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DARE is the mental model for high performance and change.

You write your story through your DECISIONS, ACTIONS and RESULTS and a thorough EVALUATION of how you did.

A new Result requires new Decisions and Actions.

This Week’s DARE at a Glance:

Thought Of The Week: Write YOUR story - don’t let others steal your pen.

A Difficult Week: When decisions taken by others threaten to de-rail you.

Assuming The Best From Others: People are rarely their worst moments.

Book of the Week: ‘Set Boundaries, Find Peace’ by Nedra Glover Tawwab. 

My Week: Setting boundaries and a message to the wonderful people of Ukraine

Thought of the Week:

“Write YOUR story.

Even when someone else tries to write it for you.
Especially then.”

This week has been difficult.

I agreed to appear at a public event in Kyiv later this month. I stipulated that my fee and book royalties would be shared between two Ukrainian charities.

Taming Tigers, in Ukraine, is called ‘Go where it is scary’.

Last week the event was cancelled. I am unsure of the reasons.  A statement was issued in Ukraine, unseen by me, that I had cancelled the visit as I was concerned by the deteriorating military situation.

So the media publicised that Jim Lawless is ‘too scared to go where it is scary’. Kyiv (home to 3m civilians trying to live their lives) is too scary for Lawless. He’s a fraud.

And the abuse began: my inbox, Instagram, Linkedin, emails, posts and DMs. Public, vicious and deeply personal.

The irony of course is that Taming Tigers is one of the very, very few personal development books where the author did go where it was scary to research the topic (although 100m under the ocean or the racetrack is certainly not the front line of a war).

The other irony is that whilst I’ve had a bucket backstage to manage severe food poisoning on one occasion – I have cancelled no appearance in 25 years and certainly didn’t cancel on the audience in Kyiv!

So, against my team’s advice, I decided not to wait for the official press release to go out but to break the PR rules and respond to some of the posts.

I simply said that I had cancelled nothing, and I would organise my own event in Kyiv in October instead and make it a charity fundraising event for the children and the injured in Ukraine.

And then something extraordinary happened…

Assume the Best in Others. Even in the Storm.

Dozens of messages followed.

People who had written truly horrible insults, messaged to apologise. To explain. Many wrote of the stress, the pressure, the fatigue of living in an endless war.

Fans of the book, and even strangers who had read my replies, began stepping in to defend me on posts I hadn’t even noticed.

It was a good lesson: people are rarely their worst moments. They’re often just hurting.

Then more things happened.

The mighty Ukrainian Railways – now a global case study in resilience and delivery under pressure – wrote to me offering to assist and to cover my rail costs in Ukraine.

The team at the Lviv Book Forum, Ukraine’s largest book fair, invited me to speak there in October.

And all this happened even before my PR team issued the official response.

This isn’t about commerce or book sales.

Please don’t misunderstand. I am not going to Ukraine to sell books. I didn’t write the book to make money in the first place (books don’t make much money).

It is about connection, purpose and values.

My moments of connection this week have been warm and authentic and deeply moving.

If you wish to sponsor the event in Kyiv and charities that will benefit from my trip (all funds above very basic venue, safety and transport costs will go to the charities) please get in touch to sponsor as a business or you can sponsor my charities here as an individual.

I will be supporting (including the proceeds of any books sold at the event) to:

Unbroken – helping the injured in Ukraine and

GEN.Ukrainian – helping the traumatised children of Ukraine.

Book Of The Week.

‘Set Boundaries, Find Peace’ by Nedra Glover Tawwab

This week I needed good boundaries. I needed to be able to protect myself, alone, with a filter, from other people’s emotions. Another basic life skill that is entirely ignored in the education systems.

I first learned about boundaries in rehab aged 43! If you don’t know how to protect yourself from others and how to protect others from YOU then this book is a good starting place.

Social media influencers are not a good starting place. They generally only celebrate ‘saying no’ to other people, generally rather selfishly, which is a very small part of understanding boundaries.

My Week.

I was accused of hiding, when I wasn’t, and had to use all of my boundaries to remain at ease with this and do my work.

I had to use all of my boundaries to be a school holiday Dad when work was, as always, busy.

I hope my clients noticed none of the above at our live events and online MasterClasses!

And I decided to be the event organiser rather than just swanning in to speak.

I have no idea how to do that. If you’d like to assist, let me know!

To the people of Ukraine:

I admire you immensely. I don’t yet know what I can meaningfully share with you about ‘Taming Tigers’ when you’ve been doing that so courageously, for so long.

But we will meet and make something happen, together and in friendship, in October.

Write your story 🖋️

Jim