Hi,
I hope Monday finds you well.
Today I want to talk about discipline.
Self-discipline.
In general life it will get you a long way, doing the right thing just because you know it's the right thing to do, but in particular, discipline is vital when it comes to goal achievement.
I did some more research on my groin muscle this week, and it seems that I should do no training for 3 weeks!
That's really frustrating, I want to be out there getting myself ever more ready for the race, but I need to be disciplined.
If I aggravate the muscle more now, the 3 week lay off will turn into a 3 month lay off, and the end of that road would be surgery.
Sticking to the 3 week lay off now will hopefully lead to a quick recovery and return to training.
I've been trying to think how I caused it.
I certainly didn't feel any distinct twangs or pains, but I suspect it may be a *lack* of discipline which caused it.
When following an established plan, it's important to apply all the tasks.
That includes stopping when required.
There have been a couple of weeks when I exceeded the distance on my Sunday long run.
In fact I can think of at least 3 times when I did that, and it could be those small extra steps which strained the muscle - I know I won't be doing it again when I resume!
The entry forms for the 2007 marathon came out today.
I have alreedy sent mine off.
The facts say that I only have a 2 in 10 chance of getting in.
I'm not surprised.
There are around 35,000 places avaialable.
If you have been rejected for the previous 5 times, you are guaranteed a place.
Then there are the many thousands of places reserved for charities.
That doesn't leave many left for the first timer like me.
Still, that 20% chance goes down to 0% if I don't apply!
The charity I chose, MIND, has already filled up its' places, so I need to rethink.
There are loads of charities which have guaranteed places, although loooking down the list I have never heard of most of them!
That doesn't really appeal, I need to guarantee raising at least £1000 for a place, although it would get me in the race!
Hmm...
Or, I could just go with my 20% chance in the general ballot, and if I don't get in, just do my own marathon around the local streets?
What I could then do is donate (mmm, sounds like doughnut, mmm) to whichever charity the donater prefers.
Still, I guess I have plenty of time to think about it!
Talking about self-discipline, I had to laugh yesterday when I was doing my shopping.
I'm not a big fan of shopping, unless a superb special offer jumps out at me, but I remembered how recently I had been wandering around the supermarket, and saw a new flavour of crisps being advertised - lamb and mint sauce.
'Ooh, I wonder what they taste like?' I thought, and picked up a couple of (special price) multi bags.
I got home, and launched into a bag.
They did in fact taste very much like lamb and mint sauce.
It was at that point that I remembered - I don't even like lamb and mint sauce, and never had done!
Why would I possibly buy crisps in a flavour of something I've never liked?
Lack of self discipline, that's why!
They must have seen me coming in that shop!
Ok, that's it for today, consider if you are applying enough self discipline this week.
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
Monday, July 31, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
Issue 376 - Mon 24 Jul 2006
Hi,
I hope all is well where you are.
Thanks for all your emails about my groin, I can't remember the last time it generated so much interest!
I did some research in the week about groin strains, and it seems there are many varieties!
The common remedy I found is, unsurprisingly, resting it until it is better.
How do you know it's better?
By testing it, to see if it still hurts.
Seems reasonable to someone like me who doesn't have a running coach to guide me, and with the fact that we had all-time record high July weather here in the UK, I did walking sessions instead of running this week, apart from a 6 mile tester yesterday.
I could still feel it more than I ought, so this Sunday's 15 miler is looking doubtful.
Looks like my decision to start training months ahead of schedule is paying off - this is time I can afford to lose with no worries.
Don't forget you can download my no cost marathon book via the link at the bottom.
Today I want to talk about mental attitude, featuring 2 multi-billion pound industries.
If you're thinking 'here we go, music and sport,' well you'd be wrong this time.
Er, no hang on, you'd be right actually, but I defy you to tell me at the end that you can't use the point in your life today.
The sport story is the quicker, so let's start...
There are 4 major golf tournaments every year, and yesterday, the oldest and most prestigious, The Open, was won by Tiger Woods.
It's his 11th major, and only one man has won more, Jack Nicklaus with 18.
It's a comment Nicklaus made years ago that caught my ears.
One of the most difficult shots in golf is the 4 foot putt.
I'm talking about the elite professionals here, for a klutz like me they are all the most difficult, but in a game which relies hugely on mental strength, the 4 foot putt has ruined many careers.
Jack Nicklaus once said the he had never missed a 4 footer.
By that he meant that he knew his preparation and stroke were fine every time.
Sometimes the ball didn't go in, but that wasn't his fault.
I'm not sure that can literally be true, but consider his iron-strong confidence in what he did and how he did it!
Ok, onto the music story, featuring Tony Blair.
Yes, *that* Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Britain.
He wasn't always interested in politics, in fact when he was 18, he fiercely wanted to be a rock star.
He arrived in London, and people found that his undeniable charm had them giving him free food and board when they hardly knew him.
One of these became a friend, and told Tony that he should maybe try promoting as a way into the business.
Tony jumped at it, and soon declared himself the promoter of a local band.
He found a church hall to rent, and went out and sold, sold, sold, turning the night into a huge success.
He then wanted to step up a gear, and took the huge step of hiring a 4,000 seater hall in London.
To fill it he decided to get a big band, and simply rang up the management of Free, one of Britain's biggest bands at the time.
When he was told the band wanted £25,000 upfront (remember this was 1971, that was a big lump of money), he realised that it wasn't as easy as he thought.
On the night the 4,000 seater had around 60 people turn up, and Tony was counting his losses.
Did he give up?
I should say not, he carried on selling and talking to people, putting his people skills to great use, eventually putting on 4 successful shows, making a clear profit of £600, again a lot of money then.
In 1972 he went off to University, where he spotted a band auditioning for a singer.
He got the job, (he was the only one that showed up).
The drum kit collapsed on the first gig, and the band only played 6 times.
Within 3 months Tony had joined the Labour party, and the rest is history.
Think of what you do and how you do it.
Do you have the steely confidence of 18-time major winner Jack Nicklaus, or do you have the unquenchable ambition and drive of Tony Blair.
He tried it in rock, it didn't work, but when he turned to something else, he became the youngest Prime Minister for nearly 200 years.
Ok, that's it for today,
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
I hope all is well where you are.
Thanks for all your emails about my groin, I can't remember the last time it generated so much interest!
I did some research in the week about groin strains, and it seems there are many varieties!
The common remedy I found is, unsurprisingly, resting it until it is better.
How do you know it's better?
By testing it, to see if it still hurts.
Seems reasonable to someone like me who doesn't have a running coach to guide me, and with the fact that we had all-time record high July weather here in the UK, I did walking sessions instead of running this week, apart from a 6 mile tester yesterday.
I could still feel it more than I ought, so this Sunday's 15 miler is looking doubtful.
Looks like my decision to start training months ahead of schedule is paying off - this is time I can afford to lose with no worries.
Don't forget you can download my no cost marathon book via the link at the bottom.
Today I want to talk about mental attitude, featuring 2 multi-billion pound industries.
If you're thinking 'here we go, music and sport,' well you'd be wrong this time.
Er, no hang on, you'd be right actually, but I defy you to tell me at the end that you can't use the point in your life today.
The sport story is the quicker, so let's start...
There are 4 major golf tournaments every year, and yesterday, the oldest and most prestigious, The Open, was won by Tiger Woods.
It's his 11th major, and only one man has won more, Jack Nicklaus with 18.
It's a comment Nicklaus made years ago that caught my ears.
One of the most difficult shots in golf is the 4 foot putt.
I'm talking about the elite professionals here, for a klutz like me they are all the most difficult, but in a game which relies hugely on mental strength, the 4 foot putt has ruined many careers.
Jack Nicklaus once said the he had never missed a 4 footer.
By that he meant that he knew his preparation and stroke were fine every time.
Sometimes the ball didn't go in, but that wasn't his fault.
I'm not sure that can literally be true, but consider his iron-strong confidence in what he did and how he did it!
Ok, onto the music story, featuring Tony Blair.
Yes, *that* Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Britain.
He wasn't always interested in politics, in fact when he was 18, he fiercely wanted to be a rock star.
He arrived in London, and people found that his undeniable charm had them giving him free food and board when they hardly knew him.
One of these became a friend, and told Tony that he should maybe try promoting as a way into the business.
Tony jumped at it, and soon declared himself the promoter of a local band.
He found a church hall to rent, and went out and sold, sold, sold, turning the night into a huge success.
He then wanted to step up a gear, and took the huge step of hiring a 4,000 seater hall in London.
To fill it he decided to get a big band, and simply rang up the management of Free, one of Britain's biggest bands at the time.
When he was told the band wanted £25,000 upfront (remember this was 1971, that was a big lump of money), he realised that it wasn't as easy as he thought.
On the night the 4,000 seater had around 60 people turn up, and Tony was counting his losses.
Did he give up?
I should say not, he carried on selling and talking to people, putting his people skills to great use, eventually putting on 4 successful shows, making a clear profit of £600, again a lot of money then.
In 1972 he went off to University, where he spotted a band auditioning for a singer.
He got the job, (he was the only one that showed up).
The drum kit collapsed on the first gig, and the band only played 6 times.
Within 3 months Tony had joined the Labour party, and the rest is history.
Think of what you do and how you do it.
Do you have the steely confidence of 18-time major winner Jack Nicklaus, or do you have the unquenchable ambition and drive of Tony Blair.
He tried it in rock, it didn't work, but when he turned to something else, he became the youngest Prime Minister for nearly 200 years.
Ok, that's it for today,
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
Monday, July 17, 2006
Issue 375 - Mon 17th Jul 2006
Hi,
I hope Monday finds you well.
You may remember that last week I mentioned how astronaut Mike Fossum had to take a surprising detour on his path to achieve his goal of going to space.
Fossum is today breathing the same air as me, as he and the rest of the crew landed a short while ago, and I'll carry on today a bit about the detour factor.
It's not unusual to have to change and adapt your plans and routes as you take action towards your goal.
In fact, it would be more unusual *not* to have to adapt.
My marathon training has once again come up with a good demonstration.
A fortnight ago when I did 13 miles, I found myself getting a touch bored as I went round and round a 3 mile lap I had worked out.
So before yesterday's 14 miler, I went out and worked out a different route.
I know that's a fairly literal example of changing my route, but it sort of works.
I hadn't realised that boredom would set in on the route.
On the actual London marathon there isn't muh repetition, so actually it is a good thing for me to do different routes.
I set out with a target time of 2 hours 48, and finished in 2 hours 48.
I was chuffed, although it wasn't without problems.
During this last week I had noticed some aching in a muscle which I'm fairly sure is the groin.
As I got settled into my walks and runs though, the ache eased, so I thought I'd carry on, but keep an eye on it.
(Not literally of course, running around constantly looking at your groin is not advised).
Yesterday after about 9 miles I was really feeling this muscle a lot, and considered stopping at my next route mark of 13 miles.
My feet were also aching as much as they had last time, and it was this which made me decide not to stop at 13 miles, as I didn't want it to become a mental block of any sort.
So I got to 14 miles, and felt the same as I did after 13 - no better, no worse, and it began to occur to me that maybe it always feels like that from that point right to the end!
Gulp.
If that's the case, it's the first time that I can begin to see why it is such a challenge!
This week I will research a lot into my muscle ache.
Lord knows my groin has precious little else use, but even so I don't want to set myself back!
Hmm, as I write, and you know I like to just whack the newsletter out as I feel, I'm not sure boredom is the right word for when I'm running.
I have no problem keeping myself occupied with thoughts, so I think it's the onset of aches which makes further 3-mile laps seem less than appealing!
In fact, my recent runs have led me to write a new song, and finish and old half-finished one, which hopefully I'll be able to unveil soon!
Ok, that's it for today, don't be worried about route changes!
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
I hope Monday finds you well.
You may remember that last week I mentioned how astronaut Mike Fossum had to take a surprising detour on his path to achieve his goal of going to space.
Fossum is today breathing the same air as me, as he and the rest of the crew landed a short while ago, and I'll carry on today a bit about the detour factor.
It's not unusual to have to change and adapt your plans and routes as you take action towards your goal.
In fact, it would be more unusual *not* to have to adapt.
My marathon training has once again come up with a good demonstration.
A fortnight ago when I did 13 miles, I found myself getting a touch bored as I went round and round a 3 mile lap I had worked out.
So before yesterday's 14 miler, I went out and worked out a different route.
I know that's a fairly literal example of changing my route, but it sort of works.
I hadn't realised that boredom would set in on the route.
On the actual London marathon there isn't muh repetition, so actually it is a good thing for me to do different routes.
I set out with a target time of 2 hours 48, and finished in 2 hours 48.
I was chuffed, although it wasn't without problems.
During this last week I had noticed some aching in a muscle which I'm fairly sure is the groin.
As I got settled into my walks and runs though, the ache eased, so I thought I'd carry on, but keep an eye on it.
(Not literally of course, running around constantly looking at your groin is not advised).
Yesterday after about 9 miles I was really feeling this muscle a lot, and considered stopping at my next route mark of 13 miles.
My feet were also aching as much as they had last time, and it was this which made me decide not to stop at 13 miles, as I didn't want it to become a mental block of any sort.
So I got to 14 miles, and felt the same as I did after 13 - no better, no worse, and it began to occur to me that maybe it always feels like that from that point right to the end!
Gulp.
If that's the case, it's the first time that I can begin to see why it is such a challenge!
This week I will research a lot into my muscle ache.
Lord knows my groin has precious little else use, but even so I don't want to set myself back!
Hmm, as I write, and you know I like to just whack the newsletter out as I feel, I'm not sure boredom is the right word for when I'm running.
I have no problem keeping myself occupied with thoughts, so I think it's the onset of aches which makes further 3-mile laps seem less than appealing!
In fact, my recent runs have led me to write a new song, and finish and old half-finished one, which hopefully I'll be able to unveil soon!
Ok, that's it for today, don't be worried about route changes!
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
Monday, July 10, 2006
Issue 374 - Mon 10th Jul 2006
Hi,
I hope everything is ok where you are.
Thanks for all your birthday wishes last week.
It fair warmed my cockles I can tell you.
Long time readers may remember way back in the summer of 2003, I wrote about how big achievement it was to be the first from your country to achieve things, in particular when Roger Federer became the first Swiss male to win Wimbledon.
Yesterday he won it for the 4th time running!
Impressive, eh?
Last week I was saying how I shouldn't be surprised to now be able to do a half marathon, because I was following an established plan which specifically got me to that stage.
Well yesterday the plan had me doing a 6 miler.
It was tempting to carry on increasing the mileage, but because the plan didn't just say 'this works', but actually explained, I understood.
Now I am at a certain milegae, alternating with shorter runs gives my body more time to recover.
Makes sense to me, and next week I can up it to 14 miles.
It also beds in my mind that I can do 12 minute miles as my standard now - my comfort zone has been pushed!
Today I also want to talk about Mike Fossum.
You might not know who he is, I didn't until a week ago.
He's an astronaut, and as I write, he is currently on a space walk with Briton Peirs Sellers, tethered to the International Space Station 220 miles up.
Incidentally, did you know that the first Briton didn't go to space until 1991?
It was a woman, Helen Sharman, who answered an ad in the paper!
Ok, back to Mike Fossum...
His father was always interested in the space program, so it was no surprise that Mike had the same ambition as most kids, to be an astronaut.
Also like most kids, he dismissed it as a silly idea, something that 'other people' do.
He joined the Air Force, and found himself posted to Nasa of all places, working as an engineer.
He got to know the astronauts, and the realisation that they were just normal people reignited his astronaut dream.
He got to know a Japanese astronaut in particular, who gave him some advice he didn't really want to hear.
He told him to leave Nasa.
