What Sir Stirling Moss can teach us about fear

Picture credit Peter Brown

I have just listened to an Excellent 5 minute interview with the wonderful Stirling Moss conducted by Chris Evans from radio 2. Love him or hate him he does do a great interview, his 3 minute interviews are superb with no preparation as the guest is a complete surprise, so it flows like a conversation that you may have if you met someone for the first time in a pub!! However this post is not about interview technique (though it gives me an idea) but about fear!

At 81 Sir Stirling Moss is still racing. He is Britain’s most successful fomula 1 racing driver and if you want to know more see wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_Moss

So, I hear you say, why would a racing driver be talking about fear, surely they are among the most fearless of people in the world. I would agree and also add that his generation were the uber fearless as this was a time before health and safety, before fireproof material and modern technology. This was a time of raw steel, cotton overalls and leather helmets.

Stirling has announced his retirement from the racing world as he for the very first time felt frightened going round the race track. He realised on his last race that if he were to get up to the speed he was supposed to that he would for the very first time in his life, be scared. He apparently spoke to his ‘people’ and of course his loyal and supportive wife and made the decision there and then to retire.

From a leadership perspective this is really interesting. He has shown in the past an unfaltering fearlessness which was his driving force for more than 65 years of racing. This shows amongst others the competences of steadfastness and determination. But he also listens to himself. He must have been listening to his intuition for all that time. For every other race it urged him on, but, on this his last race, he listened and it told him to stop.

Fear is a really important emotion. In her book ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’ Susan Jeffers tells us effectively that all we have to do is get over the fear because it’s the fear that is the ‘thing’ we fear not the ‘thing’ that we are doing.

Stirling epitomized this in his career up until his last race. He was fearless of the ‘thing’ which was driving very fast with little protection. Using his positive energy and power to be the biggest and best of his generation. But he also showed his courage in the face of his fear, which I surmise he must have had; which was giving up!.

Motor racing has defined him for 66 years of his life, he is an icon and for him to hang up his steering wheel took a huge amount of courage.

Imagine how scared he must have been as he realised that this was it, the end. That he would never go round the track as a racing driver again. Fini, nada.

To make the final trip to the pits, to tell ‘team moss’ that it was all over. That took courage.

Good luck Sir Stirling. You have given us many years of vicarious danger. May you retire in peace and in the knowledge that you were brave to the very end.

Here is the link to the interview
Stirling moss interview with Chris Evans it starts at 2.06.20

Oh No! it’s Blue Monday

5 guys and a canoe

I love people watching. The combination of heavy snowfall in Devon and the Christmas period meant there were plenty of opportunities to watch folks being….themselves.

We went ‘en familie’ to a  local hilly spot, it was covered with snow and the most glorious spot to try out our shiny new toboggans. Loads of others had exactly the same idea. But not everyone had a toboggan. (this in itself says so  much more than I wish to admit about my own family but this is a blog post about people watching not a confessional!!)

On the hill was a mixture of the most fantastic human creativity. Including,

A high performance team, a group of lads with a top of the range toboggan taking it in turns to descend, taking photo’s and generally joshing and enjoying each others company.

The un-performing team with inexperienced managers. A family who’s daughter had never seen snow before, was not dresses for the weather and was letting her managers/parents know that she was not amused. No amount of cajoling or distraction would make that little girl go down that hill.

The maverick. A ‘Dad’ so enjoying his time with the kids flew down the hill head first on a boogie board with at least 1 child on his back. With a large dog flying behind barking. Utter chaos but uber fun.

The entrepreneurs. 5 guys. Initially they tried a door, a full sized front door. This didn’t work so it lay abandoned. They came back with a huge old wooden canoe. (I’m not asking too many questions where either of the aforementioned items came from ahem!)

After dragging the canoe up the top of the hill, all 5 jumped in and they had a hair raising decent that Amy Williams would be proud of. Laughing, screaming and yelping (that dog again!) all the way down , when they checked that they were all alive, (with much surprise the first time) they began the heavy ascent to pull the thing back up the hill. As we left the park the screams were still reverberating. I hope no one was too badly injured. There was little control and they had an audience.

So this got me thinking. When the mind is focused on a small task, ie going down a hill it can come up with some really creative ways to do this. All the above  were ordinary people, who all focused their mind on the task at hand and came up with lots of creative ways to achieve theirs their friends and their families objectives.

In coaching this is exactly what happens. The coachee comes to a meeting with a challenge and through exploration and questioning a solution or clarity is achieved. But it doesn’t always have to be a coach doing the questioning. A bunch of colleagues all focused on the one issue at hand are more than qualified to help.

In action learning this is exactly what happens. One  individual, call him the questioner comes to the group with an issue, gives the group background and the group one by one offer a question, not advice not solutions just a question in the hope that the questioner will gain a solution or clarity from it.

