|
|
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
|
|
|
Once you've answered the basic human needs of food, water and shelter, everyone is essentially a salesperson. No matter how extensive your experience or how impressive your job title, society is structured in such a way that you are required to be permanently prospecting.
And, rest assured, everything is for sale if the price is right.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Monday, February 1st, 2010
|
|
|
1. There have recently been occasions when, if I was another person and I was watching myself, I would have felt a certain sadness for me.
2. I read recently "anxiety is the ultimate luxury." My first thought was to remember the anxiety of my grandmother when she was suffering from depression after my grandfather's death. I couldn't understand how this could be seen as a luxury.
However, when I thought about this later, it started to make sense: anxiety - a human's ability to be concerned about improving their relative comfort and security - is the only thing which keeps us alive. There is an argument that we are at our most content when we need to achieve the most basic things.
3. I increasingly find myself doing what I think is safe rather than what I want to do. I know this is something which tends to change as one gets older, but is it a good thing? Is this noble sacrifice? I decline adventures to save money and to ensure I have time to handle the administration of life, only to be reminded our lives are the ones we are living - there is no rehearsal.
4. I'm not sure there is anyone in my life who shares my dreams at the moment: not my work colleagues, not Happy and not my friends. A dream which is achieved but not shared is a dream lost in the darkness of a single mind.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
|
|
|
In a hotel, disconnected from the world, disconnected from the very city in which I am located - it could be anywhere - pursuing the scraps of money which may one day allow me to escape.
Please never lose sight of those mountains, that air and the clear, cool water.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
|
|
|
The night before last I had two dreams. One was horrible and full of violence.
I don't remember the imagery of the second, but it was accompanied by some beautiful music. However, it was not a piece I can ever recall hearing in waking life. I thought at first it might have been something lodged in my mind from listening to iTunes during the day, but I went back through my playlists and couldn't find it.
I never usually dream about music - I wonder why this happened...
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Monday, December 21st, 2009
|
|
|
Two great rides in the snow this weekend.
I found it strangely satisfying to crash twice on the ice. There's something honest about bruises and cuts.
And now I don't know where to begin. I rather hope I will not have to.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
|
|
|
|
I'd forgotten what a night of unbroken sleep feels like.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
|
|
Is David Hasselhoff's 'The Night Before Christmas' the greatest Christmas album ever produced? Undoubtedly. Take it away Hoff...
|
|
Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
|
|
|
And so a quietness descends. As my hands become idle, my mind wanders and turns to thoughts which do me no credit. My mind is a suspicious place.
I think of futures which frighten me, opportunities lost, half truths and intuition. I weigh pros and cons, benchmark against imagined ideals and all the while the galloping wind of age blows in my ears. Why should the objective invade upon something so ultimately subjective.
Who am I to question the trust of others?
Does faith even exist except for in the moment of truth?
I am reminded of a line from a film: "And under what extraordinary circumstances would you allow that to happen?"
Ultimately we do all die alone, but should that preclude one from enjoying - however imagined - the warmth of trust in the few short years one has?
"If you had your time again?" That may very well be the most disruptive and dangerous question you could ask me right now.
On balance, I think I have faced my tests well. There's not much to suggest that will continue at the moment.
I will place my hope in a spark, an idea...a notion of what beauty must be.
|
|
Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
|
|
Monday, December 14th, 2009
|
|
|
In no particular order:
Sail the Atlantic
Leave the Earth
Build a home
Climb higher than 5000m
Take a long kayak trip
Ski tour a mountain range
Build a boat
Visit Japan, Kamchatka, Antarctica, Patagonia
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Friday, December 11th, 2009
|
|
|
This year I've faced the toughest operating environment I've known since I started my business.
2009 has felt like the final stages of a 2 day mountain marathon: you're standing, exposed atop a freezing hill, your energy reserves are gone, your feet are covered in blisters and the rain is lashing your face. You want nothing more than to curl up in a ball and be anywhere but where you are. You think of your loved ones. You think of all the exit options. You convince yourself there would be no shame in quitting.
...and then you ask yourself the question, "What if..?" What if I continued? What if I did make it? What might that finish line feel like?
