Mastering the Art of Communication with Richard Newman

In this podcast episode, Belinda Ellsworth interviews Richard Newman, an expert in communication and storytelling. Richard shares his journey of discovering his passion for communication and non-verbal cues, teaching English to Tibetan monks, and eventually becoming an accidental entrepreneur. He discusses the importance of storytelling in communication and how it can make any topic engaging and relatable. Richard also emphasizes the significance of delivery style, body language, and mindset in effective communication. He shares his experiences and offers advice on starting a business and living by personal values. The episode concludes with Richard discussing his latest book, "Lift Your Impact," and offering free resources to listeners.

Key Learnings from the episode:
The Journey to Communication [00:03:35]
Teaching English to Tibetan Monks [00:05:11]
Accidental Entrepreneurship [00:07:02]
The Power of Storytelling [00:09:51]
Finding a meaningful life and defining one's identity [00:33:45]
The journey of growth and transformation [00:36:42]

About Richard Newman:
Richard Newman is an award-winning expert in leadership communication, storytelling, and influence, and founder UK Body Talk Ltd, the global leader in evidence-based training on the science of communication. As an introvert on the autism spectrum, he has dedicated decades to understanding and improving communication, for himself and his clients. At 18, he lived in the foothills of the Himalayas teaching English to Tibetan monks, and went on to work as an actor, keynote speaker, coach, and speechwriter, winning the coveted Cicero Grand Prize for Speechwriter of the Year. He created one of the largest studies on non-verbal communication and influence ever, published in the scientific research journal Psychology, and is author of the bestselling book, You Were Born to Speak. Clients of his work include Virgin, Microsoft, Expedia, 3M, London Business School, NYU, Columbia Business School, DHL, PWC, and many more Fortune 500 companies.

How to connect with Richard:

https://liftyourimpact.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardnewmanspeaks/
https://www.instagram.com/richardnewmanspeaks/


Mentioned in the show: https://liftyourimpact.com/thebook

About the Host -
Belinda Ellsworth is a Speaker, Trainer, Best-Selling Author, and Podcaster
She has been a professional speaker, mover, and shaker for more than 25 years. Having built three successful companies, she has helped thousands of entrepreneurs make better decisions, create successful systems, and build business strategies using her "Four Pillars of Success" system.

Belinda has always had a passion and zest for life with the skill for turning dreams into reality.

How to Connect with Belinda:
Facebook -https://www.facebook.com/workfromyourhappyplace
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/belindaellsworth
Instagram -https://www.instagram.com/workfromyourhappyplace/
Website - www.workfromyourhappyplace.com

Join my membership program and discover the art of creating and sharing amazing experiences with like-minded people, all from the comfort of your own home. You get to connect with others online, learn new skills and techniques, and grow your network without ever having to leave your computer screen. To know more, click on the link https://workfromyourhappyplace.com/vip/

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Work from your Happy Place, the podcast that equips you with the
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(00:20):
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(00:44):
gifts and be added to our newsletter. And now here's your host, Belinda
Ellsworth. Hi, it's Bilina here, and before we get started with today's
show, I'd like to tell youabout some exciting things coming soon that I
think you're going to love. Afterover five hundred episodes, we've discovered so
many tips, tools and bits ofknowledge that we want to share it all

(01:06):
with you. So this spring,we are launching a brand new online community
and quarterly subscription box. Here's howit works. Each quarter, you'll receive
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(01:30):
a business book and our Acts ofKindness shareables so you can show appreciation to
your customers and anyone who needs tobe lifted up. In the months between
box deliveries, you'll learn from anamazing community of business owners, including guided
trainings on business skills and personal development, a book club that features Q and
a time directly with that month's author, and a monthly featured guest from whom

(01:53):
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our private group as well as ourlives while Q and a session where you
can get all of your questions answeredsound exciting. How would you like a
free six month subscription to enter Geton our VIP list by going to work
from your happy place dot com forwardslash vip. Now, sit back,

(02:15):
relax and enjoy today's show. Helloeveryone, it's Belinda and I'm here today
with Richard Newman and Richard is anaward winning expert in communication, storytelling and
influence. At eighteen, he livedin the foothills of the Himalayas, teaching
English to Tibetan monks. Richard wenton to work as an actor, keynote,

(02:38):
speaker, coach and speechwriter, winningthe coveted Cicero Grand Prize for Speechwriter
of the Year. He created oneof the largest studios on nonverbal communication and
influence ever made, published in thepeer reviewed journal Psychology. He is the
CEO and founder of UK Body Talkat global leader in the training on the

(02:58):
science of community vacation. It ismy pleasure to welcome Richard to our show
today. Great, thanks so much, Belinda, thanks for having me.
Yeah, I'm really good. Thankyou. Oh good. So you're in
England right now? Is that correct? Or no? Yeah, yeah,
that's right. So I'm just westof London, sort of north of where
Windsor Castle is. Oh okay,perfect, So why don't we start,

