Do You Know Your Own Values?

Posted on 31 March 2008

I was talking via e-mail to Ali from The Office Diet who was kind enough to edit my new e-book ‘Know Yourself – Change Yourself’ the other day. She’d read the book, which I thought was a fantastic idea for an editor, and took issue with a point I made.

I suggested that there are no right or wrong values, just values that are right or wrong for you. Surely, she argued, things like murder are always wrong. I want to make that noise that Bruce Willis makes in Die Hard when he’s talking to Hans on the walkie-talkie now, but I don’t know how to type it, so I’ll just have to settle for; Wrong!

Firstly, murder isn’t really a value anyway because the value would be what somebody would be looking to achieve through committing the act of murder. For example, if I axed up my mother-in-law it could be for any number of reasons. I might think it fun (value). I might want her money (not a value because then I need to know what I want the money for to understand what the value is). Or I might want her to shut up talking so I can be in peace (value). Of course for those of you in doubt, I love my mother-in-law to bits and would never take an axe to her, I wouldn’t dare.

Secondly, there really aren’t any wrong values. You can only judge values based upon your own, and who is the judge that decides whether yours are right and somebody else’s are wrong? You of course, so how reasonable is that? You would be acting like judge, juror and executioner. I agree that society may also judge, but society is just a collection of people evaluating stuff based on their own values and what they believe to be correct.

I’m in danger of disappearing up my own rear end here by sounding all pseudo-metaphysical and abstract, but here’s the deal I’d like you to buy into if you’d be so kind. There’s no such thing as right and wrong or good and evil. You have opinions on what you believe to be right or wrong and that’s fine, but understand they are based on your beliefs and values and not any Law of Physics, Law of Nature or even Murphy’s Law for that matter. They are purely subjective. So why do I want you to buy into this concept? Because the moment you do is the moment you can release yourself from the grip of having to judge others, and the moment you cease to judge others is the moment you find peace with yourself.

Is it easy? Are you nuts? Of course it’s not easy, it requires a lifetime of devotions and dedication, it’s a ridiculously hard thing to perfect, but then again so are one-armed push-ups (well they are to me, although I have arms like Monty Burns so that could explain why) but that doesn’t stop people trying.

I don’t think murder is right and I also don’t think lots of others things are right such as stealing, harming others or not Stumbling my Blog, but that’s only my opinion based on my values, it doesn’t necessarily make it so.

I’ve recently written an e-book on Beliefs and Values called ‘Know Yourself – Change Yourself’ that goes into more detail on this subject. It contains THE best stuff I do with clients around Beliefs and Values as well as all the forms that I use to help a client understand themselves and make lasting change.  If you’re too tight, or too hard up to spring for your own life coach you can now coach yourself using a bit of NLP and some common sense advice! It is retailing at $9.99 (see ad box to right) but seeing as I love you so much and I think you’re wonderful for popping by here and listen to me chatter away to myself, I’m offering it to you for free. It doesn’t get much cheaper than that. Simply e-mail me at tim@adaringadventure.com before midnight Thursday 3rd April, mention the book in the title and I’ll send it out to you. Oh, and no, this isn’t an April Fools joke but I am restricting the offer to the first 3 billion people that e-mail and not one more.

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Alternative Viewpoints

Posted on 30 March 2008

I’ve noticed a recent tendency for some Bloggers to drop in weekly links pages to other blogs that they read and think are worthwhile. Well, never one to miss out on some good old fashioned bandwagon jumping I have decided to dismiss originality and follow suit. I do like the idea because I know I’ve found some great self-development sites that I’d never have found otherwise and I’m always up for sharing the wealth so to speak.

I have read some great posts this month and below are links to seven of the best. I’m sure there were others as good that haven’t sprung immediately to mind, so if you’re hungry for more, check out my Stumble account to see what I have been voting on. Alternatively, click on any of the links to the right. Now I trust you guys to go and read these and still come back here. Don’t be seduced into thinking they’re better than mine, even if they are, because I expect you here bright and early tomorrow morning and ready to go.

