Well, it does two things very quickly, immediately in fact.  Two things you want to avoid.

• One, it sends people straight to the word “because” which is justifying their actions/decisions and
• Two, it closes down information-gathering in the request for “the reason”.

Let me explain.  As Big Bird from Sesame Street tells us:

“Questions are a great way of finding things out” and questions are crucial to us digging deeper, connecting with people, understanding what’s going on.

The trick about “why” is the effect it has on us and, more importantly, the effect it has on those we ask the question.

When children are growing up (and yes, we probably did it too) it’s seen as quite cute when they ask “why?” and then you answer and then they ask “why?” again and again and, often again.  As you answer them you’ll probably say “because” and “because” etc until eventually “because I say so!”.

Day to day, we’re constantly asking questions (well I hope you are, based on Big Bird’s philosophy!) to find out what’s happening, what progress there is on things, how people are, where things are etc.

Notice the difference in this situation.  Imagine I was with you and asked you what you’re up to this weekend.

You might say “oh, I’m off shopping with friends and then on to the cinema” for example.

Then I say “Oh, why are you going to the cinema?”.  You’ll say, “because XYZ film’s out and I want to see it”.

It’s an innocent enough question with, in this case, no further agenda.  And yet, you’ve justified to me “why” you’re going to the cinema.  The first thing you say – and the first thing most people say when you ask a question beginning with Why is ‘because’ and then you’ve gone inside and thought about the reason you decided to go to the cinema. They seek information not justification and when we justify ourselves we’re on the defensive, we’re explaining the reasons as opposed to giving information, however innocent the scenario. It’s also quite irritating to have to explain why – and here’s why. Because we have to take a position and the question implies some judgment behind it.

If I ask you the same question and when you tell me you’re off to the cinema with friends I say to you “aah, what are you going to see?”  or “who are you going with” these are much less on-the-spot questions.

Now this is the powerful bit.  Take this scenario to the workplace, or to a home life discussion about something that has some emotion attached to it,

“why did you do that?”, “why haven’t you done that?” “why are you going there?”

and you’re immediately putting the other person on the back foot, defending their decision or their position.  That’s the moment when you close the door on more information, often before you’re ready.

It’s one of the many small words that make a BIG difference in our day-to-day conversations and directly affect the reactions and responses we get.  Working with a Board of Directors recently discussing this very word, they all had an “aha” moment and something useful and simple to take and use straight away.  The trick is we don’t know until we know, do we?

Try it out with someone as an experiment and get his or her feedback from the experience. They’ll tell you why they prefer one question to the other, because you’ve asked for a bit more information rather than put them “on guard” like a fencer, defending their position. It’s part of how you keep people open to you and your requests and that’s always good.

How do I learn more about Kay?

To have the opportunity to discuss any blind spots you know you have or things that are slowing you down or holding you back as you connect, persuade and compel people at work; click here to apply for a complimentary conversation with Kay.

Article reproduced with permission of Kay White, Communication Specialist and Mentor at www.wayforwardsolutions.com. Kay shows professionals how to be understood. Get quicker, faster and better results by becoming a more effective, influential and savvy communicator – everywhere in your life.

In addition, you can listen to an exclusive interview with Kay where she shares several exclusive tips on how to immediately make your communication more powerful and persuasive: http://www.maximisepotential.co.uk/how-to-develop-effective-powerful-communication/

On Sunday, I ran the London Marathon. This was my first attempt at running 26.2 miles, as I shared back in November 2011.

I’ve been training for 4 months and actually found myself enjoying the long runs, using them as an opportunity to explore local sights in a way I never have before.

How do I feel after the event?

I was disappointed not to break 5 hours. When I started training I

based it around a sub-5 hour finish. I ran the Portsmouth Coastal Half Marathon (my first attempt at this distance) in just under 2 hours in February and was hoping to finish in around 4 hours 45 minutes but definitely under 5 hours. However, it wasn’t to be on race day. Maybe I didn’t want it enough? Looking back, I know that I could have pushed on and kept running (albeit slowly) at times when I took a walk break.

However, once I reached the half way stage and I knew I was falling behind my 4h45m target I made a decision. Above all, I was going to do my best to enjoy the experience. How many p

eople get to run the biggest marathon in

the world? The support from the crowds was absolutely phenomenal and really helped me get around the course. I thought rather than grimace my way to the finish line I’d push on but try to enjoy and remember the experience. I never doubted that I would finish the marathon but wanted to finish without being a gibbering wreck with a broken body. So I ran, walked, ran until the last mile. Once we hit Birdcage Walk and the finish was so close I had to run, run, run (but, again, not too fast).

When I crossed the finish line I felt relief and immense pride. I had achieved the goal I’d set myself years earlier and run a marathon. Fantastic. It was also very emotional and I broke down in tears of joy.

On my journey home from London and later in the evening I was struck by the incredible number of messages I received, particularly on Twitter. As I’ve embarked upon my journey to become a long distance runner I’ve found the running community on Twitter to be a source of help, reassurance and inspiration. Here are just some of the messages of support I received after news that I’d completed my first marathon broke:

So what have I learned?

As I said in November, I wanted to prove that anything is possible. As a school kid I was always the last to be picked for team games, wheezed my way around the athletics track and was generally lacking in sporting ability and aptitude. In my 30s I took up running and completed the 10 mile Great South Run. I ran my first half marathon age 40. Now, age 41, I am a marathon runner. That sounds wierd, but satisfying.

Will I do another marathon?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Before I’d run this one I knew that I would want to run another. When I did the first Great South Run I said “Never again” at the finish. Then signed up for the next one 2 weeks later and knocked 8 minutes off my time the following year.

While I am disappointed with my marathon time – still a Personal Best (PB) though! – I know that I can train smarter for the next one. That’s what makes these personal challenges so rewarding, learning from one experience and moving on to the next with a fresh perspective and ideas on how to improve. I’ve already noted some things I should change for the next marathon:

• Need to work on my core strength – I didn’t really do much to strengthen the core muscles in training this time
• Cross training is vital – despite advice received to include cross training in my marathon training plan I managed to do only one bike ride and 3 swims and I am sure more cycling and swimming would have helped with my endurance
• Pre-race breakfast and nutrition – I didn’t run out of energy during the race but think I need to try different breakfast foods and nutrition while running to get the right balance

What now?

A week of rest and recovery before running resumes next weekend.

I’ve already set myself some more running goals for this year:

• Longest Day Run – on 23 and 24 June I will be taking part in this initiative to encourage existing and new runners to run as far as they can in a 24 hour period. My goal is to run 15 miles on the Saturday afternoon and 15 miles on the Sunday morning. 30 miles in 24 hours should prove a new test of my running endurance and mental strength. Especially if June is a hot one…
• Great South Run – on 28 October I’l be lining up for my 8th consecutive Great South Run and hoping to beat my PB, set last year, of 1h29m28s

Well done Graham, thanks for sharing your experience – keep on running!

Despite 37% of all UK adults thinking that their success is down to their own merits, over a third (38%) think it is mostly down to the core people in their life.

Sarah Storey, Paralympic cyclist and Links of London ambassador, believes that there are five core people in her life which have impacted and been invaluable to her progress in becoming a leading gold medal athlete. Sarah is supporting Links of London’s ‘Circle of 5’ campaign, which suggests we rely on a core group of 5 people to be successful.

Sarah Storey, seven times gold medal winner at the Paralympic games and twice British national track champion, commented:

“Every successful person needs people behind them to drive them – I don’t know where I’d be without my friends, husband, trainers and parents. They push me to go that little bit further, inspire me and help me escape from it all when I need to. Without them I definitely wouldn’t have won my medals or be competing again this year.”

Dr Rob Yeung is a psychologist and researcher on success. Dr Yeung believes that the role each of the 5 people plays, falls into particular categories:  Someone who inspires you, supports you, mentors you, someone you can escape with or confide in.

Dr Yeung said:

“Many of us like to think that our own success is based on how we perform, but without valuable people in our lives – core people around us who support us – we may not achieve as much as we aspire to.”

Adding to this, the research commissioned by Links of London shows that 91% of all UK adults also look to family and friends, rather than famous people when finding role models.

Links of London are inviting the nation to recognise their own ‘circles of 5’ and to celebrate and reward these 5 important people with a talisman of unity and celebration.  They have designed the Team GB band as part of their Official Jewellery Collection of London 2012 and Team GB.

The Links of London ‘Circle of 5’ campaign encourages us to give the core 5 people in our lives a Team GB band as a thank you for aiding our successes.  A red and blue woven band with a silver plaque engraved with Team GB, this band is a great way for you and your own ‘circle of 5’ to get behind the nation ahead of the Games and circulate a feeling of support and success.

FURTHER ARTICLES AND RESOURCES

• Click here to view more articles and resources on success
• Listen to a range of inspiring interviews with successful people

Article Source: digitalnewsagency.com

“This is my favourite win ever because the field was so strong,” Weir told BBC Radio 5 live.

Weir beat Switzerland’s Marcel Hug by a second, with American Krige Schabort a further second adrift.

However, with increasing family commitments, the 32-year-old suggested Sunday’s London Marathon could be his last.

“Maybe,” Weir said. “I’ve got an eight-month-old baby boy and I’ve got another one on the way in October, so I need a bit of time at home.

“There’s not a lot of goals left. I’ll definitely take a year out after the [Paralympics] because I want to spend some time with my family.”

The Londoner admitted it was a “great privilege” to match Grey-Thompson, whom Weir described as a role model.

“She was the one who got me back into the sport when I had a little dip,” said Weir.

“I wasn’t enjoying the sport but watching her in Sydney [at the 2000 Olympics] brought me back, so it is great to equal her record.

“I was quite emotional when I crossed the line because it could be my last one for a while.”

Woods, 26, finished almost three minutes ahead of Japan’s Wakako Tsuchida, while Canadian Diane Roy took third.

“I’m really happy,” Woods told BBC Radio 5 live. “I can’t believe it.

“To win a Paralympic gold medal is my ambition as an athlete. If I could do it in London would be amazing. I wouldn’t say I’m now favourite for a Paralympic gold but that’s the ambition in my career.”

Well done David, from everyone at Maximise Potential!

FURTHER INFORMATION

• Click here to view more inspiring articles and resources on David Weir
• Click here to listen to the motivating interview with David Weir

Article Source: bbc.co.uk

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Kevin: Welcome to Maximise Potential the podcast to educate and motivate through a range of original interviews designed to help you maximise your potential.  Brought to you in association with the award winning recruitment group Jenrick.

Welcome back to episode 39 of the Maximise Potential Podcast.  At one time or another we have all probably been inspired by an article or a television program which prompted us to say something like ‘I really have to do something about that’ yet no matter how sincere we are with that statement in the cold light of day and with our daily responsibilities firmly back in the forefront of our mind our intentions to serve the greater good often take a back seat.  However in today’s Maximise Potential interview we have an individual who did not allow the noise of daily life to dampen his desire to act upon an article he read and has since 1984 devoted his entire adult life to solving a problem of global significance.  Without funding, training or experience Marc Koska set himself the target of eradicating the spread of disease and death through unsafe injections which count for more global deaths each year than malaria.  Here is Marc to share the highs and lows of his incredible journey whilst giving us a wonderful insight into his approach to life in general.

Music

Marc Koska I would like to welcome you to the Maximise Potential podcast.

Marc: It’s an absolute pleasure to be here.

Kevin: We are going to go on a bit of a personal journey with your life today.  I am sure it is going to jump between what you are doing right now which is something quite wonderful in terms of the influence it has all over the world.  We are here to explore the events to leading up to that as well because that is a huge part of this journey and really now it is over to you.  Where shall we start today?  Do we start as a child? Or do we start off now and work backwards? How do you want to do this today?

Marc: I don’t know that is a very good way to frame it.  I think you know if we look at where we are today I have only just really assembled all the ingredients if you like to allow me to have a devastating effect, to have a really big impact is still just around the corner.  Luckily I feel very confident in the next couple of years it is going to bring all the results I ever dreamed of so a really good time to do a talk like this.

Kevin: That is interesting so even after all of the years you have put into this, all of the results that you have seen of this, you still feel like you are at the tip of the iceberg, you feel like this is still the beginning of the journey.

Marc: Yeah because the influence that one the product and the campaign, the information campaign has had is still in single figures percentage wise around the world.  So even though you know it looks good as a one man band you know conquering the world you can easily write a decent headline about it ‘Man saves millions of lives’.  You know the truth is we have barely started so.  I think that starting now is probably a good thing because it’s you know we are at a very exciting point.  We are just going to go through a C change from single figure penetration to you know 20 – 30% of developing world penetration and that is going to happen in the next three years and that is very exciting.

Kevin: It is lovely to hear and I think you like lots of other people just it must be just continually resetting your goals every single time by the sounds of it because you have had a number of goals to work towards but you immediately are coming across as the sort of person that as soon as you have hit that one goal you are then immediately thinking about the next one.

Marc: Maybe I was setting a new goal a week before we hit it I don’t know.  But it never feels I sign off one sheet of paper and move to the next it always seems like one sheet of paper if that makes sense.

Kevin: So take me back to a young Marc Koska.  We spoke briefly before we even started recording today about where if you like where your first understanding of yourself and what you wanted your life to be started from and I think that is worth really going back to.

Marc: I think I must have been about six and I was really starting to be self questioning I suppose in a way of why am I hear, what are we doing, ooh wow I am a human being, ooh wow I’m on planet earth, ooh wow this is exciting what is my life going to be about.  And the answer came much more as a concept no English words, but as a concept I felt that I was here to try and find a large issue that I could be an intervention for.  A large problem.

Kevin: And as a concept when you are using this word concept do you mean it was more of a feeling inside yourself.

Marc: Yeah it was a feeling because I didn’t have any experience to position a thought against if you like.  So it was just something that stayed with me and it is still in me now and it is very much the core of me.  I suppose it is quite grounding you know I felt I arrived.  That was a really good thing to find out and it has been part of me ever since.

Kevin: And when you think back to that night where do you feel it, what does it conjure up? Do you get the goose pimples on the back of the neck? Is it a warm feeling.  I mean I am trying to help other people understand that maybe they have had those concepts that they do actually understand more about themselves than they probably realise but you took the time to listen.  You took time to ask the questions as well.

Marc: Well it is certainly not goose pimples, it is nothing physical.  If I can use the parlances it is a spiritual thing and it is calm and quiet, it is very reassuring.  But I think you are right it is a very good way of describing it you do have to listen.  You have to listen really, really carefully and you know we live in a world which is very, very busy and it is very, very noisy and do we have time to think and what is our purpose.  You know a lot of us, including myself now and again, go off on these really weird tangents which is just a complete waste of time and resources and energy and a load of rubbish because we think that’s what we want but it isn’t.  But it seems normal to me to listen to those very quiet instructions.

Kevin: And that is a great lesson for others to consider within their own lives.  And so where did that central guidance, where did that concept then start taking you.

Marc: So I was very interested in this intervention issue.  I was very interested in where there issues that could be solved or helped in any way and my radar was out, I was on the side of the stream looking for those kind of issues coming flooding past.

Kevin: And then probably one of the key moments in your life happened and you picked up an article.

Marc: Yeah I was 23 years old and I went down and bought the newspaper, it was the Guardian.  So I read this newspaper article and bang in the middle of it was one sentence which said – “one day syringes, disposable syringes would be a major cause for the spread of aids because they would be reused.” And they are being reused and they will continue to be.  I found that astounding.  I sort of stopped, re-read it, re-read it again – wow is that really what I think it is.  And to me it was you know the green light for what I had been looking for.

Kevin: Incredible the concept from when you were six suddenly made sense in that article.  And then it just started from there.

Marc: Yeah I knew instantly that that was what I was going to do and what I wanted to do.  Both those characteristics.  From that moment on I have been fulfilled in as much as I have found what I wanted to do.  And now as we started off the interview you know I am now in the position where I believe that fulfilment on getting the project delivered is much more real now than ever before.

Kevin: And yet you were not trained in this field.  You weren’t a pharmaceutical professional, you had not gone to university to study this.

Marc: Yeah and I think that’s a blessing.  I think not being, I had no background at all other than I can look at it from the side of the stream rather than in the stream.

Kevin: That is the key.

Marc: Yeah it probably is.  So I went on this fantastic journey of learning all about the problem and learning as much as I possibly could.  One thing that was very clear to me was that you know, I think there was a statistic at the time that said that 99% of all businesses failed in the first three years and I found that a fascinating thing.  So I got out of the stream and had a look at that.  What I had to observe, or what I observed was the 1% that make it was that one had really understood the problem far deeper and far more intelligently than the 99.  There was no difference in intent, maybe no difference in product but it was just the way they sold it.  It didn’t have the right quality to fit into the market gap and the gap is the problem.  And I think so many times, I suppose using our analogy again that is the quiet moment in a business, is really understanding the gap that you are going to fill and the gap that wants to be filled.  Whereas so many of these others miss.  Not because they are any different but just because they are aimed a couple of degrees off the gap and they haven’t really understood who they are trying to aim for.

Kevin: Tell me how you understood it.

Marc: Well I didn’t know anything about where the gaps might be so I had to look at everything to try and work out where the gap was.  If you sort of imagine my arms are spread left to right and so on my right hand side we have got kids in Africa being immunised, on my left hand side we have got the production of polypropylene out of oil and you’ve got you know 20 other areas in the middle.  So what I was looking for was the gap.  And after looking at all of those for about three years I suddenly woke up one morning with the light bulb on and this is what I was thinking – I’ve got to design a product, because up till then I hadn’t thought of solutions at all I was just interested in problems.  And I would have to design a product that had the ability to be made on existing machinery or if it was new machinery that it was mimicking the old stance and no R&D costs were involved in making a new mould for example or assembling machine or packaging or sterilisation.  So made on the same equipment, used in the same way so that the nurse didn’t require any training otherwise that would be a major barrier and thirdly it had to cost the same to manufacture as a normal syringe. Syringes are very, very price sensitive which we may touch on in the future of this talk but those three elements just to go over them again – I woke up one morning and I realised that my design had to be incorporated into the traditional way of making a disposable syringe which had been around 30 years at that point.  It had to be made for the same cost and had to be made in a way that didn’t require further training when being used.  So that was my design brief if you like.

Kevin: You submerge yourself for three years just understanding the problems that the market was facing and you hadn’t designed anything in that three year period.

Marc: I refused to design because I didn’t have the right to design anything, I didn’t know what I was designing.  I didn’t know what the gap was.  What I didn’t want to do was presume the gap. Because if I presume the gap I am going to be in the 99%.  I wanted to know what the actual gap was and then if I knew what the actual gap was I stood a chance.  Maybe three of us would go through that gap and we would fight it out between us.  I didn’t mind that as long as I had given it, as long as I had found the gap. To be honest the gap boiled down to the manufacturing process.  When I looked at the supply and demand of this industry and every industry is set up the same way you know these microphones are beautifully designed but someone has got to buy them.  And someone has got to then talk about them and other people have to buy them you know it is just a traditional cycle for any product.

When I looked at the syringe market I realised that unless manufacturers, because they are made is such vast volume for no margin, literally no profit.

Kevin: Well I think you have lead us on nicely.  Let us put the syringe market in perspective here because I think that will help everybody really understand then why the three elements that you highlighted are so relevant.

Marc: There are about 15 billion syringes made on the planet every year.  You know that equates to 10 each per person on average.  We’ve got numbers are suggested in America that the market is around 46 syringes per person per year in America.  Understandable if you think about some people are unfortunate enough to be bed ridden or being under treatment or diabetic or in hospital and any of those would require multiple use of syringes.  So even though you or I might not have had an injection for ten years there are people unfortunately who are having many of them for curative purposes and they create that average.  In Africa or in Asia in the developing world the average is somewhere around five per person per year.  So there are around 600 factories in the world.  Probably half of those are below the ISO manufacturing standard on what we would say sort of backstreet type mum and pop type organisations.  The other half probably have some form of accreditation nationally or internationally and there are a big four manufacturers, multinationals who are the top of the tree.  So Becton and Dickinson, Trumo, B Brown and Cavideon.  And these big four are the only ones really who have multiple factories, that are in different locations and they make on a huge scale.

It is dominated by Becton and Dickinson, they are the largest syringe manufacturer in the world and anywhere between a third and a half of all syringes are made by them. And they are incredibly successful.  They walk the talk.  They have done exactly what they said on the packet they would do and they are number one by a long, long way.

Kevin: And yet even though there is all this volume but price is such a major issue with syringe, or cost should I say is such a major issue with syringes.

Marc: Yeah I mean historically syringes have been used by doctors and by the health care profession as the most commonly used form of delivery of drugs.  It is a very efficient way of getting drugs into the body and used quickly.  The stomach for oral medicine is a challenge and oral medicines are being formulated to get through the stomach lining and be absorbed.  But that is quite a challenge compared to putting it straight into the blood stream.  The blood stream route is a lot easier and has far fewer absorption challenges because it is direct.  So syringes are the most commonly used piece of medical equipment on the planet.  And as such they are not really valued economically they are valued more as a loss leader, as a market share gainer and as a brand carrier.  All manufactures of syringes make other products or sell other products.  So they will use their brand, let’s say it’s the Crown brand of syringes, so they will put a crown on their syringe and they will sell that as widely as they can.  For instance if the Crown brand wanted to make ingress into you know Vanuatu, the smallest island I can think of they would go to Vanuatu and say to the Ministry of Health, we have got a great deal for you we are going to supply you all our syringes at cost or for nothing, we have got some excess supply we want to supply our brand to Vanuatu.  The Crown brand then gets used by all the doctors and nurses who respect it because it is a good product and then when the Crown brand catheter or scalpel or infusion set arrives it is respected as well.  However the other products will be loaded with a proper margin whereas the syringe has no or very small margin and that is your typical sort of loss leader procedure which takes place.

So it is a pretty good strategy for the disposable industry to come up with.  Make a brand hold it, hold market share and sell other higher margin products into it. And nothing really wrong with that except syringes are reused and the solutions are limited by its loss leader characteristics.  So one would think let’s make more syringes but as we have said the equipment is very expensive so equipment makes volume in stages.  So if you buy a new machine you might make another 100m units.  A machine would make anywhere between 50, one line, so it is made up of say 10 different stages and that line might cost you $2 – 3m and it might make 50 – 100m syringes depending on the capacity of that line.  So you have to have a market step of 100m units to justify buying a new line.  So we are really caught between supply and demand in the situation that we are in at the moment of taking an industry with quite sophisticatedly made product but a very basic product.  It is one that is reused, proven is reused around the world a number of time and it is causing a devastating toll on the world.  So the challenge that I was setting myself was could I design something, could I design a system which would make a wholesale change to that industry and manufacturing capacity is one of those issues.  And actually if I was a manufacturer of syringes which I am not you know I would probably be against changing to auto disable as well because economically it is a really tough pill to swallow. You are changing an industry that works fine, that is selling all your higher margin products every day and you are making good profits on those and the syringe has its role in that procedure.  But you know what we are asking everyone to be is Mother Theresa all of a sudden and talk to the Shareholders on that Mother Theresa issue of look we think we should do a whole load of good and we will do it by doubling our capacity, making twice the number of syringes on which we are probably going to make very little return but that is going to do some good in the world.  And of course Shareholders don’t have that characteristic.

Kevin: Can I just ask the fundamental reason why there is so much reuse is there a basic reason, is it just the fact they have only got a certain quota of syringes that they can have.  I am a bit lost with that bit.

Marc: I am a bit lost with that bit as well.  I don’t think there is a one sentence answer to that.  There are many constitute parts to why it occurs. In Tanzania where we have a fantastic relationship with the Ministry and they are above the call of duty, they are fantastic.  Tanzania for the listeners is just on the cusp of changing over nationally to what we call auto disable syringes.  Generic name of the product that I designed.  The situation last year was that for 45m population they were only importing, they don’t make any in Tanzania they were only importing 40m syringes.  So it was less than one per person per year and yet as I think we have already said the average use, the average consumption is around five per person per year.  So they need 220m syringes and they are buying 40.  But why don’t they order those syringes?  They are cheap 220m syringes is going to cost around $6m.  And for a country with a GDP of 5/600 bucks per average per person that isn’t a fortune to spend $6m especially when the $6m would save them $60m in health care costs.  So you have got to look at the whole chain on a very holistic basis, is that a logical step which the Ministries around the world should unite on and bite the bullet, spend a little bit of insurance money, because they are going to ensure that their costs are lower the following year by stopping secondary and tertiary infections from being spread.

How is that going to happen?  That is my job to galvanise them into that sort of action and put them all together.  But will they do it on their own? No.  We have to have again using the word holistic action from the manufacturers through to the funders, to the buyers, to the distributors, to the end users which is the medical staff.  And the end clients we have got to make the clients aware so we have to create a push and a pull market.  It is not a push market; it is not a pull market it is a bit of both.  That is going to be the end gain here.

Kevin: I am going to step back so that we can move on.  And the reason I am going to step back a bit is so that you can help people understand the fundamentals of actually how your syringe works.

Marc: So I got a syringe in my hand.  What I wanted to do was to try and understand if we could just put something quite simple into the design which would dovetail, parallel the manufacturing process.  I designed a valve mechanism which would lock and then give way and break so that the product was rendered useless at the end of one injection.  The other thing then we had to have a trigger point in the barrel which would activate this mechanism and so really the trick was in how do we make, it is a ring, an annular ring that runs around the inside of the barrel wall and could we make one which wouldn’t disturb the plunger going forward but would disturb the plunger coming back.  So obviously we made a ramp, so it was a gentle gradient going forward a very acute angle coming back.

Kevin: How many designs did you do before you reached this one?

Marc: One.

Kevin: I thought you were going to say that.

Marc: When I first came up with the solution in 84 I actually drew about ten different ways of doing it.  We went ahead with one in the first phase.  How many prototypes were there? 100s. You know there were lots of different ways of fine tuning this because I didn’t know that on the end of the valve there is an angle.  What should that angle be? Well it looked right at 17.3 but was it probably not.  Probably ended up at 17.9.  I don’t know.  There was at least a year of prototyping and changing every single week and remoulding it.

Kevin: Incredible and yet you then came out with a product that had been tested, that fitted a gap and not only fitted a gap from the market perspective but also from a humanitarian perspective.  Was it just then everybody went great Marc, you are the saviour of this.

Marc: I couldn’t keep the door shut, there were just so many people quing to get in the door.

Kevin: Exactly or was all of a sudden did you find brick walls appearing all over the place that you just couldn’t understand why.

Marc: Brick walls everywhere, didn’t really understand it.  The first manufacturer that took a license was in Brazil and the deal was that in Brazil there was a law that had been drafted that said from the appearance of an auto disable syringe that fitted their needs 180 days later that would become mandated in the country for imports or local production.  This company were making 400m syringes a year and they were willing to change them all over to the design K1.  So I went to Brazil a lot and we converted the factory and it was all working.  And we were about 20 days from launch and we got news that the mandate had been frozen, the factory had mysteriously been bought and when I went down there about three months later to look in the factory gates it was a green field, it had been bulldozed into the ground and the capacity had been destroyed.  So it was a massive wakeup call that there were forces out there that really didn’t want this product to exist.

Kevin: Wow what did that do internally for you when you saw that happen?

Marc: Inside it galvanised myself you know I thought now we have got a real fight on our hands.

Kevin: Did it really is that how you responded to it?

Marc: Oh yeah.  Well I was pissed off of course, absolutely furious that this opportunity had slipped by.  You know it would have done a lot of good and saved a lot of people.  At the time there was a world bank report in Brazil that said that something like 36% of all HIV cases in Brazil had been caused by the reuse of syringes.  And HIV is nothing in terms of numbers compared to other issues that occur through this.  Hepatitis is far more virulent and leads to far more death and destruction if you like than HIV.  So if that was the tip of the iceberg it was awful.  Who do we think might help us? Who do we think are going to be the enemy? You know it was an amazing wakeup call.

Kevin: And so where did it take you from that point?

Marc: The real breakthrough came when I met a family in India called the Nath family through a guy that I had met in Germany on my travels who introduced me to this family that he knew who would be his syringe manufacturer in India and privately held company absolutely ethical, fun loving family and it was just complete fit.  We found that care and that vision in this company called HMD, Hindustan Medical Devices.

Kevin: And how did you feel when you saw that first batch of finished products ready to actually be used?

Marc: That wasn’t my breakthrough point.  My breakthrough point was a few months later in the year 2001 because I knew we had made them, I knew we had sold some but the time I was overwhelmed was a little bit later on, a few months later when I was in Cambodia when I was taken to an immunisation camp and I saw our product being used for the first time and that was really special to see it actually used on a baby having a BCG injection was very, very special.

Kevin: I am assuming there were numerous times when you felt as though you were getting close to that six year old dream but at that point was it when it really hit home that I feel like I am living that concept that I saw in myself at six years old.

Marc: Yeah it wasn’t manufacturing, manufacturing is just a mechanical process but seeing the intervention, seeing that that kid without any knowledge, his mum or the baby had no knowledge of what was behind that simple five second process was lovely, that was really lovely.

Kevin: And where did it go from there?

Marc: HMD coming on board meant that we could go for the top independent manufacturers around the world and all of a sudden we had ten other licensees who were all privately held in different parts of the world.  And that gave us momentum and that gave us some numbers and starting to sell you know 2 – 300m products a year started to put you on the map.

Kevin: Once you proved that your product could be manufacturered with very little upgrading required with existing machinery surely being able to plonk that thesis and that case study on the desk of the head of the World Health Organisation should have lead to them creating a global change to legislation and saying to everybody this is the change we are making.  Is that not how it works or?

Marc: Well that was my impression of what the World Health Organisation should be doing.  The first tenner of the Hippocratic Oath is first do no harm and syringes kill more people than malaria.  Syringes transmit 23m cases of hepatitis every year.  That doesn’t make any sense at all.  Why you would sit back and just allow that to happen.  And the reuse of syringes is blamed for over $100bn worth of additional burden in the world health care and loss production and that doesn’t make any sense at all.  Why wouldn’t the industry double the price of their syringes with unilateral effect and say look tough shit we are making a better product it’s protecting you its insurance against anyone else re-infecting anyone in the world and that at least, that door at least is closed once and for all.  That would be the logical step.

Kevin: So why do you think this hasn’t happened?

Marc: I’ll answer that in a minute but let’s just fly back 20 minutes because I missed answering a question you said why does this occur? Does it occur for lack of supplies? Does it occur because healthcare workers are ignorant, do they not know germ theory, do they share their toothbrush with the strangers in the village and then not apply that same principle.  Of course they don’t and also every country I ever go to there is Coca Cola and if you ask for a Coca Cola in a restaurant it comes with the cap on and they open it on your table because they are proving to you it is a fresh bottle.  So it is a seal of approval so why isn’t that seal of approval come across in healthcare with the use of syringes.  It’s a question I can’t give you a one word answer to but I think it is bound by many different aspects and I will give you an example on it.  I was fortunate enough to meet an amazing nurse who was 24 years old in India and she was working in a private facility, one of the big private chains which probably better quality than anywhere else in the world.  She would look after four patients and when an injection was given to a patient it would be literally a sticker would go on the tray which was barcoded and that meant that the tray had to have all the constituent parts of say health care was taken to that patient, was delivered and then barcoded back out again.  And that barcode related to the patients digital records so they knew exactly what that patient had been given, when, by whom and everything was above board.  Now do we expect that sort of healthcare in the public system? Of course not they don’t have the wherewithal or the money or the resources to deliver in that basis.  But she had witnessed Primet in India and then, and this took a while to understand and get out of her, because she had to get married she changed from the private system where she could be sacked at any moment to the government system and started working in the public sector.  Because in the public sector in India you have a job for life and you have a pension and so therefore you are worth more to be married.  So that meant that she was now working in a public system where she knew what good healthcare looked like and yet despite her best efforts and despite a cupboard full of unused sterile syringes she was forced to use syringes over and over again.  Now whether that came, I can’t really repeat what she said because it was quite personal, but whether that came from healthcare workers believing that if they do the job they have somehow absolved the patient of any harm, you know God complex type way.

We hear it from the public a lot doctor is second to God, we hear that in our society.  And doctor has that magical quality of healing people.  And so that trust is above and beyond what it should be.  Certainly they wouldn’t trust someone coming up to them out in the street with a syringe they would run a mile but a nurse coming up to them in a hospital 50m away from the street they will accept so the white coat has a lot of effect here.  Whether it’s because of supplies in the nurses case I just talked about certainly the supplies were available in the hospital and yet she wasn’t allowed to use them.  Why were they saving up for a rainy day? Had the Sister in this ward been through times of austerity where they didn’t have a syringe for years on end and therefore was always saving some? I don’t know but none of it makes sense.  None of it is defensible.  It may be real but it is not defensible.  And so there is probably 15 different reasons why syringes are used.

So now back to the World Healthcare Organisation why don’t they do anything about it.  I think again that is a very complex situation and it contains lots of constitute parts.  Are the World Healthcare Organisation going to run around and say that healthcare workers of the world are bad? Probably not.  Probably not a good thing to say.  They have that same challenge with washing hands and yet when I have talked to Ministers in developing world countries about hand washing programs it sort of ends up as well they stole the soap, you know they stole the soap from the clinic, we tried our best we bought everyone a bar of soap and they didn’t use it.  And that always comes across with a lot of blame.  So what we are doing today is we are learning from that and we are definitely saying that the patient is the most important person here.  The World Health Organisation as an institution, as a beaurocracy has many problems.  In our situation they do much more harm than good through inactivity.  It would take nothing for Margaret Jan or any of her predecessors to sign one piece of paper that says one syringe is used for one injection and then safely disposed of.  So it is an easy step to take.  Why doesn’t it? I could give you 10 reasons straightaway.  So is the solution very simple? Yep.  Is the solution very simple? No.  It is both.

Kevin: I can see that, I can see that.  We talked about the frustrations.  Talk to me about some of the highlights.  You spoke about the first highlight where you saw your first syringe being used on a child and saving lives in the best possible way without the patient even being aware of it.  What are some of the other highlights that you have had out of this incredible journey?

Marc: Well getting my OBE was pretty special.  It wasn’t the actual ceremony Prince Charles was presiding and was an amazing experience to go to the Palace.  It was actually arriving at the Palace which to me was quite mind blowing because I had my family with me and we were going to have a big dinner afterwards.  You know that was a lot of recognition in one day.  Very special nothing to do with the medal or the three letters it was all to do with arriving at the Palace with my daughters, my son was a bit too young to go but you know to share that day with them was lovely.  That was really nice.

Other highlights Becton Dickinson signing a license with us.  HMD going through a billion units hitting that target.  Yeah I am very fortunate I have a highlight a week it is amazingly fortuitous or privileged position to be in.

Kevin: Where is next you said you are on the cusp of something?  I am looking; you have devoted 27 years to this, 27.  And if we put it in perspective your OBE was very much around 2006/7 sort of period so only a few years ago.  It shows how much dedication you have put in to pursuing this course in your life and I think that is just worth helping people to understand that none of this was an overnight success.  None of this was an overnight change.

Marc: Yeah but it is a big reward you know I view it as an apprenticeship.  You know I suppose at 17.5 years without selling a syringe is a long time.  Would I want it shorter sure of course.  But was it worth it oh God it is worth 170 years to save one life, of course.

Kevin: So where is next for you?

Marc: I have a company called Star Syringe which owns all the patents and the licenses which is run beautifully by a small team.  I have left Star now and I work at Safe Point which is my charity and it is an information charity so we concentrate on promoting large national campaigns to convert countries over to safe injections.  And next is really a combination of those two coming together and we call this program Life Saver.  The world doesn’t need to compete brand against brand of auto disable syringes yet.  What it needs to do is create a viable market for the manufacturers and then they need to fight tooth and nail for that market.  In the same way that they do today we need to upgrade the market and then allow them back into the ring and they can fight for market share again.  And that conversion process is my game now and I really want to replace the word injection with safe injection.  And we have evidence of this that when you give safe injections only in an East African hospital the length of the in patients stay drops from on average 7 days to 3 over a couple of year period and that is amazing and yet even though that is written up, even though that is published, even though we have told the World Health Organisation no one is shouting that from the rooftops.  Rather than trying to defend them or attack them what I would like to say is it’s insane.  It is a mad world and not everything goes the way that we think it should and that’s probably the role is to stop the noise, stop the madness and try and put a bit of sanity and quiet into it.

