Being Brilliant Every Day

Being Brilliant Every Day is a weekly show full of insights into how to get control over all levels of your system using insights from neuroscience, psychology, medicine and over 15 years experience of working with Olympic athletes and CEOs of the largest companies in the world.

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Rethink Happiness

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Summary

Do you ever stop and wonder what is really making you happy. Many people are just following a blueprint of what society tells them will make them happy. Other times they have rules from a much younger age saying I must have this to be happy. How is that working out for you?  A lot of what people have traditionally pursued is not making them happy. It is time to think happiness. Realise that happiness does not come from the big house, the car, the fancy clothes nor does it come form what other people perceive you as. Happiness comes from within. 

It is time to break free of putting your happiness in the abstraction of the future and start living it in the present. From today on rethink your happiness. 

Please like and share with your friends because we all want to be happier. 

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5 Tips To Get Yourself Heard

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Summary

How do you really stand out and get yourself heard in a world with so many messages bombarding your audience. You have to consider these 5 things to set yourself up for the impact you want to have:

1. Who is your audience?

2. What is your desired outcome?

3. What do they need to know?

4. What is the best format?

5. How can you make it more engaging?

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Better Behaviours For  A Brilliant Life

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Summary

How often do you feel as though you aren’t making any difference to your life?

Einstein said that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing and expect a different result, therefore we must learn to change our behaviours in order to get a new result.

There are five steps to developing a new behaviour in order to get an excellent result.

1. The behaviour is a limitation, where you exhibit a significant negative behaviour that impedes any possible development or change. 2. The behaviour is underdeveloped, so you might practice the behaviour but not necessarily follow through with it 3. The behaviour is beginning to add value and you are starting to see slow but steady progress and change, but more consistency is needed for results 4. You consistently exhibit a behaviour and it has a high strength 5. Your behaviour has become a ‘strategic strength’ – you are seeing the results and promoting the behaviour to others

By progressing through these steps so that your behaviour becomes a strategic strength, you will then begin to see the effects of your behaviour and the significant changes to your life and to becoming your best self.

Transcript

If you want better results you have to change behaviours, you can’t do the same thing. It was Einstein that said the definition of insanity is to do the same thing and expect a different result or expect a different outcome – its just not going to happen.

Now in leadership and business they have been looking at what behaviours really affect stock price, what makes a brilliant leader but within each of those behaviours you can quantify how well that behaviour is showing up and there are five levels to that.

So I just wanted to share that with you because then you will be able to think about your own life and how your behaviours are showing up and whether there needs to be improvement or a focus in a different area.

If we take a standard example, a lot of people want to get in better shape, I myself that is something I am trying to do at the moment.

So I know there are different behaviours: I have got to try and eat right, I have got to get good rest, and I have got to go and workout. So one of the behaviours if I really want to be in better shape and get that outcome is to go to the gym. Now there are different levels I could be at in terms of that behaviour.

Level 1 we call a ‘Limitation’. So you exhibit some significant negative behaviour, which actually erodes that performance. So, if I was doing something that actually made it impossible for me to go to the gym and really stopped me in my tracks in being able to do that. So, say every evening I was going to bed way too late then getting up too late and not making time so I couldn’t actually have time to go to the gym, or I kept putting stuff in my diary when there was gym time, then that would be limiting because I am actually negatively impacting it.

Level 2, one step up from that is that it is ‘underdeveloped’. So you do use the behaviour but it is very rare. So if I knew I had to go to the gym 5 times a week for the level of shape I want to be in, and I was going maybe once a week showing up, or I showed up 5 times a week but I wasn’t really doing the workouts I was supposed to, you know Ill go and I was supposed to do 10 reps but I only did 7, or I was supposed to do 5 sets and I only did 3 – then that’s an underdeveloped behaviour so you are only at level 2 on this track in this framework for thinking about how well you are doing with the behaviours that are going to produce the result.

Then step number 3 is that you are starting to actually add value, starting to do things that make the behaviour at a basic level add some value to the outcome that you are trying to achieve. So if for example I am going 3-4 times a week then that behaviour is there in enough of a way that it is actually contributing to what outcome I am trying to achieve. But again still not at that consistent level. So its better than where it was when it was underdeveloped but it is still not quite at that level where it is in terms of a brilliant behaviour, so it is about increasing that consistency and that quality.

So you can have kind of a in between mode here of developing that strength. Level number 4 is if it is a strength, if it is a behaviour that really is enhancing that outcome. But there is a stage there in between of a developing strength. So you are starting to get into the routine of going 5 times a week to the gym in our example, then that might be a step between 3 and 4.

But the fourth level is to have it be a strength – so you consistently use a behaviour and it has a high impact. So this is where you are so good at demonstrating that behaviour in terms of business that it is starting to have an impact in other areas of the system. So you could think that in your own life if you are working in such a way on whatever result it is, so lets take the example of getting in better shape – if you are being so good with your nutrition or so good with your exercise that other people are actually starting to notice it then that is a real strength because it shows that it is working for you and it lets you start to effect others, your friends might be like wait what are you doing? How are you losing all this weight? How are you getting in such good shape? So you are actually impacting the system you have. Or in your family if you start a new programme to manage your emotions better and other people do it because of you, you start to have little impacts in your circles and the only reason that is important is because it is nice that it is making a difference but it also helps you quantify where you are in terms of the behaviour because that only shows up when you are doing it and getting the result for yourself.

