Redefining Possibility

I often talk to my clients about possibility and how with just one question you can get the brain to open up to things that you might feel is impossible. So is it possible to increase your income ten fold in the next three months? Is it possible to have the life of your dreams complete with new house, shinny new car, maybe a new girlfriend or wife or maybe just freedom.

The most powerful question you can ask in the opening up to what might be possible is this:

What if it were possible?

What if it were possible to have the job of your dreams and still get paid what you do in your current corporate gig? What if it were possible to have it all with less effort? This question allows the left brain to relax and get into 'solve mode' which it loves.

A few months ago, even though I talk about possibility, my dreams seemed like they were going to elude me for the rest of time. In fact I almost gave up! However remembering my own words I decided to knuckle down, bunk in and hold the fort determined to succeed. Sometimes it takes some real determination, courage and a swift kick of reality up the backside to change the impossible into the possible and then into reality.

I have always been a positive person, always believing that success might be just around the corner but when you have had 44 years of believing success maybe just around the corner sometimes you loose sight of this positive perspective. Well I am finally here to tell you not to! That every time your brain tells you that success and your dreams or desires are not possible, knuckle down and change this reality. Turn the question upside down and ask but what if it was possible? What then?

I am please to report that in 75 days I reached the possibility. I have gone from white belt to black belt in just under three months. What is white belt to black belt all about? Well those of you that are interested you can look up the following address www.thoughtleadersglobal.com. It’s just me practicing what I preach and with the help of my mentor, success and a new reality is now upon me.

I realised through the process that sometimes success takes a lot of hard work, determination, courage and some good old fashion stubbornness. To aim high, follow a dream and make it a reality. This reality would not have been possible without help. Help of my mentor Peter Cook, help from my family, thanks Steph and help from all those that believe in me.

Now the journey is not over, quite the opposite, it is just beginning. We are all on this planet together to primarily help each other. Help each other to feel better, have a better life, reach our dreams, love, laugh and experience joy. So I want to help you realise the possibility that you can have your dreams come true.

If you are sitting their wondering how you are going to make your dreams a reality, stop wondering and call me that’s why I am here, to help you! Ask the question ‘what if it were possible’ and then go make that happen…it is possible!

Have a great week, dream big, never give up and go make it happen NOW!

Cheer Marcus

Finding the truth at an airport!

I am sitting at Hobart airport, here's the photo to prove it, waiting for my flight back to Melbourne after a great morning coaching. Nice suite and tie Marcus!

If I had a dollar for every hour that I have spent in airports I would be writing this blog from some exotic ski resort. Well maybe not writing this blog but skiing and sharing all the tales from the snow.

Apart from being with my family theres an image of what I would be doing!

But alas I am in another airport just waiting, oh well it give’s you time to think if nothing else.

So a blog... what to write about this week? Well I have just spent the morning discussing the truth. The truth about our own individual lives and how we are very good at clouding the truth and in turn having us convince ourselves of what is real and what is not. This then leads us into what we think we want and often has us diving into things that are not really what we do want. We unfortunately often don’t find this out until years later only to create the same decision time and time again.

You see reality is not all it is cracked up to be! Our reality is shaped from our left-brain point of view as this is what we have all be trained to trust, how so you ask. Thanks for asking! As some of you may know we have two hemispheres of our brain the right and the left, anyone know what they do? That’s right the left is all about analytical, strategy, systematic and linier function. In learns in words, process and structure. It lives in the past and the future and is concerned with keeping us safe. The right brain on the other hand is all about abstract, feelings and takes in its data through the senses of our being. It lives in the eternal moment of now. The issue with reality is that in our left-brain dominant world, which we have all been trained to trust more than anything else, we create a feedback loop system that creates false reality.

How it does this is that the further we move from an event in our lives the less truthful it becomes. Take a memory from your early childhood; remember what happened and the feelings that it gave you. Now I bet if you asked a sibling or a parent their memory of this shared experience they would tell you a different story. Now what is real and who is right? The answer is no one and everyone as all these realities are only past perceived realities.  The further we move from the event the more it becomes a perceived reality rather than a true reality of what actually happened. Now if we come back to today all these past-perceived realities are projected into the immediate future creating a future perceived reality, which then creates a now perceived reality. None of which are necessarily the truth. Confused yet?