Kevin: Wow for someone that has already designed the syringe that can protect so many people you have had to take this so much further just to create the adoption.  Just to prove that what you are doing is correct.  Can’t believe that when you came into this journey that you thought that your job, your role was going to have to extend so far beyond coming up with the patented product.

Marc: No I probably didn’t think that.  I did when we lost Brazil.  When we lost Brazil I realised I entered a big grown up world that I hadn’t been aware of.  Until then it was a bit, no but I did realise when Ebrass was destroyed you know that we were up against forces.

Kevin: What responsibilities do you feel are on your shoulders now?

Marc: That is a very good question.  You know normally that is the answer, that is actually the answer to a question that I get asked quite a lot which is why did you keep going for 17.5 years.  Why didn’t you stop?  And the answer is because I had a responsibility to delivering the solution because I knew the solution would work.  And I knew the solution would work because of the initial three years of studying the problem.  There is no other possible solution for this issue and I would put my hat on that.  So knowing that I think I am charged with, and I accept fully graciously and welcomingly that responsibility that actually the only group of people including me that are going to make this difference are that small select group that have understood this.  And once you have understood you suddenly enter a realm of omission and commission.  So in other words if you are standing on Beachy Head and your friend is just about to jump, if you push him you are guilty and if you let him jump you are guilty.  So for me I am in that situation.  I have no choice but to see this through and to reach a tipping point in the developing world because if I don’t well I have undone any good that I might have done.  Someone could offer me another job and I couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t do it until I have seen this one through.  It’s very easy to think that you can absolve yourself just by designing a product.  If that product was taken up by the industry phoosh then fantastic I would be on a yacht now being the big I am but as it is you know the job isn’t done so until you can tick that box I think you just wear that responsibility so yeah it is pretty simple.  And the levels that you get involved in are fascinating and interesting.  To get this move through in Tanzania we’ve teamed up with Hewlett Packard and Vodacom and you know syringe manufacturers, is been fascinating.  It has been absolutely a brilliant adventure and one which I wouldn’t give up for the world even though it’s been stressful and painful and inconvenient at times its just one of those things that is great when it all comes together.

Kevin: Do you think the job will ever be done?

Marc: Yeah.

Kevin: Yeah.  And your role within it?

Marc: Oh I think I am going to be probably by then a grandfather.  No I think the next two – three years are going to be absolutely critical.  If we can get, I am not saying Life Saver is perfect but it’s what we have got and if we can get Life Saver adopted in maybe five East African countries and then we can get momentum in India I think we have set the scene where we can avalanche into other countries.

Kevin: I am going to close off.  You have shared an incredible insight into your world.  As you probably realise from how I tend to finish our podcasts we are here to profile people like you, which likely or unlikely as it sounds are an inspiration to a lot of other people.  As much as though whoever I speak to on this podcast always likes to shy away from actually hearing that themselves because they always look to other people for that inspiration.  But I want to finish off by asking you what is your primary driver that has helped you achieve what you have and fuels you to achieve your goals of the future?

Marc: Well now you have hit right at the humble point.  There is no big secret you keep going and you take your responsibilities as they come and you make the right choices.  You know we have been offered in the past, a group came to us and offered us a load of money to stop and we said no.  Without even thinking about it, it was more money than I could probably have ever spent and would have been very wealthy but it is just not what this is about.  This is a different journey to many that are taken but it is not different, you know there are lots of people on this sort of journey I think, I hope.  So it is just those two things.  You just keep going and there is no choice to give up or change or weaken because so many people rely on the knowledge and the I suppose commitment that I have.  So turning away would be worse than carrying on.

Kevin: Marc Koska thank you very much for your time today on Maximise Potential.

Marc: You are welcome.

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Kevin: As I mentioned in my introduction I believe that we’ve all had similar moments to Marc yet the conviction that Marc has displayed to find a solution to this problem is a trait that really sets him apart from so many others.  Marc’s story was peppered with so many business lessons, life lessons and also humanitarian lessons.  However I think the key message we can all take away from this interview is that Marc Koska has genuinely shown us that one person can truly make a difference.  As always you will find plenty of links on the webpage to enable you to learn more about Marc and the fantastic work that he is doing.  And thank you once again Marc for sharing your incredible journey with us.  We look forward to keeping our listeners updated with your progress and we wish you and Safe Point every success.

Before I sign off today I’d like to give a special mention to all our listeners who will be competing in the London Marathon in the next couple of weeks.  Whether you are a first time runner or a veteran we hope you have a memorable and enjoyable experience on what is an extremely unique and emotional day.  And for any of you considering a career move this year the Jenrick Recruitment Team are offering to give individual feedback on CVs to the listeners of the Maximise Potential podcast.  So if you would like to receive tips and advice on how to make your CV as effective as possible please just email it to careers@jenrick.co.uk and I have also put a link to this email address on the webpage for this episode quoting Maximise Potential podcast in the subject line.  And if you would like the feedback to be even more accurate please also indicate the types of jobs that you either are or will be applying for.

Here is ‘All there is’ from Xerxes to finish off with today. Thank you again for tuning in and we will be back soon with another interview on the Maximise Potential podcast.  Thank you.

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“It’s gives me a real boost to know I can equal Tanni’s record this year,” said Weir, who last year became the first man to win five London Wheelchair Marathons.

“Tanni is such a fantastic ambassador for the sport so to match one her achievements will be fabulous. I love the London Marathon. I haven’t missed one for 12 years and I wouldn’t miss this one for the world,” he added.

Weir is certainly in form, having broken the world half marathon record in Lisbon just a month ago.

In London last year he won a thrilling sprint finish beating Switzerland’s Heinz Frei by two seconds, and the Briton will face the veteran world record holder again when 17 of the world’s elite men takes to the start line just four months before the 2012 Paralympic Games.

The British record holder will be up against three former London champions, including the 54-year-old Frei, a London winner three times in the late 1990s, the 2010 winner, Josh Cassidy of Canada, who was fifth last year, and Frenchman Denis Lemeunier, the 2001 champion, racing in London for the 11th time.

However, Weir’s sternest challenge could come from the two fastest men in the field – South African Ernst van Dyk who has won the prestigious Boston Marathon a record nine times, and the in-form Japanese racer, Masazumi Soejima, who won marathons in Tokyo, Boston and New York last year, and clocked the world’s leading time of 1 hour 18 minutes 50 seconds.

“Training’s been going really well and I feel in good shape.”

Weir will appear at a press conference along with a number of the London Marathon’s elite wheelchair racers at the Tower Hotel, London, on Friday 20 April. The field also includes Marcel Hug of Switzerland, who was second in 2010, and Poland’s Tomasz Hamerlak, the 2011 bronze medallist.

“I know I’m the man to beat in London but whoever is there on the day that’s fine by me,” said Weir, who became a father for the second time last August.

Further Articles and Resources

Article Source: germanroadraces.de

At one time or another we have all been inspired by an article or television programme, which prompted us to say “I have to do something about that.”

Yet, no matter how sincere we are with this statement, in the cold light of day and with our daily responsibilities firmly back in the forefront of our mind, our intentions to serve the greater good often take a back seat.

However, in today’s Maximise Potential interview we have an individual who did not allow ‘the noise’ of daily life to dampen his desire to act upon an article he read, and has, since 1984 devoted his entire adult life to solving a problem of Global significance.

Without funding, training or experience Marc Koska set himself the target of iradicating the spread of disease and death through unsafe injections, which accounts for more global deaths each year than Maleria.

Here is Marc to share the high’s and low’s of his incredible journey whilst giving us a wonderful insight into his approach to life in general.

Key messages from Marc:

• The actions of one person can truly make a difference
• Give yourself time to step out of the stream and look at the situation you face from a different perspective
• Truly understand the gap (or problem) – do not rush this stage
• See things through to the end – do not turn back before you have completed what you have started
• Don’t become frustrated if projects take you longer than anticipated to achieve, simply view that period as an ‘Apprenticeship’

Additional notes and resources (just click on the links for more information):

• Visit Marc Koska’s website
• Visit the SafePoint Charity website
• Watch Marc’s TED talk

Career Help – CV Feedback:

• Please send an email to careers@jenrick.co.uk quoting “Maximise Potential Podcast” in the subject line to receive a detailed appraisal of your CV
• To make the feedback even more accurate add the types of jobs you are applying for / wish to be considered for to your email

Interview Transcription:

• Transcript: Marc Koska – Inventor of the K1 auto-disable syringe

Sponsors:

• Jenrick Recruitment – specialists in Engineering, IT and Commercial recruitment services
• Xerxes Music

I’m constantly looking at what I want to achieve and very seldom time the time to reflect on what I have achieved. However, I thought that this might be an occasion to do just that….

Looking back at those early articles, I realise one very clear thing – that I owe some sincere thanks to Elliott Cole. Not only for his initial inspiration to start the project but also for his essential article contributions in the first few months.

Without doubt, Elliott gave us the opportunity and impetus to start understanding what we wanted Maximise Potential to become and what type of role it could play in helping others to maximise their potential.

There are a wonderful array of resources now available through the site, and all you have to do is click on Get Inspired, Videos, Business, Careers and the other sections to (as Elliott commonly refers to it) “lift your mood in a matter of minutes.”

The aspect of the project I’m now committed to is the impact that Maximise Potential is having in the lives of the people who are listening to the Podcast and absorbing the resources that we have on the site. This new section is called “Your Stories” and I would like to thanks the likes of Vanessa King, Graham Carter and Sam Nobes for taking the bold step of publishing their stories.

I can see that many others will soon join these stories – this is my next goal.

Thank you as always for all of your support and interest. The Maximise Potential website is here for YOU.

Jim Collins, author of ‘Good to Great’, makes the statement that ‘Good is the enemy of great’ as a reference to an endemic problem which causes companies to under achieve and fail on a frighteningly consistent basis.

I’ve taken to referring to this management problem as ‘The War on Talent’, basically because it both sounds cool and indicates that it’s an issue that needs to be fought in all organizations, and at all levels. It does sound cool though, right?

We’re all very conscious of the fact that business is globally competitive, and becoming ever more so as time goes on and more vendors for every industry enter the marketplace. Why then are so very many companies prepared to accept mediocrity in their single most essential area – their people?

In his book, ‘Good to Great’, Jim Collins uses a great – and now quite popular – analogy:

Think of your business as a bus. In order for that bus to get to it’s destination, for your company to succeed, you need to get the right people on the bus, get the wrong people off the bus, and put the right people into the right seats.

According to an 85 year research study from Psychological Bulletin, of the workers in any field at any time:

• 16% are poor performers
• 68% are average performers
• 16% are superior performers.

In management roles, the same study concludes the following:

• Average performers are 48% more productive than poor performers
• Superior performers are 48% more productive than average performers
• SUPERIOR PERFORMERS ARE 96% MORE PRODUCTIVE THAN POOR PERFORMERS!

Can you imagine the impact upon your business of getting those poor performers off your bus to make room for a further 16% of great people? Even if they are replaced by ‘average’ performers, you’re seeing an increase of productivity close to 50%.

Would you accept it if your telephone lines only worked 50% of the time? Or if only 50% of your invoices got paid? I know I wouldn’t. There isn’t a business in the world that should remain content to be running at half of their potential – what does your bus look like?

Don’t lose the war on talent – arm yourself against it!

Source: Recruiting in Victoria, article author Jim O’Sullivan

She has rowed over 15,000 miles, taken around 5 million oarstrokes, and spent cumulatively over 500 days of her life at sea in a 23-foot rowboat. She uses her ocean rowing adventures to inspire action on the top environmental challenges facing the world today.

On Thursday, International Women’s Day, she was toiling in San Francisco to prepare for her encore – a different challenge from any previous:

Savage, 44, will join ocean rower and fellow Brit Andrew Morris, 47, to row from Canada’s Newfoundland coast directly into the heart of London in time for the Olympic opening ceremony on July 27 .

They will brave icebergs and the Grand Banks of Newfoundland of “Perfect Storm” fame. They’ll bring a sextant in case their GPS units fail. They will carry a medical kit designed by UCSF physician Aenor Sawyer that will let them staple gashes across the skull and stave off infection.

Savage, who was named National Geographic Adventurer of the Year in 2010, has faced those risks alone for weeks on end. But it was after hearing Morris sing for the first time on Monday that Savage, heretofore a solo rower, discovered a new fear: losing her earplugs.

The row was the brainchild of Mick Dawson, also British. The three Brits and a boat are a true “only in San Francisco” story.

In 2009, Dawson and rowing partner Chris Martin rowed nearly 6,000 miles across the North Pacific from Japan to San Francisco. They were the first team to row the Pacific Ocean west to east.

Their 23-foot high-tech tandem ocean rowing boat, Bojangles, ended up at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park on Hyde Street. With no funding to make the boat a permanent exhibit, how to get the boat back to England? By rowing, of course. This time, the pairing was to be Dawson and Morris.

Coincidentally, Savage had considered a homecoming row back to London timed for the Olympics. “But my boat, Sedna, was falling apart,” she explains. “So I retired last October.”

Heading into 2012, Dawson’s work commitments threatened to scuttle his plan to row (a former Royal Marines commando, his current day job involves fighting modern-day pirates). So Morris shot off an e-mail to Savage at the end of February. All three met for the first time Monday on Hyde Street Pier to go over Bojangles’ refitting and make final plans for the trip.

Savage and Morris make quite a pair: She, the petite, brainy, management consultant-turned-eco crusader; he, the physically towering, iconoclastic entrepreneur. And singer. The commando will manage the shore team. There’s a sitcom there somewhere.

The boat will be trucked to Newfoundland, where Savage and Morris will row out into the Atlantic in nine weeks. They hope to make the passage in two months, and will work out plans for youth education and rowing programs along the way.

You can follow their progress at www.olympicatlanticrow.com.

This is just the start of our Maximise Potential journey with Roz and we look forward to sharing many more updates from this incredibly inspirational individual over the coming months.

Source: www.sfgate.com

David, five-times London Marathon wheelchair champion, turning out in his first race at the Adidas Silverstone Half Marathon wheelchair event, was overwhelming favourite to win his first Silverstone title and delivered accordingly. David broke the course record finishing in 45:20 taking nearly eight minutes off the course record, previously held by Brian Alldis at 53:00 set in 2010.

David led the wheelchair field all the way and is coached by Jenny Archer. David who will be racing in this year’s Virgin London Marathon Wheelchair event in six weeks time against a tough field, and hopes to equal Tanni Grey-Thompson’s six tiles in London, said of his win today,

‘I was pleased with my time for the course, which was a bit twisty. My goal for the Paralympics is to get at least one gold medal, and looking forward to taking part in the Virgin London Marathon as preparation for this. Winning is all I want to do, I train to win’.

David now holds British records at all distances up to 5000m on the track as well as at 10k, half marathon and marathon on the road and a double Paralympic medalist on the track from Beijing at 800 and 1500 metres.

Source: About My Area.co.uk

Kevin: Welcome to Maximise Potential the podcast to educate and motivate through a range of original interviews designed to help you maximise your potential.  Brought to you in association with the award winning recruitment group Jenrick.

Welcome back to episode 38 of the Maximise Potential Podcast.  Have you ever taken the time to imagine how you would react if your career prematurely ended or your house and all your life savings were lost or if your health was taken away?  Having the strength of character to rebuild your life from any one of those extreme examples is a virtue that none of us ever knows if we pocess until that moment arises.  However now imagine if all of those happen to you in a period of your life that spanned less than a decade.  In today’s interview we meet Chris Brisley someone who has lived through this exact experience.  In this very honest interview Chris recounts how he responded to those challenges sharing what he learnt about his own character and explaining the lessons he now applies in his life to help him through challenges when faced with them now.

Music

Chris I would like to welcome you to the Maximise Potential podcast.

Chris: Thanks very much.

Kevin: We’ve got a lovely personal story that we are going to be sharing with the audience in terms of the life story events that have very much led you to where you are today in your life and running an incredible cause which is giving back and inspiring other people on a daily basis.  What we will do is before we start talking about this wonderful concept that you have let’s take people back.  Realistically your life started with the navy wasn’t it?

Chris: Yes I was in the Royal Navy at 17.

Kevin: So let’s start off from there because I think that’s where your journey began.

Chris: Well I joined the Royal Navy as you said at 17 where I spent nine years of my life, an incredible experience.  The training was superb, I met some amazing people and realised at a very early age what my potential was and that is something that the armed forces can do for you, the training is incredible.

Kevin: Go on what do you mean by that that is an interesting way of saying it.

Chris: Well I actually left school with no qualifications what so ever and I think maybe I was a little immature, I was at a good school but I didn’t realise my potential at school I realised my potential in the armed forces because they do literally push you to the limit both physically and mentally as well as surrounding you with like minded people.

Kevin: So by getting pushed is the catalyst for you.

Chris: Absolutely by giving you a challenge and making you realise mentally and physically that you have taken yourself to the limit and then you can go beyond that limit and then each time you do that you improve.  Now when you are quite young that starts to sit home after a few weeks, months, years.

Kevin: You said it began to help you realise what your true potential was.  But what did that mean, what was that physically and mentally doing to you?

Chris: Physically I knew I could push myself further than I had ever done but I knew that mentally I was intelligent but I didn’t think I was at school.  And then realised that I was intelligent I could actually do things that at school were unobtainable, as I thought they were unobtainable, but that was just not true at all.

Kevin: And it just really what?  I took away the fear?

Chris: Yeah, yeah it completely took away the fear.  I’ve got no fear about who I am or failing, let’s call it that.  I had failed many times at school but it was no longer about failing it was about learning from, lets if we want to call it failure, learning from the fail and then saying right how do I do it better next time, how do I then improve on that and eventually do pass or qualify or get better or get a higher score or run quicker or jump higher.  It was always something you were after.

Kevin: And you just looked at it then as just something that was just a learning experience as opposed to whether it is success or failure.

Chris: Yep absolutely no more no less.  There are always options but ultimately there are options you don’t like and options you do like.  But that is not what it is all about it is options of what you want and what you don’t want.  And I didn’t want one thing but I definitely wanted another thing and obviously that sometimes for me involved more failures than pass and I eventually kept going until I did get.  And that is what I did realise do not give in.  Never give in.  My little mantra to myself all the time whereas I did give in at school in the forces I didn’t give in and I very quickly started to rise through the ranks and obtain qualifications.  I even redid my GCSE’s at 23 years old how bizarre is that.  Why would you want to do that? Well I realised my brain worked and I thought well why not.

Kevin: And that was something obviously that almost felt like unfinished business so I assume you wanted to prove it to yourself that actually yeah it was environment it wasn’t me and I can actually achieve these things.

Chris: Yeah and strangely I did it with other guys as well.  We all thought well if you are doing it why don’t we all do it together and we did.  So you end up adopting those small teams.

Kevin: You then had nine wonderful years in the Navy experiencing all manner of things.  I am guessing as far as you were concerned that’s it this is your life, this is your career, this is where you are going to be for the rest of your life or the rest of your working life or predominant.

Chris: I had signed a 22 year contract.  At the time it was called open engagement, we signed a 20 year contract and do you know what by the time I was 19/21 I was what they call a lifer.  Absolutely loved it.  There was always challenge.  Didn’t matter what I did there was something to challenge me nothing was ever easy.  The Navy absolutely did that for me.  The armed forces does that for you.  We did something called Perishers which is an extremely difficult course where submarine captains or want to be captains have to try and pass and it has been on television many times.  The stress they go through is enormous.  Now I was just one of the operations guys on there and I would see what was possible.  Human beings could put themselves through enormous amounts of stress with very little sleep.  And just seeing people go through that makes you realise well hold on a minute they haven’t had much different lives than I have so if they can do that why can’t I do that.  And I really started to believe that potentially that would be something I would do until a year later.

Kevin: Until a year later.  That is lovely point to bring us on to something that completely changed that map.

Chris: I was a nuclear sub mariner something very special, there aren’t many of them and one of the things you have to do in there is called ‘the tank’ and the tank is the world’s deepest manmade platform for doing submarine escape and that involves some quite serious medicals to go through and you have to do that every few years.  And I failed one of those medicals due to my lung function.  Normally I ran all over the place, I was really fit, I was one of the fittest guys on board but due to my lung function if potentially there was a fire on board I could become a hazard to somebody else.  I could potentially become overcome by smoke and instead of helping people I could become a hindrance so I was made medically unfit.  In fact by the time I left I was what is called PUNS – Permanently Unfit for Naval Service, so then discharged for life.

Kevin: Wow how did that hit you?

Chris: Hugely, absolutely massive impact. My entire mapped out life never mind career was gone.  And even now just saying that actually does touch on me.  Very quickly I had to try and turn that around and I looked for different things to do.  And back then we didn’t really have a resettlement process as we have today.  It is still not amazing but I had to look for something else and the first thing I found was the London Marathon.

Kevin: Go on.

Chris: Obviously there was apparently something wrong with my lungs that I didn’t know about.  Yes I had mild asthma but I needed to prove to myself that there was nothing physically wrong with me.  Yes I had had a lot of problems with it but I needed to prove that I could push beyond that.

Kevin: Or was there a bit of you wanted to, in the nicest possible way, stick two fingers up at the establishment to say you were wrong?

Chris: In the worst possible way I really wanted to prove everybody wrong.  Yes you have told me I am medically unfit and I was literally classed as disabled and medically unfit.  33% I was actually measured to be 33% disabled.  So quite annoying to have to be told that at 27/28 years old.  So yeah no I just started training and I chose the National Asthma Campaign as my charity so I thought I would raise money for it as well.  And I did it, I broke four hours in my first ever run, first ever marathon I did a 3:58/3:57 I think it was.  And vowed never to do one again.  It was an awful idea but the whole process that I went through the challenge, the run, the training that I did with friends was fantastic.  Absolutely loved the process.  The running the marathon itself I thought was shocking and I did what I set out to achieve which was to prove there was nothing wrong with me.

Kevin: Yeah I am very interested to understand that period between being discharged and finding the marathon.  I am sure even if it was a short period in terms of whether it was months or whatever what was going through your mind mentally?

Chris: Completely lost.  You have got to understand that the armed forces is like a family you are completely protected in every possible way.  You are surrounded in cotton wool 24hours a day 365 days a year.  That whole family had gone, all of it.  And the day you hand over your naval career is also quite harrowing.  You have to hand in your ID card.  Because I was permanently unfit for naval service I was not even allowed to be in the reserves so that meant I had to hand in most of my uniform.  So literally my entire career, almost a decade had gone.  It was extremely difficult for me and I sat at home wondering what I was going to do.  I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with my life.  I had no concept of what to do in civilian life.  And the only thing I did know was sport; it was the only thing I knew.  So I threw myself into doing high board diving, coaching kids, this sort of stuff.  It doesn’t really get any money but I needed to find something to take up my mind otherwise I literally would have been sat on the sofa.

Kevin: Interesting and I am just trying to get my head around this in terms of the structure of how you went about this.  But I have no idea where I am going to start so what I am going to do is pick probably the one certainty that I have got in my life and just try and at least use that as an anchor point and start building again from there.  Would that be a correct way of?

Chris: In a way yes.  Strangely I did turn my back on quite a lot of my armed forces friends because I felt well I am out now they are not going to want to know me.  Thankfully they didn’t turn their back on me and many of them still know me today.  But I did have a civilian group of friends and they were all in the diving and gymnastics side of life so that was something that I heavily threw myself into.  I needed to find something else.  Almost like another family if you like.  And sports seemed to be that avenue and obviously that was also what gave me challenge in the forces.  So I just went to that next avenue that I could find.  I can’t be that sort of guy that sits on the sofa and does nothing all day.

Kevin: And that at least started that rebuilding process for you.

Chris: Absolutely, absolutely that was it that did it for me.

Kevin: Just so I can double check if you were forced in that situation again do you think that’s good sound advice that you would look at for yourself again which is yeah if your whole life gets taken away then find that constant, find the anchor point that you feel most comfortable with and just start rebuilding from there again.

Chris: Yeah really important and also don’t sit thinking, don’t sit being alone, be with your friends.  The worse things that people tend to do is not say anything and the best thing you could possibly do is get out there.  Absolutely get out there. In fact one big thing that sticks out in my mind was the day I decided I was going to sign on.  So went to sign on and go through this whole dole experience.  It was absolutely shocking to stand in a queue and then to go and look at jobs that are around.  I just couldn’t believe it.  That just wasn’t for me and I just couldn’t put myself in that position.  I literally did just go out and just go and find work. I painted warehouses, I drove vans, I did anything to get the, whether it was the same amount of pay or not that meant nothing to me I just needed to do something else.  So I had lots of things.  I knew I needed enough money to get me to the pool and do a bit of swimming and do a bit of diving and teach kids how to dive.  I had to find other things to keep that other constant going.  But there was no way I was going to sign on the dole.  It just wasn’t an option for me.  Like I said to you before there was two options I knew what one option I wanted to do and I knew what I didn’t want to do.  And I don’t know how many times I failed going towards the option I wanted to do I just kept going in that direction.

Kevin: And then your interest in sport then led you into what you believed was then going to be the first stage of your career moving on from the armed forces and that was I think you said opening up a sports shop.

Chris: Yeah I opened a sports shop.  I thought once again I wanted to be in diving and I knew I wasn’t a very good diver I got quite a lot of medals Master level and all this sort of stuff but I wasn’t any good but what I did turn out to be quite good was teaching kids.  I got eight year olds at silver medals in nationals in my first year.  So I thought that’s what I am going to do that is going to be my career.  And unfortunately there wasn’t a huge amount of money at the time I was paid about £3.50 an hour and this is only a decade ago so I opened a sports shop.  And that way I thought I am complimenting two different things.

Kevin: Natural progression absolutely.

Chris: I could see there was no true sports shop in Plymouth where I was living at the time.  So I would open a whole sport shop which actually sold swimming gear and running gear.  Things that people really needed to do sports.

Kevin: And what happened?

Chris: It lasted about nine months.  I knew nothing about business, I knew nothing about finance and it crashed around my ears within nine months.  The money I had been given for being medically discharged had gone, the bailiffs came round and took everything from my house, I lost absolutely everything I ever had.  So within 18 months to two years of leaving I had not only lost my career and lost every penny I ever had.

Kevin: Could you ever have envisaged that your life was going to go through that sort of turmoil in just a short space.

Chris: No absolutely not.  Do you know what so many things go through your head.  The loss of that I actually lost a bit of self respect for myself because I didn’t actually know what I was going to do then.  I thought oh my god everyone that knows me has now just seen this huge loss.  But at the end of the day I still now know all those people incredibly.  But yeah no that was quite difficult for me.  That was a very difficult time in fact.  And it isn’t about the money it is all about self respect and the respect you think that people are going to have for you.  But I can even remember now not having a clue what I was going to do next.

Kevin: How did you pull yourself out of it? That is obviously the crucial bit.

Chris: Well I had a lot of friends and even with the sports shop I generated a lot of new friends. So that is one thing I did realise so what had I thrown myself at them my friends.  So I hadn’t done something other people had done, I hadn’t sat on my own.  And I was working for lots of these friends and some of these friends I owed money to from the business.  Now despite the fact the business went down I still felt personally responsible that I owed these people so I went and worked for them and worked the debt off.  And bizarrely though I could see that they had lots of problems.  Now I knew a little bit about IT when I was in the navy it was one of the jobs they taught me so I started saying well why don’t you do it this way.  And they were well yeah we could do.  So I did, I started doing little things for these bits of companies building spreadsheets putting IT systems in, adding computers I just seemed to know more about computers than everyone else around me which I thought was very strange I thought everyone knew about computers.  And that is what I started doing and so the next one, and then the next minute one of these guys went well if you could do this for me I would pay you this much money.  Really oh my god that is so much more money than I have been getting for months.  So I went yeah brilliant let’s do it.  I said you do understand I am not like qualified or anything I’m not like a consultant, all these names you see when you go for one of those jobs, not that I had even looked at one of those jobs I was into sport.  I was a sports person.

Kevin: So in your mind still you are not an IT professional at all you are still a sports man.

Chris: I am going to be sports, sports are what I do.  Yeah I need some vehicle to make me do sport but yes right I need to do this IT thing that pays.  So I am going to do that IT thing and then I am going to do my sport.

Kevin: And this is where it started building from.

Chris: Absolutely.  After a year I was still doing it.  I actually got a salary out of this it was quite good.  More money than I was in the navy within 18 months, this is bizarre.  And I was still doing my sport and it was still going and then it just seemed to get bigger.  It kept snowballing.  I was loving it, I was really having a good time.

Kevin: That is the important bit.  I am just going to, I know I tend to do this anyway but you’ll touch on something and keep talking and I will take a mental note of something because I want to go back to it.  The people you owed money to ended up being the ones that actually were the catalyst for you forming your brand new career.

Chris: Yeah how bizarre is that.

Kevin: That is interesting.  There are some examples in there first of all about the integrity that they saw a side to you that even when faced with your darkest hours you were willing to still stand up and be counted in those moments not turn your back.  Secondly as well you were able to see outside of your world and see into their world and it would have been very easy to have been completely consumed in what was going on in your world at that particular time and that seemed to act as a bit of catalyst for really helping all of these opportunities.  To then just coming into play.

Chris: I did see opportunities I started to realise again hold on my brain does work again.  I started to see opportunities, I started to see solutions and then I kept learning about things.  And why do you keep doing things like that? That takes 15 times longer if you do it this way you can do it in half the time.  And as far as I am concerned I didn’t know everything about it and I thought if someone really knew what they were doing they could do it even quicker than that so why aren’t we doing it that way.  So you suggest it to them and I tell you what I will do it for nothing to prove it.  So that is what I was doing.  That is how I sort of started I was doing things for nothing.  So in a warehouse for instance I put in, I networked a load of computers in my spare time for nothing.

Kevin: But I think that is a lovely lesson for people to know so it was very much, there is an expression we have used actually keeping yourself, or making yourself open to opportunities.  Sounds like that is very much the approach that you took.

Chris: Yeah no very much so, very much so.

Kevin: Not thinking about what you are going to get in return.

Chris: I don’t know.  At no point was I thinking in a certain way.  I have got to reiterate that what I was really thinking about was what was I trying to do.  At the end of the day I needed to achieve this sporting goal there was my carrot, that’s what I enjoy doing, I believed that I was really good at it.  The money was rubbish but I was really good at this other thing that seemed to generate a little bit of money enough to be able to support that other thing.  So what I had to do was make myself really good at this thing so I could support the other thing.  One thing lead to the other.  One thing was definitely the road to the carrot.  That is what I kept believing.  So I needed to get really good at this in order to deliver that.  So that was my focus.

Kevin: What I like though is even though you knew that, let’s call one the cash cow, one was the IT element which was leading to the vocation. Instead of looking at that with a distain and saying I am not going to get emotionally involved in it so I am not going to get passionate about it you sound far from that.

Chris: Oh I definitely started to realise that I really got emotionally involved in it.  I really started to love it.  It started to be one o’clock in the morning and I would still be studying about it.  So literally to the point of I’d say yeah no we could defiantly do that.  Next minute I am reading Windows networking until two, three o’clock in the morning so I would know how to do it and then I would come in next day and I would go and do it.  Was I trying to do something for them or for me? Probably both to be fair.  I wanted to try and prove to someone that I could do something really quick and if you think about that that was no different than what I used to do in the Navy.  Someone gave me a challenge I could see everything set in front of me but this time I didn’t have anything set in front of me so what I started doing was setting things in front of me.  So I started putting that structure in front of myself and I could see that the IT industry had Microsoft Certifications and accounting certifications so I started seeing that structure.  And the next minute I started following it without realising what I was doing.  But I was absolutely passionate about trying to deliver and problem solve.

Kevin: How do you feel when you solve a problem?

Chris: Unbelievable, absolutely love it.  That’s why I do what I do today.  And I still do it for that today.  I do not do what I do for money I do it because I like to solve problems.

Kevin: All this momentum started happening.

Chris: Yeah, doc com boom all going crazy.

Kevin: And growing.

Chris: It just kept snowballing.  It generated into a business, not one that I ever started, not one that I even consciously tried to build going all over the place.  Bizarrely two or three weeks later I was offered a contract and I moved to London.  Moved from Devon sleepy hollow and I went all the way to London and restarted my life and I ended up working for a number of years and it was just going incredibly well.  It was fantastic.

Kevin: And so where did that go?

Chris: 17th February 2002 it all changed.

Kevin: Not that the date is engrained at all.

Chris: At seven o’clock at night I was training for the London Triathlon I was near Baker Street cycled out on the road and Porsche 911 hit me head on.  Everything stopped.  Once again life changed, completely changed.  L4 – S1 in my spine the discs completely herniated, I am covered in scars.  My almeners, the funny bones, I had to have both my arms operated.  My nerve ends now in different parts of my body on my arms.  Upper thoracic whiplash.  I just could go on it completely changed me.  What I didn’t realise was how bad I was and it took two or three months for that to sink in.  All the injuries didn’t impact me at once but on the 4th July my back completely went and I just couldn’t get out of bed one day.  It was astronomically huge, couldn’t work basically.  So now my other thing that I had thrown my life into was completely gone and I was having my own dot.com crash but for the wrong reasons.

Kevin: Wow how bad was it?

Chris: It took me four and a half years to recover.

Kevin: And what did the doc say to you at the time?

Chris: There was no, I was just talking about running and they went you’ve completely got to forget about running this just isn’t something that you need to focus on anymore.

Kevin: It’s just not going to happen.

Chris: Yep forget that.

Kevin: So they said you couldn’t run, you couldn’t cycle; forget about obviously the London triathlon but no more London marathons.

Chris: No more running in a day which is what I did, it’s just how I existed.  I just loved to run.  It was where I got away.  It is where I went.  So all of a sudden I had no IT to focus on because I just literally couldn’t work for them.  Although I was still trying to help them because I was one of the main project guys and then they just reassured me we can do it without you so that was it, it was gone and I had no way of trying to deliver some of the stuff that I did.  I went and employed some guys and thought well I’ve still got some contracts I need to try and keep some of this money coming in, in order to live.  And then I started realising well I don’t need to solve some of these problems because they don’t even exist I now have new problems and the new problem is get fixed.  Get mobile get up.  But I didn’t completely let go of my IT and I thought the only way to do that is to go and employ some guys so I did.  I set up a new company and while I was broken we created a new company and we called it Experta.

Kevin: And so before we talk about that it sounds to me that applying lessons that you had learnt at various stages of your previous “crashes” sounds like this time there was no dwelling, there was no distraction.

Chris: None what so ever.  I had learnt this time.

Kevin: I was going to say go on talk a bit more about this because let’s face it this sounds bigger than all of the other stuff put together.

Chris: This was monumental this was something; this was now me physically and mentally had been affected because I now could not get up.  I now could not walk around without masses, 7200 milligrams of drugs a day I was taking in order to switch off the pain receptors in my body so that I could actually get up again.  It was just huge.  So the levels of pain were enormous.  They literally were enormous I couldn’t even grip properly, couldn’t even hold a bag with a rucksack in it.  You know it was just incredible so sports was gone, that was absolutely gone from my head.  I still had an IT business that still was doing well and I needed that to keep going I couldn’t just let go of everything like I had in the past.  But then I kept getting these distractions about people saying no you forget about everything you need to do this.  And I was like no way I have managed to achieve quite a lot in my last five or six years or rebuilding this and rebuilding that I can definitely do it.  I did I literally had to just sit back disseminate everything go right this is what is important this is what I need to handle first.  On all these different areas of your life physically, professionally, mentally.  There were so many different things to tackle and what I didn’t realise was how mad the mental impact was going to have on me over the next few years.

Kevin: Go on explain that a bit.

