40+FAB Blog

When I get tired, it is a warning sign indicating that I need to make a readjustment.

If the signs are ignored then a bad attitude, temper, focus, judgement, decision or output are the results.
When we don’t deal with warning signs, we run the risk of incurring great damage.

 I once put the wrong fuel in my car absent minded. As I drove I noticed the car was struggling to accelerate, but I kept on driving. Half way through my journey, a red light came up on my dashboard, I had never seen that in the 5 years I had owned the vehicle. It suddenly struck me that I had put the wrong fuel in my car. I immediately called my breakdown cover and told them the issue. Thankfully they came out and were able to resolve it. The engineer who fixed my vehicle told me that they get calls from people who only report their problem a few days after noticing something is wrong, in most cases what can be done to rectify it is limited and as a result the car owner would have to replace the whole engine.

When we get tired, it is a sign that we need a break to refresh physically, emotionally or spiritually.
Know yourself and be honest about your limitations. 

Taking the step to rest and refresh could prove crucial to that next decision you will make which would prevent your life’s engines from crashing.

40+FAB Blog

We loose things all the time, and sometimes what we lost may not be that important. Well, at least we think so, but we must recognise that it is important to practice good stewardship with everything that comes into our hand.
I just love the story of a man who went on a hike with 3 children and lost them on the trail, he managed to quickly find two of them but one was still missing. When you think about it from a numerical perspective 2 out of 3 is not a bad recovery. However, the man asked himself, what will I tell their mother? That spurred him on to keep searching to find the final child and he did eventually.

You have been endowed with gifts, talents, resources and more. These are all part of a set of competencies in your life. To feel it’s ok to loose one of these without it having any impact on your life results is erroneous.

Think again about the man and the children, sometimes loosing one thing affects the other things it has a relationship to.  

I had a situation where I left a job which I didn’t need to, but I thought it didn’t matter as I could get another one easily. The loss of utilising my skills coupled with a loss of income had a knock on effect on morale. This affected a key personal project I was working on and the lapse in focus led to significant delays and unexpected costs.

Understand what is in your life and it’s relationship to everything else. Protect those things that will have the greatest impact on everything else if they get lost. 

 

40+FAB Blog

Just recently I was heading out to work and as usual I would catch the 8:06am train put my bag on the luggage rack over my seat and settle in for my journey. On a normal day, when I arrived at my stop about 40 mins later, I would pick up my bag and head off the train to get to the office just before 9:00am. But something went wrong on this day, I forgot to pick up my bag!

As soon as I realised, I rushed to the staff at the station to see if I could retrieve it. They checked the train schedule and called the next station where the train would stop. Luckily the staff at that station found my bag and kept it for me.

I ended up spending 3 hours in the process to retrieve my bag. That little mind lapse cost me a whole morning.

The price of forgetting little yet important details can be quite high, and trying to retrace your steps to recapture what was lost in the process could prove to be very expensive.
You have to ensure that your mind is not occupied with distractions which cloud your ability to remember. 

What have you forgotten recently? A birthday, an anniversary, a report, a workout, a medical appointment etc.

Put a system in place to ensure that you do not forget the seemingly small yet important things. It may not seem urgent to do so now, but consider this, the expense of forgetting could far outweigh the hassle of having a system to remember. 

40+FAB Blog

I do like the work of design that the architect does.

If you have paid for a particular experience like a meal or hair cut and received a plate of horror or a prison shave, you will appreciate the work of someone who takes the time to design the experience you want.

Some people have a view that whatever is meant for them will somehow work out and fall in their lap. If not, they think they are either unlucky or it wasn’t yet their time – sounds like the lottery to me. They end up managing a life of barely getting by.

An architect engages a client to discover their aesthetic and functional needs for a building. Based on this precise consultation, a building is designed with specific details of rooms, layouts, fittings etc. If the client likes the potential of it, then hard work is directed in building that design.

Every thing that becomes a success has an element of the work of a designer. The chances of success by design far outweigh that of luck.

Some have worked with their parents, teachers, mentors or friends to design a future that is worth celebrating. A good design even prepares you for the undesirable events that seek to detract one from the paths of progress.

Do you need the input of an expert designer in figuring out your next steps planning your future?

Find out more about those who made it work, and do employ the help of an expert designer to get some input into your all important life plan.

40+FAB Blog

I have three children all under the age of 7. It’s in situations like this that you appreciate peace and quiet. Today happened to be one of those rare days when I had the house all to myself for a few hours. 

It felt like a different place, I could hear the gripping sound of nothing. What a joy to think without distraction. I was able to reconnect with plans that had been lost in the chaos of the hustle of life.

Hear what two respected minds had to say about quiet.

“All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.” – Blaise Pascal

“The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulate the creative mind” – Albert Einstein 

Don’t pass up on the chance to get away to a quiet place for some ample time alone, it might just be the energiser that you need for a worn out mind and tired soul.  

Creative thoughts await to resolve troubles that would not abate, as you take a diet of peace and quiet.

