The Kind Stranger Chapter 4: A trip to the pottery.

“Good morning!”

I’m getting used to the Kind Stranger sneaking up on me and surprising me.  Behind his smiling face is a playful sense of humour. Here I was getting on with my life, preparing breakfast in the kitchen. In he came, looking for me. KS is always welcome in our home.

“We’re going on a short trip today,” he said. “I’ve something to show you.”

By now I have learnt that he hears the deeper thoughts I have and responds to them without me needing to verbalising anything. I suspected this was another similar moment. It was.

But of course we didn’t need to get the car out and disappear down the road.  No, the Kind Stranger invited me to sit quietly with him, rest my mind, and wait. A few minutes later, I knew we were on the move, and soon we arrived at a village square.  You’ll probably have been there yourself.  It had an array of houses gathered around a village green.

“We’re going just over there”, he pointed to an old building with a light burning inside. We wandered over, he lifted the latch and we stepped inside.

We were in a workshoppy room, with pots everywhere, in various stages of completion. This, I realised was the village potter’s house, and I was unnerved to find that the old potter, working away at her wheel in the corner was oblivious to us.  I tried to talk to the old woman, but she didn’t hear me.  It was as if I was invisible to her. I slowly realised that I was.

I turned to the Kind Stranger to ask what all this was about when he put his finger to his lips to quieten me. He smiled. “Just watch,” he whispered.

I moved over to a workbench, pulled myself up onto it so I could sit more comfortably, and watched as instructed.

The Kind Stranger came and stood by me, and put his hand on my arm.  He often did this to reassure me and help me to relax. I felt myself take in deep breath and exhale slowly, feeling my shoulders drop and my breathing slow.

The Potter got up, moved past us, and unseeing, made her way to a bin of clay. Lifting the lid, she removed a lump of pure soft clay. Cutting a small amount from the lump the potter took it over to her wheel and began to carefully press it, mould it, and shape it. She took such care, and I was intrigued to watch her skills in action. Several times she stopped the wheel, and looked contemplatively at her amazing creation. It was absolutely beautiful. She had used her lifetime of skill to form a fine elegant pot that would undoubtedly be very valuable when it was finished.

Turning it slowly, she looked at each facet, checking it on the inside, on the outside, and smiled – a bit like the Kind Stranger did. Then, all of a sudden, she stopped. She had noticed a tiny flaw, a little impurity in the clay, hidden imperceptibly on the inside of the vessel. I expected her to pass over it, or take some spare clay and fix it somehow, but she didn’t. No, she gently put her hands around it and with the wheel spinning, crushed the entire pot back into a single lump of clay, and she began to make it again, a different vessel.

It hurt me to watch. I felt sad that such a nice pot would never be used by anyone or admired. Even though it was flawed it was still beautiful, still useful, still worth something. The mark was on the inside, not really visible, what was the big deal?  But I could see that to the potter it mattered. This was about her making the very most of the clay.

Something was happening inside me as I realised that the potter was not going to settle for second best. Of course, she knew that, in her hands, there was no need for any concern at all. She knew just what to do. This was clay of the highest quality and my guess is that she had paid a high price for that raw material. She had no desire to leave the clay flawed by an impurity and had no intention of moving on until that vessel was…

Exactly. The Kind Stranger  looked over at me and winked. We made our way out of the potter’s workshop, and soon we were back in my kitchen. I knew what this was about, and he knew I knew. It was about me, the value of my ‘clay’ and what I really needed right now. If I would allow myself to be …

I caught his eye. He smiled approvingly. Great. He had heard my unspoken decision.

The Kind Stranger Chapter 3: The Hug

When I was a child I remember playing hide and seek. We hid somewhere – in a cupboard, under a bed, and waited to be found. I remember the excitement and the peculiar emotion it created, as the finder crept from room to room in our rambling farm house looking for us. I remember so wanting to be found.

When I became a man and my own children were small they would run and hide and I would make a big fuss about “wondering where they were” as they hid, only half-hidden behind a curtain, desperately attempting to suppress their give-away giggles. When it was their turn to find me I wanted them to enjoy both the hunt and finding me, so I hid where they would find me easily.

