Life 2.0: Living your best life

Jonny Frostick's Life 2.0: Living your best life

Opening words

Well two weeks went rather quickly didnt it! It's been very busy in camp Frostick; I've switched roles into a short term piece to enhance and mature some governance activities. I've been improving my fitness and getting to swim at least 4 times per week. I still have a mental blocker getting into the weights though I'm not sure why. I listen to my own counsel though on this, I'm not aiming to run at fitness and fail - I'm building healthy habits and building discipline for sustainable progress, and carve the body of a god over 2 years... (yes I am laughing to myself when I wrote that last tag line).

One huge lesson I'm learning right now is also about downtime. In honesty I have never been too good at taking time out. So now every weekend (generally) we go out as a family and do 'family stuff''. The past weekend we headed to the park Saturday and then play and dinner on the beach on Sunday - in honesty it was the best weekend I can remember.

I felt strangely guilty; I've spent the best part of 20 years in Corporate so focused on the next 18 months, the next 5 years, that I forgot totally about being in the present.

Whilst I cannot get that time back, I know now that I am making the right choices, spending time with those whom I love, doing things that I love to do (especially DIY and working on my home - and there is a huge backlog to do (as my wife regularly reminds me...), and focusing on me in those rare moments to see how I can improve. Even now, we are planning to head out. My wife knows this newsletter is important to me, LinkedIn appeared to be offline for most of yesterday so I'm here now with my coffee, the kids are laughing in the kitchen and having breakfast, and we're getting ready for another great weekend. Great because I'm living in the moment. Time truly is our most valuable asset, you can keep the IWC thanks, I'd much rather have an ice cream in the park with my kids.

I hope you enjoy this edition, I cover my three pillars to living your best life, namely:

• Career and Personal life
• Health and Wellbeing
• Wealth

Thank you for subscribing and following me. If you think someone else would benefit from this, please do forward it, invite them, or even just share a story or knowledge from what you read.

As always with very best wishes.

Jonny Frostick

Career and Personal life

Career

When I started my career in Corporate, I didnt really even know what I wanted to do. To some extent I still dont. I am a generalist, I haven't specialised in one particular technology or practice. I am a Change and Transformation leader; Basically that means I work where organisations are focused on changing, augmenting, revolutionising how or what they do - and generally I have been in the technology side though I sit and play well across both Business and Technology. I've often said that I feel there is still money for common sense - but the role of a consultant, and I feel very much one, is about providing perspective and framing the problem and subsequent solution. I dont think I could do the same role for 30 years, I'm not knocking or suggesting that doing that is a bad thing, its just that my train of concentration would waiver, I'd get bored.

Asking why we do the things companies do, in the way they do them. Instead of being constrained by 'specialism', I ask and challenge 'why do we do it that way?', 'why dont we do it like this?'. Often legacy processses and solutions are still stuck in that frame of mind "We do this because of X". Its just an evolution of how its always been done - but it doesnt mean its the best way to do it. Some of the best lessons early in my Banking career were learned through my own frustrations with process. Why are we doing this?? This doesnt make sense?? "Because thats what we do" - BUT SAID WHO!!! It was a grind, I felt like I didnt really fit, but when I then returned to Consulting in 2012 suddenly everything clicked into place.

You see, its also about solution positioning. Often organisations have the answers but are constrained by their process and culture. Great ideas are lost by great people as their voice isnt heard. People leave the company and take those same great ideas elsewhere and finally get validation, a sense of relief, they are listened to.

The great thing about being a consultant is that your perspective is listened to - you are looked to for the answers, the results, the insight. Its a tough gig as its like having three jobs (Client, Practice, internal works) but its also the most rewarding. Thats why consultants make potentially great employees - they are stretched and cast in some unbreakable material having been put through a lot of change, challenge and delivery in relatively short periods of time.

So what can you learn from this?