It’s ok because half of the confusion comes from thinking of reality from the left-brain which can’t actually understand reality on it’s own. In steps the right brain that only lives in the moment of now. You see reality only lives in the moment of now. From a left-brain point of view the past might have us believe that we are not worthy, not good enough and what we should or should not do. This reality then leads us into doing things that are not truly aligned with our truth. Now we believe that we are doing our truth based on the left-brain view of the world and past-perceived reality creating future perceived reality creating a now perceived reality none of which is the truth. When we take the same image and overlay the right brain we find that all the drama associated with an event or situation is allowed to disperse. The right brain helps us to step out of the perceived reality space and actually connect with the truth. Once we have this truth we can use the left-brain to create actions that move us forward into the new reality, the truth.

So that’s all well and good but how do you know the truth. Well that my friend is a journey of delving into the depth of who you are. The first step is to become conscious of the truth and how your past and future are creating your now. The secret to this is to look at the dramas in your life. It is the perceived reality that often creates drama. To then look at the truth of this reality, this drama and decide which is true and which is not. Once you know this authentic truth it is time to become congruent and to take this congruence out into the world a bit like taking your new puppy for its first walk. It’s a little scary, a little unsure, a little unstable and a lot of faith that this is the right thing to do.

Accessing the right brain will help you to connect with what is really going on. Some may call it intuition others a knowing and for some it is gut feel. In a lot of cases it helps to get someone external to help you to connect with the truth for once you connect it is easier to keep the connection. If you can connect to your knowing, check in and try and identify your drama. What is the perceived reality that you have created for yourself? Is it your ultimate truth?

So go out into the world and find your truth, see where you are deceiving yourself with a perceived reality and make the truth, your truth, real!

Thanks for reading until next week, Nanoo Nanoo, for all those eighties kids. For those who don’t know what this is check out channel 11 and the old re-runs of Mork and Mindy.

P.S: if you want some help to find your truth drop me a line marcus@intrinsicsuccess.com

P.P.S: if you want to know more about the brain check out this video from the TED website it is well worth it! http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

More Lessons from Planet Earth

Even as I write this the lessons from last week, and it was a big week, are drifting off into the depths of my psyche. I remember it had something to do with the father wounding and the constant battle over the years to heal this wounding but last week a new insight appeared.

I had some confronting meetings last week that lead me to a realisation of the importance of emotional intelligence in business and in life. I had always known that my father was emotionally void and distant but I did not realise the depth to which that disease had afflicted me, until last week. Confronted with a situation where I had not lived up to expectations with tasks I had agreed to do, in a new business partnership. This greatly effected both of my partners as they where waiting on me to do what I needed to do in order for all of us to move things to the next level. Now I had real honest reasons why these had not been done. Business and making a living got in the way, but this was not the issue. My partners are both coaches and have a deep understanding of the human psyche and helped me to realise just how far I am from being able to connect my extrinsic world and my intrinsic world. 

The extrinsic world is the face we all put on when we go out into the world, and the intrinsic world is that deeper knowing self that would seem to be very fragile and hence why we don’t lead with this part of the self. When they expressed there disappointment and frustration at the situation I found myself getting angry and upset. Angry that they did not understand how difficult it had been for me and disappointed that i had let people down. This led to the realisation that the centre world of the entrinsic, as I have now termed it, is the most important part of self to understand. Now this maybe easy for a lot of people, however as I looked out into the world in pain, anger and frustration, I realised that it is void in much of our community.

This confronting meeting led me to the understanding that what people really want is to connect with the true self of others. In that I mean is that part of you that is the expression of whom you really are, vulnerable, scared, seemingly delicate and fragile. It takes a great deal of internal honesty with yourself to be able to express this fully to others. You see I have been trained to be a pleaser, anyone else with that affliction? My pleasing gene is so strong that it will over ride my true self, my real desires and place the feelings of everyone and everything above mine. It also leads me to be less honest with myself about what I can and cant do and what my true desires are. If I did connect to that honesty it may not be possible to live out the genetic desire to please. On the extrinsic side, the outer world, I am very honest however on the intrinsic side I sacrifice my honesty to myself so that I can fulfil the pleasing gene. 

So now what? It is one thing to have the realisation and another to integrate it so you can live it out in the world.

How do we break free from seemingly genetic patterns and subconscious subscripts handed down to us from generations past? The secret may lie in the entrinsic part of ourselves. There is a physiological side of the human body that is always trying to place the body in a state of homeostasis. That is our bodies attempt to balance our internal processes of things like hot and cold. This entrinsic side of ourselves is our homeostatic self trying to balance the inner emotional world with the expectations of the external world. So the secret may lie in our connection to our entrinsic or emotional, feeling self. In that sharing our true feelings about what is going on for us may actually help us to break free from these habitual patterns regardless of whether we found them ourselves or whether our parents and their parents handed them down the line.