These memories go through my mind now as I recall the mornings when I was waiting for the Kind Stranger to come. I knew he would find me if I sat quietly. I also knew he could not be manipulated or forced to come. He was far too strong and powerful for that. He had given me the key to our meetings: I must wait quietly. Like the little children, I was desperate for him to find me and, of course, he did.  He had promised.

I was in the garden, sitting at one end of our old swinging seat.  I had been there quietly for maybe ten minutes or so when I felt him come and sit at the other end. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was there. You’ll probably know that feeling by now. It’s marked by an overwhelming sense of knowing that I’m loved, wanted and accepted just as I am, sitting just here, even though I don’t deserve it.

“Good morning,” he said, with joy in his voice, “And by the way, I’m not here because you deserve it, but because you’re now my friend.” He’d read my mind. It was as pointless to pretend I could hide my thoughts from the Kind Stranger as it was for the children as they tried to hide, giggling behind the curtain. He knew.

“And yes, I do very much.” That was a surprise. The thought had crossed my mind to ask him if he enjoyed coming to be with me like this.

“Thank you.” I said very quietly. It was lovely to know that he was so sensitive to me. I’d never had a friend like this ever before, and I was so very grateful. I felt him look at me directly and smile with love in his eyes.  Apart from my admission of my need on that day I met him, this was the first time I’d actually spoken to him out loud. Looking back, ‘Thank you’ was the perfect thing to say. I was just so so deeply thankful. I said it again, from the bottom of my heart. “Thank you.”

You know how I mentioned earlier how it felt as if he put his arm around me? Well, it felt like that again. I felt surrounded, embraced, hugged, by him. It was a warm, caring, ‘family’ hug, the sort of comforting hug that a loving older sister or brother might give a little child. I breathed “thank you” again, but the words were unnecessary.  He knew.

It was such a special moment for me. It is well established by now that physical contact, a meaningful touch, a simple caress makes such a difference to people, but this was so much more. It was all encompassing and went so deep. Although this wasn’t an actual physical touch, it felt like it – a bathing of my spirit, an acceptance of me as a person – it was as close as it gets. I drank it in, more and more, soaking in it, allowing that hug to overwhelm me, and it did. I started to sob.

I sat and cried on and off for the next ten minutes or more. They were tears of relief. I’d been found. It was as if his hug was melting the core of my being, softening it again, and the tears were merely a stream flushing away the debris of years. And they did flush it away. As the emotion subsided, I felt clean, whole, refreshed.

I turned to speak, but he had slipped away. That was OK. I knew he’d be back.

I also knew that his hug would be mine for ever.

The Video is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/serx50#p/a/u/0/DMqOmKBz2ug

The Kind Stranger. Chapter 2: The Second Encounter

Read the previous chapter? Then enjoy the second chapter of this amazing story…

It was the day after I met him that I first noticed a change. Now, as I think back, it is hardly surprising that it would affect my future life.  I had experienced something very special, and through the night I tossed and turned and wondered about it all. Was this really just a remote chance encounter, or was I missing something?   The Kind Stranger had singled me out for his attention. This was new to me – it had never happened before – well, not like this anyway. I didn’t know how significant it would be.

I felt both weakened and strengthened at the same time by that first encounter. It was the weakness that felt strangely good. My carefully constructed defences had softened. I had softened. I could sense myself more flexible, more open, and much more relaxed. For the first time in years I felt safer, stronger, in fact much stronger inside.

I decided to make a drink and sit down quietly. And that’s when I heard his voice again.

It felt so close, and it was not just in my head. It felt as if he was in the room with me, not physically, if you know what I mean, but definitely here. I put my drink down, and just sat, relaxed, attentive, waiting.

I know this sounds weird for a rational human adult, but to me it was as real as the chair, the drink, me sitting here, and I felt a wave of warm emotion as I heard the Kind Stranger’s voice again, as real as yesterday.

He was smiling still. You can tell when someone is smiling, can’t you. And this time his voice was quieter, more personal, almost intimate, but with that wholesome respect and trustworthiness I’d begun to associate with him. It wasn’t a whisper, just reassuringly quiet. Perhaps he knew I needed to hear him that way today.

“I said I’d come.” I heard him smile. “You can trust what I say.” How did he know that my trust in people was at a low ebb these days? “I’m here to remind you of the truth,” he said gently, “the truth about you.”

