What obstacles do you face in the pursuit of success?

Andy Gibney made it to Silver Medallist in the World Championship Stick Fighting competition. He was already British Champion and fully expected to become World Champion.

Undeterred, he entered the competition the following year and ended up as…..  Silver Medallist again.

The experience of ‘not quite making it’ is one that resonates with many people, especially those who start their own businesses.

What is interesting is what we choose to do about it.

Do we settle for less or do we explore other ways to get what we really want?

Do we stick with what is comfortable or push ourselves into those places where we’re not quite sure what might happen?

Andy chose to explore what was going on in his own head and this led him down a completely different path. He explored the Nonviolent Communication methods of Dr Marshall Rosenberg and trained with Dr Richard Bandler and Paul McKenna in NLP and hypnosis. He has since trained 8 world Champions, 5 European Champions and countless British and regional Champions.

One of Andy’s physical demonstrations showed quite clearly that when we focus on a problem (a weakness) rather than on a solution we can expect a very different result.

We all saw the change in Andy’s demeanour and his body when he changed his thinking and the result that this produced was astonishing. He repeated this display with randomly selected partners to combat the cynicism that this kind of display usually produces.

Moving away from the physical manifestations, Andy did the following exercise:

Choose which of these is most important to you:

Health

Freedom

Security

Success

Comfort

Adventure

Contribution

Loyalty

Knowledge

Intimacy

Honesty

Power

Love

Passion

When you have done that, go back through the list and choose the second most important and then the third – make sure you write them down.

Now look at this list and choose which one you take care to avoid experiencing at all costs:

Frustration

Depression

Humiliation

Rejection

Guilt

Failure

Loneliness

Anger

As before, go back through the list and choose the second and the third emotions that you would take care to avoid experiencing.

Now compare your lists.

If there is a conflict in the things you seek and the things you try to avoid you will experience difficulties in achieving what you say or believe you want.

Resolving these conflicts and understanding what you REALLY want is the key to success (whatever that means to you).

Andy Gibney has been described as “the Derren Brown of the business scene”, “the Gordon Ramsey of kick boxing” and “the Gene Hunt of therapy” Find him at http://www.nobrain-nogain.com

Photos from the event are here

Video clip of Andy stick fighting is here

We continue our “Steps to Success” programme on 20th January when we explore “Power, the essential ingredient in success and how it can be used to harmonise.” http://theinspiredgroup.com/inspired-events/