It’s hardly ever the things that you don’t know that are a problem.  It’s the things you know for certain that just aren’t true that can get you into trouble.

Things that you know for certain about yourself and what you’re capable of … or not capable of.  Things you know for certain about other people.  About what’s possible.  The limitations you’ve bought into.  Things you believe about how easy or difficult it is to transform your experience.

What’s it like to be you on a really good day?  And a really bad day?  Where do you suppose those feelings are coming from?

Everybody knows that we live in VUCA times.  (VUCA stands for  Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity. )

But not everybody responds in the same way.  Some people roll with it all, with a sense of ease, clarity, well-being and resilience.  Others suffer – often chronically so.

I was struck by a new definition of what it means to be a millionaire that I heard recently.  It’s nothing to do with money.

You’re a millionaire if you impact a million lives!

I love that.
I’ve been sharing what I’ve learned about what it takes to truly thrive as a human being for seven years now, and this understanding has changed 100’s of lives around the world for the better.

This very simple understanding is increasingly being shared with all sorts of people in business.  It’s particularly relevant for leaders, those managing change, and facilitators.  It’s often called the Missing Link in Performance, Psychology and Well-Being.   Understanding how your mind works helps people to perform at their best – especially in these VUCA times, and then to create workplaces where people can truly thrive.

I want to share it with you too, especially if you’d benefit from one or more of the following:

Better Performance through Clarity of Mind

A new and different understanding of the mind helps you to perform at your best at work.  We are in the midst of a busy-mind epidemic – creating fuzzy thinking, poor decisions and stress.  When people understand some simple facts about how the human experience works, their mind clears – automatically.

When people realise the inside-out nature of the human experience, life (and work) gets a whole lot easier.  Lighter.  Relationships improve.  Conflict goes down.  Problems are resolved more quickly, and decisions are made with less effort.

Resilience and Stress ‘Management’

I read a report recently stating that almost 11 million days are lost each year because of “stress” – amounting to about £6.5 billion lost to the UK economy.

The understanding that will be shared has proved a game-changer for 1000’s of people all over the world.  It’s like having your very own reset button.

Better, Deeper Relationships

A deep and rich connection between people is the ‘factory-setting’ when we don’t have a lot of personal thinking  – when we have clarity, and are operating from a place of well-being.  We know where our experience is coming from, moment to moment (our thinking), so we tend to give others the benefit of the doubt more, we are more likely to be open and trusting, and we realise that everybody is living in a separate reality.  Our own insecure thinking and personal ego diminishes.

Better Time Management

One of the most common things people report when they begin to deepen their understanding of the human mind is “Where did all this TIME come from?”  Feeling overwhelmed does not come from your to-do list, it comes from your thinking about your to-do list.  A whole load of mental noise falls away, creating a sense of spaciousness and Flow.  You may have heard elite athletes talking about being ‘in the zone’ – where the tennis ball coming at them seems to slow down, and also sometimes becomes the size of a football – making it much easier to return the shot.  This is like living and working in the zone.

More Creativity and Innovation

Human beings are naturally creative.  We have infinite creative potential.  Trouble is, too often in organisations, we are trained to only look to the ‘already known’:  our own, necessarily limited, database of things that have worked before.  To use a computing metaphor – we search our own hard drive for ways to overcome challenges or solve problems.  But the mind also has access (metaphorically) to a “world-wide web”.

We have the capacity, in any moment, to create fresh, new thinking… to look in the direction of the unknown, rather than the known.  As Einstein said:  “The rational, analytical mind is faithful servant, and the intuitive mind is a sacred gift.  We have created a society that honours the servant, and has forgotten the gift”.  This understanding seems to allow people to more naturally plug into their own capacity for creative thinking.

Change Management

From reading all the above, it is obvious that managing change becomes easier with this understanding.  We have less insecure thinking about the future, so change doesn’t scare us.  We just handle it with grace, clarity and well-being.

Coming Home

Human beings have a built-in capacity for well-being, resilience, peace of mind and creativity.  The only thing that ever gets in the way of this ‘factory-setting’ is our personal thinking, moment to moment.

The rich, deep experience of being fully awake and alive is what everybody is seeking.  But most people are innocently looking in the wrong place!

The He’Art of Thriving workshop explores what it means to come ‘Home’, regardless of external situations or events.