Recently I read a great blog by John Williams of Screw Work, Let’s Playin which he advocated that if we still have not implemented the ideas that we have right now it is because there is some barrier or obstacle in our way. Now we may not be consciously aware of what that obstacle is but rest assured it is there because if it wasn’t you would have already executed the idea. What I found fascinating was that John reminded me of the fact that none of us has a truly unique idea. There are 7 billion people on this planet and the chances that your idea has never flitted across the mind of any one of those people are pretty low. What is important is our attitude and willingness to change our original idea to make it work so that we can get round the barrier that is blocking our way.
Don’t believe that it is just you that encounters barriers. Most successful people come across barriers to their success everyday, but it is how they deal with these barriers and set backs that distinguishes them from the rest. For example when Anita Roddick opened the first Body Shop in Brighton in 1976, two neighbouring funeral parlors initially objected to the shop’s name. Rather than give up on her distinctive brand name or go hunting for new premises, Roddick fought back by suggesting to a local newspaper that she was a woman entrepreneur under siege. The publicity ended up generating traffic to the store and helped her on her first step towards the global success she later attained.
The challenge of how we react to barriers and obstacles in our life was beautifully illustrated to me last weekend by my ponies Bracken and Thistle. We were leading them out on a walk through the countryside when suddenly we across a really muddy stretch. The track narrowed and there was a ditch in front of us that was thick with mud and water. The challenge was how to get across. As I gingerly made my own way round the edge of the mud puddle I just knew that Bracken would follow me across. Partly because she trusts me implicitly but also because she has such gusto. She takes on anything head on, almost never thinking about the consequences of her action. This is an admirable trait so I was not surprised when she leapt to the other side of the ditch over the muddy puddle.
Thistle however had other ideas. She is much more cautious and likes to examine everything before proceeding. In fact Thistle’s solution to the problem was to just plant her feet and refuse to move. She was not prepared to make the leap. For her the ditch was an insurmountable barrier that could not be crossed and as such she was stuck in her tracks. I waited for about ten minutes and despite offering Thistle some gentle persuasion nothing was going to make her move, she was stuck. Paralysed by the fear of moving forward. For me her action so beautifully reflected that I often experience in my own life. A fear of moving forward means that I can get stuck when I come across problems obstacles and barriers in my business.
So what was the solution? Well, Thistle and I went and found another route to get across the ditch, one that was not so muddy and that she could cope with. Would she has found that route by herself, probably not, which is why we need mentors and business coaches to help us find the way round obstacles when they come up in our own lives. There is always a solution to everything it is just that often we can’t see the wood for the trees.
So next time you come across a barrier or obstacle in your life you can either leap across it like Bracken, stay stuck like Thistle did initially or seek out support to help you find another way just Thistle finally did. What will you do to get through the inevitable barriers that will show up in your life or business?. Post your comments below to let me know.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
It never ceases to amaze me the lessons my horses teach me about life, and today, Christmas Day, is no exception. My friend Maria and I decided to take my two horses Toby and Charlie for a walk in the woods along with her dog Zac. We were just leading the horses on foot due to the icy ground conditions. Maybe it was the exuberant energy of Zac or the bell on the end of my Xmas hat that kept ringing but the horse’s energy was really high which for my two boys is pretty unusual.
Often when we lead them out on foot (as we do quite often) it is a case of trying to encourage the horses to move forward. Today, they were no a mission, and there was no stopping them. As we entered one of the large fields Charlie’ s energy rose even more as he connected to his racing instincts and thought momentarily about racing off. When you have half a ton of horse on the end of a rope your instincts are to keep the rope short so that you can control the horse. What are we deluding ourselves to?. There is no way – me weighing some 63kg has any chance of controlling that half ton of weight. If he wants to run that is exactly what he will do and nothing will stop him. And yet, when I had faith and actually loosened my grip on the rope and made it slack, thereby letting go of the control, Charlie’s energy dropped and he slowed down.
