IMPACT: Inspiring Conversations with Industry Leaders

Preface

The best advice I have ever been given is, surround yourself with the right people. People that will be your cheerleaders and celebrate your successes, no matter how big or small. People that will rally around and support you when life becomes challenging. And, when it comes to business, people that are smarter than you are, compliment your skills and allow you to flourish in your own strengths.

Although it may seem success has come easily to some, who appear to skip over hardship and disappointment, this is not the reality. We all feel frustrated, overwhelmed and isolated at times in our life and business.

Everyone who is outwardly successful has had to overcome challenges, and faced failures and setbacks. What makes someone both inwardly and outwardly successful is their ability to transform those setbacks into a valuable lesson and move on, often in a different direction.

This book takes some of my favourite podcast interviews, and gives you an in depth look at the journeys of industry leaders. The result is a refreshingly honest look at what it really takes to achieve personal and professional success.

I have handpicked this group of incredible, visionary leaders. My hope is that in opening their hearts and sharing their stories of resilience, you will feel guided to close the gap between where you are now on your journey, and where you want to be.

May this book bring you the inspiration you need to create an extraordinary life.

When we play it safe all the time we’re actually taking a risk that we don’t even realise we’re taking.

Margie Warrell

Margie Warrell is a Bestselling author and a global authority on courage, resilience and human potential.

From growing up on dairy farm, to teaching leadership at NASA, interviewing Richard Branson and climbing Kilimanjaro with her four teenage children, Margie exudes both the familiarity of an old friend and the pragmatism of the life coach you never knew you needed. After four bestselling books, this internationally renowned thought leader shares her thoughts on how, using practical steps, we can stop making excuses and start making the changes we truly want.

immik kerr: What inspired you to become an author, and in particular, an expert in this field?

margie warrell: I think my own personal passion to help people rise above their own fear and self-doubt is what has driven me above all else. I grew up on a small dairy farm in rural Victoria. While I struggled with belief in myself and self-doubt, I always had a deep sense that we’re here, each one of us, to really make our own mark on the world. So often, fear and doubt get in the way though, driving us to settle too fast and sell ourselves short.

This is why all of my books are about emboldening people to be braver; to trust themselves to take that leap of faith, and to dare to make their own unique mark, despite their doubts and fears that they’ll fall short in their attempt.

You say we aren’t wired to be happy, we’re wired to be safe. Just expand on that a little bit for us.

Our need for safety as human beings is very primal and goes back to our cave dwelling. If we weren’t constantly on alert for potential threats to our survival, the human species wouldn’t be here. Wired into our psychological DNA is this deep, innate desire to be safe and to protect ourselves.

We are more motivated to protect ourselves from pain – whether the loss of reputation or rejection or failure – than we are to go after the things that will make us happy. So, people stay in jobs they don’t like. They stay in relationships that leave them lonely. They stay quiet and let issues fester rather than speak up and address them. Our innate wiring and the desire to avoid discomfort, disconnection and vulnerability in the short-term keeps us from doing the very things that would make us happier in the long run.

Do you believe we want to be braver, or do you think most of us are happy playing it safe?

There are periods of our life where being comfortable and cruising along is just fine. For a while, anyway. But comfort doesn’t stay comfortable forever. While we can go through periods of life where we don’t want to take a risk in our career, or to be out there dating people, or climbing mountains, or pursuing big goals, at some point we need to be courageous or our courage muscles will atrophy.

Over time, when we don’t stretch ourselves and choose to play it safe, only doing what’s comfortable, we actually lose the confidence to do other things. It keeps us living a smaller life than we are capable of living, and over time we begin to lose our ability to change the things we don’t like. It gets harder and harder over time.

Of course, not everyone wants to be out there trailblazing all the time. We’re not all born to be Bear Grylls or Richard Branson. But, when you think about your life right now, is there something that doesn’t light you up, or that’s pulling you down? It could be a relationship you feel isn’t terrible, but it’s certainly not passionate and lighting you up. It could be about how you feel in your physical well-being, or in your finances, and how you’re managing money. It could be about the satisfaction you get from your work or your social life.

If there’s something that you can’t say it’s fantastic and I feel great about this part of my life, then this is an area of your life that will require you to be brave in some way; to do something where you risk failing and not knowing quite what you’re doing, or making a mistake.

