Every leader appreciates that stress-free decision-making is a key component of growth. More so, decisions shape your career and define history. Decisions determine your pedigree and lead to your greatest victories or your vilification. We judge our best leaders at the worst of times. We scrutinise their ability to make high-impact decisions quickly. Usually while they are under pressure, and in a complex and uncertain environment.
To reach the height of your career aspirations, stress-free decision-making must develop as early as possible. While Navy Seals embrace a 3-Step Decision process:
Gather Input
Decide When to Decide, and
Be Willing (and Ready) to Course Correct
The business leader’s landscape is like a battlefield. Whether you’re a manager or business owner, the terrain is a political minefield of conflicting agendas. Any one decision may rouse the rebels. Shareholders, department heads, staff, unions, governing bodies all have differing goals and rules. The job of making decisions is a balance point between achievements and casualties.
Making laser-fast decisions requires one decision first.
Jeff Bezos bares a reputation in Amazon of making laser-fast decisions. His first decision determines if the decision is a one-way or two-way door. Two-way doors are decisions that have little real consequence. You can always change your mind and walk back through the door. One-way doors are the opposite. Once you go through, you can never go back — at least not without significant consequences. Bezos relies on a simple framework to make decisions. He rations overthinking and instils more clarity and confidence. Bezos believes it’s costly to wait too long with two-way door decisions. He figures that it’s better to go ahead and make the decision than waste precious time. If it happens to be wrong, you can always go back and do a Navy Seal course correction. You’ll still be moving through life much more quickly, allowing you to focus on other areas of your business(es).
Great decisions need all three brains.
The greatest recipes come from unusual combinations. Take the topic of decision-making. Now add three experts in the areas of the gut-brain, the heart-brain and the mind-brain. Enter Dr. Arun Dhir MD, a GI Surgeon and gut specialist. Dada Nabhaniilananda a Monk and an intuitive specialist. Finally, R!k Schnabel a Brain Untrainer and expert on the mind and predictive behaviour.
All agree that while most decisions utilise the cephalic brain or head brain. Their decisions so-often deny the cardiac or heart brain and the enteric or gut brain. This is why overwhelm and procrastination stifle many decision makers.
For this reason, Dhir, Nabhaniilananda and Schnabel are running The Leadership Edge. A retreat for decision makers to hone their decisive skills. The retreat will be a combination of education and implementation, coupled with some restorative activities. For more information visit: the Leader’s Edge Retreat Website or watch the video below …
Managing finances can be challenging, especially for women. In today’s society, women often struggle with issues like thegender pay gap, which means they get paid less than men. Societal norms can also limit women from achieving high-paying jobs, as they often face more scrutiny regarding their abilities and expertise. Many also lack financial know-how, as men usually handle the money in the family’s budget. However, times have changed, and while these issues haven’t been eliminated, women now have more tools, resources, and opportunities to manage their money and do so independently. Here’s how independent women can elevate their finances:
Take control of your money
As an independent woman, your finances should be under your personal control rather than letting a spouse or partner manage your funds entirely. In the case of a separation, divorce, or death, you might find yourself struggling with regaining financial control and navigating money challenges. Some of the best wealth-building tips encourage you to be involved and engaged in every aspect of your financial health.
You can start by taking care of your debts to avoid being weighed down by the money you owe. Be intentional about your savings and create separate accounts for individual savings, emergency funds, and retirement plans to ensure you have enough stored away for any situation. Even if you earn money from a job or business, you can diversify your income and look for additional revenue streams to earn more funds. By taking control of your finances and taking the initiative to save and earn more, you can enjoy your independence even more and have enough finances for personal and emergency use.
Set saving goals
Bills and significant purchases can be tough to pay for, especially if you’re an independent woman who’s likely handling these expenditures on your own. It’s also easy to get caught off guard by large payments that can leave you scrambling for enough payment. Rather than spending a large amount in one go, setting savings goals and being strategic with your money can help you set aside enough funds to take care of any expected purchases.
Strategies likesinking funds can encourage you to put away money for upcoming bills or expenses you can plan for. You can set up a sinking fund for purchases like home renovations, birthday or Christmas gifts, vet bills, vacations, or any expense you want to have enough money for. You can consider how much the costs will likely be, when it’s due, and how many paydays you have until payment. This can help you calculate your goal and how much to set aside monthly to reach it. By setting saving goals or sinking funds, you can be prepared for any expenditures and spending without coming up short.
Adjust your mindset
Being an independent woman can still be a challenge in an unequal society, and this can cause you to underestimate your abilities and the value of your work. However, being stuck in this mindset won’t be helpful financially. You may end up undercharging for your services or be too reluctant to pursue more income opportunities due to fear or a lack of confidence. Managing your mindset can help you elevate your finances and empower your efforts. Rather than stay paralyzed, take the initiative to build financial literacy and be open to continuous learning to equip yourself with the knowledge and know-how to manage and grow your funds.
You may also undervalue your work and accept less than you deserve for your services compared to your male peers. Shift your thinking by making it a point to speak up when you feel you aren’t being paid your worth, and don’t settle for less. If you’re planning a business venture, you don’t have to play it safe with your ideas. Somecraziness in business can help you find success and give your business a unique edge, allowing you to generate revenue doing something that’s out of the box.
One common question people ask me is, “Why does Life Beyond Limits teach nlp trainer training?” I get it. They know my company, Life Beyond Limits also teaches NLP and upon gaining a Trainer Training qualification, they know that my students will be able to teach NLP. What they don’t get is why anyone in their right mind would create competition for themselves. Here’s why we do that.
Firstly, we care about the state of the world and we care deeply about mental health. That’s the first reason we train people to teach NLP. I know what you might be thinking. Yes, that’s all good and well, but aren’t you creating more competition for yourselves? Well, that would be true if NLP Trainers were coming out of the woodwork in their millions but that’s not true at all.
There is One Accredited NLP Trainer for Every One Million Australians – That’s Nuts!
