history

I got help when I needed it.

/ beaumontmichael

11179998_896819233693389_486530138_nThis coming weekend marks eight years since my scooter accident. It was something of a defining moment for me, as it is remains the only time I have come close to death. Though I didn’t walk away, there was very little blood and almost no lasting physical damage. You hear it all the time, “I was so lucky” but that was me. Riding down a highway at 80kms and have some goose pull out of a side street right into you is quite an experience.

Flashing through my mind was, no, no, no you couldn’t be that stupid! But he was. My big 500cc Yamaha Tmax scooter was firmly wedged under the front of his car as I was thrown up and over the bonnet, just clipping the front wind shield enough to put my body into a spin, in flight, before it hit the road with a whack and a bounce or two.

I said there was almost no lasting physical damage but it did do my head in, for a while. My knees got a hell of a bashing which required many weeks of physio. My bride was kind enough to ferry me around to appointments. It soon became apparent that I was damaged psychologically by the event perhaps more than physically. Sitting in the passenger seat, I flinched badly every time someone tried to enter from a side street on the left, or aggressively merged. I felt the need to swear at them and even wanted to get out and punch them if they were too rude. Pretty silly stuff.

A few weeks of this and Anna suggested I get some help. At first I was a little bit insulted. That lasted until the next intersection. My GP gave me a referral to a local psychologist and in the blink of an eye I was on a six-week program of counselling. This was, hands down, the best thing I have ever been cajoled into doing.

The psych and I dealt with the entire accident in about one and a half visits. So then we moved on to other areas of my life I felt could benefit from airing. I gave her both barrels over the next few weeks and by the end of the six-week program I felt almost completely unburdened for the first time in my memory. It was such a liberating feeling I can remember people smiling at me in the street as i walked by, because clearly I was smiling at them. That had never happened to me before.

So it has been eight years since I found the space to move on from stuff (events, history, people) that wasn’t very good in my life, but didn’t need to define me. It was so liberating to discover that. If it hadn’t been for that horribly scary scooter accident in the Blue Mountains, I wouldn’t be as happy as I am today. Counter intuitive I know, but that’s the rub.

Needless to say, I would encourage anyone to seek out counselling. It was a life changer for me.

Noreen

/ beaumontmichael

Voice from the past
From time to time I hear someone speak or they raise a subject with me that reminds me instantly of my old mum. She passed away 25 years ago, but every now and again her memory charges back to me like a rampaging bull or a wintery chill. Other things trigger her memory even more efficiently. The smell of nail polish remover evokes her memory instantly. Any discussion around hats has the same effect. My grandmother used to make my mum a new hat every week to wear to church.
My mother worked as a teacher’s aide at a school for people with learning difficulties. Conversations around art, learning styles, schools, and teachers also often evoke a memory. If you have had a parent pass away you probably have a similar list of evocative things.
The memory of my old mum is one of the reasons I set up “The Life Log Project”. No doubt everyone has had a conversation around the best way to die, or some way you don’t want to die. Well, my mum had a cerebral haemorrhage while she was in the doctor’s surgery. She effectively died right there and then, but was kept alive by machines for a few days.
The nature of her death meant that there was plenty of stuff that went unanswered. I still get sad about it. She loved her grandchildren with a real passion. The biggest smile on her face would arrive as her little grandchildren entered a room, or did something kooky. Every one of her grandchildren would have benefitted from her being around, and that’s a shame. They are all now grown ups.
She was also pretty good at issuing advice. That bit I really do miss.
If I had been able to record a Life Log with my mother I would have included some questions about advice for her children and grandchildren. That would have been a beautiful thing to listen to. One of the other things I miss, is simply hearing her lovely voice. My old mum spoke beautifully. She came from honest working class Newcastle, her dad was a plumber, but she spoke beautifully. I really miss just hearing her speak.

You never know what’s around the corner

/ beaumontmichael

In almost a decade in radio I had the pleasure of interviewing hundreds of interesting people. Sometimes it was challenging finding the newsworthy angle to the interview but it was never difficult to find the interesting bit. From time to time I got myself into hot water for pursuing the interesting bit at the cost of news but that was always fine with me. In fact it was that part that made it evident to me that I didn’t have what it took to be a journo.

In the decade that followed I interviewed dozens of interesting people, in my spare time, recording the talks, never really knowing why, maybe it would be a book, maybe it would be a podcast, but the stories were always amazing. In hindsight maybe it was partly me trying to discover where I fit into this mad,mad world. Whether my fears and struggles were legitimate when laid side by side with those of my peers and my superiors.

