Nipper & Moose Conquering Fear (Part 1 of the Learning Experience Trilogy)

Nipper and Moose Conquering Fear track a lifetime journey of learning experiences from childhood encounters through coming of age to conquering fear. This first volume, Nipper is for ages 9 and up. It teaches that understanding girls is difficult at the best of times. Navigating that sea without a map, as George found out, can be a teenage squall […]

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Nipper and Moose Conquering Fear track a lifetime journey of learning experiences from childhood encounters through coming of age to conquering fear. This first volume, Nipper is for ages 9 and up. It teaches that understanding girls is difficult at the best of times. Navigating that sea without a map, as George found out, can be a teenage squall or a fulfilling voyage of discovery. In book two, Moose Conquering Fear we learn that transitioning life stages is never easy. Fear of failure in first job and first marriage lead to decisions, better and worse. George took them all. 

Welcome to this edition of Newsgram!

“It is curious how experience moulds our actions, reactions and expectations of what is to come.” Those are not only the first words in the description of what has become a trilogy of books for Peter Massam but they are the perfect beginning to this podcast because they explain perfectly why it exists in the first place. Not the podcast, the books. No, I’m not trying to confuse you. I just think that as you learn more about Peter Massam and how he thinks you’ll be better able to appreciate the wonderful books he’s written.

Peter Massam – One of my soapbox topics has been customer experience.

Haha, yes it is also one of mine. How many times have you been frustrated by a product and said to yourself, did no-one test this out.  

Peter Massam – Ever since I picked up one of the first mobile phones and tried to use it and said to my colleagues how in earth do people put up with this because it was terrible performance you know, probably two calls survived out of ten and made it my life’s work to try and capture that experience and make it better for people. 

It’s also one of my soapboxes and I’ll spare you the diatribe here but suffice it say we need more people who think like Peter. I’m old enough to have been there when the first mobile phones were rolled out. We still call them cell-phones. They were very cool to have but they didn’t work very well. A lot of dropped calls. 

Peter Massam – That was the general theme of my career. Towards the end of it, as we got more into customer perception and the softer side of things I realized that the industry wasn’t ready for getting their arms around that. 

The amount of dropped calls have come down significantly so thank you Peter.   So what drives a former teacher turned businessman, frustrated with dropped calls, to pursue a trilogy about a young man growing up? 

Peter Massam – That’s where these Trilogy came out of from one side was, how do you get inside the mind of your customer and then the second motivation for that was very much a personal one because we all…during my teaching career I came across a boy who committed suicide, with everything in front of him and my immediate reaction to that was whoa, that is such a waste of talent and that I’ve got to try and do something to help those people, especially young men who I think are a larger percentage who choose that route, to try and play their fears because life is full of fears, full of unknowns and if you have no tools to cope with them or your living in a deprived circumstance then you probably feel that there’s no resort except the last one.

Peter Massam is the author of three books, Nipper, Moose Conquering Fear and Know your Mind and as you can hear he is a very caring individual. It’s his empathy that I found most intriguing. His ability to see inside the mind of his customer.

Peter Massam – I would certainly like young adults, young boys, teenagers to read Nipper because that will prepare them for what may come down the line. 

When it comes to growing up there is quite a bit that comes down the line and his book takes you into all of that but in a fun way. It starts out with a couple of kids squirting water bottles off a bridge at moving cars. It’s typical, slice of life boy stuff like riding bikes and fishing as well as the pain that comes when a friend moves away but it’s told in such an interesting way that you find yourself smiling throughout the chapters.  

Nipper is the first book in the Trilogy and this is where you first get to meet George. growing up in a loving family but not a wealthy one and all the growing pains that go along with that including the love between a boy and his dog. 

Peter Massam – Having been a teacher and seen boys develop, we all develop at different speeds.  I was a late developer. You know the message there is it shouldn’t matter because your time will come. It doesn’t matter whether it comes at the end of the school days and for me, as I explained in the book, it came a bit too late but then you just push on from that into the rest of your career and for me it was sport and it can take off at any time and you should be ready for it when it does because you’ll enjoy it so much more. 

Yes, most of us were not prepared for the arrival of puberty and all those strong emotions that you’ve never experienced before.

Peter Massam – When you are noticed for the first time by the opposite sex that is quite disconcerting because you know how to react to a friend, who is a male friend  if they are joking around with you but when it comes to more serious feelings than you are unprepared. 

