Murphy's Plough

Over the last couple of weeks I've spoken to quite a few people who have managed to stop themselves planning and achieving their goals (and we're only half way through January!)

How..?

By deciding that the person they want to include, need help from or want to ask an opinion of will not want to be included, want to help or be bothered to give their opinion.  The conversation has already been held in the 'askers' head and the outcome decided!

This is mind reading and to be honest as human beings, we're not really that good at it, especially when it comes to asking for help or needing to have a difficult conversation.  When I've spoken to clients and asked them to see the situation as if they were being asked for help just about everyone says 'well yes of course I would help, why wouldn't I?'

It reminded me of a story I was sent a few years ago... I don't know the author and so cannot accurately credit it...

Murphys Plough

McGinty, a farmer, needed to plough his field before the dry spell set in, but his own plough had broken.

"I know, I'll ask my neighbour, farmer Murphy, to borrow his plough.  He's a good man; I'm sure he'll have done his ploughing by now and he'll be glad to lend me his machine."

So McGinty began to walk the three or four fields to Murphy's farm.

After a field of walking, McGinty says to himself, "I hope that Murphy has finished all his own poughing or he'll not be able to lend me his machine..."

Then after a few more minutes of worrying and walking, McGinty says to himself, "and what if Murphy's plough is old and on it's last legs - he'll never be wanting to lend it to me will he?"

And after another field, McGinty says, "Murphy was never a very helpful fellow, I reckon maybe he won't be too keen to lend me his plough even if it's in perfect working order and he's finished all his own ploughing weeks ago..."

As McGinty arrives at Murphy's farm, McGinty is thinking, "That old Murphy can be a mean old fellow.  I reckon even if he's got all his ploughing done and his own machine is siting there doing nothing, he'll not lend it to me just to watch me go to ruin..."

McGinty walks up Murphy's front path, knocks on the door and Murphy answers.

"Well good morning Mr McGinty, what can I do for you?" says Murphy.

And McGinty says with eyes bulging, "You can take your bloody plough and you can stick it up your bloody arse!"

So if you're having conversations in your head that aren't helping you achieve, stop!! and go and have them in person (before you've decided they won't help).  The results are normally greater than you ever expected!

If you want to know more about how you can have difficult conversations and communicate effectively with the people around you, including those you find more difficult to be with and you want to build yourself, your team and your business then have a look and book onto the Business Foundation course and NLP Practitioner course I am running with my friend and colleague Lucy Hampton - Essentii Courses

The picture above is of Suffolk Punch horses which are endangered - if you want to know more about these amazing horses then visit - Suffolk Punch Trust

We always do it like that...

A consultant was asked into a manufacturing company to help and advise them on the efficiency of their procedures and to look at ways of improving them.  As he was reviewing all the paperwork he came across a daily report which was used as a record of absentee rates, machine failure, down time, etc.  The form that was used was manually filled iin on a copy of a copy of a copy which was a long way from the original!

The photocopied forms were particularly fuzzy at the top right corner, where a small box had a heading that was not clear at all.  The consultant was interested to note that the figure '0' had been written in every daily report for the past year.  On questioning the members of staff who completed the report they told him that they always put a zero in that box, and when he asked them why they looked at each other blankly.  "Hmm.., not sure really." they said "We always do it like that."

Intrigued, the consultant visited the archives to see if he could find a clearer version of the form, to be able to see what was originally being reported on and whether it actually held any significance now!  He went back through the decades of records and found that the zero return had continued uninterrupted for as far back as the records extended - at least thirty years!  None of the forms were any clearer than those currently being used.

A little frustrated, he packed the boxes back up and turned to leave when another folder caught his eye.  It was titled 'master forms'.  Sure enough inside it he found the original daily report master copy in pristine condition.  In the top right corner was the mysterious box, with the heading clearly shown... 'Number of Air Raids today'

If you are finding yourself saying 'we always do it like that' more often than not then it is time to step back and look at what you are doing and to see if it is still what is needed.  If not then you need to take ACTION to change old processes! 

