Mirrors, Triggers and Belief

Are you holding yourself back without even realising it?

Understanding what might be blocking you from being your best self is like discovering a mystery box — but how do you open it? 

In this session, John Cunningham will explore the “Why, What, and How” of uncovering your positive and negative triggers, the need to have mirrors in your life and how belief systems keep you on track and thriving in your life and career.

John Cunningham is a well-known figure in Australia’s real estate industry who began his career in 1977. He founded Cunningham Real Estate in 1991 with his wife, Ann, pioneering a philosophy of trust, transparency, and exceptional service. Passionate about industry reform, John has played a key role in the Rise Initiative and serves on its Board of Directors.

This isn’t just about discovering what’s inside the mystery box — it’s about equipping yourself with the tools to open it and step into your best self with clarity and confidence.

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Kylie:

So let's kick off, John. Hello, everyone. It's Kylie Davis from the RISE Initiative here. It's fantastic to see so many of you jumping onto the call. Thanks for joining us for our wellness webinar today. Brought to you by MRI and the RISE Initiative. We have a very special guest today, one of the founders of the RISE Initiative and a legend in real estate, John Cunningham. John, how long have you been in real estate for?

John:

I started very, very young, 48 years. I know.

Kylie:

Oh my goodness. Well, there's going to be a big party in a couple of years, right? Hope I'm there for that.

John:

Yeah, absolutely. Or I'm out of it.

Kylie:

John is one of the true gentlemen of real estate. He's been a former president of the REI New South Wales. He's been a longtime champion for improved standards in real estate. And he is presenting today on mirrors, triggers and belief. And just before we kick off with the RISE Initiative, we firmly believe in the importance of place and home. So I am here actually at Sydney Airport in Dharawal country. I'm part of the Eora Nation and the RIDE initiative welcomes. First Nations people um of our currents.

Kylie:

John, I'm going to hand it over to you now. I'm really looking forward to your presentation today. I'll pop myself off. You're all good to go.

John:

Right. Thanks, Kylie. I'm going to share now, folks, and then I'll get my screen up.

Kylie:

And if anyone's got any questions or comments, please pop them into the chat. That would be great. Thanks.

John:

Okay, let's get this show on the road. Here we go.

So today's talk is very much focused on the whole wellness well-being element, but it's going to be talking mostly about the inside job. As humans, we sort of have this two views of ourselves. There's the view that we have of ourselves internally. We take that sort of I suppose perspective of what does that look like from where we see it. We also take that external view as to how other people see us. A lot of that's going to do with the mirrors.

As a result of mirrors and looking deep into that, we're going to explore what triggers us. In other words, there's positive, negative triggers that happen in our life. And everything that we do in the mirror, everything we do from a trigger perspective is based on our beliefs.

So I'm going to dive deep into that. It's going to be a little bit of repetition because I'm going to be constantly referencing backwards and forwards As we go through these three parts. To understand really what's going on, because what's going on needs to be analyzed and thought about on so many levels to get a true understanding of how we can actually come out the other side of this. And say, well, actually, this is something I can control. This is something that is in my power.

To do something about. So we're going to have a good deep dive into that and see where we go. So let's kick it off. We're going to look at what I consider singularly the most important word in our life and that is Thrive. And so let's look at the definition of thriving. Thriving is to flourish, grow and prosper in the state of living and operating at one's fullest potential. And I think that's something that we all strive to do, but sometimes people don't understand what that truly means. So to flourish.

Clearly must be in flow. You must be in a place where you really are in sync with yourself. To grow, you need to be able to let go of the past and to prosper, you need to have tools and things to make sure that you can put all those two things in place to have a great life.

And so when we get to that fullest potential, it's a really interesting place because it's at a Another word for that is fulfillment. You're reaching this place of fulfillment. So we're going to dive into a few things and hopefully at the end you'll get a really good picture of what that looks like. So the interesting thing about what we do in this day-to-day world that we live in is that we go to sleep at night Hopefully we get a good night's sleep. We wake up the next day.

We wake up the next day and the big decisions that we need to make every single day is what I call the three intent choices. Now I'm putting this right up front because this particular theme is going to apply. All the way through this talk. And I'll explain to you why it's so important.

About 17 years ago, I went through cancer and that cancer gave me that old classic gift of a badly wrapped concept of going, okay, here you are looking at a mortality issue in your life. Fortunately for me, my experience and my journey and my recovery was good. And I've been clear. 17 years. But it was more the psychological things. I didn't have to fortunately go through radiotherapy or chemotherapy. So it was a very fortuitous process that I went through. But I tell you what, the learnings that I got from that experience have stayed with me every day. And seriously, this is one of the most important learnings I got. Which is every day you have the choice to make three intent choices.

Whether you do it or not is entirely your choice. But once you do it, it's an extraordinary thing that happens and what takes place as a result of it. And so we're going to look really closely at this whole picture of who are you being? What is that mindset that you're bringing to yourself in the day? How are you going to see who you truly are? Do you understand who you truly are? Do you understand and know yourself? Then, as a result of that. Who are you being, sorry, then how are you being seen? In other words, that's the behavior that people see of you. So they're taking a judgment call on you based on your behaviors. You're making a judgment call on yourself on who you're deciding to be. And if you make that first decision, how you're being seen is your true self. And that's a really powerful tool because that enables you to go and achieve a lot in that day. And they're the actions you're going to take.

