BE in no doubt - former firefighter turned professional speaker Clive Gott, is super-motivated and super-confident.

Clive, whose Tadcaster-based Lighthouse Training Ltd has taken him on motivational speaking engagements all over the world, fully expects his latest book, Believe You Can, to reach the top ten in a major outlet in the UK and be available in airports and railway stations worldwide.

Believe You Can was first published on June 23 this year - the same day that Clive reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania - and will be officially launched in Borders bookstores nationally in September

Now he has been nominated as Business Personality of the Year in the 2004 Evening Press Business of the Year competition.

After an apprenticeship in selling with the Dale Carnegie organisation, Clive joined a Sussex-based training organisation in 1977 before going it alone two years later with Lighthouse Training.

It had a troubled start, with a first year's turnover of £9,000 - less than a quarter of his average income with the previous company, but he dug deep and persevered.

Within 18 months he had an impressive client list, with testimonials from the likes of Canon, Honda, Zurich, Channel 4, BUPA, Norwich Union and several sporting organisations.

A meeting as a result of visiting North Yorkshire Network resulted in his first of many trips to Dubai, followed by an invitation to address the Life Insurance Round Table in Mumbai, India, last year (and again in September.)

Apart from numerous European engagements he plans to speak in New Orleans in the US next June.

But, he says, the real sign that he has arrived as a motivational speaker has come closer to home with an invitation to open the Institute of Sales Marketing and Management Conference in Birmingham on October 21 - "a gig that most professional speakers would pay to attend".

Updated: 11:39 Friday, July 23, 2004