This Monday; Raelene, Vincent and Myself volunteered ourselves for Grants disposal during his renowned On-The-Spot course.  I hadn’t seen Grant train before so I said “yes” in zest, I must admit that the enthusiasm somewhat faded when I found out that we had to wake up at 5h30am to be at Avo Vision by 6h30am to be on the other side of Pretoria by 8h30am at the Kievits Kroon Country Estate.  Now as some of you know I’m not exactly the freshest morning person but I thought I’d bite the bullet and embrace the crisp morning air, at least that was my plan anyway… Needless to say my lateness forced me to mosey on to Pretoria alone, it’s a long drive but even after taking a slightly wrong detour I arrived on time ready to tackle the day.

Grant really impressed me and had the audience in hysterics for half of his presentation; they were engaged and entertained by his casual yet professional style of facilitation.  I’m not much of a presenter, so I was frantically scribbling down notes trying to absorb as much as I possibly could from this great course.

On-The-Spot is one of our oldest courses and still one of our most popular ones.  After we enjoyed a fantastic lunch of spring rolls, veg pockets, snack sandwiches and delicious lasagna, we got to the actual application of what the delegates had learnt that day.  Being a competition for Anglo American, the nervous delegates began their presentations, all focusing very hard on what and what not to do.  Rae’s, Vince’s and my job was to record each presentation and give it back to them with Grants feedback.  All-in-all it is a very enriching way to spot your mistakes and improve your presentation skills.

The day ticked by, we were stuffed after the big lunch but still managed to squeeze in some cakes, éclairs, biscuits and coffee.  We left Kievits Kroon almost feeling like we had been on an Avo bonding holiday for a day’s break-away.

Well done Grant for a brilliant course, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and thank you to Avo for this opportunity.

I am a firm believer that staff members need inspiring leadership to succeed and be the best they can be.  The way you are communicated to, the way you are dealt with when you make a mistake and the way you are encouraged to take up new opportunities.

Jules (The Boss Chick) encouraged me to write an article about what I do here at Avocado Vision.  She said “you have an inspiring story, so share it” and that’s it, I was hooked…. I felt big and inspired….  I felt empowered by the fact that she thought I was inspiring.  It’s in the way she said it, but also the encouragement, the respect and honor that she displayed that really inspired me to write this article.  So I hope the readers are inspired by it too.

I guess that’s why we are in the business of communication.  Because life has taught us that it’s about understanding people and knowing what each of them need in order to find their internal power.  I love what I do and I love Avo, try us you will love us too.

Peace

I am feeling deep, so all of you out there come be deep with me! 

Remember the song:” life oh life oh life …”I don’t quite know who sang it but that’s not quite the point or how about the other song:”Everything must change, nothing stays the same…the young become the old….” , again who sings it doesn’t matter, what is important is the sentiment it contains: THAT OF CHANGE!

Now change is not always easy but it is often necessary, it’s not always pleasant but it is always worthwhile. It is not always expected but is a certainty. So where does that leave us, I suppose it leaves us with an sense of acceptance , an acceptance that the nature of living is dedicated to change. It leaves us with an understanding of the inevitability of change, but more than more than that I am so getting the power of transitions and my acceptance thereof and the AWESOME, AWESOME power of realising that change brings with it the power of choice.

Now that’s big, so what I mean is that often we cannot choose  what happen to us, or the road life unfolds for us but we can choose how to react to the situations, choices and mistakes that we encounter.

So after all that rambling and I can ramble I admit what I am trying to say is this:

We have the power to manifest our life!Now please I have heard about “The Secret” but I haven’t read it so this isn’t about that. Rather it is about just understanding that life is about taking each day as it comes and living it ,but living it so that at night you go to bed with an enormous sense of pride. Pride in having lived well, pride in having made the best of each moment, pride in having been joyful,  pride in delighting in others, pride in seeing opportunity even when you feel like your shrouded in darkness.

How awesome is it to realise that each day, as dawn breaks and you wake up, you have a choice to live in misery or to find joy in the little things.

I have had a superb day! Other than now having ear-ache, I know I worked in my zone today. Dr. John Demartini says ” I do what I love and I love what I do”. I communicate well, I network well and damn I am good on the phone!

I set aside time this morning with a task of cold-calling and getting our Footprint SA information into the right hands with four more financial institutions - our potential customers. Well done to me, I used my strengths and we are now on back our way again.

We are getting closer I can smell it!

Hey all

I had to do an On The Spot 17 & 18 Jul and I was so looking forward to it, I was working with new slides and spent the time to get the content under my belt. It was a full group of 10 and the only additional pressure I was under was the timing of the course.