And I do this every day. I look in the mirror. And that's why the mirror is here, because I do this every day. And ask myself, who am I being today? It's a decision, a conscious decision that I'm an energetic, positive person who's going to bring joy to whoever I meet and also make a difference to as many lives as possible. That’s my mantra. That's who I want to be. That's my intention. And then how I am going to be seen is exactly that. And you know what the interesting thing about that is it's not hard.

To be that because you've made the decision to be it. So that's how people see you. And you walk into a room, you bring energy to a room, you bring positivity to a room, you bring hope to a room, whatever it may be, it's based on that first decision that you made. And then the day enables you to achieve so much because you're coming into it with such a positive mindset that the actions you take are all good actions. You have the energy to achieve these things. You've made the decision what those actions are going to be and what you want to achieve on the day and you follow it through.

And interestingly enough, most people just don't start their day that way. They sort of wing it. They don't really get a place where they can actually start the day so well that they're going to follow that all the way through to the end of the day. And then you can reassess the day and recalibrate ready for the next day. So this particular thing, as I say, is going to come up a lot. So just take note of that and there'll be something about this at the end as well.

So mirrors. A lot of the things about mirrors are mainly because It's great to understand why they exist, what purpose do they serve? And clearly on your left, you've got the mirror. It's the reflection. It's you looking at yourself. I have to say if you do this with true belief in the outcome, you will take a different view of what you see in the mirror.

The mirrors, they say the mirror doesn't lie. Whatever you see in the mirror is what it is. So the decision is to, are you looking at the superficial side of the mirror or you're actually looking deep into your soul? Are you looking past the visual representation or the reflection of what you see? Are you looking at yourself? Are you asking a question, who am I being? Are you asking, am I true to myself? Are you asking those things that you can't bullshit to a mirror if you truly take that decision on what you're going to do? The rear view mirror, well, we know what that's about.

That's looking at the past. Past really doesn't serve well. You can dwell on the past. You can learn from the past, but the past doesn't serve a purpose in your day. It helps inform what you do. It does all these things, but it doesn't serve a purpose. And we tend to think too much. Too many people live in the past. They dwell in the past. They love the past because that was when their glory days, whatever it may be. But it serves no purpose. And then you look at the side view mirrors. They're also a rear view, but they're also telling you about what's coming.

Are they telling you about what's going to potentially distract you? It tells you about what could be looming, whatever those things are. And we can spend too much time on that as well because they're the fear factors. The rear view is not so much the feedback. These side ones are they can come in, they can sideswipe you. You've heard that expression.

And what I love the most is the windscreen. The windscreen is clear. You know, as long as you keep it clear and they're up for months and so on. But reality tells you what the future is down the line. And it's a choice that you make to continue that journey down that line. That's what I love about this concept. It really is clarity. Its mirrors show clarity. Windscreens it's clear to see where you're heading. So understand these things to inform you on how you're going to live your life. And the mirror will, in this next slide, understand how it fits into you. So let's have a look at the mirror in you. What does the mirror actually achieve for you?

Mainly self-awareness. It serves as a foundation It unlocks the journey to enable you to understand your inner landscape and make conscious choices. So it's a thing I think when you get self-aware and become that, I suppose, that person who understands themselves and can understand what they stand for, what they can do. It helps that place get you to a landscape Or instead of winging it, as I said earlier, you are actually making conscious choices, which then leads to potentially the whole self-actualization, which on the other hand is a destination.

It's a state of fulfillment where you manifest your potential. And that's that whole thriving thing. You can contribute to the world in a meaningful way. And that way I think you get to a place Where, okay, I've gone through this journey in my life. I've made the mirror a part of my life and I've used it very effectively. And one, that self-awareness piece leads to the self-actualization and you think on the flip side of self-awareness, it's self-obsession. That whole self-obsessed person, that excessive ego, that person who is selfish.

A person who only thinks to themselves That's what happens when you're not self-aware. You turn into a focus on yourself. Without the awareness of self. And, you know, Kylie and I have spoken about this in the past when we've met people who clearly have no self-awareness because they're actually putting their foot in their mouth. They're behaving like complete idiots.

They have no idea of the effect that their behavior is causing because they actually don't understand themselves. They've never taken the path to actually say, how am I being seen to look at that.

And what actions can I take? The behavior and the actions are all upside down. They're all about in a self-obsessed mode. And quite frankly, it's not a sustainable state of being. To be in. So the idea of that mirror is to make it your friend. And when you make the mirror your friend, the whole awareness unlocks performance.

The interesting thing about RISE and what it's trying to achieve is getting to this master in your mindset And getting to the place where mindset determines your mental health your wellness and well-being versus environments affecting and causing your mental health issues or your wellness and well-being not not positive. We are in control of this, but it is so hard in some environments to actually take that control because it's taken away from you.

And a lot of that is that inner game. And that's what we're going to be talking about today is that inner game. But to me, it really starts with that thing that you understand how that awareness can actually have a huge impact on your mindset. And it's those triggers and those reflections that really are the things that you need to control. Another thing I learned from the quest for life that I did when I had my cancer was understanding what I call the four C's, the four C's, which is about control.

Being in salt control but also taking important control of things in your life. The second one was actually having a really big focus on being committed to living, committed to having the best life you can on a day-to-day basis, which is why that intent process is a daily thing. And the third thing is challenges, actually welcoming challenges, taking on challenges, making challenges part of your life because they're stimulating. And the fourth is connection. As a result of all the things that we do as humans, the outcome that we desire is connection. So when you put those things in place, they actually, through that awareness, unlock so much And in this industry, we're all about performance, but performance can be a joy. It doesn't have to be a slog or a grind or a thing that people talk about, you know, that, you know, I've got this grind, I've got to get there, all these things. It's like people who were grinding and doing these things are not mastering their mindset in my view.

