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Actions, goals & purpose

I read a daily coaching tip I liked from Michael Neill yesterday, which I was thinking about on my run this morning.

In his tip, Michael talked about the three key components to living a life of purpose, which are the goals you set, the actions you take and having an awareness of the higher purpose behind everything you do.

An example he then gives , using his to do list, is to look at the goal behind filing his tax receipts.

His goal behind the task is to be completely up-to-date with his tax for the year.

He then looks at the purpose behind being on top of his tax, and that is to be financially independent within the next five years.

I like Michael's approach, and certainly think it can put some oomph behind what seems like a quite mundane task of filing his receipts.

I think I might try it out.

Turning work into play

I waited until it was light and went out with the fabulous Sarah's Runners again this morning.

I make that just over 18 miles I've run in the first six days of December.

Today, I have a Mark Twain quote on my mind.

"The work that is really a man's own work is play and not work at all. Cursed is the man who has found some other man's work and cannot lose it. When we talk about the great workers of the world we really mean the great players of the world."

This fits in with my philosophy of coaching people who hate to work.

We've all heard of those people who appear to have a dream job, because they say that what they do, doesn't feel like work. They would do it even if they didn't earn money doing it.

Isn't that the dream for all of us?

As a coach friend of mine says, with anything you look at, there are usually three ways that people do things, the hard way, the easy way and the middle way.

When it comes to work, the hard way is doing work that you hate.

The easy way is doing work that you love.

The middle way is making sure that even though you're not doing work that you love, you concentrate on loving how you do it.

My goal is to help as many people as possible move up the spectrum from hard to medium, or medium to easy.

Body talk

A friend told me about The Boy with Tape on his Face a couple of weeks ago.

As well as finding the video very funny, I also find it fascinating how powerfully he is able to communicate without the use of words.

They do say that in face-to-face situations our words have far less impact than our tone of voice or body language.

In this video, he has taken away his ability to communicate at all with words or tone of voice. He only has his body language.

And yet, he is able to convey what he wants to his volunteer assistants, and also the humour to his audience, incredibly powerfully purely with his body language and some musical support.

He would probably have the same impact all over the world, without being able to speak one word of the language of his audience.

Supposedly we form first impressions of people we meet within seconds of meeting them, usually before we have even spoken.

What first impression are you creating with your body language?

If anyone can, I can

I completed my longest run in 6 months this morning, most of it in the glorious Knole Park in Sevenoaks.

During my run, I remembered a text I received from an ex client, probably about 6 months ago now.

In his text he was telling me about something absolutely amazing that he had just achieved, and he reminded me of something I had said to him, which he credited with his having succeeded.

I said to him, "If anyone can do it, you can!"

It's funny, isn't it, how it can take someone else's belief in you, to make you start believing it yourself.

I also realised that I've said it to others, and I've absolutely believed it (otherwise it comes out as insincere), but I'm not so good at saying it to myself.

So my new motto for the coming week is

"If anyone can do it, I can!"

Reliving the moment

I had a great day yesterday.

After my early run, I had a thoroughly enjoyable, fun time connecting with friends at my regular monthly business networking group.

Later, I spent an inspiring, engaging and exciting time with David Hemery and a group of local primary school headteachers, connecting with old friends and one or two new acquaintances, and telling them about the Be the Best You Can Be! programme.

I also received 2 tweets with mentions for me, one saying "you ARE an inspiration", and the other referring to me as "The rather marvelous @TonyCoach".

Finally, to top it all, my new iPhone 4 arrived in the post.

But of all the great things that yesterday brought me, the one that had the least impact was the arrival of the iPhone.

It just goes to show that anything to do with connecting with people is always the most powerful of all possible experiences for me.

One of the reasons I'm recording all this in my blog is to have something I can refer back to.

Memories of strong positive experiences, especially those where you can recollect what you saw, what you heard and what you felt, are just fantastic for when you are feeling below par.

Going back and reliving those experience with all your main senses, helps you reconnect to the positive feelings you had before.

Exactly what you need to pick you up and get going again.

Follow your bliss

A very different morning to yesterday.

I did my mile-and-a-bit at 5.30 this morning, with proper December temperatures, a clear sky full of stars, and patches of fog swirling around.

Last night I helped out with the fabulous Sarah's Runners again, so technically, as I went out early this morning, I've run three times in the past 24 hours.

I was thinking, on my run, that not only has running been the source of most of my main ideas that have had a significant impact on my life, it's also been one of the consistent themes, along with music and family, throughout my life.

This has been in the shape of various sports like football, rugby, hockey, squash and sprinting through my school days, to football again and longer distance running in my post school life.

Running has been there throughout all of those.

I don't want to give the impression that I was particularly brilliant at any of those things. I wasn't, but what's important is that I really enjoyed them all.

And whatever enthusiasm I have put into all those endeavours, I have been paid pack many many times over with the fun, enjoyment and additional unexpected benefits that I have gained from them all.

I think that's the key.

Do what you find fun, and you love to do, and opportunities will open up that you never anticipated.

As Joseph Campbell said,

"Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be."

Lessons from an entreprenur

That was my 700th consecutive daily run of at least a mile this morning.

Eleven degrees celsius on the 1st December and running in a tee-shirt did seem rather unusual, but it was good.

Yesterday morning, I attended a motivational talk given by the founder of the fastest growing business breakfast network in the world.

What were his main messages?

Don't believe other people's comments that what you're trying to do won't work, and that you're mad. If you believe in what you're doing, even if everyone tells you you're wrong, keep going.

Don't hesitate when it comes to making a decision. Just make a choice and keep moving. Any decision is better than no decision.

People do business with people that they know, like and trust. Build relationships and stop trying to sell.

Don't try to collect as many contacts as you can. Focus on deepening your network, not widening it.

Do what you enjoy doing and find a way to make a living from it. You only have one life, why waste it?

Some good advice there. It makes sense to me.

A feedback junkie

This morning was day 699 of my mile-a-day escapade.

Only just over 38 more years to catch up with my retired U.S. dentist friend.

That would make me 94 years old. Now there's a sobering thought.

Yesterday I was delivering another Be the Best You Can Be! teacher development session, this time to 22 primary school teachers in Essex.

Delivering these sort of sessions is always a great opportunity for me to step back afterwards and reflect on how I did in achieving the purpose of the overall session.

It was doubly useful yesterday because I had a fellow coach observing, who will be delivering her first teacher development session soon. She is also a very experienced coach.

Now, I don't know about you but I've turned into a real feedback junkie.

I know that I can always up my game and take it to another level, no matter whether I feel I did a great or not-so-great job.

We all have blind spots where we just can't see things that are obvious to the external perspective of an observer.

And you always have a choice when receiving feedback.

Think of it as a gift.

It could be just the thing you were hoping for.

It could be the gift that you're not too sure what to do with, but in time you realise it's quite useful.

It could be the present from your grandmother that you know you're never going to use, so you donate it to your nearest charity shop.

Whichever type of gift it is, the process of considering which type is always a useful exercise.

Madder than me

I read, on the internet yesterday, of a retired American dentist who had recently become the 6th person in the U.S. to complete 40 years of running every single day.

Apparently, there are also 286 people who have registered with the U.S. Running Streak Association, who have run at least a mile every day for at least one year.

So there are others as mad as, if not even madder than, me.

For me, running at least a mile every day is such a great discipline for overcoming obstacles.

There are very few days when I can actually say that I'm excited about stepping out of the door in my running shoes.

There have been days when there has been snow and ice completely covering my route.

There have been days when I have limped round at double my normal time due to injury.

There have been days when I've had to run on a treadmill (something I hate).

So I start pretty much each day by pushing past a mental barrier.

What do you do to build the discipline of overcoming the obstacles that stand in the way of your dreams?

Your balance isn't mine

I ran 5.5 miles very gently this morning.

I hope I'm not overdoing it too soon.

Checking my iPhone log of my runs, it says that today my overall mileage, since I started on 1st January 2010, just clicked over the 1,500 miles total.

The word that kept coming up for me on this morning's run was 'Balance'.

I know that I love being around people, and I also love my own space.

I love music, and I also love silence and tranquility.

I love energetic activity, and I also love relaxing and chilling out.

Life is all about finding the right balance.

I used to struggle with opposites.

It made me confused, wondering why I couldn't work out which end of the spectrum I really liked. Surely one of them was the right one for me and I was just kidding myself on the opposite that also had appeal.

I thought it made me indecisive.

But now I understand that like day and night, hot and cold, breathing in and breathing out, life is all about a combination of differing extremes and tastes, and it's about finding the right balance between those extremes.

