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 Fifty-two – The end is only the beginning.

52 weeks later here I am typing my last blog of 2014 having achieved my goal and feeling very proud of myself! But this is only the end of a new beginning.

So this is it, fifty-two blogs done, each and everyone of them unique and an account of my day-to-day life and experiences as I travelled and dealt with all sort things that got thrown at me. And the more I think about it, the more I realise that the challenge I set my self was not about being able to write but to be able to see the world and draw from it to share experiences and situations that hopefully would have, in some way or another, helped you all.

And I don’t want to make this week, the last week, an exception. I knew I would have plenty of material to write about, with Christmas in it and a large family gathering, so I wanted to find something interesting or cleaver to write. I have been thinking about it all week, I really want to make week fifty-two special, in away I want to go out with a “big-bang”. But the more I’ve been thinking about it, the harder it has become to come up with anything good to write.

Yes I could give you a run down of the large family gathering we had, 24 people in a house we hired to celebrating Christmas. It was fun, chaotic and noisy! It made me realise that we are all Humans and what brings us together is tolerance and understanding and realising that without external influences (there was no Wifi, or mobile signal) there is a lot we have to share. This Christmas was no different to others with the exception of the setting, being away from home in an environment where we were all neutral. This was none’s house, and we were all guest. There was no communication with the outside world, so we had to stay focused on the moment. We went back to basics. But for me this isn’t the biggest learning this week, I don’t want week fifty-two to be about this.

So I continued to scratch my head thinking of that subject worthy of week fifty-two, after all this is the last week of my challenge. I thought I could give you all a round up of the year, in 2014 I learnt a lot. Many things happened with three mayor events taking the headlines - I suffered the loss of my father, been in hospital with a suspected heart attack and I run my first ever Half Marathon. But I guess you all know that right? I mean, if you have been following my blog and read some of the weeks you would have know this. As I asked myself these questions trying to decide if I should just do the “top ten moments of 2014” I came to realise that may be it is a good idea to do this, as some people may not have read some of these events.

But again, I decided not to do this! I didn’t want my last blog to be just a re-collection of what I had written about! In a way I thought that was cheating by just copying and pasting previous blogs.

I sat and I continued to scratch my head. What can I write about? What is so big, so important, and so meaningful in my life, that it should be the subject of my last blog? And then it finally came to me! And when it came it reminded me why I am doing this! Yet another epiphany! What have I learned this year? I have learnt that I can write, and I can write about anything I see in life. I have accomplished something extraordinary, which has allowed me to mature in my writing. And what does this mean? It means that I should continue to write and never give up. Now, a great dear friend of mine reminded me of this last week and of my motto “I write because someone out there reads”. She read blog fifty-one and commented, “Don't give up writing them.........NY resolution is to see if you can do another 52???? I love reading them” and I knew that this is what I need to do, I must continue, because some of you out there read what I write.

So I want to dedicate this blog to you all, the people for whom I write. For those of you who continue to support me and encourage me to write.  Writing is some times a very lonely job, and the satisfaction of writing something is knowing that someone has read what you have wrote.  As well as getting all my thoughts out on paper and express myself, I relish the thought of people enjoying and learning from what I put down every week in my blog. As a script writer I have always longed to have audiences enjoy a night out at the theatre, as a blogist I get satisfaction when I know people have twenty minutes where they enjoyed reading what I have to say.

Dear all out there that read my blog, I will endeavour to continue to share my experiences with you every week! And thank you for reading what I have to say, more to come in 2015!

So it is time to close the year; let us reflect on what we have achieved, and it is time to start planning what’s to come next.  My experience form this has been that we must all set ourselves a new challenge every year, I know I will, and stick to it, work on it and make sure we keep our promises to ourselves. Whatever you decide to do, it will help you be better, better in everything you do. I hope the last 52 weeks I have shared with you have been useful, and if anything at least entertaining, Remember the end of something is the beginning of something new.

Week Thirty- three – #Culture

They say that Culture is at the heart of a nation and to get to that nation you have to win their heart!

You can take the boy out of Mexico but you can't take Mexico out of the boy!

This week I was talking to a group of people about culture and it is a subject that fascinates me for many reasons. And Culture is something so powerful and important in our lives that we should all pay attention to it and be aware of the implications that it has in our lives. But let’s first define what culture is. I am not going to give you the dictionary definition but rather what I have learned throughout my life.

