Head up

I knew I'd hit a wall when I woke up this Monday morning with stomach cramps. Stomach cramps are what happen when all is not well. And they only serve to make things worse: it's hard to be bursting with remedial energy when your abdomen hurts. Or to hit the gym and kick in the adrenalin and feel-good hormones.

As I suspected, when I sat down at my laptop at 6am to continue with the (tight) schedule to complete my book - where every day counts - I felt that familiar sag. Disintegration of the will. Motivational droop. That stretched-across-the-ground-feeling I used to get when teachers at school burdened us with a particularly tiresome and timeconsuming assignment - you yawn to yourself inside, and wish you were elsewhere.

After regular 5am wakeups eagerly brushing the sleep from my eyes in front of a sparkling computer, the weedling thought that I'd prefer to be back under the covers in oblivion only jabbed to smart my annoyance further. The screen glowered. I shut it almost with a snap.

To be honest, my Sony Vaio's got a big part in this. My husband and I had been competing to work on the machine for the whole weekend (early wake-ups and late nights, that is.) Needless to say, it's the wrong type of marital stimulation. He lugged home a castoff CPU from work on Friday (victim of financial layoffs - the box, not he thank God), all excited to assemble it privately upstairs - only to find it was still password locked and inaccessible. Then we had a row. After which, we grudgingly had to communicate to try and schedule who would work on "my" laptop, and when (it had been a birthday present, but becomes "ours" when things swing that way). The rest of the weekend was spent in grunts. Actually the argument was all about perception: how I perceive him to be unfriendly and moody, when he is sure that he's not. Considering he's not friendly or fun or light-hearted at these times, I'm not sure where perception ends and reality begins.

I'd hoped that driving my son to a birthday party might ring a change: empty road, invigoratingly loud music, whoosh of freedom and all that...but the spanking Jaguar in front with the personalised number-plate "P E 5 I M S T" didn't help. Considering those cost at least 20,000 pounds (on top of the car, of course!) I wondered if the guy was taking the proverbial, if you know what I mean. Normally I would have chuckled and saved up the gem to tell my husband. Instead I predicted his grunt - and wrote on Twitter instead.

On the way back, I fixed the damp shine on the roads with moroseness as the evening shrouded the air, winter's 5pm. The tyres spluttered through the dirt-laden London rain, the dull leftover dribbles of Sunday and a stray Tesco bag wretched and ragged on a naked branch at the corner of my vision as I waited with resigned frustration at a red light that seemed to be fixed at red forever. Christ. Not even my favourite musical porn, Enrique Iglesias, lifted my sodden mood. The ballad surges irritated me and I clicked to off.

However the way to force through the blockages (mental, physical, you name it) is to create a surge. I've got to fall in love with my book again, with the process of tapping it into existence even when words don't come easy. And fall in love with my husband again even when words don't come easy. And fall in love with life again even if I don't have a Jag with a personalised number plate telling the world to fuck off (sorry!) - or maybe fall in love with life specifically because I don't.

Then again, at least I'm not Tiger Woods. Or anyone else: things could be worse.

No, head up! Forge on. Credit crunch, marital crunch, lack of inspiration, you name it. It's the ability to break through the barriers of pain, fear, uncertainty or even plain boredom that is the mark of success. Maybe I'll have a Jag one day. It'll have a plate stating: O P 7 I M S T.

Talent will be Rewarded!

I can't resist this - talking of talent and reward, just take a look at this amazing 6-YEAR OLD boy...and the outcome is a real treat at the end. Enjoy!

Out 2010

Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This is the book I am going to be marketing on behalf of my guru and in-house motivational psychologist, Natasha Reddy. She says it's probably not the final version of colours - but you get the drift.

Put a penny in the pot

A fellow Mum at school - a muslim lady - was telling me how her children have 3 jars at home between which to divide pocket money - one for buying, one for saving and one for giving to charity (the muslim concept of 'Zakat'). Which reminded me how important it is in life not to forget others. After all, people are just people all around the world.

Incidentally, to let a thread of higher purpose permeate all that we do is also the direct route to success and wealth (so take the tip: become less materialistic and more spiritual if you are seeking out the pot of gold!) Why am I sure of this? I seem to be meeting a lot of incredibly successful people recently. And all of them have the spark of ambition to create some lasting good in the world. Wow - how far I'm drifting down the river from my position as "reluctantly frustrated stay-at-home mum!" And... is the frustration and feeling of inertia gone? You bet! Believe it!

So, on the subject of thinking of others, let me introduce you to Arvind Devalia: born in Kenya, living in London, Indian heritage, citizen of the world. Arvind says: "I am committed to a life of contribution, connection and celebration. And I am convinced that ultimately we all want to do the same".

