“Dealing with events is similar to being a good parent. It is not enough to just show up. You need a point of view and a set of tools. It is impossible to deal with events constructively without being prepared.”

– Phil Stutz, Lessons for Living

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“I want to suggest that to write to your best abilities, it behooves you to construct your own toolbox and then build up enough muscle so you can carry it with you. Then, instead of looking at a hard job and getting discouraged, you will perhaps seize the correct tool and get immediately to work.”

– Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft

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What tools do you have to deal with the day to day?

We turn up to life, that’s a given.

If we don’t, we are dead.

In between birth and death is our choices and the tools we use to navigate and support us on our journey.

Our point of view, or our attitude, informs what tools we select and what we do with them.

What do I carry around with me? How do I carry myself?

Am I prepared?

For what?

A good question.

Some tools have universal applications:

Physical health.

Writing.

A sense of humour.

Patience.

Curiosity.

Love.

A good starter set of tools to cope with most day to day challenges.

“Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought”

– Leonard Cohen, Steer Your Way

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Artists are often asked to state their intention. They sometimes try. But really, this question is the wrong way round. Intention evolves as a result of capacity. You don’t know what you’re doing, till you try to do it. As capacity increases, so does ambition. But when it comes to getting the words on the page, you can only work breath by breath, line by line.”

– Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self

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All writing is created word by word.

The same word can be used for the beginning, middle or end.

I don’t know what I am going to write here, until I start writing it.

Sometimes the words flow and I feel quite happy with the result.

This is when I feel I’ve given my all to the post and do not want to add another word.

Other times it is more laborious.

Today is more of the latter.

I carry on writing because I know I can. Words always appear. They may need to be deleted or rearranged, but they keep on coming.

Today might not be my best work, but I get to try again tomorrow.

There is no danger inherent in bad writing, it’s only words after all.

“Shipping, because it doesn’t count if you don’t share it. Creative, because you’re not a cog in the system. You’re a creator, a problem solver, a generous leader who is making things better by producing a new way forward. Work, because it’s not a hobby. You might not get paid for it, not today, but you approach it as a professional. The muse is not the point, excuses are avoided, and the work is why you are here.”

– Seth Godin, The Practice

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“Amateurs are sometimes separated from professionals by skill, but always by motivation; the term itself derives from the Latin amare—“ to love.” The essence of amateurism is intrinsic motivation: to be an amateur is to do something for the love of it.”

– Clay Shirky, Cognitive Surplus Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age

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I’m a professional, not because I get paid, but because I show up every day.

If I didn’t turn up to my paid job, I’d be in trouble.

I want to be as reliable in the work I choose to do for myself as I am in work for others.

The reward for my diligence is not a pay check or bonus, but in identifying and reminding myself of what is vital and taking action every day.

I work like a professional to satisfy the amateur’s needs.

Because I need satisfy no one but myself.

“A high self-regard and inflated ego can actually limit creativity, as confidence gives way to laziness.

You’ll roll out the same ideas over and over again, many of them powered by hubris rather than good judgement.

And because even the egotistical don’t like an ego-tripping colleague, you’ll eventually be brought back to Earth by envious and irritated enemies.

There’s no telling how the crash will happen, or when it will happen, but the self-satisfied and over-confident will always crash. And as you lie twisted and broken in the wreckage, it’s here that you’ll discover your best ideas.

Because brilliance begins at rock bottom.”

– Erik Kessels, Failed It!

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“Well, I’ve been down so Goddamn long
That it looks like up to me
Well, I’ve been down so very damn long
That it looks like up to me
Yeah, why don’t one you people
C’mon and set me free.”

– The Doors, Been Down So Long

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There is a freedom of inhabiting the world down, close to the ground.

You are unnoticed so your tinkering passes unremarked.

If you lift up into a higher plane it’s because you have built something yourself.

You rise upon solid ground, without the hollowness of the overconfident beneficiaries of nepotism.

But there is no guarantee of a prolonged and steady rise.

The likelihood of crashing back to earth is high.

But it’s familiar down here. There are tools to use. I can work in the shadows some more. There is still the promise of light and success, perhaps.

I make my home on rock bottom. But I built it with wheels. I am ready to move up at any time.

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

– Jesus, quoted in The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagela

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“The interesting thing, and what old Joe Campbell talked about—I was privileged to meet him early in the sixties—is: What does it do to a man or a woman when they refuse the call? It creates a kind of explosive negative force in their life.”

