Thomas Edison failed over 10,000 times before finally inventing the light bulb. He did not see these as failures, however. He saw them as successes. On the 4,531 try to find a proper filament for the light bulb, Edison did not see himself has having failed 4,530 times. He reframed the situation so that to him. He had successfully eliminated 4,530 possibilities, refining and narrowing his search as him proceeded, drawing him closer and closer to his goal.

Christopher Columbus’ big mistake was that he was looking for a trade route to India and accidentally bumped into America—later to become the richest and most powerful country in the world.

Even if you do fail or make mistakes, you will always be building your intangible assets that in the long run will help you build your financial and material assets. Geniuses see losing as the track to winning, and failure as the path to success. Your “failures” are nothing more than lessons. See them as signposts directing you back onto the true path.

You first learnt to walk after falling down thousands of times. Thank God you didn’t take every fall as some personal flaw - or you’d still be riding around in a pram! As a rough guide in life, you can expect to fail 80% of the time in a life well lived…

I’ve been doing a lot of reading this last few days in how to deal with disruptive audience members. Here are few things I’ve picked up. There are four types of difficult people:

1. Snipers
2. Openly Agressive People
3. Complainers
4. Silent People

Snipers are excellent at making sneak attacks in subtle ways such as sarcasm and humourous put-downs. I personally don’t like confrontation so I am uncomfortable in responding to such people. Openly Agressive People expect people to run away from them or respond in rage.

I’ve learnt these important things:

• Whatever difficult or disruptive people do; nothing should be taken personally.
• You can’t change someone else, you can only change your response to their behaviour.
• Don’t fight back or beat them at their own game. They’re the expert in disruption, you’re not.

How have you dealt with disruptive people in the past?

In the last twelve months, I have done 8 musicians’ development seminars lasting from a few hours to a whole day in London. It has been my year of testing and trialling different seminars, a variety of content topics and finding what works to establish some key seminars. I’ve now found my main seminars which I can continually tweak to create the best mix.

I’ve had my closest buddies tell me to my face what’s crap and what works so well from an audience point of view. I’ve had moments when I’ve been so impressed at my personal growth and times when I’ve literally felt so much pain it was unbearable. Here are my most important learnings from the last twelve months:

• Show your passion - If I had only one tip to give, it would be to be passionate about your topic and let that enthusiasm come out. You need great content and good visuals, but if you’re not passionate, you’ve lost the game. Don’t hold it back. Passion and enthusiasm are really contagious.

• Take care of your health - Being a public speaker isn’t just about the days you’re leading seminars, it takes your life to a whole new level. I have to watch my health every single day. What I eat, what I drink and what I fill myself with. I have to watch my sleep and get enough rest. I have to watch my physiology too. I remember one specific one-day seminar where I was feeling totally poorly yet my passion and enthusiasm and genuine excitement and love for doing seminars got me awake in every moment. Don’t let yourself get into that mode.

• Personalisation - Especially in small group event, know everyone’s names and call them by the first name. Make sure you meet and greet people as they enter the room. I remember some of the first few events I did, I didn’t want to meet anyone so I had that “outsider” feel and effect but by doing that you need to take longer to actually get into great rapport with the audience. Meet and greet your participants personally.

• Slow down in your speech - The one thing my father has always banged on about. It’s the fact that I speak to fast when I’m doing public speaking. This year has seen me bring that to my own awareness and therefore make me slow down in my own speech. Slow speech targets the kinaesthetic whereas fast speech targets the visual. If you start off your presentation fast, you miss out on holding the auditory and kinaesthetic people in your audience. Starting slow and then speeding up a bit means you’ll hook nearly everyone in the audience.

• Find your dream team - When you have a core team of people who’ll support you at nearly every gig you have, you get to gel with the team and create communication levels at unconscious levels. For example, I have great unconscious communication with Sawan, my AV manager and Sol, my seminar team member. I can be at the front of the room, presenting and still communicate about something that needs checking or doing at the same time. It’s great. Find a few people who will support you all the time.

• Start Strong - The first 2-3 minutes of the presentation are the most important. The audience wants to like you and they will give you a few minutes at the beginning to engage them — don’t miss the opportunity. Most presenters fail here because they ramble on too long about superfluous background information or their personal/professional history, etc.