Jason’s Story: Life Lessons from a Tragedy – John Place

This is one of my favorite blogs and one of a handful I read without fail. I really like the writer’s style as he tells stories that connect and doesn’t simply make lists. Not that lists aren’t useful on occasions, but stories are the things that pass the test of time in my humble opinion. This is not an upbeat story at all and if you are feeling a bit down I wouldn’t advise reading it (check out his ‘Life Lessons From A Cranky Old Man instead). It’s s rather harrowing tale of a friend who’s life doesn’t pan put like he or anybody else would have wished.

Arête: The Meaning of Life – Scott H Young

Scott is a very consistent blogger with a mature writing style that defies his years. I don’t always agree with what he says, but I always respect his opinion because he backs up what he has to say with sound research and a knowledge of the subject he is talking about. This post takes a look at arête or quality to me and you, and does a fabulous job of looking at ways of achieving it in your life. I’m not a philosopher (no really I’m not!), but I know a good post when I read one, and the fact that he suggests reading the brilliant Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is good enough for me.

Oops, I did it again: bubbles, balls and burn-out  - Jonathan Fields

Jonathan Fields ‘Awake At The Wheel’ is another blog I subscribe to. I like his writing because he doesn’t care what conventional wisdom says. He offers his own opinions and doesn’t simply regurgitate those of others. This is a really clever take on the age-old topic of comfort zones. Using the metaphor of bubbles and how they expand, contract and even merge he puts a new slant on the topic, and no doubt gets people that are burned out by talk of comfort zones to think differently. I like his use of alliteration too, almost as clever a title as my blog: Shopping & Sulking Shenanigans

Research Sources for Writers: A Guide to Backing up Your Words – Clay Collins.

This is a guest post by Clay Collins at the ‘Write To Done’ site. I have absolutely no idea what Write To Done means, but I know this is a fantastic article from a strong up and coming blogger. Like a lot of people, I rely on Google for my research. Not having a background in academia I was in blissful ignorance at the amount of great free research tools there are out there for writers. If you are a writer and/or serious blogger than I feel sure you’ll get a lot from this article.

5 Not So Q.U.I.E.T. Methods of Personal Growth and Development – Aaron Potts

Ok, ok, so this is a list, but it’s a clever one. Aaron hasn’t read 3 books and then lifted the bits he liked best and made a list. No, he’s read 4 books and listed the bits he liked best and made a list…. I’m kidding. Aaron has been around the blogging scene for some while and it shows in his professionalism. This is his unique take on ways to take a quantum leap forward in your own personal development and I can recommend it unequivocally.

All Roads Leading To Costa Rica (For Me) – Todd Goldfarb

Todd’s site ‘We The Change’ takes an holistic approach to self-development. Todd isn’t purely interested in succeeding; he wants to succeed on his terms and doing what he believes to be the right thing to do. This post goes to show that when opportunity knocks on your door, don’t just invite her in, open a nice bottle of wine, put on some relaxing music and nail the door shut so she can’t go anywhere. Check out the link to The Shift whilst you’re there.

Fat Burning’ Zones explained – Pete Swaile

Pete is a highly qualified fitness coach, triathlete as well as a life coach and NLP guy. He proves here that posts don’t need to be long or literary works of art to be effective and useful. Here he offers professional advice that can help anybody that doesn’t really understand what’s necessary to shed those extra pounds.

By the way, if you are a member of Stumble, Digg or any other social networking group give these little suckers a help in hand if you enjoy them as much as I did. If you’re not a member, join one (I prefer Stumble Upon myself) and check out some of the great stuff that you may be missing out on.

I think I’m going to make this a regular monthly thing, at least until I get bored and/or realize all my traffic has buggered off to other peoples sites. If you have a blog you’d like me to consider, please let me know.

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That’s What I Call A Goal!

Posted on 29 March 2008

If you read my post on goal setting the other day you’ll know that it’s a process that I believe strongly in. I believe in it, because I know it works, and I know it works because I have seen it do so time and time again with clients, and also with myself.

I’m going to do something now I never thought I’d ever do in my life, and that’s quote Donald Trump. Don’t worry I’m not growing my hair and asking my hairdresser to do a triple comb over with forward sweep, I’m just quoting Trumpy for the purposes of demonstration.

