Be Brilliant Every Day E-Book

Andy Cope

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 229

Beschreibung

From the authors of the bestselling The Art of Being Brilliant We all have good days and bad days. Some days we're on form, others we can't really be bothered and feel a little lack lustre. No one enjoys those slump days - so let's do away with them! The wonderful, uplifting and funny authors of the bestselling The Art of Being Brilliant are here to show us how to get motivated, get positive and get happy, and, most importantly, how to be all three consistently. Every single day. Using a solid understanding of positive psychology, but with clear visual illustrations, simple explanations and a bit of funny stuff, Be Brilliant Everyday shows us how to foster some serious positivity and mental agility and transform our lives. The book is crammed with practical tips to help us ditch those down days and flourish every single day. * How to live and breathe positivity everyday * Learn to be truly happy, confident and more effective * Become a great example to others and inspire those around you * How to cope and feel brilliant in a busy, demanding world

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Endorsements

Poetry

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

Andy and Andy's Big Day Out

The Tinker Man

Forget ‘Self-Improvement’, Try ‘Self-Remembering’

Note

A Thoroughly Modern Maslow

Note

Bonus (True) Story: Busking

Wired for Struggle?

Notes

Madonna, Queen and the Fat Lad

Bonus Story: Dirty Windows

Your Inner Tortoise

Notes

Lift Off

Less Pain, More Gain

Notes

Indiana Jones, the Therapist

A Groundhog Life?

Happiness Terrorists

Scenario 1: The Hospital

Scenario 2: Eating Out

Note

A Balancing Act

Notes

Cynical Thinking

Notes

Meet the Ancestors

Notes

The Invention of Happiness

Quantum Physics for Dummies

The Umwelt

Notes

Pooh Sticks

Note

The Vendetta

Notes

Your Happiness Allowance

Notes

Mullets and Bananas

Notes

The Trauma of Being Zak

Note

Home Sweet Home?

Notes

A Brief Interlude for Some ‘Mars and Venus’ Stuff

I'm Here, All Weak

‘Extraordinary’ as Standard

Notes

Bonus Story: Monsters Inc.

4000 Weeks …

About Andy and Andy

Acknowledgements

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Start Reading

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‘Brilliant! Jam-packed with inspiration. Epiphanies leaping off every page. Encouragement everywhere to help you stop the search for happiness and start following your joy!’

Robert Holden Ph.D., Author of Happiness NOW and Shift Happens!

‘The world's greats, those who are truly brilliant, make the impossible appear possible and the complex, simple; Messi can dribble, Branson can dabble and Picasso could doodle. Cope and Whittaker distil the complexity of life like no other authors today; their charm, insight, wit and wisdom is touching, provoking and achingly funny. Read this and being brilliant every day will be … a doddle!’

Richard Gerver, Speaker, Author and Broadcaster

‘Do NOT read this book – it's far too good and it's making me insanely jealous’

David Taylor, Author of The Naked Leader

‘Happy’

(By 9-year-old Aaron, who attended ‘The Art of Being Brilliant’ at his school. He just happens to be dyslexic.)

Choose to be happy

Sadness never got you anything

When you start to feel sad

Just remember friends and family

And kind strangers too

All support you.

Look on the bright side

At least you have a family.

When I am sad

And need cheering up

I run around with my dog

And eat lovely food.

Back flips, front flips

Trampoline bouncing

These make me happy and glad

To always be me.

© Andy Cope and Andy Whittaker

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ISBN 978-0-857-08500-9 (pbk) ISBN 978-0-857-08498-9 (ebk)

ISBN 978-0-857-08499-6 (ebk)

Cover design by Mackerel Ltd

For Lightning-Legs Whittaker, Scrump and Bwana

Andy and Andy's Big Day Out

Andy W's from Mansfield and I'm from Derby. So we're always excited to get an invite to London. And it's doubly exciting to be going to a meeting with our publishers.

Andy's not allowed on the underground on his own, not after the last time, so I held his hand on the Tube. We ascended the escalator, Andy standing in the middle, innocently blocking the rushy people. I got to the barrier, inserted my ticket and the gate opened. I was through. But Andy wasn't. And he was looking nervous. Sure, they have recently started having trains in Mansfield but not ones that live underground. And there aren't any moving staircases. And they certainly don't have electronic swishy gates.

He inserted his ticket. Nothing. I could see the panic in his eyes. A queue started building up so I summoned a guy in a London Underground hat. He opened the gate with his cool key fob and Andy fell through. The man in the hat examined Andy's ticket and looked my co-author in the eye. ‘Thick cut,’ I think he said.

We emerged, mole-like, blinking in the brightness of the over-ground. The city was a blur.

