Great Expectations

 

Eureka copy“The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.” ― George Bernard Shaw.

…I arrived at Peterborough station early for my train, so sat people watching….a favourite pastime! A young man plonked down on a chair in front of me. He immediately chatted to a couple, asking where they came from. The woman looked nervous whereas the man answered politely – from Nepal. The young man seemed excited – “how do you say hello in Nepali?” “हेल्लो”. He repeated what they said with ease.

(OK, I had to look this up and copy/paste – I haven’t a clue how to say this – however looking at another website, it says that that basic greeting is Namaste – I’m sure that they said something else!)

The young man asked them for a few more words and again repeated them. I then overheard him telling them that he knows 11 languages and even knew more German than his school language teacher!

The couple soon went their way and the young man turned round and smiled at me. “Do you really know 11 languages?” I was curious and wanted to know more. He told me that he learnt German in 2 weeks! Now, I don’t know what “learnt” means to him – is it just basic words – I’m not sure.

We chatted for a while and he shared how he was at college learning about food technology. I questioned why he wasn’t doing anything with language. He believed that within the next 20 years translators would be redundant. IT technology will be developed to supersede these skills – however we will always want food.

What a fascinating young man. Sadly I had to zoom off to catch my train, which I nearly missed as I was so enjoying our conversation!

What intrigued me was this young man’s expectation that he could learn any language and quickly.

 “We are what we repeatedly do, so Excellence is therefore not an act but a habit” Aristotle

The study of excellence is about finding the difference that makes the difference between being average and being excellent. So I wonder what the habits and structure of this young man’s thinking are which means he can easily learn new languages? What are his beliefs? How does he learn? What happens at an unconscious level?

As someone who struggles with learning new languages – I imagine my way of learning languages is very different to his – and of course, what would happen if I change my beliefs and patterns to his? Ordinary becomes extra-ordinary!

Over the past 50 years, the coding of the patterns and beliefs of “how” exemplars do what they do in many different contexts have been documented, which means that we can all learn how to be excellent in whatever context we want. We can also learn the process of identifying, coding and transferring precisely these differences… Fascinating stuff!

Recently I modelled 4 friends whose blogs I enjoy reading. Each of them write in a way that I want to read more and learn from. Through modelling these exemplars I compared my findings and discovered key patterns that they all did…and now I am using these same patterns, What I modelled was a slither in time when they were just about to write their blog. The moment just before they put fingers to keyboard and then whoosh  – they spurted out their words of wisdom. And now I am using my findings to test the effect…. And that’s a different story.

So going back to Excellence – we can have habits that we are excellent at – unfortunately some of these may not be useful to us….negative thinking, procrastinating, noticing only problems. The great thing is that we have choice. We can learn and change our habits that are resourceful for us….self-belief, trust in ourselves, self-motivating, building strong relationships, having personal / business success.

The study of excellence is the difference that makes the difference – and I believe those of us who strive for a life of excellence, being our very best selves, have great expectations.

How would it be for you if you learned how to be excellent every day? What difference would that be for you? If you are intrigued to find out more, then please Click here


Lindsey Reed is an experienced NLP coach and trainer – enabling her clients to be their best selves and achieve every day excellence. if you would like to work with Lindsey, contact her either by email lindsey@glows-coaching.co.uk or call 01832 280168 for a chat to see if she is the right coach for you. Alternatively you may be interested in booking onto the Every Day Excellence Workshop – an interactive, exciting, engaging, fun and thought provoking workshop where you will learn the key that makes the difference….

Great day. For me as a business owner, it represented a great investment in our team’s future. It reminded us of what we do well and inspired us with how we can be even better in the future.” Debbie Burke, DB Costing Ltd

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