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.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Bonnie, Childhood, Family, Food, Health, Holiday, Mental Health, Rosie, Walking
As many of you know, over the last year, I’ve got healthy.
Through exercise and a very regimented and controlled calorie/sugar/carb diet [except on Christmas and Birthday’s where I eat a whole loaf of Sourdough with salted butter and raspberry jam] I’ve lost over 46kg.
Or said another way, I’ve lost the equivalent of my 10 year old son.
Not only that, but maybe the first time in 40+ years, I am in the healthy BMI range.
Yes, I know the whole BMI system is currently being evaluated because frankly, it’s not fit for purpose, however this is still a huge thing for me.
But not the biggest thing. Oh no …
Because despite now eating well, dressing better and basically being in the best health of my adult life, the biggest difference in me is this:
Yep, that’s my walking chart for January. Or should I say, for most of January.
And full disclosure, of the days shown, 10 were during the festive break and another 10 days were when I was not allowed to drive due to my eye problem.
But, even then, I walked over HALF A MILLION STEPS in 28 days.
HALF A FUCKING MILLION.
That’s 19,000 a day!!!
And you know what, I loved every step of it.
I walk before work.
I walk on client calls.
I walk in the lunch break.
I walk when I get home after dinner.
I’m a fucking walking machine, and yet a little over a year or so ago, I’d have probably driven to the shower if I could.
Of all the things that have happened on my health journey, my love of walking has probably been the most surprising. But what it also has done is reveal how I used to manage stress.
Truth be told, I never thought I suffered with stress.
Sure, there were the odd times it was tough, but generally I thought it was all OK.
However when I decided to sort myself out, I would continually catch myself walking to the fridge. Not because I was hungry, but because I was looking for a distraction or a diversion from something related to work.
I’d deal with my ‘auto-pilot fridge visits’ by forcing myself to go for a walk instead … however over the weeks I realized how often I was out pounding the streets which revealed to me, arguably the first time, how much stress I was probably dealing with throughout my life.
I should point out that when I say ‘stress’, I don’t mean anything like so many people have to deal with.
For me, it was more mundane stuff … like how I was going to write a deck or how was I going to cram all my meetings in.
But here’s the strange thing …
Despite walking so much, I somehow am able to do so much more.
Not because I have more energy – I’m not really sure I do – but because I have more inner calm.
I call it ‘Zen Ferocity’ … which sounds far too new age bollocks, but in essence means by being calmer, I have been able to put more intensity into what matters rather than what distracts.
Of course this shouldn’t be a surprise as there’s so much evidence on how running helps the mind … but when you have gone from walking to the fridge to walking 19,000 steps a day, it’s still a gratefully received fist in the face.
But what this walking has also done is prepare me perfectly for welcoming this into the Campbell home:
Meet Bonnie.
Or to give her, her full name – courtesy of Otis – Bonnie Bourbon Biscuit. [But we’ll just be sticking with Bonnie, hahaha]
She was only 24 days old in that photo and we don’t get her until April … but we have a very excited household.
Even our beloved Rosie may have thought she was cute …
Maybe.
And while I know owning a dog is a very different proposition than owning a cat, I can be sure of one thing.
She’s not going to be wanting for walks.
Last week was shit for me.
I lost my beautiful and beloved Rosie, and I also lost Jim Riswold … arguably the father of post-modern advertising.
He was a true one-off.
A brilliant, challenging, provocative, confronting, funny, sweet, determined human.
He – like Rosie – had been ill for a while so his death should not have been too much of a surprise, but it was.
It knocked the air out of me.
I know life goes on and I’m incredibly fortunate for the life I have, but sometimes it’s shit.
Proper painful shit. So please excuse me if this weeks posts are a bit all over the place, because it kind of reflects how I’m feeling. Especially as this time next week we face another challenge – albeit this one hopefully will have the happiest of endings.
So with that, let’s get on with this week shall we? Even though it’s a ridiculously long post about me. One that lets me feel a bit proud of myself, rather than glum with myself.
So when I was growing up, I loved sport.
Football.
Running.
Rugby.
BMX.
You name it, I did it. To excess.
But as I got older – and stuff like exams, playing the guitar and video games took over – my love of being physical fell away.
The final ‘nail in the coffin’ – so to speak – was when I was in my late teens had an accident.
While I was patched back together, I was told by Doctors I could not put myself in positions where I lifted anything of considerable weight or put myself in situations where my head could be aggressively shaken as it could cause permanent blindness in my right eye. [It currently only has 12% vision]
Obviously, the idea of that was terrifying, so I took their advice seriously … replacing what little exercise I was still doing with eating.
I can’t say it was a hardship because it wasn’t.
I loved it.