Before anyone starts to scoff, sit up and listen, and ask yourself if you can measure up:- whereas others might hesitate, Arvind makes things happen: raising thousands of dollars for a charity school in South India (Nirvana School); writing and publishing a book in just 4 weeks; being part of an internet startup which raised millions of pounds of funding; taking part in the London Marathon, where he walked the entire route in over 7 hours rather than letting down his chosen charity.

Arvind feels he has a charge to help alleviate world poverty by raising money for micro-finance website Kiva. You can read more about Arvind’s bold aim to alleviate world poverty and how to join the “Blog with Heart Challenge” here.

Arvind has specially created some resources for any blogger who wants to join in:-

1. A resource page for bloggers with lots of ready made posts you can use in any way you like

2. A videos page with a heap of videos about Kiva and their download links.

In addition a team as been created on Kiva for the London Bloggers Meetup group called, unsurprisingly LBM. If you would like to join this team and see the difference the LBM community as a whole can make, please let me know in a comment together with your email, and I’ll organise an invitation for you to join.

Alternatively, please support this campaign by joining Kiva directly, by creating your own team and of course by publishing Arvind’s campaign on your blogs or webpages. Thank you.

So, if I adopt my fellow school mum's principle of jars, well perhaps today I've put a little penny in one by penning this posting. And sometimes a little coin can spread a lot of happiness.

Product placement and our children

Today I'm going to proselytise a bit. Who wants their children not to be encouraged to eat junk food? Hands up!...Then, please read on: the following is an email sent by myself (and others) to our government. And I attach the reply: if you share my opinion, I suggest you might copy the body of the letter and send it to Mr.Green's email address as below (let's hope his name augurs well!) - with fingers crossed as to the power of public opinion. Do exercise your duty as a parent in this regard.

I suppose the alternative is not letting children watch television: already seriously curtailed in our house! (But still. At some point we have to reach outside our own little worlds to take greater responsibility.) And don't log out, U.S. readers, thinking that this is only relevant to my side of the pond - you might be interested in some of the information below...

Dear Sir,
Please do not allow product placement in British made television programmes. The proposals to allow product placement in UK-made television programmes will lead to children being exposed to more marketing for unhealthy food products. While I welcome commitments that product placement will not be allowed in children's programming, research by consumer group Which? in 2008 showed that 16 of the 20 programmes on the commercial channels most popular with children were not classified as "children's programming" and therefore, under your proposals, would be able to contain product placement of unhealthy foods.

In the US, where product placement is permitted, Coca-Cola is the brand paying for the most product placement. Yet research from the US has suggested that sugary drinks such as Coca-Cola may be the biggest driver of the obesity epidemic. Product placement on UK-produced television programmes could lead to a similar situation in the UK, contributing to the already worrying increase in childhood obesity rates.
I am particularly concerned that product placement breaches the principle that advertising should be clearly recognised as such, and distinguishable from editorial content. It is important that people know when they are being advertised to, and parents are able to recognise advertising and protect their children from it. With product placement, marketing goes on behind parents' backs.

I know that I am not alone in these concerns: a recent survey of 1,349 UK adults by Redshift Research found that 91% did not think it is right to influence children with product placement.

Please help us to protect our children from covert marketing for unhealthy food , and not undermine our effort to give our children healthy diets by allowing junk food companies to target them with their brand of 'secret selling'.

Yours sincerely


Reply from: CHRISTOPHER.GREEN@Culture.gsi.gov.uk

Thank you for your recent e-mail about the Government’s consultation on television product placement. This is an important issue on which the Government is keen to hear peoples’ views, and we are grateful to you for taking the trouble to write. Our consultation closes on 8 January 2010 and we plan to make an announcement as soon as possible after that.We will give careful consideration to your comments before we do so.

Yours sincerely
Chris Green
Public Engagement & Recognition Unit
Department for Culture, Media & Sport

Sugar-coated dreams

I went to a seminar the other evening where a bastion of our business establishment was speaking. People came up with the usual questions: "how can I be a successful entrepreneur?"; "what's your advice about investing in property?"; "do you think we're out of the recession yet?"; "what is the best piece of business advice you've ever been given?" - and the less usual: "how can I resolve the fact that I've under-priced my product?"; "I'm setting up a company at 50..."; "I sell solar panels but all my retail partners have pulled out"...

Nothing new under the sun, really. And the answers given to most of these questions were also pretty much what you'd expect: nothing new under the sun. Including the one about solar panels (tip: we're in the UK. Along the lines of : certain 'trendy' trends just don't work as expected!...)

Until I asked a question which would seem to be a pretty bog-standard-business-school-essential-information-gathering-cum-personal-curiosity-one: "Have you had mentors in your career?"