First of all culture is at the centre of everyone’s life. It’s a set of values we live by and use to drive our actions. Culture is a passion for something we have inherited and will pass on to others and it is what makes us who we are. With this in mind, you can see why when I say culture is something very powerful I mean VERY POWERFUL! That is why often you hear people say “it’s a culture shock” essentially because when you are faced with something that doesn’t fit your culture, it throws out everything you know about values and set of norms you live by.

Now let us put this in perspective. I was born and raised in Mexico and spent the first 18 years of my life there. At heart and mind I am a Mexican and my routes are something I will never loose particularly because my formation years where spent living and breathing the Mexican way. They say you can take the boy out of Mexico but you can’t take Mexico out of the boy, a true statement for all of us. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been away from your motherland, you will always have something that ties you back, and it is who you are. And the reason for this is that your education and character building took place there and it is embedded in you.  For me growing up in Mexico set my views and values I now carry with me and live by, I am proud to be Mexican and will always carry it in my heart. There is a Mexican Mariachi song that says “Beautiful and beloved Mexico, if I die far away from you, tell them that I’m sleeping and return me to you” and nothing could be further from the truth, you main not be buried in your home land but spiritually that’s were we all end up.

But the boy left Mexico and went to the UK and did he have a culture shock! The next set of my formation years (teens) were spent in England, where things worked very differently! But here is where I became fascinated with culture without knowing it. Most people when they leave their country they become homesick, and they miss everything about their culture. It is a natural reaction; remember what we said about culture, it rules your life, so all of the sudden everything you know is out of whack! But for me it was different. Right up to the date I left Mexico I lived and breath the culture, it’s all I knew and loved it (Mexican’s do have a lot of fun!) but within days of being in the UK I was not missing Mexico any more. It’s hard to explain as I did and still love Mexico, but I was ready to embrace a new culture, which fascinated me. Some people saw this wrong as they believed I was forgetting where I came from, trust me I never have, but I didn’t need to miss Mexico to still love it, and at the same time I was learning a new way of life, a new set of values and passions of people in my new country, my new home. Pretty soon I realised that I wanted to stay in the UK and therefore I had to embrace the culture and live like an Englishman! Here is where I began to understand that culture is at the heart of a nation and to get to people’s hearts is through their culture. Often what cause conflict in society is segregation and the struggle between who is right and who is wrong. When you are a Mexican and live in the UK, if you live like a Mexican you will never fit in or indeed be accepted into society. You can remain proud to be a Mexican and still follow your traditions, but you must also embrace the culture where you live and conform to the values of the people there, after all you have chosen to be here.

I don’t mean to say I had to become English to be accepted, not at all, I still call myself a Mexican even though I’ve not lived there for over 28 years. But I had to learn their culture, accept it and live it, this was now my home and it would become part of who I am. So I guess I could say there is Mexican and English in me, Mexinglish may be the right word for me; I learned the values of the culture and lived by those values, which often aligned with my values as a Mexican.

I have sometimes called myself “citizen of the world” because I have been fortunate enough to also be able to experience different cultures and embrace them. My mother’s family came form Spain and I married a Spaniard, so I have also learned and embraced the culture. I have lived and worked in Germany and my father side has some German, so I declared myself German! There is some Jewish blood in our family and I have been fortunate enough to spend time in Israel through my work, I have felt home every time I’ve been there. I’ve been mistaken as an Armenian, Georgian, Azeri, Egyptian, Italian, and any other Latin Middle eastern countries you can think of, and when I’ve been in those countries I have learned and embraced their culture, and some times feel part of them! In my travels I have learned that the way to be accepted anywhere you are, first you have to accept where you are. Learn about the country, the people, their traditions, passion, believes, be respectful of these and try things, nothing is going to kill you. If people see that you accept them, they will accept you and also respect your culture back.

It is very rewarding to live and learn new cultures; it only makes you stronger and a better person. There are many values that are shared by all, Family, Health, Friendship, and Respect, we all live by these. So if we accept people’s culture, soon you will see that actually it’s not that far away from yours, the difference is the rich history and traditions that make each country and culture so unique and fascinating to learn, after all, we are all citizens of this world, the world belongs to all of us.

