What's your purpose?

I couldn't sleep this morning, so I was up at 6.30 (unusually for a Sunday) with a cup of tea, preparing for a workshop I'm running tomorrow, before venturing out for a 3-mile run before breakfast.

During this morning's run I completely changed my business web site Home and About Me pages in my head, and then promptly came back and changed them on my web site.

And all before 9.00 a.m. on a Sunday morning.

What drove my sudden burst of productivity, was thinking about tomorrow's workshop and the fact that every PowerPoint slide I'm using has a written purpose for it, which is fantastic for keeping a focus on what each is designed to achieve.

This in turn reminded me of the definition of resilience I heard a few weeks ago.

Resilience is made up of positive mental attitude, having supporters and a purpose.

This whole aspect of purpose is key in so many areas.

If you have a purpose, then it's much easier to create a positive mental attitude and supporters will be drawn to your purpose.

So my web site now reflects my purpose.

What's your purpose?

What if this was your last day?

Near the end of my 2-mile attempt to run quietly this morning, I remembered yet another profound thing that Steve Jobs said in his speech to Stanford University students in 2005.

He said that when he was 17, he read a quote that said "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right."

Since then, for 33 years, he looked in the mirror every morning and asked himself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer was no for too many days in a row, he knew he needed to change something.

Now, I don't think he meant getting his will updated and saying goodbye to everyone. Maybe it's like thinking, if I only had one more day of being able to choose what I could or couldn't do, what would I choose to do today?

I would imagine it might be something like spending time with people you love, letting them know how much you love them, and doing what you love doing.

If today was the last day of your life, would you want to do what you're about to do today?

Run quietly

It was a beautiful morning with a clear starry sky at 5.30 as I headed out for my habitual mile today.

I really enjoyed being out there when the rest of the world (the vast majority anyway) were still asleep in their beds. The only souls I encountered were two collie dogs (one of which seemed to fancy coming with me) out for a walk with their owner, and a milkman in his milkfloat making deliveries.

Yesterday I finally had my first physiotherapy session that I've been waiting for since August.

One of the exercises my physiotherapist was a simple instruction. Run quietly.

I like being given exercises like that, although it's not something that comes naturally to me as a runner. Nicky always tells me that I'm very heavy-footed.

Run quietly also reminded me of the opening lines of the Desiderata poem, which I think hold many lessons for me, and probably for others too.

"Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story."

I'll miss you Steve Jobs

It was very sad to hear the news on the radio this morning, before I got up for my run, that Steve Jobs has passed away.

Sad, but not a massive surprise as it's been common knowledge that he has been very ill for a long time.

Once again it makes me feel how lucky I am to have just completed my 644th consecutive day of running at least a mile. Steve Jobs was 56-years-old. The same age as me.

When I think of my post from yesterday about the 2 obituaries, Steve's ideal and actual obituaries must have been one and the same all the way along.

He represented incredible qualities. He had passion. He had creativity. He had extraordinary vision. He had determination and resilience in bucket loads. He had belief that you must follow your heart.

After all, he was fired from Apple, picked himself up, created Pixar, and then was brought back into Apple to revive their flagging fortunes. And revive them he did!

I'm going to finish this post with a quote from Steve Jobs, which I have always loved. He will certainly not be forgotten.

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” — Steve Jobs

First woman to row the 3 biggest oceans

Yesterday morning Roz Savage, a 43-year old Englishwoman, reached Mauritius on her 154th day after setting off from Australia, having rowed solo across the Indian Ocean.

Yesterday, she set a world record of being the first woman to have rowed solo across the Atlantic, Pacific and now Indian oceans.

What makes Roz do what she does?

Well, the catalyst for Roz's ocean rowing career started 11 years ago when in a steady office job she decided to write an obituary for herself. The obituary she wrote was the one that she wanted people to say and write about her when she died.

She then wrote another obituary. The one that would be written about her if she continued on her current life course.

Seeing the huge difference between the two, Roz decided that she needed to take some drastic action in her life.

The rest, as the say, is history.

What is your ideal obituary and the one you are heading for now?

If they are vastly different, what are you going to do about that today?