Effective collaboration is the key to being able to leverage the skills, knowledge, wisdom, energy and effort of others.  Aristotle said "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts" and never is that more true than when you collaborate effectively with a group of like minded (and like-hearted) individuals.

In this episode you'll hear how Gill Tiney stumbled upon the power of effective collaboration and how she now uses it to help make a difference to people, to their business, to their family and to their communities.  She also shares how effective collaboration will send your productivity "through the roof".

About Gill Tiney

Gill Tiney is a successful speaker, author, coach and entrepreneur who has herself been in business for over 30 years and who has been developing business leaders through her Steps To Success coaching practice for nearly 15 years.

Describing herself as a collaboration catalyst, she is the Author of the book "Making of A Movement - the BeCollaboration Story" which describes her purpose to inspire and enable the world to collaborate more and chronicles her journey along the way so far.

Her dream is to spread the impact of collaboration by creating BeCollaboration groups in every village, town and city because Her belief is that collaboration can empower individuals to be the change the world needs to see.

[WARNING - in the introduction, Michael says the the full title of Steve's new book which does contain profanity]

Self limiting beliefs will definitely get in the way of you developing your productivity.  If you don’t deal with them then they’ll also prevent you from achieving peak performance.  This episode covers what a self limiting belief is, where they come from and what you can do about them.

Hear how award winning international motivational speaker and personal development funny man Steve McDermott has navigated the tricky waters of beliefs for himself and how he helps others do the same too. 

About Steve Mcdermott

Steve McDermott is a former Ad Agency Creative director turned motivational speaker who recently celebrated his 26.2 years as a professional speaker by delivering 26.2 live shows lasting 26.2 minutes for 26 consecutive nights before then running a 26.2 mile solo marathon for charity.

An expert in communication, his presentation coaching through his company the Confident Club has been described as the most powerful in the world.   

Not surprising from someone who has been voted European Motivational Speaker of the year a staggering 3 times with an impressive client list that reads like the FTSE 100.

His approach, that has been described as half business guru, half stand up comedian regularly receives fantastic reviews.   

Although the feedback he is most proud of was from legendary football player and world cup winner Jack Charlton who told him as a boy that he can't pass but he could tackle.

Proud of his Yorkshire roots, he once taught the topic "Yorkshire" in Sheffield, his no nonsense, straight talking and humorous approach to his work runs through every page of the latest edition of his best selling book called "How to Be a Complete and Utter F**k Up - 47 1/2 Steps To Lasting Underachievement"

Episode Summary

Forming Productive Habits is a key skill to develop if you want to up your game and get more done.   There’s a lot of folklore and old wives tales about what you need to do and how long it takes to form any habit.

However a growing body of behavioural and neuroscience research has helped us understand what happens when we form a habit.  This research is also showing us how we can take control of that process by choice.

In this episode, neuro-enthusiast Steve Marriott dissects the anatomy of a habit and how it is formed in our brain.  His insights will help you when forming productive habits.

About Steve Marriott

Steve Marriott is a behavioural specialist with over 25 years of experience in the people development space.

The author of two books, he is a prolific facilitator, speaker and performance coach and has worked in some of the toughest and most regulated industries in the world

He has majored in leadership development focusing on the practical intersection of neuroscience and performance psychology to create a cutting edge approach to working with teams and their leaders. 

A brilliant presenter and insightful facilitator, his ability to manage, engage and stimulate learning with even the toughest of audiences is impressive to say the least.

I was really excited about having Steve on the show for two reasons.  

The first was because of his depth of knowledge of neuroscience and the amount of preparation I know he did for the interview,  even though I told him not to.  

But secondly because I have personally worked with and alongside him for the last 10 and have seen first hand how brilliant his insights are. 

So it was a real joy and a privilege to have such a great friend and valued colleague on the show.

Knowing how to sleep better is an important skill to develop if you want to become a productive peak performer.  More and more research is starting to reveal just how important sleep is to your well being, your health and ultimately how much you can get done in your busy day.  

In this episode we discuss the things you can do during your day with wellbeing expert Celynn Morin so you’ll know exactly how to sleep better.

Celynn Morin is a qualified dietician and wellbeing consultant with a practical and playful approach to helping business leaders enrich the quality of their lives .  She does that by helping them connect their mind, heart, body and spirit in a way that supports their wellness.

The founder of the Well Being Clubhouse, she describes herself as an effervescent foodie whose mission is to convince business leaders they don't have to give up their health whilst building their wealth.

A well travelled award winning and much in demand international speaker for over 20 years,  she prides herself on developing and sharing practical frameworks to help people become their own CEOs - Chief Energy Officers.

Born in South Africa to French parents, her love of champagne and her joie de vivre (which I'm embarrassed to say I had to look up means joy of living) helps energise her message of celebrating well being.

If you've ever found your energy waning during your busy days or you're just tired of feeling tired, you're going to want to listen to what Celynn has to say.

