Don’t mistake a bit of luck for true success

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If you don’t do the work, success isn’t likely to happen for you. You might get lucky, of course, but this isn’t true success as far as I’m concerned.

The work is hard, requires desire, passion, discipline and patience – ‘long haul’ mentality – but you’ve got to do it. Luck runs out but the road to success is a long and hard one and can be very fruitful over time. Work hard and luck will help you along the way but don’t ever rely on it.

There will be bad times. Bad days. Really bad things can and will happen. Plans will change. People will turn, or change their minds. Things break. Targets won’t always be met. But you’ve got to smile through it all and keep doing the work. This remains a constant at all times. Discipline, passion, desire and patience, all day, every day.

Luck can also be very fickle. You’ve got to grab onto her coattails (I like to think her as a woman – Lady Luck) and stay hanging on for the ride but be prepared for the time when you’ll get dropped – it always comes and you must accept it. No malice or annoyance, just say ‘thanks for the ride, see you next time!’.

Be thankful that you’re born, have the chances many don’t have and don’t let the opportunity for greatness pass you by. Take the chance. You can be everything you want to be. Your own power and potential is limited by nothing but you. Go and make it happen.

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Ian Mountford is a global recruitment expert and strategy coach providing motivation and guidance to entrepreneurs, wannabe or fully-fledged. He draws from his own experience of building businesses from the ground up and spending many years helping clients to consistently achieve their goals and aspirations. Ian works with clients face-to-face and internationally.

Quotation on motivation and habits

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by Jim Rohn:

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”

The value of training

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I took a course last week on a subject that I know a bit about but still learned a huge amount. I haven’t done any formal training for more than three years – as is often the case when you work for yourself – and decided I would take a day for some new learning on sales techniques and I wasn’t disappointed.

The simple act of being in a new environment and listening to the experiences of others on the course was a huge tick in the box. Some of the insights from the other attendees were very helpful in appraising my own performance and the areas where I need to make adjustments.

The content on any course is only as good as the way it is delivered and we had an excellent trainer, Liam. He gave us all the information we needed and packed his delivery full of useful and practical examples. He also made sure the pace was just right and we had enough time to discuss problem areas and solutions.

There is always a major takeaway from the day (if not more than one) and this course was no exception. I’ve already used the key learnings in my own sales process and seen the benefits of taking a different route with my prospects. With a couple of changes to the way I communicate I’ve found myself with much more information that helps both of us involved in the process reach a better deal.

It also doesn’t have to be a hugely expensive piece of training or take place in a glamorous location. It also doesn’t have to be on a groundbreaking subject but it does need to challenge you and take you beyond your comfort zone in order for you to gain something from it. Take the plunge and book onto a course and the benefits will be tangible and instant.

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The Talent Code – well worth a read

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Every now and again I come across a book and as soon as I’m no more than a handful of pages in, I know it’s going to be a really useful one for a long time to come. The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle is one of those books and I would highly recommend it for Coyle’s work on this very grey area and deep research into talent hotbeds and methods of practice that debunk the myth that talent is simply something you are born with.

The top performers in a variety of sectors, not just sport or music, across the world are using a “neurological mechanism” to aid their practice where “certain patterns of targeted practice build skill”. This creates a neural insulator called myelin which wraps itself around electrical circuits travelling from your brain as you practice and the more you practice, the more myelin insulation you create. As the myelin increases in thickness and wraps itself around the circuits building speed and skill, the better you perform in the long run. Apologies for the amateur science lesson but hopefully you get the point.

Coyle takes us on a journey around the world visiting talent hotbeds – a tennis academy in Russia and Brazilian football schools among others – and analyses the coaching methods employed to build the maximum amount of myelin, even in cases where the coaches themselves don’t even know why they are getting such amazing results with their pupils. His insights are easy to understand and the book contains very few scientific references with the ‘code’ broken down into three key parts:

Deep practice – pushing your training to the edges of your ability and learning from the process of making mistakes, over and over again.
Ignition – a breakthrough winner from South Korea on the LPGA golf tour led to a huge uptake of the game in the country and a stack of high performers around the world.
Master coaching – those who use deep practice and ignition to get the incredible results share some very similar traits and methods.

Get hold of a copy if you’re even a tiny bit interested in talent and understanding how people reach levels of performance that seem a long way away from the common man. Lots of great learning points and a book I’ll be referring back to for years.

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Ian Mountford is a Strategy Coach providing motivation and guidance to entrepreneurs, wannabe or fully-fledged. He draws from his own experience of building businesses from the ground up and spending many years helping clients to consistently achieve their goals and aspirations. Ian works with clients face-to-face and internationally.