Then level 5, where you are at the very top, is it becomes a strategic strength. So this is where you consistently are using the behaviour and where it is high impact and you are actually actively promoting it to other people. So if you are in a business environment you will be building systems to demonstrate that behaviour. In your own life you could be almost educating your friends and proactively saying ‘Oh try this - I have had these great results for me, how about you try this?” and making it simple for them to try it – getting them along to the gym with you and sharing a new sleep routine that’s really helped you with your resting, that’s when it becomes a strategic strength.

So how do you apply this in your own life?

Well, what you can do is you can write down your outcome, start listing the important behaviours that you know contribute to that outcome, and then just make a little table 1-5, and just tick where you are in terms of each behaviour, what level do you think you are at.

So we will put a link to a download where you can actually have a sheet you can download and you will be able to do this and track in terms of how you are doing with your own outcome, because if you have got all levels 5s or 4s you will be moving much more rapidly towards your outcome and getting the results you want because you have got the behaviours in place, than if you look and you see you are only at level 1 or 2.

The other thing you can do is you can get that sheet, fill in the outcome and actually ask someone else to rate the behaviour. Now, you have got to be careful with this of choosing the right person, but this will give you a much more objective view of how you are doing to get that result.

Now if you can you get somebody who has already got the result you want, because then you get great feedback about are you doing the things you need to do to get the outcomes your want.

So I could give my sheet to somebody who has got the result I want of being in really good shape, and they could actually tick how they think I am doing when I tell them what I have been doing and then Ill get much better feedback.

And they may also add new behaviours that you haven’t even thought of.

So if you do that and you get your behaviours up to the levels 4 and 5, you truly can be brilliant every single day.

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How To Be More Present

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Summary

Often we spend a lot of time worrying about what has been and what could be, about the expectation that you have to be something at a certain point in the future, or that you could have done something differently in the past.

Really, there is nothing we can now do to change the past, and the most we can do for the future is to be our best selves.

Worrying about the future or the past leaves the present moment forgotten, so in order to be more present we must let go of the past and the expectations of the future.

By letting go of the past and future expectations, we also find we can connect better with a broader range of people.

If we can hold the present moment lightly, we can be more open to ambiguity and change, and we can then allow new possibilities and opportunities to emerge.

Transcript

How much time do you waste every day worrying about what you should have done or being anxious about what might happen?

This video is about being present in the moment and appreciating what is here right now – being mindful of the moment.

We spend a lot of time in our lives often worrying about what we should have done, or wondering ‘what if this had happened’ but if we let go of the past we can start to be more present.

We can also spend a lot of time worrying about the future – about getting it right, about what we must do or ought to be.

So the alternative to that is to stay in the present moment and to hold that present moment lightly. Our ideas, our beliefs, our energy, even our sense of self can all change at any moment, so to stay in the present moment we have to recognise that we grow and change - rather than to hold it tightly we have to hold it lightly.

If you can do that you can allow ambiguity to exist and new possibilities can emerge. I have to say its quite a relief not to have to have the answer!

So in my life, one of the things that has really helped me to do that is to get past a bit of feedback I had. I was told I had to have more gravitas. To me, gravitas felt weighty, it slowed me down. But when I shifted that to being present, suddenly everything became freer. There wasn’t a weight of expectation I had to be something. And what I find now is I really notice where people are in their moments because I am staying in mine, which means I can connect with a much broader range of people and I can allow their perspectives to be expressed and combined with mine. So finally I found a place where I could be at ease with myself.

If you’d like to have that, the question you have to think about is what you can let go of, or hold more lightly?

And that’s how you can be more in the moment.

Leave a comment below and let us know what you are going to let go of or hold more lightly.

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How To Build Trust

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Summary

Relationships are some of the hardest things we do, and the key to relationships is trust and this can be tricky to build.

However by understanding what trust is built upon, this can increase and improve the relationships we have.

The key to relationships is trust and the centre part of trust is understanding, but what we must understand is the four specific elements to trust itself.

The four elements are:

Connection: understanding the importance of regularly connecting the other person in a way that is meaningful to them

Understanding the other persons motives or mindset: by doing this you can get an idea of who they are and what makes them tick

Delivery: for you to be trusted it has got to be built on you consistently delivering on what you promise in a way that matters to the other person

Style: Although we all have individual style in how we react and deal with various things in life, by explicitly discussing your different styles you can gain further understanding on each other and instead of clashing, the different styles can compliment one another

Through developing and truly understanding these four elements of trust, you can have stronger more trusting relationships within your life.

Transcript

For a brilliant life, an important part of that is to have brilliant relationships. The key part of relationships is trust, and the centre part of trust is understanding.

But really understanding what?

It is such an important part of life but we don’t give it that much focus.

Trust is built, or broken, through the developing the understanding of four specific elements.

The first is ‘Connection’

Understanding the importance of regularly connecting to the other person in a way that is meaningful to them. What you can do here is you can focus on regular contact, what are the shared experiences you have, how do you create fun and positive events or social environments where you can build trust with the person. Because this gives time and space to build empathy, so that is a core pillar of trust.

The second pillar is you need to understand their motives or mind set

By understand another persons mindset or motives, you get an idea of who they are, you start to tune in to what their values are, if you understand their upbringing you will trust them much more because you know why they react and respond in the ways they do so it is much more predictable and you can have much more understanding and connection if you have that second pillar.

Here what you can do to really learn those things is you have to tune in more, you have to listen to them more intently, you have to actually ask them what happened as a child, what was their upbringing, what were their life experiences? It is really about getting to know them on a personal level, and it comes down to understand what makes them tick.

