Why I Built a Training Company Around Mindset

By James Fleming, Co-Founder of The Power Within Training

 

Being made redundant is one of those things people call “a blessing in disguise” once enough time has passed. At the time, though, it doesn’t feel like a blessing. It feels more like someone has pulled the rug from underneath you.

Ten years ago I was working in the UAE, earning good money, travelling the world and leading high-performing teams. On paper, it looked brilliant. It was the kind of job people would tell you you’d be mad to leave. And to be fair, I probably would have been. But then redundancy came along and made the decision for me.

Looking back now, it was exactly the push I needed, because for years I had been carrying an idea around in my head. I had seen how leadership training was being done, and if I’m being honest, I didn’t think it was good enough.

There was plenty of theory. Plenty of nice diagrams. Plenty of clever phrases that sounded good in a training room. People would nod along, write things down and say, “That’s really interesting.” Then they’d go back to work, the pressure would kick in, and nothing much would change.

The same habits came back. The same doubts crept in. The same difficult conversations were avoided. The same managers tried to be liked instead of being clear. The same business owners said they wanted their team to step up, while still holding onto every decision like it was the last biscuit in the tin.

And I kept thinking, surely we can do better than this.

 

Most training starts in the wrong place

A lot of leadership training starts with behaviour. It tells people what to do. Communicate better. Delegate more. Be more confident. Hold people accountable. Lead change. Build trust.

All good advice, of course. But here’s the problem. Most people already know the sensible answer.

They know they should delegate. They know they should have the honest conversation. They know they should stop doing everyone’s thinking for them. They know they should speak up in the meeting instead of sitting there quietly, replaying what they should have said in the car on the way home.

The real question is, why don’t they?

That’s the bit that interested me, because knowing what to do and actually doing it are two very different things. It’s like buying a pair of running shoes and expecting to wake up as Mo Farah. Nice idea, but there’s a bit more to it than that.

You can give someone every leadership tool in the world, but if their head is full of doubt, fear, pressure or old beliefs, they’ll struggle to use those tools when it matters.

A manager might know they need to give feedback, but the voice in their head says, “What if they take it the wrong way?” A business owner might know they need to step back, but deep down they think, “Nobody will do this as well as I can.” A new leader might look the part, say the right things and still be sitting in the car before work thinking, “I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.”

That isn’t always a skills issue. More often than people realise, it’s a mindset issue.

 

Then I found Motivational Intelligence

When I came across Motivational Intelligence, or MQ, it stopped me in my tracks. It gave language to something I had been seeing in leaders, managers and teams for years.

MQ looks at why people do what they do. Not just the edited version people put on LinkedIn, but the real version. The version that shows up when things go wrong, when the client is raging, when the team is under pressure, when someone challenges you in a meeting, or when you need to make a decision and there isn’t a perfect answer.

That’s when you find out what’s really going on in someone’s thinking.

MQ gets underneath the surface. It looks at beliefs, self-esteem, self-doubt and the stories people have been carrying for years. Some of those stories started a long time ago, sometimes right back in childhood, when people first began forming ideas about themselves, what they were capable of and whether they were good enough.

Now, I know that might sound deep, and it is. But it isn’t sugar-coating. It isn’t theory for the sake of theory. It’s the stuff that shows up when the phone rings, the client’s raging, the team’s looking at you, and you’ve still got to lead.

The way you think affects the way you lead. If you don’t believe you’re good enough, it shows. If you’re scared of getting it wrong, it shows. If you need everyone to like you, it shows. If you avoid discomfort, it shows. If you think asking for help makes you weak, that shows too.

And your team usually feels it long before you say it out loud.

 

Redundancy forced me to stop talking and start building

When I was made redundant, I had a choice. I could go and find another big job, keep doing what I knew and stay comfortable. Or I could finally build the thing I had been talking about for years.

With my wife beside me, I decided it was now or never. So we built The Power Within Training.

We didn’t build it because the world needed another training company with a logo, a workbook and a promise to “transform leadership.” There are plenty of those already. We built it because we believed leadership development needed to go deeper.

It needed to help people understand themselves first. Their thinking, habits, fears, excuses, potential and ability to lead when things aren’t going perfectly.

Because that’s where leadership really gets tested. It’s not tested when the room is calm, the diary is clear and everyone has had a coffee. It gets tested when the job is running late, the team is frustrated, the client wants answers, and you’re trying not to lose your mind before 10am.

That’s real leadership.

 

Leadership starts with the person in the mirror

People often think leadership starts when someone gets promoted, but it doesn’t. A job title can give you responsibility, but it doesn’t magically give you confidence. It doesn’t teach you how to have a hard conversation. It doesn’t stop you second-guessing yourself. It doesn’t help you stay calm when everyone is looking at you for the answer.

I’ve seen brilliant people get promoted because they were great at their job, then get left to figure out leadership on their own. That isn’t fair.