You will need to change your 'thinking' processes as well as the 'practical' processes.  If you are looking to grow and evolve your business make sure you look at the whole and that includes you.  If you want understand how this will work for you then get in touch.

Life after Championship Sport - what happens next?

I was asked in September 2013 to deliver a talk at the SMART Way Forward conference about 'Life after Championship Sport - what happens next' - here is the outline of that talk.

We started by looking at the legacy of two well known Sports Professionals, Dame Kelly Holmes and Paul Gasgoine and the differences in what they had achieved after retirement. Dame Kelly with her foundation and Paul Gasgoine struggling with addictions.

When we look for facts and figures around this issue then we need to look to the United States, studies there have shown

·         The average career span for professional basketball, football, and baseball player is a mere 4.5 years, 3.2 years, and under five years, respectively

·         By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness, divorce and overspending.

·         Within five years of retirement, an estimated 60% of former NBA players are broke.

So what's going on...?

There have been many studies have been done to track the emotions that people experience in the face of change.  The best known of these is Dr Elizabeth Kubler Ross (July 8, 1926 – August 24, 2004) was a Swiss-born psychiatrist, a pioneer in Near-death studies and the author of the groundbreaking book On Death and Dying (1969), where she first discussed what is now known as the Kübler-Ross model.  In this work she proposed the now famous Five Stages of Grief as a pattern of adjustment.  These five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In general, individuals experience most of these stages.

Her original work was done around grief, and has since been adapted to reflect responses to change in general.

When we retire it is a change and it may be unexpected through injury and it is when we can become more pessimistic in the choices we have available to us.

Kubler Ross Model

Once we had explored the model above we went onto look at 'Annie Page's Point of Transition' model which is part of a wider piece of work that I deliver around Change within Sport and Business. There are three areas of the model that we looked at.

Belief - Why we do what we do

“Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle.”

Christian D. Larson

Identity - Who we are

“First of all, what happens is, when you’re good at something, you spend a lot of time with it.  People identity you with that sport, so it becomes part of your identity.”

Mike Krzyzewski

Me in my Ultra runner Identity!

Purpose - Our Driver

“Winners are people with definite purpose in life.”

Denis Waitley

What seems to be currently happening at the moment is we wait until people are at their lowest before doing something.

Why leave it so late?

Making a decision before the change happens is much more powerful and long lasting, the dip into the Pessimistic part of the graph need not be so dramatic and the time it takes to move through the change curve is quicker – you will still go through it!

I was shocked by some of the information I found about suicide in professional sports people, addictions – drinking, gambling, drugs, bankruptcy, divorce...

In August 2013 there were 150 ex professional footballers in prison for drugs offences – mainly regarding drug distribution!

Kenny Samson, Arsenal – sleeping on a bench due to gambling addiction

So what can be done

Brian Moore writing in The Telegraph said:

“What also clearly emerges from anecdotal and empirical evidence is that those who cope best with the problems of sporting retirement are those who at least give some thought and planning to it before they bow out.”

and Brendan Batson said:

‘key to making the difficult move from the somewhat closed world of sport into the world of business, is preparation during your playing career’.

Looking to the future you can - Expand your identity, know your future purpose, understand what you believe.

You already have the skills to start doing this – the same as the ones you needed to succeed in sport...

Write up from SMART Way Forward after their conference in September 2013

Life after Championship sport – What happens next? – was presented by Annie Page, Director of Essentii and ‘Annie Page’s Point of Transition.  This was a very interesting and thought provoking workshop, which proved very popular with the Olympians and elite athletes / players who were attending.  Annie shared a brief insight into her ‘Point of transition’ model.  Having an identity is very important to everyone.  However, when you are a successful sportsman, sportswomen, celebrity or public figure – your self esteem and confidence is elevated to a level higher than normal.  Therefore, many people who have been privileged to be in this position, then find it very hard when they are no longer in the public eye.  Annie highlighted some excellent examples of sports people and businessmen who had made this transition successfully – however, it was shocking to see the statistics for how many sports people found it difficult once their careers had come to an end.  A great session, which highlighted the importance of self belief, acceptance, confidence and self control.  It was very popular with the performance coaches and managers in the audience.