Even if you do that and you have got the time and connection and you understand the motives, there is the third pillar, which is about:

Delivery

This is where your responsibility really comes in. For you to be trusted, it has got to be built on consistently delivering on what you promise in a way that matters to the other person. You have got to focus on being reliable, on doing what you say you are going to do – how obvious is it that trust gets eroded when you say you are going to do something but then you don’t. Just think back to experiences in your life when someone has promised you something and then they have gone back on that promise, how much trust did it erode in you?

It is also about going out of your way, being available, doing that extra thing that you don’t have to do, but you do it because you want to build this relationship, you want to increase the trust.

Now, those three pillars can be there but then the fourth one is where a lot of people can slip up on. Just because you have got those other things it doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to have trust because the fourth pillar is about:

Style

If you have a different style to what the other person has, then even when you deliver on those other three pillars, that can cause friction and it can cause problems with the trust unless it is explicitly brought to the table.

So you can think about what choices and behaviors can get in the way of building trust with a person?

It is kind of like when you get personality clashes, people may want the same thing, understand the same thing, know the same person, but if they have two very different ways of approaching the same problem or the same topic, then it can feel like the trust is getting eroded because it feels very different.

There are ways to over come this.

The first thing is that you can explicitly talk about it. If you do that and surface those differences in style, then what you can start to do is you can start to value the difference.

How boring would life be and the planet be if everybody was the same and all preferences were the same, it is these differences that really make it an exciting, wonderful place to be, and that’s what makes it possible for you to focus and be passionate about the things you are passionate about.

If everyone was the same we would all have to be generalists and we would all be half good at things rather than really doing the things we enjoy.

By us having a style difference that means they could actually compliment you. Noticing how you do act differently to them and then dealing and managing that conflict can make something much more powerful and can completely transform the levels of trust you have.

But it is important to realize that building trust requires attention to all of these elements. You cant just do one piece and expect there to be trust because you may have friction in the other areas.

So the question is, what ingredients need attention?

Where have you been focusing your efforts?

Have you been giving enough time to the person you want to build trust with?

Do they understand your motives? Do you understand theirs?

How reliable are you being?

Can you work through these style differences?

If you ask yourselves these questions, and then surface the answers with the person you want to build and deepen trust with, it can completely transform your understand of one another which means you will deepen the trust, have better relationships and if you do that that will transform life because relationships are some of the hardest things you do.

So if you get that right, then you truly can be brilliant every day.

Please comment and share because ... well it would be awesome. 

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How To Communicate Better

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Summary

Communication is key to great relationships, but many people are not aware of how to communicate effectively.

There are two key elements to communication:

1. Reception: Receiving the message and understanding and hearing what the other person is really saying 2. Transmission: Transmitting the message clearly so that you can get your point across clearly without miscommunication occurring

While we are often taught from a young age how to transmit a message clearly, through grammar, spelling, punctuation, we often are not taught or even given feedback on how we understand a message.

Reception can be difficult as we often have many other things going around in our heads whilst we are listening to someone talking – so we may be agreeing or disagreeing with them, or thinking about that thing we have to do, or wondering if we have milk at home. These distractions prevent us from truly hearing and understanding the other person.

In order to be a better communicator, we must allow ourselves the time to give the other person the space and attention in order to truly hear what they are saying. In addition, we must also remember that transmission is equally important to allow others to effectively receive our message.

Transcript

The core to great relationships is about communication.

You have got to have a relationship where two people understand one another and in order to do that you actually have to talk to one another, you have to communicate. There are two parts to communication - there is the transmission side and then there is the reception side.

But what is very interesting is we are taught how to transmit, we are taught how to speak properly. This comes from our parents where they correct our grammar, our spelling, our pronunciation. It even comes from our teachers and bosses when we go into the working environment.

So when you are growing up you learn that is not about ‘more better’ its just ‘better’, yes ‘ed’ is past tense and ‘s’ is plural, you learn those things so you are taught and constantly improving on your ability to transmit a message that side of the communication because you are getting all this feedback.

But then what about the other side, what about reception?

Well how often do you get feedback on how well you actually listen and receive the message? We get told to listen, but we rarely – if ever – are shown how to listen.

So you never get it when you are younger, at least I didn’t, of ‘Okay I am going to tell you something and I want you to play back that message so that I know you really listened and understood’.

What that means is we don’t learn to listen, we think of listening as waiting for our turn to speak, and actually when we are supposed to be listening we are thinking about what we are going to transmit and what we are going to say next.

I know I have been guilty of this – have you ever experienced this?

So what happens is we have all these different things that can get in the way of our listening so we have got the filters that are going on while someone is saying something, so do we agree or disagree with them, have we heard what they have said before or is it something new?

There is also so many distractions – we are thinking about our shopping list or thinking about that thing we posted earlier online or our phones buzzing at us, all this mental noise going on – while we should be listening that is going on in our heads and you are not really hearing the person that is transmitting to us.

So what is the impact of that poor reception?

You can see this in social situations – you get these conversations where no one is actually listening to each other. So someone says one thing that then triggers a thought in someone else and then someone else reacts to it.

If someone says ‘Last night I had to take my dog to the vet’, and someone goes ‘Oh I’ve got a dog, I took them for a walk last night’, and then someone else stampedes to the next point about their dog or that they don’t like dogs and no-one is actually moving the conversation forward about something shared.  

We call this ‘popcorning’ – so one point goes of here, one goes of here, one goes of here and when you are trying to have a deep conversation and connection, this actually erodes that completely because there is no shared understanding. So that means there is very poor connection.

So the question is: What gets in the way when you are receiving and when others are transmitting to you? What do you do to contribute to the poor quality of conversation by not receiving, but what can do you do to change that?

Now you are aware of this phenomena what can you do?

First thing is being awareness, but then just giving a bit more space and attention to really receive their message.

