Hacks for Growing in Positivity W/ Ian Woodhouse

0:00Welcome to the Big Success Podcast. Cutting-edge conversations on business and personal success, as well as how to level up. Here's your host, number one business coach in the world, Brad Sugars. And we are here with Ian Woody Woodhouse. How are you, buddy? I'm pretty good. Very good. Very good. That is good to know. So I want to go backwards a little way. At some point, everyone defines success in their life. How do you define success? What is success to you?

0:34Ultimately, it's Nina, my wife, when she's old, looking in the mirror and thinking, I married the right guy. Because she won't think that if I don't age well. I've got to age well. Or she'll think something else. So it's that. It's that experience that I've lifted feelings, moods, emotions in people, and I'm making a difference. It used to be a certain sum of money, but fortunately, I've made enough. I'm not wealthy, but I've made enough. So I've noticed that that driver is getting less. And now the driver that's coming through much stronger is, are my values driving me or am I being selfish in my motive?

1:21So for me, success is that. It's knowing that someone's life, even momentarily, has been lifted by something I did or a way that I was with them. That's what has become more and more. Was it a gradual shift away from that financial sort of thing or did an event happen? What was the change?

1:53was it a gradual thing? I think I was so schooled by my parents to work hard and study hard and that sort of stuff because, you know, failure in the third world doesn't look good. And there's no safety net to catch you when you grow up in the third world. You have to make it. And if you don't make it, well, I saw. So I would say that a lot of my ambition in the first part of my life without realizing it was actually driven more by fear of failure than desire for success. And they're two very different things. Did that gradually change? Well, gradually, I'm learning more about how to have intention without being attached to the outcome.

2:36So I don't have to be burdened by my goals to get out of bed and chase them. But I'm aware that when I chase things, the universe might have something better in store for me than I had planned for myself. So was there a gradual change? I guess. Because if your heart's open, you get affected by everyone you meet. Everyone leaves a little bit of them in you. And you get less and less and less and more and more of them. You become more of them as you age, if your heart's open. So I guess I've been influenced by some very soulful people. And they're leaving their mark on me. And I'm becoming less recognizable to myself as I'm getting older.

3:17Or more recognized. Hey, it's an interesting, it brings up the question of then, you know, a lot of people at some stage in their life talk about they chose success. There was an event where they chose they were going to be successful. Was there a thing? Did you ever choose success or was it just because that's what you had to do to get along or what's your thoughts on that? Brad, to be honest, I don't actually think I'm successful. most successful people are like that though Woody okay well thank you for thank you for saying that but do I feel that my life has had meaning significant meaning I think yes I've been very very lucky what has been the thing that has done that again I go back to the heroes that just happened upon my path and and they this wasn't a plan I didn't set up with an objective and then I achieved the objective my my sort of philosophy in life is go through the open doors and see where you end up but sometimes going through the open doors is not as easy as I'm making out sometimes you're going through the door before you know what's on the other side and you have to just have faith that um that you'll be able to um grow from what's on the other side and don't be too attached to outcomes you know um uh when we did the bizx conference i was amazed at the conference by the way just to give you some feedback i thought it was absolutely amazing and uh in fact so positive a little part of my sort of the small part of me that can do cynicism was thinking hang on a minute this is this is almost bordering on a cult it's so positive but i've met some amazing people since and every single one has been consistently extraordinary And I'm getting, okay, so that thing of believing in abundance, having life be an experiment in abundance, being driven by your values, and being in service to something greater than yourself.

5:16That's where your power probably truly lies. Everyone has, in their own way, expressed that to me over and over again. And just to give you some feedback, you have catalyzed, facilitated, brought together an extraordinary community that it's an honor to ever spend time in. I thought I'd let you know that because you don't often see that to this extent. You know, I think that when you create a vision that is strong and powerful, the right people do show up in your life and in your team. And that's one of the reasons why I love chatting with you and learning from you. What are your thoughts, Woody, on how does success happen?

