Fostering Friendships

This week I have said goodbye to a new friend as she stops being a work colleague and we begin a life long friendship!

Throughout our lives we meet all sorts of people with whom we come in contact. We may see these people for only one day, or perhaps two, may be even a month one year or could be a lifetime, but each and every individual forms part of our lives and we have different relationships with all of them. I categorise these in three buckets:

·      Everyday fillers – those who you know as part of your everyday life

·      Essential Relationships – these you need to function every day

·      Long Life Friendships – rear and add meaning to your life

Everyday fillers

These individuals are those you don’t care much but they are part of your life – in other words you deal with them as part of your transactional everyday life. They may be customers, neighbours, work colleagues or people you come in contact with during your day; you are polite to them and they are polite to you back. They make little contribution to your live or have no effect or impact on us, they are there as part of our routine, but will not miss them when they are gone. You may see these individuals for one day or a lifetime, but you never forester that relationship and never moves form a greeting or chitchat to anything meaningful.

Essential Relationships

Then we have those who we interact more and build a relationship with and become essential for us to function. Those may again be customers, work colleagues, schoolmates, or simply someone we see on a regular bases in social circumstances (a bar, a club or at the occasional dinner party). We may share things in common; our children go to the same school, we visit the same church or live in the same area. We probably care a little bit more about these individuals than the everyday fillers and, unlike the fillers; they have an impact in our lives. This is usually as a result of us choosing to build a long-term relationship (we worked together for a long time or have lived in the same street for years) we have clicked with them and have form an alliance that makes us feel comfortable with them.

With this people, while we are with them we enjoy their company, due to the more in-depth relationship their behaviour affects us (we slightly care about what they think or do) but at the end of the day when they are gone we would probably not miss them and may never see them again, unless circumstances brings us together in the future in which case you are pleased to see them. But you wouldn’t go out of your way to keep in touch. Social media has widen the scope to stay in touch with people so perhaps we will continue to communicate with them but this essential relationships become everyday fillers, we don’t really care and we just scroll pass their posts on Facebook unless we want to bitch about their new job, friends, houses or holidays.

Long Life Friendships

These are those we care about, and have a massive impact in our lives. These people are generally those we have chosen to be part of our lives. This group are instrumental to our day-to-day life, long term plans and in general they are part of who we are. We enjoy their company and respect them for who they are; we care about their opinion and we value their input. These individuals may not be in our lives every day, but they are present and always there. Everything about them matters and distance or time has no effect on how we feel about them, they have a special place in our lives.  We, and they, have chosen to build a long life relationship and will forester that relationship for the rest of our lives.

And fostering relationships starts as everyday filler, moving to an essential relationship before you become a long life friend!

Many of the people I consider important in my life started as everyday fillers, becoming essential relationships and gradually I cared enough to continue having them in my life. They moved from someone I knew to someone I liked to someone I care about. And I may only see once these individuals in a blue moon, but having them as part of my life makes a difference and I work hard to continue fostering those friendships for a lifetime.

I am grateful for all the people I know and have met in my life, whether they are everyday fillers, essential relationships or long life friends, I think being able to have people around you is important to keep us going and remain sane. Foster each of those relationships individually and how you want them to affect your life, they will make you who you are and bring that richness in your everyday life.

Week Seven 2015 – The power of a Smile

There is nothing more powerful and more contagious than a smile, so give generously!

 They say that love makes the world go round, and I also say that a smile is the fuel of that engine that make the world go round. Have you ever stop to think how powerful a smile is? And how easy is to give a smile? It takes 37 muscles of your face to frown and only 17 to smile, so it’s even easier than you think. And giving a smile to someone can mean so many things; it can give comfort to someone in distress, it can make you feel safe in times of trouble, it can make you feel welcome in strange places and most of all, it gives you that magic energy every time you smile at someone; it gives the receiver that much needed positive energy.