The sooner we remove segregation and separation of land, the sooner we will enjoy sharing our cultures and planned amongst our fellow citizens of the world!

Week Thirty-two – Doors!

Everything in our lives seems to revolve around doors, and I don’t mean just physical doors but metaphorical ones too!

Mexico's Pop Sensation Emmanuel 

This week I had another “door” slammed on my face, and I don’t mean an actual door, wooden, metal, glass or any other material, but a metaphorical door. In my pursuit to becoming a full time writer I have been working to get one of my musicals, "El Rey Azul", noticed by the artist whose music I have used to create the story, and let me tell you, it’s not been an easy task. For the last two years I have been looking for ways to contact Mexican Pop Star sensation “Emmanuel”, who began his artistic career in the late 70’s becoming one of Mexico’s iconic signing heroes. I decided to take some of his best-known songs and turn them into a musical in the style of “Mama Mia” and “We Will Rock You”. However, everywhere I’ve searched I have not been able to get in contact with him. About a year ago a friend of mine in a conversation mentioned that her mother’s cousin happened to work for Emmanuel as some sort of accountant, and when you lease expect it, a door of opportunity had open for me. Since then we’ve been going backwards and forwards, he has been busy touring and I guess an unknown Mexican writer with a wacky idea for a musical may not have been his priority. However I kept in contact with someone who worked for him and ever so often I would give him the “e-mail nudge” to remind him I never give up on an idea. I noticed in Facebook that Emmanuel had gone quieter and I though it was time to “nudge” this guy again. To my surprise he replied almost immediately and my heart started to pound hard with excitement thinking I’m in!

This blog is about the metaphorical doors in our lives and as you guessed, sadly a door was shut right in my face! He wrote to inform me that he no longer worked for Emmanuel. As I stared at that door firmly shut in front of my eyes, I began to reflect on what to do when someone shuts a door in your face, literally. I guess in life if you are going somewhere and you want to get in/out and a door is shut, the first thing you do is try to open it again right? Most of us in real life when real doors are shut we nock, shake and try to open it again; we don’t just walk away. So I did, I knocked, shook and try to open it again.

After the initial disappointment I decided to reply to him, first of all thanking him for letting me know and asking him if he would know whom I could contact instead to continue with my proposal. You can see here I am “metaphorically” grasping onto the doorknob and trying to open that door again! He, very politely, replied that he didn’t know. In this industry when doors are shut usually they are bolted on the other side! And I imagine he was not prepared to help me, there is nothing in it for him and probably left in not such good terms.

Ok that door is shut, firmly and perhaps bolted, but it doesn’t mean that there are no other doors to let me in, not just to Emmanuel but to fulfilling my career dream as a writer.

I noticed in his e-mail signature the web address of his new company so I went and searched it, an impressive entertainment organisation that also does theatrical productions. Now here is a door I want to keep, if not open, at least ajar! So very politely I thank him for his help and slipped in that I had seen the website of his new company and would always welcome the opportunity to work with them and share some of my work; I supplied him my website address and moved on. I don’t expect that the door will suddenly swing wide open, but I have at least knocked on it and left a note underneath. Some times you have to do a lot of knocking to be heard, so now I have his attention, I will continue to knock on that door until one day it may open up! I also went back to my friend and ask her to try and get me a new contact through her mum’s cousin; an old door that opened before and I know it can open again.

And I will continue to knock on doors, until one of them will open.

But the idea of doorways, doors and knocking is one that we should all take seriously and use this metaphor in our every day lives to help us get to where we want to. I found this week that by using this metaphor my spirits really lifted and I am more energised that ever to continue looking for those doors that will open up and fulfil my dream to see my work on stage. And life is all about opening those doors. Think of all the expression we use related to this; “opening doors” “key to your success” “opportunity knocks” “one door shuts, anther door opens “ and perhaps being successful is about understanding how we open those doors, and making sure we open the right ones. It’s about being in the right room, where there may be other doors leading to the right place, it’s about being in and not out, it’s about shutting doors that lead to nowhere and looking for those that takes us where we want to be. It’s about knocking time after time, and loud so we are heard and someone will open that door. In the end, the great thing about this metaphor is that there are as many doors as you want there to be. If you think positively you can create doors, look for doors and knock as hard as you can in the hope that the person on the other side will open it for you. Don’t be afraid to move away from a door that’s closed, but not before you try to open it again, and try as many door as you can. Some will be slammed on your face, and trust me, it hurts, but you have to move on, and don’t let that “moral nose bleed” stop you from carrying on.

