PLAYING WITH FIRE

Fear is an acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real. So says Martin Sterling of MIB Global - UK's pioneers in the art of fire-walking as a corporate management tool.

MARTIN STERLING. STERLING, AS IN pound sterling? "It is also as in trustworthy and dependable," says the man in black, and you know that Sterling is a man of words, the right words. He doesn't prove you wrong.

Sterling was in Bahrain to bring in the art of walking on burning coals as a management strategy to overcome fear. As one of the founders of Management in Business (or Men in Black) Global, UK, he has joined hands with Gulf Training Solutions, an associate company of the Baisan Institute of Hospitality Management (BIHM), in popularising this tried and tested technique in fear management in the Kingdom.

Fear is the overriding factor when it comes to walking on burning coals. But Sterling doesn't advise you to have no fear. "One should fear because it is a signal," he says. "The only time you do not feel fear is when you are dead. So what you should do is not be frozen by fear like rabbits caught in the headlight. You must be motivated by fear because it is a stimulus like happiness and sadness."

Walking on burning coals is a technique he learnt during his visit to India to study Kalari, an ancient martial art. "I was also exposed to fire-walking and lying on a bed of nails but because of my martial arts experience, I looked at it in a different way. Rather than thinking of it as mystical, I understood how it was possible and it excited me."

He took the learning to the UK and having heard of fire-walking as management exercises in the US, he incorporated it into MIB's offering. He approached Fujitsu, convinced them of the exercise and lo, firewalking was embraced by the UK's corporate world as a motivational tool.

There are some hard facts to burning coal though: "Coal burns at 1236 degree F," says Sterling. "To put that in perspective, aluminium melts at 1100 F, paper burns at 451 F and human flesh at 300 F." Walking on burning coals, thus means exposing yourself to four times the burning temperature of flesh. "We have some 25 people today and they all will do this with no pain or injury whatsoever," asserts Sterling. "At the end of it, they will realise that the only reason it looked impossible was because they believed it was impossible. It was the belief that was holding them back."

He integrates that learning into the work place and goads people to achieve targets that people thought were impossible.

Sterling says there are three physical reasons why you can walk on burning coal: "You burn wood that breaks into carbon, which radiates heat excellently but does not conduct. It is like touching a cake in an oven at 300 degree; the cake doesn't burn you, but the metal sides of the oven would. Second reason is the Leiden-Frost Effect, which means any moisture on your feet will evaporate taking the heat. And third, you are moving and not standing still."

But walking on burning coals is preceded by an almost hour-long training by Sterling and his team, who make the participants realize that fear is nothing but an acronym for "False Evidence Appearing Real." On final count, the exercise is about "changing your beliefs because it is false beliefs that control your life, not reality."

And conducting over 5,000 fire-walking workshops around the world, Sterling has learnt a sterling lesson: "We all have infinite potential. We are all divine jewels of the creator but so often, we get dusty. And we need to blow that dust off. with fire-walking or any other exercise."

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