Month: February 2021 Page 1 of 2

“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” Napoleon Hill.

One of my favourite places in the world is Cornwall. I really like the dramatic coastline and beautiful beaches that the county has to offer. I love spending time in the county and over the years have had some wonderful holidays there.

Given my love for the place, I made sure that I watched the documentary series on Cornwall made by local resident, businessman and TV chef Rick Stein. During one of the episodes Rick visited a business that made Gouda cheese.

I have to admit that prior to watching the programme, I wasn’t aware of Gouda cheese. However, ever since, I can’t stop seeing references to it. I have seen it on supermarket shelves, in adverts and as an ingredient in recipes by other celebrity chefs. Also, I saw a newspaper article about a dress that costs £905 and is part of Prada’s Spring Summer 2021 collection. That really made me smile when I read it.

There is a good reason why I am seeing all these references to Gouda cheese now I’m aware of it. It’s also because of a part of brain known as the Reticular Activating System – or RAS. The Reticular Activating System is an impressive-sounding name for a fairly small piece of the brain. It’s important functions include grabbing attention.

The RAS is a piece of the brain that starts close to the top of the spinal column and extends upwards around two inches. It has a diameter slightly larger than a pencil. All of your senses (except smell, which goes to our brain’s emotional centre) are wired directly to this bundle of neurons that’s about the size of your little finger.

Often, the RAS is compared to a filter or a nightclub bouncer that works for your brain. It makes sure your brain doesn’t have to deal with more information than it can handle. Thus, the RAS plays a big role in the sensory information you perceive daily.

While it may be a fairly small part of your brain, the RAS has a very important role: it’s the gatekeeper of information that is let into the conscious mind. This little bit of brain matter is responsible for filtering the massive amounts of information your sensory organs are constantly throwing at it and selecting the ones that are most important for your conscious mind to pay attention to.

Why do we need this little gatekeeper? Well, your senses are constantly feeding so much information to your brain that you can’t possibly pay attention to all of it. The RAS never gets a break!

RAS plays a vital part in your ability to achieve goals.

Your RAS will bring relevant information to your attention that will help you with your goal. It will help you spot opportunities that will move you towards your vision. It acts as a kind of filtering system between your conscious and subconscious minds. It takes instructions from your conscious mind and passes them on to your subconscious.

It focuses your brain to notice available resources that were always present but had previously gone unnoticed.  Try it for yourself. On your next journey to work, look out for yellow cars. These cars would have been on your journey but you may not have noticed them if you had not made a point of consciously looking for them. You may be surprised by how many you spot!!

I once suggested to participants on a two-day training workshop that they look for yellow vehicles on their journey home after day one and to report their findings on day two of the course. One participant said they had been amazed by what they found. They saw a whole stream of brand-new yellow AA breakdown vehicles that they probably would not have really taken any notice of if they had not been looking out for them!

Researchers have found that when you perform a task in life, your brain uses the same processes it would if you were merely visualising the task. Your brain sees no difference between visualising something and doing it. Your reticular activating system cannot distinguish between ‘real events’ and ‘synthetic’ reality.

In other words, it tends to believe whatever message you give it. Imagine that you’re going to be giving a speech. You can practice giving that speech by visualizing it in your mind. This ‘pretend’ practice should improve your ability to give the speech.

Imagine, if you programmed your RAS to spot resources, people or information that will move you closer to your goals and vision – would that be helpful?

Visualisation actually magnetizes and attracts to you, the people, resources and opportunities that you need to achieve a goal. If you give it images of your dream house, your perfect partner, the career that you would like or the places you would like to visit, it will set about providing ideas and solutions to help you achieve those dreams.

The Gouda cheese example has been a very good reminder that it’s important to be careful what you focus on and look for in life. If you look for good things, people’s good qualities and things to be grateful for, the RAS will provide you with lots of illustrations. Conversely if you look for negative things, people’s shortcomings and things not working you will be given lots of examples.

This week spend some time to start to use the RAS to your advantage to help you spot resources and opportunities that will move you closer to achieving your goals and vision.

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” C.S Lewis.

Last week in the blog, I featured Captain Sir Tom Moore following his death and talked about how we’re never too old to experience new adventures.

It’s always wonderful to see people start a new chapter in their life and enjoy a renaissance in their later years. The advances in medicine mean that people are living longer. Therefore, it’s possible to experience and do things in our old age that wouldn’t have seemed to be possible 40 or 50 years ago. There are many possibilities for people to explore.

Over the years, I’ve heard many people talk about a dream they had when they were younger or talk with a touch of regret about something that they’ve always wanted or would like to do but haven’t yet accomplished. Only to say “but I am too old now.”

In writing last week’s blog, I was reminded of a story I included in my book “Be First Class.” It’s a lovely story about Cliff Young who achieved something outstanding against all the odds. It countered the limiting belief  “I am too old now.”

Cliff Young, was an Australian potato farmer and athlete, best known for his unexpected win of the Sydney to Melbourne ultra-marathon (543 miles) in 1983 at 61 years of age.

What makes this feat even more incredible is the way that Cliff went about winning the race. It’s normally only attempted by world class athletes, who train specially for the event and are typically less than 30 years of age. In fact, it was the first race that Cliff had entered!

When he showed up at the start of the race in 1983, Cliff was wearing overalls and work boots! Everyone watching was shocked to discover Cliff wasn’t a spectator when he picked up his race number and joined the other runners.

He was told that he was crazy and there was no way he would finish the race. To which he replied “Yes I can. See, I grew up on a farm where we couldn’t afford horses or tractors, and the whole time I was growing up, whenever the storms would roll in, I’d have to go out and round up the sheep. We had 2,000 sheep on 2,000 acres. Sometimes I would have to run those sheep for two or three days. It took a long time, but I’d always catch them. I believe I can run this race.”

