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It Took a Near Death Experience For Me to Dare to Be Great

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Smack!

A near death experience is like being reborn.

It hits you like a ton of bricks: it strips away all the conditioning; it strips away all the layers of inauthenticity, which have built up like plaque over the years; it reveals your naked self. No bullshit.

Let’s dig a little deeper. When I came back from my near death experience in 2014 I saw everything through fresh eyes.

Wham! I woke up to the reality that there is no future point to work toward; I woke up the reality that there is no delayed gratification in life.

What it all boils down to is that we must seize the moment: we must break through any fear; we must override our negative self-talk; we must live in the moment with compassion and love for both others and ourselves; and most importantly, we must do what comes naturally to us.

Unfortunately, it took nearly losing my life for me to become aware of how I was living: lacking spirituality; disconnected from myself; racing for the dollar at the expense of my health and my family. To make matters worse, I knew I wasn’t alone in living this way either: I saw it all around me in my colleagues and friends; I saw it in my community;  and I saw it in the wider world.

How many of us delay inner joy and instead chase after fleeting moments of happiness?

Addicted to the new, to the shiny, constantly on the move—flitting our attention this way and that—and all the time trying to drown out an ever-louder cacophony of negative voices, a growing sense of dread, and overwhelming sense of fear.

How many of us live moments away from burnout?  We lack resilience and feel like we are running on empty all the time.

And while it may be painful to acknowledge, how many of us don’t take personal responsibility for our situation and outcomes; instead blaming our conditioning, blaming our parents, or blaming our upbringing?

Here is the point: the only way we can make a difference and start healing ourselves and our world is to take personal responsibility for our actions and live in the now by mindfully and purposefully focusing on the present moment as it unfolds, without dwelling on what we have done or dream of doing. It is up to each and every one of us to step up, take more responsibility and assume a higher level of leadership.

So what’s the answer? The aim of my new book, Fierce Reinvention, is to encourage you and show you in simple practical steps how to reinvent your life and live it to the fullest, without constraints. By the end of reading it, my hope is that you will have found your soul voice so that you can be a better leader, and live a more productive and meaningful life, rich with unbridled joy and self-fulfilment.

In doing so you dare to become great.

Fierce Reinvention: A Guide to Harnessing Your Superpowers for Entrepreneurial and Leadership Success by Rand Leeb-du Toit ($11.99 digital, $15.99 print (USD), 2nd October 2017) is available from Amazon and other leading booksellers.

 


The Reinvent Yourself Booster Pack Giveaway

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I’d like to announce the Reinvent Yourself Booster Pack Giveaway!
 
Reinvention, as you know, is the art of removing what isn’t working for us in our lives and emerging stronger and more focused. But many of us don’t start this journey or know how to follow it.
 
The prize for this giveaway consists of:
1. a book that will trigger your reinvention (When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi),
2. a guide to making it a practice (a signed copy of Fierce Reinvention by Rand Leeb-du Toit), and
3. an hour coaching session with Rand in which he will give you valuable insights into how to achieve greatness.
 
It is a real privilege to be able to share Paul’s wonderful book with you. He captures his final journey as a result of Stage IV lung cancer, which my father also passed from recently. Paul’s book was a great comfort to me and Dad. Listen for the response this book prompts in you.
 
Please share this giveaway with your friends and colleagues! The more you ‘play’ the more chance you have of winning.
Click here to go to the Reinvent Yourself Booster Pack Giveaway.

Want to Know What the Driving Force to Being Greater and Happier Is?

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Think about this for a moment: we all want to be greater. We all want to be happier.

As Mahatma Gandhi, one of the fiercest, yet most compassionate, humans to have ever lived and a master of reinvention said, “We need to be the change that we want to see in the world.”

The truth is that we can only do this by redefining fierce, being brave and compassionate, and challenging everything.

Until the 16th century, fierce was synonymous with bravery. Yet in the 21st century we’ve become less brave, we’ve become more and more accepting of things the way they are.

And so today we are bringing fierce back, but tempering it with compassion.

The fact of the matter is that the word ‘fierce’ can be polarizing in the process of reinvention and so I want to be crystal clear what I mean by it.

