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Starring Robert de Niro and Anne Hathaway, comedy drama The Intern was released in cinemas across the UK in October. ‘The intern’ of the film, Ben Whittaker (de Niro) is a 70-year-old widower growing restless in retirement who decides to apply as a senior intern at an online fashion site founded and run by thirty-something entrepreneur Jules Osten (Hathaway).

Since it was first published, millions of people worldwide have read The Energy Bus. Overall, it is a good read: well-written and light-hearted, The Energy Bus introduces the importance of positivity to anyone wishing to get more out of their life and work.

We each have two voices in our head – one says you’re great, you’re having a good day. The other says you’re going through a weak patch, you’re not at your best. Which is the stronger? The one you feed.

Your ability to get going rubs off on other people and boosts their performance. No question. The more energised, joyful and alive you feel, the more energised, joyful and alive those around you will feel – just as a result of working with you.

You’re involved in a major sales pitch. After months of work you’re told, with regret, that you have not won the business.

Leadership is how you get the best from people. Personal leadership is how you get the best from yourself. What’s that phrase? If you can’t lead you, please don’t try and lead me.

In sport, the performing arts and business, focus is essential, but what exactly is focus? Focus is a quick form of mental preparation. To use it, simply lock your mind on to the picture of the outcome you want.

Imagine you sell telecommunications solutions and you are making your final presentation to the board of a call centre provider.

New research in psychology and neuroscience has confirmed a hard link between mindset and success. Positivity in the workplace produces measureable results.

What do you bring to the table? The more you specialise in an industry, the better sense you will have of the problems and opportunities that can be uncovered.

So you have identified a potential customer, built rapport with them and used your sales skills to get them to want to buy from you. But once they have decided to buy, they turn their attention to getting the best deal, the best price, the best terms. They start to negotiate.

One person tells you something kind and respectful, another person says something critical and negative. Which will you remember longest?

Since time immemorial, converting features into benefits has been ground zero for sales skills. But it’s no longer enough. Your customers have heard it all before and they’ve stopped listening.

Are you a safe supplier? Buying is a risky business. If you want to persuade customers to buy your solution, you must first convince them that the risk of doing so is low.

When you cut away the layers selling against competition, comes down to one core concept – Sell The Difference.

Do you perform better when you receive encouragement? So does everyone. Part of your job as a leader is to encourage those around you.

Resilient people in leadership and sales roles cope well with high levels of pressure and bounce back quickly from setbacks. Resilient people cope well when the going gets tough.

Imagine your business in five years’ time. Assume you have six new competitors all offering the exact same product at a similar price. These organisations have set up in your vicinity and market themselves in a similar way. Competition is massive.

To better understand the structure of the sale it is useful to visualize a conceptual black box. This black box has four separate controls. It’s portable and weighs about three pounds. At the start of every sale you take it out and begin by turning control ‘1’. You continue to turn it until you get the desired reaction.

Leadership is about building emotional intelligence. A key attribute of this is the ability to listen and learn from others.

If you’re like most people, you target your sales efforts on the relevant departmental manager: head of IT, head of manufacturing, head of finance. However, if one of these managers has a proposal that requires funding, who is their only source of funds?

Successful sales managers know that the sales person who masters follow-up, masters selling. Just like a golf or tennis shot, the power is in the follow-through.

Focused leaders set high goals and are intolerant of shortfalls. That’s normal. However beware the trap of everyone feeling pressured and no longer enjoying themselves.

How we say things is often more important than what we say. Communication and energy cannot be separated. Communication is an inside-out process.

People who procrastinate miss things; they may be late for an appointment, they may miss a train, but more importantly they may miss an opportunity that could change their lives for the better.

Many salespeople still regard objection handling as vital. If only they had better answers to objections their results would quickly improve. This emphasis is misplaced. It doesn’t matter how brilliantly an objection is answered, it has still created a gap between buyer and seller at the end of the presentation.

‘A premium return to the customer is all the justification you need to require a premium investment’ says Mack Hanan in Key Account Selling.

Inspirational leaders are able to energise those around them irrespective of their job title. Here are 16 immediately actionable ways to help you get the very best from your team.

Consider this dialog: John’s lawnmower packs up one Sunday afternoon, so he goes around to his neighbour to ask if he can borrow his.

Whether you manage 2 or 200 people, you lead first by example. Realise that if you lead others, it’s show time all the time. Everything you do and say contributes to how others will act.