I have noticed over the years that when people are working in the same company, after three or four leadership programs, nothing seems to change.

Because so many people have had life-changing experiences, participants inside the same organization quite often sit around without doing anything, expecting a bolt of lightning to strike and that they will be transformed.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way - you are not going to make much work in your life without participation. 

All the best ideas come out of the process we’ve used.  They come out of the work itself.  That's when things will occur to you.

If you are sitting around trying to dream up a good idea, you may be sitting there for a long time. Maybe something will happen and maybe it won’t.

Just get to work and something will occur to you.

Good luck!

One of the gifts I was given as a young businessman, working for Levi’s was when I was the managing director and founder of Levi’s in New Zealand.  I had a phone call from my boss, who was the Asia country manager, a position I later achieved in my career.  He told me to be in Hong Kong on Saturday night, as he and I were going to go to Tokyo on the Sunday to meet the international president, who wanted me to accompany him to visit some countries.  Of course, I was quite naïve and had no idea at that stage how multi-nationals worked, a little nervously I set off and with my boss met the president of Levi’s International in Tokyo.  He had formerly been executive vice-president of Playtex, a women’s lingerie firm, which was an industry that I went to after Levi’s.

From Tokyo, Japan we went back to Hong Kong and after dinner and a drink, we retired to our rooms.  My room was first and I stood outside the door from 10pm to 2am, listening to the international president Mr Robert Roman, who I later considered to be a Czar in business, talked to me about if I wanted to be an international businessman that I needed to be flexible.  He also asked me if I would flexible to him, then he would take care of me.  I really didn’t understand the depth of all this meaning, being as I said earlier, quite naïve.  Some years later, when I understood things much better, as I gathered international business experience was that he wanted me to be flexible so that he could send me to Japan, which was the only country Levi’s had ever lost money in.  To cut a long story short, I was assigned to go to Japan and set out on a journey, which was to change my entire life.  As a young know-it-all country manager, as we had had considerable success with Levi’s in New Zealand, I constantly had to remind myself ‘Be flexible Brian’ and out of that, I remembered something I taught myself when I was 18, going to a new life in New Zealand and that was ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do’.  

Being ‘flexible’ and ‘when in Rome do as the Romans do’ has stood me in great stead over the years, because it has kept me to be reasonably flexible, although my wife might disagree!!

Coming back to the title of this book, ‘Fear Doesn’t Matter Anymore’, I remember as a young man of 18 years old, who arrived in New Zealand with an aspiration and a dream about a better quality of life than I would be able to have in London, England and arriving with US$20 in my pocket, set out on my path for a better quality of life.

My first job was digging the foundations on a government building and I doubled my financial stake in life.  At age 20, I bought my first business, at 21 years old my first apartment house and rented beds and by the time I was 24, I had three houses and two businesses.  When I bought my first business, by the time I paid my two staff from my day job in a large fashion house, there was nothing left for the luxuries of sugar or butter, so I took a job washing dishes on the weekend, in one of the city’s finest restaurants.  

New Zealand was pretty undeveloped and certainly not sophisticated, in those days.  However, with a cheerful disposition and my attitude of having fun and loving what I do, I set out to be the best dishwasher that I could be.  In those days, there were no washing machines, you did it by hand with heavy rubber gloves in 180 degree water.  It was a great job, I had a lovely dinner, I was able to put all of the scraps in a bag for my German Sheppard ‘Barbara’ and the ladies who worked in the restaurant where beautiful part-time models, so I had a date with a pretty girl most weekends, so I thought it was a wonderful job.  

I could have course had a ‘have to’ kind on attitude, instead I chose to have a ‘want to’ type of attitude.  I knew that doing this job, would support me in my purpose and aspiration to achieve my dream and it did.  

As I have looked back over my life and reflect those early years were in many ways my greatest achievement, the set me up for my journey and path through life.  I tried to search for what is the key that passionately drove me on to start work at 4am every morning and then go to my regular day job at 8.45am.  Finish at 4.45pm and go to my workshop and work from 5 to 10.30pm and the thing that runs through my thinking, above all else was I was fearless, I never held it once in my mind that I would fail.  Of course, there were plenty of challenges and then some, but I always had a cheerful disposition with an ability to look on the bright side and of course my passionate belief that I would be able to achieve a better quality of life, than I could have back in London Town, whether that is true or not, I will never know but I do know this, because I believed it, I could achieve it.

Earlier this year when the Dean of the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) Business School, learned that I planned to considerably reduce my international travel, he asked me to take the position of Executive in Residence, in the business school.

Having been on the university advisory board for seven years, I have watched the university’s phenomenal growth over the ten years since it became a university, to being the biggest business school in New Zealand after the University of Auckland.
I was familiar with it and loved the passion that the Faculty had for their students and the university and a can do attitude to get the job done, that I accepted the position, which I added to my other portfolios.
I recently attended the graduation of approximately 600 students being capped and receiving their degrees.  Sitting on the stage with the faculty, regaled in their splendor with their hats and gowns and me unadorned in my Saville Row suit.

I must have looked strange to the audience of students and parents, ‘who is he?’
As each student came up, I could feel their tremendous pride as they received their degree from the Chancellor and Pro-Vice Chancellor.
It brought a lump to my chest, as I was filled with emotion, at being able to share this moment with them, and also be surrounded by the pride and passion of their teachers, who had contributed to their success.

