I learned at a very young age that I was
averaging the hardest work to do in
class and I was never given the easiest
it was always somewhere in the middle
and my end of school report always
reflected the same thing shows potential
but must try harder I was a C grade
student with the willpower problem I
also learned that I was incredibly shy I
remember my first day of school
my mum dropping me off and me fighting
to not be left behind I'm feeling quite
emotional and that was something that
has continued throughout my life without
the kicking and screaming but the
feeling was always still there and I
also learned that I was very good at
practicing and thinking on my feet so I
gravitated towards sports I was good at
football and table tennis and most
sports really and actually in those
areas I was a natural leader and quite
good at communicating as this progressed
on to secondary school my teenage years
we just rebelled that all of those
things that caused me pain so I messed
around in class just to escape that
judgment of being average and I resisted
going anywhere where I felt like I was
going to be shy until later on when I
discovered a really powerful medication
for shyness which is cigarettes and
alcohol and and then I just spent most
of my time going all in on sports and
running small businesses and enjoying
the communication the leadership in
those areas I was fortunate enough later
on to find a degree that allowed me to
use my skills and 60% of it was
practical so I did lots of sports
conditioning and coaching and
rehabilitation and I progress this on
into a career so as soon as I left
universe
I set up a consultancy of sorts working
with osteopaths
physios chiropractors Professional
Football Club's doctors and over a
six-year period I became busy enough to
be able to open up my own studio and
this studio was right in the center of
Bristol's business quarter in the UK so
we have the top four accountancy firms
and law firms and and banks and so my
typical client would be the CEOs
partners judges doctors from the local
area and I remember one day I was sat
down with a partner in one of the local
for law firms must have been about 45
years old and I'll be honest with you
here I kind of reached a point where I
didn't need his custom which very much
changed the conversation a consultation
process sorry because I'd stop trying to
sell and I was just trying to learn
about him and he opened up about his
stress and being overweight and having
difficulty sleeping and drinking more
alcohol and and that's why he wanted my
help and as the conversation continued
he started to tell me about where he was
five six years ago turned out that he
went to the gym regularly and he yet
better than than he was now and he slept
better than he was now and he he was
doing many of the right things up until
this point I'd seen myself as a
knowledge worker right that the gains
and the information but it turns out he
already knew everything he needed to do
I don't know if you've ever known
exactly what you needed to do but you
just couldn't get yourself to do it so I
asked him why is it that you can't just
go and do those things again and he said
well I like the willpower I need you to
motivate me and hold me accountable to
make sure that I do it so this kind of
sent me flying back to childhood because
I knew that I was a c-grade shy person
because of my lack of willpower and now
this a grader he was lacking willpower
as well so I thought it might just be us
- it might be the start of a willpower a
pat down
so I started asking as many people as I
could and I sent questionnaires out to
companies and all of my clients and I
asked them not just in the area of
health I asked them the question do you
struggle knowing what to do or do you
struggle consistently doing it in the
areas of stress and health and exercise
and business and relationships and it
turns out that 90% of people came back
saying they knew what they needed to do
they couldn't get themselves to do it
this started a journey into trying to
discover how to get myself some more
willpower and how I could help my
clients as well and it led me to a man
named Michael Perez Michael was a neuro
linguist and facilitator and he agreed
to to work with me for a period until
I'd achieved some goals so we wrote down
a few goals and I thought I knew what
was going to happen with the process but
to my surprise we didn't discuss them at
any point he didn't ask me if I'd done
any of the things that I said I was
going to do he didn't hold me
accountable at any point in fact he
didn't mention my goals once he did give
me a couple of tools and one of them was
an app and I was to download this app
and it would make my phone vibrate so I
kept my phone in my pocket all the time
and every time it vibrated I had to do a
big smile a genuine smile and he also
asked me to write down three things that
went well and two things that could have
gone wrong but didn't and it turns out
that the stuff that you appreciate
appreciates and when you bring yourself
into the present moment stuff isn't
quite so scary so over a period of six
months working together I doubled the
size of my business I wrote a book I
started public speaking I started
reading an academic paper every day and
writing my opinion on it and sharing it
online but at no point during this
six-month process was I aware of
applying any willpower and nobody held
me accountable and
nobody motivated me so I knew that it
wasn't a willpower problem that allowed
me to overcome these things and I didn't
have a willpower problem but I still
don't know what it was I still couldn't
apply it to anybody else so I continued
reading and researching and it led me to
another man named axe my Dax is a coach
to a listers and rock stars and even
royalty unfortunately for me a teacher
of the neuroscience principles of
coaching
Dax taught me that that our actions are
determined by our inner dialogue and our
inner dialogue is determined by our
thoughts and our thoughts are determined
by our feelings and our feelings are
determined by our environment and our
environment holds on to associations
from the past so when I'm trying to use
willpower and motivation and
accountability to change an action I'm
actually using it to try and change a
side-effect it's never really going to
work it's like trying to stop it raining
by using a bucket so you may
successfully change a habit without this
at some point but it's probably just
because it stopped raining but when I
approach this end and I started looking
at my environment with curiosity and
asking what is it in this environment
that triggers it what are the
ingredients of these feelings and what
are these emotions trying to tell me and
what are my thoughts and where are they
useful and where are they not useful and
where can I approach this more
skillfully and slowly I start to build a
360 degree picture of what I'm looking
at it's and it's what we call prediction
and response and it turns out when we
create prediction and response our brain
suddenly feel safe and then the best
next action just becomes available it's
easy to create a habit from this end and
it's almost impossible to create one at
this end I'm not saying that the will
power and motivation aren't useful they
are but really they're only useful for
doing one-off things like tax returns
but the greatest power of willpower and
motivation is recognising our need for
it and instead of applying it taking a
few steps back and getting curious as to
why we even need that in the first place
[Applause]