– Jim Harrison, Conversations With Jim Harrison

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What does it do to us to sit on an idea, an identity, a compulsion, a call?

Is it really toxic to ignore our internal impulses?

Only time will tell.

Perhaps it’s a question that can only be properly answered at the end of life.

That sounds a bit long to wait.

What a risk to assume that I can put off my dreams into an infinite tomorrow.

How can I be a little braver today to follow the call to adventure?

Perhaps taking small steps is OK if they are heading in the right direction.

But if I hesitate to move forward, what then?

Will I really destroy myself?

Is it like holding in a fart to save myself from embarrassment?

Will it really smell that bad?

Will it even make a sound?

It’s not healthy to hold in waste gas.

Let it out.

What’s the worse that can happen?

Adventure awaits!

Are you ready?

Pull my finger…

“I learned that the successful product has to appeal to customers, and the criteria they use to determine what to purchase may have surprisingly little overlap with the aspects that are important during usage. The best products do not always succeed. Brilliant new technologies might take decades to become accepted. To understand products, it is not enough to understand design or technology: it is critical to understand business.”

– Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things

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“Always do three things when you present a Big Idea:

1. Tell them what they are going to see.

2. Show it to them.

3. Tell them, dramatically, what they just saw.

To sell work I could be proud of, I’ve had to rant, rave, threaten, shove, push, cajole, persuade, wheedle, exaggerate, flatter, manipulate, be obnoxious, be loud, occasionally lie, and always sell, passionately!

Abraham Lincoln once said: “When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.

To be a successful creative, be prepared for a lifetime fighting bees (even if you sometimes get stung).”

– George Lois, Damn Good Advice

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No one is above selling. We sell ourselves every day.

It might be as simple as worrying about how we are perceived by others. That’s selling. We want people to have a certain impression of us.

We cannot exist without thinking about ourselves in relation to others. Life is not a vacuum but a web.

Some people have mastered the creation of networks, they deliberately spin as big and strong a web as possible.

Others, myself included, neglect those bonds with others. We might seek to build them in our minds with books. But they are the virtual strands of ideas.

It is difficult to seek attention when you have told yourself that you prefer your own company.

But palms need to be greased, audiences need to be entertained for us to succeed in creating anything that lasts.

I have wilfully not sought an audience for this piece, or any of these conversations.

Am I too afraid to sell? Or to miss the mark, or be stung with the indifference of others?

Do I really risk anything in sharing my ideas?

What is the danger of keeping myself off to the side?

There is a fresh pool of water here that is fed by a natural spring of my ideas.

Surely there are some who would appreciate being guided to some light refreshment?

“You must continuously feed the inner beast that sparks and inspires. I contend the DNA of talent is stored within the great museums of the world. Museums are custodians of epiphanies and these epiphanies enter the central nervous system and the deep recesses of the mind…

…My spiritual day of worship is spent each Sunday at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I experience, without fall, the shock of the old…

…Mysteriously, the history of the art of mankind can inspire breakthrough conceptual thinking, in any field.”

George Lois, Damn Good Advice (for people with talent)

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“But what exactly is an artist date? An artist date is a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist. In its most primary form, the artist date is an excursion, a play date that you preplan and defend against all interlopers.

You do not take anyone on this artist date but you and your inner artist, a.k.a. your creative child. That means no lovers, friends, spouses, children-no taggers-on of any stripe.”

Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

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Sometimes the hardest person to find the time for is ourselves.

Not the time with a book or screen in front of us, but the outside, moving, experiential appreciation of the real world around us.

I find it very easy to stay put. Sit down. Stay virtual.

I must battle my inertia to step outside, take a deep breath and explore.

Words cannot be enough to sustain us.

I can stretch the sustenance from books to cover most of my needs, yet I am deficient in a certain vitamin – art.

Time to book myself in for a date with Me, Myself and I.

“A physicist, doctor, accountant, lawyer, garbage collector, etc. without a sense of humor can still be terrific at what they do. But a creative person who is humorless could never produce consistently great work in communicating with warmth and humanity to the vast majority of the populace. Humor in creativity is like humor in life. People often ask me, “Does humor work in advertising?” but that’s a stupid question.

Does anyone ever ask, “Does humor work in life?” If humor is appropriate and funny (if it ain’t funny, we ain’t talking humor), it should “work.” The question should be, “How can you possibly create without humor?” Certainly, in all forms of communication, humor is a natural way to win someone’s heart.