The Neuro Linguistic Programming Association of Australia Inc. (NLPAA) is the only governing body that determines if you are accredited to teach NLP. At the time of printing, its website lists a mere 26 accredited trainers in Australia and that’s including me! If you’ve done the mat, that’s just one trainer for every one million Australians. There are not enough trainers to meet demand and Life Beyond Limits is doing our bit to make a difference, not only in Australia, but in the world.
Even if Australia increased it’s number of Master NLP Trainers one-hundred times over to 26,000, there still would not be enough.
Over the years, I have offered NLP Training in Melbourne. I’ve provided NLP Training in Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Canberra. I’ve even traveled over 3,000 kilometers to teach NLP in Western Australia and Tasmania, and still there are not enough people who know NLP. But why do I do it? The answer is simple and certainly motivating …
We are Fighting a War on Consciousness
More than at any time before, there are so many distractions, addictions and misaligned disinformation in our world. While mental health is at an all-time high, productivity is at an all-time low. According to a Gallup Poll, 85% of workers hate their jobs and are disengaged. I have come to understand that the reason behind the complexity of this problem is simple. People make poor choices when our civilization has a poor infrastructure. Good choices come from when we know ourselves well enough, to know which avenues are right for us. However, in our schooling, we were never asked questions to discover ourselves with any level of detail. We never learned to uncover our values. We rarely were asked enough questions to define ourselves. So unknowingly, we entered into careers that didn’t suit our personality styles or our values.
Our students, who have become society’s adults were not conscious in the first instance when they chose their career and so their job. This is due to a lack of self-understanding and metacognition; understanding why they think a particular way.
When our students attend NLP Practitioner Training, they learn to improve their conscious decisions. They gain an understanding of metacognition and why they have become the person they are today. But sadly, a small portion of the population has learned NLP and remain largely unconscious. The process of wisdom is modeled in our Master Coach and Master NLP Practitioner training. I have referred to “The Ascension To Wisdom” in another article, “How To Change Your Frequency And What You Attract.”
Here is Our Vision
Now while it could be true that we are creating more competition for ourselves by teaching our students to teach NLP. We are not in competition with our students. In fact, we’re in an informal partnership with our students. We promote them and in NLP Trainer Training, we even give them all the PowerPoints, manuals and all the business files and templates they need to become a successful NLP Trainer. Call us crazy. Call us stupid. But the reason we’re doing this is to duplicate the good work we’re doing in the world and helping our students to do good work in the world too. That’s our vision.
If you want to change anything in your life, then you must change your frequency. Your brain, your body, and your words emit a frequency. So if you want to change what you attract into your life, then learning how to change your frequency is critical.
Our emotions can either be tripwires to debilitating downward spirals or opportunities to manifest magnificence. Imagine if you had one simple strategy that guides you to improve your emotional state? A tool that keeps you sane, even in a crazy world. Would it be helpful today to know where to start to untrain your brain’s fear responses? What would your world look like if you knew what to do to manifest your wildest dreams into your life. Today, I would like to give you a tool to get you started.
Now in my 63rd year on earth, I’ve seen a great deal of chaos and craziness in the world. Financial collapses, continual changes in technology, climate change, conspiracies, and global tension. These are as much a part of modern-day life as are the shocks that come from emotional trauma and tragedy.
With all this and more going on in your life. How do you rise above the craziness and remain sane? Let me answer this harrowing question. From the standpoint of a coach, a Life Beyond Limits NLP Master trainer and a brain untrainer.
While our students and clients come to us to get beyond their limits. There is one thing we like to teach them that helps them enormously. It is a measurement tool designed by Dr David Hawkins, author of “Power vs Force.” Hawkins passed in 2012 and was a mostly known as psychiatrist who specialised in treating schizophrenia and addiction.
How to Change Your Frequency Comes Down to Where You Are on the ‘EV Chart’
The chart is called the “Emotional Vibration Analysis Frequency Chart.” I call it the ”EV Chart” for short. The EV chart gives you a guide to know where you are emotionally, and energetically, and then shows you where to direct your focus. So let me help you to understand the EV chart by making sense of vibration otherwise known as hertz frequency. Hawkins’ book presents a fascinating framework for understanding human consciousness and its impact on personal and societal well-being.
This is a key measurement tool and as a trainer of coaches, I’ve come to realise that measurement is just as important as the means to get to where you’re going. As Lord Kelvin said, “If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.” But I think Peter Drucker said it better in, “What gets measured gets managed.” Now Dr David Hawkins measured vibration.
So let me share Hawkins’ chart. It’s organised as a hierarchical scale ranging from 0 to 1000. Each level corresponds to specific emotional states and attitudes and each has an associate resonance, measured in Hertz. Lower levels (below 200) represent states driven by force, such as shame, guilt, apathy, grief, fear, desire, anger, and pride. These Hawkins believed were aggressive, harmful, and egotistical states of consciousness. We’ll refer to these as coercive states to emphasise that these are undesirable and hurtful.
In contrast, higher levels (above 200) include courage, neutrality, willingness, acceptance, reason, love, joy, peace, and enlightenment. These signify states of power. Just to be clear. These are not states of power over others. These are empowered states.
Force is primitive thinking and related behaviours while Power is within the realm of wisdom.
By the way. When I speak of the Power being within the realm of wisdom – I’m talking about my model of the ascension to wisdom. It’s where I believe we all start unconsciously. It’s when our behaviours are automatic, without conscious awareness, so we are unaware, easily startled and we experience own fears for the first time. Then we progress to awareness where we are starting to build our conscious mind, so we’re curious, adventure seeking and starting to perceive our world. Then around 7 years old, we move into consciousness. Our world starts to come together and we learn to avoid pain and are motivated by both pain and pleasure. The next level is the success level. It’s where we learn the value of knowledge and courage, and come to understand that these can lead us to acquisition. This is where come to terms with our free will and the cost of our choices which leads us to experiment and set goals and direction.
