Some Tips from London

Things they don't teach you at school

Malcolm Maclean joined Andrew Mawson for our Yorta Yorta trading floor webcast from London. It was remarkable the instant rappore that occurred. Malcolm's new book is most relevant for people starting their own businesses in rural and remote communities - its about earning a living by doing what you love!

Bear Hunt - Earn your living by doing what you love

You can make a choice. We all have the power to make choices. Yet, when it comes to the way we earn our living, so many of us make choices that are disempowering, that make us miserable, and that drain us. So much so, that it seems that only a lucky few people can say that they earn their living by doing what they love.

These people are in fact no luckier than you have the capability to be. Neither are there as few of them as you might imagine.

The truly great news is that these people are finding the clues which will enable you, if you have the courage, conviction and belief, to live a life that you can love - and earn your living from it.

The formula for earning your living by doing what you love is unfolded through a series of stories about real people. They will inspire you, move you and amuse you: -

Love Saves the Day: How to Rediscover Your Passions

Picture Book, Men & Women and A New Flame were the first three albums released by rock band Simply Red. When the band spent a year in Italy recording an album, drummer Chris Joyce fell in love with the food and the wine.

When the time came to hang up his drum sticks his first instinct was to invest in a recording studio and his own record label. After a lot of money had gone down the tubes he realised something - he loved music, but he hated the music business. He created a new concept a café that thinks it's a shop that thinks it's a deli. His accountants couldn't understand it and told him he was crazy.

He calls his place Love Saves the Day, and it has. After four years of nurture, experiment and mistakes, he now takes a salary from it, and has great new plans.

In this chapter, I show you how to identify your talent themes - which are different from your knowledge and skills. People can love their work if they get a chance to use their key talents everyday - yet very few people actually know what they are.

You Are What You Believe

With a successful psychiatric practice in New York Dr Gerry Epstein enjoyed a comfortable and successful life. Then a chance meeting with an Algerian lady in Jerusalem opened up a new path. It was a difficult path which caused him to be ostracised by his professional colleagues. He began to develop the techniques of mental imagery or 'waking dream' therapy which had no place in the Freudian tradition.

His commitment and passion drove him through some difficult times. He is now highly respected and sought after as one of the world's leading authorities on mental imagery.

So many of the people in this book changed their lives, not by acquiring any radical new skills, knowledge or techniques, but quite simply by changing their belief systems. We learn from the worlds leading expert on using visual imagery, how to change your beliefs - a simple thing which will change your life.

The Sticky Ball Principle and the Power of Connection

Andrew Mawson OBE is an irreverent reverend. He behaves more like Richard Branson than a man of the cloth. He was destined for a life as a telecoms engineer, which to his fathers delight meant a good salary, holidays and a pension. But Andrew wanted answers to the why? Questions. He wanted to make a difference, yet he wanted to do it in an entrepreneurial way.

Anyone going to Bromley-by-Bow in East London will see that he has. This, once Britain's most run down neighbourhood is now admired across the world for its pioneering approach to developing communities.

I show you how to take what you love and build your idea into a fantastic story - the beginning of your very own sticky ball. You are going to need it, because the power of connection is not about handing out business cards like a trackside bookmaker on speed, it is about rolling out your sticky ball.

Luck be a Lady Tonight - Using the Science of Luck

In the City of London, Merchant Bankers can earn £250,000 per year. Phillip Collins was one of them. Yet even this mega salary was not enough to fill the void that he felt inside himself. Something was missing.

It was passion, a feeling of doing something worth doing, and in the end this proved stronger than the lure of the cash. He walked away, not knowing what he was going to do with his life. He has emerged as the Director of an influential think tank, and he loves what he does - even though he's about £200,000 pa worse off.

The way he carved out his new life was a lesson in the science of luck. You will need to be lucky to earn your living by doing what you love - and you can be, simply by adopting and consistently using just four scientifically proven principles.

Develop Your Millionaire Mind

Edstone Hall is a rambling country pile, in the picturesque market town of Henley-on-Arden, in Warwickshire. This peaceful, rural haven seemed an unlikely heaquarters for a psychologist, Dr Adrian Atkinson, who claimed to have some unique insights.

In June 2004 thirty people arrived at Edstone Hall to take part in the making of a BBC television series, 'Mind of the Millionaire'. Dr Atkinson's claim, that he could see inside the mind of the millionaire, was about to be put to the test. He is now recognised as the foremost authority on what goes on inside the mind of entrepreneurs.

In this chapter we will look at the features of people who are successful in getting new ventures going - often from just a flash of inspiration, and how you can develop your enterprising skills.

I will also show you that these skills are used not just to make money, but to do social good as well, as we go to England's toughest neighbourhood to meet a man who changed his life due to quite an extreme flash of inspiration....

Staring down the barrel of a shotgun, one time vendor of professional muscle and intimidation, Greg Davis, decided that his life, if he was to continue to have one, had to change.

Having had a tough upbringing, he was passionate about the potential that lies in young people on our most run down estates. He started with nothing and has created something on an estate renowned for shooting, stabbing and drug dealing. He has plans to do much more.

Think Like an Eight Year Old

Robert Swan refused to let go of his childhood dream. He grew up with an unshakable belief that he would make it happen. It all started when as a young boy he became captivated whilst watching actor John Mills in the film Scott of the Antarctic. He knew then what he wanted to do with his life.

Not for Swan, a career as an actor. He determined that he would follow in Scott's footsteps and walk to the South Pole.

