One of the most heartfelt testimonials I recently received from a client was: “Thank you so much, you really are the Jerry McGuire of Life Coaches.” It actually made my day, because although it was a relatively short testimonial compared to what I usually receive; it was potent with meaning and gratitude.  It said so much, yet with a handful of words.  Which brings me to the main theme of this month’s newsletter:  Language That Changes Minds.

The power of language still amazes me, because it has the power to start wars, move nations, create revolutions, motivate a platoon, ignite passion and bring tears of joy to your eyes.  Language is a vehicle that can transport emotions from one end to another.  It can create pictures, sounds, feelings, scents and tastes.

Language can activate and manipulate almost all our sub-modalities resulting in instant change in how we feel.  It can change how we understand the world around us and offer us an array of colours to choose from to paint our feelings, thoughts and emotions on the canvas of our lives.

It can shed light on a dilemma we may be facing, it can change our moods and it can fire us up to complete something we’ve been putting off.  In fact, if you notice how inspirational leaders talk to their audience, they always use animated words that trigger off feelings of unity, vision, drive, purpose and passion.  They carefully choose their words and construct paragraphs like a master craftsman at work.

Most importantly, we can change how we feel by what we say to ourselves and the language we use internally.  Time and time again, some of my clients know what they want and what they have to do to get it.  Unfortunately, there’s a word they always use  that is an energy vampire and that word is: “But”.  Although “But” is used on a regular basis in our everyday casual talk, it can have dampening effects which can alter our path and weaken your dreams.  “But” is a three letter word that can completely undo everything that came before it.

• “I can book myself the vacation of my dreams, thanks to this year’s bonus, BUT I can’t be bothered with the way airports are these days.
• “I can lose weight and really get fit again, BUT….”
• “I really want to write this book I have in mind, BUT…”

Imagine if none of the above sentences had a big “BUT”.  Imagine if those sentences ended before the word “BUT”, and what a different impact they would have.

For the next 72 hours, try going on a “but” fast!  Completely eliminate it from your external and internal dialogue and notice how you feel, notice how you’ll start thinking and pay attention to the change in your motivation.  For the sake of this newsletter, I have only zoomed in on one word (“but”), and there are many more that can ruin moods and dampen dreams.

Let me just finish off with another positive addition you can start doing.

“I can’t change my job,….”  Now add the word “yet” and see how it changes the whole context.  “I can’t change my job yet”.

Use language to change how you feel for the better.  A great way to start is to practice it on friends and family, and notice what powerful changes a few well placed words can do.  Then make it a habit by cleaning your language.

Until Next Time……Live Don’t Just Exist.

Call now to book an appointment

Tel:  +44 (0)207 602 5477

taymour@guiding-light.net

We as humans are ruled by our feelings and emotions that can either make us, or break us. As such we are constantly influenced by external forces that hold us back, diminish our self-worth and throw us off the real track we want to be on. These influences vary so much, that listing them would fill up most of this page, but here are some examples: colleagues at work, your boss, teachers, the adverts on TV, your so called friends who put us down , your partner as well as your family. The worst and most effective factor is yourself. People tend to believe the worst things that are said about themselves, and that’s exactly what goes wrong. Luckily a coach is out of this monotonous and negative circle. As such they are able to see you and your life objectively and without judgment. There are many areas that coaching can help in – relationships, parenting, career, health, stress management, weight loss, time management as well as productivity improvement at work.

Coaches are trained to listen and pick up on key words that you may never think much of, they ask the right questions that can help you not only open up, but rediscover yourself in a fresh and promising way and bring out what you really want to do with your most precious asset – your life.

I, like most of you, was quite unfamiliar with what Life Coaching was all about. After university, I worked in various industries around the world. I worked in sales, trade, oil & gas, distribution and marketing. As the years passed on, I realized that I am meant to do something that I’d enjoy wholeheartedly. From a young age, people fascinated me. I loved discovering and learning all I could about them, and always boosted their self esteem for fun. I read self help books that magnified the human potential, and authors like Dale Carnegie grew to be my best friends. Naturally this innate thirst guided me to discover a new career. I considered counselling as an option, but Life Coaching offered a new angle that I truly identified with. That angle is believing that we are all fully capable beings who CAN and WILL achieve anything we put our minds to.