Bruce Lee – a man must constantly exceed his level

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This quote was in a pile I sorted out today and I wanted to share it. Lots of learning points on dedication, hard work and pushing past your own self-imposed limits.

‘Bruce had me up to three miles a day, really at a good pace. We’d run three miles in twenty-one or twenty-two minutes. Just under eight minutes a mile… So this morning he said to me “we’re going to do five”. I said, “Bruce, I’m a helluva lot older than you are and I can’t do five.” He said, “when we get to three, we’ll shift gears and it’s only two more and you’ll do it.” I said, “ok, hell, I’ll do it”.

So we get to three, we go into the fourth mile and I’m ok for three or four minutes and then I really begin to give out. I’m tired, my heart is pounding, I can’t go on any more and I say to him, “Bruce, if I run anymore I’m liable to have a heart attack and die.” It made me so mad that I went the full five miles. Afterward, I went to the shower and then I wanted to talk to him about it. I said “why did you do that?” He said “Because you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physically or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.”‘

(It comes from Bruce’s great friend and co-writer John Little and can be found in ‘The Art of Expressing the Human Body’.)

Trying out a new networking concept

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Sport and networking are a very good combination. Some of the best contacts I have made over the years have sport at their core and there have been some great memories from days out at sporting events with business contacts. I have also found out lots of useful information by being able to spend more time than just a quick call or a formal meeting with someone that has been helpful in a business context.

Now, I’m a weekly golfer here in the north west of the UK and take every opportunity I can to get outdoors and hit some balls. At the end of last year I tried to set up a very informal golf networking society with a few of my contacts where we would play every few weeks and then invite new contacts but it took a lot of time to organise which I couldn’t spare. We also had a few people drop out at short notice which is never ideal and I decided to put it on ice.

Then along came Fore Business – a company that has been constructed to organise the ideal opportunity for networking over a round of golf – the bonus being the ability to spend a few hours with someone and find out lots about them while also playing a round on a great course. Played the first round as a guest this week and joined up for more on a monthly basis. Really enjoyed the format and made a couple of excellent new connections in the process.

All the signs are that it will be a strong network and I might even win a couple of matches over the months. Will be inviting my contacts who I know play golf but if you fancy a game please give me a shout.

4 time management tips to implement into your daily life

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The internet is choc-a-bloc full of tips on time management but the key to getting the best results is to find solutions that work for you. My list below is based upon the ones that I use and recommend to my clients and friends who need some help in this area and they are simple but very, very effective.

Have a read, try them out and if they work for you, stick with them – they will be the foundations upon which you deliver everything in your life, important or otherwise.

If you need help with what you do, consider taking a time management course. It’s one of the quickest and easiest ways to learn how be more productive and stay in control of your working day and some training providers, like Activia, will even help you build a personal action plan at the end of your course.

Use lists but keep them manageable:

Lots of us like lists but they can get out of control. At one time last year I caught myself with five different lists – three on separate sheets of paper and two in separate notebooks. Totally not cool.

There is also a big problem with having a list that’s so long that you never actually come to the end of it. This can be psychologically very damaging and leave you feeling like your list owns you. Again, not at all cool.

I use one long master list that contains my ongoing to-do items and then break this one down into smaller lists – one for the morning that I have to finish before I eat and another fresh one for the afternoon that is again full of tasks that must be done by the end of the day. This way, the smaller lists are way more manageable and don’t leave me with cold sweats at the size of the number of outstanding things I have to get done.

Generally a much better way to avoid panicking and leaves my mind much clearer and focussed on the tasks at hand.

Use an online calendar and set reminders:

If you’re not using your phone, even if it’s not a smartphone, to send you reminders and keep you on time for everything that’s going on in your life, you’re really missing a trick. And if you have a smartphone and are not using the calendar app that comes with all of them, work out how to use it and watch it change your life.

They are very simple to set up and you can also see the calendars of family, friends and co-workers if they give you permission so there are no excuses for missing those appointments.

You can also set alarms and reminders that will give you a heads-up at a variety of time intervals before the appointment is due and these can be in the form of an email or a special tone so that you don’t miss it. Add in colour-coding, public holidays and all of your friend’s birthday details from other apps like Facebook and you can see why they are a must-have.

Use a countdown timer:

A really good method that I learned a couple of years ago was to stick to the chucks of time you have allocated by using a countdown timer.

Mine is in the picture above and is extremely loud when it runs out of time – enough to be heard whatever I’m doing, however loud my music might be blaring out or if I’m wearing headphones, for example.

