Week Five 2015 – You are only as old as you feel!

You are only as old as you feel!

Can you believe we are on week five of 2015? And how time flies when you are having fun… and I don’t look a day older!

This week I’m going to talk about age and the subject of how old you feel and look. It is a subject I think we are all affected by and an important part of our lives. The well-known classic fairy tale of Peter Pan is perhaps the best story ever told about how a human should live his life. The whole plot can be summarised as follow:

The story of a man who knew how to live his life - by staying young! He was able to do grown up things that he liked (fighting with swords and staying up late) but be childish at the same time. He was fit and in shape by running, climbing, laughing and a bit of flying. The moment he saw he would grow old by doing other grown up things he didn’t like (marrying Wendy and getting a job to pay the car, having kids, a mortgage and a dog and be miserable eating too much food and drinking to drown his sorrows) he ran away and remained youthful for the rest of his life.

Ok that’s a cynical view of the story but I think there’s some truth in my version of the plot. Think about it; how old do you feel? And does that reflect on your appearance? How about your attitude and the way you behave? More often than not, the way we feel affects the way we look and therefore if you feel 100 years old you will look 100 more! When I was a child I grew up believing that 60 years old was very old! I guess my grandmother’s generation had a harder life and by the time they hit their 60s they were already looking tired and feeling very old. And this image of someone being old at the age of 60 has always hunted me, even though I see now plenty of evidence that when you reach that stage of your life you are still very young. With the right attitude, staying fit and looking after yourself, you can look even younger.

Amazing Joan Collins!

Emmanuel looking great!

This week I watched in the news some of the Red Carpet events (it’s awards season!) and they featured Joan Collins in an amazing black sequence dress with a leg slit all the way to her hips. In the clip she looked an amazing mature woman and when the presenter mentioned she was 82 years old I nearly fell off my chair! Has she had some help from the knife? For sure but even with a little help from her surgeon, her health, her attitude and conviction that she is still a beautiful young woman is what made her look like in her 60’s! I also found out this week that the Mexican Pop Idol “Emmanuel” is just about to turn 60 and this also astonished me, same story, he looks amazing and you would never thing he was more than 50. His looks, attitude and thirst for staying current make him look not just young but contemporary.

And I myself was the subject of looking young this week. Two people mention I did not look my age (I’m turning 48 this year and both said I looked 40) Apart form being a massive complement it also made me think about how I feel; I don’t feel 48, I feel 30 and this is driving my physical appearance to be much younger. I have always felt young, I’m a bit of a Peter Pan, I enjoy being a grown up as well as a youth. The difference is I have taken on all the responsibilities that perhaps Peter Pan ran away from (the marriage, kids, car, mortgage, job) as they complement my life and create a balance. It’s good to feel young and do crazy things, but you also need that stability and maturity in your life, that doesn’t mean I have to look or feel old!

There is no denying that loosing weigh has also contributed to shaving off some years, Peter Pan kept fit all the time, and staying fit has given me an extra burst of energy associated with being young. And staying healthy then drives your mental attitude; to feel young you must also stay mentally young and you will look young. Then you start to dress young. My wife often has to drive me away from the teenage section in the department stores, as I keep on looking at cloths that my son wears (him and I are almost the same height and I started to borrow some of his stuff, how embarrassing! For him of course!) Hey, if you can wear it and look good in it, then why not!

I don’t think you have to pretend to be a teenager to feel young, or suddenly loose all sense of responsibility and give up all your achievements and accomplishments to be young again. I think the secret to feeling young is to believe you are still young. Age is an attitude and what you make it. You can be 100 years old, if you keep mentally and physically fit, you can continue to enjoy life to the max and not become a stereotypical person of your age. At 47, with a family and a mortgage, I do have to act responsibly, people relay on me, but that does not stop me from keeping a young heart and healthy mind and body and an attitude that allows me to look much younger than I really am.

So it’s time to shave off some years, look at your attitude and not your age. Keep healthy and start believing that you can do anything you want, your age is just a number on your birth certificate!

Week fifty-one – Taking Stock.

Would you believe it? I have only one more to write before I reach my goal of writing a weekly blog for 2014! So it’s time to take stock and reflect on what I have done and achieved this year.

one of my proudest moments!