You feel something strengthen inside. The light takes on a slight blue tint. You can feel the pain in your feet and in your aching muscles, but you welcome it. You smile, you face the weather and silently challenge it to do its worst. You realise what the human body is capable of and you know the pain will be be temporary, but the quitting will last forever.
I can hardly believe it, but - after staring failure in the face just a couple of months ago - my business has survived, grown and will go into 2010 more efficient, with an expanded team, new products, new customers and record results.
I will continue to doubt myself and I will continue to lose sleep because these are the things which ensure you are the last man standing in the bloodiest of fist fights.
And now I'm going to ride my bike up a hill.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
|
|
|
There was a day when we drove through sun baked country lanes in my Range Rover.
When we reached the pub we sat and we talked and we talked and we talked.
I can remember the smell of the heat on the pavement in the night and the coolness of the air washing the hillside where I lived. I can remember her leaving. I can remember her returning.
I remember believing it was a beginning.
That was a long time ago now.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
|
One of my fondest memories is of shopping with my Dad in the run-up to Christmas. He'd pick me up from school on the last day of term, when lessons finished at lunch time. We'd drive in his old Jaguar or take the bus into the town and buy presents for my Mum.
Lunch at Burger King used to be a treat.
On the way home we'd stop in the market to visit the Polish delicatessen and pick up salamis, fudge sweets and red poinsettias for the house.
I remember one occasion when I was also allowed to buy a pack of 3 Micro Machine cars to have before Christmas. I was thrilled.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Monday, December 7th, 2009
|
|
|
I wrote this some weeks ago and, unable to admit it to myself, I could not find the will to post it...
"It is looking increasingly likely I will have to admit failure. The writing, so to speak, is on the wall.
"The prospect of failure scares me and the fear is sealing my fate. It cripples my ambition, it distracts me every hour of the day. I am drained by facing my fear and search around for the crutches of modern convenience: food, television and bed.
"There is part of me which doesn't quite believe it is possible. When you look at the numbers, it really shouldn't be happening. Numbers, however, change quickly and soon mine will swing from the very black to the very, very red.
"Several things remain to be done. First, the players must assemble for the final act. The show must go on. It gives me some comfort to know that even in the twilight, it will be brighter..."
Today, I can say only that the brightness of light when you have passed through your darkest hour is enough to bring tears to your eyes. Grateful for a team of who transcend the boundaries between friends and colleagues, who pulled together when the outlook was bleak. Grateful for Happy. Grateful for the strength I have been given by my upbringing.
The show went on. I live to fight another day.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Monday, October 19th, 2009
|
|
|
I can't help but think of rugby and running up mountains when I smell wet, trampled grass.
I wonder if I love kayaking because it is completely unstructured? You can go anywhere, without restrictions. There are no fences, no paths to follow. Just the open expanse of water, like a canvas for your thoughts.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
|
|
|
There is a twilight zone which exists between uncertainty and survival. It is characterised by the paralysed inactivity which comes only when you have so much spinning in your head that no one action seems possible in itself.
Slowly, the weight of necessity compresses your focus onto a single objective and, upon achieving it, your confidence grows, the pressure of necessity swells and things start to happen with manic rapidity.
With hindsight, you look back from amid the warm safety of survival and realise how much time you wasted and how much richer survival could have been.
That is business and entrepreneurship for you.
I yearn for a life which tests the power of my body and not just the capacity of my brain.
|
|
Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
|
|
Friday, September 11th, 2009
|
|
|
|
It occurred to me today I operate primarily on the basis the world around me is full of very stupid people. Unfortunately I am often right. Perhaps more unfortunately, I am aware such an approach can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
|
|
Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
|
|
Monday, September 7th, 2009
|
|
|
The other day I found myself in a situation and wondering what a father's advice would be. However, the person I pictured in my mind was my Uncle, not my Dad.
I fear to delve too deeply here as I suspect I have all sorts of unresolved thoughts about my Dad, responsibility and father figures.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
|
|
If you tell me I can't do something I want to do, I will prove you wrong. Simple as that.
|
|
Comments: Add Your Own.
|
|
|
I wonder if I am alone in feeling the emotions of love, pity and trust are very close to each other?
Separately, I am deeply privileged to work with the people I do.
|
|
Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
bonzogonzales's journal