Keynote Speaking from Christian Simpson

In my last message I shared powerful and indisputable research that revealed just how much Emotional Intelligence (EQ) influences success in the modern world.

To recap, extensive research in the United States and Canada has shown that Emotional Intelligence contributes between 27% and 45% to success, dwarfing the 6% average contribution of IQ.

If you’re not rethinking your beliefs around your potential and what you’re capable of, you should be.

Emotional Intelligence is inherent within us all, there are no exceptions. EQ needs no development, we do in order for it to be expressed into our personal and professional lives.

In the book ‘The Millionaire Mind’ by best-selling author Thomas Stanley, a survey of 733 multi-millionaires revealed some insightful findings.

When asked to rate the factors (out of 30) most responsible for their success, the top five were:

• Being honest with people
• Being well disciplined
• Getting along with people
• Having a supportive spouse
• Working harder than most people

All 5 are reflections of emotional intelligence. Cognitive intelligence (IQ) was endorsed by only 20 % of millionaires, and was 21st on the list. It was even lower when lawyers and physicians were removed from the list.

Do you grasp the implication?

I urge you to consider the information and research I’ve shared in the last two articles very carefully, because it is literally life-changing.

Wayne Dyer said that when we change the way we look at things the things we look at change. What does this unquestionable research reveal to you about you? What do the statistics reveal to you about your potential?

Some years ago, whether you’re aware of it or not, you acquired a belief system from the academic world and society as a whole that your success in the world was largely if not entirely dependent upon your level of IQ.

It is not true.

The legacy of that belief will be apparent in some if not all aspects of your life today. Where do you sell yourself short? What’s the dream that doesn’t go away (you know, the one that you’ve become an expert in dismissing as a ‘fantasy’)?

What is it that you’d love to do today that you’re always talking yourself out of doing?

Whatever it is, just do it. Life isn’t a practice run. You are much more than you think you are, and you’re capable of much more than you believe.

Today, based on the extensive evidence I have shared with you, I ask you to take some time to consider this message very deeply.

Recognise where you self-sabotage and the self-talk that stops you taking action. This internal mind-chatter is not generated by you, it’s the product of an inherited belief system.

Recognise it and re-evaluate it in light of who you truly are and what you are really capable of. It has robbed you of your potential for long enough.

This process alone will drag the belief that keeps your untapped potential incarcerated into the light of consciousness, a place that a belief system cannot withstand and remain as is.

By this process, your existing belief about the limits of your potential will be modified.

As a consequence, this newly discovered self-awareness begins to express itself by improving the quality of thinking that precedes the behaviours that determine the quality of your life experience. This is the process responsible for quantifiable and lasting improvements in results.

This week it became ‘official’; the UK is back in recession. Whether you’re in the UK or not, there couldn’t be a more poignant time to provide you with scientifically validated reasons for being very optimistic about your future.

I’ll begin by stating the obvious: the name of the game is success. Whatever your personal definition of success is, you want more of it, and if you want more of something it’s very good practice to discover what causes it.

Here’s the problem: if we think we already know something, we tend not to be inquisitive about it, so we fail to question our assumptions.

Whether you’re aware of this or not, a lot of ideas about success, your worthiness of it, how it can be achieved and how well equipped you are to create it has been acquired from the opinion of others.

Throughout our lives we’re surrounded by influential sources that are given credibility and authority by us, such as parents, family, friends, peers, schoolteachers, religionists, bosses and the media. They’ve all had a part to play in shaping the view you hold of yourself, other people and the world.

Unfortunately, just because many of these sources are well meaning doesn’t make them well informed.

For example, there’s the education system. At 11 years of age I had my IQ (intellectual quotient) assessed ahead of sitting the entry examination for grammar school. I can’t recall which IQ test I took but I do recall being told I had an IQ score of 126.

Apparently that’s above average, meaning I was worthy of sitting the examination for grammar school. Two months later I failed the test.

The result is irrelevant to this message but the implication of the process isn’t. Do you grasp it? You should, because it has a major implication on your life.

Why? Because you’ve been horribly misled.

At some point in the past it’s very likely that someone given authority in your life gave you the idea that your IQ score represented your potential.

Because the source of this information was granted credibility, and the idea was validated by a 100-year-old cultural belief that IQ is the true measurement of human potential, it’s likely to have been accepted without question. It’s also likely that the idea has remained unchallenged ever since.

So let’s challenge it with some scientifically validated facts about IQ:

1. Studies have shown that IQ is responsible for between ONLY 1 and 20% of workplace success in the modern economy, depending on the role concerned. On average, it contributes only 6%.

2. IQ is pretty much set and peaks at the age of 18. It then remains constant throughout life and decreases in old age.

The implication is obvious: IQ does not and cannot predict success in the modern world, does not represent the true nature of your potential, and has far less impact on your ability to succeed than you probably imagine.

