Beating your Inner Chimp

This week has been an interesting one with my coaching session in London, meeting my client in Buxton and attending a networking event in Nottingham.

Sounds like a normal week the only difference is that I finally succumbed to a cold I had been fighting for about 2 months. I was determined to fight this off so used all my powers of mindset and visualisation and did manage for fight if for a long time then last weekend it hit me.

So it was the usual runny nose, headache and lack of clarity in thinking. By the time I got to London the sneezing had finished and the nose had stopped running so managed to have a productive day. The coaching session with my long standing client went well and I have to admit I spent time admiring his beautiful Aston Martin which he has recently purchased. I’ll be honest to say that I have had a ride in this car and it blew me away – it is amazing! We just needed the James Bond music to complete the experience!

Because of the cold and the way I was feeling when it came to Friday I was lacking energy and was tempted to miss the networking event I was due to attend at lunchtime. My inner chimp was saying take it easy have an nice day as you haven’t been well and you deserve to rest and recover.

I wanted to attend this particular event because the speaker was the MD of the largest radio group in the country and because of my experience working in radio in the past I wanted to hear him speak and meet him. So in my mind I had this battle going on. On the one hand I wanted to miss the event and on the other I knew that I should go because of the potential for business.

As the morning progressed so did the battle in my mind and it was touch and go which one would win. I had already paid for the event but the temptation of a nice relaxing day was beckoning. To my relief my Human nature won and the Chimp went to sleep and I turned up at the event on time. We sat down for a nice lunch and I was between two businessmen who I spoke to during the meal.

The MD gave an excellent presentation and when he had finished quite a few people went up to him to talk so I knew I had a little time to wait before I went to meet him. To my surprise both businessmen either side of me asked me for my card and felt that there could be potential for me regarding training or coaching and suggested we get together. I then went up to meet the MD but when I got to him I found that someone had just started talking to him and was asking him lots of questions.

So I took a seat and calmly waited nearby until they shook hands and he walked back to his table. I then introduced myself and told him about my experience working for two major radio stations in the past and my current work in the arena of Mental Resilience. To my surprise he suggested that we should meet to discuss this further as this was an area of real interest to him so we swapped cards.

I’ve learned a lesson here. It is when we make the extra effort that things seem to work out so well. I can’t guarantee I will get any business from these three contacts but I might and that’s how we build our business one meeting at a time.

So if you ever find your inner Chimp trying to take the easy way out, don’t let it win, instead focus on the possibilities and go for the tough option – it usually pays off.

As a final aside I managed to re-frame my cold into something positive almost straight away by rationalising that if I have the cold now I won’t have one for my honeymoon on the 11^th May!

Have a great weekend and stay positive!

John