Tranquil Topics

Trusting Your Instincts, Motivation and Manifesting Success with Tony Shield

• Stephanie Graham • Season 1 • Episode 14

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From plumbing apprentice to visionary social care advocate, Tony Shield's journey is a testament to the power of perseverance and versatility. Leaving school at 16, Tony embarked on varied paths—from a military engineer to a milkman, to eventually crafting environments where young adults with learning disabilities thrive. Listen as Tony shares motivational insights drawn from a life marked by transformations, ethical business practices, and a relentless pursuit of helping others.

What happens when you learn to trust your instincts? Discover the potential of synchronicity and gut feelings through Tony's stories of chance encounters and life-altering decisions. Tony offers a compelling narrative on the importance of tuning into one's inner voice. His reflections are a masterclass in aligning one's instincts with life choices, showcasing how intuition can be a guiding force in personal and professional spaces.

This episode contains lessons on manifestation and living in the moment. Tony's life lessons underline the importance of visualising goals and embracing positivity to bring dreams to fruition. We also confront imposter syndrome and the art of delegation, drawing wisdom from Tony's success in transforming organisational dynamics and empowering others to independently tackle challenges. Join us for an enriching exploration of Tony Shield's life, where passion, perseverance, and positivity come together to inspire and motivate.

If you wish to purchase the books mentioned in this episode you can follow the links below:

The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey by Ken Blanchard

The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield

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Steph:

Before we begin, I want to let you know that this episode contains a brief mention of self-harm. If this topic is triggering for you, please take care whilst listening and listener discretion is advised.

Steph:

Hello, welcome back to Tranquil Topics. I'm your host, Steph, and today joining me is Tony Shield. Tony has over 50 years experience of training and motivational skills. He has experience of working different roles, including the army, sales, building trade, developing and running a farm park, and also in social care. The thread running through all of his work is helping people and whatever Tony did, he always gravitated towards learning and he's found he's had a gift for passing information on to help others. So, Tony, welcome to the podcast.

Tony:

Hi, Steph, it's nice to be here.

Steph:

Thank you for being here. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you are now?

Tony:

Well, how I got to where I am now is a long story and we've probably not got time to talk about the whole thing, but I'll try to keep it brief. I left school at 16, before all my exams, and what have you. I wanted to become a plumbing and heating engineer like my uncle. So I left on my 16th birthday and started plumbing. After about 12 months of that, my my then boss decided he was going to move lock, stock and barrel to North Wales and I didn't really want to travel at 17 away from home and live away from home with his family, and what have you. So I left there, and the only way that I could get a job as a plumbing and heating engineer because nobody wanted to take on somebody who was partly trained they wanted them straight from school or fully qualified. So I joined the army. And I joined the Royal Engineers, particularly because I could learn to be a plumbing and heating engineer through them as well as other things. So that's what I did I joined the army and I learnt lots of other things, but I did get my qualifications of plumbing and heating engineer.

Tony:

I then left the army for one reason or another. Basically, my wife at the time didn't want to go to Germany, so it was a case of either go to Germany or get out. So I got out. But then I did things like a milk round so that I could work during the day, because I finished at 10 o'clock doing the milk round and I built up an order book of plumbing and heating jobs and then after about six or eight months of working as a milkman, I got enough work to keep me going full time. So I became a plumbing and heating engineer, going to people's houses, you know, helping them. I even did a job on one house on Christmas Eve. Old lady got no, no water, so I went and helped her, sorted that out for her and ended up a few months later going back and buying the house off her.

Steph:

Oh right.

Tony:

Yeah, because I just said to her this is a lovely old house and she was living on one floor. There was two other floors that just were neglected. So I just said my family would love this house. If you ever think of selling, let me know. Come April the daughter said my mum's going into a nursing home. She wants you to have the house, first refusal on it. So I took the family up there and they loved it. They all picked the bedrooms and that was it. But it was a case of living in one room while we had an outside toilet and a tap in the cellar while I did it up, renovated it all, but that's what happened then.

Tony:

his then, going back to how I got to where I am, I left the army, built my business up. Then my wife wanted to go closer to her parents, who'd retired to North Wales. So we moved to North Wales, packed in my business and I went to work for somebody when I was over there. Going long story short, I did seven or eight years working in and out of people's houses, helping people out. During the floods in North Wales, where all the places got flooded out, we were working seven days a week till midnight some nights, just helping people to get back into the homes. And then I hurt my ankle. I was off work. I saw a job advertised with Mencap. They wanted somebody to go and work with their students there. So I thought I'll try that, something different. So I went and applied for that job, got the job and I swapped my hobby for my job.

Tony:

I was living on a small holding, so I've got all my animals that I built up over a few years and I ended up taking them to work and doing plumbing as a hobby. So I built a farm park up and doing plumbing as a hobby. So I built a farm park up over a period of seven years. We opened it to the public. And again, this is where the training, I was training young adults with learning disabilities to look after animals, introducing the public to them. I called it reverse integration. I was bringing the public into the people that we were looking after and they were learning life skills. They were learning to integrate with people. They were learning to look after things and putting other things in front of themselves, learning to look after themselves so that they could go on and live a life with less care than they would do normally. That was the aim and it worked.