• Humour and Stories - This is something I’m beginning to develop more and more each time. The more jokes and stories you can bring into your presentation, the better chance you’ll have of a successful seminar. Remember, jokes and stories sell.

This past week has really tested me and like always, I keep pushing myself to the next level. For over a year, my seminars have grown from strength to strength and they continue to do so. But now, this week is the first week I’m running two big seminars for totally different businesses.

Tonight I’m running the Hidden Secrets of Music Success evening at the Strand Palace Hotel in London at 7.30pm. It’s set to be the biggest one we’ve ever done yet.

On Sunday just gone, I was also faced with an important decision. Do I go ahead with the “Buzz Marketing Masterclass: How To Market Your Product And Create Worldwide Buzz” seminar on 24-25 February 2007? The decision was around how many people I was able to sign up within just 5 days as I hadn’t done any marketing for it yet. I decided to go for it. It would be testimony for the marketing seminar itself, especially my zero-budget marketing tactics.

This seminar is one close to my heart. For many months and years, friends and associates have always asked for help and why what I do works. It’s all about a special system I’ve developed - the ten step system to create worldwide buzz - and now I’m finally sharing that to a private, by-invitation-only group of attendees at this weekend’s seminar.

This week especially has been one of the busiest ever for me, keeping on top with my reading, work and social life. But it’s been stress-free so far (and it’ll continue to be) only because there are some things I’ve done to keep myself feeling great.

Here they are:

• Bubble Bath – Sunday afternoon I had a bubble bath with Radox’s calming soak. It was the best feeling ever. The bottle has great marketing by the way. Radox know the difference between feature-marketing and benefit-marketing. (If you don’t know, here’s a tip: when marketing your work, always let the prospects know the benefits right away).

• A New Groove — there’s a great CD by Putumayo that’s called “A New Groove” Listening to this music makes me feel great and alive. So that’s what I did.

• Meditation — I meditated on the bus on Monday listening to Peter White.

• Drinking Water – I’ve been drinking much more water and I feel more awake.

• Rest – I’ve been allowing myself to sleep when I’m tired and wake when I feel it’s time to get up. This has reduced the bags in my eyes.

What do you do to relieve stress?

Lea Woodward writes 17 things she wish she’d known before starting a business. I thought I’d follow suit and write about seven things I wish I’d known before starting a business. Here they are, in no particular order.

• The importance of having a business mentor, not just a coach who knows business but someone who’s been there and has the results I want to achieve.

• The importance of getting my accounts in order right from the start, the importance of keeping all receipts and invoicing all clients and customers appropriately.

• The importance of a business and marketing plan. There’s no point going with a venture if you don’t have either of these.

• The importance of marketing and sales education. I know think that you can succeed at any business in any industry ONLY if you are a master at marketing and sales and all it takes is a bit of commitment to learning.

• I wish I knew how to write powerful copy for my websites and products.

• It’s all about the customer; not me.

• The power of systems in business to save time, money and energy.

Nothing has meaning, only the meaning you give it.My belief is that when you portray negative energy, you are putting out negative thoughts into the world. And remember, you get what you ask for. When you express your negative emotions, you are in fact setting an intention. When you set an intention, you attract what you intend into your life.

No wonder the person who complains, fretts, gets angry and is upset the most continues to be that way, he/she is trapped in that vicious cycle that is tormenting them. Maybe this is raising your eyebrows, maybe you’re trapped in this vicious cycle. If so, how do you get out of it?

Here’s what I’d do…

Begin living life a step back, looking at yourself as you go by your day. The NLP term for this is to live in a state where you are dissociated. This will allow you to see the moments where you’re emotions are expressing themselves. At these points, just before the emotion is released, bring to the front of your mind this statement, “Nothing has meaning, only the meaning you give it” and realise that you are associating a negative meaning to what is happening by releasing your negative emotions.

You may have heard that it is possible for one to choose how he or she feels. This principle forms the basis of that. I feel the way I want to feel all the time. Why? Because I associate the meaning I want to associate to any and every situation.

What meaning can I associate to a “negative” situation?

