Headspace - Week 7

So, it's Monday evening and I normally sit down to write my weeks reflection on a Sunday, therefore I'm a day behind in the week already. Couple of reasons why this is, firstly I'm in Spain after flying in on Saturday night and secondly, I forgot to pack my adaptor therefore as I sat down to type last night, I quickly found my laptop to be dead. Still, I wasn’t going to get upset as Spain is my place of tranquillity and relaxation, I don't allow myself to be unhappy here (More on this later).

Right, let’s look back through last week and see what we can pull from it. Let’s go with the positives first. Six early morning visits to the gym, three evening boxing sessions and a round of golf. That’s the health side taken care off! My god, I’m exhausted just typing that, let alone doing it. Huel drink consumed every day, no alcohol and all vitamins taken routinely, tick! On the daughter front, no nasty messages received from a certain bully and no more going back to the school where lots of trouble stemmed. Ok, everything seems to be going swell so where is the chaos that I always talk about? Don't worry my friend it will be arriving soon.

First, I want to talk about the word happiness. It's something that's been puzzling me ever since I started to read the book 'Lost Connections' by Johann Hari, you will remember me mentioning this in week five of Headspace. So here is the thing, am I happy right now? You know, I think I am. Now that's not to say that things or moments couldn’t be better and there are definite situations I could do without, but overall, I do feel happy. So why is this? I think it has something to do with a line I heard from 'Mo Gawdat', if that’s the first time you’ve heard that name then please look him up. Honestly the man is a true genius, and I never use that term loosely. Anyway, Mo states that the world we live in and the influences around us always tell us to look up. Think about that for a second. I am preached to always try and be someone else, someone better, achieve more things, take inspiration from those more successful than me. To do this, I need to work harder, hustle better, dream bigger, aspire higher. In other words, drive to always be better than I am. Honestly, when you think about it, how can I ever be content with who I am, if I must keep being smarter, wiser, stronger, fitter, more ambitious and richer. Are these intrinsic values or extrinsic? I going to go with the latter. This surely is an expectation of others and how the world will view me, it's not really a value I need to prove to myself. Now back to Mo, he wants us to start looking down. You see, when I flip this and stop trying to be Mr 10X, I begin to realise a few things. I have a beautiful wife, three fantastic kids, my mum living next door, the greatest dog in the world, businesses that I truly love including all the people who work within them. I have a nice house (not a mansion), nice car (not a Ferrari), a villa in Spain on a golf course, apartments that I rent, money in the bank (not millions) and good health (currently). Let's be honest, it's not a bad portfolio. So, if I look down, am I in a better position than I was five to ten years ago, absolutely. Should I be content, yes. Do I need more, No. Does that mean I'm going to stop, most definitely not! What I'm going to do, is keep being happy, not try and model myself on others with admiration or sometimes jealousy and not be influenced by those who look like they are better than me. Now please don't take this the wrong way, I'm not and I'm sure Mo isn’t, saying that we should look down on people. What he means as do I, is that we should cherish and love the things that we have been blessed with. Just being born in the UK is a blessing when you compare it to those who are born in poorer countries exposed to drought and famine. Living in a country that does not hold the devastating impact that a country invaded like the Ukraine, places us at a huge advantage to life, then there is the tragedy of the earthquake in Syria and Turkey, these are things we don't have to contend with. In other words, we have so much to be grateful for.

Now, before someone says anything, I understand that people reading this may be going through hard times and as such will feel it's easy for me to talk about happiness, but remember the original question I was asking myself, which was 'am I happy’? Now of all the things I rhymed off about myself, let me really take stock on the things that matter. If I lost all the material things tomorrow, could I still be happy? I believe strongly that I could be. To put a bit more meat on the bones, I'd hopefully still have my wife, after all she married me when I quite literally didn’t have a pot to pee in. Would my kids desert me? I believe I raised them better than that. Could I still do a job I love? I think people would still want me to teach them in classrooms and there is plenty of jobs in the care world and I absolutely loved, in fact still do being a carer. Therefore, yes, when I changed my perspective in life and stopped trying to be somebody else, I believe that this is when I started to become happy and I'm sticking with that. What is very interesting is when I link happiness to the monetary value in my life and realise that as soon as I started to do things I truly loved, financial reward came my way, however when I tried to make a quick bob doing things I didn’t really care about, I quickly lost a quick bob. Therefore, I believe that love, passion, and reward come hand in hand. Quick note for myself, stay away from the stock market, you don’t love it, you’re not passionate enough and you lose money.