Tony:

But I developed an allergy to animal fur after seven years of doing that and stuck it for a year and then decided I can't do this anymore. So I started selling cars. Then and again I was working selling cars, but I was selling cars ethically. I wasn't selling cars to people that couldn't afford them or whatever. I was selling cars to people and I was going into the detail and finding out what they wanted and finding something to give them what they wanted without them having to pay through the nose for it. And that didn't go down well with some of the general managers but it worked for me and I came out of that when I got headhunted into social care, I went to become a training manager and I was teaching support staff NVQs. Basically I was getting them qualified in NVQs to support people old people, geriatric people, young people with learning disabilities across the board and this was all about supported living. So I was training the staff to look after the clients and I had a big area across North Wales where I was covering that. And then I got headhunted again to go work for a national charity based in Derbyshire, Chesterfield, and I was the training manager for them across the whole of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, so I was travelling a lot.

Tony:

Then again, I was in charge of a group of development officers who were going into places like I was and training the staff and getting them qualified to improve the care for the people that needed it. You hear lots of stories about people being badly treated. Well, my role was to make sure that the staff all knew how to treat these people correctly and giving them good quality support all about making sure that they could live their best life with whatever disability they'd got. And that really got me to where I am now, in that I, across all of those different jobs, I learned how to train people, I learned how to establish protocols that improved things, and I can't help myself now with whatever I'm doing.

Tony:

I hope that's answered your question as to how I'm where I am now.

Steph:

So, in terms of all the experience you've got with training, are you able to speak a bit about motivation? Because I know you've been to quite a few motivational talks and because of, like the new year, people maybe they might want something now you know, that there's sometimes an impatience around goals, I feel. So, in terms of motivation, have you got any tips for for that, for people listening?

Tony:

You're right. I've been throughout my career, I've done, I've attended a few motivational things. There was one where the speaker gave us a little story and he listed about 21 items and he said if I, if I ask you to remember or to memorize these, some of you might manage to remember eight or nine of them, some of you might remember 10, 20, but probably none of you will get all of them. He said but if I entwine all these items into a story, I'll bet most of you will get the whole list right. So here we go and he started to tell us a story about Alex Ferguson, the football manager, driving a Ford Granada, towing a caravan and the lock on the caravan was wrong and he had a black and decker drill in the back of the car. All these items that he was talking about were on this list and that was probably 30 years ago that I did that and I could sit here and go through the whole story with you and I bet everybody else who was in that room could go through the whole story and tell you all 21 items that were on that list. Now that to me, it motivated me to find out different ways to improve my memory, to improve the service that we provided, and I don't know whether that answers your question, but to motivate people to do things you've got to find a little bit of a hook, and I'll give you an example of where I motivated somebody who went on to achieve far more than I hoped.

Tony:

I was asked to get every member of staff trained up to NVQ level two. Some of them had never got any exams at school nothing. There was one lady. She was 67, 68. She was a beautiful support worker. She was really caring. But when I told her she had to do an NVQ, she said no, I'll resign. So I chatted to her and I told her that I left school with no qualifications but I'd gone to school, I'd gone to college and I'd learned this and I'd learned that and I found it empowering to do that. I said let's go through one unit and I said so this unit here is about supporting somebody to go shopping for themselves. So I said do you take one of your service users shopping? Yes, I do. Well, you've done part of it already. So where do you take her? On the bus? Yeah, we get the bus. So I said well, there's another. And we talked through one of the units and she realised that she was already doing the work. All she had to do was write it all down, and that was was the evidence, and she passed that unit.

Tony:

And then I moved on a couple of years later and this woman had moved on from a level 3 to a level 2 NVQ and I moved on to another organisation and I was at an event I think it might have been a motivational event and a gentleman came up to me and he said are you Tony? And he said yes. He said did you work for such and such a company? So I said yes. He said you're the bugger then, do you remember so and so? And he mentioned the lady's name and I said oh, yeah, yeah, how is she? He said she's just collected a distinction for a degree at Bangor University and he said it's your fault. So I get emotional about that, because that lady had left school with nothing and by spending some time with her, not too long, but spend a bit of time and finding something for her to hang a hat on, she went on to do an NVQ2, an NVQ3, she did an NVQ4, and then she moved on and she just got the thirst for learning and she went right the way through to getting a distinction in a degree for care. That couldn't have been better for me.

Tony:

Another example a young girl at the farm park. She was into self harming. She used to really do nasty things to her arms and what have you. And she, I found that she liked looking after the goats, so I started to take her to goat shows and then I got permission from the college. She was chaperoned and we went to an overnight milking competition and she showed the goats and she milked them. And she showed them and she went into the ring and she won with the goat. She won a prize and she was over the moon with this. And this girl eventually, probably 18 months later, when she'd done her two and a half years at the college, she went back to her hometown, she got into a relationship, she got herself a job at a vet's as an animal nurse and ended up with a young child of her own, a family. Now, that girl, when I first met her, wasn't capable of doing any of that, but just by finding something that she could show an interest in and develop an interest in. She went on and on and on and and she lives a normal life now, and to me that is worth more than a pay packet. That that's. I've given something back there. I've found that girl a new life from what she was destined to have, a life of care and what have you. So, as far as motivation is concerned, you just need to find something that interests you and build on it a little bit at a time, and eventually you'll get where you need to be, or you'll get where you need to be or you get where you want to be. It just takes that time and the perseverance not to give up.