To ascend to wisdom, we cannot miss any steps as wisdom is ultimately the knowledge of self, the world and the universe. Here we move to understand the interrelationship of all things and how one thing affects another. This is where we learn to manifest as we come to realise that our thoughts are not just silent thoughts. They hold a power to repel or attract physical constructs such as all matter and energy. This is what I believe Hawkins meant when he suggested that courage, a hertz rating above 200 is where we step into true power. If you think about it, to do anything new, you must start with courage.
How Did Dr Hawkins Measure These States?
To measure states, Hawkins used a technique called Applied Kinesiology to ‘calibrate’ these emotional states. According to his theory, each level has a distinct energetic frequency or vibration. Lower frequencies are associated with negative, debilitating emotions, while higher frequencies correspond to positive, empowering emotions.
The chart postulates that an individual’s level of consciousness not only affects their personal life but also contributes to the collective consciousness of society. Higher levels are associated with constructive, life-affirming behaviours, whereas lower levels are linked with destructive and life-diminishing actions.
Hawkins suggests that personal development involves moving up this scale. This progression is not just a journey of emotional change but also a transformation in one’s perception of self and the world. As individuals ascend the scale, they experience a shift from ego-driven motives to actions based on empathy, understanding, and a sense of interconnectedness with others. This is why I say that the best power is not power over others, but power to empower others. When you heal, we all heal, we all benefit. To illustrate this point, you just have to ponder for a moment. What if the large majority of the world vibrated at say love or 500 Hertz, then you could only imagine what world you would be living in.
Imagine if the World all Vibrated at 500 Hertz?
Now I use the EV chart coaching and it also has implications in psychology, spirituality, and even leadership and management. It provides a framework for understanding human motivation, decision-making processes, and the potential for personal and societal transformation.
Every person on this planet is vibrating at a subtle hertz frequency rate. Some are calm and attract calm situations into their life. While others are frantic and attract drama and frenetic energy. We have a base metabolic rate when at rest. But when events occur in our lives that trigger our emotions, our vibrational rate changes rapidly and often dramatically.
From the moment we are born, our emotions are engaged. As a coping mechanism, our mind starts to learn defense reactions. These are imprinted and stored deep in the mind’s unconscious.
As we move through life’s experiences, the large majority of our reactions become automatic or more-so, unconscious. Those emotional reactions are often negative and become learned habits. This leads us to believe that our own behaviours are uncontrollable.
In Western society, we are not taught how to view each life experience separately and appropriately. We’re either a success or not. We are seldom taught how to learn from those experiences. To process them. But most importantly, we’re never taught how to let go of the negative emotions, without emotional blocks appearing.
Negative Emotions Become Stored in our Unconscious
These negative emotions become stored in our unconscious. We are programmed until that program is dissolved and replaced by another. By the time we’re adults we have so many unresolved experiences. Many of our responses are automatically negative. These negative thought patterns perpetuate ever more negative events. All due to our vibration or frequency. We become caught in a negative emotional events cycle. Often based on long-forgotten past-memories.
Once in these negative cycles, negative events and consequent negative emotional reactions become more and more frequent. These are a natural life lesson occurrence triggered to keep giving you opportunities to see the pattern, process it and dissolve it. This is called ‘fractal time.’
Reactions that trigger negative interactions include—judgement of others. Feelings of being the victim. Comparing yourself to others. Perception that we are not all equal, are just a few. These are often the things that my clients engage me as a brain untrainer for.
Breaking negative cycles is paramount in raising your emotional state. To experience higher frequency emotions such as joy, love, acceptance. This begins by making the decision, using your Will, that you no longer wish to behave in this way. Then you begin the journey of finding new information. Discovering tools, and techniques to start breaking the constancy of these lower emotional reactions. Choosing to act from love as often as you can. Congratulating yourself when you do move through challenging situations in a higher and higher emotional state. Self-scrutiny becomes a habit and an effective tool.
What Would Love Do Now?
A great question to ask yourself. Whenever you doubt yourself or come from a position of fear is this.
“What would love do now?”
The power of this question is that it can take you from low vibrational feelings such as shame, guilt or even fear, right up to courage or even love or joy.
When caught in a lower vibrational frequency, things can seem hard to overcome. However, in today’s world, we are fortunate to have many tools, therapies and information available that can powerfully help us.
Choosing to observe yourself in how you react in situations. Objectively looking at why you felt and reacted a particular way. To seek ways to dissolve those negative emotional hooks to past events. These all empower us to greatly improve our life experiences and to living in a much happier state. Living in a higher vibrational state most of the time, your interactions with others dramatically improves. You are much happier and wider options and opportunities appear.
Love is Calibrated at 500 Hertz
To clarify a high vibration, such as love or 500 Hertz, this is what Hawkins meant by love.
The state of Love is very close to being unconditional, unchanging, and permanent. Love does not fluctuate nor does it depend on external factors. Love is a state of being. It is a forgiving, nurturing, and a supportive way of relating to the world. It is not intellectual and does not come from the human mind. Love radiates from the heart Chakra. Which by the way is also a brain – it’s our cardiac brain. At this level of consciousness, the core of an issue becomes the centre of focus. As reason is bypassed, there arises the capacity for instantaneous recognition of the totality of a problem. Reason only deals with particulars, whereas Love deals with entireties. This ability, often called intuition, is the capacity for instantaneous understanding without resorting to sequential symbol processing. This level opens the door to benevolence, mercy, and forgiveness through understanding and nonjudgment. According to Hawkins, only 4% of the entire population of the earth attains this level. Because of the dominating power of light over darkness, one individual at this level counterbalances 750,000 people below the 200 levels. This is the level at which spirituality starts, since below this, individuals are still caught up in the linear and material world. 500 Hertz is also the level of a songbird’s song, cat’s purr, and a dog’s wagging tail.