6:03Like, how do people actually create success? I think, what's that thing that they do many years ago, the marshmallow test with small kids? You tell them, it's one of the first signs to see if toddlers are going to be successful later. The marshmallow test, I think, is something like this. You can have a marshmallow now, or if you wait half an hour, you can have two, or something like that. And some kids just can't, but the marshmallow is there. They're looking at the marshmallow. Some can't resist it and they just have the marshmallow now. And then others will go, no, I'm going to wait for half an hour because then I can have two.

6:42And all the tests that they do on these small toddlers, which ones will be successful, the only test that was consistent when they looked further down the road as which ones were successful were the ones that passed the marshmallow test. And it's basically, are you up? Are you up for putting off gratification now for something better in the future? Every time we go to the gym, that's what we're doing. I'm feeling pain today for a better tomorrow. It's basically, for me, I think that's one of the major things for success. Are you willing to actually put a little bit of graft in for a better tomorrow?

7:18That's one. I also would say surrounding yourself with friends that see you in a better light than you see yourself. I think that's really key. so that they're shining a light in you that's brighter than the one you shine on yourself. And then you do the same back to them. I think the company we keep is critical. It's probably the most significant thing you can do is to surround yourself with caring, loving, ambitious, and generous people. You'll end up being an average of them, I think the saying is. So let's go the other way then. How does failure teach success or can failure teach success even?

8:03well that's going to be deeper or what actually is failure it's yeah because there's a on a spiritual front they do say you know there's there's nothing nothing is good or bad it's just thinking that makes it so um failure for me is is when i when i don't draw significant meaning from a situation then i think it was a waste of time or a failure if there's no learning to be had if there's then I think I've failed uh my ego doesn't like it I'll be honest I like I like being light and I like being successful it's nice to have a trophy you know we all like that um and I think celebration is absolutely key but failure I suppose for me failure would be walking away with regret and uh and it's not a habit i've got into yeah because one of my mantras in life is you're only ever in the present going forward so everything else is just a mental construct so you don't have to stab yourself with that arrow it's already gone so you and that's why i don't know failure even doing this podcast i've not done one of these before this is the first time i've done this and i'm and instead of thinking right i've got to do this is bad it's got to be good i think no right now i get to do this brad yeah i get to do this with brad and and uh we get to talk about some things that mean a lot to us and we get to actually get closer to each other yeah and so for me if i live out of the get to frame in life failure isn't a thing it just doesn't turn up as a thing because i get to do i get to do this spreadsheet i get to do this proposal i get to do this presentation not i've got to do anything when i go into got to land I feel a bit frightened and a bit fatigued and it's got to work.

9:51I go, we get to see if it works. But that doesn't reduce my intention for it working. It just reduces the tension I have about it not working. Because I think many people struggle with the difference between intention and being detached. You want to have strong intention. But what's I saying in life? You want a small ego and a massive desire. you don't want to have a big ego and not much desire. That's not a good look. Yeah. I love it. I love that. Get to versus got to. Brilliant stuff. We're here with Ian Woody Woodhouse. We're going to be back in just a minute. We're going to get into things about positivity and optimism and how to feel good forever.

10:34Regardless of how successful your business currently is, there's always room to increase profits. Brad Sugars' book, Instant Profit, will go over the proven strategies countless other successful business owners have used to develop flourishing companies. You can turn your company into a profit generating machine and substantially grow your company's bottom line. And we're back on the Big Success Podcast. We're going to look at positivity. Woody, how do people succeed at being positive? I think there's some hacks that you can use now that will guarantee that you will grow in positivity as weeks and months roll by.

11:15One of them that I think is the most powerful experiment that we can do is to experiment with letting go of whinging or complaining or making negative comments about things. I think people often confuse that with being aloof or not caring. It's just not making negative soundbites and giving it to someone else to consume. and I'm a great believer in an experimentality it's the mentality of doing experiments so instead of thinking you know I don't like olives I think well hang on let's do an experiment to see if I could like olives and and and one of the experiments I've been playing with over the last sort of eight years is letting go intentionally letting go of whinging to see what it does to the human psyche so last year for example I did a whinge for a year so I didn't whinge for a year just to see would I become an axe murderer?

