The Odious Off Day

So world… what do you do when you have an off day?   Remarkably today I was up at a reasonable hour, I met with my Personal Trainer, Steph, who thrashed me around on the beach for a while, came home and had a shower and a good breakie… all the hallmarks of a good day in the making.  I even sat down and meditated for 20mins… I thought for sure I was up for the most efficient of days.

 

I sat down at the computer ready to let loose.  You see, even though everyone keeps telling me to write a book about personal development, or speaking or any of these things that my life has been about up til now… truth of the matter is that those books don’t want to be written right now.  What wants to be written is a novel, so I am honouring my creative stirrings, and for an hour or so, 3 or 4 days a week, I am trotting out what may eventually end up being a novel.  People ask me what its about… I don’t really know.  Well, its about the lengths that people go to, to actually feel something in this day and age.  But I am letting it write itself.  I’m sure my old English teachers would tell me I have to plan it and make sure the characters are developed and blah, but to be honest, I am just enjoying the process and if it never gets published, well… hey, I’m learning about myself.  Sometimes art needs to be created for art’s sake.

 

So, my days usually look like this (when I’m not travelling!)  Wake up, exercise, usual morning ablutions etc.  The real “work” is marketing.  Greg and I (my divine partner) are developing marketing systems for our own internet business and for my Dad. I love using words to help people to take action!  And because we are being smart about the way we structure our businesses, it really is tough to fill up a whole day with things.  SO “work” also means hanging out at our favourite cafes and drinking coffee and reading the paper.  Aren’t we lucky!!?

 

However, before I start my “real work” work for the day, I usually spend an hour or so writing the novel.  I get the Amelie soundtrack playing (yes… novel is set in Paris!  For those of you who were at my last PR training in London in July, the inspiration came the day after I last saw you guys!)… and let myself lapse into dream land and create.

 

But unfortunately despite very promising beginnings, today I could only eke out a paragraph.  Today I was attacked with the “I’ll never be as good as Jeanette Winterson”-s.  Ah… comparisons… the odious destroyers of dreams.

 

So… I now have to sit down and get some other work done… my to-do list is quite long today.  But I haven’t had my creative kick.  So I’m interested, what do you guys do when you’re clear and the direction you’re headed, but for some reason the juices just aren’t flowing?  Let me know your thoughts!

 

Perhaps I’ll take a break, warm up some of the yummy pumpkin soup I made last night and start my day again!

 

Make yours a great day!

 

Cheers,

Joey x

The Improbability of You & Me

I was at a business seminar a few weeks back in Bali. It was run by Roger Hamilton, chairman of the XL Results Foundation,and a very intelligent man. It’s been a while since I went to a seminar with NEW information.. so that was awesome. I learnt a lot, but I have to say there was one message which has really shaped my thinking over the past few weeks, and probably because it is so inline with the thoughts dominating my mind at present.

(I highly recommend Roger’s book “Your Life, Your Legacy”, where among other things he speaks about Purpose and the big question of Why.) Click here to see what he has to offer.

Many of us have at some time thought we were here for a purpose, but have you ever reflected on the odds of you actually being born? I certainly hadn’t. I had some vague notion that my mother and father had sacrificed a lot to put me through a good school and so on, but I had never thought “what are the chances of me being born?”

Think of it this way: just cast your mind back over the last 500 years. (As in, not the entire history of humanity, lets just take a manageable chunk size to begin with). And let’s assume that your ancestors re-produced every 25 years for ease of calculation. And lets also assume that one man mated with one woman to produce one of your ancestors (generally the way things work, my 6 years of med school tells me!)

25 years ago you had 2 ancestors alive: your Mum and Dad.

50 years ago you had 4 granparents: your Mum’s Mum and Dad, and Your Dad’s Mum and Dad

75 years ago you had 8 great-grandparents alive, and so on and so on.

If we continue, 500 years ago you had 1,048,576 ancestors alive and kicking in the world. So did I. So did your best friend.

In total over this period of time, 2,097,150 people lived in order that you be born, just as you are, where you are, in this period of time.

Moreover over the last 500 years, these 2 million people had to survive no less than 8 plagues, literally hundreds of wars, countless earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters, and generally make it to child bearing age in a world where this was not at all a given.

