Establishing What Success is to You

There's passive learning and then there's active learning. Passive learning is where one sits back and waits for the answers to fall onto one's lap, but here's the thing about passive learners. They never get very far because they're missing the one element required for success: action.

As this book is all about active learning, you are going to take action starting right now. The purpose of the exercise you're about to complete is to help you establish a clear vision of success.

Sit down, turn off your phone, and really focus your thinking. If it helps, spur on the creative process with a cup of coffee. You might find yourself surprised by some of the answers that pop up when you start to think things through.

Once you have given it some thought, write down the top 10 things that would equate to success for you in your business as well as your personal life.

This exercise is so important. I can tell you from experience that achieving a goal you have dreamed of for years, only to realize it's not what you expected, is the emptiest feeling in the world. True success is feeling fulfilled upon reaching your goal.

‘Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.’

Tony Robbins, self-help author

Core Values

Once you have defined your version of success, it is important that you establish your core values. I realized the importance of core values two years ago when I hit a significant low point. I say ‘significant’ because it was the catalyst I needed to help instigate a change in my professional life.

At the time, things were going really well for me. From an external viewpoint, my life looked perfect. I was running a very successful business and genuinely loving the feeling that came with helping people change their lives. As word of my business spread, I found myself inundated on a daily basis with messages from people eager to become clients. From an outside perspective, I was very successful. Internally, however, I was tormented. I was working myself into the ground and as a consequence, my family and friends rarely ever saw me. Some people thrive on stress – I suppose we all do to some extent – but this level of stress was overwhelming. I had convinced myself that I was taking care of my family, but in reality I wasn't. I was overworked, exhausted, and consequently trapped with guilt.

Around that time, I was reading a lot of books about how to run a successful business, and I noticed that each one spoke about the importance of having core values. Having these core values, they said, would make business decisions easier. If you establish your core values, then you can easily choose the correct endorsements/advertising options, hire the right people, fire the wrong ones, etc.

The core values for my business were ‘gratitude’, ‘belief’, ‘reciprocity’, ‘strength’, and in particular ‘community’ because I wanted to bring people together. If someone came to me with a business idea that didn't tie in with those values, then it was easy for me to say no without having to fret over whether or not I had made the right decision.

I figured if it made sense to have core values for my business, then why not have them in place for my personal life? I can't emphasize enough just how incredibly effective they are for helping to shape you into the person you want to become. Funnily enough, few people ever think about this.

As soon as I personally experienced the benefits of having core values in place in my own life, I started helping my seminar attendees establish theirs. Here, I am going to help you establish your core values through the following exercise.

The traits you listed in this exercise should form three of your core values.

The premise of this exercise stems from the idea that when we hold an admiration for a particular person, it's actually the traits within them that we admire. We all have good and bad traits but when you recognize someone as being an individual you look up to or idolize, it's because they've got certain traits you too would like to have. Now that your attention has been directed towards this, you can concentrate on highlighting these traits in your own character. Once you do, you will find yourself morphing into the kind of person you want to be, and, as a result, you will be much happier and content, not to mention more successful.

Remember, our ultimate currency in life is how we treat other people. At the end of your life, it's not going to matter how much money you had in your bank account or what kind of car you drove. What will matter is how you influenced other people and affected their lives for the better.

When I was figuring out my core values, one of the people I listed in the first exercise was my dad. The traits I admired in him were his work ethic, his ability to be a wonderful family man, and the fact that he was always such a genuine person. I, by comparison, was working very hard but I wasn't seeing my family as much as I would have liked. I was genuine but at the same I was doing stuff that I probably didn't enjoy. When I completed the core values task, it made me take stock of things and realize the changes I needed to make.

Another person I listed was my friend Gill Carroll. Gill went from being unemployed to setting up a successful restaurant business. She now runs two restaurants in Galway City and is also heavily involved in charity work. The three traits I admire in her are honesty, her passion for connecting people, and her phenomenal work ethic.