1. Perspective is everything: You shouldnt shy away from developing your own opinion, view or insight. You should also not be shy in voicing it. Just be guarded with whom you share that. Some people will steal your idea and pass it off as their own, others will want to hear it, but not accept it as it 'doesnt fit with the company thinking', and thats okay - you can take it to where others will listen
2. Positioning: If you have insight you want to share - treat it like a mini project, especially if you are more junior. Prepare a deck, build out your idea and arguments, clearly define the benefits, how you think it fits with the industry. Then share that - not just with your manager - get it in front of your MD, ask for time to sit with them on a quarterly basis for coffee.
3. Pitch: Every conversation is a pitch: Everyone you talk to is weighing you up. You'll make friends of work of course, but most conversations determine how others perceive you. I've done well at this, and also spectacularly fallen foul of the same. I've just got to the point where I've learned to not seek validation from others - I'm comfortable with me and dont seek acceptance.

Personal

I think relationships we have with others are so important. From our early childhood we make friends and surround ourselves with people that we trust. Over time, those relationships mature, change, grow and end. Its difficult to consider then what makes a good relationship as you get older. Its actually really difficult (I find) to make good friends in your later years, its rare that you find people (and again I talk from my own perspective!) whom you really like, or just gel with.

When we are young, I think we are more open, forgiving, less opinionated and also just more naive and innocent. There comes a time in your life that you do have to consider whom you surround yourself with. I have a great friend I made later in life called Alex, and we started out hating each other (not venomously, though he said he really wasnt keen!). Its more that we were very similar to each other. Over some Old Fashioned's one evening at a work do, we suddenly realised how much we had in common - and we've been each others Best Man since.

Importantly though, there will be some people in your life that you dont benefit from in a positive sense. Perhaps they are a bad influence, perhaps they have different opinions, perhaps you need to make time for yourself and other friendships. When these things become apparent, its not a bad thing to let things go. Generally people will naturally gravitate to you where its appropriate and where you need.

In order to grow you need to be around people who are perhaps already where you want to be, or be away from those negative perceptions in order to be received or invited into a conversation that could be the beginning of a new friendship.

There is a great expression that we are who the 5 people around us are. Usually the expression on social media is focused on being a Millionaire ( and its probably true also). but it lends itself to much more.

So think about who you associate with, you're already being judged for that by others and picking up good or bad habits - its your choice...

Health and Wellbeing

Health

With the summer months upon us, most will be reaching for the diet book, googling "How to lose 10kg in a week", or "How to get abs in 5 mins a day" (Jonny's wisdom: You already have them, they are just covered in fat).

Its all about calorie intake Vs expenditure. Thats really all it is. I use now a fitness app with a free version called MyFitnessPal. It allows amongst other things for me to track what I consume. When I first did this, I was amazed (read shocked) to see I was consuming near 3k calories and beyond in a normal working day.

There are of course things you can do, but dieting ultimately isnt sustainable. You need to make medium/long term changes in order to get and maintain a healthy body. You can be skinny as hell on the outside but your cardio system can be absolutely broken on the inside. Its about a healthy balance of nutrition, exercise, mental wellbeing.

Diets only give you a calorie deficit, thats why you lose weight. You go on holiday, you come back, you put on weight, your heart doesnt get exercised, your arteries continue to clog, your body still operates under duress and stress (which are all unseen) to the conscious mind.

So its about balance. Recognise in order to be a great performer in work, and / or outside of it you need to have a healthy body and mind. This week my favourite PT Andy Mee summarises the main challenge on getting the body you want.

Andy’s Social Channels:?LinkedIn?|?Instagram

Wellbeing

This edition our now appointed 'inhouse' mental health and wellbeing evangelist Nick Jemetta talks to us about the importance of mental health, and why its not just something to recognise for May (Mental Health month), but all year. Nick is at the forefront of the conversation, sharing his own journey and educating others on the importance of mental health awareness.

May is Mental Health Month?. Or at least that’s what you might think given the flurry of content on social media.?May is Mental Health Awareness Month in the USA and we had Mental Health Awareness Week in the U.K.?I’m a big advocate of creating awareness about mental health, particularly in the workplace.?