Success only comes from failing, and I guess doors will only open once you’ve had a few slammed on your face!

Week Twenty-eight – Keep on going!

When I wrote this phrase some time ago, I had entered a Facebook competition from a page called Authors Publish, which encourages up and coming writers to focus on publishing their work. They had asked for submissions on what inspired you to write in one sentence and after some time thinking why I write I realised that I never get tired of writing. It’s like a drug, I need to do it, even if it is something short, but I have to get my thoughts on paper. This is where I also thought of my saying “I write because someone out there reads” and I still firmly believe that these two sentences are the biases of my passion for writing.

This is also where my personal challenge of writing a weekly blog comes form, I want to push myself and explore my abilities as a writer. This year I want to know if I can sustain a blog every week finding the inspiration to write continuously about different subjects. Although I am now halfway through my life (I want to live to 90 with all my abilities in good shape) I began my writing careers very young, doing short stories. Then my passion for the performing arts pushed me to become a scriptwriter and I shifted to writing those tales in dialog, visualising it on the stage. For years I have focused on writing scripts and about a year ago I had the opportunity to participate on a writing club called Shakespeare’s Monkeys, a group inspired by a friend of mine who wanted to get a few of us together, literally, and write short stories. This was a great challenge for me as I had not written short stories in a long time and I wanted to go back to see if I could still do it. The group dissolved after a year, many where too busy to dedicate time to write the short stories, but I had learned that my ability was still there.

Two weeks ago I finished the second draft of my 4^th Musical called “Another day in Paradise” and if you are a Phil Collins die-hard fan you would have identified that this musical is using his songs. My first musical, written in Spanish took me almost 3 years to write and this latest project has been the subject of my attention for the last 12 months.  At the same time a few weeks ago I began to think about a new project. I have never written a book, a story longer than 5000 words and in conversation with someone about my family background, a story extremely complex and intriguing, they said I should write a book about it. But what I realised as I began to put this idea together is that I am not sure I am a book writer. I have never suffered from writer’s block, as you all know from previous blogs I have a very vivid imagination and not enough hours in the day to write, but yet I could not get started writing this story. I tried, I began with an introduction and then I stopped. I could not get pass this. So I left it for a couple of days and want back to it, but nothing! I wrote, I deleted, I then wrote again and trashed it and all of the sudden I was stuck! I went to bed feeling down, I wanted to write, I wanted to get the story on the computer but the more I tried the harder in became. Had I dried out? Had I got tired of writing? I hoped not, otherwise I would be tired of life!

And then it downed on me, I am a writer, but I am a scriptwriter, that’s what I do, and that’s what I love doing. Yes I can also write short stories and blog away, but if I want to tell a story, I have to write the dialog. I guess is like being a sports person, you can’t be good at all sports!

This revelation felt good, and help me re-focus my energy and what I love doing. So often we find pushing ourselves in the wrong direction, just because that’s what we should do. I always felt that if I wanted to be an accomplish writer I should publish a book; this seems to be the right thing. I see people in the train reading great novels and I aspire to have those people reading my stories, so it is only natural that I think I need to write them on a great novel, or an epic book that everyone loves, buys and becomes number one reading book of the year. I guess that’s not where my abilities to write lay and I will never be the next JK Rowling but my stories can still make the silver screen like Harry Potter, I just skip the book and go straight to the film!

I called this blog keep on going because I want to share with you all why it’s important to keep on going on what we believe, on what our passion is but more importantly where our abilities lay. Yes it has taken me 3 years to written my first musical and it will take me many more to write others, I spend endless hours every week writing my blog and scripts, short stories and most of my work has never seen the light of day, it’s not like a book that you write and publish and then it gets read. To achieve my dream as a writer doesn’t mean I have to write a book; to achieve my dream means I have to focus on what my ability as a writer is. Every word that I write, ever letter I use to share my thoughts and idea, has to be done through short stories, blogs and dialog, not the next war and peace!

