A real motivator

Everyone groans inwardly when a 'motivational speaker' is on the conference menu, but Kriss Akabusi was great!

Last week I attended the Synaxon 2015 conference in my old stomping ground of Northamptonshire.

One of the main attractions was Olympic legend Kriss Akabusi, who has carved out a career as a motivational speaker, among other things.

Like most people, I am pretty cynical about these kind of things - yes I know there is no 'I' in team, and some of the 'motivational' sayings I'm seeing all over Facebook at the moment are making me want to tear my hair out!

However from the moment he stepped on stage Akabusi had the audience eating out of his hand.

His joke about being born so ugly that the doctor slapped his mother struck me as ridiculously funny for some reason!

Not only is he big physically - I thought he was really short for some reason - but his stage presence is immense!

I remember that 1991 World Championship 400m relay final in Tokyo, where Akabusi beat a world class US athlete in the final leg of the race - but to see it played out again, with Akabusi commenting on it - really was something else.

Not only did he give a fascinating insight into his life - and he did it all, children's home, achieving 9 'No-levels' at school, the army, athletics brilliance - but he managed to weave in a strong message to the channel about business success and having the right attitude to running a business and keeping staff happy and motivated.

He did it without sounding cheesy, and that is quite an achievement.

Even his motivational sayings had me nodding along: "The past is for reference not residence". Very true indeed. Never forget the past, but don't dwell on it or try to live in it, both on a personal and professional level.

I even found myself with a tear in my eye when he described Derek Redmond (another Northampton boy) tearing his hamstring at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. I just watched the video again actually and it really is emotional and a sign of determination, helped along by a doting father. Amazing.

So I'm going to end with one of his own quotes, and one I think really fits in our industry:

"Similarites make us champions, but our differences make us unique".