Steph:

Why do people give up? Why do we lose motivation?

Tony:

In my experience it's because too many people expect instant gratification. They expect the here and now. Children these days and I'm starting to sound like my granddad, but children these days, they, they expect everything quickly. You know, like that as a kid myself, if I wanted something I had to save up for it.

Tony:

You know to get me pocket money, save up for it or you know, I'll wait for Christmas to come around and hope that Father Christmas brought it. But kids these days they just say I want that mum, and mum more often than not, if they can afford it, gets it them because it's comparatively it's cheaper and it keeps the kids quiet. I think what tends to happen is that if you can make somebody realise that if they want something, they've got to work for it. If they really really want it, they will do. If they're not really that bothered, it's just because it's a fad or because so-and-so's got one and they want one as well. If they've got to wait for it, it, they'll give up and they'll find something else. So I think that that's one aspect of why people give up because something else comes along.

Tony:

Um, I'm guilty of it myself. I've always wanted to play the guitar and as a kid I bought myself an electric guitar and then couldn't afford to buy the amp, which was a bit silly, but hey, that's the way it goes. I've now got an acoustic guitar which is a second-hand one with a crack on it. I'm hoping Father Christmas is going to bring me an electric guitar for Christmas. I've asked for one, but so far the signs are not looking very good. But I'm determined that now I'm getting to the point where I'm going to retire, I am going to learn the electric guitar and I'm not going to give up on it, no matter what my wife says, I'm going to get an electric guitar. If she doesn't buy me one, I'll buy it myself, but I'm not going to give up on this one.

Tony:

And I have done. And it's something that I learned, probably when I was in my mid-thirties that if you want something and you want it bad enough you keep persevering for it. I gave up so many times in potential jobs, potential relationships, because I just thought, nah, I'm never going to get there, there's no point in bothering, I'll never get the job, they won't want me, and I just gave up. And what I've learned in the latter part of my life is that if you do persevere, more than likely you will get there. You will get what you want and you will achieve it and you will be proud of yourself. And I've done that over the latter parts of my life. I've not given up and I've got where I want to be and I am now living my best life. It's a difficult question to answer. Why do people give up? There's lots of different reasons, but I think the main one is that there's so much out there that people will give up on something because something better comes along or they perceive as better.

Steph:

When you were talking then it reminded me of my childhood when I would organize. So I got pocket money every week off my nana. But if I wanted more, because I wanted, like I don't know, the latest Barbie set or something, and my mum and dad would be like, okay, well, what can you do for some money? Then and my dad would be like, would you like to organize one of my cupboards in the garage? And I am, I love organizing. He obviously knew that at the time. I'm going to use this to my advantage, but I did. And then you get like here's a pound, here's two pound.

Tony:

Yeah.

Steph:

Sometimes here's 50p. But I agree, like when you're trained to work for what you want, you appreciate it more when you get it as well.

Steph:

And then, like I so, I was, as a child I always wanted to be a singer and it's probably like very common for that in kids. But I had singing lessons, I did showcases and then I got to school and I was picked on and it sort of erodes you the confidence that you had and then changes your mindset to think maybe I should just leave that then. And then now in my 30s, I've gone back to I keep saying gone back to uni, I never went in the first, I never went the first time around. But I've gone to uni and I've got a different mindset now of I was stopped doing what I wanted to do or let myself be stopped when I was younger. Now I'm going a different route via science, and I know what I want, I know why I'm and I know I'm going to come out with a really good grade because I'm putting the work in. So when you were talking about getting that girl through to getting a distinction, I kind of think as well, when you're in school it's such a pivotal moment in life, what teachers you get.

Tony:

Oh, absolutely.

Steph:

Because the ones I've got at uni are amazing. They're so supportive. I'm so glad I picked that uni. But then my experience in high school was the opposite. They would they'd turn away if they saw bullying. They didn't want to get involved yeah and I'm like, but it's so important to like if you've got a teacher that's supporting you, you feel that you can achieve anything.

Tony:

You feel secure yeah.

Steph:

Yeah.

Tony:

You feel secure and you feel you feel like somebody's got your back.

Steph:

Yeah.

Tony:

And and that's so important, especially for kids. You know, coming out of covid, so many people have got mental health issues now yeah, as a result of that lockdown period and, and you know what, what followed it that I think there's they reckon that mental health is going to be the new um illness. You know, everyone's going to have mental health problems now, um, whereas before it used to be something else. And I think I think what you're saying is absolutely bang on.

