Richard Gerver: Change & Simple Thinking

In today’s episode of Mastering The Game Of Life Podcast, your host Paul Lowe interviews Richard Gerver. Richard was a Primary School teacher and then a Primary Head-teacher for the best part of his 20-year career. Then he took a big personal risk and decided to be a freelancer for the first time.

Now working across a whole range of organizations and industries, two particular strands fascinated him. One is ‘change’ and why so many people and so many organizations find change so difficult. And the other is why we tend to over-complicate’ everything and why we believe that success and transformation in turn, have to be complicated.

Change and Simple Thinking, these are the two books that today’s guest, Richard wrote for these two big topics. This leads to the discussion of how we can make ourselves think simply and go with change so that we can live a happy and balanced life.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Richard: Sometimes, I'm feeling like a fraud onstage. Explanation: What he means in the book is that you don't have to have something complex to say, in order for it to be significant. As a Primary School teacher, you spend your days in the company of remarkable young people; all of them are under 11. You don't tend to have to intellectualize what it is you do, your interactions, your human relationships, even your planning and thinking around the teaching and learning that you deliver.
Richard has been with former world leaders, celebrities, Nobel Prize winners and their common attribute is they all have a child-like enthusiasm for the world. They have unquenchable levels of curiosity.
5-year-old kids. We learn 70-75 per cent of everything in our lifetime, before we're five. There’s a  5-year period of bounty. What follows is famine. These kids have gorgeous incredible infectious levels of curiosity for the simple things in life. For them, failure is not a bad thing but a path to something.
Tower example. When kids build a tower and it topples down, they just laugh and build it once again. They build and build until they learn how it won't topple the next time they build a tower again. As an adult, we mostly won't see the failure that way. We always think that failure is bad. We were taught that way. As we get older, we increasingly tend to avoid situations where we are likely to fail, high-risk environments.
Failure. We have to embrace moments of failure and make mistakes. And the trick is because we sensor our behaviour based around that fear of making a mistake, failure or thinking something isn't going to work for us, yet as young children, we don't see that concept of failure as a bad thing. If we can tap into being children once again, it would greatly change our lives.
Over nurturing and over protecting the young ones. We always seek certainty. Certainty equals stability and stability equals happiness. We are preoccupied from a very young age. We are doing what we are told and we are doing it to the best of our abilities. This guarantees a job for life, guarantees a regular income per month, and allows us to afford a holiday and so on. We were trained to seek out certainty. But nothing is really certain.
When certainty falls. Promises are only as good as long as it is met. But how about when they fail? Education and doing what you are told, being promised a good, bright and stable future, and have a certain future. If all fails, it leads to the massive grating of the emotional and social plates where people did what they were told, and they didn't get what they're promised.
Mindset recalibration. How can I recalibrate my own mindset? Not only so that I can survive but thrive in the future. But my family and friends can do the same thing. Many people always look at things externally when in fact; you need to look at internally. You cannot control the outside, but you can change how you react to it.
Reinvention. Reinvention. Childhood. Power of curiosity. Children are always dissatisfied. They are hungry to know more, be more and experience more. If we can tap the 5 years old that is inside of us, we will have curiosity quotient. Together with intellect actually defines human beings and our drive to be better and create better societies.
Curiosity. You can't lie to yourself. You can't fake curiosity. You can't be interested in stuff that you aren't interested in. Sometimes you have to be disciplined enough to push yourself through those process, and we learned that from being children. You don't have to be curious all the time, just allow yourself to be curious about the things that interest you. The trick in modern life is to make sure you find the space and time to be curious.
Beliefs. It’s a very personal thing. As long as they don't interfere with other people. Never at the expense of other people. People are honest with themselves, you can't lie to yourself. People don't follow their own beliefs though. They either follow beliefs that are expected of them or sometimes they follow a belief system which they think is the right one to follow because other people would look at them differently and so that's the right thing to be, the right thing to want or the right thing to desire.
Golden Nuggets by Richard. Living. Learning. Spark. Richard wants people to say that he lived his life, he never stopped learning, and his laughter is infectious.

BEST MOMENTS

        “Whatever our philosophy or beliefs it's always going to be subject to change.”
        “Life is a very simple game.”
        “The longer I travel through this life, the more I envy kids under 5.”
        “You learn nothing new by getting something right, ever. You only ever learn something new for the point of the mistake, the realization that you don't know something then you can't do something.”
        “I can't change what's going on out there, but I can change the way I deal with it.”

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Paul's Mastering The Game of Life Book...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Speaking-our-Hearts-Mastering-game/dp/1781332819

Paul's Emerging From The Forest Book...Emerging From The Forest

The Mastering Life Podcast...

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/mastering-life/id1421271122?mt=2

ABOUT THE HOST

Something that’s never been attached to Paul is the label ‘normal’ – for which he is immensely proud.  He definitely subscribes to being one of those mentioned – in the Steve Jobs quote:

“Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Paul Lowe is the founder of PaulLoweHEARTS – which has a three-fold purpose. 

Firstly, to help you make the transition from Pain to Purpose; secondly, to get your inspirational messages and stories out into the world and thirdly, to support charitable organisations in their development & fund-raising.

We achieve this by:

Delivering our empowering Mindset For Success programmes
Sharing your true-life inspirational messages and stories through our Mastering Life Podcast and our Speaking From Our HEARTS book series
Utilising our significant charitable knowledge and experience.

Find Your Purpose – Make A Difference

Paul is totally committed to his HEARTS brand vision (an acronym) of:

‘Helping Everyone Achieve Results Towards Success’.

He has a long and distinguished track record of raising significant funds for a multitude of good causes; positively changing the lives of many disadvantaged children within the UK and globally – drawing on his colourful and wide-ranging life's experiences to help others do the same and achieve success in the game of life.

“Remember – Mastering Life Starts, By Embracing Our HEARTS!”

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ABOUT THE GUEST

Richard Gerver has been described as one of the most inspirational leaders of his generation. He is an award-winning speaker, best-selling author, and world-renowned thinker.

Richard began his career in education, most notably as headmaster of the failing Grange Primary School.  In just two years, he famously transformed it into one of the most acclaimed learning environments in the world; celebrated by UNESCO and the UK Government for its incredible turnaround.

Richard has since transitioned to the global stage where he uses his trademark humour and natural style to deliver passionate, provocative and authentic speeches. He draws upon the first-hand experiences and unique insights garnered from frontline education, to explore the links between great leadership, human potential, change, and innovation.

His ability to connect experiences across many seemingly different environments helps people to expand their thinking and perception of potential. It is this authenticity and uniqueness which has helped Richard win him global acclaim and invitations to speak on the most recognised stages, including TED, the RSA and BBC radio.

CONTACT METHOD

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Website:  https://www.richardgerver.com/