This is for me – and I hope you get value out of it too; on another Monday morning that as usual throws up all manner of ifs when’s and buts. And the Scourge of The Ages. Self-doubt.

There can be no experience more exhilarating and gratifying than creating meaningful change. Let today speak to the agent of change in you, the positor of innovation that does good for our world.

So if you are feeling uncomfortable, awkward and “out” of your inner calm, do not accept the world as it is, especially “your” world – the place that lives inside you daily and takes place around you. That horrible otherworldly thing that says you can’t, you are not good enough, you don’t matter.

Push back gently, take one careful step towards FIXING what is “not right”, and then take another, firmer step. BE utterly truthful with yourself. Explore the emotion, question whether it is real – and then heed its message and take action. Do not think further; TAKE. THE. ACTION.

Yes there are guaranteed to be hiccups and headaches and no-entry signs and all the little bits of nothing that derail us. There will ALWAYS be the keyboard ninjas who will try and suck your energy and focus. Be kind to them – IGNORE THEM.

How to ignore the drainers of all your “positive”? Remind yourself that when the motor car came on the scene at the twilight of the 19^th Century, the equivalent of the modern-day keyboard ninjas sneered “Get a Horse”. Ja, the same bunch who thought the World Wide Web was just a flash in the pan that would not stay the distance.

YOUR JOB, YOUR ONLY JOB, is to stay focused, stay “stuff-you” focused on that little voice inside you, that keeps whispering gently, “It can be done”. Nelson Mandela is the rock star of “it can be done”. He said it: “It always SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE… UNTIL IT’S DONE.” (I loved shouting that).

Yes, there are so many uncertainties – and so much “stuff” that cons us into believing we’re wasting our time; so when this happens remind yourself that “this stuff” is nothing. Real stuff is when a friend passes away in the blink of an eye. Here now; next thing no longer. “THAT” IS REAL STUFF.

So get out there, embrace the uncertainty as an absolute, cast-iron certainty; ask the question, do not be afraid of the answer; you cannot take it personally; it is what the other person is living in that moment. They don’t hate you, they don’t despise you; they are just in a place where you cannot reach them in your space.

And please remember this: Teddy Roosevelt said it – and it is a “message golden” for every one of us; a message that I have tinkered and tailored… because I CAN… (shock, horror).

“It is not the critic who counts… No, the credit belongs to the warrior human who is actually in the arena, who is not afraid to get sweaty, dirty; accepts it will be bloody awful at some point; who makes a mistake, then another, and then another, but STILL continues to seek the outcome that is worthy. The warrior human in all of us that yearns to, but is so too often afraid to, “do the work” for fear of some idiot called failure.

The warrior human knows great passion for something; who goes all-in while knowing all-out that failure is possible, but DOES IT ANYWAY. Because it is worth it, because it is better to have dared to try than never to have known.

So DON’T SIT ON THE FENCE. Pick up the tools of your trade, BE FEARLESS, TAKE ACTION. Fall over, GET UP! Fall over again. JUST.GET.UP. Keep on keeping on with the unshakeable determination that, COME WHAT MAY, you are going to build something that makes you PROUD.

ENTER THE ARENA! LAUGH AT THE MONSTER!

Think less; you have done enough thinking to write the most boringly repetitive book ever. Chuck the worst of the “old you” out. Keep the good stuff that is there – AND HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE. Set yourself free of the junk-thinking and the worry about “what will THEY think”.

THEY, don’t care about you, so THEY are worthless. There are others who DO care. Very much.

Knock that old self down and build the real you from the ground up.

I hope you do. Because every single time you do, it helps make someone else better. IT GIVES HOPE. And hope is all we have.

Faith/Hope/Love. IT.IS.ALL>WE>HAVE

*****

Jono says, “Thanks Steve Case and Teddy R”.

Because I can.