The answer was surprising. When starting out, he'd has his Uncle who'd had a shop. And other people he'd looked up to. But the people he most looked up to were those who had "contentment" and they, he said, are people "you in the audience will have never heard of", nor will ever hear of. People, therefore, who are contented in their everyday lives despite not having achieved either fame or fortune. He envied them, said the moghul businessman. He said: "I've amassed more money than anyone can spend in a lifetime...than even my wife [audience chuckles!] or family can spend." Then he talked about it being "a disease", not being able to stop, never being contented. So, his greatest 'mentors' are those who have the luxury of contentment in life. Who are able to reach a point where they are contented. Contented with life and what they have - but most probably and most importantly, also with what they don't have.

Forget all the business talk. As this multi-millionaire success story told us: "It's not Rocket Science!" Almost every answer he gave to every business question was based on pure common sense. They should have called the seminar: "Business Success De-mystified!"

But the one thing I came away with was his answer to MY question. That's what I learned that evening. Don't wish for what others have, unless you are fully aware of what's involved. Unless you are fully aware of the consequences. Of the road you'll have to travel to move in the same, or a similar, direction. And sometimes, even if you do end up getting there: you may not be happy. Even if you're the type of person who can't but help taking the journey in the first place, because you're born with the urge to travel (by the way, entrepreneurs are born, not made, and if you don't get it, you aren't one - apparently. Lord Alan Sugar was showing the Mayor of Hackney around his local school at the age of 11...)

Oh. Did I forget to mention? The name of the seminar was: "In Conversation with Lord Alan Sugar..."

Self-promotion - and a bit of life...

I'd like today to give you folks an excerpt from my forthcoming book, "THINK SLIM - 52 steps to losing weight and feeling great! (...The no-diet weight-loss revolution!)" (hopefully out by the beginning of 2010, website too). Before you sigh (because you have no need to lose those pounds) or you're a bloke and think this kind of thing is purely for women, do me a favour and read on! I don't do things conventionally - most entrepreneurial-minded people don't...you may - no, WILL! - be surprised.

Anyway, THIS is what I am getting up a 5am for every day...for those with goals, remember that "Your Actions are your Goals and Your Goals are your Actions" (note I'm trademarking that one!)

Here we go:
You have only one life. Sounds clichéd, doesn’t it? But we forget, in our Western world of abundance, that many people who share our universe don’t have life. They don’t have life expectancy, they don’t have quality of life, they don’t have the basics to live a life of dignity or even to survive. Here we are, fretting about physical confidence, body weight, fitness... while some people don’t have the luxury of worrying about their physical confidence! It’s barely enough for them to get through the day alive with a belly full. Others spend their so-called lives suffering horrendous physical and emotional restrictions. Their only aspiration would be to be free from pain or suffering, let alone to lose weight! And, what to tell the mother whose children are slowly starving to death? Shouldn’t we be rather ashamed that our material excesses have brought us to this excess of paranoia?
In this context, worrying about one’s physical appearance is totally trite, when in this world there are those who have real cause for anxiety: not being able to see fully, move fully, speak fully, or being fully healthy; or the life and death of their loved ones. Some people are just grateful to have life at all. Others are put through such horrendous emotional suffering by losing loved-ones or seeing loved-ones suffer. We all know of people becoming painfully thin after bereavement. Who’d envy them their body shape now?

So why am I writing this book, you may ask? Well, partly because this irony hasn’t escaped me, and I’d like to show that there’s a healthier and more balanced way of approaching the problem of overweight and obesity in the West today. And because I understand that the more happy and balanced we are as individuals -the more liberated of insecurity and self-obsession we are - the freer we are as a society to look outside our little world and help others.

This book simply puts forward techniques you can use to help yourself to make the most of yourself physically, and thereby increase your self-confidence – hopefully boosting your mood and general happiness at the same time! But, there should be a warning attached to any book which promises that weight reduction will automatically guarantee happiness. I am sure that we have all realised by now that thinness does not equal happiness, and richness doesn’t equal happiness either, and if you don’t believe me just take a look at some of the super-rich and super-thin celebrities out there who despite having the trappings of an ‘enviable’ life appear to be suffering from a lack of the basics which truly do make for a happy life: a harmonious family, close friends who love you for what you are, a peaceful life without interference, the ability to get on and make decisions without being constantly judged – and that's just for starters! Now, that’s not to say that this is the case with every rich and thin celebrity, as there are some very well-balanced famous people out there (and I take my hat off to them!) – however, it cannot be denied that some celebrities renowned for their wealth and physical beauty still find it necessary to resort to drugs and drink: not the behaviour of someone who’s balanced and content.

We all need to take a few moments out of our busy schedule each day to reflect on how our limited perspectives on life can be so restrictive, misery-making – and, indeed, dangerous. Why, just this week I read about a bride-to-be who died of heart failure: after being on a restrictive diet of under 600 calories a day to lose weight for her wedding. That’s a real lesson in perspective.