Research has proven that Life Coaching contributes greatly to ones success and self discovery, but the ultimate decision is yours. We are living in a time that people are becoming more and more aware of how powerful life coaching is, so please stop thinking that it’s only for celebrities. In fact, it is so powerful and effective that multinational blue chip companies are using coaches to improve productivity and stream line their human resources for the 21 st century. Remember, your stars may be aligned, your horoscope may promise you prosperity and the sky may indeed be blue – but you will have no re-action without action. Make that first small step towards reaching your highest goal, and give coaching a chance to change your precious life for the better.

Until Next Time……Live Don’t Just Exist.

Call now to book an appointment

Tel:  +44 (0)207 602 5477

taymour@guiding-light.net

In his book, It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be, he not only covers areas that are compatible with advertising, self help, attitude improvement and general motivation; he writes and illustrates in a way that is engaging and fun to read – two ingredients any NLPer out there can appreciate.  It’s a manual on maximising what you have and aiming for what you can achieve.  Its size allows you to keep it in your briefcase and handbag with ease, so that you can come back to it time and time again.  This is not a book you read once and leave aside to mature on a shelf.  It’s a companion that reminds you of the simplicity, logic and creativity that we can use to answer everyday questions and dilemmas.

If you’re a graduate, or a CEO, a coach or just a person who’s lost the wind in their sail – this book can add life changing insight to your perspective.  At an easy 125 pocket sized pages, this is a small gem of a book of priceless value.  Get it !

Until Next Time……Live Don’t Just Exist.

Call now to book an appointment

Tel:  +44 (0)207 602 5477

taymour@guiding-light.net

What has always fascinated me is how some people overcome incredible difficulties, get themselves together and continue to move forward, while others suffer what to them seems like purgatory.  A state of stagnation within a bubble of pain as the clock of life ticks away.  Why is this?  What determines why some people get up after every fall, no matter how bad it seems to be, while others struggle longer to get up and in some cases never do?  What is the secret ingredient that helps people cope with the tragedies they have been dealt?  The answer is quite simple, it’s attitude.  Quite specifically, it’s victim attitude vs. survivor attitude.

Relationship experts Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks who are the founders of the Hendricks Institute (www.hendricks.com) have a remarkable model called “The Relationship Triangle”.  Each corner of this triangle has a role that people have played at some point or another during their lives.  In the first corner: The Villain, in the second corner: The Victim and in the third: The Hero.  Every role is dependent on the other two.  None of them can exist without the others.  You can’t have a victim without a villain to inflict the crime, you can’t have a hero without a victim to be saved and you certainly can’t have a villain without a victim to be victimised.  At some point or another we have all either consciously or unconsciously played one or all of these three roles.  Let’s zoom in on the victim role for the sake of this article.

When bad things happen to us, we feel victimised.  My own personal experience of this being that I was mugged at knife point when I was 18.  I still carry the visible scar on my right cheekbone.  It made me feel angry, bitter, scared and frankly, traumatised.  I carried those feelings for months but eventually they diminished.  Most of the Clients I have closely worked with have also at one point or another suffered terribly and felt victimised for something they had gone through.  Feeling like a victim is understandable and there are times that we need to have our space and peace and quiet to re-compose ourselves and carry on with life.  Feeling victimised is a short to medium term phase we all go through and with the right attitude, love and support from people close to us and overall faith we can cope and move on.  However, for some, feeling victimised tends to spiral uncontrollably into an identity or role they undertake: the “victim”.

What tends to happen is that they view the world as a horrible place of suffering.  People, society and the whole world end up feeling like villains who they perceive are out to get them.  They feel helpless, weak, paralyzed and incapable of coping with things that they had successfully managed before.  In addition, they start to dramatise how they feel, become overly demanding and exhaust everyone around them.  Bizarrely enough they end up also being emotional vampires i.e. the villain, who inflicts suffering on their loved ones.  They become hero radars who seek help and attention from people around them to save the day.  Moreover, they unconsciously seek villains to reiterate their role as victims.  In other words, if all is going well, they seek situations and people to get hurt and carry on in the vicious loop of despair to resonate their comfortable “victim” identity and role.