I wriggled a bit in my chair (I won’t admit to squirming!) and took a moment to settle myself. He waited. I took a deep breath, and as I relaxed he gently continued.

“From the moment you arrived on this earth as a human life until the moment you depart from it – and that includes now of course” (he smiled again) – “you have been, are, and forever will be of indescribable worth. The word I’d like to use is ‘priceless’. No amount of gold, diamonds, or any number of banknotes in any currency would compare with your worth.”

The Kind Stranger stopped for a moment to let his words sink in. They needed to. I had long doubted that I was worth anything much. Yet in his voice was a wonderful reliable confidence. He knew he was right, and in the deepest caverns of my soul I heard myself receive his words as truth for me. For the first time since I was a tiny child, I realised how valuable I really was. Priceless.

Overwhelmed, I felt my emotions well up. A single sigh, suppressed for so long within those deep echoey caverns, rose within me, and as I breathed it out, the doubt was gone. I knew the truth.

“I’ll be back soon.”  I think I may have felt his touch on my arm again as he left, though I could have imagined that.

I sat awhile, comfortably alone and at peace, consciously and unconsciously surrendering each part of my life to what he had told me. It would change everything.

Watch the video of Chapter 2 .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i9AjJCXI_Q

The Kind Stranger

In Powerchange we have all sorts of interesting ways to help people have a better quality of life, and here’s a new exercise I’d like you to test for me.  It’s called The Kind Stranger and it works by readjusting your thoughts as you read it. Notice what it does to you emotionally over the next few minutes or days, and ‘leave a comment’ (above) so we can know how it is working for you.  If it ‘works’, pass it on to your friends – even Facebook it for me! Here it is …

You know those times when you feel ‘needy’- alone maybe, inadequate somehow, or unresourced? It was at such a time as this that the kind stranger turned up. It was a completely unexpected encounter, and one that changed me. He just came up to me, smiling, and although to start with I was a bit suspicious I quickly realised he was a genuinely good person, and his intentions towards me were healthy – pure – and good.

What he said was good too.  So very good.  He fed me, deep in my soul, and it was only later that I realised how much I had benefited from his kindness. “Excuse me,” the kind stranger said, “I hope you don’t mind me coming over to you, but I notice that you seem to feel alone and, dare I say it, in need somehow.” He disarmed me with his gentle tone of voice and obvious respect. His honesty was refreshing, although a little unnerving, and enabled me to be honest too. “Yes,” I admitted. “It is a bit like that at the moment.”

“May I take just a few minutes to help?”  He was so direct, and although I had so much to busy myself with, I knew I must stop and listen to him. We found somewhere to sit down, and he, this smiling kind stranger, addressed me personally.

“What do you need to hear someone say to you today?”

It was such a surprising line it took me off guard, and I could feel a lump in my throat. I wanted to get away, yet I knew this was important. He was obviously in no rush, waiting quietly for my reply. He watched me attentively – kindly – as his words sank in, slipping under my defences.  I mentally ran through a few superficial replies but knew I must be honest in return. I thought of the one thing I’ve longed for someone to say to me, but simply couldn’t voice it. It was lodged, stuck in my heart.

“That’s right,” he said.

Had he read my mind? I thought of some more.

“And those are good too.”

With a tender transparent authority the kind stranger told me clearly, gently, confidently, things I needed to hear. And something inside me change for ever.  How did he know? (For he certainly did.)

” May I put my hand on your arm?” he asked. Shocked, I reached out towards him, and he respectfully held my arm just above my wrist. It was such an important touch – firm, reassuring, filled with the rich tenderness of loving human contact. I loved him for it. Skin-food for my soul. I felt a deep confidence come from his hand  into my body.

“You know,” he said wisely, “we could meet right here every day or every week in person and I could say these things to you. It would be very resourcing and up-building for you. But I’ve got a better idea: I want you to listen to my voice now, saying and repeating these things you need to hear, deep inside you. Listen to my voice deep in your heart.” He paused as he noticed me do what he suggested. “It is me, isn’t it!” He chuckled, and continued, “And then, every day, even though I will not be with you physically as I am now, I want you to feel my hand on your arm like this and hear my voice reminding you of them –and all the other things you’ve forgotten that you need. Hear the words you needed someone to say to you when you were a child, a teenager, and at those other moments of your life when you felt alone, lacking confidence and direction. I’ll say them – listen out for me. You will hear my voice inside you and I will say them. They are the truth. And when you’ve learned how to listen to me, tell others about your encounter with me and help them to listen. So from today on I’ll be with you forever – and with them too if they want me!”

And he is. Whenever I sense I need him, he’s there… here. Every day. I feel his warm hand on my arm as I write, his confident touch relaxing me, feel his strong arm around my shoulders, hear his wholesome, rich voice, full of endorsement, encouragement, kindness and love reminding me of what I need to hear. I listen to him every day now, and he’s no longer a stranger.

Andrew tells the story personally on youtube – with one or two little extras…

A Purpose-inspired Life. Part 2.

Read Part 1 first.  It will help you.

Mushrooms or Oak Trees

Living only for today and tomorrow and not considering your life as a whole is like growing mushrooms. They will be tasty today, but thrown away tomorrow. Growing mushrooms is an urgent business that needs high levels of control, hour by hour monitoring and fast delivery. Growing a forest of oaks is completely different. Oaks are grown for use by those in future generations. There is a delayed but much greater reward for growing them. Oak endures for literally centuries ahead. It gives lasting pleasure.
How do you want the legacy of your life to affect the people in future decades and generations?

What would it be like to give them the best example of how to live?

Who is watching you?

Primary and Secondary Purposes

Pretty much anything that has been designed and crafted has a “primary” purpose. It may also have a spectrum of secondary purposes – sometimes quite different from that for which it was originally made. A beer mat’s primary purpose is as a marketing tool. Its secondary purposes may include acting as a beer mat, as a ‘table toy’ (something to fiddle with) and as a table-leg extension – we put them under the table leg to prevent wobbling.
Although you may be able to quickly identify other purposes for your life, identifying your primary purpose brings greater inner strength, boldness and confidence. It can be very liberating as we decide “This is what I believe I was born for!”

The Power of Purpose

We sometimes identify behaviour as being done “on purpose’. By that we mean there was a clear agenda to that action, that the person (ourselves perhaps) was responding to an inner conceived plan. When you have a clear purpose that you know is ethical, unselfish and will always benefit those around you, you can live every day ‘on purpose’ with your thoughts and actions positively set to achieve that purpose. In so doing you experience the deep satisfaction of living a purposeful life.

Such a life is amazingly powerful, and because you have made sure that any action towards the fulfilment of your purpose will only benefit and not harm the world around you – your friends, work colleagues, family, etc.– you need have no fear of messing up.

NO fear of messing up?

Well, no.  Here’s why. The only sense of purpose worth its salt is one that is indestructible. Unless it is (at least for me) I don’t want it.  what is the point of living with a purpose that flops about in the breeze or gets blown away in the next gale? Your purpose needs to be like a flawless compass in the toughest storm, a purpose that is immune to the buffeting it is sure to get through the dark nights of life.

Such indestructible compasses do not come cheap. Nor can they possibly be material – either human material (a person, for example) nor non-human (mbecause material purposes are vulnerable.

Compelling

I want something that will guide my behaviour even when I’m not looking, a ‘automatic’ compass that I can rely on to take me along the path towards (not necessarily to arrive at) my destination, even though I may be ill or very tired, walking through a tough time or distracted in some way. A purpose that will inspire me needs to be too big for me to have completed in my lifetime and inspiring enough for others to be caught up by it, in fact my purpose involves living out my ‘brand’ to the day I die. I want that to be compelling for me, and up to now it has been. (And I’ve written about it in my Mission Statement blog somewhere else on this site!)

If you want me, or one of our Powerchange coach team to be alongside you in these coming months as you figure out and create your Purpose, get in touch. We’re here to support you when you know you are ready to…

Go for it!

A Purpose-inspired Life, Part 1.

The evidence is well researched and clear. If you want a deep sense of satisfaction and fulfilment in your life, live with a clear sense of ‘life-time purpose’. Whilst it is often a person’s decision to live life on a minute by minute, day by day basis, thinking only of how they can stave off the boredom and frustrations of everyday life and provide for daily needs, many more down the centuries have found something richer. A purpose inspired life. And you don’t have to be a saint to do it.

External or Internal?