We had an hour to kill so we made our way to Starbucks. Double espresso for me and a sparkling water for Andy. He's not allowed coffee. Not after last time. ‘In fact, make it a still water.’

And we made our way to the meeting. We'd rehearsed. I was going to do all the talking. (Andy W wasn't allowed, not after last time …)

Our instructions were clear. Yes, Capstone wanted another book. Yippee! ‘But do NOT write a book about happiness,’ said our publisher. ‘Or, at least, if you do, don't say that it's a book about happiness. Hide it.’

Our publisher explained that ‘happiness’ has gone and got itself a bad name. Its wishy-washy pink fluffiness turns people off apparently. The ‘happiness’ brand is tarnished. He reeled off some stats. People are more likely to buy books about how to be ‘confident’ or ‘optimistic’ or ‘lucky’ and especially ‘stinking rich’. ‘In fact, what a great idea. Why don't you and Andy write a book called The Art of Becoming Stinking Rich? Even if it's rubbish, you'll shift a million copies!’ He grinned at us as the irony sank in. ‘Thereby becoming stinking rich!’

Andy W gave me one of his looks. He started fidgeting and his eyes were gleaming. He's not very good at bottling things up and I thought it best to give him the nod, before he exploded with enthusiasm. ‘It'll be a book about “wealth”,' he blurted, a broad smile spreading across his chops. ‘In its widest sense.’

Because Andy knows, like you and I know, that money is nice. And it's useful in smoothing the path to having a superb life. But ‘wealth’ is what you have left over after all your money's run out. Wealth is a measure of life that involves more than your bank account. Because ‘wealth’ is about true riches. It encompasses relationships, emotions, habits, health, happiness and all the lovely trappings that philosophers say ‘money can't buy’.

So, this book does contain some stuff about happiness … and so much more. Read it. Apply the principles. Our aim is not to make you rich. It's much bolder than that.

Nine-year-old Aaron's poem nailed it. We want to make you wealthy beyond your wildest dreams.

The Tinker Man

‘If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.’

Vidal Sassoon

Chelsea Football Club used to have a manager called Claudio Ranieri, affectionately known as ‘The Tinker Man’. He kept tweaking the team, looking for small improvements.

And I guess this book is similar. It's for the tinkerers – the ones who dare to tweak and change things about themselves in the quest to be better. It's also for those who've read other personal development books and found them too earnest, difficult, pious or simple. It's for those who want to seize the moment, who are not afraid of hard work and who refuse to snuggle down on the wonderfully inviting bed of excuses.

Although this book falls into the ‘personal development’ genre, my sneaky suspicion is that you probably haven't got massive ‘problems’. At least, no more ‘problems’ than Andy and I have. You'll have issues with feeling knackered a lot. You'll have more pressure at work than ever before. Your weeks will be flashing by far too rapidly. You'll be frustrated that your kids sometimes irk you. You'll be dragged down when you're surrounded by negative people. When you catch your naked reflection in the mirror you'll be noticing some imperfections. But they're not really ‘problems’. They're just ‘life’.

‘For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.’

Alfred D'Souza

On the other hand, you might be drawn to this book because you're not feeling very brilliant. There will be times in everyone's life when things get on top of them. In which case, I'm confident you'll find this book helpful. It's a reminder that we all have brilliance within us. It's just that sometimes it's hidden behind a big bag of bad habits. Or sometimes life just throws so much shit at you that some of it sticks. In which case, think of this book as your very own personal face cloth.

I recently went to a university reunion and met up with Clive. He'd ballooned in weight, from a lithe, sporty, football-mad student to a bloated, 23-stone, middle-aged manager. I was rather taken aback and, after having my confidence stiffened and my tact loosened by a couple of beers, I asked him what had happened to ‘Slim Clive’. He looked at me with a big, wobbly face and said, almost greedily, ‘I've eaten him’.

So there's a lovely slim Clive fighting to get out! Now, I'm not going to get into the debate about who or what made Clive fat. Clive happens to think it's his job. He travels a lot with work and is always staying in hotels where the sausage and bacon are calling him. ‘Come here Clivey. You've a big day ahead and you never know where your next meal's coming from, so fill up baby. Come to daddy.’

So Clive was pretty much like I used to be. For 35 years, there was a brilliant Andy – inside. I kept him hidden. I'd shine sporadically. So I guess this book is for the old me. The muddling through, self-doubting, quietly unconfident me.

At its heart, this book isn't really about changing who you are. It's about being more and more of who you already are when you're at your brilliant best. It's about coming alive. Because that's what the world needs. Too many people are conforming to what they think the world needs whereas the reality is that what the world needs is simply the awesome version of you.

Before we crack on, just a couple of sentences about our content and style.

