Unrequested – The best thing I ever did

Postcards from Rethink Central

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Let me tell you about the best thing I ever did in my life.

It didn’t feel comfortable and it certainly didn’t feel good at the time.

But it’s what set me on the path to being a coach.

My name is Liz Scully. I’m a business strategist. I run Masterminds and teach people how to do well in Masterminds. And I think the germ of that came from this, kind of cringy conversation I had a while ago. Let me tell you about it.

This is the very first time I emigrated to go to my very first film job. So this is years ago. I think it was the early Cretaceous Period. And I went back to the town where my mother lived.

I became friendly that summer with a big group of lads.

We all hung out together. They were kind of in dead-end jobs and they were perfectly happy with that. What they wanted was a quiet life, a pint on a Friday night and they were perfectly happy going nowhere. Some of them weren’t so bright. Some of them certainly had no ambition. A pint and a quiet life was all they were after.

One of them was different though.

He really was obviously super smart. He had ambition, he had gumption and I could see he’d kind of tamped it all down for his rubbish job in the carpet shop. And he loved being the big man with his friends. He liked being smarter than they are. He liked being louder than they are.

Seeing this frustrated me because even then I wanted people to be all they could be.

I wanted them to get the best out of life they could. And he just wasn’t.

But we became friends and we hung out and it was a lovely summer. And life was good.

At my leaving do, I had too many drinks, which for me isn’t very many because I’m not a big drinker. But at that point, I decided to talk to him about it. A very bad idea. So I launched into a diatribe to the poor chap. Telling him that I thought he was so much more than this, that he was wasting his life, that he could be anything he wanted to be. Got all a bit shouty and finger-pointy.

He – not unnaturally – did not want to hear this.

He certainly didn’t want to hear this from some new friends that had no reason to tell him this stuff. He felt that I was kind of telling him what to do with his life. Which I was. And he felt I was seriously out of order. Which I absolutely was.

And we didn’t speak for a year. And it was sad because he was a good friend. And now he wasn’t.

After a while, probably about a year, I dropped him a postcard from LA where my new film job was. Remember when we used to send mail through the post, it was quite exciting. Like I said, it was a very long time ago. And he replied.

He sent me an actual written letter. With a pen and paper and everything.

When I read his reply, I could not have been more surprised.

He said “Actually, you were right. I hated hearing all of that information you gave me. I was wasting my life. I was throwing my intelligence away. And just because I come from a poor family doesn’t mean I can’t achieve more. And I liked that feeling of being bigger than my friends.

You were right, it hurt to hear. But I’ve changed now. I jacked in my job. I’ve gone to university. And I’m now training to be a teacher.” And now, 20 years later, he is a very happy, very successful teacher.

He has changed the lives of many people.

All of that same feeling he had for being bigger than his friends and for moulding young minds and for helping people think a particular way, was perfect for teaching. So my awkward “You can be more than this!” which he hated to hear at the time – it made a big shift. It really changed stuff.

It was the root of my coaching.

And though, obviously, thankfully, I do not now need either drink or shout to help people make change. That’s the joy of actually learning how to coach and not being a silly 20-year-old.

But because I have made that shift and because I saw the change that happened to my friend, I’m the person to tell you this one fact:

I know for certain that you are doing too much in your business. You are not achieving all you can be because you’re doing too much in your business.

If you look very clearly at what you’re achieving, look at where the money comes in to your business, and look at where all of the positive action comes from. If you really focus on that and ditch all of the other stuff you’ll achieve more and you’ll have more time to yourself.

I know that’s how I managed to go from working 10 hours a day to 2 hours a day. As you know, it’s because I was sick and I had no choice in it. But it really worked.

You’re doing too much just the same as my friend back in the day was not using his full potential.

You’re too divergent.

You want to get focused. And it’ll make a huge shift.

If you have questions about that come along to one of my free, every other month Q&As and we can discuss it live on the call. There’s a box below. It’d be lovely to see you there.

And if you don’t have a question specifically about that but just about your business, it’d be great to see you then.

Thanks so much for watching.

Next live call is May 9, 2023 - 1pm Eastern / 6pm UK.
Come along to ask your questions about launches, strategies for marketing, Masterminds or whatever you're stuck on in your business.

Add your email below and I'll send you the zoom info for the calls. See you there!

Or come say hello on Instagram here.  I microblog daily.