He told Mike that a common route to becoming an astronaut was to go to test pilot school, and it was something that he himself had done.
Fossum didn't want to leave Nasa, but accepted that it was an established route to achieving the goal.
Guess what he did?
Yep, he left Nasa to join the pilot test school, and it was another 8 years odd before he rejoined Nasa.
In 1998 he was accepted into the astronaut program, leading to him being on his first space flight in 2006.
It's a goal achievement classic.
He learnt of an established plan, and although it seemed to take him away from where he wanted to be, he took it, enjoyed the experience fully, and found that as predicted, it got him to where he wanted to be.
I found out in my research that he is 49, and got onto the space program early in his 40s.
Hmm... Gordino in space maybe?
Maybe not, that would have to be one hell of a sick bag.
Ok, that's it for today, how much are you prepared to give for your goal?
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon Milllion at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
I hope everything is ok where you are.
Thanks for all your birthday wishes last week.
It fair warmed my cockles I can tell you.
Long time readers may remember way back in the summer of 2003, I wrote about how big achievement it was to be the first from your country to achieve things, in particular when Roger Federer became the first Swiss male to win Wimbledon.
Yesterday he won it for the 4th time running!
Impressive, eh?
Last week I was saying how I shouldn't be surprised to now be able to do a half marathon, because I was following an established plan which specifically got me to that stage.
Well yesterday the plan had me doing a 6 miler.
It was tempting to carry on increasing the mileage, but because the plan didn't just say 'this works', but actually explained, I understood.
Now I am at a certain milegae, alternating with shorter runs gives my body more time to recover.
Makes sense to me, and next week I can up it to 14 miles.
It also beds in my mind that I can do 12 minute miles as my standard now - my comfort zone has been pushed!
Today I also want to talk about Mike Fossum.
You might not know who he is, I didn't until a week ago.
He's an astronaut, and as I write, he is currently on a space walk with Briton Peirs Sellers, tethered to the International Space Station 220 miles up.
Incidentally, did you know that the first Briton didn't go to space until 1991?
It was a woman, Helen Sharman, who answered an ad in the paper!
Ok, back to Mike Fossum...
His father was always interested in the space program, so it was no surprise that Mike had the same ambition as most kids, to be an astronaut.
Also like most kids, he dismissed it as a silly idea, something that 'other people' do.
He joined the Air Force, and found himself posted to Nasa of all places, working as an engineer.
He got to know the astronauts, and the realisation that they were just normal people reignited his astronaut dream.
He got to know a Japanese astronaut in particular, who gave him some advice he didn't really want to hear.
He told him to leave Nasa.
He told Mike that a common route to becoming an astronaut was to go to test pilot school, and it was something that he himself had done.
Fossum didn't want to leave Nasa, but accepted that it was an established route to achieving the goal.
Guess what he did?
Yep, he left Nasa to join the pilot test school, and it was another 8 years odd before he rejoined Nasa.
In 1998 he was accepted into the astronaut program, leading to him being on his first space flight in 2006.
It's a goal achievement classic.
He learnt of an established plan, and although it seemed to take him away from where he wanted to be, he took it, enjoyed the experience fully, and found that as predicted, it got him to where he wanted to be.
I found out in my research that he is 49, and got onto the space program early in his 40s.
Hmm... Gordino in space maybe?
Maybe not, that would have to be one hell of a sick bag.
Ok, that's it for today, how much are you prepared to give for your goal?
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon Milllion at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
Monday, July 03, 2006
Issue 373 - Mon 3rd Jul 2006
Hi,
I hope Monday finds you well.
As for me, I find myself creaking into my 40s today.
I enjoyed the last day of my 30s.
It was blisteringly 'country about to grind to a halt' hot day yesterday, so I set off for my run nice and early.
My target was 13 miles in 2 hours 36, and I did it in 2 hours 37.
So that's a half marathon done already!
Because I've built up slowly to that level, the main problem I had was just my feet, as there is little you can do to get away from the fact that my poor little tootsies do take a pounding.
That explains the creaking today!
Then in the afternoon I was at a jam session.
I had a little play on the drums, a little bit of bass geetar, and a jolly good time all round.
You have plenty of time to think when you are doing a 2 and half hour run, and I was thinking about my last 10 years.
I can clearly remember my 30th, as it was in the middle of one of, if not *the* best time of my life.
It wasn't long though before it all went wrong, the worst time of my life, and I spent many years getting
myself back on an even keel.
I've lived at many different addresses, currently at my 9th in 10 years.
I've done plenty of different jobs, from entertaining to office work, to greasy factory work to my current self-employment from home.
I resurrected my drumming, took up the bass guitar.
I found out I'm no good at the pole vault, twanged a hamstring when I tried the long jump.
I've spent time on my own, and had a few (short) relationships!
Wrap all that lot together, throw in the frightening amount of chocolate I must have had over the decade, and there's a word for what you get.
Life.
When I was 30 I had no idea I had all that ahead of me (except for maybe the chocolate).
What will I have in the next 10 years before I'm 50, apart from more chocolate?
Who knows, but I'll try and view it all as an adventure, and if I think of anything I want to try, hopefully I will just get on with it.
I might be married with kids, I might still be single.
To be continued...
Something else I thought of when running, was when I was gasping for breath.
This only happened for about the first 20/30 mins.
After that I can feel a change in my body.
What happens, is that instead of the body scrabbling around for instant energy for the first few minutes, it settles into tapping into my stored reserves.
That's why it's important to build those reserves, so I can simply accept the first few minutes without worry.
I thought of it as a pinball machine, once the ball has slipped off the flipper, and while you are still cursing, the ball wobbles about the hole before finally falling in.
Does that work, applying that to my body and the energy stores?
Hmm, not sure...
Anyhoo, show me an athlete that doesnt warm up and do the wobbly bits first, and I'll show you a twanged muscle.
Show me a musician that doesn't do the wobbly bits first, I'll show you some bum notes.
In fact, with anything in life, you have to go through the wobbly bits.
Recognise what they are, put in the preparation for what comes after, or you may be heading for problems.
Ok, that's it for today.
I'm off to do what most new 40 yr-olds do, buy a Harley-Davidson or something like that.
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon Milllion at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
I hope Monday finds you well.
As for me, I find myself creaking into my 40s today.
I enjoyed the last day of my 30s.
It was blisteringly 'country about to grind to a halt' hot day yesterday, so I set off for my run nice and early.
My target was 13 miles in 2 hours 36, and I did it in 2 hours 37.
So that's a half marathon done already!
Because I've built up slowly to that level, the main problem I had was just my feet, as there is little you can do to get away from the fact that my poor little tootsies do take a pounding.
That explains the creaking today!
Then in the afternoon I was at a jam session.
I had a little play on the drums, a little bit of bass geetar, and a jolly good time all round.
You have plenty of time to think when you are doing a 2 and half hour run, and I was thinking about my last 10 years.
I can clearly remember my 30th, as it was in the middle of one of, if not *the* best time of my life.
It wasn't long though before it all went wrong, the worst time of my life, and I spent many years getting
myself back on an even keel.
I've lived at many different addresses, currently at my 9th in 10 years.
I've done plenty of different jobs, from entertaining to office work, to greasy factory work to my current self-employment from home.
I resurrected my drumming, took up the bass guitar.
I found out I'm no good at the pole vault, twanged a hamstring when I tried the long jump.
I've spent time on my own, and had a few (short) relationships!
Wrap all that lot together, throw in the frightening amount of chocolate I must have had over the decade, and there's a word for what you get.
Life.
When I was 30 I had no idea I had all that ahead of me (except for maybe the chocolate).
What will I have in the next 10 years before I'm 50, apart from more chocolate?
Who knows, but I'll try and view it all as an adventure, and if I think of anything I want to try, hopefully I will just get on with it.
I might be married with kids, I might still be single.
To be continued...
Something else I thought of when running, was when I was gasping for breath.
This only happened for about the first 20/30 mins.
After that I can feel a change in my body.
What happens, is that instead of the body scrabbling around for instant energy for the first few minutes, it settles into tapping into my stored reserves.
That's why it's important to build those reserves, so I can simply accept the first few minutes without worry.
I thought of it as a pinball machine, once the ball has slipped off the flipper, and while you are still cursing, the ball wobbles about the hole before finally falling in.
Does that work, applying that to my body and the energy stores?
Hmm, not sure...
Anyhoo, show me an athlete that doesnt warm up and do the wobbly bits first, and I'll show you a twanged muscle.
Show me a musician that doesn't do the wobbly bits first, I'll show you some bum notes.
In fact, with anything in life, you have to go through the wobbly bits.
Recognise what they are, put in the preparation for what comes after, or you may be heading for problems.
Ok, that's it for today.
I'm off to do what most new 40 yr-olds do, buy a Harley-Davidson or something like that.
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon Milllion at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
Monday, June 26, 2006
Issue 372 - Mon 26th Jun 2006
Hi,
I hope everything is ok where you are.
I can tell you in advance, I'm not sure if there'll be an issue next Monday.
I'll be lurching into my 41st year on that day, I'm not sure what I'll be doing, so we'll have to wait and see.
As for my plan to run the London Marathon to celebrate it, it's all going well.
Yesterday I did 11 miles in 2 hours 10 minutes, which is still bang on schedule.
Next Sunday the target is 12 miles, although with the way it's going I can see myself doing 13, and that's a half marathon!
So that's going from *very* unfit to an on-target half marathon in 2 hours 36.
I can't say I'm surprised at that progress, because I'm following an established plan to achieve, it but there have been no glitches or hiccups, which is always a bonus!
A few weeks ago I asked for your opinions on what I should do with my new book.
I've decided now, and this is the plan...
I'm giving the book away for free.
There are no catches, I'm not even asking for email addresses.
You can get it at:
http://www.gordonbryan.com/cat/mm.pdf
If you read it and enjoy it, it would be great if you could pass it on to people, via your mailing list, your site, whatever.
If you want, I can brand it for you, meaning that your website link is on the front page, and all mentions of my 'Transform Your Life in 21 Days!' book will be your affiliate link.
Then if you give it away, and the people you give it to pass it on, who knows who it may bring to your site, who knows who may buy my first book and earn you commission!
So, why am I giving it away for nothing?
Well, as with a lot of internet projects, it was quick and fairly easy to set up, it might have worked, it might not.
As a profit making exercise, it hasn't worked.
Now what I want to do is concentrate on raising the sponsorship money for the charity.
So, in the book, I ask that if you were to send me a birthday card, or buy me a birthday drink, then spend that money on sponsoring me instead!
You can sponsor me at the site:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
Or, just enjoy the book with my compliments.
Ok, that's it for today.
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with The Great Gordino Marathon at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
I hope everything is ok where you are.
I can tell you in advance, I'm not sure if there'll be an issue next Monday.
I'll be lurching into my 41st year on that day, I'm not sure what I'll be doing, so we'll have to wait and see.
As for my plan to run the London Marathon to celebrate it, it's all going well.
Yesterday I did 11 miles in 2 hours 10 minutes, which is still bang on schedule.
Next Sunday the target is 12 miles, although with the way it's going I can see myself doing 13, and that's a half marathon!
So that's going from *very* unfit to an on-target half marathon in 2 hours 36.
I can't say I'm surprised at that progress, because I'm following an established plan to achieve, it but there have been no glitches or hiccups, which is always a bonus!
A few weeks ago I asked for your opinions on what I should do with my new book.
I've decided now, and this is the plan...
I'm giving the book away for free.
There are no catches, I'm not even asking for email addresses.
You can get it at:
http://www.gordonbryan.com/cat/mm.pdf
If you read it and enjoy it, it would be great if you could pass it on to people, via your mailing list, your site, whatever.
If you want, I can brand it for you, meaning that your website link is on the front page, and all mentions of my 'Transform Your Life in 21 Days!' book will be your affiliate link.
Then if you give it away, and the people you give it to pass it on, who knows who it may bring to your site, who knows who may buy my first book and earn you commission!
So, why am I giving it away for nothing?
Well, as with a lot of internet projects, it was quick and fairly easy to set up, it might have worked, it might not.
As a profit making exercise, it hasn't worked.
Now what I want to do is concentrate on raising the sponsorship money for the charity.
So, in the book, I ask that if you were to send me a birthday card, or buy me a birthday drink, then spend that money on sponsoring me instead!
You can sponsor me at the site:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
Or, just enjoy the book with my compliments.
Ok, that's it for today.
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with The Great Gordino Marathon at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
Monday, June 19, 2006
Issue - 371 Mon 19th Jun
Hi,
I hope Monday finds you well.
You may remember a few weeks ago I lost my house keys on one of my first training runs, and that because they had a store loyalty card on them, someone had handed them in, and the store had sent them to me.
Often with these loyalty cards, the amount of money you save is so small that it's hardly worth the effort, but I keep using mine, simply because it's no effort to do so.
All the mail offers I get from them usually get a quick once over before I turf them into the bin.
Last week though, I got a set of coupons through, £6 off when you spend over £40.
Now for a tight-arse like me, that's like a red rag to a bull.
All I have to do is my normal shop, plus a load of non-perishables that don't usually come under special offer, and it's money in my pocket for nothing!
The warm weather is continuing yesterday, so I thought that on a Sunday morning it would be nice and quiet, that people would be out and about enjoying the summer.
I was wrong - it was heaving!
I had been out my run earlier (10 non-chafing miles in 1hour 59 mins), so maybe there had been an announcement of the 4 minute-warning and I had missed it.
After all, if ever there was a 4-minute warning, I'm sure I too would think 'hmm, just enough time to get to Tesco, they have teabags on special offer.'
Having mentioned before how doing simple things like sending my keys back to me enhances a reputation, a fact which seems to escape so many businesses, I got an email which reminded me of another simple thing.
It was from an online buddy who had ordered a CD of harp music from a company called Baby CDs.
Here's the confirmation email they sent her...
Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.
Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell overthe crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.
We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Wednesday, June 7th.
I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.
We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year'.
We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!
Thank you once again,
How about that!!
Do you think someone woud want to order from them again or not?
Brilliant, simple, feel-good marketing!
I think I've been quite restrained so far in my coverage of the World Cup.
I know not everyone is a fan of sport, let alone football, so I try not to overdo it, but sport can give such obvious lessons to take forward into life.
It's one of the reasons why it should be a fundamental ingredient in schooling, (it is becoming less so here in the UK), and since I write about self-improvement and the like, I can't help but be drawn to it.
A lot of countries use football to assert their indentity, to state their importance on the world stage.
2 countries that have done this particularly well are Brazil and Argentina.
Nowadays it is the African countries that use the World Cup as a staging post of their progress, coming through poverty and civil war.
Take Angola for instance.
They are only recently out of over 25 years of civil war.
A lot of the squad had to flee their own country as children.
Not all the players even play for a club - the goalkeeper has trained himself alone for the past 3 years to keep in shape!
When they played Mexico, who are ranked 4th in the world rankings, everyone expected them to get thrashed.
The self-training goalkeeper made several great saves, and the game ended 0-0.
The result was celebrated as if they had won the whole tournament, it was such a step for them.
Now *that's* the kind of reason I like my sport!
Ok, that's it for today, what could you achieve in your life that would be an equivalent of Angola drawing with Mexico?
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
I hope Monday finds you well.
You may remember a few weeks ago I lost my house keys on one of my first training runs, and that because they had a store loyalty card on them, someone had handed them in, and the store had sent them to me.
Often with these loyalty cards, the amount of money you save is so small that it's hardly worth the effort, but I keep using mine, simply because it's no effort to do so.
All the mail offers I get from them usually get a quick once over before I turf them into the bin.
Last week though, I got a set of coupons through, £6 off when you spend over £40.
