They say ignorance is bliss and, quite often, I’m inclined to agree.
Last Friday, we had the misfortune of attending the funeral of the baby boy of a very close friend of ours. He lived a matter of hours and the beautiful, emotional service proved – if there were ever any doubt – that there is little in life more powerfully heart-wrenching than the sight of a coffin that can be carried by one person.
I’ve been mulling over a lot of the things I want to do in 2012 since I posted my list of goals. The question is, was the list enough?
That list represents the essence of everything I want to do over the next 12 months, the things I want to focus my life on and what I think will bring me the most happiness and fulfilment throughout the year. But is striving for “more” of something too generic an aim? Should I have more specific, more focussed goals?
For those of you who just love a list, here’s what you need to know:
1. Write more.
2. Shoot more
3. Relax more.
4. Feel worthy
For those of you who want just a little more detail, read on.
When I first started blogging, back in the dusty days of 2006, I began with a Statement of Intent. At the time, it was designed to remind me of the reasons I started the blog in the first place as well as letting people know what they could expect from me and it.
Over the years my blogs have changed faces many times, but this new facelift is something more. The simplified design and stripped-down visuals serve to remind me of the meandering thoughts and intentions that I let take over here and to keep me sharply, intensely focussed on what this blog is becoming.
You’ll notice the old name, SmileThroughIt ((and I’ve moved all of the archives onto this single site, instead of stripped across two blogs)), is back because rack my brains as I may, I couldn’t think of a better way to sum up the purpose of this site or the ideas I live by.
What is SmileThroughIt? Put simply, it’s a philosophy of life that helped carry me through some of my toughest times. While waiting for my transplant, not knowing if it would come in time, I learned to focus on the good things in life. More than that, I learned that if I could find just one thing every day that made me smile, that day had been worth it.
This site is here to help me make the most of the second chance I’ve been given and if, through that, I can help, inspire or motivate other people, so much the better.
Before the lengthy break in updates, I’d started blogging to please others, to write what I thought people wanted, to ‘optimise’ my posts. But looking back over my archives, both on here and the original site’s archives, I saw that my best writing and the most effective posts came not from targeting an “audience”, but rather writing something for myself.
Although I hate to admit it, it’s not just my blog that has been through many twists and turns and a distinct loss of focus. Everything that’s happened in this blog has been mirrored in my day-to-day life and it bothers me that I feel like I’m letting this second chance slip past me without grasping every second.
This blog will reflect my change in mood, attitude and approach to my second chance at life and, hopefully, will help guide others through similar changes in their own life.
This story has no planned ending, no final goal, no means by which to measure its success or failure. This blog, like all of us, just is. And what it is comes from what’s inside and the people who read, contribute and support its aims, ideals and author (that’s me) along the steps of its journey.
Come along for the ride.
Luck runs out.
In 2007, when I was struggling not just to enjoy but to hold on to life, I inherited what turned out to be a lucky portable oxygen concentrator from my good friend Emily, who had inherited it in turn from another friend.
Shortly after she received her ((the concentrator had been named Claire)), Emily got her transplant ((double lungs, same as me)) and passed her on to me.
Six months after I adopted Claire, I was blessed with my second chance at life.
In deference to the lives she had touched and the continuing legacy of the lucky little concentrator, I in turn passed her on to my friend Sam.
The thing about luck is, it runs out. As I was celebrating my 26th birthday – a birthday very few, if any, of my family believed I would reach – Sam was slipping away and died shortly afterwards.
We can not – and should not – need to rely on luck to ensure people receive the transplants that will save and transform their lives. Luck should never come into it.
Please sign the organ donor register.
This is Jo. She was a very close friend of mine.
She was waiting for a double-lung transplant, just like me.
She died in November 2009.
She is missed.
Sign the Organ Donor Register.
This week I have been engaged in numerous discussions of the organ donation system in the UK, mostly spurred by my appearance on Channel 4’s 4Thought.tv strand which asked, “Should Organ Donation Be Compulsory”.
Over the week, the show has featured a variety of views both for and against presumed consent and organ donation as a whole. One of these was Derek House, a Jehovah’s Witness who believes that all organ donation is fundamentally wrong.
While his views raised ire among the transplant community, it struck me that Mr House isn’t the man we need to be targeting. His religious beliefs preclude him from supporting organ donation: we’re not going to change that.
If we want to see the number of organ donors in this country increase, we need to tackle the vast disparity between the 75% of people who say they would be willing to donate their organs ((the oft-quoted figure of 90% is, infact, the people who support the idea of organ donation; 15% of people support the idea, but say they wouldn’t donate their organs)) and the 26% who have signed the organ donor register. Those people don’t need convincing of the merits, they just need to be drawn out of their apathy.
Focusing our energies on a battle we’re already winning seems like a better use of resources than fighting one we will inevitably lose.
The same goes for any kind of battle you may be facing as an artist or entrepreneur: look at the fights you face and work out which ones are worth your energy.
Picking your battles is not the same as taking the path of least resistance. It’s about using your focus and energies on strategies and tactics that will make a difference, not banging your head against a brick wall.
In yesterday’s post I talked about how mistakes are now open for public consumption thanks to the permanence of the internet.
What does that mean for innovation and leadership?
It means you have to fail bigger. Fail better. Fail publicly.
Too many people see the increased visibility of failure as a reason to go all out to avoid cock-ups.
Au contraire. The bigger, the more significant, the more noticed the fail, the quicker, the stronger, the more good-humoured the recovery, the deeper, the longer, the more profound the admiration will be.
Set an example. Tell the world it’s OK to fail before you get things right.
Such was the inspiration factor from the Gary Vaynerchuk video I posted yesterday, I’ve got two more posts looking at some of his ideas.
Today, I want to pick up on his phrase, “everything is exposed”.
Using the ‘net as extensively as we do, it’s so important to remember that every single act of ours in the public arena, from social networking sites to job sites to personal blogs, is being followed, copied and archived around the world.
We no longer live in a world where mistakes simply disappear, confined to the annals of history and remembered only by those most directly involved. Now, if you make a mistake, it’s everywhere.
Facing the reality of the permanence of our online interactions is key to making sure we always consider carefully what we’re saying, doing and thinking out loud. Posting a Tweet, updating your Facebook, uploading some photos? Think. Look before you leap.
Do you want your great, great, great, great grandkids to see what you’re about to put out there? Because they will.
Following on from yesterday’s post about faking it and how your inner confidence shines out through your actions, today’s post continues on the theme of perception.
I’ve just watched this video from Gary Vaynerchuk ((no, I didn’t really know who he was either until turned onto his stuff by Adam Baker)) and it’s hard to do so without being inspired:
This is a guy who knows how he’s perceived, knows what people expect from him when they first encounter him, but flies in the face of it with wit and confidence.
Knowing how people see you is key to finding your personal – or corporate – brand. I’ve written before about the importance of recognising your place in the market to help drive your growth, but it’s just as important to know not just where you see yourself, but where others see you, too.