And it's also about finding the right balance for me.

The balance that is right for you and anyone else isn't necessarily going to be the right balance for me.

I have to find my own balance.

Then it works for me.

Two of my best ideas

It was one of those morning runs full of ideas this morning.

I had to grab Post-Its to write the ideas down, in case I forgot them, even before I did my post-run stretches.

A lot of my best ideas have come when I'm running.

When I first decided to go freelance back in my old IT days, that was while running in Regent's Park in London during my lunch break.

When I decided it would be a good idea to run the London Marathon whilst coaching people on my mobile phone, the idea came to me on a long Sunday run of eight or so miles.

Those two ideas, because I not only had them, but also acted upon them, have both had a dramatic impact on my life.

I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing for a living now if I hadn't had, and acted on, the first one.

I wouldn't have had my two most lucrative clients I've had to date if I hadn't had, and acted on, the second one.

What do you do that encourages your creative ideas, and how do you make sure you act on them?

Out of my own way

Another step in my running recovery.

As well as my mile-and-a-bit yesterday morning, I went to help out with the fantastic Sarah's Runners, last night, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Then another mile-and-a-bit this morning.

With my finger noticeably improving on a daily basis, the mouth ulcer, which I've been suffering with for the past ten days, pretty much gone, and another progression with my running, my body is doing a superb job at the old healing process.

I've heard it said before, and I do think it's true, that sometimes we just have to get out of our own way.

If I was actually trying to heal myself from my running injury, my finger slicing and my mouth ulcer, I would have worried a lot about what was the best course of action, researched it in detail, tried various solutions and then fretted because I wasn't doing it properly.

Admittedly, I am doing a lot more stretching now, particularly after my running, but that is not so much healing , as learning from the previous errors of my ways, and adapting my habits so the same mistakes are less likely to be made.

I wonder in what other areas of my life could I do with getting out of my own way?

Dare to chase

As I ran past the entrance to some woods this morning, two dogs decided to chase me, barking in, what seemed to me, a threatening manner.

When you run away from dogs, I find that generally they carry on chasing you, and there is always the threat that they might bite you.

Sometimes of course, if they're guarding their home turf, they will get bored when you've gone too far past their territory, and then give up and saunter home.

However, you have to run fast to get away from them, and there is always the possibility that they won't get bored and think this is rather fun.

The best thing to do, in my experience, and what I did this morning, was to completely change direction, pull myself up to my full height and run towards the chasing dogs.

They lost a chunk of their bravery once they felt that they were the ones being chased.

They still barked but they no longer chased me.

Don't you find it's the same when you walk or run towards all your fears?

There is a brilliant film advert called DARE that is about moving towards your fear. It's well worth a watch. It's only 89 seconds long.

Untwisting what they said

Thinking about an argument I recently participated in, it's interesting how often it comes down to "you said blah blah blah".

Invariably the issue or the problem is not exactly what was said, and yet it ends up what we concentrate on.

How often do we get into an argument because somebody said something that for us had meaning 'X'?

When we eventually calm down and/or come to some sort of agreement, what the other person actually meant by those words was 'Y', not 'X'.

The important part of verbal communication is usually the meaning the speaker intends to communicate, which we are very adept at twisting into the meaning our own embedded patterns of listening expect.

How about the next time someone says something you feel upset by, stopping and checking with them, "when you say blah blah blah, do you mean you're feeling 'X'?"

You may just get to resolution a whole lot quicker.

Your own sunlight

It was very foggy and grey on my slightly longer 2-mile run this morning.

Being autumn, with all the remaining leaves on the trees and bushes still various hues of reds, oranges, yellows , browns and greens, it got me thinking about the difference it will make today, if the fog remains, in the way people will look at all the colours.

The truth is that in most cases they won't.

When the sun doesn't shine, casting its magical glow, we don't notice the glory that is still there, because the presentation isn't as dramatic.

One of my favourite inspirational quotes is David Hemery's, "There is a spark of greatness in everyone ".

The thing is, if that spark isn't recognised by the person who houses it, or by anyone else, it will be like those amazing autumn colours on a grey overcast cloudy day.

No one will give a second look.

But like the trees and bushes on a gloomy day, just because that sunlight isn't shining on them doesn't mean they don't contain the glorious colors.

What can you do to notice the spark of greatness in another, and fan that spark to turn on their own sunlight?

Your support team

This morning I completed my 690th consecutive day of running at least a mile.

10 more days to the next milestone, and 40 more to an even bigger one! It's very exciting.

Yesterday I attended my granddaughter's 1st birthday celebrations. It was a fantastic occasion with 27 family members present.

On my run this morning, I was thinking about that and how none of us succeed in life without our team of supporters in the background.

From Formula One drivers, to tennis players, to entrepreneurs, to parents, to teenagers, there is always a team behind the scenes.

Although it might look to others like we have succeeded on our own, I challenge you to think of one person who, when you look a bit closer, didn't have a support team behind them.

Who are your support team, whether they are family, work colleagues, mentors, or friends?

You couldn't have done it without them.

Have you told them that?

My Olympic chuckle

As I left the house for my late run this morning, a man I recognised as living in the next street was walking his dog and stopped me to ask if I was training for the Olympics.

He seemed so serious and when I said no, he asked if I was training for a marathon then, which I again said no to.

Whether he was serious or not, I ran off from him with a smile and chuckling to myself.

My value of fun was completely fulfilled, especially after the most fun I've ever had at a quiz, at an excellent charity quiz last night.

On being true to yourself

I met a good friend of mine, who worked for me as my coach a couple of years ago, yesterday at the Festival Hall, overlooking the Thames in the sunshine.

It really was glorious.

Anyway, when I was talking to him about my current strapline for my business, he pulled me up on it, saying that it didn't sound compelling because it didn't come out of me with conviction.

He reminded me of my very first strapline, which was "coaching people who hate to work", and how much truer to me that sounded when I spoke it then, and even still does now.

Once he pointed it out, I realised how right he was.

It's not easy to be true to yourself, particularly when you read something and you think, "Oh, that sounds good".

Before you change and adopt someone else's words, dreams or vision, make sure you check in to see whether you just think it just sounds good, or whether it's really you.

Thanks Antony, you're still a fab coach!

A little a day

This morning at the end of my run, looking at the time I took, I realised that the past few mornings I've started getting slightly faster.

Now, I'm talking dipping under ten minute miles here, so I'm not exactly talking fast, but it's a time I haven't been able to get to since my knee injury in June.

But the point is I hadn't really noticed the change. It was only when checking my GPS watch device that I realised that there had been a shift.

When you do something consistently day after day, each day on its own is not a big deal, but the cumulative effect does make a big difference.

As stated in the excellent books Bounce and Outliers, it takes somewhere near 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in any complex activity or sport.

So, if there's something that you want to get better at, my formula is a little every day will make a real difference, eventually.

Have a nice day

Three people, all walking dogs, said "Good morning" to me this morning on my run.

There are two types of people, those that say "Hello" or "Good morning", and those that don't.

Actually that's not really true.

What is true is that we can all sometimes be in the mood or the space to notice others and say "Good morning", and sometimes we are so wrapped up in our own world, that someone speaking to us is an unwelcome interruption, which we ignore.

I know that many British people don't like the North American habit of saying "Have a nice day", because they think that it is just an automatic response and as such is insincere.

Having lived in Canada for nine years of my life, I don't see it that way. I like it.

In most cases, although people do say it automatically it still comes across as sincere to me.

Take politeness in general. When we hold the door for someone or give up our seat for an elderly person or a pregnant woman, or say "please" or "thank you", those are also automatic responses that we have been taught.

But it still makes us stop and think, however briefly, of another person.

Someone saying "Good morning" to me, especially presented with a smile, can give my whole day a lift.

It creates a connection, however brief, and lifts my spirits.

So the next time you pass someone when you're out, let go of your inner concerns for a few seconds, notice the person and wish them a "Good morning", or afternoon or evening.

You might just make their day.

You might even make yours.

And by the way, do have a nice day. Yes, really.

The moral of the headlights

On my run this morning in the dark, a car's headlights coming round the corner, on the unmade up road I was running on, lit up the trees and bushes along the side of the road showing me the beautiful oranges, yellows and reds of the autumn colours.

It made me think of the analogy of how someone in a good mood can light up a room, raising the whole energy of the room.

We all have the ability to shine a light on others or to dim their lights.

Acknowledging someone, encouraging them, showing them potential they didn't know they had, being a champion or supporter for them, or simply giving them our full attention are all ways in which we help shine a light on others and give them energy.