The third person on my list is the Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur Elon Musk. The traits I most admire in him are his leadership skills, his ability to innovate, and his courage to turn his ideas into a reality regardless of how outlandish they may seem.

Now on to the second core value exercise! For this, I want you to think about the things you would like people to say about you when you're not present. How would you like to be described?

List them!

Now you have five more attributes that can help you form more core values. When I carried out this exercise, I wrote that I would like people to say I was loyal, genuine, honest, hardworking, and a family man.

What way do you see yourself? What way are you really? Sometimes we think we are living in a certain way, but deep down we know we are not. I think sometimes we jump into setting huge goals and wanting to change without first forming a true representation of our current situation. Before we can truly change, we must bring awareness to our current situation and tell ourselves the truth. You have to be honest with yourself and say ‘I'm not really living that way. It's nice to think I am, but that's a fantasy world and I have to make a change.’

When you live in fantasy land you can't really win, so getting real is the best thing you can do for your journey to success. Step back and realize you are not living the way you want to live. People often shy away from this exercise because it can be hard to admit that you're not the person you have convinced yourself you are.

Don't beat yourself up with this exercise. It's not a bad thing that you're not living the life you want to live, or being the kind of business figurehead you want to be. If anything, this realization is a good thing because it means you now have awareness of your situation. When you have awareness of an issue, you can implement the necessary changes. It's when you lack awareness that you become ignorant of the improvements that need to be made and, as a result, end up coasting through life, never reaching your full potential. So many people harbour a victim mentality all their lives rather than face up to their reality. Remember what I said earlier in the book. In order to change the marketplace and people's attitudes, you need to first change your mind-set.

When I carried out the core values exercise, I won't lie, it was very difficult for me to admit to myself that I wasn't being the good brother, son, or friend that I wanted to be. It was really tough, but becoming aware allowed me to make a big change.

Identifying and implementing my core values made a huge difference to my life both personally and professionally speaking. The moment I realized I was not living in accordance with my core values, I set about making a number of changes. First and foremost, I made more time for the people who were most important to me. My next step was to sell my gym and concentrate instead on expanding my range of online fitness courses, which I still run to this day. I had always told myself I would travel when I retired rich, but a heart-to-heart with a good friend made me realize there was absolutely no sense in waiting. With my business now online, I could work from anywhere in the world, so I packed up and embarked on the most amazing trip. The break relaxed me both physically and mentally. It also enabled me to change my approach to my daily routine – something I will be outlining in greater detail later in the book so you can do it too – and, as a result, my productivity levels soared, my creative thinking process started to generate new project ideas, and my work ethic went from strength to strength without me having to sacrifice time with those who were most important to me.

Had I allowed myself to continue renting a space in fantasy land, I would still be stuck in a very unhappy and highly stressful situation. Establishing your core values requires a level of brutal honesty. Yes, it will hurt, but don't forget a sting is only ever temporary. It's the benefits you reap from this change that will last a lifetime.

Reframing Your Stories

My biggest empowering story is: ‘If someone else can do something, then there is no reason why I can't do it.’

The disempowering stories I used to tell myself were: ‘It's a recession, I can't make money’, or ‘Irish people can't make a real living from personal training’, or the old favourite, ‘I'm not academic’.

The way you overcome these disempowering stories is to present yourself with evidence that the story you are telling yourself is not true. In my case, I was telling myself it was a recession and that no one was making money, but plenty of people were making money in the industry I wanted to be in. Straight away I had evidence that my disempowering story held no truth. I also read that more millionaires were made during the depression than at any other time in history. Again, more evidence.

Whenever I heard myself saying I wasn't academic, I simply paused and instead reminded myself that I had sat the state exams and passed each one, which in itself made me somewhat academic. I also reminded myself of my voracious appetite for books, which is one of the traits of an academic person. I basically provided my subconscious with evidence that the negative story was untrue. This is a wonderful way to retrain your brain. Similarly, when my fitness business really started to take off, I began telling myself that it couldn't continue at that pace, that there weren't enough potential clients out there. The reframe for this was: ‘Well there's 7 billion people in the world, and the internet opens access to everyone so really I've only scratched the surface.’

