I went for a prostate biopsy and ladies let me give you a piece of advice – don’t ever go for a prostate biopsy, okay? I can tell you that having had a thyroidectomy and a prostatectomy, I now have a unique Irish condition known as “there’s not much left of me.”

Now the idea of why I want to reference these as micro goals – it goes back to a concept or a phrase from an English author by the name of Anthony Trollope. And Anthony Trollope, who’s a 19th century author, he said that “a small daily task if truly done daily will beat the labors of a spasmodic Hercules.”

And the idea behind this five micro goals, chaps, is that if you implement the five micro goals – they’re small daily goals but they can make a huge difference to your environment. And some of you are probably wondering why does he keep referring to us as chaps? Yes, you see you’re wondering aren’t you? Now chaps is a kind of an Irish English phrase that relates to, refers to colleagues or friends, tends to be more male orientated, but I suppose in this gender neutral society we’re in, I’m going to actually use it to reference to you here in our chaps. But the main reason why I’m referencing it is that the five micro goals I’m going to provide you with actually spell out the acronym CHAPS.

The first micro goal is compliment and everyone here in this room can send up a micro goal that will be implemented by when they complement someone. Now the logic behind putting some micro goals is that you probably do know that we’ve got neurotransmitters in our brains – neurochemicals – and one of them is dopamine, and dopamine is known as the feelgood chemical as you all well know. And when something good happens, the dopamine kicks in, you feel better about yourself.

The logic of treating these as goals is that if you set yourself a micro goal that “I will complement one person when I go back to work,” when you actually hear yourself complimenting that one person, you’re going to hear them yourself saying “hey I achieve my micro goal.” You’re going to feel better about yourself. But what about the person you’ve complimented? How do you think they’re going to feel? Positive, upbeat, happy and more prepared to work with you.

Everyone here in this room can set themselves a small micro goal and implement it to complement at least one colleague. Now sometimes I get comments like “Well Connor, what happens if you can’t find someone at work to compliment?” I say maybe you shouldn’t be in that place. More pointedly, I’d say maybe it isn’t the workforce that’s the problem – it might be you. But what I also do believe is that everyone here in this room can find some reason to compliment someone. I mean, you could come over with something like “Wow, your hair doesn’t look as bad as it did yesterday!” That kind of thing will work.

But everyone here though can work on the compliment acronym. So number one in CHAPS is compliment – “I will compliment one person when I get into work.” Now I’m going to put a question to you, going to give you a 15-second exercise to think about. You buy into the concept of the power of a compliment? Think of one person when you go back to the workplace, to the hospital, to the facility, to the ward – think of one person that you will compliment. You got it?

Now I’m going to ask you – that one person that you will compliment, is that someone that you get on well with, that you like and you already have a good work relationship with? For this to be even more effective, think of the person that you don’t necessarily get on that well with. Think of the person that you don’t necessarily have a good relationship with, but think of the impact it could have if you actually get into the habit of complimenting the people that are not necessarily your best co-workers. It works! Don’t just fall into the trap of complimenting the person that you like.

CHAPS first micro goal is compliment, the second micro goal is H for here. Irish guy was super cool, everyone needs to come and see Connor because he is awesome. You will learn so much, your… um… everyone loved him here and I will tell you something – he will bring the gift of the gab to your chapter and it will be the ultimate presentation that you will ever receive.

This is a transcript from a presentation Conor made when he was keynote speaker for the Academy of Medical Surgical Nurses. It provides some of the content this two time cancer survivor presents when invited as a humorous motivational speaker cancer survivorship.