Scott – a lesson in multi-tracking

G’day – have you noticed that, as you get older, your body and mind start to D-cline. Our body parts start to droop, drop, dry or dribble.

And as if that’s not bad enough, our mind follows a similar D-cline. Whereas in our younger years we could juggle three or four thoughts simultaneously without losing track, now, as we age, we face another dreaded D- Day, our thinking di-chotomizes!!

We can think about this or that! We can only juggle one thought ball at a time. Men seem particularly prone to this D-Day decline – we go off to do one thing, another thought crosses our mind, we go off to do that and forget what we were going to do in the first place.

One man who bucked that trend, was our local ABC radio announcer Scott. Now I’ve known Scott for over 30 years on various radio stations around the country, so I well and truly know his style and, keeping in mind that over the years, I have been interviewed by the best and  busiest TV and radio personalities in the country, Scott stands out as the busiest I have ever met!

I was a regular on his program for many years, talking about some aspect of psychology. The night before my Friday guest spot I would send the topic, background and a few questions for Scott to ask me so he didn’t have to do any other background research. Now picture the interview scene. I would be sitting in the studio opposite Scott with the huge sound console between us and the producer’s window and control room right over my right shoulder. The producer would do our sound level checks while Scott would be doing the traffic or weather report. Then he would turn to me - but that’s when he got really busy!

My topic could be, say, on helping kids to concentrate, avoiding distractions, keeping your mind firmly fixed on the topic and what would Scott do? He’d be having a field day, pointing, scowling, shaking his head, mouthing words to the producer over my shoulder, checking traffic, checki8ng news feeds, while I was expected to keep my thoughts totally focused, sequenced, articulate and keep our listeners totally riveted to the topic. When I paused for breath, Scott would chime in with an absolutely incredibly pertinent question, probably not one on my list, then tell me how he had problems concentrating as a kid and sharing with me that his teachers thought he might have had ADHD!!

Might have had! But this incredible man turned this potential career crippler into a public positive. Scott was always courteous, always on the ball, never lost focus on the topic, nor what I was saying, even though he was processing what seemed like hundreds of mixed in messages. How Scott did I will never know, he certainly tested my capacity to concentrate!

But he’s not in my Humble Heroes list just because he had this incredible capacity to multi-track and multi-task. Scott was much more than that. Scott helped every sporting, cultural, music, performing arts, aboriginal, disability, charity cause he could. There was no ego in it for him, Scott just went out of his way to support local enterprise because he could!  

Maybe you have someone in your life like Scott, who turned a potential crippler into some creative magic.

Some time ago I was asked if I would put a letter of support in for Scott for the Australia Day awards but I can do better than that; for his intellect, his oral memory and his sheer capacity to multi-track and multi serve, I proudly welcome Scott into the Humble Heroes Hall of Fame.