Tag: habits

Principles of Success – Journaling and Meditation (9)

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Journaling and meditation lead to a balanced mind and reflection fostering SUCCESS. The last principle touched on routines. Part of my routine is to meditate for 15 minutes every day. I have been doing that for over 3 years. But did you notice what my podcast guests are telling me? From deep breathing, cold showers, reading novels to martial arts. A relaxation routine, a meditative habit. However you want to call it, meditation and regular relaxation will help you to transform your mind and the way you deal with things. You learn how to control your thoughts. Loads of research has shown how the brain changes over time to cope better, concentration goes up and you are more ready to handle unexpected things that come your way. There is scientific research suggesting a lot of good things re meditation. I personally find that by concentrating on nothing and reflecting on things, and yes sometimes my mind still wanders, but that’s ok too. What matters with any routine, and that includes meditation, it needs to work for you. If your meditation is a long walk with your partner at the weekend, or taking the dog for a walk, so be it.

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Principles of Success – Routines and Habits (8)

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Routines and habits are key to help with focus and therefore support SUCCESS. This is one of my most favourite principles, and I have been banging on about it since the launch of my productivity book. Forming a habit and successful daily routine will help you mastering your work flow and make your life simply easier. Let’s use Mark Zuckerberg’s or Steve Job’s routine as an example: they both wear the same cloths every day. They never opened their wardrobe in the morning thinking ‘which shirt to wear’. By taking small decisions out of your life, you simplify your life. If you don’t know how to fit in a gym routine or journaling or book writing routine when you are up against it at work, and too tired at night, take my approach: the 5am routine. Yes, I have been talking about it for a while, my alarm goes off at 5am, and I exercise, meditate and set myself up for the day. That is my time before the kids wake up, before the wife gets up and by the time I have breakfast, I have already had my first wins: I took care of myself. On the flip side

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Sunday Column (495)

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How are you all? Did I catch a snippet of someone saying that global warming results in us having stints of good weather for longer and then stints of bad weather for longer. Clearly we are in the former and I cannot say that I do not enjoy it. BBQs all weekend 🙂 Let’s speak about muscle memory this week. I was very proud of running a 10 mile run outside last Friday. I thought I coped well when I went on a 10K treadmill run earlier this week but one of my weak muscles gave in a bit. Too much too soon maybe, and maybe I need to take it slower. When recording a podcast with an Ironman runner on Friday, he said 50% of progress is recovery. But that wasn’t the only muscle memory event this week, I also went back for an 8 am flight from Heathrow. That meant a 5.15 taxi pick up, 90 minutes drive to Heathrow and so forth. I must have been on autopilot having done that every week for a few months. Now I am back doing this on occasions with my new contract work, and as much as I enjoy the

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Success – Positive Giving

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After interviewing a good friend and successful entrepreneur on my podcast Stories of Success, he sent me an article and a link to the positive encourager website, which I read with great interest. Success, so far looking at only a few definitions from my podcast’s guests, has to do with encouraging people positively during our time on this planet. I phrase this a certain way on purpose, this is for the greater good of human kind, and NOT about short term financial gains. It’s about the great unconscious (Carl Jung) and the bigger picture. It is about finding people’s strengths, develop practical strategies and achieve their picture of success. THEIR success, is what THEY want to achieve. To be loved, live in peace, achieve a career, or whatever it might be. The same, according to Mike Pegg, who is the man behind the positive encourager, can be applied to teams and organisations. So in that context, we are looking at superb work, forming good habits (see my book), to provide a good service, achieve goals, and finish those activities successfully? As I go through Mike’s website, and I encourage you to do the same if you are interested, I find

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Sunday Column (448)

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Finally, reaching some milestones this week. Firstly, I am writing this post on my iPad Pro. Yes, after the contemplation of upgrading or not, I decided I’d go for it. The keyboard is fantastic and better than the one (the good one) was for my iPad mini. Size wise, it is almost a bit too big, or too close to a laptop. However, the screen size is good for reading and, with my continuous bad eyesight, I enjoy it. It is less strenuous on my eyes. Now, essentially it is a laptop replacement, and with the new iOS coming out later this year, it will even be more productive. For emails, for anything else, it is already what I always wanted. What about the Apple pencil? Now this is a good question and as I would say: too early to tell. I love the opportunity to have one, but recently I haven’t done too much brain storming on the road. Yet, ultimately, the pencil and the screen sensitivity, is a white board in a pocket. So what are the next steps? Moving to paperless completely, and removing my notebook at work and moving everything to Evernote and notes. Why not?

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Sunday Column (446)

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A week without travel you might think makes my life easier. It does. It makes it more pleasant. More time with the kids, I saw them most mornings and most evenings. That made a huge difference. However, there is always something that isn’t right. First of all the new keyboard for my iPad which I don’t really enjoy yet and it makes it awkward to type and get anything done. As a matter of fact: I sent it back. The other annoying bit are the trains. A strike and overtime ban result in fewer trains, delayed trains and more annoying travel. So to a certain extend I hope to be back on the road. Yet, there is a huge advantage of being in the office every day: I have time to catch up with people and get real work done. I definitely enjoy that bit. Last week I ran a promotion for my productivity book. It is about life systems and finding your own systems and habits, to allow for the perfect life. If life can ever be perfect? Probably not. However, if you build a system that allows you to be able to deal with things in a close

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Sunday Column (401)

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I am reading Andre Agassi’s biography. It is a good read and in one of the chapters this week he said that when he finally ranked number one, he didn’t care. If I say he didn’t care, what he meant is that he had to tell himself to be happy. Inside it didn’t bother him too much to have achieved such a a fundamental milestone. From my perspective I understand that. I like to win. Be on the top. Be the one people look up to. Of course, most people would enjoy that. Now I don’t do that for my benefit. My motivation is for others. I am motivated by helping others to succeed and others to progress. Whilst this usually follows with the succession and progress for myself, this isn’t the main reason I am doing it. So if Andre got a nice ranking, and people wanted him to achieve that, then this is for others, not for oneself. His motivation to win is different. I get that. And people get motivated in different ways. My first week back to work. My first week after the long summer. Summer has been great this year, compared to the last few

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Sunday Column (246)

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Another week. If you are like me, sleep a few hours and you are busy and engaged on your waking hours, weeks just fly past. I had a good week. Somewhat. Lots of frustration yet an overall positive week. Good chats about values, skills and what it is that makes me tick. My coaching is coming along nicely, and I make progress on a lot of ends. I worry about my kids, my wife and whether I can keep up with everything I want to achieve. I guess it is a normal worry, not a “mad worry”. Yet, there needs some more bits coming into play soon. Anyway…. I started to formalise my dream, as in my life milestone I want to achieve. I started thinking differently about certain topics compared to a couple of years ago. I start thinking deeper, thinking purpose, commitment and what stays when you are gone. I write a lot, just added another column in an industry publication to my commitments, and I enjoy sharing things. It helps me think. On Wednesday, at our Rotary meeting, I got introduced to a charity helping people with mental problems: Portugal Prints. if you haven’t yet bought your

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