Tony:

That a kid at school I was so, I was I was like the only ginger in the class. I was so embarrassed about putting my hand up to answer a question because even if I knew the answer, you know, and when I did get pointed to and asked, I knew the answer, but I blurted something out that was totally wrong and everyone would laugh and that made me even more self-conscious. So it was, I think, when I joined the army and I'd been in the scouts and I'd learnt knots and lashings and what have you, and the sergeant that was teaching us knots and lashings couldn't get a bowline right, and I won't use the language that he used, but he just threw the rope on the ground and he said does anybody here know how to do a bowline? And one thing you learn in the army is don't volunteer. But I was a recruit, I was new and I put my hand up and said I can do it, sergeant. So he said show us. So I did the bowline and he said can you do the one on a bike, which is a double bowline? So I said yes. So I did that.

Tony:

He said right, lad, you're taking the class now and he just told me what not to do and I'm in front of like 30 old lads all 17, 18, 19 year old lads and I'm showing them because I was confident, because I could do it. I'm showing them how to do all these knots. He said can you do lashings? What do you want, a diagonal or a square? Start with the square.

Tony:

So I did the square lashing and everybody did that and he said, right, can you do the diagonal? I said do the diagonal lashing? And he said, right, well done, get back now. And he took over. But for the whole hour I felt like I found myself I'm doing something I'm confident in and I'm teaching these lads how to do something that I can do. And that was a pivotal moment for me. Again, this sergeant, whether he meant to or not, he found something in me that that turned me on to training and I went back there. I was only away for 18 months and I went back there and I was a training NCO. I started doing what he was doing because the army had seen in me that I could do it, so I got posted back there to do the training officer's job, which was great.

Steph:

So there's a saying that people that are listening may have heard, but it goes. People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Do you think it's important to pay attention to the people that come into your life?

Tony:

That's a good question. Yes, I do, because there's a series of books that I read a while ago. They're about the prophecy and I won't go into the books, but basically what it says is that people will come into your life for a reason and if you are aware and you take note and say that same person pops up into your, into your life, over over a period of time, two or three times, you should make a point of introducing yourself to or getting to speak to them to find out what. There's some sort of synchronicity there. There's something drawing the two of you together and you need to find out what that is. It may be that this person is looking for somebody that's got your skills and they don't know it. You don't know it, but until you speak, neither of you gonna are going to find out anything.

Tony:

So, since I've read The Celestine Prophecies is what the series of books are called, and they're really interesting. It's about, I think, big in America there's millions of copies of it, but it's about the journey that this man takes to follow these Celestine prophecies, and it takes him all over the world, but he believes in once he's met somebody and then he sees them again. He will make a point of finding out why, and they usually have something to tell him. They might not know why, but they've got something. When they speak to him, they'll give him some information and it it triggers something in his head and then he moves off to something else and he furthers his, his quest to, to get along.

Tony:

This, this prophecy, and I do believe that that might be real. It might be just a made-up story, but there's something profound in that and I do believe that I've taken advantage of that. Since I read those books. I've made a point that if I see the same person two or three times in a day or over a weekend or something like that, I will make a point of bumping into them or chatting to them or just throw a line and see what comes back to me, and on many occasions it's paid dividends.

Steph:

Really.

Tony:

Yeah, it's incredible. It's a powerful tool to help you through life and if you ignore stuff like that, if you walk around blind to that sort of thing, you're missing out on so much potential. I strongly believe that.

Steph:

I completely agree, because there's a few things that popped in my head when you were talking. So one of them was how I met my partner, Alan. So it was through a mutual friend, one of my best friends actually and she unbeknown to me, this all happened behind the scenes, I was just carrying on with my life none the wiser, but she'd been to a works do the same place, date, time that Alan had, different works, but one of her colleagues was married to one of his colleagues, so then they got chatting and then cut along I don't know, maybe it was like six months or something they had another do, different place. same night they were there again and she was like every time, I found this out after, this is what she told me after but she said every time I see this guy, I think of you. And I was like that's weird why. I was like who is he? And she was like, well, I might have done a thing. She phoned me after her Christmas do and I was like, oh no, what have you done? And she said, um, I've given him your number because I just don't understand why I keep thinking of you when I see him. She's like he's single, you know, I think I think you'd really get on. Um, she explained about the colleagues that were married. She was like he's a great guy apparently. So I was like okay. And then, yeah, we've been together five years this year.

Steph:

Weird, isn't it.

Tony:

Weird and, yeah, I've got one that's very similar to that. I was working as a training manager for a care company. We have the in Wales and there's an inspectorate. They come round and they do an inspection on the care homes and one of the inspectors I got chatting to her because as the training manager I had to go through all the training with her. So we chatted and I found her occasionally looking at me and I used to look. I looked at her and sometimes our eyes met and we both turned away and it was a weird feeling.

Tony:

And the company that I moved to about 18 months later the wife of of the chief officer was a an inspector in the same team as her was an inspector in the same team as her and when we had our Christmas party, she invited her along and she said I think you two will get on really well with this. And I didn't know anything about it. When I got there, this, this girl was there and she said, oh, you don't mind, but I've invited her along because I thought you, you, you both, you both got similar interests and what have you. And we sat and chatted and we ended up, as I was leaving, one of the other girls came across to me and said can I have your phone number? Because I think she really likes you. I want to give her a phone number because you're both stubborn. So I gave her my phone number and I got a phone call the next night and we went out for a date and we saw each other for a long time. It was it was, but again, that was similar to you that somebody else had seen something in two people and thought you two need to meet.

