We are doing it wrong!!! We, society, the media, mums & dads, teachers, people that care, we are continuing to jump and scream about something that has been around for as long as time, we suggest it’s bad and people should stop, the truth is it won’t stop, as long as mankind has people willing to get ahead, stand above or look down on others, bullying will continue, no matter what it will never go away. Not until you can accept this can you positively contribute to a solution that will save lives. 

What needs to happen is the education to deal with it, it’s not good enough for the government to come out with a law to make it illegal to bully, lets be honest, there are laws to stop people from speeding yet the governments make millions of dollars from speeding every year through fines so I would suggest that is not the sole answer, and nor will a law ever stop people from being bullies.

I write this on a day that two maybe more beautiful young people are laid to rest after taking their lives from being bullied, one of the girls I knew as a little kid when my sister would baby sit her. I hadn’t seen her for year but when I got the news she had taken her own life I felt a rage, even a guilt, not at the bully’s but at society for continuing to not equip people with the skills to deal with true adversity. What a waste of a beautiful human.

I also write with an educated first hand view of bullying. You would be naive at best to suggest I could grow up in a small country town and not have received my share of bullying. And I admit I seriously contemplated taking my life, I was eleven years old at the time and hated life. There was a lot of bullying in my life and I had had enough. Thankfully I had good people around me and didn’t take that final step. my dad really did save my life, it was him who took the courageous route of suggesting I could deal with it, missing 1/2 a leg was nothing to worry about and also pointed out how much worse it could be, he didn’t wrap me up and protect me from the bullies he empowered me to deal with it. We need more of this.

My thinking is we need to have less energy go into crying about what bullies have made someone do, ie take their own life and put more energy into teaching our kids how to deal with the fact that sometimes life sucks, sometimes we seriously don’t want to live and understand it’s perfectly OK to think like this.

The most important bit is what we do next when we are challenged with these thoughts, when we are at that cross road. If we nail this we can overcome the darkest days of our life.  

Just the thought of this topic takes my mind to a sad place, the thought that if these people knew where to turn, what to say even what to do when confronted with a tough situation then so many peoples lives would be much better off.

Lets not stop telling bully’s to stop, they need to hear that what they are doing is bad but understand they wont stop. So lets start giving our kids the tools to deal with this. Kids can be taught to be resilient, kids also need to know what it’s like to fall over because if they don’t they are never going to learn how to get back up.

R .I.P

Never give up.

Don Elgin

I’m planning for a upcoming speaking tour of China and the topic is all about setting and achieving goals. Personally I  see incredible value in goals as without them I would suggest I’m more like a ship without a rudder, a car with no steering wheel even a pinball going from pillow to post, I really would be lost without goals.

Something that has never been wasted on me is the power humans posses when we have a purpose, a reason to get out of bed and a genuine desire to achieve what we have set our minds and often our hearts to.

The power is in the form of far greater thinking, the ability to articulate to others our intention, the clarity of our minds and equally important our ability to attract like minded people and through our actions disassociate with those that are not on our page.

The feeling of achieving goals is universal, be it standing on top of the dais as number one in the world or to simply get all the daily task completed according to the time line that is set the feeling of accomplishment is one of the most addictive feelings known to man. It is this feeling that drives an athlete to go beyond the realm of logic to achieve. This is the same feeling a person working ridiculously long hours has at the end of the day/week. That feeling of contentment having achieved what you set out to achieve. 

The beauty is setting goals in my opinion requires a very simple formula a time line and a vision. Both equally as important and a true goal requires belief in both of these ingredients.

If you have a vision and you are willing to commit a time to achieving it, brace yourself because you are about to set sail on an incredibly interesting journey.

I wish you well and encourage you to keep an eye out for our second bilingual book, this one on goals. The first was fun to be apart of and is still inspiring people all round the world.

Cheers

Don

Recently spoke at a function in support for Women In Need, must say it was one of the most interesting engagements I’ve had the pleasure of speaking at. Right from my very first contact with the organiser Crystal I knew the night would be something special. There is something about being involved with people who are clear about where they are heading and have a genuine joy of the journey they are on, those that choice the unselfish path, the path of giving and empowering others are to be respected.