12:03Would I go crazy? Would I be just shouting at everyone? And I can report back to you, as Nina told me, it's further enhanced, the fellow she married. And I did it. I'll tell you why I did it, Bryce. Because my mom, her health was falling, and we could see that. And I worked out that if she stays on the path she's on, last year would be the year and i knew i had to be strong not just for myself but for for for our family because we're quite a matriarchal family and uh and so i embarked on that journey i've done i've done one in 2018 and i would say one of the things about being positive is the universe is positive you have to have a you want to get to the point where you need a reason not to be positive rather than you need a reason to be positive and so one of the first things to do is to stop importing negativity yeah but don't look for a switch to flick and then all of a sudden it's gone it's it's for me everything in life is moving so the question i ask myself isn't am i positive or not is what's happening to it am i becoming more positive or am i becoming more negative that's what that's what matters uh more than anything else so for me one of the first things to do is that is to start to play around with that um and do little experiments with it i talked about it at your conference a little bit and a lot of people sort of really latched on to it um it's also one of those things where it's a no pain pure gain thing but isn't it weird if you say to someone how about you give up negativity they really struggle with letting go of it that's not fine it's not weird that is weird that is weird so one of the things you talked about also at the conference was cynicism out optimism in take us through a bit more on that thinking well i mean a neuroscientist might argue with me but my thing is you're always thinking something yeah and so if if i'm not thinking something that's a bit debilitating or negative then i'm thinking something that's more empowering and positive because i'm always thinking so uh if if i can desinicize myself then then it means more optimism will just simply fill the vacuum.

14:21And I thought when I was younger that optimists were sort of, it was a genetic thing, you were born optimistic, but I actually come to believe that it's a skill that can be taught. You wouldn't have created what you've created without the belief that it could be done before it could even be done. So I'd much rather be thinking things are going to work out. And then in the end they didn't, which means I had years of enjoying the thought that they would, rather than I knew all along, don't try because it never will. And I think it's also for me, the difference between effort and struggle are quite subtle, aren't they?

15:00An optimist will put effort in and it feels like you're putting the effort in. But if you lose your optimism, that same amount of energy feels like struggle. You see two boxes doing it. that once one loses the optimism, it starts to look like they're struggling. And I'd rather have a life of effort than a life of struggle. I also don't get, I'm struggling with this, what the payoff is with cynicism. It's not like you get a prize at the end or you get a trophy. I just don't get it. When you really look at it, what is the upside? Apart from being right, you get a chance to be right. if things don't work out i knew they weren't going to okay great but there's another law in the universe which is attention energizes so the fact that you're having these negative thoughts and stuff you're more likely to pull that stuff towards you or at least make them bigger yeah so so i'm a cynical war i think i said it at the the conference i'm not a warrior warrior who's cynical i'm just at war with it i'm just and the reason i am is because i can feel it in me it's because I've mastered it or any, all this stuff I'm talking about, I am living with every day.

16:09This is what I'm doing to try and be a source of light in the tunnel, especially if it looks like there's none at the end of it. So let's talk then about the no light at the end, overcoming challenges. You teach some really cool stuff around that. Take us through your thinking on how that's a, the woody thoughts on overcoming challenges. I guess that's probably the best thing I'd like to hear from. I think if I think that I'm here to discover and to learn, then I don't get the fear of failure that comes through. And I also think having a decent spiritual side really helps. So you think of yourself more as a channel for something to come through than a big ego.

16:59and so I find when the going gets tough uh the tough reach for their values um it's why there's certain people that I will follow in life to do things that I know they've never done before but I know the values and principles they'll use to make up the journey even though I know they've never been there before there's leaders I will I will follow and I know people follow they know they've never dealt with this situation before but they trust them as for me overcoming values it's about the same as living above tit for tat. You've got to know who you are. But sometimes when we talk about that, people think to go and find themselves.

17:38I actually don't like that language. I don't like people thinking they have to go and find themselves. I don't think it's something you find. I think it's something you define. It's something you create. I think who I am is much more in... I have more agency over who I am that I think some of the idiom out there is suggesting. So it's not find, people say, find your purpose. I wouldn't go about finding it. I create purpose. And if you can't come up with one, find someone with one that you really admire and then going to service around them, and you will learn. It's what I've done. I've sort of hijacked some other folk who have amazing sense of purpose in certain areas.