(03:23):
like we've got some details of yourbio, but why don't you fill in
the gaps for us and let usget to know you a little bit better
and tell us a little bit aboutyour journey and really what led you to
doing the work you're doing today.Sure, well, I mean the journey
for me in teaching people communication startedall the way back when I was about
four years old. So when Iwas for coming up to my fifth birthday,

(03:45):
my parents moved house and I wentto a new school, and I
have this vivid memory of that firstday at school, which I'm sure many
people can relate to if you hadto change school at any point. And
I went in and was hoping tomake some new friends, and I have
this memory about part way through theday where I was trying to speak to
the people around me and they weregiggling, turning away, not wanting to

(04:06):
engage with me. And the morethat I tried, the less that other
people seem to respond. And Ihad this overwhelming feeling of being completely alone,
but more than that, being withthis sensation of being trapped in a
glass bubble, unable to connect withother people, and burst into tears as
a four going on five year oldmight do. And it was this situation

(04:29):
that continued all the way through myschool years, a sensation of being just
slightly on the outside as a communicator. And I'd been many many years later
when I realized that I was shyas a child. I'm also highly introvert,
but it's only very recently that Iwas diagnosed as being autistic. And
what that means to me is thatI am sort of looking at neurotypical communication
as an outsider. To me's itseems somewhat strange, and I have to

(04:54):
figure out what it is and howit's working in order for me to connect
and communicate with most people. Sohence my fascination with communication that started off
with me reading my first book oncommunication around about the age of sixteen,
where I read the book Body Languageby Alan Pas, one of the classic
works, and I then continued toread about two hundred books in the area

(05:15):
of communication all around body language,also words, storytelling, voice, presence,
gravitas, anything that I could find. And meanwhile, as you mentioned
there in the introduction, I decidedthat I wanted to go off and do
something good for the world and helpother people find their voice. And so
I found myself in this Tibetan monasterywhere I was teaching English to these monks

(05:36):
who didn't speak any English when Iarrived. So if you can imagine this,
I was there as an eighteen yearold living for six months with a
group of people where we had nocommon language, and so we had to
use body language and tone of voiceto find a way to connect and to
understand each other. And by theend of the six months they could all
then have a decent conversation in Englishwith me, and I actually learned how

(06:00):
to speak Nepali, which was themain language of the little area that we
were living in, and I cameback profoundly moved by the possibilities of non
verbal communication. I then studied actingfor three years at a brilliant London acting
school, learning more about stage presence, storytelling, connecting with an audience,
and all of this led to mebeing an entrepreneur by accident. So what

(06:20):
happened was I was in at mylocal hairdressers and the hairstylist he said to
me, what do you do?What are you interested in? And I
said, well, you know,I was teaching overseas, I've been studying
acting, I've read books on thingslike body language. And he said,
I'm going to give you a freehaircut if you come back and teach some

(06:41):
of my hairstylists how to communicate withtheir customers. Because they're not very good
at making an impact. And Isaid to him, look, I don't
know how to do that. I'venever done that before, and he said,
you'll work it out, come backnext week and teach them something.
And so I found myself teaching fourstreet wise London teenagers how to connect with
people and they loved it and Ihad a great time as well. And

(07:03):
this then led to going back sortof a few weeks later, where I
ended up getting a phone call fromsomeone who said, look, I'm the
head of an engineering company in theUK and I just had my haircut today.
My hairstylist said, the other numberone communication coach in the country,
and I want you to come andtrain forty engineers who are about to do
a big exhibition. And he saidhow much do you charge? And I

(07:26):
said, I'll have to call youback, because in my head I was
thinking, well, I charge afree haircut, that's what I charge.
So I called my dad, whowas a bit of an entrepreneur himself,
and he said, well, chargeas much as you can think of,
and so I charged them. Iremember it was something like three hundred British
pounds to do this session. Andimmediately he said, Wow, that's fantastic.
I would have paid you ten timesthat come and train my engineers.

(07:48):
They loved it, and as thingswent, I set up a website,
word of mouth started to spread,and here I am twenty three years later
and we've trained over one hundred andtwenty thousand people all over the world.
I've got this team of twenty peopleworking with me, and it's really been
an accidental sort of growth of businessthat I'm now really proud of to help

(08:09):
people around the world find their voice. Wow. That's a lovely story.
Thank you so much for sharing that. So often we do come across what
is our greatest skill sets accidentally,right, and we discover something and we're
like, I could actually turn thisinto my profession, which is always fun

(08:31):
then to really discover something you enjoy. Yeah, So now I really I
really agree with that. I mean, this is something where during the pandemic,
I noticed the same sort of thingcoming up in me, the same
sort of passion. There was likean itch that I needed to scratch.
And so my wife and I puttogether a sort of a health and wellness
online retreat sort of feel for people, because we thought, what do people