Months ago, I had a Client who had finally decided to come out of an emotionally and physically abusive relationship.  She walked out in the middle of the night and never looked back.  Naturally everyone around her were relieved and happy for her.  She came to see me because she wanted to create a fresh life for herself.  As we progressed with our sessions, she confessed that she was still attracted to “bad boys” who treat her appallingly.  This immediately pointed me in the Self Worth direction, but it also made me question her role within relationships and whether she still felt like a victim.  We worked on this issue in depth, and she now sees herself as a strong person who can overcome the challenges that life throws at her.  In other words, her identity shifted from feeling like a victim to feeling like a survivor.  Though it seems simple, the changes in the way she lives her life are profound.

I’ve mentioned before that if you repeat a thought to yourself over and over again, it becomes a belief and if you believe something for long enough, it becomes a conviction then eventually a behaviour.  Since beliefs are not 100% true, or else they’d be referred to as facts, they can be re-examined.  Bertrand Russell very wittily once said: “I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong”.  The same principle is applicable here in the victim attitude.  People feel victimised because what has happened to them is an injustice of some kind.  Now if you mentally re-run and re-play what happened to you over and over again; in other words re-live the experience repeatedly, you’ll feel the suffering again and again.  You then lose control of your own mind.  Remember that the only person who can control what you think is you.  If you don’t like what you’re visualising (mental pictures) and hearing (internal dialogue), you have the right and freedom to change it.

I mentioned early on in this article that it all boils down to attitude.  In order to de-victimise yourself from what happened to you, you need to change your own attitude by being honest with yourself and delete the victim program you have unconsciously installed from your mental computer.  There are numerous people all around who can inspire us and strengthen our spirits with their resilience, positivity and attitude to life. They are survivors, not victims because they chose to be.

Here are a few reminders:

Lance Armstrong – Testicular Cancer

Tina Turner – Battered by ex-husband

Billy Connolly – Sexually abused as a child

Nelson Mandela – Imprisoned for over 20 years

Kelly McGillis – Raped

Tom Cruise – Severely Dyslexic

Stevie Wonder – Blindness

Pamela Anderson – Hepatitis-C

Stephen Fry – Manic Depression & Bi-Polar Disorder

Viktor Frankl – Holocaust Survivor

Paulo Coelho – Viciously Tortured my Brazilian secret police

There are many more celebrities and historical figures who have triumphed in the face of adversity but there are just too many to list here.  Ask yourself: What role do any, or all of the above examples play? Victim or survivor?  I think the answer is quite obvious.

So, how do survivors think?  Naturally, being human, they do suffer and grieve, but it doesn’t last long. They move on, they get stronger and don’t allow an unfortunate event from cursing their precious lives.  They fight and create a life of substance and meaning for themselves.  Most importantly, they believe in themselves and challenge the odds to come out winning.  Because your past does not equal your future and as Carl Jung once said: “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become”.

I once asked a Client of mine who had been abused and battered in the past how she coped and moved on.  Her reply was so simple, yet powerful that I still remember every word and the expression on her face.  She looked at me straight in the eye and said: “No one has the right to change my life but me”. Freedom to be and live however way we wish is a gift that we all have.  We owe it to ourselves to be who we truly are and never allow anyone to derail us off our chosen paths.  Ultimately, time does heal, and with the right attitude we have the strength and ability to turn our lives around.  Being a victim is a temporary phase that does pass, but being a survivor is an everlasting affirmation that we can overcome the hurdles of life time and time again.

Whether you have been wronged, abused and unjustly treated by others in the past, today offers you the chance to stop feeling victimised and start feeling like a survivor who’s strength and self-belief only grows day by day.  Let me finish off with a wonderful quote by L. Wilde: “Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it”.

Until Next Time……Live Don’t Just Exist.

Call now to book an appointment

Tel:  +44 (0)207 602 5477

taymour@guiding-light.net

The answer is rather simple actually and it lies in good time management.  Companies around the world are hiring executive coaches and time management experts to enhance the performance of their staff and improve efficiency, thus minimising stress and improving overall productivity.  Hummm, I wonder, do such gurus possess a magic pill that they hand out in their seminars that suddenly creates extra time?  Or ancient alchemical formulas they reveal to the selected few?  Perhaps a magic key to other dimensions of time?  No, nothing as dramatic as that.