The Abundance Frequency is 500 Hertz and Higher
You might be surprised to know that the abundance frequency is 500 Hertz and higher. Want to manifest great things into your life? The key is to get your frequency higher and raise your standards as well. Conversely, this makes sense why someone in the frequency of say Anger at 150 Hertz is likely to only manifest more opportunities to be angry. This is what people mean by the term ‘like-attracts-like.’ Your vibration attracts to itself same vibration. So, if you are vibrating at 500 Hertz, you will attract the things you love. I hope this helpful for your understanding and gives you a new measure to aim for. And if it has, please give my channel some good energy with a quick like, share and by subscribing to my channel.
So let me summarise this for you. The key to living a life beyond limits is to improve and heighten your emotional state which in turn will increase your Hertz rate, your vibration.
But what if you can’t manage your emotional state and find yourself going down negative spirals. My suggestion? Work with a qualified coach or better still an NLP practitioner. Do the inner work to alter your outer reality.
My name is Rik Schnabel and I’m a Master NLP Trainer, author and brain untrainer. Let me show you how to remove the low-frequency programs that are hurting you and undermining your life. Let me help you to understand what you can do to attract your ideal life into your existence. You change what you attract, when change your frequency. Want some help or coaching to be more abundant and attract more into your life? Book a time with R!k to find out what you need most.
Thank you for the Videos used in our video from Pixabay by
NLP, short for Neuro Linguistic Programming, holds the power to deliver happiness. Happiness for most is their Everest. Conquer it and everything falls into place. Though many ask, can NLP help you to heal your life for good?
Though if you’re not feeling right or you think that you’ve lost your mojo then sound the trumpets, because I’ve got some great news for you! If you can’t seem to generate the success you desire, you’ve got money challenges or you can’t start or keep your relationships? Read on because I’ve found the answer to all of your problems (well most of them I hope).
NLP means you can completely change your thinking and so improve your life.
Can NLP help you to heal? Well, let’s start with money problems.
About 15 years ago I had a serious poverty mentality. My parents were poor immigrants and money seemed to be a real problem in our family. I can certainly recall many flighty emotions around that topic. However, my problems didn’t stop there.
I used to be a target to bullies. So I also developed anger issues, sadness issues, anxiety, and numerous phobias which led to depression. I was a wreck. I seriously thought I was a mental mess. I have since discovered that we all need a friend. When you don’t serve the inner friend, you go looking for one outside of you to fill that hole. I found alcohol and drugs. While my situation was pretty crappy already, the drugs and alcohol made them much, much worse.
I needed a solution. I so wanted to start feeling ‘normal’, though in truth back then I couldn’t tell you what normal was. I couldn’t even tell you who I was!
“I felt like a keg of dynamite and my fuse was getting shorter!”
I tried the traditional medical system without success. It just seemed that for every problem there was a pill. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti pharmaceuticals as I believe everything has its place and use, it’s just that I already had a whole lot going on in my mind and body and I didn’t want to create any further chemical disruptions. My anger issues were getting worse and I felt like a keg of dynamite and the fuse was getting shorter.
A good friend suggested some alternate therapies and I tried many of them, far too many of them to list here. Nothing seemed to get me feeling ‘normal’.
Again, I’m not poo-pooing alternate therapies either, as I believe they certainly have their place in our society too, they just didn’t seem to get me on my feet. I then came across an article in Psychology Today Magazine that said, “NLP is the most powerful vehicle for personal change in existence.” It got my attention! I read on and discovered that NLP was an acronym for “Neuro Linguistic Programming”. I had heard of it, but frankly, I didn’t know much about it. It’s amazing how when you’re really committed to finding an answer, the right one soon arrives. I wanted to know, “Can NLP help you to heal for good?”
The answer came from a trusted friend who offered me a ticket to an NLP introductory weekend and within just hours of hearing all about NLP and experiencing it live, I was gob-smacked by what you could do with NLP. I immediately signed up for all the trainings; “NLP Practitioner, Masters and Trainers training” – you’ve got to remember, I was desperate and this seemed like a positive way forward and thankfully it turned out perfect!
The decision was so right that not only did I move forward, I never looked back. In Practitionertraining I learned how to actually speak to my mind so that I could alter the programming that was causing my issues and giving me so much grief. I didn’t realise that your brain only responds to 6 methods of communication and your language must be structured in a specific way to get great results.
I also learned to change my core beliefs that are responsible for so many unwanted behaviours. I saw the proof in changed outcomes. A very exciting moment for me was learning how to change how I viewed the past; it was like a massive weight was removed from my shoulders. Then another life changing shift occurred when I learned how to shift my values in my Master’s training. This helped me to more than double my income. Mind you, the rapport and communication training in NLP Practitioner and changing (in essence) my operating system had a huge influence too.
My relationships are much better these days, with others and myself. Anxiety, depression, sadness and anger issues are gone. I’m not saying I don’t get a little low or angry from time to time, but these days I can manage my emotions and things don’t seem to affect me as they once did.
I became so impassioned by NLP that I kept learning it until I ran out of training and my only option was to start teaching it. My life is like chalk and cheese these days and I’m so happy that I can help others by helping them to make a positive influence in their lives. I can now produce the income I used to earn in a year, in just a weekend. I know that might be hard to believe for some of you – and that’s the very reason you don’t achieve it. My trainer used to make between $3 million and $6 million in a weekend – at the time I hardly could believe that, even though the evidence was right before my eyes!
I now live where I want to live (by the beach in southern NSW), I live with the love of my life and my two gorgeous girls. Though let me dull the picture for you a bit. I still have my challenges from time to time, but I now have NLP tools to help me. Each tool is designed to reimprint your past; change your beliefs; remove conflicts; build rapport; illicit your values; improve the quality of your communication; see more than most will ever see; and help you to create your ideal self.
