I once watched a superb wildlife programme about the African honey badger. As the name suggests, this animal is particularly fond of honey, and with the African bush being notably short of branches of Sainsbury’s, the only source of food available to the honey badger is beehives – with lots of bees in them.

Watching the honey badger go about its work was fascinating. Having located a hive in a hollowed out tree it cleared out debris to make a wider entrance. The reason would soon become clear – it was going to need an escape route, and it knew it.

The first foray into the hive was painful to watch. It was attacked systematically by the bees and got only a small mouthful of honey before withdrawing to lick its wounds. At this point you expected the honey badger to give up having learned a painful lesson. Not a bit of it! Time after time it went back into the hive, getting stung each time and only getting small amounts of honey in return. You almost found yourself screaming: “For God’s sake, don’t go back in!” as another visit resulted in more pain.

But as time went on, a funny thing happened. The stings got less and less as the stinging bees died off, and the honey badger came away with more and more booty on each visit. Eventually, the bees gave up the fight and the honey badger made off into the bush with the entire hive worth of honey. Victory, from what initially appeared to be a hopeless quest.

The honey badger knew the job wasn’t going to be easy from the start. He knew he wasn’t going to get something for nothing, and that pain would inevitably precede pleasure. But what he also knew was that if he kept at the job, if he persisted, eventually the resistance would be broken down and his goal would be reached. Of course, he had an alternative. After going into the hive for the first time and getting stung so badly for so little he could have thought: “This isn’t worth it. I’ll go and find an easier hive. ”But he didn’t, because he knew that all hives are difficult, and if you want the honey you just have to buckle down and do what’s necessary.

I’m sure the lesson of this isn’t lost on you. Many people give up when entering ‘the hive’ for the first time, after receiving the inevitable ‘stings’ and getting very little in return. They decide to go and look for another ‘hive’ where the bees aren’t so fierce. When that ‘hive’ proves equally difficult, they give up again and go to the next, and the next, and the next. Entering every ‘hive’ involves getting stung, and so they get hurt again and again, and with very little reward because each time they’re starting on a new ‘hive’ where the defences are at their most intense.

For ‘hive’ read goal, target, endeavour or venture. For ‘sting’ read problems, difficulties, or obstacles, and you’ll get the picture. No matter what you hope to achieve, there will be difficulties, and they will be at their most intense in the early stages. Giving up to look for something easier when these difficulties present themselves will prove to be a fruitless exercise. The next venture will carry with it a whole new set of difficulties for you to deal with.

A few years ago I worked with a salesman. He had an almost God-given knack of alienating, upsetting and offending everyone he met. He had any number of ways of achieving this. You would almost think it was deliberate, but I don’t think it was. This man’s sales figures were actually the best in the company, by quite some margin – not what you’d expect from someone who was guaranteed to disenchant every new prospect within seconds of meeting them.

Intrigued by the paradox, I was pleased to have the opportunity to accompany the man on some of his sales calls. At first I thought that he must deal with his customers differently to everyone else. Not so! He was equally obnoxious. So how did he succeed? Simple really. He asked everyone whether they wanted to buy, even when it was patently obvious to anyone with an ounce of sensitivity that they did not.

When they told him they weren’t interested, he ignored them. When they told him politely to leave them alone, he pretended not to notice –or maybe he didn’t notice. Then he asked them again, and kept asking until they said yes. I’m convinced that some people ordered just to get rid of him, but order they did. When it comes down to it, all that he had in his favour was a skin like a rhinoceros, and the tenacity to ask as many people as possible whether they would like to buy his product.

The bottom line is this. Unless you’re very lucky, success will not happen straight away. It takes time. Not one successful person has ever had a ‘clear run’. You’re unlikely to be the first. James Dyson, inventor of the Dyson vacuum cleaner, and now owner of a business worth several hundred million pounds put it this way: “Success is made of 99 per cent failure. You galvanise yourself and you keep going. ”Persistence is what saw him through in the end – just like the honey badger – and it will do the same for you.