Once the race was underway, Cliff didn’t even run properly; he appeared to shuffle. Many people feared for the farmer’s safety. The professional athletes knew that it took about 5 days to finish the race. In order to compete, they ran about 18 hours a day and slept for the remaining 6 hours.

Cliff wasn’t constrained by conventional wisdom. He was unaware of this approach to the race. Whilst the top athletes slept, he kept on running! To everybody’s disbelief, Cliff ran the whole five days without any sleep and secured an amazing victory!

Today, the “Young-shuffle” has been adopted by ultra-marathon runners because it is considered more energy-efficient.

One of the things that the coronavirus pandemic has shown us is that life is uncertain and none of us know what is around the corner. Life is fragile and we must seize opportunities when we have the chance. It’s important that we live in the here and now and if we have dreams or desires, we must listen to our hearts and make every effort to fulfil them.

As part of the process, we may have to get clear on any obstacles or limiting beliefs that could prevent us from fulfilling our goals. If we identify something it’s important that we figure out solutions and devise an action plan to overcome them.

We have it in our power to take action to attempt to make our desires a reality. Life is short and none of should allow the possibility to look back on our life with regret at the chances we didn’t seize or the action we didn’t take.

This week, why not take a few moments to reflect and consider if there is something that you dream of doing but haven’t yet accomplished or experienced. Think about if you’re able to take some action to make it happen. If so, what will be your first step?

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk

“The past three weeks have put a spring in my step. I have renewed purpose and have thoroughly enjoyed every second of this exciting adventure.” Captain Sir Tom Moore on his 100th birthday.

There was sad news last week, when it was announced that Captain Sir Tom Moore had died with coronavirus aged 100. He had inspired people throughout the UK (and indeed the world) with his fundraising efforts for the NHS in 2020.

The Second world war veteran had won praise for his positive thoughts in the early stages of the pandemic last year as well as for the funds he generated through his efforts. He captured the heart of the nation and remarkably raised more than £32 million for the NHS.

It’s fair to say that Captain Sir Tom has been a beacon of light in these challenging times.

Some people climb Mount Everest to raise money for charity. Others run a marathon, jump out of a plane, swim the channel or do all four. They train for months and some make a huge fuss about it

He had a more low-key approach but the outcome was fantastic. He decided to do 100 laps of his garden at home before his 100th birthday on April 30. It was his way of saying thank you to the National Health Service for treating him when he broke his hip and had skin cancer.

His target was £1000 and the money donated would go NHS Charities Together. When his fund-raising page closed on his birthday, he had raised an amazing £32,796,395 from 1,519,388 donations.

Captain Sir Tom Moore was an incredible man. The Second World War hero had served in the 145th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps during the war and was also a civil servant.

His life changed quite dramatically in just a few weeks in 2020 after he decided to do his bit to thank the NHS staff. There was a lot of media interest from all around the world. So much happened in the last year of his life in just 9 months.

Here are just a few things that occurred after Captain Sir Tom completed his goal:

• He was asked to open the NHS Nightingale hospital in Harrogate virtually.
• He was made an Honorary Colonel by his old regiment and an Honorary member of the England Cricket team.
• Birthday tributes to him were displayed on the big screen in Piccadilly Circus. He received a message from the Queen, Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall on his birthday, as well as a video message from Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
• 140,000 birthday cards and gifts were sent to him from all over the world and displayed in a school hall. An army of volunteers were drafted in to open and sort the cards!
• A train was named after him.
• He recorded a record called “You’ll never walk alone” with Michael Ball and was number one in the UK singles charts on his birthday!
• A Hurricane and Spitfire did a fly past of his garden to mark his birthday.
• He published his autobiography.
• He was interviewed on TV by Piers Morgan for the show Life stories.

Thanking the public at the time, he said: “People keep saying what I have done is remarkable. However, it’s actually what you have done for me which is remarkable. The past three weeks have put a spring back in my step.”

In the middle of the first lockdown Captain Sir Tom came out with these words of hope, which seem even more pertinent this year: “Let’s try not to get downhearted, we will get through this, whatever is thrown at us and together we can ensure that tomorrow will be a good day.”

Captain Sir Tom had such wisdom. As I said in a recent blog, we’re all fortunate to be able to tap into the wisdom of older people if we wish to. It’s sad that sometimes society doesn’t fully value and respect the knowledge and experience of older people. It’s too easy for people to be unfairly labelled “past their sell by date.”

I have reflected on Captain Sir Tom’s story. One of the major learnings I took from his story is that we’re never too old for new adventures.

I have detailed below some other lessons which I gleaned from his efforts and story:

• You are never too old to make a difference to the lives of others or complete a goal you have set.
• Small simple ideas and actions have the potential to affect the lives of many other people and can have extraordinary results.
• Acts of kindness create ripples which can be felt far and wide. Like Karma, your positive kind actions are returned to you.
• You can be a source of light for others in challenging times.
• Other people’s actions can bring us joy and make us feel good.
• Kindness has no boundaries; this story touched the hearts of people across the globe.
• You never know what positive impact your genuine intentions and actions will have on the lives of others.

In conclusion there are two other learnings that I took from this story. Firstly, I was inspired by the motto of Captain Sir Tom Moore’s old regiment: “Fortune favours the brave.”

Secondly, I believe we can all find hope and optimism in these challenging times from Captain Sir Tom’s favourite saying: “Tomorrow will be a good day.”

This week, why not take a few moments out to reflect. During this time, consider what you have learned from the actions of other people. Think about whether you’ve applied the lesson(s) to make a positive difference to your life and that of others.

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk