Stuart Lotherington - Positive Mindset and Endurance

[00:00:00] Hello listeners, this is a short announcement. On the 28th of November, David and I will

[00:00:08] have our first live podcast, our first live show in Brighton. We're opening the doors

[00:00:14] at 6.30. We have all the details in the show loads. So join us on the 28th of November

[00:00:21] from 6.30 in Brighton for our first ever Men Up Men Down live show. So welcome to Stuart, Stuart Lubrington. Stuart's the managing director of SBR, which are a sales consultancy, and they've worked with everyone from Google to TikTok, everyone in between. But it's not really sort of a Stuart sales expertise,

[00:01:40] well, kind of, which we'll come to in a minute.

[00:01:42] But as I say, Stuart's someone that's always inspired me.

[00:01:46] I met Stuart when I first moved to Marseille for the Rugby World Cup, I've been to Austin, Texas for work, road trip round Spain, saw he was in Brussels, then the next day was back, oh sorry, that very day was a local beer festival, Singapore, I'd be camping and raving weekends with the family, that's my intro of you, Stuart. I don't know if there's anything you want to clarify, but... Well, it definitely stalked me very well on Facebook. That's for sure, David. That's the key thing in there. And I'm pacing to add that it's not me normally posting those things.

[00:04:20] It's often my wife that posts those things. So...

[00:04:22] Oh, right.

[00:04:23] Yeah. And tags me in them. So that parents, they don't always think that that was the case. So I'm not sure it was necessarily them. But I think the first test that I realized that actually I might've had this was when I got my driving test through. You know, that infinitely amazing day when you think, right, here it is, this is the day I've got to come and do it, and opened up the envelope. And there it was. Friday,

[00:05:41] the 13th of May was the day that I had my driving test business, I'd often go and see inspirational individuals, a lot of them were sports people that would turn around and saying how you can apply sports mindset to business. And I actually thought, well, I've developed my mindset in sales as a business professional, why don't I apply that into sports? So that's the reason for

[00:07:03] doing the speech. And it was only hearing a getting a flight, and the flight across the Atlantic is the same length of time to fly to the North of Canada to give you the perspective of the size of Canada to go up there, which involved two or three plane journeys to get up there to a place called Resolute. And one of the stops, and you think

[00:08:22] about how terrible the weather in the UK sort of Tri Club, probably a little bit like you to meet some friends and make some friends out there.

[00:09:42] It was very close to where I used to live, but I actually didn't know how to swim when

[00:09:46] I joined the club. a great analogy that I use is that eventually I moved up from lane six to lane five and named five to lane three, for example. And then I remember moving from lane three to lane two and I asked one of the coaches there and all these guys are all volunteers. They all go on courses. They all earn the latest knowledge around coaching and have to admire their commitment

[00:11:01] to help everybody in the triplex.

[00:11:03] And I was asked to move up to lane two, which was a daunting and scary thought to go into people have moved lanes in the last 12 months and he said, no one. And it might, again, the light bulb for me was recognizing that we have a tendency, probably that analogy is useful in life, isn't it? You know, I'll never be able to earn as much as that person or I'll always be better than that person. But we end up staying in our own bubble of

[00:12:20] security and potentially, even though it's in mindfulness. So, Vodka, I know that you probably share various kind of self-conversation, self-talk cycles, and we call it the self talk as just three areas. There's productive, I prefer to use the word productive self talk rather than positive self talk. So productive self talk, then there's negative self talk and then there's neutral. So I'll give you an example. Productive self talk is, this is an issue, but at least I've got

[00:15:00] solutions on the mirror to overcome that problem. Negative self talk is, this always happens self-image and belief. So how do you perceive yourself? What do you say about yourself? Like you, David, when we joined the Triathlon Cup, it took me three years of being and doing triathlons before I referred to myself as a triathlete. So someone that did that kind of performance. And I couldn't even get one length of a pool. So your results come and then those results feed into your self-talk. So to answer your question directly, that was a long winded way, but hopefully your

[00:17:40] listeners will be able to concept it now, he's even got pictures of it. But it's a really easy book to read. But once I'm outstanding data piece in there was around, and again, I's like anything we apply ourselves to, we're going to fail. We're likely to do badly. It's just not wired into ourselves. And I remember distinctly applying this. I've got four daughters as you also know, Dave. And I remember when the youngest were into those heelies.

[00:20:21] Do you remember the shoes with the heels in?

[00:20:24] Now, for me to be able to have that kind of up if I hadn't followed some of the principles that I'd already learned, whether it was in sales or sports. And I thought, you know what, I will just rest on this. And one thing was really peculiar is that the next time I tried it, the same thing, I was just marginally better. And so even though I would consider

[00:21:41] myself as competitive, the biggest competition is get really complicated. And now I'm beginning to challenge myself with all these learning a different language. But, you know, trust the process. And that's what I'm thinking. Volker, I'm sure you've probably got other things to add to that as well. No, there's lots in there.

[00:23:00] I don't, you know, if I say I don't disagree.

[00:23:02] I mean, self-talk, right?

