The MVP Podcast

Whilst obsessing with how I am viewed by others I can never live or perform at my optimum level. My God-given potential requires authenticity not the synthetic person I often attempt to present. In this episode of the High Performance Disciple we look at embracing the brutal honesty of authenticity and how it will unlock our true potential.

This is the second of two episodes where we look at the power of the subconscious mind. The biblical proverb says ‘As a man thinks in his heart so is he.’ The heart mentioned in the bible is not the organ that pumps blood around the body it is the deep recesses of the human mind. It is in the deep subconscious where our values, beliefs and attitudes are formed and stored. How our minds are formed create the tracks along which our lives run. Our reactions and responses in life are often unconsciously informed by the subconscious and like a train that has to run on the tracks laid, our lives run on the tracks that have been laid in our thinking. In this second episode we discover the three opportunities daily we have to renew and re-programme the subconscious mind so that it works for us and not against us. When we try to make progress in our lives but we have mental barriers it can be like trying to make a financial withdrawal from a bank account that has no money in it. We have to be making deposits regularly so that when the time comes to draw upon an empowering belief to act, to move and to make something happen we can do so.

Do you do keep doing something you’ve told yourself not to do? Welcome to being human. What’s the problem? What I am trying to do is in conflict with a deeper belief I have accepted! In this, the first of two episodes, we look at the internal conflict we carry in our inner person and how we can harness the power of the subconscious mind (the heart) to make consistent progress.

Words shape our world and conversations drive that process. If we care about how our lives are developing and the lives of those we lead then become stewards over the quality of our conversations is critical. In this episode we answer this question… How to have more of the right conversations? We look at the need to have more of the right conversations and how this determines the trajectory of our lives, and the depth and breadth of our impact.

The greatest barrier we face in bringing our best and highest contribution in this world are the ideas, ideals and claims that we agree with that are rebelling against who we really are. In this episode of the High Performance Disciple we look at 4 steps we can take daily to proactively deal with thought patterns that are holding us back.

As human beings we naturally run from anything that causes us to feel resistance. Our emotions interpret 'bad feeling = bad activity.' However leaders are created through moments of high resistance. Whilst the majority will run away from tough moments leaders intuitively know that these are the moments we MUST embrace. In this episode Gareth explores the principle of resilience building necessary strength and how we can run toward these moments rather than away from them.

Ever get annoyed that you keep on doing what you don't want to do? Do others get frustrated because you repeatedly do what isn’t wanted or required? I have heard the phrase ‘if I’ve told you once I’ve told you twice’ on many occasions in my life. It is a frustration with habits that we automatically repeat without any conscious effort. As human beings we have strong defaults that we always revert back to unless we find a way of changing them. If we have a deep desire to change what the future looks like then we need to identify what we can do to shift those defaults If we keep on doing what we’ve always done then we will keep on getting what we’ve always had. The barrier I struggled to breakthrough During episode 7 of the High Performance Disciple Podcast I share that for many years I have enjoyed communicating to audiences and have never struggled to do this. However when it came to speaking director through social media I was hitting a barrier. When communicating to an audience I could see I knew to some degree I was accepted but the danger with communicating through social media in my mind was that I could be rejected. We find many ways to avoid what we fear and I avoided building a platform on social media. I knew however that I needed to defeat this default. A friend of mine one day challenged me and said ‘Gareth you really need to start doing it’ and I agreed. In fact I knew I needed to make an agreement with them that they could be sure I would follow through and they had permission to ask me in the coming weeks why I haven’t done it should I fail to follow through. Accountability is the high performance practice we HAVE to adopt to shift deep defaults we have. What is accountability? Accountability is an agreement I make with someone else to create a new experience that will shift a default in me. Defaults are beliefs and the only way to change a belief is to create a new experience. We will never ‘feel’ like doing what we ned to do. We need to build fresh evidence that we are the kind of person to do what we want to do and as we keep on doing it the feelings will follow. It’s time to become unstoppable! What small agreement can you make with someone else today that will ensure you step into a new experience that can start to shift your default? It only has to start small because momentum builds with every agreement we keep. The great thing about momentum is that it makes what used to be hard easier because we have built up a weight of belief and speed of action that enables us to breakthrough barriers. Cheering you on! Gareth

The bible has been quoted and cited by many people within the world of personal development because of the proven principles it contains. In this episode Gareth explores the difference between the two approaches we can take with this all time bestselling book. We can either choose to extract the principles that can guide us into success or we can go deeper and discover a relationship that unlocks personal significance.