“If you’re going to be thinking at all, you may as well think big”

I’m not a huge fan of the strangely coiffured one, but I do respect his ability as a businessman and I think this quote is on the money. Having said that, I now want to paraphrase it for my own ends and to get it to make more sense in terms of this post. So if you’re ready, here goes:

“If you’re going to be setting goals, you may as well set HUGE ones”

Do you like it? I think it’s got legs myself.

Too many people think small when setting goals because they think they need to be realistic and they don’t want to disappoint themselves. I honestly believe that such people would rather live a lifetime of minor disappointment than try and break out and risk occasional major disappointment. That’s not what the super-successful do, they fail, and fail often. In fact, it’s not inaccurate to say that the most successful people in life are often the biggest failures! The difference being though, is that they embrace failure as a means to an end. They know that they will learn, gain experience from it and turn the possibility of success into a glorious inevitability.
 
Earlier this week I was working with a client on goal setting and going through the SMARTER method. With each goal we went down the list to make sure it fitted all the criteria and he’d done a pretty good job and they mostly did. Then we got to the last goal and it was a big one. No, scratch that, it was gargantuan. It was the kind of goal that had me laughing and pumping my fists in the air. Not because it was unrealistic but because it was so magnificently, stunningly, fantastic. Before this guy told me his goal the biggest I’d ever been given by a client was to be worth $3billion. That was impressive, but not compared to this beauty.

Have I given it a big enough build up do you think? Yeh I reckon so too, so here we go.

This guys goal is to be able to offer medical supplies to any human being on the planet that’s in need through a worldwide series of free clinics! Not bad, huh? That’s a goal you can really get your teeth into.

I’m not interested in people that say it’s unrealistic or he’ll never do it. I really don’t care what they think. This guy is aiming high, and even if he comes up way short and only manages one clinic, it’s one more than now and a lot of people will be grateful for that.

What goals do you have?

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Life Coaching Giveaway!

Posted on 26 March 2008

I recently wrote a review for the brilliant Steve McDermott book ‘How To Be A Complete And Utter Failure In Life, Work & Everything.’ It’s no exaggeration to say this is one of my favorite personal development books of all time. It’s not deep, it doesn’t spend 9 hours explaining why one person can work on a production line and be absolutely enthralled and another person wants to gouge his or her own eyeballs out. It doesn’t require you to have a degree in psychology, there’s no need to stroke your chin whilst reading and you’ll not need to concentrate so hard that your head hurts by the end of the introduction. It’s an easy to read, very funny, well researched and thought provoking book. You can dip in and out at random, or read it in one go, whatever takes your fancy.

The lovely publishers at FT Press have supplied me with 5 copies to give away for free to my gorgeous readers. That’s right FREE I tell ya, and it doesn’t get any cheaper than that! ! I bet you’re thinking there’s a catch aren’t you? Well you’re right, you know me too well by now. If this is your first time here, you just made a lucky guess, now go and buy a lottery ticket it just could be your lucky day.

Here’s the great deal that I am going to offer you and only you. This quality item retails for $14.99 and that would be a bargain at twice the price guv’nor. I am going to send a copy to the first 5 people (inside the US) that buy either a copy of, ‘Don’t Ask Stupid Questions – There Are No Stupid Questions’ or ‘Know Yourself – Change Yourself’ from here. The former can be either hardback or the e-book but the latter is only available in e-book format. I am even prepared to pay the mailing cost hence the reason I have to limit this to the US mainland. So for as little as $9.99 you get two quality books and all shipping paid for! Not only that, but if you splurge on the hardback of ‘Don’t Ask Stupid Questions – There Are No Stupid Questions’ you’ll get a free download of ‘Know Yourself – Change Yourself’

OFFER CLOSED - THANKS A LOT TO THOSE THAT ORDERED AND I HOPE YOU ENJOY BOTH BOOKS!

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Always Know Your Reward

Posted on 25 March 2008

There is a chapter in my book about setting goals and I want to re-visit that topic today because although I posted it here many months ago it’s something that never losses its relevance. I have completely re-written this post because it’s so important, so no sneaking off because you’ve read the book and think you know what I’m going to say, because you don’t.

The SMART system is a well-known goal setting method and very popular in business. In my humble opinion it misses out two crucial aspetcs that are imperative in setting great personal goal and then actually being successful in achieving them.

