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Insights: Just Do It! October 14, 2008 |
HiJust Do It!If you read last week’s edition of Insights you will know that I spent a few days visiting London recently. I attended a week-end seminar on internet marketing and had the privilege of meeting some of the world’s most successful people in this field. What really struck me about most of the presenters was their youthful age and their apparent carefree attitude to life. One presenter, in particular, made me reflect on this. After an impressive presentation in which he demonstrated a new approach to marketing on the net, young Kavit Haria asked the audience if there were any questions for him. “Yes,” said one elderly gentleman from the back of the conference room. “I’d like to know how old you are?” Shock and awe Without so much as blinking, Kavit replied that he was 21, a revelation that brought both murmurings of shock and admiring applause from the gathered conference goers. Even more surprising was the fact that Kavit then went on to describe to members of the audience how they could join his exclusive mentoring programme and get taught his success secrets for a ‘modest fee’. I walked up to Kavit during the break after his session and congratulated him on having the courage and presence to do something that most of us only learn to do much later in life - if at all - with the authority and panache of someone thirty years his senior! Faced with the same situation, many youngsters his age might have thanked me politely while glowing with pride at being congratulated by someone far more advanced in years. Not Kavit. Kavit shrugged off the praise almost as if it were irrelevant to the discussion at hand. “Are you going to join my mentoring programme?” he asked in a ‘matter-of-fact’ way! A great learning On the flight back from London I could hardly stop thinking about Kavit and all the other youthful and highly successful presenters at the seminar. There was, unquestionably, a great learning that had been presented to me – but what was it, precisely? The answer came to me on Saturday night while I was enjoying dinner at a local restaurant with my wife, children and two very good friends. Our friends shall remain anonymous but let’s call them Sam and Kelly for the purposes of the story. Trouble for ‘Baby Boomers’ Conversation moved to the global financial crisis and the effect that it is likely to have on pensions, savings and disposable income for the baby-boomer generation. Sam commented that the meltdown would force any non-working partners to seek employment to make up for the lost income. This proved to be something of a ‘red rag’ to Kelly who promptly bemoaned what she saw as the total impracticality of Sam’s suggestion… “Don’t be ridiculous. Who would employ someone like me, at my age? Things have changed; I just wouldn’t be able to cut it in employment anymore. I just don’t have the qualifications and I’m out of touch. In any case nobody would value my skills anymore.” “Wow,” I thought! Here was a lady who, by any measure, had some impressive credentials, not to mention life experience, and a head that could be referred to as ‘well screwed on’. Yet her self-confidence was clearly non-existent… or close to it. Contrast that with my ‘barely legal’ friend Kavit Haria! On Sunday I spent some time thinking about what I had experienced in an attempt to make some sense of it. Human pecking order I spent time considering my own life and realised how my own upbringing, my early experience in the defence force and later experience in corporate life had conditioned me to respect the human ‘pecking order’ or ‘hierarchy’ that I was taught existed and in which I had always been encouraged to find my place. Kavit, along with many of the other young whiz kids, clearly had no such sense of – or respect for – hierarchy. To today’s youngsters, the only hierarchy that exists is the divide between those who continue to dream their dreams and those who take action to live their dreams. The only boundaries that they conform to are those that they choose to impose on themselves. I felt humbled. A new world order In my opinion, there is a new world order unfolding – and that’s something about which I commit to write a future newsletter because it’s a BIG topic! For now, if you’re someone who received the ‘key of the door’ more years ago than you care to remember, I have some advice… The world rules are changing – and you should change too if you want to flourish. Traps of the old world order Don’t restrict yourself by imposing artificial boundaries that are a product of the old world order. Don’t limit yourself through deference to the human hierarchies that you think may exist. Don’t allow others, or your environment, to convince you that your worth is spent. Don’t suppress that little voice inside! Don’t fall for any of the traps of the old world order. Your only limitations exist inside your head. Ask someone like Kavit! Just Do It! From hereon out, if your inner voice speaks, listen carefully, and then take urgent, inspired, meaningful action. In the words that the Nike footwear company has cleverly sought to make its own… Just Do It! What’s your calling? At New Insights we know that to thrive in today’s world we need to reinvent ourselves, to liberate ourselves from our own self-imposed mental shackles and live the life of joy that was intended for us. And some special people find their calling in helping others to achieve this. If you feel you’re one of those special people we invite you to train with New Insights to become a certified and well rewarded life coach, living a life of fulfillment and helping others to find personal freedom, confidence and growth. The New Insights life coaching skills training programme is everything you need to become a certified practising life coach. You study in your time when it suits you. The programme is powerful, flexible and affordable. Interested?
Bill.
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