Philippe’s rigourous training for this walk took place mostly in a quiet meadow. When he was there he would visualise the twin towers & the the city below him with its noise & distractions. When he was on the actual walk he brought himself back to the quite & peacefulness of that meadow. There was method to his madness & to his training.  He was able to use powerful visualisations to help him prepare & when doing the actual walk, keep him focused on the job at hand. But truly inspiring part for me is that Philippe had a crazy dream & he was willing to sacrifice his life to achieve it.

The other interesting piece to this is his regime of training to prepare for all scenairos (ok it was a life or death scenario so he had to!) Philippe had to prepare for all eventualities. His friends would shake the wire vigorously, he practised in all types of weather, the worst the better. One of my favoutite lines from this book is  “He laughed into the teeth of the wind”.

The  “GIVING A START” Competition 2011 is aimed at encouraging potential entrepreneurs to follow their dream and to start their own business.

The judging panel will include Bobby Kerr CEO of Insomnia and of “Dragons Den”, Paula Fitzsimons, of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, and Terry Clune of Taxback.com.

The winner‟s prize is valued at €25,000.

This prize will be made up as follows:

-Office, business support, conference and meeting rooms in 11 Patrick Street

-Accommodation and events in The adjoining Pembroke Hotel

Support and consultancy from businesses in 11 Patrick Street to the value of €3,000.00 per business.
-Paschal Bergin Accountants & Tax Consultants
-MD Media PR Consultants
-Brian Dunlop Architects
-Optimize Recruitment
-Real Solutions, Staff training and coaching
-Fitzwilliam Partnership, Strategic and Financial Management

-Support from the Invest Kilkenny Business Support Unit and seed money of €1,000

-A strong PR campaign behind the competition locally and nationally aimed at giving profile to the winner and finalists.

For full competition entry details go to

http://www.elevenpatrickstreet.com/givingastart

For as long as anyone could remember, the current owner and previous generations of owners were extremely positive happy people.

Most folk assumed it was because they ran a successful business.

In fact it was the other way around…

A tradition in the business was that the owner always wore a big lapel badge, saying Business Is Great!

The business was indeed generally great, although it went through tough times like any other. What never changed however was the owner’s attitude, and the badge saying Business Is Great!

Everyone who saw the badge for the first time invariably asked, “What’s so great about business?” Sometimes people would also comment that their own business was miserable, or even that they personally were miserable or stressed.

Anyhow, the Business Is Great! badge always tended to start a conversation, which typically involved the owner talking about lots of positive aspects of business and work, for example:

• the pleasure of meeting and talking with different people every day
• the reward that comes from helping staff take on new challenges and experiences
• the fun and laughter in a relaxed and healthy work environment
• the fascination in the work itself, and in the other people’s work and businesses
• the great feeling when you finish a job and do it to the best of your capabilities
• the new things you learn every day – even without looking to do so
• and the thought that everyone in business is blessed – because there are many millions of people who would swap their own situation to have the same opportunities of doing a productive meaningful job, in a civilized well-fed country, where we have no real worries.

And so the list went on. And no matter how miserable a person was, they’d usually end up feeling a lot happier after just a couple of minutes listening to all this infectious enthusiasm and positivity.

It is impossible to quantify or measure attitude like this, but to one extent or another it’s probably a self-fulfilling prophecy, on which point, if asked about the badge in a quiet moment, the business owner would confide:

“The badge came first. The great business followed.”

Chasing the elusive acorn is also captured in the hilarious clips in Ice Age.

The squirrel (Scrat) makes me laugh every time but I also empathise with him. As I know that squirrel feeling!

You are nearly there towards achievement of  your goal.  Its just within your grasp. You feel you have done all the right things on the way. But then you get there & its not what you expected , its’ changed , this is not what you were chasing OR it just slips out of your grasp at the last minute. Maybe you hesitated for just one minute too long, got distracted along the way, or did not make that phone call or do the follow up as you should have done.

Whats that awful feeling you are left with …..disappointment with yourself, all that wasted energy for an opportunity missed and potentially all the other opportunities that would have come from that one opportunity!

But the one positive edge on this story is that squirrel has sure as hell got some energy.  And he keeps going , trying sometimes against all the odds. There has to be a better , easier way. If you were to give that squirrel some advice on how to get those acorns without expending so much energy, what would that be? Love to hear your thoughts.