Another part of life is the evolution that takes place in the workforce. Getting a first job and navigating the intricacies of the workplace. 

Peter Massam – As your evolving your looking for common ground with other people and in your life there are definitely people who are  too far removed from where you are, your situation because either in age orin experience or something else so you are always looking for that person to talk with some would call it a kindred spirit but i think that’s probably going too far it’s just somebody that empathizes with you enough to understand what  your going through and you can talk openly with them and that’s what happens with George and Joan. 

Nipper is a work of fiction so no spoilers here. You’ll learn all about Joan when you read the book but as you can see we’ve taken you through George’s life from a young boy to a young adult and to use one of Peter’s analogies — Navigating that sea without a map, as George found out, can be a teenage squall or a fulfilling voyage of discovery. 

This brings us, in a very natural way to book number two, Moose Conquering Fear. Growing pains, now a thing of the past and we are moving on to being a grown up. 

Peter Massam – Going from one situation to another and coping.

That is a great way to summarize adult life. It seems we are always doing just that. It’s one thing after another and if we have the right coping skills to take and deal with whatever life throws at us we usually manage to do just fine. 

Peter Massam – It doesn’t pause or ponder over things for too long. That was deliberate. If I just tangentially mention the books, I was very conscious of making them briefer than a novel because I wanted young people to feel, and others to feel that they can pick the books up and read them maybe on a couple of train journeys. So they had to be engaging and not um, it was not meant to be an analysis  it was meant to be, this can happen to you too and if it does then this is how one person dealt with it. 

It’s all about learning that transitioning through different stages in life can be hard. You have to deal with being human, moving out of your boyhood home, getting a job and dealing with the fear of failure and getting married — which comes with its share of challenges. 

Peter Massam – You can find that sometimes life throws everything at you and sometimes in the same day. 

Every had one of those days? Yea we all have. In the second book in the series George is confronted with some adult decisions. He has to confront his fears, make some hard decisions and if you fail to learn from your mistakes as a grown up, you need to make the tough call. 

Peter Massam – New parents in particular and new couples full of hope after their marriage probably and are looking for their first house. If you find yourself in an area as George did with very expensive properties all around and being a teacher, only being paid a teachers salary that was just not on the cards. So money was tight as it had been for George’s parents, as was recorded in Nipper  and therefore you have to find your way around things and you look at all avenues to try and ease that burden.

So George took on the side-job of selling insurance. I tried this once and let me tell you, it’s not a side job. 

Peter Massam  – Well as it turns out it didn’t actually work out for him and sometimes things don’t. It’s really again how you try and cope with these challenges and in a practical way. I like to think that this book will be useful to people to give them the tools to be able to work through that situation and not be afraid to reach out to those that they might not see very often. 

There are a lot of contacts on your phone and business cards on your desk. Just because you don’t talk to them all the time doesn’t mean they don’t want to hear from you. It’s just a call, don’t overthink it. 

Life can be a real roller-coaster but in his series of books Peter tries to smooth out some of those bumps and remove some of the unknown to help alleviate fear. 

They are written from a male perspective as the main character is George and while there is no right or wrong way, he points out that some calls are immensely hard to make…so having the right support can help you set aside doubt and take that leap of faith. 

Ordinarily this is where I would remind you that these books are now available to purchase but that’s not going to happen today. 

Peter Massam – I’m not here so that people buy the book. I’m not really, I would rather have all the libraries and they are, it’s on Gardeners List now and the wholesalers who the libraries rely on there are two other entities as well who have access to it so I’m working the libraries quite hard at the moment to, to get them into their hands so that people who cannot afford to buy a book, it’s a luxury, can still have access to it. 

Amazing. Well, if you have the means to purchase the book there are links in the show’s description or…when was the last time you visited the library? Why not stop in and see if it’s on the shelf if not talk to the head librarian. Tell them Peter Massam sent you, author of the Learning Experience Trilogy including Nipper, Moose Conquering Fear and Know Your Mind which we will explore in the next edition of Newsgram from Webtalkradio.com. 

Watch JT Crowley’s interview with Peter Massam on YouTube or listen on the Talking Books Podcast. 

The post Nipper<strong> & </strong>Moose Conquering Fear (Part 1 of the Learning Experience Trilogy) appeared first on WebTalkRadio.net.