And a smile always produces a smile (at the right time and right place) but without a doubt and failure, if you smile at someone they will smile back. They don’t know why, it just happens. I have conducted this social phenomenon several times in my life but I got a chance to demonstrate this to a group of people this week. And if you have never tried it before, I beg you to try it as soon as you are done reading this blog, it’s magical and it works every time. And most of all it always makes you feel better, as you have just given something to someone that will help them through their day.

The idea is very simple – when you see someone without a smile, smile at them! And I can guarantee, under normal circumstances, they will smile back. As I sat having dinner with a group of people this week we were served by a young girl who looked so miserable and with a long face. She was not angry or upset; she just simply didn’t smile. Perhaps she didn’t like her job, or something bad had happened that day, but she was defiantly not going to give us more than what she was required to do. At one point she dropped something and said in her native language “this is not my day” and then I knew why she was not smiling and I needed to do something. You can’t be so miserable when you are that young, you still have a lifetime ahead of you to suffer!

So I told the group about my theory and that I would make her smile. Some did not believe me and were skeptical (she really had a long miserable face which looked hard to crack!) but I knew she was not angry; she just simply needed some positive energy and what better way to give it to her than through a smile. I sat there, observing her, waiting for my moment to strike. And as she went around taking people’s orders I knew that would be my chance to make her smile. When it was my turn I looked at her as she held her pen and paper and rapidly dropped her eyes avoiding eye contact. So I paused and waited for her to look at me. There was a very short, awkward silence and everyone waited to see what would happen. And then she looked up, I guess she didn’t know what was coming her way and as she looked at me I smiled. And then, as if by magic, she could not resist and smiled back at me! Everyone erupted with laughter and I placed my order.

She walked away and I had proven my point and theory to everyone at the table and they were all so exited by it. Some were still skeptical and we debated the phenomenon for a while and what made someone smile back at you, so I challenged all my companions to give generously and I asked each and everyone at the table to give her one smile. This would give her enough fuel to get through her shift. And one by one, taking it in turns, gave her a powerful smile. And every time she smiled back, and may I add, more enthusiastic than the previous smile.

As the night came to a close, she had moved from a miserable young girl probably hating her job to a more pleasant woman who enjoyed serving our table but still probably hating her job!

In the end, the social experiment had been a success and my theory once more had triumph.

I am sure she went back to work the next day with the same long face, but at least I know we made her life a little bit better that night. But just think what her job would be like If everyone of her customers gave her a smile; not matter how much she hates her job she would enjoy coming into work to get showered with that tremendous amount of energy that would keep her going for the rest of the day.

I don’t understand why we don’t do this more, its great and helps the world go round.

So don’t just sit there not smiling, give it a go, you will enjoy it and if we all do it, it means that someone will do it to you too! Then we will all benefit from the positive fuel that a smile gives to your life.

Week Four 2015 – living in fear!

This week I have completed my third week back at work and with it 11 flights! And it’s only January… 

The safest mode of transport!

As many of you would know, part of my job is travelling. I spend a lot of my time on airplanes and on average I have boarded 120 flights every year. That is a lot of flights and many hours in the air. It is also known that flying is the safest mode of transport, in other words you are more likely to be involved in a car incident than to die on an airplane crash.  I guess this is true if you, like many people, take only two to four flights a year for your annual vacation or business trips. But when you are on a plane on average four times a week, I guess the odds are higher!

However, I’m a great believer that if it is your time to go, it’s your time to go and it doesn’t matter how many flights you take, it only takes one to take your life away. So even though the odds increase by taking 120 flights, you could be a person who never travels, gets on a plane and this is the flight where something goes wrong. It’s a bit like the lottery, it doesn’t matter how many tickets you buy, you will win with just one, but of course your odds increase slightly by buying more than one! So when I get on a plane I don’t thinking if this is the one which may come down (thought I do buy a lottery ticket thinking this will be the one! J) otherwise I would never flight anywhere and would not be able to do my job, meet great people and be privileged to have seen some amazing places!

