 Hello everybody and happy new year. I hope that you're all doing really well indeed and tonight live here from our office in Dublin I want to do a book review of this book, which is No Fears, No Excuses by Larry Smith and about two years ago now we started working on a new project in the business. This particular summer when we really pushed it out there we started to get some feedback that was either neutral or else there wasn't an awful lot of it and the time came that we had to really pivot the idea and to think about doing it in a different way. Well, that was pretty hard to take and one day I was in Cincinnati in Ohio and this book appeared in front of me and I saw the architect of what was going wrong personally in terms of my own mindset, which was fears and excuses. Now, I'm not really one to look towards fear or excuses and hold on to them for long but the thing was that it was getting harder and harder to do so particularly related to this so that's why the book caught my eye. But the thing is, is that the subheading of this book is what you need to do to have a great career. So as I was reading the book, I had two audiences in mind. One was me personally and what it was that I needed to do in order to overcome both. But secondly, I was thinking about the roadmap that Larry Smith was giving me with a view to seeing how that translated to what we do in Saviteens. So the first thing that I'll say is this book, I recommended it to somebody today, is absolutely fantastic for somebody who is looking to turret their career journey. So maybe it is that they don't quite know what it is that they want to do or maybe they don't know how to translate it into a job application or how to articulate it clearly or they don't know what's driving them or maybe they're worried about where the economy is going or they don't know if this particular job is going to exist in the future or anything like that. What this book does really, really well is that it gives somebody a really clear roadmap. Now, as I was reading it, I found myself nodding an awful lot. In other words, yes, Larry, I agree with you. So, for example, he talks about people when they're worried that they want to get a job in an area where there are relatively few jobs and then he talks about, OK, well, how could you take the skills or what you really like about that job and translate it into a different one? And that's what I do with our teenagers all the time, is that somebody will tell me, well, I'd really like to work in a multinational organisation and travel an awful lot, but I don't want to be aware for my family all the time. And then we look at, OK, well, how could you work in a job? Maybe where you have to travel but your home every week, for example, or how would you like to work in a job where you're working with international people but on video calls who are maybe remote working? So what what I do with you in savvy teens is that I really decipher down exactly what it is as that you would like in a career. And then, of course, we can reverse it back then back to, OK, what type of college courses would you need to do? What type of work experience would you need to get? How do you even figure out what you want to do, etc. So what I would say is that if you're one, if you're somebody like that, whether you're a teenager or whether you've been in with me before and you want to go on and you're deciding now, maybe you're in college and you're thinking about all of this again, is that if at any stage that you're at that, what do I do with my career type of type of stage? Have to say this book is is really, really good. The second thing I will say is that. I'll tell you who shouldn't read it at all, right? People who want people who know that they're using fear or an excuse or a combination of both to not pursue a particular passion. Do not read this book because he will strip that back. Larry Smith, I have to say, here's the way it's described in the back is showcasing his particular mix of tough love and bracing clarity. Now he has, right? I found it so funny is that his way is the way in which he speaks is very, very direct and very articulately humorous, right? It is. But if you are somebody that you want to read the book, you want to quick fix, but you don't want to have to do any like thinking or facing your fear and overcoming it. Do not pick it up because he will force you to. And that's the second point that I wanted to make is that I didn't necessarily need the career trajectory, but I am a pretty good sense of that already, as I say, but what I found very useful in the book is that he has a chapter called the architect of an excuse. And what he does is he shines a light on excuses in so many, many ways that he he shows you how to identify your own excuses and to identify the difference, whether they're an excuse or a reason and how to adapt in either case. He also shows you how to identify the psychology around other people using excuses and how to overcome those. And then after that, then he goes on from excuses into fear. And he's a very different take to it than most people. So generally, we think fear in terms of your career or business objective or something that you would like to achieve, that fear is a bad thing. So generally, what what you will see in traditional, traditional reading is that you need to overcome your fear and you need to eliminate it and you need to get past it and all that sort of thing, of which, of which I have to say, I would be very much a believer myself, but he looks at things differently. What he says is, no. Before you do any or all of that, what you need to do is you need to look at the usefulness of fear. So he says, fear protects us. That's what it's for. So if my heart starts beating right now because I'm nervous about something, what it's doing is that it's alerting my comfort zone that I'm going beyond it and that I may be worried because maybe I'm not prepared enough. And if I'm not prepared enough, well, then I should do more preparation to make sure that when I do whatever I'm doing, maybe