I’m using the word “negative” here as any situation that simply doesn’t reap you IMMENSE pleasure. I guess the English language is limited as I can’t find another word to fit exactly how I’m feeling.

When something negative happens, train yourself to leave behind the “negativity” and take forward the lesson you have learnt from that moment. Everything must present a lesson. There is no such thing as failures, only feedback. Take the lesson, and move forward, then next time, you can use the lesson and you won’t have to experience that negativity again.

Most people go through life fretting over each negative moment, getting angry and frustrated and all the other horrible emotions that come with it that they forget to take the lesson. When they forget to take the lesson, it’s not surprising the same thing can keep happening and they get annoyed again.

If you’re in this horrid cycle, commit today to get out of it with real energy and comment on your progress at this blog to support everyone else.

Last night I had a bad dream. I haven’t had a really bad dream in such a long time. This one involved me at a family celebration with 1000 people. The brother of the girl who just got married is the nicest and most pleasant guy you’d ever find. But this time, his other side came out.   He was behind a big fire at the temple where the gathering was taking place. He lit the fire and burned down the whole place.

As people rushed out of the place, the fire was so bad that 700 people died in the pile of bricks crashing down. I was part of the few individuals who bravely went in, so immersed in the role and tried to save people. We succeeded with a few. Let’s fast forward on.

As the fire was burning and blazing, I saw one lady with her child left on the seat, not moving. She was the only person still in her seat, exactly where she was. This felt weird. As I ran closer I noticed that she was a close relative. (In real life, this relative is married, but doesn’t have a child yet). As I shouted for her mother-in-law to come and I passed her the child before helping the lady out, they seemed to be no harm done to them. This was weird, I didn’t know how it could have been.

Let’s move forward a bit more. As we all left and I was in the car home with my two brothers and my father,  I was still collating what had happened as I got so immersed into it.  Only till we got near the home did I realise this had all taken place in a village (whether in Kenya or India, I don’t know).

As I got into the home and we all settled down, I realised that my mother wasn’t there with us. One of my uncles (the tallest one) walked in the room then, and after a silent pause, my dad told me that she had died as one of the 700. Immeadiately, I was taken back by tears.

I asked how. My father told me that she was in the car leaving with the grand parents so they’d be out of the area and as she was driving out of the parking area nearby the temple, some of the bricks and mortar that was burning and blazing fell right onto the car and she had passed away.

Just at this time, someone came to wake me up this morning saying I had overslept. Immeadiately, I told them I had a bad dream, but didn’t tell them the story. I then lay their for another 15 minutes wondering whether it was real or not. I was actually in tears because of the harshness of it all.

Then something odd happened… I got out of bed and started to walk but found pains ALL over my body, my legs, my thighs, my lower back and my arms. It was as if I really was in the fire, running around and with pains and cuts. I had gotten so associated into the dream. I know it’s a dream, so the body pains could just be from my game of badminton and squash yesterday evening, but I doubt it.

What it immeadiately taught me was that I have to share more quality moments with my friends and family and on a consistent but spontaneous basis.

I think blogging about this story is just a way for me to share the thoughts and emotions that I was filled with. I know I make good dreams come true. But what about bad dreams?

I don’t watch TV. I’m known for watching nothing on the television except football, tennis, cricket, snooker, darts — actually, anything sports and the odd “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” when I have the time.

But today something odd happened. I sat in front of the television from 8pm to 10.30pm. I was watching “The Bill” for the first hour and ended up watching “Child Genius” for the last one and a half hours.

I guess now my businesses are very streamlined, I have lots of time for more play. For me that doesn’t mean the television, but today I decided to spend two and half hours watching it. However, I’m so bored of watching television already. So instead, I realised I hadn’t blogged enough in the last two days and got onto the blogging machine and here I am.

So for those who watch too much TV, I want to share with you a few tips to help you join me, and stop watching useless television. (If you say sports is useless, you’ve had it!) Before we get in to that, let me ask you this: how many hours a week on average do you watch television? One? Four? Ten? 15? Longer?

If you stop to think about it, those TV hours don’t take long to add up. In even a moderate TV-watching household, it’s simply amazing how many hours are spent in front of the box. Let’s see, an hour of news seven days a week, five sitcoms, a couple movies, a quiz show, a cartoon for grownups and a standup comedy special.