(08:54):
need in a pandemic, they can'tget out there, they're struggling to look
after the health. They're struggling tolook after wellness. Let's inspire people.
And truly I needed the inspiration myself. I wanted to surround myself with positive,
vibrant people who could lecture me ongreat things. And we asked all
these brilliant experts and everyone that weasked said yes. I mean they were
sitting at home not doing a lot, so they said, okay, let's

(09:16):
do this thing. And then wehad five hundred people sign up for this
summit, which then helped me thenlearn more things that I could be sharing
with our clients. So I alwaysencourage people, if there's something that you're
passionate to learn about, then followthat passion and figure it out and then
see if you can pass that onto other people. So what would you
say then, like when you firststart working with some individuals to become a

(09:39):
better communicator, what do you thinkthe three key ingredients are for that?
Yeah? Great question. So there'svarious different areas to work on here.
The first piece that I like towork on with people is the story is
the message, because you know,you get a lot of people that I
get to work with. They're bright, they're intelligent, the very experienced.

(10:00):
They've got a lot of good thingsto say and sometimes what they need to
say. They've got complex ideas thatmight seem quite dry or technical to get
across, or they've got this brilliantstrategy but nobody can seem to understand it,
or they just don't know how toput things together into a message.
So I love teaching people storytelling whetherand storytelling is not telling people anecdotes about

(10:22):
the past or talking about historical events. It's about understanding how the brain processes
information. And if you know howall everyone's brain processes information based on engaging
the survival mind, the emotional mind, and the logical mind. And if
you can do that through the powerof story, you can get anybody to
be engaged in any topic. Andso I love sharing with people how to

(10:45):
stylize what they have to say throughthe power of story. And you can
do it even with a spreadsheet.If you need to talk to people about
the KPIs for last quarter, youcan turn that into a story that brings
the insight to life. Because truthfully, seventeen point eight percent doesn't mean anything
to anybody until you know what thestory is around it. And so I
love showing people how you can dothat. And you can use storytelling then

(11:07):
for an email or a meeting,a conversation, a presentation. So once
they've got that piece, we knowthat the content is good. Of course,
the next piece to work on istheir delivery style, and so this
being their body language and tone ofvoice. And I'm always keen to remind
people about the story I shared aboutliving with those monks that sometimes people think

(11:28):
that body language is a bit superficial. Somebody once described it to me as
nail varnish. It's not the realthing. It's just something put on top
of the thing. And so Isay to them, but you know,
I was genuinely using body language formonths to interact with other people so we
could understand each other where we hadno words, and you know, human
beings all around the world had todo that before we had a common language

(11:50):
we could share with each other.We had to communicate nonverbally. And there's
a huge amount of depth that goesbehind this piece. And so what I
love to do for people is tobreak down communication. I think this is
something that's due to being autistic.It's my different lens on communication is the
ability to look at, well,what is it that's working for people and
what is not working? And whenI see those things happening, or write

(12:13):
them down and put them into theresearch that we create. And so sometimes
people come to me saying, look, I've got the story. I now
want to have gravitas, I wantto have presents, I want to have
charisma. And for me, that'sjust a matter of breaking down, well,
what are you doing physically and vocallyat the moment, and what do
people who have gravitas and charisma dophysically and vocally, And let's connect you
with those techniques. And so it'sreally never about making someone be something they're

(12:39):
not. It's often connecting them withthe brilliant the brilliant instincts that they would
have had when they were younger.So when we're younger, we tend to
stand with strong posture. When yousee one year old stand up, they
have to stand with a good postureotherwise they fall down. And when you
see a three or four year oldtelling a story, they have animated voice
and great gesture that they're using withit and bringing the whole thing to life.

(13:01):
They can walk into a room ofadults and everyone stops breathing and thinking
and just looks at the story thatthey're telling us. And so when you
reconnect people with those instincts, theycan take a great story and bring it
to life in a way that isprofessional, persuasive, that has gravitas.
And then the third people that athird point that I work on with people
is around their mindset, because oftenI find that people know what they're supposed

(13:24):
to say, and they know howthey're supposed to say it, they just
can't because the mindset is getting inthe way. And so then I love
working with people on the power ofmindset to make sure that no matter what's
going on around them. And I'vebeen in every sort of situation over the
last twenty three years. I've beenin situations where a projector exploded because the
room was too hot. There waslike steam coming out of it, and

(13:46):
then my slight gets I've been insituations where I had to run off stage
because I needed the bathroom so badly. I mean, I've been in every
situation, and so I love tobe able to give people that sense of
no matter what's happening, you're goingto have an extraordinary mindset so that you
can thrive and get the results thatyou really deserve. And when you put