So let's look a bit further at this. I talk about thrivers. Every focused thriver starts today with clarity. And it's something I've studied since I did this course and I just find it when I talk to people about what makes you thrive and I find this. They start with clarity. Most people operate on autopilot, unaware of how their mindset affects their results.

And I bet either you're thinking that to yourself right now or you know people in your organisations that are doing that. They're all every day's autopilot. And it's the most inefficient way to be. You simply can't achieve optimum outcomes or can't achieve optimum fulfillment or you can't achieve an optimum thriving life.

If you're trying to work on autopilot because you are just jumping here, there and everywhere. Whereas if you have that focus and that clarity and that awareness. You have a very different day. So daily awareness of triggers, self-reflection and intention setting elevates performance and enhances wellbeing. This is scientific stuff and I won't go into the science behind it all, but it's all recorded In so many reports, so many studies that this is how it is. And that whole sort of, you know, you've probably heard of journaling at the end of the day, that reflection piece as well is a powerful tool.

But this is all about, as I say, it's making the mirror your friend. When you start with the mirror, it enables the next things to happen. And I think also good to qualify that performance isn't just about skills, it's about who you've been, how you've been perceived and what you set out to achieve in a day. And you can see this going straight back to those three things.

Who you've been, how you've been seeing, what are you going to achieve? So those things and the skills that you apply to those in a thing is what actually ends up in the performance space. And it's a mind game. Never believe it's anything else. It's everything in our life is the mind game. And it's up to us to control our mind and to understand the power of our mind. And that's good mental health in action. When you take that view, when you see what it can achieve.

To me, there's not enough focus on what I call the precursor to performance, which is this stuff. It's the mind games. You've got to get your mindset right. Okay, well, how do I get my mindset right? What have I got to do to be in a place where I can take advantage of my mindset, that I can actually leverage my mindset into the things that I want from my life. And I think that stuff is really, really where, as an industry, we've just let it slip. Yes, we're starting to appear. Rise is taking a lead in this to help people get to this place. And I can tell you in my own business, in other businesses that I've been working with, how much this, how effective this is when people open their minds.

The only thing that's stopping them is closed minds. So let's look at a recap. Why the mirror Most people avoid true reflection. There's a 95.5 rule on so many things. You've all heard of the 8020, but there's a 95.5. And the 95.5 is that 95% of people will go to a conference will walk out and do nothing about the conference. 5% will. There's another rule that you you people who go along and have a traumatic experience.

If they don't learn from it, it's 95%, they'll go and repeat the same thing. 5% learn from experiences. Five people apply learnings to say, I don't want that to happen again. But guess what? The majority is the majority. I didn't never want to be in that 95%. I only wanted to be in the 5%, the 5% that get it, the 5% who were prepared to put the work in to actually force the mirror to show that honesty, to take that self-awareness into a clarity piece.

And end up making better decisions and have better habits. Because at the end of the day, every day we're making constant choices, constant choices, constant choices. Some are good, some bad. But when you actually think about the decisions that you're making, how much thought are you putting into them? How much is a decision based on a trigger? How much is a decision based on thoughtful processing and self-awareness? It's a really interesting question I'd love you to ask yourselves. And think about that. So let's think about the mirror reflection exercise.

Each morning, look at the mirror and ask, who am I being today? Confident, focused, intentional. How am I being seen by others? Do my actions align with my how I want to be perceived? Because that's such an important thing. People who are self-obsessed don't see that. And then the third one, as I said, is what am I going to achieve today? Set a clear performance goal. Now, I'm going to keep repeating this. And the reason we keep repeating this is that What I've learned from learning and what I've observed from people who either learn or don't learn is sometimes you miss it the first time. Sometimes you might get a bit of it the second time. By the third and fourth time, it starts to think in.

The fact that we put these things in a confident, focused, intentional, aha, how am I going to be? How am I going to be seen? Do my actions align with how I want to be perceived? And do my actions align with who I am? And what I believe in and what I stand for. Because what people see is ambiguity and falseness and ingenuous behaviour. That's transparent. If we're not in the space where we actually understand what we stand for and who we are.

We're not seeing it, but others are. The body language, so many things, people tripping themselves up and not even realizing it because they're winging it. They're on autopilot. Doesn't allow them to actually at the end of the day, set clear performance goals because they're just in a state of constant confusion. So that's the recap on the mirror. And I hope that really makes sense. I suppose, the foundation of what we're about to embark on.

So let's look at triggers. At the end of the day, triggers are about things that occur in our life. Why are we triggered? And don't forget, triggers are positive. And they're negative. And the interesting thing is the positive triggers have an incredibly positive effect. The negative figures have an incredible negative effect. So we're triggered when something in our environment minds us consciously or unconsciously of an experience, both positive and negative unmet or met needs.

Fear, joy or beliefs. In other words, they're challenging our beliefs or where we arc up about certain things. And you can see what's happening in the United States at the moment. There's a whole lot of belief systems that people believe in based on no facts on fallacy, on all kinds of weird and wonderful stories and dreams and schemes and all the rest of it. Because that's all they believe. So they're so easily triggered because it doesn't fit their agenda. It doesn't fit what they think it is.

So people are triggered in these things And what's the number one thing people do when they're triggered? They react versus responding. And we're going to go in and have a really close look at that. So what effects do trigger happiness? They can hijack our emotional state, shifting us into reactive behavior like anger, withdrawal or anxiety. And I think anxiety when we look at mental health, wellness and well-being, anxiety is one of the big ones. Apart from like putting your foot in your mouth and reacting in a really bad way or being angry and you know there's consequences With that, there's cause and effect. There's all this nasty stuff. The withdrawal and anxiety are the things that have the biggest impact on mental health.

