The spell I was under

To say this conversion was the make or break of or our business might be a little extreme, but it definitely wasn’t far off.

There I was, on my summer vacation, sitting alone in a hotel room in an all-inclusive resort in Croatia, minutes from having a call with one of our most important partners -with nothing but the sound of a ticking clock trying to distract me.

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Tick tok

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Tick tok

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Fast forward 30 minutes, and with the sun beaming down on my rapidly tanning skin, I was speed walking back down the path to the swimming pool where my wife and kids eagerly awaited me as well as, and perhaps more importantly, an ice cold beer - with a large grin on my face because I had performed to my absolute best and quite frankly, nailed the call.

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And I suddenly stopped myself in my tracks and paused…………

It was Sir Clive Woodward (famous World Cup winning England Rugby Coach) who said that when the team lost, they used to go out and get drunk and when the team won, they used to stay up all night and study the video to work out how they won (quite the opposite of most coaches and team leaders).

At this moment I didn’t know whether I had ‘won’ or ‘lost’ as I didn’t yet know the outcome of the call. All I knew was that I was able to enter my high-performance zone and bring my best self to the call.

So, I paused and asked myself how it was it that I was able to do this.

(with the intent of wanting to access this kind of performance from myself more often)

Upon some reflection (and whilst my tan was turning into my skin getting burnt as I hadn’t yet put my sun protection on) I worked out how I was able to do this.

It was because I spent most of the day either sitting by the pool playing card games with my family or in the pool endlessly throwing my kids around as they coughed and spluttered and kept on begging for more.

I had effectively done nothing all day.

At 3pm, one hour before the call, I then went to the room to prepare and make sure I had everything ready which I might need as well as rehearse some of the narrative I wanted to create.

It was this moment, on a scorching hot August day in Croatia, which has transformed my life and made me realise the spell that I was under.

I was brought up in a traditional English middle-class household in the western part of the country. Where the farmers come from.

One of 3 boys (yes, I am the middle one and the very definition of middle child syndrome) our parents instilled a real sense of right or wrong and a strong moral compass in myself and my two brothers.

Something which became part of us, and we were constantly and consistently reminded of as we grew up was that if we wanted to ‘succeed’ in life then were going to have to work hard.

I witnessed sacrifice and martyrdom on an almost daily basis by my parents to ‘succeed’ and provide for their 3 sons.

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This was the spell.

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When I left home at 18 to go to university, and up until that moment in Croatia in August of 2023, this spell came with me on my journey and was a part of me.

At times it served me well and I have no doubt it contributed to me standing on the medal podium at the 2008 Olympic games.

But what I have not told you is that leading up to that vacation last summer I was a broken man.

I was absolutely exhausted.

My mind was a scrambled mess. My body was tense and had fatigue written all over it. I was short-tempered and as my 12 year old son aptly put it a couple of months later – I was sleep walking through life.

I was working an average of 16 hour days, a minimum of which 10 were spend on video conference calls. I was sprinting to the toilet and back to have a wee so I didn’t wet myself between calls and regularly didn’t eat lunch as I simply ‘didn’t have the time’.

Not only was I working incredibly hard I was working with high intensity. Every call seemed to matter and every action I took was critical. I was over every aspect of the business from legal, to HR, to sales, to marketing and to business development.

I was the jack of all trades and master of none.

This, I thought, was the only way I was going to ‘succeed’.

Until that day in Croatia.

I realised in that moment that what my business needs is me at my best. It needed me to be on that call with our most important partner and to have the conversation that transpired in the proceeding 30 minutes.

If I did nothing else all week (which turns out I didn’t as I was on vacation) then that was a successful week.

This is when I broke the spell and more than doubled the impact I have on my business.

Every Friday, without fail, is my vision day.

On a Friday I no longer read or respond to any work message. I get up, take my kids to school and only have one thing that I need to achieve that day which is to walk the dog.

I have organised my days from Monday to Thursday so that I have 3 periods of ‘high intensity’ that can last no longer than 1.5 hours each (I have a definition of what constitutes high-intensity as well).

30mins before each period of high intensity I have a preparation period for the upcoming 1.5 hours and after each high intense period I have a 30min period of zero intensity.

I go for a walk, have my lunch outside of my office, and have even been known to watch 30mins of daytime television.

I have designed my working life so that I can bring the highest possible impact to my business and my team, and have essentially recreated my Olympic rowing training programme in a working environment.

Put simply – I ‘work’ less to double my impact.

I have lots of energy.

My mind is clear. My body is relaxed and the bags under my eyes have disappeared.

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Spell broken.

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I am now exploring how many more spells or stories I was told when I was growing up that are now not useful to me and am finding them all the time.

This hard work = success spell is something I see as an epidemic in our society, and something encouraged by governments globally to increase productivity for the ‘benefit’ of our economies.

In order to break the spell its going to need you to step back and reflect on your life and ask yourself what assumptions you are making and what stories you have believed in. Questions are the only way we make breakthroughs.

I wonder if this spell is within you and encourage you to transform your life in the way that I was able to transform mine.