Feelings in business, now there is a novel idea! 

So what am I feeling at this moment and what are the fears and hesitations that appear as I attempt to connect with them. As always the key is engagement, so if connection is the intrinsic identification of our feelings then engagement is the action to which feelings are expressed extrinsically. Sharing the fear, the hesitation that we may upset another or not please versus the desire to show the world that we are strong is not easy. It takes courage to live from the heart, but isn't this what makes life worth while?

I think writing a blog is a good way to over come some of this, as long as there is honesty and to the most part I am attempting to do just that. It’s not easy, it is not free from fear but it is cathartic. How will everyone take it, I don’t know, all I can do is be as honest as possible. Now this is not always going to please others. In fact it may often disappoint, but it is much better to disappoint upfront that to let down later on.

So how will connecting to and engaging with your true self, that inner world of emotions and feelings help you and your business? I believe we as a human race have a desperate desire to connect and engage with the true self of others, to know people at a deeper more real level. Let’s face it we all have fears, phobias, habitual patterns we are not proud of and those dark things hiding in the closet. I think when we engage with others at the real level of the entrinsic self we open up the ability for others to 'get us' and therefore employ us. I often talk about engagement as the most important thing in business and maybe in life. As the more we engage with anything the more successful we are likely to be. So what would happen if we engaged in the entrinsic self and opened up and shared the truth of our lives?

I have an amazing job that I am so grateful for as I get to connect with people like this on a daily basis. However it also gives me the ability to hide from myself as it is always about the other person, so in essence I have set this up beautifully so that I can continue the patterns of the genetic self. Well I wonder what would happen if this changed?

What would happen if you changed?

So with the all the fear and phobia that this blog may disappoint some of you planted firmly on my sleeve I post it for all to read....

Here's to honesty with the self...cheers.

Passion, Purpose, Possibility!

I’ve been sitting here for the last hour trying to write this blog, getting angrier and angrier and now I’m wondering why? My plan was to write about the importance of finding your passion, living your purpose and realizing the possibilities for you, your life and your business, yet I sit here getting angry. Now this is no way to start a Monday morning surely….

So why the anger?

I like to sit with any emotion that is coming up from the inside and to distil its meaning for me right now. These emotions don’t just appear because the kids are ratty or that a few business deals didn’t go the right way; no they come up to help to guide us and move us in the right direction. Emotion is just energy in motion or the attempt of the body to get us moving in the right direction, sometimes any direction; just get moving! Now it is true that every now and then, seemingly worse over the school holidays, the kids will get on our nerves and the loss of a few important business deals can get us down but at the end of the day emotions can have great insights for us.

So why the anger, in this moment, for me? There would seem to be a pattern here that every time I get close to or nail my passion and purpose I derail myself, interesting! In this case it is anger that is rising to the surface, but what to tell me? Maybe it is the fear that if I were to live it fully that I may get rejected? Maybe I have been told time and time again that this part of me is not worth it and that conforming is the only way to receive acknowledgement and acceptance, mmmmm!

Now here is a scary thing, insight into the private world of Marcus Bird, deep into the dark chasms of my mind. But guess what, as I write this, the anger is subsiding, so maybe I’m onto something here. Generally when you get to the bottom of the emotion the emotion tends to go. The body has sent the message, it has been received and then understood and now its job is done and it can retire back to the deep dark subconscious world from which it came.

One of the hardest jobs for us on the planet is to do exactly this, to find our passion, live it on purpose and to realise the possibilities, the rewards of abundance that await. In some respects the lack of some or all of this leads one to becoming lost, confused, disheartened and in the worst-case scenario depressed. You see it is imperative that we all have something to live for, some reason for being. As we look into the night sky and see all those billions of stars it is easy to feel the insignificance of life here on planet earth. It is just as easy to look into the smallness of your life, doing the dishes, cleaning up after everyone, going to work same old same old and feel the same way. Once upon a time religion used to play an important part of human life. From the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mayans and Aztecs to the birth of modern religion, religion or the belief in something always played a key role. This belief in a lot of cases answered the question of what is life all about and why am I here. Now that many have moved away from faith the eternal question is not being answered or fulfilled in any meaningful way and finding the answer within has been hard. It is imperative however that we find this answer and give true meaning and purpose to our lives. But ‘why’? I hear me ask.