 As we all know, traditionally most people give themselves a “New Year’s Resolution” to help them change something in their lives, which in the previous year hasn’t work or they failed to achieve. These vary from “I will give up smoking” to “I will call mum every week” or the classic “I’ll loose some weight”. And all of these resolutions help us, at least for the first couple of months, to stay focus on something we really want to do or achieve.

And like everything in life, it is hard work! Soon after the resolution is made, we struggle to keep up with it. In the busyness of our every day life, we find ourselves over committed and this new thing is stretching us to the limits. Remember I have always said it is easier to say no than to say yes when it comes to going for a run or staying fit; but this philosophy applies to almost anything in our lives. Two months after our “new year’s resolution” most people generally have or start to dropped that self-commitment to improve or change something in their lives. It became easier to say no, and when you say it once, it becomes easier to say it again and again until you feel it’s time to move on and ditch the promise you made to yourself (or in some cases put it on hold until next year and try it again!)

So here I find myself writing blog number fifty-one of fifty-two blogs I committed myself to write this year. The challenge, if you remember and read blog number one, was to see if I could sustain writing on average a thousand words on different subject every week for the entire year. The idea was to challenge my ability as a writer and see if I have it in me to write so much, and to share with you all experiences and life learning lessons, which would then serve as the basis of a self book I could consider publishing in the future. It hasn’t been easy to do, I can assure you, and the time and effort that it takes to write these weekly blogs is tremendous. But one thing that has kept me going is the commitment I made to myself; It is almost as if I don’t want to let myself down by not writing one week (and I guess this is what is about, letting yourself down and no one else). I have had a feeling every week that if I don’t do the blog, the chain is broken, my challenge is lost and a piece would be missing therefore the challenge would be void.

Just like any of you who made commitments back in January this year, I have been tempted not to stick to my goal and give it up; many times too much work could have stopped me from writing any of the weeks, having been in hospital with a suspected heart attack would have been enough for anyone not to write that week, the death of my father, holidays, family commitments, or even the weeks where I had to really search for something to write as I faced a “writers block” right up to the last minute… and don’t forget preparing for my Half Marathon! Some many times it would have been easier to say “no I don’t have the time now, I’ll go back to it next week” But I focused on saying YES! Yes I can do it and yes I said I would do it, so get on with it and stop looking for reasons not to do it! Often your time is better spent looking for reason to do it and not on reason why not to do it.    

I had a great year, and I think I have accomplished a lot. These fifty-one weeks have helped me become a better person. And I don’t know if it is because to some extent I have been documenting my life that I feel I can look back and really relish on what I have accomplished, what I did, what I learned and what I will take away from all these experiences.

As I write this words I am also starting to wonder, what will I write next week? This very philosophical and reflective blog should have been week fifty-two, the final one, yet here I am rounding up my year with one more week to go. But you know what? This is exactly what I am talking about; now that I got it out of my system, week forty-one, I guess you could say “look none will mind or know if you don’t write a blog next week, anyhow you will be in Christmas mode, and enjoying the festivities” but I cannot stop, not on the last hurdle! So I am sure I will find an interesting subject to write about; anyhow the festive season always gives plenty of material to write about, specially with all the family together in one room! I bet you can’t wait till next week for the final chapter of my 2014 challenge!

I hope this week has inspired you to start thinking about your 2015 New Year’s resolutions and this time really stick to them! No matter what you want to do, achieve or change, remember that the key is to stay strong and don’t give in to the temptation that is saying no; no I won’t do it today, this week or this month. Next thing you know you have broken that commitment, you have let yourself down and broken that chain. Stick to it, work at it and you will see the marvellous effect of believing you can do anything you want to, it just takes that magic word to do it… YES.

Why not label 2015 as your year of YES – your Yea of Excellence and Self-discovery!

Week Forty-three – The Generation game!

Gen Y, X, Boomer or Silence? Do you know what I’m talking about? It’s a generation’s game!

In case you are wondering what I am referring to, these are the names we have given to each of the new generations that have form since the beginning of the century.

Let me give you a brief explanation:

• Gen Y are those born between 1980 and 2000, also know as the millennials. These are the new Generation that everyone is talking about.
• If, like me, you were born between early 60’s and 80’s you are part of the Generation X (I quite like my generation, the X makes it sound interesting…)
• Boomer is the term used to describe those born at the end of the war and up to the 1960’s. They are also known as the “baby boomers” a termed use because of the baby boom of that time.
• And anyone before this are known as the silent generation, I think it is because in those days children where to be seen not to be heard!