In examining my work, lectures, and books I have written over the years, it’s difficult to isolate “humor” as a category because it runs through almost everything I do – and through most of my waking hours. Humor disarms and makes one more accepting of thoughts and images that could be hard to take in serious discourse. Say something serious in a funny way, and you can win over people every time.”

– George Lois, Damn Good Advice

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“A sense of humour leads you to take pleasure in the discrepancies of human nature; it leads you to mistrust great professions and look for the unworthy motive that they conceal; the disparity between appearance and reality diverts you and you are apt when you cannot find it to create it. You tend to close your eyes to truth, beauty and goodness because they give no scope to your sense of the ridiculous. The humourist has a quick eye for the humbug; he does not always recognize the saint. But if to see men one-sidedly is a heavy price to pay for a sense of humour there is a compensation that has a value too. You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humour teaches tolerance, and the humorist with a smile and perhaps a sigh, is more likely to shrug his shoulders than to condemn. He does not moralize, he is content to understand; and it is true that to understand is to pity and forgive.”

– Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up

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It helps to laugh. In particular, at ourselves is ideal.

It’s hard to be an arsehole if you are laughing. Except, of course, if you are pointing and laughing at another’s misfortune.

It is very difficult to hate the person who is making you smile. Why do you think a sense of humour features highly on dating wish lists.

When my Nanna was in hospital, at the end of her life, she joked in her indomitable East End way, making the nurses laugh.

Her son, my dad, did the same. Making jokes at his own expense when he’d been rushed to hospital. It turned out to be his last night. But my last memory of him is of him making the effort to put his concerned family at ease with some silliness.

I hope I’ve inherited the funny when in peril gene. But not the gene for an early exit by heart failure.

There’s only one way to find out: keep living with a pinch of humour. Practice until the whistle blows for the end of the game.

I’m sure I can at least muster some self deprication, before my family have to suffer from myself deprivation.

“We are all failures—at least the best of us.”

– J. M. BARRIE, quoted in Eleven Rings by Phil Jackson

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“The formula for success is quite simple: double your rate of failure.”

– Thomas J. Watson, Sr. (founder of IBM), quoted in The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson

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We learn more from failures.

Young and successful people can be galling. It’s hard to learn much from youthful success.

The edge for us older guys is our deeper experience of failures.

But it is hard to share how we have messed up. It provokes the ego. But it’s what gives ageing meaning. The accumulation of lessons from failure.

It’s important to take advice in context.

For example, taking life advice from a personal trainer is listening to someone who has one area of their life figured out.

It’s easy for them to lead by example and spout wisdom on health and fitness because it’s what they’ve chosen to focus on.

They have one human behaviour under control.

Advice can be beneficial, but words are easy to type. Dig a little deeper – what actions and experiences formed those words?

I failed at making a living as a personal trainer. It was ignorance of running a business rather than lack of knowledge that caused that failure.

I was too narrowly focused. I was of the naive school of, ‘If you build it, they will come.’

I forgot all my experience from a previous career in sales. I failed to sell myself, failed to differentiate my services and did too little prospecting.

In summary, I failed because of complacency.

The people who deserve to succeed are those that work hardest and smartest.

Working hard, by itself, can keep you employed and able to pay the bills.

What I am still trying to figure out is how to work smart.

Perhaps I should start by trying to learn from my accumulated failures.

How many more attempts at success do I have?

I suppose as many times as I can pick myself up, dust myself off, and have another go.

“There is only one failure in meditation: the failure to meditate faithfully. A Hindu proverb says, “Miss one morning, and you need seven to make it up.” Or as Saint John of the Cross expressed it, “He who interrupts the course of his spiritual exercises and prayer is like a man who allows a bird to escape from his hand; he can hardly catch it again.””

– Eknath Easwaran, How to Meditate

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“Every day is a new opportunity to begin again. Every day is your birthday.”

Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, The Book of Joy

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A day is the most natural unit of time.

The sun rises, we wake up, it gets light, the sun sets and darkness descends. Our bodies go to sleep.

There is no technological, modern imperative that created a day. It is not based on an old Roman calendar. It’s been the same unit of time for billions of years.

That’s what makes it the natural unit to measure our lives. A day is a fresh start, a blank canvas.

There are a limited number of hours in the day for action. We reset ourselves in sleep and start again.

If today was a mess we get to hit reset and do something different tomorrow.

Today I am 14,916 days old.

No need for a party. Don’t send a card. This is a private celebration. Every day. At my desk. I gave myself a present of this blog post.

I am happy to share it with you. Im sorry it’s not cake.

How are you going to celebrate your birthday?