Conversely ignoring them, criticising them, pulling the rug from under their dreams, pointing out all their worst points will dim the light that's on them and will help drain their energy.

What can you today to shine a light on someone else to help them release their potential?

This is how it should be

I managed to let go yesterday.

A request was made of me that, at the time, felt inconvenient, and it wasn't how I had planned to be spending the next hour or so.

So why didn't I say no?

Because I felt guilty at saying no. Probably because I usually do say no.

So, I said yes. At first it was a bit begrudgingly, but I decided to try and let go of that because I knew that I wouldn't be able to be present if I didn't.

And do you know what?

I really enjoyed it.

When I fail to let go, I spend the entire time in "this isn't how it should be" mode, and I'm right.

But what isn't how it should be is me holding on to that righteous feeling of justification and indignation.

As soon as I let go of that yesterday, it was exactly how it should be, and I had a great time.

Maybe I was able to let go because I'd just watched Louie Schwartzberg's presentation and film on gratitude.

Take a look, it might help you to let go too.

The miraculous body

This morning on my run, and after in the shower, I was thinking about how much I take for granted.

For example, my running glove won't fit over my heavily bandaged right ring finger so this morning I had to have it loosely pulled over the end of my hand and flapping about.

In the shower I had to tie a plastic bag over my right hand, so as not to get the bandage wet, and wash with my left hand. Something that feels very foreign to me.

And all this because I'm trying to protect the end of one finger so that it can repair as quickly as possible.

I'm sure that once it's better, this will all be forgotten and I'll be taking the use of all ten fingers and thumbs for granted once again.

But while I'm having to do things, and think about them, slightly differently, it's an opportunity to marvel at what incredible miracles our bodies are.

The thought that under my bandage, my finger is (hopefully) regenerating itself after I made a bit of a mess of it, and I'm not even having to think about that or plan how I'm going to heal it.

My body heals itself and my conscious mind is completely unaware of it happening.

It's a thought for those people who say things like "I hate my body".

Whatever shape, size or colour your body is, it is truly awesome and miraculous.

The nurse who made my day

I spent a couple of hours in the A&E section of our new local hospital yesterday, having almost grated the end off one of my fingers (hence no post yesterday).

The nurse, who had been very business-like and serious, and was trying to re-attach the skin flap at the end of my finger asked me what I did for a living.

When I told her that I was a business and life coach, her face lit up and she said, "Oh, how wonderful. That must be so nice being able to help people like that."

I confirmed that indeed it is.

A few minutes later when she was thinking about me leaving and getting home, she asked me whether I drove there or was I driven.

When I said that I was driven, she perked up, "that's perfect as a coach to be able to say "I was driven"."

Her enthusiasm and humour turned the whole experience from a bit of a tiresome and painful ordeal to an uplifting experience for me

I walked out of there smiling at the end.

I didn't get her name but I thank her anyway for making my day.

Making space for clarity

I completed my 680th consecutive day of running a mile this morning.

I was thinking on my run of how I was struggling with lack of clarity yesterday. The first thing I had to do to allow more clarity was to create more space.

Space in terms of removal of physical clutter.

Space in terms of dealing with emails.

Space in terms of dealing with tasks.

The most important part of all those things wasn't completing them. It was removing the clutter from my presence.

In the case of physical clutter, it was putting the most obvious things back in their places, and piling the rest out of sight but with a task on my to do list to spend time sorting the rest of the pile.

In the case of emails, it was moving the most important ones to an Actions folder and either adding them to my to do list or putting them in my diary with a definite date & time. Then it was putting the rest in a Temporary folder, once again with an action to spend time clearing the temporary folder.

In the case of tasks, it involved either adding them to my to do list or putting them in my diary again.

Now the most important thing is to make sure all physical clutter, emails and tasks get dealt with or allocated as they arrive.

My head is much clearer now.

Why fun is important

Fun is one of my core values, as it also happens to be for many of my clients.

In other words it's something that is always present when our work and our lives are really satisfying and fulfilling.

Fun means something slightly different for each of us.

For some it's carrying out practical jokes on others.

For others, it's sharing funny stories of things that have happened to them, or even others.

It can also mean having a good belly laugh at a comedian, or even playing sport with a friend or group of friends.

One of the most important things for me is that fun brings an air of lightness, lifting some of the heaviness or intensity that I can get drawn into when I'm concentrating on doing a good job.

There's a quote I like from Margot Fonteyn -

"The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous."

I thoroughly agree, and I think that it's important to not take yourself seriously even when you're undertaking serious work.

It's something I have to be reminded of on a regular basis.

Tips for increasing clarity

On my run this morning, I was thinking that one of the main things that is missing in people's lives at the moment is clarity.

Many people are feeling confused.

They're confused about where they're going.

They're confused as to whether they're on the right track.

They're confused about how they can get on the right track.

They're confused about what they should do next?

The first thing that anyone who is feeling confused needs to do is to name what it is they're confused about.

Next, they need to ask themselves what it is that is making them ask the question (i.e. "Where am I going?"; "Am I on the right track?"; "How can I get on the right track?"; or "What should I do next?")

Another great question to ask at this point is "What's wrong with doing nothing?"

Whatever comes up from these simple questions is a great starting point for digging deeper and increasing clarity.

The danger of a goal

I re-read a blog post I like called "The best goal is no goal" this morning, which in turn got me thinking about the difference between a goal and a vision.

Viktor Frankl, in his classic book "Man's Search For Meaning", tells the story of a fellow inmate in the same concentration camp as him, who tells Viktor of his dream that the war will be over for him (the other inmate) by a certain date a few months in advance.

When the date is about to arrive and it's clear that nothing is going to happen, the fellow inmate falls ill, goes downhill rapidly and dies from typhoid the following day after his predicted date of escape.

Having very clear solid goals, whilst very motivating when striving towards them, can have the complete opposite effect and be the source of despondency when we have gone past them and are looking backwards having not achieved them.

And we all know that life cannot be predictable at the best of times.

Think of those poor people on a journey in their cars on the M5 the other day, who never completed their expected journeys.

For me, a vision is less structured than a goal, it doesn't necessarily have a definite end date, and often, although the 'what' of the goal may be reasonably clear, the 'how' is evolving as you move along.

A good vision also releases attachment to the 'how' with a liberal dose of curiosity, such as "That's not at all what I expected. I wonder how that can still help me achieve my vision?"

What if today...

What if today was the last day of your life, and you knew it?

What if today was going to be the best day of your life?

What if today you knew that an opportunity would show up that could transform your life for the better forever, but that opportunity would be hidden in an ordinary moment that, if you weren't aware, would disappear forever?

I read a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh on a blog this morning, just before I went out for my run. It was what sparked my above thoughts.

The quote was, very simply: "Smile, breathe and go slowly".

I think that piece of wisdom would serve in all of my above questions.

Removing the creative block

When I was running this morning, I realised that whenever I'm working hard trying to think of what I'm going to write for my blog post, it's never that successful.

It usually results in me thinking how the time is ticking away, which increases the pressure on me to come up with the right answer as soon as possible, which in turn makes it tougher still.

What I always end up doing is concentrating on my breathing while I run, and maybe taking stock of different parts of my body, to check in with how they're feeling.

When I let go of having to come up with a topic for my blog, and divert the conscious part of my brain by checking in to what's going on for me in the here and now, it gives the subconscious part of my brain permission and the space to do its thing, which is being creative.

My subconscious invariably comes up with the goods.

What can you do to divert the conscious you, and let your subconscious do the creative work?

HALT, don't go there

On my run this morning I was thinking about a very recent event where I reacted with what was not the most diplomatic or planned of responses.

This, in turn, raised the general temperature level of the discussion, which then, as a consequence, took a long time to come back down to room temperature.

I remembered the acronym HALT that I heard recently.

HALT stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired.

HALT is a reminder to stop whatever it is that you're doing whenever you find yourself feeling hungry, angry, lonely or tired, and focus on taking care of yourself in whatever way is appropriate to take you out of that state.

So if you're hungry, concentrate on eating something; if you're angry do whatever you need to do (count to 10, go for a run or a walk, breathe deeply) to quell your anger; if you're lonely, telephone someone or go and see them; and if you're tired, get some rest, listen to some energising music, or even take some exercise.

Next time I'm feeling tired and am about to say something maybe I shouldn't, I'll try and remember to HALT myself.

Thoughts as medicine

I was puddle-jumping, fairly unsuccessfully I might add, around my mile-and-a-bit course at 5.30 this morning in the dark with the rain lashing down, and I was enjoying myself.

