The world could be said to divide into two sets of people – those with personal power and those without it.

In shops and businesses up and down the country, those making the sales and making progress are those with personal power. In every walk of life, whether you’re an Artist, a Teacher, an Opera singer, a Landscape gardener, an MP or a Coach, what sets you apart and makes you more successful than the next person is – your level of personal power.

And, you’ll have an easier time attracting customers, influencing others and getting the results you want because people will be drawn to you.

Quite simply, it takes a lot of the struggle out of life.

What is personal power…

…and, more importantly, how do you get it?

I began thinking about this in preparation for a talk I’m giving at a charity event in London this Saturday.

The theme of the seminar is Client Attraction and while aimed primarily at coaches, the theme is relevant to all, whatever your profession.

It got me thinking about what makes for a successful coach – one who attracts clients, has a thriving practice and is well-paid for their expertise. I concluded that what distinguishes a great coach is their level of personal power.

Obviously, as a member of my site, you already have a comfortable level of personal power! However, if you’d like a little extra, read on.

Five Steps to Greater Personal Power & Success

1. Establish Your Credentials

It’s not enough to have the paper credentials. To feel supremely qualified and equipped to coach or excel in any role, you must know that you are perfectly placed to do that job. Without a hint of arrogance, you must fervently believe yourself to be in a place tailor-made for you; that your life to date has been preparing you for.

You might go further – go on – and see what you do as your calling, the way in which you have been asked to contribute to the world. Take a look and see if you can find the thread that has been running through in your life to lead you to this current place.

You’ll find more on this in Chapter One of my book, The 7 Rules of Success.

2. Become Incredibly Useful to your Clients

Become well-informed in order to recommend the best nutritionists, personal trainers, cleaners, builders, accountants, wedding planners, et al, so you can help clients streamline and improve their life in every which way. Put them in touch with each other if appropriate.

Extend your largesse beyond the official coaching session into a generous and comprehensive service. Add another string to your bow, so you can enhance your coaching –I’ve been using Flower Remedies of every type with clients for over twenty years.

3. Live an Interesting Life

Your spirit and joie be vivre will attract clients.

This is true for all professions, but particularly so for Coaching. Your clients want a little bit of what you have. They want to feel lighter in spirit, more hopeful, more optimistic, less worried and overall – better about themselves.

You have to embody all of this in order to be able to ignite it in them. You must take care of yourself and ensure you’re loving life and keeping yourself fresh and inspired.

4. Choose Your Clients Carefully

You need to love your work. To do so, you need to work with clients you feel genuinely caring and enthusiastic about.

It’s not fair on the client or you to work with individuals you don’t feel an empathy and bond with. A person deserves to be with a coach who is instinctively routing for them and backing them all their way.

If you dread the thought of a session with a client, let them go – there’s a better coach out there for them. Otherwise, you’ll dampen your own enthusiasm for the work.

5. Find a mentor

Keep upping your game. Keep challenging yourself. Use a mentor to keep you clear on your work.

You need to have a place where you can look at your work, discuss any difficulties with clients and ensure you’re being the best possible coach for them. No-one can see their own blind spots.

Commit to excellence, get your support in place and you’ll keep yourself in tip-top professional shape.

How old we are is a very common “hold-me-back.”

Life changes

When we are in our teens and twenties, a lot of us don’t even think about the changes we are constantly making. Change is a given. It’s okay when we’re young to take risks, in fact most of the time we don’t even recognise that we are taking risks. Without knowing it and certainly without feeling it often we’re pretty bold.

As we get that little bit older, though, we start to become more constrained. We get into a routine, and often that routine becomes a kind of trance so we ignore the mild feelings of frustration that may start to build.

Until *POW* suddenly we realise we’re not happy with our lot, we don’t want to continue what we’re doing… BUT… and here’s the rub: we feel trapped. Stuck. And the thought of changing, risking, takes on daunting proportions.

Some time back David shared his story with us he relaunched his life at the age of 42. He changed from a ‘respectable’ (there’s another hold-me-back!) management job to setting up his own landscape design company and as we hear, he’s going great guns!

Catherine’s story

There’s another inspiring story you might like to read.

Catherine, 37, was a partner in a law firm earning a rewarding salary but not feeling fulfilled in her career. So intent on passing exams and climbing the career ladder, she didn’t realise how law just didn’t fit with her personality. Here’s her story:

“Thinking about giving it up was a huge decision and I hesitated. I needed to take time out to prioritise what was important in my life, to assess my skills and look at different career possibilities. I didn’t have enough money to travel without working, so I spent a month obtaining a TEFL qualification.

