WITH MANY people’s careers now characterised by increasing uncertainty, there appears to be a growing interest in books that map out a path to success.
The latest to join the fray is Irish business coach and entrepreneur Geoffrey Canavan, who believes that connecting with our true selves is the starting point on a journey to a better life. He has recently published The Solved System based on his ideas and a series of 13 interviews he conducted for a US radio station.
According to Canavan, success is “an inside job” – available and accessible to anyone prepared to look within and to follow a number of steps. To this end he has developed a four-step problem-solving process: ask, believe, choose and do.
The stages involve asking what the real problem is (ask), nurturing your belief in your right to experience the best and your ability to find a solution (believe), making a decision to choose wisely (choose) and taking action to move towards your goal (do).
If that all appears like simple, common sense, home-spun philosophy, Canavan is happy to concur. “Simplicity is good. Too often people try to complicate things. With the very successful people I have met in life, simplicity and clarity have typically been among the strongest characteristics that I’ve noticed. They know who they are and what they are about.”
Much of this thinking was crystallised for Canavan when presented a 13-part series entitled The Power of Realism on an American radio channel VoiceAmerican Business last year. Each week he interviewed a subject from the world of business, the arts or spirituality about what realism meant to them and how it impacted on their lives and businesses.
The subjects included Patrick Doyle, president and chief executive of Domino's Pizza, Brian Fenix of technology company HP, Andrew O'Callaghan of PwC, Brendan Foster of Grant Thornton, fashion designer Claire O'Connor, musician Frankie Gavin and Stephen Russell, aka The Barefoot Doctor. Canavan was invited to compile and present the interviews following contributions on the SelfGrowth.comwebsite.
For Canavan, a common theme in the interviews was the importance the subjects attached to authenticity and integrity.
He was struck, for example, by the expression used by one of his subjects, Brendan Foster, when he said, “facts are friendly”.
“This was another way of saying that the truth is your ally and ultimately sets you free, but there is also a bigger question and answer in that statement because, as we seek the truth of who we are and what we could be, we are activating the innate inner confidence that can be reflected to our world in every way,” he says.
Truth, he adds, is important because it sets the parameters for real, meaningful and sound decision-making. There is an attraction in truth and simplicity and it sets us on the right path towards change and embracing success rather than the failure.
Change is not always an easy path, as he acknowledges, and many people choose to stay mired in their problems. “Sometimes our identity is so embedded in recurring themes of failure and problems that our resistance is much greater than we can imagine. This may seem like a contradiction, that somebody who finds themselves in a very difficult and troubled situation would somehow lack the willingness to find a better or happier existence, but the world is full of repeat- pattern stories where the fall back happens more easily than the willingness to move forward,” he says.
Too often our identities are based on a lack of something; the lack of sales, the lack of ambition, the lack of meaningful relationships. Our identity is often wrapped up in the comfort and familiarity of yesterday – albeit a fearful, unfulfilled and unpleasant one – rather than in the opportunities and potential successes of tomorrow, he maintains. Change is a matter of free will, a decision that we need to consciously make.
“To get to the core of the issue and resolve it once and for all, you have to ask some tough questions and you have to answer with as much realism as possible.”
As Canavan says, it is important to acknowledge, and at times differentiate, the substance and the purpose of our perceived problems. The substance can be a lack of money, a bullying boss or a collapsing economy, but what really matters is what purpose these problems solve for us.
“It takes a lot of courage and honesty to look at the purpose you have attached to your perceived problems and admit that you are using them – even on an unconscious level – to keep yourself limited and stuck, but when you do take a good hard, honest look and you recognise patterns, it is a hugely liberating experience because you know that life doesn’t have to be that way anymore.”