What do you need to let go of in your head? Do you need to let go of some filters about whether you have heard it before and just appreciate what they are telling you and why they are telling you it? Do you really need to turn on your reception mode, and if you can do that you will be able to pick up on things much more clear and much deeper, and people will feel really heard by you so you will be much more influential to them. When it Is your turn to speak you will actually have much greater impact.

And if you do that you truly can be brilliant every single day.

Life is about relationships and communication is so important to those. If more people were better communicators relationships would be better. Share this.

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How To Discover Your Purpose

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Summary

Many people have often wondered what their life means and have wandered a bit lost trying to figure out where they are going and what they are doing. If this is you, now is the time to understand that you don’t have to wander aimlessly and that your purpose is already there – you simply have to see it.

To truly know and understand your purpose in life is much like having an ‘internal compass’ that is steering your life in the right direction.

Your internal compass appears at two points in your life: • Key choice points, where your intuition is largely at play • Peak moments, where you are at your best

By becoming aware of what choices we make in those key choice points and how we are performing during those peak moments, we can then understand what our true purpose is, and what adaptations we must make in order to be on the right track to fulfil our purpose.

Transcript

Have you ever wondered what your life means? Felt a bit lost and wondered where it’s going? I think most people have experienced that at some point in their life. I certainly remember a time in my career when I was working really hard and didn’t really know what for.

So imagine what it would be like to have a sense of your internal compass, your ‘true north’ if you like – something you could steer your life by. So this is really your personal purpose.

The good news is it is already present in your life.  It shows up in two ways:

First of all, at the key choice points in your life – those major decisions where we have a gut feeling about what’s right, and its quite hard to explain why we know that. So, we make the choice. And we move on. In those moments our purpose is guiding us.

The other time your purpose shows up really clearly is in those peak moments in your life, in times when you’re at your best - The peak experiences.

So for me one thing I really enjoy is reading science fiction, and that’s all about evolution and the potential for change in the world. So ill say a bit more about my own purpose and why that connects in a moment.

So if you’re going to find your own purpose, it can be truly transformational. It can guide important decisions in your life, and give you loads more energy around those choices – and underneath that all a much more stable sense of who you are.

So my purpose, which I hinted at earlier, is I catalyse evolution. Catalyse because I like to provoke change and cause a reaction and evolution because I like to work with what’s already occurring, what’s natural, and create the conditions for change. Ironically I did a degree in zoology, so it came around and became useful eventually.

So here are a couple of questions to get you thinking about your own purpose: What gives your life meaning? What clues are there at the key choice points in your life and at the peak moments?

So that’s how to discover your purpose.

Leave a comment below and let us know what you find out. 

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Managing Feelings In A Relationship

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Summary

Managing your emotions can be extremely complex especially when you factor in another person you really care about. However, if you want brilliant relationships you have to learn to deal with them in a way that they do not become toxic to your relationship.

The first step is taking ownership. Understanding that no matter how badly someone is behaviour from your perspective they are not the ones making you angry, annoyed or frustrated. When they forget to put the toilet seat down for the 20th time it's not like that comes with a syringe of cortisol being injected into your blood stream making you annoyed. You create the emotion.

The moment you accept this is perhaps the most transformation moment of your life because then no one can ever make you feel anything you don;t want to feel. You get the control back because you realise if you are doing it to yourself then you are the one the can undo it.  

Please share with friends and family so you can deepen your relationships.

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Brilliant Ideas Every Day

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Transcript

Imagine you could have brilliant ideas every day. Imagine you could just snap your fingers and you had that idea that transformed that meeting that all your team got behind, the answer to the question on the exam, the strategy that was going to beat the competition. Now, when was the last time you had an idea, that brilliant idea just cut through everything? But more interestingly, the question is, where was that idea two seconds before you had it? Was it in your left foot? Was it in your hand? Was it in your shoe? In your handbag? I mean where was that idea? Why did it come through then so that it was something you could grasp, and something you said, “Guys, let’s do this. This is the way forward.”

Well, if you’ve seen our “How to Have More Energy” video, you know about the importance heart rate variability has on energy, but it’s also critical to brain function. What research shows is that the more heart rate variability you have, the better regulation you have of both cognitive and emotional function. So that’s one way to be smarter.

But at Complete Coherence, we’ve been working with athletes and executives for the last 15 years, and we’ve got an extensive database that, as we’ve been doing research into, actually it’s not just about how much you have, it’s also to do with the pattern. And the pattern is critical, so it holds the electrical signal going, the pattern going from your heart to your brain.

And so, just let me take a step back for a second about why this pattern is so important. There was this famous neuroscientist called Karl Pribram, and he was interested in how the brain stored memory. And so he did some experiments on mice where he would teach them how to run a maze, and then he would start chopping pieces of their brain off or inhibiting it. And then what he found is that he could get rid of most of the brain, but they could still remember how to run the maze.

So he came up with this theory called the Holographic Brain Theory that said that he thinks the brain stores memory in a similar way that holograms do. So the way holograms store data is, if you’ve got a hologram of an apple, and you break it in half, you don’t get two halves of an apple. You actually get two smaller apples. Because there’s enough of the information stored in what’s called the interference patterns to be able to recreate that image.

And so the brain works in a similar way, but just like in hologram, if you shine a light bulb through a hologram, you get this kind of fuzzy picture of an apple. It’s kind of diffused. Whereas if you shine a laser beam through it, what you get is this beautiful, clear, crisp image of the apple.

