#life

How Brands Like

Manchester United

Are Getting It Wrong

2 min

Grip that steering wheel of life, put on your seat belt and push down the accelerator pedal, hard!

Have you ever had the feeling that your life could be compared to sitting in a car driving at top speed going round bends, over bumps and squeezing between other cars yet you don’t feel you even have control of the steering wheel? This is a feeling that I think we all go through at times. Sometimes the drive is exhilarating, enjoyable and fun, a roof down, and wind in your hair dream drive. Other times, it can be terrifying, painful and you are just waiting for a mighty thump

3 min

How much time do you waste worrying about nothing?

Maybe I am different, maybe it’s just the way my mind works or maybe everyone is like me but they manage to hide it better. In my career as a Regional Creative Director and other management positions much of my time has been spent helping individuals through the process of their daily challenges with a particular project or task. Often the work related issues we started with seemed to always drift away from the project and I found myself delving into the minds of people, with

2 min

Dreams come to you at night for a reason

They sometimes do not come for days or weeks. They sometimes come in waves. Sometimes, just sometimes, they come so clear and vibrant it feels like they touch your very soul. But there is a reason dreams come to you in your sleep. Dreams need your undivided attention. Dreams need the canvas of your mind to express the subconscious and plant important information that one day will trigger a response. What that response will be is not always be clear. But it does have your undi

4 min

A positive outlook can change the world

How many times when you are online these days do you see negative comments or people? Attacks or just what seem to be either depressed lonely people or someone just looking for attention. Unfortunately they rarely get the kind of attention they crave and often seem to attract the worse kind of people. We live in a world where people seem to feel they can attack, abuse and violate people and the online space with crude, obscene and downright offensive comments. These people of

2 min

Don’t get angry, get to work instead

How much time over the years have you lost being angry? I know I have probably wasted more time than most on things that have not helped me, caused me more stress and made life quite unbearable to those around me. I have always been the kind of person that over analyzes every conversation over and over again. I even do this when I have a good conversation but I still start nit picking on certain words and think ‘what did that really mean?’ What a complete waste of time. There

2 min

In our darkest moments we are the strength that lights our path

We have all faced down the demons of a certain situation in our lives. Whether those moments were personal, financial, professional, abuse or any other terrible incident that scars our soul. When we think back to that moment it all feels so real, shocking and sickening that we sense a closeness through the fabric of time and space that links you to that event, or like most people events. But to grow you must visit these places every now and again. It is within these moments o

2 min

Carrying a grudge will only make the journey ahead harder

I remember reading a quote on online once that read, “Holding a grudge is letting someone live rent-free in your head.” I love this quote and think it is extremely powerful. It also made me think about how difficult it is in life without the extra burden of carrying such baggage with you. We have all been upset, betrayed, lied to and more by one person or another throughout our lives. But one thing you must not do is keep that anger inside you or drag it along like an anchor

2 min

It doesn’t matter where you are from. It only matters where you are going.

Life can be difficult at the best of times. But what often makes it worse are the excuses we give ourselves for not doing the things we want to, not achieving the goals we dream of and not making the most of every opportunity we have in this world. If you think that it matters where you are from, what education you have or where you are now then you may as well lie down where you are right now and just give up. In fact you may well be digging your own grave with every excuse

2 min

The only thing that can stop you..is you.

There is a battle that resides inside you no matter what you are trying to do. Start a business, Go for a run, keep to a diet, fix the broken door or any number of the things we tend to procrastinate or delay in our busy schedules. Let’s take jogging to stay fit as an example of how this defines every decision you make in your life. You wake up knowing that if you go for a run you will feel great for the whole day, not only on a physical level but on a psychological one as we

2 min

The only thing a comfort zone is good for, is sleeping.