(14:07):
the storytelling and the delivery style andthe mindset all together, then suddenly people
can be really powerful, persuasive andget the kind of results they want in
day to day work. Wow,those are three great tips for sure.
So mindset is it's kind of thatthing that everybody pushes to the side,
and yet it's so incredibly important.It's important for I teach a lot with

(14:31):
setting goals and creating systems, andI have found that I can teach the
same exact systems and even word choicesand everything to the same two individuals and
one I'll run with it and theother one doesn't. And it's like why,
And it comes down to mindset,how much that they truly either believe
in themselves or the confidence level thatthey have. So what are some things

(14:52):
that people can do to work ongetting that healthier mindset? Yeah, you're
absolutely right, And I've seen thistime time again. You know, I've
had that great opportunity of running someof the workshops. I deliver thousands of
times for thousands of different types ofaudience, and I can go from one
day to the next and one daypeople go this is amazing and run with
it. And the next day thepeople get the same information and they're in

(15:15):
the same industry, and yet they'dbe struggling to even, you know,
get started. So I had thisfascination of, well, what is the
difference there that's really making all thedifference. And so as I started to
build out the mindset methodology that Iteach, I realized that there was a
huge piece around that motivation and commitmentto follow through on something which is about
identity. And so I'll give youa great example of this. A very

(15:37):
good friend of mine called Kaiser.He a few years ago, he wrote
me into doing a triathlon with him. Now I don't remember ever agreeing to
do this triathlon, but he cameto my wife's birthday party. I'd had
a couple of cocktails, and thenext day he rang my wife and he
said, did you know that yourhusband's agreed to do with a triathlon with
me. I have no recollection thatI did, but we did it together.

(15:58):
And he had decided that he wantedto become an athlete. That was
his decision. He'd had a situationwhere in his family a couple of people
have had health challenges. He wasfeeling out of shape and he thought,
I want to shift my identity suchas I now become a triathlete. And
so what he started to do isthat he would go on to Facebook every

(16:19):
day and write down a post whichwas just about what did he eat in
that day and how much exercise hadhe done. And he got to the
point where, you know, friendsand family were saying, this is just
getting annoying. Could you post,you know, a picture of your kids
or something instead of all these postsabout this. And I realized after a
while what he was doing was changinghis identity. Suddenly people would see him

(16:41):
as the guy who does lots ofexercise, and he would take pictures of
himself doing the triathlons that he did, and he went on to do a
half Iron Man as well. Atone stage we both ran the London Marathon.
But he sort of took me fromthat place where I'd never run five
k to the point where I endedup running the London Marathon a couple of
times. But it was an identityshift that happened. So identify this shift
is really important on mindset because Otherwisepeople can say, look, this will

(17:03):
genuinely get you from where you wantto where you are right now to where
you want to be, and peoplewill say, I don't know if I'm
the kind of person who can reallymake that happen. So there's an aspect
of identity. The other aspect thatgoes behind that so that you can get
that identity shift to work is values. And so there's a fun part around
this which I love trying with audienceswhen I'm in person with them. I

(17:26):
was doing this at an exhibition Ispoke at last week. I said to
everyone, Okay, on the countof three, I want you to point
north wherever you think north is,one, two, three, go And
you know, people pointed in ahundred different directions. Nobody knew where it
was. But this is actually trueof our own lives, where if you
say to people, what is yourtrue north? What really is true north

(17:47):
for you? Where you get toa place where you think, if I'm
pointing in this direction, I knowthat every day is meaningful, and I
know that I'm heading towards something thatwill fulfill me. Whether I attain my
goal or not, this will bea journey that that I want to take.
There is value in the journey itselfas well as the destination, and
the way that you find out whatyour true north really is is through your

(18:07):
values. Now, values are talkedabout a lot, and unfortunately in companies
they're often chipped into the marble inthe reception area and it's like dedication and
teamwork and so on, and nobodyreally pays much attention to it. But
we all have our own internal values, by which I mean there are principles
that we live our life by,and for any given person, we might

(18:30):
have sort of twenty to thirty ofthese principles that sort of guide us towards
behavior that we feel proud of.And so it's often quick for people to
figure out what those are. Whereif I said to you, okay,
you can have a million pounds oryou can have a million dollars by this
time tomorrow, would you like it? And people say sure, I say
okay. In order to get thatmillion dollars, a member of your family

(18:55):
would end up going to prison.Would you do it? Well, no,
of course I wouldn't do it.Why because it trips up one of
my values. And so you canvery quickly think, well, what am
I willing to do what am Inot willing to do in order to get
in the pursuit of wealth in thatexample. And so what I ask people
to do is, rather than thinkabout twenty or thirty, come down to
three core values that you know arepart of how you want to live your

(19:18):
life. And they could be thingslike honesty, work, life balance,
a sense of freedom, a senseof being a great parent, whatever they
are for you. And you getto that point where you think, these
are three values that I truly believein that if I live my life based
on these, I will always beproud of myself no matter what happens.

