Well, last week was a marathon of personal development; I heard 22 top speakers during just 3 days and it’s fair to say my head is still spinning!
Kicking things off on Friday was the annual High Growth Summit, run by Stuart Ross. I don’t know how he did it, but the event was even better than last year. A superb collection of speakers that inspired and motivated the 150 business owners in the room.
Then on Saturday and Sunday I went to my first Professional Speakers annual conference, where I got to see some of the top speakers in the world in action.
But how on earth do you begin to process that much information, that many ideas, so that the learning isn’t lost?
So I thought I’d reflect on the stand out speakers and ideas that made an impact on me, and maybe some of them might give you an idea for your business.
Floyd Woodrow – ex SAS and now top business strategist
A firm favourite at the High Growth Summit, not least because he gave everyone a signed copy of his superb book, “The Warrier the Strategist, and You”
Floyd talked about following your Super North Star. This being your direction in life; the essence of who we are, and our purpose that drives and energises us. It stands to reason that if we’re not clear on our own Super North Star, ie we haven’t got a clear direction, then we’re going to get nowhere fast. I’m looking forward to finishing Floyds book which promises to help me realise my potential!
Andy Brent – Bloom Group Consulting
The next High Growth speaker had some fascinating ideas about business growth. Their years of research have shown that although business growth is massively important to most of us, and most companies would say they’re working on growth, most businesses are in fact really rubbish at it. In fact 9/10 companies don’t grow profitably. This came as no surprise to me, as we so often see businesses with growing turnover but falling profits.
He raised a very interesting point that businesses don’t actually ever appoint a director Accountable For Growth, they expect everyone (and therefore no one) to take the responsibility for successful growth. He challenged us to consider appointing a Growth Director in our businesses if we were really serious about achieving profitable growth. I loved this idea!
Kim Morgan – Barefoot Coaching
I’m sure we’d all agree that people are our most important resource, and Kim had some superb insights into how we can support our staff to make them happier at work, and therefore help us all be more successful.
When we’re stressed, dangerous hormones adrenalin and cortisol are released into our bodies. This makes our IQ drop and stops us thinking clearly, as well as causing serious health issues, as I know too well. But when we’re actually listened to, it gives us a huge boost and opens up our thinking, so she recommended we all do more listening and less talking. In your team meetings get people talking about what they’re working on or worried about, and just shut up and LISTEN!
Moving onto the Professional Speakers conference…
Geoff Ramm- International Business Speaker
First up was one of my speaking heroes Geoff Ramm. You might have heard of him? He’s one of the most sought after international business speakers out there and a god of marketing and customer service (as well as being a thoroughly lovely guy)
Geoff has 2 brands, OMG Marketing, and Celebrity Service.
Talking about Celebrity Service this weekend, he got us thinking about how we would elevate our customer service if a huge celebrity came to us. By thinking at this level we can change the level of service forever and completely outperform our competitors. Think how you can build excitement into very touch point in your business – we have licence to be creative and make our customers feel special, and to give them a real experience.
If you’ve not seen Geoff then I’d strongly recommend you taking a couple of minutes to watch this video. He certainly got me thinking about what more we can do for our clients, and it’s going to be the subject of our next team day.
Celynn Erasmus- International health and wealth speaker
I’d never come across Celynn before, but she captivated me from the off. This was right up my street. She talked about us not compromising our Health whilst building our Wealth, and how energy management was the new stress management. Really powerful ideas to help us be able to mobilise energy on demand. Something I need to learn from is that if we try to do too much at once, then we set ourselves up to fail.
She talked about the key areas of managing our energy:
GUT – the second brain. If we don’t have a healthy gut, then we can’t have a healthy body or brain, and our food provides the raw materials that creates the hormones that create our feelings – this ultimately affects our health and performance.
ACTIVATE – Sitting is the new Smoking – Beware of the Chair! We should move for at least 6 minutes every hour, apparently this triples our energy levels.
SLEEP – as we know 8 hours are ideal, but if we don’t manage the full 8, then we need to build in some relaxation into our day to compensate. She suggests getting rid of our phones in the bedroom as they can reduce the melatonin in our brain, and reading that last email or checking Facebook just one more time can shift our mood and disturb our sleep. Try having a digital detox in the evening.
Indulge your health and well-being; eat great food, exercise and move more, sleep and rest. Be your own CEO – Chief Energy Officer!
And there were loads more amazing speakers, but much of the content was specific to the speaker community and I want to keep this really relevant for you and your life.
So I hope there are a few nuggets there that made you stop and think. Taking time out to see what else is going on, and let new ideas in, is such an important part of our growth as business owners and people.