Peter Knight

There's always a choice

There's always a choice

Steven Covey recommended me to read Victor Frankl's excellent book "Man's search for meaning" and twice this week its most powerful message has crept back into my mind - whatever the circumstances we always have options and can make a choice. Frankl was a Auschwitz survivor who chose to view his condition as a unique opportunity to study human behaviour in an environment which until that time would have been hard to imagine never mind comprehend. As a psychiatrist he decided to make the most of his incarceration and I have no doubt that this state of mind, or attitude if you prefer, was the key factor in his not only living to tell the world but to continue to do so positively and with a clear sense of purpose.

Nigel Risner and I work some of the same speaker circuits and I was very pleased to engage him to address The Academy's Partnership Group last week. His excellent talk included the idea that we are continuously talking to ourselves and do so either as a coach or as a commentator - the first being more helpful. During the workshop, and many occasions since, I have asked myself "is that Peter the coach or commentator talking?" and each time the commentator has appeared I've noticed how poor the tonality is as well as being unhelpful. When the coach has taken over I've marvelled at some of the excellent options I've suddenly noticed.

Many of you will be aware that my good friend Sean Newman was hit by a truck at 70mph as he cycled across America for various cancer charities. Sean will thankfully survive his horrendous injuries which include a fractured back, 2 broken legs and a smashed pelvis. I have no doubt that he will use this experience to become even stronger and can almost hear him say in a few years time "it was a major turning/learning point." But the words I want to quote to you now are not Sean's but his wife Caroline's. On her Facebook page she has been keeping us all updated with Sean's progress and when she posted a photo of Sean's bike in bits, at the side of a dual carriageway, one friend commented how it seemed impossible for the accident to have happened on such a wide, straight road and how he really felt angry about this and how he took huge issue with the truck driver. Here is Caroline's reply:

"It was an accident. Nothing more. In fact we would be happy to meet him - I am sure he is in a crappy place right now and it might help him to know we bear no ill feeling. I think he is about 60 so not a nice thing for an oldie to be carrying around."

Victor Frankl came back to me for the second time - what a choice response! What a great and positive attitude and how much better for everyone involved - Sean, Caroline, their kids, friends, family and the truck driver too, that this is the mindset Caroline has chosen?

Increasingly people seem reluctant to take personal responsibility and often look for someone else to blame for the market, the state of their business/job, their relationships; even their health. But there is another option - a good coach will encourage you to take charge and to be in control of yourself. Vicktor Frankl and Nigel Risner understand this - Caroline Newman lives it.

One in a thousand...for one in a million

Last Sunday my friend Sean Newman was hit by a truck at 70mph as he cycled across America raising money for cancer charities. The pictures tell the story better than any words I can muster - Sean's bike in bits with the missing pieces seeming to appear in his reconstructed pelvis (they are cables and pins). He suffered a fractured orbital eye socket , shattered pelvis, broken femur right leg, fractured lower spine, broken tibia and ankle left leg, bruised spleen, a closed head injury resulting in a subdural haemotoma (thankfully a bleed that will absorb and does not require surgery). But his biggest issue is his frustration, indeed despair, that his ride was incomplete and his desperate wish that the funds he has pledged to raise will be achieved.

Sean is a one in a million - he's raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for charities having cycled the length and breadth of the UK twice, raced across the Sahara desert - completing 7 marathons on foot, numerous marathons around the world and building a total of 7 schools in third world countries. His wife Caroline said the other day "we have always worked on the basis 'you never give to receive' but I think now would be a nice time for a little to come back Sean's way" - not that she's asking for anything for Sean personally - no her request is that people will find it in them to make a donation to make sure Sean's goals are achieved.

I'm asking you to be one in a thousand and to make a donation of just £100 - it's a small thing to ask for one in a million I feel - but any amount will be gratefully received.

Sean is a director of the Estate Agency Foundation - a charity encouraging estate agents to raise funds for good causes - you can make a donation for Sean's charities (Macmillan Cancer, Copafeel and Live Strong) at www.estateagencyfoundation.org/sean

Thank you in anticipation of your support.

The Green (eyed) Monster

Foxtons bashing continues unabated - yesterday’s twitter pages exclaimed outrage that they have won Gold for Best Property Management in The Lettings Agency of the Year Awards in association with The Times and The Sunday Times with comments including the suggestion that the industry is letting itself down by allowing them to win. However closer examination reveals that many of the critics are competitor agents some of whom are more than happy to boast of their award success but don’t like it when they get beaten themselves.

A quick look at the Foxtons web site this morning shows they are offering 6,713 properties for sale and 3,887 for rent – over 10,000 clients in total. Now consider the fact that in every area Foxtons operate there is considerable competition, in quantity of agents anyway, and that no one has been forced to use them, and then ask why are they market leaders in just about every location where they have an office and in several where they don’t? And the only answer I can come up with is because they do the job their clients pay them for – they sell or rent properties for more money than the average agent. Because that is what estate agents do or should do – get the best possible price for their clients’ property.

I fully acknowledge that in order to obtain the best possible price Foxtons have flirted with the dark arts and some individual members of their team have, on occasion, crossed over to the dark side – and I don’t condone this. And I’m not naïve to the extent that I’m saying they have always put their client’s interests ahead of their own. But let’s be very careful here, which agents haven’t got a few skeletons in their cupboard? And what is worse, overvaluing a property, and then selling it, or undervaluing, and then selling it? People in glass houses…

I regard Foxtons as one of the best estate agencies in the UK, and say this publicly whilst running the risk of being accused of being on their payroll which I can categorically state I am not, and never have been. I admire their brand, their marketing, their work ethic (on a typical walk to the tube I pass a dozen estate agencies all of whom are closed at 8am and 8pm except Foxtons) and above all I admire their value – no estate agency has ever been worth more than Foxtons. If many of their critics spent more time focussing on their own businesses rather than knocking their more successful competitor then they might give Foxtons a run for their money – but I doubt this will happen as it’s easier for the green-eyed to carp from the sidelines than to get into the arena and perform.