I remember when I was 14 years old, I was forced to go to Fraser's Department Store in Glasgow for my work experience. It demoralised me, in fact I became very frustrated and angry as this was so far removed from what I wanted to do with my life, but on DAY ONE a senior manager showed me the latest Fraser's advert campaign for TV. As we watched the advert in a room with about 20 other 14 year olds, I could feel my hands sweat, I was getting hot inside, I could feel my heart beating, I was looking around the room, I became trapped in my head self-talking, as I knew when this advert finishes he is going to pick on me for the answer to a question he is going to ask me, I just had a sense.
I knew what the question was going to be "what is unique about this advert"? He looked straight at me and asked me; "Stevie tell us all what's unique about the advert"? WELL, you talk about "Time Distortion"“State change” "Going deeper in side". Multiple voices were now talking to me in my head, watching people looking at me. Well, this guy never budged, he stayed with me until eventually his facial features changed like utter disappointment. He asked someone else until finally through debate he got to the answer. He looked back at me and said "you knew the answer Stevie, so you did", I nodded my head.You see in marketing not showing the brand until the end of the advert was a clever strategy, me being obsessed with business I had seen the strategy right away, in fact after 15 seconds of the advert I knew that was the strategy, but lost my voice, as in my head simply seeing multiple movies of me in the past at school being told I got something wrong kept me silent.
The great part of this day was this manager kept me behind and looked right through me and said "you listen to me Stevie, I see your passion, it’s in your eyes, when you know something you promise me from this day forward you shout from roof tops about the answer". I said " yes" and have done so ever since, in fact my strap line now is " I know nothing".
I tell you this story because it’s one of many stories I have told my son Ryan about my life, and sometimes you wonder is he taking this all in, well this week he has proved he does take it in. You see in 142 days’ time, yes still a bit of time to go, Ryan has work experience just like I did when I was a kid. Now are we even discussing work experience at school just now?, well not really, the kids know it’s in the future and nearer the time they will have to find a company to get work experience.
What was Ryan’s strategy? He emailed 5 business leaders; the store manager of the year for Marks &Spencer, senior manager for Fed Ex International, the owner of a software company, a CEO withinfinancial services, and also his master at martial art school of academy.
Ryan laid out in an email specifically that he wanted an opportunity to shadow them for the full day, to learn about the job they did, what has been the life strategies they have found successful, do they know who they are, what makes them a great leader, what is enterprise, and learn about each sector and specific brand. The companies have real emphasis on what Ryan feels he wants to do in a career when he completes his education which just now includes university.
How do I know this, the leaders contacted me one by one, and said they had received an inspiring email from Ryan and were blown away by the strategy, they are now planning each day for Ryan's work experience, an experience that he will receive messages for helping him today but sure he will receive messages that will help him throughout his years in life.
On this note we had a challenge as when we approached Ryan’s school the rules are you can only have one company to shadow due to Health and Safety policies, I spoke with Head Master Mr David Nicol, an amazing head in my eyes, been part of my three kids lives, as I explained to David what Ryan had done, he smiled and shook his head simply saying "that is totally unbelievable” with a huge grin on his face. “In all the years in this job I have never heard anything like that before”. “It will be fine we will find a way”.Amazing support from an inspiring head master.
The attributes of what Ryan displayed here are - Future thinking – Beliefs – Rapport - Strategy - Leadership – Role Models – Smart - Modelling - Positive internal Language - Anchoring - Language - Maturity - Values - Respect- Mirroring excellence - Quantum Jumping - Controlling Sub Modalities. We have elicited what goes on in Ryan’s head when he thinks like this, he has been listening to my teachings which is absolutely evident, but for sure he is doing it for himself now.
As I chatted to Ryan about this strategy, he adds something further which after work experience you will see what else he has in store, we will blog this journey and outline learnings Ryan has taken from experience. He always blows me away, but today I am standing so tall and proud of this young man, what a strategy for other young people to follow, all taken from my original story as he described to me, Dad you took control of your life, So I wanted control of this opportunity as did not want the feeling you had years ago, he then says to me, "you know this will cost you money Dad", I ask " How’s that?" "Well Dad, I need a suit and I have seen one, all about impressions Dad, you taught me that, I need and must look smarter than the senior executives" WOW!!!!!!
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