Business Coaching skills for Sports Coaches

I was very pleased to take part in the first UKA Coach Share Conference in October 2012 and have posted the transcript of my talk here. There were about 30 of us who all had 6 minutes to share our thoughts, views or specific techniques for other coaches and these are all available on the UKA Coach Share website for UKA Coaches.


Business Coaching skills for Sports Coaches

Good morning, my name is Annie Page and I am a Sports and Business Coach who works with individuals and teams on achieving their goals and I am here to talk to you about utilising business coaching skills as sports coaches.

 Before I start I would like you to think of a time when you struggled as a coach (or athlete) and what would have been the one piece of advice that would have been useful to you at that time. Take a moment to share it with the person next to you.... we will be coming back to this later.

Ok - I know from my own sports coaching experience how much more effective I can be working with athletes not just on their performance and technical ability but also with their beliefs about who they are and what they can do. Working with their own self talk and making sure I coach them from their point of view not mine.

The beliefs we hold are hugely impactful on what we do and how we do it - I'm sure you've all heard the quote by Henry Ford:

'Whether you think you can or you think you can't, either way you will be right'

 As coaches we need to work with athletes so they can move away from their own internal unhelpful self talk and be able to harness their strengths - which will help shift their thinking in order to be the best they can as individuals to give their best performance in competition through practice and training. So that we as coaches are being athlete centred not just around performance, but around their inner self talk and beliefs. When we do this we will see athletes who understand their own self talk, who they are as an athlete, what beliefs they hold that will help them and how to take control and change those that hinder them. We will hear ourselves communicating effectively, talking to athletes in their own way and utilising language as a powerful tool.

For example a runner I was working with kept stopping on the same hill - her technique was fine and the difference was what she was saying to herself, 'don't stop, don't stop' - our brain ignores the negative 'don't' and focuses on 'stop' the body does what its told and stops! We worked together and looked at what she did wanted to do - 'get to the top' - and changed the inner self talk to 'to the top, to the top' and now she runs that hill every time. She is also able to take that learning into other areas of her performance.

Athletes can feel the difference in a great performance compared to a good one and by working with them and their internal feelings of what 'great' means we can recreate those feelings before they go out into the field of play and they can go into the competition in 'great' mode.

When an athlete is in competition we need them to be in control and responsible for their performance. We all saw in the Olympics what can happen when a coach has too much responsibility for the performance - Holly Bleasdale being a great example of that. This can lead to people losing trust in themselves as an athlete and in us as a coach.

As coaches we have to manage ourselves in those moments and work with the athlete in practice and training so they can manage their own inner selves. The athlete is still the one who has to perform - they are the ones who need to understand how they can be in the best place mentally at that moment in time and we as coaches need to help them understand how they can do that.

What I'm saying is not that all coaches have to go through Business Coaching training, but to take from it the areas that we can utilise about how the mind can enhance or detract from performance and add it to the technique and performance coaching training that we do. To do this I believe it does need to become part of what we learn as we go through the coaching levels. In this way we will learn how to deliver our sessions for the athlete.

We also need to take responsibility for our learning and in the same way we plan and monitor our sessions we need to have reflective time about how we delivered it. In this way we can become coaches in the fullest meaning of the word, delivering training to enhance performance of the mind and the body.

In British cycling they looked at performance and thought that having 100% ability was only 80% of the performance - the other 20% came from Belief, Commitment and Focus and how these areas work for each individual athlete is where we need to develop as coaches in order to develop our athletes - understanding what is the difference that makes the difference.

Now take a moment to think back to the start and that one piece of advice that would have helped - how much of it is about how you feel and therefore how your mind reacts to it... Thank you for your time and attention. this morning and remember next time you think ' I don't want....' change it to think about what you 'do want....' and see what difference this can bring you.

How to Turn Inspiration into Participation....

With so many people feeling inspired by the Olympics you may be wondering where to start, so here is an extract from my e-book 'How to get off the Sofa and Start Running'.