A brief re-cap of what SMART goals are for those of you that aren’t familiar with them before I move on to explain the additions and why they are necessary.

SPECIFIC. So what is it that you want to achieve? Could another person read your goal and know what you were trying to do? If not, then it probably isn’t specific enough and it will not come to fruition. If you’re thinking “Read what? What goals?” Then you really do need to grab a pen, some paper and pay close attention.

MEASURABLE. Can you measure your goal? If you can’t how do you know where you are with it? If you want to make a certain amount of money, you can always look at your bank balance. If you want to get 5,000 visitors per day to your blog you can always look at your stats. If you have a goal of collecting 100 Coach handbags like it seems my wife has, then you can always go and count them. Having lots of money, plenty of visitors and a plethora of bags is not a measurable goal.

ACTION ORIENTED.  You cannot have a goal that doesn’t require you to do anything, you have to get off your butt and actually do something. Any goal that doesn’t require action on your part is a wish, and good luck with those unless your name is Cinderella or Merlin or something along those lines.

REALISTIC. I want to say screw realism because that’s how I feel, but I can’t because this is a family blog. If you are a Chinese women that weighs 85lbs then I accept it is unrealistic to have a goal of playing for the US men’s basketball team. If however, you want to do something that at least one person of your gender and similar age (not even really sure about age, but I’ll let it slide this once) then it’s not unrealistic, so aim high, very high, and then a bit higher. Aaaand a bit higher please. Yeeeep, that should do it.

TIMEBOUND.  Goals need deadlines like politicians need TV cameras. If you set a goal with no deadline you’ll be still wondering why you didn’t get it done 5 years from now because there will always be something more urgent to attend to.

There you have the traditional SMART goals outlined and now I’d like to add two more, to make them SMARTER. I’m so smug!

ECOLOGY. I am not talking about stopping nasty Faroe Islanders from clubbing baby seals or evil men in whaling ships jabbing and stabbing at cute and cuddly Orca. I mean that you need to take into account any potential negative effects that your goal will have on yourself and those around you.  If you have a goal to be the first man to beat a Grizzly Bear in hand-to-hand combat you may want to weigh up the odds, ask your family whether they think it’s a good idea and check your insurance policy. I’m not saying don’t do it, but be aware of what could happen if you fail, just as much as if you succeed. There are more prosaic examples such as encouraging your wife to lose 50lbs and then going nuts when she goes on a shopping spree for new clothes and treats herself to a younger better looking fella. Sorry if you are a female, but I think you know where I’m coming from. Just be aware, that’s all I’m saying.

REWARD. This is THE most important thing with setting goals and the thing that gets left out most often. This is what will get you out of bed at 5.00am when it’s snowing and the bed is snuggly warm. This is what will stop you eating that extra piece of pie or drinking one beer too many. It’s the reward that you need to keep in front of you at ALL times so you know why you’re going that extra mile and other assorted clichés that I read off motivational posters like that. Always know you’re reward and you will increase your chances of success exponentially.

So what is it you want? What is the reward? What will you see, hear and feel when you get to your goal? You may have a goal of earning $1m but what is the real reward behind that? That money is useless in isolation, so what does it REALLY get you. Look past the obvious, drill down and keep asking, so what else does that get me, until you can go no further and that is the real reward, that is the thing that you write on your post it notes and plaster all over your house, office and even your body.

Now go and fill any gaps you may have on goals, dream and all that other great stuff by reading this post and then this one too.

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NLP That!

Posted on 22 March 2008

We were about to take off from Tampa airport en route to Denver. As I settled into my seat and fished around for my Ipod I glanced over the aisle and noticed that the women in the center of the 3 people sat on the opposite side of the plane was not looking well, not well at all. In fact she looked a bit like Casper after he’d been for a swim in a whitewash factory and her eyes looked like a goldfish’s might if you rolled it up thinking it was a tube of almost empty toothpaste.