I returned to work and saved up for a year before leaving, which provided me with a retraining fund. I was lucky enough to be offered the post of reception/year one teacher at an international school in Madrid. I taught English to Spanish children aged four to six and realised I could be creative in a way that’s impossible in law.

I arranged to have life coaching sessions with Sue, who specialises in career change. Speaking to Sue crystallized what I was feeling and gave me insight into the reasons behind it. I needed help to make the next step though because it was scary giving up the security of my career.

I had three telephone sessions of one hour each over three months and it kept me on track. This was the best money I have ever spent.

Sue helped me realise that I don’t like to be put in a compartment working in law meant I had to suppress the more creative side of my personality. Without her insight and support I don’t think I would have seen how crucial this was to me. She helped me understand how rewarding I found teaching and that it fitted in with my need to feel I am making a real difference.

Back in England I was accepted on a year-long course under a scheme called School Centred Initial Teacher Training. Graduates spend a year working in the classroom being mentored by experienced teachers and receiving free tuition.

Although I’ve more than halved my income I don’t regret it. Teaching is so much more to me, I get a real enjoyment from it and no two days are the same. I am still having coaching with Sue, working on my five-year plan, and am looking at the exciting possibilities that teaching opens up to me.”

In 2007 he picked up a million euro bonus, so his ‘lavish lifestyle’ wasn’t overly threatened.
I don’t know about Mr Boumeester’s personal situation, but I have worked with numerous City bankers – some of them in similar situations. And I can’t help wondering about the power of peer pressure.

What was threatened – was it his status, his public standing? Was his ability to do the job in question? In other words, how much importance might someone in this situation attach to other’s opinion of him? If it’s enough to drive someone to depression and beyond, the answer is – probably a vast amount.

To depend on others for our identity; to lose our self-worth when we lose a job, or a contract or a relationship or anything else, is disastrous.

The question is: how do we maintain our sense of self when all around us may be changing and the familiar means of measuring our success taken away?

Here’s a clue from Marcus Aurelius,
‘If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.’

Let’s hope Hulbert Boumeester grasps this in time.

What happens when the one thing that has always eluded you turns up on your doorstep? How can we prepare ourselves for the delivery of our dreams?

My experience has taught me that whilst desiring, asking and believing are all great – equally important is the ability to receive that which you have asked for.

It is easy to spend your life in a constant state of longing; dreaming of the moment when everything falls into place – the perfect job, perfect home, perfect partner, only to find that when the dream arrives, you renege on the deal.

Safety Trap

You become the proverbial horse that bows its head at the fence and backs away, crawling into the ‘safety’ of the familiar, however dull. In effect, we step back onto the treadmill of ‘wanting.’

Wanting doesn’t require you to take responsibility or to change. Achieving your dream may well do. Wanting keeps you in a state of limbo, or for a more secular analogy – in a no-man’s land!

Making space for your dream to materialise is as much a part of the law of attraction as any other aspect.

Peter’s Story

Recently I coached a client (he’s happy for me to reveal this) who I’ll call Peter.

Peter believed he was ready to meet his perfect partner. He’d wanted to meet her for a number of years but all he really knew was that feeling of wanting.

After learning about the Law of Attraction, Peter was eager to test the theory and shortly afterwards manifested the woman of his dreams. Result!

But his ‘dream’ was short lived and after a brief relationship they parted. Peter couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. As coaching progressed we discovered that he had made no preparation to enable him to joyfully accept his dream partner.

Breakthrough

He suddenly had a breakthrough. Here’s what he realised: he still had a poem he had written for his ex-wife hanging on his bedroom wall: his photograph albums were filled with pictures of his ex-partners: he even had his ex-wife’s engagement ring in his bedside cabinet and he had love notes from various ex-girlfriends in his kitchen cupboards.

Ahaa! His ‘dream’ simply didn’t have the space to breathe or grow. As this realisation dawned on him, he began to grasp that his lack of preparation had prevented him from allowing a new relationship to evolve.

I’m not suggesting that you deny your past. We all have one. But there comes a time when you may need to acknowledge it, wrap it up, put it away and move forward.

Can you honestly say if you manifested your dream tomorrow you would be ready for it?

We all want in on the action (I slipped the word ‘action’ in on purpose – more later) and to learn the secret to manifesting.

However, we could be fooled into believing that all we have to do is sit at home and ‘OM’ very loudly and hey presto, your every wish is granted.

Action

The likes of Sai Baba and other mystics may well be this fortunate. However, for the majority of us it takes a little more time, energy, courage and ACTION.

