Who do you think you are?

Many years ago I heard on a tape by Dr Denis Waitley, a story about a scientific experiment entitled “The Pike Syndrome”. Apparently if you take a pike, a very aggressive fish and place it in a large fish tank along with a number of minnows, the minnows disappear and the pike gets fat! In this particular experiment they then divided the tank into two by placing a clear glass screen down the middle, the pike on one side and a whole new group of minnows on the other. As you can imagine the pike’s first instinct is to chase his next meal but he soon gets to realize that his action only leads to headaches and eventually he stops trying. Some time later you can remove the glass plate and the pike will remain in his half of the tank, leaving the minnows to live a long and healthy life in their half. The pike has been taught to be a “half tanker” and may even starve to death despite being able to catch and eat all the food he needs.

This process is known as conditioning and the pike has developed a conditioned response artificially created for him. Apparently we have all been trained in the same way although for most of us hopefully this didn’t involve tanks, jars or chains!

Every one of our past experiences in our lives, our successes and failures, our embarrassments and our victories, our highs and our lows are all stored in our memory banks. This includes all our past interactions with the people around us, those who help us and those who try and harm us. Our memory banks also contain all the standards that society has placed upon us and all the media’s perceptions of what is happening in the world. All these past experiences give us a sense of who we are, how right or wrong we are, how good or bad we are, what position we take on the list, whether we are at the top or the bottom and we use each new experience to strengthen what we know about who we think we are.
By the age of 30 you’ve had more than a quarter of a million hours of this external conditioning from family, friends, teachers, peer groups and bosses, from the environment around you and from the media and some studies suggest that more than 70% of this conditioning is negative. Many of us have been told that we are not old enough, tall enough, good enough, intelligent enough. We’ve been told we are too young, too fat, too nice, too hard on others, too trusting of people. The media tells us we need to have flat stomachs, big boobs, white teeth, and society says that we need to be more aggressive in business, caring and kind to others, well disciplined, relaxed but focused etc.

But this external conditioning is only part of the story. Who do you talk to the most? Who is it that does the most conditioning and damages your self esteem more than anyone else? Psychologists suggest we talk to ourselves more than 70% of the time and very often we are much harder on ourselves than we are on other people. When we fail to achieve our desired outcome we might say something like “Typical, you always screw things up”. If we don’t make an important deadline we might beat ourselves up with a comment like “Late again, when will you ever learn”. Even when we succeed and produce an outstanding result we may be tempted to take away some of the potential positive feelings with a comment like “You were lucky there, you don’t usually do that well”.

Now I don’t know how much of your 250,000+ hours of conditioning has been positive and how much has been negative but I do know that if you come along to one of my motivational talks hopefully you’ll get one hour of positive messages. However, how will that one hour stack up against the pile of negative hours you may have stored in your memory banks? You may leave my one hour talk feeling positive and motivated to raise your game and set your sights a little higher than they were, however the 250,000+ hours are waiting for you just round the corner to set you straight and put you back in your place!

All of your past conditioning has created what you currently believe you are capable of, and as we all know we can never exceed the level of our self image. However the good news is that our future self image can be changed by changing our current conditioning. This isn’t a quick and simple job, we may have a lot of negative past conditioning to overcome, but with constant effort we can change what we believe about ourselves. Have a look at the questions below and see if you can find some areas of conditioning that you can change.

Who do you see on a regular basis that doesn’t support your efforts, runs you down or is critical of your goals? Other than yourself who are the people who damage your self esteem the most? Can you limit your exposure to them?

What TV programmes do you watch that send messages to you about life that are less than positive? What could you do with the time that you currently waste damaging your self esteem watching these programmes?

Do you have a support group that you meet with regularly whose job it is to build you up and support you despite any setbacks you may experience? If not, who would you invite if you formed one?

What do you say to yourself when you fail to achieve your goals, meet your deadlines or produce a poor result? Are you critical, damning or even abusive towards yourself? What could you say instead that would build your self esteem?

How do you treat yourself when you succeed, what language do you use to raise (or lower) your self esteem? Is there a time of day that you could use to give yourself a positive uplifting pep talk, something that you could walk away from feeling good about yourself?

Let’s make 2009 the year we take control of the conditioning process and stop ourselves becoming a half tank pike!

A friend swam the English Channel last year, a great achievement. Now the swim has become part of a music video and it looks great - click here to view! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCxv74aYB98

2009 Bootcamps - Hong Kong and New Zealand

Fast track your speaking career with the
Speakers Boot Camp

Let professional speaker, John Shackleton, teach you how to:

‘Work for an hour - get paid for a week!'