If you want to live the life you’ve always wanted it will never happen unless you push yourself into areas that are out of your comfort zone. We all get stuck in moments in our life where we are faced with a fork in the road. The fork has two directions which are made up of a) Continuing on the same path that we can see clearly ahead as being much the same as we have right now. And then there is b) A road that is less assured and will mean you pushing yourself into doing thin

2 min

Don’t be ordinary, be extraordinary.

So you are different, so what? So growing up you felt alienated from people around you, a square peg in a round hole, a misfit and a weirdo. These feelings growing up are the main cause of people becoming introverts, hermits and shy shells of the promise youth once held. So it’s time to turn back the clocks. You see, if it wasn’t for the misfits, the weirdo’s or the square pegs in our world we would live in a boring, grey and uninteresting place that didn’t illuminate the ima

2 min

Don’t be ordinary, be extraordinary.

2 min

It is the courage to continue that counts

Sometimes in life things can look very bleak indeed. Whether it is on the macro level of global politics, war, famine and so on; or it is on the micro level about what we are facing as individuals like financial, career and love they are all obstacles that could very easily give us an excuse to stop. Well that would be the easy option for sure, but like the famous quote from Winston Churchill says, “Success in not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue tha

1 min

Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try

We’ve all been there. Standing on the edge of a decision that frightens us. Poised to leap into the unknown with fear and responsibility holding you back like an anchor on a ship rooted to the seabed. It’s easy to stay where you are, or even go backwards. But to stay where you are safe. It’s comfortable, warm and the lights are bright around you ensuring you can see everything in your near vicinity. But is that all you want in life? It takes every effort to move that one-foot

2 min

The most certain way to succeed is to try just one more time

So you have failed a few times in many things you have tried? So what! I bet if you sit down and look very closely at what happened and the person you were before and after you will say, in many ways, you actually succeeded. You are also in good company, because Thomas Edison used to say, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” This was when he was experimenting on the filament of the light bulb. It took one moment of clarity, one second to put the r

1 min

In life, No dream can be realized whilst you remain asleep

We all do it. We all sit and wonder if we can achieve the dreams we have harbored for years. The passion within burns so brightly, the desire pulses through every vein in our body, the appetite to achieve is insatiable…yet we remain asleep. No one has been guilty of this more than me. What fears hold us back? Whether it’s a fear of failure, ridicule, exclusion or whatever, are all feelings that do not exist unless you allow them to manifest in your life. Every negative force

2 min

Do you have that song HOT DAGGER?

This was the question my son asked me last night when we were out in the car. It was just him and myself as he had bumped his head an we went to the clinic to check he was okay. He was so as we headed home he started flicking through the songs on the radio to see what he could find. I usually let him or his sister do this because a) It’s nice to see the kind of music they each like and b) it keeps them from breaking anything else in my car! He had been flicking through a few

2 min

Your dreams may be closer than you think

Many times in our lives we look around and see others seemingly floating through life without a care in the world. Things just seem to happen easily for them and dreams just seem to be falling in their laps. In comparison we often have the impression we are standing still, or worse going backwards. Our dreams seem to be distant shadows far off on the horizon in a foggy day, a feeling that can break even the strongest of spirits. But what do not often realize is the people who

2 min

Should’ve, could’ve and would’ve are all holding you back

Do you relive conversations wondering or second-guessing what you could’ve or should’ve said? Do you spend time worrying about what a certain word or phrase ‘really’ meant in an email or discussion you had the day before? I know I have! In fact I have to work very, very hard not to waste my time over analyzing every single conversation, presentation, argument or whatever I have, because the truth is it just doesn’t do anything to help me move forward. In fact these words woul

2 min

Change, there’s no time like the present

I recently spoke to a friend who was asking me what it was like traveling the world and did I regret leaving the UK when I did. I asked him why he was asking the question, as we talk all the time and I sensed there was something behind the need to ask me. He told me that he was thinking of traveling for work and just wanted to know my thoughts about the subject. The truth is I left England when I was 23, worked in Paris and Amsterdam before moving to the Middle East. I have w