"Your interactive and motivational style of speaking provoked lots of innovative and new thoughts in our audience and made our event a real great success,and unleashed the potential of our delegates, you were one of the most impressive speakers we have ever had in the past 5 years of our conferences" - Sepehr Tarvedian CEO, http://www.hamayeshfarazan.org, Iran

Every year, I have the honour of addressing thousands of fifteen/sixteen year old students on the topics of motivation, entrepreneurship and creativity. Part of the journey requires students to generate ideas after been presented with two different unrelated product. For example, a tractor and fake tan!

One creative student came up with the idea of converting the tractor cab into a mobile spraying booth – brilliant.

Their levels of creativity appear to far exceed “adult levels” which appears to endorse research by Beth and Land (highlighted in an earlier post) which showed that the older we get, the less we have access to our creative genius.

Accepting this and mindful of the “rentacrowd” idea I aired on the Video Clinic; I believe it would be a useful exercise to invite a group of sixteen years to your company and brainstorm potential new ideas, and applications of existing ones – you will not be disappointed!

You cannot solve your problems with the thinking that created them, a common line aired by us keynote speakers – is it time to move outside your comfort zone and step into the unknown?

Great leaders find progress in pain, light in the dark, possibility in chaos – this is their time.

Cost Leadership – delivering real value to customers.

Pursuing a strategy of exceeding customer’s expectations at all interfaces – probably the only way left to attract a shrinking target audience. In the past, I advocated a strategy of constructive paranoia – act as if your customer were leaving your business – no act any more; it is happening.

Meeting and learning from pain – remember Kahlil Gibran’s famous words, “pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses our understanding.”
Similar to my own journey which brought me from high income to low income and back as I chose to follow my bliss, and develop a business as a motivational speaker; expect to be stirred and shaken but also stronger as a result of your trip.

Employee Focus – more opportunity to tap into the innate potential of your most important intangible asset. Start by asking them for their ideas for your organisation. One idea a week would transform your workplace.

A little more time for self reflection – remember Stanford Business School Advisory Committee asserts that self awareness is the most important attribute for a leader to develop.

Embrace the journey.

Recently I had a conversation with a HR Director who bemoaned the ongoing proliferation of bad news and despair coming through the media.

“Even every conference I attend, there is another economist predicting Armageddon from the podium. It appears there is no escape!” he continued.

Without doubt this focus on the negative is damaging, and in the context of boosting our bottom lines is very misled – why?

1. As our minds work similar to computers the more negatives we input, the more negatives the output. In computer language, garbage in, garbage out! Or as my father used to say “what do you expect from a donkey but a kick!” Put in another way the more we talk recession the bigger and deeper this “black hole” becomes.
2. When an organisation is employing a keynote speaker in the future, you may ask them to put the current challenges in their appropriate context. In the context of Ireland we are just entering a recession after an unprecedented economic miracle over the past fifteen years. How can we suddenly forget this indisputable fact? You don’t have to be a motivational speaker to use this fact as a reframe for our current challenge which like all dips will pass in time.
3. Sometimes people feel helpless in these situations but there is hope.
   “We are all in the gutter but some of us sees the stars,” said Oscar Wilde. We may not be able to change International Economies but it is certainly within our skillset to change our reaction to a downturn. Imagine if your next keynote speaker gave your employees the tools to reframe the current challenges in a positive way. This new optimism would permeate the organisation and have a dramatic effect on your company’s future in the short and medium term.
4. Regardless of how we spin it, life (personal and organisational) is a journey of light and dark. For those who haven’t experienced downturns this new experience will give them the tools and strategies to meet the next one as a positive learning experience.

In summary I penned this blog to show that everyone can play a role in reversing the current culture.

Aristotle once said “ Words are a symbol of our mental experience” – we need new words for the current situation – challenge, opportunity to grow, catalyst for growth, time for personal empowerment and so on……

Choose new words today and pass on any more exposure to the doom and gloom merchants.

Font Agency is delighted to announce that they will be representing best selling author and motivational speaker Kevin Kelly’s latest book Basics Before Buzz
The Literary Agency, based in Dublin Ireland, offers representation to writers of fiction and nonfiction internationally.

For more information www.fontlitagency.com