Leisure … more than a word, it's a lifestyle

Visiting Orlando this week was the Peter and Tamara Lowe event “Get Motivated“. For those that don’t know anything about it’s origins you’ll need a little background. For more than 25 years, corporate leaders, Fortune 500 companies, educators, business owners, sales people, medical professionals and a whole host more have been attending Peter & Tamara Lowe’s events, making them the leading seminar business in America. Peter and Tamara co-founded the business all those years ago and since then over 3 million people have attended to listen to the truly great speakers that Peter and Tamara have put on stage.

The list of the rich and the famous is enormous. Five United States Presidents (Bush, Carter, Clinton, Ford, & Reagan) have spoken and numerous world leaders and news makers like Lt. Col. Oliver North, Lady Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev. Additionally, there have been entertainers and journalists like Bill Cosby, Goldie Hawn, Charleton Heston, Ed McMahon, Mary Tyler Moore, Christopher Reeve and people from the music world, Johnny Cash and Reba McEntire, to name but two, have given their words of wisdom from the Lowe stage. Astronauts Aldrin, Duke, Kranz, Lovell and Aldrin have spoken along with many stars of the sports arenas, people like Curt Schilling, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Joe Montana, Don Shula, Larry Bird, Muhammad Ali, Evander Holyfield, Jackie Joyner Kersee and Jeff Gordon. From the business and literary world such names as Debbi Fields, Seth Godin, Billy Graham, Mark Victor Hansen, Tom Hopkins, John Maxwell, Suze Orman, Tom Peters, Jim Rohn, George Ross, Brian Tracy and I could go on and on. The list is practically endless.

So, having never been to one of these events before I decided that it was time to trot along. The line up was equally impressive, Rudy Giuliani, Gen. Colin Powell, Laura Bush, Lou Holtz, Zig Ziglar, Dr. Robert Schuller, Terry Bradshaw and Tamara Lowe herself.

I found myself arriving fairly early at the Orange County Convention and Visitors Center and it wasn’t long before I was seated in an excellent seat just four rows from the stage. A great view. Lou Holtz, the football head coach, was one of the first to enter the arena and he gave a rousing opening speech about life being the attitude you choose to take. After that Zig Ziglar came on stage. I wrote about Zig in an earlier blog so check that out here. We then listened to former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani as he recounted the events of 9/11 and the way the City came together under his leadership to overcome the events of those sad days.

General Colin Powell then made his way to the stage and told us about the afterlife of his days as Secretary of State and Commander in Chief and how he can now get a hot dog in New York without being troubled too much. Laura Bush was up next and she went into quite a bit of detail about the events of September 11th and how deeply they affected her husband President George Bush at that time. She spoke from the heart of the upset she felt when the media attacked her husband and also, about how her family is now doing now the spotlight has moved away from them.

Overall it was well worth a visit and a day away from the office to hear the stories told by these people and of the one common theme they shared… a real determination to succeed. To not let bad times affect them and to fight back in adversity. The seminar was also well timed as we start to pull out of the recession…if we choose to believe the media that is! Around 10,000 people attended the event and hopefully the message sank home to those that were there… “don’t rely on the Government to pull us out of this… it’s you, the people, who will do that”. And I guess, we always have and that we always will.

Zig Ziglar & Nigel Worrall

Another wonderful man that I recently met was none other than Zig Ziglar. There can’t be many people who don’t know about Mr. Ziglar but if you’re one of the few, then make sure you look him up on an internet search or better still go out and buy his books, CD’s or DVD’s. You’re in for a treat.

Unfortunately Zig has recently fallen down some stairs at his home and although he was looking a little frail none of this was going to put him off speaking to the crowd that had gathered to listen to him. In life, we all get knock backs or things that don’t go our way but as Zig, now aged 83, walked to the stage he sent a very clear message that here was someone who was not going to give in to the pain and the suffering he was experiencing.

These days, Zig is not the spring chicken he used to be but in-spite of his recent difficulties he walked the talk in every way. Some of his quotes are world famous;

“Failure is a detour, not a dead end street.”

“If you can dream it, then you can achieve it. You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.”

“Many marriages would be better if the husband and the wife clearly understood that they are on the same side.”

“You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.”

“Money isn’t the most important thing in life, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen on the “gotta have it scale”.

And the one that resonates with me the most having watched Zig battle his way through his speech and then depart to a standing ovation; “Sometimes adversity is what you need to face in order to become successful”.

During this economic time, Zig’s words give us comfort, inspiration and determination. Zig’s own actions in attending an event he could well have avoided through ill health show that everyone of us can achieve what we set out to achieve if we set our goals and determine to meet them.

Thanks Zig, it was a privilege to see and hear you. And also, thanks to your wife, “The Red Head”, Jeane for allowing you to visit Orlando and to your daughter, Julie, who took the above picture that I will always cherish.

And I’ll never forget your words as she took that picture;

“Is that a digital camera?” Zig asked.

“Yes” said I… “Why?”

“Because I don’t want to hang around negatives” replied Zig with a mischievous grin on his face!

A couple of times a year I like to get out of my box and go and see the real world. Living in Orlando is a lot of fun but sometimes it’s good to get away and see how other parts of America work and what they have to offer. When I go away I’m always looking at new things and new ideas that I can bring back in order to benefit our customers and that’s why I visited two great American organizations on my trip to Atlanta recently.