Getting your mind in your run

"There are people who have no bodies, only heads. And many athletes have no heads, only bodies. A champion is a man who has trained his body and his mind"

- Coach Sam Dee The Olympian

However much your body might want to go for a run, if your mind isn’t interested it’s unlikely that you will get out the door.

We can be very good at talking ourselves out of doing something and so when you first start running it’s really good to think of some outcomes that you want to achieve.

You can break these down from your long term outcome and then smaller ones in order to keep you on track.

For instance a long term outcome maybe to take part in a race, do a particular time, fit into a particular pair of jeans.

Your short term outcomes can then be to run 3 times a week, to do a certain amount of mileage in a week, or spend a certain amount of time running each week.

Our brains work really well when it knows what we want to achieve and so if you have a good outcome in place this can help on those days it seems more tricky to get out the door!

To create a great outcome think about what you want to achieve and then build up a movie of it in your mind, what can you see happening when you have this outcome, what can you hear and how do you feel.  The more detail you can put into this visualisation the more compelling it becomes and the more likely you are to achieve it.

By building this vision at the beginning it can mean that on those odd days when you can’t be bothered you can bring this vision to the fore and it will help you get out the door.

I have a philosophy that on any given day running can be 10% physical and 90% mental.  If you are going to spend time training your body to do what you want it to do, surely the same thinking goes for training your brain!

And that’s not just for running…..

If you want to read the whole book which includes a 12 week plan you can order through:-

 Amazon -  http://amzn.to/howtogetoffthesofa or

The Endless Bookcase - http://www.theendlessbookcase.com/shop/products-page/ebooklet/how-to-get-off-the-sofa-and-start-running/

Leadership Lessons from another perspective...

On LinkedIn recently they have picked up a series of 5 Leadership Lessons from The Godfather, Star Trek and Hans Solo (my personal favourite but I was always more Star Wars than Star Trek!)

So I thought were else can we learn from, and while looking up for inspiration stumbled over the cat! So here are my 5 top Leadership Lessons from the Cat.

1 - Take the pill with the cheese

If you or your team have got something unpalatable you need to do then make sure you plan in a reward for once it's done

2 - Continually paw owner in face until they get up and feed you.

While I'm not advocating any sort of violence - persistence is key. If you believe in something then keep going, you only fail if you stop - Think Edison and 1000 ways not to invent the light bulb!

3 - Stare at owner until you have eye contact then immediately stare at bowl that requires fresh food (even if what's there has only been in the bowl for 10 mins...)

Communicate your message in a way that works for the person you are working with so that it makes sense to them.

4 - Stare randomly into space

Give yourself space to think - if you're stuck with a problem then let it go from your conscious mind and you'll be surprised how easily and quickly the answer you're looking for will come to you

5 - Press random combinations of keys while walking across the laptop

You'll be amazed at what short cuts there are to your programs and what different combinations can do - then finding out how they work is a great learning process and once done not forgotten - so what are your short cut keys?

Hope you enjoyed this bit of fun before Easter and have a great few days off.

Networking on the Move

It's always great when you have an idea and other people like it! And so it was with Networking on the Move. After a conversation at a Business Beacon networking meeting with Pam Woods we both decided that getting people together for a walk and gentle easy exercises (for those that wanted) is a great way to start the day and Energise peoples bodies, brains and business.

Our muscles need oxygen rich blood to really work properly and the brain is no different. Getting outside and moving means that everyone gets to talk and really start to get to know each other in a much more powerful way than just hearing a one minute pitch! It means we can understand each other and our businesses on a completely different level and therefore it's not about what we can sell to each other but how we can help promote and build relationships with each other - and people buy from people!

What is also important to me is that people also get to find out how to keep fit and healthy in an easy way, no need for lots of expensive equipment or gym fees and feel really invigorated for the day . Good health = Good Business - but that's a blog for another day!

