Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Cannes, Dad, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Friendship, Fulfillment, Jill, Love, Martin Weigel, Mum, Mum & Dad, Otis, Paul, Paula, Planning, Shelly
So it’s the first of June.
How the hell did that happen?
On this day last year, I wrote about how amazing my May had been, well this year it seems the next 30 days will define how 2023 ends up for me.
I’ve got my birthday.
Jill’s birthday.
Paul’s birthday.
I get to go to the UK and see Paul and Shelly after a year.
I then go to Cannes and get to present ‘Strategy Is Constipated, Imagination Is The Laxative’ with the wonderful and brilliant Paula Bloodworth and Martin Weigel.
That’s quite the month of events.
It also means there will not be many posts this month – you lucky sods.
But it is also a reminder of a couple of important things.
The first is that regardless of age, there’s still things that can excite you.
There’s an attitude that once you hit 50, you’re supposed to act like you’ve done it all … and seen it all. But that is plainly bollocks.
Of course, a lot of that is down to attitude and opportunity.
Now I appreciate my privilege in being able to do these things – but as I’ve said many times, as you get older, you realise you have less time to do things and so there’s an urgency to try and cram as much in as you can. But the problem is, the more you do, the more you find you want to do and so you end up in this endless loop that is both fulfilling and frustrating.
You live with it because the alternative is far worse … hence I’ll always throw myself at things that are interesting, exciting or just curious weird.
That said, at the beginning of 2023, I decided this was the year of me saying ‘yes’ … so I’ve accepted a whole lot more things that I normally would do, driven by that fear that time to do this is getting less so I better take advantage while I can.
The other thing is being close to the ones you love should never be underestimated.
By all means go and explore the world.
Have adventures. Mess up and do stuff.
But don’t forget how important the people are who make your life special.
Now for me, it’s Jill and Otis who define that … but I can’t forget Paul and Shelly.
And while we’ve been apart for decades – bar my 2 years in England – the need to be physically closer to them is growing. It’s ironic that this has happened when I’ve never been so far away … but whereas seeing them once or twice a year was fine, it isn’t anymore.
So while I haven’t figured out how I change that yet – but I am working on it – it does mean I’m beside myself that I get to see them soon. Even better, on Paul’s birthday … something I’ve not been able to do since 2020.
Which reinforces 2 things.
One is how lucky I am. The other is how I am trying to fulfil my parents lesson of living a life of fulfilment rather than contentment. It took me till I was about 35 to really understand what that meant, but I do now and I hope I am doing it in a way where they’re looking down and nodding.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, China, Colenso, Culture, Dad, Daddyhood, Emotion, Empathy, England, Family, Friendship, Happiness, Home, Jill, London, Loyalty, Mum, Mum & Dad, New Zealand, Nottingham, Nottingham Forest, Otis, Parents
I was born in 1970 in Nottingham.
For 25 years, I lived there, worked there, socialised there.
Sure, I also worked in London … but I always came home to NG2.
Every. Bloody. Night.
But in 1995, I left.
I went to Australia and started an adventure all over the place. And while I back to the UK after 24 years – I never went back to living in Nottingham.
And yet, despite having now spent more time away from Nottingham than living in it, it’s still what I regard as ‘home’.
Sure it’s where my formative years were spent.
Sure it’s where my parents ashes have been spread.
Sure it’s where my beloved Paul still lives.
Sure it’s where my football team resides.
Sure it’s where I spent the longest period of my life in.
But still …
What is also interesting is that when I go back, while I feel a sense of familiarity, I also feel disconnected. Of course, that’s to be expected when you’ve been away for so long … but it means when I think – or am in – Nottingham, I feel displaced and comforted at the same time.
It’s a weird feeling, caught between 2 emotional poles …
A stranger in where you believe you come from.
Of course, I go through similar feelings when I visit previous places I once lived – especially Shanghai, which is the place I probably felt the most connected to – but Nottingham is where I have roots [or where I used to have them] and so while I am far away, I am increasingly surrounding myself with stuff that reminds me of the place.
But I don’t want to go back.
It is my past rather than my future.
And that’s where it all gets complicated because I want Otis to have a place where he can build roots like I did with Nottingham, but I don’t know if that’s possible or where that is.
He’s 8 and lived in 4 countries already.
More than that, at some point we’ll be leaving here.
Don’t get me wrong, we love NZ.
We adore our home.
But we feel our life still has other places to go.
It won’t happen in the short term …
We are happy here, Otis absolutely adores it, we want him to be in a place longer than the 2 year periods he’s experienced so far in his life and I haven’t yet repaid the generosity the country has shown us … but it will eventually happen and so I wonder what Otis will regard as his ‘identity’.
If you ask him now, he’ll say, “China”.
I love that, but it’s also more because of where he was born rather than where he was raised.
So we shall see.
Of course we could just stay here and remove the issue … and while there’s a big part of us that would like to do that, we also would like to be closer to the people who matter most to us.
At some point.
This may all sound like a reason to never move country and if that’s how it comes across then that would be wrong.
It’s dead easy to think about what you will miss by moving away but you need to think about what you will gain. And in my case, apart from Paul and Shelly in Nottingham … every single thing in my life is because I took that leap.
Everything.
My wife.
My son.
My cat.
My home.
My career.
My life.
So while identity is increasingly important to me, I’m not going to devalue the utter privilege of the adventure we’ve had – and will hopefully keep having. Especially given nationalism is increasingly acting as a barrier towards the understanding and acceptance of others… rather than a way for people to identify, share and grow.
Occasionally you read a story that just blows you away.
It may be about human endeavor … or suffering … or achievement … but you’re deeply affected by it.