It's time to stop running away and run toward moments that make us 'feel' small! The journey of personal growth requires us to face challenges that are intimidating. The moments we feel like running from because they make us feel small are the very challenges we need to run toward. Growing physical muscle requires moments where we embrace resistance to the point weakness as the muscle is broken but repairs with increased strength. We continue to draw lessons from David's encounter with Goliath and how our 'words are our weapons' that can help us defeat inadequacy and grow to the next level. Cheering you on! Gareth

It was a cold December morning and we drove into the church car park. Leanne was already in the building and as I drove with the three children in the back of the car toward the rear of the car park I tried to brake and realised I couldn’t! STOP THE CAR! We were on BLACK ICE and at the bottom of the car park there was a dyke we were about to plunge down into. I tried everything but nothing would slow the car down…it had momentum and I couldn’t stop it. I even opened the car door and tried to slow the car with my leg but bent my leg back against the curb. Stupid idea I know but i ran out of ideas. Thankfully the under body of the car caught the curb and this prevented the car tipping over and falling down into the dyke where ice water awaited. That day I realised the power of momentum and its unstoppable nature. When we don’t have personal momentum even the smallest challenges can seem to be too difficult. If we want to break through to the next level in our personal and professional lives then we are going to need momentum. Momentum is best defined as: “The amount of force a moving body has because of its weight and the speed at which it is moving.” Momentum = Weight x Speed How do we get personal momentum? How can we become unstoppable? Most people know the story of David and Goliath. It is the story of how the underdog David overcomes the Champion Goliath against all odds. It was a total mismatch and David was the ‘unlikely’ victor. However, David demonstrated the power of momentum that day. Whilst the rest of David’s country men sang songs of victory which resulted in no action; David was different because he had personal momentum. He had the... Weight of certain belief x Speed of consistent action David moved quickly to find out what was in store for the successful candidate. He built a clear vision of the prize. He moved quickly to turn away from his negative brothers. He quickly collected stones for his sling and ran quickly toward Goliath. He didn’t walk tentatively…HE RAN! When we choose each day to reinforce what we REALLY believe to be true we sharpen and deepen our convictions. A conviction is what we are truly convinced of which becomes the internal driver we need to move us forward especially when we feel the resistance of fear or doubt. Combine this with consistent actions each day carried out before we have time to trade them in for easier more convenient yet ineffective decisions; then we have the explosive combination resulting in momentum. We need answers! What do you believe about your future? Who do you believe you are? Why do you believe you are alive? The answers to these questions help to build the weight of belief you need. What can you do consistently each day that can move you toward your goal? What do you need to do faster and first each day? What can you increase that will work with your belief to create a bigger impact? The answer to these questions help to build the speed of consistent action. You can breakthrough!  You can overcome the challenge! You must embrace the law of momentum to do so. I know you can and I’m cheering you on! Gareth

‘Are you sure this is the right way?’ ‘This doesn’t look familiar.’ I’m sure like me you’ve uttered those words on countless journey’s in the car or walking around a city. We associate the familiar with the right way. However does that stack up when it comes to the journey on route to seeing our vision become a reality? When what you meet on route to your dream doesn’t match up with expectation the result can be confusion. Over the past several years both me and Leanne would have set planning days. A planning day sounds like it should be fun, like it should be about blue sky thinking and dreaming up new ideas, but for us it was painful. Why? We both carried convictions but combined they felt like a contradiction and incompatible. So did one of us have it wrong? Based on our experience only one of us could be right. However, what was happening was the formation of a third way. A third way is an innovative new route that isn’t based on what we’ve seen but is birthed out of a tension of two convictions. On route to releasing the future we were carrying I would often say to myself… ‘If this is the right way I shouldn’t be feeling like this!’ ‘If this is the right way I shouldn’t be doing what I’m doing!’ ‘If this is the right way then I shouldn’t be doing it this way!’ The contradiction we carry is a chrysalis. The caterpillar enters a place where it becomes trapped and in the place of being stuck it goes through a necessary metamorphosis. The chrysalis which looks like a prison becomes the place of new birth and a new future. The caterpillar surrenders to the process in order to become the butterfly. The formation our dead end require us to adopt the disposition of a child. We have to be willing to enter our own chrysalis and unlearn some of what we’ve known and be driven by a renewed hunger to learn all over again. Jesus said in Mathew 18:3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. The Kingdom of heaven was a new way of thinking and new way of living being introduced. It was so counter culture that only those who were willing to embrace the contradiction could allow it to carry out its work to creating the new way of living and a new set of outcomes. The process of unlearning is humbling, it can be painful but let me tell you it is not only worth it, it is so necessary. When you feel like you’ve hit a dead end let me encourage you, if you adopt the disposition of a child your dead end can be your new beginning. Cheering you on! Gareth

