(Speach given to the Institute of Management Consultants - Melbourne)
I have chosen to speak today on somewhat of an esoteric topic to the profession of consulting, yet it is fundamental to it, and all that we choose to do with our lives. I term it “Lessons From A Journey”

I don’t believe that anyone chooses to consult because they were born to it, or because there was some divine inspiration in their choice to become a consultant. I suspect that most people choose consulting because of the confluence of opportunity, experience, skill, circumstance, luck, and in some or many cases, pure desperation.

Similarly, when you’ve been in the industry for a long time, its rare to feel that you would like to keep consulting until the day you die. It’s more common to hear consultants yearn for retirement so that they can do the stuff they really want to. Whether they can or can’t retire is another matter entirely.

So I’ve reached the conclusion, reasonably I think, that consulting is merely a means to an end – a choice one makes in order to do other stuff and in order to fund other things – like security, a roof over your head or some of life’s extravagances.

I don’t live to consult but I consult to live and I selfishly engineer my consulting to suit my long-term life-vision.

In my opinion there are three elements of work and life:

1. Why we do what we do
2. What we do
3. What we want from what we do

Consulting is one option for the "what we do". I would like to concentrate at the two ends: why we do what we do and what we want from what we do.

I am sure that each one of you has your own basket of life’s experiences and hence lessons. Mine, like yours, come from experiences experienced over my life, but are also enhanced by 25 or so years of counselling others - helping them to, literally, "get a life".

I’d like to briefly identify the 20 key lessons that have significantly affected me, and affected why I do what I do and how that impacts on what I do. So what are the lessons I have learned?
1. You will never have more time left in your life than from right now till the day you die. There is no better time than right now to commence moulding and delivering your life expectations - delays and procrastination in developing and executing your life plan means less time to enjoy it. Being obsessed by your client's happiness, as prudent as it may be for your client realtionships, may in fact be a disservice to you personally, if it is stopping you from thinking about your own welfare.

2. No one will hand you a reward for living your life according to his or her attitudes and perceptions. Be true to yourself. The more you compromise your true desires, the more inevitable that those desires will never be satisfied.

3. Your self-worth should be generated by the respect, confidence and trust you have for and of yourself - and not from your perception of what others may or may not think of you. If you don't believe in your own self-worth, then why should anyone else? And when you do believe in your own self worth, then the opinion of others becomes a side matter and not the real game - "who cares what they think - they don't have the responsibility for delivering my happiness."

4. You create your own destiny. You have free will, because without it life is incomprehensible, and through this free will, you mould your essence. You are certainly affected by your context, but you are able to change the end-game. You can do pretty much anything you put your mind to. The challenge is to apply your effort to an area that matters to you.

5. Every one of your decisions, actions, thoughts, reflections, deeds and attitudes help build the person you are today. Life is a continuun and it has its benefits - and consequences. You are not the same person you were 20 years ago - and if you are, what went so horribly wrong to have stopped you growing?

6. Know what it will take to make you really, really happy. If you don't have a picture of what turns you on, then how will you know what to chase, or what it looks like when it arrives? You really can't afford to lose the good opportunities - they may be the only ones you get. Your challenge is to know what will contribute to your end game and what won't.

7. Develop a personal vision. Without it, it's like trying to get somewhere you don't know where, by a route that you have no idea of how to get on to.

8. Your personal vision should be your pole star that guides your decisions and actions. Use your vision to determine the suitability of initiatives, clients, projects and opportunities.

9. Allow your heart to mould your pole star, but allow your head to choose the best and most enjoyable path to it. Don't ignore your desires or your intuition. By the same token, don't leave the fulfilment of your desires to chance - plan for your outcomes, whatever they might be.

10. You must enjoy the journey; since some journeys are so long that some of us won’t survive to reach our desired destination. If you haven’t enjoyed the journey and have not reached your destination, then what were life’s sacrifices for? Life's challenge is achieving happiness happily. If you enjoy consulting, then that's fabulous provided it's taking you where you want to go. But if you're not enjoying it, and it's not giving you what you want, then find a better way to achieve your personal objectives and fulfilment through something that you enjoy.

11. Your dissatisfaction with what you are doing now can be eliminated if you put it in context - make it a stepping stone rather than a final resting place. Develop perspective. The here and now is temporary - you and your life will move on but it's up to you how and when and in which direction.

12. Work with the realities of life, the economy and society to achieve your pole star - rather than working against the tide. It's easier to cross a strong tide by swimming diagonally across it but with the current, than by heading straight into the flow.

13. Consider life's hurdles and disappointments as challenges and opportunities. Every experience, good or bad, has a "take-out" that you can grow from. As someone famous once said, "If you don't learn from you bad experiences, you are guaranteed to repeat them."

14. Learn to differentiate between the means and the end (the objective). Chasing the enabler detracts from the real purpose - consulting is the means; your happiness is the end. The question isn't, "How do I become the best or biggest consultant?" but rather, "How do I get the benefits from being a consultant, and what sort of consultant do I need to be in ordr to enjoy the outcomes from consulting."

15. Wealth follows happiness and not the other way around. Being wealthy doesn't guarantee happiness.

16. Only genuine happiness allows you to gain the appropriate perspective on what is wealth and how much of it is important to you. The privelege of happiness allows you to define what wealth means.

17. What goes around comes around. Never make enemies and always try to remain on friendly terms with everyone you deal with. You do not always know when you are being referred to or discussed and for what purpose. The quality of your legacy will determine in what frame those discussions take place.

18. Help others and you’ll be surprised how they will reciprocate. In time, you will be repaid many times over.

19. Allow others to help you: swallow your pride and focus on your pole star. Develop proactive or collaborative networks or go one step further, and develop a Visioning Circle. Who says you have to do it all yourself?

20. Revenge, retaliation and envy are useless baggage and will impede your progress to genuine happiness and contentment. Wasted effort is better focussed on your own fulfilment, and in any case, there is always someone out there bigger, meaner, tougher or in a better position to avenge thn you.

The bottom line:

· Change your personal reference point from others to yourself
· Learn to respect and be in awe of yourself
· Accept that only you can determine your own destiny
· Develop and define a meaningful personal vision
· Develop a strategy to make your vision a reality
· Be prepared to allow others to help you achieve your own vision
· And finally, in order to enjoy consulting, put it in context: understand clearly the role it must play to fulfill your personal vision, and then strategise to get it.

Thank you and good luck