If you’re interested in learning NLP, let me share one disclaimer. NLP is a set of powerful tools and insights and you may hear of some negative publicity around it. Just as there are good teachers, there are also bad ones. In the wrong hands, these powerful tools can be used to manipulate so my suggestion to you, is find someone to teach you NLP that you get a sense that they’ve got a big heart and they really care about people and the future of the planet and its well-being.
So if you’re having some challenges take heart, there is a solution, give NLP a go. Trust your instincts and reinvigorate your faith in yourself because there is always an answer and a solution. I love the question that Neale Donald Walsch asks when a problem arises, “What would love do now?” Yes, Tony Robbins is certainly right, “The quality of your life comes down to the quality of the questions you ask yourself every day.” I urge you to follow your heart, learn NLP and you’ll conquer your Everest and find happiness. It will be somewhere on your journey. Just keep looking, it’s closer than you think.
Rik Schnabel is an internationally recognised and nationally accredited NLP Trainer.
Your life, career, business or anything for that matter improves when you ask better questions. Though is it really that simple?
First, you need to understand that questions cause your unconscious mind to answer. Your unconscious mind cannot resist answering your questions.
Go ahead. Try it right now. Ask yourself, “Why do I have an itchy scalp?” and soon enough you will feel to scratch your itch. Be patient, not now, but in a moment you will feel to itch your scalp or somewhere else on your body. But don’t scratch it right now, you’ve got this finish this article.
If you’re feeling a little unsettled right now, you should be, because you asked an unsettling question. Though instead, get excited. Because the quality of your questions can improve the quality of your life.
Did you know that your entire life is made up of the questions you ask yourself on a daily basis.
Ask, “Why am I so busy all the time?” and your mind will soon deliver all the reasons, but it won’t give you more time. Ask a better question, “How can I get an extra 30 minutes of ‘me time’ each day?” and your wish may may soon be granted.
Want more time or more money? Ask a better question!
Making money and lots of it is easy when you know how. I can tell you right here and now that anyone who has mastered money will concur that asking better questions will lead you there. Ask better questions and your financial world will never be the same! Avoid them and you will feel the ups and downs in the pit of your stomach of a financial rollercoaster.
Last Friday morning, I looked out my kitchen window. It was a glorious sunny day. I was staring at the ideal conditions for the perfect wave. I sprinted downstairs to grab my surfboard and head off to my favourite break. Hoping to beat a crowded line-up.
When I got to the beach no-one was enjoying those perfect waves. It was just me. Finally, it dawned on me. It wasn’t the weekend, it was Friday — a workday. Everyone was working while I enjoyed a perfect day, with perfect waves – but life wasn’t always perfect.
It was only a few years ago that I was working feverishly at my clinic, six days a week as a Life Coach. Day in, day out I untrained my clients’ brains. Most of my day was spent changing people’s minds. Untraining their brains of anxiety. Helping them to remove the dross of depression. Showing them richer ways to think to make more money. My clinic was choc-a-block, brimming with clients when I hit an amazing sweet spot with my business.
I specialised in wealth coaching and easing depression and worked from 7am to 7pm most days. Some nights I would work until midnight. While my friends lit barbeques and shared an ale. Others kicked back on the sofa watching TV after a hard day at the office.
I won’t say I wasn’t envious. Though I was working for something bigger — I looked further than most. The wealth mentors that I assigned to myself gave me insights that were worth far more than the money I paid them. They are the very reason I’m sharing this with you right now. My mentors are why I can go surfing while the large majority must go to work.
So, before I share their wisdom with you, let me prepare you like my wealth mentors prepared me. You see, financial success is all in the preparation. Before working with my mentors, they each said the same thing. They must have all had the same mentors.
Paul, my short but confident mega-millionaire mentor would start each session by asking me questions. At first, they frustrated me to no end. He says it’s the reason I no longer have hair. I would ask Paul a question and nine out of ten times, he would say, “Ask a better question.” Can you see why it was frustrating at first? But he was right. Most people can’t create anything much because they have no idea of what question to ask in the first instance. I get it now.
As I said, back in 2012, I was crazy busy. I was coaching, speaking, training, writing and rarely having much time for myself. I asked one question that at first I couldn’t answer, but eventually, I did. That question?
How can I make even more money and only work 4 days a week?
Today, I live on the Sapphire Coast of New South Wales. I surf. I play music and I work four days a week. Am I making more money? A little more, but I’m much happier.
A business owner asks, “How can I grow my business?” Today I would say, “Ask a better question.” I’ve earned my stripes now; I can ask those infuriating questions. “How can I grow my business?” tells me nothing and so how can I provide advice? A better question might be, “Who can help me to get more people to call me about my services?” or “Who is the best person at getting traffic to my website?”
Over the years I’ve found that rich people stick at things for long enough. Long enough that their knowledge about their industry, their intimacy with their product or service goes deep. This only comes from asking a better, more specific and less generalised question.
Otherwise, akin to asking, “How are you?” and getting the standard one-syllable answer, “Good.” Asking a better question causes our minds to dig deeper, to think deeper.
So it’s time to think.
What’s a better question?
What is the one question that you haven’t asked yourself, that should you ask it… will have you double, treble, even ten-tuple your income?
What’s that question?
Answering better questions creates the opportunity to solve your bigger problems. Solving bigger problems will have you build a bigger life. What challenge are you facing right now? What question could you answer that would remove the problem altogether?
If you recognise that you suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), have you ever wondered how to heal PTSD? Did you know, that statistically, 7 out of 10 people have suffered severe trauma in their lives?
But more importantly, how does trauma impact our lives? Are there reasons behind sad patterns and stilted growth?
Trauma can make you more vulnerable to developing mental health problems at worst, and at best it will cause you to stop taking risks and seek safety instead. It can also directly cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To overcome PTSD, some people misuse alcohol, drugs, or self-harm to cope with difficult memories and emotions. Some seek professional help. Depending on how you’re affected, trauma may cause difficulties in your daily life and stunt your growth. Often, trauma will have us recede.