The cornerstone of good time management is actually about being honest with yourself to identify your time thieves.  Time thieves can shroud themselves as pointless texts, emails, meetings, small talk around the coffee machine, catching up on childish gossip, surfing the net and even rifling through your desk.  In fact, some experts claim that on average we actually work less than three hours a day, and the rest of the time we waste on the above mentioned thieves.    Secondly, dedicating the first few valuable minutes of our morning to identifying our high priority tasks and low priority tasks can be invaluable as it will help organise our time thus increase our efficiency.

I have worked with some very high powered executives who have wasted precious time on small/low value tasks and later realised that these tasks can be like rabbits that multiply and derail your focus.  It is paramount that you identify what is worth your time, and focus on tasks of higher priority to cover more ground during your working day.  Even needless perfectionism can be the biggest time waster.

Since time management can be a broad subject to distil into this newsletter, let me leave four important points that Brian Tracy talks about in his personal success program.

The 4 Rules Of Time:

1- Time is perishable.  It can’t be saved, only spent.  So it’s vital that you decide what is of low value and what is of high at the start of your day in order to use your time wisely.

2- Time is indispensable.  There is a 10/ 90 rule that makes a lot of sense.  If you spend 10% of your day intelligently planning how to achieve your goals for the day, you end up saving 90% of the time you would have wasted otherwise.

3- Time is irreplaceable.  Time is all that matters in relationships, and how we express our love to our loved ones is by spending time with them.

Q: How do children spell love?

A: T I M E

4- Time is essential to achieving your goals.  By identifying your goals at the start of your day, or week, you’ll have a clearer picture of how to use your time to get things done and have enough time to play.  Working efficiently and productively is not always about manpower, but mind-power.  In other words, working smart, and not just working hard.

Let me finish off with a final point that is food for thought.  I recently had a client who wanted to finish his MBA without seeing a drop in the quality of his performance at work.  Within a 90 minute session, we identified his time wasters, eliminated them and suddenly created ample enough study time that was spent on completing his MBA.  His time wasters were, frequent after work drinking, excessive socialising and freezing in front of the TV whenever there was a football match or anything else that piqued his interest and distracted him from getting on with the task in hand.

There is plenty of time to do so much more, it’s simply about identifying what will serve you in the short and long term and what will harm you.

Until Next Time……Live Don’t Just Exist.

Call now for an intro session to manage your time more efficiently.

Tel:  +44 (0)207 602 5477

taymour@guiding-light.net

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”
R.W Emerson

Have you noticed how sometimes all is going well during your day, the lights are green, you’re energetic, light hearted, your favourite pastry is not only available but fresh from the oven at your local cafe, even people at the office smile and say good morning; but something shifts during the day and it starts to go downhill from there.  Well, that something is your thoughts.  All might be going well until you remember what someone once said that upset you, or how last month you had an argument with your brother, or even a painful day five years ago.  Such thoughts will automatically derail you from your positive day and throw you into a downward spiral of thoughts that can leave you feeling drained and bitter.  Thoughts are energy, and for something to happen in your reality (good or bad), it must first happen in your thoughts.  After all, like attracts like: Bad Thoughts & Bad Reality and vice a versa.

A few months ago, I had a very determined client who wanted to shift her life for the better.  After careful probing, she came to realise that her actuality was fantastic, she was healthy, attractive, independent and very intelligent; but her reality was full of painful past memories, a patronising critical voice inside her head (which she believed and listened to) and a very subjective and limited view of life that no doubt dampened her spirit.  As soon as we addressed this and distinguished her actuality from her reality, she suddenly smiled and became aware of how powerful her limited perception and thoughts had been breaking her days rather than making them.

By now you’re probably wondering what on earth the difference between actuality and reality is.

It’s quite simple really- actuality is a very objective perspective of your life as a whole.  It is free from opinion and is limitless in opportunities and possibilities.  A person may have gone through a bitter divorce, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll never find love again.  Likewise, an entrepreneur may become focus on the actualities that exist in order to maximise the potential of his business plan.  In other words, your actuality is an unbiased angle on your life that can always provide windows of opportunity and potentials to shift things for the better.