Kind Regards

John Harrison  

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A few years ago, I was executive producer on a film, and spent a few days on the set. On one of those days I got roped in as a supporting actor, an ‘extra’, and I spent much of the day doing the same thing over and over again. Needless to say, I didn’t have much of an idea what I was supposed to be doing. I couldn’t work out whether we were rehearsing or filming, so I asked Colin Salmon, the actor who was in the scene with me. His reply contained an important message with far wider implications.

“I don’t know,” he said, “I never concern myself with it… I just do it every time as if it’s a take. You never know what they’re going to use.”

Can you say you live your life like that – giving it 100% in every scene? Or do you sometimes allow your game to slip when you think it’s not important, when nobody’s looking, or when you think the audience isn’t worthy of your very best effort?

What’s true on a film set, is true in life. You never really know when the important cameras are rolling – when you’re in a potentially life-enhancing situation, or in the company of people who have more to offer you than you could ever imagine. It’s only with the benefit of hindsight, when you see the film being played back, that you realise you missed a massive opportunity by assuming it didn’t matter, when it clearly did.

The only solution is to do what Colin Salmon does – start out with the assumption that every situation, every meeting, every interaction is a ‘take’, the one that’s going to be used and may have a lasting impact on your future. That has implications for the way you dress, the way you look and the way you conduct yourself. Give it 100% every time. When you do, there are massive benefits not just for you, but for everyone you come into contact with.

Kind Regards

John Harrison  

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On a clear night, if you look up at the constellation of Orion, you may notice at its base a bright blue-white star called Rigel. With a luminosity of about 40,000 times greater than our sun, Rigel is the sixth-brightest star in the sky. Its surface, at 11,000 Kelvin, is surrounded by a gaseous cloud, which was either shed by the star’s own pulsations or arrived as a result of stellar wind.

Rigel isn’t the furthest star from Earth, but, at around 765 light years away, it’s not what you’d call ‘on the doorstep’ either. Light travels at 186,282 miles per second, so every second since King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215 light has been travelling, from Rigel to Earth, through space at that incredible speed. And the light your eyes will detect on that chosen clear night will have only just got here.

I don’t know about you, but I find this sort of thing fascinating and mind-boggling… literally mind-boggling. Like a lot of people I suspect, I attempted to read Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History Of Time (which is supposed to simplify all this stuff) and got about as far as page 26. My brain just doesn’t seem to work in that way, and I’m constantly amazed and impressed by those people who can work out all this detailed information about something further away than I can imagine. It’s beyond my comprehension. And yet many of these same people would struggle to put up a shelf, find their way to the next town, run a hot dog van, or the hundred and one other things which other folk find easy.

You see, we all have things we’re good at and things we do badly. It’s very easy to become intimidated by what we perceive to be great intelligence. The truth though, is that most of us have great ‘intelligence’– just not necessarily the sort that we traditionally associate with the word. Einstein has a lot to answer for.

Mention the word genius, and his is the name that comes to most people’s minds first. Because of this, mathematics and science seem to have hijacked intelligence, with the result that the rest of us end up feeling… well a little bit thick. The knock-on effect is that we somehow feel that, the sort of intelligence that can unlock the secrets of the universe, is what really matters.

The reality though, is that other types of intelligence are just as important – maybe more so if your goal is to make a success of the comparatively mundane matter of life on Earth. As impressive as the ability to calculate the mass of a distant star is, it’s not really going to help you build a career, a business, a relationship or anything else with your feet planted firmly on Earth.

If you haven’t already done so, I’d urge you to firmly nail down exactly where your peak intelligence and predispositions lay – and then stop worrying about what you can’t do, and focus all your efforts on what you do best. When you combine a strong predisposition with something you enjoy, you have a massive head start on the competition. You might not be able to explain the stars – but that doesn’t mean you can’t reach for them.

Kind Regards

John Harrison  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE  

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The inhabitants of the Japanese Okinawa Islands, on average, routinely expect to live – and be healthy – well into their nineties. The reasons aren’t totally clear, but it’s thought to be something to do with the traditional soya protein-based diet, and the fact that the people there tend to eat very little by Western standards.

The fact that the people thrive on that diet and lifestyle is down to heredity – what their ancestors have experienced and endured through out the centuries. Their bodies have geared up, and adapted, to thrive on it. But, if you or I were to take up the same regime, we wouldn’t necessarily get the same results. This is borne out by what happens when the young in habitants leave the islands and adopt the more urban lifestyle of the city.