And so the brain works in a similar way. That pattern that is going from the heart into the brain, if you’ve got this chaotic, always changing heart rate signal, this electrical signal, you get this diffused activation in the prefrontal cortex. Whereas if you put the coherent sign wave electrical signal through it, it’s like putting the laser beam through, it creates a much more focused activation in the prefrontal cortex, and that’s where the idea comes from.

So if you really want to be smarter, it’s time to get to grips with your heart rate variability, to get controlling it, because that is what will make the real difference. And if you do that, that’s how you can be brilliant every single day.

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How To Have More Energy

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Summary

How to have more energy is something most people would like to know the answer to but many people don't really understand the question. This isn't your usual advice about sleep and eating right. To have more energy you need to understand what energy really is and how it is quantified in the human body. The best proxy is heart rate variability because it is a measure of the body’s ability to react to environmental stimulus, and is the biggest predictor of all-cause mortality.

If you have chaotic heart rate variability it is the same as driving a car stopping and starting and constantly changing the speed. You will burn more fuel and have less energy. Conversely if you are cruising along you will be more efficient. The same is true of your Heart Rate Variability. Turning it into a coherent pattern will improve your energy.

The fastest way to transform your heart rate variability from chaos to coherence, and therefore how to have more energy is through breathing rhythmically.

Transcript

How do you have more energy? The first thing is, you need to know what energy is. Now this isn’t some question, like some ethereal question about energy in the universe. This is scientifically, what is your energy and where does it come from? And so, we have all this physiological energy going on in our bodies. So we think about energy in terms of how well we use that energy. How efficiently is our body processing that energy?

You can almost think about it in terms of how your car burns fuel, or gas, if you’re from the states. So when you’re driving, and you’re in maybe the city or the town, and you’re going 20 miles an hour, and then you might brake and then accelerate up to 30 and then 40, You using a lot more miles a gallon than if you’re just on the highway cruising at 50 miles an hour. Because it’s that stop, start, stop, start, stop, start. Well it turns out, the human body, it’s pretty similar.

One of the best determinants of our energy, our biological energy, is called our heart rate variability. Now, heart rate variability, what that is you look at your heart beating, and you see that heartbeat and it has the little spike that goes ping, ping, ping, before it goes buuuuh, as it always does in those hospital shows. But those pings, they come at different times.

So one might come at—the time between one and another might come at .75 of a second, and the next one might come at .83 of a second, then .92 of a second, or .96, and that is varying. And if you take that time and then average it out to what it would be over a minute, if you kept that for a minute, you get different heartbeats per minute, and that variance which is always changing is heartrate variability. And because it’s always changing, it’s just like the way your car uses fuel.

So if it’s changing and all of a sudden you get two heartbeats right next to each other and you average that out over a minute, well that’s your heart rate has gone up in between those two beats, from 60 beats per minute up to 120. And then if it goes back there’s a long pause and it goes back down to 40, then it goes up to 80, and there’s loads of this variance and going all over the place. You’re going to be burning more energy.

So if you can smooth that out and not get these great big pings and spikes and troughs all over the place, then that’s how you can have more energy. And the way you do that, is you need to get something to get conscious control over. It’s not that you’re going to have to be a yogic master, we’re talking about controlling the electrical signal that goes from your heart around your body, But you don’t have to sit in a cave for 20 years figuring out how to do this. You need to know exactly what to do with your breathing.

So there’s a very specific skill with lots of different steps to it, but the number one thing you can do to regulate your heart rate variability, is to breathe rhythmically. Because breathing rhythmically will allow you to set a specific pattern in your heart rate variability, so it makes the distance between them more regular. And then, to develop a deeper understanding and better control over this, we’re actually going to leave you a link at the end of the video so you can show, you can learn how to get real control over this so that you have even greater energy.

The number one thing that will make the biggest difference is controlling the rhythm of your breathing. So just choose the rhythm whether it’s five second in, five seconds out, six seconds in, six seconds out, start to breathe rhythmically. You will improve your HRV, which is a great determiner of your energy levels, so you will have more energy. And with more energy, you’ll have more capacity to do more of things that will make a difference, and to be more brilliant every single day.

Please like and share with friends because we could all use a little more energy

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Building Blocks of Brilliance

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Summary

There is a big difference between horizontal learning (skills, knowledge and experience) and vertical development. Think of learning as adding more apps and development as upgrading the operating system.

Just as we cannot skip iterations in technology it is the same with human beings and their levels of development. Within each line of development there is a specific sequence of stages that people go through with ever increasing sophistication. This is because each level transcends and includes all of the previous ones.

Knowing which level you are at and what is next can help accelerate your development because it helps to make it an object of your consciousness. Fundamentally development is about making what you have been subject to and making it an object.

This episodes explores those building blocks of brilliance we call levels.

Transcripts

This week I want to talk about the building blocks of brilliance. And what I really mean by building blocks, in other words you could say levels or stages kind of, how do you build up this person, this fuller person, human being that really is brilliant in all these different lines, as we’ve discussed before. So you can develop in different ways, in your values, in your maturity, in your physical energy. But within one of those lines, you actually have to go through building blocks. You have to start at this level, and you have to go to the next one, and the next one.

And if you look at psychology, or look at child development, or adult development, you’ll see that there are specific things that we go through. So we start at this level, and then there’s a sequence. You can always expect that this one comes next, and then there’s one after that, and one after that. And you don’t just jump from here to there.

It’s like when I started playing tennis, you don’t show up and all the sudden you can hit; the forehand, the backhand, the kick serve, and everything. You have to start—ok first you’d learn how to throw the ball up, then you learn how to hit slides, then you might learn how to do the fancier kick serve. And you’ll have it the same in your life. Whatever skills or other experiences you’ve developed, you’ll have gone through specific stages to getting a greater level of mastery in each of those. And that’s all levels up.