Steph:

If you think of it like zooming out and you're just going about your life but people in the background are putting stuff in place, it's scary.

Tony:

For all the right reasons.

Steph:

Yeah, one that I'm I'm paying attention to at the moment, but nothing has come of. It is at uni, so obviously I get on really well with my lecturers. The course lead is fab, super supportive, you know, always there if you've got a query. His boss he taught us in second year. I'm the student that goes to every lesson, so I know them. Anyway, I had him in second year, didn't think anything of it. Third year, which I'm in now. This is gonna sound so weird, but in November there was a week and I saw him everywhere, everywhere he'd come out of the revolving doors as I was going in and it got to a point where I clicked the lift and the doors open. Guess who's in it? Him. And I got in the lift and I was like this is really weird, why do I keep bumping into this man? And he actually turned to me and he went why do I keep seeing you everywhere? And I said I don't know. But then it's just been like a wave and a smile, but I don't know. I've noted it. I don't know what the point of that is at the moment, but it is interesting.

Tony:

It's interesting. Would you like my opinion on what that could be?

Steph:

Yes, please yeah.

Tony:

I think that's very, very likely, that somewhere along the lines that you're going to get a job offer from him.

Steph:

Really.

Tony:

If you're regularly attending and you say you're going to qualify with, you're going to pass with good marks, I think that they might have recognised you, know your talents and there might be a job offer to work at the university.

Steph:

Do you know? That's really weird, because Alan said to me yesterday yesterday have you asked if there's any job opportunities there and I was like no.

Tony:

Well, I think there might be one coming your way. Just saying.

Steph:

I'll keep everyone updated.

Steph:

No way. So linking in with that, gut instincts, having to trust in yourself, to trust what you are feeling, what's your view on gut instincts? Do they link in with noticing people that have come into your life?

Tony:

Yeah, yeah, I I think I was talking to my wife, to Bernie, about this earlier on today. For the first half of my life, gut instincts were something that I was very aware of, but I didn't follow them. Stupidly, I didn't follow them and I missed out on so many opportunities in relationships and also in potential jobs. I should have followed my gut instinct and I didn't. Something happened, probably when I was like 35, 40 and I started to actually act on my gut instincts and suddenly things started to go better and I didn't lose out on things Until I was 50, I say I lose out on things, I never actually, I always got a job when I went for it. I never got knocked back until I was probably 50 and then at that age, I think my gut instincts were that when I went for an interview, the people that were interviewing me got less qualifications than I got and my gut instinct was that they were frightened that I'd be after their job. You know that that sounds a bit pompous, but it's actually something that I was very aware of.

Tony:

You go to a college to become an internal verifier or just an assessor and the person that's interviewing you has got X, Y and Z, but they've learnt your CV and you've got far better qualifications than they've got and you've had them for longer and they're thinking this guy could do my job. Why does he want to be an assessor? Well, when you get to a certain point they've got, and you've had them for longer, and they're thinking this guy could do my job, why does he want? Why does he want to be an assessor? Well, when you get to a certain point in your life, you start to want to wind down a little bit and you're not aiming for the sky.

Tony:

I've been a chief officer. I don't want the responsibility, I don't want the, the stress, I just want a job that I can do without, you know, any hassle. I can do it. But they don't know that. They think that I'm just getting in on the ground floor and I'm going to zoom up the elevator and take their job from them. And, as I said, it sounds pompous, but there's a couple of occasions where that's happened to me and that was my gut instinct and in one case, because my brother-in-law is actually an assessor at one of the colleges that I went to and he confirmed that for me.

Steph:

Really.

Tony:

That was why I didn't get the job, because I was better qualified than the interviewer. So, yeah, gut instinct is well worth following. I'd advise anybody if you really really get a good feeling about something or a bad feeling about something, follow it. Like, don't get on that plane. If you've got a really bad feeling, don't go.

Steph:

Even if you can't explain why you feel that way.

Tony:

There's a reason for it. You know, I'm quite spiritual and I think that you could call it gut instinct, you could call it an angel looking after you whatever you want to call it but sometimes I've had this feeling that something is right and I've had this feeling that something is wrong and I've acted on it and it's turned out to be the right thing.

Tony:

You know, because I was supposed to go back to Rippon when I was in the army. I was home and I was supposed to go back on the on the coach from Chorlton Street and something told me not to go and that's the coach that got blown up. I can't explain it. I can't explain it, but know, because I got the train the next morning early the milk train so I got back to camp on time. I wasn't AWOL I'm somewhere without leave, but normally I'd have gone at 10, 11 o'clock at night on the bus from Chorlton Street in Manchester and that bus got blown up, so I didn't go and something told me not to get on the bus, so I didn't go. So gut instinct is something that I do believe in.

Steph:

What made you ignore your gut instinct?