So, just get on and LIVE LIFE and appreciate what you have got and what gives richness to your life, rather than what you haven’t got! Instead of feeling that you can never measure up, remember that other people have their own problems too, and that’s everyone, rich or poor, skinny or not so skinny (why do you think papers sell well when they dissect the life problems of celebrities, reminding ordinary people that they’re not so different to us after all?) Until you are happy in yourself and with your own life, then losing weight will never make a difference. You’ll just be a miserable thin person instead of a miserable plumper person!

If you exude happiness from every pore and sing along to your everyday tasks, you will find you don’t need that chocolate fix anymore, and along the way you’ll find that you become as fit as you’ve ever wanted to! Sing along to the washing-up, whistle to work, chat happily to your friends and neighbours, and live life with enthusiasm: you’ll be so busy being active you’ll find you don’t need that glass or wine, choc bar or cookie to perk you up. Just being busy you can burn up energy to become fitter too!

Why don’t you imagine yourself, right now, being the happy, confident and energetic person we all have the potential to be? If your problems seem too great, remember that they’re nothing compared to the mother whose young and only son is dying from a rare form of juvenile cancer (and that’s another true story, and someone I know). You can picture yourself and your good fortune every day in your mind, and if you find this hard just try picturing yourself living in Afghanistan or Gaza or any of the world’s other trouble spots instead – and you’ll realise just how much you DO have. We in the Western world are overcome with bounty and opportunity: why would you need a chocolate bar on top of all that to make you cheerful?

(Note! Slimy sticky and oily calories do NOT make us cheerful, happier, or blow our problems out the window. All they do is increase the size of our problems – by increasing the size of our hips and thighs and tummies, and clogging our brains and our ability to feel happy and carefree, as well as clogging our arteries at the same time!)

Key Points to Remember:
Live with a sense of perspective. Our problems are minute compared to those of many. Instead of dwelling on your worries and bad fortune, be aware of your good fortune every day, give thanks for it and be grateful. Vow to give back to the world the happiness and joy it has given you – whenever and however that may have been, and even if you don’t quite feel it now. Remember that appearance is important superficially, but self-esteem is deeper. Being thin or being rich will never make anyone happy if that’s all you aim for in life. Stop to smell the roses and remember you are healthy and wealthy already in so many ways. As a general rule, Happy people are slimmer, but slimmer people are not necessarily happier!

So be happy: and you’ll be slimmer on it!

END OF EXCERPT

P.S. On the subject of perspective, here's a girl I went to school with. Actually, watch this one too: check out the video, especially: WATCH IT! Your problems will fade into irrelevance, I guarantee you... and you'll also realise that YOU have so much potential to realise: which no doubt you may not be fully exploiting...so, what are you waiting for?!

Tomorrow - again

Well, the immune systems of my family and myself having survived the onslaught which is India for over two weeks, have succumbed almost immediately once on British soil. We are all laid low with cold-like viruses, rasping, hacking, trumpeting and passing out on pillows piled high. My husband - who never misses work - stayed in bed today. My son - who never misses school - ditto. My daughter went: but is suffering a delayed reaction this evening. I - stoic mother, with that get-up-and-go-even-if-you're-ready-to-drop which women seem to be born with, am getting on with the washing and tidying and unpacking, but manage a couple of naps regardless and dreamt of doctors telling us we're to be isolated as we've all got swine 'flu (we haven't).
So my posting on Indian entrepreneurship's again relegated to tomorrow. And I'm off to hit the sack, leaving you with my favourite Will Shakespeare of all time, Macbeth's 'tomorrow' soliloquy (and a thanks to all of you who support my creative endeavours day after day: I'm reminding myself not to forget to thank people in my life...):

Macbeth:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.


Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28

P.S. Don't get me wrong, I don't do brooding nihilism. However I spend so much time labouring on self-worth and achievement, and when you're just struck down with what is essentially an elaborate version of the common cold you realise how easy it is to retreat into what Maslow, in his hierarchy of needs theory, called “pre-potency”: meaning that you are not going to be motivated by any higher-level needs (like ambition, self-esteem, etc) until your lower-level ones have been satisfied: like hunger, basic comfort, freedom from illness or exhaustion, and so on. I'm feeling struck down with feeling, basically, rather grotty and under-par. So I'm going to bed to try to redress the balance! (by the way check out Herzberg in the link for all those managers out there, if any of you reading my blog are such). Good night!

Excuses, excuses

It's the longest ever since I've posted - the longest since I started this blog.

Now, one of my fellow parents on the school run mentioned a while ago that he (in this case, a father being the stay-at-home half) wondered why people read blogs. "They must be pretty bored or have plenty of time to waste!", he quipped.
I replied to him, to the implicit question contained in his question (the subject of the conversation being my blog) - for me, it's not about boredom ("and I cannot speak for my readers" I added, diplomatically!). Myself, I'm aware that it's human nature to read and be interested in lives, stories, emotions, information. And has been since the storytellers of the street squares and tents of yore started to ply their trade (even then there was an element of commercialism about it - pennies in a hat, or a bowl of rice). And, writing a blog, for me, is about discipline. About plying my trade as a wordsmith every day, or at least regularly. Don't believe that there's an inborn skill in existance that doesn't need nurturing and won't require practise to maintain a certain standard, and then, to increase proficiency. There isn't.