And it's because we've screwed up. We don't like screwing up. We don't like making mistakes. We don't like being exposed for being an idiot. We don't like that stuff. And it all happens when we have these triggers and reactions to that. So it's something that we can control. It's completely and utterly in our power to control that. It's just the fact that we haven't given it a lot of thought.

So let's look at the positive negative triggers. So we've got positive triggers of supportive mentors, past successes, encouragement, eagerness. We know that those things allow us to behave well. And apart from ego getting out of control as a result of a positive boost as a positive trigger. Think about that, you know, when supportive mentors is well done, John. Great job. Your past successes are continuing. You're feeling really good about that. You've got encouragement. They're great triggers. But then you think about the negative triggers, the fear of failure, the self-doubt, the external criticism, the undermining that can occur in any environment. They're the things that really kick us off. They sit right back into the recesses of our beliefs. They sit right back into all the things that we know about ourselves that we don't like, particularly when we don't like them in others, but we show that same behavior, but we actually really don't like it. And it brings it all to the surface.

And the reality is we don't have to do that. There's an incredible change that can occur when you're aware of those triggers. But to do that, you've actually got to go through an exercise of understanding what those triggers are. And we'll do that shortly.

But let's look at a few examples of a leader who is aware of their stress trigger. I can redirect that and their energy into focus and composure. It's a flip. You've just got to go into the flip mode. Stressful situation happening go okay how do I see that we're in an unstressed mode? I'm seeing it in a stress mode because I'm choosing to see things in a stress mode. I'm not choosing to see it in an unstressed mode. I'm immediately reacting and going into stress. And it's the worst state of the human condition. It causes wars. It causes all kinds of, it causes marriages to break up over one thing. That is crazy when you think about it. And it escalates out of control Friendships break up, families break up over one thing. I've got a family member who's husband's family had an argument in a car in Thailand on a holiday and that split the family in half.

It was the most innocuous thing about some kid on an iPad. It split the family in two because everyone triggered and reacted and went nuts. And the reality is, why? Why did that happen? Or it might have been a fractured family, but the reality is for that to actually have that big effect, having spoken to each other for 10 years, you go, wow, what an impact. What an impact on everyone's mental health. What an impact on the kids in the family and all that.

The effect Remember, cause, effect? The effects are horrendous. And they don't have to be. Let's look at another example. The chance to stop thinking and understand the cause of triggers enables us to respond with thoughtfulness and have better and better outcomes. Responding. What's the difference between reacting and responding? Reacting is instantaneous reaction to a situation and usually without any scary of a thought.

Responding? Stop. Breathe, think.

Analyze thoughtful mindfulness, okay, how am I going to respond to this? Park things. Don't react. It was one of my greatest learnings at Quest for Life. Had probably, and I wasn't a big reactionary person, so don't get me wrong. It wasn't something that I was bad at. It just enabled me to have a completely different life afterwards because man, it takes a lot to get me to react now.

It's because I just see everything from this perspective now. And it enables me to see things that other people can't see. It enables me to guide people in a group who might be reacting to something into a actual thoughtful process to create a better outcome. And I think that is something that that if I can leave you with today. Just one thing to do that will enable you to take these other paths to actually go, okay, how's my daily intent? How am I seeing myself in the mirror? All these other things we've talked about today. If you just do that one thing in terms of responding in any situation. Your life will change for the better.

So let's look at how we control our reaction to triggers because that's what it's all about. It's the reaction to triggers. There's positive ones that we can control very easily because they're in a positive mental state. As long as we control the ego. But let's have a look at it.

First, we've got to recognise when you've been triggered. And so it can be the smallest thing that can say blast out into the biggest thing. You can be a property manager or a sales agent. You can be doing marketing in a real estate agency. You could be a financial controller. You can be whatever role it is. It's the people around you, whether they be your colleagues or it's your clients or your customers that trigger you. And oh my God, that's such an idiot. And it escalates everyone drama hooks into it. All because you've done a reaction to something and share this thing that happened to you. And all of a sudden, if you've hijacked the day, everyone's day And everyone gets triggered because they go, oh, I understand you. And yeah, I understand how you feel and No one's paused to reflect because they've just all triggered each other. Boom, boom, boom, boom. It's like firecrackers going off. Doesn't have to happen. It actually changes the productivity of everyone's day so massively. The drama hooks are insane.

Everyone loves a bit of drama because it takes them away from the work they're doing. It distracts them, takes them into a place And at the end of the day, less gets done. And people have bought into a whole lot of Chinese whispers about stuff. It's crazy stuff. So teaching this to your team, getting people to understand that and going, hey. You get two or three people in a group who get it. They quickly shut it down. And it's really important when you have group environments to actually find those people. This is a great one. Observing others being triggered and learning. You can watch it happening and go, oh, okay. Ooh, that's not going well, is it? As soon as you buy into it, you'll support it. But if you observe. You can go and see exactly how it plays out. It's like watching World War Three unfold right in front of you. And you go, oh my God, look at that. That one triggered that person. That triggered that. And it's gone. They're drama hooking everyone in. And you see it on a daily basis in office environments. And it happens even with, oh, I'd come back and have a talk about a client. All of a sudden this client's in the naughty basket in the corner.

It's a crazy sort of thing to think about what can happen as a result of that. So it's very interesting when we start to observe and see what's going on. As to how we can learn from it. So name the emotion and the story behind it. Really important because there is a whole lot of emotion that kicks in. Have you ever seen the emotion wheel?

I think that'd be something we could share with everyone as well. From RISE 2023. There's a lot of emotions, mind you, like 50 emotions that we deal with. But understanding the story behind it, because everyone's got a story behind it. And there's also people who are drama hooking or who are reacting, who have a story behind the reason for their reaction. And that can be used as an excuse. It can be, oh, because this happened, this is happening in my personal life. And everyone gets it, but it's hooked everyone else into something that they didn't need to be hooked into. That person can control that emotion. They can control that reaction by stopping breathing, thinking about what's a thoughtful way to go about this.

Circumstances around how they're feeling due to some personal thing or something else. Shouldn't come into play in this the way it does in our workplaces. And it's probably one of the hardest things that I think leaders find to do. So how do I control that emotional hook? How do I do that? And it's about training. It's simply about saying, hey, guys, have you thought about going about it this way? If you don't go there with them to solve it, just say, you know, that doesn't fit our culture or that doesn't fit our behaviors. That's not us. That's not teaching them how to not do it. It's just sort of laying down the law. So these teachings are really critical. And for those that have got this, we'll be publishing this online so people can use it in their own offices. Because this is the sort of stuff that people need to understand. I can control my behavior. I can control the way I react to things. I can control these things. It's in my power. I'm just not exercising that.

Reframe the situation from a grounded perspective. Being grounded, I think, is one of the big things that came out of my experience. And the fact that I just live my life one day at a time. I don't see tomorrow as part of my life. I see today as part of my life. Yes, I'm planning for the future, all those sorts of things, but I'm living this day the best I can. I'm making the most of this day the best I can. And if that means sleeping all day. No problem. That means going down the beach and surfing and not doing any work. That's great. It's a purposeful decision that I've made to do that. In my life. And it comes from the right place of intention. That's good for my health and for what I need to do in my life.

Realising the effects they cause and creating new intentional responses. I mentioned this affects the cause and effect. Once you see and when you're an observer and you see the effects that they cause, it will change you. It will absolutely change you when you see what's going on around a reactionary environment. And understanding that, hey, we don't need to do this. How do we get to this new intentional response to something? That actually diffuses situations. I always say when people would say, oh, you know, let's do a course on objection handling. And I said, why don't we do a course on not having objections?

Oh, we need to deal with difficult customers. Instead, why don't we have difficult customers? It's this reverse hinch engineering of going Why do we end up in a place where we've got difficult customers? Clearly we haven't. Framed or prepared or given context to our clients in relation to things that we haven't discovered and we haven't got to a place of understanding and agreement and consensus As to what the levels of commitment we're making and where that connection we have with them. Clearly that hasn't happened.

That's why we've got difficult customers. And you're going to have difficult conversations with people because there's a problem. Well, why is that? We haven't framed everything. We haven't set things up to be those things, objections. We haven't got to that place where people understand because we've discovered all the things they need to know. And so this is the whole thing. This is about intentional responses. When you discover, when you connect When you get to that point of understanding, it becomes an entirely different world.

That you're leaving. And then again, developing a daily practice of emotional check-ins Who am I being today, et cetera. You'll keep hearing talk about that because to me, it's the start. When you start that, all this other stuff becomes so much easier.

So let's have a recap on triggers. Triggers shape awareness, awareness shapes performance. Think about that. Triggers shape awareness, be aware of them and that awareness of them and what you're doing about that shapes your performance. It's such an important combination to understand what that means. So the exercise is to think about a time when you performed at your best.

What triggered that stay?

You know then these are my positive triggers. These are the things that make me feel good.

And, you know, it's like I've got four grandkids. The triggers of my grandkids are insane. How they make me feel is at a level that I never thought possible. It's extraordinary and there's such great triggers when they're noisy little blighters, you know, that is about triggering not a reaction, but okay, how's the response to help this child get through what they're going through? And it's a great thing. They are the best tests of all when you look at the environments, they're learning, they're growing, they're doing all these weird, wonderful things in every step of the journey, we can have a positive influence on how they avoid bad triggers and all those sorts of things. So it's really fun when you get to that space.

The other exercise, recall a time when you struggled. What was the trigger? And what was the effect? Now, you notice I've said the effect because… If you look at this, there's a bunch of effects. There's the effect on you. What effect did it have on you? What did it have an effect on your loved ones? What effect did it have on your colleagues? What effect did it have on the clients? All those things. Study the effects. Because once you study the effects and see the enormity of those things, you'll go, okay, I get it now.

I don't want that in my life. I want to behave in a very different set of conversations with people.

So that we don't get to this place where I'm having negative effects and I'm unaware. And I mentioned in, I think, some of the promotion of this was about you know, are you actually enhancing your life or are there things that you're actually undermining your own self by not knowing these things. When you know these things, it's almost like, okay, I really need to understand this stuff and get on top of it.

So recognising the managing triggers is the first step to consistent peace of mind and high performance. I can't stress to you the importance of peace of mind. Because when you think about all those effects that are caused by triggers and behavioural things, when you think about the things that occur when you don't take the time to reflect, don't take the time to understand yourself, don't take the time to understand who you are, what you stand for, what your beliefs are. Don't take the time to think about who you've been or how you've been seen. You don't take the time to think about the activities that you're going to do and the actions you're going to take in a positive way.