A clear example of this is in children. At first, when they’re first born you know, children, they’re just there. Their brain hasn’t been fully formed yet, but you know they’re going to go through a specific sequence of stages. First of all, you have the physical self. You know you’ll see babies putting their toes in their mouth or biting their fingers. They’re literally trying to figure out where their body ends, and where the world outside of them begins. So they’ll bite their finger and they’ll realize, “Ooh yeah, that’s me,” because they feel the pain. Then they’ll bite the table and they don’t feel anything, “Oh ok, table’s not me.” So they get the physical self.

Then maybe around two years old, you get this beautiful moment where the emotional emerges. So for the first time, the child looks in the mirror, and before that time, they don’t realize that that’s them. But all of the sudden, there’s this moment when they see it and they go, “Oh wait, that’s me. I move my right arm and they move their right—that must be me.” They’ve developed their emotional self. But the problem here is that they don’t understand that their emotions are not the world’s emotions. So if they’re hungry, they’re crying and, “Why aren’t you crying? We’re hungry, we need food. You should be hungry too.” So that is a particular sequence. No baby will ever go to the emotional self before it gets to the physical self, so that is another level.

And beyond that, they then start going into the concrete self. They start to realize there are specific roles and rules. You know they start playing these games like cowboys and Indians, or you play nurse, I’ll play the doctor. And unfortunately you see this in businesses as well you know. People don’t develop that far so you play CEO, I’ll play CFO. And so that’s why sometimes you see leaders that might be 40 on the outside, but are only 14 on the inside.

And so these are what the building blocks are of your own brilliance. So in these different lines that you want to develop, whether it’s your spiritual lines, your values, your maturity, there are these stages that human beings go through. And we don’t skip a stage or a level. We go through that specific structure, and knowing that path can help you know what the next step is. It gives you more of a chance to really know what it should feel like, and so that allows you to then develop and accelerate quicker. Because really, all development is when you’re able to make what used to be subject to you, object. So when you’re currently at one level, you’re kind of in it, and everything’s going on around you, whether that’s your values, or your maturity, you don’t see it because it is you. But then as you develop up to the next level, you can actually notice that because you can objectify it, you can notice what were the limitations, what were the choices you made, because of that particular level of development you were at.

So the question is if we know that these structures are in place and these levels to go through, what is your next level? And what can you commit to that can help you in your journey? So you know, there is a next step for you in whatever line you choose, of where you can move forward and you can accelerate your development, by choosing what is the next level that you’re going to go to. And instead of just thinking about this, leave us a comment. Put it down in writing what that is, and make a commitment to it, because that will really help you have more of a commitment to making that transition up to that new level. And in doing that you’ll increase your perspective or your values or whatever line you’ve particularly chose. And that means you’re on your way to being more of what is possible for you and that means you’re on your way to being brilliant every single day.

Please share with friends and followers and leave us a comment on the youtube video.

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Unlocking Your Potential

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Summary

If we asked you to rate yourself on how good you were on a scale of 0-100. 0 Being you are just getting started and 100 you are as good as you are ever going to be. What would be your answer? Most people say around 75. Our belief ... 9.

How dare we say that? You misunderstand. We are not saying what you are doing is not already amazing. But what we are saying is there is so much more awesomeness there could be another 90% still to come.

Unlocking your potential is about knowing which lines of development are most important for you to focus on in the particular domain you wish to achieve success. Without a clear distinction of lines of development it is hard to focus your development and track your progress.

That's what this week episode is about. Where we unpack what are the 8 lines we've identified as most important to high performance and success in working with leaders and athletes for over 15 years.

After watching the video leave a comment below about which line of development you will focus on in the next 30 days.

Click here to watch on youtube and leave a comment with your development focus. 

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How Do You Make People Feel?

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Summary

Most people struggle to know how they feel, never mind the impact they are having on other people. In most cases it is only when we can see someone experiencing a very intense emotion such as anger that we pick up on how they are feeling.

However, being able to tune in at a much more subtle level to the emotions of other can have some profound impacts from being able to connect more deeply, have greater influence, build trust faster and many other benefits. It is an important part to building really fantastic relationships.

But beyond just being able to sense what someone else feels, can you change it. Well the truth should be no because as we've said in other videos you are in complete control over your feelings. However, other people may not have that level of control yet or you can certainly make it easier for them to feel a certain way by how you are being.

How do you make people feel? Inspired, irritated, drained, soothed? It's time to start thinking about it and that's what this episode is all about.

Like and share with your friends because they might just think about how they make you feel if they watch it. 

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How To Control Your Feelings

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Summary

Learning how to control feelings is perhaps the most important skill you can ever develop in your life. If you learn to regulate your own emotional state it means no one or thing can ever make you feel a way you don't want to feel. Imagine if worry was optional. Joy was something you put on in the morning like your favourite t-shirt.

This ability is possible for us all, but it takes practice. Developing this skill will be the biggest leap forward in your personal development journey.

In order to do it. First you must become aware of your current emotional state. Then you must develop a repertoire of positive emotional states that are familiar to you. There is no point trying to shift your state if you have nothing good to shift into.

Once you can do this you have complete control over how you experience life, no matter what comes your way.

Transcript

Should you control your feelings?

It was a question that came up at a conference we were speaking at recently, of isn't it a bit manipulative to actually control your feelings?

Well, actually it is just yourself that is having these feelings.  You are not really manipulating or trying to change anything.  It is not about trying to be deceitful or anything like this.

