It is a Saturday morning - 25 th July 2009 to be
precise - and facing the overflowing crowd in the hall while seated on a
rigged-up metal platform is a double amputee expounding on the Secrets
of Success . An unlikely scenario? Not really! Welcome to the
unbelievably fantastic talk of Tony Christiansen. Jointly organised by the
STAR , Entrepreneur Organisation Malaysia and UTAR-CEE.
Tony Christiansen is a motivational speaker par
excellence. He uses stories to empower people to break the shackles of
their limitations and realise their full potential. And on this morning he
is sharing his own story.
He was just nine years old when a back-sliding goods
wagon neatly amputated both his legs at a railway crossing. He emerged from
hospital fifteen months after the searing experience asking 'Why me? Why
me? ', but life in the Christiansen household had already returned to a
semblance of routine. To his enquiry his Mom quietly answered: 'Your dad is
gone to work, your brother and sister are at school and I am in the kitchen
doing what moms always do!' It was he claims a defining moment for him with
an unmistakable message: life goes on no matter what, just find and
paddle your own canoe! And Tony Christiansen has paddled his own canoe
with a vengeance ever since!
In the Tony Christiansen universe, you obtain or
achieve what you ask for, nothing less nothing more. Life gives you the
canvas, the brush and the paint box but it is up to you to paint your dream
on it, the dream of your choice . And choice is the key to it all.
Make sure that you always have a dream, he says. And
that you never stop dreaming, for everything that is in this universe is but
the product of a dream. And then work tirelessly to make the dream happen.
His own life is a powerful manifestation of the power
of those dreams. Tony has a second degree black belt in Tae Kwan Do; he is a
qualified lifeguard; he won gold at the World Games for shot putt, discus
and javelin; he races cars and flies planes and has completed Rotorua's
Fletcher marathon; he bench presses more than 250 kilograms; and in 2003 he
climbed Mount Kilimanjaro ! And u ntil recently, he even operated his own
successful sign-writing business, New Zealand 's largest!. And to top it
all, he has also written two best-sellers: Race You to the Top - The
Incredible Story of Tony Christiansen and Attitude Plus ? Tony
Christianson's Secrets of Success.
There is one more piece in the jigsaw puzzle of
success: take responsibility for yourself and do not blame the world for
your failure. Success like failure is merely an attitude of mind, and
attitude is what decides our success or failure in the world. And as if to
explain this, he talks of turtles. "They always find their way to the water
don't they? They don't know where it is. But they always do!'
Yes, Tony, they always do.
When the talk ended at noon , everyone felt that Tony
Christiansen had somehow raised the bar on what is possible if we just dare
to dream
Dr Goh and Mr Chew Wai Ming of Entrepreneurs Organisation with Tony Christiansen
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