Dictionary synonyms include “unbridled,” “uncurbed,” “untamed.” The word fierce evokes a duality of feelings: being somewhat unnerved and yet exhilarated.

And yet the good news is that this fiercely invoked fear can drive us to really know who we are and where we belong; it can help us discover our passion; it can help is connect this passion to our profession and it can help us to use this passion to increase our impact in the world.

A word of caution though: being fierce doesn’t mean being furious and releasing destructive emotions. Fierce is firm and tough on the outside while maintaining love, compassion, forgiveness, and deep insight on the inside.

The point? When we set out to reinvent our lives, fierce is the driving force to being greater, to being happier, and above all to not accepting the status quo.

In a nutshell, we live in a world that has much wrong with it.

Now is the time to be fierce, to challenge, and change everything. Go do it!

My new book, Fierce Reinvention: A Guide to Harnessing Your Superpowers for Entrepreneurial and Leadership Success ($11.99 digital, $15.99 print (USD), 2nd October 2017) is now available from Amazon.

It’s Time for 30 Days of Reinvention

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October is Reinvention month! To help you catalyse the behavior change needed to progress your reinvention I’ve created a 30 Days of Reinvention Video Series.

These videos are rolling our daily with Day One kicking off on the 2nd October, 2017, which was also launch day for my new book, Fierce Reinvention.

You can access the videos via the 30 Days page on the Fierce Reinvention website.

Make sure you journal and share your experiences with each video by using #30DaysReinvention.

Don’t forget to enter the Reinvent Yourself Booster Pack Giveaway to WIN a signed copy of Fierce Reinvention as well as other great prizes.

How to Kickstart Your Own Practice of Fierce Reinvention

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This is Day One in the 30 Days of Reinvention Video Series [#30DaysReinvention].

It is an introduction to reinvention and being fierce.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Hey it’s Rand,

We are immersed in a viciously competitive environment in which massive, disruptive change is happening at a ferocious pace.

How do we survive such a world, both at a personal and business level?

IBM’s Ginni Rometty says we “gotta keep reinventing.”

What truly sets us apart though is the intensity we bring to our reinvention. We need to be fierce.

Over the course of the next 30 days,

  • I’ll be sharing with you ways you can kickstart the process of fiercely reinventing yourself,
  • I’ll introduce you to techniques you can use to achieve lasting behaviour change and
  • I’ll give you tools so you can build your own practice of fierce reinvention.

You’ll also ask yourself hard questions. To get the most out of them, don’t rush through them. Contemplate them delve into the feelings that come up for you and constantly journal your thoughts.

You will get a lot out of these videos themselves, but for the best results use the Fierce Reinvention book, to further guide you to harness your superpowers.

How to Ask the Unaskable, Say the Unsayable and Hear the Unheard

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This is Day Two in the 30 Days of Reinvention Video Series [#30DaysReinvention].

Break out of your comfort zone and have fierce conversations.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Hey it’s Rand,

The essence of reinvention is change, which is what makes it such a challenging thing to do.

But it is also what makes it so worthwhile.

Mahatma Gandhi was a master of the art of fierce reinvention and he summed up why it is so important for us to embark on this journey when he said,

“We need to be the change that we want to see in the world.”

Reinvention is about breaking out of our comfort zone,

Reinvention is about breaking the trance that keeps us locked into behaviours that don’t serve us and those around us.

Doing so fiercely involves removing our self-deceptions and confronting our fears, head on.

One of our biggest fears is around difficult conversations.

You know the ones I mean.

Think about your business and personal interactions over the last 2 years.

How many fierce conversations can you recall?

We need to break free from our fears and be fierce, with ourselves, with our relationships, and with our businesses.

Every time that you are guarded in your approach you are postponing the conversation that wants and needs to be taking place.

What conversations are you keeping bottled up inside?

What are you avoiding saying that needs to be said?

What are you saying that no one is hearing?

And the opposite, What is being said that you are not hearing?

Think on these questions.

Really think deeply on them, swirl them around in your head, come back to them again and again.

Your first answer may not be your true answer.

