What Would Brendan Do?

My new role model for 2009 to help me achieve my goals is Brendan Cole.   You may remember I wrote before Xmas about how inspiring I had found his will to win and professionalism as displayed on Strictly Come Dancing.   He doesn't let anything within his control get in the way of his own success.   And he knows how to manipulate the media too.   Bad Boy Brendan believes in hard work getting results, so do I.   A friend of his tells me he's a jolly nice chap in real life too!

Well I got a chance to put my Brendan plan into practice tfor the first time this week.

I found out at short notice that one of my projects required me to go to Manchester for the day.   I was half expecting it but equally would have liked to have spent the day at home.   The reasons for this were that I had worked the previous Saturday and not had a recuperation day this week yet. And that I was up singing karaoke with my mates until gone midnight the night before which was bad planning and yet, remember, I didnt know I had to go to Manchester so it seemed OK when I said yes to a karaoke night-out.   Normally we stop at 10.30 but this one went on until 11.50 and then the drive home, emails etc.   Bed at 1.30.

So I found the flesh weak and that little voice in my head was making wheedling noises and trying to work out ways to weasel out of the trip, even though that's frowned upon in Manchester.

And then I thought about my goals for this project for 2009 and asked myself "what would Brendan do in these circumstances if he still wanted to achieve those goals?".   No question.   He'd get up early after a late night and put in the work.   He'd do whatever was necessary to win the prize.

And so I did.  And "being Brendan" was helpful.   It got the job done.

I remember when I was learning about NLP with Paul McKenna, Richard Bandler and Michael Breen, they taught us how to step into the imaginary body and shoes of someone we admire, someone whose energy would be useful to have in any given situation. Thanks Brendan, mate, I used your body and your shoes!

Who is your role model and what are they telling you to do and how will you do it?   How has this technique worked for you?   Or would you like to experiment with it?   Who would you pick as your role model and why?

I wonder how else Brendan can help me?   I have a few ideas I am going to be playing with and I will let you know how I get on.

Comments

[Niki Duffy]

What a lovely reminder of all the wonderful resources we have to support us and have fun with.

Often we unconsciously pick the "best bits" of other people's behaviours and I tend to use different people's exemplary examples to achieve different effects. Here's a few of my favourites:

I model my Mum's "Social Butterfly" skills in parties (and adapt it slightly for use in business networking)

I model Ghandi's patience,

I model Tony Robbin's energy for leaping out of bed in the morning

And the Queen's poise for sitting still and looking interested when those skills are needed!

Now I intend to model your modelling and strengthen my modelling muscle.

Happy modelling