Doesn’t exactly sound like couch-potato material, right? But add it up - that’s about sixteen hours - or two full working days’ worth of time - right there. And that’s not even counting daytime TV or breakfast programs.

Here is the main thing. Watching TV is a habit. Just like bitting your nails, eating cereal at night, going for a walk at 6.30 each morning, sleeping with socks, etc.

For most people, watching TV is a habit that occurs after a draining day at work and when they’ve returned home late. They just want to couch in front of the box, have a meal and just wind down the hours. Imagine how many hours MORE you could add to your day for exciting things. I know you want to do this.

Let’s take it a step further. One of the things that creates the lack of energy and the result of just couching in front of the telly is poor diet. Think about what you’re putting into your body as you vegetate in front of the box. Are you actually nourishing your body or are you too busy watching that sitcom to even think about it? Do you routinely eat a heavy, pre-packaged, fatty meal in front of the TV?

I personally believe a change in your energy will result in you realising that watching television is boring. Yes, it may mean missing out on those dramatic soaps, but soon you’ll come to see that they too are a waste of time. I know I could be pushing a button or two of yours here, but hey, I’m telling it as it is.

Here’s my 7-day challenge to you. Take it and you’ll increase the quality of your life. Leave it and continue wasting and winding down the hours of your life.

Just for next week, try replacing that beer with a glass or two of fruit or vegetable juice. You may be surprised when the rush of vitamins and natural sugars spark you up and make you feel that you’d rather do something more interesting than watch someone you don’t even know win a new car.

Eating more healthily at the end of the day, and reducing your alcohol intake are also more likely to improve the quality of your sleep. A few days of this new routine, and you might find that you’re not quite so exhausted when you get home.

Try the challenge. Let me know the results. Please share other tips that have just drove you away from the useless television that comes on ninety percent of the time.

Just as I mentioned in this article, we all need to step up and begin acting with some sense of social responsibility. Here are ten ways to begin doing that on a daily basis:

1. Each day, commit to writing and posting one greeting card to a friend, family member, colleague or anyone else. Make it random.
2. Plant a seed in a responsible area every day.
3. Spend time each day feeding the birds.
4. Pay for someone at the parking lot.
5. Buy ice-cream from the ice-cream van for the whole family.
6. Donate on a weekly or monthly basis to your favorite charitable cause.
7. Say “thank you” to the post-person and bus driver.
8. Buy coffee for the person who’s in line behind you at Starbucks.
9. Write an inspirational quote on the napkin at the restaurant just before you leave.
10. Water the plants.

What other ways could you act socially reponsible?

It was Mahatma Gandhi that came up with this timeless line: “Be the change you wish to see in the world”. What is this all about? It’s about taking personal responsibility in the world’s social limelight.

The term “Corporate Social Responsibility” is now becoming more and more evident in today’s world. Big companies such as Starbucks, Microsoft, Trump and many others are more and more turning to philanthropy and playing their responsible part in the world.

But as big as the corporations are, it’s not enough. At the rate the world is moving, we all need to step up a level. We need to turn to each one of us individually taking personal social responsibility for ourselves, the people around us and the environment. I define such person as someone who is socially responsible, and more often than not, recognizes that his behaviour affects others, and holds himself accountable for his actions.

Kudos to Arvind for bringing to me the term “personal social responsibility”. Arvind says, “PSR is all about doing to others what you would like others do to you.”

Here are a few tips to putting PSR into practice in your daily life:

• Become more aware — live your life with wider eyes and larger ears. When you focus your thinking and intentions on personal responsibility, you make new observations and make choices that lead to a more positive, socially aware outcome. Science has proven that every cause has an effect. Most people stay at the effect. Being socially responsible means you rest at the cause of everything.

• Practice random acts of PSR – Don’t wait for the opportunity to come to you. Create small-effort, huge-impact instances where you can demonstrate your social responsibility. Show appreciation and be grateful.

• Make it a daily habit — Yes, make your PSR acts random, but have them on a daily basis. Ensure when you write your to-do list or any kind of plan for the day, you plot in a random act between various timings.