I interviewed survivors of World Wars, of family splits, of wrenching divorces and people who have spent their lives comfortably living lies while others spent their lives defending themselves because they told the truth. I have interviewed twins that were very similar and twins that looked identical and couldn’t possibly be more different. I have interviewed couples that almost got divorced mid interview and people who have cried in shame as they divulged a long-held secret.

As luck would have it, I now do this for a living. I have turned this wonderful craft into a business. The Life Log Project records stories for people who want or need to share them with others. I have recorded parents setting the record straight for their children, siblings explaining things, ageing patriarchs trying to explain the past and matriarchs recounting family tales and history.

The Life Log Project is the conduit through which generations are able to communicate and engage. The recordings are given to the family and them alone. They can share them with whom they wish. None of us really knows what’s around the corner, and though we would probably all like to think we will live to old age, it doesn’t always work out that way.

Many families also struggle with the gift for an older family member. Being told “your story is valuable to us, we would like to record it for our history” is pretty special, and a great gift for the entire family.

Footnote: You can find out more at the website http://www.thelifelogproject.com.au

Building tennis teams

/ beaumontmichael / 2 Comments

As a long distance observer, it seems to me that Davis Cup success and Tennis Australia are at the cross roads. Perhaps they are even past that point and now heading in opposite directions. We recently played Kazakstan (who knew that even had tennis players?) in Darwin on grass and came very close to having our pants lowered. Now I am not saying the Darwin’s grass courts are not the epicentre of tennis in Australia nor am I inferring that we played there because nowhere else in the country would have given a damn, or even that Tennis Australia decided to play there because it gave us a distinct advantage, (surely not).

The dislike that our 23 ranked player Bernard Tomic publicly displayed for the organisation resulted in his removal from the team. Probably a good thing too as it gave him just enough time to become famous in Miami for paying too much for a hotel room that magically transforms into a jail cell. All of which must have made the gurus at Tennis Australia feel grand indeed.

I think there is a bigger play here though. We had great success in the Davis Cup in the era before the pros and then again in the early days of professionalism. Frankly we weren’t much good at any other team sport and certainly not any that involved balls. In those heady days we also had more than our fair share of players inside the top ten. Back then to help us along a little, backyards were often filled with tennis courts and every farm had one, and tennis courts were not littered across the four corners of the globe as they are now. (who would have thought it?)

So history aside, now we have a bunch of highly paid professionals, some of whom are clearly not capable of looking after themselves, that require more than just a ‘nice guy’ that looks great in undies, to give them assistance. Building a team in this era, as anyone that has done it recently will tell you, has its own unique set of challenges.

Add to that the money, the bloated egos and the lack of understanding of the scale of the exercise and it is no surprise to me that it is not coming together beautifully. Team building in Australia is different to (most of) the rest of the world. Particularly at the pointy end of sport, and particularly with the addition of Gen Y.

I cringe when I hear the older generation say that “this would never happen in Harry Hopman’s day” because while it is true, I really can’t imagine Mr Tomic and Mr Hopman having much to say to one another. I can only imagine what the reaction might be to the suggestion of a quick run up a few sand dunes. At least Darwin is well situated for that little beauty. No, Harry is not the answer.

Tennis Australia should ship in Ray McLean and his troops. If you have not had the opportunity to read his books, I recommend them to anyone in Australia involved in team-building. I have used the philosophy both with my work team and the sporting teams that I work with and the systems and processes work. Without giving too much away, Ray is like a modern-day version of Harry Hopman, in that he thinks differently to everyone else and has bought his own brand along with him. He has done for AFL what Harry did for tennis.

Ray developed his skills working with the Air Force developing teamwork in mission-critical scenarios. There is nothing quite like taking life and death training and then honing that experience for work in team sport. As many a team coach will tell you, winning isn’t life or death, it’s much more important than that. Good luck Tennis.

Letter to my children

/ beaumontmichael / 1 Comment

About twenty years ago my mother died of a Cerebral Haemorrhage. No warning, no planning no goodbyes. About ten years ago my father died of lung cancer, this was a long lingering farewell. Though both events were incredibly sad, the hole left by someone dying suddenly is difficult to fill in a way that is impossible to explain and beyond compare.

Shortly after the death of my mother I put pen to paper and wrote a letter to each of my two sons. The letter was my farewell, though I had no intention of going anywhere. It was really difficult to write and I cried several times as I scratched my way over the keyboard in my three finger typing style.

The letters contained messages of love and friendship and my dreams for each of them and a few short stories about them growing up. They included short stories of when they made me particularly proud and some advice for each of them.