This is about asking the unaskable, saying the unsayable, and hearing the unheard.

Want to Know a Dirty Little Secret?

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Want to know a dirty little secret?

One of the greatest travesties and regrets for many people is that they get to their twilight years, start thinking about their impending death, and realize that they didn’t show up as themselves enough, or ever.

What’s worse, is that they are the lucky ones; they have a precious, yet fleeting, moment to realize that. Unfortunately, even more people pass on without even having that realization.

This is HUGE: I want you to examine your life right now, not when it is too late, and if there is a realization to be had that what you are doing requires realignment and a reinvention then this is perhaps the greatest gift I can give to you through my new book, Fierce Reinvention.

Here’s the thing: over time we write a story about ourselves that we want to hear. And for many of us this story is what defines us, it is what ambulates our journey through life.

So what you might say?

It sounds like we get ourselves into a nice and cozy place. But there’s one small catch: we may be totally unaware of how deeply uncomfortable we are with who we have become.

It may well be that we don’t really understand the well of emotions that have built up and course through our conscious and unconscious.

Most of us certainly don’t afford ourselves the opportunity to stop, to put our lives on pause, for one moment.

Yet, we all desperately need to do so.

So what’s the answer? As I explain in Fierce Reinvention, when you begin a process of exponential self-inquiry you begin to peel away the various masks of self-deception; you begin to peel away the story; and you begin to remember who you are.

Sadly, this process is often triggered by a traumatic life event: perhaps losing a loved one; being fired; your business going bust; burning out; an episode of depression; or a personal sickness.

But the good news is that you don’t have to wait for any of these things to happen to make a start.

My new book, Fierce Reinvention: A Guide to Harnessing Your Superpowers for Entrepreneurial and Leadership Success ($11.99 digital, $15.99 print (USD)) is available from Amazon.

Be the Change You Want


Change is a Universal Constant

How to Embody a New Normal

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This is Day Three in the 30 Days of Reinvention Video Series [#30DaysReinvention].

Learn how to recalibrate your life.

 

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Hey it’s Rand

What is normal in your life?

This is a pivotal question.

Think about it.

When you have an upset stomach or you have the flu, you really feel every single little ache in your body.

When you get seriously sick you amplify how much you notice its impact, you amplify how far removed it takes you from your normal healthy self.

Being sick gets your attention.

But often we don’t extend this level of attention to things that are out of whack in other aspects of our lives.

Did you notice that you’ve stopped singing in the shower?

Do you remember when last you let off a belly laugh with friends?

Does the prospect of Monday morning feel like a death sentence?

Do you don a mask when you enter your workplace?

Do you rip it off as soon as you get home?

When we are hit by something major, we are confronted by it and have to consider a new normal.

When I recovered from my sudden cardiac death I had to reinvent what normal meant for me.

I was untethered from everything that had come before, I was untethered from everything I expected to come after. I was both terrified and liberated.

How does that make you feel?

Lying on my hospital bed that first week I thought I’d never be able to feel the energy of the ocean again. To my delight I did get to venture out into the sea, ride the waves and feel the ocean’s awesome flow again. But I could no longer go for a run at midday on a hot Australian summers day. And things that I took for granted in the past, like being able to travel unrestrictedly to any part of the world now needed recalibration. Things that used to excite me no longer had any meaning in my life.

You shouldn’t have to wait for something major to happen to you before you reinvent yourself.

Reinvent Yourself Now!

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October is Reinvention Month!

Be True to Yourself

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You owe it to yourself to be true to and with yourself.

How to Reveal More of Your Life

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This is Day Four in the 30 Days of Reinvention Video Series [#30DaysReinvention].

Begin to really see your life as if for the first time.

 

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Hey it’s Rand

Happen to the world, happen for the world, don’t let life happen to you.

Let’s dig deeper into your life.

Are you obsessed by desires?

I desire to be rich

I desire to be famous

I desire to be successful

I desire a new car

I desire a bigger house

I desire a holiday

I desire for the weekend to arrive, and never end.

I desire to drown out my frustrations with alcohol

I desire to escape the daily grind.