High achievers often want everything perfect first time. John Maxwell calls it the ‘perfection gap’. This reduces our willingness to take risks and often gives way to procrastination.   Why do I seek perfection? For me perfection is a self-imposed expectation that feeds an insatiable desire for validation. ‘Unless I hit perfection, then it's not good enough!’ This is usually linked to my own perception of self worth. I tie my self-worth to the result.  I believe in excellence as a value which is giving my very best, but this is different from perfection. Don't let perfection ruin your future... The future dream we carry insists we embrace experimentation if we are to make our highest and best contribution! If we impose perfection as the standard on everything that we do, then we reduce the space for creativity. Creativity encourages a healthy relationship with failure but failure is the enemy of the perfectionist! In my latest High Performance Disciple podcast I unpack why we need to… Trade in expectation for anticipation! Here’s why! Expectation forms the outcome before it happens… But what if the outcome it not the best on offer? Anticipation finds the outcome… Opening ourselves to alternative results exposes us to potential outcomes and we can discover what is ‘better than expected!’ Expectation predicts the result… Why use the predications of yesterday when there are are new levels of breakthrough on offer today?! Anticipation projects a greater hope… Believe that you will discover more effective and unique solutions…even problems that people are yet to identify as problems that need solving! Expectation seeks to control the future… This is futile because we can only influence the future we can’t control it. Anticipation seeks to converge with the  future…  Like a seed that carries the forest of tomorrow we birth the future if we create an hope-filled mindset. Expectations are created through an earthly mindset… This is a ceiling if we believe there is more to this life than the eye can see! Anticipation is created from a heavenly mindset… This is why we pray ‘Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.’ Why settle for anything less than heavens best? Expectations are formed from our experience… Which isn’t a problem if you want groundhog day. Anticipation forms fresh experience… This lights up the youthful spirit of our inner child cultivating a life of curiosity and wonder.  Decide today to ANTICIPATE and FACILITATE the best that is to come! Cheering you on, Gareth 

Are you craving that ‘winning’ feeling? 🎉 Does it feel like nothing is working as you thought it would? 😩 Emotions are real feelings but they are not always a true explanation of reality. Feelings can be deceptive and so it is so vital we don’t allow them to lead us to making incorrect assumptions on progress. During my first ‘High Performance Disciple’ podcast, I share about a painful 6 month period that was the toughest 6 months me and my wife had experienced. At the time is looked like nothing was working. My wife was experiencing acute health anxiety and the business I had left a stable salary to build was not gaining traction. The feeling of wanting to quit was so intense and the relief it offered was irresistibly tempting. BUT WE DIDN’T QUIT! The ‘Win’ we are experiencing now was formed during that ‘wilderness’ period. I realised there were four steps I needed to repeatedly carry out during that time that built the breakthrough we are experiencing today in our personal and professional lives. Your win can’t be seen but it is real! The ‘Win’ of tomorrow is formed in the ‘wilderness’ of today. The wilderness is a place where nothing grows and signs of future life are none existent. Whilst it isn’t a place we would choose to enter it is actually an essential part of the growth process despite it being so painful. THE KEY! Our breakthrough sits the other side of our perseverance. Here are the four steps I unpack in the podcast and whether you are a person of faith or not there are keys that can help you build the breakthrough. i) LISTEN to the conviction that is being formed about who we are becoming and the future we are creating. A conviction is what I am becoming convinced of. ii) LEARN from each day knowing that the wilderness is a ‘classroom’ preparing you for great exploits. Stop asking ‘why am I going through this?’ and start asking ‘what am I learning through this?’ iii) LEAVE old beliefs, attitudes and habits behind that aren’t compatible with your future. The wilderness is a filter that enables to adopt everything we need for the next season and off-load everything that is incompatible with the future. iv) LEVERAGE against new beliefs and values that reflect the character of your true self. For me this is about aligning myself to the character of God whose character I was formed in. It’s working so don’t quit now…like me and my wife you will be grateful you didn’t! Cheering you on, Gareth

Introducing the ‘High Performance Disciple’ podcast. My name is Gareth Morgan and my goal is to help you close the gap between your God-given potential and your daily performance.  What I do is explore the explosive combination of timeless spiritual principles and high performance practices that will enable you to take control, be courageous and release the greatness that is in you.  This conversation is designed to help high achieving & high impact leaders, entrepreneurs, athletes and pioneers turn fear into faith, confusion into clarity, frustration into focus, and stress into strategy.