In a pseudo sequel to his role in Danger Man, Patrick McGoohan plays ‘No. 6’, held ‘prisoner’ in ‘The Village’ (Portmeirion actually – I can think of worse places!). He can’t escape as various surreal devices continue to prevent it.

This classic TV series ends when as a result of a conspiracy, the Village culture ‘breaks down’ and McGoohan gets out – or does he?

As a keen RNLI supporter, I’ve been watching a current documentary series about various rescues taking place around the UK.

A group of divers are marooned on a large rock off Anglesey because the weather deteriorated, and it became too dangerous for their boat to pick them up. (Easily done, as I know from personal experience). A smaller, more manouverable lifeboat rescued them.

Some kayakers found themselves stuck on mudflats when the tide went out quicker than they expected. They couldn’t get back as the mud was very dangerous. Two lifeboatmen had to crawl out on the mud to show them a safe way back.

Then there’s that line in ‘Hotel California’ – “We are all just prisoners here, of our own device”.

You and I know how easy it is to get stuck, to become marooned, and to turn ourselves into ‘prisoners of our own device’.

It happens, sometimes we get into those situations for the best of reasons, from following what seems like a logical progression, and there’s that phrase “it seemed like the right thing to do at the time”.

But we end up stuck.

There are three degrees of ‘stuck’

First degree stuck is when you and I know where we want to go once we get unstuck, we know where we’re going once we escape although we may not know how to get there.

But we just can’t get ‘out’ of where we are now – or at least we don’t know how, we don’t know what to do.

Second degree stuck is more serious.

Second degree stuck is when you and I have no idea where we’re going, what we want to do next, but we do know that we’re ‘stuck’ in whatever concerns us now. It may be what we do, it may be relationship based, it may be financial, or it may be to do with health.

We don’t know what we want, but we do know we don’t want to be where we are and want something different, whatever it turns out to be.

Third degree stuck is sadly where many people in society are.

It’s when they don’t know that they’re stuck, when they don’t realise they’ve become a ‘prisoner of their own device’.

They aren’t happy, they aren’t content, but they don’t realise why.

The ‘accept their lot’ and just ‘get on with it’ because ‘that’s life’, ‘that’s the way things are’ and even ‘just go with the flow’ not knowing where the flow is going or that they are actually stuck in a glacier.

Until they realise this and move up to the second level there isn’t a lot anyone can do for them because they have no idea that they have a ‘problem’ that can easily be solved.

They aren’t looking for help because they don’t recognise that they need it.

The thing is, as illustrated by the lifeboat stories, that to get unstuck, whatever the degree of ‘stuck’ you and I are in we need help.

It is impossible, or extremely difficult and time and energy consuming, to get unstuck by yourself. (More ‘personal experience here!)

The main concern of the lifeboatmen was that the people being rescued would attempt to get unstuck by themselves by jumping into the sea or walking across the mud. The lifeboat crews are the experts in rescue, they know the best things to do, the ‘casualties’ don’t.

And it’s the same when you and I are stuck.

We get stuck because we don’t have the specific expertise we need to ‘escape’ from where we are or to discover where it is we want to go if we’re not already clear on that – and even if we are, we probably need help to show us the way.

Often, it’s only in one aspect of life that you and I get marooned, one area in which we don’t feel fulfilled and progressing. Everything else is going well but because we’ve become a ‘prisoner’ somewhere this will begin to nag at us and impact on the things that we are happy with.

The need to escape the ‘problem area’ slowly overwhelms the rest, staring by continually ‘interrupting’ the normal flow in the ‘free’ areas.

You and I know that the only way to get ‘unstuck’ or ‘released’ is to be rescued.

We need to call for help.

Whatever the issue is there are plenty of people out there who have the expertise to apply to our predicament – to show us the safe route out, and to help us discover where we’re going.

Sometimes these people have specific technical skills, like the lifeboat crews, but mostly they’re called ‘coaches’.

There’s a coach for everything, lots of people with different expertise in different areas.

Finding the right coach for you and your specific ‘prison sentence’ may take a little time, a few conversations with people, and the deployment of your network contacts.

But there is someone out there who can help.

