your own needs need to be met BEFORE you have enough to give others, and

2. Whilst things may look OK on the surface - people tend to hide their emotional needs fearing that they are the only ones who have them.

By this, you’ll be better able to ask the right questions and better positioned to serve others and help them fulfil their real needs.

This is Part 3 of a four part series asking the question: "Are you In Control" or "Controlling"?

In this edition os the AdvantEdge Joy@Work Podcast, we're learning how wee can break free from the "Controlling" cycle and get "In Control".

Stress, worry, and perfromance anxiety can be crippling your life. It's not always easy to break free of the spiral of anxiety but there is a simple solution for most people that does not involve medication or therapy.

It's so shockingly simple that many people scoff at the idea. But the thing is, it works. It's how your brain works and this is a simple technique that you can employ immediately to break your brain out of the Controlling cycle and give your Frontal Lobes a chance to oput the breaks on and stop your stinkin' thinkin. 

When you understand what is happening in your brain you'll see why it works, and, I absolutely guarantee, you can do this. This is not like getting your body fit by going to the gym 6 times a week or training to run a marathon. It's even easier than going to the toilet and takes about the same amount of time. In fact, you can even do this whilst doing your toilet business. In fact, that's a particularly excellent time to practice.

This is Part 2 of a four part series asking the question: Are you In Control or Controlling?

In this guide, we are digging into the roots and what is happening in our brain when we enter the Controlling Cycle.

We'll learn what happens inside our brain when we face a challenge and how your unconscious mind immediately reacts to this challenge as a threat - triggering your freeze, flight or fight response.

We'll learn how our brain then shifts the challenge into worrying and anxiety UNLESS your frontal lobes put the brakes on and you choose to be In Control rather than attempt to fruitlessly control others or the outside world.

We'll learn that EVERYONE on the planet faces the same choices every single day and we'll learn how worrying gives us the illusion of control making us feel good about worrying - as if it ever did us any good.

We'll learn why the Pre Frontal Cortex struggles to intervene and shout down the worrying cycle.

See the previous episode for Part 1 if you have yet to do so. And remember to subscribe on your preferred platfrom and please rate this episode, it helps others find it and learn too.

Regardless of your choices in life, you will face adversity, trauma, threats, difficulties, trials and tribulations - such as family or relationship issues, health problems, financial concerns, or workplace stressors. Everybody does. Nobody likes it, nobody wants to, but everybody does.

How you respond to those challenges makes all the difference in the world!

Where is your Locus of Control - “At Cause” or “At Effect”?

When you choose to be “At Cause” for your life, your focus is on choosing your actions and this increase your Circles of Power and Influence expanding them into your Circle of Concern. You have an Internal Locus of Control - that is, you believe that you have control over external forces in your life.

When you are “At Effect” of others or circumstances, your focus is on factors outside your inner circles, your Concerns gain ground, shrinking your Circles of Power and Influence. You have an External Locus of Control - that is you believe that external forces beyond your control have control over your life.

When you are “At Effect” you are more likely to experience anxiety, which gives you the illusion of control over others or over external events.

This bears repeating: When you are anxious or you worry, this gives you the illusion of control over others or external events!

Congratulations, your anxiety and worry about something beyond your control just reinforced and perpetuated your need to be anxious and worry!

On the other hand, when you choose to be “At Cause” you are reinforcing your stress resilience.

Remember The “Shortcut” and The “High Road”?

You’ll notice that I say that you "are At Effect versus you “choose to be At Cause”. That’s because your default is to be At Effect. It’s not a conscious, thought through, choice. It’s unconscious and automatic. Choosing to be At Cause is a conscious, considered, deliberate choice you make.

As our brain senses information about the challenge ahead, you’ll recall what we learned in Fear, Stress, Anxiety and Depression in Your Brain that stimuli from the outside world first take “The Shortcut” either directly to the amygdala (smells and touch) or via the Thalamus to the amygdala (sights and sounds). That is: your brain is already reacting and responding to the threat of the challenge ahead!

Meantime, some information takes the “High Road” through the cortex and your thinking brain can choose to change or reinforce the threat response. Milliseconds after your brain and body have started to react and respond, this is your moment of choice! This is the moment you can choose to be “At Cause”.

How does this help me? How do I stop worrying, anxiety and distress? Let me be clear, there isn’t a magic pill that does this (no matter what Big Pharma tries to tell you) but we do have access to a simple solution. Before that though, let’s recognise two common enemies we all have in the (conscious) mind.

Two Enemies of Being “At Cause”

And allies of remaining “At Effect”

People, most often, spend much of their time and energy worrying or concerned about the challenges that they cannot control, which cause them to feel anxious or stressed.

The first enemy is “If only…”

If only I had the [skills, money, strength, power, connections, knowledge, fortitude, faith] I would have…

If only … my parents had… I could have…

If only I … were a different race, gender, nationality, person … I should have…

If only I … had studied harder, taken that job, not taken that job, gotten married, not gotten married, had kids, not had kids…

“If only” pines over the past.

The second enemy is “What if…”

What if… I fail, succeed, look stupid …

“What if…” frets about the future.

The problem of these two enemies is that they give you the illusion of control over others or external events!

That is, you think that worrying about something makes a difference!

"Your mind would rather fret about the future or pine over the past so that it can cling onto its own illusion of control." But the current moment cannot be controlled. So our mind discounts it and we forget to savour and enjoy every now moment.”