After personally being raised in an abuse cycle and experiencing far too many traumatic events, I came to realise how strong the neural pathways become. I felt less in so many ways and hid for most of my life. This caused me to feel alone.
From the age of 7 years old, I invested most of my after-school hours in the library in the psychology section. I wanted to answer a burning question, “how can I be normal?” This question evolved to become “how can I heal PTSD?” This led me on a mission to find out how to reduce and remove trauma altogether in my own life. I know firsthand, how trauma stunts growth, as we the traumatised, move into protective, safe environments to shield our fearful thought patterns. Often forecasting our own worst futures, we attract our fears into our lives.
I discovered a solution.
In 2004, after 33 years of searching, I found the solutions I was looking for and began testing and trialing psychological processes – some of which I designed myself. It wasn’t just one solution or one pill. It was a process.
By 2006 – I was working in a clinic and was able to remove depression, anxiety, and PTSD among other recessive states. My theories turned to practice and success finally arrived. For my clients, it seemed like a miracle was born. However, I believe miracles come from effective strategies that arrive only after considerable research and understanding.
If you ever wanted to know how to avoid making mistakes? You’re about to get the answer and you might not like the answer.
Have you ever witnessed ignorant stupidity over dinner from a friend, colleague, or family member? Throughout the meal, they take a stand on a topic. They spout off at length, boldly proclaiming that they are correct and that everyone else is stupid, uninformed, and just plain wrong. While it may be evident that this person has no idea what they are talking about, they prattle on, blithely oblivious to their ignorance.
The effect is named after researchers David Dunning and Justin Kruger, the two social psychologists who first described it. They performed a series of four investigations in their original study on this psychological phenomenon.2
People who scored in the lowest percentiles on grammar, humor, and logic tests also tended to dramatically overestimate how well they had performed (their actual test scores placed them in the 12th percentile, but they estimated that their performance placed them in the 62nd percentile).
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe they are smarter and more capable than they are. Essentially, low-ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognise their own incompetence and how to avoid making mistakes. The combination of poor self-awareness and low cognitive ability leads them to overestimate their capabilities.1
The term lends a scientific name and explanation to a problem that many people immediately recognise—that fools are blind to their own foolishness. As Charles Darwin wrote in his book The Descent of Man, “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”
The Research
In one experiment, for example, Dunning and Kruger asked their 65 participants to rate how funny different jokes were. Some participants were exceptionally poor at determining what other people would find funny—yet these subjects described themselves as excellent judges of humor.2
Incompetent people, the researchers suggested, were not only poor performers but were also unable to accurately assess and recognize the quality of their work. This is perhaps why students who earn failing scores on exams sometimes feel they deserve a much higher score. They overestimate their knowledge and ability and cannot accurately assess their performance.
Low performers are unable to recognise the skill and competence levels of other people, which is part of the reason why they consistently view themselves as better, more capable, and more knowledgeable than others. If you want to learn how to avoid making mistakes then metacognition is key.
“In many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious,” wrote David Dunning in an article for Pacific Standard. “Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.”
Effects on Behavior and Decisions
This effect can have a profound impact on what people believe, the decisions they make, and the actions they take.
In one study, Dunning and Ehrlinger found that women performed equally to men on a science quiz, and yet women underestimated their performance because they believed they had less scientific reasoning ability than men. The researchers also found that these women were more likely to refuse to enter a science competition due to this belief.3
Dunning and his colleagues have also performed experiments in which they ask respondents if they are familiar with various terms related to subjects including politics, biology, physics, and geography. Along with genuine subject-relevant concepts, they interjected completely made-up terms.4
In one such study, approximately 90% of respondents claimed they had at least some knowledge of the made-up terms. Admit you don’t know is one way to master how to avoid making mistakes. Consistent with other findings related to the Dunning-Kruger effect, the more familiar participants claimed that they were with a topic, the more likely they were to also claim they were familiar with the meaningless terms.
Why It Happens
So what explains this psychological effect? Are some people simply too dense to recognise it? Dunning and Kruger suggest that this phenomenon stems from what they refer to as a “dual burden.” People are not only incompetent; their incompetence robs them of the mental ability to realize just how inept they are.
Incompetent people tend to:
Overestimate their skill levels
Fail to recognize the genuine skill and expertise of other people
Fail to recognize their own mistakes and lack of skill
The very knowledge and skills necessary to be good at a task are the same qualities that a person needs to recognize that they are not good at that task. So if a person lacks those abilities, they remain not only bad at that task but ignorant of their inability.5
This effect has been attributed to several different explanations, including:
An Inability to Recognise Lack of Skill and Mistakes
Dunning suggests that deficits in skill and expertise create a two-pronged problem. First, these deficits cause people to perform poorly in the domain in which they are incompetent. Secondly, their erroneous and deficient knowledge makes them unable to recognize their mistakes.6
A Lack of Metacognition
The Dunning-Kruger effect is also related to difficulties with metacognition. Metacognition refers to the ability to step back and look at one’s behavior and abilities from outside of oneself.
People can often only evaluate themselves from their own limited and highly subjective point of view. From this limited perspective, they seem highly skilled, knowledgeable, and superior to others. Because of this, people sometimes struggle to have a more realistic view of their abilities.1
A Little Knowledge Can Lead to Overconfidence
Another contributing factor is that sometimes a tiny bit of knowledge on a subject can lead people to mistakenly believe that they know all there is to know about it. As the old saying goes, a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
A person might have the slimmest bit of awareness about a subject, yet thanks to the Dunning-Kruger effect, believe that they are an expert.
Other factors that can contribute to the effect include:
The use of heuristics, or mental shortcuts that allow people to make decisions quickly
A tendency to seek out patterns even where none exist
Our minds are primed to try to make sense of the disparate array of information we deal with daily. As we try to cut through the confusion and interpret our abilities and performance within our worlds, it is perhaps not surprising that we sometimes fail so completely to judge how well we do accurately.5
Are You Less Competent Than You Think?
