TBP Open Your Mind

Near the beginning of the month we gave some advice about ‘What you need to do to comply with the April 2006 HMO Regulations’.

Since the introduction of the new regulations on April 6th we have spoken in depth to several councils, and have gained an understanding of where they are coming from.

Local councils are made up of several departments covering Planning, Health and Safety, Private Property (inc HMO), and others which are non-property-rental related. Unfortunately these don’t seem to talk to each other very often, which is the first issue we face.

However, even if they did speak to each other, it is unlikely they would agree on things. This is because they each receive guidance from several Government Acts, which sometimes conflict. Relevant acts for HMO Licensing include the Buildings Act, Environmental Act, Housing Act, and others. To add to the confusion, local councils are allowed to apply their own discretion or interpretation to each of these acts - resulting in different requirements for each region.

What this means for you, the landlord, is that you should contact your local council and speak with their housing officer regarding HMOs and find out how they have interpreted the various Acts and what their typical requirements are. This can be a general enquiry - no need to give the addresses of your property at this stage, just make a note of the requirements they mention, and ask for an information pack to be mailed to you.

Once you have this pack it is a good idea to get ballpark estimates for work which may be required, a kind of ‘worse case scenario’. You can then invite the council HMO representative to your property and discuss which requirements are really essential, and stipulations which are obviously aimed at properties in much worse condition than your own and can be compromised on, or omitted altogether. It is important that any agreement you reach on this is confirmed in writing by the council to ensure there is no confusion later on.

By appreciating the position of your HMO council officer you are more likely to be able to reach a compromise on what changes need to be made to your property, which in turn means less hassle and expense for you.

Part of achievement is to be able to set realistic goals.

However it is very important not to confuse a goal with an action. A goal is an outcome. Actions are what you do to achieve that outcome.

For example, you may say ‘my goal is to own a nice car.’ Not quite. The goal or outcome is what you expect from a nice car. This could be a feeling of happiness, respect from your friends or colleagues (interesting choice of friends), maybe the freedom to go on longer journeys without the fear of breaking down, or simply the sense of pride for achieving one of your dreams.

Ultimately, as a person, you want to feel an emotion (or in the case of the car breaking down, remove the fear or inconvenience of breaking down). This is perfectly normal and is how we all operate ‘underneath’.

Okay, so we have the goal - where does our original statement ‘my goal is to own a nice car’ fit into the outcome we desire? By saying you would like to own a nice car, you are really saying you want the feelings or emotions you associate with owning a nice car. To experience these you have decided you need the car, so getting a car is an action towards the goal.

This action ‘getting the car’ can then be broken down into smaller actions, such as saving up so much money each month, or having a clear out and selling some things you don’t need, and so on. It can also include non-financial steps - things like asking friends for car recommendations (or ones to avoid), comparing prices and features to determine your shortlist, test driving cars on your shortlist, etc.

Once you have the list of actions so can start working through them. This may take weeks or months. This is why it is important to have defined the outcome in advance…so you have the reason and motivation to keep at it.

Also having a clearly defined outcome helps you recognise when you have reached it, and when you should prepare the next one!

Life’s lesson No. 1

There once was a bunch of tiny frogs who arranged a running competition. The goal was to reach the top of a very high tower.

A big crowd had gathered around the tower to see the race and cheer on the contestants.

The race began. No one in the crowd really believed that the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower. Statements were made, such as:
“Oh, WAY too difficult!!”
“They will NEVER make it to the top.”
“Not a chance that they will succeed. The tower is too high!”

Sure enough the tiny frogs began collapsing. One by one, except for those who in a fresh tempo were climbing higher and higher…

The crowd continued to yell
“It is too difficult!!! No one will make it!”

More tiny frogs got tired and gave up, but ONE continued higher and higher and higher…This one wouldn’t give up!

At the end everyone else had given up climbing the tower. Except for the one tiny frog who after a big effort was the only one who reached the top.

Afterwards all of the other tiny frogs wanted to know how this one frog managed to do it?

A contestant asked the tiny frog how the one who succeeded had found the strength to reach the goal? It turned out that the winner was deaf!

The wisdom of this story is:
Never listen to other people’s tendencies to be negative or pessimistic, because they take your most wonderful dreams and wishes away from you. The ones you have in your heart.

Always think of the power words have because everything you hear and read will affect your actions!

Be positive, and above all be deaf when people tell you that you cannot fulfil your dreams!

Always think, I can do this!

The mind is a complex and powerful thing. It is what has helped us become the number one species on the planet, in terms of mental ability at least. However there is a lot of potential which goes unused.

At a basic level the mind contains the conscious, and the subconscious. The conscious mind is all the things we actively think about, the internal dialogue we have with ourselves when we are thinking things over.

The subconscious mind on the other hand is more subtle. It makes decisions without us realising. It handles all the important things like controlling your breathing, heart rate and so on. You have probably just become aware of your breathing pattern now…it has become a conscious thing for you. A few minutes ago when you started reading this page chances are it was a sub-conscious activity.