You won't get to that peace of mind. You won't get to that place. We talk about self-awareness and self-actualization. That is the great enabler for high performance. And yes, we probably know a lot of people who are high performers and they're not very nice people. And that's just because they do a lot of work and they cut corners and they do other stuff and they trick people. That's their view of high performance. It's not my view of high performance. My view of high performance is thriving, absolutely thriving in a state of fulfillment where you go, I love what I do. I'm really good at it. People appreciate me. And I'm dedicating myself to give people the best outcomes in their lives. And make a difference to their lives. Wow, that's peace of mind. I got to tell you. It's an incredible state of being to be in. And as a result of that.

You perform high in whatever level you want to perform. Format. So now we're going into beliefs. Now, just have a look at what beliefs are first. At least purely mindset, okay? They determine the mindset that you're bringing to any situation. Now, our core beliefs are the good, the bad, and the indifferent. We can learn some great new beliefs that serve us well.

We can carry a lot of old baggage, bad beliefs that may have been instilled by well-meaning grandparent or a parent that that No, maybe in the past that was a good belief to have, but today it doesn't serve. But they still stick in there. And the funny thing about those old beliefs or something you saw on the internet that made sense that had no real context and you grabbed that belief and you took it on as your own mantra or whatever it may be without really understanding what it actually meant. They're the things that when you get triggered that come to the fore. And they work against you. And they're really things to be careful of. And then I say indifferent. The indifferent beliefs are the ones where no thought's gone into them. They're pretty vanilla sort of concepts that really either hold, mostly hold you back because they're limiting beliefs. And I call them indifferent because they have this sort of ambivalent effect. And that limiting belief on that really is something that stops people growing. It fits into this whole package of beliefs but the only true beliefs are good ones. So let's have a look deeper at that.

Cracking the mindset on this. It's code. And that code is a choice. You're either choosing to say, okay, how do I create the best mindset I can have. And the reality of that is that you have to ask yourself. Are my beliefs serving me well or causing me conflict? And it's a really good exercise to do because you can have beliefs that you think and pride, a lot of pride beliefs of those that you've got sort of a pride issue that gets challenged and therefore it's such a hard thing.

My pride was damaged. And it's just like Was it a good pride belief or was it a bad pride belief? Is it causing conflict because you constantly, you know. Your pride's getting in the way of stuff. So it's causing conflict. Reassess it and ask yourself, are these serving me well? And the same as staying on track. It's a choice. We know that when people stay on track, they have a whole bunch of non-negotiable standards that they follow.

They're not winging it. They're not going on autopilot. They're actually staying on track because they follow non-negotiable standards. And those non-negotiable standards really come down to a whole range of things around their character. Who they are, who they've been. And character is a word, I've got to tell you, it's one of the most powerful words that I look for in people to work with me. What's their character? What's their essence? Is it someone that I can really feel will embrace change and embrace progression and embrace innovation and embrace all these things?

Is their character strong enough to do that or is their character weak? And we'd say, I understand the concept of staying in your lines in the sand. I call them lines in the sand because it's like a palm tree. The palm tree can bend a little bit in the wind, but as soon as the wind goes too strong, it cracks and falls over. But some people take it to the limits Before it snaps and they go way outside their lines in the sand because their character's not sound. They haven't determined who they are and what they stand for. And so staying on track is those things. I'm following this through and this is the lane I'm in. Elaine has two lane ropes, right? And that's why I say I call them the lines in the sand.

You follow that lane. And you follow it through and you follow through with your non-negotiable standards and you set those in place.

So let's look at shifty mindsets because at the end of the day In my view, all the training I do is around this. It's around shifting mindsets, whether it be skills training, whether it be strategy training, whatever it is, it's about shifting a mindset from One way of thinking to another way of thinking. And that's an open mindset to understand what is possible. Let's have a look at a few things. First of all, ask yourself, what if I? And I've got to tell you, again, scientific research, this particular question is one of the most powerful things that you can ask because it puts an actualization at the end of it.

What if I do this? What will happen right? What if I do what will happen? And until you actually go through that exercise. And go, okay, well, this is what will happen. In other words, that whole effect: What's the outcomes we're talking about here? It's really important. What if I replace limiting beliefs with performance and standards driven counter thoughts. What if I do that? What would happen? What if I stop chasing external validation and start creating internal alignment? In other words, I'm aligned with my values, I'm aligned with the character that I have around those values. I'm aligned with the standards that I set in place and my non-negotiable standards of operation.

And I do these things to make sure that my manner and method is aligned with who I am. Who am I being? How am I being seen? What am I doing? This is my manner and method that enables that whole internal alignment. So having that morning in 10 practice is an example. Mirror, check in and then journaling at the end of the day.

These things help you stay in alignment. Make sure, particularly when you journal and you look at some things that might have gone off track or some things that you felt, oh, really, that wasn't really me. I need to address that. That whole end of day reflection. Did my actions align with who I wanted to be? Really important question to ask because that's your whole internal alignment, who I wanted to be or who I am is another way of looking at that.

And then once you ask those questions, it gives you the opportunity to what if I surround myself with high standards? What if I surround myself with people, habits and mindsets that are high standards instead of quick corner cutting. People are looking for the fastest way to get from A to B, or sorry, A to Z, but they forget they've got to go through the whole alphabet to get there. I see it all the time. Oh, I don't have to do that for that client. I don't have to do that. I can cut that out. I can miss this. And it always leads to tears. So if you ask yourself that, what if I do surround myself with high standards? And these are the things that I surround myself with people of high standards. People of high standards and habits that actually work well for them. Set of bad habits that work against them. And people with the right mindsets.