The next time you have an issue or a problem, there’s no need to wallow in it yourself, grab a bunch of colleagues, you never know what creative ways you may find out of it and what bonds you are bound to make.

For a list of printable instructions of how to conduct an action learning session please e mail me emma@emmaransonbellamy.co.uk

Help me! I’m living with a clutter junkie.

 

I recently had a client bring to a coaching session an issue about clutter. He and his wife were expecting a baby and he was worried that the impending  arrival would put a strain on more than just the bulging cupboards.

 

Keeping ‘ones house in order’ is really the first step in personal leadership. In this time of multi tasking it’s easy to become complacent about keeping things tidy and organised, preferring to ‘do it later’

 

Clutter for many is about dealing with the past. An Inability to leave the past behind will mean that it remains in your present as a constant reminder.

 

Untidiness is a refusal to commit to a course of action which means that everything around you is part completed or works in progress. Clutter is the physical evidence of procrastination.

 

Here is a summary of the session outcome. Maybe it rings true with you, would love to hear your comments.

 

Looking at the clutter issue first. Find a way to discuss with your wife what all the clutter around her represents. To many clutter is a way we put down roots and gain security in our lives, it’s hard to keep on moving if you have crates of nick naks!

 

Secondly find out what her ideal home should include. William Morris said “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful” let her use her own words to build her vision of her perfect home. Are Organic, Warm, Secure or Welcoming words she would like to describe her ideal?

 

Thirdly go through each room and visualise it all going off into a removal van, this van is safe, no-one’s going to steal anything and is accessible, no-one is going to chuck her stuff away. Once everything is out of the room she can choose what is absolutely necessary, then she can bring back everything that is in her vision. Ask her what the room looks like and what else it needs? Is any of it still on the van? Does what is still on the van fit with the vision.

 

You can go through each room like that until you are left with a house which fits with the vision and a load of stuff which you have already emotionally let go of.

 

If you are brave enough you can do it physically and really sweep around the edges and re decorate. The baby’s room is an ideal place to make a start on this. Ensure however that you only do one room at a time so you see immediate benefits. This will in turn inspire you to complete the project and achieve your clutter free goals.

 

Clutter, and procrastination are friends.  To clutter junkies and procrastinators it is ridiculous to tidy new stuff when there is such a big backlog, better to do it in one huge cull and start all over again. (Think crash dieting so you can have a big blow out at Christmas!)Once the clutter is cleared you can work together to keep it that way buy investing in storage and discussing systems that work for you as a family. Untidiness may be a signal that she can’t complete the issues at hand with out ‘something’, who can help her with that something? Finally discuss with her the benefits of a clutter free tidy house and how much it means to you, it’s these courageous conversations which are a measure of a grown-up relationship.

 

If this article rang true with you, try this.

 

For the next 7 days do it now. If anything comes up, do it now. If something needs putting away, do it now. All those piles of stuff left in rooms on stairs on desks is a direct consequence of ‘not doing it now’

 

Try it for 7 days, let me know how you get on.

 

One in the eye for kelly’s critics

If you had told me last year that I would be blogging enthusiastically about Kelly Osborne being a role model for leaders I would have looked at you very strangely.

Yep you heard me right, Kelly Osborne.  You know, the youngest Daughter of Ozzie; the Prince of Darkness. Spoilt Millionairess, Drug taking talentless twit. Yes the very same.

I saw her interviewed on Saturday by Piers Morgan and I was struck immediately by her honesty and ability to listen to the questions and with candour answer them from the heart without putting any sort of spin on her responses.

She has come through the other side of LA school pretentiousness, drug taking, eating disorders, abusive relationships, her Mother nearly dying of Cancer and her Father nearly dying of a daft quad bike accident.

Not many people could cope with that, let alone at the age of 26 and in the near constant gaze of the ever so fickle global public eye.

She made some dreadful mistakes, some shocking errors of judgement and lapped up all that the celebrity lifestyle threw at her. She hit her Annus horribulus with both her parents lying in separate hospital beds on different continents waging their own personal struggle for survival as she blearily rallied between the two. What pulled her through? Dancing!

She agreed to compete in the US equivalent of Strictly Come dancing, Dancing with the stars, where she and partner Louis Van Amstel came third.

So how did dancing help her? And what traits make her a leadership role model Emma ?

Discipline: the training and complicated choreography is well known for being very difficult. Dancers are strong, courageous and committed. How many times in her charmed LA life had she witnessed or experienced these character traits.

Able to handle the attention: The attention was purely on her, her steps, her control. But the attention in a positive way rather than a negative.  As the youngest daughter of a famous, some say iconic individual, it must be very difficult to fight for your own personality as you drown in another’s persona.