It is really just about giving yourself choices.  Just as the Dalai Lama says, like does he ever get angry?  He says, “Yes, I do of course.  I am human”.  It is not normal for a human being not to get angry.  The point is he doesn't stay there.  It might be useful to get angry for awhile.  It might must happen.  Then he can shift himself to a different feeling.

Really, it is absolutely critical to be able to control feelings, because life is not about things.  Like is about experiences.  Now, so many people get caught up in a bigger house, the faster car, or the yacht, or the sailboat.  What ever it is.

Those things are all just trying to move towards getting a feeling.  You know a feeling a sense of security.  Because I have got this house, which means I am safe.  My mortgage is paid off, or it could be a sense of excitement, or whatever it is that feeling is trying to do.  Life is really about not the things.  It is about the experiences and then it is about the feelings that are created from those experiences.  

The control really is not about manipulation.  It is just about giving yourself more choices to have a deeper more fulfilling, happy, joyful, or whatever emotion you want, LIFE.  

Because once you get control over that then you can choose how you show up.  How you interact with other people.  

How do you start?  How do you really get control?

First thing is, you have got to become aware.  You have to start noticing the feelings

Now, one thing we have done to help you with this is we have created an App called the Universe of Emotions.  Which can really help you start to explore what is it that you are feeling.  Then beyond just what it is that you are feeling is how do you then actually go from a point of okay I am on this emotional planet when there is a strong gravity.  How do I start shifting myself off it?  

The first thing is you have to decide that okay I want to move myself.  It is not good to be on this planet.  If you are on a very negative emotion.  Negative emotions are really the highway to disease.  They start breaking down the body.  They start effecting your immune system.  Not being able to fight back.  That should always be number one.

How is it helping in terms of health?  Also, how effective are you on this negative planet?  I mean to solving the problem.  I mean if you are in a state of annoyed or frustrated.  How much is that helping you overcome the problem?  Whereas if you shifted yourself to a determined or passionate or energized.  You could probably overcome that problem much easier. How do you do that?  Well, you have to start building a repertoire of positive emotions that you are familiar with.  One way you can do that is just to start to think back to times where you felt these positive emotions and start to notice what the sensations were I your body.

Even better than that.  In the moment try and notice when you are feeling a certain emotion.  If it is a positive one start noticing.  Start writing things down.  Then you will have almost these emotional jackets or emotional planets that you know what they look and feel like.  That is when you are on another emotional time that you want to shift.  You will know what to step into.

If you don't have any of those things already prepared it is very hard to move yourself.  If you want to just stop and start inducing that positive emotion.  Just like you might do other things.  Like going for a walk or phoning a friend.  You know having something to eat to change your emotional state.  Just see if you can do it just by you trying to trigger it out of choice.  If you can learn to do that then you will get control over what is driving you.  What is driving your feelings, your thinking, and therefore your behaviours and the results you are getting.  

If you do that, you truly can be brilliant everyday.

Please like and share with your friends. 

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Being A Brilliant Leader

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Summary

The most brilliant leaders in the world realise that there are four main areas that they need to focus on in order to deliver outstanding results. Unfortunately most leaders spend 80-95% of their time focused solely on commercial performance in the top left hand quadrant and do not build a system around themselves that frees themselves up of the tyranny of the day to day. They never make the transition from “manager” (top left) to “leader” (all four quadrants). Our approach is to help individual, teams and organisations to become brilliant in all four quadrants.

This means a greater emphasis on people leadership and personal performance. Great leadership really starts from your own sense of self and personal purpose. That's why the best leaders focus on improving themselves first.

Transcript

How To Be A Brilliant Leader.

Leadership is absolutely critical in moving us towards a future to this vision that you have.  Because you either have to lead yourself or you have to lead other people.  Build the team around you, energize them, get them behind you, and really pushing towards this vision that you see in your mind.

How do you be really brilliant at that?  What has made the fantastic leaders over the years?  The ones that have started a movement.  Whether it be technology, in politics, in a social movement.  Why do some people get the followers and create the momentum in the movement that changes the world?  How do you do that?  What does it really take to be a brilliant leader?

We have been thinking about this question at Complete Coherence for the last 15 years.  In working with over 500 CEOs and testing our leadership model on them.  We have been able to figure out what are the parts that you have to include in leadership?  What do you need to focus on?  What are most people focused on that you need to focus on?  Then what are the other additional pieces that really take you to the next level in terms of being a leader?

The first thing is you have to do what other leaders do.  You have to keep your eye on the day-to-day.  The KPIs, or what we may cal ... 

Commercial Performance- “IT”

The day-to-day activities.  You know in your life whether is it just you know if you are leading yourself at school, it's making the grades.  Whether it is in business, keeping track of the numbers.  What's the revenue that is coming in?  Making sure the team is all working, but just the smaller day-to-day activities.  

That is one part.  That is where most leaders spend 90 to 95 percent of their time.  

Some of the better ones.  They start to move into what we call ...

Market Leadership- “ITS”

This is where you are starting to set the vision.  You are starting to think about differentiating your strategy.  Having more of a purpose for the company.  You know how do you get the meetings and the governance really humming?  What's the ambition?  What's the number in your mind you know that the company wants to hit in terms of revenue?

Not the day-to-day where is it coming from, but what's our target for 5 years?  That's kind of different from the vision.  Because the vision is just this big idea about where the company could go.  What would the world look like if you achieved you know the ambition?  What would the world look like?  How would it have changed?  Setting those things up that takes a different quality of leader.  It takes more foresight.  Looking to the future of what is possible, and actually setting the strategy of what's going to take you there.  

Most leaders, They really might only spend 5 percent of their time here.  They are just stuck in that top left hand quadrant of the Commercial Performance where they are just focused on the day-to-day.

