Like the W Hotel, I offer my clients whatever, whenever. I don’t charge by the hour, I work on retainer so I am always available to my clients to do whatever I can, whenever they need me.

So when my phone rang at 12.30am last Tuesday I wasn’t surprised to see it was one of my clients, but I was surprised by what he said to me.

Putting my big-boy iPhone to my ear, the first thing he said to me was, “crap, you weren’t meant to pick up.” Naturally, I replied, “then why the hell are you calling me?”

He said, “I hoped you wouldn’t answer and I would go through to your voicemail, because I had a massive revelation and I have a soliloquy I wanted leave for you.”

Intrigued, I first thought: “what the hell is a soliloquy?” So while he kept talking I looked it up:

“An act of speaking one’s thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, especially by a character in a play.”

I thought, now we are on the same page, we can get on with it. So I said to him, “you’ve got one better, rather than talking to the cloud, just talk and I will transcribe what you are thinking. Then, if you want, we can talk about it.”

And so for the next ten minutes while he spewed out ideas, with my eight fingers and one thumb I pounded away at the imaginary keys. By the time he had got it off his chest, looking at my page of mess riddled with typos, I knew we had reached a turning point from which he would never go back.

It was a big step for him. And for me too. The realization he had was ground-breaking in terms of our work together, and also helped me see how I can do what I do even better for others.

Over the few months we have been working together his career and life have been massively transformed, but there was still something missing. He had made a ton of progress but there was still something unnatural to what we were doing.

Like J. Edgar Hoover dressing up like a broad at night and dressing buttoned down during the day, our work had helped transform the way he plays his part at work, but he still didn’t feel like it was really “him” doing it.

A key branch of my work is the notion of building a powerful self-image.

This means, in order to imagine yourself doing miraculous things in your career and life, then you must be able to imagine that YOU are the person doing them. While you can do just about anything and pretend to play the part, there is an enormous difference between knowing you are playing the part, and really, truly, feeling you have become the part.

You might be aware that when Daniel Day-Lewis plays a part, he literally lives in the character for the duration of the filming. For instance, when he played Lincoln, not only did he of course take on the role of Lincoln in front of the camera, but off camera, and in his life, he stayed in character. So serious is he about the way he steps into a role, he even learned to write like Lincoln and a number of his fellow actors on set didn’t meet Daniel until filming had wrapped up. Up until that point they only met Lincoln.

Building yourself into the person who can get what you want means building the same type of self-image. Rather than seeing yourself as playing the role of the person who can achieve your goals, it means, literally, in every way imaginable becoming this person.

In my client’s ten minute soliloquy this is what I heard. In a dozen different ways, “coded” in different parts of his language, and resonating in all parts of his neurology, he had come to see himself not as playing the role of the banker he needs to be to take his career to the next level, but actually, he came to see he is now this banker.

It is an unstoppable formula for success because no longer does he see his goals as something he needs to aspire to achieve, but instead he sees he has already become the person who can easily achieve his goals.

From here, success is inevitable. It is merely a matter of time.

So, looking at my page of notes and having listened to him speak, I did what my clients expect me to do. Unlike the millions of people who pathetically reminisce of their best days being behind them, rather than let this moment pass as some revelation he once had that he spends the rest of his days trying to get back to, I locked it in.

Asking him a few pointed questions and “installing” in his mind a few “anchors,” I ensured his brain would only find ways to keep coming back to this massive revelation. Beyond that, like installing a trap door in a stage, I gave myself a way to keep sneaking into his mind and stimulating the “cue,” in case I need to help him get back to this thinking and feeling.

Some insecure people have told me they are fearful of what I do. To them it sounds scary I can help my clients have life-changing realizations and then “program” them to keep thinking amazingly.

But that is why exceptional people pay me the big bucks. I have the most advanced tools imaginable and I do whatever I can, whenever I can to ensure that my clients can do everything they can to get what they want.

A couple of years ago, sitting in an advanced training for public speaking, the teacher looked around the room and asked who was nervous about speaking in front of a large group.

Their faces told me that most of the room felt nervous, but along with only a handful of other people I put up my hand. Although, I only put it half-way up, which caught the attention of the cantankerous teacher.

A challenging fellow, he turned to me and said, “Why is your hand only half way up? Does that mean you are half nervous?” While the rest of the room giggled at my expense, I told him, I didn’t really know because I had never stood up to speak in front of a large group.

He looked at me strangely, and clarifying he said: “So you’ve never spoken in front of a group, but you decided to show up at an advanced training for public speaking.” I said, “yep, I hate the shallow end of the pool.”

He said, “well, you are either an idiot or you are very brave.”

He was right, but he was also wrong. He was right, I am an idiot and I do many things that I have no business doing.

When I started working with clients I had no idea how to teach the ideas that had worked so well for me. So, I began working with clients for free, learning along the way, and after proving I could create massive value for my clients, I began demanding some of the highest fees in the industry, working exclusively for five and six figure retainers.

But, he was also wrong. I am not very brave.

Sure, many people think it takes courage to make the moves I made in my career, quitting Goldman Sachs and the Carlyle Group, and today holding myself out as an expert, but the truth is I am not very courageous. And neither are most people who do hard things.

To some people it seems it would take a great deal of courage to walk across a tight rope without the safety of a net. Or it takes enormous kahunas to strap on a wingsuit and fly within meters of a rock ledge. Or it takes a ridiculous love of risk to climb a rock face without any safety ropes.

But study most of the people in the world who do seemingly courageous things and you learn that it is not bravery that enables them to climb or fly or walk tall, but it is the years of practice they go through, developing mastery in an environment in which they are safe to fail.

You see, whereas to many of the hundreds of people in that training session, it took courage to stand on the stage and speak because they were concerned about leaving a favorable impression, I didn’t give a shit.

Truly, I could care less what any person in that room or any room for that matter thinks of me. Why would I? Why would I possibly give a crap about whether a room full of people learning public speaking thinks I am a good public speaker or not?

Similarly, when I put out my videos or I stand in front of another group speaking, why would I be nervous? Why would I be afraid? Why does it matter whether the people in the audience are wowed by me, or are critical?

Of course I want to do the best job I can and all of my work is in the pursuit of mastery, but developing mastery only happens when you are willing to keep trying new things in environments in which you are safe to fail.

Years ago I watched a wonderful documentary by legendary comedian Eddie Izzard in which he talked about going to France and doing a show in French. With only basic French speaking skills and no appreciation for how to time his jokes, his show was a complete disaster. But, in failing, he set himself up to take his work to an entirely new level.

To learn to climb a mountain without ropes, first you must spend tens of thousands of hours on a climbing wall, falling down and getting back up again. To strap on a wingsuit, you must be willing to try soaring like an eagle while free-falling like a stone. And to learn to walk a tight rope you must be willing to fall into that net hundreds and thousands of times.

It is not bravery or stupidity that enables people to do exceptional things, it is the willingness to do hard things and fail, and then keep standing up over and over again.