A feeling that has followed me throughout my life is a sense that I could do more, accomplish more and generally ‘be’ more. Our roots in the world, the surroundings we were born into, can be as important to our characters as the traits we feel are intrinsic to us.
Starting from somewhat humble beginnings (and let’s remember that the word humble is relative here) I always recognised that my environment was a factor driving me to be more, to be better. In hindsight I now realise that I was motivated by an instinct to prove that I wasn’t a ‘nobody’. But I thought being a somebody was all about money, nice suits and cars. At one point I truly believed that my businesses and mounds of materialistic stuff symbolised that I had made it! Yet this moment of seemingly attaining what I’d always wanted was actually a low point of my life. I realised that I’d never felt so empty. It was definitely a confusing moment.
I now realise that this became an important stage of reflection, from which I took action to completely overhaul my mindset. Using the knowledge of everything I’d absorbed, experienced, enjoyed and regretted during my previous two decades of learning I began to focus on a set of practices that would help me become more connected with myself, my family and others around me. It may sound cheesy, but this switch to a less money-centric outlook changed my life. Feeling so passionate about the changes I had made to myself made me eager to see if this would be effective with others. Getting people to really reassess what their core motivators are, while forewarning them of the pitfalls I’d stumbled into while on a journey that led to only hollow materialistic ‘success’ was central to my new outlook.
It started out with some friends, people that wanted a bit of extra support to reinvigorate their own businesses and lives. Feedback from these first five ‘test cases’ was so positive it was almost unbelievable to hear. So, I decided to write up the sessions and here we are…it is time to share
Throughout my own phases of growth, I’ve had the benefit of experiencing from a wide variety of business successes and challenges. I’ve managed businesses employing up to one-thousand staff, with turnovers in excess of forty-million pounds per annum and extremely successful profit margins. I’ve also managed businesses, boasting a single staff member, that have ultimately collapsed. I’ve lost vast sums of money in poor investments and been bankrupt. Luckily, I find that in most cases it isn’t the success stories that teach you anything of real value, certainly not at the time, but it’s the failures that one truly learns from.
In many ways I could say that I’ve actually enjoyed failing. Yes, failure is often accompanied by stress, but it offers more challenges than simple success; new approaches, ways of adapting, a need to reconfigure stale thought processes. For me, the adrenaline of such endeavours can’t be matched. It’s often what I’ve learned from the losses, rather than the wins, that I love to share with people. The most important part of failing is owning it, that way you learn from it and won’t repeat the same mistakes. Denial is dangerous.
Many of us believe that we are intrinsically programmed by nature, and on the other hand we believe that we have so many traits influenced by nurture. In these Podcasts we hear the stories of different people that are extremely driven in more ways than one.
"A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided."
Tony Robbins© 2020 Alaise Ltd