Now for a tight-arse like me, that's like a red rag to a bull.
All I have to do is my normal shop, plus a load of non-perishables that don't usually come under special offer, and it's money in my pocket for nothing!
The warm weather is continuing yesterday, so I thought that on a Sunday morning it would be nice and quiet, that people would be out and about enjoying the summer.
I was wrong - it was heaving!
I had been out my run earlier (10 non-chafing miles in 1hour 59 mins), so maybe there had been an announcement of the 4 minute-warning and I had missed it.
After all, if ever there was a 4-minute warning, I'm sure I too would think 'hmm, just enough time to get to Tesco, they have teabags on special offer.'
Having mentioned before how doing simple things like sending my keys back to me enhances a reputation, a fact which seems to escape so many businesses, I got an email which reminded me of another simple thing.
It was from an online buddy who had ordered a CD of harp music from a company called Baby CDs.
Here's the confirmation email they sent her...
Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.
Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell overthe crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.
We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Wednesday, June 7th.
I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.
We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year'.
We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!
Thank you once again,
How about that!!
Do you think someone woud want to order from them again or not?
Brilliant, simple, feel-good marketing!
I think I've been quite restrained so far in my coverage of the World Cup.
I know not everyone is a fan of sport, let alone football, so I try not to overdo it, but sport can give such obvious lessons to take forward into life.
It's one of the reasons why it should be a fundamental ingredient in schooling, (it is becoming less so here in the UK), and since I write about self-improvement and the like, I can't help but be drawn to it.
A lot of countries use football to assert their indentity, to state their importance on the world stage.
2 countries that have done this particularly well are Brazil and Argentina.
Nowadays it is the African countries that use the World Cup as a staging post of their progress, coming through poverty and civil war.
Take Angola for instance.
They are only recently out of over 25 years of civil war.
A lot of the squad had to flee their own country as children.
Not all the players even play for a club - the goalkeeper has trained himself alone for the past 3 years to keep in shape!
When they played Mexico, who are ranked 4th in the world rankings, everyone expected them to get thrashed.
The self-training goalkeeper made several great saves, and the game ended 0-0.
The result was celebrated as if they had won the whole tournament, it was such a step for them.
Now *that's* the kind of reason I like my sport!
Ok, that's it for today, what could you achieve in your life that would be an equivalent of Angola drawing with Mexico?
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Monday, June 12, 2006
Issue 370 - Mon 12th Jun 2006
Hi,
I hope everything is ok where you are.
Today I want to talk about how talking to people can bring results your way, and how easy it can be to become an 'expert.'
These are positive thoughts, and I'll get to them in a sec, but let me get a couple of negatives out of the way first.
The Football World Cup has started in Germany.
I noticed that one of the games over the weekend was played in what used to be East Germany.
The stadium was built specifically for the tournament.
It was finished early, and came in under budget.
One of the most famous football stadiums (probably should be 'stadia' but I don't care) used to be Wembley stadium in London.
It was knocked down years ago to be replaced by a new one.
At present it is almost double the budget, is nowhere near ready, and there are real concerns about the safety of the foundations.
Hmm...
The second story I noticed came from the newly appointed Home Secretary here in the UK.
This one's a corker.
Having admitted that a lot of his department was not in a fit enough state to do the job, over the weekend, he announced an initiative where the public should 'stop moaning' about anti-social behaviour, and take action.
I've never heard anything quite like it.
I can assure you that if you tackle anti-social behaviour in this country, the worst case scenario would see you dead.
It has happened too many times.
Other cases would be a physical assault, a brick through your window, bullying, etc etc, and the protection you'd get from the law would be 'thin' to say the least.
The most unlikely scenario would be for the yobs to say sorry and go away.
I was staggered to see this policy, but unfortunately I *wasn't* staggered to see the Home Secretary then do an about-turn and distance himself from it, saying it was drawn up by officials.
I know I'm not 40 for another few weeks, but I'm seriously getting grumpy about things like this.
Right, onto the positives...
Last Sunday when I did my long run, 7 miles, I felt so good at the end of it that I went on to do 8 since my schedule had a target of 7-8.
This shows that if you follow a set plan, you can find yourself over achieving your targets, which is a good thing.
The bad thing was that I had my first serious experience of chafing.
And let me tell you, it was in an area where you don't want to be chafed.
Unless you're some sort of deviant.
Which I'm not.
Well at least when it comes to chafing.
Ooh, I was red raw.
I went to a jam session in the afternoon, and told people about my problem, explaining that most running website seemed to suggest some sort of lube or ointment application.
I'm not sure I fancy that, you'd have some staining issues surely?
Imagine if you went for banana flavour - you'd get neighbours following government advice and tackling you about being anti-social!
Anyhoo, after a while someone came up to me and suggested lycra shorts.
The funny thing is, I have a pair from my unicycling days, when I suffered chafing then too.
I had the solution in my draw, and knew it, but it took someone else to prompt me, and that prompt only came about because I had talked about my goals.
This week it was nudging 30 degrees for my long run, and distance running is not sensible in those conditions.
After 3 miles, I was sweating like a pig, more so than normal, and could feel my head throbbing in the heat.
I recognised this as not normal, as I've been doing it for weeks now, so poured a lot of water over me, and slowed right down.
This allowed me to complete the full distance safely and comfortably.
Speaking of comfort, the lycra cycling shorts worked a treat, it was all silky smooth down there.
I wanted to go up and tell people how comfortable I was feeling downstairs, but the only other people out and about at 8am on a Sunday are old duffers walking their dogs, and I'm not sure they would understand.
Ok, that's it for today - remember that you can get great advice if you talk about your goals, and taking repeated action can quickly lead you to getting great knowledge about any field.
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
I hope everything is ok where you are.
Today I want to talk about how talking to people can bring results your way, and how easy it can be to become an 'expert.'
These are positive thoughts, and I'll get to them in a sec, but let me get a couple of negatives out of the way first.
The Football World Cup has started in Germany.
I noticed that one of the games over the weekend was played in what used to be East Germany.
The stadium was built specifically for the tournament.
It was finished early, and came in under budget.
One of the most famous football stadiums (probably should be 'stadia' but I don't care) used to be Wembley stadium in London.
It was knocked down years ago to be replaced by a new one.
At present it is almost double the budget, is nowhere near ready, and there are real concerns about the safety of the foundations.
Hmm...
The second story I noticed came from the newly appointed Home Secretary here in the UK.
This one's a corker.
Having admitted that a lot of his department was not in a fit enough state to do the job, over the weekend, he announced an initiative where the public should 'stop moaning' about anti-social behaviour, and take action.
I've never heard anything quite like it.
I can assure you that if you tackle anti-social behaviour in this country, the worst case scenario would see you dead.
It has happened too many times.
Other cases would be a physical assault, a brick through your window, bullying, etc etc, and the protection you'd get from the law would be 'thin' to say the least.
The most unlikely scenario would be for the yobs to say sorry and go away.
I was staggered to see this policy, but unfortunately I *wasn't* staggered to see the Home Secretary then do an about-turn and distance himself from it, saying it was drawn up by officials.
I know I'm not 40 for another few weeks, but I'm seriously getting grumpy about things like this.
Right, onto the positives...
Last Sunday when I did my long run, 7 miles, I felt so good at the end of it that I went on to do 8 since my schedule had a target of 7-8.
This shows that if you follow a set plan, you can find yourself over achieving your targets, which is a good thing.
The bad thing was that I had my first serious experience of chafing.
And let me tell you, it was in an area where you don't want to be chafed.
Unless you're some sort of deviant.
Which I'm not.
Well at least when it comes to chafing.
Ooh, I was red raw.
I went to a jam session in the afternoon, and told people about my problem, explaining that most running website seemed to suggest some sort of lube or ointment application.
I'm not sure I fancy that, you'd have some staining issues surely?
Imagine if you went for banana flavour - you'd get neighbours following government advice and tackling you about being anti-social!
Anyhoo, after a while someone came up to me and suggested lycra shorts.
The funny thing is, I have a pair from my unicycling days, when I suffered chafing then too.
I had the solution in my draw, and knew it, but it took someone else to prompt me, and that prompt only came about because I had talked about my goals.
This week it was nudging 30 degrees for my long run, and distance running is not sensible in those conditions.
After 3 miles, I was sweating like a pig, more so than normal, and could feel my head throbbing in the heat.
I recognised this as not normal, as I've been doing it for weeks now, so poured a lot of water over me, and slowed right down.
This allowed me to complete the full distance safely and comfortably.
Speaking of comfort, the lycra cycling shorts worked a treat, it was all silky smooth down there.
I wanted to go up and tell people how comfortable I was feeling downstairs, but the only other people out and about at 8am on a Sunday are old duffers walking their dogs, and I'm not sure they would understand.
Ok, that's it for today - remember that you can get great advice if you talk about your goals, and taking repeated action can quickly lead you to getting great knowledge about any field.
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Monday, June 05, 2006
Issue 369 - Mon 5th Jun 2006
Hi,
I hope Monday finds you well.
My subjects today are going for your dreams, and making sure that ambition doesn't blind you to the facts.
In 1984, Christa McAuliffe was sitting in her car with her husband, when she heard President Reagan on the radio, saying that NASA was starting a search to find a teacher to send into space.
She had always been fascinated by the space program, and her husband said she should try for it.
Sounds pretty silly eh?
1 place, out of all the teachers in the US?
Hardly worth the effort of applying.
Of course that attitude will see you never realising any of your dreams.
Being a teacher, of course Christa knew this, so she applied, and gradually progressed through the selection process, standing in amazement when she was finally chosen as the teacher in space.
She'd beaten a lot of candidates who were into mountaineering and extreme sports, because NASA wanted someone as 'normal' as possible, that more people could relate to.
That's another goal achievement principle - never assume that you don't fit the bill, because you don't always know what others are thinking!
All good stuff eh?
Well yes, but in 1984 when she first heard that broadcast on the radio, engineers had already noticed a problem about the rocket boosters on the shuttles.
When they examined the reusable boosters after a flight of the shuttle Discovery, they noticed a failure of a rubber seal, and it was only the back up seal that had prevented a disaster.
The engineer in charge of these selas made numerous attempts to get the problem looked at, but was ignored by his bosses.
The company had a huge contract with NASA, and from NASA's point of view, the seal was only 1 out of *700* shuttle components on the category 1 list, meaning a failure could be catastrophic.
Christa was due to launch in Janary 1986 on the Challenger shuttle.
As the launch neared, it was clear that the launch would be at the lowest temperature ever, and the seal engineer became ever more concerned.
The teacher in space idea had captured the media's attention, with Christa due to give a lesson from space, and children all over the country watching.
With 2 postponed launches already, NASA was feeling a lot of negative press and was desperate to get the launch off.
The managers of the rocket booster company were finally convinced of the dangers on the eve of the launch, and held a conference telemeeting with NASA.
The managers explained the situation, that they could not safely recommend a launch.
One of NASA's team said that although he found it an 'appalling situation', he couldn't go against the contractors.
Those words were critical.
The booster company's managers asked for a 5 minute break.
They realised that their multi-billion dollar contract was on the line, and told their head engineer to take off his enginer hat and put on his manager hat.
Despite the protestations of the specific seal expert present, the head engineer changed his view, and said a launch was ok.
When NASA heard this about turn, they didn't ask why the company had completely changed their view, but they did ask if anyone disagreed.
The seal engineer kept silent, and NASA took this as good enough to launch.
On January 28 1986, Challenger launched.
On take off, the seals failed to operate in the cold, and a minute after take-off, the main fuel load exploded, destroying the shuttle.
All 7 astronauts died.
The investigation concluded that NASA's communication network was flawed, and people weren't being listened to properly.
To be perfectly honest, the loss of the Columbia shuttle 17 years later suggests that the lessons hadn't been taken on.
The crux of it was that the desire to get the shuttle up had caused a blindness to basic scientific fact.
It's all too easy to get carried away by getting close to your goal, but it's an important point to stick to the known facts.
Once you move away from them, you are on unproven ground, with unpredictable results.
Had Christa McAuliffe not applied to be on that shuttle, she would have been safely on the ground, but she would have always known that the chance to fulfill an ambition had come her way and she had ignored it.
Ok, that's it for today.
If you want to go for something, then go for it, but in business and life, remember not ignore cold hard facts.
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
I hope Monday finds you well.
My subjects today are going for your dreams, and making sure that ambition doesn't blind you to the facts.
In 1984, Christa McAuliffe was sitting in her car with her husband, when she heard President Reagan on the radio, saying that NASA was starting a search to find a teacher to send into space.
She had always been fascinated by the space program, and her husband said she should try for it.
Sounds pretty silly eh?
1 place, out of all the teachers in the US?
Hardly worth the effort of applying.
Of course that attitude will see you never realising any of your dreams.
Being a teacher, of course Christa knew this, so she applied, and gradually progressed through the selection process, standing in amazement when she was finally chosen as the teacher in space.
She'd beaten a lot of candidates who were into mountaineering and extreme sports, because NASA wanted someone as 'normal' as possible, that more people could relate to.
That's another goal achievement principle - never assume that you don't fit the bill, because you don't always know what others are thinking!
All good stuff eh?
Well yes, but in 1984 when she first heard that broadcast on the radio, engineers had already noticed a problem about the rocket boosters on the shuttles.
When they examined the reusable boosters after a flight of the shuttle Discovery, they noticed a failure of a rubber seal, and it was only the back up seal that had prevented a disaster.
The engineer in charge of these selas made numerous attempts to get the problem looked at, but was ignored by his bosses.
The company had a huge contract with NASA, and from NASA's point of view, the seal was only 1 out of *700* shuttle components on the category 1 list, meaning a failure could be catastrophic.
Christa was due to launch in Janary 1986 on the Challenger shuttle.
As the launch neared, it was clear that the launch would be at the lowest temperature ever, and the seal engineer became ever more concerned.
The teacher in space idea had captured the media's attention, with Christa due to give a lesson from space, and children all over the country watching.
With 2 postponed launches already, NASA was feeling a lot of negative press and was desperate to get the launch off.
The managers of the rocket booster company were finally convinced of the dangers on the eve of the launch, and held a conference telemeeting with NASA.
The managers explained the situation, that they could not safely recommend a launch.
One of NASA's team said that although he found it an 'appalling situation', he couldn't go against the contractors.
Those words were critical.
The booster company's managers asked for a 5 minute break.
They realised that their multi-billion dollar contract was on the line, and told their head engineer to take off his enginer hat and put on his manager hat.
Despite the protestations of the specific seal expert present, the head engineer changed his view, and said a launch was ok.
When NASA heard this about turn, they didn't ask why the company had completely changed their view, but they did ask if anyone disagreed.
The seal engineer kept silent, and NASA took this as good enough to launch.
On January 28 1986, Challenger launched.
On take off, the seals failed to operate in the cold, and a minute after take-off, the main fuel load exploded, destroying the shuttle.
All 7 astronauts died.
The investigation concluded that NASA's communication network was flawed, and people weren't being listened to properly.
To be perfectly honest, the loss of the Columbia shuttle 17 years later suggests that the lessons hadn't been taken on.
The crux of it was that the desire to get the shuttle up had caused a blindness to basic scientific fact.
It's all too easy to get carried away by getting close to your goal, but it's an important point to stick to the known facts.
Once you move away from them, you are on unproven ground, with unpredictable results.
Had Christa McAuliffe not applied to be on that shuttle, she would have been safely on the ground, but she would have always known that the chance to fulfill an ambition had come her way and she had ignored it.
Ok, that's it for today.
If you want to go for something, then go for it, but in business and life, remember not ignore cold hard facts.
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Issue 368 - Tue 30th May 2006
Hi,
I hope everything is ok where you are.