Able to rise to the challenge. The  expectations of famous children is great. A models children are expected to beautiful, an actors children are expected to be brilliant actors and singers children are expected to have great voices. They are expected to emerge from the family, the finished product, not able to make their own mistakes or carve, through trial and error, their own path.

So Kelly in her short life made a bit of a mess, and made lots and lots of mistakes. I for one wrote her off as I’m sure many others.

But she turned it all round and is now much closer to her true authentic self. I’ll be following her progress very closely from now on and wonder what initiatives will come out of this new found personal strength

Good luck Kelly, this quote from Confucious sums it up for me.

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall”.

If you want to see how your leadership skills measure up, contact me for a free tool which will give you great insight.

emma@emmaransonbellamy.co.uk

Lessons for life are everywhere: The school Choir

What a fabulous evening I just had. My two little boys were part of the Michaelmas concert at their school.

I was expecting the usual, you know, mince pie, mulled wine uncomfortable chair, elbow fight with partner. We are not used to sitting this close together past the age of 12. Raffle, speech by head and lots and lots of shy children standing up doing their level best not to look at anyone in the audience and get it all over and done with as quickly as possible.

What was great about this evening was the fact that so many musical ensembles were created from the school. From the String quartet, to the brass band in it’s infancy of only 6 instruments but with a truly fantastic sound, particular congratulations to the sound made by the smallest boy and the largest trombone! Many dressed up in Christmas hats and tinsel. The wind band, 2 choirs and the percussion band complete with triangle (my own son; so proud!) and tambourine.

The difference about the usual, shy event when everyone rushes through to get over it is the music from the bands was so, well, musical and accomplished. (we are only talking up to age 12 here)

The band and choir members all had smiles on their faces, they clearly loved the whole idea of the group, and the feeling of creating something together.

My life is all about putting people together and getting the best out of individuals and teams, whether that be in seminars, training, coaching or within a social media context. I like the metaphysical theory that, the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. It’s the magic that happens when people get together, when they almost create a further personality; the group.

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs he states that the human experience is eternally looking to belong to a group. I saw that in true innocent action tonight. The bright smiling faces of the boys and girls, the way the stronger singers carried the weaker ones and the weaker ones occasionally loudly ‘going for’ the notes or the words they knew as they wanted to be part of the energy of  the group.

In social Media the more I get involved the greater the relationships I build with the many. The greater the information I am able to accumulate and scan for ideas, for information and for more contact. It’s like a drug; I’m addicted to being so much a part of so many communities.

Our lives in the past few decades have become more singular. More of us live alone than ever before, more of us work alone than ever before. We physically mix with less people. So less physical communication has meant more virtual communication. Social networks, personal drug of choice Twitter, totally allows me to submerse into all the infinite possibilities and sing as loud as I want in or out of tune, safe in the knowledge I’ll  always find someone whose in tune with me.

The sad tale of the multi-million pound discovery

Did you hear about the family who found a priceless Chinese vase in their house? It had apparently been in the family for several decades. Possibly given by an eccentric relation who had a passion for exotic travel.

When I read the story I could not help but feel extreme sadness for the couple who sold the masterpiece.

On the surface the couple that sold it have made around £30 million after taxes, they have avoided paying inheritance tax (presumably their children wont) the auction house made a tidy sum in commission, the secret Chinese buyer has purchased a bit of his heritage and the tax man has a few million to plug the deficit. Win, Win, Win. Where’s the bad news here? You may ask.

The family had always had an inkling that there was some value in the vase, around 40 years ago the vase was valued by the predecessor of ‘Antiques Road show’ and was considered to be a fake by the ‘experts’.  They took it home, no doubt dejected that their funny little vase was not what they thought or hoped it was. It returned to it’s rightful place in their home on a wobbly bookcase, until they eventually died. Their children organised for a house clearance and fortunately a clever and reputable company took over and the drama unfurled.

I wonder how many money worries that family had over the last 70 odd years, I wonder how many opportunities could have been grasped with the injection of cash the sale of the vase could have given them, 40, 30 or even 10 years ago, Apparently the woman seller, had to take a moment, ‘Del boy style’ to take it all in, of course, wouldn’t you? She said, she wished this had all happened 30 years before. Of course she did; that’s why it’s sad.

This got me thinking about people and the many metaphorical ‘vases’ and real gifts that lay locked inside an individual.   How many people are sitting on golden opportunities and fabulous untapped genius. Just because ‘others’ don’t have the foresight or the ability to have recognised the brilliance, they keep it hidden away, too shy to really fulfil their potential. Thomas Edison, the inventor of modern communications said “If we all did the things we are capable of doing we would literally astound ourselves”  ‘Here, Here’ !

I urge you not to  keep your precious talents and dreams locked away, don’t listen to others who say you’re not ‘worth it’ have a dream, hold on to it and check it in now! Don’t be like the sad vase sellers and realise too late when your options and choices are limited.