Research by Richard K Wagner, published in American Psychologist in October 1997, revealed that between 91% and 96% of job performance and life success was due to other factors outside of cognitive ability (IQ).

What are those factors, and how do they shape up in light of the previous scientific facts about IQ?

For now, let’s explore just one: EQ (emotional intelligence)

1: Research has found that EQ is directly responsible for between 27 and 45% of job performance and success in broader life.

2: EQ is not fixed. A 2012 study by MHS of almost 4,000 people in Canada and the US concluded that EQ rises steadily from late teens to around 70 where, without deliberate development, it wanes slightly and then remains constant. The pattern is mirrored in both genders.

So here’s why you should feel very optimistic about your future:

1: What has been used historically as the primary indicator of your potential isn’t as relevant as you believe it is. IQ has a part to play in success, however that part is dramatically over-estimated.

2: What IS important to measure about your ability to succeed probably hasn’t been (if you’d like to have your existing EQ levels assessed and validated please contact me at christian@christiansimpson.co.)

3: You can and should accelerate your Emotional Intelligence and I’ll expand on how in later messages, but in the meantime understand this very important point: emotional intelligence is already inherent within all of us. It needs no development; we need to develop in order to express it into our lives.

These are the reasons why you should be very optimistic about your future.

In my next message, I’ll provide further research that supports why, with improving EQ, you should be incredibly optimistic, despite what the economy and media is telling you.

In the interim, remain focused on your potential, not your existing performance. It’s a strategy that will reward you handsomely in life.

For most of my adult life I just didn’t get Easter. It always felt like a poor substitute for Christmas. Apart from the chocolate celebration as a kid, and the extra few days off work when working for someone else, Easter had little meaning for me.

And then, 3 years ago, during a difficult period of monumental change in my life, I was given a different perspective of what Easter is really about.

Now I should point out that I’m not a religious man. You’re not about to get a sermon here. Despite a rich and diverse Christian upbringing (hence my name), at the age of twelve I made the decision to distance myself from religion, disillusioned by the teachings and dogma relating to God and Jesus Christ, none of which rang true for me.

If you’ve had a similar upbringing you’ve probably heard the Easter story a hundreds of times over, and perhaps, like me, the real meaning of it was never revealed to you.

Easter is about transformation.

Its lesson reveals the power within us and the process of change in our lives, when we let go of the old and welcome in the new.

Good Friday represents the day when your old life dies. This is the day where you finally let go and shed the old thought patterns, habits, beliefs and behaviours that have kept you chained to the unwanted results you’ve been experiencing in your life until this point in time.

Easter Sunday represents the beginning of your new life, where more productive, empowering thoughts, feelings and actions are experienced to bring about the changes you’ve intended for your life for so long. These are the changes that underpin a more rewarding, fulfilling and meaningful life in relation to whatever success looks like for you.

And then there’s Saturday. The day in-between the most celebrated days of Easter that very few people consider has any meaning at all, and yet, ironically, it brings about the greatest lesson of all.

Saturday is the day in limbo, where the old life is sacrificed and the new one has yet to begin. It’s where we experience the uncertainty, doubt, fear and worry that accompany change. It’s the uncomfortable experience of being in-between the life we led and the life we aspire to lead, the life that was comfortable yet unfulfilling and the life of growth, reward and fuller expression that is feared because it’s unknown.

The Easter story holds up a mirror to remind us that we are all blessed with the ability to recreate ourselves anew in any given moment.

It brings the understanding that change has a process, that in order to achieve something of a higher value in our lives we must first be willing to let go of what we’ve decided has a lower value.

It reveals to us that bringing about change in our lives is, for a time, an uncomfortable experience, but the discomfort is only fleeting, and the reward so much greater. With courage, persistence, faith and understanding of the process, we are all capable of resurrecting ourselves in the grandest vision we choose for our lives.

What could this new perspective of the Easter story bring to your life?

What’s the dream for you that doesn’t go away, the one that keeps re-emerging from time to time into your consciousness, the one you’ve been talking yourself out of for months, years, even decades?

How has Saturday, the day of limbo, sabotaged your success in the past because you lacked the understanding of what it represented?

And what do you need to let go of today in order to welcome the good you aspire to into your life?

I urge you to consider these questions deeply in the light of your new perspective. Remember the true meaning of Easter every time you’re facing change and intending for greater experiences in your life.

You are a creative being, constantly in the process of creating your life experience. With a deeper understanding of what ancient wisdom was articulating to us all, beyond the dogma and misrepresentations, you are gifted with an awareness of how to step into your potential and reinvent your life experience.

Enjoy a wonderful Easter with your loved ones.

There’s a daily habit that over 97% over the population engage in that is literally killing them.

Such is the dedication of people to this habit that it not only prevents the average person from improving their personal and professional lives, it literally, over time, poisons the body at the cellular level and its effects are virtually irreversible.

I’m not referring to smoking, drinking alcohol or taking drugs, although they are typical symptoms of this habit.