So who is affected by the Dunning-Kruger effect? According to the researchers, everyone is prone to this effect. This is because no matter how informed or experienced we are, everyone has areas in which they are uninformed and incompetent. You might be smart and skilled in many areas, but no one is an expert at everything.
The reality is that everyone is susceptible to this phenomenon, and most of us probably experience it with surprising regularity. People who are genuine experts in one area may mistakenly believe that their intelligence and knowledge carry over into other areas in which they are less familiar.
A brilliant scientist, for example, might be a very poor writer. For the scientist to recognise their lack of skill, they need to possess a good working knowledge of grammar, composition, and other elements of writing. Because those are lacking, the scientist in this example also lacks the ability to recognise their own poor performance. They don’t know how to avoid making mistakes.
Recap
The Dunning-Kruger effect is not synonymous with low IQ. As awareness of the term has increased, its misapplication as a synonym for “stupid” has also grown. It is, after all, easy to judge others and believe that such things simply do not apply to you.
Dunning-Kruger Effect vs. Imposter Syndrome
So if the incompetent tend to think they are experts, what do genuine experts think of their own abilities? Dunning and Kruger found that those at the high end of the competence spectrum did hold more realistic views of their own knowledge and capabilities. However, these experts actually tended to underestimate their own abilities relative to how others did.2
Top-scoring individuals know that they are better than the average, but they are not convinced of how superior their performance is to others. The problem, in this case, is not that experts don’t know how well-informed they are; they tend to believe that everyone else is also knowledgeable.
This can sometimes lead to the opposite of the Dunning-Kruger effect—imposter syndrome. Since the Dunning-Kruger effect involves overconfidence in one’s abilities, the opposing tendency would involve underconfidence in one’s abilities. In imposter syndrome, competent people doubt their own abilities and fear that others will discover them to be frauds. Do you want to know how to avoid making mistakes …
How to Overcome the Dunning-Kruger Effect
So is there anything that can minimize this phenomenon? Is there a point at which the incompetent actually recognize their own ineptitude?
We all want to know how to avoid making mistakes, yet “We are all engines of misbelief,” Dunning has suggested. While we are all prone to experiencing the Dunning-Kruger effect, learning more about how the mind works and the mistakes we are all susceptible to might be one step toward correcting such patterns.
As people learn more about the topic of interest, they begin to recognize their lack of knowledge and ability. Then as people gain more information and become experts on a topic, their confidence levels begin to improve again.
So what can you do to gain a more realistic assessment of your abilities in a particular area if you are not sure you can trust your self-assessment?
Keep learning and practicing. Instead of assuming you know all there is to know about a subject, keep digging deeper. Once you gain greater knowledge of a topic, you will likely recognize how much there is still to learn. This can combat the tendency to assume you’re an expert, even if you’re not.
Ask other people how you’re doing. Another effective strategy involves asking others for constructive criticism. While it can sometimes be difficult to hear, such feedback can provide valuable insights into how others perceive your abilities.
Question what you know. Even as you learn more and get feedback, it can be easy to only pay attention to things that confirm what you think you already know. This is an example of another type of psychological bias known as the confirmation bias. To minimize this tendency, keep challenging your beliefs and expectations. Seek out information that challenges your ideas.8
Get a coach or mentor. Working with someone you can trust; someone who you can share your fears, limits and doubts in a confidential environment is the best way to get beyond not only your own cognitive biases, but also you can get help to shift your beliefs and remove your limits. If you would like to speak with a mentor or coach about how they can help, complete this form and book a complimentary chat.
Sources:
The Dunning-Kruger effect is one of many cognitive biases that can affect your behaviors and decisions, from the mundane to the life-changing. While it may be easier to recognize the phenomenon in others, it is important to remember that it is something that impacts everyone. By understanding the underlying causes that contribute to this psychological bias, you might be better able to spot these tendencies in yourself and find ways to overcome them. If you want to know how to avoid making mistakes, perhaps book a complimentary coaching call.
Physical well-being and weight management are something many people strive to improve, but it’s hardly as straightforward as it seems. Despite being crucial for daily life, many are falling short of the standards for physical activity. Over three in ten (35%) Australian adults aged 18–64 are insufficiently physically active, and that issue increases with age. Nutrition can also be difficult to achieve, as many may not know how to balance meals or have access to healthy ingredients.
Apart from difficulty eating nutritiously or exercising regularly, a poor mindset can easily bring a person down. Restrictive habits and negative beliefs affect one’s reality without them even knowing, making it harder to stay motivated on the journey to improvement. Apart from the physical things you can do, changing the way you view yourself and wellness can make a huge difference in your progress. Here are some ways you can elevate your thinking to improve your physical well-being:
Focus on you
When people try to lose weight, they often try all sorts of solutions and tricks. Many of them tend to be restrictive and limiting. Cutting things from your lifestyle or comparing your progress and routine to others’ can quickly lead to discouragement. Rather than focus on what you cannot do or what others are doing, prioritising sustainability is essential if you want to improve your physical well-being. Instead of following trends, find a strategy you love and know works for you and incorporate it into your diet, exercise, and other health habits.
Even modern weight loss programs have adopted this mindset to make the process more enjoyable and less like a chore. They help you create a plan tailored to your needs and lifestyle, allowing you to build healthy habits instead of restricting or comparing yourself to others. When you focus on what’s realistic and attainable for you, you’ll have a more positive outlook on your well-being and your journey.
Work on what you can control
Most people think the scale is the best way to measure your progress towards or success in improving your physical well-being, but frequently and obsessively monitoring the numbers won’t do your mindset any good. You can’t control how your body burns fat or when results will show, so focus on the aspects of physical wellness that are in your control. Beyond eating nutritious meals or working out regularly, things like sleep quality and stress management matter for weight loss and physical health. They’re crucial for balancing your body’s hormones like ghrelin, leptin, and cortisol, which play a role in regulating your appetite.