We should never live our lives in fear of what may happen; otherwise we will never get anything done, visit anywhere or accomplish anything! I have been thinking about this all week as I discussed various similar topics with people. I am an absolute fan of KFC and I enjoy eating it in different countries I visit. Talking to a group of people this week, one person mentioned how they would never eat it. When I asked why they said they had heard a story about someone who once found a rat instead of chicken and so she was taking no chances! I’m sure you all know this famous story which happened some years ago, a cooked rat served as a piece of chicken with fires! Now, if the person tells me they don’t eat it because they are vegetarian or find it too unhealthy, and then I understand. But not to eat it just in case another rat gets jumps into the fryer seems to me a little bit like not getting on a plane because you’ve seen a crash! I think there are some very good respectable KFCs and in all my years of eating it I’ve not yet had a rat! You can’t live your life in fear that it may happen to you as it stops you form doing things….

This is why we don’t give into terrorism, that is their objective, and we must not live our lives in fear. After September the 11^th people continued to get on a plane; the attacks this month on the Charlie Hebdo magazine were done to spread a message of fear, a warning that if you speak your mind, if you exercise your freedom of speech you could be killed. The magazine went ahead and published another controversial cartoon sending a message that you cannot let fear rule the world.

If there are bombings in a city people stop travelling for fear of their lives, if there are riots in a town people stop going out for fear of what may happen, if you hear in the news the gloom outlook of the economy people stop spending for fear of what the future may be. And so on, if you get burgled you sleep with the light on, if you have an accident you stop driving, if you get mugged you stop going out, if we get rejected or someone breaks your hard, we stop loving, the list is endless with reasons why we should not do things, for fear to our lives, but we must never let this rule and stops us from doing what we want to do!

I know some times it’s easier said than done, but at the end of the day it is our choice and I respect that. However, I do encourage you to think about what it takes to say “you know what, I’m going to take the risk, the rewards a far better than the odds against it”

Week Forty-nine – Highs & Lows!

One minute you are up, then the next you are down; life can be such a roller coaster!

Have you ever got out of bed and felt like you were right on top of the world? Some times we do, we “get out of bed on the right side” and we feel the world is at our feet. Some times we also have important events which we work hard for and when you reach the end result and you’ve done a good job, again you feel on top of the world; what a lovely feeling that is, the “Highs” in our lives.

But on the other side some times we also encounter the “Lows” that brings us right back down and you may even hit “rock bottom”. These events often take place right at the start of our day, and we get that feeling of “getting out of bed on the wrong side” setting us off to have a series of disasters which makes our day get worse and worse. We may even look for the 3^rd event to take place so we can get out of this bad patch; you know, the “things come in three” feeling.

We all go through these feelings and emotions in our lives; it’s part of being a human. But have you ever experienced Highs and Lows on the same day? Yes I am talking about hitting high and low in 24 hours, and I mean very high and then rock bottom! If you’ve never experienced this, it can be emotionally draining and leave you feeling completely disoriented! One moment is good and then it all goes bad! So how do you deal with this? How do you keep your wits about you and survive? Not easy as it all happens too quickly and that feeling of disorientation and dizziness lingers for a long time. I guess it’s what they call in show business “your 15 minutes of fame”; one moment you are the talk of town and then no one wants to know you!

So if think you’ve never experience this before let me give you some examples to help you understand what I am talking about. I guess the most obvious one would be when you get some good news in the morning follow by bad news! You get that phone call from your boss informing you will be getting a pay rise for all your hard work and dedication to the company; you hit a High here. And then you get a call from home to let you know the house is flooded and it’s not covered by your insurance! You’re on a Low now. That would be a real rollercoaster of emotions all in a very short space of time!

We often experience this at work too; I know I have. You’ve been working hard on a piece of work or a project, which you hand in and get praised for the excellent effort. At that moment you feel good, accomplished and ready to take on the world! You are on top of your game and you can’t get enough of it! And then boom! Something goes wrong, you make a mistake, something that should have been done or looked at was not and now you find yourself having to own up to it and fix it! All the “high” from the good work you did is gone and you are scratching the bottom of the barrel trying to get out of the situation you find yourself in! You no longer have the glory but the guilt, no longer the praise but the questions, you now feel emotionally drained because your adrenaline has gone from very high levels of excitement to very high levels of stress and your body can’t take it any more! Talk about a rollercoaster! You have just been on one and you had a front row seat!