Against all the odds - physical, financial, logistical - he did. Later he became the first man in history to walk to both poles. His next job is even bigger - to save Antarctica.

From the age of eight we have our natural creativity knocked out of us. We are tested, compared, drilled and told there is a 'right answer' for everything until we are locked in an adult mindset.

To earn your living by doing what you love, you will need to become more creative everyday. You will have to re-learn to think like an eight year old.

Does Van Nistlerooy Slouch? - How to get in the Zone Sandra Deeble wrote a story when she was eight years old, and received her first rejection letter from Twinkle Comic. She never wrote another thing until at the age of 32 she followed her intuition, after years of going against it.

She is now a successful writer for a range of quality newspapers and magazines, has written five books for a publishing house, and is writing her first novel. She has no journalistic qualifications whatsoever and she has never had a business plan. Her whole world changed after a remarkable experience which she describes as not a 'head thing'. She lives the life that she has dreamed of since she was eight.

Getting into the zone is an elusive state, where we are suddenly operating beyond peak performance, without even thinking about. This chapter shows you how to get there often, and how to change your state in an instant, because to do what you love you will have to be at peak performance often.

Change Your World - How Small Things Make a Big Difference

Eugenie Harvey grew up in Australia. She always, as long as she can remember, had a feeling in the pit of her stomach that she would do something interesting one day. Something special.

She had a mixed blessing. She was remarkably good at something she hated. Public Relations. She came to London to re-invent herself, yet she found herself at 'rock bottom', at her lowest ebb, before she had what she calls her 'Ker-ching' moment.

When you are down, they say 'it is not how far you fall, it is how high you bounce'. She has bounced. She now loves what she does, and it is something quite special. She spearheads a movement called We Are What We Do - its mission - to change the world. Its first publication Change the World for a Fiver sold 100,000 copies in its first three months and spawned a TV animation series.

With all of our stories, the micro has been the key to the macro. We are so busy looking for the big idea, we forget that small things can make a big difference. This chapter is about looking for those small things.

Aha, Kerching

This section pulls out a series of insights to help you on your journey to a life that you can love and which supplement the formula.

Is this book for you?

About 90% of the population are doing something which, at best is okay, for some it is downright loathsome. It is making them miserable and ill.

This book can help all of you, but you must provide a very important ingredient to make the formula work.

You must get your courage to spill out onto the table. That's hard.

This book can help you take that first important step and help you along your journey.

Who is this book aimed at?

It's for anybody. Anybody that is miserable in their work; is underachieving; who wants to use their talents to the full; is about to return to employment after a break; is about to retire and wants to do something; is unemployed; is successful but wants another challenge; is about to leave full time education and enter the world of work. In particular:-

Public sector workers driven by targets: I often hear teachers saying that they signed up in order to be educators, or doctors and nurses complaining that they seem to spend less and less time doing what they love - caring for patients. The whole of the public sector has become subjected to ever more inspection, testing, target setting and as a result, a lot more administration and bureaucracy.

Commuters: The daily commute is getting longer, as pressure on the roads and public transport systems grows. It's crowded, unpleasant, tiring and it consumes an awful lot of your life. People are commuting further and working longer. No wonder they are too exhausted to have much of a family life.

Underachievers: You might think you are special. The chances are, if you think you are, you probably are. Many people never quite fulfil their immense potential. Sometimes through accident of birth, because they were too busy caring for others, because of relationships, all sorts of reasons really. It's okay to be a late developer. Or would you rather have it in the back of you mind for the rest of your life that you never did quite what you would have loved, and you never truly realised your immense potential?

Silver Surfers: The art of growing old is to die young - but as late as possible. People are living longer and often retiring younger. For many of those who have worked for a lifetime, retirement now could mean thirty or forty years. That's a long time to prune roses. Many people now think about doing something they can love.

The unemployed: Just because you are unemployed does not mean you don't have a value. We all have special talents, and some of this county's most successful people have spent time on the dole. You are what you believe you are, and if you want to you can earn a living doing what you love.

Gap year students: University was great, you are still in touch with all your friends. Then to top it all you spent a year travelling the world, meeting new people. Now you are in your office, and this is reality. Nobody told you it would be like this. It probably will, but only for forty years or so.

Mums: For some years now you've put everyone else first. With the kids at school, it's time to think about you and what you want. Endless coffee mornings perhaps? You could go back to your old career if you had one. Or you could think about doing something you love.

The mid-life crisis/success: Funny things happen when you reach middle age. For many it is a crisis - we've had the half time whistle, and what have I done? For others it's a time to take stock. You may have been successful in your career and want a new challenge or you may have sold a business. Well just because you have money, it doesn't guarantee future success or happiness (as some of the case studies in this book have proven).

Dormant enterprisers: You've always wanted to work for yourself, but with one thing or another, the time has never been quite right. Do you know what? The time will never be exactly 'right'. Use this book to get your head right and the rest will follow.

In what way is it different?

1. Unlike most other self help books this is based in the storytelling tradition. It is really easy to read using stories about real people to draw out important principles.

2. It doesn't ask the reader to remember countless acronyms, charts, tables and lists - it shows them how to develop greater insight in terms of the eight principles of the formula. This is something that they can take great joy in.

3. The characters used are not the 'usual suspects' - they are people that you would never normally come across - yet they are all ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

4. You don't need to be a technical genius or a financial whiz kid to live a life that you can love - all you need is to apply the principles and get your courage to spill out onto the table.

5. It turns the rational business planning approach to starting new ventures completely on its head.

6. This formula works - the stories in the book are the evidence. It's not some academic theory.

For further information