How thin am I?

Being one of those 'I don't want to see skinny role models - my kids need to eat properly' type of mothers, I never thought I'd be blogging about dieting.

But suddenly everywhere I look I read about obesity being worse for our children than skinnyness and, as this week at Life Clubs we were thinking about ourselves from the outside in, Genevieve and I decided to go on a diet.

It's been five tough days. We are two women who love our food and then some. But for the whole of this week our plates haven't looked this dissimilar from the photo - except that instead of arranging our vegetables quite so beautifully on our plates we eat them. We walk around clutching our hungry stomachs and feeling like Julia Roberts... suffering.

But watch this space. Just give us a few months and we'll look like Julia too.

Next week is a brand new workshop, What Shape Am I In? It's not to do with diets, it's to do with metaphor and is great fun.

See you then,
Nina
PS First copies of my book, How to Get What You Want, have arrived. They are fab. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

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Does The Secret work?

This week at Life Clubs we were discussing money.

Gosh. It's a fascinating subject, all the more so (quite possibly) because usually we don't talk about it. It's as if once you start you can't stop and so we chatted and chatted and chatted.

One of the things that came up was about the best-selling book, The Secret, and whether just by focusing on money you can create it. I'm afraid I haven't read it, but I've seen a bit of the film and know the general idea and have talked about it a lot with friends - not in terms of attracting money, but in terms of attracting a partner.

So, what did we decide. Does The Secret lead on nicely from last week's post in that just wishing for something will make it happen..? Sadly not.

With money and partners and anything else you want, sadly you can't just wish. Or you can, but you can't instantly expect that wish to come true.

What you can do is a lot of emotional work on yourself (which is what we were doing in the club) and then focus. And, if you focus and focus enough on what you want, your wish may well come true - just by the sheer persistence, confidence and awareness you're putting into it.

So, be absolutely clear on what exactly you want, believe that you can get it and focus on it.

And then, let me know what you've bought with your new-found money!

Next week's workshop is about self-image. Find out how your external self is stopping your internal self. Fascinating.

See you there - hope you have a great weekend,
All best,
Nina
PS These are wishing notes on a wishing tree
PPS Life Clubs has just had it's first wedding. To read all about it, click on the heart.

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What would you wish for?

I was having an interesting conversation the other night about stories in which people can wish for things. Aladdin may have got it right, asking to keep the genie, but so many others got it wrong.

In this story (which you may well know), the couple used up their three wishes by asking for i. a sausage, ii. the sausage to be stuck to the woman's nose for having been so stupid as to wish for a sausage and iii. the sausage to be removed from the woman's nose.

I was told about a story in which the heroine, when granted one wish for her unborn son, asked that he be loved by everyone he met. As you may imagine, the consequences were appalling. He became an impossible and unpleasant character.

Just how much easier would it have been if they'd all been asked what they didn't want instead of what they did?

Sausage lady's three wishes might have been i. to never want for food again and ii. to never row with my husband again. Maybe there'd have been no need for a third wish - can you think of one?

Next week at Life Clubs we'll be thinking about money. Maybe her third wish would have been to never have to worry about money again.

See you soon and have a great weekend. My genie's taking me to Hove for a sing song! I wish I could sing in tune.
All best,
Nina

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When will the English grow up?

You know how when you're walking the streets you hear the greatest conversations.

The other day I was privileged enough to overhear this classic remark: "The trouble is that the English won't grow up!". How wonderful I thought.

Our workshop this week was all about creativity and how to become more creative.

Guess what. Creativity is about not growing up. It's about being silly and 'childish' and letting anything happen. And it works. At my club people were having Lightbulb Moments solving all sorts of problems by brainstorming how a washing machine could help them.

These 'childish' English people have produced some of the greatest creative thinkers in my lifetime. I've danced and cried to the Beatles singing all sorts of things, including 'Obladi Oblada' - and if that isn't 'childish' I don't know what is. I've watched Branson revolutionise air travel (and lots of other things besides) and at the same time nearly kill himself being 'childish' and now I'm sitting with my ipod designed by Jonathan Ive who certainly comes up with some child-friendly products.

I'm thrilled the English won't grow up. There's enough other nations who have - or, at least, who think they have.

See you at Life Clubs next week.

We're going to be growing up a little and designing our future by working out what we don't want. For a list of more of our topics, so you can plan your diary, look here.

Best wishes to you all,
Nina

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Books or mind or both?

To me this messy bookshelf looks divine. Inviting, intelligent, a little chaotic and definitely worth looking in as you might find a treasure. And yet, this week, we were hosting a workshop on decluttering, so it's not really appropriate for me to eulogise about mess.

Our office, before this week, looked a little like those shelves and part of me loved it. It feels like there's always something to discover. It made us look a little human and homely rather than stiff and anal. After all (and this is how I try and persuade myself) we're a soft, fuzzy business, we should have a soft, fuzzy workplace.

But this week we set to work. Each folder was removed from the shelves and brought up to date. Each piece of paper was found a home or binned and we even filed away all our computer documents on dropbox (our new favourite toy).

Gosh. Does it feel good. We've had a fantastic week with interesting meeting after interesting meeting. I'm now convinced I've opened a space in which more creativity can happen rather than less. We're all skipping here.

How's your decluttering going??? Is it your books you're getting rid of or the mess in your mind?

Good luck - just don't throw any my way.
Nina
PS If you're a top tips kind of person, have a look at mine on work/life balance here
PPS If you're a facebook kind of person, do 'like' our page
PPPS Next week's workshop is on creativity. For a look at this month's workshops, click here.

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