But you know what they say? Life is a rollercoaster and you have to ride it. Remember that which does not kill you can only make you stronger! To get through these emotions in one day and come out the other side in one piece you need to stay together and focus on the task ahead. Get off your high ride and focus on your low drive. At the end of the day you only have one option – fix it and move on. Don’t dwell on the past and what you could have done, that’s all gone.  Your passed successes are there to support your mistakes, don’t just ride on the glory days, but drive the tough times too. Everything is a balance, and ok you are now deep down, but surely someone will remember what you did this morning too!

That’s the balance in life; “Highs” and “Lows” are there to help you be better at what you do. Highs remind us of what we can do well and achieve, it is a way to re-charge the batteries and leave evidence that there is something good we have to offer. Lows help us remember we are also human and sometimes things will go wrong, we will make mistakes and we need to learn from them using the experiences to better ourselves. In a way the lows permit us to learn and produce more highs as a result of these experiences, they need to exits for highs to be created. Without one the other does not exist. I guess no one can ride a rollercoaster that only goes up, it will eventually run out of track and then you face a massive drop. I rather have lots of reasonable highs and lows to make it fun and more interesting!

I’m grateful for all the experiences I have in my life. Not only do they help me learn and become better but also they are great sources of inspiration for my writing! This is week forty-nine of my yearly blog challenge, I only have three more to write before I am done, and believe me when you have written forty-eight weeks, it seems that subjects are begging to dry up! Thank goodness for that rollercoaster called life with its Highs and Lows, without it I’d be thinking, “what am I going to write about this week?”

Week Forty-eight – What’s your preference?

Everything we do in life is a preference, and we can adapt, change and enjoy someone else’s preferences.

Do you like Coffee or Tea? Fish or meat? Winter or summer? Have you ever sat through a film you don’t enjoy? Have you ever been somewhere is not your choice? Our lives are all about choices and those choices are made based on our preferences. But the great thing about preferences is that we can change them or adapt to have a better life.

This week I had the opportunity to take a group of people through an activating involving understanding yourself and others through preferences. I hadn’t facilitated this subject for a long time and talking about it again this week has made me think about the importance it has in our lives.

Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a tool used by many to understand your preferences and how you operate within a frame of these preferences. It is an excellent tool that helps people understand their preferences and how these affect they way the live, work and interact with others. There are no right or wrong types and it allows you to take a look at yourself and understand how much these influence your life and those around you.

But what is a preference? Often people get confused when you do this activity, as we all like to be seen in a certain way. In other words, we adapt or change our preference just to please someone, survive in our jobs or get by in our day-to-day lives. But when you do Myers Briggs the only way to find out what your preferences are is by being true to yourself, what I call true to your Myers Briggs type. And these preferences explored in MBTI are very different to each an every one of us but often we share commonalities with others.

Let me give you an example of what a preference is. Take your arms and fold them, as if you are waiting for the bus to come. Go ahead; do it. What arm do you have on top? The right or the left? Now try to fold your arms again but this time put the other arm on top… I bet if you are doing this right now you are struggling! Have you every worn your watch on the other hand? If you have it, go ahead and swap it and you will feel how heavy it is! It hasn’t suddenly become heavier, it is just simply that you are not used to wear it on that side and it feels awkward. If you leave it long enough you will soon forget it is there, until someone asks you the time! Because you will look at your preferred hand.

These preferences become our habits, the way we like to do things. And the moment something does not fit our frame of work, our preference, it throws us off. As I was walking the participants through some of the explanations on the differences between each preference, some of them became more and more confused. “I like both” some times people say when doing this exercise. And they are quite right to say so; in many instances people have not clear preferences for certain things. You can go all your life liking both tea and coffee equally, with no clear preference for either of them.