(19:40):
And what that gives you in yourmindset is a sense of no matter what's
going on around you. If there'sthings that are frustrating you in politics,
or there's another lockdown that happens,or there's inflation going on the economy,
you can get away from all thosedistractions and just think, did I live
by these three values today? Andthen if you look at those three values
and you write them down, youcan think, what is the ultimate fulfillment

(20:02):
of these three values? What doesthat look like if I was to keep
living these values for twenty years wherewould that take me? And that's your
true north destination and so you cankeep going on that journey and feel fulfilled.
And so what I love about thatis that that then gives people a
true sense of my identity where Iwant to go, feeling proud of myself,
having internal validation. And when you'vegot those pieces in place, then

(20:25):
heading towards doing something, you don'thave to have a motivational speaker say come
on, get out there and youcan do this. You have internal motivation
because you get up and you think, I'm committed to living by this value.
I had somebody recently whose value waswhat would Grandma do? Because they
loved their grandma and they thought,well, in this situation, my grandma
would get out there and fight forit, and fight for every situation and

(20:48):
treat people with respect. And soit gave them that motivation to get out
of bed and be someone that theirgrandma would be proud of. And so
that can give you motivation towards anidentity that you care about and keep you
going towards your gas. Great.Wow. So that being said that this
brings us to you and that iswhat are sort of your skill sets or

(21:10):
sort of your superpowers that you havefound that really helps drive you towards being
the success that you are today.What sort of things drive you well.
I think that something that's always beenat my core is a sense of service.
So, you know, I've alwaysrealized that I have a very blessed
life. I live in a freecountry, I've got parents that love me,

(21:34):
I had a good education. Ithink coming from that background, I
just had a sense of I reallywant to do good in the world.
I want to be of service toothers. I want the world to be
better because I was here. Iwant to be able to lift the other
people around me. And that's whatinspired me from a very young age.
It was when I was I thinkI was seventeen when I started doing teaching.

(21:56):
I may have done something before then, but that's the earliest memory I
have is that I decided I wouldteach our high school basketball team. And
the reason being there was an oddthing that happened in my school where for
the very first year of high school, for whatever reason, in our school,
the basketball team didn't exist and youdidn't get any coaching on basketball.
It was only in the second yearof high school that suddenly there was a

(22:18):
basketball team you started to play,and that meant that when I started playing
basketball, we got annihilated by everybodybecause they'd all had a year's practice that
we hadn't had. And so,for example, our first ever game we
played, we were beaten by eightyone points to eighteen. And I remember
it because the number is like it'sthe numbers reversed, eighty one to eighteen.

(22:40):
And so I thought, Okay,when I'm old enough and I know
more about basketball, I'm going tocoach the first year of high school because
these guys need to be prepared sothey don't get annihilated like we were.
And I remember even after our firstgame half the team just gave up.
They said, there is no pointI'm not getting annihilated again. And so
I then started when I was seventeen, in lunchtime at school, I would
then coach the first years I heldtryouts for them. I got some of

(23:03):
the guys from the basketball team tohelp me, and I love doing it.
And then that led me to goand work with the monks and teach
them. And there's still various charitiesthat I'll go and do free sessions for.
So for me, it's always beenabout a sense of service. And
what I love about that is thatit then keeps me eternally motivated to keep
going. So there's been times,because I've been running a company now for
twenty three years, any entrepreneur listeningto this, any business owner, any

(23:27):
leader, will know that's not easy. Like there's a reason why in politics
like you have to give up beingthe leader after a certain amount of time
because it's extraordinarily challenging to keep going. And I've led a business through the
two thousand and eight recession, iled it through the twenty twenty lockdowns that
shut down everything that we did,and so you know, I've always come

(23:48):
back though to the sense of nomatter what happens, no matter what's happening
to my business, around my business, I am always going to be dedicated
to serving as many people as Ican, and that will keep me going.
And to give you, like anidea around a speed bump of this,
is that one of my compelling valuesis to be a good father.
I always wanted to for whatever reason, I've been driven by this desire to

(24:11):
be a good parent, and partof that I thought, I want to
have a great home for my family, in the countryside with a nice garden
and country around us and good schools. That's going to be part of my
thing. And I remember distinctly whenwe first moved into our house where I
now live, and for about twomonths afterwards, about six weeks maybe two
months, I found it really hardto motivate myself to go to work,

(24:34):
and I thought, why is that? And I thought, oh, yeah,
for years I've been working towards this, and now I feel like I've
achieved the goal of serving my familyin the way I wanted to serve them.
I thought, I now need toshift my mindset back to why was
I doing this in the first place. I was always doing this from a
sense of service, so there'll neverbe a point at which I reach a
financial number where I go, oh, that's enough. I can just now

