The Biggest Lesson I Learnt This Year: Nick Gold's Christmas Message

Before we say goodbye to 2019, let’s start with the good stuff. At Speakers Corner, 2019 brought weddings, babies and landmark birthdays (seriously if Tim is that old, how old must I be….), we had a lot of laughs, plenty of adventures, met incredible humans who were a pleasure to spend time with, and the team despite a few hiccups have enjoyed , being part of something special.

I continue to be humbled and immensely proud of Speakers Corner and the team who embody it…I’m sure most of the time people are just being friendly or polite, but it is heart-warming and enriching every time we hear from clients, from speakers and from others that they enjoy speaking and working with members of the team, it feeds our drive and purpose.

But 2019 kicked off in the worst way possible as we mourned the death and celebrated the life of our friend and our colleague, Adam Cuthbert . For every member of the team who worked with Adam, we learnt so much from him and enjoyed his company immensely.

For those who never had the privilege to get to know Adam, during these difficult times they came together to support their colleagues and embrace the memories of Adam which bonded the team in a way that he would have been proud of.

Adam wanted us to look forward, he was very clear that he expected great things from us at Speakers Corner, and as I spent time with him in the last weeks of his life, his enthusiasm and passion for what we wanted to achieve at Speakers Corner is something that inspires us all. His memory lives on within all of us.

I could look back at 2019, discuss how the world is a truly uncertain place and why the timelines involved in developing a long-term strategy are becoming shorter.

Perhaps I should go into greater depth on the fact that we are all looking for inspiration from different people with their amazing endeavours, their passion for their expertise, their thirst to save the planet and drive us as human beings forward to be better.

But I don’t want to focus on the above, I am sure I will be talking and writing about many of these things over the coming years and right now, I am looking forward to 2020 and what I want to take into the New Year. I have taken a message that I feel is the focus that will help push me forward as an individual. It will continue to help grow Speakers Corner and help us deliver wisdom, expertise and experiences of the amazing speakers to audiences globally.

The uncertain times that we live in are not going away, but it also appears that we are living in a world where ownership is something that is avoided as we look to scapegoat others or allocate blame. It seems to be as we close 2019 and move into 2020, that the concept of ‘Cover Your Ass’ or ‘CYA’ is dominating the landscape as the prime motivation for people who are in positions where they are solely looking to protect their position.

It appears that the concept of responsibility and ownership is no longer seen as paramount in order to move forward. Indeed, the idea that accepting responsibility and ownership in order to learn and in order to improve seems to be secondary to pointing the finger at others.

And I look at this and it makes me sad, it makes me wary, and quite frankly it scares me. Ownership of mistakes is the greatest way to grow as an individual and to grow as a society. We have to use these periods of self-reflection to look at improvements and change.

So, I turn to my message for 2020 and as I mentioned above, I shamelessly have taken this from one of our favourite speakers…I suppose I am practising what we preach as it demonstrates how we learn from brilliant people.

Let’s change the emphasis of CYA, let’s stop covering our asses, and let’s change it to “Choose Your Attitude’. If we can’t control the craziness of the world on a macro stage, lets focus on ourselves and set examples by the attitude we take each day into our lives.

We need to wake up each morning and choose the right attitude. Be bold, be decisive, be happy, be more aware, be optimistic. Ultimately let’s have whatever attitude we feel is right for us for each day to help us enjoy ourselves and fulfil our aspirations for that day. I want 2020 to be the year that each of us, as individuals, believe that through our own individual attitude we have the power to move society for the better and make our own and the lives of the people round us that little bit better.

I wish you all a peaceful, happy, fulfilling festive season and an exciting, challenging and life affirming 2020.

P.S. If you want to know who the speaker is that has so influenced my 2020, please give us a call, as you know, we are always happy to chat and will happily reveal all!

For further information call us on   or email  info@speakerscorner.co.uk .

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