So why is this so important and why should you care about your preferences? Self-awareness of your preferences is a gateway to your success both in your private as well as your professional life. Take your work for instance, your preferences, they way you operate; these have a massive impact in how much you really enjoy what you do. You tend to find jobs and professions that match they way you like to live your life, and when you don’t, you have to adapt to get the job done. This does not mean you can’t work in any job, of course you can, but your preferences will determine how easy or hard performing your job will be. If you are someone who prefers talking things through before you action them, you need to work in an environment that allows you to interact with people so you are able to share your ideas. If on the other hand you prefer to think things though by yourself before you talk to anyone else, you defiantly need to be in a job where individuality is an integral part of the work environment.

But the good news is that you can always learn! Yes the great thing about this theory is that we can all drink tea and coffee (unless you have a particular allergy!) we just need to get used to the taste, and when there is nothing else, you learn to like it!

Tolerance plays a great part here too. If you live with someone whose presences seem to be opposite to yours, if you really want to stay around, you need to adapt, you may need to move away from your preferred comfort zone and join the other person. This takes a great deal of effort and sacrifice but brings high levels of satisfaction and harmony with those around us. It is a game of give and take and we all expect that if we need to change to maintain harmony in our relationships, others we also need to be encouraged from time to time to do the same!

For me talking about it this week has reminded me how important it is to be tolerant of other people’s preferences and make an effort with those around us, both at work and at home, to ensure we bring a balance to the way we live our lives.

Take a moment to explore how you deal with this, what is your reaction when you are asked to do something you are not comfortable with? When you have to do an activity you would never chose? Or how about when you have imposed on others how you like to do things? Life is about choices, and those choices are determined by our preferences, sometimes you will have to make choices that may not fit around your frame of mind, but will help you flourish that relationship which is so important to your success and a happy life.

Week Forty-two – Yesterday’s news! #BringBackOurGirls

Missing Schoolgirls #BringBackOurGirls

Yesterday’s news is today’s tomorrow’s news and no one cares about it!

Back in May the whole world was astound by the kidnapping of 200 school girls in Nigeria and celebrities around the world participated in a campaigned entitled #BringBackOurGirls ncluding the US President’s wife Michelle Obama. For weeks all major news TV channels and Newspapers all over the world broadcasted constantly about the missing girls; awareness was being spread through social media for the whole world to do something about it, a kind of a global peer pressure for the government in Nigeria to react and take action. I too was gripped by this and week Twenty of my blog was dedicated to this subject doing my own slogan #realmenrespectwomen. I wanted to take part in this by sharing my views on the these men who had forgotten that those women they oppressed and hated so much had given them life and where in this planet because of them.

Spandau Ballet in their way back to stardom!

Why I am telling you all this and why have I entitled this week’s blog “Yesterday’s news”? To give you more background on the inspiration for this week’s topic let me also share with you a Television program I saw which indirectly links to the missing schoolgirls story. Back in the 80’s there was a band called Spandau Ballet which many of you will not remember the name unless you grew up in the UK during this era; but if I hummed their most recognised tune “True” you would know them instantly (click on this link to listen and youwill say “oh yea… I know this song!” I don’t know how to hum in a writtenblog!!!) Spandau Ballet literally shaped the way we dressed and acted in the 80’s and were the pioneers of the “New Romantic” era of the day. Like many other bands they lost their way, did not keep up to date with changes (techno took over the 90’s) and very rapidly they went from being one of the most successful groups of the 80’s to a bunch of unknown musicians; they became “yesterday’s news”. As I watched Television this week I came across a “special program” on Spandau Ballet where they were performing their hits and being interviewed about their lives, careers and raise and fall from stardom. Just before the end of the program I said to my wife “I’d bet you they have a new album coming out, that’s the only reason they are doing this “special” program” and sure enough at the end the presenter says “what’s the future for Spandau Ballet?” they are releasing a new single and going on tour in 2015!

I like Spandau Ballet and I am exited about their new single but the question is why did they fade away and did not produce anything for 25 years? They could have continued back then entertaining their fans all these years (they never officially split up unlike other bands). They just literally became yesterday’s news, and no one cared. This is common in any artistic profession, the moment you become yesterday’s news, no one cares and it is the end of your career.

