How the Hell Did I Get Here? When Life Takes You Somewhere You Never Planned
Have you ever looked at your life and thought…
“How the hell did I get here?”
I have.
Twenty-six years ago I thought I knew exactly where I was going. I wanted NLP to help me become a kick-ass business person.
Instead, I discovered hypnosis.
And that completely changed the direction of my life.
Then, years later, a phone call from a friend led me into another part of my career that I’d never planned, never expected and initially didn’t even want.
It became one of the best things that ever happened to me.
And that’s what got me wondering:
Why do we think the rest of our lives has to be planned?
Maybe life isn’t always about following the plan.
Maybe it’s about having a direction… and being open enough to notice what appears along the way.
This FMQ is the seed for the deeper dive:
“What If Your Life Doesn’t Need to Go According to Plan?”
So, before you rush off to plan the next five years of your life, have a think about one question:
How the hell did you get here?
And what unexpected turns might have taught you something you couldn’t have learned any other way?
In this FMQ
- Why your life may take unexpected turns
- What unexpected opportunities can teach us
- The difference between having a plan and having a direction
- Why being open to change can create possibilities
- How life experiences can change your sense of purpose
- A question that might make you look at your own journey differently
Your puzzle-book question
How the hell did I get here?
And then:
What happened in my life that I never planned, but I’m bloody glad happened?
Listen to the deeper dive
What If Your Life Doesn’t Need to Go According to Plan?
Because sometimes the most interesting parts of life are the bits we never put on the bloody plan.
If this episode resonates, subscribe or follow Personal Development Unplugged, and please share it with someone who might need the question too.
It’s time to fly, my friend. Have more fun than you can stand.
Please share what you learn:
Shine Brightly 🌟
Paul
Hey there! I’d love to hear from you—questions, feedback, requests—all welcome. Drop me a line or leave a comment. If you’ve enjoyed this episode or any other, please share and subscribe! You can reach me at feedback@personaldevelopmentunplugged.com.
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Music Credits
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And the transcript WARNING if you’re a lover of the written word this may make you frustrated, or angry – you have been warned – is it an ‘ism
Welcome my friend to the seed a five minute quickie, the seed of thought. Well, my thoughts anyway. And the thought this time is how the hell did I get here? You see, about 26 years ago, I heard about this thing called NLP.
And I thought it was going to be kick ass, kick ass. In my business life, it’s gonna, it was gonna just shoot my career, I’d be able to manipulate people and all that stuff. And so 26 years ago, or maybe more actually that 26 and a half years ago, I want to went and did a training with a guy called Wilf Proudfoot, unfortunately, he’s left this world.
But what a wonderful man he was. And he was so wonderful. He said, I’m not teaching you now people, you got to learn hypnosis.
Oh, really? But I wanted to be this kick ass business person is going to change everything for myself. All in my business. I got it planned.
And I started that course. Bloody hypnosis. What the hell is all this about? What’s that got to do with, you know, progressing my career? How’s it going to change my life? I don’t know.
And I listened to what he was saying. And a few things started to, you know, the cogs started to, to move in a different way in my mind. And then there was an aha moment about, I think it was about just coming into the second day.
I was thinking about this. I was wanting to learn how to be this kick ass business person with all these wonderful tricks and tools and, you know, mind hacks, which I hate the fucking word mind hack. But as another discussion.
But something happened. It was if right then there was an aha moment. And that aha moment was what a bloody dick you are, Cluffy.
What a dick. It’s not about you having mind hacks. It’s not about you having all the tricks and things.
It’s about changing who you were, and who I am, and seeing life differently. And I didn’t jump, I didn’t jump ship or do anything like that. But learning that hypnosis, and then an NLP with this different frame of mind, changed my life.
It was never on the horizon. But the effect was unreal. It did help kickstart my career.