A few years ago one of my best friends died suddenly but not unexpectedly, you see he had been suffering from alcoholism. One night the drink got the better of him and he had a fatal accident and died alone in his apartment. It was a sad morning that morning but as I said not unexpected. We had tried so many things to get him over it, dragging him to rehab, rescuing him from himself too many times to mention and during these exchanges we had spoken of him dying from this disease and although he said the right things you could see it in his eyes that he had just given up. He had lost his passion, there was no more purpose and he could not see the possibility of getting out of this situation. Now I know there was a lot more to it than that, not being able to live up to others expectations, not being able to rationalize the Father wounding etc…. But his giving up and not being able to connect to these three essential ingredients of life played a role.

I think that finding your passion, living a life of purpose, answering that questions of why am I here and then realising the possibilities that you can be, do and have all you are meant to have is an important if not imperative part of life.

So what are you truly passionate about? What is it that stirs within you that is dying to come out and express itself in the world? Why did you start your business, what was the spark of passion?

I facilitated a planning day workshop for a wonderful client of mine last Friday and had a number of my own realizations during the process. One of these was that there is great importance at coming back to the reason that you started your business. To constantly remind yourself of the passion that ignited the desire to begin. The true purpose for beginning the journey and to see all the amazing possibilities that lay before you. It is so inspiring to see people and businesses connecting to this. Activating the power of this and leaving a workshop, like this one, motivated and excited at the future.

As ‘modern’ humans I think it is important that we all live with passion, know the purpose of our being here right now on the planet and to actualize and activate all the amazing possibilities that expressing this passion has.

I often talk about alignment with my clients and in fact my Double your Clients workshop gives a great deal of focus to this. I believe that when we align with our passion and live life on purpose the universe helps us out in abundance. My amazingly beautiful partner Stephanie is a shining example of this, this week. She has recently found her purpose and aligned herself with it. The interesting thing about finding our purpose is that most times it brings up great fear, “who me, no I couldn’t do all of that, little old me…..” But since she has aligned with her passion and her purpose all manner of things are coming to her. Stephanie is a Shamanic Midwife, Birth Attendant, Kinesiologist and an amazing Mother. It took a while for her to come to the realisation that helping couples, in particular women, get pregnant and give birth was her calling. Her business, Getting Pregnant Giving Birth, was launched recently and wow things are starting to happen. In fact one of her blogs has been quoted on the web site of a lady whose book she is reading at the moment, what a coincidence or maybe a clear sign. There are many more of these amazing signs for her, little confirmations that she is on the right track.

Anyway I think the message here is that identifying your passion, living it on purpose and seeing the possibilities allows us to have feel hope, experience true freedom and have a full life. It is not a replacement for faith, belief in something bigger than ourselves, but rather an awakening to the fact that we have meaning, purpose and value being here. Yes even little old me has a reason for being, a purpose that needs to be realised and expressed so that the rest of the people on the planet can be all they can be.

Like a forest ecosystem each animal, plant and organism only thrives because of the symbiotic relationship to the organism next to it. If any one of these organisms is not truly being everything that it can be then it affects every other organism. The old saying; ‘when you live your truth you give others permission to live there truth,’ highlights the importance of all of us thriving. Living passionately and on purpose is contagious. It has the ability to infect the person next to you. Maybe if we all lived this truth then the planet would be a very different place.

This is the now happy, relaxed and certainly no longer angry Marcus signing out.

 As they say, and to be a little kitsch, ‘go forth and prosper’ or as I say ‘live passionately, on purpose and see those amazing possibilities. You are an amazing, wonderful, incredible human being, now go express it in the world and make this world a better place for you and for all those you infect’. 

One Sick Child - Leads to a clear plan for success?

Happy New Year to all of you and I hope you had a great Christmas break, if you got a break that is?

I want to start the year off with a more personal blog and to set a tone of letting you into my life and also into my business life. I want to lead more by example rather than just through knowledge and a façade that we all put on sometimes. I want to be a little more ‘naked’ with my blog. So I hope the following mutterings help.

There were two reasons that I became a business coach, the first is because it is the one thing that allows me to express all of my skills, from business to counseling through to healing. The second was because of lifestyle and a desire to be there for my family…

So here is a story of our New Years holiday that thankfully has a happy ending…

We had a fairly quiet Christmas break together with the traditional family get togethers; lots of wonderful food, great company and many laughs. Once the Christmas craziness was over, and the dishes had all been done and the house once again back to a more ‘normal’ mess as apposed to a ‘crazy’ Christmas mess we decided to get away for the New Year. Having a house up at Mt Buller and a number of friends choosing to spend their New Years eve celebrations at one of the highest points in Victoria we decided to get away.

