Welcome to Go MAD About... a regular injection of thoughts and information from the Go MAD team for people seriously interested in making a difference. Each Go MAD About... gives you a short thought provoking information piece on a specific theme along with an activity, quotes or High Quality Questions to engage your imagination and tips to focus your mind.

Welcome to all new e-zine subscribers and also a big welcome to Go MAD Thinkers. To find out how to become a Go MAD Thinker and make massive savings on Go MAD products and services
Click here (for details).

How many times did you hear this from parents or teachers when you were small? Perhaps now you are older you might even be saying it to your children. But how good a role model are you? Every day we meet adults who limit what they can achieve through their lack of self-belief. Sometimes it may not be as obvious as a straight statement of "I can't..." but people will find all sorts of other reasons why they couldn't possibly achieve their goal, such as 'the market won't allow it', 'it's not the way we do things round here' or 'it's very difficult to...'. These can all be excuses for the fact that people don't have enough belief in themself to pursue what they want to achieve.

Our beliefs have been formed over the years, especially during our childhood. Many people often say that they 'can't draw' or 'can't sing'. This belief might have stemmed from unwitting criticism from a parent or teacher when they were small. When it happened for the first time, it created a tiny groove in their mind. When it happened for the second or third time, it etched the groove slightly deeper. Then they would probably have started saying the same to themself and every time they repeated it the groove became even deeper.

Imagine now how deep that groove is in adulthood – how many times might they have repeated this to themself over the years? When someone eventually says something to the contrary, they believe they are wrong. How many times might they have heard a contrary statement before they start to believe it? I'm sure that at one time, many of us believed in Father Christmas. It might have been a shock when we first found out that it was our parents, and we may not have believed it the first time. We probably had to hear it several times from friends and siblings before we finally accepted that we had to alter our belief.

The starkest business example I came across was within the marketing department of a large organisation. The new Marketing Manager was struggling with a particular Product Manager because she came to him to check every action before she carried it out. Although he had told her a number of times that he was happy for her to make her own decisions, still she persisted in seeking his approval. He felt that he would have to take drastic action, because in spite of feeling he was empowering her, she wasn't learning. When I talked to the Product Manager, I found out that her previous manager had been a control freak, who had insisted on approval being sought for every minor thing. This 'check with me first' groove in the Product Manager's mind was now so deep that she continued to believe it, even when told to do the contrary. Happily, once both parties understood this the Product Manager was able to start to work on creating a new groove of 'I can make my own decisions'.

Once a groove has been formed in your subconscious mind, it will then filter out information to the contrary. Once someone has formed a belief about themself or other people (whether good or bad), then we actively absorb 'evidence' that backs this up and reject anything that doesn't. This can be why two people involved in the same incident can have completely different views on what happened dependent on their beliefs about themself, the others involved and 'how things should be'.

To help build helpful beliefs about yourself it's good to be your own best friend rather than your own worst enemy. A best friend who continually said to you "You're no good at...". "You're hopeless at..." or "You're clumsy, stupid etc." would soon become your ex-friend. So next time you catch yourself saying something like that about yourself, change it into a positive message and set yourself a reminder to repeat it to yourself enough times until it's automatic and you believe it. If you catch yourself saying something like "it's difficult to..." then the likelihood is that it will be difficult. People who are consistently successful don't say "It's difficult to..." they ask themselves how they might possibly do it. Your mind is like a fertile patch of earth where you can choose what to plant. Sow positive thoughts and reap positive results; sow negative thoughts and reap negative results. The key is to learn to choose what thoughts you sow.

A question to ask yourself: If I were my own best friend how might I choose to describe myself?

This month to coincide with this newsletter we have a special offer on the Go MAD
e-book 'How to create the self-belief that you can and will achieve'. For only £1.00 you can download this e-book for a quick and easy guide to creating and maintaining self-belief.

Order Your Copy Now

Contact Centre experience a Go MAD Power Hour

Go MAD's latest 'Power Thinking' one hour involved a team from a contact centre focusing on the expected results they need to deliver for the business and for customers. This included the actions they have to take to achieve results and the thinking habits that drive those actions. A series of activities throughout the hour enabled the team to recognise their current thinking, identify the helpful thinking they wished to reinforce and use techniques to create and sustain new habits.

This resulted in the team leaving the session with personal action plans to put the new thinking habits in place. This would greatly increase the probability of them taking the positive actions needed to achieve the desired results.

Power Thinking participants confirmed the success of the session with their feedback:

"I really appreciated the session, as did my team, it's really made a difference to their approach."

"It inspired me to think in a different way."

"I feel it showed that hindering thoughts can be demonstrated in your actions, I would like to think it will change some of my future thinking."

"Thought this was a great idea and I enjoyed the session very much. I know it made me think about how to approach work and, what a fun way to learn."

"Thinking deeper has made us realise about our daily helpful and hindering thoughts allowing us to overcome any negativity. I would definitely enjoy another session."

If you have a group or team who would benefit from a Power Thinking session on any topic contact a Go MAD Thinking Engineer on 01509 891313.

Call Centre & Customer Services Summit – 20th & 21st March 2006
Radison SAS Hotel Stansted Airport

The Call Centre Summit offers a time saving, cost effective, stress-free way to see what's new in the industry. A tailor made itinerary that's a welcome change from noisy, uncomfortable exhibition halls. http://www.forumevents.co.uk/

Go MAD is being represented at this event by Thinking Engineers Gemma Gibson and Richard Armeson. They are leading contact centre specialists with experience of UK, nearshore and offshore centres. With a combined experience of over 20 years working at all levels within operations, human resources and training functions, Gemma and Richard have launched new contact centres, provided consultancy to in-house and outsourced centres and helped many work streams make differences and be successful.

Latest Go MAD Audio CD

The next CD in the 'Your Questions Answered' series has just been added to our online shop. CD4 'Increasing Sales Results' – with Ashley Latter being interviewed by Andy Gilbert, is now available for only £9.97 (£5.00 for Go MAD Thinkers). On this CD you will discover how to apply powerful techniques at each stage of the sales process.

visit our online shop to order your copy now

Forthcoming Events

Go MAD Discovery Days

Monday 20th March
Monday 10th April
Monday 15th May
Monday 19th June
Monday 17th July
Monday 21st August

Discovery Days – An introduction to Go MAD Solution Focused Thinking giving you the opportunity to explore how you can make a difference for you and your organisation. Complimentary places are offered to decision makers keen to find out how Go MAD has helped other organisations to make real differences.

Solution Focused Thinking Open Programmes

4th - 7th April
2nd - 5th May
6th - 9th June
4th - 7th July
8th - 11th August
5th - 8th September
3rd - 6th October
7th - 10th November
5th - 8th December

The initial 4-day training introduces you to an intensive and challenging 6-month programme. This 6-month programme gives you the tools to apply solution focused thinking on a personal level and to achieve business results. To receive the 6-month programme promotional DVD click here

If you have any questions or would like more detail about the information in this issue please contact the Go MAD team.

Best wishes from,
The Go MAD Team
http://www.gomadthinking.com/

If you have any comments, tips or favourite quotes we would like to hear from you. Send them to info@gomadthinking.com.
and you will receive a free gift from our online shop.