School - Supertramp

Yesterday, I wrote that I’ve definitely had value for money from life so far and scrolling back through the years, I’ve certainly lived a full life. I haven’t filled up my time with things that I’m not good at or are not interested in. And if we wind my clock back to March 1976, I have only happy thoughts of that time and being 14 at school. Indeed, I wrote in my book ‘A Rebel and a Runner’ - 'My overwhelming memory of school life is one of happiness and fulfilment'. Only on reading my school report of that term, my teachers observations were quite different. In fact, in my last school report at 18, the headmaster’s comment was ‘He has never developed a serious attitude to his work’. Nice soundbite for seven years in one of the top Grammar Schools in the UK - and not one that reflects my current work ethic.

I was never highlighted as a child with a complete mental-block when processing written language(s) but on scanning a few of my reports – it’s clear where I was failing. Don’t get me wrong as this was the 70’s and the education process was more about exam preparation and university entrance than providing pastoral care. Learning how to find a route through the confusion of education, probably taught me more if I’m being honest and has given me a way of dealing with a complexity of adult life.

Told you it wasn't great...

Okay, I’m not the most literary of people as you’ll know if you are one of my regular blog readers’, but I do believe that the life-experience that I now broadcast has an in-built message that delivers both achievement and fulfilment.

Possibly my school years' taught me to be more pragmatic than anything else – putting my energies into knowing what I was good and where I could achieve - making a platform to bookmark my success perhaps. No wonder my marathon running and Guinness World Records etc. have been so fundamental in marking my success and investment into what I believe has been an important part of me becoming the present-day me.

I’m sure if I went back, I would invest more of my time and energy into my education and pass far more of my A and O Levels but what would it really achieve? Absolutely nothing. The 'School of Experience' offers much higher qualifications and I've achieved way beyond where predicted some 40-odd years on.

For this reports, I’m going to continue with my serious attitude to my work (that I’ve always had) and continue believing that I'm happy and fulfilled.

Are you happy and fulfilled too?

A* in 1,045 Marathons - 254 Ultras - 9 Guinness World Records - 15 Marathon des Sables

Choose Life - Underworld

Life is a matter of degrees. You see whenever I speak to a new client that is looking for an abstinence from alcohol, I always say that I’ve worked with folk that drink as much as four bottles of wine a day and are now living a life of sobriety. The reply is always, ‘Well I’m not that bad, it’s only drink one bottle!’ It’s the same for my dieters – as their being 100kgs is just as bad as 125kgs in my book.

I mean – just how bad is bad? Where is the point of no return - that person ‘Failsafe’ where nothing, and I mean nothing can save you from yourself.

We have a strange eating and drinking culture in the UK where 35 micrograms per 100 millilitres of breath will make you a drunk driver but 34 micrograms per 100 millilitres of breath means you are ‘technically’ sober. Only you’re not – you are simply 1 microgram less drunk. Food is seen as a leisure pursuit, a reward or even as TV entertainment (do you know how much I hate ‘Bake Off’). Anyway food - along with drinking it’s so much time wasted IMO that’s reflected by the size of your waistline.

There are so many other things that you can do that are far more rewarding, if you give them the time you currently choose not to give them.

What are you wasting your time on today?

1045 Marathons, 254 Ultras, 9 Guinness World Records & 15 Marathon des Sables

Vera - The Pink Floyd

‘Where the hell are you Simon?’

It’s a line that features right at the start of the 1979 Pink Floyd track ‘Vera’ but in fact comes from the 1969 film ‘The Battle of Britain’ – One of the truly great British War Films IMO. Anyway, it’s a lyric that always gets me thinking - especially when times are tough or if I’m feeling a bit out of sorts like I have been lately.

You see, part of my recent dilemma has been whether fatigue is good old-fashioned wear and tear, old age or remnants of the Guillain-Barre Syndrome that makes some of my days grind to a dead halt. It’s crazy as some days it feels like I’m flying and back to the old Rory days, pre-body anaesthesia. And if I’m honest, yes it does cheese me off, but how much I can blame that feeling on to my ‘outside influences’ is debateable and actually irrelevant as I can only now work with what I’ve got and I accepted that, if with somewhat gritted teeth.

I reached my ‘acceptance’ in 2016.

Can’t say it’s been easy but looking back I’ve had to accept many things over the years. At an early age I ‘accepted’ I’d never be a professional footballer, a brain-surgeon or a cross-channel swimmer. My mother said she’d found my old school reports that made poor reading. Shucks eh? But in my favour, I have one big advantage - I know what I’m good at, what I really like doing and give things 100%. 

  

What has become of you?

And that’s been my ‘Modus Operandi’. It’s not always a good thing as it means that sometimes it’s hard to find the brakes when things are proceeding headlong in the wrong direction, but on the whole, it’s brought me a more than satisfying level of success. I can hardly look back and say I haven’t had value for money, can I? And from what I have done, I can easily say that I know exactly where and who I am.

The fascinating thing is that many people I meet haven’t got the same level of location or proprioception. They are lost. Maybe the Global Positioning System could crack people’s psychological predicament as well as their location – what an invention but imagine that, being told how you feel – I mean, how would you feel about that?

And yet, where are you today? Drowning in data, unsure of what to do for the best? Scared of making the wrong decision. Scared of making the right decision. It’s a complete minefield. Knowing what to ‘like’, ‘unlike’, ‘friend’, ‘unfriend’, ‘trust’ a lottery one you feel you can never win.

But you already have the winning ticket, if you find ‘acceptance’. It’s an instant win – 90% complete with just 10% needed to conquer anything you put your mind to. 

I do hope you understand where I’m coming from today. As even if today’s rubbish, it doesn’t matter as tomorrow will be slightly better and the day after hopefully better still – just give it a go and build on whatever solid foundation you can find however rocky it might feel as that’s what I’m doing… ’Does anybody else here feel the way I do?’

1,045 Marathons - 254 Ultras - 9 Guinness World Records - 15 Marathon des Sables

Move Mountains - Jesus Jones

Or in this case ‘Move Mountains’ inspired by the amazing Jesus Jones and the first track from their 1989 debut album, ‘Liquidizer’. Yes, it really was 30 years ago, and yes it does feel like only yesterday - but it wasn’t was it, it’s a mere dot in the rear-view mirror of life. Things feel like they’ve moved at warp-speed since those analogue-pre-internet-google-filled-electromagnetic-spectrum days but maybe we haven’t.

Following a week of ‘Mental Health Awareness’, during which many people (especially Men) have discovered that it’s good to talk about their issues (without embarrassment), and that the recipe for happiness isn’t or status, possessions or wealth - I feel personally very happy about how the many folk I’ve helped reached a new level of happiness in their worlds.

A happiness that lies out there for you in one form or another. And all you need to do is reach out…

1,037 Marathons, 250 Ultras, 9 Guinness World Records and 15 Marathon des Sables