The Impact of Personal Development: Richard McCann’s Path to Success and Fulfillment

0:00Nothing in life worth having was ever given on a plate. The Richard McCann of the ICANN Academy. You're talking about a young man who went through the most awful scenarios and came out the other side. When you go through something tragic, it basically educates you that you can get through this. So when the next setback occurs, and you know what, you can't take the pain away, but you'll get through it. More than 3 ,000 speaking events across the world teaching you about how you can live your best life. I think it's my desire that's made me successful. what's success to you buddy how do you define success i think success for me is just improving my lot improving my mindset improving what i'm able to do or enjoy improving the numbers in the business you know improving my reach it's just about success is about i guess being better in all those different areas improving in some way and of course we've all got different criteria about what success is but for me whatever i look at just just trying to get a bit better each time each day, each month, each year.

1:02What's your formula for success? Or how does success happen in your mind? What's the way it happens? Like when I became a speaker, 2005, I saw that other people were speaking, people with stories in particular, W. Mitchell. I saw this speaker and I thought, my gosh, this guy's fantastic. And this is what he does full time. I thought if I could just work out how he does it, if I can study him, then I'll certainly have some of his success. That's what I thought. And it's exactly what happened. And, you know, 3 ,000 keynote presentations later, It's quite a good philosophy to have, knowing that if I do something, the first time I do it and I did it again and again, I'm going to get better at it.

1:38Is there any other thing you think that is important to making success happen? My business is called the I Can Academy. It's about starting with that belief. I can do this, then doing it. You probably won't do it as well as you could do it. So then get better, model other people. And that's kind of my philosophy. I wrote a book, asked for help. I wrote a book before I started speaking. It was a number one bestseller. I knew that the other people were out there writing books. Dave Peltzer was the guy that inspired me. A child called it. So I thought all I've got to do is write it in a similar style to him, get some support because my English was poor, and the rest is history.

2:12Is there one or two things that you think have propelled you to your level of success? I think it's my desire that's made me successful. I think any job I ever do, I've always just been so keen and eager. If somebody else can do something better than me, that I want to have a look at them and say, right, okay, what are they doing? In fact, that's what happened when I won the award at the newspaper on the telesales team. I found who was the best. It was a guy called Baljit Singh. And I modeled him, I sat with him, got to know him, saw his energy, saw his style, and I won the award, became supervisor there.

2:44So that's part of my philosophy, just observing other people. Although I have to say, as I said earlier, other people have different criteria for success. And maybe as I get a bit older, maybe I might look to work one or two days a week. How do you succeed at resilience? Most of it starts with mindset. Success starts with mindset. But when you go through a traumatic event, and I don't just mean the murder of your mum, but a tragedy, a setback, hardship, it's about what you think it is. Well, it's called your explanatory style, isn't it? It's what you think about that situation. Take me more into explanatory style because I think that's something brilliant that you teach.

3:18So if you look out the window and it's raining, and here in the UK, most people look out the window and go, oh, look at that horrible weather. The fact is, it's not horrible weather. It is weather. and we create the horrible weather in our minds. When my mum died, and I told myself as a five, six-year-old boy that she'd been taken by God to stop her suffering. And so that me and my three sisters would have this fresh start with my father, my estranged father, and his new girlfriend the following year. That thought process or explanatory style is what helped me deal with that. As crazy as it sounds, but it helps me at the time.

3:52When you go through something tragic, it basically educates you that you can get through this. So when the next setback occurs, and you know, you can't take the pain away, but you'll get through it. In my Resilience Workshop, we have this thing called the Bounce Backograph, the ups and downs of life, up in the green, down in the red. And when I do this in organisations, every single person that's lived on this planet has got a very similar looking Bounce Backograph. We all go through stuff, and I'm sure you've been through stuff. My point is this, though. You don't stay in the red. There's always a way back.

4:24How do you succeed at self-talk? And Bradley, I have to say that I have not always succeeded at self-talk. It's taken me a good few years to start addressing that and realising that some of the thoughts that I have, that we all have, are not from us, it's just from our experiences. How do you address that? It's about challenging that thought and realising, just because I think something does not make it real. How do we succeed at having the courage then? Because that first step, that first thought, all of those things come back to that. Courage is doing that stuff despite being petrified, which reminds me of me getting on stage at age 13.

4:55writing my book that first book I was baring my soul that took some courage and but one of the things that I often think and I thought it when I entered the public speaking competition at school age 13 and I thought it when I wrote my book and I thought it when I became a speaker I thought whatever happens I'll be able to deal with it how do you become the best version of yourself I guess what I have to do is reflect on how we're doing how I'm supporting him how I'm creating those boundaries it's about reflecting isn't it so how how am i doing right now in business in my personal life in my family life as a dad as a parent and then being honest actually being honest and thinking well how could i have done that differently how could i have got better at that and it goes back to what i said right at the beginning didn't i i'm always looking for ways of improving what's your theory on going from good to great it is that looking back at how i'm thinking of the people i coach presentation schools and storytelling and in fact if i think about myself and going from good to great to amazing it's been a long journey but it's been that investment in yourself like for me when I first started speaking I started recording myself taking some time to look at how I'm standing am I looking am I giving eye contact all those basic things and just thinking oh that could have been better so for me it's about that constantly looking at where you are how did I do reflecting and deciding right how can I find how can I sharpen the saw who said that was it was it stephen covey yeah always sharpening the saw so that's just something we could all do but you've got to spend the time to do it and and be honest and sometimes it may require a coach to help you with that because of course we don't always see our flaws sometimes what's your key to that going massive leveling up over here means helping other people increase their levels or raise their bar so leveling up is helping the underdog and you know what it's that's one of the things that i've always done i think karma has a lot to a lot to say in this so to speak because if you help other people get to where they want to be somebody wouldn't say you know you're going to get there much sooner and it's what i do it's why i've got well i want to say one of the members of staff that we've got in the room but a few years ago she wasn't in a good place i gave her this role because i wanted to help her level up so to speak it's not just about me and my business it's about those around us as well what do you think's the difference between those who do it and those who don't it's perseverance nothing in life worth having was ever given on a plate wouldn't be great here's this here's success here's your qualifications that is not how it works charles marcus i think he's over in canada success is not a spectator sport and he's absolutely right you got to get involved in the game and i think part of succeeding in life is deciding right okay i've got this far what can i do to go to the next level It's like the resilience thing.

7:40It's deciding I'm going to aim for that. If other people can do it, then so can I. Hi, and thanks for joining us on the Big Success Podcast. I want to give you a free gift, but first make sure you hit that subscribe button. Subscribers, make sure we get a better podcast, build it bigger and create more great content for you every single week. Now that gift, jump on bradsugars.com. You'll see the big success starter. It's a free video training course. Dive on over bradsugars.com. Let's get you building your success.