This is a principle we should all apply to our lives; at work, in our hobbies, in our personal life, if you love what you do, then focus on it and do it well, know your limitation and don’t feel you have to do it all, don’t be a Jack of all Trades and a Master of None. You don’t have to run marathons like everyone else to enjoy keeping fit, you don’t have to be able to play all instruments to be a great musician, you don’t have to have the top job to be the best as what you do. If you are going to invest the time and effort on something, you might as well do it on the one thing you know that every time you do it, you are getting closer to your dream.

Week Twenty-six – Halfway through!

This week I reach a milestone in my quest to write a weekly blog for a year and turn it into a book, and here we are, halfway through!

First of all, I want to thank you all for continually supporting me by reading my weekly blog, the great news is that we are halfway there! And without you I would not be here. So whether you have read all 26 blogs so far or only a few (even just one) you have contributed to my commitment and dream to push myself as a writer to produce 52 bite-sizes blogs with my experiences and views in life, which in turn may have, so far, given you inspiration and ideas on how to better live your life. All 52 blogs will then form part of a self-help book which will be entitled “A pack of cards, 52 ways to raise your game” a title inspired by my son who in a conversation about my book reminded me that there are 52 cards in a pack, the same number of weeks in a year and of blogs I will write. It’s amazing how and when inspiration comes to you and everything around you gives you an idea.

So to celebrate this milestone, I thought it would be a good idea to share with you one of my first writing pieces I wrote back in 2011 when I began to blog. It is entitled “A writer’s world – Everything is an idea!” and it is appropriate in the context of how I’ve come to be here today and how my son inspired the title of the book. So enjoy it, keep on reading and once again, thank you for your support, as long as someone out there reads, I will write!

A writer’s world – Everything is an idea!

When I was a young kid, my mother worried about me. Not because I was not good at school (which by the way I was terrible) or because I hanged around a bad circle of friends (which I didn’t) or because I was perhaps into drugs or drinking (which I was either) but she worried because I had a very vivid imagination… strange thing for a mother to worry about!

But as a parent, you always worry about your children and whether they are going to be socially awkward or outgoing. If you see your child at a party, standing in a corner, not talking to other children, you’d think there is something wrong with them and so we enroll them to attend a drama class to help them come out of their shell. I was one of those kids whose mother worried about being a social outcast (I know, hard to believe hey?). She also knew that I had a very vivid imagination and her love and passion for Theater inspired her to take me with her to do theatre. And I will thank her for the rest of my life as she gave me the greatest gift any mother could give to a child, the encouragement to do what I enjoy most, using my imagination.

I grew up as a child actor, working from the age of 10 in theatre (and no, it was not child labor and I was still going to school, which I hated!) and unlike most children my age; I was doing something that let my imagination run wild. Being in the theatre and playing different characters was just what my head needed; it helped me transport myself to different worlds. You could almost say that acting was child’s play; it was for me! I was not in the yard with other kids playing; I had my own playground and an audience who appreciated what I was doing.

Now at the age of 47, I work in Human Resources and in the past I’ve facilitated training, which is like acting. As a trainer, one of my opening lines to relax the participants and introduce myself is “I was a child actor, but I was a rubbish actor” People always look at me in astonishment that I call my self a rubbish actor, so I follow by saying “and do you know how I know I was a rubbish actor?” no one ever dares to answer but I’m sure many think of a few things to say. I wait and then proclaim, “Because I am not famous today!” That always gets a laugh, and then finish by saying “If I had been any good I would be in Hollywood and you would be watching my films!” There is some truth in that, me being a rubbish actor, but a major factor for not being famous today is the fact that I never worked hard at it (I was a lazy Actor). I did continue to fulfill my need to exercise my imagination as an actor working for an amateur group but I haven’t acted now for over 10years building up my frustration and locking up my imagination.

The other great gift my mother gave me was the passion for writing; she knew that another way to get all those ideas out of my head was to channel them through pen and paper. As a child I used to write stories, which never left the scrap piece of paper upon which I wrote them, but they were out of my head! As a teenager I used to write drafts of movies I used to conjure with my childhood friend, often taking center roles as the heroes and good looking leading actors, these where often action driven adventures inspired by blockbuster Hollywood movies we would watch. We used to create different characters and occasionally we were able to bring some of these to life at my father’s social parties, in short sketches, where he enjoyed showcasing his son, the actor. And all of the time I was exercising my passion to create stories and characters that live in my head and needed to come out!