18:23And whilst I'm making mine up, at least I'm making a difference and I'm learning from real masters. Love that. Love that thinking. So let's go to the positive side then, the enthusiasm, the optimism. How do you maintain that? How do you keep that? God, I wish I knew that.

18:48I'm sitting in class when you're speaking and I'm learning it from you. And I think that there's some amazing thoughts that you brought out about, you know, well, I'll hand it back to you because you brought out some amazing things when you spoke to us. I think for me, how do I keep that going? I think routine is really important. You know, the first thought you have when you get to wake up in the morning, when your alarm goes off and you think, yeah, now I get to get up. And you go and brush your teeth and think, right, I get to brush my teeth now. You know, rather, I think that I also think gratitude is really important.

19:29Saying thank you. And I think love, these are things that really matter to people. And if you're leading people in business, they want to know that you love them. They want to know that. and I think now with with a remote working and hybrid working out so we're not connecting as much as we used to and I think there's a it's like a vitamin d deficiency you don't realize you've got one but it's slowly growing on you and yeah for me positivity is linked to connection to connectivity when I'm with people and I'm in rapport I feel happier and I know that's not true for everyone, but it's true for a lot of us.

20:14Watching comedy in a tight little room with a good comedian is just amazing. Watching the same comedian on your TV at home, it's sort of funny. You don't laugh out loud when you're watching it on TV, but you definitely laugh out loud when you're in that room, huh? There's something else that happens. And I think also we're designed that way. That's how we survived on the Savannah. You know, being successful and on your own is not successful. Being mediocre with a large crowd of people laughing, which feels more successful than being on your own behind gates in a mansion. Love it. Love it. We're here with Ian Woody Woodhouse.

20:57We're going to talk about being good to great and dive into a couple more subjects when we come back on the Big Success Podcast. For over 30 years, Ian Woodhouse has developed a strong reputation on the international corporate speaker circuit for his work on thought leadership and for delivering personally moving interventions with long lasting effects. His intimate, uplifting and humorous messaging relates powerfully to our lives both in and out of work. His overriding purpose is to help us generate ever increasing levels of virtue, optimism, courage and generosity. To learn more about Ian Woodhouse, please visit IanWoodhouseEnthuse on LinkedIn.com.

21:36So Woody, let's talk about going from good to great. Not just like when you chose to do a cynicism or a negative or a whinge-free. You didn't say I'm going to do a whinge-free week. You went for the entire year. What's the difference between setting like the small goal and going for the real big one, do you think? There's no difference. they're actually the same thing. Because when I did the year, I didn't just go, okay, I'm going to run a marathon. I'll sign up for one. In fact, I'll do a practice one tomorrow. No, that's not how you run a marathon.

22:14I started small and tiny steps get you there. I'm learning Italian at the moment. And every day I do about an hour of it. And I'll be able to speak Italian in a few years. right now the evidence would suggest that I'm not very good so but I know I will get there I would and so I would say the difference between good to great is is just how far down the continuum you take good is it is I would say but I also say this tiny little steps are much easier to make than massive big leaps. And one of the things I'm trying to put into my life is to be more sensitive to how are things moving. Am I fitter than I was yesterday or am I fatter than I was yesterday?

23:03It's not did I put on weight, it's am I putting on weight? You know, those four vanilla slices might have something to do with how fat I am tomorrow. So the issue isn't, the problem isn't what's happened. The problem is what is happening right now. and and the more i can make it about what's happening right now the more everything seems to be my sphere of influence and my sphere of control the more i'm able to actually engage with being present yeah i think a big part of the um the success and failure stuff is is viewing things that in the past and judging them in the past uh when actually the the horse has already bolted as opposed to, okay, where are we right now and where are we going?