When they move to a more Western-based lifestyle, not only do they lose all the benefits of their heredity, but they also fare worse than their contemporaries, who have been brought up in that urban environment. Their life expectancy actually falls below the average. They have evolved to thrive in a completely different environment. Their heredity offers no benefits in the new environs of the city, yet massive ones on their native Okinawa Islands.

There’s a lesson here that stretches way beyond the health and longevity arena. We all have skills, attributes and predispositions, and if we’re not getting the results and outcomes we want, it could be because we’re applying them in the wrong environment.

A Formula One car is awe-inspiring on a track, but wouldn’t get you out of your own street in the real world. A 50cc scooter would be totally useless on a motorway, but would get you around the centre of London better than most vehicles. Average natural abilities, applied in the right environment are far better, and more effective, than outstanding abilities applied in the wrong one.

So you need to work towards finding the environment or arena that is best suited to your predispositions. No matter how clever, talented or able you are applying your innate and acquired strengths in the wrong environment renders you the proverbial fish out of water – or the Okinawan living on fast food.

If ever you’ve felt yourself under-achieving, the reason could lay here.

Kind Regards

John Harrison  

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The words ‘eccentric’ and ‘millionaire’ seem to be almost inextricably linked in the popular psyche. I’m not sure where it all started – maybe it was with the reclusive Howard Hughes, or the money-conscious John Paul Getty I – but the tag has stuck. Anyone with a few quid in the bank and a liking for stripy trousers automatically inherits the label. And the implication is often less than flattering – that the person may be rich, but they’re not quite normal. Well of course they aren’t!

Here’s how Webster’s Dictionary defines the word eccentric:

“Deviating from an established or usual pattern or style.”

Of course millionaires deviate from an established or usual pattern or style! This is an essential pre-requisite to achieving anything worthwhile– not just making a lot of money. Why? Because to bring about extraordinary results requires extraordinary actions. What do you think happens if you conform to an established or usual pattern or style? That’s right – you get a normal or usual result. And a normal, more ordinary, result doesn’t lead to great achievement. If it did, we’d all be great achievers.

Do you have a tendency to conform and follow the crowd? If you do, you’re far from alone (there wouldn’t be a crowd otherwise!) and in all likelihood, it’s a hangover from your childhood.

Before we’re out of nappies, we’re already being indoctrinated to believe that there is a ‘right way’ to do everything. We are led to believe that among the many ‘wrong’ ways of doing something there is just one right way. Of course, when you’re a kid it makes a lot of sense. The world is a new and complicated place. The last thing you need is 12 different options for holding a spoon! And so we learn one way, and that’s the right way.

When we start school, the same process continues. One way to write, one way to read, one way to add up, one way to sit, one way to queue for lunch, one way to hold hands with your partner on the odd outing from school. One way for everything and one way for everyone. And so it goes on. Every schoolbook we ever read told us the right way to do things. Rarely were we given a choice or options. “This is how it’s done and this is how we’ll all do it, ”they seem to say.

Is it any wonder then, that by the time we approach adulthood this whole idea has become firmly embedded? There’s a right way to do things, and it’s the only acceptable way. To succeed, you have to do things that particular way. Take any other path and you’ll fail. The ultimate conclusion, of course, is that there’s one way to think.

This ‘one right way,’ middle-of-the-road approach keeps most people safe. They are safe from harm, reasonably competent in what they do, and importantly for the rest of us, comfortable to be around. We know what they’re going to do and when they’re going to do it. There are no surprises, nasty or otherwise.

However, as an approach geared to maximising individual potential it’s extremely flawed. While conventional wisdom, the ‘right’ approach is usually safe, it isn’t necessarily correct. Follow it and the result will inevitably be mediocre. Why? Because everyone else will be doing the same thing. Follow them and you’ll get the same result. Mediocre, middle of the road and very average.

Most successful people not only behave differently to the norm, they also think laterally, outside the box. And that is what separates them from the herd. So remember – whatever path you choose there is no one ‘right ’way – there are a number of ways that work. Your task is to find the one that suits you best, not the one someone else says you should take. To borrow a popular phrase, dare to be different.

Kind Regards

John Harrison  

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