This made me think about how often in my own life, especially when life seems like it is spiralling out of control, that holding on tightly is just about the worst thing that you can do. Surrender to what is happening around you and let go and often the most unexpected outcomes arise. Did I think that by loosening my grip on Charlie’s rope that he would slow down?. No not really, but I had faith and just by letting go of the outcome and yielding control to something greater an amazing result happened.
I am reminded too of all the times in my corporate life when often I micro-managed my team. My need to be in control to ensure the correct outcome was so strong that I never allowed my team members to “race off”. How different the outcome might had been had I given them that power and loosened my control over them. Interesting food for thought on this Christmas Day.
So as we enjoy the Holidays take time to think about your own life and what might be achieved if you have the courage to let go.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
Traders have driven the entire wealth of our markets – both up and down – over the last ten years. As the global cycle has shifted, and wealth in the Western World has moved towards the Accumulators who are accumulating their assets, the Traders are increasingly moving towards the emerging economies in the East.
Jim Rogers (Singapore) – Rogers is a Trader who is constantly in the news as he has continued to move as markets have changed. After making his fortune in the US, with George Soros in the Soros fund, Rogers first moved into commodities, and then moved to Asia. He has set up indexes in these areas that have allowed him to earn from the investment in his indexes. He recently said to a group of Oxford university students “The power is shifting again from the financial centers to the producers of real goods. The place to be is in commodities, raw materials, natural resources.”
George Soros (USA) – Soros, who made his name making a billion dollars betting against Sterling, has recently closed down his hedge fund altogether, taking his $14.5 billion and managing it in his personal trust. He remains an outspoken critic of current government policy and is focusing on the global challenges of democracy with his philanthropy work.
Mikhail Fridman (Russia) – Fridman began trading commodities in Russia, and moved to energy trading and then entire processing businesses through his Alfa Capital. Like Soros, he has grown his interest in balance and democracy into politics. Today he is worth $15.1 billion, and has exited many of his holdings.
The shift in the global cycle can be seen by the actions of the leading profiles and how they are operating at any time. As Roger Hamilton says, the shift to the winter phase of business can be seen by not only the wealth of Accumulators but the defensive strategies of the top Traders.
“Waves have ups and downs, but all seas still have a level. Every peak has a trough. Seeing every market as a rolling wave allows us to see where we should be, and when, based on our profile.”
– Roger Hamilton
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
I recently came across this article that I wanted to share with you as I feel it could help some of you explain what is happening in your own lives. Often we fail to do things not because we can’t but because of a fear of failure. This got me thinking about training my horses and working with my clients. Do I sometimes not do things because I’m afraid of failure? I’s love to read your thoughts on this really interesting perspective on life.
If you have a habit of not finishing what you start, you may have attributed your lack of results to disorganization or a lack of focus. For some individuals, however, this habit is signs of an underlying psychological pattern of playing not to lose.
Stuart Emery, author of Life is Not a Dress Rehearsal and Success Built to Last, noted that where most people tackle situations with a goal of winning, others approach life with a goal of avoiding losing. Somewhere in life, they decided that they were incapable of winning and have lowered their expectations to merely not coming in last.
The groundwork for this pattern is often laid in childhood. For example, if a father raves over his young daughter’s drawing, she may have next colored on the wall, not recognizing that the wall is not an appropriate place to express artwork. After repeated incidents of getting in trouble in such a way, she may have drawn the conclusion that she couldn’t win. She didn’t like the pain of not winning, so she unconsciously adopted the strategy of trying not to lose in the future.
Not finishing what you start is one of many habits you fall back on when playing to not lose. The reason this has worked for you in the past is that if something is incomplete, it cannot be judged as not good enough. You can just say that it’s not “finished.”
Other ways we ‘play not to lose” include:
Playing the Judge. By being the judge, you never have to be the participant. By pointing out how imperfectly others are dancing, for instance, you get to avoid dancing yourself, which could open the door to you failing at the task.
