TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

Speaking with TJ Walker. The show where we dissect how and what world class leaders communicate. Welcome to the program today. This is the show where we look at the world through the lens of communication. Sometimes we have guests, sometimes it's just me, sometimes it's you with your questions, your suggestions. But together we're trying to figure out how the world works with respect to communication. Story jumped at me today that I thought was truly bizarre. A leading UK politician punched a colleague earlier today. This was a part of the European Parliament. They were in Strasbourg, France, and the European Parliamentarian was Stephen Wolf. Apparently they had some dispute. The guy who hit him was Mike Holcomb. He's a British politician. He's part of a far right party that was created just to get England out of the European Union. Well, it succeeded and now the party is a bit adrift. They don't quite know what to do. There's a lot of dissent, there's a lot of disagree, and apparently it ends in fist fights. Now folks, one of the founding tenets of democracy is it's better to discuss things, argue things, persuade, cast votes so that you don't have to just resort to punching people and fighting like animals. Now, a lot of people in Europe like to think of Americans as somewhat savage and unsophisticated. So there's some interesting sense of you're not better than us. When I see a story like this. I mean, as obnoxious as some members of Congress are, I haven't seen any members of Congress on the floor of the United States House passed out with a brain hemorrhage. I mean, this, this hit was serious. It wasn't a slap in the face or one little punch. The politician who was hit, this guy Stephen Wolf, apparently showing signs of brain damage, was rushed to the hospital and apparently was just a knocked out cold. And there are signs of other neurological damage. So folks, it's not like the TV shows and the movies where you hit someone or you knock them over the head with a monkey wrench and little stars come over their head and two seconds later everything's fine. You punch somebody in the head, you can in fact kill them. If you don't kill them, you can cause brain damage. So I hope this politician makes a full recovery. I also hope the European Member of Parliament who threw the punch, this Mike Hookum, receives the full punishment of the law, because that really can't stand. You know, I've had people say nasty things to me, yell at me, scream at me. But fortunately, since I've been speaking in public forums and going on talk shows. While I've had a lot of threats, I don't recall anyone actually punching my skull in. And I hope to continue that way. I hope this British politician or this European politician does not have permanent brain injury. That is just a sad, sad situation. In good news, there is a story this is coming out of all places, Uganda. There is a partnership with a public health organization and they are taking it upon themselves to teach children how to detect BS when it comes to health and science. It's just a one. I've looked at some of the cartoons. They're trying to teach people to be skeptical and to try to understand concepts like correlation does not mean causation. Because when it comes to the world of health, health products, colon cleanses, detox systems, things peddled on the Dr. Oz show, made of beans. There is so much baloney hokum, billions and billions of dollars worth of garbage peddled to people all over the world unnecessarily. And a part of why it works is, yeah, people are gullible, but a part of it is just never being taught basic science. And it's truly amazing to me how often people get pulled in. Here's an organization trying to do something about it. So I'll monitor that. If they come up with the news again, I'll certainly give you a report. It'll be interesting to see what happens there. Also in the news, congratulations to Antonio Guterres. He is the brand new Secretary General of the United Nations. He's the former Prime Minister of Portugal. Many of you who follow international news will have seen him in the last handful of years as head of the United Nations Organization for Refugees, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He earned very high plaudits there and a lot of people within the UN are excited about it. Now, some of you, especially in the US Are thinking, the United nations, who cares? Isn't that a powerless, impotent organization? Well, they're the best we have, folks. Unless you want this British politician running around punching people or Donald Trump nuking countries because somebody criticized his manhood, the United nations really is the best we've got. Now, I've never met the new Secretary General, but I have done a great deal of work with people close to him and in his previous agency. And I've heard nothing but good things about him. He's very well liked, very well respected. Here's the thing about the position of Secretary of the United Nations. It doesn't really have a lot of formal powers. Now, what it does have is the bully pulpit, the power of persuasion. Because when a UN Secretary General really cares about something, he or she, although it has never been a she, can get the whole world to pay attention, can get the world's media to pay attention. So you really do need a skilled politician there, someone who can form alliances, allegiances, broker deals, diffuse tensions, and get people in the world to let their finer angels show or shine and to put a spotlight on people's good natures. I think a lot of people in the UN are very excited about this election. I think a lot of the rest of them doesn't really care. But I do think it's important, especially in times of tension when right wing dictators and authoritarians seem to be rising in power around the world. All the more reason for a strong, forceful voice of reason at the United Nations. In other news, LeBron James endorses Hillary Clinton for president. Interesting thing about LeBron James, when he first came on the scene at age 18, he really wasn't looked at that favorably compared to Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan just seemed more polished, better looking, more corporate savvy, a better spokesperson. But LeBron James has really grown into his role now. Of course, he's a great basketball player. Will he ever have as many rings as Michael Jordan? I don't know about that, but Michael Jordan famously passed up an opportunity to support a black man, Harvey Gant, running in his home state of North Carolina for the U.S. senate against the reviled racist. And I'm talking about a guy who used the N word, Jesse Helms, the far right conservative Republican who represented North Carolina for many terms in the Senate. Michael Jordan famously said, hey, Republicans buy tennis shoes too. And sort of cowardly in many people's view, stayed away from an endorsement in that race. Here's LeBron James, who is at the peak of his career, the peak of his earning capacity in terms of endorsements. And he's putting some risk out there. Now, he's not putting out a lot of risk. He's still going to make, oh, he's got to be making, if not hundreds, at least $50 million a year. So it's not like he's going to go poor by alienating Donald Trump supporters. But still, he is supporting Hillary Clinton. He's doing it very forcefully, generating news coverage, giving news interviews. And you could say, well, who cares what a sports figure thinks? Well, you know, go to Twitter and you'll see about 30 million more people care about what LeBron James thinks than what I think and what many of you think so that's why people do, in fact, care. Now here's the fascinating thing and in some ways predictable but still interesting about the world of professional athletes. A poll was done and I, forgive me, I don't remember which organization of how professional football players are voting for president. What they found was that basically every single white football player is voting for Trump and every single black football professional football player is voting for Clinton. It's an amazing racial divide. I can kind of see in both ways how that's breaking down. It'll be interesting to see if it sows dissent within the locker room. A lot of white football players, I think, are naturally drawn to Trump's macho posturing. Somehow it's not playing well with black football players. If you have any thoughts on that, I would love to hear from you. Please post your comments on our Facebook page, LinkedIn page, YouTube, wherever you're experiencing this, or on Twitter. You can just send me a tweet. J. Walker, and I'd love to hear from you. By the way, this program is brought to you today by Media Training Worldwide. If you're looking to improve your speaking, that's the place to go. Think about it. Do you have an upcoming speech or media interview? Are you completely confident that you're going to just nail it? Well, if not, click in the show notes. There is a link to Media Training Worldwide and we will send you at no charge, copies of our media and presentation training books as well as our online video based courses. Now some of these courses normally sell for up to $300. It's going to be yours absolutely free for listening to the program today. So take us up on that offer. I do not think you're going to regret it. By the way, you can also suggest at any time topics that you'd like to see discussed on this show, plus guests you'd like to see me interview. As I mentioned to you yesterday, we're going through a little bit of a transition with our technology and our studio. We are rebuilding things, revamping things, getting things improved so that we'll get back to our regular schedule with lots of high quality interviews with interesting, influential people. So that's going to be coming back shortly. So I'll be looking for more suggestions from you on guests. So if you have any, please send them along. Thanks again for spending a little time with me. I'm T.J. walker. Talk to you tomorrow. Thanks for listening to speaking with T.J. walker. Sam.