Talk by Tony Christiansen:  'Secrets of Success'

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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