Five Tremendous Pillars

There are certain times in your life when you know you are being gifted an opportunity to work with a boss in a context that you know will be career and life changing. The arrival of David Pierce at AIA New Zealand not long after I'd taken on the Head of Marketing role was such a time for me.

David was a big, loud American. You knew when he walked into a room. A former offensive lineman in US College football and NFL trialist, David was 6'5" with square shoulders and a girth that had expanded to fit his height over the years.

I won't go much into the work achievements we shared during our time together, but these were significant and changed the nature and context in which life insurance in New Zealand was delivered for the better.

Of more influence on me and all at AIA/AIG Life at that time was the way David invested in leadership. He had an innate belief that we are all leaders, and that we just need some prompting to see that leadership seed germinate.

David had grown up in mid-west USA in the 1960s, the son of a Polish accountant. His Dad had befriended an insurance salesman and motivational speaker by the name of Charlie 'Tremendous' Jones, and Charlie had become a life mentor for David.

Tremendous Charlie's pitch was all about the need to take personal responsibility, to step up to challenges and to continue to be a life-long learner. Much in demand as a speaker from the 1960s onwards, Charlie was brash, confrontational and motivational. His theory that "in two years-time you will be the same person you are today except for the people you meet and the books that you read" is a real insight into his belief that the power of self-education and association are the two major developers of the human condition.

In Charlie's last few weeks of life, David asked us to sponsor Charlie for a final speaking engagement in Auckland. The event was a sell-out, and over 1000 people listened in silence as Charlie hoarsely whispered his pearls of wisdom, his throat cancer having all but robbed him of his voice. We used various video clips of Charlie speaking through the years to explain the point he had wanted to make, with his whisper adding effect to the nuggets of gold in his messages. Sadly, Charlie passed away around a month after that event.

As a tribute to his mentor, over the next several months David wrote one of the clearest and most insightful books on life I have ever picked up. Built around the principal of 'Inside Out Living', "Five Pillars of a Tremendous Life" breaks down countless of Charlie's talks and insights into five clear pillars: The Pillar of Purpose, The Pillar of Leadership, The Pillar of Encouragement, The Pillar of Faith and the Pillar of Love. I can only encourage you to read this wonderful book.

Through my cancer diagnosis and subsequent journey I have especially connected with the Pillar of Faith. For me this is a private pillar, and not something you'll see me singing on street corners trying to convert non-believers about. Faith is a personal choice. It reflects my values, ideals and world outlook, allowing me time and space to reflect on any number of matters in the context that my personal faith espouses.

Sadly the Pillar of Faith is being referenced by fewer and fewer people in the Western world today, leading to a 'me-now' world view and a consumerist prioritisation on what is important. That we have seen a corresponding rise in mental health issues, violent crimes, relationship failures and increasing suicide rates are in my mind in no small way related.

"Faith is the opening of all sides and at every level of one's life to the divine inflow" Martin Luther King Jr.

For many faith has become confused with religion, and there has been more wrong done over man's history in the name of religion than any other cause. In my mind your religion matters no more than the colour of your skin, your eyes or your hair. We are all born unique but equal, and faith similarly is equal for all and uniquely able to serve each of us individually.

"Faith does not contradict reason but transcends it" Ghandi