So what does Spandau Ballet have to do with the missing schoolgirls in Nigeria? This week there was also another program, which I happen to stumble upon that feature this subject again. The question being raised was the same question asked 5 months ago “what happened to the 200 missing schoolgirls?” except this time there was no huge campaigned behind it backed by celebrities and politicians and it was in an obscure TV Channel at a non-primed time… in other words nobody cared. But what the presenter said actually send shivers down my spine; “5 months on and the 200 schoolgirls are still missing, and no one has done anything about it” this made me realised that anything in this world can be “Yesterday’s News” even if it is as important and impactful to the world as this humanitarian barbarism these men in Nigeria had done. Because people stopped to care and new things came up, they faded away, became yesterdays news and they are still missing, we assume and hope, still alive. And this goes on and on all of the time, the moment it becomes less sensational for the news programs and papers to sell, it gets push back giving room to more important and sensational news of the day, which of course will sell more and increase ratings. It’s a cynical way to look at journalism but it is a reality of the media, which nowadays is also driven by social media channels. Anything becomes very quickly yesterday’s news. Even your updates and posts in Facebook work on this principle; the more likes and shares you get the further up the newsfeed your post gets pushed, it doesn’t matter whether it is an interesting post or not, popularity beats context every time and if nobody gives you a “Like” you become “yesterday’s news”

This is even relevant in our every day life; think about it. When you join a company you are the “new kid on the block” and everyone is looking at you, you become the centre of attention. Unless you keep on producing and delivering up to expectations, people soon forget about you and move on. When you don’t keep up with trends, adapt or change with times, when you are no longer relevant, when you have passed your peak, when you are no longer useful, when you just simply do no fit in; you become “yesterday’s news” and fade away.

We have to make every effort to always remain relevant, to always be useful, to ensure people keep us in the forefront of their minds, that they don’t just give up on us because something else more important has popped up and even though we were the centre of attention, we no longer feature high on the agenda.

We should make every effort to care about things, it is shocking that #BringBackOurGirls is now featured on an obscure network in a non-prime time; we should not rest until the schoolgirls are back home and these men punished, if we cared so much back then, why are they still missing and why Mrs Obama and all other celebrities don’t continue to keep this subject as today’s news?

Week Forty-one – Mind over Matter

In an arm wrestling match who would win, your mind or your body? It depends on what your mind tells your body!

#bournemouthmarathon

 I promise that after this week I will not to talk about fitness and running for a while but I have to share with you all my experience running my first half marathon. And I want to share this with you not to inspire you to run a marathon yourselves, but to understand how powerful your mind can be. I have spoken about this subject before in previous blogs and I have shared some amazing insights on this fascinating subject, but this week I will share with you first hand experience of my mind doing a half marathon and not me!

The 12 weeks training I endured leading up to the marathon was more of a metal training than a physical one. I was preparing myself mentally to believe I can run 21 kilometres and get there in one piece. This training required me to build my distance gradually every Saturday achieving 2k more every week and finally reaching the 21k two weeks before the actual event. When I reached this I was happy, not too exhausted and mentally prepared, or so I thought! The last two weeks leading to the day were gentle to avoid injury and be physically ready for run.

Two days before the big day I went for the last 6k run and at the end I felt my knee was not right. It was slightly soar and I began to worry. I have a knee injury, which comes on and off but now, two day before judgement day it was playing up. I don’t need to tell you that all day Saturday it hurt like hell and I was convinced I was not going to be able to make the finishing line. However, I was determined to do this so I told myself I would go, start off and if I didn’t make it to the end at least I didn’t give up that easily. Next morning I woke up, got ready and guess what? My knee felt better! My mind had won over matter!

I got there early and at the starting line I began to warm up and physic myself up to the challenge. Remember only two weeks before I had done this, with no problems at all, so I told myself I would be ok.