At one point I was thinking about the new Channel 4 series, The Food Hospital, where they are exploring using food as medicine.

The idea that's it's really important what we put into our bodies is not a new one to me, and it's always quite surprising on these sorts of TV shows how it seems to be a revelation to so many.

But the idea of being able to use food as medicine, I really love.

I would far rather be keeping myself healthy through the food I eat and my regular running than rely on pharmaceutical alternatives, which quite often come with their own unpredictable side effects.

The other thing that I think you can use as medicine is the thoughts and ideas that you allow to settle and take control of your mind.

Have you ever heard the expression "attitude is everything"?

I believe that to be true.

If your attitude is negative you tend to turn in on yourself, feeling sorry for yourself, wondering what the point is, expecting things to turn out badly, and then wondering "what's the point" when they do.

You're not someone others are drawn to when you're in "this space".

When your attitude is positive, you look outwards wondering what the day will hold, you feel joyful, expect things to turn out well, and even when they don't, you find the positive in the experience and look for the next step forward again.

You become someone that others like to be around because they feel the effect of your positive energy.

I met a lady on Monday, when I was coaching a group of 31 teaching assistants, who told me how she had healed herself of cancer by creating what she called an "alpha state" in her mind every morning.

She refused the chemotherapy she was recommended and managed to rid her body of the cancer that had started in one of her internal organs and spread to her lymphatic system in a period of six weeks.

She is now teaching her process to cancer sufferers and others who are trying to stay healthy.

To quote Mahatma Gandhi:

"A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes."

It's only table tennis

My elder daughter, who is an actress and dancer, called me yesterday to say that she was really excited as she had just come out of an audition for a major West End production and had done really well.

She even heard the panel talking to each other about how good she had been as she was leaving.

The funny thing is that she is pretty busy working at the moment so she's not desperate to get the job. It would be great but it wouldn't be the end of the world if she didn't.

While I was running this morning I thought about this in relation to Tim Gallwey's 'P = p - i' formula, which stands for Performance = potential - interference.

The interference is usually the negative self talk in our heads - "I'm going to make a mess of this"; "I really need this desperately so I mustn't go wrong"; "I hate this feeling of pressure".

The thing is, the more we concentrate on what might go wrong, the more our subconscious puts our energy on things going wrong and we lose our natural flow.

Matthew Syed talks about this as the "choking effect" in his book "Bounce".

He says that in order to reach high levels of performance, a performer must believe that performing well means everything. However, that belief is the same one that can cause them to "choke" in a critical performance.

Matthew, who was an international table tennis champion, developed a technique where he would think about his health, his family and his relationships and then finished with the affirmation "It's only table tennis" just before an event.

This was his way of quieting his interference.

How do you quiet your interference?

What lenses are you wearing?

On my run this morning, I was thinking about yesterday evening riding my bike in the dark.

Whenever I ride my bike I wear a pair of sunglasses that have 3 sets of interchangeable lenses.

I wear them to stop bugs, dust or small stones thrown up from a car flying into my eyes.

When it's really sunny I wear my darker lenses, when it's cloudy with odd glimpses of sun I wear the orange lenses, and when it's really overcast or dark, like last night, I wear my yellow lenses, which brighten everything up.

It made me think about the lenses that we choose to wear behind our eyes, as well as the ones in front.

When I'm in a bad mood, I'm dreading what's about to happen, or I'm upset or feeling like a victim, it's like looking through my darkest sunglasses even though it's overcast or dark outside.

I'm unable to see any possibility at all. In fact I can hardly see anything outside myself at all. The only things that are really visible to me are the pain or discomfort inside me.

When I'm on my metaphorical bicycle in dark conditions with my darkest lenses it doesn't really feel possible to be going anywhere on my bike. The safest option is to get off it and push the bike home.

However, when I wear my yellow lenses, even cloudy skies appear to me that there is a glow of light trying to break through, and in autumn the colours of all the turning leaves are turned up to technicolour level.

Like my trusty pair of cycling glasses with the interchangeable lenses, we get to choose what tint the lenses are that we wear behind our eyes too.

What colour lenses are you looking out from behind your eyes with at the moment?

What difference would it make if you swapped them for your rose-tinted or sunny yellow ones?

What might you be able to notice that you can't even see now?

I bet you could go even further on your bike and the ride would be fun too.

The problem with comparing

I was thinking on my run this morning how warm it was considering it's the 1st of November today.

Warm compared with what? Warm compared with how cold it can often be in the month of November.

That got me thinking about how often I compare whatever I'm thinking of with something else.

That song sounds like another song by a different band. That person reminds me of someone else. I did that better, or worse, than I did it last time.

I compare things all the time.

I think that there's also an implied scale of good or bad in these comparisons.

If it's warm compared to typical November weather, surely that must mean that it's good, whereas if it was much colder than I ever remember it in November, I may well consider it to be bad.

It seems to be human nature to compare, and yet it's not something we're born with. We develop the ability to compare with experience.

But is it necessarily a good thing?

Young children look at everything with fascination, awe and curiosity, whereas by comparing what I look at, I've automatically built in an element of satisfaction (if it's better than what I'm comparing it with) or disappointment (if it's worse).

What would it be like if I could drop my comparisons and pretend that I've never experienced this before? This is also true because every day, every person, every song, every experience is completely unique in its own right.

What if I suspended all comparisons and looked at everything with fascination, awe and curiosity again?

I think that would be a good thing.

Running towards your fears

I was out shortly after 5.00 a.m. running my mile this morning, as I had a potential 2-hour drive ahead of me to coach a group of teaching assistants all day on delivering 21st Century Legacy's Be the Best You Can Be! programme.

During my run I saw two cars and three animals, one real and two imaginary.

The real animal was a fox, who trotted a few yards out of my way and then just turned to watch me go by, and the two imaginary ones were a dog which turned out to be a shadow from a streetlamp, and another creature of uncertain species, which turned out to be 2 reflectors on a street name.

There's something about the dark that brings out the darker side of our imagination. Trees sprout limbs, creatures are concocted from all sorts of shadows and even wind noises, and rustling leaves bring to life people who's main aim is our demise.

So what can we do when we're feeling in a dark place and our imagination is conjuring up our own demons?

Well, I don't know about you, but what worked for me this morning was to run towards my demons and to illuminate them by shining my head torch on them.

What helps you to illuminate your demons?

3 ways to avoid disillusion

Setting overly high expectations can be dangerous, particularly if you are convinced that those expectations will be met.

This is not the same as having an inspiring vision, where you are not attached to exactly how it will come about or the timescale.

An example is that somehow I expected that my running would automatically be easier with my brand new "boingy" running shoes.

It isn't. The three runs that I've done since buying the new shoes have been slower than I've run for a while, and have also felt harder.

The danger of unrealistic or overblown expectations is the disillusionment that can easily follow.

There are three ways to limit the damage of overly high expectations.

1. Make sure that what you are doing is ingrained as a habit and is not in danger of collapsing through disappointment. Whereas I might have become despondent and possibly even struggled to keep going with my running a year or two ago, because I have run every day now for 668 days, it doesn't even register on my radar as a possibility.
   
   
2. Make sure you set yourself a secondary expectation along the lines of "Well that would be fantastic, but if that doesn't happen, then at least...."
   
   
3. The third is to step back and look at the bigger picture - the inspiring vision. My inspiring vision for my running is to still be running a mile every day (at least on days where it's possible) until I'm in my 70's and beyond. My last three runs are not significant to that bigger picture. My new running shoes will probably still improve my chances of reaching my vision.
   

On de-educating myself

As I scampered along (see yesterday's post for explanation) on my mile-and-a-bit route this morning, I got to thinking about my 11-month granddaughter, who we babysat last night.

I find it fascinating, because at that age children know exactly what they like and what they don't like. They have none of the politeness that those of us who have been "educated" have, which often means pretending that you like something that you don't, just to keep someone else happy.

So, in many ways little children are much more honest and truer to themselves.

When my granddaughter likes what she's being fed, she opens her mouth for more or tries to grab the food herself to self-administer.

When she doesn't like something, she spits it straight out and wipes all traces of it from her mouth.

So you'd think that at the tender age of 11 months, that must surely indicate that children are self obsessed with no interest in what others think.

But my granddaughter is also highly skilled at creating rapport with others. If you cheer or clap when she does something, she smiles, laughs and does it even more.

She plays to and commands her audience. And yet, she is obviously not doing this from politeness or because she thinks she "ought to".