Reality on the other hand is a highly subjective and limited perspective on your current situation.  Your reality is a product of your past experiences (good and bad), your beliefs (limiting ones or otherwise) and your emotionally fuelled understanding of your life as a whole.  A person may have a fantastic business idea, but because of his negative and pessimistic circle of friends and family, ends up extinguishing any hope of success.  Most negative and depressed people tend to live in a limited reality that disallows their potential to flourish.  Additionally, optimistic high achievers with a positive “Can Do” attitude tend to approach life from an unbiased angle thus being more aware of the actualities that exist rather than just their own reality.

This does not in any way, shape or form mean that you should ignore your understanding of your world, after all, there are many good lessons that you’ve learned from your past experiences that have contributed to how far you’ve come.  However, if you feel that there are areas in your life that can do with some fine tuning, then by all means explore other perspectives that might be just outside your comfort zone and in the realm of actuality.

Try the following:

1) Spend five minutes a day to relax and go inside to clean your internal dialogue.  This is the voice inside your head that fuels your thoughts.  Speak kindly to yourself as though you’re encouraging a young person who’s full of potential, or even your own best friend.

2) If something doesn’t go how you had hoped, re-frame it.  In other words, change its context to see the good in it and carry on forward.

3) Live in the now.  Imagine how you’d drive if you spent 90% of your attention focusing on your rear view mirrors.  Learn from your past, thank it and the lessons it has taught you and centre yourself in the present.

4) Improve your attitude to life and what it has to offer. “There is no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes” Billy Connolly

Until Next Time……Live Don’t Just Exist.

Call now for a constructive session for yourself or a loved one.

Tel:  +44 (0)207 602 5477  taymour@guiding-light.net

Dr. Roger Callahan

Many of you have probably seen the likes of Paul McKenna demonstrate a bizarre tapping treatment on TV for anxiety, fear, phobias and even compulsion.  This unusual tapping technique is called Thought Field Therapy.  Created by Dr. Roger Callahan, read more: www.tftrx.com

I’m not going to get into the scientific genius behind it and bore you, but I am going to ask you to try the following

sequence when you’re feeling anxious, overwhelmed or worried.

First things first, notice how anxious you are, think about it and focus on the feeling.  On a scale of 1-10, (10 being very anxious and worried and 1 being it doesn’t bother me that much, or I can hardly focus on it) Where would you rate your anxiety.  Once you have given your feeling a rating, do the following as you keep thinking about that anxious feeling:

1) Tap the side of your hand (the Karate chop area) about 20 times. Then switch hands and to the same to the other hand.

2) Tap under your eye 10 times

3) Tap 4″ under your arm pit – 10 times.

4) Tap 2 inches under your collarbone (chest) 10 times.

Now (9 Gamut Sequence):

Tap between your tiny finger knuckle and ring finger knuckle - about 1 inch towards your wrist continuously as you do the following & keeping your head still.

a) Close eyes

b) Open eyes

c) Look down to the right

d) Look down to the left

e) Rotate your eyes in a full clockwise circle

f) Rotate your eyes in a full anti-clockwise circle

g) Hum a few bars of “Happy Birthday”

h) Count 1 to 5

i)  Hum a few bars of “Happy Birthday” again

Now stop tapping your hand and repeat the above steps 2 to 4.

Then notice the change that may have occurred.  Rate your anxiety from 1-10 again.  Repeat accordingly.

© Dr. Roger Callahan  – Tapping The Healer Within.

TFT is one of the most effective and remarkable methods to deal with a variety of emotional challenges ranging from past traumas to phobias and anger.

Here’s what a recent client said after a TFT session: “Thank you so much Taymour, I feel fantastic !! It seems like a huge weight has been lifted off me & that dark cloud has disappeared”

Warren Buffet

Some sound advice from Warren Buffet, the second richest man who has donated $31 billion to charity. Mr. Buffet is a man of substance who allows is level mind to govern his actions rather than his fortune. Mr. Buffet does not carry a mobile phone, nor has a computer on his desk, thus being a master of technology and not its slave.