First of all, is the work in this book original? In places, yes. A lot of the themes are based on my thesis, parts of which are appearing in print for the first time. You can't get ‘newer’ or more ‘original’ than that. But, fair's fair, I agree that significant chunks of it aren't original. I guess what we're attempting to do is dig out interesting material and present it in a way that it's never been presented before.

This book isn't a step-by-step guide to inner happiness or millionaire status. Nor will it provide a concrete list of things you have to go away and practise. It's a little more ethereal in the sense that we will present ‘This is what the science says’ … and it's for you to … now go away and make of it what you will. The aim is to make you think about how you think.

We've all seen bags of peanuts that contain a warning, ‘might contain nuts’. And in Toys-R-Us I saw a child's Superman cape that came with a warning; ‘Wearing of this garment doesn't allow you to fly’.

In a similar vein, we reckon it's OK to have a positive mind-set, but let's not go too far. Let's not be ridiculous about positivity.

There are many instances where it's appropriate to be downbeat, cautious and pessimistic. There are some jobs where negative thinking is actually a requirement. If I was recruiting pilots for British Airways I would go out of my way to select cautious, risk-averse, negative people. As a passenger, the last thing I want is to be taxiing on the runway when there's a bing bong, ‘This is your captain speaking. Air traffic control have said it's too icy to take off but, do you know what, I thought I'd give it a go.’

No thanks. That's the dangerous cloud-cuckoo end of the positivity spectrum. We're positioned a notch or two down from there at the ‘optimistic but realistic’ end. The part of the spectrum that allows you to stand out a mile for the right reasons. The exact point on the ‘brill-ometer’ of being your best self, consistently and appropriately.

It's also worth noting that we have a rather self-deprecating style. (I've warned Andy W not to confuse that with ‘self-defecating’. That'd just be awkward.) Ultimately, we thought, let's just write something that we enjoy. Something that's fun and makes us giggle like a pair of schoolboys.

While on the topic of humour, it also begs the question, is ‘self-help’ a laughing matter? A lot of personal development can be rather earnest because, I guess, ultimately, life is a serious business. A fellow trainer warned us against being too light and frivolous. People reading this might be depressed or suicidal or in the depths of despair. If you are, quite frankly, the last thing you need is a heavy tome. You're much better off having a chuckle.

But be careful folks, even humour can be a form of self-harming. Someone once died laughing at The Goodies (for the younger generation, The Goodies was a madcap 1970s TV show. Google it.) We know the following is true because it's on Wikipedia.

On 24 March, 1975, Alex Mitchell, from King's Lynn, England, died laughing while watching the ‘Kung Fu Kapers’ episode. It featured a kilt-clad Scotsman with his bagpipes battling against a master of the Lancastrian martial art ‘Eckythump’, who was armed with a black pudding.

After 25 minutes of continuous laughter, Mitchell finally slumped on the sofa and died from heart failure.

Obviously, someone dying isn't funny, per se. But someone dying laughing? We've all got to pop off at some point and in the grand scheme of ways to pop off, it's got to be up there.

In the modern world The Goodies would have been banned and Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie hauled up in court to be sued by the family for ‘damages’.

So it warmed my cockles to find out (again, from Wikipedia) ‘His widow later sent The Goodies a letter thanking them for making Mitchell's final moments of life so pleasant.’

Now, we're not intending that you'll laugh so much that you die (although if you do, please send us a nice letter not a court summons), but we do want to make you grin.

And, to paraphrase Stan from South Park … just because we laugh doesn't mean we don't care.

I think personal development boils down to various flavours. There's ‘cheesy cliché’ flavour. You know the sort. ‘Winners never give up’. What, never ever?

Then there's the ‘heavyweight medicinal’ books that you struggle through as if they've got some magic healing powers. Andy and I call these books ‘academic porn’. ‘Whisper me those big words, baby. You know, the ones I don't understand.’

Or ‘sugary advice’ flavour. ‘Live every day like it was your last’. What, in a hospital bed, being leered at by 14 close family members?

And there's good old ‘All-American Apple Pie’ flavour, which involves a lot of punching the air and asking gung-ho questions like, ‘What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?’ But the voice inside you says, ‘But I can fail. And I do. Often!’

Or classic, best-selling ‘soulful chicken soup’ flavour – hearty and warming, if, dare I say, a bit rich?

So what flavour are we? I'd love to be able to say this book is tangy, zesty and full of fizz. But I'd be fibbing. This book is good, old-fashioned ‘common sense’ flavour. It's got quite an earthy, realistic taste to it. It acknowledges that most people are simply exhausted by modern life. You may well be stuck in a job you don't particularly like, or have an irksome manager, and you'd like to jack it all in but you can't. Most people have responsibilities, mortgages, mouths to feed and satellite TV to subscribe to. The weather can be a bit grim and the cost of living is out-stripping the cost of surviving.

‘Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.’

