Good Morning Beautiful - The The

I do love a dark song to start the day, and the 1989 classic ‘Good Morning Beautiful’ from The The, always searches deeply into my inner soul as I prepare for my day ahead. The amazing thing is, that you can never truly plan for what the day has in store. One moment you are sat relaxing on a sofa enjoying a fresh cup of breakfast tea - the next you are chatting to Richard Dreyfuss (him of American Graffiti, Jaws and Close Encounters to name-drop a few) as I waited to be interviewed by Chris Evans on his Virgin Radio Breakfast Show (he said name-dropping again).

An out of body experience if ever there was one and my fluent gibberish was in full flow. For the record both Chris and Richard are amazing, and it made me realise just how lucky I am as I’m constantly amazed by where my exploits have taken me and by who I meet along the way.

Maybe the song was telling me something - You see I first heard it when I was in the darkest period of my life, out of control in what felt like a ‘Living Hell’. The lyrics say that ‘The only path to heaven is via hell’ and maybe that’s the truth. If you’ve been there, you’ll know.

What does tomorrow have in store, well I’ve a good idea but no doubt there will be a few ‘Close Encounters’ along the way.

1,040 Marathons - 252 Ultras - 15 Marathon des Sables - 9 Guinness World Records

For what it’s worth - Buffalo Springfield

It looked a bit like this...

I’m glad I came up with the following ‘Quotebox’ earlier today, ‘Success comes at a price - Failure is free’… as it got me speaking with my old friend Andy McMenemy. He’s a pretty cool and inspirational guy and apart from the usual banter, we’ve decided that we ought to podcast ourselves out to the masses. Who will breathe-in first or name-drop the most - well, we’ll have to find out, but it is interesting speaking with someone else, whom is super-motivated and paying the price for their own success?

Let’s face it, nothing’s free - even life’s basics Air and Water for the car are £1 at the local filling station and no doubt somewhere sunlight comes at a ‘Cost’.

Anyway, 3-2-1 and back in the room and the point of today’s blog is all about ‘Value’ as that’s a whole lot different to how much things ‘Cost’.  How much something ‘Costs’ is what someone else is prepared to pay for it. ‘Value’ well that’s a completely different subject. I remember being shown one of the most valuable vintage Porsche cars ever built, one with a £1M+ price tag. I must say it did nothing for me. The average Top Gear addict would probably be salivating just to be next to it, but for me it had no ‘Value’. It was both ‘Priceless’ and ‘Price-less’ as it wasn’t worth anything in my world.

You certainly wouldn’t fit a family of four, armed with car seats, double buggy and half a ton of luggage in that posh ‘People’s Car’. My boys’ sticky fingers on the paintwork and leather upholstery would give the owner a mild heart attack for sure. The same goes for David Gilmour’s guitars that were recently auctioned for $21.5M. For that you get the guitar but sadly not the man - so again nice, but of no ‘Value’ to me. The ‘Value’ towards global warming - well hopefully more.

So - ‘Why we put such a high price on things but not ourselves?’. ‘Why do we think we are worthless?’. Why is a car or a guitar worth so much yet, we won’t invest in ourselves or our own future?’

Great questions I believe, and I still have to fathom out why, people just don’t understand their own ‘Value’. Everyone’s worth something, right? Anything you believe in is worth the investment? As it’s not about money.

It’s about paying the price for success, something that Andy and I both understand all too well.

1,040 Marathons, 252 Ultras, 9 Guinness World Records & 25 Years' Alcohol-Free

Overnight Success - The Pointer Sisters

Success really doesn’t come in pill form. 

One of my clients (We’ll call him John Evers) suggested that I should join a few weight-loss Facebook Groups and surreptitiously spread the gospel of ULTRAdiet to the dieting masses. On being accepted into one such group with 844,000 members (Promising I thought) I was instantly informed that posts promoting my services or products would instantly be removed and blocked but to my amazement, most of the posts were just that - even though they were ‘approved’ first by the group admin advertised weight-loss pills and guava leave products that could not only help with weight-loss but could cure any ailment from diarrhoea to bowel cancer were all over it.

Other posts were mainly from women looking for fast ways of losing weight, for an upcoming event, or the simple desire for a flatter stomach. None I saw mentioned how they actually ‘felt’ about being overweight and how they were mentally going to change. Sure, there were folk showing amazing weight-loss transformations but in reality, these most were attempts ‘under the radar’ to promote instant weight-loss and more guava products. There were very few 'Lifestyle Makeovers' like the ones I help create.

Sure there were a few tougher ‘Coleman’ type messages saying, ‘Eat less and exercise more’ but these were less prominent against those demanding ‘Instant Fixes’. 

Before leaving the group, I did post some encouraging words that would hopefully help people see a brighter future rather than just another quick fix and left wiser but sadly no richer.

If only I could bottle ULTRAdiet John, and sell it in pill form...

1,039 Marathons - 25 Years' of Sobriety - 3 Years post Guillain-Barre Syndrome

Undertow...

How many times a day are we told to ‘Live it like it was our last’? Now, I’m not knocking such well-intended messages - I’m probably one of the biggest broadcasters of such posts on social-media and the like, but let’s face it, in reality most people don’t believe they are anywhere near living-out their final day. 

Most folk believe they have a long and healthy life ahead of them, which is a great attitude, (possibly a little naïve) as we all know all good things come to an end but chose to ignore them. On listening to ‘Undertow’ from the 1978 Genesis Album, ‘And then there were three’ some of the Tony Banks lyrics struck a chord. And Okay, they are a bit cheesy but he’s right when he questions it being that last day…

Tell me, what do you think you would do then?

I mean, just what do YOU do? Look back and have regrets? Say a few if only’s or sift through the ups and downs of life and be satisfied that you'd made the most of it and had experienced and achieved all the things that really mattered – not those that you could have bought. Let's face it, there's not a lot of looking forward - Banks continues…

Let me live again, let life come find me wanting...

A bucket of hindsight goes a long way and I believe folk would do half of the things they did second time around, twice as well, if they could. Without the distraction, consider just how different your life could have been. 

In ten years time, imagine what you’ll be saying about the 3,652 days that lie ahead of you. What will you be saying then as these days turn into years and, still no tomorrow appears?

Change today and start living as we never know when it's our last but we do know tomorrow never comes...

1,039 Marathons - 25 Years' of Sobriety - 3 Years post Guillain-Barre Syndrome