And that was the problem, because I couldn’t get enough of it … even when I would occasionally get on the scales at home and get alarmed at the number I kept seeing rise.
I still remember reading an interview about Queen’s bass player, John Deacon, and being confused how he could be 5 foot 11 and weigh 10 stone/63 kilos when I was younger and shorter than him, and yet still weighed more than him.
Of course, the reason for it was obvious, but I mentally didn’t want to accept that, so instead I just carried on in my delusional state and tried to put it out of my mind.
And as much as I was semi-successful in achieving this, I wasn’t totally successful. Because as I wrote previously … it was an issue that continued to affect me, or should I say undermine me, but I just felt helpless to be able to properly deal with it.
I know … that sounds pathetic, but it’s true. So, I just tried to distract myself with other stuff – which often revolved around doing things involving food. Again.
Sure, there were the odd occasions where I found the strength to try and deal with my situation – and it had a positive effect – but I could never keep it up beyond a few weeks because, well … the temptation of kebab and chips with salt and vinegar was more seductive to me than a room full of the latest Wi-Fi enabled gadgets.
But 10 and a half months ago, something happened that fundamentally changed my mindset.
And so instead of knowing I needed to do something about it, I decided to do something about it. Albeit for 3 months.
And that changed everything … because suddenly I accepted I would have to make ongoing choices rather than expect change to happen by itself.
It’s part of the reason I was so open about what I was doing, because I felt the more people who knew, the less easy it would be for me to just walk away from doing it.
And it seemed to work because the people I was surrounded by, played such a big part in my ability to stick with it.
That and my bank balance.
Because everyone – and by that, I mean my family, my work, my clients and my Doctor – rallied around me to not only offer support, but to try and make it as easy as possible for me.
Organising food … making food … identifying food … and even – thanks to my fashion client – sending me a copious amount of ever-smaller sized free designer clothes to keep me motivated in my challenge. Meanwhile my bank balance allowed me to keep buying the bloody expensive ingredients – and sweet treat alternatives – that ensured I didn’t feel I was completely denying myself as I kept choosing the smarter choice.
I do not underestimate the impact all this had on me, because without it, I don’t know if I could have kept going as consistently as I did.
Not just because they helped make it easier, but they helped me keep my resolve when we’re literally surrounded by temptation.
Fast food.
TV shows.
Social media.
Endless online food reviewers.
The rise of competitive food gluttony … which, I must admit, I torture myself with watching, whether it’s Rate My Takeaway, Beard Meets Food, Erik The Electric, Harrison Webb, Sir Yacht, Gary Eats, Jolly, JacksDiningRoom, HowKevEats or Leah Shutkever.
But despite all that, 3 months turned to 6 months which turned to 9 months.
I bought a treadmill that [eventually] encouraged me to start doing a bunch of walking which turned into a bunch of running.
And 11 and a half months later, I write this being able to say I have not only lost 42kg, but I’ve achieved healthy’ status on the BMI scale.
That, for me, is literally like I’ve achieved the impossible.
I say that, because when I started this whole adventure, I looked up what weight I’d have to be to be ‘healthy’ on the BMI scale and laughed out loud.
There was no way that was going to happen.
But slowly but surely, weight dropped and my competitive streak kicked in and things went from impossible dream to focused goal.
And as the photo below demonstrates, here we are …
Now I am not going to say I don’t still have cravings.
I miss bread with every fiber of my body.
In fact, for my birthday, I bought a loaf of sour dough, salted butter and raspberry jam and ate the whole lot in a day.
And I fucking loved it.
But the difference is, as much as I could have done it the next day – and the next – I didn’t.
And it’s that enlightenment that I deem as one of my biggest successes … which you need, because the weight journey is a complete fucking rollercoaster.
So while I no longer fear getting on the scales … or taking my blood pressure … the numbers are never consistent.
Slightly up. Slightly down. And sometimes – where the scales are concerned – steadfastly refusing to reduce despite trying your hardest to be good for weeks.
Nothing tests your resolve than that, let me tell you.
But while I have achieved my goal, what is important is my ability to stay there.
My biggest challenge is winter – a time where the temptation to fill yourself with comfort food is huge – but so far so good. Albeit because of the people around me, the app ‘Lose It’, and my brain finally preferring how healthier feels rather than how temptation tastes.
I don’t mean that in a toxic way, but in terms of my emotional state.
I almost like myself. And I definitely like that I’ve increased the likelihood I’ll be around for longer for my wife and son.
And hey, they even seem to be happy about it.
So, while Monday’s may typically be the worst day of the week – especially after the week I had last week – today I enter it with a smile. Or at least a bit of one.
It won’t last, but hopefully my commitment to being kind and good to myself does.
Even if every now and then, an entire loaf of sourdough bread – with salted butter and raspberry jam – gets shoved down my mouth.