(24:56):
kick back, because the whole pointhas always been the journey of service.
And I think by doing things fromthat perspective, it gives you a clear
mind about you know, what areyou really doing this for. If you
don't hit the numbers you wanted tohit this quarter, did you were you
of service to people? Because that'ssomething you can have more control over.
Absolutely, so let's talk about what'sbeen something you're super proud of or something

(25:26):
that's a standout in your twenty threeyears of business. Is it a project
or something that you've accomplished that isstands out in your mind as being special.
Yeah, I think there's a coupleof things, and thank you for
asking that. So firstly, formany years, what we were teaching our
clients was based on reading hundreds ofbooks on communication, looking at what worked,

(25:51):
training people from all over the world, and based on our practical experience
teaching what we believed would help people. But I always knew that they're there
wasn't scientific evidence to what we weredoing was working. And so in twenty
sixteen I then put together this researchproject with Professor Adrian Furnham from the University
College of London, who's one ofthe top psychologists in the world, and

(26:12):
we worked for eighteen months on thisproject and we created one of the largest
studies ever done on nonverbal communication andinfluence. And it was extraordinary what happened
in this study. But essentially weinvolved thousands of people in this from all
over the world to prove some universalprinciples that people can use in communication.

(26:34):
And it was funny when we startedthe project that the team at UCL,
they said, look, just soyou know, what happens with most research
projects is that you find out thatwhat you believe is true actually isn't true,
or we end up proving nothing andthat we don't get any decent statistics,
just so you know. And Isaid, that's okay, I just
want to know one way or theother. And we ended up getting published

(26:55):
pretty quickly, but in this peerreviewed journal, and we got this data
that when the guy from UCL,who is the head of statistics there,
when he handed me the piece ofpaper, his hand was shaking, and
I said, are you okay?What's happening? And he said, I
haven't seen statistics as good as thisin thirty five years of doing this kind

(27:15):
of research. And I just lookedat this sheet of numbers and I said,
I don't actually know what any ofthis means. And he said,
look, in order for these statisticsto be good, for them to be
valid, you need a number that'sabove one on this piece of paper,
and you've got a sixteen. Thisis virtually unheard of in research, and
it was thanks in great part tothe brilliant team we had at UCL helping

(27:37):
us refine the study before we launchedit to get this, and what essentially
ended up proving is that anybody cantake a couple of principles and they can
increase They can say the same words, they can wear the same clothes,
and they can slightly change their behaviorand increase the number of people who think
that they're a good leader by fortyfour percent just by learning a couple of

(27:59):
key principles you can teach people inthirty minutes. And we found that if
you apply these principles, you canincrease the number of people who vote for
you in an election by fifty eightpercent just by learning a couple of key
things. And it worked no matterwhat your skin color was, what your
gender was, what your age was, or where we tested it in the
world. And what I love isbeing able to then say that to our
clients and say, do you wantto learn how that works? Give me

(28:22):
thirty minutes and we'll just show youhow it works. And so I was
really proud of that. It wastotally unexpected from the study. So that's
super super proud moment for me.And the next super proud moment for me
is the book that I've just created, which I've done. I've gone through
this doing this twice now, twobooks that I'm both proud of. But
it's a funny thing around creating abook that you sort of I think you

(28:45):
forget as an author, how hardthe process is create the book. It's
not just about sitting down and typingit. This so much that goes on,
and I think technically I finished typingmy recent one. I've handed in
the first manuscript I was out ofsort of early August last year, and
we were still working on it,like recording the audiobook and so on through

(29:06):
until about April of this year.And then there's all the stuff around the
pr and the promotion of various otherthings. But the reason I'm so proud
of this latest book not only thatthe publisher pushed me so hard. My
editor was amazing, and she wouldjust every week she'd say, you can
do better, Richard, rewrite thissentence. It doesn't make sense. And
she pushed me to the point whereI thought, Okay, I now I'm

(29:26):
very proud of this. But whatI like about it is that we created
a workbook rather than just a readingbook where people take part in the experience
of the book, so they cantake everything that my team have shared for
the last couple of decades and reallytruly create transformation as they're going through it.
So I feel proud that it's nowavailable and people can get it.