It is super-easy to drift off and forget how long you are spending on a task, especially if it’s one you really enjoy. It can also be very, very easy to watch an hour or more of your life disappear while catching up on your social media channels, so set yourself a time limit and use a timer to make sure you stick to it.

Automate or delegate wherever you can:

These options are also worth considering and are especially relevant if you charge for your services by the hour.

If you can earn more money by working for one hour than it costs for you to pay someone to do a task such as your cleaning or basic bookkeeping, for example, it makes sense to use their services.

It’s also very easy to automate regular payments and this is something that many people simply overlook. What about using tools such as MailChimp for sending email to your contacts or using online tools like Buffer or HootSuite to send your posts on Twitter and Facebook at the times you select?

Think laterally and you will find there are lots of ways to take the automation route.

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Big10 and what it can do for your business

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(This is a blog post written for my new business and I wanted to share it here, too, in case there is any interest.)

For many businesses, recruitment is something that is seen as a necessary evil and also an expensive one. If you do it yourself or have an in-house team, there is the time it takes to make your new hires and the cost of running the team and all of its own associated costs. If you use an agency, you are also going to be looking at a bill and its size will depend on the deal you have made with your agent. You’ve also got to make sure your candidates get a great experience when they interact with you and your team and that all of your team are ready for the interview process and know the part they are supposed to play. Add to this the need to hire a new team in a couple of weeks or a decision to hit the graduate market and things can get rather busy!

This is where Big10 comes in. It is a strategic analysis tool that has been designed to assess the relative strength of your company’s recruitment process and practice and help you to find your optimum solution with a focus on cost, quality, efficiency and effectiveness. It has been designed by someone who has been in the position of using budgets both large and small to get the best recruitment results and who has experienced the range of issues faced when looking at recruitment as a strategic tool. Clients who have used Big10 have saved huge amounts of time and money with some refinement of their own strategy while still making great hires.

As the name suggests, Big 10 has ten areas of focus that have a direct effect on the results of your hiring activity. They range from attraction methodologies and assessment and selection to supplier management and the source of candidates, whatever that may be. Every element is included in the analysis and we take the time to understand how and why you do what you do. At St John, we are driven by the need to make your recruitment capability truly deliver and our success becomes your strength in the war for talent. Big10 is a great way to ensure you are doing everything you can to be successful in all of your recruitment activities so put us to the test today and see where we can take you.

http://www.sjrec.com

A great week and the learnings from it

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It’s been a great week as Katherine and I started our new company, St John, and it has been shaped by some key points that I wanted to pass on here:

Ideas have been developed into products and discussed with potential clients. No real time for incubation or doubt to creep in, but straight out there and tested in the real world.

Hard work – focus and drive towards a common goal.

Teamwork and passion for the product and why it will be a success.

Self belief – there will always be doubters but they are not the ones in control and are normally the ones who are frightened that your success will show up their weaknesses. Get it done and deal with the consequences, good or bad.

Thankfulness – for the abilities we have as a team, for the opportunity to make new things happen, for our health and strength and all the things that make us who we are. They all need to be appreciated and we all should be thankful for them.

Enjoy your weekend! I know we will.

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How do you respond to discomfort and hardship?

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Discomfort and hardship are a state of mind in the society we live in today. We generally lead very protected lives in the western world – comfortable, secure and with a full stomach most of the time – and don’t have much of a sense of what going without things is really like. There are many in the world that do suffer from extremes of poverty and very poor living conditions, lacking basics of food and shelter, but this is not about them. This is about people who get angry and annoyed if their wifi isn’t 100% efficient or complain at the length of the queue in their favourite coffee shop.

How you respond to any discomfort or hardship in your life can be definitive as you develop. If you learn your craft, whatever that might be, in a tough school, the chances are you’re going to have paid attention and worked hard to master whatever the craft you were learning as the consequences of not doing so would be unbearable. The best examples of this tend to be the armed forces colleges around the world producing elite fighters but there are also examples in all areas, such as musicians, businessmen and women and engineers and so on. The overriding factor is that high percentages of these people at the top of their game had to overcome some obstacles that would have put off many people much earlier in the learning process and it was this ability to overcome challenges, whether physical, mental or both, that got them to the top.

When there were no cars and public transport was minimal and inconsistent at best, people thought nothing of walking for miles and miles to do everyday things. And in the years before this, people ate what they killed and if they didn’t kill, they didn’t eat. I heard a story about someone the other day who sleeps outdoors at least one night a month to ensure they don’t lose their ability to handle cold weather. The mental fortitude that this kind of thing breeds has a habit of spreading into other areas of your life and I would recommend thinking about your own life and looking for ways to encourage some discomfort or hardship and see what gains you can achieve as a result.