The subconscious mind is like the back burner on a hob. You can start thinking about something on the front burner, the conscious mind, then move onto something else, and the initial thoughts move onto the sub conscious mind back burner, where they keep ticking along on their own. At some stage later on, you can re-visit the thing you were thinking about, and it moves magically off the back burner and into full view, returning to your conscious mind.

Marketing campaigns often work in reverse. They plant an idea in your subconscious mind, such as ‘using brand xyz soap will make people smile’ and then next time you think about soap (or buying soap) you automatically think of brand xyz. These marketing strategies often either play to your fears or to your desires.

Next time you see an advertisement (on average we see over fifty every day), look closely at what you see. In particular look for the things which aren’t immediately obvious – for example something in the background out of focus, writing on a glass or ice cube, how the actors always smile when they glance at the product been advertised, etc. These subtle ‘hints’ which we do not usually notice consciously are often seen by our subconscious and play a large part in steering us towards a particular product when we are unable to decide.

It could be argued this is a good thing because it stops us from having to make decisions about trivial things like which cereal to eat, but i’d rather make up my own mind…

When do you decide to do something? How long does it take?

The truth is you decide to do something in an instant, a ‘now‘, but you probably spend hours/days/weeks or longer reaching that decision.

By not making a decision straight away you are actually making a decision anyway, just without realising it - one to delay making the decision until later, until the ‘right’ now. Then you have a drawn out decision process with yourself where you argue in your mind about whether now is the right time or not.

Finally, the right ‘now’ comes along and you make the final decision, click, in the time it takes to click your fingers the decision is made - now has arrived.

So the next time you are dragging your feet over a decision, stop, make it now.

Like most things in life it will seem easier looking back after the event, and you will realise you were waiting for the wrong now anyway, and could have decided much sooner.

Chocolate? Toxic?

Chocolate contains a compound called Theobromine which is poisonous…if you’re a dog. This is because an average canine immune system takes over 17 hours to break down the theobromine by 50%, as they are unable to metabolise the chemical effectively.

As little as 200g of chocolate would stress the digestive system of a 20kg dog, and over 500g is a lethal dose.

So this Easter weekend be a little bit greedy and keep all the chocolate to yourself. If you think you’ve eaten too many chocolate eggs, how about taking a look here at Lenny the Chocolate Moose!

Do you remember when you learnt to ride a bike? I expect you fell off, a lot? I did!

When you first started off you were probably very unsure what to expect - you knew it was possible to ride a bike because you knew of other people who had done it before, but seeing someone do something, and doing it for yourself are two very different things. You were cautious at first because it was a new experience, and relied on a push from someone to get you started.

As you grasped the basics you would have felt very proud of yourself, until you lost concentration and ploughed into the ground in a heap of legs and bike. Other times you might have been going along concentrating so hard that you didn’t realise how far you’d gone, and might even suddenly have realised you no longer knew where you were going because you had gone straight by your original destination without giving it a second thought!

At some point during your bike learning experience you realised that if you look at the ground and concentrated on the negative things like falling off, you probably did fall off. However by feeling confident and acting confident, you somehow just knew how to succeed, and how to enjoy having control of the journey…

In an earlier article we looked at the different stages of learning we go through when learning a new skill. Here we will discuss how this relates to every day activities, and consider situations where it is not always ‘best’ to have all our skills at the fourth level of learning.

The fourth stage of learning (unconscious competence) is what most of us would call a habit. They are an extremely useful part of our lives - how tedious would it be to think about which way to tie your shoelaces every day? Surely there is a better way to express your creativity! Conversely there are areas of our lives we would like to consciously think about. Clearly there is a balance to be found between having skills we do subconsciously, and skills we carry out consciously.

At school, you learn that 4+4=8. This was probably learnt by repetition, so you automatically know when asked what does 4+4 equal, the correct answer is 8. But what about 3+5? Can that also equal 8, because we know that 8 is 4+4. If we learnt mathematics in this way, learning every possible combination of questions and answers, it would be pretty futile. It is far easier to learn the rules, and then apply these to the questions to reach the answers.

Once you know the rules, the next step is applying them correctly. If you have an ambition of 8, but you are constantly doing the sum 3+4, you are not going to get there. The choices we make given this result fall into three categories.
1: We keep doing the same thing (3+4), and keep missing our target (8). This leads to frustration.
2: We change what we are aiming for, and decide 7 would be an acceptable result. Coincidently what we are doing (3+4) equals 7, so we are now satisfied.
3: We start thinking ‘outside the box’, thinking creatively, and consider other ways of achieving our target (8). With a bit of trial and error, chances are we will reach our target.

Trial and Error could be rephrased as ACTION and ASSESSMENT. We take action, and then see what results that action has given, and if we are moving closer to our target, or further away from it. The action can then be adjusted and repeated accordingly.

The process of knowing which of the three methods you use to attack a problem can only be discovered by consciously thinking about what you are trying to achieve (the target outcome), and what actions you are taking to get there. This is where it is beneficial to step back to level three of learning, and double check if your habit is helping you, or not.