Last week one of my friends was taken into hospital with a tumour in his head. Another was rushed into hospital with ongoing issues. And then last night, I heard that Clive Gott (www.clivegott.com), professional speaker and adventurer, had died suddenly at home.
I didn’t know Clive particularly well but I had seen him speak and had shared a beer with him on a couple of occasions. He was a straight speaking Yorkshire man who told it like it was, lived live to the max and believed in making every day count. His talks were from the heart and pulled no punches. His was one of the few blogs that I read. Not for work, not to learn anything in particular but just because I enjoyed what he had to say about love, life and the universe. I didn’t always agree with Clive but I always loved his passion, his energy and his commitment.
I also admired the way that he had created the life that he wanted and wasn’t scared of sharing his beliefs, ideals and learnings with others.
Clive was a man who will leave a massive legacy of people who were motivated or inspired by seeing him speak, people who had the pleasure of his abundance in their lives and just people who he met along the way and made a difference to. Many people will remember different things about Clive and that is the beauty of life and of being a speaker however when I think about Clive I think of the following messages and they are so powerful that I wanted to share them with you…
- Grab life by the throat and take action.
Clive believed in doing stuff. He didn’t sit on his ass and watch life pass him by. Clive travelled extensively, climbed huge mountains and took part in ultra-races. He spoke at events, wrote books, kept his blog and socialized. What do you need to do to “take life by throat and say, “I’m not over yet”?
- Live every moment.
Clive lived every moment. “Cruise control”, “going through the motions”, “drifting” were not words that you would associate with him. Whatever he was doing whether it was speaking, golfing, drinking or talking he lived in the moment and gave it his all. What could you achieve if you lived 100% in the moment and gave your all to everything that you do?
- Pay it forward.
One of Clive’s habits was that of paying it forward, that is to do or give something to another without wish for reciprocation. His aim, to make the world a better place. What do you do for others? What can you do to help others? How can you help your clients, colleagues and friends to achieve more in their businesses and their lives without hope or expectation?
- Be true to yourself.
As Polonius said to Laertes in Hamlet, “This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” There’s no point doing things if they don’t mean anything to you. There’s no point living someone else’s life for someone else. If you want to achieve true greatness, whether in sales, in business or in any other walk of life, you have to be true to yourself.
As I am writing this, the snow has started to come down. I have to drive 300 miles later on for a gig tomorrow. And then I have to drive back. Am I going to get in the car, thinking about what a long way it is and how tiring it will be or am I going to drive down glad to be alive, focused on how I can make a difference and what I can do to grab life by the throat?
What do you think?
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Absolutely Clive in a nutshell the perfect tribute.
Well said Gav, a sad loss. We should all speak more…….
Andy
Always a time for reflection- but most of us forget too quickly.
I never met Clive but what a great tribute
Someone very close to me recently reminded me that “life is for living”.
For me that single phrase sums up the first half of this tribute.
Sounds like a good man who will be missed.
Fantastic tribute Gavin. I was one of those inspired and touched by Clive’s insatiable appetite for life and self belief. He became a fantastic mentor safter I set up my own business. I only spoke to him last week and its his last words of “Hayley, pick a lane and stick with it because you already believe you can!” RIP Clive, my life is much richer for knowing you
What a fabulous memory Hayley and what a great thought that he will live on through your actions and your life.
A fitting tribute to a great guy,
Ben
“Carpe jugulum” as Terry Pratchett says.
I saw Clive do an evening for the Mastery Gym a few years back – very funny man.
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Gavin, thanks for honouring Clive, a genuine good guy, and adding some sage wisdom of your own here. You can’t help but smile, and I suspect that wherever he is, Clive is smiling, too.
I have never met clive in person but through his book- Believe You Can, I feel I have met him. He is funny, understanding, insightful and very helpful.
At a time when I was faced with two tasks that seemed like a mountain, I saw that book and bought it and after reading that book, I believed myself and undertook my tasks and succeded because of the important principles he espoused on the pages of that book and the way he presented them which pushed me. I happened to be one of those people who can do almost anything without fear and with success but will never move unless pushed. One task then was starting a coaching class to Teens (9-18yrs old) the basic principles that prepares them for responsible and successful adults at school and in life, the other was writing my first book on ‘Refining the heavier parts of crude oil’. I studied petroluem Engineering. I dared these two mountains and conquered them.
But the book got missing from my library and a few years down the line, I wanted to face a different kind of mountain (in 2008); I wanted to Start my own Engineering Servicing Company and use my weekends to visit universities and coach them for free all year-round on how to be better adults in a challenging world. Yet I had no clue how to proceed with these quests, even as the world economic recession was coming at full force and my job and that of thousands of others were disappearing. I needed to repeat the magic of the past using the system that worked for me in that book, but I couldnt find the book anywhere, even online. So I was kind of stuck.
Well, it is embarrassing to say, but I didnt exactly face those mountains- I started the company but hide myself from it, allowing my investments to waste. I did take another route though (which is to me, a more timid option). I dusted my cv and went loking for job and did get and have there since.
Well, 9 days ago, I got the second promotion since then but now aching to face another mountain -launch out on my own again. So in dire need of reading that book once more, I decided to check once more online.
You can imagine my mixed feelings now as I ‘googled’ Clive Gott only to be led to a page that announced his death. I feel the loss but I am grateful that he lived in the first place and wrote that book.
RIP Clive Gott.
Cigg. It was a huge shock when Clive died and many people all over the world felt a sense of loss at his passing. Clive’s legacy is in the minds of those who heard him speak and in the improvements in the lives of those that he inspired. It is a shame you have not still got his book. I just did a Google search and could not find it either but if you go to Amazon.co.uk there are second hand copies currently for sale on there. Good luck getting hold of a copy but remember… the attitudes and the approach to life that Clive advocated is the important key and this works when you embrace life, book or no book.