I’m talking about something far more subtle, something deeply unconscious that is so entrenched in our cultural DNA that very few people question its impact.

I’m talking about our hypnotic fascination with the news generating media.

Stay with me, because this could be the most important message you’ll read this year.

My last message, about the murder of Kristy Bamu and the power of our beliefs, created quite a stir. A lot of people found it a powerful lesson and wrote thanking me, however, some wrote to say they found its message far too brutal, with several mentioning how disturbing it was to read it ‘on a Sunday’.

If not surprised I was certainly intrigued by the reaction, because the first half of the email, the hard-hitting brutal description of what had happened to Kristy Bamu, was purposefully taken directly from a newspaper report published that Sunday.

I’ll bet my bottom dollar that most of the people who chose to write to me had read a newspaper that day. Could it be that we’ve become so anaesthetised by the onslaught of negative broadcasting that we only become sensitive to it when it’s received through an unfamiliar channel?

Think about it. I know people who can’t stand being around negative, whinging people for long, and yet they still religiously read the paper and watch the news.

We’ve become so programmed that we never question it. 97% of the adult population at some point in the day will read a newspaper or watch the news. It’s a cultural obsession.

Take a typical commute into a major city you’ll witness the power of this programming for yourself. Trains are awash with people immersed in newspapers and news apps on smart phones and tablets.

Walk into a typical corporate setting and you’ll find LCD TV’s on the wall with a constant feed from 24 Hour News channels.

Ask people why they need to read a paper and watch the news and they’ll tell you how important it is to keep up to date with what’s going on the world, and yet the news doesn’t reflect what’s going on in the world, it reports on what sells.

The media broadcasts and publishes negativity, because bad news is good business. The masses are programmed to want it. Consequently, very few people ever question its validity or the impact it has on their lives.

I’ll give you a great example of how bad this is. On a recent trip to Toronto, Canada a newspaper headline caught my eye because it read:

Jobless rate drops BUT…

It then went onto list a myriad of figures relating to increases in crime and other negative aspects of society.

The media is given unconscious authority in our lives and I assure you it’s having a massively detrimental impact on your ability to create greater success in your life and your intellectual, emotional and spiritual health.

Our obsession with the daily news is one of the strongest examples of ‘generational’ conditioning, habits that have been around for so long that they’re never brought into question.

For example, who says drinking tea and coffee is good for you? How many young children do you know who yearn for a caffeine kick first thing in the morning? No, it’s just a matter of time until the environment impresses the idea often enough so it becomes fixed in the mind and second nature to the child. And that’s exactly the point, it is their ‘second’ nature, manufactured by environment rather than what comes naturally.

Society is now aware of the disasterous implications of smoking. We now know that if you draw on a cigarette you’re ingesting a concoction of over 400 harmful chemicals that poison the body that will, over time, create disease and kill.

It’s the consequence of a natural law exerting itself, the law of cause and effect, and it applies as much to what you allow into your mind as it does with your body.

Think about this very seriously, because what you engage in on a daily basis compounds and ultimately create the outcomes you experience in your life.

The only reason we’ve become aware of the dangers of smoking is because we were willing to question it.

Whether you are aware of it or not, the impact of the media’s constant stream of negativity is harming you and your life. If we can’t feel heat in the cold or experience light in darkness, what makes us think we can experience positive outcomes in our lives from a constant stream of negative inputs?

How can we expect to be resourceful and empowered to create positive results in our lives if we’re constantly subjecting ourselves to a never-ending bombardment of negativity?

Remember, it’s not what’s on your mind that matters, it’s what’s in it. The unconscious belief systems that operate outside of your awareness are calling the shots when it comes to creating the results you experience in your life.

We are all constantly in the process of creation, unfortunately for the vast majority of us, we’re doing so unconsciously.

Our beliefs are constructed entirely from ideas from external sources that we have granted authority to, either consciously or unconsciously. Parents, teachers, peers, bosses they’ve all had a part to play in shaping our beliefs, and the most powerful manipulators of all are religions and the media.

The implication of continuing to ignore the impact of the news generating media on your life is significant. In the short term it may only be your potential that becomes liquidated. If that’s not a high enough price to pay, there is now substantial research into the biology of belief, how our unconscious belief systems dictate the health of our bodies at a cellular level.

97% of the population are not only at risk of believing themselves into mediocre, unfulfilled lives, but also illness and death.

I urge you to become far more conscious of how much news you absorb. If you read a daily paper or watch broadcasts, I recommend that you stop. I assure you, if the story’s important enough and has relevance to your personal and professional life, you’ll find out about it.

Become diligent of what you’re allowing into your consciousness, and I assure you, your world will improve in a very short amount of time. You don’t have to take my word for it, take a steer from one of the wisest men to have ever lived, the Buddha, who simply said: ‘be vigilant: guard your mind against negative thoughts’.