Tony:

I think it goes back to when I was a child and, like I said, when I was in class the teacher asked a question, I knew the answer. If I'd have followed my gut instinct and put my hand up and answered it, I'd have overcome my shyness at the time. But I didn't, and for some reason it compounded itself and it just got worse. I thought I listened to what my gut instinct was saying, or what my angel on my shoulder was telling me, but I didn't. I didn't follow it through because I think I was frightened. And as I got older I started to realize that that gut instinct was there for a reason. And you know, it only takes so many times for you to say well, my gut feeling is I should do this, but I'm going to do that, you do that and then you find out, you should have done this.

Tony:

And once that happens a few times, you start to learn and you know, I'm not totally thick and I think that once you do that and you get a slap around the face, you don't want another slap around the face. So you know, yeah, you think right, well, the guts tell me to do this. I'm going to do that, you know, and avoid another slap around the face, and it's paid off and you know, nothing's a hundred percent, is it?

Steph:

Yeah.

Tony:

But as a rule of thumb in maths and science and whatever, there's an 80-20 thing, you know 80% of the time you'll get what you want, 20% of the time you won't. And I think that if, if you follow your gut and 80% of the time you're right, that's not a bad result.

Steph:

Yeah.

Tony:

I think.

Steph:

No, I agree yeah.

Tony:

So I think I learned, as I said, in my mid midlife. I mean, I'm 69 now, so yeah, it was probably the last 20, 30 years of my life. I've learned to follow my gut and if it doesn't work out, I've played the odds. And it's not worked out, but more often than not it's right and there was a reason for you following it.

Steph:

Yeah, yeah, so you mentioned that you're slightly spiritual. Can I ask what your view is on some people refer to it as manifestation, but when you think positive thoughts, you get positive outcome. Equally, when people speak negative thoughts and then negative comes to them and you get negative things too.

Tony:

Yes.

Steph:

A nd I ask that because over the past probably couple of weeks I've been really on the ball on noticing that when people are saying negative things it makes me uncomfortable because I'm like you, better be careful what you're putting out there because, you know, I personally think it comes back around in a different way. But then, equally, I've heard people say like, oh well, I imagine getting a 10 pound note, and I found one on my run yeah, manifestation, I mean it comes in different forms and I'm a really big believer in that are you?

Tony:

Yeah, I have read a few books. My wife will tell you I've got books on stuff like that and, as an example, as a young man I fancied a Range Rover. That was my ideal car. I just wanted a Range Rover. Couldn't afford one, but I wanted one and I went on a manifestation course. It was a night class.

Steph:

Did you?

Tony:

I was in Nottingham and I went on a night class and it was brilliant and the lady leading it said the best thing to do is is write yourself a list of the first three or four things that whatever comes into your mind that you want. Write yourself a list and if you look at that list last thing at night and you look at it first thing in the morning and every time you get a chance, just think about that list, what's on it, and pretty soon you'll start to realize that some of those things you've got. So I wrote down, I pinned it to a notice board in in my study and I did think about it morning and night and I tried to. They say that if you do something for 21 days it becomes a habit rather than you having to remember, it just becomes a natural thing to do.

Tony:

So I tried to do that, and it must have been six or eight months after I'd done this that I got the opportunity to get a Range Rover, and the reason being I got a big payout from Halifax for interest that they'd charged me that they shouldn't have charged me, and then, because it was a few years on, they'd paid interest on what they owed me. So with that chunk of money, I went and bought myself a Range Rover and I'd achieved that part of it. And then, when I looked at my list, I can't remember what they were now, to be perfectly honest, but there was about five things on this list and when I went through the list I'd got them all. Everything that I'd wanted six or eight months earlier I'd got, and I thought there's something in this. So now the one thing I'm trying to manifest for myself now is a Land Rover Defender, the new one, beautiful car. I love it.

Steph:

And your electric guitar.

Tony:

And the electric guitar. Yeah well, I'm buying that. When I get one for Christmas, I'm buying that. But I'm trying to manifest this to come into my life somehow, whether a pools win or what I don't know, but I do want a Defender. And one of the things I've started saying to myself is, as I'm driving around picking cars or whatever, I'm looking on the roads and I'm counting 10 Defenders a day. Once I get to 10, I stop counting and I think if I can get, Monday to Friday, 10 Defenders every day, it's keeping it in my mind. It's what I want. I'm not jealous of people driving them, good luck to them but I want one, and one of these days I will get one.

Tony:

And if I keep it in the forefront, my head, circumstances will come around that will label me to get my Defender. And as I'm seeing them, I'm picking the colour of the leather, I'm picking the accessories they're going to have. Is it going to have a roof rack, is it going to have a box on the side, is it going to have a snorkel on the side? And I can't decide on whether I want a snorkel or not, but I'm actually designing the Defender I'm going to get as I'm going around and I know I'll get it eventually and I do believe that everything is made of energy, all pulsing at different rates.

Tony:

But the same energy makes this microphone, that makes that glass, that makes me, that makes you, that makes those headphones, but it's just pulsing at different rates. And I think that if you can draw that energy down, from this big, massive energy, if you can draw that down and use it effectively, you can manifest whatever it is you want. And I know there's people out there, like Noel Edmonds, who are big manifestation people and they say they've got this and that, but they've got lots of money anyway, so they can usually afford what they want. But people who haven't got two halfpennys to rub together can use that energy to draw it down and to manifest things for themselves and improve their lives and improve lives for others.