(29:48):
And what's the name of that,Richard? Oh, the name of it
is Lift Your Impact? Oh perfect, I know our audience is going to
be interested in that. Okay,all are opposite of that. What has
been one of the greatest challenges thatyou've had? And then how did you
work through that? So I thinkyou know, certainly one of the greatest

(30:10):
challenges was going through the lockdown experience. So to give people some context on
this, in twenty nineteen, mybusiness model was that seventy percent of our
work involved us getting on an aeroplaneand flying around the world to go and
train our clients in person, andone hundred percent of our work involved being
in person with a large group ofpeople. So all of that was made

(30:32):
illegal and we had tens of thousandsof pounds going out the business every week.
We were paying for a big,expensive London office that we weren't even
allowed to go into. We couldn'tgo through the front door. We had
a long contract that we couldn't getout of, and people were coming to
me from my business saying, youknow, how long is it before we
go bankrupt? Just let us knowhow soon before you know, we're not
going to be able to feed ourselves. And at the same time, which

(30:56):
is which made it ten times morechallenging, is that there was a small
organization that suddenly got set up thatwas hacking into our company's database to steal
our client details, thensh our clients, and then they were saying that they
would replicate our work but do itat a lower fee, and trying to
take those clients away. And soI then had to simultaneously aim to figure

(31:19):
out how do I look after myteam, how do I look after my
family, and how do I gothrough an intense legal battle to get these
people to leave us alone? Andit was extraordinarily challenging. And I would
say to anybody who goes through anythingsimilar to this, firstly, I would
say, stand up for yourself andtake take the fight. Because there was
a period of time where I justthought I can't do this, I'm not

(31:41):
strong enough for this. I don'tknow if I can face going through this.
But what I did is I gotup at five am Monday to Friday
five am, and I would doninety minutes of meditation, so forty five
minutes of sitting, breathing and doingmeditation, another forty five minutes of a
moving meditation where I was connected withmy body and getting everything aligned, and

(32:04):
then I would start working on theproblem. And so I wanted to get
ahead of the day and work onthis until it got to a point where
things were working. And I'm delightedto say that, you know, working
on my own mindset, then workingon the mindset of my team and that
of our clients and so on,meant that we've actually gone up financially every
year. So that the economy,you know, and the situation things went

(32:24):
should have meant that we went downas a business, and I know a
lot of people in our industry wentdown, but we actually have been going
up every single year as a result. And I'm super proud of the culture
that we now have in our company, which we didn't have before. So
to anybody who's facing similar challenges,I would always say, work on the
mindset, get that piece right,look after yourself first, and then take

(32:46):
on the challenge. Wow, that'ssuper advice. I think that was a
very difficult time for a lot ofpeople, and I think a lot of
people are still struggling through ramifications ofof the lockdown and businesses that were destroyed
and not really and you know whatit is is they've struggled. I'm listening

(33:08):
to you and I'm going through justthat challenge and then some of the other
things that you shared, And Ithink it's because people lost their identity in
that and they have not been ableto carve out that new identity for what
does their life look like now inpost new business or post COVID And a

(33:29):
lot of people are struggling with that. And when you named that as one
of the top three components, Ithink that is why people are continuing to
struggle. They have not really clearlydefined that identity for themselves. Again,
Yeah, absolutely, I saw thiswith so much with so many people,
you know, people who you've cometo us for support, where you can

(33:52):
see this in all sorts of organizationswhere up until the lockdown, I think
a lot of people were going throughthe motions without questioning it. They would
drive to work, whether they'd drivean hour hour and a half to work,
they'd be in this steel and glassbuilding doing tasks that they felt were
important for some reason, and thenthey would drive an hour and a half
home and they'd maybe collapse and goto bed and go up the next day

(34:14):
and not really see much of theirfamily. And then we had this opportunity
in the lockdown where people were stuckat home. Maybe they were the furloughed,
they weren't having to go into work. And then a lot of people
sat back and thought, why wasI doing that? I cannot even understand
why. For years I was doingthis task, working with people who maybe
they didn't like working for a business, they didn't really understand spending so much

(34:37):
time away from their family. Andthen they sort of looked at it and
thought, I just don't know ifthat was really what I want to do
with my life. And now I'mnot sure what that is like what do
I really want the future to be? And so it's critical for people to
find a sense of, you know, what is a meaningful life for you
and then start being in that direction, even if it's challenging to begin with.

(34:59):
You know, I can tell youthe first ten years of running my
business, I gave you like abrief version of the story. But it
was really hard to figure out.I didn't like I didn't I never went
to university. I didn't know whatrunning a business looked like. I didn't
know how to get clients. Ididn't know what a sales pitch was.
It was hard, but it wasworthwhile because every day I thought, I'm
doing something I've really believe in andI could have, you know, in
a month, I might train afew people. I thought that person is

(35:21):
now lit up because of something Isaid to them, and that feels really
meaningful to me. Even if Iam scrabbling to survive, I've done something
that I believe in. And soI really encourage people to find a way
to figure out where are you rightnow, get really honest with the challenges
you're facing, and describe a futurethat would be meaningful for you, not
to your parents, to society,or to expectations placed on all of this,

