Are you busy or productive?

Hemmingway said "Never mistake motion for action."

Working hard is not nearly as effective as working productively.

Happy Christmas!

Claire Brooker

Do you want a happy and enjoyable Christmas?

Christmas should be, we are told, a time of joy and fun - but for many it never quite works out that way. Why not try these top tips, taken from my Stress Free Christmas CD, to make sure you do have a Happy Christmas!

Festive stress
For most people Christmas stresses fall into one of two groups:
Other people
Overwhelmed

Other people
The stress around this can be enormous at Christmas time. One of the easiest things to deal with differently is those people who you find can easily upset or annoy you.
If someone is difficult to deal with (it’s not always the mother-in-law!) try these tips:
1) Stay calm. Take a deep breath in and remind yourself of something deeply relaxing - a beach holiday, a walk in the forest etc. The chances are they don’t really mean to upset you; so let it go. If they do mean to be mean, then they’re probably not having a great Christmas, so you can just feel sorry for them, and remember: is their opinion that important?
2) Funny fish head: Imagine every time they say something that usually upsets you, you imagine they have a large fish sitting on their head, and it’s just flapping around as they talk. Notice how that changes how seriously you take what they say.

Overwhelmed
This can take many forms, worrying about catering, shopping, present buying, Christmas cards, entertaining and so on. Often these take over so much that there's no fun to be had, no time to relax or to enjoy your friends and family. This can of course then lead to resentful arguments about how nobody helped.
There are some simple solutions:
1) Ask. If you want help ask for it. Now, it won’t always be given but so often people don’t even ask - expecting it will ‘be obvious’ to everyone that they should lend a hand. Make it easier this year by requesting some help.
2) Bite size pieces: If you yourself saying phrases like “there's TOO/SO much to do” then pause for a moment and do what the expert planners do. Ask "what’s the first tiny step?"
Planning the whole five course banquet, presents, and housekeeping for twelve people is likely to make your head spin, but discovering the first tiny step is ‘creating a good shopping list’ makes you feel you are working on the bigger project and that it is actually possible.

Above all realise that worrying about things rarely helps to make things better, so make sure you make the right things important this year, focus on having fun, kicking off your shoes and dancing with life this Christmas!

Phil Parker

You are more influential in your life than you could ever imagine

Friday 16th December - let's celebrate this day by sharing the message:

"You are more influential in your life than you could ever imagine" 

Stress causes Sick Leave

According to this Daily Mail online article nearly 150,000 workers have taken at least a month off sick because of stress-related illness costing businesses millions each year. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-55708/Stress-leads-workers-sick-leave.html#ixzz1g3yWNFZ0

Elizabeth Gyngell, an official at the HSE (The Health & Safety Executive) said: "Work-related stress is a huge occupational health problem, inflicting a heavy toll both in terms both of financial cost and human suffering."

So what can we do to prevent this? We believe we have the solution. In order for you to manage stress effectively you need to be able to press pause on stress and respond in a much healthier way.  Discover how to do this with us today at http://www.p4training.com

Claire Brooker

There is always a choice

"Remarkable work often comes from making choices when everyone else feels as though there is no choice. Saying you have no choice cuts off all options, absolves responsibility and is the dream killer."  Seth Godin

P4 Training looks at how you can be influential in ways that perhaps didn't seem to exist before.
Explore your choices at http://www.p4training.com/Home


Claire Brooker

Dress to Impress

Steve Edge, a friend of Phil’s has an amazing attitude to life and lives by a quote that he is now famous for - “Dress for a party every day & the party will come to you!”  He came to this conclusion as a young boy when he noticed that his Aunt kept her posh china for ‘best’ and following her death, realised it had never actually been used.  From then on, he stopped keeping his best clothes for Sunday only and decided to dress everyday as if he was going to a party.


Helen Harding

5 Top tips on how to be assertive at work

Learning how to be assertive offers great rewards. You are more likely to achieve your goals, be more productive and have an improved quality of life. So read on for my top 5 tips on how to be more assertive at work:

1. Check your Mindset
If you believe that you are equal to every person, not better or worse, you can then communicate from a position of equality, knowing that what you have to say is important. Once you are approaching the conversation from this place, you are more likely to speak clearly and directly. As a result you will garner respect.

2. Become a better listener
If you take the time to listen properly to your boss or colleagues then they are more likely to listen to you. Giving people your undivided attention builds rapport and consequently respect and people will feel more comfortable with you. They recognise that you not only listen, but deserve to be listened to in return.