Chris: The medication was enormous and one of the problems I had was trying to solve some of the physical problems were a lot more complicated.  Some of the medical advances weren’t obtainable to me very easily through the NHS so I tried to use my medical healthcare and trying to get that was extremely difficult.  As they usually do they kept saying that this was a preconceived condition as in something I had from maybe when I was a diver which was bizarre I had been hit by a car.  And I was literally in the office spending half my day writing 16 page faxes to this healthcare company to eventually, eventually ten months later they complete gave in and then I started having a whole different level of treatment a lot, lot quicker.  So I was trying to fight two different battles.  One I was trying to run a company and learn something completely new and that was that I now had staff instead of being a consultant.  And secondly I was trying to get fixed on a physical level and I was taking all this medication which was then just blurring everything and making it even harder.  So then I had to take the decision to stop taking the medication regardless of the pain so that I could think a lot clearer.  But that turned out to be a really bad idea.

Kevin: I was going to say that doesn’t sound like the most painless experience that.

Chris: The whole thing was not good.  I went through massive bouts of depression.  I found the whole thing very, very difficult to deal with to be honest and the business nearly crashed around my ears within a few years because of it.

Kevin: And it was just then because you could really feel the true pain that you were in was it?

Chris: Yeah not just about that I was just so focussed on so many different things and trying to prioritise the right thing was almost impossible for me to do.  In retrospect I should have just got out of that completely and just got focussed on getting myself fixed but then do you know what that probably isn’t the right thing for me because I really need that carrot and I really need the vehicle that is taking me towards the carrot.  So Experta was my carrot, I have always created some sort of goal some sort of carrot.

Kevin: How are you managing to come to terms with the fact that you were never going to run again?

Chris: I didn’t think about it to be honest.  I really didn’t think about it.  It was someone had told me something and do you know what I just didn’t believe it.  That was the best way of dealing with it just don’t believe them because I am not fixed yet.  I will deal with that when I am fixed.  I have got another step to go through first so let’s get to those steps before the point of worrying.  I don’t worry about something unless someone tells me.

Kevin: And so you just rebuffed the elements that weren’t relevant to you at that point.  You said everything nearly crashed around you, but nearly it didn’t how did you manage to save it all?

Chris: I became very aggressive, very aggressive.  In the forces it was quite easy to become aggressive about something and really drive it and go hard and people all around you understood that.  Well not in a business environment being really quite aggressive really doesn’t help actually.  And it doesn’t matter what you are going through everyone has their own value sets people come to work to do what they need to do and then go home.  Well they are not living the same life that you are so me being aggressive about trying to get not necessarily the business but me where I needed to be doesn’t really suit someone else and I had to go back on the medication without a doubt.

Kevin: Really.

Chris: I needed to calm down.  I really needed to calm down.  I really needed to get a little bit of focus and that wasn’t about the drugs I just needed to get rid of the pain so that I could focus a little better.  And thankfully I met some different people and I thought well what was another way of doing this and so before I ended up going on the drugs I went hold on a sec I’ve forgotten about this sport thing why don’t I try a bit of that.  I had gone through all these, I had had physio and god knows how many operations by now, covered in scars.  There was still going through pain, I didn’t understand that and I found a fantastic, Zoe my girlfriend at the time was working for an osteopath and this guy did some very strange things with needles that no one should have to go through and at the same time I also met a guy in the gym who was a Russian core stability guy.  He was very, very focussed and very unforgiving let’s say in terms of how you want to do things.  And when I said I wanted to try to get my core stability stronger so that I could have a stronger back I believed that if I could just get stronger then maybe I could get rid of some of the pain.  I could get a little more movement and maybe then I could gradually not need any medication anyway.  So I didn’t start taking the medication at all I started focussing on right I really need to get fit again.  So for a very long time my thinking was rather cloudy running the company was extremely difficult we did lose a lot of clients, we lost a lot of staff and I thought well if the business goes it goes.  What I need to work on health before wealth.  There is no point of me trying to drive this other thing because none of them benefited each other.  The business was going to be benefited by me being healthy.  Me being healthy would eventually benefit the business so the priority became fix me.  When I did that the guys saw that and then they changed, some of the guys did leave and other people joined but then those people then saw that and then I started realising oh this isn’t about business it is about people and it wasn’t until that point that I really got it.

Kevin: Okay.

Chris: But how strange is that.

Kevin: Go on talk about this fundamental shift then.  It wasn’t about the business itself.

Chris: I started getting fitter and people started to see me getting fitter.  So then they started getting involved, they started, people started doing a bit of a run doing things themselves being concerned about where I was going.  So when I was aggressive about it people were just hiding in the office and just cracking on with what they had to do.  But once I was focussed myself on fixing myself people then cared more about where I was going.  So when you help yourself other people want to help you as well.  But bit of tough learning though.

Kevin: So tell me about how your life began to change from that point onwards.

Chris: Well the business started doing rather well, in fact it did extremely well and I really threw myself into it.  I started getting fitter I ran the night 10K in London not either months later.

Kevin: Hold fire there you just ran a 10k on the back off someone who is never going to run again?

Chris: My goal on a daily basis from the physio was to walk 10m and to roll a ball up and down my back on the wall.  You know these extremely small challenges that at the time were actually quite large challenges to me.  But now when I think back they are incredibly small but they were difficult on a daily basis.  The pain level was enormous and it is quite bizarre how much a small bit of pain will actually stop you doing something. But if you keep pushing it it will actually change, things do change.

Kevin: Is it hard to realise what small steps you are making at times because it feels frustratingly slow or?

Chris: Yeah it does but then you have got to focus on the bigger picture.  What are you trying to obtain? What do you want? What are you after? And you have got to keep asking yourselves over and over again why am I doing this, what is my ultimate goal, what is my plan, how am I going to get there? Small steps little and often.

Kevin: And that keeps you motivated to keep going back and experiencing the pain.

Chris: That’s how I think every single day now about everything.

Kevin: And before you knew it you had done a 10k.

Chris: Yep.

Kevin: How did it feel?

Chris: It felt really good.  I actually cried when I went over the finish line.  It felt fantastic.  I realised I had my sport back, I could do some physical activity which is incredibly important for mental clarity.

Kevin: So you have got your health back, you have got your business back and where did it go from there?

Chris: 39th birthday I get an email from a friend of mine who is in Afghanistan to basically wish me all the best for my birthday with I was with him enjoying himself in the sand as he liked to put it.  And then literally two or three hours later I heard about the first woman was killed by an IED, an Improvised Explosive Device, which is a roadside bomb, and three reserve members of SS.  So literally four people died and he let me know about it and very strangely some friends of mine who were with me their brother had got killed on a motorbike.  So all of a sudden this was around me and had happened on my 39th birthday and I woke up the next day thinking I am earning this money and we are doing this and it is just not enough I need to do something else.  So I put, I set a challenge and the challenge was that in nine weeks time I was going to run the Chicago marathon.  And I was going to do it for charity.  Absolutely went for it and I ran 3:58 and then I thought well this isn’t enough I need to do more and it raised quite a lot of money and guys in the office seemed to all get around it and really go for it and then they started entering 10ks so I thought something in to this it’s a brilliant idea.

Kevin: Again going back right back to the navy days the influence, the positive influence you had around you on your team.

Chris: Yeah not just in my guys at work my friends we were all doing stuff together.  And what was a really positive influence was two of my friends Nick and Jo, brother and sister, they had lost their brother Tom and they challenged themselves to do triathlons and that was such a good driver for me to see that everything I had done in the past I could work with them and we could do more challenges together.  And lots of people started to get involved in that whole process and it was fantastic how they had taken the loss of their brother and had thrown a challenge in to help them get over it.  So the year afterwards the 65th anniversary of VE Day so I ran the London marathon again, I did that and I ran it in 3:50 or something and I did lots of other runs.  And I thought well the only thing I could do is run it quicker and then a charity called ‘The Veterans Charity’ decided they were going to run from Taunton to France, it was a 65m run to Portsmouth to commemorate the 65th anniversary of VE Day which was literally the trip the gliders took in 1945.  So I went and did it.  And I ran for 12/13 hours and I ran 65 miles.  I blew myself away I was absolutely shocked and the training I had to do as quite large and everyone seemed super impressed by this, by just running but they were a lot more interested in it. And people started to say well I have started running because of that it was a really good idea.  And obviously at the same time we were.

Kevin: How was that beginning to impact on you?

Chris: It was a light bulb moment.  It was fuelling my own little addiction, it was good for me I was loving it because I am a bit of an attention seeker quite clearly.  But at the same time I was inspiring other people to get into something because then they could see just like, if we go back to the forces, when someone pushes themselves around them they start pushing themselves as well or setting themselves their own carrot.  So people started saying oh I’ve entered the London Marathon because of you next year.  Really that’s amazing why have you done that.  Well if you can run 65 miles I can definitely do 26.

Kevin: So now everybody else is suddenly going beyond their previous expectations, their previous limitations and realising that they can achieve a lot more.

Chris: Absolutely and that’s when I said to them well why do you think that?  Well you’re not an athlete but you have managed to do that and you have got a job and you still managed to fit all this in.  So how do you do that?  So I started to tell them how time management, better time management.  Do you watch the television Jay?  Yeah I love it? How many hours do you spend? I don’t know three/four hours a night.  Why are you wasting it you only have one asset time use it wisely.

Kevin: How appreciative does it make you of your life when you are actually busier achieving all of this?

Chris: Enormously I am absolutely, I couldn’t be happier now.  I’ve been considerably financially better well off in the past than I am now but I am now in a very happy place.  My business is doing rather well but that isn’t the main driver.  I absolutely love what I do and I am fully committed to that but that is something that will always be there.  I believe that will always be there now it is nice and stable that’s what it does.  And I think I found the formula that helps that.  But at the same time there has to be something else there.  People have to have something else.  You can’t focus on just one thing all the time it is not good for you.

Kevin: And that is what I am going to ask you to talk about now we could carry on talking there is a list of achievements or accomplishments that you have made over the last two or three years 100m runs to ironman events I mean you name it and as you rightly say you are no athlete.  You are not an athlete you are just someone who gets a kick out of these things and importantly is willing to put in the training for them in advance.  But in terms of getting some more meaning back in your life this is what you have moved on to now you have found a way to package it up haven’t you.  Found a way to make it more visual so that people can get involved.

Chris: I mentioned before I needed to solidify something, I needed to create something that I could then talk about.  I just said to somebody why don’t you just get out and take a challenge and find out what you want to do.  And then they went that’s a brilliant idea, take a challenge I really like that.  Well we all need to take a challenge so when I did the 100m runs I created a website called takeachallenge.  I was a little surprised by the responses that I got off line.  And I started talking to people on social networking and via the website and just saying what I was doing next how I was training getting up to date and I just started getting more and more and more followers.  More and more people joining on facebook, more and more people joining on twitter and people registering on the website for something that didn’t exist as far as I was concerned.  The registration process was just there to see if people wanted to run with me let’s say.  And it was an afterthought; it was something I added very quickly.  And it just kept going people just kept doing it and they still are doing it to this day in their hundreds.

Kevin: Go on what sort of things were they saying to you?

Chris: Asking advice, how do I do this? How do I fit it in? Once again I was asking the same thing how much TV do you watch, that’s my first thing I like to ask.  What bits can we quantify that we know you have to do and that is eat, sleep, work.  How do you fit that in because I want to run.  Someone would say I want to bike, I want to get fitter and I would work out well you need to sleep at these points, well I don’t normally sleep until 11:30 well why don’t we try you sleeping between 11 and 7 that’s what you should be doing.  Or 10 and whatever time you need to go to work.  And you need to eat at these points; you need to leave at these points.  Os that has left you with about six there and if we add them up to about a week or a month or a year that ends up being these hundreds of hours.  Well little and often in hundreds of hours you can achieve a hell of a lot.  And I have just been doing that on line, just telling people about it.

Kevin: And what is takeachallenge doing now?

Chris: There are over 20,000 people on twitter, there are over 5,000 on facebook, there are 38,000 have registered on the website for something I had no idea what it was going to be.  There is no special formula as to why these people have come to me, why they have started following but it is not about me anymore it is about takeachallenge and that is what they are looking for.  They are looking for a challenge.  People do really want to be healthier.  People really do want to set themselves a challenge they just don’t always know how to do it plus they all want to talk together.  Some people have already found challenges so I’ve been promoting the guys who do have a challenge who are unbelievably inspirational.  The things I have done are nothing in comparison to some things other people have done.  And when you read about them classic is Eddie Izzard, somebody like Eddie Izzard who has done what he’s done huge amount of people were motivated to donate to him and I am sure many other people got out and started walking and doing various different things because of it.  And Simon who was discharged out of the army with post traumatic stress disorder is doing 100 marathons in 100 weeks.  There’s one guy.  Mark who ran 3,100 miles from one side of America to the other.  And I could do these all day I literally have 6, 7, 800 stories of incredibly inspirational people who motivate others to get on and do that.  So we have got these captains of inspiration that are on takeachallenge that people can read about get hugely inspired by them and eventually they will find events and challenges that they can do themselves and they can all talk amongst each other and learn from it.  How great is that.  And if I can turn that into something absolutely enormous I really will think I have given something back.

Kevin: It’s a wonderful stage of your life to be at.

Chris: Yeah I actually feel quite privileged to be in a position where I am at the moment.  Right now where it is I wouldn’t say it is enough for me but if this is where it went this is absolutely incredibly inspirational.  I get inspired to get up every day at 5 o’clock and run and continue to do more challenges because of the people on there.

Kevin: I was going to say it must make you feel as though you have now a much greater responsibility.

Chris: Yeah I hate saying that.  But yeah there are a few times when I felt that I need to let go of it but I can’t now.

Kevin: As much as you say it actually it is not now about what you are achieving it is about these wonderful people they are getting drawn to you about what they are achieving but equally you are the catalyst behind this and you know that you have a responsibility to a much larger community.

Chris: Yeah I know it is quite scary isn’t it.  You really do absolutely get behind these people.  The stories you hear about people they might have only done a 5k but who cares.  It doesn’t matter if it is 5k or 100k it is an incredible achievement when someone has managed to get themself off a sofa and some of them are doing chemotherapy and they have still done 5k.  That is fantastic but then what they do little and often.  Once they start one thing and then they say alright I’ve done this, this is brilliant.  I say that’s brilliant what is your next challenge? Oh I don’t know what shall I do 10k?  Shall I, can I do that? Of course you can do it you have just done 5k give yourself five weeks and you will be there in no time.  Then you do a half marathon book one of those in as well.  And other people are getting involved and all talking to each other.  Because it is about letting people know that they can achieve anything.  Nothing is impossible, little and often.  Choose a carrot, chose a goal, chose a challenge and achieve it in very small steps and you will eventually get there.

Kevin: And I wonder how much just out of interest with the size that takeachallenge already is, I wonder how much people even know anything about your personal story.  I bet most of them don’t. I bet most of them don’t know you were hit by a car.

Chris: I have never told this story in its entirety ever.  I have said more now than I think I have ever said.

Kevin: A lot of people would have come into contact with you post all of what you have gone through in your life.  It is going to be very interesting when they hear this story to understand the person who is behind all of this and where the motivations came from.

Chris: Actually quite scary now I am thinking about it.

Kevin: This is what I find very interesting and as you say your story is actually now almost in your opinion the least relevant story out of all the stories you are getting.

Chris: Ah god yeah without a doubt.

Kevin: But yet without your story this wouldn’t be here.

Chris: I guess no you are right no.

Kevin: You said earlier without all of these wonderful life experiences you wouldn’t be who you are today but again there wouldn’t be all of this around you that you have today because this is what it has driven you to achieve.

Chris: Yeah without a doubt.

Kevin: And this is where to use my expression this is where you really are maximising your potential.  You have touched on loads of things that have really influenced you and that you use within your make up every single day to drive you forward and make sure that you are making the most of every single day.  Let’s just close off leave them with one thing even if it is repeating one of the things you have already said.  I want to leave everybody here with their starting point.

Chris: Everyone has one asset.  One asset it doesn’t matter how much money you have got, it doesn’t matter what person you are, where you were born, what you do, we all have one asset time.  Use it wisely and you can achieve a lot.

Kevin: Chris thank you very much for your time today.

Chris: No thank you.

Music

Kevin: Chris Brisley thank you very much for giving us such a thorough and honest account of the key events which have shaped the direction of your life.  I think Chris has left us under no uncertain terms that in his opinion time is the most important commodity that we all posses.  And it is the use of time that plays a key role in our ability to and the speed at which we achieve our goals.  I have put several links on the webpage for you to learn more about Chris and takeachallenge as well as links to connect to his various groups on twitter including the notorious 6am club.  Chris thanks again for coming on the podcast and sharing your story and we look forward to staying in touch with you and takeachallenge.

Many thanks as always to the Jenrick Recruitment Group for their amazing support and please remember that if you are considering a career change please visit the webpage for this episode for links through to the Jenrick website. No podcast would be complete without some music to finish on so here’s ‘On face percentage’ from Xerxes. Goodbye and we will be back soon.

Music

Have you ever taken the time to imagine how you would react if your career prematurely ended, or your house and all your life savings were lost, or if your health was taken away.

Having the strength of character to re-build your life from any one of those extreme examples is a virtue that none of us ever knows if we possess, until that moment arises.

However, now imagine if all of those happened to you in a period of your life that spanned less than a decade.

In today’s interview we meet Chris Brisley, who is someone that lived through this exact experience.

In this very honest interview Chris re-counts how he responded to those challenges, sharing what he learnt about his own character and explaining the lessons he now applies in his life to help him through challenges when faced with them now . . . .

Key messages from Chris:

• I think Chris has left us in no uncertain terms that in his opinion ‘time’ is the most important commodity that we all possess, and it is the use of time that plays the key role in our ability to and the speed at which we achieve our goals
• The importance of taking ‘consistent small steps’ in order to enable you to reach much larger goals
• The ability to choose between the options you want and the options you don’t want

Additional notes and resources (just click on the links for more information):

• Want to take on a challenge yourself? Visit the Take a Challenge Website
• Want to see what Chris and the Team are up to? Follow @TakeaChallenge on Twitter
• Fancy some early morning training? Join the @6amCLUB on Twitter

Interview Transcription:

• Transcript: Chris Brisley – Take a Challenge (Max#38)

Sponsors:

• Jenrick Recruitment – specialists in Engineering, IT and Commercial recruitment services
• Xerxes Music

I just read a very interesting article on him, probably paying more attention to it than I would have done before meeting Chris Brisley (@TakeaChallenge), who was one of the diving coaches in Plymouth, with Andy Banks, when Tom was a young lad learning the trade.

He made an extremely interesting and mature comment when asked about why his performances in the World Championships had (apparently) gone backwards – Tom won Gold in 2009, yet only finished 5th in 2011.

This was his response:

“I raised my degree of difficulty by a lot and it was one of those things where I just had to use them at a World Championships to get the experience before the Olympic Games,” Daley said.

So let’s get this right, this is a 17 year old who was willing to give up a World Championship Gold medal, not to mention face all the questions from the media and his peers, in order to ‘prepare himself’ for the Olympic Games.

I’ll say it again – he gave up winning a World Championship Gold Medal.

What amazing discipline and focus he has showed and I wish him all the very best for London 2012.

P.S. A certain Pete Sampras did exactly the same according to Andre Agassi’s book. Sampras was apparently willing to go right back to basics, when all around him (Agassi, Courier, Martin, Chang etc.) were all taking the tennis world by storm. He accepted loss after loss while he re-built himself and his game. We all know what happened after that . . .

Kevin: Welcome to Maximise Potential the podcast to educate and motivate through a range of original interviews designed to help you maximise your potential.  Brought to you in association with the award winning recruitment group Jenrick.

Welcome back to episode 37 of the Maximise Potential Podcast.  The question of what if is largely one that we all try and sidestep within our businesses as we all hope that the unexpected will never happen to us.  Yet when the unexpected does happen it is the companies that have dedicated the time and resource to answering that question that feel the least disruption and can return to business much faster than their competitors.  In a period where all organisations are seeking ways to ensure that their business model is constantly available to serve customers being able to answer the what if question is very much a key priority.  Today we are fortunate to have an interview with Patrick O’Connor who was responsible for ensuring that a global investment bank could continue trading under any foreseen and unforeseen circumstances.  However as Patrick’s story unfolds you will understand the extremities to which his contingency plans were tested to the absolute limit.

Music

Patrick thanks very much for joining us on the Maximise Potential Podcast today.

Patrick: Thanks very much for having me it’s great to be here.

Kevin: Today we are going to talk about the subject matter that has been the core part of your career and that’s disaster recovery.  Mission critical systems and it’s about making sure that you as a business are protected in the areas that you are most vulnerable in and that are most critical to what you are required to do.  It is going to be very easy for people to think right this is going to be a techy interview today but I think as you have rightly explained to me it really does apply to everybody.  What will be very useful to do is just introduce people to really what you mean about disaster recovery and the importance of it so that they can get a picture for why it does really fit in with them.

Patrick: Yes sure you know I think disaster recovery is a very emotive word.  Disaster is a very emotive word.  You know if you work in today’s business whether you are a small start up to a multinational your business needs technology they go hand in hand now.  Technology isn’t a tool anymore it is paramount to business success and we are now moving into an age of cloud computing. Cloud computing is a big buzz word on the market today.  It enables small to medium sized businesses to invest in technology but not actually outlay huge amount of capital to start their business.  But what is the what if? What if you can no longer access your technology this critical piece of infrastructure or application that is managing your business process.  What do you do if you can’t get access to that? Does your business stop? Have you got a plan in place that enables you to run your business should you have a little problem like a power outage in your building. These things happen you know there is no such thing as it will never happen.  So what will you have in place and what process will you have in place, who will be responsible for doing what if such a scenario should happen.

Kevin: And as you say this is as critical to a small little start up as it is to a multinational corporation.

Patrick: Absolutely I mean it is paramount.  There are hundreds of thousands of small businesses actually today managing their business and being run from offices at home.  What happens when their broadband goes down, you know are they out of business do they have a fall back plan? Can they go somewhere else where broadband is working have they thought about it?  You don’t need to spend masses of amounts of money to put a plan in place.  Even if it’s just you are sitting at home with your own small business having a piece of paper and jot down the steps that you would follow if your broadband at home was lost what would you do what would the next steps be.  It takes five minutes to actually sit down and work out well actually what would I do and map it out and go into auto pilot and go do that if that is what you need to do to run your business from home.

Kevin: And yet I get the feeling from the way you are describing this that a lot of businesses don’t just spend the five minutes do they.

Patrick: No they do not no.  A lot of businesses spend huge amounts of money and investment in designing disaster recovery process.  Putting people in place, it’s their sole job. I mean there are people with job titles out there as Disaster Recovery Managers and their job is to look at every aspect of how business is run.  What is critical for managing that business and if those things are not available where do we go and get them and get that business back up and running again.  Depending what business you are in five minutes could be too long out of the market.  Right there is definitely from my own background in the financial services sector five minutes is a long time to be off the market.

Kevin: From what you are saying the investment is there but it’s the procedure that is lacking? There is something lacking isn’t there in here.  It’s not the fact.

Patrick: There is a gap.  I think the amount of people we are the weak link in technology provision.  Technology itself is built and designed to function as it is designed to function and 99.9% of the time it does.  The thing that will stop technology from functioning will be mistakes by people; generally it could be as ominous as somebody turning the power off by accident, these things happen.  And so having a process in place, having a documented procedure but then also not just documenting something and putting it in the filing cabinet and forgetting about it.  It is not something that organisations should be focussing on.  They need to look at going through the process of documenting it but then also training the people to go follow that procedure.  And the only real way of doing that is actually setting time aside to run tests.  To actually take people through a test.  Generally you can’t do that type of test during your business hours but weekends could be put aside once, twice a year preferably to test how your business would run if a disaster should happen.

Kevin: And the good thing is from the environment that you came from as you said from the banking side and particularly because you were based over in the US that test was actually law.

Patrick: So just to explain in the financial services sector especially in the US the FED demand that the financial services can recover from particular disasters.  The main focus is to ensure that the circulation of the dollar is in circulation and no piece of infrastructure, no piece of tin as I would like to call it sitting in someone’s infrastructure data centre environment can take the flow of cash out of the economy.  They ensure that the financial services sector test and they test twice a year.  Now if you talk to people on the businesses side and say why do I need to come in on Saturday and test my business process.  First of all it is a requirement there is an audit required for it.  The FED will want to see proven documentation that you have gone through the steps that you should have gone through.

Kevin: Sure.

Patrick: But the benefits of it are the people that are working in your organisation have had the opportunity to go through the steps that they need to go through and actually live through a day where they are in a disaster recovery mode and they understand what their role is, what is their function, what do they need to do.  And if you regularly instil that procedure that yearly, twice yearly test people know what they have to do when the time occurs.  We used to have a time back in those days which was downtime tolerance which was a label to specific business applications.  What was the tolerance of that business for that application not to be available.  We labelled applications from a six hours or less to a 12 hours or less.  Some could be 24; they could be off air for 24 hours.  But it was a way of training people to understand what was really critical to the business and what could wait.  So by going through the process, by documenting it and when you have a document and you go through it on the day people have to read it, they have to read what they are doing so it ensures and enforces that your staff know what they need to do when something goes wrong.

Kevin: And you have probably an extremely fitting example about when you really did put your data recovery process into practice and the good thing is it worked.

Patrick: Yeah I think I should just talk here part of my career I spent living in New York which was a fantastic experience but 2001 was the year I moved to New York and unfortunately 911 obviously happened and our building, the building I worked in wasn’t exactly, wasn’t in the twin towers but we were in the building next to the twin towers and our primary production environment was situated in that building.  So sitting in an office next to the twin towers on that day was obviously something surreal it was, very rarely talk about it actually, it is quite difficult here talking about 911 and all of the people and all of my colleagues we never ever talk about 911.  Whenever someone brings it up we always try and change the subject to something else.  But 911 was a classic example of technology and people and the importance of both.  The environment I was working in we had two prime production technology environments.  One next to the twin towers and one sitting in the New Jersey office which was just across the river.  If anyone knows downtown Manhattan they know.  And anyone who was sitting in an office in Manhattan was trapped.  We were trapped on Manhattan the only way was to get over a bridge or on a boat.  I personally four/five hours after the towers collapsed got to the bottom of Manhattan and it was a scene from the Battle of Dunkirk you know the escape from Dunkirk.  There were ships from all shapes and sizes, yachts, power boats, row boats, the New York ferry department obviously, tugs everyone came to the rescue if you like.  Down to the bottom of Manhattan people jumped over railings on to the nearest boat that was in striking distance and all of those boats took most of those people back to the Jersey shore, the New Jersey side of Manhattan.

Kevin: And you said that the scale of this I mean it is going to be hard for people to imagine how many people were involved here but you said it was over half a million people.

Patrick: Yeah over half a million were evacuated by boat on that day.  Now you could ask well how do I know that? Well actually I happen to have been watching a documentary just about four months ago.  They were going through the events of the day but it was from the perspective of the New York Harbour Masters.  They actually had called an SOS on the day for any boat in the vicinity to go to the bottom of Manhattan and that’s where all these boats came from.  You know so there was an SOS went out and hundreds if not thousands of boats responded.  It was absolutely amazing.  And out of that they, on that documentary it was the 500,000 number I came from and they said it was a bigger evacuation than Dunkirk. Which was incredible.

Kevin: And yet there is another example as well of an organisation that had a disaster recovery plan and they just snapped into it straight away as in the Harbour Master.

Patrick: Absolutely there you go.  Just as a classic example right they recognise that there was obviously a major disaster in downtown Manhattan and people were in absolute shock.  But the most defining thing about them people they stood up to the plate right.  People didn’t run for cover, people watching especially said well we have to do something, we have to step up to the plate, we have to come and help these people.  And that’s what people did.  And so the Harbour Masters putting an SOS someone had the foresight to go look how are all these people going to get off the island let’s just do it.  And so someone just pulled the trigger and said SOS any boat out there please go to the bottom of Manhattan.

Kevin: Yeah and just as we were saying even though that we think like how could anybody plan for such an event it’s not really the event per say is it, it’s about, it’s just knowing that when something of a given magnitude occurs that you have a process in place to respond to it.  And there is a prime example that you know you wouldn’t even think twice that the Harbour Master has a process in place for something that is going to happen where he is ever going to have to evacuate an island and yet he did.

Patrick: Yet he did.

Kevin: And he responded very quickly.

Patrick: He did respond, whether that Harbour Master had a process documented and had that in the fore of his mind, I don’t think anyone would ever have planned for the twin towers coming down you know.  But I think what it does show is that people when they are put in strenuous circumstances and this was clearly a strenuous circumstance people will step up to the plate.  People will do things of extraordinary things you know they will step up to the plate and do those things.

Kevin: Can I ask you as someone who did you know yourself step up to the plate and keep functioning in a situation where it would have been easy not to have functioned.  Can I ask you why you think people step up to the plate?  I appreciate what you are saying about if you are outside of the situation and you see something happening you want to step in and help but you were in the situation and so were your team and you all continued to function and I am just trying to understand how people can I suppose separate the events or separate themselves from the events so that they don’t let the events consume them or overwhelm them.

Patrick: Yeah it is a good question.  So I think first and foremost loved ones.  Loved ones are really important.  As soon as you know you are okay your next train of thought is well have I got loved ones are they in trouble, are they okay?  And you automatically go into automatic pilot.  Personally on the day I was in a basement round the block from the twin towers. For whatever reason I on automatic pilot left my building went into the building behind our building, I went into the basement and the towers came down behind us.  And I was there with a number of colleagues wondering well what do we do next.  I remember one of the fire brigade came down the stairs described what was carnage on street level and advised us to get out as soon as we possibly could.  I think it was roughly about a four hour delay between that point and actually getting to the bottom of Manhattan.  Air quality was really poor there, there was a lot of dust, a lot of debris and it took a good four hours before that dissipated so that you could actually see in front of your face.

Kevin: Did it feel like a long time or did it feel like it just flew by?

Patrick: It flew by it did yeah.  I think you know adrenalin was really going at that point.  So myself and three other colleagues I distinctly remember us walking from where the twin towers were down through Battery Park and down to the river.  And the scene of the boats was just there in front of me you know and it was quite an amazing sight.  But quite a pleasing sight because I remember a small sense of panic kicking in jumping over the railing on to a boat and it got me to the Jersey City side of the river.  Now our building happened to be within striking distance of where I got off the boat and when I saw the building then automatic pilot kicked in.  My initial thought was I need to go see my wife.

Kevin: Just to let her know you were okay.

Patrick: Just to let her know I was okay.

Kevin: Because I think you said to me already that communications they’re out.

Patrick: Yeah there were no cell phones, no the cell network was down.  In fact I don’t know if you know but the cell mast for New York was at the top of tower two.  So once the tower came down that was the biggest impact the cell network.  But also then what was left of the network was jammed up because hundreds of thousands of people were all trying to get through to loved ones to say yeah I’m okay.  So my immediate thought was I need to go see my wife and then I saw our office building and I said well actually I need to go there.  We need to get in there we need to start our recovery process myself and I remember the colleague I was with.  That’s exactly what we did we ran straight into that building.  We went up to the floor where part of our office is and there was a few stragglers of the team there.  You know panic had definitely set in but a lot of the panic was worrying about friends, colleagues, loved ones, are they okay.  They didn’t really have any information, they had as much information as I did but they were sitting round the New Jersey side looking in.  And I think it was even worse for those people.  I think it was worse for people looking in with the stress and the worry of the people they were worried about.

Kevin: Yeah the unknown.

Patrick: The unknown is really, really stressful.  But once team members were aware that loved ones were okay, you know they were accounted for people could then start to function again.  And I think it is important when people are thinking about crisis management you have to think about the people side first and foremost.  How will your people react in the event of a crisis.  Now with a disaster like 911 people will step up to the plate but first and foremost they own loved ones will come first.  And once they are you know they are comfortable that they know they are all good they will then step up to the plate and function like you have trained them to function.

Kevin: Yeah and that was something we spoke about before we started recording because I really, it was quite interesting when you said that and you just said look this is something you can’t bypass it is part of the process you have to get them through that stage if you then want to start getting them back on track.

Patrick: Absolutely, absolutely. It is actually true there is an enormous human element to crisis management.  Training your people how to behave and how to react during an event like that.  And not just like that I mean hopefully that sort of event never happens again but there will be other types of crisis right and there will be a crisis to your business but how do your people react in that event.  It will be highly stressed, highly charged, adrenalin fuelled environment for the initial 12 hours.  How do you manage those people to get through that period.  I think personally the fact that we had gone through twice yearly tests there was really good documentation process. Everyone had a role and when you came in to do a weekend role test you knew what your role was, you were given a document, you had to understand what it was and you had to go do that.  When it came to real life people actually did go to automatic pilot and do that.  Some of it was actually just functioning in your day to day job it wasn’t necessarily anything above and beyond what they would normally do but it is understanding the steps that they needed to take and what was a priority, what isn’t a priority. You know setting priorities is probably the most important piece especially in a technology world.  But it is knowing what’s important and what isn’t.

Kevin: And I think there is also something very relevant that I know you keep saying we did the test, we do it on a regular basis, its auto pilot but there is something different or there is a different element I think here that we need to bring in. In that you did the tests with meaning, with purpose.  We could all hold up our hands at different times and we know when we have gone through the motions with something and yet we know when at other times we have done something with actually our very conscious concentrated head on.  And you guys knew that if you didn’t get that testing right that the FED could shut you down, that they could fail you for that.  It must have bought a different focus to everything.

Patrick: Completely you know it wasn’t just you know take a few technology platforms turn them off and you know go through the steps of recovery.  It was more than that you know we had people on site the power was turned off.  You know it was as if there was a major problem. And then people went through the motions of recovering.  When you turn the power off suddenly in an environment like that things will break.  You are talking about things that have been running for 160 days maybe 200 days without ever having been turned off before.  And when you turn the power off believe it or not when you try and turn them back on again they break.  And I keep talking of crisis but also DR can mean a lot of things it is not just we have had a 911 event.  It can be just as critical to a business with one power supply going on one server and how to recover that business because one business can be reliant on that server.  How do I recover that and how often do they test that.  If that server fails they have a DR server.  How often do they test that and what is the downstream impact.  You know have they tested downstream.  Because that business process is relying on another business process and vice versa.  If they fell over have they tested the link to the other business processes.  Technology is the core to business these days and it is a very complex and challenging environment.  And the only way to really tackle it is to break down into smaller pieces, break it into chunks but make sure you join it all up and by going through the documentation phase and actually practicing dry runs with this type of process you are prepared when the unknown happens.

Kevin: I mean the bit that we haven’t really touched on is you know when you actually said that your initial plan when you got across to Jersey was to go and see your wife but then you saw your building and.

Patrick: Yeah, yeah I think obviously you are in shock okay so you may very well make decisions that looking back on maybe you would have done it differently.  But first and foremost it is important to realise that when you got to the New Jersey side transport was out the window I mean there was just thousands of people walking the streets.  There was very little transport access for those initial hours.  Even in New Jersey you know I mean the whole nation was in shock.  So it wasn’t the fact that I didn’t want to see my wife or talk to my wife of course I did but I just thought how I would manage it is get a message to someone else to go see my wife and make sure she knew that I was okay.  Which is what we did eventually but even the people I was with they all wanted to see their wives it wasn’t just me.  I am not a hero or anything but it was more the office was there.  It was also maybe it felt safe.  We have come out of downtown Manhattan and it is back into an environment that we know and we understand, you know we are familiar with it; it was a familiar surrounding for me.  So it also offered a level of comfort going there.  Which enabled also then to go to another level of well you know click into action you know what do I have to do.  You know we had an open bridge to colleagues in London at the time and there was a lot of panic you know because there was no information flowing to London so colleagues in London were in panic.  Not just about what do we do for recovering the business but a lot of friends, colleagues, everyone was worried and a lot of people shouting and screaming on the phone ‘What’s happening here, what’s happening there?’ you know.  So it was just trying to get in and offer. First of all get the information flowing, make sure people know where we are, what stages things are.  And then from that you can drive the recovery process.  When other people know what the situation is then they can make decisions about well what is the best route, what is the next best step and there will be certain things that will be done on the fight, it will be seat of the pants.  It’s not all going to be a slick streamlined recovery process.  But for the critical pieces of technology, the critical business process that is and should be a slick recovery process.  To a financial services environment those platforms are worth to a business billions of dollars.  So they obviously need investment in testing infrastructure to make sure it is available when it is needed.  And financial services firms are probably the best example of actually doing that.  I think you know NHS environments probably do the same.  You know they have critical platforms to save lives.  They will no doubtedly have a process in place to manage those platforms if they should have a problem.  So you know there are certain industries will be very good at disaster recovery, crisis management, it will be part of their business plan to do that.