Take a positive approach.

Know that you can get ‘unstuck’. Focus on how you’ll feel when this happens rather than where you are now.

Your lifeboat will turn up.

The saying, developed from the fairy tale ‘The Frog Prince’, goes that –

“You have to kiss a lot of frogs” . . . before you find what (or who) you’re looking for.

Similarly, “It’s a numbers game” – you have to make a lot of calls, knock on a lot of doors, talk to a lot of people, send out lots of emails, place lots of ads – before you find buyers for your offer.

Well the thing is that it is, but then again it isn’t.

You see, you have to kiss the right kind of frogs.

Not just any old frogs

Not just every single frog that crosses your path (or comes within 3 feet of you as many old school sales trainers would put it).

You have to kiss the ‘right’ frogs.

But which are the right frogs?

How do you and I identify the correct people to approach with our offer?

The scattergun – talk to everyone, approach much beloved of some direct sales organisations just doesn’t work – it’s a waste of time, effort and money.

So, before we start kissing, you and I have to sort out our frogs. You and I first have to identify those frogs that are capable of turning into the princes and princesses we are looking for – our clients, customers, co-workers, partners, suppliers, employees – whatever and whoever it is that we’re trying to find.

And, I’m using the word ‘try’ here in what I call the ‘Edison’ sense – trying different ways of doing things, testing, checking out the frogs.

So how do you and I find the right frogs?

Well, we let the frogs do it.

When you and I want something – clients, customers and so on we create an ‘offer’ and market it.

And this isn’t just about business, it’s about ‘us’ as individuals as well.

We may be looking for a life partner for example, in which case we have to ‘market’ ourselves with an attractive ‘offer’.

We may be looking for more people to engage in an activity we love, so again we create and market an attractive offer.

But here’s the thing:

The offer must only be attractive to the right frogs, the right candidates for whatever it is.

The offer is where we describe what it is that we want.

Now that sounds sort of the ‘wrong way around’ when you and I first look at it.

We’re making the offer to the candidate to get something that they want, aren’t we? So what’s that got to do with what we want?

Well, you and I want that candidate (assuming that they turn out to be ‘right’) to come on board with us as a client, customer, partner or whatever.

We want them, so we offer them something in return.

(There’s no such thing as B2B or B2C – it’s all P2P)

And if our offer, our kiss, is ‘right’ then we’ll get to the frogs we want.

Those frogs who aren’t interested or to whom it doesn’t apply will hop away by themselves.

“They are not the frogs we are looking for”. (adapted from a line in Star Wars IV)

But frogs are sneaky creatures.

They sit there in front of you saying ‘try me, try me, show me what you’ve got’ when really they’ve no intention of engaging with either you or what you’re offering.

They just want to ‘know’, they’re just curious, they’re just collecting information – maybe.

Some people would call them ‘tyre kickers’.

(Will someone please tell Microsoft how to spell – in English!)

Don’t dismiss these frogs. They’ve been ‘kissed’ they know what the deal is, but they aren’t ready right now.

So instead of engaging with them, instead of them taking up our offer now, we give them something else.

We give them an opportunity to ‘come back later’.

We make a different offer.

That offer is ‘the next step’ – we show them what to do when they are ready – and what we want here is simply to open a conduit, to make a link, to connect with those reticent frogs.

You and I keep in contact with them and feed them other juicy offers from time to time which they might then want to take up.

Some people call this the ‘no for now’ list – but the frogs have to accept the offer to be on it.

So what about the ‘numbers game’?

First you and I reduce the numbers by making an offer that eliminates the non-candidates. When done well that reduces the numbers massively and only leaves the ‘qualified’ frogs.

Some of those will engage straight away, but then the numbers game becomes about offers and contacts

You and I contact the remaining qualified frogs at appropriate intervals with different offers, or the same offer presented differently.

And of course, we grow the ‘list’ of qualified frogs by making the original offer again to catch the frogs who missed it, and make new offers depending on what we want.

You and I don’t have to kiss all the frogs – just the right ones!

And in the ‘Fast Show’ tradition –

“This week, I shall be mainly kissing frogs”

How about you?