All people who were there enjoyed an insight into some of the troubles that face women not just here but around the world, some things are universal, be it here in my own town or on the other side of the world seeing people particularly women and children in pain is something that brings tears to my eyes. I was grateful for the opportunity to be able to contribute in a very small way with providing another way to look at life.

I was blown away with talent  I was fortunate to share the stage with and can not recommend more highly the amazing work of Rena Harvey this lady is nothing short of amazing and what she can’t do with a camera isn’t worth doing. Take some time to view her brilliant work at www.renaharvey.com  and if you are looking for something to blow your socks off you seriously have to check out the talent of the legend that is Joe Zappulla. Jo is a speed artist and provided me with a highlight for my life. I witnessed Jo paint me freehand throughout the night and his work is mind blowing . ( See pic below)

Speaking of awesome talent on stage that night Jacqui Walker gave life to the microphone with her music and it didn’t stop there the pocket rocket impressor Bridget Pross and band torn the roof off the St Kilda Memo Arts Space. It truly was an awesome night for all and look forward to working with these amazing people when next our paths cross….and they will.

Keep smiling

Cheers

Donnie

Attitudes are contagious, is yours worth catching..

I recently spoke at small function where I had the good fortune of meeting a man from the Bendigo Bank, lets call him Jim. After I had finished my presentation I was speaking with Jim he mentioned the theme he picked up from my presentation was how important a good attitude is, he also mentioned how bizarre it was that just that day he had received an email from a friend of his that is doing some good work in the sporting sector, all about attitude, it impressed Jim so much he decided to print it, from his pocket he produced the printed email. I read it and Jim was kind enough to let me keep it. I have since read it and decided to put my own slant on it, below it follows.

The longer I live the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, the circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice regarding the attitude we will embrace for that year, month, week  a day in fact every hour. We choose. We cannot change the past, we cannot change the way some people will be, we can not change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play the card we have, and that is our attitude. I’m convinced life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I deal or react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.

Cheers

Donnie

Can you win without crossing the line first? Interesting question.

I have no doubt if you ask 1000 people to answer and explain you will get 1000 different response. My answer is simple, yes. You may not get a gold medal but you can still win. The key is what you have predetermined a win to represent. You have had a win if your sole purpose was to improve one part of your race and you were able to do that regardless of where you cross the line.

If the only measure of a win is the position your are when you cross the finish line I would suggest satisfaction is going to be hard to come by. If we were to do some simple maths with the amount of people playing sport against the 1st place getter we would soon see  99.9% of sport belongs to losers. If that’s the case why do we keep lining up to play again?

I believe we best improve if we can have some type of win within every loss, not only does the loss stir the desire to train harder and go again but the small victory gives us hope we can do better, thus why winning even without crossing the line first is important.

I would suggest it would be somewhat of a waste to play sport if we couldn’t have those wins, the truth is your life is richer for playing sport.

Have some fun and enjoy the opportunities life has presented.

Cheers

Donnie

Watching the news and listening to the tragic accounts of the Christchurch earth quake has really shaken me to the point of tears knowing just three weeks ago I was walking around and taking photos on the beautiful city of Christchurch and marveling in the miracle no one had died in the September earthquake.

Sadly the same can’t be said this time round. My heart goes out to all the wonderful people I was fortunate to meet in my recent trip to Christchurch. I was amazed to see the news and blown away at the sight of the collapased cathedral the same backdrop was used for the opening ceremony of the recent world Championships. Daily in my role as one of the team managers i would be downtown often walking as our accommodation the Copthorne Central was just a block away to know now of the destruction truly does shake you to the core.

Witnessing the 5.1 earthquake at 6:05am on January 20 was enough to remind me how vulnerable we are to mother nature. If there was one thing I took from my time in NZ is the people are amazingly resilient and in time will bounce back from this shocking event, just hope they know they are not feeling this pain alone and Australians will be back in droves when the time is right to help you rebuild.

Never loose hope

Donnie

Only days away from being back in the Australian Track and Field Team., though this time I won’t be pulling on my running leg or my throwing leg, I don’t even need to take them. This time I have the privilege of being named as one the team managers, fortunately for me I will have some fantastic support in the management group.

