Ali Campbell is an internationally acclaimed life coach; he has built an enviable reputation as a highly motivational Coach, Presenter, Therapist and Personal Trainer. An advisor to celebrities, business leaders and politicians and even royalty around the world. Ali is widely featured in the media, on Television, Radio and in print. He is uniquely placed to assist you to reach your goals.
There’s an old saying ‘be careful what you wish for… you might get it’. On a recent trip to Abu Dhabi, I had an over night stop and a big meeting in London. No big deal you might think, but the absence of clothes added a new dimension to the challenge. Ok that’s a slight exaggeration - I did have clothes, but only the ones I stood in.
The problem (although I didn’t realise it at the time) occurred much earlier at Glasgow airport. I’d remembered my booking reference for once and checked that ‘as I’ll be going to London first, will my bag do the same?’ With ‘Of course sir’ ringing in my ears I smugly headed for a coffee, blissfully unaware of what had just happened…
It’s a lonely feeling, standing watching the baggage carrousel progressively empty while I’m left hoping and gazing at the now empty belt. The problem very quickly became apparent. My bag was indeed in London but it would not be joining me. It had been booked straight through to my final destination and would sit in storage till my flight the next morning …Argh! The ground staff wasted no time in explaining just how difficult it was to find my bag in the vast nether regions of Heathrow airport.
No clothes, no toiletries and no time to spare, I had to head for my first meeting. Not to worry, I had my overnight ‘survival’ pack, compliments of the airline. It was decision time. The pack generously contained a T-shirt, which, apart from the fact it was almost see through, also had ‘Compliments of…’ emblazoned across the front.
So here was the choice - should I quickly change, keeping my own shirt reasonably fresh for tomorrow, and go to my first meeting in my new attire or should I stay as I was and look forward to being met in the Middle East by an Arab sheik and hope he mistook my T-shirt for the work of some new cutting edge designer… Ah it’s all glamour.
The problem, as the more astute of you will have noticed, occurred when I asked whether my bag would follow me to London. I did not ask whether I would be able to retrieve my luggage. The key, and I should really know this already, is to ask for specifically what you want to know - don’t leave it open to interpretation. In NLP we have a phrase ‘the meaning of communication is the response that you get’. Or, in other words, it’s not up to the other person to understand you, it’s up to you to be understood.
When we phrase communication like this we put the emphasis back on what we can control - ourselves. Try this out, you’ll lose a lot of excuses, for example ‘they don’t get it’ will cease to be ‘their’ fault. Try this out for the rest of today… If they don’t get it or you don’t get exactly what you want, take it as your fault. That’s not to say you’re to blame, just try changing your approach and you will be able to change your outcome.