And as a young adult I worked for a theater company down in Putney, south London, where I had the tremendous opportunity to put my vivid imagination to good use. Group 64 Theatre, as it was know back then, provided me with the platform to showcase some of my work; plays that I had written and nurtured for years like a farmer nurtures his crop until it grows and he is able to harvest and share with the world. Unfortunately, I left Group 64 to pursue a more mature career in Human Resources and forgot all about my world, the world of imagination and adventures, the world of acting and writing.

And then I was given the opportunity to take a new role in training for my company, a job that consisted in traveling a lot to deliver training across Europe. This new career would take me away every week discovering new places and new adventures. Little did I know that this job would be the starting point to re-kindle myself with my old passion and help me get my head clear from all those characters asking me to put them on paper again! Traveling took a lot of my time in the working week, and this new job was all work, from the moment I left home to the moment I got back, 24 hours a day. And at home, the weekends were not mine, but my family’s, it was full on, every minute of the day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

A year went on and I loved it, but there was something missing. I had a good balance, spending good quality time with the family and giving 110% at work, so what more did I need? And then it dawned on me; what was missing was what I would call from that moment on as “me time”

I was not doing anything for me; I was doing stuff for everyone else, but not for me. And I discovered I had around 10 hours traveling time, which was dead time. Most travelers use this “dead time” to read or watch a movie or listen to music, I also did at times but that wasn’t enough, I needed to do more, something that would fulfill that “me time”. In one of the trips I opened my personal laptop and looked at it. I didn’t want to watch a movie, listen to music or play solitaire. I didn’t want to do any work either. So what else could I do? And as I stared at the blank screen I had that eureka moment; Write! After all, laptops are the modern portable versions of typewriters! And I was off!

Since then I’ve written a array of work from full-length musicals, full-length plays, comedies, several short plays, a monolog and several episodes of sitcoms and movie scripts! These are all still just drafts except for the comedy, which the first 20 minutes of it was performed at the Soho Theatre in London for “the first 20 minutes” competition.

I’ve revived my passion for writing and everything I see is an idea I want to write about: a new play, or a book or a film, a blog. The more I look the more ideas I get and my travels keep on feeding these ideas. I see so many people, different places and situations that I just have to write about it.  And I guess primarily I am a scriptwriter; I love putting dialog together for those characters in my head, although I am also working on a book. I believe in writing because someone, somewhere maybe is interested in reading my thoughts, the ideas that pop into my head, those ideas that make a good play or TV series or even a film that one day many would enjoy, ideas that come from experiences and observations from my travel, the people I meet and the different situations I find myself in every week. I want to share with everyone my world, the world in my head, the world of a writer.

I don’t know if I am any good at this, but what I know is that I love doing it. I love putting thought to paper and to me that is 90% of the job done. I’ve heard of  “writer’s block” which I guess means you run out of ideas and you inspiration stops. Well not with me! I feel that if I don’t put my ideas on paper my head will explode! And by they way I am a firm believer that writing is not just about using clever words, I don’t have many of those; writing is about painting a picture that your readers will be able to see, and some times the simplest of descriptions can paint a thousand images. If like me, you have a very vivid imagination, you need to give life to some of those stories, characters and situations for everyone else around you to enjoy!

I hope this week’s blog has inspired you to do what you believe in, with determination and passion. Getting half way through my project has not been easy and I know there are twenty-six more blogs to write. I can’t wait to continue brining you more “short bursts” of inspiration, get the rest of the cards out of the pack so you can raise your game!

The power of belief

Do you believe in fairies? Or perhaps in Father Christmas? Or do you believe that UFOs exist? Do you believe in anything? The holiday season brings back home the power of belief to millions of people at the same time. Whether it is children writing letters to Father Christmas, people going to church to celebrate the birth of Christ or just believing that there is something good at Christmas, the powerful message for me is that we all have to believe in something to keep our spirits alive.