Steph:

Do you agree you have to be careful what you wish for?

Tony:

Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

Tony:

It's very easy to get negative about something, and if I find myself thinking negatively about something, I'd stop and I'd re-jig myself and I start thinking positively. I think it's too easy to slip into this negativity around. I'll be happy when, you know, I'll be happy when I pass my exams. I'll be happy when they get my first job. I'll be happy when I've got now, you know, got a girlfriend. I'll be happy when I'm married. I'll be happy when we've got the first kid. Be happy now.

Tony:

If you're happy now, you're always going to be happy. But if you're waiting for something to happen specific so that you can allow yourself to be happy, you're going to be waiting a long time because once you've achieved that, you'll then say, oh, I want something else. Oh, right, yeah, okay, I've got a girlfriend. Now I won't be happy until I've married her. You know, I won't be happy until we've got our first child. And so many people go through life wanting to be happy instead of being happy now. That's something that I'm pretty adamant about. Bernie and I my wife and I are happy now. We're not waiting for something to happen to be happy. That's a big thing for me.

Steph:

I love that for you too as well. You're such a lovely couple.

Steph:

I need to give a shout out to Bernadette, because she's so lovely.

Tony:

Well, she's my third wife and you know, third time lucky, and you know she won't mind me saying when we met we met on a website called Plenty of Fish, I think it was and she told me when we met for a drink that if it didn't work out with me, she was going to buy a TVO box, which is a virgin satellite box, and she was going to sit at home and watch films. Anyway, it obviously worked out because three months later I moved in and brought my TVO box there. So we sat together watching films and as a rider she said that I've got to go, just to cover back, for the first date. She said I can't stay for too long because I've got to go. There's firemen coming to my dad's house, so I've got to go there to meet the firemen. And when we got back to her car I gave her a big sloppy kiss and said I hope to see you again soon. And we saw each other two days later and the rest was history. But yeah, I don't think she'd mind me saying that.

Steph:

So what's the importance of being and living in the present moment? Do you have any techniques? I know meditation can help with staying present, but I think people struggle with future thinking or like staying in the past.

Tony:

It's a difficult one, that, because everyone has to develop their own way of staying in the present moment.

Tony:

But I, as I'm driving around, I try very hard to move my thoughts around to positivity, to positive things about this. May sound silly, this, but if I won the lottery, I'd do that and I find that that creates positivity in in my mind, you know, because I'm yeah, I want to win the lottery. Um, it's all fantasy, but I'd love to win the lottery. But if I did, it wouldn't be just for me. I'd be using that money to to enrich other people's lives. But I'd be very specific about it and I'd do things that would have maximum impact on an area.

Tony:

And by thinking those things through in my head as I'm driving around in the day, it keeps me positive. I'm thinking, you know, I might be manifesting this one day, you know, and I'll win a lucky dip on the lottery. Or I won 30 quid the other week and I'm thinking it's a start, I'm getting there. I'm getting there, it's starting to come through. If I keep being positive, keep thinking about these, I'll be able to do it. You know, and it's not just about winning the lottery, it's it's just about using what I've got to do the best I can. It's a difficult one that, because I think everyone's got to develop their own way of staying positive, and for me that's that's it. My head is spinning with ideas. They're all positive ideas and that keeps me on the on the up.

Steph:

I notice when I feel almost like I'm sucked into, like a black hole of worry, sometimes like in in our relationship, I'm the emotional one, Alan's very logical and he has to point out to me like you're not in the, you're not present, you are in this like hole of whatever you're thinking about and I'm I'm getting there, noticing it, but it's really hard.

Tony:

Yeah, I mean, I don't know whether you've you don't strike me as the sort of person that's ever suffered from it um, imposter syndrome?

Steph:

I have, yeah.

Tony:

You have. Yeah, I think most people do. I know I have, and and it's a weird one it is. But I've gone for a job and got it and I've been there for years and every day I'm thinking they're going to find me out, they're going to know that I'm faking this, I'm just blagging it every day. And then what turned it around for me and stopped me having this imposter syndrome was I was leaving a company to go to another company because this other company had heard about what I'd done for the one I was with and they needed the same thing doing for them and what it was. It was a care company in Wales, Bangor, where that woman worked, that went on to do a degree. When I left there all the staff were NVQ qualified, all the staff had done manual handling, food hygiene, they'd done all that sort of qualification and I'd got the funding from the local colleges so I'd got them all funded free. So the organisation was a charity but they'd had all their staff trained for them free of charge through European money back then and one of the committee members said to me at the sort of bit of a leaving do, butties and a drink, and they said you must be very proud of yourself, Tony, because it's not everybody that can say that they've come in, they've been brought in to do a job and when they leave, they're leaving it, the job's done, there's nothing left to do. And I'd never looked at it like that. But she was absolutely right. Everything they'd asked me to do I'd done and I was leaving systems in place that that other people could just manage the systems and update them, because all the courses were on a rotary booking and all the rest of it. So, yes, I had done what I was brought in to do and I went and for the other company, I did exactly the same thing there and within five years we got a new chief officer and basically I didn't need to, I left that company because I felt as though I was taking money under false pretenses, because I'd got everything. I'd learnt so much doing it this way. It'd take me seven years to do that, five years at this company and I've got it all working. And it was a case of the admin girls could could book the courses because they just had to book people onto it and and what I'd done was left everything in perfect, but I was getting paid the second highest amount of money per year and I wasn't doing anything. I'd done it all and I thought that I'm going to move on because that money is it's a charity's money and they're paying me to just sit in an office and do nothing really. So again that the imposter syndrome thing went. But up until that point I was always worried that I was going to get found out that I wasn't up to scratch.