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Something new starting today

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This is a quick shout out for a new business which Katherine and I are launching today. St John Recruitment provides strategic recruitment consultancy to local (the north west), national (UK) and global clients. Katherine and I have been in this game for years and it is very exciting to finally be pooling our resources. Please stop by the website for more details if this is something that might be of interest.

Keep it simple

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I was looking at few of my old notes for a bit of writing inspiration and I found some very good stuff on keeping it simple:

Talk less, think more
Learn to say ‘no’ and mean it
Buy what we want, instead of what others say we want
Live in a way that is self-determined and original
Fulfil the demands of work without being controlled by it
Recognise there are many things more important than money
Know what you want
Not cost, but value
Buy one, chuck one
Avoid debt and the stress of overspending

I bought a very short book on this subject when I was a lot younger and it has since been lost or misplaced in various house moves, but that book was where some of this stuff came from and it was a really important thing for me. Following a few of these basic rules has helped me to keep my life relatively uncluttered and allowed me to sleep well at night when things have been tough.

In the world we live in today, the pressure to conform and live up to other people’s standards can be an expensive and tiresome task but still so many of us make the effort when it really isn’t required. Vanity has become of greater importance than sanity for many and this trend isn’t going to help to develop the great leaders and philanthropists of the future. Keep it simple and your chances of living a life that is full and authentic will be much greater.

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Sunday nights

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I usually feel good on a Sunday night. Another week is ahead of us, bringing more of the challenges and opportunities that keep us moving forwards.

For many, Sunday night is not the best time. It can be filled with dread.

Sunday night brings everything that you walked away from on Friday back to the front of your brain.

The effects of this can be harmful – lack of sleep, more arguments with your partner than normal, frustration at the situation you feel you are in, etc.

Some changes to the way you see your situation can help you to see things a little differently. If you’ve got a job, that’s a positive straight out of the gate.

Get to bed and turn that screen off, but before that, make a plan for the week ahead so you know what’s coming, what you’re committed to.

Say a prayer to whoever’s watching over us, guiding the steps we take, whoever you believe it is up (or down) there.

And get some rest. Everything’s better with a good night’s sleep.

Get up, rested, and get to work.

It’s what we all have to do. Why should you be any different?

Personal branding – make the most of what you’ve got

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Everybody’s specialist subject is talking about themselves. We know more about ourselves than anyone else and it’s a subject we have endless experience and knowledge of. How we use that information, especially when it comes to social platforms and our identity on the web, is massively important in relation to our own personal brand. With some thought on what we are trying to achieve we can be sure to make the right kind of impact in the right places.

Each social platform has its own reason for existing as defined by its user base and it is very important that you make sure you are using the appropriate approach for each platform. A bio that talks about how much you love acid house music and playing Sunday football is not going to hold much weight with people looking at you on LinkedIn, for example, so be sure you’ve worked this out first.

Make sure you’ve also got a really strong profile picture. A shot that captures your head and shoulders is ideal and you can get a friend to take one with your phone if that’s the best camera you can get your hands on – camera phone lens quality is excellent and a good shot will be fine for this job.

Now think hard about your strengths and make sure they are front and centre in everything you say about yourself. The majority of articles and other content you share or comment on should make it easy to see what you’re all about and your profiles should list these strengths. Search engines are also picking up keywords within profiles and it’s imperative that you get these things working in your favour.

And finally, be authentic and keep your target audience in mind with everything you do and say. Your passion for a particular topic will stand out for all to see and your highly likely to get the results you want – a strong and solid personal brand with new followers, new clients or new connections of any kind – if you use your authenticity to stand out from the crowd.

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Annecy

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A picture from last week’s amazing honeymoon location.

Friends and thank you’s

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I’ve been away for a few days after getting married at the end of June. Katherine and I had a wonderful time and every part of our journey – from the night before, meeting up with our friends and family at the venue to coming back home yesterday from our trip – has been amazing and a great start to married life. The time away also cleared our heads after a very busy few months and reminded us of a couple of things that are really important, especially to me, and worth sharing.

We have a very good group of friends and it was so good to celebrate with them all. We both have very busy jobs and also live quite a distance from a lot of our friends and this can be difficult as we would like to be able to see everyone more often and spend more time with them than we do – Facebook can only keep you connected to a degree, of course. The importance of making an effort with your friends – staying in contact, keeping in touch, reaching out in both good times and bad and generally being a good friend – was made very clear at our wedding. I had some great conversations with mates of mine I don’t see all that often but it was like I had only seen them the day before. Being a good friend means a great deal and it is something that takes a lot of effort but it is all worth it.

