Self Leadership and
The New Leadership Playbook
Blog by Andrew Bryant

The term "business motivational speaker" can seem generic and vague, possibly like something from the TV Show, The Office. Far from being comical, a business motivational speaker is someone who inspires, informs, and motivates audiences to think differently, feel differently, and act differently. They are typically hired to speak at conferences, seminars, and other events to help motivate and inspire business professionals to reach their goals.

The professional, rather than the comical, business motivational speaker typically has deep subject matter experience that they can use to energize and motivate employees to take action. They will often provide strategies to help their audience reach their goals, with a mindset of enthusiasm and positivity.

Delivering results is essential for any team or organization, but delivering results when employees are fatigued, stressed, or unclear of priorities is impossible. A business motivational speaker is not a...

I don’t usually get requests for articles or blog posts, but I have had so many messages asking how and why I moved from Singapore to Portugal during a pandemic, so here goes.

Digital Nomad is not a term I would apply to myself, but digitization has certainly enabled me to be geographically independent. Openness to experience is, I think, the personality trait that is essential to change countries or circumstances. Thankfully I score high on this, and life experience has reinforced it.

Leaving home for university at 18, was my first big test. Then, at 25, I left, London and the country of my birth. I lived in Australia (W.A and N.S.W) for 18 years before moving to Singapore.

Singapore, the gateway to Asia, was where I really put down roots. This island nation was where my children were born, and from where I established a Global business, but I never intended it to be my final stop. The questions were when and how to leave, where to go next, and why?

In decision-making, the...

Are you in a slump?

Do your batteries feel flat, focus is elusive and you are drawn to your couch like a moth to a flame? Symptoms may vary, but you know you are not operating at your best, and you find yourself asking, "how to get out of this slump?"

But wait!

Having been in slumps myself, there is a surprising benefit to slumps.

The Secret Slump Benefit

As a motivational leadership speaker and author on the topic of self-leadership, there is an expectation that I wouldn't experience a slump. Nothing is further from the truth.  You see, when I hit a slump, I'm like a man who is happy at the bottom of a hole. Why? Because I both know the way out and, know the benefit of being in the hole.

Life can be fast-paced and we can miss the subtle things. A slump is often your body or mind signaling you something. It's only when you accept the slump that you can get the message.

Too often we force ourselves to push through such periods of low energy, but...

If you are a manager or leader, you will likely have faced the challenges of motivation.

• How do I motivate myself?
• How do I motivate my team?
• Why do different people require different motivations?

As an Executive Coach and Leadership Motivational speaker, I am versed in the theory and practice of motivation and extensively work with leaders to improve their results. In this post, I share my favorite theory and application using my own research.

Motivation for Leaders

Being human, we have a smart brain, specifically the prefrontal cortex, which we use to imagine and predict the future. These imaginations and predictions create expectations. Expectancy Theory (Victor Vroom 1964), is a model about how expectations lead to motivation.

Vroom’s theory says that, if the future seems reasonably likely and attractive to us, we know how to get there, and we believe we will be appropriately rewarded, then we will be motivated to act. In other words, if people expect a positive and...

Personal Mastery has many definitions but what is most important to understand is that it is not a destination or a definitive state, but a process. The idea that mastery is a process was described by Peter Senge, in his book ‘The Fifth Discipline.’

People with a high level of personal mastery live in a continual learning mode. They never “arrive.” (Peter Senge)

The application of personal mastery is key to living an effective life and having a successful career. This has never been truer than at this time in history.

In this post we explore, what is Personal Mastery, why it is important and, how to develop it.

Personal Mastery Definition

I define Personal Mastery as follows:

"Personal Mastery is the process of living and working purposefully towards a vision, in alignment with one’s values and in a state of constant learning about oneself and the reality in which one exists."

Personal Mastery and Self-leadership can be considered synonymous. They...

“Get out of your comfort zone.”