The concept of being guided by a sense of internal or external purpose appears to be unique to human beings. We love to have meaning for what we do, and to know our function – our “job description.”
On the basis that a craftsman will take raw materials and invest time and energy into developing them for a given purpose, some people give added special meaning to their lives as they believe an EXTERNAL influence – ‘someone’ or ‘something’, a spiritual influence, Creator or divine Being perhaps – has ‘arranged’ for them to exist in this time and place, and may believe “we are put on this earth for a purpose.” We call this having a sense of ‘given’ purpose.

Others people may have the belief that it is entirely up to us, that the existence of human beings and what they choose to do and have is a matter of chance and personal choice, in INTERNAL decision, in which case any sense of purpose for them is a ‘chosen’ purpose.

Whether you believe that any sense of purpose you have is external or internal, there is plenty of evidence that giving significant attention to how you are going to live your life, having a clear sense of direction is highly satisfying. Alongside that sense of direction can go a set of guiding principles on how you are going to fulfil that purpose – your moral code.

Identify your current belief:

Do you think that your purpose is primarily influenced by yourself or someone/something beyond you?

Purpose is determined by … SELF 0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 BEYOND (Circle a number)

Beyond Yourself

With a little practice it is possible to take what is called a ‘meta’ view of yourself and your life, seeing yourself from outside. The word meta means ‘above and beyond’ and we use it in psychology to help provide some sort of objective view – in as far as it is possible to do so.
By varying the distance that separates that ‘you’ over there from this ‘you’ holding and reading this paper, we can create a sense of ‘dissociation’. You’ll perceive yourself differently. The further away you set that other ‘you’ the less you are emotionally caught up with them, their emotions, behaviour and thoughts. The ideal distance is usually one that means you know what they are thinking and feeling, and see what they are doing, but feel part of those thoughts and actions. It’s like watching yourself on video – you recognise it is you but you are separate from it.

Try it:

Imagine you are sitting several metres away, ‘over there’, but as you are now, reading this. Look at that ‘you over there’. What are you wearing? What is that person thinking? How happy is ‘you over there’?
You can now reverse it. Imagine you are over there looking back at the person here, where you are now.

The Purpose Question

The following Purpose Question gives you an opportunity to identify your own thoughts as to what you may think or believe would be a motivating and inspiring long-term primary purpose for your life, and integrates both the external (given) and internal (chosen) approaches mentioned above:
“Imagine that someone beyond yourself (someone who loves you unconditionally, wants the best for you and knows all about you, knows your deepest thoughts, character, strengths, weaknesses and longings, and accepts you just as you are) has chosen an inspiring, motivating and satisfying purpose for the whole of the rest of your life, a purpose that you can fulfil every day. What did they decide?”

Write down your answer.  What might be their reason(s) for choosing this purpose as most suitable for you?

Check it out

1. Sit down one-to-one with two or three people who know you well and will be truly honest with you and ask them what they think about the ethicality, and appropriateness of your ‘draft’ Purpose. Choose people who you think live purposefully and are themselves people of integrity.  They may be older than you and wiser, though not always. Young people can be very astute and very honest!
2. Listen receptively to what they say and consider whether they may be right or not.
Don’t defend yourself. You need to know what they think and defending yourself will close them down.
3. Listen carefully and note down their comments.
4. If you have a trained personal coach or mentor, such a person may be ideal. Be flexible enough to adjust, modify and refine what you’re identifying as your personal Purpose, based on their comments. Every sense of purpose needs to be strong enough to stand the test of time. A life-purpose lasts a lifetime. Don’t rush creating it.

Needless to say, I’d love to help you – or one of our Powerchange team will. just contact us via powerchange.com.

Fertile thinking?

I never ever thought I’d be standing in a fertility clinic. We have three adult children, and two grandchildren, but last night I was in the London Women’s Clinic in Harley Street, London, with Anya Sizer, one of our Powerchange GOLD Coaches. Anya is using her training and outstanding skills to help transform the lives of couples who want a baby. Last night was the launch of her first book, Fertile Thinking, written with Cat Dean, and published by infiniteideas in Oxford. (You can buy the book on Amazon.co.uk.)

Fertile thinking. Bring YOUR seed thoughts to life.