Adapted from Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

The Great Benefits of facing Challenges

No battles. No spoils.

Without challenges in life, life becomes tremendously boring and mundane. We wouldn’t learn and grow. Anything alive in this world that stops growing is dying. There is no stasis or status quo, it can be a slow dying or it can be incredibly quick.

Challenges, problems, obstacles or opportunities - whatever term you prefer to apply - kick your fear circuits into action and by default, your brain and body reacts.

How you choose to face those challenges makes all the difference in your world.

Now that we recognise the two main enemies and that we will all face challenges, which we still don’t particularly like but realise that they can be good for us to grow, let’s see what happens when we choose to be At Cause.

Choosing to be At Cause

Some of the incoming stimuli information is directed by your Thalamus (your brain’s “reception desk”) along the “High Road” to your cortex and, of particular interest to us here, your Pre Frontal Cortex or PFC.

Your limbic brain is already reacting to the threat of this challenge and your body is responding as your Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) signals the production of cortisol and adrenaline. Your heart is beating a little or a lot faster. Your blood pressure rises. Your digestive tract is shutting down. Sweat glands begin to ooze. And your taking the time to stop and think!

In your mind you’re experimenting with possible solutions that you can do, will do, might be able to do. You’re researching your memory banks for previous encounters and similar situations and your pre-frontal cortex makes a decision to test out a possible solution. This is what Carol Dweck calls the Growth Mindset.

If it works. Brilliant! Store the success in memory and get ready to party!

If it doesn’t work. Hmmmm. Let’s try this instead. Rinse. Repeat. Until…

The optimal solution:

* You’ve overcome the challenge! Hurrah for you. Well done. Another lesson learned. What’s next? Oh yes, party time and here’s another challenge.

* You’ve gotten past this challenge somehow, not brilliant but good enough. Next time I’ll be better equipped for such a challenge by having more X or Y available. Another lesson learned. What’s next? Oh yes, party time and here’s another challenge.

* I’ve tried everything and this challenge is a bit too much. Good job I am already:Lesson learned. What’s next? Oh yes, party time and here’s another challenge.

* 🥶Hiding in this corner

* 🏃Running away, fast

* 👊Fighting with every ounce of strength I have

For every challenge you face, you have a choice. You can choose to be At Cause or you can allow yourself to remain At Effect.

It’s not that one is better than the other. There are challenges that you are much better off leaving your brain and body to do what it does best: keeping you “not dead”. This was especially true when your forefathers lived in mud huts and faced the daily commute to the field where lions roamed.

There are, however, other times when your default fear response, stress and anxiety are less than helpful. Particularly in the modern urban jungle and commute on the crowded freeway or train to the workplace with the horrible boss and unkind colleagues. Times when choosing to be At Cause will be more profitable for you.

How then do we lift performance @work using this knowledge? This is obviously about lifting performance for your bosses, staff and colleagues because we already know that you are the hardest worker at your organisation 😜. How to Raise Performance and have Joy@Work… coming soon

Double Blessings to you this new year.

Ask what they want from the coming new year and most people are seeking to be happy and successful in the year ahead. We see the new year as a fresh start where we can put the past behind us and move ahead.

Sadly, most people never achieve happiness or success and, in large part, that’s down to the way we set goals and commit to new year’s “resolutions”.

The problem is a lack of motivation and a lack of balanced prioritisation.

Resolutions tend to be negative shifts of behaviour that we “should” do for our own good. Things like: get fit, lose weight, quit smoking, quit drinking, be kind to everyone, stop complaining. All things that our flesh just screams to keep on doing because we don’t like change - or at least our brain does not like change - and your brain was getting something it liked from the “bad habits” of last year. Your brain would rather “do nothing” than “do something, anything, taxing”.

And those new goals, we try but they tend to throw us even more off balance than we were already. What we need is to re-consider goals across all key aspects of our life. And those goals need to have an embedded, motivational purpose - our reason for achieving them, our “why” I should put in all this effort. Without which, our brain quickly defaults back to its preference of “do nothing”!

We need a crystal clear, compelling picture of our future and what success looks like in each of the key areas of life. What is called a “Command Intent” and we need one or more for each of our five key life engines.

Listen, watch or read the podcast now - it’s in a new format which we hope you like. It’ll be 15 minutes very well spent.

I hope that you enjoyed a joyful festive season and you are ready for the excellent challenges that 2022 may bring.

Be blessed - and remember - let us know what you think of the new podcast format.

Welcome to the AdvantEdge Joy@Work podcast with me, Dr. John Kenworthy. In this guide to developing your five essential qualities of expert hybrid leadership: we're learning why your attitude to hope and how you communicate it, determines how your days and those for your team will unfold. Welcome to Hope and Mirrors.  

In this episode of the AdvantEdge Joy@Work podcast, we're looking forward to a future in hope and expectation of something new and exciting in the days ahead. And how you can choose to be the leader who inspires hope for yourself, and for others.

Full episode and show transcript here: https://joyatwork.coach/hope-and-mirrors

The choice is yours. I stick to my favorite verse to start every day from Psalm 118, Verse 24, in the New King James Version.  This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.  

All the faces in the world are mirrors. What kind of reflections do you see in the faces of the people you meet? What kind of reflections do you want to see?  

To learn more about AdvantEdge Coaching so that you can have Joy@Work and your team becomes United in Trust and Collaboration. Contact us through the link on the show notes and arrange a complimentary, confidential, no obligation Discovery Session. https://joyatwork.coach/apply