Sunday 24 February 2008

We're everywhere

Dear All,

On Saturday at the supermarket I picked up three magazines (marie claire, SHE and Zest) in which Life Clubs is mentioned this month - plus my column in The Daily Telegraph and that was exciting.

It's going to be a good week all round. We're running the workshop that started Life Clubs off and it's called - 'Box of Gifts'.

'Box of Gifts' is about discovering what's special about you. I love helping people discover what their unique skills and talents are, and that's what you'll leave this workshop knowing.

Of course, it's a typical story. All through my life I helped my friends discover what they wanted to do by identifying their strengths and helped them get fabulous jobs and yet, at the same time, never had any clue what I wanted to do. I was well into my forties before I realised that my talent - what lay in my 'box of gifts' - was what I really wanted to do and, what's more, could be doing - helping others to find themselves. What's that expression about cobbler's children having no shoes??? Well, that was me.

So, this week my talent is getting out there.

It's going to be a great week.
Nina
Founder Life Clubs/Westminster Life Club

Monday 18 February 2008

I feel lighter than when I arrived

Dear All,

How could you look at your life with a success filter on, knowing that if only you could wear it the whole time you could think, and therefore act, differently?

It's such a tiny tweak between success and not-success that everyone at my club achieved major breakthroughs tonight. Or at least seemed three inches taller (and several stones lighter) on leaving than arriving.

They had all discovered their own thin line between them acting successfully and them not acting successfully and by the end of the club had made three decisions about next week as successful people... themselves.

But they could have made successful decisions as Kate Moss or Richard Branson or even Andy Murray. Why do we usually settle for second best?

This week, just go for it. Who do you want to be? I'm happy with my successful self. She's never tired, hardly ever hungry and always confident.

What about you?

Nina
Founder Life Clubs/Westminster Life Club

Friday 15 February 2008

Going Nautical

Dear All,

We just decided to show ourselves off a little bit more and take a stand at the One Life exhibition (29th Feb-2nd March) where we hope you'll all come to see us. This means we're into major interior design mode - just what is our 2x3 metre stand going to look like?

The gorgeous twenty year olds I work with have all come down very strongly in favour of the nautical theme - bunting, blue skies, maybe even a life belt or two to rescue anyone who is exhausted from walking round Olympia with. But I have just been introduced to this wonderful Japanese artist, Takashi Murakami, a sort of Life Clubs positivity taken with a dose of, I presume, ecstasy, and think that we should move in his direction. We too could do psychedelic smiley faces - or have we missed the boat?

See you there (or hopefully at my Life Club first).
Have a great weekend,
Nina
Founder Life Clubs/Westminster Life Club

Friday 8 February 2008

Getting active

Dear All,

Psychologies Magazine called me just as I was glowing with pride. They were writing an article about how to be in the present moment, rather than constantly thinking about the future, and this particular journalist wanted a few interesting thoughts about 'being active'. It took us both ages to work out exactly what she'd been asked to do and then I had my 'lightbulb moment'. My pride was from having taken action.

Let me explain. For weeks... no, months, Genevieve and I at Base Camp have been putting off writing what we fondly call, our Bibles. Basically 'how to' manuals on how to run everything at Life Clubs. There are to be two of them - one for running Base Camp and one for running the clubs.

We have thought of every excuse to not move forward on this. The latest was that all information should all be on the internet so we have to organise a wiki first to put it all on. We thought that that would put the process off for at least another few months.

Finally we decided to do it today. Or, at least, to start it. Three hours later we had the skeleton of the first Bible done. It was so easy once we got down to it - and, in case you were wondering, we hadn't even started in the morning, but after lunch, that's how little we wanted to do it.

As you can imagine, that action got us out of our fear of the future and into the present and actually doing it. So I certainly had something to say to the lovely Psychologies lady. Just go for it.

I hope you have a wonderful living-in-the-present weekend.
Nina
Founder Life Clubs/Westminster Life Club

Wednesday 6 February 2008

A JK Rowling Morning

Dear All,

This morning I was sitting in a cafe writing and I thought about how I could be mistaken for JK Rowling. Sadly not in looks, but as someone who may be changing her life through her work. Needless to say I was not penning a novel, but rather an I-hope-they-buy-it series of articles for Psychologies, but it got me thinking.

I wondered what JK Rowling and I have in common, because that's what Life Clubs are about this week. Discovering what you notice about someone and how that leads to further discoveries about yourself. I know that I admire JK Rowling most for her determination, her creativity and her imagination. So, that made me feel good, realising we share those qualities - though in different measures and differently expressed.

My next thought was how glad I was not to be her. To have so much pressure to write more and more books would be difficult and to be as wealthy as her would be almost impossible.

So, from a thankfully-I'm-not-as-wealthy-as-JK Rowling cafe dweller,
I hope you had a good thought today too.

All best,
Nina
Founder Life Clubs/Westminster Life Club