40+FAB Blog

With over 7 billion people walking its face, on about 150 million square kilometres of land divided up into 195 countries. There are 360 million square kilometres of water teeming with billions of creatures. There are vast expanses of what seem like endless sky, the world is a big place.

With all the technology we have developed to monitor our world, we still hear of people getting lost in a desert or at sea. The world is a big place.

If the world is a big place, then how come I feel trapped in a small space? I feel like sometimes there’s not even enough room to wiggle or move. How come progress seems so insignificant given the many spaces one can run into? One tends to feel so limited.

Could it be that these limitations are imposed by the focus of my mind on what surrounds me?
Have I been influenced by mass thinking that chases a pie not big enough for all humanity?
Have I got a number stuck to my chest for the infamous rat race?
Have I stopped looking at a bigger picture, exercising my imagination at pace?

Decades ago, men moved to the ‘free’ world in response to the rush for gold. Some made a fortune from the bounty they found but that space soon became saturated and gold could no longer be found easily.

Hundreds of years later Silicon Valley was established, not on gold, but on sand. Yes, sand is the ingredient in a microchip which is the breakthrough product behind the multi billion dollar infotech industry.

When gold is exhausted, turn to the sand, the world is a big place.

The next time I feel constrained in a tiny corner, out of resources, ideas or inspiration, I will take a walk and look up in the sky reminding myself that the world is indeed a big place and there is more room for me in it.

 

 

40+FAB Blog

Society spends a bit of time obsessing on the so called privileged. Some love them and strive to break into their circles, others despise them and wish to see them fall. 

Privilege in most cases is not earned. A lot of people were born into it and through no choosing of their own have that as their upbringing.

It is wrong to castigate anyone for where they started out their life, after all not one person has ever applied for their birthplace or circumstances.

By the way, I am not jumping to the defence of the privileged, but I do want us to consider a few things.
We expect them to give back more to society, or frown on them for their indiscretions saying they should have known better.

Well, there are a few things that privilege can’t help.

Privilege can get you the best caretakers but can’t help you to love or be loved.

Privilege can put you in the best schools but can’t fill you with a heart of knowledge.

Privilege can offer you the best life examples but can’t help you develop your character.

Privilege can fill your hands with much wealth but can’t help you be satisfied with it.

Privilege can hide wrong actions for a while but can’t help you erasing the consequences.

Privilege can get you the best technologies to be faster but can’t help you make more time.

Privilege can give you more options in life but can’t help you make better decisions.

When you take a step back and think about all that privilege can’t help, maybe the privileged do not have so much of an advantage over the rest of us. Maybe they still have to make the right choices like we all must do.
If privilege can’t help this, then I think I have not missed out on privilege. 

40+FAB Blog

You know you are committed to the cause when you are willing to wake up early and start working on it.

You know you are committed to the cause when you stay up late until you have finished with it.

You know you are committed to the cause when you miss a couple of meals without noticing as you focus on it.

You know you are committed to the cause when you give up that hang out with friends and family to learn more about it.

You know you are committed to the cause when most of your conscious thoughts are occupied with it.

You know you are committed to the cause when you can speak about it with passion when asked what you think of it.

You know you are committed to the cause when it is more than a wish and has become a burning desire.

What is it you are committed to? We don’t necessarily need to ask, we only need to watch you for a while and see.

40+FAB Blog

Still on the issue of plans and planning, “I plan to…” could inevitably become a cop out to not do what one is meant to do.
So what could cause the magic of planning to become another lazy excuse? The answer is simple but the enemy it exposes is wiley – Procrastination.

Procrastination pushes plans past possibility. 
This is because the very nature of procrastination takes away the need for immediate action, while the aim of a plan is to spur you on to focused action that achieves possibilities.

Once a plan is completed, it should immediately be linked to an action. I plan to succeed should change to I will succeed. I plan to loose weight should change to I will diet or I will exercise. I plan to grow financially should change to I will start saving.

Link your plans to their impending actions and change your lingo from “I plan to…” to “I will…”

40+FAB Blog

If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.

It has been proven time and again that those with a plan achieve much more than those without a plan.
The research says that those with a written plan are even more likely to produce results that far outweigh others without a written plan.

Planning is about looking ahead and looking at options for a course of action to achieve an outcome. Because life is so dynamic, things could change and our plans could become irrelevant, so every good planner knows not to get stuck on a plan, but to be stuck on the outcome of the plan.

I had a flight to New York recently so I planned to be at the airport at least 3 hours before the flight as I was unable to check in online due to an error in my booking. On the day of the trip, there was unusual traffic that caused significant delays to my journey. This meant I would get to the airport after check-in closed (90 minutes before the flight). After much panic, I got myself together and with 20 minutes left before check-in closed, I called the airline and explained my predicament. They were able to resolve the issue with my booking and I checked in online while in my taxi. I got to the airport just in enough time to go through security and catch my flight.  
 
My outcome was to catch a flight and not necessarily to get to the airport on time. The plan to get to the airport on time failed, but my outcome was achieved.

If your plan doesn’t point you to an outcome, then something is wrong with it. The plan is only as workable as the outcome it seeks.

So, what happened to your plan? No need to analyse it too much if you haven’t lost sight of your outcome.