I love the title. The fertility world is rife with stress–sadness, bereavement, disappointment, elation and many other emotions–as women desperately long to be pregnant. Anya and Cat’s book is a breath of fresh air as she coaches couples towards thinking differently, giving themselves a psychological strategy to support all the physical stuff. The fact that Anya has two children by IVF means she really has ‘been there’. It’s not just our bodies that get pregnant. And ‘pregnancy’ is not limited to women. You have literally thousands of seed ideas that need to be impregnated in order for them to come alive and grow. Like fertility treatment–in fact, like every attempt at pregnancy–there is no guarantee that they will, or that they will all last the term and come out into the world perfectly formed.

But some of them will. The world changes when seed thoughts are impregnated with faith. Faith is the deep-seated belief that something might happen, can happen, even though you cannot see it up ahead just yet.  It is a living thing. Not just wishful thinking, but an alive and wriggling.

Seed thoughts, like good relationships, grow when you pay attention to them. And we pay attention because we believe they have a potential future. When I founded Powerchange in March 2000, I had no idea that I would be standing in that fertility clinic last night. When Anya first joined our coach training programme, I had no idea that she would go on to be so influential in the world of fertility, respected widely for her fertility coaching.

I had no idea you would be reading this. So what are you wanting to bring to birth?  If it’s physical pregnancy you’re concerned about, get in touch with Anya. If it’s your dreams that never see the light of day, there’s a ‘Ideas Fertility Clinic’ you might want to call.  We can help you bring that seed thought to full term.

Get in touch. Email me today. Now. Make it happen. That’s the next step.

The Day of the Entrepreneur has Come.

Hooray!  Hooray!  At last, amid the sad gloom and gutting inevitability of downturns, redundancies  and part time working, there is a glimmer of light on the dawn horizon.

Following evening classes in gardening and French beret design, Monet decided to try just one more...

The country is slowly awakening to the idea that starting your own business is worth it.  Part-time or full-time, for those little luxuries, for feeding the kids or for paying the mortgage, starting and building a business for yourself makes sense  – at least for those people who want to be in control of their own destiny. You’ll work harder than you ever have before, you may work hours longer, but think of it, you’ll get ALL the profit.  YOU get what YOU work for. And you’ll enjoy it. You may even get to buy an Airstream.

As a business creator and coach, (and a bloke who was brought up in an entrepreneurial family) here are my top tips for making a business work – and I’ve made mine work since 1997. When I started I was on Family Credit and Housing Benefit.

Tip Number 1:  See Problems in the World as a Business Opportunity.

Wherever there is a problem, someone somewhere will pay YOU to fix it! People make millions out of everything from manure and toilet paper, to oil disasters, toothache and getting vomit out of taxi cabs. You can make money from ANY problem that someone wants to go away – and all of us want problems to go away, don’t we?  Have you noticed that YOU pay people to do things you don’t want to do?

Tip number 2: Don’t let ‘Pride’ Stop You.

How often do you hear people say, “Oh, I could never do that!” Poor them.  They are letting their fear of what another person might think push them into poverty. If you think like that, you are probably not hungry enough. Believe me, the way things are going you will be hungry enough one day, so why wait until then? All over the country we are catching on to the attitude of a guy I met…

This wasn't him.

… in Mumbai.  He had a shop that sold trendy belts.  I interviewed him for a film we were making, and his excitement knew no bounds.  He was about to open his SECOND belts shop a few streets away. Both shops had ground space of just 3 square metres! (He bribed the street wardens to let him have an extra square metre and increased his sales by 50%!) He was so pleased with himself.  Yet in Britain people would rather be seen on anti-depressants than be seen on a market stall.  And all because of pride.  How stupid.

Tip number 3: Live beyond disappointment, criticism and blame.

I can tell you first hand what it feels like to have people rip you off, steal your money (ie, not pay their bills), lie (say they are going to), rubbish your product when they have never tried it, and lots more besides. They are the true poor, however much money they have.  You will have every good reason to be fed up, mope, slag people off and use other methods to try and make yourself feel better, but all that will only distract you from your essential obsession: to build your business. It took me ten years to stop feeling mad at the disgraceful behaviour of some people who had treated me badly, and when I did, I changed for the better -  I learnt to let it go and keep my focus.