Maybe my education has taught me not to trust what I want and not to refuse what I don't want, and it's taught me to live my live doing exactly what I think others expect and want from me.

What if I were to de-educate myself to go for what I want, to refuse what I don't want, and yet still choose to have fun interacting others when it was fun and made me feel good?

Now, that could be interesting.

The meanings we attach

I scampered round my 2-mile circuit on a brand new pair of shiny running shoes this morning.

Now a new pair of running shoes may not sound anything special, but if you'd seen what my old running shoes looked like, then you'd know that it was a significant event.

I use the word scamper because that's how my friend in the running shop described my running style after filming me running on a treadmill in the shop.

Someone else in the shop said that scampering didn't sound too bad. Apparently he thought that it sounded like newborn lambs leaping about.

I thought, "Yes, they have very stiff straight legs too."

I found 2 dictionary definitions of scamper.

The first is "the act of moving hurriedly and in a careless manner", which probably describes my running style fairly accurately.

But the one I like better is "to run about playfully."

Isn't it strange what the same words can conjure up for different people.

We all load our own meanings and interpretations onto everything we hear.

The question is which meaning might be more motivating for you?

What young children taught me

I happened to be in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern yesterday for a short time before a coaching appointment.

There were various people standing looking at the exhibit and others sitting on the floor just looking.

But what struck me was that every single young child, that was old enough to walk, in this huge open space was running around, either with a friend, or in some cases just on their own.

They were different ages, boys and girls, but I couldn't see one child that didn't just run around at some point in the ten minutes I was in there.

What is it that makes us want to run when we are young and are in a large open space? And when we were children, we didn't say, "I don't like running. I don't see the point of just running for the sake of it."

Young children run just for the sake of it. They run for the for the sheer joy and exhilaration of it. They run because it makes them feel alive and it feels like fun.

What do you do that has no point to it, but you do it for the sheer joy and exhilaration of it?

Finding the right balance

Yesterday I had another session with my physiotherapist who showed me that when I lean forward when I run, I'm increasing the impact when my feet strike the ground.

He got me to explore the difference in impact when I lean back compared to leaning forward.

It was quite an eye opener.

So on this morning's run, I was experimenting with angles of leaning to see what worked best in my objective to run more quietly.

In between thinking about my leaning, I thought that this was another example of finding the right balance.

Where do you need to tune the balance in your life?

10 words with massive impact

On my run this morning I remembered the email, I received last night, about the coaching workshop I ran for teachers on the Be the Best You Can Be! programme on Friday.

The email said, "Tony was fantastic and the training session went down well."

I don't know how long or how much effort it took the sender of the email to type those 10 words, but it must have been multiplied by a factor of at least 100 in terms of the impact it had on me.

What an easy thing to do, but what a gift to another person!

There's a line in the song "Money" written by Berry Gordy, of Tamla Motown fame, and Janie Bradford that goes, "Money don't get everything it's true. What it don't get I can't use..."

I don't think so.

What simple few words will you say today to express your appreciation of somebody?

Escaping the helter skelter of wrong

Yesterday we were on a bike ride and I caught myself (with a little help) having a good old moan (mostly in my head) because I'd lost track of where we were, which way we should go next, and because this was not how I had imagined it would be.

What I find interesting is that as long as you spend the time in your head telling yourself everything that is wrong with the situation, there is no escape. It's like being on a helter skelter careering madly downwards in a spiral.

There are two ways to step off the helter skelter of everything that's wrong.

The first is to switch your focus from all that is wrong externally, to being curious with what's going on with you right now.

It's like engaging a separate area of your brain from the part that's having a good old temper tantrum.

Engage the part that lets you go "That's interesting what the other part of my brain is doing right now. I wonder what it's really trying to achieve?"

Timothy Gallwey in The Inner Game of Work uses the acronym STOP for this, meaning:

• Step Back
• Think
• Organise Your Thoughts, and
• Proceed
  

The other way is to just ask yourself, "Where is the joy now?"

It's always there if you look for it, whether it's being out on your bike in the fresh air, being with someone you love, in the experience of doing something new.

Formula for successful next steps

I read a quote from David Allen in Michael Bungay Stanier's Do More Great Work shortly before my run this morning, which goes "You can't do a project. You can only do the next step."

I don't know about you, but I have lots of ideas, quite a few of them that I think are pretty good. I have most of them scribbled down in a book or on 3x5 cards.

For most of them, though, I don't have a clear next step. That's why they are still just ideas or projects that I think would be great to do.

If I had clarified a next step for each of those ideas or projects, it would look very different, or at least for the ones that I think are most important to me right now.

There were also some statistics in the book about the likelihood of you reaching a goal that you set yourself:

• 10 percent if you hear an idea
• 25 percent if you decide to do it
• 40 percent if you decide when you're going to do it
• 50 percent if you plan how you're going to do it
• 65 percent if you tell someone you're going to do it
• 95 percent if you set up a time to report back that person on how you did.

Who will hold you accountable for your next step?

What's your best possible start?

Because it's the weekend and I was up a bit later this morning, the heating came on in the house before I got up.

As a result, I had a headache when I started my run, which was with me for most of my two mile jaunt.

However, by the time I got home my head had cleared and I felt much better.

It is amazing just how many times my morning run has enhanced my feeling of wellbeing, whether it's lifted my mood, helped me feel more physically energised and alert, cleared a headache, given me new ideas, or blown away the cobwebs from over indulging the night before.

What do you do to give your day the best possible start?

'Yes, and' keeps the flame alive

Another early morning as I'm heading off to Wickford in Essex to coach a group of teachers to run the Be the Best You Can Be! programme.

Before I went to sleep last night, I was flicking through David Hemery's "How to help children find the champion within themselves", and was reminded of the importance of 'Yes, and', rather than 'Yes, but'.

'Yes, but' negates everything that you say before the 'but' and leaves the recipient with the taste of your criticism.

'Yes, and' validates the person you're talking to and lets you add something to their contribution.

What's most important is that 'Yes, and' keeps the flame of their enthusiasm alive while letting you contribute.

How will you keep someone's flame of enthusiasm alive today?

What are you thankful for?

I have a daily ritual on my morning runs.

I say a thank you in my head for having another morning of life, and a thank you for, once again, being able to run. Then I will say a few more things that I'm thankful for.

Sometimes, though, I find myself almost ticking off a list of things that I say thank you for every day.

When I get into this pattern, it tends to lose its meaning. It just becomes something that I'm supposed to do, and then I've done it and can move on to the next thing.

When I realise that I'm in this rut, then I ask myself questions about what I might have noticed yesterday and what I'm expecting that I might encounter today, and what about those things I'm grateful for.

It makes it all "real" again for me.

This morning I was thankful for the lovely cold, crisp morning.

I was also thankful for the fact that when I attend networking meetings, I usually find it quite a struggle when I first get there, but once I engage in conversation with someone about something real about their life, rather than just idle chit chat, I really enjoy it.

What are you thankful for today?

How not to get commitment

There's a cartoon in David Hemery's excellent little book, "How to help children find the champion within themselves", where a mother is sitting in a car next to her daughter saying "Don't you agree that what I am suggesting will be the best for you?"

Although I have been earning my living as a coach for more than eight years, I still recognise myself now at times in that well meaning mother.

What the cartoon also shows is the look on the little girl's face, which is either angry, upset or possibly both.

So I guess I still haven't got it all sorted!

In fact, although the words were different, that scenario was extremely similar to a situation I managed poorly last night.

I have delivered workshops to business people in the past, describing the difference between compliance and commitment.

Telling people to do what you think they should do generally creates compliance, but no buy in.

Asking people what they think and using their ideas and solutions creates real commitment and buy in.

I still have plenty of work to do!

The 2 key characteristics for success

It was very dark this morning as I stepped out on the pavement for my morning mile.

On this morning's run I got to thinking about my 40-second introduction I am going to do at my breakfast networking meeting I'm off to shortly.

Then I thought about what I've learned over the past 12 years about how important self-awareness and responsibility are for success in any area, whether it's in Olympic or Paralympic sports, business or whatever challenge you're taking on.

By self-awareness, I mean awareness of your dream, your vision or your goal, awareness of what your strengths are, and awareness of the next step you need to take to get there.

Responsibility is about knowing that you are always at choice in taking the steps to get to your dream, vision or goal. No matter what happens along the way, you get to choose how you react.

That's what responsibility is. You have, and always maintain, the ability and the choice to respond.

What's your goal for today and how will you take the responsibility to get there?

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time there was a man who loved to get up early every morning, run a mile and then come back and write his blog.

