Shortly before Christmas, I had an interesting conversation with someone who told me how reading Ant Middleton’s book, “First Man In: Leading from the front” was helping him manage the effects of childhood trauma. I was immediately curious about what was the magic ingredient, and this book became my Christmas reading, something a little different from my usual tomes. I summarise here what I learned and how wonderfully EFT fits in.

Ultimate leadership lesson

I learned that Middleton’s ultimate leadership lesson, aside from lessons such as

• Don’t let others define you,
• Don’t allow mistakes to win,
• Use your enemy as an energy,

is that a deeper principle of always finding a way to approach any problem with a positive mindset underpins everything, turning that problem into a challenge for which the solution is always available with positivity.

Middleton reminds us that negativity is toxic and those who drink from that poison chalice will never be great leaders and on the battlefield will end up as the cause of dead young soldiers. Negativity will cause leaders to fail, as they are incapable of leading and inspiring. Leaders who have drunk from the cup of negativity will deny, blame and prioritise defending themselves.

How to achieve that positive mindset

So how, according to Middleton, can that positive mindset and capacity to lead from the front be achieved?

Middleton recommends brutal honesty, recognising and accepting yourself for who you are, warts and all. This level of honesty, self-recognition and self-acceptance he says bullet-proofs you against criticism from others.

He advises you look in the mirror and rip into yourself, step into your power by noticing, and then making peace with, anything you don’t like about yourself. You then know what is good and what is not. If someone then criticises something good, you know they are wrong. If they criticise something bad, it doesn’t hurt, as you have already noticed it yourself, and you are either accepting that which cannot be changed, or doing something about improving in the areas that can be changed.

And this is Middleton’s next point: fix yourself, stop doing the things you identify as flaws. You may not be able to do so instantly, but if you keep working at it and “never allow a mistake to win”, you will turn things around in time.

The third key point is: “looking backwards will not take you forwards”. Middleton points out that we don’t have a time machine to go back to the past to change or put things right, so it is pointless blaming how we are now on something that happened to us in the past. Doing so would keep us stuck living as a victim of something over which we have no control. Better to find a way in which we can take on responsibility ourselves and believe we are an intricate part of it all and can change. The anger and resentment you can feel when you feel like a victim demotivates you, takes up your head space and energy, and exhausts you. Better to accept yourself as you are and do what you need to do to move forwards from where you are now.

These are some great points, and there are also other very useful maxims put forward in this autobiographical work, all exemplified by Middleton’s own life experiences.

Where does EFT come in?

So, where does EFT come in and support and enhance Middleton’s recommendations?

All this wonderful advice fits together brilliantly with Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and the language and principles underpinning EFT.

EFT provides a perfect tool for tackling any of the more challenging parts of following Middleton’s guidance, making it all much more possible, easier even to achieve a true positive mindset – as opposed to what has been termed “toxic” positivity, where you can feel obliged or expected to feel positive about everything, even tragedies, and “look on the bright side”, meaning genuine negative emotions can be dismissed or invalidated and people can be made to feel ashamed for experiencing them. Painful emotions exist to be felt, however emotions are meant to be fluid and for us to move through them rather than wallowing in them, staying stuck in negativity.

Why would EFT fit in?

Why would EFT work so well with Ant Middleton’s advice?

Middleton’s strength comes from:

• Making peace with one’s demons
• Radical self-acceptance,
• Turning every problem into a challenge to get your teeth into.

Making Peace with Demons

Firstly, we have the calming effects that the physical tapping upon which EFT is based is known to have on the limbic brain and nervous system. We know that if you focus on one specific thing that is bothering you or giving you pain and tap through the tapping points, the tapping will diminish the intensity of the specific feeling that you target. Just the same as does a trained military marksman, you need laser focus on a specific target for EFT to work at its best. So, when you start to tackle those demons, you pull everything apart into feelings from specific past events and specific aspects of the issue you want to deal with, pick them off, target and eliminate them one by one. It is great if you can work with a well-qualified EFT practitioner for a few sessions to get started on this, but also possible to do an in-depth EFT course and work on yourself alone, or work with a tapping buddy you have met on the course (be sure to choose one that includes live practice, discussion and Q and A).

Self-acceptance

Self-acceptance, realistically and honestly, with acknowledgement or acceptance of whatever feels bad and wrong, lies at the heart of any use of EFT. Consider the EFT set-up statement:

Even though I have or I feel this problem / pain (then include specific details of the aspect of the problem )… I deeply and completely accept myself.

This is the statement that you repeat when you start tapping about one aspect of the emotional or physical problem you want to be free of. This is in addition to the calming effect on the nervous system gained from the tapping or pressure on the tapping points (acupoint stimulation by finger pressure works through the acupuncture meridian system – see article “How EFT Works”).

The Set-Up Statement in EFT

The set-up statement is a powerful acknowledgement of whatever the negative is, that you can sit with it, and you can be OK just as you are, even though you have this problem to deal with. You take back your control; the unwanted feeling has less and less power over you. This also encourages self-compassion. The “even though” is an important phrase in EFT and the start of removing some of the sting from the negative – even though I have this problem, I’m still OK, I’m still me, I’m strong, I have the capacity to deal with it.

Middleton also recommends self-compassion in the form of “don’t let the mistake win”. View a mistake positively, cut yourself some slack – it’s done; you can’t go back and undo it, so give yourself a little understanding – a mistake is a mistake; we all make them. The important point is what can we learn from them, so we don’t keep making the same mistakes. There is a fresh day and a fresh start tomorrow.

An important principle put forward by EFT’s founder, Gary Craig, and underpinning all my work with EFT, is that true and complete healing follows only from love and forgiveness (understanding), and this starts with self-compassion. It would be incompatible with continuing to beat yourself up about a mistake or past history.

Positive mindset: making the challenge easier with EFT Choices Method

The third recommendation of Middleton’s is also enhanced by EFT as well as congruent with principles behind EFT, especially a particular way of applying EFT, known as The Choices Trio Method, which will certainly help you reinforce a positive mindset.

With Choices Method you can formulate a set-up statement within which you make a positive choice as the antidote or solution to a problem. A round of choices tapping takes barely a minute. You can tap a round of choices daily or several times daily. There are few better ways to maintain a positive mindset or stay focused on the best solution to a problem. This is but one example of a Choices set-up statement:

“Even though I have so much to get done today, I choose calmly, quickly and easily to just tackle one thing at a time and for everything to just fall into place perfectly.“

The wording is absolutely your own; you just take a moment to reflect on and define the problem then choose your best solution, set your intentions and tap them in. You can watch my Choices Method Tutorial, as well as my How to Tap video on YouTube.

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