Being perfect. With this approach, you attempt to not lose by doing everything as perfectly as you can… or at least by presenting a front that you are “perfect.” You never really relax or let your guard down. Instead, you overdo everything instead.
Becoming a “problem.” If you take on the role of the identified problem, others will need to stop and take care of you. This is a form of sabotage. Because others are directing their time and energy into helping you and are less likely to win themselves.
If you recognize that you’ve been playing not to lose, it’s time to shift the behaviour.
Embrace Feedback
Your decision to stop playing to win was most likely unconscious. You received feedback that you interpreted as being a condemnation of your abilities and who you are. An important step in shifting this pattern will be recognizing feedback for what it is: Information that tells you whether you are on course or off course.
When you get negative feedback – such as lack of results, little or no money, criticism, poor evaluation, inner conflict, and unhappiness – it’s a sign that you are moving away from your intended goal. Evaluate what you’re doing and make a course correction. When you receive positive feedback, such as praise, happiness, money and results, you’ll know that you are back on course.
Sharpen Your Focus
Another thing you can do, particularly if you’ve developed a habit of not completing what you start, is to train yourself to sharpen your focus. In the Achievers Focusing System, Les Hewitt, author of The Power of Focus, teaches his clients to focus their attention only on what they want to accomplish in the next three months. They select one goal in each area of their lives during that period.
Then, each week, they identify the three most important things that must be accomplished during that 7-day period to move them closer to their goals. A weekly check-in with your accountability partner helps to keep you accountable for achieving these tasks.
To download a free copy of the Achievers Focusing System 3-month planner, click here.
Chunk It Down
One final word of advice: As you begin to build a new habit of completing what you start, you may feel overwhelmed and lost about what to do next when you look at your list of goals. The best approach is to chunk down your goals into small, manageable steps.
Interview people who have already accomplished what you want to do and ask them to share all of the steps they took. If you can find a book or manual that guides you through the process, even better. Another approach is to imagine that it’s the future and you’ve already accomplished your goal. Start at the end and look backward. Notice what you had to do to get to where you are.
Capture all of these steps in a list or mind map. Then convert all of your to-do items into daily action items that can be plugged into your calendar. Start with the first item on your list, and when it’s finished, cross it off and tackle the next item. Before you know it, you’ll be completing projects and well on your way to playing to win.
Playing not to lose may protect you from the potential pain of negative feedback. But the cost is steep. Every time you fail to live up to the commitments you make to yourself and others, you undermine your self-confidence. Use the steps outlined in this article to identify why you’ve settled for simply not losing and to take the corrective action you need to complete what you start.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
The Top 3 Stars in the news, based on Roger James Hamilton’s Talent Dynamics System, continues with the series highlighting each of the Top 3 newsmakers in each category. Stars are not the same as simply Hollywood stars or rock stars, but entrepreneurs who follow the Star strategy of building their brand rather than products to attract their fortune.
Oprah Winfrey (USA) – Stars are finding that their traditional leverage channels are changing. Oprah Winfrey has rolled with the changes, shifting her focus from her Oprah Winfrey Show (which ended this year) to OWN – The Oprah Winfrey Network. This is the trend with many of the top Stars, who are extending their brand beyond the media which made them a household name. Oprah is now worth $2.7 billion, and is the richest self-made woman in the world.
Ashton Kutcher (USA) – A tireless self-promoter, Ashton Kutcher has leveraged his brand beyond his media celebrity to become a successful angel investor. He is pioneering a new genre of young stars who are no longer relying on the media for their paycheck. His self-promoted campaign to become the first twitter account with 1 million followers succeeded in giving his company, Katalyst Media, in the spotlight. He’s now an investor in tech start-ups Airbnb, Foursquare and Flip, and leverages his brand to attract extra attention to them. He has a net worth of over $140 million.
