One Shot

Don't waste it

It is nearly twelve months since my late wife passed away, as I am sure you can imagine there have been some difficult days. Maybe not as many as I had experienced prior to her death; sadly, long term illness does at last allow others time to prepare and as I have discovered to partly grieve in advance. We are also at that time of year when fresh hope and new life begins, daffodils are out everywhere, and early buds are showing in the trees. The sound of blackbirds greets us in the morning and the commute to work is now in daylight.

I tend to see the year through the prism of sport, the Six Nations and Cheltenham Festival signal for me at least the end of winter and with The Grand National, The Boat Race and of course the Masters at Augusta I see spring on the horizon a sense of renewed hope lifts me as I know it does others. This way of looking at the year has been with me for so long I cannot recall when I saw it any other way, but this last year I have also learned to look at life somewhat differently.

Like any marriage mine to Lindsay had its downs as well as ups, we all experience them in whatever relationships we have. I suspect however that like me most people do not really notice the bits in between. We can instantly recall the fearful fallouts, frequently over nothing, or the highs perhaps of an unexpected outing or experience and the holidays, but how well do you recall how most of  time is spent? The daily grind to make a business or sporting life (in Lindsay’s case) work, or simply the mundane acts of shopping, doing the washing up. You know, “stuff.”

Reflection of the mundane everyday “stuff” might just surprise you. Hidden in the everyday is often the key to finding our way to further ourselves. You see the thing I miss most is the mundane, shopping for two, cooking at the weekends, someone to listen to my extreme frustration as the England rugby team implode… again! My Scottish grandmother would have loved the scenes at Twickenham last Saturday, although she may have been frustrated at the last gasp action that levelled the scores. She would never have bought a Ford..!

Whilst there is much sadness surrounding the last year, there is also much hope, my loss cemented in my mind that I do indeed have one shot, we all do, that is just one life. We should ensure we don’t waste it, we should be grateful we have the chance, the opportunity to do something that makes the world around us a better place. We can’t all be Louis Pasteur, Bill Gates or Sir Richard Branson, but we can all do something whether it’s helping an elderly person cross the road or starting or growing a business and providing work for others, it doesn’t matter. We must live a life with no regrets.

Lindsay and I had a pact, whilst she was still able to ride horses and compete, I would pour all the resources of time and money I could into helping her, once she retired, I could dedicate myself to my business. Sadly, things did not pan out as we had imagined. In her final days Lindsay gave me permission to move on, it was tough to take and not easy to write here. I have no wish to renege on the pact and so for the last year I have reinvested more money, time and effort into my business and the creation of a new concept to help clients with long term planning, the latter is due to launch soon. One investment that actually began during Lindsay’s illness was to re-join The Strategic Coach program, the founder of which Dan Sullivan created a concept of time management he calls The Entrepreneurial Time system. Something I had first learned over ten years ago but only fully appreciated and acted on when Lindsay became ill, frankly without it I would not have managed to get through things. Since her loss the careful use of time has taken on a new significance, although I am far from perfect at using the system, I am extremely careful at how I manage my time. The split second it took to type that statement has gone, I cannot get it back. I only live in the present, I have a future I can plan and strive for and a past I can do nothing to change. We all do and yet sadly so many people try to live in the past, squander the present and fail to consider the future. Despite knowing all of this before Lindsay’s death I was frequently guilty of the same.

Please use this time of renewal as an opportunity to start that project you’ve been putting off, ignore the two extreme arguments in the Brexit debate and push your business ahead, don’t waste energy bemoaning the political mess (which seems to be a global phenomenon), but seek out what you can do to progress. Make plans to protect the downside, this isn’t negative, after all there’s nothing as silly as living life to the full and ignoring risks, such that you fall flat on your face. That isn’t living in the present, just acting in blind folly.

We all have one shot at life, so please do not waste yours.