Manifesting is fun, and I liken learning to use the Law of Attraction to learning how to play a new instrument.

The first time you pick it up you may not have much luck but after practice, focus, and the intent to master the chords perfectly you produce the desired tune.

Earlier this year after reading ‘The Secret’ I too wanted to test The Law of Attraction. I’d had success in the past with manifesting but this time I was ready to really challenge myself and go for a few things that I believed were way out of my comfort zone – my own home and a fabulous man!

Beliefs

I really did have to change my beliefs, and the shift for me happened when I came to realise that just because something is outside of your comfort zone it doesn’t mean you can’t manifest it.

When I DECIDED to manifest my own home, I was told I was ‘crazy.’ My family and a few friends worried as to how I would finance such a huge investment. But my DESIRE was so strong that I actually convinced myself I could do it. I had total BELIEF.

I FOCUSED on nothing else. I placed a picture of my ideal home along with a bold affirmation on my kitchen wall. I stared at it when I ate, when I had a cup of tea, when I was reading, when I was in the kitchen.

I censored everything around me including the newspapers I read and the people I spoke to. I visualised every day but I also took the appropriate ACTION, and to cut a long story short, I did manifest my dream home.

Victory

With this victory under my belt, there was no stopping me. I decided to manifest my perfect man. At around the same time, not so far away, a certain man answering my description had decided he was ready to manifest his perfect woman!

Luckily for me, he had total FAITH that ‘she’ would turn up when she was READY. And I was ready. The rest, as they say, is history.

The best thing about all of this is that we had both been told on numerous occasions we were ‘too old’ to find love. Thank goodness neither of us paid any attention to anyone else’s limiting thoughts. That’s their reality.

I had an excellent work record during the nine years I had spent there, was proud of having gained promotion and I had never had one day off sick.

Disaster strikes …

Then, one day an incident happened which equally involved other members of the management team and disciplinary procedures followed on everyone. The results soon appeared and I was in disbelief at what I was hearing. I was demoted whilst my colleagues merely had warnings. I wasn’t even ultimately responsible for what had happened.

I was horrified. The decision was the wrong one. I was not guilty and believed it wholeheartedly, as did an abundance of colleagues, friends and relations.

For me to go back to work into a lesser position was going to damage my self esteem beyond repair. I believed in myself so much that I simply could not allow myself to do it. My morale, however had taken a serious beating. My self confidence had taken a nasty blow, but I knew I could not go back to work in that position.

I desperately wanted to move on but I didn’t know how.

Turning it Around

Fortunately, being a member of the Fiona Harrold website gave me the idea to contact Sue Clarke.

Since I made that decision, it has been the best thing I ever did. I can’t tell you enough how good it was to talk to somebody who really knew what I was going through. She is such a great listener and has been a tower of strength in guiding me through to where I am now.

After I made the decision not to return to work, what was I going to do? How could I make a living and keep paying the mortgage? I had some really scary thoughts and I was terrified. It felt like I was in a huge void and I just couldn’t see a way out of it.

Sue quickly got to work on my case and guided me through this void with a host of ideas for me to pursue. After a few weeks of trial and error, we came to the conclusion that I should use the skills and knowledge that I had gained over the years. I have horticultural qualifications but the creative side of me had long since disappeared in the job I was doing.

Guided by Sue, I set to spreading the word around that I was available to anyone who wanted a ‘garden makeover’. Friends and family loved it as they saw their gardens quickly being transformed.

Then I got my first client from a leaflet drop I did – and she was over the moon with what I did for her.

A new Life

Now, I am gaining a whole network of customers, my creative side has been reborn and my confidence levels restored. I am even starting to specialise in garden design for barn conversions. There are plenty of them up here in Yorkshire!

The worries over how will I pay the bills never needed to have been there. I am now making a living out of something for which I have a passion and, unlike my old job, that makes it a pleasure to get up in the mornings. I can also work the hours that suit me.

I HAVE A NEW LIFE!

Thank you Sue…you were brilliant.

David Shaw

Read Sue Clarke’s comments about working with David and her tips on how you too can “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. More >>>

Contact David
If you would like a garden makeover or a new garden design – talk to David! He works in the Yorkshire area and you can contact him through his garden designs website .

PANIC!!

The truth is autumn is very much a time to reflect, reassess, and then take some positive action to really make your mark on this year.

And, even if you’ve surpassed your targets, you’ll want to ensure the make the most of this final quarter of the year.

Recharge Your Batteries!

September is the perfect month to recharge your batteries, revise the plan you started back in January, and most importantly, you still have time to arrive at the end of the ear with flying colours, proud of what you’ve achieved and what a great launch pad that would then be to begin a fresh new year.