And so the first Networking on the move was launched on 21st March at Bedford Priory Marina. We meet every third Wednesday of the month at 8.00am for the walk, exercises and business discussions which is then followed by some light refreshment in the Beefeater, finishing about 9.30am

Remember to book on by following the link http://goo.gl/JtYi9

Graham Childs Michael Darvell, Pam Woods, John Guinn, Me

'Networking on the move is an excellent innovation. It was good to be out in the fresh air with plenty of opportunity to chat and gain useful pointers from Annie to stay fit in simple ways. The walk left me feeling energised for the day ahead but was by no means too strenuous - even for someone like me who doesn't go near the gym!'

Michael Darvell of Darvell Consultancy Ltd

What leap will you take this year?

Well February is nearly at an end and this year we have an extra day! So will you spend it doing all the things you normally do in a day or are you going to do something different with it, what leap will you take that may be fun, exciting, different even frivolous.

Traditionally this was the day that If you're female you get to do the asking for your partners hand in marriage. Although beware Bachelors as in those olden days a man was expected to pay a penalty such as a gown or money if he refused.

If you're born on 29th February do you pick the day before or day after to celebrate on those 3 years in between your birthday? Astrologers have said those born on this day have unusual talents and personalities reflecting their special status!

The reason we have a leap year is because we need to keep our calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun. It takes the Earth 365.242199 (apparently that's approximate!) days to circle once around the sun, but our calendar has only 365 days in a year so we need to catch up with the extra quarter (approx.) each year

So back to my original question - What leap will you take this year? Is there something you've only given about a quarter of yourself to and you need to give it all of you. What have you been putting off as it feels a bit risky to do, it might be easy to do, but has been easy not to do. Take the leap, stop thinking about what part of it might not work or might go wrong and think about how much you can gain from giving all of your attention to it.

Not sure where to start then try one of these...

· Share your vision for your business with someone new

· Make different choices throughout the day have something different for breakfast, take a different route to work...

· Clear one hour to go for a walk and enjoy the space you get

Here's a few quotes you might like

'Leap and the net will appear' John Burroughs

'Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore' Andre Gide

'The two important things I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be and the most difficult part of any endeavour is taking the first step making the first decision.' Robyn Davidson

'To be alive at all involves some risk' Harold Macmillan

'Go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is' Jimmy Carter

Having a Plan

It's that time of year when we all seem to start off with lots of New Year resolutions and come the end of the month some of the enthusiasm starts to dwindle and achieving our aims suddenly seems a long way off.

Well how about doing things a little differently this year.  Instead of worrying about lots of new resolutions how about remembering what you did really well last year and plan to continue doing more of it this year.  We often get caught up in having to do things differently and yet it's important to make sure we keep doing the things that have worked and will continue to work.

Why don't you take a moment to think about 3 things you did last year that really delivered results for you in your business.  Write them down, what were they, why did they work, how did you do them, what other situations could you use that type of thinking in?

When you know what has worked for you in the past and how you did it then you can start to think about what you want to achieve this year.  Starting from a positive place of already knowing you can deliver results.

Then you can start to think about want you want as your challenge for this year.  Have you made it a balanced challenge - is the outcome you want to achieve challenging enough to keep you interested and realistic enough to be achieved?

Along the way how will you know you are getting there, what are the smaller goals that will deliver the big one, if you know the small steps you can recognise them as you go and tick them off.  Then it's a case of thinking through what might get in the way of achieving your outcome, if you think about this now and how you will overcome some of the issues then when and if they do appear you can say to yourself - 'I thought that might happen and here's my plan to deal with it' thereby making what might have seemed an insurmountable wall, just a brick to step over as you continue on your path

So plan your year and outcomes remembering to keep what you have learned with you, live in the present and plan for your future.  I'll leave you with some quotes

He who fails to plan, plans to fail - Proverb

Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now - Alan Lakein

Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning - Thomas Edison

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe - Anatole France

Good plans shape good decisions.  That's why good planning helps to make elusive dreams come true. - Anon

Essentii wins first Business Award!!

Highly Commended for Business Strategy Award 2011.

I am delighted that Essentii has received it's first Business Award.