One morning on a chilly morning just before the sun came up, he was running and he thought how important stories are to life.

People were always telling stories about what someone said or did that they approved or disapproved of, stories of what happened to them the other day, who they had bumped into that day.

He remembered that also hearing certain songs or smelling certain smells immediately took him to stories of his past.

He thought, "Why even athletes who used visualisations, to imagine themselves succeeding before they actually got there, were creating stories of a future they were trying to create."

Then he looked around while he was running and thought I wonder what story today will hold for me?

He also realised that the choices he made that day about whether to be worried, excited, annoyed, thankful, stuck in his thoughts or curious about the world and the people around him could change the story of his day.

Then he wondered...

what story will you, yes you, create today?

Bite-sized chunks

It was beautiful this morning for my run, cold but sunny most of the way, with fog in Happy Valley and a hot air balloon peacefully drifting across the blue blue sky.

I also managed to complete almost 5 miles, which was great with my dodgy left knee.

One of the things I thought about on my run was why I'm still so rubbish at doing my physiotherapy exercises for my knee.

I was told to do some stretching exercises and to then ice my knee for ten minutes, four times a day.

What I realised was that I'm fine with the stretching exercises, there are only a couple of them, but my main stumbling block is the ten minutes I have to allocate to lying down with my leg up, with an ice pack on my knee. This also necessitates changing into shorts each time I do it.

I wondered if I cut the ice time down to five minutes, would that make it more manageable? My conclusion was that it would.

Time management advice says that if a project or task seems too daunting, cut it up into bite-sized chunks. I guess that's what I've done.

What do you need to cut up into bite-sized chunks?

What else?

When I read personal development books, which I do fairly often, I always have good intentions to do the exercises in them. However, what usually happens is that I want to read on, so I plan to come back to the exercises and then never do.

Right now I'm reading Michael Bungay Stanier's "Do More Great Work", and I'm religiously working my way through the exercises.

I can highly recommend the book by the way.

Michael uses the most often used coaching question, "What else?" a lot.

"What else?" is a fantastic question for expanding your thinking.

Most of us come up with an idea and then immediately decide to go with that idea.

It is far more useful and powerful to keep exploring other ideas before making a decision.

It gives you more confidence in your decision to know that you have explored a number of options and the one you choose feels like the best of the bunch.

It is also much more powerful to ask "What else?", as opposed to "Is there anything else?"

"Is there anything else?" implies that there could well not be anything more.

"What else?" carries with it an implication that there is something else, and requires an examination to make sure there is nothing more.

What else could you be doing with your life right now?

The gift of obstacles

I had no idea what I was going to write on my run this morning, until my thoughts went back again to some of the amazing inspiring people I met at the 21st Century Legacy event I attended on Wednesday.

What is common about all really inspiring people for me is their incredible belief and persistence and triumph over adversity that would defeat us lesser mortals.

And then I got to thinking that maybe they weren't always exceptional people who were destined to triumph over every obstacle in their path.

Maybe they were ordinary people who became extraordinary by deciding to take on and overcome their obstacles, whatever it took.

In Matthew Syed's excellent book Bounce, he explodes the talent myth and builds a convincing case that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become exceptional at any complex skill.

It's meeting, challenging and overcoming our obstacles that turns us from ordinary people into extraordinary people whose stories have the power to inspire others and lift them to beyond where they thought they could go.

What obstacles will you welcome and meet head on today?

Never ever give up

I had the privilege of being at an event with a number of Olympians and Paralympians for 21st Century Legacy yesterday.

The message that came across time and time again was to have a dream, to know where you want to go, to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses, to realise that you always have a choice in what to do next, and to never, ever, ever give up.

As Winston Churchill famously said,

"Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

The trap of others' problems

I had a flash of realisation on this morning's run that at one point on my workshop on Monday I got caught in the deadly trap of trying to solve one of the participant's problems.

It's an easy one to get caught in. As humans, we have an almost instinctive reaction that takes us to immediately to trying to solve others' problems.

In my experience, it's far more valuable to help another person explore their problem a bit deeper by asking questions than leaping straight in with your own ideas.

Quite often the problem that's on the surface turns out to be just a symptom. By asking questions, you help others to get to the root of the issue, and solve it themselves.

A far more useful thing to do.

And yet, I know I'll get caught in the trap again sometime.

The trick is to catch myself sooner.

Step outside your comfort zone

On this morning's run, I was conducting a post mortem in my head of the workshop I ran yesterday.

There were several things that I picked up that I would like to do better, including the overall effect of the workshop.

During the workshop we did an exercise on our comfort zones, what keeps us in them, what's available to us when we step out of them, and what helps us to be able to step out of them.

Running workshops themselves is outside my comfort zone, they both scare me and excite me.

But what has been great about this morning is that I have resisted the temptation, that I have so often succumbed to in my life to date, to beat myself up because I stepped outside my comfort zone and I fell over.

I gave myself a score out of 10 on how I did yesterday, I have set myself a target out of 10 for the next workshop I'm running next Friday, and I thought about what I need to do differently to achieve that.

And what's great is that I'm really excited and looking forward to the next one, and even wishing it was sooner.

What helps you step outside your comfort zone, and how can you make it safer to fall and get back up again quickly?

Are you really listening?

On my run this morning I was thinking about my opening introductions to the workshop I'm running today .

One of the stories I thought of telling was the time when I was sitting in a workshop just over 12 years ago, when the workshop leader asked, "Are you a good listener, or have you stopped listening and you're just waiting for a gap to say what you want to say?"

I was shocked because that was exactly what I did, and I had no idea. I thought that was listening.

I had always thought that I was a good listener, precisely because I didn't interrupt people, I always "heard" them out.

But what I realised in that moment was that as soon as I heard something that I didn't like or agree with, or something they said sparked an interest in me, my real listening stopped and I was off in my head thinking of me and my interests, judgements and opinions.

That was a real eye opener (or do I mean ear opener for me) and something that has made an incredible difference to my life, including what I do to make a living.

Are you really listening, or are you just listening to your own opinions about what someone else is saying?

What's your purpose?

I couldn't sleep this morning, so I was up at 6.30 (unusually for a Sunday) with a cup of tea, preparing for a workshop I'm running tomorrow, before venturing out for a 3-mile run before breakfast.

During this morning's run I completely changed my business web site Home and About Me pages in my head, and then promptly came back and changed them on my web site.

And all before 9.00 a.m. on a Sunday morning.

What drove my sudden burst of productivity, was thinking about tomorrow's workshop and the fact that every PowerPoint slide I'm using has a written purpose for it, which is fantastic for keeping a focus on what each is designed to achieve.

This in turn reminded me of the definition of resilience I heard a few weeks ago.

Resilience is made up of positive mental attitude, having supporters and a purpose.

This whole aspect of purpose is key in so many areas.

If you have a purpose, then it's much easier to create a positive mental attitude and supporters will be drawn to your purpose.

So my web site now reflects my purpose.

What's your purpose?

What if this was your last day?

Near the end of my 2-mile attempt to run quietly this morning, I remembered yet another profound thing that Steve Jobs said in his speech to Stanford University students in 2005.

He said that when he was 17, he read a quote that said "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right."

Since then, for 33 years, he looked in the mirror every morning and asked himself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer was no for too many days in a row, he knew he needed to change something.

Now, I don't think he meant getting his will updated and saying goodbye to everyone. Maybe it's like thinking, if I only had one more day of being able to choose what I could or couldn't do, what would I choose to do today?

I would imagine it might be something like spending time with people you love, letting them know how much you love them, and doing what you love doing.

If today was the last day of your life, would you want to do what you're about to do today?

Run quietly

It was a beautiful morning with a clear starry sky at 5.30 as I headed out for my habitual mile today.

I really enjoyed being out there when the rest of the world (the vast majority anyway) were still asleep in their beds. The only souls I encountered were two collie dogs (one of which seemed to fancy coming with me) out for a walk with their owner, and a milkman in his milkfloat making deliveries.

Yesterday I finally had my first physiotherapy session that I've been waiting for since August.

One of the exercises my physiotherapist was a simple instruction. Run quietly.

I like being given exercises like that, although it's not something that comes naturally to me as a runner. Nicky always tells me that I'm very heavy-footed.

Run quietly also reminded me of the opening lines of the Desiderata poem, which I think hold many lessons for me, and probably for others too.

"Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story."

I'll miss you Steve Jobs

It was very sad to hear the news on the radio this morning, before I got up for my run, that Steve Jobs has passed away.

