First published 2 November 2020 on Your Best Year Starts Here with Nigel Risner.
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Nigel opened this one with a parcel of chocolate and 'some monkey stuff' that had turned up at his house. No idea who sent it. Then he owned up to something I didn't see coming from him. Five books, 42 years in business, and when the emails go quiet a little voice still tells him nobody loves him. (He's still on AOL, which might explain the quiet.)
My bit was the skillset and mindset thing I talk about from stage. Put 1,000 people from the same industry in a room, give them an aptitude test, and most would come out about the same. The ones who end up as the case studies are usually the ones who believe in what they can do.
Then email. I told Nigel I check mine once a day at most, and he decided that explained why I hadn't answered him in two years. Fair enough. I did break my own rule one morning the week before, opened it in bed, and found sales of a digital product I'd made over a year earlier. $47 a time, because someone else had shared the link. Most mornings it's junk and other people's jobs for you. Nigel quoted The Social Dilemma at me, the line about how if they're not selling you a product, you are the product.
His fix is a gratitude list before you go anywhere near the news or the Covid numbers. Mine is reading at least a page of something that does me good, then a bit of time deciding what I want the day to look like before it decides for me. Doesn't always work. Sometimes it's derailed by minute eight.
Then Nigel had me put my arms up, look at the ceiling and say 'I am depressed'. You can't really do it. We got onto star jumps, and how nobody looks miserable mid star jump. He signed off asking you to share it with three friends, under 'the law of something' he couldn't remember, so you could hear the wise words of Neil Martin and occasionally Nigel Ridsdale.
What I'd pass on
- Most people in the room have the skills. Believing in them is where the difference shows.
- Don't open email or the news first thing. Give the first few minutes to your own head.
- Watch the words you put after 'I am'. You'll work hard to prove them right.
- If your mood's dropped, change what your body's doing. Star jumps are hard to be miserable in.
You create the day you want by starting the day that you want.
Nigel Risner
Every human being, in my opinion, will do just about anything to stay congruent with the identity they've given themselves.
Neil Martin
