Olympic Motivational Speaker Ruben Gonzalez

Taddy Blecher is changing lives in South Africa

Entrepreneurs tend to bite off a little more than they can chew hoping they’ll quickly learn how to chew it.

Eight years ago, from his office in Johannesburg in South Africa, without any university buildings, courses or staff, he began faxing out a letter of invitation to 350 schools.

He asked the brightest and poorest students to apply for a new university - and promised them the “best business education in Africa”.

This was going to be South Africa’s first free university, created to serve talented youngsters from the poor black communities who could never afford to send their children to the established universities.

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I was just on a speaking tour in South Africa. My host Sean O’Keeffe of O’Keeffe & Swartz made sure I didn’t have a a dull moment. We visited one of Johannesburg’s many gold mines. This gold mine was 9000 feet deep! We descended to 750 feet and took a 45 minute tour.

Sean and his sons Kyran and Callan deep in the mine. The whole mine is blasted right out of the rock. The rock is taken up, smashed into dust, and then the gold is extracted.

Each of these carts holds one ton of rock. Three of these carts yield one whopping ounce of gold! Now I know why my wife’s jewelry is so expensive!

Before 1925, the workers worked by candle light. It was not romantic, it was brutal. They used picks and hammers to make holes in the rock. They put dynamite into the holes, left the mine, blasted the dynamite, then four hours later, after the dust settled, they went back in to haul the rock out.

Sean’s grandfather worked in the mines as a ventilation specialist and died in a rockfall in the mine.

Today they use the machine gun looking, high pressure water blaster to dig the dynamite holes.

This is tough work. Definitely hard labor. If you are working down at the bottom of the mine at 9000 feet, it takes 2 hours to get back to the surface. A tough commute!

African rickshaw driver outside the gold mine (you can see Sean’s boys in the back).

Next time you are not too happy with your job, remember, you could be working in a mine in South Africa!

Olympic Motivational Speaker Ruben Gonzalez
Motivational Speakers
Motivational Speakers

Looking for big game in the African bush.

I just spent an incredible weekend in South Africa. My hosts, Sean O’Keeffe, his wife Nadja, and his sons Callan (the Kart racing king) and Kyran (the soccer and cricket whiz), made this trip absolutely unforgettable.

One of the many things we did was to spend a day at Pilanesberg National Game Reserve driving around looking for big game. The “Big Five” are the lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, and water buffalo. We saw rhino, hippos, wilderbeest, elephants, springbok, and impala.

This place ruined Zoos for me. It’s incredible to be driving around and come run into an elephant family.

Or a herd of zebra.

Or a momma and baby rhino. The baby came right up to our car.

July in South Africa is the middle of winter. Days are warm (60s) but in the evening it got down to the 30s. Pretty chilly when you are driving for hours in an open vehicle.

We spent the night smack in the middle of the 55,000 acre game reserve at the Tshukudu Bush Lodge, a five star 6 room lodge that overlooks the park. We enjoyed a six course meal with a Dutch family and when we turned in to go to sleep, you could hear the hyenas howling in the night.

Thanks Sean for a great time!

Olympic Motivational Speaker Ruben Gonzalez
Motivational Speakers
Motivational Speakers

I have had the honor of sharing the stage with Charlie Tremendous Jones many times. I feel priviledged to be his friend. Charlie has a heart of gold and has spent the last 50 years sharing his wisdom around the world.

Charlie has been battling cancer for several years. He is losing his voice but not his spirit. Charlie Tremendous Jones is battling cancer in the same way he has lived the past 81 years.

Charlie has counseled some of the biggest names in politics, religion, and sports since 1950. He has sold millions of books and given away millions more. His voice is muffled now because of an inoperable tumor on his lung, but his message is not.

He still has his trademark optimism and says he is not sad about his cancer diagnosis.

“Some live their lives according to the calendar. I live my life according to experiences, so I think I’m about 1,800 years and I’m tired. I gotta get out of here,” he laughs.

In typical fashion, Charlie is uplifting and motivational to the end.

We love you Charlie.

Olympic Motivational Speaker Ruben Gonzalez
Motivational Speakers
Motivational Speakers

Jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.

I was just in South Africa where I got to speak for O’Keeffe and Swartz, and Alexander Forbes, two of South Africa’s most respected financial services companies.

The week before heading “down under,” I thought that Skydiving in South Africa had a nice ring to it. I figured I might as well check it off my bucket list while I was there.

I contacted the Johannesburg Skydiving Club and arranged to jump with Chris Grosch, a veteran skydiver who has jumped over 7000 times in the last 20 years. Chris was a trememdous guide. He kept me relaxed by telling me stories of his clients and by being relaxed himself.

The worst part of skydiving is everything that happens before the jump. The fear of the unknown. The climb to 11,000 feet takes about 12 minutes and that’s when you are nervous. That’s when you start thinking of everything that could go wrong.

Then, all of a sudden, everything starts happening really fast. The door in the back of the plane rolls open, the other six skydivers fly out the door, and the instructor has you kneel at the edge of the open plane.

That’s a good time to say your last prayer! Then, you feel a gentle push, and all you see is the ground. You are so high up that there is no sensation of falling. It’s actually a lot of fun after you jump. The fear is gone and all you feel is exhileration.

You fall for about 45 seconds and then the instructor opens the chute. Opening the chute is actually a letdown because the exciting part is over.