Hey, the truth is that life carries on; it connects. What we do now, in the Autumn, matters – it’ll make a difference to how you feel today, and will be a launch pad and connection to a more successful you in the future.

In coaching we often “chunk down” and focus on particular situations in order to enable you to move forward quicker, whilst always keeping an eye on the bigger picture. 9 months down, 3 months to go. Seems it’s the right time to recharge, after all we still have a 3-month “chunk” of your year to work on.

“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs”
Henry Ford

The Big Dream

The good news is you can recharge your life at any time. True, you do need to be in a certain place, with a particular frame of mind, and bags of energy to follow through. Having worked with so many people over the past few years that have manoeuvred themselves into such a place, I know it works.

You can recharge whatever area, or every area of your life, whenever you want – invigorate and charge it so full of energy that you know, “yes, I really can succeed at this.”

What would you give to feel such a feeling?

Is it only for the favoured few to experience? Of course not. Recharging your life is for you, is attainable by you, and by simply making the decision that this indeed is the time for you to reassess and refocus, you too have begun this journey. Prepare to be amazed!

“But I need to relaunch every area of my life,” you might say. By focusing, or chunking, it really is like dropping a pebble into a pool of water, very soon it will not only be the splash of water at the centre that will be effected, but as the ripples resonate out all the pool, even the furthest corners, will be touched. And so it is with your life areas.

When I coach, many of those who begin with a career, business or entrepreneurial type challenge, even though other areas may also need improvement, soon feel the benefits elsewhere. By becoming effective in one, another area will also improve, and another, and another.

Consequently, by selecting a focus on health, relationships, finance or any amount of other important parts of life you may have, other areas will also be improved. The most important thing is to be honest with where you are right now, for with that knowledge you can set a powerful an energising pathway to the person you want to be.

“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate
version of somebody else”
Judy Garland

Write It Down!

To begin, I’m sure you’ve heard it so many times before, especially from me, but one of the most effective ways of clearing through that mental clutter, finding clarification and then achieving success is to WRITE IT DOWN.

Research beginning in the 1940′s has consistently found that only the top 3% of people write down and consistently work with their life plans, but that these same people are the most successful in society. And for me, the most exciting secret here is that anyone can join this select group.
There are no entry level exams, no special courses to study just begin today to jot, to note down those thoughts, any nuggets of information, and yes, ultimately your new life plan.

Update Your New Life Plan

What needs updating from the plan you started in January? What needs to be added to charge it full of energy and enthusiasm again? Be honest with yourself.

Be brave with your answers.

If you fell behind, got lazy, side tracked, or possibly didn’t even develop a plan last New Year, no problem.

We are updating, recharging-beginning today!

Think connection; taking the juiciest, best bits of your present situation, experience, knowledge, and adding whatever you desire in the future again, let your imagination flow.

What would you come up with? Follow my top tips for recharging your life and get ready to enjoy the rest of the year – it could still be your best year yet!

Many of the callers were remarkably positive, some downright enlightened! The one thing the happy callers all had in common was a genuine gratitude for their particular situation.

Alan, a roofer, called in to say he grasped how lucky he was after spending a year in Swaziland teaching the locals roofing skills. Seeing the attitude of people who had precious little helped him appreciate all that he has. And he was calling from the roof of a house damaged in one of last week’s gales!

Sean, a long distance trucker saw himself as a “knight of the road,” driving well and helping others along the way. All the happy callers felt there was nothing really important missing from their lives.

The unhappy ones had generally given up on something, something that really was important. John had been unsuccessful in getting into an elite regiment of the Army. At 28 he was making plenty of money in his sales job, with a recent promotion, and happily married with a young child.

All good – except for that itch: that feeling that he had once wanted to do something “important,” help others in distress, use his physical fitness, do something out of the ordinary.

What a young age to give up on the dream!

I encouraged John to see that there was another way to fulfil his heroic ambitions. Joining the SAS isn’t the only way to stretch oneself and make a contribution! He demonstrates to all of us, the importance of finding a way to keep the dream alive. Personally, I’d rather live with the hope of fulfilling my dreams than give up and live with the inevitable “what-if’s.”

The truth is – there’s always a way.

The end result not be exactly the original picture, but the vital trick is to honour the dream and the essence of our early impulses, however the practical expression of it may unfold.

Nor does the dream have to become a full-time job, take over our lives, or exclude anything else. And, we’ll know if it’s working, when the itch goes away!

