Dale Carnegie London

In the last two weeks the London office has had a lovely visit from Stephen Holgate who is a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer and currently residing in New York.

Steve, or Stevo to his friends, is such an inspiring person that I thought I would write about him for this blog post.

Originally from Brisbane, Australia, Steve headed to London when he was a mere 24 years old after graduating University with a Bachelor of Business, majoring in marketing. Having read the book How to Win Friends and Influence People he approached our office for a job. His easy going attitude and unbound enthusiasm along with an available opening, immediately secured him a sales consultant role with us.

From there he headed on to be not only a great sales person forming fantastic relationships with his clients, but also started his path to become a Dale Carnegie Trainer. Once he started training our flagship programme, The Dale Carnegie Course, his sales took off even more.

He was with our London office for 4 years and became a trainer for many of our programmes when he decided to return to Australia to be with his girlfriend and to work within the Sydney office of Dale Carnegie. Again he was successful in building up a business which at that time wasn’t well established in the area and travelled to Asia and other parts of the world delivering many of the Dale Carnegie programmes. At this point (2007) he became a Master Trainer, which may I say is no mean feat, especially for someone so young. You have to be the best and have excellent trainer results to even be considered for this role, and then undertake rigorous training.

Eventually the lure of travel was too much and Steve fulfilled another one of his ambitions which was to work and live in New York. And this is where he currently lives, two years on, enjoying his life there, taking improv classes and generally living his dream. He is the chap in our Smartphone apps as well as being a personal coach for CEO’s.

So when Stevo came back to the UK last week for business and tagged on some additional time to see his friends and pop back to the office where it all began, I decided to ask him what the key was to his success. Because Steve is one of the most likeable, motivated, friendly and passionate people I know. He has goals which he achieves, dreams he aspires to achieve and does all this living the life he desires.

Steve:
I actually feel the need to define "success" as what success means to me. For me, success is about being able to be happy with your life, and have a positive impact on the world ("the world" might include people, the environment, and/or ethical organisations). I know I've got the happiness thing, and would like to hope that I have had some form of positive impact on others.

So then the question is how have I done that?
* Work out what you want to be doing (how you can be happy)
* Set long term, medium term, and short term goals to achieve that
* Persist; understand that it won't happen instantly, and that you'll have many set backs and that they are all part of the process, not the end
* Take time out for reflection; replicate what you're doing well, change what you're not
* Create happiness for others; then others will help create it for you

Thanks Steve for those tips.....and may I say how lovely it was to see you again.

Helen