So on the Thursday we decided to pack up the car and the kid, just Lucy as the other two were with their dad, and off we went.  Now those of you that don’t know me that well I have three children, two beautiful step children Claudia 10 and Brendan 7 and one of our own little Lucy 2. So with Lucy in the car we headed off with a scheduled stop at Lake Eildon to visit some friends who have a houseboat there. I was hoping to water ski for the first time in over ten years, unfortunately the water was too rough much to my disappointment. Anyway after a nice day on the water jet skiing and general splashing about, Lucy loves the water, we headed on up to Buller.

On the way up the mountain Lucy began to become sick and half way up the mountain she threw up. Now this is not the best of stories to start the year but it is what happened and the moral of the story makes all this worth while. By the time we got to the top of the mountain Lucy was quiet unwell. Now our history of going to Mt Buller over the last year has not been a good one. I think we have had at least one sick child on nearly ever trip, so you can imagine our delight at the prospects of another sick one.

After two days of no sleep, Lucy being very unwell and a less than enjoyable New Years Eve for all concerned we decided to head back home early on the Saturday. When we go home Lucy had some concerning symptoms that seemed to be getting worse not better. The poor little thing lay on the couch not talking looking so sad and sultry with a high fever and not wanting to drink or eat. Lucy is normally such an animated kid and loves to talk and play and talk and play… So once again we head off to the Royal Children’s Hospital. I say once again as we had Lucy at the hospital a couple of times during September for an unrelated illness. Now I am not good with my children being sick, which, is quiet different from my normal way of being around sick people. I have spent most of my life helping sick and injured people; be it with a physical or mental illness, get better. Especially in acute situations where I am the person you want around. However when it comes to my little girl I am a bit of a mess. I just hate seeing her suffering and my heart just cried that day. Anyway we sat in the hospital for five hours while they did tests, rehydrated and observed her. After some water a cool lemonade icepole, and don’t icepoles just cure anything, she thankfully seemed to pick up and we were allowed to go home. It was a little worrying for the next 24 hours but I am pleased to say that she has now made a full recovery and back to her normal happy, laughing, dancing and talkative self.

I believe that there are lessons in all of life’s challenges and I think this one highlighted a few. When things are going well we can sometimes forget the ‘specialness’ of life and of the lives of those around us. In some respect it is why I decided to start my own business, so that I could be nearer those that I love most. To be there to see all the little changes, the new words, the new expressions, but mostly to be present when I am truly needed. Now I know we often make the excuse of starting our own businesses to get out of the 9 to 5 rut, working for the ‘boss’ but at the end of the day isn’t it about being closer to the ones we love? Isn’t it about having the freedom to choose when and where we operate our business?

At the end of last year I was stressed, over working and driving myself too hard. I find that it is easy to get caught up in my business, giving it far to much emphasis and energy. I also understand that this is sometimes a difficult balancing act especially for a male as we have the primal hunter-gatherer gene driving us to provide for our families. Now this is not to undervalue the feminine contribution it is just a primal programming that males have, it’s not real in our modern world but unfortunately still affects some of us.

At the end of the day life is all about balance. The business aspect of that balance is driven by the ability to build something, to be the master of our own destiny but most importantly giving us the time and freedom to be with the people we love most. Now January is a great time to get organized and to plan the year ahead. To take stock of the past year, learn from the mistakes, to celebrate the wins and to take the learning’s of all that has been. To then set clear intentions for a wonderful, connected and successful year ahead.

So what I want us all to do is to list all the most important things in your life and to schedule them into your business plans and business calendar. To not forget the real reason you decided to get into your own business, whether that was because of wanting to be closer to your children, animals or friends. To be able to spend more time with your significant other. To be able to spend more time on yourself or just because you had a burning desire to prove your tenth grade teacher that he was wrong! So apart from the business essentials, marketing, networking, finance, sales, product development and admin, place some emphasis on all those other much more important things in your life. Make the most out of them through the ability to organize your business around your life. Remember that if you don’t design your business then your business will design you. It is the same with your life, if you don’t design your life then life will design you.