So, I am pretty ashamed that I haven't posted for, what, 3 weeks? Well, folks, I have once excuse, paltry as it may be. I've been in India for just over two of those weeks. But, then again, only 10 of those days were involved in travelling or living without internet access (but, not without a notebook, note). I could offer up the feeble excuse that I find it easier to type my thoughts than write freehand, true as it may be - but then that's like saying Tiger Woods would only ever practise in perfect conditions (not that I'm comparing my skills to his - god forbid. God forbid! Genius sadly escapes me.)

I have to add here, on the self-flagellation session I've embarked upon, that my five-year-old did take his violin to India. And practised more than I wrote. He only missed a week and that was due to the impracticality of taking a minature musical instrument (one-tenth of a fully-sized violin, for those curious) to an indian country village: which bar the randomly-strung bare bulbs and a couple of butane-gas-bottle-powered-stoves, is still stuck in the middle ages. A home-built-raftered-barn, 100 years old, with one side reserved for the water buffalos and wandering chicks, rogue dogs and meandering cats, and opposite, space for my husband's extended family (the farmers whose house this is) and us to sleep on charpoys - stretcher type beds. Or sit on the bare stone, and eat in a circle. Hand-milled rice. Curry fashioned from beans harvested from their fields. Oven-baked gritty flat breads hardened 'mongst the flickering flames of a chimney. Peanut and chili seasoning (ground in an immense granite hand-hewn mortar, larger than my son, as large as a small well, with a wooden mortar of a couple of metres long). And, the family's only meat meal in six months: an unfortunate rooster from their yard, conveniently killed just down the road by Muslims in the Halal fashion, "so as to pass the blame on, so Hinduism remains unsullied" my husband remarked, with ironic crook of the mouth.

Anyway. I wanted to write a post on what entrepreneurial lessons one can learn from the sullied, chaotic and quite exhausting mess that is India (we all need a holiday now, the whole household is sick with colds and fever on our return!) - the India of the supposedly 'developing' cities, I must add, as the villages I mention were a refreshing and inspiring break for all of us, especially memorable my son sitting on the floor with a slate and chalk, taking part in a lesson in the open-air country school. To my credit, I've already written it - scribbling a lone page of notebook on our very last night in India. In a tiny sand-beige airless apartment in Bangalore, to which my in-laws have happily migrated, leaving their large million-dollar mansion in Sydney (you could take them from their birthplace, 30 years ago, but not their birthplace from the hearts and souls of my in-laws, as it's turned out) and where they live in a space proportionate to their former entrance hall, in absolute frugality - and peace.

But that post will be for next time - for tommorow. For now, I reflect on what home means. And for me, to some extent, it means the freedom to sit at my desk at my pre-determined hours (I'm a creature of habit, when it comes to production) with my favourite mug of steaming soy milk and raw cocoa, and write. And look at my wallpaper which has trees stretching out to infinity. And wonder why I prefer it to the dust-stained real-life trees of India. Maybe I'm not that different at all from my in-laws, in some ways.

And, Oh, P.S. To all those experiencing marital disharmony. If you get on with your parents-in-law, if you have that warm glow of affection for the family of your spouse: it could very well save your marriage. Good night!

The Invitation

Peoples, I am busy. Very busy. Writing a book - or rather editing it, hoping for publication some time in the near future (no, not a novel! Yes, 'self-help', as it were - no, not 'as it were', it IS self-help. So there you go.) I will flog it to y'all when it's physically manifest in the universe (grin, meaning, made of proper bound printed paper and not pixels). No I haven't got a book deal. Yet!

Here's a poem, in the meantime - not mine, I hasten to admit, though I might try my hand next time:

The Invitation
(What follows was written by a Native American poet named Orion Mountain Dreamer)


It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dreams,
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic,
or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you’re telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself,
if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul;
if you can be faithless - and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it's not pretty, every day,
and if you can source your life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,
and still stand on the edge of a lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair,
weary and bruised to the bone,
and do what needs to be done to feed your children.

It doesn’t interest me who you are,
how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the Fire with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,
and truly like the company you keep in empty moments.

can you afford it?

I haven't been posting as much lately. Instead, I've been having a standoff with my husband; trying (and often failing) to get to the gym; carting my children back and forth; finishing a book by Anthony Robbins (which, if you read one book this year, read it!: written in the '80s, it still has the power to transform); and attending 'webinars' by Rachel Elnaugh, an entrepreneur and ex-Dragon's Den judge - who now has all sorts of lovely motivational and coaching stuff as one of the many strings to her bow.