You can get a ticket to see Tony Robbins’ 3 (and a half) day ‘Unleash the Power Within’ event in Palm Beach in November for $795, or $1195 if you want to ‘do the firewalk’.

It’s a great event and I know many people who have ‘seen Tony Robbins’.

Trouble is, very, very few of them have done anything about putting all the good stuff that Tony teaches into practice.

Robbins is really very inspirational, but most people never turn that inspiration into motivation or subsequent action.

Most people do nothing, other than perhaps to book to see another inspirational speaker, or go back and see Tony again.

You see, as my mentor Mary Morrissey says, “Inspiration without action is merely entertainment”.

And Tony Robbins is good entertainment, as are all the other speakers on the inspirational circuit.

But you and I know that we can be inspired by a speaker but there’s no such thing as a ‘motivational’ speaker, because the only person who can motivate you or I is ourselves, and you and I can inspire others, but we cannot motivate them to do anything.

That comes from within.

That comes from the power within that we all possess.

I see a lot in the media and on social media and even on billboards in the street about ‘empowering’ this or that group. The most common being ‘empowering women’, followed by various ethnic groups and other sectors of the community.

Strangely I’ve never seen the term ‘empowering men’ and it seems that particular phrase is on the verge of being ‘politically incorrect’.

It seems that it’s assumed that men, and particularly white men, are the ones who either wield ‘power’ over all the others or have even taken away the ‘power’ from other groups.

Most men however, from all ethnic groups, also need to be ‘empowered’ as much as any other group.

So what is this ‘power within’? Why can’t anyone actually take it away, and why do people need to be ‘empowered’?

There are two definitions of ‘empowerment’.

The first is ‘to give someone the authority (or power) to do something’.

We elect councils, committees and governments, we employ security forces, and we give people authority in many different circumstances to make and implement decisions on our behalf.

But even when people take those authorities and powers upon themselves as happens in totalitarian societies it doesn’t negate the second definition of empowerment.

Which is: ‘to make someone stronger and more confident in controlling their life and claiming their rights’.

You and I have our own ‘power within’.

Viktor Frankl, the Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, held in a concentration camp had everything taken away from him in terms of material possessions and family, but he stated in his book published in 1946, that there was still one thing that no-one could ever take away, his soul, his reason for living, his inner power. That remained, regardless of his circumstances.

But that power often has to be awakened, probably before it can be ‘unleashed’.

Which is why everywhere you and I go we find people offering through coaching and other means to help the particular groups they are interested in, become ‘empowered’ – to recognise, awaken, accept and unleash that power.

Sadly this ‘empowering’ process is often misinterpreted, because of the dual definitions, as taking ‘power’ from one group of people and giving it to another group.

But it’s not about Group A taking power from Group B – far from it.

Helping individuals in Group A to realise, awaken and make use of their personal power, can often make it easier for people in Group B to realise theirs as well.

As more and more individuals come to understand their personal power, become ‘empowered’, the whole community becomes a better place.

Because when you and I recognise and implement our own personal power we also recognise the ‘power’ of everyone else we come into contact with, even though it may be dormant.

We know that it’s there and so we can understand and help others better.

That’s what ‘empowerment’ is all about.

Society in general though, doesn’t help, egged on by the media, ‘popular’ entertainment and to some extent the education system, people get the impression that they have no power, that they are just pawns in the game, that they just do what they are ‘supposed to do’, and, well, ‘that’s it’. There is no other way.

And for most people, listening to an inspirational speaker or attending an event, one or many times, doesn’t ‘work’ – because they don’t know how to put it all into practice, they don’t know how to harness their power, how to change the way they think and ultimately the way they live their lives.

Until of course they find someone who can coach them, show them the way, and help them believe in themselves and that they can.

Whatever it is – they can – one way or another make things better for themselves. Sometimes in a small way, sometimes in a big way.

And once they know how to do it for themselves they, in turn, can help others.

I’m helping a few people right now.

How about you?

You and I like to think of ourselves as ‘achievers’, even when we haven’t quite turned our dreams and visions into reality.

But what is an ‘achiever’? And what is this ‘edge’?