Would you like to:

· Earn a 6 figure income from speaking?
· Rise to the top of the best profession in the world?
· Learn the secrets of successful speakers?
· Get more bookings from the Speakers Bureaus?
· Avoid the pitfalls that many speakers make, early in their career?
· Know what promotional materials you must have to succeed?
· Up-sell clients and get repeat business?

· Make better use of your marketing material to promote yourself?
· Understand the use of promotional video and produce one yourself?
· Create product and use it to double your speaking fee?
· Have more control over your audience and get standing ovations?

Your presenter and coach: John Shackleton CSP

Australasia’s number one performance expert, with more than 25 years experience in the speaking industry throughout Europe and the USA. John emigrated to New Zealand in 2003 and built a 6 figure speaking business from scratch in his first year! He went on to achieve his CSP qualification from NSAA in only 3 ½ years. This qualification is only awarded to the top 5% of speakers worldwide and usually requires 5-7 years to complete. On this Boot Camp John will share exactly how he achieved this phenomenal success in such a short period of time.

John has a background in Sports Psychology and worked with 3 New Zealand athletes who achieved top 10 places at the Beijing Olympics. His ability to inspire and motivate from stage is legendary and his recent clients include Air New Zealand, IBM and Coca-Cola. He has won numerous awards including 2007 Speaker of the year from the National Speakers Association NZ.

Check out John’s website (http://www.johnshack.com/) where you can see a video of him in action or read some of his articles here.

This 3 day Speakers Boot Camp will give you all the Business and Platform Skills that will fast track your speaking career to the next level and it comes with 100% money back guaranteed!

At Speakers Boot Camp you will learn how to:

· Develop a killer keynote
· Make your presentation come alive with stories
· Position yourself in the marketplace
· Use the media effectively to promote you
· Hold your audience and control their energy levels
· Set goals and create a business plan for your success
· Establish a speakers office
· Create more audience interaction
· Handle hecklers, interjection and apathy
· Make your presentation more humorous and entertaining
· Create product that can double your income
· Give the Bureaus exactly what they want and therefore get bookings from them
· Produce loads of referral business from your current clients
· Overcome your nerves and get rid of presenter anxiety
· Increase your confidence and ‘own the stage’
· Handle the awkward questions
· Leave your audience demanding more..!
· Video footage of you presenting that you can use to make a promotional video.
· Promotional photos taken by a professional photographer.
· Samples of proven marketing material that work.
· Hundreds of ideas that you can implement immediately
· A real passion for what you can achieve!
· Access to 1-on-1 coaching from John Shackleton.

Get your speaking business on the fast track.
Don't miss this Boot Camp.

Watch John’s video about the Boot Camp and view testimonials from boot camp attendees http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3KGcmb6wog

Your 100% money back guarantee.

Because we know that you will receive real value we offer you a 100% money back guarantee. If, by the end of the first day you are not totally delighted with the program, you can simply return all materials and you will receive a full refund. No questions, no hassles, no fuss.

When, where and how:

Hong Kong First time in Asia!!!

Dates: June 5th, 6th, and 7th 2009
Times: 9:00am to 5:00pm each day
Venue: Causeway Bay, Hong Kong Island
Investment HK$6,188
Early bird price - $4,988 if you book before 8th May
To book email John at john@johnshack.com
or call Merrin on +852 9154 9590 (Hong Kong time)

New Zealand
Dates: October 9th, 10th and 11th 2009
Times: 9:00am to 5:00pm each day
Venue: Auckland. Actual venue to be confirmed
Investment; NZ$1,499
Early bird price - $1,199 if you book before 18th Sep
To book email John at john@johnshack.com
or call John at +64 9 294 8570 (New Zealand time)

Here's what some Boot Camp graduates have to say:

Getrude Matshe - International Motivational and Inspirational Speaker

‘Speakers Boot Camp changed my life as a motivational speaker. I had no idea how much I was worth as a speaker and needed desperately to place a value on what I did best….speaking.
Boot Camp transformed not only my thinking but my whole life and I am now a sought after and well paid international inspirational and motivational speaker.

Six months after Boot Camp I have spoken in Australia, Los Angeles, Knoxville, Scotland, Singapore and London.’

Deb Bell - Speaker, Facilitator and "Her Business" Networker of the Year

‘Boot Camp is an amazing opportunity for total immersion in a supportive environment that stretched me to the next level in my speaking career. It’s not often that you can be with professionals who are where you want to be and who shared so freely.

Boot Camp was fabulous for my self confidence. It does not teach a cookie cutter approach but helped me to showcase my own story, delivery and style and gave me valuable feedback.