Having a Success Mindset is a key factor in whether or not you’ll become a peak performer.  There are three factors that contribute to the consistency of any success you have.  In this episode I discuss those three factors together with a powerful peak performance ideology with super sales expert and motivation coach Gavin Ingham.

Gavin Ingham, an expert in the success mindset, got into sales after a short career in the Metropolitan Police Force.  He made his first sale in the first week, but it then took him another 26 weeks before he made his next sale.  

On the brink of leaving the profession he was given a book that gave him a secret to success and inspired him to up his game.  

In quick succession he then became his teams top sales performer, the regional top performer and then European top performer and award winner.

His sales career accelerated, rapidly becoming a team leader, sales manager and then the sales and marketing director of a FTSE 250 company.

On the back of that success he then turned his hand to helping others achieve peak performance.

Described by the brilliant Brian Tracy as one of the top motivational coaches in the UK, he has personally worked with over 250,000 people delivering over 2000 paid presentations around the world.   

His #IAM10 methodology has helped thousands of professionals become peak performers and today he shares his insights through the #IAM10 show and the Directors Compass - an initiative to support leaders of businesses make smart decisions, employ winning strategies and get better results.

All this from a man who was told as a teenager he was best suited to being a fork lift truck driver.

Today when he is not helping business leaders or inspiring others to peak performance you’ll find him either with his kids, halfway up a tree or eating ice cream.

In our conversation we explore the importance of having a success mindset.

Effective business goal setting and planning are crucial if a business is to succeed.  It is the foundation to developing a successful business strategy and then executing on that strategy to make it happen.

The goal setting and planning principles that apply to create a successful business also apply to create a successful and productive life. In this insightful and straight talking interview,  business growth expert Robert Craven shares the principles that work for him and his many successful clients.

Robert Craven is a highly successful businessman and much sought after expert on entrepreneurship and business growth.

He is one of those rare speakers and thought leaders that speaks about how he is actually applying his knowledge and expertise in today’s business environment.

The author of at least 10 highly acclaimed books (if you don’t count the foreign language versions), his business philosophies are endorsed by great’s such as Richard Branson who has said his approach “…will turn your business into a powerhouse…"

He has been running successful businesses since he was 21 and is now considered one of the leading experts on building, running and growing Digital Agencies working closely with Google to develop their agency training programme.

His most recent book Grow Your Digital Agency coupled with his Initiative of the same name, puts him at the forefront of that industry and as such he spoke to or worked with over 4000 agencies in just one quarter of a financial year.

A highly engaging, inspirational and funny speaker, his no nonsense approach to business is defined by focusing on ideas that are simple and powerful that work.

In this interview we dive deep into how he blends and balances the sometimes conflicting requirements of strategy and execution in running a successful business.

How to focus is a key skill to develop, especially when we are bombarded by so much information and are at the mercy of so much distraction.   Having the ability to tune out the noise so you can tune into the important stuff is one that can be developed.  

There are a variety of ways to do it  and in this interview with Queen’s Counsel Nick Isaac, a very busy barrister, we explore how he does it.

Nick Isaac is a property litigator with a deep specialist knowledge of Party walls, boundaries and easements.  He is described by Chambers and Partners, the world’s leading provider of legal research and analysis as "utterly brilliant in party wall disputes”. 

He is the author of the books Where is my Boundary, The New Party Wall Casebook and the Law and Practice of Party Walls

As a silk - which according to Lawyermonthly.com positions him with the bees knees of the legal world - he is a member of Tanfield chambers and relishes the challenge of difficult cases, last minute instructions and novel points.

He is the host of the Boundaries masterclass and Party Wall masterclass series of webinars aimed at educating property lawyers and probably knows the Party Wall etc Act 1996 better than anyone.

A seasoned mediator and arbitrator he recently did his first video mediation that lasted a full 12 hours.

Not satisfied with just dominating his corner of the legal profession Nick also has a passion for learning languages on top of the German and Chinese he studied at university.

In this episode we explore how to focus and concentrate on things that others might find boring and uninteresting.

Being able to get others to be the best they can be is a skill entrepreneurs must have.  One way of doing that is asking quality questions.  If you are trying to get others to get more of the right stuff done, then asking the right coaching questions for productivity works really well.

In this interview with entrepreneur and CEO coach Adam Harris, we explore the power of asking the right questions at the right time.  

Adam Harris is in his own words a (usually) successful entrepreneur who currently runs the fastest growing online community for CEOs & leaders of remote, co-located and distributed companies.

A man with a track record of success at an early age throughout his career, his entrepreneurial journey started as young as 12 years old when he ran a neighbourhood car washing empire by employing local kids to do the work and took a 25 % cut.

He officially started work as a trolley boy with Sainsbury's and quickly rose to managing a team of 28 when he was just 17 years old.

He turned his hand to business, building and then selling an IT refurbishment business before embarking on a career helping other businesses grow and develop.

Consistent with achieving success at an early age he became the youngest ever chair for Vistage, the internationally renowned membership organisation for CEOs and MDs.

The co-author of The Check In Strategy Journal, he now guides business leaders to understand it’s not what you know, but who you know and more importantly who they know that counts.