By the way, the new generation coming through (those being born now and up to the 2000’s) have not been given an official name yet, but you may have heard of them being referred to as the Z generation or in some cases the Nano Generation (is Apple responsible for this name?) And if you’ve not heard about this then WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS!! This seems to be all we talk about nowadays!

So why am I talking about this subject on week 43 of my blog? Apart from the fact that as I said it is such a popular and hot topic in our every day life, this week I was witness to how interesting it is when you are in a room full of people from all generations, the dynamics of it and suddenly all theories around this collapse, because at the end of the day we are all the same, human beings trying to get by in life.

This week I had the privilege to be invited to the celebrations of the 25^th anniversary of one of our hotels, which in hotel years, this is quite an achievement, especially in the ever changing and challenging hotel world. And one thing that caught my attention was that 25% of the employees have been there since the opening! Yes 25 years service and they were all still looking forward to the next 25!

Part of the celebrations involved a special ceremony to honor these employees and their achievements, including a slideshow of pictures from the past with 80’s haircuts and mustaches. I was invited to do a speech as part of the event and I wanted to make sure I included everyone in my words, not only those with a quarter century of service, but those who have just join us; every person in the room, whether new or long serving, young or old, was part of the success of the 25 years of impeccable customer service and a great reputation.

I remember sitting by the side of the dance floor thinking about what I would say, I needed to recognize those long serving members, no doubt about that, but what could I say that would make everyone feel part of this special day. After a few moments I realized that the only way to do this was to not make a distinction, we had already recognized the long service members, so I decided to forget about who had what and how old or young you were. So I got up and asked everyone to join me by standing up and putting their hands together in a clap. I asked them to repeat this action time and time again, faster and faster until the room was erupting with clapping. Having energized them I asked the to take a seat and pointed out that the clapping hadn’t been for me but for each other, as we were here to celebrate everyone who for the last 25 years had contributed every day to the success of the hotel, whether for 25 years or two months.

So there you had it, Gen Y, X, Boomers and I think some Silent were celebrating each other in a shared success, all barriers where down and they were all one team.  I think this gave every generation the opportunity to recognize each other and ok, there were no Gen Ys within the 25 years service (that would have been illegal!) but they knew that they had contributed to the success of the hotel and more importantly had something to look forward to.

This “hot topic” of generations often points out how different each generation is. For example, the new workforce coming through are the Gen Y’s who have access too much more technology and social networking than previous generations and we are told we need to be ready for them. Every generation has its own distinguished trademarks and trends, there is no doubt about that, but I do think that no matter when you were born there is one thing that we all have in common, and that is our basic needs and instincts. Let me explain what I mean by this.

There is a model call the Maslow Hierarchy of needs, which I think is a good way to try to understand that there are no major differences in generations. In his model Maslow says that in order to be on top of the hierarchy of our needs, which is know as Self Actualization, you need to first fulfill all other needs. At the bottom of the hierarchy is our basic survival instincts, what he describes as the physiological needs; food, water, sleep – whether you are a Boomer, X or Y, we all need to satisfy these needs before we move up the hierarchy. Not surprisingly the next level is security: shelter, job and family security, health – I don’t know about you but I don’t think it matters how old you are, we all need a bit of security! Next is the much-needed love/belonging! And we all need a bit of love at some point in our lives, there is no generation out that has never appreciated the feeling of belonging, being wanted, friendship and family. So far, in the first three levels we have yet to see anything that would be different in each generation. There is one more level between belonging and self-actualization and this is known as esteem! and what is esteem according to Maslow? He describes it as Self Esteem, confidence, achievement, respect for others and respect by others. Studies about Gen Y talk about this being a generation that looks for belonging, being recognized and wanting to achieve more, they want development! I don’t think they want anything that the other generations have been looking for.

In Maslow’s theory Self-actualization is at the top because this is when you have actualized everything you set to do in your life. If you are boomer, you have probably achieved or is closer to this than any of the other generations but self-actualization can happen at any time and as many times as you want in your life.

• Maslow wrote this theory in 1943 so he is defiantly from the silent generation, but somehow what he talks about in his hierarchy of needs prevails and probably will prevail for years to come because at the end of the day, no matter what generation you belong to, we are all the same, just human beings trying to survive in the same world, looking to satisfy our basic needs in order to fulfill our lives and achieve self actualization!

