Ka Mate Ka Mate, Ka ora Ka ora it was these words that raced around my mind as All Black after All Black (our national sporting legends) filtered into the lounge at Auckland International Airport, they were departing for Argentina, mum and I were off to New York City. Whether or not we all knew each other what we all had in common that Friday evening was a slice of national pride, we were taking skills that had been developed and groomed down-under to the top of our world.
I believe that peak performance is attributed to talent, passion and experience. To gain this experience and therefore increase our value within the world we must create a journey that involves stepping into the unknown and onto fields that demand peak performance.
For me New York has become my most awe inspiring event on my calendar over the past five years; as a speaker it’s a playing field where they’ve seen the best of the best, as a traveler it’s the one place I know that combines huge parks with huge buildings, chaos with peace, a united nations of people, thoughts, beliefs and entertainment, as a son it’s the one place I’ve always wanted to show my mum.
As a speaker, as a traveler, as mother and son we achieved all that was dreamt of but the legendary moments were a result of pure serendipity; Searching David Bowie songs on YouTube to discover their was a three-day exhibition of his collected art at Sotheby’s, getting off the subway at the wrong stop to find a free concert featuring Jay Z, going out to speak in Princeton and discovering it is a town of inspiring awesomeness.
I was invited to speak out in Princeton by a New Yorker whose energy you can feel from two planets away. I knew it was Ivy League but I didn’t realsie that transferred into the most beautiful harry-potter / Hogwarts like architecture encapsulating a art museum of some of the worlds most exquisite and collectable art works that anyone, anytime, can go a have a look at, for free!
New Yorkers have a saying “you can’t choose New York, New York chooses you” for it to choose you, for it to create moments of serendipity you must give it more than a ‘whistle stop’ tour but the time to feel, to smell, and to embrace the movement of the city that truly never sleeps – it is life, it is life.