So take charge of what you truly want to have happen this year. Make a plan to make time for the most important things in your life, in my case my family. And build a solid business plan to have the most successful year of your life, in all areas and in all ways! Oh and if your business is not allowing you the opportunity to have more time, more money and a greater quality of life then maybe you need a business coach…..if I can help you or anyone else you know give me a call marcus@intrinsicsuccess.com.

Here’s to a great year…. CHEERS!

Planning for Success!

Having consulted to and coached hundreds of business leaders over the past 18 years I am constantly amazed at how many businesses don’t have a business plan or any plan for that matter. If they do have a plan it is held in the vault of the brain of the business owner. There is some loose map that the business owner is following, but in most cases businesses just bump along with the turbulence of the environment hoping to reach a destination that is desirable. If we are not clear about our destination then surely it will be hard to meet that destination.

We would not build a house without a plan? We go to the building site, meet the builder and suggest that we build a wall here, have a bathroom there and maybe we can put the kitchen over there. Can you imagine how the building would come out let alone the extra cost to build it, and this is the crux of the matter. When we don’t know where we are going it often costs us twice as much to find out. This is where a business plan comes in!

A business plan allows you to identify where it is that you want to end up and how you are going to end up there. Starting with your vision and mission and ending with a clear picture of the market, how to find them and encourage them to buy your product or service. There are many steps along this journey but all of them are aimed at providing you with more clarity and sense of purpose the most cost effective way possible. It is amazing to watch clients get into action once they have found a clear purpose for doing what they are doing.

So do you have a clear purpose? Are you excited to execute it every day? A business plan will allow you to identify a clear purpose, help you to ignite your passion for what you started to do and provide you with hope. These things will inevitably lead to a desire to take positive action to have your plan come true.

So start with a clear vision, set an inspiring mission, be clear about who your customers are, what they buy and off whom, why they buy and how you are going to differentiate yourself. Identify how you are going to position yourself in your market. Look at how you are going to inform these people of your product or service, what will inspire them to come and see you and how you are going to deliver it to them. Then make clear plans on direction, marketing, your finances, and inevitably your exit strategy. Yes, your exit strategy!

Most business owners don’t have a clear exit strategy. There is one thing we can be sure of in life and that is that everything is going to end. At some point in the future you are going to finish your business, whether that is selling it, closing it down or gifting it away to the next generation. How you design your business today can be influenced by the exit strategy that you have.

A business plan, regardless of how big it is and some of the best plans are the shortest most concise ones, will help you to find your way allowing you to make cost effective decisions. Clarity of purpose and identification of direction leads to a saving in time, money and nervous energy.

So create your dream, have a clear vision and give your business the best chance of success by developing a clear and concise business plan. Oh and if you need help give me a call!

Marcus is the winner of the Australian Moot Corp Business Planning awards and runner up in the international Moot Corp Business Planning Awards. He is the developer of the One Page Business Plan a dynamic and easy business planning tool kit for small businesses.

Engagement Part 1: What has WELLBEING got to do with business?

It would seem like everything according to the Gallup organization, who have been tracking wellbeing from around the world since the mid 20^th century. In fact they track the wellbeing of the US on a daily basis. So what’s all the fuss about and how can it help us in business and career?

Wellbeing is not just about being happy but rather having a full life: according to Gallup ‘wellbeing is a combination of our love for what we do each day, the quality of our relationships, the security of our finances, the vibrancy of our physical health, and the pride we take in what we have contributed to our communities’. According to dictionary.com wellbeing is: a good condition of existence; a state characterized by health, happiness and prosperity.

So how is your health, happiness and prosperity?

Gallup found that the number one contributing factor to overall wellbeing is career wellbeing. Whether you are an employee or you own your own business the amount of enjoyment we get from our work has an enormous effect on the wellbeing of all other areas of our life. In fact people with high career wellbeing are twice as likely to be thriving in their lives overall. Not only does high career wellbeing help us to have ‘thriving lives’ it may also help us to live longer. The Gallup study also shows that high career wellbeing reduces blood pressure and the potential of head disease and also reduces anxiety and the likely hood of depression.

Now this is all well and good but how is this going to help us in business? Besides the obvious health and overall life enjoyment benefits it may also be good for our businesses health. There is a direct correlation between wellbeing and engagement. If you have employees you, as the business owner, can have an impact not only on their health but also the way that they engage with the business. I have a saying and that is ‘the more engaged we are with anything the more likely we are to be successful at that thing’. We tend to put more effort in into that thing and want to spend time and energy on that thing. We have a desire to become better at that thing and therefore are more conscientious. The more engaged we are with our career the more successful we are likely to be. This is why the most successful business people seem also to be the most passionate and engaged in what they are doing. In turn the more that you are engaged with your work the greater your wellbeing will be.

