Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Dad, Education, Eye, Health
As some of you know, I have had a serious eye problem since the beginning of the year.
What makes it worse is that it has affected the eye that was once my ‘good eye’.
Over the past 6 months, I’ve had all manner of drugs, tests and specialist visits and unfortunately, it keeps finding new things wrong with it rather than fixing the things we knew were wrong.
It’s pretty shit to be honest, but one thing happened a few weeks ago that made me laugh.
So I’m at the surgeons and they discovered the pressure in my eye was at an extreme high.
In a matter of weeks, it had risen 300% without any clear indication why. They immediately took action, administering all manner of new drugs to try and bring it under control as the ramifications of leaving it could be permanent blindess.
In typical ‘Campbell luck’ fashion, when they first re-checked the results – post first medication – the pressure had actually risen. That really freaked them out and were getting ready to send me to the hospital for an operation to relieve the pressure. But after another check 20 mins later, they saw it was starting to take affect.
Slowly, but as my surgeon said, “any decline is a good decline”.
Eventually things calmed down enough for them to feel good to send me home for a few days before getting me in to check the results again. To increase the odds of things going in the right direction, they gave me some additional meds and said:
“They will make you very sleepy and increase the odds of you needing the lavatory”.
I burst out laughing and said, “that’s an unfortunate combination” to which they looked at me confused.
After what felt like minutes, they laughed before telling me they’d never thought of that before.
Now I am not knocking them – they’re amazing and doing all they can to save my sight – but it did remind me of 2 things I’ve learned over the years.
The first is that very smart people are often a bit stupid outside of their field of excellence.
The second is a quote by the actor, Peter Ustinov who said:
“The people who reach the top of the tree are those who haven’t got the qualifications to detain them at the bottom”.
So much in life seems to be focused on only valuing the ‘academically smart’.
I get it, we need them. They’re brilliant and can do things that few could ever do – regardless of the amount of training.
Doctors.
Scientists.
Engineers.
You definitely don’t want any Tom, Dick or Harry taking on work like that.
But by the same token, there are people who have another set of skills that are just as worthy of respect.
An ability to do things that a doctor, scientist or engineer could never do – and yet has real value and benefit to the rest of us.
I don’t mean ‘everyday generalists’, I mean people with a level of skill and/or craft that represents real ability.
In life we need both groups of people … the academically smart and [for want of a better term] the life smart.
Both offer value and skills to who we are and how we live.
Both do things that the others couldn’t do and probably couldn’t imagine doing.
At a time where more and more companies will only hire those with ‘a degree’, it’s worth remembering that while education is hugely important and valuable we should – like the ad industry – make sure we’re not forgetting to evaluate and value those by what they have done, not simply what they know, because as my old man used to say:
“Talk is easy, action is hard”.
Filed under: Attitude & Aptitude, Auckland, Colenso, Colleagues, Comment, Fast Food, Food, Happiness, Health, India, Pizza
As many of you know, I’ve been on a health kick for about 18 months or so and in that time, I’ve managed to lose over 47kg.
Despite that …
Despite being very careful with what I eat.
Despite me noting down in an app every single item I put in my gob.
I never am in doubt how easily I could go back.
Maybe not to what I was, but definitely far from where I am.
Of course I allow myself some treats every now and then …
I have a whole loaf of sourdough, salted butter and jam on my birthday for example.
And now – when I go out for an occasional nice dinner – I may actually have things I enjoy rather than denying myself, in the knowledge it won’t happen very often.
But a few weeks ago, I found myself working late and needed dinner. If I’m being honest, it’s been A LONG TIME since I’ve grabbed food while working in the office … but I had my brilliant colleague, India, with me and we’d been talking about a place up the road that owns another place which serves some of the best pizza I’ve ever had.
EVER. HAD.
So off we went to Farina to go get some pies before we sat down to some late night work.
In my defense, I’d basically eaten nothing the whole day, so I was starving.
Plus I knew we had hours of work ahead of us and it was a cold, rainy night.
But while that is all contextual evidence, it doesn’t hide the fact that as soon as we were handed our pizza boxes and stepped out of the restaurant … this is what happened.
Yep, I was into it like a shark in a kids paddling pool.
Worse, I almost cried when I had fully demolished it.
Not just because it was so good – and it was SOOOOOO good – but because, like a shark who had tasted blood – my body had been reminded how fucking great ‘not-so-great-food-for-you’ is and I have to talk myself every day from going in and having another.
I don’t.
But I could.
Which is why when people talk about losing weight, the reality is that’s the easy part … it’s keeping the fucker off that’s the hardest thing. And that delicious circle of pepperoni pizza I shoved down my gob in the blink of an eye reminded me both how well I’ve been doing, but also how easily I could give it all up if I let myself.
And given Farina is 5 minutes walk from the office, that means I am currently the strongest man in the World.
Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Colenso, Health, Si Vicars
A few weeks before I left for Cannes, Colenso Towers experienced a dose of gastro that took half the agency out.
I don’t know who was patient zero, but I have my suspicions [Augustine, cough cough] but after bravely fighting against the virus, I too was eventually taken down – resulting in me feeling utterly terrible at home for a few days.
But not as terrible as the plumbing system in Auckland must have experienced that week.
Or my local supermarket, where I went to buy some fruit, and then – to my utter mortification – start vomiting as soon as I walked in. Whether I can ever show my face in there again is in question, but it does show how utterly ill I was.
How everyone at Colenso was.
But the thing that is special about the place is that it’s full of great humans who happen to be creativly talented. So rather than everyone trying to be some macho, toxic bullshit – people are genuinely compassionate about others. Even towards me, which is bordering on bonkers.
No one sums this up than Simon Vicars, our CCO.
What can I say about the man that I have not written before?
Put simply, Si is horrifically talented … disgustingly brilliant and outrageously decent.
OK, so he can also be a mischievous bastard, but he does it with such a warm smile you find yourself thanking him for his abuse – which now I come to think of it, is next-level toxic manipulation. But let’s put that aside for now as it ruins the rest of this post … but the fact is, when I was at home feeling like death, Si checked in on how I was.
More than that, he checked in on the weekend when he could/should have been spending it with his own family.
OK, it was just a text.
In fact it was just a text comprising of 4 words.
But as he is one of the industries most awarded writers, you know those 4 words really conveyed compassion, concern and care.
Or that’s what he will likely argue at the HR tribunal.
Love you Si … you delightful freak.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Exams, Health, School
I have always hated practicing.
Doesn’t matter whether I’m talking about when I had to revise for my school exams … prepare for my next guitar lesson or try to learn Mandarin, I have always and utterly hated it.
Of course there’s reasons for it.
One is that formal ‘study’ has never really worked for me.
The other is I always felt paralyzed with fear at the moment of judgement.
And last but not least … I’ve always found other things that captured my attention when I needed to focus.
Now of course that last point probably has more to do with the first two points than a curiosity that simply refuses to be tamed … but the reality is I have always found practicing hard because – deep down – I’ve always questioned my ability to be good at anything.
That doesn’t mean I feel I am bad at things, I’m just never as good as I hoped I would be or could be.
It’s probably part of the reason I found it so hard to lose weight.
The desire was there. The commitment wasn’t. A belief that there was little point because at the end of the day, I knew kebab and chips or pasta and cheese could always … would always … win out.
But over the years I learned a lesson that – in many ways – changed my life.
Practice doesn’t make you perfect, but it does makes you more consistent.
Now I get that may sound pretty uninspiring, but for someone like me – it was a revelation.
Suddenly I wasn’t overwhelmed with the pressure of trying to achieve perfection through practice, I was able to see it as simply helping me be ‘less crap’.
Yes, I appreciate some will say that’s 2 sides of the same coin – and it is, kinda – but what it meant for me was that rather than judge my ‘progress’ in terms of how far I was from achieving perfection, I was able to see it as how far I was from failure.
In essence, every tiny improvement was a success rather than – how I had previously seen it – every tiny improvement being a reinforcement of failure.
It fundamentally liberated me.
Suddenly I was able to enjoy the practice rather than be intimidated by it.
Feel encouraged by it not judged.
And while I am in no doubt this will sound silly – or obvious – to many, I bet there’s others out there who have felt, or still feel, the same way as me.
People who have ended up never feeling good about who they are or what they can do, because they’ve been taught ‘progress’ is evaluated in terms of perfection rather than simply getting better.
But let me tell you, this shift was the foundation for me to achieve things I never even thought I could. And yes, that includes losing 47kg and – so far – keeping it off.
It’s why I loved something Roger Federer recently said about the foundation of his success.
How good is that?
But it’s more than that, it’s important.
Because where so many talk about only valuing those who get to the top, the real opportunity to create positive change is to reframe practice as simply the most effective way to get further away from the bottom.
Or said another way, practice helps you fail, forwards.
I’m posting this early to distract me from the must-win game Forest are currently playing against Tottenham, in London. I don’t think it’s working, but it’s all I’ve got right now – especially as I have already walked 10km this morning and it’s only 7:20am.
Talking of walking …
18 months ago, I didn’t like walking from the bed to the bathroom.
Now I have walked the equivalent of a marathon.
A fucking marathon!
OK, I didn’t do it in one go and it took me over 6 hours … but it’s still a big thing for me.
Mind you, given the amount of Easter Eggs I scoffed – hey, it’s a once-a-year-deal – it probably still wasn’t enough.
Crap post I know, but the next few days are going to be a real rollercoaster for me, so I just couldn’t be bothered. Not that you’ll be able to tell the difference, hahaha.
Let’s see tomorrow … don’t hold your breath.