Start planning for 'Gains not Pains'.

So what do you think? I just had these cracking pictures pop up on my timeline from 2015, the boy done good hey!

Well, we all love it when we have a name to drop or a witty story to tell, but after a quick smile at my horrendously short hair, I stopped and thought about this crazy year 2020 and it how compares to just five years ago. 

After which I felt a little compelled to say some stuff out loud and relay a conversation I had last week about resilience, positivity and social mobility, all in true Deanism fashion. So, told through a little life story about how you can be better…no matter who or what you are, or where you’re from. 

Deanism - The act of justifying an otherwise irrational decision or comment, through the application of dean only logic, logical fallacies, and liberal use of arithmetical somersaults, linguistic confusion and a correlating story.

So let’s all just start with a big dose of PMA, Positive Mental Attitude. We all need the right attitude to carry us, no, not just carry us, but sail us to the other side of the infamous 2020.

No more negativity

I don’t know about you, but I for one have had my fill of people blaming everyone else for their issues, grabbing 5 minutes of fame and bandwagon on anything that gives them a perceived freebie or woke angle…Its time we stepped up and were counted!

No one wants to be accountable for their actions anymore, its always the fault of someone else, or if not, then its the government. If you are not going to be accountable for your actions, you definitely cant be accountable for your successes either.

At this time, the UK appears to be more divided than ever before. Our media just love and live for bad news, fuelling negativity at every turn and on every page stoking angry engagement and increasing division.

More positivity please

Well it is now the time to say NO, you can shove this rubbish where the sun don't shine. I won’t accept this tirade of crap from journos, the people who do nothing with their life, other than criticise those who actually do.

Yet compared to nearly any other moment in human time, for the last 100,000 years, we have lots of positives to push and be proud of.

Start with having a look back at what you’ve done, how far you’ve come, what you’ve achieved, how many people’s lives you have made better just with your existence…then smile as you write them down. Believe me, you’ll have so many more to remember in the future its great to store them.

Just like these self-indulgent pictures of me in the Downing Street garden, its a proud marker for an achievement and a little story to tell. 

Rise above

If you had asked me 25 years ago when I was living with my parents, on a red-brick council estate in London, somewhere I had lived for 19 of my then twenty years; -

 “Do you think you’ll ever go to number 10?” 

I would have asked “in which block?”

So why take it back two decades? I hear you ask. Well here is my little war story of social mobility in tough times. 

As with most London estates, we had our fair share of crime and violence but to us, that was just life. When I reached my teens and started watching friends gain their badge of honour from Feltham young offenders and then adult prison, I knew it wasn’t for me. I was never going to be dragged into that life. Not only did I want more from myself, but also for my future family.

Just to add a little sauce to this scenario, this isn't about my concern with friends behind bars...You do the crime, you do the time!

At one point I had to move out of my home to live my cousin after I decided to step in and stop someone being beaten badly with a bat.

That choice to step up, step in and help, changed my life path, it ensured that over the following few years I was attacked and had to defend myself from these gang members at several functions. I had a knife put to my throat on more than one occasion, a slash wound across my backside and before the police eventually made arrests, I was even shot at…obviously not by a marksman, as thankfully the wally missed! 

Aha! See, much spicier than you would have expected in the background of the once youngest CEO on the stock market (Motley fool), but it’s all true and it was definitely character building.

However, during this horrible time, it didn't stop me once from me being me and doing the things I wanted and needed to do. I wasn’t ever going to be a victim. 

Just like now, in 2020, the biggest thing you have to fear, is fear itself.

It wasn’t a short experience, the violent encounters last 3 years. Luckily, I had already decided to remove myself from the estate scene, concentrate on my boxing, football and of course dreaming of what seemed to be unreachable life goals.

Be a dreamer

As my teachers used to tell my parents, Dean’s a bit of dreamer, who should probably concentrate more on his school work than focusing on the clouds.

You know silly stuff like imagining owning a nice car, with a detached house and a garage, holidays abroad and even a city job with a Miami-vice suit. It all seemed so far away from where I was.

Plan for the gains to lose the pains

So why mention a youth war story about gang trouble, we've all got one of those ….Because it’s not about the PAINS, it’s all about the GAINS!

Every cloud has a silver lining. 

So at the troubles peak around my 21st birthday, I decided to refocus myself, writing down 10 clear life goals. I read them so religiously(for all of two weeks) and almost immediately I started to feel like I was moving in the right direction.

I swapped reading the Sun and Viz, for the FT and The Times. Mainly because I started regularly applying for jobs that I was so woefully under-qualified for, such as non-executive director in an oil company and a high-level management role at an American telecoms giant.

Why?

Because I was still a dreamer, thinking aloud like in Brewsters millions, I could be one of those plucked from obscurity by a blue-chip or billionaire that wanted to reach out. ….Plus unbeknown to me at the time, the standard letters that I kept receiving from HR departments to say that I had not been successful, weren’t because I had actually been considered for the role!!…but each one lifted my confidence.

So, my message is - let’s get back some of that amazing youthful spirit we were all born with. From a time when you hadn’t been fed all the life limiters and low expectations, you know when anything seemed possible. Because it really is.

Don’t sit there and pre-empt the NO’s; that just stops you from trying in the first place…The world will not stop spinning if it doesn't work first time or any other time!!! 

Keep a focus on what you will be, no matter how far away it seems, it will keep you motivated and ensure that you bounce out of bed, everyday.

I still set my goals, with lots still to be achieved, but at 21 years old, one of those ten that I penned down was:

7. Meet the Prime minister in person. 

Outlandish, I know, but hey I liked a challenge and how far up the chain could I really go?  

Who higher than the person in charge of the whole bloody country. I could see it in my mind’s eye, me a bone-china cuppa of earl grey and a conversation where I’m dropping Deanisms about what I do and how fantastically great I am, at this thing I hadn’t even figured out yet.   

Two decades later, I was formally invited to No:10 by the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, as a ‘thank you’ for business services to education. 

It wasn’t for many weeks after, that it actually dawned on me that it was number 7 of the goals I'd written down 20 years before. 

Sometimes we are just too busy being busy, we don’t stop to dream and blue-sky.  

Well 2020 is definitely the time to make time. Time to think big and to set out your goals, otherwise your life will quickly pass you by.

As Abe Lincoln famously said - 

 ‘The best way to predict the future is to create it’. 

Even if it feels bad now, it won’t last, it never does, the sun will rise every morning and you will too. Everything worth having takes effort.

So don’t waste your valuable energy and emotions on the crap and negativity we are being bombarded with. It really is just playground stuff that you can rise above.

Be strong. 

I’ve written a bunch more goals off the back of seeing these pictures, not because I didn’t have enough, but because I want every minute to count on my Calendacious…. My name for my calendar full of audacious goals!

See you on the other side.