In my teenage years, I had a hot tem­per. I was quick with words and my fists. How­ev­er, over time life ex­pe­ri­ences in­grained the prac­tice of bring­ing calm to chaos, clar­i­ty to un­cer­tain­ty, en­cour­ag­ing rather than dis­cour­ag­ing, and con­fi­dence where there is doubt.

Work­ing with a team en­er­gis­es me. Help­ing peo­ple and or­gan­i­sa­tions chal­lenge, in­spires and mo­ti­vates me. Peo­ple I re­spect have of­fered the same ad­vice in­de­pen­dent­ly of each oth­er: "Why don't you con­sult with mul­ti­ple clients and share what you have learned about or­gan­i­sa­tion­al lead­er­ship? "

I had dis­missed the sug­ges­tions. Why? Sport has been a life­long pas­sion ever since I was a lit­tle boy grow­ing up in Bel­mont. Like all chil­dren, re­gard­less of if mum­my had mon­ey or not, the fo­cus wasn't so much on what we lacked and didn't have but all that mat­tered was play and fun.

While the teacher's re­ports in­di­cat­ing that Bri­an is too play­ful and needs to set­tle down would re­sult in the rit­u­al "cut tail" and banned from play­ing, the sting of the lash was soon for­got­ten. Play­ing and fun were al­ways a safe zone, be the play imag­i­nary or re­al.

Play and fun nev­er get old. Every sin­gle hu­man be­ing loves to play, laugh and have fun.

So for me, sport and any­thing in­volv­ing sport, has al­ways res­onat­ed with me as fun and joy.

As a re­sult sport vol­un­teerism is some­thing I have al­ways done. I de­vel­oped a habit of brav­ery. I don't re­call ever back­ing down from a chal­lenge on or off the field of play. There are sports that I have tried that the best I could have done was mediocre at best but those per­ceived fail­ures weren't de­void of en­joy­ment. I en­joyed learn­ing from fail­ures. It helps me de­vel­op re­silience and for­ti­tude.

The sug­ges­tion that I should share my knowl­edge, ex­per­tise, and phi­los­o­phy as a con­sul­tant didn't res­onate with me from the get-go but the con­tem­po­rary re­al­i­ty is that sport is a se­ri­ous and sig­nif­i­cant in­dus­try.

Sport in the 21st cen­tu­ry has moved past its ear­li­est his­to­ry - it is no longer a pas­time for aris­to­crats and the rich. Vol­un­teerism is on­ly but one el­e­ment of con­tem­po­rary sport just as the com­mer­cial as­pect of sport is an im­por­tant el­e­ment. It's no longer ei­ther, or.

Life is a se­ries of risks. I al­ways en­cour­age peo­ple to go brave. I have four decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in sales, mar­ket­ing, brand­ing, strat­e­gy, man­age­ment and lead­er­ship.

The best lead­ers learn to think clear­ly and quick­ly and de­ter­mine which risks are worth tak­ing. The biggest hur­dle to de­vel­op­ing a habit of brav­ery is fear.

Every leader faces dif­fi­cul­ties, ob­sta­cles and chal­lenges. Lead­ers are af­ter all hu­man be­ings. That they are in lead­er­ship po­si­tions doesn't change that re­al­i­ty. The dif­fer­ence mak­er in get­ting un­stuck is brav­ery.

Since hand­ing over the ba­ton of lead­er­ship of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) and T&T Com­mon­wealth Games As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­GA) and Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (CANOC), I have had a num­ber of op­por­tu­ni­ties to con­sult and to give ad­vice that I have turned down be­cause I didn't want to ap­pear to be un­der­min­ing my suc­ces­sors.

Brav­ery is the abil­i­ty to do some­thing that fright­ens you.

Brav­ery is not the ab­sence of fear but rather the com­mit­ment to face fear head-on and even­tu­al­ly over­come it.

Brav­ery is what gives you the con­fi­dence to con­quer your in­ner­most fears and anx­i­eties and to re­sist run­ning away from the things that make you afraid.

Brav­ery is a life­long habit that if you want to achieve ex­cel­lence in any­thing you must pur­sue.

For­tune it is said favours the brave. Life be­gins at the end of your com­fort zone. As a leader em­brac­ing un­cer­tain­ty is part of your job de­scrip­tion.

"Ed­u­ca­tion is your pass­port to the fu­ture, for to­mor­row be­longs to the peo­ple who pre­pare for it to­day." – El-Ha­jj Ma­lik El- Shabazz (Mal­colm X)

Ed­u­ca­tion is not lim­it­ed to the class­room. Ed­u­ca­tion is your abil­i­ty to use what you have learned to be bet­ter to­day than you were yes­ter­day.