I bought a £248 anytime return to London.
Absolute rip off, but for today, that is beside the point.
This isn’t a critique of Britain. Buying that train ticket was important for me.
It was my “symbolic act.”
I’ve been thinking about these a lot. Symbolic acts.
What I’ve found over the years in coaching, mentoring or managing people is that there is usually one thing, one action, one task that is the pinnacle of everything that they need to do. It’s the number one priority, it’s the mission critical task.
But, it’s more important than that.
It’s the symbolic act that if achieved will carve the way for everything else in their life to flow. It’s the thing that will break them through to the other side.
It could be anything. It doesn’t always necessarily need to be a work thing. It’s an action in their life that will culminate in change.
Let me tell you why my £250 anytime return to London was my symbolic act.
Recently, I have completed with lots of my coaching clients and I am beginning to welcome in a handful more. Not loads, because I want to spend most of my time building Aster and launching Jack.
Naturally my revenue has dipped.
As a result, I begin feeling anxious and my scarcity mindset kicks in. I start playing small, thinking small and worrying about the future, worrying about money.
Going to London feels like a holiday. For me, it is, a creative holiday. A place I go to get inspired and connect with awesome people. £250 for an open return though? When business is quiet? Not so sure. Will it be worth it? Will I make it back? Shouldn’t I start saving the pennies a bit now? Winter is coming… Who am I even meeting down there, will they become a client?! What if I never make any more money ever and I become destitute?!
This is my upper limit, this is my scarcity mindset.
When really, the person I want to be is the person who goes down to London whenever he wants. Who maybe even has a first class season ticket?! Where £250 for a return, even though extortionate, makes complete sense for me and my work.
I bought it.
Buying that train ticket isn’t just about this one off trip to London. It’s my symbolic act.
For me the £250 anytime return symbolises belief and momentum.
If I don’t buy that train ticket I’m saying to myself that I need to tighten the belt because there’s no more business coming in. If I don’t buy that train ticket. I’m predicting failure, not success.
Buying that train ticket was my symbolic act.
I’ve become quite adept at helping people find their symbolic act, and it’s so rewarding when they do it.
For lots of people a really important symbolic act is a holiday where they properly properly switch off. This usually symbolises confidence and trust that everything will be ok when they return. If they (usually founders) can switch off for a week and not check in on emails they are making a great proposal of trust in themselves and their business.
In a coaching session the other day, a founder was anxious about pipeline. Worried about what was coming in. We’d spoken about this in the session previously and taken actions to create a more sustainable pipeline through account management and new biz. Yet in the following session, the anxiety remained.
When we dug in, the anxiety wasn’t about pipeline. It was about cash, in this instance; personal cash. They’d been putting off putting off taking money out of the business for themselves and it had been on their mind. This is a classic case of scarcity vs abundance kicking in around money. A classic case of confidence in you and your business.
If the founder doesn’t take the money out for themselves, the message is clear. “I don’t believe in the business”. If the money is taken out of the business and into the founder’s pocket - the message is the opposite. “There’s more where this came from, it’s all going to be fine”
The good news is (with my help I think!), the founder decided to make the investment in themselves. As a result, I’m sure more new revenue will flow into the business, I have witnessed this time and time again.
Symbolic acts can be counter intuitive like this. Especially around money when scarcity kicks in, self-preservation says to spend less when intuition says to spend more. It’s not about the money, it’s what the spending symbolises.
Other symbolic acts are simpler. Holidays, strategic moves, presents, gifts. With another founder their symbolic act was get in the office more with the team. We felt like if he did this, everything would flow from there and it is proving correct. Getting in the office symbolised energy, team spirit, camaraderie, maturing as a business.
My symbolic act was to buy an expensive train ticket to London that will mean I can go there and back in a day and wake up with Sarah and Xander the next morning.
What’s your symbolic act? What does it symbolise? What’s stopping you doing it?
Cheers,
James x
p.s in the end my ticket didn’t get checked so I can use the same tickets to go to London again this week :)
p.p.s do the thing