it's a job interview, maybe it's a presentation or whatever that I'm better prepared for it. So that's how fear protects me. So if I look at it in that in that way, how do I use the usefulness of fear with the view to preventing me from making mistakes like standing up for a presentation or going for an interview, ill-prepared? So the approach that he takes and he spends a whole part of the book, a whole part of the book is devoted to looking at the usefulness of fear and he documents various ones like fear of ambition, fear of failure, fear of well, fear of talking about what you're passionate about and other people laughing at you, fear of guilt. So people feeling a lot of guilt about putting time into their career when they feel that they should be putting it into somebody else. And then that fear comes from somewhere way back of a different time or of a different generation. And that I found I found quite interesting. I found his his his perspective on fear, but particularly his his very clear again, as as the back of it says, actually, I'll just give you this specific this specific term at the back. After dismantling your hidden mental objectives, he provides practical step by step guidance and how to go about identifying and then pursuing your true passion. Again, that's exactly what he does. But I found my own hidden fears rising to the surface. That's that's what I found happening. And I remember one night, it was beautiful, a beautiful autumn evening that I was reading the book and I was in a town called Mehalen in Belgium. And there was just me and notebook and this book. And I found myself putting it down and my fears, the hidden ones, the subconscious ones that I had been experiencing over that that particular summer. Over this summer, I found them very easy to articulate and write down. And as soon as they were on paper, I came up with a strategy. And then I quickly I quickly came up with things that I could do. I spoke to Ireland, my husband about them, and we were able to get past them. And that's what I found is that it was almost like a fishing rod to get your fears, pull them up. And and then when they move from your subconscious to your conscious and into very much a mindset, he puts you into around implementation and action steps moving forward. And and it was great. So that's what I found. But also I now found because of his clarity and his framework around doing it is that I can help other people to do the same. And by the way, people who come to savvy teens lots and lots of teenagers have worries about so many things. So some of you have worries about will I get a job? Some of you will I have the right relationship? Some of you I want to have a career and I want to have a family? How do I do both? Some of you might have fears that you don't know where they're let's say around money that you're afraid that if you pursue your passion, that you won't get a good enough job and therefore you won't be able to do X, Y and Z. And some of you have lots of other fears and some of you have discussed them with me, you know, in private or between conversations between you and I over the coffee breaks, etc. Of course, where I would always maintain that confidence. So I'm not going to elaborate on that. But what I am saying is that part and parcel of life, whether you're a teenager, whether you're running your own business, whether you're a parent or whether you're facing a transition of a different sort, they're very, very normal. And what I seek to deliver within savvy teens is an ability to understand and recognise that, but also to develop a toolkit to overcome that. So when we say that savvy teens is around careers, communication and confidence, a lot of what confidence is is being able to face that fear or face an obstacle and overcome it. So, yes, of course, within the careers part, we talk about the actual career that you would like to talk about. And we look at we look at challenging the assumptions so that you can move forward on that. But also then what we do is understanding the mentality of fear and we look at how can we overcome that. And in particular, what I liked about this book, as I say as well, is differentiating between a reason and an excuse and overcoming that. So the second person that I recommended this book today is to somebody who loves psychology, somebody who loves to really understand how their own mindset works and overcome it. So if you're one of those and no matter what age you are, if you are somebody that you, you know, you like to be able to understand how your mindset works, you want to be able to overcome that and you want to be able to overcome fear or distinguish whether you're giving yourself an excuse now or valid reason. I have to say that this this book this book is also very, very worthwhile read. So in summary, Larry Smith, No Fears, No Excuses. It's really good for two types of people. Number one is the person who is looking for that career trajectory, generally like many of my teenagers are. And the reason for that is, of course, is because they're looking at what subjects should I choose in the future? What work experience should I look for? What course should I choose in college? Think about employability. So it's with you in mind that I very much had that I read this book. And the second type of person is the person who wants to understand and overcome fear or excuses. And I have to say, I have a much stronger toolkit and a better ability to understand your sense and where you're coming from when you come and talk to me about this as well at Saviteens or any of the other the other businesses that we have here at the Hayes Colletin Group. So so on that note, I'm going to say thanks so much indeed for joining. I wish you all a truly fantastic new year. For those of you who do want to read the book, please do comment here. Let me know what you thought, how you use it. But personally, there's certainly no fears and no excuses hanging around here tonight. So on that note, as I say, I wish you all the very best and thank you very much for watching. Bye.