My Blog

>If my previous post has started your Monday off with tears then I have a duty to turn that emotion into a positive one. As a speaker and writer I have a responsibility to lift your day as Clive would say, and I agree. So let’s the start the week a bit brighter, ey?

I haven’t slept well. I am fretting that I have yet to find Clive’s box of special things. I have mine with tickets, cards, etc. from our time together. As yet I can’t find his. In the early hours I dreamt I found many envelopes behind a bed with a sort of ‘shrine’ to me. The comment ‘behind the bed’ kept coming to me. Perhaps I should look in the cupboards over the spare bed? Tell you later…

I could describe the painful feeling again of waking up next to a line of pillows and drag us all down but I choose another way this morning.

When I was driving yesterday afternoon in the sunshine I began to think of Clive’s vision idea – where if you have one so strong it can be achieved (if you work at it). It reminded me that I have used this technique before last Wednesday when I had the vision to hold his Celebration on the pitch at Headingley. And I did do things before Clive!

When I first resigned my teaching job in the summer of 2005 to follow my passion for raising awareness and helping others through postnatal illness I took up a second job as a sales consultant for Virgin Vie – part of the Virgin group which sold cosmetics, jewellery and more recently homewares. It was ideal to fit around my speaking engagements and was up to me how many house parties, etc. I did. I loved it! I had become very disillusioned with teaching. My motivation and confidence had been drained from me and I had not been assertive enough to stop it happening (that is another story!).

I went along to the spectacular conferences that Virgin Vie put on and was swept away by the praise and recognition. Very soon I was top sales for the area. I loved the products and seem to develop my way of presenting them. I would leave a house party with bookings for three more!

Then it happened. The vision. At one of the conferences they showed us the rewards for so many sales within the next six months – an all expenses paid trip to New York with fellow Virgin colleagues. We would stay near 5th Avenue, have a helicopter ride over Manhattan amongst many other treats. The bit that captured me was the plan to be on a private yacht sipping champagne as fireworks exploded in a riot of colour on 4th July! I could literally feel myself on the deck, glass in hand, warm wind through my hair and a feeling of ‘I did it!’

From that moment on I was convinced I would be there. I started all my parties off with ‘please help me get there’. I got permission from my family to aim for it. I broke the huge target into small chunks. I worked my butt off! I believed. I got there and wasn’t disappointed.

In doing so in my first ever sales job I was 6th out of 12,000 consultants for my figures! The following year the trip was to Rio. I got the same tingle. The same vision. And I got to Brazil.

The next year it was Miami. I heard the banter. I saw the film but it just didn’t spark my enthusiam. My vision had changed and my speaking career was more important than cosmetics. It was great while it suited my stage of life and showed me that you can achieve goals if your vision is strong enough.

I can vouch that this technique works!
So it is fitting for Clive and I to start this week off for you like this:-

One foot in front of the other? Okay Clive xxx

So do I have a new vision?

Yes I do. Come back and I’ll share it with you as that way it will make it easier to achieve.

Elaine x