
Using the Power of Belief in your Business
By Paul Barrs
I remember a time during my teenage years when I was on surf patrol. This was a large part of my life as a young man because growing up on the beach was an integral part of my lifestyle just as it had been for my father, and his father before him.
This particular day however stood out, for two reasons; 1 – it was Boxing Day and the beach was absolutely packed, and 2 – the surf was massively HUGE (in truth the beach shouldn’t have even been open). However, being the day after Christmas, every Tom, Dick, Harry and his dog were out in the water; we felt it would be best if we could at least coral them into one single area. To top things off, it was pouring down rain and visibility was limited to about 100 meters.
As we sat huddled in our shelter I noticed on the far side of the beach some idiot heading for the water with his ‘flippers’ in hand. He was nowhere near the flagged area and a good 2 minute run from the lifeguard beach hut. The surf was pounding at about 2.5 metres, dumping directly onto a sand back roughly 400m off the beach; and this nutter was a good 600m from the flagged ‘safe area’.
Before he hit the water we (myself and the other lifeguards) were heading for our rescue gear. By the time we hit the water he had already been dragged half a kilometer offshore and was heading directly for the rock-face. Rarely did I feel fear when I was in the surf, but this day was one of them – NONE of us should have been in the water.
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A little while back I had the pleasure of being able to watch two of the worlds great tennis players, Andy Roddick and James Blake, obliterate their respective opponents. This was a real treat for me because while I’ve always loved the game, I’d never yet seen it live, upfront and so close.

