A couple of weeks ago I ran into a client from my time as a partner in a large business consulting firm. Rieny Marck and I worked together 20 years ago, and he was reminiscing about the Lumley Insurance journey.

I did some work with them over the space of about a year, starting with a vision and strategy session and then working through a detailed opportunity assessment and priority process. He still recalled the methodology I used, and my reference to something I called the “zone of sensible excitement”.

My GP’s theory

My GP is a fascinating man. He knows all these obscure things and treatments. He always likes to see me because I have exotic symptoms that he regards as a test of his trivia trove (and they are trivial). One of his trivia titbits is that there is a part of the brain called the locus coeruleus which is responsible for filtering out unwanted sounds.

When coaching, practice is perfect

My youngest son is a wonderful musician, already better than I will ever be. He was born with musical talent (he owes me for that), but he learned to be a musician, and he owes a great teacher and a determined mother for that.

Mrs T said he had to practice for 30 minutes a day and every night his mother made him practice for at least that (sometimes with a timer and often with a lot of resistance).

The missing piece of the puzzle

After 15 years I’ve worked out what we do here and why it works so well.

I’ve always practiced “outside in” – bringing the world to my inbox via subscriptions to bloggers, periodicals, newspapers and book reviews. This has its downside as a couple of them are American magazines (The Atlantic and New Yorker) and I can lose up to 20 minutes a day Trumping.

When it happens (as it does)

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but sh*t happens. Often. All the time, to varying degrees. We’re rolling along happily, and then avvompha! We get knocked off our stride.

Last year we were working on a big initiative. Great opportunity, wonderful relationship yadda yadda yadda. The great opportunity got smaller and smaller until it was whatever the opposite of opportunity is.

Dr Mike's BlogDr Mike AshbyFebruary 16, 2018business advisers, business growth, business owner, Challenger workshop, mindset, personal growthComment

Your best intentions will fail unless you do this

Good intentions, we all have them. We begin the new year full of vim and vigour and a whole lot of resolutions to do things better, differently and with more conviction. But it is normally a matter of weeks (if not days) and we are right back to our habits of 2017.

We’re working too many hours, feeling stressed, eating the wrong things, skipping workouts, missing time with the kids, cancelling date nights, and so the cycle continues.

Make it work

It’s all very well to set Most Important Goals. They establish what we rationally consider to be our priorities. They represent our beliefs about what’s important – they're our convictions.

But priorities are only meaningful if they involve choice and sacrifice. In those moments when honouring the priority involves inconvenience, disruption, additional effort on the part of yourself or others, then your commitment to priority is tested.

Give yourself a break

We played our last gig of the year last night – it was really great. The crowd loved it, we played pretty well and the energy was high. I got some very nice crowd response to some of my solos on the guitar, which always feels good.

Interestingly, I still feel that my guitar work is not where I want it to be.

Dr Mike's BlogDr Mike AshbyDecember 18, 2017business advisers, business and personal, business growth, business owner, personal growthComment

Innovation blah blah

Dr Mike's BlogDr Mike AshbyNovember 22, 2017business advisers, business growth, business ownerComment

Peace in our time