Yesterday was a public holiday both here in the UK and in the US at the same time.
Blimey with so many people off work, I'm surprised the whole world didn't just up and stop turning!
Of course one of the effects of the world turning is earthquakes, and the weekend quake in Indonesia has killed at least 5,000 known so far.
Events like this should give us cause to stop, step back, appreciate what we take for granted, and bring our small niggles down to the perspective they deserve - small.
Last week I got feedback that people enjoyed the story of Noor Inayat Khan, who showed great courage right up to her death in World War II.
So, next week, I'm going to remember another brave woman, acting in peacetime, who also lost her life, and the legacy she left.
I was going to do that this week, but wanted instead to ask for some more feedback, and it concerns my marathon venture.
First, let me tell you about last week's training.
During my weekday sessions, I have now begun to nudge up the running stints, which will serve to increase my stamina, and also tell my subconscious that if I can handle the increased effort in the week, my long run on Sunday at the previous pace should be 'easy'.
When it came to the 6 miles on Sunday, I was a bit apprehensive after the bad patch I went through last time.
I made a couple of changes in preparation though, and they helped.
The first was physical, I didnt have a load of banana protein shake swilling around inside me.
The second was psycholigical.
When I did my first Sunday session, it was 3 miles, and only took me a few minutes longer than my weekday 30 minute stints, so that felt fine.
Then I did 4 miles, which again was only my weekday stint plus a bt more.
Last week when I started on my 5 miler, I assumed it was still my weekday effort plus a bit more.
This meant that after 30 minutes, I was starting to think about the end, when in fact I was only half way through!
So this week for my 6 miler, I paid no attention to the 30 minute mark and just carried on.
I have also changed my running statement.
What you say to yourself is important when running long distance, and you'll know how I think it's important in all walks of life!
When I started training, I repeated to myself 'I am fit, I am well, I am fit, I am well'.
Now I have changd it to 'Nice and fit, nice and slow', and when I say it, it helps to force me to go slower, which at my stage of training is a great help to going further.
With those changes, I completed my 6 miles in 1 hour 14 minutes and was chuffed that at the end because I felt fine.
Phew - there are some goal achievement standards there - analysing a bad patch to change the outcome for next time, the importance of the correct self-talk, increasing your levels slowly, so that your standard level increases accordingly.
Oh yes, and how to avoid banana flavoured burps!
Right, here's the feedback I would like.
I'm thinking of changing tack slightly on my marathon site.
At the moment I am offering my new book plus my old book, plus a link/image on the site for $27, and 25% of that goes to charity.
That seemed a good deal to me, and with an affiliate program to boot.
However, I think people might prefer to sponsor me if they thought *all* of the money was going to charity.
So I am thinking of just asking for $7 to sponsor me for 1 metre, which will give you an image and link.
Then if you want to sponsor me for more, your image size goes up in line with the amount of $7 metres.
I wouldn't offer the books, take down the affiliate program, and 100% of the money would go to charity, minus my paypal expenses.
How does that sound?
Please let me know what you think, this either means you can have a link/image for $7, or for the same $27 as before you get 4 times the image size, and it all goes to charity.
I'd like some feedback before I make that change, so even if you don't want to sponsor me at all, I'd still like to know what you think.
Thanks for that.
Ok, that's it for today.
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
I hope everything is ok where you are.
Yesterday was a public holiday both here in the UK and in the US at the same time.
Blimey with so many people off work, I'm surprised the whole world didn't just up and stop turning!
Of course one of the effects of the world turning is earthquakes, and the weekend quake in Indonesia has killed at least 5,000 known so far.
Events like this should give us cause to stop, step back, appreciate what we take for granted, and bring our small niggles down to the perspective they deserve - small.
Last week I got feedback that people enjoyed the story of Noor Inayat Khan, who showed great courage right up to her death in World War II.
So, next week, I'm going to remember another brave woman, acting in peacetime, who also lost her life, and the legacy she left.
I was going to do that this week, but wanted instead to ask for some more feedback, and it concerns my marathon venture.
First, let me tell you about last week's training.
During my weekday sessions, I have now begun to nudge up the running stints, which will serve to increase my stamina, and also tell my subconscious that if I can handle the increased effort in the week, my long run on Sunday at the previous pace should be 'easy'.
When it came to the 6 miles on Sunday, I was a bit apprehensive after the bad patch I went through last time.
I made a couple of changes in preparation though, and they helped.
The first was physical, I didnt have a load of banana protein shake swilling around inside me.
The second was psycholigical.
When I did my first Sunday session, it was 3 miles, and only took me a few minutes longer than my weekday 30 minute stints, so that felt fine.
Then I did 4 miles, which again was only my weekday stint plus a bt more.
Last week when I started on my 5 miler, I assumed it was still my weekday effort plus a bit more.
This meant that after 30 minutes, I was starting to think about the end, when in fact I was only half way through!
So this week for my 6 miler, I paid no attention to the 30 minute mark and just carried on.
I have also changed my running statement.
What you say to yourself is important when running long distance, and you'll know how I think it's important in all walks of life!
When I started training, I repeated to myself 'I am fit, I am well, I am fit, I am well'.
Now I have changd it to 'Nice and fit, nice and slow', and when I say it, it helps to force me to go slower, which at my stage of training is a great help to going further.
With those changes, I completed my 6 miles in 1 hour 14 minutes and was chuffed that at the end because I felt fine.
Phew - there are some goal achievement standards there - analysing a bad patch to change the outcome for next time, the importance of the correct self-talk, increasing your levels slowly, so that your standard level increases accordingly.
Oh yes, and how to avoid banana flavoured burps!
Right, here's the feedback I would like.
I'm thinking of changing tack slightly on my marathon site.
At the moment I am offering my new book plus my old book, plus a link/image on the site for $27, and 25% of that goes to charity.
That seemed a good deal to me, and with an affiliate program to boot.
However, I think people might prefer to sponsor me if they thought *all* of the money was going to charity.
So I am thinking of just asking for $7 to sponsor me for 1 metre, which will give you an image and link.
Then if you want to sponsor me for more, your image size goes up in line with the amount of $7 metres.
I wouldn't offer the books, take down the affiliate program, and 100% of the money would go to charity, minus my paypal expenses.
How does that sound?
Please let me know what you think, this either means you can have a link/image for $7, or for the same $27 as before you get 4 times the image size, and it all goes to charity.
I'd like some feedback before I make that change, so even if you don't want to sponsor me at all, I'd still like to know what you think.
Thanks for that.
Ok, that's it for today.
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Monday, May 22, 2006
Issue 367 - Mon 22nd May 2006
*************************************************************
The Great Gordino Newsletter - Issue 367 – Mon 22nd May 2006
*************************************************************
Hi ,
I hope Monday finds you well.
Yesterday I had my first near-vomit experience when training.
I reckon I know what caused it, I had taken on sustinence too soon to running.
I spotted a gap in the rain and thought I'd make a go of it, but I suffered for it!
However, I bravely carried on, and got to 5 miles in 1 hour 3 mins, 3 mins outside my target, but not to worry about that - at this stage, targets are very rough and ready!
Of course me carrying on to do 5 miles instead of 4 wasn't really brave.
The real bravery came from the fact I was out in public at all, considering the whopping spot I had on my nose.
My body is slowly getting rid of a lot of rubbish as I get fitter, and my face gets sweaty a lot, so a few spots is a price I have to pay, but blimey, this one was (is) a whopper!
Right on the end of my nose, it's nearly as big as my actual nose.
It almost blocks my vision.
I'm not surprised I was suffering on my run having to lug all that extra weight around.
Thank goodness I have no dates looming!
Er, actually that wasn't really that brave either, and today I want to talk about some real bravery.
I saw a documentary about a woman awarded the George Cross in World War II, only the 3rd woman to get one.
Unfortunately she wasn't alive to receive it, she had been brutally beaten and shot by the SS.
Noor Inayat Khan was born in the Kremlin, where her father was an attache to the Imperial Family.
After moving to England, the family settled in France.
When Germany invaded France, she was just able to escape to England.
Her philosophical beliefs didn't allow her to use violence, but she wanted to help in the war, so trained as a wireless operator.
The fact that she spoke fluent French brought her to the attention of the special services, and she was recruited to train for undercover work in France.
Although her training often noted her as 'clumsy' and 'not over-burdened with brains', we were so short of trained wireless operatives, that she was sent over to France, where the life expectancy for an undercover operative was just 6 weeks.
As she landed in the dark, she was already in trouble, as the man who met her was a double agent, giving details to the Germans.
Soon after she got to Paris, most of her colleagues were arrested due to the double agent's work.
Noor was offered a flight back to England by her bosses, but as she realised she was the only operative left in Paris, she decided to stay.
She continued to avoid capture, and kept working for 12 weeks, twice the normal life expectancy before she was caught.
Throughout her interrogation she frustrated the Germans by giving lots of false information, until they got so fed up they stopped asking her.
She was moved through various prisons until she was sent to the Dachau concentration camp where she was eventually beaten to near death and then shot in the head.
The man that killed her was himself executed for war crimes, and Noor Khan was awarded the George Cross for 'conspicuous bravery in the face of danger.'
She knew that she was letting herself in for something which would more likely than not bring her death, but she went forward anyway because it was what she believed in.
I love watching documentaries like that, telling me about the bravery I hadn't heard of before, bravery of people I had not previously been aware of.
I, and if you are reading this most likely you too, live in societies of such freedom which we take for granted.
We don't have to show such bravery to get things done.
So, the next time you feel scared to do something, the next time you 'don't feel brave enough' to push your comfort zone, think of Noor Inayat Khan, and you may surprise yourself!
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon Milllion at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
The Great Gordino Newsletter - Issue 367 – Mon 22nd May 2006
*************************************************************
Hi ,
I hope Monday finds you well.
Yesterday I had my first near-vomit experience when training.
I reckon I know what caused it, I had taken on sustinence too soon to running.
I spotted a gap in the rain and thought I'd make a go of it, but I suffered for it!
However, I bravely carried on, and got to 5 miles in 1 hour 3 mins, 3 mins outside my target, but not to worry about that - at this stage, targets are very rough and ready!
Of course me carrying on to do 5 miles instead of 4 wasn't really brave.
The real bravery came from the fact I was out in public at all, considering the whopping spot I had on my nose.
My body is slowly getting rid of a lot of rubbish as I get fitter, and my face gets sweaty a lot, so a few spots is a price I have to pay, but blimey, this one was (is) a whopper!
Right on the end of my nose, it's nearly as big as my actual nose.
It almost blocks my vision.
I'm not surprised I was suffering on my run having to lug all that extra weight around.
Thank goodness I have no dates looming!
Er, actually that wasn't really that brave either, and today I want to talk about some real bravery.
I saw a documentary about a woman awarded the George Cross in World War II, only the 3rd woman to get one.
Unfortunately she wasn't alive to receive it, she had been brutally beaten and shot by the SS.
Noor Inayat Khan was born in the Kremlin, where her father was an attache to the Imperial Family.
After moving to England, the family settled in France.
When Germany invaded France, she was just able to escape to England.
Her philosophical beliefs didn't allow her to use violence, but she wanted to help in the war, so trained as a wireless operator.
The fact that she spoke fluent French brought her to the attention of the special services, and she was recruited to train for undercover work in France.
Although her training often noted her as 'clumsy' and 'not over-burdened with brains', we were so short of trained wireless operatives, that she was sent over to France, where the life expectancy for an undercover operative was just 6 weeks.
As she landed in the dark, she was already in trouble, as the man who met her was a double agent, giving details to the Germans.
Soon after she got to Paris, most of her colleagues were arrested due to the double agent's work.
Noor was offered a flight back to England by her bosses, but as she realised she was the only operative left in Paris, she decided to stay.
She continued to avoid capture, and kept working for 12 weeks, twice the normal life expectancy before she was caught.
Throughout her interrogation she frustrated the Germans by giving lots of false information, until they got so fed up they stopped asking her.
She was moved through various prisons until she was sent to the Dachau concentration camp where she was eventually beaten to near death and then shot in the head.
The man that killed her was himself executed for war crimes, and Noor Khan was awarded the George Cross for 'conspicuous bravery in the face of danger.'
She knew that she was letting herself in for something which would more likely than not bring her death, but she went forward anyway because it was what she believed in.
I love watching documentaries like that, telling me about the bravery I hadn't heard of before, bravery of people I had not previously been aware of.
I, and if you are reading this most likely you too, live in societies of such freedom which we take for granted.
We don't have to show such bravery to get things done.
So, the next time you feel scared to do something, the next time you 'don't feel brave enough' to push your comfort zone, think of Noor Inayat Khan, and you may surprise yourself!
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon Milllion at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
Monday, May 15, 2006
Issue 366 - Mon 15th May 2006
*************************************************************
The Great Gordino Newsletter - Issue 366 – Mon 15th May 2006
*************************************************************
Hi,
I hope everything is ok with you.
2 points to make today, about integrity, and the little things.
My training for the marathon is going well.
I did 4 miles yesterday, still managing 12 minute miles, with a total of 17 miles for the week.
I'm confident of getting that down to 10 minute miles in time, which would be a marathon time of 4 hours 20 mins.
Even after 2 weeks of training on what seems an easy schedule, I can already feel and see the difference.
I've noticed bulges appearing on my legs, rather impressively even if I say so myself.
My stomach hasn't gone yet.
In fact I took some pictures of it, so I can look back and note the difference.
I was tempted to put them on show, but I had to sit down with a damp cloth for my head after looking at them, and it's my bloody stomach, so I'd need a lot of convincing to display to all and sundry!
I've had no huge training stints, it's little and often, and what a great way to achieve goals.
By not over doing things, but by consistently following an established plan, it doesn't take long to start seeing results.
When I go out training I plan the route so that I can cover the time or distance required, include a cool down distance, and arrive back home.
Last week I finished a session, and was feeling good as I got home.
Until I put my hand in my pocket that was...
I was expecting to feel my door keys, but found nothing except a blob of fluff.
My first thought was that if the fluff looked like Elvis, I might be able to sell it on ebay,
My second thought was 'Uh-oh, no keys'
I immediately went to my back up plan, which was to wait a few seconds and then put my hand n my pocket again as in case they might magically be there this time.
When this failed, my shoulders sagged as I had to accept that my keys had fallen out on my session.
Fortunately my landlord is also my friend, and lives locally, so I was able to go to his and pick up the spares.
I then retraced my route, in case I found them lying on the pavement, but they were nowhere to be seen.
This was Tuesday evening, and on Thursday morning, the post landed with an extra loud thump on the mat.
I opened the envelope and out popped my keys!
I knew there was nothing on the keys to mark the address - all it had was little keyfob which acted as a loyalty card for the supermarket.
Someone had found my keys, handed them in to Tescos, who had them traced my address on the computer and sent them to me.
How impressive is that!
I had not expected to see them again, but thanks to the integrity of the person who had handed them in, they were returned.
It's was a little thing for a complete stranger to do, but it gave me a real injection of feelgood factor, and put a smile on my face.
Ok, that's it for today, consider the little things - doing the little things without reward because they are the right thing to do really brings good things, and repeating little steps on a plan can take you to amazing goals.
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon Milllion at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
The Great Gordino Newsletter - Issue 366 – Mon 15th May 2006
*************************************************************
Hi,
I hope everything is ok with you.
2 points to make today, about integrity, and the little things.
My training for the marathon is going well.
I did 4 miles yesterday, still managing 12 minute miles, with a total of 17 miles for the week.
I'm confident of getting that down to 10 minute miles in time, which would be a marathon time of 4 hours 20 mins.
Even after 2 weeks of training on what seems an easy schedule, I can already feel and see the difference.
