Misaligned Monkey Why / Background to the book

How to get better results faster.

At Sales Academy we were paid to help sales people get better results faster. We learnt that hard work is important in some situations but sustaining a frantic pace to get the results you need is not something that is sustainable. Excellent sales forces and excellent sales people need to deliver results for years on end, short bursts are not an acceptable plan.

Beliefs Matter

If you know working harder won’t fix it then you also probably know the secret is to work smarter. If you have tried hard and never quite made it happen then something is stopping you. Being smart is about fixing this first. In our travel we met literally thousands of well intentioned, bright and hardworking people who never achieved their desired levels of success. Ever wondered what it is that stops so many of us? Ever wondered why your hard work has not worked? Success involves us changing to generate the better results we are after. Tony Robbins says something about incremental gains and we found the same to be true – the difference between average and good was smaller than the difference between poor and average. The difference between good and great even smaller and great and fantastic smaller again. You are so close already. It’s not a complete rebuild just a tune up to make the most of what you are and have already. Its easy to accept that working harder is the answer it’s better to work smarter rather than harder but it can be hard to work out what this really means. Imagine a race car that’s just not as fast as it needs to be; perhaps you can remember the Mercedes F1 car in 2022 ? Just asking Lewis Hamilton or George Russel to push harder is not going to work. They are already on the limit. Pushing harder will generate even worse results. Smarter means the car needs attention, it needs to be more efficient. It’s the same with your mind and body. Set up is key to simple and sustained success. You didn’t come with an owners manual. Nobody told you your Monkey is your partner not your nuisance. Everything you do, think or believe is affected by the relationship you have with your Monkey and this is why if you want to be working smarter the first job is to fix the relationship with your Monkey first. Here’s a video we did for the Misaligned Monkey that spells out what smarter means in this context. Once the relationship is sorted you will be able to find and develop other smart ways of working together to achieve the dreams, goals and life you want.

Ideas like smarter might be harder can challenge our beliefs. Some delegates were not repaired to stop contemplate redesign their approach and move on. These guys tended to work harder becoming more hassled, more stressed and less effective.

Beliefs can be changed

There’s an underlying theme that has led to the writing of this book:

It’s about beliefs and your options if your beliefs  are not giving you what you want.

What choices do you have if the world is not giving you what you really want ?

If what you do doesn’t give you what you want then you have two* good choices (Read more here)

You can either choose to accept the results you have or you can change what you do and stack the odds in the chances of your getting something else.

Ideally you will aim at something you want and don’t just run away from something that you find ‘bad’.  (More here )

The people we met who had successfully changed themselves to meet new demands all had one thing in common.

They refused to believe that their past performance would define their futures.

They felt they could change things and then things would change, they saw this as a process of trial and error but one they could use to work their way towards anything they really wanted.

Time and again we saw that changing required breaking out of a fixed view of how things were or how things had to be. Some of these beliefs (like the idea your monkey is a chattering nuisance) is part of our group think and part of our own experience. However neither of these pieces of evidence mean that it is the only way things could be and, change, if we look, is often still possible.

The most empowering start is to consider the question – “Suppose things could be different?”

Only then can we start to examine what ‘things’ could be different and how we might bring about such a change. Experimentation with this could then give us a clue or even strong evidence that what we thought of as a non negotiable fact was actually only one version of how things are or could be.

In the past few years this is how the Misaligned Monkey book and the associated challenge or course, has come to exist.

Try on new beliefs for size

We need to ‘try on’ the belief that things could be different in-order to generate the ideas and the energy to start to explore, to  begin to nudge the doors we think are closed to see if any might open.

Below is a true story. Sadly the first part is not uncommon. This one might be sad if we were the type of people who thought it a good idea to regret the past or if the end was not so uplifting….

Laura was a lady with a limp. It seemed to her that she had limped as she could remember. She had learnt to make the best of it, walking only short distances and gently, rising from a chair or climbing stairs using her ‘good leg’ and her strong upper body. She did her best to keep fit but of course she was a ‘limper’ and couldn’t expect too much.

She did her best and attended regular classes with teachers who all knew her. They knew she was a ‘limper’ as did all her friends.

One day a friend asked her to take a new pilates class. Laura was a little reluctant but her friend wouldn’t go alone and so she went along to support her friend. It was to change her life.

The teacher welcomed them both and looked at Laura with fresh eyes, she saw Laura was prepared to work and was one to give things a go.

So she watched Laura closely and at the end of the class they had a talk. She recommended a series of visits to an understanding physio, one  who only saw possibility and a series of exercises specifically designed to give the ‘bad’ leg every change to grow and thrive.  

They only talked about possibility and they ignored the apparent ‘facts’. 

You can guess what happened.

Events took their natural course, the nudges worked and Laura now regularly runs ten miles on Sunday with no noticeable limp and no adverse affects. She was lucky and  had a chance to take a new look at things. The nudges worked and her world changed.

One of the toughest lessons for some of us to learn is that we can’t change everything and sometimes giving up is a really good option. Sadly the lesson can take over our thinking and we can apply this approach in places where change could be possible.

Gravity seems a relatively sure bet as does the fact that the sun will rise tomorrow but, a little study, shows much of what makes up our beliefs set are not so clear cut or certain.

It seems like it would be a shame to let a belief control or limit our options for our success especially if there was even the slightest possibility it was not true or always true.

Beliefs and your Monkey

One example of this is what goes on inside your head space and what you believe about it. Th noise in your head the thoughts and conversations are orchestrated by what some call your Monkey. The general view is they are a chattering uncontrollable torment, but not everybody as the same experience. Up lifting helpful respectful onside is the experience some have

Suppose this is the way it is meant to be and that your Monkey has been misaligned not given a fair chance at helping? Suppose that they

• can help
• wants to help
• will help

Having a fully paid up Monkey on your side thats working hard to help you get where you want to go, encouraging your in your endeavours and playing a grown up team role in your success is possible if you reengineer the relationship you have inherited.

Try on the Misaligned Monkey beliefs for a few weeks and see what happens

Use  the survey to see where your relationship is now. (It’s free)

You can read the book at Amazon and follow the plan and exercises to watch the situation in your head change in just 12 short weeks.

If you want guided experience once you have read the book try our 12 week challenge