I had put the business forward for the Business Beacon Business Strategy Award 2011 for the strategy in setting up a new arm of the business - The Essentii Club (launched on 4th July 2011). I knew I had been short listed and attended the awards ceremony on the 30th June and I was so pleased to receive Highly Commended for Business Strategy Award 2011.

Made all the work over the last few months very worth it!

What the 7/38/55 communication rule really means

I have read many books and articles on communication and how it works and in many of them they quote the work by Albert Mehrabian and the 7/38/55 rule on communication. A lot of them state that in ALL communication these figures mean

7% of our communication is the words we use
38% of our communication is the tone we use
55% of our communication is in the non verbal (physiology)

NO THAT IS NOT WHAT THEY MEAN – sorry for shouting but in the words of Peter Griffin (Family Guy) this ‘really grinds my gears’. The research by Mehrabian was around how we communicate feelings and attitudes only.

It is emphatically not the case that non-verbal elements in all senses convey the bulk of the message. So what do the figures mean….

An example of when we are communicating feelings and attitudes could be

• Verbal: "I'm Ok with that"
• Non-verbal: person avoids eye-contact, looks anxious, has turned away slightly, etc.

It becomes more likely that the receiver will trust the predominant form of communication, which to Mehrabian's findings is non-verbal (38% + 55%), rather than the literal meaning of the words (7%).


An example of when the words are 100% of the message

• You are at work when the fire officer comes into the room and shouts "Everyone evacuate the building because there is a fire," I would suggest the meaning of the words carries 100% of the message i.e., 1) there is a fire, and 2) get out of here. You are very unlikely to be worrying about the tone of voice and physiology of the person issuing the instructions and are more likely to grab your stuff (despite being told on numerous occasions not to) and get out. You'd get the message fully through the words without having to be an expert in body language to unravel the meaning.

The value of understanding the 7/38/55 rule relates to communications where emotional content is significant, and the need to understand it properly is great.

OK rant over!! What are your thoughts?

What's the opposite of guilty?

I was recently asked a great question ‘What’s the opposite of Guilty?’ I immediately took the context to mean when I feel guilty about something what’s the opposite of that – after a bit of thinking I came up with Contentment – which didn’t really feel quite right and encompassed a lot of other feelings, happy with my decisions, knowing I was doing the right thing, understanding why I was doing what I was doing.

Then the question put to me was ‘isn’t innocence the opposite of guilt?’. Which I couldn’t disagree with and it got me thinking about the difference between being guilty and feeling guilty. The first one could be said to be quite simple – in a court of law it works that you are either one or the other. However, being that us Human beings are complicated creatures, all that changes when we start thinking about how we feel. How often have you gone through a customs check, knowing that you’ve not gone over any limits and yet still walk through feeling guilty!

Feeling guilty can come about when we start living by our should, shouldn’t, must, mustn’t rules which normally means we are looking for someone or something to blame for what is happening, or not happening, around us. As with all our feelings they are manifested by us, we choose how we want to feel, so why would we want to choose to feel guilty if it’s not useful to us?

I think the first part of changing how we feel is to take responsibility for our own actions and understand that in each moment we make the decision and act in a way that feels right in that moment – we may learn afterwards that it wasn’t the best decision and we can decide to do things differently in future, surely this is all about us growing as individuals and blaming ourselves or others will only keep us in the same place – is that useful?

So the next time you feel guilty about something, what are you going to do to change how you feel, what feeling would be more useful to you?

And good luck next time you wander through customs!

Expectation Vs Ability

There are those times that we raise our expectations and then realised we perhaps don’t have quite the ability to get our outcome and we then know what we need to do, learn or work on to achieve that outcome. Well what happens when it works the other way round.

