Self Mapping- How do you change the way you think, feel and act?

Grant Leboff: Brian in the book Self Mapping, you refer to Gandhi’s famous quote; ‘You must be the change you wish to see in the world’. How do you do that? What I mean by that is, we have hopes, we have dreams, we have things we want to see but self actualisation, as you call it, actually making it happen, of living that dream… Is there a process? Is it just that some people can and some people can’t, how do we do it?

Brian Mayne: Everybody can. The process has been known throughout the centuries, there is nothing new. You become what you think about. You become your strongest thoughts about yourself and life. What ever you focus your mind on starts this chain reaction of consciousness, which triggers chemicals, that gives you feelings, that influence your behaviour, and your repeated behaviour becomes a habit pattern. We are each a combination of thoughts and beliefs, feelings and attitudes, actions and habit patterns.

So the systems that I’ve created, like the Self Mapping system, captures your best thoughts, feelings and actions about yourself. By looking at the map once a day, helps you form it into habit patterns. Thinking the same way as a habit, feeling the same way as a habit, acting the same way as a habit. The system helps you get into the winning habit of thinking your best thoughts, feeling your best feelings, taking your best actions. It’s really as simple as that, but like most things in life people need a little bit of help in doing it and that’s why you can understand it, but without a technique that helps you to follow through and develop the habit, people fall into the trap of thinking their worst about themselves and their life. So they are building themselves up and then pulling themselves down. You need a system that helps you keep going in the same direction, so that you build power.

Grant Leboff: So you’ve got the system in place. How does that stop you, in some ways… You can almost say that you’re creating a monster; ‘I’ve got all the best thoughts because I’m the best, I’m great’ – especially as I’m thinking of a business format – I can achieve everything. Does that just not happen, because we are human, so we have doubts anyway? Where’s the balance?

Brian Mayne: I think the balance is, not thinking you’re better than others. If you’re looking to better yourself, that’s fine. Life is green and growing all right and rotten, there isn’t a standstill point. I meet a lot of people, they’re not looking to be richer or have more but they are looking to be more, they are looking to be more in themselves, more as a person, they want to move to another level of peace of mind, of happiness may be of abundance in their life, but then not competing against others. They are just looking to better themselves because they understand that that’s the natural process of evolution. If you don’t do that then you’re into devolution, you’re going to go down the other way.

My next neighbour, Freda, she is 95 and the first thing she does every morning is the Times crossword. That’s her way of staying green and growing. She’s still looking to be sharp. She’s got a Zimmer frame and she takes the rubbish bag to the end of the garden one step at a time. I could do it, somebody else could do it, but she wants to do it, she’s a great example.

My mum’s 86 and I’ve got her on Facebook, this last few months. She is learning new things, she’s green and growing in her attitude. When that’s your focus and you’re saying; ‘I’m going to learn something I’m going to do something, I’m going to achieve something more’, then you’re moving in the right direction and you’re going to move at your own pace and your not competing with somebody else and you’re doing it for the right reasons. But if you get into; ‘I want more than you, I want a bigger car, I want more money’, that’s when it goes wrong.

Grant Leboff:  So for business people – because primarily we’re addressing a business audience here – what we are talking about with Self Mapping is that it’s a strategy for controlling your thoughts. If thoughts are where it starts, it’s a strategy for controlling your thoughts and then you can start to achieve some of the things that you want to achieve and feel better about yourself. I don’t want to put words into your mouth, but would you describe it that way a bit?

Brian Mayne: I think it all starts with consciousness. It all starts with thoughts. What Self Mapping focuses on is helping you to be your best. When you’re being your best you’re going to do your best work, you’re going to have your best results. A lot of my work with senior executives in organisations, sales leaders and managers, is all about helping them to be their best, because they are going to take their best actions, they are going to achieve their best results. In some cases I am getting the person to slow down a little bit, do a little bit less, but be more. Be more passionate, be more conscious, be more understanding, be more clear, be more motivating with your people, and then what you do is more focused and more effective, and it actually leads to bigger result.

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