I've noticed bulges appearing on my legs, rather impressively even if I say so myself.
My stomach hasn't gone yet.
In fact I took some pictures of it, so I can look back and note the difference.
I was tempted to put them on show, but I had to sit down with a damp cloth for my head after looking at them, and it's my bloody stomach, so I'd need a lot of convincing to display to all and sundry!
I've had no huge training stints, it's little and often, and what a great way to achieve goals.
By not over doing things, but by consistently following an established plan, it doesn't take long to start seeing results.
When I go out training I plan the route so that I can cover the time or distance required, include a cool down distance, and arrive back home.
Last week I finished a session, and was feeling good as I got home.
Until I put my hand in my pocket that was...
I was expecting to feel my door keys, but found nothing except a blob of fluff.
My first thought was that if the fluff looked like Elvis, I might be able to sell it on ebay,
My second thought was 'Uh-oh, no keys'
I immediately went to my back up plan, which was to wait a few seconds and then put my hand n my pocket again as in case they might magically be there this time.
When this failed, my shoulders sagged as I had to accept that my keys had fallen out on my session.
Fortunately my landlord is also my friend, and lives locally, so I was able to go to his and pick up the spares.
I then retraced my route, in case I found them lying on the pavement, but they were nowhere to be seen.
This was Tuesday evening, and on Thursday morning, the post landed with an extra loud thump on the mat.
I opened the envelope and out popped my keys!
I knew there was nothing on the keys to mark the address - all it had was little keyfob which acted as a loyalty card for the supermarket.
Someone had found my keys, handed them in to Tescos, who had them traced my address on the computer and sent them to me.
How impressive is that!
I had not expected to see them again, but thanks to the integrity of the person who had handed them in, they were returned.
It's was a little thing for a complete stranger to do, but it gave me a real injection of feelgood factor, and put a smile on my face.
Ok, that's it for today, consider the little things - doing the little things without reward because they are the right thing to do really brings good things, and repeating little steps on a plan can take you to amazing goals.
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon Milllion at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Issue 365 - My Adsense Knowledge Can Be Yours
Hi,
Another Monday creaks around, and I hope all is well where you are.
Last week was my first proper week of training for the marathon, and you won't be surprised to find I found loads of goal achievement truths in it.
The first came when I got my running shoes.
I knew that I would need a good pair, and that I would have to splash the cash, something I avoid if at all possible.
As tempting as it was to get the cheapest pair I could find, I knew that this would be possibly the biggest and easiest mistake I could make in my training, and would possibly stop me even getting to the start line.
In fact, more than possibly, it would *probably* be.
If you're following a tried and tested formula, some things can be tweaked, but somethings have to be left as they are.
So, after some research online, I found out what kind of feet I have, and what kind of shoe I needed.
I looked at the various makes, and found a pair for £50.
In my book that's normally several pairs of shoes, but I bit the bullet and looked further.
I went straight to ebay, and found a brand new pair for £25.
2 days later they were sitting on my feet, and it feels like I'm running on a pair of cushions.
True, it's a pair of cushions with a sodding road underneath, but you get the idea.
I've picked a training schedule which includes a lot walking.
As someone with no knowledge it seems an amazing amount of walking to me, but since 'no knowledge' is exactly where I'm at, I'm sticking with it, and I'll cover it more in future issues.
Last week I did a total of 14 miles, so that's a good start.
I don't normally recommend products in this newsletter, (apart from my own that is!)
Any new products will be advertised by all and sundry anyway, so I've never felt the need, apart from the fact that this newsletter's not really about that.
Last week I bought my first new product for ages, and I'm sort of recommending it, but not.
Stay with me on this one...
The product is called Adsense Videos, and in them Michael Cheney shows exactly how he uses Google's Adsense program, bringing him $19,000 in February this year.
The videos are short and sweet, and nicely presented.
I reckon his tips about design and layout are enough to boost anyone's adsense earnings.
The videos come with a money back guarantee, so if you fancy a peek, here's the link, which you can see is my affiliate link!
http://www.adsense-videos.com/start.php?offer=gordino2&pid=1
However...
A lot of the content of the videos is standard foundation internet marketing, stuff which you can easily pick up for free online, or just by asking people like me!
For the complete beginner, I'm not sure the videos are fully worth the money, and for the more experienced at using Google Adsense, the tips are things that you can find simply by looking at Michael's websites!
So you see why I recommend them, and yet don't at the same time?
Here's what I thought.
Having mentioned that most of the video content is basic internet marketing, and the specific adsense tips can be seen online anyway, how about if I let you ask me your questions on Google Adsense, and I'll tell you all I know on the subject, to save you having to search it all online.
The Adsense Videos cost $87, but if you buy my 'Marathon Million' book for $27, I will open up my Adsense knowledge to you.
Not only will you save $60, you'll also get both of my books, plus you'll get an image link on my site, plus 25% will go to charity.
If you prefer to buy the videos, that's fine, as my affiliate commission is *more* than the $27 I get if you buy my book.
'Hmm, why then,' I hear you ask, 'would you prefer us to buy your book?'
Ooh, good question, and the answer is this -
I want to get my book out and about as much as possible, build interest, and also build up the charity donations, which will help to get me in the race.
For the 2006 marathon just gone, 140,000 applications came in for the 34,000 places.
Ok, that's it for today.
If you want to look at the $87 videos, which I bought last week, here's the link:
http://www.adsense-videos.com/start.php?offer=gordino2&pid=1
If you want to buy my books for $27 and sponsor me for metres of the marathon, and then ask me for all my Adsense knowledge, here's the link:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon Milllion at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
Another Monday creaks around, and I hope all is well where you are.
Last week was my first proper week of training for the marathon, and you won't be surprised to find I found loads of goal achievement truths in it.
The first came when I got my running shoes.
I knew that I would need a good pair, and that I would have to splash the cash, something I avoid if at all possible.
As tempting as it was to get the cheapest pair I could find, I knew that this would be possibly the biggest and easiest mistake I could make in my training, and would possibly stop me even getting to the start line.
In fact, more than possibly, it would *probably* be.
If you're following a tried and tested formula, some things can be tweaked, but somethings have to be left as they are.
So, after some research online, I found out what kind of feet I have, and what kind of shoe I needed.
I looked at the various makes, and found a pair for £50.
In my book that's normally several pairs of shoes, but I bit the bullet and looked further.
I went straight to ebay, and found a brand new pair for £25.
2 days later they were sitting on my feet, and it feels like I'm running on a pair of cushions.
True, it's a pair of cushions with a sodding road underneath, but you get the idea.
I've picked a training schedule which includes a lot walking.
As someone with no knowledge it seems an amazing amount of walking to me, but since 'no knowledge' is exactly where I'm at, I'm sticking with it, and I'll cover it more in future issues.
Last week I did a total of 14 miles, so that's a good start.
I don't normally recommend products in this newsletter, (apart from my own that is!)
Any new products will be advertised by all and sundry anyway, so I've never felt the need, apart from the fact that this newsletter's not really about that.
Last week I bought my first new product for ages, and I'm sort of recommending it, but not.
Stay with me on this one...
The product is called Adsense Videos, and in them Michael Cheney shows exactly how he uses Google's Adsense program, bringing him $19,000 in February this year.
The videos are short and sweet, and nicely presented.
I reckon his tips about design and layout are enough to boost anyone's adsense earnings.
The videos come with a money back guarantee, so if you fancy a peek, here's the link, which you can see is my affiliate link!
http://www.adsense-videos.com/start.php?offer=gordino2&pid=1
However...
A lot of the content of the videos is standard foundation internet marketing, stuff which you can easily pick up for free online, or just by asking people like me!
For the complete beginner, I'm not sure the videos are fully worth the money, and for the more experienced at using Google Adsense, the tips are things that you can find simply by looking at Michael's websites!
So you see why I recommend them, and yet don't at the same time?
Here's what I thought.
Having mentioned that most of the video content is basic internet marketing, and the specific adsense tips can be seen online anyway, how about if I let you ask me your questions on Google Adsense, and I'll tell you all I know on the subject, to save you having to search it all online.
The Adsense Videos cost $87, but if you buy my 'Marathon Million' book for $27, I will open up my Adsense knowledge to you.
Not only will you save $60, you'll also get both of my books, plus you'll get an image link on my site, plus 25% will go to charity.
If you prefer to buy the videos, that's fine, as my affiliate commission is *more* than the $27 I get if you buy my book.
'Hmm, why then,' I hear you ask, 'would you prefer us to buy your book?'
Ooh, good question, and the answer is this -
I want to get my book out and about as much as possible, build interest, and also build up the charity donations, which will help to get me in the race.
For the 2006 marathon just gone, 140,000 applications came in for the 34,000 places.
Ok, that's it for today.
If you want to look at the $87 videos, which I bought last week, here's the link:
http://www.adsense-videos.com/start.php?offer=gordino2&pid=1
If you want to buy my books for $27 and sponsor me for metres of the marathon, and then ask me for all my Adsense knowledge, here's the link:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon Milllion at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Issue 364 - Be Yourself Or Make An Impression?
Hi,
I hope Tuesday finds you well.
It was another Bank Holiday here in the UK yesterday, so I decided to take the day off, so this is the first Tuesday Issue for a while!
Last week I got quite a few emails, telling me that although I was joking, I was naughty to make comments about my wife, calling her 'sick bag ugly'.
I can't deny it, it was naughty, but in fact, it lends itself to the point I want to make today, which is about trying to make an impression.
In fact, Holly was actually a good looker.
I want to put her picture up for you to see, but as an invasion of her privacy that really *would* be naughty, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
Also, I havn't had contact with her for 10 years, so she may have gone downhill...
So way back then, she was one of the most warm and sensitive people I had met, and had a smile that was infectious.
Unfortunately she neglected to tell her face, so her default expression did not reflect this.
Quite the opposite in fact.
Her default face looked like a bulldog chewing a wasp.
Is that the right expression?
Or is it a face like a bulldog's arse?
Or a face like a bulldog's face that's been stung by a wasp?
How about a face like a bulldog's arse that's just been stung by a wasp and then slapped?
You get the idea...
People used to say to me 'what's the matter with her?'
(and that was just the vicar)
Sorry, another joke, I couldn't resist.
Seriously, people used to ask me what she was upset about, when in fact she was quite happily minding her own business, not upset about anything.
I did (carefully) broach the subject with her, and she said she didn't realise she was doing it, and couldn't walk around with a fixed grin on her face just to please others.
In fact, she *could*, but it would have been silly.
Yes, it may have created a better first impression, but you can't permanently put on a fake front.
I remember another expression, which goes something like 'be who you are, be true to yourself, because those that matter don't mind, and those that mind don't matter.'
On the same subject of making an impression, I was at a gig the other week, and my friend Liz introduced me to a girl there.
Incidentally, Liz has a site she put together using SiteBuildIt, and she loves the whole package, so if you fancy a peek, her site is at:
http://www.find-a-seafood-recipe.com
She is also the sponsor of metres 2 & 3 of my marathon, link below.
So, Liz introduced me, and told me to tell the girl my story of the dating site which had stung me for an extra month's subscription, as this girl was also on the site.
I told her the story, and when we compared what we were looking for, we were both surprised that we hadn't been in contact via the site.
Anyhoo, at the end of the evening, she asked me to go out.
I just about managed to stay on my feet long enough to say 'ok'.
A few days later, and the date was arranged.
When I go on these partially-sited dates, a friend always says that I should just be myself, before saying 'on second thoughts, try and make a good impression.'
Very droll I'm sure, but it's something I was pondering.
I couldn't decide whether to wear my all-purpose jacket which has seen better days, or my smarter jacket.
I had plumped for my all-purpose jacket, intending to leave it in the car, but at the last minute decided on the smarter one, to make a better inpression.
If it was a movie, as I closed the door, the camera would now close in on my mobile phone, nestling quite happily in the pocket of the jacket I had originally chosen....
I got to the pub as arranged, but she didn't appear.
By that time I had realised I didn't have my phone with me, and was shaking my head at the 'sod's law' situation I was now in.
After a 50 minute wait, I went home, and found a message telling me that she was waiting about 15 miles in the opposite direction.
I explained what had happened, but she was unable to see the funny side, and I've not heard from her since.
It seems the time between me meeting someone and getting dumped is getting shorter.
It's almost at the point where I'm scared to go out, in case a complete stranger comes up to me, delivers a huge slap and yells 'you're dumped', before running off.
So, what's better, to be yourself, or to make a good impression?
The answer is...
being yourself and making a good impression should be the same thing anyway!
Ok, have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon Milllion at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
I hope Tuesday finds you well.
It was another Bank Holiday here in the UK yesterday, so I decided to take the day off, so this is the first Tuesday Issue for a while!
Last week I got quite a few emails, telling me that although I was joking, I was naughty to make comments about my wife, calling her 'sick bag ugly'.
I can't deny it, it was naughty, but in fact, it lends itself to the point I want to make today, which is about trying to make an impression.
In fact, Holly was actually a good looker.
I want to put her picture up for you to see, but as an invasion of her privacy that really *would* be naughty, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
Also, I havn't had contact with her for 10 years, so she may have gone downhill...
So way back then, she was one of the most warm and sensitive people I had met, and had a smile that was infectious.
Unfortunately she neglected to tell her face, so her default expression did not reflect this.
Quite the opposite in fact.
Her default face looked like a bulldog chewing a wasp.
Is that the right expression?
Or is it a face like a bulldog's arse?
Or a face like a bulldog's face that's been stung by a wasp?
How about a face like a bulldog's arse that's just been stung by a wasp and then slapped?
You get the idea...
People used to say to me 'what's the matter with her?'
(and that was just the vicar)
Sorry, another joke, I couldn't resist.
Seriously, people used to ask me what she was upset about, when in fact she was quite happily minding her own business, not upset about anything.
I did (carefully) broach the subject with her, and she said she didn't realise she was doing it, and couldn't walk around with a fixed grin on her face just to please others.
In fact, she *could*, but it would have been silly.
Yes, it may have created a better first impression, but you can't permanently put on a fake front.
I remember another expression, which goes something like 'be who you are, be true to yourself, because those that matter don't mind, and those that mind don't matter.'
On the same subject of making an impression, I was at a gig the other week, and my friend Liz introduced me to a girl there.
Incidentally, Liz has a site she put together using SiteBuildIt, and she loves the whole package, so if you fancy a peek, her site is at:
http://www.find-a-seafood-recipe.com
She is also the sponsor of metres 2 & 3 of my marathon, link below.
So, Liz introduced me, and told me to tell the girl my story of the dating site which had stung me for an extra month's subscription, as this girl was also on the site.
I told her the story, and when we compared what we were looking for, we were both surprised that we hadn't been in contact via the site.
Anyhoo, at the end of the evening, she asked me to go out.
I just about managed to stay on my feet long enough to say 'ok'.
A few days later, and the date was arranged.
When I go on these partially-sited dates, a friend always says that I should just be myself, before saying 'on second thoughts, try and make a good impression.'
Very droll I'm sure, but it's something I was pondering.
I couldn't decide whether to wear my all-purpose jacket which has seen better days, or my smarter jacket.
I had plumped for my all-purpose jacket, intending to leave it in the car, but at the last minute decided on the smarter one, to make a better inpression.
If it was a movie, as I closed the door, the camera would now close in on my mobile phone, nestling quite happily in the pocket of the jacket I had originally chosen....
I got to the pub as arranged, but she didn't appear.
By that time I had realised I didn't have my phone with me, and was shaking my head at the 'sod's law' situation I was now in.
After a 50 minute wait, I went home, and found a message telling me that she was waiting about 15 miles in the opposite direction.
