success

The Power Of Small

10th June 2015 by VParmar Leave a Comment

Last week I finally managed to cross a long time goal off my bucket list, when I took the skies in a plane.

I’m sure most people reading this will have had some kind of experience of flying on a jumbo jet but let me tell you being up there in a two seater semi acrobatic plane is a completely different experience.

It’s both exhilarating and a little terrifying at the same time. I mean, there just a few inches of plastic and fibre glass holding us up in the open air!

Whilst up in the clouds getting used the flight controls, my instructor asked me to turn the plane to the right and that’s when something happened that I wasn’t quiet expecting.

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Let’s Be Walking In Lads!

26th May 2015 by VParmar Leave a Comment

Last week I was at Lord’s Cricket ground to watch England take on New Zealand.

It was the second day of a five day test match and things were hanging in the balance as the New Zealand team looked to be in moving into the ascendancy. Just then a chance came for a catch to one of the England fielders but it wasn’t taken and for the next few hours the England’s players watched while the batsman from New Zealand scored runs with relative ease.

It was at that moment that I remembered the voice of Jim Clarke, the ginger haired captain of Earlswood Cricket Club, the team I played for as a teenager.

‘Hands out of your pockets lad and let’s be walking in’ he’d shout just before the bowler ran in to try and remove the opposition batsman.

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Mind The Gap – Finding Your Leverage

21st April 2015 by VParmar Leave a Comment

Recently I met with successful lady who has done very well in her career but is unhappy.

She talked about how she felt frustrated, undervalued and under-utilised by her company. She explained to me she was looking for a new challenge and I could see the pain in her eyes.

So I asked what she had done so far to make the change happen.

She told me that she hadn’t done a great deal other than put her CV out to a few people.

Now, from everything she said it would appear that she had the perfect motivation but yet she wasn’t taking enough action to change her situation.

She’s not alone.

Most of us at some point have had dreams of doing something different.

Maybe a change of job? A new career? Starting a business? Perhaps taking up a new activity in your spare time?

However often we fail to take quality of action we need to make things happen – why?

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6 Ways To Enhance Your Public Speaking Skills….And PowerPoint Slides Don’t Even Get A Look In!

4th March 2015 by VParmar Leave a Comment

I love pubic speaking (just in case you hadn’t figured that out already).

I’d say it’s been in my blood from when I was just a twinkle in my Dad’s eye. In fact, if you asked me if there was one thing I could do for the rest of my business life it would be public speaking.

But I know that isn’t the truth for most people….most people don’t like it. In fact a recent study confirmed that most people still fear public speaking more than death!

Through the work I do, inevitably I get asked by people “How can I improve my public speaking skills?”

Here is what I share with them and it might not be what you’d expect….

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How To Break Ideas Overwhelm.

2nd March 2015 by VParmar 2 Comments

Ever had that experience when you have a spine tingling idea or decide to make a change in your life which gets the hairs on the back of your neck standing up?

You feel all inspired, fired up and full of excitement. It’s a great feeling, right?

But then things start to change…

You start to imagine all the things you need to do to get your idea off the ground or to implement the change you want and the list seems endless.

That little voice in your head starts to talk you down by convincing you that “You don’t have time” or “You don’t have the money” or the classic “You don’t have enough know how’

Very quickly you find yourself experiencing overwhelm and that once brilliant idea soon ends up filed away in the memory banks never to be spoken of again.

Any of this sound familiar?

I’ll be honest, overwhelm has got the better of me on a number of occasions too. I’ve got books full of ‘million dollar ideas’ which never made it past the starting line.

How do you get out of this feeling of overwhelm so you can start making progress on these ideas?

Here are 3 quick mindset hacks to help you to get out of ideas overwhelm and into progress fast.

1. It’s better to start at the top of the mountain.

Which is easier ? Looking down from the top of a mountain and asking “How did I get here?” or looking up the distant summit and asking “How will get there?”

It’s the first one, right?

It’s easier to trace your steps back to where you started from than to plot your course forward. In your mind, create a vivid picture of you having successfully put your idea into place and then ask yourself “What actions did I take to get me here?”

2. You don’t have to get it right first time.

When you have a new idea it’s unrealistic to think you will get everything right at the first time of asking. That kind of pressure will only serve to paralyse your progress, instead think about your idea as an iterative process. Develop a concept first and then test it out. With each test take the learnings and refine what you have until your idea feels like it is working the way want.

3. It’s not always about big steps, it’s about knowing the right steps.

You often hear speakers and coaches say you have to take massive action. I get the sentiment and I even use the phrase myself but the quality of action is also important. Look for someone who has successfully done what you want to do and check out what steps they took, then use it as a template to build your approach on.

Applying these changes to your mindset will help you to keep our early enthusiasm and develop a way forward meaning that more of your ideas will see the light of day!

Rhinoceros Success

11th February 2015 by VParmar 3 Comments

Who-are-you-a-cow-or-a-rhino-waiternomics-martin-fischer

“Are you a cow or are you a Rhino?” fellow speaker and massive goals expert David Hyner asked.

He was talking about the comparison that Scott Alexander makes in his book titled Rhinoceros Success.

I’ll be honest I’ve never read it and I was surprised to learn that David’s research of top achievers revealed that this was the book that most appeared on their ‘influential’ books list.

The author of Rhinoceros Success, Scott Alexander, declares that there are two kinds of people in the world – those who are like ‘Rhinos’ and those who are ‘Cows’

What’s the difference you ask?

Cows go with the herd and surround themselves with others just like them so that they can blend in.

Cows fulfil their basic tasks by eating, sleeping and producing milk as life passes them by.

For a cow everyday is like groundhog day, it’s the same monotonous routine day in and day out.

Cows do have dreams and wishes but the fear of breaking away from the safety of the heard and possible failure keeps them rooted to the spot.

Rhinos on the other hand are strong animals who are thick skinned and not worried by what others think or say.

Rhinos don’t have dreams or wishes, they simply decide what they wants and then charge toward it, not stopping until they get it.

A Rhino forges its own path and never follows “the herd.”

So what does all this have to do you with?
I’m not saying that everyone should be a Rhino nor am I saying that you shouldn’t be a cow.
What I am saying is if you want to really achieve significant meaningful goals in your life, then you have to be more like a Rhino.

Here are 5 simple principles for living more like a Rhino.

Stop Wishing On A Star.

Instead of wishing things were different make a decision to do something about it. Turn that wish into a goal by moving from a thought in your mind to a goal committed to paper.

Boom Shake The Room

Take that goal and turn it into a compelling vision statement that makes you feel so excited and pumped that you cannot wait to get up every morning inspired to take action.

Likes Are For Facebook.

Forget having everyone love you. When you choose to take on a different path from the heard, some won’t like it, some will love it and some may even join you in a Jerry McGuire sty-lee.

Drop The Assumptive Close.

When you say to yourself something like “I’m not good enough”, how do you know?

Too many people quit before they’ve even started because they’ve made assumptions about themselves and end up closing off any progress.

Stop it! Give it a try first. You will be amazed at what you are actually capable of doing.

The Elephant In The Room.

To get to where they want Elephants will trample over what is in their path whereas Rhinos charge towards it warning whatever is in the way that it is coming.

Yes, be committed to the charge and take action but at the sometime you must be careful not to trample on others to get what you want.

So it’s over to you. Are you a cow or a rhino?

This post was inspired by the work of David Hyner FPSA and Director of Stretch Development.