The other day I had a meeting with a new client.  This gentleman has recently immigrated to Canada and wants to start a new business here. He was telling me: "Shahab, I know I don't want to pursue my previous career, and I want to start something new, but I'm lost! I don't know what to do, and what direction to take. I kind of know what I like but I'm not really 100% confident that I'm going to be successful in that field."

As a professional coach, I started asking him various questions: “What are your top three strengths?" "What are your true passions?" "What are your top values?" "What is your vision?" "What is your mission?”. Every question I asked, he gave me this blank stare; he didn't know the answers. No wonder he was lost; no wonder he was confused: simply put, he didn't know himself at all!

One of my guiding principles is “Know yourself to grow yourself!”, and if you are lost, my questions to you are the same as above.

Do you know your...

I was talking to one of my clients yesterday who is a professional in the financial industry and he's starting a new Venture in that same industry that could potentially make him very wealthy and successful. His problem is that he's not taking the necessary actions. Honestly, his idea is a brilliant idea that could be a potentially million-dollar idea. He is not taking the necessary actions and we were focusing on this challenge in our coaching session, yesterday.

When I started asking questions, we both realized that he has this belief that: “if eventually this idea works out, he will not be happy with the result!” He explained that he thought if he eventually becomes wealthy and successful, that would be painful because some people might want to kidnap his kids, he will lose a lot of his friends because they don't want to hang out with that wealthy guy and somehow, his life will be jinxed and that fear I could say “the fear of success” was paralyzing him...

VIZUALISTION doesn’t work?!

Personal development gurus tell us to do mental visualization on a regular basis if we want to achieve our goals. They advise us to visualize the moment we are crossing the finish line and reaching our dreams. I'm here to tell you that this is bad advice. This is actually incomplete advice that can actually decrease your chances of reaching success! 

  Research in positive psychology has shown us that we need to do TWO other mental visualization activities on a regular basis in order to increase our chances of achieving our goals:

   Number ONE is to visualize all the necessary actions steps that we need to take in order to get to the finish line.  For example, if you're dieting and you want to lose weight you need to visualize what kind of meals you need to prepare and what kind of physical activities you need to do on a regular basis.

   Number TWO is to visualize how you are going to overcome the hurdles...

Gain Back Your Motivation with THIS TRICK

Today I was talking to one of my clients, and she was telling me that she is struggling financially, and when I noticed the way she was explaining her situation to me, I noticed that she was constantly repeating the fact that she was weaker in comparison to her competitors in the market, and she didn't have much to offer compared to the leaders in the industry and basically the fact that she was not good enough in this current economic situation.

 At that moment, I remembered the concept of explanatory styles. Dr. Martin Seligman talks about the importance of the way we explain the adversities of life to ourselves:  1- Are we talking about those adversities in terms of being personal: Is it because of me that this is happening? 2- Pervasive: Does it affect all areas of my life? 3- And is it permanent or is it something that goes away pretty soon?

I told this client about the importance of explanatory styles, and she instantly...

Personal development gurus say: “You are responsible for a 100% of the results in your life! You can achieve any goal that you set your mind to!”. They even quote Napoleon Hill (The author of the acclaimed book “Think and Grow Rich”) to said, “Whatever your mind believes and conceives, you can achieve!”.

Today, I’m here to tell you that that's not true at all! Let me tell you why: Take the case of happiness. Based on research done by Dr. Sonja Lyubomirski and other experts, we now know that 50 % of happiness is actually genetic! Based on research done on identical twins and fraternal twins, we have come to realize that 50% of happiness is pretty much unchangeable. Another 10% goes back to outside events and circumstances. For example, you don't have any control over natural disasters or the fact that you might lose all of your family in a tragic accident. Now if somebody says, “You can control all the results in your life, and you can...

Personal development gurus tell you to repeat positive affirmations on a daily basis. Affirmations like: "Every day, in every way, my life is improving for the better!" REALLY?! Do you REALLY believe that this stuff works?! Let me tell you this: research and positive psychology has shown us that unrealistic optimism can not only increase your chances of getting depressed, but also decrease your chances of finding success!

Let me tell you why:

Number ONE: When you have irrational optimism, you won't take the necessary steps in order to achieve success!

Number TWO: You will take on hugely irrational risks like somebody who is wasting their money at the casino just hoping for the events to turn!

And number THREE: You will take on irrational goals. You might weigh only 50 kilograms at this moment, but you want to be the heavyweight boxing champion within three months just because you are optimistic!

Now, if you are tired of wasting time, money, and energy on baseless random self-help...

Video Transcription:

Is it ever the right thing to quit your goal? You see, quitting is not an easy thing to do. You may have spent a lot of time and energy into reaching your goal, and you may be wondering: "Is it really worth it to quit at this stage?" Or you might be thinking: "Am I quitting too soon? Maybe I should push a little bit harder!" and those are valid questions. But you see, quitting is sometimes the right thing to do because physically, emotionally and mentally speaking, that's the right thing to do.

 Of course in a separate video, I talked about the fact that if you are quitting because you think you don't have the ability, that's the wrong reason to do it. Don't quit because you think:” I don't have the ability!” because you're probably wrong. Think of a role model who has made success happen for them in a similar situation to yours, and be honest with yourself. Is it about the ability or is it about planning, goal-setting, execution and...

Video Transcription:

You always hear from life coaches and business coaches like me that optimism is key to success, but based on positive psychology, as I've repeatedly told you, we have realistic optimism and unrealistic optimism.

What does that mean? Realistic optimism is saying: "I'm optimistic about the future; I know I will succeed based on the behaviors that I show, based on the effort that I put in, I will set goals and make plans and take on the right strategies to make success happen for me." That's realistic optimism, and it is very empowering and motivational and will usually lead to success.

On the contrary, we have unrealistic optimism which is all about saying “I will be successful not necessarily because of the behaviors that I show, or the efforts that I put in, but because of something that is outside of my control. For example, I will be successful because I'm smart! I will be...

On Aug 13, 2020 Dr. Shahab Anari had a very interesting conversation with Dr. Deepak Chopra about his book Metahuman.

These are some of the otpics that were discussed:

What does Metahuman mean?

How is virtual reality different from metareality?

You claim in your book, "I don't believe in Big bang." Can you expand on this?

You write in your book, "Your body is a confederation of senses. It is not a thing." What do you mean by that?

Deepak Chopra also talks about how he's reversing his aging process! These are some of the interesting topics that came up during this interview, which Dr. Deepak Chopra personally loved. Watch the whole interview here.

Follow Dr. Shahab Anari's work at:

His website: www.northstarsuccess.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shahabanari/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northstarsuccess/

Watch the full interview here: 

Want to work with me? Here's how.