[00:23:04] Negative self-talk, as we all know,

[00:23:06] can, you know, have a very positive mindset, right? Because you say, just the process, right? That's something I learned in my psychology course at the moment, right? It's like, it's very, you know, it's overwhelming. Everything is happening. Like life, right? Everyday life, right? I remember, I'm sure I mentioned on a podcast recently, I remember very vividly when I first, because

[00:24:25] I had my first flat and I saw it on-being and they also have loads of posts and interviews to keep your mental health in good shape. Take a look at WellDoing.org.

[00:25:44] But to answer your question David as well around the at the end of the day there if you always think the way you've always thought, you'll always do as you've always done and you'll always get what you've always got. Now, in principle, if you're happy with your lot and everything's okay, that's good. But the vast majority, if not everybody that I speak to, would always like to have something different or better, which means you need to first of all,

[00:27:00] think differently and then do differently. And I think than it really is. And I remember reading, I think it might've been another book. I think there was some books about these lovely sayings that quite often, and I remember one thing is that 50% of the problems you're thinking about right now won't exist tomorrow or something like that. It's, invariably, we seem to worry about things that you might need to put in. Of course, there may be people that take advantage of it and that's when you think, well, maybe it's time for me to move on or do something else. But those are key elements to internal dialogue is watching those words that you say. And I think the dangerous words are what we call absolutes.

[00:30:45] I said, I agree, right? Never, ever. You always do that, right? You know, these words. Something else I wanted to pick up actually, or actually another comment I want to make in terms of

[00:30:49] positivity, what I find really helps, you know, myself and a lot of my coaching clients as

[00:30:54] well as gratitude journals, right? So at the end of the day, sit down for five minutes

[00:30:59] and just look at all the positive things in the day. And if you had a shit day, you know,

[00:31:03] it's sometimes difficult, right, to find three things and that you can look into each other's people's life right on Facebook and social media, Instagram. So there's this fear of missing out, right? And no one ever pulls a picture of their holidays, you know, really sad face when I always hope it's really shit, right? Because the holidays are always great, you know, everything is fine.

[00:32:21] I don't actually know where I was leading with that.

[00:32:23] But this, this, this comparing to Sometimes that fuels people in a positive sense. It provides the fuel to continue to strive, to continue to get better,

[00:33:44] but equally the mental health issues that come from that time was my biking. But I remember it was being televised at the time because it was at this event and I heard

[00:35:01] the helicopter coming because the lead person racing and it was a two lap went flying past me And all he did was sports, but I had a family, I have a family, I have a relationship, I have a job, a career, all those other things. It's just never, I'm never going to get to attend or be able to think that the cost benefit of going to attend is actually going to be of value. But the other part of it is actually putting in perspective to all the other important things in your life. So don't just completely dedicate to sports.

[00:36:22] If you've got a family and understanding of those phone calls, you know, the people

[00:37:41] might not want your product, but you know, able to stop it. You just say, okay, I'll make more calls, but then your phone line goes or your internet goes or whatever is out of your control. Therefore, their decision making. And you can influence others around you without a doubt, but you can't control them. And then there's things you just have to accept. And if you think about the things we have to accept, the things you have to accept would be the weather, traffic, taxes, all of those sort of things happen to us. And if you ask somebody,

[00:40:23] the average person, what do they spend most of their time thinking about? Where is their your books. You could dwell on that and feel really sorry for yourself or you just go, well, I have to accept what can I do to mitigate that as best I can. And those are the things that would be another mental toughness lesson or exercise is to apply CIA. But well, remember, David. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I think, well, for me, I have become a lot more mentally, well,

[00:41:46] I have developed my mental toughness. I think the weight's still there. You just can't see where, you know. It's, yeah, certainly around the stomach. But no, I mean, what I was gonna say is, you know, for me, it's whenever I'm in a situation where I sort of feel overwhelmed or I can't do this, I'm like, wait a minute, what other times have I had this thought process

[00:43:01] and I've battled through that?

[00:43:02] And I mean, sort of a, you know, it was only meant to be a marathon, you know, she's dropped out you know I'm gonna be lost because the winners already come in I've still got you

[00:44:22] know another 12 miles to do and I was just I'm gonna have to do this now So so basically flew over the day before and my bike turned up. It didn't turn up And I'm thinking oh my goodness. So there's a good excuse right my bikes not turn up not to compete

[00:45:40] Then it then it turned up at 10 o'clock at night

[00:45:42] They'd already closed the the transition so I had to go in super early in the morning 5 o'clock in the morning

[00:46:48] bar on the bike. I'm thinking, how many excuses do you need to stop a race? Then I felt so tired because I was late the night before as well. So tired, I couldn't keep my eyes

[00:46:52] open at all. I pulled over and went to sleep on the side of the race. And I worked out,

[00:46:59] I must have only been asleep for a minute and a half, but it was enough to give me,

[00:47:03] re-energize to carry on and do the race. Anyway, by the time it gets to doing things that you've never done before. And that was getting the confidence to go and one do a triathlon in the first place, and then do maybe a larger event in a larger distance, and then doing, as you say, running six marathons in five days through the Sahara or racing to the most places,

[00:48:22] just pushing those things. And so, positive setting. And I think from what you were sharing earlier, you can see I'm constantly setting goals and going out there, not always achieving them, but things that are out there and happy to share and for people to see that as a free resource for them to learn. And if you're in your sales world, then definitely look me up.

[00:49:45] Thanks for listening to this week's episode. Feel free to reach out to Folker or David