An achiever of course, is anyone who achieves any sort of goal or meets any sort of target however small, but this is really about ‘big’ achievers.

Big achievers are people who realise their dreams, make their dreams come true, make their visions become real, and ‘super achievers’ are those who, in time, turn the whole ‘big picture’ of the life they would love to live into reality.

There’s no distinction between ‘life’ and ‘business’, except perhaps if you are ‘employed’, working to help someone else achieve their objective. But if you have your own business, even if you’re just ‘self-employed’, you can’t separate it from your life ambition, it’s part of it, even if the business you own and operate is only there to facilitate the ‘big picture’ vision.

Achievement then, is all about goals, and goals are all about doing the things that need to be done to achieve each of your dreams.

Because you and I don’t just have one ‘dream’ or vision, we have several.

We have visons about who we want to be and what we want to do in each of the different ‘domains’ of our lives.

Relationships, Health, Spirituality, Vocation, Freedom, and so on – all the elements that make up the whole of the life we would love to be living, the ‘big picture’.

As an ‘achiever’ we build up this big picture by achieving all the small goals that go to make it happen, like a jigsaw.

But if we really want to be, really want to be, a ‘big achiever’ and eventually a ‘super achiever’ we need an ‘edge’.

What do I mean by an ‘edge’?

You’ll have heard the phrase ‘having an edge over the competition’, maybe in commerce, maybe in sports.

What it means is having a different approach, a different attitude, a different way of doing things, that most people – the ‘competition’ – don’t have.

So what is ‘the edge’?

The ‘edge’ first of all, is the ‘start line’ and what you do with it. It’s what happens when you go ‘over the top’. When you make a commitment, when you reach a point and take an action after which there’s ‘no going back’.

Part 1 of The Achievers Edge is to commit to what you want, who you want to be, and what you are going to do.

When you’ve made the commitment, the whistle has been blown, and you’re out of the mud, up the ladder and into the ‘killing ground’ at the top of the trench – or the ‘rut’ that you’ve been in up until now.

You’re ‘over the top’ and now you have to get through the barbed wire in the face of the shells and machine gun fire bearing down on you.

Until you get through no-man’s land, and destroy the enemy that has been preventing you from making the progress towards achieving your goals that you so desperately want.

Part 2 of The Achievers Edge is getting started. “Lights out and away we go” – the race is on, there’s no going back.

But most people, whether it’s in a battle where they don’t survive, or in a Formula 1 race where they don’t score points, they don’t achieve the goal, they don’t make it through to the other side, they don’t get on the winners podium.

This is where you and I discover Part 3 of the Achievers Edge.

In a battle, or in a race, there’s one key thing that gives you an advantage, or an ‘edge’ over the others.

You need the right equipment, resources and support, and you need the best equipment resources and and support for the tasks you are working to complete.

Part 3 of The Achievers Edge is to get help. Get the resources that you need, the right kit, the right skills and the right people to get you wherever it is you want to go and achieve every one of the goals you want to achieve to bring that ‘big picture’ into reality.

But in truth, this is often the hardest thing for many people to do.

For two reasons.

The first is thinking, or believing, that they can do it all, often allied with the belief that if they ‘let anyone else in’ they’ll lose ‘control’ or the ‘dream’ won’t be ‘theirs’ any more.

A whole bunch of ‘limiting’ beliefs there, which at first seem ‘positive’ beliefs, when in truth they are holding us back.

If you and I are to be ‘big’ and ‘super’ achievers we cannot ‘go it alone’ – however attractive or seductive that route might seem.

The second is down to one of the most potent limiting beliefs around, it’s called the ‘scarcity paradigm’ and it’s all about money and time.

It’s the “I can’t afford it” and “I don’t have time” syndrome which you and I have and everyone else has – don’t deny it because, we know it’s there, even when we’ve suppressed it as much as we can.

Now here’s the thing.

‘Cost’, whether applied to time or money, is a myth.

Except when money or time is consumed unwisely, by which I mean out of the context, or not consistent with all or any of the goals that go to make up the ‘big picture’

You and I do waste money and we do waste time. So be it, as long as we realise what we’re  doing, and are willing to suffer the consequences – not achieving our goals as quickly or as well as we envisaged.