My two boys are completely different, both beautiful caring strong sensitive young men with their difference best summed up by saying one of them gets anxious if he doesn’t know what tomorrow will bring and the other is always seeking something different for tomorrow. The letter writing gave me a sense of comfort knowing that if I were to bid a hasty departure from this life, my boys would have some conduit to their father. I wasn’t prepared for what happened next though.

Having taken the time to think about what I most wanted to say to each of them and what I felt was most important not to leave unsaid, (and they are two different things) I then began to act differently. Not hugely differently. Not so the family thought I had met-my-maker-in-a-stroke-or-heart-attack kind of a way. But differently none the less. I was more thoughtful, less reactive and much quieter. I began to be much more chilled out about them and their future. Which was nice for me and I’m sure was much more enjoyable for them too.

After all, as I said in my letter to them, above all else I wanted them to know the luxury of having been unconditionally loved by someone and to feel happiness. Neither of these things will be more likely to happen by me fussing about it.

Little did I know at the time that this correspondence would be the precursor for my business some fifteen years later. The Life Log Project helps people do this in a modern way using high quality audio recording. Of course the log can be used for lots of other things too. I have produced logs for people who wanted their families to know things after they had died, to explain divorces, to explain choices, to shine a light on an event or just to supply a delightful back story for the sake of posterity.

What I have noticed is the effect is has on people after they have committed to recording their inner most thoughts. They start to live them

Michael www.thelifelogproject.com.au

SCRUM

/ beaumontmichael / 1 Comment

I don’t know about you but I like to watch movies and documentaries that make me think. Sure I like to switch my brain off from time to time and just be entertained too, but lets face it you don’t have to work too hard to find that sort of movie.

Last night I had the great fortune to watch a new short film, Scrum by Poppy Stockell. As an avid sports nut, a movie about rugby had me a little worried, as I have yet to see a film that truly paints the picture of the game. In most cases the action looks contrived and stilted at best.

The film centres around the Sydney Convicts, a gay rugby club competing in the Bingham Cup. The cup was named after a team member that actually tackled one of the terrorists onboard a plane in the 9/11 disaster, who subsequently died anyway.

The film is really about selection, and the emotional complexity of being part of a team. The three central characters in spite of their sexuality could barely be more diverse. I can imagine a lot of people will find the movie quite challenging but the gentle humour sprinkled throughout turns a complex subject matter into compelling viewing.

Without giving anything away, there is a scene between the coach and one of his big burley players that is quite beautiful.

Being part of a team comes with responsibilities that are sometimes difficult to live up to. Rugby is no different to almost every team sport in that regard. However, add to that the complexity of men that have regularly been snubbed and not allowed to join or participate whole heartedly in team sport because of who they are, and the game is changed entirely.

Scrum was a delightful 50 minutes that I feel sure will start a lot of conversations. Poppy Stockell has managed to film rugby without making it look silly which apparently is not easy if history is any guide, and has captured beautifully so many of the issues that make effective team building such a wonderfully complicated art/science.

Gee I hope the people who need to see this short film will get the opportunity or will take the opportunity to watch it.

You could be a dick

/ beaumontmichael / 1 Comment

Twice a year we award worthy Australians with Medals. I get excited on both Australia Day and the Queens Birthday weekend in anticipation of reading the lists. As someone who has spent so much time recording stories and interviewing people it will not be any shock to you that it is the stories behind the awards that I like the most.

This year we have a cracker. The wonderful Dick Smith was awarded the country’s top honour and his is a lovely story, that should resonate with an entire generation.

Mr Smith is an achiever. The Americans would probably call him a winner. From humble beginnings he toiled to eventual business success and now seems to spend his time giving his money to people who need it more than he does.

The part of his story that should have ears burning everywhere, is his schooling. Marked 45th of 47 students in his year, he went through the apprenticeship route rather than to University. Many a young person is led to believe that if you haven’t made your mark academically by 12 or 13 you are up against it in the success stakes.

Dick Smith would have everyone know that he was not good at school but pretty good at business, leadership, learning and (in my opinion) being a good bloke. Personally I find it interesting that school failed to provide him the opportunity to shine. Though it doesn’t surprise me. The point though is that he didn’t let a thing like academics get in the way of success.

I am not teacher bashing either, some of my favourite people are teachers so this is not about teaching standards or anything like that. It is important for young people to know that the bumps and scuffs that almost inevitably occur during a young persons schooling are not an excuse to give up. In fact they should be providing the motivation to dig a little deeper and work a little harder. Dick Smith’s story shows there is more than one way to skin a cat. We need to be creative in the way we look at success, the way we approach hurdles and the methods we use to shine the light on the big world. Thank you Dick.