(35:45):
genuinely inside of you. Where doyou really want to be? And
then think about the journey that youwould go on to get there. And
this is the key bit actually,just to mention the journey is the point.
The journey really is the point.And I'd heard loads of people say
that, and I only really understoodit quite recently. The journey is the
whole point. Because when you watcha movie where you know somebody is having
a challenge, you're trying to achievea goal, what you get is a

(36:07):
montage sequence. There's a montage thatlasts for one song, so it's like
three minutes long, where they gofrom they can't do anything and they're really
annoyed to suddenly they are the kingof the world. And that the montage
doesn't take length of a song.It's going to take the length of maybe
five years for that transformation. Soyou're going to be patient and believe in

(36:28):
the journey and know that the journeyof transformation, the journey of growth,
is the point. So any ofthese you know, short term hacks that
people have of you know, howto do whatever you want to achieve in
the next three days, it's kindof crazy. Instead of that, the
journey is the point, the growththat you get through that is the point.
And so to find a journey thatit's worthwhile, that you're willing to

(36:49):
commit for that period of time isthe place to go. Even if it's
hard, it's worth the effort.Wow, that's such great advice. So
the sag inture question of our show, and I kind of already know the
answer to this just by listening toyou. But what is working from your
happy place? What's that mean toyou? Well, you know, I
think I've really discovered working from myhappy place more so over the last couple

(37:13):
of years, because you know,as I mentioned back in twenty nineteen,
seventy percent of our work involved gettingon an aeroplane. So in twenty nineteen,
for me personally on the team,I had I think forty five flights
international flights, so I took inthe space of a year, and it
meant that three or four nights aweek I was living out of a suitcase,
and I've got young kids. Andso when the lockdown came and we
managed to get over the challenges wehad and get some work coming in,

(37:36):
I suddenly realized being able to inspirepeople and then be able to turn off
a webcam and go and hug mykids was a matter of really being able
to work for my happy place.But it's what I've got to now is
a sense of really nice balance whereI do still travel and I'll go off
and work all over the place I'mgoing to work. Actually next week I'll
be in Lisbon and Lithuania. That'sunusual to do two countries in a week.

(37:58):
And I've got La coming up ina couple of months, and so
I do still do the travel workand get in person with people, but
I do also love being able tobe here for my kids in the morning
and the evening and be here formy clients during the day. So it's
that sense of doing something fulfilling andbeing able to do the other pieces outside
of work as well. Oh that'sfantastic. So you've given us lots of

(38:22):
great advice, so that in closingany new and exciting things that you're working
on. You got your new bookout, which that's exciting, but anything
that you would like our listeners toknow about. In any last parting words
of wisdom for those like wanting tostart their own business. Well, if
people want to start their own business, I always say to them, whatever

(38:45):
happens, start right now, donot wait to be ready. And I'll
let you know that there is afriend of mine who has been working on
launching a business I think for roughlythe last six years. I'm going to
guess and I always say people,don't wait to be ready. Whatever you're
doing, even if you're working reallyhard, take thirty minutes a week to

(39:07):
start your business and just figure outwhat you want that to be started as
a side hustle and then go.I had a guy once who was saying,
I want to launch a kennels whereI have I get to have fifty
dogs and I'm looking after them allthe time, but I can't invest the
three million dollars that I need toset up the thing. And so when
I said, like, how manytimes has someone paid you to walk their
dog? Oh? Never, Noone's ever paid me that. And I

(39:30):
said, just start with that.Get one person to pay you to look
after their dog for one hour,and that's going to build up to the
point where they will pay you tolook after that one dog when they're on
holiday, and then you can buildthe fifty dogs from there. Don't try
and start with fifty dogs, Startwith one dog. And the same can
be applied to every single business.So I'd always encourage people start right now,
you know, do a free sessionat your local hairdressing salemd like I

(39:52):
did, or whatever the equivalent isfor you, but for me, like
if people want to stay in touchand get it motivated and inspired. You
know, the book is where I'mfocused on getting that message out at the
moment. So I have this website, lift Yourimpact dot com forward Slash the
book, and if you go ontothat website you can find out more about
what the message of this book is. There's videos on there, and there's

(40:14):
all the social media connections there whereI'm sending out free tips for people all
the time. So if people wantto get some free resources, and I
believe there's a way you can clickon there and you get I think the
first thirty pages of the book forfree, so people can just get started
working on their values and so on. So that's really the focus for me
right now. Perfect Richard, thishas been delightful. I've loved our conversation

(40:36):
so much. Thank you so muchfor taking the time for our audience and
imparting such great wisdom with them.So thank you. Thanks for having me
on the show. Thank you,and to all of our listeners out there,
thank you for spending time with us. So we know you have a
choice for to spend your time.It's so valuable and we're so grateful that
you chose to spend it with ustoday, so remember to follower, subscribe,

(40:58):
leave us a great review, anddon't forget to grab your free gifts,
and we'll see you next time onwork from your happy places.