Sad, but not a massive surprise as it's been common knowledge that he has been very ill for a long time.

Once again it makes me feel how lucky I am to have just completed my 644th consecutive day of running at least a mile. Steve Jobs was 56-years-old. The same age as me.

When I think of my post from yesterday about the 2 obituaries, Steve's ideal and actual obituaries must have been one and the same all the way along.

He represented incredible qualities. He had passion. He had creativity. He had extraordinary vision. He had determination and resilience in bucket loads. He had belief that you must follow your heart.

After all, he was fired from Apple, picked himself up, created Pixar, and then was brought back into Apple to revive their flagging fortunes. And revive them he did!

I'm going to finish this post with a quote from Steve Jobs, which I have always loved. He will certainly not be forgotten.

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” — Steve Jobs

First woman to row the 3 biggest oceans

Yesterday morning Roz Savage, a 43-year old Englishwoman, reached Mauritius on her 154th day after setting off from Australia, having rowed solo across the Indian Ocean.

Yesterday, she set a world record of being the first woman to have rowed solo across the Atlantic, Pacific and now Indian oceans.

What makes Roz do what she does?

Well, the catalyst for Roz's ocean rowing career started 11 years ago when in a steady office job she decided to write an obituary for herself. The obituary she wrote was the one that she wanted people to say and write about her when she died.

She then wrote another obituary. The one that would be written about her if she continued on her current life course.

Seeing the huge difference between the two, Roz decided that she needed to take some drastic action in her life.

The rest, as the say, is history.

What is your ideal obituary and the one you are heading for now?

If they are vastly different, what are you going to do about that today?

Running turns up the colour

Running really does turn up the brightness and the colour on my day.

You know when you're looking at photos and they're dull, bland and flat, and if you tweak them in a photo editor you can bring some brightness, colour and the life back into them?

Well this morning was a prime example of how running did that for my day.

I had one of those early mornings where I'd forgotten the point, at least I just couldn't see it.

A mile and a bit later, and today is looking good.

My inner game

Back at home again and I decided to run a 2-miler this morning.

I was thinking about how I often get grumpy late in the evenings when something isn't where I think it should be or someone does something that bugs me.

Then I was thinking about what I should try and do differently when that happens next time.

After a few minutes of failing to think of anything, I remembered Tim Gallwey's book, "The Inner Game of Tennis", a fantastic book that probably led to coaching moving from sport and into the business world.

In Tim Gallwey's book he talks about there being two opponents in tennis, the one on the other side of the net, and the one in your head.

That applies to pretty much everything in life (apart from the bit about the net). There is usually an external challenge and an internal one.

Also, what doesn't work when dealing with the internal one is to point out what you're doing wrong and try to find something that you should be doing more of, less of, or better.

It is always far more powerful to take yourself out of your head (and no I don't mean alcohol or drugs) and to concentrate on something else other than how you are performing.

So, my challenge next time I get grumpy is just to notice it and be curious about what's going on, what I'm trying to achieve and how effective my current strategy is. That's all.

How do you start your day?

I stayed in Hove last night so I got to run along the seafront towards Brighton this morning.

I love doing the seafront run, especially when it's such a gorgeous morning as it was this morning.

There was every age, shape and size out running the seafront this morning. And the rest were dog walkers, inline skaters and cyclists. It was obviously still too early for the sightseers, sun worshipers and those on a day out.

What was even better was I topped it off with a dip in the sea with my family before we went back for breakfast in the back garden.

For me, it's so important how I start my day.

If I want to set myself up for the best possible day, I can't beat starting it with a run.

How do you start yours?

On driving and using the horn

An absolutely beautiful morning again this morning. If this is October give me more!

I was thinking what I would blog about on this morning's run and I remembered something I witnessed whilst walking into town last night to meet some good friends for dinner.

It was quite a common occurrence. A car pulled out of a junction, turning right across the path of approaching traffic, and a driver in another car that was driving reasonably fast took exception to the timing of the other driver's manoeuvre.

His reaction was to sound his horn, not as a quick warning, but a long extended expression of his anger at the other driver.

I wondered what the driver sounding his horn was trying to achieve. If he was trying to educate the other driver to ensure that he was more careful next time, I don't think he probably achieved his intended outcome.

If he just wanted to vent his frustration and make himself feel better, I also doubt that he achieved that.

What if, at moments of anger, annoyance or upset, we all managed to do a timeout, and think to ourselves, "what am I feeling and what would I like to achieve?"

If I would like to dissipate this feeling and return to calm, the first thing I need to do is notice that.

So, next time if you cut me up and I jam on my horn, apologies, but I must have temporarily forgotten my own wisdom.

Lucky man

This morning I ran a slightly modified version of a route I've run before. It is pretty much all hills and comes in at 1.1 miles.

It was beautiful running down across the golf course, with mist in pockets across the greens and the sun coming up, on what looks like it's going to be another glorious hot day.

Is this really the day before October starts?

As I often do on my morning runs, I felt a huge sense of gratitude for being alive, for being able to run like this.

And this morning I told myself to be thankful for whatever wonderful happens to me today, and to make sure that I realise that it happened, rather than miss it because I'm too wrapped up in my thoughts.

I'm looking forward to today.

The best I can be today

I was really struggling with what I could write about on my run this morning, but that happens doesn't it.

Everything goes through cycles: the seasons; day & night; our ups and downs.

It made me realise that you can never achieve being the best you can be.

It's like achieving balance. The moment you gain it, you can't stay there. Something will affect it, whether it's an external factor or a doubt that creeps into your head.

Even if you were the best you've ever been yesterday, you have to make a conscious effort to be the best you can be again today.

It's a bit like running a mile each day. I have to make the choice to do it every single morning.

Today, I'm going to be the best I can be today.

Your 90-year-old self

I've just come back from my run. A head torch morning due to the early hour, although quite warm already.

On my run I was thinking about what I'm going to say in my 40-second slot at my networking breakfast I'm off to shortly.

Then it came to me. The story that my friend Rob told me yesterday.

He was with a client in a coffee shop who had just taken on a big scary challenge and was stuck, not sure of what to do.

Rob pointed to a man in his 90's at a table across the room and said,

"That's your 90-year-old self there in the last moments of his life. What does he want to say to you?"

Apparently that one question has changed that client. He is a different person, fired up, inspired and achieving extraordinary things.

I now know what I'm going to say at my networking breakfast.

Thanks Rob. :-)

Christmas webs

It was like Christmas on my run this morning. It was foggy, and the damp in the fog coated hundreds of spiders' webs with glistening drops on trees, hedges and fences. It really was spectacular!

I can still see a load of glistening webs on the holly tree in my back garden as I sit here writing this.

It's funny how spiders seem to be so feared by so many people.

I have always found them quite fascinating, and the most fascinating thing about them is how they go about spinning their remarkable webs.

They are a lesson to us in strength of purpose, determination and persistence.

If you have ever watched one spinning a web, it is fascinating and, I think, quite beautiful.

And if you have ever pulled a web down one morning, don't be surprised if it's back again tomorrow.

Namaste

I was thinking on my run about how important it is to me to really feel a connection with other people, and I was reminded of the Hindu and Buddhist (I think) greeting of "Namaste".

Namaste literally means "I bow to you", but also has a deeper meaning of something like "the higher self in me bows to the higher self in you".

It also reminded me of the old Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song line, "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with."

I used to assume that was something to do with the free love philosophy of the 60's, but now I see it much more as really connecting with someone else and seeing them for the best that they can be, rather than from the perspective of what annoys you about them.

So, my intention is to hold a Namaste for everyone I come into contact with today.

Let's see how it goes.

Being heard

This morning on my run, I was thinking about what differentiates great work from good work for me.

I realised that with my vision of being the best I can be at waking people up to their potential, all my peak experiences of great work have involved creating a connection between me and other people.

What I also found interesting was that in every example of a peak experience I could think of, the connection I created went beyond the mental level, past a barrier and through to an emotional level.

My great work all seems to involve connecting with others' emotions, and helping them to feel heard, and safe, with their feelings.

When it happens, it is a gift to both the person hearing and the person being heard.

You never know

I ran past a bus stop this morning, and someone had drawn two Snoopy dogs, one big and one small (with their finger I guess) in the condensation on the glass.

It made me smile.

It got me thinking that whoever drew them must have known that the condensation on the glass wouldn't last long, only until it warmed up a bit. They therefore had no idea whether anyone may or may not see their little piece of art.

But I did, and it made me smile, and brightened my morning.