Al Gore (USA) – The US Political System is designed to favor Star profiles. Stars have reached the Presidency every year since Roosevelt (This is the opposite of China, that consistently puts Lord profiles in the top spot). What do Star politicians do when they leave politics? Al Gore has used his brand to continue to promote his ‘Inconvenient Truth’ mission of saving the environment. This is making him money as he goes. He heads climate change investments at famous VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is an Apple Board Director and Google Advisor, and has a net worth of over $100 million.“As the world economy moves deeper into Winter Season, the smart Star profile entrepreneurs are diversifying and seeking to ride waves in new media and new ways to leverage their brand. The collapse of old media channels with accelerate as Stars migrate to new media, bringing their audiences with them.” – Roger James Hamilton
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
The Top 3 Deal Makers in the news, based on Roger James Hamilton’s Talent Dynamics System, follow on within this series highlighting each of the Top 3 newsmakers in each category. We are seeing industries that have reached a saturation in their market increasingly turn to the Deal Makers to bring together old value to create something new, so we see this play out most prominently in the media industry, and in countries with emerging domestic markets, like India and China. Here are the Top 3.
Rupert Murdoch (USA) – Several years ago Roger Hamilton predicted that traditional print media would become increasingly sensationalist to try and retain readers, and when it fell, it would do so by going to far, creating news and scandal. Murdoch has been on the receiving end of that this year with the News International phone hacking scandal. Even so, he remains up in Forbes’ and Times’ list of the most influential people in the world. Simon Cowell (UK)– A product of the shift in power of media to the Deal Makers, Cowell has built a reality TV platform with the likes of American Idol, the X-Factor and Britain’s Got Talent. Originally a deal maker for pop bands, he has used this platform to attract talent, and he then makes the money by signing the best talent to his agencies after the public vote them in. He is now worth over £200 million.
Anil Ambani (INDIA) – Reflecting the boom in consumer industries in India, Ambani has made it big in finance and media, recently doing a $825 million deal to bring Steven Spielberg’s studio to India. He is now the fourth richest man in India with $8.8 billion, behind Azim Premi, Laksmi Mittal and his brother, Mukesh Ambani.
“What we can expect to see in the coming years is a shift of the deal makers to the new industries that are moving from summer to autumn. That means expect to hear of venture capitalists making it big in China and India, and brand name deal makers behind deals in media, communications, and public offerings in emerging countries.” – Roger James Hamilton
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
Here are the Top 3 Lords, based on Roger James Hamilton’s Talent Dynamics System. As the global economy is in winter, it is the Lord Profiles who are shining through, creating cash flow from their assets and managing their risk carefully.
Sergey Brin (USA) – Sergey is co-founder of Google together with his Mechanic profile partner, Larry Page. Sergey is 38 years old and worth $20 billion. Constantly analyzing data and detail, he has created in Google a perfect example of a Lord business, where it doesn’t need to own the asset (content) because it controls the most effective access to the asset and charges every time.
Lakshmi Mittal (UK) – Originally from India, Lakshmi has become the richest man in England through his steel empire, making him a modern-day Carnegie. Like Sergey, he makes his money by finding efficiencies and then dominates the industry through economies of scale. Today he is worth $38 billion.
Gina Rinehart (Australia) – Another favourite industry for Lords is the mining industry. Gina controls mines in Western Australia and as the Global Economy has gone into winter season, China has stocked up on ore, making Gina the first female billionaire in Australia and the richest Australian with $2 billion in wealth.
Next Roger Hamilton will cover the Top 3 Accumulators making the news today. In the same way that the most successful Lords are stepping into their flow as the markets move, the Accumulators have recently enjoyed their wave, rising to become the wealthiest in the world today.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
The Top 3 Supporters in the news, based on Roger James Hamilton’s Talent Dynamics System, continues with the series highlighting each of the Top 3 news makers in each category. Like waves in the ocean, every peak is balanced by a trough. Of as the Lords build their wealth in the ‘winter’ of the global economy, it is the Supporters, on the other side of the square, who need to bide their time or reorganized themselves in the trough. Here are the Top 3 Supporters in the news. Not surprisingly, they are each in the news as parts of companies that are either winter profile or that find themselves in the winter season.