I'd like to share with you a great comment from last week's webinar, a conversation with Nick Williams and Marie-Claire Carlyle (two equally fascinating and enlightened entrepreneurs/business gurus worth looking up. P.S. only thing, Marie Claire: your webpage title sounds a bit like a bra' ad...sorry!). During the discussion they touched on why the phrase 'I can't afford it' is (and I quote Rachel) "perhaps the most negative mantra you can possibly have around money...it keeps you stuck in a holding pattern of scarcity, lack and limitation".

To me this was something which really struck a chord. Because I had been telling myself the exact same thing for a while now. And the phrase is bandied back and forth so much in our family kitchen I'm almost surprised it's not written up on the blackboard! But if you've got ambition and a tad of self-awareness in life (got the first, trying to develop the second!) naturally this kind of self-limiting statement starts to grate. And you need to overturn it.

The irony in our family is that we'd found ourselves in this rather tight financial reality simply because, a year and a half ago, we decided to shoot for the stars and make a dream reality: by moving to a rather dilapidated home with a large garden. And, we actually couldn't afford it! Not by any permutation of accounts prepared by my husband, our resident accountant. But, we'd fallen in love with this snapshot of rural England, an oasis in what is basically still London town. A garden with more mature trees than you can shake a stick at. Purple buddhleia, the 'butterfly' flower, curling round and coexisting with ancient clematis. An old stone well hidden behind a mound of ivy (and still hidden, as far as the children are concerned!) Blackcurrent, redcurrent and gooseberry bushes, bitter bramley and sweet, perfumed pink apples. Lots of grass to run around on and kick footballs. Space for barbeques. Heaven.

But, inside the house, there were holes in the walls, a 1930's, hideous old-folks' home-gone-wrong-decor/layout, and a kitchen barely suitable for cooking in. This all said to me: "It has potential!" (If I've got one skill in life, as an architect's daughter, I can see potential. Where's there's potential, the nasty outer wrappings don't matter).

Now, we "couldn't (really) afford" this house. But we WANTED it. So desperately. So much that we somehow begged, borrowed, sorted through financing options, and squeezed ourselves into the deal. With the result that we really couldn't afford the removal van to move us to the new house! I spent three weeks, with the children at their grandparents', carting boxes back and forth from seven a.m. until three (a.m.). Alone.

Still on the subject of the house, whether or not the price was right (it was a deal at the time of contract, but that was the height of the housing bubble...) our quality of life has been immeasurably improved as a result of shoe-horning ourselves into this move we wouldn't accept we couldn't afford. Despite my fight with the grim interior!. And, even as we agreed we had no money for furniture (we'd inherited much from the old gentleman who sold the house to us - much in the same vein as the rest of the decor), I wouldn't admit defeat: I'm rather wired like that. I resolved to improve our lot with what we'd got. One half-term, armed with paint-stripper, new season paint colours and textures, varnishes and a lot of inspiration, I transformed grotty 1930's art-deco and dingy cracked 1960's pieces into items which any interior designer would be proud of. And all practically for free. The result gave me far more satisfaction than being flush and going to BoConcept with a budget (well, almost!). The satifaction of taking action, mainly. Because if you take action, results are sure to follow. And from not being able to afford furniture, visitors now ask me where I got my sideboard and coffee table.

There are endless permutations to what you can get out of twisting the "I cannot afford it" situation to your advantage. Here's another. Recently I discovered a truly fabulous painter. Whose paintings I coveted, every last one of them. With no budget, I was so determined to buy a particular inspiring picture I'd fallen in love with, that I asked if - as a stranger, over the internet - possibly, I might pay in installments. This type of 'lateral thinking' - creative solutions as a result of pure stubborness ("if I can't, then I'll find a way"!) - is a great exercise in how to achieve what initially may seem impossible in a given situation and in life in general. Rarely is there a problem which cannot be solved by some form of creativity, or by taking small steps to 'bite' off chunks of the problem bit by bit with a view to resolving it entirely in the future. Sarah, the painter, said "yes"! And I'm going to enjoy saving up for it so much, knowing I own a little more each month... and I'm going to treasure it especially when, eventually, this seascape graces my wall and the power of the waves remind me of the inherent power in life and nature. And how we, as human beings, can harnass latent power to improve our lives too.

The key is often how we conceptualise obstacles to ourselves: how we represent problems. As Rachel says, if we think we "can't afford" something, we are telling ourselves that we are not capable of finding a solution. That we are unable (un-able, un-deserving) to afford it. If we tell ourselves that there might be ways and means to enable what we want, we unlock great reserves of creativity. We unlock the subconscious to work with our rational mind to help 'dream up' ways of achieving our dreams. We're telling ourselves we're capable and competant enough to overcome the odds.

