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Monex were delighted to virtually welcome Performance Psychology Practitioner, Jamil Qureshi, to give his motivational talk, “Turning Ambition into Achievement,” to all our employees worldwide.
What was on the agenda for Monex? A genuinely inspiring masterclass on how to achieve high performance, delving into the topics of goal setting, leadership, personal development, psychology and mindset.
Jamil has a fascinating background, having worked with a rich diversity of the most talented business and sportspeople and teams worldwide. His principles have helped six individuals get to World Number 1 in their chosen field.
Jamil’s session “Turning Ambition into Achievement” took Monex employees through a practical understanding of how to cultivate mindsets for optimising talent in a disrupted world. He believes that “for people to act differently, they need to think differently,” which was the pinnacle point of the entire talk.
To summarise Jamil’s jam-packed session, here are the key points the Monex team took from the webinar:
WHAT IS SUCCESS?
Making the connection between two things previously unconnected.
Is Jamil’s definition of success. It’s all based on connectivity, ideas and people, coming together to create an outcome that is bigger and better.
Jamil used this opportunity to speak about how the pandemic has highlighted this. Being asked to stay apart from one another has shown the importance of the need to be together. We are better when we are connected.
You are only as strong as your network, which is built by working together and building relationships. It’s about sharing ideas with each other, that by sharing out own ideas and knowledge with each other we together become as a whole more successful.
ONE DEGREE OF CHANGE
The route to greater success is to simply do something.
Take two parallel lines, and move one by one degree. The change might seem small to begin with, but where they end up will be completely different. It doesn’t have to be a huge and immediate change.
Out of the six sports people who have reached number one in their field that Jamil has worked with, no one ever said “from tomorrow” I’m going to make a big change. Instead, it’s about acknowledging that changes need to happen, improvements made, and actions taken today rather than tomorrow.
Often the first thing one looks to improve on is usually something they are already good at, it is simply the case of there being plenty of room for improvements.
KNOW YOUR STRENGTHS
Success is understanding our strengths and playing to them more. Bettering yourself isn’t always fixing weaknesses, it’s actually finding our strengths and working hard on them.
Jamil explained how he has seen individuals and companies weaken their strengths by trying to better their weaknesses – how ironic! It’s all about having self-awareness and good personal introspection, to be able to identify your own strengths and master them.
THINK, FEEL, ACT
This is how all of us are programmed as human beings. We think in words and pictures, it makes us feel a particular way, and then we act upon it.
A smart leader doesn’t work on changing actions, instead they change the way people think to drive different feelings to different actions. There is no point telling yourself or others to change the way you act, without changing the way you think and feel.
Successful people are motivated by what they seek to achieve, not what they are seeking to avoid.
Jamil has worked with three golfers inside the top 10 globally. He explained that not one of them will stand on the first tee and think to themselves “don’t miss it”.
People who think about the rewards of winning are more likely to be motivated towards what they’re seeking to achieve and create, rather than what they’re seeking to avoid. They are more likely to try new and creative ideas now that the world has changed, to share perspectives and explore new possibilities.
HOW DO YOU DEFINE YOURSELF?
Jamil urged us to move away from our to-do list, job title, targets, and instead define ourselves by the value we create and what we contribute.
We are a social and community-orientated species, and feel most alive when we enable others to feel better. It’s about focusing on how we see our contribution and value to society.
THE OUTSIDERS PERSPECTIVE – THINK DIFFERENTLY
Organisations tend to define themselves by what they sell and not by what their customers value. Sometimes it takes someone from outside of the sector to give people what they really want.
Some of the biggest names out there that many of us use on a daily basis are shining examples of this. Paypal wasn’t invented by a bank. Spotify wasn’t invented by anyone in the music industry. Why is this the case? Because it took an outsiders perspective to be customer-centric and future relevant.
Companies are good at being better, but they are bad at being different.
You can’t trust the future to anyone who champions the past the future demands us to be different.
Jamil explained that you can do this by consistently defining yourself by the value that you create for other people, and then working backwards.
E + R = O
Event plus Reaction equals Outcome.
All sorts of things push and pull us in different directions on a daily basis, but these things are unimportant, they are inconsequential, Jamil persists. Our true power lines our reaction to the event – he calls it “response ability”.
Response ability is quite simply, the ability to respond to a circumstance and situation, no matter what, to drive the best outcomes and best opportunities.
We must learn to dance on a shifting carpet, not see the rug being pulled from under our feet.
Things move and change all the time, it’s out of our control. Our true power lies in choosing what to do with it.
I WILL > IQ
Give me I will over IQ any day.
Jamil is a firm believer that attitude is more important than intelligence or facts, in all areas of high performance.
Your success isn’t based on what you know. It’s how you think about what you know, and use it to create real value at the point where your customer or client meets the organisation.
It doesn’t matter how intellectual an individual is, a positive and cultivated mindset will triumph.
BLAME LOOKS BACKWARD; RESPONSIBILITY LOOKS FORWARDS
It’s not about a circumstance and situation we find ourselves in, it is instead what we choose to do with it.
The world is uncertain, the world is unfair, the world is unpredictable… so what.
The world has always been this way, and therefore we need to occupy this space choosing what to do with the circumstance that we find ourselves in to drive the best opportunities.
Opportunities are never lost, they are simply found by someone else.
All of the main takeaways from Jamil’s session boiled down to one key factor – attitude. Without the right attitude and mindset, you cannot succeed to your full potential.
Jamil’s session is filled with real-life examples and teachings that he has learned during his years of experience as a Performance Psychology Practitioner. He’s a fast-paced, intelligent, and witty character, who’s knowledge and passion shone throughout.
The session finished up with a live interactive Q & A, giving Monex employees the chance to speak directly with Jamil, who clearly loves the interaction and being able to talk directly with people.
Jamil told Monex that he can help people to cultivate a mindset for success and create different thinking, and he certainly delivered.