Nigel Cumberland - 100 Things Successful People Do

THINGS SUCCESSFUL
PEOPLE DO

NIGEL CUMBERLAND

This book is dedicated to my son, Zeb, and to all those working to create a meaningful and unique life filled with successfully accomplished dreams.

Nobody can build the bridge for you to walk across the river of life, no one but you yourself alone. There are, to be sure, countless paths and bridges and demigods which would carry you across this river; but only at the cost of yourself; you would pawn yourself and lose. There is in the world only one way, on which nobody can go, except you: where does it lead? Do not ask, go along with it.

Friedrich Nietzsche

We all know the person we want to be. Unfortunately, its not always easy to be that person every day of our lives. Were all made up of habits and subject to triggers that shape our behaviour; sometimes they work for us and sometimes against us. Successfully navigating this complex minefield to become the person you aspire to be can be challenging.

Nigels latest book can help.

It sets out an inspiring and practical code for successful living and working in the twenty-first century. Inside these pages youll find a powerful reminder of the many ways you can make your life and other peoples lives more successful at work, at home, in your relationships, with your health, wealth and in retirement. It will help you identify what success means to you and give you the building blocks for making that success a reality.

Nigel is certified and trained in my Stakeholder Centered Coaching process a feedback-based process that can help anyone achieve their chosen life and work goals. The 100 ideas and activities collected here have been carefully selected and designed to help you do the same.

Just as I point out in my recent book, Triggers: Creating Behavior That LastsBecoming the Person You Want to Be, the difference between success and failure is as simple and as hard as mastering the behavioural triggers that shape us. The insights and actions Nigel proposes here go hand in hand with that message. But reading alone isnt enough. You need to act on them, so I urge you to follow through with the activities and exercises.

At the start of this foreword I said that we all know the person we want to be, but being that person is hard. This is your chance to overcome whatever obstacles are stopping you.

Read it, act on it and experience the difference.

Marshall Goldsmith Ph.D., best-selling author of Triggers

Dr Marshall Goldsmith has been recognized by the American Management Association as one of 50 great thinkers and business leaders who have impacted the field of management over the past 80 years and by Business Week as one of the most influential practitioners in the history of leadership development. Marshall has been recognized as the number-one Leadership Thinker in the World and among the top five Most Influential Business Thinkers in the World, as well as the number-one executive coach at the 2015 biennial Thinkers50 awards ceremony in London.

Nigel Cumberland is the co-founder of The Silk Road Partnership, a leading global provider of executive coaching and leadership training solutions to some of the worlds leading organizations. He has lived and worked in locations as diverse as Hong Kong, Budapest, Santiago, Shanghai and Dubai, experience that has helped teach him what it takes to succeed in life.

Previously, Nigel worked as a multinational finance director with Coats plc as well as for some of the worlds leading recruitment firms including Adecco. In addition, he co-created an award-winning recruitment firm based in Hong Kong and China, which he later sold to Hays plc. Educated at Cambridge University, UK, Nigel is an extensively qualified executive coach and leadership training professional. He is the author of a large number of management and leadership books among the most recent of which are: Secrets of Success at Work: 50 Techniques to Excel (Hodder & Stoughton, 2014), Finding and Hiring Talent In a Week (John Murray Learning, 2016) and Leading Teams In a Week (John Murray Learning, 2016).

Nigel is married to an amazing woman named Evelyn who works as a successful artist. He has two wonderful children a son, Zeb, and a stepdaughter, Yasmine.

What does success mean to you? What kind of success would you like in your life?

Success is the accomplishment of any number of possible aims, dreams, aspirations or goals.

Its very personal and unique to you. Your greatest desire could be someone elses idea of hell; you might want to be an award-winning chef while your best friend hates cooking.

To be able to look back and say I lived a successful life means successfully pursuing a myriad of aims and goals.

This book is your guide to accomplishing them, from your largest and most audacious through to the smallest and most mundane.

Think about it now. What does success look like?

Getting promoted?

Flourishing in a new leadership role at work?

Losing weight?

Jogging every evening?

Becoming a published author?

Retiring in good health?

Bringing up your children well and seeing them create their own families?

Being at peace?

Paying off your mortgage in full?

Gaining a particular qualification?

Following your heart without regrets?

Having wonderful people in your life?

Learning a foreign language?

Recovering from a serious illness?

Saving a particular amount of money?

Loving your work and never feeling stressed doing it?

Being happy and content with what you have?

These are just suggestions based on goals I hear from the clients I coach. Take time out now to write down your own list. Dont edit yourself and dont worry about what order the ideas come to you in. Just them flow out in a stream of consciousness.

Your list probably seems pretty endless and one thing is for certain it will change with each passing day. You may succeed in reaching the summit of one mountain only to have fresh insights about other mountains. Mountains you didnt even know were there. Priorities and dreams change.

The 100 chapters that follow will help you achieve any kind of success you can imagine. The ideas relate to all areas of your work and life:

work and career

relationships and parenting

personality and character

wealth and finances

health and peace

learning and studying

retirement and legacy.

Every chapter features a new idea that will help you get closer to your goals. The ideas are introduced and explained on the first page, while the second page features exercises and activities, small and large, that you can start doing today to give you the optimal mindset, habits and behaviours you need to maximize your chances of success.

Some of the activities will be new to you; some will seem like common sense. Either way, its really important that you do them. They are designed to help you form new habits and program your mental software to help you achieve success. Few people do these things in a conscious or deliberate way. Successful people do.

You will discover activities for now and activities for later depending on whats happening in your life right now. If an idea or activity doesnt apply to whats happening to you, set it aside and return to it at a later date.