founder of naked leader
Top 10 Highlights
Naked Week 1 – Top 10 Highlights 21st to 27th April 2003
A Naked Week – Top 10 Highlights 21st to 27th April
10 The Salon – a chance offer to appear has become the public relations coup and disaster of a lifetime – coup because so many people watched it, disaster because it lost a good friend of mine £50. He bet his work colleagues that it could not have been me, as apparently I would “never stoop so low.” I was asked to go on and get Adie (prima donna hairdresser) had an emotional breakthrough. This was achieved, however because he opened up so much most of what he said was bleeped out…
09 The Institute of Directors review of The Naked Leader – Reviewer Carol Kennedy hated it, and I will thank her forever. As she in effect shouted at her readers “DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK” sales in nearby Waterstones soared and continue to do so. Carol, I would buy you a drink if you just replied to my e-mails thanking you, and realised they are NOT being facetious! I really hope you hate book 2 as well…
08 The Chairman’s Club at Tower 42. I was asked to speak after dinner at 10 and finally took the floor at 12.30am – my theme was releasing the potential of people and it went down brilliantly – except by now they were all drunk. Still, they clapped over their cigar smoke and said how important their people were, if only they had ever met them…
07 Conference in Rome. Just before I speak the Chairman casually asked me if I would be presenting in English or Italian, I said “Italian” and off he walked, looking very happy. Fortunately there were enough international delegates for them to change their mind and I presented in English, just as well as I do not know one word of Italian and I was getting very worried I might not get escape from my own joke…
06 Comet HR Conference, Stratford. These guys are SO focused on their customers, and I mean customers, people who buy their goods in the shops. They do not call their internal staff customers. I had to keep asking people in the conference – “is this really an HR conference?” as I expected them to be talking about Job Descriptions, Competencies and paper shuffling. This was an absolute eye-opener. I had to change my entire presentation and I will seriously think before I refer to “internal customers” anymore…
05 My daughter Olivia, completing her Shakespeare project. I asked her what she would say to Shakespeare if she met him today. After a long pause she said “Go away – you’re dead”
04 Top three e-mails received on book one:
From publisher – “We have secured a German translation but we have some debate on the title, and are not certain that “The Naked Fuhrer” will work well”
From a reader – “Your book is crap – not the content, as much as the style. In fact, after awhile I felt like a complete wanker being looked down on by an anally retentive author” (I called this guy to thank him – he left his mobile number on the e-mail by mistake!)
From an entrepreneur – “Thanks to your book I felt able at last to go into my business partner and tell him he is the most arrogant, big-headed, untrustworthy and useless man on this planet, furthermore I told him it was entirely thanks to you and your book that I had the courage to say this. He now very much looks forward to meeting you”
03 Global Telecast
My first ever, 14 people from all over the world, different time zones, cultures and attitudes. All obvious stuff but my biggest challenge was not seeing the people’s eyes to gauge their reactions, and also remembering their names from their voices. How I yearned to not be so visual and have some of my son Anthony’s audio gifts…
02 My Favourite Leadership Quote of the Week
“It is our fear of giftedness that complicates life. All problems have at their root the fear of taking the next step in life and the fear of acknowledging our gifts and talents. These so-called problems are resolved with ease and simplicity by simply acknowledging our life-enhancing gifts and unwrapping our Presence.”
Dr Chuck Spezzano, author and visionary psychologist.
01 Woking Football Club
My biggest passion and hobby! I have been working with the players at Woking for eight weeks, helping them survive in the Vauxhall Conference. In that time they have been unbeaten, achieving eight draws! Last Saturday (26th April) we had to win to survive – they don’t come much bigger than that.
Winning over the trust of a group of sceptics (but never cynics) who had never heard of Neuro Linguistic Programming but had heard of Eileen Dury was tough, but when it came together it worked.
My pre-match speech before the big game was modelled on Henry V (Kenneth Brannagh) – “a time of destiny,” “on this day” and “you few, you chosen few” etc.
And they did it – winning 3-0. The crowd’s reaction was as if we had won promotion, not escaped relegation by one point. The scenes in the dressing room after the game were amazing. Who says strength of courage, character and heroism are the domain of the individual?
Life really doesn’t get much better than that.
With love and energy
David
x
Imagine if you simply could not fail:
What would you do?
Where would you go?
Who would you be?