Never forget the power of words. Language is important. How we talk to ourselves is important. So, I won't tell myself again "I cannot afford it". But, instead, "How can I afford it?" It's a much more productive, and positive, way of looking at financial obstacles - or any other problems.

Similarly, after writing (and telling myself) for the past few weeks that: "My husband and I aren't talking...my marriage is crumbling!" I realised that perhaps he wasn't talking to me because I wasn't talking to him - and that our relationship was "crumbling" as a result! So I talked to him, overcoming my pride, my stubborness, and my pre-conceptions. And, hey ho, things have been resolved! We still have incompatibilities, but it's better to think: "We have incompatibilities. How could we harnass these to make life easier? and how can we overcome these to make life less difficult?" than: "We have incompatibilites. We're doomed!"

...Sometimes in life it's not about what we cannot afford to have or do. It's about what we can't afford NOT to have or do... let's make it happen!

castle in the sky

I went to a children's birthday party the other day. At this house. Suffice to say, it's not mine. (I could say: "in my dreams"...)

People talk about dreams in the abstract, far away in the distance of another reality- or unreality. But this house was - is - the embodiment of someone's dream. The couple who built it, had also built another one - and at some point, prior to finishing it, came upon major financial problems, and ground to a halt. A big halt. It was all documented on "Grand Designs", a popular TV reality show we have here in the UK which - yes! - documents the architecture of dreams. Literally. People who build their dream properties from scratch. Who watch, day after day, as the fabric of imagination takes shape in bricks and mortar (or vast expanses of glass, metal, cement, wood). Very addictive.

Well, this couple (in Clapham, London) had built their house around a protected tree: an innovative solution to wanting more space but being unable to chop it down and extend into the garden. All very interesting. But, what is more interesting to me is that once obviously wasn't enough, problems and all. Sometime later, they built a second ground-breaking house (the one I was honoured enough to visit. They're not there, by the way. It's rented out.) It had become a habit, dreaming. And then making dreams reality.

Now, I hear you - "this is a different planet!", you scream, "not my little life, of mortgage payments, credit crunch misery!", etc. "These people could afford it! This is the world of people who have serious cash!" But: listen up! We can all dream, can't we? 'Cos only by dreaming do we give ourselves the first lift up the ladder to making imagintion reality - one day, somewhere, somehow. If you believe all is possible, I'm not saying you'll make it possible - but you'll certainly lay the groundwork to bring it nearer. Hard work, self-confidence, and a mad, mad belief in turning straw into gold, then have to be added to the pot. Stir, keep on working hard, don't lose sight of your goals, and sometimes - just sometimes - you'll achieve what you thought was impossible.

Dreaming and persisting are all we have, those of us with ambition (and if you don't, I envy you - truly! - you're at peace, are you not?). To dream is easy enough. To persist is harder. Even when your purse-strings are long, to undertake major innovative projects still requires balls. So there you go. It's just all about the varying degrees involved. But the two key ingredients, the dreaming and the persistence? - the substance of those doesn't change, whatever your starting line.

Myself, I persist in dreaming, in laughing, in seeing the silver lining. Even when, at home, my once-perfect marriage flounders into dull silences and shoulders turned as we pass in darkened corridors, wordless. Live on mumbled acknowledgements or falsely upbeat matter-of-fact discussions involving kids, logistics, dates. Disinterest numbs the air. Two parallel but diverging lives, bound by the glue of two little children who love their parents equally. Yet I persist in believing it's all for the best, persist in finding light where there's shadow. I can't allow myself to give up. Things will get better. And so I walk round smiling, outside and inside. Because I know there are plenty of dreams left to make me smile.

And, I persist in stirring up those bubbles of social enthusiasm, even when friends slowly return to work (the kids are at that age now) and the school run gradually becomes vacant of familiar faces. And when long-lost souls from recent reunions seep back into their lives over the ether, reminding me the past is the past and the present's entirely separate. Again, when my chosen vocation accessorizes one silver laptop and a cup of green tea as companions over hours of the day. But I won't be reduced to feeling lonely! Oh no, siree!! It's all temporary. I'm working towards my dream...the parties will return, summer will swing back round, there'll be fun and laughter and new faces to discover. Believe. I do.

Life isn't instant. It's blocks upon blocks upon blocks, and sometimes you lose sight of the shape you're creating for the piles of rubble (emotional, psychological, you name it) you're surrounded with. True both when you construct a real house, and true too when you're building castles in the air. Often, you cannot see the stars for the clouds. But you still know they're there.

You just have to keep building and keep believing. The journey's no fun, sometimes. There'll be obstacles and tears and late nights and despair.

Welcome, my friend. Keep on dreaming. Keep on believing.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...

