Last week I found myself explaining to a client “I don’t judge people by how they are around you, I judge them by how they are around the people that provide no benefit to them.”

Now I know it sounds like I am putting myself up on pedestal here, because in the end, who am I to be the one judging someone else? That simply isn’t the case.

Part of my role with this client, and to certain degree with quite a few of my clients, is to work with them on the selection of people they hire, and or support through sponsorship and the like.

Over the years I have been in this role numerous times. As well as being on the opposite side of the negotiating table, e.g. The one being considered.

My life and the experiences within it has allowed me the good fortune to meet, work with and be associated with many high achievers and well known people. Through each of these experiences I have always looked at what they are like with the people that bring them no direct benefit.

You see, when there is something in it for someone they are usually very accommodating, pleasant and friendly. Unfortunately however, there are those people that when the person they are meeting or around brings no great advantage to them, they change their approach and it usually isn’t for the better.

So my thing has always been  “How are they around the people that cant or don’t benefit them?” My approach to this judgement and the philosophy behind it is something that my parents drove into me at a very early age. “Be kind to people”. “Be nice to people, treat them how they should be treated”.  “Don’t put your needs before the needs of others”. “Show respect to others”.

These were things that even today I can remember them being said, where they were said, and why.

As strong as these messages were there is one message that stands out above all else. That one single message came to me way back in 1992. I was 31 years of age and it was the afternoon of the day before the start of Barcelona Olympics, and we were getting organised for the opening ceremony. I was told by the then Chef de Mission of the Australian Olympic team, Mr John Coates, that fax had come in for me.

I could not help but think who would be sending me a fax?

As soon as I opened the envelope and saw the handwritten fax sent from Wangi Wangi Post Office I knew it was from my parents. The content was about many things, but mainly around the points of how proud they were of me, and that I need to make sure I enjoyed the experience of an Olympic Games. The fax ended with a sentence in my fathers handwriting…

“Have the ability to walk with Kings and Queens but never lose the common touch.”

Which I later learned was my fathers interpretation of a passage from Rudyard Kiplings, If: A Fathers Advice To His Son.

To say it has had a profound affect on me would be an understatement. It is a standard by which I have always attempted to live my life by and rightly or wrongly it is standard by which I look at in regard to others.

The Journey Continues!