3. Respond rather than react
Human beings have learned to react to threats with an instinctive "fight or flight" response. A surge of powerful hormones such as adrenaline, cortisol and dopamine are released into our system to help us either "fight" the threat or "flee" from it. This was useful if we needed to fight a ferocious animal for food, but not so useful in a meeting as it comprimises our ability to think cleverly. Instead of reacting in this way, recognise that you can influence this response by calming yourself down before you respond. This will ensure you come accross assertively rather then aggressive or overly emotional.

4. Set Boundaries
It may be fair to say that every single one of your commitments wants more of your time. There will always be more work to do. Being assertive means putting boundaries in place and learning to prioritise work to make sure work isn't eating into your personal life.

5. Learn to say "No"
Are you the "go to" person in your office? Bosses and co-workers like to take the path of least resistance so if your known for saying "yes" to things, you will be top of their list of who to ask to take on more work. Take heed! There is no benefit of taking on a project if you don't have the time to complete it. Especially if you cannot deliver on your promises. You will gain more respect by saying "no" and offering to help in another way that is more realistic for you. If the proposed task is in the future then request some "buffer time." This strategy effectively interrupts the compulsion to give an unthinking "yes" answer, and you can make a more clear headed decision.

I hope these tips are useful, feel free to let us know how they work for you.

Claire Brooker

1 minute to… Boost your confidence

1) Confidence is only measured by how confident YOU feel. So, although we sometimes fret about what others think, we don’t need to change other people's perceptions of us, just how we feel about ourselves, and that’s easiest to do.

2) Others will be guided by how you act, so appear confident: stand up tall, breath easily, make good eye contact, speak knowing you DO know what you are talking about.

3) Boost your brain. Wake up those parts of your neurology that know all about confidence, by mentally TAKING YOURSELF BACK to a time when you felt very confident.

4) Talk to yourself positively; use the present tense (‘I am’ not ‘I will be’) and positive words rather than negatives ('I am confident' not 'I am not going to mess this up')

5) You can do it!!

Phil Parker

Top Tips for Networking

1. Know what you want to achieve from attending the event – set some clear objectives

2. Dress to impress – wear something that makes you feel great and will make you stand out (in a good way!)

3. Get your elevator pitch ready – have something snappy and interesting prepared that is intriguing and promotes a conversation

4. Listen to what others have to say - if you are interested in them, they will be interested in you

5. Take plenty of business cards

6. Smile and be charismatic – people will gravitate towards you naturally

7. Follow up on the people you meet with an email or invitations to your facebook or linked in pages

Helen Harding

Almost one third of employees distrust their leaders

The Kenexa High Performance Institute asked 10,000 employees whether they trusted the senior leaders of their organisation - 48% said yes, 28% said no and 24% were undecided. They also found that employees are nine times more likely to consider leaving, and 15 times more likely to report unreasonable work stress, if they distrusted their leaders.

This is extraordinary! The cost to organisations of loss of staff due to poor leadership is phenomenal. Great leadership requires the ability of leaders to inspire and support staff, to treat staff even handedly and to rise above ‘personality differences’ which requires leaders to have exceptional self management skills. 

P4 is designed to teach leaders these skills, so that they can spot when they are not acting in the best interests of the organisation and their staff, and so they have the ability to take appropriate action and to be an inspiring role model!



Simon Pimenta

Be SMART outside of work too

We spend our working lives making plans, setting objectives and measuring whether we achieve them.
Do you do this in your personal life too?
Do you know what you want to achieve and where you are going?

So many of us drift along not really knowing what we want to do and are taken by surprise when we notice that years have gone by and we haven’t fulfilled our personal ambitions even though at work we have achieved great things.

Take some time to think about what you really want to achieve – family, travelling, experiences, sports, arts – the list is endless.  Allow yourself time to fully consider your dreams and ambitions however distant they seem and then apply the same principles that you would at work by setting yourself some SMART goals.  This way you will have identified what you want and be heading in the right direction, towards self fulfilment.


Helen Harding

Bullies Beware!

It is fantastic that Nicola Roberts is standing up and speaking out against bullying: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24009516-nicola-roberts-talks-loud-and-clear-about-need-to-tackle-online-bullying.do 

It is about time that this obscene behaviour is addressed and outlawed.

At P4 we have trained clients, in the fight against bullying, to bulletproof themselves against the attackers and instead of being passive to the onslaught, be able to decide how they wanted to feel and respond.  www.p4training.com

Helen Harding

Rewire your brain for success

Did you know your brain has the ability to rewire itself throughout your whole life? Find out how in this video by Phil Parker, one of the world's leading personal development experts. Would you like to know how to make yourself 'bulletproof'?