And even more powerful is the strength it gives you, when you truly believe in something. My children are being brought up in 2 cultures, the English culture as we live in the UK, so Father Christmas visits our home every year. And the Spanish culture as my wife and I have Spanish roots, so we get an extra visit from the 3 Wise Men (Los Reyes Magos) on the 6^th January (this is a Latin tradition where children receive gifts brought by the 3 Wise Men) So my kids get 2 sets of presents. You can imagine this raises some questions with children at their school, “why do you get more presents and we don’t?” or “are you sure such thing exist?”

How do you deal with this as a kid? Well, with the power of belief!

Often human behaviour manifests itself in its purest form with children; through the innocence of their minds. And belief is a very powerful thing in children as they don’t know better or can’t question it. So my kids stand in front of their friends at school and reply “that’s because you are not Spanish like we are!” and that is the best answer they could ever give! This is not just believing that the 3 Wise Men exist but belief in their culture and upbringing.

This brings me back to where I started; do you believe in anything?

There are many theories on belief and the power of the mind. I am sure many of you have either attended a seminar on this or read one of the many reputable books published on this subject.  And I don’t pretend to be an expert on this or indeed hold any professional qualifications in the subject, but guess what? I do have belief and I have seen it work! May be this does not qualify me to advice anyone, but it does give me the opportunity to share my experiences with people and hopefully inspire some of you to do the same.

So what do I believe in? If I did a list, it would be as long as the river Nile, but let me tell you what I think helps me every day.

First, I do believe that anyone can do anything! In the animated Pixar film “Ratatouille”, Gusteau is a famous chef that believes “Anyone can cook” and this inspires Remy, a rat that happens to have culinary talents, to become a chef. Think of the powerful message this film is sending to kids? You can do anything you want! But does the rat become a chef just because he is talented? Of course not, it takes Remy conviction, hard work and belief!

I also believe that people have talent. And talent is paired off with belief. There is not such thing as “I am turn deaf therefore I can’t sing” Unless there is a physical impediment that stops you from listening to music or using your vocal cords to produce a sound, anyone can sing! And talent is developed, nurtured and grown. If you put the time, dedication, passion and belief, you too can become a great cook! And cooking is a good example here. I often say “I can’t cook” what I really mean to say is “I don’t like to cook” It does not interest me, I find it boring and tedious, so I can’t cook, I won’t cook. But I could if I wanted! Could I become a famous chef like Jamie Oliver? Sure I could! The only difference between him and I is that he has the passion, conviction and belief in what he does. So he works hard at it and he is a famous chef. It would never excite me to be cooking for a living, even if it has all the money attached to it like he has!

So can I become anything I want? I believe you can. You can train to do anything, you can learn to do anything and you can do anything you really want to do.

Let’s look at it from another angle. Take fear. Think of any fear you have; heights, flying, water, spiders, these fears stop you from doing anything related to them. I do not like water, I respect water as an element, and it scares me! So I don’t swim, never have. Can I swim? Yes, sort of! Now, my son was just like me, he hated water, not sure why as I don’t think fears are inherited but he hated water. And guess what? Yes he could not swim! And he was convinced about it. My wife wanted him to be able to swim, “a good skill to have if you are in a boat” she said “you never know when he will be in a situation where swimming will save his life” and I thought about what she said and she was right. I hate water and swimming because when I was a kid I got pushed into a swimming pool and I didn’t know how to swim and almost drowned. That, combined with the embarrassment of all the kids laughing, made me hate water and swimming.

So she pushed my son to take lessons and now he is a like duck in water. Will he ever be an Olympic swimmer? Well, he could, if he had a passion for it, but I don’t think swimming is his thing. But now he can swim very well so it proves that anyone can do anything.

I guess then that leaves the question how good can you become at doing things? And the answer lays in the passion you have for something. If you really want to be the best at your field, at what you do, you will work hard to achieve this. And your level of skills and talent will be determined by the amount of work you put into mastering your skills, your area of expertise. Have you ever look at someone with an MBA and thought, “how do they do it? I don’t have the brains for it!” Again, unless you have a physical impairment, your brain is just as good as the person who did the MBA, the difference is they wanted to spent hundreds of hours studying while you would have been doing something else.

So belief is a very powerful tool we have as humans. And we can apply it to anything in our lives; belief in yourself (you can do anything) belief in someone else (there is good in everyone) belief in the system (things will get better) belief in faith (there is something superior to us) and belief in anything that will make our lives better.