23:48I think that's very important. You made a great statement earlier on in the podcast where you said, you know, I don't have to stab myself with that arrow. It's already gone. I like the old saying, you know, I've already ridden that bus, ticket's already gone, so you can't ride that bus again type thing. I want to get your thoughts then on leadership. How do you succeed at leadership? What's your thoughts on that? The most successful leaders I've had a chance to be influenced by have all been driven by something that's greater than themselves. They're all in service to something, to making a contribution in society, to building something so it can make a difference.

24:32They haven't been just driven to hit a number so that we can punch the air and say we hit the number. They go to the why are we hitting that number? What does that say? by the way I think Prof is brilliant because Prof is a demonstration that you're making a difference but let's go to that point let's let the narrative go to what is this meaning and the best leaders I've been around are those they're the ones who will speak last when they enter a room they're the ones who who will who will lie at night and gaze at the ceiling because they're worried about the experience that someone in their team's having.

25:18They're the ones that care. And I know that's me looking at it through my lens, but that's the lens that I look through. I think when people feel loved, they feel safe. And when they feel safe, they're willing to be imaginative. And right now, we need to be imaginative because everything's changing so quickly. We need people to be free to experiment, free to make mistakes, free to let go. So I think those leaders that are best able to let people know that they genuinely care about them are going to be the most successful. And I don't mean to do a dance that looks like you care. I mean to genuinely care.

26:00Because when you genuinely care, you don't have to do a dance. It shows. It happens. And it's weird because as people get further and further they're up, the rest of us associate more ego and more power with them. So it gets harder for you to be able to have people feel relaxed and comfortable, because it's what I call the principal syndrome. When you're at school, the principal walks in the room, we all get tense, because that's the principal. And it takes a lot for that principal to get to the point where they can walk in the room, and we're all just as relaxed as we were before he walked in the room, because there's love associated with that person.

26:37But I think that that's possible for leaders.

26:44Also, being a nice guy and the organization failing does more harm than good. So if you gave me a choice, the guy who's not that great to be around, but we're all being successful, or the guy who's lovely to be around and we're all failing, I'll take the first one. However, now that we have too much choice, I wouldn't take either. I would take the guy that's lovely to be around and we are winning. That's the one I'd go for. And the real winners, that's who they'll seek to work for. And I think a big shift has happened in leadership, which is over the years, practices have happened where we leave people as if the person doesn't have the option to leave.

27:25Whereas now you have to leave people knowing they have the option to go. In fact, they're being offered more than you're paying them continually. So what's the glue? Yeah. Love it. Woody, let's just do a quick fire round. How do we succeed at these things? Short, sharp to the point. How do you succeed at self-development?

27:51First thing is to recognize you're on a journey and to see it as a journey and to see life as a dance, not a destination. And for me, self-development is deciding I want to dance in a certain arena. I want to get fitter, so I want to dance. I'm going to experiment that stuff.

28:15Self-love, I think, is important.

28:20Really, really talking to yourself with the right tone. So when you talk to yourself, it's morning woods. it's not all get up now it it i think it starts there it's the belief that you can learn and the and i think sometimes when we're small and kids we we we get boxed you know this one's good at sport that one's good at math but that's lovely when you get told what you're good at it's not so good when you get classed quite early on not being very good at stuff yet you've never really tried them so most people think they can't sing for example but they've never had a singing list so i think just optimism about being curious about well could i learn to cook yeah i'll tell you a simple one being black i thought i wouldn't make a good swimmer because there aren't any black swimming olympians too often i've noticed um uh but there's no evidence to back that up whatsoever whatever is there.

29:23Not at all. It's just this belief that I'm living out of. And anyway, I had a go at doing it. It turns out I can actually swim just as well as if I was white. It made no difference whatsoever. So a lot of that self-development stuff is the belief that you can, and also surround yourself with folk who believe you can. Naysayers are tough. And just to say, and they're up front as well, a naysayer is doing it to protect you. They're doing it out of love. They don't want to see you fail. They don't want to see, but it's very easy to inadvertently become a dream stealer. You protect the people. You teach them not to dream just in case the dream doesn't happen.

30:05But the motive is positive. So they're not bad folk. It's just, it's one of those human things to watch out for, I think. Woody, I want to finish up with what was the best advice you ever got on success? Or maybe there's a great quote you've had on success. What's the best one in your mind?