I want you to start focusing on how you can reframe those disempowering stories. If you tell yourself something like ‘I can't sing’, then ask yourself the question: ‘Is it that I can't sing, or that I don't sing? Maybe I actually can sing, but just don't have the confidence yet to belt out a tune?’

It's all about becoming conscious of the story that's in your head. If you want a better life, ask yourself better questions. Remove the negative slant from a statement and replace it with a positive question. So, rather than asking yourself ‘Why am I so fat?’, or ‘Why am I poor?’ instead ask yourself ‘What can I do to improve my health?’, or ‘How can I improve my financial situation?’ Be conscious of that inner dialogue.

How often do you carry forward disempowering stories from your youth or recent years that are not true? These can be so damaging and really limit your perspective. There was one man who attended my seminar and afterwards approached me for a chat. He said he was struggling to find a girlfriend because he was so overweight. The reality was that he had lost 12 stone and was in great shape, but in his head he was still the overweight guy. The story he was telling himself was no longer true yet he had carried it forward from recent years and it stuck with him long after the weight had disappeared.

For this next exercise, I want you to list your two disempowering stories again, followed by the evidence that proves they hold no weight. I also want you to look at how you can reframe each story so that they lose their negative connotation.

It is important that you do this. If you want to be successful in your business and happy in your life, you need to change the manner in which you speak to yourself. Do you think billionaire moguls such as Carl Icahn, Alan Sugar, Richard Branson, Jack Ma, and Len Blavatnik got to where they are in business by constantly criticizing themselves? Not a chance. Success requires an unshakeable self-belief and a good attitude. Start to get into the habit of breaking down the negative self-talk so that you can begin remoulding how you view yourself.

Upgrade Your Inner Dialogue

Don't forget, your brain listens to absolutely everything you say. You might consider a remark such as ‘I'm so stupid’ to be a throwaway comment; however, it's anything but. When you self-criticize, you chip away at your character and any progress you have made. Your subconscious hears what you are saying and introduces a whole slew of problems as a result of that inner dialogue.

I know a guy who was on best man duty at his brother's wedding. To say he was dreading the day would be an understatement. He was absolutely terrified by the idea of standing up in front of a crowd and giving the traditional best man speech. He kept talking about how the thought of it made him feel sick with anxiety and how he'd rather do anything else. On the day of the wedding, he broke out in hives as a result of the stress and nerves. His body had physically reacted to his fear of public speaking. What you need to realize is that your brain wants to protect you, so when you tell yourself you are terrified of something, your subconscious reacts to that and does everything in its power to keep you from venturing near ‘danger’, so to speak.

The language you use when speaking to yourself has a much bigger impact than you realize. For instance, rather than telling himself he was terrified of speaking in front of a crowd, the best man should have started telling himself he was looking forward to the challenge. It's easier said than done, but it would have made a difference.

Successful business people ‘reframe and rephrase’ all the time. It's second nature to them. They don't beat themselves up over problems and obstacles; they look at them as either challenges to be overcome or as experiences that will help improve their skills. This level of confidence and self-assurance didn't just happen overnight, however. It was developed over time, and trust me, inner dialogue plays a huge role in that process.

I used to be extremely hard on myself, but once I changed the language of my inner dialogue, things started to change for me.

When you start your six-week success journal, I want you to develop a daily habit point of drip-feeding your subconscious with positive language. Build it up more and more as each day goes on. It will be a tough habit to implement at first, particularly if you are quite hard on yourself, but by the end of the six weeks, I guarantee that the positive self-talk will come naturally and you will enjoy a massive change in your confidence levels. The first step is to become aware of the language you are using. Pinpoint the negative words you use on a regular basis and become aware of their presence in your vocabulary.

Example:

Instead of saying ‘I am so fat’, you should say ‘I am working on improving my health every day.’ Instead of ‘My business failed’, say ‘I learned so many lessons from my first business.’