As the plane started to pick up speed the women closed her eyes and pushed herself back in her seat in a manner reminiscent of a 1950’s ‘B’ movie star who had just been told by his director he had to make the audience think he was going warp factor 10. The guy sat on her right was squeezing her hand for comfort but that was proving about as useful as a telling a firing squad victim to put a hat on because it’s a bit chilly out. As the plane left the tarmac and started to climb the women suddenly started to sob. This wasn’t the kind of sob you hear from somebody that had just found their dead goldfish rolled up in the bathroom, this was more of a wailing banshee impersonation of biblical proportions. We were literally on the back rows of the plane and the pilot could have been having a nap with his headphones on and he’d have still heard her.

She was still crying 30 minutes later so I decided I’d try and help out. I thought a pillow placed over her head for about 2 minutes would do the job, but as her boyfriend was about 6’ 4” and had the kind of body art you see on people waving goodbye to San Quentin, I thought I’d offer something a little more constructive. I never mention NLP at times like this because I then spend about an hour trying to explain what it is, so I told her boyfriend that I was a hypnotherapist and I may be able to help. She was willing to try anything probably even the pillow on the head, so she swapped seats with my wife and we began to chat.

Most people that have fears exacerbate them with the language that they use and the pictures they form in their heads. Ask anybody that has a fear of bridges to describe their problem and I can almost guarantee you they will say they hate driving over bridges. Well don’t drive over them then, drive on them, is my usual response. It’s only a subtle change, but it alters the entire perspective. Nobody has a fear of flying, they have a fear of crashing and when dealing with people like this, that’s absolutely critical to understand.

I started of by spending about 15 minutes doing some relaxation exercises, but that was just for me because I was convinced her boyfriend was going to kill me if I screwed up. Then I used a process called submodalities which is a brilliant technique for helping people with fears. All it essentially involves is getting an understanding of how somebody codes information. In other words, when they are thinking of a negative situation, what are they seeing, hearing and feeling on the inside and how does it differ from a positive experience. You then map across the submodalities from the good to the bad. If you want to know about them in a bit more detail I have an eBook out next week explaining everything. If you e-mail me before midnight on Sunday 23rd I’ll send you a free copy. It is going to retail at $9.99, but I love my blog readers so much I’m happy to give you one, but don’t go telling your mates, I do have to eat you know.

Some people pick up on submodality changes immediately and fortunately this lady was one of them because by the time we had returned to her seat she was beaming like a very happy Cheshire cat that had just been given a chunk of vintage cheese and a carton of high fat heavy cream.

For those of you that have never flown into Denver airport it has to be said it’s an interesting experience. As you drop over the Rockies you hit an updraft that creates turbulence the like of which I have never experienced before and quite frankly, don’t ever want to again. As we started our decent the plane was banging like an outhouse door in a hurricane. Nobody spoke other than maybe a few people mumbling prayers and promising to go to Church on Sunday. All of a sudden there was a huge bang and then silence. A single solitary voice shouted out very loudly, “f*** me’ No, it wasn’t my insane friend from over the aisle but my wife! I looked at her and she instinctively put her hand over her mouth and then took it away and said “Did that come out very loudly” I would have liked to have taken a look down the aisle for confirmation, but was afraid I’d see 200 heads peering back at me. Instead I leaned forward and lodged my head against the seat in front of me hoping for this to be over. Instinctively I looked to my left and saw the previously hysterical women grinning back at me and giving me 2 thumbs up. “Jeez, she’s loving this” I thought.

Ten minutes later we were safely on the ground and not a moment too soon. My new found friend thanked me for my help and shot off to catch her connecting flight to Hawaii. I never heard from her again and I have often wondered whether she still grins her way through near death experiences.

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6 Billion Realities

Posted on 18 March 2008

Unsurprisingly, a lot of people come to me to help them set and achieve goals. I use my own method that I have adapted from SMART goals and an NLP system called Well Formed Outcomes and I call them SMARTER goals. Cute eh? I’m not going to talk about them per se today because you can go here if you want to know more or maybe even go crazy, buy my book (now available in eBook format folks!) and help me know where my next meal is coming from. What I am going to talk about though is that first ‘R’, the evil ‘R’ of Realistic.