So, I urge you – don’t settle for the “what-if’s.” Do something about it.

Much of our malaise can be lifted by having another holiday to look forward to. Get out your diary, check your budget and get those sunny breaks in your diary. Include Christmas in that planning and regular weekend breaks in between to offset what D.H. Lawrence called, “the inertia of day-to-dayness.”

With Eurostar, for example, you can get into France in a few hours. And, if you haven’t got into skiing, get into it. It’s no longer just for aristos and a week’s break needn’t cost the month’s mortgage. You’ll bask in the most awesome light and sunshine, whether you’re on the nursery slopes or off-piste.

2. What Do You Dread?

Well, just stop doing it. Only joking! But, seriously, make a list of what you loathe and drains your energy. What do you no longer want to put up with? Eliminate what you can and curtail or delegate everything else.

Changing your ways may be down to a stretch of imagination on your part, so book an hour with your smartest friend, or a coach, to help you find ways to reduce what you dread. And there are always ways.

3. De-Clutter

There’s nothing like a good clear-out to freshen up your outlook. And you’ll want to get rid of any mistakes from the summer sales and holiday mementoes. Use William Morris’s rule to only have objects in your home that are either useful or beautiful.

4. Exercise

Working out will uplift your mood, as well as everywhere else. You need to move out the stress hormones and pump up the happy ones to keep yourself feeling perky and optimistic.

Don’t take my word for it. Just try it. Cardio exercise is best for this and working up a sweat will rid your skin of impurities, so you’ll look more attractive as well, which is never a bad thing. There’s nothing like a lactic acid-fuelled burst of exercise to shift your mood. So, get down to the gym, or out running with a friend, strap on an ipod shuffle and feel good!

5. Do Something Exciting

Summer holidays are wonderful but they’re not the time to knuckle down and focus on a fresh challenge. September is the month to get serious with an Exciting Challenge.

What single achievement would enhance the quality of your life the most? Is it for example, getting into shape, it is becoming fluent in a foreign language (handy in those sunny climes), is it training to be a sensational cook, is it finally writing that novel?

Decide what it is and do something about it right now, today, to get started. As Goethe would say at this point, “Whatever you believe or dream you can do, begin it now. Boldness has genius, magic and power.” Good Luck!

Are you motivated?

Without motivation it doesn’t matter how many books you read, what you study, or how many opportunities come your way, life just won’t feel “right.” By “right” I mean to sit back at the end of the day and feel content in your tiredness that “yes” you did good you took hold of your life and lived it to the best of your ability.

Conversely, one of the worst feelings must be to get to that same place at the end of the day knowing you just didn’t cut it; that ultimately you were not true to yourself.

Is this you?

“I used to be focused and have motivation, but then I lost it, and now I want to know how to get it back again.”

“I’ve never been motivated, and I want to find out the secret of how to get it.”

Possibly the two most asked questions I hear as a motivation coach, and to be honest I think we’ve all been there at some time, right? But is it possible to get motivated if you’ve never experienced it before, or if you had it once but don’t have it now? The short answer is Yes.

Get clear

The best place to start is by getting clear. Too many times we have an opinion of ourselves; a feeling. Yet that’s really all it is, something we believe as fact based on an emotion usually felt at a time of stress or crisis. Not the best time or method to evaluate how effective you are. Much better to get your pen and paper out and answer the following questions (as always, write these things down; it encourages us to think and evaluate on a deeper level):

How motivated are you?

1. Were you completely effective this week? If so, give 3 examples of how you were totally true to yourself over the last 7 days. What did being real add to your life, what did it give you?

2. If you sold yourself short in the same time frame what did you miss out on as a result?

3. Make a list of 10 “must do” priorities for next week, and then…

The BIG secret to motivation!!

Sorry folks, but there really is no big secret except the age old, TAKE ACTION. If Stephen Covey, Anthony Robbins, Laura Berman Fortgang, Fiona Harrold the most sought-after, well read and respected coaches in the world say the same thing there really must be something in it. Take action, take action, take action NOW.

“The toughest road often leads to the top”
Christina Aguilera

And with that we almost meet back at the beginning of this article again; the way to get that feeling of satisfaction at the end of each day is to do what needs to be done throughout each and every day.

Whether we reason ourselves out of taking the big step, or make an excuse as to why we should put something off, we can’t lie to our heart we know the truth. We need to be true to ourselves. By being effective we send a signal to our heart; we are effective, we mean business, we do what needs to be done.

Nothing and I really do mean nothing builds motivation more quickly or solidly than that. If motivation is the holy grail of personal power, then being true to ourselves is the route to getting there.