First published 26 October 2020 on Your Best Year Starts Here with Nigel Risner.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Episode 101. I said at the top I thought we'd get to about episode 10 if we were lucky. Nigel reckons we got this far because we've never tried to be proper podcasters. We rib each other and argue, and he interrupts me (he owns that bit).
He started with an exercise from his training days: who are you pretending to be? For years he was trying to be Jack Canfield, his mentor, who apparently sounds just like Kevin Costner. On the tennis court it was Jimmy Connors. And he'd been watching kids on indoor courts in the UK tapping clay out of shoes that have never seen clay, because they've watched Nadal do it. Then we got sidetracked into Diet Coke versus full fat. Coca-Cola, we're open to offers. Pepsi, we're not.
I shared something I've worked out for myself about storytelling. I think every story follows four seasons. The best ones start in autumn. It's lovely, the leaves are turning, but you know winter's coming. Spring brings a bit of hope (plus a lot of rain if you're in the UK), then summer, then another autumn. Life runs the same way. Some part of yours is probably in summer right now while another bit is stuck in winter.
Nigel's line for 2020 is that this year is different, and different doesn't have to mean difficult. A Jewish festival with six round the table instead of 20 left him closer to those six. He also said the only reason bosses didn't let people work from home was trust. Then on 17 March the government shut the offices and suddenly everyone was trusted. That took me to my university motto, which basically means do different. For me that's just being yourself.
And then the Lithuania story. Plane three-quarters empty, Nigel in 1E, and a bloke sits right next to him. Nigel tells him to move (he thinks the F word was involved). At arrivals there's a man holding a board with three speakers' names on it. I guessed the ending before he could get there. On the flight home the same bloke got on and said, "I presume I won't be sitting next to you."
What stayed with me
- Ask yourself who you're pretending to be. Then stop.
- Plan your stories in seasons. Start in autumn, with winter on the way.
- When something winds you up, call it different, breathe for three seconds, and say it again if you need to.
- The quicker you accept what you can't control, the less it hurts. Fighting it just drags it out.
I trust nearly everybody until they let me down.
Nigel Risner
I actually believe all stories follow four seasons.
Neil Martin