I spend so long explaining to clients why I don’t like the ‘R’ that every now and then I’m tempted to just take the damn thing out altogether and have SMATER goals, but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it. I know what you’re thinking, it’s either “Why doesn’t he just take the ‘R’ off the end and have SMARTE goals” or “Where’s the back button, I’m bored” In the former case, the second ‘R’ is so fundamental and so important that is has to be the LAST thing the goal setter thinks of. If you still have no idea what the hell I’m talking about you now really do have to go and read up on them. If it was the latter thought, it’s top left and I wish you bon voyage my attention challenged friend.

I’m going to tell you a secret; realism doesn’t even exist it’s just a concept. In fact, it’s completely unrealistic to believe in realism.

There are 6 billion people on this planet give or take and every one of us sees things in a slightly different way. That’s 6 billions disparate ways of viewing things and 6 billion different realities. Who says mine, yours or even Pope Benedicts for that matter is any more accurate than anybody else’s?

We’re conditioned through life to see things in a certain way. As kids we’re told what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s good and what ‘s bad, but what makes that reality? Pretty much nothing, other than our belief that it is, because that’s what we’ve been told. Not only that, but we then go on to perpetuate the belief by passing it in to our kids without ever stopping to question it. Every time I hear a parent telling a kid that they are being unrealistic I cringe. What right have they got to impose such restrictions at such an impressionable age? I know they usually mean well and they want to shield their kids against future disappointments, but they actually end up impeding them from fulfilling their true potential.

People told Walt Disney he was being unrealistic when he put forward his ideas for Disney World to be built on a swamp. People told John F Kennedy he was unrealistic when he set out his goal to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. People told Gandhi he was being unrealistic when he set out to defeat the British Empire without the use of force.

I was going to list another 4 or 5 examples, but what’s the point? There are millions of cases of ideas coming to fruition that people couldn’t wait to say were unrealistic beforehand. I’m sure you even have your own; I know I have. I had people telling me that I was unrealistic when I said I wanted to emigrate! Yeh right, because nobody’s ever done that before! Then I was unrealistic to think I could get a book published – wrong again. Now I suppose I am being realistic to think I can grow gills and go and live in an underwater castle with a mermaid called Colin. We’ll see about that one, but I’m quietly confident.

Be in no doubt, when you try to introduce radical change into your life there will be people forming a line ready to tell you why you’ll fail, why you are being unrealistic and why you should leave things as they are. When they do, smile, thank them kindly and move on, because that’s their version of reality and you don’t ever need to make it yours.

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Yeh but….

Posted on 16 March 2008

I have just watched a brilliant movie trailer and it prompted this quick post.
Firstly, go and watch the movie here

I hope you have done that. You have, haven’t you? No cheating because now I’m going to tell you why that will never work and you’re wasting your time.

 Yeh but it’s been hotter and much colder before in the earths history, so it’s nothing new, it’s just how it is

Yeh but mankind has always fought wars even back to biblical times and before. Twas ever thus.

Yeh but I’ve heard it all before and nothing ever changes.

Yeh but that’s just the free market economy and money makes the world go around.

Yeh but greed is good, I saw Wall Street and it makes sense to me.

Yeh but Buffet, Branson, Gates and the like HAVE billions to give away, I don’t.

Yeh but look at the publicity U2 got, I bet that Bono makes millions from stunts like this one.

Yeh but all those 3rd world countries are corrupt and they’d just spend the money on arms.

Yeh but I gave at the office six years ago.

Yeh but aids and disease are Gods way of controlling the population.

Yeh but I bet they’re all commies looking for a free handout.

Yeh but I bet the people that made this movie are loaded. Hypocrites!

Yeh but what can I do? I’m just one person, it won’t make any difference.

Yeh but I’m scared for my kids.

Yeh but I suppose I could help a little

Yeh but I CAN make a difference and help others change the world and who cares what the idiot that wrote this post says?

No more  yeh buts,  I’m gonna sign up here.

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Do You Walk The Walk?

Posted on 14 March 2008

I think there is a certain element of expectation when people meet me on a professional basis. As a Life Coach I don’t think they would be very impressed if I weighed in at 300 lbs, was smoking 2 packs of cigarettes per day and knocking back a bottle of scotch in an afternoon. I’m not saying that somebody couldn’t be a good coach whilst acting like that, but I think it’s a lot less likely they would get the chance to prove it.