Maybe it’s because you can’t imagine how you would cope in the same situation or that you can never even imagine the situation … but it changes something in you.
I’ve recently read 2 stories that have had this affect on me.
They’re both very different … one is about finding themselves, the other survival … and yet there are commonalities as well.
Blind belief.
Dumb luck.
A desire to see things through.
Acceptance of who they are or the situation they’re in.
An ability to only deal with issues when they become issues.
One is the story of Tom Turcich, who at age 17, spent the next 7 years of his life walking around the World.
The reasons behind it are both deeply personal and emotional … but the story he then takes us on is truly inspirational.
I don’t mean that in a ‘Hollywood’ type of way, but in its everyday humbleness and normality.
And it’s exactly because of that, that he explains things that have a lot of insight and learning.
One thing that really struck me was at the end, when he was asked if his journey had made him more confident in himself.
“That’s a difficult question to answer” … he says.
“It’s a kind of Dunning-Kruger. You know, the psychological study where the dumbest person in the room is the most confident? The more you know, the less confident you are. I think I was pretty confident at the beginning, but I was an idiot. Once you know you don’t know everything, you lose some of the confidence and become less sure about things.”
I love this. Love it.
It’s so true … though, judging by the bravado of so many of our political leaders – not to mention people like Andrew Tate and his blinkered followers – it seems not everyone understands that.
Well, I say that, but I feel they make it a deliberate choice.
It’s as if they realise being open to information and experiences would undermine their whole viewpoint on life … and as their entire value is based on their own delusional confidence, they’d rather choose to remain blinkered than to evolve.
The other story is about Annette Herfkens – the only survivor in a plane crash.
Her story, like Tom, is incredible and yet she also expresses it without drama or superlatives.
Again, it’s not a conscious attempt to play down her story to appear more enlightened to those who follow her … it’s a reflection of who she is and how she overcame the most tragic and challenging of circumstances.
And like Tom, what she learned from her experience has many implications on how we could all benefit in how to live our lives.
I don’t mean that in terms of ‘valuing what you have’ [though that wouldn’t be bad] … but more in terms of being quick to accept situations, however bad.
That may sound counter-intuitive – and it certainly is different to many of the ‘projection’ ideals spouted in countless self-help books – but based on how it liberated Tom and Annette from the harshest of situations, it certainly has merit.
They’re relatively long … but they’re worth it.
From a personal point of view, they’re two of the most powerful things I’ve read.
Have a good weekend.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Comment, Confidence, Culture, Education, Emotion, Empathy, Equality, Honesty, Leadership, Legend
I hate losing.
Absolutely hate it.
But I also understand there are benefits to it.
Well, if you lost despite giving your all.
Because losing is a lesson.
It forces you to take a long hard look at yourself.
What you did.
What you didn’t.
What you can improve.
What you need to improve.
What you can take forward with you.
And while there’s the famous Vince Lombardi quote:
“Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser”
… I’ve found those who take loss on the chin aren’t necessarily doing it because they don’t care, they’re doing it because they do.
But recently I found incredible quote from Muhammad Ali.
A new way to look at the role of losing … and I love it.
What a way to own loss …
Turning the narrative from despair to character.
Changing judgement into inspiration.
And to do that when you’ve lost the ‘fight of the century’ … incredible.
But then Ali always knew the role and responsibility he held.
He may not have wanted it, but he was not going to close the door on those who needed it.
Needed him.
Needed his direction, inspiration and articulation.
Needed to know there was a chance of a better life than the one others wanted them to have.
Which is why it makes everything even more perfect that he then went on to win that fight.
Twice.
Because honour in losing was just preparation for his honour is victory.
In a World of white, toxic machismo … how we could do with Ali’s majesty right now.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Jill, My Fatherhood, Otis, Parents
First of all, I know Otis is 8.
But he said this to me when he was still 7 so deal with it.
As I have written previously, Otis was diagnosed last year with dysgraphia.
Dysgraphia is a form of dyslexia – specially writing and some motor skills, like holding a pen.
It doesn’t limit the capacity for learning, but it does affect how you do it.
I also wrote how amazing his school has been in helping him deal with this … letting him use technology for written assignments [text to speech] while very gently helping him keep practicing writing with a pen.
The effect has been remarkable.
He is happier, more expressive and even cheekier than before.
It genuinely feels like he has been freed from a feeling of oppression. Of not being good enough. And now he recognises his ability and his possibility. It’s so, so beautiful and I can never thank his school and teachers enough.
Of course, this is something he’s going to have to live with for the rest of his life. But thanks to his school – and technology – he doesn’t have to fear dysgraphia, he just can get on with it.
And get on with it he is.
A few weeks before the end of the year, he proudly showed us some work he had written.
As in, written with a pen, not technology.
That he showed us was incredible – because previously he did all he could to hide his writing from us. Whether it was because he was ashamed by it or simply believed it couldn’t be good as his classmates as he wasn’t as quick as them is open to question, but it is not hard to imagine that may be the case.
But here he was, showing us what he’d done.
I said to him, how good it was to which he replied with an viewpoint that was not only incredibly mature … but is a valuable lesson for anyone and everyone facing challenges in their life.
He said:
“Just because you struggle with some things doesn’t mean you can’t improve”.
How incredible is that?
He was seven when he said it. SEVEN!
That’s better advice than anything you hear from professional life coaches.
So to my dearest Otis …
I’m so, so proud of you.
Your attitude towards life is wonderful and inspirational.
And of course, you’re right.
You can improve.
You can always get better.
It’s not about glory, it’s about improvement.
Thank you for reminding me that life isn’t all black and white.
That how we evolve and improve and engage and embrace life is all done in the grey.
You’re such a brilliant human and we’re so proud to be your Mum and Dad.