Tony Robbins - Rules For Life

Or something like that. Hey, believe me, I am a self-confessed, self-help hater - I think the industry preys on the weak and confused, and frankly just dribbles utter shit most of the time. A lot of these figures - Tony Robbins included to a degree - come across as kind of cult leaders, and the kinds of people who jump on the bandwagon all too easily just irritate me.

But the other day (long time ago now, as this has been in drafts for ages), I watched a video on Joe Rogan's channel - a YouTube short where he was discussing some of the key things people should focus on. From memory he said there were about 12, but he picked these three. I took notes on them as below:

It resonated with me for a number of reasons. Focus on what you have, not what you don't have. I think this is really solid advice. I have a lovely family, a high-paying job, a great house, and the opportunity for what I have always wanted - stability for us all. If I focus on that, and making the most of these things, and this time, it makes the "now" a better place to be. Rather than focussing too much on what I don't have, which is enough money to retire, a seaside home in SEA, ready access to pork noodle and NL (no I'm not kidding). Is it reasonable for me to expect that I can achieve all those in fairly short order? Well, no not really. So why do it. Focus on what you do have, focus on now. Be grateful.

The second reason was to ask what is your focus in terms of your control. Do you focus on what you can or can't control? Tony says that if too much focus is on what you can't control, that will breed negative feelings. I think he's right. In terms of my control, I can control what I put in my body. I can control what comes out of my mouth. I can control my actions. I can control the best use of my income, to both give us a quality of life, and to build for a future. I can't try to live like I'm trying to create a future that may or may not happen. Buying shitloads of Lotto tickets for instance, has proven to be a waste of my money. Yes you have to be in it to win it, but at those odds, go very light in terms of spend, let Lady Luck take care of itself, and focus more on providing for the now. Maybe save for a holiday, for instance?

The last one, was what do you spend most of your time thinking about - the past, the present or the future. Frankly, I spend most of my time either in the past or in the future. Not enough in the here and now. It occurs to me often enough, that my kids are in their prime, at least in terms of their desire to hang out with their dad. When they become teens, this will become less likely, as it is for almost all kids. Plus the other important people in my life are here now - my wife and my mother chief amongst them. Yes it is nice to have fond memories of days of yore. It is also nice to imagine being retired and not having to work. But I am in neither of those places. I am here, I am now, and my family wants me to be present with them. I need to focus more on doing that. More activities on weekends, more time spent playing Lego, more time being hubby and dada.

So, despite the fact that I saw online recently that Tony's company is ripping off the cult followers who pay thousands to go to his shows, his words do ring true. He also said that before you can look after your mind, first look after your body. That is another truism, and I am well aware of the impact of poor health on everything else. I think maybe I should buy a bike? Definitely start to look for those bush walks more now that it is cooling off. More metal detecting trips too methinks. 

Be here Dave.

Is now the time?

So here we are, yet again. Pushing on towards five years with EBM. Feeling constantly on edge, health not so good, job satisfaction shite. WTF am I doing?

I have had a small win of sorts. The boss has agreed to let me let go of the "new" part of our business, the quarries, mobiles, workshops etc. across the border, that have been the cause of much of my stress. Compounding it, has been one of my new direct reports, who is a pretty manic and intense individual, and one who needs to vent to his boss frequently. I don't cope all that well with that. Plus, two years of under-performance, two years of not really being able to understand the key drivers of that under-performance, and two years of being spread so thin, and feeling like I am not doing my job very well, have really brought me unstuck.

Health-wise, well I had the iron thing and the blood sugar thing before. Now I seem to have the cholesterol thing and the liver thing too. Yeah, lifestyle plays a key part in this, but so does stress. Of course, we recently bought a house in Echuca, at over 700k too no less. This needed to happen, as renting has absolute knobs on it. But in terms of flexibility, it means we're tied here a bit more. Of course one can sell, but we do like our house. The kids like it here too, wifey has made friends and has a job, so in terms of what we wanted (what I wanted) when we came here, we have all that. Ideally, I would stick this out and try my best to coast towards retirement.

But, as people tell me, kids are flexible, and will adapt to change. My wife has given me license to do what I need to for my own wellbeing. So if I can find the right job, maybe, after a longer stint than I have ever had elsewhere in my career, it's time to go. What I would strongly consider, is SEA. One, because it's my spiritual home, and two, because it's my wife's actual home, and my kid's birthplace. I think it would do them well to have some of their older years as expat kids, in order to have a greater world view than they will get in regional Australia.

So it's not an easy situation to decide on. I think the best thing I can do is see what's out there, and make a call once I know that. 

W.A. / QLD / Darwin

Kell / Craig Bradshaw / Chook

Monument Mining

Seek / LinkedIn

Head Hunters

Kingsgate, Emerald 

That's a bit of a list to start with. I'm not going to do FIFO, nor the Americas, Europe, or Africa, so that really leaves Asia-Pacific. That's my stomping ground anyway, so we'll see where it leads. Chook and Craig likely nothing right now, WA is likely only for FIFO, Chatree and Camabodia likely no good either, as the commute would be too long for me, so the choices are limited. Still, we'll have a look. Hey I got an email from Seek this morning, advertising a Mine Manager's role for a company called Honest Sam Mining. Seriously? Imagine that on your CV haha! Still, with any luck, I am either in my last ever professional role, or the next one will be the last one, so once I'm hired, who cares what's on my CV.

Anyway, let's watch this space. 

Yeah yeah!

Haha, now nobody outside my wife and kids will likely get this, and that's ok. But for those four people, depending on when you read this, you may have wondered, from time to time, what the hell I was on about, saying "yeah yeah" all the damn time. 

Well, the answer is this - back when we lived in Kupang, Babs was 2-3 years old, and going through his first rebellious phase, where he was constantly trying to assert himself. As such, when asked to do or not to do something, his reply was invariably "nah!" Sometimes this would be upgraded to "nah nah!". He was (and is) at a very cute stage of life, so we found it endearing, at least some of the time!

So, as is my wont, I began mimicking him, mainly to him of course - I am enough of a pain in the arse as it is without adding more 2yo behaviour into the lives of the rest of the family! So as he was running around in his usual manic state one day, he bounced over to me and asked me for a snack. My immediate response was "nah nah!", which instead of angering him, like it often would, amused him. So his reply as he 'whirlwinded' his way around the room was "yeah yeah!". 

That amused me even more, and stuck with me. To the point where I have been saying "yeah yeah" as I do my thing around the house, for years now. I don't do it in public fortunately. It's just one of those things that I say to my kids throughout the day. "Hi, I'm Dan boy" and "Is your name Babs Ayex?" are another couple of examples. I am probably hanging onto sanity by the barest of threads, but such is the impact my beautiful kids have on me.