To be a really brilliant leader you have to go beyond just these two things.  Because there is something driving those two things.  Whether they are actually achievable or not.  You have the Commercial Performance in the top left hand quadrant of our model.  You have Market Leadership in the top right hand quadrant.  Then in the lower right hand quadrant we say 

People Leadership- “WE”

 If you have the leader at the center of this model it is almost they are looking over their right shoulder.  

You have got to be thinking about the team building.  The team to be a really high performing team, working on the culture, working with the people around you to really make things hum and move faster.

If you are in your own business the team is obvious, but if you are just doing your own thing.  If you are say an athlete or you are trying to do things in academics, or you are sole trader at the moment.  You still have a team, just in a different light, or a different environment.  You have your suppliers, or you have your teachers, or your professors.

You have to figure out how that is all working.  How do they all link together, and are they supporting one another.  

Then the final piece where very few leaders focus is on their own ...

Personal Performance- “I”

Most people just get up and think okay I am going to get my work done today.  I am going to get on with everything.  Who is actually doing that work?  Who has got the energy to do that work?  It's you.  You have to have a critical focus on how you are showing up.  What is your energy level like?  How are you driven by your own personal purpose?  How good is the quality of your thinking?

This is really the quadrant, we call it the “I quadrant”.  Thinking about yourself.  Because yourself is what creates the team, what sets the vision, and what does the day-to-day activities.  Leadership, Brilliant Leadership really starts from the “I quadrant”.  

If you look at all of the Brilliant Leaders you will see this.  Martin Luther King, probably one of the most famous speeches, leadership speeches ever.  How did he start?  He said, “I have a dream”.  That's the bit that is really remembered.  That we Americans.  Then he went from the I into the team and then he set his vision for what was going to change.  

If you want to be a really Brilliant Leader, you have got to focus on all four, all those dimensions of leadership.  Where to start, is to start to focus on how you are showing up, and how you are really making a difference?

Leave us a comment, just letting us know who you look up to and who inspires you.  I bet you will find that they have a very strong sense of their own personal self, and their own personal purpose.  That's what you really latched on to.

If you do that in your own leadership, then you truly can be a Brilliant Leader every day.  

Please like, comment and share with your friends. We could use a few more brilliant leaders in the world.

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How To Be Happy and Healthy

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Summary

Being happy and healthy are perhaps the two most important aspects of life that we can experience. It's rather strange but people seem to put more time into being healthy than they do happy.

Most people try to be healthy by being careful about what the eat and the exercise they do. However there is a third aspect beginning with E that is far more important- namely your emotions.

Think about it in terms of time for a second:

Exercise = 3 times per week Eat = 3 times per day Emotion = Every Second

So emotion has a more consistent impact on health on of course emotion is fundamental to being happy.

Many people try to feel a certain emotion by controlling their exercise and eating. "If I eat healthy I'll feel good.", "If I look good I'll feel good enough". In reality it works the other way around. Your emotional state determines if you make the right food choices or work out with the same determination (an emotion) needed to get the body you want, or to even go to the gym.

There is lots of researching showing the impact negative emotions have on increasing the probability of major diseases such as cancer or heart disease. Therefore it's time to begin working out your emotions and not just your biceps.

Please share with family and friends because we all want a happier healthier world. 

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How To Overcome Fear

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Summary

On your personal development journey the only real thing that can get in your way is you. The most common way this happens is through the fears we create in our lives.

A liberating thought about fear is to understand that when we are born we only have two fears that are biologically programmed, loud noises and falling. Everything else is learnt.

The three categories of fears you are most likely to face are:

Fear of loss of the status quo.

Fear of change in order to transition to your vision

Fear of result not meeting your expectation.’

Scientific background

The idea of innate fears of falling and loud noises is largely associated with research of the Moro reflex [1], a well-documented primitive reflex in human infants. There is a range of literature exploring the exact stimuli that evokes this response; the sensation of falling as a stimulus is well established [2], and there are authors[3] that advocate that it is also triggered by loud noises. Kalat and Shiota’s superb textbook Emotion [4] lists both. Furthermore, there are a wealth of studies [5] that show infants are not naturally afraid of the large category of phenomenon that form common adult human fears, such as spiders [6], snakes [7], and heights[8] (fear of heights and falling are unique). It’s worth pointing out, as these studies do, that we have a pre-disposition to learn these fears quite quickly in our childhood. But the body of research suggests we are notborn with them.

 [1]: Cherry, K. (2014). “What Is the Moro Reflex?” About.com Education. Retrieved May 5, 2015 (http://psychology.about.com/od/mindex/g/mororeflex.htm)

[2]: Moro reflex: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia. (n.d.). Retrieved May 5, 2015, (fromhttp://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003293.htm)

[3]: Esposito, G. (2013). Moro Reflex. In F. R. Volkmar, ed. Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Springer New York, 1910–1911

[4]: Kalat, J., & Shiota, M. (2011). Emotion. Cengage Learning, 274-275

[5]: Children’s Psychology Of Fear. (n.d.). Retrieved May 5, 2015, fromhttp://www.essortment.com/childrens-psychology-fear-50813.html

[6]: LoBue, V., Rakison, D., DeLoache, J. S. (2010). Threat perception across the lifespan: Evidence for multiple converging pathways. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, 375-379

[7]: DeLoache, J., & LoBue, V. (2009). The narrow fellow in the grass: Human infants associate snakes and fear. Developmental Science, 12, 201-207

[8]: Adolph, K. E., Kretch, K., & LoBue, V. (2014). Fear of heights in infants? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23, 60-66