Have high standards to do these things what if In other words, what if what would happen, what's possible? Until we do those exercises, we never, ever know. And people who don't do them are just constantly in that autopilot winging it mode. And it's not sustainable. Sustainability is the key to this thriving exercise. Thriving is not a destination. It's really important to understand that. It's not a place where you land and, oh, I'm thriving, everything's great. It's a journey where you're going, I'm wanting to get to this place where I am feeling great about myself. And my achievements and my achievements As a result, as you well know, that feeling, those endorphins that you get from that are the greatest counter to mental health issues. They're the greatest thing for you to take action and have habits and to stay healthy both mentally and physically.

These are the things that stop people when they don't go there from getting to these places, this journey that's on your life and thriving to get to this place where you can have fulfillment. And you can then move into that self-actualization, which is that whole getting into that selfless space where you actually are doing things for others. And as a result of that all this wonderful stuff comes back to you, which is a little bit selfish, but it's great selfish because you're actually doing good for people and it makes you feel great. And what I've found in my life, the more I've done that, the more I've received as well. It's an incredible feeling. The joy of giving is three times the joy of receiving. And so what's great is when you give and then you receive stuff back from people And just whether it's just Hanks or whatever it may be my you know It's quite true in the giving, but then you get this extra bonus. So you get three of those and one of those

Everyone's happy in that situation. So again, shifting your mindset is very much a choice. So let's look now. At a little bit of a practical application of this. So understanding the mindset principles of success. What is it about that? I've distilled this down to these two things. It's the why and it's the way.

And I'll throw in here a quote from the castle when asked about the Constitution and the lawyer says it's the vibe. For those old enough to know the castle, you'll understand what I'm talking about. It's all about the vibe. And this is what this is about. It's about the vibe. It's why we do what we do and it's the way we go about it. And this whole of getting to a place where your personal and professional standards and values align is such an important thing that you're not being two different people, you're being this one person and your professional standards, your personal standards align and everyone knows, whether it be in your personal life or in your professional life, who you are. And what you stand for. You're the good guys. People just said, oh, you're the good guys. I love that. I absolutely love that. People say, oh, we've heard about you. You're the good guys. And it just kept coming. And it was like, oh, what's the rest of the industry?

It was really quite interesting. I've heard about you guys, heard about you. You guys do things very differently. And all these things that you want both personally and professionally. To align so that people know who you are and what you stand for. This is about defining those lands in the sand that are the lines of the sound that I mentioned. Know them, live by them. Make sure that you follow through with them. Because that's your behavior. That's how you're seen. And all these things are part of your why. In other words, your purpose and your character.

Purpose and character are intertwined. You bring your character to your purpose and your purpose drives you why you do what you do. I think I mentioned earlier about what drives me now, what my purpose is, what I bring to other people's lives, making a difference, enhancing those lives. Building careers for people through the business, supporting my community through so many initiatives. In so many areas. That's my why. It gives me purpose when it's based around my character. And then your way.

And my why was such an important thing in my real estate sales career. It was all about how I operated. Which was my manner. In other words, how I dealt with people and the method that I used to do what I did. My matter and my method were transparent. My manner was how I went about performing my method and my method made complete and utter sense to my clients. So in other words, I didn't have to have difficult conversations. I didn't have to manage objections or cover objections My manner and method had covered that off to get to me a place where we were on the same page.

I called it a joint venture. We did business with clients as a joint venture. We're on the same page. We're in this together. It's like a partnership. We want to make sure that we are on the same page because otherwise we're going to be heading in different directions. And that was all about manner and method. That's the way. So that, when you get the why and the way together They enable you to live in a state of flow and ease. And I love being in a state of flow and ease. This last thing I want in my life is stress. And it's a choice whether I take on that stress or not. So I have to be in flow. I have to be in that zone where I understand what's going on. I have to be at ease with people. I have to do these things to get to a place where, ah, you're so calm, you're so collected, all those things.

That's because I've chosen to do that. How have I chosen to do that? By applying my way. And my why and being absolutely crystal clear on what my standards are. There's no room for ambiguity. There's no room in there for things not being clear. Clarity is my great outcomer for clients and customers to make great decisions. That's what I see what we do. We enable people and help people to make great decisions. When they make great decisions for them, we get rewarded. It's not about what's in this for me. Always mean to me it's about whether it be in sales or property management, whether it be internally with my team, it's about how do we get the best outcomes.

For everyone. So I see this as a summary. There's two parts you can choose in this industry. Sustainable success with clear intent and standards. And again, I'm not talking about sales pm marketing operations. I'm talking about everything, right? And I've done this talk for people outside of real estate because it's exactly the same. There's no difference. This is about the life you're going to lead. Clear intent standards. Define disciplines and flow in your life.

Commitment to action, a superior manner and method. That's the sustainable success model. Otherwise, you're looking at the fake it till you crash. Avoidance and blame, no intent or standards, excuses, denials, no disciplines, avoidance. Corner cutting, no commitment. That is the life a lot of people live. And I imagine the people who are on this webinar are sitting in that first bucket. But my God, the majority of the industry sits in the second one. It's extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary, the stupidity that takes place. And how people go through this journey without actually any consideration or intent about what they're doing. So they're the choices you can choose. So in summary go through what we've just gone through. Triggers, awareness, intent, performance. They lead to it. Mirrors your daily intent performance check-in, not just a reflection.

Your success and wellbeing are built into who you choose to be, how you show up and what you achieve daily. Again, here it is, I think, for the fourth time, it's going to constantly be there.