The loneliest occupation in the world, I think, is being a writer. It's all about delayed gratification (a phrase and concept I relish, but the reality's tougher to enjoy). You're a virtual recluse, alone in front of a desk as the autumnal slate gray sky glowers menacingly outside,and the taupe computer screen glows dully inside, numbing the vision. And you write. And write. Tap, tap, the soundtrack to those moments, hours, days of your life. There's no excitement, bar what you put down on the page. There's no social activity. Your words are your friends, and if there are characters, you almost grow into them - they're your only companions. And all this, hoping to get a kick ONE DAY - cradling that book with your name emblazoned on it, something in black and white (or black and red) for posterity.

It's better, I presume, if you've got a deal in hand (where holding that book with your name's an undisputed truth - but the how you're going to fulfil all those expectations, and within what time frame, becomes your bugbear intead... life's never perfect!). If, on the other hand, there's no contract on the table, you just write. You tap. Sometimes disconsolately. The words and images regurgitated out with hard, long retches. Sometimes you tap in the equivalent of furious scribble, like a bitch on heat, desperate to reach satisfaction and an eventual birth. For your sake, and for the sake of hope. Tapping out your dreams. And all the time suspecting that those hours of solitude (and days, and late evenings, and time stolen from family, and curt brush-offs to children's insistent queries - and associated guilt, the bindweed of who works from home); and the multitude of stifled yawns, of stiff backs, of tea breaks and cereal bowls balanced by the keyboard - may, quite possibly, may, come to nothing. A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury...signifying nothing. Quote, unquote. Or perhaps, it's the detail that counts. All words pre-exist, most plots are re-hashes, most advice has been given before. You're almost like a window cleaner at times, trying to polish the surface of language to convince your audience they're seeing the view for the first time.

It's even worse if you are writing not a novel (that one's sitting dusty in the drawer waiting to be remembered, revamped, resuscitated, and have the breath of faith blown into it...), but a non-fiction work dealing with, how to put it?, how to eliminate compulsive behaviour through the power of the mind (yes, I'm also training to be an NLP practitioner - check it out). It means you can't even go for a slice of chocolate bar at the kitchen counter out of pure boredom. Because that's called 'displacment activity' - otherwise known as procrastinating (do you write - yawn?! or eat? or lie down and sleep?!) And if you're a writer, and you procrastinate, so will your career. (But I still desire that cocoa kick to offset the solitude, the backache and the nagging voices telling me I'll never make it).

no words

There's a lady I know - a fellow Mum. Her son is dying.

Just a few months ago, he was in my son's class. One of the eldest, but also the brightest, head and shoulders above the rest in reading and maths. Reluctantly, the school transferred him up a form, to the year above, mid-term. His mother thought his headaches were part due to the change in pace, but he was happier and more fulfilled. A grand future ahead.

The tumour, in that precious brain, is deep. Too deep for successful operation, or further chemo. A young brain remembers.

Pray for a miracle, you think: beg the gods, whoever they might be, whichever faith... what does it matter when the desperation and despair is beyond belief? The instinct of a parent goes beyond rational thought. I'd lay down my life, my everything, to save a child. Wouldn't you?

I don't pray, normally. But for this Mum, her husband, this child, his sister, their friends and relatives, I'm praying. Hoping for a miracle. Because I don't know, don't dare to imagine, what I'd do with myself in such a position. "It doesn't bear thinking about", said my mother. Actually, it does. You don't just walk your thoughts away from tragedy, glad not to be involved personally. Or I don't, I find it somehow cold. Ancient peoples didn't have the head-in-the-sand, dismissive attitude to death we - in our materialistic, headonistic, society - more often than not show today. It's selfish to believe that another's tragedy shouldn't touch us. It should. Part of what being human means.

Nevertheless, I too am a tad superstitious. For example, I'm not one of those people who vehermently wish to win the lottery, to be on the end of fate's outstretched hand. After all, it can go both ways: there can be random acts of generosity by the Universe's roll of dice but also the shadow and taint of tragedy, waiting to fall on...?. It harks back centuries to be wary about wishing too much for anything you don't create yourself.

I had a dream last night: my children in a car, careering away along a country road with no-one else inside, me peddling furiously alongside on a bicycle, screaming, a sense of horrible dread and powerlessness. Luckily, as often occurs in my nightmares, in my semi-conscious state, I was then able to direct the dream (like a movie) and have a team of police in a helicopter winch down to enter and stop the car (and I made the country road straight and empty, and the children asleep so as not to alarm them).

My son's classmate's mother doesn't have that choice and there is no dream to wake up from.

There's nothing I can say to my fellow Mum except: "I'm sorry. I'll pray for you". Not even - "be strong" (how can you?) And realise, deep within oneself, once again, that it's our duty to ourselves and to our children to make the most of our time on this planet: both ours, and theirs. And to teach them that nothing else is as precious as health, energy and life itself. Let's make the most of it.

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