His advice to young people: ‘Stay away from credit cards and invest in yourself, and remember:

A. Money doesn’t create man, but it is the man who created money.

B. Live your life as simple as you are.

C. Don’t do what others say. Just listen to them, but do what makes you feel good.

D. Don’t go on brand name. Wear those things in which you feel comfortable.

E. Don’t waste your money on unnecessary things. Spend on those who really are in need.

F. After all, it’s your life. Why give others the chance to rule it?

Honesty has always been a policy that I’ve relied on when making a difference with my clients. I’ve been a personal coach for almost five years now and time and time again, I’ve helped my clients by teaching them powerful and life changing techniques that have contributed to their growth and success. This is not to say that I don’t use such tools and techniques myself; they are always there in the background helping me cope and overcome my own challenges. Reframing a situation for the positive, adjusting my own internal dialogue and even being aware of what I visualise with my overactive mind.

Like all of you out there, life has tested me with its challenges and hurdles; and it continues to do so on a regular basis. I suppose every challenge has helped me become a stronger person and better at my work, as I can understand and empathise with my clients more easily. I am writing this article because of an experience that I went through recently that truly tested my attitude, mental discipline and the many mind techniques that I regularly recommend to my clients. I suppose you could say that I was caught off guard and life pitched me a curve ball (pardon the Baseball expression) that I had to deal with.

Without boring you with the details, I came to realise that:

a) The TFT Algorithms I use are extremely effective. They calmed me enough to think straight and take necessary action.

b) I (and many of you out there) can be highly resourceful when it’s necessary. It’s all in the attitude. I kept thinking that: “I need to fix this, no matter what.” Rather than: Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God…

And c) I was uncomfortably reminded of the fact that imagination is far more powerful than intellect or common sense. So I had to be extra mindful of the power of my thoughts and their impact on my body and mind. .

My logical/sensible mind was very calm and collected. It knew that this problem in its core could be remedied easily. On the other hand, my creative mind was super-active with terrifying thoughts of “What if!”. My breathing became shallow, my heart began to palpitate, I was sweating and feeling horrid with fear. My emotional and physical state was being overtaken with daunting thoughts that were not happening in actuality – they were just thoughts that I was beginning to unfortunately believe. All this in a matter of just one to two minutes. As this unpleasant drama unfolded, a voice somewhere in my head whispered gently: “BREATHE…You can handle this. Just do what you usually ask your clients when they’re faced with a similar challenge”. Luckily I listened to that voice of higher wisdom and began to walk my talk once again. I did what works. I first became aware of my thoughts in detail, and changed them for the better by visualising myself taking the steps needed to fix my problem and see it through. I went over that empowering movie in my mind repeatedly and acted right away. In stead of giving into my fears (which we all have and I’m no exception), I collapsed them with cleaner thoughts. Thoughts that were a cocktail of positive and helpful internal dialogue coupled with better pictures and film clips in my mind. After all, you are what you think; and what you systematically think will result in what you believe and act on a daily basis. Remember, for something to happen in your reality, it must first happen in your imagination.

Although the above experience has been simplified to make some focal points; it was also very humbling to go through. I was reminded of my own fragility and the importance of being the master of your own mind (thoughts and imaginations), rather than its slave. It is terribly easy to give into bad thoughts and follow their deceitful trail only to be left emotionally wrecked and physically drained. I can even appreciate the effects of anxiety and panic more than ever when clients describe them to me, as I’ve gone to the edge and stared into the abyss except I didn’t wait for the abyss to stare back at me. Nevertheless, as the old saying goes: “Life throws you only what it knows you can handle”, and in hind sight, things turned out for the best. Just look at this article as one the positive outcomes of a lesson learned.

The ancient Zoroastrian religion is based on three principals: Good Thought, Good Words and Good Deeds – in that order. Reiterating the importance and power of thoughts, this experience educated me once more to monitor and control my own in order to better my words (internal as well as external) and to alter my actions for the better.

The fundamental key is to discipline our fertile minds to exercise constructive thoughts that can be mastered through repetition and habit. I believe it’s all about realising what doesn’t work and letting it go; to discover what does and embrace it. In essence, it’s quite easy and simple to do. The conscious and positive conditioning of our minds is the keystone that can hold it all together as we carry on building our lives into edifices of pride and happiness.

Until Next Time……….Live, Don’t Just Exist!

Call now to book an appointment

Tel:  +44 (0)207 602 5477  taymour@guiding-light.net