Other companies don’t put enough attention to that level of detail.  They never think of the inevitable, it is human nature you never think it is going to happen to you until one day power is gone in the whole district your office is in, generators don’t work, where do you go? What do you do?  And if it is not planned out your business will suffer because it is going to take you longer to recover.  You are going into fire fighting mode rather than auto pilot mode.

Kevin: And who manages the situation?

Patrick: Well you know the trickledown effect I think we had a Senior Management Crisis bridge who would make senior business decisions around driving how technology should operate.  And it was important that that structure was in place.  And as part of the plan those roles were set, people from a senior management perspective knew what they had to do.  They got around a table they had a bridge, they had a plan.  And then they trickled down to the next layer of management to say right who have we got on site, what resources have we, what’s the most important, what do we do.  So it was driven that way.  So I had an open bridge in our facility.

Kevin: You keep using the word bridge.

Patrick: It’s a telephone conference, we call it a bridge line, but it is basically an open telephone call where lots of people can dial in and listen and communicate just ensuring that information flow is as slick as possible.  So we would have this telephone bridge open in our facility connected with the facility in midtown and in London.  So we all work together and we kept the information flow going, we knew what our priorities were, we were all pulling in the same direction and that worked really from up at the very top echelons of management down to the guy who puts paper in the printer.  We all did our job.  Without the information flow that would be carnage, it would be absolute chaos.  Leadership was fantastic.  I mean looking back on it the leaders involved they all did their job, they all made sure their respective departments did whatever was needed to do to make sure that that business, the business was functioning when the markets reopened.

Kevin: Do you think there was a specific reason why the leaders were so good, was it something unique to your environment or?

Patrick: I don’t think it’s unique to our environment I think senior leaders of the calibre that need to step into these roles it’s in their psyche anyway.  They wouldn’t be in a position to operate at a senior level if being able to manage a crisis of that nature wasn’t in their capabilities you know.  You are either capable of it or you are not.  It kind of gives the distinction between an employee and a leader.  You know there is a difference.  There is a small percentage of the working population have that leadership quality and that is fine.  You know you find out where you sit in the balance of the working environment and you just work to your own potential.

Kevin: How did it make you, well you and your colleagues, how did you in particular feel about your organisation after going through that experience?

Patrick: That’s a good question. It gave a real perspective on the type of people I worked with actually.  You really get a feel for the people that you interact with on a day to day basis.  How they behave in a crisis really shows you who they are.  And when the guards are down you are open and they were just an incredible bunch of people really.  People really gave their all to recover a business to its normal operation as quickly as they humanly possibly could.  The human element you know I keep going back to it, the human element is so important.  People focus on technology you know you, technology will work to a point but the human element is so critical to making the technology piece work.  And investing time in the people element is really, really important.  I think they were just outstanding the people that I worked with at the time they were absolutely fantastic.  And I think the American people generally, the people who lived in New York and went through this.  It was enormous shock to those people obviously and to everyone involved but they did what had to be done.  And it was a phenomenal achievement by all after the event.

Kevin: And I think everything that I’ve read about the event itself it was the sense of unity.

Patrick: Personal agendas went out the window which was fantastic.  When you work in the cut throat world of financial services generally day to day personal agendas are always there that is just a fact of life.  That is a fact of life in business.  There is team work but there is also a level of personal ambition.  But in this type of scenario personal agendas were out the window it was pull together work as a team, teamwork was key and people working for each other made things happen.

Kevin: And what did you learn about yourself?

Patrick: Now you put me on the spot there. I think it made me aware of my own capabilities I think.  You know you always, human nature is to doubt yourself and I am a people person I have always been a people person I love people and part of the human element of working I really enjoy, I love working with people but what I learnt from it is that when there is a stressful environment I can work above the stress.  I was able to manage, I managed, I fell apart afterwards but I managed.  And when I say fell apart once we were through the, once the adrenalin runs out and you get to the exhaustion level then you reflect back what you have gone through and definitely and I know the majority of the colleagues that I worked with we were shocked for months.  I think people use the term post traumatic stress.  I think a lot of people had post traumatic stress after that event. But I learnt that I had the capability to manage that, to deal with it.

Kevin: Is there anything you can pinpoint in yourself as to how you could do that, how you could separate it?

Patrick: Putting things in perspective I think it is almost if you look at a cake and you carve out segments of it. And you segment what has to be done, everything else is irrelevant and then you bring back the segment again and focus on something else.  It’s just being able to practically segment out what you really need to focus on.

Kevin: And just be disciplined to get the rest out of your mind.

Patrick: The rest is noise.  You almost have to treat it as noise that is noise, this segment needs to function so let’s focus on that.  And then reflect back and go back to the noise.

Kevin: Yeah and so only when you decide will you then let in the other pieces of the case as you term it.

Patrick: For me anyway that’s how I managed it.

Kevin: Well that’s what this podcast is all about.  We are just all telling personal stories and how people react to the different events and that’s a great way to describe it.  I am going to wind this up because I’ve looked at our clock.  I think we have covered a lovely array of information.  I would also like to thank you for being so openly honest in talking about that event as you said when we sat down it is not something you tend to talk about so I appreciate that.  I would like to leave people on this podcast with a couple of takeaways disaster recovery.  If we are going to say to anybody where to start with this or what they can do today to help protect their business future what would you say to them?

Patrick: Write your plan.  I think you almost need to take yourself out of your working environment for half an hour and sit down and envisage a disaster.  And then map out in your mind well what would you do and if you don’t have the answer you write it down and segmentate it down and then get the answers to those questions and put that in a plan.  And part of that plan is not just technology.  Technology is clearly important it is driving your business so having that in place is the first and foremost step. If it is not there you are starting from scratch.  So you need to know what technology you need.  But you won’t know what technology you need until you try tests.  So going through the motions of testing what you have would identify the weaknesses in your environment. It would identify the weaknesses in your business processes and then you can then put a plan together in rectifying and implementing a plan to have an infrastructure, a platform, a business that can function in extreme circumstances.

Kevin: That is very helpful and a final thing that I would love to know is after experiencing what you have experienced how do you approach life now?

Patrick: I don’t know if my life how I approach life has changed enormously since that point. I think we have hit that time in my life me and my wife and my colleagues, we hit that point, we’ve segmentised, and I think I have segmentised that piece and we operate and functioned in a certain way to do what we had to do.  I have almost reverted back to how I was before.  You know there is a block in between where it was different and by talking about it to a certain extent at the time, actually I remember going to a medical a Well Man Being medical test through work and I was talking to the doctor about you know I was worried actually about asbestos and dust, was it something I needed to be concerned about because I was in the environment and so on.  So we got talking about it and he asked me did I go to a psychiatrist after 911.  You know did I, and I said no I didn’t I didn’t feel the need I had to. And he said why do you think that was? I said I don’t know I haven’t really thought about it and he gave me an insight and it was because you all treated each other.  Because we were all support for each other we spoke about it a lot together at the time so emotions and dealing with emotions was dealt with very openly.  It is back to the guards were down everyone was themselves.  So whatever emotion they were feeling it was there to be seen.  And then, so people are on hand to help people with those emotions.  So it was almost like a self, from a team perspective treating each other psychologically on the event that we had been through.  And looking back on it actually that is exactly what happened.  We didn’t have, I don’t think there were hundreds of thousands of people going to psychologist but we did it to each other you know we helped each other. And that is how people dealt with it.  Looking back at it that is exactly why I mean people helped each other.  When you are in times of stress especially teamwork, the people aspect is so important, really, really important.

Kevin: And I think that is a lovely way to finish off this interview.  Patrick O’Connor I would like to thank you very much for coming on the podcast and speaking so honestly with us. Thank you very much.

Patrick: Lovely thank you very much great to be here.

Music

Kevin: I would like to express our thanks once again for the way Pat was able to describe the steps involved within the disaster recovery process whilst relating it to such a personal and powerful story.  Personally I felt that Pat’s key message of being able to segment the different experiences focussing on only the most relevant segment and ignoring the noise as he called it will be extremely helpful to others.  And also the point that he mentioned regarding enabling your staff to deal with any family matters before they can concentrate fully on the task in hand.

So as always time for some updates.  Firstly I’d like to give some mentions to a few of our listeners who have contacted me to explain how the interviews are inspiring and encouraging them to push themselves and take on new challenges in their lives.  Graham Carter who is training hard for his first ever London Marathon this April and who openly said that he always thought that Marathons and long distance running were for other people.  Sam Nobbs who has loved photography all of his life but now believes he can actually turn photography into a career for himself after listening to Giles Christopher’s interview back on episode 7.  Jo Lee who is going to join Benita Norris on her Kilimanjaro expedition this year.  And finally Vanessa King who for the first time in her life made her personal and professional goals public in order to give her great conviction to reach them.  Best of luck to you all thank you for sharing your stories and please keep us updated with your progress.

Before I finish I just want to mention a fabulous book that I have recently read.  It’s the inspirational story of Matt Long a New York Firefighter who battled back from a horrific accident to run not just the New York Marathon but then complete an Ironman Event.  It’s called ‘The Long Run’ and it is well worth a read.  And it goes without saying that I would like to extend my personal thanks to the entire team over at Jenrick for making this and all of the other podcasts on Maximise Potential possible and for their continued sponsorship and support.  I am going to leave you with a track from Xerxes as always to finish on and it’s called ‘Aventa.’ Thank you very much again.

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The question of “What if” is largely one that we all try and sidestep within our businesses, as we all hope that the unexpected will never happen to us.

Yet, when the unexpected does happen it is the companies that have dedicated the time and resource to answering that question, that feel the least disruption and can return to business much faster than their competitors.

In a period where all organisations are seeking ways to ensure that their business model is constantly available to serve customers, being able to answer the “what if” question should be viewed as a key priority.

Today we are fortunate to have an interview with Patrick O’Connor, who was responsible for ensuring that a Global Investment Bank could continue trading under any foreseen and un-foreseen circumstances.

However, as Pat’s story unfolds you will understand the extremities to which his contingency plans and distaster recovery strategies were tested to their absolute limit . . .

Key messages from Pat:

• I personally felt that Pat’s key message of being able to ‘segment the different experiences, focussing only on the most relevant segment, and ignoring the noise (as he called it)’ will be extremely helpful to others
• Accepting that your team will have to deal with any family matters, before they can fully function / respond to the crisis
• Understanding the the flow of communication is paramount
• Practise, practise and practise some more – to enable your staff to function on ‘auto-pilot’ when a crisis situation occurs

Additional notes and resources (just click on the links for more information):

• Inspirational Book – “The Long Run” by Matthew Long, New York Fire Fighter

Interview Transcription:

• Transcript: Planning for the unexpected in Business (Max#37)

Sponsors:

• Jenrick Recruitment – specialists in Engineering, IT and Commercial recruitment services
• Xerxes Music

Jason Sissel, Founder of Endure to Cure, the charity / volunteer group that strives to raise funds for children with pediatric cancer, has just completed his latest challenge.

Here is an amazing video of Jason’s Marathon des Sables . . .

To learn more about the incredible work of Endure to Cure, please click on any of the links below:

• Endure to Cure official website
• Personal message from Jason Sissel

Starting on February 27, he will attempt to cycle, row and run 290 miles from Paris to London in five days.

He will start his BT Sport Relief Challenge by the Eiffel Tower in the French capital, and cycle 185 miles to the coast in less than 24 hours. For the second leg, he is hoping to row from mainland Europe to the UK – an ambitious task for anyone, let alone someone who suffers with bad seasickness.

He will be joined by a team of celebrity rowers including Andrew Flintoff, Davina McCall and Denise Lewis.

The final stage of his epic journey will see him take on three marathons in three days, finishing in Trafalgar Square in London on Friday March 2. Celebrity friends including Dermot O’Leary, Frank Skinner and Robbie Savage will provide motivation when they run alongside him.

He is hoping to raise enough money not only to pay for a vaccine against five deadly diseases for 250,000 children in Africa, but also help people living tough lives in the UK.

He said: “I must be mad. I’m a man in my mid 40s, a bit thicker round the middle than I’d like to be and I’m about to take on the biggest physical challenge of my life. Up until a few weeks ago I’d never even sat in a rowing boat and now I’ve got miles of water to cover, then there’s the cycle and don’t even mention the word marathon to me.

“I know there will be times during the challenge when I’ll be freezing cold and fed up but when I’m down I will think back to the people I met in Sierra Leone earlier this year and I’ll know every penny I raise really will make a massive difference to people’s lives.”

Bishop’s Week Of Hell will be shown in a BBC documentary to be broadcast in the build up to Sport Relief Weekend, which takes place from March 23 to March 25.

Good luck John from all of us at the Maximise Potential Podcast!

I think this is superb, yet you know there is a ‘but’ coming, right?

The ‘but’ element is the fact that you have amazing individuals like Andy North (2,000 miles in 6 weeks – cycling, running and kayaking), Andy McMenemy (66 ultra marathons in 66 days), Simon Bucken (100 marathons in 100 weeks), Chris Brisley (Ran, swam, biked over 6,500miles in 3 years) and many more.

These are people who are also raising substantial amounts of money for charities all over the UK and beyond and are showing (through example) how you can overcome personal challenges and push your body far beyond any normal limits.

Equally, they have to manage all of their training and events in conjunction with their regular lives; working commitments and family. When they need a support team, they have to beg and borrow to create one. In my mind, their ability to manage all these elements in addition to the accomplishing the actual event, is what makes them even more inspirational.

Yet, there is one huge reason why these countless (and mostly nameless) individuals do not receive the attention and support that John Bishop (and many others like him) has gained – they are not celebrities.

As a result of their lack of fame, they are of no interest to the mass media and in actual fact struggle to even gain the interest in the regional media, so that their amazing feats often go un-noticed and their fund-raising, although important, does not ever reach the dizzy heights that truly reflect the magnitude of their efforts.

I sincerely wish John all the best with his feat as it will undoubtedly challenge him in a way he has never pushed himself before and also raise invaluable awareness for the charities he is representing.

However, my plea is to the media to take interest in the other press releases you receive which are a worthy equal to that of Mr. Bishop . . .

“Just because you do not know the name of the sender, is does not mean their message is any less worthy. . . . mine included.”

I’m cripplingly afraid to dream. I don’t like to write down my goals, although a lot of people I know and respect do, because I’m afraid I’ll find them at the end of the year or whatever time period it might be and find that they haven’t come true. I have been disappointed too many times to mention and I confess I now avoid putting myself in situations where I might be disappointed again.

How scaredy-cat is that thinking?

I make jokes about a man being outnumbered in a room with one woman because of her multiple personalities, but it’s no joke in my case. I have one scaredy-cat personality that doesn’t want to take any risks, just do what’s safe and predictable and pays the bills. This womanis fed up with crying and disappointment and never getting what she wants, so her solution is not to want much.

I have another personality who wants to be allowed to dream big, think big, be big. This year (well, today at least) I’m letting that woman out and I’m going to make some goals public.

Okay, in no particular order:

1. I will have paid public speaking engagements.
2. I will acheive my Advanced Communicator Bronze and Advanced Leader Bronze awards in Toastmasters.
3. I will set up an advanced speakers club in the Guildford area.
4. I will develop my leadership skills.
5. Guildford Harmony will achieve an improved placing at the national competition in October.
6. I will lose 20kgs.
7. I will have 6 Smart Talkers groups running in Woking and a plan in place for expanding to Guildford and further afield in 2013.
8. I will visit my friend Josepha in Munich.
9. I will go to Australia in November.
10. I will feel in control of my finances.
11. I will appreciate more and be grateful for it all.

The funny thing about this is that most people reading this will probably think these goals aren’t particularly huge. That’s okay. It’s massive for me to put it out there at all.

I suppose I should have a way of measuring these goals and a timeline for achieving them. Well, the deadline is December 31st 2012 and the measurement will be simple. I will have done the things I’ve listed. I have no idea how I’m going to do any of these things, but I hope by putting it down I have opened myself to the possibility of it all happening.

If nothing else, I’ve created a load of blog topics

A question for my audience member: when you set yourself a goal, do you imagine yourself at the end of the time period (31st December 2o12 in my case) having achieved your goal?

I don’t do that but I would like to hear about your experiences.

Source: Vanessa King’s Personal website & Blog – explore more here!

Hi Vanessa,

Firstly, I can confirm that you’re not alone with being afraid – I believe that (if we are truly honest) we all are!

However, you have taken a MASSIVE step in writing down your goals.

To answer your question with regards to ‘do you imagine yourself at the end of the time period,’ well, I will take my lessons from NLP expert Fiona Campbell here.

Fiona has given me advice in several areas with regards to this, so hopefully I pass on just a couple . . .

Firstly, it is essential that you consider your goals in the ‘present’ and not the ‘future’ – Fiona has summed this up by explaining to me that if you think of your goals as something you’ll achieve in the future, that is exactly where they remain, in the future. It makes sense, doessn’t it.

Secondly, I definitely visualise how it already feels to achieve my goals – I can clearly see myself running different parts of my ultra and know how it feels to complete it.

Hope this helps and I know Fiona will add far more than I can possibly do!

Great to have you on-board!

Kevin

If this article has inspired you to write down your goals for 2012 and share them, then please connect with the Maximise Potential site here and send them over!

Although it is only one day and a training session or two closer to the Games, something feels slightly mystical about the change in the year.

I know it sounds a bit dramatic, but I remember so clearly the feeling of entering a Paralympic year and, in each of my five Games, at that point you know as an athlete there is no turning back.

Even the most rational mind accepts that not being able to talk about the Games as being “next year” makes it feel different.

New Year’s Day will be another training day for many, but the festive period is probably also the last time athletes will have any real chance to spend some quality time with their families before the hectic period ahead.

A couple of weeks ago I was out at Olympic Park with some Paralympic and Olympic athletes from Team 2012 who are hoping to make it to the London Games, and to see it all through their eyes was incredibly exciting.

It is also the closest time in the five years since I retired that I have had those nerves right in the pit of my stomach. There is no doubt that while the exterior and interior of the venues are stunning, it is the finishing touches – things like the trees and plants as well the Games branding, flags and signposting – that will bring it alive.

London 2012 Paralympics

• Opening ceremony: 29 August
• Closing ceremony: 9 September
• 20 sports
• 4,300 athletes from 162 countries, including 300 on Team GB
• 500 gold medals up for grabs

It is important for the British team, which will number around 300, to be impressed with the facilities, but not blown away by them. They have to concentrate on performing – and winning the medals expected from them

Athletes like wheelchair racers David Weir and Shelly Woods, cyclists Jody Cundy and Sarah Storey, rower Tom Aggar, swimmers Ellie Simmonds, Sascha Kindred and Susie Rodgers and so many others will be targeting glory in front of their home crowd and hoping to impress the nation with their skill, power, athleticism and determination to win.

A home Games is going to bring some different challenges for all athletes.

For seasoned campaigners, the constant “good luck” from strangers needs to avoid becoming overpowering. For those first-timers, ParalympicGB is working hard to demystify the whole experience, but walking into the village for the first time, even for the most experienced athlete, can bring you to a stop.

I have always said the Games are going to be the best Paralympics we will have seen, and there is nothing that has moved me from that view.

Much is expected of the GB team in London but I am confident they will deliver and we will see some great performances and lots of medals.

One massive success already has been in ticketing for the Games, where there has been unprecedented demand. I applied for the maximum number of 10 sessions and only got tickets for two of them. This is great.

There has never been a Games that has sold tickets this early. We can still do with more spectators but I think that will come.

Although there are many positives, there are still some issues that should not be forgotten when the Games are over.

I’m sure the debate around legacy will continue and, while it can be planned for, not much more can be done until the Games is over.

For me, a better measure of change is the amount of access for the disabled as well as improving attitudes towards disabled people. Accessibility in the built environment still needs much improvement, but I also hope the Games can help ensure the public sees disabled people as included in society.

In the Games arena there will be the ongoing challenges around athlete reclassification. Classification is nowhere near as clear cut as you might assume and there is the potential for negativity in the press if an athlete is moved, especially if they are British.

Yes, there may be athletes who try to push the boundaries, but there are also ones who are genuine borderline cases, and it is a tough call for the authorities to make.

I can understand why a lot work is going on to stop reclassification at Games time, but I think there needs to be some form of sanction to ratchet up the importance of this issue and concentrate each country’s mind on getting it right in the first place.

We also need to keep the pressure on regarding funding beyond the Games. It is important to remember the London Games is not the end of the cycle. It is the a step along the way and it is important to ensure funding is maintained to ensure success in Rio in 2016 and beyond.

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

FURTHER ARTICLES AND RESOURCES:

• INSPIRING INTERVIEW: Click here to listen to an inspiring interview with David Weir, most successful wheelchair racer in marathon history
• ARTICLES AND RESOURCES: Click here to view more articles and resources on London 2012 Paralympics

What started off as an exchange of ideas can then turn into a one-way street where someone goes from being interesting and helpful, for example, to dull and droning on.

Maybe they don’t value their time; they certainly don’t value yours.  It’s an interesting conundrum.  If you know you’re ready to move on and it’s time to get going, how do you politely, assertively and intentionally wind up that conversation and move on to your next one?

Firstly I put to you, there’s the ‘mind’ piece.  If you know your intention is to meet people, to find out how people are doing, to contribute where you can and to show up in a way that means people remember you were there, well then that’s the first thing to keep in mind.  You can also assume other people will have a positive intention similar to that.  No-one’s ever going to say to you “Oh no, I only came here to bang on about myself, to tell people how great I think I am and then to leave having met as few people as possible” – they just won’t ever say that, even if it is their intention.  Unfortunately for us, some people, unconsciously or otherwise, do have that very intention and when you find yourself stuck it can be really tricky to move on without being rude or finding yourself apologizing.

To respectfully and assertively steer yourself away – and this works just as well socially as it does professionally -  you need to be able to say a couple of things really clearly and I’ve chosen, from my extensive ‘treasure chest’ of ways and words, a simple example you can use straight away.  Plus of course, the behind-the-curtain thinking in saying it.

It goes like this:

“Well, it’s been great chatting with you Jane/John and I particularly enjoyed hearing about XYZ.  I know you’ll be wanting to chat with other people too so I won’t monopolise you any more and ABC etc.”

Behind-the-curtain thinking:

1. The word ‘Well’ immediately implies a change in rhythm or tempo is about to occur.  ‘Well’ is a summing up word and it tells the other person that you’re about to change direction or round up.  My trusty Mac says: ‘Well – used to introduce the resumption of a narrative or a change of subject’.
2. “It’s been great chatting with you” – you’re putting it in the past tense.  The subtle reference that the chatting is over is still easy to say and comfortable because it has been – it’s just that now you’re ready to move on.
3. “I particularly enjoyed hearing about XYZ” – you’re summarizing what you found useful or interesting which shows you’ve listened and engaged with the conversation.  ‘Enjoyed’ is in the past tense too.
4. “I know you’ll be wanting” tells the other person what you assume to be true and you’re presuming that their intention is to “chat with other people too” ie mine is, so I’m assuming yours is too.
5. “I won’t monopolise you anymore” – this is where you take the responsibility for what could be happening but in reality, you’re ready to disengage and so it’s both assertive and self-deprecating at the same time.  A powerful combination.
6. ‘and ABC’ is where you can say what happens next – if anything.  “and I’ll call you next week” or “and thanks for your advice” or “and enjoy the rest of your evening too”.

Well, now you can just move on.

How do I learn more about Kay?

To have the opportunity to discuss any blind spots you know you have or things that are slowing you down or holding you back as you connect, persuade and compel people at work; click here to apply for a complimentary conversation with Kay.

Article reproduced with permission of Kay White, Communication Specialist and Mentor at www.wayforwardsolutions.com. Kay shows professionals how to be understood. Get quicker, faster and better results by becoming a more effective, influential and savvy communicator – everywhere in your life.

In addition, you can listen to an exclusive interview with Kay where she shares several exclusive tips on how to immediately make your communication more powerful and persuasive: http://www.maximisepotential.co.uk/how-to-develop-effective-powerful-communication/

One of the most often overlooked aspects of leadership is the need for pursuit. Great leaders are never satisfied with traditional practice, static thinking, conventional wisdom, or common performance. In fact, the best leaders are simply uncomfortable with anything that embraces the status quo. Leadership is pursuit – pursuit of excellence, of elegance, of truth, of what’s next, of what if, of change, of value, of results, of relationships, of service, of knowledge, and of something bigger than themselves. In the text that follows I’ll examine the value of being a pursuer…

Here’s the thing – pursuit leads to attainment. What you pursue will determine the paths you travel, the people you associate with, the character you develop, and ultimately, what you do or don’t achieve. Having a mindset focused on pursuit is so critical to leadership that lacking this one quality can sentence you to mediocrity or even obsolescence. The manner, method, and motivation behind any pursuit is what sets truly great leaders apart from the masses. If you want to become a great leader, become a great pursuer.

A failure to embrace pursuit is to cede opportunity to others. A leader’s failure to pursue clarity leaves them amidst the fog. Their failure to pursue creativity relegates them to the routine and mundane. Their failure to pursue talent sentences them to a world of isolation.  Their failure to pursue change approves apathy. Their failure to pursue wisdom and discernment subjects them to distraction and folly. Their failure to pursue character leaves a question mark on their integrity. Let me put this as simply as I can – you cannot attain what you do not pursue.

Smart leaders understand it’s not just enough to pursue, but pursuit must be intentional, focused, consistent, aggressive, and unyielding. You must pursue the right things, for the right reasons, and at the right times. Perhaps most of all, the best forms of pursuit enlist others in the chase. Pursuit in its purest form is highly collaborative, very inclusive and easily transferable. Pursuit operates at greatest strength when it leverages velocity and scale.

I also want to caution you against trivial pursuits – don’t confuse pursuit with simple goal setting. Outcomes are clearly important, but as a leader, it’s what happens after the outcome that you need to be in pursuit of. Pursue discovery, seek dissenting opinions, develop your ability unlearn by embracing how much you don’t know, and find the kind of vision that truly does see around corners. Don’t use your pursuits to shift paradigms, pursue breaking them. Knowing what not to pursue is just as important as knowing what to pursue.

It’s important to keep in mind that nothing tells the world more about a leader than what or who they pursue – that which you pursue is that which you value. If you message to your organization you value talent, but don’t treat people well and don’t spend time developing the talent around you, then I would suggest you value rhetoric more than talent. Put simply, you can wax eloquent all you like, but your actions will ultimately reveal what you truly value.

Lastly, the best leaders pursue being better leaders. They know to fail in this pursuit is nothing short of a guarantee they’ll be replaced by those who don’t. All leaders would be well served to go back to school on what I refer to as the science of pursuitology.

Article source: forbes.com

FURTHER ARTICLES AND RESOURCES

• MOTIVATING INTERVIEW: Tony Dobbyn – How I Motivate a Team to achieve Amazing Results (Max#17)
• INSPIRING ARTICLES AND RESOURCES: Click here to view a range of inspiring articles and Resources

Having had a few days back in the UK i’ve finally had some time to digest what has been an incredible expedition to Ama Dabla, which was kindly sponsored and supported by Karrimor and Tag Heuer, and a trip that has never made me feel so alive and so grateful to be a mountaineer.

Ama Dablam is truly the most beautiful mountain I have ever seen, and being face to face with it- climbing that perfect Granite, was just WOW.

The trip didn’t really start off this way however!

After long delays in Kathmandu nerves were building, by the time myself and my team (emma, rosamond and tim) had made it into the Khumbu and were spying Ama we were absolutely terrified- looking at it, you’d think it was almost impossible to climb.

I said to myself again and again: “this will be the last, no more expeditions, just finish this and then get a normal job which has a higher chance of survival”

It made me feel better to think that I would never have to endure the suffering that was about to unfold again. I KNEW what was coming, i think that was the problem.

We finally made it to base camp and Ama loomed over us- at night it’s white flanks were illuminated in the moon light and the stars shone about it. It was always there. Even lying in my tent at night i was aware of its presence and was thinking: “will this be the one where my luck runs out?”

The route takes a never ending rocky ridge line up the the summit fields- where the angle is steep to the point of needing to front point on your crampons. The hanging glacier (dablam) sits precariously to the left, and the final top out is a straight push up steep ice and snow. The summit is crevassed and will one day collapse. The entire route is fixed with anchors which in the UK i wouldn’t dream of using as protection- the mushroom ridge for instance, boasting stakes wobbling like jelly in loose, sugary snow.

The day before the summit push i had a wash at basecamp, I emptied out the bowl of dirty water, turned around and saw a familiar face: “lakpa?” it was lakpa Wongchu! The climbing sherpa who had been with me on Everest summit day, without his help would i be here today? Not sure. I owe him and others my life. We hugged, and then i duly burst into sobs of tears. Nice.

This trip had made me realise just how much that day still haunts me- more than anything i wanted to climb this mountain to prove to Lakpa and to the people who helped me that day that i was capable of descending without getting injured. It’s a vulgar word but this mountain for me was about ‘closure’… putting an end to the demons that have haunted me ever since the 17th May 2010.

The real climbing on the mountain starts after camp 1. When it comes to expeditions i am very anal- if we say we’re leaving at 8am i am walking out of camp at one second past 8. Luckily, Lakpa Wongchu was also ready and thus we had a great head start on the way up to camp 3- nobody in front of us for the entire route, no waiting around at anchors. Just the two of us climbing in unison and moving quickly over the terrain that Lakpa new so well.

I said to Lakpa that if he took lots of photos he could have my cannon 500D, which he happily agreed to- so all these photos are his, and he did an awesome job.

The climbing from camp 1 to 3 is great fun- lots of rock, the most perfect granite i have ever seen and if this mountain was at sea level it would have some fantastic climbing routes on it in the VS to HVS range.

The route follows the jagged ridge line up to the bottom of the summit pyramid. Theres lots of traversing, short pitches of climbing and also the infamous yellow tower (HVS rock climb) and grey tower (scottish grade III gulley)both were exhilirating- especially the top of the yellow tower where you are presented with an overhang- i threw my hand over the top, found a hold and just hauled my body over onto the platform, thousands of feet of air and cloud beneath me- just wow.

The grey tower was more exhausting- by this point we had put on crampons and whilst this had its benefits it also made my intuition when trying to climb a little confused- anyway, i scratched my way up and used the jumar to ascend when i had the energy- though generally wherever possible on the mountain i tried to use my hands and feet to get higher- jumaring reguires far too much brute strength and i find that after 2 or 3 (sometimes 1) pull on it and i am gasping for breath- plus it aggravates my back, so i climbed as much as possible, using the jumar as a safety and anchor for resting on route- which is nice!

Throughout the trip i was using a karrimor X-Lite rucsac which was perfect for this terrain- the lightest pack i have ever used and very slim so that it didn’t get in the way of the climbing. I was also wearing a Karrimor baselayer (pink) which is quite a novel colour in the hills!

Finally made camp 3 and the morning dawned on summit day- we decided to leave at 8, and so we were- bang on. Lakpa and I moving at our steady pace, soon we were ahead and had nobody infront of us all the way to the summit- looking up, the mountain was all ours.

The climbing in the early hours was tough, the altitude (now above 6000m) was beginning to bite, and the blinding exhaustion as lactic acid builds up in your body after a few moments of effort started to become the norm. it was also very cold- but i had my headphones on (playing chase and status, naturally) and could see the halo of the sun up above me, I could also see the golden tint to the snow up ahead which signalled warmth- it drove me on, and i climbed as fast as i could until i was bathed in that beautiful sunlight.

At around 10am i got a call over the radio, Lakpa passed it to me. it was Henry from BC, he said: “Bonita, you’re about to pass a dead body. Please remember that there’s nothing you can do- the soul has gone. Stay calm and go past it, just stay calm. I’m here if you need me.”

I could see him up ahead, on the route, tied into the fixed lines. He had died 48 hours previously. All i could think was: his family. And then: ‘i want to speak to my dad. I can’t do this until i’ve spoken to him.’

Lakpa, patted my back and signalled for us to carry on. When we got above him at an anchor we both said a prayer and poured water into the snow as an offering. Then we carried onto the summit, i couldn’t stop crying.

Finally, we made it- Lakpa and I stook on the top of Ama Dablam at 11.45 on the 17th November 2011. We had made it 3.45minutes out of camp 3- a great effort, but in the back of my mind i was already thinking about the descent- we were halfway.

First of all we sat and ate chocolate, then stood up on the big, flat plateau that is the summit and took photos of each other. I put on my karrimor down jacket to keep warm whilst we weren’t moving so much.

When we sat down again we were looking at Everest. I said to Lakpa: “you saved my life over there, i know that” He didn’t look me in the eye, but nodded. It was closure, finally- exactly 18 months to the day since it had happened.

We descended back to camp by abseiling and arm wrapping in around 2 hours, and the next day back to base camp.

I came into base camp ahead of the others for no other reason than that i wanted to walk alone. When i arrived in the evening twilight Pasang Tempa grabbed me by the bum and lifted me in the air! Henry said to me: “Bonita, you’ve done a 360- the difference between this and Everest is a 360, well done”

That night i got into my tent and laid down on (wait for it) a thin tent mattress, karrimat and a thermarest- it was THE most comfortable bed i have ever lain on and as i sunk into it all the stresses and worries and doubts that you take with you on the mountain melted away. I was blissfully happy. it was a perfect ascent and i had Lakpa and Henry to thank for it. I thought about the man we had passed, said a prayer and then thanked God that i was still alive.

As we flew back to Kathmandu a few days later from Lukla I surveyed the Khumbu from above- this little known part of the world has become by chance the most important of places in my little life. I know i will visit again, many, many times.

I thought as we flew away from the Himalayas and back to the city- this trip, this mountain, this country- taking the risk, knowing that i could fail utterly- but getting to climb with Lakpa and thank him for what he did as we looked across at Everest from the summit of Ama Dablam- the whole experience has simply bought me back to life.

I’m ready and psyched for the future, my love affair with the hills has been re-ignited and I can’t wait to take on more challenges in the mountains in the years ahead.

Taking the risk on Ama bought me from the dark back into the light. Never give up on what you love. There will be good times as well as bad- and both are needed to truly live.

It begins again in the spring! Lhotse is calling.

Article Source: bonita norris blogspot.com

FURTHER ARTCILES AND RESOURCES:

• Inspiring Interview: Bonita Norris – How I became the youngest british woman to climb Mount Everest (Max#18)
• Inspiring Interview: Bonita Norris – How I set goals (Max#33)
• Articles and Resources: Click here to view more articles and resources about Bonita Norris

Here is an article we found recently regarding how she and other female  explorers are setting a good example to young girls today:

The arrival of Amelia Hempleman-Adams, 16, at the South Pole last week was an arresting sight. Since Roald Amundsen’s conquering of the bottom of the Earth exactly 100 years ago, polar adventuring has largely been the preserve of rugged, bearded men.

But since the female polar pioneers of the 1980s, more and more women have trekked to the poles. The latest group to take up the challenge are noticeable by their youth – not to mention their good looks.

Taking on the ice caps is by no means a young woman’s game just yet but the new female explorers have told the Standard they are proud of the example they are setting to girls growing up.

Bonita Norris, 24

On her blog Bonita Norris, left, describes herself as “an average girl” but the stories of daring the 24-year-old already has to tell suggest otherwise.

In May last year she became the youngest British woman ever to climb Everest, having previously become the youngest woman to scale Nepal’s Mount Manaslu, the world’s eighth-highest mountain.

