Today was one of the best days of my life. I didn’t think it would be because Katy flew off on a pre-hen party for the wedding of Toby Hadoke and Catherine Mount (I’m the best man. Still worried about that – “Would you like to be the best man at the wedding of a successful comedian and be funny in a room full of all his successful comedian mates?”. I’m sure I’ll come up with something…).
This is the first time since we’ve had the kids that Katy has gone away overnight, and I really didn’t want her to go.
But, we ended up having a brilliant and very chilled out day in the garden in the most glorious sunshine. Being a rare sunny day in Britain I, of course, stripped off without any suncream and burnt like a lobster. Just like 60 million other people today.
I also got round to reading a book I’ve had on my shelf for way too long. It was “Spiritual Marketing” by Dr Joe Vitale. I’ve been following Joe online for a number of years, and was particularly impressed with his turn on the infamous “The Secret” DVD.
The book is short and easy to read, and served to reinforce many of my own beliefs about life and success. Myself and Katy have long talked about the way we have manifested things in our lives.
Against the odds, she got into Oxford to study languages (not against the odds because of her brains – she’s got a brain the size of a planet, but because of a particularly negative teacher at her school and the fact that there was no Oxbridge family background), and I got into the RAF to begin training as an pilot. This was way aginst the odds as I was a kid born in a council house with a family history of “labourers” going back to the early 1800s (that’s what it says on all my ancestor’s marriage and death certificates).
As a kid, I thought that anything was possible. (My Mum always used to say “there’s no such word as “can’t”" Thanks Mum). Despite everything life has thrown at me since then, I still do. Joe’s book today reinforced some of those beliefs – beliefs that can sometimes easily give way to fear and doubt.
My beautiful girls, Polly and Daisy today
Then I remembered a time about 7 years ago when I crawled into my house at about 5am after another heavy night’s partying in Manchester and I had a moment in the toilet. No, not that kind of moment!
I was washing my hands when I suddenly looked myself straight in the eye in the mirror and said out loud “This is not the life you are supposed to be living. You are supposed to be a father living in a big house with a beautiful wife and beautiful children.”
Within a year I was married to Katy who got pregnant three weeks after our wedding day.
Three months ago, due to a large scale systematic theft and a schizophrenic decision to cut our funding by RBS, we had no choice but to go through the excruciating pain of putting the company we worked so hard to build into administration.
We talked long and hard about how we needed an angel. We trusted the Universe to do it’s work.
Eight weeks later, we pulled off a large six-figure investment from one of the UK’s richest people and are rapidly rebuilding our business and our lives.
Going into administration did leave a number of suppliers high and dry, but the smart ones are trading with us again and are already on the way to recovering any lost funds and benefiting from the huge profits we can bring to them.
Last October, I spoke about Internet Marketing in public for the first time. I really wanted to help people and found there are plenty of people wanting to be helped. Katy said “This is what you must do. It’s your special gift”. She wasn’t the only one. I resisted at first because I thought “People will just think I’m an egotist”.
I’ve since spoken at many events very successfully. On Tuesday, I’m speaking at Rachael Elnaugh’s “Marketing Magicians” in London (she of Dragons Den and Red Letter Days fame. A wonderful human being). I’m booked up to speak throughout most of the rest of the year, culminating in a major internet marketing event in New Orleans in December (looking forward to that very much).
Back in the nineties, with no experince whatsoever, I stood up on a stage with a microphone and tried to make a room full of strangers laugh. I was rubbish. But, I said to myself “I am going to write and star in a comedy that gets broadcast on TV”. Six years later, I did it. I also got to perform with and hang out with some of the most talented people in Britain. People like Steve Coogan, John Thomson, Henry Normal, Lemn Sissay, Dave Gorman, Caroline Ahearne, Peter Kay. It was fantastic. The life of a comedian was not for me, but I achieved what I set out to do.
There are many, many more instances in my life where visualisation and actualisation have played an integral part in achieving my dreams. I may well write a book on them myself now I’m getting reflective on it all, but I want to say thank you Dr Vitale for tody realigning and reinforcing my beliefs in what I have been doing for nearly 40 years now.
If any of this resonates with you, that makes me very happy. I should also mention that at all stages of my life when I said things like:
“I’m going to be a RAF pilot”
“I’m going to be on the telly”
“I’m going to make £10 million”
I was surrounded, and I mean surrounded, by people that said stuff aong these lines:
“Don’t be stupid”
“How can you do that? You’ve no experience”
“Aren’t you being a bit silly”
“That’s impossible”
If you have people like that around you – get rid of them.
Seriously. Life is too short. We’re short term energy structures living on a rock hurtling through space at millions of miles an hour circumnavigating a dying star. Break out of your limiting beliefs, stop being afraid, jump off the edge of the cliff and soar like the incredibe beautiful and amazing being that you know you are in your heart of hearts.
If it’s a spouse, a friend, a colleague – just walk away, and start hanging out with people who really understand the way the world works.
Anything is possible.
P.S. This is where I wrote this blog entry today:
Mark's Mac in it's natural habitat
