The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 22 - How To Turn Your Ambition Into Action: Jamil Qureshi

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. It’s fair to say that most people possess ambition, yet almost all of those people fail to turn it into the required action to achieve. So it begs the question, why do we fail to act upon our ambitions? I put this question to the World Leading Psychologist and High Performance Coach Jamil Qureshi. Not only is his answer incredibly compelling, but it could be the key to unlocking your full potential. Episode 61 - https://g2ul0.app.link/3m9ExluWnjb Jamil: https://twitter.com/jamil_qureshi?lang=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamil-qureshi-494661a/?originalSubdomain=uk 

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. If someone has an ambition to be something, have the ambition to be you know a sports star i know you've worked with a lot of athletes and you've worked with business people or they want to start a business what you tend to see it and what i tend to see in my inbox is a lot of people with intention but there seems to be something preventing that intention from turning into

action or like behavior into an achievement yeah yeah and i think you're turning ambition into achievement is the key because you know most people will have good intentions most people will be wishing and hoping to be better but there's a big difference between wishing and hoping and believing and executing upon it so i think that the people who genuinely execute on it probably want it more for a start. And that's the key. No one's ever wandered around the bottom of a mountain and then simply found themselves at the top. It does take that determination, the resilience.

It does take the ability to execute upon ideas to drive success. So I think the key is the desire, which is fueled by having a purpose, a a mission a vision towards what that end goal should look like a lot of people um can't quite uh they say one thing they say that their their purpose is to go to the gym yeah for example we all say one thing and do the other yeah and why and why is that like because it's sometimes hard to distinguish with someone whether that's their real sort of desire or whether they're kind of like virtue signaling to themselves that they want to be something or, you know, they want to start that business or become an entrepreneur or be, you know, get a six pack. But then their actions show that quite a different story. So I always wonder that with some of my friends.

I always think, do they actually want that or are they just... It's very easy to say that this is what i'm after and much harder to do it and i think one of the reasons why is because um we have to invest we self-invest so we probably one of these um kids at school who are great footballers at 14 15 you think you know what they're gonna make it they're just brilliant they're gonna make it um or great track athletes athletes at 12, and you just think they're special. But they don't make it. And the reason why they don't make it is they don't self-invest.

So the people who make it are the ones who will get up on a rainy Friday morning, get up on a rainy Saturday morning to go and practice whilst their mates are in bed. The ones who will practice on a Friday night when their mates are out drinking. And so talent is not enough. You need talent plus teachability. So talent plus the ability to be open-minded, agile in our thinking, to commit to practice and turn that practice into something which develops our talent even further.

So there's lots of people with talent in business, lots of people with talent in business lots of people with talent in sport but i guess that we need to be open-minded enough to invest in how we practice our talent to become successful so you know there's no there's no substitute for practice you know i get lots of golfers who say to me that yeah can you make me better yeah and you know the number one golfer in the world will practice more than any any amateur you know and you know there lies the truth but you know we need to we need to apply ourselves in a particular manner and so we need to be practical about how we exercise our talent you create good feedback loops to understand what we're doing gain better personal introspection and self-awareness to allow

us to use our talents differently how do you give someone that purpose though like i'm trying to think like so we know we know practice is like so incredibly important to master something but my i guess my question is um how would you give someone that motivation because i i i guess you you can't give someone purpose a lot of us spend so much of our lives trying to to motivate people right to motivate friends families you know siblings whatever it might be and i'm wondering if there's a thing we can do as like loving friends or whatever to to give someone that kick yeah so i mean a couple of points i guess on that in regard to discovering purpose um it can't be done for someone so i always say purpose is never achieved it's attained on a daily basis

so the mistake that people make with purpose is they confuse it with an end goal so here's my purpose and they have this vision statement of what they're seeking to you know um achieve or create whatever it might be and get practical and tangible about it but purpose isn't that purpose is achieved on a daily basis that Sorry, purpose is never achieved, it's attained on a daily basis. And this is why Tiger Woods keeps working. This is why Warren Buffett keeps working. It's why Richard Branson keeps working. It's because it's never achieved, it's attained on a daily basis. So I think that we need to find something which is purposeful to us and then we need to lose ourselves to it on a regular basis.

So once we start to become more purpose-driven and express ourselves in a particular way, I would say being a good colleague, being a good business leader, being a good sports person is not seeking to impress. It's about seeking to express and be ourselves in the context of our work. So once people can find that within themselves, then I think they can direct their energy and their focus in a particular way and become much more purpose driven in how they go about their daily activities but you can't give someone that purpose it has to be theirs and i think life is about timing i think some people find that very late some people find that very early and um and

it makes no difference we're all individuals In regard to helping other people make change, we're almost too quick to go towards behaviours. So we tell people to be different all the time. Tell our team members you should be more collaborative, guys. Guys, you need to be more innovative. Tell our children to keep their rooms tidy. So we're constantly talking to people about behaviours. Say to our friends that you should give up smoking or be healthier, whatever it might be. The only way in which you change actions is by changing thoughts. So we think and then we feel and then we act. That's how we work. So if you're constantly working on actions, we're telling people to be different. And this is why New Year's resolutions fail. From tomorrow, I'll be different. Start doing this,

I'm going to stop doing that we start talking about actions and behaviors um we need to go back to the um and to the precursor of all our actions which is our thoughts so the only way in which you genuinely drive commitment rather than compliance when it comes to change in your team in your friends you know in yourself is by changing the words and pictures in your head or their head to drive different feelings and then different actions there's um uh there's a little tip which i sometimes give leaders and i said leaders never say to your team you're going to make a change you say to your team you're going to make a change they won't like it um say to your

team i'd like to try an experiment they'll all they'll all be on board with it and um we'll give that a go that's's okay. So even just the difference in language to allow someone to think differently or make them feel differently and hopefully therefore choose to act in a different manner. And how would I get someone to change their thoughts? Has anyone in mind? I think the best way is gamification. What holds people in place is what they believe to be true. And so people will sit around a boardroom table and they'll discuss strategy. And they'll say, you know, we can do this, but we can't do that.

And they'll have a viewpoint on budgets, on consumer buying behaviors, on compliance and governance. And that's what holds us in place. So what we need to do is break free of some of the parameters that we think are in the way. So if we got people around the boardroom table and say, look, guys, let's just this strategy piece that we're going to talk about, let's imagine we got an unlimited marketing budget for it. If we had an unlimited marketing budget for it, I know we haven't, but if we had, what would we be doing? How would we be doing it? You know, if we had no marketing budget for it? I know we haven't, but if we had, what would we be doing? How would we be doing it? You know, if we had no marketing budget, what would we be doing? Now, what we're doing here is that we are helping people to move outside of the mental tramlines that we all operate under, and I'm the habitual thinking. So let's ask them what if questions. Can you imagine that, you know,

a life if you weren't smoking? What would it look like? What would you be doing today if you weren't smoking? What would you spend your money on that you save on cigarettes? Just play the game of what if. So let's break free of some of the things which are holding people in place, not by conflict, not by arguing and debate in a confrontational manner, but finding some common ground and working from there. And a common ground is let's play a game.