The Gift of Purpose

The greatest gift I have ever received occurred in March 1999. On 18 March 1999 to be precise.

Here’s how it unfolded…

A normally healthy, mid thirties, average type of guy. On three recent occasions that early spring I had come out in an unexplained rash, or as the medics refer to it - giant urticaria. Like a heat rash which spread from head to toe. Like an allergic reaction. But to what...? Completely unexplained, completely random in its cause (that is, with no apparent link to food or any other trigger for the reaction), and completely frightening!

The fourth instance was to have almost tragic consequences…

With Elizabeth, my wife, I was to meet a business acquaintance and her partner for lunch in Edinburgh. We parked the car, and walked the short distance to the restaurant in the west end of the city. We enjoyed a light lunch and great company before leaving the restaurant to head our separate ways.

Then it began…
… as it had done on three occasions previously, with a tingling heat sensation on the back of my head, spreading to my ears, and from my hands, spreading up my arms, and from my belly spreading to my chest, waistline and groin.

It happened in seconds…
Uncomfortable. And so, time to get back to the car to drive home. Mild concern, rising to panic, as it just got worse…
By the time we had walked the three minutes back to the car, I could hardly see, as the rash had become a puffiness and my face began to swell… forehead, cheeks, neck, eyes.

I was really starting to struggle now…
I could literally see the nerve endings in my eyeballs as I went snow-blind. We reached the car, and I slumped into the passenger seat. Frantically, Elizabeth started the car, and we were off. It would be a matter of relaxing, remaining calm, and soon it would be over… just like on previous occasions.

But somehow this was worse… and I knew it.

It already felt different. It wasn’t subsiding, and I could feel that my breathing was starting to be affected. The eerie silence in which I was shrouded was the same silence I had experienced only once before - when I had flown in a glider. As the chord from the towing cable releases and the drone of the towing aircraft becomes a distant memory, the aloneness has a unique soundlessness.  And it was this soundlessness, not just silence, that I was experiencing now.
The blindness came over me like a white cloud, and the nauseating taste in my mouth told me I was going to pass out.

But it wasn’t passing out. This was passing away.
At the moment my body slumped forward, my tongue swelled to fill my mouth, my mind went into overdrive, I felt myself stop breathing. and I knew for a split second that this was it! I was away! This must be how it ends.

When they say your life flashes before you…
… that’s not true.
It’s your values that flash before you. And as I cruised down that tunnel of white light (yes, all that stuff you hear about this aspect is true), it was my values that flashed before me... in my final instant.

And…
What about all the things left undone?

I reached the infinite threshold... the moment of clarity... and then I was gone.

I didn’t even hear Elizabeth make the emergency call. Didn’t hear her words.
Blue light. Flashing.
Strange hands. Voices… but distant.

Waking up on the pavement (I subsequently learned that it was several minutes later), with my body constrained on a stretcher, and a mask being put to my face was an incomprehensible shock.
What? A car crash? What happened?

“No, mate… an anaphylactic shock they call it. You died. And now you are alive.”

It was later explained that my body had simply shut down like a computer shuts down. Each function simply closed down, like the functions on your laptop close down after a day is done. And eventually, your vital functions stop.
Since then, after numerous tests, no hint has been found as to the cause, or the trigger for the reaction. It has been years now… and every day like many others who have suffered similar attacks, I have carried the epi-pen (an emergency adrenalin injector) with me in case of another severe occurrence.

When asked, I struggle to describe what happened completely, but have often referred to it as “Heaven and Hell, in a nutshell”. That’s about it.
They call it an anaphylactic shock.
I call it my Light on the Road to Damascus.

And that’s a gift.
In that moment I saw my purpose. A purpose to focus on…

Creating a "No-Excuse" Environment

Clive Woodward, former England Rugby Coach, often talks about creating the "No Excuse Environment", and the impact this had on the team, culminating in them winning the Rugby World Cup in 2003.
The application in business is the same… it’s so refreshing, to agree a set of standards, a set of values, a set of goals and then adopt the no-excuse philosophy.

To expect world class, no excuses, you must support this with an environment to match. And not just a physical environment, but the right mindset/ psychological environment… a level of world class expectation.

Act world class, to be world class.

And yet, I’m sure you will have seen this too… many businesses cut corners at both ends here. They provide barely adequate facilities/ support/ environment, and neither do they hold world-class standards, values, and expectations of performance. Both parties lose out!

Better to have a fantastic support structure, great remuneration package, wonderful environment, and to demand the very best from the very best people.
It’s a World Class contract.

Success is... Simple

Why is it that most people look for the "complex secrets" to success, business growth, and personal development, rather than focusing on the Simple Key?

Yes, Success is Simple!
Not easy. But Simple.

KISS = Keep it Simply Significant
and
KISS= Keep it Significantly Simple.

Hold that thought...

Repairing the Time Drains

All our primary resources are immensely valuable… Time, Energy, and Money.
And Time is most people’s most precious resource, and the one which is most scarce.
Yet, time is so frequently wasted by many people… it just slides by.
Which is what makes so-called Time Management so difficult.

With energy and money, to some extent we are more aware of how they are allocated and used. With time, it just flows by and often we don’t realise if it has been wasted until later.

Over recent years, there has been much talk on the news and in the press about parts of the UK having a water shortage, and many have levelled criticism at the water companies for the amount of water lost to leakage from pipes in need of repair.
To continue the analogy and tie it in with some "Time Management"…

Imagine your time is like water, and is flowing through your life carried by a series of pipes, like a network of pipes which ensure your time gets to those parts of your life which need it. …  many people do have enormous volumes of time lost to Leakage.
Well, if these water pipes leak, we want to repair them. And if there are leaks in our time, we want to stop them.
And if these pipes simply lead to a drain, where the time water just flows away uselessly, we want to divert the pipe to make sure the time we need can be devoted to the parts of life which need it.

So, where are the Leaks in your time system? What is it that Drains your time? What is it that you can change to make better use of your time?What is your number 1 Time Drain?
And what leak-stopping measures have you put in place/
What is your handling strategy? Your groundrules for preventing that time from ebbing away?