It’s a lonely road

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If it was easy creating great things, we’d all be at it everyday, and then nothing would be created that was worthwhile or unique. Creating something different, unique, and new, takes time, takes effort, bravery and imagination.

It takes patience, through trial and error, through learning lessons and improving what you create next. The key though is to keep creating, keep sharing and keep connecting with others.

This initial phase of standing out, not fitting in, challenging the status quo, and challenging yourself, is the hardest part. It is a lonely place being different, it often means being ‘unfriended’, ‘unfollowed’ or simply ignored (OMG the terror, surely I am going to die).

The first thing that has to drive us to create, is pure and simply for ourselves, for our own sense of fulfilment and purpose. We have to follow our own why, our own values and be 100% ourselves in order to create the very best stuff. We also have to accept vulnerability and we have to learn courage.

Often though that takes us so far out of our safety zones that it is too scary to start. Even once you have started, the temptation is to row back to shore, especially as your peers are beckoning you back to ‘safety’.

As you drift further and further from shore, the journey gets very lonely. You start to question, you start to think about defeat, the chimp inside us is going mad with the stress you are putting him or her under.

The road to creating your very best, truly you, is a lonely road.

But the only way to be truly you, to be truly happy is to make that initial lonely journey to a better place. It starts with a choice to change, followed by being prepared to take that lonely road.

Eventually though you find your tribe, you find your place, and your creations get shared with the right audience that you have chosen.

Simple things matter

Philip Dodson Blog

I am sat here, on a window seat of our 1st floor apartment, which is home for the weekend. I am overlooking the sea and the busy seafront parade below. I am starting today’s blog and my mind has drifted and my thoughts turn to a happy place.

The world is a simple place, made up of simple pleasures.

We often do not stop to take time out to enjoy the simple things.

This weekend I am with my wife and two kids, oh and a dog called Cookie, in Margate, on the north Kent coast. We are here to celebrate my wife’s birthday, which was last Wednesday and mine, which is today.

The norm is to buy presents, yet more trinkets and stuff, that mainly we do not need, that end up being tomorrow’s eBay items, or in a skip. I guess, maybe, we are shit at buying presents!! But the point is, our houses, garages, lofts and every available space are already filled with stuff.

Instead, money is far better deployed doing activities, fun stuff and doing things together with people who you love and who matter in life.

At the end of our journeys, we are unlikely to look back on life and reminisce about the stuff we bought. But when you sit with your loved ones, you will look back with fondness on the moments, the activities, the trips or just doing fun things bought to you all.

This morning I took my dog, Cookie, for a walk along the harbour wall. She kept jumping up, as being a little dog she wanted to see over the harbour wall, as she loves the sea. So I picked her up and she was so happy to be there with me looking out to sea together.

It was a special moment, as I had all my life been scared of dogs, and said that I would never have one. Well armed with my new mindset and different outlook on life, which has changed so much for me in the last 3-4 years, I finally got a dog 4 months ago.

So Cookie will be special, as she will be the only dog I own, that will be my first dog. She might not share that feeling, but hey, I am happy.

These moments will last a lifetime.

As will the fun time we have already had as a family walking around the beautiful Old Town of Margate.

Don’t waste your money on stuff, don’t spend your life working for others, trying to accumulate more money, only to use it to buy trinkets. Use your life to spend time with the people, or dogs, that matter.