But not in the way I thought about being manipulative and things like that. But being, you know, serving people, helping people in business, which is unheard of. You know, people used to try to do nasty things to each other, try to get the one up, you know, always be the better, try to, you know, cheat a little bit, I guess.
But just being kind and using these tools in a different way, changed my career. But it also added so many different things, because I’m here, aren’t I? I’ve set up hypnosis clinics. I’ve become a trainer of NLP.
I train people to deal with trauma, become hypnotherapists. And I also got, and I’m still am, working with my two of my three sons. That’s awesome.
Changed my life completely. But it was never on the horizon. Then there was another time, I remember this other time.
I was doing this, I was in my career, doing the stuff, that was okay. I’d had a few changes, and this is one I had to grasp. And then out of the blue, I got a phone call.
A phone call from a guy called Mark. I knew him, I knew him. And he said, Paul, I wondered if you can come and help me for a little while.
Just do a little bit of work at the weekend for me. Maybe just turn up on a Saturday and do this little job for me. I don’t know, maybe four weeks, that’s all.
And I thought, yeah, why not? Why not? It’s different. Could do with a little bit of cash. And then it started to change a little bit.
So I talked to the guys around this new area. And it was a completely different area of the industry that I was in. It was part of something that I never, ever, ever thought I would ever be part of.
Didn’t want to be part of it. It didn’t seem right. Not in the way in my projectory, as it were, my plan projectory.
Cluffy’s got a plan. And then out of the blue, again, Mark just said to me, do you know if, do you know anybody who would come and help me on a more permanent basis? And I looked at him and said, well, why are you asking me that? It just came out of my mouth. Why don’t you ask me? And he said, well, you wouldn’t do this, would you? Because it’s, I know the type of work you’ve been doing.
And this is completely, completely off target, off track or whatever. He said, so I didn’t want to ask you, but would you? And after a little bit of thinking, a little bit of chatting with the people involved in my life, I then thought, but why not? Why not? I’ve done everything else in this, this bloody industry. Why not take this little leap? Because I know this guy.
And he seemed, you know, I even checked his values, which is really weird, but his values were exactly the same as mine. And what happened? It led to 15 years of the second greatest job I’ve ever had. The first one is that training and working with, with people in therapy and things like that.
But it was the second greatest job I ever had. But it also did something else for me. It gave me a friendship.
And I never really had friendships at work. You have friendships, you know, but they’re colleagues. But Mike was a friend, a true friend.
He supported me. If I was any, I had a few little wobbles occasionally, as we all do. And he was there for me.
Again, completely out of the blue. And you see, what I’m trying to say is, and this is where we’re going to go on the deeper dive. This has been part of my personal work over the last few months, maybe longer, but I think it’s over the last few months.
And I’ve come out with this question. Why do we think or why did I think the rest of our lives, my life has to be planned? And that rocked me. I’m going to repeat that one.
Why do we think, we, you and I think the rest of our lives has to be planned? Yeah, let that sink in for a moment. Because that’s where I’m going on the deeper dive, discovering, finding direction. And I think you’ll find it really interesting because it’s changed my life.
And I think you’ll get some golden nuggets from it, which will get you thinking. And you may even out of the blue, but you know, that’s all there is. Do press that subscribe button, follow button, because I think this is going to be something really interesting to you.
You’ve probably pressed it already, haven’t you? And you’ve probably shared this podcast with everyone you know, haven’t you? No, I know you don’t. If you would, just share it with one person because they might resonate with my story, and then resonate with what else is to follow. So I want to see you, see you on the next deeper dive.
How the hell did I get here? What a question, eh? Maybe in between now and then, you could think of that question too. How the hell did you get there? We’re right where you are right now. Anyway, it’s time to fly my friend, have more fun than you can stand.
And I’ll see you next time. Ta-ra. So on this sea, this FMQC to a longer discovery, longer podcast.
It’s all about things that just happen in your life, that change. You know, it’s the things that happen that teaches things that we would never, ever know. So it’s called How the hell did I get here? Come with me and find out.