Her triumph on Everest brought fame and lucrative contracts for the telegenic Norris, but it almost ended in disaster. On the way down from the summit she slipped badly, hurting her back; her legs quickly froze until she couldn’t feel her feet, leaving her in danger of frostbite. Kenton Cool, the professional mountaineer who helped her reach the summit, described her state as “a shocking situation”.

After extra sherpas were sent up the mountain with oxygen and medical equipment she was bound up with her legs tied together and lowered down by her climbing harness. Cool described it as “one of the most harrowing things I’ve experienced” and Norris told the Standard the experience was “like nothing on Earth”.

Norris survived to tell her tale to a receptive media and to garner the rewards of an expedition that had raised thousands for children’s charity Global Angels. Within months she had signed up to front an advertising campaign for car manufacturer Nissan and was speaking in schools about her dramatic fall in Everest’s “dead zone”.

In May this year she reached the North Pole with Alan Chambers and is now planning for her next big adventure, the one that would complete “the trilogy” of exploring – a trip to the South Pole with the Karrimor team next winter.

The not-so-average Norris – whose father works in the roofing business and who went to school at The Holt, a girls’ comprehensive in Wokingham – told the Standard the previous lack of female participation in extreme exploration was due more to lack of interest than physical aptitude.

“I don’t think many women have wanted to take on challenges like this. I went to a girls’ school and we were encouraged to go and achieve things as an individual. Maybe that had an effect on me.”

Article Source: London evening standard.co.uk

FURTHER ARTICLES AND RESOURCES:

• Inspiring Interview: Bonita Norris – How I became the youngest british woman to climb Mount Everest (Max#18)
• Inspiring Interview: Bonita Norris – How I set goals (Max#33)
• Articles and Resources: Click here to view more articles and resources about Bonita Norris

Kevin: Welcome to Maximise Potential the podcast to educate and motivate through a range of original interviews designed to help you maximise your potential.  Brought to you in association with the award winning recruitment group Jenrick.

Okay welcome back to episode 36 of the Maximise Potential Podcast and the second instalment of our interview with Richard Hume.  The first question that most of you will be asking is how on earth Richard can top an event which was as extreme as the triple Ironman.  Well Richard is also one of a very select group of people to have completed the Atlantic Ocean rowing race.  This gruelling 3000 mile event which can take over 80 days to complete challenges competitors in ways not comparable to most other endurance events.  Dealing with the isolation, the monotony, the sickness in addition to the extreme elements of the Atlantic Ocean can all prove too much for so many people who attempt this incredible event.  Yet as Richard will describe in his interview competing in a race of this magnitude is only one of the many challenges that an amateur athlete has to overcome.

Here is Richard once again to take us on another of his incredible journeys.

Music

Okay Richard I am going to carry on with this very interesting interview now after you have just left me well quite stunned as to how long that triple Ironman event actually took but equally I was also left with how well you performed in it which I just find phenomenal.  I mean you are still sitting here just saying well I am an average guy and I look up to these other people and I am sitting here right now going this is pretty incredible.  But we are now going to talk about another incredible event that you have done which is the transatlantic row.  Two people in a rowing boat you start off from I believe just off Tenerife and you just row right across the Atlantic.

Richard: Yeah through to Antigua.

Kevin: And this is exactly the same row that I know was very publicised when it was James Cracknel and Ben Fogel did it.

Richard: Yeah the same organisation, the same race. They took 50 days and had, it is very weather dependable, they had 50 days of beautiful weather and we had 72 days of different weather. But yeah it was three years in the making or three years in the process of planning and raising the money and getting to the start line.  Yeah the race itself was an interesting experience.

Kevin: Well before we get on to that lets talk about the three years in the making.  I think most people struggle to commit themselves to goals that are anything beyond a month so let’s talk a bit about.

Richard: When I came upon the race and saw it in an article it was about two New Zealanders who were about to do the first race in ’97 decided there and then that that was going to be one of the races I wanted to do.

Kevin: That was on your original list.

Richard: That was on my list yeah.  And I made a few enquiries about it because I just wanted to see what was going on and actually on one of my enquiries with the company that did it they sent me a poster that then sat on my bedroom wall at either school or university or wherever it went it just sat there.  Weirdly I met the guy who was on the boat in the photo the other day which was kind of cool, he thought I was weird.  Anyway the preparation for that was that I had a few false starts in terms I was telling everybody I was going to row the Atlantic and then they, I got told ‘that’s stupid you are 17/18/19’ whenever I was saying it and then I also had a lot of people who wanted to do it with me because I was actively trying to find a partner.  But when you then, people say ‘yeah I want to do it, I want to do it’ and then say well right okay lets go to the pub and sit down and talk about finance and stuff ‘oh I don’t think I can do it’ you know all that kind of stuff.  And it was in December 2005 I think it was that I went through all my email addresses and just wrote them the final, final email.  And I wrote a few and had no responses back nothing, no replied whatsoever.

So I was like oh okay this is not going too well I am actually going to have to do this on my own.  I also then got a phone call in early January from my then, from a guy who was four years above me at university who for some reason I had his email address and just said ‘hi Rich you have completely ruined my Christmas’ and I was like ‘oh hi Tom how are you what have you been up to why have I ruined your Christmas?’ ‘I can’t stop thinking about rowing the Atlantic’ and that was when the process then began.

Kevin: Incredible.  I still find it stunning that this was something that you completed pretty much a year ago but you started sending those emails in 2005.  It just really again confirms to me the way your, if we want to call it, your mind works in terms of the way you have set these goals for yourself or you have set targets going back all those years coming off the issue with your back and it really ever since then has acted almost like a barometer for the rest of your life.

Richard: Yeah rowing the Atlantic was a very abnormal event to try and pass through people.  It took a while to just get people round the idea that you were thinking about doing it.  You then go through a stage of not even asking people whether you can do it, it is telling them that you are going to go and do it.  You know mum and dad if I said ‘I am thinking about rowing the Atlantic’ it would be a firm ‘No’.  If I just turn round and say ‘I am rowing the Atlantic’ they haven’t got much ground to stand on, on either side.

It is also a very expensive project to do.  The provisional budget for it is about £60,000 and we saw it as a sort of building project.  So we thought it was going to be about an £80,000 project.  I had just come out of university I had very few contacts in the business world; I had very little money behind me I knew that I had to start that early to do it.  And that is where you know coming back from the last interview it is about amateurs and professionals.  But the professionals will have that sponsorship behind them the amateurs don’t and we have to really graft in terms of trying to find the funds.  Just trying to get somebody to believe in you and even just to get to the number two of a company you have got to go through the secretary and if the secretary doesn’t believe in you, you are never going to get to the person you need to talk to.

Kevin: Can I ask you it is along this subject but do you actually find that this bit of the process is actually harder than actually doing the events themselves?

Richard: The rowing was the first event that I had ever asked anybody for sponsorship.  Some people had very kindly helped for the triple Ironman but they were more we are going to sponsor you I never asked them for it because I knew that at some point the rowing was going to happen and I knew that at some point I was going to have to badger every single one of my friends for ten quid or fifteen, twenty quid and I knew that if I had done that for a marathon or an Ironman or something like that I would be on quite touchy grounds. It is definitely the hardest part of the event; the event is always the cherry on top of the cake.  Getting to the start line is the hard part and if you ever turn up to an event and you don’t think that you are going to finish because you are under prepared there is no point even starting.  So that really is the hardest part.  The rowing is slightly different because it is so long to be out at sea but if you haven’t got the food on board you are not going to last very long.

Kevin: No.

Richard: If you haven’t got the safety equipment on board you are not going to last very long.

Kevin: So where did that sponsorship money I mean you are saying friends but it must, I mean there is no way friends can come up with all of that so?

Richard: Our biggest donation was £5,000 and that was through a friend of mine who had been put in charge of his grandfathers trust fund to be used for charitable causes and we were very fortunate that we were raising money for a charity called Ataxia UK and anything that was given on Just Giving they very kindly gave half back to us to help us cover our costs which is very unusual for a charity to do but a really great way for them to pull in these bigger events for lesser charities.  So we raised a bit of money from that.  The key one for us was that Tom works for a big company that has a big turnover of mobile phones and they let us have all their second hand mobile phones for a period of time and we sold them on to these companies that buy mobile phones and I think we made about £15,000 and it is staggering the amount, I think it is like £120 for a Blackberry and how many businesses use Blackberrys – hundreds.  So it is a really creative way of doing it.

From personal sponsorship we knew we didn’t have anything more than £1,500.  Our biggest company on its own was £3,000.  So it was lots of little ones. But no we were lucky and we have still got to sell the boat now and if we sell the boat we would have, myself and Tom would have put in about £2,500 so we are still going to be short but we were away from home for five months and you know we raised £20,000 for charity.

Kevin: Exactly.

Richard: So you know it does, we did run an expensive project but it was well worth it.  You know only 500 odd people have ever rowed an ocean before but this is something that I have done and not many other people have.

Kevin: So let’s talk about that.  How did it happen? How did you train for this?

Richard: The training side of it I was always quite fit and of course the preparation for the rowing took place whilst I was doing the triple Ironman.  So the core foundation of fitness was definitely there.  Not that you have to be very fit to do the rowing because it is much more of a mental game but I did spend a lot of time putting a lot of weight on. I put a lot of effort into trying to make myself stronger because doing things like the triple Ironman you get weaker and weaker and weaker.  And I spent a lot of time in the rowing machine.  That was my main principal.  I decided it would be quite a good thing to perhaps learn how to row so I had ten one hour lessons so that was a key to it.

Kevin: How much did that help you? Did it open your eyes up to the technicalities of rowing?

Richard: Well rowing an ocean rowing boat is very different.  So an ocean rowing boat is a ton once it is fully laden and also little things like on a boat that you would have on a river your hands cross over one another.  They never do on an ocean rowing boat because if a wave hits the oar it will smash up into the second oar and you will end up with a broken hand after the first 30 seconds.  So there is very different things in terms of technique to it.  I also used it as a way to get over my sea sickness because I get horrifically sea sick.  And in fact when you go to La Gomera which is where we started and you fly to Tenerife and then you get the ferry across, I was on that ferry with my ‘I am rowing the Atlantic’ t-shirt on and I came off the boat to be greeted by an ITN crew who were filming for another team who were out there holding two sick bags.  I had spent the last half hour just being chronically ill.  And when I came home I took a friend from Waterloo to Greenwich on the ferry and I got sea sick on that.  So I am horrific when it comes to sea sickness.

Kevin: Maybe you have got a unique place in history.

Richard: Even the triple Ironman the last half an hour of the swim when all the pleasure boats came out I started to get sea sick. I mean I am awful absolutely awful.  So that was another thing I had to try and get over but didn’t.  And then the rest of it was we just had meeting after meeting after meeting.  There is so much stuff that has to go on.  We had to find a boat to begin with.  We then had to refit it, respray it, get all the food, get all the safety gear, get all the medical gear, get all the sun cream, get all the electrics done.  I mean the list is endless, absolutely endless.  And we were very lucky that my rowing partners father who was semi retired was a similar mindset to me in terms of he likes to get his teeth set into things, he didn’t want to row the Atlantic but he was happy to be our sort of team manager which meant that it took the work load of myself and Tom massively.  You know we could literally send him an email saying we need to sort this out off you go and he was worth a million dollars.

Kevin: Incredible you’ve touched on I would say time and time again about the importance of and I think you used the expression how lucky you have been to have people around you to actually shoulder some of this burden, to support you, support crews and what not.  Can I ask why you think that they have been so dedicated.

Richard: Because I am an outstandingly nice guy.  No, um, I don’t really know I don’t want to tempt fate because they might all disappear but I think people like living with the idea that they have done something.  And if they can’t do it they like the idea of knowing they have been heavily involved in it.  I mean Julian who helped me with the triple Ironman he’s so clean and so organised it just irritates the crap out of me. But when you are doing a triple Ironman you need somebody there sharp the whole time.  You know if I sort of say I would like a ham and cheese sandwich it is made 30 seconds later absolutely perfectly how I like it.  That is worth a million dollars.  Like I say I don’t want to tempt fate and say that they are all going to be here forever because they won’t.

Kevin: Yeah definitely and I am sure that a lot of it comes back to the effort that they can see you putting in, the dedication that they see you and they know that you are not in, that you are in for this in for a penny in for a pound.  You are in this 100% committed and they obviously see that and they say well I am not wasting my time here.

Richard: But most people can’t relate to say rowing the Atlantic until I say I can’t row and I get seasick.  And all of a sudden they start thinking oh okay this is obviously a little bit more normal than perhaps it was before I met this guy.  And I think then people then want to get involved.  We were amazed at the amount of people who you know the guy who did our electrics on the boat he had spent 50 years putting electrical systems in people’s houses he had never done an ocean rowing boat before.  He was so intrigued it wasn’t a big job he was just happy to spend hours on our rowing boat just fascinated by the whole process.  So yeah the more unique the event gets the better.

Kevin: So let’s talk about the event itself apart from the fact that you know seasick and everything else talk us through what it is like to actually row across the Atlantic.

Richard: Mentally I found it very, very hard.  Day four I rang home I wasn’t planning to the first week they said how are you getting on, I was absolutely fine and then I started crying and from that day onwards I realised that if I cried for half an hour a day I could get all that frustration, all the anxiety, all the stress out of my system in that one half hour period and then I would okay for the rest of the day.  So bar a very few days I cried every single day pretty much.  I learnt little tricks along the way so we took a lot of tinned fruit to begin with because I knew that seasickness was going to be a big problem for me but if I could take something that was easy to go down it was also easy to come back up again.  That makes the whole seasickness thing a little bit less daunting and because there is a lot of liquid in fruit you are still absorbing something.

A little claim to fame on the rowing is that we were the only crew that experienced seasickness that carried on rowing.  So a lot of other crews stopped waited for the seasickness to be normal again and then they started rowing. So that was a real bonus for us.  I got very horrific sort of stage fright with being so near Tom the whole time.  It took me 21 days to do a poo just because I just couldn’t, I had nowhere to go, I had no privacy.  It was just awful.  We took about I think it was about 6000 calories of food per day for 60 days and then 2000 for the remaining 30 days.  We took 90 days worth of food.  I got stuck on about 1000 I just couldn’t eat the dried sort of astronaut food that we were having.  So I ended up eating soup, noodles, haribo and hobnobs.  That was what we had onboard.

So you know little things like that just start to grind you down but I always made sure that I was clean.  So you know when you do eventually go to the loo or salt sores just make sure that you are clean the whole time.  That sort of takes the physical side out of it.  I cleaned my teeth every day.  You know little things that actually make a big difference.  You slowly get into a routine and that routine builds into each day and day in day out it just goes quite quickly.

Kevin: Is that really how it is?

Richard: That is how it is you just have to get a routine.  It then gets disrupted when the weather is very bad and you have to go and anchor and you can’t row because the weather is going too strong against you.  Then you need to use that period to rest.  Really interestingly my back for the first time in my life didn’t hurt once when I was actually rowing it was when I stopped rowing and I was stuck in a cabin for three or four days that it was just horrific it was so painful.  So we just did little things like that.  You know every day we would jump in the water.  Well Tom after day one but after sort of three weeks I built up the confidence to jump into the sea.  So after each day we would just jump into the water wash or freshen ourselves up, come back onboard then we would wash ourselves with fresh water because we had a water maker that changed salt water to fresh water and if we did that every single day we just felt a lot more sort of refreshed and reenergised and alive.
The wildlife was fantastic and that was something that really kept me going.

Kevin: Go on what did you see talk about it.

Richard: We saw whales, dolphins.  We had what I thought was a tuna fish and so we called it ‘Terry the Tuna’ hanging around us for just week after week and he arrived on about day three and he left us with about two days to go and so I mean that was just staggering.  Of course it could have been a different fish but it looked the same.  So we had all those fish, we had ‘Terrance the Turtle.  I went through a phase of naming everything and so we had ‘Willie and Wilma the Whales’, ‘Bertie the Bird’.  We had quite a few birds that we just could not work out where they went at night time because there was nothing around.  I mean there was one point where the nearest point of land was about 1500 miles away.  And we had ‘Nemo and Nema’ who were two little funny Nemo fish that used to hang around underneath the boat.  So that was a real eye opener for me.  That was really amazing and to see wild dolphins, to see a wild whale knowing that if the whale decides to swim into you he is probably going to break the boat up you know was amazing things to see.

The tankers we saw were huge, absolutely massive and to see them chugging along knowing that you are there but not being able to see you is again quite daunting.  The flat calms seas, the really big seas that we had, the massively hot days and then the horrible sort of dark skies at night time so you couldn’t see where the water started and where the sky finished sort of thing.  You know all those sorts of things were just amazing.

Kevin: How vulnerable did you feel?

Richard: Not at all, no we, you know if you go to a new country you go into the airport and you feel instantly comfortable or you don’t.  It is a little bit like that and when we went to have a look for the different rowing boats because we bought a second hand rowing boat. We had a look at a few of them and we were kind of like yeah this is good, this is not good, don’t feel very comfortable. We found one that we got in and I just turned around to Tom and said this is it; this is the boat we are going to do it in.  So I never felt vulnerable.  I felt unsure of myself at times you know we got hit by a really big wave on the third week I think it was and arguably that should have tipped us over even though the rowing boat was self right you still lose a lot of kit.  Had it done that and we were only three weeks in so we weren’t a million miles away from land it could have been a different story but the boat just rode the wave and we kept on going and that was a real confidence booster for me.  I mean I am not a sea person I have never really spent any time in the sea whatsoever so everything was a learning curve but because I am so strict on myself for preparation I knew how every system worked on that boat.  I knew how everything could be fixed if it would break.  The preparation was so key I never, ever felt unsure of what we were doing.

Kevin: This is, I mean preparation is something.

Richard: It is such a key because you are doing events that can ultimately kill you and I don’t like the idea of doing an event that is going to kill me.  I wanted to make sure that when I went across the Atlantic I felt completely at ease with what I was doing.  It doesn’t mean I found it easy but yeah that was.

Kevin: And hence that’s why you didn’t feel vulnerable because you felt prepared.  You felt.

Richard: Yeah the only time we felt slightly vulnerable I guess was when a massive great tanker was coming towards us and it didn’t pick us up on the radio or anything and it was just going straight for us.  And I was rowing at the time and I ended up turning the boat sort of side on and then just sort of rowing for my life and the boat missed us by about 400 meters.  Now 400 meters might seem like quite a lot but when you have got an 800 meter long tanker weight a gazillion tons that if they hit you and went through you would not even know they have hit anything you are not going to play chicken with it.  That was probably the only time that, vulnerable is probably not the right word but maybe a little bit scared, apprehensive is slightly better.  That was the only time and then we did, the weather was really poor and then when we did eventually hit Antiga it was weirdly an anticlimax but also amazing.

Kevin: Before you do talk about that lets talk about the fact that, that was the first goal pretty much that you wrote down on that list going right back when you were a teenager.  If you can remember how did you think that you were going to feel all those years later by doing it and how did the actual event live up to that?

Richard: I don’t think I ever believed I would actually do it.  I mean everybody has these goals and aspirations but how many of us actually achieve them.  Not very many.  So here I just don’t think I ever really believed until the day that we arrived that we were actually going to row the Atlantic.  And even when we were arriving we got told that we would see Antiga about 80 miles from land which is ridiculous because the horizon is only about seven miles away.  Well we saw it with only about nine miles to go and we were thinking for every single one of those miles between mile nine and mile 80 have we come to the right place, is our compass reading the right direction you know is it there, is it there.  And then of course you do see it and you have got a landmark to see how slowly you are going.  You know we saw it at six in the morning and we didn’t get there until eight at night, it was only nine miles just because we were fighting against the currents and everything else that was going.  So it was a real kind of catch 22.  It was fantastic we had seen Antiga but it was also a bit of a pain because we suddenly realised how slow we were going in those last couple of days because the current was so strong going against us.

Kevin: Yeah and when you are out at sea of course without that to influence.

Richard: Yeah we had no idea, we knew how far we were going but you lose concept on how far a mile is because all you see is horizon after horizon after horizon.  You get a bit of a reality check sometimes when you see a boat on the horizon and before you know it it’s on the horizon on the other side of the boat.  Yes that was a bit of an interesting experience.  And then when we actually crossed the finish line there was the boat which had the race organiser on to say we had crossed the finish line.  He honked his horn and there was nobody else there we were kind of like hooray there is nobody here what do we do.  And we were knackered by that point because we rowed two of us together.  Because during the actual race you just row one up the whole time but for the last three days we had rowed together pretty much nonstop because our friends and family were in Antiga we had been delayed so much that they were having to miss work and not get paid for missing work or whatever their situation was.  So we got offered a tow in from the finish line the port which was about a mile away and then we got in there and all hell broke loose and we hadn’t seen anybody for the best part of 80 days or 70 days and all of a sudden there was 50 or 60 people there all wanting to see us and cheer us in.  And Ben Fogle happened to be on holiday and he had never seen a rowing boat come in so he came down and saw us in.  You know my mum was there, all of Tom’s family was there.  You are jumping on to dry land and it is kind of like wow the land is firm under my feet which is you know, you then get seasick again from being land sick. Which is a whole different experience.

Yeah we had been radioed into the boat the night before saying what would we like when we crossed the finish line and we said crunchy nut cornflakes and a burger.  And we got there and there was a little romantic meal for two of us.  I mean me and my rowing partner we got on fine but the last thing I wanted to do was then sit and have a meal with him whilst I hit dry land sort of thing and there we were having a burger and crunchy nut cornflakes.  The food was fresh, we had a meal and only 48 hours beforehand we couldn’t see land.  All that we thought was in the world was ocean.

Kevin: Is that hence where the anticlimax came because all of a sudden.

Richard: Yes I think it was I mean it was three years of planning and 72 days of actual rowing but for me it was about 15 years of actual dreaming or kind of believing that wow one day I am going to row the Atlantic.  It was very emotional.  I got off the boat and I spoke to my dad on the telephone, he was back in London and I just started crying.  He was like ‘are you there, are you there?’ and I was like ‘yeah I am hear’ sort of thing and it was amazing.  And again I remember we had M People on our radio playing as we came in and I went and did a presentation at a school for their sports day about four months later and the choir completely unknown to them sang that song as three of their songs for motivating the kids and that kind of stuff.  And I was just sitting there with almost tears dripping down my eyes and I couldn’t let on why I was sort of getting quite emotional because you know I hadn’t been introduced or anything at that point.  And of course I got on stage and said ‘guys the song you sang was the song we had when we were coming into Antiga you just made everything flash back to me’.  Yeah it was crazy.  Just seeing people eating proper food again, toilet paper was just brilliant, diet coke with ice cubes was fantastic.  And yeah we finished on the Thursday back in the UK on Saturday and I was back to work on Monday morning.

Kevin: Wow.

Richard: Which was a big mistake I should have taken a lot longer off but I had to go, I mean you know I had bills to pay.

Kevin: Back to the reality.

Richard: Back to reality and I think that in itself was probably a mistake because it never really sunk in.  But what was also quite difficult was when you go to the pub and you talk to your friends they are really intrigued and they want to hear about it, that one time that you see them.  The following day when you go and see them again they’ve taken in what they wanted to take in, it’s got no relevance to them at all and quite rightly so I would be exactly the same.  But then you know I was having to deal with the reality off I have done this thing and nobody really cares.  I mean I don’t do it for other people I do it for myself but I would like somebody to at least step up to the plate and say ‘wow you’ve really inspired me to do this or do that’.  And that was quite difficult just getting my head around and it took me a long time to get over.  I still find going to a night club with lots of people in a small space very difficult.  The underground at rush hour I still find very difficult.  But I now feel very comfortable when I’ve got my gym kit on and I’m going to the gym which for five or six months at the back end of last year where mentally I was just very drained from everything I didn’t enjoy so that sort of fire in the belly is now coming back.

Kevin: It is interesting that it hung over for so long.

Richard: I think it’s we haven’t sold the boat yet and that is, until we sell the boat all my life savings are in that boat.  So once the boat is sold I think I will be able to let go of the whole thing.  But I did speak to Ben Fogle about two or three months ago and I just wanted to sort of say thank you for coming.  He asked me how I was getting on and I said you know what I have been really struggling mentally to get my head around this because nobody really cares and he said to me, I have never told anybody in the press or anything but I really struggled, really, really struggled and of course he had the advantage of being able to talk about it and writing a book and you know if he was struggling then what’s the random person going to do.  It does play havoc with your mind it really does.  But it was a great experience I wouldn’t change it for anything and you know when I next really, really, really push myself hopefully I will be able to draw on that experience.

Kevin: Now it’s a year on when you think back to you know how does it feel inside you?

Richard: I am very proud that I’ve done it.  There is definitely a little bit of unfinished business and I don’t know what it is.  I think it’s you know I rowed the Atlantic with my rowing partner with endless amount of food onboard and I got stuck on 1000 calories.  Had we not had all that food on board and actually had food that I found edible could we have done it four/five/six days faster.  You know we took endless amounts of sun cream we didn’t use half of it.  You know we set up the boat in order to get across the Atlantic and quite soon into it I wanted to do better than just cross it.  I felt so comfortable I thought we could do better.  And our boat wasn’t set up for doing that.  Not that I would change anything structurally about the boat or where we had things or anything like that.  There is just something a little bit about unfinished business but because I don’t want to do the same event twice if I were to do it again I would do it as a solo.  I think I am just better, I wouldn’t get stage fright.  And if I did I would then be really worried.

Kevin: Unfinished business you have said that a few times now.  Where is the unfinished business taking you now?

Richard: I want to go number five on the list is bad water ultra marathon which is 135 miles through Death Valley which is 140o heat in California and not only that.

Kevin: Can I ask why?

Richard: I see it as probably the hardest foot race out there.  There is lots of variations of what is hard and what is not hard but I think the heat will be a real challenge and to come from a south of England where it doesn’t really get much hotter than 90o to then go out in that sort of heat I think will be a real achievement.  But not only is it hot it starts at 280 ft below sea level, it returns to sea level on two other occasions and has three 500ft passes in between so it is a really hilly one as well.  But in order to do that I have got to do three 100 mile runs and I don’t have any.  So I have got three 100 milers to hopefully apply and then have the right to qualify.

Kevin: Incredible.

Richard: So that is the next one.

Kevin: I am going to wind this down now because I think we have touched on a load of amazing points.  What I would be intrigued to know and maybe you can share some of this is breaking events down seems to be a huge part of your mindset of enabling you to achieve these great feats and also having a clear game plan attached to it.  I think if there is anything that you can sum up to maybe help other people attack big events and big objectives in their lives maybe I think anything you can bottle up on that?

Richard: I think talking to people about what they’ve done is hugely important and if it’s in the same field even better.  But you have got to tackle these things on your terms.  You know it would be very easy for me to go and copy somebody’s training plan to go and do the same event that they’ve done but it might not work for me.  And I think to have that kind of confidence and boldness I guess to just feed off people who keep telling you, you can’t do it I think is the key.  It gets boring when people say ‘oh that’s ridiculous, that’s stupid’ and yet they are the first people to say ‘well done’ when you are finished.  But at the same time because they don’t believe in me it feeds me to try that bit harder.  That probably doesn’t answer your question at all but yeah I just go out and do it.  If you enjoy it and you like the look of it why not.

Kevin: Richard that is a great way to finish thank you for your time.

Richard: Okay you are welcome thank you.

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Kevin: So there we go our second and final instalment at least for the time being from Richard Hume.  When you consider that Richard and Tom raised over £80,000 for this event and yet the largest donation was £5,000 it really shows what can be accomplished by consistent and persistent activity.  If you would like to learn more about Richard please visit his website at www.challengechaser.com and I will put a link to that website on the show notes.

Thank you again Richard for joining us on Maximise Potential and again to Elliott Cole for putting us in touch.  So on to a few news updates. Firstly thank you all very much for voting for us in the European Podcast Awards.  The judging is currently under way and fingers crossed we will find out if we have been successful in the New Year.

Next up any regulars to the site will see we have added a new section titled ‘Your Stories’.  We have done this in response to an increasing number of tweets, emails and phone calls that we are receiving from you all explaining how the podcasts are inspiring you to take on bigger challenges in your lives.  So please if you have got a story to share with the audience about how the podcasts have helped you please send it in to us as we would love to add it to the site.

Thank you again to everyone in Jenrick Recruitment for their amazing support and I will be leaving you with another track from Xerxes to finish on and it’s called ‘Thank you’. Tune in soon and thanks again for downloading the Maximise Potential Podcast.

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Kevin: Welcome to Maximise Potential the podcast to educate and motivate through a range of original interviews designed to help you maximise your potential.  Brought to you in association with the award winning recruitment group Jenrick.

Welcome back to Episode 35 of the Maximise Potential podcast.  Being able to complete an ironman event is said to be one of the most extreme tests of mental and physical endurance on the planet.  Competing continuously for over 12 hours; swimming 2 ½ miles, then cycling for 112 miles before completing a 26 mile marathon, will push anyone to their absolute limits.
However, now try and imagine how you would feel if those figures were tripled.
Richard Hume, completed a gruelling 7.2-mile swim, 336-mile bike ride and 78.6-mile run, finishing in just over 52 hours and in the process becoming one of the fastest ever triple ironman finishers for his age group.

Here is Richard to tell you how he became a triple Ironman.

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Richard thank you very much for joining us on the podcast today.

Richard: Thank you for having me.

Kevin: Our pleasure.  Now we are very fortunate we are actually going to do two interviews with you because there are two particular events that you have achieved in your relatively short years of doing endurance events.  And we are going to start off with one that just blew my mind and that was a triple Ironman event.  What possessed you to want to do that?

Richard: The triple Ironman was a series of different events that accumulated in the triple Ironman.  When I was 13 I was diagnosed with a spinal problem called kyphosis and scoliosis one of which was a 93o curvature of the spine. So my lower part of my spine and my top part of my spine were at a 90 degree angle to each other.  If you imagine a lamppost is at 90o and then see how severe the curvature was.

Kevin: It’s incredible.

Richard: So that then meant that I had to wear a solid plastic back brace from the age of 13 to 17 whilst at school and was told that I wouldn’t play sport for the foreseeable future.  I got away with playing cricket and golf whilst wearing the back brace but rugby was a no go.  I then officially became ‘normal’ which is a between 20 – 50o curvature in your spine and so a University I started to play a bit more rugby, carried on my cricket and due to the whole Lawrence Armstrong effect I bought a bike with my last student loan check, which in the end was very well worth it, and slowly got cycling.

Then it was a matter of being in the gym back at home.

Kevin: Can I just ask you a question before we go on to that were you not worried to death about doing things like rugby after what you had actually gone through just so that you could have in essence a ‘normal’ life and a safe life I mean?

Richard: Naivety is not a great thing but it does help in certain situations.  I actually played, I ended up playing rugby league at University because in rugby union you have got a lot of scrummaging, ruck smalls and all that kind of stuff and that does put a lot of pressure on your back.  Rugby league is purely about tackling and running with the ball so actually there is not a huge among of pressure put on your back.  Whilst I was wearing my back brace I actually lost quite a lot of weight and then started to strengthen my back up a little bit.

Kevin: Right.

Richard: I was told I needed another year in my back brace but I sort of bargained with my doctors that if I did the hard work in the gym then perhaps I could get away with not wearing it.  It did result in a few days when I had to sleep on the floor on a hard surface rather than the bed to make sure my back was nice and flat.  Essentially the problem with a back brace is yes you grow taller but your muscles don’t develop so actually you get weaker and weaker and weaker.  But if you put the hard work in there it just straightens the whole thing out.  And it is by no means completely normal again now by about sort of midday onwards it feels like somebody sort of stabbing me in the back.

Kevin: That’s every day?

Richard: Pretty much every day especially if I have been on my feet the whole time.  But you just learn to manage it.  You learn to sort of manage the pain and you learn to, it is just another thing, it is just another thing that I do you know I am ginger so I get sunburnt very easily.  It is just another thing I have to cope with you know it is just one of those things.  See the back brace was the catalyst for everything in terms of I am not a great fan of being told I can’t do something.  And if I do get told I can’t do something and it is something that actually interests me then I am going to go off and give it my best shot and that was how the whole process started.

Kevin: It is interesting isn’t it several people that I have spoken to there always seems to be a trigger event and often the trigger event being that they were told ‘No’ in some degree and again you are someone else that is saying straight away you know it was like a rag to a bull if you tell me no then that is going to provide determination.

Richard: Yeah I think everybody has experienced it, they might just not realise it.  I was at a school called Cranleigh and we had a very steep slope on our cricket pitch and nobody would want to bowl up the hill because it was just so hard work but I absolutely loved it so obviously the core kind of endurance was obviously always there I just didn’t know that it was there until I started to get just a little bit more interested in cycling events or long distance running.  I wasn’t that interested that somebody had broken you know 10 seconds for 100m I was more interested in somebody almost breaking two hours for the marathon.

Kevin: Yeah.

Richard: Even though I had no idea that I wanted to go off and do these things it was just a matter that kind of what interested me.  So I think the seed is always there it is just whether you are willing to give it a go and I think for me it is not about how fast you can do things it is about how long you can carry on going for. And then once you get to that stage you can get your head around all the distances of all these events that I enjoy doing it is then just a matter of working to a process.  With the back brace for me in terms of the recovery really set in stone the idea that the preparation for everything is key.  And fortunately I have just been able to harness that and put it into a direction that I want to go in.

Kevin: Definitely and sorry I dragged you off because you were mid way through saying that Lawrence Armstrong really got you going on the bike and then.

Richard: Yeah it was the Lawrence Armstrong effect that bought me the bike and then I was in the gym at home and a guy who was 60 I think he was 68 and he still did Ironman and he was always going to Cona and Hawaii to do the World Championships there purely because he was the only person in his age group so he was always going to qualify as long as he finished.  He said I bet you can’t do an Ironman so off I went to do a marathon because I figured it would be a good, I should get a marathon under my belt before I did an Ironman.  And I went off and did the Isle of Wight marathon which is regarded as one of the hardest it is so hilly, got to mile 21 being arrogant and thinking I could do a sub 3 hour marathon because training was going so well.  I ended up sitting on a wall in front of somebody’s house couldn’t move at all.  So I turn up to my first Ironman having never done a triathlon ever before, having never finished a marathon.  I had only really taught myself to swim sort of two years beforehand, I could swim but I would do breast stroke kick with a front crawl arms, not particularly pretty.  From that Ironman I did which was August 2005 it has just gone from strength to strength.

Kevin: So let’s just stop here for a second because that has just absolutely blown my mind.  So you have gone in for your first Ironman because a 67 or 68 year old gentleman has just challenged you to it in the gym.  You haven’t completed a marathon, you’ve cycled a bit and your swimming is let’s say.

Richard: Average.

Kevin: Not desirable yeah in terms of its finesse and everything else.

Richard: I actually rang up the organisers of Ironman UK in March and told them my position and the guy said to me ‘do you know how hard a triathlon is?’ and I said no and he said ‘well that is the best place to be in to do an Ironman.’  If you do an Olympic or a sprint and you know how hard it is towards the end of one of those races you will never do an Ironman.  So naivety was fantastic.  I am not going to say I didn’t walk a lot of it but I got round in 12 hours 45 minutes which is perfectly reasonable.  I think I did a four hour 45 marathon on a relatively hilly course down near Sherbourne.  Yeah I mean I just got hooked from the day I even turned up.

Kevin: And what changed between you not being able to complete a marathon the first time and then you managing to complete an Ironman event? What changed?

Richard: I got my ass kicked in the Isle of Wight and I knew straight away that weirdly I kind of enjoyed it and I just knew that if I didn’t take it a bit more seriously I would have to step up basically otherwise I wouldn’t finish the Ironman.

Kevin: That’s interesting actually so you getting beaten in the Isle of Wight was the best thing that could have happened to you.

Richard: Was the best thing that could have happened.  And actually doing an Ironman you do do a lot of Olympic triathlons in your training.  So I am a massive believer if the race isn’t too long then about three weeks prior to the race I will do the race distance over the course of a weekend.  So I knew that in a 48 hour period I could do an Ironman.  And that was a fantastic experience.

Kevin: Incredible and so from that moment onwards that was it.