               Words flashed into my mind
‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life’

And I realised ‘life defining events’ were taking place inside these wonderful young people.Outside, after the graduation was complete, graduates, parents and friends celebrated, ‘high on the joys of life’ and again I felt a strong emotion inside me to be able to share these moments, in this environment.

I have long held a belief that ‘the children are our future’, and as I stood amongst these graduates, loving and savoring the moment of their success, I felt blessed to have been afforded this opportunity.

I also trusted that amongst these students would eventually emerge future leaders, not just of industry, but of our country and who knows, maybe even the world.

Your response to this is probably "Of course I am!"

I want you to please think again more deeply about what accountable means to you. Please write it down.

Are you taking personal responsibility for the results of your life? They are yours, nobody else’s. Are you happy with them?  Or are you in ‘the drift’, and just accept them without really having given them your best shot?

Let’s look at this word ‘responsibility’ and break it down. "Respond to my Ability". This means I take ownership of the Results of my Actions, I am responsible for my outcomes that I have created. At the end of the day ‘If it’s to be, it’s up to me’.

Are you satisfied with where you are in your life?
Are you being the best you can be?
Could you do better?

If the answer is Yes, please write down what areas of your life you could do better. Analyze your relationships?  Your chosen job?
I believe, based on my experience and observations, that we human beings are given gifts and talents when we come into this life - you can decide how they got into your DNA! It is up to us to discover what these gifts and talents are.

I have heard that it is written that each of us is given a gift or talent that we can do better than anyone else.  As you know there is no duplicate human being of you.  You are unique. It is our responsibility to discover those things and then respond to our ability, by being the best we can be and make our contribution.

I remember when I bought my first business.  I did not have enough money for the luxuries of butter and sugar, and I took a weekend job washing dishes. I clearly remember asking myself the question, "How can I wash these dishes cleaner?" and thinking, "I want to be the best dishwasher."

My first job when I arrived in New Zealand digging ditches on a building site, I just wanted a job, a job to get money. I had arrived in this new land by myself as an 18 year-old boy and I only had $20. I was on my journey of my Pathfinders path, to a better quality of life. The burning question for me was: "How can I do this job better?"

When I applied for the job, the job foreman said, "Show me your hands."
I did and they were soft from no work from being on a boat for six weeks from England! He laughed at me and said "Okay, I doubt you will last, but we need workers."
Little did he know about my four years of scrubbing decks as a Naval Cadet!

I got big blisters on my hands and they hurt.  The same question came to me: "How can I do this job better?"

On the fourth day on the job, I was put in charge of three men, all older than me, given a new job and I didn’t have to dig anymore holes. I didn’t know it at the time, but looking back, I was responding to my ability to be the best I could be. It took me to a role of supervisor, which was already indicating to me, like a road-sign, my future path.

I realize now that I was accountable. It was up to me, there was no one else to support me. Yes, there were my family, who loved me, but they were 11,000 kilometers away.

How about you?
Are you being accountable for your life results?
Are you being responsible and responding to your abilities, by being the very, very best you can be?
Are you taking ownership of your results the good, and the not so good?
Are you blaming others, when it does not turn out the way it was wanted, it’s not my fault.

Today, I want you to list up all the things that you can honestly say you are being 100% accountable for in your life. Also, please list the things you are not being accountable for.

Please do not leave out those amazing gifts and talents you have that will enrich all the lives of the people you touch.
These are you gifts that you can give to our world, that will make ‘the world a better place’ because you are doing what you came here to do.
Go for it.

The current global economic situation reminds me of the movie The Never Ending Story and the ‘nothingness’ that was engulfing the land.

One of my students emailed me, a very successful female executive who has a very analytical mind, and said she felt there is a major re-shaping of forces starting to emerge, similar to the industrial revolution.

I have a huge belief in the human spirit.  In all the thousands of people I have trained and coached over the last 20 years, I have not met ONE person who goes to work to deliberately mess-up (yes, we all mess up - I have!). I have also not met one person who does not want to be the BEST that they can be.

It is time to decide, clearly, specifically and passionately what YOU want to do to be what YOU want. Please take what you have decided, clearly, specifically what you want to do, to be what you want to be, and go through the following set of exercises: 

1) Make a list of everything "I WANT" – write down what you want.  You need to write this down and this is probably a most physically demanding exercise. When I did this exercise 20 years ago, it was a life defining event for me, and it started me on my journey, of helping people and organisations to be successful. I got writer’s cramp! But for me it was worth it. I am sure it will be for you too.

2) Now taking the same list, write down "I CAN".  List down. You have to write down "I CAN" in front of everything – this is an essential part of the imprinting process.

3) Now write down "I WILL" in front of your list. You may start at this stage to get responses in your mind, such as, "Yes I can." If you do, write down whatever comes to you. (If you didn’t have any thoughts there is nothing wrong with that.)

4) Now write down "I AM" and make a list. The "I AM" statement is very powerful, as you are declaring things for your life into being. Unfortunately you cannot take a shortcut.  It does not seem to work unless you go through the stages of I WANT, I CAN, I WILL, I AM.

5) Now the final one. Write down "I BELIEVE" and list down, writing "I BELIEVE" in front of everything on your list. If you believe it you can achieve it! Do not doubt yourself. You can do anything you want, if you want to do it badly enough.

Very well done. You can be really proud of yourself for completing that. It is a big challenge, and a lengthy task. Congratulations!

Do something nice for yourself to celebrate. This is a success, and we should celebrate success. I suggest you keep your list and before you go to bed, read the "I AM" and "I BELIEVE" lists.