Layne Beachley – Becoming the champion of your life

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime you better

Eminem – Lose yourself

Going to work today, I never thought that one of the things I would experience would be watching a 7 time world champion surfer, bobbing her head and unashamedly expunging the virtues of a sometimes controversial rapper like Eminem.

But here I was, invited to listen to Layne Beachley by Stellar Recruitment (one of their excellent events they host throughout the year), where she shared her experience in the trials and tribulations of reaching the pinacle of the surfing world.

“I may donate to the swear jar frequently”

Waltzing around the front of the room, Layne spoke of her uniform normally being a bikini, suntan being her makeup and her toes would be touching the sand.  The closest compromise to this was her being barefoot – I know right, how cool is it when your speaker basically says “I know this is corporate and all, but I’m going to make myself at home and ditch the stilettos and traipse around this joint shoeless”.  Love it.

Layne is an excellent speaker.  I’m sure the average person things surfer and immediately thinks of Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves in Point Break saying “no way is Bells Beach bigger than Baha”, but she was excellent in setting the tone for what she was going to talk about and how it assisted her in achieving success – even apologising in advance for some potential upcoming wild tangents (she stated it was purely due to her being a Gemini and “shiny things” can be distracting).

Negativity

Firstly, Layne came out of the gates at quite a gallop and threw out some truths that got the crowd nodding in quite a show of support.  We are negatively hard-wired to be negative – how often do we look in the mirror and focus on the cons over the pros?  Too often.  Layne stated a truth in that starting the day negative sets the tone for the day.  This also feeds through to “your relationship with yourself sets the tone for relationships with others” – so be positive about yourself….and you will be positive with others.

Avoid the dream thieves

You become the sum of the top 5 people you associate with.  From here Layne likes to categorise people into 2 groups

“Dream Thieves” – While the name is fairly self explanatory, I liken then to Dementors from the J.K. Rowlings world of Harry Potter – they suck the life out of you – thieving your energy and your dreams.

“Honesty Barometers”/”Accountability Partners” – these are the people who will tell you how it is.  Not to purposely piss you off or hurt your feelings, but to keep you on track with your dreams….to keep you accountable.

How you think > How you feel > How you behave > the end result

Layne further clarified that it is super easy to fall into habits of negative thinking.  When she put the tour jersey on, it was easy for her to begin doubting herself – whether she had trained enough, whether she was in the right mind space, whether she deserved to be there.

How you think dictates how you feel which in turn determines how you will behave/act which eventually ensures your result.

Talking about her past and how it affected her in many minute ways (and in some large ways), Layne spoke about how she eventually fell upon NLP (Neuro Liguistic Programming) to assist her in her times of need (as well as surfing, it being her place of solace, home to soul search….her happy place), and eventually developing her daily mantra.

I am happy, I am healthy, I am fit, I am strong.

I would wholeheartedly recommend any opportunity to check out Layne Beachley’s talks not only from the interesting history that she will bring to the table, but also for the assistance and home truths she could surely bring to your journey in becoming the champion of your life.

Layne Beachley

9.3 / 10 Reviewer

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• Coolness of speaker
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