One thing you can do is switch up your routine to go to bed earlier and sleep for longer. Starting a bedtime routine to unwind can help you adjust how and when you sleep. Pointing out the source of your stress can also help you address it. For instance, your workplace could unknowingly be causing you stress or hindering your physical wellness. One in seven Aussie workers struggle with physical health as many employees spend the majority of the day at work sedentary, so it might not be as unlikely as you think. If you are worried that your physical health is slipping, you should find ways to help you manage it. Activities like exercise, meditation, or enjoying a hobby can help with de-stressing for better health.
Challenge your beliefs
Setbacks are inevitable when you’re on a journey to improve your physical well-being, but it can be easy to fall into the belief that you’re a failure or just not cut out for a fit or active lifestyle. However, constantly holding onto these beliefs about yourself can affect your reality, making it harder to see and celebrate your progress and stay motivated. That’s why challenging your beliefs is so crucial for self-improvement, not just physically.
Turning your pessimistic beliefs into something more hopeful can shift your mindset and your experiences. You can believe that you’re capable of recovering from a setback or that you’re making progress, no matter how small or slow. Once you change your mindset, you’ll find more confidence and compassion for yourself, and you’ll be in a better headspace to make your goals a reality.
The mindset is an essential yet often underrated part of your journey to enhancing your physical well-being. It sets the stage for your habits, perspective, and behaviours, all of which greatly contribute to your drive and outlook. You can celebrate every victory knowing you’re overcoming something you may have seen as an impossible feat before.
Are you wondering why your coaching hasn’t taken off?
It’s okay, I too was confused. At first.
When I started my coaching biz. I was asking myself over and over the wrong question.
“Why isn’t my coaching business taking off?”
Sure, I had some clients, but not many.
Then I realised, “Hey! I’m a coach! Ask a better question!”
And so, I did. What was my question? That’s a great question!
Well, in truth it wasn’t one question. It was 4 questions actually.
This question is actually, four vital questions that every life coach must ask.
If you’re a coach and you want to grow your business big time, here are the four vital questions that every life coach must ask. If you don’t answer these questions and create a marketing structure based on your answers? Then your coaching business is going to feel like you’re collecting aluminium cans from rubbish bins.
Here are the four vital questions that every Life Coach must ask or flounder or worse, fail.
1: WHAT is the biggest problem you solve?
2: WHO needs that problem solved most or WHO will pay the most to solve that problem?
3: WHY do YOU want to help them? And
4: HOW do you help them?
Here’s what led me to answer those questions.
When I was learning NLP, I realised how many dumb beliefs I had that were limiting my income.
As I was nearing the end of my NLP training, I had a HUGE epiphany that multiplied my annual income over four times! This epiphany led me to earn more than the then Prime Minister John Howard! But you’re not here about my epiphany. That’s for another time. So, let’s get back to my answers to those four vital questions that every life coach must ask.
Here are my answers to the four vital questions that every Life Coach must ask…
Then I got a coach, and after our first session together. I got clear. That’s when I answered those four questions, and this is what it looked like:
WHAT is the biggest problem you solve?
ANS: Money worry.
WHO needs that problem solved most or WHO will pay the most to solve that problem?
ANS: People who want to make more money. Why? Because they’re unsatisfied about what they’re earning now. At some level, they know they could do better.
WHY do YOU want to help them?
ANS: Because I once knew that that felt like. How much it hurt me, almost physically when I worried that I wasn’t even going to survive. Somehow in my brain, I thought I was going to die – or at best, become homeless, destitute.
HOW do YOU help them?
ANS: With our Life Coach + NLP Practitioner program.
Candidly, I didn’t answer these questions all too quickly. It took me one coaching session with my amazing coach and one whole day to answer those four vital questions that every life coach must ask.
I got coached that Friday and I had the weekend off. So I decided that that Saturday, I would sit down and commit to answering those four questions.
Hell! I was committed.
After all, I had invested so much time and money to be a coach only to fail. No way!
I’d already quit my job and had no other income. It was boom or bust for me.
What happened next?
The upshot? I didn’t waste my entire weekend going around in circles.
I realised that all that was needed from me to STAMP! my foot on the ground and make a full-hearted decision. A declaration to the Universe that I was IN! I was committed to helping evolve my peeps.
I was committed to helping me, help the Universe.
So, I said to the Universe, out loud and in my head…
“I’m doing this, and I need your full, financial support. I’ll build the program and do the marketing, and you find the people that need me most. Speak to their souls, not their human (because I know how scared the human can be. And how courageous the spirit is).
Speak to their souls so that they get that I will look after them. I’ve got their back. I will help them to evolve and help them to make more money. How?
I will teach them how to remove their fear of money. I’ll educate them. I’ll coach them. Hec! I’ll even do some of the work for them if I have to!
Send them to me and I’ll do rest.”
Things can change just like magic when you make a full-hearted decision
Like magic, my coaching world changed overnight. I got my first positive sign that something had shifted as people enrolled in my coaching.
Then large numbers of people came to my premium program, my “Life Coach + NLP Practitioner” training.
Fast forward to today…I’ve now made millions of dollars and I don’t know if I have helped millions of people – but I’ve certainly trained thousands of people who have helped thousands more.
All of this happened after asking four of the most powerful questions that you can ask yourself as a coach, trainer or change agent.
The question is – when will you ask and answer those questions?
And if you already have – welcome to the world’s leaders.
I welcome you as a change agent, whose job it is to wake people up.
Because my friends – the majority of the world’s population are in one huge, big, out-of-control (through control) trance. They’re adults, still running off programs that came from their parents and their childhood.
Finally, if you know you’re here for a bigger reason and need some guidance or help?
Let me reward you for reading this far…
Let me reward you for reading right until the end.
I have now been a successful commercial coach for 20 years with over 38,000 hours of transformational work under my belt. No-one stays in business for 20 years without knowing a trick or two.