Eric Schmidt (USA) – The CEO of Google for ten years, Schmidt finally stepped down this year to allow Larry Page, a Mechanic Profile, to prepare Google for the next big wave. Schmidt remains on as Executive Chairman, where he is spending much more time on compliance issues and answering to the Government. This is the fate of Supporter profiles when their company reaches this phase of business.
Meg Whitman (USA) – The previous CEO of eBay, brought in to build eBay into the world’s largest online auction platform, made several deal-making missteps, which led her to leave eBay in 2008. She then went on to spend over 10% of her $1.3 billion fortune on her bid to become Governor of California. Despite spending more than any other candidate, she still lost to Jerry Brown, a Star profile who simply shone brighter during the elections. She has again hit the news in September with her appointment as the new CEO of HP – a company that has gone into the depths of winter.
Howard Shultz (USA) – Shultz grew Starbucks into a global giant after taking it over from the founders, building a net worth of $1.1 billion. His book “Pour your heart into it” is a perfect leadership bible for Supporters. Since 2009, Starbucks has closed 900 stores in the US, and is now going through a period of consolidation, with more of a focus on global distribution deals to sell their coffee rather than new store openings.
“While we see high-profile Supporters in the USA taking on more of a lower profile as the Western World moves into winter, we will see more Supporter profile leaders in Asia step into the limelight as the top CEOs of the most profitable companies globally in the coming years.” – Roger James Hamilton
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
Although Horse Assisted Coaching is a relatively new learning modality it is a form of action based or experiential learning, which is certainly not new. The earliest beginnings of experiential learning are rooted in programs like Project Adventure and Outward Bound. Corporations around the world adopted outdoor experiential learning as evidenced by a famous segment in the 1990′s sitcom Murphy Brown. Its use began to diminish, as other popular concepts replaced them, from the emotional intelligence movement to strengths-based leadership. But like the timeless needs that corporations have for personal commitment, team collaboration and innovative risk-taking, experiential learning continues to thrive.
Tim Buividas of the Corporate Learning Institute (CLI) defines experiential learning as “activities that include any active learning experience which offers a chance to learn from failure, success and everything in between. It has to include the possibility of transferring learning back to the workplace. Examples of active learning or experiential learning activities include ropes courses, problem solving games, and many indoor events. Any indoor active learning session includes a learning cycle. For an experiential session to be effective, participants have to experience, review, discuss, and apply their experiences”, Buividas concluded.
Can experiential activities help your individual contributors, teams and leaders develop collaboration and problem solving skills? I absolutely believe that participating in a horse assisted coaching session will bring untold benefits to any organisation. In my experience team members leave more focused and committed having had in many cases true insights into what is happening both in their personal and professional life. These AHA (Accelerated Horse Awareness) moments cause a quantum shift in people allowing them to see things with a new perspective. Oftentimes a greater appreciation of the challenges faced by co-workers is observed resulting in a more collaberative environment when team members return to work.
Trust is one of the major new commodities of the environment we live in and horses are great at helping individuals develop this essential life skill. Let’s face it if we don’t trust the people we work with then we won’t achieve much and all our energy will be taken up focusing on negative things and protecting our position. How much more effective can an organisation can be when everyone trusts each other?
So if you are looking for a new innovative way to bring a different perspective to your leadership and team building trainings then please consider Horse Assisted Coaching. Its really effective, fun and the ROI is significant. Horse Assisted Coaching might not yet be in the mainstream of learning and development but it should be because in my experience most of the current offerings are not delivering on their promises and as Einstein said: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing time and time again and expecting different results”. So come on, try it and see what benefits your organisation can get, I’m sure you will be pleasantly surprised.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