Where Do Your Beliefs Come From?

People born on one side of the world think one way about religion, but people born in a different part of the world think a very different way about it. Another example would be football. People who are born on one side of Manchester will support Man City, yet those born on a different side of Manchester will support Man United. The only reason the two sides think so differently, whether it be about football or religion, is because that's the way they were told to think. It's worth asking yourself if your beliefs are in fact true, or if they were formed as a result of your environment and the people who occupy it. Identify which beliefs are helping you and which ones are hindering you. Are your beliefs making you happy or hateful? Supportive of others or begrudging? Honesty is so crucial here.

Upgrade Your Identity

When you think about it, you will realize that the contents of your ‘I Am’ statement have more than likely been taking shape since your childhood. When you are born, you're a clean slate. As you get older and start to understand the world around you, the people in your environment place certain beliefs upon you. Our beliefs shape us, but these beliefs come from the people around us so it's worth taking a look at the absolute truth vs the relative truth. The absolute truth is fact. You walk off a building, you will fall. That's absolute truth. Relative truth, however, is something you have convinced yourself is true.

We're all guilty of attributing certain meanings to incidents that occurred during our younger years and that have since stuck with us into adulthood. Maybe you read aloud in front of the class when you were a teenager and were laughed at? You probably associated that incident with the idea that you are not a good public speaker. That's a relative truth. It's something you convinced yourself of. Here's the good news. Your beliefs are stoppable. You CAN go back and rewrite them. Your childhood will never change, but the meaning you give it most certainly can.

We tend to attach an emotional meaning to different events but the reality is that these events don't carry any meaning at all. It's the meaning we give them that causes the negative feelings.

Let's take a general scenario as an example. If someone you know walked past you without saying hello, you would probably jump to the conclusion that they were deliberately ignoring you when in fact they might have been distracted by their own personal issues. It's a reasonable explanation as to why they didn't acknowledge you, yet the chances are you would have immediately assumed that you were the reason they were not speaking to you.

Let's say a customer leaves a nasty review on your social media page. Do you take it personally? No. You take a step back and cut through the negative element of the comment so that you can establish what the actual complaint is. Don't pay attention to the negative embellishments, e.g. ‘This is the WORST restaurant I have ever had the misfortune of eating in.’ Remember, people will always decorate their sentences that bit more when they are angry or upset, and this is especially the case when it comes to writing a negative review, so don't let their choice of words get to you. Once you have worked out what their complaint is, acknowledge it, apologize if necessary, and make amends with the customer so that they leave the conversation with a different perspective of your establishment. These heated exchanges can be tough, and very often they end up feeding the disempowering stories you have already been telling yourself. (‘I’m not a good enough business person’, etc.) Be mindful of this. Don't give these incidents the power to fuel the relative truths you tell yourself. Instead, focus on the changes you can implement so that there won't be a repeat of the complaint voiced by the previous customer.

Reframe the Meaning

Once you stop attaching a meaning to incidents and events, the negative feelings and accompanying stress tend to disappear. Easier said than done, I know, but it's worth taking the time to break the habit over the next six weeks. The next time you find yourself hurt or offended by someone, take a step back and look at it objectively. You are responsible for shaping your identity, no one else. Think it's too late to change who you are? You're wrong!

When it comes to self-belief, few can rival the aforementioned poster boy Conor McGregor. He's known for his bold statements and unshakeable self-belief, but this wasn't an attitude he adopted only when things started to go well in his career. He was like that long before he became a household name and definitely long before the celebration cheers for him sent tremors through Las Vegas. His mind-set is the very reason his career is going so well. He envisioned himself one day being a world champion even back when he was unemployed and on state benefits. Even today, McGregor will never say that he hopes to win a fight, he will tell you with 100% conviction that he is going to win the fight. He's not just talking the talk either. When he sets his mind on a goal, he follows it up with the necessary action.

Notice how it all comes back to action?