Together our goal is to provide the Australian team of elite athletes with disabilities the very best opportunity to achieve their personal best performance when it matters most in 2011 the IPC world Championships.

Personally I’m looking forward to the challenges of being a team manager, I will be calling on the same skills I used as a team leader in the 2006 World Champs, listening, respecting my team mates, pushing the boundaries at the same time injecting some hummour and enjoying the moment. Team building and having a good positive morale plays a big role in success of any team. I also know that no matter what our best intentions are some people are just not going to enjoy these games as much as other.

The teams I have been on as an athlete have on almost all occasions had great team managers, people that didn’t stuff around a worry about the small things, they were leaders and did what was required, they got stuff done. If I have learnt anything watching my past team managers I know I will have my work cut out and it will at times be very demanding, then again it’s the world champs and I don’t believe anyone that has made it there would say it’s been easy.

If you get a chance send an Aussie a message of support, trust me, I know they’ll love it.

Cheers

Donnie

I’m good friends with my parents but I wonder is it ok for me to be mates with my girls.

I still remember the day my dad asked me if I wanted to be his mate, he said I can be your dad or I can be your mate, wow I thought how good would this be if my dad is my mate, he is not likely to tell me off when I’m bad….WRONG. Dad and I are mates so too is my mum one of my mates, I think they nailed it. When you are a parent you never stop being a parent no matter how good of a mate you are with your kids.  If the boundaries are clear then everyone is on the same page.

For this reason I’m sure I will continue to be mates with my girls, but above all I will always be their Dad. I know the buck stops with me, I take my role as Dad very serious knowing if the girls are destined to be decent humans then I have a big role to play in shaping them that way. But no one said we can’t have some fun along the way. I spend a lot of my time wrestling with my girls, they love to gang up on me, we laugh and carry on and more often than not our wrestle ends in tears (not mine yet) but the crazy thing is next time there is a wrestle and someone yells ’stacks on dad’ they all come running.

So the answer for me is simple, yes you can be mates with your kids and we all know mates don’t always see eye to eye but no matter what once a parent always a parent. Create the rules together and remember when the time comes it’s ok to put your foot down….be careful it doesn’t come off.

Happy parenting.

Cheers

Donnie

To be an amputee for many, is a second chance at life.

Often faced with a life or death situation people the world over have taken a chance at survival through amputation. Following that tough decision comes learing to live life as an amputee. How do they cope, who can they turn to for help, who really knows what life is like as an amp. I know these questions have been asked on many occasions and I’m sure will be asked many more times into the future.

As an amp all my life I know that sometimes life sucks, sometimes it’s just bloody tough and no matter who you are or what you’ve done with your life you wont convince me that life’s not hard, because when my leg is sore it’s hard to see things will be better.

The best thing is I know the tough times don’t last. To help with life as an amputee a friend of mine has written a book, it’s called The Amputee Coach, it’s a good read and an even better resource. With great little tips and advice. Although Cathy isn’t an amp I would say she is one of the most knowledgeable people on the subject, as a physio working with Amps for 20 years and married to Professor Leg, the bloke who makes my legs I know she can help amps worldwide lead a better quality of life and I’m sure her book will assist all who read it… Why am I so sure you should read it, cause I’m in it. Have a read and let me know your thoughts.

To all the Amps on our planet, keep smiling and take it one step at a time.

Cheers

Donnie

Having recently spoken at the Australia Property Institutes Victorian conference I find myself being back excited about property. I have always had an interest in property and having had the chance to speak to some welleducated people in the industry I am more keen than ever to pursue my dream of having a property portfolio that spans across our country. Not for the want of financial riches but for the desire to achieve a goal I set myself many years ago.

I think that on many occasions I have taken a backward step due to fear of not having the knowledge, well I don’t think sitting on my bum doing nothing is going to change my situation so I have decided to surround myself with people that can ease that burden.   

1st step invest in knowledge. I will read a few more books attend a few more seminars to listen and learn and I will seek advise from my mortgage broker to ensure I am get getting the best deal.

My 2nd step is to get off my bum and have a go and my 3rd step will be to get up and have another go should that be required. Who knows if this goes to plan you just might see me on the road speaking about property…

Stay tuned

Cheers

Donnie