First published 11 March 2019 on Your Best Year Starts Here with Nigel Risner.
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Nigel's victory log goes back 19 years. Sixteen volumes of it, full of testimonials and photos from events, and he takes one of them with him wherever he goes in the world. Mine's a lot simpler. Every now and then I sit down with a piece of paper and write down things I've done that I feel good about, and I keep going until I run out. I think the state your head's in before you plan anything matters. Go in pessimistic and you'll plan small.
Nobody gets to see inside Nigel's logs, me included. They're for him. There's a picture in there of the Aston Martin convertible he always wanted, white leather seats with blue piping. And he actually uses them. Before walking out in front of 6,500 people in Los Angeles, straight after General Norman Schwarzkopf, he was so nervous he sat and read through his successes. He reckons he's done over 2,000 talks, about 1,995 good and five shocking. Guess which five you think about when things aren't going well.
I'd had a few things change quickly in my life not long before we recorded this. When that happens you start doubting stuff you know you're good at. So I went back and read a load of old LinkedIn recommendations. You forget what people said. Nigel's add-on was to ask for them. He did that when he wanted reviews for his latest book and got 30-odd back.
Then the slightly odd one. I've written music for years, including the jingle on this podcast (Nigel admitted he'd been waiting for a bill). My brother once showed me his holiday video and he'd picked one of my songs for it without realising I wrote it. Took me straight back to when it got signed to a Canadian record label. Nigel asked what that cost me. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Zip. Nada.
We finished on parents. When Nigel ran in-house training, they'd write to the parents of people working for them to thank them for the job they'd done. He did one live for my mum. "Mrs Martin, you did a good job with your boy." I've said I'll play her the clip, although she doesn't really do technology.
What stayed with me
- Write a victories list before you plan anything new. Keep going till you run out.
- Read it when you're doubting yourself. That's when it does its job.
- Old LinkedIn recommendations count. And it's fine to ask people for new ones.
- Nigel's idea: write to someone's parents and tell them they did a good job.
This is the one time where the past is a place of reference, not a place of residency.
Nigel Risner
It's not when you're on the high that you need it. It's when you're questioning yourself a little bit, that it's the right time to go and look at some of those things.
Neil Martin