Richard: That was it yeah I sort of, so I then did the London Marathon that year and I then did Ironman France, no sorry I did the London Durathlon in September 2006 and then I went on and signed up for my next Ironman in 2007 which was France.  I then did the double Ironman that October and then it was 2008 that I did Ironman Switzerland and then the triple Ironman.

Kevin: And so let’s just talk a little bit about the, I suppose it is the preparation that you go through for this I mean first of all what do you get out of doing this?

Richard: I, where do I start, when I was about 19 or 20 just before I bought my bike I made up a list of what I sore as the seven biggest amateur endurance sports you can have.  So number one was a marathon, number two was an Ironman, number three was a triple Ironman, number four was rowing the Atlantic and bear in mind I didn’t really know that other events existed these were just the ones I sort of knew about.

Kevin: Sure yeah.

Richard: Then there was bad water which is 135 miles through Death Valley in America, then there was Ram which is a Race Across America on a bike so you start in San Diego I think it is and you officially finish in Boston somewhere.  And then the seventh one is a thing called the Arc to Arc now that is you run from Marble Arch to Dover, swim the channel and then you cycle from Calais to the Arc de Triumph.  Those for me are some of the biggest amateur sports you can do.  And the second you have a list like that everything else becomes a process.

Having done the Ironman and knowing that naivety was a good thing for that one I knew that I couldn’t jump to a triple I had to do a double beforehand.  So that is the initial process to get things going.

Kevin: So it was very much just putting down goals.

Richard: Yeah that’s what it is.  I gave myself a target and off I went and did it.  And this is before you start thinking about the actual physical logistics of doing it either a preparing to do the race or b actually getting yourself to the race.  You know once you get to the double Ironman fact you had to have a support crew there.  The triple Ironman you do and then you are having to you know fit in somebody’s or persuade somebody to take a holiday and pay for it to come and support you.  It is a hard bargain to try and do and fortunately I have got a few friends who are willing to do that.

Kevin: Well I think this is worth actually brining in at this point because as you said the events that you wrote down on your goal list were amateur events and the important thing to state here is that you work fulltime, you are not a paid athlete, you are not a professional athlete this is something you do out of the sheer love of it.

Richard: Yeah the people who, well I am like everybody you know when Roger Fedora wins Wimbledon I get quite emotional but the really inspirational people for me are the ones who have to work full time and do these very abnormal events, the top, top amateurs for me are the most inspirational people.

Kevin: They are the ones you really look at.

Richard: Yeah and I think the list that I have yes you will have some people who have got sponsorship, who are there to make a living, but it is what goes on further down the field which is the really, you know everybody has got their own story to be there they may have beaten cancer you know they may have lost a limb at war.  Whatever it is, it is those people that are kind of like really going against the norm.

Kevin: I think the funny thing is you wouldn’t probably class yourself as the person that others are probably looking up to and getting inspired by.

Richard: Oh not at all, not at all.  I get on with my job and you know my gym bag is packed every single night you know in the hope that I get some time the following day to go.  I do have a process in my head of where I want to be and you know I am training today I won’t train tomorrow because I am doing a 40 mile run on Sunday.  So I do have this process. It is not ideal running on Sunday but it is my girlfriend’s day off tomorrow so I am not going to train on that day.  The problem with running on Sunday is that I will probably finish about seven o’clock in the evening I have got to go on the 5:58 train Monday morning to get back to work; I am not going to be able to move.  But work for me comes first but I do bend my work a little bit in order to do my hobby because you have to.

Kevin: How do you keep yourself on track? How do you keep yourself motivated when as you say work is the most important thing?

Richard: It is very easy in some respects.  Once you have set yourself a target it has never been a problem.  Motivation is just not something that really affects me.  I obviously have days when you know it is raining outside I am like not going to happen today.  And then I have other days when it was really snowing back in February I went for a run in the snow knowing too well that if I run in the snow then the next time I am not feeling too motivated to run in the rain I can turn round and go ‘oh come on you’ve done it in the snow you can do it in the rain’. So when I want to do it I go and do it, when I don’t I am like everybody else I will go and get a pizza and sit at home in front of the telly but I think you have to have that down time.

Kevin: I was going to ask do you think that is the art to who much you have been able to enjoy it particularly with the endurance aspect of what you do?

Richard: Yeah I think that is probably right.  I also have this silly attitude that people always ask me who fit is being fit.  Now for some people it is if they can walk up the escalator at the underground station others it is about you know if their child wants to go and kick a football for an hour are they fit enough to go and do that. I want to be able to walk down the high street and somebody come up to me and say ‘right you are running a marathon in an hour’s time’ and I can wholeheartedly turn round and go ‘alright that is fine’. That is where I deem as being at a reasonable level of fitness. Obviously once I then start focussing on a specific event from about three or four months out you are then very specialised you can’t just do everything.  For the triple Ironman for instance I was actually quite strong when I started doing the training. By the time I had finished doing the training and you know a week before the actual race I couldn’t do more than two or three press-ups but I had no need to have that upper body strength because it was all going through my legs. Having said that one of the reasons hopefully it will continue that I don’t get injured so much is because I am doing a little bit of everything. If I want to do an endurance session but I am interested in how strong I am I might do three hours on the rowing machine because not only does that work your strength it also is a great cardio workout.  So I sort of twin it a little bit. But essentially there is just not a whole lot going on upstairs and I can just switch off.

Kevin: Well let’s talk about that.

Richard: Some days I will start running and like everybody else five minutes later I will have a stitch and throw a bit of a hissy fit and just decide enough is enough and other days I can just go on forever.

Kevin: Do you think the answer is just listening to your body in your case anyway?

Richard: Yes I think it is.  If you train and train and train and don’t actually rest you are running a slight gauntlet especially if you haven’t got a medical team behind you and all that kind of thing.  And that’s what comes back to the whole amateur professional thing.  Professionals and if anybody is a professional listening to this I don’t want to offend them but as far as I can work out they get out of bed and train, have breakfast, train again, have lunch, rest, train, sleep and then do it all over again. Don’t get me wrong it is a very hard lifestyle but they do generally have physios at their disposals, nutritionists you know all that kind of thing. For an amateur they are trying to fit it all around their day job so they do have their pros and cons. Motivation has never been a problem, preparation for me is key to all these events so I just try and structure my training to a way that I know that I can cope with. You know if I am going on holiday and I know I can’t cycle and I know I can’t swim you can always run. So I may not run for two weeks leading up to that holiday knowing that week is going to be purely going out for an hour’s run a day just to keep things ticking over so when I come home I don’t feel like I have lost a whole week.

I also in my training schedule whatever I am training for I always do six weeks on and one week off. So I always have one week where I can just do nothing and that is another way of me breaking it up into small little targets.  You know in six weeks time I want to be able to ride 100 miles and then I get a week off. That’s just the way that I do it.

Kevin: You’ve already said about the importance of writing down your list of goals. Do you also do the same when you are actually training?

Richard: I don’t have so many goals but I have targets, it’s slightly different.

Kevin: Okay.

Richard: For me goals are kind of like achievements whereas targets are kind of a way to achieve your achievements.

Kevin: Interesting.

Richard: I knew doing the triple Ironman that I couldn’t do the cycle ride unless I got to 180 miles in my training.  180 miles is my target finishing the bike leg of the triple Ironman was my goal. That’s how I kind of look at it. You know when you are on your bike for six/seven hours a day you have a lot of time to think about you know the following week what training are you going to do, how you are feeling.  You know some days you will go out and blitz a two/three hour bike ride other days half an hour into the wind will be a nightmare.  You probably know that if you have done that half hour into the wind you need a day off the following day just to freshen your mind up.  You know targets and goals are slightly different in my mind.  The thing about all this stuff is that everybody is going to have a slightly different variation and that’s why people get quite cagy about what they are training for or what their training schedule is.  Nutrition is very important but if you are working full time having to eat the calories then you have just got to stuff it however you want to.  You know if I can get 1000 calories from an Easter egg or 1000 calories from a massive bowl of pasta which takes 20 minutes to prepare I will probably go for the Easter egg.  Everything has to be considered into what is working for you.  Everybody thinks I am going to be very healthy and that kind of thing and I generally am but I know I don’t eat enough fruit and veg and I also drink quite a lot of diet coke.  You know those are two what you might think are quite fundamental things to either have or not have in your diet but I am an amateur.  I go to a petrol station I look at the sweets and think I am going to have a few of those.  Fortunately I can get away with the calories but yeah the sugars aren’t great.

Kevin: You said when we were preparing for the interview; you said what sort of calories you were taking in when you were actually full blown into that triple Ironman.

Richard: Yeah the triple Ironman was insane I was working about 35 – 40 hours a week, the race was in October and my biggest training months were July and august but I was training about 30 hours a week for that eight week period but I was also having to eat about 7000 calories a day and that was quite hard.  That was really hard just to get it in you.  Things like chocolate milkshakes, ice cream doesn’t sound great but chocolate bars.  Basically when you do a triple Ironman if you enjoy your food it’s the best thing to do in the world because you just get to eat yourself silly every single day.  It is like Christmas Day every day.  And yeah there are some very calorie rich foods that you can have.  You want to try and stay away from as much fat as possible.  Sugars are not ideal but at the same time if you are burning the sugars then they are not too bad it is if they then become fats then it gets harder.  But at the same time you do need some kind of reserves in your body.  You know your body has a certain amount of calories in store it won’t allow you to get below a certain level because they reserve the brain but your body does need fuel the whole time.  You never, ever go on your bike ride without taking ten pounds in your back pocket because you never know when you are going to pass that petrol station and you just need a flapjack, you just need a sandwich, you just need an orange juice whatever it is.  And those are things that you just pick up as you go along and you talk to a lot of people, you find out what works for them and you just take bits and bobs of it and then you come up with your own strategy.

Kevin: Yeah.  And let’s actually just talk about the event now itself.  So I thought, so I guess I naively thought that when we were going to sit down for this you were going to say that you do very intensive mental exercises to prepare your mind for competitions and blah, blah, blah but it actually sounds that you just sort of, well as you said earlier, you switch off.

Richard: Yeah the hard thing about the visualisation which say Johnny Wilkinson uses a lot is all about seeing what is going to happen before it actually happens.  It is very difficult to do that when you are doing an event for the first time and you are going to a location for a first time you can’t visualise the bike ride because you don’t know what the bike ride has in store.  So the visualisation of things doesn’t really happen that much for me.  I do think about what I am doing and I do imagine what it will be like but I can’t actually visualise exactly what it is going to be like.  I then have a plan and I actually break the races down.  So the triple Ironman was a 7.2 mile swim which was 18 laps of a lake so I broke that down into three lots of six.  I knew that if I could do that then I could put it in more manageable chunks that I could relate to.  The plan was to then have a two minutes drink break between each one and that worked very well.  I then, I think I came out the water in about three and a half hours which was second out of a field of about 18 – 19.  Then I jumped on the bike and the bike was a five mile loop that you just kept going round and around.  Now that might sound really boring for 336 miles but again it is a kind of three laps to go then I have some food, two laps to go then I get a sleep whatever, however you are going to break it down.  For me that works very, very well.

Kevin: Interesting and each time breaking it down into measurable chunks.

Richard: Just breaking it down so I never looked at the bike as a 336 mile bike ride.  I just took that straight out of my mind and I think I broke it down into three hours or 50 miles whichever came first.  What I hadn’t anticipated was how hilly it was going to be.  It was quite a hilly five mile course which meant that I never did 50 miles in three hours I was always about 48 or 47 miles.  So every three hours I would stop and have some food, sit down, maybe get a slight massage on my legs and it was really important to have a game plan and stick to it from the beginning.  There is no point, and this is across the board in any sport, to go as far as you can and then start to slow down because eventually you will come to a standstill.  You have got to start slow and just keep on going at that race and you will increase your distance tenfold over quite happily.

So I had this sort of plan got to about midnight on the first night because we started at seven in the morning and it was over in Washington and I hadn’t given myself enough time for the time difference because I went with the attitude that if I didn’t get over the jetlag when it was three in the morning their time it was going to be as far as I was concerned eight in the morning my time and I would be ready to go.  Whereas when it was light there I would imagine it was dark at home at three o’clock in the morning at home.  So I figured that the jetlag might actually play to my advantage it didn’t.  So I really struggled about midnight I started to find myself falling asleep whilst peddling.  I took a 20 minute catnap round the start/finish area because I bought myself a tent and had a tent there.  I had two of those with 20 minutes cycling in between and that cycling in between I kept falling asleep.  After second catnap of 20 minutes I started peddling again and I think I managed half an hour – 40 minutes and just turned around to my crew and said I have got to sleep for an hour I was just dying, absolutely dying and I knew that if I tried to struggle through it would come back and kick me in the backside during the run.

So I took a sleep for an hour and I got back on the bike I was actually not too bad I just sort of stuck to my guns every three hours or 50 miles I would stop have some food, made sure that certainly through the night and the early part of the morning I had some hot food because it was getting quite cold at night time and early morning.  And I came off the bike in 27 hours and was back down at 13th or 14th position.  I was devastated I had done all the hard work in the swim.  I thought the bike I was quite strong at and I messed up completely I was way down the field and I was upset.  The leader at the time was a guy called Tom he had met me during the double Ironman the year before and he was running quite hard and I said to Tom why are you running you have got hours ahead of everybody, he was about three hours ahead.  And he said to me I know you are coming.  And I was like what do you mean by that and he said I know how fast you can run and I am worried that you are going to catch me.  That for me was worth a million dollars because no one had ever taken any notice of what I was trying to do.  I am just a regular person you know I run a four hour marathon it is nothing fast but to have the leader of an event like that be worried that I might catch him was a massive privilege.  I was like ‘alright something is a bit wrong in your head but come on let’s keep going’ and I stuck to my guns.  It was a two mile loop the run and there was quite a steep 400 meter hill to begin with.  So I decided to walk the hill every single lap on that walk I would take in all my calories, all my water and then I would run the rest.  And I did that for the first 50 odd miles having had a few people beginning to drop out because you know the sheer fatigue and not being able to finish.  I then had a slightly dodgy period when I got a horrific bleeding nose about two o’clock in the second night which is a sign in my mind that your blood is beginning to thin and your organs are beginning to say you know what I’ve kind of had enough here.  And I knew the doctor was around and I knew that if he saw me the chances are he was going to pull me out.  Well after 44 hours of going I wasn’t going to stop so I actually put a couple of bits of tissue up my nose ran into my little tent and told my crew to wake me up in half an hour.  Got up half an hour later which felt like just a second, I remember going in there and then all of a sudden Julian was pulling my legs saying right time to get up and I was like ‘l’ve only just got in here’ and he was like no you have been asleep for half an hour.  Took the tissue out my nose, fortunately it had stopped bleeding that was all I needed that half an hour, started running again and crossed the finish line in fourth position over all with a think, I think it was a 19 or 20 hour run split which was actually one of the fastest in the world that year for the triple Ironman event.  And when I did come home everybody said you are just walking differently you have just got your head held so much higher because I never really achieved anything that I felt was that much different to what the normal person does.  I know that sounds silly but that is just how it was.

The race was in Washington and you know you run down the final straights and the little kids would run up to you with a Union Jack flag and then the Americans would get the national anthem playing whilst you were going down so you know I was the first Brit home and God Save the Queen was on and I was holding my flag and stuff and it just made you feel like a million dollars and even when I go to somewhere like Twickenham now or any kind of sporting event and the National Anthem comes on I always get a little goose bumps at the back of my neck from doing the triple Ironman.  It was by far the hardest thing I have ever done and hopefully it won’t be the hardest thing that I will ever have done by the end but yeah that was a real eye opener.  And to be 25/26 you know certainly one of the top ten youngest people to ever have finished it.  Because endurance as well which probably should have said earlier is not about a 12 week training camp it is an accumulation over the years.  So the peak for triple Ironman, this is what’s kind of scary for me, is that it is probably about 42 – 48 something like that and to think that I am 28 now if I was to come back in ten years time just how much faster could I go.  Could I actually start becoming the fastest person ever.  It is a very strange concept to get your head around but then maybe when  I am 40 I will be like had enough I have done what I wanted to do and that was it so.

Kevin: Do you think that’s somehow deep inside you is that driving you right now the thought that you could be the best?

Richard: It’s the excuse I use why people say to me why you are training on a Saturday night.  I don’t know I would like to think that I would never do the same event twice just because there are so many amazing things out there.  Ideally I would like to do something that nobody has ever done before by the end.  If I do that I would like to think that I would just hang my boots up.

Kevin: Well the interesting thing is that we are about to come on to something else that is very interesting that you have done so Richard what I would like to do that was a lovely synopsis of your triple Ironman event and the events leading up to that so let’s take a break for a minute and then we will come back and do part two of this interview.

Richard: Sounds good.

Music

Kevin: Richard thank you very much for joining us on the Podcast and sharing your incredible story.  Yet again we have found an individual who consider themselves very normal yet a person who has consistently applied themselves to accomplish a very extraordinary feat. Time and time again Richard referred to the importance of creating a series of realistic targets in his training and in the events that would take him to his end goal.  And lets also not forget how Richard overcame a great personal challenge in the process in this case his back problem explaining how whenever he was told ‘no you can’t’ he channelled those negative messages into positive motivation.

I will keep this nice and short as I am sure you are all very keen to listen to part two of Richard’s interview which will be Episode 36 of the Podcast.  Thanks again to everyone at Jenrick Recruitment for their amazing support and to Elliot Cole for introducing us to Richard.  I will leave you with a great track from Xerxes to finish with today and it’s called ‘BA1’.

Music

As well as being  a triple ironman finisher, Richard Hume is also one a very select group of people to have completed the Atlantic Ocean Rowing Race.

This gruelling 3,000 mile event, which can take over 80 days to complete, challenges competitors in ways not comparible to most other endurance events.

Dealing with the isolation, the monotony, the sickness, in addition to the extreme elements of the Altantic Ocean, can all prove too much for so many people who attempt this incredible event.

Yet, as Richard will describe in his interview, competing in a race of this magnitude is only one of the many challenges that an amateur athlete has to overcome.

Key messages from Richard:

• Time and time again Richard referred to the importance of creating a series of realistic targets, in his training and in the events, that would take him to his end goal.
• Let’s not also forget how Richard overcame a great personal challenge in the process, in this case his back problem, explaining how, whenever he was told ‘no you can’t’, he channelled those negative messages into positive motivation.

Additional notes and resources (just click on the links for more information):

• Richard Hume’s website - CLICK HERE to visit the ‘Challenge Chaser’ website
• Wikipedia – CLICK HERE to visit wikipedia’s ultra-ironman page
  

Interview Transcription:

• Transcript: How I rowed the Atlantic – Richard Hume (Max#36)
  

Being able to complete an ironman event is said to be one of the most extreme tests of mental and physical endurance on the planet.

Competing continuously for over 12 hours; swimming 2 ½ miles, then cycling for 112 miles before completing a 26 mile marathon, will push anyone to their absolute limits.

However, now try and imagine how you would feel if those figures were tripled.

Richard Hume, completed a grueling 7.2-mile swim, 336-mile bike ride and 78.6-mile run, finishing in just over 52 hours and in the process became one of the fastest ever triple ironman finishers for his age group.

Key messages from Richard:

• Time and time again Richard referred to the importance of creating a series of realistic targets, in his training and in the events, that would take him to his end goal.
• Let’s not also forget how Richard overcame a great personal challenge in the process, in this case his back problem, explaining how, whenever he was told ‘no you can’t’, he channelled those negative messages into positive motivation.

Additional notes and resources (just click on the links for more information):

• Richard Hume’s website - CLICK HERE to visit the ‘Challenge Chaser’ website
• Wikipedia – CLICK HERE to visit wikipedia’s ultra-ironman page
  

Interview Transcription:

• Transcript: Becoming a Triple Ironman – Richard Hume (Max#35)
  

Photography is one of the most competitive industries in the world, it’s cut throat and can be very hard to acquire clients. In a way I have always viewed my favourite photographers in the same way that some people view celebrities. I feel they must possess something I that I could never have – an unobtainable talent that separates the pros from everyday folks like me.

To feel unworthy in an industry that’s inundated with amazing talent is not abnormal. However, to let your dreams be dragged down by what is a rather surface outlook is no way to approach your goals.

It’s important to believe in yourself, to believe that with hard work you can acquire whatever you want out of life (forgive the cliché), but it wasn’t until I had met some of the photographers that I admired so much that I began to change my outlook on my career as they too went through the same psychological battle that we all do when starting off in a new walk of life.

I recently came across a photographer I admired on one of the Maximise Potential Podcasts (Giles Christopher).

I think the inspiration and encouragement one can get from hearing from a professional, well, award-winning photographer talking about their own path and struggles is incredible.

It has really got me thinking that I can do it!

Why not me?

I’m currently working on a proposal for a commission that’s in the pipeline. It will consist of a series of portraits for an electronic record label, plus with the networking I’m doing at the moment along with the newly found confidence I have been given, I feel I can get to where I want to be. It’s surprising what you can do with a little guidance and believing in yourself.

Thank you Giles, and thank you to the Maximise Potential website for helping me approach my goals with the right attitude.

I hope others find the site to be as inspiring as I did.

If you would like to see how I’m doing then you can visit my website: www.samnobes.co.uk or follow me on twitter @samnobesphoto.

Hi Sam,

I’d just like to personally thank you for submitting your story and I’m so pleased Giles’ interview has had such a positive impact on your mindset.

It seems as though you can really visualise a career for yourself in photography now and from all of us at Maximise Potential, we wish you all the best!

Please keep us informed of your progress.

Kevin

FURTHER RESOURCES:

• Motivating interview: Click here to listen to a motivating interview with Matthew Syed
• Articles and Resources: Click here to view more articles on Matthew Syed
  

Bonita Norris, the youngest British woman to have climbed Mount Everest, has now also successfully climbed Ama Dablam (6,856m) in the Nepalese Himalaya.

Reaching the peak of Ama Dablam is a fantastic achievement for Bonita. She promised herself to take on the mountain, often named the world’s most beautiful, after admiring it on her Everest expedition last year.

Bonita said:

“I made a pact with myself last year that I would return to Khumbu to attempt Ama Dablam, looking at it from afar it is simply a beautiful mountain and a great route requiring a fair amount of skill to climb.”

Bonita was the first of her team to reach the summit at 11.45am on 17 November with her climbing Sherpa, Lakpa Onju, who also accompanied her on her record-breaking Everest expedition.

“Ama Dablam is the most beautiful mountain I have ever seen. I had my doubts whether I would be able to get to the top as it is a challenging climb but when we got onto the mountain things just felt right. I have been working hard on my climbing technique and fitness this year and the hard work paid off. I was with my climbing Sherpa from Everest, Lakpa, and together we stormed the summit and got back to camp safely and in quick time. The whole experience was brilliant and I felt very lucky to be there.”

“On the summit Lakpa and I were alone – we were the first to the top that day and felt like we had the whole mountain to ourselves. We sat down with Everest right behind us and I finally got to thank him properly for helping to save my life after exactly 18 months to the day when he helped me down Everest when I was injured. It was a moment I will never forget.”

Bonita and her Sherpa summated the mountain five days after leaving base camp, and returned to camp 3 two hours after reaching the top.

“There is nothing that makes me feel more alive than to be climbing towards a summit that has taken months of work and preparation. It is only when you stop to catch your breath that you can take in the incredible views and reflect on all the hard work that has got you to that moment. Feeling the warm sun on your face and watching the tiny shards of ice sparkle in the light is a reminder of how high up you are and that the top is not far off. It is definitely these moments that make all the suffering, cold and homesickness that accompany an expedition such as this worthwhile. It was just like on Ama Dablam – just incredible.”

“After sustaining an injury during the descent of Everest, I was determined to get down Ama Dablam without any problems. I felt like I had something to prove to myself and especially to Lakpa that I was capable of climbing big peaks without suffering from injuries. It was the fire that I needed to get up and down as fast and as safely as possible.”

Article Source: outdoorsmagic.com

FURTHER RESOURCES:

The 32-year-old wheelchair racer from Wallington had a 12 months to remember last season, with triple gold at the IPC World Championships in New Zealand over 800m, 1500m and 5000m added to by London Marathon and New York Marathon success.

But he opted to miss the race in the Big Apple earlier this month with his focus turning to winning gold at the Olympic Stadium in Stratford in September.

“A good block of winter training is something I have missed in the past, because I am either at a World Championships or I’ve been injured or ill,” he said.

“So I just wanted to get in there early this year to get me going towards next year.

“Last season was a long season and I started from September with the Great North Run and then New York and then the World Championships and a full track season and a full road season so it was very tough.

“But that is what we do every year so I was alright about it, but I did need that break around August time when our baby was born.

“New York was maybe in the plan for this year but realistically I didn’t want to push my shoulder too much and 2012 is the big one for me so I can’t really mess about and do other races, even though I love New York.

“Because I won it last year I really wanted to go back and defend my title but London 2012 is the big one and I have to make some sacrifices along the way.”

Having been the only member of the British team to claim track gold at the Beijing 2008 Paralympics, Weir is only too aware that the spotlight will be on him to deliver in the capital next year.

“I thrive on the pressure that is on me for London 2012 and I have got used to it now,” he added.

“It took me a long time to get to the top and once you are at the top it is hard to stay there so you learn to deal with it and I deal with it every year.”

The Aviva and Daily Telegraph School Sport Matters Awards recognise outstanding achievements in school sport across the country, and are part of Aviva’s wider commitment to support the next generation of British sporting talent. For more information go to aviva.co.uk/athletics

ARTICLE SOURCE:

• Wimbledon Guardian.co.uk
  

FURTHER ARTICLES AND RESOURCES

• Exclusive Interview: Click here to listen to an inspiring interview with David Weir

• Articles: Click here to read more articles on David Weir
  

You know the thing that happens when we hear those sorts of phrases?  Our brain immediately asks “uh, oh – what’s wrong?” or “oh dear, I need to brace myself for a problem” and so we’re automatically on the look out – or listening out – for a problem.

Ask yourself this.  “Is it useful for me and for what I want to say to have people listening out for a problem?”  No.  We both know it’s actually counter-productive.  When we start to scare people off or put them on the alert, we’re telling them that we’re thinking about something as a problem.  They may not.  They may actually decide it’s an opportunity or have a spin on the subject that you haven’t thought of and often you can come across as a worrier or a ‘scaremonger’ without actually meaning to.

The more savvy, effective way to draw someone’s attention to something tricky is to present it as a challenge or something to solve and introduce it that way.

Here are a few quick examples for you to introduce the thing you’re a bit concerned about or see as a ‘problem’ but without labeling it as one at the outset:

• Now, here’s something I know you’ll have some thoughts on…
• What ideas do you have about ….
• This could be a bit tricky, how will we get around this….
• I’ve been thinking about this and know that you’ll be able to help…
• How are we going to avoid ….

By presenting the information in the form of a challenge or by presuming that the other person will have ideas about it or a solution you do 3 savvy things, straight away:

• You come across as someone who is both open to a challenge and always looking for the solution

• You prime the other person to be ‘up’ for the challenge by presuming they’ll be able to help and posing them a helpful question rather than presenting them with a problem (What ideas do you have; How can we; What do we do about)

• You avoid that whole scaremonger, doom-and-gloom way “what I’m afraid of is” and “the worst thing is” by actually planting the suggestion of blocks or bumps in the road and scaring people off.

So, the next time you hear someone say “well, the trouble is”, presume that they really only need to flip it and think to yourself “well, the trick here is, how do we…” and then off you go and lead the hunt for the solution.

Here’s the chance to see a great, short 2 minute video from my friend in Montana, Scout Wilkins.  I’ve recommended this video to people for years to help them flip the problem and look for an easier solution and I know it works.  It’s had over 10,000 views and you’ll see my recommendation for it on Scout’s page and I hope it helps you in the same way too.

How do I learn more about Kay?

To have the opportunity to discuss any blind spots you know you have or things that are slowing you down or holding you back as you connect, persuade and compel people at work; click here to apply for a complimentary conversation with Kay.

Article reproduced with permission of Kay White, Communication Specialist and Mentor at www.wayforwardsolutions.com. Kay shows professionals how to be understood. Get quicker, faster and better results by becoming a more effective, influential and savvy communicator – everywhere in your life.

In addition, you can listen to an exclusive interview with Kay where she shares several exclusive tips on how to immediately make your communication more powerful and persuasive: http://www.maximisepotential.co.uk/how-to-develop-effective-powerful-communication/

Kevin: Welcome to Maximise Potential the podcast to educate and motivate through a range of original interviews designed to help you maximise your potential.  Brought to you in association with the award winning recruitment group Jenrick.

Welcome back to Episode 34 of the Maximise Potential podcast.  No matter if you are responsible for a business, or focussing on developing your career the current environment is arguably the most competitive, uncertain and challenging that anyone has ever known.  As a result we felt it was essential to invite an expert onto the podcast who can enable us to understand how we can operate and succeed within such restrictive parameters.

Gavin Ingham is widely regarded as one of the UK’s leading sales trainers, adding value to individuals and companies from all industries and sectors.  In today’s interview Gavin discusses a topic which is critical if we are to survive in today’s environment – ‘Sales’.  This interview will be incredibly helpful for everyone to understand what sales really is, and how you apply simple techniques to add substantial value to your products, your services and even to you as an individual.  Here is Gavin to help us all understand and embrace the new rules of selling.

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Gavin welcome to the Maximise Potential Podcast.

Gavin: Hi.

Kevin: We’re going to be dealing with well something that is relevant in everybody’s world right now.  We are in a very uncertain business time and it is going to be uncertain for the foreseeable future and you are a specialist at helping people improve sales. And that is very much in your opinion as well and not just your opinion but in what you communicate to other people sales has to be fundamentally the core driver of any business and yet it surprises you and continues to surprise you how many businesses that you end up speaking with where it doesn’t tend to be the underlying or the core strategy that they embrace.

Gavin: Yeah it is interesting when the recession started some years ago people looked at it and you had two choices really.  One was to sell more, and the other one was to cut costs and everybody did the cut costs thing but one of the areas a lot of people cut costs around was training, development, recruitment and support of sales staff.  So I saw sales teams who weren’t allowed to go on meetings, weren’t allowed to go to conferences, weren’t allowed to hold stands at conferences that they had previously always done.  And then people were surprised when they didn’t bring in as many sales or people didn’t invest in the training of sales staff and were surprised when they didn’t bring in as many sales.  And I think people sometimes tend to see things as either or and I get this in quite a lot of areas of what I do where there is something different happening and people make a decision that they think something but then because they are thinking something you can’t think something else.  And it is almost like people are either cutting costs or increasing sales but you can’t do both at the same time and I don’t see why you can’t build sales and reduce costs even if those costs don’t have anything to do with sales.

So I think in the current economy at the current time the important thing is to be getting out there and building more sales.  The important thing is to be getting out there and reaching new customers and the important thing is to be getting out there, getting your brand out there and getting people aware of yourself and that is selling.

And I think there is another element to this as well because I think in the current market everybody needs to be able to sell because they need to be able to sell their organisation to the people within the organisation because I think in the current market a lot of people just don’t believe in the organisations.  They don’t believe they have got security in their jobs so you have got to be able to sell on a whole variety of levels to run a successful company in today’s marketplace.

Kevin: Well let me ask you a bit about that.  There will be a good chunk of the audience who receive this podcast who I would say are directly within a sales environment but we also have a big audience who are probably internal or consider themselves internal within a company and only have internal relationships within the company and you just touched on that there to say well actually it is everybody’s responsibility and it sounds like a very much a mindset issue of changing a mindset and getting into that mode of actually you can all sell in your own environments.

Gavin: I think that’s right.  I mean the first thing is that very few people are truly internal so the only way I would accept that anybody is truly internal and doesn’t need to be aware of sales is if they never answer the phone.  Anybody who ever picks up the phone, anybody who ever talks to the organisation needs to have a sales mentality.  But even if somebody is truly internal, truly internal they still need to have a sales mentality because they need to be able to sell internally to sponsors within the business.  They need to be able to sell their ideas to other people within their teams and at the very least they need to be able to support the sales teams so they need to be able to support the sales efforts.

Kevin: I am going to ask you in a second what a sales mentality is.

Gavin: Yes.

Kevin: But before we even do that tell me what is sales?

Gavin: That is a good question and I certain think it is one that is badly misunderstood.  It is something that a lot of people would give you a lot of different answers to so this is my take on what selling is in the current environment to be successful right now.  But before I do that I will tell you what it is not because I think what a lot of people think selling is, is getting a product, getting a service deciding why it is good for people, going out there knocking down doors and persuading, convincing, coercing people to buy it. I don’t see it that way at all I see it as adding value for people.  I see it as understanding what people want or what they need whether that is an impulse purchase based on something they want, or whether in particularly business to business sales, it is something where they are solving an issue or a challenge that they want.  Finding out whether they really need t solve it and then adding something which adds value for them that they can make a decision and go yeah I want to do that.  And it is facilitating that process to help people make the right decisions.

And I think it is a great question because one of the challenges you know when we went into the recession was everybody said well that is it capitalism has failed.  It is not capitalism that has failed because capitalism like sales for me is about adding value and being paid commensurably with that value.  What failed was greed.  And I think greed is dead.  I think when you look at a lot of sales people, a lot of sales people were greedy it was about themselves, it was about can I make a sale at the expensive of other people.  And as we are going too probably talk about later on selling is about adding value and if you are not adding value then you need to go and find other customers or you need to change your product.  You don’t want to just convince people that they have buy it irrespective.  And I think there is a very few sales people for a variety of reasons who have that mentality but when you get that mentality right then there is some real value in what you do and you have got the ability to be able to actually kick start an economy, kick start a country and actually get people doing the right thing and people valuing that.  I think if people aren’t valuing what you do then you are not a real sales person in my mind.

Kevin: And I guess that comes back to where you said about the starting point for this which is it has to start off at the core of the business because I would assume that there is a huge chunk of companies and the ones that you have come across that are probably experiencing the largest amounts of problems, they probably don’t understand the value that they actually deliver. They probably don’t understand who they are as a business and what they stand for as a business.

Gavin: I think few companies understand the value that they truly deliver.  Some perhaps because they don’t deliver a value or because they just picked a price.  Others because they haven’t asked the right questions, they haven’t understood at the real level the real value that they deliver to businesses, to individuals and when you look at sales people a lot of sales people don’t truly understand that either.  They understand their product, they understand their customers, they understand what their product does and they probably understand some generic advantages or some generic benefits but they don’t truly understand individual companies, how individual companies loose out and what that means to them on the deepest level.  How does it impact not only sales figures but how does it impact the efficiency of the company, the moral of the company. And when you start getting in to it most sales people sell at the wrong level therefore they don’t truly understand that value.  And unless you can understand the value then you can’t deliver value and I think that is the critical thing.

To take a step back from it for a moment as well because most selling is something we do, it is something we tell sales people to do.  It is something we feel we have to do and it is almost like we are going out to do it to people.  So it is go out knock on doors and sell something.  We don’t say go out understand clients look for areas you can add value and then provide that value for them.  And if you can’t provide that value then you know what go and find somebody you can, tell that client you can’t add value and walk away because it is the only way to have integrity and to be honest and to really deliver true benefits in today’s marketplace.

Kevin: And I think you touched on a key thing there and you said it there asking the right questions.  And I think we have all been at the receiving end and if we switch seats here for a second and just you know put ourselves on the receiving end of all those sales calls that we all receive so few of them ask questions do they.

Gavin: No they don’t and I think it is one of the ironies that sales speakers and sales trainers who have been teaching questions since the year dot and yet despite all of that people don’t do it.  And the interesting thing here is that is because I don’t believe that is a skills issue.  Now what I am not saying is then don’t teach how to question because I do think there is a process behind questioning and I think you need to understand that process.  I also think you need to understand some basic skills of questioning.  And I think it actually links back to mindset because if all you want to do is persuade somebody to buy something then you either don’t ask any questions at all, or every question you ask is purely to try and back somebody into a corner so that they say what you wanted them to say in the first place so that you can say ah now we have got something that will solve that issue for you.  Whereas I would say the true mindset, the true best sales mindset is one of genuinely caring.  Genuinely wanting to understand somebody’s business, genuinely wanting to understand what is going on for them and whether you truly can add value or not.  And the only way you can do that is by showing genuine interest and I think most sales people mindsets, the level of interest is just enough to cursorily ask a few questions but it is not enough to be genuinely interested in somebody’s business.

