Getting to know both of you

Do you see yourself as two people? You may not see it at first, but if you think about it – you have the achieving, determined and smooth talking entrepreneur inside you, and you also have the you that you take home. The caring mother or father, brother or sister. Or maybe there is one version of you for strangers, and one for friends?

Do you have to divide yourself between your home life and your work life? Should you have to?

This was always something that concerned me when I worked in training: and as we approach the Personal Leadership Programme (starting today!) it’s important to remember the origins of it all, and why the PLP remains so successful. Much of it comes from the life experiences I had before the PLP was first in place, when I was still working in management training.

The fact remained that no matter how ‘successful’ the company claimed to be at management training, and no matter how great the people said the training was, once they had returned to work the next day they had forgotten most of what they had learned before they had even put it into practise! 6-8 weeks after, all delegates had forgotten 90% of the course. This happened too often to count, and for me, this was unacceptable and disillusioning. I came out of the business, and after what can only be described as an extremely testing year, threw myself into qualifying in sport’s massage, aromatherapy, Reiki Healing and more. I left no stone unturned!

It was on these courses I met people from all walks of life, including countless business professionals. I asked several how they applied what they learned at the courses into their work, and to my surprise the response was, more often than not: ‘This is for me. Not for work.’ Again, reinforcing this idea of being two people – on a daily basis! One for work and one for play.

It was then an idea struck me. What if this was why all the training I’d come across over the years had been nine times out of ten unsuccessful? What if there could be a programme that appealed to just the one person – for both work and life outside of business? Could I do it?

On most training programmes, trainers are appealing to people’s heads: what makes sense? They get them to think about the best ways to lead, inspire and motivate, using all sorts of models to make you understand. The training is all aimed at head level, meaning it is swiftly forgotten when life begins to get in the way again. Why? Because their hearts haven’t been engaged, so they’ll never be able to make lasting change.

When I realised that the question should be ‘What sort of leader do I want to be?’ instead of ‘What do I need to do to be a great leader’, I hit a turning point and my whole life and my approach changed. I began to only run programmes that affected the whole person, in both work and life, in order to create lasting change in life as a whole. It was here that the PLP was born, and since has been rolled out to tens of thousands of people across the globe and counting; inspiring a new generation of leaders.

Remember, that in order to become a great leader, you must be able to apply your principles to all aspects of your life. Once you do this, you will begin to see the rewards and results. The PLP this week will be running today and tomorrow and will be revisited on the 18^th February, so I will keep you updated with our ten delegates’ progress and stories.

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Don’t worry about yesterday or tomorrow!

Cover Image credit goes to JJ Paine

“Don’t worry about yesterday or tomorrow.  You miss a lot of the ‘now’ doing that.  There’s only so much ‘now’ to go around”.

Over 35,000 people have experienced the transformational impact of Penny Ferguson, in business performance and their lives.

Reading a book the other day these couple of sentences really sent bells going in my head.  The book is just an easy read fiction thriller and these few sentences just grabbed me.  How much time do I spend in thinking about the past and, in some instances doing something really useless ……. trying to rewrite history?  However much I know that, apart from perhaps taking a valuable lesson from it, I cannot change what has happened, do I allow valuable thinking time to be wasted with going over it?  Sometimes even going over it again and again a bit like a stuck gramophone record!

And what about the future – how much time do I have my attention there?  I am not talking about the potentially useful stuff, the creating the vision, setting some achievable goals – I am more asking myself about the fears and concerns over things that might or might not happen.  The answer is that, if I am brutally honest, too much time is wasted on that activity which achieves little.  It brings to mind something I read – I think in a Stuart Wilde book – many years ago; ‘there are only two types of things that anyone can worry about – the things that you can control and the things that you can’t.  Well, if you can control it then do something about it and if you can’t control it then there is nothing you can do.  So, in either circumstance, there is little point in worrying!’

The ‘now’ is incredibly precious and that is the only place where you might take your learnings from the past and do something that could impact the future.  Staying totally present sounds as though it would be really easy.  Just try it for a very short space of time – say one hour.  Then ask yourself the question “how often did my mind slip into the past or the future?”  You might just surprise yourself and recognise that perhaps it is not quite as easy as it seems!

Penny Ferguson is an inspirational speaker who changes lives and business. Part of ‘The Living Leader’ they provide leadership development programmes that promote long lasting and positive change in business. She has worked with businesses like Sage and Travis Perkins. For a competitive edge, see how Penny can help you at The Living Leader today.