All runners gathered, we set off into our journey of 21 kilometres to Bournemouth Pier. I had a rough idea which way we would go and I just followed the crowd of people as we ran through the streets of Bournemouth. I was so exited to be there, in the middle of an ocean of athletes, that suddenly I heard my running app indicating we had reached the first kilometre, and now there were only 20 left to go! I was so distracted I hadn’t realised we had already been running that long. If I kept that way I would cruse this little challenge, no problem!

But soon after reality hit me! I became aware of my breathing and my heart rate as I checked it on my watch; it was high at 160, higher than normal for the first 5k considering my pace was not that fast. During the training my heart rate would have been 150 max at this stage. I also became aware of my knee; it was bothering me and began to worry me. I began to see the “elite” runners pass me by on the other side of the track; this really put me off as they looked as fresh as a cucumber! I was only a quarter of the way and my mind playing games!

I was running for charity and people began to shout my name; this lifted my sprits and I pressed on, I didn’t want to let anyone down specially myself! This helped me and I was back on track, I was not going to give up and I would make it to the end even if my knee would collapse! For the next 5k I increased my speed, I remained focused and pressed on.

As my app announced I was half way in my mind I began the countdown. During the training every time I got pass the half waypoint it became easier and always got there in good shape, so I was on a winning streak!

At kilometre 15 something unexpected happen that would test me even further on the power of my mind. At this point the way the race was laid you could see Bournemouth Pier, the finishing point of the marathon. That meant we would go back again to account for the 6k left. Cruelly but I am sure not done on purpose, we had to pass by the finishing line; this played a massive trick on my mind. I felt really tired and all I wanted to do was to stop, jump the fence and cross the line! My legs were hurting and my heart rate was almost 170, I was ready to give up, my knee was killing me! Was it matter winning over mind? Actually it was my mind telling my body to give up; I had seen the end and all I wanted to do was to finish and my body was shutting down. We passed a drink and energy gel station and I grabbed a bottle of water and a gel and almost stopped.  I didn’t, I drank and threw the bottle on the side (I always wanted to do that!!! Seen it on the telly!) and held onto my energy gel. I looked up and someone had collapsed in front of me! Was that going to be me soon? I looked at the energy gel and I said to myself “this thing must work, but I’ll take it 3k before the finishing line” Why did I do that? I knew that if I drank it then, 2k down the road I would be thinking “I’m running out of energy” and who knows if I’d would have made it. Remember last week’s blog? G’s & T’s? I need a goal, a target; something to focus on and 3k was the halfway point from here; that would be my reward.

One, two and three kilometres went by and when my app said “3 kilometres to go” I opened my energy gel and sucked it up, threw the package onto the side and raised my eyes, seeing Bournemouth pier in the distance, calling me!

I don’t know if those energy things work, never had one before, but all I know is that as ran the last 3k of my half marathon I never felt so good. I was back on track, I was ready to do this and do it in good time. Women and older runners where taking me over, I didn’t care, at this point I had one thing on my mind; I was close to the finishing line! And your knee Sergio I hear you say? What knee? I felt like Usain Bolt, fit as a fiddle and nothing was going to stop me from getting there!

I was so in the zone when I crossed the finishing line that I didn’t hear or see my family cheer me. I did hear the commentator shout my name, which made me lift my arms and cross the finishing line like I was number one! My mind had conquered over matter!

I was excused and my body ached, I struggled during the run and my pace, although good, was slower than during my training. It really shows that the pressure of being there and seeing people fail really has an influence on your performance on the day. The experience of running this half marathon really taught me how powerful our mind is and what it can do to our bodies. It’s so powerful that it can make you give up and it makes your body physically tired, it can crush your spirits and bring you down like a led balloon. Everything that was happening around me was influencing my mind, which in turn was telling my body to react accordingly. External factors affect the way we think, what we believe and how we think we can cope; our body, our sprit will just do what they are told. Mind over matter is the art of being able to block all those external influences that affect you, and turn it around focusing on what you want and not what is happening around you.

Never give up, ever! Your mind is stronger than your body; your spirit will never crush if your mind holds it high.

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.