And of course the interesting thing here is a lot of people talk about the barrier to the sale, the lack of honesty coming from clients well yeah of course they will be dishonest if they think all you are going to try and do is take whatever they say and manipulate it to try and sell them something.  But when people start to get gosh you know what this person is actually genuinely interested in me, genuinely interested in my business and is actually asking really inelegant questions then all of a sudden they start to open up and they start to talk to you.

Kevin: And I think there, I think what you are doing there is putting it in perspective and saying that it is not just asking the questions but it is actually conducting the research initially and it is coming up with a proposition for going back on quote on quote but where you can actually add value to their business operation.

Gavin: For sure.  The days of the bodge it, blag it and wing it natural charismatic sales person in all but smalls sales are probably gone because I think one of the big changes of the last five years, the last ten years of course is the internet and the amount of information that is available on the internet.  And I think once upon a time you were able to go along to a company and present them with something and they would go wow we had never heard of that or wow we didn’t know you could do that.  And whilst I am not saying that is impossible even if you do have that window of opportunity now it would be very, very small and it would be shut very, very quickly.  So people know so much more about you.  They know so much more about the products, they know so much more about the solutions and they expect you to as well.  There is no excuse to ask some of the ridiculous questions.  I mean I had a guy rang me up the other day he pitched me for some advertising for about ten minutes and I tend to take these calls and I tend to listen because I like to hear what people are doing and he pitched for about ten minutes and then I thought well enough is enough and I threw him a rejection.  And when I threw him the rejection he backed out of out which was probably the right thing to do and he asked a question which was probably also the right thing to do.  But it was the sheer stupidity of the question, and the question he asked was ‘so I am real interested tell me what exactly do you do anyway Gavin?’

Well he is not interested is he because if he had put Gavin Ingham into Google he would have thousands of entries that would have all said Sales Speaker, Sales Trainer, Sales Expert whatever and it would have been clearly obvious what I did.  So he had clearly not even done the most basic of five second research.  And I think what that research shows is not only does it allow you to ask those intelligent questions but it also it demonstrates integrity, it demonstrates credibility, it demonstrates that you care about your clients, it demonstrates that you are a serious business player.  And it is sad to say but so many sales people just don’t do that.  And I think that is this top down thing because clearly people above them are not stressing the importance of that, they are not training that, they are not making sure that those people actually care enough about their clients, that they care enough about their prospects to actually do that research to ask those questions.

Kevin: And I think as well what you have summed up there and I know you spend an awful lot of time on courses dealing with cold calling and techniques for cold calling confidence, and one of the biggest issues you come up against when people are making calls is actually having the confidence to make those calls.  But going back on what you were just saying or leading on from it should I say is if you do the preparation, you understand your value, you understand where you can actually add value to the organisation you are calling then surely that is when you suddenly see the confidence appearing because people actually feel as if they have got a genuine reason to call.

Gavin: Sure, totally.  There are many elements that lead to confidence of course but the preparation element is one.  And I think the knowing that you are adding value and that you are an expert in what you do is another.  If you are just ringing people and you are making 50 calls in a morning or you are going to an event or you are knocking on a door or whatever it is and you have done no research then actually your confidence really is misplaced.  I mean you are a bit like one of those people who can’t sing but all your mates told you you could going on to the X Factor.  I don’t want you to go onto the X Factor and say because people sometimes misconstrue this about me when they say oh well but you are all about the motivation and I am not all about the motivation, I am not all about the confidence in that I think people should have it where it is not justified.  I think it should be justified so I want you to be a great singer and then go on to X Factor.  I want you to be a great sales person and then make the call.  And part of being a great sales person is in doing that research, is in knowing that there is a good chance that you can add value. I mean taking cold calling as an example there is a lot of people saying that cold calling doesn’t work anymore.  They are thoroughly wrong.  What doesn’t work anymore is spam cold calling.  And I think it is the difference between spam cold calling and legitimate cold calling.  And what is legitimate? Legitimate is I have done the research; legitimate is I genuinely believe there is a reason for this call.  Legitimate is if everything is as everything appears to be I think I can add value and I think if this person is to engage with me they are going to be glad that they engaged with me.  That is legitimate, that is legitimate and that is okay.  But it comes back down to that research and of course that gives you the confidence if you know well yeah I am interrupting them but my goodness me are they going to be pleased they took this call.

Kevin: Is this what we are getting into when you said genuine sales mentality?

Gavin: Yes I think the importance of the sales mentality, there is various elements of sales mentality but I think the first one is that you need to have this attitude of curiosity.  You need to have this attitude of caring.  You need to genuinely care about your clients and I think that needs to extend through a whole company.  And I think you need to look at every process that you have going on within an organisation and go is that about us or is that about our customers.  Do we actually care about our customers?  Because I think in today’s market there are a lot of big companies in particular who if you look at what they do you could hardly come to the conclusion that they care about the customers.  Now the fact that they then say on the TV or they then say on the radio advertising ‘we care about our customers’ you know if they don’t answer their phones, if they bounce you through 15 people, if they make you put all sorts of numbers in to prove who you are and then you get through and they say who are you calling.  That is not who are you that is not caring about your customers, that is about them and everybody knows it is.  Now the fact that some of those companies, because I think sometimes we will look at those companies and go well we can do that to.  No you can’t because the thing is there are few huge industries where there is five or six players, they can get away with that because there is nowhere else to go.  Whether they will be able to do it sustainably forever I don’t know but if you are a smaller size company or a medium size company and you want to take more market share or you want to increase your market share or protect your market share and you want to build loyal fans then you need to look at every transaction, every conversation and go is that about us or is that about our customers.  You need to genuinely care.  And it’s that genuinely caring that gets people to connect with you, gets people to open up with you.

The second one, and I am not going to go through all of them, but the second one is this value thing.  You need to add huge value.  So I think there is two elements to that.  You need to add value first and I think that is a big difference between some of the old style selling, some of the old style marketing.  People have definitely seen in a lot of industries that advertising, marketing, it’s become a lot less effective.  It has become more expensive, less effective.  People would argue that that is because people have been bombarded.  And I think to an extent that’s true but I also think that there is an expectation from people that they want to see you add some value first.  So you need to be looking at how does our company add value before or during that initial transaction.

The second thing is you need to be adding more value than you charge when you actually get to the point of charging.  And I think this is a really important point because a lot of companies at the moment are having price issues.  They are having customers coming back to them and saying we’re getting it cheaper elsewhere.  And then the companies say to me but we are better and I say well clearly the customer doesn’t think that, clearly the customer isn’t getting the value because if the customer was getting the value they wouldn’t be giving you the grief and they wouldn’t be leaving.  So the fact that you think your service is better is not relevant you have got to genuinely understand your customers, understand what they want that is going to add value, that is going to be better, you can’t just charge more because you have been in the marketplace five years longer.  The customer has to see some value in that and if they don’t see value in it then guess what you can’t charge that money.  And that’s what people are finding.  I think they are finding that they are having their values questioned, they are finding that they are having the very core of their services questioned because a lot of companies people go oh this is my product and this is my service and this is what I do lets add a bell or a whistle here, people will like that.  But they are not actually thinking about the customers because I think this is the important point value is always determined by the customer, always, not you the customer.

Kevin: And even if, and even in the current market where we are faced with people dropping prices left, right and centre.

Gavin: Yeah.

Kevin: How do you approach that with your clients when you actually say you can hold your margins?

Gavin: It’s a really difficult question to answer that one because clearly it is very, very case specific.  I think there are some clients with some companies where for whatever reasons the charge rate or the investment does not really reflect the real value that they are adding.  Now maybe that was because the companies had a lot of money at the time they signed off and they weren’t that bothered so they didn’t negotiate that hard, maybe market rates have changed, perhaps the value was up front but as the contract is renewed they should have been discounted but they never were.  So I think there certainly are some that sit into there and I think that is very, very difficult but what do you do in that scenario?

Then I think there are some that look like they are in that situation but they are not really.  Because what’s happened is the company has relied on the fact that they have got a certain amount of business with somebody, it comes up for renewal and actually the sales person has been remiss, they have been lazy, they have not been in contact, they have not been asking questions, they have not been understanding what has been going on in the business, they have not been understanding the changes, so the value that they once had is no longer there.  The relationship that they once had is no longer there because they have lost that contact.  It is amazing how many companies do a deal with somebody and then really only start talking to them properly again when it is coming up to renewal and if you think customers don’t get that of course they do.  And as soon as they have a choice then they are going to maybe take that choice.

I think that maybe then there is the third type of company, and the third type of companies are the ones that you do add value for.  And I also think there is an overall challenge that we can’t all be in the top tier of the marketplace.  There is an interesting question I ask of people on one of my negotiation courses and I say well look if you looked at your product, your industry, your service and you measured it from like the cheapest in the market to like the most expensive and you split it into quartiles so like the top 25% most expensive, the 25% just above half, the 25% that were below average and the 25% who are really cheap where would you see your company and your product being?  Now the interesting here is out of thousands of people I have asked this question nobody, I think I had one guy who put himself in the cheapest.  Very few people put themselves in the second one and the vast majority of people put themselves in the top two tiers.  Now mathematically that cannot be correct can it.  Everybody cannot be the most expensive.  So I think there is a misconception here to start with and I think you have to draw the line between negotiation practices from clients and reality.  But assuming that we have done that we also have to accept that different clients want different things so there are some clients who do want to buy the cheapest they don’t care about the extra value for whatever reasons and as a sales person, as an organisation you need to decide do we work with those people at all or do we need to go out and find new business.  Because I think every sales person will have had the experience of a nightmare client who is a nightmare through the whole process, a nightmare when they did the deal, they give them a great big discount and then they are a nightmare after that never coming off the phone constantly wanting support and they wished they had never taken them on.  On the other hand they have had clients that they spoke to, they immediately added value and everything has been great.  And you ask which is more profitable and it is the second one.  You ask which they prefer and it is the second one.  So you need to ask the question why are you doing business with the first one.  And if it is that you need to do business with the first one and the second one then you need to kind of red circle them as separate products or separate services.  I think a lot of time this coming back and negotiating business is about a lack of understanding of the business, a lack of understanding of the clients and a lack of understanding of where you add value and where you don’t add value.

Kevin: So this comes back to the very original point which you said which is go out and find more relevant clients that are right for your business.

Gavin: Yeah that is the crux of it isn’t it.  The crux of it is who are you targeting, who are your clients, what are the challenges and issues that they have got, why do they need to solve them, how much do they need to solve them, how compelling are those issues right now, how much value can you add in solving those.  And that boils down to what they are prepared to pay and what that investment is likely to be and how much they are going to actually respect that investment.  And the less it is the less they are going to pay, so the more transactional it is the more likely you are to get into a transactional issue with someone else.  But it is recognising is this transactional, is it value based and even if it is kind of sitting between both have we asked the questions, have we shown the interest, have we done the stuff to find the real value.

Kevin: And is this predominantly the difference between the companies that continue to do well regardless of market conditions and the ones that then when the market conditions get a bit tougher they are the ones that begin to fall by the wayside?

Gavin: Yes.

Kevin: It is that simple isn’t it.

Gavin: I think we need to be adding value.  And I think if you look at anybody or anything or any business or any sales person who is successful long term they understand that there is a direct link between the value they add and the amount that you get paid.  I mean as a general rule even the whole of the UK economy how do we need to export more stuff.  I guess we need to be competitively priced but we need to add more value that is the bottom line.  We don’t have to be the cheapest in the world, we don’t have to compete with the cheapest people but we have to add value that people are prepared to pay for.  It is not good enough going ‘British made’.  You know that is not good enough, it might get you an extra little bit but people actually have to see a value in that.  People have to understand the value and that’s about you understanding your clients.  It is about you understanding who is buying and it is about adding real value.  And another big one is more value than that which you are being paid.  Provided you are in that bucket, the more you are in that bucket the better it is.

Kevin: So where do we start with that, how do we? I mean I know you have touched on various things but how do we start by getting more firms to look inwardly at themselves and start getting people really looking both from a personal perspective at the value they are adding but also then from the value that they can really add to their client base?

Gavin: Wow well I suppose you are quite right.  Let’s extend the podcast to three weeks shall we, we can discuss it in detail.  I think it starts with individuals and I think we need to help individuals to realise the link between helping others, the link between caring about others and their own success in life because there is an intrinsic link and I think that link to a large extent has been lost by a lot of people.  And I think the way all these things need to start is from the top down.  So you need CEO’s, you need Sales Directors; you need Managing Directors who actually care about the people in the organisation.  People who actually go I know that if I add value for my staff then my staff will feel loyalty towards me and surely you should be continuing to believe in your staff and invest in your staff.  So I think you need to look at your staff, you need to value your staff and to do that you have got to ask yourself what do my staff value?  And that is really, really important.  So I think it starts there.

I think the second thing is to look at creating a sales culture.  And by a sales culture I mean a culture that cares about clients.  Now yes they need to understand sales processes but sales process can only happen after you care about clients and we have got to find a way of getting every member of staff to feel that way, genuinely that way.  And for me it is the difference between doing something and actually being something.

Kevin: Go on explain that a bit more.

Gavin: Well I think a lot of people do questions or they do a process but they don’t, they don’t actually necessarily believe it.  They don’t necessarily believe so they ask a few cursory questions but they are not really interested.  They say something they don’t really mean it they are just saying it because somebody told them that that’s how you sell.  And people see that these days, people understand that.  Whether they get it at a mental level or whether they get it, they just feel it, people get it.  So here is the thing I often say in courses don’t care about the deal.  I think a lot of people get very confused by that initially.

Kevin: I was going to say I am looking at your face now.

Gavin: You are a little bit confused.  Because I think typically however we manage sales people and I am not saying don’t manage them like this, this is the dichotomy, we have gone this month you have got to do this number of deals, this week you have to do so many deals.  But you know what I can’t actually control a deal, I can’t make you buy.  I can only control the process.  Why do deals happen?  Deals happen because I care about you.  Deals happen because I show an interest in you.  Deals happen because I do my research and I approach you with something that is of interest.  Deals happen because I ask you the right questions to find out whether it adds value or not.  Deals happen because I ask you the right questions and I explore your business with you enough to understand it adds enough value that you are going to buy it.  Deals happen because I then use a process that helps you to effectively get to a place where you feel that you can buy it and I hold your hand through that buying process.  That’s why deals happen and I care about all of that.  Whether the actual deal happens at the end yes of course there is a little bit of me that always wants the deal to go in but if you worry about that too much you end up putting all your energy into that and you miss steps earlier on.  And if you miss steps earlier on then it is going to feel pressurised at best but a lot of the time it is just going to fall out.  And I think one of the issues there as well of course is that a lot of sales people whether they like it or not are quite transactional even in some of the solution based sectors and that is again because they are not interested enough.  And I think as you get more interested you start looking at how you add value on a deeper level than just that particular sale.  You start looking at how I add value to the business as a whole.  How do I look at adding value to where the business is going.  How do I look at adding value for the key decision makers and the key people within the business and at that point you start to get into much bigger solutions.  You start to get into partnership relationships and you start to be able to become much more of an advisor to the business rather than somebody who just supplied a certain box or a certain truck or a certain service on a certain occasion.

Kevin: And that is all because you have stopped focussing on the deal.

Gavin: And started caring about the client.

Kevin: Yeah incredible and I imagine that the pressure just lifts from people.  You can physically see that pressure.  They probably just go ‘oh thank God for that’ they used to get wound up considerably thinking that all the pressure is on them being good at closing rather than actually realising that if they load the front end the early part of the conversation, the getting to know you stage, loads of questions, understanding the business.

Gavin: Yeah you are right.  I used to be involved with recruitment companies and recruitment is a great example.  And one of the things they would often ask me for upfront was can you help us, exactly as you say, can you help us close more deals.  Because the assumption is we are not on target and therefore we are not closing enough therefore we need closing skills.  It kind of makes sense doesn’t it.  But what you don’t think about is well maybe it is the process that is not right.  What you don’t think about is well maybe we didn’t add enough value therefore closing was never going to happen anyway.  So people train closing skills.  So what people try and do of course then is they try and close harder which actually just alienates clients and pushes them away further.

Anyway recruitment the interesting thing is one of the areas that it turns up of course is after you have got the CV and after you have given the CV to the client and the client has looked at the CV or even maybe after the client has interviewed the person and the client comes back and says ‘yeah I don’t think they are right’.  And recruitment used to typically train rebuttals to that.  Now I am not saying there is never a time when you could ask some questions and rebut it and put them in but I would suggest it is very rare because by the time the client has actually seen somebody and actually had a conversation across the table with them they have kind of made their mind up because they are missing the point the sale happened miles before that.  The sale has happened at the point the client said ‘I would like you to work with me on this piece of recruitment’.  It is at that moment, that’s the moment when you get to be consultative, that is the moment when you get to care about their business.  Rather than just going ‘oh okay thanks very much I will go and look for that person for you’ that’s the moment when you get to look at well how does this person fit into the business and why are they important to the business and ask all those questions, that is the moment because it is at that moment that you have the opportunity to present a solution. Alright you have then got to go away and fulfil it with the right person but that is the real moment where the real sale happens.  That is where you really add value, that’s where you get to be consultative over everybody who is not.  That is where you get to prove look this isn’t just transactional for me this is about caring about this business.  And people just miss it.  As you say it is upfront but people have missed it and by the time they realise they have missed it the only thing they can do is try and shut doors.  I think you have got to get this because if you don’t get this you are going to be struggling and more importantly you are going to be chasing business that is declining and you are going to be fighting with everybody else on price.  And one of the issues of course with a lot of business’s, it’s not all businesses but with a lot of businesses with remote working, with the internet, with the ability to work from home there are a lot of industries, there are a lot of companies where some people have struggled and maybe have gone to work from cheaper premises, they have reduced the number of staff that are working from the garage particularly for the small to midsized companies.  You cannot compete with these people on prices it is suicide, you have to add more value.

Kevin: Gavin on a final note if there was one thing that we want to leave everybody with today that either it is something that you constantly apply and have probably found most beneficial within building your own business and your own career or for people within their businesses and their careers.  What would that one nugget be that we just want to leave them with as the closing point for this interview?

Gavin: I think for me it is looking at the activities that you do and asking yourself is this helping me to get to where I want to go.  Because I think with everything else that is going on today and all of the interruptions that we have you can have incredibly busy days and you can work incredibly long hours and yet not do anything or do very little that takes you in the direction that you want to go and you end up frazzled, you end up fire fighting, you end up incredibly busy but you are still running around in circles.  And if people are wanting to increase sales within their business they have got to sit down and they have got to work out what are the activities within the business, what are the behaviours within the business, what are the items within the business that are going to move us forward and help us get more sales.  And they need to find a way of making those happen because in the current market and indeed prior to the current market a lot of companies were not doing enough of those activities.  I work with sales teams, huge sales teams sometimes and very, very few people on a day are spending very much time on truly proactively the activities that are moving the business forward and it’s that sort of stuff.

You asked me to equate it for myself.  For myself there are various things that go on in a day but there is other things which drive the business forward, there are other things that take me where I want to go and it is very easy to get distracted from those and you need to make sure that you make the time for them.  I think that for me is by far the most important.

Kevin: Gavin thank you very much for coming on the Maximise Potential Podcast today.

Gavin: It has been a pleasure thank you.

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Kevin: Thank you Gavin for joining us on the Maximise Potential Podcast today and for sharing so much of your experience with our audience.  Gavin’s messages were incredibly clear in terms of the responsibility that everyone plays within the selling process no matter how internal your role may be.  And also the necessity regarding orientating your entire approach around adding value and creating solutions.  Gavin has a superb newsletter and LinkedIn group which I would thoroughly recommend subscribing to.  You can find links to both of these via his website at www.gaviningham.com and also I have posted links to these on the show notes.

So a couple of bits of news to finish off with today.  Kay White has just recorded another podcast with us to follow up her highly popular interview regarding making your communication more powerful and influential.  We will be releasing it very soon however in the interim Kay is running a completely free training course where she shares some really simple, subtle and influential communication secrets.  The call is taking place on November 17 however don’t worry if you miss it as you can register to receive a recorded version of the call.  Just go to the weblink at www.theunderstoodnow.com/beheard which I have also included in our show notes page.

Thanks again for tuning in and please remember to visit our website at www.maximisepotential.co.uk for more articles and resources to help you maximise your potential.  I would also like to extend a big thanks as always to the Jenrick Recruitment Group who sponsor this podcast and specialise in developing careers in the engineering, commercial and IT sectors.

Thanks very much for tuning in and here’s a great track from Xerxes to finish on today which is called ‘when the dust settles’.

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Welcome back to episode 34 of the Maximise Potential Podcast.

No matter if you are responsible for a business or focusing on developing your career, the current environment is arguably the most competitive, uncertain and challenging that anyone has ever known.

As a result we felt it was essential to invite an expert onto the podcast who can enable us to understand how we can operate and succeed within such restrictive parameters.

Gavin Ingham is widely regarded as one the UK’s leading sales trainers, adding value to individuals and companies from all industries and sectors.

In today’s interview on Maximise Potential Gavin discusses a topic, which is critical, if we are to survive in today’s envrionment – sales.

This interview will be incredibly helpful for everyone to understand what sales really is, and how you apply simple techniques to add subtantial value, to your products, your services or even to you as an inidividual.

Here is Gavin to help us all understand and embrace the new rules of selling.

Additional notes and resources (just click on the links for more information):

• GAVIN INGHAM WEBSITE - Click here to view the Gavin Ingham website
• GAVIN INGHAM BLOG – Click here to subscribe to Gavin Ingham’s blog

For more information on Kay White’s free training call:

• FREE COMMUNICATION TRAINING - ‘Be Heard’ free training call
  

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• VOTE for Maximise Potential by clicking HERE

Interview Transcription:

• Transcript: The New Rules of Selling – Gavin Ingham (Max#34)
  

According to my trusty dictionary, a greeting is “a polite word or sign of welcome or recognition.”  Simple, quick and powerful.

So many people struggle and feel as if they’re banging their head against a brick wall as they wait for people to get back to them or take action from sending out an email.  Sounds familiar?

OK, well first, a quick question for you.  You wouldn’t just burst the door open to someone’s office, blurt out what you want to say and then slam the door shut as you leave would you?  Well, if you would, then that’s a whole other story.   In the main, you’d walk in and say “Morning, how are you?” or “Hey John, have you got a minute?”  It constantly amazes me that people fire off emails and do it without a single “Hello” or “Morning” and then wonder why they get mixed – if any – responses.

It’s the quickest way to irritate, to unsettle and to invite the other person to simply make you wait or ignore you.  Never underestimate the power of giving people a sign of “welcome or recognition” to ease them – and you – into your message.

It takes about 5 seconds to type a few words of welcome or greeting and then to add a friendly, polite sign off at the end. I call it ‘topping and tailing’ things or ‘adding subtle accessories’ to your messages. Again, think about your emailing like going into someone’s office – you are, after all, appearing on his or her screen.  You’ve got nothing to lose by taking those few seconds and so much to gain.

It makes a real difference to the way your message lands and how it makes the reader feel – and crucially – what they do once they’ve read it, if you top and tail it.  If you want to engage people into action – whatever action that is – then a ‘polite word or sign of welcome or recognition’ is a quick and easy win.

Notice the difference in how you feel reading these two real-life examples:

• When can we get together to discuss XYZ?  The deadline’s coming up, let’s find a date.

Or,

• Morning Jane, hope all goes well with you.  When can we get together to discuss XYZ?  The deadline’s coming up, so let’s find a date. Best wishes, Your Name

What about this bald statement, again a real-life example:

• I need to understand more about this before I can agree it.  When can we speak?

Or,

• Hi there John, thanks for sending this across and I’ve read through it all.  I need to understand more about this before I can agree it.  When can we speak? Regards, Your Name

There’s a myriad of things you can do – and not do – to get people into action and to respond to you in a way that makes sense to both you and them.  One of them is to use an easy opener in your emails.

Think how many emails you send and receive every day and now notice which ones you find easier to respond to and why.  I bet you the easier ones are from people who take just a few seconds to give you a bit of recognition before they ask, or tell you, what it is they want.   Those few seconds can save you so much crucial time and energy.  Why wouldn’t you?

Oh, and if you standardise your sign off, so it appears automatically, make sure it’s in the same typeface as the rest of the email.  It’s better than no sign off at all, but if it comes out differently the reader knows you didn’t personalise it.  Subtle again, but it’s the subtleties that make the difference, isn’t it?

How do I learn more about Kay?

To have the opportunity to discuss any blind spots you know you have or things that are slowing you down or holding you back as you connect, persuade and compel people at work; click here to apply for a complimentary conversation with Kay.

Article reproduced with permission of Kay White, Communication Specialist and Mentor at www.wayforwardsolutions.com. Kay shows professionals how to be understood. Get quicker, faster and better results by becoming a more effective, influential and savvy communicator – everywhere in your life.

In addition, you can listen to an exclusive interview with Kay where she shares several exclusive tips on how to immediately make your communication more powerful and persuasive: http://www.maximisepotential.co.uk/how-to-develop-effective-powerful-communication/

After 4 unsuccessful general ballot entries I decided to apply for a charity place in the 2012 London Marathon through Back Up and today I found out that I have been successful.

If I could travel back in time and share this news with my younger, athletically challenged self he would never, ever believe it possible.

I challenged myself to run 10 miles in 2005 (the Great South Run). Then I ran it again, and again, and again, completing my 7th this year. Seeking a new challenge, I decided to take part in the Great Gorilla Run (8km) and recently signed up for the Santa Run (10km). Just for fun and to do something different for charity.

I wanted to run a marathon before I reached 40. While I reached that milestone in March this year the desire to test myself over such a distance remained. Can I really run 26.2 miles? Why not? I never thought I could run 10 miles but I did. I’ve read about so many people from all walks of life, of all shapes and sizes, who’ve run a marathon and the likes of Andy McMenemy (aka @AndyMcMenemy, 66 marathons in 66 days), Mark Allison (aka @rungeordierun) and Simon Buckden (aka @100mara100weeks, running a marathon every week for 100 weeks) provide inspiration that anything is possible with determination, dedication and self-belief.

Now it’s my turn to prove that I can join those who’ve completed a marathon. What better year to do it than when London hosts the 2012 Olympics.

I’d also like to say a big thanks to you guys over at Maximise Potential – your podcasts really helped my get through my training runs. I particularly enjoyed your interview with Matthew Syed and his book Bounce, which really helped me get my head around accomplishing big goals. Keep them coming!

If anyone wants to say hi or keep up with my running updates, please come and visit my blog at http://cifco.posterous.com/.

Hi Graham,

Thank you very much for sharing your story on the site – we hope it will be the first of many!

It’s great to hear how the podcast and website are helping people go after their goals and take on challenges that they previously thought were out of their reach. As you rightly say, a few years back you didn’t think you could even run 10 miles – now look at where you are.

It just shows how big goals happen if you are prepared to take small steps on a consistent basis.

Keep us posted and keep the feedback coming!

Kevin

This is going to be so obvious to you – it probably is already from the title above – the power of using people’s names; the power of hearing your own name when it’s used; the way it immediately engages and connects you; how it even wakes you up!

It’s also powerful to know that the fastest way to disconnect from someone – intentionally or otherwise – is to confuse their name, mispronounce their name and keep forgetting their name. It’s a real turn off.

We all know how easy it is to pontificate and chat away to people – in writing as well as face-to-face – and never mention their name? Well, the minute – or let’s say, the second – you decide to start using everyone’s name more, then you’ll notice immediately how much more engaged people are with you; how you have their attention – sometimes despite them not wanting to give it to you. It tells them, and you, that you’re thinking of them; it says that you actually know their name (so many people don’t take any notice of your name and it’s just that – your name, your identity). When you use people’s names more it tells them that you’re engaging with them, that you’re directing your message to them and for them and not generally throwing it out there.

It’s a subtle, secret and easy ingredient to add in to your conversations; your emails; your meetings; your networking; your cocktail parties – everything.

Here’s how to use people’s names with intention and still be comfortable:

If you’re running a meeting or have a group of people on the phone for example, sprinkle in people’s names – the effect is startling. The message the person’s brain hears is ‘oh, it’s us, we’re on. We’d better pay attention.’ It’s really powerful to know this.

Sometimes, when we’re first introduced to someone, we forget; we’re mid-flow and then realise we’ve forgotten their name. If you make it your new habit to immediately say back their name to them as you’re introduced ‘well, nice to meet you Jane’ or ‘Jane, it’s a pleasure meeting you’ two things happen.

Firstly, you tell Jane you heard her name and have remembered it; your greeting is more meaningful to her because her name is included in there. Secondly, it helps you to ‘engage brain’ and remember her name. You can start avoiding those ‘help, I’ve forgotten who I’m talking to’ moments, which are both excruciating and also a reflection of our lack of attention towards that person. Oops.

So, how do we start using someone’s name comfortably? The word comfortably is important here. It’s not about saying ‘Oh yes, Jane, I agree Jane – and Jane what do you think about that Jane?’ Of course it’s not. The way I find most comfortable and a great way to start, is to use a person’s name when asking them a question or when asking for a response. ‘So Jane, how long have you been working here?’ or ‘tell me a bit more about that, Jane, please.’

When you greet people today, use their name. ‘Hi there X’ and ‘Morning X, how’s it going?’ Notice yourself doing this and notice the response. Often it will be one of surprise. It really jolts the other person when they hear their name, especially when it’s unexpected. It’s so easy to just say ‘Hi there’ or ‘Morning’ without using the person’s name. Engage with them and grab their attention. Use their name.

If you don’t believe me, take it from that master of human relations Dale Carnegie who, in his famous book ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ said, “If you want to win friends, make it a point to remember them. If you remember my name, you pay me a subtle compliment; you indicate that I have made an impression on you. Remember my name and you add to my feeling of importance.” Thank you for writing your timeless book Mr Carnegie, enough said.

How do I learn more about Kay?

To have the opportunity to discuss any blind spots you know you have or things that are slowing you down or holding you back as you connect, persuade and compel people at work; click here to apply for a complimentary conversation with Kay.

Article reproduced with permission of Kay White, Communication Specialist and Mentor at www.wayforwardsolutions.com. Kay shows professionals how to be understood. Get quicker, faster and better results by becoming a more effective, influential and savvy communicator – everywhere in your life.

Kay’s first book, The A to Z of Being Understood is a Number 1 Amazon Bestseller for Customer Service.

In addition, you can listen to an exclusive interview with Kay where she shares several exclusive tips on how to immediately make your communication more powerful and persuasive: http://www.maximisepotential.co.uk/how-to-develop-effective-powerful-communication/

Maximise Your Potential Podcast is all about helping people be successful in life and this article reveals the key tips on how to be a successful leader.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader, a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.” But, becoming a great leader isn’t easy. Successfully maneuvering a team through the ups and downs of starting a new business can be one of the greatest challenges a small-business owner faces.

Leadership is one of the areas that many entrepreneurs tend to overlook, according leadership coach John C. Maxwell, whose books include The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership (Thomas Nelson, 1998) and Developing the Leader Within You (Thomas Nelson, 1993).

“You work hard to develop your product or service. You fight to solve your financial issues. You go out and promote your business and sell your product. But you don’t think enough about leading your own people and finding the best staff,” Maxwell says.

It turns out, the skills and talents necessary to guide your team in the right direction can be simple, and anyone with the determination can develop them. Here’s a list of 10 tips drawn from the secrets of successful leaders.

1. Assemble a dedicated team.
Your team needs to be committed to you and the business . Successful entrepreneurs have not only social and selling smarts, but also the know-how to hire effectively, says leadership trainer Harvey Mackay, who wrote Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive (Ivy Books, 1995). “A colossal business idea simply isn’t enough. You have to be able to identify, attract and retain talent who can turn your concept into a register-ringing success,” he says.

When putting your team together, look for people whose values are aligned with the purpose and mission of your company. Suzanne Bates, a Wellesley, Mass.-based leadership consultant and author of Speak Like a CEO (McGraw Hill, 2005), says her team members rallied around each other during the worst part of the recession because they all believed in what they were doing. “Having people on your team who have tenacity and a candid spirit is really important,” she says.

2. Overcommunicate.
This one’s a biggie. Even with a staff of only five or 10, it can be tough to know what’s going on with everyone. In an effort to overcommunicate, Bates compiles a weekly news update she calls a Friday Forecast, and emails it to her staff. “My team is always surprised at all the good news I send out each week,” Bates says. “It makes everyone feel like you really have a lot of momentum, even in difficult times.”

3. Don’t assume.
When you run a small business, you might assume your team understands your goals and mission — and they may. But, everybody needs to be reminded of where the company’s going and what things will look like when you get there. Your employees may ask, “What’s in it for me?” It’s important to paint that picture for your team. Take the time to really understand the people who are helping you build your business.

“Entrepreneurs have the vision, the energy, and they’re out there trying to make it happen. But, so often with their staff, they are assuming too much,” says Beverly Flaxington, founder of The Collaborative, a business-advising company in Medfield, Mass. “It’s almost like they think their enthusiasm by extension will be infectious — but it’s not. You have to bring people into your world and communicate really proactively.”

4. Be authentic.
Good leaders instill their personality and beliefs into the fabric of their organization, Flaxington says. If you be yourself, and not try to act like someone else, and surround yourself with people who are aligned with your values, your business is more likely to succeed, she says.

“Every business is different and every entrepreneur has her own personality,” Flaxington says. “If you’re authentic, you attract the right people to your organization – employees and customers.”

5. Know your obstacles.
Most entrepreneurs are optimistic and certain that they’re driving toward their goals. But, Flaxington says, it’s a short-sighted leader who doesn’t take the time to understand his obstacles.

“You need to know what you’re up against and be able to plan around those things,” she says. “It’s folly to think that just because you’ve got this energy and enthusiasm that you’re going to be able to conquer all. It’s much smarter to take a step back and figure out what your obstacles are, so the plan that you’re putting into place takes that into account.”

6. Create a ‘team charter.’
Too many new teams race down the road before they even figure out who they are, where they’re going, and what will guide their journey, says Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One-Minute Manager (William Morrow & Co., 1982) and founder of The Ken Blanchard Cos., a workplace- and leadership-training firm. Just calling together a team and giving them a clear charge does not mean the team will succeed.

“It’s important to create a set of agreements that clearly states what the team is to accomplish, why it is important and how the team will work together to achieve the desired results,” says Blanchard, who is based in Escondido, Calif. “The charter provides a record of common agreements and can be modified as the business grows and the team’s needs change.”

7. Believe in your people.
Entrepreneurial leaders must help their people develop confidence, especially during tough times. As Napoleon Bonaparte said, “Leaders are dealers in hope.” That confidence comes in part from believing in your team, says Maxwell, who is based in West Palm Beach, Fla. “I think of my people as 10s, I treat them like 10s, and as a result, they try to perform like 10s,” he says. “But believing in people alone isn’t enough. You have to help them win.”

8. Dole out credit.
Mackay says a good salesperson knows what the sweetest sound in the world is: The sound of their name on someone else’s lips. But too many entrepreneurs think it’s either the crinkle of freshly minted currency, or the dull thud of a competitor’s body hitting the pavement.

“Many entrepreneurs are too in love with their own ideas and don’t know how to distribute credit,” Mackay says. “A good quarterback always gives props to his offensive line.”

9. Keep your team engaged.
Great leaders give their teams challenges and get them excited about them, says leadership expert Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Free Press, 1989). He pointed to the example of a small pizza shop in a moderate-sized town that was killing a big fast-food chain in sales. The big difference between the chain and the small pizza joint was the leader, he says.