Are you debilitated by fears?

The biggest fear that underlies all other fears is the fear of death. So many people will do anything they can to never confront the reality that they are dying.

How does death sit with you?

Another big one: the fear of failure.

The fear of the unknown.

The fear of change.

Does your life have meaning and joy?

Life and work meld. I feel always on. I feel wired to achieve, achieve, achieve. I never have a moment to myself. I never take time to contemplate. I never take a break from the constant chatter in my mind. I feel like every day is Monday.

I feel stuck in a series of cubes: my house, the office; my meeting room, a client’s board room; the airport lounge, an aeroplane seat; my car, a taxi.

Are you acutely conscious of your body?

I’m overweight; I’m too thin; my muscles aren’t toned; I’m too short; I’m too tall; I walk funny; I talk funny; my nose is too big; my ears stick out; I’m not blonde; my hair is too thick; I’m going bald; I am bald; my lips are too pouty; I don’t have the right colour eyes.

Are you torn apart by feelings and tortured by thoughts?

I’m so angry; I’m so frustrated; I should’ve told that person off; how could I have missed out on that opportunity; everyone must think I’m a complete idiot; I am a complete idiot; I need to work harder; I need to focus more; I’m not clever enough; I’m useless at finances; technology is beyond me; my cooking is terrible; I’ll never win the race on Saturday.

Are you comfortable with the progress you’ve made so far on your life’s journey.

What happened to the last 30 years? I’m 52 but I still feel like I’m 22? Have I been living in a trance for the last three decades?

Happen to the world. Happen for the world.

At Death’s Door, I Still Thought About Work

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I recently did a podcast interview with the guys at My Business Australia.

In it we discussed:

  • My experience of knocking at death’s door and how it can happen to anyone at any age;
  • The factors holding business leaders back from reaching their potential; and
  • How to reinvent your business, and yourself as its leader, for peak performance.

We Are Always In Motion


How to Explore Your Primal States

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This is Day Five in the 30 Days of Reinvention Video Series [#30DaysReinvention].

Remove the veils of fear, reward and approval and reveal your truth.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Hey it’s Rand.

Being honest with ourselves involves recognising when we are trying to avoid harm when we are seeking reward and when we are yearning after connection.

Because these three primal modes, fears, rewards and approvals operate like veils obscuring the truth of who we really are and what gives us meaning.

It is part of our natural human programming to shrink into our avoiding, defending self when we sense harm.

But fear is also a limited, confined sense of self that resonates with deficiency.

Breathe in deeply and start to notice when your mind and behaviours settle on a current fear you have the fear of danger, the fear that something is going to go wrong, the fear that you may lose something, the fear that you may fall short of other’s expectations in some way.

Visualise an example of when this fear drives you and explore this situation.

Pause here.

Do you find yourself tensing up?

Has your breathing rhythm changed?

What do you notice about your sense of self right now?

Who are you?

How are you experiencing yourself?

You may want to pause this video and journal your thoughts so you can revisit them later.

Seeking rewards is focused on chasing after survival-related advantages. It is also a part of our natural human programming that when we sense a reward we use our mind and energy to grasp for it.

Think about the last 2 weeks. In what ways were you chasing after something?

Was it money, sex, or material stuff?

Now visualise when you fixated on more of that thing

What is your sense of self when you are in that pursuing state?

We live for that feeling of being connected to someone or something. And it is also a part of our natural human programming to do whatever is takes to secure bonding. Whatever it takes can be getting attention; whatever it takes can be seeking approval; whatever it takes can be finding ways to be important; whatever it takes can be finding ways to be seen as being special.

Take a look at your relationships. What do they reveal about you wanting something from another person?

Visualise a time recently when you know you were wanting something from someone.

It could be their approval; it could be their attention; or it could be wanting them to be impressed.

Now step inside who you are in that mode.

Can you sense it?

This is part of your false self.

You are revealing your mask.

Whatever comes up during this self-inquiry exercise, please accept it without judgement.

Want to Find Your True Self and Become Unstuck?