First of all I visited CNN. This was a unique opportunity to see the stories behind the news and it was a fascinating insight into how the news is actually gathered and then distributed. On our tour we saw the control room where every element of live news coverage comes together. We also saw Studio 7E, CNN/US Newsroom, CNN International, CNN Headline News, CNN en Espanol and the world’s largest freestanding escalator.

The tour was around 90 minutes and it was very interesting to see how everything came together to provide the viewer with live news 24 hours a day.

The next venue I visited with a few friends was Ted Turner’s restaurant “Ted’s Montana Grill” in Downtown Atlanta. I hear there’s a recession at the moment but you really could have fooled me. We went twice, once for lunch and once for dinner and on both occasions we had a short wait to get a table. The food is pretty decent as well and there have been many rave reviews about the buffalo and the bison on the menu. The bison meatloaf is a firm favorite among locals and visitors alike but I settled for the cedar plank salmon which was excellent.

Have to say, I was watching how they handled being so busy and I was certainly looking out for some tips on how to do things but I ended up walking away thinking this was a business that really didn’t do much marketing as word of mouth is obviously so strong. There was no effort to capture our names, email addresses or birth dates so I can only assume that Mr. Turner thinks his restaurant will be there forever as clearly customer retention isn’t a high priority!

The next port of call was a tour of Coca Cola. I was looking forward to this and to learning a lot more about the world famous company. It didn’t disappoint. The first part of the tour was guided and we saw an excellent video introducing the Coca Cola brand and how they see everything they do as a team effort. After that we were then left to walk around the World of Coca Cola where we saw numerous exhibits, met with the bear, enjoyed the 4-D Theater with moving seats and saw the fully functioning bottling line. The guides were extremely knowledgeable and very proud to be working at Coca Cola.

The Icon exhibit was also interesting as we saw work by Steve Penley, Gordon Chandler, Corner Jennings, Burton Morris and Steve Kaufman which celebrated the “Icon” that Coca Cola has become.

Finally the tour concludes as you collect a free bottle of coke and enter the Coca Cola store where you can buy everything you can ever imagine with a Coca Cola logo on it! It’s a must visit place next time you are in Atlanta. Have fun!

Nigel Worrall & George Foreman

It’s been a whirlwind few days and over the coming posts I’ll share some of what I’ve been up to. It started with a trip to a great marketing conference in Atlanta last week where I was fortunate to listen to and then meet former World Heavy Weight boxing champion George Foreman.

George is an amazing guy. Someone who has fought back from adversity and who defied the critics when in 1994 he became the oldest man to win the world heavy weight championship at the age of 45.

One of his comments was very revealing as he said ““Once a person gets some success, they are frightened to start up from the bottom again.” He then told the story of how he had been world heavy weight champion, Olympic champion and how when his boxing career finally came to an end how he was constantly told that he was too old to do anything else. He hadn’t saved any money and had ten hungry mouths to feed. “I’m broke and scared” he said but he also said “You’re never told too old to start again” and from that he started to rebuild his life.

He started doing some menial tasks to earn a few dollars and it wasn’t before long that the now well known “George Foreman” grill came along. The story is interesting in itself as the grill was almost called the Hulk Hogan grill. Apparently an agent had two products that needed endorsing; One was a grill and the other was a blender. Since Hogan wasn’t around when the call came in, George Foreman took the grill and Hogan got left with the blender that apparently made no money. George is one smart man and he worked extremely hard to sell the grill to stores and the public by doing public appearances, infomercials and simply by making sure everyone got to know about the “George Foreman grill”. Of course, his natural charisma and charm helped and today over 110 million of these grills have been sold.

So, this is the story of a man who never knew when he was beat and as he said “Success is a strange thing…it can make you arrogant or eager for more.” Well George is certainly not arrogant, I can vouch for that, and I guess it ultimately comes down to the drive in your heart when you believe in something. There’s a few lessons in George’s story for all of us and if ever you get a chance to hear the big man speak…make sure you take it.

Are travelers becoming more wary of hotels as the swine flu outbreak worsens?

Hotels are being eyed suspiciously by travelers as harbingers of the swine flu and internet discussion boards are buzzing about the fears of transmission and whether some people are putting their fellow vacationers at risk.

Hotels like are just the latest high-traffic areas that the public is warily eyeing as they become increasingly worried about swine flu. In recent months, other crowded places such as schools and airports have also become causes for concern for many people. Swine flu fears are even changing the way Americans exercise, work, vacation and pray.

In the meantime, the Center for Disease Control is reminding people to avoid letting their fears become overblown, and that the best thing people can do to avoid getting swine flu is to take preventative measures like getting vaccinated, washing their hands and staying home if they’re sick.

Dr. Phyllis Kozarsky, a travel health expert at the CDC, in a recent e-mail message to the New York Times. “There are too numerous to count opportunities for people to be in close spaces together, whether in movie theaters, in crowded shopping malls, on public transportation as well as during most individuals’ daily activities.”

All I can say to that is, good job there is a viable alternative out there for travelers…at least in a vacation rental you are with your loved ones rather than mixing with complete strangers! And, of course, all this scaremongering will soon pass…. surely we all have bigger things to worry about?