Every week he gathered his teenage employees in a huddle and excitedly asked them: “What can we do this week that we’ve never done before?” The kids loved the challenge. They started texting all their friends whenever a pizza special was on. They took the credit-card machine to the curb so passing motorists could buy pizza right off the street. They loaded up a truck with hot pizzas and sold them at high-school games. The money poured in and the store owner never had problems with employee turnover, says Covey, who is based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

10. Stay calm.
An entrepreneur has to backstop the team from overreacting to short-term situations, says Mackay, who is based in Minneapolis. This is particularly important now, when news of the sour economic environment is everywhere.

“The media has been hanging black crepe paper since 2008,” he says. “But look at all the phenomenal companies and brands that were born in downturns, names like iPod, GE and Federal Express.”

ARTICLE SOURCE:

• Entrepreneur.com

FURTHER RESOURCES

• Click here for more inspiring business articles and videos
  

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Kevin: Welcome to Maximise Potential the podcast to educate and motivate through a range of original interviews designed to help you maximise your potential.  Brought to you in association with the award winning recruitment group Jenrick.

Welcome back to Episode 33 of the Maximise Potential podcast.  We are extremely fortunate to welcome back Everest Record Holder Bonita Norris.  As many of you are aware on May 17th 2010 Bonita Norris became the youngest ever British woman to climb Everest at the age of just 22.  On Episode 18 of the podcast Bonita gave us an incredible insight into her epic journey and today Bonita is coming back to focus on the motivational methods, mental approaches and goal setting techniques that she used to get her there so please enjoy.

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Bonita you’re on the podcast again.

Bonita: Kevin good to be back.

Kevin: Firstly I would like to feed back to you just regarding the positive impact that your first recording did.  I mean the amount of people that have come back to me and said how it has helped them really break down goals particularly.  That was an area that you really focussed on.  I mean let’s face it as you rightly said on the podcast it doesn’t get much bigger than Everest and yet you really broke it down into such little chunks it was that that people came back with and also the self belief.  They couldn’t believe how late in the process that the sponsorship came into play and yet you just followed everything to the letter right the way through, that inner belief that it was going to happen.  You know in your mind there was never any doubt was there.

Bonita: I think I have always been told by my parents and what not that if you work hard enough for something then it will come good in the end and you have just got to have faith.  And actually most successes happen in the eleventh hour and to never give up.  And actually the more the situation came to head the more determined I became I think.  My determination by then was really just to prove that these impossible challenges were actually possible and there was no way you know in the dying hours of trying to find £50,000 to go and climb Everest that I was going to give up after you know a year of training and trying to find that money.  It made me more determined than ever and it was in the eleventh hour that I got it.  So hopefully that has proved exactly what I set out to prove.

Kevin: I think it has and really I think that confirms the nature of what we are going to talk about today because we are not necessarily going to talk about any specific events and challenges and I know that there are zillions more on the horizon for you.  But we are going to focus in on what drives you internally and we are going to focus on how good you are at setting goals for yourself and how you go about setting goals for yourself and you really work through that because the more I have had the pleasure of learning about you the more I have realised that you are so meticulous at doing this and yet this is an area that most people don’t do and yet a lot of people want to do.  And I think it is going to really help people understand.  I think you would even say it is a relatively simple process that you go through but it seems to make a difference doesn’t it.

Bonita: A huge.

Kevin: So shall we go right back to when you were planning for Everest because I think that was when you first started setting goals and it would be lovely to explain how you went about setting goals on an event that has happened and maybe then discussing how it is going to impact how you move forward in your life to attack new goals and new challenges.

Bonita: Okay with regards to Everest it is quite an easy obvious end point you know reach the summit get back down alive.  So it is quite a straightforward goal to have, it is really visual you can see straight away that is exactly where you are going and I think some of the time actually working out what your goals are is half the issue.  And before I decided to do Everest it was a real problem for me I can remember thinking, I was at Uni and thinking I wanted a challenge, I wanted to do something, I wanted to test myself, learn about myself, push myself but I didn’t know what it was going to be.  I mean I have got this sheet here in front of me that I wrote down a big list that I have printed off.

Kevin: Just talk about that for a second because you know when we were just prepping before we started recording just let everybody know what happened here.

Bonita: Before I decided to climb Everest I actually sat down one evening and wrote down a big long list of all of my goals for the next ten years of my life.  I think I was about 19 when I wrote it and it went up to 28 and all sorts of things, it is funny reading back you know like certain marathons I wanted to run and certain work experience placements I wanted to do and just silly things but it ended with me writing the last thing I wanted to do was climb Everest.

Kevin: And you wrote this as a teenager.

Bonita: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kevin: Before you had even, we are talking before you had been to the talks that really inspired you, before you had interviewed Rob which really got you going on all of this.  What were you thinking at the time?  Why did you do this?

Bonita: I think for me being able to see things on paper makes a huge difference to actually being able to work towards them.  So if I have a plan I have to write it down, I am an obsessive list maker.  I have to write to do lists because as soon as it is out of my brain and it’s on the paper it is actually something visual that I can look for.  So I am always kind of compelled to write down things.

Kevin: Okay keeping talking more about that.

Bonita: Well it’s a sense of as soon as you have a goal as I said at the beginning it is really difficult to actually work out sometimes what the end point is, what you actually want to achieve.  But as soon as you start writing things down you find that you write down the things that you want and you don’t think about, you don’t write down the things you don’t want to do.  And I have always been like that in the sense that I have managed to, it clears your mind and you write things down, you put things on paper and then you can deconstruct them which is really difficult to do inside your head.  Well it is for me anyway I am not the best thinker so I have to align my thoughts, I have to put them onto paper and I think by writing this list when I was a teenager of just like the most bizarre things to do throughout my twenties I was setting myself targets knowing that probably I wasn’t going to achieve them all but even if I achieve 10% of these things it would still be really cool things to do.  So that was one of the reasons why I wanted to do it but secondly just because I was going through early stages of University not knowing where I wanted to end up when I left, not having any clear direction but actually writing down these goals gave me some kind of direction and some kind of structure to my future.  And I like having that structure, I like knowing what I am aiming for and from there I can work backwards and break it down into these small steps and then start working towards it again.  And it is a really simple process in that sense of just writing down what you want, deconstructing it and then beginning to work towards it.  And it has always just been kind of what I have done without really thinking about it.

Kevin: Yeah well that was the interesting thing when we chatted because I asked you well what prompted you to do it and you were like haven’t got a clue, I haven’t really thought about that it is just what I do.  But did it help just to declutter your mind, did it help almost crystallise what you wanted to stand for as a person, I mean?

Bonita: Yes it does, 100% I think your goals really do define who you are.  And I think the reason we live and we continue to strive to do things and get out of bed and earn money is because we want to achieve certain things in our lives whether that having children, a certain amount of money, certain holiday, you want to run a marathon.  We always set ourselves goals; it is what keeps your heart beating I think.  And for me that was always something, I always wanted to have a goal and when you are young they are quite simple, it was like run the Reading Half Marathon when I was 17 or something.  But as you sort of get older you want to make them more and more complex and the list that I wrote wasn’t just about climbing mountains or doing physical challenges they were also like I want to get a Masters, which now looking back on this I realise I haven’t done yet so I am kind of feeling that I haven’t achieved all that I have set out to do.

Kevin: Because you haven’t actually looked at this list now for a few years have you.

Bonita: No I have not looked at this list since it was written in 2008 a long time ago but as I said when I wrote it down I genuinely can remember thinking even if I do just a few things on this list I will be so happy.  And you are right it declutters your mind, when you see these goals you do see the kind of person that you will end up being if you were to achieve them.

Kevin: Okay that’s interesting talk a bit about that you’ve straight away said that you can see the sort of person that you are going to end up being if you achieve them.  What do you mean by that?

Bonita: Well I think like your thoughts become your actions and your actions become you know the reasons why you make the decisions that you make and then the decisions that you make cause your destiny basically.  So I think you become who you want to be and those things, and you know who you are starts right in your mind and I feel like that by writing these things down my thoughts and stuff like that I can actually see where I am going because sometimes you don’t really get where you are going and what actually inspires me and I end up looking at this list and like wow if I do all these things that would be really cool.  But that is in the back of mind I would kind of.

Kevin: Gets a spark.

Bonita: Yeah gets me going so that is why I did it I guess.

Kevin: I want to ask you another question about this list.  You didn’t just write down this list and keep it to yourself did you?

Bonita: I emailed it to my mum and I have actually written here you know ‘I have had a long hard think tonight and I have come up with my plan this is an idealist money doesn’t matter plan but it is good to have a plan right’ That is what I wrote and then I sent her this list of what I wanted to do in my twenties.

Kevin: Why did you not keep the list to yourself, why did you choose to email it to your mother?

Bonita: Because I think once you have shared these ideas.  Once you have put them out in the open they become something and you have set the mark then, you know you have set the gauntlet down.  If people know about it you have almost set the challenge because you don’t want to let yourself down or let them people down.  You don’t want to be seen as someone who’s not gone and done what you said you were going to do.  And I am very much a person that if I commit to something and people know that I have committed that’s it from that point I will do whatever I can to make sure that I achieve that goal.  And I felt that by sending it out there it would become more real and it is silly but you know once people know about your dreams and goals then they know what kind of person you want to be and will look at you in that way and won’t be completely surprised when you turn around and say you want to go up Everest.

Kevin: Keep going with that I am liking where this is going go on.

Bonita: So you know well it is as simple as that really once it is out there you have put it down on paper and not only is it visualised in front of you people know about it and there is an expectation from that point that you will go through with what you say you are going to do.  And

Kevin: Is it like a contract, do you view it as a contract?

Bonita: I think you do view it as a contract with yourself yeah, I like the pressure of it is a risk because you have set yourself up to fail and I like that putting things out there and making outlandish statements and saying I am going to do this.  And then people going no you can’t and then I am going watch me.  So I think possibly that is one of the reasons but as I have sort of gone on to more I realise how difficult these things actually are.  I do keep a lot of things to myself now just in case they don’t come off.

Kevin: Now something that you have mentioned probably about four times if I am counting correctly in this very short interview so far is the term ‘to visualise’. First of all you said about with Everest the fact that you could visualise that.  You have said then with regards to the list that you are creating that it helps you visualise your goals.  What do you mean by that?

Bonita: I guess that I obviously like to see in my mind or I like to see in front of me how I am going to do things and I like to be able to see that in a logical sense.  I like to have it in front of me what do I have to do when and how am I going to do this.  That is just how I learn I guess.

Kevin: And what are you seeing?

Bonita: I’m just seeing like goal posts.  When I am seeing something like Everest I am not seeing the mountain I am seeing how it is broken down.  I am looking at my timeframe, how much time have I got, what have I got to do in that time, what have I got to have achieved to be ready to climb that mountain, how much money do I need.  My obsessive kind of deconstructing of goals is that sort of scene in my head.  But also I mean what really kept me going throughout Everest and I have never admitted this but I used to have like certain songs and certain music which I would put on which would be like my Everest music and help me visualise and get back to how I like felt at the beginning. Because when you first come up with an idea or a goal it is so exciting and it is so easy to get motivated by and then a year down the line you really forget how that feeling was.

Kevin: Yeah because you are in the middle of all this horrible slog.

Bonita: And it is not the rose tinted ideal that you thought it was but I would have certain songs and certain music in my mind, I would be playing kind of like this documentary style thing of like what it would be like to climb, what it would be like to see my family at Heathrow, what I would do at the summit, like what it would feel like to live at base camp all in my head.

Kevin: So are you actually viewing this as a movie in the future, you can actually see yourself in that situation, you can see yourself greeting people, you can see yourself crying.

Bonita: Yeah I had it all done, I had my whole documentary in my head of the whole expedition and when I thought about that or I heard that music it would just be like, the fire would just be reignited that little bit more.  You know the embers would sort of relit and it would help me go on.  And it was so important for me to do that because nothing else worked.  It was all about visualising it and imagining it and that would just give me enough to get back on the phone again and start asking for money or go on and do my training which was getting mundane and it just got me through I think really.

Kevin: So I am assuming then that would, those moments would particularly kick into play when you were facing adversity, facing those points where in your head you were beginning to hit the negative.

Bonita: Yeah I think there was never like points of its all gone wrong suddenly it was just a general, the general slog of day in day out and it beats you down slowly especially when time is ticking I have got to find £50,000.  I have got no leads because the sponsorship all happened very fast but you know in the back of my mind when I would take some time to just think this is what, this is how it’s going to be in my head it was just too tempting it was too insensilising I couldn’t let the dream die because in my mind still it was just so incredible.  And actually sometimes I confused my memories with my real memories and my false memories because they were so vivid these visualisations that I actually sometimes look back and I have to think did that actually happen or was that just what I imagined beforehand.

Kevin: See that is I mean you just said the word incredible and yet you were speaking about something that was actually in your mind so it wasn’t actually just seeing an image it was almost like you were experiencing it emotionally as well.  You managed to get the actual emotional feedback of going oh God this is what it is actually going to feel like when it happens.

Bonita: Yeah I think visualisation is such an important thing believing that you are going to summit Everest, believing that you are going to run a marathon in a certain time.  If you don’t believe that you are going to do it then the chances are you won’t.  It is as simple as that.  That kind of self motivation of just imagining and believing that that, it did blur the boundaries of what was reality and what was not real before I went so it kind of almost felt like it was happening when it wasn’t.  And I think that is just testament to a wild imagination which I am obviously to have inherited.

Kevin: Very grateful to have.  Whoever said daydreaming was bad hey.

Bonita: Well exactly that but at the other end of spectrum I think I get that daydreaming stuff from my dad, but from my mum I definitely have the logical list making side of things.  So that is the big dream but how are you actually going to achieve it well the action was also just as kind of I would feed off the fact that I was actually making progress even if it was very small.  Just by being able to put a little tick by something was just the best feeling, it was those small victories.  So it was the big dreams and visualisations but it was also putting stuff on paper that I could see and I could actually work towards that I think the combination of both was what made it successful.

Kevin: What I find quite interesting about this interview is when you think how much we spoke about your targets and where you broke down stuff, and you broke down events, the first time when we spoke and I think we covered a lot in that interview and yet here is an interesting thing that we didn’t even touch on any of this.  And it just shows how much more is going on behind the scenes.

Bonita: Yeah I mean like I said until I came in here today I had completely forgotten about that list you know and I have printed it off and it is like four years old now.  And as I said completely disappointed because I haven’t achieved half the things on it.  But Everest I did do and I did go to the North Pole so that’s good.  But it does remind me and now I am thinking yeah you know what I still want to do that so it is good that I have got it because actually seeing it here I am thinking yeah that is something I would love to do so.  Take this home now.

Kevin: Can you feel yourself getting passionate about those things again?

Bonita: Definitely I mean you know these are things that don’t just go away.  I mean I have got new goals now which I can add to them but I mean I said I wanted to do these all by the end of my twenties but some of these things I would just like to do in my lifetime really.  You know like I would like to run the Paris Marathon I put down which sounds quite nice.

Kevin: Let me ask you now that you are becoming more aware of the techniques that you have used to help you achieve and we have got a great big event as in Everest and you can actually see all of it and you can reflect on it retrospectively and you can actually now work backwards and actually see how it all slotted together.  Two questions first of all can you now think back to much earlier in your life when you probably thought you were just daydreaming and actually you can now look at that and go cricky you know what I was actually visualising other things and that now makes sense of why I achieved XYZ earlier in my life?  Equally then jumping forward how conscious are you now of these techniques when you are actually planning this audacious future goals that you have got planned?

Bonita: Obviously as you say it is easier now when you are conscious of certain techniques you can like utilise them better.  I think when I was younger I remember making the decision to train for my first half marathon when I was about 17.  I genuinely thought that running 13 miles was just the most incredible thing like as a teenager not being able to run for 30 seconds and my teacher in school she gave an assembly and she said ‘girls how about thinking outside of your comfort zone going outside of what you are comfortable with and doing something that you didn’t think you were capable of’ And those words I remember I never forgot them, doing something that I didn’t think I was capable of, and she said to me how about you will run the half marathon and I think I am just really easily swayed.  I was like okay then and that was it.  So from there on I can remember instantly thinking get a training plan together, start small and one thing I do have as a talent is to take small victories.  I am quite happy to start and be absolutely rubbish at something, I do not hold any kind of ideas about myself being able to go off and run 10 miles the first time I try something or.

Kevin: That is a wonderful virtue to have.

Bonita: But I think it is very important because people will just do it once and be so demoralised because they are rubbish.  Obviously you are going to be rubbish at anything you haven’t done before I think because, and I don’t think I have got any natural talent towards anything apart from the fact that I am quite happy to take really small steps and just build up very slowly in my own time in my own way knowing that I will eventually get to where I need to be.  So lots of people started the training and we all went running and blah, blah, blah and then only two of us in the whole year actually ended up doing the half marathon because people just got demoralised I think.  Like my friends and stuff by the fact that it was actually going to be hard work and they would have to train and I didn’t mind that I just knew that if I carried on I would actually get there.  But today it obviously holds more weight because it was what I want to carry on doing for the rest of my life is setting these challenges.  So I have noticed those things.

Kevin: I think what’s very interesting is and what you keep coming back to time and time again is it almost doesn’t matter to you how big the end goal is as long as you can see, as you keep saying, as long as  you can see that logical path and you can break it down into enough steps so that you can make these small victories.  You go that’s fine I can do this, I can see that route.

Bonita: Exactly that you can achieve anything you know.  It’s purely about taking one step and building on it and not wanting success over night.  I think that is a huge thing.  It is just being patient and not reaping the harvest every day but sowing the seeds for it you know.  Like it is just so incredibly important and not giving up.  I think it’s one of the, it sounds so easy to do, is just carry on.  Carry on trying don’t you know, come and bounce back from failures and keep trying because you will get there.  And I genuinely believe that I can do something as long as I just don’t stop.  As I said before there is not much grace or skill to how I do things or what I do I just plod on until I get there if I want it bad enough.  You know but equally if it is something that doesn’t motivate me it has got no hope.

Kevin: Again that is a lovely lesson I think there is too many people you know we pick jobs, careers.  Too many people stay in a career that they aren’t motivated by, that they are actually not enjoying, they consider it’s a slog, its mundane it is not what they want to do.  They don’t just say right okay well can I change my attitude within this or do I just need to come on find something that I really want to do.

Bonita: Yeah I think it is so important to keep motivated but it is such a personal thing that you have to maintain.  You have familiarity breeds content isn’t it.  So even if you are doing the most exciting job in the world you can get bored of it one day.  It is up to us to stay motivated and to find new ways to, well find different ways of looking at our lives and being motivated by them and setting ourselves goals.  I think that is just the most important thing.  Set targets, meet them because that is a great feeling obviously and then see how far you can push it because I think inevitably we always surprise ourselves.

Kevin: Definitely and I am going to ask you to actually throw a goal out here on this podcast.  I mean we have covered some wonderful advice on how people can break down, how people can visualise everything else.  So let’s now throw this into the future tell us what you can visualise now for Bonita Norris.

Bonita: Well it’s been a goal for a while ever since climbing Everest there is this beautiful mountain next door called Lhotse which is the fourth highest in the world, looks horrendously difficult near the summit, lots of rock and ice.  And I would really like that to be my next big challenge.  It does sound similar oh it is right next door to Everest is it not just the same you know.  It is the same in many ways but it is also completely different in the sense that it is going to be technically in a mountaineering sense a lot more difficult to climb.  All I want to do with my mountaineering career is just build on what I have already got ever so slightly each time.  So this is kind of the next step and then after that I would love to go and climb more of the 14 8000m peaks.  I have done two and this will be my third.  I would love to go around and climb these as and when I am ready.  You know I know I am not ready to climb some of them yet but by going climbing inevitably I will get there eventually.  So that is putting it out that the next big goal.  As I said it is all about taking small steps so this is up to Camp 3 within my comfort zone I have done it before and then Camp 4 to the summit a whole new world.  You know steep rock and ice, fourth highest mountain on the planet wearing oxygen, big space suits on and what not but not just going up Everest snow slopes but going up steep Lhotse rock and ice.  And that is completely different it is just a matter of building on what I have learnt already in my experiences and just advancing slowly.  I am not going to go and try K2 just because I have climbed Everest it is going to take years before I am ready to attempt a mountain like that.

Kevin: The interesting thing with how you just described that though and this will come across on the audio for the people who have just heard it is how accurately you have just described it.  You have just described what you were wearing the type of rock face you are going to be climbing.

Bonita: Right I don’t notice it.

Kevin: You were visualising it naturally.  Your eyes sort of just went off and you were just describing exactly how it all looked.

Bonita: I think for a lot of athletes and I don’t class myself as an athlete but visualisation is the most important thing for success I think.  I mean seeing yourself there.

Kevin: Absolutely I mean when I spoke with Dean Macey he said it was all about visualisation.  He used to spend, and he openly said particularly in the periods where he was trying to recover from injury and go through rehab he would spend more time meditating, spending time in fields alone thinking and visualising about how he was going to win his gold medals, how he was going to compete, how he was going to feel strong again.

Bonita: Yeah because then when you go for it, it is actually almost like autopilot you know.  And I mean there was really nothing on Everest that really surprised me because I felt so ready for it.  As I said my memories of reality and my thoughts are actually almost blurred as a result.  So yeah visualisation and as we were talking before the podcast for now my rock climbing is what I am trying to push and visualising every move on a rock climb you know how it is going to feel to touch that hold and imagining that you get your footing just right and things like that.  So actually when you do the rock climb itself and all the pressures on to perform in those 15 – 20 seconds that you are on that short wall you have got to get everything right.  And if you have visualised it in your mind that everything is going to go perfectly then you tend to just follow that through.  But if you are thinking beforehand oh God I might get that foothold wrong or what if I don’t get my hand right you probably are not going to because those thoughts are going to be in your mind.  So it is a huge part of performance and success I think is visualisation for me anyway.  I know that as you say other people are very different.

Kevin: This podcast is all about for you, you know we are not here to preach as to the right or wrong ways of doing things it is all about profiling people in our opinion who are wonderful examples of achievers in their various fields and it’s about understanding what makes you tick.  That is what is so important.

Lets finish off we’ve done roughly half an hour superb interview thoroughly enjoyed it.  What are we going to leave people with this time for someone who has never set a goal for themselves.

Bonita: Yeah I think challenge yourself to just sit there with pen and paper and ask yourself what kind of person you want to be in two or five years time.  That really is, you have to really look at your life and think what’s possible and what you are capable off and also what your dreams are and I suppose I did sit down and do that and actually it almost felt a bit cheeky and a bit naughty about writing down something as audacious as Everest on my to do list you know how ridiculous is that if you have never climbed a mountain.  But just by putting it down really sowed the seed for making my destiny what I wanted it to be and I think the simple act of writing down what you want to happen in your future is a huge step forward in actually being the future that you want it to be.  And so that for me will always be something I’ll do, I’ll always write down my goals and deconstruct them and then work towards them.  It is the only way I know so that is it.

Kevin: Bonita Norris British record holder for climbing Everest thank you very much again for your time.

Bonita: Thank you Kevin.

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Kevin: Bonita Norris thank you once again for coming on the Maximise Potential Podcast and for providing us with such a wonderful insight into the motivational approaches and techniques that you apply.  If you are a regular to the podcast and the website you will notice that Bonita’s approach is consistent with several of the others who have appeared on Maximise Potential all of them citing the importance of taking the time to think about your goals, committing them to paper and finally making that list public.

So here are a couple of quick updates before we finish off today.  Firstly we are at the final stages of the voting for the European Podcasting Awards so please, please, please come and vote for us.  It would mean a great deal.

Next piece of news is related to Fiona Campbell who gave us all a wonderful introduction to NLP on Episode 24 of the podcast.  Fiona has just launched a brand new website featuring a range of excellent YouTube videos and other superb resources to help you implement NLP within your life.  You can click on the show notes for details and the website is called www.theNLPedge.com.

And finally we have an amazing piece of news to announce Andy North who we featured on Episode 31 of the podcast has successfully completed his incredible journey from Yorkshire to Gibraltar covering 2000m in just six weeks using a combination of running and cycling.  Hats off to you Andy congratulations and well done for raising so much money for such worthy causes.

Thanks again for tuning in and please remember to visit our website at www.maximisepotential.co.uk for more excellent videos, articles and resources to help you maximise your potential. I would also like to extend a big thanks as always to the sponsors of our podcast the Jenrick Recruitment Group who specialise in developing careers in the engineering, commercial and IT sectors.  I have ensured that there are links on the show notes so if you would like to see the current job opportunities that are on offer with Jenrick or you would like to register your CV with them then please click on those links.

That is all for this time thanks very much for tuning in and here’s ‘Jules theme ‘from Xerxes to finish on please enjoy.

Music

This video has been recommended to us from leading NLP Business Coach, Fiona Campbell.

It shows you how a thought is actually created:

Congratulations to Andy North (featured on episode 31 of Maximise Potential), Mike Senior and Dave Edwards who have successfully COMPLETED their amazing test of endurance, raising over £50,000 for two Armed Forces Charities.

Here is was some news footage of them as they reached Gibraltar:

Also, here is an article from the Yorkshire Post:

Three amateur athletes have run, cycled and kayaked 2,000 miles from Yorkshire to Gibraltar in a challenge which has seen them run the equivalent of a marathon every day for six weeks for charity,

Andy North, Dave Edwards and Mike Senior arrived at the British Forces Headquarters in Gibraltar on Friday after the Yorkshire team completed the equivalent of 25 marathons, covered over 1,700 miles of cycling and kayaked 26 miles.

The trio set off from Catterick Garrison on August 19, running a marathon each morning, followed by a daily cycle ride each afternoon.

And to top the achievement they even kayaked across the Thames and the Channel as part of the epic effort.

The men, from Leeds and Harrogate, were met by a police escort and members of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment after completing the feat, which was dubbed the Sunshine Challenge.

Their efforts have so far raised over £50,000 for ABF The Soldiers’ Charity, as well as the Forces Children’s Trust, both causes dedicated to the support of those affected by the aftermath of war.

Mr North said:

“Neither Dave nor myself nor Mike are professional athletes but have always tried to maintain ourselves in super fit condition.

“Dave and I thought we had set ourselves a daunting challenge last year when we undertook 12 daily marathons but this was the biggest test ever. The most exhilarating part without a doubt was crossing the Channel and also cycling over Pyrenees.

“With the UK now being involved in multiple combat zones across the globe, the focus has been on the need to support those who in turn support those affected by war. To be with these guys and women and to run on their behalf has been incredibly humbling.”

The trio have completed a number of other gruelling challenges to raise money for military charities, including the Challenge 66 Ultra Marathon event.

You can donate by visiting: Andy North – Sunshine Challenge JUST GIVING PAGE

The lastest episode to be uploaded to the Maximise Potential Podcast is an incredibly inspiring interview with Bonita Norris, the youngest British woman ever to climb Mount Everest at the age of 22.

Bonita is returning to the Maximise Potential Podcast to share with us the mental techniques, approaches and goal-setting strategies that she used to get her there, talking in detail about the importance of visualisation and committing your goals to paper.

Additional notes and resources (just click on the links for more information):

• ANDY NORTH – listen to Andy’s inspiring interview here
• FIONA CAMPBELL – visit The NLP Edge website here

Careers with Jenrick:

• CONSIDERING A CAREER CHANGE? – click here to view the latest Jenrick Jobs
• REGISTER YOUR CV? – click here to register your CV with the Jenrick team

EUROPEAN PODCASTING AWARDS:

• VOTE for Maximise Potential by clicking HERE

Interview Transcription:

• Transcript: Bonita Norris – How I Set Goals (Max#33)
  

“It’s the angle your nose meets the wind” – that was the answer I was given by the US naval pilot, Curt, who answered my question ‘what does the word attitude really mean?’

The famous motivational speaker Zig Ziglar said “My altitude depends more on my attitude than my aptitude’ and that phrase has stuck with me since I first heard it about 10 years ago.  How far you go, how successful you are at something, how high you reach up whichever ladder you might be climbing, depends more on how you approach it than how skilled you are.  It’s your attitude that counts.

I’d always thought attitude was something that described a person and their general way of being, you’ve heard it so many times ‘Oh, he’s got a bad attitude’ and ‘You need to change your attitude’, ‘you’ve got the wrong attitude’ – you can hear it as an everyday phrase.  I hadn’t realized that there was a more powerful, useful meaning.  Words are like that, aren’t they, they’re often ‘just words’ until you get under them and into their meaning.

So it’s your angle of approach.  Think about it.  How you approach something; the angle your nose meets the wind as you approach it.

When you think about a tricky situation, a fun plan you have, an interview, a meeting, a match – whatever, your attitude is going to determine your success more than anything else.  More than that outfit you wear, the training you’ve done to prepare, the list of points you’ve made – more than all of those things.  Your attitude to getting ready will have already affected all the other things anyway.

You decide how you’ll approach something – the angle your nose is going to meet the wind – and that’s your attitude.

Let’s imagine 3 typical, everyday, scenarios:

• A meeting with a potential new client:  It could be scary and a lot of time-consuming preparation or it could be an opportunity to meet new people, share information and find out if what you offer is a fit.  Different angle of approach.  Different energy.

• A long plane journey:  It could be a pain with lots of time spent surrounded by strangers and in uncomfortable seats.  It could also be an opportunity to catch up on reading and writing with a break from your day-to-day routine.   Same thing happening, different experience.

• An interview:  Obviously, it could be an anxiety-inducing experience being in the firing line with people who want to catch you out.  It could, of course, be a two-way conversation with people who are interested in your skills and experience.  You too, are interested whether you’re a fit for their organisation, you might be, you might not.  That’s OK and that’s a different attitude and, again, a different energy you’ll have.

Simplistic examples I know.  What you can tell though is that depending on your attitude to each example, your result will be different.  Your language will be different, your preparation for each experience will be different and, ultimately, how you feel will be different.  “The orientation of a plane dependent on it’s direction of travel” is my Mac dictionary’s definition of attitude.

Francesca Riegler says it well:  “Happiness is an attitude.  We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong.  The amount of work is the same.”

I know it’s just a word, like so many words you’ll use today, but words have the power to change your thoughts – that’s where the power in your language really is.  Winston Churchill famously said “Attitude is a little word that makes a big difference.”  Enough said.

How do I learn more about Kay?

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Article reproduced with permission of Kay White, Communication Specialist and Mentor at www.wayforwardsolutions.com. Kay shows professionals how to be understood. Get quicker, faster and better results by becoming a more effective, influential and savvy communicator – everywhere in your life.

Kay’s first book, The A to Z of Being Understood is a Number 1 Amazon Bestseller for Customer Service.

In addition, you can listen to an exclusive interview with Kay where she shares several exclusive tips on how to immediately make your communication more powerful and persuasive: http://www.maximisepotential.co.uk/how-to-develop-effective-powerful-communication/

I just watched the replay of Dia Greene storming the victory in the IAAF Athletic World Championships, capturing Great Britain’s first Gold Medal of the Championships on his way to becoming the Men’s 400 metre hurdle champion.

Dia was probably the least known of all of GB’s medal hopefuls; yet, he turned in a performance, which has now elevated him to a special place in history.

I’ve followed athletics all my life, and have had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing some of our athletic greats, such as Dean Macey and David Weir, however, what blew me away with Dia’s performance was the strength of his finish.

On the final bend he was lying in 5th place, and even with 60 meters to go, he was third or forth. However, off the final hurdle he hit the accelerator and produced the most powerful finish I’ve ever witnessed, and in the process completely changing the colour of his medal.

Amazing!

I was reading up on Dia and found some wonderful extracts from Tom Fordyce’s Blog on BBC Sport, which I wanted to share with you.

In my mind, the extracts and statements below, confirm exactly why Dai was able to put in that Gold Medal performance, just when it was required, and why he is someone clearly dedicated to doing everything possible to maximise his potential:

Etched on the glass windows at the Bath University track where Greene trains is a three-line quotation: “Winning means you are willing to go longer, work harder and give more than anyone else.”

“We’re not gimmicky down here,” Greene told Fordyce, “A lot of our confidence comes from knowing that we put the hard work in.

“In my discipline, it’s the person who puts that hard work in who wins. All these months on this cold, wet hill in Bath pay off in the big championships.”

You are all well aware that Maximise Potential dedicates itself to bringing you real life success stories that confirm that reaching the pinnacle of your career or field of expertise and interest, is down to hard work, perseverance and strength of mind.

In Dai’s statements, he makes no reference to being ‘naturally-talented’ or having a ‘gift’ for running or even ‘inheriting my strengths from my parents.’

Not one bit – for Dai (and everyone else I interviewed for the Maximise Potential Podcast), it is about putting in the hours and hours of hard work and effort.

So, if you want to be the Dai Greene of your field, go find your own cold, wet hill and start climbing it again, again and again.

Now here is another great example of someone Maximising their Potential, and really testing themselves to see how far they can go . . .

Comedian David Walliams is set to swim about 140 miles of the River Thames in just eight days for Sport Relief.

Starting on 5 September, the Little Britain star will swim from Lechlade in Gloucestershire to Big Ben in London. The bid is part of the Big Splash campaign to get the nation swimming.

Swimming up to 8 hours everyday, Walliams, 40, will pass through several major towns en route, including Oxford, Reading, Henley, Maidenhead, Windsor, Kingston and Richmond.

In 2006, Walliams completed a swim across the English Channel, raising £1m for Sport Relief. He later received a special award at the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year for completing the 21-mile distance.

He swam the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain to Morocco for Sport Relief in 2008, and last year cycled from John O’Groats to Land’s End.

In his latest challenge the comedian is again raising money for the BBC-backed charity, which helps vulnerable people in the UK and in some of the world’s poorest countries.

“Most people in the UK know the Thames, and most people think the idea of swimming in it is horrifying,” Walliams said of the challenge.

“And it is. It’ll be relentless. It’s a huge distance so I’ll need all the support I can get.”

How can I pledge my support?

If you wish to support David, then please click on the following link: Sponsor David Walliams on his River Thames Challenge.

Walliams vs The Thames will be filmed for a documentary to be broadcast in the build up to Sport Relief in March next year.

Best of luck David, from everyone at The Maximise Potential Podcast – I’m going to cross my fingers and hope that you’ll be able to find some time in your diary in the near future to share the experience with us on the Podcast.

Steve Jobs has been most of the most remarkable Leaders in the Digital Age, however news today confirmed that Steve Jobs is stepping down from his role as CEO of Apple. As a Leader, a Businessman, a Visionary and Inventor, Steve Jobs is clearly an individual who tried his all to Maximise his Potential, and hopefully the brief article below will help to paint a picture about who he is and what he has contributed to society:

It is well known that Steve Jobs has been battling ill health in recent years, having undergone a liver transplant following pancreatic cancer, said he could no longer meet his chief executive’s duties and expectations.

In his brief resignation letter to the Board of Apple, he recommended that Tim Cook takes over as CEO, while he moves into a Chairman role.

Here are some of the highlights of Steve Jobs career (most of which is taken from his Wikipedia page):

• Steven Paul “Steve” Jobs (born February 24, 1955)
• In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula and others
• Resigned from Apple in the 80’s after a series of disputes with the Board
• Went on to become the Founder of NeXT – which Apple bought in 1996, returning Jobs to the role of CEO.
• In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios, where he was CEO
• He became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, following the acquisition of Pixar by Disney.
• He was credited in the 1995 movie Toy Story as an executive producer.
• Jobs is listed as either primary inventor or co-inventor in over 230 awarded patents or patent applications

Jobs has always aspired to position Apple and its products at the forefront of the information technology industry by foreseeing and setting trends, at least in innovation and style. He summed up that self-concept at the end of his keynote speech at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007 by quoting ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky:

There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.’ And we’ve always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will.

—Steve Jobs

There is an excellent video on You Tube of Steve Jobs, giving his Stanford commencement speech. If you have not seen it, please take a few moments to watch it:

Jobs is also a Beatles fan. He has referenced them on more than one occasion at Keynotes and also was interviewed on a showing of a Paul McCartney concert. When asked about his business model on 60 Minutes, he replied

My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other’s negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are not done by one person, they are done by a team of people.

I think that quote was the perfect end. Thank you for taking the time to stop by!