For the next 5 minutes you glide gently to the ground. There is absolutely no sensation of falling. You can actually steer the parachute left and right like an airplane. You can land it anywhere the wind and glideslope will let you.

The idea of skydiving is a lot more scary than the actual jump. It’s just like when you are a kid and the idea of jumping from the high dive in a pool is scarier than actually jumping. Once you do what you fear, the fear dissappears. Fear is a smokescreen. Don’t let fear of the unknown keep you from your dreams.

My skydiving instructor helped me overcome a fear. Find someone who has done what you fear and ask them to help you go for your dreams!

Olympic Motivational Speaker Ruben Gonzalez
Motivational Speakers
Motivational Speakers

Juval Aviv - Golda Meir’s Bodyguard, Anti Terrorism Expert

Note from Ruben about this posting:

What does this have to do with motivation? Everything. Hopefully it will motivate people to take terrorism seriously. As an Olympic athlete and professional speaker, I travel all over the world and have seen a lot of the things in this article first hand. Juval Aviv is 100% right. Most Americans are misinformed and have no clue about how serious terrorism really is.

Read on. This article is a major wake up call.

Juval Aviv was the Israeli Agent upon whom the movie ‘Munich’ was based.

He was Golda Meir’s bodyguard–she appointed him to track down and bring to justice the Palestinian terrorists who took the Israeli athletes hostage and killed them during the Munich Olympic Games.

In a lecture in New York City a few weeks ago, he shared information that EVERY American needs to know–but that our government has not yet shared with us. (Aviv’s bio is noted at end.)

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Someone that bought one of my books called me the other day asking me what they should do with their life. Believe it or not, most people don’t know where they want to go.

I told this person that when I was in high school and was not sure what I wanted to do for a living, I sat down and wrote pages and pages about what my ideal day would be.

Where I would like to live, what I would like to do, etc. Then, once I had my ideal day in mind, I started asking myself “What would be the most fun way to make enough money to be able to live my ideal day every day?”

How could you use your talents to do something you enjoy, so you can create the lifestyle of your dreams?

Once you figure that out, find someone that’s already done it ask them how you can do it too…

Olympic Motivational Speaker Ruben Gonzalez
www.TheOlympicSpeaker.com

Natalie du Toit - Qualifies for Beijing Olympics in Swimming despite having lost her leg in an accident 7 years ago.

By the time she was a teenager, South African swimming had its eye on Natalie du Toit. The versatile Cape Town swimmer lit up the pool, setting multiple national age group records in both medley events and dominating many of her races. At 16, she nearly qualified for the 2000 Sydney Olympics in three events. People sensed great things were in store for the strong, determined swimmer. In 2004, Athens could become her playground. Then in 2001, those plans abruptly changed. Done with morning workout, du Toit eased her motor scooter into Monday rush-hour traffic and headed to school.

Just down the street from her pool, a careless driver exiting a parking lot ran directly into her left leg. The scene was gruesome; the devastation was immediately obvious. “I kept saying, ‘I’ve lost my leg, I’ve lost my leg,’” remembers du Toit. Her teammates rushed to her. Traffic snarled. The scene: total, horrible chaos. A motorcycle policeman racing to the accident crashed headfirst into a truck and had to be airlifted to a hospital. It would have been merciful if du Toit had fainted. But this is a girl who confronts reality without blinking. She stayed awake. At that moment, Natalie du Toit was not in the least preoccupied with her swimming career. But that state of mind would prove to be very temporary.

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Playing the cards he was dealt!

Oscar Pistorius (born 22 November 1986) is a South African Paralympic runner. Known as the “Blade Runner” and “the fastest man on no legs”, Pistorius is the double amputee world record holder in the 100, 200 and 400 metres events and runs with the aid of Cheetah Flex-Foot carbon fibre transtibial artificial limbs by Ossur.

In 2007 Pistorius took part in his first international able-bodied competitions. However, his artificial lower legs, while enabling him to compete, generated claims that he has an unfair advantage over able-bodied runners. The same year, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) amended its competition rules to ban the use of “any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device”. It claimed that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius.

After monitoring his track performances and carrying out tests, scientists took the view that Pistorius enjoyed considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs. On the strength of these findings, on 14 January 2008 the IAAF ruled him ineligible for competitions conducted under its rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympics.

This decision was reversed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on 16 May 2008, the Court ruling that the IAAF had not provided sufficient evidence to prove that Pistorius’s prostheses give him an advantage over able-bodied athletes. Although eligible to compete in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Pistorius still has to qualify for the South African team.

Olympic Motivational Speaker Ruben Gonzalez
www.TheOlympicSpeaker.com

“Leaders are made, they are not born; and they are made just like anything else has ever been made in this country-by hard effort. And that’s the price that we all have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.”

“And despite of what we say about being born equal, none of us really are born equal, but rather unequal. And yet the talented are no more responsible for their birthright than the underprivileged. And the measure of each should be what each does in a specific situation.”

“It is becoming increasingly difficult to be tolerant of a society who has sympathy only for the misfits, only for the maladjusted, only for the criminal, only for the loser. Have sympathy for them, help them, but I think it’s also a time for all of us to stand up for and to cheer for the doer, the achiever, on who recognizes a problem and does something about it one who looks at something extra to do for his country, the winner, the leader!”

Olympic Motivational Speaker Ruben Gonzalez
www.TheOlympicSpeaker.com