It is also true that those with careers where they get to use their strengths and do what they love are six times more likely to be engaged in their jobs and three times more likely to have a great quality of life. Therefore what you do, and the love you have for what you do, will help you to be more successful and could help you to live longer. Gallup conducted an ‘old age study’ and found that those who enjoyed what they did so much and did not retire until they where eighty lived until at least 95 years of age.

So loving what you do has a great impact on your health and overall wellbeing. It also has a direct correlation to your level of engagement with what you do. Therefore the more we can help ourselves and employees to engage with our business the more successful we are likely to be.

Maybe we need to have some focus on our wellbeing? Our life might just depend on it!

In part two, next week, I will discuss how we can assist the engagement process both providing practical steps to increase the wellbeing of ourselves and our organisation.

If you would like to increase the success of you or your organisation call me to discuss engagement and wellbeing in business.

Fatigue and the Busi-ness of Life?

I came to the end of another busy week feeling tired, exhausted and fatigued. Pushing myself from one meeting to another in a flurry of action, and as I came to a stop on Saturday morning I realized the pattern. Caught in a pattern that I have been running for many years now, flat out making it happen or fatigued to a stop. A wave of sadness came over me as I realized that my true self is the stillness that resides inside me. That peaceful self that meditates the wisdom of my life, and yet still I run.

It got me thinking of the sub-scripts that the subconscious brain runs that I often talk about with my clients. Those damn beliefs, patterns and fears that we choose to agree with over our lifetime. Now manifesting as a negative interference pattern. And I tell my clients that once you have a consciousness about a thing you can then decide to change that thing….right? Well as we all know it is not as easy as it seems and sometimes that comes down to the level or depth of consciousness we have about that thing. In my case I had some consciousness about it but not enough to completely shift my external experience of that thing, until today!

We had my nieces seventh birthday at a gymnastic centre followed by lunch at my brothers. It was a wonderful day, I got to run and play with my little girl Lucy and see our other two children, Claudia and Brendan, play with her. The love and care they have for her and each other whilst in a group of children is wonderful. Anyway when we got to my brothers the rest of the family had assembled including my Dad. Now I love my Dad but for most of my life he has been the one that I am trying to free myself from and today he gave me an insight. Now when I mean free myself please don’t get me wrong my Dad is a wonderful man, generous, caring and has supported me and my brother far and beyond most fathers. However like most boys and certainly first sons, I have the father wounding that I am trying to heal. So today was another chance but did I take it?

At one stage throughout the day, Dad I had a chance to chat alone for a few moments and in true form he asked me how business was going and again, true to form, I picked all the most positive points to tell him. The opportunities, the excitement of new clients and the underlining message of how well I was doing. At that moment I looked at him and noticed how far away he was from me. It was as if he had not heard anything that I had said. Oh there was the obligatory nod of the head and rhetorical murmurings of agreement and understanding but at the end of the day he was not there. Here I was sharing exciting news that things were going well and he had chosen to disappear. Now the disappearing is not the important part of this story, hell we all have those moments when we disappear from a conversation. No, it was the need I felt to once again prove that I was worthy and valuable….

Here was the driving force behind my need to run flat out and why it is not possible to keep up the pace. In truth this keeping up of the pace is me not living the truth of who I am but rather in the shadow of approval and acceptance of what my father might think is good. Sure like most I can keep up the pace with the best of them however I have had chronic fatigue so energy or the lack there of is my specialty. It is my calling, the reading of energy and sensing the state of myself and others, so now what to do with it…?

At the end of the day it is not the speed at which one moves that is the issue but rather what is going on inside that counts. It is possible to drive a car at 100 kilometers and hour however if you don’t change gear relative to the speed of the car then you are likely to blow up an engine. To complicate matters the alignment of ones own truth must match the energy so that the external performance matches the internal truth. In other words not only do we have to change gear so as not to blow the engine up but we must also have our gears aligned or we will destroy the gearbox. Now at 100 kilometers an hour that could be life threatening. In my case when my gearbox goes I get fatigued and literally have to stop.

There is a great understanding that comes from deep observation. Observation of your own internal scripts that continually run through your mind and observation of the scripts of those around you. To then bring awareness to how those scripts inter play with each other and the effect that these then have.