This is why so much of the work I do is around encouraging people to give themselves permission not to do things perfectly, to make a mistake, to enter into an awkward conversation or to risk rejection or disapproval or an imperfect decision. Perhaps even to risk someone saying No, I don’t want to go out with you, or No, you haven’t got the job, or whatever it is that you are afraid might happen.

Yet when we play it safe all the time, we’re actually taking a risk that we don’t even realise we’re taking. We’re risking looking back one day and asking ourselves What if? It’s why at the end of life, most people regret far more the risks they didn’t take than those they did. Because even when we don’t get what we want from being brave, we are always, always better off for the trying. We may not have won the deal or landed the job, but we’ve grown and learnt a lot in the process.

Let’s talk about job security. What advice can you give someone who wants to be brave, but realistically they can’t leave their job and jump into starting a business.

I have four teenage children, all in private schools, so I’m acutely aware we can’t always just say that’s it I’m quitting my job. However, there are always, always, things we can do!

If it’s a job that’s needed to look after family and pay a mortgage, it’s still possible to shift the way you’re doing things. You could start incorporating more of something you actually enjoy into your current work. That conversation in itself requires courage. Or, rather than making a career change now, you could go back to part-time and start studying something new.

That’s what I did with studying psychology. I knew I wanted to ultimately make a career change. It took me five years, but I knew at some point if I didn’t start it wouldn’t happen. I had very young children at the time and could easily have said I’m too busy, now is not the time. But now is never the time! There is never a perfect time.

Maybe there’s something you could start doing now so that one, three, five years from now you’re not starting from nothing. You’ve been investing in that new path, getting things set up, however slowly. You’ve taken time to learn the skills, and what it will take to launch the business or whatever it is that lights you up. Better to be doing something slowly than doing nothing. I’ve actually just committed to starting my PhD. I know I will be fifty something by the time I finish it, but I also know that five years from now I’ll be really pleased that I took the plunge rather than thinking Oh, I’m too old to go back to study now. We are never too old to pursue goals that excite us. Never.

How can we set better goals and be brave enough to actually achieve them?

Firstly, the goals have to be meaningful. Rather than something you think you should do, make it something really important to you, or you’ll give up. You’ll go back to your behaviours, because that’s what’s easy.

It helps to have a timeframe that’s realistic. I often have people break down three goals to short, medium and longer term. They all can feed into each other or they could be in different areas. One could be career, one could be a physical body goal, one could be financial. It’s really important to make goals clear, specific and defined. Specifically, what is it I want to achieve by when?

For instance, to run a half marathon in six months’ time, to have acquired five new clients within the next 12 months. As well as starting my PhD, I’ve also committed to running my Live Brave Women’s Weekend in three continents next year!

After you’ve set a goal, it’s really important to have systems and structures around you that help you get going. It’s great to share with other people who hold you accountable. It’s also helpful to have physical reminders of what you have set as goals in your environment. When you wake up in bed in the morning, roll onto your work out gear, if getting fitter is one of your goals.

When I’m facilitating personal and professional development programs, I ask people to get really present to how they will you feel a year from now if they don’t take action. What’s the pain you want to avoid if you don’t get out of your comfort zone and do what you’re committing to?

As I mentioned earlier, as humans we tend to be far more motivated to move away from pain than we are towards pleasure. So, if your goal is about bringing you a sense of pleasure, get really clear about why it matters so much. When you have a big enough why, you figure out all the how’s.

Yet as motivated as you may be starting out, it’s important to be realistic and realise that motivation doesn’t stay permanently strong. It ebbs and flows. None of us feel pumped up and motivated every day. Not even Tony Robbins, who is the master of motivation. He has to engage in rituals that keep him in peak state and at the top of his game. We all do.

We all have days we can’t be bothered, when it’s too hard, particularly when we have a setback. That’s why it’s important to get clear about what the big vision is for your life, what you want your life to stand for, what goals you want to achieve in the short and medium term. How do you bounce back when things don’t go to plan? When you try something and it fails - we all have this experience - you have to pick yourself up, find what it was you learnt. Don’t over-personalise it. Learn, then move forward.

Do you think the excuses we have are about self-doubt, or is it something else holding us back?

The quality of our excuses ultimately determines the quality of our life. When you look at an excuse ask yourself whether the excuse is because you really don’t want to do it? If so, be honest and say so. Or is it because you’re just afraid that if you try you might fail? Of course, one of the biggest ones is I’m too busy. I don’t have the time.

In my case, I know saying I don’t have time is an excuse for me to