Day 144: Phil Bolton
“… my belief is that everybody has this greatness within themselves, being able to go internally, developing the practices to find that greatness. I think that’s the biggest gift that anybody can get or give to somebody else.”
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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Phil, for agreeing to be part of the Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?
Phil Bolton: Hi, Toni, thanks for having me. My name is Phil Bolton, and my organization is Less Ordinary Living. I have the privilege to inspire professionals to find career fulfillment and to explore their potential.
Toni: Well thank you for that, and that’s a great lead-in to the first question which is, when you think about that word inspiration, who do you inspire and how you do that?
Phil: Well, as I said, my passion and focus is helping professionals and inspiring them to really explore what their potential is and what they can do with their lives. I start from the position that everybody has greatness within them and that with a little help and a little inspiration everybody can achieve amazing things in their life and in their career.
My background, I was actually a professional, and I got inspiration from a variety of different sources and people who helped me to see what I could really do if I pushed myself to the limit. And having gone through that experience and being supported in that way, I wanted to find a way to take that back and to inspire others to do the same.
So I set up my practice a couple of years ago really to focus on people who are maybe going through an objectively successful career but feeling that there’s more to life or there’s something out there that could be more fulfilling, more meaningful.
My goal is to help people to explore themselves to understand what our meaning could be and then to put a plan in place and to use the greatness within themselves in order to fulfill that. It’s a really … it’s an exciting process, and it’s something that I love to do. It’s inspiring for me to see others light up and reach that potential.
Toni: Now, let me ask you, with the way that you inspire others by helping them to explore their own greatness, how else then do you help others explore their potential within that greatness? How do you go about that?
Phil: I’m fortunate, because I start from the belief that everybody holds a greatness within themselves. One of the greatest gifts I know I was given was to be supported by people who ask lots of questions, were curious, really listened to what I had to say and created a space for me to be myself and to understand more about who I am and where I come from.
As a trained coach, I have been able to develop those skills myself to be able to create that space for somebody to spend some time with themselves, to ask themselves important questions, to understand more about their values, to understand more about what gets them excited, what gets them energized, what makes them passionate about life and to know more about their strengths and more about their skills; to really delve deeper into themselves and look at all of these different aspects and start to paint a picture of who they really are.
I think once somebody’s got that picture or starts to understand more about it, the potential really opens up. It’s easy for anybody to paint themselves into a box and to constrain what they can do in life. And it’s also easy — and I know I’ve done this in the past and still do this sometimes — to think ourselves into doing the same thing over and over again. And when we do that, we limit our potential, and we get the same results that we’ve always got when we think the same way and do the same things. But it’s really giving people that time and space to explore and open up the possibilities and the potential and see what they could achieve once they’ve got the full picture of who they are.
Toni: So it’s really painting that picture for them first, whereas I’m hearing sometimes it’s “Let’s get the goal and then we will get you to that goal.” And what I’m hearing, which is a bit different with you and pretty cool, is that it’s “Let’s look at who you are first before we get that goal because, if you understand that first, then the potential is there for you to reach any goal.”
Phil: Absolutely. I’m a great believer in creating sustainable skills, and the work that I love to do with people is giving them a new tool, a new way of being, a new practice, a new way of thinking that over time slowly starts to become part of who they are.
So watching people develop, watching them grow, watching them have new ways of acting, new ways of thinking, new ways of interacting with the world, once those are in place, these I think are things that people can go to over and over again. And regardless of what goal somebody’s trying to achieve — whether it’s in their career, in their personal life, or if they are doing something in the community that they live in — you can take any goal and with those new skills that they developed, you can apply those to be more effective in achieving that goal.
Helping somebody to be more comfortable with dealing with the emotions that they face every day; they can be a real block. Or if we are afraid of the future, it can really limit our potential. But if you can learn from practices and integrate those to deal with that fear, to be aware of it but not to let that rule you, it can make achieving any goal easier, and it can really free you up to maximize the potential that you’ve got.
Toni: Well thank you for that and, Phil, when you think about inspiration for yourself,f what do you need to be inspired?
Phil: There’s a lot of things that inspire me. I just love life. I’m a “liver,” and I think that that’s really important. I think some of the things that I always go back to … first of all, I’m a great believer in living your values. One of the first things I did when I worked with a coach was to really think about what was important to me. And once I understood that, it helped to guide me in acting authentically and really connecting with the inner me.
I find it incredibly inspiring when people do live authentically. It takes away a lot of the fear that you can have in the world. It takes away a lot of regret about what you’ve already done to live authentically, so for me, that’s a huge sense of inspiration just to go back to my values and to live in that way.