One day they’re part of the team, and the next they’re managing people, dealing with conflict, setting standards, making decisions, keeping morale up and pretending they’re not absolutely winging it.

No wonder so many managers struggle.

They’re not failing because they don’t care. They’re struggling because nobody ever showed them how to lead themselves first.

That’s where self-leadership comes in. Before you can lead a team, you need to understand what’s going on in your own head. You need to know what triggers you, what you avoid, where you overthink, where you lose confidence, where you make excuses and where you’re more capable than you give yourself credit for.

That work can be uncomfortable, because it asks people to be honest with themselves. But it’s also where things start to shift.

 

What makes The Power Within Training different

The Power Within Training was built around a simple belief: change the thinking, and you change the behaviour.

That’s the bit many training programmes miss. They try to fix the outside without dealing with what’s happening underneath. It’s a bit like painting over damp. It looks better for a while, then the problem comes back through the wall.

We don’t want people leaving our programmes with a few nice notes and a pen they’ll lose by Friday. We want them going back to work and doing something differently. Having the conversation they’ve avoided. Making the decision they’ve delayed. Trusting the team more. Challenging the doubt. Taking up space. Stepping into the role properly.

Over the years, we’ve developed more than 23 training programmes, including Leading with MQ, Women in Leadership, Self-Leadership, and many more. They all support people in different ways, but the heart of the work is the same.

We help people understand what’s been holding them back, then give them the tools and confidence to move forward.

For some, that means becoming a stronger manager. For others, it means finding their voice in a room where they used to stay quiet. For business owners, it might mean realising they’ve become the bottleneck in their own company.

That one can sting a bit. I know, because I’ve been there too.

When you build something from scratch, it’s hard to let go. You care about it. You know how you want things done. You’ve carried the pressure for so long that it starts to feel normal. But if everything depends on you, you haven’t really built a team. You’ve built a queue, and you’re standing at the front of it, knackered.

 

Why this matters for business owners

Most business owners want the same things. A stronger team. Better decisions. Less firefighting. More ownership. More confidence across the business. People who don’t need to be spoon-fed every five minutes.

But that doesn’t happen by accident.

You don’t get a confident team by hoping everyone just figures it out. You don’t build good managers by promoting your best worker and crossing your fingers. You don’t create a healthy culture by avoiding every awkward conversation because “now’s not the right time.”

At some point, leadership has to be developed properly. And the earlier you do it, the better.

Poor leadership is expensive. It costs time, energy, good people, trust and momentum. It slows decisions, creates confusion and puts too much pressure on the same few people. Sometimes it leaves business owners feeling like they’re carrying a piano upstairs on their own, while everyone else is asking when it’ll be ready.

Training won’t remove every problem. Of course it won’t. Business will always be messy at times. People are people, after all. But the right development gives leaders, managers and teams a better way to deal with the problems that come with running, managing and growing a business.

That’s where the value is.

 

What I’ve learned from building this business

Building The Power Within Training has taught me plenty. Some lessons came neatly. Most came with a thud.

I’ve had to learn how to let go, how to trust people and how to make decisions without knowing exactly how they would turn out. I’ve had to look at my own thinking and ask, “Is this helping, or am I getting in the way?”

That’s leadership. It’s not always inspirational speeches, big moments and dramatic breakthroughs. Sometimes it’s admitting you were wrong. Sometimes it’s staying quiet and letting someone else lead. Sometimes it’s having the conversation you’d rather avoid. Sometimes it’s going home tired and wondering if you’re doing enough.

And sometimes it’s realising the business doesn’t need you to be the hero every day. It needs you to build other people who can lead too.

That has been one of the biggest lessons for me. A strong business isn’t built by one person carrying everything. It’s built by people who believe in what they’re doing, understand themselves, trust each other and know how to lead when things get messy.

Because they will get messy. That’s business.

 

Why I still believe mindset comes first

After everything I’ve seen, I still believe mindset comes first. Not as a nice phrase for a mug or a motivational poster, but as the thing that sits underneath how people actually show up.

People bring their thinking into work with them. They bring their confidence, fear, doubts, habits, old stories and view of what they’re capable of. All of that affects how they lead.

That’s why I built The Power Within Training around Motivational Intelligence.

I didn’t want to create another training company saying the same things as everyone else, just with a different colour scheme. I wanted to build something that helped people properly understand themselves.

Something that helped managers stop second-guessing everything. Something that helped business owners stop carrying the whole place on their shoulders. Something that helped women step into leadership without that little voice telling them to shrink. Something that helped teams become braver, clearer and more honest with each other.

Because the potential is already there.

Most people don’t need to be turned into someone else. They need help getting out of their own way.

That’s why The Power Within Training exists. And that’s why, even after all these years, I still believe this work matters.

 

James Fleming
The Power Within Training
The Motivational Intelligence Company
james@tpwtd.com