Emo Philips

So our book may be ‘earthy’, but it's by no means bland, because there's another strand of personal development that is currently undergoing something of a renaissance – the broadly Eastern philosophy that encompasses the meditative ‘living in the now’ school of thought. So we've added a liberal sprinkling of ‘Eastern Promise’ to our earthy, common-sense approach. And you'll notice just a dash of something else, a certain je ne sais quoi that you can't quite place.

In short, we've devoured every personal development book on the planet, so you don't have to! We've garnered the very best of what we know and attempted to present it in the most palatable way we can.

Bon appetit!

Forget ‘Self-Improvement’, Try ‘Self-Remembering’

‘There is nothing better for self-growth than someone challenging your own viewpoint.’

Richard Gerver

If you're of a certain age, you'll remember Victor Kiam's Remington advert. For those too young to remember, Victor loved his razor so much that he bought the company, which, I have to admit, is kind of cool.

Victor Kiam is to Remington what I am to positive psychology. I love the subject so much I bought into it and have, so far, invested 10 years of my life in study, culminating in a PhD.

I appreciate that you can know too much. People can become nerdy in their subject knowledge. You can, for instance, develop an unhealthy interest in trains. Or moths. And it can also happen with personal development. I acknowledge that I'm at the nerdy end of the spectrum. Thankfully, Andy W isn't clever enough to be a geek, so he keeps me grounded with comments like ‘Be careful boss, you're disappearing up your own backside again.’ Thanks Andy.

Studying, for me, is a strange combination of joy and struggle. For the first four years of study I simplified things and presented my PhD findings in flowing language that your average human being would want to read. I presented pages and pages of lucid and entertaining material. And I was perplexed because my academic supervisor would tut. ‘Not academic enough.’ So I'd go away and make it more complex. And I'd come back and she'd tut again.

It wasn't until fairly recently that my PhD tutor confided that my aim should be to write in such a complicated way that she has to read everything three times to fathom it. Four or five times would be even better. If she couldn't understand it at all, that'd be perfect. And the penny dropped. I have to go beyond nerdy. It's a game. I have to torpedo the science of happiness and sink it to 100 fathoms.

And, speaking of fathoms, I liken it to pearl diving. First of all, oysters reside on the sea bed and are very well sealed, which makes them hard to access. Plus, only one oyster per hundred has a pearl. So that's a lot of effort to find something worthwhile. For me, studying at this level is taking a lot of effort and I have spent a great deal of time opening up worthless lines of inquiry. But, just occasionally, I come across a pearl. And that's what this book is about – sharing the pearls of wisdom.

You're probably familiar with the principle of parsimony.

No, me neither. At least not until recently. Sometimes called ‘Occam's Razor’, it states that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected. In plain, simple English, the simplest theory is usually the better one.

Oh boy, do I love Occam's Razor!

Let me give you an example of when I went too nerdy and Andy W nailed it. A couple of years back, we were guest speakers at an audiologists' conference. Lovely people. They fit hearing aids and do some marvellous life-changing stuff. But if you boil their job down to the basics, they spend a lot of time shining lights into people's ears. And they've all got Masters degrees and doctorates in this, that and the other. So I prepared a talk that I thought would engage them. I made sure it was pitched at the clever end of the spectrum with lots of detail and some stats. And I bored the pants off them.

Next up was Andy ‘Occam's Razor’ Whittaker, distilling everything down to its very simplest form. In his own seemingly effortless way, he sold the science of happiness to them with an opening line something akin to, ‘Look here you lot, if you're looking into my lug holes, I want you to be doing it with a smile on your face.’

And, I have to say, that made a lot more sense.

A paradigm shift is when you suddenly see things in a different way. Most other books use flat-Earth thinking or Roger Bannister's four-minute mile as examples. In Countdown language, they're both a ‘safe 7’. So we'll choose a different one. Let's gamble with a ‘risky 9’.

Here's a paradigm shift applied to a current problem. In the UK, ill people are struggling to get doctors' appointments. Doctors' surgeries tend to be open 8 till 5. Basically, to suit the doctors. So, if you're poorly out of hours or, heaven forbid, at weekends, you'll die. The government keeps asking, rather too politely, for surgeries to open longer hours and the doctors keep saying, slightly less politely, up yours.

I like the Japanese model. In Japan, your doctor's job is to keep you healthy. You pay every month if you're healthy and you don't pay if you're sick! I think this simple paradigm shift would get UK doctors' surgeries open on Saturdays, Sundays and late nights. You might even get 24-hour, drive-through surgeries because it would be in the doc's interest to get you fit and well asap! Same problem. New thinking.

So here's a bit of a paradigm shift for the world of personal development. Maybe self-improvement is a waste of time.

Maybe self-remembering is where it's at.