Probably another thing that brings me a huge amount of inspiration is to be surrounded by people who really see the bigger picture, who have a vision, who look at the potential in every situation, to look at the possibility, and I try to surround myself with those kinds of people. They bring a huge amount of energy to every situation. They open up doors where they may have been closed before. They can take a situation and turn it on its head and create a whole world of new possibilities where before it seemed like there were none. So being surrounded by those kind of people, I find that immensely inspiring.
Toni: Are there tools or methods that you tend to reach for when you might be in the place where you’re going “Gosh, I need a little inspiration here?”
Phil: I guess there are two ways that I go. The first one is to go internally; and for the last few years, I’ve done a lot of work on kind of some of my inner processes. I have a daily meditation practice that I go through that just tells me to get back into the moment and get back into the now, to feel centered and calm when the world seems to be spinning out of control. I found over time that starts to permeate more and more of my life. It helps me to cast out some of the static and the buzz and fuzz that can come up in all of our lives.
I also love listening to music, listening to some of my favorite tunes. It can give me some inspiration and bring me back into a centering place. And also exercise; I love running. I’m currently training for the London Marathon. I’m doing that for a charity, and I find that just brings me right back into the moment, and it brings me inspiration and lets me be grateful for the world around me. So the internal way of going is really powerful. I think the other way …
Toni: I can hear … have you … oh, I’m sorry, go ahead.
Phil: No, go ahead.
Toni: Have you always …
Phil: I was going to say …
Toni: I’m so sorry, there was a bit of a delay, so I apologize if it went right over top of you. Go ahead, keep going.
Phil: I was going to say the second kind of area of inspiration is the external world and the people around me. I talked about that, but finding those great people, those inspiring people, when I’m in that place or I’m feeling a little stuck. Just to have that conversation and being in the fortunate position that someone creates some space for me and asks some questions and listens to me, I just find that immensely inspiring, and it helps me move forward.
Toni: It’s so interesting because the internal … the way that you’ve positioned this as far as what inspires you by the internal needs that you have and how you use inspiration, you know, internally with your meditation and running and getting centered and getting rid of that chatter, and then also being surrounded by people that ask you those powerful questions, I just heard you absolutely describe in 30 seconds what you do for people within your practice.
Phil: Well thank you. As I said right at the start, my belief is that everybody has this greatness within themselves, being able to go internally, developing the practices to find that greatness. I think that’s the biggest gift that anybody can get or give to somebody else. And I hope in some small way that I can help other people and my clients to do that, to connect with themselves and to do that sustainably so that they can find inspiration internally. That is the place where we all start from, the world that we live in all the time.
Toni: I think that that is so really, really interesting because, again, the way that you’ve described that it’s not about, you know, there is a goal, but it is the goal to find who you are inside first before we start doing the external goals. I think that was very powerful.
The one final question on the Project is, what do you do to explore your own potential?
Phil: Now that’s an interesting question. I guess probably the starting point is to keep working. My inspiration for getting into the world that I live in now and that I work in was really just to start to understand a little bit more about myself; and what I found is there’s no end to this journey.
Once you start to explore who you are and what your potential could be, you can always experiment. Try the next thing, try to develop a new skill, a new competency, a new practice, see how it works. Sometimes it will have huge benefits or seem hugely successful. Sometimes it will be very difficult or challenging, but actually sometimes those are the most valuable experiences of all and, to me, to explore my own potential, I keep on working. I keep on trying different things.
I look for inspiration from the world around me, from those amazing people I talked about and new ideas. Try them out. See what works, see what doesn’t work, and all the time just look for the growth, look for the learning and keep on moving one step forward down the journey, starting from where I am and just progressing one small step at a time.
I think that’s probably the best lesson I’ve taken away from all of my experience so far. Just move forward one small step at a time and enjoy the journey.
Toni: I so appreciate you being part of this Project, Phil, because I have this picture in my head now from this interview of you walking side by side with someone that you’re engaging and working with and actually walking the talk with them and having them do what you’ve done and what you continue to do. And I think that that’s pretty powerful, and we can’t thank you enough for what you have shared with us in the interview. And we also will have a link to how people can learn a little bit more about you. So for everything that you’ve given us today, we thank you so very, very much.
Phil: Well thank you for this inspiring Project, and I really appreciate the opportunity to be a part of that. It’s been a pleasure.
Toni: You’re quite welcome. Take care, Phil.
Phil: Thank you, Toni.
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For more information about Phil Bolton: www.lessordinaryliving.com, www.colosseumconsulting.com
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