I sell words, words that change people’s lives, rewire their thinking and give them hope, inspiration, and more money in the bank.  Those words do not come cheap, neither to me nor to you. I paid a lot to be able to say those words with utter conviction and passion. I paid a price of personal pain, of rejection, of misunderstanding, and sometimes of real hard cash. (“Poor me”? Certainly not!   They’ve made me a wealthier person.)  Learning the hard way is normal, and entrepreneurs of all people have learnt to milk costly experiences for what they are worth, because they know those same experiences will mature into powerful assets in the future if they are humble enough to be taught by them. Those things become an investment.

So if, like Maria in the Sound of Music, you’ve had a door slammed in your face – or even watched helplessly as the wind blew it shut before you could get to keep it open – remember there is ALWAYS a way out, a window, even from some of the most awful of places. (As you may have read in my previous blog, even from a hard-core prison.) The closed door is perversely an invitation to a new life, maybe less lucrative than previously to start with, but a life of challenge, the thrill of creative inspiration and the joy of achievement.

Today may just be your day. After all, you’ve read THIS, and you’ve got THIS FAR. So what comes next? Are you going to be like the sad majority of people who surrender to the bad times, who plonk themselves down in a heap and get mad at people like me who ‘don’t understand’ but live happy and motivated? Are you going to get into more bad debt and go on the (anti-depressant) pill? Or are you going to come off the crippling contraceptive of distrust, allow yourself to be seduced by the possibility of a better life, and get pregnant with a business? It won’t be long before you give birth to a life that brings worthwhile action and purposeful, rewarding – deeply fulfilling – days months and years. Yes, starting a business is a bit like having a live, wriggly, demanding baby in the family. Mine is ten years old this year, and growing up fast!

If you’re at that point of decision today, give me a personal call on 0777-163-1945, or send me an email: andrew@powerchange.com.  Of course I’ll help you. I’ll mentor you.  And of course I’ll charge you.  But just because you accepted my invitation and read this blog, I’ll give you a special summer discount in July and August. IF you remind me of this offer, that is!

Get in touch.  You don’t yet know just how rewarding that will be.

You could know by tomorrow though, couldn’t you?

An Airstream – outside my house!

You’re not going to believe this, but this morning when I woke up there was an Airstream travel trailer – not a caravan, remember – PARKED OUTSIDE MY HOUSE! Here’s the picture to prove it.

A dream coming true?

If you haven’t read my previous blog about wanting an Airstream Bambi really badly, you probably won’t appreciate the significance of this. Just to catch you up with the story, the Airstream man, Mr Michael Hold (he’s not actually called ‘Something-or-other’), read my last blog and was impressed. Important people read my blog, you know. (You are one of them of course.) And we chatted on the phone. Within a few days he had called to say he was coming down to the famous Goodwood Festival of Speed and could he come and visit? Well of course. He brought his son Robin, and I’m please to report, they are VERY nice people. They came in for a barbecue, stayed with us for the Festival and we had the unquestionable honour of having his Airstream stay too.

The sad truth is, its not the little Bambi.  His is posher and bigger than that, but it hasn’t stolen my affections, despite its beauty.  I like its little sister best, with her little red awning, and pretty proportions. Bambi is SO CUTE.

I was just thinking – would you like to see an Airstream for yourself?  What would it be like if one turned up outside  your house and stayed the night? How inspiring would that be for you?   In Powerchange (that’s our personal coaching company) we have learnt that visual impact really matters when you’re after something. Being able to ‘see’ it, even with your mind’s eye, can make imagination become reality. That is what having a ‘vision’ is all about: something you’ve ‘seen’. We know that what you look at gets bigger the closer you get.  Whether that is winning a Wimbledon Final – the second most important thing that happened yesterday – or an Airstream turning up.

There are other things you can do too. Remember the classic film The Shawshank Redemption?

Freeman inspiring a younger inmate

It is about being unjustly imprisoned and being determined to find a way out. If you haven’t seen it yet, get the video for £6.99 from iTunes. Watch it several times. It is so inspiring.  The central character, played by Morgan Freeman escapes to freedom by chipping his way out of his prison cell, chip by chip by chip. It reminds us that there ARE ways to get out of even the most desperate circumstances of life and be free again. You may be thinking how nice it would be for some Airstream travel trailer to turn up on your doorstep and whisk you away to a different world – and that really might happen! But when you are determined to change your life, don’t leave it to chance. It is better to be in control of the process yourself and chip away at the seeming impossible.

