Let me take you back to July 2003. At the time, I was working behind the bar in a dingy pub near the village where I lived. Every night, I had to pull pints, clear cigarette butt laden ashtrays into the bin and crouch down in the pubs' humid basement to grab bottles of beer and J20 to restock the bar above. It was horrible work - probably the shitiest job I’ve had (it’s between that a...

“Stop trying to control everything and just let go!” - Tyler Durden About three quarters of the way through the film Fight Club, there’s a scene where the narrator (played by Edward Norton) and Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) are driving down a freeway. It’s night, the rain is heavy and the sound of the windscreen wiper punctuates their conversation. It isn’t an amicable one. The nar...

Am I a Tony Robbins fan? Sort of.  I've never paid a small fortune to go to one of his events. However, I did buy a second hand version of one of his CD courses on eBay, have watched "I'm Not Your Guru" on Netflix twice and sporadically watch him on YouTube.  I guess it's fair to say I dip in and out of Tony's work. However, I still rate him as the GOAT of the personal development world (cli...

I don’t know why Atomic Habits has sold 20 million copies. I’m dumbfounded by that number. Sure, I understand that when a book gets popular, it creates momentum. Furthermore, I’m aware that most people are sheep and when they see millions of people buying a book then they automatically assume it’s worthy of a purchase. Atomic Habits has outsold The 48 Laws Of Power, The Power Of Your Subcons...

Lately, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed. It seems like I’m being pulled in 10 different directions and not finding the time to work on my most important goals. Yesterday, while in this state of disillusionment, I drove to one of my client’s houses to do our weekly tennis lesson. As I joined the queue waiting at the traffic light, I noticed a crow bouncing around on a patch of grass, pecking away...

Exactly 20 years ago to this month (March 2005), I had my first paying hypnotherapy client. To say I was nervous is an understatement. My client wanted help to stop smoking and as I prepared the room for the session, I must have thought about leaving ten times. Prior to this moment, I’d completed 10 months of training with a nationally recognised institute in Regents College, London. The the...

Can you remember the Power Rangers? I wasn’t a big fan of this 90s kids TV program but I have a vague recollection of each of the five rangers morphing to form one giant fighting machine (called a Megazord). It seemed every episode ended that way. The individual rangers couldn’t defeat whatever comically designed live-action suitmation monster they were facing that week so they had to unify. ...

About a year ago, I reconnected with an old school friend. Although we’d met a few times since leaving, it was the first time in about 15 years that we’d seen each other. We had a game of tennis, caught up a little, sent some messages on WhatsApp and that was that. However, a couple of months later, when visiting my parents, I heard that my mum had been speaking with his. What she told me ab...

You can't be an innovator if you follow the crowd. Instead, you have to think differently and even see the world differently.  If you have a deeply held desire to do something significant with your life then you have to throw away the rule book.  Forget your degrees and MBA's. As you'll discover from the following 9 quotes, from three rebel CEO's, it's the people who challenge conventional t...

By the time I turned 26, I hadn't had a date in 7 years.  Let me be clear on what this means.  That's not going without a date but picking up girls in nightclubs. No, I literally hadn't had any physical contact with a girl for 7 long years. How do you imagine this made me feel as a young man, supposedly in the prime of his life? One word suffices. DESPERATE. I was desperate on every level...