That reminded me of a conversation I had with someone earlier this week. They told me that the last time we spoke (last week), I listened to them and asked a couple of questions about a challenging relationship they were having.

They said that after our chat, they went back and saw the person in question, and on the spur of the moment they decided to do something that I would say was extremely compassionate and a gift to their challenging friend.

Now I don't know how much my questions and my listening helped cause that generous act of compassion, but maybe they did.

My point is that you never know how much your little artistic gesture or your gift of being interested and just listening to someone else, can make a difference to someone else's day, or even life.

Freshen it up

Another blog post on a weekend run.

Wet, but really enjoyable this morning. I was surprised how many people were out on the golf course in less than ideal conditions.

My thoughts on my 2-miler this morning drifted to how I need to freshen things up every once in a while.

Even when something is working really well for me, if I just keep doing it and forget to check in every now and again, it becomes a bit "ho hum", and the same old same old.

So, on my run I came up with the idea of keeping a freshness gauge of between 1 (distinctly stale and past its "use by" date) and 10 (just picked and bursting with flavour).

I realise that this is quite a topical post, as the UK government have just decided to get rid of "sell by" dates, as manufacturers have been using them to get people to throw away perfectly good food and buy more of their products.

But "use by" dates, which stop people consuming produce that could negatively affect their health, will still be very much in evidence.

My freshness gauge can apply to my runs, my relationships (family, friends, clients and colleagues), my writing, in fact almost any aspect of my life.

What about you?

What in your life is slipping down the freshness gauge and nearing its "use by" date?

What could you do to freshen it up?

What will you do to freshen it up?

More than one answer?

It occurred to me on my run this morning that I have more thoughts, ideas and "stuff" that I feel inspired to record in my blog on my weekend runs than on my weekday ones.

Is it because I generally go out a bit later on my weekend runs (this morning it was almost 10 o'clock)?

Is it because I often go a little bit further? (Although today, for example, it was only just over two miles.)

Is it because I tend to vary the route slightly more on a weekend run?

I don't really know the answer, but then I don't think that it's necessarily that important to have the answer.

The most important part, I believe, is to have the initial spark of awareness, and then to feed it by being curious enough to leave the question open.

After all, once you think you have an answer, in my experience it becomes "the answer", and you lose the openness to realise that there might actually be more than one answer.

600 in the bag

So, that was run number 600 and a damp mile-and-a-bit at that.

It seems funny to think that my 14-year-old daughter, who is now closer to her 15th birthday than her 14th, was still twelve when I started my run a mile each day experiment.

My running log on my iPhone also tells me that although it's a mile each day, I have actually run over one thousand three hundred miles since the year 2010 started.

So, while the rain continues to fall, it can't dampen my mood.

It definitely feels like a milestone and one worth celebrating. I think I'll do that with a cappuccino with a good friend of mine in my favourite coffee shop shortly.

Roll on 31st December. I think that two years feels like the next major milestone.

Well done indeed

I was shuffling up a steep(ish) hill on my run this morning when I said hello to a man walking down the hill.

His response was "Well done".

Just those two words gave me a lift.

Isn't it amazing what a simple little thing like a smile, a word of encouragement or congratulations can make?

Anyway, it got me thinking that it is well done to get out there and run in the morning. There are so many people I come across who say "I must get out and run" or I really should exercise.

Each day I go out and run is an achievement. Although I don't want to break my "run" (which is currently at 597 days), there is always a reason why "I would rather not go now", "maybe later" or "what would it matter if I missed one day?".

So, if you've run today, even if you've never run before, well done to you. You have done something worthwhile and I, for one, congratulate you.

"Well done indeed!"

Anything is possible

It was day 591 this morning, which is quite exciting.

600 consecutive days, which I should complete on 23rd August, all things going to plan, feels like quite a big milestone.

After my fairly downbeat post on Friday, this morning I had a really nice (slow obviously) run to pick up the car, which we left at a friend's house after having dinner there, and going slightly over the alcohol threshold whereby it was safe to drive.

Anyway, rather than go the most direct route I chose the more scenic one, down unmade roads, across the Tunbridge Wells Common and through a couple of small parks, which took me just over 2 miles (long distance for me these days).

Despite the slowness of my pace and the niggle in my knee, I felt terrific.

I remembered this morning why it is that I run, and how important it is to my life.

I just had the feeling while I was running that anything is possible. It's something that running gives me probably more than anything else.

I couldn't put a price on that.

Slowly does it

It's been a very long time since I last recorded my progress, thoughts and challenges around my Mile Each Day experiment.

I'm still going, although not strong, at least without a break, having completed day 589 today.

It's all been quite frustrating as the damage I did to my left knee way back in May is still with me, if anything worse now than it was in the first few weeks after I hurt it.

So I'm plodding on, doing my minimum mile-and-a bit, very slowly every day.

I'm just waiting for some physiotherapy that should be starting in the next few weeks.

Aren't questions amazing?

Today was day 552 of running at least a mile every day.

I heard, second hand, of a commentator who said that we all talk about weight loss as a simple equation of not eating more calories than we burn, and discussions tend to concentrate on how we can achieve that.

However we don't look at why it is that we do that. After all, no animals, other than domesticated ones, put on weight due to eating more than they burn.

So what caused us to start eating, and in fact generally consume, more than we actually need?

Have we lost the ability to tell when we reach that magical tipping point that is "enough"?

How do you know when it's enough?

What makes us thrive and excel, and can that become too much?

What's the measure there?

Is it happiness?

Is there such a thing as happy enough?

What happens if you have more than enough happiness?

At what point do you go past happiness into something else?

What are the happiest moments of my life?

How could I have made the happiest moments of my life even happier?

What makes me happy every day?

Aren't questions amazing?

A leg up

After my musings in my last post on the incredible healing ability of our bodies, it's only fitting that my own body should tell me that it needs a bit of help and support for it to facilitate its own healing.

I finally had to admit that I may need to add an extra ingredient in addition to my daily run following a run with my club colleagues last night where I became more and more aware of having to almost drag my left leg around with me.

It was actually even worse this morning when I managed a glorious seventeen minutes to complete one mile. I even gave up on the extra "bit" and walked the last bit home.

I put it all down to an incident about a month ago when, having locked my house keys inside the house, I had to remove a very small window and climb through it. Whilst manoeuvring my way through said window, at one point I had all my weight on my weaker left leg (previous cartilage and ligament football injury), with my other leg still pointing up through the window.

It was at this point that my left leg gave way under me. I appeared to wrench it somewhat and it hasn't been quite the same since.

So I will continue with my mile a day "therapy" but I have decided to also obtain some expert assistance.

All may become clearer early next week. Hopefully!

Enjoying the ride

I seem to have fallen out of the habit of writing my blog lately.

I'm still running though, and I completed my 543rd consecutive day of running at least a mile this morning.

My thoughts have been on both the fragility and also the miracle of life in the past twelve or so hours.

Last night I heard from my mum that one of her best, and oldest, friends passed away yesterday, and then on top of that I witnessed our adopted cat pounce on and proceed to devour a bird.

On the miracle side of things, I watched a recording of the last programme in the excellent BBC series "Inside The Human Body" last night.

Watching this series has made me more aware of what a mind-blowing miracle we all are.

Michael Mosley, the presenter who trained as a medical student, said last night that doctor's can't actually heal people, all they are able to do is facilitate the human body's natural ability to heal itself.

It seems to always come back to the principal that we all have everything within ourselves already to heal ourselves, be successful and thrive. All we need is the occasional support and encouragement to enable us to draw on those amazing resources that already within us.

And while we're about it, we should feel amazed and awed by this miraculous and fragile thing called life that we are riding right now.

Let it be

It's been a struggle this last week or so.

It's funny how the language you use can sometimes make it obvious why you're finding something hard.

It all started with wrenching my left knee when climbing into a very small window in the front of my house after I'd managed to lock my keys inside the house just over a week ago , and has now progressed to pulling my hamstring in the same leg yesterday.

So I've done a lot of very slow runs of a mile and a bit.

And I'm due to be going on a four-day extended running weekend with thirty other runners in three days time.

Anyway, back to me using the word struggle at the start of this post. It is quite accurate for me to describe that I've been finding it a struggle.

But what I managed to do on this morning's run was to make it OK that I was running very slow.

I managed to not fret about what might happen if my leg doesn't get any better or even gets worse.

The words of Paul McCartney came to me,

"When I find myself in times of trouble Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, Let it be".

I don't remember Mother Mary coming to me, but who knows, maybe she did.

And, as another song says, "Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be".

Funnily enough, I'm not actually finding it a struggle any more.