We have all heard this advice, whether as a cliché from a Motivational Speaker or in a Social Media meme. But is this B.S? And by B.S. I mean a Belief System!

The belief system (B.S.) in this advice is that we employ the courage to try new things and as such is sound; but how much is too much? Consider the following:

• The human body has very specific comfort zones for things like temperature, blood glucose, and atmospheric oxygen. For example, humans can survive for periods in double-digit zero degrees centigrade and although our cells start to die at 41c, people can survive a day trip to Death Valley which reaches highs of 55c.
• On waking this morning, your fasting blood sugar should be under 100 mg/dl, but if you have just had a good breakfast or lunch it’s likely to be around 140 mg/dl. If you are not a diabetic, your body has a sophisticated method for keeping your blood sugar in a ‘comfort zone’. Too high...

In our 2012 book 'Self-leadership' my co-author, Ana Kazan Ph.D. and I make the following statement:

"There are no fairy godmothers - If you want to be transformed, to be free, you must do the work; you are the hero, you are your own savior."

It is a truism that life is not fair. We are not all born with parents who validate our self-esteem and provide opportunities for us to learn and grow; sometimes circumstances are downright cruel. But success is measured not by what you have but by how much you have grown inside, and this comes by motivating yourself to overcome obstacles and live with purpose.

In fact, those that have ‘moved the dial’ or ‘achieved the delta’ by going from a D grade to a C, and a C to a B are much more resilient than those who have always gotten A’s.

The Hero’s Journey

Mythologist Joseph Campbell tracked the hero's journey, a common theme in all cultures (and Hollywood), which is the process by which...

I’m often asked, how I got started as a Motivational Speaker and Self-leadership champion, and so I’m sharing this interview by Success Resources, Singapore, which answers these questions for you.

Could you share your story of how you began your journey to becoming one of the best Motivational Speakers in Singapore, and achieving the success that you have today?

Sure, I started my career as a Physiotherapist in the U.K. in the early 80’s. I was working with sports teams and athletes and soon realized that success was as much mental as physical. I studied psychology, NLP, hypnosis, meditation, and even Chinese medicine to help my clients get a competitive edge. When I moved to Australia, I continued to coach athletes but kept getting asked to coach business people to use their minds to be successful. Because of the impact, I was having on performance on and off the field I began to coach and speak about my approach and my Self-leadership Methodology.

...

 In 2017 it was my pleasure to interview the legendary Brian Tracy on Self-leadership - a topic I have been speaking and writing about since 1999.

In case you don't know - Brian Tracy is a motivational speaker and self-development author of over 70 books. His popular titles include; 'Earn What You’re Really Worth', 'Eat That Frog!' and 'The Psychology of Achievement'.

Self-leadership Definition

You can watch the video of my interview with Brian above, and here is the transcript of his definition.

"Self-leadership is the starting point of everything. Self-leadership means that you decide exactly who you are and what you want, and then you write it down and you make a plan and a goal, and you work on it every day. And especially Self-leadership means you accept complete responsibility for your results and outcomes; you don't blame other people, you don't make excuses, and you say, 'I am responsible", I'm in control, I'm in charge of my own life.'

And when you do...

What happens when your motivation goes missing?

In this post, I’m going to share with you, how to find your motivation and how to get going -even when you don’t feel like it. Everyone has things they should do or things they must do, but don’t feel like doing. But you also have things you like to do and things you look forward to doing. So what’s the difference? What’s the secret?

TO FIND OUT, READ ON, OR WATCH THIS VIDEO:

It’s not unusual to struggle with motivation, you’re not alone. Let me share something with you, as well as being a Self-leadership coach, I’m also engaged as a motivational speaker. I have spoken to audiences as large as 12,000 and inspired them to take action. But, I’ve also had those days when I struggle just to get out of bed, days when taking a shower was a major achievement. Just this week the thought of going to the gym, something I usually like doing, seemed like it would be a...