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It was a picture perfect day in Vanuatu, where I was co-hosting a week long transformational retreat. After a morning of deep dives into self-discovery, my co-host and I decided to unwind with a snorkelling adventure in the crystal-clear waters of the Pacific Ocean. We were told to swim out to a specific area and then return via a bay, which sounded like a perfect plan for a relaxing afternoon.

The anticipation, the fear, the excitement—all of it pulsed through me as I gazed down at the breathtaking expanse below. This wasn’t just about swinging off a ledge; it was about confronting a fear head-on and trusting in my ability to overcome it.

Have you ever felt like people around you don’t take you seriously? Perhaps you feel disempowered or like you’re just not getting anywhere. These negative thoughts and emotions that you can’t seem to change are so consuming. They take up so much energy.

Have you ever been in a room or meeting and thought “Why does this person just not get it? I can’t believe they think that way”? It can happen, you find yourself absolutely baffled by how some people operate. They’re saying and doing things that are sooooo not how you would be behaving. “Who do they think they are? Why are they doing that? On what planet are they on?”

Did you know that happiness is a choice?

Everyone begins at Step One, which is Unconscious Incompetence, meaning you don’t know what you don’t know. This is stage one of learning. When you’re a toddler, you have no need to drive a car so you don’t even consider the fact that you don’t know how to get behind the wheel and start the engine.

Have you ever considered why some individuals are incredibly successful? It seems like they have a hidden talent for being able to quickly manifest success in their lives. What is it about them that makes this possible, and how are they doing this? 

Fear is valid, it's there to keep you safe but in doing so it can stunt your growth, impeding you from moving towards massive action which could produce the changes you truly desire. What is the number one thing that's holding you back?

Have you ever wanted to answer a question, and then second-guessed yourself?  For example, your boss asks you to stay for an extra hour after work in order to complete a task. 

Putting yourself first is a form of self-care; for example saying no to things you physically and emotionally can't commit to. 

Why do we find it hard to say no? It might come from our predetermined beliefs from our past and people-pleasing tendencies. Do we want to be liked or seen as a kind person? 

Do you have people-pleasing tendencies? I often find some of my clients who have these people-pleasing tendencies will say yes to things that they really want to say no to. 

When you think about meditation - what comes to mind? It’s safe to say the stigma of meditation has dramatically changed over the years. We can finally understand the science and research behind it. Meditation has turned into a daily practice for millions of people around the world. 

When you think about meditation - what comes to mind? It’s safe to say the stigma of meditation has dramatically changed over the years. We can finally understand the science and research behind it. Meditation has turned into a daily practice for millions of people around the world. 

The story that you tell yourself, nearly above anything else, determines the quality of your life. What stories are you telling yourself that is simply not true? What narrative have you made up?

When we have a growth mindset, we believe that any change is possible; we know and understand that we can grow and adapt. When we come from that place, it is truly empowering because it means that there are so many more opportunities for personal development, for life, for career, for finances, for anything that comes up in your life. So if you were to change one thing that you have a fixed belief or opinion on to something of a growth mindset, what would that be? 

If you’re struggling with confidence, you’re not alone because many people do. The fact of the matter is that in most of life’s situations, you don’t need to be confident, you can choose to be courageous.

My life as a successful firefighter began by falling flat on my face in the first interview. To put it bluntly, I failed big time. I wasn’t aware then, that I could’ve used my physical body language to master my mindset. In other words, I could have used my physiology to change my psychology. As in all things in life, hindsight is twenty-twenty, and I found myself thinking back on that afternoon on countless occasions trying to piece together how I’d bombed so royally on an interview for a career path I knew was a perfect fit for me.

If you are stressed, a simple tool to bring you back into balance is to take deep breaths with a longer exhalation. When your stress levels are rising, start by taking a deep breath with a four second inhalation, followed by an exhalation of six seconds. This remedy is effective in as little as three breaths, so it’s worth incorporating this practice into your day as often as possible, particularly if you are spending an inordinate amount of your time in a high-stress setting. This easy technique will give you the desired result of balance, in which both systems move. towards harmony.

In every situation we find ourselves in we will construct an internal map of our world, as each of us perceives it. The map is not the territory, but rather an internal makeup of our external environment. At any one time, we take in over two millions bits of information per second in the externalised territory, and our map is created by filtering the sensory information from the matter in this quantum field.

Have you ever heard The Golden Rule ‘treat others how you would like to be treated?’ I call bullsh*t. You’ll get far better results if you treat others how they want to be treated. There are four different behavioural types and when we learn to adapt our behaviour we can ensure better outcomes when engaging the other three types. The golden rule of treating others as you’d want to be treated, means you’ll only communicate effectively with your own behavioural type, but what about the others? 

The wheel of life is an assessment tool so that, at any moment, we can take stock of what’s actually happening in our life. There are eight disparate areas of our life, and each area is ranked on a scale of one through ten, with ten being the highest level of fulfillment in that particular area be it, Career, Finance, Health, Family and Friends, Romance with Self or Others, Personal Growth, Fun and Recreation, or Physical Environment.

Everybody sets up their rules based on their own internal map of the world, which means that everybody’s rules will be somewhat different. Unfortunately, most people have unconsciously set their rules up so that it’s extremely easy to feel unwanted states and difficult to feel more positive ones. Let’s use the same example of relationships, with feeling loved being the state we want to move towards, and feeling unloved being the unwanted state that we want to avoid.

When I inquire about priorities, often a client will rattle off a list of things such as health, family, and career. When digging a little deeper, it soon becomes painfully apparent that my client is not prioritising any of these things. While a client may want to improve in these areas, there's often no significant growth because of the lack of structured planning. The single-most common excuse I hear from my clients is, “I don’t have enough time.” It’s not that they don’t have enough time, it’s that many clients don’t have a true understanding of what their current priorities are.

Have you considered that your mind and body is similar to a boiling kernel of rice? The water around the grain, just like the ocean of external stimuli to ourselves, gets fully absorbed. The analogy of the water around you is everything in your environment that’s a stimulus, including your friends and family, conversations with them, your television and music, even your food and dietary choices.

Hating someone is like drinking poison but waiting for them to die. It’s emotionally toxic and leeches a lot of energy creating nothing but negativity in its place. Learning to forgive liberates you from clinging to this toxic energy. We can’t change the past, and forgiveness does not mean that you now condone what the other person did. Forgiving is for your own sake, not for anyone else.Continuing to harbor negative thoughts and fester in your negative emotions will only invite more of the same into your life. Like attracts like. 

Every time I tried meditation, I felt like I wasn’t doing it right. Then, I realised that it’s not a state of doing, but rather a state of being. Once I released the expectation of what meditation should be like, I was able to start to practice it without judgement.

Have you ever wanted to answer a question with a Yes, and then second-guessed yourself?  For example, your boss asks you to stay for an extra hour after work in order to complete a task. You might answer Yes straight away, as you’ve always intuitively done. Your response will be based on a variety of factors including your behavioural type, core beliefs, and life experiences. One reason you say Yes instantaneously could be because you haven’t reconciled your people-pleasing tendencies. Another reason may be because you want to be known as someone who’s always willing to help.

What’s the very first thing you’d be doing each morning, if it was a perfect start?  How would you recreate your morning routine if you want to change the future given the premise that you can. . . 

Defining moments are highly emotional events that formatively transform us. They impact us due to the meaning we give to the event, not the event itself.  Because of their vivid and stark detail, they get stored in our long-term memory.  The new meaning dictates the new story, the new belief, and the new way of being, which significantly affects the trajectory of our life on a level that we can’t fully comprehend without the right tools.