But what about all those ‘costs’ that are associated with our goals?

The ‘costs’ (time and money) associated with learning new skills, doing all the mundane tasks, marketing and sales (and that isn’t always business related – think about it), travel, research, and just doing those things that need to be done to get us closer to each goal and get us closer to each dream and get us closer to being in that ‘big picture’?

Well – it all comes back.

And what comes back in terms of the time and money freedom we get from ‘incurring those costs’ or more properly making those investments in our future is always much more, much more, than we invested in the first place

To be an achiever, a big achiever and a super achiever there is no ‘cost’, only investment.

Understanding that is the real Achievers Edge.

So go out and get the equipment, tools, learning, coaches, mentors, experts, resources and support that you’re going to need.

Only two rules:

Only do what only you can do

It’s not what you pay, it’s what you get – so get the best you can find

And if something or someone doesn’t ‘work out’ deploy the Lord Sugar finger and the two words that go with it!

Have you ever noticed how, when you look behind your computer or your TV, there are a whole lot of wires that are all tangled up?

Even though when you connected things they were all laid out separately.

That’s the ‘Law of Wires’ – they will get tangled up!

Now of course, from time to time you and I disconnect and reconnect things perhaps in a slightly different way without ‘reorganising’ the wiring, but nonetheless, even when we’ve left it alone, the wires still seem to get tangled up.

I’ve even found wires in the mix that have been disconnected at both ends!

A few meticulous people have ‘cable management’ systems to prevent this happening so that their wiring is always neat and tidy.

But there’s a downside to this as well – it’s more difficult and takes longer to make the changes that are needed from time to time.

But the thing is that all those ‘wires’ that we use to make electronic stuff happen are simply a means of allowing one element of the ‘system’ to communicate with another.

Some of the wires are one-way, such as a power cable, and others are two-way, such as an ethernet cable that allows data transfer in two directions – and of course, you can use a power cable to transmit data as well.

It’s the same with all communication.

The vast majority of communications links, however they are effected, have some sort of cybernetic feedback loop allowing messages of one sort or another to travel in two directions.

But what about us. What about you and I?

You see, all living things communicate in one way or another all the time, and yes, there is evidence that plants communicate as well as animals.

And we know that humans, you and I, are not only communicating with others but we are also communicating with ourselves.

(We don’t know if other animals do this but people are working on it.)

You and I are aware that, all the time, there’s a conversation going on in our head.

Arguments, speculations, inspiration, analysis – some of it ‘productive’ some of it ‘counter-productive’, some of it ‘negative’, some of it ‘positive’.

We can’t really stop it, although we can slow it down by meditation and the like; and of course, it even goes on while we’re asleep although we only notice it when we’re ‘dreaming’.

But it’s not really organized, however much we’d like to think it is, it’s all tangled up – until we do something about it.

Then there’s our communication with others – and there are two elements here.

First, there’s how you and I communicate.

How well do we listen to what others are saying – or are we instead, communicating with ourselves to formulate how we’re going to reply?

And when we’re speaking to people, individually or in a group, are we paying attention to whether or not they understand us – or are we speaking in a language that we understand but they may not?

Second, it’s about our network of relationships with other people, individually or in groups.

How are we connected? What’s the nature of the connection, what’s our channel of communication attached to each strand of the network – how do we actually communicate with them and do we expect a reply?

You and I have close relationships that demand more communication than those which are more remote.

Now apply the Law of Wires

How are your lines of communication?

Are they rigid like a well-ordered cable management system – difficult or ‘too hard’ to change – ‘set in concrete’?

Or are they all tangled up?

Look at your internal communications system and look at your external relationship and communication networks.

In both cases you and I need flexible communications systems and processes – adaptable to our internal and external objectives. Adaptable to things that happen inside and outside.

From time to time we need to get in there and untangle the wires, maybe disconnect some, maybe connect some new ones, maybe discard some of the old wiring that no longer serves a purpose.

I’m checking out my wiring.

You too?