When we create awareness, we start conversations. When we start conversations we make people feel safe and less alone. But what happens when those conversations stop?? Like a Puppy, Mental Health is not just for Christmas. It’s a topic that needs ongoing discussion and dialogue, until it becomes so normal (and de-stigmatised) that we don’t need to talk about it anymore.

That doesn’t mean we stop helping people, and it doesn’t mean we don’t try to empower individuals to thrive.? It means we move the conversation from awareness to action, reactive to proactive, fixing to preventing.?

Mental health shouldn't be a priority only in May???

Nick’s Social Channels:?LinkedIn?|?Twitter?|?Instagram

Wealth

I found myself recently reviewing my pension pots. I have a little across 4 pots, not much but then I always approached this with the attitude "I'll work that out later". Now later is upon me and I now race to backfill and plan for retirement in 15 years (with a target of semi retirement in 10). I'm consolidating two of my pots. I looked at the tragectory and thought thats rubbish, I looked at another and thought that works - these arent high risk pension pots, but low / medium risk, So I've kicked off the process to transfer the funds.

Its often overlooked, and I spoke to a good Uni friend the other week whom I hadnt spoken to for at least 15 years. We picked up where we left off almost, though he now has an Aussie twang. He stuck with the same firm for 17 years, made partner, and probably already has a good size pension. But he also got into how even alloted shares have grown.

Thats one thing that everyone can do, and it doesnt even have to alloted by your employment company. You can go to market today, and buy shares or investment products. But why would you do this? Four words: Compounded growth / Mutual funds

Personally though I used to spot patterns on my Bloomberg terminal back in 2001, I have never much been good at predicting share prices or growth. I came from a background where I was the first in the generations to go to University. Thats not an excuse, I just didnt focus on it.

Compounded growth is one of the most referenced terms in wealth creation. But you need to start as early as you can. So how does this work?

I've used an example here and I've punted for an optimistic 14% average growth, with 3% variance above / below. I put in $10k (I'm in the UK , but this is purely for example). I then opt to invest $100 a month for 25 years. Total investment $10k initial lump sum, plus $30k payments over 25 years. Thats a total investment of $40k, the result, a whopping $483k.

So get started. You can choose funds that give you a good spread across various investments, and some focus for example on Technology, fuels, retail, market index trackers. You just need to start somewhere. The markets are yet to fail over a long period of time. Even on historic data and with the recession crash of 2008, on the data, it was just a blip.

YOU today have the possibility to create wealth for the future. Just imagine that instead of $100 a month, you invested $500 a month...We can all be wealthy, you just need to know how. Again, too late for me on this approach, but not too late for me to invest for my children.

Closing thoughts

I often think that I am out of time. But I am ONLY 46. I had to start with less than nothing when I was 40 following divorce. When I got divorced I couldnt even afford my rent, I was drawing down on one of my credit cards to make up the shortfall in my income to pay the rent so my daughter could still come and stay with me overnight once per week.

I walked past a watch shop and I saw a TAG watch. I really liked it. My dad was with me another time and I stopped and we looked at the watches in the window. My dad said I should go and try it on. Then we sat there and he said I should buy it. I said "dad I cant afford to buy this watch". It was ￡1500 on offer and I could pay monthly over 12 months. He replied "You can't afford not to buy this watch". I asked him why. He responded "Every time you look at this watch, you'll be reminded that its time to make it happen". I bought the watch, I pushed myself forward, and effectively tripled my income within 6 months.

Who is Jonny Frostick

Jonathan Frostick is a Transformation and Change Leader, Speaker, Mentor, disrupter, and business professional. He became famous for his?LinkedIn post?where he made a series of affirmations to himself in how he would live his life and work going forward, on the basis he didnt die.

He has made it his mission to educate and influence both individuals and companies, to share his learnings, wisdom, insights, mistakes and successes. As he says, the best lessons you can learn are the ones you didnt have to pay for yourself.

Jonny’s Social Channels:?LinkedIn?|?Instagram?|?YouTube

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