Right, on with the show. I'm going to introduce you something that you might find a little strange, but I want you to try it for a day and see how you get on. Now, it's important that you don’t do this out load or people may be asking you to see a psychiatrist. Ok, first thing I need you to do, is to choose a name for your brain, if it helps, mine is called Polly. I'm sure you can choose something more exotic. The next step is to realise that you are the CEO, and your chosen name works for you. To make things simpler, I'll explain my relationship with Polly. As the CEO of Me, Polly is one of my most treasured employees, she has a great team around her, namely the lungs, heart, liver etc and seems to manage them quite well. That said, whilst I will always take advice from Polly, she does not always come up with the solutions I need, in fact, when I let her take charge in decisions, all hell breaks loose. My job as CEO is to control Polly and from time to time let her know who the decision maker is. Polly is designed to alert me to certain things, these things can include danger, excitement, negativity, anger, frustration, laziness, and she uses a complex system called thought. The thing is you can't stop Polly giving you these thoughts and you don't want to, but Polly is the sort of person that will run around shouting the building is on Fire, we are all going to dye and not allow you to focus on the next actions needed. This is the bit where you’re going to look a bit mad. I need you to take the advice and then speak to your brain, in my case Polly. Remember, she is an employee, giving you advise. If you don’t think the advice is helpful, instruct her to find a better solution, or tell her, you will deal with this later. In other words, take control. You can train Polly to act differently. Build the positive controlled muscles and not the negative depressed muscles.

Let me give you two examples of how this worked for me this week. First account, I was sat talking to my daughter about a serious issue, you will know what I am talking about if you have been reading Headspace. During our conversation, i noticed tears streaming down her face. I explained quickly about the brain conversation and got her to name her brain, she called hers Dolly. I asked her what Dolly was saying to her right at that moment, she told me that Dolly was telling her to go and get a tissue. At this point, I got her to tell Dolly that she would get a tissue in two minutes time once the conversation had finished. What happened next was amazing, the tears immediately stopped. Gracie just proved that she was controlling Dolly. For the rest of this week, she has reminded me that she is a CEO.

The second example was Friday. I was playing golf or attempting to. For some reason, I couldn’t drive from the tee or putt on the green. I could feel my frustration growing, in fact at one point, the club nearly ended up in the lake! Every time, I stepped up to the ball, Polly was telling me ‘Don’t screw this up like you did the last shot'. In all honesty, Polly was in control. At the ninth, I remembered to take back control and as I approached the ball, I told Polly to be quite and find me a memory of a putt I had made from this sort of distance before. Within milliseconds, Polly came with a new thought and memory. Lone behold, I stepped up to the ball, no shaking or panic and smoothly stroked the ball to make the putt.

Gosh, we seem to have gone deep this week but remember these are my thoughts and I'm a bit mad. It just goes to show the things I think about each week. Honestly, I've never been short for words writing these each week and it's always something completely different. I'm trusting that you’ve stayed with me.

So, what other things have I been up to this week. Well on Thursday I took the whole office team for Lunch. This was a show of unity. It's been a tough few weeks for the office team and they’ve certainly been under the cosh, somethings of their own doing and somethings outside of their control. In life you need a breather and reward should not come only at times of success, sometimes when it's not going so well, take some time out and sit together, smiling and laughing whilst the boss is paying. This is about creating an atmosphere where you understand that the sun is not always going to be shining and when it rains, it's best to huddle together. I've got to say, the solutions started to flow because of that lunch, so it was justifiably money well spent.

Right, time for the Chaos. Picture this, it's Saturday morning, I've just finished two hours at the gym working on my legs, therefore I'm in considerable discomfort. I'm ready to head home and begin to pack as I have a flight to catch in a few hours. The phone rings, it's my Operational Director. "Paul, I have some bad news" what is it? "The Office Manager has resigned with immediate effect due to unforeseen circumstances" My response 'Bloody hell she has only been there two weeks'. Now internally, Polly has started shouting, cancel the flights, get everyone in the office, call the office manager now and find out what’s gone on, it's unacceptable. Ok, Polly calm the hell down, the world has not ended. Let's have a conversation with the Operational Director who is on the phone right now and find out what plans can be put in place, so that’s what we did. Hence why I'm sat in Spain, and the business is still flowing. When you think about it, the resignation is a pain in the bottom, but let’s face it, I’d rather it happens in week 2 that week 12 or 6 months in, when you have spent considerable time implementing them. I'm sure, very soon I will find the office manager who will be there for years to come.

So that's it for the week. It's 7.30pm here in Spain and I need to go and spend some evening time with the family. Oh, and then there is the Merseyside Derby, Come on Everton.

Let’s finish it off in the usual style, what have we covered this week.

1. You’re not allowed to be unhappy in Spain.
2. Look down, not up.
3. I am happy.
4. Mo Gawdat is the man.
5. Control Polly.
6. Reward in the tough times not just the good.
7. I need a new office manager.
8. I don't like Liverpool.

Have a wonderful week everyone and as always, thank you for reading this. I'm always hopeful that you find something from it, that might make a difference to your life. I'd love it if you would leave a comment. Have a wonderful week everyone.?