I explained what had happened, but she was unable to see the funny side, and I've not heard from her since.
It seems the time between me meeting someone and getting dumped is getting shorter.
It's almost at the point where I'm scared to go out, in case a complete stranger comes up to me, delivers a huge slap and yells 'you're dumped', before running off.
So, what's better, to be yourself, or to make a good impression?
The answer is...
being yourself and making a good impression should be the same thing anyway!
Ok, have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Get involved with my Marathon Milllion at:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
Monday, April 24, 2006
Issue 363 - This'll Be Me Next Year
Hi,
I hope everything is ok where you are.
Yesteday was the 26th running of the London Marathon.
Today sees the 'official' launch of my own project to run the 2007 race.
Early on the 22nd April next year I will be on the start line, all trained up and ready to go.
Notice that I don't say 'hope to be', or 'aim to be', but 'WILL be'.
Barring injury or things outside my control, I will be there, and the journey starts today.
It was a shame that for yesterday's race both the men's and women's world record holders had to pull out just a few days before, but the race was still excellent to observe.
The women's race was won by Deena Kastor from the US, and she set a personal best time.
She is only the 8th woman to run under 2 hours 20 minutes, and it was the 4th best ever.
In fact, the first 5 women home all set personal bests, but it was illustrated best by Kastor.
Since she was the leader, the cameras focused on her, and it was noted how many times she looked at her watch.
In the last 400 metres she must have glanced at it every other step.
What a great example of goal achievement!
She didnt get there by wishing or hoping, but by planning and good old fashioned hard work.
Right up until the achievement of her goal she was checking to see that all was going according to plan.
It's lessons like that which are precisely the reason why it's such a good project for me.
When I was putting the idea together, I investigated online, and it seems that a total novice, and an unfit one to boot, can train for a marathon in 6 months.
That seems surprising to me, but I see it said often enough to believe it.
I suppose that means that I can sit around for the next 6 months and do nothing.
I won't though.
I intend to use the next 6 months to build up as much basic fitness and endurance as I can, which will make the next 6 month stint that much easier.
Today I was planning to walk a mile, to check my equipment, see how long it took me , etc, but my friend called me to say he was off to the gym and did I want to go along.
He told me to remember to bring my sick bag 'just in case.'
Very funny, but in fact when I was married many years ago, British Airways had written to me, saying that someone had sent them a picture of my wife, and 'would it be ok if they used it on their sick bags?', so I still have quite a few left.
(little joke there).
So, we went to the gym, and I set off on the treadmill at a very sedate pace.
Er, well walking actually.
I was determined not to have any vomit incidents, to go at my own pace.
I gradually found I was able to increase the pace, and although it took me an astonishing 16 minutes to do 1 mile, the fact that I had started at a slow walking pace, and finished at a run, with no heaving, felt good to me.
We then had a dip in the pool, but I must have done a couple of lengths too many, because on the journey home, I soon started getting that familiar, but unwelcome feeling in my stomach, and we had to stop.
Rather appropriately we ended up by some recycling containers, and I certainly did some recycling I can tell you.
I'm hoping as I go along with my training, the nausea thing will stop, but I guess me finding out will be part of the 'fun'.
I've got a lot of my gear already - cheap stopwatch, cheap set of scales.
I know I will have to pay for proper running shoes, that can't be helped.
Weight-wise as I kick off the project, I am around 12 stone, that's 168 pounds, and I reckon a good 20 pounds of that is around my waist.
I won't be sad to see that go, and am preparing for the girls to come flocking...
If any of you have run, or know someone who has run a marathon, let me know, I'd love to hear your stories.
I recently mentioned Sandra Sims, who runs a website about fundraising, and it turns out she has done a walking marathon in Alaska.
Very impressive, and you can read about it here:
http://stepbystepfundraising.com/anchorage-alaska-marathon/
Ok, wish me luck on the project, and if you havn't done so already, go and peek at the site, which also has a 50% paying affiliate program:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
I hope everything is ok where you are.
Yesteday was the 26th running of the London Marathon.
Today sees the 'official' launch of my own project to run the 2007 race.
Early on the 22nd April next year I will be on the start line, all trained up and ready to go.
Notice that I don't say 'hope to be', or 'aim to be', but 'WILL be'.
Barring injury or things outside my control, I will be there, and the journey starts today.
It was a shame that for yesterday's race both the men's and women's world record holders had to pull out just a few days before, but the race was still excellent to observe.
The women's race was won by Deena Kastor from the US, and she set a personal best time.
She is only the 8th woman to run under 2 hours 20 minutes, and it was the 4th best ever.
In fact, the first 5 women home all set personal bests, but it was illustrated best by Kastor.
Since she was the leader, the cameras focused on her, and it was noted how many times she looked at her watch.
In the last 400 metres she must have glanced at it every other step.
What a great example of goal achievement!
She didnt get there by wishing or hoping, but by planning and good old fashioned hard work.
Right up until the achievement of her goal she was checking to see that all was going according to plan.
It's lessons like that which are precisely the reason why it's such a good project for me.
When I was putting the idea together, I investigated online, and it seems that a total novice, and an unfit one to boot, can train for a marathon in 6 months.
That seems surprising to me, but I see it said often enough to believe it.
I suppose that means that I can sit around for the next 6 months and do nothing.
I won't though.
I intend to use the next 6 months to build up as much basic fitness and endurance as I can, which will make the next 6 month stint that much easier.
Today I was planning to walk a mile, to check my equipment, see how long it took me , etc, but my friend called me to say he was off to the gym and did I want to go along.
He told me to remember to bring my sick bag 'just in case.'
Very funny, but in fact when I was married many years ago, British Airways had written to me, saying that someone had sent them a picture of my wife, and 'would it be ok if they used it on their sick bags?', so I still have quite a few left.
(little joke there).
So, we went to the gym, and I set off on the treadmill at a very sedate pace.
Er, well walking actually.
I was determined not to have any vomit incidents, to go at my own pace.
I gradually found I was able to increase the pace, and although it took me an astonishing 16 minutes to do 1 mile, the fact that I had started at a slow walking pace, and finished at a run, with no heaving, felt good to me.
We then had a dip in the pool, but I must have done a couple of lengths too many, because on the journey home, I soon started getting that familiar, but unwelcome feeling in my stomach, and we had to stop.
Rather appropriately we ended up by some recycling containers, and I certainly did some recycling I can tell you.
I'm hoping as I go along with my training, the nausea thing will stop, but I guess me finding out will be part of the 'fun'.
I've got a lot of my gear already - cheap stopwatch, cheap set of scales.
I know I will have to pay for proper running shoes, that can't be helped.
Weight-wise as I kick off the project, I am around 12 stone, that's 168 pounds, and I reckon a good 20 pounds of that is around my waist.
I won't be sad to see that go, and am preparing for the girls to come flocking...
If any of you have run, or know someone who has run a marathon, let me know, I'd love to hear your stories.
I recently mentioned Sandra Sims, who runs a website about fundraising, and it turns out she has done a walking marathon in Alaska.
Very impressive, and you can read about it here:
http://stepbystepfundraising.com/anchorage-alaska-marathon/
Ok, wish me luck on the project, and if you havn't done so already, go and peek at the site, which also has a 50% paying affiliate program:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Monday, April 17, 2006
Issue 362 - Project Prelaunch
*************************************************************
The Great Gordino Newsletter - Issue 362 – Mon 17th April 2006
*************************************************************
Hi,
I hope today finds you well.
If you celebrate Easter, I hope you're enjoying it.
If you don't, I hope you're enjoying your Monday anyway!
I've been having a great weekend, there's chocolate everywhere.
My daily rationing goes out of the window at times like these, and it's fun!
Tomorrow it's back to my one-a-day limit.
Today I want to give a quick Happy Birthday to The Queen, and then it's onto the prelaunch of my new project.
Queen Elizabeth is 80 on Friday 21st.
That means she was 40 when I was zero.
Little did I know what would await me when I first poked my head into the world back then, and little did I know that Elizabeth had already reigned for 15 years!
There are lots of documentaries about her at the mo, and they show lovely private film footage of her younger years.
What a lovely smile she had, and still has today!
She wasn't born to be Queen, in fact she was in her teens when her father became King, making her next in line.
She settled into the idea, and when she was 21, she made an announcement that she would dedicate the rest of her life to the service of her duty.
It was only another 4 brief years before she took the throne, and has been there ever since.
I've never known another Monarch.
She's always been there, on the stamps, on the money.
Because she's only about 15 years older than my own mother, I suppose the images of the 2 have grown together for me.
It's that solidity that she has brought in her reign.
She still works a ferocious schedule.
Yes of course everything is done for her, but apart from the fact that she is Head of State for around 2 billion people, she *needs* to be looked after to keep up a work rate that my nearly 40-yr old body might struggle with!
So I for one say Happy 80th Birthday!
Speaking of my nearly 40-yr old body, today is the prelaunch of my new project.
I've called it The Great Gordino's Marathon Million.
I decided that to mark my 40th birthday this year, I would train for the London Marathon.
I'll go into more details next week, but I also decided to put together a book for the project, and after I had thrown those ideas into the pot along with sponsorship, I came up with the finished article.
I am selling the new book for $27.
Included in that is my 1st book, 'Transform Your Life in 21 Days!'.
Your purchase also includes sponsoring me for 1 metre of the marathon which allows you to have an image displayed on the site, linking to a site you choose, be it your site or an affiliate site or whatever.
You can sponsor me for as many metres as you want - the more metres, the bigger your image displayed!
25% of the purchase price goes to charity.
I reckon that's a good deal.
2 books, which could quite easily sell at $47 each, an image and link to your site, and 25% to charity.
Plus you get to see how I use the theories I always rattle on about to help me get through the serious challenge of a marathon to mark my 40th!
That's basically the project, and if you're asking what's the difference between today's 'prelaunch' and next week's full launch, well this is it -
This year's London Marathon is on the 23rd, so the 24th seems a good time to officially launch the project.
From then on I will be fully promoting it.
This week's prelaunch achieves a few things.
Firstly it allows me to promote the product to the select people I choose, and that's the readers of this old newsletter!
It also allows me to offer a prelaunch deal, which is 'buy one, get one free.'
That means that for the $27, not only do you get all the stuff I mentioned above, you get 2 metres' worth of image display!
Being in on the prelaunch allows you to get in first, to pick the spot you want your image to show.
It also means that you can get a head start on promoting the product - did I mention I had an affiliate programme?
No?
Well I have, paying a 50% commission on all sales you refer.
It's important that you sign up via the affiliate page on my site, otherwise your referred sales can't be tracked and logged as yours. There are banners there you can use, and I will be adding more tools as I go.
Any buyers you refer will also get the 'buy one get one free' deal, but for the free metre there won't be any commission paid, as it doesn't cost anything to the buyer.
At 12.01am BST Monday 24th, the '2 for 1' deal ends, so use it this week while you can!
A prelaunch also allows me to fix any teething problems.
Hopefully there won't be many if any, but if any problems do appear, I'd rather it was with friends who will give me some slack!
So there we are!
Go and look at the site, get in ahead of the crowd during this week, take the 'buy one get one free' offer, and be among the first to promote it via your affiliate link.
Here's the site:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
Ok, that's it for today - have a good week and raise a glass to The Queen on Friday!
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
The Great Gordino Newsletter - Issue 362 – Mon 17th April 2006
*************************************************************
Hi,
I hope today finds you well.
If you celebrate Easter, I hope you're enjoying it.
If you don't, I hope you're enjoying your Monday anyway!
I've been having a great weekend, there's chocolate everywhere.
My daily rationing goes out of the window at times like these, and it's fun!
Tomorrow it's back to my one-a-day limit.
Today I want to give a quick Happy Birthday to The Queen, and then it's onto the prelaunch of my new project.
Queen Elizabeth is 80 on Friday 21st.
That means she was 40 when I was zero.
Little did I know what would await me when I first poked my head into the world back then, and little did I know that Elizabeth had already reigned for 15 years!
There are lots of documentaries about her at the mo, and they show lovely private film footage of her younger years.
What a lovely smile she had, and still has today!
She wasn't born to be Queen, in fact she was in her teens when her father became King, making her next in line.
She settled into the idea, and when she was 21, she made an announcement that she would dedicate the rest of her life to the service of her duty.
It was only another 4 brief years before she took the throne, and has been there ever since.
I've never known another Monarch.
She's always been there, on the stamps, on the money.
Because she's only about 15 years older than my own mother, I suppose the images of the 2 have grown together for me.
It's that solidity that she has brought in her reign.
She still works a ferocious schedule.
Yes of course everything is done for her, but apart from the fact that she is Head of State for around 2 billion people, she *needs* to be looked after to keep up a work rate that my nearly 40-yr old body might struggle with!
So I for one say Happy 80th Birthday!
Speaking of my nearly 40-yr old body, today is the prelaunch of my new project.
I've called it The Great Gordino's Marathon Million.
I decided that to mark my 40th birthday this year, I would train for the London Marathon.
I'll go into more details next week, but I also decided to put together a book for the project, and after I had thrown those ideas into the pot along with sponsorship, I came up with the finished article.
I am selling the new book for $27.
Included in that is my 1st book, 'Transform Your Life in 21 Days!'.
Your purchase also includes sponsoring me for 1 metre of the marathon which allows you to have an image displayed on the site, linking to a site you choose, be it your site or an affiliate site or whatever.
You can sponsor me for as many metres as you want - the more metres, the bigger your image displayed!
25% of the purchase price goes to charity.
I reckon that's a good deal.
2 books, which could quite easily sell at $47 each, an image and link to your site, and 25% to charity.
Plus you get to see how I use the theories I always rattle on about to help me get through the serious challenge of a marathon to mark my 40th!
That's basically the project, and if you're asking what's the difference between today's 'prelaunch' and next week's full launch, well this is it -
This year's London Marathon is on the 23rd, so the 24th seems a good time to officially launch the project.
From then on I will be fully promoting it.
This week's prelaunch achieves a few things.
Firstly it allows me to promote the product to the select people I choose, and that's the readers of this old newsletter!
It also allows me to offer a prelaunch deal, which is 'buy one, get one free.'
That means that for the $27, not only do you get all the stuff I mentioned above, you get 2 metres' worth of image display!
Being in on the prelaunch allows you to get in first, to pick the spot you want your image to show.
It also means that you can get a head start on promoting the product - did I mention I had an affiliate programme?
No?
Well I have, paying a 50% commission on all sales you refer.
It's important that you sign up via the affiliate page on my site, otherwise your referred sales can't be tracked and logged as yours. There are banners there you can use, and I will be adding more tools as I go.
Any buyers you refer will also get the 'buy one get one free' deal, but for the free metre there won't be any commission paid, as it doesn't cost anything to the buyer.
At 12.01am BST Monday 24th, the '2 for 1' deal ends, so use it this week while you can!
A prelaunch also allows me to fix any teething problems.
Hopefully there won't be many if any, but if any problems do appear, I'd rather it was with friends who will give me some slack!
So there we are!
Go and look at the site, get in ahead of the crowd during this week, take the 'buy one get one free' offer, and be among the first to promote it via your affiliate link.
Here's the site:
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com
Ok, that's it for today - have a good week and raise a glass to The Queen on Friday!
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
Monday, April 10, 2006
Issue 361 - Sampling Sloppy Service
Hi,
I hope everything is ok where you are.
Today I want to talk about service - customer service in particular.
One of the theories I use for self improvement, goal achievement and wealth creation concerns integrity.
It's important to do the best you can at all you do, and act towards others as you would yourself.
This builds your own self esteem, it builds the esteem others hold for you, and it keeps telling your subconscious that you do the right thing, and that includes the right thing for you, which helps push you in the right direction when choices need to be made.
