Believing that you are capable of doing something has been shown to be a major determinant of success.  Albert Bandura is a psychologist who introduced the term “self-efficacy” to describe the psychological phenomenon that enhances goal achievement. According to Bandura, a self-efficacy belief is:

“The belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations.”[i]

In other words, if you believe you can do something you are much more likely to achieve it and if you don’t believe you can achieve it you are more likely to fail.  This means that as well as setting life goals that are important and meaningful to you, you also need to believe that they are achievable.

A role model is someone who you can look to as a good example of who you want to be like. A mentor is someone with whom you have a personal relationship, who offers guidance, advice and a sounding board for your ideas. Most successful and happy people I have met or read about have had role models. Many also had a mentor. I have been fortunate to have had several great role models and mentors in my life, which has helped me to become the person I am today.

My first role model was the landlord of the local public house at which I had a weekend cleaning job.

There are many factors that make a good leader, but one of the most important is intellectual curiosity combined with a thirst for knowledge.

Greater knowledge provides a rich well from which you can draw to help stimulate new ideas, thinking and perspectives. It can help you to devise strategy or to anticipate potential scenarios, as well as better able to handle any obstacles and setbacks. The better informed you are, the more opportunities you’ll spot, and the better your decision making is likely to be.

As part of my work as a professional speaker, I read one business book a week and the following are my latest suggested reads:

1. Misbehaving – The making of behavioural economics by Richard Thaler

Richard Thaler is considered to be the father (or at least the main cheerleader) of behavioural economics.

Over the course of my 25-year career as a financial adviser I was fortunate to have interviewed several hundred people and hear their life stories.  My impression was that only a small proportion of these people were successful in the sense that they were truly happy, fulfilled and financially secure.  

Some were wealthy but had poor health due to lifestyle. Others had many achievements to their name but were unhappy.

My eldest daughter is 17, studying for her A levels and learning to drive. She is quietly confident, with strong opinions which she isn’t afraid to express to me and my wife!  She will eventually leave home and become an independent young adult. While we’ll miss her when she does eventually leave home, we know that we have to learn to let her go. But knowing you have to do something doesn’t make it easy.

A similar challenge often arises with owner-managed businesses, particularly with founders.

In the old days companies told us, through advertising, how good their products or services were, in the expectation that we would buy from them. But that was before the internet made price comparisons and customers’ satisfaction ratings easy and social media enabled consumers to quickly share their buying experiences with friends, relatives and colleagues. People today don’t care what companies say about themselves, they care what other customers of those companies say about them. You’d think, therefore, that bad products and poor service would be as rare as a London black taxi on a rainy Friday evening.

Over the 25 years that I was in practice as a financial advise, I conducted discovery interviews with several hundred people, where they told me their personal story. I have also had the privilege to hear the personal stories of a similar number of professionals from the fields of financial planning, investment management, law and accounting. On top of that I have read literally hundreds of biographies of political, business, scientific and charity leaders.