The point is, every individual had to beat huge odds to get to the point of reproducing your ancestor. They had to win every time and not lose once. If just one of these 2 million people had died before they had reproduced, you, just as you are now, would not have been born. You simply wouldn’t exist. 2 million people had to win every time and not lose once, despite wars, plagues, high infant mortality, generally squalid conditions… they survived and here you are. Here I am.

Pretty damn compelling argument for getting over your insecurities and taking the gifts God has given you and making a difference in the world I think!

Here’s to getting over it and on with it!

Cheers,

Jo x

Heroes of Our Day

Hey gang,

 

Well I’m back in Melbourne after a fabulous visit to family in Tassie.  I love that state.  And anyone who hasn’t been to Tassie simply has to get off their bots and go.  It truly is stunning… but maybe I’m  a bit biased because the temperature was more than 18º C every day.  Quite something for the island state I have to say.  The cold weather has always been my only real gripe against living there permanently.

 

For those of you who care about such things… I FINALLY got back on the salsa floor today and am feeling fabulous for my efforts.  It seems that the Cuban Dance Academy run an awesome little session down at the St Kilda Sea Baths with lessons 4-6pm and a bit of a party afterwards.  I was most impressed with the calibre of the dancing I must say.  So I highly recommend any Melbournians to check it out.

 

But… today I want to chat about something incredibly inspiring I read on the plane back from Tassie.  Just after I had finished reefing my boots back on after the security adventure  (note to self: do not wear zip up boots on air travel days- amazing how you forget the basics when you haven’t been at an airport for three weeks!)… anyhow, I had finished dressing and I was waiting for Greg who seemed to be taking an eternity to get through security; and the latest edition of Time caught my eye.  It’s all about “Environmental Heroes”.  So I scooted into the news agency and picked it up, and once I was safely nestled into seat 22F (having paid attention to the flight attendant’s safety demonstration I promise), I dived into the magazine and devoured the whole thing in the 50 minute flight. 

 

You see, the people in this magazine epitomised the exploration I find myself on currently.  There are vignettes on a variety of visionaries, activists, innovators and entrepreneurs who Time are celebrating as Heroes of The Environment.  These are people who have found something grander than themselves and throw their energies into it completely.  For these incredible human beings it didn’t take much to make the decision to turn their talents to the challenges facing our environment and many of them describe a critical moment… a moment that changed their direction and drive forever. 

 

Christine Loh, a former trader who now heads up a unique think tank in Southern China where business is of course booming, described this moment in a way that really impacted me.  Like me, she used to spend a lot of  her time at 35,000ft and she recalls: “I was reading the newsmagazines one would find on airplanes and there was a spate of major articles on ozone depletion, and a couple of articles on global warming and deforestation.  I remember thinking that if only half of this was right then we were in deep trouble.”  From that moment she was overwhelmed with a deep hunger to improve things.  My guess is if she ever feels it can’t be done, or feels she’s not the right person for the job, she would only have to remind herself of why she made the decision to make a difference in the first place and she’d get recommitted and back on path. 

 

Hers is one of many stories that were like wave after wave of inspiration as I read them.  Finally, we are at a time when our world leaders are not ignoring the question of climate change and the environment any more (sure there’s lots of platitudes and posturing and promises, but still, a step at a time I guess).  But here are dozens of individuals making a big impact, and who have been doing so for sometime. Thank God for these people, and the fact that they didn’t get distracted by Playstations, breakups with boyfriends or acne scarring.

 

Someone once said to me: “you’ll always have problems, so find a HUGE problem.  Find yourself a problem worthy of your life.”  I hope in some way the size of my problems is increasing.

 

I promise I’ll talk about improbability soon (it is a mindblowing thought experiment I assure you)… I just keep coming across other things I need to tell you about… I have to say I am shocked by how many noteworthy occurrences there are in every day!!

 

Til we speak again… keep on the lookout for big problems!

 

Love Joey xx

Why a man can put up with anything

Just a quickie today.

I know I said I’d write about improbability… but I have to share one tiny observation. You see, being in Tassie, I spent the day with my Dad today.

