MY STORY

“Successful people are not busy,” is an idea that has influenced all my work for over 30 years.

Success is not something that happens by accident.

It’s not the result of good fortune or random chance.

And it doesn’t depend on outside forces.

Success depends on the choices we make based on how we uniquely define what’s important in all dimensions of our life.

It’s a condition we can prepare for, cultivate, and customise depending on our values, beliefs and goals.

People who learn how to craft a unique vision of success for themselves are better able to manage and regulate their behaviours.

It’s our behaviours that ultimately determine the quality of our lives.

HOW I BECAME INTERESTED IN SUCCESS

My journey to unlocking the secrets to success started in 1988. Back then, I was a young ambitious 25-year-old and I left my home in Ireland to start a new life in New Zealand.

A few years earlier, I’d worked in a petrol station pumping gas to earn some pocket money. I was 16 and struggling at school. This stranger pulled into the petrol station and as I was filling up his tank, he asked me what my plans were after school. I had no idea.

This stranger looked me in the eye and said, “You have unlimited potential young man.” He placed his hand firmly on my shoulder and finished with a line that changed my life: “The key to unlocking your potential is education.”

I found out later that he was a professor and his random act of kindness convinced me to go to university. I was born and raised in poverty and I was the first member of my family to go to university.

After university I got a job with PwC as a trainee management consultant. Over the next few years I worked long hours while studying for a master’s degree in business and management strategy. By the time I was 25 I was burnt out.

Apart from work and study, I hadn’t really done much in my life. I hadn't discovered my unique purpose or calling. I was bored with my job and I wanted to do something different. Something big. I felt like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. I was ready to fly but not sure where I would land.

It was a challenging time to live in Ireland. The personal tax rate was 50% and it was hard to get ahead. Hordes of people were leaving looking for a better life elsewhere. Most went to London, the US, and Australia. I chose New Zealand. This was pre-internet so I had no idea what to expect when I arrived in New Zealand. It was like landing on another planet but it was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.

I arrived in Wellington with $500 in my pocket and a burning desire to experience new adventures and create a life of significance. I started from scratch. I had no reputation, no contacts and no network.

I got a job as a junior lecturer in the business school of Victoria University of Wellington, despite having no previous teaching experience. I was drawn to an academic career and the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of what success looked like in business.

I remember how terrified I felt standing in front of a packed classroom of 350 students. As well as overcoming the anxiety of public speaking I had to moderate my strong Irish accent to make sure I was heard and understood by my students.

With practice, I learned the craft of being a good teacher. I took voice management and acting lessons to improve my speaking and presentation skills. I had a huge appetite for learning, and I took a sabbatical at The University of Western Ontario in Canada to learn the art of case study teaching. As my career progressed I gained a reputation as a highly-respected teacher of MBA and executive students.

Being surrounded by smart, ambitious business students inspired me to shadow high-performing senior business leaders for my PhD. I knew the theory of business inside out but I wanted to explore what it looked like in practice.

My goal was to get inside the heads of the senior business leaders I worked with, to figure out what made them tick.

THE SECRETS TO SUCCESS

This research, which took 5 years to complete, laid the foundations for the next three decades of work studying, training and coaching the behaviours that successful people have in common.

The key insight from my early research was that high-performing successful people had mastered the knack of designing their lives – both at work and at home – so that what they focussed on was what was truly important. This gave them the freedom and flexibility to do a small number of things well, while ignoring low-value distracting activities.

These high achievers were typically less busy than you might expect. They didn’t fit the stereotype of the stressed out business leader.

About the same time I was discovering that busyness did not equate to success, another researcher, Stephen Covey in the US, was publishing his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People book. The 7 Habits book – which became the best-selling business book of the 20th century – put forward a theory of human effectiveness that emphasised the “private victory” comes before outward results.

Covey’s work resonated with what I saw in my work. At the heart of attaining the “private victory” was the not insignificant problem of firstly figuring out what was “success”. Without this prerequisite work, someone, while motivated to do well, is likely to expend effort – and energy – in a fruitless, yet busy, life.

MY PHILOSOPHY AND FRAMEWORK FOR SUCCESS

My search for the meaning of success led me to study philosophy, psychology, and the emerging sciences of productivity and human performance.

Over the years, my success philosophy and principles have evolved thanks to the interactions I’ve had with people in the workshops and individual coaching work I do.

Out of this work, I developed my own theory of success and a framework – the 10 Behaviours of Successful People – that sets out in clear and practical terms, what individuals can do to achieve extraordinary results.

I’ve read hundreds of books on success but I learned the most from the people I’ve coached and mentored. I’ve done over 5,000 coaching sessions and I’m convinced the 10 Behaviours framework is the secret weapon to enable people to achieve their full potential.

As one person put it, “the 10 Behaviours is the Swiss army knife of achieving your dreams at work and at home.”