Week Thirty-one – Family and Friends!

My father use to say, “In life you can choose your friends but not your family” and he was right, but both are equally important in our lives.

There is nothing worst than a terrible silence or long pauses when you are desperately trying to make polite conversation with someone you have very little in common. Or those moments of awkward time together with someone you know but really share hardly any emotional attachments. We all have been there, and we all have experience this even with people we have known for a long time. Some people say there is no chemistry if you don’t “hit it off” with someone, some times that special “bond” may not exist, but whatever it is, it is clear that there are some people we would rather not see very often unless we have to!

On the other hand, one of the greatest feelings in this world is when you can sit with someone and just talk for hours and feel good about it. Those times when you can just sit there a talk, feel that you are being listened to and it just feels natural being there. There are no awkward moments, and slices are always a pause to reflect on what has been said and continue with the conversation. And at no point you feel that time is ticking in the background, in fact, often you run out of time, because you have so much more to say. Those are special moments we all have shared with people we know and have in our lives.

This week I have remembered the importance of Friends and Family, and not that I had forgotten about it, but sometimes we take things for granted and become blasé about people in our lives. You may have heard the expression that says “You don’t know what you have until you lose it” which is often associated with someone breaking up from a relationship realising that what they had was good. Or sometime when someone close to us has passed away, and we then realised how important he/she was in our lives. Far too often we wait until the end to realise that what we had was good, and this is because we don’t always remember to focus on those around us.

But let me share with you, as always, two experiences this week that showed me how vital friends and family are in our lives. Let’s start with friendship which is so key to humans and part of our every day lives.

When I first joined Face book back in 2007 I was exited to know that the world had created a space where I was able to re-connect with people I had met in various stages of my life. I began to connect with so many people I knew and enjoyed their company. I know people are very cautious about Face book and the use of it, and I agree that social media has become very dangerous, but to me is just as dangerous as what you say in your local pub, there is always someone listening or sharing this information, so you only tell people what you want them to know! Nevertheless for me this was a great vehicle to re-kindle with so many friends. However, virtual social networking is hard work, and you have to constantly be there to keep up with all that is happening and remain in touch with people. So I guess this is no different to what it was like before we had Face book, the only difference is that now you can communicate with so many people across the world instead of just a few in your local pub! This fact alone make social networking on the Internet a great place to be and the added advantage is that nowadays you don’t need to be in the same pub to be able to keep those relationships going.

We have always known that it’s hard work to keep up with friends and this may be due to the fact that not everyone you know may be one of those individuals you have “chemistry” with, or a more deep meaningful relationship that goes beyond a drink and a packet of crisps on a Friday evening. And you don’t need to see those special friends every day to know he/she is a great friend. What made me realise this is when I met my long-standing friend, Charlotte More, after more then 3 years of just communicating through virtual social networking. We sat in Starbucks drinking a coffee and picking up from where we left last time we saw each other, as if time had not passed by. It is a great feeling and one hard to describe, but even after all this time we had so much to talk and in fact ran out of time. We said goodbye not knowing when will it be the next time we see each other but our friendship is so strong and so important that it doesn’t matter how far we are, or how often we see each other, there will always be room for a coffee and a great chat in Starbucks!

As Charlie and I said goodbye and I reflected on this, I realised that moments like this remind me that friendship is more than just having the person near you, is about sharing emotions and experiences that makes that bond, that chemistry, that special something that every time you meet you can spend hours just catching up and enjoying each other’s company.

So what about Family? The picture I have shared with you all in this blog has, of course my friend Charlie, but also my family. My father said you can’t choose your family, and he was right to some extend, but whom you marry and have your own family with is your choice! In my case I chose to marry an incredible woman who turns out to be also a great friend! And my children are a product of that loving bond between us, so I guess I chose my family and very happy to have them in my life! And I realised how important they are in my life when this week I found myself alone in my house as they left for their summer vacation in Spain. And what has really brought home the importance of family is that being alone in the house reminds me how empty my life is without them! Yes we all enjoy peace and quite from time to time, but when you find yourself wondering around not hearing the shouting and fighting and noises they make, you realise how important those noises are in your life! This experience helps me remember that I am who I am because of them, and this should never be taken for granted.

I guess we are who we are because of those around us, both friends and family, and that no matter how far or close they are, they form a vital part in our lives. So don’t wait to know what you have until you lose it, it may be too late to get it back.