Watt Nicoll
How many references to time do we flippantly embrace in an average day? We talk about Summertime, Springtime, Good Times and Bad Times with no real emphasis on the word ‘time’ and could very well just refer to summer, spring, good or bad – but we add the word ‘time’.
We have Breakfast Time, Lunchtime, Teatime, Supper Time, Bedtime and, sometimes we have Down Time. We talk about My Time, Time Out, Holiday Time and, when the hols do arrive we indulge in the gentle art of Killing Time.
Working as a Motivational Speaker has taken me into a myriad of lifestyle and professional insights and given me a broad understanding of who, how and why certain types of attitude seem to be the common factor in success and this has never been more clearly defined for me than by an eight year old genius within a class group I mentored in a Primary School some fifteen years ago. This little chap, who is probably a captain of industry or an apprentice President somewhere now, responded with magnificence to my deliberate attempt to raise awareness in young children to this mysterious thing called TIME.
I asked the youngsters to think of me as someone who had just come down from the moon and I feel obliged to say they had no problem with that concept whatsoever – ‘This thing called TIME ‘ I started with, pretending total confusion and bewilderment, “Coming from the moon we dont have clocks or these things called watches or that calender thing that you guys hang on the wall with all these numbers” I had the youngsters eating out of my hand and I threw the question to open forum “Can anyone describe TIME to me without using reference to clock, watch or calendar”?
No matter how enthusiastically those kids tried they were totally stumped, especially when I denied the use of years, months, weeks, days, hours or seconds, until my young hero drew my attention, stood patiently until he had the essential silence and presence to deliver the awe inspiring definition – TIME IS THE STUFF YOUR LIFE IS MADE OF!
The hair stood up on the back of my neck – I was in the presence of greatness – I challenge anyone to define this intangible product with more immediate understanding of its meaning and power TIME IS THE STUFF YOUR LIFE IS MADE OF! – Thank you sir for the clarification that has changed, not only my attitude to life, but the countless thousands I have had the privilege of sharing your perception with.
I am regularly approached by people from many walks of life who may have attended one of my workshops or perhaps read one of my books and often asked if I would mind sparing them ten minutes to share thoughts or observations regards their professional career or private life. I try always to give these requests serious consideration and deliver the best advice I feel qualified to give. I am sure that you or any decent member of our society would do no less than honour the compliment of being perceived as someone of sufficient worth that their opinion would be valued but I am equally certain that most of us, and me certainly, would react very differently to a passing strangers request for ten quid. – ON YIR BIKE PAL!
But let me point out that if you were foolish or generous enough to part with ten pounds to a passing stranger and they mocked your kindness as they ran off – You haven’t really lost that much – You could earn another tenner – BUT YOU WILL NEVER GET YOUR TEN MINUTES BACK!
I therefor suggest that your time has a value and that ten minutes is of greater significance than ten pounds and that you are probably, at this moment at an age where, on the scale of every minute is valued as one pound, a MULTI MILLIONAIRE IN TERMS OF TIME.
If you did ever become a financial millionaire you would have to be careful with your financial investments and always make sure they paid a good dividend. Start practising now for that moment by investing the millions you do have – If you think of a minute as having the value of a pound – Thirty minutes watching a TV soap beggers’ the question “Was that worth thirty quid”?
Now if that thirty minute TV soap relaxed you and helped you to forget some of todays’ challenges then the therapeutic value was a bargain at thirty pounds but if if it neither cheered you or affected you positively then you have to think of it as thirty quid down the drain. Thirty minutes watching a cookery programme with the intrinsic value of improving your cooking skills for life – Now that was thirty minutes (or thirty pounds by my theory) well invested.
I have now reached the stage and age where my TIME BANK ACCOUNT is running low but my remaining minutes are golden because of my past time investments – I have many friends, I have a comfortable home, I can, kind of, play several instruments and – well lets say my past time investments are paying off now big time!
If you know what you want out of life and you are willing to do whatever it takes to get it- You will succeed – but it might take time – So what – TIME IS THE STUFF YOUR LIFE IS MADE OF!
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