He has been living in a half completed house for about 3 years… but the man has vision! Its going to be the height of Japanese Zen when its done… the water from the infloor spa, reflecting off hot tub in the deck, bouncing down to the dam in front, and thence down to the river. Right now there’s crap everywhere and the dam is a big hole in the front yard that doesn’t hold water… But he is happy as a happy thing because he has his vision.

So my lesson for the day: fulfilment is proportional to your certainty of vision. And according to me Dad, bigger is definitely better. Crazy, but I love him!!

have a great day!

J x

Why my Mum beats Self-Help Any Day of the Week!

Hi all!

Today I am in Tasmania… my home state. It is my Mum’s birthday, and I have enjoyed the most delightful day celebrating with my family. They are all mad as cut snakes… so of course I feel right at home. My family make me look relatively normal.

 

It’s interesting… my Mum is one of the most extraordinary people I know. I have never known a woman to enjoy such a fulfilling life. And my theory is that it’s because all her focus is on making other people happy… especially us kids. I am the oldest of three girls, and Mum has devoted her whole life to our happiness. In fact one of her favourite quotes is “a mother is only ever as happy as her unhappiest child.” There were times I looked at Mum and her apparent self-sacrifice and thought “why doesn’t she do something for herself for a change, she needs to put herself first.” But over the last couple of years it has become really clear to me that she experiences more richness and fulfilment in her life than many people I know who really do put themselves first.

 

Mum and I on the Spanish Steps on our trip to Italy in July06

 

Trust me, I find this puzzling. So much of my reading in personal development tomes says “be nice to yourself… put yourself first”. Indeed I have a friend, whom I hold in very high esteem, Eric Edmeades who reminds me that “everything I know about personal development I learnt on a plane: Please fit your own oxygen mask first before assisting others.” And this makes perfect sense.

 

So why is it that people like my Mum have such rich lives? I am sure she actually puts herself last. I sure as heck always had an oxygen mask on before she did!

Listen… I don’t pretend to have any answers on this. Perhaps it is one of those paradoxes… But despite everything I ever read in books, there is an ever growing part of me that thinks maybe Mum has it sorted. At the risk of drawing huge sweeping conclusions, I’m sure Mother Teresa had a similar philosophy.

 

So as for me, I feel blessed to have the mother that I do, and to be lucky enough to share her birthday with her. In fact I’m lucky to have the father, stepfather, grandmothers… you name it - irritating habits and all. I am lucky to be here. In fact… did you know how “absurdly improbable” it is that we, as unique individuals are even alive… the maths on this is astounding… But more on this tomorrow.

 

Til then, thanks for checking in…

 

Make someone’s day!!

Love Joey x

Welcome to my blog!

Hi!

Incredible… somehow in the realms of cyberspace you found me!

When I left my role recently with Christopher Howard Training I made wild promises from stage about starting a blog so that people could keep in touch with me and find out what I was up to and what I was doing. At the time, I didn’t really even know what blog meant. And tonight I am proud to announce I adjusted a theme and uploaded my own pictures… look out web-designers, I’m taking over!!

I don’t think the look and feel is quite there yet, but hey… if we waited til I got it perfect you’d never hear from me!!

So here I am…

The last few months I have been doing some navel gazing and some philosophising, a lot of networking as well as a lot of out and out nothing… and over this time I have really been inspired by a number of social entrepreneurs.

I guess the purpose of this blog is to share with anyone who’s interested what I am discovering about contribution as a lifestyle, about the others focussed life rather than the self-focussed life, and the importance of having a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Having spent years in personal development I’ve learnt that unless there’s a purpose for growth and change, it can get ugly… I find it fascinating, if not somewhat disturbing that despite unprecedented amounts of information available on how to change our thinking, we have unprecedeted rates of depression and other “mental illnesses”. I wonder if its because in this day and age so many of us are blessed with the luxury of not having to worry about where the next meal is coming from, so we find ourselves with plenty of time to wonder “am I worthy?” I wonder what would happen if we started to focus on others for inspiration, if we made a commitment to them, and then had to grow to deliver on that commitment.

Just some nebulous thoughts… I’ll be chatting more about them frequently, so please check in from time to time!! Oh… and leave a comment if you can work out how! I don’t think I can tell you that yet!!

Make someone’s day!!

Love Joey x