Today I want to talk about recent examples of customer service, the good, the bad , and the ugly...
Firstly, the good.
Yesterday, in preparation for my new project which I'll be launching on the 24th April, I bought a pair of scales to weigh myself.
It was only when I went to collect the order at the shop that I realised I had ordered 2 by mistake.
I told the girl behind the counter, who instead of rolling her eyes and tutting, smiled (rather sweetly it must be said), and chirpily told me that she would just refund my card there and then.
A couple of minutes later, and I was happily walking away with just the 1 set of scales.
This was a mistake that was 100% mine, but the shop dealt with it quickly and with no fuss at all.
Thank you Argos, for a good display of customer service.
Secondly the bad.
Recently I had to order a new passport.
It took me ages to get the picture taken, because if my face was looking ok, my hair needed dying, and if my hair was ok, my face was suffering.
Eventually I decided that not many people look at my passport photo anyway, so just got it done. and the passport agency turned my new one around in less than a week.
That's impressive, but unfortunately it's also when the problems started.
The passport agency used to send out passports via the Royal Mail, but when they decided that the number going missing in the post was too high, they chose to use a 'specialist' delivery company.
The company wrote to me, saying that I needed to arrange a delivery date, but they could only guarantee a delivery time of between 8am and 6pm.
That's not a good start, since the depot is only 20 miles away.
Anyway I arranged the date, and stayed in waiting.
I couldnt go out, I didnt even want to take a shower in case I missed the delivery.
Trips to the toilet were brief, with longer visits postponed, if you follow.
After 10 hours of waiting, I rang up, only to be told I had got the day wrong (which I hadn't).
I was keeping calm, but if you can imagine my mood to be a pan of boiling water, there were plenty of bubbles rising beneath the still surface.
I insisted that I was correct, and wanted my passport by 9am the following morning.
I was told I would have to pay for that.
(bigger bubbles, water rippling)
After 20 minutes I had spoken to 2 managers, and eventually was told it *had* been the right day, but had ended up back at the office, and they couldn't guarantee a 9am delivery.
(lid coming off pan now, in go the potatoes, splish splash, one for luck, plop)
It took another 10 minutes of 'persuading' before they agreed that 'as a courtesy' they would deliver by 9.
This occasion had been a mistake made by the company, who initially denied the mistake, and then expected me to pay to correct it!
Not good, and as a result of the postponements I mentioned earlier, I think I may have pulled a muscle downstairs somewhere.
Thirdly, the ugly.
Regular readers will know that I use the online dating sites.
I've had a few dates, but have yet to meet any future ex-wife.
I got a email from the site telling me that someone had contacted me.
I couldn't read or reply to this until I had taken a subscription, so duly paid for a month, only to find that the girl contacting me was Tatyana from Moscow.
Not that I have anything against Tatyanas from Moscow, it's just that I can spot 1 or 2 hurdles to overcome right off the bat.
After a couple of weeks, I cancelled my subscription, and the site told me that my recurring billing had been stopped.
You may be ahead of me on this one...
Over the weekend I found that my card has been charged again, and despite me havng a cancellation number, the dating site tells me they have no record of it.
Hmm, this is one of the oldest tricks in the book to get extra money from customers.
It's a disgrace, and they don't seem to be bothered about it.
The company is match.com so if you are considering using them, I'd reconsider.
If you're wondering how that relates to 'ugly' well you need to see some of the women on the site!
Ok, that's it for today, remember to act wth integrity towards yourself and others.
I'll see you next week when I will be pre-launching my new project.
Have a good week,
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
mailto:gordon@gordonbryan.com
I hope everything is ok where you are.
Today I want to talk about service - customer service in particular.
One of the theories I use for self improvement, goal achievement and wealth creation concerns integrity.
It's important to do the best you can at all you do, and act towards others as you would yourself.
This builds your own self esteem, it builds the esteem others hold for you, and it keeps telling your subconscious that you do the right thing, and that includes the right thing for you, which helps push you in the right direction when choices need to be made.
Today I want to talk about recent examples of customer service, the good, the bad , and the ugly...
Firstly, the good.
Yesterday, in preparation for my new project which I'll be launching on the 24th April, I bought a pair of scales to weigh myself.
It was only when I went to collect the order at the shop that I realised I had ordered 2 by mistake.
I told the girl behind the counter, who instead of rolling her eyes and tutting, smiled (rather sweetly it must be said), and chirpily told me that she would just refund my card there and then.
A couple of minutes later, and I was happily walking away with just the 1 set of scales.
This was a mistake that was 100% mine, but the shop dealt with it quickly and with no fuss at all.
Thank you Argos, for a good display of customer service.
Secondly the bad.
Recently I had to order a new passport.
It took me ages to get the picture taken, because if my face was looking ok, my hair needed dying, and if my hair was ok, my face was suffering.
Eventually I decided that not many people look at my passport photo anyway, so just got it done. and the passport agency turned my new one around in less than a week.
That's impressive, but unfortunately it's also when the problems started.
The passport agency used to send out passports via the Royal Mail, but when they decided that the number going missing in the post was too high, they chose to use a 'specialist' delivery company.
The company wrote to me, saying that I needed to arrange a delivery date, but they could only guarantee a delivery time of between 8am and 6pm.
That's not a good start, since the depot is only 20 miles away.
Anyway I arranged the date, and stayed in waiting.
I couldnt go out, I didnt even want to take a shower in case I missed the delivery.
Trips to the toilet were brief, with longer visits postponed, if you follow.
After 10 hours of waiting, I rang up, only to be told I had got the day wrong (which I hadn't).
I was keeping calm, but if you can imagine my mood to be a pan of boiling water, there were plenty of bubbles rising beneath the still surface.
I insisted that I was correct, and wanted my passport by 9am the following morning.
I was told I would have to pay for that.
(bigger bubbles, water rippling)
After 20 minutes I had spoken to 2 managers, and eventually was told it *had* been the right day, but had ended up back at the office, and they couldn't guarantee a 9am delivery.
(lid coming off pan now, in go the potatoes, splish splash, one for luck, plop)
It took another 10 minutes of 'persuading' before they agreed that 'as a courtesy' they would deliver by 9.
This occasion had been a mistake made by the company, who initially denied the mistake, and then expected me to pay to correct it!
Not good, and as a result of the postponements I mentioned earlier, I think I may have pulled a muscle downstairs somewhere.
Thirdly, the ugly.
Regular readers will know that I use the online dating sites.
I've had a few dates, but have yet to meet any future ex-wife.
I got a email from the site telling me that someone had contacted me.
I couldn't read or reply to this until I had taken a subscription, so duly paid for a month, only to find that the girl contacting me was Tatyana from Moscow.
Not that I have anything against Tatyanas from Moscow, it's just that I can spot 1 or 2 hurdles to overcome right off the bat.
After a couple of weeks, I cancelled my subscription, and the site told me that my recurring billing had been stopped.
You may be ahead of me on this one...
Over the weekend I found that my card has been charged again, and despite me havng a cancellation number, the dating site tells me they have no record of it.
Hmm, this is one of the oldest tricks in the book to get extra money from customers.
It's a disgrace, and they don't seem to be bothered about it.
The company is match.com so if you are considering using them, I'd reconsider.
If you're wondering how that relates to 'ugly' well you need to see some of the women on the site!
Ok, that's it for today, remember to act wth integrity towards yourself and others.
I'll see you next week when I will be pre-launching my new project.
Have a good week,
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
mailto:gordon@gordonbryan.com
Monday, April 03, 2006
Issue 360 - Essential Experience
Hi,
I hope Monday finds you well.
I had a load of things 'stored up' to write about today, but I'm buggered if I can remember them now as I start to write!
Ho hum, I will just write about the week, and maybe it will come to me!
By the way, a quick Happy Birthday today to my Florida-dwelling brother Garry, http://www.garrybryan.com
My friend Alan decided to try curling with me last week.
I've mentioned Alan often, I can bounce any idea I have off him.
Remember him?
Tall?
Fairly far back in the queue when the good looks were being handed out?
Bald patch the size of a small family car?
Magic site? http://www.thebestonlinemagic.com
Anyway he came along, and while I was able to play 'normally' as an experienced player, Alan got lumbered in with a load of other beginners.
It didn't take long as I was playing, to hear a resounding thump, and I looked to see Alan's large frame take a speedy trip to the ice!
My playing partner told me she didn't want to laugh, but I told her to laugh all she wanted, as 'he wouldn't mind,' while I gleefully pointed and shouted just in case anyone else had missed it.
I've been going a few weeks now, and I'm finally beginning to get the stones to end up where I want them to go.
Well vaguely at least!
It's a shame that this week is the last session for 6 months, as my subconscious mind is starting to grasp the technique.
It's not very original to say that practice makes perfect, but it sure helps!
It was also Poppit's funeral last week.
It always seems strange to put the words 'lovely' and 'funeral' together, but that's how I would describe it.
The service was Humanist, and while the woman delivering it gave time for people of any faith to consider their faith, the service concentrated on the human spirit of the man, and what he had given us.
The place was packed, with many people having to stand outside!
There was blues music playing, it was a great way to send him off, and it struck me that of the huge amount of musicians that turned up, most of them had only come to know Poppit in the last 3/4 years.
These turned out to be the last years of his life, but it go to show it's *never* to late to take a new direction, it really isn't.
On the back of the order of service for the funeral, there was stuck a plectrum.
It was a touch to bring a smile to the face, and I was glad to be able to use mine yesterday at a jam.
I was playing bass, and while someone told me my playing had come on, I could still sense a problem, and this is it...
When I first played the drums again locally a few years ago, having not played for around 15 years, I was nervous.
I was nervous of making mistakes, and how I would cope when those mistakes came.
In time, I not only made less mistakes, but grew more confident in my ability to work round the mistakes.
This can only come with experience, there is absolutely no substitute for it, and anyone telling you otherwise is simply wrong.
My bass playing is still at that nervous stage.
As a performer, I have no problem in coping with cock-ups, but I still am not at the stage where my fingers instantly know where to go on the guitar.
Does this bother me?
No, because I know where I am on the learning curve, I know it is an unavoidable stage, and I know that only one thing will get me past that stage, and that's to keep going!
I've finally settled on my idea to mark my 40th this year.
As you know I've been hurling ideas around, and seem to have found something that presses my buttons.
I'll be launching it on 24th April, so havn't got long to get it ready.
I was looking at online payment processors, and found a new one called paydotcom.
They seem to offer what I need, but I have not heard anything about whether they are good or bad.
When I first started my online adventure, I spent a lot of time in marketing forums, learning, asking questions, helping others if I could.
I know they are a great resource, so I posted the question in a couple.
I got an email right away from Lynn Terry, who runs the successful SelfStartersWeeklyTips site, directing me to the threads on her forum.
Lynn is as helpful as can be, if you ever have an online marketing question, she's as good a starting point as any.
If you fancy a look at the thread, it's here:
http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=38218#38218
If you've not been there before, why not say hello, and tell Lynn that I sent you!
Someone I met on that very same forum many moons ago is Sandra Sims.
She runs a site dedicated to charity fundraising, and it really is a mine of information.
She sent me a very quick answer to a question I had for her, so go and look at her site.
This is a site put together by someone like me, who learnt the knowledge as they went along, and concentrates on a subject they know and love:
http://www.stepbystepfundraising.com
Ok, that's it for this week.
Considering I still havn't remembered what I wanted to write about, I've covered the point of gaining experience by simply carrying on, I've covered how you can get huge amounts of information by developing online friendships, and I've covered how, as long as you can laugh at yourself too, nothing exercises the funny muscles quite like seeing a friend fall over.
Have a good week,
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
mailto:gordon@gordonbryan.com
Get my book ‘Transform Your Life in 21 Days’ here:
http://www.transformyourlifenow.com
I hope Monday finds you well.
I had a load of things 'stored up' to write about today, but I'm buggered if I can remember them now as I start to write!
Ho hum, I will just write about the week, and maybe it will come to me!
By the way, a quick Happy Birthday today to my Florida-dwelling brother Garry, http://www.garrybryan.com
My friend Alan decided to try curling with me last week.
I've mentioned Alan often, I can bounce any idea I have off him.
Remember him?
Tall?
Fairly far back in the queue when the good looks were being handed out?
Bald patch the size of a small family car?
Magic site? http://www.thebestonlinemagic.com
Anyway he came along, and while I was able to play 'normally' as an experienced player, Alan got lumbered in with a load of other beginners.
It didn't take long as I was playing, to hear a resounding thump, and I looked to see Alan's large frame take a speedy trip to the ice!
My playing partner told me she didn't want to laugh, but I told her to laugh all she wanted, as 'he wouldn't mind,' while I gleefully pointed and shouted just in case anyone else had missed it.
I've been going a few weeks now, and I'm finally beginning to get the stones to end up where I want them to go.
Well vaguely at least!
It's a shame that this week is the last session for 6 months, as my subconscious mind is starting to grasp the technique.
It's not very original to say that practice makes perfect, but it sure helps!
It was also Poppit's funeral last week.
It always seems strange to put the words 'lovely' and 'funeral' together, but that's how I would describe it.
The service was Humanist, and while the woman delivering it gave time for people of any faith to consider their faith, the service concentrated on the human spirit of the man, and what he had given us.
The place was packed, with many people having to stand outside!
There was blues music playing, it was a great way to send him off, and it struck me that of the huge amount of musicians that turned up, most of them had only come to know Poppit in the last 3/4 years.
These turned out to be the last years of his life, but it go to show it's *never* to late to take a new direction, it really isn't.
On the back of the order of service for the funeral, there was stuck a plectrum.
It was a touch to bring a smile to the face, and I was glad to be able to use mine yesterday at a jam.
I was playing bass, and while someone told me my playing had come on, I could still sense a problem, and this is it...
When I first played the drums again locally a few years ago, having not played for around 15 years, I was nervous.
I was nervous of making mistakes, and how I would cope when those mistakes came.
In time, I not only made less mistakes, but grew more confident in my ability to work round the mistakes.
This can only come with experience, there is absolutely no substitute for it, and anyone telling you otherwise is simply wrong.
My bass playing is still at that nervous stage.
As a performer, I have no problem in coping with cock-ups, but I still am not at the stage where my fingers instantly know where to go on the guitar.
Does this bother me?
No, because I know where I am on the learning curve, I know it is an unavoidable stage, and I know that only one thing will get me past that stage, and that's to keep going!
I've finally settled on my idea to mark my 40th this year.
As you know I've been hurling ideas around, and seem to have found something that presses my buttons.
I'll be launching it on 24th April, so havn't got long to get it ready.
I was looking at online payment processors, and found a new one called paydotcom.
They seem to offer what I need, but I have not heard anything about whether they are good or bad.
When I first started my online adventure, I spent a lot of time in marketing forums, learning, asking questions, helping others if I could.
I know they are a great resource, so I posted the question in a couple.
I got an email right away from Lynn Terry, who runs the successful SelfStartersWeeklyTips site, directing me to the threads on her forum.
Lynn is as helpful as can be, if you ever have an online marketing question, she's as good a starting point as any.
If you fancy a look at the thread, it's here:
http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=38218#38218
If you've not been there before, why not say hello, and tell Lynn that I sent you!
Someone I met on that very same forum many moons ago is Sandra Sims.
She runs a site dedicated to charity fundraising, and it really is a mine of information.
She sent me a very quick answer to a question I had for her, so go and look at her site.
This is a site put together by someone like me, who learnt the knowledge as they went along, and concentrates on a subject they know and love:
http://www.stepbystepfundraising.com
Ok, that's it for this week.