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Self-inquiry is the process of deeply questioning your beliefs and behaviors with both self-honesty and self-acceptance. It is such an important activity to undertake because it can help reveal where you are not being true to yourself and what is causing you to be stuck.

What’s the self-inquiry magic formula? The truth is that there are four tools you need to use during the self-inquiry process, as outlined in my new book Fierce Reinvention.

Let’s get started:

  1. Write

First of all, self-inquiry is a process of iterative self-exploration. Fierce Reinvention contains many practical exercises which encourage you to consider and write down responses in a stream of consciousness. Go with the flow that they generate. They will, in turn, spark other thoughts on each of the topic areas.

  1. Revisit

I can’t stress this enough: revisit the questions in Fierce Reinvention daily, and twice daily if you want to simulate going on a retreat. Your answers will change as you come back to them. Don’t throw out your initial thoughts as there may be gems in there and you will be able to trace how your thinking has progressed by going back through earlier answers.

So go ahead and have a play with these self-inquiry questions:

* Who are you and what are your belief systems?

* What do you fear most and how does this fear sit within you?

* What makes you vulnerable?

* What is work and what part of you shows up for work?

  1. Share

Make sure to share your answers with your coach or a trusted colleague who can make this journey with you. If the person you are sharing with is not an experienced coach or therapist then it is imperative that you don’t foist too much responsibility on them without properly briefing them beforehand.

They need to mindfully agree to take this task on, as it requires commitment. What often works well is to offer to reciprocate a similar exercise for them. In that way you feel less like you are drawing on their energy and more that you are mutually sharing. It is also a good way to create a trusted bond, which will give you comfort in sharing more. Allow them to create the space for you to explore further. Let them steer you into deeper exploration.

A word of caution: don’t be afraid if this exploration brings up strong emotions. In fact, I would be surprised if it doesn’t. Those emotions surfacing are a sign that you are peeling back layer upon layer to get to the real stuff, your inner core.

  1. Support

And one more thing, if you are part of a peer group then this would be an excellent additional support mechanism for you to continue your self-exploration. A peer community will provide the belonging and sense of safety that nurtures you. Don’t be surprised when you realize that you are not alone in some of your feelings.

My new book, Fierce Reinvention: A Guide to Harnessing Your Superpowers for Entrepreneurial and Leadership Success ($11.99 digital, $15.99 print (USD), 2nd October 2017) is available from Amazon.

 

 

Don’t Obscure Your Inner Truth

How to Overcome Blockages

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This is Day Six in the 30 Days of Reinvention Video Series [#30DaysReinvention].

Minimise what’s holding you back and free up your energy.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Hey it’s Rand,

Think about something that is blocking your progress right now.

What are you stuck on?

What is preventing you from moving forward and doing your best work?

What is preventing you from being your best self?

Imagine that you have an internal viewing screen, kinda like your mind’s eye. You can think of it like a built-in, fully immersive experience; much like you get from a virtual-reality headset.

Imagine that this blockage is on full screen mode. The image you have of it or your sense of it fills that screen.

At the moment that image is in your head. Let is seep into your body.

Once it has entered your body fully,  put this video on pause and walk around with that full embodiment for a few minutes.

And then make a note in your journal of how that experience felt and click play again.

Welcome back!

I now want you to shrink that image or felt sense of the blockage.

Visualise it telescoping downward

Down, down, down.

Until is is very small.

It is now only a microdot on your full screen.

Again allow that screen to flow into your body.

Pause me again and walk around for a while.

Note down any observations and click play.

Did you notice a difference between when you embodied the blockage fully to when it was minimised on your screen?

All that space you see on your internal screen is real space within you; all that space you see is always there for you.

The block can be as large or as small as you want it to be. You control it. It does not control you.

Blocks require energy to exist,  and by minimising them you weaken them; by minimising them you release their hold on you, and as a bonus you free up energy.

You can then put that energy to more constructive use, like being your best, most fierce self and doing awesome things in the world.

How to Create a Thought Leadership Position by Writing a Book

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One of my favorite topics is creating a thought leadership position. In this piece by My Business I talk about how writing a book can produce excellent return on investment for business and societal leaders:

Becoming an author no short term cash cow.

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