If someone had told me a month ago that I’d have an Airstream outside my house this morning, I’m not sure I’d have believed them – not least because they are so in demand and there is a waiting list! But there it is, in the morning sunlight of a English summer’s day.

A reminder that what you think about, the BMW in the drive, the GS motorbike, the Airstream, (and in my case, even the house itself), can become reality.

Can this happen to you too?

Come on, use your imagination.

An Airstream Bambi. Here’s what to do when you want something really badly.

I mean really badly.

Take for example the small matter of a small caravan. Oops, there goes my first mistake, fostered by the blinding desire to have an Airstream Travel Trailer, I’ve gone and called it a caravan. The absolutely wonderful man at Airstream just off the M6 at Tebay, Cumbria, called Michael Something-or-other was so gentle as he reminded my that this was a ‘Travel Trailer’ not a ‘caravan’. He was lovely about it, explaining that Airstream is just coming of age in Europe, with a range specially designed for this side of the Atlantic Ocean (which is not, I hasten to point out, a ‘pond’. We had one of those in the village and it had ducks on it. You could also see the other side.)

Oh, you are gorgeous.

Immediately, in fact before he even mentioned it, I could see the difference.  Not only that, so could my wife. This was no caravan.  This was something completely different.  and I wanted one BADLY, the whole shiny aluminium gorgeous thing, and I had several choices, from a ultra-gigantic version, to be pulled, I would have thought, by one of those tow-trucks you see at fairgrounds, all the way down (or maybe that should read ‘up’) to the sweetest little travel trailer you’ve ever seen.  It is even called ‘Bambi’.

The very nicest thing about it, well there were dozens of nice things about it actually, was that it would easily be towed by my car.  MY car!  Little Bambi was taking on new significance – she wanted to be in our family and come on holiday with us.  With our Airstream Bambi in tow, my wife and I could trundle up to some remote sun-strewn beach in Europe, pull down the beautiful red awning, pull up a couple of red chairs and, hey presto, our very own boutique hotel on wheels, complete with sea view.

Now let me take you inside. No squeezing through some scrappy little door as on a ‘white box caravan’. No, I mean this, A proper door.  I experienced a slight physical (and emotional) shock to realise that I had walked into Bambi and hadn’t banged my head. Nor when I came out again!  That HAS to be a first for me when it comes to carav…  oops. When the children were small we caravanned (yes, the right word this time) most years and the holidays were only marred by the sobbing that issued from their broken father as I hit my head on the top of the doorway … again. And I’m not joking, it reduced me (in my weaker moments, which on holiday … well, you can imagine) to real tears.

But not with Bambi. Room to spare everywhere. Even the shower was a decent size. I swear I could reach all the parts of my body that I wanted to wash in that shower – although of course I was a tad embarrassed to do that in the showroom to check it out. The shower was great. I suspect that my wife AND I could … no, we won’t go there.

And so we come to the living space. Think boutique hotel again. The lighting reflecting throughout the cabin (its made like an aircraft) creates a romantic atmosphere to lull one into the dinner-a-deux mindset, though the single red rose was missing. I noted that the central heating (yes it has central heating for the winter months) was off, but the rich red upholstery begged you to recline in comfort and either watch the telly, which we would never willingly do unless Dad’s Army was on, or read a favourite novel to the subtle tones of Rachmaninov on the sound system.

Needless to say, images of Bambi are now pinned up on my study wall, where my first BMW car was before I owned one, where my R…x watch was before I owned it,  and my 1200GS motorbikes (yes, I’ve had two) were displayed before I owned them – and in fact where the details of the house we now live in were pinned before we bought it.

I think you probably get the point. When you want something REALLY badly, pin it up on the wall in your line of sight where you’ll see it every day, and start to dream. Imagine having it, enjoying it, sharing it, playing with it (in it?) Or just call me on 07771631945. Or email me. Or visit the Powerchange website. Chances are we can help you GET IT.

I want an Airstream Bambi, never mind the fact that it is over £30,000. My car was nearly that price and I didn’t have the money for that either when it first went on the wall. My car will tow it and I want it.

What do you want?