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Most people believe that success requires suffering - working long hours, putting up with horrible people, doing horrible things, sacrificing yourself or others. If you believe the only way to make more money is to experience more pain, your nervous system is going to make sure that success doesn’t happen for you. Your body and brain have gone through millions of years of evolution to prevent you from experiencing pain, you aren’t going to “tough it out” or “overcome” it. You

“The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves” - Elvin Semrad (quoted in Van Der Kolk ’s ‘The Body Keeps The Score’) I had a session earlier today with a new client and was reminded of this quote. I’m reading The Body Keeps The Score at the moment and it has been a heavy but powerful read (definite recommend). I was reminded of this quote in my session because the client was struggling to pick between two actions: One action was something they though

Poor people often think they need to “get lucky” to become rich and/or successful. However, luck isn’t lucky. I believe being lucky is a skill. You can increase your “luck surface area”, and I’m going to tell you how. First, your surface area of luck. I first came across this idea when I watched an episode of Derren Brown on “The Secret of Luck” many years ago. One guy stood out to me - no matter what happened, he never found his luck - “Because he had never won before he th

Every one of you who runs a business would benefit from taking 20 minutes to complete this exercise today. I did recently and it really helped. As entrepreneurs, we have 1001 things we could be doing. But there is a difference between can do vs should do . Identifying and working on the things that move the needle is the single biggest requirement for success as a business person. Unfortunately, people are bad at distinguishing between urgent vs important . Urgent = Catastrop

In the last month or so I’ve had 3 clients who were absolutely swamped replying to LinkedIn messages from leads. My clients were wasting...

“Productivity is not about doing more, but doing the right things efficiently. Prioritize your tasks and focus on what truly matters." - Brian Tracy I remember in my early businesses that I only ever felt productive when I worked many hours. I thought doing more meant I’d progress more. You can dig all day but if it’s not where the treasure is then you’ll never find it. If you want to move forward, you have to do things that move you forward. If I spend 10 minutes doing som

I truly believe that it is worse to have bad clients than it is to have no clients at all , but how do you know if a client is a good fit for you? I made this checklist with a client who asked me this question last week, and I thought it worth sharing with you now. Let me know what you think. Good clients know what they want you to do for them If you go into the work without clarity, you don’t accomplish much. Both of you will feel it was unsuccessful. You both feel you can h

"You don't learn to swim by reading about water” - Proverb A bias to action is one of the most powerful things you can cultivate as an entrepreneur. I like to seek out people that take action and that encourage or inspire me to also take action. Reading is useful, but some years ago I committed to reading less in order to have a stronger focus on implementing lessons. Lessons without change are worthless. Experiment, iterate, activate, learn. I helped Ghayth unblock his inde

In the first few minutes of our first ever session, Benoist complained that he often felt busy but at the end of the day it seemed like nothing had been done. “Busy but going nowhere” is a common issue entrepreneurs express (and that I fix) within their first sessions with me and it always stems from at least one of the same three similar causes. They are too reactive. Life happens to them, they don’t happen to life. This is often related to locus of control , but it leads

When I started my first business many years ago I often felt like I was drowning. One of two scenarios played out: There was so much to do that I felt overwhelmed. I had no idea what I was meant to do, so I felt indecisive and overwhelmed. In both scenarios one of two things happened: I either did absolutely nothing because I was paralysed by the overwhelm and indecision. Or I did loads of stuff but at the end of the day I felt like I hadn’t really moved forward. At best I f

“It doesn’t make sense to continue wanting something if you’re not willing to do what it takes to get it. If you don’t want to live the lifestyle, then release yourself from the desire. To crave the result but not the process is to guarantee disappointment.” - James Clear One of my clients kept telling me about his life will be better when he becomes a digital nomad and lives in Bali. I asked what was stopping him. We had built his business to a point where he had plenty of m

Throughout the years many of my clients have joked with me about how I exist in their head. They tell me that they can literally hear me. I often joke back about how I should figure out a way to charge them for all the free sessions they’re getting! One recoined the acronym WWJD to “What would John do?”, as he found himself often asking this question when faced with a decision. When I realised what this actually meant, I introduced the identity exercise to help stop people as

“What did it smell like?”, I asked. He looked at me like I was an alien. Then he grimaced. Then he smiled widely. I saw the transformation in real time, one I am familiar with. I knew it landed. This is a real interaction I had with my Spanish teacher, Gonzalo , last week. Gonzalo had just returned from a trip to Paris. We were chatting about it in Spanish but the conversation was a little stiff. Standard questions, standard answers. Forced. So, I did something I like to do b

Think of last time you needed a job doing - like a repair on the house, or to find a new software tool, or some help in your business. What did you do? Stop to think. Take a moment. Chances are, your first impulse was to ask someone you already knew (either for them to help you, or for them to recommend someone). Businesses do the same. The vast majority of work is handed out in conversations and referrals long before anything is ever posted online or searched for. The cheesy

“You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems” - James Clear When I first saw this quote some years ago, it completed changed the “direction of travel” that I perceived progress to be taking. We all want our lives to be better. We often see that improvements as us growing upwards, climbing higher, rising through the ranks. I know I did. However, experience has shown me that that isn’t really how progress works. Sustainable progress doesn’t

I mentioned last week about how the cost of indecision is often higher than the cost of a wrong decision . A few people reached out to discuss that further, so here is more. Paying someone $500 to fix a problem that might not take long to fix yourself can be an absolute bargain. Here’s the proof (and the cost of indecision): Let’s say your invoicing system is a mess. Clients pay late. You forget to send invoices. You keep meaning to fix it, but you're not super techy, so it k

What do a Soviet nail factory, a cobra problem, and the current spate of populism have in common? They are all victims of Goodhart's Law. Many are familiar with SMART goals , the idea that goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time constrained. But far fewer people are familiar with Goodhart's Law - the idea that “when a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a good measure”. A Soviet factory given a target to make more nails famously produced tin

“No decision is, in itself, a decision.” - William James People often avoid making hard decisions by defaulting into making no decision at all. Not deciding feels like a relief from responsibility. But ultimately, you will always remain responsible, you just choose to neglect your duty. Unfortunately, opting to not decide is often the worst decision possible. You get: all of the negatives of both options - you feel like you’re missing out by not taking action, and you simulta

If you were told to make the roof of the LEGO structure pictured below more stable, how would you do it? You have access to more LEGO. Stop, look, and answer before reading on to reveal a special personal insight. The LEGO structure you need to fix. Did you add, move, or remove bricks to solve the problem? When faced with a problem the vast majority of people look to add something to solve it, rather than remove the thing causing the problem (according to this study publishe

Would you trust a dentist with bad teeth? A financial advisor who is completely broke? A personal trainer who is severely overweight? Probably not, I know I wouldn’t. However, I see examples like this all the time. Web designers with bad websites, social media marketing agencies with poor social media profiles of their own, course creation coaches who sell 1:1 calls rather than courses, sales consultants who put most people off with a hard sell, stressed yoga teachers, and cl