Welcome Can we really make a difference? How do we make the fear go away? Recommended reading Thought for the month What's new?

Welcome
to March 05's SHACK ATTACK from John Shackleton - inspirational speaker. I hope this newsletter is providing you with inspirational messages to keep you focused and motivated to achieve your goals. If you have any ideas or stories that you feel could be included in the next edition then please contact me. See the bottom of this newsletter for my contact details.

Can we really make a difference?

For the last 30 years I've made my living talking to people, first as coach and a school teacher, then as a management trainer and now as a inspirational speaker. Over the years there have been many times I've questioned whether it's been worthwhile and, through talking to others, I've grown to realise that many of you sometimes feel the same way. Sometimes after a particularly tough day, when someone who you have faith in has let you down or when you've given 100% and someone questions your effort or your integrity, you may ask yourself "Why do I do this? Does anyone listen to what I'm saying? Can I ever really make a difference?" Nowadays when these ideas come in my head I force myself to stay positive and remember the incidents which illustrate how easy it is to make a difference in someone else's life.

A few years ago a very successful friend of mine wanted a new car and so on his day off, dressed in his jeans and T-shirt, he went into his local Mercedes garage. After looking around for a few minutes he approached one of the salesmen and asked, "Could you help me, I'd like to test drive the new CLK." The salesman didn't even look up from his paperwork but said "You and everyone else mate!" My friend left immediately and wrote to the MD of the garage to complain about how he was treated but he didn't even get a reply, so he bought a BMW instead. Now my friend just happens to be a conference speaker, his subject being customer care and he gives 3 or 4 talks every week to groups of all backgrounds. Since the incident he has told that story at every possible opportunity naming both the garage and the individual concerned. We estimated that he speaks to at least 5,000 people a year.

I wonder how much of a negative difference those 5 words from one salesman have made to his company? I'm sure he didn't intentionally upset my friend; perhaps he was having a bad day, maybe his boss had just chewed him out, perhaps he'd had an argument with his wife or he ran over a cat that morning, who knows? What I do know is that a two second burst of his negative attitude not only lost the sale but was also directly responsible for 5,000 pieces of negative publicity per year. Do you know what's worse, I bet he has absolutely no recollection of the meeting. He probably hasn't even thought about the incident ever again and has no idea of the negative impact he made.

More than 20 years ago at 5:30 one morning when I was coaching a group of swimmers, I noticed that one of the parents sitting on the poolside was reading a book and, being a bit bored with my coaching, I stopped to talk to him. The book turned out to be "The Magic of Thinking Big" by David Schwartz and I mentioned that I thought it was a great title. Just to pass the time I asked him what it was about and he explained, "It's about how our thinking controls our successes in life" and, as we talked more about the book, I suddenly realised how a book like that could help me and my swimmers.

Reading that book led me, over the years, to read many hundreds of self-development titles and also got me interested in sports psychology. The work I did in that field led me to become coach to the British Triathlon team, start my own training company and eventually to becoming a conference speaker. That 30 second conversation totally changed my life and is directly responsible for me communicating to thousands of people about how they can make a difference in their own and others lives. I've thanked that parent on many occasions but he insists that he can't even remember our conversation!

Can we make a difference? I think those two stories illustrate that we are constantly doing just that, often without even knowing it. The real question is: are we making a positive difference? And to answer that we need to closely inspect our own attitude. These days if something someone says, or does, has a strong positive effect on me, I make a special effort to thank them for their input because otherwise they'll never know that their words or actions have changed another person's life.

How do we make the fear go away?
 

I recently read that more people suffer from the fear of public speaking than any other fear. Although I'm sure I don't experience that fear to the same level that many people do, I am still nervous before every talk that I do and I hope that fear never goes away. I find that the fear is very important to my performance.

Every quarter I write a short article for Masterscrawl the newsletter for New Zealand Masters swimmers about the mental side of our sport and I recently wrote an article to help people cope with the fear we experience before a swimming competition. If you suffer from a fear of public speaking perhaps you might find this article useful. Click here >>

Thought for the month:
Fear can hold us back from achieving the things we desire. Confidence allows us to control and use the fear rather than letting the fear control and use us.

Recommended reading:
I'm currently re-reading Hitting the Zone by Steve Williams, caddy to Tiger Woods the greatest golfer the world has ever known. An absolute must-read even if you don't play golf, this is an excellent book about how we can train our mind to help us achieve our wildest dreams.

What's new:
January and February have been such busy months for me that I think I may have overdone things a little. After doing 25 presentations in 36 days, I promptly contracted a nasty virus. The doctor told me to stop my swimming training and leave my diet alone for a month so I'll have to change my weight loss goal achievement date. I'll let you know the new date for my goal when I've re-set it.

John Shackleton - Inspirational Speaker of the Year 2004, National Speakers Association
Web site: www.JohnShack.com
Telephone: +64 9 482 0798
Mobile: 021 366 669
Email: John@JohnShack.com

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