Then….. DISASTER DAY!!

Lunch time came on Day 1 and I called Grant… then Gill….with a desperate plea for HELP! I’m causing some SERIOUS DAMAGE to Avo’s reputation here, who cares about my own, after today I’m NEVER going to be asked to train for AVO again!! I so wanted to cry and leave the building BUT I had to be all grown up and remain, after all it seriously could not get worse right??…

To top it off how could this go so wrong on a course where you have to walk the talk on presentation skills!!!

Well between end day 1 and beginning day 2 I spoke to Vanessa & Grant, confessed how I so wished I had contracted some contagious tropical disease which would mean that I would not be able to continue the course….

But day 2 was a new day & I was simply going to pretend that yesterday NEVER HAPPENED just so that I would be able to get through day 2

Fortunately we got the technology right , I managed to salvage some shreds of credibility with the delegates while watching their videos one on one & I “gave it horns” ( took Vanessa’s advice) on the morning of day 2. For the FIRST TIME in my training life I did not look at the delegate feedback reports!! Not even a peep, I did not want what was left of my self esteem shattered, or else I would not be able to train the two new courses I had the following week.

So this week Monday, I met with Grant to debrief the Disaster Day. I did have a few days to get back into adult space and I was now ready to face the music. Eventhough my child protested how unfair technology had been to me!

To my absolute delight and total SURPRISE these were some of the comments from the delegates:

“Rochell was really really really awesome, Fantastic in a different league, seriously impressed”

“It was an ecstatic experience”

“The presenation was awesome, everything was fabulous”

“Rochell is excellent (with a hand drawn heart and all!)”

“Very impressive”

GOSH!!! Were these guys in the same room as I was in? Were they high on some drug or was I? How did this happen:

1) Thank you God for heeding my SOS
2) Like we say to the delegates, we never come across as badly as we think we do, I was in a nightmarish hell which they apparently were not aware of
3) I lived the Avo principle of transparency as in no cover up stories and using all the mistakes as examples
4) I never would have survived if I hadn’t KNOWN my material as in backwards, how else do you flip chart everything up until Dynamic Delivery
5) My safety net at AVO with particular thanks to Gill, Grant, & Vanessa

RESILIENCE!!

I see feet running everywhere, people are creating and building and making things happen. Footprint is growing, the foundations are laid.

It is wonderful to see the work been put into building this amazing company that will change the lives of many South Africans. Vanessa, Jeannette and Mel have done some lovely work onthe training material which we continue to pilot in September. The NGO (now known as ‘Own Two Feet’ is taking shape fast and furiously with Linden at the helm. Watch out Joburg: he lands from Knysna today and I think we are going to feel the next wave soon. Jules has been holding it all together weaving the network of people.

It is a wonderful thing to watch this all happen. The sales team is making inroads into market having inspiring conversations with new potential customers and old friends, and we will land a deal soon….

Watch this space guys. Well done to Jules and her team for all the committment and hard work.

I suppose it had to happen eventually!  We’ve been rolling out a lovely piece of work for one of our banking clients that has involved a prop box.  In that box is a whole wonderland of toys, props, and things to help our delegates think symbolically about the value they add from a service context.  Swords, bloomers, feather boas, thick glasses…the list goes on!

In fact, we played a really funny joke on Clint (our account manager) about it, even when we were presenting to our (very) senior clients during the pitch.  We included a really large pair of bloomers, and a really really large bra in the box he presented to them, and we were all in stitches while he tried to find the right metaphors as he pulled them out of the box (gotta put on your ‘big girl panties’ when things get rough, and adding ’support’ to the sales taem….you get the point).

Anyway, we landed the deal, and are in the execution phase.  Our trainers are travelling the country, obviously going through airport security, with their box of tricks!  Most times they got through with no issues, but dear Tracy Olivier, our KZN-based trainer was not so lucky, and has issued a heads-up to all trainers on the circuit right now:

“By the way, warn all traveling trainers to take the handcuffs out of hand luggage,  very funny story….  In a nutshell after convincing them they were harmless props, they let me go back out again, have my bag retrieved from Baggageland, which does not take two minutes, with looks of suspicion and even some “hey, how you doing?” looks from bystanders. And me trying to convince them with very red checks that they are props for training.    Still laughing out loud as I am writing this“

Jules hits the papers yet again, this time with her great article about advice on hiring fresh graduates straight out of university. 

For what they lack in practical experience they gain in theory knowlegde. 

Here is the article, click on it to view a printable version. 

Well done Jules!