I was racing the other day when my brain was telling me what I was capable of and the minutes per mile I should be running. Training had been going well and I was going to feel happy to keep an even pace throughout the 10 miles. Well one mile in and I’m feeling good and check the time and I’m nearly a minute quicker than I was planning. ‘Oh dear – I’d better slow down or I’ll never last!’ So slow down I did, or so I thought and the next mile was a few seconds quicker again. I felt fine and yet over the next 3 more miles I continually told myself to slow down and that I would never last the distance, and yet I stayed within a couple of seconds time on each mile. I was supposed to be doing the first half slowly and seeing what I had left for the next couple of miles before upping the pace for the last couple.

But ability had other ideas and decided it didn’t care what expectation thought it was going to run as it felt – not following a timetable and I decided a change of plan was needed and I would reverse what I was going to do and run the first half quicker and then I could slow up in the second half and still hit my expectations….. Ability had a good giggle at this and continued to run as it felt. At around mile 6 I decided it would be more helpful to stop arguing between expectation and ability – I could put the energy I was using up to much better use!
And so I continued on and enjoyed the fact that I was running better than I expected and congratulated myself on an excellent training plan for this year as taking it slowly and building back up from injury was most definitely working. I crossed the line about 9 minutes quicker than expected.

One Nil to Ability!

A few days later was the first cross country race of the season and having run all three days from the race above to this one I was looking to run evenly and easily – and obviously expectation was putting some limits in - did my legs still feel heavy from the previous race? Had I recovered enough? Should I have run each day since…...? Luckily for me ability had an ally in that my friend Becs was running alongside (normally much faster and had done 20 miles the day before in preparation for the New York Marathon) and kept me going all the way round and I finished again much quicker than I expected especially for a cross country. So the stamina is there to keep going even on tired heavy legs and we even had enough for a sprint finish!!

Two Nil to Ability…..

My question now is how often do we let expectation talk ability out of performing and what would we achieve if we gave ability a free reign?

Best explanation of the offside rule for those who prefer shopping to football!!

Thank you to Corrine O’B for this piece of brilliance


You're in a shoe shop, second in the queue for the till. Behind the shop assistant on the till is a pair of shoes which you have seen and which you must have. The female shopper in front of you has seen them also and is eyeing them with desire.

Both of you have forgotten your purses. It would be totally rude to push in front of the first woman if you had no money to pay for the shoes. The shop assistant remains at the till waiting.

Your friend is trying on another pair of shoes at the back of the shop and sees your dilemma. She prepares to throw her purse to you. If she does so, you can catch the purse, then walk round the other shopper and buy the shoes. At a pinch she could throw the purse ahead of the other shopper and, *whilst it is in flight* you could nip around the other shopper, catch the purse and buy the shoes.

Always remembering that until the purse had *actually been thrown* it would be plain wrong to be forward of the other shopper.


A great reminder to speak to someone in a language they understand!!

What do you want?

"The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want."
- Ben Stein
Actor, writer, commentator, lawyer, teacher, humorist

How often do we wait for things to happen, wait for someone else to do something, wait to see what’s happening around us before we make a decision?

How many opportunities have we lost because we haven’t thought about what we want out of life, like a ship that sets sail without a destination in mind – it will get somewhere but where is a whole different matter.

One of the fundamentals in NLP is knowing your outcome, knowing what you want – this can range from getting your weekly food shop to changing the direction of your life – and everything in between!

So you have decided what you want, what next….. make it real, really step into it, go into the future and see what’s happening around you, what are you doing, what are other people doing, what are you saying to yourself and others, how do you feel?

By being really clear about what we want means we can start to see all the opportunities around us to make it happen. I have a friend who people call 'lucky', he always seems to land on his feet, even when things around him seem to be going wrong, or not going in the direction he wants to go – by keeping in mind what he wants he can stay open to opportunities around him as they happen and take those that, at first glance, may not be a direct path, but will be a step in the right direction.

How do I use this, well, you can see me put this into practice very specifically in my first running blog.

So what do you want at work, at home, with friends and colleagues, for the short term, for the long term and what are you going to do to start making it happen?

As a final note, if you’ve made a decision as to what you want and as you get towards it you realise that perhaps it’s not what you thought it was or what you really want then stop, re-think it and then go for it – you want to follow a path that takes you where you want to go. Be careful of following a path through stubborness!!