What Henry Ford actually said was “History is more or less bunk” and it turned out that he was really referring to the way, at the time, history was taught with, he believed, an over emphasis on politics and key people.

Ford went on to found the Greenfield Village historical centre just outside Detroit celebrating more the ‘way of life’ of people from different times and different countries rather than ‘key events’, although it does include replicas of The Wright Brothers’ bicycle shop and Edison’s laboratory.

One can’t help thinking that Ford was probably quite right, certainly if he was speaking about how history was. and to a large extent it seems still is, taught in schools in particular.

When movies based on historical events are released, many ‘millennials’ and even some older people often assume that they are a work of fiction, or when told they were based on real events have no idea what it was all about.

There is a certain arrogance among those ‘younger’ people who don’t consider that anything of importance happened before ‘them’, and as far as they are concerned ‘the past’ and all its artefacts might as well be discarded and replaced with some new ‘bright shiny object’ probably produced on a 3D printer!

But many people are beginning to take a rather disturbing ‘Orwellian’ view of history and what has happened in the past.

They want to remove memorials to people who maybe hundreds of years ago didn’t conform to modern day cultural, moral, ethical or political standards – and for all sorts of spurious reasons, often based on ’bad history’ or propaganda.

This is leading to the ‘dark side’ of not understanding what history is all about and judging the past against the standards of the present, which is of course completely the wrong way around.

You and I should judge the present against the standards of the past

And this applies to ourselves individually as well.

To get a true picture we don’t compare ourselves against others, we compare ourselves against our previous selves.

Do the same with the nation, the continent, the world – then and only then do we get a true picture of where we are now, as an individual, a community, a nation and so on.

If things happened in the past that we don’t like, there’s no sense in tearing down statues and destroying the records – that won’t make what happened go away.

And you and I should remember that if all those things that we might not like or approve of had not happened then we wouldn’t be who we are today and we wouldn’t be where we are today.

As any Star Trek aficionado knows, disobeying the Temporal Prime Directive or going back in time and ‘interfering’ (even for good reasons) was the worst thing that could happen, and when it did from time to time it seemed that William Shatner or Sir Patrick Stewart was always on hand to sort it out and put everything back as it should be again.

Fortunately, we can’t travel back in time, but if we could, you can be sure that someone would go back, and for all the right reasons in their mind, change something, without any idea of what the consequences might be.

What happened in the past – history – is important, but the thing is, we don’t necessarily know what happened.

You see, “History is written by the victors” – a quote often attributed to Churchill but it seems Orwell said it before that and borrowed it from Walter Benjamin an early 20^th century Marxist writer.

What is recorded then, is not necessarily the ‘whole story’ and in some cases just untrue. Shakespeare for example was rather good at writing ‘historical’ plays that clearly favoured the Tudor cause.

This is a continuing trend showing up in modern ‘historical’ movies, many of which are blatant propaganda and many which bend or modify the facts ‘for dramatic effect’, often with an American ‘hero’ who never existed.

Unfortunately, these sources seem to be from where a lot of people today are learning their ‘history’.

The trouble is that history is ‘hard’.

Much of historical research is boring, tedious detective work carried out in a dusty library or out in a field somewhere. New technology helps but it doesn’t get rid of the ‘grunt work’.

One of the reasons perhaps that more emphasis is placed in schools on more recent history is that it’s more ‘exciting’ and there are films and other live recordings actually made at the time – although these themselves are often just from one point of view.

But this can only go back so far, and we have to rely on the breakthroughs made by the historical detectives to find out what really happened.

But it’s not really the ‘events’ that we should be focusing on.

What’s more important to understand is the evolution of culture, of communities, of the way people think and see the world around them – and the influences on this resulting from technological changes.

The world is now ‘connected’. It no longer takes a day to travel 40 miles. We can talk to people instantly on the other side of the world instead of the several months it might have taken for a message to travel by sea.

It’s not about condemning how people behaved in the past, but about comparing that culture with what we have now and what we might have in the future.

It’s about learning lessons from the past so that we don’t make the same mistakes again and also so that we identify the positive traits and ideas that we may be able to use and enhance.

And for you and I – the same rules apply.

Look back, learn, go forward.

Have a great week