I think walking the walk, acting as if, or whatever other description you want to place on this behavior is imperative if you want to gain and retain credibility. How confident would you feel dealing with the Toyota car sales person that drives a Honda? Would you vote for a politician that was caught avoiding taxes? How about moving hairdressers and noticing that the owner has a mullet and his assistant a pudding bowl cut that looked like it had been done by a blind man with 200 volts of electricity flowing through him? None of those examples necessarily prove anything, but I’m guessing they would all make you think twice.

Yesterday I was over at the Human Performance Institute at Lake Nona in Orlando. I was meeting with somebody in channel sales and talking about referring clients. A personal hero of mine, a guy called Jim Loehr, started the HPI. He co-wrote one of my favorite books of all time called ‘The Power Of Full Engagement’. He also authored an even better book called ‘The Power of Story.’ Both books have had a great influence on me and I would recommend either for anybody that wants to improve the quality of their life and also to understand the human psyche. See below for details.

I was just about to leave the institute when this tall, athletic looking guy walked off the tennis court dripping in sweat. It was none other than Jim Loehr himself. I was a like a 12 year old girl at a Justin Timberlake concert. I resisted the urge to throw my underwear at him, but I did ask him to sign a book that I had just been given. I had a brief chat with him and he seemed a very genuine and gracious person. Why am I telling you this? Here was a guy that obviously walks the walk. He teaches people about the four levels of fitness (emotional, physical, mental and spiritual) and you only had to look at him to know he lived what he espoused.

Most people like to think that they walk the walk, but how many of us actually do so all the time? I certainly have lapses such as a recent argument with my mother-in-law in which I insisted on telling her she’s wrong and it’s not important to line up all the forks in a row in the cutlery draw! What I should have said was that is wasn’t important to me. Who am I to tell her what is important to her? I’m a Life Coach; I should know better, I wasn’t walking the walk.

Think about what you have been doing for the last few hours. Have you been walking the walk? I don’t necessarily mean in your job if you have one, although it could mean that, but with your own values. If you strongly believe in honesty, have you been true to that? If you have a core value of love, have you been demonstrating that? If you aspire to great health have you been doing what’s necessary to move you toward that? If the answer is no, it’s not a problem. Simply realize without judgment that you’ve slipped back and resolve to start walking your own walk from now on.

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Life Coaching Tools - Free Stuff!

Posted on 12 March 2008

I have been working for some while now on an eBook about beliefs and values. A part of which is reproduced below. It is about 9,000 words longs and will also include all the forms that I use with clients to elicit values and change beliefs. This really is me giving away the farm so to speak. Well I say giving away, what I really mean is selling because it’s going to retail at somewhere under $10 or as a bonus gift for people that buy my book or Ebook ‘Don’t Ask Stupid Questions – There Are No Stupid Questions’

I want to give away 10 advance copies for people that are willing to offer feedback within a week or so. Are you such a person? Are you wanting to understand yourself better and make lasting beneficial change? Well what are you waiting for get on the case? Drop me an e-mail to tim at a daring adventure dot com

Working title: Know Yourself – Change Yourself (Intro)

If you are serious about making lasting improvements in your life then I think it is absolutely critical you start by understanding your own belief system and values.

These are the things that get you out of bed in a morning, they dictate what you do for a living if indeed anything, who your friends are, what you eat, how you interact with other people, who you vote for and even whether you think it’s ok or not to invade foreign countries. These are the things that make you tick as a person.

Beliefs and Values aren’t the exclusive domain of individuals either; they are usually what bind individuals into a whole. Business’s, Church’s, Organizations, Gangs and Governments have Values and Beliefs, and act in line with them for better or for worse. 

Here we are going to look at the difference between a belief and a value. Then we’ll look at how you can change beliefs if you think that yours are holding you back. Finally, and probably most importantly, we’ll look at how you can work out your own hierarchy of values so that you can start to live in accordance with them and thus enjoy a more fulfilled and happy life.

So grab yourself a pen, print off the forms you’re going to need and tell the rest of the world that you’re in an important meeting for the next hour or so and don’t want disturbing unless the house is coming under attack by 1,000 rabid dogs with bows and arrows and long pointy sticks.

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