Steph:

Bizarre, isn't it?

Tony:

It's a really weird thing.

Steph:

I know on BBC iPlayer there's a whole series of different celebrities talking about their imposter syndrome.

Tony:

No, I've not come across that.

Steph:

It's fascinating. And it's really weird because you look to these people that are in the public eye and you think, wow, aren't they talented. And they're on the other side of it, thinking I'm not good enough for this. It's so mad.

Steph:

So I'm just going to turn the conversation to a book that you kindly lent me, the One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey which was written by Kenneth Blanchard and since reading it, I feel more people in the world need to know about it, because it teaches you how to not take on other people's stuff, other people's problems, because I've had it in my life where it can roll into expectation, where people say, oh, Steph will do it, because you've done it out of the kindness of your own heart, and then, like you said earlier, you just get slapped round the face.

Tony:

Yeah, yeah.

Steph:

So they'll come to you with a problem and they leave and you realise, well, they've sort of just handed that over to me. Now it's my problem.

Tony:

Yeah.

Steph:

What would you say to people?

Tony:

Well, what I say to people is I give them the book to read because it's it's not a big read, is it? It doesn't take forever to read it...

Steph:

No.

Tony:

But the principle is amazing.

Tony:

My daughter, um she manages a big um unit in North Wales for the NHS, providing staff to help organisations that are looking after people in care. So she's followed in her father's footsteps in some respects, but she's working for the NHS doing it and she's progressed up. She's sort of like second in command now, this big unit. And she was finding that people several layers below her as well as several layers above her were coming to her because she's a good natured person, and they were saying to her can you help me out with this problem? So she said, oh, yeah, what is it? And she'd end up saying, oh, I'll see if I can sort that out for you. And that monkey jumped onto her back and they'd go off oh, Carrie's looking after it, I'm free.

Tony:

And this happened so many times that when I saw my daughter she didn't look right and I thought what's wrong. So I had a heart-to-heart. She said I just feel like everyone's dumping the problems on me. So I said ah, you've got all their monkeys on your back, have you? And she said what do you mean? I said, well, are they coming to you with a problem? And you're saying, oh, leave it with me. She said, well, pretty much yeah. So I said, read this book.

Tony:

And she read the book and, like you said to me in that text, she said she came back a couple of days later she said, dad, I can't believe that book. She said it's changed my life. She said the number of people that come to me now and when I say that's something you can sort out yourself, if you just go and do such and such, you'll be able to sort it out and they're walking out going but last week you said you'd help me. And that was last week, this week I'm a new person and I've got too much to prioritize to be dealing with your monkeys. What do you mean? Monkeys? And that's, that's the way it went. And and she's never looked back she's learned to analyze something straight away and say, right, well, you need to deal with that yourself. And it's given her the strength and she's got an even more high-powered job. Now she's moved up again and I think that's on the strength of the fact that she can make a decision without, you know, taking stuff off other people. She's good at delegating now and it's improved her skills in that way and I think you've probably learned something from it as well, have you?

Steph:

Yeah, well, previously in my life I've been a people pleaser and I'm well aware of that now and I've gone through the journey of losing that really. But it can make you feel like a bit of a doormat and people will treat you and wipe their feet on you if you let them.

Tony:

They will it's a really good book.

Steph:

I will link it in the show notes for anybody that's interested. Like you said, it's only a short read, but it's really good.

Tony:

There's a series of them called One Minute Management Books, and they're all very good, but that, to me, is the one that really helps people. If they've got a problem where people are dumping on them, that book is well worth a read.

Steph:

I mentioned it to one of my friends and she struggles with saying no to family and she's going to buy it.

Tony:

Good, I should go on a commission.

Steph:

You should.

Steph:

So what's one piece of advice that you hope our listeners take away from today's conversation?

Tony:

I think if I was to say to somebody don't do what I did and waste half your life ignoring your gut feeling, I think, it's a very, very good way to move forward, following your gut instinct, so I would always advise people to do that. Now, having done both sides of it, ignored it, and now I'm following it and I find that my life is so much better that I'm following my gut instinct and, as I said, yeah, you won't always get it right, but the proportions are favourable, so, yeah.

Steph:

Great, well thank you so much for coming on.

Tony:

You're welcome.

Steph:

It's been a great conversation. I hope people find it when they need to hear it. I hope it helps people. I will link the book in the show notes and thank you for listening to Tranquil Topics. You can follow me on instagram at Tranquil Topics. Please rate, review and subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening from. Thank you and I'll be back in two weeks with another episode. Bye.