My Dad’s script is one of having to be perfect, which plays beautifully into mine, which is one of trying to seek acceptance by having the perfect business, life or what ever. Perfection to me is then played out through what I perceive as positive success, the bigger the positive success the better. This continual expectation is not possible to live up to. It is never possible to live up to others expectations. The only thing you can do is live up to your own, that is to meet your own inner expectation that in this life you will live as your true self as much as you can. That is the only expectation we have of ourselves at a deep level and it’s not really an expectation but rather a mantra, a desire to fulfill ourselves. Those that surrender fully to this internal expectation reap the rewards of a full, content and happy life. Those that don’t have to make do with whatever is left.

It is time to live my internal truth and to slow down, become clear, focused and move forward with grace and ease, regardless of the speed of the vehicle. Now I am going to take some of my own medicine and powerfully choose to make a difference. To live the peace that I am, calm and relaxed regardless of the speed of the outside world. I will allow myself to not have the need to impress, or be good, or be anything except that inner peace.

So how do your sub scripts interfere with your success and affect the living of your truth and, what do you choose now…………….?

So be brave and courageously share a little more of yourself this week. In a work or corporate environment it can be the scariest thing to do….but the most important. As one of my clients discovered last week, when you begin to let go and share your truth others are given permission to share theirs. Out of the darkest places the most amazing light often appears. So go and shine this week and let me know what happens and who else crawls from under the veil of a subconscious sub-script self.

If we were all free to perform from this place the world would certainly be better place…

Regards Marcus

Remember: Perform from your core, your truth and you will unleash your true potential...

Sometimes letting go helps…

Sometimes it is just about letting go… The problem with our modern busy world, if there is a problem at all, is that we spend so much time in our heads. Constantly thinking, over analyzing, and trying to work out the next thing to do or to write. As has been the case this morning, yesterday I thought of so many things to write about yet when I got up at 5:30am on this Monday morning do you think I could reach in and located any of those great thoughts from yesterday. Then it hit me maybe I should stop thinking and just start writing so here we are…

Through my experience of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome I came to realize just how full the mind can get and the consequence of that fullness. In my case it lead to a foggy mind, an inability to think clearly, irritability and anxiety and often dizzy spells. To this day if I fill my mind up enough these symptoms come back. The mind is an interesting instrument constantly analyzing, assessing and contemplating the for’s and against’s for any particular situation, decision or thought. It rarely gives you a definitive answer on any matter but rather the thought or decision with the least likely hood of failure. It then spends its time often over analyzing the decision that it has just made. Now in and of itself it is a great instrument and has helped to get us this far. However it is “the emptiness of the vase that is the most valuable part”, in that without the space in-between the ceramic vessel there would be no vase. In some respects it is the same with the brain with out the ability to empty the mind from time to time we reduce our ability to utilize it’s power of thought.

I often see business owners and executives who have become anxious, stressed and confused finding it difficult to make a decision or think straight and immediately I know that the mind has become full. It is amazing what insights, clarity and freedom comes from emptying the mind from time to time. It is a bit like freeing up some space on your hard drive. I know when my computer runs out of space I get a warning that the computer is about to have a nervous breakdown and loose data or worse totally break. (As you can tell I am such a computer expert…not!) I am sure it wont break if I run out of space but I know its not good because it tells me. Now the brain is a bit like this if you don’t clear it out every now and then it does get overloaded and when this happens there is a fear that it will break down. When I guide these executives to clear the mind and free up some disk space it is amazing to watch the clarity come back, the anxiety go and a wave of relaxation appears.

So if you begin to feel anxious, confused, unclear or full take a moment to let go. Go for a walk, change the scenery, stop thinking about the issue or any issue for that matter and clear your mind. Think of nothing if you can, meditation is a great way to do this or failing that think of a time when you where in nature, on holidays where you were away from work. Think of how that place made you feel, what were the noises that you herd, the smells that you smelt and the sights that you saw. Immerse yourself it that experience for just a moment. If you have an abstract painting in your home or office, focus on that for a while or look at the plant in the corner of your office (if you don’t have a plant in your office get one, natural objects like plants can assist you to feel more relaxed and provide fresh oxygen). Then go back to what you were doing, a moment out of time can help you to become clear again, less anxious and more relaxed. 

Please note that short term anxiety or stress can be relieved through the clearing of the mind however long term anxiety related disorders may need greater help and support. If you are suffering from anxiety please see a health care professional.