And let's look at the final challenge, seven day challenge, mirror intent challenge. And I hope a lot of you do this. And I would love if you could If you do do this, send me the outcomes after seven days. Each morning, stand in front of the mirror and ask, who am I being today? How am I being seen? And what am I going to achieve? Try that. And once you do the achievement, you write it down, obviously. But write down those things and just let me know what effect it had on you in seven days' time. And that sort of will be something that then you can potentially then teach others to do. But I will again ask you to think about sharing this video.

With people to get them into this place where they can actually take control of their lives, take a position where they're in control of what they do and how they do it. Exercising self-control. Making sure that they are absolutely committed to living the best life, making sure that challenges are not rejected, they're welcomed and that all this is about finding solutions to challenges rather than problems. And then as a result, having those connections in their life that they really want that work for them through their family, their colleagues, their community and their planet.

So I'm going to leave you with this last quote. You shouldn't become successful. You don't, sorry, you don't become successful and have a thriving life by accident. You achieve that by intention, reflection and action. So thank you, everyone. If there are any questions. I think what we need to do here is to pop them in the chat if there's anything or unmute yourself and ask me a question. Is that something we can do Kylie or Okay, but if there's anything in the chat

Kylie:

We can't unmute people, but we can definitely know it's a webinar feature, but definitely if you've got any questions pop them into the chat.

Thank you, John. I personally found that awesome. It was exactly what I needed to hear at the moment today. And I think.

John:

I'm glad because you think you wanted something like that.

Kylie:

And I think I can think of about 12 people that I can send it to already

John:

Before you talk to them, say, hey, I want you to have a look at this.

Kylie:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If anyone's got any questions, please reach out. We'll just give a few minutes to just a little minute. I am down to about 15% battery, so I'm also glad we made it. I was terrified I would drop out.

John:

No.

Kylie:

I think when we kicked off, everybody was watching me be triggered because at our first webinar this year we had a terrible issue getting everyone onto the call and I was getting So our late start stopped me, triggered me. So apologies for making everyone watch that.

John:

Don't worry. I think I just want to say to everyone thanks so much for joining in.

Kylie:

Well, John, I think, yeah.

John:

It was a bit intense, a lot in there, but I think there's some fundamental simple messages that people can action as a result of that. And I've got to tell you again this this process is such a journey of discovery for most people. And I've done this presentation for people who I thought were really quite centered and figured it out and they said to me, oh God, that was such an eye-opener. And it's simply because there were so many components of it they hadn't thought about. And the effect that it has. So hopefully everyone will get some benefit and the webinar comes live, we'll let you know.

Kylie:

So one of the questions, John, that we've had is from Lissette who wanted to know where could we go to find out more? Has there been any books or reading or people that has inspired you to this way of thinking?

John:

I will send you a couple of things through RISE. We'll send that out to everyone that have been instrumental but The reality is most of what I do is by experience like and i have to say the quest for life component which is Patria King and there's a book called Quest for Life that Patria wrote. And it's mainly directed at people who are going through a serious trauma in their life. And those four things that I mentioned about control, commitment, challenges and connection are what's called a survivor's creed. They're things that… They teach in the SAS, for example. They talk about the people who have life-threatening issues or have been severely traumatized through war or whatever it may be.

They understand that because that's what got them to live the life post the trauma. And Patria talks about that a lot in the book. And I have to say a lot of this, learned from Patria. Because she was given a six month diagnosis to live. She ended up going to Italy and lived in a cave for six months at a monastery and walked out cancer-free. And it's all scientifically recorded. And, you know, she went into meditative fasting state and did all these incredible things, to beat cancer. And it was a cancer that um the success rate's pretty low. Right. So she… learn a lot of things and actually spent her life helping others through that journey. But there's a few other things as well I'll pass on. That I think would be relevant. But again, it's mostly been from observation self-learning. And I mentioned watching people observing people being triggered. I've done a lot of observing through my life. And yes, I can talk the leg off a chair. But a lot of my time is not spent talking. It's observing. And often I'll not do something in a meeting then I'll talk And it's because I want to understand the room I'm in.

Kylie:

Hmmm.

John:

And so it's interesting I was talking to someone I spoke to at Leanne's Lane Simmons conference on the weekend. Someday we're talking about the election result. And someone said to me, I think I understand what happened primarily and that was Penny didn't know how to read a room. And I thought, wow, what a really interesting summary. In other words, he didn't know how to read the Australian population. And then I started thinking back on various leaders in the past and the ones that have really blown it. And it was like SCOMO didn't even know what room to go in. And Tony Abbott didn't know what a room was.

And he goes through, I just picked a few out there. That's the situation, isn't it? We're dealing with a whole range of people who are not great observers of the condition, the human condition and how people respond and react and those sorts of things. So I think it's great to sort of find that out because I think it's the precursor to everything we do. It's the precursor to leadership, but I just don't think there's enough leadership understanding on this because until you understand people And people who don't get the mirror or don't understand triggers and are completely oblivious to the whole belief systems. They're never going to progress. And to me, it's the first step of progressing.

Kylie:

Fantastic. Well, look, John, I'm just a little bit mindful of time, but thank you. That was absolutely awesome. Thank you, everyone who has joined us on the call. We will get from John some of those recommendations and when we send out the email with the video linked in it, we'll share them in that email as well.

John:

Absolutely. Yep.

Kylie:

And also when we pop it onto the RISE website. So thank you, everyone. A very big thank you to our friends at MRI Software who are the sponsors of the wellness webinars. We have our wellness webinars free on the first Wednesday of every month so we've got, I think Jet Xavier is up next month. So please join us. We've got some new ones that we'll be locking in for the rest of the year. We've got a whole calendar of stuff coming up. So love to see you there and everyone keep on rising. Thanks, guys.

John:

Thank you!