Considering I still havn't remembered what I wanted to write about, I've covered the point of gaining experience by simply carrying on, I've covered how you can get huge amounts of information by developing online friendships, and I've covered how, as long as you can laugh at yourself too, nothing exercises the funny muscles quite like seeing a friend fall over.
Have a good week,
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
mailto:gordon@gordonbryan.com
Get my book ‘Transform Your Life in 21 Days’ here:
http://www.transformyourlifenow.com
Monday, March 27, 2006
Issue 359 - Fantastic Formula Following
Hi,
I hope everything is ok where you are.
The Commonwealth Games have just finished in Melbourne Australia.
For those that don't know, they are similar to the Olympics, but only with countries that are in the Commonwealth.
They used to be called the Empire Games, a throwback to when the British Empire was in full pomp.
Anyhoo, I was watching the cycling road races, and the women's race, won by an Aussie, had a superb crash.
I swear I'm not the only one who enjoys watching accidents in sport, I reckon it's just that not many people admit it.
Oh yes, a touch of wheels, and they all went down like flies, one rider going right over the handlebars onto her head.
'Oooh, now that's gotta hurt,' I thought as I settled further into my comfy chair with a nice slice of cake.
The men's race was also won by an Australian, and it's this I want to talk about today, a double whammy of goal achievement.
Back in the 60s, the Olympics were dominated by the US, particularly in events like swimming.
2 main reasons for this.
Firstly, the simple fact of a huge 250 million population.
Secondly, the long-established college sports system there.
In the 70s though, a small country showed that it too could dominate events, and that country was East Germany.
They racked up medal after medal, world record after world record.
At the Montreal Olympics in 1976 Australia didn't win any medals at all, and for a sports mad country, something had to be done.
They made a commitment to improve matters, and decided a good place to start would be to analyse what the East Germans had done.
They discovered that the East Germans had decided which events they wanted to dominate, and had then decided what criteria youngsters would need to have to develop into winners.
They then tested the entire population of their schools to find those that were suitable.
When they had found them, they then set up purpose built facilities where the young athletes lives were directed solely towards winning, applying as much science as was possible at the time.
The Australians were about 10 years behind, but followed the formula.
They decided where they wanted to dominate, mainly swimming and cycling, and set up the Australian Institute of Sport.
They set up a testing programme for school children, and again applied state of the art science, with the sole aim of winning gold.
By the time the Olympics had finished in 2000 at Sydney, the Australians had gone from no medals at all in 1976, to a haul well over 50.
Of course when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, what many had suspected about the East German success was proved, that the athletes had been routinely drugged to improve performance., which went some way to explaining the abundance of hairy-armpitted sprinters.
Obviously the Aussies hadn't followed *that* part of the plan!
Now that the 2012 Games are coming to London, our Government has decided that we need to jump from around 10th to 5th in the medal table.
We are hurriedly setting up as many national schemes as we can.
The director of the Australian Institute thinks we may get there, because the sports science which wasn't available to them at the outset is freely available to us.
There's one big difference though, and it's that we don't have the school testing programme here, prefering to concentrate on talent spotting.
Hmm...
I'm not convinced.
It seems to me that the Australians followed goal achievement theory to perfection - they decided what they wanted to do, worked out what someone else had done before, left out the bad bits, copied and improved the good bits, and was it really a surprise when the success came?
We seem to have made the decision ok, discovered what others have done ok, but then decided to miss out one of the important elements.
This really is a classic mistake, because if the success doesn't come, and the question is asked 'did you follow the formula?' the answer will be 'er, well no.'
Let me use curling as an example...
I'm still enjoying the curling myself by the way, although it's not as easy as it may look on TV, something which you think I would have learnt from the vomit-inducing-bone-shaking American Football.
Or the hamstring-twanging long jump.
Or indeed the can't-even-get-over-a-decent-high-jump-mark pole vault.
So, the curling.
The British record at the Winter Olympics is not brilliant, and most of our success comes from Scottish athletes, where the majority of the British snow is.
It was a huge success for us in 2002 when the women curlers, all Scots, won the gold medal.
Teams at curling are generally put together by the individuals themselves, and they get to know each other's strengths.
That was the case in 2002, but by 2006 what had we done?
Changed the system that brought gold, to a new squad selection system.
The result of changing the formula that had worked before?
The women didn't win any medal at all.
D'oh double D'OH!!
That doesn't augur well for our 2012 ambition does it!
So that's the point today.
The Australians put in a lot of effort and money for sure, but by following a plan that had worked before, they achieved what they wanted, and sometimes goal achievement can really seem as simple as that.
Here in Britain though, the curling has given us an example of how changing away from a successful system can bring worse results, and that if you choose to follow a plan and then miss bits out, don't come running to me when it doesn't work.
In fact, I may well write the The British Olympic Association saying,
'Dear Sirs,
I note that you are attempting to repeat the success of the Australian Institute of Sport, but also note that you have left out an important step in the process.
Please be advised that if we get a poor haul of medals at the London 2012 Olypmics, don't come running to me, no doubt slowly.'
You've got to laugh havn't you!
Ok, have a good week,
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
mailto:gordon@gordonbryan.com
Get my book ‘Transform Your Life in 21 Days’ here:
http://www.transformyourlifenow.com
I hope everything is ok where you are.
The Commonwealth Games have just finished in Melbourne Australia.
For those that don't know, they are similar to the Olympics, but only with countries that are in the Commonwealth.
They used to be called the Empire Games, a throwback to when the British Empire was in full pomp.
Anyhoo, I was watching the cycling road races, and the women's race, won by an Aussie, had a superb crash.
I swear I'm not the only one who enjoys watching accidents in sport, I reckon it's just that not many people admit it.
Oh yes, a touch of wheels, and they all went down like flies, one rider going right over the handlebars onto her head.
'Oooh, now that's gotta hurt,' I thought as I settled further into my comfy chair with a nice slice of cake.
The men's race was also won by an Australian, and it's this I want to talk about today, a double whammy of goal achievement.
Back in the 60s, the Olympics were dominated by the US, particularly in events like swimming.
2 main reasons for this.
Firstly, the simple fact of a huge 250 million population.
Secondly, the long-established college sports system there.
In the 70s though, a small country showed that it too could dominate events, and that country was East Germany.
They racked up medal after medal, world record after world record.
At the Montreal Olympics in 1976 Australia didn't win any medals at all, and for a sports mad country, something had to be done.
They made a commitment to improve matters, and decided a good place to start would be to analyse what the East Germans had done.
They discovered that the East Germans had decided which events they wanted to dominate, and had then decided what criteria youngsters would need to have to develop into winners.
They then tested the entire population of their schools to find those that were suitable.
When they had found them, they then set up purpose built facilities where the young athletes lives were directed solely towards winning, applying as much science as was possible at the time.
The Australians were about 10 years behind, but followed the formula.
They decided where they wanted to dominate, mainly swimming and cycling, and set up the Australian Institute of Sport.
They set up a testing programme for school children, and again applied state of the art science, with the sole aim of winning gold.
By the time the Olympics had finished in 2000 at Sydney, the Australians had gone from no medals at all in 1976, to a haul well over 50.
Of course when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, what many had suspected about the East German success was proved, that the athletes had been routinely drugged to improve performance., which went some way to explaining the abundance of hairy-armpitted sprinters.
Obviously the Aussies hadn't followed *that* part of the plan!
Now that the 2012 Games are coming to London, our Government has decided that we need to jump from around 10th to 5th in the medal table.
We are hurriedly setting up as many national schemes as we can.
The director of the Australian Institute thinks we may get there, because the sports science which wasn't available to them at the outset is freely available to us.
There's one big difference though, and it's that we don't have the school testing programme here, prefering to concentrate on talent spotting.
Hmm...
I'm not convinced.
It seems to me that the Australians followed goal achievement theory to perfection - they decided what they wanted to do, worked out what someone else had done before, left out the bad bits, copied and improved the good bits, and was it really a surprise when the success came?
We seem to have made the decision ok, discovered what others have done ok, but then decided to miss out one of the important elements.
This really is a classic mistake, because if the success doesn't come, and the question is asked 'did you follow the formula?' the answer will be 'er, well no.'
Let me use curling as an example...
I'm still enjoying the curling myself by the way, although it's not as easy as it may look on TV, something which you think I would have learnt from the vomit-inducing-bone-shaking American Football.
Or the hamstring-twanging long jump.
Or indeed the can't-even-get-over-a-decent-high-jump-mark pole vault.
So, the curling.
The British record at the Winter Olympics is not brilliant, and most of our success comes from Scottish athletes, where the majority of the British snow is.
It was a huge success for us in 2002 when the women curlers, all Scots, won the gold medal.
Teams at curling are generally put together by the individuals themselves, and they get to know each other's strengths.
That was the case in 2002, but by 2006 what had we done?
Changed the system that brought gold, to a new squad selection system.
The result of changing the formula that had worked before?
The women didn't win any medal at all.
D'oh double D'OH!!
That doesn't augur well for our 2012 ambition does it!
So that's the point today.
The Australians put in a lot of effort and money for sure, but by following a plan that had worked before, they achieved what they wanted, and sometimes goal achievement can really seem as simple as that.
Here in Britain though, the curling has given us an example of how changing away from a successful system can bring worse results, and that if you choose to follow a plan and then miss bits out, don't come running to me when it doesn't work.
In fact, I may well write the The British Olympic Association saying,
'Dear Sirs,
I note that you are attempting to repeat the success of the Australian Institute of Sport, but also note that you have left out an important step in the process.
Please be advised that if we get a poor haul of medals at the London 2012 Olypmics, don't come running to me, no doubt slowly.'
You've got to laugh havn't you!
Ok, have a good week,
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
mailto:gordon@gordonbryan.com
Get my book ‘Transform Your Life in 21 Days’ here:
http://www.transformyourlifenow.com
Monday, March 20, 2006
Issue 358 - Remembering Poppit
*************************************************************
The Great Gordino Newsletter - Issue 358 – Mon 20th Mar 2006
*************************************************************
Archived online at:
http://www.gordonbryan.com/archive
Hi,
I hope this Monday finds you well.
A friend passed away last week.
Pete Gunthorpe, known to all by his nickname of Poppit, was a big figure on the local music scene.
That's how I knew him, and when I first ventured into the local scene around 4 years ago, as I gradually found out about more and more venues, he was always cropping up somewhere in the mix.
He had one of the busiest bands, and was constantly involved in the running of jam sessions.
Theses jams are fabulous for people like me, as they give the opportunity for us players with, shall we say, limited skills, to watch, learn and play with better musicians.
You do get some ridiculous arguments and almost feuds going on, but that is no different than in any walk of life, and all in all it's a friendly bunch.
I've met some great people, and had the opportunity to play and have such fun.
One of these fun people was Poppit.
I didn't know him outside of the music scene, that's part of the appeal of it, people from different walks of life can come together and enjoy the common ground of the music.
That was always Poppit's intention, and it's why everyone liked him.
Bless him, he couldn't tune a guitar for toffee, I think even I could do a better job, but he could deliver a song for sure.
I could count on my fingers the number of readers who knew Poppit, so if you're wondering why I'm talking about him in a newsletter about self-improvement, goal achievement and wealth creation, here's why...
Last week I was talking about the mistake of leaving things to do until you are retired, that if you want to do it you should do it now.
We never now what is around the corner, and Poppit's passing drives this home.
His illness was quick and short.
2 weeks ago I was playing with him at a jam, and now he is not with us.
He'd be happy to put across the point of doing what you want to.
He facilitated self-improvement in music.
He was happy to play with complete strangers, and if they made a hash of a song, instead of throwing an evil stare, he would break into an encouraging smile and go with the flow.
The goal achievement is reflected in the fact that his level of playing did not come overnight.
He was playing guitar 40 years ago, and did it not because he had to, but because he loved it.
The wealth creation is reflected in what he offered the local area.
Wealth doesn't have to be financial, the wealth of abundance can be beyond measure, and the abundance that Poppit bought was a smile to those who thought of him.
Poppit loved what I would call mod/r&b music, and if I had to come up with one song to sum him up, it would be 'You Do Something To Me' by Paul Weller.
If you've got it, get it out and listen to it, if you havn't heard it and get a chance to, have a listen.
Think about this man from England that you never knew, and remember my talking of Poppit and his music.
There is a website with pictures of Poppit, from way back in the 60s to this year, and you'll notice the common feature of the guitar around his neck in amongst some dodgy haircuts!
You'll also see a message board, and the kind of warm feelings that people had for him expressed there sum up why I wanted to mention him today.
http://www.wildwoodband.co.uk/poppit/gallery.html
Ok, have a good week, and as ever, don't let your passions pass you by.
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
mailto:gordon@gordonbryan.com
Get my book ‘Transform Your Life in 21 Days’ here:
http://www.transformyourlifenow.com
The Great Gordino Newsletter - Issue 358 – Mon 20th Mar 2006
*************************************************************
Archived online at:
http://www.gordonbryan.com/archive
Hi,
I hope this Monday finds you well.
A friend passed away last week.
Pete Gunthorpe, known to all by his nickname of Poppit, was a big figure on the local music scene.
That's how I knew him, and when I first ventured into the local scene around 4 years ago, as I gradually found out about more and more venues, he was always cropping up somewhere in the mix.
He had one of the busiest bands, and was constantly involved in the running of jam sessions.
Theses jams are fabulous for people like me, as they give the opportunity for us players with, shall we say, limited skills, to watch, learn and play with better musicians.
You do get some ridiculous arguments and almost feuds going on, but that is no different than in any walk of life, and all in all it's a friendly bunch.
I've met some great people, and had the opportunity to play and have such fun.
One of these fun people was Poppit.
I didn't know him outside of the music scene, that's part of the appeal of it, people from different walks of life can come together and enjoy the common ground of the music.
That was always Poppit's intention, and it's why everyone liked him.
Bless him, he couldn't tune a guitar for toffee, I think even I could do a better job, but he could deliver a song for sure.
I could count on my fingers the number of readers who knew Poppit, so if you're wondering why I'm talking about him in a newsletter about self-improvement, goal achievement and wealth creation, here's why...
Last week I was talking about the mistake of leaving things to do until you are retired, that if you want to do it you should do it now.
We never now what is around the corner, and Poppit's passing drives this home.
His illness was quick and short.
2 weeks ago I was playing with him at a jam, and now he is not with us.
He'd be happy to put across the point of doing what you want to.
He facilitated self-improvement in music.
He was happy to play with complete strangers, and if they made a hash of a song, instead of throwing an evil stare, he would break into an encouraging smile and go with the flow.
The goal achievement is reflected in the fact that his level of playing did not come overnight.
He was playing guitar 40 years ago, and did it not because he had to, but because he loved it.
The wealth creation is reflected in what he offered the local area.
Wealth doesn't have to be financial, the wealth of abundance can be beyond measure, and the abundance that Poppit bought was a smile to those who thought of him.
Poppit loved what I would call mod/r&b music, and if I had to come up with one song to sum him up, it would be 'You Do Something To Me' by Paul Weller.
If you've got it, get it out and listen to it, if you havn't heard it and get a chance to, have a listen.
Think about this man from England that you never knew, and remember my talking of Poppit and his music.
There is a website with pictures of Poppit, from way back in the 60s to this year, and you'll notice the common feature of the guitar around his neck in amongst some dodgy haircuts!
You'll also see a message board, and the kind of warm feelings that people had for him expressed there sum up why I wanted to mention him today.
http://www.wildwoodband.co.uk/poppit/gallery.html
Ok, have a good week, and as ever, don't let your passions pass you by.
Have a good week.
'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
mailto:gordon@gordonbryan.com
Get my book ‘Transform Your Life in 21 Days’ here:
http://www.transformyourlifenow.com
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