Being thankful is also something that can be neglected by those with busy lives. Taking some time to say thank you to anyone who helps you or goes out of their way to make your day go a little bit better for any reason is worth acknowledgement. A wedding is a time when you have everyone important in your life together and we got the chance to say thank you to all of our friends and family for everything they do for us, but even if you’re not getting married any time soon, be sure to show your appreciation of those who help you. It can go a very long way.

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How hard is hard enough?

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There isn’t an answer to this question in most cases and you need to get used to this.

There is always something else to be done and there is always more that you can do in order to be the success that you want to be. Hard work pays off and if you work hard and push yourself to achieve the goals you have set for yourself, you can then be happy with whatever you will achieve and you will have earned it. The point here is that if you have to ask this question you are not working hard enough. Dig deep and keep your head down. The results will come in time.

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Start sweating your own assets

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If you want to make progress and hit goals in life or business, you’ve got to work hard. This post is about being more focussed than just doing more of the same and expecting better results and it is geared towards making more of ourselves and operating more effectively within the rapidly changing world we live in today. Under each of the headings – points I see as important on any journey where you are looking to improve – I’ve listed a few points of relevance that should be helpful to consider.

Make more money –

Get performance related pay and then perform
Improve your skills
Stop adding and start multiplying
Change company for a big rise

Manage people –

Know what you need to achieve yourself
Set expectations from the start
Listen hard and proactively – get all of the facts
Acknowledge people’s feelings – they play a big part in daily work
Get solutions from those with problems
Stay calm and keep a sense of humour

Communicate effectively –

Tell it like it is
Listen before you think before you speak
Keep your message consistent
If it really matters, do it face to face.
Encourage feedback and act on it

Be relaxed about stress –

Stick to your own agenda
Don’t do it if it’s not necessary
Simplify everything you do
Be happy to say no thank you

Lead from the front –

Work harder than anyone else
Set the example
Keep your problems to yourself
Tell the team what you expect from them
Listen to the team and respect their skills
Explain clearly what you expect and ensure it happens

Be more efficient –

Start work earlier
Work in small chucks
Put time for you to think in your diary
Write the agenda and stick to it
Plan today and act tomorrow

Motivate your team –

Incentivise everyone
Be tough when necessary
Train people properly
Listen to the team and get to know them
Give them space and let them get on with it

Impress your boss –

Help them meet their key objectives
Give them solutions not problems
Listen to them and ask for the benefit of their experience
Get promoted above them

Stay a decent person –

Listen
Be generous with your time and talents
Don’t hurt other people
Say thank you
Give as much as you take
Keep your conscience clear

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Hiring advice from Ogilvy

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A quick list for you from the King of Madison Avenue:

“The qualifications I look for in our leaders are these:

1 – High standards of personal ethics.

2 – Big people, without prettiness.

3 – Guts under pressure, resilience in defeat.

4 – Brilliant brains – not safe plodders.

5 – A capacity for hard work and midnight oil.

6 – Charisma – charm and persuasiveness.

7 – A streak of unorthodoxy – creative innovators.

8 – The courage to make tough decisions.

9 – Inspiring enthusiasts – with thrust and guts.

10 – A sense of humour.”

All of these are highly prized commodities in the workplace and something I spend a lot of time looking for in people. Sadly the package is not found in all that many but those that do possess it are rare birds who fly very, very high.

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How to get the most out of your 24 hours

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There are many times when I hear myself and others say that they wish they had more time. I said just this morning that if you could buy an extra day a week I would definitely be interested. But we should all really have a look at how we spend the time we have and work out where the gaps are to ensure we are as productive as we can be, especially if we like to use the ‘lack of time’ excuse for not getting things done or started.

Have you ever made a note of the way you spend your 24 hours? Even a simple breakdown of your daily activities can be truly enlightening. Go ahead and do it – make a list of every hour in a 24 hour period and note down how much time is spent sleeping, how much at work, how much travel time you have, and so on. Add in the time it takes you for meals, any exercise time, and how long you watch tv in the mornings or evenings. Be as detailed and precise as you can and also be honest with your assessments – ‘was it four episodes of Mad Men I just watched there or three?’. Then take a step back and see what you have left.

It may only be small blocks of time – 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there – But I am sure you can squeeze at least two hours from every day to focus on the things that you ‘don’t really have time for at the moment’. There is a whole world of experiences and learning out there ready and waiting for you if you can make the time for it. You could use the time to start a new fitness regime, practise a new way of cooking, learn a musical instrument or just go for a short walk to clear your head and give yourself a boost at any particular time of the day. Give this method a try and see what it can it do for you.

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