The sunrise in Manchester this morning was amazing.

It made me ponder on Eleanor Roosevelt’s wise words, “With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.”

This week, I have felt physically and emotionally exhausted.

Today, I have the strength to share with you some thoughts about the week that has affected me considerably.

You may have heard about a tragedy that took place in Bolton, the city of my birth, on the morning of Saturday, 8th July.

A devastating ...

One of the things I’ve learned in my years of coaching, NLP training, and positive psychology is that people routinely underestimate what they can accomplish.

This might sound like self sabotaging behaviours, but it might be that a person simply doesn’t have the strategies to make the progress they want.

This often shows up in the form of making excuses.

Any of these sound familiar?

“I want to do XYZ… but there’s no way I could actually do it.”

The truth...

Despite what many people think, there’s no one way to live a high performance life.

That’s why you’ll find all different kinds of people doing it, from speakers to entrepreneurs to athletes to musicians to working mums.

But there is one thing that I’ve found in common among all the high achievers I’ve worked with: a deep, unshakeable understanding of the reason that they do what they do — their deep why.

Why Find Your Why?

Knowing your ultimate reason for...

Whether it comes from a drive to take on superhuman amounts of work or a fear of letting something down, so many of us have a hard time saying no.

But the truth is, we’re all only human, which means that we’ve all got a limited amount of time and energy.

Don’t fall into the trap of spending yours on projects that aren’t aligned with the type of life you want to lead.

Instead, learn how to say no, gracefully.

Decide on your boundaries, priorities, and commitments ahead...

Can I confess something to you?

I have a borderline-crazy obsession with planning.

I love the process of taking a future and figuring out exactly what I need to do to make it happen, so much so that I’ve devoted an entire wall of my office to my planning Post-Its.

I’m definitely not alone in my obsession though.

Ask any high performance person what underlies their success, and I guarantee you one of the major things will be planning.

It’s just that crucial for the high...

For the past four days, I have cried and smiled.

Cried because I mourn the death of the people innocently killed in my city, and smiled because of the tremendous, generous acts I have seen from others as we rebuild.

The attack has caused me physical pain; there are times when I have sat in solitude with no words, just tears about what has happened on my doorstep.

The landmarks that are being referred to in the news are in my city, less than 20 minutes drive from where I live.

The terror has...